IV

THE PRINTING PRESS

Next week was Bobby's birthday. He received many gifts, but as usual, saved the biggest package until the last. It had come wrapped in stout manila paper, tied with a heavy cord, and ornamented with the red sticker and seals of the Express Company. With some importance Bobby opened his new knife and cut the string. The removal of the wrapper disclosed a light wooden box. This was filled with excelsior, which in turn enclosed a paper parcel. A card read:

"For Bobby on his eleventh birthday, from Grandpa and Grandma."

Wrought to trembling eagerness by the continued delays, Bobby tore off the paper. Within was a small toy cast-iron printing press. Its ink-plate was flat and stationary. Its chase held two wooden grooves into which the type could be clamped by means of end screws. The mechanism was worked by a small square lever at the back. Bobby opened a red pasteboard box to discover a miniature font of Old English type; a round tin box to uncover sticky but delicious-smelling printer's ink; a package to reveal the ink-roller and a parcel to complete the outfit with a pack of cheap pasteboard cards.

"What do you think of that?" cried Mrs. Orde.

"Now you'll be able to go into business, won't you?" said his father. "You might make me twenty-five calling cards for a starter."

Immediately breakfast was finished, then Bobby took his printing press upstairs and installed it on his little table. He would have liked very much to show Celia his gifts, but this Mrs. Orde peremptorily forbade.

After some manipulation he loosened the chase and laid it on the table. Then he began to pick out the necessary type and arrange it in the upper grove to spell his father's name. The replacement of the chase was easy after his experience in taking it out. Ink he smeared on the top plate, according to directions, rolling it back and forth with the composition roller until it was evenly distributed. Nothing remained now but to adjust the guides which would hold the cards on the tympan. Bobby passed the inked roller evenly back and forth across the face of the type, inserted a card and bore down confidently on the lever. He contemplated this result:



Besides the transpositions and inversions, the impression itself was blurred and imperfect and smeared with ink.

After the first gasp of dismay, Bobby set to work in the dogged analytical mood which difficulties already aroused in him. The remedy for the inversion was plain enough. Bobby changed the type end for end and turned the R and the E right side up, but he worked slower and slower and his brow was wrinkled. Suddenly it cleared.

"Oh, I know!" said he aloud. "It's just like the looking-glass!"

Satisfied on this point, he finished the resetting quickly and tried again. This time the name read correctly but it slanted down the card and was blurred and inky. Bobby fussed for a long time to get the line straight. Experiment seemed only to approximate. One end persisted in rising too high or sinking too low. The problem was absorbing and all the time Bobby was thinking busily along, to him, original lines. At last, by means of a strip of paper and a pencil he measured equidistants from top and bottom of the platen, adjusted the guides in accordance and so that problem was solved. Bobby, flushed and triumphant, addressed himself to remedying the blurring.

"Too much ink," said he.

Obviously the way to remedy too much ink was to rub some of it off and the directest means to that end was the ever-useful pocket handkerchief. The paste proved very sticky and the handkerchief was effective only at the expense of great labour. Bobby ruined three more cards before he established the principle that superfluous ink must be removed not only from the plate but from the roller and type as well.

But now further difficulties intervened before perfection. Some of the letters printed heavily and some scarcely showed at all. Here Bobby entered the realm of experiments which could not be lightly solved in the course of a half hour. He tried raising the type to a common level and locking them as tightly as possible, but always they slipped. He attempted to insert bits of paper under what proved to be the shorter types. This improved the results somewhat, but was nevertheless far from satisfactory. By now he had learned not to use a fresh card every time. The first half-dozen were printed back and forth, front and behind. Bobby was smeared with more ink than the printing press. Scissors, pencils, paper, used cards and type were scattered everywhere. All the time his fingers were working his brain, too, was busy, searching back from the result to the cause, seeking the requisite modification. Mr. Orde, returning at noon, burst out laughing at the sight.

"Well, youngster," said he, "how do you like being a printer?"

"Oh Bobby!" cried Mrs. Orde behind him. "You are a sight! Don't you know it's time to get ready for lunch?"

Bobby looked up in bewildered surprise. Lunch! Why he had hardly begun! His father was chuckling at him.

"Benzine will take it off," said Mr. Orde to his wife.

Bobby caught at the hint.

"Will benzine take off the ink?" he cried eagerly.

"It's supposed to," replied his father; "but in your case——"

"Can I have a little, in a bottle, and a toothbrush?" begged Bobby. He saw in a flash the solution of the ink problem.

"We'll see," said Mrs. Orde. "Come with me, now."

They disappeared in the direction of the bathroom. Mr. Orde examined the cards with some amusement.

"Well, sonny," said he to Bobby at lunch. "The printing doesn't seem to be a howling success. What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know," replied Bobby; "but I'll fix it all right yet."

Bobby was busy with his birthday party all that afternoon, but next morning he was afoot even before the Catholic Church bell called him. The press occupied him until breakfast time, but he made small progress. His father's morning paper filled him with envy by reason of its clear impression. After breakfast he begged a tiny bottle of benzine and an old toothbrush from his mother, and went at it again for nearly an hour. The benzine worked like a charm. The type came out bright as new and the old ink dissolved readily from the platen and roller. Bobby took note that he should have cleared them the day before, as a night's neglect had left them sticky. With it all he seemed to have arrived at a dead wall. All his limited mechanical ingenuity was exhausted and still the letters printed either too deep or too light. About half-past nine he cleaned up and went down to the Ottawa.

His friends there were all sitting under the trees before the hotel, resting rather vacantly after a hard romp. Celia perched high on a root, her curls against the brown bark, her hat dangling by its elastic from a forefinger, her lips parted, her eyes vacant. Gerald leaned gracefully against the trunk. Bobby sat cross-legged on the ground watching her—and him. Kitty and Margaret reclined flat on their backs, gazing up through the leaves. Morris alone showed a trace of activity. He had fished from his pockets the short, blunt stub of a pencil, a penny and a piece of tissue paper. The latter he had superimposed over the penny and by rubbing with the pencil was engaged in making a tracing of the pattern on the coin. Through his preoccupation Bobby at last became cognizant of this process. He sat and watched it with increasing interest.

"By Jimmy!" he shouted leaping to his feet.

"What is it?" they cried, startled by the abrupt movement.

"I got to go home," said Bobby.

They expostulated vehemently, for his departure spoiled the even number for a game. But he would not listen, even to Celia's reproachful voice.

"I'll be back after lunch," he called, and departed rapidly. Duke arose from his warm corner, stretched deliberately, yawned, glanced at the children, half wagged his tail and finally trotted after.

Bobby rushed home as fast as he could; broke into the house like a whirlwind; tore upstairs and, breathless with speed and the excitement of a new idea, flung himself into the chair before his little table. He had seen the solution. To the flash of embryonic creative instinct vouchsafed him, Morris's penny had represented type, the inequalities of its design were the inequalities of alignment over which he had struggled so long and the pressure of the pencil and tissue paper paralleled the imposition of the card on the letters. But in the case of Morris's penny the type did not conform to the paper and the pressure, the paper conformed to the type.

His brain afire with eagerness, Bobby first stretched several clean sheets of paper over the platen and clamped them down; then he inked the type and pressed down the lever. Thus he gained an impression on the platen itself. At this point he hesitated. On his father's desk down stairs was mucilage, but mucilage was strictly forbidden. The hesitation was but momentary, however, for the creative spirit in full blast does not recognize ordinary restrictions. With his own round-pointed scissors he cut out little squares of paper. These he pasted on the platen over the letters whose impression had been too faint. A few moments adjusted the guides. Bobby inked the type and inserted a fresh card. The moment of test was at hand.

He paused and drew a long breath. From one point of view the matter was a small one. From another it was of the exact importance of a little boy's development, for it represented the first fruits of all the hereditary influences that had silently and through the small experiences of babyhood, led him over the edge of the dark, warm nest to this first independent trial of the wings. He pressed the lever gently and took out the card. It was not a very good job of printing; the ink was not quite evenly distributed, the type were so heavily impressed that they showed through the reverse of the card like stamping; but each letter had evidently received the same amount of pressure!

Bobby uttered a little chuckle of joy—he had not time for more—and plunged into the rectification of minor errors. And by noon the press was working steadily, though slowly, and a very neat array of Mr. John Ordes was spread out on the window drying.

The game was absorbing. Bobby brushed his type with the benzine and toothbrush; distributed it and set up another name—Miss Celia Carleton. He had printed nearly a dozen of these when his mother's voice behind him interrupted his labours.

"Robert," said the voice sternly, "what are you doing with that mucilage?"



V

THE LITTLE GIRL

Bobby spent as much time with Celia as he was allowed. On Sunday he took her on his regular excursion to Auntie Kate—and Auntie Kate's cookies.

"Aren't you glad there was no Sunday School to-day?" he inquired blithely.

"I like Sunday School," stated Celia.

Bobby stopped short and looked at her.

"Do you like church too?" he demanded.

"I love it," she said.

"Do you like pollywogs?"

"Ugh, No!"

"Or stripy snakes?"

"They're horrid!"

"Or forts?"

"I don't know."

"Or rifles an' revolvers?"

"I am afraid of them."

