He himself behaved with a faultless discretion. Above the slurs of the Argus and the bickerings of faction he bore himself as one alienated from earth by the graces of his spirit; and he copiously promised deeds which should in the years to come be as a beauteous garment to his memory. The glaive of Justice should descend where erstwhile it had corruptly been stayed. Vice should surfer its meed of retribution, and Virtue come again into its glorious own.

Our letters of eulogy, printed at the Banner office, were scattered among the voters, and with them went a letter from Potts saying that if his strenuous labors as an attorney in the interests of humanity, public morals, and common decency met with the voter's approval, he would be gratified to have his good-will and assistance. "It is such gentlemen as yourself," read the letter, "constituting the best element of our society, to whom I must look for the endorsement of my work. The criminal classes of this community, whose minions have so recently sought my life by mob violence, will leave no stone unturned to prevent my sitting as Judge."

Our Democratic candidate, who had first felt but an academic interest in the campaign, began now to show elation. Old Cuthbert Mayne, the Republican candidate, who had been certain of success but for the accident of Potts, chewed his unlighted cigar viciously, and from the corner of his trap-like mouth spoke evil of Potts in a voice that was terrifying for its hoarseness. His own letter, among the others, told of Potts as one who sprang to arms at his country's call and was now richly deserving of political preferment. This had seemed to heighten the inflammation of his utterances. Daily he consulted with Solon, warning him that the town looked to the Argus to avert this calamity of Potts.

But Solon, if he had formed any plan for relief, refused to communicate it. Mayne and the rest of us were compelled to take what hope we could from his confident if secretive bearing.

Meantime the Banner was not reticent about "J. Rodney Potts, that gallant old war-horse." Across the top of its front page each week stood "POTTS FOREVER—POTTS THE COMING MAN!"

"Big Joe" Kestril was the chief henchman of Potts, and his fidelity was like to have been fatal for him. He threw himself into the campaign with a single-heartedness that left him few sober moments. Upon the City Hotel corner, day after day, he buttonholed voters and whispered to them with alcoholic fervor that Potts was a gentleman of character, "as blotchless as the driftin' snow." Joe believed in Potts pathetically.

The campaign wore its way through the summer, and Solon Denney was still silent, still secretive, still confident, but, alas! still inactive so far as we could observe. I may say that we lost faith in him as the barren weeks came and went. We came to believe that his assured bearing was but a shield for his real despair.

Having given up hope, some of us reached a point where we could view the whole affair as a jest. It became a popular diversion to enter the establishment of the ever serious Westley Keyts and whisper secretively to him that Solon Denney had found a diplomatic way to rid the town of Potts, but this never moved Westley.

"Once bit—twice shy!" would be his response as he returned to slicing steaks.



CHAPTER VI

A MATTER OF PERSONAL PROPERTY

In deference to the wishes of J.R.C. Tuckerman, I had formed a habit of breakfasting in summer on the little back porch that overlooks the river. Less radical departures from orthodox custom, it is true, have caused adverse comment in our watchful little town; but the spot was secluded from casual censors. And it was pleasant to sit there on a summer morning over an omelette and bacon, coffee such as no other Little Arcadian ever drank, and beaten biscuit beyond the skill of any in our vale save the stout, short-statured, elderly black man who served me with the grace of an Ambassador. Moreover, I was glad to please him, and please him it did to set the little table back against the wall of vines, to place my chair in the shaded corner, and to fetch the incomparable results of his cookery from the kitchen, couched and covered in snowy napkins against the morning breeze.

John Randolph Clement Tuckerman he was; Mr. Tuckerman to many simple souls of our town, and "Clem" to me, after our intimacy became such as to warrant this form of address. A little, tightly kinked, grizzled mustache gave a tone to his face. His hair, well retreated up his forehead, was of the same close-woven salt-and-pepper mixture. His eyes were wells of ink when the light fell into them,—sad, kind eyes, that gave his face a look of patient service long and toilsomely, but lovingly bestowed. It is a look telling of kindness that has endured and triumphed—a look of submission in which suffering has once burned, but has consumed itself. I have never seen it except in the eyes of certain old Negroes. The only colorable imitation is to be found in the eyes of my setter pup when he crouches at my feet and beseeches kindness after a punishment.

In bearing, as I have intimated, Clem was impressive. He was low-toned, easy of manner, with a flawless aplomb. As he served me those mornings in late summer, wearing a dress-coat of broadcloth, a choice relic of his splendid past, it was not difficult to see that he had been the associate of gentlemen.

As I ate of his cooking on a fair Sunday, I marvelled gratefully at the slender thread of chance that had drawn him to be my stay. Alone in that little house, with no one to make it a home for me, Clem was the barrier between me and the fare of the City Hotel. Apparently without suggestion from me he had taken me for his own to tend and watch over. And the marvel was assuredly not diminished by the circumstance that I was beholden to Potts for this black comfort.

Events were in train which were to intensify a thousand fold my amazement at the seeming inconsequence of really vital facts in this big life-plot of which we are the puppets—events so incredible that to dwell upon their relation to the minor accident of a mere Potts were to incur confusion and downright madness.

Apparently, fate had never made a wilder, more purposeless cast than when it brought Clem to Little Arcady with Potts.

True, the circumstance enabled Potts for a time to refer to his "body-servant," and to regale the chair-tilted loungers along the City Hotel front with a tale of picking the fellow up on a Southern battle-field, and of winning his dog-like devotion by subsequent valor upon other fields. "It was pathetic, and comical, too, gentlemen, to hear that nigger beg me on his bended knees to take better care of myself and not insist upon getting to the front of every charge. 'Stay back and let some of the others do a little fighting,' he would say, with tears rolling down his black cheeks. And I admit I was rash, but—"

Clem, not long after their arrival, confided to such of us as seemed worthy the less romantic tale that he had found the Colonel drunk on the streets of Cincinnati. He had gone there to seek a fortune for his "folks" and had found the Colonel instead; found him under circumstances which were typical of the Colonel's periods of relaxation.

"Yes, seh, anybody coulda had that man when Ah found him," averred Clem; "anybody could 'a' had him fo' th' askin'. A p'liceman offaseh neahly git him—yes, seh. But Ah seen him befo' that, an' Ah speaks his notice by sayin', 'This yeh ain' no good place to sleep, on this yeh hahd stone sidewalk. Yo' freeze yo'se'f, Mahstah,' an' of cose Ah appreciated th' infuhmities of a genaman, but Ah induced him to put on his coat an' his hat an' his boots, an' he sais, 'Ah am Cunnel Potts, an' Ah mus' have mah eight houahs sleep.' Ah sais to him, 'If yo' is a Cunnel, yo' is a genaman, an' Ah shall escoht yo' to yo' hotel.' Raght then a p'liceman offaseh come up, an' he sais, 'Yeh, yeh! what all this yeh row about?' an' Ah sais, 'Nothin' 'tall, Mahstah p'liceman offaseh, Ah's jes' takin' Mahstah Cunnel Potts to his hotel, seh, with yo' kindness,' an' he sais, 'Git him out a yeh an' go 'long with yo' then,' so Ah led th' Cunnel off, seh. An' eveh hotel he seen, he sais, 'Yes, tha' she is—tha's mah hotel,' but the Mahstahs in th' hotels they all talk ve'y shawtly eveh time. They sais, 'No—no—g'wan, tek him out a' yeh—he ain' b'long in this place, that man ain'.' So we walk an' walk an' ultimately he sais, 'If Ah'm go'n' a' git mah eight houahs sleep this naght, Ah mus' begin sometime,—why not now?' So th' Cunnel lay raght down on th' thu'faih an' Ah set mahse'f down beside him twell he wake up in th' mawnin', not knowin' what hahm maght come to him. An' he neveh did have no hotel in that town, seh,—no, seh. He been talkin' reglah foolishness all that theah time. An' he sais: 'Yo' stay by me, boy. Ah's go'n' a' go West to mek mah fo'chun.' Well, seh, Ah was lookin' fo' a place to mek some fo'chun mahse'f fo mah folks, an' that theah Cincinnati didn't seem jes' th' raght place to set about it, so Ah sais, 'Thank yo' ve'y much, Mahstah Cunnel,' an' Ah stays by him fo' a consid'ble length of time."

But, little by little, after their coming to our town the Colonel had alienated his companion by a lack of those qualities which Clem had been accustomed to observe in those to whom he gave himself. Potts was at length speaking of him as an ungrateful black hound, and wondering if the nation might not have been injudicious in liberating the slave.

Clem, for his part, cut the Colonel dead on Main Street one day and never afterwards betrayed to him any consciousness of his existence. It was said that their final disagreement hinged upon a matter of thirty odd dollars earned by Clem in a Cincinnati restaurant and confided later to the Colonel's too thorough keeping.

Be as it may, Clem had formed other and more profitable connections. From a doer of odd jobs of wood-sawing, house-cleaning, and stove-polishing he had risen to the dignity of a market gardener. A small house and a large garden a block away from my place were now rented by him. Also he caught fish, snared rabbits, gathered the wild fruits in their seasons, and was janitor of the Methodist church; all this in addition to looking after my own home. It was not surprising that he had money in the bank. He worked unceasingly. The earliest risers in Little Arcady found him already busied, and those abroad latest at night would see or hear him about the little unpainted house in the big garden.

I suspect he had come out into the strange world of the North with large, loose notions that the fortune he needed might be speedily amassed. Such tales had been told him in his Southland, where he had not learned to question or doubt. If so, his disappointment was not to be seen in his bearing. That look of patient endurance may have eaten a little deeper the lines about his inky eyes, but I am sure his purpose had never wavered, nor his faith that he would win at last.

As I ate my breakfast that morning he told me of his good year. The early produce of his garden had sold well. Soon there would be half an acre of potatoes to dig, and now there was a fine crop of melons just coming ripe. These he would begin to sell on the morrow.

At this point, breakfast being done, the cloth brushed, and a light brought for my pipe, Clem came from the kitchen with a new pine board, upon which he had painted a sign with shoe polish.

"Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah,—Ah beg yo' t' see if hit's raght!" and he held it up to me. It read:—

Mellins on Sale Mush & Water Ask Mr. Tuckerman at his House.

I gave the thing a critical survey under his grave regard, then applauded the workmanship and hoped him a prosperous season with the melons.

Then I beguiled him to talk of his land and his "folks," delighting in his low, soft speech, wherein the vowels languished and the r's fainted from sheer inertia.

"But, Clem, you are a free man now. Those people can't claim your services any longer."

I knew what he would say, but for the sake of hearing it once more, I had braved his quick look of commiseration for my shallowness of understanding.

"Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah, Ah knows 'bout that theah 'mancipation Procalmashum. But Ah was a ve'y diffunt matteh. Yo'-all see Ah was made oveh t' Miss Cahline pussenly by Ole Mahstah. Yes, seh, Ah been Miss Catiline's pussenal propity fo' a consid'able length of time, eveh sence she was Little Miss."

"But you are free, just the same, now."

He looked upon me with troubled, grave eyes.

"Well, seh, Mahstah Majah, Ah ain't eveh raghtly comp'ehended, but Ah've reckoned that theah wah business an' Procalmashum an' so fothe was fo' common niggehs an' fiel' han's an' sech what b'long to th' place. But Ah was diffunt. Ah ain't b'longed to th' place. Ah b'longed to Miss Cahline lak Ah endeaveh to explain. Ah was a house niggeh an' futhamoah an' notwithstandin' Ah was th' pussenal propity of Miss Cahline. Yes, seh, Ah b'long dreckly to huh—an' Ah bet them theah lawyehs at Wash'nt'n, seh, couldn't kentrive none a' they laws that woulda teched me, seh. No, seh—they cain't lay th' law to Miss Cahline's pussenalities. She ain't go'n' a' stan' no nonsense lahk that, seh; she ain't go'n a' have no lawyeh mixin' up in huh private mattehs. Ah lahk t' see one try it—yes, seh."

He gazed vacantly into the distance, then laughed aloud as he beheld the discomfiture of the "lawyeh" in this suppositious proceeding.

"And you even let your wife go?—that must have been hard."

"Well, seh, not to say mah wife. Mah raght wife, she daid—an' then Ah mahied this yeh light-shaded gehl fum th' quahtahs, an' she's wild an' misled—yes, seh."

Again he was troubled, but I held him to it.

"You thought a good deal of her, didn't you, Clem?"

He studied a moment as he rearranged the roses in the bowl on the table, seeking a way to let me understand. Then he sighed hopelessly.

"Well, Mahstah Majah, Genevieve she cyahed a raght smaht fo' me, also, an' she mek it up fo' me t' come along t' town with huh. She sais Ah git a mewl an' a fahm an' thousan' dollehs money fum yo' Nawthen President an' we all live lahk th' quality. But, yo'-all see, th' ole Mahstah Cunnel say when he go off to th' wah, 'Clem, yo' black houn', ef Ah doan' eveh come back, these yeh ladies is lef in yo' pussenal chahge. Yo' unde'stan' that? Yo' go on an' do fo' 'em jes' lahk Ah was yeh.' An' young Mahstah Cap'n Bev'ly,—he's Little Miss's engaged-to-mahy genaman,—he sais, 'Clem, ef Ah doan' neveh come back, Ah pray an' entrus' yo'-all t' cyah fo' Miss Kate an' huh Maw jes lahk Ah was yeh on th' spot.' An Ah said, 'Yes, seh,' an' they ain't neithah one a' them eveh did come back. Mahstah Cunnel he daid by th' hand o' yo' Nawthen President at th' battle a' Seven Pines, an' Mahstah Cap'n Bev'ly Glentwo'th—yo' ole Mahstah Gen'al She'dan shoot him all t' pieces in his chest one day. So theah Ah is—Ah cain't leave—an' Genevieve comes a' repohtin' huhse'f to mek mah rediments, 'cause we all free an' go'n' a' go t' Richmond t' live high an' maghty, an' Ah sais, 'Ah'm Miss Cahline's pussenal propity—Ah ain't no fiel' niggeh!' She sais, 'Is yo' a' comin' aw is you ain't a-comin'?' Ah sais, 'Ole Cunnel daid, young Cap'n daid—yo' go 'long an' min' yo' own mindin's—'"

He paused to look out over the waters with shining eyes. After a bit he said slowly, "Ah neveh thought Genevieve would go—but she did."

"Then what?"

"Well, seh, Ah stayed on th' place twell we moved oveh to Miss Cahline's secon' cousin, Mahstah Cunnel Peavey, but they wa'n't nothin' theah, so Ah sais t' Miss Cahline that Ah's goin' Nawth wheah all th' money is, an' Ah send fo' huh. So she sais, 'Ve'y good, Clem—yo' all Ah got lef t' mah name,' an' so Ah come off. Then afteh while Little Miss she git resty an' tehible fractious an' she go off t' Baltimoah t' teach in th' young ladies' educationals, an' Miss Cahline she still theah waitin' fo' me. Yes, seh, sh' ain't doin' nothin' but livin' on huh secon' cousin an' he ain' got nothin'—an' Ah lay Ah ain't go'n' a' have that kind a' doin's. No, seh—a-livin' on Cunnel Looshe Peavey. Ah'm go'n' a' git huh yeh whah she kin be independent—"

Again he stopped to see visions.

"An' then, afteh a tehible shawt while, Ah git Little Miss fum the educationals an' they both be independent. Yes, seh, Ah'm gittin' th' money—reglah gole money—none a' this yeh Vaginyah papah-rags money. Ah ain't stahted good when Ah come, but Ah wagah ten hund'ed thousan' dollehs Ah finish up good!"

The last was a pointed reference to the Colonel.

"Have you seen Colonel Potts lately?" I asked. Clem sniffed.

"Yes, seh, on that tavehn cohnah, a-settin' on a cheer an' a-chestin' out his chest lahk a ole ma'ash frawg. 'Peahs like the man ain't got hawg sense, ack'in' that a-way."

A concluding sniff left it plain that Potts had been put beyond the pale of gentility by Clem.

He left me then to do his work in the kitchen—left me back on a battle-field, lying hurt beside an officer from his land who tried weakly to stanch a wound in his side as he addressed me.

"A hot charge, sir—but we rallied—hear that yell from our men behind the woods. You can't beat us. We needn't be told that. Whatever God is, he's at least a gentleman, above practical jokes of that sort." He groaned as the blood oozed anew from his side, then pleaded with me to help him find the picture—to look under him and all about on the ground. Long I mused upon this, but at last my pipe was out, and I awoke from that troubled spot where God's little creatures had clashed in their puny rage—awoke to know that this was my day to wander in another world—the dream world of children, where everything is true that ought to be true.



CHAPTER VII

"A WORLD OF FINE FABLING"

Solon Denney's home, in charge of Mrs. Delia Sullivan, late of Kerry, was four blocks up the shaded street from my own. Within one block of its gate as I approached it that morning, the Sabbath calm was riven by shouts that led me to the back of the house. In the yard next to Solon's, Tobin Crowder, of Crowder & Fancett, Lumber, Coal and Building Supplies, had left a magnificent green wagon-box flat upon the ground, a thing so fine that it was almost a game of itself. An imagination of even the second order could at once render it supremely fascinating. My two babes, collaborating with four small Sullivans, had by child magic, which is the only true magic, transformed this box into a splendid express train. The train now sped across country at such terrific speed that the small Sullivan at the throttle, an artist and a realist, crouched low, with eyes strained upon the track-head, with one hand tightly holding on his Sunday cap.

Another Sullivan was fireman, fiercely shovelling imaginary coal; still another at the side of the box grasped the handle of the brake as one ready to die at his post if need be. The last Sullivan paced the length of the wagon-box, being thrown from side to side with fine artistry by the train's jolting. He arrogantly demanded tickets from passengers supposedly both to relinquish these. And in his wake went the official most envied by all the others. With a horse's nose-bag upon his arm my namesake chanted in pleading tones above the din, "Peanuts—freshly buttered popcorn—Culver's celebrated double-X cough drops, cool and refreshing!"

But the tragic eminence of the game was occupied by my woman child. Perched in the middle of the high seat, her short legs impotently projecting into space, she was the only passenger on this train—and she, for whose sole behoof the ponderous machinery was operated, in whose exclusive service this crew of trained hirelings toiled—she sat aloft indignant, with tear-wet face, her soul revolted by the ignominy of it.

I knew the truth in a glance. There had been clamors for the positions of honor, and she, from weakness of sex, had been overborne. She, whose heart cried out for the distinction of train-boy, conductor, engineer, brakeman, or fireman, in the order named, had been forced into the only degrading post in the game—a mere passenger without voice or office in those delicate feats of administration. And she suffered—suffered with a pathetic loyalty, for she knew as well as they that some one had to be the passenger.

I held an accusing eye upon my namesake and the train came to a sudden halt, much embarrassed, though the brakeman, with artistic relish, made a vast ado with his brake and pretended that "she" might start off again any minute.

My namesake poised himself on the foot that had no stone-bruise and began:—

"Now, Uncle Maje, I told her she could be engineer after we got to the next station—"

His tones were those of benevolence that has been ill-requited.

"That was las' station," broke in the aggrieved passenger, "an' they wouldn't stop the train there 'cause they said it was a 'spress train and mustn't stop at such little stations—"

"I tried awful hard to stop her," said the crafty Sullivan at the throttle, "but she got away from me. She did so, now!"

"And I said, 'First to be engineer,'" resumed the passenger, bitterly, "an' they wouldn't let me, an' I said, 'Secon' to be engineer,' an' they never let me, an' I said, 'Las' to be engineer,' an' they never let me."

"She wants to be everything" said my namesake, rendered a little sullen by this concise putting of her case.

"You come with me," I said to the passenger, "and we'll do something better than this—something fine!"

Her face brightened, for she knew that I never made idle promises as do so many grown-ups. She jumped from her seat, even though the first Sullivan tooted a throaty whistle and the second rattled his brake machinery in warning. I helped her over the side of the box, and as we walked away she shouted back to the bereaved express train a consolatory couplet:—

"First the worst, second the same, Last the best of all the game!"

That superb machinery of travel was silent, and the mechanics and officials, robbed of their passenger, eyed us with disfavor.

"They are terrapin-buzzards!" exclaimed my woman child, with deep conviction.

I shuddered fittingly at the violence of her speech.

Before we had gone far the train-boy deserted his post and came running after us.

"John B. Gough!" he exclaimed bitterly—profanely.

"He's swearing," warned his sister. "Look out, Uncle Maje, or he'll say 'Gamboge' next."

"I don't care," retorted the indignant follower; "you can't have a train without any passenger—it's silly. I don't care if I do say Gamboge. There! Gamboge it!"

I turned upon him. I had endured "terrapin-buzzards," hurled at the group by my woman child, perceiving need of relief for her pent-up passion. I had, moreover, for the same reason, permitted my namesake to roll under his tongue the formidable and satisfying expletive, "John B. Gough!" But I felt that the line must be drawn at Gamboge. Terrapin-buzzards was bad enough, though it was true that this might be used innocently, as in a moment of mild dismay, or as an exclamation of mere astonishment without sinister import. But Gamboge!—and ripped out brazenly as it had been?—No! A thousand times No!

