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Title: The Fortunes of Oliver Horn

Author: F. Hopkinson Smith

Posting Date: August 5, 2012 [EBook #3417]
Release Date: September, 2003
First Posted: April 10, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNES OF OLIVER HORN ***




Produced by Duncan Harrod










  THE FORTUNES OF
  OLIVER HORN

by F. Hopkinson Smith




I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF


  "THE MAN OF ALL OTHERS ABOUT KENNEDY
  SQUARE MOST BELOVED, AND THE MAN OF ALL
  OTHERS LEAST UNDERSTOOD--RICHARD HORN,
  THE DISTINGUISHED INVENTOR."
  F.H.S.




  THE FORTUNES OF
  OLIVER HORN




CHAPTER I

THE OLD HOUSE IN KENNEDY SQUARE


Kennedy Square, in the late fifties, was a place of birds and trees and
flowers; of rude stone benches, sagging arbors smothered in vines, and
cool dirt-paths bordered by sweet-smelling box. Giant magnolias filled
the air with their fragrance, and climbing roses played hide and seek
among the railings of the rotting fence. Along the shaded walks
laughing boys and girls romped all day, with hoop and ball, attended by
old black mammies in white aprons and gayly colored bandannas; while in
the more secluded corners, sheltered by protecting shrubs, happy lovers
sat and talked, tired wayfarers rested with hats off, and staid old
gentlemen read by the hour, their noses in their books.

Outside of all this color, perfume, and old-time charm, outside the
grass-line and the rickety wooden fence that framed them in, ran an
uneven pavement splashed with cool shadows and stained with green
mould. Here, in summer, the watermelon-man stopped his cart; and here,
in winter, upon its broken bricks, old Moses unhooked his bucket of
oysters and ceased for a moment his droning call.

On the shady side of the square, and half-hidden in ivy, was a Noah's
Ark church, topped by a quaint belfry holding a bell that had not rung
for years, and faced by a clock-dial all weather-stains and cracks,
around which travelled a single rusty hand. In its shadow to the right
lay the home of the Archdeacon, a stately mansion with Corinthian
columns reaching to the roof and surrounded by a spacious garden filled
with damask roses and bushes of sweet syringa. To the left crouched a
row of dingy houses built of brick, their iron balconies hung in
flowering vines, the windows glistening with panes of wavy glass
purpled by age.

On the sunny side of the square, opposite the church, were more houses,
high and low; one all garden, filled with broken-nosed statues hiding
behind still more magnolias, and another all veranda and honeysuckle,
big rocking-chairs and swinging hammocks; and still others with
porticos curtained by white jasmine or Virginia creeper.

Half-way down this stretch of sunshine--and what a lovely stretch it
was--there had stood for years a venerable mansion with high chimneys,
sloping roof, and quaint dormer-windows, shaded by a tall sycamore that
spread its branches far across the street. Two white marble steps
guarded by old-fashioned iron railings led up to the front door, which
bore on its face a silver-plated knocker, inscribed in letters of black
with the name Of its owner--"Richard Horn." All three, the door, the
white marble steps, and the silver-plated knocker--not to forget the
round silver knobs ornamenting the newel posts of the railings--were
kept as bright as the rest of the family plate by that most loyal of
servants, old Malachi, who daily soused the steps with soap and water,
and then brought to a phenomenal polish the knocker, bell-pull, and
knobs by means of fuller's-earth, turpentine, hard breathing, and the
vigorous use of a buckskin rag.

If this weazened-faced, bald-headed old darky, resplendent in white
shirt-sleeves, green baize apron, and never-ceasing smile of welcome,
happened to be engaged in this cleansing and polishing process--and it
occurred every morning--and saw any friend of his master approaching,
he would begin removing his pail and brushes and throwing wide the
white door before the visitor reached the house, would there await his
coming, bent double in profound salutation. Indeed, whenever Malachi
had charge of the front steps he seldom stood upright, so constantly
was he occupied--by reason of his master's large acquaintance--in
either crooking his back in the beginning of a bow, or straightening it
up in the ending of one.

To one and all inquiries for Mr. Horn his answer during the morning
hours was invariably the same:

"Yes, sah, Marse Richard's in his li'l room wrastlin' wid his machine,
I reckon. He's in dar now, sah--" this with another low bow, and then
slowly recovering his perpendicular with eyes fixed on the retreating
figure, so as to be sure there was no further need of his services, he
would resume his work, drenching the steps again with soap-suds or
rubbing away on the door-plate or door-pull, stopping every other
moment to blow his breath on the polished surface.

When, however, someone asked for young Oliver, the inventor's only son,
the reply was by no means so definite, although the smile was a trifle
broader and the bow, if anything, a little more profound.

"Marse Oliver, did you say, sah? Dat's a difficult question, sah. Fo'
Gawd I ain't seen him since breakfas'. You might look into Jedge
Ellicott's office if you is gwine downtown, whar dey do say he's
studyin' law, an' if he ain't dar--an' I reckon he ain't--den you might
drap in on Mister Crocker, whar Marse Oliver's paintin' dem pictures;
an' if he ain't dar, den fo-sho he's wid some o' do young ladies, but
which one de Lawd only knows. Marse Oliver's like the rabbit, sah--he
don't leab no tracks," and Malachi would hold his sides in a chuckle of
so suffocating a nature that it would have developed into apoplexy in a
less wrinkled and emaciated person.

Inside of the front door of this venerable mansion ran a wide hall bare
of everything but a solid mahogany hat-rack and table with glass mirror
and heavy haircloth settee, over which, suspended from the ceiling,
hung a curious eight-sided lantern, its wick replaced with a modern
gas-burner. Above were the bedrooms, reached by a curved staircase
guarded by spindling mahogany bannisters with slender hand-rail--a
staircase so pure in style and of so distinguished an air that only
maidens in gowns and slippers should have tripped down its steps, and
only cavaliers in silk stockings and perukes have waited below for
their hands.

Level with the bare hall, opened two highly polished mahogany doors,
which led respectively into the drawing-room and library, their windows
draped in red damask and their walls covered with family portraits. All
about these rooms stood sofas studded with brass nails, big easy-chairs
upholstered in damask, and small tables piled high with magazines and
papers. Here and there, between the windows, towered a bookcase crammed
with well-bound volumes reaching clear to the ceiling. In the centre of
each room was a broad mantel sheltering an open fireplace, and on cold
days--and there were some pretty cold days about Kennedy Square--two
roaring wood-fires dispensed comfort, the welcoming blaze of each
reflected in the shining brass fire-irons and fenders.

Adjoining the library was the dining-room with its well-rubbed mahogany
table, straight-backed chairs, and old sideboard laden with family
silver, besides a much-coveted mahogany cellaret containing some of
that very rare Madeira for which the host was famous. Here were more
easy-chairs and more portraits--one of Major Horn, who fell at
Yorktown, in cocked hat and epaulets, and two others in mob-caps and
ruffles--both ancient grandmothers of long ago.

The "li'l room ob Marse Richard," to which in the morning Malachi
directed all his master's visitors, was in an old-fashioned one-story
out-house, with a sloping roof, that nestled under the shade of a big
tulip-tree in the back yard--a cool, damp, brick-paved old yard, shut
in between high walls mantled with ivy and Virginia creeper and capped
by rows of broken bottles sunk in mortar. This out-building had once
served as servants' quarters, and it still had the open fireplace and
broad hearth before which many a black mammy had toasted the toes of
her pickaninnies, as well as the trap-door in the ceiling leading to
the loft where they had slept. Two windows which peered out from under
bushy eyebrows of tangled honeysuckle gave the only light; a
green-painted wooden door, which swung level with the moist bricks, the
only entrance.

It was at this green-painted wooden door that you would have had to
knock to find the man of all others about Kennedy Square most beloved,
and the man of all others least understood--Richard Horn, the
distinguished inventor.

Perhaps at the first rap he would have been too absorbed to hear you.
He would have been bending over his carpenter-bench--his deep,
thoughtful eyes fixed on a drawing spread out before him, the shavings
pushed back to give him room, a pair of compasses held between his
fingers. Or he might have been raking the coals of his forge--set up in
the same fireplace that had warmed the toes of the pickaninnies, his
long red calico working-gown, which clung about his spare body, tucked
between his knees to keep it from the blaze. Or he might have been
stirring a pot of glue--a wooden model in his hand--or hammering away
on some bit of hot iron, the brown paper cap that hid his sparse gray
locks pushed down over his broad forehead to protect it from the heat.

When, however, his ear had caught the tap of your knuckles and he had
thrown wide the green door, what a welcome would have awaited you! How
warm the grasp of his fine old hand; how cordial his greeting.

"Disturb me, my dear sir," he would have said in answer to your
apologies, "that's what I was put in the world for. I love to be
disturbed. Please do it every day. Come in! Come in! It's delightful to
get hold of your hand."

If you were his friend, and most men who knew him were, he would have
slipped his arm through your own, and after a brief moment you would
have found yourself poring over a detailed plan, his arm still in
yours, while he showed you the outline of some pin, or lever, needed to
perfect the most marvellous of all discoveries of modern times--his new
galvanic motor.

If it were your first visit, and he had touched in you some sympathetic
chord, he would have uncovered a nondescript combination of glass jars,
horse-shoe magnets, and copper wires which lay in a curious shaped box
beneath one of the windows, and in a voice trembling with emotion as he
spoke, he would have explained to you the value of this or that lever,
and its necessary relation to this new invention of his which was so
soon to revolutionize the motive power of the world. Or he would
perhaps have talked to you as he did to me, of his theories and beliefs
and of what he felt sure the future would bring forth.

"The days of steam-power are already numbered. I may not live to see
it, but you will. This new force is almost within my grasp. I know
people laugh, but so they have always done. All inventors who have
benefited mankind have first been received with ridicule. I can expect
no better treatment. But I have no fear of the result. The steady
destruction of our forests and the eating up of our coal-fields must
throw us back on chemistry for our working power. There is only one
solution of this problem--it lies in the employment of a force which
this machine will compel to our uses. I have not perfected the
apparatus yet, as you see, but it is only a question of time.
To-morrow, perhaps, or next week, or next year--but it will surely
come. See what Charles Bright and this Mr. Cyrus Field are
accomplishing. If it astonishes you to realize that we will soon talk
to each other across the ocean, why should the supplanting of steam by
a new energy seem so extraordinary? The problems which they have worked
out along the lines of electricity, I am trying to work out along the
lines of galvanism. Both will ultimately benefit the human race."

And while he talked you would have listened with your eyes and ears
wide open, and your heart too, and believed every word he said, no
matter how practical you might have been or how unwilling at first to
be convinced.

On another day perhaps you might have chanced to knock at his door when
some serious complication had vexed him--a day when the cogs and
pulleys upon which he had depended for certain demonstration had become
so tangled up in his busy brain that he had thoughts for nothing else.
Then, had he pushed pack his green door to receive you, his greeting
might have been as cordial and his welcome as hearty, but before long
you would have found his eyes gazing into vacancy, or he would have
stopped half-way in an answer to your question, his thoughts far away.
Had you loved him you would then have closed the green door behind you
and left him alone. Had you remained you would, perhaps, have seen him
spring from his seat and pick up from his work-bench some unfinished
fragment. This he would have plunged into the smouldering embers of his
forge and, entirely forgetful of your presence, would have seized the
handle of the bellows, his eyes intent on the blaze, his lips muttering
broken sentences. At these moments, as he would peer into the curling
smoke, one thin hand upraised, the long calico gown wrinkling about his
spare body, the paper cap on his head, he would have looked like some
alchemist of old, or weird necromancer weaving a mystic spell.
Sometimes, as you watched his face, with the glow of the coals lighting
up his earnest eyes, there would have flashed across his troubled
features, as heat lightning illumines a cloud, some sudden brightness
from within followed by a quick smile of triumph. The rebellious
fragment had been mastered. For the hundredth time the great motor was
a success!

And yet, had this very pin or crank or cog, on which he had set such
store, refused the next hour or day or week to do its work, no trace of
his disappointment would have been found in his face or speech. His
faith was always supreme; his belief in his ideals unshaken. If the pin
or crank would not answer, the lever or pulley would. It was the
"adjustment" that was at fault, not the principle. And so the dear old
man would work on, week after week, only to abandon his results again,
and with equal cheerfulness and enthusiasm to begin upon another
appliance totally unlike any other he had tried before. "It was only a
mile-stone," he would say; "every one that I pass brings me so much
nearer the end."

If you had been only a stranger--some savant, for instance, who wanted
a problem in mechanics solved, or a professor, blinded by the dazzling
light of the almost daily discoveries of the time, in search of mental
ammunition to fire back at curious students daily bombarding you with
puzzling questions; or had you been a thrifty capitalist, holding back
a first payment until an expert like Richard Horn had passed upon the
merits of some new labor-saving device of the day; had you been any one
of these, and you might very easily have been, for such persons came
almost daily to see him, the inventor would not only have listened to
your wants, no matter how absorbed he might have been in his own work,
but he would not have allowed you to leave him until he was sure that
your mind was at rest.

Had you, however, been neither friend nor client, but some unbeliever
fresh from the gossip of the Club, where many of the habitues not only
laughed at the inventor's predictions for the future, but often lost
their tempers in discussing his revolutionary ideas; or had you, in a
spirit of temerity, entered his room armed with arguments for his
overthrow, nothing that your good-breeding or the lack of it would have
permitted you to have said could have ruffled his gentle spirit. With
the tact of a man of wide experience among men, he would have turned
the talk into another channel--music, perhaps, or some topic of the
day--and all with such exquisite grace that you would have forgotten
the subject you came to discuss until you found yourself outside the
yard and half-way across Kennedy Square before realizing that the
inventor had made no reply to your attacks.

But whoever you might have been, whether the friend of years, the
anxious client, or the trifling unbeliever, and whatever the purpose of
your visit, whether to shake his hand again for the very delight of
touching it, to seek advice, or to combat his theories, you would have
carried away the impression of a man whose like you had never met
before--a man who spoke in a low, gentle voice, and yet, with an
authority that compelled attention; enthusiastic over the things he
loved, silent over those that pained him; a scholar of wide learning,
yet skilled in the use of tools that obeyed him as readily as nimble
fingers do a hand; a philosopher eminently sane on most of the accepted
theories of the day and yet equally insistent in his support of many of
the supposed sophistries and so-called "fanaticisms of the hour"; an
old-time aristocrat holding fast to the class distinctions of his
ancestors and yet glorying in the dignity of personal labor; a patriot
loyal to the traditions of his State and yet so opposed to the bondage
of men and women that he had freed his own slaves the day his father's
will was read; a cavalier reverencing a woman as sweetheart, wife, and
mother, and yet longing for the time to come when she, too, could make
a career, then denied her, coequal in its dignity with that of the man
beside her.

A composite personality of strange contradictions; of pronounced
accomplishments and yet of equally pronounced failures. And yet,
withal, a man so gracious in speech, so courtly in bearing, so helpful
in counsel, so rational, human, and lovable, that agree with him or
not, as you pleased, his vision would have lingered with you for days.

When night came the inventor would rake the coals from the forge, and
laying aside his paper cap and calico gown, close the green door of his
shop, cross the brick pavement of the back yard, and ascend the stairs
with the spindling bannisters to his dressing room. Here Malachi would
have laid out the black swallow-tail coat with the high velvet collar,
trousers to match, double-breasted waistcoat with gilt buttons, and
fluffy cravat of white silk.

Then, while his master was dressing, the old servant would slip
down-stairs and begin arranging the several rooms for the evening's
guests--for there were always guests at night. The red damask curtains
would be drawn close, the hearth swept clean, and fresh logs thrown on
the andirons. The lamp in the library would be lighted, and his
master's great easy-chair wheeled close to a low table piled high with
papers and magazines, his big-eyed reading-glasses within reach of his
hand. The paper would be unfolded, aired at the snapping blaze, and
hung over the arm of the chair. These duties attended to, the old
servant, with a last satisfied glance about the room, would betake
himself to the foot of the stair-case, there to await his master's
coming, glancing overhead at every sound, and ready to conduct him to
his chair by the fire.

When Richard, his toilet completed, appeared at the top of the stairs,
Malachi would stand until his master had reached the bottom step, wheel
about, and, with head up, gravely and noiselessly precede him into the
drawing-room--the only time he ever dared to walk before him--and with
a wave of the hand and the air of a prince presenting one of his
palaces, would say--"Yo' char's all ready, Marse Richard; bright fire
burnin'." Adding, with a low, sweeping bow, now that the ceremony was
over--"Hope yo're feelin' fine dis evenin', sah."

He had said it hundreds of times in the course of the year, but always
with a salutation that was a special tribute, and always with the same
low bow, as he gravely pulled out the chair, puffing up the back
cushion, his wrinkled hands resting on it until Richard had taken his
seat. Then, with equal gravity, he would hand his master the evening
paper and the big-bowed spectacles, and would stand gravely by until
Richard had dismissed him with a gentle "Thank you, Malachi; that will
do." And Malachi, with the serene, uplifted face as of one who had
served in a temple, would tiptoe out to his pantry.

It had gone on for years--this waiting for Richard at the foot of the
staircase. Malachi had never missed a night when his master was at
home. It was not his duty--not a part of the established regime of the
old house. No other family servant about Kennedy Square performed a
like service for master or mistress. It was not even a custom of the
times.

It was only one of "Malachi's ways," Richard would say, with a gentle
smile quivering about his lips.

"I do dat 'cause it's Marse Richard--dat's all," Malachi would answer,
drawing himself up with the dignity of a chamberlain serving a king,
when someone had the audacity to question him--a liberty he always
resented.

They had been boys together--these two. They had fished and hunted and
robbed birds' nests and gone swimming with each other. They had fought
for each other, and been whipped for each other many and many a time in
the old plantation-days. Night after night in the years that followed
they had sat by each other when one or the other was ill.

And now that each was an old man the mutual service was still continued.

"How are you getting on now, Malachi--better? Ah, that's good--" and
the master's thin white hand would be laid on the black wrinkled head
with a soothing touch.

"Allus feels better, Marse Richard, when I kin git hold ob yo' han',
sah--" Malachi would answer.

Not his slave, remember. Not so many pounds of human flesh and bone and
brains condemned to his service for life; for Malachi was free to come
and go and had been so privileged since the day the old Horn estate had
been settled twenty years before, when Richard had given him his
freedom with the other slaves that fell to his lot; not that kind of a
servitor at all, but his comrade, his chum, his friend; the one man,
black as he was, in all the world who in laying down his life for him
would but have counted it as gain.

Just before tea Mrs. Horn, with a thin gossamer shawl about her
shoulders, would come down from her bedroom above and join her husband.
Then young Oliver himself would come bounding in, always a little late,
but always with his face aglow and always bubbling over with laughter,
until Malachi, now that the last member of the family was at home,
would throw open the mahogany doors, and high tea would be served in
the dining-room on the well-rubbed, unclothed mahogany table, the
plates, forks, and saucers under Malachi's manipulations touching the
polished wood as noiselessly as soap-bubbles.

Tea served and over, Malachi would light the candies in the big,
cut-glass chandelier in the front parlor--the especial pride of the
hostess, it having hung in her father's house in Virginia.

After this he would retire once more to his pantry, this time to make
ready for some special function to follow; for every evening at the
Horn mansion had its separate festivity. On Mondays small whist-tables
that unfolded or let down or evolved from half-moons into circles,
their tops covered with green cloth, were pulled out or moved around so
as to form the centres of cosey groups. Some extra sticks of hickory
would be brought in and piled on the andirons, and the huge
library-table, always covered with the magazines of the day--Littell's,
Westminster, Blackwood's, and the Scientific Review, would be pushed
back against the wall to make room.

On Wednesdays there would be a dinner at six o'clock, served without
pretence or culinary assistance from the pastry-cook outside--even the
ices were prepared at home. To these dinners any distinguished
strangers who were passing through the city were sure to be invited.
Malachi in his time had served many famous men--Charles Dickens, Ole
Bull, Macready, and once the great Mr. Thackeray himself with a second
glass of "that pale sherry, if you please," and at the great man's
request, too. An appreciation which, in the case of Mr. Thackeray, had
helped to mollify Malachi's righteous wrath over the immortal
novelist's ignorance of Southern dishes:

"Dat fat gemman wid de gold specs dat dey do say is so mighty great,
ain't eat nuffin yet but soup an' a li'l mite o' 'tater," he said to
Aunt Hannah on one of his trips to the kitchen as dinner went on. "He
let dat tar'pin an' dem ducks go by him same as dey was pizen. But I
lay he knows 'bout dat ole yaller sherry," and Malachi chuckled. "He
keeps a' retchin' fur dat decanter as if he was 'feared somebody'd git
it fust."

On Fridays there would invariably be a musicale--generally a quartette,
with a few connoisseurs to listen and to criticise. Then the piano
would be drawn out from its corner and the lid propped up, so that Max
Unger of the "Harmonie" could find a place for his 'cello behind it,
and there still be room for the inventor with his violin--a violin with
a tradition, for Ole Bull had once played on it and in that same room,
too, and had said it had the soul of a Cremona--which was quite true
when Richard Horn touched its strings.

On all the other nights of the week Mrs. Horn was at home to all who
came. Some gentle old lady from across the Square, perhaps, in lace
caps and ribbons, with a work-basket filled with fancy crewels, and
whose big son came at nine o'clock to take her home; or Oliver's young
friends, boys and girls; or old Doctor Wallace, full of the day's
gossip; or Miss Lavinia Clendenning, with news of the latest Assembly;
or Nathan Gill with his flute.

But then it was Nathan always, whatever the occasion. From the time
Malachi unlocked the front doors in the morning until he bolted them
for the night, Nathan came and went. The brick pavements were worn
smooth, the neighbors said, between the flute-player's humble lodgings
in a side street and the Horn house, so many trips a day did the old
man make. People smiled at him as he hurried along, his head bent
forward, his long pen-wiper cloak reaching to his heels, a wide-brimmed
Quaker hat crowning his head.

And always, whenever the night or whatever the function or whoever the
guests, a particular side-table was sure to be moved in from Malachi's
pantry and covered with a snow-white cloth which played an important
part in the evening's entertainment. This cloth was never empty. Upon
its damask surface were laid a pile of India-blue plates and a silver
basket of cake, besides a collection of low glass tumblers with little
handles, designed to hold various brews of Malachi's own concoctions,
which he alone of all the denizens of Kennedy Square could compound,
and the secret of which unhappily has perished with him.

And what wondrous aromas, too!

You may not believe it, but I assure you, on the honor of a Virginian,
that for every one of these different nights in the old house on
Kennedy Square there were special savory odors emanating from these
brews, which settled at once and beyond question the precise function
of the evening, and all before you could hand your hat to Malachi. If,
for instance, as the front door was opened the aroma was one of hot
coffee and the dry smell of fresh wafer-biscuit mingled with those of a
certain brand of sherry, then it was always to be plain whist in the
parlor, with perhaps only Colonel Clayton and Miss Clendenning or some
one of the old ladies of the neighborhood, to hold hands in a rubber.
If the fumes of apple-toddy mingled with the fragrance of toasted
apples were wafted your way, you might be sure that Max Unger, and
perhaps Bobbinette, second violin, and Nathan--whatever the function it
was always Nathan, it must be remembered--and a few kindred spirits who
loved good music were expected; and at the appointed hour Malachi, his
hands encased in white cotton gloves, would enter with a flourish, and
would graciously beg leave to pass, the huge bowl held high above his
head filled to the brim with smoking apple-toddy, the little pippins
browned to a turn floating on its top.

If the occasion was one of great distinction, one that fell on
Christmas or on New Year's, or which celebrated some important family
gathering, the pungent odor of eggnog would have greeted you even
before you could have slipped off your gum-shoes in the hall, or hung
your coat on the mahogany rack. This seductive concoction--the most
potent of all Malachi's beverages--was always served from a green and
gold Chinese bowl, and drunk not from the customary low tumblers, but
from special Spode cups, and was, I must confess, productive of a
head--for I myself was once tempted to drink a bumper of it at this
most delightful of houses with young Oliver, many years ago, it is
true, but I have never forgotten it--productive of an ACHING head, I
think I said, that felt as big in the morning as the Canton bowl in
which the mixture had been brewed.

Or, if none of these functions or festivals were taking place, and only
one or two old cronies had dropped in on their way from the Club, and
had drawn up their chairs close to the dining-room table, and you had
happened to be hanging up your hat in the hall at that moment, you
would have been conscious of an aroma as delicate in flavor as that
wafted across summer seas from far-off tropic isles; of pomegranates,
if you will, ripening by crumbling walls; of purple grapes drinking in
the sun; of pine and hemlock; of sweet spices and the scent of roses.
or any other combination of delightful things which your excited
imagination might suggest.

You would have known then just what had taken place; how, when the
gentlemen were seated, Malachi in his undress blue coat and brass
buttons had approached his master noiselessly from behind, and with a
gravity that befitted the occasion had bent low his head, his hands
behind his back, his head turned on one side, and in a hushed voice had
asked this most portentous question:

"Which Madeira, Marse Richard?"

The only answer would have been a lifting of the eyebrow and an
imperceptible nod of his master's head in the direction of the mahogany
cellaret.

Malachi understood.

It was the Tiernan of '29.

And that worthy "Keeper of the Privy Seal and Key," pausing for an
instant with his brown jug of a head bent before the cellaret, as a
Mohammedan bends his head before a wall facing Mecca, had there-upon
unlocked its secret chambers and had produced a low, deeply cut
decanter topped by a wondrous glass stopper. This he had placed, with
conscious importance, on a small table before the two or three devotees
gathered together in its honor, and the host, removing the stopper, had
filled the slender glasses with a vintage that had twice rounded the
Cape--a wine of such rare lineage and flavor that those who had the
honor of its acquaintance always spoke of it as one of the most
precious possessions of the town--a wine, too, of so delicate an aroma
that those within the charmed circle invariably lifted the thin glasses
and dreamily inhaled its perfume before they granted their palates a
drop.

Ah, those marvellous, unforgettable aromas that come to me out of the
long ago with all the reminders they bring of clink of glass and touch
of elbow, of happy boys and girls and sweet old faces. It is forty
years since they greeted my nostrils in the cool, bare, uncurtained
hall of the old house in Kennedy Square, but they are still fresh in my
memory. Sometimes it is the fragrance of newly made gingerbread, or the
scent of creamy custard with just a suspicion of peach-kernels;
sometimes it is the scent of fresh strawberries--strawberries that
meant the spring, not the hot-house or Bermuda--and sometimes it is the
smell of roasted oysters or succulent canvas-backs! Forty years
ago--and yet even to-day the perfume of a roasted apple never greets me
but I stand once more in the old-fashioned room listening to the sound
of Nathan's flute; I see again the stately, silver-haired, high-bred
mistress of the mansion with her kindly greeting, as she moves among
her guests; I catch the figure of that old darkey with his brown, bald
head and the little tufts of gray wool fringing its sides, as he
shuffles along in his blue coat and baggy white waistcoat and
much-too-big gloves, and I hear the very tones of his voice as he
pushes his seductive tray before me and whispers, confidentially:

"Take a li'l ob de apple, sah; dat's whar de real 'spression oh de
toddy is."




CHAPTER II

STRAINS FROM NATHAN'S FLUTE


It was one of those Friday evenings, then, when the smell of roast
apples steeping in hot toddy came wafting out the portals of Malachi's
pantry--a smell of such convincing pungency that even the most
infrequent of frequenters having once inhaled it, would have known at
the first whiff that some musical function was in order. The night was
to be one of unusual interest.

Nathan Gill and Max linger were expected, and Miss Lavinia Clendenning,
completing with Richard a quartette for 'cello, flute, piano, and
violin, for which Unger had arranged Beethoven's Overture to "Fidelio."

Nathan, of course, arrived first. On ordinary occasions another of
those quaint ceremonies for which the house was famous would always
take place when the old flute-player entered the drawing-room--a
ceremony which brought a smile to the lips of those who had watched it
for years, and which to this day brings one to those who recall it.
Nathan, with a look of quizzical anxiety on his pinched face, would
tiptoe cautiously into the room, peering about to make sure of
Richard's presence, his thin, almost transparent fingers outspread
before him to show Richard that they were empty. Richard would step
forward and, with a tone of assumed solicitude in his voice, would say:

"Don't tell me, Nathan, that you have forgotten your flute?" and
Nathan, pausing for a moment, would suddenly break into a smile, and
with a queer little note of surprise in his throat, and a twinkle in
his eye, would make answer by slowly drawing from his coat-tail pocket
the three unjointed pieces, holding them up with an air of triumph and
slowly putting them together. Then these two old "Merry-Andrews" would
lock arms and stroll into the library, laughing like school-boys.

To-night, however, as Nathan had been specially invited to play, this
little ceremony was omitted. On entering the hall the musician gave his
long, black, pen-wiper cloak and his hat to Malachi, and supporting
himself by his delicate fingers laid flat on the hall-table, extended
first one thin leg, and then the other, while that obsequious darky
unbuttoned his gaiters. His feet free, he straightened himself up,
pulled the precious flute from his coat-tail pocket and carefully
joined the parts. This done, he gave a look into the hall-mirror,
puffed out his scarf, combed his straight white hair forward over his
ears with his fingers, and at Malachi's announcement glided through the
open doorway to Mrs. Horn's chair, the flute in his hand held straight
out as an orator would have held his roll.

The hostess, who had been sitting by the fire, her white gossamer shawl
about her spare shoulders, rose from her high-backed chair and, laying
aside her knitting-needles and wools, greeted the musician with as much
cordiality--and it must be confessed with as much ceremony--as if she
had not seen him a dozen times that week. One of the charms of the Horn
mansion lay in these delightful blendings of affection and formality.

"Am I a little early?" he asked with as much surprise as if he were not
as certain to be early when music was concerned as he was to be late in
everything else. "Yes, my dear madam--I see that I am early, unless
Miss Lavinia is late."

"You never could be too early, Nathan. Lavinia will be here in a
moment," she answered, with a smile, resuming her seat.

"I'm glad that I'm ahead of her for once," he replied, laughing. Then,
turning to the inventor, who had come forward from where he had been
studying the new score, he laid his hand affectionately on Richard's
shoulder, as a boy would have done, and added: "How do you like Unger's
new arrangement?--I've been thinking of nothing else all day."

"Capital! Capital!" answered Richard, slipping his arm into Nathan's,
and drawing him closer to the piano. "See how he has treated this
adagio phrase," and he followed the line with his finger, humming the
tune to Nathan. "The modulation, you see, is from E Major to A Major,
and the flute sustains the melody, the effect is so peculiarly soft and
the whole so bright with passages of sunshine all through it--oh, you
will love it."

While these two white-haired enthusiasts with their heads together were
studying the score, beating time with their hands, after the manner of
experts to whom all the curious jumble of dots and lines that plague so
many of us are as plain as print, Malachi was receiving Miss
Clendenning in the hall. Indeed, he had answered her knock as Nathan
was passing into the drawing-room.

The new arrival bent her neck until Malachi had relieved her of the
long hooded cloak, gave a quick stamp with her little feet as she shook
out her balloon skirts, and settled herself on the hall-settee while
Malachi unwound the white worsted "nubia" from her aristocratic throat.
This done, she, too, held a short consultation with the hall-mirror,
carefully dusting, with her tiny handkerchief, the little pats of
powder still left on her cheeks, and with her jewelled fingers
smoothing the soft hair parted over her forehead, and tightening
meanwhile the side-combs that kept in place the clusters of short curls
which framed her face. Then, with head erect and a gracious recognition
of the old servant's ministrations, she floated past Malachi, bent
double in her honor.

"Oh, I heard you, Nathan," she laughed, waving her fan toward him as
she entered the room. "I'm not one minute late. Did you ever hear such
impudence, Sallie, and all because he reached your door one minute
before me," she added, stooping to kiss Mrs. Horn. Punctuality was one
of the cardinal virtues of this most distinguished, prim, precise, and
most lovable of old maids. "You are really getting to be dreadful, Mr.
Nathan Gill, and so puffed up--isn't he, Richard?" As she spoke she
turned abruptly and faced both gentlemen. Then, with one of her
rippling laughs--a laugh that Richard always said reminded him of the
notes of a bird--she caught her skirts in her fingers, made the most
sweeping of courtesies and held out her hands to the two gentlemen who
were crossing the room to meet her.

Richard, with the bow of a Cavalier, kissed the one offered him as
gallantly as if she had been a duchess, telling her he had the rarest
treat in store for her as soon as Unger came, and Nathan with mock
devotion held the other between his two palms, and said that to be
scolded by Miss Clendenning was infinitely better than being praised by
anybody else. These pleasantries over, the two old gallants returned to
the piano to wait for Max Unger and to study again the crumpled pages
of the score which lay under the soft light of the candles.

The room relapsed once more into its wonted quiet, broken only by the
whispered talk of well-bred people careful not to disturb each other.
Mrs. Horn had begun to knit again. Miss Clendenning stood facing the
fire, one foot resting on the fender.

This wee foot of the little lady was the delight and admiration of all
the girls about Kennedy Square, and of many others across the seas,
too--men and women for that matter. To-night it was encased in a black
satin slipper and in a white spider-web stocking, about which were
crossed two narrow black ribbons tied in a bow around the ankle--such a
charming little slipper peeping out from petticoats all bescalloped and
belaced! Everything in fact about this dainty old maid, with her trim
figure filling out her soft white fichu, still had that subtlety of
charm which had played havoc with more than one heart in her day. Only
Sallie Horn, who had all the dear woman's secrets, knew where those
little feet had stepped and what hopes they had crushed. Only Sallie
Horn, too, knew why the delicate finger was still bare of a plain gold
ring. The world never thought it had made any difference to Miss
Lavinia, but then the world had never peeped under the lower lid of
Miss Clendenning's heart.

Suddenly the hushed quiet of the room was broken by a loud knock at the
front door, or rather by a series of knocks, so quick and sharp that
Malachi started from his pantry on the run.

"That must be Max," said Richard. "Now, Lavinia, we will move the
piano, so as to give you more room."

Mrs. Horn pushed back her chair, rose to her feet, and stood waiting to
receive the noted 'cellist, without whom not a note could be sounded,
and Miss Clendenning took her foot from the fender and dropped her
skirts.

But it was not Max!

Not wheezy, perspiring old Max Unger after all, walking into the room
mopping his face with one hand and with the other lugging his big
'cello, embalmed in a green baize bag--he would never let Malachi touch
it--not Max at all, but a fresh, rosy-cheeked young fellow of
twenty-two, who came bounding in with a laugh, tossing his hat to
Malachi--a well-knit, muscular young fellow, with a mouth full of white
teeth and a broad brow projecting over two steel-blue eyes that were
snapping with fun.

With his coming the quiet of the place departed and a certain breezy
atmosphere permeated the room as if a gust of cool wind had followed
him. With him, too, came a hearty, whole-souled joyousness--a
joyousness of so sparkling and so radiant a kind that it seemed as if
all the sunshine he had breathed for twenty years in Kennedy Square had
somehow been stored away in his boyish veins.

"Oh, here you are, you dear Miss Lavinia," he cried out, his breath
half gone from his dash across the Square. "How did you get here first?"

"On my two feet, you stupid Oliver," cried Miss Lavinia, shaking her
curls at him. "Did you think somebody carried me?"

"No, I didn't; but that wouldn't be much to carry, Miss Midget." His
pet name for her. "But which way did you come? I looked up and down
every path and--"

"And went all the way round by Sue Clayton's to find me, didn't you?
Oh, you can't throw dust in the Midget's eyes, you young rascal!" and
she stretched up her two dainty hands; drew his face toward her, and
kissed him on the lips.

"There--" and she patted his cheek--"now tell me all about it, you dear
Ollie. What did you want to see me for?" she added with one of those
quick divinations that made her so helpful a confidante. Then, in a
lowered voice--"What has Sue done?"

"Nothing--not one thing. She isn't bothering her head about me. I only
stopped there to leave a book, and--"

Mrs. Horn, with laughing, inquiring eyes, looked up from her chair at
Miss Clendenning, and made a little doubting sound with her lips.
Black-eyed Sue Clayton, with her curls down her back, home from
boarding-school for the Easter holidays, was Oliver's latest flame. His
mother loved to tease him about his love-affairs; and always liked him
to have a new one. She could see farther into his heart she thought
when the face of some sweet girl lay mirrored in its depths.

Oliver heard the doubting sound his mother made, and, reaching over her
chair, flung his arms about her neck and kissed her as if she had been
a girl.

"Now, don't you laugh, you dear old motherkins," he cried, drawing her
nearer to him until her face touched his. "Sue don't care a thing about
me, and I did promise her the book, and I ran every step of the way to
give it to her--didn't I, Uncle Nat?" he added, gayly, hoping to divert
the topic. "You were behind the sun-dial when I passed--don't you
remember?" He shrank a little from the badinage.

The old musician heard the question, but only waved his flute behind
him in answer. He did not even lift his head from beside Richard's at
the score.

Oliver waited an instant, and getting no further reply, released his
hold about his mother's neck, now that he had kissed her into silence,
and turned to Miss Clendenning again.

"Come, Miss Lavinia--come into the library. I've something very
important to talk to you about. Really, now; no nonsense about it!
You've plenty of time--old Max won't be here for an hour, he's always
late, isn't he, mother?"

Miss Clendenning turned quietly, lifted her eyes in a martyr-like way
toward Mrs. Horn, who shook her head playfully in answer, and with
Oliver's arm about her entered the library. She could never refuse any
one of the young people when they came to her with their secrets--most
important and never-to-be-postponed secrets, of course, that could
hardly wait the telling. Her little tea-room across the Square, with
its red damask curtains, its shiny brass andirons, easy-chairs and
lounges, was really more of a confessional than a boudoir. Many a
sorrow had been drowned in the cups of tea that she had served with her
own hand in egg-shell Spode cups, and many a young girl and youth who
had entered its cosey interior with heavy hearts had left it with the
sunshine of a new hope breaking through their tears. But then everybody
knew the bigness of Miss Clendenning's sympathies. It was one of the
things for which they loved her.

She, of course, knew what the boy wanted now. If it were not to talk
about Sue Clayton it was sure to be about some one of the other girls.
The young people thought of nothing else but their love-affairs, and
talked of nothing else, and the old people loved to live their youth
over again in listening. It was one of the traditional customs of
Kennedy Square.

Miss Clendenning settled herself in a corner of the carved haircloth
sofa, touched her side-combs with her finger to see that they were in
place, tucked a red cushion behind her back, crossed her two little
feet on a low stool, the two toes peeping out like the heads of two
mice, and taking Oliver's hand in hers said, in her sweet, coaxing
voice:

"Now, you dear boy, it is Sue, isn't it?"

"No!"

"Not Sue? Who then?"

"Mr. Crocker."

"What Mr. Crocker?" She arched her eyebrows and looked at him in
surprise. The name came as a shock. She knew of Mr. Crocker, of course,
but she wanted Oliver to describe him. Surely, she thought, with a
sudden sense of alarm, the boy has not fallen in love with the daughter
of that shabby old man.

"Why, the landscape-painter--the one father knows. I have been taking
drawing lessons of him and he says I've got a lot of talent and that
all I want is practice. He says that if I begin now and draw from the
cast three or four hours a day that by the end of the year I can begin
in color; and then I can go to New York and study, and then to Paris."

The little lady scrutinized him from under her eyelids. The boy's
enthusiasm always delighted her; she would often forget what he was
talking about, so interested was she in following his gestures as he
spoke.

"And what then?"

"Why then I can be a painter, of course. Isn't that a great deal better
than sitting every day in Judge Ellicott's dingy office reading
law-books? I hate the law!"

"And you love Mr. Crocker?"

"Yes, don't you?"

"I don't know him, Ollie. Tell me what he is like."

"Well, he isn't young any more. He's about father's age, but he's a
splendid old man, and he's so poor! Nobody buys his pictures, nor
appreciates him, and, just think, he has to paint portraits and dogs
and anything he can get to do. Don't you think that's a shame? Nobody
goes to see him but father and Uncle Nat and one or two others. They
don't seem to think him a gentleman." He was putting the case so as to
enlist all her sympathies at once.

"He has a daughter, hasn't he?" She was probing him quietly and without
haste. Time enough for her sympathies to work when she got at the facts.

"Yes, but I don't like her very much, for I don't think she's very good
to him." Miss Clendenning smothered a little sigh of relief; there was
no danger; thank Heaven, in that direction! What, then, could he want,
she thought to herself.

"And he's so different from anybody I ever met," Oliver continued. "He
doesn't talk about horses and duck-shooting and politics, or music or
cards like everyone you meet, except Daddy, but he talks about pictures
and artists and great men. Just think, he was a young student in
Dusseldorf for two years, and then he shouldered a knapsack and tramped
all through Switzerland, painting as he went, and often paying for his
lodgings with his sketches. Then he was in Paris for ever so long, and
now he is here, where--"

"Where you tell me he is painting dogs for a living," interrupted Miss
Clendenning. "Do you think, you young scapegrace, that this would be
better than being a lawyer like Judge Ellicott?" and she turned upon
him with one of her quick outbursts of mock indignation.

"But I'm not going to paint dogs," he replied, with some impatience. "I
am going to paint women, like the Sir Peter Lely that Uncle John
Tilghman has. Oh, she's a beauty! I took Mr. Crocker to see her the
other day. It had just been brought in from the country, you know. You
should have heard him go on. He says there's nobody who can paint a
portrait like it nowadays. He raved about her. You know it is Uncle
John Tilghman's grandmother when she was a girl." His voice suddenly
dropped to a more serious tone as he imparted this last bit of
information.

Miss Clendenning knew whose grandmother it was, and knew and loved
every tone in the canvas. It had hung in the Tilghman Manor-House for
years and was one of its most precious treasures, but she did not
intend to stop and discuss it now.

"Mr. Crocker wants me to copy it just as soon as I draw a little
better. Uncle John will let me, I know."

Miss Clendenning tapped her foot in a noiseless tattoo upon the stool,
and for a time looked off into space. She wanted to draw him out, to
know from what depth this particular enthusiasm had sprung. She was
accustomed to his exuberance of spirits, it was one of the many things
she loved him for. If this new craze were but an idle fancy, and he had
had many of them, it would wear itself out, and the longer they talked
about it the better. If, however, it sprang from an inborn taste, and
was the first indication of a hitherto undeveloped talent forcing
itself to the surface, the situation was one demanding the greatest
caution. Twigs like Oliver bent at the wrong time might never
straighten out again.

"And why did you come to me about this, Ollie; why don't you talk to
your father?"

"I have. He doesn't object. He says that Mr. Crocker is one of the rare
men of the time, and that only inexperience among the people here
prevents him from being appreciated. That's what he goes to see him
for. It isn't father that worries me, it's mother. I know just whet
she'll say. She's got her heart set on my studying law, and she won't
listen to anything else. I wouldn't object to the law if I cared for
it, but I don't. That's what makes it come so hard."

"And you want me to speak to your mother?"

"Yes, of course. That's just what I DO want you to do. Nobody can help
me but you," he cried with that coaxing manner which would have seemed
effeminate until one looked at his well-built, muscular body and the
firm lines about his mouth. "You tell her of all the painters you knew
in London when you lived there, and of what they do and how they are
looked up to, and that some of them are gentlemen and not idlers and
loafers. Mother will listen to you, I know, and maybe then when I tell
her it won't be such a shock to her. Do you know it is incomprehensible
to me, all this contempt for people who don't do just the same things
that their grandfathers did. And how do I know, too, that they are
right about it all? It seems to me that when a man is born a gentleman
and is a gentleman he can follow any occupation he pleases. Instead of
his trade making him respectable he should make IT so." He spoke with a
virility she had never suspected in him before, this boy whom she had
held in her arms as a baby and who was still only the child to her.

"But, Ollie," she interrupted, in some surprise, "you must never forget
that you are your father's son. No one is absolutely independent in
this world; everyone has his family to consider." She was becoming not
only interested now, but anxious. Mr. Crocker had evidently been
teaching the boy something besides the way to use his pencil. Such
democratic ideas were rare in Kennedy Square.

"Yes, I know what you mean." He had sprung from his seat now and was
standing over her, she looking up into his face. "You mean that it is
all right for me to go into old Mr. Wardell's counting-house because he
sells coffee by the cargo, but that I can't take a situation in
Griggson's grocery here on the corner because he sells coffee by the
pound. You mean, too, that it is possible for a man to be a professor
or president of a college and still be a gentleman, but if he teaches
in the public school he is done for. You mean, too, that I could saw
off a patient's leg and still be invited to Uncle Tilghman's house to
dinner, but that if I pulled out one of his teeth I could only eat in
his kitchen."

Miss Clendenning threw back her head and laughed until the combs in her
side-curls needed refastening, but she did not interrupt him.

"I can't get this sort of thing into my head and I never will. And
father doesn't believe in it any more than I do, and I don't think that
mother would if it wasn't for a lot of old people who live around this
square and who talk of nothing all day but their relations and think
there's nobody worth knowing but themselves. Now, you've GOT to talk to
mother; I won't take no for an answer," and he threw himself down
beside her again. "Come, dear Midget, hold up your right hand and
promise me now, before I let you go," he pleaded in his wheedling way
that made him so lovable to his intimates, catching her two hands in
his and holding them tight.

Of course she promised. Had she ever refused him anything? And Oliver,
a boy again, now that his confessions were made, kissed her joyously on
both cheeks and instantly forgetting his troubles as his habit was when
prospects of relief had opened, he launched out into an account of a
wonderful adventure Mr. Crocker once had in an old town in Italy, where
he was locked up over-night in a convent by mistake; and how he had
slept on his knapsack in the chapel, and what the magistrate had said
to him the next day, and how he had to paint a portrait of that
suspicious officer to prove he was a painter and a man of the best
intentions. In his enthusiasm he not only acted the scene, but he
imitated the gesture and dialect of the several parties to the escapade
so perfectly that the little lady, in her delight over the story, quite
forgot her anxiety and even the musicale itself, and only remembered
the quartette when Malachi, bowing obsequiously before her, said:

"Dey's a-waitin' for you, Miss Lavinia. Mister Unger done come and
Marse Richard say he can't wait a minute."

When she and Oliver entered the drawing-room the 'cellist was the
centre of the group. He was stripping off the green baize cover from
his instrument and at the same time was apologizing, in his broken
English, for being so late. Richard was interrupting him with
enthusiastic outbursts over the new score which still lay under the wax
candles lighting the piano, and which he and Nathan, while waiting for
the musician, had been silently practising in sundry bobs of their
heads and rhythmic beatings of their hands.

"My dear Max," Richard continued, with a hand on the musician's
shoulder, patting him in appreciation as he spoke, "we will forgive you
anything. You have so exactly suited to the 'cello the opening theme.
And the flute passages!--they are exquisitely introduced. We will let
Miss Clendenning decide when she hears it--" and he turned Unger's head
in the direction of the advancing lady. "Here she comes now; you, of
course, know the fine quality of Miss Clendenning's ear."

Herr Unger placed his five fat fingers over his waist-baud, bowed as
low to Miss Lavinia as his great girth would permit, and said:

"Ah, yes, I know. Miss Clendenning not only haf de ear she haf de life
in de end of de finger. De piano make de sound like de bird when she
touch it."

The little lady thanked him in her sweetest voice, made a courtesy, and
extended her hand to Max, who kissed it with much solemnity, and
Richard, putting his arm around the 'cellist's fat shoulders, conducted
him across the room, whereupon Nathan, with the assumed air of an old
beau, offered his crooked elbow to Miss Clendenning as an apology for
having reached the house before her. Then, seating her at the piano
with a great flourish, he waved his hand to Oliver, who had drawn up a
chair beside his mother, and with a laugh, cried:

"Here, you young love; come and turn the leaves for Miss Lavinia. It
may keep you from running over other people in the dark, even if they
are accused of hiding behind sun-dials."

With the beginning of the overture Mrs. Horn laid down her work, and
drawing her white gossamer shawl about her shoulders gave herself up to
the enjoyment of the music. The overture was one of her favorites--one
she and Richard had often played together as a duet in their younger
days.

Leaning back in her easy-chair with half-closed eyes, her clear-cut
features in silhouette against the glow of the fire, her soft gray
curls nestling in the filmy lace that fell about her temples, she
expressed, in every line of her face and figure, that air of graceful
repose which only comes to those highly favored women who have all
their lives been nurtured in a home of loving hands, tender voices, and
noiseless servants--lives of never-ending affection without care or
sorrow.

And yet had you, even as she sat there, studied carefully this central
figure of the Horn mansion--this practical, outspoken, gentle-voiced,
tender wife and mother, tenacious of her opinions, yet big enough and
courageous enough to acknowledge her mistakes; this woman, wise in
counsel, sympathetic in sorrow, joyous with the young, restful with the
old, you would have discovered certain lines about her white forehead
which advancing years alone could not have accounted for.

These lines seemed all the deeper to-night. Only a few hours before,
Richard had come to her, while Malachi was arranging his clothes, with
the joyful news of a new device which he had developed during the day
for his motor. He could hardly wait to tell her, he had said. The news
was anything but joyful to her. She knew what it meant--she knew what
sums had been wasted on the other devices, involving losses which at
this time they could so little afford. She was glad, therefore, to free
her mind for the moment from these anxieties; glad to sit alone and
drink in the melodies that the quartette set free.

As she sat listening, beating time noiselessly with her thin, upraised
hand, her head resting quietly, a clear, silvery note--clear as a
bird's--leaped from Nathan's flute, soared higher and higher, trembled
like a lark poised in air, and died away in tones of such exquisite
sweetness that she turned her head in delight toward the group about
the piano, fixing her gaze on Nathan. The old man's eyes were riveted
on the score, his figure bent forward in the intensity of his
absorption, his whole face illumined with the ecstasy that possessed
him. Then she looked at Richard, standing with his back to her, his
violin tucked under his chin, his body swaying in rhythm with the
music. Unger sat next to him, his instrument between his knees, his
stolid, shiny face unruffled by the glorious harmonies of Beethoven.

Then her glance rested on Oliver. He was hanging over the piano
whispering in Miss Clendenning's ear, his face breaking into smiles at
her playful chidings. If the pathos of the melody had reached him he
showed no sign of its effects.

Instantly there welled up in her heart a sudden gush of tenderness--one
of those quick outbursts that often overwhelm a mother when her eyes
rest on a son whose heart is her own--an outburst all the more
intensified by the melody that thrilled her. Why should her heart have
been troubled? Here was her strong hope! Here was her chief reliance!
Here the hope of the future. How could she doubt or suffer when this
promise of the coming day was before her in all the beauty and strength
of his young manhood.

With the echoes of Nathan's flute still vibrating in her, and with her
mind filled with the delight of these fresh hopes, she suddenly
recalled the anxious look on her boy's face as he led Miss Clendenning
into the library--a new look--one she had never seen before. Still
under the quickening spell of the music she began to exaggerate its
cause. What had troubled him? Why had he told Lavinia, and not her? Was
there anything serious?--something he had kept from her to save her
pain?

From this moment her mind became absorbed in her boy. With restless,
impatient fingers she began thrumming on the arm of her chair. Oliver
would tell her, she knew, before many hours, but she could not
wait--she wanted to know at once.

With the ending of the first part of the overture, and before the two
gentlemen had laid down their instruments to grasp Unger's hands, she
called to Miss Clendenning, who sat at the piano alone, Oliver having
slipped away unobserved.

Miss Clendenning raised her eyes in answer. "Come over and sit by me,
dear, while the gentlemen rest."

Miss Clendenning picked up her white silk mits and fan lying beside the
candles, and moved toward the fireplace. Malachi saw her coming--he was
always in the room during the interludes--and with an alacrity common
to him when the distinguished little lady was present, drew up a low
chair beside his mistress and stood behind it until she took her seat.
Miss Clendenning smoothed out her skirt and settled herself with the
movement of a pigeon filling her nest. Then she laid her mits in her
lap and fanned herself softly.

"Well, Sallie, what is it? Did you ever hear Nathan play so well!" she
asked, at last.

"What did Oliver want, my dear?" replied Mrs. Horn, ignoring her
question. "Is there anything worrying him, or is Sue at the bottom of
it!"

The little woman smiled quizzically. "No, Sallie--not Sue--not this
time. That little rattle-brain's affections will only last the week
out. Nothing very important--that is, nothing urgent. We were talking
about the Tilghman portraits and the Lely that Cousin John has brought
into town from Claymore Manor, and what people should and should not do
to earn their living, and what professions were respectable. I thought
one thing and Ollie thought another. Now, what profession of all others
would you choose for a young man starting out in life?"

"What has he been telling you, Lavinia? Does he want to leave Judge
Ellicott's office?" Mrs. Horn asked, quietly, She always went straight
to the root of any matter.

"Just answer my question, Sallie."

"I'd rather he'd be a lawyer, of course; why?"

"Suppose he won't, or can't?"

"Is that what he told you, Lavinia, on the sofa?" She was leaning
forward, her cheek on her hand, her eyes fixed on the blazing logs.

"He told me a great many things, half of them boy's talk. Now answer my
question; suppose he couldn't study law because his heart wasn't in it,
what then?"

"I know, Lavinia, what you mean." There was an anxious tone now in the
mother's voice. "And Oliver talked to you about this?" As she spoke she
settled back in her chair and a slight sigh escaped her.

"Don't ask me, Sallie, for I'm not going to tell you. I want to know
for myself what you think, so that I can help the boy."

Mrs. Horn turned her head and looked toward Richard. She had suspected
as much from some hints that Judge Ellicott had dropped when she had
asked him about Oliver's progress. "He is still holding down his chair,
Madam." She thought at the time that it was one of the Judge's
witticisms, but she saw now that it had a deeper meaning. After some
moments she said, fixing her eyes on Miss Clendenning:

"Well, now, Lavinia, tell me what YOU think. I should like your
opinion. What would you wish to do with him if he were your son?"

Miss Lavinia smiled and her eyes half-closed. For a brief moment there
came to her the picture of what such a blessing would have been. Her
son! No! It was always somebody else's son or daughter to whom her
sympathy must go.

"Well, Sallie," she answered--she was leaning over now, her hands in
her lap, apparently with lowered eyelids, but really watching Mrs.
Horn's, face from the corner of her eye--"I don't think we can make a
clergyman out of him, do you?" Mrs. Horn frowned, but she did not
interrupt. "No, we cannot make a parson out of him. I meant, my love,
something in surplices, not in camp-meetings, of course. Think of those
lovely pink cheeks in a high collar and Bishop's sleeves, wouldn't he
be too sweet for anything?" and she laughed one of her little cooing
laughs. "Nor a doctor," she continued, with a slight interrogation in
her tone, "nor a shopkeeper, nor a painter"--and she shot a quick
glance from under her arching eyebrows at her companion--but Mrs.
Horn's face gave no sign--"nor a musician. Why not a musician, Sallie,
he sings like an angel, you know?" She was planting her shafts all
about the target, her eyes following the flight of each arrow.

Mrs. Horn raised her head and laid her hand firmly on Miss
Clendenning's wrist.

"We won't have him a shopkeeper, Lavinia," she said with some
positiveness, "nor a barber, nor a painter, nor a cook, nor a dentist.
We'll try and keep him a gentleman, my dear, whatever happens. As for
his being a musician, I think you will agree with me, that music is
only possible as an accomplishment, never when it is a profession. Look
at that dear old man over there"--and she pointed to Nathan, who was
bending forward running over on his flute some passages from the score,
his white hair covering his coat-collar behind--"so absolutely unfitted
for this world as he is, so purposeless, so hopelessly inert. He
breathes his whole soul into that flute and yet--"

"And a good deal comes out of it sometimes, my dear--to-night, for
instance," laughed Miss Lavinia. "Did you catch those bird-like notes?"

"Yes, and they thrilled me through and through, but sweet as they are
they haven't helped him make a career."

At this moment Richard called to Unger, who had been sitting on the
sofa in the library, "cooling off," he said, as he mopped his head with
a red handkerchief, one of Malachi's cups in his hand.

Miss Lavinia caught sight of the 'cellist's advancing figure and rose
from her seat. "I must go now," she said, "they want to play it again."
She moved a step forward, gave a glance at her side-curls in the oval
mirror over the mantel, stopped hesitatingly, and then bending over
Mrs. Horn said, thoughtfully, her hand on her companion's shoulder,
"Sallie, don't try to make water run uphill. If Ollie belonged to me
I'd let him follow his tastes, whatever they were. You'll spoil the
shape of his instep if you keep him wearing Chinese shoes," and she
floated over to join the group of musicians.

Mrs. Horn again settled herself in her chair. She understood now the
look on Oliver's face. She was right then; something was really
worrying him. The talk with Miss Lavinia had greatly disturbed her--.
so much so that she could not listen to the music. Again her eyes
rested on Oliver, who had come in and joined the group at the piano,
all out of breath with his second run across the Square--this time to
tell Sue of Miss Clendenning's promise. He was never happy unless he
was sharing what was on his mind with another, and if there was a girl
within reach he was sure to pour it into her willing ears.

Mrs. Horn looked at him with a pang about her heart. From which side of
the house had come this fickleness, this instability and love of change
in Oliver's character? she asked herself--a new interest every day--all
the traditions of his forefathers violated. How could she overcome it
in him? how make him more practical? Years before, when she had thought
him proud, she had sent him to market and had made him carry home the
basket on his arm, facing the boys who laughed at him. He had never
forgotten the lesson; he was neither proud nor lazy any more. But what
could she do in a situation like this?

Harassed by these doubts her eyes wandered over Oliver's slender,
well-knit muscular figure as he stood whispering to Miss Clendenning.
She noticed the fine, glossy hair brushed from the face and worn long
in the neck, curling behind the ears. She noted every movement of his
body: the graceful way in which he talked with his hands, using his
fingers to accentuate his words, and the way in which he shrugged his
shoulders--the shrug of a Frenchman, although not a drop of their blood
could be found in his veins--and in the quick lifting of the hand and
the sidelong glance of the eye, all so characteristic of Richard when
some new thought or theory reached his brain for the first time.
Gradually and unconsciously she began to compare each feature of
Oliver's face with that of the father who stood beside him: the alert
blue, eyes; overhanging brow and soft silkiness of the
hair--identically the name, even the way it lay in the neck. And again
she looked at Richard, drawing the bow as if in a dream.

Instantly a thought entered her mind that drove the blood from her
cheeks. These vacillations of her husband's! This turning from one
thing to another--first the law, then these inventions that never lead
anywhere, and now Oliver beginning in the same way, almost in the same
steps! Could these traits be handed down to the children? Would Oliver
be like Richard in----

Instinctively she stopped short before the disloyal thought could form
itself in her brain, straightened herself in her chair, and closed her
lips tight.

The music ceased; Nathan laid his flute on the piano; Unger rose from
his seat, and Richard turned to talk to Miss Clendenning. But she was
unmindful of it all--she still sat in her chair, her eyes searching the
blazing logs, her hands in her lap.

Only Malachi with his silver tray recalled her to consciousness.




CHAPTER III

THE OPEN-AIR DRAWING-ROOMS OF KENNIDY SQUARE


If in the long summer days Kennedy Square was haunted by the idle and
the weary, in the cool summer nights its dimly lighted paths were alive
with the tread of flying feet, and its shadowy benches gay with the
music of laughter and merry greetings.

With the going down of the sun, the sidewalks were sprinkled, and the
whole street about the Square watered from curb to curb, to cool its
sun-baked cobbles. The doors and windows of all the houses were thrown
wide to welcome the fresh night-air, laden with the perfume of
magnolia, jasmine, and sweet-smelling box. Easy-chairs and cushions
were brought out and placed on the clean steps of the porches, and the
wide piazzas covered with squares of china-matting to make ready for
the guests of the evening.

These guests would begin to gather as soon as the twilight settled; the
young girls in their pretty muslin frocks and ribbons, the young men in
white duck suits and straw hats. They thronged the cool, well-swept
paths, chattered in bunches under the big trees, or settled like birds
on the stone seats and benches. Every few minutes some new group, fresh
from their tea-tables, would emerge from one of the houses, poise like
a flock of pigeons on the top step, listen to the guiding sound of the
distant laughter, and then swoop down in mad frolic, settling in the
midst of the main covey, under the big sycamores until roused at the
signal of some male bird in a straw hat, or in answer to the call of
some bare-headed songstress from across the Square, the whole covey
would dash out one of the rickety gates, only to alight again on the
stone steps of a neighbor's porch, where their chatter and pipings
would last far into the night.

It was extraordinary how, from year to year, these young birds and even
the old ones remembered the best perches about the Square. On Colonel
Clayton's ample portico--big enough to shelter half a dozen covies
behind its honeysuckles--both young and old would settle side by side;
the younger bevy hovering about the Judge's blue-eyed daughter--a bird
so blithe and of so free a wing, that the flock always followed
wherever she alighted. On Judge Bowman's wide veranda only a few old
cocks from the club could be found, and not infrequently, some rare
birds from out of town perched about a table alive with the clink of
glass and rattle of crushed ice, while next the church, on old Mrs.
Pancoast's portico, with its tall Corinthian columns--Mr. Pancoast was
the archdeacon of the Noah's ark church--one or two old grandmothers
and a grave old owl of a family doctor were sure to fill the
rocking-chairs. As for Richard Horn's marble steps they were never free
from stray young couples who flew in to rest on Malachi's chairs and
cushions. Sometimes only one bird and her mate would be tucked away in
the shadow of the doorway; sometimes only an old pair, like Mrs. Horn
and Richard, would occupy its corners.

These porticoes and stone door-steps were really the open-air
drawing-rooms of Kennedy Square in the soft summer nights. Here ices
were served and cool drinks--sherbets for the young and juleps and
sherry cobblers for the old. At the Horn house, on great occasions, as
when some big melon that had lain for days on the cool cellar floor was
cut (it was worth a day's journey to see Malachi cut a melon), the
guests would not only crowd the steps, but all the hall and half up the
slender staircase, where they would sit with plates in their laps, the
young men serving their respective sweethearts.

This open-air night-life had gone on since Kennedy Square began; each
door-step had its habitues and each veranda its traditions. There was
but one single porch, in fact, facing its stately trees whereon no
flocks of birds, old or young, ever alighted, and that belonged to
Peter Skimmerton--the meanest man in town--who in a fit of parsimony
over candles, so the girls said, had bared his porch of every
protesting vine and had placed opposite his door-step a glaring street
gas-lamp---a monstrous and never-to-be-forgotten affront.

And yet, free and easy as the life was, no stranger sat himself down on
any one of these porches until his pedigree had been thoroughly
investigated, no matter how large might be his bank-account nor how
ambitious his soarings. No premeditated discourtesy ever initialed this
exclusiveness and none was ever intended. Kennedy Square did not know
the blood of the stranger--that was all--and not knowing it they could
not trust him. And it would have been altogether useless for him to try
to disguise his antecedents--especially if he came from their own
State--or any State south of it. His record could be as easily reached
and could be as clearly read as a title-deed. Even the servants knew.
Often they acted as Clerks of the Rolls.

"Dat Mister Jawlins, did you ask 'bout?" Malachi would say. "Why you
know whar he comes f'om. He's one o' dem Anne Rundle Jawlinses. He do
look mighty peart an' dey do say he's mighty rich, but he can't fool
Malachi. I knowed his gran'pa," and that wise and politic darky, with
the honor of the house before his eyes, would shake his head knowingly
and with such an ominous look, that had you not known the only crime of
the poor grandfather to have been a marriage with his overseer's
daughter--a very worthy woman, by the way--instead of with some lady of
quality, you would have supposed he had added the sin of murder to the
crime of low birth. On the other hand, had you asked Malachi about some
young aristocrat who had forgotten to count his toddies the night
before, that Defender of the Faith would have replied:

"Lawd bress ye! Co'se dese young gemmens like to frolic--an' dey do git
dat way sometimes--tain't nuthin'. Dem Dorseys was allers like dat--"
the very tones of his voice carrying such convictions of the young
man's respectability that you would have felt safe in keeping a place
at your table for the delinquent, despite your knowledge of his habits.

This general intimacy between the young people, and this absolute faith
of their elders in the quality of family blood, was one of the reasons
why every man about Kennedy Square was to be trusted with every other
man's sister, and why every mother gave the latch-key to every other
mother's son, and why it made no difference whether the young people
came home early or late, so that they all came home when the others
did. If there were love-making--and of course there was love-making--it
was of the old-fashioned, boy-and-girl kind, with keepsakes and pledges
and long walks in the afternoons and whispered secrets at the
merry-makings. Never anything else. Woe betide the swain who forgot
himself ever so slightly--there was no night-key for him after that,
nor would any of the girls on any front steps in town ever look his way
again when he passed--and to their credit be it said, few of the young
men either. From that day on the offender became a pariah. He had
committed the unpardonable sin.

As for these young men, this life with the girls was all the life they
knew. There were fishing parties, of course, at the "Falls" when the
gudgeons were biting, and picnics in the woods; and there were oyster
roasts in winter, and watermelon parties in summer--but the girls must
be present, too. For in those simple days there were no special clubs
with easy-chairs and convenient little tables loaded with drinkables
and smokables--none for the young Olivers, and certainly none for the
women. There was, to be sure, in every Southern city an old mausoleum
of a club--sometimes two--each more desolate than the other--haunted by
gouty old parties and bonvivants; but the young men never passed
through their doors except on some call of urgency. When a man was old
enough to be admitted to the club there was no young damosel on
Malachi's steps, or any other steps, who would care a rap about him.
HIS day was done.

For these were the days in which the woman ruled in court and
home---championed by loyal retainers who strove hourly to do her
bidding. Even the gray-haired men would tell you over their wine of
some rare woman whom they had known in their youth, and who was still
their standard of all that was gentle and gracious, and for whom they
would claim a charm of manner and stately comeliness that--"my dear
sir, not only illumined her drawing-room but conferred distinction on
the commonwealth."

"Mrs. Tilghman's mother, were you talking about?" Colonel Clayton or
Richard Horn, or some other old resident would ask. "I remember her
perfectly. We have rarely had a more adorable woman, sir. She was a
vision of beauty, and the pride of our State for years."

Should some shadow have settled upon any one of these homes--some
shadow of drunkenness, or love of play, or shattered brain, or
worse--the woman bore the sorrow in gentleness and patience and still
loved on and suffered and loved and suffered again, hoping against
hope. But no dry briefs were ever permitted to play a part, dividing
heart and hearth. Kennedy Square would have looked askance had such
things been suggested or even mentioned in its presence, and the dames
would have lowered their voices in discussing them. Even the men would
have passed with unlifted hats either party to such shame.

Because of this loyalty to womankind and this reverence for the home--a
reverence which began with the mother-love and radiated to every sister
they knew--no woman of quality ever earned her own bread while there
was an able-bodied man of her blood above ground to earn it for her.
Nor could there be any disgrace so lasting, even to the third and
fourth generation, as the stigma an outraged community would place upon
the renegade who refused her aid and comfort. An unprogressive,
quixotic life if you will--a life without growth and dominant
personalities and lofty responsibilities and God-given rights--but oh!
the sweet mothers that it gave us, and the wholesomeness, the
cleanliness, the loyalty of it all.


With the coming of summer, then, each white marble step of the Horn
mansion, under Malachi's care, shone like a china plate.

"Can't hab dese yere young ladies spile dere clean frocks on Malachi's
steps--no, sah," he would say; "Marse Oliver'd r'ar an' pitch tur'ble."

There were especial reasons this year for these extra touches of rag
and brush. Malachi knew "de signs" too well to be deceived. Pretty Sue
Clayton, with her soft eyes and the mass of ringlets that framed her
face, had now completely taken possession of Oliver's heart, and the
old servant already had been appointed chief of the postal service--two
letters a day sometimes with all the verbal messages in between.

This love-affair, which had begun in the winter, was not yet of so
serious a nature as to cause distress or unhappiness to either one of
their respective houses, nor had it reached a point where suicide or an
elopement were all that was left. It was, in truth, but a few months
old, and so far the banns had not been published. Within the last week
Miss Sue had been persuaded "to wait for him--" that was all. She had
not, it is true, burdened her gay young heart with the number of years
of her patience. She and Oliver were sweethearts--that was enough for
them both. As proof of it, was she not wearing about her neck at the
very moment a chain which he had fashioned for her out of
cherry-stones; and had she not given him in return one of those same
ringlets, and had she not tied it with a blue ribbon herself? And above
all--and what could be more conclusive--had she not taken her hair down
to do it, and let him select the very tress that pleased him best?--and
was not this curl, at that very moment, concealed in a pill-box and
safely hidden in his unlocked bureau-drawer, where his mother saw it
with a smile the last time she put away his linen? This love-affair--as
were the love-affairs of all the other young people--was common gossip
around Kennedy Square. Had there been any doubts about it, it would
only have been necessary to ask any old Malachi, or Hannah; or Juno.
They could have given every detail of the affair, descanting upon all
its joys and its sorrows.

Sweet girls of the days gone by, what crimes some of you have to answer
for! At least one of you must remember how my own thumb was cut into
slits over these same cherry-stones, and why the ends of your ringlets
were tucked away in a miniature box in my drawer, with the pressed
flowers and signet-ring, and the rest of it. And you could--if you
would--recall a waiting promise made to me years and years ago. And the
wedding! Surely you have not forgotten that. I was there, you
remember--but not as the groom.


On one particular evening in June--an evening that marked an important
stage in the development of Oliver's fortunes--the front porch, owing
to Malachi's attentions, was in spotless condition--steps, knocker, and
round silver knobs.

Sue and Oliver sat on the top step; they had stolen across from the
Clayton porch on some pretended errand. Sue's chin was in her hand, and
Oliver sat beside her pouring out his heart as he had never done
before. He had realized long ago that she could never understand his
wanting to be a painter as Miss Clendenning had done, and so he had
never referred to it since the night of the musicale, when he had raced
across the Square to tell her of his talk with the little lady. Sue, as
he remembered afterward, had listened abstractedly. She would have
preferred at the time his running in to talk about herself rather than
about his queer ambitions. She was no more interested now.

"Ollie, what does your father say about all this?" she finally asked in
a perfunctory way. "Would he be willing for you to be a painter?" It
bored her to listen to Oliver's enthusiastic talk about light and
shade, and color and perspective, and what Mr. Crocker had said and
what Mr. Crocker was doing, and what Mr. Crocker's last portrait was
like. She was sure that nobody else around Kennedy Square talked of
such things or had such curious ambitions. They shocked her as much as
Oliver's wearing some outlandish clothes would have done--making him
conspicuous and, perhaps, an object of ridicule.

"Father's all right, Sue. He's always right," Oliver answered. "He
believes in Mr. Crocker, just as he believes in a lot of things that a
good many people around here don't understand. He believes the time
will come when they will value his pictures, and be proud to own them.
But I don't care who owns mine; I just want the fun of painting them.
Just think of what a man can do with a few tubes of color, a brush, and
a bit of canvas. So I don't care if they never buy what I paint. I can
get along somehow, just as Mr. Crocker does. He's poor, but just see
how happy he is. Why, when he does a good thing he's nothing but a boy,
he's so glad about it. I always know how his work has gone when I see
his face."

"But, Ollie, he's so shabby, and his daughter gives music-lessons.
Nobody THINKS of inviting her anywhere." Sue's eyes were shut tight,
with an expression of assumed contempt, and her little nose was
straight up.

"Yes--but that doesn't hurt his pictures, Sue." There was a slight
trace of impatience in Oliver's tone.

"Well, perhaps it doesn't--but you don't want to be like him. I
wouldn't like to see you, Ollie, going about with a picture under your
arm that everybody knew you had painted yourself. And suppose that they
would want to buy your pictures? How would you feel now to be taking
other people's money for things you had painted?"

The boy caught his breath. It seemed useless to pursue the talk with
Sue. She evidently had no sympathy with his aspirations.

"No--but I wish I could paint as he does," he answered, mechanically.

Sue saw the change in his manner. She realized, too, that she had hurt
him in some way. She drew nearer and put her hand on his arm.

"Why, you can, Ollie. You can do anything you want to; Miss Lavinia
told me so." The little witch was mistress of one art--that of holding
her lover--but that was an art of which all the girls about Kennedy
Square approved.

"No, I can't," he replied, forgetting in the caressing touch of her
hand the tribute to his ability, and delighted that she was once more
in sympathy with him. "Mother wouldn't think of my being an artist. She
doesn't understand how I feel about it, and Miss Lavinia, somehow,
doesn't seem to be favorable to it either. I've talked to her lots of
times--she was more encouraging at first, but she doesn't seem to like
the idea now. I've been hoping she'd fix it so I could speak to mother
about it. Now she tells me I had better wait. I can't see why Miss
Lavinia knows what an artist's life can be, for she knew plenty of
painters when she was in London with her father, and she loves
pictures, too, and is a good judge--nobody here any better. She told me
only a week ago how much one of these Englishmen was paid for a little
thing as big as your hand, but I've forgotten the amount. I don't see
why I can't paint as well as those fellows. Do you know, Sue, I'm
beginning to think that about half the people in Kennedy Square are
asleep? They really don't seem to think there is anything respectable
but the law. If they are right, how about all the men who painted the
great pictures and built all the cathedrals, or the men who wrote all
the poems and histories? Mother, of course, wants me to be a lawyer.
Because I'm fitted for it?--not a bit of it! Simply because father was
one before me and his father before him, and Uncle John Tilghman
another, and so on back to the deluge."

Sue drew away a little and turned her head toward the Square as if in
search of someone. Oliver noticed the movement and his heart sank
again. He saw but too clearly how little impression the story of his
ambitions had made upon her. Then the thought flashed into his mind
that he might have offended her in some way, clashing against her
traditions and her prejudices as he had done. He bent toward her and
laid his hand in hers.

"Little girl," he said, in a softened tone, "I can't make you unhappy,
too. Mother is enough for me to worry about--I haven't talked it all
out to you before, but don't you get a wrong idea of what I'm going to
do--" and he looked up into her face and tightened his hold upon her
fingers, his eyes never wavering from her own.

The girl allowed his hand to remain an instant, then quickly withdrew
her own and started up. Coyness is sometimes fear in the timid heart
that is stepping into the charmed circle for the first time.

"There goes Ella Dorsey and Jack--" she cried, springing down the
steps. "Ella! El--la!" and an answering halloo came back, and the two
started from Malachi's steps and raced up the street to join their
young friends.




CHAPTER IV

AN OLD-FASHIONED MORTGAGE


Pretty Sue Clayton with her ringlets and rosy cheeks had not been
Oliver's only listener.

