I remember we were fixing the fence around his pasture lot that day when a handsomely dressed gentleman came back in the field. Mr. Wright was chopping at a small spruce.

"Is Senator Wright here?" the stranger inquired of me.

I pointed to the chopper.

"I beg your pardon—I am looking for the distinguished United States Senator," he explained with a smile.

Again I pointed at the man with the ax and said:

"That is the Senator."

Often I have thought of the look of astonishment on the face of the stranger as he said: "Will you have the kindness to tell him that General Macomb would like to speak with him?"

I halted his ax and conveyed the message.

"Is this the hero of Plattsburg?" Mr. Wright asked.

"Well, I have been there," said the General.

They shook hands and went up to the house together.

I walked back to the hills that evening. There I found a letter from Sally. She and her mother, who was in ill health, were spending the summer with relatives at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She wrote of riding and fishing and sailing, but of all that she wrote I think only of these words now:

"I meet many good-looking boys here, but none of them are like you. I wonder if you remember what you said to me that day. If you want to unsay it, you can do it by letter, you know. I think that would be the best way to do it. So don't be afraid of hurting my feelings. Perhaps I would be glad. You don't know. What a long day that was! It seems as if it wasn't over yet. How lucky for me that it was such a beautiful day! You know I have forgotten all about the pain, but I laugh when I think how I looked and how Mr. Latour looked. He laughed a good deal going home, as if thinking of some wonderful joke. In September I am going away to a young ladies' school in Albany. I hate it. Can you imagine why? I am to learn fine manners and French and Spanish and dancing and be good enough for any man's wife. Think of that. Father says that I must marry a big man. Jiminy Crimps! As if a big man wouldn't know better. I am often afraid that you will know too much. I know what will happen when your intellect sees how foolish I am. My grandmother says that I am frivolous and far from God. I am afraid it's true, but sometimes I want to be good—only sometimes. I remember you said, once, that you were going to be like Silas Wright. Honestly I believe that you could. So does mother. I want you to keep trying, but it makes me afraid. Oh, dear! How sad and homesick I feel to-day! Tell me the truth now, when you write."

That evening I wrote my first love-letter—a fairly warm and moving fragment of history. My family have urged me to let it go in the record, but I have firmly refused. There are some things which I can not do even in this little masquerade. It is enough to say that when the day ended I had deliberately chosen two of the many ways that lay before me.



CHAPTER XVI

I USE MY OWN COMPASS AT A FORK IN THE ROAD

Swiftly now I move across the border into manhood—a serious, eager, restless manhood. It was the fashion of the young those days.

I spent a summer of hard work in the fields. Evenings I read the books which Mr. Wright had loaned to me, Blackstone's Commentaries and Greenleaf on Evidence and a translation by Doctor Bowditch of LaPlace's Mecanique Celeste. The latter I read aloud. I mention it because in a way it served as an antidote for that growing sense of expansion in my intellect. In the vastness of infinite space I found the littleness of man and his best accomplishments.

Mr. Wright came up for a day's fishing in July. My uncle and I took him up the river. I remember that after he had landed a big trout he sat down and held the fish up before him and looked proudly at the graceful, glowing, arrowy shape.

"I never did anything in the Senate that seemed half so important as this," he remarked thoughtfully.

While we ate our luncheon he described Jackson and spoke of the famous cheese which he had kept on a table in the vestibule of the White House for his callers. He described his fellow senators—Webster, Clay, Rives, Calhoun and Benton. I remember that Webster was, in his view, the least of them, although at his best the greatest orator. We had a delightful day, and when I drove back to the village with him that night he told me that I could go into the office of Wright and Baldwin after harvesting.

"It will do for a start," he said. "A little later I shall try to find a better place for you."

I began my work taking only the studies at school which would qualify me for surveying. I had not been in Canton a week when I received a rude shock which was my first lesson in the ungentle art of politics. Rodney Barnes and Uncle Peabody were standing with me in front of a store. A man came out with Colonel Hand and said in a loud voice that Sile Wright was a spoilsman and a drunkard—in politics for what he could get out of it.

My uncle turned toward the stranger with a look of amazement. Rodney Barnes dropped the knife with which he had been whittling. I felt my face turning red.

"What's that, mister?" asked Rodney Barnes.

The stranger repeated his statement and added that he could prove it.

"Le's see ye," said Barnes as he approached him.

There was a half moment of silence.

"Go on with yer proof," Rodney insisted, his great right hand trembling as he whittled.

"There are plenty of men in Albany that know the facts," said the stranger.

"Any other proof to offer?"

"That's enough."

"Oh, I see, ye can't prove it to-day, but ye don't mind sayin' it to-day. Say, mister, where do you live?"

"None o' your dam' business."

Swift as a cat's paw the big, right hand of Rodney caught the man by his shoulder and threw him down. Seizing him by the collar and the seat of his trousers our giant friend lifted the slanderer and flung him to the roof of a wooden awning in front of the grocer's shop near which we stood.

"Now you stay there 'til I git cooled off or you'll be hurt," said Rodney. "You better be out o' my reach for a few minutes."

A crowd had begun to gather.

"I want you all to take a look at that man," Rodney shouted. "He says Sile Wright is a drunkard an' a thief."

Loud jeers followed the statement, then a volley of oaths and a moment of danger, for somebody shouted:

"Le's tar an' feather him."

"No, we'll just look at him a few minutes," Rodney Barnes shouted. "He's one o' the greatest curiosities that ever came to this town."

The slanderer, thoroughly frightened, stood silent a few moments like a prisoner in the stocks. Soon the grocer let him in at an upper window.

Then the loud voice of Rodney Barnes rang like a trumpet in the words:

"Any man who says a mean thing of another when he can't prove it ought to be treated in the same way."

"That's so," a number of voices answered.

The slanderer stayed in retirement the rest of the day and the incident passed into history, not without leaving its impression on the people of the two towns.

My life went on with little in it worth recording until the letter came. I speak of it as "the letter," because of its effect upon my career. It was from Sally, and it said:

"DEAR BART—It's all over for a long time, perhaps forever—that will depend on you. I shall be true to you, if you really love me, even if I have to wait many, many years. Mother and father saw and read your letter. They say we are too young to be thinking about love and that we have got to stop it. How can I stop it? I guess I would have to stop living. But we shall have to depend upon our memories now. I hope that yours is as good as mine. Father says no more letters without his permission, and he stamped his foot so hard that I think he must have made a dent in the floor. Talk about slavery—what do you think of that? Mother says that we must wait—that it would make father a great deal of trouble if it were known that I allowed you to write. I guess the soul of old Grimshaw is still following you. Well, we must stretch out that lovely day as far as we can. Its words and its sunshine are always in my heart. I am risking the salvation of my soul in writing this. But I'd rather burn forever than not tell you how happy your letter made me, dear Bart. It is that Grimshaw trouble that is keeping us apart. On the third of June, 1844, we shall both be twenty-one—and I suppose that we can do as we please then. The day is a long way off, but I will agree to meet you that day at eleven in the morning under the old pine on the river where I met you that day and you told me that you loved me. If either or both should die our souls will know where to find each other. If you will solemnly promise, write these words and only these to my mother—Amour omnia vincit, but do not sign your name.

"SALLY."

What a serious matter it seemed to me then! I remember that it gave Time a rather slow foot. I wrote the words very neatly and plainly on a sheet of paper and mailed it to Mrs. Dunkelberg. I wondered if Sally would stand firm and longed to know the secrets of the future. More than ever I was resolved to be the principal witness in some great matter, as my friend in Ashery Lane had put it.

I was eight months with Wright and Baldwin when I was offered a clerkship in the office of Judge Westbrook, at Cobleskill, in Schoharie County, at two hundred a year and my board. I knew not then just how the offer had come, but knew that the Senator must have recommended me. I know now that he wanted a reliable witness of the rent troubles which were growing acute in Schoharie, Delaware and Columbia Counties.

It was a trial to go so far from home, as Aunt Deel put it, but both my aunt and uncle agreed that it was "for the best."

"Mr. Purvis" had come to work for my uncle. In the midst of my preparations the man of gristle decided that he would like to go with me and see the world and try his fortune in another part of the country.

How it wrung my heart, when Mr. Purvis and I got into the stage at Canton, to see my aunt and uncle standing by the front wheel looking up at me. How old and lonely and forlorn they looked! Aunt Deel had her purse in her hand. I remember how she took a dollar bill out of it—I suppose it was the only dollar she had—and looked at it a moment and then handed it up to me.

"You better take it," she said. "I'm 'fraid you won't have enough."

How her hand and lips trembled! I have always kept that dollar.

I couldn't see them as we drove away.

I enjoyed the ride and the taverns and the talk of the passengers and the steamboat journey through the two lakes and down the river, but behind it all was a dark background. The shadows of my beloved friends fell every day upon my joys. However, I would be nearer Sally. It was a comfort when we were in Albany to reflect that she was somewhere in that noisy, bewildering spread of streets and buildings. I walked a few blocks from the landing, taking careful note of my way—mentally blazing a trail for fear of getting lost—and looked wistfully up a long street. There were many people, but no Sally.

The judge received me kindly and gave Purvis a job in his garden. I was able to take his dictation in sound-hand and spent most of my time in taking down contracts and correspondence and drafting them into proper form, which I had the knack of doing rather neatly. I was impressed by the immensity of certain towns in the neighborhood, and there were some temptations in my way. Many people, and especially the prominent men, indulged in ardent spirits.

One of my young friends induced me to go to dinner with him at Van Brocklin's, the fashionable restaurant of a near city. We had a bottle of wine and some adventures and I was sick for a week after it. Every day of that week I attended a convention of my ancestors and received much good advice. Toward the end of it my friend came to see me.

"There's no use of my trying to be a gentleman," I said. "I fear that another effort would hang my pelt on the door. It's a disgrace, probably, but I've got to be good. I'm driven to it."

"The way I look at it is this," said he. "We're young fellows and making a good deal of money and we can't tell when we'll die and leave a lot that we'll never get any good of."

