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Title: The silica gel pseudomorph and other stories
Author: Edward Hart
Release date: November 26, 2023 [eBook #72231]
Language: English
Original publication: Easton: The Chemical Publishing Co, 1924
Credits: Kobus Meyer, Gísli Valgeirsson, Emmanuel Ackerman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SILICA GEL PSEUDOMORPH AND OTHER STORIES ***
The Silica Gel Pseudomorph
And Other Stories
-------
BY
EDWARD HART,
Author of “Our Farm in Cedar Valley.”
EASTON, PA.
THE CHEMICAL PUBLISHING CO.
1924
LONDON, ENGLAND:
WILLIAMS & NORGATE
14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W. C.
TOKYO, JAPAN:
MARUZEN COMPANY, LTD.
11-16 NIHONBASHI TORI-SANCHOME.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY EDWARD HART
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Harvey Washington Wiley,
Scholar, Teacher, Poet, Writer and Speaker,
Fearless Publicist, Lifelong Friend.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a boy who loves to have me tell him
stories. True stories usually need modification and
adornment if they are to remain interesting, and so
many stories told him were embellished. These
stories have been written for my own amusement at
night while others were sleeping or as a rest
between more serious tasks. Some of these are true,
some partly true and some are products of the
imagination.
Edward Hart.
October 1, 1924
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE SILICA GEL PSEUDOMORPH 1
PEEP-CHICK MOUNTAIN 12
ROUND VALLEY 16
MONT L’HERY 22
DEATH VALLEY 31
THE PROFESSOR’S STORY 41
MY FRIEND ZAHN 52
JUST SAMUEL JONES 67
FAT AND LEAN 83
WOOZY 90
THE HERMIT 93
SANDY’S STORY 96
THE HOBOES 99
JUMPING STEEL 103
ALL THE WAY FROM MELBOURNE 108
A DEFENSE OF THE WEALTHY 113
THE SKIN OF THE BEAR 119
A VISIT FROM THE WILEYS 124
IN THE DAYS OF THE ROSES 133
THE RED DEVIL 151
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Silica Gel Pseudomorph
-------
South Jersey is a very sandy country. There are miles and miles of sand
there. Some of it is very pure white sand used for making glass and for
molding sand. Some of this sand has sharp edges but most of it is
rounded as if the grains had rolled around until the edges were worn
away. Mr. Kummel has written a paper about this sand in the Report of
the New Jersey State Geological Survey for 1906. His paper is entitled
“The Glass Sand Industry of New Jersey.” It is a very interesting paper
though you might not think so from the title.
There are also very large beds of green and red sand. The green sand is
especially interesting because it contains such immense amounts of
alumina, iron and potash. If our chemists can only find cheap methods
for extracting these substances we shall have enough to last us forever.
The most curious thing about this green sand is that it is still forming
in the water along our coasts. Here the limestone shells of dead
foraminifera are slowly filling up with the green substance as their
bodies decay. The shells are slowly dissolved by the sea water at the
same time, so that the green sand grains give a perfect cast of the
inside of the shells.
I became interested in this sand while I was in college. The professor
sent me down to Mullica Hill to get a load of it to experiment with. He
wanted to find a way to work it. At Mullica Hill I heard that a farmer
by the name of Peter Norman had a pit on his farm. One of the loafers
there offered to go along and show me the way. I told him he might go if
he would get the farmer to let me have a load of sand for nothing and
help me load. This he promised to do. On the way he informed me that
Norman’s daughter, Euphemia, had taken a notion to him and that probably
they would jine up. I said I was looking for a wife myself and if I
liked her looks I would take her along, but I must be sure first that
she was a good cook. He looked me over as if I were some kind of an
insect and asked me how much I weighed. I told him all of fifty tons.
When we got to the house Euphemia came to the door herself. I must say
she was a fine looking girl with very mischievous eyes. She said her
father was down at the other end of the farm and my friend had better go
and get him. Then she giggled. When he had gone she looked at me and
giggled some more. Said I might go ahead and take all the sand I wanted.
I asked her if she was sure her father would be willing and she said:
Sure! She said she would show me the pit and got on the seat beside me.
As we drove along she told me that one of her girl friends had told Sim
she was gone on him.
I said, “yes, so he told me.”
“Did he?” says she, “the poor simp!”
“If you go about breaking hearts like that,” said I, “you’ll get in jail
next. I understand that the sheriff has been instructed to jug all the
flappers.” This made her giggle some more.
She stood by the side of the pit while I threw the sand into the truck.
After I had been digging a bit my shovel struck something that felt like
rubber. It was round like a rubber ball as I uncovered it and larger
than a canteloupe. I tried to throw it out, but it seemed to be fastened
to something at one side. I went on digging and was getting interested
when I heard some one shouting, and there was the farmer coming as fast
as he could, waving his arms and shouting with all the breath he had
left. When he reached the pit he was puffing and blowing so he could
hardly speak, but he made it plain that he was cross because I had dug
without permission, said I had no business to do it, it was trespass,
and he had a great mind to have me arrested.
I said that his daughter had allowed me to dig but this did not seem to
satisfy him. Euphemia told him I wasn’t hurting anything and he needn’t
make a goose of himself, so he quieted down. Asked what the round ball
was? I told him I didn’t know and he got a shovel and dug too. After
awhile the girl said:
“Why it looks like a man!”
It did, too. We went on digging and uncovered his legs and then his
feet. They _were_ feet all right, but he was the queerest looking thing
you ever saw. After he was uncovered we turned him over and I declare he
had a nose, mouth and ears; it was a man! But the oddest looking man you
ever saw. His body was nearly transparent; like cloudy glass. You could
see all his bones through this. He looked like stiff jelly with pieces
of cotton in it. We looked at him and then at one another.
“Well, I vum,” said Papa.
“Did you ever,” said Phemy.
“Geewhitakers,” said Sim.
The farmer brought out a wide board and we rolled him on it. Then I
nailed narrow boards on the side, so that he was in a kind of a trough.
There he lay, glistening in the sunlight. When I looked up I saw that
Euphemia was giggling again.
“Why the laugh?” said I.
“Don’t you think he looks funny? I never expected to see a man’s bones
like that.”
It hadn’t struck me that way before but it was funny, and I had to laugh
too. Just then the man sneezed. Euphemia gathered up her skirts, for she
had on a long dress, not one of the bathing suits the flappers wear on
the streets nowadays, and made a bee line for the house. I felt kind of
scary myself. It isn’t every day, I can tell you, that you dig up a
jelly corpse and have him sneeze just as life-like! Pop Norman by this
time was as white as a sheet. But what the corpse did next certainly
made me stare. He opened one eye, and after looking around a bit,
confused-like, he looked at me, and _winked_. I certainly was
flabbergasted. Then he opened the other eye and sat up. Then the farmer
scooted. The corpse began to talk to himself in some kind of outlandish
jabber. I thought it sounded like Spanish but it came out like lightning
and I couldn’t get it. I had studied Spanish at college but I was not
very well acquainted with it. After saying the same thing over three or
four times he turned to me and said it again—slowly, and quite
imperiously. He was asking where his clothes were. I said I didn’t know
but would enquire. I went to the house and found Euphemia very badly
scared and the old man drinking blackberry brandy. He called it a
cordial. I insisted that he get some clothes for the stranger and we
picked out an old suit I thought might fit. I took these out to the
Spaniard but he was much displeased with them and said he was not
accustomed to such garb. I told him it was that or nothing and the girl
was coming so finally he put them on. He seemed to be about as spry as
ordinary people, and his manner was very polite.
Euphemia got over her fright after awhile and came downstairs but she
seemed quite shook up. After awhile the Spaniard tried to talk to her
but of course she couldn’t understand until I translated for her. After
awhile she seemed to like to hear what he said. His talk was quite
high-flown, and after every few words he would put his hand on his chest
and make a low bow. This seemed to suit Euphemia.
It was getting on towards evening and I was obliged to leave but I asked
Euphemia to take care of him and I promised to bring a Spanish book so
she could make out what he said, and I told him to stay here until I got
back. He promised to do so and I went away.
When I told the professor about my glass man he smiled and smiled. He
said the Spaniard must be a silica gel pseudomorph, and he was surprised
and delighted he or it could talk Spanish, and when he said this he
grinned like a Cheshire cat. I got a Spanish dictionary and phrase book
at the college bookstore and went back next day. I found he was trying
to explain the difference between _ser_ and _estar_. It struck me that
was a funny thing to do, but he seemed rather touchy, so I gave her the
books and went back to college. I was very busy the rest of the term and
couldn’t get away, but as soon as possible I went back. They were out
riding the old man said, and he seemed rather put out.
When they came back I tried to tell her about the green sand, but she
didn’t seem to be interested and he yawned; so, after talking to the old
man for awhile I came away. She didn’t ask me to come again. He was
polite but quite formal.
I saw no more of the Normans nor of my Spanish friend for a month. I was
in Trenton one afternoon and was walking on the street when who should I
run into but the Normans. They were staying with an aunt of hers and I
went with them. We sat up pretty late that night while Euphemia told me
about the Spaniard. She said she wondered I hadn’t heard about it; part
of it, it seemed, had got into the newspapers.
She told me she soon got so she could talk Spanish pretty well. It was
not difficult except that miserable _ser_ and _estar_. They both meant
the same thing and you were pretty sure to use the wrong one. I told her
it was like the old lady who knew the difference between soldier and
shoulder but never could tell which was which. She said the Spaniard
talked all the time. He was so polite that at first she liked him pretty
well, but he never seemed to like her father and didn’t treat him very
well. He claimed to be a hidalgo, which appeared to be some kind of a
nobleman. He was terribly stuck on himself. He was a ferocious eater and
kept her cooking most of the time. He was always asking for _dos huevos
fritas_ or _carne de vaca_. “He kept me fryin eggs or Dad runnin to town
for meat all the time. I believe he could eat a gallon of soup, and it
took so much butter to fry the _papa fritas_ that we had none left for
anything else. He was fond of fish, too, and was always askin for them.
This got so bad that Dad and I concluded we had better take him down to
the shore where fish don’t cost so much. By this time something got the
matter with him. It had been rather cool and moist up to this time but
by the time we were ready to start there was a hot dry spell. Before
this you could see everything inside his head except where the bones
were in the way. But now white patches like snow began to grow on his
face, and pretty soon he began to look like a snow man. His face was
perfectly white without a trace of color. It was frightful. I kinda
liked his looks before that. You needn’t laugh; you like the good lookin
women best, and I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t like the good
lookin men.”
“If he didn’t get what he wanted at once he flew into an awful rage, and
it was pretty fierce, I can tell you, to have Snow White rampagin
around. So we took him to the shore, or at least we started for the
shore. He had a sword that the blacksmith had made for him out of an old
scythe of Dad’s and belt around him to hold it. I said we might be
arrested for carrying such things around, but Dad said you could not
carry concealed weapons, but nothing was said about other kinds, and
there was nothing concealed about that sword. So we started off in the
wagon, and he sat in the front seat with Dad. Pretty soon I noticed that
little white scales was driftin down from him on the floor. It was hot
that day but he didn’t seem to feel it in any other way, but all the
time those little white scales kept siftin down ’till the floor was all
white. I didn’t like to say anything for fear of hurtin his feelings but
I got mighty nervous.
“We had been on the way about an hour when he spied some oranges in a
store we was passin, and he got out, went in and took them. Didn’t stop
to pay, just took them and came out. The store keeper came out and said,
politely, that he had forgotten to pay, but Snow White flew into a rage
and began to swear frightful. He pulled out his sword and chased the
store keeper into his store. Then we drove on, but by this time Dad and
I were scared stiff. About an hour later we passed through Swedesboro
when a little fellow with a star on his coat came up and told us we were
his prisoners. The Spaniard jumped out and ran at him with the sword.
The constable was plucky; he pulled out a pistol and fired at the
Spaniard, but he didn’t hit him, and the Spaniard chased him a ways down
the road. We drove on then but more scared than before. I asked the
Spaniard if he wasn’t afraid of being put in jail but he said no, they
wouldn’t dare touch a hidalgo.
“Pretty soon we came to a cross road and somebody yelled at us from a
clump of bushes ‘Surrender in the name of the law.’ But that didn’t
frighten him. He just jumped out and charged that clump and drove the
two men in it down the road. By this time we were almost to Pennsgrove.
I was so scared that I got off and ran down a side street and Dad after
me. We didn’t see any more of him but we was told he drove in as large
as life and met the Sheriff, with two deputies. He chased them and cut
one of them pretty bad. Then he ran to the wharf, jumped on a fishing
boat, cut the cable and started down the river. The revenue cutter got
after him and they fired a shot at the boat. This made her fill and she
went down but they managed to pull him out. Of course he got very wet.
They took him to the jail, gave him some dry clothes and put him in a
cell. They captured Dad and me too, but after they had asked us a lot of
questions they concluded we wasn’t to blame and let us go. I went to see
the Spaniard next day and, say, he was a sight! All the white scales was
gone but they had been thicker in some places than in others, and where
they had been thickest there was a kind of a pit on his face like a man
who had small pox. He looked fierce, but the water had made him look
like glass again. There was no snow white stuff on him at all.
“They took him before a J. P. that day and he told them he was a Spanish
nobleman who was willing to die for Spain. He said he had sunk many
English ships and killed many English and that he was going to do it
some more.”
“Now, I don’t know what you think,” Euphemia said to me, “but I think
that fellow had been thrown overboard from some ship and was petrified
on the bottom of the sea and covered with sand. When you dug him up he
just came to life again. He must have been a bird when he was alive, and
so he just went on being a bird when he came back to life.”
“Well, the Justice of the Peace thought he must be crazy so he sent him
to the asylum. But he didn’t stay there long. He broke loose one night,
made for the shore, killed two men who was sleepin in a small vessel,
pulled up the anchor and put to sea and hasn’t been heard of since.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peep-Chick Mountain
-------
Over in that funny state called New Jersey there is a mountain called
Peep-Chick Mountain, or something like that, and this is the story of
how it got the name:
There was once a band of robbers who lived in a cave on the side of this
big mountain. They stole sheep and pigs and chickens from the farmers
who lived in the valley. Once they had no bread, and the chief robber
said: “Go and steal all the eggs you can find and we will trade them for
bread at the store.” So they all went out to steal eggs except one. He
was a red-headed robber and he said: “I think I am for Direct Action. I
don’t believe in this roundabout business of stealing eggs and then
trading them for bread. Besides I should like to have some pie and cake
also.” So he went down to the road and hid in some bushes.
Pretty soon a big automobile came whishing by. “Go along whisher!” said
the robber, “I can’t eat you.” Then a truck came rumbling by. “Get
along, rumble bumble,” said Red Head. Then along came a baker’s cart.
“Hi!” said Reddy, “Here’s the Staff of Life!” So saying, he pulled out
his pistol and fired at the tire. There was a bang and rattle, just as
if a pane of glass had fallen on the sidewalk, and the baker’s cart
began to wabble and pound on the road. “Ho!” said the baker’s boy who
was driving, “there goes a tire.” He got down and went around the car.
Just then Reddy came rushing up.
“Hands up for pie!” said he.
The baker’s boy was so frightened that he ran and jumped into the canal,
swam across and hid behind some trees. The robber fired several shots
after him but they only splashed the water and scared the boy. Then
Reddy unfastened a bag which had been wrapped around him and shoved in
pies, cakes, loaves of bread and doughnuts as fast as he could. When
this was full he filled another bag. Then he tied the two together,
flung them over his back and made off as fast as he could.
Presently the watchman spied Red Head coming up the hill with his bags
of pies, bread, cake and doughnuts. It was misty and he loomed through
the fog like a donkey carrying sacks.
“Hey, Jack!” called the watch, “Ohe, Ohe!”
“Ohe yourself!” said Red Head fetching him a slap over the head. But he
struck hard and lost his balance, fell and rolled down the hill. The
other robbers rushed out and grabbed him, but soon discovered that it
was Red Head and let him go.
“I know what your eggs will look like,” said the chief.
When they turned the bags inside out they found the pies, cake,
doughnuts and bread all mashed together. There was blackberry pie making
a red streak and lemon custard making a yellow streak, with doughnuts
flattened out and loaves of bread between. The juice of the pies had
been soaked up by the bread and cake.
“Hey!” said the chief, “What have we here?”
“That,” said Reddy, “is pie-cake-doughnut-bread.”
“It looks it,” said the chief, “but I believe we can eat it.”
So they sat down and ate some; and, sure enough, it was good.
In the meantime the other robbers who had gone out had stolen all the
eggs they could find and put them in another cave near by. There were
503 dozen in all. Now it happened that there was a hot spring in one
corner of the cave where the eggs were stored and after they had lain
there long enough they began to hatch out. One morning when the robbers
came out of their cave they heard a great rustling and peeping all over
the hillside. There were 5798 peeps moving through the grass and among
the trees and crying: “peep! peep!”
“Goodness!” said the robber chief, “look at our eggs! they are hungry.”
That night they stole a feed grinder from a farmer in the valley and
several bags of corn. Three robbers shelled corn, three drove the mill,
three fed the corn and three made mush of the meal and fed it to the
peeps. The other robbers stole the corn and carried it up the mountain.
In about two weeks they were tired out. “We are not robbers any longer,”
they said, “this is work!” so they all ran away. By this time the peeps
had become chicks and begun to eat grasshoppers and crickets and were
able to take some care of themselves; but the foxes, weasels, skunks and
minks had a fine time eating them as they scattered over the mountain
side. Bye and bye the farmers caught them until there were no more left;
but the mountain is called Peep-Chick, or something like that, to this
day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Round Valley
-------
They called it Round Valley because it really was round, hemmed in by
very high hills, except on the west; here there was an opening through
the hills, down the middle of which flowed a mill stream which drained
the valley. Part way down the gap between the hills was a mill dam; and
a short distance below the dam was the mill. The miller was a little
Gnome who lived in the mill with his wife and daughter. The mother had
once been beautiful, but hard work had made her old before her time. Her
face was wrinkled; there were crow’s feet in the corners of her eyes;
her steps were slow and feeble and her hair was growing gray.
The daughter was a very beautiful and charming girl; she was
happy-hearted. She moved around quickly, helping her mother wash the
dishes, sweep the floor, put wood on the fire, take up the ashes, milk
the cow and feed the pigs and chickens. As she did these things she
often smiled, and anyone who took the trouble to watch her could easily
see that she had happy thoughts.
There were many Little People living in this valley. You seldom saw them
but often heard them. In one place below the mill the water fell over
some rocks, and here, if you listened, you could hear some of them
saying: “Urgle, urgle, urgle,” just as plain!
Some lived in the branches of the pines and cooed: “Whoo, whoo, whoo,”
and others called from the dry grass: “z-z-z.” Everywhere their voices
could be heard, but very soft and low—for they were Little People.
Every day the Gnome worked in the mill—pouring grain into the hopper,
tying up the bags of flour and writing in a big book in one corner of
the mill. His clothes were always full of flour, and though he banged
them with his hands and shook himself before going into the house, he
was always gray or white. He was always busy, and seldom came into the
house except for meals; but he appeared to be interested in his work and
quite cheerful.
One evening the sky became dark earlier than usual, and a mist fell over
the valley; then the wind rose and the rain began to fall. It was a
dismal night out of doors, but within the miller’s house it was bright
and cheerful. The window panes shone in the light from the bright fire
burning in the fireplace; the curtains over the windows drooped
gracefully and were clean and white; there was a bookshelf filled with
new books with golden titles and a shelf filled with flowers in pots in
one of the windows. The room was clean and dry and warm as the miller
and his wife and daughter sat down to their evening meal.
As they sat eating and talking there came a knock at the door and the
daughter went to open it. A dark-eyed Stranger was standing on the
threshold. “Come in quickly,” said the girl, “the wind is driving the
dead leaves and the rain into the house. You are very welcome; come and
share our meal!”
The Stranger muttered his thanks and drew a chair to the fire. The
mother went upstairs and presently came down again. “You are very wet,”
said she. “I have laid out a suit of my husband’s in the room above. Go
up and put it on! It will keep you warm and dry until your own is
ready.” So saying she opened the door of the stairway and stood aside to
allow the Stranger to pass.
In a short time he came down and ate a hearty meal; but his face was far
from cheerful. He appeared to be gloomy and glum; he said little and
looked at no one. “He is tired,” said the mother to her husband, “take
him up to the guest room!”
In the morning the visitor appeared to be more cheerful than before. He
was still gloomy and glum, however, as he ate his breakfast. He had come
down late and the miller had gone to his work in the mill. The mother
was in the kitchen, and the daughter sang as she waited on him, poured
water on the flowers and drew back the curtains to let more light into
the room.
“Why are you sad?” said she, “see what a beautiful morning! The fleecy
clouds are sailing over the hills; the mill stream is shouting for joy
and the birds are singing.”
“Why should I be happy?” said he, “My wife and child are dead; I am not
well and I have lost my money. Why should I rejoice?” So saying he
looked gloomier and glummer than before.
“Oh, you poor man,” said the girl, “I am so sorry.” So saying she
brought in another plateful of hot cakes and put a jugful of maple syrup
on the table; but still she kept on singing, for her heart was filled
with joy.
“It is very pleasant here,” said the Stranger. “If you do not mind I
will stay a few days. I have enough money left to pay my board.”
“You must settle that with my mother,” said the girl. “It is rather
lonesome here sometimes, but you will be very welcome to stay as long as
you like.” So saying she ran off to tell her mother. “Oh, mother!” said
she, “I think it will be splendid to have him here; he is so sad; and he
has lost his wife and child and his money; and his health is poor, too.
I am _so_ sorry for him.”
“That is too bad,” said her mother, “We must be good to him and perhaps
he will become more cheerful.”
At first the Stranger wandered up and down the stream, hunting in the
woods or fishing in the brook. Presently he tired of this and began to
help the miller. Very soon he spent most of his time in the mill. In the
evening he and the daughter would sometimes take a walk through the
woods or over the hills. As he worked in the mill and grew tired and
hungry, and slept in the clean, sweet country air, lulled by the voices
of the Little People, he grew stronger and happier; the frown left his
brow; he began to smile, and presently to hum a tune.
One day the miller did not feel very well, and he went to lie down on
his bed, leaving the mill in charge of the Stranger. A few days later
this happened again. Presently the Gnome laid down every day, and then
he became so weak that he must stay in bed all day, while the Stranger
took care of the mill alone. They sent for the Doctor who said he must
stay in bed until he got better. But he got no better; he grew worse
each day. One day he called the Stranger to him and said: “I feel very
sick, and I believe I shall soon be going to a far country; will you
take care of my wife and daughter when I am gone?” “Yes,” said the
Stranger, “I will do all I can. You have all been good to me and I will
do my best to return your kindness.”
Then the old miller turned his face to the wall and died. And they
buried him beneath the whispering pines. And the daughter said: “Oh,
what shall I do? What shall I do?” “Let me help you bear it,” said he.
Then she looked at him and smiled through her tears.