His mother had been sitting inside the drawing-room, just beside the
open window. She had spoken to Sue and Oliver when they first mounted
the steps, and had begged them both to come in, but they had forgotten
her presence. Unintentionally, therefore, she had heard every word of
the conversation. Her old fears rushed over her again with renewed
force. She had never for a moment supposed that Oliver wanted to be a
painter--like Mr. Crocker! Now at last she understood his real object
in talking to Lavinia the night of the musical.

"Richard," she called softly to her husband sitting in the adjoining
room, in the chair that Malachi, in accordance with the old custom, had
with his sweeping bow made ready for him. The inventor had been there
since tea was over, lying back in his seat, his head resting on his
hand. He had had one of his thoughtful days, worrying over some detail
of his machine, still incomplete. The new device of which he had told
her with such glee had failed, as had the others. The motor was still
incomplete.

"Richard," she repeated.

"Yes, my dear," he answered, in his gentle voice. He had not heard her
at first.

"Bring your chair over here."

The inventor rose instantly and, crossing the room, took a seat beside
her, his hand finding hers in the dark.

"What is this you have been saying to Oliver about artists being great
men?" she asked. "He's got a new idea in his head now--he wants to be a
painter. I've thought for some time that Mr. Crocker was not a proper
person for him to be so much with. He has evidently worked on the boy's
imagination until he has determined to give up the law and study art."

"How do you know?"

"I've just heard him tell Sue Clayton so. All he wants now is my
consent--he says he has yours."

The inventor paused, and gently smoothed his wife's fingers with his
own.

"And you would not give it?" he inquired.

"How could I? It would ruin him--don't you know it?" There was a slight
tinge of annoyance in her voice--not one of fault-finding, but rather
of anxiety.

"That depends, my dear, on how well he could succeed," he answered,
gently.

"Why, Richard!" She withdrew her hand quickly from his caressing touch,
and looked at him in undisguised astonishment. "What has his SUCCEEDING
to do with it? Surely you cannot be in earnest? I am willing he should
do anything to make his living, but not that. No one we know has ever
been a painter. It is neither respectable nor profitable. You see what
a dreadful existence Mr. Crocker leads--hardly an associate in town,
and no acquaintances for his daughter, and he's been painting ever
since he was a boy. Oliver could not earn a penny at such work."

"Money is not everything, my dear, nor social recognition. There are
many things I would value more."

"What are they?" She was facing him now, her brows knit, a marked
antagonism in her voice.

"Good manners and good taste, Sallie, and kindly consideration for
another's feelings," he answered. He spoke calmly and kindly, as was
his custom. He had lived almost all his life with this high-strung
Sallie Horn, whose eyes flashed now and then as they had done in the
old days when he won her hand. He knew every side of her temperament.
"Good manners, and good taste"--he repeated, as if wishing to emphasize
his thoughts--"Oliver has all of these, and he has, besides, loyalty to
his friends. He never speaks of Mr. Crocker but with affection, and I
love to hear him. That man is an artist of great talent, and yet it
seems to be the fashion in this town to ridicule him. If Ollie has any
gifts which would fit him to be a painter, I should be delighted to see
him a painter. It is a profession despised now, as are many others, but
it is the profession of a gentleman, for all they say, and a noble
one!" Then he stopped and said, thoughtfully, as if communing with
himself--"I wish he could be a painter. Since Gilbert Stuart's time we
have had so few men of whom we can boast. This country will one day be
proud to honor her artists."

Mrs. Horn sank back in her chair. She felt the hopelessness of all
further discussion with her husband. "He would not have talked this way
ten years ago," she said to herself. "Everything has gone wrong since
he left the law." But to her husband she said:

"You always measure everything by your hopes, Richard, and you never
look at the practical side of anything. Ollie is old enough to begin to
think how he will earn his bread. I see now how hopeless it is for us
to try and make a lawyer of him--his heart is not in it. I have come
little by little to the conclusion that what he wants most is hard
work, and he wants it right away, just as soon as we can find something
for him to do--something with his hands, if necessary, not something
full of dreams and imaginings," and her voice rose in its earnestness.
"I am getting more and more anxious about him every day," she added,
suddenly controlling herself, "and when you encourage him in foolish
vagaries you only make it harder for me, dear," and her voice softened
and broke with emotion.

"He ought to have gone into the laboratory, Sallie," Richard added
quickly, in a reflective tone--laying his hand on her shoulder as he
noticed the change of voice--"just as I wanted him to do when he left
school. There is a future for scientific men in this country which you
do not see--a future which few around me seem to see. Great changes are
coming, not only in science, but in the arts and in all useful
knowledge. If Ollie can add to the brilliancy of this future by
becoming a brilliant painter, able to help educate those about him,
there could be no higher calling for him. Three things are coming, my
dear--perhaps four." The inventor had risen from his seat and stood
beside her, his eyes turned away into the dark as if he were addressing
some unseen person. "The superseding of steam, aerial locomotion, and
the education of the common people, black and white. One other may
come--the freeing of the slaves--but the others are sure. Science, not
money, nor family traditions, nor questions of birth, will shape the
destinies of the country. We may not live to see it, but Oliver will,
and I want him to be where he can help on the movement. You were
opposed to his becoming a scientist, and I feel assured made a mistake.
Don't stand in his way again, dear."

"Yes, Richard, I was opposed to it, because I did not want him to waste
his time over all sorts of foolish experiments, which would
certainly--" She did not finish the sentence. Her anxiety had not yet
gone as far as that. With a quick gesture she rose from her chair and
drawing her white gossamer shawl about her shoulders--left the room and
walked out onto the front steps, followed by Richard.

If the inventor heard the thrust he did not reply. He would not argue
with his wife over it, nor did it check the flow of his courtesy. She
had never seen the value of what he was striving for, but she would in
time he knew.

"Yes, I think it is cooler out here," was all he said, as he placed a
cushion to soften her seat on the threshold. When he had arranged
another pillow behind her back and hunted round the dark parlor for a
stool for her feet, he found a chair for himself and sat down beside
her. She thanked him, but her thoughts were evidently far away. She was
weighing in her mind what must be her next move if Oliver persisted in
this new departure. Richard broke the silence.

"I haven't told you of the good offer I've had for the farm, Sallie."

"No, but we're not going to sell it, of course." She was leaning back
against the jamb of the door as she spoke, the shawl hanging loose, her
delicate white hands in her lap. It was an idle answer to an idle
question, for her mind was still with Oliver.

"Well, I hadn't thought of doing so until to-day," he answered, slowly,
"but I had a notice from the bank that they must call in the mortgage,
and so I thought I might as well sell the whole place, pay off the
debt, and use the balance for--"

"Sell the farm, Richard?" It was her hand now that sought his, and with
a firm grasp as if she would restrain him then and there in his purpose.

"Yes, I can get several thousand dollars over and above the mortgage,
and I need the money, Sallie. It will only be a temporary matter--" and
he smoothed her arm tenderly, speaking as a lover of long standing
might do who is less absorbed with the caress than with the subject
under discussion. "The motor will be ready in a few weeks--as soon as
the new batteries are finished. Then, my dear, you won't have to
curtail your expenses as you have done." His voice was full of hope
now, a smile lighting his face as he thought of all the pleasure and
comfort his success would bring her.

"But you said that same thing when you were working on the steam-valve,
for which you put that very mortgage on the farm, and now that's all
gone and--"

"The failure of the steam-valve, as I have always told you, was due to
my own carelessness, Sallie. I should have patented it sooner. They are
making enormous sums on it, I hear, and are using my cut-off, and I
think dishonestly. But the motor has been protected at every new step
that I have taken. My first patent of August 13, 1856, supersedes all
others, and cannot be shaken. Now, my dear, don't worry about it--you
have never known me to fail, and I won't now. Besides, you forget my
successes, Sallie--the turbine water-wheel and the others. It will all
come, right."

"It will never come right." She had risen from her seat, and was
standing over, him, both hands on his shoulders, her eyes looking down
into his, her voice trembling. "Oh, Richard, Richard! Give up this life
of dreams you are living, and go back to your law-office. You always
succeeded in the law. This new career of yours is ruining us. I can
economize, dear, just as I have always done," she added, with another
sudden change of tone, bending over him and slipping her hand
caressingly into his. "I will do everything to help you. I did not mean
to be cross a moment ago. I was worried about Oliver's talk. I have
been silent so long--I must speak. Don't be angry, dear, but you must
keep the farm. I will go myself and see about the mortgage at the
bank--we cannot--we must not; go on this way--we will have nothing
left."

He patted her arm again in his gentle way--not to calm her fears, he
knew so well that she was wrong, but to quiet the nerves that he
thought unstrung.

"But I need this extra money for some improvements which I--"

"Yes, I know you THINK so, but you don't, Richard, you don't? For
Heaven's sake, throw the motor out into the street, and be done with
it. It will ruin us all if things go on as they have done."

The inventor raised his eyes quickly. He had never seen her so
disturbed in all their married life. She had never spoken in this way
before.

"Don't excite yourself, Sallie," he said, gravely, and with a certain
air of authority in his manner. "You'll bring on one of your
headaches--it will all come right. Come, my dear, let us go into the
house. People are passing, and will wonder."

She followed him back into the drawing-room, his hand still held fast
in hers.

"Promise me one thing," she said, stopping at the door and looking up
into his eyes, "and I won't say another word. Please do nothing more
about the farm unless you let me know. Let me think first how I can
help. It will all come out right, as you say, but it will be because we
will make it come right, dear." She drew his face down toward her with
one hand and kissed him tenderly on his cheek. Then she bade him
good-night and resumed her seat by the window, to watch for Oliver's
return.

Try as she would, she could not banish her fears. The news of Richard's
intention to pay off the loan by selling the farm had sent a shudder
through her heart such as she had never before experienced, for that
which she had dreaded had come to pass. Loyal as she had always been to
her husband, and proud as she was of his genius and accomplishments,
and sympathetic as they were in all else that their lives touched upon,
her keen, penetrating mind had long since divined the principal fault
that lay at the bottom of her husband's genius. She saw that the weak
point in his make-up was not his inventive quality, but his inability
to realize any practical results from his inventions when perfected.
She saw, too, with equal certainty how rapidly their already slender
means were being daily depleted in costly experiments--many of which
were abandoned as soon as tried, and she knew full well that the end
was but a question of time. Even when he had abandoned the law, and had
exchanged his office near the Court-house for his shop in the back
yard, and had given his library to his young students, she had not
despaired; she still had faith in his genius.

She had first become uneasy when the new steam cut-off had failed to
reimburse him. When this catastrophe was followed by his losing every
dollar of his interest in the improved cotton-gin, because of his
generosity to a brother inventor, her uneasiness had become the keenest
anxiety. And now here was this new motor, in which he seemed more
absorbed than in any other of his inventions. This was to plunge them
into still greater difficulties and jeopardize even the farm.

Richard had not been disturbed by it all. Serene and hopeful always,
the money question had counted for nothing with him. His compensation
lay in the fact that his theories had been proved true. More-over,
there were, he knew, other inventions ahead, and more important
discoveries to be made. If money were necessary, these new inventions
would supply it. Such indifference to practical questions was an agony
to one of her temperament, burdened as she was by the thought of their
increasing daily expenses, the magnitude of which Richard never seemed
to appreciate.

And yet until to-night, when Richard had made his announcement about
the mortgage, she had made no protest, uttered no word of censure.
Neither had any jar or discord ever disturbed the sweet harmony of
their home-life. And she had only behaved as any other wife in Kennedy
Square would have done in like circumstances. Remonstrances against a
husband's business methods were never made in the best families. In his
own house Richard was master. So she had suffered on and held her
peace, while Richard walked with his head in the clouds, unconscious of
her doubts. The situation must now be met, and she determined to face
it with all her might. "The farm shall not be sacrificed, if I can help
it," she kept repeating to herself; "any economy is better than that
disaster."

When at last the shock of the news of the threatened disaster had
passed, and she had regained her customary composure, she decided to
act at once and at head-quarters, outside of Richard's help or
knowledge. She would send for Colonel Clayton, one of the directors of
the bank, in the morning, and see what could be done to postpone for a
time the bank's action. This would give her time to think what next
could best be done to save the property. This settled in her mind, she
gave herself up to the more important and pressing need of the
moment--the dissuading of Oliver from this new act of folly.

At the end of an hour she was still sitting by the drawing-room window,
straining her eyes across the Square, noting every figure that passed
into the radiance of the moonlight, her mind becoming clearer as her
indomitable will, which had never failed her in domestic crises, began
to assert itself.

When her eye fell at last upon her son, he was walking with swinging
gait up the long path across the Square, whistling as he came, his
straw hat tilted on one side, his short coat flying free. He had taken
Sue home, and the two had sat on her father's steps in the moonlight
long after the other boys and girls had scattered to their homes. The
Colonel had come in while they were talking, and had bade them
good-night and gone up to bed.

Girl as she was, Sue already possessed that subtle power of unconscious
coquetry which has distinguished all the other Sue Claytons of all the
other Kennedy Squares the South over since the days of Pocahontas. She
had kept Oliver's mind away from the subject that engrossed him, and on
herself; and when, at last, standing between the big columns of the
portico she had waved her hand, good-night, and had gained his promise
to stop in the morning on his way to the office, for just another word,
she felt sure that his every thought was of her. Then she had closed
the big front door--she was the last person in the house awake--and
tripped upstairs, not lighting her candle until she had peeped through
her shutters, and had found him standing on the other side of the
street looking toward the house. He made a handsome picture of a lover,
as he stood in the moonlight, and Sue smiled complacently to herself at
the delicate attention paid her, but Oliver's eyes, the scribe is
ashamed to say, were not fixed on the particular pair of green blinds
that concealed this adorable young lady, certainly not with any desire
to break through their privacy. One of the unforgivable sins--nay, one
of the impossible sins--about Kennedy Square would have been to have
recognized a lady who looked, even during the daytime, out from a
bedroom window: much less at night. That was why Sue did not open her
blinds.

Nor, indeed, was Oliver occupied with the question of Sue's blinds at
all. He had for the moment in fact completely forgotten the existence
of his lady-love. He was, if the truth must be told, studying the
wonderful effect of the white light of the moon flooding with its
radiance the columns and roof of the Clayton house, the dark magnolias
silhouetted against the flight of steps and the indigo-blue of the sky.
He had already formulated in his mind the palette with which he would
paint it, and had decided that the magnolias were blue-black and not
green, and the steps greenish-white. He had, furthermore, determined to
make an outline of it in the daylight, and talk to Mr. Crocker about
it. Sue's eyes, which but a moment before had so charmed him, no longer
lingered in his memory--nor even in any one of the far corners of his
head and heart. It was only when her light flashed up that he awoke to
the realization of what he was doing, and even this breach of good
manners was forgotten by him in his delight over the effect which the
red glow of the candle gave to the whole composition.

With the picture clearly stamped upon his brain, he turned and stepped
quickly across the Square, and in another moment he had thrown his
mother a kiss through the window, and rushing inside had caught her in
his arms.

"Poor motherkins--and you all alone," he cried. "Why, I thought you and
father had gone to bed long ago."

"No, son--I was waiting for you." He laid his fresh young face against
hers, insisting that she must go to bed at once; helping her upstairs
awkwardly, laughing as he went--telling her she was the sweetest girl
he ever knew and his best sweetheart--kissing her pale cheeks as they
climbed the steps together to his room.

She had determined, as she sat by the window, to talk to him of what
she had overheard him say to Sue, and of her anxiety over Richard's
revelations, but his joyous kiss had robbed her of the power. She would
wait for another time--she said to herself--not to-night, when he was
so happy.

"Anybody at Sue's, Ollie?" she asked, lighting his candle.

"Only the boys and girls--Tom Pitts, Charley Bowman, Nellie Talbot, and
one or two others. The Colonel came in just before I left."

"But the Colonel will be home to-morrow, will he not?" she asked,
quickly, as if something forgotten had been suddenly remembered.

"Yes--think so--" answered Oliver, taking off his coat and hanging it
over the chair--"because he was just up from Pongateague. He and Major
Pitts got thirty-seven woodcock in two days. Tom wants me to go down
with him some day next week."

A shade of anxiety crossed the mother's face.

"What did you tell him, son?" She moved a chair nearer the bureau and
sat down to watch him undress, as she had always done since the day she
first tucked him into his crib.

"Oh, I said I would ask you." He was loosening his cravat, his chin
thrown up, the light of the candle falling over his well-knit shoulders
and chest outlined through his white shirt.

"Better not go, Ollie--you've been away so much lately."

"Oh, dearie," he protested, in a tone as a child would have done, "what
does a day or two matter? Be a darling old mother and let me go. Tom
has a gun for me, and Mr. Talbot is going to lend us his red setter.
Tom's sister is going, too, and so are her cousins. Just think, now, I
haven't had a day in the country for a coon's age." His arms were round
her neck now. He seemed happier over the excuse to caress her than
anxious about her possible refusal.

She loosened one of his hands and laid it on her cheek.

"No holidays, son? Why you had two last week, when you all went out to
Stemmer's Run," she said, looking up into his face, his hand still in
hers.

"Yes, but that was fishing!" he laughed as he waved an imaginary rod in
his hands.

"And the week before, when you spent the day at Uncle Tilghman's?" she
continued, smiling sadly at him, but with the light of an ill-concealed
admiration on her face.

"Ah, but mother, I went to see the Lely! That's an education. Oh, that
portrait in pink!" He was serious now, looking straight down into her
eyes--talking with his hands, one thumb in air as if it were a bit of
charcoal and he was outlining the Lely on an equally real canvas. "Such
color, mother--such an exquisite poise of the head and sweep to the
shoulder--" and the thumb described a curve in the air as if following
every turn of Lely's brush.

Her eyes followed his gestures--she loved his enthusiasm, although she
wished it had been about something else.

"And you don't get any education out of the Judge's law-books?"

"No, I wish I did." The joyous look on his face was gone now--his hand
had fallen to his side. "It gets to be more of a muddle every day--"
and then he added, with the illogical reasoning of youth--"all the
lawyers that ever lived couldn't paint a picture like the Lely."

Mrs. Horn closed her eyes. It was on her tongue to tell him she knew
what was in his heart, but she stopped; no, not to-night, she said
firmly to herself, and shut her lips tight--a way she had of bracing
her nerves in such emergencies.

Oliver in turn saw the expression of anxiety that crossed his mother's
face and the thin drawn line of the lips. One word from her and he
would have poured out his heart. Then some shadow that crossed her face
silenced him. "No, not to-night--" he said to himself. "She has been
sitting up for me and is tired--I'll tell her to-morrow."

"Don't go with Tom Pitts, my son," she said, calmly. "I'd rather you'd
stay; I don't want you to go this time. Perhaps a little later--" and a
slight shiver went through her as she rose from her chair and moved
toward him.

He made no protest. Her final word was always law to him--not because
she dominated him, but because his nature was always to be in harmony
with the thing he loved. Because, too, underneath it all was that
quality of tenderness to all women old and young, which forbade him to
cause one of them pain. Almost unconsciously to himself he had gone
through a process by which from having yielded her the obedience of a
child, he now surrendered to her the pleasures of his youth when the
old feeling of maternal dominance still controlled her in her attitude
to him. She did not recognize the difference, and he had but
half-perceived it, but the difference had already transformed him from
a boy into a man, though with unrecognized powers of stability as yet.
In obeying his mother, then at twenty-two, or even in meeting the whims
and conceits of his sweethearts, this quality of tenderness to the
woman was always uppermost in his heart. The surrender of a moment's
pleasure seemed so little to him compared to the expression of pain he
could see cross their faces. He had so much to make him happy--what
mattered it if out of a life so full he should give up any one thing to
please his mother.

Patting him on the cheek and kissing him on the neck, as she had so
often done when some sudden wave of affection overwhelmed her, she bade
him good-night at last.

Once outside in the old-fashioned hall, she stopped for a moment, her
eyes fixed on the floor, the light from the hall-lamp shining on her
silver hair and the shawl about her shoulders, and said slowly to
herself, as if counting each word:

"What--can I do--to save this boy--from--himself?"




CHAPTER V

A MESSAGE OF IMPORTANCE


Richard, when he waked, made no allusion to the mortgage nor to his
promise the night before, to take no steps in the matter without her
consent, nor could Mrs. Horn see that the inventor had given the
subject further thought. He came in to breakfast with his usual
serenity of mien, kissed her gallantly on the cheek--in all their
married life this dear old gentleman had never forgotten this breakfast
kiss--and taking his seat opposite her, he picked up the new Scientific
Review, just in by the morning mail, and began cutting the leaves. She
tried to draw him into conversation by asking him when the note on the
mortgage was due, but his mind was doubtless absorbed by some problem
suggested by the Review before him, for without answering--he, of
course, had not heard her--he rose from his chair, excused himself for
a moment, opened a book in his library, studied it leisurely, and only
resumed his seat when Malachi gently touched his elbow and said:

"Coffee purty nigh done sp'ilt, Marse Richard."

Breakfast over, Richard picked up his letters, and with that far-away
look in his eyes which his wife knew so well, walked to the closet,
took down his long red calico gown, slipped it over his coat, and with
a loving pat on his wife's shoulder as he passed, and with the request
that no one but Nathan should see him that morning, made his way
through the damp brick-paved back yard to the green door of his "li'l"
room.

Mrs. Horn watched his retreating figure from the window--his head bent,
his soft hair stirred by the morning air, falling about his shoulders.
His serenity; his air of abstraction; of being wrapped in the clouds as
it were--borne aloft by the power of a thought altogether beyond her,
baffled her as it always did. She could not follow his flights when he
was in one of these uplifted moods. She could only watch and wait until
he returned again to the common ground of their daily love and
companionship.

Brushing a quick tear from her eyes with an impatient sigh, she
directed Malachi to go to Oliver's room and tell him he must get up at
once, as she wanted him to carry a message of importance. She had
herself rapped at her son's door as she passed on her way downstairs,
and Malachi had already paid two visits to the same portal--one with
Oliver's shoes and one on his own account. He had seen his mistress's
anxiety, and knowing that his young master had come in late the night
before, had mistaken the cause, charging Mrs. Horn's perturbation to
Oliver's account. The only response Oliver had made to either of his
warnings had been a smothered yawn and a protest at being called at
daylight. On his third visit Malachi was more insistent, the hall-clock
by that time having struck nine.

"Ain't you out'en dat bed yit, Marse Oliver? Dis yere's de third time I
been yere. Better git up; yo' ma's gittin' onres'less."

"Coming, Mally. Tell mother I'll be down right away," called Oliver,
springing out of bed. Malachi stepped softly downstairs again, bowed
low to his mistress, and with a perfectly straight face said:

"He's mos' ready, mistis. Jes' a-breshin' ob his ha'r when I opened de
do'. Spec' Marse Oliver overslep' hisse'f, or maybe nobody ain't call
him--"

He could not bear to hear the boy scolded. He had begun to shield his
young master in the days when he carried him on his shoulder, and he
would still shade the truth for him whenever he considered necessity
required it.

When Oliver at last came downstairs it was by means of the hand-rail as
a slide, a dash through the hall and a bound into the breakfast-room,
followed by a joyous good-morning, meeting his mother's "How could you
be so late, my boy," without any defence of his conduct, putting one
hand under her chin and the other around her neck, and kissing her
where her white hair parted over her forehead.

Malachi waited an instant, breathing freer when he found that his
statement regarding Oliver's toilet had passed muster, and then
shuffled off to the kitchen for hot waffles and certain other
comforting viands that Aunt Hannah, the cook, had kept hot for her
young master, Malachi's several reports having confirmed her suspicions
that Oliver, as usual, would be half an hour late.

"What a morning, motherkins," Oliver cried. "Such a sky, all china-blue
and white. Oh, you just ought to see how fine the old church looms up
behind the trees. I'm going to paint that some day, from my window. Dad
had his breakfast?" and he glanced at the empty seat and plate.
"Sausage, eh? Mally, got any for me?" and he dragged up his chair
beside her, talking all the time as he spread his napkin and drew the
dishes toward him.

He never once noticed her anxious face, he was so full of his own
buoyant happiness. She did not check his enthusiasm. This
breakfast-hour alone with her boy--he was almost always later than
Richard--was the happiest of the day. But her heart was too heavy this
morning to enjoy it. Instead of listening with her smile of quiet
satisfaction, answering him now and then with a gayety of humor which
matched his own, she was conscious only of the waiting for an
opportunity to break into his talk with out jarring upon his mood. At
last, with a hesitating emphasis that would have alarmed anyone less
wrapped in his own content than her son, she said:

"Ollie, when you finish your breakfast I want you, on your way to Judge
Ellicott's office, to stop at Colonel Clayton's and ask him to be good
enough to come and see me as soon as he can on a little matter of
business. Tell him I will keep him but a minute. If you hurry, my son,
you'll catch him before he leaves the house."

The die was cast now. She had taken her first step without Richard's
hand to guide her--the first in all her life. It was pain to do it--the
more exquisite because she loved to turn to him for guidance or relief,
to feel the sense of his protection. Heretofore he had helped her in
every domestic emergency, his soft, gentle hand soothing and quieting
her, when troubles arose. She had wavered during the night between her
duty to her family in saving the farm, and her duty to her husband in
preserving unbroken the tie of loyal dependence that had always bound
them together. Many emotions had shaken her as she lay awake, her eyes
fixed on the flutings in the canopy of the high-post bedstead which the
night-lamp faintly illumined, Richard asleep beside her, dreaming
doubtless of cogs and pulleys and for the hundredth time of his finding
the one connecting link needed to complete the chain of his success.

But before the day had broken, her keen, penetrating mind had cut
through the fog of her doubts. Come what may, the farm should never be
given up. Richard, for all his urgent need of money to perfect his new
motor, should not be allowed to sacrifice this the only piece of landed
property which they possessed, except the roof that sheltered them all.
The farm saved, she would give her attention to Oliver's future career.
On one point her mind was firmly made up--he should never, in spite of
what his father said, become a painter.

Oliver hurried through his breakfast, cut short Malachi's second relay
of waffles to the great disappointment of that excellent servitor, and
with his mother's message for the moment firmly fixed in his mind,
tilted his hat on one side of his head and started across Kennedy
Square, whistling as he went.

Mrs. Horn moved her seat to the window and looked out upon the
brick-paved yard. The door of the shop was shut. Richard was already at
work, for a thin curl of blue smoke was rising from the chimney. As she
sat looking out upon the tulip-tree and the ivy-covered wall beyond, a
strange, unaccountable sense of loneliness new in her experience came
over her. The lines about her mouth settled more firmly, and the
anxious look that had filled her eyes changed to one of determination.

"Nobody can help," she said to herself with a sigh. "I must do it all
myself;" and picking up her basket of keys she mounted slowly to her
room.

Once outside the front door, with the fresh, clear air stirring to a
silver-white the leaves of the maples, the birds singing in the
branches and the sky glistening overhead, one of those sudden changes
of mood to which our young hero was subject swept over him. The picture
of the dear mother whom he loved and whose anxious face had at last
filled his thoughts, by some shifting of the gray matter of this
volatile young gentleman's brain had suddenly become replaced by
another.

Pretty Sue Clayton, her black eyes snapping with fun, her hand so soon
to be outstretched in welcome, was now the dominating figure in his
mental horizon. Even Sir Peter Lely's girl in pink and the woodcock
shooting with Tom Pitts, and all the other delights that had filled his
brain had become things of the past as he thought of Sue's greeting.
For the time being this black-eyed little witch with the ringlets about
her face had complete possession of him.

He had not thought of her, it is true, for five consecutive minutes
since he had bidden her good-night ten hours ago; and he would, I am
quite sure, have forgotten even his promise to see her this morning had
not his mother's message made his going to her house imperative. And
yet, now that the prospect of having a glimpse of her face was assured,
he could hardly wait until he reached her side.

Not that he had some new thing to tell her--something that had bubbled
up fresh from the depths of his heart over-night. Indeed, had that
portion of this young gentleman's anatomy been searched with a dark
lantern, it can safely be said that not the slightest suggestion of
this fair inamorata's form or lineaments would have been found lurking
in any one of its recesses. Furthermore, I can state positively--and I
knew this young gentleman quite well at the time--that it was not Sue
at all that he longed for at this precise moment, even though he
hurried to meet her. It was more the WOMAN IN HER--the something that
satisfied his inner nature when he was with her--her coy touches of
confidence, her artless outbursts of admiration, looking up in his face
as she spoke, the dimples playing about the corners of her mouth. He
revelled in all those subtle flatteries and cajoleries, and in all the
arts to please of which she was past mistress. He loved to believe
her--she intended that he should--when she told him how different he
was from anybody about Kennedy Square, and how nobody swam or rode or
danced as he did; nor wore their hair so becomingly, nor their
clothes--especially the gray jacket buttoned up close under the chin,
not carried themselves as they walked; nor--

Why go on? We all know exactly how she said it, and how sincere she
seemed, and how we believed it all (and do now, some of us), and how
blissful it was to sit beside her and hear her voice and know that this
most adorable of women really believed that the very sun itself rose
and set in our own adorable persons.

Because of all this and of many other things with which we have nothing
to do, our young hero saw only Sue's eyes when that maiden, who had
been watching for him at the library window, laid her hand on the lapel
of his coat in her coaxing way. No wonder he had forgotten everything
which his mother had asked him to do. I can forgive him under the
circumstances--and so can you. Soft hands are very beguiling,
sometimes--and half-closed lids--Well! It is a good many years ago, but
there are some things that none of us ever forget.

Blinded by such fascinations it is not at all astonishing that long
before Oliver regained his senses the Colonel had left the house for
the day. That distinguished gentleman would, no doubt, have waited the
young prince's pleasure in his library had he known of his errand. But
since the Colonel had unfortunately taken himself off, there was
nothing, of course, for our Oliver to do but to remain where he was
until noon--this was Sue's way out of the difficulty--and then to catch
the Colonel at the bank where he could always be found between twelve
and one o'clock, or where Mr. Stiger, the cashier, could lay his hands
on him if he was anywhere in the neighborhood, a suggestion of Sue's
which at once relieved Oliver from further anxiety, Mr. Stiger being
one of his oldest and dearest friends.

By the time, however, that Oliver had reached the bank the Colonel had
left for the club, where he would have been too happy, no doubt--being
the most courteous of colonels, etc., etc.--"if his dear young friend
had only sent him word," etc.

All this our breathless young Mercury--Oliver never walked when he
could run--learned some hours later from old Mr. Stiger, the cashier,
who punched him in the ribs at the end of every sentence in which he
conveyed the disappointing information, calling him "Creeps," at short
intervals, and roaring with laughter at the boy's account of the causes
leading up to his missing the Colonel.

"Gone to the club, Creeps, don't I tell you (--punch in the ribs--);
gone to get a little sip of Madeira and a little bit of woodcock
(--punch over the heart--), and a little--oh, I tell you, you young
dog--" (this punch straight on the breast-bone)--"you ought to be a
bank director--you hear!--a big fat bank director, and own a big house
up in the Square, if you want to enjoy yourself--and have a pretty
daughter--Oh, you young rascal!" This last punch bent Oliver double,
and was followed by an outburst of uncontrollable laughter from Stiger.

These same punchings and outbursts had gone on since the days that
Oliver was in short trousers and Stiger was superintendent of the
Sunday-school which the boy had attended in his early years--Stiger was
still superintendent and of the same school: cashiers had to have
certificates of character in those days. A smooth-shaven, round-headed
old fellow was Stiger, with two little dabs of side-whiskers, a pair of
eyes that twinkled behind a pair of gold spectacles, and a bald head
kept polished by the constant mopping of a red silk handkerchief. His
costume in the bank was a black alpaca coat and high black satin stock,
which grabbed him tight around the neck, and held in place the two
points of his white collar struggling to be free. Across his waist-line
was a square of cloth. This, in summer, replaced his waistcoat, and, in
winter, protected it from being rubbed into holes by constant contact
with the edge of the counter.

His intimacy with Oliver dated from one hot Sunday morning years
before, when Oliver had broken in upon the old gentleman's long prayers
by sundry scrapings of his finger-nails down the whitewashed wall of
the school-room, producing a blood-cooling and most irreverent sound,
much to the discomfort of the worshippers.

"Who made that noise?" asked Mr. Stiger, when the amen was reached.

"Me, sir."

"What for?"

"To get cool. It makes creeps go down my back." From that day the old
cashier had never called Oliver anything but "Creeps."

Oliver, in a spirit of playful revenge, made caricatures of his
prosecutor in these later years, enlarging his nose, puffing out his
cheeks, and dressing him up in impossible clothes. These sketches he
would mail to the cashier as anonymous communications, always stopping
at the bank the next day to see how Stiger enjoyed them. He generally
found them tacked up over the cashier's desk. Some of them were still
there when Stiger died.

Carried away by the warm greetings of the old cashier, and the hearty,
whole-souled spirit of companionship inherent in the man--a spirit
always dear to Oliver--he not only stayed to make another caricature of
the old fellow, over which the original laughed until the tears ran
down his fat cheeks, but until all the old sketches were once more
taken from the drawer or examined on the wall and laughed at over
again, Stiger praising him for his cleverness and predicting all kinds
of honors and distinctions for him when his talents become recognized.
It was just the atmosphere of general approval in which our young hero
loved to bask, and again the hours slipped away and three o'clock came
and went and his mother's message was still undelivered. Nor had he
been at Judge Ellicott's office. This fact was not impressed upon him
by the moon-faced clock that hung over the cashier's desk--time made no
difference to Oliver--but by the cashier himself, who began stuffing
the big books into a great safe built into the wall, preparatory to
locking it with a key that could have opened the gate of a walled town,
and which the old gentleman took home with him every night and hung on
a nail by his bed.

Thus it came to pass that another half hour had struck before Oliver
mounted the steps of the Chesapeake Club in search of the elusive
Colonel.

The fat, mahogany-colored porter, who sat all day in the doorway of the
club, dozing in his lobster-shell bath-chair, answered his next
inquiry. This ancient relic; who always boasted that no gentleman
member of the club, dead or alive, could pass him without being
recognized, listened to Oliver's request with a certain lifeless air--a
manner always shown to strangers--and shuffled away to the reading-room
to find the Colonel.

The occupant of this bath-chair was not only one of the characters of
the club but one of the characters of the town. He was a squat,
broken-kneed old darky, with white eyebrows arching over big brass
spectacles, a flat nose, and two keen, restless monkey eyes. His hands,
like those of many negroes of his age, were long and shrivelled, the
palms wrinkled as the inside, of a turkey's foot and of the same color
and texture. His two feet, always in evidence, rested on their heels,
and were generally encased in carpet slippers--shoes being out of the
question owing to his life-long habit of storing inside his own person
the drainings of the decanters, an idiosyncrasy which produced a form
of gout that only carpet slippers could alleviate. In his earlier life
he had carried General Washington around in his arms, had waited on
Henry Clay, and had been body-servant to Lafayette, besides holding the
horses of half the generals of the War of 1812--at, least, he said so,
and no man of his color dared contradict him.

The years of service of this guardian of the front door dated back to
the time when the Chippendale furniture of Colonel Ralph Coston,
together with many of the portraits covering the walls, and the silver
chafing-dishes lining the sideboard, had come into the possession of
the club through that gentleman's last will and testament. Coston was
the most beloved of all the epicures of his time, and his famous
terrapin-stew--one of the marvellous, delicacies of the period--had
been cooked in these same chafing-dishes. The mahogany-colored Cerberus
had been Coston's slave as well as butler, and still belonged to the
estate. It was eminently proper, therefore, that he should still
maintain his position at the club as long as his feet held out.

While he was gone in search of the Colonel, Oliver occupied himself for
a moment in examining one of the old English sporting prints that
ornamented the side-walls of the bare, uncarpeted, dismal hall. It was
the second time that he had entered these sacred doors--few men of his
own age had ever done as much. He had stopped there once before in
search of his father, when his mother had been taken suddenly ill. He
recalled again the curious spiral staircase at the end of the hall
where his father had met him and which had impressed him so at the
time. He could see, too, the open closet out of which Mr. Horn had
taken his overcoat, and which was now half-filled with hats and coats.

From the desolate, uninviting hall, Oliver passed into the large
meeting-room of the club fronting the street, now filled with members,
many of whom had dropped in for half an hour on their way back to their
offices. Of these some of the older and more sedate men, like Judge
Bowman and Mr. Pancoast, were playing chess; others were seated about
the small tables, reading, sipping toddies, or chatting together. A few
of the younger bloods, men of forty or thereabouts, were standing by
the uncurtained windows watching the belles of the town in their
flounced dresses and wide leghorn hats, out for an afternoon visit or
promenade. Among these men Oliver recognized Howard Thom, son of the
Chief-Justice, poor as a church mouse and fifty years of age if a day.
Oliver was not surprised to find Thom craning his neck at the window.
He remembered the story they told of this perennial beau--of how he had
been in love with every woman in and around Kennedy Square, from Miss
Clendenning down to the latest debutante, and of how he would tell you
over his first toddy that he had sown his wild oats and was about to
settle down for life, and over his last--the sixth, or seventh, or
eighth--that the most adorable woman in town, after a life devoted to
her service, had thrown him over, and that henceforth all that was left
to him was a load of buckshot and six feet of earth.

Oliver bowed to those of the members he knew, and wheeling one of the
clumsy mahogany chairs into position, sat down to await the arrival of
Colonel Clayton.

Meanwhile his eyes wandered over the desolate room with its
leather-covered chairs and sofas and big marble mantel bare of every
ornament but another moon-faced clock--a duplicate of the one at the
bank--and two bronze candelabra flanking each end, and then on the
portraits of the dead and gone members which relieved the sombre
walls--one in a plum-colored coat with hair tied in a queue being no
other than his own ancestor. He wondered to himself where lay the charm
and power to attract in a place so colorless, and he thought, as was
his habit with all interiors, how different he would want it to be if
he ever became a member. His fresh young nature revolted at the
dinginess and bareness of the surroundings. He couldn't understand why
the men came here and what could be the fascination of sitting round
these cold tables talking by the hour when there was so much happiness
outside--so much of light and air and sunshine free to everybody.

He was, moreover, a little constrained and uncomfortable. There was
none of the welcome of Mr. Crocker's studio about this place, nor any
of the comforting companionship of the jolly old cashier, who made the
minutes fly as if they had wings; and that, too, in a musty bank far
more uninviting even than the club. He remembered his mother's message
now--and he remembered her face and the anxious expression--as we
always remember duties when we are uncomfortable. He meant to hurry
home to her as soon as the Colonel dismissed him, and tell her how it
had all happened, and how sorry he was, and what a stupid he had been,
and she would forgive him as she had a hundred times before.

As he sat absorbed in these thoughts his attention was attracted by a
conversation at the adjoining table between that dare-devil
cross-country rider, Tom Gunning of Calvert County, old General
McTavish of the Mexican War, and Billy Talbot the exquisite. Gunning
was in his corduroys and hunting-boots. He always wore them when he
came to town, even when dining with his friends. He had them on now,
the boots being specially in evidence, one being hooked over the chair
on which he sat and within a foot of Oliver's elbow. None of these
peculiarities, however, made the slightest difference in Kennedy
Square, so far as Gunning's social position was concerned--Tom's mother
having been a Carroll and his grandfather once Governor of the State.

The distinguished cross-country rider was telling General McTavish,
immaculate in black wig, blue coat, pepper-and-salt trousers and
patent-leather shoes, and red-faced Billy Talbot, of an adventure that
he, Gunning, had had the night before while driving home to his
plantation. The exquisite's costume was in marked contrast to those of
the other two--it was his second change that day. At this precise
moment he was upholstered in peg-top, checker-board trousers, bob-tail
Piccadilly coat, and a one-inch brim straw hat, all of the latest
English pattern. Everything, in fact, that Billy possessed was English,
from a rimless monocle decorating his left eye, down to the animated
door-mat of a skye-terrier that followed at his heels.

Oliver saw from the way in which McTavish leaned over the table,
protecting the tray with his two arms, that he was in command of the
decanter, and that the duty of alleviating the thirst of his companions
had devolved upon the General. Billy Talbot sat with his hat tipped
back on his head, his chin resting on his abbreviated cane, his eyes
fixed on Gunning. Both McTavish and Talbot were listening intently to
the cross-country rider's story.

"And you say you were sober, Gunning?" Oliver heard the General ask,
with a scrutinizing look at Tom. Not with any humorous intent--more
with the manner of a presiding officer at a court-martial, determined
to establish certain essential facts.

"As a clock, General. The first thing I knew the mare shied and I came
pretty near landin' in the dirt." (The lower county men always dropped
their g's.) "He was lyin', I tell you, right across the road. If it
hadn't been for Kitty, I would have run him down. I got out and held
onto the reins, and there he was, sir, stretched out as drunk as a
lord, flat on his back and sound asleep. I saw right away that he was a
gentleman, and I tied the mare to a tree, picked him up with the
greatest care, laid him on the side of the road, put his hat under his
head, and made him as comfortable as I could, when, by George, sir! I
hadn't any more than got back to my buggy, when bang! went a ball
within a foot of my head!"

The General, who, as he listened, had been repointing the waxed ends of
his dyed mustache with his lemon-colored kid gloves, now leaned back in
his chair.

"Fired at you, sir?" The General had served both at Chapultepec and
Buena Vista, and was an authority where gunpowder was concerned.

"That's just what he did. Came near takin' the top of my head off!
Hadn't been so dark he would have done it."

"Good God! you don't tell me so!" exclaimed the General, mopping his
lips with his perfumed handkerchief. "Were you armed, Gunning?"

"No, sir, I was entirely at his mercy and absolutely defenceless. Well,
I grabbed the reins to quiet the mare and then I hollered out--'What
the devil do you mean, sir, by tryin' to blow the top of my head off?'
I could see now that he had raised himself up on his elbow and was
lookin' at me in a way I did not like.

"'What do you mean by disturbin' my rest, sir,' he called back.

"'Well, but my dear sir, you were lyin' in the middle of the road and
might have been run over.'

"'It's none of your business where I lie,' he hollered back. 'I go to
sleep where I damn please, sir. I consider it a very great liberty.'

"'I, beg your pardon, sir,' I said. 'I did not intend any trespass--' I
was walkin' toward him now. I did not want him to shoot again.

"'That's sufficient, sir,' he said. 'No gentleman can do more. There's
my hand, sir. Allow me, sir, to offer you a drink. If you will roll me
over, you will find my flask in my coat-tail pocket.'

"Well, I rolled him over, took a drink, and then I brought the mare
alongside, helped him in and drove him home to my house. He was a most
delightful gentleman. Didn't leave my place until four o'clock in the
mornin'. He lives about fifteen miles below me. He told me his name was
Toffington. Do you happen to know him, Talbot?" said Gunning, turning
to Billy.

"Toffington, Toffington," said Billy, dropping his eye-glasses with a
movement of his eyebrows. He had listened to the story without the
slightest comment. "No, Tom, unless he is one of those upper county
men. There was a fellow I met in London last year--" (Billy pronounced
it "larst yarh," to Oliver's infinite amusement) "with some such name
as that. He and I went over to Kew Gardens with the Duke of--."

Gunning instantly turned around with an impatient gesture--nobody ever
listened to one of Billy's London stories, they being the never-ending
jokes around Kennedy Square--faced the General again, much to Oliver's
regret, who would have loved above all things to hear Billy descant on
his English experiences.

"Do you, General, know anybody named Toffington?" asked Tom.

"No, Gunning--but here comes Clayton, he knows everybody in the State
that is worth knowing. What you have told me is most
extraordinary--most extraordinary, Gunning. It only goes to show how
necessary it is for every man to be prepared for emergencies of this
kind. You should never go unarmed, sir. You had a very narrow escape--a
very narrow escape, Gunning. Here, Clayton--come over here."

Oliver pulled his face into long lines. The picture of Gunning taking a
drink with a man who a moment before had tried to blow the top of his
head off, and the serious way in which the coterie about the table
regarded the incident, so excited the boy's risibles that he would have
laughed outright had not his eye rested on the Colonel walking toward
him.

The Colonel, evidently, did not hear McTavish's call. His mind was
occupied with something much more important. He had been finishing a
game of whist upstairs, and the mahogany-colored Cerberus had not dared
to disturb him until the hand was played out. The fact that young
Oliver Horn had called to see him at such an hour and in such a place
had greatly disturbed him. He felt sure that something out of the
ordinary had happened.

"My dear boy," he cried, as Oliver rose to meet him, "I have this
instant heard you were here, or I never should have kept you waiting a
moment. Nothing serious--nothing at home?"

"Oh, no, Colonel. Only a word from mother, sir. I missed you at the
bank and Mr. Stiger thought that I might better come here," and he
delivered his mother's message in a low voice and resumed his seat
again.

The Colonel, now that his mind was at rest, dropped into a chair,
stroked his goatee with his thumb and forefinger, and ran over in his
mind the sum of his engagements.

"Tell your dear mother," he said, "that I will do myself the honor of
calling upon her on my way home late this afternoon. Nothing will give
me greater pleasure. Now stay awhile with me and let me order something
for you, my boy," and he beckoned to one of the brown-coated servants
who had entered the room with a fresh tray for the Gunning table.

"No, thank you, Colonel; I ought not to stop," Oliver replied, in an
apologetic way, as he rose from his seat. "I really ought to go back
and tell mother," and with a grasp of Clayton's hand and a bow to one
or two men in the room who were watching his movements--the Colonel
following him to the outer door--Oliver took himself off, as was the
duty of one so young and so entirely out of place among a collection of
men all so knowing and distinguished.




CHAPTER VI

AMOS COBB'S ADVICE


In full justice to the Chesapeake Club the scribe must admit that such
light-weights as Billy Talbot, Torn Gunning, and Carter Thorn did not
fairly represent the standing of the organization. Many of the most
cultivated and enlightened men about Kennedy Square and the neighboring
country enjoyed its privileges; among them not only such men as Richard
Horn, Nathan Gill, the Chief-Justice of the State, and those members of
the State Legislature whose birth was above reproach, but most of the
sporting gentry of the county, as well as many of the more wealthy
planters who lived on the Bay and whose houses were opened to their
fellow-members when the ducks were flying.

Each man's lineage, occupation, and opinions on the leading topics of
the time were as well known to the club as to the man himself. Any
new-corner presenting himself for membership was always subjected to
the severest scrutiny, and had to be favorably passed upon by a large
majority of the committee before a sufficient number of votes could be
secured for his election.

The only outsider elected for years had been Amos Cobb, of Vermont, the
abolitionist, as he was generally called, who invariably wore black
broad-cloth and whose clean-shaven face--a marked contrast to the
others--with its restless black eyes, strong nose, and firm mouth, was
as sharp and hard as the rocks of his native State. His election to
full membership of the Chesapeake Club was not due to his wealth and
commercial standing--neither of these would have availed him--but to
the fact that he had married a daughter of Judge Wharton of Wharton
Hall, and had thus, by reason of his alliance with one of the first
families of the State, been admitted to all the social privileges of
Kennedy Square. This exception in his favor, however, had never
crippled Cobb's independence nor stifled his fearlessness in expressing
his views on any one of the leading topics of the day. The Vermonter
had worked with his hands when a boy on his father's farm, and believed
in the dignity of labor and the blessings of self-support. He believed,
too, in the freedom of all men, black and white, and looked upon
slavery as a crime. He expressed these sentiments openly and
unreservedly, and declared that no matter how long he might live South
he would never cease to raise his voice against a system which allowed
a man--as he put it--"to sit down in the shade and fan himself to sleep
while a lot of niggers whose bodies he owned were sweating in a
corn-field to help feed and clothe him."

These sentiments, it must be said, did not add to his popularity,
although the time had not yet arrived when he would have been thrown
into the street for uttering them.

Nathan Gill was a daily visitor. He was just mounting the club steps,
his long pen-wiper cloak about his shoulders, as Oliver, after his
interview with Colonel Clayton, passed down the street on his way back
to his mother. Nathan shook hands with the Colonel, and the two entered
the main room, and seated themselves at one of the tables.

Billy Talbot, who had moved to the window, and who had been watching
Oliver until he disappeared around the corner, dropped his eye-glass
with that peculiar twitch of the upper lip which no one could have
imitated, and crossed the room to where Nathan and Colonel Clayton had
taken their seats. Waggles, the scrap of a Skye terrier, who was never
three feet from Billy's heels, instantly crossed with him. After Billy
had anchored himself and had assumed his customary position, with his
feet slightly apart, Waggles, as was his habit, slid in and sat down on
his haunches between his master's gaiters. There he lifted his fluffy
head and gazed about him. The skill with which Mr. Talbot managed his
dog was only equalled by the dexterity with which he managed his
eye-glass; he never inadvertently stepped on the one nor unconsciously
let slip the other. This caused Mr. Talbot considerable mental strain,
but as it was all to which he ever subjected himself he stood the test
bravely.

"Who is that young man, Colonel" Billy began, as he bent his head to be
sure that Waggles was in position. He had been abroad while Oliver was
growing up, and so did not recognize him.

"That's Richard Horn's son," the Colonel said, without raising his eyes
from the paper. The Colonel never took Billy seriously.

"And a fine young fellow he is," broke in Nathan, straightening himself
proudly.

"Hope he don't take after his father, Gill. By the way, what's that old
wisionary doing now?" drawled Billy, throwing back the lapels of his
coat, and slapping his checked trousers with his cane. "Larst time you
talked to me about him he had some machine with w'eels and horse-shoe
magnets, didn't he? He hasn't been in here for some time, so I know
he's at work on some tomfoolery or other. Amazing, isn't it, that a man
of his blood, with a cellar of the best Madeiwa in the State, should
waste his time on such things. Egad! I cawn't understand it." Some of
Billy's expressions, as well as his accent, came in with his clothes.
"Now, if I had that Madeiwa, do you know what I'd do with it? I'd--"

"Perfectly, Billy," cried a man at the next table, who was bending over
a game of chess. "You'd drink it up in a week." Talbot had never been
known by any other name than Billy, and never would be as long as he
lived.

When the laugh had subsided, Nathan, whose cheeks were still burning at
the slighting way in which Billy Talbot had spoken of Richard, and who
had sat hunched up in his chair combing the white hair farther over his
ears with his long, spare fingers, a habit with him when he was in deep
thought, lifted his head and remarked, quietly, addressing the room
rather than Talbot:

"Richard's mind is not on his cellar; he's got something to think of
besides Madeira and cards and dogs." And he looked toward Waggles. "You
will all, one day, be proud to say that he lived in our town. Richard
is a genius, one of the most remarkable men of the day, and everybody
outside of this place knows it; you will be compelled to admit it yet.
I left him only half an hour ago, and he is just perfecting a motor,
gentlemen, which will--"

"Does it go yet, Nathan?" interrupted Cobb, who was filling a glass
from a decanter which a brown-coated darky had brought him. Cobb's wife
was Nathan's cousin, and, therefore, he had a right to be familiar. "I
went to see his machine the other day, but I couldn't make anything out
of it. Horn is a little touched here, isn't he?" and he tapped his
forehead and smiled knowingly.

"No, Amos, the motor was not running when I left the shop," answered
Nathan, dryly and with some dignity, "but it will be, he assured me,
perhaps by to-morrow." He could fight Billy Talbot, but he never
crossed swords with Cobb, never in late years. Cobb was the one man in
all the world, he once told Richard, with whom he had nothing in common.

"Oh, to-morrow?" And Cobb whistled as he put down the decanter and
picked up the day's paper. It was one of Cobb's jokes--this "to-morrow"
of his neighbors. "What was a Northern man's to-day was always a
Southern man's to-morrow," he would say. "I hope this young man of whom
you speak so highly is not walking in the footsteps of this genius of a
father? He looks to me like a young fellow that had some stuff in him
if anybody would bring it out."

The half-concealed sneer in Cobb's voice grated also on old Judge
Bowman, who threw down his book and looked up over his bowed
spectacles. He was a testy old fellow, with a Burgundy face and shaggy
white hair, a chin and nose that met together like a parrot's, and an
eye like a hawk. It was one of his principles to permit none of his
intimates to speak ill of his friends in his hearing. Criticisms,
therefore, by an outsider like Cobb were especially obnoxious to him.

"Richard Horn's head is all right, Mr. Cobb, and so is his heart," he
exclaimed in an indignant tone. "As for his genius, sir--Gill is within
the mark. He IS one of the remarkable men of our day. You are quite
right, too, about his young son, who has just left here. He has all the
qualities that go to make a gentleman, and many of those which will
make a jurist. He is now studying law with my associate, Judge
Ellicott--a profession ennobled by his ancestors, sir, and one, for
which what you call his 'stuff,' but which we, sir, call his 'blood,'
especially fits him. You Northern men, I know, don't believe in blood.
We do down here. This young man comes of a line of ancestors that have
reflected great credit on our State for more than a hundred years, and
he is bound to make his mark. His grandfather on his mother's side was
our Chief Justice in 1810, and his great-grandfather was--"

"That's just what's the matter with most of you Southerners, Judge,"
interrupted Cobb, his black eyes snapping. "You think more of blood
than you do of brains. We rate a man on Northern soil by what he does
himself, not what a bundle of bones in some family burying-ground did
for him before he was born. Don't you agree with me, Clayton?"

"I can't say I do, Cobb," replied the Colonel, slowly, stirring his
toddy. "I never set foot on your soil but once, and so am unfamiliar
with your ways." He never liked Cobb. "He's so cursedly practical, and
so proud of it, too," he would often say; "and if you will pardon me,
sir--a trifle underbred."

"When was that?" asked Cobb, looking over the top of his paper.

"That was some years ago, when I chased a wounded canvas-back across
the Susquehanna River, and had to go ashore to get him; and I want to
tell you, sir, that what you call 'your soil' was damned disagreeable
muck. I had to change my boots when I got back to my home, and I've
never worn them since." And the Colonel crushed the sugar in his glass
with his spoon as savagely as if each lump were the head of an enemy,
and raised the mixture to his mouth.

Amos's thin lips curled. The high and lofty airs of these patricians
always exasperated him. The shout of laughter that followed the
Colonel's reply brought the color to his cheeks.

"Chased him like a runaway nigger, I suppose, Clayton, didn't you? and
wrung his neck when you got him--" retorted Amos, biting his lips.

"Of course, like I would any other piece of my property that tried to
get away, or as I would wring the neck of any man who would help him--"
And the Colonel looked meaningly at the Vermonter and drained his glass
with a gulp. Then smothering his anger, he moved away to the window,
where he watched Mr. Talbot, who had just left the club and who at the
moment was standing on the corner making his daily afternoon inspection
of the two connecting streets; an occupation which Billy varied by
saluting each new-corner with a slap of his cane on his checker-board
trousers and a stentorian "Bah Jove!" Waggles meanwhile squatting
pensively between his gaiters.

When an hour later the Colonel presented himself at the Horn mansion,
no trace of this encounter with Cobb was in his face nor in his manner.
Men did not air their grievances in their own nor anyone's else home
around Kennedy Square.

Mrs. Horn met him with her hand extended. She had been watching for
Oliver's return with a degree of impatience rarely seen in her. She had
hoped that the Colonel would have called upon her before he went to his
office, and could not understand his delay until Oliver had given his
account of the morning mishaps. She was too anxious now to chide him.
It was but another indication of his temperament, she thought--a fault
to be corrected with the others that threatened his success in life.

Holding fast to the Colonel's hand she drew him to one of the old
haircloth sofas and told him the whole story.

"Do not give the mortgage a thought, my dear Sallie," the Colonel said,
In his kindest manner, when she had finished speaking, laying his hand
on her wrist. "My only regret is that it should have caused you a
moment's uneasiness. I know that our bank has lately been in need of a
large sum of money, and this loan, no doubt, was called in by the
board. But it will be all right--if not I will provide for it myself."

"No--I do not want that, and Richard, if he knew, would not be willing
either. Tell me, please, how this money is loaned," and she turned and
looked earnestly into his face. "What papers are passed, and who signs
them? I have never had anything to do with such matters, and you must
explain it all clearly."

"A note signed by Richard and made payable on a certain date was given
to the bank, and the mortgage was deposited as security."

"And if the note is not paid?"

"Then the property covered by the mortgage is sold, and the bank
deducts its loan--any balance, of course, is paid over to Richard."

"And when the sale is put off--what is done then?"

"A new note is given," and here the Colonel stopped as if in doubt,
"and sometimes a second name is placed on the note increasing the
security. But, Sallie, dear, do not let this part of it ever again
cross your mind. I will attend to it should it become necessary. It is
not often," and the Colonel waved his hand gallantly, "that a Clayton
can do a Horn a service."

"Thank you, dear friend, and it is just like you to wish to do it, but
this I cannot agree to. I have thought of another way since you have
been talking to me. Would it--" and she stopped and looked down on the
floor, "would it be of any use if I signed a note myself? This house we
live in is my own, as you know, and would be an additional security to
the bank if anything should happen."

The offer was so unusual that the Colonel caught his breath. He looked
at her in astonishment, but her eyes never wavered. He felt instantly
that, however lightly he might view the subject, the matter was
intensely serious with her. The Colonel half rose to his feet, and with
a bow that in Kennedy Square had earned for him the title of "the
Chesterfield of his time, sir," placed his hand on his heart.

"My dear Sallie," he said, "not a member of the board could refuse. It
would at once remove any obstacle the directors might have."

"Thank you, then we will leave it so, and I will have the papers
prepared at once."

"And is this Richard's advice?" the Colonel ventured to ask, slowly
regaining his seat. There were some misgivings still lingering in his
Chesterfieldian mind as to whether the proudest man he knew, gentle as
he was, would not forbid the whole transaction.

"No. He does not know of my purpose, and you will please not tell him.
He only knows that I am opposed to allowing the property to be sold,
and he has promised me that he will take no steps in the matter without
my consent. All I want you to do now is to tell him that the bank has
decided to let the matter stand. This obligation hereafter will be
between me and the board, and I will pledge myself to carry it out. And
now, one thing more before you go, and I ask this because you have seen
him grow up and I know you love him. What shall I do with Oliver?"

The Colonel again caught his breath. Gallant gentleman of the old
school, as he was, with a profound respect for the other sex, the
question startled him. According to his experience and traditions, the
fathers generally looked after the welfare of the sons and found them
places in life--not the mothers.

"What do you want to do with him?" he asked, quietly.

"I want him to go to work. I am afraid this life here will ruin him."

"Why, I thought he was studying law with Ellicott." The announcement
could not have been very surprising to the Colonel. He doubtless knew
how much time Oliver spent at Judge Ellicott's office.

"He no doubt THINKS he's studying, dear friend, but he really spends
half his time in old Mr. Crocker's studio, who puts the worst possible
notions into his head, and the balance of his time he is with your
Sue," and she smiled faintly.

"For which you can hardly blame him, dear lady," and the Colonel bent
his head graciously.

"No, for she is as sweet as she can be, and you know I love her dearly,
but they are both children, and will be for some years. You don't want
to support them, do you? and you know Richard can't," and there flashed
out from her eyes one of those quizzical glances which the Colonel
remembered so well in her girlhood.

The Colonel nodded his head, but he did not commit himself. He had
never for a moment imagined that Oliver's love-affair would go as far
as that, and, then again, he knew Sue.

"What do you suggest doing with him? I will help, of course, in any way
I can," he said, after a pause, during which Mrs. Horn sat watching
every expression that crossed his face.

"I don't know. I have not fully made up my mind. I have been greatly
disturbed over Oliver. He seems to be passing through one of those
dangerous crises which often come to a boy. What do you think of my
sending him to New York?"

"THE NORTH, Sallie! Why, you wouldn't send Oliver up North, would you?"

The announcement this time gave the Colonel so genuine a shock that it
sent the blood tingling to his cheeks. Really, the idiosyncrasies of
the Horn family were beyond his comprehension! Evidently Richard's
vagaries had permeated his household.

"I do not like the influence of the North on our young men, my dear
Madam." The Colonel spoke now with great seriousness and with some
formality, and without any of the Chesterfieldian accompaniments of
tone or gesture. "If he were my boy, I should keep him here. He is
young and light-hearted, I know, and loves pleasure, but that will all
come out of him. Let him stay with Ellicott; he will bring him out all
right. There is a brusqueness and a want of refinement among most
Northern men that have always grated on me. You can see it any day in
Amos Cobb."

As he spoke a slight flush overspread his listener's face. The
positiveness of his tone, she thought, carried with it a certain
uncomplimentary criticism of her suggestion. The Colonel saw it, and,
as if in apology and to prove his case, added, in a gentler tone: "Only
this afternoon at the club I heard Cobb speaking in the most outrageous
manner about our most treasured institutions. It is not his fault
perhaps. It is the fault of his breeding, but it is unbearable all the
same. Keep Oliver here. He has a most engaging and lovable nature, is
as clean and sweet as a girl, and I haven't a doubt but what he will
honor both you and his blood. Take my word for it, and keep him at
home. He is young yet, barely twenty-two--there is plenty of time for
him." And the Colonel rose from the sofa, lifted Mrs. Horn's fingers to
his lips and bowed himself out.

The Colonel only told the truth, as he saw it. In his day and
generation men of twenty-two were but boys, and only gray-beards ruled
the State and counting-house. The Senators were indeed grave and
reverend seigniors, and the merchants, in their old-fashioned
dress-coats, looked more like distinguished diplomats than buyers and
sellers of produce. In those days, too, the young man with a mustache
was thought presuming and dangerous, and the bank who would have
selected a cashier under forty would have caused a run on its funds in
a week after the youth had been appointed to his position.

After the Colonel's departure Mrs. Horn sat in deep thought. The
critical tones of his voice still lingered in her memory. But her
judgment had not been shaken nor was her mind satisfied. Oliver still
troubled her. The Colonel's advice might be right, but she dared not
rely upon it.

The next day she sent for Amos Cobb: Malachi took the message this
time, not Oliver. Cobb came on the minute. He was greatly surprised at
Mrs. Horn's note, for although his wife was an intimate friend of Mrs.
Horn's, and he himself would have been welcome, he was seldom present
at any of the functions of the house and could not be considered one of
its intimate guests. He did not like music, he said to his wife, when
urged to go, and, as he did not play chess or drink Madeira, he
preferred to stay at home.

Malachi relieved Amos of his hat, and conducted him into Mrs. Horn's
presence with rather a formal bow--quite different from the low salaam
with which he had greeted Colonel Clayton. "Dat bobobalish'-nest,
Mister Cobb, jes' gone in de parlor," he said to Aunt Hannah when he
regained the kitchen. "Looks like he lived on parsimmons, he dat sour."

Mrs. Horn received her visitor cordially, but with a reserve which she
had not maintained toward the Colonel, for Cobb had never represented
to her anything but a money standard pure and simple. It was only when
the Colonel had mentioned his name, and then only because of her urgent
need of just such sound practical advice as she knew he could give that
she had determined to seek his services--quite as she would have
consulted an architect or an attorney.

The Vermonter took his seat on the extreme edge of the sofa, squared
his shoulders, pulled up the points of his high collar, touched
together the tips of all his fingers, and looked straight at his
hostess.

"I am greatly obliged to you for coming," she began, "for I know how
busy you are, but I have a question to ask of you which I feel sure you
can answer better than anyone I know. It is about my son Oliver. I am
going to be perfectly frank with you, and I want you to be equally
frank with me." And she summed up Oliver's aims, temptations, and
failings with a skill that gained the Vermonter's closest attention.
"With all this," she continued, "he is affectionate, loves me dearly,
and has never disobeyed me in his life. It is his love of change that
worries me--his instability--one thing one moment, and another the
next. It seems to me the only way to break this up is to throw him
completely on his own resources so that he may realize for once what
life really means. Now tell me--" and she looked searchingly into
Cobb's face, as if eager to note the effect of her question--"if he
were your only son, would you, in view of all I have told you, send him
to New York to make his start in life, or would you keep him here?"

The Vermonter's face had begun to lighten as she progressed, and had
entirely cleared when he learned why he had been sent for. He had been
afraid, when he received her note, that it had been about the mortgage.
Cobb was chairman of the Loan Committee at the bank, had personally
called attention to Richard's note being overdue, and had himself
ordered its payment.

"My two boys are at school in Vermont, Madam," he answered, slowly.

"But Oliver must earn his own living," she said, earnestly. "His father
will have nothing to give him."

Cobb made no reply. He was not surprised. Most all of these
aristocratic Southerners were on their last legs. He was right about
the note, he said to himself--it was just as well to have it paid--and
he made a mental memorandum to inquire about it as soon as he reached
his office, and have it pressed for settlement at once. Business
matters must be kept intact.

"What do you want him to do, Madam?" he asked, looking at her keenly
from under his bushy eyebrows.

"Anything to earn his bread," she replied, in a decided tone.

Cobb passed his hand over his face, pinched his chin with his thumb and
forefinger, and looked out of the window. The answer pleased him. It
pleased him, too, to be consulted by the Horns on a matter of this
kind. It pleased him most of all to realize that when these aristocrats
who differed with him politically got into a financial hole they had to
send for him to help pull them out.

For a moment the Vermonter remained in deep thought. "Here is a
Southern woman," he said to himself, "with some common-sense and with a
head on her shoulders. If her husband had half her brains I'd let the
mortgage stand." Then he turned and faced her squarely, his eyes boring
into hers.

"Send him to New York, by all means, Madam, or anywhere else out of
here," he said, firmly, but with a kindly tone in his voice. "When you
decide, let me know--I will give him a letter to a business friend of
mine who lives on the Hudson, a short distance above the city, who may
help him. But let me advise you to send him at once. I saw your son
yesterday at the club, and he exactly fits your measure, except in one
respect. He's got more grit in him than you give him credit for. I
looked him over pretty carefully, and if he gets in a tight place you
needn't worry about him. He'll pull out, or my name isn't Cobb. And now
one thing more--" and he rose stiffly from the sofa and buttoned up his
coat--"don't give him any pocket-money. Chuck him out neck and heels
into the world and let him shift for himself. That's the way I was
treated, and that's the way I got on. Good-day."




CHAPTER VII

A SEAT IN UNION SQUARE


Within a day's journey of Kennedy Square lay another wide
breathing-space, its winding paths worn smooth by countless hurrying
feet.

Over its flat monotony straggled a line of gnarled willows, marking the
wanderings of some guileless brook long since swallowed up and lost in
the mazes of the great city like many another young life fresh from
green fields and sunny hill-sides. This desert of weeds and sun-dried,
yellow grass, this kraal for scraggly trees and broken benches,
breasted the rush of the great city as a stone breasts a stream,
dividing its current--one part swirling around and up Broadway to the
hills and the other flowing eastward toward Harlem and the Sound.
Around its four sides, fronting the four streets that hemmed it in, ran
a massive iron railing, socketed in stone and made man-proof and
dog-proof by four great iron gates. These gates were opened at dawn to
let the restless in, and closed at night to keep the weary out.

Above these barriers of stone and iron no joyous magnolias lifted their
creamy blossoms; no shy climbing roses played hide-and-seek, blushing
scarlet when caught. Along its foot-worn paths no drowsy Moses ceased
his droning call; no lovers walked forgetful of the world; no staid old
gentlemen wandered idly, their noses in their books.

All day long on its rude straight-backed benches and over its
thread-bare turf sprawled unkempt women with sick babies from the
shanties; squalid, noisy children from the rookeries; beggars in rags,
and now and then some hopeless wayfarer--who for the moment had given
up his search for work or bread and who rested or slept until the tap
of a constable's club brought him to consciousness and his feet.

At night, before the gates were closed--ten o'clock was the hour--there
could always be found, under its dim lamps, some tired girl, sitting in
the light for better protection while she rested, or some weary laborer
on the way home from his long day's work, and always passing to and
fro, swinging his staff, bullying the street-rats who were playing tag
among the trees, and inspiring a wholesome awe among those hiding in
the shadows, lounged some guardian of the peace awaiting the hour when
he could drive the inmates to the sidewalk and shut the gates behind
them with a bang.

Here on one of these same straight-backed wooden seats one September
night--a night when the air was heavy with a blurred haze, through
which the lamps peered as in a fog, and the dust lay thick upon the
leaves--sat our Oliver.

Outside the square--all about the iron fence, and surging past the big
equestrian statue, could be heard the roar and din of the great
city--that maelstrom which now seemed ready to engulf him. No sound of
merry laughter reached him, only rumbling of countless wheels, the slow
thud of never-ending, crowded stages lumbering over the cobbles, the
cries of the hucksters selling hot corn, and the ceaseless scrapings of
a thousand feet.

He had sat here since the sun had gone down watching the crowds,
wondering how they lived and how they had earned their freedom from
such cares as were now oppressing him. His heart was heavy. A
long-coveted berth, meaning self-support and independence and
consequent relief to his mother's heart, had been almost within his
grasp. It was not the place he had expected when he left home. It was
much more menial and unremunerative. But he had outlived all his bright
hopes. He was ready now to take anything he could get to save him from
returning to Kennedy Square, or what would be still worse--from asking
his mother for a penny more than she had given him. Rather than do this
he would sweep the streets.

As he leaned forward on the bench, his face in his hands, his elbows on
his knees, his thoughts went back to his father's house. He knew what
they were all doing at this hour; he could see the porches crowded with
the boys and girls he loved, their bright voices filling the night-air,
Sue in the midst of them, her curls about her face. He could see his
father in the big chair reading by the lamp, that dear old father who
had held his hands so tenderly and spoken with such earnestness the day
before he had left Kennedy Square.

"Your mother is right," Richard had said. "I am glad you are going, my
son; the men at the North are broader-minded than we are here, and you
will soon find your place among them. Great things are ahead of us, my
boy. I shall not live to see them, but you will."

He could see his mother, too, sitting by the window, looking out upon
the trees. He knew where her thoughts lay. As his mind rested on her
pale face his eyes filled with tears. "Dear old mother," he said to
himself--"I am not forgetting, dear. I am holding on. But oh, if I had
only got the place to-day, how happy you would be to-morrow."

A bitter feeling had risen in his heart, when he had opened the letter
which had brought him the news of the loss of this hoped-for situation.
"This is making one's way in the world, is it?" he had said to himself
with a heavy sigh. Then the calm eyes of his mother had looked into his
again, and he had felt the pressure of the soft hand and heard the
tones of her voice:

"You may have many discouragements, my son, and will often be ready to
faint by the way, but stick to it and you will win."

His bitterness had been but momentary, and he had soon pulled himself
together, but his every resource seemed exhausted now. He had counted
so on the situation--that of a shipping-clerk in a dry-goods
store--promised him because of a letter that he carried from Amos
Cobb's friend. But at the last moment the former clerk, who had been
laid off because of sickness, had been taken back, and so the weary
search for work must begin again.

And yet with everything against him Oliver had no thought of giving up
the struggle. Even Amos Cobb would have been proud of him could he have
seen the dogged tenacity with which he clung to his purpose--a tenacity
due to his buoyant, happy temperament, or to his devotion to his
mother's wishes; or (and this is more than probable) to some drops of
blood, perhaps, that had reached his own through his mother's
veins--the blood of that Major with the blue and buff coat, whose
portrait hung in the dining-room at home, and who in the early days had
braved the flood at Trenton side by side with the Hero of the Bronze
Horse now overlooking the bench on which Oliver sat; or it may be of
that other ancestor in the queue whose portrait hung over the mantel of
the club and who had served his State with distinction in his day.

Whatever the causes of these several effects, the one dominating power
which now controlled him was his veneration for his mother's name and
honor. For on the night succeeding Amos Cobb's visit after she had
dropped upon her knees and poured out her heart in prayer she had gone
into Oliver's bedroom, and shutting the door had told him of the
mortgage; of his father's embarrassment, and the danger they suffered
of losing the farm--their only hope for their old age--unless success
crowned Richard's inventions. With his hand fast in hers she had given
him in exact detail all that she had done to ward off this calamity;
recounting, word by word, what she had said to the Colonel, lowering
her voice almost to a whisper as she spoke of the solemn promise she
had made him--involving her own and her husband's honor--and the
lengths to which she was prepared to go to keep her obligations to the
bank.

Then, her hand still clasping his, the two sitting side by side on his
bed, his wondering, startled eyes looking into hers--for this world of
anxiety was an unknown world to him--she had by slow stages made him
realize how necessary it was that he, their only son, and their sole
dependence, should begin at once to earn his daily bread; not only on
his own account but on hers and his father's. In her tenderness she had
not told him that the real reason was his instability of purpose;
fearing to wound his pride, she had put it solely on the ground of his
settling down to some work.

"It is the law of nature, my son," she had added. "Everything that
lives must WORK to live. You have only to watch the birds out here in
the Square to convince you of that. Notice them to-morrow, when you go
out. See how busy they are; see how long it takes for any one of them
to get a meal. You are old enough now to begin to earn your own bread,
and you must begin at once, Ollie. Your father can no longer help you.
I had hoped your profession would do this for you, but that is not to
be thought of now."

Oliver, at first, had been stunned by it all. He had never before given
the practical side of life a single thought. Everything had gone along
smoothly from his earliest remembrance. His father's house had been his
home and his protection; his room with its little bed and pretty
hangings and all its comforts--a room cared for like a girl's--had
always been open to him. He had never once asked himself how these
things came about, nor why they continued. These revelations of his
mother's therefore were like the sudden opening of a door covering a
vault over which he had walked unconsciously and which now, for the
first time, he saw yawning beneath him.

"Poor daddy," were his first words. "I never knew a thing about his
troubles; he seems always so happy and so gentle. I am so sorry--dear
daddy--dear dad--" he kept repeating.

And then as she spoke there flashed into his mind the thought of his
own hopes. They were shattered now. He knew that the art career was
dead for him, and that all his dreams in that direction were over.

He was about to tell her this, but he stopped before the words were
formed. He would not add his own burden to her sorrow. No, he would
bear it alone. He would tell Sue, but he would not tell his mother.
Next there welled up in his heart a desire to help this mother whom he
idolized, and this father who represented to him all that was kind and
true.

"What can I do? Where can I go, dearie?" he cried with sudden resolve.
"Even if I am to work with my hands I am ready to do it, but it must be
away from here. I could not do it here at home with everybody looking
on; no, not here! not here!"

This victory gained, the mother with infinite tact, little by little,
unfolded to the son the things she had planned. Finally with her arms
about his neck, smoothing his cheek with her hands she told him of Amos
Cobb's advice and of his offer, adding: "He will give you a letter to
his friend who lives at Haverstraw near New York, my boy, with whom you
can stay until you get the situation you want."