It was a down-country, aristocratic view of the responsibilities of youth and quite new to me. Caligula was worried in a like manner, I believe. We had near us there a little section of the old world which was trying, in a half-hearted fashion, to maintain itself in the midst of a democracy. It was the manorial life of the patroons—a relic of ancient feudalism which had its beginning in 1629, when The West Indies Company issued its charter of Privileges and Exemptions. That charter offered to any member of the company who should, within four years, bring fifty adults to the New Netherlands and establish them along the Hudson, a liberal grant of land, to be called a manor, of which the owner or patroon should be full proprietor and chief magistrate. The settlers were to be exempt from taxation for ten years, but under bond to stay in one place and develop it. In the beginning the patroon built houses and barns and furnished cattle, seed and tools. The tenants for themselves and their heirs agreed to pay him a fixed rent forever in stock and produce and, further, to grind at the owner's mill and neither to hunt nor fish.

Judge Westbrook, in whose office I worked, was counsel and collector for the patroons, notably for the manors of Livingston and Van Renssalaer—two little kingdoms in the heart of the great republic.

I spent two years at my work and studied in the office of the learned judge with an ever-present but diminishing sense of homesickness. I belonged to the bowling and athletic club and had many friends.

Mr. Louis Latour, of Jefferson County, whom I had met in the company of Mr. Dunkelberg, came during my last year there to study law in the office of the judge, a privilege for which he was indebted to the influence of Senator Wright, I understood. He was a gay Lothario, always boasting of his love affairs, and I had little to do with him.

One day in May near the end of my two years in Cobleskill Judge Westbrook gave me two writs to serve on settlers in the neighborhood of Baldwin Heights for non-payment of rent. He told me what I knew, that there was bitter feeling against the patroons in that vicinity and that I might encounter opposition to the service of the writs. If so I was not to press the matter, but bring them back and he would give them to the sheriff.

"I do not insist on your taking this task upon you," he added. "I want a man of tact to go and talk with these people and get their point of view. If you don't care to undertake it I'll send another man."

"I think that I would enjoy the task," I said in ignorance of that hornet's nest back in the hills.

"Take Purvis with you," he said. "He can take care of the horses, and as those back-country folk are a little lawless it will be just as well to have a witness with you. They tell me that Purvis is a man of nerve and vigor."

Thus very deftly and without alarming me he had given me a notion of the delicate nature of my task. He had great faith in me those days. Well, I had had remarkably good luck with every matter he had put into my hands. He used to say that I would make a diplomat and playfully called me "Lord Chesterfield"—perhaps because I had unconsciously acquired a dignity and courtesy of manner beyond my years a little.

"Mr. Purvis" had been busy building up a conversational reputation for frightfulness in the gardens. He was held in awe by a number of the simple-minded men with whom he worked. For him life had grown very pleasant again—a sweet, uninterrupted dream of physical power and fleeing enemies. I tremble to think what might have happened if his strength and courage had equaled his ambition. I smiled when the judge spoke of his nerve and vigor. Still I was glad of his company, for I enjoyed Purvis.

I had drafted my letters for the day and was about to close my desk and start on my journey when Louis Latour came in and announced that he had brought the writs from the judge and was going with me.

"You will need a sheriff's deputy anyhow, and I have been appointed for just this kind of work," he assured me.

"I don't object to your going but you must remember that I am in command," I said, a little taken back, for I had no good opinion either of his prudence or his company.

He was four years older than I but I had better judgment, poor as it was, and our chief knew it.

"The judge told me that I could go but that I should be under your orders," he answered. "I'm not going to be a fool. I'm trying to establish a reputation for good sense myself."

We got our dinners and set out soon after one o'clock. Louis wore a green velvet riding coat and handsome top boots and snug-fitting, gray trousers. He was a gallant figure on the high-headed chestnut mare which his father had sent to him. Purvis and I, in our working suits, were like a pair of orderlies following a general. We rode two of the best saddle horses in the judge's stable and there were no better in that region.

I had read the deeds of the men we were to visit. They were brothers and lived on adjoining farms with leases which covered three hundred and fifty acres of land. Their great-grandfather had agreed to pay a yearly rent forever of sixty-two bushels of good, sweet, merchantable, winter wheat, eight yearling cattle and four sheep in good flesh and sixteen fat hens, all to be delivered in the city of Albany on the first day of January of each year. So, feeling that I was engaged in a just cause, I bravely determined to serve the writs if possible.

It was a delightful ride up into the highlands through woods just turning green. Full flowing noisy brooks cut the road here and there on their way to the great river. Latour rode along beside me for a few miles and began to tell of his sentimental adventures and conquests. His talk showed that he had the heart of a stone. It made me hate him and the more because he had told of meeting Sally on the street in Albany and that he was in love with her. It was while he was telling me how he had once fooled a country girl that I balked. He thought it a fine joke, for his father had cut his allowance two hundred a year so that the sum they had had to pay in damages had kept his nose "on the grindstone" for two years. Then I stopped my horse with an exclamation which would have astonished Lord Chesterfield, I am sure.

The young man drew rein and asked:

"What's the matter?"

"Only this. I shall have to try to lick you before we go any further."

"How's that?"

I dismounted and tightened the girth of my saddle. My spirit was taking swift counsel with itself at the brink of the precipice. It was then that I seemed to see the angry face of old Kate—the Silent Woman—at my elbow, and it counseled me to speak out. Again her spirit was leading me. Calmly and slowly these words came from my lips:

"Because I think you are a low-lived, dirty-souled dog of a man and if you can stand that without fighting you are a coward to boot."

This was not the language of diplomacy but at the time it seemed to me rather kind and flattering.

Latour flashed red and jumped off his horse and struck at me with his crop. I caught it in my hand and said:

"Hold on. Let's proceed decently and in order. Purvis, you hold these horses while we fight it out."

Purvis caught Latour's horse and brought the others close to mine and gathered the reins in his hand. I shall never forget how pale he looked and how fast he was breathing and how his hands trembled.

I jumped off and ran for my man. He faced me bravely. I landed a stunning blow squarely on his nose and he fell to the ground. Long before, Hacket had told me that a swift attack was half the battle and I have found it so more than once, for I have never been slow to fight for a woman's honor or a friend's or my own—never, thank God! Latour lay so quietly for a moment that I was frightened. His face was covered with blood. He came to and I helped him up and he rushed at me like a tiger. I remember that we had a long round then with our fists. I knew how to take care of my face and stomach and that I did while he wore himself out in wild blows and desperate lunges.

We had dismounted near the end of a bridge. He fought me to the middle of it and when his speed slackened I took the offensive and with such energy that he clinched. I threw him on the planks and we went down together, he under me, in a fall so violent that it shook the bridge and knocked the breath out of him. This seemed to convince Latour that I was his master. His distress passed quickly and he got up and began brushing the dust from his pretty riding coat and trousers. I saw that he was winded and in no condition to resume the contest.

I felt as fresh as if I had mowed only once around the field, to quote a saying of my uncle.

"We'll have to fight it out some other day," he said. "I'm weak from the loss of blood. My nose feels as if it was turned wrong side out."

"It ought to be used to the grindstone after two years of practise," I remarked. "Come down to the brook and let me wash the blood off you."

Without a word he followed me and I washed his face as gently as I could and did my best to clean his shirt and waistcoat with my handkerchief. His nose was badly swollen.

"Latour, women have been good to me," I said. "I've been taught to think that a man who treats them badly is the basest of all men. I can't help it. The feeling has gone into my bones. I'll fight you as often as I hear you talk as you did."

He reeled with weakness as he started toward his horse. I helped him into the saddle.

"I guess I'm not as bad as I talk," he remarked.

If it were so he must have revised his view of that distinction which he had been lying to achieve. It was a curious type of vanity quite new to me then.

Young Mr. Latour fell behind me as we rode on. The silence was broken presently by "Mr. Purvis," who said:

"You can hit like the hind leg of a horse. I never sees more speed an' gristle in a feller o' your age."

"Nobody could swing the scythe and the ax as much as I have without getting some gristle, and the schoolmaster taught me how to use it," I answered. "But there's one thing that no man ought to be conceited about."

"What's that?"

"His own gristle. I remember Mr. Hacket told me once that the worst kind of a fool was the man who was conceited over his fighting power and liked to talk about it. If I ever get that way I hope that I shall have it licked out of me."

"I never git conceited—not that I ain't some reason to be," said Mr. Purvis with a highly serious countenance. He seemed to have been blind to that disparity between his acts and sayings which had distinguished him in Lickitysplit.

I turned my head away to hide my smiles and we rode on in silence.

"I guess I've got somethin' here that is cocollated to please ye," he said.

He took a letter from his pocket and gave it to me. My heart beat faster when I observed that the superscription on the envelope was in Sally's handwriting. The letter, which bore neither signature nor date line, contained these words:

"Will you please show this to Mr. Barton Baynes? I hope it will convince him that there is one who still thinks of the days of the past and of the days that are coming—especially one day."

Tears dimmed my eyes as I read and re-read the message. More than two of those four years had passed and, as the weeks had dragged along I had thought more and more of Sally and the day that was coming. I had bought a suit of evening clothes and learned to dance and gone out to parties and met many beautiful young ladies but none of them had the charm of Sally. The memory of youth—true-hearted, romantic, wonder-working youth—had enthroned her in its golden castle and was defending her against the present commonplace herd of mere human beings. No one of them had played with me in the old garden or stood by the wheat-field with flying hair, as yellow as the grain, and delighted me with the sweetest words ever spoken. No one of them had been glorified with the light and color of a thousand dreams.

I rode in silence, thinking of her and of those beautiful days now receding into the past and of my aunt and uncle. I had written a letter to them every week and one or the other had answered it. Between the lines I had detected the note of loneliness. They had told me the small news of the countryside. How narrow and monotonous it all seemed to me then! Rodney Barnes had bought a new farm; John Axtell had been hurt in a runaway; my white mare had got a spavin!