After the miller died the mother was very lonely, and she often said
that she would like to go to him. Presently she, too, sickened. Every
day she grew worse, and finally she died and was laid to rest beneath
the spreading pines beside her man.
After the funeral they sat before the fireplace. She was crying and his
eyes were wet. “What can I do?” said she, “I have no one to love me and
care for me.” “Yes you have,” said he, “I promised your father I would
take care of you, and I love you very much. It will not be hard work for
me to love you and care for you.”
“Oh,” said she, “I am so glad you love me, I have loved you for a long
time.” Then she kissed him, shyly.
In a few days they were married. She cared for the house and he ran the
mill. She is a good housewife and sings as she works and he is a good
miller and sings as he runs the mill. They often kiss. I have noticed
that when he kisses her he grows younger but as she kisses him she grows
older. They grow happier every day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mont L’Hery
-------
To Angelo Catto, Archbishop of Vienna, from Philip de Comines, Lord of
Argenton:—
In the Memoirs which I have written, my good Lord Archbishop, at your
desire, I have spoken of an occurrence of little importance, it may
appear, and which was of small note among the great and mighty events
which took place then and thereafter. None the less, though I have there
written but a few words, (as thinking the relation of my own small
affairs of little value) matters of great import to me and mine
transpired which I shall here set forth, that you may, if you see fit,
relate them to my dear daughter, Joan, when I am no more.
In these Memoirs I have related that after the battle of Mont l’Hery the
horse I bestrode was old and tired, which thrusting by accident his head
into a bucket of wine, drank it and was thereby become lustier and more
serviceable than he was before. I have also there set down that on the
third day after the battle we took up our quarters in the village of
Mont l’Hery and that the inhabitants were in such consternation at our
approach that they fled, some into the church steeple, and some into the
castle, which held out against us and was not taken.
I have not set down the events of the first and second days after the
battle because, as you shall see, I could not know much of them, being
away on my own affairs.
After I had mounted this old, tired horse which I had ridden for several
days, I laid the reins upon his neck as was my wont. Straightway he
began to gallop, and when I sought to rein him in I found the bit
between his teeth, and he on a mad run. We burst through the ranks of
the men-at-arms, whereat I suffered not a little, being without armour
at the time, and galloped hard into the village. As we turned at the
church my old horse stumbled and fell and I was thrown violently into a
meadow at one side of the way.
Of what happened next I know only as it was related to me thereafter.
For a long time, it appeared, my wits were wandering. Then I opened my
eyes to look into the eyes of a young maid bending over me anxiously.
She smiled and said: “I am glad, good sir. You were as one dead. It was
an ugly fall.”
“Where am I?” I asked.
“You are in the house of my aunt’s nurse,” she replied. “She lies sick
in the room above. I had come to visit her and saw you fall. I fear some
of the King’s men saw you also and will do you a mischief.” With that
there came a knocking at the door and hoarse voices shouting: “Open in
the King’s name!”
She opened the door and I heard loud voices talking. Three archers were
there, sent, they said, to bring me to the Castle, but the maid denied
them. She averred I was in great pain and unfit to be moved. There was
much said that I did not fully hear (my wits not yet being fully
returned), but presently she closed the door and came back.
“I have staved them off for awhile,” she said, “but you must get back
your wits as soon as may be, for they will come again.” But I was in a
maze at the beauty of her and said no word. She seemed like an angel to
my sleepy eyes; for by now I felt dead tired and of a mind to sleep.
This she saw and said: “Sleep, fair Sir! I will fend them from you.” At
which I dropped off to sleep to dream of yellow-haired angels singing;
and when I awoke, of a truth she was singing in the chamber above. In a
few minutes she returned quietly and, seeing I was awake, said: “I have
now two patients, fair Sir, I pray you tell me how you do?”
“I am stronger,” I replied “but my arm pains me, and methinks a bone may
perchance be broken.”
“Not so,” said she, “but it is much bruised.”
Again there was a knocking at the door, and when she opened a rough
voice enquiring for me.
“He has been sleeping and is better, but he has been much bruised and
must stay the night.”
“Nay, Nay!” said the archer, “that must not be. I am bidden to bring him
straight to the Castle.”
“He is my patient,” she replied, “and I tell thee I will not have him
moved, Count or no Count.”
“You must even have your way, Lady,” said he, “But I see a heavy
reckoning to be paid if he come not soon.”
“I will answer,” said she.
When she returned: “I am beholden to you, Lady,” I said, “for your too
great kindness. But I must not lead you into danger. That would be a
poor return. Let me be led to the Count.”
“How say you?” she replied, “would you put your head in the noose? I
tell you the Count is bitterly angry with the Count de Charolois and
will hang all his men.”
“I care not,” said I, “I will not see you led into danger through my
fault;” so saying, I sought to rise but fell back almost fainting.
“See,” said she, “was I not right? You are unfit to go, and I will not
have you go until you are fit!” Here her eyes flashed and she stamped
her little foot fiercely.
I slept but poorly that night and a fierce fever consumed me. In the
morning she was much distressed and vowed again I should not be moved.
Shortly there came another knock and a voice saying:
“You little vixen! What matter if he die of a fever or be hanged?”
“Hanged he may be,” she replied, “and you will, but he must come to his
trial well. And you do force him to it I shall have your own head sooner
or later, and that I vow!”
“I warn you the King shall hear of this!” he said.
“Let him,” she said, “and let him do his worst. I have cared for many
wounded, and I have yet to ask whether they be rich or poor, or of high
or low degree.”
’Tis said the Count was in awe of his Countess and of her niece, my
nurse. However this may be I know not. I do know that I was not more
disturbed that day.
On the morrow I was still feverish having passed but a poor night. In
the morning she visited me again, saying: “Fair Sir, I see but one way
by which I may save you from that murderer at the Castle. He is my
uncle, and were you but husband of mine he dare not touch you. Have you
a mind to wed?”
Verily, this I had not thought of, but the thought left me warm and not
cold. And yet I must hesitate for her sake. I dare not lest she regret.
So I said:
“Truly, my Lady, the honor you speak of is far beyond my just deserts.
Did I think you truly willing I should hurry on the match. But should
you regret, nothing would be left for me but death. Let me therefore die
the death at the hand of this dread Count rather than you should grant
so great a boon and then repent.”
“Say no more,” said she. “I have said you shall not be harmed, and by
God’s word no harm shall befall you.” So saying, without more ado, she
sent for the priest who said mass and married us.
Great was the wrath of the Count, her uncle. But what was done could not
be undone. When he was gone she turned her face to me in shame. “What
must you think of me?” she said.
“If you will but trust me,” said I, “you will see that I think well of
you. Before that you thus sacrificed your future for me I thought you an
angel. My life shall be devoted to winning and keeping your love.”
“How do you know I do not love you now?” said she—and fled.
When our army came up and I was well again she had disappeared. I saw
her no more for months, being detained from pursuing her by the war
which came to an end but slowly. After that I had served King Louis at
Peronne and had been taken into his service I heard much of her, but do
what I would, could never come near her. At last, despairing, I went to
the King and confessed my plight and sought his Majesty’s assistance.
“What would you?” said the King.
“Do but let me see her, your Majesty,” said I, “that I may at least have
speech of her.”
“That I will do right gladly,” said he.
About a week thereafter I was sent for to the Royal Cabinet and entering
found the King with my wife. “Did I not promise to bring you together?”
said the King. “Take now thy wife, de Comines and teach her her duty.
You may withdraw!”
I offered my hand to my Lady and we withdrew to an antechamber. Here she
would fain have left me, but I said: “Lady I am your humble slave. Will
you not listen to me?”
“Nay,” said she, “I have said and done unmaidenly things and I am
ashamed. Let me withdraw.”
“Not so,” said I, “your acts were acts only of pity which I would fain
turn into acts of love if you will only listen.”
“Men speak well of you,” said she, “they tell me you are kind of heart
and merciful and will spare my shame. But I ask not for pity. I will not
be companion to a man who does not love me without pity, that I may be
triumphant and without shame.”
“That you may well be,” said I, “if you will but listen.”
“It is not ears but eyes shall convince me,” said she.
“Set me any task,” said I.
“Nay,” she replied, “let me but see you. Do not pursue me. Let me see
you in your daily work. I am to be Lady in Waiting to the Queen, and I
may see you thus.”
“You are harsh,” said I, “What have I done to be treated so unkindly?”
“I will not listen,” said she, stopping her ears with her fingers and
running away.
For weeks thereafter I was condemned to see her daily but scarcely to
speak to her. The King and Queen sought to throw us together but failed
because she would not. At last I despaired. I went to the King and asked
that I might be allowed to depart to my estate in Flanders so that I
need no longer be on the rack. To this the King replied: “Do but let me
speak to her again!” to which I gave consent.
The next day I was sent for again to the King’s Cabinet, and entering
found her again. “Why will you not put an end to this severity?” said
the King, turning to her. “The poor fool pines daily. He loses flesh. He
sulks. He is as one distraught. Mend him or break him, but torture him
no longer.”
“He is my own husband,” said she, her eyes flashing defiance.
“Surely,” said the King, “treat him therefore as a man and not as a dog.
Now leave me. I am weary of your quarrel.”
Again we departed; as we reached the anteroom she whispered: “May I not
do as I please with you?”
“You may indeed,” said I, “but trample no longer upon my heart, I
beseech you.”
“Thou art but a poor fool,” said she, “why not make me be good since I
have loved thee from the first? Do I not love thy eyes and thy curly
hair and thy straight back and even thy coat and hat. Surely I love
thee, thou blind goose!”—and fled again. But this time I was too quick.
I caught her and I have held her ever since, and with her good will as
she declares and I believe. She has been my willing slave and I hers.
Hath any man ever had a more devoted mate? Did she not visit me each day
I spent in the iron cage at Loches? In rain, in fog, in sleet, in
sunshine; still she came, and she is mine and I am hers, forever.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Death Valley
-------
Away out in California, near the Nevada line, lies a lonely valley. No
one lives in this valley very long; it is a very lonesome place. In the
winter the thermometer goes down below freezing point at night and rises
to eighty degrees during the day. This is the pleasant time of year. In
the spring and fall violent wind storms sweep over the desert, for it is
a desert—the Mohave Desert—and in the summer the hot wind blows, drying
up every drop of moisture and baking the country as if it had been
placed in a baker’s oven. The few who must stay there get a leather-like
skin from the heated wind and the glaring sun, with never a cloud to
hide its pitiless rays. Sagebrush and greasewood are found here and
there, and in the infrequent river bottoms a few willows are seen.
Fissure springs, from deep faults in the earth’s crust let out small
streams of water from sources far remote; sometimes fit to drink;
sometimes loaded with salts in solution and sometimes hot. Such a spring
is that which gives rise to Willow Creek which rises among the niter
hills of the Great Basin and empties into the Amargosa River a short
distance below its source. Alas for the name! The Amargosa “River” turns
out on examination to be a stream scarce large enough to turn a mill.
After a run of less than 25 miles it sinks into the sands to rise no
more. Shortly below this place we find Saratoga Springs and “Lakes.”
These “Lakes” are perhaps 10 feet in diameter. All along the banks of
the Amargosa the water as it evaporates rapidly in this thirsty land
leaves a white crust of salt, soda and borax. In many places, scattered
over the desert, deposits of mixed salts have been left by evaporated
water which glisten in the sun from a distance. As the weary traveler
walks through them the alkali rises in fine white clouds burning throat
and nostril and biting the skin into sores.
Over this desert roams the dismal coyote—always hungry, an Ishmaelite.
Kangaroo rats swarm in rocky spots; the side-winder threads his snaky
way; and lizards and tarantulas scuttle to their holes to escape the
traveler.
In 1849 the Bennett family wandered into this valley and perished,
giving to the valley its name. All along the wagon tracks—for there are
no roads—bottles, tin cans and the skeletons of abandoned animals mark
the progress of civilization and the survival of the fittest. It is a
weary land; over 400 feet below sea level; bounded by the black rocks of
the Funeral Range on the northeast, the Kingston Range on the north, the
Shadow Mountains on the southeast, the Avawatz Mountains on the south
and the Telescope Range on the west. These mountains rise in some places
to a height of 10,000 feet. The springs are far apart, from 30 to 90
miles, often with a very small flow and hard to find. At Cave Wells, for
example, the traveler in search of water goes into a hole in the side of
a cliff and descends a few steps to the margin of a shallow pool with no
apparent overflow.
* * * * *
“When does your uncle come for you, Jack?” said her friend.
“To-morrow morning,” Jack replied.
Next morning her friend was getting breakfast when a knock sounded on
the door. When the door was opened, a wiry, pale-faced man stood in
front of her.
“Where is Jack’s kid?” he enquired.
“Upstairs in bed,” was the reply.
Without a word he brushed by her, mounted the stairs, opened the door,
bent over the half-awakened girl, put his arms around her and kissed
her.
“Is your name Jack, too?” he enquired. “You are a mighty nice-looking
boy and I will love you and look after you for his sake. Now I must go.
We will leave for the west at 10 to-morrow morning. I am ordered to the
desert to spend the winter there in the out of doors for the sake of my
health. Get yourself a corduroy suit with high-laced boots. Here is some
money. I will be here for you at nine-thirty. Good bye till then!” So
saying, he turned, rushed down the stairs and out of the house.
“Did you ever see such a whirlwind?” said Jacqueline. “He thinks I am a
boy, and he will be disappointed and not let me go. What shall I do?”
“Go as a boy,” said her friend. “You are slim and can easily pass as a
boy. I will help you get ready. Come along!”
Next morning when Uncle appeared Jack was ready, dressed in corduroy
knickers, stout, high-laced shoes, short, thick corduroy coat and felt
hat.
“Well, come along!” said Uncle, “We have just time to make the train.”
At Salt Lake City they outfitted for the desert. Five burros were
bought, two for riding and three for packing. Jack’s burro was called
Jenny. Jenny was a canny animal. She grunted at every step. Her progress
might in some measure be likened to that of a drove of pigs, except that
her grunts lacked the solidity and conviction which characterize the
grunt of the real porker. Mexico is the real land of the burro. Here
they are used to such an extent as freighters as to threaten the
existence of the railroads. The Mexican will load his burros to their
full capacity and at the stopping places let them graze. No food is
provided except what they can pick up. If there should be no food and
the animal starves he buys another since this is the cheapest plan.
They carried a light rifle and two Colt’s revolvers, or “Guns” as they
are called in the west. There was a tent, two blankets, a bucket, a
frying pan, two large canteens, a spade, pick, axe, plenty of coffee and
tea, canned baked beans, hard bread, bacon, butter and lard, some flour
and feed for the burros.
Neither one could bake or shoot but Uncle remarked that there would be
time enough to learn and plenty of teachers. Notwithstanding his quick
and sometimes almost rough manner, Jack soon discovered that Uncle was
growing fond of her and was really very kind. At first she was very
tired as night drew near after a hard day’s riding over the rough
trails. They went slowly of necessity, for the burro is not a fast goer
and dislikes hurry to an extreme. As the days went by she found her
strength growing. He, too, appeared to benefit. They ate plain food,
drank nothing but water, and coffee or tea, and retired early and slept
soundly. Occasionally they stopped at a settlement, ate a square meal,
renewed supplies, had a bath and made ready for another trip.
In this way the winter passed rapidly. Jack learned to shoot, and,
profiting from the directions of a good-natured miner, after several
failures, they learned to make fair bread.
Jack’s greatest trouble was her cowardice, because she felt sure her
Uncle would detest in a boy what he might condone knowing her to be a
girl. She made desperate efforts and finally succeeded in controlling
her fears moderately well. The dislike she had for shooting was never
overcome.
Most of all she enjoyed the evenings by the camp fire when the exertions
of the day had not been so great as to compel early hours. Here she
looked into his heart and found it clean and good.
There were plenty of indications that all the men one might meet were
not of his kind. Bottles innumerable left along the way testified to the
fact that though the desert might be dry the travelers were not.
They traveled down the post road from Milford to Delmar and from there
struck across country, intending to cross the Hiko, Paranaga and Belted
Ranges and strike the Amargosa Desert to the south. These ranges cover a
very rough and broken country, and progress was slow and difficult.
Several times they were lost, and only the compass finally enabled them
to escape from the mountain tangle. The greatest difficulty was in the
supply of water for the burros. Their own supply could easily be
carried. Several times the burros were saved from death by the finding
of one or two barrel cactus which were cut up and fed to them as both
food and drink.
With all his good nature Uncle made her toe the mark. He did not believe
in spoiling boys. They were generally lazy and he was determined Jack
should do her full share of the work, but he did not always remember
this. Being naturally lazy she resented being driven. She much preferred
to lie around and read, or to lie abed and see him get breakfast, but he
usually routed her out. He was anxious that she should grow strong and
made her work in order that she might do so but uncomplainingly and as a
matter of course he shouldered the heaviest part of the load. It may be
imagined, therefore, that her regard for Uncle grew greater day by day.
There was bread to make and he made it; the water grew short and he went
without; the burros strayed and he went after them,—not grudgingly but
without complaint. She had heard of him through her father’s talks many
and many a time. She had learned of his goodness to her father; and here
he was, unselfishly giving to her all he could give, freely and as a
matter of course. Such conduct makes a friend of any generous-minded
soul. It slowly converted her regard into devotion. She began to look
for opportunities to serve him. To do anything for him became a joy.
They were nearing the Amargosa and were sitting at the camp fire one
evening when he said: “Jack, you are the very nicest boy I ever knew. I
thought your father was the finest man on earth but I have lost him
forever. I have found you instead. I am selfish and I would like to have
you both; but, oh, my dear boy! I am so glad to have found you.” Jack
said nothing but she turned her face to conceal the tears.
They had been many days on the road. That afternoon they crossed the
Funeral Range into Death Valley. The rocks of this range are black,
rough, crumbly and forbidding. It is a bad climbing ground for the rocks
are rotten and afford very insecure support. As they were slowly and
painfully groping their way down into the valley a rock upon which he
was standing gave way and he came sliding down in an avalanche of stones
and dirt. She saw at a glance that he was headed for a precipice and
without hesitating a second threw herself in the way. He was stopped but
she slid many feet, turning over and over and landed against another
rock, just on the edge of the precipice, covered with stones and dirt.
Hastily he tore the spade from the pack, rushed down and uncovered her.
Her coat was torn and her shirt in rags. She was unconscious as he laid
her on the ground and cleaned the dirt from hands and face and gave her
water to drink. Slowly she came out of the daze to find him anxiously
bending over her.
“Were you hurt?” said she.
“No,” he replied, “see whether any of your bones are broken.”
They camped at Saratoga Springs and from there traveled by easy stages
to Daggett and thence to Los Angeles. All the way he was quiet, and she
viewed him with apprehension. On the way east he sat beside her in the
Pullman.
“Why did you not tell me you were a woman?” said he.
“I was afraid you would not take me, and I wanted to go.”
“Well, it’s too bad. I suppose now I must send you off to live with some
one else.”
“Please don’t do that Uncle, I couldn’t bear it.”
“What can I do then? Get my sister to live with us?”
“Why yes, I suppose so. There are evil tongues. We must have some one.”
His sister saw at once that she must play the rôle of huckleberry, and
felt no great eagerness, but good-naturedly consented at last, firmly
resolved to aid fate as much as possible so that she might go back to
her own work.
The play began with taking them to the theatre twice a week when sister
was careful that Jack should sit next to brother. It continued by taking
them to the country for the summer. Then they came back to the city
again and missed the long walks and the pleasant companionship of the
afternoons with nothing to do but exchange ideas. Then Uncle was called
to Chicago on business for a week. This lengthened to two weeks. On
returning he was so glad to see her that he kissed her and she
impulsively returned the kiss and fled. How could a lonesome bachelor
long resist such a combination of youth, beauty and love. There was a
quiet wedding soon in which two hearts as well as two hands were united.
They are not lovers, they are chums. He knows her thoughts and she
his—they like each other.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Professor’s Story
-------
When I was in college one of my professors was a rather old man who was
fond of telling about his travels. He told me about several trips he had
taken. Some of these stories were very interesting, for he had gone into
many places outside the tourist’s ordinary routes in order to study
subjects in which he was particularly interested. One of these trips was
a visit to Rome. It was taken to attend a Congress of Chemists that
assembled there in the Palace of Justice, or Palazzo de Giustitia as the
Italians call it, located on the right bank of the Tiber near the Castel
de St. Angelo. His daughter, a beautiful girl of 21, accompanied him on
the trip. They traveled on the Red Star Line to Vlissingen, or Flushing,
and up the Scheldt to Antwerp.
The Congress was held in term time and he was limited to an absence of
six weeks. There were two things which he particularly wished to see
during this time. One of them was the iron mines of Elba. The ores found
in these mines are hematites and contain some of the finest crystals of
hematite that have ever been discovered. Elba was also, you will
remember, the home of Bonaparte after he had been expelled from France
for the first time. Here he ruled in petty state from the fifth of May,
1814, to the twenty sixth of February, 1815.
The second, and indeed the chief, object of his trip was to see the
boracic acid _soffioni_ at Lardrello. Here, it had been stated, jets of
steam break forth from the earth in which small amounts of boracic acid
are contained. This steam is carried into water, the boracic acid
condensed with the steam, and the dilute solution thus obtained
evaporated at a low temperature so as not to again volatilize it.
Ammonia and sulfureted hydrogen are also present and considerable
amounts of ammonium sulfate come into commerce from this source. These
statements which were so varied in character as to cause some suspicion
of exaggeration had aroused his curiosity, only to be completely
satisfied by first-hand information such as could be best obtained by a
visit.
From Antwerp they traveled to Brussels and from there to Rome by
express, by way of Milan. They expected to find it warm in Italy and
left their heavy clothing at Antwerp to await their return. They
traveled through the Italian Alps, however, and suffered from the cold
until Rome was reached. The journey from Brussels was begun in the
evening and the second night was passed on the way from Milan to Rome.
No seats together were to be had in the train from Milan. The daughter
found a good seat in the compartment reserved for women where there was
room also for her father and where he joined her. Whenever the conductor
came around he remonstrated with the Professor; but as the latter was
comfortably established this was met by a stare of no comprehension and
the slipping of a lira into the conductor’s hand which ended the
argument until the next conductor came around when the process must be
repeated. It was, however, uniformly successful.
They approached Rome on the afternoon of a beautiful day in May. The
whole surroundings were picturesque in the extreme. Black masses of
masonry perched upon the hilltops, marking the sites of cities and
towns, spoke eloquently of the reign of lawlessness only just passing
away. They passed remains of tombs and caverns excavated in the
hillsides—the marks of past civilizations. Everywhere, inside and
outside of Rome, were foundations of buildings of the oldest masonry
upon which a second structure had been erected, to be in turn destroyed
and serve as the foundation of another erection, but still leaving
visible remains. This was the country and these the places where Julius
and Augustus Caesar lived and reigned, where Cicero spoke, where
Cataline conspired, over which Hannibal roamed at will and where Fabian
tactics were born. This was the land of the two Plinies, of Scipio the
conqueror of Carthage, of Dante and Virgil; the sense of its antiquity
grew and became overpowering.