"Calvin," I said sternly, "aren't you ashamed to use such language—before me—and before your little sister?"

But here the little sister sank beneath her true woman's level by saying:—

"I know worse than that—Dut!"

With a look of deadly coldness I sought to chill the pride that shone in her eyes as she achieved this new enormity.

"What is 'Dut'?" I asked severely.

"Dut is—is a Dut," she answered, somewhat abashed by my want of enthusiasm.

"A Dut is a baddix—a regular baddix," volunteered her brother. Following a device familiar to philologists, he submitted concrete examples.

"Two of those Sullivans are Duts, and so's Mrs. Sullivan sometimes when she makes me split kindling and let the cat alone and—"

"That will do," I said; "that's enough of such talk. Come right into the house."

"It ain't a baddix to say 'O Crackers!'" he observed tentatively, as he followed us.

"It may not be for some people," I answered. "Nice people might say that once in a great while, on week-days, if they never said any other baddixes; but it's just as bad as any of them if you say all the others—especially that horrible one—"

"Gamboge," he reminded me, brightly.

"Never mind saying it again!"

Then came a new uproar from the wagon-box. We perceived that the train had moved off again, manned now entirely by Sullivans. They sought, I detected, to produce in our minds an impression that the thing was going better than ever. The toots of the Sullivan-throated whistle were louder and more frequent, and the voice of the largest could be plainly heard. He had combined the two offices of train-boy and conductor. We heard him alternately demanding "Tickets!" and urging "Peanuts, cakes, and candies!" If the intention had been to lure us back to witness a Sullivan triumph, it failed. We shut our lips tightly and moved around to the front porch.

The foiled Sullivans presently followed us here. They made a group at the base of a maple on the lawn and, affecting not to notice us, talked in a large, loud way so that we must overhear and be made envious,—even awe-struck; for they had all secured jobs on the real railroad, it appeared. They would have to begin to-morrow, probably. They didn't know for sure, but they thought it would be to-morrow. It would be fine, riding off on the big train. Probably they would never come back to this town, but sleep on their big engine every night; and every day, from the toothsome dainties of the train-boy Sullivan's basket, they would "eat all they could hold." The elder Sullivan, aged eight, he of the artistic temperament, here soared dizzily into the farthest ether of romance. He had his uniform at home, at that very moment, and a cap with "gold reading" on it—it read "Conductor" on one side, and "Candy" on the other. Only—this veritably smacked of genius—the blue coat with the gold buttons had been made too small for him, and he'd have to wait until they sent him a larger size—"a No. 12," he said, with a careless, unseeing glance at our group. This was a stroke that had nearly done for one of us—but a moment's resistance and another of sober reflection saved him. He flashed to me a look of scorn for the clumsy fabrication.

There was still a brakeman needed, it appeared,—a good brakeman. The Sullivans consulted importantly, wondering if "a good man" could by any chance be found "around here." They named and rejected several possible candidates—other boys that we knew. And they wondered again. No—probably every one around here was afraid to leave home, or wouldn't be strong enough.

I held my breath, perceiving at once, the villany on foot. They were trying to lure one of us into a trap. They wished one of us to leap forward with a glad, eager, artless shout—"I'll be the other brakeman!" At once they would jeer coarsely, slapping one another's backs and affecting the utmost merriment that this one of us should have been equal to so monstrous a pretension. This would last a long time. They would take up other matters only for the sake of coming back to it with sudden explosions of contemptuous mirth.

Happily, the one of us most liable to this ignominy remained unbelieving to the bitter end; even did he pretend to a yawning sort of interest in a book carelessly picked up. The Sullivans had been foiled at every turn, and now we were relieved from the covert but not less pointed insult of their presence.

Mrs. Delia, her morning's work done, came out dressed for church, bidding me a briskly sad little "Good marnin', Major!" I responded pleasantly, for in a way I liked Mrs. Sullivan, who came each day from her bare little house under the hill to make a home for Solon and our children. At least she was kind to them and kept them plump. That she remained dismal under circumstances that seemed to me not to warrant it was a detail of minor consequence. Terry Sullivan had been no good husband to her. Beating her and the lesser Sullivans had been his serious aim when in liquor and his diversion when out. But he fell from a gracious scaffolding with a. bucket of azure paint one day and fractured his stout neck, a thing which in the general opinion of Little Arcady Heaven had meant to be consummated under more formal auspices.

But when they took Terry home and laid him on her bed, she had wailed absurdly for the lost lover in him. Through the night her cry had been, "Ah, Terry, Terry,—ye gev me manny a haird blow, darlin', but ye kep' th' hairdest til th' last!"

It was not possible to avoid being irritated a little by such a woman, but I always tried to conceal this from her. I suppose she had a right to her own play-world. She was dressed now in a limp black of many rusty ruffles that sagged close to her and glistened in spots through its rust. Both the dress and the spiritless silk bonnet that circled her keen little face seemed to have been cried over a long time—to be always damp with her tears.

With parting injunctions to my namesake to let the cat alone, not to "track up" the kitchen, and not to play with matches, the little woman lovingly cuffed the conspiring lesser Sullivans into a decorous line behind her and marched them off to church. There, I knew, she would give from her poor wage that the soul of dead Terry should be the sooner prayed out of a place, which, it would seem, might have been created with an eye single to his just needs.

Thinking of woman's love,—that, like the peace of God it passeth all understanding,—I officiated absently as one of two guests at a "tea-party." My fellow-guest was a large doll braced stiffly in its chair; a doll whose waxen face had been gouged by vandal nails. That was an old tragedy, though a sickening one at the time. The doll had been my Christmas offering to the woman child, and in the dusk of that joyous day my namesake had craved of its proud mother the boon of holding it a little while. Relinquished trustingly to him, he had sat with it by a cheerful fire—without evil intent, I do truly believe. Surely it was by chance that he found its waxen face softening under the stove's glow—and has Heaven affixed nails to any boy of seven that, in a dusky room at a quiet moment, would have behaved with more restraint? I trow not. One surprised dig and all was lost. Of that fair surface of rounded cheek, fattened chin, and noble brow not a square inch was left ungouged. It was indeed a face of evil suggestion that the unsuspecting mother took back.

That was the evening when the Crowders, living next door, had rushed over in the belief that my woman child was being murdered. The criminal had never been able to advance the shadow of a reason or excuse for his mad act. He seemed to be as honestly puzzled by it as the rest of us, though I rejoice to say that he was not left without reason to deplore it.

But the mother—the true mother—had thereafter loved the disfigured thing but the more. She promptly divested it of all its splendid garments, as a precaution against further vandalism, and the naked thing with its scarred face was ever an honored guest at our functions.

"You really must get some clothes for Irene," I said. "That's not quite the right thing, you know, having her sit there without any."

In much annoyance she rebuked me, whispering, for this thoughtless lapse from my role as guest. At our parties Irene was no longer Irene, but "Mrs. Judge Robinson," and justly sensitive about her faulty complexion and lack of clothes.

"Besides," came the whisper again, "I am going to make her some clothes—a lovely veil to go over her face."

Resuming her company voice, and with the aplomb of a perfect hostess who has rectified the gaucherie of an awkward guest, she pressed upon me another cup of the custard coffee, and tactfully inquired of the supposedly embarrassed Mrs. Judge Robinson if she did not think this was very warm weather for this time of year.

The proprieties being thus mended, our hostess raised her voice and bade Mrs. Sullivan, within doors, to hurry with the next course, which, I was charmed to learn, would be lemon soup and frosted cake. Mrs. Sullivan's response, though audible only to her mistress, who was compelled to cock an intent ear toward the kitchen, seemed to be in some manner shuffling or evasive.

"What's that?" she exclaimed sharply, listening again. Then, with dignity, "Well, if you don't hurry, I'll have to come right in there and see to you this minute!"

The threat happily availed, and the feast went forward, a phantom and duly apologetic Mrs. Sullivan serving us with every delicacy which our imaginations afforded. When we had eaten to repletion, of and from the checkers which were our plates and food as well, Mrs. Judge Robinson suddenly became Irene, who had eaten too much and had to be scolded and put to bed. The lights were out, the revelry done.

"Going walking now?" asked my namesake. He did not know how to behave at tea-parties, and, sitting at a little distance from us, he had been aiming an imaginary gun at every fat robin that mined the lawn for sustenance.

"Ask your father if you may go," I said. I had heard Solon pacing his room—forever cogitating the imminent Potts. I did not enter the house oftener than I could help, for always in those rooms I felt a troubled presence, a homesick thing that pushed two frail white hands against an intangible but sufficing curtain that held it from those it sickened for. I could not long be easy there.

It was a day poised and serene, with white brush-dabs of cloud on a wonderful canvas of blue,—a day when I longed for the honeyed fragrance of the woods warming from the last night's rain.

But this was not to be my walk. Not for me the shaded arches of the wood where glad birds piped, nor the velvet hillsides tufted with green and yellow and brown, nor eke the quiet lane running between walls of foliage, where simple rabbits scampered, amazed, but not yet taught their fullest fear.

The butterflies we must chase hovered rather along urban ways. That of the woman child was social. Ahead of us she flounced. Strangely, she was herself Mrs. Judge Robinson now. I understood that she was decked in a gown of royal purple, whose sweeping velvet train gave her no little trouble. But she paid her calls. At each gate she stopped, and it seemed that persons met her there, for she began:—

"Why, how do you do? Yes, it's lovely weather we're having. Are your children got the scarlet fever? That's too bad. So has mine. I'm afraid they'll die. Well, I must be going now. Good day!"

Sometimes she ran back to say, "Now do come over some day and bring your work!"

The butterflies pursued by my namesake were various, and some of them were more secret.

For one he made me stand with him while he gazed long into the drug-store window. I divined at last that those giant chalices, one of green and one of ruby liquor, were the objects of his worship. He could not have told me this, but I knew that in his mind these were compounds of unparalleled richness, potent with Heaven knows what wondrous charms. It was not that he dreamed ever of securing any of the stuff; the spell endured only while they must stand there, remote, splendid, inaccessible.

Then we strolled down the quiet street to a road that went close to the railway. And there, with beating hearts, we beheld the two-twenty Eastern freight rattle superbly by us. From the cab of its inspiring locomotive one of fortune's favorites rang a priceless gold bell with an air of indifference which we believed in our hearts was assumed to impress us. And notwithstanding our suspicion, we were impressed, for did we not know that he could reach up his other hand and blow the splendid whistle if he happened to feel like it?