"Or dogs?"

"I love dogs. I've got one home. His name is Pancho."

"What kind is he?" asked Bobby with a vast sigh of relief at finding a common ground. He had been brought to realize yesterday that little girls differ from boys; but for a few dreadful, floundering moments this morning he had feared they might, so to speak, belong to a different race. Afterward he realized that it would not have mattered even if she had not liked dogs. He merely wished to be near her. When he left her he immediately experienced the strongest longing to be again where he could see her, and breathe the deep, intoxicating, delicious, clean influence of her near presence. And yet with her his moments of unalloyed happiness were few and his hours of sheer misery were many. Self-consciousness had never troubled Bobby before; but now in the presence of Gerald's slim elegance and easy, languid manner, he became acutely aware of his own deficiencies. His clothes seemed coarser; his hands and feet were awkward; his body dumpier; his face rounder and more freckled. To him was born a great humility of spirit to match the great longing of it.

Nevertheless, as has been said, he and Duke trudged down to the Ottawa every morning, and again every afternoon, or as many of them as Mrs. Orde permitted. He was content to come under the immediate spell of the dancing, sprite-like, sunny little girl. No thought of the especial effort to please, called courtship, entered his young head. He played with the children, and kept as close to Her as possible; that was all. And one evening, trudging home dangerously near six o'clock, he ran slap against the legend chalked in huge letters on a board fence:

CELIA CARLETON and BOBBY ORDE

He stopped short, his heart jumping wildly. Often had he seen this coupling of names, other names; and he knew that it was considered a little of a shame, and somewhat of a glory. The sight confused him to the depths of his soul; and yet it also pleased him. He rubbed out the letters; but he walked on with new elation. The undesired but authoritative sanction of public recognition had been given his devotion. Gerald was not considered. Somebody had observed; so the affair must be noticeable to others. And with another tremendous leap of the heart Bobby welcomed the daring syllogism that, since the somebody of the impertinent chalk had fathomed his devotion to her, might it not be possible, oh, remotely inconceivably possible, of course, that the unknown had equally marked some slight interest on her part for him? The board fence, the maple-shaded walk, the soft brown street of pulverized shingles, all faded in the rapt glory of this vision. Bobby gasped. Literally it had not occurred to him before. Now all at once he desired it, desired it not merely with every power of his child nature, but with the full strength of the man's soul that waited but the passing of years to spread wide its pinions. The need of her answer to his love shook him to the depths, for it reached forward and back in his world-experience, calling into vague, drowsy, fluttering response things that would later awaken to full life, and reanimating the dim and beautiful instincts that are an heritage of that time when the soul is passing the lethe of earliest childhood and retains still a wavering iridescence of the glory from which it has come. The question rose to his lips ready for the asking. He wanted to turn track on the instant, to call for Celia, to demand of her the response to his love.

And then, after the moment of exaltation, came the reaction. He was afraid. The thought of his stubby uninteresting figure came to him; and a deep sense of his unworthiness. What could she, accustomed to brilliant creatures of the wonderful city, of whom Gerald was probably but a mild sample, find in commonplace little Bobby Orde? He walked meekly home; and took a scolding for being late.

Nevertheless the idea persisted and grew. It came to the point of rehearsal. Before he fell asleep that very night, Bobby had ready cut and dried a half-dozen different ways in which to ask the question, and twice as many methods of leading up to it. In the darkness, and by himself, he felt very bold and confident.

The next morning, however, even after he had succeeded in sequestrating Celia from her companions, he found it impossible to approach the subject. The bare thought of it threw him to the devourings of a panic terror. This new necessity tore him with fresh but delicious pains. He felt the need of finding out whether she cared for him as he had never conceived a need could exist; yet he was totally unable to satisfy it. By comparison the former misery of jealousy seemed nothing. Bobby lived constantly in this high breathless state of delight in Celia; and misery in the condition of his love for her. The Fuller boys and Angus saw him no more; the little library was neglected; the wood-box half the time forgotten; and the arithmetic, always a source of trouble, tangled itself into a hopeless snarl of which Bobby's blurred mental vision could make nothing.

All of his spare time he spent at his toy printing press, trying over and over for a perfect result—unblurred, well-registered, well aligned—in the shape of calling cards for "Miss Celia Carleton."

As soon as they were done to his satisfaction, he wrapped them in a clumsy package, and set out for the Ottawa, followed, as always, by Duke.

He found Celia alone in a rocking chair.

"Why didn't you come down this morning?" she asked him at once.

Bobby held up the package and looked mysterious.

"This," said he.

"Oh! what is it?" she cried, jumping up.

"I made it," said Bobby.

"What is it?" insisted Celia. "Show it to me."

But Bobby thrust the package firmly into his pocket.

"Up past our house there's a fine sand-hill to slide down," said he, "and we got a fine fort over the hill, and I know where there's a place you can climb up on where you can see 'most to Redding."

"Show me what you've got!" pleaded Celia.

"I will," Bobby developed his plan, "if you'll come up and play in the fort."

"All right," agreed Celia in a breath; "I'll tell mamma I'm going. And I'll hunt up the others."

"I don't want the others to go," announced Bobby boldly.

She calmed to a great stillness, and looked at him with intent eyes.

"All right," she agreed quietly after a moment.

They walked up the street together, followed by the solemn black and white dog. The shop windows did not detain them, as ordinarily. At the fire-engine house they turned under the dense shade of the maples. But by the end of the second block said Bobby:

"We'll go this way."

He was afraid of encountering Angus, or perhaps the Fuller boys.

The sand-hill proved toilsome to Celia, but without a single pause she struggled bravely up its sliding, cascading yellow surface to the top. Then she stood still, panting a little, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, the tiniest curls about her forehead wet and matted with perspiration. With a great adoration, Bobby looked upon her slender figure held straight against the blue sky. Almost—almost dared he speak. At least that is what he thought until the words rose to his lips; and then all at once he realized what a wide gulf lay between the imagined and the spoken word.

"The fort's over this way," said he gruffly.

"Show me the package first," insisted Celia.

Bobby drew out the cards, and thrust them into her hands.

"They're for you," he said hastily. "I did them on my printing press."

Celia was delighted and wanted to say so at length, but Bobby had his sex's aversion to spoken gratitude.

"Come on, see the fort," he insisted.

He showed her the elaborate works and explained their uses, and pointed out the enemy of stumps charging patiently. Celia caught fire with the idea at once.



"I'll make bullets the way they did in the Colonies!" she cried.

"Have you 'Old Times in the Colonies,' too?" asked Bobby eagerly.

They seated themselves and talked of their books. Celia was just beginning the Alcott series. Bobby had never heard of them, and so they had to be explained. The children had romped and played games together; but they had never exchanged such ideas as their years had developed. For once Bobby forgot the fact of his love, and its delicious pains, and its need for something which he could not place, in the unselfconscious joy of intimate communion. He drew close to Celia in spirit; and his whole being expanded to a glow that warmed him through and through. The westering sun surprised them with the lateness of the hour. At the hotel gate Celia left him.

"My, but we had a good time!" said she.

With much trepidation Bobby next day suggested in face of the whole group that he and Celia should climb the high hill from which Bobby fondly believed he could see "'most to Redding." To his surprise, and to the surprise of the others, Celia consented at once. They climbed the hill in short stages, resting formally every ten feet. Bobby they called the Guide; while Celia was assigned the duty of announcing the resting-places. There was a wood-road up the hill, but they preferred the steep side. Trees shaded it; and undergrowth veiled it. Little open spaces were guarded mysteriously and jealously by the thickets; little hot pockets held like cups the warmth of the sun. Birds flashed and disappeared; squirrels chattered indignantly; chipmunks scurried away. Occasionally they came to dense shade, and moss, and black shadow, and low sweet shrubs a few inches high, and the tinkle of a tiny streamlet. Once a tangle of raspberries in a little clearing fell across their way. Bobby had never happened on these. They had been well picked over by the squaws, who sold fruit in town by the pailful, but the children managed to find a few berries, and ate them, enjoying their warm, satiny feel.

Thus they climbed for a long time. The rests were frequent, the course not of the straightest. For many years their recollection of that hill was as of a mountain. Finally the top sprang at them abruptly, as though in joke.

"Come over this way, I'll show you," said Bobby.

He led the way to a point where the scant timber had in times past suffered a windfall. Through the opening thus made they looked abroad over the countryside. They could see the snake-fences about the farms, and the white dusty road like a ribbon and the stumps like black dots, and the waving green tops of the "wood lots" and far away the flash of the River.

Thus Bobby gained another of his great desires. Celia proved strangely acquiescent to suggestions for these excursions. Gerald's dreaded attractions relaxed their power over Bobby's spirit; and in corresponding degree Bobby regained the lost captaincy of his soul. The self-confidence which he lacked seeped gradually into him; and he began, though very tentatively, to recognize and respect his own value as an individual. These are big words to employ over the small problems of a child; yet in the child alone occur those silent developments, those noiseless changes which touch closest to true abstraction. Later in life our processes are stiffened by the material into forms of greater simplicity.

They explored the country about; and what the shortness of their legs denied them in the matter of actual distance, the largeness of their children's imaginations lavished bounteously.