"Hello, mister!"

I started out of my reverie with a little jump of surprise. A big, rough-dressed, bearded man stood in the middle of the road with a gun on his shoulder.

"Where ye goin'?"

"Up to the Van Heusen place."

"Where do ye hail from?"

"Cobleskill."

"On business for Judge Westbrook?"

"Yes."

"Writs to serve?"

"Yes," I answered with no thought of my imprudence.

"Say, young man, by hokey nettie! I advise you to turn right around and go back."

"Why?"

"'Cause if ye try to serve any writs ye'll git into trouble."

"That's interesting," I answered. "I am not seeking a quarrel, but I do want to see how the people feel about the payment of their rents."

"Say mister, look down into that valley there," the stranger began. "See all them houses—they're the little houses o' the poor. See how smooth the land is? Who built them houses? Who cleaned that land? Was it Mr. Livingston? By hokey nettie! I guess not. The men who live there built the houses an' cleaned the land. We ain't got nothin' else—not a dollar! It's all gone to the landlord. I am for the men who made every rod o' that land an' who own not a single rod of it. Years an' years ago a king gave it to a man who never cut one tree or laid one stone on another. The deeds say that we must pay a rent o' so many bushels o' wheat a year but the land is no good for wheat, an' ain't been for a hundred years. Why, ye see, mister, a good many things have happened in three hundred years. The land was willin' to give wheat then an' a good many folks was willin' to be slaves. By hokey nettie! they had got used to it. Kings an' magistrates an' slavery didn't look so bad to 'em as they do now. Our brains have changed—that's what's the matter—same as the soil has changed. We want to be free like other folks in this country. America has growed up around us but here we are livin' back in old Holland three hundred years ago. It don't set good. We see lots o' people that don't have to be slaves. They own their land an' they ain't worked any harder than we have or been any more savin'. That's why I say we can't pay the rents no more an' ye mustn't try to make us. By hokey nettie! You'll have trouble if ye do."

The truth had flashed upon me out of the words of this simple man. Until then I had heard only one side of the case. If I were to be the servant of justice, as Mr. Wright had advised, what was I to do? These tenants had been Grimshawed and were being Grimshawed out of the just fruits of their toil by the feudal chief whose remote ancestor had been a king's favorite. For half a moment I watched the wavering needle of my compass and then:

"If what you say is true I think you are right," I said.

"I don't agree with you," said young Latour. "The patroons have a clear title to this land. If the tenants don't want to pay the rents they ought to get out and make way for others."

"Look here, young man, my name is Josiah Curtis," said the stranger. "I live in the first house on the right-hand side o' the road. You may tell the judge that I won't pay rent no more—not as long as I live—and I won't git out, either."

"Mr. Latour, you and Purvis may go on slowly—I'll overtake you soon," I said.

They went on and left me alone with Curtis. He was getting excited and I wished to allay his fears.

"Don't let him try to serve no writs or there'll be hell to pay in this valley," said Curtis.

"In that case I shall not try to serve the writs. I don't want to stir up the neighborhood, but I want to know the facts. I shall try to see other tenants and report what they say. It may lead to a settlement."

We went on together to the top of the hill near which we had been standing. Far ahead I saw a cloud of dust but no other sign of Latour and Purvis. They must have spurred their horses into a run. The fear came to me that Latour would try to serve the writs in spite of me. They were in his pocket. What a fool I had been not to call for them. My companion saw the look of concern in my face.

"I don't like that young feller," said Curtis. "He's in fer trouble."

He ran toward his house, which was only a few rods beyond us, while I started on in pursuit of the two men at top speed. Before my horse had taken a dozen jumps I heard a horn blowing behind me and its echo in the hills. Within a half a moment a dozen horns were sounding in the valleys around me. What a contrast to the quiet in which we had been riding was this pandemonium which had broken loose in the countryside. A little ahead I could see men running out of the fields. My horse had begun to lather, for the sun was hot. My companions were far ahead. I could not see the dust of their heels now. I gave up trying to catch them and checked the speed of my horse and went on at a walk. The horns were still sounding. Some of them seemed to be miles away. About twenty rods ahead I saw three riders in strange costumes come out of a dooryard and take the road at a wild gallop in pursuit of Latour and Purvis. They had not discovered me. I kept as calm as I could in the midst of this excitement. I remember laughing when I thought of the mess in which "Mr. Purvis" would shortly find himself.

I passed the house from which the three riders had just turned into the road. A number of women and an old man and three or four children stood on the porch. They looked at me in silence as I was passing and then began to hiss and jeer. It gave me a feeling I have never known since that day. I jogged along over the brow of a hill when, at a white, frame house, I saw the center toward which all the men of the countryside were coming.

Suddenly I heard the hoof-beats of a horse behind me. I stopped, and looking over my shoulder saw a rider approaching me in the costume of an Indian chief. A red mask covered his face. A crest of eagle feathers circled the edge of his cap. Without a word he rode on at my side. I knew not then that he was the man Josiah Curtis—nor could I at any time have sworn that it was he.

A crowd had assembled around the house ahead. I could see a string of horsemen coming toward it from the other side. I wondered what was going to happen to me. What a shouting and jeering in the crowded dooryard! I could see the smoke of a fire. We reached the gate. Men in Indian masks and costumes gathered around us.

"Order! Sh-sh-sh," was the loud command of the man beside me in whom I recognized—or thought that I did—the voice of Josiah Curtis.

"What has happened?"

"One o' them tried to serve a writ an' we have tarred an' feathered him."

Just then I heard the voice of Purvis shouting back in the crowd this impassioned plea:

"Bart, for God's sake, come here."

I turned to Curtis and said:

"If the gentleman tried to serve the writ he acted without orders and deserves what he has got. The other fellow is simply a hired man who came along to take care of the horses. He couldn't tell the difference between a writ and a hole in the ground."

"Men, you have gone fur enough," said Curtis. "This man is all right. Bring the other men here and put 'em on their horses an' I'll escort 'em out o' the town."

They brought Latour on a rail amidst roars of laughter. What a bear-like, poultrified, be-poodled object he was!—burred and sheathed in rumpled gray feathers from his hair to his heels. The sight and smell of him scared the horses. There were tufts of feathers over his ears and on his chin. They had found great joy in spoiling that aristocratic livery in which he had arrived.

Then came poor Purvis. They had just begun to apply the tar and feathers to him when Curtis had stopped the process. He had only a shaking ruff of long feathers around his neck. They lifted the runaways into their saddles. Purvis started off at a gallop, shouting "Come on, Bart," but they stopped him.

"Don't be in a hurry, young feller," said one of the Indians, and then there was another roar of laughter.

"Go back to yer work now," Curtis shouted, and turning to me added: "You ride along with me and let our feathered friends follow us."

So we started up the road on our way back to Cobleskill. Soon Latour began to complain that he was hot and the feathers pricked him.

"You come alongside me here an' raise up a little an' I'll pick the inside o' yer legs an' pull out yer tail feathers," said Curtis. "If you got 'em stuck into yer skin you'd be a reg'lar chicken an' no mistake."

I helped in the process and got my fingers badly tarred.

"This is a dangerous man to touch—his soul is tarred," said Curtis. "Keep away from him."

"What a lookin' skunk you be!" he laughed as he went on with the picking.

We resumed our journey. Our guide left us at the town line some three miles beyond.

"Thank God the danger is over," said Purvis. "The tar on my neck has melted an' run down an' my shirt sticks like the bark on a tree. I'm sick o' the smell o' myself. If I could find a skunk I'd enjoy holdin' him in my lap a while. I'm goin' back to St. Lawrence County about as straight as I can go. I never did like this country anyway."

He had picked the feathers out of his neck and Latour was now busy picking his arms and shoulders. Presently he took off his feathered coat and threw it away, saying:

"They'll have to pay for this. Every one o' those jackrabbits will have to settle with me."

"You brought it on yourself," I said. "You ran away from me and got us all into trouble by being too smart. You tried to be a fool and succeeded beyond your expectation. My testimony wouldn't help you any."

"You're always against the capitalist," he answered.

It was dark when I left my companions in Cobleskill. I changed my clothes and had my supper and found Judge Westbrook in his home and reported the talk of Curtis and our adventure and my view of the situation back in the hills. I observed that he gave the latter a cold welcome.

"I shall send the sheriff and a posse," he said with a troubled look.

"Pardon me, but I think it will make a bad matter worse," I answered.

"We must not forget that the patroons are our clients," he remarked.

I yielded and went on with my work. In the next week or so I satisfied myself of the rectitude of my opinions. Then came the most critical point in my history—a conflict with Thrift and Fear on one side and Conscience on the other.

The judge raised my salary. I wanted the money, but every day I would have to lend my help, directly or indirectly, to the prosecution of claims which I could not believe to be just. My heart went out of my work. I began to fear myself. For weeks I had not the courage to take issue with the learned judge.

One evening I went to his home determined to put an end to my unhappiness. After a little talk I told him frankly that I thought the patroons should seek a friendly settlement with their tenants.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because their position is unjust, un-American and untenable," was my answer.

He rose and gave me his hand and a smile of forbearance in consideration of my youth, as I took it.

I left much irritated and spent a sleepless night in the course of which I decided to cling to the ideals of David Hoffman and Silas Wright.

In the morning I resigned my place and asked to be relieved as soon as the convenience of the judge would allow it. He tried to keep me with gentle persuasion and higher pay, but I was firm. Then I wrote a long letter to my friend the Senator.

Again I had chosen my way and with due regard to the compass.



CHAPTER XVII

THE MAN WITH THE SCYTHE

It was late in June before I was able to disengage myself from the work of the judge's office. Meanwhile there had been blood shed back in the hills. One of the sheriff's posse had been severely wounded by a bullet and had failed to serve the writs. The judge had appealed to the governor. People were talking of "the rent war."