After the locomotive came the closed and mysterious box-cars, important with big numbers and initials in cabalistic sequence, indicating a wide and exciting range of travels. Then came stock cars, from between the slats of which strange and envied cattle looked out on their way to a wondrous city; and there was a car of squealing pigs, who seemed not to want to ride on a real train; and some cars of sheep that were stupidly indifferent about the whole thing. At the last was a palatial "caboose", and toward this, over the tops of the moving cars, a happy brakeman made his exciting progress, not having to hold on, or anything. He casually waved an arm at us, a salute that one of our number, in acknowledging, sought to imitate, for the cool, indifferent flourish of its arm, as if it were a common enough thing for us to be noticed by the mighty from their eminences.

This was my namesake's most beautiful of butterflies. Any one could understand that. As the train lost itself in smoke I knew well what he felt. I knew that that smoke of soft coal was so delicious, so wonderful of portent in his nostrils, that throughout his life it would bring up the wander-bidding in him—always a strange sweet passion of starting. Even now the journey-wonder was in his eyes. I knew that he saw himself jauntily stepping the perilous tops of cars, clad in a coat of padded shoulders bound with wide braid, a lantern on his arm, coal dust smudging the back of his neck, and two fingers felicitously gone from his left hand.

I coughed, to recall him from visions. He looked up at me, a little shyly, debating—but why should it not be told?

"Uncle Maje—when I grow up, I'm going off to be a brakeman."

"I know it," I said quietly.

"Won't it be just fine!"

"It's the very finest life in all the world. I hoped for it myself once, but I was disappointed."

He gave me a quick look of sympathy.

"Wouldn't they let you?"

"Well, they were afraid I'd be hurt—only I knew I wouldn't be—anything to speak of—a couple of fingers, perhaps—"

"Off the left hand," he suggested understandingly.

"Of course,—off the left hand."

"That brakeman on No. 3 has got two off his left hand," was the final comment.

We retraced our steps; but there was yet another butterfly of my namesake's. He led us to a by-path that followed the river bank up to the bridge, running far ahead of us. When we reached him he was seated, dumb with yearning, before a newly painted sign,

"GO TO BUDD'S FOR AN UP-TO-DATE 25 CT. DINNER."

He was obliged to limp that day, for his stone-bruise was coming on finely; but he had gone half a mile out of his way to worship at this wayside shrine. Again he was dreaming. In the days of his opulence he saw himself going to Budd's. Fortunately for his illusions the price was now prohibitive. I had been to Budd's myself.

"Have you ever been there?" I asked of the dreamer.

"I've been in his store, in the front part, where the candy is—and if you go 'round when he's freezing ice cream, he'll give you a whole ten-cent dish just for turning the freezer; but Pop won't let me stay out of school to do it, and Budd don't freeze Saturdays. But some day—" he paused. Then, with seemingly another idea:—

"He's got an awful funny sign up over the counter."

He would not tell me what the sign was, though, He shuffled and talked of other things. I entered Budd's on the morrow, purposely to read it, and I knew that my namesake had quailed before it. The sign was in white, frosted letters, on a blue ground, and it ran:—

TO TRUST IS TO BUST TO BUST IS HELL NO TRUST, NO BUST, NO HELL.

Its syllogistic hardness was repellant, but I dare say it preserved a gorgeous butterfly from utter extinction.

Home again at early twilight, we ate of a cold supper set out for us by Mrs. Sullivan. And here I reflected that good days often end badly, for my namesake betrayed extreme dissatisfaction with the food.

"Why don't we have that pudding oftener—with lather on top of it?" was his first outbreak. And at last he felt obliged to declare bitterly, "We don't have a thing that's fit to eat!"

"Calvin," said his father, "if I have to whip, it will hurt you worse than it does me."

Whereupon the complainer was wisely silent, but later I heard him asserting, between catches of his breath, and out of his father's hearing:—

"I don't care—(a sniff)—when I'm rich, I'll go to Budd's for an up-to-date dinner, you bet—(a snuffle)—I'll probably go there every day of my life—(two snuffles)—yes, sir—Sundays and all!"

I cheered him as best I could.

His sister had saved her day to a happy end, babbling off to bed with the distressing Irene, to whom she would show a book of pictures until sleep shut off her little eyelid.

A wise old man—I believe he was a bishop—once said he knew "that outside the real world is a world of fine fabling."

I had stolen a day from that world. Now I hurried through the gloom of the hall, past the poor striving hands, to sit with Solon Denney and tell him of a peculiar thing I had observed during the afternoon's walk.



CHAPTER VIII

ADVENTURE OF BILLY DURGIN, SLEUTH

I spoke to Solon of Billy Durgin, whose peculiar, not to say mysterious, behavior I had been compelled to notice. I had first observed him that afternoon as we passed the City Hotel. Through the window of the little wash-room, where I saw that he was polishing a pair of shoes, he had winked at me from over his task, and then erected himself to make a puzzling gesture with one hand. Again, while we stood dream-bound before the window of the corner drug store, he had sent me a low whistle from across the street, following this with another puzzling arm wave; whereat he had started toward us. But instead of accosting me, as I had thought he meant to, he rushed by, with eyes rigidly ahead and his thin jaws grimly set. Throughout the stroll he haunted us, adhering to this strange line of conduct. I would turn a corner, to find Billy apparently waiting for me a block off. Then would follow a signal of no determinable import, after which he would walk swiftly past me as if unaware of my presence. Once I started to address him, but was met with "Not a word!" hissed at me in his best style from between clenched teeth.

I decided at last that Billy was playing a game of his own. For Billy Durgin, though sixteen years old, had happy access to our world of fine fabling; and to this I knew he resorted at those times when his duties as porter at the City Hotel palled upon his romantic spirit.

Billy, in short, was a detective, well soaked in the plenteous literature of his craft and living in the dream that criminals would one day shudder at the bare mention of his name.

Nor was he unprovided with a badge of office. Upon his immature chest, concealed by his waist-coat, was an eight-pointed star emblazoned with an open eye. Billy had once proudly confided to me that the star was "pure German Silver." A year before he had answered an advertisement which made known that a trusty man was wanted in every community "to act for us in a confidential capacity. Address for particulars, with stamp."

The particulars were that you sent the International Detective Association five dollars for a badge. After that you were their confidential agent, and if a "case" occurred in your territory, you were the man they turned to.

Billy's five hard-earned dollars had gone to the great city, and back had come his star. He wore it secretly at first, but was moved at length to display it to a few chosen friends; not wisely chosen, it would appear, for now there were mockers of Billy among the irreverent of the town. As he sat aloft on his boot-blacking throne, waiting for crime to be done among us, conning meantime one of those romances in which his heroes did rare deeds, he would be subjected to intrusion. Some coarse town humorist would leer upon him from the doorway—a leer of furtive, devilish cunning—and whisper hoarsely, "Hist! Are we alone?"

Struck thus below the belt of his dignity, our hero could only respond:—

"Aw, that's all right! You g'wan out a' here now an' quit your foolin'!"

But criminals seemed to have conspired against Little Arcady, to cheat it of its rightful distinction. In vain had Billy waited for a "case" to be sent him by the International Detective Agency. In vain had he sought to develop one by his own ferreting genius. Each week he searched the columns of the police paper in Harpin Gust's barber-shop, fixing in his mind the lineaments of criminals there advertised as wanted in various corners of our land. These were counterfeiters, murderers, embezzlers, horse-thieves, confidence men, what not—criminals to satisfy a sleuth of the most catholic tastes; but they were all wanted elsewhere—at Altoona, Pennsylvania, or Deming, New Mexico; at Portland, Maine, or Dodge City, Kansas. In truth, the country elsewhere swarmed with Billy's lawful prey, and only Little Arcady seemed good.

Billy also gloated over the portraits of well-known deputy sheriffs and other officers of the law printed in the same charming police paper. It seemed not too much to hope that his own likeness might one day grace that radiant page—himself in a long, fashionable overcoat, carelessly flung back to reveal the badge, with its never closing eye, and underneath, "William P. Durgin, the Dashing Young Detective, whose Coolness, Skill, and Daring have made his Name a Terror to Evil-Doers."

Famished for adventure, thirsting for danger, yearning for the perilous midnight encounter, avid of secrecy and disguises, Billy had been forced to toil prosaically, barrenly, unprofitably, about the sinless corridors of the City Hotel. All he had been able to do thus far was to regard every newcomer to the town with a steely eye of distrust; to watch each one furtively, to shadow him in his walks, and to believe during his sojourn that he might be "Red Mike, alias James K. Brown, wanted for safe-breaking at Muskegon, Michigan; reward, $1000," or some like desperado.

As such did he view them all—from the ornately garbed young man who came among us purveying windmills to the portly, broadclothed, gray-whiskered and forbiddingly respectable colporteur of the American Bible Society. Some day would his keen gray eye penetrate the cunning disguise; some day would he step quietly up to his man and say in low but deadly tones: "Come with me, now. Make no trouble or it will be the worse for you." Whereupon the guilty wretch would blanch and say in shaking voice: "My God, it's Billy Durgin, the famous detective! Don't shoot—I'll come!"

Billy had faith that this dramatic episode would occur in the very office of the City Hotel, and he believed that some of those who had joked him about his life passion would thereafter treat him in a very different manner.

Though I had long won these facts from Billy, I had never known him to play his game so openly before. But when I mentioned the thing to Solon, thinking to beguile him from his trouble, I found him more interested than I had thought he could be; for Solon knew Billy as well as I did,

"Did Billy follow you here?" he asked. "Perhaps he has a clew."

"A clew to what?"

"A clew to Potts. Billy volunteered to work up the Potts case, and I told him to go ahead."

"Was that fair, Solon, to pit a sleuth as relentless as Billy against poor Potts?"

"All's fair in love and war."

"Is it really war?"

"You ask Westley Keyts if he thinks it's love."

I think I noticed for the first time then that the Potts affair was etching lines into Solon's face.

"Of course it's war," he went on. "You know the fix I'm in. I had the plan to get Potts out. It was a good plan, too. The more I think of it the better I like it. With any man in the world but Potts that plan would have been a stroke of genius. But I don't mind telling you that this thing has robbed me of sleep for three months. Potts has got me talking to myself. I wake up talking of him, out of the little sleep I do get. I'll tell you the fact—if Potts is here six weeks longer, and let to finish this canvas, my influence in Slocum County is gone. I might as well give up and move on to another town myself, where my dreadful secret is unknown."

"Nonsense! But what can Billy Durgin do?"

"Well, I'm desperate, that's all. And one night Billy had me meet him up by the cemetery—he came disguised in long black whiskers—and he told me that Potts was James Carruthers, better known to the police of two continents as 'Smooth Jim,' wanted for robbing the post-office at Lima, Ohio. Of course that's nonsense. Potts hasn't the wit to rob a post-office. But I didn't have the heart to tell Billy so. I told him, instead, that this was the chance of his life; to fasten to Potts like an enraged leech, and draw out every secret of his dark past. You can't tell—Billy might find something to pry him into the next county with, anyway."