The very impracticability of this scheme did not weigh with her. She
did not see how almost hopeless would be the task of finding employment
in an unknown city. Nor did the length of time her son might be a
burden on a total stranger make any difference in her plans. Her own
home had always been open to the friends of her friends, and for any
length of time, and her inborn sense of hospitality made it impossible
for her to understand any other conditions. Then again she said to
herself: "Mr. Cobb is a thoroughly practical man, and a very kind one.
His friend will welcome Oliver, or he would not have allowed my son to
go." She had repeated, however, no word of the Vermonter's advice "to
chuck the boy out neck and heels into the world and let him shift for
himself," although the very Spartan quality of the suggestion, in spite
of its brusqueness, had greatly pleased her. She could not but
recognize that Amos understood. She would have faced the situation
herself if she had been in her son's place; she said so to herself. And
she hoped, too, that Oliver would face it as bravely when the time came.

As for the temptations that might assail her boy in the great city, she
never gave them a thought. Neither the love of drink nor the love of
play ran in her own or Richard's veins--not for generations back. "One
test of a gentleman, my son," Richard always said, "lies in the way in
which he controls his appetites--in the way he regards his meat and
drink. Both are foods for the mind as well as for the body, and must be
used as such. Gluttons and drunkards should be classed together." No,
her boy's heart might lead him astray, but not his appetites, and never
his passions. She was as sure of that as she was of his love.

As she talked on, Oliver's mind, yielding to her stronger will as clay
does to a sculptor's hand, began to take shape. What at first had
looked like a hardship now began to have an attractive side. Perhaps
the art career need not be wholly given up. Perhaps, too, there was a
better field for him in New York than here--old Mr. Crocker had always
told him this. Then, too, there was something of fascination after all,
in going out alone like a knight-errant to conquer the world. And in
that great Northern city, too, with its rush and whirl and all that it
held for him of mystery! How many times had Mr. Crocker talked to him
by the hour of its delights. And Ellicott's chair! Yes, he could get
rid of that. And Sue? Sue would wait--she had promised him she would;
no, there was no doubt about Sue! She would love him all the better if
he fought his battle alone. Only the day before she had told him of the
wonderful feats of the White Knight, that the new English poet had just
written about and that everybody in Kennedy Square was now reading.

Above all there was the delight of another sensation--the sensation of
a new move. This really pleased him best. He was apparently listening
to his mother when these thoughts took possession of him, for his eyes
were still fixed on hers, but he heard only a word now and then. It was
his imagination that swayed him now, not his will nor his judgment. He
would have his own adventures in the great city and see the world as
Mr. Crocker had done, he said to himself.

"Yes, dearie, I'll go," he answered quickly. "Don't talk any more about
it. I'll do just as you want me to, and I'll go anywhere you say. But
about the money for my expenses? Can father give it to me?" he asked
suddenly, a shade of anxiety crossing his face.

"We won't ask your father, Ollie," she said, drawing him closer to her.
She knew he would yield to her wishes, and she loved him the better for
it, if that were possible. "I have a little money saved which I will
give you. You won't be long finding a good place."

"And how often can I come back to you?" he cried, starting up. Until
now this phase of the situation had not entered his mind.

"Not often, my boy--certainly not until you can afford it. It is costly
travelling. Maybe once or twice a year."

"Oh, then there's no use talking, I can't go. I can't--can't, be away
from you that long. That's going to be the hardest part." He had
started from his seat and, stood over her, a look of determination on
his face.

"Oh, yes, you can, my son, and you will," she replied, as she too rose
and stood beside him, stopping the outburst of his weakness with her
calm voice, and quieting and soothing him with the soft touch of her
hand, caressing his cheek with her fingers as she had so often done
when he, a baby, had lain upon her breast.

Then with a smile on her face, she had kissed him good-night, closed
the door, and staggering along the corridor steadying herself as she
walked, her hand on the walls, had thrown herself upon her bed in an
agony of tears, crying out:

"Oh, my boy--my boy! How can I give you up? And I know it is forever!"

And now here he is foot-sore and heart-sore, sitting in Union Square,
New York, the roar of the great city in his ears, and here he must sit
until the cattle-barge which takes him every night to the house of Amos
Cobb's friend is ready to start on her voyage up the river.

He sat with his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, not
stirring until a jar on the other end of the bench roused him. A negro
hod-carrier, splashed with plaster, and wearing a ragged shirt and a
crownless straw hat, had taken a seat beside him. The familiarity of
the act startled Oliver. No negro wayfarer would have dared so much in
his own Square at home.

The man reached forward and drew closer to his own end of the bench a
bundle of sawed ends and bits of wood which he had carried across the
park on his shoulder.

Oliver watched him for a moment, with a feeling amounting almost to
indignation. "Were the poverty and the struggle of a great city to
force such familiarities upon him," he wondered. Then something in the
negro's face, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the
back of his hand, produced a sudden change of feeling. "Was this man,
too, without work?" Oliver asked himself, as he felt the negro's
weariness, and realized for the first time, the common heritage of all
men.

"Are you tired, Uncle?" he asked.

"Yes, a little mite. I been a-totin' dis kindlin' from way up yander in
Twenty-third Street where the circus useter be. Dey's buildin' a big
hotel dere now--de Fifth Avenue dey calls it. I'm a-carryin' mortar for
de brick-layers an' somehow dese sticks is monst'ous heavy after
workin' all day."

"Where do you live?" asked Oliver, his eyes on the kindling-wood.

"Not far from here, sah; little way dis side de Bow'ry. Whar's yo'r
home?" And the old man rose to his feet and picked up his bundle.

The question staggered Oliver. He had no home, really none that he
could call his own--not now.

"Oh, a long way from here," he answered, thoughtfully, without raising
his head, his voice choking.

The old negro gazed at him for a moment, touched his hat respectfully,
and walked toward the gate. At the entrance he wheeled about, balanced
the bundle of wood on his shoulder and looked back at Oliver, who had
resumed his old position, his eyes on the ground. Then he walked away,
muttering:

"'Pears like he's one o' my own people calling me uncle. Spec' he ain't
been long from his mammy."

Two street-rats now sneaked up toward Oliver, watched him for a moment,
and whispered to each other. One threw a stone which grazed Oliver's
head, the other put his hand to his mouth and yelled: "Spad, spad," at
the top of his voice. Oliver understood the epithet, it meant that he
wore clean linen, polished shoes, and perhaps, now and then, a pair of
gloves. He had heard the same outcry in his own city, for the slang of
the street-rat is Volapuk the world over. But he did not resent the
assault. He was too tired to chase any boys, and too despondent to
answer their taunts.

A constable, attracted by the cries of the boys, now passed in front of
him swinging his long staff. He was about to tap Oliver's knees with
one end of it, as a gentle reminder that he had better move on, when
something in the young man's face or appearance made him change his
mind.

"Hi, sonny," he cried, turning quickly and facing Olivr, "yer can't bum
round here after ten, ye know. Keep yer eyes peeled for them gates,
d'ye hear?"

If Oliver heard he made no reply. He was in no mood to dispute the
officer's right to order him about. The gates were not the only
openings shut in his face, he thought to himself; everything seemed
closed against him in this great city. It was not so at home on Kennedy
Square. Its fence, was a shackly, moss-covered, sagging old fence,
intertwined with honeysuckles, full of holes and minus many a paling;
where he could have found a dozen places to crawl through. He had done
so only a few weeks before with Sue in a mad frolic across the Square.
Besides, why should the constable speak to him at all? He knew all
about the hour of closing the New York gates without the policeman
reminding him of it. Had he not sat here every night waiting for that
cattle-boat? He hated the place cordially, yet it was the only spot in
that great city to which he could come and not be molested while he
waited for the barges. He always selected this particular bench because
it was nearest the gate that led to the bronze horse. He loved to look
at its noble contour silhouetted against the sky or illumined by the
street-lamps, and was seldom too tired to be inspired by it. He had
never seen any work in sculpture to be compared to it, and for the
first few days after his arrival, he was never content to end the day's
tramping until he stood beneath it, following its outlines, his heart
swelling with pride at the thought that one of his own nationality and
not a European had created it. He wished that his father, who believed
so in the talent of his countrymen, could see it.

Suddenly, while he was still resenting the familiarity of the
constable, his ears were assailed by the cry of a dog in pain; some
street-rat had kicked him.

Instantly Oliver was on his feet. A small spaniel was running toward
him, followed by half a dozen boys who were pelting him with stones.

Oliver sprang forward as the dog crouched at his feet; caught him up in
his arms and started for the rats, who dodged behind the tree-trunks,
calling "Spad, spad," as they ran. Then came the voice of the same
constable.

"Hi, yer can't bring that dog in here."

"He's not my dog, somebody has hurt him," said Oliver in an indifferent
tone, examining carefully the dog's legs to see if any bones were
broken.

"If that ain't your dog what yer doin' with him? See here, I been
a-watchin' ye. Yer got ter move on or I'll run ye in. D'ye moind?"

Oliver's eyes flashed. In all his life no man had ever doubted his
word, nor had anyone ever spoken to him in such terms.

"You can do as you please, but I will take care of this dog, no matter
what happens. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to see him hurt, and
not want to protect him. You're a pretty kind of an officer."

A crowd began to gather.

Oliver was standing with the dog under one arm, holding the little
fellow close to his breast, the other bent with fist tight shut as if
to defend himself.

"I am, am I? yer moon-faced spad! I'll show ye," and he sprang toward
Oliver.

"Here now, Tim Murphy," came a sharp voice, "kape yer hands off the
young gintleman. He ain't a-doin' nothin', and he ain't done nothin'.
Thim divils hit the dog, I seen 'em myself."

The officer turned quickly and faced a big, broad-shouldered Irish
woman, bare-headed, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, every line in
her kindly face replete with indignation.

"Don't put yer hands on him, or I'll go to the lock-up an' tell
McManus."

"Oh, it's you, is it, Mrs. Mulligan?" said the officer, in a
conciliatory tone.

"Yes, it's me. The young gintleman's right. It's the b'ys ye oughter
club into shape, not be foolin' yer time over the dog."

"Well, ye know it's agin the rules to let dogs inside the gates," he
retorted as he continued his stroll along the walk, swinging his club
as he went, puffing out his chest and cheeks with his old air as he
moved toward the gate.

"Yes, an' so it's agin the rules," she called after him, "to have them
rapscallions yellin' like mad an' howlin' bloody murder when a body
comes up here to git a breath o' air."

"Is the dog hurt, sir?" and she stepped close to Oliver and laid her
big hand on the dog's head, as it lay nestling close to Oliver's side.

"No, I don't think so--he would have been if I had not got him."

The dog, under the caress, raised his head, and a slight movement of
his tail expressed his pleasure. Then his ears shot forward. A young
man about Oliver's own age was rapidly walking up the path, with a
quick, springy step, whistling as he came. The dog, with a sudden
movement, squirmed himself from under Oliver's arm and sprang toward
him.

"Oh, it's you, Mr. Fred, is it?" broke out the woman, "and it's Miss
Margaret's dog, too. Of course it's her dog, an' I was that dumb I
didn't know it. But it's not me ye can thank for savin' its skin--it's
the young gintleman here. Them divils would have killed it but for him."

"Is the dog yours, sir?" asked Oliver, raising his hat with that
peculiar manner of his which always won him friends at first sight.

"No, I wish it were. It's Miss Margaret Grant's dog--one of our
students. I am taking care of it while she is away. The little rascal
ran out and got into the Square before I knew it. I live right across
the street--you can see my house from here. Miss Grant will be ever so
much obliged to you for protecting him."

"Oh, don't mention it. I got hold of him just in time, or these
ruffians would have hurt him. I think the old lady here, however, is
most to be thanked. We might both have been locked up," he added,
smiling, "if she had not interfered. You know her, it seems."

"Yes, she's Mother Mulligan, as we call her. She's janitress of the
Academy of Design, where I draw at night. My name's Fred Stone. Come
over to where I live--it's only a step," and he looked straight into
Oliver's face, his big blue eyes never wavering.

"Well, I will if you don't think it's too late," and the two young
fellows, with a wave of their hands to the old woman, left the Square,
the dog bounding before them.

Within the hour--in less time indeed, for the friendly light in the
eyes of his new-found friend had shone straight into our boy's soul,
warming and cheering him to his finger-tips, opening his heart, and
bringing out all his secrets--Oliver had told Fred the story of his
fruitless tramps for work; of his mother's hopes and fears; of his own
ambitions and his aims. And Fred, his own heart wide open, had told
Oliver with equal frankness the story of his own struggles; of his
leaving his father's farm in the western part of the State, and of his
giving up everything to come to New York to study art.

It was the old, old story of two chance acquaintances made friends by
reason of the common ground of struggle and privation on which they
stood; comrades fighting side by side in the same trenches for the same
end, and both dreaming of the morrow which would always bring victory
and never death. A story told without reserve, for the disappointments
of life had not yet dulled their enthusiasm, nor had the caution
acquired by its many bitter experiences yet checked the free flow of
their confidences.

To Oliver, in his present despondent mood, the hand held out to him was
more than the hand of a comrade. It was the hand of a strong swimmer
thrust into the sea to save a drowning man. There were others then
besides himself, he thought, as he grasped it, who were making this
fight for bread and glory; there was something else in the great city
besides cruelty and misery, money-getting and money-spending--something
of unselfishness, sympathy and love.

The two sat on the steps of Fred's boarding-house--that house where
Oliver was to spend so many happy days of his after-life--until there
was only time enough to catch the barge. Reluctantly he bade his
new-found comrade good-by and, waving his hand, turned the corner in
the direction of the dock.

The edge of Oliver's cloud had at last caught the light!




CHAPTER VIII

AN OLD SONG


Not only had the sunshine of a new friendship illumined the edge of
Oliver's clouds, but before the week was out a big breeze laden with
success had swept them so far out to sea, that none but the clearest of
skies radiant with hope now arched above his happy face.

A paste-board sign had wrought this miracle.

One day he had been tramping the lower parts of the city, down among
the docks, near Coenties Slip, looking up the people who on former
visits had said: "Some other time, perhaps," or "If we should have room
for another man we will be glad to remember you," or "We know Mr. Cobb,
and shall be pleased," etc., etc., when he chanced to espy a strange
sign tacked outside a warehouse door, a sign which bore the
unheard-of-announcement--unheard of to Oliver, especially the last
word, "Shipping Clerk WANTED."

No one, for weeks, had WANTED anything that Oliver could furnish.
Strangely enough too, as he afterward discovered, the bullet-headed
Dutch porter had driven the last tack into the clean, white, welcome
face of the sign only five minutes before Oliver stopped in front of
it. Still more out of the common, and still more incomprehensible, was
the reply made to him by the head salesman, whom he found just inside
the door--a wiry, restless little man with two keen black eyes, and a
perfectly bald head.

"Yes, if you can mark boxes decently; can show any references; don't
want too much pay, and can come NOW. We're short of a boy, and it's our
busy season."

Oh! blessed be Mr. Crocker, thought Oliver, as he picked up a
marking-brush, stirred it round and round in the tin pot filled with
lamp-black and turpentine, and to his own and the clerk's delight,
painted, on a clean board, rapidly and clearly, and in new letters
too--new to the clerk--the full address of the bald-headed man's
employers:

  MORTON, SLADE & CO.,
  121 PEARL STREET, NEW YORK.

More amazing still were the announcements made by the same bald-headed
man after Oliver had shown him Amos Cobb's recommendations: Oliver was
to come to work in the morning, the situation to be permanent provided
Cobb confirmed by letter the good wishes he had previously expressed,
and provided Mr. Morton, the senior partner, approved of the
bald-head's action; of which the animated billiard-ball said there was
not the slightest doubt as he, the ball, had charge of the shipping
department, and was responsible for its efficiency.

All of these astounding, incomprehensible and amazing occurrences
Oliver had written to his mother, ending his letter by declaring in his
enthusiasm that it was his art, after all, which had pulled him
through, and that but for his readiness with the brush, he would still
be a tramp, instead of "rolling in luxury on the huge sum of eight
dollars a week, with every probability of becoming a partner in the
house, and later on a millionnaire." To which the dear lady had
replied, that she was delighted to know he had pleased his employers,
but that what had pleased her most was his never having lost heart
while trying to win his first fight, adding: "The second victory will
come more easily, my darling boy, and so will each one hereafter." Poor
lady, she never knew how sore that boy's feet had been, nor how many
times he had gone with half a meal or none at all, for fear of
depleting too much the small store she had given him when he left home.

With his success still upon him, he had sallied forth to call upon
young Fred Stone who had grasped his hand so warmly the night he had
rescued the dog from the street-boys, and whose sympathy had gone out
to him so freely. He had written him of his good fortune, and Fred had
replied, begging him to call upon him, and had appointed this same
Friday night as the night of all others when he could entertain him
best.

But Oliver is not the same boy who said good-by to Fred that moonlight
night the week before. His eyes are brighter; his face is a-glow with
ill-concealed pleasure. Even his step shows the old-time spring and
lightness of the days at home--on his toes part of the time, as if
restraining an almost uncontrollable impulse to stop and throw one or
two hand-springs just to relieve the pressure on his nerves.

When he reached the bench in the Square where he had sat so many nights
with his head in his hands, one of those quick outbursts of enthusiasm
took possession of him, the kind that sets young hearts singing with
joy when some sudden shift of hope's kaleidoscope opens a wide horizon
brilliant with the light of future success. With an exclamation of
boyish glee he plumped himself down upon the hard planks of the bench,
and jumped up again, pirouetting on his toe and slanting his hat over
one eye as if in a spirit of sheer bravado against fate. Then he
sauntered out of the iron gate to Fred's house.

Even as he waited on the stone steps of Miss Teeturn's boarding-house
for the dowdy servant-girl's return--such dirty, unkempt steps as they
were, and such a dingy door-plate, spotted with rain and dust, not like
Malachi's, he thought--he could hardly restrain himself from beating
Juba with his foot, a plantation trick Malachi had taught him, keeping
time the while with the palms of his hands on his shapely legs.

Meanwhile another young enthusiast is coming downstairs three steps at
a time, this one bare-headed, all out of breath, and without a coat,
who pours out his heart to the first Juba-beating enthusiast as the two
climb the stairs together to the second enthusiast's room on the very
top floor. He tells him of his delight at seeing him again and of the
lot of fellows waiting to welcome him under the skylight; and of what a
jolly lot the "Skylarkers" really are; and of Mr. Slade, Oliver's
employer, whom Fred knows and who comes from Fred's own town; and of
how much Mr. Slade likes a certain new clerk, one Oliver Horn, of
Kennedy Square, he having said so the night before, this same Horn
being the precise individual whose arm at that very moment was locked
in Fred's own and which was now getting an extra squeeze merely for the
purposes of identification.

All of this Fred poured into Oliver's willing ear without stopping to
take breath, as they mounted the four long flights of stairs that led
to the top floor, where, under the roof, there lived a group of
Bohemians as unique in their personalities as could be found the great
city over.

When the two pairs of feet had at last reached the last flight of steps
under the flat roof of the house, the "Skylarkers" were singing "Old
Dog Tray" at the top of their voices, to the accompaniment of a piano,
and of some other instruments, the character of which our young hero
failed to recognize, although the strains had grown louder and louder
as the young men mounted the stairs.

As Oliver stood in the open doorway and looked in through the haze of
tobacco-smoke upon the group, he instantly became conscious that a new
world had opened before him; a world, as he had always pictured it,
full of mystery and charm, peopled by a race as fascinating to him as
any Mr. Crocker had ever described, and as new and strange as if its
members had been the denizens of another planet.

The interior was not a room, but a square low-ceiled hall into which
opened some six or more small bedrooms, slept in, whenever sleep was
possible, by an equal number of Miss Teetum's boarders. The
construction and appointments of this open garret, with two exceptions,
were similar to those of all other garrets of its class: it had walls
and ceiling, once whitewashed, and now discolored by roof-leaks from a
weather-beaten skylight; its floor was bare of carpet, and its
well-worn woodwork was stained with time and use. Chairs, however, were
scarce, most of the boarders and their guests being seated on the floor.

The two exceptions, already noted, were some crisp, telling sketches,
big and little, in color and black-and-white, the work of the artist
members of this coterie, which covered every square inch of the
leak-stained surface of ceiling and wall, and the yellow-keyed,
battered piano which occupied the centre of the open space and which
stood immediately under two flaring gas-jets. At the moment of Fred's
and Oliver's arrival the top of this instrument was ornamented by two
musically inclined gentlemen, one seated cross-legged like a Turk,
voicing the misfortunes of Dog Tray, the other, with his legs resting
on a chair, beating time to the melody with a cane. This cane, at short
intervals, he brought down upon the shoulders of any ambitious member
who attempted to usurp his place. The chief object of the gathering, so
far as Oliver's hasty glance could determine, was undoubtedly the
making of as much noise as possible.

While the young men stood looking into the room waiting for the song to
cease prior to Oliver's entry and introduction, Fred whispered
hurriedly into his guest's ear some of the names, occupations, and
characteristics of the group before him.

The cross-legged man with the long neck, drooping mustache, and ropy
black hair, was none other than Bowdoin, the artist--the only American
who had taken a medal at Munich for landscape, but who was now painting
portraits and starving slowly in consequence. He mounted to this eyry
every Friday night, so as to be reminded of the good old days at
Schwartz's. The short, big-mustached, bald-headed man swinging the
cane, was Bianchi--Julius Bianchi--known to the Skylarkers as "The
Pole," and to the world at large as an accomplished lithographer and
maker of mezzotints. Bianchi was a piece of the early artistic
driftwood cast upon our shores--an artist every inch of him--drawing
from life, and handling the crayon like a master.

The pale-faced young fellow at the piano, with bulging watch-crystal
eye-glasses and hair tucked behind his ears, was the well-known,
all-round musician, Wenby Simmons--otherwise known as "Pussy Me-ow"--a
name associated in some way with the strings of his violin. This
virtuoso played in the orchestra at the Winter Garden, and occupied the
bedroom next to Fred's.

The clean-shaven, well-groomed young Englishman standing behind Simmons
and holding a coal-scuttle half full of coal which he shook with
deafening jangle to help swell the chorus, was "My Lord Cockburn" so
called--an exchange clerk in a banking-house. He occupied the room
opposite Fred's.

With the ending of the chorus Fred Stone stepped into the open space
with his arm through that of his guest, and the noise was hushed long
enough for the entire party to welcome the young Southerner--a welcome
which kindled into a glow of enthusiasm when they caught the look of
frank undisguised pleasure which lighted his face, and noticed the
unaffected bow with which he entered the room, shaking hands with each
one as Fred introduced him--and all with that warm, hearty, simple,
courteous manner peculiar to his people.

The slight ceremony over--almost every Friday night some new guest was
welcomed--Fred seated himself on the floor with his back to the
whitewashed wall, although two chairs were at once offered them, and
made room for Oliver, who settled down beside him.

As they sat leaning back, Oliver's eyes wandering over the room
drinking in the strange, fascinating scene before him, as bewildering
as it was unexpected, Fred--now that they were closer to the scene of
action, again whispered or shouted, as the suddenly revived noise
permitted, into Oliver's alert and delighted ears, such additional
facts concerning the other members present as he thought would interest
his guest.

The fat man behind the piano astride of a chair, a pipe in his mouth
and a black velvet skull-cap on his head, was Tom Waller, the
sheep-painter-Thomas Brandon Waller, he signed it--known as the Walrus.
He, too, was a boarder and a delightful fellow, although an habitual
grumbler. His highest ambition was to affix an N. A. at the end of his
name, but he had failed of election by thirty votes out of forty cast.
That exasperating event he had duly celebrated at Pfaff's in various
continued libations covering a week, and had accordingly, on many
proper and improper occasions, renewed and recelebrated the event,
breathing out meanwhile, between his pewter mugs, scathing anathemas
against the "idiots" who had defeated him out of his just rights, and
who were stupid enough to believe in the school of Verboeckhoeven.
Slick and shiny Verboeckhoeven, "the mechanic," he would call him, with
his fists closed tight, who painted the hair on every one of his sheep
as if it were curled by a pair of barber's tongs--not dirty and woolly
and full of suggestions as, of course, he--the great Waller, alone of
all living animal-painters--depicted it. All of which, to Waller's
credit, it must be parenthetically stated, these same "idiots" learned
to recognize in after years as true, when that distinguished
animal-painter took a medal at the Salon for the same picture which the
Jury of N. A.'s had rejected at their Spring Exhibition.

The irreproachable, immaculate young person, with eyes half-closed,
lying back in the arm-chair--one which he had brought from his own
room--was "Ruffle-shirt" Tomlins. He was the only member who dressed
every day for dinner, whether he was going out afterward or
not--spike-tailed coat, white tie and all. Tomlins not only knew
intimately a lady of high degree who owned a box at the Academy of
Music, in Fourteenth Street, and who invited him to sit in it at least
once a season, but he had besides a large visiting acquaintance among
the people of quality living on Irving Place. A very agreeable and
kindly little man was "Ruffle-shirt" Tomlins--so Fred said--the sort of
a little man whose philosophy of life was based on the possibility of
catching more innocent, unwary flies with honey than he could with
vinegar, and who, in consequence, always said nice things about
everybody--sometimes in a loud tone enough for everybody to hear. This
last statement of Fred's Tomlins confirmed ten minutes later by
remarking, in a stage whisper to Waller:

"Did you see how that young Mr. Horn entered the room? Nobody like
these high-bred Southerners, my boy. Quite the air of a man of the
world--hasn't he?" To all of which the distinguished sheep-painter made
no other reply than a slight nod of the head, as he blew a cloud of
smoke toward the ceiling--Tomlins's immaculate appearance being a
constant offence to the untidy painter.

The member with the stentorian voice, who was roaring out his opinions
to Cockburn, Fred continued, was "Fog-horn" Cranch, the auctioneer. His
room was next to Waller's. His weaknesses were gay-colored waistcoats
and astounding cravats. He varied these portions of his dress according
to wind, weather, and sales of the day--selecting blue for sunshiny
mornings, black for rainy ones, green for pictures, red for household
furniture, white for real estate, etc. Into these color-schemes he
stuck a variety of scarf-pins--none very valuable or rare, but each one
distinct--a miniature ivory skull, for instance, with little garnets
for eyes, or tiny onyx dice with sixes on all sides.

The one man of all the others most beloved by Fred and every other
boarder, guest, and habitue that gathered around the piano in this
garret-room, and now conspicuous by his absence, he having gone to the
circus opposite the Academy of Music, and not likely to return until
late--a fact greatly regretted by Fred who made this announcement with
lowered voice to Oliver--was a young Irishman by the name of
McFudd--Cornelius McFudd, the life of the house, and whom Waller, in
accordance with the general custom, had christened "Continuous
McFuddie," by reason of the nature of the Hibernian's habits. His room
was across the open space opposite Fred's, with windows overlooking the
yard.

This condensation of good-nature, wit, and good-humor, Fred went on to
say, had been shipped to "The States" by his father, a rich
manufacturer of Irish whiskies in Dublin, that he might learn something
of the ways of the New World. And there was not the slightest doubt in
the minds of his comrades, so Fred assured Oliver, that he had not only
won his diploma, but that the sum of his knowledge along several other
lines far exceeded that of any one of his contemporaries. His
allowances came regularly every month, through the hands of Cockburn,
who had known him in London, and whose bank cashed McFudd's
remittances--a fact which enabled my lord to a greater extent than the
others to keep an eye on the Irishman's movements and expenditures.

Whatever deviltry was inaugurated on this top floor during the day as
well as the night, and it was pretty constant, could be traced without
much difficulty to this irrepressible young Irishman. If Tomlins found
his dress-suit put to bed, with a pillow for a body and his crush-hat
for a head; or Cranch found Waller's lay-figure (Waller often used his
bedroom as a studio) sitting bolt upright in his easy-chair, with its
back to him reading a newspaper--the servant having been told to
announce to Cranch, the moment she opened the door, that "a gentleman
was waiting for him in his room"; or Cockburn was sent off on some
wild-goose chase uptown--it was safe to say that Mac was at the bottom
of it all.

If, Fred added impressively, this rollicking, devil-may-care, perfectly
sound and hearty young Hibernian had ever been absolutely, entirely,
and completely sober since his sojourn in the land of the free, no one
of his fellow-boarders had ever discovered it.

Of this motley gathering "Ruffle-shirt" Tomlins, the swell; "Fog-horn"
Cranch, the auctioneer; "Walrus" Waller, the sheep-painter; "My Lord"
Cockburn, the Englishman; Fred Stone and Cornelius McFudd, not only
occupied the bedrooms, but had seats at Miss Teetum's table, four
flights below. Bianchi and the others were the guests of the evening.

All this, and more, Fred poured into Oliver's willing ear in loud or
soft tones, dependent upon the particular kind of bedlam that was loose
in the room at the moment, as they sat side by side on the floor,
Oliver's back supported by a pillow which Tomlins had brought from his
own bed and tucked behind his shoulders with his own hand.

This courtesy had been followed by another, quite as comforting and as
thoughtful. Cockburn, the moment Oliver's back touched the wall, had
handed him a tooth-brush mug without a handle, filled to the brim with
a decoction of Cockburn's own brewing, compounded hot according to
McFudd's receipt, and poured from an earthen pitcher kept within reach
of Cockburn's hand, and to which Oliver, in accordance with his
habitual custom, had merely touched his lips, he being the most
temperate of young gentlemen.

While they talked on, stopping now and then to listen to some outburst
of Cranch, whose voice drowned all others--or to snatches of song from
Wenby Simmons, the musician, or from Julius Bianchi, Waller's voice
managed to make itself felt above the din with an earnestness that
gained the attention and calmed all the others.

"You don't know what you're all talking about," he was heard to say. He
was still astride his chair, his pipe in his hand. "Inness's picture
was the best thing we had in the Exhibition, except Eastman Johnson's
'Negro Life at the South.' Kensett's 'Lake George' was--"

"What--that Inness smear?" retorted "My Lord" Cockburn, who still stood
with the coal-scuttle in his hand ready for another chorus.
"Positively, Waller, you Americans amuse me. Do you really think that
you've got anybody about you who can paint anything worth having--"

"Oh! oh! Hear the high-cockalorum! Oh! oh!"

The sheep-painter raised his hand to command silence.

"Do I think we've got anybody about here who can paint?--you fog-headed
noodle from Piccadilly? We've got a dozen young fellows in this very
town that put more real stuff into their canvases than all your men put
together. They don't tickle their things to death with detail. They get
air and vitality and out-of-doors into their work, and--"

"Names! Names!" shouted "My Lord" Cockburn, rattling the scuttle to
drown the answers to his questions.

"George Inness for one, and young McEntee and Sanford Gifford, and
Eastman Johnson, Page, Casilear--a lot of them," shouted "The Walrus."
"Go to the Exhibition and see for yourself, and you--"

The rest of the discussion was lost to Oliver's ears owing to the roar
of Cranch's fog-horn, accompanied by another vigorous shaking of the
scuttle, which the auctioneer caught away from "My Lord" Cockburn's
grasp, and the pounding of Simmons's fingers on the yellow keys of the
wheezy piano.

The tribute to Inness had not been missed by Oliver, despite the
deafening noise accompanying its utterance. He remembered another green
smear, that hung in Mr. Crocker's studio, to which that old enthusiast
always pointed as the work of a man who would yet be heard from if he
lived. He had never appreciated it himself at the time, but now he saw
that Mr. Crocker must be right.

Someone now started the chorus--

Down among the dead men, down.

Instantly every man was on his feet crowding about the piano, Oliver
catching the inspiration of the moment and joining in with the others.
The quality of his voice must have caught the ear of some of the
singers, for they gradually lowered their tones; leaving Oliver's voice
almost alone.

Fred's eye glowed with pleasure. His new-found friend was making a
favorable impression. He at once urged Oliver to sing one of his own
Southern songs as the darkies sung them at home, and not as they were
caricatured by the end men in the minstrel shows.

Oliver, at first abashed, and then anxious to contribute something of
his own in return for all the pleasure they had given him, hummed the
tune for Simmons, and in the hush that followed began one of the old
plantation songs that Malachi had taught him, beginning with

  De old black dog he bay at de moon,
  Away down yan ribber.
  Miss Bull-frog say she git dar soon,
  Away down yan ribber.

As the melody rang through the room, now full and strong, now plaintive
as the cooing of a dove or the moan of a whippoorwill, the men stood
stock-still, their wondering eyes fixed on the singer, and it was not
until the timely arrival of the Bull-frog and the escape of her lover
had been fully told that the listening crowd allowed themselves to do
much more than breathe. Then there came a shout that nearly raised the
roof. The peculiar sweetness of Oliver's voice, the quaintness of the
melody, the grotesqueness of his gestures--for it was pantomime as well
as music--and the quiet simplicity and earnestness with which it had
all been done, had captivated every man in the room. It was Oliver's
first triumph--the first in all his life.

And the second was not far off, for in the midst of all the uproar that
followed, as he resumed his place on the floor, Cockburn sprang to his
feet and proposed Mr. Oliver Horn as a full member of the Skylarkers'
Club. This was carried unanimously, and a committee of two, consisting
of "Ruffle-shirt" Tomlins and Waller, were forthwith appointed to
acquaint the said member, who stood three feet away, of his election,
and to escort him to Tomlins's chair--the largest and most
imposing-looking one in the room. This action was indorsed by the
shouts and cat-calls of all present, accompanied by earthquake shakings
of the coal-scuttle and the rattling of chairlegs and canes on the
floor.

Oliver rose to his feet and stood blushing like a girl, thanking those
about him in halting sentences for the honor conferred upon him. Then
he stammered something about his not deserving their praise, for he
could really sing very few songs--only those he had sung at home to
help out an occasional chorus, and that he would be delighted to join
in another song if any one of the gentlemen present would start the
tune.

These last suggestions being eminently distasteful to the group, were
immediately drowned in a series of protests, the noise only ceasing
when "Fog-horn" Cranch mounted a chair and in his best real estate
voice commanded silence.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," thundered the auctioneer, "I have the honor to
announce that the great barytone, Mr. Oliver Horn, known to the
universe as the 'Musical Cornucopia,' late of the sunny South, and now
a resident of this metropolis, will delight this company by singing one
of those soul-moving plantation melodies which have made his name
famous over two hemispheres. Mr. 'Pussy Me-ow' Simmons, the
distinguished fiddling pianist, late of the Bowery, very late, I may
remark, and now on the waiting list at Wallack's Theatre--every other
month, I am told--will accompany him."

"Hear! Hear!" "Horn! Horn!" "Don't let him get away, Fred." "Song!
Song!" was heard all over the room.

Oliver again tried to protest, but he was again shouted down by cries
of--

"None of that!" "Can't fool us." "You know a barrel of 'em." "Song!
Song!"

Cranch broke in again--"Mr. Horn's modesty, gentlemen, greatly endears
him to his fellow-members, and we love him the better for it, but all
the same--" and he raised his hand with the same gesture he would have
used had it held an auctioneer's hammer--"All in favor of his singing
again say 'Aye!' Going! Going! Gone! The ayes have it." In the midst of
the cheering Cranch jumped from the chair and taking Oliver by the hand
as if he had been a young prima donna at her first appearance, led him
to the piano with all the airs and graces common to such an occasion.

Our young hero hesitated a moment, looked about in a pleased but
helpless way, and nerving himself tried to collect his thoughts
sufficiently to recall some one of the songs that were so familiar to
him at home. Then Sue's black eyes looked into his--there must always
be a woman helping Oliver--and the strains of the last song he had sung
with her the night before he left home floated through his brain.
(These same eyes were gazing into another's at the moment, but our
young Oliver was unconscious of that lamentable fact.)

"Did you ever happen to hear 'The Old Kentucky Home'?" Oliver asked
Simmons. "No? Well, it goes this way," and he struck the chords.

"You play it," said Simmons, rising from the stool.

"Oh, I can only play the chords, and not all of them right--" and he
took Simmons's seat. "Perhaps I can get through--I'll try it," he
added, simply, and squared himself before the instrument and began the
melody.

The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home, 'Tis summer, the
darkies are gay. The corn-top's ripe and the meadow is in bloom, While
the birds make music all the day.

Weep no more, my lady--oh, weep no more to-day! We'll sing one song for
the old Kentucky home, For the old Kentucky home far away.

As the words rolled from his lips Oliver seemed to forget the scene
before him. Somehow he could see the light in Sue's eyes, as she
listened, and hear her last words. He could hear the voice of his
mother, and feel her hand on his head; and then, as the soft vowels and
cadences of the quaint melody breathed themselves out, he could catch
again the expression of delight on the face of Malachi--who had taught
him the song--as he listened, his black cheek in his wrinkled palm. It
was a supreme moment with Oliver. The thrill of happiness that had
quivered through him for days, intensified by this new heaven of
Bohemia, vibrated in every note he uttered.

The effect was equally startling on those about him. Cranch craned his
head, and for once lowered his voice to a whisper in speaking to the
man next him. Bowdoin, the painter, and one of the guests, left his
seat and tip-toed to the piano, his eyes riveted on Oliver's face, his
whole being absorbed in the melody. Bianchi and Waller so far lost
themselves that their pipes went out, while Simmons was so entranced
that he forgot to applaud when Oliver finished.

The effect produced was not so much due to the quality in Oliver's
voice--sweet and sympathetic as it was--nor to his manner of singing,
nor to the sentiment of the song itself, but to the fact of its being,
with its clear, sweet notes, a positive contrast to all of noise and
clamor that had gone before. This fact, more than any other, made his
listeners hold their breath in wonder and delight. It came like the
song of a bird bursting out after a storm and charming everyone with
the beauty of its melody, while the thunder of the tempest still
reverberated through the air.

In the hush of the death-like stillness that followed, the steady tramp
of feet was heard on the staircase, and the next instant the head of a
young man, with a rosy face and side-chop coachman whiskers, close-cut
black hair and shoe-button eyes, glistening with fun, was craned around
the jamb of the door.

It was the property of Mr. Cornelius McFudd!

He was in full evening dress, and as immaculate as if he had stepped
out of a bandbox.

Whatever stimulants had permeated his system and fired his imagination
had evidently escaped his legs, for they were as steady as those of a
tripod. His entrance, in a measure, restored the assemblage to its
normal condition. Mr. McFudd raised his hand impressively, checking the
customary outbreak that always greeted his appearance on occasions like
this, struck a deprecatory attitude and said, solemnly, in a rich,
North-of-Ireland accent:

"Gentlemen, it is with the greatest surprise that I find ye contint to
waste your time over such riotous proceedings as I know have taken
place here to-night, when within a block of yez is a perfarmance that
would delight yer souls. Think of a man throwing a hand-spring over--"

At this instant a wet sponge was fired point blank from an open bedroom
door, missed McFudd's head by an inch and bounded down the staircase.

"Thank ye, Admiral Lord Cockburn, for yer civility," cried McFudd,
bowing low to the open bedroom door, "and for yer good intintions, but
ye missed it as yer did yer mither's blessing--and as ye do most of the
things ye try to hit." This was said without raising his voice or
changing a muscle of his face, his eyes fixed on the door inside of
which stood Cockburn.

McFudd continued, "The perfarmance of this acrobat is one of the--"

Cries of "Don't you see you disturb the music?" "Go to bed!" "Somebody
sit on McFudd!" etc., filled the room.

"Go on, gentlemen. Continue your insults; defame the name of an honest
man who is attimpting to convey to yer dull comprehinsions some idea of
the wonders of the acrobatic ring. I'll turn a hand-spring for yez
meself that will illustrate what I mane," and Mr. McFudd carefully
removed his coat and began sliding up his shirt-cuffs.

At this juncture "My Lord" Cockburn, who had come from behind the door,
winked significantly at Waller, and creeping on all fours behind
McFudd, just as that gentleman was about lifting his legs aloft, swept
him off his feet by a twist of his arm, and deposited him on the small
of his back next to Oliver, his head resting against the wall. There
Waller stood over him with a chair, which he threatened to turn over
him upside down and sit on if the prostrate Irishman moved an inch.

McFudd waved his hand sadly as if in acquiescence to the inscrutable
laws of fate, begged the gentlemen present to give no further thought
to his existence, and after a moment of silence continued his remarks
on the acrobatic ring to Oliver in the same monotonous tone of voice
which he had addressed to the room before Cockburn's flank movement had
made him bite the dust.

"It may seem to you, Mr.-- Mr.--, I haven't your name, sir," and he
bent his head toward Oliver.

"Horn, sir," Oliver suggested. "Oliver Horn."

"Thanks, it may seem to you that I'm exaggerating, Mr. Oliver Horn, the
wonder of this perfarmance, but-"

The rest of the sentence, despite the Hibernian's well-intentioned
efforts, was not addressed to Oliver, but to the room at large, or
rather to its furniture, or to be still more exact, to the legs of the
piano, and such chairs and tables as the Irishman's prostrate body
bumped into on the way to his room. For at that instant Waller, to save
Oliver, as he pretended, from further annoyance, had caught the
distinguished Hibernian by both feet, and in that position dragged him
along the floor, as if he had been a wheelbarrow, McFudd's voice never
changing its tone as he continued his remarks on physical culture, and
the benefits which would accrue to the human race if they would
practice the acrobat's hand-spring.

When Fred and Oliver had closed their bedroom door for the night, the
guests having departed and all the regular boarders being supposedly
secure in their beds (Fred without much difficulty had persuaded Oliver
to share his own bed over night), there came a knock at Fred's door,
and the irrepressible Irishman stalked in.

He had removed his vest, high collar, and shoes, and had the air and
look of an athlete. The marvellous skill of the acrobat still occupied
his mind.

"Don't disturb yourself, my dear Stone, but me deloightful conversation
with yer friend, Mr. Horn, was interrupted by that wild beast of a
Waller, and I wanted to finish it. I am quite sure I can do it--the
trick I was telling ye of. I've been practizing in me room. It's as
easy as rolling off a jaunting car."

"No, Mac, old man. Go to bed again," pleaded Fred.

"Not till I show ye, me boy, one of the most beautiful feats of
agility--"

"Come off, Mac, I say," cried Fred, catching the Irishman around the
waist.

"I'll come nothing! Unhand me, gentlemen, or by the--" and tearing
himself free McFudd threw a hand-spring with the ease of a
professional, toppled, for a moment, his feet in the air, scraped along
the whitewashed wall with his heels, and sweeping the basins and
pitchers filled with water from the wash-stand measured his length on
the floor. Then came the crash of broken china, a deluge of water, and
Fred and Oliver began catching up sponges and towels to stay the flood.

A minute later a man in a long gray beard and longer night-robe--one of
the regular boarders--bounded up the stairs two steps at a time and
dashed through Fred's open door.

"By thunder, boys!" he cried, "I don't mind how much noise you make,
rather like it; but what the devil are you trying to drown us out for?
Wife is soaking--it's puddling down on our bed."

By this time every door had been flung open, and the room was filled
with half-dressed men.

"It's that lunatic, McFudd. He's been to the circus and thinks he's
Martello," cried Fred, pointing to the prostrate Irishman with the
sponge which he had been squeezing out in the coal-scuttle.

"Or the clown," remarked Waller, stooping over McFudd, who was now
holding his sides and roaring with laughter.

Long after Fred had fallen asleep, Oliver lay awake thinking of the
night's pleasure. He had been very, very happy--happier than he had
been for many months. The shouts of approval on his election to
membership, the rounds of applause that had followed his rendering of
the simple negro melodies, resounded in his ears, and the joy of it all
still tingled through his veins. This first triumph of his life had
brought with it a certain confidence in himself--a new feeling of
self-reliance--of being able to hold his own among men, something he
had never experienced before. This made it all the more exhilarating.

And the company!

Real live painters who sold their pictures and who had studied in
Munich, and who knew Paris and Dresden and all the wonderful cities of
which Mr. Crocker had talked. And real musicians, too!--who played at
theatres; and Englishmen from London, and Irishmen from Dublin, and all
so jolly and unconventional and companionable. It was just as Mr.
Crocker had described it, and just what he had about despaired of ever
finding. Surely his cup of happiness was full to the brim.

We can forgive him; we who still remember those glimpses behind the
scenes--our first and never-to-be-forgotten! How real everything
seemed, even the grease-paint, the wigs, and the clothes. And the
walking gentleman and the leading old man and low comedian! What
splendid fellows they were and how we sympathized with them in their
enforced exiles from a beloved land. How they suffered from scheming
brothers who had robbed them of their titles and estates, or
flint-hearted fathers who had turned them out of doors because of their
infatuation for their "art" or because of their love for some dame of
noble birth or simple lass, whose name--"Me boy, will be forever
sacred!" How proud we were of knowing them, and how delighted they were
at knowing us--and they so much older too! And how tired we got of it
all--and of them--and of all their kind when our eyes became accustomed
to the glare and we saw how cheap and commonplace it all was and how
much of its glamour and charm had come from our own inexperience and
enthusiasm--and youth.

As Oliver lay with wide-open eyes, going over every incident of the
evening, he remembered, with a certain touch of exultant pride, a story
his father had told him of the great Poe, and he fell to wondering
whether the sweetness of his own song, falling on ears stunned by the
jangle of the night, had not produced a similar effect. Poe, his father
had said, on being pressed for a story in the midst of a night of
revelry in a famous house on Kennedy Square, had risen from his seat
and repeated the Lord's Prayer with such power and solemnity that the
guests, one and all, stunned and sobered, had pushed their chairs from
the table and had left the house. He remembered just where his father
sat when he told the story and the impression it had made upon him at
the time. He wished Kennedy Square had been present to-night to have
heard him and to have seen the impression his song had made upon those
gathered about him.

Kennedy Square! What would dear old Richard Horn, with his violin
tucked lovingly under his chin, and gentle, white-haired Nathan, with
his lips caressing his flute, have thought of it all, as they listened
to the uproar of Cockburn's coal-scuttle? And, that latter-day
Chesterfield, Colonel John Howard Clayton, of Pongateague, whose
pipe-stemmed Madeira glasses were kept submerged in iced finger-bowls
until the moment of their use, and whose rare Burgundies were drunk out
of ruby-colored soap-bubbles warmed to an exact temperature. What would
this old aristocrat have thought of McFudd's mixture and the way it was
served?

No! It was just as well that Kennedy Square, at the moment of Oliver's
triumph, was fast asleep.




CHAPTER IX

MISS TEETUM'S LONG TABLE


The prying sun peeped through the dingy curtains of Fred's bedroom on
the morning after Oliver's revels, stencilling a long slant of yellow
light down its grimy walls, and awaking our young hero with a start.
Except for the shattered remnants of the basins and pitchers that he
saw as he looked around him, and the stringy towels, still wet, hanging
over the backs of the chairs, he would not have recognized it as the
same room in which he had met such brilliant company the night
before--so kindly a glamour does the night throw over our follies.

With the vision of the room and its tokens of their frolic came an
uneasy sense of an unpleasant remembrance. The thrill of his own
triumph no longer filled his heart; only the memory of the uproar
remained. As he caught sight of the broken pieces of china still
littering the carpet, and recalled McFudd's sprawling figure, a slight
color suffused his cheek.

The room itself, in the light of day, was not only cold and uninviting,
but so bare of even the commonest comforts that Oliver shivered. The
bottoms were half out of the chairs; the painted wash-stand stood on a
square of chilly oil-cloth; the rusty grate and broken hearth were
unswept of their ashes; the carpet patched and threadbare. He wondered,
as he studied each detail, how Miss Teetum could expect her boarders to
be contented in such quarters.

He saw at a glance how much more cosey and restful the room might be
made with the addition of a few touches here and there; a colored print
or two--a plaster cast--a bit of cheap stuff or some gay-colored
cushions. It surprised him, above all, to discover that Fred, who was
studying art and should, therefore, be sensitive to such influences,
was willing to live amid such desolate surroundings.

When he stepped out into the square hall, the scene of the night's
revelry, and glanced about him, the crude bareness and reckless
disorder that the merciful glow of the gas-light and its attendant
shadows had kindly concealed, stood out in bold relief under the white
light of the day now streaming through an oval skylight immediately
above the piano. The floor was strewn with the various properties of
the night's performance--overturned stools, china mugs, bits of
lemon-peel, stumps of cigars, and stray pipes; while scattered about
under the piano and between the legs of the chairs, and even upon the
steps of the staircase, were the pieces of coal which Fog-horn Cranch
and Waller, who held the scuttle, had pounded into bits when they
produced that wild jangle which had added so much of dignity and power
to the bass notes of the Dead Man's Chorus.

These cold facts aroused in Oliver a sense of repugnance which he could
not shake off. It was as if the head of some jolly clown of the night
before had been suddenly thrust through the canvas of the tent in broad
daylight, showing the paint, the wrinkles beneath, the yellow teeth,
and the coarse mouth.

Oliver was about to turn back to Fred's room, this feeling of revolt
strong upon him, when his attention was arrested by a collection of
drawings that covered almost every square inch of the ceiling. To his
astonishment he discovered that what in the smoke of the night before
he had supposed to be only hasty sketches scrawled over the white
plaster, were in reality, now that he saw them in a clearer atmosphere,
effective pictures in pastel, oil, and charcoal. That the basis of
these cartoons was but the grimy stain made by the water which had
beaten through the rickety sash during the drive and thrash of winter
storms, flooding the whitewashed ceiling and trickling down the
side-walls in smears of brown rust, did not lessen their value in his
eyes.

Closer inspection showed him that these discolorations--some round or
curved, others straight or angular--had been altered and amended as the
signatures indicated by the deft pencils of Waller, Fred, Bowdoin, and
the others, into flying Cupids, Dianas, Neptunes, and mermaids fit to
grace the ceiling of a salon if properly enlarged; while the
up-and-down smears had suggested the opportunity for caricaturing half
the boarders of the house. Every fresh leak and its accompanying stains
evidently presented a new problem to the painters, and were made the
subject of prolonged study and much consultation before a brush was
permitted to touch them, the point apparently being to help the
discolorations express themselves with the fewest possible touches.

In addition to these decorations overhead, Oliver found, framed in on
the cleaner plaster of the side-walls, between broad bands of black
paint, several taking bits of landscape in color and black and white;
stretches of coast with quaint boats and dots of figures; winter wood
interiors with white plaster for snow and scrapings of charcoal for
tree-trunks, each one marked with that sure crispness of touch which
denotes the master-hand. Moreover, the panels of all the doors, as well
as their jambs and frames, were ornamented with sketches in all
mediums, illustrating incidents in the lives of the various boarders
who occupied the rooms below, and who--so Fred told him
afterward--stole into this sacred spot on the sly, to gloat over the
night's work whenever a new picture was reported and the rightful
denizens were known to be absent.

As he stood absorbed before these marvels of brush and pencil,
scrutinizing each one in turn, his sense of repulsion for the debris on
the floor gave way to a feeling of enthusiasm. Not only were the
sketches far superior to any he had ever seen, but the way in which
they were done and the uses of the several mediums were a revelation to
him. It was only when Fog-horn Cranch's big voice roused him to
consciousness that he realized where he was. The auctioneer was coming
out of his room, resplendent in a striped suit, gaiters, and white
necktie--this being his real-estate day.

"My dear fellow," Cranch shouted, bringing his hand down on Oliver's
shoulder, "do you know you've got a voice like an angel's?"

Before Oliver could reply, My Lord Cockburn joined them, his first word
one of pleasure at meeting him, and his second a hope that he would
know him better; then Fred ran out, flinging on his coat and laughing
as he came. Under these combined influences of praise and good-cheer
Oliver's spirits rose and his blood began once more to surge through
his veins. With his old-time buoyancy he put his arm through Fred's,
while the two tramped gayly down the four flights of stairs to be
ushered into the long, narrow, stuffy dining-room on the basement
floor, there to be presented to the two Misses Teetum, who as the young
men entered bent low over their plates in unison. This perfunctory
salute our young gentleman acknowledged by bowing grandly in return,
after which he dropped into a seat next to Fred's--his back to a tin
box filled with plates, placed over the hot-air register--drew out a
damp napkin from a bone ring, and took a bird's-eye view of the table
and its occupants.

The two Misses Teetum sat one at either end--Miss Ann, thin, severe,
precise; Miss Sarah, stout, coy, and a trifle kittenish, as doubtless
became a young woman of forty-seven, and her sister's junior by eight
years. Miss Ann had evidently passed the dead-line of middle age, and
had given up the fight, and was fast becoming a very prim and very
proper old lady, but Miss Sarah, being out of range, could still smile,
and nod her head, and shake her curls, and laugh little, hollow,
girlish laughs, and otherwise disport herself in a light and kittenish
way, after the manner of her day and age. All of which betrayed not
only her earnest desire to please, but her increasing anxiety to get in
under matrimonial cover before one of Father Time's sharpshooters
picked her off, and thus ended her youthful career.

The guests seated on either side of these two presiding goddesses,
Oliver was convinced, as he studied the double row of faces, would have
stretched the wondering eyelids of Kennedy Square to their utmost
limits.

Old Mr. Lang, who with his invalid wife occupied the room immediately
below Fred's, and who had been so nearly drowned out the night before
because of McFudd's acrobatic tendencies, sat on Fred's left. Properly
clothed and in his right mind, he proved to be a most delightful old
gentleman, with gold spectacles and snow-white side-whiskers, and a
welcoming smile for everyone who entered. Fred said that the smile
never wavered even when the old gentleman had been up all night with
his wife.

Across the table, with her eye-glasses trained on Oliver, half
concealed by a huge china "compoteer" (to quote the waitress), and at
present filled with last week's fruit, caulked with almonds, sat Mrs.
Southwark Boggs--sole surviving relic of S. B., Esq. This misfortune
she celebrated by wearing his daguerreotype, set in plain gold, as a
brooch with which she fastened her crocheted collar. She was a thin,
faded, funereal-looking person, her body encased in a black silk dress,
which looked as if it had been pressed and ironed over night, and her
hands in black silk mitts which reached to her knuckles.

On Mrs. Boggs's right sat Bates--a rising young lawyer with political
tendencies--one of the first men to cut his hair so "Zou-Zou" that it
stood straight up from his forehead; and next to him Morgan, the
editor, who pored over manuscript while his coffee got cold; and then
Nelson, and Webster, and Cummings all graded in Miss Ann's mind as
being eight, or ten, or twelve-dollar-a-week men, depending on the
rooms that they occupied, and farther along, toward Miss Sarah, Cranch
and Cockburn--five-dollar boys these (Fred was another), with the
privilege of lighting their own coke fires, and of trimming the wicks
and filling the bulbs of their own burning-fluid lamps. And away down
in the far corner, crumpled up in his chair, crouched the cheery little
hunchback, Mr. Crumbs, who kept a book-stall on Astor Place, where
Bayard Taylor, Irving, Halleck, Bryant, and many another member of the
Century Club used to spend their late afternoons delving among the old
volumes on his shelves.

All these regular boarders, including Fog-horn Cranch and Fred,
breakfasted at eight o'clock. Waller, the painter, and Tomlins, the
swell, breakfasted at nine. As to that descendant of the Irish kings,
Mr. Cornelius McFudd, he rose at ten, or twelve, or two, just as the
spirit (and its dilutions of the night before) moved or retarded him,
and breakfasted whenever Miss Ann or Miss Sarah, who had presided
continuously at the coffee-urn from eight to ten, could spare one of
her two servants to carry a tray to his room.

Last and by no means least, with her eyes devouring every expression
that flitted across the new arrival's face, there beamed out beside
Miss Ann, a tail, willowy young person, whom Fred, in answer to an
inquiring lifting of Oliver's eyebrows, designated as the belle of the
house. This engaging young woman really lived with her mother, in the
next street, but flitted in and out, dining, or breakfasting, or
spending a week at a time with her aunts, the Misses Teetum, whenever
an opportunity offered--the opportunity being a vacant and non-paying
room, one of which she was at the time enjoying.

This fair damsel, who was known to the boarders on the top floor as
"our Phemy," and to the world at large as Miss Euphemia Teetum--the
real jewel in her name was Phoebe, but she had reset it--had been
especially beloved, so Fred informed Oliver, by every member of the
club except Waller, who, having lived in boarding-houses all his life,
understood her thoroughly. Her last flame--the fire was still
smouldering--had been the immaculate Tomlins, who had won her heart by
going into raptures, in one of his stage whispers, over the classic
outlines of her face. This outburst resulted in Miss Euphemia appearing
the following week in a silk gown, a Greek fillet and no hoops--a
costume which Waller faithfully portrayed on the side-wall of the attic
the night of her appearance--the fillet being reproduced by a strip of
brass which the artist had torn from his easel and nailed to the
plaster, and the classic curves of her hair by a ripple of brown paint.

This caricature nearly provoked a riot before the night was over, the
whole club, including even the fun-loving McFudd, denouncing. Waller's
act as an outrage. In fact, the Hibernian himself had once been so
completely taken off his feet--it was the first week of his stay--by
the winning ways of the young lady, that Miss Ann had begun to have
high hopes of Euphemia's being finally installed mistress in one of
those shadowy estates which the distinguished Hibernian described with
such eloquence. That these hopes did not materialize was entirely due
to Cockburn, who took pains to enlighten the good woman upon the
intangible character of the Hibernian's possessions, thus saving the
innocent maiden from the clutches of the bold, bad adventurer. At
least, that had been Cockburn's account of it when he came upstairs.

But it was at dinner that same night--for Oliver at Fred's pressing
invitation had come back to dinner--that the full galaxy of guests and
regulars burst upon our hero. Then came not only Miss Euphemia Teetum
in a costume especially selected for Oliver's capture, but a person
still more startling and imposing--so imposing, in fact, that when she
entered the room one-half of the gentlemen present made little backward
movements with the legs of their chairs, as if intending to rise to
their feet in honor of her presence.

This prominent figure in fashionable life, who had now settled herself
on the right of Miss Ann--the post of honor at the table--and who was
smiling in so gracious and condescending a manner as her eye lighted on
the several recipients of her favor, was none other than the
distinguished Mrs. Schuyler Van Tassell, of Tarrytown, another bird of
passage, who had left her country-seat on the Hudson to spend the
winter months in what she called the delights of "upper-tandem." She
belonged to an ancient family--or, at least, her husband did--he was
under the sod, poor soul, and therefore at peace--and, having inherited
his estate--a considerable one--was to be treated with every
distinction.

These several personages of low and high degree interested our young
gentleman quite as much as our young gentleman interested them. He made
friends with them all--especially with the ladies, who all agreed that
he was a most charming and accomplished youth. This good opinion became
permanent when Oliver had paid each in turn the compliment of rising
from his seat when any one of them entered the room, as much a habit
with the young fellow as the taking off of his hat when he came into a
house, but which was so rare a courtesy at Miss Teetum's that each
recipient appropriated the compliment as personal to herself.

These sentiments of admiration were shared, and to an alarming degree,
by Miss Euphemia herself, who, on learning later that Oliver had
decided to occupy half of Fred's room through the winter, had at once
determined to remain during the week, the better to lay siege to his
heart. This resolution, it is fair to Oliver to say, she abandoned
before dinner was over, when her experienced eye detected a certain
amused if not derisive smile playing around the corners of Oliver's
mouth; a discovery which so impressed the young woman that she left him
severely alone ever after.

And so it was that Oliver unpacked his trunk--the same old hair trunk,
studded with brass nails, that had held his father's wardrobe at
college--spread out and tacked up the various knick-knacks which his
mother and Sue and Miss Clendenning had given him when he had left the
old home, and began to make himself comfortable on the top floor of
Miss Teetum's boarding-house on Union Square.




CHAPTER X

MCFUDD'S BRASS BAND


Our hero had been installed at Miss Teetum's for a month or more, when
one night at dinner a tiny envelope about the size of a visiting-card
was brought in by the middle-aged waitress and laid beside Simmons's
plate. The envelope contained six orchestra seats at the Winter Garden
and was accompanied by a note which read as follows: "Bring some of the
boys; the piece drags."

The musician studied the note carefully and a broad smile broke over
his face. As one of the first violins at the Winter Garden, with a wide
acquaintance among desirable patrons of the theatre, he had peculiar
facilities for obtaining free private boxes and orchestra chairs not
only at his own theatre, but often at Wallack's in Broome Street and
the old Bowery. Simmons was almost always sure to have tickets when the
new piece needed booming, or when an old play failed to amuse and the
audiences had begun to shrink. Indeed, the mystery of Mrs. Schuyler Van
Tassell's frequent appearance in the left-hand proscenium box at the
Winter Garden on Friday nights--a mystery unexplained among the
immediate friends in Tarrytown, who knew how she husbanded her
resources despite her accredited wealth--was no mystery at all to the
guests at Miss Teetum's table, who were in the habit of seeing just
such tiny envelopes handed to Simmons during soup, and duly passed by
him to that distinguished leader of society. Should more than two
tickets be enclosed, Mrs. Van T. would, perhaps, invite. Mr.
Ruffle-shirt Tomlins, or some other properly attired person, to
accompany her--never Miss Ann or the little hunchback, who dearly loved
the play, but who could seldom afford to go--never anybody, in fact,
who wore plain clothes or looked a compromising acquaintance.

On this night, however, Pussy Me-ow Simmons, ignoring Mrs. Van Tassell,
turned to Oliver.

"Ollie," he whispered--the formalities had ceased between the members
of the Skylarks--"got anything to do to-night?"

"No; why?"

And then, Simmons, with various imaginary poundings of imaginary canes
on the threadbare carpet beneath his chair, and with sundry
half-smothered bursts of real laughter in which Fred and Oliver joined,
unfolded his programme for the evening--a programme which was agreed to
so rapturously that the trio before dinner was over excused themselves
to their immediate neighbors and bounded upstairs, three steps at a
time. There they pulled the Walrus out of his bed and woke up McFudd,
who had gone to sleep before dinner, and whom nobody had called. Then
having sent my Lord Cockburn to find Ruffle-shirt Tomlins, who by this
time was paying court to Miss Euphemia in the front parlor, and having
pinned a ticket to Mr. Fog-horn Cranch's door, with instructions to
meet them in the lobby the moment he returned, they all slipped on
their overcoats, picked up their canes, and started for the theatre.

Six young fellows, all with red blood in their veins, steel springs
under their toes and laughter in their hearts! Six comrades, pals,
good-fellows, skipping down the avenue as gay as colts and happy as
boys--no thought for to-day and no care for to-morrow! Each man with a
free ticket in his pocket and a show ahead of him. No wonder the
bluecoats looked after them and smiled; no wonder the old fellow with
the shaky legs, waiting at the corner for one of the squad to help him
over, gave a sigh as he watched McFudd, with cane in air, drilling his
recruits, all five abreast. No wonder the tired shop-girls glanced at
them enviously as they swung into Broadway chanting the "Dead Man's
Chorus," with Oliver's voice sounding clear as a bell above the din of
the streets.

The play was a melodrama of the old, old school. There was a young
heroine in white, and a handsome lover in top-boots and white trousers,
and a cruel uncle who wanted her property. And there was a particularly
brutal villain with leery eyes, ugly mouth, with one tooth gone, and an
iron jaw like a hull-dog's. He was attired in a fur cap, brown corduroy
jacket, with a blood-red handkerchief twisted about his throat, and he
carried a bludgeon. When the double-dyed villain proceeded in the third
act to pound the head of the lovely maiden to a jelly at the
instigation of the base uncle, concealed behind a painted tree-trunk,
and the lover rushed in and tried to save her, every pair of hands
except Oliver's came together in raptures of applause, assisted by a
vigorous hammering of canes on the floor.

"Pound away, Ollie," whispered Simmons; "that's what we came for; you
are spoiling all our fun. The manager is watching us. Pound away, I
tell you. There he is inside that box."

"I won't," said Oliver, in a tone of voice strangely in contrast with
the joyousness of an hour before.

"Then you won't get any more free tickets," muttered Simmons in
surprise.

"I don't want them. I don't believe in murdering people on the stage,
or anywhere else. That man's face is horrible; I'm sorry I came."

Simmons laughed, and, shielding his mouth with his hand, repeated
Oliver's outburst to Waller, who, having first sent news of it down the
line, reached over and shook Oliver's hand gravely, while he wiped a
theatrical tear from his eye; while my Lord Cockburn, with feet and
hands still busy, returned word to Oliver by Tomlins, "not to make a
colossal ass of himself." Oliver bore their ridicule good-naturedly,
but without receding from his opinion in any way, a fact which
ultimately raised him in the estimation of the group. Only when the
villain was thrown over the pasteboard cliff into a canvas sea by the
gentleman in top-boots, to be devoured by sharks or cut up by pirates,
or otherwise disposed of as befitted so blood-thirsty and cruel a
monster, did Oliver join in the applause.

The play over, and Simmons having duly reported to the manager--who was
delighted with the activity of the feet, but who advised that next time
the sticks be left at home--the happy party sailed up Broadway, this
time by threes and twos, swinging their canes as before, and threading
their way in and out of the throngs that filled the street.

The first stop was made at the corner of Thirteenth Street by McFudd,
who turned his troop abruptly to the right and marched them down a
flight of steps into a cellar, where they immediately attacked a huge
wash-tub filled with steamed clams, and covered with a white cloth to
keep them hot. This was the bar's free lunch. The clams devoured--six
each--and the necessary beers paid for, the whole party started to
retrace their steps, when Simmons stopped to welcome a new-corner who
had entered the cellar unperceived by the barkeeper, and who was
bending over the wash-tub of clams, engaged in picking out the smallest
of the bivalves with the end of all iron fork. He had such a
benevolent, kindly face, and was so courtly in his bearing, and spoke
with so soft and gentle a voice, that Oliver, who stood next to
Simmons, lingered to listen.

"Oh, my dear Simmons," cried the old gentleman, "we missed you
to-night. When are you coming back to us? The orchestra is really
getting to be deplorable. Miss Gannon quite broke down in her song. We
must protest, my boy; we must protest. I saw you in front, but you
should be wielding the baton. And is this young gentleman one of your
friends?"

"Yes--Mr. Horn. Ollie, let me introduce you to Mr. Gilbert, the
actor"--and he laid his hand on Oliver's shoulder--"dear John Gilbert,
as we always call him."

Oliver looked up into the kindly, sweet face of the man, and a curious
sensation passed over him. Could this courtly, perfectly well-bred old
gentleman, with his silver-white hair, beaming smile and gentle voice,
the equal of any of his father's guests, be an actor? Could he possibly
belong to the profession which, of all others, Oliver had been taught
to despise? The astonishment of our young hero was so great that for a
moment he could not speak.

Simmons thought he read Oliver's mind, and came to his rescue.

"My friend, Mr. Horn, did not like the play to-night, Mr. Gilbert," he
said. "He thinks the death-scene was horrible"--and Simmons glanced
smiling at the others who stood at a little distance watching the
interview with great interest.

"Dear me, dear me, you don't say so. What was it you objected to, may I
ask?" There was a trace of anxiety in his voice.

"Why, the murder-scene, sir. It seemed to me too dreadful to kill a
woman in that way. I haven't forgotten it yet," and a distressed look
passed over Oliver's face. "But then I have seen but very few plays,"
he added--"none like that."

The old actor looked at him with a relieved expression.

"Ah, yes, I see. Yes, you're indeed right. As you say, it is quite a
dreadful scene."

"Oh, then you've seen it yourself, sir," said Oliver, in a relieved
tone.

The old actor's eyes twinkled. He, too, had read the young man's
mind--not a difficult task when one looked down into Oliver's eyes.

"Oh, many, many times," he answered with a smile. "I have known it for
years. In the old days, when they would smash the poor lady's head,
they used to have a pan of gravel which they would crunch with a stick
to imitate the breaking of the bones. It was quite realistic from the
front, but that was given up long ago. How did YOU like the business
to-night, Mr. Simmons?" and he turned to the musician.

"Oh, admirable, sir. We all thought it had never been better played or
better put on," and he glanced again toward his companions, who stood
apart, listening breathlessly to every word that fell from the actor's
lips.

"Ah, I am glad of it. Brougham will be so pleased--and yet it shocked
you, Mr. Horn--and you really think the poor lady minded it? Dear me!
How pleased she will be when I tell her the impression it all made upon
you. She's worked so hard over the part and has been so nervous about
it. I left her only a moment ago--she and her husband wanted me to take
supper with them at Riley's--the new restaurant on University Place,
you know, famous for its devilled crabs. But I always like to come here
for my clams. Allow me a moment--" and he bent over the steaming tub,
and skewering the contents of a pair of shells with his iron fork held
it out toward Oliver.

"Let me beg of you, Mr. Horn, to taste this clam. I am quite sure it is
a particularly savory one. After this my dear young friend, I hope
you'll have a better opinion of me." And his eye twinkled. "I am really
better than I look--indeed I am--and so, my dear boy, is this clam.
Come, come, it is getting cold."

"What do you mean by 'a better opinion' of you, Mr. Gilbert?" stammered
Oliver. He had been completely captivated by the charm of the actor's
manner. "Why shouldn't I think well of you?--I don't understand."

"Why--because I strangled the poor lady to-night. You know, of
course--that it was I who played the villain."

"You!" exclaimed Oliver. "No, I did not, sir. Why, Mr. Gilbert, I can't
realize--oh, I hope you'll forgive me for what I've said. I've only
been in New York a short time, and--"

The old gentleman cut short Oliver's explanation with a wave of his
fork, and looking down into the boy's face, said in a serious tone:

"My son, you're quite right. Quite right--and I like you all the better
for it. All such plays are dreadful I feel just as you do about them,
but what can we actors do? The public will have it that way."

Another little prejudice toppled from its pedestal, another household
tradition of Oliver's smashed into a thousand pieces at his feet! This
rubbing and grinding process of man against man; this seeing with one's
own eyes and not another's was fast rounding out and perfecting the
impressionable clay of our young gentleman's mind. It was a lesson,
too, the scribe is delighted to say, which our hero never forgot; nor
did he ever forget the man who taught it. One of his greatest delights
in after-years was to raise his hat to this incomparable embodiment of
the dignity and courtliness of the old school. The old gentleman had
long since forgotten the young fellow, but that made no difference to
Oliver--he would cross the street any time to lift his hat to dear John
Gilbert.

The introduction of the other members of the club to the villain being
over--they had stood the whole time, they were listening to the actor,
each head uncovered--McFudd again marshalled his troop and proceeded up
Broadway, where, at Oliver's request, they were halted at the pedestal
of the big Bronze Horse and within sight of their own quarters.

Here McFudd insisted that the club should sing "God Save the Queen" to
the Father of his Country, where he sat astride of his horse, which was
accordingly done, much to the delight of a couple of night-watchmen,
who watched the entire performance and who, upon McFudd's subsequent
inspection, proved to be fellow-countrymen of the distinguished
Hibernian.

Had the buoyant and irrepressible Irishman been content with this
patriotic outburst as the final winding-up of the night's outing, and
had he then and there betaken himself and his fellows off to bed, the
calamity which followed, and which so nearly wrecked the Skylarks,
might have been avoided.

It is difficult at any time to account for the workings of Fate or to
follow the course of its agents. The track of an earth-worm destroys a
dam; the parting of a wire wrecks a bridge; the breaking of a root
starts an avalanche; the flaw in an axle dooms a train; the sting of a
microbe depopulates a city. But none of these unseen, mysterious
agencies was at work--nothing so trivial wrecked the Skylarks.

It was a German street-band!

A band whose several members had watched McFudd and his party from
across the street, and who had begun limbering their instruments before
the sextet had ceased singing; regarding the situation, no doubt, as
pregnant with tips.

McFudd did not give the cornet time to draw his instrument from its
woollen bag before he had him by the arm.

"Don't put a mouthful of wind into that horn of yours until I spake to
ye," he cried in vociferous tones.

The leader stopped and looked at him in a dazed way.

"I have an idea, gentlemen," added McFudd, turning to his companion's,
and tapping his forehead. "I am of the opinion that this music would be
wasted on the night air, and so with your parmission I propose to
transfer this orchestra to the top flure, where we can listen to their
chunes at our leisure. Right about, face! Forward! March!" and McFudd
advanced upon the band, wheeled the drum around, and, locking arms with
the cornet, started across the street for the stone steps.

"Not a word out of any o' ye till I get 'em in," McFudd continued in a
low voice, fumbling in his pocket for his night-key.

The musicians obeyed mechanically and tiptoed one by one inside the
dimly lighted hall, followed by Oliver and the others.

"Now take off your shoes; you've four flights of stairs to crawl up,
and if ye make a noise until I'm ready for ye, off goes a dollar of
your pay."

The bass-drum carefully backed his instrument against the wall, sat
down on the floor, and began pulling off his boots; the cornet and
bassoon followed; the clarionet wore only his gum shoes, and so was
permitted to keep them on.

"Now, Walley, me boy, do you go ahead and turn up the gas and open the
piano, and Cockburn, old man, will ye kindly get the blower and tongs
out of Freddie's room and the scuttle out of Tomlins's closet and the
Chinese gong that hangs over me bed? And all you fellers go ahead
treading on whispers, d'ye moind?" said McFudd under his breath. "I'll
bring up this gang with me. Not a breath out of any o' yez remimber,
till I get there. The drum's unhandy and we got to go slow wid it," and
he slipped the strap over his head and started upstairs, followed by
the band.

The ascent was made without a sound until old Mr. Lang's door was
reached, when McFudd's foot slipped, and, but for the bassoonist's
head, both the Irishman and the drum would have rolled down-stairs.
Lang heard the sound, and recognizing the character of the attendant
imprecation, did not get up. "It's only McFudd," he said quietly to his
suddenly awakened wife.

Once safe upon the attic floor the band who were entering with great
gusto into the spirit of the occasion, arranged themselves in a
half-circle about the piano, replaced their shoes, stripped their
instruments of their coverings--the cornetist breathing noiselessly
into the mouth-pieces to thaw out the frost--and stood at attention for
McFudd's orders.

By this time Simmons had taken his seat at the piano; Cockburn held the
blower and tongs; Cranch, who on coming in had ignored the card tacked
to his door, and who was found fast asleep in his chair, was given the
coal-scuttle; and little Tomlins grasped his own wash-basin in one hand
and Fred's poker in the other. Oliver was to sing the air, and Fred was
to beat a tattoo on Waller's door with the butt end of a cane. The gas
had been turned up and every kerosene lamp had been lighted and ranged
about the hall. McFudd threw off his coat and vest, cocked a Scotch
smoking-cap over one eye, and seizing the Chinese gong in one hand and
the wooden mallet in the other, climbed upon the piano and faced his
motley orchestra.

"Attintion, gentlemen," whispered McFudd.

"The first chune will be 'Old Dog Tray,' because it begins wid a lovely
howl. Remimber now, when I hit this gong that's the signal for yez to
begin, and ye'll all come together wid wan smash. Then the band will
play a bar or two, and then every man Jack o' ye will go strong on the
chorus. Are yez ready?"