They thought Italy the most beautiful country they had ever seen, “Why,”
said the Professor, “As we traveled along I saw _Narcissus Poeticus_
growing in the fields.”
They stopped at the Royal Hotel and were visited by a valet who proposed
that he should take care of them during their stay, to which they
assented. They occupied three rooms, two bedrooms and a sitting room. In
the sitting room of a morning breakfast was prepared by the valet while
they were dressing. Then they sat down to breakfast, the valet waiting
on them. Lunch was served downstairs, but dinner was the great event of
hotel life. The guests were expected to be on time but if delayed they
murmured a perfunctory excuse to the Major Domo which was smilingly
accepted. The cooking here was elevated to the dignity of a fine art. It
was marvelous and sometimes spectacular; as when at the conclusion of a
meal an ice was placed in a dish and this in another larger dish held
high upon the waiter’s outstretched hand, came in surrounded by blue
flames, produced by pouring a little strong liquor into the outer vessel
and setting fire to it. Upon another evening, after dinner, the guests
were entertained with a very wonderful musical performance carried out
by two men and a woman, the latter a very beautiful and accomplished
Italian. It soon dawns upon the traveler that the modern Italian is
descended from widely differing tribes, few of whom even look alike.
Those we know best are swarthy, with black hair and wonderful eyes.
There are many types beside this, and not a few light skins and blue
eyes.
The Congress was divided into sections. The presiding officer of each
section had been selected because of his accomplishments as a linguist.
This was necessary, because there were four official languages in which
papers might be presented and discussed: Italian, French, German and
English. Two of the presiding officers were Germans: Georg Lunge, an
accomplished technical chemist, who had been petted until his sense of
proportion had been lost and he had become arrogant, and Wilhelm
Ostwald, an equally accomplished and much more learned man and a great
physical chemist, who was always polite and never was able to forget
that he was a gentleman, first. But the sessions were found
uninteresting by comparison. Rome itself was so absorbing. They soon
gave up the sessions entirely and devoted all their time to exploring
the city. The first trip was to the Colosseum. Here they secured a
guide—quite an old man, with an English all his own—who declared that:
“He was a Roman citizen and p-r-r-r-oud of it.” The Professor did not
blame him in the least for this feeling. The old man proved to be a
wonderful mine of information, most of it apparently accurate. He
explained how the naval battles and other water scenes were managed, how
the crowds were protected from the sun and from rains, how the various
orders of Romans came in and reached their seats, and showed them the
dens where wild beasts were kept. In answer to a question as to how the
stones of the amphitheatre were joined without mortar, he took them to a
place where a broken corner showed the method of joining by means of a
short iron rod leaded into both stones. While they were talking and the
Professor was sketching he turned his head and found a policeman with
sword and musket overlooking the performance, and especially the
sketching, which it seemed was forbidden. But the guide set them at ease
by remarking, pointing to the policeman: “a friend of mine.”
Another afternoon was devoted to the famous Forum Romanum, the scene of
so many speeches and so many triumphs, and, especially remembered, the
speech of Antony over Caesar’s dead body, reported by Shakespeare, and
repeated and varied in interpretation by so many of the masters of the
tragic art.
A third excursion was to the catacombs on the Appian Way. They were
greeted here by a priestly-looking crowd of men one of whom enquired,
pointing at them: “English?” Answered in the affirmative they were
motioned aside until enough English had accumulated to make up a party
and the burly and not over clean guide led them around. The catacombs
were disappointing. The galleries are narrow, tortuous and unattractive.
The remains of the art of that period though no doubt interesting as
showing how art arose decayed and died, were not interesting to a
modern. The conclusion was still more unattractive; for, on trying to
find their conveyance they discovered that it had disappeared and they
must find their way back afoot. But it was evening; they were walking
over the road so many conquerors had trodden; under the soft Roman
twilight with the monuments of the great dead on both sides of the way;
they were glad the driver had fled and left them to walk.
One day was stolen for a swift excursion to Naples to see the museum.
Here they stopped at Bertolini’s Hotel, which is situated on the side of
a hill far above the city level, with a splendid view. This is reached
by going through a doorway into a tunnel at the end of which is a lift.
At the top a splendid hotel with this superb view of the bay and of
Vesuvius.
There was not time for a thorough examination of the treasures of the
museum, but enough was seen to verify and enlarge some statements the
Professor had made in a history he was then writing. The examples of
metal working were very illuminating, showing as they did in some
magnificent examples from Pompeii how little modern art excelled the art
of that day except in speed and cheapness of working.
Returning to Rome they discovered that the trip to Elba and to Lardrello
had been abandoned because of a strike among the employes on the railway
and steamboat; but the Professor declared that he had come to see
Lardrello and he would walk there if necessary. The next day they
started for Pisa. Most of the route lay along the rocky coast of the
Mediterranean through the most beautiful scenery in the world. The road
runs along a shelf on the rocks with many tunnels. And the smoke! Ah,
the smoke! Oh, the smoke! It gets into the eyes, the nose, the mouth,
the ears, over the face and down the back. There is no avoiding it and
no escape is possible. They arrived at Pisa about 11 P. M. and were met
at the hotel by the proprietor with the question: “You would like a
room?” “Yes, two rooms.” A shrug, and then: “I do not know what I shall
do; we have but two rooms; one has three beds and the other four beds.”
“The answer is easy,” said the Professor, “My daughter will take the
room with three beds, I will take the room with four beds.” When they
were escorted to the rooms by the proprietor, the head porter, the maid
and the facchini or porters and the doors were opened on the overflowing
hospitality of seven beds for two travelers, a hearty laugh broke from
every throat; a laugh is the same in all languages.
Pisa is not very inspiring. The famous leaning tower leans because the
foundations were poor, and the Baptistery is built of old tombstones and
other stolen pieces of marble from which the thieves had not decency
enough to chisel away the inscriptions. This thievery seems to have been
a habit in the days which we see through the fogs of romance.
The next day they turned back and retraced their steps for part of the
way to Cecina where they transferred to the road to Volterra. This town
is situated on the frowning heights above the railway station, where a
crowd of people; drivers, porters and others was assembled. The
Professor accosted a hack driver in English. To this there was no reply
but a shrug of the shoulders. Then he tried German, French and Latin in
succession, all in vain. As they were about giving up in despair a voice
from behind them, or from Heaven, said: “You would like to go to
Lardrello? You are interested in boracic acid?”
“I have come all the way from America to see it,” said the Professor,
“so you may judge whether I am interested.” Introductions followed and
cards were exchanged. Their friend was Prince Conti, son-in-law of Count
Lardrello and the manager of the works. He told the driver what was
required; gave him instructions where to take the travelers for the
night and what they would like to eat and promised to meet them at the
works next day. He too, it seemed, had been attending the Congress and
was just returning.
They traveled over a beautiful country covered with olive orchards, with
pale yellowish-green foliage, to a country inn. Here everything was
primitive and old-fashioned to the last degree, but _clean_. There were
tile floors and the beds were of wrought iron in filagree,—beautiful
pieces of workmanship.
Next morning they reached the works in a desolate valley over which
clouds of steam hovered. They were met and welcomed by the Prince who
apologized for not being able to open the Palace for them as the family
were away and the servants dispersed for the summer.
The natural _soffioni_, they discovered, had failed to give a sufficient
yield and were now supplemented by wells sunk as are petroleum wells in
Pennsylvania. One of the new developments had been the striking of steam
at a pressure of sixty pounds in some of the wells. These wells were
capped and the steam led through a boiler containing a purifying agent
to remove the sulfureted hydrogen, after which it was used to run a
steam engine which in turn actuated mills to grind the boracic acid and
borax produced. After going through the works the Prince was good enough
to present the young lady with a bouquet of flowers and they said
good-bye. The use of steam from Mother Earth to run a steam engine was,
the Professor said, an entirely new idea not used, so far as he knew,
anywhere else in the world, and suggested a possible method of keeping
alive in those times we may possibly expect as our fuels disappear. It
may then be necessary to drive deep wells to tap the supply of heat now
lying far below the surface in most places and only reaching through the
crust in a few.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Friend Zahn
-------
I am a very ordinary person with some rather remarkable acquaintances.
It is my purpose to give here some account of these men and women—for
they are of both sexes—and incidentally to describe some of the
remarkable discoveries they have made.
It was my good fortune to become well acquainted with several of these
personages—for they are remarkable enough to be so called—while I was a
student in a mid-western college for both sexes. Being a man of
sufficient means and a bachelor with a taste for scientific studies, I
have had leisure to attend many scientific conventions; and here I have
been able to make the acquaintance of many other persons of brain power
and industry sufficient to lead them to eminence. I flatter myself that
I have, by reason of an agreeable personality, obtained an unusual
knowledge of the work they have accomplished. I will admit that some of
these men and women have a very limited supply of polished manners, and
one or two are almost without any of the qualifications necessary in a
member of polite society.—But this will develop as the story progresses.
I first met Samuel Zahn as a fellow freshman. His was a most engaging
personality, for he is kind, witty and brainy. He took the lead in the
class from the first day in college and was the most popular member.
Needless to say he was at once chosen President of the class, and
President he remains to this day. He is over six feet tall, with large
limbs and a big head; since leaving college he has gained weight and
improved in appearance. I visited him at his home in a large western
city five years ago and we spent several days together, talking far into
the nights; and during this time he had much to say about various phases
of his work in biology, of which he is an enthusiastic student.
“Why is it Brown,” he enquired, “that all living beings must grow old
and die? This is true of all plants and all animals. There must be some
chemical reason for this universal fact.
“Before following out my line of reasoning, Brown, perhaps I should
first recall your attention to the method of scientific discovery. We
are accustomed, as you are aware, when traveling into new ground to form
first an hypothesis as an explanation of the facts known to us.
Beginning with this hypothesis, we first reason out the consequences
which must follow if the hypothesis should be the real explanation. We
then proceed to test these consequences by experiment. We then reason
out other necessary consequences of the hypothesis and proceed further
with our tests. If the results of our tests confirm the hypothesis it
presently becomes a theory and in course of time a law.
“I have formed a great many hypotheses to account for the ageing of
plants and animals, but under the test of experiment these have all
broken down one after another. Recently, however, it occurred to me that
perhaps the ageing might be due to the formation of resinous substances
in the tissues by the combination of two substances one contained in the
food the other in the tissues. You will remember that the insoluble
resin, bakelite, is formed by the union of an aldehyde and a phenol
under suitable temperature conditions. If, now, the aldehyde like body
formed part of the tissue, and the phenol were contained in the food and
passed unchanged into the circulation, we should have slow combination
and the formation of hard material—perhaps also material in the form of
fibers and therefore flexible—within the tissues, which would cause them
to harden and stiffen, inducing the other changes we ascribe to old age.
“If now these phenol bodies are contained in the plant and animal juices
constituting our foods they must be contained in those that are short
lived in largest amount, and it should be possible to bring on old age
much more rapidly by feeding short lived plants. For this purpose I used
first oat straw, but I found this did not produce the desired effect. On
further consideration it seemed unlikely that it should: for the ripe,
and therefore dead, straw would contain only the resin and neither
aldehyde nor phenol. I therefore used green oat straw and found that
this brought on old age rapidly when fed to dairy cows with no other
food. I then tried various additions to the green oat straw with the
object of finding some substance capable of uniting with and destroying
the phenol. This I have at last succeeded in finding; and I am now in
possession of a reagent which will so far destroy any of these phenols
contained in food, that old age is indefinitely arrested. This as you
will see places a dreadful responsibility in my hands. This is not the
Secret of Perpetual Youth exactly, for I cannot so far restore youth to
the aged—I can only arrest decay. By feeding this antidote to a baby it
may remain a baby forever. Or it may be allowed to reach any desired age
and then forced to cease developing indefinitely. I will confess to you
that I feel dismayed by this heavy responsibility. What do you think I
should do? What is my duty?”
“This is such an extraordinary story, Zahn,” I replied, “that I think,
in fairness, you should first give some proof that you are not in error
in thinking your discovery a real one; and since considerable time must
necessarily pass before any satisfactory demonstration of this kind can
be made perhaps we had better not further discuss the matter at
present.”
“Spoken with your usual clearheadedness,” he rejoined. “I must confess,
however to a certain amount of disappointment in your lack of faith in
accepting my conclusions.”
To this I made no rejoinder, thinking that the less the subject was
discussed the better.
He then informed me that he had invited two friends to lunch with us. “I
am much interested in them,” he said, “because I believe they are much
interested in each other. They are very interesting people, and I want
you to know them.”
Shortly before one they arrived. The man was approximately about fifty
years of age and rather above the medium height; he was well-built and
walked like a soldier. His hair was only slightly gray; his nose was
straight and well-formed. There was about him a certain air of
gentility, and his manner was pleasant and courteous. The lady was at
least twenty years younger. She was the most beautiful creature I had
ever met, and her manner was alert and full of charm. They came in
together, and there was no possibility of doubting their interest in
each other. But they were both so genuinely interested in their host and
in me that this mutual understanding seemed pleasant to both of us. He
was introduced as John Valient, a successful lawyer and she as Helen
Henderson.
At table we were waited on by Mrs. Frains, Sam’s housekeeper, a dear,
motherly old lady with white hair, kind eyes and a fair complexion. Sam
introduced her to us, and treated her as in every way an equal. Miss
Henderson sat at his right, Valient at his left and I opposite.
During the meal Sam informed us that he had recently given some
attention to nutrition and had come to the conclusion that condiments
played a much more important rôle than had hitherto been assigned to
them. He had studied these therefore with some attention and had
compounded one which he thought we would find very agreeable. He
proceeded to extract a bottle from a near by closet; from a medicine
dropper inserted through the cork he dropped a single drop upon our
fish.
“It is very strong,” he remarked, “and more than a single drop would be
too much. If you wish I will give a bottle of it to each one of you
provided you will promise to use a single drop at each meal until it is
all used. According to my calculations this will take a little over nine
years, for there are 500 cubic centimeters in the bottle and each cubic
centimeter is equal to twenty drops.”
After eating the fish, which was delicious, we readily promised and
received each a bottle. I may remark here that I became very fond of the
relish, and now, after the lapse of five years, the bottle is nearly
half full, thus showing how accurate were his calculations.
“I wish,” said Miss Henderson to Zahn, “that you would tell Mr. Brown
about your agricultural catalysts. I think this a very entertaining
story.”
“Why certainly,” he replied, “I shall be delighted.”
“You must know, Brown,” he said, addressing me, “that there are a large
number of chemical substances which are called catalysts. I can best
illustrate what this means by giving two examples. If potassium chlorate
be heated it melts and begins to give off bubbles of oxygen gas. If,
however, we first pulverize the chlorate and add to it a mere pinch of
very finely powdered manganese dioxid and mix the two very thoroughly
and then heat the mixture, oxygen will again come off but at so low a
temperature that the chlorate does not even melt, and much more rapidly.
“In the manufacture of ‘Crisco’ and other lard substitutes from liquid
oils by pumping hydrogen through the oil in closed vessels, so long as
only these two substances are present no combination takes place and the
pressure increases. But if a small amount of finely divided nickel be
added combination at once begins, the melting point of the oil rises and
the pressure falls.
“We once supposed that many chemical substances found in minute amount
in the ashes of plants were not of importance, but it has lately been
asserted that this is not true and that manganese in particular plays an
important part in plant economy, acting as a catalyst. I have verified
this fact and have proceeded to examine the action of different
manganese compounds in order to determine which is most active. The
acetate functions well, the hydrosol better but colloidal manganese is
by far the best. In any considerable amount this acts as a violent
poison but in homeopathic doses it functions as a vigorous stimulant.
Using this reagent as a hypodermic I have obtained astonishing results.
I have one stalk of Indian corn on my farm treated in this way which
measures forty feet in height and has seven ears, each over a foot long
and perfectly set, with grains well on toward ripeness. Watermelons the
size of hogsheads are readily produced and we have canteloupes,
cucumbers and tomatoes as large as nail kegs. I have used the kohl rabi
for several years as a source of winter forage for my cattle, slicing
them before feeding. Treated in this way heads as large as barrels are
readily grown, as much as forty tons per acre being an ordinary yield. I
have in consequence been able to quadruple the size of my herd without
devoting more acreage to the growing of forage. I have not entirely
succeeded in increasing the oat and wheat crop because of the
difficulties in the way of successful wholesale hypodermic injection. I
have made a somewhat promising beginning, however, by successfully
inoculating chrysanthemum with the aid of the aphis which preys on them.
You know that this aphis punctures the outer cuticle with his proboscis
and drinks the sap. Acting on this knowledge I have first sprayed the
aphis with a dilute colloidal manganese and dried them rapidly with a
current of warm air. The colloid adheres to the outside of their beaks
and gently stimulates. When the beak is inserted the plant at once is
inoculated. The aphis is then destroyed by the application of whale oil
soap or other appropriate insecticide and the plant develops to an
enormous size producing blossoms as large as a lady’s summer straw hat.
They are indeed marvelous.
“I have also begun some experiments upon animals but the effect here
seems to be even more poisonous. Another idea has, however, occurred to
me which gives promise of a very great success. You know that caffein is
a mild stimulant to the human race, and acting on this lead I have tried
a number of stimulants, winding up with virulent poisons. One of these
containing arsenic combined with strychnine, cocaine and selenium has
been injected into calves from my herd which are now, at six weeks, as
large as their mothers. Unfortunately this growth has been accompanied
by the development of a disagreeable odor which makes them unpleasant
neighbors. I fear I shall be forced to find a substitute for the
selenium in order to avoid this but I have no doubt of final success.”
During this recital any conversation had become impossible; in fact we
were reduced to a state of coma and walked from the table like
well-trained somnambulists without uttering a word.
In the evening I accompanied Zahn to a lecture he was to deliver before
the Society of Facultative Anaerobists. It appeared that these people
had associated themselves for the purpose of further studying those
organisms which develop either in an atmosphere of oxygen or of one
devoid of it. In the latter case they decompose some substance contained
in the solution and assimilate the oxygen it contains. The lecture was
to be delivered at the society headquarters over a grocery store. The
entrance was on a side street in the rear. There was a light over the
entrance and the hall was gained by mounting a steep pair of stairs. We
found the assembled anaerobists busily at work under the chairmanship of
a lanky individual in corduroy trousers. Upon our entrance the
proceedings were at once suspended to allow the lecture to proceed. Zahn
was escorted to the platform with much deference and began as follows:
“Fellow Truthseekers:—It is with some hesitation that I venture to
appear before you to make my small contribution to your proceedings. I
am well aware of the labors of some members of this illustrious society,
and feel considerable diffidence in appearing before you. I shall
confine my remarks to two themes: The first will be a contribution to
the technology of inoculation. I have had considerable experience of the
difficulty and danger of inoculating savage animals, and the first part
of my paper merely describes the technique which I have found successful
in such cases. I have here an inconspicuous gun which enables us to
effect inoculation at a distance and with ease and certainty. The
projectile consists of a hollow needle with two sheet metal flanges
surrounding it acting like a piston in the cylinder of the gun. The
inoculating liquid is sucked into the needle by its capillarity. On
inserting a metal sphere filled with liquefied carbon dioxid into this
cylinder and pressing this trigger, a needle penetrates the capsule,
liberates the carbon dioxid, which instantly is converted into gas and
drives the projectile from the gun. The needle has sufficient force to
penetrate the skin until the first of the flanges is reached. This
instantly stops it and the shock forces the liquid into the wound. The
outside of the needle should first be coated with an antiseptic to
prevent the entrance of skin bacteria.”
This contribution was greeted with great applause and the gun was seized
by a female with a black eye which she declared had been due to the hoof
of a mule—fortunately unshod. After the confusion had partly subsided
the chairman rapped for order and Zahn proceeded to read his second
paper:
“You are of course aware,” he began, “that during the world war the
supply of glycerin became insufficient and that it was discovered that
the addition of some sodium sulfite to a sugar solution which was seeded
with the yeast plant altered the direction of the fermentation and
caused the formation of large amounts of glycerin—sometimes as much as
30 per cent of the product. No careful study of the effect of this
addition upon the yeast plant itself seems to have been made. I have now
taken up this study and have reached some startling conclusions. Such
organisms so produced seem to have lost many of their original
characteristics. Ordinary _saccharomyces cerevisae_, for example, grown
under these abnormal conditions will no longer produce normal yeast
fermentation. The progeny of the original cells break, and we have the
same sort of variation that is ordinarily obtained in raising plants
from seed. By varying the nature of the disturbing substance; that is by
replacing the sodium sulfite by other reagents, I have succeeded in
producing still other modifications which have interesting properties
economically important.
“On this slide, which we will now project by the lantern, we have a
photograph of an organism capable of turning waste molasses into ethyl
chloride which is much used as a local anaesthetic and may be used
instead of ether. It is necessary to add sufficient salt to the solution
to supply the chlorin and the sodium remains behind as sodium carbonate
supplying that necessary product of the chemical industry at a price
defying competition.
“Here we have the photograph of another modified organism capable of
absorbing carbon dioxid from mixed gases containing it and building up
starch in sunlight much after the manner of chlorophyl in the plant. The
synthetic starch so produced differs in no particular from that found in
plants and is obtained in large amount very cheaply from the waste gases
given off by our stoves and furnaces. The supply of such material is
very large and the starchy food that in this way may become available
destroys at once all possibility of future famine and all necessity of
raising wheat, oats, barley, potatoes or other starchy foods. I hope
before long to be able to announce the discovery of other forms able to
produce albumen and other proteids directly from the atmospheric
nitrogen, so as to solve for all time the possibility of future
starvation.”
This paper was greeted by cheering and immense enthusiasm. The chairman
in proposing a vote of thanks said that the society had now amply
justified the hopes of its founders and that this would long be marked
as a red letter day in its history.
I walked home with Zahn tired with so many wonders. The next morning I
overslept and was late for my train so that there was no opportunity for
any further conversation. I have not seen my host since that time until
last week. I then made a singular and most distressing discovery.
I had noticed that most of my shirts were frayed at the wristbands. I
needed some new shirts and proceeded to select them. Judge my surprise
when I discovered that my old friend Zahn was waiting on me! I of course
accosted him by name, only to be met by a blank stare and a firm denial
of acquaintance. He assured me that his name was Smith and that he knew
no one by the name of Zahn. I asked for the proprietor of the store and
told him my story only to be greeted by an incredulous stare. The
proprietor assured me that Smith came to the store under that name with
fine recommendations from previous employers, and that they had no doubt
whatever that he was as represented. I can only suppose that Zahn had
lost his mind through overstudy and with it his memory. I have noticed
that neither I myself nor either of the other participants in that
famous lunch, now five years ago, appears a day older, and I am dreading
the exhaustion of my bottle and the slow onset of old age.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just Samuel Jones
-------
Samuel Jones was an energetic as well as a very careful young man. He
had inherited a small sum of money from his father. It was his purpose
to use so much of this as was necessary in completing his education; the
remainder was to be carefully invested as a nest egg for the reserve he
intended to create which he spoke and thought of as The Dam. The idea
back of this name was that if the Dam were big enough and were full it
would keep the mill going for some time should the springs run dry.