"He certainly looked charged with information this afternoon. He was fizzing like an impatient soda fountain. But why did he follow me?"

"Well, that might be Billy's roundabout way of getting to me. The other time he shadowed Marvin Chislett to get a message to me. If you're a detective, you can't do things the usual way, or all may be lost."

At that instant a low whistle sounded in our ears, a small missile was thrown over the evergreen hedge, bounding almost to our feet, and a slight but muscular figure was seen retreating swiftly into the dusk.

Solon sprang for the mysterious object. It was a stone, about which was wrapped a sheet of paper. This he took off and smoothed out. By the fading light we made out to read: "Meet me at graveyard steps at midnight. You know who."

We looked at each other. "Why didn't he come in here?" I asked.

"That wouldn't have been detective-like."

"But the graveyard at midnight!"

"Well, perhaps he won't hold out for midnight—Billy is merely poetic at times—and maybe if we hurry along, we can catch up with him and have it out by the marble works there instead of going clear on to the cemetery. Perhaps that will be near enough in the right spirit for Billy."

Quickly we made ready for the desperate assignation, pulling our hats well down, in a way that we thought Billy would approve.

Four blocks along the street, by rapid walking, we came within hail of the intrepid young detective. We were also opposite the marble yard of Cornelius Lawson, who wrought monuments for the dead of Little Arcady. In front of the shop were a dozen finished and half-finished stones, ghostly white in the dusk. It seemed indeed to be a spot impressive enough to meet even Billy's captious requirements, but we had underrated the demands of his artist's conscience. Solon called to him.

"Won't this do, Billy?"

Billy stopped dramatically, turned back upon us, and then exploded:—

"Fools! Would you ruin all? You must not be seen addressing me. Now I must disguise myself."

Turning stealthily from us, he swiftly adjusted a beard that swept its sable flow down his youthful chest. Then he addressed us again, still in tense, hoarse accents.

"Are you armed?"

"To the teeth!" answered Solon, with deadly grimness, and with a presence of mind which I envied.

"Then follow me, but at a distance!"

Meekly we obeyed. While our hero stalked ahead, stroking his luxuriant whiskers ever and anon, we pursued him at an interval so great that not the most alert citizen of Little Arcady could have suspected this sinister undercurrent to his simple life.

It is a long walk to the cemetery, but we reached it to find Billy seated on the steps that lead over the fence, still shielded by his hairy envelope.

"A tough case!" he whispered as we sat by him. "Our man has his spies out, and my every step is dogged both night and day."

"Indeed?" we asked.

"You know that slim little duck that got in last night, purtendin' he's a shoe-drummer? Well, he's a detective hired by Potts to shadow me. You know that big fat one, lettin' on he's agent for the Nonesuch Duplex Washin' Machine? He's another. You know that slick-lookin' cuss—like a minister—been here all week, makin' out he was canvassin' for 'The Scenic Wonders of Our Land' at a dollar a part, thirty-six parts and a portfoly to pack 'em away in? Well, he's an—"

"Hold on, Billy, let's get down to business," reminded Solon.

"But I've throwed 'em all off for the nonce," continued Billy, looking closely, I thought, to see if we were rightly affected by "nonce."

"Yes, sir, it's been the toughest darned case in my whole experience as an inside man."

He waited for this to move us.

"What have you found out?" asked Solon; "and say, can't you take off those whiskers, now that we are alone and unobserved? You know they kind of scramble your voice."

With cautious looks all about him, Billy bared his tender young face to the night. A weak wind fretted in the cedars back of us, and an owl hooted. It was not an occasion that he would permit to glide by him too swiftly.

"Well, first I had to git my skeleton keys made."

"I thought you said his door was never locked," interrupted Solon.

"That might be only a ruse," suggested our hero. "Well, I got my keys made, and then I begun to search his room. That's always a delicate job. You got to know just how. First I looked under the aidges of the carpet, clear around. Nothing rewarded my masterly search. Then I examines the bed and mattress inch by inch, with the same discouragin' results." Billy had now drifted fairly into the exciting manner of his favorite authors.

"Baffled, but not beaten, I nex' turns my attention to the pictures, examinin' with a trained eye the backs of same, where might be cunningly concealed the old will—uh—I mean the incriminatin' dockaments that would bring the craven wretch to bay and land him safely behind the bars of jestice. But it seemed like I had the cunning of a fiend to contend with. No objeks of interest was revealed to my swift but thorough examination. Thence I directed my attentions to the wall-paper, well knowin' the desperate tricks to which the higher class of criminal will ofttimes resort to. Once I thought the game was up and all was lost. That new Swede chambermaid walks right in an' ketches me at my delicate tasks.

"Always retainin' my calm presence of mind and coolness in emergencies, quick to think an' as ready to act, with an undaunted bravery I sprang at the girl's throat and hissed, 'How much will it take to silence your accursed tongue?' She draws her slight girlish figure up to its full height—'Ten thousand dollars!' she hissed back at me. 'Ten thousand devils!' I cried, hoarse with rage—"

Too palpably our hero had been overwhelmed by his passion for fictitious prose narrative.

"Hold on, Billy!—back up," broke in Solon. "This is business, you know—this isn't an Old Cap' Collyer tale."

"Well, anyway," resumed Billy, a little abashed, "I silenced the girl. I threatened to have her transported for life if she breathed a word. Mebbe she didn't suspect anything after all. Tilly ain't so very bright. So at length I continues my researches into every nook and cranny of the den, and jest as I was about to abandon the trail, baffled and beaten at every turn, what should I git but an idee to look at some papers lyin' in plain sight on the table at the head of the bed."

"Well, out with it!" I thought Solon was growing a little impatient. But Billy controlled the situation with a firm hand.

"It's an old trick," he continued, "one that's fooled many a better man than Billy Durgin—leavin' the dockaments carelessly exposed like they didn't amount to anything; but havin' the well-known tenacity of a bloodhound, I was not to be thwarted. Well—to make a long story short—"

Solon brightened wonderfully.

"I have to admit that my first suspicion was incorrect. He ain't the one that done that Lima, Ohio, job and carried off them eight hundred dollars' worth of stamps—"

"But what did he do?"

"Well, I got a clew to another past of his—"

"What is it? Let's have it!"

Billy was still not to be driven faster than a detective story should move.

We heard, and dimly saw, him engaged with a metallic object which he drew from under his coat. We were silent. Then we heard him say:—

"My lamp's went out—darn these matches!"

At last he seemed to light something. He unfolded a bit of paper before us and triumphantly across its surface he directed the rays of a bull's-eye lantern. This was his climax. We studied the paper.

"Billy," said Solon, after a pause, "this looks like a good night's work. True, it may come to naught. We may still be baffled, foiled, thwarted at every turn—and yet something tells me that the man is in our power—that by this precious paper we may yet bring the scoundrel to his knees in prayers for our mercy, craven with fear at our knowledge."

"Say," said Billy, stung to admiration by this flow of the right sort of talk, "Mr. Denney, did you ever read 'Little Rosebud, or is Beauty a Curse to a Poor Girl?' That sounded just like the detective in that—you remember—where he's talkin' to Clarence Armytage just after he's overheard the old lawyer tell Mark Vinton, the villain, 'If this child lives, you are a beggar!' Remember that?"

"Why, no, Billy. I must get that, first thing in the morning. My tribute to your professional skill was wholly spontaneous, though perhaps a shade influenced by having listened to your own graphic style. But come, men! Let us separate and be off, ere we are discovered. And mind, not a word of this. One false step might ruin all! So have a care."

It must have been one of the few perfect moments in the life of Billy.

"You may rely upon William Durgin to the bitter end," said he, with a quiet dignity. "But there is work yet ahead for me to-night.

"I got to regain my hotel unobserved. My life is not safe a moment with my every step dogged by the hired assassins of that infamous scoundrel."

"If death or disaster come to you, Billy, you shall not be unavenged. We swear it here on this spot. Swear, Cal!"

"Say," Billy called back to us, after adjusting his beard, "if anything comes of this,—rewards or anything,—first thing I'm goin' a' do—git me a good forty-four Colts. You can't stop a man with this here little twenty-two, an' it's only a one-shot at that. I'd be in a nice hole sometime, wouldn't I, with my back up against a wall an' six or seven of 'em comin' for me an' nothin' but this in my jeans?"

"Point that the other way, Billy—we'll see about a bigger one later. We can't do anything to-night. And sell your life as dearly as possible if you have to sell it."

I fell asleep that night on a conviction that our taste for barren reality is our chief error. If we could only believe forever, what a good world it could be—"a world of fine fabling," indeed! Also I wondered what J. Rodney Potts might have to apprehend from the leaven of fact in the fabling of Billy Durgin.



CHAPTER IX

HOW THE BOSS SAVED HIMSELF

He whom they had, with facetious intent, called "the Boss of Little Arcady" now began to wear a mien of defiance. From being confessedly distraught, he displayed, as the days went by, a spiritual uplift that fell but little short of arrogance. He did not permit any reason to be revealed for this marked change of demeanor. He was confident but secretive, serene but furtive, as one who has endured gibes for the sake of one brilliant coup.

This apparently causeless change permeated even to the columns of the Argus. It had been observed by more than one of us that these had of late suffered from the depression of their editor. Their general tone had been negative. Now they spoke in a lightsome tone of self-sufficiency. They were gay, even jaunty. It was in this very epoch that the verse was born which for many years sang blithely from the top of the first column—sang of Denney's public-spirited optimism as to Slocum County and the Little Country.

Keep your eye on Slocum, She's all right! Her skies are clear and full of cheer, And all her prospects bright.

As pointing more specifically to the incubus of Potts, there was this:—

"Lots of people are saying that we have met our Waterloo. They forget that Waterloo was a victory as well as a defeat. Two men met it, and the name of one was Wellington. Look it up in your encyclopaedia."

But the faction of Potts, it should be noted, saw no reason to be impressed by a vaunting so vague. It had not tempered its hopefulness.

Its idol was jubilant, careless as a schoolboy, babbling but sober. The Banner still challenged the world with its page-wide line: "Potts Forever! Potts the Coming Man!"

Certain hopeful souls among the opposition had taken counsel how they might cause Potts to fall by means of strong drink. They had observed that the mill-race was still significantly uncovered. But to all invitations, all cunning incitements to indulgence, Potts was urbanely resistant. Conscious that a river of strong waters rippled at his feet, freely to be partaken of did he choose, it is true that his face showed lines of restraint, a serene restraint, like unto that which the great old painters limned so beautifully upon the face of the martyr. But the martyrs of old in their ecstasy were not more resolute than Potts. It is probable that he looked forward to a period of post-election refreshment; but pending the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, his determination was such that it stamped his face with something akin to dignity. Said Westley Keyts, "If it was raining whiskey, Potts wouldn't drink as much as he could ketch on a fork!" and to this the town agreed. For once Potts was firm.