Bobby had explored most of it all before—the stump pastures, the wood-lots, the hills, the beach, the piers, the upper shifting downs of sand—but now he saw them for the first time because he was showing them to Celia. One day they made their way under tall beech woods, through a scrub of cedars, and found themselves on the edge of low bluffs overlooking the yellow shore and the blue lake. Long years after he could remember it vividly, and all the little details that belonged to it—the flash of the waters, the dip of gulls, the gentle wash of the quiet wavelets against the shore, the thin strip of dark wet sand that marked the extent of their influences, and, in a long curve to the blue of distance, the uneven waste of the yellow dry sand on which lay and from which projected at all angles countless logs, slabs and timbers cast up derelict by the storms of years. But at the time he was not conscious of noticing these things. In the darkness of his room that night all he remembered was Celia standing bright and fair against the shadow of ancient twisted cedars.



VI

THE LITTLE GIRL (CONTINUED)

Every Saturday evening the Hotel Ottawa gave a hop in its dining room. Mrs. Carleton suggested that the Ordes dine with her, and afterward take in this function. The hop proper began at nine o'clock; but the floor for an hour before was given over to the children. Mrs. Orde accepted.

Promptly at half-past six, then, they all entered the dining room. Bobby, living in the town, had never taken a meal there. He saw a high-ceilinged, large room, filled with small, square and round tables arranged between numerous, slender, white plaster pillars. At the base of each pillar were still smaller serving tables each supporting a metal ice-water pitcher. Two swinging doors at the far end led out. Tall windows looked into the grounds where the children had been in the habit of playing.

People were scattered here and there eating. Statuesque ladies dressed in black, with white aprons, stood about or sailed here and there, bearing aloft in marvellous equilibrium great flat trays piled high with steaming white dishes. They swung corners in grand free sweeps, the trays tilted far sideways to balance centrifugal force; they charged the swinging doors at full speed, and when Bobby held his breath in anticipation of the crash, something deft and mysterious happened at the hem of their black skirts and the doors flew open as though commanded by a magic shibboleth. They were tall and short, slender and stout, dark and light, but they had these things in common—they all dressed in black and white, their hair was lofty and of exaggerated waterfall, and their expressions never altered from one of lazy-eyed, lofty, scornful ennui. To Bobby they were easily the leading feature of the meal.

After dinner the party sat on the verandah a while, the elders conversing; the children feeling rather dressed up. By and by their other playmates joined them. The lights were lit, and shadows descended with evening coolness. From within came the sound of a violin tuning.

Immediately all ran to the dining room. The tables had been moved to one end where they were piled on top of one another; the chairs were arranged in a row along the wall; the floor, newly waxed, shone like glass. A small upright piano manipulated by an elderly female in glasses; a tremendous bass viol in charge of a small man, and a violin played by a large man represented the orchestra.

All the children shouted, and began to slide on the slippery floor. Bobby joined this game eagerly, and had great fun. But in a moment the music struck up, the guests of the hotel commenced to drift in and the romping had to cease.

Gerald offered his arm to Celia, and they swung away in the hopping waltz of the period. Other children paired off. Bobby was left alone.

He did not know what to do, so he sat down in one of the chairs ranged along the wall. After a minute or so Mrs. Carleton and the Ordes came in. Bobby went over to them.

"Don't you dance, Bobby?" asked Mrs. Carleton kindly.

"No, ma'am," replied Bobby in a very small voice.

When the music stopped, the children gathered in a group at the lower end of the hall. Bobby joined them; but somehow even then he felt out of it. Celia's cheeks were flushed bright with the exercise and pleasure. Her spirits were high. She laughed and chatted with Gerald vivaciously. Poor Bobby she included in the brightness of her mood, but evidently only because he happened to be in the circle of it. She was sorry he did not dance; but she loved it, and just now she could think of nothing else but the enjoyment of it. Bobby could not understand that there was nothing personal in this. He saw, with a pang, that Gerald danced supremely well; that Morris romped through the steps with a cheerful hearty abandon not without its attraction; that Tad Fuller, who had come in with his mother and his brother, and half a dozen others whom Bobby knew, all made creditable performers; that even Angus, red-faced, awkward, perspiring as he was, could yet command the hand, time and attention of any little girl he might choose to favour. He himself was useless; and therefore ignored.

At the end of the children's hour he said good night miserably, and trailed along home at his parents' heels. Ordinarily he liked to be out after dark. The stars and the velvet shadows and the magic transformations which the night wrought in the most ordinary and accustomed things attracted him strongly. But now he was too conscious of a smarting spirit. Mr. and Mrs. Orde were talking busily about something. He could not even get a chance to ask a question; and that seemed the last straw. His lips quivered, and he had to remember very hard that he was not a little girl in order to keep back the tears.

Finally the talk died.

"Mamma," blurted out Bobby.

"Yes?"

"Can't I learn how to dance?"

The pair wheeled arm in arm and surveyed him. In the starlight his round child face showed white and anxious.

"Why, of course you can, darling," replied Mrs. Orde, "Don't you remember mamma wanted you to go to dancing school last winter, and you wouldn't go?"

"How soon does dancing school open?" demanded Bobby.

"I don't know. Not much before Christmas, I suppose."

Having thus made a definite resolution to remedy matters, Bobby felt better, even though he would have to wait another year. This recovery of spirit was completed the next day. He went with some apprehension to ask Celia to walk again. She had seemed to him so aloof the night before, that he could hardly believe her unchanged. However, she assented to the expedition with alacrity. Hardly had they quitted the hotel grounds when Bobby shot his question at her.

"Celia," said he, "if I learn how to dance this winter will you dance with me when you come back next summer?"

"Why of course," said Celia.

"Will you dance with me a lot?"

"Yes."

"Will you dance with me more than you do with any one else?"

Celia pondered.

"I don't know," she said slowly. She paused, her eyes vague. "I guess so," she added at last.

"Then I'll learn," said Bobby.

"It's lots of fun," said she.

Bobby trod on air. Without his conscious intention their course took direction to the river front. They walked to the left along the wide, artificial bank of piling. Beneath them the water swished among the timbers. On one side were the sand-hills, on the other the blue, preoccupied river. Across the stream was another facade of piles, unbroken save for the little boatslips where the Life Saving men had their station. A strong sweet breeze came from the Lake. Far down ahead they could just make out the twin piers that, jutting into the Lake, continued artificially the course of the river. The lighthouses on their ends were dwarfed by distance.

By and by Celia tired a little, so they sat and dangled their feet and watched the tiny scalloped blue wavelets dance in the current. A passer-by stopped a moment to warn them.

"Look out, youngsters, you don't fall in," said he.

Bobby still exalted with the favour he had been vouchsafed, looked up with dignity.

"I am taking care of this little girl," he said deliberately, and turned his back.

The man chuckled and passed on.

For a long time they sat side by side looking straight out before them.

"Celia," said Bobby without turning his head, "I love you. Do you love me?"

"Yes," said Celia steadily.

Neither stirred by so much as a hair's breadth. After a little they arose and returned to the hotel. Neither spoke again.

Strangely enough the subject was not again referred to, although of course the children continued to play together and the excursions were not intermitted. There seemed to be nothing to say. They loved each other, and they were glad of each other's nearness. It sufficed.

Each morning Bobby awoke with a great uplift of the spirit, and a great longing, which was completely appeased when he had come into Celia's presence. Each evening he retired filled with an impatience for the coming day, and with divine rapture of little memories of what had that day passed. It seemed to him that hour by hour he and Celia drew closer in a sweet secret, intimacy that nevertheless demanded no outer symbol. When he spoke to her of the simplest things, or she to him, he experienced a warm, cosy drawing near, as though beneath the commonplace remark lay something hidden and subtle to which each must bend the ear of the spirit gently. This was the soul of it, a supreme inner gentleness one to the other, no matter how boisterous, how laughing, how brusque might be the spoken word. And in correspondence all the beautiful sunlit summer world took on a new softness and splendour and glory in which they walked, but whose source they did not understand.

This much for the essence of it. But of course, Bobby, being masculine must give presents after his own notion, and being a small boy must give them according to his age. The quarter he had earned from his father he invested in a pack of cards on the upper left-hand corner of which were embossed marvellous doves, wonderful flowers and miraculous tangles of scroll-work in colour. These he printed with Celia's name and address. Near the wharf and railroad station stood a small booth from which a discouraged-looking individual tried to sell curios. Bobby's eye fell on a cheap bracelet of silver wire from which dangled half a dozen moonstones. It caught his eye; day by day his desire for it grew; finally he asked advice on the subject.

"No, Bobby," replied his mother, "I don't think Celia would care for it. It is cheap-looking. She has several very pretty bangles already; and this is not a good one."

