~~~ Project Gutenberg Australia ~~~

Title: The Monster and More
Author: Stephen Crane
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0605451.txt
Language: English
Date first posted: August 2006
Date most recently updated: August 2006

This eBook was produced by: Richard Scott

Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions
which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice
is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular
paper edition.

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this
file.

This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at
http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html


To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au


The Monster and More
Stephen Crane



Table of Contents

The Monster
An Illusion in Red and White
Manacled




THE MONSTER



Chapter I.



LITTLE JIM was, for the time, engine Number 36, and he was making the
run between Syracuse and Rochester. He was fourteen minutes behind
time, and the throttle was wide open. In consequence, when he swung
around the curve at the flower-bed, a wheel of his cart destroyed a
peony. Number 36 slowed down at once and looked guiltily at his
father, who was mowing the lawn. The doctor had his back to this
accident, and he continued to pace slowly to and fro, pushing the
mower.

Jim dropped the tongue of the cart. He looked at his father and at the
broken flower. Finally he went to the peony and tried to stand it on
its pins, resuscitated, but the spine of it was hurt, and it would
only hang limply from his hand. Jim could do no reparation. He looked
again toward his father.

He went on to the lawn, very slowly, and kicking wretchedly at the
turf. Presently his father came along with the whirring machine, while
the sweet new grass blades spun from the knives. In a low voice, Jim
said, "Pa!"

The doctor was shaving this lawn as if it were a priest's chin. All
during the season he had worked at it in the coolness and peace of the
evenings after supper. Even in the shadow of the cherry-trees the
grass was strong and healthy. Jim raised his voice a trifle. "Pa!"

The doctor paused, and with the howl of the machine no longer
occupying the sense, one could hear the robins in the cherry-trees
arranging their affairs. Jim's hands were behind his back, and
sometimes his fingers clasped and unclasped. Again he said, "Pa!" The
child's fresh and rosy lip was lowered.

The doctor stared down at his son, thrusting his head forward and
frowning attentively. "What is it, Jimmie?"

"Pa!" repeated the child at length. Then he raised his finger and
pointed at the flower-bed. "There!"

"What?" said the doctor, frowning more. "What is it, Jim?"

After a period of silence, during which the child may have undergone a
severe mental tumult, he raised his finger and repeated his former
word--"There!" The father had respected this silence with perfect
courtesy. Afterward his glance carefully followed the direction
indicated by the child's finger, but he could see nothing which
explained to him. "I don't understand what you mean, Jimmie," he said.

It seemed that the importance of the whole thing had taken away the
boy's vocabulary. He could only reiterate, "There!"

The doctor mused upon the situation, but he could make nothing of it.
At last he said, "Come, show me."

Together they crossed the lawn toward the flower-bed. At some yards
from the broken peony Jimmie began to leg. "There!" The word came
almost breathlessly.

"Where?" said the doctor.

Jimmie kicked at the grass. "There!" he replied.

The doctor was obliged to go forward alone. After some trouble he
found the subject of the incident, the broken flower. Turning then, he
saw the child lurking at the rear and scanning his countenance.

The father reflected. After a time he said, "Jimmie, come here." With
an infinite modesty of demeanor the child came forward. "Jimmie, how
did this happen?"

The child answered, "Now--I was playin' train--and--now--I runned over
it."

"You were doing what?"

"I was playin' train."

The father reflected again. "Well, Jimmie," he said, slowly, "I guess
you had better not play train any more today. Do you think you had
better?"

"No, sir," said Jimmie.

During the delivery of the judgment the child had not faced his
father, and afterward he went away, with his head lowered, shuffling
his feet.



Chapter II.



It was apparent from Jimmie's manner that he felt some kind of desire
to efface himself. He went down to the stable. Henry Johnson, the
negro who cared for the doctor's horses, was sponging the buggy. He
grinned fraternally when he saw Jimmie coming. These two were pals. In
regard to almost everything in life they seemed to have minds
precisely alike. Of course there were points of emphatic divergence.
For instance, it was plain from Henry's talk that he was a very
handsome negro, and he was known to be a light, a weight, and an
eminence in the suburb of the town, where lived the larger number of
the negroes, and obviously this glory was over Jimmie's horizon; but
he vaguely appreciated it and paid deference to Henry for it mainly
because Henry appreciated it and deferred to himself. However, on all
points of conduct as related to the doctor, who was the moon, they
were in complete but unexpressed understanding. Whenever Jimmie became
the victim of an eclipse he went to the stable to solace himself with
Henry's crimes. Henry, with the elasticity of his race, could usually
provide a sin to place himself on a footing with the disgraced one.