His alpaca suit had visibly deteriorated during the campaign, and his tall hat again cried for the glossing ministry of a heated iron, but his virtue burgeoned under stress and flowered to beauty in the sight of men. It was understood at last that the mill-race might as well be covered for any adventitious relation it could sustain to Potts drunk.

Westley Keyts's suggestion that Potts be weighted with pig-iron and dumped into the healing waters, drunk or sober, was the mere playfulness of an excellent butcher unpractised in sarcasm. His offer to supply, free of cost, a quantity of pig-iron ample for the purpose left this hypothesis unavoidable, for Westley winked flagrantly and leered when he voiced it.

But a retribution subtler than mere drowning awaited the superfluous Potts; a retribution so simple of mechanism, so swift, so potent, and wrought with a talent so masterly, that the right of its instigator to the title of Boss of Little Arcady seemed to be unassailable for all future time.

At the very zenith of his heavenward flight Potts was brought low. At the very nethermost point of his downward swoop Solon Denney was raised to a height so dizzy that even the erstwhile sceptic spirit of Westley Keyts abased itself before him, frankly conceding that diplomacy's innocent and mush-like surface might conceal springs of a terrible potency.

Though Solon's public mien for a week or more had been hint enough of his secret to those who knew him well, I was, possibly, the first to whom he confided it in words.

He sent for me one crisp October morning, and I rushed over to the Argus office, knowing that he must have matters of importance to communicate.

I found him pacing the little sanctum, scanning a still damp sheet of proof. His brow was furrowed, but the lines were those of conscious power. In the broken chair by the littered desk sat Billy Durgin, his eyes ablaze with the lust of the chase. As I pushed into the dingy little room Solon halted in his walk and, with a flourish that did not entirely lack the dramatic, he handed me the narrow strip of paper. The item was brief.

"Mrs. J. Rodney Potts, the estimable wife of Colonel J. Rodney Potts of this town, will arrive here from the East next Thursday to make her home among us."

I looked up, to find them eager for my comment.

"Is it true?" I asked.

"It is," said Solon. "I shall meet the lady on the arrival of the eleven-eight train next Thursday."

"Well—what of it?"

"We are now about to see 'what of it.' My trusty and fearless young lieutenant here"—he indicated Billy, who coughed in his hand and looked modestly out the window—"is now about to beard Potts in his den and find out 'what of it.' I may say that we hope there will be a good deal of it. I gather as much from the correspondence of the last three weeks with the lady referred to in that simple galley proof, which I set up and pulled with my own hands. In this opinion I am not alone. It is shared by my able and dauntless young coadjutor, before whom I can see a future so brilliant that you need smoked glasses to look at it very long at a time."

The gallant young detective turned from the window.

"The hour has come to strike our blow," he remarked, his brow contracting to a scowl that boded no good to a certain upright citizen of this great republic.

"I have thought it best," resumed Solon, "to take Potts into our confidence at precisely this stage—giving him this exclusive news one day in advance of its publication. To-morrow, when every one knows it, Potts might be rash enough to stay and brave it out. Being advised to-day, privately, and thus afforded a chance to fade gracefully into the great bounding West, he may use his common sense. Now then, officer, do your duty!"

Our hero arose from his chair, buttoned his coat, passed a hand caressingly over his hip pocket, took the proof from me, and stalked grimly out.

"So the lady is really coming?" I asked, as Billy's footsteps died away down the wooden stairs.

"She is, the lady and her little son," said Solon, resuming his walk up and down the room. "She is coming all the way from Boston, Massachusetts. And I don't believe she quite knows what she's coming to. She speaks in a strange manner of her hope that she may be able to do good among us, and in her last letter she wants to know if I have ever seen a little book called 'One Hundred Common Errors in Speaking and Writing.' She seems to have the missionary instinct, as nearly as I can judge."

He paused in his walk and lowered his voice impressively.

"Between you and me, Cal,—you know I've had about six letters from her,—it's just possible that Potts had his reasons. I don't say he did, mind you,—but strange things happen in this world.

"But that's neither here nor there," he went on more lightly. "Potts has brought it on himself."

In silence, then, we awaited the return of the messenger. The moment was tensely electric when at last we heard the clatter of his boots on the stairway. Breathless, he entered and stood before us, his coolness for once destroyed under the strain of his adventure. Solon helped him to a chair with soothing words.

"Take it easy now, Billy! Get your breath—there—that's good! Now tell us all about it—just what you said and just what he said and just what talk there was back and forth."

"Gosh-all-Hemlock!" spluttered Billy, not yet equal to his best narrative style.

We waited. He drew a dozen long breaths before he was again the cold, self-possessed, steely-eyed avenger.

"Well," he began brightly, "I gains access to our man in his wretched den on the second floor of the Eubanks Block. As good luck would have it, he was alone by hisself, walkin' up and down, swingin' his arms like he was practisin' one o' them speeches of his.

"Well, I had it all fixed up fine how I was goin' to act, and what I was goin' to say to him, and how I'd back up a few paces against the wall and say, 'Not a word above a whisper, or I'll send this bullet through your craven heart!' and he'd fall down on his knees and beg me in vain for mercy and so on. But Gee! the minute I seen him I got all nervoused up and I jest says, 'Here, read that there piece—your wife's comin' next Thursday!'

"Well, sir, at those careless words of mine he gives a guilty start, his face blanched with horror, and he hissed through his set teeth, 'Which one?'—as quick as that.

"Me?—I couldn't git out a word for a minute, and he started for me. 'Which one?' he repeats, hoarse with rage, and that gives me an idee. 'Stand back!' I cried fearlessly, 'stand back, coward that you are—make no word of outcry, or it will go hard with you—they're both comin',' I says,—'this one's comin' next week and the other one's comin' the week after, soon as she can git some sewin' done up.' Me?—I was leadin' him on, you understand—for we hadn't knowed there was more than one. Well, at that he read the piece over and set down in his chair with both hands up to his head and he says, 'I'm bein' hounded by a venal press, that's what's the matter; I'm bein' hounded from pillar to post.'

"At this I broke in with a sneer,—'Oh, we've only just began,' I says. 'We'll have the whole lot of 'em here inside of six weeks—children and all.' 'It's a lie,' he hissed at me. 'There ain't any more.'

"'Have a care, Colonel Potts,' I exclaimed, 'or first thing you know you will rue those there words bitterly! I will not brook your dastardly insults,' I says, 'and besides,' I added with a sudden idee, 'it looks like two wives will warm things up plenty for you.'

"At them words his craven face turned an ashen gray, and he fastened upon me a glare of baffled rage that might well have made a stouter heart quail before it, but I returned his glare fearlessly and backed swif'ly to the door, feelin' for the knob. When I found it, I got quickly out, without a blow bein' struck or a shot fired. Then I run here."

Early in the narrative Solon had begun to beam, identifying readily the slender but important vertebrae of fact upon which Billy had organized this drama of his fancy. At the close he shook hands warmly with our hero.

"This has been a splendid day's work, William Durgin!" and Billy beamed in his turn.

"I wasn't goin' to let him know we thought there was only one," he said.

"Precisely where your training showed, my boy. Any one could have handed Potts that proof, but it took you to handle the case after the scoundrel had said 'Which one?' Well, it's Potts's move now. If he doesn't move, we'll just add this to the item: 'Mrs. J. Rodney Potts, wife of Colonel J. Rodney Potts, will arrive again the following week. The ladies anticipate an interesting time in meeting their mutual husband.' How's that?"

Billy's eyes glistened—he was yearning for just that situation.

"But if Potts does move," added Solon, "not a word about the second lady. We won't take a mean advantage, even of Potts."

At six o'clock that evening, the following facts became known: that Colonel Potts had obtained a quart of whiskey from Barney Skeyhan; that he had borrowed twenty dollars from the same trustful tradesman; that, his cane in one hand and his oilcloth valise in the other, he had walked down Main Street late in the afternoon and boarded the five twenty-eight freight going West, ostensibly on a business trip into the next county.

Not until the next morning was it known that Potts had left us forever. This came from "Big Joe" Kestril. The two had met at the depot and drunk fraternally from the bottle of Potts, discussing the thing frankly, meanwhile.

"They've hounded me out of town," said the Colonel.

"How?" said Big Joe.

"They sent for Mrs. Potts to come here—it's infamous, sir!"

It appeared that Potts had said further: "I can't understand the men of this town at all. It looks as if I have been trifled with, much as I dislike to think so. One minute they crowd letters on to me, praising me up to the skies, and print pieces in the paper saying that nothing is too good for me and my departure is a public loss, and why won't I remain and be a credit to the town and a lot more like that, good and strong. Then when I do consent to remain, why, what do they do? Do they grasp my hand and say, 'Ah, good old Potts—stanch Potts, loyal Potts—good for you—you won't desert the town!' Do they talk that way? No, they do not. Instead of talking like a body would think they'd talk after all those letters and things, why, they turn and fling abuse at me—and now—now they've gone and done this hellish thing! I won't say a word against any man, but in my opinion they're a passel of knaves and lunatics. Look at me, Joe. Yesterday I was a made man; to-day I'm all ruined up! I merely state facts and let you draw your own conclusions."

The conclusions which Big Joe drew, such as they were, he was unable to communicate intelligibly until the morrow, for the train was late and they drank of the liquor until the Colonel had time to lament his improvidence in bringing away so little of it. And by the time Big Joe's report was abroad, both the Banner and the Argus were out. The item in the latter concerning Mrs. Potts had been only a little altered.

"Mrs. J. Rodney Potts, wife of Colonel J. Rodney Potts, until yesterday a resident of this town, will arrive here next Thursday from Boston, Massachusetts, to make her home among us. She is an estimable and cultured lady, and we bespeak for her a warm welcome to this garden-spot of the mid-West."

Across the top of the Banner's first page was its campaign slogan as usual:—

"POTTS FOREVER! POTTS THE COMING MAN!"

Across the top of the Argus in similar type ran the pregnant line:—

"POTTS FOREVER, BUT MAYNE FOR COUNTY JUDGE. THE TROUBLE WITH THE COMING MAN IS THAT HE'S GONE!"