Nevertheless, Bobby, being as we have said thoroughly masculine, deliberated some days further, and bought it. The price was two dollars—an almost fabulous sum. Most men give their wives or sweethearts what they think they would like themselves were they women, and were a man to offer a gift. That is one reason why in so many bureau drawers are tucked away unused presents. Young as she was, Celia had the taste not to care for the moonstone bangle, but, like all the rest, she accepted it with genuine delight because Bobby gave it. She even wore it. These were the principal transactions of the kind; but anything Bobby particularly fancied he brought her. Shortly she became possessed of a bewildering collection consisting variously of large glass marbles with a twist of coloured glass inside; two or three lichi nuts, then a curiosity; a dried gull's wing; several exploded shotgun shells; and a "real," though broken-pointed chisel. Celia gave Bobby her tiny narrow gold ring with two little turquoises. He could just get it on his little finger, and wore it proudly, in spite of jeers. Being teased about Celia was embarrassing to the point of pain; but in the last analysis it was not unpleasant.

So matters slipped by. Abruptly the end of August came. One day Bobby found Celia much perturbed.

"I can't go out long," she said, "I've got to help mamma."

"What doing?" asked Bobby.

But Celia shook her head dolefully.

"Come, let's go walk somewhere and I'll tell you," said she.

They crossed Main Street to the shaded street on which lived Georgie Cathcart.

"What is it?" demanded Bobby again.

"We are going home to-morrow," Celia announced mournfully. "Mamma has a letter."

Bobby stopped short.

"Going home!" he echoed.

"Yes," said Celia.

"Then we won't see each other till next summer!" he cried.

"No," said she.

"And we can't walk any more or—or——" Bobby felt the lump rising in his throat.

"No," said Celia.

Bobby swallowed hard.

"Are—are you sorry?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Celia quietly. "Are you?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do!" cried Bobby desperately.

After a little, the main fact of the catastrophe being accepted, they talked of the winter to come.

"You'll write me some letters, won't you?" pleaded Bobby.

"If you write to me."

"Of course I will write to you. And you'll send me your picture, won't you? You said you would."

"I don't believe I have any," demurred Celia; "and mamma has them all; and they're very comspensive."

"I'll give you one of mine," offered Bobby, "if I have to get it from the album. Please, Celia."

"I'll see," said she.

They were moving again slowly beneath the trees.

Bobby looked up the street; he looked back. He turned swiftly to her.

"Celia," he asked, "may I kiss you?"

"Yes," said Celia steadily.

She stopped short, looking straight ahead. Bobby leaned over and his lips just touched her cool smooth cheek. They walked on in silence. The next day Celia was gone.



VII

UNTIL THE LAST SHOT

There remained as consolation after this heartbreaking defection but two interesting things in life—the printing press and the Flobert Rifle. Somehow the week dragged through until Sunday, when Bobby duly scrubbed and dressed, had to go to church with his father and mother. Bobby, to tell the truth, did not care very much for church. Always his glance was straying to a single upper-section of one of the windows, which, being tipped inward at the bottom, permitted him a glimpse of green leaves flushed with sunlight. A very joyous bird emphasized the difference between the bright world and this dim, decorous interior with its faint church aroma compounded of morocco leather, flowers, and the odour of Sunday garments. Only when the four ushers tiptoed about with the collection boxes on the end of handles, like exaggerated corn-poppers, did the lethargy into which he had fallen break for a moment. The irregular passage of the receptacle from one to another was at least a motion not ordered in the deliberate rhythm of decorum; and the clink of the money was pleasantly removed from the soporific. Bobby gazed with awe at the coins as they passed beneath his little nose. He supposed there must be enough of them to buy the Flobert Rifle.

The thought gave him a pleasant little shock. It had never occurred to him that probably the Flobert Rifle had a price. It had seemed so passionately to be desired as to belong to the category of the inaccessible—like Mr. Orde's revolver on the top shelf of the closet, or unlimited ice cream, or the curios locked behind the glass in Auntie Kate's cabinet. Now the revelation almost stopped his heart.

"Perhaps it doesn't cost more'n a thousand dollars!" he said to himself. And he had already made up his mind to save a thousand dollars for the purpose of getting a boat. The boat idea lost attraction. His papa had agreed to give half. Bobby lost himself in an exciting daydream involving actual possession of the Flobert Rifle. He resolved that, on the way home, if the curtains were not down, he would take another look at the weapon.

The curtains were not down; but now, attached to the Flobert Rifle, was a stencilled card. Bobby set himself to reading it.

"First Prize," he deciphered, "An-nual Trap Shoot, Monrovia Sportsman's Club, Sep. 10, 1879."

For some moments the significance of this did not reach him. Then all at once a sob caught in his throat. It had never occurred to poor little Bobby that there might be other Flobert rifles in the world; and here this one was withdrawn from circulation, as it were, to be won as prize at the trap shooting.

Bobby did not recover from this shock until the following morning. Then a bright idea struck him, an idea filled with comfort. The Rifle was not necessarily lost, after all. He trudged down to the store, entered boldly, and asked to examine the weapon.

"My papa's going to win it and give it to me," he announced.

A very brown-faced man with twinkling gray eyes turned from buying black powder and felt wads to look at him amusedly.

"Hullo, Bobby," said he, "so your father's going to win the rifle and give it to you, is he? Are you sure?"

"Of course," replied Bobby simply; "my papa can do anything he wants to."

The man laughed.

"What do you know about rifles, and what would you do with one?" he asked.

"I know all about them," replied Bobby with great positiveness, "and I know where there's lots of squirrels."

The storekeeper had by now taken the Flobert from the show window. The other man reached out his hand for it.

"Well, tell me about this one," he challenged.

"It's a Flobert," said Bobby without hesitation, "and it weighs five and a half pounds; and its ri-fling has one turn in twenty-eight inches; and it has a knife-blade front sight, and a bar rear sight; and it shoots 22 longs, 22 shorts, C B caps, and B B caps. Only B B caps aren't very good for it," he added.

"Whew!" cried the man. "Here, take it!"

Bobby looked it over with delight and reverence. This was the first time he had enjoyed it at close hand. The blue of the octagon barrel was like satin; the polish of the stock like a mirror; the gold plating of the most fancy lock and guards like the sheen of silk. Bobby loved, too, the indescribable gun smell of it—compounded probably of the odours of steel, wood and oil. With some difficulty he lifted it to his face and looked through the rather wobbly sights. Reluctantly he gave it back into the storekeeper's hands.

"Would you mind, please," he asked, a little awed, "would you mind letting me see a box of cartridges?"

Stafford smiled and reached to the shelf behind, from which he took a small, square, delightful, red box. It had reading on it, and a portrait of the little cartridges it contained. Bobby feasted his eyes in silence.

"I—I know it's a prize," said he at last. "But—how much was it?"

"Fifteen dollars," replied Mr. Bishop.

Bobby's eyes widened to their utmost capacity.

"Why—why—why!" he gasped; "I thought it must be a thousand."

Both men exploded in laughter, in the confusion of which, stunned, surprised, delighted and excited with the thought of eventual ownership, Bobby marched out the door, where he was joined gravely by Duke, his beautiful feather tail waving slowly to and fro as he walked.

Later in the day Kincaid, the spare, brown man with the twinkling gray eyes, met Mr. Orde on the street.

"Hullo, Orde!" he greeted. "Hear you have a sure win of the tournament."

"Sure win!" said Orde, puzzled, "What you talking about? You know I couldn't shoot against you fellows."

"Well, your small boy told me you were going to win that rifle down at Bishop's, and give it to him."

Orde's face clouded.

"He's been talking nothing but rifle for a month," said he. "I'm going West in September. Wouldn't have any show against you fellows, anyway."

When Bobby heard this paralyzing piece of news, his entire scheme of things seemed shattered. For a long time he sat staring with death in his heart. Then he arose silently and disappeared.

In the Proper Place, among Bobby's other possessions, was a small toy gun. Its stock was of pine, its lock of polished cast iron, and its barrel of tin. The pulling of the trigger released a spring in the barrel, which in turn projected a pebble or other missile a short and harmless distance. Then a ramrod re-set the spring. When, the previous Christmas, Bobby had acquired this weapon, he had been very proud of it. Latterly, however, it had fallen into disfavour as offering too painful a contrast to the real thing as exemplified by the Flobert Rifle.

Bobby rummaged the darkness of the Proper Place until he found this toy gun. From the sack in his father's closet—forbidden—he deliberately abstracted a handful of bird-shot. Retiring to the woodshed, he set the spring in the gun, poured in what he considered to be about the proper quantity of shot, and solemnly discharged it at the high fence. The leaden pellets sprayed out and spattered harmlessly against the boards. Thrice Bobby repeated this. Then, quite without heat or rancour, he threw the toy gun and what remained of the shot over the fence into the vacant lot behind it. His common sense had foretold just this result to his experiment, so he was not in the least disappointed; but he had considered it his duty to try the only expedient his ingenuity could invent. For if—by a miracle—the little gun had discharged the shot with force; Bobby might—by a miracle—be permitted to participate with it in the Shoot; and might—by a miracle—win the Flobert himself. Bobby was no fool. He marked the necessity of three miracles; and he did not in the least expect them. Merely he wished to fulfill his entire duty to the situation.

Saturday morning—the very day of the Shoot—Mr. Orde left for California.

After lunch Bobby trudged to Main Street, turned to the right, away from town, and set himself in patient motion toward the shooting grounds.