McFudd swung his mallet over his head; poised it for an instant; ran
his eye around the circle with the air of an impresario; saw that the
drum was in position, the horns and clarionet ready, the blower,
scuttle, tongs, and other instruments of torture in place, and hit the
gong with all his might.

The crash that followed woke every boarder in the house and tumbled
half of them out of their beds. Long before the chorus had been reached
all the doors had been thrown open, and the halls and passageways
filled with the startled boarders. Then certain mysterious-looking
figures in bed-gowns, water-proofs, and bath-robes began bounding up
the stairs, and a collection of dishevelled heads were thrust through
the door of the attic. Some of the suddenly awakened boarders tried to
stop the din by protest; others threatened violence; one or two grinned
with delight. Among these last was the little hunchback, swathed in a
blanket like an Indian chief, and barefooted. He had rushed upstairs at
the first sound as fast as his little legs could carry him, and was
peering under the arms of the others, rubbing his sides with glee and
laughing like a boy. Mrs. Schuyler Van Tassell, whose head and
complexion were not ready for general inspection, had kept her door
partly closed, opening it only wide enough when the other boarders
rushed by to let her voice through--always an unpleasant organ when
that lady had lost her temper.

As the face of each new arrival appeared in the doorway, McFudd would
bow gracefully in recognition of the honor of its presence, and
redouble his attack on the gong. The noise he produced was only
equalled by that of the drum, which never ceased for an
instant--McFudd's orders being to keep that instrument going
irrespective of time or tune.

In the midst of this uproar of brass, strings, sheep-skin, wash-bowls,
broken coal, pokers and tongs, a lean figure in curl-papers and
slippers, bright red calico wrapper reaching to the floor, and a
lighted candle in one hand, forced its way through the crowd at the
door and stood out in the glare of the gaslights facing McFudd.

It was Miss Ann Teetum!

Instantly a silence fell upon the room.

"Gentlemen, this is outrageous!" she cried in a voice that ripped
through the air like a saw. "I have put up with these disgraceful
performances as long as I am going to. Not one of you shall stay in my
house another night. Out you go in the morning, every one of you, bag
and baggage!"

McFudd attempted to make an apology. Oliver stepped forward, the color
mounting to his cheeks, and Waller began a protest at the unwarrantable
intrusion, but the infuriated little woman waved them all aside and
turning abruptly marched back through the door and down the staircase,
preceded by the other female boarders. The little hunchback alone
remained. He was doubled up in a knot, wiping the tears from his eyes,
his breath gone from excessive laughter.

The Skylarkers looked at each other in blank astonishment. One of the
long-cherished traditions of the house was the inviolability of this
attic. Its rooms were let with an especial privilege guaranteeing its
privacy, with free license to make all the noise possible, provided the
racket was confined to that one floor. So careful had been its
occupants to observe this rule, that noisy as they all were when once
on the top floor, every man unlocked the front door at night with the
touch of a burglar and crept upstairs as noiselessly as a footpad.

"I'm sorry, men," said McFudd, looking into the astounded faces about
him. "I'm the last man, as ye know, to hurt anybody's feelings. But
what the divil's got into the old lady? Who'd 'a' thought she would
have heard a word of it down where she sleeps in the basement?"

"'Tis the Van Tassell," grunted the Walrus. "She's so mesmerized the
old woman lately that she don't know her own mind."

"What makes you think she put her up to it, Waller?" asked Cranch.

"I don't think--but it's just like her," answered Waller, with
illogical prejudice.

"My eye! wasn't she a beauty!" laughed Fred, and he picked up a bit of
charcoal and began an outline of the wrapper and slippers on the
side-wall.

Tomlins, Cranch, and the others had no suggestions to offer. Their
minds were too much occupied in wondering what was going to become of
them in the morning.

The German band by this time had regained their usual solidity. The
leader seemed immensely relieved. He had evidently expected the next
apparition to be a bluecoat with a pair of handcuffs.

"Put their green jackets on 'em," McFudd said to the leader quietly,
pointing to the instruments. "We're much obliged to you and your men
for coming up," and he slipped some notes into the leader's hand. "Now
get downstairs, every man o' ye, as aisy as if ye were walking on eggs.
Cranch, old man, will ye see 'em out, to kape that infernal drum from
butting into the Van Tassell's door, or we'll have another hornet's
nest. Begorra, there's wan thing very sure--it's little baggage I'LL
have to move out."


The next morning a row of six vacant seats stared Miss Ann out of
countenance. The outcasts had risen early and had gone to Riley's for
their breakfast. Miss Ann sat at the coffee-urn as stiff and erect as
an avenging judge. Lofty purpose and grim determination were written in
every line of her face. Mrs. Van Tassell was not in evidence. Her
nerves had been so shattered by the "night's orgy," she had said to
Miss Ann, that she should breakfast in her room. She further notified
Miss Teetum that she should at once withdraw her protecting presence
from the establishment, and leave it without a distinguished social
head, if the dwellers on the top floor remained another day under the
same roof with herself.

An ominous silence and depressing gloom seemed to hang over everybody.
Several of the older men pushed back their plates and began drumming oh
the table-cloth with their fingers, a far-away look in their eyes. One
or two talked in whispers, their coffee untasted. Old Mr. Lang looked
down the line of empty seats and took his place with a dejected air. He
was the oldest man in the house and the oldest boarder; this gave him
certain privileges, one being to speak his mind.

"I understand," he said, unfolding his napkin and facing. Miss Ann,
"that you have ordered the boys out of the house?"

"Yes, I have," snapped out Miss Teetum.

Everybody looked up. No one recognized the tone of her voice, it was so
sharp and bitter.

"Why, may I ask?"

"I will not have my house turned into a bear-garden, that's why!"

"That's better than a graveyard," retorted Mr. Lang. "That's what the
house would be without them. I can't understand why you object. You
sleep in the basement and shouldn't hear a sound; my wife and I sleep
under them every night. If we can stand it, you can. You send the boys
away, Miss Teetum, and we'll move out."

Miss Ann winced under the shot, but she did not answer.

"Do you mean that you're going to turn the young gentlemen into the
street, Miss Ann?" whined Mrs. Southwark Boggs in an injured tone, from
her end of the table. "Are we going to have no young life in the house
at all? I won't stay a day after they're gone."

Miss Teetum changed color, but she looked straight ahead of her. She
evidently did not want her private affairs discussed at the table.

"I shall want my bill at the end of the week, now that the boys are to
leave," remarked the little hunchback to Miss Ann as he bent over her
chair. "Life is dreary enough as it is."

And so the boys stayed on.

Only one room became vacant at the end of the month. That was Mrs.
Schuyler Van Tassell's.




CHAPTER XI

A CHANGE OF WIND


The affair of the brass band, with its dramatic and most unlooked-for
ending, left an unpleasant memory in the minds of the members of the
club, especially in Oliver's. His training had been somewhat different
from that of the others present, and his oversensitive nature had been
more shocked than pleased by it all. While most of the other
participants regretted the ill-feeling which had been aroused in Miss
Teetum's mind, they felt sure--in fact, they knew--that this heretofore
kind and gentle hostess could never have fanned her wrath to so white a
heat had not some other hand besides her own worked the bellows.

Suspicion first fell upon a new boarder unaccustomed to the ways of the
house, who, it was reported, had double-locked herself in at the first
crash of the drum, and who had admitted, on being cross-examined by
McFudd, that she had nearly broken her back in trying to barricade her
bedroom door with a Saratoga trunk and a wash-stand. This theory was
abandoned when subsequent inquiries brought to light the fact that Mrs.
Van Tassell, when the echoes of one of McFudd's songs had reached her
ears, had stated a week before that no respectable boarding-house would
tolerate uproars like those which took place almost nightly on the top
floor, and that she would withdraw her protection from Miss Euphemia
and leave the house at once and forever if the noise did not cease.
This dire threat being duly reported to the two Misses Teetum had--it
was afterward learned--so affected them both that Miss Ann had gone to
bed with a chill and Miss Sarah had warded off another with a bowl of
hot camomile tea.

This story, true as it undoubtedly was, did not entirely clear up the
situation. One part of it sorely puzzled McFudd. Why did Miss Euphemia
need Mrs. Van Tassell's protection, and why should the loss of it stir
Miss Ann to so violent an outburst? This question no member of the
Skylarks could answer.

The solution came that very night, and in the most unexpected way,
Waller bearing the glad tidings.

Miss Euphemia, ignoring them all, was to be married at St. Mark's at 6
P.M. on the following Monday, and Mrs. Van Tassell was to take charge
of the wedding reception in the front parlor! The groom was the strange
young man who had sat for some days beside Miss Euphemia, passing as
Miss Ann's nephew, and who really was a well-to-do druggist with a shop
on Astor Place. All of the regular boarders of the house were to be
invited.

The explosion of this matrimonial bomb so cleared the air of all doubt
as to the guilt of Mrs. Van Tassell, that a secret meeting, attended by
every member of the Skylarks, was at once held in Waller's room with
the result that Miss Ann's invitations to the wedding were unanimously
accepted. Not only would the resident members go--so the original
resolution ran--but the non-resident and outside members would also be
on hand to do honor to Miss Euphemia and her distinguished chaperone.
This amendment being accepted, McFudd announced in a sepulchral tone
that, owing to the severity of the calamity and to the peculiarly
painful circumstances which surrounded their esteemed fellow-skylarker,
the Honorable Sylvester Ruffle-shirt Tomlins, his fellow-members would
wear crape on their left arms for thirty days. This also was carried
unanimously, every man except Ruffle-shirt Tomlins breaking out into
the "Dead Man's Chorus"--a song, McFudd explained, admirably fitted to
the occasion.

When the auspicious night arrived, the several dress-suits of the
members were duly laid out on the piano and hung over the chairs, and
each gentleman proceeded to array himself in costume befitting the
occasion. Waller, who weighed 200 pounds, squeezed himself into
McFudd's coat and trousers (McFudd weighed 150), the trousers reaching
a little below the painter's knees. McFudd wrapped Waller's coat about
his thin girth and turned up the bagging legs, of the unmentionables
six inches above his shoes. The assorted costumes of the other members
were equally grotesque. The habiliments themselves were of proper cut
and make, according to the standards of the time--spike-tailed coats,
white ties, patent-leather pumps, and the customary trimmings, but the
effects produced were as ludicrous as they were incongruous, though the
studied bearing of the gentlemen was meant to prove their
unconsciousness of the fact.

The astonishment that rested on Mrs. Van Tassell's face when this
motley group filed into the parlor and with marked and punctilious
deference paid their respects to the bride, and the wrath that flashed
in Miss Euphemia's eyes, became ever after part of the traditions of
the club. Despite Mrs. Van Tassell's protest against the uproar on the
top floor, she had invariably spoken in high terms to her friends and
intimates of these very boarders--their acquaintance was really part of
her social capital--commenting at the same time upon their exalted
social and artistic positions. In fact, many of her own special guests
had attended the wedding solely in the hope of being brought into more
intimate relations with this distinguished group of painters, editors,
and musicians, some of whom were already being talked about.

When, however, McFudd stood in the corner of Miss Teetum's parlor like
a half-scared boy, pulling out the fingers of Waller's kid gloves, an
inch too long for him, and Waller, Fred, and my Lord Cockburn stumbled
over the hearth-rug one after the other, and Oliver, feeling like a
guilty man and a boor, bowed and scraped like a dancing-master; and
Bowdoin the painter, and Simmons and Fog-horn Cranch, talked platitudes
with faces as grave as undertakers, the expectant special guests
invited by Mrs. Van Tassell began to look upon her encomiums as part of
an advertising scheme to fill Miss Teetum's rooms.

The impression made upon the Teetum contingent by the appearance and
manners of the several members--even Oliver's reputation was
ruined--was equally disastrous. It was, perhaps, best voiced by the
druggist groom, when he informed Mrs. Van T. from behind his
lemon-colored glove--that "if that was the gang he had heard so much
of, he didn't want no more of 'em."

But these and other jollifications were not long to continue. Causes
infinitely more serious were at work undermining the foundations of the
Skylarks. The Lodge of Poverty, to which they all belonged, gay as it
had often been, was slowly closing its door; the unexpected, which
always hangs over life, was about to happen; the tie which bound these
men together was slowly loosening. Its members might give the grip of
fellowship to other members in other lodges over the globe, but no
longer in this one on the top floor of the house on Union Square.

One morning McFudd broke the seal of an important-looking letter
bearing a Dublin post-mark on the upper right-hand corner of the
envelope, and the family crest on its flap. For some moments he sat
still, looking straight before him. Then two tears stole out and
glistened on his lashes.

"Boys," he said, slowly, "the governor says I must come home," and he
held up a steamer ticket and a draft that barely equalled his dues for
a month's board and washing.

That night he pawned his new white overcoat with the bone buttons and
velvet collar--the one his father had sent him, and which had been the
envy of every man in the club, and invested every penny of the proceeds
in a supper to be given to the Skylarks. The invitation ran as follows:

Mr. Cornelius McFudd respectively requests the pleasure of your
presence at an informal wake to be held in honor of a double-breasted
overcoat, London cut. The body and tail will be the ducks, and the two
sleeves and velvet collar the Burgundy.

Riley's: 8 p.m. Third floor back.

The following week he packed his two tin boxes, boarded the Scotia, and
sailed for home.


The keystone having dropped out, it was not long before the balance of
the structure came down about the ears of the members. My Lord Cockburn
the following week was ordered South by the bank to look after some
securities locked up in a vault in a Georgia trust company, and which
required a special messenger to recover them--the growing uneasiness in
mercantile circles over the political outlook of the country having
assumed a serious aspect. Cockburn had to swim rivers, he wrote Oliver
in his first letter, and cross mountains on horseback, and sleep in a
negro hut, besides having a variety of other experiences, to say
nothing of several hair-breadth escapes, none of which availed him, as
he returned home after all, without the bonds.

These financial straws, indicating the direction and force of the
coming political winds, began to accumulate. The lull before the
hurricane--the stagnation in commercial circles--became so ominous that
soon the outside members and guests of the club ceased coming, being
diligently occupied in earning their bread, and then Simmons sent the
piano home--it had been loaned to him by reason of his profession and
position--and only Fog-horn Cranch, Waller, Fred, Oliver, and
Ruffle-shirt Tomlins were left. Alter a while, Waller gave up his room
and slept in his studio and got his meals at the St. Clair, or went
without them, so light, by reason of the hard times, was the demand for
sheep pictures of Waller's particular make. And later on Tomlins went
abroad, and Cranch moved West. And so the ruin of the club was
complete; and so, too, this merry band of roysterers, with one or two
exceptions, passes out of those pages.

Dear boys of the long ago, what has become of you all since those old
days in that garret-room on Union Square? Tomlins, I know, turned up in
Australia, where he married a very rich and very lovely woman, because
he distinctly stated both of those facts in an exuberant letter to
Oliver when he invited him to the wedding. "Not a bad journey--only a
step, my dear Ollie, and we shall be so delighted to see you." I know
this, to be true, for Oliver showed me the letter. Bowdoin went to
Paris, where, as we all remember, he had a swell studio opening on to a
garden, somewhere near the Arc de Triomphe, and had carriages stop at
his door, and a butler to open it, and two maids in white caps to help
the ladies off with their wraps. Poor Cranch died in Montana while
hunting for gold, and my Lord Cockburn went back to London.

But does anybody know what has become of McFudd--irresistible,
irresponsible, altogether delightful McFudd? that condensation of all
that was joyous, rollicking, and spontaneous; that devotee of the tub
and pink of neatness, immaculate, clean-shaven and well-groomed; that
soul of good-nature, which no number of flowing bowls could disturb nor
succeeding headaches dull; that most generous of souls, whose first
impulse was to cut squarely in half everything he owned and give you
your choice of the pieces, and who never lost his temper until you
refused them both. If you, my dear boy, are still wandering about this
earth, and your eye should happen to fall on these pages, remember, I
send you my greeting. If you have been sent for, and have gone aloft to
cheer those others who have gone before, and who could spare you no
longer, speak a good word for me, please, and then, perhaps, I may
shake your hand again.


With the dissolution of the happy coterie there came to Oliver many a
lonely night under the cheap lamp, the desolate hall outside looking
all the more desolate and uninviting with the piano gone and the lights
extinguished.

Yet these nights were not altogether distasteful to Oliver. Fred had
noticed for months that his room-mate no longer entered into the
frolics of the club with the zest and vim that characterized the
earlier days of the young Southerner's sojourn among them. Our hero had
said nothing while the men had held together, and to all outward
appearances had done his share not only with his singing, but in any
other way in which he could help on the merriment. He had covered the
space allotted to him on the walls with caricatures of the several
boarders below. He had mixed the salad at Riley's the night of McFudd's
farewell supper, with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and the
cook's cap on his head. He had lined up with the others at Brown's on
the Bowery; drank his "crystal cocktails"--the mildest of
beverages--and had solemnly marched out again with his comrades in a
lock-step like a gang of convicts. He had indulged in forty-cent opera,
leaning over the iron railing of the top row of the Academy of Music,
and had finished the evening at Pfaff's, drinking beer and munching
hardtack and pickles, and had laughed and sung in a dozen other equally
absurd escapades. And yet it was as plain as daylight to Fred that
Oliver's heart was no longer centred in the life about him.

The fact is, the scribe is compelled to admit, the life indulged in by
these merry bohemians had begun to pall upon this most sensitive of
young gentlemen. It really had not satisfied him at all. This was not
the sort of life that Mr. Crocker meant, he had said to himself after a
night at Riley's when Cranch had sounded his horn so loud that the
proprietor had threatened to turn the whole party into the street. Mr.
Crocker's temperament was too restful to be interested in such
performances. As for himself, he was tired of it.

Nothing of all this did he keep from his mother. The record of his
likes and dislikes which formed the subject-matter of his daily letters
was an absorbing study with her, and she let no variation of the
weather-vane of his tastes escape her. Nor did she keep their contents
from her intimate friends. She had read to Colonel Clayton one of his
earlier ones, in which he had told her of the concerts and of the way
Cockburn had served the brew that McFudd had concocted, and had shown
him an illustration Oliver had drawn on the margin of the sheet--an
outline of the china mug that held the mixture--to which that
Chesterfield of a Clayton had replied:

"What did I tell you, madame--just what I expected of those
Yankees--punch from mugs! Bah!"

She had, too, talked their contents over with Amos Cobb, who, since the
confidence reposed in him by the Horn family, had become a frequent
visitor at the house.

"There's no harm come to him yet, madame, or he wouldn't write you of
what he does. Boys will be boys. Let him have his fling," the Vermonter
had replied with a gleam of pleasure in his eye. "If he has the stuff
in him that I think he has, he will swim out and get to higher ground;
if he hasn't, better let him drown early. It will give everybody less
trouble."

The dear lady had lost no sleep over these escapades. She, too,
realized that as long as Oliver poured out his heart unreservedly to
her there was little to fear. In her efforts to cheer him she had
sought, in her almost daily letters sent him in return, to lead his
thoughts into other channels. She knew how fond he had always been of
the society of women, and how necessary they were to his happiness, and
she begged him to go out more. "Surely there must be some young girls
in so great a city who can help to make your life happier," she wrote.

In accordance with her suggestions, he had at last put on his best
clothes and had accompanied Tomlins and Fred to some very delightful
houses away up in Thirty-third Street, and another on Washington
Square, and still another near St. Mark's Place, where his personality
and his sweet, sympathetic voice had gained him friends and most
pressing invitations to call again. Some he had accepted, and some he
had not--it depended very largely on his mood and upon the people whom
he met. If they reminded him in any way, either in manners or
appointments, of his life at home, he went again--if not, he generally
stayed away.

Among these was the house of his employer, Mr. Slade, who had treated
him with marked kindness, not only inviting him to his own house, but
introducing him to many of his friends--an unusual civility Oliver
discovered afterward--not many of the clerks being given a seat at Mr.
Slade's table. "I like his brusque, hearty manner," Oliver wrote to his
mother after the first visit. "His wife is a charming woman, and so are
the two daughters, quite independent and fearless, and entirely
different from the girls at home, but most interesting and so well
bred."

Another incident, too, had greatly pleased not only Oliver and his
mother, but Richard as well. It happened that a consignment of goods
belonging to Morton, Slade & Co. was stored in a warehouse in
Charleston, and it became necessary to send one of the clerks South to
reship or sell them, the ordinary business methods being unsafe, owing
to the continued rumblings of the now rapidly approaching political
storm--a storm that promised to be infinitely more serious than the
financial stringency. The choice had fallen on Oliver, he being a
Southerner, and knowing the ways of the people. He had advised with his
mother and stood ready to leave at an hour's notice, when Mr. Slade's
heart failed him.

"It's too dangerous, my lad," he said to Oliver. "I could trust you, I
know, and I believe you would return safely and bring the goods or the
money with you, but I should never forgive myself if anything should
happen to you. I will send an older man." And he did.

It was at this time that Oliver had received Cockburn's letter telling
him of his own experiences, and he, therefore, knew something of the
risks a man would run, and could appreciate Mr. Slade's action all the
more. Richard, as soon as he heard of it, had put down his tools, left
his work-bench, and had gone into his library, where he had written the
firm a letter of thanks, couched in terms so quaint and courtly, and so
full of generous appreciation of their interest in Oliver, that Mr.
Slade, equally appreciative, had worn it into ribbons in showing it to
his friends as a model of style and chirography.

Remembering his mother's wishes, and in appreciation of his employer's
courtesy, he had kept up this intimacy with the Slade family until an
unfortunate catastrophe had occurred, which while it did not affect his
welcome at their house, ruined his pleasure while there.

Mr. Slade had invited Oliver to dinner one rainy night, and, being too
poor to pay for a cab, Oliver, in attempting to cross Broadway, had
stepped into a mud-puddle a foot deep. He must either walk back and
change his shoes and be late for dinner--an unpardonable offence--or he
must keep on and run his chances of cleaning them in the dressing-room.
There was no dressing-room available, as it turned out, and the fat
English butler had to bring a wet cloth out into the hall (oh! how he
wished for Malachi!) and get down on his stiff knees and wipe away
vigorously before Oliver could present himself before his hostess, the
dinner in the meantime getting cold and the guests being kept waiting.
Oliver could never look at those shoes after that without shivering.

This incident had kept him at home for a time and had made him chary of
exposing himself to similar mortifications. His stock of clothes at
best was limited--especially his shoes--and as the weather continued
bad and the streets impassable, he preferred waiting for clearer skies
and safer walking. So he spent his nights in his room, crooning over
the coke fire with Fred, or all alone if Fred were at the Academy,
drawing from the cast.

On these nights he would begin to long for Kennedy Square. He had said
nothing yet about returning, even for a day's visit. He knew how his
mother felt about it, and he knew how he had seen her struggle to keep
the interest paid up on the mortgage and to meet the daily necessities
of the house. The motor was still incomplete, she wrote him, and
success was as far off as ever. The mortgage had again been extended
and the note renewed--this time for a longer term, owing to some
friend's interest in the matter whose name she could not learn. She,
therefore, felt no uneasiness on that score, although there were still
no pennies which could be spared for Olivers travelling expenses, even
if he could get leave of absence from his employers.

At these times, as he sat alone in his garret-room, Malachi's chuckle,
without cause or reminder would suddenly ring in his ears, or some low
strain from his father's violin or a soft note from Nathan's flute
would float through his brain. "Dear Uncle Nat," he would break out,
speaking aloud and springing from his chair--"I wish I could hear you
tonight."

His only relief while in these moods was to again seize his pen and
pour out his heart to his mother or to his father, or to Miss
Clendenning or old Mr. Crocker. Occasionally he would write to Sue--not
often--for that volatile young lady had so far forgotten Oliver as to
leave his letters unanswered for weeks at a time. She was singing
"Dixie," she told him in her last billet-doux, now a month old, and
wondering whether Oliver was getting to be a Yankee, and whether he
would be coming home with a high collar and his hair cut short and
parted in the middle.

His father's letters in return did not lessen his gloom. "These
agitators will destroy the country, my son, if they keep on," Richard
had written in his last letter. "It is a sin against civilization to
hold your fellow-men in bondage, and that is why years ago I gave
Malachi and Hannah and the others their freedom, but Virginia has
unquestionably the right to govern her internal affairs without
consulting Massachusetts, and that is what many of these Northern
leaders do not or will not understand. I am greatly disturbed over the
situation, and I sincerely hope your own career will not be affected by
these troubles. As to my own affairs, all I can say is that I work
early and late, and am out of debt." Poor fellow! He thought he was.

Oliver was sitting thus one night, his head in his hands, elbows on his
knees, gazing into the smouldering coals of his grate, his favorite
attitude when his mind was troubled, when Fred, his face aglow, his big
blue eyes dancing, threw wide the door and bounded in, bringing in his
clothes the fresh, cool air of the night. He had been at work in the
School of the Academy of Design, and had a drawing in chalk under his
arm--a head of the young Augustus.

"What's the matter, Ollie, got the blues?"

"No, Freddie, only thinking."

"What's her name? I'll go and see her and make it up. Out with it--do I
know her?"

Oliver smiled faintly, examined the drawing for a moment, and handing
it back to Fred, said, sadly, "It's not a girl, Freddie, but I don't
seem to get anywhere."

Fred threw the drawing on the bed and squeezed himself into the chair
beside his chum, his arm around his neck.

"Where do you want to get, old man? What's the matter--any trouble at
the store?"

"No--none that I know of. But the life is so monotonous, Fred. You do
what you love to do. I mark boxes all day till lunch-time, then I roll
them out on the sidewalk and make out dray tickets till I come home.
I've been doing that all winter; I expect to be doing it for years.
That don't get me anywhere, does it? I hate the life more and more
every day."

(Was our hero's old love of change again asserting itself, or was it
only the pinching of that Chinese shoe which his mother in her anxiety
had slipped on his unresisting foot, and which he was still wearing to
please her? Or was it the upper pressure of some inherent talent--some
gift of his ancestors that would not down at his own bidding or that of
his mother or anybody else's?)

"Somebody's got to do it, Ollie, and you are the last man hired,"
remarked Fred, quietly. "What would you like to do?"

Oliver shifted himself in the crowded chair until he could look into
his room-mate's eyes.

"Fred, old man," he answered, his voice choking, "I haven't said a word
to you about it all the time I've been here, for I don't like to talk
about a thing that hurts me, and so I've kept it to myself. Now I'll
tell you the truth just as it is. I don't want Mr. Slade's work nor
anybody else's work. I don't like business and never will. I want to
paint, and I'll never be happy until I do. That's it, fair and square."

"Well, quit Slade, then, and come with me."

"I would if it wasn't for mother. I promised her I would see this
through, and I will." As he spoke the overdue mortgage and his mother's
efforts to keep the interest paid passed in review before him.

Fred caught his breath. It astonished him, independent young Northerner
as he was, to hear a full-grown man confess that his mother's'
apron-strings still held him up, but he made no comment.

"Why not try both?" he cried. "There's a place in the school alongside
of me--we'll work together nights. It won't interfere with what you do
downtown. You'll get a good start, and when you have a day off in the
summer you can do some out-door work. Waller has told me a dozen times
that you draw better than he did when he commenced. Come along with me."

This conversation, with the other incidents of the day, or rather that
part of it which had reference to the Academy, was duly set forth in
his next letter to his mother--not as an argument to gain her consent
to his studying with Fred, for he knew it was the last thing she would
agree to--but because it was his habit to tell her everything. It would
show her, too, how good a fellow Fred was and what an interest he took
in his welfare. Her answer, three days later, sent him bounding
upstairs and into their room like a whirlwind.

"Read, Fred, read!" he cried. "I can go. Mother says she thinks it
would be the best thing in the world for me. Here, clap your eyes on
that--" and Oliver held the letter out to Fred, his finger pointing to
this passage: "I wish you would join Fred at the Academy. Now that you
have a regular business that occupies your mind, and are earning your
living, I have no objection to your studying drawing or learning any
other accomplishment. You work hard all day, and this will rest you."

The cramped foot was beginning to spread! The Chinese shoe had lost its
top button.




CHAPTER XII

AROUND THE MILO


Still another new and far more bewildering world was opened to Oliver
the night that he entered the cast-room of the School of the National
Academy of Design and took his seat among the students.

The title of the institution, high-sounding as it was, not only
truthfully expressed the objects and purposes of its founders, but was
wofully exact in the sense of its being national; for outside the bare
walls of these rooms there was hardly a student's easel to be found the
country over.

And such forlorn, desolate rooms; up two flights of dusty stairs, in a
rickety, dingy loft off Broadway, within a short walk of Union
Square--an auction-room on the ground floor and a bar-room in the rear.
The largest of these rooms was used for the annual exhibition of the
Academicians and their associates, and the smaller ones were given over
to the students; one, a better lighted apartment, being filled with the
usual collection of casts--the Milo, the Fighting Gladiator, Apollo
Belvidere, Venus de Medici, etc., etc.; the other being devoted to the
uses of the life-class and its models. Not the nude. Whatever may have
been clone in the studios, in the class-room it was always the draped
model that posed--the old woman who washed for a living on the top
floor, or one of her chubby children or buxom daughters, or perhaps the
peddler who strayed in to sell his wares and left his head behind him
on ten different canvases and in as many different positions.

The casts themselves were backed up against the walls; some facing the
windows for lights and darks, and others pushed toward the middle of
the room, where the glow of the gas-jets could accentuate their better
points. The Milo, by right of divinity, held the centre position--she
being beautiful from any point of sight and available from any side.
The Theseus and the Gladiator stood in the corners, affording space for
the stools of two or three students and their necessary easels.
Scattered about on the coarse, whitewashed walls were hung the smaller
life-casts; fragments of the body--an arm, leg, or hand, or sections of
a head--and tucked in between could be found cheap lithographic
productions of the work of the students and professors of the Paris and
Dusseldorf schools. The gas-lights under which the students worked at
night were hooded by cheap paper shades of the students' own
fashioning, and the lower sashes of the windows were smeared with
whitewash or covered with newspapers to concentrate the light. During
working hours the drawing-boards were propped upon rude easels or
slanted on overturned chairs, the students sitting on three-legged
stools.

A gentle-voiced, earnest, whole-souled old man--the one only
instructor--presided over this temple of art. He had devoted his whole
life to the sowing of figs and the reaping of thistles, and in his old
age was just beginning to see the shoots of a new art forcing their way
through the quickening clay of American civilization. Once in awhile,
as assistants in this almost hopeless task, there would stray into his
class-room some of the painters who, unconsciously, were founding a
national art and in honor of whom a grateful nation will one day search
the world over for marble white enough on which to perpetuate their
memories: men as distinct in their aims, methods, and results as was
that other group of unknown and despised immortals starving together at
that very time in a French village across the sea--and men, too,
equally deserving of the esteem and gratitude of their countrymen.

Oliver knew the names of these distinguished visitors to the Academy,
as did all the other members of the Skylarks, and he knew their work.
The pictures of George Inness, Sanford Gifford, Kensett, McEntee, Hart,
Eastman Johnson, Hubbard, Church, Casilaer, Whittredge, and the others
had been frequently discussed around the piano on the top floor at Miss
Teetum's, and their merits and supposed demerits often hotly contested.
He had met Kensett once at the house of Mr. Slade, and McEntee had been
pointed out to him as he left the theatre one night, but few of the
others had ever crossed his path.

Of the group Gifford appealed to him most. One golden "Venice" of the
painter, which hung in a picture-store, always delighted him--a stretch
of the Lagoon with a cluster of butterfly sails and a far-away line of
palaces, towers, and domes lying like a string of pearls on the
horizon. There was another of Kensett's, a point of rocks thrust out
like a mailed hand into a blue sea; and a McEntee of October woods, all
brown and gold; but the Gifford he had never forgotten; nor will anyone
else who has seen it.

No wonder then that all his life he remembered that particular night,
when a slender, dark-haired man in loose gray clothes sauntered into
the class-room and moved around among the easels, giving a suggestion
here and a word of praise there, for that was the night on which
Professor Cummings touched our young hero's shoulder and said: "Mr.
Gifford likes your drawing very much, Mr. Horn"--a word of praise
which, as he wrote to Crocker, steadied his uncertain fingers "as
nothing else had ever done."

The students in his school were from all stations in life: young and
old; all of them poor, and most of them struggling along in kindred
professions and occupations--engravers, house-painters, lithographers,
and wood-carvers. Two or three were sign-painters. One of these--a
big-boned, blue-eyed young follow, who drew in charcoal from the cast
at night, and who sketched the ships in the harbor during the day--came
from Kennedy Square, or rather from one of the side streets leading out
of it. There can still be found over the door of what was once his shop
a weather-beaten example of his skill in gold letters, the product of
his own hand. Above the signature is, or was some ten years since, a
small decorative panel showing a strip of yellow sand, a black dot of a
boat, and a line of blue sky, so true in tone and sure in composition
that when Mr. Crocker first passed that way and stood astounded before
it--as did Robinson Crusoe over Friday's footprint--he was so overjoyed
to find another artist besides himself in the town, that he turned into
the shop, and finding only a young mechanic at work, said:

"Go to New York, young man, and study, you have a career before you."

The old landscape-painter was a sure prophet; little pen-and-ink
sketches bearing the initials of this same sign-painter now sell for
more than their weight in gold, while his larger canvases on the walls
of our museums and galleries hold their place beside the work of the
marine-painters of our own and other times and will for many a day to
come.

This exile from Kennedy Square had been the first man to shake Oliver's
hand the night he entered the cast-room. Social distinctions had no
place in this atmosphere; it was the fellow who in his work came
closest to the curve of the shoulder or to the poise of the head who
proved, in the eyes of his fellow-students, his possession of an
ancestry: but the ancestry was one that skipped over the Mayflower and
went straight back to the great Michael and Rembrandt.

"I'm Jack Bedford, the sign-painter," he said, heartily. "You and I
come from the same town," and as they grasped each other's hands a new
friendship was added to Oliver's rapidly increasing list.

Oliver's seat was next to Fred, with Jack Bedford on his right. He had
asked to join this group not only because he wanted to be near his two
friends but because he wanted still more to be near the Milo. He had
himself selected a certain angle of the head because he had worked from
that same point of sight with Mr. Crocker, and it had delighted him
beyond measure when the professor allowed him to place his stool so
that he could almost duplicate his earlier drawing. His ambition was to
get into the life-class, and the quickest road, he knew, lay through a
good cast drawing. Every night for a week, therefore, he had followed
the wonderful lines of the Milo's beautiful body, which seemed to grow
with warmth under the flare of the overhanging gas-jets.

These favored life students occupied the room next to the casts. Mother
Mulligan, in full regalia of apron and broom, often sat there as a
model. Oliver had recognized her portrait at once; so can anyone else
who looks over the earlier studies of half the painters of the time.

"Oh, it's you, is it--" Mrs. Mulligan herself had cried when she met
Oliver in the hall, "the young gentleman that saved Miss Margaret's
dog? She'll be here next week herself--she's gone home for awhile up
into the mountains, where her old father and mother live. I told her
many times about ye, and she'll be that pleased to meet ye, now that
you're WAN of us."

It was delightful to hear her accent the "wan." Mother Mulligan always
thought the institution rested on her broad shoulders, and that the
students were part of her family.

The old woman could also have told Oliver of Margaret's arrival at the
school, and of the impression which she, the first and only girl
student, made on the night she took her place before an easel. But of
the reason of her coming Mrs. Mulligan could have told nothing, nor why
Margaret had been willing to exchange the comforts of a home among the
New Hampshire hills for the narrow confines of a third-story back room,
with Mrs. Mulligan as house-keeper and chaperon.

Fred knew all the details, of course, and how it had all come about.
How a cousin of Margaret's who lived on a farm near her father's had
one day, years before, left his plough standing in the furrow and
apprenticed himself to a granite-cutter in the next town. How later on
he had graduated in gravestones, and then in bas-reliefs, and finally
had won a medal in Rome for a figure of "Hope," which was to mark the
grave of a millionnaire at home. How when the statue was finished,
ready to be set up, this cousin had come to Brookfield, wearing a
square-cut beard, straight-out mustaches with needle-points, and funny
shoes with square toes. How the girl had been disposed to laugh at him
until he had told her stories of the wonderful cities beyond the sea
and of his life among the painters and sculptors; then she showed him
her own drawings, searching his face anxiously with her big eyes. How
he had been so astounded and charmed by their delicacy and truth, that
he had pleaded with her father--an obstinate old Puritan--to send her
to New York to study, which the old man refused point-blank to do, only
giving his consent at the last when her brother John, who had been
graduated from Dartmouth and knew something of the outside world, had
joined his voice to that of her mother and her own. How when she at
last entered the class-room of the Academy the students had looked
askance at her; the usual talk had ceased, and for a time there had
been an uncomfortable restraint everywhere, until the men found her
laughing quietly at their whispered jokes about her. After that the
"red-headed girl in blue gingham," as she was called, had become, by
virtue of that spirit of camaraderie which a common pursuit develops,
"one of us" in spirit as well as in occupation.

Fred had described it all to Oliver, and every night when Oliver came
in from the hall, his eyes had wandered over the group of students in
the hope of seeing the strange person. A girl studying art, or anything
else for that matter, seemed to him to be as incongruous as for a boy
to learn dress-making or for a woman to open a barber-shop. He knew her
type, he said to himself: she would be thin and awkward, with an
aggressive voice that would jar on the stillness of the room. And she
would believe in the doctrines of Elizabeth Cady Stanton--a name never
mentioned by his mother except apologetically and in a low voice--and
when she became older she would address meetings and become conspicuous
in church and have her name printed in the daily papers.

Our hero's mind was intent upon these phases of character always to be
found, of course, in a girl who would unsex herself to the extent that
Miss Grant had done, when one night a rich, full, well-modulated voice
sounding over his shoulder said:

"Excuse me, but Mother Mulligan tells me that you are Mr. Horn, Fred
Stone's friend. I want to thank you for taking care of my poor Juno. It
was very good of you. I am Margaret Grant."

She had approached him without his seeing her. He turned quickly to
accost her and immediately lost so much of his breath that he could
only stammer his thanks, and the hope that Juno still enjoyed the best
of health. But the deep-brown eyes did not waver after acknowledging
his reply, nor did the smile about the mouth relax.

"And I'm so glad you've come at last," she went on. "Fred has told me
how you wanted to draw and couldn't. I know something myself of what it
is to hunger after a thing and not get it."

He was on his feet now, the bit of charcoal still between his fingers,
his shirt-cuff rolled back to give his hand more freedom. His senses
were coming back, too, and there was buoyancy as well as youth in his
face.

"Yes, I do love it," said Oliver, and his eyes wandered over her
wonderful hair that looked like brown gold illumined by slants of
sunshine, and then rested for an instant on her eyes. "I drew with old
Mr. Crocker at home, but we only had one cast, just the head of the
Milo, and I was the only pupil. Here everything helps me. What are you
at work on, Miss Grant?"

"I'm doing the Milo, too; my seat is right in front of yours. Oh! what
a good beginning," and she bent over his drawing-board. "Why, this
can't be your first week," and she scanned it closely. "One minute--a
little too full under the chin, isn't it?" She picked up a piece of
chalk, and pointed to the shaded lines, looking first with half-closed
eyes at the full-sized cast before them, and then at the drawing.

"Yes, I think you're right," said Oliver, studying the cast also with
half-closed eyes. "How will that do?" and he smudged the shadow with
his finger-tip.

"Just right," she answered. "How well you have the character of the
face. Isn't she lovely!--I know of nothing so beautiful. There is such
a queenly, womanly, self-poised simplicity about her."

Oliver thought so too, and said so with his eyes, only it was of a face
framed in brown-gold that he was thinking and not of one of white
plaster. He was touched too by the delicate way in which she had
commended his drawings. It was the "woman" in her that pleased him,
just as it had been in Sue--that subtle, dominating influence which our
fine gentleman could never resist.

He shifted his stool a little to one side so that he could see her the
better unobserved while she was arranging her seat and propping up her
board. He noticed that, although her face was tanned by the weather,
her head was set on a neck of singular whiteness. Underneath, where the
back hair was tucked up, his eye caught some delicate filmy curls which
softened the line between her throat and head and shone in the light
like threads of gold. The shoulders sloped and the whole fulness of her
figure tapered to a waist firmly held by a leather belt. A wholesome
girl, he thought to himself, and good to look at, and with a certain
rhythmic grace about her movements.

Her crowning glory, though, was her hair, which was parted over her
forehead and caught in a simple twist behind. As the light fell upon it
he observed again how full it was of varying tones like those found in
the crinklings of a satin gown--yellow-gold one minute and dark brown
the next. Oliver wondered how long this marvellous hair might be, and
whether it would reach to the floor if it should burst its fastenings
and whether Sir Peter Lely would have loved it too could he have seen
this flood of gold bathing her brow and shoulders.

He found it delightful to work within a few feet of her, silent as they
had to be, for much talking was discountenanced by the professor: often
hours passed without any sound being heard in the room but that of the
scraping of the chairs on the bare floor or the shifting of an easel.

Two or three times during the evening the old professor emerged from
his room and overlooked his drawing, patiently pointing out the defects
and as patiently correcting them. He was evidently impressed with
Oliver's progress, for he remarked to Miss Grant, in a low voice:

"The new student draws well--he is doing first-rate," and passed on.
Oliver caught the expression of satisfaction on the professor's face
and interpreted it as in some way applying to his work, although he did
not catch the words.

The old man rarely had to criticise Margaret's work. The suggestions
made to her came oftener from the students than from the professor
himself or any one of the visiting critics. In these criticisms, not
only of her own work but of the others, everyone took part, each
leaving his stool and helping in the discussion, when the work of the
night was over. Fred's more correct eye, for instance, would be
invaluable to Jack Bedford, the ex-sign-painter, who was struggling
with the profile of the Gladiator; or Margaret, who could detect at a
glance the faintest departure from the lines of the original, would
shorten a curve on Oliver's drawing, or he in turn would advise her
about the depth of a shadow or the spot for a high light.

As the nights went by and Oliver studied her the closer, the New
England girl became all the more inexplicable to him. She was, he could
not but admit, like no other woman he had ever met; certainly not in
his present surroundings. She really seemed to belong to some fabled
race--one of the Amazons, or Rhine maidens, or Norse queens for whom
knights couched their lances. It was useless to compare her to any one
of the girls about Kennedy Square, for she had nothing in common with
any one of them. Was it because she was unhappy among her own people
that she had thus exiled herself from her home, or had some love-affair
blighted her life? Or could it be, as Fred had suggested, that she was
willing to undergo all these discomforts and privations simply for love
of her art? As this possible solution of the vexing problem became
established in his mind, with the vision of Margaret herself before
him, the blood mounted to his cheeks and an uncontrollable thrill of
enthusiasm swept over him. He could forgive her anything if this last
motive had really controlled and shaped her life.

Had he seen the more closely and with prophetic vision, he would have
discerned, in this Norse queen with the golden hair, the mother of a
long line of daughters, who, in the days to follow, would hang their
triumphant shields beside those of their brothers, winning equal
recognition in salon and gallery and conferring equal honor on their
country. But Oliver's vision was no keener than that of anyone else
about him. It was only the turn of Margaret's head that caught the
young student's eye and the wealth of her brown-gold hair. With the
future he had no concern.

What attracted him most of all in this woman who had violated all the
known traditions of Kennedy Square, was a certain fearlessness of
manner--an independence, a perfect ingenuousness, and a freedom from
any desire to interest the students in herself. When she looked at any
one of them, it was never from under drooping eyelids, as Sue would
have done, nor with that coquettish, alluring glance to which he had
always been accustomed. She looked straight at them with unflinching
eyes that said, "I can trust you, and WILL." He had never seen exactly
that look except in the portrait of his uncle's grandmother by Sir
Peter Lely--the picture he had always loved. Strange to say, too, the
eyes of the portrait were Margaret's eyes, and so was the color of the
hair.

No vexed problems entered Margaret's head regarding the very engaging
young gentleman who sat behind HER stool. He merely represented to her
another student--that was all; the little band was small enough, and
she was glad to see the new ones come. She noticed, it is true, certain
unmistakable differences--a peculiar, soft cadence in his voice as the
words slipped from his lips without their final g's; a certain
deference to herself--standing until she regained her seat, an
attention which she attributed at first to embarrassment over his new
surroundings and to his desire to please. She noticed, too, a certain
grace in his movements--a grace that attracted her, especially in the
way with which he used his hands, and in the way in which he threw his
head up when he laughed; but even these differences ceased to interest
her after the first night of their meeting.

But it did not occur to her that he came from any different stock than
the others about her, or that his blood might or might not be a shade
bluer than her own. What had really impressed her more than anything
else--and this only flashed into her mind while she was looking in the
glass one night at her own--were his big white teeth, white as grains
of corn, and the cleanliness of his hands and nails. She liked these
things about him. Some of the fingers that rested on her drawing-board
were often more like clothes-pins than fingers, and shocked her not a
little; some, too, were stained with acids, and one or more with
printer's ink that no soap could remove.

Before the evening was over Oliver became one of the class-room
appointments--a young man who sat one stool behind her and was doing
fairly well with his first attempt, and who would some day be able to
make a creditable drawing if he had patience and application.

At the beginning of the second week a new student appeared--or rather
an old one, who had been laid up at home with a cold. When Oliver
arrived he found him in Margaret's seat, his easel standing where hers
had been. He had a full-length drawing of the Milo--evidently the work
of days--nearly finished on his board. Oliver was himself a little
ahead of time--ahead of either Margaret or Fred, and had noticed the
new-comer when he entered, the room being nearly empty. Jack Bedford
was already at work.

"Horn," Jack cried, and beckoned to Oliver--"see the beggar in Miss
Grant's seat. Won't there be a jolly row when she comes in?"

Margaret entered a moment later, her portfolio under her arm, and stood
taking in the situation. Then she walked straight to her former seat,
and said, in a firm but kindly tone:

"This is my place, sir. I've been at work here for a week. You see my
drawing is nearly done."

The young man looked up. He toiled all day in a lithographer's shop,
and these precious nights in the loft were his only glimpses of
happiness. He sat without his coat, his shirt-sleeves liberally smeared
with the color-stains of his trade.

"Well, it's my place, too. I sat here a week before I was taken sick,"
he said, in a slightly indignant tone, looking into Margaret's face in
astonishment.

"But if you did," continued Margaret, "you see I am nearly through. I
can't take another seat, for I'll lose the angle. I can finish in an
hour if you will please give me this place to-night. You can work just
as well by sitting a few feet farther along."

The lithographer, without replying, turned from her impatiently, bent
over his easel, picked up a fresh bit of charcoal and corrected a line
on the Milo's shoulder. So far as he was concerned the argument was
closed.

Margaret stood patiently. She thought at first he was merely adding a
last touch to his drawing before granting her request.

"Will you let me have the seat?" she asked.

"No," he blurted out. He was still bending over his drawing, his eyes
fixed on the work. He did not even look up. "I'm going to stay here
until I finish. You know the rules as well as I do. I wouldn't take
your seat--what do you want to take mine for?" There was no animosity
in his voice. He spoke as if announcing a fact.

The words had hardly left his lips when there came the sound of a chair
being quickly pushed back, and Oliver stood beside Margaret. His eyes
were flashing; his right shirt-cuff was rolled back, the bit of
charcoal still between his fingers. Every muscle of his body was tense
with anger. Margaret's quick instinct took in the situation at a
glance. She saw Oliver's wrath and she knew its cause.

"Don't, Mr. Horn, please--please!" she cried, putting up her hand.
"I'll begin another drawing. I see now that I took his seat when he was
away, although I didn't know it."

Oliver stepped past her. "Get up, sir," he said, "and give Miss Grant
her seat. What do you mean by speaking so to a lady?"

The apprentice--his name was Judson--raised his eyes quickly, took in
Oliver's tense, muscular figure standing over him, and said, with a
contemptuous wave of the hand:

"Young feller--you go and cool off somewhere, or I'll tell the
professor. It's none of your business. I know the rules and--"

He never finished the sentence--not that anybody heard. He was
floundering on the floor, an overturned easel and drawing-board lying
across his body; Oliver standing over him with his fists tightly
clenched.

"I'll teach you how to behave to a lady." The words sounded as if they
came from between closed teeth. "Here's your chair, Miss Grant," and
with a slight bow he placed the chair before her and resumed his seat
with as much composure as if he had been in his mother's drawing-room
in Kennedy Square.

Margaret was so astounded that for a moment she could not speak. Then
her voice came back to her. "I don't want it," she cried, in a
half-frightened way, the tears starting in her eyes. "It was never
mine--I told you so. Oh, what have you done?"

Never since the founding of the school had there been such a scene. The
students jumped from their chairs and crowded about the group. The life
class, which were at work in another room, startled by the uproar,
swarmed out eager to know what had happened and why--and who--and what
for. Old Mother Mulligan, who had been posing for the class, with a
cloak about her fat shoulders and a red handkerchief binding up her
head, rushed over to Margaret, thinking she had been hurt in some way,
until she saw the student on the floor, still panting and half-dazed
from the effect of Oliver's blow. Then she fell on her knees beside him.

At this instant Professor Cummings entered, and a sudden hush fell upon
the room. Judson, with the help of Mother Mulligan's arm, had picked
himself up, and would have made a rush at Oliver had not big sack
Bedford stopped him.

"Who's to blame for this?" asked the professor, looking from one to the
other.

Oliver rose from his seat.

"This man insulted Miss Grant and I threw him out of her chair," he
answered quietly.

"Insulted you!" cried the professor, in surprise, and he turned to
Margaret. "What did he say?"

"I never said a word to her," whined Judson, straightening his collar.
"I told her the seat was mine, and so it is. That wasn't insulting her."

"It's all a mistake, professor--Mr. Horn did not understand," protested
Margaret. "It was his seat, not mine. He began his drawing first. I
didn't know it when I commenced mine. I told Mr. Horn so."

"Why did you strike him?" asked the professor, and he turned and faced
Oliver.

"Because he had no business to speak to her as he did. She is the only
lady we have among us and every man in the class ought to remember it,
and every man has since I've been here except this one."

There was a slight murmur of applause. Judson's early training had been
neglected as far as his manners went, and he was not popular.

The professor looked searchingly into Oliver's eyes and a flush of
pride in the boy's pluck tinged his pale cheeks. He had once thrown a
fellow-student out of a window in Munich himself for a similar offence,
and old as he was he had never forgotten it.

"You come from the South, Mr. Horn, I hear," he said in a gentler
voice, "and you are all a hot-tempered race, and often do foolish
things. Judson meant no harm--he says so, and Miss Grant says so. Now
you two shake hands and make up. We are trying to learn to draw here,
not to batter each other's heads."

Oliver's eyes roved from one to the other; he was too astonished to
make further reply. He had only done what he knew every other man
around Kennedy Square would have done under similar circumstances, and
what any other woman would have thanked him for. Why was everybody here
against him--even the girl herself! What sort of people were these who
would stand by and see a woman insulted and make no defence or outcry?
He could not have looked his father in the face again, nor Sue, nor
anyone else in Kennedy Square, if he had failed to protect her.

For a moment he hesitated, his eyes searching each face. He had hoped
that someone who had witnessed the outrage would come forward and
uphold his act. When no voice broke the stillness he crossed the room
and taking the lithographer's hand, extended rather sullenly, answered,
quietly: "If Miss Grant is satisfied, I am," and peace was once more
restored.

Margaret sharpened her charcoals and bent over her drawing. She was so
agitated she could not trust herself to touch its surface. "If I am
SATISFIED," she kept repeating to herself. The words, somehow, seemed
to carry a reproach with them. "Why shouldn't I be satisfied? I have no
more rights in the room than the other students about me; that is, I
thought I hadn't until I heard what he said. How foolish for him to
cause all this fuss about nothing, and make me so conspicuous."

But even as she said the words to herself she remembered Oliver's tense
figure and the look of indignation on his face. She had never been
accustomed to seeing men take up the cudgels for women. There had been
no opportunity, perhaps, nor cause, but even if there had been, she
could think of no one whom she had ever met who would have done as much
for her just because she was a woman.

A little sob, which she could not have explained to herself, welled up
to her throat. Much as she gloried in her own self-reliance, she
suddenly and unexpectedly found herself exulting in a quality
heretofore unknown to her--that quality which had compelled an almost
total stranger to take her part. Then the man himself! How straight and
strong and handsome he was as he stood looking at Judson, and then the
uplifted arm, the quick spring, and, best of all, the calm, graceful
way in which he had handed her the chair! She could not get the picture
out of her mind. Last, she remembered with a keen sense of pleasure the
chivalrous look in his face when he held out his hand to the man who a
moment before had received its full weight about his throat.

She had not regained mastery of herself even when she leaned across her
drawing-board, pretending to be absorbed in her work. The curves of the
Milo seemed in some strange way to have melted into the semblance of
the outlines of other visions sunk deep in her soul since the days of
her childhood--visions which for years past had been covered over by
the ice of a cold, hard puritanical training, that had prevented any
bubbles of sentiment from ever rising to the surface of her heart. As
remembrances of these visions rushed through her mind the half-draped
woman, with the face of the Madonna and the soul of the Universal
Mother shining through every line of her beautiful body, no longer
stood before her. It was a knight in glittering armor now, with drawn
sword and visor up, beneath which looked out the face of a beautiful
youth aflame with the fire of a holy zeal. She caught the flash of the
sun on his breastplate of silver, and the sweep of his blade, and heard
his clarion voice sing out. And then again, as she closed her eyes,
this calm, lifeless cast became a gallant, blue-eyed prince, who knelt
beside her and kissed her finger-tips, his doffed plumes trailing at
her feet.

When the band of students were leaving the rooms that night, Margaret
called Oliver to her side, and extending her hand, said, with a direct
simplicity that carried conviction in every tone of her voice and in
which no trace of her former emotions were visible:

"I hope you'll forgive me, Mr. Horn. I'm all alone here in this city
and I have grown so accustomed to depending on myself that, perhaps, I
failed to understand how you felt about it. I am very grateful to you.
Good-night."

She had turned away before he could do more than express his regret
over the occurrence. He wanted to follow her; to render her some
assistance; to comfort her in some way. It hurt him to see her go out
alone into the night. He wished he might offer his arm, escort her
home, make some atonement for the pain he had caused her. But there was
a certain proud poise of the head and swift glance of the eye which
held him back.

While he stood undecided whether to break through her reserve and join
her, he saw Mrs. Mulligan come out of the basement, stop a passing
stage, and, helping Margaret in, take the seat beside her.

"I am glad she does not go out alone," he said to himself and turned
away.




CHAPTER XIII

BELOW MOOSE HILLOCK


It was not long before the bare rooms of the Academy School--owing to
the political situation, which necessitated the exercise of economies
in every direction--began to suffer.

One night the students found the gas turned out and a small card tacked
on the door of the outer hall. It read--

SCHOOL CLOSED FOR WANT OF

FUNDS. WILL PERHAPS BE

OPENED IN THE AUTUMN.


Signs of like character were not unusual in the history of the school.
The wonder was, considering the vicissitudes through which the Academy
had passed, that it was opened at all. From the institution's earlier
beginnings in the old house on Bond Street, to its flight from the loft
close to Grace Church and then to the abandoned building opposite the
old hotel near Washington Square, where Amos Cobb always stayed when he
came to New York, and so on down to its own home on Broadway, its
history had been one long struggle for recognition and support.

This announcement, bitter enough as it was to Oliver, was followed by
another even more startling, when he reached the office next day, and
Mr. Slade called him into his private room.

"Mr. Horn," said his employer, motioning Oliver to a seat and drawing
his chair close beside him so that he could lay his hand upon the young
man's knee, "I am very sorry to tell you that after the first of June
we shall be obliged to lay you off. It is not because we are
dissatisfied with your services, for you have been a faithful clerk,
and we all like you and wish you could stay, but the fact is if this
repudiation goes on we will all be ruined. I am not going to discharge
you; I'm only going to give you a holiday for a few months. Then, if
the war-scare blows over we want you back again. I appreciate that this
has come as suddenly upon you as it has upon us, and I hope you will
not feel offended when, in addition to your salary, I hand you the
firm's check for an extra amount. You must not look upon it as a gift,
for you have earned every cent of it."

These two calamities were duly reported in a ten-page letter to his
mother by our young hero, sitting alone, as he wrote, up in his
sky-parlor, crooning over his dismal coke fire. "Was he, then, to begin
over again the weary tramping of the streets?" he said to himself. "And
the future! What did that hold in store for him? Would the time ever
come when he could follow the bent of his tastes? He was getting on so
well--even Miss Grant had said so--and it had not interfered with his
work at the store, either. The check in his pocket proved that."

His mother's answer made his heart bound with joy.

"Take Mr. Slade at his word. He is your friend and means what he says.
Find a place for the summer where you can live cheaply and where the
little money which you now have will pay your way. In the fall you can
return to your work. Don't think of coming home, much as I should like
to put my arms around you. I cannot spare the money to bring you here
now, as I have just paid the interest on the mortgage. Moreover, the
whole of Kennedy Square is upset and our house seems to be the centre
of disturbance. Your father's views on slavery are well known, and he
is already being looked upon with disfavor by some of our neighbors. At
the club the other night he and Judge Bowman had some words which were
very distressing to me. Mr. Cobb was present, and was the only one who
took your father's part. Your father, as you may imagine, is very
anxious over the political situation, but I cannot think our people are
going to fight and kill each other, as Colonel Clayton predicts they
will before another year has passed."

Oliver's heart bounded like a loosened balloon as he laid down his
mother's letter and began pacing the room. Neither the political
outlook, nor club discussions, nor even his mother's hopes and fears,
concerned him. It was the sudden loosening of all his bonds that
thrilled him. Four months to do as he pleased in; the dreadful mortgage
out of the way for six months; his mother willing, and he with money
enough in his pocket to pay his way without calling upon her for a
penny! Was there ever such luck! All care rolled from his
shoulders--even the desire to see his mother and Sue and those whom he
loved at home was forgotten in the rosy prospect before him.

The next day he told Mr. Slade of his plans, and read him part of his
mother's letter.

"Very sensible woman, your mother," his employer answered, with his
bluff heartiness. "Just the thing for you to do; and I've got the very
spot. Go to Ezra Pollard's. He lives up in the mountains at a little
place called East Branch, on the edge of a wilderness. I fish there
every spring, and I'll give you a letter to him."

Long before his day of departure came he had dusted out his old hair
trunk--there were other and more modern trunks to be had, but Oliver
loved this one because it had been his father's--gathered his painting
materials together--his easel, brushes, leather case, and old slouch
hat that he wore to fish in at home--and spent his time counting the
days and hours when he could leave the world behind him and, as he
wrote Fred, "begin to live."

He was not alone in this planning for a summer exodus. The other
students had indeed all cut their tether-strings and disappeared long
before his own freedom came. Jack Bedford had gone to the coast to live
with a fisherman and paint the surf, and Fred was with his people away
up near the lakes. As for the lithographers, sign-painters, and
beginners, they were spending their evenings somewhere else than in the
old room under the shaded gas-jets. Even Margaret, so Mother Mulligan
told him, was up "wid her folks, somewheres."

"And she was that broken-hearted," she added, "whin they shut up the
school--bad cess to 'em! Oh, ye would a-nigh kilt yerself wid grief to
a-seen her, poor darlint."

"Where is her home?" asked Oliver, ignoring the tribute to his
sympathetic tendencies. He had no reason for asking, except that she
had been the only woman among them, and he accordingly felt that a
certain courtesy was due her even in her absence.

"I've bothered me head loose tryin' to remimber, but for the soul o'
me, I can't. It's cold enough up there, I know, to freeze ye solid, for
Miss Margaret had wan o' her ears nipped last time she was home."


And so one fine morning in June, with Oliver bursting with happiness,
the hair trunk and the leather case and sketching umbrella were thrown
out at a New England way-station in the gray dawn from a train in which
Oliver had spent the night curled up on one of the seats.

Just as he had expected, the old coach that was to carry him was
waiting beside the platform. There was a rush for top seats, and Oliver
got the one beside the driver, and the trunk and traps were stored in
the boot under the driver's seat--it was a very small trunk and took up
but little room--and Marvin cracked his whip and away everybody went,
the dogs barking behind and the women waving their aprons from the
porches of the low houses facing the road.

And it was a happy young fellow who filled his lungs with the fresh air
of the morning and held on to the iron rail of the top seat as they
bumped over the "Thank ye marms," and who asked the driver innumerable
questions which it was part of the noted whip's duty and always his
pleasure to answer. The squirrels darted across the road as if to get a
look at the enthusiast and then ran for their lives to escape the
wheels; and the crows heard the rumble and rose in a body from the
sparse cornfields for a closer view; and the big trees arched over his
head, cooling the air and casting big shadows, and even the sun kept
peeping over the edge of the hills from behind some jutting rock or
clump of pines or hemlock as if bent on lighting up his face so that
everybody could see how happy he was.

As the day wore on and the coach rattled over the big open bridge that
spanned the rushing mountain-stream, Oliver's eye caught, far up the
vista, the little dent in the line of blue that stood low against the
sky. The driver said this was the Notch and that the big hump to the
right was Moose Hillock, and that Ezra's cabin nestled at its feet and
was watered by the rushing stream, only it was a tiny little brook away
up there that anybody could step over.

"'Tain't bigger'n yer body where it starts out fresh up in them
mountings," the driver said, touching his leaders behind their ears
with the lash of his whip. "Runs clean round Ezra's, and's jest as
chuckfull o' trout, be gosh, as a hive is o' bees."

And the swing and the freedom of it all! No office-hours to keep; no
boxes to nail up and roll out--nothing but sweetness and cool draughts
of fresh mountain-air, and big trees that he wanted to get down and
hug; and jolly laughing brooks that ran out to meet him and called to
him as he trotted along, or as the horses did, which was the same
thing, he being part of the team.

And the day! Had there ever been such another? And the sky, too, filled
with soft white clouds that sailed away over his head--the little ones
far in advance and already crowding up the Notch, which was getting
nearer every hour.

And Marvin the driver--what a character he was and how quaint his
speech. And the cabins by the road, with their trim fences and winter's
wood piled up so neatly under the sheds--all so different from any
which he had seen at the South and all so charming and exhilarating.

Never had he been so happy!

And why not? Twenty-three and in perfect health, without a care, and
for the first time in all his life doing what he wanted most to do,
with opportunities opening every hour for doing what he believed he
could do best.

Oh, for some planet where such young saplings can grow without
hinderance from the ignorant and the unsympathetic; where they can
reach out for the sun on all sides and stretch their long arms skyward;
where each vine can grow as it would in all the luxuriance of its
nature, free from the pruning-knife of criticism and the straitlaced
trellis of conventionality--a planet on which the Puritan with his
creeds, customs, fads, issues, and dogmas, and the Cavalier with his
traditions and time-honored notions never sat foot. Where every round
peg fits a round hole, and men toil with a will and with unclouded
brows because their hearts find work for their hands and each day's
task is a joy.

If the road and the country on each side of it, and the giant trees,
now that they neared the mountains, and the deep ravines and busy,
hurrying brooks had each inspired some exclamation of joy from Oliver,
the first view of Ezra's cabin filled him so full of uncontrollable
delight that he could hardly keep his seat long enough for Marvin to
rein in his horses and get down and swing back the gate that opened
into the pasture surrounding the house.

"Got a boarder for ye, Ezra," Marvin called to Oliver's prospective
host, who had come down to meet the stage and get his empty
butter-pails. Then, in a lower tone: "Sezs he's a painter chap, and
that Mr. Slade sent him up. He's goin' to bunk in with ye all summer,
he sezs. Seems like a knowin', happy kind er young feller."

They were pulling the pails from the rear boot, each one tied up in a
wheat-sack, with a card marked "Ezra Pollard" sewed on the outside to
distinguish it from the property of other East Branch settlers up and
down the road.

Oliver had slipped from his seat and was tugging at his hair trunk. He
did not know that the long, thin, slab-sided old fellow in a slouch
hat, hickory shirt crossed by one suspender, and heavy cowhide boots
was his prospective landlord. He supposed him to be the hired man, and
that he would find Mr. Pollard waiting for him in the little
sitting-room with the windows full of geraniums that looked so inviting
and picturesque.

"Marve sez you're lookin' fur me. Come along. Glad ter see ye."

"Are you Mr. Pollard?" His surprise not only marked the tones of his
voice but the expression of his face.

"No, jes' Ezry Pollard, that's all. Hope Mr. Slade's up and hearty?"


Mr. Slade was never so "up and hearty" as was Oliver that next morning.

Up with the sun he was, and hearty as a young buck out of a bed of
mountain-moss.

"Time to be movin', ain't it?" came Ezra Pollard's voice, shouting up
the unpainted staircase, "Hank's drawed a bucket out here at the well
for ye to wash in. Needn't worry about no towel. Samanthy's got one fur
ye, but ye kin bring yer comb."

At the sound of Ezra's voice Oliver sprang from the coarse straw
mattress--it had been as eider-down to his stage-jolted body--pushed
open the wooden blind and peered out. The sun was peeping over the edge
of the Notch and looking with wide eyes into the saucer-shaped valley
in which the cabin stood. The fogs which at twilight had stolen down to
the meadows and had made a night of it, now startled into life by the
warm rays of the sun, were gathering up their skirts of shredded mist
and tiptoeing back up the hill-side, looking over their shoulders as
they fled. The fresh smell of the new corn watered by the night dew and
the scent of pine and balsam from the woods about him, filled the
morning air. Songs of birds were all about, a robin on a fence-post and
two larks high in air, singing as they flew.

Below him, bounding from rock to rock, ran the brook, laughing in the
sunlight and tossing the spray high in the air in a mad frolic. Across
this swirling line of silver lay a sparse meadow strewn with rock,
plotted with squares of last year's crops--potatoes, string-beans, and
cabbages, and now combed into straight green lines of early buckwheat
and turnips. Beyond this a ragged pasture, fenced with blackened
stumps, from which came the tinkle of cow-bells, and farther on the
grim, silent forest--miles and miles of forest seamed by a single road
leading to Moose Hillock and the great Stone Face.

Oliver slipped into his clothes; ran down the stairs and out into the
fresh morning air. As he walked toward the well his eyes caught sight
of Hank's bucket tilted on one edge of the well-curb, over which hung
the big sweep, its lower end loaded with stone. On the platform stood a
wooden bench sloppy with the drippings of the water-soaked pail. This
bench held a tin basin and half a bar of rosin soap. Beside it was a
single post sprouting hickory prongs, on which were hung as many
cleanly scoured milk-pails glittering in the sun. On this post Hank had
nailed a three-cornered piece of looking-glass--Hank had a sweetheart
in the village below--a necessity and useful luxury, he told Oliver
afterward, "in slickin' yerself up fer meals."

Once out in the sunshine Oliver, with the instinct of the painter
suddenly roused, looked about him. He found that the cabin which had
delighted him so in the glow of the afternoon, was even more enchanting
in the light of the morning. To the plain, every-day, practical man it
was but a long box with a door in the middle of each side, front and
back--one opening into a sitting-room, which again opened into a
bedroom in which Ezra and his wife slept, with the windows choked with
geraniums, their red cheeks pressed against the small panes, and the
other opening into a kitchen, connecting with a pantry and a long,
rambling woodshed. To our young Raphael the simple cabin, from its
homely sagging door to its broken-backed roof, covered with rotting
shingles, was nothing less than an enchanted palace.

He remembered the shingles. He had reached up in the night and touched
them with his hands. He remembered, too, the fragrance they gave out--a
hot, dry, spicy smell. He remembered also the dried apples spread out
on a board beside his bed, and the broken spinning-wheel, and the
wasp's nest. He was sure, too, there were many other fascinating relics
stored away in this old attic. But for the sputtering tallow-candle,
which the night before was nearly burnt out, he would have examined
everything else about him before he went to sleep.

Then his eye fell on the woodshed and the huge pile of chips that
Hank's axe had made in supplying Samanthy's stove, and the rickety,
clay-plastered buggy and buckboard that had never known water since the
day of their birth. And the two muskrat skins nailed to the outside
planking--spoils of the mill-dam, a mile below.

Yes; he could paint here!

With a thrill of delight surging through him he rolled up his sleeves,
tilted the bucket, filled the basin with ice-cold water which Hank had
drawn for him, a courtesy only shown a stranger guest, and plunging in
his hands and face, dashed the water over his head. Samanthy,
meanwhile, in sunbonnet and straight-up-and-down calico dress, had come
out with the towel--half a salt-sack, washed and rewashed to phenomenal
softness (an ideal towel is a salt-sack to those who know). Then came
the rubbing until his flesh was aglow, and the parting of the wet hair
with the help of Hank's glass, and with a toss of a stray lock back
from his forehead Oliver went in to breakfast.

It fills me with envy when I think of that first toilet of Oliver's! I
too have had just such morning dips--one in Como, with the great
cypresses standing black against the glow of an Italian dawn; another
in the Lido at sunrise, my gondolier circling about me as I swam; still
a third in Stamboul, with the long slants of light piercing the gloom
of the stone dome above me--but oh, the smell of the pines and the
great sweep of openness, with the mountains looking down and the sun
laughing, and the sparkle and joyousness of it all! Ah, what a lucky
dog was this Oliver!

And the days that followed! Each one a delight--each one happier than
the one before. The sun seemed to soak into his blood; the strength of
the great hemlocks with their giant uplifted arms seemed to have found
its way to his muscles. He grew stronger, more supple. He could follow
Hank all day now, tramping the brook or scaling the sides of Bald Face,
its cheeks scarred with thunderbolts. And with this joyous life there
came a light into his eyes, a tone in his voice, a spring and buoyancy
in his step that brought him back to the days when he ran across
Kennedy Square and had no care for the day nor thought for the morrow.
Before the week was out he had covered half a dozen canvases with
pictures of the house as he saw it that first morning, bathed in the
sunshine; of the brook; the sweep of the Notch, and two or three
individual trees that he had fallen in love with--a ragged birch in
particular--a tramp of a birch with its toes out of its shoes and its
bark coat in tatters.

Before the second week had arrived he had sought the main stage-road
and had begun work on a big hemlock that stood sentinel over a turn in
the highway. There was a school-house in the distance and a log-bridge
under which the brook plunged. Here he settled himself for serious work.

He was so engrossed that he had not noticed the school-children who had
come up noiselessly from behind and were looking in wonder at his
drawings. Presently a child, who in her eagerness had touched his
shoulder, broke the stillness in apology.

"Say, Mister, there's a lady comes to school every day. She's a painter
too, and drawed Sissy Mathers."

Oliver glanced at the speaker and the group about her; wished them all
good-morning and squeezed a fresh tube on his palette. He was too much
absorbed in his work for prolonged talk. The child, emboldened by his
cheery greeting, began again, the others crowding closer. "She drawed
the bridge too, and me and Jennie Waters was sitting on the rail--she's
awful nice."

Oliver looked up, smiling.

"What's her name?"

"I don't know. Teacher calls her Miss Margaret, but there's more to it.
She comes every year."

Oliver bent over his easel, drew out a line brush from the sheaf in his
hand, caught up a bit of yellow ochre from his palette and touched up
the shadow of the birch. "All the women painters must be Margarets," he
said to himself. Then he fell to wondering what had become of her since
the school closed. He had always felt uncomfortable over the night when
he had defended "the red-headed girl in blue gingham," as she was
called by the students. She had placed him in the wrong by
misunderstanding his reasons for serving her. The students had always
looked upon him after that as a quarrelsome person, when he was only
trying to protect a woman from insult. He could not find it in his
heart to blame her, but he wished that it had not happened. As these
thoughts filled his mind he became so absorbed that the children's
good-by failed to reach his ear.

That day Hank had brought him his luncheon--two ears of hot corn in a
tin bucket, four doughnuts and an apple--the corn in the bottom of the
bucket and the doughnuts and apple on top. He could have walked home
for his midday meal, for he was within sound of Samanthy's dinner-horn,
but he liked it better this way.

Leaving his easel standing in the road, he had waved his hand in
good-by to Hank, picked up the bucket and had crept under the shadow of
the bridge to eat his luncheon. He had finished the corn, thrown the
cobs to the fish, and was beginning on the doughnuts, when a step on
the planking above him caused him to look up. A girl in a
tam-o'-shanter cap was leaning over the rail. The sun was behind her,
throwing her face into shadow--so blinding a light that Oliver only
caught the nimbus of fluffy hair that framed the dark spot of her head.
Then came a voice that sent a thrill of surprise through him.

"Why, Mr. Horn! Who would have thought of meeting you here?"

Oliver was on his feet in an instant--a half-eaten doughnut in one
hand, his slouch hat in the other. With this he was shading his eyes
against the glare of the sun. He was still ignorant of who had spoken
to him.

"I beg your pardon, I--WHY, Miss Grant!" The words burst from his lips
as if they had been fired from a gun. "You here!"

"Yes, I live only twenty miles away, and I come here every year. Where
are you staying?"

"At Pollard's."

"Why, that's the next clearing from mine. I'm at old Mrs. Taft's. Oh,
please don't leave your luncheon."

Oliver had bounded up the bank to a place beside her.

"How good it is to find you here. I am so glad." He WAS glad; he meant
every word of it. "Mrs. Mulligan said you lived up in the woods, but I
had no idea it was in these mountains. Have you had your luncheon?"

"No, not yet," and Margaret held up a basket. "Look!" and she raised
the lid. "Elderberry pie, two pieces of cake--"

"Good! and I have three doughnuts and an apple. I swallowed every grain
of my hot corn like a greedy Jack Horner, or you should have half of
it. Come down under the bridge, it's so cool there," and he caught her
hand to help her down the bank.

She followed him willingly. She had seen him greet Fred, and Jack
Bedford, and even the gentle Professor with just such outbursts of
affection, and she knew there was nothing especially personal to her in
it all. It was only his way of saying he was glad to see her.

Oliver laid the basket and tin can on a flat stone that the spring
freshets had scoured clean; spread his brown corduroy jacket on the
pebbly beach beside it, and with a laugh and the mock gesture of a
courtier, conducted her to the head of his improvised table. Margaret
laughed and returned the bow, stepping backward with the sweep of a
great lady, and settled herself beside him. In a moment she was on her
knees bending over the brook, her hands in the water, the
tam-o'-shanter beside her. She must wash her hands, she said--"there
was a whole lot of chrome yellow on her fingers"--and she held them up
with a laugh for Oliver's inspection. Oliver watched her while she
dried and bathed her shapely hands, smoothed the hair from her temples
and tightened the coil at the back of her head which held all this
flood of gold in check, then he threw himself down beside her, waiting
until she should serve the feast.