Purvis had returned to St. Lawrence County and hired to my uncle for the haying. He had sent me a letter which contained the welcome information that the day he left the stage at Canton, he had seen Miss Dunkelberg on the street.

"She was lookin' top-notch—stop't and spoke to me," he went on. "You cood a nocked me down with a fether I was that scairt. She ast me how you was an' I lookt her plum in the eye an' I says: all grissul from his head to his heels, mam, an' able to lick Lew Latour, which I seen him do in quick time an' tolable severe. He can fight like a bob-tailed cat when he gits a-goin', I says."

What a recommendation to the sweet, unsullied spirit of Sally! Without knowledge of my provocation what would she think of me? He had endowed me with all the frightfulness of his own cherished ideal, and what was I to do about it? Well, I was going home and would try to see her.

What a joy entered my heart when I was aboard the steamboat, at last, and on my way to all most dear to me! As I entered Lake Champlain I consulted the map and decided to leave the boat at Chimney Point to find Kate Fullerton, who had written to the schoolmaster from Canterbury. My aunt had said in a letter that old Kate was living there and that a great change had come over her. So I went ashore and hired a horse of the ferryman—one of those "Green Mountain ponies" of which my uncle had told me: "They'll take any gait that suits ye, except a slow one, an' keep it to the end o' the road."

I think that I never had a horse so bent on reaching that traditional "end of the road." He was what they called a "racker" those days, and a rocking-chair was not easier to ride. He took me swiftly across the wide flat and over the hills and seemed to resent my effort to slow him.

I passed through Middlebury and rode into the grounds of the college, where the Senator had been educated, and on out to Weybridge to see where he had lived as a boy. I found the Wright homestead—a comfortable white house at the head of a beautiful valley with wooded hills behind it—and rode up to the door. A white-haired old lady in a black lace cap was sitting on its porch looking out at the sunlit fields.

"Is this where Senator Wright lived when he was a boy?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," the old lady answered.

"I am from Canton."

She rose from her chair.

"You from Canton!" she exclaimed. "Why, of all things! That's where my boy's home is. I'm glad to see you. Go an' put your horse in the barn."

I dismounted and she came near me.

"Silas Wright is my boy," she said. "What is your name?"

"Barton Baynes," I answered as I hitched my horse.

"Barton Baynes! Why, Silas has told me all about you in his letters. He writes to me every week. Come and sit down."

We sat down together on the porch.

"Silas wrote in his last letter that you were going to leave your place in Cobleskill," she continued to my surprise. "He said that he was glad you had decided not to stay."

It was joyful news to me, for the Senator's silence had worried me and I had begun to think with alarm of my future.

"I wish that he would take you to Washington to help him. The poor man has too much to do."

"I should think it a great privilege to go," I answered.

"My boy likes you," she went on. "You have been brought up just as he was. I used to read to him every evening when the candles were lit. How hard he worked to make a man of himself! I have known the mother's joy. I can truly say, 'Now let thy servant depart in peace.'"

"'For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,'" I quoted.

"You see I know much about you and much about your aunt and uncle," said Mrs. Wright.

She left me for a moment and soon the whole household was gathered about me on the porch, the men having come up from the fields. The Senator had told them on his last visit of my proficiency as a sound-hand writer and I amused them by explaining the art of it. They put my horse in the barn and pressed me to stay for dinner, which I did. It was a plain boiled dinner at which the Senator's cousin and his hired man sat down in their shirt-sleeves and during which I heard many stories of the boyhood of the great man. As I was going the gentle old lady gave me a pair of mittens which her distinguished son had worn during his last winter in college. I remember well how tenderly she handled them!

"I hope that Silas will get you to help him"—those were the last words she said to me when I bade her good-by.

The visit had set me up a good deal. The knowledge that I had been so much in the Senator's thoughts, and that he approved my decision to leave the learned judge, gave me new heart. I had never cherished the thought that he would take me to Washington although, now and then, a faint star of hope had shone above the capitol in my dreams. As I rode along I imagined myself in that great arena and sitting where I could see the flash of its swords and hear the thunder of Homeric voices. That is the way I thought of it. Well, those were no weak, piping times of peace, my brothers. They were times of battle and as I rode through that peaceful summer afternoon I mapped my way to the fighting line. I knew that I should enjoy the practise of the law but I had begun to feel that eventually my client would be the people whose rights were subject to constant aggression as open as that of the patroons or as insidious as that of the canal ring.

The shadows were long when I got to Canterbury. At the head of its main street I looked down upon a village green and some fine old elms. It was a singularly quiet place. I stopped in front of a big white meeting house. An old man was mowing in its graveyard near the highway. Slowly he swung his scythe.

"It's a fine day," I said.

"No, it ain't, nuther-too much hard work in it," said he.

"Do you know where Kate Fullerton lives?" I asked.

"Well, it's purty likely that I do," he answered as he stood resting on his snath. "I've lived seventy-two years on this hill come the fourteenth day o' June, an' if I didn't know where she lived I'd be 'shamed of it."

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and added:

"I know everybody that lives here an' everybody that dies here, an' some that orto be livin' but ain't an' some that orto be dead which ye couldn't kill 'em with an ax—don't seem so—I declare it don't. Do ye see that big house down there in the trees?"

I could see the place at which he pointed far back from the village street in the valley below us, the house nearly hidden by tall evergreens.

"Yes," I answered.

"No ye can't, nuther—leastways if ye can ye've got better eyes'n mos' people, ye can't see only a patch o' the roof an' one chimney—them pine trees bein' thicker'n the hair on a dog. It's the gloomiest ol' house in all creation, I guess. Wal, that's the Squire Fullerton place—he's Kate's father."

"Does the squire live there?"

"No, sir—not eggzac'ly. He's dyin' there—been dyin' there fer two year er more. By gosh! It's wonderful how hard 'tis fer some folks to quit breathin'. Say, be you any o' his fam'ly?"

"No."

"Nor no friend o' his?"

"No!"

"Course not. He never had a friend in his life—too mean! He's too mean to die, mister—too mean fer hell an' I wouldn't wonder—honest, I wouldn't—mebbe that's why God is keepin' him here—jest to meller him up a little. Say, mister, be you in a hurry?"

"No."

"Yis ye be. Everybody's in a hurry—seems to me—since we got steam power in the country. Say, hitch yer hoss an' come in here. I want to show ye suthin'."

He seemed to enjoy contradicting me.

"Nobody seems in a hurry in this town," I said.

"Don't, hey? Wal, ye ought to 'a' seen Deacon Norton run when some punkins on his side hill bu'st their vines an' come rollin' down an' chased him half a mile into the valley."

I dismounted and hitched my horse to the fence and followed him into the old churchyard, between weather-stained mossy headstones and graves overgrown with wild roses. Near the far end of these thick-sown acres he stopped.

"Here's where the buryin' begun," said my guide. "The first hole in the hill was dug for a Fullerton."

There were many small monuments and slabs of marble—some spotted with lichens and all in commemoration of departed Fullertons.

"Say, look a' that," said my guide as he pulled aside the stem of a leafy brier red with roses. "Jest read that, mister."

My keen eyes slowly spelled out the time-worn words on a slab of stained marble:

Sacred to the memory of Katherine Fullerton 1787-1806 "Proclaim his Word in every place That they are dead who fall from grace."

A dark shadow fell upon the house of my soul and I heard a loud rapping at its door which confused me until, looking out, I saw the strange truth of the matter. Rose leaves and blossoms seemed to be trying to hide it with their beauty, but in vain.

"I understand," I said.

"No ye don't. Leastways I don't believe ye do—not correct. Squire Fullerton dug a grave here an' had an empty coffin put into it away back in 1806. It means that he wanted everybody to understan' that his girl was jest the same as dead to him an' to God. Say, he knew all about God's wishes—that man. Gosh! He has sent more folks to hell than there are in it, I guess. Say, mister, do ye know why he sent her there?"

I shook my head.

"Yis ye do, too. It's the same ol' thing that's been sendin' women to hell ever since the world begun. Ye know hell must 'a' been the invention of a man—that's sartin—an' it was mostly fer women an' children—that's sartiner—an' fer all the men that didn't agree with him. Set down here an' I'll tell ye the hull story. My day's work is done."

We sat down together and he went on as follows:

"Did ye ever see Kate Fullerton?"

"Yes."

"No ye didn't, nuther. Yer too young. Mebbe ye seen her when she was old an' broke down but that wa'n't Kate—no more'n I'm Bill Tweedy, which I ain't. Kate was as handsome as a golden robin. Hair yeller as his breast an' feet as spry as his wings an' a voice as sweet as his song, an' eyes as bright as his'n—yis, sir—ye couldn't beat her fer looks. That was years and years ago. Her mother died when Kate was ten year old—there's her grave in there with the sickle an' the sheaf an' the portry on it. That was unfort'nit an' no mistake. Course the squire married ag'in but the new wife wa'n't no kind of a mother to the girl an' you know, mister, there was a young scoundrel here by the name o' Grimshaw. His father was a rich man—owned the cooper shop an' the saw-mill an' the tannery an' a lot o' cleared land down in the valley. He kep' comp'ny with her fer two or three year. Then all of a sudden folks began to talk—the women in partic'lar. Ye know men invented hell an' women keep up the fire. Kate didn't look right to 'em. Fust we knew, young Grimshaw had dropped her an' was keepin' comp'ny with another gal—yis, sir. Do ye know why?"

Before I could answer he went on:

"No ye don't—leastways I don't believe ye do. It was 'cause her father was richer'n the squire an' had promised his gal ten thousan' dollars the day she was married. All of a sudden Kate disappeared. We didn't know what had happened fer a long time."

"One day the ol' squire got me to dig this grave an' put up the headstun an' then he tol' me the story. He'd turned the poor gal out o' doors. God o' Israel! It was in the night—yis, sir—it was in the night that he sent her away. Goldarn him! He didn't have no more heart than a grasshopper—no sir—not a bit. I could 'a' brained him with my shovel, but I didn't.