CHAPTER X

A LADY OF POWERS

Superficially and distantly considered, the woman from whom even J. Rodney Potts must flee in terror would not be of a sort to excite the imagination pleasurably. A less impulsive man than Solon Denney might have found cause for misgiving in this circumstance of Potts's prompt exodus. In the immediate flush of his triumph, however, the editor of the Argus had no leisure for negative reflections, and when misgiving did at last find root in his mind, the time had come for him to receive the lady. But Solon Denney was not the man to betray it if a doubting heart beat within his breast. To the town that now lavished admiration upon him, dubbing him "Boss" without ulterior implications, he was confidence itself, and rife with prophecies of benefit to be derived by our public from the advent of Mrs. Aurelia Potts. With a gallant show of anticipation, a sprig of geranium in his lapel, he set out for the train on that fateful morning, while Little Arcady awaited his return with a cordial curiosity.

It was a gray day of damp air and a dull, thick sky bearing down upon the earth—a day conducive to forebodings. But Solon Denney's spirit, to the best of Little Arcady's belief, soared aloft to realms of pure sunlight.

My knowledge of subsequent events that day was gained partly by word of mouth and partly by observations which I was permitted to make.

To the hotel Solon conducted his charges, handing them from the 'bus with a flourish that seemed to confer upon them the freedom of the city. From shop doors and adjacent street corners the most curious among us beheld a tall, full-figured woman of majestic carriage, with a high, noble forehead and a face that seemed to register traces of some thirty-five earnest but not unprofitable years. Even in the quick glance she bestowed up and down Washington Street before the hotel swallowed her up, her quality was to be noted by the discerning,—the quality of a commander, of one born to prevail. The flash of her gray-green eye was interested but unconcerned. Complemented by the marked auburn of her plenteous hair, the eyes were masterful, advertising most legibly the temperament of a capable ruler. The subdued, white-faced boy of twelve, with hair like his mother's, who trotted closely at her heels was, for the moment, a negligible factor.

An hour later I entered the sanctum of the Argus, to find its owner alone before his littered table. Upon his usually careless face was the most profoundly thoughtful look I had ever known him wear. Open before him was that week's Argus, but his eyes narrowed to its neat columns only at intervals. For the most part his gaze plunged far into virgin realms of meditation. It was only after several reminding coughs that I succeeded in recalling him from afield; and even then the deeply thoughtful look remained to estrange his face from me.

"Say, Cal, do you believe in powers?"

"What kind of powers?"

"Well, I don't know—every kind—just powers—mystic, occult powers."

"I don't care to commit myself without more details," I answered with a caution that seemed to be needed.

"Well, sir, that woman has 'em—she has powers—she certainly has. There is something in her eye that paralyzes the will; you look at her and you say yes to anything she suggests."

"For example—"

"Well, I've just agreed with her that the Argus isn't what it ought to be."

I gasped. This indeed savored of the blackest magic.

"What did she do to you?"

"Just looked at me, that's all,—and took it for granted."

"Heavens! You're shivering!"

"You wait—wait till she talks to you! She's promised to give me a little book," he went on dejectedly, "'One Hundred Common Errors in Writing and Speaking,' and she says the split infinitive is a crime in this nineteenth century. But, say, this paper would never get to press if I took time to unsplit all my infinitives."

"Well, put Billy Durgin to work on her case right away," I said to cheer him. "If the woman talks like that, I'll bet Billy can find some good reason why she ought to push on after the Colonel."

Again his deeply thoughtful gaze bore upon me.

"I'm puzzled," he said,—"honestly puzzled. I don't know whether she'll be good for this town or not. She may in a way—and in a way she may not. She will be disturbing,—I can see that already,—but she is stimulating. She may stir us up to nobler endeavors."

"Did she say so?"

"Well—uh—something of the sort. I believe that was the expression she used. I'll tell you what you do. You come along with me and see the lady right now. They've had dinner by this time."

Together we went and were presently climbing the stairs that led to the second floor of the City Hotel.

Mrs. Potts received us graciously. Upon me she bestowed a glance of friendly curiosity, as does a kind physician who waits to be told of symptoms before prescribing. Upon Solon she bent a more knowing look, as upon one whose frailties have already been revealed. She gave us chairs and she talked. Little Roscoe Potts writhed near by upon an ottoman and betrayed that he, too, could talk when circumstances were kindly. The detail of their personalities, salient in that first moment, was that Heaven had denied them both the gift of reticence.

"Yes—I've been telling Mr. Denney—I feel that there is a work here for me," she began briskly. "I felt it strongly when I perused the columns of the newspaper which Mr. Denney was thoughtful enough to send me."

Solon's eyes uneasily sought the cabbage-like flowers in the faded carpet of the room.

"And I feel it more strongly now that I have ventured among you," continued the lady, glowing upon us both.

"I have long suspected that it was a regrettable waste of energy to send missionaries into heathen parts of the globe when there remain so many unenlightened corners in our own land. It almost seems now as if I had been guided here. It is true that my husband has gone, but that shall not distress me. Rodney is a drifter—I may say a natural-born drifter, and I cannot undertake to follow him. I shall remain here. I have been guided—" determination gleamed in her gray-green eyes,—"I shall remain here and teach these poor people to make something of themselves."

Solon drew a long breath. My own echoed it. Hereupon little Roscoe broke into a high-pitched recitative.

"We are now in the great boundless West, a land of rough but kind-hearted and worthy folk, and abounding with instructive sights and scenes which are well calculated—"

"My son," interrupted his mother, "kindly tell the gentlemen what should be your aim in life."

"To strive to improve my natural gifts by reading and conversation," answered Roscoe, in one swift breath.

"Very good—ver-ry good—but for the present you may listen. Now, Mr. Denney—" she turned to Solon with the latest Argus in her hand,—"perusing your sheet, my eye lights upon this sentence:—"

"'Lige Brackett Sundayed in our midst. He reports a busy time of Fall ploughing over Bethel way.'

"Why 'Sundayed,' Mr. Denney?" She smiled brightly, almost archly, at Solon. "I dare say you would not employ 'Mondayed' or 'Tuesdayed' or 'Wednesdayed.' You see? The term is what we may call a vulgarism—you perceive that, do you not?—likewise 'in our midst,' which is not accurate, of course, and which would be indelicate if it were. Now I let my eye descend the column to your account of a certain social function. You say, 'The table fairly groaned with the weight of good things, and a good time was had by all present.' Surely, Mr. Denney, you are a man not without culture and refinement. Had you but taken thought, you could as well have said that 'An elegant collation was served, the menu including many choice delicacies, and the affair was widely pronounced to be most enjoyable.'"

Solon's frightened eyes besought me, but I could not help him, and again he was forced to meet the kindly, almost whimsically accusing gaze of the censor, who was by no means done with him.

"Again I read here, 'The graveyard fence needs repairing badly.' Do you not see, Mr. Denney, how far more refined it were to say 'God's acre,' or 'the marbled city of the dead'? I now turn from mere solecisms to the broader question of taste. Under the heading 'Hanged in Carroll County,' I read an item beginning, 'At eight-thirty, A.M., last Friday the soul of Martin G. Buckley, dressed in a neat-fitting suit of black, with a low collar and black cravat, was ushered into the presence of his God.' Pardon me, but do we not find here, if we read closely, an attempt to blend the material with the spiritual with a result that we can only designate as infelicitous?"

Solon was writhing after the manner of uneasy little Roscoe. The bland but inexorable regard of his inquisitor had subdued him beyond retort.

"I might, again, call your attention to this item." And she did, reading with well-trained inflection:—

"'Kye Mayabb from south of town and Sym Pleydell, who rents the Clemison farm, met up in front of Barney Skeyhan's place last Saturday afternoon and started to settle an old grudge, while their respective better halves looked on from across the street. Kye had Sym down and was doing some good work with his right, when his wife called to him, "Now, Kye Mayabb, you come right away from there before you get into trouble." Whereupon the valiant better half of him who was being beaten to death called out cheerily, "Don't let him scare you, Sym!" The boys made it up afterward, but our little street was quite lively for a time.'

"Now as to that," went on Mrs. Potts, affecting to deliberate, "could we not better have described that as 'a disgraceful street brawl'? And yet I find no word of deprecation. It is told, indeed, with a regrettable flippancy. Flippancy, I may note again, mars the following item: 'They tell a good story of old Sarsius Lambert over at Bethel. His wife was drowned a couple of weeks ago, and Link Talbot went to break the news to the old man. "Uncle Sarsh," says Link, "your wife is drowned. She fell in at the ford, and an hour later they found her two miles down-stream." "Two miles an hour!" said Uncle Sarsius, in astonishment. "Well, well, she floated down quite lively, didn't she?"'

"You will pardon me, I trust," said Mrs. Potts, "if I say it would have been better to speak of the grief-stricken husband and to conclude with a fitting sentiment such as 'the proudest monuments to the sleeping dead are reared in the hearts of the living.'"

"I'll put it in next week," ventured Solon, meekly. "I didn't think of it at the time."

"Ah, but one should always think, should one not?" asked Mrs. Potts, almost sweetly. "By thinking, for example, you could elevate your sheet by eliminating certain misapplied colloquialisms. Here I read: 'The rain last week left the streets in a frightful state. The mud simply won't jell.'"

Shame mantled the brow of Solon Denney.

"In short," concluded Mrs. Potts, "I regret to say that your paper is not yet one that I could wish to put into the hands of my little Roscoe."

Little Roscoe coughed sympathetically and remarked, before he lost his chance for a word: "The boy of to-day is the man of to-morrow. Parents cannot be too careful about what their little ones will read during the long winter evenings that will soon be upon us." He coughed again when he had finished.

"The press is a mighty lever of civilization," continued the mother, with an approving glance at her boy, "and you, Mr. Denney, should feel proud indeed of your sacred mission to instruct and elevate these poor people. Of course I shall have other duties to occupy my time—"

Solon had glanced up brightly, but gloom again overspread his face as she continued:—

"Yet I shall make it not the least of my works—if a poor weak woman may so presume—to help you in correcting certain faults of style and taste in your sheet, for it goes each week into many homes where the light must be sorely needed, and surely you and I would not be adequately sensible of our responsibilities if we continued to let it go as it is. Would we?" And again she glowed upon Solon with the condescending sweetness of a Sabbath-school teacher to the littlest boy in her class.

But now we both breathed more freely, for she allowed the wretched Argus to drop from her disapproving fingers, and began to ask us questions, as to a place of worship, a house suitable for residence purposes, a school for little Roscoe, and the nature of those clubs or societies for mental improvement that might exist among us. And she asked about Families. We were obliged to confess that there were no Families in Little Arcady, in the true sense of the term, though we did not divine its true sense until she favored us with the detail that her second cousin had married a relative of the Adams family. We said honestly that we were devoid of Families in that sense. None of us had ever been able to marry an Adams. No Adams with a consenting mind—not even a partial Adams—had ever come among us.

Still, Mrs. Potts wore her distinction gracefully, and was even a little apologetic.