Sam was careful in other ways also. He laid careful plans each morning
so that no time need be wasted. If the day was cool he put on a heavy
suit; if cloudy he wore rubbers and carried an umbrella. If the
temperature rose suddenly after such a beginning and the sun shone
brightly, he had at least done his part and this consoled him for the
suffering he must endure. This disposition subjected Sam to the ridicule
of his unmarried sister, Tilly, who acted as his housekeeper. Tilly was
of a very different build. No one ventured to call Tilly careful—she was
conspicuously careless. She had a pretty foot and loved to buy new
shoes, but she often dressed in a hurry, and her shoes, having been
discarded in a hurry, were not readily matched. In consequence, she
sometimes appeared at breakfast with a shoe upon the right foot and a
slipper on the left. This impropriety filled Sam with anguish. Perhaps
this difference in disposition was one of the reasons for their
affection, for they were very fond of each other and they led a very
happy life.
Sam had a poor opinion of college men. Part of this low rating was no
doubt prejudice and part was due to the fact that he was not a college
man himself. He saw very clearly, however, that many college men acquire
only a fine polish. The process fails to get enough paint on the rough
wood of the foundation to hide the coarse grain which shows through in
all its crudity. He had also taken note of his own rather brusque
manner, and laid it, correctly, to the lack of those opportunities which
come to the college man unsought. Anxious to repair this defect he
became precise and a trifle stilted. This Tilly was not slow to notice
and criticize. Tilly loved college boys and their ways. She listened
with attention to their songs and was up on all their pranks. Their
escapades amused her and she forgave their faults. She knew them well
for they lived in a college town.
Back of all Sam’s spur to action was a love of chemistry. He became
enamoured of it in High School where Steele’s Fourteen Weeks was the
text-book. Beginning by pouring vinegar on baking soda in his mother’s
kitchen, he had managed to study carefully a good many chemical
substances so that his knowledge was much broader and deeper than that
obtained by most college students. As the lumberman notices all the
straight trees large enough for sawing so Sam tagged all objects with
formulae. Water was H_{2}O; vinegar C_{2}H_{4}O_{2}; Cream of tartar
(CHOH COOH, CHOH COOK); and sugar C_{12}H_{22}O_{11}. After the death of
their mother Sam had fitted up a laboratory in the attic and hung out
the shingle of an analytical chemist. The income obtained in this way
being too small he conceived the idea of adding to it by the concoction
of various specialties, and Jones’ Talcum Powder, Jones’ Velvet Cream
and Jones’ Tooth Paste made their appearance on the shelves of
neighboring druggists and were spoken of in terms of praise by those who
had used them. These had been supplemented by various perfumes which
found favor with the weaker sex and became the foundations of a business
which was steadily increasing. Into this scene of happiness and peaceful
prosperity Fate dropped several bombs.
BOMB THE FIRST
Sam and Tilly loved the movies. They formed a background of romance to
their prosaic lives. They read, eagerly, all they could find in print
about the stars of moviedom and were well acquainted with the features
of the prominent actors. Twice a week they attended, rain or shine. As
this involved long walks in bad weather they had, with the dawn of
prosperity, invested in a Ford.
It was a windy night in October. There was a threat of rain in the air
as the sullen clouds drifted past over the moon. As they returned to the
car, which had been left in a side street, a tiny muffled wail greeted
them: “Gracious! it’s a cat,” said Tilly. “Good Lord! it’s a baby!” It
was wrapped in an old, frayed, woolen blanket. They took it home—what
else could they do?—and Tilly unwrapped it in her warm room. It was
clean and warm and dry, and its clothing, though of the plainest
material and somewhat worn, was also clean. Tilly declared it was a
darling. She sent Sam for a bottle and some of the best milk, fed the
child and covered her warmly in a large arm chair which was pushed
against the bed so that she might hear the little one move in the night.
Tilly declared the little girl had aristocratic features. She fell
violently in love with her and declared she would not give her up. Sam
smiled and agreed. He seldom opposed Tilly, though he felt somewhat
doubtful of the propriety of keeping the baby. The little one grew
apace. She soon became the central sun of the household about which Sam
and Tilly revolved—two obedient satellites.
The household duties soon became too great for Tilly, and Elizabeth
Tillicum was sent for. Elizabeth was a New Jersey product, redolent of
the hills that border the Delaware. Her hair was sandy—the color of New
Jersey sand. Her eyes were blue—the color of the blue water of the
Atlantic which rolls over the New Jersey sand beaches, though this water
is often green; and her freckles were—just plain brown freckles. I am
not saying Elizabeth was beautiful—she was not. She agreed with
everyone; she was quite unable to contradict; indeed her acquiescence
was almost slavish. In size she was opulent. It seemed doubtful when she
sat down whether some portion of her anatomy might not spill over on the
floor but this never actually happened. With all her disposition to
conciliate she persisted in moving slowly, and all the alleged work that
she performed was performed at a uniform slow speed. Some critics
averred that she did not work—she lolloped. They said that when she did
do work it was so poorly done that it must first be undone and then done
over again. However this may be, Elizabeth steadfastly, slowly and
pleasantly pushed her way through the world. But she was not a bomb, she
was not even a torpedo.
Very few people can be reformed by preaching at them, object lessons are
more effective. Her own carelessness was well known to Tilly and made
her secretly admire Sam’s precision and half despise Elizabeth’s sloppy
work. The coming of the baby brought a change. Tilly read up on the care
of babies in a volume entitled “The Feeding and Care of Children.” This
learned work explained the overwhelming importance of cleanliness. It
detailed the various minute bugs which lurk in the air, water and soil
ready to seize and carry off the unsuspecting child. From a heedless
maiden, Tilly was rapidly transformed into the veriest martinet,
watching for the least speck of impurity to pounce upon and destroy it.
Everything the baby ate was sterilized, and the bottles, spoons and
plates scalded assiduously. Toward this campaign of cleanliness the baby
herself manifested a cynical indifference. She threw the bottle on the
floor. She drew her spoon through her hair, and after crawling through
all the dirt attainable, rubbed her grimy hands over her half-cleared
plate and then thrust the chubby paws down her throat. Such behaviour
was _anathema maranatha_ and filled Tilly with despair.
Sam was at first far from being charmed by the dirt and disorder which
the child insisted upon, but she soon vanquished him. Her velvet skin,
lovely color and wide open smile would have melted a stone, and Sam soon
became her slave. In return she manifested an ardent preference for his
society; crowed when he came home, howled when he left, insisted on
sitting in his lap, thrust her fingers into his eyes, nose and ears,
pulled his hair and showed not the slightest regard for his privacy or
the ordinary courtesies of life. Sam was reformed in spite of himself.
For the sake of peace he put up with rumpled hair, moist and slimy
kisses and greasy fingerprints on his coat. Such is the mollifying
discipline babies hand around in humanizing their elders.
The naming of the baby had been a dreadful ordeal, and nearly ended in a
rupture between Sam and Tilly.
“We do not know her name,” said Sam, “so we had better give her one
which is merely descriptive; then when her real name is divulged there
will be less temptation to ignore it. I propose to call her Monday
October Jones until we discover her real name. This is descriptive of
the day of the week and the month she came to us.”
“She shall have no such barbarous name,” said Tilly. “You may as well
call her Man Friday at once. I will not have any such name. She is going
to have a pretty name. Monday October Jones: the idea! I shall call her
Arma:
Arma virumque cano
Trojae qui primus ab oris
Don’t you remember that pretty verse Jimmy Case sings?”
Tilly’s words had an air of finality. She had been a bit uncertain
herself until Sam put in an oar. There was another rhyme which sang
through her consciousness making her undecided. It was:
Gaudeamus igitur
Juvenes dum sumus
that she had heard the college boys sing. But on the whole she inclined
toward Arma, for Gaudeamus did not sound like a female. So the baby was
named Arma Virumque Jones.
Arma was a romantic little soul. She thirsted for the unusual and
wonderful. As she grew to girlhood she invested those dear to her with
imaginary virtues. Tilly was a lovely and stately lady and Sam the
personification of all that was noble and good. She was a beautiful
girl, with curly brown hair and a clean mind. With her twelfth birthday
began her affairs of the heart. Her first flame was a beautiful Italian
boy who dwelt in an old house in the alley. This flame was quenched when
she encountered him after he had consumed a larger ration of garlic than
was usual. The next conflagration was started by the grocer’s boy, but
this was quenched when she overheard him swear. This was followed by a
passion for a young and rather dull divine who never dreamed of his
conquest, so that it died of inanition.
BOMB THE SECOND
The three were sitting in the living room one evening in June. Sam and
Tilly were reading and Arma was getting out her lessons, when a
resounding knock on the door was heard, and a great big, strong, jolly
man burst in, shook hands with Sam and noisily proclaimed how glad he
was to see “this darn old fraud” once more.
Sam’s face lighted with pleasure as he welcomed him and introduced him
as “Billy Gesundheit, my old friend and comrade in Pittsburgh.”
“My word, what a name!” thought Tilly, “But what a fine looking man. He
seems too good to be true.” This was during her trip upstairs to inspect
the guest room where he was to spend the night.
Sam had lived two years in the smokehouse city as chemist to a young
struggling steel plant. Before he left this puny infant industry had
begun putting on the seven league boots of manhood. At this time
Gesundheit was a hearty young workman to whom Sam took a fancy. This was
vigorously reciprocated; Sam was carried off to Billy’s home and
introduced to his widowed mother who was a wonderful housekeeper. She
became interested in Sam at once—for was he not a friend of her
Billy?—sewed on his buttons, darned his socks, and wound up by taking
complete possession. Sam soon moved into their spare room and, as the
homely phrase has it, “she ate him and slept him.”
Billy informed them that he had risen in rank considerably since Sam’s
departure and was now acting as manager of the works. He had come to New
York on business and must soon leave for home; he expected to make
frequent visits, however, and here he looked at Tilly, and he would not
fail to visit them as often as possible. He also informed them that
to-morrow was a holiday for them; he was to take entire charge, manage
all details and pay all expenses; all they need do was to enjoy
themselves as much as possible.
After breakfast next morning Billy produced a map of the city for each
member of the party. “A taxicab is coming at eight,” he began, “to take
us to the place where our excursion starts. I’m going to walk part of
the way; the rest of you may do so or ride, just as you please.”
“Where are we going?” said Tilly.
“We are going to circumnavigate the city,” said Billy. “I doubt whether
you know your own town. Most people do not. If we first go around it,
and then go through all the streets and alleys you will know it on the
outside at least. After we get through we will quiz one another on the
names of the streets and alleys and their location. It is good fun and
has a use beside.”
For about a mile the city line ran along the middle of a highway. It was
not a well paved highway. There were stones, tin cans and piles of
rubbish to be dodged. Then the line led through an orchard. Here Billy
got out, inviting the others to go with him, but only Tilly accepted the
invitation. The others followed the road, agreeing to wait for the
pedestrians at a point further along, while the foot passengers
gracefully climbed the fence. They had not gone more than a few hundred
feet among the trees, which were old and decayed, before they caught
sight of a house ahead. Sitting on the back porch in a hickory rocking
chair was an ancient lady, clad in calico, rocking gently to and fro
while knitting a pair of socks. As the travelers drew near, she looked
up and said:
“I’m knitting these socks for my son. He don’t like wool next his skin,
so I use cotton, but I have an awful time getting the right kind of
thread. If the thread is too coarse, he says they look like gunny bags
and if it is too fine the socks are not warm enough. He is very
pertickler, my son is. Maybe you know him; his name is Winterbottom;
first name Jeremiah, after his father. He’s well known in Wilmington.
Don’t you know him?”
“No,” said Billy, sitting down on the edge of the porch and making room
for Tilly beside him, “I don’t know him but I hear he is a very fine
man. I hope you will tell us more about him. What is his business?”
“Making flat irons. What’s yours?”
“I make iron and steel.”
“I don’t see then why you don’t know him. You got a nice lookin wife.”
“Thank you, I think so too,” said Billy, while Tilly blushed.
“Why did you let her think we were married?” said Tilly, after they had
left the old lady behind.
“Well I kinda wish we were, and I hoped she only had the news a little
ahead of time.”
“You are certainly a fast worker.”
“Sure, I no sooner saw you than I picked you. I can always make up my
mind quickly, and I’m after you from now on.”
This made Tilly laugh, but she did not seem displeased.
They picnicked in a grove near the edge of town and then finished the
circuit. Then they navigated all the streets and alleys and returned
home to quiz one another all that evening. They were all surprised to
find how much they had learned about the city.
Billy’s visits followed one another in quick succession. He knew his own
mind, as he had said, and Tilly’s inclined to him more and more. When
Sam awoke to the state of affairs he knew the second bomb had fallen and
might burst at any minute.
BOMB THE THIRD
Arma’s first loves were merely fancies. Having no substantial foundation
they died as soon as born. Sam and Tilly had made no secret of her
origin and she was spared a shock when she learned it of those pests of
society whom, like the poor and Congress, we have always with us. She
was a great reader and devoured all the books she could obtain. Among
these was Charlotte Bronte’s story of “The Professor.” With the reading
of this story a new point of view dawned upon her. She had before this
looked upon Sam as immeasurably older and belonging to a disappearing
age. But it appeared that a difference of ages was not so important as
she had imagined, indeed might be an advantage from many points of view.
Her previous flames had been boys, except for the divine, and he was a
man of no perception—not worth considering. Besides, Sam had
money—almost always a consideration with girls, who are nearly always
full of worldly wisdom. Sam had become a possibility. As she studied him
further he became a probability. She grew shy and a trifle coquettish.
But Sam for a long time took no notice. He was absorbed in other
matters.
Arma was, of course, very much interested in Tilly’s love affair as it
developed. She viewed it with much favor. The same worldly wisdom which
told her that Sam was desirable from a matrimonial point of view, told
her also that if Tilly should go to Pittsburgh Sam must more fully
depend upon her. She became interested in cooking and studied all Sam’s
needs. Tilly was studying Billy at the same time. Arma secretly began to
resent any interference with Sam—he was her property. She pampered him
like a born mother—which she was.
Gradually but unconsciously Arma revealed her new set of ideas to Tilly
who was not lacking in perception; but Tilly made no sign—she was
relieved. For Sam’s welfare was dear to her, and here were other hands
to take up the tasks she must lay down. She became Arma’s
co-conspirator, gradually resigning to her the primacy in Sam’s affairs
which she had hitherto kept as her own.
As Arma became absorbed in Sam, she began to manifest an interest in his
work and asked many questions. It was pleasant to teach a pupil so
bright, so much interested and so beautiful—for Sam could not help but
notice her beauty. There were others who saw it also. The young men
began to call and she was not annoyed at first; but few of them
interested her very long. They knew so little. One day she betrayed
herself. One of these boys had bored her for an hour before he departed
and she met Sam in the passage.
“Well, has he gone?” said Sam.
“Yes, he has,” she replied, “and I am so glad, I like you much better.”
And these words were accompanied by a look which would have awakened and
galvanized an anchorite, and then she blushed a rosy red and fled.
There are really two bombs in this chapter. Arma’s bomb was a copy of
“The Professor,” Sam’s bomb was the look Arma gave him when she blushed.
BOMB THE FOURTH AND LAST
It came the next morning while Arma was concocting a tapioca pudding—one
of Sam’s favorites. There was a ring at the front door and a
well-dressed lady entered and asked: “Does Samuel Jones live here?”
“Yes,” said Arma.
“Are you the little girl they found in their auto?”
“Yes,” said Arma, wonderingly.
“Then I am your mother.”
“Why did you give me away?”
“Your father deserted me and I was penniless. I have been poor ever
since until quite recently, too poor to claim you. An uncle in
California died last month and left me his money. I have been out
settling his estate and I am just back. I want you to go with me.”
“No,” said Arma, “I cannot go with you but I can see you very often, and
I am so glad I have a mother to love.” Then they fell into each others
arms in tears.
When Arma told her story at lunch the others gasped. She continued: “I
think I must go to her.” Then Sam gasped: “My God! I’ll be all alone.
Get her to come here, Arma, I can’t bear to have you go.”
Now wasn’t Arma a sly puss? And she did not go, Sam went to her. He told
her how much he loved her. She listened sagely and said: “yes, she liked
him pretty well. She thought she might like to stay with him.” And she
did. And after awhile Sam discovered that she had been madly in love
with him all the time—but he did not discover this for a long time, she
was a woman and did not tell all she knew for awhile. She grew more fond
of Sam every day and now she tells him everything—almost.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fat and Lean
-------
This story was told by lame Lewellyn Sangster to his aunt Margaret,
uncle Fred, cousin Anita and Sam the hired man.
Nan Heberlein and Lula Manting were fast friends. They were fond of
meeting at each others’ homes and pretending to sew; sometimes they did
sew; sometimes they promptly adjourned and went to the movies; sometimes
they called in their lady friends who were of the same order of busy,
and played 500, or bridge, or some other game; but always they talked;
and laughed; and ate. They were not singular people: they fitly
represented the average American lady who does most of her own work,
feeds and dresses her children and sends them to school, and in the
afternoon finds an hour or more to relax.
Nan was tall and slim, Lula was getting plump—at least so her friends
called it; her unfriends said she was pursey. But no one was so
conscious of her too great rotundity as Lula herself. It was constantly
in the back of her mind and frequently in a front pew. She liked to
discuss it with her friends and her husband—complainingly, anxiously,
plaintively, contemplatively, suggestively and in various other ways.
Jake listened and grunted; sometimes he forgot to listen and grunt while
his mind was dwelling on the quantity of sugar, or molasses, or
something else needed in the store. She occasionally noted this lack of
attention on Jake’s part but did not really resent it, for, she thought;
if he doesn’t pay much attention to it he probably still likes me all
right. But if he should notice much, or if it should increase, I must
certainly do something. But this something, what should it be? What
method must be adopted? She consulted the doctor on his next visit. That
much harassed and suffering servant of humanity suggested more exercise
and careful avoidance of fat and sugar in the diet. He also suggested
that it would be well to eat very sparingly and always leave the table
hungry. This gave her something to do, and she straightway began a
course of sprouts with herself. It was a sore trial to eat too little,
but she did it. Was it not worth something to retain Jake’s admiration
and desolation to lose it?
This whole matter was duly discussed and thoroughly considered,
forwards, backwards and sideways, when she and Nan next met. After which
Nan trotted out _her_ trouble. It was necessary, she said, that she
should gain weight. Tom had commented on her slimness, compared her to a
rail and several other articles more noted for length than breadth. Nan
only weighed 115. She should weigh at least 140. How could she increase
her weight? Lula had been reading up about such matters in a book
recommended by Dr. Dash, and she would see what he said and report.
This was done and Nan was recommended to eat plenty of raw eggs every
day. A dozen a day would not be too many. If she could not afford so
many eat as many as she thought she could afford; and drink lots of
milk. If this would not make her fat nothing would. It was necessary,
too, to take lots of exercise. The doctors say that exercise is
necessary to health, and whether you are to get thin or fat exercise is
of first importance.
After two weeks of self denial and exercise to excess, as she thought,
Lula, who had weighed 160, found her net reduced to 155. This seemed to
her hard lines. The game was not worth the candle. But she persevered
and at the end of two weeks more had fallen to 150. This was
encouraging, but she began to fear she would not be able to hold out
forever. She was so desperately hungry! Her dreams began to be haunted
by luscious feasts. She woke up in the night, ravenous. She told Jake
that if she were not desperately fond of him she would bite him. At
this, Jake only grunted. The worst deprivation was candy. She was
extravagantly fond of it, but the doctor sternly forbade it. Candy, fat
and sugar, as well as starchy foods were to be eschewed; even potatoes
were forbidden.
Nan, on the contrary, had eaten raw eggs and milk until she gagged every
time she undertook to eat a raw egg in milk. Lula suggested using a
little brandy to give a flavor, but this soon palled. She did manage to
reach 118 but halted there. Lula halted, too, on the downward path, at
150. No amount of fasting or exercise seemed to avail. About this time
she discovered that her skin was getting wrinkled and that, worst of
all, wrinkles were forming on her face. After much consultation it was
decided that a visit to a beauty doctor might possibly remedy this.
Instead of one visit several were required. All this time her appetite
was growing mightier and mightier. Finally she fell. They had been
shopping together. She had seen candy displayed until she was reckless.
In this mood, after leaving Nan, she hurried into a candy shop with the
air of a criminal, bought and ate half a pound. Nothing serious happened
immediately, so in a few days she bought and ate again—clandestinely.
Made reckless by lack of immediate results she resumed her old habits
and presently found her weight increasing rapidly—more rapidly than it
had gone down.
Nan had become discouraged. She felt well—better than she had felt for a
long time. She had, in fact, before this been eating too little. Too
many meals had been passed with nothing eaten but tea and toast—now she
was really nourished for the first time in years.
About this time she heard some one remark that yeast was a very
fattening food, and that she herself had put on twenty pounds by eating
a cake daily for three months. So Nan bought a cake and ate it with many
qualms. It was certainly not very agreeable to the taste. She
persevered, however, and after two weeks discovered that she was indeed
gaining. In fact she began to get fat. Slowly but steadily she put on
weight until she became alarmed. She was obliged to buy an entire new
outfit and although she stopped the yeast cakes she still swelled. Now
in despair she began, like Lula, to diet.
But imagine if you can all the discussions, the visits to and fro, the
consultations without end to which these fluctuations led. In mercy I
have not recounted them—but they took place.
Lula did her own washing, rolled on the floor every morning, practised
calisthenics. Wonderful to relate, she began to lose flesh steadily; her
skin wrinkled and her color faded. She became alarmed and consulted the
doctor who failed to find anything wrong. Now Lula is desperately trying
to lay on flesh while Nan is just as determinedly reducing.
* * * * *
“I never realized before,” said Lewellyn, “what an awful thing it must
be to be a woman.”
“It is indeed piteous,” said Sam. “The poor things have to wear skirts;
they are not allowed to put their feet on the table or spit tobacco
juice on the stove. But then they are freely allowed to do the washing
and such light work as taking care of ten or twelve children.”
“You must remember the disabilities she suffers,” said Fred. “She is not
allowed to go to war, nor is she expected to haul out manure in the hot
weather. When the time comes for putting in wheat I know of nothing more
enjoyable than hauling out manure and spreading it on the field. The
smell is appetizing, and like most perfume, it clings. The flies are
active and make the horses playful. I seldom enjoy life so much as then;
and it worries me that the dear ladies are not privileged to
participate.”