These were situated some two miles out along the county road. Bobby had driven to them many times, but had never attempted to cover the distance afoot. The sun was hot, and the way dusty. Many buggies and one large carry-all passed him, each full of the participants in the contest. No one thought of giving Bobby a lift, in fact no one noticed him at all. He could not help thinking how different it would be if only his father had not gone West.

"Hello!" called a hearty voice behind him.

He turned to see a yellow two-wheeled cart drawn by a gaunt white horse. On the seat close to the horse's tail sat Mr. Kincaid.

"Going to the Shoot?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said Bobby.

"Well, jump in."

Mr. Kincaid moved one side, and lifted half the seat so Bobby could climb in from the rear. Then he let the seat down again and clucked to the horse.

Mr. Kincaid wore an ancient gray slouch hat pulled low over his eyes; and a very old suit of gray clothes, wrinkled and baggy. Somehow, in contrast, his skin showed browner than ever. He looked down at Bobby, the fine good-humour lines about his eyes deepening.

"Well youngster," said he, "where's your father?"

Bobby's eyes fell; he kicked his feet back and forth. Beneath them lay Mr. Kincaid's worn leather gun-case, and an oblong japanned box which Bobby knew contained shells. For an instant he struggled with himself.

"He—he had to go to California," he choked; and looked away quickly to hide the tears that sprang to his eyes.

Mr. Kincaid whistled and raised his hand so abruptly that the old white horse, mistaking the movement for a signal, stopped dead, and instantly went to sleep.

"Get ap, Bucephalus!" cried Mr. Kincaid indignantly.

Bucephalus deliberately awoke, and after a moment's pause moved on. To Bobby's relief Mr. Kincaid said nothing further, but humped over the reins, and looked ahead steadily across the horse's back. He stole a glance at the older man; and suddenly without reason a great wave of affection swept over him. He liked his companion's clear brown skin, and the close clipped gray of his hair, and his big gray moustache beneath which the corners of his mouth quirked faintly up, and the network of fine crow's feet at his temples, and the clear steady steel-colour of his eyes beneath the bushy brows. On the spot Bobby enshrined a hero.

But now they turned off the main road through a gap in the snake-fence, and followed many wheel tracks to the farther confines of the field where, under a huge tree they could see a group of men. These hailed Mr. Kincaid with joy.

"Hello, Kin, old man," they roared. "Got here, did you? What day did you start? The old thing must be about dead. Lean him up against a tree, and come tell us about the voyage."

"The cannon-ball express is strictly on schedule time, boys," replied Mr. Kincaid, looking solemnly at his watch.

He drove to the fence, where he tied Bucephalus. The other rigs were hitched here and there at distances that varied as the gun-shyness of the horses. Bobby proudly bore the gun-case. Mr. Kincaid lifted out the heavy box of shells.

Bobby took in the details of the scene with a delight that even his just cause for depression could not quench.

The men, some twenty in number, sprawled on the ground or sat on boxes. Before them stood a wooden rack with sockets, in which already were stacked a number of shotguns. Two pails of water flanked this rack, in each of which had been thrust a slotted hickory "wiper" threaded with a square of cloth. A fairly large empty wooden box, for the reception of exploded shells, marked the spot on which the shooters would stand. The rotary trap lay in plain sight eighteen yards away. That completed the list of arrangements, which were, in the light of modern methods, as every trap shooter of to-day will recognize, exceedingly crude.

The men, however, supplied the interest which the equipment might lack. At that time every trap-shot was also a field shot. The class which confines itself to targets had not even been thought of. And good picked-shots have in common everywhere certain qualities, probably developed by the life in the open, and the unique influences of woodland and upland hunting. They are generous, and large in spirit, and absolutely democratic—the millionaire and the mechanic meet on equal ground—and deliberate in humour, and dry of wit. The quiet chaffing, tolerant, good-humoured, genuine intercourse of hunters cannot be matched in any other class.

The components of this group had each served his apprenticeship in the blinds or the cover. They knew each other in the freemasonry of the Field; and when they met together, as now, they spoke from the gentle magic of the open heart.

One exception must be made to this statement, however. Joseph Newmark, in advance of his time, shot methodically and well at the trap, never went afield, and maintained toward his neighbours an habitual dry attitude of politeness.

Bobby seated himself on the ground and prepared to listen with the completest enjoyment. These men were to him great or little according as they shot well or ill. That was to him the sole criterion. It did not matter to him that Mr. Heinzman controlled the largest interests in the western part of the state—he "couldn't hit a balloon"; nor that young Wellman was looked upon as worthless and a loafer—he was well up among the first five.

Nearly everybody smoked something. The tobacco smelled good in the open air.

"Well," remarked Kincaid, "if that Stafford party doesn't show up before long, I'm going home. I can't stand you fellows without some excitement for a counter-irritant."

"That's right, Kin," called somebody, "Better start that old Buzzard toward town pretty soon, if you want to get in for breakfast—there's a good moon!"

But at this moment a delivery wagon turned into the field, and drove briskly to the spot. From it Mr. Stafford descended spryly.

"Sorry to be a little late, boys; just couldn't help it," he apologized.

His arrival galvanized the crowd into activity. From the delivery wagon they unloaded boxes of shells, two camp stools and a number of barrels. The driver then hitched his horses to the fence, and returned to act as trap-puller.

One of the barrels was rolled out to the trap, opened, and its contents carefully spilled on the ground. It contained a quantity of sawdust and brown glass balls. These were about the size of a base-ball, had an opening at the top, and were filled with feathers. John, the driver of the delivery wagon, climbed down into a pit below the trap. He set the spring of the trap and placed a glass ball in its receptacle at the end of one of the two projecting arms. A long cord ran from the trap back to the shooting stand.

Mr. Stafford opened a camp stool, sat down, and produced a long blank book. In this he inscribed the men's names. Each gave him two dollars and a half as an entrance fee. A referee and scorer were appointed from among the half-dozen non-shooting spectators.

"Newmark to shoot; Heinzman on deck!" called the scorer in a business-like voice.

The trapper ducked into his hole. Mr. Newmark thrust five loaded shells into his side pocket, picked his gun from the rack and stepped forward to the mark. Then he loaded one barrel of the gun and stood at ready. In those days nobody thought of standing gun to shoulder, as is the present custom. The rule was, "stock below elbow."

"Ready," said he in his dry incisive voice.

"Ready," repeated the trap puller at his elbow.

"Pull!" commanded Mr. Newmark abruptly.

Immediately the trap began to revolve rapidly; after a moment or so it sprung, and the glass ball, projected violently upward, sailed away through the air. The mechanism of the trap was such that no one could tell precisely how long it would revolve before springing; nor in what direction it would throw the target. Nevertheless the mark offered would now, in comparison with our saucer-shaped target, be considered easy. Mr. Newmark brought his gun to his shoulder and discharged it apparently with one motion, before the ball had more than begun its flight. A roar of the noisy black powder shook the air. The glass sphere seemed actually to puff out in fine smoke. Only the feathers it had contained floated down wind.

"Dead!" announced the referee in a brisk business-like voice.

Mr. Newmark broke his gun and flipped the empty yellow shell into the box next him. A cloud of white powder smoke drifted down over the group. Bobby snuffed it eagerly. He thought it the most delicious smell in the world; and so continued to think it for many years until the nitros displaced the old-fashioned compounds. Four times Mr. Newmark repeated his initial performance; then stepped aside.

"Heinzman to shoot; Wellman on deck!" announced the scorer.

Mr. Heinzman was already at the mark; and young Wellman arose and began to break open a box of shells. Mr. Newmark thrust his gun barrels into one of the pails and with the hickory wiper pumped the water up and down.

"He's a good snap-shot," Bobby heard a man tell a stranger, in a half-voice.

"Has a brilliant style," commented the other.

They fell into a low-toned conversation on the partridge season, and the ducks, to which Bobby listened with all his ears, the while his eyes missed nothing of what took place before him. Nobody now spoke aloud. The chaffing had ceased. Shooter's etiquette prohibited anything that even by remote possibility might "rattle" the contestants. Only the voices of the men at mark and the referee were heard, and the heavy bang of the black powder. Bobby liked to listen to the referee. Reporting, as he did, hundreds of results in the course of the afternoon, his intonation became mechanical.

"Dead!" he snapped in the crispest, shortest syllable, when the glass ball was broken by the charge.

"Law-s-s-t!" he drawled when the little sphere sailed away unharmed.

Each shooter on finishing his first string of five, swabbed out his gun, leaned it against the rack, and went to squat in the group where he commented to his friends on his own or others' luck, but always quietly. An air of the strictest business held the entire assembly.

This broke slightly when Mr. Kincaid's name was called. A stir went through the crowd; and some one called out,

"Go it, Old Reliable. Have you had any hoops put around her lately?"

Mr. Kincaid grinned good-naturedly, but made no reply. He had discarded his coat; and now wore a brown cardigan jacket. He took his place with the greatest deliberation, consuming twice as much time as any one else.

"Ready," said he.

"Ready," replied the trapper mechanically.

"Pool!" cried Mr. Kincaid.

The discharge delayed so long that Bobby looked to see if a misfire had occurred; but when the ball reached the exact top of its swing, Mr. Kincaid broke it.

"One of the most reliable duck shots we have," said Bobby's neighbour to the stranger. "He shoots just like that, always. Never in a hurry; but he seems to get there. Kills a lot of game in the season."