"I found out where the gal had gone an' I follered her—yis I did—found her in the poorhouse way over on Pussley Hill—uh huh! She jes' put her arms 'round my neck an' cried an' cried. I guess 'twas 'cause I looked kind o' friendly—uh huh! I tol' her she should come right over to our house an' stay jest as long as she wanted to as soon as she got well—yis, sir, I did.

"She was sick all summer long—kind o' out o' her head, ye know, an' I used to go over hossback an' take things fer her to eat. An' one day when I was over there they was wonderin' what they was goin' to do with her little baby. I took it in my arms an' I'll be gol dummed if it didn't grab hold o' my nose an' hang on like a puppy to a root. When they tried to take it away it grabbed its fingers into my whiskers an' hollered like a panther—yis, sir. Wal, ye know I jes' fetched that little baby boy home in my arms, ay uh! My wife scolded me like Sam Hill—yis, sir—she had five of her own. I tol' her I was goin' to take it back in a day er two but after it had been in the house three days ye couldn't 'a' pulled it away from her with a windlass.

"We brought him up an' he was alwuss a good boy. We called him Enoch—Enoch Rone—did ye ever hear the name?"

"'No.'

"I didn't think 'twas likely but I'm alwuss hopin'.

"Early that fall Kate got better an' left the poorhouse afoot. Went away somewheres—nobody knew where. Some said she'd crossed the lake an' gone away over into York State, some said she'd drowned herself. By'm by we heard that she'd gone way over into St. Lawrence County where Silas Wright lives an' where young Grimshaw had settled down after he got married.

"Wal, 'bout five year ago the squire buried his second wife—there 'tis over in there back o' Kate's with the little speckled angel on it. Nobody had seen the squire outside o' his house for years until the funeral—he was crippled so with rheumatiz. After that he lived all 'lone in the big house with ol' Tom Linney an' his wife, who've worked there fer 'bout forty year, I guess.

"Wal, sir, fust we knew Kate was there in the house livin' with her father. We wouldn't 'a' knowed it, then, if it hadn't been that Tom Linney come over one day an' said he guessed the ol' squire wanted to see me—no, sir, we wouldn't—fer the squire ain't sociable an' the neighbors never darken his door. She must 'a' come in the night, jest as she went—nobody see her go an' nobody see her come, an' that's a fact. Wal, one day las' fall after the leaves was off an' they could see a corner o' my house through the bushes, Tom was walkin' the ol' man 'round the room. All to once he stopped an' p'inted at my house through the winder an' kep' p'intin'. Tom come over an' said he ca'llated the squire wanted to see me. So I went there. Kate met me at the door. Gosh! How old an' kind o' broke down she looked! But I knew her the minute I set my eyes on her—uh huh—an' she knew me—yis, sir—she smiled an' tears come to her eyes an' she patted my hand like she wanted to tell me that she hadn't forgot, but she never said a word—not a word. The ol' squire had the palsy, so 't he couldn't use his hands an' his throat was paralyzed—couldn't speak ner nothin'. Where do ye suppose he was when I found him?"

"In bed?" I asked.

"No, sir—no, siree! He was in hell—that's where he was—reg'lar ol' fashioned, down-east hell, burnin' with fire an' brimstun, that he'd had the agency for an' had recommended to every sinner in the neighborhood. He was settin' in his room. God o' Isr'el! You orto 'a' seen the motions he made with his hands an' the way he tried to speak when I went in there, but all I could hear was jest a long yell an' a kind of a rattle in his throat. Heavens an' airth! how desperit he tried to spit out the thing that was gnawin' his vitals. Ag'in an' ag'in he'd try to tell me. Lord God! how he did work!

"All to once it come acrost me what he wanted—quick as ye could say scat. He wanted to have Kate's headstun took down an' put away—that's what he wanted. That stun was kind o' layin' on his stummick an' painin' of him day an' night. He couldn't stan' it. He knew that he was goin' to die purty soon an' that Kate would come here an' see it an' that everybody would see her standin' here by her own grave, an' it worried him. It was kind o' like a fire in his belly.

"I guess, too, he couldn't bear the idee o' layin' down fer his las' sleep beside that hell hole he'd dug fer Kate—no, sir!

"Wal, ye know, mister, I jes' shook my head an' never let on that I knew what he meant an' let him wiggle an' twist like a worm on a hot griddle, an' beller like a cut bull 'til he fell back in a swoon.

"Damn him! it don't give him no rest. He tries to tell everybody he sees—that's what they say. He bellers day an' night an' if you go down there he'll beller to you an' you'll know what it's about, but the others don't.

"You an' me are the only ones that knows the secret, I guess. Some day, 'fore he dies, I'm goin' to take up that headstun an' hide it, but he'll never know it's done—no, sir—not 'til he gits to the judgment seat, anyway."

The old man stopped and rubbed his hands together as if he were washing them of the whole matter. The dusk of evening had fallen and crocked the white marble and blurred the lettered legends around us. The mossy stones now reminded me only of the innumerable host of the dead. Softly the notes of a song sparrow scattered down into the silence that followed the strange story.

The old man rose and straightened himself and blew out his breath and brushed his hands upon his trousers by way of stepping down into this world again out of the close and dusty loft of his memory. But I called him back.

"What has become of Enoch?" I asked.

"Wal, sir, Enoch started off west 'bout three year ago an' we ain't heard a word from him since that day—nary a word, mister. I suppose we will some time. He grew into a good man, but there was a kind of a queer streak in the blood, as ye might say, on both sides kind o'. We've wrote letters out to Wisconsin, where he was p'intin' for, an' to places on the way, but we can't git no news 'bout him. Mebbe he was killed by the Injuns."

We walked out of the graveyard together in silence. Dimly above a distant ridge I could see stark, dead timber looming on a scarlet cloud in the twilight. It is curious how carefully one notes the setting of the scene in which his spirit has been deeply stirred.

I could see a glimmer of a light in the thicket of pines down the valley. I unhitched and mounted my horse.

"Take the first turn to the right," said the old man as he picked up his scythe.

"I'm very much obliged to you," I said.

"No ye ain't, nuther," he answered. "Leastways there ain't no reason why ye should be."

My horse, impatient as ever to find the end of the road, hurried me along and in a moment or two we were down under the pine grove that surrounded the house of old Squire Fullerton—a big, stone house with a graveled road around it. A great black dog came barking and growling at me from the front porch. I rode around the house and he followed. Beyond the windows I could see the gleam of candle-light and moving figures. A man came out of the back door as I neared it.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

"My name is Barton Baynes from St. Lawrence County. Kate Fullerton is my friend and I wish to see her."

"Come up to the steps, sor. Don't git off yer horse—'til I've chained the dog. Kate'll be out in a minute."

He chained the dog to the hitching post and as he did so a loud, long, wailing cry broke the silence of the house. It put me in mind of the complaint of the damned which I remembered hearing the minister describe years before at the little schoolhouse in Lickitysplit. How it harrowed me!

The man went into the house. Soon he came out of the door with a lighted candle in his hand, a woman following. How vividly I remember the little murmur of delight that came from her lips when he held the candle so that its light fell upon my face! I jumped off my horse and gave the reins to the man and put my arms around the poor woman, whom I loved for her sorrows and for my debt to her, and rained kisses upon her withered cheek. Oh God! what a moment it was for both of us!

The way she held me to her breast and patted my shoulder and said "my boy!"—in a low, faint, treble voice so like that of a child—it is one of the best memories that I take with me into the new life now so near, from which there is no returning.

"My boy!'" Did it mean that she had appointed me to be a kind of proxy for the one she had lost and that she had given to me the affection which God had stored in her heart for him? Of that, I know only what may be conveyed by strong but unspoken assurance.

She led me into the house. She looked very neat now—in a black gown over which was a spotless white apron and collar of lace—and much more slender than when I had seen her last. She took me into a large room in the front of the house with a carpet and furniture, handsome once but now worn and decrepit. Old, time-stained engravings of scenes from the Bible, framed in wood, hung on the walls.

She gave me a chair by the candle-stand and sat near me and looked into my face with a smile of satisfaction. In a moment she pointed toward the west with that forefinger, which in my presence had cut down her enemy, and whispered the one word:

"News?"

I told all that I had heard from home and of my life in Cobleskill but observed, presently, a faraway look in her eyes and judged that she was not hearing me. Again she whispered:

"Sally?"

"She has been at school in Albany for a year," I said. "She is at home now and I am going to see her."

"You love Sally?" she whispered.

"Better than I love my life."

Again she whispered: "Get married!"

"We hope to in 1844. I have agreed to meet her by the big pine tree on the river bank at eleven o'clock the third of June, 1844. We are looking forward to that day."

A kind of shadow seemed to come out of her spirit and rest upon her face and for a moment she looked very solemn. I suppose that she divined the meaning of all that. She shook her head and whispered:

"Money thirst!"

A tall, slim woman entered the room then and said that supper was ready. Kate rose with a smile and I followed her into the dining-room where two tables were spread. One had certain dishes on it and a white cover, frayed and worn. She led me to the other table which was neatly covered with snowy linen. The tall woman served a supper on deep, blue china, cooked as only they could cook in old New England. Meanwhile I could hear the voice of the aged squire—a weird, empty, inhuman voice it was, utterly cut off from his intelligence. It came out of the troubled depths of his misery.

So that house—the scene of his great sin which would presently lie down with him in the dust—was flooded, a hundred times a day, by the unhappy spirit of its master. In the dead of the night I heard its despair echoing through the silent chambers.

Kate said little as we ate, or as we sat together in the shabby, great room after supper, but she seemed to enjoy my talk and I went into the details of my personal history. How those years of suffering and silence had warped her soul and body in a way of speaking! They were a poor fit in any company now. Her tongue had lost its taste for speech I doubt not; her voice was gone, although I had heard a low plaintive murmur in the words "my boy."

The look of her face, even while I was speaking, indicated that her thoughts wandered restlessly, in the gloomy desert of her past. I thought of that gay bird—like youth of hers of which the old man with the scythe had told me and wondered. As I was thinking of this there came a cry from the aged squire so loud and doleful that it startled me and I turned and looked toward the open door.