“Sam is right,” said Anita, “The women are privileged to bring up the
children. They bear the brunt of their childish impatience, recklessness
and disobedience. They stay up with them nights when they are sick and
they are expected to be patient and long suffering with husbands and
children when they can scarcely drag one foot after the other. I _have_
known of cases,” she continued, “where the women hauled coal out of the
cellars habitually, and cases are known where women plow, haul manure,
clean out dirty stables and help in the field. I don’t really think the
women need complain that their work is lacking either in quality,
quantity or variety.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Woozy
-------
Woozy opened his eyes for the first time and looked up. There was a
little boy, and in his hand was a saucer in which was some white stuff.
The boy smiled at him. Woozy was interested in the white stuff; it
looked good. He licked some with his tongue. It tasted good but it was
very cold. Woozy licked it again but pretty soon his tongue got so cold
he would have to stop licking for awhile. But he went on licking and
after awhile it was all gone and the dish was licked clean. Then he
looked up at the boy and said: “Woof!” But it was a very small woof, for
Woozy was a very small, round, roly poly puppy. He said woof, three or
four times but the boy only smiled for he had no more of the white
stuff. He would have given more to Woozy if he had had it but he could
not give more if he did not have it.
Pretty soon the door opened and a monstrous big dog came in. She went
over and tried to lick the boy’s face. Then she laid down beside him.
Then the boy took a ball of cord and rolled it into a corner and Woozy
trotted after it. He grabbed it and worried it, and growled—frightfully.
Pretty soon his mother went over to him, took him by the back of the
neck and carried him over to the boy and laid him down, as much as to
say:
“I think he is naughty, and you had better make him behave.” But the boy
just smiled and stroked the dogs with his hand. First he would stroke
the mother and then he would stroke Woozy. The mother would lick his
hand but Woozy pinched it with his sharp little teeth.
Woozy and the boy grew up together. They both got bigger every day until
the boy was nearly as big as his father and Woozy nearly as big as his
mother. Woozy thought the boy was perfect. He followed him everywhere.
If you saw the boy anywhere you might know that Woozy was around, and if
you saw Woozy you might know that the boy was not far off.
Sometimes they took long walks together in the woods. Woozy would run
off among the trees but pretty soon he would come back to the boy and
look up in his face and say: “woof,” which meant why don’t you come
along and have some fun? Once robbers tried to steal the boy, but Woozy
growled and showed his teeth until the robbers ran away.
One day the boy was crossing a pasture field. There was a cross bull
there lying down behind some bushes. When he saw the boy he began pawing
the dirt and then he ran after him. Woozy grabbed the bull’s tail and
held on till the bull turned around. Then he fell off and rolled over
and over. The bull ran after him and stuck one horn through his poor
body. The boy had climbed over the fence and he screamed and cried with
all his might. Then the bull threw up his head and poor Woozy’s dead
body flew over the fence. Oh, how mad the boy was and how he cried! His
mamma said, “Never mind dear, Woozy was willing to give his life for
you.” But the boy was lonely, and he cried as hard as he could cry when
they buried Woozy in the garden.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Hermit
-------
In a cave on the south side of the mountain there once lived a hermit.
He was only middle aged but his hair was white. He was kind of manner
and speech but he often sighed as one bereft of hope. He worked for the
farmers round about, who paid him with potatoes or other produce or
sometimes with money when they could spare it. He lived a lonely life on
the mountainside with no one to share it. Here he snared rabbits and
caught skunks and foxes and sold their skins. In a space before the cave
he built a rough cabin which concealed the entrance. To one side of this
he built a shack to house his chickens and on the other side he planted
apples, pears and peaches. Grapes he shunned as open to misconstruction.
He gathered firewood in the forest and no one molested him. The water
for drinking and cooking came from a spring on the mountainside not far
from his door.
He was kind to the children and often gave them candy. The path to and
from the schoolhouse led past his door and he often saw the school
teacher passing. She was a lady who had begun to teach several years
before this story opens. She had been very beautiful as a girl but now
some of her fresh complexion had gone where the good complexions go, and
she was using a powder puff instead. Her nose was a little sharper and
she was rather more positive in some of her ideas than she had been as a
young girl. The children always spoke to the hermit and in this way she
got to know him.
At Christmas time she had a two-weeks vacation. There was a heavy fall
of snow which drifted, so that all the roads were closed. She said to
her mother:
“I wonder how my poor hermit is getting along in this snow, all alone on
the mountainside.”
“It is too bad,” said her mother, who did and said pretty much as
Anna-Bell wished her.
When school opened again she stopped at his house to enquire.
The hermit said he was getting along pretty well, thank you, but she
looked around the room with distaste. There was much dirt in the
corners, the windows needed cleaning and dirty dishes were standing on
the table.
“Don’t you ever go to town?” said she.
“Yes,” he replied, “I am going this afternoon and shall not get home
until after dark.”
She made no reply but a light came into her eyes. After school she
hurried to the cottage, pinned a towel around her and began to sweep and
scrub. Then she closed the door carefully and went home. When he came
home it seemed more cheerful but he noticed nothing more. The next
morning he only said: “Good Morning,” though she seemed to expect
something more. That afternoon on her way home she asked him for a drink
of water.
Then she said to him: “Where are you from?”
“My home was in New York,” said he.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I was in the commission business,” he replied, “but I grew ashamed.”
“You deserve a reward,” said she, “choose one!”
“I need a cook,” said he, “come and cook for me as soon as you can
learn.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sandy’s Story
-------
I used to live in New Jersey when I was young, in a place called
Lopatcong Mills. I was workin in the mills. There was two other fellers
workin there with me and we was about the same age, size and build, as
you might say.
One of the fellers was Sam Harkness and the other Enos Kerber. Enos was
all for gittin married. He was e’enamost crazy about gals, and I guess
he pestered ’em some. Anyhow he didn’t seem to get along very fast
gittin married.
I aint very keen about gals myself, and I wasn’t then; but, as I said,
Enos liked to be with ’em. He spent most all his wages buyin ice cream
fer ’em. He said he kinda liked to see ’em lickin it up like nice little
pussy cats.
“Yes,” I says, “I guess you would like to be a mouse,” says I, “and
listen to what they says.”
“No,” says he, “but they use me like the cat would a mouse.”
Well, he was always talkin about the gals and about gittin married ’till
I got e’enamost worn out. So one day I says: “Enos,” says I, “why don’t
you advertise?”
“Advertise fer what?” says he.
“Why, fer a wife,” says I.
“Sure,” says he, “where can I do it?”
Sam Harkness and me put our heads together, as you might say, and we
wrote an “ad” like this:
“Advertiser wants to marry nice-looking girl about 20. Address with
photo, Box 28, Phillipsburg, N. J.”
We sent this with $5.00 to a paper in Chicago that we had seen, and
pretty soon Enos began to git letters and photos. The photos was all
good lookin; and to some of the best lookers Enos sent hisn. Now, hisn
was what you might call a side face, kinda sickly smilin, as if the man
that took it had said: “Now look smilin!”
Enos wasn’t a bad looker, himself, nor he wasn’t no beauty neither.
One day I took the bosses wife to the train; and I was standin on the
platform, when a middle aged female comes up to me and flung her arms
around me.
“Hello! Sandy,” says she, “here I am. Aint ye glad? Why,” she says,
“you’re better lookin than yer picture. I just took _such_ a fancy to it
that I got right on the train and come right on, and here I am.”
“Who are you lookin fer?” says I, gittin flustered, “I don’t know
nothing about this. What do you mean, anyhow?”
“Young man,” says she, “is this you? and is this your handwritin?” so
sayin, she pulls out a picture of me and a letter which I had written
fer Enos in lead pencil; but his name was rubbed out and mine signed.
“Well, that’s my picture,” says I, “but that letter’s a forgery, as you
might say.”
Well, she bust out a cryin and a crowd begun to form, so I put her in
the wagon and took her to the mill fer dinner. Then I brought her back
and put her on the train, her crying most of the time. I paid her fare
both ways and she said I was real kind and must come to see her, but I
aint been yet.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Hoboes
-------
After the close of the Civil War, from 1865 to a much later date, a
great many men had been soldiers and were discharged, had grown fond of
a wandering life and were unable to resist its charms. It was about this
time that the army of tramps gained so many recruits as to become a
great national nuisance. Many of these men were still clad, in whole or
in part, in army blue uniforms; and some of the army overcoats survived
several winters. There were many of these hoboes on the road, moving
from place to place, sometimes afoot, sometimes beating their way on the
railroads, where they finally became a menace to the trainmen and to the
communities along the right of way.
Most of the subsistence of these tramps was lifted from the charitable
by the process known as “slamming gates.” Not a few of the tramps were
very soft spoken when men or cross dogs were about but became bold and
saucy when the women folks were alone. The food gained by begging was
supplemented by petty thefts of chickens, eggs, green corn and other
produce and the snaring of rabbits and other small game.
Just above Milford, New Jersey, the Delaware River breaks through a
ridge of New Red Sandstone, forming a cliff of red rock, the color of
which is due to peroxid of iron, facing the south. Along these cliffs
there are many ledges; and in the winter, as the sun beats against these
ledges, it heats the rocks and creates an atmosphere several degrees
warmer than that of the surrounding country.
On one of these ledges overhanging the railroad, which follows the New
Jersey shore of the river, a band of hoboes had established their camp.
There had been a heavy fall of snow the night before as two tramps were
released from the county prison at Flemington where they had been
spending a sad week breaking stone.
“Better not come this way again,” said the Sheriff as he released them;
“we’ve got your numbers here, and next time you’ll get a heavy dose.”
“I’m going to head for Milford camp,” said Harvard Jim to Deadwood Ike,
his companion, “I am getting tired of Jersey.”
“This here beats cock fightin,” replied Ike. “Every darn muscle in my
body aches to beat the band, and here we’re turned out in the snow.
Lucky we had breakfast.”
All day they plodded doggedly along toward Milford, cold and with wet
feet. At noon they had several “hand outs” which fended off starvation,
and that night they camped in a wood where the bushes sheltered them and
their fire. The next day was warmer and the sun shone, melting the snow.
They reached the camp with wet feet, tired and hungry and were greeted
with jeers and laughter. The pot was boiling over a wood fire and they
were soon fed and warmed. The ground was bare and not too dry as they
hunted a place to rest. Finally, Ike curled down and tried to go to
sleep, but was kept awake by an intolerable prickling sensation in his
back. This grew worse until it became intolerable.
“Say boys!” said he, “Something’s the matter with my back.” So saying,
he started to strip off his coat.
“Wait a minute,” said Harvard Jim, “you have something hanging to your
coat.” So saying, he pulled it off but immediately began to dance and
swear.
“That’s a cactus,” said another tramp. “I forgot to tell you they’re
thick around here.”
The best part of an hour was spent in picking spines from their
respective hides, and then they once more went to rest, this time
carefully inspecting the premises to avoid the cactus.
Next morning they started for the Milford Bridge resolved to quit Jersey
forever; but at the bridge they were met by the toll-keeper who declined
to allow them to pass without the customary two cents each. This they
did not have but were forced to beg with poor success—plenty to eat but
no money. Just at this point they were stopped by the constable who put
them under arrest for begging.
“Say, friend,” said Harvard Jim, “if you will find us a place where we
can saw some wood for a quarter we will pay our way over the bridge and
stay away from Jersey.”
“All right,” said the constable, “I have some wood myself.”
For two hours they toiled, one with the saw, the other with the axe,
sawing and splitting a huge pile of firewood, inspected meanwhile by the
constable. At the end of this time they struck work and were offered ten
cents each.
“Have a heart, brother,” said Ike, “that’s no way to treat us.”
“Beat it, or I’ll put you in the jug,” said he, “and none of your lip,
either.”
They were silent until they reached the middle of the bridge; then Ike
shook his fist at Jersey and swore furiously.
“Breakin stone, trampin in snow, sleepin on cactus, sawin wood, an
cheatin constables. Damn such a State!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jumping Steel
-------
“I suppose you know,” said Sam “that there are a great many kinds of
steel in the market nowadays, such as high carbon steel, low carbon
steel, manganese steel, tungsten steel, nickel steel....”
“Yes,” said Lewellyn, “and Wildcat oil steal and Wall Street steals....”
“Now, Lewellyn,” said aunt Margaret, “this is Sam’s story, not yours.”
“All right,” said Lewellyn, “I guess I can stand it if you can.”
“There are a great many ways of treating steel, too,” continued Sam,
“for giving it desired properties, some of which have been very
successful.”
“I knew a fellow in the Bethlehem Steel Company several years ago who
was a nut on steel treating. He said that by selecting the proper kind
of steel, such as nickel steel or chrome steel or some other sort, it
was possible to get any desired properties if you gave the steel proper
heat treatment. He was my roommate for a year and he talked about this
so much that I got all worn out—and mad.
“First I told him that I wanted a steal that could not be found out but
he paid no attention. Then I asked whether it would be possible to make
a steel for springs that could be pushed down two inches and come back
four. I found I had given him something to think about. He shut up right
away and began to think. I could always tell when he was thinking by the
fishy stare that came into his eye; like the eye of a fresh fish that is
ten days old.
“He studied on this for nearly a week and I had a blessed rest. I began
to hope it would keep him quiet forever; but at the end of the week he
said he thought he could do it. His eyes had lost the fishy stare and a
smile spread over his face and stayed there. I forget what the steel was
to have in it but I remember it was to contain molybdenum.
“He went up to Bethlehem the very next day and I saw no more of him for
a week. When he came back he said he had been working hard and thought
he was on the track but the darn stuff was brittle. Still he thought he
might be able to overcome that if he had time enough. I told him he
could have all the time that was coming but he paid no attention. Every
time he came back after that he would sit and stare and the fishy look
would come back: then he would slap his leg and hurry back to Bethlehem.
“About a month after I had put the idea into his head he came back one
day and said he had the kind of steel I wanted.
“I told him to make me two coiled springs two inches wide and four
inches long, with a steel plate fastened to either end. One of these
plates was to have four holes in for screws, so it could be fastened to
the heel of a shoe. I said that on second thought he had better make
three springs, so that if one broke we might still have enough.
“Yes, he thought that might be wise, because springs were apt to break.
When he came back next time he had a dozen springs in a box. They were
beautifully made and were silver plated, too.
“Then we couldn’t agree at first who should put them on and see how they
worked. He said I had started the idea, and it would not be fair that he
should have the honor of first trying them. But I said the idea was not
worth much; he had made the right kind of steel and the way to heat
treat it; that was two to my one. I was really afraid to try the darn
things myself, and when you hear what happened you won’t wonder.
“We fastened one spring to each of a pair of his shoes. He did not put
them on but carried them and wore another pair to the end of Bushkill
Street where we planned to try them out. There isn’t much traffic there,
and we wanted a quiet place for our experiment. He put on the spring
shoes at Green Street and jumped towards the river. The first jump was
two feet, the second four, the third eight and the fourth sixteen. By
the time he got to the river he was jumping sixty-four feet at a clip.
Then the spring on his left foot broke with a loud crack and he turned
half around and struck the water horizontally at thirty miles an hour.
He went under and came up a little further on, came around in a circle
and shot out on the sand. He was stunned at first, but as soon as he
felt a little better he asked me to get his other shoes and take these
off, which I did.
“After that we walked home and he sat thinking for quite awhile. After
he came out of this trance he said it seemed easy enough to go, the
problem was, how were we to stop? He thought it would be easy to steer,
too, by holding one foot out a little further than the other. We could
learn to do that easy enough. The best way to stop, he thought, would be
to have a spring on the end of a stick. By holding this so it would
strike the ground first it would send you back and then you would stop.
“So he got a stick, or rather two sticks—one for each hand—and put a
spring on each. We had our next jumpin match on the Twelfth Street lot
about midnight of a moonlight night. He jumped two feet and came back
four; jumped eight feet and came back sixteen. By the time he was up to
sixty-four feet he struck the roof of a house, went through and landed
in a bed. It was lucky he did: he might have been killed if he had
landed anywhere else. It was a slate roof, and he was pretty badly
scratched when he came down in his stocking feet. He was afraid to keep
his shoes on for fear he might get started again. The man who owned the
house was with him, looking pretty mad.
“It cost him quite a little to mend the roof and pacify the man, but he
finally got it fixed up. I told him he wanted to be more careful; next
time he might land in a bed with some girl or the old woman and that
would cost him more yet.
“I got so nervous about this time that I moved into another room. I was
afraid if I went on going out with him the police might manage to stay
awake long enough to pinch us. The last time I saw him he told me they
had made some bed springs out of this steel by mistake and some of them
were sent out and used. He heard of a man who had a cot in his summer
tent. He came in one afternoon very tired and threw himself on the cot
and the next thing he knew he flew through the top of the tent fell back
and broke through and landed on the floor with an awful jolt. He told me
he was sure that steel would be a money maker as soon as he learned how
to control it.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the Way from Melbourne
-------
A college teacher learns much about far away places if he cares to do
so. This knowledge is also very intimate and very accurate. It is the
kind of knowledge that cannot be drawn from books of travel or from
encyclopedias. It is first-hand information given by people who have
lived there. It is obtained from his students. Most of those he is
called upon to teach come, probably, from within a radius of fifty or a
hundred miles. There is always a sprinkling, however, of boys from far
off places.
Rochambeau College always has a few such. I can remember among them
several from Japan, from China, India, South America, and one from Siam.
We sometimes hear from these boys after they have returned to their
homes and once in a great while we are rich enough to visit them. What a
fuss they make when we do and how glad they seem to be to see us. I have
been something of a traveler in a small way and everywhere I have gone,
and been able to turn aside to visit the boys, I have met the most
cordial welcome. This is one of the rewards that come to the teacher who
has tried to do his best. Sometimes he comes in contact with people from
distant lands in strange ways; and it is about one of these strange
happenings that I am about to tell.
After I had been teaching for several years I married Sally Lunn, the
daughter of a local baker. We had two sons and a daughter to bless our
union. I noticed as the years passed that my surplus cash was waning
rather than waxing. This led me to make a careful review of the
situation. My salary was scarcely opulent and was not mounting with
great rapidity. It was evident that if Providence saw fit to endow us
with a continued shower of childish blessings I must either find more
income or breakfast, lunch and dine on corn mush—and I was not fond of
mush.
Among my early investments had been the purchase of a printing press.
The outfit was a small one but it was complete and such as enabled me to
make a beginning as a printer in a small way. As I practised the art I
became constantly more skilful and could now print a very fair job. This
seemed to furnish an opening and I went to work. The venture was
moderately successful and led to a decided, though moderate, increase in
my income. Presently I was able to buy a larger press and more type and
to rent a room in the town in which to install it. Here I employed a
competent foreman and began my commercial career.
I had written a text book for my pupils in the meantime and this I
printed and published. Then I started a journal in which my book was
advertised, leading to orders from abroad and the influx of manuscripts
from my friends. In a few years I had a prosperous business on my hands
and all my spare time was usefully employed. It soon became necessary to
arrange for agents for the sale of my publications abroad. This was
easily arranged in London and Tokio but more difficult in other places.
I wrote to Secretary of Commerce Hoover for the name of an agent in
Melbourne and he sent me the names of about fifty firms, dealers in
books in that place. I immediately aimed at the flock and fired four
letters at random, but brought down no birds. Weeks and months passed on
without a response.
I am a late riser by preference and an early one only under compulsion.
I was finishing my breakfast at a moderate rate one morning when word
came that a gentleman had called and was waiting for me. My visitor was
a middle aged man, plainly dressed in tweed with a cloth cap. He
informed me that he was traveling for pleasure and had undertaken to go
from New York to San Francisco by auto. He had stopped for the night at
our local hotel and in descending a dark stairway had fallen and broken
his arm. He was admitted to the hospital, permitted the setting of the
arm and submitted to the necessary delay—for it was impossible to drive
with one arm. He found himself doomed to inaction, for his daily
occupation was confined to a visit to the hospital to have his arm
dressed, and time hung heavy on his hands. In this dilemma he inquired
of Dr. Kuhlmann, his attendant and one of my old students, whether there
was not some one else in the place with a taste for science. Dr.
Kuhlmann had referred him to me.
I told Mr. Humphreys that I was very glad to meet him and would do my
best to help him pass the time pleasantly during his enforced delay. I
found he was posted on his own country, Australia. He knew something
about its geology and about its politics also. I announced that we would
have an evening together with our professors of geology and economics in
a day or two, as soon as it could be arranged. In the meantime I asked
him whether he liked to dance? He said he did, and my wife, who had met
him by this time, invited him to spend that very evening with us—we
expected some young people in to dance and thought it might amuse him.
He came and was much liked by the young folks. A few evenings later he
came to tea with us and spent the evening with the two professors and
their wives. Of course they pumped him for first-hand information and
obtained it. We spent a delightful and very profitable evening together.
The next morning I proposed to take him over my publishing house. We met
there and made the rounds. I showed him some of our books and he
appeared to be more than ordinarily interested in them. As he was
leaving he informed me that he was starting for the West in the morning
after. “I don’t see why,” he said, “I might not sell some of your books
myself. I am a scientific bookseller in Melbourne, and I shall take
great pleasure in selling as many of your books as I can.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Defense of the Wealthy
-------
Contrary to a generally held opinion, there are some wealthy people who
may be successfully defended. There are not so many of them, however,
that any serious disturbance need be created. There is, perhaps, some
danger that these may be overlooked in the universal damnation that is
being handed out to the malefactors of great wealth.
The first exception to be noted is that of the inventor. Quite a few of
these men have lightened our tasks to a very considerable extent. They
have in a few cases amassed a competence by taxing us for their
inventions for seventeen years. After that their work is free for all,
at least in theory. A great many of these men have had no benefit from
their inventions and might well be pensioned from public funds. In not a
few cases the profits that should have gone to them have been filched by
men who had money to lend. Such cases should be overhauled and the
ill-gotten gains of the banker folks restored to their proper owners. It
would be well also to give the bankers the spanking they need, thus
making one job of the whole business.
When we think that Whitney, who invented the cotton gin; Steinmetz, the
electrical wizard; Pupin, who perfected the telephone; Edison, Gray,
Acheson, Morse, McCormick and thousands of others, some as well, others
less well known belong to this class, we realize how greatly we are
indebted to them, and how cheaply we get off by allowing them to profit
by their inventions for seventeen short years.
Then there are some school teachers and college professors who might be
excepted and a few ministers. Some of these fellows married money, and
we will not except these; some of them inherited money, and we will not
except these; a few of them stole money, and these must be spanked.
After these exceptions have been made there will be a few left and they
have lived such a deuce of a life that we will let them go.
There does not seem to be any great harm in the man who saved in order
that he might keep out of the almshouse when he grew too old to work. We
should not tax these people, either, if they have only moderate means.
Our wise legislators, however, do not seem to think so. Many cases of
this kind have been heard of during and since the late unpleasantness
where the poor souls had a hard time keeping body and spirit together
after the tax collector was through with them.
All farmers who have made money should be let off, provided they made
money by real farming and not by selling fancy cattle, poultry, etc., at
startling prices. Real farming is a man’s job, and those who succeed at
it deserve to be patted on the back. The fellows who sell the blooded
stock belong in about the same class as the bond salesman—we will come
to these later on.