The shoot progressed with almost the precision of a machine. Bobby amused himself by closing his eyes to hear the regular ready, pull, bang! that marked the progress of the score. From his level with the tops of the brown grasses of late summer he enjoyed the wandering puffs of hot air, the drift of pungent aromatic powder smoke, the rapid successive bending of the stalks as though fairies were running over them when the breezelets passed. It was all very pleasant and, for the time being, he forgot his disappointment.

The match was to be at one-hundred balls—sixty singles, and twenty pairs of doubles. Early in the game the different shooters began roughly to group themselves on the score-cards according to their ability. One class, among whom were Newmark and Kincaid, continued to break their targets with unvarying accuracy. Young Wellman by rights belonged with these; but he had undershot a strong incomer; and the miss had cost him two others before he could recover his temper. The second class had missed from one to five each. The third class, typified by Mr. Heinzman, had a long string of "goose-eggs" to their discredit.

The fiftieth bird, however, Mr. Kincaid missed. It flipped sideways from the arm of the trap, and flew for twenty feet close to the ground. The referee had actually started to call "no bird"; but Mr. Kincaid elected to try for it; missed; and had to abide by his decision. At the close of the singles, Newmark had a score of sixty straight; Kincaid fifty-nine; and the others strung out variously in the rear.

At this point, a short recess was taken. The crowd of men lit fresh cigars; talked out loud; circulated about; and relaxed generally from the long strain. Some scattered out into the grass to help the trapper to look for unbroken balls. Ordinarily Bobby loved to do this; but to-day he sidled up to where his friend was stooping over the japanned box. Bobby watched him a moment in silence, methodically laying away the used brass shells, one up and one down in regular succession.

"It's too bad you got beat," he ventured timidly at last.

Mr. Kincaid ceased his occupation, removed his pipe from his mouth, and looked up at Bobby searchingly.

"Youngster," he said kindly, "I'm not beat."

"You're behind," insisted Bobby, "and Newmark never misses."

Mr. Kincaid arose slowly, and without a word took Bobby by the arm and led him around the tree. He stopped and raised Bobby's chin in his gnarled brown hand until the little boy's eyes looked straight into his own. Bobby noticed that the twinkle had—not disappeared—but drawn far back into their gray depths, which had become unaccountably sober.

"Bobby," said Mr. Kincaid gravely, "always remember this, all your life, no matter what happens to you; a man is never defeated until the very last shot is fired."

He paused.

"And remember this, too: that even if he is defeated, he is not beaten, provided he has done the very best he could, and has never lost heart."

He looked a moment longer into Bobby's eyes; and the little boy saw the gray twinkle flickering back to the surface, and the crow's-feet deepening good-naturedly.

"That's all, sonny," he said, and withdrew his hand from Bobby's chin.

"So you want to see me win the rifle, do you?" asked Mr. Kincaid, as they turned away.

"Yes, sir," replied Bobby.

"Why?"

"Because you're a friend of mine," replied Bobby with simple dignity.

"And that's the very best reason in the world!" cried Mr. Kincaid heartily.

The shooting at the doubles began. Two balls were placed in the trap at once—it will be remembered that it was provided with double arms—and thrown in the air together. At this game many good scores fell into disintegration, for it required great quickness of manipulation to catch both before one should reach the ground. Mr. Newmark's snap method here stood him in good stead. When Mr. Kincaid stepped to the trap, the stranger turned to his friend.

"Here's where the old fellow falls down, I'm afraid," said he a trifle regretfully. "He's too deliberate for this business. I'm sorry. I'd like to see him give Newmark a race for it."

"Deliberate!" snorted the local man.

Mr. Kincaid's preparations were as careful and as wasteful of time as ever. But when he enunciated his famous "pool!" the stranger was treated to a surprise. The first ball was literally snuffed into nothingness before it had risen five feet above the trap! Then quite slowly Mr. Kincaid followed the second to the top of its flight and broke it as though it had been a single.

"Lord!" gasped the visitor. "He surely can't do that with any certainty!"

"Can't he!" said the other grimly, "Watch him."

Interest soon centred on Newmark and Kincaid, as those who had made straight scores on the singles now dropped one or more. Both the contestants named broke their nine pair straight. Bobby sent strong little waves of hope for a miss after each of Mr. Newmark's targets, but without avail. Only one pair apiece remained to be shot at; and in order that Mr. Kincaid should win the match, it would be necessary that Newmark should miss both. This was inconceivable. Bobby threw himself face downward in the grass, sick at heart. He made up his mind he would not look. Nevertheless when Mr. Newmark's name was called, he sat up.

"Pull!" came Mr. Newmark's dry, incisive voice.

The balls sprang into the air. A sharp click followed. Evidently a misfire. The referee, imperturbable, stepped forward to examine the shell. He found the primer well indented; so, in accordance with the rules, he announced:

"No bird!"

Mr. Newmark reloaded.

"Pull!" he called again.

On the first bird he scored his first miss of the day.

"Misfire threw him off," exclaimed the spectators afterward.

And then, curiously enough, a queer current of air, springing from nowhere, utterly abnormal, seized the dense powder smoke and whirled it backward, completely enveloping the shooter. The obscuration was momentary, but complete. By the time it had passed the second ball had fallen almost to the ground. Newmark snapped hastily at it.

"Lost! Lost!" announced the scorer.

A deep sigh of emotion swept over the crowd. Bobby gripped his hands so tightly that the knuckles turned white. He resented the intervention of a half-dozen other contestants before Mr. Kincaid should be called; and rolled about in an agony of impatience until his friend stepped to the mark.

The men unconsciously straightened and removed the cigars from their lips. Two hits would win; one miss would tie. Bobby stood up, his breath coming and going rapidly, his sight a little blurred. But Mr. Kincaid went through his motions of preparation, and broke the two balls, with no more haste or excitement than if they had been the first two of the match.

A cheer broke out. Others were still to shoot, but this decided the winner.

"Congratulations!" said Newmark dryly as his rival stepped from the mark.

"That's all right," replied Kincaid, "but it was sheer rank hard luck for you."

On the way home just about sunset many teams passed the old white horse with his old yellow cart, and his driver hunched comfortably over the reins. Everybody shouted final chaffing, kindly congratulations as they sped by.

Bobby, hunched alongside in loyal imitation of his companion's attitude, glowed through and through.

"My! I'm glad you won!" he repeated again and again.

Kincaid looked straight ahead of him, his gray eyes pensive, the short pipe shifted to the corner of his mouth. Finally he glanced down amusedly at his ecstatic companion.

"You see, Bobby?" he said, "—until the last shot is fired."



VIII

THE FLOBERT RIFLE

Thus Bobby had passed through the extremes of hope, of anticipation, of disappointment and of despair. The Flobert Rifle on which he had set his heart, which he had firmly made up his mind to buy as soon as he could save up enough on an allowance of one cent a day, had been withdrawn from sale and offered as prize for the fall trap shooting. This had been a severe blow, but from it Bobby had finally rallied. His father would participate in the shoot; his father was omnipotent and invincible. After winning the Flobert Rifle, he would undoubtedly give it to Bobby. Then, just before the shoot Mr. Orde had been called west on business. Bobby had been vouchsafed only the melancholy satisfaction of seeing Mr. Kincaid, whom he liked, win out over Mr. Newmark, whom he disliked. The rifle was in good hands; that was all any one could say about it.

But one afternoon, returning home about two o'clock, he was surprised to find Bucephalus and the yellow cart hitched out in front, and Mr. Kincaid sitting on the porch steps.

"No one home but the girl; so I thought I'd wait," he explained, shaking hands with Bobby very gravely. "I brought around the new rifle," he added further. "What do you say to driving up over the hill somewhere and trying her?"

They drove slowly up the road of planks that gave footing over the sand-hills. The new shiny Flobert Rifle with its gold-plated locks and trigger guards rested between Mr. Kincaid's knees. He would not permit Bobby to touch it, however.

When the old white horse had struggled over the grade and into the stump-dotted country, Mr. Kincaid hitched him to the fence, and, followed closely by the excited Bobby, climbed into a field. From his pocket, quite deliberately, he produced a small paper target and a dozen tacks wrapped in a bit of paper.

"We'll just nail her up against this big stub," he said to Bobby, tacking away with the handle of his heavy pocket-knife; "and then you can get a rest over that little fellow there."

He stepped back.

"Now let's see you open her," he said, handing over the rifle.

Bobby had long since acquired a theoretical familiarity with the mechanism. He cocked the arm and pulled back the breech block, thus opening the breech with its broken effect due to the springing of the ejector.

"That's all right," approved Mr. Kincaid, pausing in the filling of his pipe, "but you have the muzzle pointing straight at Duke."

"It isn't loaded," objected Bobby.

"A man who knows how to handle a gun," said Mr. Kincaid emphasizing his words impressively with the stem of his pipe, "never in any circumstances lets the muzzle of his gun, loaded or unloaded, for even a single instant, point toward any living creature he does not wish to kill. Remember that, Bobby. When you've learned that, you've learned a good half of gun-handling."

"Yes, sir," said Bobby.