Kate rose and came to my side and leaning toward my ear whispered:

"It is my father. He is always thinking of when I was a girl. He wants me."

She bade me good night and left the room. Doubtless it was the outraged, departed spirit of that golden time which was haunting the old squire. A Bible lay on the table near me and I sat reading it for an hour or so. A tall clock in a corner solemnly tolled the hour of nine. In came the tall woman and asked in the brogue of the Irish:

"Would ye like to go to bed?"

"Yes, I am tired."

She took a candle and led me up a broad oaken stairway and into a room of the most generous proportions. A big four-post bedstead, draped in white, stood against a wall. The bed, sheeted in old linen, had quilted covers. The room was noticeably clean; its furniture of old mahogany and its carpet comparatively unworn.

When I was undressed I dreaded to put out the candle. For the first time in years I had a kind of child-fear of the night. But I went to bed at last and slept rather fitfully, waking often when the cries of the old squire came flooding through the walls. How I longed for the light of morning! It came at last and I rose and dressed and seeing the hired man in the yard, went out-of-doors. He was a good-natured Irishman.

"I'm glad o' the sight o' ye this fine mornin'," said he. "It's a pleasure to see any one that has all their senses—sure it is."

I went with him to the stable yard where he did his milking and talked of his long service with the squire.

"We was glad when he wrote for Kate to come," he said. "But, sure, I don't think it's done him any good. He's gone wild since she got here. He was always fond o' his family spite o' all they say. Did ye see the second table in the dinin'-room? Sure, that's stood there ever since his first wife et her last meal on it, just as it was then, sor—the same cloth, the same dishes, the same sugar in the bowl, the same pickles in the jar. He was like one o' them big rocks in the field there—ye couldn't move him when he put his foot down."

Kate met me at the door when I went back into the house and kissed my cheek and again I heard those half-spoken words, "My boy." I ate my breakfast with her and when I was about to get into my saddle at the door I gave her a hug and, as she tenderly patted my cheek, a smile lighted her countenance so that it seemed to shine upon me. I have never forgotten its serenity and sweetness.



CHAPTER XVIII

I START IN A LONG WAY

I journeyed to Canton in the midst of the haying season. After the long stretches of forest road we hurried along between fragrant fields of drying hay. At each tavern we first entered the barroom where the landlord—always a well-dressed man of much dignity and filled with the news of the time, that being a part of his entertainment—received us with cheerful words. His housekeeper was there and assigned our quarters for the night. Our evenings were spent playing cards or backgammon or listening to the chatter of our host by the fireside. At our last stop on the road I opened my trunk and put on my best suit of clothes.

We reached Canton at six o'clock in the evening of a beautiful summer day. I went at once to call upon the Dunkelbergs and learned from a man at work in the dooryard that they had gone away for the summer. How keen was my disappointment! I went to the tavern and got my supper and then over to Ashery Lane to see Michael Hacket and his family. I found the schoolmaster playing his violin.

"Now God be praised—here is Bart!" he exclaimed as he put down his instrument and took my hands in his. "I've heard, my boy, how bravely ye've weathered the capes an' I'm proud o' ye—that I am!"

I wondered what he meant for a second and then asked:

"How go these days with you?"

"Swift as the weaver's shuttle," he answered. "Sit you down, while I call the family. They're out in the kitchen putting the dishes away. Many hands make light labor."

They came quickly and gathered about me—a noisy, happy group. The younger children kissed me and sat on my knees and gave me the small news of the neighborhood.

How good were the look of those friendly faces and the full-hearted pleasure of the whole family at my coming!

"What a joy for the spare room!" exclaimed the schoolmaster. "Sure I wouldn't wonder if the old bed was dancin' on its four legs this very minute."

"I intend to walk up to the hills to-night," I said.

"Up to the hills!" he exclaimed merrily. "An' the Hackets lyin' awake thinkin' o' ye on the dark road! Try it, boy, an' ye'll get a crack with the ruler and an hour after school. Yer aunt and uncle will be stronger to stand yer comin' with the night's rest upon them. Ye wouldn't be routin' them out o' bed an' they after a hard day with the hayin'! Then, my kind-hearted lad, ye must give a thought to Michael Henry. He's still alive an' stronger than ever—thank God!"

So, although I longed for those most dear to me up in the hills, I spent the night with the Hackets and the schoolmaster and I sat an hour together after the family had gone to bed.

"How are the Dunkelbergs?" I asked.

"Sunk in the soft embrace o' luxury," he answered. "Grimshaw made him; Grimshaw liked him. He was always ready to lick the boots o' Grimshaw. It turned out that Grimshaw left him an annuity of three thousand dollars, which he can enjoy as long as he observes one condition."

"What is that?"

"He must not let his daughter marry one Barton Baynes, late o' the town o' Ballybeen. How is that for spite, my boy? They say it's written down in the will."

I think that he must have seen the flame of color playing on my face, for he quickly added:

"Don't worry, lad. The will o' God is greater than the will o' Grimshaw. He made you two for each other and she will be true to ye, as true as the needle to the north star."

"Do you think so?"

"Sure I do. Didn't she as much as tell me that here in this room—not a week ago? She loves ye, boy, as true as God loves ye, an' she's a girl of a thousand.

"Her father is a bit too fond o' money. I've never been hard struck with him. It has always seemed to me that he was afflicted with perfection—a camellia man!—so invariably neat and proper and conventional! Such precise and wearisome rectitude! What a relief it would be to see him in his shirt-sleeves or with soiled boots or linen or to hear him say something—well-unexpected! Six shillings a week to the church and four to charity, as if that were the contract—no more, no less! But did ye ever hear o' his going out o' his way to do a good thing—say to help a poor woman left with a lot o' babies or a poor lad that wants to go to school? 'No, I'm very sorry, but I give four shillings a week to charity and that's all I can afford.'"

"Why did they go away? Was it because I was coming?"

"I think it likely, my fine lad. The man heard o' it some way—perhaps through yer uncle. He's crazy for the money, but he'll get over that. Leave him to me. I've a fine course o' instruction ready for my Lord o' Dunkelberg."

"I think I shall go and try to find her," I said.

"I am to counsel ye about that," said the schoolmaster. "She's as keen as a brier—the fox! She says, 'Keep away. Don't alarm him, or he'll bundle us off to Europe for two or three years.'

"So there's the trail ye travel, my boy. It's the one that keeps away. Don't let him think ye've anything up the sleeve o' yer mind. Ye know, lad, I believe Sally's mother has hold o' the same rope with her and when two clever women get their wits together the divvle scratches his head. It's an old sayin', lad, an' don't ye go out an' cut the rope. Keep yer head cool an' yer heart warm and go right on with yer business. I like the whole plan o' this remarkable courtship o' yours."

"I guess you like it better than I do," was my answer.

"Ah, my lad, I know the heart o' youth! Ye'd like to be puttin' yer arms around her—wouldn't ye, now? Sure, there's time enough! You two young colts are bein' broke' an' bitted. Ye've a chance now to show yer quality—yer faith, yer loyalty, yer cleverness. If either one o' ye fails that one isn't worthy o' the other. Ye're in the old treadmill o' God—the both o' ye! Ye're bein' weighed an' tried for the great prize. It's not pleasant, but it's better so. Go on, now, an' do yer best an' whatever comes take it like a man."

A little silence followed. He broke it with these words:

"Ye're done with that business in Cobleskill, an' I'm glad. Ye didn't know ye were bein' tried there—did ye? Ye've stood it like a man. What will ye be doin' now?"

"I'd like to go to Washington with the Senator."

He laughed heartily.

"I was hopin' ye'd say that," he went on. "Well, boy, I think it can be arranged. I'll see the Senator as soon as ever he comes an' I believe he'll be glad to know o' yer wishes. I think he's been hopin', like, that ye would propose it. Go up to the farm and spend a happy month or two with yer aunt an' uncle. It'll do ye good. Ye've been growin' plump down there. Go an' melt it off in the fields."

"How is Deacon Binks?" I asked presently.

"Soul buried in fat! The sparkler on his bosom suggests a tombstone stickin' out of a soiled snowbank."

A little more talk and we were off to bed with our candles.

Next morning I went down into the main street of the village before leaving for home. I wanted to see how it looked and, to be quite frank, I wanted some of the people of Canton to see how I looked, for my clothes were of the best cloth and cut in the latest fashion. Many stopped me and shook my hand—men and women who had never noticed me before, but there was a quality in their smiles that I didn't quite enjoy. I know now that they thought me a little too grand on the outside. What a stern-souled lot those Yankees were! "All ain't gold that glitters." How often I had heard that version of the old motto!

"Why, you look like the Senator when he is just gittin' home from the capital," said Mr. Jenison.

They were not yet willing to take me at the par of my appearance.

I met Betsy Price—one of my schoolmates—on the street. She was very cordial and told me that the Dunkelbergs had gone to Saratoga.

"I got a letter from Sally this morning," Betsy went on. "She said that young Mr. Latour was at the same hotel and that he and her father were good friends."

I wonder if she really enjoyed sticking this thorn into my flesh—a thorn which made it difficult for me to follow the advice of the schoolmaster and robbed me of the little peace I might have enjoyed. My faith in Sally wavered up and down until it settled at its wonted level and reassured me.

It was a perfect summer morning and I enjoyed my walk over the familiar road and up into the hill country. The birds seemed to sing a welcome to me. Men and boys I had known waved their hats in the hay-fields and looked at me. There are few pleasures in this world like that of a boy getting home after a long absence. My heart beat fast when I saw the house and my uncle and Purvis coming in from the twenty-acre lot with a load of hay. Aunt Deel stood on the front steps looking down the road. Now and then her waving handkerchief went to her eyes. Uncle Peabody came down the standard off his load and walked toward me.

"Say, stranger, have you seen anything of a feller by the name o' Bart Baynes?" he demanded.