As he told her of his trip up the valley and the effect it made upon
him, and how he had never dreamed of anything so beautiful, and how
good the Pollards were; and what he had painted and what he expected to
paint; talking all the time with his thumb circling about as if it was
a bit of charcoal and the air it swept through but a sheet of Whatman's
best, her critical eye roamed over his figure and costume. She had
caught in her first swift, comprehensive glance from over the
bridge-rail, the loose jacket and broad-brimmed planter's hat, around
which, with his love of color, Oliver had twisted a spray of nasturtium
blossoms and leaves culled from the garden-patch that morning; but now
that he was closer, she saw the color in his cheeks and noticed, with a
suppressed smile, the slight mustache curling at the ends, a new
feature since the school had closed. She followed too the curves of the
broad chest and the muscles outlined through his shirt. She had never
thought him so strong and graceful, nor so handsome. (The smile came to
the surface now--an approving, admiring smile.) It was the
mountain-climbing, no doubt, she said to herself, and the open-air life
that had wrought the change.

With a laugh and toss of her head she unpacked her own basket and laid
her contribution to the feast on the flat rock--the pie on a green
dock-leaf, which she reached over and pulled from the water's edge, and
the cake on the pink napkin--the only sign of city luxury in her
outlay. Oliver's eye meanwhile wandered over her figure and costume--a
costume he had never seen before on any living woman, certainly not any
woman around Kennedy Square. The cloth skirt came to her ankles, which
were covered with yarn stockings, and her feet were encased in shoes
that gave him the shivers, the soles being as thick as his own and the
leather as tough. (Sue Clayton would have died with laughter had she
seen those shoes.) Her blouse was of gray flannel, belted to the waist
by a cotton saddle-girth--white and red--and as broad as her hand. The
tam-o'-shanter was coarse and rough, evidently home-made, and not at
all like McFudd's, which was as soft as the back of a kitten and
without a seam.

Then his eyes sought her face. He noticed how brown she was--and how
ruddy and healthy. How red the lips--red as mountain-berries, and back
of them big white teeth--white as peeled almonds. He caught the line of
the shoulders and the round of the full arm and tapering wrist, and the
small, well-shaped hand. "Queer clothes," he said to himself--"but the
girl inside is all right."

Sitting under the shadow of the old bridge on the main highway, each
weighed and balanced the other, even as they talked aloud of the
Academy School, and the pupils, and the dear old Professor whom they
both loved. They discussed the prospect of its doors being opened the
next winter. They talked of Mrs. Mulligan, and the old Italian who sold
peanuts, and whose head Margaret had painted; and of Jack Bedford and
Fred Stone--the dearest fellow in the world--and last year's
pictures--especially Church's "Niagara," the sensation of the year, and
Whittredge's "Mountain Brook," and every other subject their two busy
brains could rake and scrape up except--and this subject, strange to
say, was the only one really engrossing their two minds--the
overturning of Mr. Judson's body on the art-school floor, and the
upsetting of Miss Grant's mind for days thereafter. Once Oliver had
unintentionally neared the danger-line by mentioning the lithographer's
name, but Margaret had suddenly become interested in the movements of a
chipmunk that had crept down for the crumbs of their luncheon, and with
a woman's wit had raised her finger to her lips to command silence lest
he should be frightened off.

They painted no more that afternoon. When the shadows began to fall in
the valley they started up the road, picking up Oliver's easel and
trap--both had stood unmolested and would have done so all summer with
perfect safety--and Oliver walked with Margaret as far as the bars that
led into Taft's pasture. There they bade each other good-night,
Margaret promising to be ready in the morning with her big easel and a
fresh canvas, which Oliver was to carry, when they would both go
sketching together and make a long blessed summer day of it.

That night Oliver's upraised, restless hands felt the shingles over his
head more than once before he could get to sleep. He had not thought he
could be any happier--but he was. Margaret's unexpected appearance had
restored to him that something which the old life at home had always
yielded. He was never really happy without the companionship of a
woman, and this he had not had since leaving Kennedy Square. Those he
had met on rare occasions in New York were either too conventional or
selfconscious, or they seemed to be offended at his familiar Southern
ways. This one was so sensible and companionable, and so appreciative
and sympathetic. He felt he could say anything to her and she would
know what he meant. Perhaps, too, by and by she would understand just
why he had upset a man who had been rude to her.

Margaret lay awake, too--not long--not more than five minutes, perhaps.
Long enough, however, to wish she was not so sunburnt, and that she had
brought her other dress and a pair of gloves and a hat instead of this
rough mountain-suit. Long enough, too, to recall Oliver's standing
beside her on the bridge with his big hat sweeping the ground, the
color mounting to his cheeks, and that joyous look in his eyes.

"Was he really glad to see me," she said to herself, as she dropped off
into dreamland, "or is it his way with all the women he meets? I
wonder, too, if he protects them all?"


And so ended a day that always rang out in Oliver's memory with a note
of its own.

These dreams under the shingles! What would life be without them?




CHAPTER XIV

UNDER A BARK SLANT


The weeks that followed were rare ones for Margaret and Oliver.

They painted all day and every day.

The little school-children posed for them, and so did the prim
school-mistress, a girl of eighteen in spectacles with hair cut short
in the neck. And old Jonathan Gordon, the fisherman, posed, too, with a
string of trout in one hand and a long pole cut from a sapling in the
other. And once our two young comrades painted the mill-dam and the
mill--Oliver doing the first and Margaret the last; and Baker, the
miller, caught them at it, and insisted in all sincerity that some of
the money which the pictures brought must come to him, if the report
were true that painters did get money for pictures. "It's my mill,
ain't it?--and I ain't give no permission to take no part of it away.
Hev I?"

They climbed the ravines, Margaret carrying the luncheon and Oliver the
sketch-traps; they built fires of birch-bark and roasted potatoes, or
made tea in the little earthen pot that Mrs. Taft loaned her. Or they
waited for the stage in the early morning, and went half a dozen miles
down the valley to paint some waterfall Oliver had seen the day he
drove up with Marvin, or a particular glimpse of Moose Hillock from the
covered bridge, or various shady nooks and sunlit vistas that remained
fastened in Oliver's mind, and the memory of which made him unhappy
until Margaret could enjoy them, too.

The fact that he and a woman whom he had known but a little while were
roaming the woods together, quite as a brother and sister might have
done, never occurred to him. If it had it would have made no
difference, nor could he have understood why any barrier should have
been put up between them. He had been taking care of girls in that same
way all his life. Every woman was a sister to him so far as his
reverent protection over her went. The traditions of Kennedy Square had
taught him this.

As the joyous weeks flew by, even the slight reserve which had marked
their earlier intercourse began to wear off. It was "Oliver" and
"Margaret" now, and even "Ollie" and "Madge" when they forgot
themselves and each other in their work.

To Margaret this free and happy life together seemed natural enough.
She had decided on the day of their first meeting that Oliver's
interest in her was due wholly to his love of companionship, and not
because of any special liking he might feel for her. Had she not seen
him quite as cordial and as friendly to the men he knew? Satisfied on
this point, Oliver began to take the place of a brother, or cousin, or
some friend of her youth who loved another woman, perhaps, and was,
therefore, safe against all contingencies, while she gave herself up to
the enjoyment of that rare luxury--the rarest that comes to a
woman--daily association with a man who could be big and strong and
sympathetic, and yet ask nothing in return for what she gave him but
her companionship and confidence.

In the joy of this new intercourse, and with his habit of trusting
implicitly everyone whom he loved--man, woman, or child--Oliver, long
before the first month was over, had emptied his heart to Margaret as
completely as he had ever done to Miss Clendenning. He had told her of
Sue and of Miss Lavinia's boudoir, and of Mr. Crocker and his pictures;
and of his poor father's struggles and his dear mother's determination
to send him from home--not about the mortgage, that was his mother's
secret, not his own--and of the great receptions given by his Uncle
Tilghman, and of all the other wonderful doings in Kennedy Square.

She had listened at first in astonishment, and then with impatience.
Many of the things that seemed so important to him were valueless in
her more practical eyes. Instead of a regime which ennobled those who
enjoyed its privileges, she saw only a slavish devotion to worn-out
traditions, and a clannish provincialism which proved to her all the
more clearly the narrow-mindedness of the people who sustained and
defended them. So far as she could judge, the qualities that she deemed
necessary in the make-up of a robust life, instinct with purpose and
accomplishment, seemed to be entirely lacking in Kennedy Square
formulas. She saw, too, with a certain undefined pain, that Oliver's
mind had been greatly warped by these influences. Mrs. Horn's
domination over him, strange to say, greatly disturbed her; why, she
could not tell. "She must be a proud, aristocratic woman," she had said
to herself after one of Oliver's outbursts of enthusiasm over his
mother; "wedded to patrician customs and with no consideration for
anyone outside of her class."

And yet none of these doubts and criticisms made the summer days less
enjoyable.

One bright, beautiful morning when the sky was a turquoise, the air a
breath of heaven, and the brooks could be heard laughing clear out on
the main road, Oliver and Margaret, who had been separated for some
days while she paid a visit to her family at home, started to find a
camp that Hank had built the winter before as a refuge while he was
hunting deer. They had reached a point in the forest where two paths
met, when Margaret's quick ear caught the sound of a human voice, and
she stopped to listen.

"Quick--" she cried--"get behind these spruces, or he will see us and
stop singing. It's old Mr. Burton. He is such a dear! He spends his
summers here. I often meet him and he always bows to me so politely,
although he doesn't know me."

A man of sixty--bare-headed, dressed in a gray suit, with his collar
and coat over his arm and hands filled with wild-flowers, was passing
leisurely along, singing at the top of his voice. Once he stopped, and,
bending over, picked a bunch of mountain-berries which he tucked into a
buttonhole of his flannel shirt, just before disappearing in a turn of
the path.

Oliver looked after him for a moment. He had caught the look of sweet
serenity on the idler's face, and the air of joyousness that seemed to
linger behind him like a perfume, and it filled him with delight.

"There, Margaret! that's what I call a happy man. I'll wager you he has
never done anything all his life but that which he loved to do--just
lives out here and throws his heart wide open for every beautiful thing
that can crowd into it. That's the kind of a man I want to be. Oh! I'm
so glad I saw him."

Margaret was silent. She was walking ahead, her staff in her hand; the
fallen trunks and heavy under-brush making it difficult for them to
walk abreast.

"Do you think that he never had to work, to be able to enjoy himself as
he does?" she asked over her shoulder, with a toss of her head.

"Perhaps--but he loved what he was doing."

"No, he didn't--he hated it--hated it all his life." The tone carried a
touch of defiance that was new to Oliver. He stepped quickly after her,
with a sudden desire to look into her face. Ten minutes, at least, had
passed during which he had seen only the back of her head.

Margaret heard his step behind her and quickened her own. Something was
disturbing the joyousness of our young Diana this lovely summer morning.

"What did the old fellow do for a living, Margaret?" Oliver called,
still trying to keep up with Margaret's springing step.

"Sold lard and provisions, and over the counter, too," she answered,
with a note almost of exultation in her voice (she was thinking of Mrs.
Horn and Kennedy Square). "Mrs. Taft knows him and used to send him her
bacon. He retired rich some years ago, and now he can sing all day if
he wants to."

It was Oliver's turn to be silent. The tones of Margaret's voice had
hurt him. For some minutes he made no reply. Then wheeling suddenly he
sprang over a moss-covered trunk that blocked her path, stepped in
front of her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Not offended, Margaret, are you?" he asked, looking earnestly into her
eyes.

"No--what nonsense! Of course not. Why do you ask?"

"Well, somehow you spoke as if you were."

"No, I didn't; I only said how dear Mr. Burton was, and he IS. How
silly you are! Come--we will be late for the camp."

They both walked on in silence, now, he ahead this time, brushing aside
the thick undergrowth that blocked the path.

The exultant tones in her voice which had hurt her companion, and which
had escaped her unconsciously, still rang in her own ears. She felt
ashamed of the outburst now as she watched him cutting the branches
ahead of her, and thought how gentle and tender he had always been to
her and how watchful over her comfort. She wondered at the cause of her
frequent discontent. Then, like an evil spirit that would not down,
there arose in her mind, as she walked on, the picture she had formed
of Kennedy Square. She thought of his mother's imperious nature
absorbing all the love of his heart and inspiring and guiding his every
action and emotion; of the unpractical father--a dreamer and an
enthusiast, the worst possible example he could have; of the false
standards and class distinctions which had warped his early life and
which were still dominating him. With an abrupt gesture of impatience
she stood still in the path and looked down upon the ground. An angry
flush suffused her face.

"What a stupid fool you are, Margaret Grant," she burst out
impatiently. "What are Kennedy Square and the whole Horn family to you?"

Oliver's halloo brought her to consciousness.

"Here's that slant, Margaret--oh, such a lovely spot! Hurry up."

"The slant" had been built between two great trees and stood on a
little mound of earth surrounded by beds of velvety green moss--huge
green winding sheets, under which lay the bodies of many giant pines
and hemlocks. The shelter was made of bark and bedded down with boughs
of sweet-balsam. Outside, on a birch sapling, supported by two forked
sticks, hung a rusty kettle. Beneath the rude spit, half-hidden by the
growth of the summer, lay the embers of the abandoned camp-fires that
had warmed and comforted Hank and his companions the preceding winter.

Oliver raked the charred embers from under the tangled vines that hid
them, while Margaret peeled the bark from a silver-birch for kindling.
Soon a curl of blue smoke mounted heavenward, hung suspended over the
tree-tops, and then drifted away in scarfs of silver haze dimming the
forms of the giant trunks.

Our young enthusiast watched the Diaz of a wood interior turn slowly
into a Corot, and with a cry of delight was about to unstrap his own
and Margaret's sketching-kits, when the sun was suddenly blotted out by
a heavy cloud, and the quick gloom of a mountain-storm chilling the
sunlit vista to a dull slate gray settled over the forest. Oliver
walked over to the brook for a better view of the sky, and came back
bounding over the moss-covered logs as he ran. There was not a moment
to lose if they would escape being drenched to the skin.

The outlook was really serious. Old Bald Face had not only lost his
smile--a marvelously happy one with the early sun upon his wrinkled
countenance--but he had put on his judgment-cap of gray clouds and had
begun to thunder out his disapproval of everything about him. Moose
Hillock evidently heard the challenge, for he was answering back in the
murky darkness. Soon a cold, raw wind, which had been asleep in the
hills for weeks, awoke with a snarl and started down the gorge. Then
the little leaves began to quiver, the big trees to groan, in their
anxiety not knowing what the will of the wind would be, and the merry
little waves that had chased each other all the morning over the sunny
shallows of the brook, grew ashy pale as they looked up into the angry
face of the Storm-God, and fled shivering to the shore.

Oliver whipped out his knife, stripped the heavy outer bark from a
white birch, and before the dashing rain could catch up with the wind,
had repaired the slant so as to make it water-tight--Hank had taught
him this--then he started another great fire in front of the slant and
threw fresh balsam boughs on the bed that had rested Hank's tired
limbs, and he and Margaret crept in and were secure.

The equanimity of Margaret's temper, temporarily disturbed by her vivid
misconception of Kennedy Square, was restored. The dry shelter, the
warm fire, the sense of escape from the elements, all filled her heart
with gladness. Never since the day she met him on the bridge had she
been so happy. Again, as when Oliver championed her in the old Academy
school-room, there stole over her a vague sense of pleasure in being
protected.

"Isn't it jolly!" she said as she sat hunched up beside him. "I'm as
dry as a bone, not a drop on me."

Oliver was even more buoyant. There was something irresistibly cosey
and comfortable in the shelter which he had provided for her--something
of warmth and companionship and rest. But more intensely enjoyable than
all was the thought that he was taking care of a woman for the first
time in his life, as it seemed to him. And in a house of his own
making, and in a place, too, of his own choosing, surrounded by the big
trees that he loved. He had even outwitted the elements--the wind and
the rain and the chill--in her defence. Old Moose Hillock could bellow
now and White Face roar, and the wind and rain vent their wrath, but
Margaret, close beside him, would still be warm and dry and safe.

By this time she had hung her tam-o'-shanter and jacket on a nail that
she had found in the bark over her head, and was arranging her hair.

"It's just like life, Oliver, isn't it?" she said, as she tightened the
coil in her neck. "All we want, after all, is a place to get into out
of the storm and wet, not a big place, either."

"What kind of a place?" He was on his knees digging a little trench
with his knife, piling up the moist earth in miniature embankments, so
that the dripping from the roof would not spatter this Princess of his
whom he had saved from the tempest outside.

"Oh, any kind of a place if you have people you're fond of. I'd love a
real studio somewhere, and a few things hung about--some old Delft and
one or two bits of stuff--and somebody to take care of me."

Oliver shifted his pipe in his mouth and looked up. Would she, with all
her independence, really like to have someone take care of her? He had
seen no evidence of it.

"Who?" he asked. He had never heard her mention anybody's name--but
then she had not told him everything;

He had dropped his eyes again, finishing the drain and flattening the
boughs under her, to make the seat the easier.

"Oh, some old woman, perhaps, like dear old Mrs. Mulligan." There was
no coquetry in her tone. She was speaking truthfully out of her heart.

"Anything more?" Oliver's voice had lost its buoyancy now. The pipe was
upside down, the ashes falling on his shirt.

"Yes--lots of portraits to paint."

"And a medal at the Salon?" asked Oliver, brushing off the waste of his
pipe from his coat-sleeve.

"Yes, I don't mind, if my pictures deserve it," and she looked at him
quizzically, while a sudden flash of humor lightened up her face. "What
would you want, Mr. Happy-go-lucky, if you had your wish?"

"I, Madge, dear?" he exclaimed, with a sudden outburst of tenderness,
raising his body erect and looking earnestly into her eyes, which were
now within a hand's breadth of his own. She winced a little, but it did
not offend her, nor did she move an inch. "Oh, I don't know what I
want. What I want, I suppose, is what I shall never have, little girl."

She wasn't his little girl, or anybody else's, she thought to
herself--she was firmly convinced of that fact. It was only one of his
terms of endearment. He had them for everybody--even for Hank and for
Mrs. Taft--whom he called "Taffy," and who loved to hear him say it,
and she old enough to be his grandmother! She stole a look into his
face. There was a cloud over it, a slight knitting of the brows, and a
pained expression about the mouth that were new to her.

"I'd like to be a painter," he continued, "but mother would never
consent." As he spoke, he sank back from her slowly, his knees still
bent under him. Then he added, with a sigh, "She wouldn't think it
respectable. Anything but a painter, she says."

Margaret looked out through the forest and watched a woodpecker at work
on the dry side of a hollow trunk, the side protected from the driving
rain.

"And you would give up your career because she wants it? How do you
know she's right about it? And who's to suffer if she's wrong? Be a
painter, Oliver, if you want to! Your mother can't coddle you up
forever! No mother should. Do what you can do best, and to please
yourself, not somebody else," and then she laughed lightly as if to
break the force of her words.

Oliver looked at her in indignation that anyone--even Margaret--should
speak so of his mother. It was the first time in all his life that he
had heard her name mentioned without the profound reverence it
deserved. Then a sense of the injustice of her words took possession of
him, as the solemn compact he had made with his mother not to be a
burden on her while the mortgage was unpaid, rose in his mind. This
thought and Margaret's laugh softened any hurt her words had given him,
although the lesson that they were intended to teach lingered in his
memory for many days thereafter.

"You would not talk that way, Madge, if you knew my dear mother," he
said, quietly. "There is nothing in her life she loves better than me.
She doesn't want me to be a painter because--" He stopped, fearing she
might not understand his answer.

"Go on--why not?" The laugh had faded out of her voice now, and a tone
almost of defiance had taken its place.

"She says it is not the profession of a gentleman," he answered, sadly.
"I do not agree with her, but she thinks so, and nothing can shake her."

"If those are her opinions, I wonder what she would think of ME?" There
was a slight irritation in her voice--somehow she always became
irritable when Oliver spoke of his mother. She was ashamed of it, but
it was true.

All his anger was gone now. Whatever opinion the world might have on
any number of things there could be but one opinion of Madge. "She
would LOVE you, little girl," he burst out as he laid his hand on her
arm--the first time he had ever touched her with any show of affection.
"You'd make her love you. She never saw anybody like you before, and
she never will. That you are an artist wouldn't make any difference.
It's not the same with you. You're a woman."

The girl's eyes again sought the woodpecker. It was stabbing away with
all its might, driving its beak far into the yielding bark. It seemed
in some way to represent her own mood. After a moment's thought she
said thoughtfully as she rested her head on the edge of the slant:

"Ollie, what is a gentleman?" She knew, she thought, but she wanted him
to define it.

"My father is one," he said, positively, "--and so is yours," and he
looked inquiringly into her face.

"That depends on your standard. I don't know your father, but I do
mine, and from what you have told me about yours I think they are about
as different as two men can be. Answer my question--what is a
gentleman?" She was leaning over a little, and tucking a chip under her
toes to keep the water away from her shoes. Her eyes sought his again.

"A gentleman, Madge--why, you know what a gentleman is. He is a man
well born, well educated, and well bred. That's the standard at
home--at least, that's my mother's. Father's standard is the same, only
he puts it in a different way. He says a gentleman is a man who
tolerates other people's mistakes and who sympathizes with other
people's troubles."

"Anything else?" She was searching his face now. There were some things
she wanted to settle in her own mind.

"I don't think of anything else, Madge, dear--do you?" He was really
dismissing the question. His thoughts were on something else--the way
her hair curled from under her worsted cap and the way her pink ears
nestled close to her head, especially the little indents at each corner
of her mouth. He liked their modelling.

"And so according to your mother's and father's ideas, and those of all
your aristocratic people at home, Hank here could not be a gentleman if
he tried?"

The idea was new to Oliver. He had become conscious now. What had
gotten into Margaret to-day!

"Hank?--no, certainly not. How could he?"

"By BEING a gentleman, Mr. Aristocrat. Not in clothes, mind you--nor
money, nor furniture, nor wines, nor carriages, but in HEART. Think a
moment, Ollie," and her eyes snapped. "Hank finds a robin that has
tumbled out of its nest, and spends half a day putting it back. Hank
follows you up the brook and sees you try to throw a fly into a pool,
and he knows just how awkwardly you do it, for he's the best fisherman
in the woods--and yet you never see a smile cross his face, nor does he
ever speak of it behind your back--not even to me. Hank walks across
Moose Hillock to find old Jonathan Gordon to tell him he has some big
trout in Loon Pond, so that the old man can have the fun of catching
them and selling them afterward to the new hotel in the Notch. He has
walked twenty-four miles when he gets back. Do these things make Hank a
gentleman, or not?"

"Then you don't believe in Sir Walter Raleigh, Miss Democrat, simply
because he was a lord?"

"Yes--but I always thought he wore his old cloak that day on purpose,
so he could be made an earl." And a ripple of laughter escaped her lips.

Oliver laughed too, sprang to his feet, and held out his hands so as to
lift her up. None of these fine-drawn distinctions really interested
him--certainly not on this day, when he was so happy. Why, he wondered,
should she want to discuss theories and beliefs and creeds, with the
beautiful forest all about and the sky breaking overhead?

"Well, you've walked over mine many a time, Miss Queen Elizabeth, and
you haven't decorated me yet, nor made me an earl nor anything else for
it, and I'm not going to forgive you either," and he rose to his feet.
"Look! Madge, look!" he cried, and sprang out into the path, pointing
to the sunshine bursting through the trees--the storm had passed as
suddenly as it had come. "Isn't it glorious! Come here quick! Don't
wait a minute. I should try to get that with Naples yellow and a little
chrome--what do you think?" he asked when she stood beside him, half
closing his eyes, to get the effect the better.

Margaret looked at him curiously for a moment. She did not answer. "I
cannot fasten his mind on anything in which I am interested," she said
to herself, with a sigh, "nor shall I ever overcome these prejudices
which seem to be part of his very life."

She paused a moment and an expression of pain passed over her face.

"Pale cadmium would be better," she said, quietly, with a touch of
indifference in her tone, and led the way out of the forest to the main
road.




CHAPTER XV

MRS. TAFT'S FRONT PORCH


The autumn fires were being kindled on the mountains--fires of maple,
oak, and birch. Along the leaf-strewn roads the sumach blazed scarlet,
and over the rude stone fences blood-red lines of fire followed the
trend of leaf and vine. Golden pumpkins lay in the furrows of the corn;
showers of apples carpeted the grass of the orchards; the crows in
straight lines, and the busy squirrels worked from dawn till dark.

Over all settled the requiem haze of the dead summer, blurring the
Notch and softening Moose Hillock to a film of gray against the pale
sky.

It had been a summer of very great sweetness and charm--the happiest of
Oliver's life. He had found that he could do fairly well the things
that he liked to do best; that the technical difficulties that had
confronted him when he began to paint were being surmounted as the
weeks went by, and that the thing that had always been a pain to him
had now become a pleasure--pain, because, try as he might, the quality
of the result was always below his hopes; a pleasure, because some bit
of bark, perhaps, or glint of light on moss-covered rock, or tender
vista had at last stood out on his canvas with every tone of color true.

Only a painter can understand what all this meant to Oliver; only an
out-of-door painter, really. The "studio-man" who reproduces an old
study which years before has inspired him, or who evolves a composition
from his inner consciousness, has no such thrills over his work. He
may, perhaps, have other sensations, but they will lack the spontaneous
outburst of enthusiasm over the old sketch.

And how glorious are the memories!

The victorious painter has been weeks over these same trees that have
baffled him; he has painted them on gray days and sunny days; in the
morning, at noon, and in the gloaming. He has loved their texture and
the thousand little lights and darks; the sparkle of the black, green,
or gray moss, and the delicate tones that played up and down their
stalwart trunks. He has toiled in the heat of the day, his nerves on
edge, and sometimes great drops of sweat on his troubled forehead. Now
and then he has sprung from his seat for a farther-away look at his
sketch. With a sigh and a heart bowed down (oh, how desolate are these
hours!) he has noted how wooden and commonplace and mean and despicable
his work was--what an insult he has cast upon the beautiful yellow
birch, this outdoor, motionless, old model that has stood so patiently
before him, posing all day without moving; its big arms above its head
its leaves and branches stock-still to make it all the easier for him.

Suddenly in all this depression, an inspiration has entered his dull
brain--he will use burnt umber in stead of Vandyke brown for the bark!
or light chrome and indigo instead of yellow ochre and black for the
green!

Presto! Ah, that's like it! Another pat, and another, and still one
more!

How quickly now the canvas loses its pasty mediocrity. How soon the
paint and the brush-marks and the niggly little touches fade away and
the THING ITSELF comes out and says "How do you do?" and that it is so
glad to see him, and that it has been lurking behind these colors all
day, trying to make his acquaintance, and he would have none of it.
What good friends he and the sketch have become now; how proud he is of
it, and of possessing it and of CREATING it! Then little
quivery-quavers go creeping up and down his spine and away out to his
fingertips; and he KNOWS that he has something really GOOD.

He carries it home in his hand, oh, so carefully (he strapped its
predecessor on his back yesterday without caring), and a dozen times he
stops to look at its dear face, propping it against a stump for a
better light, just to see if he had not been mistaken after all. He can
hardly wait until it is dark enough to see how it looks by gas-light,
or candle-light, or kerosene, or whatever else he may have in his
quarters. Years after, the dear old thing is still hanging on his
studio wall. He has never sold it nor given it away. He could not--it
was too valuable, too constantly giving him good advice and showing him
what the thing WAS. Not what he thought it was, or hoped it was, or
would like it to be, but what it WAS.

Yes, there may be triumphs that come to men digging away on the dull
highway of life--triumphs in business; in politics; in discovery; in
law; medicine, and science. To each and every profession and pursuit
there must come, and does come, a time when a rush of uncontrollable
feeling surges through the victor's soul, crowning long hours of work,
but they are as dry ashes to a thirsty man compared to the boundless
ecstasy a painter feels when, with a becaked palette, some half-dried
tubes of color, and a few worn-out, ragged brushes, he compels a
six-by-nine canvas to glow with life and truth.

All this Oliver knew and felt. The work of the summer, attended at
first with a certain sense of disappointment, had, during the last few
weeks of sojourn, as his touch grew surer, not only become a positive
pleasure to him, but had produced an exaltation that had kept our young
gentleman walking on clouds most of the time, his head in the blue
ether.

Margaret's nice sense of color and correct eye had hastened this
result. She could grasp at the first glance the masses of light and
shade, giving each its proper value in the composition. She and Oliver.
really studied out their compositions together before either one set a
palette, a most desirable practice, by the way, not only for tyros, but
for Academicians.

This relying upon Margaret's judgment had become a habit with Oliver.
He not only consulted her about his canvases, but about everything else
that concerned him. He had never formulated in his mind what this kind
of companionship meant to him (we never do when we are in the midst of
it), nor had he ever considered what would become of him when the
summer was over, and the dream would end, and they each would return to
the customary dulness of life; a life where there would be no blue
ether nor clouds, nor vanishing points, nor values, nor tones, nor
anything else that had made their heaven of a summer so happy.

They had both lived in this paradise for weeks without once bringing
themselves to believe it could ever end (why do not such episodes last
forever?) when Oliver awoke one morning to the fact that the fatal day
of their separation would be upon him in a week's time or less.
Margaret, with her more practical mind, had seen farther ahead than
Oliver, and her laugh, in consequence, had been less spontaneous of
late, and her interest in her work and in Oliver's less intense. She
was overpowered by another sensation; she had been thinking of the day,
now so near, when the old stage would drive up to Mrs. Taft's
pasture-gate, and her small trunk and trap would be carried down on
Hank's back and tumbled in, and she would go back alone to duty and the
prosaic life of a New England village.

Neither of them supposed that it was anything else but the grief of
parting that afflicted them, until there came a memorable autumn
night--a night that sometimes comes to the blessed!--when the moon swam
in the wide sky, breasting the soft white clouds, and when Oliver and
Margaret sat together on the porch of Mrs. Taft's cottage--he on the
steps at her feet, she leaning against the railing, the moonlight full
upon her face.

They had been there since sunset. They had known all day what was in
each other's mind, but they had avoided discussing it. Now they must
face it.

"You go to-morrow, Madge?" Oliver asked. He knew she did. He spoke as
if announcing a fact.

"Yes."

The shrill cry of a loon, like the cry of a child in pain, sifted down
the ravine from the lake above and died away among the pines soughing
in the night-wind. Oliver paused for a moment to listen, and went on:

"I don't want you to go. I don't know what I am going to do without
you, Madge," he said with a long indrawn sigh.

"You are coming to us at Brookfield, you know, on your way back to New
York. That is some thing." She glanced at him with a slightly anxious
look in her eyes, as if waiting for his answer to reassure her.

He rose from his seat and began pacing the gravel. Now and then he
would stop, flick a pebble from its bed with his foot, and walk on. She
heard the sound of his steps, but she did not look at him, even when he
stopped abruptly in front of her.

"Yes, I know, but--that will only make it worse." He was leaning over
her now, one foot on the steps. "It tears me all to pieces when I think
this is our last night. We've had such a good time all summer. You
don't want to go home, do you?"

"No--I'd rather stay." The words came slowly, as if it gave her pain to
utter them.

"Well--stay, then," he answered with some animation. "What difference
does a few days makes? Let us have another week. We haven't been over
to Bog Eddy yet; please stay, Madge."

"No, I must go, Ollie."

"But we'll be so happy, little girl."

"Life is not only being happy, Ollie. It's very real sometimes. It is
to me--" and a faint sigh escaped her.

"Well, but why make it real to-morrow? Let us make it real next week,
not now."

"It would be just as hard for you next week. Why postpone it?" She was
looking at him now, watching his face closely.

Her answer seemed to hurt him. With an impatient gesture he
straightened himself, turned as if to resume his walk, and then,
pushing away the end of her skirt, sat down beside her.

"I don't understand your theories, Madge, and I'm not going to discuss
them. I don't want to talk of any such things; I'm too unhappy
to-night. When I look ahead and think that if the Academy should not
open, you wouldn't come back at all, and that I might not see you for
months, I'm all broken up. What am I going to do without you, Madge?"
His voice was quivering, and a note of pain ran through it.

"Oh, you will have your work--you'll do just what you did before I came
up." She was holding herself in by main strength; why, she could not
tell--fighting an almost irresistible impulse to hide her face on his
breast and cry.

"What good will that do me when you are gone?" he burst out, with a
quick toss of his head and a certain bitterness in his tone.

"Well, but you were very happy before you saw me."

Again the cry of the loon came down the ravine. He turned and with one
of his quick, impatient gestures that she knew so well, put his hand on
her shoulder.

"Stop, Madge, stop! Don't talk that way. I can't stand it. Look at me!"
The pain had become unbearable now. "You've got to listen. I can't keep
it back, and I won't. I never met anybody that I loved as I do you. I
didn't think so at first. I never thought I could think so, but it's
true. You are not my sweetheart nor my friend, nor my companion, nor
anything else that ever came into my life. You are my very breath, my
soul, my being. I never want you to leave me. I should never have
another happy day if I thought this was to end our life. I laid awake
half the night trying to straighten it out, and I can't, and there's no
straightening it out and never will be unless you love me. Oh, Madge!
Madge! Don't turn away from me. Let me be part of you--part of
everything you do--and are--and will be."

He caught her hand in his warm palm and laid his cheek upon it. Still
holding it fast he raised his head, laid his other hand upon her hair,
smoothing it softly, and looked long and earnestly into her eyes as if
searching for something hidden in their depths. Then, in a voice of
infinite tenderness, he said:

"Madge, darling! Tell me true--could you ever love me?"

She sat still, her eyes fixed on his, her hand nestling in his grasp.
Then slowly and carefully, one at a time, she loosened with her other
hand the fingers that lay upon her hair, held them for an instant in
her own, bent her head and touched them with her lips.




CHAPTER XVI

SOME DAYS AT BROOKFIELD FARM


Brookfield village lay in a great wide meadow through which strayed one
of Moose Hillock's lost brooks--a brook tired out with leaping from
bowlder to bowlder and taking headers into deep pools, and plunging
down between narrow walls of rock. Here in the meadow it caught its
breath and rested, idling along, stopping to bathe a clump of willows;
whispering to the shallows; laughing gently with another brook that had
locked arms with it, the two gossiping together under their breath as
they floated on through the tall grasses fringing the banks, or circled
about the lily-pads growing in the eddies. In the middle of the meadow,
just where two white ribbons of roads crossed, was a clump of trees
pierced by a church-spire. Outside of this bower of green--a darker
green than the velvet meadow-grass about it--glistened the roofs and
windows of the village houses.

All this Oliver saw, at a distance, from the top of the stage.

As he drew nearer and entered the main street, the clump of trees
became giant elms, their interlaced branches making shaded cloisters of
the village streets. The buildings now became more distinct; first a
tavern with a swinging sign, and across the open common a quaint church
with a white tower.

At the end of the avenue of trees, under the biggest of the elms, stood
an old-fashioned farmhouse, its garden-gate opening on the highway, and
its broad acres--one hundred or more--reaching to the line of the
vagabond brook.

This was Margaret's home.

The stage stopped; the hair-trunk and sketch-trap were hauled out of
the dust-begrimed boot and deposited on the sidewalk at the foot of the
giant elm. Oliver swung back the gate and walked up the path in the
direction of the low-roofed porch, upon which lay a dog, which raised
its head and at the first click of the latch came bounding toward him,
barking with every leap.

"Needn't be afraid, she won't hurt you!" shouted a gray-haired man in
his shirt-sleeves, who had risen from his seat on the porch and who was
now walking down the garden-path. "Get out, Juno! I guess you're the
young man that's been painting with our Margaret up in the Gorge. She's
been expecting you all morning. Little dusty, warn't it?"

Oliver's face brightened up. This must be Margaret's father!

"Mr. Grant, I suppose?"

"Yes, that's what they call me--Silas Grant. Let me take your bag. My
son John will be here in a minute, and will help you in with your
trunk. Needn't worry, it's all right where it is. Folks are middling
honest about here," he added, with a dry laugh, and his hand closed on
his guest's--a cold limp, dead-fish sort of a hand, Oliver thought.

Oliver said he was sure of it, and that he hoped Miss Margaret was
well, and the old man said she was, "Thank you," and Oliver surrendered
the bag--it was his sketch-trap--and the two walked toward the house.
During the mutual greetings the dog sniffed at Oliver's knees and
looked up into his face.

"And I suppose this is Juno," our hero said, stopping to pat her head.
"Good dog--you don't remember me?" It seemed easier somehow to converse
with Juno than with her master. The dog wagged her tail, but gave no
indications of uncontrollable joy at meeting her rescuer again.

"Oh, you've seen her? She's Margaret's dog, you know."

"Yes, I know, but she's forgotten me. I saw her before I ever
knew--your daughter." It was a narrow escape, but he saved himself in
time. "Blessed old dog," he said to himself, and patted her again.

By the time he had reached the porch-steps he had made, unconsciously
to himself, a mental inventory of his host's special features: tall,
sparsely built, with stooping shoulders and long arms, the big hands
full of cold knuckles with rough finger-tips (Oliver found that out
when his own warm fingers closed over them); thin face, with high
cheek-bones showing above his closely-cropped beard and whiskers; gray
eyes--steady, steel-gray eyes, hooded by white eyebrows stuck on like
two tufts of cotton-wool; nose big and strong; square jaw hanging on a
hinge that opened and shut with each sentence, the upper part of the
face remaining motionless as a mask. Oliver remembered having once seen
a toy ogre with a jaw and face that worked in the same way. He had
caught, too, the bend of his thin legs, the hump of the high shoulders,
and saw the brown skin of the neck showing through the close-cut white
hair. Suddenly a feeling of repugnance amounting almost to a shrinking
dislike of the man took possession of him--it is just such trifles that
turn the scales of likes and dislikes for all of us. "Could this really
be Margaret's father?" he said to himself. Through whose veins, then,
had all her charm and loveliness come? Certainly not from this cold man
without grace of speech or polish of manner.

This feeling of repugnance had come with a flash, and in a flash it was
gone. On the top step of the low piazza stood a young girl in white, a
rose in her hair, her arm around a silver-haired old lady in gray silk,
With a broad white handkerchief crossed over her bosom.

Oliver's hat was off in an instant.

Margaret came down one step to greet him and held out both her hands.
"Oh, we are so glad to welcome you!" Then turning to her companion she
said: "Mother, this is Mr. Horn, who has been so good to me all summer."

The old lady--she was very deaf--cupped one hand behind her ear, and
with a gracious smile extended the other to Oliver.

"I am so pleased you came, sir, and I want to thank you for being so
kind to our daughter. Her brother John could not go with her, and
husband and I are most too old to leave home now." The voice was as
sweet and musical as a child's, not the high-keyed, strained tone of
most deaf people. When they all stood on the porch level Margaret
touched Oliver's arm.

"Speak slowly and distinctly, Ollie," she whispered, "then mother can
hear you."

Oliver smiled in assent, took the old lady's thin fingers, and with a
cordiality the more pronounced because of a certain guilty sense he had
for his feeling of repugnance to her father, said:

"Oh, but think what a delight it was for me to be with her. Every day
we painted together, and you can't imagine how much she taught me; you
know there is nobody in the Academy class who draws as well as your
daughter." A light broke in Margaret's eyes at this, but she let him go
on. "She has told you, of course, of all the good times we have had
while we were at work" (Margaret had, but not all of them). "It is I
who should thank YOU, not only for letting Miss Margaret stay so long,
but for wanting me to come to you here in your beautiful home. It is my
first visit to this--but you are standing, I beg your pardon," and he
looked about for a chair.

There was only one chair on the porch--it was under Silas Grant.

"No, don't disturb yourself, Mr. Horn; I prefer standing," Mrs. Grant
answered, with a deprecatory gesture as if to detain Oliver. No one in
Brookfield ever intruded on Silas Grant's rights to his chair, not even
his wife.

Silas heard, but he did not move; he had performed his duty as host; it
was the women-folk's turn now to be pleasant. What he wanted was to be
let alone. All this was in his face, as he sat hunched up between the
arms of the splint rocker.

Despite the old lady's protest, Oliver made a step toward the seated
man. His impulse was to suggest to his host that the lady whom he had
honored by making his wife was at the moment standing on her two little
feet while the lord of the manor was quietly reposing upon the only
chair on the piazza, a fact doubtless forgotten by his Imperial
Highness.

Mr. Grant had read at a glance the workings of the young man's mind,
and knew exactly what Oliver wanted, but he did not move. Something in
the bend of Oliver's back as he bowed to his wife had irritated him. He
had rarely met Southerners of Oliver's class--never one so young--and
was unfamiliar with their ways. This one, he thought, had evidently
copied the airs of a dancing-master; the wave of Oliver's hand--it was
Richard's in reality, as were all the boy's gestures--and the fine
speech he had just made to his wife, proved it. Instantly the
instinctive doubt of the Puritan questioning the sincerity of whatever
is gracious or spontaneous, was roused in Silas's mind. From that
moment he became suspicious of the boy's genuineness.

The old lady, however, was still gazing into the boy's face,
unconscious of what either her husband or her guest was thinking.

"I am so glad you like our mountains, Mr. Horn," she continued. "Mr.
Lowell wrote his beautiful lines, 'What is so Rare as a Day in June,'
in our village, and Mr. Longfellow never lets a summer pass without
spending a week with us. And you had a comfortable ride down the
mountains, and were the views enjoyable?"

"Oh, too beautiful for words!" It was Margaret this time, not the
scenery; he could not take his eyes from her, as he caught the beauty
of her throat against the soft white of her dress, and the exquisite
tint of the October rose in contrast with the autumnal browns of her
hair. Never had he dreamed she could be so lovely. He could not believe
for one moment that she was the Margaret he had known; any one of the
Margarets, in fact. Certainly not that one of the Academy school in
blue gingham with her drawing-board in her lap, alone, self-poised, and
unapproachable, among a group of art-students; or that other one in a
rough mountain-skirt, stout-shoes, and a tam-o'-shanter, the gay and
fearless companion, the comrade, the co-worker. This Margaret was a
vision in white, with arms bare to the elbow--oh, such beautiful arms!
and the grace and poise of a duchess--a Margaret to be reverenced as
well as loved--a woman to bend low to.

During this episode, in which Silas sat studying the various
expressions that flitted across Oliver's face, Mr. Grant shifted
uneasily in his chair. At last his jaws closed with a snap, while the
two tufts of cotton-wool, drawn together by a frown, deeper than any
which had yet crossed his face, made a straight line of white. Oliver's
enthusiastic outburst and the gesture which accompanied it had removed
Silas Grant's last doubt. His mind was now made up.

The young fellow, however, rattled on, oblivious now of everything
about him but the joy of Margaret's presence.

"The view from the bend of the road was especially fine--" he burst
forth again, his eyes still on hers. "You remember, Miss Margaret, your
telling me to look out for it?" (he couldn't stand another minute of
this unless she joined in the talk). "In my own part of the State we
have no great mountains nor any lovely brooks full of trout. And the
quantity of deer that are killed every winter about here quite
astonishes me. Why, Mr. Pollard's son Hank, so he told me, shot
fourteen last winter, and there were over one hundred killed around
Moose Hillock. You see, our coast is flat, and many of the farms in my
section run down to the water. We have, it is true, a good deal of
game, but nothing like what you have here," and he shrugged his
shoulders, and laughed lightly as if in apology for referring to such
things in view of all the wealth of the mountains about him.

"What kind of game have you got?" asked Mr. Grant, twisting his head
and looking at Oliver from under the straight line of cotton-wool.

Oliver turned his head toward the speaker. "Oh, wild geese, and
canvas-back ducks and--"

"And negroes?" There was a harsh note in Silas's voice which sounded
like a saw when it clogs in a knot, but Oliver did not notice it. He
was too happy to notice anything but the girl beside him.

"Oh, yes, plenty of them," and he threw back his head, laughing this
time until every tooth flashed white.

"You hunt them, too, don't you? With dogs, most of the time, I hear."
There was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice now.

The boy's face sobered in an instant. He felt as if someone had shot at
him from behind a tree.

"Not that I ever saw, sir," he answered, quickly, straightening
himself, a peculiar light in his eyes. "We love ours."

"Love 'em? Well, you don't treat 'em as if you loved 'em."

Margaret saw the cloud on Oliver's face and made a step toward her
father.

"Mr. Horn lives in the city, father, and never sees such things."

"Well, if he does he knows all about it. You own negroes, don't you?"
The voice was louder; the manner a trifle more insistent. Oliver could
hardly keep his temper. Only Margaret's anxious face held him in check.

"No; not now, sir--my father freed all of his." The tones were thin and
cold. Margaret had never heard any such sound before from those
laughing lips.

Silas Grant was leaning forward out of his chair. The iron jaw was
doing the talking now.

"Where are these negroes?" he persisted.

"Two of them are living with us, sir. They are in my father's house
now."

"Rather shiftless kind of help, I guess. You've got to watch 'em all
the time, I hear. Steal everything they get their hands on, don't
they?" This was said with a dry, hard laugh that was meant to be
conciliatory--as if he expected Oliver to agree with him now that he
had had his say.

Oliver turned quickly toward his host's chair. For a moment he was so
stunned and hurt that he could hardly trust himself to speak. He looked
up and saw the expression of pain on Margaret's face, and instantly
remembered where he was and who was offending him.

"Our house-servants, Mr. Grant, are part of our home," he said, in a
low, determined voice, without a trace of anger. "Old Malachi, who was
my father's body-servant, and who is now our butler, is as much beloved
by everyone as if he were one of the family. For myself, I can never
remember the time when I did not love Malachi."

Before her father could answer, Margaret had her hand on Oliver's
shoulder.

"Don't tell all your good stories to father now," she said, with a
grateful smile. "Wait until after dinner, when we can all hear them.
Come, Mr. Horn, I know you want to get the dust out of your eyes." Then
in an aside, "Don't mind him, Ollie. It's only father's way, and he's
the dearest father in the world when you understand him," and she
pressed his arm meaningly as they walked to the door.

Before they reached the threshold the gate swung to with a click, and a
young man with a scythe slung over his shoulder strode up the path. He
was in the garb of a farm-hand; trousers tucked into his boots, shirt
open at the throat, and head covered by a coarse straw hat. This shaded
a good-natured, sun-burnt face, lighted by two bright blue eyes.

"Oh, here comes my brother John," Margaret cried. "Hurry up,
John--here's Mr. Horn."

The young man quickened his pace, stopped long enough to hang the
scythe on the porch-rail, lifted his hat from his head, and, running up
the short flight of steps, held out his hand cordially to Oliver, who
advanced to meet him.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Horn. Madge has told us all about you. Excuse my
rig--we are short of men on the farm, and I took hold. I'm glad of the
chance, for I get precious little exercise since I left college. You
came from East Branch by morning stage, I suppose? Oh, is that your
trunk dumped out in the road? What a duffer I was not to know. Wait a
minute--I'll bring it in," and he sprang down the steps.

"No, let me," cried Oliver, running after him. He had not thought of
his trunk since he had helped stow it in the boot outside Ezra
Pollard's gate--but then he had been on his way to Margaret's!

"No, you won't. Stay where you are--don't let him come, Madge."

The two young men raced down the path, Juno scampering after them.
John, who could outrun any man at Dartmouth, vaulted over the fence and
had hold of the brass handle before Oliver could open the gate.

"Fair-play!" cried Oliver, and they each grasped a handle--either one
could have held it out at arm's length with one hand--and brought it up
the garden-path, puffing away in pantomime as if it weighed a ton, and
into the house. There they deposited it in the bedroom that was to be
Oliver's during the two days of his visit at Brookfield Farm, Margaret
clapping her hands in high glee, and her mother holding back the door
for them to pass in.

Silas Grant watched the young fellows until they disappeared inside the
door, lifted himself slowly from his seat by his long arms, stretched
himself, with a yawn, to his full height, and said aloud to himself as
he pushed his chair back against the wall:

"His father's got a negro for body-servant, has he, and a negro for
butler--just like 'em. They all want somebody to wait on 'em."

At dinner Oliver sat on Mrs. Grant's right--her best ear, she
said--Margaret next, and John opposite. The father was at the foot, in
charge of the carving-knife.

During the pauses in the talk Oliver's eyes wandered around the room,
falling on the queer paper lining the walls--hunting-scenes, with
red-coated fox-hunters leaping five-barred gates; on the side-board
covered with silver, but bare of a decanter--only a pitcher filled with
cider which Hopeful Prime, the servant, a woman of forty in spectacles,
and who took part in the conversation, brought from the cellar; and
finally on a family portrait that hung above the fireplace. A portrait
was always a loadstone to Oliver.

Mrs. Grant had been watching his glance.

"That's Mr. Grant's great-uncle--old Governor Shaw," she said, with a
pleased smile; "and the next one to it is Margaret's great-grandmother
This one--" and she turned partly in her chair and pointed to a face
Oliver thought he had seen before, where, he couldn't remember--"is
John Quincy Adams. He was my father's most intimate friend," and a
triumphant expression overspread her face.

Oliver smiled, too, inwardly, to himself. The talk, to his great
surprise, reminded him of Kennedy Square. Family portraits were an
inexhaustible topic of conversation in most of its homes. He had never
thought before that people at the North had any ancestors--none they
were very proud of.

John looked up and winked. "Great scheme naming me after his Royal
Highness," he said, in an undertone. "Sure road to the White House;
they thought I'd make a good third."

Mrs. Grant went on, not having heard a word of John's aside: "This
table you're eating from, once belonged to Mr. Adams. He gave it to my
father, who often spent a week at a time with him in the White House."

"And I wish he was there now," interrupted Silas from the foot of the
table. "He'd straighten out this snarl we're drifting into. Looks to me
as if there would be some powder burnt before this thing is over. What
do your people say about it?" and he nodded at Oliver. He had served
the turkey, and was now sharpening the carver for the boiled ham,
trying the edge with his thumb, as Shylock did.

"I haven't been at home for some time, sir," replied Oliver, in a
courteous tone--he intended to be polite to the end--"and so I cannot
say. My father's letters, seem to be very anxious, but mother doesn't
think there'll be any trouble; at least she said so in her last letter."

Silas looked up from under the tufts of cotton-wool. Were the mothers
running the politics of the South, he wondered?

"And there's another thing you folks might as well remember. We're not
going to let you break up the Union, and we're not going to pay you for
your slaves, either," and he plunged the fork into the ham that the
spectacled waitress had laid before him and rose in his chair, the
knife poised in his hand to carve it the better.

"Mr. Horn hasn't got any slaves to sell, father--didn't you hear him
say so? His father freed his," laughed Margaret. Her father's
positiveness never really worried her. She rather liked it at times. It
was only because she had read in Oliver's face the impression her
father was making upon him that she essayed to soften the force of his
remarks.

"I heard him, Margaret, I heard him. Glad of it--but he's the only man
from his parts that I ever heard who did. The others won't give 'em up
so easy. They hung John Brown for trying to help the negroes free
themselves, don't forget that." Oliver looked up and knitted his brows.
Silas saw it. "I'm not meaning any offence to you, young man," he said
quickly, waving the knife toward Oliver. "I'm taking this question on
broad grounds. If I had my way I'd teach those slave-drivers--" and he
buried the knife in the yielding ham, "that--"

"They did just right to hang him," interrupted John. "Brown was a
fanatic, and ought to have stayed at home. No one is stronger than the
law. That's where old Ossawatomie Brown made a mistake." Everybody was
entitled to express his or her opinion in this house except the dear
old mother. Margaret's fearless independence of manner and thought had
been nurtured in fertile soil.

Mrs. Grant had been vainly trying to get the drift of the conversation,
her hand behind her ear.

"Parson Brown, did you say, John? He married us, sir," and she turned
to Oliver. "He lived here over forty years. The church that you passed
was where he preached."

John laughed, and so did Silas, at the old lady's mistake, but Oliver
only became the more attentive to his hostess. He was profoundly
grateful to the reverend gentleman for coming out of his grave at this
opportune moment and diverting the talk into other channels. Why did
they want to bother him with all this talk about slavery and the South,
when he was so happy he could hardly stay in his skin? It set his teeth
on edge--he wished that the dinner were over and everybody down at the
bottom of the sea but Margaret; he had come to see his sweetheart--not
to talk slavery.

"Yes, I saw the church," and for the rest of the dinner, Oliver was
entertained with the details in the life of the Rev. Leonidas Brown,
including his manner of preaching; the crowds who would go to hear him;
the number converted under the good man's ministrations; to all of
which Oliver listened with a closeness of attention that would have
surprised those who knew him unless they had discovered that his elbow
had found Margaret's during the recital, and that the biography of
every member of Brown's congregation might have been added to that of
the beloved pastor without wearying him in the slightest degree.

When the nuts were served--Silas broke his with his fingers--his host
made one more effort to draw Oliver into a discussion, but Margaret
stopped it by exclaiming, suddenly:

"Where shall Mr. Horn smoke, mother?" She wanted Oliver to herself--the
family had had him long enough.

"Why, does he want to SMOKE?" she answered, with some consternation.

"Yes, of course he does. All painters smoke."

"Well, I don't know; let me see." The old lady hesitated as if seeking
the choice between two evils. "I suppose in the sitting-room. No--the
library would be better."

"Oh, I won't smoke at all if your mother does not like it," Oliver
protested, springing from his chair.

"Oh, yes, you will," interrupted John. "I never smoke, and father
don't, but I know how good a pipe tastes. Let's go into the library."

Margaret gave Oliver the big chair and sat beside him. It was a small
room, the walls almost hidden with books; the windows filled with
flowering plants. There was a long table piled up with magazines and
pamphlets, and an open fireplace, the wall above the mantel covered
with framed pictures of weeping-willows worked out with hair of dead
relatives, and the mantel itself with faded daguerreotypes propped
apart like half-opened clam-shells.

Mr. Grant on leaving the dining-room walked slowly to the window
without looking to the right or left, dropped into a chair and gazed
out through the leaves of a geranium. The meal was over. Now he wanted
rest and quiet. When Mrs. Grant entered the library and saw the wavy
lines of tobacco-smoke that were drifting lazily about the room she
stopped, evidently annoyed and uneasy. No such sacrilege of her library
had taken place for years; not since her Uncle Reuben had come home
from China. The waves of smoke must have caught the expression on her
face, for she had hardly reached Oliver's chair before they began
stealing along the ceiling in long, slanting lines until they reached
the doorway, when with a sudden swoop, as if frightened, and without
once looking back, they escaped into the hall.

The dear lady laid her hand on Oliver's shoulder, bent over him in a
tender, motherly way, and said:

"Do you think it does you any good?"

"I don't know that it does."

"Why should you do it, then?"

"But I won't if you'd rather I'd not." Oliver sprang to his feet, took
his pipe from his mouth, and was about to cross the room to knock the
ashes from it into the fireplace when Margaret laid her hand on his arm.

"No, don't stop. Mother is very foolish about some things--smoking is
one of them."

"But I can't smoke, darling," he said, in an undertone, "if your mother
objects." The mother law was paramount, to say nothing of the courtesy
required of him. Then he added, with a meaning look in his eyes--"Can't
we get away some place where we can talk?" Deaf mothers are a blessing
sometimes.

Margaret pressed his hand--her fingers were still closed over the one
holding the pipe.

"In a moment, Ollie," and she rose and went into the adjoining room.

Mrs. Grant went to her husband's side, and in her gentle mission of
peace put her arm around his neck, patting his shoulder and talking to
him in a low tone, her two yellow-white curls streaming down over the
collar of his coat. Silas slipped his hand over his wife's and for an
instant caressed it tenderly with his cold, bony fingers. Then seeing
Oliver's eyes turning his way he drew in his shoulders with a quick
movement and looked askance at his guest. Any public show of affection
was against Silas's creed and code. If people wanted to hug each other,
better do it upstairs, he would say, not where everybody was looking
on, certainly not this young man, who was enough of a mollycoddle
already.

John, now that Margaret had gone, moved over from the lounge and took
her seat, and the two young men launched out into a discussion of flies
and worms and fish-bait, and whether frog's legs were better than
minnows in fishing for pickerel, and what was the best-sized shot for
woodcock and Jack-snipe. Oliver told of the ducking-blinds, of the
Chesapeake, and of how the men sat in wooden boxes sunk to the water's
edge, with the decoy ducks about them, and shot the flocks as they flew
over. And John told of a hunting trip he had made with two East Branch
guides, and how they went loaded for deer and came back with a bear and
two cubs. And so congenial did they find each other's society that
before Margaret returned to the room--she had gone into her studio to
light the lamp under the tea-kettle--the two young fellows had
discovered that they were both very good fellows indeed, especially
Oliver and especially John, and Oliver had half promised to come up in
the winter and go into camp with John, and John met him more than
half-way with a promise to accept Oliver's invitation for a week's
visit in Kennedy Square the next time he went home, if that happy event
ever took place, when they would both go down to Carroll's Island for a
crack at a canvas-back.

This had gone on for ten minutes or more--ten minutes is an absurdly
long period of time under certain circumstances--when Margaret's voice
was heard in the doorway:

"Come, John, you and Mr. Horn have talked long enough; I want to show
him my studio if you'll spare him a moment."

John knew when to spare and when not to--oh, a very intelligent brother
was John! He did not follow and talk for another hour of what a good
time he would have duck-shooting, and of what togs he ought to
carry--spoiling everything; nor did he send his mother in to help
Margaret entertain their guest. None of these stupid things did John
do. He said he would go down to the post-office if Oliver didn't mind,
and would see him at supper, and Margaret said that that was a very
clever idea, as nobody had gone for the mail that day, and there were
sure to be letters, and not to forget to ask for hers. Awfully sensible
brother was John. Why aren't there more like him?

Entering Margaret's studio was like going back to Moose Hillock. There
were sketches of the interior of the school-house, and of the children,
and of the teacher who had taught the year before. There was Mrs. Taft
sitting on that very porch, peeling potatoes, with a tin pan in her
lap--would they ever forget that porch and the moonlight and the song
of the tree-toads, and the cry of the loon? There was Hank in
corduroys, with an axe over his shoulder; and Hank in a broad straw hat
and no shoes, with a fishing-pole in one hand; and Hank chopping wood;
the chips littering the ground. There was Ezra Pollard sitting in his
buckboard with a buffalo-robe tucked about him, and Samanthy by his
side. And best of all, and in the most prominent place, too, there was
the original drawing of the Milo--the one she was finishing when Oliver
upset Judson, and which, strange to say, was the only Academy drawing
which Margaret had framed--besides scores and scores of sketches of
people and things and places that she had made in years gone by.

The room itself was part of an old portico which had been walled up. It
had a fireplace at one end, holding a Franklin stove, and a skylight
overhead, the light softened by green shades. Here she kept her own
books ranged on shelves over the mantel; and in the niches and corners
and odd spaces a few rare prints and proofs--two Guido Renis and a
Leonardo, both by Raphael Morghen. Against the wall was an old
clothes-press with brass handles, its drawers filled with sketches, as
well as a lounge covered with chintz and heaped up with cushions. The
door between the studio and library had been taken off, and was now
replaced by a heavy red curtain. Margaret had held it aside for Oliver
to enter, and it had dropped back by its own weight, shutting them both
safely in.

I don't know what happened when that heavy red curtain swung into
place, and mother, father, sea, sky, sun, moon, stars, and the planets,
with all that in them is, were shut out for a too brief moment.

And if I did know I would not tell.

We go through life, and we have all sorts of sensations. We hunger and
are fed. We are thirsty, and reach an oasis. We are homeless, and find
shelter. We are ill, and again walk the streets. We dig and delve and
strain every nerve and tissue, and the triumph comes at last, and with
it often riches and honor. All these things send shivers of delight
through us, and for the moment we spread our wings and soar heavenward.
But when we take in our arms the girl we love, and hold close her
fresh, sweet face, with its trusting eyes, and feel her warm breath on
our cheeks, and the yielding figure next our heart, knowing all the
time how mean and good-for-nothing and how entirely unworthy of even
tying her shoe-strings we are, we experience a something compared with
which all our former flights heavenward are but the flutterings of bats
in a cave.

And the blessed John did not come back until black, dark night!--not
until it was so dark that you couldn't see your hand before you or the
girl beside you, which is nearer the truth; not until the stout woman
in spectacles with the conversational habit, had brought in a lard-oil
lamp with a big globe, which she set down on Margaret's table among her
books and papers. And when John did come, and poked his twice-blessed
head between the curtains, it was not to sit down inside and talk until
supper-times but to say that it was getting cold outside and that they
ought to have a fire if they intended to sit in the studio after
supper. (Oh, what a trump of a brother!) And if they didn't mind he'd
send Hopeful right away with some chips to start it. All of which Miss
Hopeful Prime accomplished, talking all the time to Margaret as she
piled up the logs, and not forgetting a final word to Oliver as she
left the room, to the effect that she "guessed it, must be kind o'
comfortin' to set by a fire"--such luxuries, of course, to her
thinking, being unknown in his tropical land, where the blacks went
naked and the children lay about in the sun munching watermelons and
bananas.

What an afternoon it had been! They had talked of the woods and their
life under the trees; of the sketches they made and how they could
improve them, and would; of the coming winter and the prospect of the
school being opened and what it meant to them if it did, and how much
more if it did not, and she be compelled to remain in Brookfield with
Oliver away all winter in New York, and of a thousand and one other
things that lay nearest their hearts and with which neither you nor I
have anything to do.

It was good, Margaret thought, to talk to him in this way, and see the
quick response in his eyes and feel how true and helpful he was.

She had dreaded his coming--dreaded the contrasts which she knew his
presence among them would reveal. She knew how punctiliously polite he
was, and how brusque and positive was her father. She realized, too,
how outspoken and bluff was John, and how unaccustomed both he and her
dear deaf mother were to the ways of the outside world. What would
Oliver think of them? What effect would her home life have on their
future? she kept saying to herself.

Not that she was ashamed of her people, certainly not of her father,
who really occupied a higher position than any of his neighbors. He was
not only a deacon in the church and chairman of the School Board, but
he had been twice sent to the Legislature, and at one time had been
widely discussed as a fitting candidate for Governor. Nobody in
Brookfield thought the less of him because of his peculiarities--many
of his neighbors liked him the better for his brusqueness; they
believed in a man who had the courage of his convictions and who spoke
out, no matter whose toes he trod on.

Nor could she be ashamed of her brother John--so kind to everybody; so
brave and generous, and such a good brother. Only she wished that he
had some of Oliver's courtesy, and that he would take off his hat when
a lady spoke to him in the road, and keep it off till she bade him
replace it, and observe a few of the other amenities; but even with all
his defects of manner--all of which she had never before noticed--he
was still her own dear brother John, and she loved him dearly.

And as for her mother--that most gentle and gracious of women--that one
person in the house who was considerate of everybody's feelings and
tolerant of everybody's impatience! What could Oliver find in her
except what was adorable? As she thought of her mother, a triumphant
smile crossed her face. "That's the one member of the Grant family,"
she said to herself, "whom my fine gentleman must admit is the equal of
any one of his top-lofty kinsfolk in Kennedy Square or anywhere else."
Which outburst the scribe must admit to himself was but another proof
of the fact that no such thing as true democracy exists the world over.

None of these thoughts had ever crossed her mind up to the time she met
Oliver on the bridge that first sunny morning. He had never discussed
the subject of any difference between their two families, nor had he
ever criticised the personality of anyone she knew. He had only BEEN
HIMSELF. The change in her views had come gradually and unconsciously
to her as the happy weeks flew by. Before she knew it she had realized
from his talk, from his gestures, even from the way he sat down or got
up, or handled his knife and fork, or left the room or entered it, that
some of her early teachings had led her astray, and that there might be
something else in life worth having outside of the four cardinal
virtues--economy, industry, pluck, and plain-speaking. And if there
were--and she was quite certain of it now--would Oliver find them at
Brookfield Farm? This was really the basis of her disquietude; the
kernel of the nut which she was trying to crack.

If any of these shortcomings on the part of his entertainers had been
apparent to Oliver, or if he had ever drawn any such deductions, or
noted any such contrasts, judged by the Kennedy Square code, no word of
disappointment had passed his lips.

Some things, it is true, during his visit at the farm, had deeply
impressed him, but they were not those that Margaret feared. He had
thought of them that first night when going over the events of the day
as they passed in review before him. One personality and one incident
had made so profound an impression upon him that he could not get to
sleep for an hour thinking about them. It was the stalwart figure of
John Grant in his broad-brimmed straw hat and heavy boots striding up
the garden-path with his scythe over his shoulder. This apparition, try
as he might, would not down at his bidding.

"Think of that young fellow," he kept repeating to himself. "The eldest
son and heir to the estate no doubt, a college-bred man and a most
charming gentleman, working like a common laborer in his father's
field. And proud of it, too--and would do it again and talk about it.
And yet I was so ashamed of working with my hands that I had to run
away from home for fear the boys would laugh at me."

Margaret heard the whole story from Oliver's lips the next morning with
many adornments, and with any amount of good resolutions for the
future. She listened quietly and held his hand the closer, her eyes
dancing in triumph, the color mounting to her cheeks, but she made no
reply.

Neither did she return the confidence and tell Oliver how she wished
her father could see some things in as clear a light, and be more
gentle and less opinionated. She was too proud for that.

And so the days, crowded thick with emotions, sped on.

The evening of their first one came and passed, with its half-hours
when neither spoke a word and when both trembled all over for the very
joy of living; and the morning of the second arrived, bringing with it
a happiness she had never known before, and then the morning of the
third--and the last day.

They had kept their secret even from John. Oliver wanted to inform her
father at once of his attachment, telling her it was not right for him
to accept the hospitality of her parents unless they understood the
whole situation, but she begged him to wait, and he had yielded to her
wishes.

They had all discussed him at their pleasure.

"Nice chap that young Horn," John had said to her the night before. "We
had three or four of 'em in my class, one from Georgia and two from
Alabama. They'd fight in a minute, but they'd make up just as quick.
This one's the best of the lot." He spoke as if they had all belonged
to another race--denizens of Borneo or Madagascar or the islands of the
Pacific.

"I have sent my love to his mother, my dear," Mrs. Grant had confided
to her early that same morning. "I am sure he has a good mother. He is
so kind and polite to me, he never lets me remember that I am deaf when
I talk to him," and she looked about her in her simple, patient way.

"Yes--perhaps so," said Silas, sitting hunched up in his chair. "Seems
sort of skippy-like to me. Something of a Dandy Jim, I should say. Good
enough to make men painters of, I guess." Artists in those days had few
friends North or South.

None of these criticisms affected Margaret. She didn't care what they
thought of him. She knew his heart, and so would they in time.

When Oliver had said all his public good-byes to the rest of the
family--the good-byes with which we have nothing to do had been given
and taken in the studio with the curtains drawn--he joined Margaret at
the gate.

They were standing in the road now, under the giant elm, waiting for
the stage. She stood close beside him, touching his arm with her own,
mournfully counting the minutes before the stage would come, her eyes
up the road. All the light and loveliness of the summers all the joy
and gladness of life, would go out of her heart when the door of the
lumbering vehicle closed on Oliver.




CHAPTER XVII

LIVE COALS FROM MISS CLENDENNING'S WOOD-FIRE


His good-byes said, one absorbing thought now filled Oliver's mind--to
reach Kennedy Square on the wings of the wind and there to pour into
the ears of his mother and Miss Lavinia, and of anyone else who would
listen, the whys and wherefores of his love for Margaret, with such
additional description of her personal charms, qualities, and talents
as would bring about, in the shortest possible time, the most amicable
of relations between Kennedy Square and Brookfield Farm. He was
determined that his mother should know her at once. He knew how strong
her prejudices were and what her traditions would cause her to think of
a woman who led the life that Margaret did, but these things did not
deter him. A new love now filled his heart--another and a different
kind of love from the one he bore his mother. One that belonged to him;
one that was his own and affected his life and soul and career. He was
prepared to fight even harder for this desire of his soul than for his
art.

There being no air-ships available for immediate charter, nor big
balloons waiting for passengers, with sand-bags ready for instant
unloading, nor any underground pneumatic tubes into which he could be
pumped and with a puff landed on his own doorstep in Kennedy Square,
the impatient lover was obliged to content himself with the back seat
of the country stage and a night ride in the train down the valley.

Then came a delay of a week in New York waiting for the return of Mr.
Slade to the city--"whom you must by all means see before coming home,"
so his mother's letter ran. This delay was made bearable by Waller,
Bowdoin, and old Professor Cummings who went into spasms of delight
over the boys' sketches. Waller especially predicted a sure future for
him if he would have the grit to throw overboard every other thing he
was doing and "stick it out and starve it out" until he pulled through
and became famous.

Mr. Slade, while welcoming him with both hands, was not so cheering.
The financial and political situations were no better, he said. They
had really become more alarming every day. The repudiation of Northern
accounts by Southern merchants had ceased--at least some of Morton,
Slade & Co.'s customers had redeemed their obligations and had
forwarded them their overdue remittances, tiding them over for a
time--but no one could say what was in store for any firm whose
business lay largely in the Southern States. He would, however, make
his word good. Oliver's situation was still open, and he could again
occupy his desk as soon as he returned from Kennedy Square. The length
of his service depended entirely on whether the country would go to war
or whether its difficulties could be satisfactorily settled in the next
Congress.

But none of these things--none of the more depressing ones--dulled for
an instant the purpose or chilled the enthusiasm of our young lover.
Wars, pestilence, financial panics and even social tidal-waves might
overwhelm the land and yet not one drop of the topmost edge of the
flood could wet the tips of his high-stepping toes: Margaret was his;
he trod an enchanted realm.

An enthusiasm of equal intensity, but of quite a different kind, had
taken possession of the Horn mansion as the hour of Oliver's arrival
approached, as anyone would have noticed who happened to be inside its
hospitable walls. Something out of the common was about to happen.
There was an unusual restlessness in Malachi totally at variance with
his grave and dignified demeanor. His perturbation was so great that he
even forgot the time-honored custom of wheeling his master's chair into
position and the equally time-honored salutation of "yo' chair's all
ready, Marse Richard." It was noticed, too, that he could not keep out
of the hall. Richard had to speak to him twice and Mrs. Horn had lifted
her head in astonishment when that hitherto attentive darky handed her
Richard's spectacles instead of her own. Or he would start to enter the
dining-room, his hands laden with plates, or the library, his arms
filled with logs to replenish the fire, and then stop suddenly and
listen with one foot raised, standing like an old dog locating a
partridge. So nervous did he become as the twilight deepened, and he
began to set the table for supper, that he dropped a cup, smashing it
into atoms, a thing that had not happened to him before in twenty
years--one of the blue and gilt--priceless heirlooms in the family, and
only used when a distinguished guest was expected. At another time he
would have dropped the whole tray with everything upon it, had not Aunt
Hannah saved it in time. How she came to be in the pantry with her two
eyes on the front door, when her place was in the kitchen with both of
them on the pots and kettles, no one could tell. Everything seemed to
be at sixes and sevens in the old house that night.

And the other members of the household inside the drawing-room seemed
just as restless. Richard, who had raked the coals of his forge, closed
the green door of his workshop, and had dressed himself an hour earlier
than usual, much to Malachi's delight, became so restless that he got
up from his easy-chair half a dozen times and roamed aimlessly about
the room, stopping to pick up a book, reading a line and laying it down
again. Mrs. horn dropped so many stitches that she gave up in despair,
and said she believed she would not knit.

Malachi heard him first.

"Dat's him--dat's Marse Ollie," he cried. "I know dat knock. Here he
is, Mistis. Here he is!" He sprang forward, threw wide the door and had
him by the hand before the others could reach him.

"Fo' Gawd, Marse Ollie, ain't ol' Malachi glad ter git his han's on yer
once mo'!"

It was unseemly and absurd how the old man behaved!

And the others were not far behind.

"My boy," exclaimed Mrs. Horn, as she held him close to her breast.
There are few words spoken in times like this.

Richard waited behind her until that imperceptible moment of silence
had passed--the moment a mother gets her arms around the son she loves.
Then when the sigh of restful relief that always follows had spent
itself, and she had kissed him with his cheek held fast to hers, Oliver
loosened his hold and threw his arms about his father's neck, patting
him between his shoulder-blades as he kissed him.

"Dear old dad! Oh, but it's good to get home! And Aunt Hannah, you
there?" and he extended his hand while his other arm was still around
his father's neck.

"Yas, Marse Oilie, dat's me; dat's ol' Hannah," and she stepped closer
and grasped his outstretched hand, smoothing it as she spoke. "Lord,
Marse Ollie, but ain't you filled out? You is de probable son, sho',
honey, come home to yo' people."

But Oliver was not through with Malachi. He must take both of his hands
this time and look into his eyes. It was all he could do to keep from
hugging him. It would not have been the first time.

"Been well, Mallie?"

Of course he had been; he saw it in his face. It was only to say
something to which the old darky could reply to--to keep in touch with
him--to know that he was speaking to this same old Malachi whom he had
so dearly loved.

"Middlin' po'ly, yas--middlin' po'ly, suh."

Malachi had not the slightest idea what he was talking about. He had
not been sick a minute since Oliver left. His heart was too near
bursting with pride at his appearance and joy over his return for his
mind to work intelligently.

"Dem Yankees ain't sp'iled ye; no, dey ain't. Gor-a-mighty, ain't
Malachi glad." Tears were standing in his eyes now. There was no one
but Richard he loved better than Oliver.

No fatted calf was spitted and roasted this night on Aunt Hannah's
swinging crane for this "probable son," but there was corn-pone in
plenty and a chafing dish of terrapin--Malachi would not let Aunt
Hannah touch it; he knew just how much Madeira to put in; Hannah always
"drowned" it, he would say. And there was sally-lunn and Maryland
biscuit; here, at last, Aunt Hannah was supreme--her elbows told the
story. And last of all there was a great dish of escalloped oysters
cooked in fossil scallop shells thousands of years old, that Malachi
had himself dug out of the marl-banks at Yorktown when he was a boy,
and which had been used in the Horn family almost as many times as they
were years old. Oh, for a revival of this extinct conchological
comfort! But no! It is just as well not to recall even the memories of
this toothsome dish. There are no more fossils, neither at Yorktown nor
anywhere else, and no substitute in china, tin, or copper will be of
the slightest use in giving their flavor.

Supper served and over, with Oliver jumping up half a dozen times to
kiss his mother and plumping himself down again to begin on another
relay of pone or terrapin or oysters, much to Malachi's delight ("He do
eat," he reported to Aunt Hannah. "I tell ye. He's bearin' very heavy
on dem scallops. Dat's de third shell.")--the doors were opened with a
flourish, and the three, preceded by Malachi, entered the drawing-room
in time to welcome the neighbors.