Perhaps he would remember that he had forgotten to put the hitching
strap in the back of the buggy on some recent occasion, and had been
reprimanded by the doctor. Then these two would commune subtly and
without words concerning their moon, holding themselves
sympathetically as people who had committed similar treasons. On the
other hand, Henry would sometimes choose to absolutely repudiate this
idea, and when Jimmie appeared in his shame would bully him most
virtuously, preaching with assurance the precepts of the doctor's
creed, and pointing out to Jimmie all his abominations. Jimmie did not
discover that this was odious in his comrade. He accepted it and lived
in its shadow with humility, merely trying to conciliate the saintly
Henry with acts of deference. Won by this attitude, Henry would
sometimes allow the child to enjoy the felicity of squeezing the
sponge over a buggy-wheel, even when Jimmie was still gory from
unspeakable deeds.

Whenever Henry dwelt for a time in sackcloth, Jimmie did not patronize
him at all. This was a justice of his age, his condition. He did not
know. Besides, Henry could drive a horse, and Jimmie had a full sense
of this sublimity. Henry personally conducted the moon during the
splendid journeys through the country roads, where farms spread on all
sides, with sheep, cows, and other marvels abounding.

"Hello, Jim!" said Henry, poising his sponge. Water was dripping from
the buggy. Sometimes the horses in the stalls stamped thunderingly on
the pine floor. There was an atmosphere of hay and of harness.

For a minute Jimmie refused to take an interest in anything. He was
very downcast. He could not even feel the wonders of wagon-washing.
Henry, while at his work, narrowly observed him.

"Your pop done wallop yer, didn't he?" he said at last.

"No," said Jimmie, defensively; "he didn't."

After this casual remark Henry continued his labor, with a scowl of
occupation. Presently he said: "I done tol' yer many's th' time not to
go a-foolin' an' a-projjeckin' with them flowers. Yer pop don' like it
nohow." As a matter of fact, Henry had never mentioned flowers to the
boy.

Jimmie preserved a gloomy silence, so Henry began to use seductive
wiles in this affair of washing a wagon. It was not until he began to
spin a wheel on the tree, and the sprinkling water flew everywhere,
that the boy was visibly moved. He had been seated on the sill of the
carriage-house door, but at the beginning of this ceremony he arose
and circled toward the buggy, with an interest that slowly consumed
the remembrance of a late disgrace.

Johnson could then display all the dignity of a man whose duty it was
to protect Jimmie from a splashing. "Look out, boy! look out! You done
gwi' spile yer pants. I raikon your mommer don't 'low this
foolishness, she know it. I ain't gwi' have you round yere spilin' yer
pants, an' have Mis' Trescott light on me pressen'ly. 'Deed I ain't."

He spoke with an air of great irritation, but he was not annoyed at
all. This tone was merely a part of his importance. In reality he was
always delighted to have the child there to witness the business of
the stable. For one thing, Jimmie was invariably overcome with
reverence when he was told how beautifully a harness was polished or a
horse groomed. Henry explained each detail of this kind with unction,
procuring great joy from the child's admiration.



Chapter III.



After Johnson had taken his supper in the kitchen, he went to his loft
in the carriage-house and dressed himself with much care. No belle of
a court circle could bestow more mind on a toilet than did Johnson. On
second thought, he was more like a priest arraying himself for some
parade of the church. As he emerged from his room and sauntered down
the carriage drive, no one would have suspected him of ever having
washed a buggy.

It was not altogether a matter of the lavender trousers, nor yet the
straw hat with its bright silk band. The change was somewhere far in
the interior of Henry. But there was no cake-walk hyperbole in it. He
was simply a quiet, well-bred gentleman of position, wealth, and other
necessary achievements out for an evening stroll, and he had never
washed a wagon in his life.

In the morning, when in his working-clothes, he had met a friend--
"Hello, Pete!" "Hello, Henry!" Now, in his effulgence, he encountered
this same friend. His bow was not at all haughty. If it expressed
anything, it expressed consummate generosity--"Good-evenin', Misteh
Washington." Pete, who was very dirty, being at work in a potato-
patch, responded in a mixture of abasement and appreciation--"Good-
evenin', Misteh Johnsing."

The shimmering blue of the electric arc-lamps was strong in the main
street of the town. At numerous points it was conquered by the orange
glare of the outnumbering gas-lights in the windows of shops. Through
this radiant lane moved a crowd, which culminated in a throng before
the post-office, awaiting the distribution of the evening mails.