"In Boston, you know, we rather like to know 'who's who,' as the saying is."

"Out here," said Solon, "we like to know what's what." He had revived wonderfully after his beloved Argus was dropped. But at his retort the lady merely elevated her rather fine brows and remarked, "Really, Mr. Denney, you speak much as you write—you must not let me forget to give you that little book I spoke of."

As we went down the stairs Solon placed "One Hundred Common Errors in Speaking and Writing" close under his arm, adroitly shielding the title from public scrutiny. We stood a moment in the autumn silence outside the hotel door, watching a maple across the street, the line of its boughs showing strong and black amid its airy yellow plumage. The still air was full of leaves that sailed to earth in leisurely sadness. We were both thoughtful.

"Mrs. Potts is a very alert and capable woman," I said at last, having decided that this would be the most suitable thing to say.

"I tell you she has powers," said Solon, in a tone almost of awe.

"She will teach you to make something of yourself," I hazarded.

"One minute she makes me want to fight, and the next I surrender," he answered pathetically.

We separated on this, Solon going toward the Argus office with slow steps and bowed head, while I went thoughtfully abroad to ease my nerves by watching the splendid death of summer. Above the hills, now royally colored, as by great rugs of brown and crimson velvet flung over their flanks, I seemed to hear the echoes of ironic laughter—the laughter of perverse gods who had chosen to avenge the slight put upon an inferior Potts.



CHAPTER XI

HOW LITTLE ARCADY WAS UPLIFTED

The winter that followed proved to be a season of unrest for our town. Mrs. Aurelia Potts was a leaven of yeast that fermented its social waters, erstwhile calm, not to say stagnant.

Early in November an evening affair was held in her honor at the Eubanks home. The Eubankses being our leading Presbyterians, and Mrs. Potts having allied herself with that church, it was felt that they were best fitted to give the lady her initial impression of Little Arcady's society. Not only were the three Eubanks girls talented, but the mother was a social leader, Eustace was travelled, having been one of an excursion party to the Holy Land, and the family had relatives living in Philadelphia. None of the girls had married, nor had Eustace. The girls, it was said, had not wished to marry. Eustace had earnestly wished to, it was known; but two of our young women who had successively found favor in his sight had failed to please his mother and sisters, and Eustace was said to be watching and waiting for one upon whom all could agree, though every one but Eustace himself knew this was an utterly hopeless vigil. Meantime the mother and sisters looked up to him, guarding him jealously from corrupting associations, saw that he wore his overshoes when clouds lowered, and knitted him chest protectors, gloves, and pulse warmers which he was not allowed to forget. He taught the Bible Class in the Presbyterian Sabbath school, sang bass in the choir, and, on occasion, gave an excellent entertainment with his magic lantern, with views of the Holy Land, which he explained with a running fire of comment both instructive and entertaining.

The Eubanks home that evening was said by a subsequent Argus to have been "ablaze with lights" and "its handsome and spacious parlors thronged with the elite of the town who had gathered to do honor to the noted guest of the evening."

There first occurred a piano duet, rendered expertly by the two younger Misses Eubanks, "Listen to the Mocking Bird," with some bewildering variations of an imitative value, done by the Miss Eubanks seated at the right.

Then the front parlor was darkened and, after the consequent tittering among the younger set had died away, Eustace threw his pictures upon a hanging sheet and delivered his agreeable lecture about them, beginning with the exciting trip from Jaffa to Jerusalem. Most of those present had enjoyed the privilege of this lecture enough times to know what picture was coming next and what Eustace would say about it. But it was thought graceful now, considering the presence of a stranger, to simulate the expectancy of the uninformed, and to emit little gasps of astonished delight when Eustace would say, "Passing from the city gates, we next come upon a view that is well worthy a moment of our attention."

With the lights up again, a small flask of water from the river Jordan was handed about, to be examined, by those who knew it too well, in the same loyal spirit of curiosity. A guest would hold it reverently a moment, then glance up in search of some one to whom it might be heartily extended.

This over, the elder Miss Eubanks—Marcella of the severe mien—sang interestingly, "I gathered Shells upon the Shore," and for an encore, in response to eager demands, "Comin' thro' the Rye." Not coyly did she give this, with inciting, blushing implications, but rather with an unbending, disapproving sternness, as if with intent to divert the minds of her listeners from the song's frank ribaldry to its purely musical values.

Eustace followed with a solo:—

"Nigh to a grave that was newly made, Leaned a sexton old on his earth-worn spade."

In the very low parts, where the sexton old is required to say, "I gather them in," he was most effective, and many of his more susceptible hearers shuddered. For an encore he sang, "I am the old Turnkey," which goes lower and lower with deliberate steps until it descends to incredible depths of bassness.

It was a rare comfort to the Eubanks ladies that Eustace was a bass instead of a tenor. They had observed that most tenor songs are of a suggestive and meretricious character. Arthur Updyke, for example, who clerked in the city drug store, was a tenor, and nearly all of his songs were distressingly sentimental; indeed, fairly indelicate at times in their lack of reserve about kisses and embraces and sighs and ecstasies. Glad indeed were the guardians of Eustace that his voice had lowered to a salutary depth, and that bass songs in general were pure and innocent,—songs of death, of dungeons, of honest war, or of diving beneath the deep blue sea—down, down, down, as far as the singer's chest tones permitted. With "Euty" a tenor, warbling those pernicious boudoir chansons of moonlight and longing of sighing love and anguished passion, they suspected that he would have been harder to manage. Even as it was, he had once brought home a most dreadful thing called "A Bedouin Love Song," for a bass voice, truly enough, but so fearfully outspoken about matters far better left unmentioned among nice people that the three girls had fled horrified from the room after that first verse:—

"From the desert I come to thee, On a stallion shod with fire, And the wind is left behind In the speed of my desire."

The mother sped to her daughters' appeal for help and required her son to sing "The Lost Chord" as a febrifuge. The other song was confiscated after the mother had read the words so unblushingly penned by an author whom she ever afterward deemed an abandoned profligate. She considered that Bedouins must be unspeakable creatures—but how much lower the mind that could portray their depravity, and send it out into the world for innocent young men to carol in the homes of our best people!

Thereafter Eustace sang only songs that had been censored by his family, and his repertoire was now stainless, containing no song in which a romantic attachment was even hinted at; but only those reciting wholesome adventures, military and marine, pastoral scenes and occupations, or the religious experience of the singer.

In the words of the Argus, "his powerful singing was highly enjoyed by all present."

There followed the feature of the evening,—a paper read by Mrs. Potts; subject, "The Message of Emerson." With an agreeable public manner the lady erected herself at one corner of a square piano, placed her manuscripts under the shaded lamp, and began. The subject, aforetime made known among us, had been talked about and perhaps a little wondered at. It is certain, at least, that Westley Keyts had yielded to the urging of his good wife to be present in the belief that a man named Emerson had sent Mrs. Potts a telegram to be read to us. This was what "the message of Emerson" meant to Westley, and the novelty of it had seemed to justify what he called "togging up," after a hard day's work at the slaughter-house.

If, then, he listened to Mrs. Potts at first with wonder-widening eyes, amazed at Mr. Emerson's recklessness in the matter of telegrams, and if at last he fell into gentle slumber, perhaps it was only that he had been less hardened than others present to the rigors of social nicety. No one else fell asleep, but it was noticed that the guests, when the paper was done, praised it to one another in swift generalities and with averted face, as if they sought to evade specific or pointed inquiry as to its import. But the impression made by the reader was all that she could have wished, and the gathering was presently engrossed with refreshments. The Argus stated that "a dainty collation was served to all present, the menu comprising the choicest delicacies of the season," which I took to mean that Solon was trying to profit by instruction; and that never again would he permit a table in the Argus to groan with its weight of good things.

Westley Keyts, being skilfully awakened without scandal by his wife, drank a cup of strong coffee to clear his brain, and cordially consumed as many segments of cake as he was able to glean from passing trays, speculating comfortably, meanwhile, about the message of Emerson,—chiefly as to why Emerson had not sent it by mail, thus saving—he estimated—at least a hundred and twenty dollars in telegraph tolls.

Mrs. Potts, thus auspiciously launched upon the social sea of Little Arcady, was henceforth to occupy herself prominently with the regulation of its ebb and flow. Already she had organized a "Ladies' Literary and Home Study Club," and had promised to read a paper on "The Lesson of Greek Art" at its first meeting a week hence. As the Argus observed, "it was certainly a gala occasion, and one and all felt that it was indeed good to be there."

In addition to elevating the tone of our intellectual life, however, Mrs. Potts found it necessary to support herself and her son. That she could devise a way to merge these important duties will perhaps be surmised. Comfortably installed in a cottage at the south end of town with her household belongings, including a chair once sat in by the Adams-husband of her heaven-favored second cousin, she lost no time in prosecuting her double mission. The title of the work with which she began her task of uplifting our masses was "Gaskell's Compendium of Forms," a meritorious production of amazing and quite infinite scope, elegantly illustrated. The book weighed five pounds and cost three dollars, which was sixty cents a pound, as Westley Keyts took the trouble to ascertain. But it was indeed a work admirably calculated for a community of diversified interests. While Solon Denney might occupy himself with the "Aid to English Composition," including "common errors corrected, good taste, figures of speech, and sentence building," the Eubanks ladies could further inform themselves upon grave affairs of "The Home and Family,—Life, Health, Happiness, Human Love," etc., or upon more frivolous concerns, such as "Introductions and Salutations, Carriage and Horseback Riding, Croquet, Archery, and Matinee parties, and the Art of Conversation." While Asa Bundy interested himself in "History of Banking, Forms of Notes, Checks and Drafts, Interest and Usury Tables, etc.," Truman Baird, who meant some day to go to Congress, might perfect himself in Parliamentary law and oratory, an exposition of the latter art being illumined by wood-cuts of a bearded and handsome gentleman in evening dress who assumed the various positions of emotion or passion, as, in "Figure 8.—This gesture is used in concession, submission, humility," or, in Figure 9, which diagrams reproach, scorn, and contempt. While Truman sought to copy these attitudes, to place the feet aright for Earnest Appeal or Bold Assertion, or to clasp the hands as directed for Supplication and Earnest Entreaty, the ladies of the Literary and Home Study Club conned the chapter on American literature, "containing choice proverbs and literary selections and quotations from the poets of the old and new worlds." Our merchants found information as to "Jobbing, Importing and Other Business," and our young ladies could observe the correct forms for "Letters of Love and Courtship," "Apology for a Broken Engagement," "French Terms used in Dancing," "Rights of Married Women," "The Necessity and Sweetness of Home," and "Marriage—Happiness or Woe may come of It."