Nathan, who was already inside sitting by the fire, his long, thin legs
stretched out, his bunchy white hair, parted in the middle, falling to
his collar's edge, sprang up and shook Oliver's hand heartily. He had
charged Malachi, when he admitted him, to keep his presence secret. He
wanted them to have Oliver all to themselves.

Miss Clendenning entered a moment later with both hands held out. She
would not stop in the hall to unwind her nubia or take off her little
fur boots, but motioned Oliver to her knees after she had kissed him
joyously on both cheeks, and held out those two absurd little feet for
his ministrations, while Mrs. Horn removed her nubia and cloak.

The rat-a-tat at the door was now constant. Judge Bowman and old Dr.
Wallace and four or five of the young men, with the young girls,
entered, all with expressions of delight at Oliver's return home, and
later, with the air of a Lord High Mayor, Colonel John Clayton, of
Pongateague, with Sue on his arm. Clayton was always a picture when he
entered a room. He stood six feet and an inch, his gray hair brushed
straight back, his goatee curling like a fish-hook at its end.
"Handsome Jack Clayton" was still handsome at sixty.

After the Colonel had grasped Oliver's hand in his warmest manner, Sue
laid all of her ten fingers in his. It was as good as a play to watch
the little witch's face as she stood for a moment and looked Oliver
over. She had not written to him for months. She had had half a dozen
beaus since his departure, but she claimed him all the same as part of
her spoils. His slight mustache seemed to amuse her immensely.

"Are you glad to see me, Ollie?" she asked, looking archly at him from
under her lashes.

"Why, Sue!"

Of course he was glad--for a minute--not much longer. How young she is,
he thought, how provincial. As she rattled on he noticed the mass of
ringlets about her face and the way her head was set on her shoulders.
Her neck, he saw, was much shorter than Margaret's, and a little out of
drawing. Nor was there anything of that fearless look or toss of the
head like a surprised deer, which made Margaret so distinguished.
Oliver had arrived at that stage in his affection when he compared all
women to one.

All this time Sue was reading his mind. Trust a young girl for that
when she is searching a former lover's eyes for what lies behind them.
She was evidently nettled at what she found and had begun by saying
"she supposed the Yankee girls had quite captured his heart," when the
Colonel interrupted her by asking Oliver whether the Northern men
really thought they could coerce the South into giving up their most
treasured possessions.

He had been nursing his wrath all day over a fresh attack made on the
South by some Northern paper, and Oliver was just the person to vent it
upon--not that he did not love the lad, but because he was fresh from
the despised district.

"I don't think they want to, sir. They are opposed to slavery and so
are a good many of us. You have a wrong idea of the life at the North,
Colonel. You have never been North, I believe?"

"No, my dear Oliver, and I never intend to. If ever I go it will be
with a musket. They have had it all their own way lately with their
Harriet Stowes, William Lloyd Garrisons, and John Browns; it is our
turn now."

"Who do you want to run through the body, Clayton?" asked Richard,
joining the group and laying his hands affectionately on the Colonel's
shoulders.

"Anybody and everybody, Richard, who says we are not free people to do
as we please."

"And is anybody really saying so?"

"Yes; you see it every day in every Northern editorial--another
to-day--a most villainous attack which you must read. These Puritans
have been at it for years. This psalm-singing crew have always hated
us. Now, while they are preaching meekness and lowliness and the rights
of our fellow-men--black ones they mean--they are getting ready to wad
their guns with their hymn-books. It's all a piece of their infernal
hypocrisy!"

"But why should they hate us, Clayton?" asked Richard in a
half-humorous tone. He had no spirit of contention in him to-night, not
with Oliver beside him.

"Because we Cavaliers are made of different stuff; that's why! All this
talk about slavery is nonsense. These Nutmeg fellows approved of
slavery as long as they could make a dollar out of the traffic, and
then, as soon as they found out that they had given us a commercial
club with which to beat out their brains, and that we were really
dominating the nation, they raised this hue and cry about the
downtrodden negro and American freedom and the Stars and Stripes and a
lot of such tomfoolery. Do you know any gentleman who beats his
negroes? Do you beat Malachi? Do I beat my Sam, whom I have brought up
from a boy and who would lay down his life any day for me? I tell you,
Richard, it is nothing but a fight for financial and political mastery.
They're afraid of us; they've been so for years. They cried 'Wolf' when
the fugitive slave law was passed and they've kept it up ever since."

"No, I don't believe it," exclaimed Richard, with a positive tone in
his voice "and neither do you, Clayton. It's largely a question of
sentiment. They don't believe one man should hold another in bondage."

"That's where you are wrong. They don't care a fippenny bit about the
negro. If they ever succeed in their infernal purpose and abolish
slavery, and set the negro adrift, mark my words, they won't live with
him, and they won't let him come North and work alongside of their own
people. They'll throw him back on us after they have made a beggar and
a criminal of him. Only a Southerner understands the negro, and only a
Southerner can care for him. See what we have done for them! Every
slave that landed on our shores we have changed from a savage into a
man. They forget this."

Judge Bowman joined in the discussion--so did Dr. Wallace. The Judge,
in his usual ponderous way, laid down the law, both State and
National--the Doctor, who always took the opposite side in any
argument, asking him rather pointed questions as to the rights of the
Government to control the several States as a unit.

Richard held his peace. He felt that this was not the night of all
others to discuss politics, and he was at a loss to understand the
Colonel's want of selfrestraint. He could not agree with men like
Clayton. He felt that the utterance of such inflammatory speeches only
added fuel to the smouldering flame. If the ugly jets of threatening
smoke that were creeping out everywhere because of the friction between
the two sections were in danger of bursting into flame, the first duty
of a patriot, according to his creed, was to stand by with pails of
water, not with kegs of gunpowder. So, while Clayton's outspoken tirade
still filled the room, he with his usual tact did all he could to
soften the effect of his words. Then again, he did not want Oliver's
feelings hurt.

Malachi's entrance with his tray, just as the subject was getting
beyond control, put a stop to the discussion. The learned group of
disputants with the other guests quickly separated into little
coteries, the older men taking their seats about an opened card-table,
on which Malachi had previously deposited several thin glasses and a
pair of decanters, the ladies sitting together, and the younger people
laughing away in a corner, where Oliver joined them.

Richard and Nathan, now that the danger was averted (they were both
natural born peace-makers), stepped across the room to assist in
entertaining Miss Clendenning. The little lady had not moved from the
chair in which she sat when Oliver relieved her of her fur boots. She
rarely did move when once she had chosen a place for herself in a
drawing-room. She was the kind of woman who could sit in one place and
still be surrounded--by half-moons of adorers if she sat against the
wall, by full moons if she sat in the open. She had learned the art
when a girl.

"If Clayton would go among these people, my dear Lavinia," said
Richard, in a deprecating tone, drawing up a chair and seating himself,
beside her, "he would find them very different from what he thinks.
Some of the most delightful men I have ever met have come from the
States north of us. You know that to be so."

"That depends, Richard, on how far North you go," Miss Clendenning
answered, spreading her fan as she spoke, looking in between the sticks
as if searching for specimens. "In Philadelphia I find some very
delightful houses, quite like our own. In New York--well, I rarely go
to New York. The journey is a tiresome one and the hotels abominable.
They are too busy there to be comfortable, and I do not like noisy,
restless people. They give me a headache."

"Oliver has met some charming people, he tells me," said Richard. "Mr.
Slade took him into his own home and treated him quite like a son."

"Of course he did; why not?" Miss Clendenning was erect now, her eyes
snapping with roguish indignation. "Anybody would be glad to take
Oliver into their home, especially when they have two marriageable
daughters. Oliver's bow as he enters a room is a passport to any
society in the world, my dear Richard. My Lord Chesterfield Clayton has
no better manners nor any sweeter smile than our own Lorenzo. Watch
Oliver now as he talks to those girls."

Richard had been watching him; he had hardly taken his eyes from him.
Every time he looked at him his heart swelled the more with pride.

"And you think, Lavinia, Mr. Slade invited him because of his manners?"
He was sure of it. He only wanted her to confirm it.

"Of course. What else?" and she cut her eye at him knowingly. "How many
of the other clerks did he invite? Not one. I wanted to find out and I
made Ollie write me. They are queer people, these Northerners. They
affect to despise good blood and good breeding and good manners. That's
all fol-de-rol--they love it. They are eternally talking of
equality--equality; one man as GOOD as another. When they say that one
man is as GOOD as another, Richard, they mean that THEY are as good,
never the other poor fellow."

"Now, my dear Lavinia, stop a moment," laughed the inventor in protest.
"You do not mean to say there are really no gentlemen north of us?"

"Plenty of gentlemen, Richard, but few thoroughbreds. There is a
distinction, you know."

"Which do you value most?"

"Oh, the thoroughbred. A gentleman might some time offend you by
telling you the truth about yourself or your friends. The thoroughbred,
never," and she lifted her hands in mock horror.

"And he could be a rogue and yet his manners would save him?"

"Quite true, dear Richard, quite true. The most charming man I ever met
except your dear self"--and she smiled graciously and lowered her voice
as if what she was about to tell was in the strictest confidence--"was
a shrivelled-up old prince who once called on my father and myself in
Vienna. He was as ugly as a crab, and walked with a limp. There had
been some words over a card-table, he told me, and the other man fired
first. I was a young girl then, but I have never forgotten him to this
day. Indeed, my dear Nathan," and she turned to the old musician and
laid her wee hand confidingly on his knee, "but for the fact that the
princess was a most estimable woman and still alive, I might have
been--well, I really forget what I might have been, for I do not
remember his name, but it was something most fascinating in five or six
syllables. Now all that man ever did to make that unaccountable
impression upon me was just to pick up my handkerchief. Oh, Nathan, it
really gives me a little quiver to this day! I never watch Oliver bow
but I think of my prince. Now I have never found that kind of quality,
grace, bearing, presence--whatever you may choose to call it--in the
Puritan. He has not time to learn it. He despises such subtle
courtesies. They smack of the cavalier and the court to him. He is
content with a nod of the head and a hurried handshake. So are his
neighbors. They would grow suspicious of each other's honesty if they
did more. Tut, tut, my dear Richard! My prince's grooms greeted each
other in that way."

Richard and Nathan laughed heartily. "And you only find the manners of
the ante-chamber and the throne-room South?" asked the inventor.

"Um--not always. It used to be so in my day and yours, but we are
retrograding. It is unpardonable in our case because we have known
better. But up there" (and she pointed in the direction of the North
Star) "they never did know better; that's some excuse for them."

"Ah, you incorrigible woman, you must not talk so. You have not seen
them all. Many of the men who do me the honor to come to my workroom
are most delightful persons. Only last week there came one of the most
interesting scientists that I have met for--"

"Of course, of course, I have not a doubt of it, my dear Richard, but I
am talking of men, my friend, not dried mummies."

Again Richard laughed. One of his greatest pleasures was to draw Miss
Clendenning out on topics of this class. He knew she did not believe
one-half that she said. It was the way she parried his thrusts that
delighted him.

"Well, then, take Mr. Winthrop Pierce Lawrence. No more charming
gentleman ever entered my house. You were in London at the time or you
would certainly have dined with him here. Mr. Lawrence is not only
distinguished as a statesman and a brilliant scholar, but his manners
are perfect."

Miss Clendenning turned her head and looked at Richard under her
eyelashes. "Where did you say he was from?"

"Boston."

"Boston?" A rippling, gurgling laugh floated through the room.

"Yes, Boston. Why do you laugh?"

"Bostonians, my dear Richard, have habits and customs, never manners.
It is impossible that they should. They are seldom underbred, mind you,
they are always overbred, and, strange to say, without the slightest
sense of humor, for they are all brought up on serious isms and solemn
fads. The excitement we have gone through over this outrageous book of
this Mrs. Stowe's and all this woman movement is but a part of their
training. How is it possible for people who believe in such dreadful
persons as this Miss Susan Anthony and that Miss--something-or-other--I
forget her name--to know what the word 'home' really means and what
graces should adorn it? They could never understand my ugly prince, and
he?--well, he would be too polite to tell them what he thought of them.
No, my dear Richard, they don't know; they never will know, and they
never will be any better."

Oliver had crossed the room and had reached her chair.

"Who will never be any better, you dear Midget?" he cried.

"You, you dear boy, because you could not. Come and sit by me where I
can get my hand on you. If I had my way you would never be out of reach
of my five fingers."

Oliver brought up a stool and sat at her feet.

"Your Aunt Lavinia, Ollie," said Richard, rising to his feet (this
relationship was of the same character as that of Uncle Nathan Gill),
"seems to think our manners are retrograding."

"Not yours?" protested Oliver, with a laugh, as he turned quickly
toward Miss Clendenning.

"No, you sweetheart, nor yours," answered Miss Clendenning, with a
sudden burst of affection. "Come, now, you have lived nearly two years
among these dreadful Yankees--what do you think of them?"

"What could I think of people who have been so kind to me? Fred Stone
has been like a brother, and so has everybody else."

Mrs. Horn had joined the group and sat listening.

"But their manners, my son," she asked. "Do you see no difference
between them and--and--and your father's, for instance?" and she
motioned toward Richard who was now moving across the room to speak to
other guests.

"Dad is himself and you are yourself and I am myself," replied Oliver
with some positiveness. "When people are kind I never stop to think how
they do it."

"Lovely," Miss Clendenning whispered to Nathan. "Spoken like a
thoroughbred. Yes, he is BETTER than my ugly prince. He would always
have remembered how they did it."

"And you see no difference either in the ladies?" continued Mrs. Horn,
with increasing interest in her tones. "Are the young girls as sweet
and engaging?" She had seen Margaret's name rather often in his letters
and wondered what impression she had made upon him. Oliver's eyes
flashed and the color mounted to his cheeks. Miss Clendenning saw it
and bent forward a little closer to get his answer.

"Well, you see, mother, I do not know a great many, I am so shut up.
Miss Grant, whom I wrote you about, is--well, you must see her. She is
not the kind of girl that you can describe very well--she really is not
the kind of girl that you can describe at all. We have been together
all summer, and I stopped at her father's house for a few days when I
came down from the mountains. They live in the most beautiful valley
you ever saw."

Miss Clendenning was watching him closely. She caught a look that his
mother had missed.

"Is she pretty, Ollie?" asked Miss Lavinia.

"She is better than pretty. You would not say the Milo was pretty,
would you? There is too much in her for prettiness."

"And are the others like her?" The little lady was only feeling about,
trying to put her finger on the pulse of his heart.

"No; there is nobody like her. Nobody I have ever met."

Miss Clendenning was sure now.

Malachi's second entrance--this time with the great china bowl held
above his head--again interrupted the general talk.

Since the memory of man no such apple-toddy had ever been brewed!

Even Colonel Clayton, when he tasted it, looked over his glass and
nodded approvingly at its creator--a recognition of genius which that
happy darky acknowledged by a slight bend of his back, anything else
being out of the question by reason of the size of the bowl he was
carrying and the presence of his master and of his master's guests.

This deposited on a side table, another bowl filled with Olio--a most
surprising and never-to-be-forgotten salad of chicken and celery and
any number of other toothsome things--was placed beside it, together
with a plate of moonshines and one of Maryland biscuits.

Then came some music, in which Oliver sang and Miss Clendenning played
his accompaniments--the old plantation melodies, not the new songs--and
next the "wrappings up" in the hall, the host and hostess and the whole
party moving out of the drawing-room in a body. Here Nathan, with great
gallantry, insisted on getting down on his stiff marrow-bones to put on
Miss Clendenning's boots, while the young men and Oliver tied on the
girls' hoods, amid "good-byes" and "so glads" that he could come home
if only for a day, and that he had not forgotten them, Oliver's last
words being whispered in Miss Clendenning's ear informing her that he
would come over in the morning and see her about a matter of the
greatest importance. And so the door was shut on the last guest.

When the hall was empty Oliver kissed his father good-night, and,
slipping his arm around his mother's waist, as he had always done when
a boy, the two went slowly upstairs to his little room. He could not
wait a minute longer. He must unburden his heart about Margaret. This
was what he had come for. If his mother had only seen her it would be
so much easier, he said to himself as he pushed open his bedroom door.

"You are greatly improved, my son," she said, with a tone of pride in
her voice. "I see the change already." She had lighted the candle and
the two were seated on the bed, his arm still around her.

"How, mother?"

"Oh, in everything. The boy is gone out of you. You are more reposeful;
more self-reliant. I like your modesty too." She could tell him of his
faults, she could also tell him of his virtues.

"And the summer has done you good," she continued. "I felt sure it
would. Mr. Slade has been a steadfast friend of yours from the
beginning. Tell me now about your new friends. This Miss Grant--is she
not the same girl you wrote me about, some mouths ago--the one who drew
with you at the art school? Do you like her people?" This thought was
uppermost in her mind--had been in fact ever since she first saw
Margaret's name in his letters.

"Her mother is lovely and she has got a brother--a Dartmouth man--who
is a fine fellow. I liked him from the first moment I saw him;" Oliver
answered simply, wondering how he would begin.

"Is her father living?"

"Yes."

"What kind of a man is he?"

"Well--of course, he is not like our people. He is a--well--he always
says just what he thinks, you know. But he is a man of character and
position." He was speaking for Margaret now. "They have more family
portraits than we have." This was said in a tone that was meant to
carry weight.

"And people of education?"

"Oh, I should certainly say so. It is nothing but books all over the
house. Really, he has more books than Dad." This statement was to
strengthen the one regarding the family ancestors--both telling
arguments about Kennedy Square.

"And this girl--is she a lady?"

The question somehow put to flight all his mental manoeuvres. "She is
more than a lady, mother. She is the dearest--" He stopped, hesitated
for an instant, and slipping his arm around his mother's neck drew her
close to him. Then, in a torrent of words--his cheeks against hers--the
whole story came out. He was a boy again now; that quality in him that
would last all his life. She listened with her eyes on the floor, her
heart torn with varying emotions. She was disturbed, but not alarmed.
One phase of the situation stood out clearly in her practical mind--his
poverty and the impossibility of any immediate marriage. Before that
obstacle could be removed she felt sure his natural vacillation
regarding women would save him. He would forget her as he had Sue.

"And you say her brother works in the fields and that her father and
mother permitted this girl to leave home and sit night after night with
you young men with no other protection than that of a common
Irishwoman?" There was a tone of censure now in her voice that roused a
slight antagonism in Oliver.

"Why not? What could harm her? There was no other place for her to go
where she could learn anything."

Mrs. Horn kept still for a moment, looking on the floor. Oliver sat
watching her face.

"And your family, my son," she protested with a certain patient
disapproval in her tones. "Do they count for nothing? I, of course,
would love anybody you would make your wife, but you have others about
you. No man has a right to marry beneath him. Do not be in a hurry over
this matter. Come home for your wife when you are ready to marry. Give
yourself time to compare this girl, who seems to have fascinated you,
with--Sue, for instance, or any of the others you have been brought up
with."

Oliver shrugged his shoulders at the mention of Sue's name. He had
compared her.

"You would not talk this way, dearie; if you could see her," he replied
in a hopeless way as if the futility of making his mother understand
was now becoming apparent to him. "She is different from anyone you
ever met--she is so strong, so fine--such a woman in all that the word
means. Not something you fondle and make love to, remember, but a woman
more like a Madonna that you worship, or a Greek goddess that you might
fear. As to the family part of it, I am getting tired of it all,
mother. What good is Grandfather Horn or anybody else to me? I have got
to dig my way out just as they did. Just as dear old Dad is doing. If
he succeeds in his work who will help him but himself? There have been
times when I used to love to remember him sitting by his reading-lamp
or with his violin tucked under his chin, and I was proud to think he
was my father. Do you know what sets my blood on fire now? It is when I
think of him standing over his forge and blowing his bellows, his hands
black with coal. I understand many things, dearie, that I knew nothing
about when I left home. You used to tell me yourself that everybody had
to work, and you sent me away to do it. I looked upon it then as a
degradation. I see it differently now. I have worked with all my might
all summer, and I have brought back a whole lot of sketches that the
boys like. Now I am going to work again with Mr. Slade. I do not like
his work, and I do love mine, but I am going to stick to his all the
same. I have got something to work for now," and his face brightened.
"I am going to win!"

She did not interrupt him. It was better he should unburden his heart.
She was satisfied with his record; if he went wrong she only was to
blame. But he was not going wrong; nor was there anything to worry
about--not even his art--not so long as he kept his place with Mr.
Slade and only took it up as a relaxation from more weighty cares. It
was only the girl that caused her a moment's thought.

She saw too, through all his outburst, a certain independence and a
fearlessness and a certain fixedness of purpose that sent an exultant
thrill through her even when her heart was burdened with the thought of
this new danger that threatened him. She had sent him away for the
fault of instability, and he had overcome it. Should she not now hold
fast, as she had before, and save him the second time from this girl
who was beneath him in station and who would drag him down to her
level, and so perhaps ruin him?

"We will not talk any more about it to-night, my son," she said, in
tender tones, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek--it was
through his affections that she controlled him. "You should be tired
out with your day's journey and ought to rest. Take my advice--do not
ask her to be your wife yet. Think about it a little and see some other
women before you make up your mind."

A delicious tremor passed through Oliver. He HAD asked her, and she HAD
promised! He remembered just the very day, the hour, the minute. That
was the bliss of it all! But this he did not tell his mother. He would
not hurt her any further now. Some other day he would tell her; when
she could see Madge and judge for herself. No, not to-night, and so
with the secret untold he kissed her and led her to her room.

And yet strange to say it was the one only thing in all his life that
he had kept from her.

Ah! these mothers! who make lovers of their only sons, dominating their
lives! How bitter must be the hours when they realize that another's
arms are opening for them!

And these boys--what misgivings come; what doubts. How the old walls,
impregnable from childhood, begin to crumble! How little now the dear
mother knows--she so wise but a few moons since. How this new love
steps in front of the old love and claims every part of the boy as its
very own.


Faithful to her promise, Miss Clendenning waited the next morning for
Oliver in her little boudoir that opened out of the library. A bright
fire blazed and crackled, sending its beams dancing over the room and
lighting up the red curtains that hung behind her writing-desk, its top
covered with opened letters--her morning's mail: many bore foreign
postmarks, and not a few were emblazoned with rampant crests sunk in
little dabs of colored wax. She wore a morning gown of soft white
flannel belted in at the waist. Covering her head and wound loosely
about her throat was a fluff of transparent silk, half-concealing the
two nests of little gray and brown knots impaled on hair-pins. These
were the chrysalides of those gay butterfly side-curls which framed her
sweet face at night and to which she never gave wing until after
luncheon, no matter who called. The silk scarf that covered them this
morning was in recognition of Oliver's sex.

She had finished her breakfast and was leaning forward in her
rocking-chair, her elbows on her knees, her tiny feet resting on the
fender. She was watching the fire-fairies at work building up their
wonderful palaces of molten gold studded with opals and rubies. The
little lady must have been in deep thought, for she did not know Oliver
had entered until she felt his arm on her shoulder.

"Ah, you dear fellow. No, not there; sit right here on this cricket by
my side. Stop, do not say a word. I have been studying it all out in
these coals. I know all about it--it is about the mountain girl,
this--what do you call her?"

"Miss Grant."

"Nonsense! What do YOU call her?"

"Madge."

"Ah, that's something like it. And you love her?"

"Yes." (Pianissimo.)

"And she loves you?"

"YES." (Forte.)

"And you have told her so?"

"YES!" (Fortissimo.)

"Whew!" Miss Clendenning caught her breath and gave a little gasp.
"Well, upon my word! You don't seem to have lost any time, my young
Romeo. What does her father say?"

"He doesn't know anything about it."

"Does anybody except you two babes in the wood?"

"Yes, her mother."

"And yours? You told her last night. I knew you would."

"Not everything; but she is all upset."

"Of course she is. So am I. Now tell me--is she a LADY?"

"She is the dearest, sweetest girl you--"

"Come now, come now, answer me. They are all the dearest and sweetest
things in the world. What I want to know is, is she a lady?"

"Yes."

"True now, Ollie--honest?"

"Yes, in every sense of the word. A woman you would love and be proud
of the moment you saw her."

Miss Clendenning took his face in her hands and looked down into his
eyes. "I believe you. Now what do you want me to do?"

"I want her to come down here so everybody can see her. If I had a
sister she could invite her, and it would be all right, and maybe then
her mother would let her come."

"And you want me to play the sister and have her come here?"

Oliver's fingers closed tight over Miss Clendenning's hand. "Oh,
Midget, if you only would, that would fix everything. Mother would
understand then why I love her, and Madge could go back and tell her
people about us. Her father is very bitter against everybody at the
South. They would feel differently if Madge could stay a week with us."

"Why won't her father bring her?"

"He never leaves home. He would not even take her to the mountains,
fifteen miles away. She could never paint as she does if she had relied
upon him. Mother and Mr. Grant are both alike in their hatred of art as
a fitting profession for anybody, and I tell you that they are both
wrong."

Miss Clendenning looked up in surprise. She had never seen the boy take
a stand of this kind against one of his mother's opinions. Oliver saw
the expression on the little lady's face and kept on, his cheeks
flushed and a set look about his eyes.

"Yes, wrong. I have never believed mother could be wrong in anything
before, and when she wanted me to give up painting I did so because I
thought she knew best. But I know she's not right about Madge, and if
she is wrong about her, how do I know she was not wrong about my
working with Mr. Crocker?"

Margaret's words that day in the bark slant were now ringing in his
ears. He had never forgotten them--"Your mother cannot coddle you up
forever."

Miss Clendenning held her peace. She was not astonished at the revolt
in the boy's mind. She had seen for months past in his letters that
Oliver's individuality was asserting itself. It was the new girl whom
he was defending--the woman he loved. This had given him strength. She
knew something of what he felt, and she knew what blind obedience had
done for her. With a half-smothered sigh, she reached over Oliver's
head, dipped a quill pen in her inkstand, and at Oliver's dictation,
wrote Margaret's address.

"I will invite her at once," she said.

Long after Oliver had gone Miss Clendenning sat looking into the fire.
The palaces of rose and amber that the busy fingers of the fire fairies
had built up in the white heat of their enthusiasm were in ruins. The
light had gone out. Only gray ashes remained, with here and there a
dead cinder.

Miss Clendenning rose from her chair, stood a moment in deep thought,
and said, aloud:

"If she loves him, she shall have him. There shall be no more desolate
firesides if I can help it."


Early the next morning, she mailed by the first post a letter so dainty
in form and so delicate in color that only a turtle-dove should have
carried it to Brookfleld Farm, and have dropped it into Margaret's
hand. This billet-doux began by inviting Miss Margaret Grant of
Brookfield Farm to pass a week with Miss Lavinia Clendenning, of
Kennedy Square, she, Miss Lavinia, desiring to know the better one who
had so charmed and delighted "our dear Oliver," and ended with "Please
say to your good mother, that I am twice your age, and will take as
much care of you as if you were my own daughter. I feel assured she
will waive all ceremony when she thinks of how warm a greeting awaits
you."

Margaret looked at the post-mark, and then at the little oval of violet
wax bearing the crest of the Clendennings--granted in the time of Queen
Elizabeth for distinguished services to the Throne--and after she had
read it to her mother, and had shown the seal to her father, who had
put on his glasses, scanned it closely, and tossed it back to her with
a dry laugh, and after she had talked it all over with John, who said
it was certainly very kind of the woman, and that Oliver's people were
evidently "nobs," but, of course, Madge couldn't go, not knowing any of
them, Margaret took a sheet of plain white paper from her desk, thanked
Miss Clendenning for her kind thought of her, and declined the honor in
a firm, round hand. This she closed with a red wafer, and then, with a
little bridling of her head and a determined look in her face, she laid
the letter on the gate-post, ready for the early stage in the morning.

This missive was duly received by Miss Clendenning, and read at once to
Mrs. Horn, who raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips in deep thought.
After some moments she looked over her glasses at Miss Lavinia and said:

"I must say, Lavinia, I am very greatly astonished. Won't come? She has
done perfectly right. I think all the better of her for it. Really,
there may be something in the girl after all. Let me look at her
handwriting again--writes like a woman of some force. Won't come? What
do you think, Lavinia?"

"Merely a question of grandmothers, my dear; she seems to have had one,
too," answered the little old maid, with a quizzical smile in her eye,
as she folded the letter and slipped it in her pocket.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAST HOURS OF A CIVILIZATION


Margaret's decision saddened Oliver's last days at home, and he
returned to New York with none of his former buoyancy. Here other
troubles began to multiply. Before the autumn was gone, Morton, Slade &
Co., unable longer to make headway against the financial difficulties
that beset them, went to the wall, involving many of their
fellow-merchants. Oliver lost his situation, in consequence, and was
forced to support himself during the long dreary winter by making
lithographic drawings for Bianchi, at prices that barely paid his
board. His loneliness in the garret room became more intense, Fred
being much away and the occupants of the other rooms being either
strangers to him or so uncongenial that he would not make their
acquaintance.

To his own troubles were added other anxieties. The political outlook
had become even more gloomy than the financial. The roar of Sumter's
guns had reverberated throughout the land, and men of all minds were
holding their breath and listening, with ears to the ground, for the
sound of the next shot. Even Margaret's letters were full of
foreboding. "Father is more bitter against the South than ever," she
wrote. "He says if he had ten sons each should shoulder a musket. We
must wait, Ollie dear. I can only talk to mother about you. Father
won't listen, and I never mention your name before him. Not because it
is you, Ollie, but because you represent a class whom he hates. Dear
John would listen, but he is still in Boston. Even his fellow-classmen
want to fight, he says. I fear all this will hurt my work, and keep me
from painting."

These letters of Margaret's, sad as they were, were his greatest and
sometimes his only comfort. She knew his ups and downs and they must
have no secrets from each other. From his mother, however, he kept all
records of his privations during these troublous months. Neither his
father nor his dear mother must deprive themselves for his benefit.

During these dreary days he often longed for Kennedy Square and for
those whom he loved, but it was not until one warm spring day, when the
grass was struggling into life, and the twigs on the scraggy trees in
Union Square were growing pink and green with impatient buds and leaves
that he had his wish. Then a startling telegram summoned him. It read
as follows:

"Father ill. Come at once.

"Mother"

Instinctively Oliver felt in his pockets for his purse. There was just
money enough to take him to Kennedy Square and back.

His mother met him at the door.

"It was only a fainting turn, my son," were her first words. "I am
sorry I sent for you. Your father is himself again, so Dr. Wallace
says. He has been working too hard lately--sometimes far into the
night. I could have stopped you from coming; but, somehow, I wanted
you--" and she held him close in her arms, and laid her cheek against
his. "I get so lonely, my boy, and feel so helpless sometimes."

The weak and strong were changing places. She felt the man in him now.

Nathan was in the library. He and Malachi had been taking turns at
Richard's bedside. Malachi had not closed his eyes all night. Nathan
came out into the hall when he heard Oliver's voice, and put his hand
on his shoulder.

"We had a great scare, Ollie," he said, "but he's all right again,
thank God! He's asleep now--better not wake him." Then he put on his
coat and went home.

Malachi shook his head. "Sumpin's de matter wid him, an' dis ain't de
las' ob it. Drapped jes' like a shote when he's hit, Marse Oliver," he
said, in a low whisper, as if afraid of disturbing his master on the
floor above. "I was a-layin' out his clo'es an' he called quick like,
'Malachi! Malachi!' an' when I got dar, he was lyin' on de flo' wid his
head on de mat. I ain't nebber seen Marse Richard do like dat befo'--"
The old servant trembled as he spoke. He evidently did not share
Nathan's hopeful views. Neither did Dr. Wallace, although he did not
say so to anyone.

Their fears, however, were not realized. Richard not only revived, but
by the end of the week he was in the drawing-room again, Malachi, in
accordance with the time-honored custom, wheeling out his chair,
puffing up the cushions, and, with a wave of the hand and a sweeping
bow, saying:

"Yo' ch'ar's all ready, Marse Richard. Hope you'se feelin' fine dis
evenin', sah!"

The following day he was in his "li'l' room," Oliver helping him. It
was the lifting of the heavy plate of the motor that had hurt Richard,
so Nathan told him; not the same motor which Oliver remembered;
another, much larger and built on different lines. The inventor now
used twenty-four cells instead of ten, and the magnets had been wrapped
with finer wire.

These days in the shop were delightful to Oliver. His father no longer
treated him as an inexperienced youth, but as his equal. "I hope you
will agree with me, my son," he would say; or, "What do you think of
the idea of using a 'cam' here instead of a lever?" or, "I wish you
would find the last issue of the Review, and tell me what you think of
that article of Latrobe's. He puts the case very clearly, it seems to
me," etc. And Oliver would bend his head in attention and try to follow
his father's lead, wishing all the time that he could really be of use
to the man he revered beyond all others, and so lighten some of the
burdens that were weighing him down.

And none the less joyful were the hours spent with his mother. All the
old-time affection, the devotion of a lover-son, were lavished upon
her. And she was so supremely happy in it all. Now that Richard had
recovered, there was no other cloud on her horizon, not even that of
the dreaded mortgage which owing to some payments made Richard by a
company using one of his patents had been extended and its interest
paid for two years in advance in deference to her urgent request. All
anxiety as to the Northern girl had happily passed out of her mind. If
Oliver intended marrying Miss Grant he would have told her, she knew.
Then again, he was so much stronger and wiser now--so much more
thoughtful than he had been--so much more able to keep his head in
matters of this kind.

As his position was different with his father in the "li'l' room" and
with his mother in the stillness of her chamber--for often they talked
there together until far into the night--so were his relations altered
with his old friends and neighbors in the drawing-room. While the young
men and girls filled the house as had always been their custom, the
older men, as well, now paid their respects to Richard Horn's son.

"One of our own kind," Judge Bowman said to Richard. "Does you credit,
Horn--a son to be proud of."

Even Amos Cobb came to look him over, a courtesy which pleased Richard
who greatly admired the Vermonter, and who had not hesitated to express
his good opinion of him on more than one occasion before his own and
Cobb's friends.

"A man of force, gentlemen," Richard had said, "of great kindness of
heart and with a wide range of vision. One who has the clearest ideas
of what makes for the good of his country; a man too, not ashamed of
his opinions and with ample courage to defend them. He deserves our
unqualified respect, not our criticism."

When Cobb heard of Richard's outspoken defence of him he at once called
on the inventor at his workshop--a thing he had not done for mouths,
and asked to see the motor, and that same night astonished the circles
about the club tables, by remarking, in a tone of voice loud enough for
everybody to hear: "We have all been wrong about Horn. He has got hold
of something that will one day knock steam higher than Gilderoy's
kite." A friendship was thus established between the two which had
become closer every day--the friendship of a clearer understanding; one
which was unbroken during the rest of their lives.

It was quite natural, therefore, that Amos Cobb should be among
Oliver's earliest callers. He must have been pleased with his
inspection, for he took occasion at the club to say to Colonel Clayton,
in his quick, crisp way:

"Dropped in at Horn's last night. His boy's over from New York. Looks
like a different man since he quit fooling round here a couple of years
ago. Clean cut a young fellow as I've seen for many a day. Got a look
out of his eyes like his mother's. Level-headed woman, his mother--no
better anywhere. If all the young bloods South had Oliver Horn's ideas
we might pull through this crisis."

To which my Lord Chesterfield of Kennedy Square merely replied only
with a nod of the head and a drawing together of the eyebrows. He found
it difficult to tolerate the Vermonter in these days with his continued
tirades against "The epidemic of insanity sweeping over the South," as
Cobb would invariably put it.


The scribe now reaches a night in Oliver's career fraught with such
momentous consequences that he would be glad to leave its story untold:

An unforgettable night indeed, both for those who were assembled there,
and for him who is the chronicler. He would fain lay down his pen to
recall again the charm and the sweetness and the old-time flavor of
that drawing-room: the soft lights of the candles; the perfume of the
lilacs coming in through the half-open windows; the merry laugh of the
joyous girl running through the Square to be ushered by Malachi a
moment later into the presence of her hostess, there to make her
courtesied obeisance before she joined a group of young people around
one of the red damask-covered sofas. And then Richard, dear Richard,
with his white hair and his gracious speech, and Miss Clendenning with
her manners of foreign courts, and the sweet-voiced hostess of the
mansion moving about among her guests; her guests who were her
neighbors and her friends; whose children were like her own, and whose
joys and sorrows were hers--guests, neighbors, friends many of whom
after this fatal night were to be as enemies never to assemble again
with the old-time harmony and love.

Malachi had brewed the punch; the little squat glasses were set out
beside the Canton china bowl, for it was the night of the weekly
musical and an unusually brilliant company had assembled in honor of
Oliver's arrival and of Richard's recovery.

The inventor was to play his own interpretations of Handel's Largo, a
favorite selection of Ole Bull, and one which the inventor and the
great virtuoso had played together some years before.

Miss Clendenning had taken her place at the piano, Nathan standing
beside her to turn the leaves of the accompaniment.

Richard had picked up his violin, tucked it under his chin, poised the
bow, and that peculiar hush which always precedes the sounding of the
first notes on evenings of this kind had already fallen upon the room,
when there came a loud rap at the front door that startled everyone and
the next instant Colonel Clayton burst in, his cheeks flaming, his hat
still on his head.

"Ten thousand Yankees will be here in the morning, Horn!" he gasped,
out of breath with his run across the Square, holding one hand to his
side as he spoke, and waving an open telegram in the other. "Stop! This
is no time for fiddling. They're not going round by water; they're
coming here by train. Read that," and he held out the bit of paper.

The Colonel's sudden entrance and the startling character of the news,
had brought every man to his feet.

Richard laid down his violin, read the telegram quietly, and handed it
back.

"Well, suppose they do come, Clayton?"

His voice was so sustained, and his manner so temperate, that a certain
calming reassurance was felt.

"Suppose they DO come! They'll burn the town, I tell you," shouted the
infuriated man, suddenly remembering his hat and handing it to Malachi.
"That's what they're coming for. We want no troops in our streets, and
the Government ought to know it. It's an outrage to send armed men here
at this time!"

"You're all wrong, Clayton," answered Richard, without raising his
voice. "You have always been wrong about this matter. There are two
sides to this question. Virginia troops occupied Harper's Ferry
yesterday. If the authorities consider that more troops are needed to
protect Washington, that's their affair, not yours nor mine."

"We'll MAKE it our affair. What right has this damnable Government to
march their troops through a free and sovereign State without its
permission! Whom do they think this town belongs to, I want to know,
that this Northern scum should foul it. Not a man shall set foot here
if I can help it. I would rather--"

Richard turned to stay the torrent of invectives in which such words as
"renegades," "traitors," "mud-sills," were heard, but the Colonel,
completely unmanned by the rage he was in, and seemingly unconscious of
the presence of the ladies, waved him aside with his hand, and faced
the row of frightened, expectant faces.

"Gentlemen, when you are through with this tom-foolery, I shall be glad
if you will come to the club; any of you who have got guns had better
look them up; they'll be wanted before this is over. We'll meet these
dirty skinflints with cold lead and plenty of it."

Oliver's face flushed at the Colonel's words, and he was about to
speak, when his mother laid her hand on his arm. Visions of the kindly
face of Professor Cummings, and the strong well-knit figure of Fred
Stone, John Grant, Hank, Jonathan Gordon, and the others whom he loved
came before his eyes.

Richard raised his hand in protest:

"You are mad, Clayton; you don't know what you are doing. Stop these
troops and our streets will run blood. I beg and beseech you to keep
cool. Because South Carolina has lost her head, that is no reason why
we should. This is not our fight! If my State called me to defend her
against foreign invasion, old as I am I would be ready, and so should
you. But the Government is part of ourselves, and should not be looked
upon as an enemy. You are wrong, I tell you, Clayton."

"Wrong or right, they'll have to walk over my dead body if they attempt
to cross the streets of this town. That's my right as a citizen, and
that I shall maintain. Gentlemen, I have called a meeting at the club
at ten o'clock to-night. All of you able to carry a gun will do me the
kindness to be present. I'd rather die right here in my tracks than let
a lot of low-lived mud-sills who never entered a gentleman's house in
their lives come down here at the beck and call of this rail-splitter
they've put in the White House and walk over us rough-shod! And you,
Horn, a Virginian, defend it! By God, sir, it's enough to make a man's
blood boil!"

The inventor's eyes flashed. They blazed now as brightly as those of
Clayton. Not even a life-long friend had the right to use such language
in his presence, or in that of his guests. Richard's figure grew tense
with indignation. Confronting the now reckless man, he raised his hand
and was about to order him out of the house when Oliver stepped quickly
in front of his father.

"You are unjust, Colonel Clayton." The words came slowly between the
boy's partly closed teeth. "You know nothing of these people. I have
lived among them long enough not only to know but to love them. There
are as many gentlemen North as South. If you would go among them as I
have done, you would be man enough to admit it."

The Colonel turned upon him with a snarl:

"And so you have become a dirty renegade, have you, and gone back on
your blood and your State? That's what comes of sending boys like you
away from home!"

The guests stood amazed. The spectacle of the most courteous man of his
time acting like a blackguard was more astounding than the news he had
brought. Even Malachi, at the open door, trembled with fear.

As the words fell from his lips Mrs. Horn's firm, clear voice, crying
"Shame! Shame!" rang through the room. She had risen from her seat and
was walking rapidly to where the Colonel was standing.

"Shame, I say, John Clayton! How dare you speak so? What has our young
son ever done to you, that you should insult him in his father's house!
What madness has come over you?"

The horrified guests looked from one to the other. Every eye was fixed
on the Colonel, shaking with rage.

For a brief instant he faced his hostess, started to speak, checked
himself as if some better judgment prevailed, and with upraised hands
flung himself from the room, shouting, as he went:

"Ten o'clock, gentlemen! Chesapeake Club! Every man with a gun!"

Richard, astounded at Clayton's action and now thoroughly convinced of
the danger of the situation and determined to do what he could to
thwart the efforts of such men as the Colonel and his following, laid
his violin in its case, turned to his frightened guests and with a few
calming words and a promise to send each one of them word if any
immediate danger existed, called Oliver and Nathan to him, and taking
his cloak and hat from Malachi's outstretched trembling hands started
for the club. Once outside it was easy to see that a feeling of intense
and ominous excitement was in the air. Even on the sidewalk and on the
street corners, men stood silent, huddled together, their eyes on the
ground, the situation being too grave for spoken words.

On arriving they found its halls already filled with angry and excited
men discussing the threatened invasion, many of whom met the young man
with scowling looks, the Colonel having evidently informed them of
Oliver's protest.

A few of the members had brought their sporting guns. These had been
handed to the gouty old porter, who, half-frightened out of his wits,
had stacked them in a row against the wall of the outer hall. Billy
Talbot arrived a few moments later carrying a heavy fowling-piece
loaded for swan. He had been dining out when summoned and had hurriedly
left the table, excusing himself on the ground that he had been "called
to arms." He had taken time, however, to stop at his own house, slip
out of his English dress-suit and into a brown ducking outfit.

"We'll shoot 'em on the run, damn 'em--like rabbits, sir," he said to
Cobb as he entered, the Vermonter being the only man likely to
communicate with the invaders and so make known the warlike intentions
of at least one citizen, and the utter hopelessness of any prolonged
resistance. Waggles, who had followed close on his master's heels, was
too excited to sit down, but stood on three legs, his eye turned toward
Talbot, as if wanting to pick up any game which Billy's trusty
fowling-piece might bring down.

A quiet, repressed smile passed, over Oliver's face as he watched
Waggles and his master; but he spoke no word to the Nimrod. He could
not help thinking how Hank Pollard would handle the fashion-plate if he
ever closed his great bony hands upon him.

Judge Bowman now joined the group, bowing to Richard rather coldly and
planting himself squarely in front of Oliver.

"There's only one side to this question, young man, for you," he said.
"Don't be fooled by those fellow up in New York. I know them--known
them for years. Look up there"--and he pointed to the portrait of
Oliver's ancestor above the mantel. "What do you think he would do if
he were alive to-day! Stick to your own, my boy--stick to your own!"

General Mactavish now hurried in, drawing off his white gloves as he
entered the room, followed by Tom Gunning, Carter Thorn, and Mowbray,
an up-country man. The four had been dining together and had also left
the table on receipt of the Colonel's message. They evidently
appreciated the gravity of the situation, for they stood just outside
the excited group that filled the centre of the large room, listening
eagerly to Richard's clear tones pleading for moderation--"in a crisis
which," he urged, "required the greatest public restraint and
self-control," and which would surely "plunge the State into the most
horrible of wars" if those about him listened to the counsels of such
men as Clayton and Judge Bowman.

During the whole discussion Amos Cobb stood silent, leaning against the
mantel-piece, his cold gray eyes fixed on the excited throng, his thin
lips curling now and then. When the Defence Committee, in spite of
Richard's protest, had at last been formed, and its members formally
instructed to meet the enemy outside the city and protest, first by
voice and then, if necessary, by arms, against the unwarrantable
invasion of the soil of their State, the Vermonter buttoned up his coat
slowly, one button after another, fastened each one with a determined
gesture, drew on his gloves, set his lips tight, singled out Oliver and
Richard, shook their hands with the greatest warmth, and walked
straight out of the club-house. Some time during the night he drove in
a hack to Mr. Stiger's house; roused the old cashier from his sleep;
took him and the big walled-town-key down to the bank; unlocked the
vault and dragged from it two wooden boxes filled with gold coin, his
own property, and which the month before he had deposited there for
safe-keeping. These, with Stiger's assistance, he carried to the hack.
Within the hour, the two boxes with their contents were locked up in
bureau-drawer in his own house awaiting their immediate shipment to New
York.


The next morning Malachi's wizened face was thrust inside Oliver's
bedroom door. He was shaking with terror, his eyes almost starting from
his head.

"Marse Ollie, Marse Ollie, git up quick as you kin! De Yankees is come;
de town is black wid 'em!"

Oliver sprang from his bed and stood half-dazed looking into Malachi's
eyes.

"How do you know? Who told you?"

"I done seen 'em. Been up since daylight. Dey got guns wid 'em. Fo'
Gawd dis is tur-ble!" The old man's voice trembled--he could hardly
articulate.

Oliver hurried into his clothes; stepped noiselessly downstairs so as
not to wake his father and mother, and, closing the front door softly
behind him, stood for a moment on the top step. Should he forget the
insults of the night before and go straight to Colonel Clayton, and try
to dissuade him from his purpose, or should he find the regiment and
warn them of their danger?

A vague sense of personal responsibility for whatever the day might
bring forth took possession of him--as though the turning-point in his
life had come, without his altogether realizing it. These men from the
North were coming to his own town, where he had been born and brought
up, and where they should be hospitably received. If Clayton had his
way they would be met with clenched hands and perhaps with blows. That
these invaders were armed, and that each man carried forty rounds of
ammunition and was perfectly able to take care of himself, did not
impress him. He only remembered that they were of the same blood as the
men who had befriended him, and that they were in great personal danger.

The angry shouts of a crowd of men and boys approaching the Square from
a side street, now attracted his attention. They rushed past Oliver
without noticing him, and, hurrying on through the gate, crossed the
park, in the direction of the railroad station and the docks. One of
the mob, lacking a club, stopped long enough to wrench a paling from
the rickety fence enclosing the Square, trampling the pretty crocuses
and the yellow tulips under foot. Each new arrival, seeing the gap,
followed the first man's example, throwing the branches and tendrils to
the ground as they worked, until the whole panel was wrecked and the
vines were torn from their roots. As they swept by the Clayton house,
half a dozen men, led by the Colonel, ran down the steps, and joined
the throng.

Oliver, seeing now that all his efforts for peace would be hopeless,
ran through the Square close behind the shouting mob, dashed down a
side street parallel to that through which the cars carrying the troops
were to pass on their way to Washington, turned into an alley, and
found himself on the waterfront, opposite one of the dock slips.

These slips were crowded with vessels, their bowsprits, like huge
bayonets, thrust out over the car-tracks, as if to protect the cellars
of the opposite warehouses, used by the ship-chandlers for the storage
of coarse merchandise, and always left open during the day. The narrow
strip of dock-front, between the car-tracks and the water-line--an
unpaved strip of foot-trodden earth and rotting planks, on which lay
enormous ship-anchors, anchor-chains in coils, piles of squared timber,
and other maritime properties, stored here for years--was now a
seething mass of people completely hiding the things on which they
stood.

Oliver mounted a pile of barrels in front of one of these ship-chandler
cellars, and, holding to an awning-post, looked off over the heads of
the surging crowd and in the direction of the railroad station at the
end of the long street. From his position on the top barrel he could
see the white steam of the locomotives rising above the buildings and
the line of cars. He could see, too, a yard engine backing and puffing,
as if making up a train.

Suddenly, without apparent cause, there rose above the murmurs of the
street an ominous sound, like that of a fierce wind soughing through a
forest of pines. All eyes were directed down the long street upon a
line of cars that had been shunted on the street-track; about these
moved a group of men in blue uniforms, the sun flashing on their
bayonets and the brass shields of their belts.

Oliver, stirred by the sound, climbed to the top of the awning-post for
a better view and clung to the cross-piece. Every man who could gain an
inch of vantage, roused to an extra effort by the distinct roar, took
equal advantage of his fellows. Sailors sprang farther into the rigging
or crawled out to the end of the bowsprits; the windows of the
warehouses were thrown up, the clerks and employees standing on the
sills, balancing themselves by the shutters; even the skylights were
burst open, men and boys crawling out edging their way along the
ridge-poles of the roofs or holding to the chimneys. Every inch of
standing-room was black with spectators.

The distant roar died away in fitful gusts as suddenly as it had
arisen, and a silence even more terrifying fell upon the throng as a
body of police poured out of a side street and marched in a compact
body toward the cars.

Then came long strings of horses, eight or ten in tandem. These were
backed down and hooked to the cars.

The flash of bayonets was now cut off as the troops crowded into the
cars; the body of police wheeled and took their places ahead of the
horses; the tandems straightened out and the leaders lunged forward
under the lash. The advance through the town had begun.

All this time the mob about Oliver stood with hands clenched, jaws
tight shut, great lumps in their throats. Their eyes were the eyes of
hungry beasts watching an approaching prey.

As the distant rumbling of the cars, drawn by teams of straining
horses, sounded the nearer, a bare-headed man, with white hair and
mustache and black garments that distinguished him from the mob about
him, and whom Oliver instantly recognized as Colonel Clayton, mounted a
mass of squared timber lining the track, ran the length of the pile,
climbed to the topmost stick, and shouted, in a voice which
reverberated throughout the street:

"Block the tracks!"

A torrent of oaths broke loose as the words left his lips, and a rush
was made for the pile of timber. Men struggled and fought like demons
for the end of the great sticks, carrying them by main strength,
crossing them over the rails, heaping them one on the other like a pile
of huge jack-straws, a dozen men to a length, the mobs on the
house-tops and in the windows cheering like mad. The ends of the heavy
chains resting on the strip of dirt were now caught up and hauled along
the cobbles to be intertwined with the squared timber; anchors weighing
tons were pried up and dragged across the tracks by lines of men urged
on by gray-haired old merchants in Quaker-cut dress coats, many of them
bare-headed, who had yielded to the sudden unaccountable delirium that
had seized upon everyone. Colonel Clayton, Carter Thom, and Mowbray
could be seen working side by side with stevedores from the docks and
the rabble from the shipyards. John Camblin, a millionnaire and nearly
eighty years of age, head of the largest East India house on the
wharves, his hat and wig gone, his coat split from the collar to the
tails, was tugging at an anchor ten men could not have moved. Staid
citizens, men who had not used an oath for years, stood on the
sidewalks swearing like street-toughs; others looked out from their
office-windows, the tears streaming down their cheeks. A woman with a
coarse shawl about her shoulders, her hair hanging loose, a broom in
one hand, was haranguing the mob from the top of a tobacco hogshead,
her curses filling the air.

Oliver held to his seat on the cross-piece of the awning, his teeth
set, his eye fixed on the rapidly advancing cars, his mind wavering
between two opinions--loyalty to his home, now invaded by troops whose
bayonets might be turned upon his own people, and loyalty to the
friends he loved--and to the woman who loved him!

The shouting now became a continuous roar. The front line of policemen,
as they neared the obstructions, swung their clubs right and left,
beating back the crowd. Then the rumbling cars, drawn by the horses,
came to a halt. The barricades must be reckoned with.

Again there came the flashing of steel and the intermingling of blue
and white uniforms. The troops were leaving the cars and were forming
in line to pass the barricades; the officers marching in front, the
compact mass following elbow to elbow, their eyes straight before them,
their muskets flat against their shoulders.

The approaching column now deployed sharply, wheeled to the right of
the obstruction, and became once more a solid mass, leaving the
barricades behind them, the Chief of Police at the head of the line
forcing the mob back to the curbstone, laying about him with his club,
thumping heads and cracking wrists as he cleared the way.

The colonel of the regiment, his fatigue cap pulled over his eyes,
sword in hand, shoulders erect, cape thrown back, was now abreast of
the awning to which Oliver clung. Now and then he would glance
furtively at the house-tops, as if expecting a missile.

The mob looked on sullenly, awed into submission by the gleaming
bayonets. But for the shouts of the police, beating back the crowd, and
the muttered curses, one would have thought a parade was in progress.

The first company had now passed--pale, haggard-looking men, their lips
twitching, showing little flecks of dried saliva caked in the corners
of their mouths, their hands tight about the butts of their muskets.

Oliver looked on with beating heart. The dull, monotonous tramp of
their feet strangely affected him.

As the second line of bayonets came abreast of the awning-post, a
blacksmith in a red shirt and leather apron, his arms bared to the
elbow, sprang from the packed sidewalk into the open space between the
troops and the gutter, lifted a paving stone high above his head and
hurled it, with all his might, straight against the soldier nearest
him. The man reeled, clutched at the comrade next him, and sank to the
ground. Then, quick as an echo, a puff of white smoke burst out down
the line of troops, and a sharp, ringing report split the air. The
first shot of defence had been fired.

The whole column swayed as if breasting a gale.

Another and an answering shot now rang through the street. This came
from a window filled with men gesticulating wildly. Instantly the
troop wheeled, raised their muskets, and a line of fire and smoke
belched forth.

A terrible fear, that paled men's faces, followed by a moment of
ominous silence, seized upon the mob, and then a wild roar burst out
from thousands of human throats. The rectangular body of soldiers and
the ragged-edged mob merged into a common mass. Men wrenched the guns
from the soldiers and beat them down with the butt ends of the muskets.
Frenzied policemen hurled themselves into the midst of the disorganized
militia, knocking up the ends of their muskets, begging the men to hold
their fire. The air was thick with missiles; bricks from the
house-tops; sticks of wood and coal from the fireplaces of the offices;
iron bolts, castings, anything the crazed mob could find with which to
kill their fellow-men. The roar was deafening, drowning the orders of
the officers.

Oliver clung to his post, not knowing whether to drop into the seething
mass or to run the risk of being shot where he was. Suddenly his eye
singled out a soldier who stood at bay below him, swinging his musket,
widening the circle about him with every blow. The soldier's movements
were hampered by his heavy overcoat and army blanket slung across his
shoulder. His face and neck were covered with blood and dirt,
disfiguring him beyond recognition.

At the same instant Oliver became conscious that a man in blue overalls
was creeping up on the soldier's rear to brain him with a cart-rung
that he held in his hand.

A mist swam before the boy's eyes, and a great lump rose in his throat.
The cowardice of the attack incensed him; some of the hot blood of the
old ancestor that had crossed the flood at Trenton flamed up in his
face. With the quickness of a cat he dropped to the sidewalk, darted
forward, struck the coward full in the face with his clenched fist,
tumbling him to the ground, wrenched the rung from his hands, and,
jumping in front of the now almost overpowered soldier, swung the heavy
stick about him like a flail, clearing the space before him.

The assaulting crowd wavered, fell back, and then, maddened at Oliver's
defence of the invader, with a wild yell of triumph, swept the two
young men off their feet, throwing them bodily down the steps of a
ship-chandler's shop, the soldier knocked senseless by a blow from a
brick which had struck him full in the chest.

Oliver lay still for a moment, raised his head cautiously and, putting
forth all his strength, twisted his arms around the stricken man and
rolled with him into the cellar. Then, springing to his feet, he
slammed the door behind them and slipped in the bolt, before the mob
could guess his meaning.

Listening at the crack of the door for a moment and finding they were
not pursued, he stood over the limp body, lifted it in his arms, laid
it on a pile of sails, and ran to the rear of the cellar for a bucket
standing under a grimy window, scarcely visible in the gloom, now that
the door was shut.

Under the touch of the cold water, the soldier slowly opened his eyes,
straining them toward Oliver, as if in pain.

The two men looked, intently at each other; the soldier passing his
hand across his forehead as if trying to clear his brain. Then lifting
himself up on his elbow he gasped:

"Horn! Horn! My God!"

Oliver's heart stopped beating.

"Who are you?"

"John Grant."

Oliver saw only Margaret's face!

As though he were working for the woman he loved--doing what she would
have done--he knelt beside the wounded man, wiped the blood and grime
from his cheeks with his own handkerchief, loosening his coat, rubbing
his hands, murmuring "Old fellow," "Dear John ": there was no time for
other interchange of speech.

When at last Grant was on his feet the two men barricaded the doors
more strongly, rolling heavy barrels against them, the sounds from the
street seeming to indicate that an attack might be made upon them. But
the mob had swept on and forgotten them, as mobs often do, while the
fugitives waited, hardly daring to speak except in detached whispers,
lest some one of the inmates of the warehouse overhead might hear them.

Toward noon a low tap was heard at the window, which was level with an
alley in the rear, and a man's hand was thrust through a broken pane.
Oliver pressed Grant's arm, laid his finger on his lips, caught up a
heavy hammer lying on an oil-barrel, crept noiselessly along the wall
toward the sound, and stopped to listen. Then he heard his name called
in a hoarse whisper.

"Marse Ollie! Marse Ollie! Is you in here?"

"Who is it?" Oliver called back, crouching beneath the window, his
fingers tight around the handle of the hammer.

"It's me, Marse Ollie."

"You! Malachi!"

"Yassir, I'se been a-followin' ye all de mawnin'; I see 'em tryin' to
kill ye an' I tried to git to ye. I kin git through--yer needn't help
me," and he squeezed himself under the raised sash. "Malachi like de
snake--crawl through anywheres. An' ye ain't hurted?" he asked when he
was inside. "De bressed Lord, ain't dat good! I been a-waitin' outside;
I was feared dey'd see me if I tried de door."

"Where are the soldiers?"

"Gone. Ain't nobody outside at all. Mos' to de railroad by dis time,
dey tells me. An' dere ain't nary soul 'bout dis place--all run away.
Come 'long wid me, son--I ain't gwine ter leabe ye a minute. Marse
Richard'll be waitin'. Come 'long home, son. I been a-followin' ye all
de mawnin'." The tears were in his eyes now. "An' ye ain't hurted," and
he felt him all over with trembling hands.

John raised himself above the oil-barrels. He had heard the strange
talk and was anxiously watching the approaching figures.

"It's all right, Grant--it's our Malachi," Oliver called out in his
natural voice, now that there was no danger of being overheard.

The old man stopped and lifted both hands above his head.

"Gor'-a-mighty! an' he ain't dead?" His eyes had now become accustomed
to the gloom.

"No; and just think, Mally, he is my own friend. Grant, this is our
Malachi whom I told you about."

Grant stepped over the barrel and held out his hand to the old negro.
There are no class distinctions where life and death are concerned.

"Glad to see you. Pretty close shave, but I guess I'm all right. They'd
have done for me but for your master."

A council of war was now held. The uniform would be fatal if Grant were
seen in it on the street. Malachi must crawl into the alley again, go
over to Oliver's house, and return at dusk with one of Oliver's suits
of clothes; the uniform and the blood-stained shirt could then be
hidden in the cellar, and at dark, should the street still be deserted,
the three would put on a bold front and walk out of the front door of
the main warehouse over their heads. Once safe in the Horn house, they
could perfect plans for Grant's rejoining his regiment.

Their immediate safety provided for, and Malachi gone, Oliver could
wait no longer to ask about Margaret. He had been turning over in his
mind how he had best broach the subject, when her brother solved the
difficulty by saying:

"Father was the first man in Brookfleld to indorse the President's call
for troops. He'd have come himself, old as he is, if I had not joined
the regiment. He didn't like you, Horn; I always told him he was wrong.
He'll never forgive himself now when he hears what you have done for
me," and he laid his hand affectionately on Oliver's shoulder as he
spoke. "I liked you as soon as I saw you, and so did mother, and so
does Madge, but father was always wrong about you. We told him so,
again and again, and Madge said that father would see some day that you
got your politeness from the Cavaliers and we got our plain speaking
from the Puritans. The old gentleman was pretty mad about her saying
so, I tell you, but she stuck to it. Madge is a dear girl, Horn. A
fellow always knows just where to find Madge; no nonsense about her.
She's grown handsome, too--handsomer than ever. There's a new look in
her face, somehow, lately. I tell her she's met somebody in New York
she likes, but she won't acknowledge it."

Oliver drank in every word, drawing out the brother with skilful
questions and little exclamatory remarks that filled Grant with
enthusiasm and induced him to talk on. They were young men again
now--brothers once more, as they had been that first afternoon in the
library at Brookfield. In the joy of hearing from her he entirely
forgot his surroundings, and the dangers that still beset them both; a
joy intensified because it was the first and only time he had heard
someone who knew her talk to him of the woman he loved. This went on
until night fell and Malachi again crawled in through the same low
window and helped John into Oliver's clothes.

When all was ready the main door of the warehouse above was opened
carefully and the three men walked out--Malachi ahead, John and Oliver
following. The moonlit street was deserted; only the barricades of
timber and the litter of stones and bricks marked the events of the
morning. Dodging into a side alley and keeping on its shadow side they
made their way toward Oliver's home.

When the three reached the Square, the white light of the moon lay full
on the bleached columns of the Clayton house. Outside on the porch,
resting against the wall, stood a row of long-barrelled guns glinting
in the moon's rays. Through the open doorway could be seen the glow of
the hall lantern, the hall itself crowded with men. The Horn house was
dark, except for a light in Mrs. Horn's bedroom. The old servant's
visit had calmed their fears, and they had only to wait now until
Oliver's return.

Malachi stationed Oliver and John Grant in the shadow of the big
sycamore that overhung the house, mounted the marble steps and knocked
twice. Aunt Hannah opened the door. She seemed to be expecting someone,
for the knock was instantly followed by the turning of the knob.

Malachi spoke a few words in an undertone to Hannah, and stepped back
to where the two young men were standing.

"You go in, Marse Oliver. Leabe de gemman here wid me under de tree.
Everybody's got dere eye wide open now--can't fool Malachi--I knows de
signs."

Oliver walked leisurely to the door, closed it softly behind him, and
ran upstairs into his mother's arms.

Malachi whispered to Grant, and the two disappeared in the shadows. At
the same moment a bolt shot back in a gate in the rear of the yard--a
gate rarely unbolted. Old Hannah stood behind it shading a candle with
her hand. Malachi led the way across the yard, through the green door
of Richard's shop, mounted the work-bench, felt carefully along the
edge of a trap-door in the ceiling, unhooked a latch, pushed it up with
his two hands, the dust sifting down in showers on his head, and
disclosed a large, empty loft, once used by the slaves as a
sleeping-room, and which had not been opened for years.

Assisted by the negro's arms, Grant climbed to the floor above, where a
dim skylight gave him light and air. A cup of hot coffee was then
handed up and the door of the trap carefully fastened, Malachi rumpling
the shavings on the work-bench to conceal the dust, No trace of the
hiding-place of the fugitive was visible.

When Malachi again reached the front hall, it was in response to
someone who was hammering at the door as if to break it down. The old
man peered cautiously out through the small panes of glass. The
sidewalk was crowded with men led by Colonel Clayton, most of them
carrying guns. They had marched over from Clayton's house. Among them
was a posse of detectives from the Police Department.

In answer to their summons Richard had thrown up the window of his
bedroom and was talking to Clayton, whose voice Malachi recognized
above the murmurs and threats of the small mob.

"Come down, Horn. Oliver has proved traitor, just as I knew he would.
He's been hiding one of these damned Yankees all day. We want that man,
I tell you, dead or alive, and we are going to have him."

When the door was flung wide Clayton confronted, not Richard, but
Oliver.

"Where's that Yankee?" cried Clayton. He had not expected to see
Oliver. "We are in no mood for nonsense--where have you hidden him?"

Malachi stepped forward before Oliver could answer.

"Marse Oliver ain't hid him. If you want him go hunt him!"

"You speak like that to me, you black scoundrel," burst out the
Colonel, and he raised his arm as if to strike him.

"Yes--me! Ain't nobody gwine ter tech Marse Oliver while I lib. I's as
free as you is, Marse Clayton. Ain't no man can lay a han' on me!"

The Colonel wheeled angrily and gave an order to one of the detectives
in a low voice. Oliver stood irresolute. He knew nothing of Grant's
whereabouts.

The detective moved from the Colonel's side and pushed his way closer
to where Oliver stood.

"There's no use your denying it, young feller; we've heard the whole
story from one of our men who saw you jump in front of him. You bring
him out or we'll go through the place from cellar to garret."

Oliver gazed straight at the speaker and still held his peace. He was
wondering where Grant had hidden himself and what John's chances were
if the crowd searched the house. Malachi's outburst had left him in the
dark.

Mrs. Horn and Richard, who had followed Oliver and were standing half
way down the stairs; looked on in astonishment. Would Clayton dare to
break all the rules of good manners, and search the house, she
whispered to Richard.

Another of the detectives now stepped forward--a dark, ugly-looking
man, with the face of a bulldog.

"Look here! I'll settle this. You and two men crossed the Square ten
minutes ago. This nigger one of 'em; where's the other?"

Malachi turned and smiled significantly at Oliver--a smile he knew. It
was the smile which the old man's face always wore whenever some
tortuous lie of the darky's own concoction had helped his young master
out of one of his scrapes.

"I am not here to answer your questions," Oliver replied quietly, a
feeling of relief in his heart.

The officer turned quickly and said with an oath to one of the
detectives, "Send one man to the alley in the rear, and place another
at this door. I'll search the yard and the house. Let no one of the
family leave this hall. If that nigger moves put the irons on him."

The men outside made a circle about the house, some of them moving up
the alley to watch the rear. Clayton leaned against the jamb of the
door. He addressed no word to Richard or Mrs. Horn, nor did he look
their way. Oliver stood with folded arms under the eight-sided
hall-lantern which an officer had lighted. Now and then he spoke in
restrained tones to his mother, who had taken her seat on the stairs,
Richard standing beside her. It was not the fate of the soldier that
interested her--it was the horror of the search. Richard had not spoken
except to direct Malachi to obey the officer's orders. The horror of
the search did not affect the inventor--that only violated the sanctity
of the home: it was the brute force behind it which appalled him--that
might annihilate the Republic.

"It is the beginning of the end," he said to himself.

The tread of heavy feet was again heard coming through the hall.
Malachi turned quickly and a subdued smile lighted his wrinkled face.

The two detectives were alone!

"He is not there, Colonel Clayton," said the man with the bull-dog
face, slipping his pistol into his hip pocket. "We went through the
yard and the out-houses like a fine tooth-comb and made a clean sweep
of the cellar. He may have gotten over the wall, but I don't think it.
There's a lot of broken bottles on top. I'll try the bedrooms now."

As the words fell from his lips Mrs. Horn rose from her seat on the
stairs, straight as a soldier on guard. The light from the lantern
illumined her gray hair and threw into strong relief her upraised
hand--the first of millions raised in protest against the invasion of
the homes of the South. The detective saw the movement and a grim smile
came into his face.

"Unless they'll bring him out," he added, slowly. "This young feller
knows where he is. Make him tell."

Colonel Clayton turned to Oliver. "Is he upstairs, Oliver?"

"No."

"You give me your word of honor. Oliver, that he is not upstairs?"

"I do."

"Of course he'd say that. Here, I'll know pretty d-- quick," muttered
the detective moving toward the stairway.

The Colonel stepped forward and barred his way with his arm.

"Stay where you are! You don't know these people. If Oliver says he is
not upstairs I believe him. These Horns don't know how to lie. Your
information is wrong. The man never entered the house. You must look
for the Yankee somewhere else." Waiting until the detectives had left
the hall, he raised his hat, and with some show of feeling said:

"I am sorry, Sallie, that we had to upset you so. When you and Richard
see this matter in its true light you'll think as I do. If these
scoundrels are to be permitted to come here and burn our homes we want
to know which side our friends are on."

"You are the judge of your own conduct, John Clayton," she answered,
calmly. "This night's work will follow you all your life. Malachi, show
Colonel Clayton to the door and close it behind him."


Three nights later Malachi admitted a man he had never seen before. He
was short and thick-set and had a grim, firmly set jaw. Under the lapel
of his coat was a gold shield. He asked for Mr. Horn, who had lately
been living in New York. He would not come inside the drawing-room, but
sat in the hall on the hair-cloth sofa, his knees apart, his cap in his
hand.

"I'm the Chief of Police," he said to Oliver, without rising from his
seat, "and I come because Mr. Cobb sent me. That's between ourselves,
remember. You'll have to get out of here at once. They've got a yarn
started that you're a government detective sent down here to spot rebel
sympathizers and they'll make it warm for you. I've looked into it and
I know it ain't so, but this town's in no shape to listen to anything.
Besides, a while ago one of my men found your friend's uniform in the
cellar where you hid it behind the barrels and the handkerchief all
blood, with your name on it; and they've got you dead to rights.
That'll all be out in the morning papers and make it worse for you. You
needn't worry about HIM. He's all right. Mr. Cobb found him at daylight
this morning just where your nigger left him and drove him over to the
junction. He's with his regiment by this time. Get your things together
quick as you can. I'll wait for you and see you safe aboard the owl
train."

Within the hour Oliver had turned his back on his home and all that he
loved.




CHAPTER XIX

THE SETTLING OF THE SHADOW


The bruised crocuses never again lifted their heads in Kennedy Square.

With the settling of the shadow--a shadow black with hate--men forgot
the perfume of flowers, the rest and cool of shady nooks, the kindling
touch of warm hands, and stood apart with eyes askance; women shuddered
and grew pale, and sad-faced children peered out through closed blinds.

Within the Square itself, along paths that had once echoed to the tread
of slippered feet, armed sentries paced, their sharp challenges
breaking the stillness of the night. Outside its wrecked fences strange
men in stranger uniforms strode in and out of the joyless houses; tired
pickets stacked their arias on the unswept piazzas, and panting horses
nibbled the bark from the withered trees; rank weeds choked the
gardens; dishevelled vines clung to the porches, and doors that had
always swung wide to the gentle tap of loving fingers were opened
timidly to the blow of the sword-hilt.

Kennedy Square became a tradition.

Some civilizations die slowly. This one was shattered in a day by a
paving-stone in the hands of a thug.




CHAPTER XX

THE STONE MUGS


Frederick Stone, N.A., member of the Stone Mugs, late war correspondent
and special artist on the spot, paused before the cheerful blaze of his
studio fire, shaking the wet snow from his feet. He had tramped across
Washington Square in drifts that were over his shoe-tops, mounted the
three flights of steps to his cosey rooms, and was at the moment
expressing his views on the weather, in terms more forcible than
polite, to our very old friend, Jack Bedford, the famous
marine-painter. Bedford, on hearing the sound of Fred's footsteps, had
strolled in from his own studio, in the same building, and had thrown
himself into a big arm-chair, where he was sitting hunched up, his
knees almost touching his chin, his round head covered by a skull-cap
that showed above the chair-back.

"Nice weather for ducks, Jack, isn't it? Can't see how anybody can get
here to-night," cried Fred, striking the mantel with his wet cap, and
scattering the rain-drops over the hearth. "Just passed a Broadway
stage stuck in a hole as I came by the New York Hotel. Been there an
hour, they told me."

"Shouldn't wonder. Whose night is it, Fred?" asked Jack, stretching out
one leg in the direction of the cheery blaze.

"Horn's."

"What's he going to do?"

"Give it up. Ask me an easy one. Said he wanted a thirty by forty.
There it is on the easel," and Fred moved a chair out of his way, hung
his wet coat and hat on a peg behind the door, and started to clear up
a tangle of artillery harness that littered the floor.

"Thirty by forty, eh," grunted Jack, from the depths of his chair.
"Thunder and Mars! Is the beggar going to paint a panorama? Thought
that canvas was for a new cavalry charge of yours!" He had lowered the
other leg now, making a double-barrelled gun of the pair.

"No; it's Horn's. He's going to paint one of the fellows to-night."

"In costume?" Jack's head was now so low in the chair that his eyes
could draw a bead along his legs to the fire.

"Yes, as an old Burgomaster, or something with a ruff," and he kicked
an army blanket into a corner as he spoke. "There's the ruff hanging on
that pair of foils, Waller sent it over." Then his merry eyes fell on
Jack's sprawled-out figure, his feet almost in the grate--a favorite
attitude of his neighbor's when tired out with the day's work,
comfortable perhaps, but especially objectionable at the moment.

"Here--get up, you old stick-in-the-mud. Don't sit there, doubled up
like a government mule," he laughed. (The army lingo still showed
itself once in a while in Fred's speech.) "Help me get this room ready
or I'll whale you with this," and he waved one end of a trace over his
head. "If the fellows are coming they'll be here in half an hour. Shove
back that easel and bring in that beer--it's outside the door in a box.
I'll get out the tobacco and pipes."

Jack stretched both arms above his head, emitted a yawn that could be
heard in his room below, and sprang to his feet.

Fred, by this time, had taken down from a closet a tin box of crackers,
unwrapped a yellow cheese, and was trimming its raw edges with a
palette knife. Then they both moved out a big table from the inner room
to the larger one, and, while Jack placed the eatables on its bare top,
Fred mounted a chair, and began lighting a circle of gas-jets that hung
from the ceiling of the skylight. The war-painter was host to-night,
and the task of arranging the rooms for the comfort of his
fellow-members consequently devolved upon him.