"Keep the muzzle up," finished Mr. Kincaid, "and then you're all right."

He led the way to the smaller stump; and nonchalantly, as though it were not one of the most wonderful affairs in the world to own such a thing, produced a little square red box containing the cartridges. This he opened. Bobby gazed with the keenest pleasure on the orderly rows of alternate copper and lead dots.

"Now," said Mr. Kincaid, "kneel down behind the stump." He rested the rifle across it. "You know how to sight, don't you? I thought likely. When you pull the trigger, try to pull it steadily, without jerking. Get in here, Duke!"

Bobby knelt, and assumed a position to shoot. To his surprise he found that his heart was beating very fast, and that his breath came and went as rapidly as though he had just climbed a hill. He tried desperately to hold the front sight in the notch of the hind sight, and both on the black bull's eye. It was surprisingly difficult, considering the simplicity of the theory. Finally he pulled the trigger for the first time in his life.

"Snap!" said the rifle.

"Now let's see where you hit!" suggested Mr. Kincaid.

Bobby started up eagerly; remembered; and with great care laid the Flobert, muzzle up, against the stump.

"That's right," approved Mr. Kincaid.

The bullet had penetrated the exact centre of the bull's eye!

"My!" cried Bobby delighted. "That was a pretty good shot, wasn't it, Mr. Kincaid? That was doing pretty well for the first time, wasn't it?"

But Mr. Kincaid was lighting his pipe, and seemed quite unimpressed.

"Bullet went straight (puff, puff)," said he. "That's all you can say (puff, puff). No one shot's a good shot (puff, puff). Take's two to prove it (puff, puff)."

He straightened his head and threw the match away.

"It's too good, Bobby, to be anything but an accident," said he kindly. "Now come and try again."

Bobby was permitted to fire nine more shots, of which three hit the paper, and none came near the bull's eye. He could not understand this; for with the dead rest across the stump, he thought he was holding the sights against the black. Mr. Kincaid watched him amusedly. The small figure crouched over the stump was so ridiculously in earnest. At the tenth shot he put the cover on the box of ammunition.

"Aren't we going to shoot any more?" cried Bobby, disappointed.

"Enough's enough," said Mr. Kincaid. "Ten shots is practice. More's just fooling—at first, anyway. You can't expect to become a good shot in an afternoon. If you could, why, where's the glory of being a good shot?"

"I don't see what made me miss," speculated Bobby.

"I think I could tell you," replied Mr. Kincaid, "but I'm not going to. You think it over; and next time see if you can tell me. That's the way to learn."

"Next time!" cried Bobby, his interest reviving.

"You aren't tired of it, are you?" enquired Mr. Kincaid with mock anxiety. "Because I've got ninety cartridges left here that I wouldn't know what to do with."

"Oh!" cried Bobby.

"Well, then," proposed Mr. Kincaid, "I'll tell you what we'll do. You and I will organize the—well, the Maple County Sportsman's Association, say; and we'll hold weekly shoots. These will be the grounds. You and I will be the charter members; but we'll let in others, if we happen to want to."

"Papa," breathed Bobby.

"Moved and seconded that Mr. John Orde, alias Papa, be elected. Motion carried," said Mr. Kincaid. "I'll be President," he continued. "I've always wanted to be president of something; and you can be secretary. You must get a little blank book, and rule it off for the scores. Then maybe by and by we'll have a prize, or something. What do you think?"

Bobby said what he thought.

"Now," said Mr. Kincaid, opening the wooden box that ran along the floor of the two-wheeled cart where the dashboard, had there been one, would have been placed, "this is the next thing: when you're through shooting, clean the gun. If you leave it over night, the powder dirt will make a fine rust that you may never be able to get out; and rust will eat into the rifling and make the gun inaccurate. No matter how late it is, or how tired you are, always clean your gun before you go to bed. It's the second most important thing I can teach you. You'll see lots of men who can kill game, perhaps, but remember this; the fellow who lets his gun point toward no living thing but his game, and who keeps it bright and clean, is further along toward being a true sportsman—even if he is a very poor shot—than the careless man who can hit them."

He gave Bobby the steel wire cleaning-rod, the rags, and the oil can, and showed him how to get all the powder residue from the rifling grooves in the barrel.

"There," said Mr. Kincaid, folding back the half-seat, "climb in. That settles it for to-day."

Bucephalus came to with reluctance. Going down hill he settled into a slow steady jog, which soon covered the distance to the Orde house. Bobby climbed out and turned to utter thanks.

"That's all right," said Mr. Kincaid. "Next time I'm going to shoot, myself; and you'll have to rustle to beat me. Don't forget the score book."

"When will it be?" asked Bobby.

"Oh, Thursday again," replied Mr. Kincaid. He disengaged the Flobert from between his knees. "Here," said he; "you take this and put it away carefully. I'll keep the ammunition," he added with a grim smile. "Remember not to snap it. Snapping's bad for it when it is empty. Good-bye."

He drove off down the street beneath the over-arching maples, the old white horse jogging sleepily, the old yellow cart lurching. Over his shoulder floated puffs of smoke from his pipe.

Bobby carried the new rifle into the house, ascended to his own room, and sat down to enjoy it to its smallest detail. The heavy blued octagon barrel bore an inscription which he deciphered—the maker's name, and the patents under which the arm was manufactured. He examined the sights, and how they were fastened to the barrel; the fall of the hammer; the firing-pin; the mechanism of the ejector, the butt plate, the polished stock and the manner in which it was attached to the barrel. Over the fancy scroll of the gold-plated trigger-guard he passed his fingers lovingly. The trigger-guard extended back along the grip of the stock in a long thin metal strip—also gold-plated. It, too, bore an inscription. Bobby read it once without taking in its meaning; a second time with growing excitement. Then he rushed madly through the house shrieking for his mother.

"Mamma, Mamma!" he cried. "Where are you? Come here!"

Mrs. Orde came—on the run—likewise the cook, and the butcher. They found Bobby dancing wildly around and around, hugging close to his heart the Flobert rifle.

"Bobby, Bobby!" cried Mrs. Orde. "What is it? What's the matter? Are you hurt?"

She caught sight of the gun, leaped to the conclusion that Bobby had shot himself and sank limply into a chair.

"See! Look here!" cried Bobby. He thrust the rifle, bottom up into her lap. "Read it!"

On the plate behind the trigger-guard, carved in flowing script, were these words.

To Robert Orde from Arthur Kincaid. September 10, 1879.



IX

MR. DAGGETT

The printing press, too, was now a success. What time Bobby could spare, he spent over his new work. In fact he would probably have printed out all his interest in the shape of cards for friends and relatives, did not an incident spur his failing enthusiasm. The little tin box of printer's ink went empty. Bobby tried to buy more at Smith's where other kinds of ink were to be had. Mr. Smith had none.

"You'd better go over to Mr. Daggett's," he advised. "He'll let you have some."

Bobby crossed the street, climbed a stairway slanting outside a square wooden store building and for the first time found himself in a printing office.

Tall stands held tier after tier of type-cases, slid in like drawers. The tops were slanted. On them stood other cases, their queerly arranged and various-sized compartments exposed to view. Down the centre of the room ran a long table. One end of it was heaped with printed matter in piles and in packages, the other was topped with smooth stone on which rested forms made up. Shelves filled with stationery, cans and the like ran down one side the room. Beyond the table were two presses, a big and a little. In one corner stood a table with a gas jet over it. In another was an open sink with running water. A thin man in dirty shirt-sleeves was setting type from one of the cases. Another, shorter man at the stone-topped table was tapping lightly with a mallet on a piece of wood which he moved here and there over a form. A boy of fifteen was printing at the smaller of the presses. A huge figure was sprawled over the table in the corner. In the air hung the delicious smell of printer's ink and the clank and chug of the press.

Bobby stood in the doorway some time. Finally the boy said something to the man at the table. The latter looked up, then arose and came forward.

He was of immense frame, but gaunt and caved-in from much stooping and a consumptive tendency. His massive bony shoulders hung forward; his head was carried in advance. In character this head was like that of a Jove condemned through centuries to long hours in a dark, unwholesome atmosphere—the grand, square, bony structure, the thick, upstanding hair, the bushy, steady eyebrows, the heavy beard. But the cheeks beneath the beard were sunken; the eyes in the square-cut caverns were kind and gentle—and very weary.

"I want to see if I can get some ink of you," requested Bobby, holding out his little tin box.

Mr. Daggett took the box without replying; and, opening it, tested with his finger the quality and colour of what it had contained.

"I guess so," said he.

He led the way to one of the shelves and opened a can as big as a bucket. Bobby gasped.

"My!" he cried; "will you ever use all that?"

Mr. Daggett nodded, and, dipping a broad-bladed knife, brought up, on merely its point, enough to fill Bobby's tin box.

"How much is it?" asked Bobby.

"Let's see, you're Jack Orde's little boy, aren't you?" asked Daggett.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, that's all right, then. It's nothing."

"Oh, thank you!" cried Bobby, overwhelmed. The man nodded his massive head. "Please," ventured Bobby, hesitating, "please, would you mind if I stay a little while and watch?"

"'Course not," assured Mr. Daggett. "Stay as long as you want."