Occasionally there came into it a shrill electric street-car, the
motor singing like a cageful of grasshoppers, and possessing a great
gong that clanged forth both warnings and simple noise. At the little
theatre, which was a varnish and red-plush miniature of one of the
famous New York theatres, a company of strollers was to play East
Lynne. The young men of the town were mainly gathered at the corners,
in distinctive groups, which expressed various shades and lines of
chumship, and had little to do with any social gradations. There they
discussed everything with critical insight, passing the whole town in
review as it swarmed in the street. When the gongs of the electric
cars ceased for a moment to harry the ears, there could be heard the
sound of the feet of the leisurely crowd on the blue-stone pavement,
and it was like the peaceful evening lashing at the shore of a lake.
At the foot of the hill, where two lines of maples sentinelled the
way, an electric lamp glowed high among the embowering branches, and
made most wonderful shadow-etchings on the road below it.

When Johnson appeared amid the throng a member of one of the profane
groups at a corner instantly telegraphed news of this extraordinary
arrival to his companions. They hailed him. "Hello, Henry! Going to
walk for a cake to-night?"

"Ain't he smooth?"

"Why, you've got that cake right in your pocket, Henry!"

"Throw out your chest a little more."

Henry was not ruffled in any way by these quiet admonitions and
compliments. In reply he laughed a supremely good-natured, chuckling
laugh, which nevertheless expressed an underground complacency of
superior metal.

Young Griscom, the lawyer, was just emerging from Reifsnyder's barber
shop, rubbing his chin contentedly. On the steps he dropped his hand
and looked with wide eyes into the crowd. Suddenly he bolted back into
the shop. "Wow!" he cried to the parliament; "you ought to see the
coon that's coming!"

Reifsnyder and his assistant instantly poised their razors high and
turned toward the window. Two belathered heads reared from the chairs.
The electric shine in the street caused an effect like water to them
who looked through the glass from the yellow glamour of Reifsnyder's
shop. In fact, the people without resembled the inhabitants of a great
aquarium that here had a square pane in it. Presently into this frame
swam the graceful form of Henry Johnson.

"Chee!" said Reifsnyder. He and his assistant with one accord threw
their obligations to the winds, and leaving their lathered victims
helpless, advanced to the window. "Ain't he a taisy?" said Reifsnyder,
marvelling.

But the man in the first chair, with a grievance in his mind, had
found a weapon. "Why, that's only Henry Johnson, you blamed idiots!
Come on now, Reif, and shave me. What do you think I am--a mummy?"

Reifsnyder turned, in a great excitement. "I bait you any money that
vas not Henry Johnson! Henry Johnson! Rats!" The scorn put into this
last word made it an explosion. "That man vas a Pullman-car porter or
someding. How could that be Henry Johnson?" he demanded, turbulently.
"You vas crazy."

The man in the first chair faced the barber in a storm of indignation.
"Didn't I give him those lavender trousers?" he roared.

And young Griscom, who had remained attentively at the window, said:
"Yes, I guess that was Henry. It looked like him."

"Oh, vell," said Reifsnyder, returning to his business, "if you think
so! Oh, vell!" He implied that he was submitting for the sake of
amiability.

Finally the man in the second chair, mumbling from a mouth made timid
by adjacent lather, said: "That was Henry Johnson all right. Why, he
always dresses like that when he wants to make a front! He's the
biggest dude in town--anybody knows that."

"Chinger!" said Reifsnyder.

Henry was not at all oblivious of the wake of wondering ejaculation
that streamed out behind him. On other occasions he had reaped this
same joy, and he always had an eye for the demonstration. With a face
beaming with happiness he turned away from the scene of his victories
into a narrow side street, where the electric light still hung high,
but only to exhibit a row of tumble-down houses leaning together like
paralytics.

The saffron Miss Bella Farragut, in a calico frock, had been crouched
on the front stoop, gossiping at long range, but she espied her
approaching caller at a distance. She dashed around the corner of the
house, galloping like a horse. Henry saw it all, but he preserved the
polite demeanor of a guest when a waiter spills claret down his cuff.
In this awkward situation he was simply perfect.

The duty of receiving Mr. Johnson fell upon Mrs. Farragut, because
Bella, in another room, was scrambling wildly into her best gown. The
fat old woman met him with a great ivory smile, sweeping back with the
door, and bowing low. "Walk in, Misteh Johnson, walk in. How is you
dis ebenin', Misteh Johnson--how is you?"