The refreshments having been made ready, Fred roamed about the rooms
straightening the pictures on the walls--an old fad of his when guests
of any kind were expected--punching the cushions and Turkish
saddle-bags into plumpness, that he had picked up in a flying trip
abroad the year the war was over, and stringing them along the divan
ready for the backs and legs of the club-members. Next he stripped the
piano of a collection of camp sketches that had littered it up for a
week, dumped the pile into a closet, and, with a sudden wrench of his
arms, whirled the instrument itself close against the wall. Then some
fire-arms, saddles, and artillery trappings were hidden away in dark
corners, and a lay figure, clothed in fatigue cap and blue overcoat,
and which had done duty as "a picket" during the day, was wheeled
around with its face to the wall, where it stood guard over Fred's
famous picture of "The Last Gun at Appomattox." His final touches were
bestowed on the grate-fire and the coal-scuttle, both of which were
replenished from a big pine box in the hall.

Jack Bedford, meanwhile, had busied himself rolling another table--a
long one--under the circle of gas-jets so that the men could see to
work the better, and loading it with palettes, china tiles, canvases,
etc., to be used by the members of the club in their work of the
evening. Last of all and not by any means the least important, Jack, by
the aid of a chair, gathered together, on the top shelf of the closet,
the unique collection of stone beer-mugs from which the club took its
name. These he handed down one by one to Fred, who arranged them in a
row on one end of the long table. The mugs were to hold the contents of
sundry bottles of beer, now safely stowed away in the lidless,
pigeon-holed box, standing in the hall, which Fred unloaded later,
placing the bottles on the window-sill outside to cool.

Before they had ended their preparations, the stamping of feet on the
stair was heard, the door was thrown back, and the several members of
the club began to arrive.

The great Waller came first, brushing the snow from his shaggy coat,
looking like a great bear, growling as he rolled in, as was his wont.
Close behind him, puffing with the run upstairs, and half-hidden behind
Waller's broad shoulders, trotted Simmons, the musician.

Not the tousled, ill-clad Waller, the "Walrus" of former days--no one
dared to call the painter by any such names since his picture took the
Medaille d'Honneur at Paris--and not the slender, smooth-faced Simmons,
who in the old days was content to take his chances of filling a
vacancy at Wallack's or the Winter Garden, when some one of the regular
orchestra was under the weather; but a sleek, prosperous, rotund
Waller, with a bit of red in his button-hole, a wide expanse of
shirt-front, and a waxed mustache; and a thoughtful, slightly bald, and
well-dressed Simmons, with gold eyeglasses, and his hair worn long in
his neck as befitted the leader of an orchestra whose concerts crowded
the Academy to the doors.

These two arrivals nodded to Jack and Fred, Waller cursing the weather
as he hung up his coat on a peg behind the door (unnecessary
formalities of every kind, including the shaking of hands and asking
after each other's health, were dispensed with by men who saw each
other several times a day at their different haunts), and Simmons,
without stopping to take off his wet coat, flung his hat on the divan,
crossed the room, and seated himself at the piano.

"Went this way, Waller, didn't it?" said Simmons striking the keys,
continuing the conversation the two had evidently had on the stairs.
"Never heard Parepa in better voice. She filled every corner of the
house. Crug told me he was up in Africa in the back row and never
missed a note. Do you remember this?" and the musician's fingers again
slipped over the keys, and one of the great singer's trills rippled
through the room, to which Waller nodded approvingly, mopping his wet
face with his handkerchief as he listened.

The opening and shutting of the door, the stamping of feet, the general
imprecations hurled at the climate, and the scattering of wet snow and
rain-drops about the entrance became constant. Crug bustled in--a
short, thick-set, rosy-cheeked young fellow in a black mackintosh and a
white silk muffler--a 'cellist of repute, who had spent two years at
the conservatoire, and who had once played for Eugenie at one of her
musicales at the Tuileries, a fact he never let you forget. And close
behind him came Watson, the landscape-painter, who had had two pictures
accepted by the Royal Academy--one of them hung on the line, a great
honor for an American; and after them blue-eyed, round-faced Munson, a
pupil of Kaulbach, and late from Munich; as well as Harry Stedman,
Post, the art-critic, and one or two others.

Each man as he entered divested himself of his wet garments, warmed his
hands at the blazing grate-fire, and, reaching over the long table,
picked up a clay or corn-cob pipe, stuffing the bowl full of tobacco
from a cracked Japanese pot that stood on the mantel. Then striking a
match he settled himself into the nearest chair, joining in the general
talk or smoking quietly, listening to what was being said about him.
Now and then one would walk to the window, raise the sash, uncork a
bottle of beer where Fred had placed it, empty its contents into one of
the mugs, and resume his seat--mug in one hand, pipe in the other.

Up to this time no work had been done, the courtesies of the club
permitting none to begin until the member whose night it was had
arrived.

As the half-hour slipped away the men began to grow restless.

"If it's Horn's night why the devil doesn't he come, Fred?" asked
Waller, in a querulous tone. Although the great sheep-painter had lost
his sobriquet since the old days, he had never parted with his right to
growl.

"He'll be here," cried Simmons from his seat by the piano. His fingers
were still rippling gently over the keys, although he had stopped once
just long enough to strip off his wet overcoat. "I met him at Margaret
Grant's this afternoon. She had a little tea."

"There every afternoon, isn't he, Simmons?" asked Munson, who was
smoking quietly:

"Shouldn't wonder," came the response between the trills.

"How's that affair coming on?" came a voice out of the tobacco-smoke.

"Same old way," answered someone at the lower end of the table--"still
waiting for the spondulix."

"Seen her last picture?" remarked Watson, knocking the ashes from his
pipe. "The one she scooped the medal with?"

"Yes. Rouser, isn't it?" called out Waller. "Best thing she has done
yet. She's a great woman. Hello! there he is! This is a pretty time for
him to put in an appearance!"

The door opened and Oliver walked in, a wet umbrella in one hand, his
coat-collar turned up, his mustache beaded with melted snow-drops.

"What's it doing outside, Ollie, raining cats and dogs?" Jack called
out.

"No, going to clear up. It's stopped snowing and getting colder. Oh,
what a night! I love a storm like this, it sets my blood tingling.
Sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen, but I couldn't help it. It won't
make any difference; I can't begin, anyway. Bianchi won't be here for
an hour. Just met him on the street--he's going to bring a guest, he
says."

"Who's he going to bring?" shouted Simmons, who had risen from his seat
at the piano, and was now sorting out some sheets of music that Fred
had just laid on its top.

"He won't tell; says it's a surprise," answered Oliver, slipping off
his coat.

"A surprise, is it?" grumbled Waller. "I'll bet it's some greasy
foreigner." He had left Simmons's side and was now standing by the
mantel, filling a pipe from the bowl. "Bianchi has always got a lot of
cranks about him."

Oliver hung his wet coat among the row of garments lining the wall--he
had come twice as far as the others--crowded his dripping umbrella into
a broken Chinese jar that did duty as a rack, and, catching sight of
the canvas, walked toward the easel holding the thirty by forty.

"Where did you get it, Freddie?" he said, putting his arms around the
shoulders of his old chum and dragging him toward the easel for a
closer inspection of the grain of the canvas.

"Snedecor's"

"Just right, old man. Much obliged," and he felt the grain of the cloth
with his thumb. "Got a ruff?" and he glanced about him. "Oh, yes; I
see. Thanks."

The men, now that Oliver had arrived, drew up around the long table.
Some began setting their palettes; others picked out, from the common
stock before them, the panels, canvases, china plates, or sheets of
paper, which, under their deft touches, were so soon to be covered with
dainty bits of color.

It was in many ways a remarkable club. Most of its members had already
achieved the highest rank in their several professions and outside the
walls of this eyrie were known as earnest, thoughtful men, envied and
sought after by those who respected their aims and successes.

Inside these cosey rooms all restraint was laid aside and each man's
personality and temperament expressed itself without reserve. Harry
Stedman, who, perhaps, had been teaching a class of students all the
morning in the new building of the National Academy of Design, each one
of whom hung upon his words as if he had been inspired, could be found
here a few hours later joining in a chorus with a voice loud enough to
rattle every mug on the table.

Waller, who doubtless that same night, had been the bright particular
star at some smart dinner uptown, and whose red ribbon had added such
eclat to the occasion, and whose low voice and quiet manners and
correct, conventional speeches had so charmed and captivated the lady
on his right, would, when once in this room, sit astride some chair, a
pipe in one hand, a mug of beer in the other. Here he would discuss
with Simmons or Jack or Oliver his preference of Chopin over Beethoven,
or the difference between Parepa-Rosa and Jenny Lind, or any topic
which had risen out of the common talk, and all too with a
grotesqueness of speech and manner that would have frozen his hostess
of the dinner-table dumb with astonishment could she have seen him.

And so with the others. Each man was frankly himself and in undress
uniform when under Fred's skylight, or when the club was enjoying any
one of its various festivals and functions.

Oliver's election into the organization had, therefore, been to him one
of the greatest honors he had received since his skill as a painter had
been recognized by his fellows--an honor not conferred upon him because
he had been one of the earlier members of the old Union Square
organization, many of whom had been left out, but entirely because he
was not only the best of fellows, but among the best of painters as
well. An honor too, which brought with it the possibility of a certain
satisfying of his tastes. Only once before had he found an atmosphere
so congenial and that was when the big hemlocks that he loved stood
firm and silent about him--companions in a wilderness that rested him.

The coming together of such a body of men representing, as they did,
the choicest the city afforded in art, literature and music, had been
as natural and unavoidable as the concentration of a mass of iron
filings toward a magnet. That insatiable hunger of the Bohemian, that
craving of the craftsman for men of his kind, had at last overpowered
them, and the meetings in Fred's studio were the inevitable result.

Many of these devotees of the arts had landed on the barren shores of
America--barren of even the slightest trace of that life they had
learned to love so well in the Quartier Latin in Paris and in the
Rathskellers of Munich and Dusseldorf--and had wandered about in the
uncongenial atmosphere of the commonplace until this retreat had been
opened to them. Some, like Fred Stone and Jack Bedford, who had
struggled on through the war, too much occupied in the whirl of their
life to miss at the time the associations of men of similar tastes, had
eagerly grasped the opportunity when it came, and others, like Oliver,
who had had all they could do to get their three meals during the day
and a shelter for the night, had hardly been conscious of what they
wanted until the club had extended to them its congenial surroundings.

On the trio of painters we knew best in the old days these privations
and the uncertainties and disappointments of the war had left their
indelible mark. You became aware of this when you saw them among their
fellow-workers. About Fred's temples many tell-tale gray hairs were
mingled with the brown, and about his mouth and eyes were deeper lines
than those which hard work alone would have cut. He carried a hole,
too, in his right arm--or did until the army surgeon sewed it up--you
could see it as a blue scar every time he rolled up his sleeve--a
slight souvenir of the Battle of Five Forks. It was bored out by a
bullet from the hands of a man in gray when Fred, dropping his
sketch-book, had bent to drag a wounded soldier from under an
overturned caisson. He carried no scar, however, in his heart. That
organ beat with as keen a sympathy and as warm a spirit of camaraderie
as it did when it first opened itself to Oliver's miseries in Union
Square.

Jack Bedford, gaunt and strong of limb, looking a foot taller, had more
than once been compelled to lay down his painter's palette and take up
the sign-painter's brush, and the tell-tale wrinkles about his eyes and
the set look about his mouth testified but too plainly to the keenness
of his sufferings.

And Oliver--

Ah! what of Oliver, and of the changes in him since that fatal night in
Kennedy Square when he had been driven away from his home and made an
outcast because he had been brave enough to defend a helpless man?

You can see at a glance, as you watch him standing by the big easel,
his coat off, to give his arm freer play, squeezing the tubes of color
on his palette, that he is not the boy you knew some years ago. He is,
you will admit, as strong and alert-looking as he was that morning when
he cleared the space in front of Margaret's brother with a cart-rung.
You will concede, too, that the muscles about his chest and throat are
as firmly packed, the eyes as keen, and the smile as winning, but you
will acknowledge that the boy in him ends there. As you look the closer
you will note that the line of the jaw is more cleanly cut than in his
younger days; that the ears are set closer to the finely modelled head;
that the nose is more aquiline, the eyes deeper, and that the
overhanging brow is wrinkled with one or more tight knots that care has
tied, and which only loosen when his face breaks into one of his
old-time smiles. The mustache is still there--the one which Sue once
laughed at; but it has lost its silky curl and stands straight out now
from the corners of his mouth, its points reaching almost to the line
of his ears. There is, too, beneath it a small imperial, giving to his
face the debonair look of a cavalier, and which accentuates more than
any other one thing his Southern birth and training. As you follow the
subtle outlines of his body you find too, that he is better
proportioned than he was in his early manhood; thinner around the
waist, broader across the shoulders; pressed into a closer mold; more
compact, more determined-looking. But for the gleam that now and then
flashes out of his laughing eyes and the winning smile that plays about
his mouth, you would, perhaps, think that the years of hardship through
which he has passed have hardened his nature. But you would be wrong
about the hardening process, although you would have been entirely
right about the hardship.

They had, indeed, been years of intense suffering, full of privations,
self-denial, and disappointments, not only in his New York home but in
Kennedy Square, whenever at long intervals he had gone back to the old
house to cheer its inmates in their loneliness--a loneliness relieved
only by the loyalty of old Malachi and Hannah and the affection and
sympathy of their immediate relatives and of such close friends as Amos
Cobb, who had never left his post, Miss Clendenning, Dr. Wallace,
Nathan and some others. But this sympathy had not always been extended
to Oliver--not, by his old schoolmates and chums at least. Even Sue had
passed him in the street with a cold stare and not a few of the other
girls--girls he had romped with many a night through the cool paths of
Kennedy Square, had drawn their skirts aside as he passed lest he
should foul them with his touch.

But his courage had not wavered nor had his strength failed him. The
same qualities that had made Richard stick to the motor were in his own
blood. His delicately modelled slender fingers, white as ivory, and as
sure as a pair of callipers--so like his father's--and which as we
watch him work so deftly arranging the colors on his palette, adjusting
the oil-cup, trying the points of the brushes on his thumb-nail,
gathering them in a sheaf in his left hand as they answer his purpose,
had served him in more ways than one since he took that midnight ride
back from his old home in Kennedy Square. These same hands that look so
white and well-kept as he stands by his easel in the full glare of the
gas-jets, had been his sole reliance during these days of toil and
suffering. They had provided all the bread that had gone into his
mouth, and every stitch of clothes that had covered his back. And they
had not been over-particular as to how they had accomplished it nor at
what hours or places. They had cleaned lithographic stones, the
finger-nails stained for weeks with colored inks; they had packed
hardware; they had driven a pen far into the night on space work for
the daily papers; they had carried a dinner-pail to and from his
lodgings to the factory two miles away where he had worked--very little
in this pail some of the time; they had posted ledgers, made
office-fires, swept out stores--anything and everything that his will
compelled, and his necessities made imperative. And they had done it
all forcefully and willingly, with the persistence and sureness of
machines accomplishing a certain output in so many hours. Joyfully too,
sustained and encouraged by the woman he loved and whose heart through
all his and her vicissitudes was still his own.

All this had strengthened him; had taught him that any kind of work, no
matter how menial, was worthy of a gentleman; so long as his object was
obtained--in this case his independence and his livelihood. It had been
a bitter experience at first, especially for a Southerner brought up as
he had been; but he had mastered it at last. His early training had
helped him, especially that part which he owed to his mother, who had
made him carry the market-basket as a boy, to humble a foolish and
hurtful pride. He was proud enough of it now.

But never through all these privations had these same white hands and
this tired body and brain been so occupied that they could not find
time during some one of the hours of the day and night to wield the
brush, no matter how urgent had been the call for the week's
board--wielding it, too, so lovingly and knowingly, and with such
persistency, that to-night although still poor--he stood recognized as
a rising man by the men in the front rank of the painters of his time.

And with his mother's consent, too. Not that he had asked it in so many
words and stood hesitating, fearing to take the divergent path until he
could take her willing blessing with him. He had made his decision
firmly and against her wishes. She had kept silent at first, and had
watched his progress as she had watched his baby steps,
tearfully--prayerfully at times--standing ready to catch him if he
fell. But that was over now. The bigness of her vision covering margins
wide enough for new impressions, impressions which her broad mind,
great enough and honest enough to confess its mistakes, always welcomed
and understood, had long since made clear to her what in her early
anxiety she had ignored:--that if her son had inherited the creative
and imaginative gifts of his father (those gifts which she so little
understood), he had also inherited from her a certain spirit of
determination, together with that practical turn of mind which had
given the men of her own family their eminence. In proof of this she
could not but see that the instability which she had so dreaded in his
earlier years had given way to a certain fixedness of purpose and firm
self-reliance. The thought of this thrilled her as nothing else in his
whole career had ever done. All these things helped reconcile her to
his choice of a profession.

Oliver, now thoroughly warm and dry, busied himself getting his brushes
and paints together and scraping off one of Fred's palettes. Bianchi's
bald head and fat, red, smooth-shaven face with its double chin--time
had not dealt leniently with the distinguished lithographer--had
inspired our hero to attempt a "Franz Hals smear," as Waller called it,
and the Pole, when he arrived, was to sit for him in the costume of an
old Dutch burgomaster, the big white ruff furnishing the high lights in
the canvas.

By the time Oliver had arranged his palette the club had settled itself
for work, the smoke from the pipes floating in long lines toward the
ceiling, befogging the big white albatross that hung from a wire in the
skylight. Munson, who had rubbed in a background of bitumen over a
square tile, sat next to Fred, who was picking out, with the end of a
wooden match, the outlines of an army-wagon sketched on a plate smeared
with color. Simmons was looking over a portfolio that Watson, a new
member, had brought with him, filled with a lot of his summer sketches
made on the Normandy coast.

One view of the fish-market at Dieppe caught Oliver's eye. The slant of
light burnishing the roof of the church to silver and flooding the
pavement of the open square, crowded with black figures, the white caps
of the fish-women indicated by crisp pats of the brush, pleased our
painter immensely.

"Charming, old man," said Oliver, turning to Watson. "How long did it
take you?"

"About four hours."

"Looks like it," growled Waller, reaching over Oliver's shoulder and
drawing the sketch toward him. "That's the gospel of 'smear,' Horn,"
and he tossed it back. "Not a figure in the group has got any drawing
in it."

Waller had set his face against the new out-door school, and never lost
a chance to ridicule it.

"That's not what Watson is after," exclaimed Oliver. "The figures are
mere accessories. The dominating light is the thing; he's got
that"--and he held the sketch close to the overhead gas-jets so that
the members could see it the better.

"Dominating light be hanged! What's the use of slobbering puddles of
paint over a canvas and calling it plein air, or impressionism, or
out-of-doors, or some such rot? Get down to business and DRAW. When you
have done that you can talk. It can't be done in four hours, and if
some of you fellows keep on the way you're going, you'll never do it in
four years."

"A four hours' sketch handled as Watson has this," said Oliver,
thoughtfully, "is better than four years' work on one of your Hudson
Rivery things. The sun doesn't stand still long enough for a man to get
more than an expression of what he sees--that is if he's after truth.
The angle of shadow changes too quickly, and so do the reflected
lights."

"What's the matter with the next day?" burst out Waller. "Can't you
take up your sketch where you left off? You talk as if every great
picture had to be painted before luncheon."

"But there is no 'next day,'" interrupted Watson. "I entirely agree
with Horn." He had been listening to the discussion with silent
interest. "No next day like the one on which you began your canvas. The
sky is different--gray, blue, or full of fleecy, sunny clouds. Your
shadows are more purple, or blue or gray, depending on your sky
overhead, and so are your reflections. If you go on and try to piece
out your sketch, you make an almanac of it--not a portrait of what you
saw. I can pick out the Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays on that kind
of a sketch as soon as I see it. Nature is like a bird--if you want to
surprise her, you must let go both barrels when she rises; if you miss
her at your first shot you will never have another chance--not at that
particular bird."

"Well, but suppose you DO happen to have two days alike," insisted
Waller. "I have seen thirty days on a stretch in Venice without a
cloud. What then?" The bird simile had evidently not appealed to the
great critic.

"Then ten chances to one you are not the same man you were the day
before," replied Watson, calmly, laying down his pipe. "You have had
bad news from home or your liver is out of order, or worse still, you
have seen some new subject which has taken hold of you and your first
enthusiasm has oozed away. If you persist in going on you will either
undo what you did yesterday or you will trust to your memory of what
you THINK yesterday was, to finish your sketch by. The first fills it
full of lies and the second full of yourself; neither have anything to
do with nature. Four hours, Waller, not a minute more. You'll come to
it before you die."

"That depends on what you have got to paint with," snapped out Jack
Bedford, who was trying to clean a dingy-looking palette with a knife.
"Whose dirt-dump is this, anyhow?" and he held it up to view. "Might as
well try to get sunlight out of powdered brick. Look at that pile of
mud," and he pointed to some dry color near the thumb-hole.

"Which palette?" came a voice.

Jack held it up for the inspection of the room.

"Oh, that's Parker Ridgway's," answered Fred. "He was here the other
day and made a half-hour's sketch of a model I had."

The announcement of Ridgway's name was greeted with shouts of laughter.
He was a society painter of the day, pupil of Winterhalter and Meyer
von Bremen, and had carried off more portraits and at higher prices
than all the other men put together.

"Keep on! keep on! Laugh away," grumbled Waller squeezing a tube of
Prussian blue on his palette. "When any one of you fellows can get
$4,000 for a season's work you can talk; until you do, you can keep
your mouths shut as tight as Long Island clams."

"Who got it?"

"The Honorable Parker Ridgway, R.A., P.Q., and I don't know but
X.Y.Z.," roared Waller.

"I'd like to know how?" asked Watson, reaching over Fred's arm for the
bottle of turpentine.

"That's what he did," snapped out Waller.

"Did what?"

"Knew how."

"But he doesn't know how," cried Munson from across the table. "I sat
alongside of that fellow at the Ecole for two years. He can't draw, and
never could. His flesh was beastly, his modelling worse, and his
technique--a botch. You can see what color he uses," and he pointed to
the palette Jack was trying to clean.

"Granted, my boy," said Waller. "I didn't say he could PAINT; I said he
knew how to earn $4,000 in three months painting portraits."

"He never painted a portrait worth four cents. Why, I knew--"

"Dry up, Munson!" interrupted Jack. "Go on, Waller, tell us how he did
it."

"By using some horse-sense and a little tact; getting in with the
procession and bolding his cud up," retorted Waller, in a solemn tone.

"Give him room! Give him room!" cried Oliver, with a laugh, pouring a
little dryer into his oil-cup. He loved to hear Waller talk. "He flings
his words about as if they were chunks of coal," he would always say.

The great man wheeled his chair around and faced the room. Oliver's
words had sounded like a challenge.

"Keep it up!--pound away," he cried, his face reddening. "I've watched
Ridgway ever since he arrived here last spring, and I will give you his
recipe for success. He didn't fall overboard into a second-rate club as
soon as he got here and rub his brushes on his coat-sleeve to look
artistic. Not much! He had his name put up at the Union; got Croney to
cut his clothes, and Leary to make his hats, played croquet with the
girls he knew, drove tandem--his brother-in-law's--and dined out every
night in the week. Every day or two he would haul out one of his
six-foot canvases, and give it a coat of bitumen. Always did this when
some club swell was around who would tell about it."

"Did it with a sponge," muttered Munson. "Old trick of his!"

"Next thing he did," continued Waller, ignoring Munson's aside, "was to
refuse a thousand-dollar commission offered by a vulgar real-estate man
to paint a two-hundred-pound pink-silk sofa-cushion of a wife in a
tight-fitting waist. This spread like the measles. It was the talk of
the club, of dinner-tables and piazzas, and before sundown Ridgway's
exclusiveness in taste and artistic instincts were established. Then he
hunted up a pretty young married woman occupying the dead-centre of the
sanctified social circle, went into spasms over her beauty--so classic,
such an exquisite outline; grew confidential with the husband at the
club, and begged permission to make just a sketch only the size of his
hand--wanted it for his head of Sappho, Berlin Exhibition. Next he
rented a suite of rooms, crowded in a lot of borrowed tapestries,
brass, Venetian chests, lamps and hangings; gave a tea--servants this
time in livery--exhibited his Sappho; refused a big price for it from
the husband; got orders instead for two half-lengths, $1,500 each,
finished them in two weeks, declined more commissions on account of
extreme fatigue; disappeared with the first frost and the best cottage
people; booked three more full-lengths in New York--two to be painted
in Paris and the other on his return in the spring; was followed to the
steamer by a bevy of beauties, half-smothered in flowers, and
disappeared in a halo of artistic glory just $4,000 in."

Fred broke out into a roar, in which the whole room joined.

"And you call that art, do you?" cried Munson, laying down his palette.
His face was flushed, his eyes snapping with indignation.

"I do, my babbling infant," retorted Waller. "I call it the art of
making the most of your opportunities and putting your best foot
foremost. That's a thing you fellows never seem to understand. You want
to shuffle around in carpet-slippers, live in a garret, and wait until
some money-bags climbs up your crazy staircases to discover you.
Ridgway puts his foot in a patent-leather pump and silk stocking, and
never steps on a carpet that isn't two inches thick. Merchants,
engineers, manufacturers, and even scientists, when they have anything
to sell, go where there is somebody to buy; why shouldn't an artist?"

"Just like a fakir peddling cheap jewelry," said Stedman, in a low
voice, sending a cloud of smoke to the ceiling.

"Or a bunco-man trading watches with a farmer," remarked Jack Bedford.
"What do you say, My Lord Tom-Noddy"--and he slapped Oliver on the
back. The sobriquet was one of Jack's pet names for Oliver--all the
Kennedy Square people were more or less aristocrats to Jack Bedford,
the sign-painter--all except Oliver.

"I think Waller's about half-right, Jack. As far as Ridgway's work
goes, you know and I know that there isn't one man or woman out of a
hundred among his brother-in-law's friends who knows whether it's good
or bad--that's the pity of it. If it's bad and they buy it, that's
their fault for not knowing any better, not Ridgway's fault for doing
the best he knows how. By silk stockings and pumps I suppose Waller
means that Ridgway dressed himself like a gentleman, had his hair cut,
and paid some attention to his finger-nails. That's why they were glad
to see him. The day has gone by when a painter must affect a bob-tailed
velveteen jacket, long hair, and a slouch hat to help him paint, just
as the day has gone by when an artist is not an honored guest in any
gentleman's house in town."

"Bravo, Tom-Noddy!" shouted Jack and Fred in a breath. "Drink, you dear
old pressed brick. Put your nose into this!" and Fred held a mug of
beer to Oliver's lips.

Oliver laid down his sheaf of brushes--buried his nose in the cool rim
of the stone mug, the only beverage the club permitted, and was about
to continue his talk, when his eye rested on Bianchi, who was standing
in the open door, his hand upraised so as to bespeak silence.

"Here--you beautiful, bald-headed old burgomaster!" shouted Oliver.
"Get into your ruff right away. Been waiting half an hour for you and--"

Bianchi put his fingers to his lips with a whispered hush, knit his
brow, and pointed significantly behind him. Every eye turned, and a
breathless silence fell upon the group, followed by a scraping of
chairs on the floor as each man sprang to his feet.

Bianchi's surprise had arrived!




CHAPTER XXI

"THE WOMAN IN BLACK"


In the doorway, immediately behind Bianchi and looking over the little
man's head, stood a woman of perhaps forty years of age in full evening
toilet. About her head was wound a black lace scarf, and hanging from
her beautiful shoulders, half-concealing a figure of marvellous
symmetry, was a long black cloak, open at the throat, trimmed with fur,
and lined with watermelon pink silk. Tucked in her hair was a red
japonica. She was courtesying to the room with all the poise and
graciousness of a prima donna saluting an audience.

Oliver sprang for his coat and was about to cram his arms into the
sleeves, when she cried:

"Oh, please don't! I wish I could wear a coat myself, so that I could
take it off and paint. Oh! the smell of the lovely pipes! It's
heavenly, and it's so like home. Really," and she looked about her,
"this is the only place I have seen in America that I can breathe in.
I've heard of you all winter and I so wanted to come. I would not give
dear Bianchi any rest till he brought me. Oh! I'm so glad to be here."

Oliver and the others were still standing, looking in amazement at the
new-corner. One of the unwritten laws of the club was that no woman
should ever enter its doors, a law that until this moment had never
been broken.

While she was speaking Bianchi stepped back, and took the tips of the
woman's fingers within his own. When she had finished he thrust out one
foot and, with the bow of an impresario introducing a new songstress,
said:

"Gentlemen of the Stone Mugs, I have the honor of presenting you to the
Countess Kovalski."

Again the woman courtesied, sweeping the floor with her black velvet
skirt, broke out into a laugh, handed her cloak and scarf to Bianchi,
who threw them over the shoulders of the lay figure, and moved toward
the table, Fred, as host, drawing out a chair for her.

"Oh!--what lovely beginnings--" she continued, examining the sketches
with her lorgnette, after the members had made their salutations, "Let
me make one. I studied two years with Achenbach. You did not know that
Bianchi, did you? There are so many things you do not know, you lovely
man." She was as much at home as if she had been there every evening of
her life.

Still, with the same joyous self-contained air she settled herself in
Fred's proffered chair, picked up one of Jack's brushes, reached over
his shoulder, and with a "please-hold-still, thank you," scooped up a
little yellow ochre from his palette, and unloaded it on a corner of a
tile. Then, stripping off her bracelets, she piled them in a heap
before her, selected a Greek coin dangling from the end of one of them,
propped it up on the table and began to paint; the men, all of whom
were too astonished to resume their work, crowding about her, watching
the play of her brush; a brush so masterful in its technique that
before the picture was finished the room broke out in unrestrained
applause.

During all this time she was talking in German to Crug, or in French to
Waller, only stopping to light a fresh cigarette which she took from a
jewelled case and laid beside her. She could, no doubt, have as easily
lapsed into Russian, Choctaw, or Chinese had there been any such
strange people about.

When the men had resumed their customary seats and the room had once
more settled to work--it had only been a question of sex that had
destroyed the equilibrium, a question no longer of value now that the
fair intruder could really PAINT--Oliver bent over her and said in his
most gallant manner:

"If the Countess Kovalski will be gracious enough to excuse Bianchi (he
had never left her elbow) I will try and make a burgomaster of him.
Perhaps you will help me tie this around his neck," and he held out the
white ruff. He had put on his coat despite her protest.

"What, dear Bianchi in a ruff! Oh! how perfectly charming! That's
really just what he looks like. I've always told him that Rembrandt
ought to have seen him. Come, you sweet man, hold up your beautiful
Dutch face."

As she spoke she caught the ruff from Oliver's hand and stretched out
her bare arms toward Blanch.

"No, I'm not going to pose now," protested the Pole, pushing back her
hands. "You can get me any time. Take the Countess, Horn. She'd make a
stunner."

"Yes! Yes! Please do," she laughed, springing from her seat and
clapping her hands with all the gayety and joyousness of a child over
some expected pleasure.

Oliver hesitated for an instant, as he looked down into her eyes,
wondering whether his brush could do justice to their depth. Then he
glanced at her supple figure and white skin in contrast to the black
velvet, its edge softened by the fall of lace, the dominant, insistent
note of the red japonica in her blue-black hair, the flesh tones
brilliant under the gas-jets. The color scheme was exactly what he had
been looking for all winter--black, white, and a touch of red.

"I have never been so honored, Madame. Nothing could give me greater
pleasure," he answered, with a dry smile. "May I escort your ladyship
to the platform?" And he held out his hand and conducted her to the
stand facing the big easel.

Then there followed a scene such as many of the Stone Mugs had not
shared in since they left the Latin Quarter.

The Countess stood erect on the raised platform, with head up and
slightly turned, the full glare of the gas-jets falling upon her neck
and throat, made all the more brilliant by reason of the dark green
walls of Fred's studio, which formed the background behind her. One arm
was partly raised, a lighted cigarette between her fingers; the other
was lost in the folds of the velvet gown. She posed as naturally and as
easily as if she had done nothing else all her life, and with a certain
bravado and swing that enchanted everybody in the room.

One talent demanded of the artist members of the club when they sought
admission, and insisted upon by the Committee, was the ability,
possessed in a marked degree by Oliver, of making a rapid, telling
sketch from life, and at night. So expert had most of the members
become that many of their pictures made under the gas-light were as
correct in their color-values as those done in the day-time. In this
Oliver was past-master. Most of his own work had to be done under
artificial light during the long years of his struggle.

The men--they were again on their feet--crowded closer, forming a
circle about the easel. They saw that the subject appealed to Oliver,
and they knew how much better he could paint when his heart was in his
work. His picture of Margaret Grant in the Tam-o'-Shanter cap, the best
portrait at the last exhibition, had proved that.

Oliver saw the interest shown in his work and put himself on his
mettle. He felt that not only his own reputation, but the honor of the
Stone Mugs, was at stake. He felt, too, a certain pride and confidence
in the sureness of his touch--a touch that the woman he loved believed
in--one she had really taught him herself, He began by blocking in with
a bit of charcoal the salient points of the composition. Fred stood on
his left hand holding a cigar-box filled with tubes of color, ready to
unscrew their tops and pass them to Oliver as he needed them.

As the dark background of greenish black, under the vigorous strokes of
his brush, began to relieve the flesh tones, and the coloring of the
lips and the japonica in the hair took their places in the
color-scheme, a murmur of applause ran through the room. No such piece
of night-work had ever been painted since the club had come together,
and certainly not before.

"A Fortuny, by thunder!" burst out Waller. He had been the first man to
recognize Oliver's talent in the old days and had always felt proud of
his foresight.

For two hours Oliver stood before his canvas, the Countess resting now
and then, floating over to the piano, as Simmons had done, running her
fingers over its keys, or breaking out into Polish, Hungarian, or
French songs at the pleasure of the room. During these rests Oliver
turned the picture to the wall. He did not wish her to see it until it
was finished. He was trying some brush tricks that Madge loved, some
that she had learned in Couture's atelier, and whose full effect could
only be recognized in the finished work.

When the last touches of Oliver's brush had been laid on the canvas,
and the modest signature, O. H., as was the custom, had been affixed to
its lower left-hand corner, he made a low salaam to the model and
whirled the easel in front of her.

The cry of delight that escaped her lips was not only an expression of
her pleasure, but it convinced every man in the club that the
Countess's technical knowledge of what constituted a work of art
equalled her many other accomplishments. She sat looking at it with
thoughtful, grave face, and her whole manner changed. She was no longer
the woman who had so charmed the room. She was the connoisseur, the
expert, the jury of last resort. Oliver watched her with absorbing
interest as he sat wiping his forehead with his handkerchief.

"Monsieur Horn," she said, slowly, as if weighing each word, "if you
come to my country they will cover you all over with medals. I had no
idea anyone in this new land could paint as you do. You are a master.
Permit me, Monsieur, to make you my obeisance--" and she dipped back on
one foot and swept the floor with her skirts.

Oliver laughed, returned the bow with a mock flourish, and began
rolling down his shirt-cuffs; a thrill quivering through him--that
thrill only felt by a painter when he is conscious that some work of
his brush has reached the high-water mark of his abilities. For only
the artist in him had been at work. What stirred him was not the
personality of the Countess--not her charm nor beauty but the harmony
of the colors playing about her figure: the reflected lights in the
blue-black of her hair; the soft tones of the velvet lost in the
shadows of the floor, and melting into the walls behind her; the high
lights on the bare shoulder and arms divided by the severe band of
black; the subdued grays in the fall of lace uniting the flesh tones
and the bodice; and, more than all, the ringing note of red sung by the
japonica tucked in her hair and which found its only echo in the red of
her lips--red as a slashed pomegranate with the white seed-teeth
showing through. The other side of her beautiful self--the side that
lay hidden under her soft lashes and velvet touch, the side that could
blaze and scorch and burn to cinders--that side Oliver had never once
seen nor thought of.

This may have been because, while his fingers worked on, his thoughts
were somewhere else, and that he saw another face as he mixed his
colors, and not that of the siren before him. Or it may have been that,
as he looked into the eyes of the Countess, he saw too deeply into the
whirlpool of passion and pain which made up the undercurrent in this
beautiful woman's strange life.

Not so the others. Many of whom were the most serious-minded of men
where women were concerned. Crug--who, to quote Waller, had drifted
into a state of mind bordering on lunacy--was so completely taken off
his feet that he again led her ladyship by her finger-tips to the
piano, and, with his hand on his heart, and his eyes upraised, begged
her to sing for him some of the songs of her native land and in the
tongue of her own people; the Countess complying so graciously and
singing with such consummate taste and skill, throwing her soul into
every line, that the men soon broke out in rounds of applause, crowding
about her with the eagerness of bees around a hive--all except Waller
and Oliver, who sat apart, quietly watching her out of the corners of
their eyes.

The portrait was forgotten now; so were the sketches and tiles, and the
work of the evening. So was everything else but the woman who dominated
the room. She kept her seat on the piano-stool, the centre of the
group, as a queen of the ballet sits on a painted throne, flashing her
eyes from one to the other, wheeling about to dash off an air from some
unknown opera--unknown to those who listened--laying her lighted
cigarette on the music-rack as she played, and whirling back again to
tell some anecdote of the composer who wrote it, or some incident
connected with its production in Vienna or Warsaw or St.
Petersburg--the club echoing her every whim.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the staid and sober-minded
Stone Mugs, under these conditions, completely lost their heads, and
that when Oliver picked up an empty beer-mug, the symbol of the club
used in all ceremonies, and began filling it with the names of the
members which he had written on slips of paper, preparatory to the
drawing of the lottery for the picture which he had just
finished--every meeting-night a lottery was drawn, the lucky winner
possessing the picture of the evening--Crug and Munson should have
simultaneously sprung to their feet, and, waving their hands over their
heads, have proposed, in one and the same breath, that "Our
distinguished visitor" should have the privilege of adding her own name
to those in Oliver's mug--the picture to be her own individual property
should her patronymic be the first to be drawn from its open mouth.

Waller started to his feet to object, and the words of protest were
half out of his mouth when Oliver stopped him. A woman was always a
woman to Oliver, no matter what her past or present station in life
might be. It was her sex that kept him loyal when any discourtesy was
involved.

"Keep still, old man," he whispered. "They've gone crazy, but we can't
help it. Get on your feet and vote."

When the sound of the "ayes" adopting Crug and Munson's motion had died
away, Oliver inscribed her initials upon a small piece of paper,
dropped it in the mug, held it high above the lady's head, and asked
her to reach up her dainty fingers and pick out the name of the lucky
possessor of "The Woman in Black," as the picture had now been
christened. The white arm went up, the jewelled fingers felt about
nervously among the little ballots, and then the Countess held up a
twisted bit of paper.

A burst of applause filled the room. The scrap of paper bore the
initials of the Countess! "The Woman in Black" was her property.

But the most extraordinary part by far of the evening's performance was
still to come.

When the hour of midnight had arrived--the hour of dispersal, a rule
rarely broken--the Countess called to Bianchi and directed him to go
out into the hall and bring in her long black stockings and stout
shoes, which she had taken off outside Fred's door, and which she had
left hanging on a nail.

I can see her now--for I, too, was leaning over the same table, Oliver
beside me, watching this most extraordinary woman of another world, a
woman who had been the idol of almost every capital in Europe, and whom
I knew (although Oliver did not) had been quietly conducted out of some
of them between dark and daylight--I can see her now, I say, sitting on
the piano-stool, facing the group, the long, black silk stockings that
Bianchi had brought her in her hands. I remember just the way in which,
after loosening her dainty, red-heeled slippers, she swept aside her
skirts, unfastened her garters, and, with the same unconsciousness and
ease with which she would have slipped a pair of rubbers over a pair of
shoes, drew the long black stockings over her flesh-colored ones,
refastening the garters again, talking all the time, first to one and
then the other; pausing only to accentuate some sentence with a wave of
her shoe or stocking or cigarette, as the action suited the words.

That the group about her was composed solely of men made not the
slightest difference. She was only trying to save those precious,
flesh-colored silk stockings that concealed her white skin from the
slush and snow of the streets. As to turning her back to her hosts
during this little change of toilet--that was the last thing that
entered her head. She would as soon have stepped into a closet to put
on her gloves.

And then again, why should she be ashamed of her ankles and her
well-turned instep and dainty toes, as compact in their silk covering
as peas in a pod! She might have been, perhaps, in some one of the
satin-lined drawing-rooms around Madison Square or Irving Place, but
not here, breathing the blue smoke of a dozen pipes and among her own
kind--the kind she had known and loved and charmed all her life.

After all it was but a question of economy. Broadway was a slough of
mud and slush, and neither she nor Bianchi had the price of a carriage
to spare.

Oliver watched her until the whole comedy was complete; then, picking
up his wet sketch and handing it with the greatest care to Bianchi, who
was to conduct her ladyship to her lodgings, he placed the long black
cloak with the fur-trimming and watermelon-colored silk lining about
her beautiful, bare shoulders, and, with the whole club following and
waving their hands good-night, our young gentleman bowed her out and
downstairs with all the deference and respect he would have shown the
highest lady in the land.




CHAPTER XXII

"MARGARET GRANT--TOP FLOOR"


One spring morning, some time after the visit of the Countess to the
club and the painting of her portrait by Oliver--the incident had
become the talk of the studios before the week was out--Oliver sat in
his own rooms on the top floor, drinking his coffee--the coffee he had
boiled himself. The janitor had just slipped two letters through a slit
in the door. Both lay on the floor within reach of his hand. One was
from his mother, bearing the postmark of his native city; the other was
from a prominent picture-dealer on Broadway, with a gallery and big
window looking out on the street.

Oliver broke the seal of his mother's letter, and moved his chair so
that the light from the overhead skylight would fall on its pages.

It read as follows:

"My Darling Boy: Your father goes to you to-morrow. Mr. Cobb was here
last night with a letter from some gentleman of means with whom he has
been corresponding. They want to see the motor, so your father and
Nathan leave on the early train.

"This man's continued kindness is a constant surprise to me. I have
always thought it was he who prevented the mortgage from being
foreclosed, but I never knew until yesterday that he had written his
name under my own the second time the note was to be renewed, and that
he has kept it there ever since. I cannot speak of this to him, nor
must you, if you see him, for poor old Mr. Steiger told me in
confidence. I am the more glad now that we have always paid the
interest on the note. The next payment, which you have just sent me,
due on the first of the month, is now in my bureau-drawer ready for the
bank, but I will not have to use it now.

"Whether the mortgage can ever be paid off I do not know, for the farm
is ruined, I fear. Mr. Mowbray's cousin, who drove over last week to
see what was left of the plantations in that section, writes me that
there is nothing remaining of your grandfather's place but the bare
ground and the house. All the fences have been burned and many of the
beautiful trees cut down for firewood. The Government still occupies
the house and one of the outbuildings, although most of the hospital
stores have been moved away. The last half-year's rent which was held
back, owing to some new ruling from Washington, came, I am thankful to
say, two days ago in a check from the paymaster here, owing to Mr.
Cobb's intercession. He never loses an opportunity to praise you for
what you did for that poor young soldier, and Mr. Steiger told me that
when those in authority heard from Mr. Cobb which Mrs. Horn it was,
they ordered the rent paid at once. He is always doing just such
kindnesses for us. But for this rental I don't know how we would have
been able to live and take care of those dependent upon us. We little
knew, my son, when we both strove so hard to save the farm that it
would really be our only support. This rent, however, will soon cease
and I tremble for the future. I can only pray my Heavenly Father that
something will come out of this visit to New York. It is our only hope
now.

"Don't lose sight of your father for a moment, my son. He is not well
and gets easily fatigued, and although he is greatly elated over his
promised success, as we all are--and he certainly deserves to be--I
think you will see a great change in him these last few months. I would
not have consented to his going had not Nathan gone with him. Nathan
insists upon paying the expenses of the trip; he says it is only fair
that he should, as your father has given him an interest in the motor.
I earnestly hope for some results, for I shall have no peace until the
whole amount of the mortgage is paid back to the bank and you and Mr.
Cobb are released from the burden, so heavy on you, my boy.

"There is no other news to tell you. Sue Clayton brought her boy in
to-day. He is a sweet little fellow and has Sue's eyes. She has named
him John Clayton, after her father. They have made another attempt to
find the Colonel's body on the battle-field, but without success. I am
afraid it will never be recovered.

"Lavinia sends her love. She has been much better lately. Her army
hospital work has weighed upon her, I think. Three years was too long.

"I have the last newspaper notices of your academy picture pinned on my
cushion, and I show them to everybody who comes in. They always delight
me. You have had a hard fight, my son, but you are winning now. No one
rejoices more than I do in your success. As you said in your last
letter, the times have really changed. They certainly have for me.
Sorrow and suffering have made me see many things in a different light
these last few years.

"Malachi and Hannah are well, but the old man seems quite feeble at
times.

"Your loving mother,

"Sallie T. Horn."

Dear lady, with your soft white hair and deep brown eyes that have so
often looked into mine! How dreary were those long days of hate and
misery! How wise and helpful you were to every living soul who sought
your aid, friend and foe alike. Your great heart sheltered and
comforted them all.

Oliver read the letter through and put his lips to the signature. In
all his life he had never failed to kiss his mother's name at the
bottom of her letters. The only difference was that now he kissed them
with an added reverence. The fact of his having proved himself right
and her wrong in the choice of his profession made loyalty with him the
more tender.

"Dear, dear mother!" he said to himself. "You have had so much trouble
lately, and you have been so plucky through it all." He stopped, looked
dreamily across the room, and added with a sigh: "But she has not said
one word about Madge; not one single word. She doesn't answer that part
of my letter; she doesn't intend to."

Then he opened the other communication which read:

"Dear Mr. Horn: Please call here in the morning. I have some good news
for you.

"John Snedecor."

Oliver turned the picture-dealer's letter over, peered into the
envelope as if he expected to find some trace of the good news tucked
away in its corners, lifted the tray holding his frugal breakfast, and
laid it on the floor outside his door ready for the janitor's morning
round. Then, picking up his hat, he locked his door, hung an "out card"
on the knob, and, strolling downstairs, stepped into the fresh morning
air. He knew the dealer well. He had placed two of old Mr. Crocker's
pictures with him--one of which had been sold.

When he reached Snedecor's gallery he found the big window surrounded
with a crowd gazing intently at an upright portrait in a glittering
gold frame, to which was affixed an imposing-looking name-plate bearing
the inscription:

  "THE WOMAN IN BLACK,
  BY OLIVER HORN"

So this was Snedecor's good news!

Oliver made his way through the crowd and into the open door of the
shop--the shop was, in front, the gallery in the rear--and found the
proprietor leaning over a case filled with artists' supplies.

"Has she had it FRAMED, Snedecor?" asked Oliver, with a light laugh.

"Not to any alarming extent! I made that frame for Mr. Peter Fish. She
sent it here for sale, and Fish bought it. He's wild about it. Says
it's the best thing since Sully. He wants you to paint his daughter;
that's what I wanted to see you about. Great card for you, Mr. Horn. I
congratulate you!"

Oliver gave a low whistle. His own good fortune was for the moment
forgotten in his surprise at the woman's audacity. Selling a sketch
painted by one of the club! one which had virtually been GIVEN to her.

"Poor Bianchi! He does pick up the queerest people. I wonder if she was
out of stockings," he said half-aloud.

"Oh, you needn't worry about the Madame; she won't suffer for clothes
as long as she's got that pair of eyes in her head. You just ought to
have seen her handle old Fish. It was beautiful. But, see here now, you
don't want to make old Peter a present of this portrait of his
daughter. He's good for a thousand, I tell you. She got a cracking
price for that one," and he pointed to the picture.

Again Oliver laughed.

"A cracking price? She must have needed the money bad." The more he
thought of it the funnier it seemed.

Snedecor looked surprised. He was thinking of Fish's order and the
amount of his commission. Most of Oliver's remarks were unintelligible
to him--especially his reference to the stockings.

"What shall I say to him?" Snedecor asked at last.

"Oh, nothing in particular. Just send him to my studio. I'll be in all
to-morrow morning."

"Well, but don't you think you'd better go and see him yourself now?
He's too big a bug to run after people. That kind of thing don't come
every day, you know; you might lose it. Why, he lives right near you in
that swell house across the Square."

"Oh, I know him very well," said Oliver, nodding his head. "No, let him
come to-morrow to me; it won't hurt him to walk up three flights of
stairs. I'm busy to-day. Now I think of it, there's one thing, though,
you CAN tell him, and please be particular about it--there will be no
advance over my regular price. I don't care to compete with her
ladyship."

Without waiting to hear the dealer's protest he stepped outside the
shop and joined the crowd about the window, elbowing each other for a
better view of the portrait. No one recognized him. He was too obscure
for that. They might after this, he thought with an exultant throb, and
a flush of pride crossed his face.

As he walked down Broadway a sense of the humor of the whole situation
came over him. Here for years he had been working day and night;
running the gauntlet of successive juries and hanging committees, with
his best things rejected or skied until his Tam-o'-Shanter girl made a
hit; worrying, hoping against hope, racking his brain as to how and
when and where he would find the path which would lead him to
commercial success--a difficult task for one too proud to beg for
favors and too independent to seek another's aid--and here, out of the
clear sky, had come this audacious Bohemienne, the pet of foyer and
studio--a woman who presented the greatest number of contrasts to the
things he held most dear in womankind--and with a single stroke had
cleared the way to success for him. And this, too, not from any love of
him, nor his work, nor his future, but simply to settle a board-bill or
pay for a bonnet.

Again Oliver laughed, this time so loudly that the man in front turned
and looked at him.

"A cracking price," he kept repeating to himself, "a cracking price,
eh? and out of old Peter Fish! Went fishing for minnows and hooked a
whale, and another little fish for me! I wonder what she baited her
hook with. That woman's a genius."

Suddenly he caught sight of the sign of a Long Island florist set up in
an apothecary's window between the big green and red glass globes that
lined its sides.

Turning on his heel he entered the door.

"Pick me out a dozen red japonicas," he said to the boy behind the
counter.

Oliver waited until each short-stemmed blossom was carefully selected,
laid on its bed of raw cotton, blanketed with the same covering, and
packed in a paper box. Then, taking a card from his pocket, he wrote
upon its back: "Most grateful thanks for my share of the catch,"
slipped it into an envelope, addressed it to "The fair Fisher, The
Countess Kovalski," and, with a grim smile on his face, kept on down
Broadway toward the dingy hotel, the resort of all the Southerners of
the time, to arrange for rooms for his father and Nathan Gill.

Having, with his card and his japonicas, dismissed the Countess from
his mind, and to a certain extent his obligations, the full importance
of this new order of Peter Fish's began to take possession of him. The
color rose in his cheeks and an old-time spring and lightness came into
his steps. He knew that such a commission, and from such a man, would
at once gain for him a recognition from art patrons and a standing
among the dealers. Lasting success was now assured him in the line he
had chosen for his life's work. It only remained for him to do the best
that was in him. Better than all, it had come to him unasked and
without any compromising effort on his own part.

He knew the connoisseur's collection. It filled the large gallery
adjoining his extensive home on Washington Square and was not only the
best in the city, containing as it did examples of Sir Thomas Lawrence,
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Chrome, Sully, and many of the modern French
school--among them two fine Courbets and a Rousseau--but it had lately
been enriched by one or more important American landscapes, notably
Sanford Gifford's "Catskill Gorge" and Church's "Tropics"--two canvases
which had attracted more than usual attention at the Spring Exhibition
of the Academy. An order, therefore, for a family portrait from so
distinguished a patron not only gave weight and dignity to the work of
any painter he might select, but it would unquestionably influence his
many friends and acquaintances to go and do likewise.

As Oliver, his eyes aglow, his whole heart filled with joy, stepped
quickly down the street the beauty of the day made him throw back his
shoulders and drink in long deep breaths, as if he would fill his very
pores with its vitality. These early spring days in New York--the most
beautiful the world over; not even in Italy can one find better
skies--always affected him in this way. There was a strength-giving
quality in the ozone, a brilliancy in the sunshine, and a tempered
coolness in the air to be found nowhere else. There was, too, a certain
picturesqueness in the sky-line of the houses--a sky-line fringed with
jets of white steam from the escape-pipes of numerous fires below,
which appealed to his artistic sense. These curling plumes that waved
so triumphantly in the sparkling morning light, or stirred by the wind,
flapped like milk-white signal flags, breaking at last into tatters and
shreds, blurring the edges of chimney and cornice, were a constant
source of delight to the young painter. He would often stop to watch
their movements, and as often determine to paint them at the first
opportunity. They seemed to express to him something of the happy
freedom of one released from pent-up toil; a freedom longed for in his
own heart, and which had rarely been his since those blessed days under
Moose Hillock, when he and Margaret roamed the woods together.

Still a third cause of rejoicing--and this sent a flutter around his
heart--was the near prospect of meeting his dear old father, whom he
had not seen for months; not since his last visit home, and whose long
years of struggle and waiting seemed now to be so nearly ended.

With these last joyous thoughts filling his mind, he stepped quickly
through the corridor of the hotel, approached the desk, and had just
given the names of his father and Nathan to the clerk, when a man
behind the counter interrupted him with:

"Just arrived. Got in this morning. There they are by the window."

Two quaint-looking old gentlemen were gazing out upon the rush of
Broadway--two old gentlemen so unusual that even the habitues of the
place, those who sat tilted back all day chipping the arms of their
chairs with their pen-knives, or sipping countless toddies and juleps,
were still staring at them in undisguised astonishment. One--it was
Nathan--wore a queer hat, bushy, white hair, and long, pen-wiper cloak:
it was the same cloak, or another just like it; the same, no doubt; few
new clothes had been bought during the war. And the other--and this was
his own dear father--wore a buff waistcoat, high white silk scarf, and
brown frock coat, with velvet collar. Neither of them were every-day
sights around the corridors of the New York Hotel: even among a
collection of human oddities representing every State in the South.

"We thought it best to take the night train, my son," said Richard,
starting up at Oliver's caressing touch--he had put both hands on his
father's shoulders. "You got your dear mother's letter of course. Oh,
I'm so glad to see you! Sit down here alongside of us. How well you are
looking, my son," and he patted him lovingly on the arm. "What a whirl
it all is! Nathan and I have been here for hours; we arrived at six
o'clock. Did you ever see anything like it? The people never seem to
stop coming. Ah! this is the place for you, my boy. Everything is so
alive, so full of purpose, so intense, so delightful and inspiring to
me. And such a change in the years since I was here."

He had brought the motor with him. It lay at the moment in a square box
inside the office-railing. Not the big one which he had just
perfected--that one was at home under the window in the old shop, in
the back yard in Kennedy Square--but a smaller working model made of
pine wood, with glass-tumblers for jars and imitation magnets wrapped
round with thread instead of wire--the whole unintelligible to the
layman, but perfectly clear to the scientist. He had with him, too,
packed in a small carpet-bag, which lay within reach of his hand, all
the patents which had been granted him as the work progressed--besides
a huge bundle of papers, such as legal documents, notices from the
scientific journals, and other data connected with the great Horn
Galvanic Motor, which was soon to revolutionize the motive power of the
world. Tucked away in his inside pocket, ready for instant use, was
Amos Cobb's letter, introducing "the distinguished inventor, Mr.
Richard Horn, of Kennedy Square," etc., etc., to the group of
capitalists who were impatiently waiting his arrival, and who were to
furnish the unlimited sums of money necessary in its
development--unlimited sums being ready for any scheme, no matter how
chimerical, in the flush times through which the country was then
passing.

"I have succeeded at last, my boy, as I wrote you," continued Richard,
with glowing eyes. "Even that small motor at home--the one you
know--that one has a lifting power of a hundred pounds. All that is
necessary now is to increase the size of the batteries and the final
result is assured. Let me show you this"--and, oblivious of the many
eyes fastened on him, he drew toward him the black carpet-bag and took
out a sheet of paper covered with red and blue lines. "You see where
the differences are. And you see here"--and he pointed out the details
with his thin white finger--"what I have done since I explained to you
the new additions. This drawing, when carried out, will result in a
motor with a lifting capacity of ten tons. Ah, Oliver, I cannot tell
you what a great relief has come to me now that I know my life's work
is crowned with success."

Nathan was quite as happy. Richard was his sun-god. When the light of
hope and success flashed in the inventor's quiet, thoughtful face,
Nathan basked in its warmth and was radiant in its glow. He needed all
the warmth he could get, poor old man. The cold chill of the days of
fear and pain and sorrow had well-nigh shrivelled him up; he showed it
in every line of his body. His shoulders were much more bent; his
timid, pipe-stem legs the more shaky; the furrows about his face
deeper; the thin nose more transparent. All during the war he had
literally lived in Richard. The cry of the "extras" and the dull tramp
of marching troops, and the rumbling of cars laden with army supplies
had jarred on his sensitive ear as would discordant notes in a
quartette. Days at a time he would hide himself away in Richard's
workshop, helping him with his bellows or glue-pot, or piling the coals
on the fire of his forge. The war, while it lasted, paralyzed some men
to inaction--Nathan was one of them.

"At last, Oliver, at last!" Nathan whispered to Oliver when Richard's
head was turned for a moment. "Nothing now but plain sailing. Ah! it's
a great day for dear Richard! I couldn't sleep last night on the train
for thinking of him."

As Oliver looked down into Nathan's eyes, glistening with hope and
happiness, he wondered whether, after all these long years of waiting,
his father's genius was really to be rewarded? Was it the same old
story of success--one so often ending in defeat and gloom, he thought,
or had the problem really been solved? He knew that the machine had
stood its initial test and had developed a certain lifting power; his
father's word assured him of that; but would it continue to develop in
proportion to its size?

He turned again toward Richard. The dear face was a-light with a new
certainty; the eyes brilliant, the smiles about the lips coming and
going like summer clouds across the sun. Such enthusiasm was not to be
resisted. A fresh hope rose in the son's heart. Could this now almost
assured success of his father's help him with Madge? Would their long
waiting come any nearer to being ended? Would the sum of money realized
be large enough to pay off the dreaded mortgage, and there still be
enough for the dear home and its inmates?

He knew how large this hoped-for sum must be, and how closely his own
and his mother's honor were involved in its cancellation. Her letter
had indeed stated the facts--this motor was now their only hope outside
the work of his own brush.

Perhaps, after all, his lucky day had come. The first gleam of light
had been this order of Peter Fish's to paint his daughter, and now
here, sitting beside him, was his father with a letter in his pocket
addressed to Amos Cobb from one of the richest men in New York, who
stood ready to pay a small fortune for the motor. Then he thought of
his mother. What a delight it would be when she could be freed from the
millstone that had hung around her neck for years.

He must go and tell Margaret and take his father and Nathan with him.
Yes, his lucky day HAD come.

Soon the two delighted and astonished old gentlemen, under Oliver's
guidance, were making their way up Broadway ostensibly to see his
picture at Snedecor's, but really to call upon the distinguished
painter, Margaret Grant, whom everyone was talking about, both in New
York and in Kennedy Square, for one of her pictures graced Miss
Clendenning's boudoir at that very moment. Our young Romeo had waited
too many months for someone from Kennedy Square to see the woman he
loved, and now that the arms of his father and Nathan were linked in
his own, and their legs subject to his orders, he did not intend to let
many precious minutes pass before he rang Margaret's studio bell.

When Snedecor's window was reached Richard stopped short in amazement.

"Yours, Oliver! Marvellous! Marvellous!" Richard exclaimed, when the
three had wedged their way into the crowd to see the better. "A fine
strong picture, and a most superb looking woman. Why, I had no idea!
Really! Really"--and his voice trembled. He was deeply touched. The
strength of the coloring, the masterly drawing, the admiring crowd
about the window, greatly surprised him. While he had been closeted
with his invention, thinking only of its success and bending every
energy for its completion, this boy of his had become a master.

"I didn't do my full duty to you, my son," he said, with a tone of
sadness in his voice, when they had resumed their walk up Broadway.
"You lost much time in finding your life's work. I should have insisted
years ago that you follow the trend of your genius. Your dear mother
was not willing and I let it go, but it was wrong. From something she
said to me the other night I feel sure she sees her mistake now, but I
never mention it to her, and do you never let her know I told you. Yes!
You started too late in life, my boy."

"No, dear old daddy; I started just in the nick of time and in the
right way."

How could he have thought anything else on this lovely spring morning,
with the brightest of skies overhead, his first important order within
his grasp, his dear old father and Nathan beside him, and the loveliest
girl in the world or on the planets beyond waiting for him at the top
of her studio stairs!

"It's most kind of you to say so," continued Richard, dodging the
people as he talked, "but couldn't you have learned to work by
following your own tastes?"

"No dad. I was too confounded lazy and too fond of fun. And then the
dear mother wanted me to go to work, and that was always enough for me."

"Oh, my son, it does me good to hear you say so"--and a light shone on
the old gentleman's face. "Yes! you ALWAYS considered your mother. You
can't think how she has suffered during these terrible years. But for
the good offices of Mr. Cobb whose kindness I shall never forget, I do
not see how she could have gone through them as she has. Isn't it fine,
my son, to think it is all over? She will never have to worry
again--never--never. The motor will end all her troubles. She did not
believe in it once, but she does now."

They continued on up Broadway, Oliver in the middle, Richard's arm in
his; he hurrying them both along; steering them across the streets;
avoiding the trucks and dragging them past the windows they wanted to
look into, with promises of plenty of time for that to-morrow or next
week. Only once did he allow them to catch their breath, and that was
when they passed the big bronze statue overlooking Union Square, and
then only long enough for the two to take in its outlines, and from its
pedestal to fix their eyes on the little windows of Miss Teetum's
boarding-house, where he' had spent so many happy and unhappy days.

Soon the two breathless old gentlemen and equally breathless young
guide--the first condition due to the state of the two old gentlemen's
lungs and the second due entirely to the state of this particular young
gentleman's heart--stood in a doorway just off Madison Square, before a
small bell-pull bearing above it a tiny sign reading: "Margaret Grant.
Top Floor."

"Miss Grant has been at home only a few months," Oliver burst out as he
rang the bell and climbed the stairs. "Since her father's death she has
been in Paris with her mother, her cousin, Higbee Shaw the sculptor,
and her brother John. A shell injured the drum of John's ear, and while
she painted he was under the care of a French specialist. He is still
there with his mother. If you think I can paint just wait until you see
Miss Grant's work. Think, dad! she has taken two medals in Munich, and
last year had honorable mention at the Salon. You remember her brother,
of course, don't you, Uncle Nat, the one Malachi hid over father's
shop?"

Uncle Nat nodded his head as he toiled up the steps. He remembered
every hour of the hideous nightmare. He had been the one other man
besides Richard and the Chief of Police to shake Oliver's hand that
fatal night when he was exiled from Kennedy Square.

Mrs. Mulligan, in white apron, a French cap on her head, and looking as
fresh and clean as a trained nurse, opened the door. Margaret had
looked her up the very day she landed, and had placed her in charge of
her apartment as cook, housekeeper, and lady's maid, with full control
of the front door and of her studio. The old woman was not hard to
trace; she had followed the schools of the academy from their old
quarters to the new marble building on Twenty-third Street, and was
again posing for the draped-life class and occasionally lending a hand
to the new janitor. Margaret's life abroad had taught her the secret of
living alone, a problem easily solved when there are Mrs. Mulligans to
be had for the asking.

"Yes, Mr. Oliver, she's insoide. Oh! it's fri'nds ye hev wid ye!" and
she started back.

"Only my father and Mr. Gill," and he brushed past Mrs. Mulligan,
parted the heavy portieres that divided Madge's working studio from the
narrow hall, thrust in his head and called out, in his cheeriest voice:

"Madge, who do you think is outside? Guess! Father and Uncle Nat. Just
arrived this morning."

Before Margaret could turn her head the two stood before her: Richard
with his hat in his hand, his brown overcoat with the velvet collar
over his arm--he had slipped it off outside--and Nathan close behind,
still in the long, pen-wiper cloak.

"And is it really the distinguished young lady of whom I have heard so
much?" exclaimed Richard with his most courtly bow, taking the girl's
outstretched hand in both of his. "I am so glad to see you, my dear,
both on your own account and on account of your brother, whom we once
sheltered. And how is he now? and your dear mother?"

To all of which Margaret answered in low gentle tones, her eyes never
leaving Richard's, her hand still fast in his; until he had turned to
introduce Nathan so that he might pay his respects.

Nathan, in his timid halting way, stepped from behind Richard, and
taking her welcoming hand, told her how much he had wanted to know her,
since he had seen the picture she had painted, then hanging in Miss
Lavinia's home; both because it was the work of a woman and because
too--and he looked straight into her eyes when he said it and meant
every word--she was the sister of the poor fellow who had been so
shamefully treated in his own city. And Margaret, her voice breaking,
answered that, but for the aid of such kind friends as himself and
Oliver, John might never have come back, adding, how grateful she and
her whole family had been for the kindness shown her brother.

While they were talking, Richard, with a slight bow as if to ask her
permission, began making the tour of the room, his glasses held to his
eyes, examining each thing about him with the air of a connoisseur
suddenly ushered into a new collection of curios.

"Tell me who this sketch is by," he asked, stopping before Margaret,
and pointing to a small Lambinet, glowing like an opal on the
dull-green wall of the studio. "I so seldom see good pictures that a
gem like this is a delight. By a Frenchman! Ah! Yes, I see the subtlety
of coloring. Marvellous people, these Frenchmen. And this little jewel
you have here? This bit of mezzo in color. With this I am more
familiar, for we have a good many collections of old prints at home. It
is, I think--yes--I thought I could not be mistaken--it is a Morland,"
and he examined it closely, his nose almost touching the glass.

The next instant he had crossed the room to the window looking out over
the city, the smoke and steam of a thousand fires floating over its
wide expanse.

"Come here, my son," he called to Oliver. "Look over that stretch of
energy and brains. Is it not inspiring? And that band of silver, moving
so quietly and resistlessly out to sea. What a power for good it all
is, and what a story it will tell before the century is out."

Margaret was by his side as he spoke. She had hardly taken her eyes
from him since he entered the room--not even when she was listening to
Nathan. All her old-time, prejudices and preconceived estimates of
Richard were slipping away. Was this the man whom she used to think of
as a dreamer of dreams, and a shiftless Southerner? This charming old
gentleman with the air of an aristocrat and the keen discernment of an
expert? She could hardly believe her eyes.

As for Oliver, his very heart was bursting with pride. It had all
happened exactly as he had wanted it--his father and Margaret had liked
each other from the very first moment. And then she had been so
beautiful, too, even in her long painting-apron and her hair twisted up
in a coil on her head. And the little blush of surprise and sweetness
which had overspread her face when they entered, and which his father
must have seen, and the inimitable grace with which she slipped from
her high stool, and with a half courtesy held out her hand to welcome
her visitors, and all with the savoir faire and charm of a woman of the
world! How it all went straight to his heart.

If, however, he had ever thought her pretty in this working-costume, he
thought her all the more captivating a few minutes later in the little
French jacket--all pockets and buttons--which she had put on as soon as
the greetings were over and the tour of the room had been made in
answer to Richard's delighted questions.

But it was in serving the luncheon, which Mrs. Mulligan had brought in,
that his sweetheart was most enchanting. Her full-rounded figure moved
so gracefully when she bent across to hand someone a cup, and the pose
of the head was so delicious, and it was all so bewitching, and so
precisely satisfied his artistic sense. And he so loved to hear her
talk when she was the centre of a group like this, as much really to
see the movement of her lips and the light in her eyes and the gracious
way in which she moved her head as to hear what she said.

He was indeed so overflowing with happiness over it all, and she was so
enchanting in his eyes as she sat there dispensing the comforts of the
silver tray, that he must needs pop out of the room with some impromptu
excuse and disappear into the little den which held her desk, that he
might dash off a note which he tucked under her writing-pad--one of
their hiding-places--and which bore the lines: "You were never so much
my queen as you are to-day, dearest," and which she found later and
covered with kisses before he was half way down the block on his way
back to the hotel with the two old gentlemen.

She was indeed beautiful. The brow was wider and whiter, perhaps, than
it had been in the old days under the bark slant, and the look out of
the eyes a trifle softer, and with a certain tenderness in them--not
quite so defiant and fearless; but there had been no other changes.
Certainly none in the gold-brown hair that Oliver so loved. That was
still her glory, and was still heaped up in magnificent masses, and
with the same look about it of being ready to burst its bonds and flood
everything with a river of gold.

"Lots of good news to-day, Madge," Oliver exclaimed, after they had all
taken their seats, his father on Margaret's right, with Nathan next.

"Yes, and I have got lots of good news too; bushels of it," laughed
Margaret.

"You tell me first," cried Oliver bending toward her, his face beaming;
each day they exchanged the minutest occurrences of their lives.

"No--Ollie--Let me hear yours. What's it about? Mine's about a picture."

"So's mine," exclaimed Olive; his eyes brimming with fun and the joy of
the surprise he had in store for her.

"But it's about one of your OWN pictures, Ollie."

"So's mine," he cried again, his voice rising in merriment.

"Oh, Ollie, tell me first," pleaded Margaret with a tone in her voice
of such coaxing sweetness that only Richard's and Nathan's presence
restrained him from catching her up in his arms and kissing her then
and there.

"No, not until you have told me yours," he answered with mock firmness.
"Mine came in a letter."

"So did mine," cried Margaret clapping her hands. "I don't believe
yours is half as good as mine and I'm not going to wait to hear it. Now
listen--" and she opened an envelope that lay on the table within reach
of her hand. "This is from my brother John--" and she turned toward
Richard and Nathan. "He and Couture, in whose atelier I studied, are
great friends. Now please pay attention Mr. Autocrat--" and she looked
at Oliver over the edge of the letter and began to read--

"Couture came in to-day on his way home and I showed him the photograph
Ollie sent me of his portrait of you--his 'Tam-o'-Shanter Girl' he
calls it. Couture was so enthusiastic about it that he wants it sent to
Paris at once so that he can exhibit it in his own studio to some of
the painters there. Then he is going to send it to the Salon. So you
can tell that 'Johnnie Reb' to pass it along to me by the first
steamer; and you can tell him, too, that his last letter is a month
old, and I am getting hungry for another."

"There now! what do you think of that? Mr. Honorable Mention."

Oliver opened his eyes in astonishment.

"That's just like John, bless his heart!" he answered slowly, as his
glance sought the floor. This last drop had filled his cup of happiness
to the brim-- Some of it was glistening on his lashes.

"Now tell me your good news--" she continued, her eyes still dancing.
She had seen the look but misunderstood the cause.

Oliver raised his eyes--

"Oh, it's not nearly as good as yours, Madge, in one way and yet in
another it's a heap better. What do you think? Old Peter Fish wants me
to paint his daughter's portrait."

Margaret laid her hand on his.

"Oh, Oliver! Not Peter Fish! That's the best thing that has happened
yet," and her face instantly assumed a more serious expression. "I know
the girl--she will be an easy subject; she's exactly your type. How do
you know?"

"Just saw John Snedecor in answer to a letter he wrote me. Fish has
bought the 'Woman in Black.' He's delighted with it."

"Why, I thought it belonged to the Countess."

"So it did. She sold it."

"Sold it!"

"Yes. Does it surprise you?"

"No; I can't say that it does. I am glad, though, that it will stay in
the country. It's by far the best thing you or anybody else has done
this season. I was afraid she would take it back with her. Poor woman!
she has had a hard life, and it doesn't seem to get any better, from
what I hear."

"You know the original, then, my dear?" asked Richard, holding out his
second cup of tea for another lump of sugar, which Margaret in her
excitement had forgotten. He and Nathan had listened with the keenest
interest to the reading of John Grant's letter and to the discussion
that had followed.

"I know OF her," answered Margaret as she dropped it in; "and she knows
me, but I've never met her. She's a Pole, and something of a painter,
too. She studied in the same atelier where I was, but that was before I
went to Paris. Her husband became mixed up in some political conspiracy
and was sent to Siberia, and she was put across the frontier that same
night. She is very popular in Paris; they all like her, especially the
painters. There is nothing against her except her poverty." There could
be nothing against any woman in Margaret's eyes. "But for her jewels
she would have had as hard a time to get on as the rest of us. Now and
then she parts with one of her pearls, and between times she teaches
music. You must see the picture Oliver painted of her--it will delight
you."

"Oh, but I have!" exclaimed Richard, laying down his cup. "We looked at
it as we came up. It is really a great picture. He tells me it is the
work of two hours and under gas-light."

"No, not altogether, father. I had a few hours on it the next day,"
interrupted Oliver.

"Strong, isn't it?" continued Margaret, without noticing Oliver's
explanation. "It is really better in many ways than the girl in the
Tam-o'-Shanter cap--the one he painted of me. That had some of Lely's
qualities about it, especially in the flesh tones. He always tells me
the inspiration to paint it came from an old picture belonging to his
uncle. You know that of course?" and she laid a thin sandwich on
Nathan's plate.

"You mean Tilghman's Lely--the one in his house in Kennedy Square? Oh,"
said Richard, lifting his fingers in appreciation, "I know every line
of it. It is one of the best Lely's I ever saw, and to me the gem of
Tilghman's collection."

"Yes; so Ollie tells me," continued Margaret. "Now this picture of the
Countess is to me very much more in Velasquez's method than in Lely's.
Broader and stronger and with a surer touch. I have always told Ollie
he was right to give up landscapes. These two pictures show it. There
is really, Mr. Horn, no one on this side of the water who is doing
exactly what Oliver is." She spoke as if she was discussing Page,
Huntington or Elliott or any other painter of the day, not as if it was
her lover. "Did you notice how the lace was brushed in and all that
work about the throat--especially the shadow tones?"

She treated Richard precisely as if he was one of the guild. His
criticisms of her own work--for he had insisted on seeing her latest
picture and had even been more enthusiastic over it than he had been
over Oliver's--and his instant appreciation of the Lambinet, convinced
her, even before he had finished the tour of the room, that the quaint
old gentleman was as much at home in her atmosphere as he was in that
of his shop at home discussing scientific problems with some savant.

"I did, my dear. It is quite as you say," answered Richard, with great
earnestness. "This 'Woman in Black,' as he calls it, is painted not
only with sureness and with an intimate knowledge of the textures, but
it seems to me he has the faculty of expressing with each stroke of his
brush, as an engraver does with his burin, the rounds and hollows of
his surfaces. And to think, too, my dear," he continued, "that most of
it was done at night. The color tones, you know"--and his manner
changed, and a more thoughtful expression came into his face--the
scientist was speaking now--"are most difficult to manage at night. The
colors of the spectrum undergo some very curious changes under
artificial light, especially from a gas consuming as much carbon as our
common carburetted hydrogen. The greens, owing to the absorption of the
yellow rays, become the brighter, and the orange and red tones, from
the same reason, the more intense, while the paler violets and, in
fact, all the tertiaries, of a bluish cast lose--"

He stopped, as he caught a puzzled expression on her face. "Oh, what a
dreadful person I am," he exclaimed, rising from his seat. "It is quite
inexcusable in me. Please forgive me, my dear--I was really thinking
aloud. Such ponderous learned words should be kept out of this
delightful abode of the Muses, and then, I assure you, I really know so
little about it, and you know so much." And he laughed softly, and made
a little bow as a further apology.