"Have you?" I asked.

"No, sir, I ain't. Gosh a'mighty! Say! what have ye done with that boy of our'n?"

"What have you done to our house?" I asked again.

"Built on an addition."

"That's what I've done to your boy," I answered.

"Thunder an' lightnin'! How you've raised the roof!" he exclaimed as he grabbed my satchel. "Dressed like a statesman an' bigger'n a bullmoose. I can't 'rastle with you no more. But, say, I'll run ye a race. I can beat ye an' carry the satchel, too."

We ran pell-mell up the lane to the steps like a pair of children.

Aunt Deel did not speak. She just put her arms around me and laid her dear old head upon my breast. Uncle Peabody turned away. Then what a silence! Off in the edge of the woodland I heard the fairy flute of a wood-thrush.

"Purvis, you drive that load on the floor an' put up the hosses," Uncle Peabody shouted in a moment. "If you don't like it you can hire 'nother man. I won't do no more till after dinner. This slave business is played out."

"All right," Purvis answered.

"You bet it's all right. I'm fer abolition an' I've stood your domineerin', nigger-driver ways long enough fer one mornin'. If you don't like it you can look for another man."

Aunt Deel and I began to laugh at this good-natured, make-believe scolding of Uncle Peabody and the emotional strain was over. They led me into the house where a delightful surprise awaited me, for the rooms had been decorated with balsam boughs and sweet ferns. A glowing mass of violets, framed in moss, occupied the center of the table. The house was filled with the odors of the forest, which, as they knew, were dear to me. I had written that they might expect me some time before noon, but I had begged them not to meet me in Canton, as I wished to walk home after my long ride. So they were ready for me.

I remember how they felt the cloth on my back and how proudly they surveyed it.

"Couldn't buy them goods 'round these parts," said Uncle Peabody. "Nor nothin' like 'em—no, sir."

"Feels a leetle bit like the butternut trousers," said Aunt Deel as she felt my coat.

"Ayes, but them butternut trousers ain't what they used to be when they was young an' limber," Uncle Peabody remarked. "Seems so they was gettin' kind o' wrinkled an' baldheaded-like, 'specially where I set down."

"Ayes! Wal I guess a man can't grow old without his pants growin' old, too—ayes!" said Aunt Deel.

"If yer legs are in 'em ev'ry Sunday they ketch it of ye," my uncle answered. "Long sermons are hard on pants, seems to me."

"An' the longer the legs the harder the sermons—in them little seats over 't the schoolhouse—ayes!" Aunt Deel added by way of justifying his complaint. "There wouldn't be so much wear in a ten-mile walk—no!"

The chicken pie was baking and the strawberries were ready for the shortcake.

"I've been wallerin' since the dew was off gittin' them berries an' vi'lets—ayes!" said Aunt Deel, now busy with her work at the stove.

"Aunt, you look as young as ever," I remarked.

She slapped my arm and said with mock severity:

"Stop that! W'y! You know better—ayes!"

How vigorously she stirred the fire then.

"I can't return the compliment—my soul! how you've changed!—ayes!" she remarked. "I hope you ain't fit no more, Bart. I can't bear to think o' you flyin' at folks an' poundin' of 'em. Don't seem right—no, it don't!"

"Why, Aunt Deel, what in the world do you mean?" I asked.

"It's Purvis's brain that does the poundin', I guess," said my uncle. "It's kind o' got the habit. It's a reg'lar beetle brain. To hear him talk, ye'd think he an' you could clean out the hull Mexican nation—barrin' accidents. Why, anybody would suppose that yer enemies go to climbin' trees as soon as they see ye comin' an' that you pull the trees up by the roots to git at 'em."

"A certain amount of such deviltry is necessary to the comfort of Mr. Purvis," I remarked. "If there is nobody else to take the responsibility for it he assumes it himself. His imagination has an intense craving for blood and violence. It's that type of American who, egged on by the slave power, is hurrying us into trouble with Mexico."

Purvis came in presently with a look in his face which betrayed his knowledge of the fact that all the cobwebs spun by his fancy were now to be brushed away. Still he enjoyed them while they lasted and there was a kind of tacit claim in his manner that there were subjects regarding which no honest man could be expected to tell the truth.

As we ate our dinner they told me that an escaped slave had come into a neighboring county and excited the people with stories of the auction block and of negroes driven like yoked oxen on plantations in South Carolina, whence he had escaped on a steamboat.

"I b'lieve I'm goin' to vote for abolition," said Uncle Peabody. "I wonder what Sile Wright will say to that."

"He'll probably advise against it, the time isn't ripe for so great a change," was my answer. "He thinks that the whole matter should be left to the glacial action of time's forces."

Indeed I had spoken the view of the sounder men of the North. The subject filled them with dread alarm. But the attitude of Uncle Peabody was significant. The sentiment in favor of a change was growing. It was now to be reckoned with, for the abolition party was said to hold the balance of power in New York and New England and was behaving itself like a bull in a china shop.

After dinner I tried to put on some of my old clothes, but found that my nakedness had so expanded that they would not cover it, so I hitched my white mare on the spring wagon and drove to the village for my trunk.

Every week day after that I worked in the fields until the Senator arrived in Canton about the middle of August. On one of those happy days I received a letter from old Kate, dated, to my surprise, in Saratoga. It said:

"DEAR BARTON BAYNES—I thought I would let you know that my father is dead. I have come here to rest and have found some work to do. I am better now. Have seen Sally. She is very beautiful and kind. She does not know that I am the old witch, I have changed so. The others do not know—it is better that way. I think it was the Lord that brought me here. He has a way of taking care of some people, my boy. Do you remember when I began to call you my boy—you were very little. It is long, long ago since I first saw you in your father's dooryard—you said you were going to mill on a butterfly's back. You looked just as I thought my boy would look. You gave me a kiss. What a wonderful gift it was to me then! I began to love you. I have no one else to think of now. I hope you won't mind my thinking so much of you.

"God bless you, KATE FULLERTON."

I understood now why the strong will and singular insight of this woman had so often exercised themselves in my behalf. I could not remember the far day and the happy circumstance of which she spoke, but I wrote her a letter which must have warmed her heart I am sure.

Silas Wright arrived in Canton and drove up to our home. He reached our door at eight in the morning with his hound and rifle. He had aged rapidly since I had seen him last. His hair was almost white. There were many new lines in his face. He seemed more grave and dignified. He did not lapse into the dialect of his fathers when he spoke of the ancient pastimes of hunting and fishing as he had been wont to do.

"Bart," he said when the greetings were over, "let's you and me go and spend a day in the woods. I'll leave my man here to help your uncle while you're gone."

We went by driving south a few miles and tramping in to the foot of the stillwater on our river—a trail long familiar to me. The dog left us soon after we took it and began to range over thick wooded hills. We sat down among small, spire-like spruces at the river's edge with a long stretch of water in sight while the music of the hound's voice came faintly to our ears from the distant forest.

"Oh, I've been dreaming of this for a long time," said the Senator as he leaned back against a tree and filled his lungs and looked out upon the water, green with lily-pads along the edge and flecked with the last of the white blossoms. "I believe you want to leave this lovely country."

"I am waiting for the call to go," I said.

"Well, I'm inclined to think you are the kind of man who ought to go," he answered almost sadly. "You are needed. I have been waiting until we should meet to congratulate you on your behavior at Cobleskill. I think you have the right spirit—that is the all-important matter. You will encounter strange company in the game of politics. Let me tell you a story."

He told me many stories of his life in Washington, interrupted by a sound like that of approaching footsteps. We ceased talking and presently a flock of partridges came near us, pacing along over the mat of leaves in a leisurely fashion. We sat perfectly still. A young cock bird with his beautiful ruff standing out, like the hair on the back of a frightened dog, strode toward us with a comic threat in his manner. It seemed as if he were of half a mind to knock us into the river. But we sat as still as stumps and he spared us and went on with the others.

The baying of the hound was nearer now. Suddenly we saw a big buck come down to the shore of the cove near us and on our side of the stream. He looked to right and left. Then he made a long leap into the water and waded slowly until it covered him. He raised his nose and laid his antlers back over his shoulders and swam quietly down-stream, his nose just showing above the water. His antlers were like a bit of driftwood. If we had not seen him take the water his antlers might easily have passed for a bunch of dead sticks. Soon the buck slowly lifted his head and turned his neck and looked at both shores. Then very deliberately he resumed his place under water and went on. We watched him as he took the farther shore below us and made off in the woods again.

"I couldn't shoot at him, it was such a beautiful bit of politics," said the Senator.

Soon the hound reached the cove's edge and swam the river and ranged up and down the bank for half an hour before he found the buck's trail again.

"I've seen many a rascal, driven to water by the hounds, go swimming away as slyly as that buck, with their horns in the air, looking as innocent as a bit of driftwood. They come in from both shores—the Whig and the Democratic—and they are always shot at from one bank or the other."

I remember it surprised me a little to hear him say that they came in from both shores.

"Just what do you want to do?" he asked presently.

"I should like to go down to Washington with you and help you in any way that I can."

"All right, partner—we'll try it," he answered gravely. "I hope that I don't forget and work you as hard as I work myself. It wouldn't be decent. I have a great many letters to write. I'll try thinking out loud while you take them down in sound-hand. Then you can draft them neatly and I'll sign them. You have tact and good manners and can do many of my errands for me and save me from those who have no good reason for taking up my time. You will meet the best people and the worst. There's just a chance that it may come to something worth while—who knows? You are young yet. It will be good training and you will witness the making of some history now and then."

What elation I felt!

Again the voice of the hound which had been ringing in the distant hills was coming nearer.

"We must keep watch—another deer is coming," said the Senator.

We had only a moment's watch before a fine yearling buck came down to the opposite shore and stood looking across the river. The Senator raised his rifle and fired. The buck fell in the edge of the water.

"How shall we get him?" my friend asked.