The married couples who bring up and properly educate, say four or more
children, are also deserving. If their children are grateful so much the
better; if they chip in and support their father and mother—fine! In the
last case we might safely except everybody concerned.
Of course we must except the lame, the halt and the blind; and perhaps a
few others have been unintentionally skipped, but there seem to be few
others. Now we come to those who need punishment of some kind.
First among these are the office-holders. There are a few among them who
really earn all they get—but not many. Office holding ought to be made a
dangerous business, and running for the Presidency punished with death.
Bankers ought to be periodically inspected and made to give an account
of themselves, so should lawyers, and real-estate agents. The doctors,
some of them, need watching. They are a frightfully jealous lot and
outside testimony only, can be relied on. If a good one is found he
should be patted on the back. There are a lot of these but most of them
live in the country where the air is good. Those who live in the city
and have hospitals where they charge $100.00 for opening a pimple and
$25.00 for giving you four ounces of ether should be heavily docked and
then fined.
There are far too many wholesale and retail merchants and too few
farmers. We might well cut out half of the merchants for a start and
make them move out on farms where they could be really useful. If they
commit suicide instead of farming, so much the better. There are also
too many book agents and bond salesmen and brokers and clerks in stores.
Too many newspapers are published and too much paper wasted in doing it.
This needs regulating. The best way to do it is to tax these things and
let the farmers alone for the present, until they have $5.00 ahead.
And the fellows who are loafing around waiting for a bonus should be put
to a painless death. They will never be of any real use. The labor
agitators and strike leaders are in the way, too.
Anybody who spends his time loafing or playing golf should be stopped,
questioned and put to work. If he refuses he should be shipped off to an
island set apart for the purpose where he must work or starve.
All such wealthy ones should be treated as indicated and some of those
not wealthy but who belong to the same classes need much the same
treatment.
While we are about it we may perhaps just as well do a little more
regulating. The Germans, for example, have too many children and the
French too few. We should take warning and govern ourselves accordingly.
Of course some people claim that these things are regulated by
Providence but it seems probable that there are other forces at work.
Four children to a family seems to be about right and it is suggested
that a committee, all the members of which have done their full duty and
are from Missouri, be appointed to see that there are no slackers. This
is a species of wealth that needs regulating as well as other kinds.
The old maids and old bachelors should be heavily taxed unless they can
satisfy a Missouri committee that they have made determined efforts to
commit matrimony. In that case they should have assistance.
All would-be voters should be carefully examined before it is allowed
and the recall and repeal should be in order. Every voter should be able
to spell his or her name, tell what rivers run through and by Easton,
where the Atlantic is situated and what Sing Sing is noted for. After
all are educated up to this point, the tests should gradually be
toughened until only those really fit can vote. They should be _made_ to
vote every time. Gradually, in this way, every man can learn how to milk
cows, husk corn, run a plow and chase the pigs out of the oats. The
women will be able to darn stockings, bake bread, sew shirts and run a
bridge party.
By the time these ideas are put to work the millennium will be close at
hand and we need no longer flee from the tax gatherer or hide from the
bond salesman.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Skin of the Bear
-------
This story, according to De Comines, was told by the Emperor Frederick
III of Germany to an emissary of King Louis XI of France who wished him
to conspire against the Duke of Burgundy to their mutual advantage:
Two ne’er-do-wells living in the interior of Germany had patronized the
local inn keeper without paying his bill until the latter became weary.
He finally told them that he would give them no more credit. They soon
became hungry, thirsty and desperate, and consulted together as to how
they might once more establish their credit. While engaged in thus
scheming their hunger and thirst steadily increased until it became
overpowering. Now you must know that the villagers had been greatly
harried by a monstrous big black bear who, from the adjoining forest,
ravaged their flocks and their gardens. He was especially fond of sheep
and almost nightly carried off and devoured them. Nothing was any longer
safe in the village night or day and large rewards were offered to
anyone who would kill him and thus save them from loss. This was known
to the two bums who proceeded to make use of it with the good natured
landlord. They told him if he would only give them enough to eat and
drink to appease their hunger and thirst they would at once go in search
of the bear and proceed to kill him and take off his hide. This, they
assured the inn keeper, was an enormous hide and its sale would yield a
large sum which they proposed to use in extinguishing their debt and any
future advances he might see fit to make. This was not all; with the
rewards they would collect they should become opulent, and they promised
to spend this at his house, so that all this money would in the long run
come to him alone. The tavern keeper was of an optimistic turn of mind
and listened to their tale with renewed hope, finally agreeing to do as
they asked. The two conspirators, as soon as they had filled their
bellies started out in quest of the bear. Now it happened that bruin had
become hungry earlier than usual that evening and that he had started to
forage earlier. After eating several ears of corn which he took from a
field alongside the road he hurried along in the gathering dusk toward
the village. The adventurers were headed in the opposite direction on
the same road and they rapidly drew together. The bear was the first to
detect their approach with a loud Whoof! This startled the bums and
frightened them very badly. Without the least delay, the eldest promptly
took to a tree which, fortunately for him, spread its branches close by
the road. The second loafer was so badly frightened that he fell down in
a dead faint and lay upon the ground without motion. Without hesitating
the bear trotted up and smelled the man by putting his nose to the
latter’s ear. Finding no motion, and thinking the man dead, the bear,
after taking several sniffs and turning the fellow over with a thrust of
its paw, proceeded on its way. After a short time the tree climber
descended and ran off as fast as his legs could carry him. The man who
had fainted presently recovered and proceeded to do likewise. Seeing his
friend scampering along at a great pace some distance ahead he hailed
him and his friend stopped and allowed him to come up. Together they
proceeded toward the town and related their tale to the landlord, not
without much embellishment. The tavern keeper finally agreed, in
consideration of the difficulty of their task, to give a further
extension of credit. But the tree climber was dissatisfied and proceeded
to question his fellow bum. “What did the bear ask you,” said he, “when
he whispered in your ear?” His mate replied: “He did not whisper to me.”
“Yes he did,” said the first, “he whispered in your ear for some time.
Did I not see him do it? Try not to deceive me, it will be in vain.”
Now the faint-hearted one was also a wit and he, therefore, hesitated
and finally confessed that something had passed, but declared he was not
obliged to divulge it. This made the first bum angry and he assailed his
fellow with threats and reproaches. But still the latter declined to
divulge the secret. This led to renewed threats and finally to blows.
The possessor of the secret was vanquished and finally agreed to tell it
to his fellow, but only in the presence of the landlord and the village
magistrate. It was also agreed that after telling the secret he should
be allowed to go free without further molestation. To this clause the
landlord, whose curiosity had been aroused, also agreed; further, he
promised to protect the possessor of the secret. These details having
been arranged the parties met one morning in the house of the
magistrate. The second vagabond first recited the agreement and having
procured the assent of all parties began as follows:
“When Bruin appeared I was frightened and fell in a faint. From this I
was awakened by a rough tongue licking my cheek and a bearish voice
whispering in my ear. It said: ‘You were to kill me were you not, and to
take off my hide and sell it? And you were to collect the money offered
as rewards, and having thus acquired much money you agreed, did you not,
to pay the account of the landlord and stay with him until your money
was exhausted?’
“I was badly frightened and, thinking my time had come and resolving to
endanger my hope of salvation by no more lies, I nodded my head in
assent. The bear then said:
“‘Very well, you are properly punished. As for the rascal in the tree
the inn keeper has made no agreement with him such as that he will make
with you; and when you have escaped his wrath I advise him to clap him
in jail. In the meantime I will advise you both never in future to sell
the hide of a bear before you have killed it, nor would I collect
rewards for its death before the death takes place.’ As for the Judge,
he is a rascal anyhow and at all times, and is well able to take care of
himself.” With this the vagabond darted from the room and ran up the
street pursued by all three who had forgotten their promises in their
resentment. He however made good his escape.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Visit from the Wileys
-------
Many years ago, shortly after I began teaching at Lafayette College, I
determined to join The American Association for the Advancement of
Science. This long-winded name was given by themselves to a collection
of bookworms who every year assembled in some good-sized city, after
having collected some thousands of dollars for expenses of the local
merchants, and held as many as a dozen pow wows in as many different
rooms. In one of these rooms a learned discussion on one or more
mathematical questions was kept up during most of the hours of daylight;
in a second, subjects in physics were undergoing examination; a third
room was occupied by the chemists, a fourth by the biologists;
everywhere there was a sprinkling of “nuts” who were in danger of
breaking out and must be sat upon in order not to discredit the serious
minded.
The discussions sometimes dropped into a burst of self-admiration by
some savant devoted to the holy cause of science who was keeping the
lamp of knowledge burning in poverty and distress. These wails were
occasionally broken in upon by another wholesome-minded soul, like the
great Cope, who boldly declared that he was not suffering but having a
good time and could be happy in no other way.
In the evenings some of us put on our best clothes and attended a garden
party given by a local magnate where we met the money bags of the
neighborhood and for an hour breathed the unaccustomed air of luxury; or
we attended an evening lecture given by some member of the attending
band of scientists in compliment to the hosts; a chosen few assembled at
a room where good beer was to be had, in ordinary dress, drank a little
beer and listened to stories and discussions straight from the shoulder
and worth while.
It was in these evening discussions and in daylight visits to points of
geological or other interest that we became acquainted and learned to
enjoy the great week of the year. It was here that I first met Le Conte,
Cope, Major Powell, the one-armed explorer of the Colorado canyon,
Brashear, who made his first lenses from tumbler bottoms and Wiley, the
jolly farmer giant, _facile princeps_ among men.
I believe I first met Wiley at Buffalo in August, 1886. We visited
Niagara together as part of a jolly crowd and had a happy day. Nearly
every year for many years after I met Wiley at these meetings. I also
met him elsewhere. He came to Easton nearly every year for awhile to
lecture to my students. The lecture room was large enough to hold the
audience at first, but as he became better known we moved over to Pardee
Hall into a room large enough to hold the crowd that came to enjoy the
treat. Presently the “old man,” as we called him, was asked to go to
Lehigh whenever he came to Lafayette. I always went up with him and
listened again. His lectures were always new, never twice the same.
On one occasion he wrote me asking whether he might spend an extra day
with me and I gladly acceded. We rode all day through the hills and
woods over Scott’s Mountain and had a jolly day. When the attempt to
pass pure food legislation became strenuous Frear and I conspired in its
behalf and carried our point. When he became President of the American
Chemical Society he chose me as editor and we toiled together at the
heavy task. Afterwards I printed and published his great work on
Agricultural Chemical Analysis. In all this work and play he was the
kind, indulgent older brother.
For many years he led the lonely imperfect life of a bachelor until he
had reached the ripe age of 62 when his love of many years yielded to
his wishes and they were married. I shall never forget the glad smile on
his face as my wife and I came up to congratulate them and he realized
that we had traveled all the way from Easton to wish him joy.
Upon a later occasion we visited Washington with a large party of
chemists and, with many others were the guests of Dr. and Mrs. Wiley at
a dinner at the Raleigh. But we had the advantage of most of the other
guests, for we were admitted behind the scenes before the dinner came
off. Mrs. Wiley and Nan Pierce, Dr. Wiley’s Secretary, told us about
some of the funny things that had occurred. Dr. Wiley was away from home
and they were forced to make all the arrangements. They knew only a few
of his friends and succeeded in inviting several dead people to the
feast.
Upon another occasion we were in Washington with a party of Rotarians
and the Wileys invited us to dinner at their home in Ashmead Place. Here
we met the Wiley boys, Harvey Jr. and John, for the first time, while my
wife told us, to our great joy, how, by a series of amusing
misunderstandings, she had narrowly escaped being a guest at one of Mrs.
Harding’s private parties. In the evening we attended a literary soiree
with Dr. and Mrs. Wiley and greatly enjoyed the papers read and the
chaff that formed a part. It was a real literary treat.
Then we learned that his eyesight was failing and that he was soon to be
operated upon for cataract. The day of the operation passed and we had
no news. We dare not telegraph for fear the operation had not succeeded.
Thus a week passed. At last we learned that he saw once more though not
so well as of old.
We saw Dr. Wiley again at the Golden Wedding of Dr. and Mrs. W. H.
Nichols at Sherry’s last winter. Dr. Wiley seemed well and in good
spirits. We saw comparatively little of him here because so many of his
friends were present and each claimed a share of his time.
Several months later a letter arrived telling us that the family
expected to start for Cambridge, Mass., shortly, where Wiley was to
attend the fiftieth reunion of his class at Harvard. They would arrive
in Easton in the evening by auto and would spend the night with us. I
immediately replied that the road up College Hill was closed for repairs
and that they must telephone me on arrival and allow me to join and
pilot them.
Accordingly, at 8 P. M. the telephone rang and Mrs. Wiley’s voice
announced their arrival. They were dusty and tired and soon after dinner
retired to rest.
We have quite a good-sized house but the family is large and only two
extra rooms were available. One of these contained a large wooden
bedstead heavy and strong enough to support a hippopotamus; this was
dedicated to Dr. and Mrs. Wiley. The other room had a large brass
bedstead which had been used for many years. Originally it had been well
and strong; but long continued use by our four stocky boys as a
spring-board and general exercise ground had weakened our confidence in
its ability to sustain heavy weights. We thought, however, it would
surely sustain the two boys. After they had all retired and it was too
late to interfere, from sundry movements and murmurings overhead, it
became evident that a readjustment had taken place and that Dr. Wiley
and his huskiest son were in the weak bed while Nan and the younger boy
occupied the bed for elephants. We listened in dreadful suspense for a
breakdown. Fortunately none came and the extra weight was safely
carried.
For ten days we heard nothing of the Wileys and then they drove up on
their way home. They had had a wonderful time at Harvard and on the way
home. On the way they stopped at a country hotel and John had climbed up
to the peak of the roof and was unable to get down. Then he called to
his father for help and that hard-hearted parent refused to assist him
for some time but finally relented.
Mrs. Hart had no help in the kitchen and the Doctor thought they had
better not stop but I persuaded him otherwise. I said: “We want you to
stay. We will let you help us and will dispense with all frills. I have
so arranged that Mrs. Hart shall not be overworked and shall be able to
enjoy your visit.” On that understanding they consented to stay. The
next day was Thursday, the meeting day of our Rotary Club, and the
Doctor, the Wiley boys and my own four boys were my guests at the Rotary
lunch. They made quite an array, and there was much quiet amusement as
they filed in and sat down. After the lunch Dr. Wiley was called upon to
speak and made us a short address—such a happy talk as only Wiley can
make.
In the meantime Mrs. Wiley and Dr. Kate De Witt Miesse, our family
physician and a friend of Mrs. Wiley, and my wife, were dining at the
Pomfret Club, guests of my wife. Behind the curtains that night I heard
the story from my wife of how her two guests discoursed on woman’s
rights while she sat and listened and enjoyed the fun.
That night at dinner we had ice cream and cake for dessert, and the boys
brought in the towering piece of cream fresh from the can. It towered
above my wife as she sliced off the portions and finally toppled over on
the platter. Mrs. Wiley had been watching it in nervous terror, and as
it went over she screamed and shouted: “My soul and body!” much to our
amusement. The Doctor informed us that for a moderate surprise she
called: “My soul!” but great occasions called for: “My soul and body!”
The next day was raining and we were not able to visit the farm as we
had planned but spent the day at home resting. The following day was
beautiful and we had an early breakfast that they might be soon on the
road. The topic somehow shifted to the question of woman’s rights and
the Doctor proceeded to tell us how, in pursuit of these rights, his
wife had become a criminal and been hustled to the gaol while her
devoted family were scouring the country to find her.
They had been persecuting Mr. Wilson, he said, and merited their sad
fate but he thought she had no business to leave three hopeless orphans
stranded as she had. We all laughed and almost screamed with delight as
the story proceeded.
After breakfast the Doctor begged us to go part way with them. They
expected to stop at Valley Forge and they wanted us to go too. We
finally agreed to go. At Doylestown my auto shed a tire and we sent for
the garage man while we lunched in the shade of the trees. It was
determined to leave my machine while I was to ride with my wife or with
the Wileys. Then Mrs. Wiley cornered me and said I must not strike or
push a lady while the Doctor paid the garage man.
When I tried to get in my wife’s car I found all the boys there; of
course they wanted to be together, so I got in with the Wileys. We drove
around Valley Forge Park and enjoyed the beauty of the spot and reminded
ourselves of the poor soldiers, freezing and starving the winter away,
and proceeded to climb the tower. John went ahead and reached the very
top before his mother spied him and then she once more screamed: “My
soul and body!”
My boys were very fond of Mrs. Wiley. So was I until I became aware of
the disaffection she had stirred up. Previous to this visit my wife had
been obedient, as all wives should be, but now she began to speak up.
She told us Mrs. Wiley said that every wife who took care of her man and
his children was self supporting and had a _right_ to share his wealth
if he had any. This is dreadful doctrine as all but the depraved must
agree. I am wondering whether we had better have Mrs. Wiley again?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the Days of the Roses
-------
In the days of good King Harry the Sixth there was bitter strife in all
the land between the houses of York and Lancaster. The adherents of one
house oppressed, robbed and even murdered the adherents of the other.
Political hatred grew apace and filled the land with civil wars. Houses
were burned, churches were robbed and cattle were lifted. No one was
sure of his life or property. Landless men were organized as bands of
robbers making the highways unsafe. As a direct consequence of this
waste of life and treasure the French lands won by Edward the Third, his
son, the Black Prince, and Harry the Fifth were rapidly lost by the
incapable Duke of Suffolk until only Calais and a strip of territory in
the south of France remained.
With all his goodness the sixth Henry was but a feeble king, not ruling
but ruled by his imperious wife and rugged, warlike barons. These were
the days in which printing was invented, when armor was becoming useless
before the advance of gunpowder and the introduction of firearms. The
feudal system had entered upon its decay; superstition reigned but
Lollardism under Wyckliffe had begun to undermine Roman Catholicism. The
results of that terrible scourge, The Black Death, which swept Europe in
1347 carrying off a third of the population, were still felt in the
scarcity of labor and higher wages.
Twenty miles northwest of London in the little town of St. Albans a fire
broke out one day in June, 1440, in an old house in Dagnal Lane. It was
a poor quarter and there was a loud outcry as the inhabitants began
carrying their scanty belongings to safer places. The watch came
clattering down the street with their leather fire buckets and formed a
line to the nearest well which was soon bailed dry. No attempt was made
to save the burning house; efforts were confined to keeping the fire
from spreading. Suddenly a woman screamed: “there are children in the
house!”
“Body o’ me,” said Jed Fenchurch to his wife, “gie me thy apron!”
Wrapping it around his face he dashed through the half open door, out of
which smoke was pouring and presently emerged, choking, panting and
cursing with a child on each arm, both unconscious.
“Thou art surely a brave one,” said his wife, Lisbeth, proudly.
“Pook, woman!” said Jed, “should I let un die? Body o’ me!”
But she was busy with the children, washing their faces with her apron
and giving them water to drink. Presently the children struggled back to
consciousness and began to cry, first the boy, then the girl. He might
be three years old, but the girl was only a baby.
“I wanth mine nurth,” sobbed the boy.
“He hath no hurt,” said Lisbeth, “but, oh Jed, thy poor hands!”
They were, indeed, badly scorched and painful. His hair was singed, his
eyebrows gone and his ears blistered but no serious harm had been
suffered. When Lisbeth had attended to his burns she picked up the
children and carried them to her house hard by.
On the morrow, when the ashes were raked the bones of a woman were
discovered. The landlord of the Checquers said he had let the house but
the day before to one Mary Smith who had paid a month’s rent in advance.
He knew nothing of her nor whence she came. Jed and Lisbeth kept the
children; they were childless and well to do. There was no formal
adoption. The children were supposed to be brother and sister. He said
his name was Don, which was interpreted as John, and that her name was
Banch, which was interpreted as Blanche.
Jed Fenchurch was an armorer, which a writer of that day has called the
least mean of mean occupations. His shop at the back of the house, in a
building entered by a passage way alongside. Here the children delighted
to play and John helped as he was able as he grew stronger. Both
attended the Abbey school and were well educated for those days, when
the scholar was a man who could read and write.
John naturally heard much about feats of arms and was taught at first
hand the uses of arms and armor. He learned to use the long bow, and as
he developed into young manhood, and his arm grew long and his muscles
tough and strong, he drew his arrows to the nock. This weapon was then
the arm of most reliance and its development, together with the use of
dismounted cavalry, developed by Edward III and the Black Prince, the
cause of the English strength.
Neither was Blanche neglected. Her foster mother, Lisbeth, had also been
foster mother to the great Earl of Warwick and had learned much of
gentle ways in the great castle. Many of these she imparted to Blanche,
and was much blamed by her gossips for raising the child in ways above
her station.
There came a day when the great Earl visited his foster mother. His
visit was marked by festivities given by the holy fathers of the Abbey
in his honor, where barrels of beer were broached and beeves were
roasted whole. The Earl was a tall, well-built man of handsome presence
and kindly mien, much beloved by gentle and common. He first greeted and
kissed his old nurse; the children were then presented. John’s height
and reach of arm earned his commendation. “I will even take him into my
service, an you wish,” said he.
“Right gladly will he come, your highness,” said Lisbeth, “you are good
to your old nurse and her ward; God will reward you.”
“Not so,” said the Earl, “I but find a fine bowman.”
“’Tis a fine deed, natheless, John,” said Lisbeth when the Earl had
departed, “and but shows the kind heart; but thou art the lucky boy! In
all England lives no greater; and he will watch and guard thee; thou art
indeed fortunate. Do I not know and love him?”
“Surely,” said John, “I must do my best, more I cannot. Truly, thou art
good to me.”
“Alas, and shall I see thee no more? Wilt thou indeed leave us?” said
Blanche, tears filling her eyes.
“Not so, sweetheart,” John replied, “when I go I shall soon return. How
could I forsake thee, silly?”
The summons to arms was not long delayed. One evening in early May an
express arrived at the Checquers and enquired for Jed Fenchurch. He was
directed to the house on Dagnal Lane and informed Jed that he came from
Warwick with directions to the bowmen, spearmen and men at arms to
assemble at Royston and there await the arrival of the Duke of York and
his own men.
There were but few Yorkists in St. Albans, but a party of bowmen,
including Jed, John and three others were on their way afoot early the
next morning, while the messenger continued his journey towards London.
“’Tis thretty good mile,” said fat Steve Balderstone in a thin voice, “I
mind me when I walked as much in a day with good King Harry the Fift,
but I were young then and light of foot. Truly the Duke moveth but
slowly and we needs must wait at Royston. Why then shall we go apace?”
“Pook, thou elephant! the duke moveth at the gallop and the Earl also.
Tarry not or ye may rue it,” said Jed. “Listen not to this squeaker.
Body o’ me! we mun go apace.”
“I will blow thee to York with one puff, thou pot mender,” squeaked
Steve.
“Truly, thou art a fine blower,” said Jed.