"No. I don't know one thing about it, nor does any other painter I
know," she laughed, blowing out the alcohol lamp, "not quite in the
same way. And if I did I should want you to come every day and bring
Mr. Gill with you to tell me about it." Where-upon Nathan, replying
that nothing would give him more pleasure (he had been silent most of
the time--somehow no one expected him to talk much when Richard was
present), struggled to his feet at an almost imperceptible sign from
the inventor, who suddenly remembered that his capitalists were waiting
for him, pulled his old cloak about his shoulders and, with Richard
leading the way, they all four moved out into the hall and stood in the
open doorway.

When they reached the top stair outside the studio dear Richard
stopped, took both of Margaret's hands in his, and said, in his kindest
voice and in his gravest and most thoughtful manner, as he looked down
into her face:

"My dear Miss Grant, may I tell you that I have to-day found in you the
realization of one of my day-dreams? And will you forgive an old man
when he says how proud it makes him to know a woman who is brave enough
to live the life you do? You are the forerunner of a great movement, my
dear--the mother of a new guild. It is a grand and noble thing for a
woman to sustain herself with work that she loves"--and the dear old
gentleman, lifting his hat with the air of a courtier, betook himself
down-stairs, followed by Nathan, bowing as he went.

No wonder he rejoiced! Most of the dreams of his younger days were
coining true. And now this woman--the beginning of a new era--the
opening out of a new civilization. And ahead of it a National Art that
the world would one day recognize!

He tried to express his delight to Oliver, and turned to find him, but
Oliver was not beside him nor did he join his father for five minutes
at least. That young gentleman--just as Richard and Nathan had reached
the BOTTOM of the second flight of stairs--had suddenly remembered
something of the utmost importance which he had left in the INNER room,
and which he could not possibly find until Madge, waiting by the
banister, had gone back to help him look for it, and not then, until
Mrs. Mulligan had left them both and shut the kitchen-door behind her.
Yes, it was quite five minutes, or more, before Oliver clattered
down-stairs after his guests, stopping but once to look up through the
banisters into Margaret's eyes--she was leaning over for the
purpose--his open hand held up toward her as a sign that it was always
at her command.




CHAPTER XXIII

MR. MUNSON'S LOST FOIL


For a quiet, orderly, well behaved and most dignified street, Tenth
Street, at seven o'clock one April night was disgracing itself in a way
that must have shocked its inhabitants. Cabs driving like mad were
rattling over the cobbles, making their way toward the old Studio
Building. Policemen were shouting to the drivers to keep in line. Small
boys were darting in and out, peering into the cab windows and calling
out to their fellows: "Ki Jimmy! see de Ingin wid de fedder-duster on
his head"--or, "Look at de pill in de yaller shirt! My eye, ain't he a
honey-cooler!"

At the entrance of the building, just inside the door where the crowd
was thickest, stood two men in armor with visors down--stood so still,
that the boys and bystanders thought they had been borrowed from some
bric-a-brac shop until, in an unguarded moment, one plumed knight
rested his tired leg with a rattling noise that sounded like a
tin-peddler shifting his pack or the adjustment of a length of
stovepipe. Behind the speechless sentinels, leading into the narrow
corridor, stretched a red carpet bordered by rows of palms and
evergreens and hung about with Chinese lanterns.

At the end of this carpet opened a door that looked into a banquet hall
as rich in color and as sumptuous in its interior fittings as an
audience-chamber of the Doges at a time when Venice ruled the world.
The walls were draped with Venetian silks and Spanish velvets, against
which were placed Moorish plaques, Dutch brass sconces holding clusters
of candles, barbaric spears, bits of armor, pairs of fencing foils, old
cabinets, and low, luxurious divans. Thrust up into the skylight, its
gaff festooned with trawl-nets, drooped a huge sloop's sail, its
graceful folds breaking the square lines of the ceiling; and all about,
suspended on long filigree chains, swung old church-lamps of brass or
silver, burning ruby tapers.

In the centre of this glow of color stood a round table, its top
covered with a white cloth, and laid with covers for fifty guests. On
this were placed, in orderly confusion, great masses of flowers heard
up in rare porcelain vases; silver candelabra bearing lighted candles;
old Antwerp brass holding bon-bons and sweets; Venetian flagons filled
with rare wines; Chinese and Japanese curios doing service as
ash-receivers and match-safes; Delft platters for choice dishes;
besides Flemish mugs, Bavarian glasses, George III. silver, and the
like.

At the head of this sumptuous board was placed a chair of state,
upholstered in red velvet, studded with brass rosettes, the corners of
its high back surmounted by two upright gilt ornaments. This was to
hold the Master of the Feast, the presiding officer who was to govern
the merry spirits during the hours of the revel. In front of this royal
chair was a huge stone mug crowned with laurel. This was guarded by two
ebony figures, armed with drawn scimitars, which stood at each side of
the throne-seat. From these guards of honor radiated two half-circles
of lesser chairs, one for each guest--of all patterns and periods: old
Spanish altar-seats in velvet, Dutch chairs in leather, Italian chairs
in mother-of-pearl and ivory--all armless and quite low, so low that
the costumed slaves, who were to wait on the royal assembly, could
serve the courses without having to reach over the backs of the guests.

Moving about the room, rearranging the curios on the cabinets, adding a
bit of porcelain to the collection on the table, shifting the lights
for better effect, lounging on the wide divans, or massed about the
doorway welcoming the new arrivals as they entered, were Italian nobles
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, costumed with every detail
correct, even to the jewelled daggers that hung at their sides, all
genuine and of the period; cardinals in red hats and wonderful church
robes, the candle-grease of the altar still clinging to their skirts;
Spanish grandees in velvet and brocade; Indian rajahs in baggy silk
trousers and embroidered waistcoats, with Kohinoors flashing from their
turbans--not genuine this time but brilliant all the same;
Shakespeares, Dantes (one of each), besides courtiers, nobles,
gallants, and gentry of various climes and periods.

All this splendor of appointment, all these shaded candles,
hanging-lamps, Venetian glass, antique furniture, rich costumes,
Japanese curios, and assorted bric-a-brac, were gathered together and
arranged thus sumptuously to add charm and lustre to a banquet given by
the Stone Mugs to those of their friends most distinguished in their
several professions of art, literature, and music.

Indeed any banquet the Club gave was sure to be as unique as it was
artistic.

Sometimes it would be held in the hold of an abandoned vessel left high
and dry on a lonely beach, which, under the deft touches of the artists
of the Club, would be transformed in a night to the cabin of a
buccaneer filled with the loot of a treasure ship. Sometimes a canal
boat, which the week before had been loaded with lime or potatoes,
would be scoured out with a fire-hose, its deck roofed with awnings and
hung with lanterns, its hatches lined with palms, and in the hold below
a table spread of such surprising beauty, and in an interior so
gorgeous in its appointments that each guest, as he descended the
carpeted staircase leading from the deck above to the carpeted keelson
below, would rub his eyes wondering whether he had not been asleep, and
had suddenly awakened aboard Cleopatra's barge.

Again the club would hold a Roman feast in one of Solari's upstairs
rooms--the successor to Riley's of the old days--each man speaking
ancient Latin with Tenth Street terminals, the servants dressed in
tunics and sandals, and the members in togas. Or they would make a
descent at midnight on Fulton Market and have their tomcods scooped
from the fish-boxes alive and broiled to their liking while they
waited; or they would take possession of Brown's or Farrish's for mugs
of ale and English chops. But it was always one so different from any
other function of its class that it formed the topic of the studios for
weeks thereafter.

To-night it was the humor of the club to reproduce as closely as
possible, with the limited means at their disposal--for none of the
Stone Mugs were rolling in wealth, nor did these functions require
it--some one of the great banquets of former times, not to be
historically or chronologically correct, but to express the artistic
atmosphere of such an occasion.

That there were certain unavoidable and easily detected shams under all
this glamour of color and form did not lessen the charm of the present
function.

Everybody, of course, knew before the evening was over, or could have
found out had he tried, that the two knights in armor who guarded the
side-walk entrance to this royal chamber, and who had been the target
of the street-rats until they took their places at the inside door,
were respectively Mr. Patrick McGinnis, who tended the furnace in the
basement of the Tenth Street Studio Building, stripped for the occasion
down to his red flannels, and Signore Luigi Bennelli, his Italian
assistant.

A closer inspection of the two ebony blackamoors, with drawn scimitars,
who guarded the royal chair at the head of the table, would have
revealed the fact that they were not made of ebony at all, but of
veritable flesh and blood--the blackamoor on the right being none other
than Black Sam, the bootblack who shined shoes on the corner of the
avenue, and his bloodthirsty pal on the left the kinky-haired porter
who served the grocer next door; the only "HONEST" thing about either
of them, to quote Waller, being the artistic clothes that they stood in.

Further investigation would have shown that every one of the wonderful
things that made glad and glorious the big square room on the ground
floor of the building, from the brass sconces on the walls to the
hanging church lamps, with everything that their lights fell upon, had
been gathered up that same morning from the several homes and studios
of the members by old black Jerry, the official carman of the Academy,
and had been dumped in an indiscriminate heap on the floor of the
banquet hall, where they had been disentangled and arranged by half a
dozen painters of the club; that the table and table cloth had been
borrowed from Solari's; that the very rare and fragrant old Chianti,
the club's private stock, was from Solari's own cellars via Duncan's,
the grocer; and that the dinner itself was cooked and served by that
distinguished boniface himself, assisted by half a dozen of his own
waiters, each one wearing an original Malay costume selected from
Stedman's collection and used by him in his great picture of the Sepoy
mutiny.

Moreover there was not the slightest doubt that the "Ingin," who was
now bowing so gravely to the master of ceremonies, was no other than
the distinguished Mr. Thomas Brandon Waller, himself; "N.A., Knight of
the Legion of Honor, Pupil of Piloty, etc., etc.;" that the high-class
mandarin in the sacred yellow robe and peacock feather who accompanied
him, was Crug the 'cellist; that the bald-headed gentleman with the
pointed beard, who looked the exact presentment of the divine William,
was Munson; and that the gay young gallant in the Spanish costume was
none other than our Oliver. The other nobles, cavaliers, and hidalgos
were the less known members of the club, who, in their desire to make
the occasion a success, had fitted themselves to their costumes instead
of attempting to fit the costumes to themselves, with the difference
that each man not only looked the character he assumed but assumed the
character he looked.

But no one, even the most knowing; no student of costumes, no reader of
faces, no discerner of character, no acute observer of manners and
times--in glancing over the motley company would have thought for one
instant that, in all this atmosphere of real unrealism, the two old
gentlemen who had just entered leaning on Oliver's arm--one in a brown
coat with high velvet collar and fluffy silk scarf, and the other in a
long pen-wiper cloak which, at the moment was slipping from his
shoulders--were genuine specimens of the period of to-day without a
touch of makeup about them; that their old-time manners, even to the
quaint bows they both gave the master of ceremonies, as they entered
the royal chamber, were their very own, part of their daily equipment,
and that nothing in the gorgeous banquet hall, from the jewelled rapier
belted to Oliver's side, and which had once graced the collection of a
prince, down to the priceless bit of satsuma set out on the table and
now stuffed full of cigarettes (the bit could be traced back to the
Ming dynasty), were any more veritable or genuine, or any more
representative of the best their periods afforded than these two quaint
old gentlemen from Kennedy Square.

Had there been any doubt in the minds of any such wiseacre, either
regarding their authenticity or their quality, he had only to listen to
Oliver's presentation of his father and friend and to hear Richard say,
in his most courteous manner and in his most winning voice:

"I have never been more honored, sir. It was more than kind of you to
wish me to come. My only regret is that I am not your age, or I would
certainly have appeared in a costume more befitting the occasion. I
have never dreamed of so beautiful a place."

Or to see him lift his hand in astonishment as he swept his eye over
the room, his arm still resting on the velvet sleeve of Oliver's
doublet, and hear him add, in a half whisper:

"Wonderful! Wonderful! Such harmony of color; such an exquisite light.
I am amazed at the splendor of it all. What Aladdin among you, my son,
held the lamp that evoked all this beauty?"

Or still more convincing would it have been had he watched him moving
about the room, shaking every man's hand in turn, Oliver mentioning
their real names and their several qualifications, and after ward the
characters they assumed, and Richard commenting on each profession in a
way quite his own.

"A musician, sir," he would have heard him exclaim as he grasped
Simmons's hand, over which hung a fall of antique lace; "I have loved
music all my days. It is an additional bond between us, sir. And the
costume is quite in keeping with your art. How delightful it would be,
my dear sir, if we could discard forever the sombre clothes of our day
and go back to the velvets and silks Of the past."

"Mr. Stedman, did you say, my son?" and he turned to Oliver. "You have
certainly mentioned this gentleman's name to me before. If I do not
mistake, he is one of your very old friends. There is no need of your
telling me that you are Lorenzo. I can quite understand now why Jessica
lost her heart."

Or to see him turn to Jack Bedford with: "You don't tell me so! Mr.
John Bedford, did you say, Oliver? Ah, but we should not be strangers,
sir. If I am right, you are a fellow-townsman of ours, and have already
distinguished yourself in your profession. Your costume is especially
becoming to you, sir. What discernment you have shown. Permit me to
say, that with you the old adage must be reversed--this time the man
makes the clothes."

The same adage could really have been applied to this old gentleman's
own dress, had he but only known it. He had not altered it in twenty
years, even after it had become a matter of comment among his neighbors
in Kennedy Square.

"I always associate one's clothes with one's manners," he would say,
with a smile. "If they are good, and suited to the occasion, best not
change them." Nathan was of the same mind. The wide hat, long, evenly
parted hair, and pen-wiper cloak could be traced to these same
old-fashioned ideas. These idiosyncrasies excited no comment so far as
Nathan was concerned. He was always looked upon as belonging to some
antediluvian period, but with a progressive man like Richard the case,
his neighbors thought, might have been different.

As Richard moved about the room, saluting each one in turn, the men in
and out of costume--the guests were in evening dress--looked at each
other and smiled at the old gentleman's quaint ways, but the old
gentleman, with the same ease of manner and speech, continued on quite
around the table, followed closely by Nathan, who limited his
salutations to a timid shake of the fingers and the leaving of some
word of praise or quaint greeting, which many of them remember even to
this day.

These introductions over--Oliver had arrived on the minute--the
ceremony of seating the guests was at once begun. This ceremony was one
of great dignity, the two men-at-arms escorting the Master of the
Feast, the Most High Pan-Jam, Frederico Stono, N.A., to his Royal
Chair, guarded by the immovable blackamoors, the members and guests
standing until His Royal Highness had taken his seat, and then dropping
into their own. When everyone was in his place Richard found himself,
to his delight, on the right of Fred and next to Nathan and Oliver--an
honor accorded to him because of his age and relationship to one of the
most popular members of the club, and not because of his genius and
attainments--these latter attributes being as yet unknown quantities in
that atmosphere. The two thus seated together under the especial care
of Oliver--a fact which relieved the master of ceremonies of any
further anxiety on their account--were to a certain extent left to
themselves, the table being too large for general conversation except
with one's neighbors.

The seat in which he had been placed exactly suited Richard's frame of
mind. With an occasional word to Fred, he sat quite still, talking now
and then in low tones to Nathan, his eyes taking in every detail of the
strange scene.

While Nathan saw only the color and beauty of it all, Richard's keener
mind was analyzing the causes that had led up to such a gathering, and
the skill and taste with which the banquet had been carried out. He
felt assured that the men who could idle so luxuriously, and whose
technical knowledge had perfected the artistic effects about him, could
also work at their several professions with equal results. He was glad
that Oliver had been found worthy enough to be admitted to such a
circle. He loved, too, to hear his son's voice and watch the impression
his words made on the room. As the evening wore on, and he listened to
his banter, or caught the point of the jests that Oliver parried and
heard his merry laugh, he would slip his hand under the table and pat
his boy's knee with loving taps of admiration, prouder of him than
ever. His own pleasures so absorbed him that he continued to sit almost
silent, except for a word now and then to Nathan or a monosyllable to
Fred.

The guests who were near enough to observe the visitors closely soon
began to look upon Richard and Nathan as a couple of quaint, harmless,
exceedingly well-bred old gentlemen, rather provincial in appearance
and a little stilted in their manners, who, before the evening was
over, would, perhaps, become tired of the gayety, ask to be excused,
and betake themselves to bed. All of which would be an eminently proper
proceeding in view of their extreme age and general infirmities, old
gentlemen of three score years and over appearing more or less decrepit
to athletes of twenty and five.

Waller was the only man who really seemed to take either of them
seriously. After a critical examination of Richard's head in clear
relief under the soft light of the candles, he leaned over to Stedman
and said, in a half whisper, nodding toward Richard:

"Stedman, old man, take that in for a minute. Strong, isn't it?
Wouldn't you like to paint him as a blessed old Cardinal in a red gown?
See how fine the nose is, and the forehead. Best head I've seen
anywhere. Something in that old fellow."

The dinner went on. The Malays in scarlet and yellow served the dishes
and poured the wine with noiseless regularity. The men at arms at each
side of the door rested their legs. The two blackamoors, guarding the
High Pan-Jam's chair, and who had been promised double pay if they kept
still during the entire evening, had not so far winked an eyelid. Now
and then a burst of laughter would start from one end of the table,
leap from chair to chair, and end in a deafening roar in which the
whole room joined. Each man was at his best. Fred, with entire gravity,
and with his sternest and most High Pan-Jam expression, told, just
after the fish was served, a story of a negro cook at a camp so true to
life and in so perfect a dialect that the right-hand blackamoor doubled
himself up like a jack-knife, much to the astonishment of those on the
far side of the big round table, who up to that moment had firmly
believed them to be studio properties with ebony heads screwed on
bodies of iron wire, the whole stuffed with curled hair. Bianchi, Who
had come in late, clothed in a Burgomaster's costume and the identical
ruff that Oliver had expected to paint him in the night when the
Countess took his place, was called to account for piecing out his
dress with a pair of breeches a century behind his coat and hat, and
had his voice drowned in a roar of protests before he could explain.

Batterson, the big baritone of the club, Batterson with the resonant
voice, surpassed all his former efforts by singing, when the cheese and
salads were served, a Bedouin love-song, with such power and pathos and
to the accompaniment of a native instrument so skilfully handled that
the room rose to its feet, waving napkins, and the great Carvalho, the
famous tenor--a guest of Crug's, each member could invite one
guest--who was singing that week at the Academy of Music, left his seat
and, circling the table, threw his arms about the singer in undisguised
admiration.

When the cigars and liqueurs had been passed around--these last were
poured from bubble-blown decanters and drunk from the little cups
flecked with gold that Munson had found in an old shop in Ravenna--the
chairs were wheeled about or pushed back, and the members and guests
rose from the table and drifted to the divans lining the walls, or
threw themselves into the easy-chairs that were being brought from the
corners by the waiters. The piano, with the assistance of the two now
crest-fallen and disappointed blackamoors, who, Eurydice like, had
listened and lost, was pushed from its place against the wall; Crug's
'cello was stripped of its green baize bag and Simmons's violin-case
opened and his Stradivarius placed beside it. The big table, bearing
the wreck of the feast, more captivating even in its delightful
disorder than it had been in its orderly confusion, was then, with the
combined help of all the Malays, moved gently back against the wall, so
as to widen the space around the piano, its debris left undisturbed by
special orders from the Royal Chair, the rattling of dishes while their
fun was in progress being one of the things which the club would not
tolerate.

While all this rearranging of the banquet-hall was going on, Simmons
was busying himself putting a new bridge under the strings of his
violin, tightening its bow, and testing the condition of his instrument
by that see-saw, harum-scarum flourish so common to all virtuosos;--no
function of the club was ever complete without music--the men meanwhile
settled themselves comfortably in their seats; some occupying their old
chairs, others taking possession of the divans, the gay costumes of the
members, and the black coats and white shirt-fronts of the guests in
high relief against the wrecked dinner-table presenting a picture as
rich in color as it was strong in contrast.

What is so significant, by the way, or so picturesque, as a
dinner-table wrecked by good cheer and hospitality? The stranded,
crumpled napkins, the bunching together of half and wholly emptied
glasses, each one marking a period of content--the low candles, with
half dried tears still streaming down their cheeks (tears of laughter,
of course); the charming disorder of cups on plates and the piling up
of dishes one on the other--all such a protest against the formality of
the beginning! and all so suggestive of the lavish kindness of the
host. A wonderful object-lesson is a wrecked dinner-table, if one cares
to study it.

Silence now fell upon the room, the slightest noise when Simmons played
being an unpardonable sin. The waiters were ordered either to become
part of the wall decoration or to betake themselves to the outside
hall, or the infernal regions, a suggestion of Waller's when one of
them rattled some glasses he was carrying on a tray.

Simmons tucked a handkerchief in the band of his collar, balanced his
bow for an instant, looked around the room, and asked, in a modest,
obliging way:

"What shall it be, fellows?"

"Better give us Bach. The aria on the G strings," answered Waller.

"No, Chopin," cried Fred.

"No, you wooden-head, Bach's aria," whispered Waller. "Don't you know
that is the best thing he does?"

"Bach it is then," answered Simmons, tucking his instrument under his
chin.

As the music filled the room, Richard settled himself on one of the
large divans between Nathan and Oliver, his head lying back on the
cushions, his eyes half closed. If the table with its circle of
thoughtful and merry faces, had set his brain to work, the tones of
Simmons's violin had now stirred his very soul. Music was the one thing
in the world he could not resist.

He had never heard the aria better played. He had no idea that anyone
since Ole Bull's time could play it so well. Really, the surprises of
this wonderful city were becoming greater to him every hour. Nathan,
too, had caught the infection as he sat with his body bent forward, his
head on one side listening intently.

When the last note of Simmons's violin had ceased vibrating, Richard
sprang to his feet with all the buoyancy of a boy and grasped the
musician by the hand.

"My dear sir, you really astound me! Your tone is most exquisite, and I
must also thank you for the rendering. It is one quite new to me. Ole
Bull played it, you remember--excuse me," and he picked up Simmons's
violin where he had laid it on the piano, tucked it under his chin, and
there vibrated through the room, half a dozen quivering notes, so clear
and sweet that all eyes were instantly directed toward the quaint old
gentleman, who still stood with uplifted bow, the violin in his hand.

"Where the devil did he learn to play like that?" said one member to
another. "Why I thought he was an inventor."

"Keep your toes in your pumps, gentlemen," said Waller under his breath
to some men beside him, as he sat hunched up in the depths of an old
Spanish armchair. He had not taken his eyes from Richard while the
music went on. "We're not half through with this old fellow. One thing
I've found out, any how--that's where this beggar Horn got his voice."

Simmons was not so astounded; if he were he did not show it. He had
recognized the touch of a musician in the very first note that came
from the strings, just as the painters of the club had recognized the
artist in the first line of the Countess's brush.

"Yes, you're right, Mr. Horn," said Simmons, as Richard returned him
the instrument. "Now I come to think of it, I do remember having heard
Ole Bull phrase it in that way you have. Stop a moment; take my violin
again and play the air. There's another instrument here which I can
use. I brought it for one of my orchestra, but he has not turned up
yet," and he opened a cabinet behind him and took out a violin and bow.

Richard laughed as he again picked up Simmons's instrument from the
piano where he had laid it.

"What an extraordinary place this is," he said as he adjusted the
maestro's violin to his chin. "It fills me with wonder. Everything you
want seems to be within reach of your hand. You take a bare room and
transform it into a dream of beauty; you touch a spring in a sixteenth
century cabinet, and out comes a violin. Marvellous! Marvellous!" and
he sounded the strings with his bow. "And a wonderful instrument too,"
he continued, as he tightened one of its strings, his acute ear having
detected a slight inaccuracy of pitch.

"I'm all ready, Mr. Simmons; now, if you please."

If the club and its guests had forgotten the old gentleman an hour
before, the old gentleman had now quite forgotten them.

He played simply and easily, Simmons joining in, picking out the
accompaniment, entirely unaware that anybody was listening, as unaware
as he would have been had only the white-haired mistress been present,
and perhaps Malachi stepping noiselessly in and out. When he ceased,
and the audience had broken out into exclamations of delight, he looked
about him as if surprised, and then, suddenly remembering the cause of
it all, said, in a low, gentle voice, and with a pleasant smile: "I
don't wonder you're delighted, gentlemen. It is to me the most divine
of all his creations. There is only one Bach." That his hand had held
the bow and that the merit of its expression lay with him, never seemed
to have entered his head.

When the applause had died out, and Oliver with the others had crowded
around his father to congratulate him, the young fellow's eyes fell
upon Nathan, who was still sitting on the long divan, his head resting
against the wall, his trembling legs crossed one over the other, the
thin hands in his lap--Richard's skill was a never-ending delight to
Nathan, and he had not lost a note that his bow had called out. The
flute-player had kept so quiet since the music had begun, and had
become so much a part of the decorations--like one of the old chairs
with its arms held out, or a white-faced bust staring from out a dark
corner, or some portrait that looked down from the tapestries and held
its peace--that almost everyone had forgotten his presence.

The attitude of the old man--always a pathetic one, brought back to
Oliver's mind some memory from out his boyhood days. Suddenly a
forgotten strain from Nathan's flute floated through his brain, some
strain that had vibrated through the old rooms in Kennedy Square.
Springing to his feet and tip-toeing to the door, he passed between the
two men in armor--rather tired knights by this time, but still on
duty--ran down the carpeted hall between the lines of palms and up one
flight of stairs. Then came a series of low knocks. A few minutes later
he bounded in again, his rapier in his hand to give his legs freer play.

"I rapped up Mitchell, who's sick in his studio upstairs, and got his
flute," he whispered to Waller. "If you think my father can play you
should hear Uncle Nat Gill," and he walked toward Nathan, the flute
held out toward him.

The old gentleman woke to consciousness at the sight of the instrument,
and a slight flush overspread his face.

"Oh, Oliver! Really, gentlemen--I--Of course, I love the instrument,
but here among you all--" and he looked up in a helpless way.

"No, no, Uncle Nat," cried Oliver, pressing the flute into Nathan's
hand. "We won't take any excuse. There is no one in my town,
gentlemen," and he faced the others, "who can play as he does. Please,
Uncle Nat--just for me; it's so long since I heard you play," and he
caught hold of Nathan's arm to lift him to his feet.

"You are quite right, my son," cried Richard, "and I will play his
accompaniment."

Oliver's announcement and Richard's endorsement caused a stir as great
as Richard's own performance. A certain curiosity took possession of
the room, quite distinct from the spirit of merriment which had
characterized it before. Many of the men now left their seats and began
crowding about the piano--red cardinals, cavaliers, nobles, and
black-coated guests looking over each other's shoulders. Everybody was
getting more and more mystified.

"Really, Fred," whispered Waller, who still sat quietly watching the
two visitors--he had not taken his eyes from them since Richard in his
enthusiasm sprang forward to grasp Simmons's hand--, "this is the most
ridiculous thing I ever saw in my life. First comes this fossil
thoroughbred who outplays Simmons, and now comes this old nut-cracker
with his white tow-hair sticking out in two straight mops, who is going
to play the flute! What in thunder is coming next? Pretty soon one of
them will be pulling rabbits out of somebody's ears, or rubbing gold
watches into canary birds."

Nathan took the flute from Oliver's outstretched hand, bowed in a timid
way like a school-boy about to speak a piece, turned it over carefully,
tried the silver keys to see that they responded easily to the pressure
of his fingers, and raised it to his lips. Richard picked up the violin
and whispered to Munson, with whom he had been talking--the one member
who could play the piano as well as he could paint or fence--who nodded
his head in assent.

Then, with Richard leading, the four--one of the guests a 'cellist of
distinction took Max Unger's place--began Max's arrangement of the
overture to "Fidelio"; the one Richard and Nathan had played so often
together in the old parlor in Kennedy Square, with Miss Clendenning and
Unger: an arrangement which had now become known to most musical
amateurs.

There is not a man yet alive who has forgotten the tones of Nathan's
flute as they soared that night through the clouds of tobacco-smoke
that filled the great banquet-hall. Every shade and gradation of tone
was a delight. Now soft as the cooing of doves, now low as the music of
a brook rippling over the shallows and again swelling into song like a
chorus of birds rejoicing in the coming of spring.

Not until the voice in the slender instrument had become silent and the
last note of Richard's bow had ceased reverberating--not in fact, until
both men had laid down their instruments, and had turned from the
piano--did the room seem to recover from the spell that had bound it.
Even then there was no applause; no clapping of hands nor stamping of
feet. There followed, from members and guests alike, only a deep,
pent-up sigh and a long breath of relief, as if from a strain
unbearable. Simmons, who had sat with his head buried in his hands,
gave no other sign of his approval than by rising from his chair,
taking Nathan's thin hand in his own and grasping it tightly, without a
word. Stedman blurted out, in a low voice to himself: "My God! Who ever
heard anything like that?" and remained fixed to his seat. As for
Richard and Nathan, they resumed their places on the divan as men who
had read a message not their own to willing ears.

Another, and quite a different mood now took possession of the room.
Somehow the mellow tones of Nathan's flute had silenced the spirit of
the rollicking buffoonery which had pervaded the evening.

The black-coated guests, with superlative praise of the good time they
had had, and with renewed thanks for the privilege, began to bid Fred,
the Master of Ceremonies, good-night. Soon only the costumed members,
with Richard and Nathan, were left. So far from being tired out with
the night's diversion, these two old gentlemen seemed to have just
wakened up.

Those remaining drew their chairs together, lighted fresh cigars, and
sat down to talk over the events of the evening. Richard related an
anecdote of Macready when playing the part of Hamlet; Stedman told of
the graceful manner, in which Booth, a few months before, in the same
part, had handed the flageolet to the musicians, and the way the words
fell from his lips, "You would play upon me "; Oliver, addressing his
words rather to his father than to the room--acting the scene as he
talked, and in his tight-fitting doublet, looking not unlike the
tragedian himself, cut in with a description of the great tragedian's
first night at the Winter Garden after his seclusion--a night when the
whole house rose to greet their favorite and cheered and roared and
pounded everything within reach of their hands and feet for twenty
minutes, while Booth stood with trembling knees, the tears rolling down
his cheeks. Munson remarked with some feeling--he was an intimate
friend of the actor--that he remembered the night perfectly, having sat
behind Oliver, and that Booth was not only the most accomplished actor
but the best swordsman ever seen on the American or any other stage.
Munson was an expert fencer himself, as was evidenced by the scar on
his left cheek, received when he was a student at Heidelberg, and so
thought himself competent to judge.

While Munson was speaking the great Waller had risen from his seat for
the first time, gathered his gorgeous raiment closer about him, crossed
the room, and now stood filling a thin glass from a Venetian flagon
that graced the demoralized table.

"Booth's a swordsman, is he?" he said, pushing back his turban from his
forehead, and walking toward Munson, glass in hand, his baggy trousers
and tunic making him look twice his regular size. "You know as much
about fencing, Munson, as you do about the lost tribes of Israel. Booth
handles his foil as a policeman does a rattan cane in the pit of the
Bowery. Forrest is the only man in this country who can handle a blade."

"I do, do I?" cried Munson, springing to his feet and unhooking a pair
of foils decorating the wall. "Stop where you are, you caricature of
Nana Sahib, or I'll run you through the body and pin you to the wall
like a beetle, where you can kick to your heart's content. Here, catch
this," and he tossed one of the foils to Waller.

"A ring! A ring!" cried the men, with one of those sudden inspirations
that often swept over them, jumping from their seats and pushing back
the chairs and music-racks to give the contestants room.

Waller laid down his wine-glass, slipped off his turban and gold
embroidered tunic with great deliberation, threw them over to Oliver,
who caught them in his arms, tightened his sash, grasped the foil in
his fat hand, and with great gravity made a savage lunge at the
counterfeit presentment of William Shakespeare, who parried his blow
without moving from where he stood. Thereupon the lithe, well-built
young fellow teetered his foil in the air, and with great nicety pinked
his fat antagonist in the stomach, selecting a gilt band just above his
sash as the point of contact.

A mock battle now ensued, Munson chasing Waller about the room, the
members roaring with laughter, Richard, with Oliver's assistance,
having mounted the divan to see the better, clapping his hands like any
boy and shouting, "Bravo! Bravo! Now the uppercut, now the thrust! Ah,
well done. Capital! Capital!"

Oliver listened in wonder to the strange expressions that dropped from
his father's lips. Up to that moment he had never known that the old
gentleman had ever touched a foil in his life.

The next instant Richard was on the floor again, commiserating with
Waller, who was out of Munson's reach and out of breath with laughter,
and congratulating Munson on his skill as a swordsman.

"I only noticed one flaw, my dear Mr. Munson, in your handling," he
cried, with a graceful wave of the hand, "and that may be due to your
more modern way of fencing. Pardon me"--and he picked up Waller's foil
where he had dropped it, and the fine wrist with the nimble fingers,
that had served him so well all his days, closed over the handle of the
foil. "The thrust in the old days was made SO. You, I think, made it
SO"--and two flashes at different angles gleamed in the candle-light.

Munson, as if to humor the old gentleman, threw up his foil, made a
pass or two, and, to his intense astonishment, received the button of
Richard's foil on his black velvet jacket and within an inch of his
heart.

Everybody on the floor at once circled about the contestants. The
spectacle of an old gentleman in a snuff-colored coat and high collar,
having a bout with a short gentleman in shorter velvet trunks, silk
hose, and steel buckles, was one too droll and too exhilarating to
lose--anachronistic it was, yet quite in keeping with the surroundings.
More exhilarating still was the extreme punctiliousness with which the
old gentleman raised the handle of his foil to his chin after he had
made his point, and saluted his antagonist as if he had been some
knight of King Arthur's table.

Still more fascinating was the way in which the younger man settled
down to work, his brow knit, his lips tightly closed, the members
widening out to give them room, Oliver and Nathan cheering the loudest
of them all as Richard's foil flashed in the air, parrying, receiving,
now up, now down, his right foot edging closer, his dear old head bent
low, his deep eyes fixed on his young antagonist, until, with a quick
thrust of his arm and a sudden upward twist of his hand, he wrenched
Munson's foil from his grasp and sent it flying across the room.

Best of all was the joyful yet apologetic way with which Richard sprang
forward and held out his hand to Munson, crying out:

"A fluke, my dear Mr. Munson; quite a fluke, I assure you. Pray forgive
me. A mere lucky accident. My old fencing master, Martini, taught me
that trick. I thought I had quite forgotten it. Just think! it is forty
years since I have had a foil in my hands," and, laughing like a boy he
crossed the room, picked up the foil, and, bowing low, handed it to the
crestfallen man with the air of a gallant.


Half the club, costumed as they were--it was now after midnight, and
there were but few people in the streets--escorted the two old men back
to their hotel. Munson walked beside Richard; Waller, his flowing
skirts tucked up inside his overcoat, stepped on the right of Nathan;
Oliver, Fred, and the others followed behind, the hubbub of their talk
filling the night: even when they reached the side door of the hotel
and rang up the night porter, they must still stand on the sidewalk
listening to Richard's account of the way the young gallants were
brought up in his day; of the bouts with the foils; and of the duels
which were fought before they were willing to take their leave.

When the last good-byes had been given, and Oliver had waved his rapier
from the doorstep as a final farewell to his fellow-members before he
saw his father upstairs to bed, and the delighted escort had turned on
their heels to retrace their steps up Broadway, Waller slipped his arm
into Munson's, and said, in his most thoughtful tone, one entirely free
from cynicism or badinage:

"What a lovely pair of old duffers. We talk about Bohemia, Munson, and
think we've got it, but we haven't. Our kind is a cheap veneer glued to
commonplace pine. Their kind is old mahogany, solid all the way
through--fine grain, high polish and no knots. I only wish they lived
here."




CHAPTER XXIV

IN THE TWILIGHT


Each day Margaret's heart warmed more and more to Richard. He not only
called out in her a tenderness and veneration for his age and
attainments which her own father had never permitted her to express,
but his personality realized for her an ideal which, until she knew
him, she had despaired of ever finding. While his courtesy, his
old-time manners, his quaintness of speech and dress captivated her
imagination, his perfect and unfailing sympathy and constant kindness
completely won her heart. There was, too, now and then, a peculiar tone
in his voice which would bring the tears to her eyes without her
knowing why, until her mind would recall some blunt, outspoken speech
of her dead father's in answer to the very sentiments she was then
expressing to Richard, who received them as a matter of course--a
remembrance which always caused a tightening about her heart.

Sometimes the inventor would sit for her while she sketched his head in
different lights, he watching her work, interested in every stroke,
every bit of composition. She loved to have him beside her easel
criticising her work. No one, she told Oliver, had ever been so
interested before with the little niceties of her technique--in the
amount of oil used, in the way the paints were mixed; in the value of a
palette knife as a brush or of an old cotton rag as a blender, nor had
any one of her sitters ever been so enthusiastic over her results.

There was one half-hour sketch which more than all the others
astonished and delighted him--one in which Margaret in her finishing
touches had eschewed brushes, palette-knife and rag, and with one dash
of her dainty thumb had brought into instant relief the subtle curves
about his finely modelled nose. This filled him with wonder and
admiration. His own finger had always obeyed him, and he loved to find
the same skill in another.

To Richard these hours of intercourse with Margaret were among the
happiest of his life. It was Margaret, indeed, who really helped him
bear with patience the tedious delays attendant upon the completion of
his financial operations. Even when the final sum was agreed upon--and
it was a generous one, that filled Oliver's heart with joy and set
Nathan's imagination on fire--the best part of two weeks had been
consumed before the firm of lawyers who were to pass upon Richard's
patents were willing to certify to the purchasers of the stock of the
horn Magnetic Motor Company, as to the priority of Richard's invention
based on the patent granted on August 13, 1856, and which covered the
principle of the levers working in connection with the magnets.

During these tedious delays, in which his heart had vibrated between
hope and fear, he had found his way every afternoon to Margaret's
studio, Nathan having gone home to Kennedy Square with his head in the
clouds when the negotiations became a certainty. In these weeks of
waiting the Northern girl had not only stolen his heart, taking the
place of a daughter he had never known--a void never filled in any
man's soul--but she had satisfied a craving no less intense, the hunger
for the companionship of one who really understood his aims and
purposes. Nathan had in a measure met this need as far as unselfish
love and unswerving loyalty could go; and so had his dear wife,
especially in these later years, when her mind had begun to grasp the
meaning of the social and financial changes that the war had brought,
and what place her husband's inventions might hold in the new regime.
But no one of these, not even Nathan, had ever understood him as
clearly as had this young girl.

When it grew too dark to paint, he would make her sit on a stool at his
feet, while he would talk to her of his life work and of the future as
he saw it--often of things which he had kept shut away in his heart
even from Nathan. He would tell her of the long years of anxiety; of
the sleepless nights; of his utter loneliness, without a friend to
guide him, while he was trying to solve the problems that had blocked
his path; of the poverty of these late years, all the more pitiful
because of his inability at times to buy even the bare materials and
instruments needed for his work; and, again, of his many
disappointments in his search for the hoped-for link that was needed to
make his motor a success.

Once, in lowered tones and with that eager, restless expression which
so often came into his face when standing over his work-bench in his
little shop, baffled by some unsolved problem, he told her of his many
anxieties lest some other brain groping along the same paths should
reach the goal before him; how the Scientific Review, the one chronicle
of the discoveries of the time, would often lie on his table for hours
before he had the courage to open it and read the list of patents
granted during the preceding months, adding, with a voice full of
gentleness, "I was ashamed of it all, afterward, my dear, but Mrs. Horn
became so anxious over our daily expenses, and so much depended on my
success."

This brave pioneer did not realize, nor did she, that they were both
valiant soldiers fighting the good fight of science and art against
tradition and provincialism--part of that great army of progress which
was steadily conquering the world!

As she listened in the darkening shadows, her hand in his, her fingers
tight about his own, he, reading the sympathy of her touch, and fearing
to have distressed her by his talk, had started up, and in his cheery,
buoyant voice cried out:

"But it is all over now, my child. All past and gone. The work of my
life is finished. There's plenty now for all of us. For my dear wife
who has borne up so bravely and has never complained, and for you and
Oliver. Your waiting need not be long, my dear. This last happiness
which has come to me"--and he smoothed her hair gently with his thin
hand and drew her closer to him--"seems the greatest of them all."


The two were seated in this way one afternoon, Margaret resting after a
day's work, when Oliver opened the door. She had made a sketch of
Richard's head that very morning as he lay back in a big chair, a
strong, vigorous piece of work which she afterward finished.

Richard looked up and his face broke into a joyous smile.

"Bring a chair, my son," he cried, "and sit by me. I have something to
say to you." When, a few moments later, Margaret had left the room to
give some directions to Mrs. Mulligan, he added: "I have been telling
Margaret that you both do wrong in putting off your marriage. These
delays fret young people's lives away. She tells me it is your wish.
What are you waiting for?"

"Only for money enough to take care of her, father. Madge has been
accustomed to more comforts than I can give her. She would, I know,
cheerfully give up half of her income, small as it is, to me if I would
let her, but that is not the way I want to make her happy. Don't worry,
dear old dad, the Fish portrait will pull us out"--and he leaned down
and put his arms about his father's neck as he used to do when he was a
boy. "I shall get there before long."

Oliver did not tell his father what a grief it had been to him to keep
Madge waiting, nor how he had tried to make it up to her in every way
while he had made his fight alone. Nor did he tell Richard of the
principal cause of his waiting--that the mortgage to which his mother
had pledged her name and to which he had morally pledged his own was
still unpaid.

Richard listened to Oliver's outburst without interrupting him.

"I only wanted to do the best I could for you my son," he answered,
laying his fingers on Oliver's hand. "I was thinking of nothing but
your happiness. During the last few days, since I have become assured
that this negotiation would go through, I have decided to carry out a
plan which has long been in my mind and which, now that I know about
Margaret, makes it all the more necessary. I am going to make provision
for you immediately. This, I hope, will be to-morrow or the next day at
farthest. The contracts are all ready for our signatures, and only
await the return of one of the attorneys who is out of town. The cash
sum they pay for the control of the patents is, as you know, a
considerable one; then I get nearly half of the capital stock of the
new company. I am going to give you, at once, one-third of the money
and one-third of the stock."

Oliver raised his hand in protest, but Richard kept on.

"It is but just, my son. There are but three of us--your mother,
yourself, and I. It is only your share. I won't have you and Margaret
waiting until I am gone"--and he looked up with a smile on his face.

Oliver stood for a moment dazed at the joyous news, his father's hand
in his, the tears dimming his eyes. While he was thanking him, telling
him how glad he was that the struggle was over and how proud he was of
his genius, Margaret stole up behind him and put her hands over his
eyes, bidding him guess who it was--as if there could be another woman
in the whole world who would take the liberty. Oliver caught her in his
arms and kissed her, whispering in her ears the joyous news with her
cheek close to his; and Margaret looked from one to the other, and then
put her arms around Richard and kissed him without a word--the first
time she had ever dared so much.

Oh, but there were joyous times that followed!

Mrs. Mulligan, at a whispered word from her mistress, ran down-stairs
as fast as her old legs could carry her and came back with her arms
full of bundles, which she dumped upon her small kitchen-table. And
Margaret put on a clean white apron, white as snow, and rolled up her
sleeves, showing her beautiful arms above her elbows--Oliver always
vowed that she had picked them up where the Milo had dropped them--and
began emptying the contents of a bowl of oysters, one of Mrs.
Mulligan's packages, into a chafing-dish. And Oliver wheeled out the
table and brought out the cloth, and dear old Richard, his face full of
smiles, placed the napkins with great precision beside each plate,
puckering them up into little sheaves, "just as Malachi would have
done," he said; and then Margaret whispered to Oliver if he didn't
think "it would be just the very thing," they were "so anxious to see
him"--and Oliver thought it would--he was cutting bread at the moment,
and getting it ready for Mrs. Mulligan to toast on her cracker-box of a
range; and Margaret, with her arms and her cheeks scarlet, ran out in
the hall and down the corridor, and came back, out of breath, with two
other girls--one in a calico frock belted in at her slender waist, and
the other in a black bombazine and a linen collar. And Richard looked
into their faces, and took them both by the hand and told them how glad
he was to be permitted to share in their merrymakings; and then, when
Oliver had drawn out the chairs--one was a stool, by the way--the whole
party sat down, Oliver at the foot and Richard on Margaret's right, the
old gentleman, remarking, as he opened his napkin, that but one thing
was wanting to complete his happiness, and that was Oliver's mother,
who of all women in the world would enjoy the occasion the most.

But the happiest time of all was over the soup, or rather over the
tureen, or rather what was inside of it--or worse still, what was not.
This wonderful soup had been ordered at the restaurant across the way,
and was to be brought in smoking hot at the appointed time by a boy.
The boy arrived on the minute, and so did the tureen--a gayly flowered
affair with a cover, the whole safely ensconced in a basket. When the
lid was lifted and Margaret and the two girls looked in, a merry shout
went up. Not a drop of soup was in the tureen! The boy craned his head
in amazement, and Mrs. Mulligan, who stood by with the plates, and who
had broken out into violent gestures at the sight was about to upbraid
the boy for his stupidity, when Margaret's quick eye discovered a trail
of grease running down the table-cloth, along the floor and out of the
door. Whereupon everybody got up, including Richard, and with roars of
laughter followed the devious trail out into the hall and so on down
the staircase as far as they could see. Only when Mrs. Mulligan on
their return to the room held up the tureen and pointed to a leak in
its bottom, was the mystery explained.

And so the merry dinner went on.

Ah, dear old man, if these happy days could only have gone on till the
end.

On the afternoon of the day following this joyous night--the day the
contracts were to be signed, a culmination which would make everybody
happy--Margaret hurried up the stairs of her building, and pushed open
the door. She knew she should find the inventor waiting for her, and
she wanted to be the first to get the glad news from his lips. It was
varnishing day at the Academy, and she had gone down to put the last
touches on her big portrait--the one of "Madame X." that she had begun
in Paris the year before.

Richard did not move when she entered. He was leaning back in the chair
she had placed for him, his head on his hand, his attitude one of
thoughtful repose, the light of the fast-fading twilight making a
silhouette of his figure. She thought he was dozing, and so crept up
behind him to make sure.

"Ah, my dear, is that you?" he asked. The voice did not sound like
Richard's.

"Yes--I thought you were asleep."

"No, my child--I'm only greatly troubled. I'm glad you have come"--and
he took her hand and smoothed it with his own. "Bring your stool; I
have something to say to you."

Without taking off her bonnet and cloak, she took her place at his
feet. The tones of his voice chilled her. A great fear rose in her
heart. Why she could not tell.

"Has anything happened to Oliver?" she asked, eagerly.

"No, nothing so terrible as that. It is about the motor. The bankers
have refused the loan, and the attorneys have withdrawn the papers."

"Withdrawn the papers! Oh, no it can't be!" She had leaned forward now,
her anxious, startled eyes looking into his.

"Yes, my dear; a Mr. Gorton from Maine has perfected a machine which
not only accomplishes what I claim for my own, but is much better in
every way. The attorneys have been looking into this new motor for a
week past, so I learn now. Here is their letter"--and he put his hand
in his pocket and took out a white envelope. "They will, perhaps, take
up Mr. Gorton's machine instead of mine. I made a hasty examination of
this new motor this morning with my old friend Professor Morse, and we
both agree that the invention is all Mr. Gorton claims for it. It is
only a beginning, of course, along the lines of galvanic energy, but it
is a better beginning than mine, and I feel sure it is all the inventor
claims for it. I have so informed them, and I have also written a
letter to Mr. Gorton congratulating him on his success." The calmness
and gentleness of his voice thrilled her.

"I suppose I ought to have telegraphed the news to Mrs. Horn, as I
promised," he continued, slowly, as if each word gave him pain, "but I
really had not the heart, so I came up here. I've been here all the
afternoon hoping you would come in. The room felt a little cold, my
dear, and your good woman made a fire for me, as you see. You don't
mind, do you?"

Margaret bowed her head on his hands and kissed the thin fingers that
lay in her own. Her heart was full to bursting. The pathos of the bent
figure, the despairing sound of his voice--so unlike his buoyant tones;
the ghostly light that permeated the room, so restful always before, so
grewsome and forbidding now, appealed to her in a way she had never
known. She was not thinking of herself, nor of Oliver, nor of the wife
waiting for the news at home; she was only thinking of this dear old
man who sat with bowed head, his courage gone, all the joyousness out
of his life. What hurt her most was her own utter helplessness. In most
things she could be of service: now she was powerless. She knew it when
she spoke.

"Is it ended?" she asked at last, her practical mind wanting to know
the worst.

"Yes, my child, ended. I wish I could give you some hope, but there is
none. I shall go home to-morrow and begin again;--on what I do not
know--something--I cannot tell."

Oliver's footsteps sounded in the outer hall. She rose quickly and met
him on the outside, half closing the door, so that she could tell him
the dreadful news without being overheard.

"Broken their promises to father? Impossible! Why? What for? Another
invention? Oh, it cannot be!"

He walked quickly toward him. "But father, what about your patents?
They can't rob you of them. Suppose this man's motor is better."

Richard did not move. He seemed unwilling to look his son in the face.

"Let me take hold of this thing." Oliver was bending over him now, his
arms about his neck. "I'll see Mr. Slade at once. I met him this
morning and told him you were here, and he is coming to call on you. He
has always stood by me and will now. These people who have disappointed
you are not the only ones who have got money. Mr. Slade, you know, is
now a banker himself. I will begin to-morrow to fight this new man
who--"

"No, no, my son, you must do nothing of the kind," said Richard leaning
his cheek wearily against Oliver's hand, as if for warmth and
protection, but still looking into the fire. "It would not be right to
take from him what he has honestly earned. The lifting power of his
machine is four times my own, and the adjustment of the levers much
simpler. He has only accomplished what I failed to do. I am not quite
sure but I think he uses the same arrangement of levers that I do, but
everything else is his. Such a man is to be helped, not worried with
lawsuits. No, my son, I must bear it as best I may. Your poor mother!"
He stopped suddenly and passed his hand over his eyes, and in a broken,
halting voice, added: "I've tried so hard to make her old age happier.
I fear for the result when the news reaches her. And you and this poor
girl!"--and he reached out his hand to Margaret--"this is the part that
is hardest to bear."

Oliver disengaged his arm from his father's neck and walked up and down
the room, Madge watching him. His mind was searching about for some way
to stem the tide of disaster. Every movement of his body expressing his
determination. He was not thinking of himself. He saw only Madge and
his mother. Then he turned again and faced his father.

"Will you let me try?" he urged in a firm voice.

"No, Oliver! Positively no."

As he spoke he straightened himself in his chair and turned toward
Oliver. His voice had regained something of its old-time ring and
force. "To rob a man of the work of his brain is worse than to take his
purse. You will agree with me, I know, when you think it over. Mr.
Gorton had never heard of my invention when he perfected his, nor had I
ever heard of his when I perfected mine. He is taking nothing from me;
how can I take anything from him! Give me your hand my son; I am not
feeling very well." His voice fell again as if the effort had been too
much for him. "I think I will go back to the hotel. A night's rest will
do me good."

He rose slowly from his chair, steadied himself by holding to Oliver's
strong arm, stood for an instant looking into Margaret's eyes, and
said, with infinite tenderness:

"Come close; my daughter, and kiss me."

She put her arms about him, cuddling her head against his soft cheek,
smoothing his gray hair with her palm.

"My child," he said, "you have been a delight and joy to me. A woman
like you is beyond price. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for
loving my son."

With something of his old manner he again straightened himself up,
threw his shoulders back as if strengthened by some new determination,
walked firmly across the room, and picked up his cloak. As he stood
waiting for Oliver to place it about his shoulders, he put his hand to
his side, with a quick movement, as if smitten by some sudden pain,
staggered backward, his head upon his breast, and would have sunk to
the floor but for Oliver's hand. Margaret sprang forward and caught his
other arm.

"It's nothing, my son," he said, between his gasps for breath, holding
on to Oliver. "A sudden giddiness. I'm often subject to it. I, perhaps,
got up too quickly. It will pass over. Let me sit down for a moment."

Half supporting him, Oliver put his arm about his father and laid him
on the lounge.

As Richard's head touched the cushion that Margaret had made ready, he
gave a quick gasp, half rose as if to breathe the better, and fell back
unconscious.


When the doctor arrived Richard was lying on Margaret's bed, where
Oliver had carried him, he had rallied a little, and had then sunk into
a deep sleep. Margaret sat beside him, watching every breath he drew,
the scalding tears streaming down her face.

The physician bent closer and pressed his ear to the sleeping man's
breast.

"Has he been subject to these attacks?" he said, in a grave tone.

"I know of only one some years ago, the year the war broke out, but he
recovered then very quickly," answered Oliver.

"Is your mother living!"

"Yes."

"Better send her word at once."




CHAPTER XXV

SMOULDERING COALS


The night wind sighed through the old sycamores of Kennedy Square. A
soft haze, the harbinger of the coming spring, filled the air. The cold
moon, hanging low, bleached the deserted steps of the silent houses to
a ghostly white.

In the Horn mansion a dim light burned in Richard's room and another in
the lower hall. Everywhere else the house was dark.

Across the Square, in Miss Clendenning's boudoir, a small wood fire,
tempering the chill of the April night, slumbered in its bed of ashes,
or awakened with fitful starts, its restless blaze illumining the
troubled face of Margaret Grant. The girl's eyes were fixed on the
dying coals, her chin in her hand, the brown-gold of her wonderful hair
gold-red in the firelight. Now and then she would lift her head as if
listening for some approaching footstep. Miss Clendenning sat beside
her, leaning over the hearth in her favorite attitude, her tiny feet
resting on the fender.

The years had touched the little lady but lightly since that night when
she sat in this same spot and Oliver had poured out his heart to her.
She was the same dainty, precise, lovable old maid that she had been in
the old days of Kennedy Square, when the crocuses bloomed in the
flower-beds and its drawing-rooms were filled with the wit and fashion
of the day. Since that fatal night when Richard had laid away his
violin and brother had been divided against brother, and Kennedy Square
had become the stamping ground of armed men, she had watched by the
bedsides of a thousand wounded soldiers, regardless of which flag they
had battled under. The service had not withered her. Time had simply
stood still, forgetting the sum of its years, while it marked her with
perennial sweetness.

"I'm afraid he's worse," Margaret said, breaking the silence of the
room, as she turned to Miss Clendenning, "or Ollie would have been here
before this. Dr. Wallace was to go to the house at eleven, and now it
is nearly twelve."

"The doctor may have been detained," Miss Clendenning answered. "There
is much sickness in town."

For a time neither spoke. Only the low muttering of the fire could be
heard, or the turning of some restless coal.

"Margaret," Miss Clendenning said at last--it had always been
"Margaret" with the little lady ever since the day she had promised
Oliver to love the woman whom he loved; and it was still "Margaret"
when the women met for the first time in the gray dawn at the station
and Miss Clendenning herself helped lead Richard out of the
train--"There is a bright side to every trouble. But for this illness
you would never have known Oliver's mother as she really is. All her
prejudices melted away as soon as she looked into your face. She loves
you better every day, and she is learning to depend on you just as
Richard and Oliver have done."

"I hope she will," the young woman answered, without moving. "It breaks
my heart to see her suffer as she does. I see my own mother in her so
often. She is different in many ways, but she is the same
underneath--so gentle and so kind, and she is so big and broad-minded
too. I am ashamed to think of all the bitter feelings I used to have in
my heart toward her."

She stopped abruptly, her hands tightly folded in her lap, her
shoulders straightened. Margaret's confessions were always made in this
determined way, head thrown back like a soldier's, as though a new
resolve had been born even while an old sin was being confessed.

"Go on," said Miss Clendenning. "I understand. You mean that you did
not know her."

"No; but I thought her narrow and proud, and that she disliked me for
influencing Oliver in his art, and that she wanted to keep him from me
and from my ideals. Oh, I've been very, very wicked!"

"Not wicked, my dear--only human. You are not the first woman who did
not want to divide a love with a mother."

"But it wasn't exactly that, dear Cousin Lavinia. I had never met
anyone who obeyed his mother as Ollie did, and--and--I almost hated her
for being his guide and counsel when--oh, not because she did not love
him too, just as I did--but because I thought that I could really help
him most--because I believed in his talent and she did not, and because
I knew all the time that she was ruining him, keeping him back,
spoiling his career, and--"

Again she stopped and straightened herself, her beautiful head held
higher. Those who knew Margaret well would have known that the worst
part of her confession was yet to come.

"I suppose I was hurt too," she said, slowly accentuating each pause
with a slight movement of the head. "That I was LITTLE enough and MEAN
enough and HORRID enough for that. But he was always talking of his
mother as though she never did anything but sit still in that white
shawl of hers, listening to music, while everybody waited on her and
came to her for advice. And I always thought that she couldn't
understand me nor any other woman who wanted to work. When Ollie talked
of you all, and of what you did at home, I couldn't help feeling she
must think that I and all my people belonged to some different race and
that when she saw me she would judge me by some petty thing that
displeased her, the cut of my skirt, or the way I carried my hands, or
something else equally trivial, and that she would use that kind of
thing against me and, perhaps, tell Ollie, too. Father judged Oliver in
that way. He thought that Ollie's joyousness and his courtesy, even his
way of taking off his hat, and holding it in his two hands for a
moment--you've seen him do it a hundred times--was only a proof of his
Southern shiftlessness--caring more for manners than for work. Mother
didn't; she understood Ollie better, and so did John, but father never
could. That's why I wouldn't come when you asked me. You wouldn't have
judged me, I know, but I thought that she would. And now--oh, I'm so
sorry I could cry."

"It was only another of the mistakes and misunderstandings that divided
us all at that time, my dear," Miss Clendenning answered. "This
dreadful war could have been averted, if people had only come together
and understood each other. I did not think so then, but I do now."

"And you don't think me wicked, Cousin Lavinia?" Margaret asked with a
sudden relaxation of her figure and something infinitely childlike and
appealing in her tone. "You really don't think me wicked, do you?"

"Not wicked, dear; only human, as I said a moment ago. Yet you have
been stronger than I. You have held on and won; I let go and lost."

Margaret bent forward and laid her finger on Miss Clendenning's knee.

"Lost what, Cousin Lavinia?" she asked, in surprise.

"My lover."

"When?"

"When I was just your age."

"Did he die?" asked Margaret in awed tones, overcome all at once with
the solemnity of the hour and a strange new note in Miss Lavinia's
voice.

"No, he married someone else."

"He never--never loved you, then." There was a positiveness now in her
intonations.

"Yes, he did, with all his heart. His mother came between us."

Again silence fell on the room. Margaret would not look at Miss
Clendenning. The little old maid had suddenly opened the windows of her
heart, but whether to let a long-caged sorrow out or some friendly
sympathy in, she could not tell.

"May I know about it!" There was a softer cadence now in the girl's
voice.

"It would only make you unhappy, dear. It was all over forty years or
more ago. Sallie, when she saw you, put her arms about you. You had
only to come together. The oftener she sees you, the more she will love
you. My lover's mother shut the door in my face."

"In your face? Why?"

Margaret moved closer to Miss Clendenning, stirred by a sudden impulse,
as if she could even now protect her from one who had hurt her.

Miss Lavinia bent forward and picked up the brass tongs that lay on the
fender at her feet. She saw Margaret's gesture, but she did not turn
her head. Her eyes were still watching the smouldering embers.

"For no reason, dear, that you or any other Northern woman could
understand. An old family quarrel that began before I was born."

Margaret's cheeks flushed and a determined look came into her face.

"The coward! I would not have cared what his mother or anybody else
did, or how they quarrelled. If I loved you I would have married you in
spite of everything."

"And so would he." She was balancing the tongs in her hand now, her
eyes still on the fire. She had not looked at Margaret once.

"What happened then?"

Miss Clendenning leaned forward, spread the tongs in her little hands,
lifted an ember and tucked it closer to its neighbor. The charred mass
crumbled at the touch and fell into a heap of broken coals.

"I am a Clendenning, my dear; that is all," she answered, slowly.

Margaret stared at her with wide-open eyes. That a life should be
wrecked for a mere question of family pride was something her mind
could not fathom.

"Have you regretted it since, Cousin Lavinia?" she asked, calmly. She
wanted to follow it out now to the end.

Miss Clendenning heaped the broken coals closer together, laid the
tongs back in their place on the fender, and, turning to Margaret,
said, with a sigh:

"Don't ask me, my dear. I never dare ask myself, but do you keep your
hand close in Oliver's. Remember, dear, close--close! Then you will
never know the bitterness of a lonely life."

She rose from her seat, bent down, and, taking Margaret's cheeks
between her palms, kissed her on the forehead.

Margaret put her arms about the little lady, and was about to draw her
nearer, when the front door opened and a step was heard in the hall.
Miss Lavinia raised herself erect, listening to the sound.

"Hark!" she cried, "there's the dear fellow, now"--and she advanced to
meet him, her gentle countenance once more serene.

Oliver's face as he entered the room told the story.

"Not worse?" Margaret exclaimed, starting from her chair.

"Yes--much worse. I have just sent word to Uncle Nat"--and he kissed
them both. "Put on your things at once. The doctor is anxious."

Miss Lavinia caught up her cloak, handed Margaret her shawl, and the
three hurried out the front-door and along the Square, passing the
Pancoast house, now turned into offices, its doors and windows covered
with signs, and the Clayton Mansion, surmounted by a flag-pole and
still used by the Government. Entering the park, they crossed the site
of the once lovely flower-beds, now trampled flat--as was everything
else in the grounds--and so on to the marble steps of the Horn Mansion.

Mrs. Horn met them at the top of the stairs. She put her arms silently
about Margaret, kissed her tenderly, and led her into Richard's room.
Oliver and Miss Clendenning stood at the door.

The master lay under the canopy of the four-post bedstead, his eyes
closed, the soft white hair lost in the pillows, the pale face tinged
with the glow of the night lamp. Dr. Wallace was standing by the bed
watching the labored breathing of the prostrate man. Old Hannah sat on
the floor at Richard's feet. She was rocking to and fro, making no
sign, crooning inaudibly to herself listening to every sound.

Margaret sank to her knees and laid her cheek on the coverlet. She
wanted to touch something that was close to him.

The head of the sick man turned uneasily. The doctor bent noiselessly
down, put his ears close to the patient's breast, touched his pulse
with his fingers, and laid his hand on his forehead.

"Better send for some hot water," he whispered to Mrs. Horn when he had
regained her side. Margaret overheard, and started to rise from her
knees, but Mrs. Horn waved her back. "Hannah will get it," she said,
and stooped close to the old woman to give the order. There was a
restrained calmness in her manner that sent a shiver through Margaret.
She remembered just such an expression on her mother's face when her
own father lay dying.

The old servant lifted herself slowly, and with bent head and crouching
body crept out of the room without turning her face toward her master.
The superstition of the negroes about the eyes of a dying man kept hers
close to the floor--she did not want Richard to look at her.

Dr. Wallace detected the movement--he knew its cause--and passed out of
the sick chamber to where Oliver stood with Miss Clendenning.

"Better go down, Oliver, and see that the hot water is sent up right
away," he said. "Poor old Hannah seems to have lost her head."

"Has there been any further change, Doctor!" Oliver asked, as he
started for the stairs.

"No, not since you went. He is holding his own. His hands feel cold,
that is all." To Miss Lavinia he said: "It is only a question of
hours," and went back into the room.

Oliver hurried after Hannah. He intended to send Malachi up with the
hot water and then persuade the old woman to go to bed. When he reached
the lower hall it was empty; so were the parlors and the dining-room.
At the kitchen-door he met Hannah. She had filled the pitcher and had
turned to carry it upstairs. Oliver stopped her.

"Where is Malachi, aunty?"

Hannah pointed through the open door to Richard's little shop in the
back yard and hurried on. Oliver walked quickly through the damp,
brick-paved yard, now filled with the sombre shadows of the night, and
pushed open the green door. The place was dark except for a slant of
moonlight which had struggled through the window-pane and was
illumining the motor where it rested in its customary place under the
sash.

"Malachi, are you here?"

A sob was the only answer.

Oliver stepped inside. The old man was on his knees, his head and arms
lying flat on Richard's work-bench. Oliver bent down and laid his hand
on the old servant's head.

"Mally!"

"I hear ye, Marse Ollie, an' I hearn Hannah. I tell you same as I tol'
her--ain't no use fetchin' no water; ain't no use no mo' for no doctor,
ain't no use, ain't no use. I ain't never goin' to say no mo' to him,
'Chairs all ready, Marse Richard.' I ain't never goin' to wait on him
no mo', Come close to me, Marse Ollie; get down an' let me tell ye,
son."

He had lifted his head now, and was looking up into Oliver's eyes, the
tears streaming down his face.

"He freed me; he gimme a home. He ain't neber done nothin' but love me
an' take care o' me. When I bin sick he come in an' he set by me. 'You
got a fever, I think, Malachi,' he say. 'Go to bed dis minute. Cold, is
you? Git dat blanket out'n my room an' put it on yo' bed. Don't let me
hab to tell ye dat agin, Malachi.' 'Marse Richard,' I'd say to him, 'I
ain't got no coat fit to wear.' Dat was in de ol' days, when you warn't
nuffin but a chile, Marse Ollie. 'Who says so, Malachi,' he say. 'I say
so, Marse Richard.' 'Lemme see,' he'd say. 'Dat's so, dat ain't fit fer
nobody to wear. Go upstairs to my closet, Malachi, an' git dat coat I
was a-wearin' yisterday. I reckon I kin git on widout it."

Malachi had his head in his hands now, his body swaying from side to
side. Oliver stood silent.

"When he come home de udder day an' I lif' him in de bed, he say,
'Don't you strain yo'se'f, Malachi. 'Member, you ain't spry as you
was.' Oh, Gawd! Oh, Gawd! What's Malachi gwine to do?"

Oliver sat down beside him. There was nothing to say. The old servant's
grief was only his own.

"Ebery night, Marse Ollie, sence he bin sick, I git so lonesome dat I
wait till de house git still an' den I git out'n de bed and crope
down-stairs an' listen at de bedroom door. Den I hear de mistis say:
'In pain, dear?' and he say, 'No, Sallie.' An' den I crope up agin an'
go to bed kind o' comforted. I was down agin las' night--mos'
mawnin'--a-listenin', an' de mistis say: 'Kin I do sumpin' to ease de
pain, dear?' an' he don't answer, only groan, and den I hear de bed
creak, an' dat SHORT BREF COME. Pat's the sign! I knows it. In de
mawnin' he'll be gone. Can't fool Malachi; I knows de signs."

A gentle tap at the front door on the street sounded through the
stillness. Oliver had left all the intervening doors between the
dining-room and the shop open in his search for Malachi.

The old servant, with the lifelong habit upon him, started up to answer
the summons.

"No, Mally, stay here," said Oliver. "I'll go. Some neighbor, perhaps,
wanting to know how father is."

Oliver walked rapidly through the yard, tiptoed through the hall, and
carefully turned the knob.

Amos Cobb stepped in.

"I saw the light, Oliver," he said, in a low tone, "and I knew you were
up. I have an important telegram from New York in answer to one I sent
this morning from my office here. Would it be possible for me to see
your father? I know it is very late, but the matter is most urgent."

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Cobb. He is very low."

"Not serious?" Amos exclaimed, in alarm.

"Doctor Wallace thinks it is."

"You don't tell me so! I had no idea he was so ill!"

"Nor did we, sir; a change for the worse set in this evening."

Amos leaned back against the wall, his hat in his hand. The light from
the eight-sided hall lamp fell on his thick-set shoulders and square,
determined, honest face. The keen-eyed, blunt Vermonter's distress at
the news was sincere, and heartfelt.

"Could I attend to it, Mr. Cobb?" asked Oliver.

"Perhaps so. I've got those fellows now where the hair is short, and
I'm going to make 'em pay for it."

"What is it about?"

Amos Cobb took a double telegram from his pocket. It was closely
written and contained a long message.

"It's about your father's patents. This telegram is from the attorneys
of the Gorton--"

Oliver laid his fingers on the open telegram in Cobb's hand, and said,
in a positive tone:

"He will not rob this man of his rights, Mr. Cobb."

"It's not that! It is the other way. The attorneys of the Gorton
Company refuse to rob your father of HIS rights. Further, the bankers
will not endorse the Gorton stock until your father's patent--I think
it is No. 18,131"--and he examined the telegram closely--"yes, August
13, 1856, 18,131--is out of the way. They are prepared to pay a large
price for it at once, and have asked me to see your father and arrange
it on the best terms I can. The offer is most liberal. I don't feel
like risking an hour's delay; that's why I'm here so late. What had I
better do?"

Oliver caught Mr. Cobb's hand in his and a flash of exultant joy passed
over his face as he thought of his father's triumph and all it meant to
him. Then Margaret's eyes looked into his and next his mother's; he
knew what it meant to them all. Then the wasted figure of his father
rose in his mind, and his tears blinded him.

Amos stood watching him, trying to read his thoughts. He saw the tears
glistening on Oliver's lashes, but he misunderstood the cause. Only the
practical side of the situation appealed to the Vermonter at the
moment. These New York men had cast discredit on his endorsement of
Richard's priority in the invention and had tried to ignore them both.
Now he held them tight in his grasp. Horn was a rich man.

"I'll be very quiet, Oliver," he continued, in a half-pleading tone,
"and will make it as short as I can. Just let me go up. It can't hurt
him"--and he laid his hand on Oliver's shoulder with a tenderness that
surprised him. "I would never forgive myself if he should pass away
without learning of his success. He's worked so hard."

Before Oliver could reply another low tap was heard at the door. Cobb
turned the knob gently and Nathan stepped inside the hall. The old man
had gone home and to bed, tired out with his ceaseless watching by
Richard's bedside, and was only half dressed.

"Still with us?" he asked in trembling tones, his eyes searching
Oliver's face. "Oh, thank God! Thank God! I'll go up at once"--and he
passed on toward the stairway. Amos and Oliver followed.

As Nathan's foot touched the first step Doctor Wallace's voice sounded
over the bannisters.

"Oliver! Malachi! Both of you--quick!" The three bounded noiselessly
up-stairs and entered the room. Richard lay high up on the pillows, the
face in shadow, his eyes closed. Margaret was still on her knees, her
head on the coverlet. Mrs. Horn stood on the other side of the bed, the
same calm, fixed expression on her face, as if she was trying to read
the unknowable. Dr. Wallace sat on a chair beside his patient, his
fingers on Richard's pulse.

"Is he gone?" asked Oliver, stepping quickly to his father's side, his
voice choking.

Dr. Wallace shook his head.

Amos Cobb drew near, and whispered in the doctor's ear. The old
physician listened quietly, and nodded in assent. Then he leaned over
his patient.

"Mr. Cobb has some good news for you, Richard," he said, calmly. "The
bankers have recognized your patents, and are ready to pay the money--"

The dying man's eyes opened slowly.

Amos stepped in front of the doctor, and bent down close to the bed.

"It's all right, Horn--all right! They can't get along without your
first patent. Here's the telegram." He spoke with an encouraging
cheeriness in his voice, as one would in helping a child across a
dangerous place.

The brow of the dying man suddenly cleared; the eyes burned with their
old steadiness, then the lips parted.

"Read it," he muttered. The words were barely audible.

Cobb held the paper so the dim light should fall upon it and read the
contents slowly, emphasizing each word.

"Raise me up."

The voice seemed to come from his throat, as if his lungs were closed.
Oliver started forward, but Cobb, being nearer, slipped his arm under
the wasted figure, and with the tenderness of a woman, lifted him
carefully, tucking the pillows in behind the thin shoulders for better
support. Oliver sank softly to his knees beside Margaret.

Again the thin lips parted.

"Read it once more." The voice came stronger now.

Amos held the paper to the light, and the words of the telegram, like
the low tick of a clock, again sounded through the hushed room.

For a brief instant the inventor's eyes sought each face in turn. As
his gaze rested on Margaret and Oliver, he moved his thin white hand
slowly along the coverlet, and laid it first on Oliver's and next on
Margaret's head. Then, with a triumphant look lighting his face, he
lifted his arms toward his wife.

"Sallie!" he called, and fell back on his pillow, lifeless.




CHAPTER XXVI

THE LIGHT OF A NEW DAY


The crocuses are a-bloom once more. The lilac buds are bursting with
the joy of the new spring. A veil of silver-gray floats over Moose
Hillock. The idle brook, like a truant boy, dances in the sunshine,
singing to itself as it leaps from ledge to pool.

All the doors and windows of the big studio on the side looking down
the valley are open to the morning air. Through one of these Margaret
has just entered, her arms full of apple blossoms. One spray she places
in a slender blue jar, the delicate blush of the buds and the pale
green of the leaves harmonizing with the gold-brown of her marvellous
hair as she buries her face among them. All about the spacious room are
big easels, half-finished portraits, rich draperies, wide divans, old
brass, and rare porcelain.

In an easy chair, close to the window, with the fragrance of the
blossoms around her, sits a white-haired old lady with a gossamer shawl
about her shoulders. She is watching Margaret as she moves about the
room, her eyes brimming with tenderness and pride. Now and then she
looks toward a door leading into the bedroom beyond, as if expecting
someone.

Oliver stands before his easel, his palette and brushes in his hand. He
is studying the effect of a pat of color he has just laid on the
portrait of a young girl in a rich gown--the fourth full-length he has
painted this year--the most important being the one of his father
ordered by the Historical Society of Kennedy Square, and painted from
Margaret's sketches.

Malachi--the old man is very feeble--moves slowly around a square table
covered with a snow-white cloth, with seats set for four--one a high
chair with little arms. In his hands are a heap of cups and
saucers--the same Spode cups and saucers he looked after so carefully
in the old house at home. These he places near the smoking coffee-urn.

Suddenly a merry, roguish laugh is heard, and a little fellow with
gold-brown hair and big blue eyes peers in through the slowly opening
door.

The old servant stops, and his withered face breaks into a smile.

"Is dat you, honey?" he cries, with a laugh. "Come along, son. Yo'
cha'r's all ready, Marse Richard."










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