"It will not be difficult," I answered as I began to undress. Nothing was difficult those days. I swam the river and towed the buck across with a beech withe in his gambrel joints. The hound joined me before I was half across with my burden and nosed the carcass and swam on ahead yelping with delight.

We dressed the deer and then I had the great joy of carrying him on my back two miles across the country to the wagon. The Senator wished to send a guide for the deer, but I insisted that the carrying was my privilege.

"Well, I guess your big thighs and broad shoulders can stand it," said he.

"My uncle has always said that no man could be called a hunter until he can go into the woods without a guide and kill a deer and bring it out on his back. I want to be able to testify that I am at least partly qualified."

"Your uncle didn't say anything about fetching the deer across a deep river without a boat, did he?" Mr. Wright asked me with a smile.

Leaves of the beeches, maples and basswoods—yellowed by frost—hung like tiny lanterns, glowing with noonday light, above the dim forest-aisle which we traveled.

The sun was down when we got to the clearing.

"What a day it has been!" said Mr. Wright when we were seated in the wagon at last with the hound and the deer's head between his feet and mine.

"One of the best in my life," I answered with a joy in my heart the like of which I have rarely known in these many years that have come to me.

We rode on in silence with the calls of the swamp robin and the hermit thrush ringing in our ears as the night fell.

"It's a good time to think, and there we take different roads," said my friend. "You will turn into the future and I into the past."

"I've been thinking about your uncle," he said by and by. "He is one of the greatest men I have ever known. You knew of that foolish gossip about him—didn't you?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Well, now, he's gone about his business the same as ever and showed by his life that it couldn't be true. Not a word out of him! But Dave Ramsey fell sick—down on the flat last winter. By and by his children were crying for bread and the poor-master was going to take charge of them. Well, who should turn up there, just in the nick of time, but Delia and Peabody Baynes. They fed those children all winter and kept them in clothes so that they could go to school. The strange thing about it is this: it was Dave Ramsey who really started that story. He got up in church the other night and confessed his crime. His conscience wouldn't let him keep it. He said that he had not seen Peabody Baynes on that road the day the money was lost but had only heard that he was there. He knew now that he couldn't have been there. Gosh t'almighty! as your uncle used to say when there was nothing else to be said."

It touched me to the soul—this long-delayed vindication of my beloved Uncle Peabody.

The Senator ate supper with us and sent his hired man out for his horse and buggy. When he had put on his overcoat and was about to go he turned to my uncle and said:

"Peabody Baynes, if I have had any success in the world it is because I have had the exalted honor and consciousness that I represented men like you."

He left us and we sat down by the glowing candles. Soon I told them what Ramsey had done. There was a moment of silence. Uncle Peabody rose and went to the water-pail for a drink.

"Bart, I believe I'll plant corn on that ten-acre lot next spring—darned if I don't," he said as he returned to his chair.

None of us ever spoke of the matter again to my knowledge.



CHAPTER XIX

ON THE SUMMIT

My mental assets would give me a poor rating I presume in the commerce of modern scholarship when I went to Washington that autumn with Senator and Mrs. Wright. Still it was no smattering that I had, but rather a few broad areas of knowledge which were firmly in my possession. I had acquired, quite by myself since leaving the academy, a fairly serviceable reading knowledge of French; I had finished the AEneid; I had read the tragedies of Shakespeare and could repeat from them many striking passages; I had read the histories of Abbott and the works of Washington Irving and certain of the essays of Carlyle and Macaulay. My best asset was not mental but spiritual, if I may be allowed to say it, in all modesty, for, therein I claim no special advantage, saving, possibly, an unusual strength of character in my aunt and uncle. Those days the candles were lighting the best trails of knowledge all over the land. Never has the general spirit of this republic been so high and admirable as then and a little later. It was to speak, presently, in the immortal voices of Whittier, Emerson, Whitman, Greeley and Lincoln. The dim glow of the candles had entered their souls and out of them came a light that filled the land and was seen of all men. What became of this mighty spirit of democracy? My friend, it broke down and came near its death in a long, demoralizing war which gave to our young men a thorough four-year course in the ancient school of infamy.

The railroads on which we traveled from Utica, the great cities through which we passed, were a wonder and an inspiration to me. I was awed by the grandeur of Washington itself. I took lodgings with the Senator and his wife.

"Now, Bart," said he, when we had arrived, "I'm going to turn you loose here for a little while before I put harness on you. Go about for a week or so and get the lay of the land and the feel of it. Mrs. Wright will be your guide until the general situation has worked its way into your consciousness."

It seemed to me that there was not room enough in my consciousness for the great public buildings and the pictures and the statues and the vast machinery of the government. Beauty and magnitude have a wonderful effect when they spring fresh upon the vision of a youth out of the back country. I sang of the look of them in my letters and soon I began to think about them and imperfectly to understand them. They had their epic, lyric and dramatic stages in my consciousness.

One afternoon we went to hear Senator Wright speak. He was to answer Calhoun on a detail of the banking laws. The floor and galleries were filled. With what emotion I saw him rise and begin his argument as all ears bent to hear him! He aimed not at popular sentiments in highly finished rhetoric, as did Webster, to be quoted in the school-books and repeated on every platform. But no words of mine—and I have used many in the effort—are able to convey a notion of the masterful ease and charm of his manner on the floor of the Senate or of the singular modesty, courtesy, aptness and simplicity of his words as they fell from his lips. There were the thunderous Webster, the grandeur of whose sentences no American has equaled; the agile-minded Clay, whose voice was like a silver clarion; the farseeing, fiery Calhoun, of "the swift sword"—most formidable in debate—but I was soon to learn that neither nor all of these men—gifted of heaven so highly—could cope with the suave, incisive, conversational sentences of Wright, going straight to the heart of the subject and laying it bare to his hearers. That was what people were saying as we left the Senate chamber, late in the evening; that, indeed, was what they were always saying after they had heard him answer an adversary.

He had a priceless and unusual talent for avoiding school-reader English and the arts of declamation and for preparing a difficult subject to enter the average brain. The underlying secret of his power was soon apparent to me. He stood always for that great thing in America which, since then, Whitman has called "the divine aggregate," and seeing clearly how every measure would be likely to affect its welfare, he followed the compass. It had led him to a height of power above all others and was to lead him unto the loneliest summit of accomplishment in American history.

Not much in my term of service there is important to this little task of mine. I did my work well, if I may believe the Senator, and grew familiar with the gentle and ungentle arts of the politician.

One great fact grew in magnitude and sullen portent as the months passed: the gigantic slave-holding interests of the South viewed with growing alarm the spread of abolition sentiment. Subtly, quietly and naturally they were feeling for the means to defend and increase their power. Straws were coming to the surface in that session which betrayed this deep undercurrent of purpose. We felt it and the Senator was worried I knew, but held his peace. He knew how to keep his opinions until the hour had struck that summoned them to service. The Senator never played with his lance. By and by Spencer openly sounded the note of conflict.

The most welcome year of my life dawned on the first of January, 1844. I remember that I arose before daylight that morning and dressed and went out on the street to welcome it.

I had less than six months to wait for that day appointed by Sally. I had no doubt that she would be true to me. I had had my days of fear and depression, but always my sublime faith in her came back in good time.

Oh, yes, indeed, Washington was a fair of beauty and gallantry those days. I saw it all. I have spent many years in the capital and I tell you the girls of that time had manners and knew how to wear their clothes, but again the magic of old memories kept my lady on her throne. There was one of them—just one of those others who, I sometimes thought, was almost as graceful and charming and noble-hearted as Sally, and she liked me I know, but the ideal of my youth glowed in the light of the early morning, so to speak, and was brighter than all others. Above all, I had given my word to Sally and—well, you know, the old-time Yankee of good stock was fairly steadfast, whatever else may be said of him—often a little too steadfast, as were Ben Grimshaw and Squire Fullerton.

The Senator and I went calling that New Year's day. We saw all the great people and some of them were more cheerful than they had a right to be. It was a weakness of the time. I shall not go into details for fear of wandering too far from my main road. Let me step aside a moment to say, however, that there were two clouds in the sky of the Washington society of those days. One was strong drink and the other was the crude, rough-coated, aggressive democrat from the frontiers of the West. These latter were often seen in the holiday regalia of farm or village at fashionable functions. Some of them changed slowly and, by and by, reached the stage of white linen and diamond breast-pins and waistcoats of figured silk. It must be said, however, that their motives were always above their taste.

The winter wore away slowly in hard work. Mr. Van Buren came down to see the Senator one day from his country seat on the Hudson. The Ex-president had been solicited to accept the nomination again. I know that Senator Wright strongly favored the plan but feared that the South would defeat him in convention, it being well known that Van Buren was opposed to the annexation of Texas—a pet project of the slave-holders. However, he advised his friend to make a fight for the nomination and this the latter resolved to do. Thenceforward until middle May I gave my time largely to the inditing of letters for the Senator in Van Buren's behalf.

The time appointed for the convention in Baltimore drew near. One day the Senator received an intimation that he would be put in nomination if Van Buren failed. Immediately he wrote to Judge Fine, of Ogdensburg, chairman of the delegation from the northern district of New York, forbidding such use of his name on the ground that his acquiescence would involve disloyalty to his friend the Ex-president.

He gave me leave to go to the convention on my way home to meet Sally. I had confided to Mrs. Wright the details of my little love affair—I had to—and she had shown a tender, sympathetic interest in the story.

The Senator had said to me one day, with a gentle smile:

"Bart, you have business in Canton, I believe, with which trifling matters like the choice of a president and the Mexican question can not be permitted to interfere. You must take time to spend a day or two at the convention in Baltimore on your way.... Report to our friend Fine, who will look after your comfort there. The experience ought to be useful to a young man who, I hope, will have work to do in future conventions."

I took the stage to Baltimore next day—the twenty-sixth of May. The convention thrilled me—the flags, the great crowd, the bands, the songs, the speeches, the cheering—I see and hear it all in my talk. The uproar lasted for twenty minutes when Van Buren's name was put in nomination.