“Tarry a bit!” said John to Jabez Stout in a whisper, “see but the
birds.”
And, in truth, over a wood to the right the birds were wheeling as the
boys fell back and fitted an arrow to the string. From the wood three
men on horseback drove rapidly into the road and galloped toward them.
“They are robbers,” said John, “take thou the one on the left” and their
bows twanged and the arrows whistled.
The horseman on the right was transfixed by John’s shaft which pierced
his right shoulder, and he fell from his horse which turned and fled.
Jabez was not so fortunate; his shaft flew not so truly, but it caught
the skin of the left leg of the rider and imbedded itself in the horse
beneath which screamed and lashed out in agony, throwing the rider. The
third horseman turned and galloped away. The rider of the stricken horse
crawled into the bushes from which he was quickly hauled and despatched,
after which the men gathered around the man desperately wounded.
“Mercy! mercy! Sir John,” shrieked the stricken man looking at John,
“Spare me! spare me! I am not fit to die!”
“Thou wilt die, sure enough,” said Steve, “thy right lung is shot
through, but why call him Sir John? ’Tis but John Fenchurch.”
“’Tis the ghost of Sir John Jernyngan whom I stabbed at Bordeaux. Mercy!
mercy!”
“He raves,” said Steve, “get along, John, out of his sight.”
“Leave him with me,” said Jed. “I would speak with him further.”
“’Tis as he told thee,” said Jed to the dying man when they were alone.
“It was John Fenchurch.”
“I tell thee no!” he replied. “’Twas Sir John Jernyngan or his ghost.
Thinkest thou I know not mine old enemy who stole my honors and my
bride? Did I not see the old Duke of Warwick knight him at Savignies?”
This was followed by a gush of blood as his spirit fled. Jed dragged the
body to the roadside, rifled the pockets and followed the others, deep
in thought.
II. IN THE FOREST
They camped with others at Royston until the arrival of the three
Richards: Richard of York, Richard of Warwick and Richard of Salisbury,
on May 20. Two days later found the Yorkists encamped outside St.
Albans, with the Lancastrians in the town. After much parleying the
Yorkists advanced to the attack. The Duke of York led on one wing, the
Earl of Salisbury on the other, while John was with the Earl of Warwick
in the center. The palisades at this point were old and rotten and the
ditch dry. They were soon passed and the defenders driven back or
killed.
“Come with me, Jabez,” said John as they advanced, “I know a way.”
“Surely, at the side of the house next the Checquers, the side door at
the stairway where we met Rhoda,” said Jabez.
“Aye,” said John, “but go quietly along by the bushes that we be not
seen.”
But they were seen, and an arrow found lodging in Jabez’ breast, who
fell, while John reached and passed behind a projecting buttress that
hid a small doorway. This opened on a stair, up which he passed to a
window fronting on Checquers Street where he posted himself and began
shooting at the Lancastrians in the street below. He had been closely
followed by numerous archers and several men at arms. The archers posted
themselves at the other windows while the men at arms broke into the
rooms below, killed those posted there and issued forth into the street
from the doorway. Presently Richard of Warwick issued forth into the
street and led the fighting while other Yorkist archers broke into the
houses on the other side of the street and shot from the windows, all
the while shouting: “A Warwick! a Warwick!” Here you saw one fall with
his brains dashed out, there another with a broken arm, a third with a
cut throat and a fourth with a pierced chest, and the whole street was
full of dead corpses.[1]
As the Lancastrians broke and fled in confusion, John remembered Lisbeth
and Blanche, unprotected. There was his place of duty. Straightway he
descended and pushed his way along the crowded road to the house in
Dagnal Lane in time to head the rabble who, crazed with blood and drink,
had begun to sack the town.
“Come with me!” he called to the frightened pair, bursting in at the
door, “but bring warm clothing; we must even sleep afield this night.”
So saying he hurriedly filled a basket, caught up some wraps and started
northward toward an angle of the palisade and ditch.
The flight of the vanquished was in three directions: Northwest toward
Dunstable, along Watling Street, North toward Harpenden and southwest
toward Watford.
Breaking down some palisades, John helped the women over the ditch and
the three ran toward the shelter of the forest. This gained, he helped
them climb into the arms of an ancient beech, where they lay concealed
while the pursued and pursuers thundered by down the road on either
side, and a scattering few stole through the underbrush below and around
them.
As the night fell it grew colder, and Blanche crept into his arms, laid
her head confidingly against his shoulder and slept. The sleep of all
three was, however, somewhat broken by the noises made by the peasantry
searching with torches for the bodies of the slain.
In the morning, all danger having passed, John helped the women down and
the three returned to their home which was in great disorder and bare of
everything of value. It was a sad homecoming for the women, but it was
useless to repine, so they set to work to clean the house and put it in
order. John was informed that the Earl of Warwick desired his immediate
attendance. “Is it true,” the Earl demanded, “that you led the archers
up the stairway?”
“Yes, your Lordship,” said John, “I knew of the door and the stairway of
old.”
“It was a great deed and shall not be forgotten, choose thy reward!”
“To serve your Lordship,” said John.
“Well said,” returned the Earl, “thou shalt be my page.”
“An your Lordship please, I would first bury Jabez Short who was killed
beside me.”
“So do,” replied the Earl, “I will send for thee anon.”
John encountered Jed on his return; “do thou look after the women folk,”
said Jed, “I must straight to London with the Earl.”
That morning the Duke of Norfolk marched into St. Albans with 6,000 men
and the army started for London with the wounded King, who had been
struck on the neck with an arrow.
Several days passed by before Jed could reach the Earl who was much
engaged. In the meantime he was able to reach the Countess, Anne
Beauchamp, who was the daughter of Richard Beauchamp, the former Duke,
and sister of Henry, Duke of Warwick, from whom she had inherited.
The Countess informed Jed that she remembered Sir John Jernyngan, who
was still living and well. He was a fine, upstanding man, tall,
straight, with dark, somewhat curly hair and blue eyes. She remembered
well how her father, who was the very flower of chivalry, and a gallant
soldier, had knighted him for his gallant deeds on the field at
Savignies. Lady Jernyngan was the daughter of Sir Everard Herbert of
Bromhill in Hereford. Her hand had also been sought by one Victor Bozen,
a soldier of fortune whose description was identical with that of the
dead robber. It was true that he had the assurance to demand her hand in
marriage, but the lady had openly scorned him, and in revenge he had
stabbed her successful suitor who had never harmed him. She rejoiced
that his son—for she doubted not John was his son—had unknowingly
revenged the foul deed.
Romance, then as now, greatly appeals to the gentle mind. Anne became
greatly interested in John and took him under her special protection.
She became his advocate with the Earl, where he needed no advocate, and
shielded him from the jibes and petty tyrannies of the pages at
Warwick—her own castle—where he spent eighteen months perfecting himself
in arms and chivalry.
On his first visit home after a six months’ absence, Blanche flew at
him, threw herself into his arms and kissed him.
“I have news for thee, sweetheart,” said John, “my Lady has discovered”—
“Well,” said Blanche, “what hath she discovered?”
“I had better not tell thee, ’twill make thee unhappy.”
“Nay, tell me!”
“Give me first six kisses!”
“There then, thou silly. Now tell me!”
“My, thy lips are sweet! She thinks thou art no sister of mine.”
“Oh John, how dreadful!”
“So I thought at first, but not now. We may wed.”
“Oh no! How could we?”
“We may and will. Now give me some more kisses.”
“Not so. If I am no sister why kiss? Too many have I given thee
already.”
“My Lady says thou art Blanche Wychyngham, the daughter of Sir Edmund
Wychyngham of Norfolk, and that we were stolen and carried off by my
nurse who was a sister of that Victor Bozen I slew on the way to
Royston. He had a grudge against thy father also.”
“Oh John! how dreadful. I cannot bear it.” And she ran off to her foster
mother in tears.
III. THE WARRIOR AND LOVER
On the morrow came a letter bidding John join the Earl at Calais.
Shortly thereafter Blanche left St. Albans to visit her father and
sisters.
Among the Paston Letters is one from John Jernyngan to his cousin,
Margaret Paston, which is here reproduced with all the quaint spelling
of those days:
Unto my ryght wurchipfell Cosyn, Marget Paston, this lettre be
delyvered in haste.
Ryght wurchipful and my moste beste beloved maystres and cosyn,
I recommaund me unto you as lowly as I may, evermor desyring to
here of your gode welfar; the whiche I beseche Almyzthy Jesus to
preserve you and kepe you to his plesur, and to your gracious
herts desyre.
And yf it plese you to here of my welfar, I was in gode hele at
the makyng of this lettre, blessed be God.
Praying you that it plese you for to send me word yf my fadyr
wer at Norwiche with you at this Trenite Masse or no, and how
the matyr doth betwene my Maystres Blawnche Wychynham and me,
and yf ze supose that it shall be brought a bowte or no; and how
ze fele my fadyr, yf he be wele wyllyng thereto or no; praying
you lowly that I may be recomaund lowly unto my maystres
Arblastres wyfe, and unto my Maystres Blawnche, her dowzther,
specially.
Ryght wurchipfull cosyn, yf it please you for to her of suche
tydings as we have her, the basset [_embassay_] of Burgoyne
schall come to Calleys the Saturday[2] eftyr Corpus Christi day,
as men say v. hondred horse of hem. Moreover on Trenite
Sonday,[3] in the mornyng, came tydings unto my Lord of Warwyke
that ther were xxviij^{te} sayle of Spanyards on the se, and
wherof ther was xvj. grete schippis of forecastell; and then my
Lord went and manned fyve schippis of forecastell, and iii.
carvells, and iiij. spynnes [_pinnaces_], and on the Monday,[4]
on the mornyng eftyr Trenite Sonday, we met to gedyr afore
Caleis, at iiij. at the clokke in the mornyng, and fawz thet
gedyr till x. at the clokke; and ther we toke vj. of her
[_their_] schippis, and they slowe of oure men about iiij^{xx}
[_four score_] and hurt a ij. hondred of us ryght sore; and ther
wer slayne on theyr parte abowte xij^{xx} [_twelve score_], and
hurt a v. hondred of them.
And haped me, at the fyrste abordyng of us, we toke a schippe of
iij^c [300] ton, and I was lefte therin and xxiij. men with me;
and thei fawzthe so sor[5] that our men wer fayne to leve
hem,[6] and then come they and aborded the schippe that I was
in, and ther I was taken, and was a prisoner with them vj
houris, and was delyvered agayne for theyr men that wer taken
beforne. And as men sayne, ther was not so gret a batayle upon
the se this xl. wyntyr. And for sothe, we wer wele and trewly
bette; and my Lord hathe sent for mor scheppis, and lyke to
fyzthe to gedyr agayne in haste.
Nomor I write unto you at this time, but that it please you for
to recomaund me unto my ryght reverent and wurchipfull cosyn
your husband, and myn ownkll Gournay, and to myn awnte his wyfe,
and to alle gode maysters and frends where it schall plese yow;
and eftyr the writyng I have from you, I schall be at you in
alle haste.
Wretyn on Corpus Christi day in gret haste, be your owne umble
servant and cosyn,
JOHN JERNYNGAN.
The engagement with the Spaniards related in this letter was looked upon
as a victory by the English. The next year there was another naval
battle in which after a running two days’ chase three out of five
Genoese and Spanish ships were captured and brought into Calais, and
Warwick became a naval hero to his countrymen.
On June 24, 1460, with Salisbury and March, Warwick landed at Sandwich,
which Fauconberg had previously captured and held for the Duke of York.
John Jernyngan, as we must now call him, was of course of the party. On
July 2 they were in London, and on the 10th their army faced the army of
the Red Rose in the meadows near Northampton.
The King’s position was well protected by the crude artillery of that
day, but there was a heavy rain storm and the pieces could not be
discharged. The Lord Grey of Ruthven turned traitor to the King and
assisted the advance of the young Earl of March who soon opened the way
for the Yorkists. Buckingham, Shrewsbury, Beaumont, Egremont and Sir
William Lucy with three hundred other Lords, knights and squires were
killed and Henry was captured and taken to London.
In 1461, John was present at the rout of the Yorkists at the second
battle of St. Albans and escaped with difficulty. In March of the same
year he also took part in the decisive battle of Towton where the hopes
of Henry the sixth and his Queen found their grave. This was a fiercely
fought field where the mallets of lead crushed many a skull. In the nick
of time the troops of the Duke of Norfolk arrived and the Lancastrians
broke and fled. John had been in the front of the fighting, towering
above the heads of the other knights and esquires with the exception of
the new King Edward IV who was a mighty man and handsome. The slaughter
was terrible. “No Quarter!” was the order, and most of those captured
were promptly beheaded.
After the pursuit was at an end John returned to Saxton where he found
the King who said:
“Thou art a valiant soldier. Kneel!”
Then he smote John gently on the back with his sword and said:
“Rise, Sir John Jernyngan! The field is won. Go now to thy people in
Norfolk.”
It may be imagined that this command of the King was promptly obeyed.
When John arrived he discovered that the news of his new honor had
preceded him. There were great rejoicings in which Blanche participated.
To her he seemed a different man—older, more sedate, of greater
knowledge, more to be admired and respected. She began to wonder what
were his thoughts? and above all what he thought of her, but he gave at
first no sign. In fact the slaughter after the battle had sobered him.
It was borne in upon him that the King was cruel and that trouble must
come. From boy he had become a man, accustomed to command and
self-reliant. Like the moth near the flame Blanche was attracted and
then repelled. She began to dream, and he figured in her dreams. She was
a beautiful girl, much courted and a trifle spoiled, but John seemed to
her stronger, handsomer and better than her other men friends. He never
wavered in kindness but said little. She became bolder and he met her
advances. Soon she found herself hopelessly in love.
In those days love was not alone the concern of the lovers. Fathers and
mothers, often overlords, and even sometimes the King, must be
consulted. When all these tedious matters had been arranged there was a
great wedding at Warwick Castle, where Anne insisted the ceremony must
be performed. The Bishop of Canterbury said mass and married the couple
in the presence of the King, the Earl of Warwick and many of the
nobility.
After their marriage several years of peace followed. Then more strife
and blood with the struggle between Edward and Warwick, the return of
Henry for a brief period, the fight at Barnet and the death of Warwick,
the accession of Richard III and his brief and bloody career ending in
the fight and his death on Bosworth Field. With the accession of Henry
VII, the wars of the roses were at an end; peace returned and our story
ends.
-----
Footnote 1:
Whethamstede, quoted by M. E. Christie in “Henry VI.”
Footnote 2:
June 3rd.
Footnote 3:
May 28th.
Footnote 4:
May 29th.
Footnote 5:
“For” in Fenn; seemingly a printer’s error, as the word is “sore” in
the modern version.
Footnote 6:
Here, according to Fenn, the words “and go the” occur in the original,
struck out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Red Devil
-------
In the year 1903 I bought my first automobile. It was a Ford. Even as
early as that the inimitable Henry was at work; but this car was quite
unlike the modern Ford. It had double opposed cylinders placed
horizontally on either side of the crankshaft which was in the middle
and in the fore and aft axis of the machine. The engine was said to
develop eight horsepower—perhaps it did. There was a front seat for two
passengers and two corner seats for two more in the small tonneau back
of it. The tonneau was entered by a narrow door in the middle of the
back; below it was a step to enable the passengers to get up and down.
There was no cover. The car was painted a brilliant red.
I was very much elated over my new car which had been carefully tested
before I bought it. The salesman, who was also the mechanic, drove me
over all the rough roads and steep hills in the vicinity. I drove it
down one of these steep hills myself to test the brakes. Under all these
tests the car behaved very well, but I soon found that a good-sized
repair bill was a necessary part of the program. I also found myself
gaining a profound respect for the mechanic, that is for some mechanics.
I also discovered that it was necessary to spend three hours looking for
the source of any trouble and but three minutes in fixing it.
There was a beautiful drive along the river. Every evening after my
working day was over and I had had supper (we did not call it dinner) I
was in the habit of driving several miles down the river and back before
the night shut in. In case I lingered and the darkness overtook me there
was a brilliant headlight in the front of the car making the pathway as
light as day. Usually some young lady of my acquaintance accompanied me
on these drives. I was also fond of riding on Sunday afternoons. I asked
Mrs. Henry to go with me one Sunday afternoon but she refused—she said
it was wicked to take rides on Sunday.
“You might say that if I were driving a horse or an ass or anything that
was my neighbor’s, Mrs. Henry,” said I, “but I am driving a soulless
machine and it belongs to me.”
“Well, I don’t know very well just what the ins and outs are,” she
replied, “but I don’t feel right when I go out driving on Sunday.”
Mr. Henry smiled—I knew he did not feel that much respect for Sunday—but
when I asked him to go he declined; said he had a lot of writing to do,
but I thought he was afraid.
I was determined to go and did not want to go alone. There was a baker’s
daughter living on the same street. She was a very pretty girl, with a
beautiful complexion and wonderful eyes. She had a smile and a kind word
for everybody. When I asked her whether she would like to go she said:
“yes she would, very much.” Now, that is what I like in a girl; I like a
girl who knows her own mind.
Sally was a quiet girl, usually, but that afternoon she had a great deal
to say. When she spoke she smiled at me, and she did not say a single
unkind thing during the ride. I was very much pleased with Sally. I
thought it would be nice to have her around all the time. I determined
to take her again that evening; her mother told me, however, that she
had gone to church with Jim Barkley. Jim was a bank cashier. He was
getting a good salary and dressed very well. I looked at Mrs. Lunn with
considerable interest. She was a very nice woman and her complexion was
good, for she lived over a bakery, and spent much of her time in it. I
had noticed that bakers and singers always had good complexions and were
fat. Mrs. Lunn was fat, too—very fat. As I looked at her I said to
myself: “that is how Sally will look in a few years,” and a chill stole
over me.
I was living at a boarding house at this time. Several other members of
the college faculty also boarded there. The food was pretty good but we
were not very well satisfied. The dining table was rather small and was
so full of dishes that the coffee pot was placed on the floor alongside
of the hostess. We had pie at every meal—a fresh pie at lunch and
supper, and pieces of left-over pie for breakfast. Of course we need not
eat pie, but so much pie was disconcerting. That coffee pot on the floor
was disconcerting also. One of the boarders disturbed us, too. He was a
minister and a very good young man, but when he wanted a piece of pie he
looked straight at it, like a pointer dog, until some one asked him to
have a piece. I had boarded for two years and I was growing tired of
boarding. My position as a teacher in Rochambeau College was pleasant
but I was growing restless.
The next Saturday I started to drive my car to Trenton. I was fond of
reading, and it was my custom to visit Traver’s bookstore in Trenton or
Leary’s in Philadelphia and purchase several books at a time. These
second hand books answered my purpose perfectly and were much cheaper
than new books. Sometimes I also attended vendues in the country and
bought books, but this was not usually very satisfactory.
I had driven about a mile down the river when I overtook two girls
traveling afoot in the same direction. One of them was very pretty. I
asked them to get in. They looked doubtfully at each other but finally
accepted my invitation. The oldest one told me her name was Fanny
Hilltop and the pretty girl was her younger sister, Mary. Mary was
rather quiet but seemed very pleasant. She smiled very often and when
she smiled she showed a very pretty set of very white teeth. I had
always admired white teeth and pretty girls and Mary seemed very nice.
We came to a cross road very soon and the girls said they must get down
there, they lived about a mile up the side road. I told them I was out
for a ride, which was true enough, and that I might as well take them
home, but they warned me the road was rough and hilly.
I turned into the by-road and though it was rough and rocky got along
very well for over half a mile; then we came to a short, very steep
hill. The car snorted and puffed and finally stopped. I let it back
down, put on full speed and went at it again. It stuck fast again. By
this time the girls had grown nervous backing down the hill, so I pulled
the car to one side of the road and we walked to their house up several
hills and directly on top of a mountain overlooking two beautiful
valleys, one on either side. Their house was a very pretty one painted
white. I told Mary that they had a right to the name of Hilltop but she
said I had misunderstood, it was Hillpot. “Oh,” said I, “that must be a
mistake. I believe one of your ancestors was a poor speller and twisted
the spelling.”
The girls invited me to come in and rest or at least to sit down on the
porch awhile. I chose the latter. The mother came out after awhile and I
was introduced. She was a pleasant-looking, motherly soul,
quick-motioned and rather thin. Her face was seamed with fine wrinkles
and her hands showed signs of hard usage. I liked her looks and I liked
Mary, too. They invited me to stay to dinner and I accepted. Fanny went
to help her mother with the dinner while Mary entertained me. The father
and a half grown boy came in after awhile.
Old man Hillpot looked me over pretty sharply, and I thought I knew just
what he was thinking, but I wasn’t thinking that at all. The boy looked
at Mary and then at me and then he grinned and Mary’s eyes snapped. I
knew what he thought and what she thought. The old lady had a pleasant
smile on her face as if she never thought at all, but I knew that she
was doing a heap more thinking than all the others put together; for she
was figuring out what each one thought and then what she should do
herself so that everything should come out all right. I was getting to
like the old lady.
After dinner Mary and I went out on the porch. The old lady and Fanny
washed the dishes. The old man and the boy went off to milk the cows but
the boy winked at Mary before he started and her eyes snapped again.
After we had talked awhile I excused myself to get a drink in the
kitchen. The old lady was washing the dishes. She had a dish pan full of
soapy water and a dish cloth. First she scraped all the dishes as clean
as possible; then she put them in the soapy water and rubbed them with
the cloth; then she put them into another pan full of very hot water,
took them out and laid them on the table. I got a towel and wiped them
for her. She said:
“This isn’t the first time you wiped dishes.”
“How do you know?” I replied.
“Because you washed your hands first, and you don’t touch the dishes
with your hands.”
“Yes,” I said, “I used to help my mother.”
“Is your mother living?” she asked.
“No,” I answered, “she died two years ago.”
“Oh, you poor boy,” she said; and she looked at me very sorrowfully.
Mary had come into the kitchen by this time but I thought she seemed
somewhat bored. Pretty soon the old man and the boy came back and we all
went out on the porch and had a real folksy talk. The boy was very much
interested in the college and asked me a great many questions about it.
He said he thought of going to college if it didn’t cost too much. I
told him it would be all right to go to college but I hoped after he got
out he would come back and help his father farm. He said he didn’t know
about that and grinned at the old man; but the old man seemed very
quiet; he just sat and listened; sometimes I thought he seemed a little
sad. He appeared to be very fond of Fanny; he often looked at her, and
when he did a pleasant look came over his face.
The old lady asked me to come again, real cordially, and then we all
shook hands and I started off.
It was beginning to get dark when I reached the car. I was just ready to
turn the crank when I heard some one say: “Get up Billy.” I looked up
and found a pretty girl in a falling top was trying to make her horse
pass the machine. He was frightened and wouldn’t go and the girl seemed
to be frightened too.
It was the law in those days that when a person driving a horse met an
auto and held up a hand, the auto driver must drive to the side of the
road, stop his car and lead the horse past the machine. So I went to the
horse’s head and led him past the machine. When we had gone a short
distance up the road I asked the girl whether she could drive him now?