Henry's face showed like a reflector as he bowed and bowed, bending
almost from his head to his ankles. "Good-evenin', Mis' Fa'gut; good-
evenin'. How is you dis evenin'? Is all you' folks well, Mis' Fa'gut?"

After a great deal of kowtow, they were planted in two chairs opposite
each other in the living-room. Here they exchanged the most tremendous
civilities, until Miss Bella swept into the room, when there was more
kowtow on all sides, and a smiling show of teeth that was like an
illumination.

The cooking-stove was of course in this drawing-room, and on the fire
was some kind of a long-winded stew. Mrs. Farragut was obliged to
arise and attend to it from time to time. Also young Sim came in and
went to bed on his pallet in the corner. But to all these
domesticities the three maintained an absolute dumbness. They bowed
and smiled and ignored and imitated until a late hour, and if they had
been the occupants of the most gorgeous salon in the world they could
not have been more like three monkeys.

After Henry had gone, Bella, who encouraged herself in the
appropriation of phrases, said, "Oh, ma, isn't he divine?"



Chapter IV.



A Saturday evening was a sign always for a larger crowd to parade the
thoroughfare. In summer the band played until ten o'clock in the
little park. Most of the young men of the town affected to be superior
to this band, even to despise it; but in the still and fragrant
evenings they invariably turned out in force, because the girls were
sure to attend this concert, strolling slowly over the grass, linked
closely in pairs, or preferably in threes, in the curious public
dependence upon one another which was their inheritance. There was no
particular social aspect to this gathering, save that group regarded
group with interest, but mainly in silence. Perhaps one girl would
nudge another girl and suddenly say, "Look! there goes Gertie Hodgson
and her sister!" And they would appear to regard this as an event of
importance.

On a particular evening a rather large company of young men were
gathered on the sidewalk that edged the park. They remained thus
beyond the borders of the festivities because of their dignity, which
would not exactly allow them to appear in anything which was so much
fun for the younger lads. These latter were careering madly through
the crowd, precipitating minor accidents from time to time, but
usually fleeing like mist swept by the wind before retribution could
lay its hands upon them.

The band played a waltz which involved a gift of prominence to the
bass horn, and one of the young men on the sidewalk said that the
music reminded him of the new engines on the hill pumping water into
the reservoir. A similarity of this kind was not inconceivable, but
the young man did not say it because he disliked the band's playing.
He said it because it was fashionable to say that manner of thing
concerning the band. However, over in the stand, Billie Harris, who
played the snare-drum, was always surrounded by a throng of boys, who
adored his every whack.

After the mails from New York and Rochester had been finally
distributed, the crowd from the post-office added to the mass already
in the park. The wind waved the leaves of the maples, and, high in the
air, the blue-burning globes of the arc lamps caused the wonderful
traceries of leaf shadows on the ground. When the light fell upon the
upturned face of a girl, it caused it to glow with a wonderful pallor.
A policeman came suddenly from the darkness and chased a gang of
obstreperous little boys. They hooted him from a distance. The leader
of the band had some of the mannerisms of the great musicians, and
during a period of silence the crowd smiled when they saw him raise
his hand to his brow, stroke it sentimentally, and glance upward with
a look of poetic anguish. In the shivering light, which gave to the
park an effect like a great vaulted hall, the throng swarmed with a
gentle murmur of dresses switching the turf, and with a steady hum of
voices.

Suddenly, without preliminary bars, there arose from afar the great
hoarse roar of a factory whistle. It raised and swelled to a sinister
note, and then it sang on the night wind one long call that held the
crowd in the park immovable, speechless. The band-master had been
about to vehemently let fall his hand to start the band on a
thundering career through a popular march, but, smitten by this giant
voice from the night, his hand dropped slowly to his knee, and, his
mouth agape, he looked at his men in silence. The cry died away to a
wail, and then to stillness. It released the muscles of the company of
young men on the sidewalk, who had been like statues, posed eagerly,
lithely, their ears turned. And then they wheeled upon each other
simultaneously, and, in a single explosion, they shouted, "One!"

Again the sound swelled in the night and roared its long ominous cry,
and as it died away the crowd of young men wheeled upon each other
and, in chorus, yelled, "Two!"

There was a moment of breathless waiting. Then they bawled, "Second
district!" In a flash the company of indolent and cynical young men
had vanished like a snowball disrupted by dynamite.



Chapter V.