He returned to his table and forgot the little boy. An hour later he looked up. Bobby was still there standing in the middle of the floor, staring with all his might. Mr. Daggett pulled together his great frame and arose.

"Have you a printing press?" he asked Bobby.

"Yes, sir," replied Bobby—"it's only a little one—to print two lines," he added.

"Do you like printing?"

"Oh!" burst out Bobby enthusiastically, "it's more fun than anything!"

"I'd like to see some of your work," said Mr. Daggett a flash of amusement flickering in his deep eyes.

Bobby felt in his pocket and gravely presented a card.

"Mr. Robert Orde. Job Printer."

"Why," said Mr. Daggett, surprised, "this is pretty well done. I didn't know you could make ready so well on those little presses."

"What's 'make ready'?" asked Bobby.

"Why, regulating the impression so that all the letters are printed evenly."

"They didn't for a long time," sighed Bobby. "I had lots of trouble."

"How did you make it go?" asked Mr. Daggett, interested.

Bobby explained the pasting of the slips of paper.

"Who taught you that?" asked Mr. Daggett sharply.

"Nobody; I just thought of it."

Two hours later, when the noon whistles blew, Bobby said good-bye to his friend after a most interesting morning. Mr. Daggett had showed him everything. He explained how in the type-cases the capital letters occupied little compartments all alike and at the top, but how the small letters were arranged arbitrarily in various-sized compartments.

"You see," said he, "we use the e oftenest, so that is the largest and is right in the middle. And here is the a near it, but a little smaller. A man has to learn where they are."

Then they watched the compositor setting type in the metal "stick" with the sliding end. The compositor showed Bobby how he could tell when the letters were right side up by feeling the nicks in the type, without the necessity of looking; how he used the leads to space between the lines. His hands flew from one compartment of the type case to the other and the type clicked sharply. In a moment the stick was full. All three walked over to the "composing table" of stone. Here Bobby watched the type placed in the huge iron frame, which was then filled in with the wooden blocks. The wedge-shaped irons locked it. Finally the block and mallet went over the whole surface to even it down.

Bobby saw proof taken. He watched the small press in operation. It was worked by a foot lever. The round ink plate which automatically made a quarter turn at each impression and the double automatic ink-rollers were a revelation to him. All the boy had to do was to insert and withdraw the paper and push down with his foot. And the pressure was so exact and so delicate and so brief—as though the type and the platen coquetted without actually touching; and the imprint was so true and clear! Even on the thin paper, the shape of the type did not stamp through!

He could have watched for an hour, but shortly the job was finished, so he moved on to look at the coloured inks and the fascinating variety of papers and cards and envelopes.

This latter occupation kept him busy for a long time. He had not realized that so many shapes and kinds of letters could exist. Mr. Daggett told him their names and sizes—nonpareil, brevier, agate, pica, minion and a dozen others which Bobby could not remember but which he found exotic and attractive. Especially was he interested in the poster type, made of wood. One letter was bigger than the whole form of his little press.

When he left, Mr. Daggett gave him a small heavy package.

"Here you are," said he. "Here's an old font of script. It's old and too worn for my use, but you can fool with it."

Bobby was delighted. He could hardly wait to get home before undoing the package. The font formed a compact quadrilateral wound around the edges with string. The letters were all arranged in order—four capital A's—A A A A—then the Bs, and so on. It differed from his own font. The one that came with his press had just three of each letter—large or small. This varied. For instance, there were twenty ss, and only two qs. Bobby procured his tweezers and began to set up his own name. He had no stick so he got out the form with the two narrow wooden groves. To his dismay the type would not fit. They were at least a quarter inch longer than his own.

"Why so solemn, Bobby?" enquired his father at lunch a few minutes later. "What's wrong?"

"My printing press isn't a real one," broke out Bobby. "It's a toy one! I don't like toys!"

"Oh, ho!" cried Mr. Orde. "Don't like toys, eh! How about the engine and cars, and the tin soldiers?"

"I don't like them any more, either," insisted Bobby stoutly.

"All right," suggested Mr. Orde, winking at his wife. "Of course then you won't want them any more: I'll just give them away to some other little boy."

"All right," assented Bobby with genuine and astonishing indifference.

Bobby laid the little press away, but he could not resist the fascination of Mr. Daggett's printing office. One day he came from it bearing an inky and much-thumbed catalogue. He fairly learned it by heart—not only the machines, from the tiny card press to the beautiful fifty-dollar self-inker beyond which his ambition did not stray, but also all the little accessories of the trade—the mallet, the patent quoins, the sticks, the type-cases, the composing stones, the roller moulds and compositions, the patent gauge-pins, the lead-cutters, the slugs. And page after page he ran over the type in all its sizes and in all its modifications of form. These things fascinated him and held him with a longing for them, like revolvers and razors and carpenter's chisels and peavies and all other business-like tools of a trade. Their very shapes were the most appropriate and romantic shapes they could possibly have assumed. He made lists. At first they were elaborate, and included the big foot press and four fonts of type and three colours of ink and fixings innumerable. They then shrank modestly by gradations until they stuck at the 5x7 form. Bobby would not have cared for a press smaller than that, for he wanted to print real things, like bill-heads and whist cards and perhaps a small newspaper. His little heart throbbed with a complete enthusiasm.

"When I grow up I think I'd like to be a printer like Mr. Daggett," he said wistfully.

"Oh, no, you wouldn't," said Mr. Orde. "It's a poor trade—no money in it here—and you'd have to stay in the house all the time. You wouldn't want to be a printer, Bobby."

"Yes I would," repeated Bobby positively.



X

THE SPORTSMAN'S ASSOCIATION

The Maple County Sportsman's Association held its weekly shoots with regularity. It consumed a great deal of Bobby's time and attention. You see, each event was to be anticipated, and then remembered; the score was to be rejoiced over or regretted; and the great question of how to do better was to be considered prayerfully and long. Bobby found it to be a more complicated problem than he would have believed possible. He used to lie awake in bed thinking it over. Regularly before Thursday came around he hit on a complete solution of the difficulty; and as regularly he discovered by the actual test that something, whether of theory or practice, still lacked.

Mr. Kincaid always listened to his ideas non-commitally.

"I've found out what it is!" cried Bobby as soon as Bucephalus had approached within hearing distance. "You got to practise until your forefinger works all by itself—entirely separate from the rest of your arm. Then the rifle won't jerk sideways so much."

"All right," Mr. Kincaid responded, as Bobby climbed laboriously into the cart. "Try it."

Bobby tried it; found it difficult to accomplish, and not altogether effective. The bullets still scattered more or less like a shotgun charge. Mr. Kincaid's score more than doubled his. Mr. Kincaid always shot the best he could; and entered a grave negative to Bobby's tentative suggestion for a handicap.

"No, Bobby," said he, "don't believe in 'em. It really doesn't matter whether you defeat me or not; now does it? But it does matter whether you get to be a good enough shot to win."

After each demolition of his ideas, Bobby returned a trifle dashed, but with undaunted spirit. Again his busy brain attacked the puzzle. In a week he had another hypothesis ready for the test.

Thus he edged slowly but surely toward marksmanship. The sight must be held on the mark for an instant after the discharge; the trigger must be squeezed steadily, not pulled; the independent command of the forefinger is helped by as inclusive a grasp of the stock as possible; holding the breath is an aid to steadiness—these, and a dozen other first principles, Bobby acquired, one after another, by the slow inductive process. Each helped; and Mr. Kincaid appreciated that his pupil was learning intelligently, so that in the final result Bobby would not only be a good shot, but he would know why.

In the meantime various changes were taking place in the seasons, which Bobby noted in his own fashion. The little green apples of summer—just right for throwing and for casting from the end of a switch—were now large and rosy. Under the big hickory tree in the Fuller's yard were already to be found occasional nuts. The leaves were turning gorgeous; and enough were falling to make it necessary that the householder search out his broad rake. In the country the shocks of corn stood in rows like so many Indian chiefs wrapped each in his blanket, his plumes waving above. The night was weird with the notes of birds migrating.

To each of these things Bobby, like every other boy in town, gave his attention. Apples and grapes there were everywhere in abundance. The early pioneer planted always his orchard and his arbours. The town, taking root on the old riverside farms, preserved, as far as it could, the fruit-trees. Every one who had a yard of any size about his house, possessed also an apple tree or so and a grape vine—sometimes a chance peach or pear. Bobby could not go amiss for fresh fruit; but he liked best of all the sweet little red "Delawares" that grew back of Auntie Kate's kitchen garden. These he picked, warmed by the sun. The satiny "Concords" from the trellis, however, were better dipped in cool water, which, with some labour, he caused to gush sparkling from an old-fashioned wooden pump. Auntie Kate's apple trees, too, were of selected varieties. Early in the season were the soft yellow sweetings; then the streaked red and green "Northern Spies"; and last of all the snow-apples with their contrast of deep crimson outside and white flesh within. The windfalls covered the ground ready to the hand; and the branches bent under their burden. It was the season of apple-sauce with cinnamon, and baked apples with a dab of jelly where the core ought to be, and apple-tapioca and Brown Betty. And these tasted wondrous good, even to youngsters already gorged with raw fruit.