She said she was afraid of him, he might run away. She didn’t like to
drive anyhow but there was no one to drive her that afternoon so she had
hitched up the horse herself. I told her I would drive her home if it
was not too far. She said her house was only half a mile up the road, so
I got in and took the reins. The horse was old and stiff, but as his
nose was pointed toward home and oats he made steady progress and we
soon arrived. I had introduced myself to the lady who informed me that
her name was Horner, that she taught school in the neighborhood and
boarded at the farm house to which we were going. I remarked that Horner
was a rural name and smelled of the dairy at which she managed to crack
a smile. We had come by a side road at the last, down into a valley,
over a bridge and up the other side to the farm house.
The farmer came out and held the horse while I helped the lady out. By
this time the mother and her two daughters, Sarah and Jane Oldit, had
come out and been introduced. We sat on the porch for awhile and then I
started for home once more murmuring: Hilltop, Hillpot, Horner, Oldit!
II
Rochambeau College was denominational and of the blue Presbyterian
order, under the care of the Synod. This connection was, however, almost
purely theoretical and we were very much left alone to our own devices
so long as no attempt was made by the President or members of the
Faculty to blow loud heretical trumpets. Most of the members of the
Board of Trustees were good fellows, mildly interested in the church and
very much interested in educating young men. This real interest was
manifested in an unmistakeable manner by their steady contributions to
the College finances which at this time were not in too flourishing a
condition. Not a few of the Trustees were depriving themselves of
luxuries and even necessities in order that the Faculty might have
decent living conditions. Not all the members of the Faculty appreciated
this, but I did. Most of the members of our Board were earnest men
worthy of respect and I, for one, did thoroughly respect them. The
President, Dr. Camden, was a genial old chap, prone to discover all
sorts of excellencies in the members of his Faculty and active in
proclaiming them to the Board and to the world. He used the same methods
with the students and was able to rule without despotism.
Some of his methods were, however quite near the border line which
divides the good from the bad, and aroused the condemnation of some more
rigid members of the Faculty who were rich enough to be independent. In
most cases his makeshift measures were made necessary by lack of funds,
and were, therefore, forgivable.
On my return home I found a letter awaiting me, and next morning, after
my first class had recited I went to see the President. He came peering
into the room with a frown on his face. On recognizing me his face
lighted up and he advanced with both hands open and a beaming face.
“My dear Brown! I am so glad to see you.”
“I came over, Doctor,” said I, “to see whether you would be so good as
to advise me? I have just had an offer from Ashton University, and am
undecided what I had better do. I like my work very much here but they
have offered me more money.”
“It is very good of you, Brown, to come to me at once and I appreciate
it. I should be very sorry to have you leave, and if you will tell me
whether a small addition to your salary will induce you to stay I will
ask the Trustees to add, let us say, $200.00 to your allowance. But now,
my dear fellow I must ask you to do me a favor. You know that Professor
Last is to leave us at the end of the year and I want you to teach
Metallurgy. Only two lectures a week for one term, you know?”
“But, Doctor, I am not posted on Metallurgy.”
“Oh, but I feel sure you can do excellently well. It is very simple. You
put the ore and fuel into a furnace, light the fire and there you are.
And Brown! now we have settled that, I want you to take tea with me
to-morrow evening. I must try to see more of you. I must see that you
are taken care of.”
I laughed, thanked the Doctor, said I would come, and took my leave.
The next evening six people sat down at the President’s table: the
Doctor and his wife, his niece, Kitty Camden and her brother Searles,
Miss Hetty Poiret and myself. Kitty Camden was tall and stately while
Hetty Poiret was quite small, with a rather shy manner and a sweet
smile. Searles was younger than his sister, rather boyish in manner but
a nice ingenuous lad. He was tall like his sister and nervous; his hands
twitched, and he threw out his head from time to time as if his collar
hurt him.
“There are several ages represented here,” said the Doctor, “I think I
must tell my frog story.”
“Oh, no, Henry!” said his wife.
“Do, Doctor!” I broke in, “I have never heard it, and I like your
stories.”
“There, Helen,” said the Doctor, “you see one person likes my stories.”
“We all like them, Doctor,” said Hetty Poiret.
“Well,” he began, “there is a place down below Philadelphia where the
Schuylkill empties into the Delaware. The shores are low, flat and
marshy. Tall grass grows down to the river’s edge; and here the tiny
little frogs gather in the shallows as evening falls and peep shrilly:
Schuyl—kill! Schuyl—kill! Schuyl—kill!
“Further up the river a creek flows in. There are trees along the bank.
There is a very narrow beach with the banks rising abruptly and
prevented from falling in by the tree roots. Here the middle-sized frogs
gather in the evenings and call in middle-sized voices: Wis—sa—he—con!
Wis—sa—he—con! Wis—sa—he—con!
“Further up, the stream is deeper. There are high banks which shelve off
rapidly into deeper water. Along the edges solemn shadows form as the
sun sets, and here the big bullies gather and croak in solemn tones:
Man—yunk! Man—yunk! Man—yunk!”
“I like that story,” said Helen, “it is cute.”
“Yes, I like it, Doctor, that’s a good one,” I said.
“You never told me that one before,” said Kitty Camden, reproachfully.
The Doctor laughed. Then he began telling us about his travels. His wife
had accompanied him, and occasionally she broke into the narrative to
remind him of something he had forgotten. I have forgotten most of what
he told us but I remember one part clearly. He said they had traveled
over the Splugen on the Via Mala in a one-horse victoria driven by a
black-browed, surly Italian. Coming down the southern slopes they passed
through great groves of giant chestnuts. Nothing else would grow there,
for immense rocks covered the surface and made cultivation impossible.
These trees bore crops of the large Italian chestnuts with which we are
familiar from seeing them on our fruit stands. These are gathered by the
peasants and stored in bags in the lofts overhead until they are well
dried. They are then taken down and beaten with sticks. This breaks the
hulls which are winnowed out. The meat is then beaten to flour in
mortars and _polenta_ or mush made of it which forms almost the only
food of the peasants.
III
As Trenton had not been reached the preceding Saturday, I determined to
try again and to take Sally with me. Sally said she would be delighted
to go. Next morning at about eight we were ready for the trip. It was a
beautiful morning and Sally was as sparklingly pretty as a morning
daisy. It was a pleasure to look at her. She had a parcel done up in
paper which I stored in the tonneau. When I turned the crank nothing
happened. I turned the crank again—still nothing happened. At the third
turn there were two explosions and then silence. Fourth turn, ditto.
Fifth turn, the engine ran for some time and just as we were ready to
move stopped again. By this time my patience had a very thin edge, but,
fortunately, the next turn gave the desired result and we were off.
My car had a serious defect: the radiator was too small and the water
grew hot and boiled about every three miles. If there was much climbing
the distance traveled before this happened was less. In consequence it
was necessary to let the boiling water escape and provide a fresh
charge, which required frequent running to the pump with a collapsible
bucket.
About three miles from our starting place we reached a roadside spring
and I replaced the water and plied the oil can. Not many yards below the
spring we overtook a young lady walking in the direction we were going.
It was Miss Horner on her way to the village just below. We stopped and
asked her to ride with us. She was on her way to her school for some
books which had been forgotten. On reaching the school we were invited
to inspect it. It was an old-fashioned place, painted yellow outside,
with a large coal stove at one side and blackboards surrounding the room
on all the available wall space. There was a bench before the teacher’s
desk on which the lazy or naughty pupils stood during the noon or recess
periods.
After we left her Sally was very inquisitive. She wanted to know who she
was, where she came from, how and where I had met her. Satisfied on
these points we proceeded happily on our way. Presently the car began to
steam and I to look for a watering place. The canal was close to the
road, and after considerable searching I found a place where it was
possible to reach the water with my bucket. I succeeded in doing so
after some stretching but in lifting the bucket the weight of the water
overbalanced me and down into the water I slid.
Sally cried out in alarm but wasted no time in thrusting a stick from
the roadside into my hands. Then I was slowly and carefully pulled in
and helped up the bank. I was in a pretty pickle. Wet from head to foot;
my collar and shirt in collapse; my shoes filled with water, and my hat
gone. I told Sally it did not matter. It was warm and I would soon dry
off. As for my hat and collar I could replace them at the next country
store. She said I was very brave and she was proud of me; and as she
said this her eyes sparkled and her cheeks were full of rosy color. I
had been very much surprised at her prompt, vigorous action in helping
me and also at the strength she displayed. With her permission I removed
my coat and shoes and laid them to dry in the tonneau. Then with a
considerable increase in cordiality we once more took the road. At
frequent intervals we were obliged to water the car and might fairly be
said to have worked our passage. At Lehnenburg or Monroe we entered the
red shale country which extends to Trenton and below. In many places
this shale is covered with river sand or is replaced by sandstone rock
belonging to the same formation but less strongly colored with iron
oxide. Over roads varying in character but mostly bad we proceeded. From
Erwinna to Point Pleasant the road was especially bad, being both rocky
and muddy. By careful driving I managed to avoid splashing the car very
badly. At New Hope we crossed the river and proceeded toward Trenton. It
was now time for lunch and we drew up by the roadside under a maple and
Sally produced her package which contained a lunch fit for kings. This
we discussed amid a cheerful rain of jokes and chaff.
After lunch we proceeded and soon entered State Street and turned down
South Broad. There were few cars in those days and no traffic policemen
so that we could turn the car on South Broad and draw up before the
bookstore.
I was a great admirer of Stockton and Stevenson and so I found was
Sally. In the stock of second hand books by these authors we found
copies of “The Lady and the Tiger,” “The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and
Mrs. Aleshine,” “The Christmas Wreck” and “Amos Kilbright” by Stockton
and “The Black Arrow,” “Kidnapped” and “The Strange Case of Mr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde” by Stephenson. These we considered a great find and the
price was very reasonable. They were stowed in the tonneau and Sally
took her seat while I turned the crank. This time we started off without
trouble.
We had got as far as Lambertville on the return when trouble with the
car began to develop. The engine would run properly for awhile and then
it would slow down and almost stop, then it would start running properly
again. This continued until we were several miles above New Hope. Here
the engine gave out completely. After trying in vain to start it again I
abandoned hope and Sally and I pushed the car to the roadside and
started off for help. We walked nearly a mile before we came to a house.
I knocked at the door which was opened by a nice-looking boy of about
ten years. In answer to my enquiry he said his Pop was at the barn and
if we would sit down he would go after him. Presently the boy’s mother
came in and we told her the car had broken down. She thought we had
better spend the night there and go on in the morning. She had a spare
room which we might use. I thought further explanations were in order
and the old lady said if I would be content with a cot the young lady
might have the spare room and I could sleep in the attic. I thanked her
and, after consulting Sally, accepted. When the farmer came in we found
nothing else could be done. He promised to drive me to New Hope in the
morning and get a mechanic. I lay awake for a long time wondering what
could be the matter. Finally it occurred to me that the gasoline might
have given out. The next morning we had an early breakfast and the
farmer and I drove to the car. Sure enough we found the tank as dry as a
bone. Then we went on to New Hope and after some searching found
gasoline and partly filled the tank. After turning the engine over
several times it caught and we drove up to the house. Sally seemed to be
worried but she said very little. On the way home she said she was
afraid her mother might worry and wished there were some way to get word
to her. I suggested that we telegraph but we found all the offices
closed.
About 11 o’clock we reached home. I went in with Sally. Her mother
seemed worried. She said she had been very much distressed by our
non-arrival the night before and looked at me searchingly. I told her I
had been very stupid but she must remember I had run a car only a short
time and was not very experienced. Sally said she was sure I was not to
blame.
The next day I needed some money and went to the bank. Jim Barkley
waited on me and after he had cashed the check said:
“I hear you were stalled the other day because you had no gasoline?
Pretty slick excuse.”
“No,” I said, “do you think so?”
“Ho, ho,” he said, “ho, ho!”
“He, he,” I said, “he, he!”
He looked pretty black at this but said nothing more.
I went to call on Sally that evening and she greeted me with smiles. She
wanted to know whether I had caught cold? I said no, I had not. She told
me she thought Jim Barkley was very disagreeable. He had been making
nasty remarks about me. He had told Hetty Poiret that I was a prig. She
thought he was very ugly-tempered and very stupid. Before I left she
asked me whether I often took cold. I said I did. She advised me if I
felt I was taking cold to soak my feet in hot water in a wooden bucket,
the water should be very hot and contain a teaspoonful of soda. Then I
must wipe my feet with a dry, hot towel and get into bed. She did not
say retire, she said get into bed. I had not had such advice since my
mother died two years before. She looked very earnest and very much
concerned as she said it. It was not a romantic speech but somehow I
liked to have her say it.
IV
The following Saturday I planned to take a trip to Doylestown. I had
some relatives there whom I had not seen for some time and Fanny and
Mary Hillpot had agreed to go with me. Their cousin lived there. I was
doubtful about my ability to drive my car to the Hillpot house and
experiment proved my doubt to be well founded. By making a strong spurt
I succeeded in getting up the first hill but stuck fast on the second. I
climbed the rest of the hill afoot. Mary was as pretty as a picture and
I admired her very much. She certainly had beautiful teeth and was all
smiles when I arrived. The girls were soon ready and we walked to the
car and started. Mary was beside me and Fanny in the tonneau with some
wraps, two umbrellas and some lunch. We were nearing Kintnersville when
dark clouds began to pile up on the horizon and presently it began to
rain. The girls were in the tonneau each with an umbrella and I was on
the front seat with a rubber coat and hat. The rain came down in
bucketfuls and then began to blow. The water collected in a pool on the
front seat and ran down my leg into my shoe. The girls’ feet and skirts
got wet and Mary began to cry. Fanny was just as wet but she laughed and
seemed to be enjoying herself. I drove as rapidly as possible and got
under a shed at Ferndale. Mary was as cross as a wet hen. Her hair had
lost its curl, her hat was awry and she showed neither smile nor white
teeth. The girls went into the hotel and after quite a long stay came
out somewhat drier and ready to proceed. But Mary was sulky and
disagreeable. After the shower passed over we started again, but now
there was mud everywhere—thin splashy red mud that flew over everything.
At Pipersville Hill it was necessary for the girls to walk up the hill
and their feet were very muddy and wet. Between Pipersville and
Plumstedville there was a swampy spot where the car stuck fast. Fanny
helped me get stones to put under the wheels while Mary sat on the fence
and glowered at us. Finally we got started again and reached Doylestown.
Here we separated. While I was visiting my cousins a hostler washed the
car and after it was ready I drove around, took the girls in and started
for home. We got back without accident and then I visited the Oldit
place. Sarah and Jane were at home but Miss Horner had not arrived. We
sat on the front porch and the girls raked over the characters of all
the neighbors. I found they had had a disagreement also with Miss
Horner. There were several vicious digs given after she arrived and I
departed somewhat depressed.
The next evening I took Sally to Dr. Camden’s to call on the young
visitors. We found Jim Barkley there. He paid marked attention to Hetty
Poiret all the evening. Occasionally he glanced at Sally or me but we
avoided him as much as possible. We did not have a very pleasant
evening. Searles and Kitty had been quarreling and were still
skirmishing. We left early and walked home in the moonlight.
The next morning people who met me looked unusually pleasant and seemed
amused. I could not understand it until I reached Sally’s house again.
She met me at the door and called to her mother as I came in:
“Here he is mother! Now we shall see!”
“Did you know,” she said turning to me, “that Jim Barkley says that you
were in Doylestown yesterday driving two girls in a red devil as drunk
as a lord?”
“No,” I replied, “I did not. I was in Doylestown driving my red car and
Fanny and Mary Hillpot were with me but I was not drunk. I had had
nothing at all to drink.”
“There, Mother,” said Sally, “I told you he did not drink.”
“And did you know,” she continued, “that he says we stayed at a farm
house together on Saturday night, and then he winks.”
“The dirty dog,” I said, “I think I can stop his mouth.”
Sally and her mother were both in tears but I comforted them by telling
them that I would bring the farmer and his wife up next day. I did so
and drove around to Dr. Camden’s house. I told the Doctor my story and
asked him to question the farmer and his wife. He agreed to this and did
so. Then I drove them to the bank and asked Mr. Davis, the President of
the bank to listen to them in Jim Barkley’s presence. Jim declared that
he had been misquoted but I brought Hetty Poiret to the bank to
contradict him. Then I took the farmer and his wife back home after
warmly thanking them.
That evening I went again to see Sally. She blushed beautifully as she
opened the door. “Sally!” I said, “I came here to tell you that you are
the dearest, sweetest, prettiest, smartest, nicest girl in the world,
and that I love you, love you, love you.”
“Oh, do you?” said Sally, “I am so glad.”
“Did you ever hear of the young man whose ecstasy was so great under
similar conditions that he broke the poor girl’s ribs?” I did not break
Sally’s ribs but I held her tight and she laughed and her eyes sparkled
and then she cried a little. Presently she said she must tell her father
and mother. They all came in presently and shook hands with me and her
mother kissed me. “If Sally loves you I must too,” she said, and then
she wiped her eyes. They both looked sad. “You know, she is our baby,”
her father said, “and it is pretty hard to lose her. Please be good to
her.”
I said: “I don’t think I am much account, but Sally says she loves me
and I’m sure I love her, and I will promise you to be good to her and
try to be a better man every day.”
Well, we had a fashionable wedding in a month from that time. Jim
Barkley was not present because he was looking for another job in New
York. Sally and I have been married now for twenty years and have two
fine boys in college. Sally is getting as round as a dumpling, but I
like her so much I never notice what she looks like. Neither do the
boys. So much kindness shines from her eyes when she looks at us that we
see nothing else.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Transcriber’s Notes
Superscripted characters are preceded by a caret character (^{te}) and
subscripted characters are preceded by an underscore (H_{2}O).
Note: The transcriber has corrected what were deemed to be obvious
printer’s errors and normalized hyphenation where a predominant variant
could be found. Archaic spellings have been retained. Changes to the
text are listed below:
Pg. iii: Added missing comma: ‘Writer and Speaker Fearless Publicist’
to ‘Writer and Speaker, Fearless Publicist’
Pg. 12: Missing close-quote inserted: ‘for bread at the store.’ to ‘for
bread at the store.”’
Pg. 12: Missing close-quote inserted: ‘“Hi! said Reddy’ to ‘“Hi!” said
Reddy’
Pg. 14: Corrected typo: ‘loaves of bred’ to ‘loaves of bread’
Pg. 16: Corrected typo: ‘crows feet’ to ‘crow’s feet’
Pg. 17: Missing open-quote inserted: ‘z-z-z.”’ to ‘“z-z-z.”’
Pg. 23: Corrected typo: ‘there came a knockiing’ to ‘there came a
knocking’
Pg. 24: Missing open-quote inserted: ‘said the archer, that must’ to
‘said the archer, “that must’
Pg. 25: Missing open-quote inserted: ‘she replied, and you will’ to
‘she replied, “and you will’
Pg. 29: Missing open-quote inserted: ‘ said I, but trample’ to ‘ said
I, “but trample’
Pg. 32: Corrected capitalization: ‘ishmaelite’ to ‘Ishmaelite’
Pg. 39: Normalized hyphenation. Predominantly spaced: ‘with some-one
else’ to ‘with some one else’
Pg. 41: Added missing period to contraction: ‘Castel de St Angelo’ to
‘Castel de St. Angelo’
Pg. 42: Normalized hyphenation. Hyphenated elsewhere: ‘first hand
information’ to ‘first-hand information’
Pg. 46: Fixed word mix-up: ‘pointing to the guide’ to ‘pointing to the
policeman’
Pg. 49: Corrected typo: ‘Baptisery’ to ‘Baptistery’
Pg. 61: Corrected typo: ‘the assembled anaeobists’ to ‘the assembled
anaerobists’
Pg. 65: Missing word added: ‘a blank stare a’ to ‘a blank stare and a’
Pg. 76: Added missing punctuation: ‘part of the way the rest’ to ‘part
of the way; the rest’
Pg. 84: Corrected typo: ‘should weight at least’ to ‘should weigh at
least’
Pg. 94: Moved wrongly placed quote marks: ‘“It is too bad said her
mother,”’ to ‘“It is too bad,” said her mother,’
Pg. 97: Added hyphen for consistency. Hyphenated elsewhere: ‘nice
looking’ to ‘nice-looking’
Pg. 97: Removed two extra periods: ‘with photo., Box. 28’ to ‘with
photo, Box 28’
Pg. 103: Added missing comma at quote close: ‘ you know” said Sam’ to ‘
you know,” said Sam’
Pg. 107: Missing close-quote inserted at para end: ‘how to control it.’
to ‘how to control it.”’
Pg. 110: Corrected typo: ‘a dark stirway’ to ‘a dark stairway’
Pg. 118: Corrected typo: ‘millenium’ to ‘millennium’
Pg. 123: Changed upper case to lower after comma: ‘Very well, You are’
to ‘Very well, you are’
Pg. 138: Corrected spacing for consistency. Spaced out elsewhere: ‘Body
o’me!’ to ‘Body o’ me!’
Pg. 138: Note: Named Jabez Short later in the text
Pg. 139: Corrected typo: ‘The horesman on the right’ to ‘The horseman
on the right’
Pg. 139: Added missing open-quote: ‘Thou wilt die’ to ‘“Thou wilt die’
Pg. 140: Removed extra close-quote: ‘or his ghost.” Thinkest thou’ to
‘or his ghost. Thinkest thou’
Pg. 141: Changed upper to lower case after comma: ‘Whethamstede, Quoted
by’ to ‘Whethamstede, quoted by’
Pg. 147: Removed duplicate word: ‘and and myn ownkll’ to ‘and myn
ownkll’
Pg. 152: Added missing apostrophe: ‘that was my neighbors’ to ‘that was
my neighbor’s’
Pg. 154: Normalized hyphenation. Predominantly spaced: ‘until someone
asked him’ to ‘until some one asked him’
Pg. 154: Normalized spacing; unspaced elsewhere: ‘Traver’s book store’
to ‘Traver’s bookstore’
Pg. 157: Missing close-quote inserted: ‘“Yes, I said,’ to ‘“Yes,” I
said,’
Pg. 161: Removed extra open-quote: ‘“I laughed’ to ‘I laughed’
Pg. 162: Removed extra close-quote: ‘said Hetty Poiret.”’ to ‘said
Hetty Poiret.’
Pg. 163: Added missing comma at quote close: ‘like that story” said
Helen’ to ‘like that story,” said Helen’
Pg. 173: Added missing comma, open-quote and corrected typo: ‘she
continued that he says we stayed at a farm house together on
Saturady’ to ‘she continued, “that he says we stayed at a farm house
together on Saturday’
Pg. 173: Removed extra open-quote at para start: ‘“Sally and her
mother’ to ‘Sally and her mother’
Pg. 174: Missing close-quote inserted: ‘poor girl’s ribs?’ to ‘poor
girl’s ribs?”’
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