Jake Rogers was the first man to reach the home of Tuscarora Hose
Company Number Six. He had wrenched his key from his pocket as he tore
down the street, and he jumped at the spring-lock like a demon. As the
doors flew back before his hands he leaped and kicked the wedges from
a pair of wheels, loosened a tongue from its clasp, and in the glare
of the electric light which the town placed before each of his hose-
houses the next comers beheld the spectacle of Jake Rogers bent like
hickory in the manfulness of his pulling, and the heavy cart was
moving slowly towards the doors. Four men joined him at the time, and
as they swung with the cart out into the street, dark figures sped
towards them from the ponderous shadows back of the electric lamps.
Some set up the inevitable question, "What district?"

"Second," was replied to them in a compact howl. Tuscarora Hose
Company Number Six swept on a perilous wheel into Niagara Avenue, and
as the men, attached to the cart by the rope which had been paid out
from the windlass under the tongue, pulled madly in their fervor and
abandon, the gong under the axle clanged incitingly. And sometimes the
same cry was heard, "What district?"

"Second."

On a grade Johnnie Thorpe fell, and exercising a singular muscular
ability, rolled out in time from the track of the on-coming wheel, and
arose, dishevelled and aggrieved, casting a look of mournful
disenchantment upon the black crowd that poured after the machine. The
cart seemed to be the apex of a dark wave that was whirling as if it
had been a broken dam. Back of the lad were stretches of lawn, and in
that direction front doors were banged by men who hoarsely shouted out
into the clamorous avenue, "What district?"

At one of these houses a woman came to the door bearing a lamp,
shielding her face from its rays with her hands. Across the cropped
grass the avenue represented to her a kind of black torrent, upon
which, nevertheless, fled numerous miraculous figures upon bicycles.
She did not know that the towering light at the corner was continuing
its nightly whine.

Suddenly a little boy somersaulted around the corner of the house as
if he had been projected down a flight of stairs by a catapultian
boot. He halted himself in front of the house by dint of a rather
extraordinary evolution with his legs. "Oh, ma," he gasped, "can I go?
Can I, ma?"

She straightened with the coldness of the exterior mother-judgment,
although the hand that held the lamp trembled slightly. "No, Willie;
you had better come to bed."

Instantly he began to buck and fume like a mustang. "Oh, ma," he
cried, contorting himself--"oh, ma, can't I go? Please, ma, can't I
go? Can't I go, ma?"

"It's half past nine now, Willie."

He ended by wailing out a compromise: "Well, just down to the corner,
ma? Just down to the corner?"

From the avenue came the sound of rushing men who wildly shouted.
Somebody had grappled the bell-rope in the Methodist church, and now
over the town rang this solemn and terrible voice, speaking from the
clouds. Moved from its peaceful business, this bell gained a new
spirit in the portentous night, and it swung the heart to and fro, up
and down, with each peal of it.

"Just down to the corner, ma?"

"Willie, it's half past nine now."



Chapter VI.



The outlines of the house of Dr. Trescott had faded quietly into the
evening, hiding a shape such as we call Queen Anne against the pall of
the blackened sky. The neighborhood was at this time so quiet, and
seemed so devoid of obstructions, that Hannigan's dog thought it a
good opportunity to prowl in forbidden precincts, and so came and
pawed Trescott's lawn, growling, and considering himself a formidable
beast. Later, Peter Washington strolled past the house and whistled,
but there was no dim light shining from Henry's loft, and presently
Peter went his way. The rays from the street, creeping in silvery
waves over the grass, caused the row of shrubs along the drive to
throw a clear, bold shade.

A wisp of smoke came from one of the windows at the end of the house
and drifted quietly into the branches of a cherry-tree. Its companions
followed it in slowly increasing numbers, and finally there was a
current controlled by invisible banks which poured into the fruit-
laden boughs of the cherry-tree. It was no more to be noted than if a
troop of dim and silent gray monkeys had been climbing a grape-vine
into the clouds.

After a moment the window brightened as if the four panes of it had
been stained with blood, and a quick ear might have been led to
imagine the fire-imps calling and calling, clan joining clan,
gathering to the colors. From the street, however, the house
maintained its dark quiet, insisting to a passer-by that it was the
safe dwelling of people who chose to retire early to tranquil dreams.
No one could have heard this low droning of the gathering clans.

Suddenly the panes of the red window tinkled and crashed to the
ground, and at other windows there suddenly reared other flames, like
bloody spectres at the apertures of a haunted house. This outbreak had
been well planned, as if by professional revolutionists.

A man's voice suddenly shouted: "Fire! Fire! Fire!" Hannigan had flung
his pipe frenziedly from him because his lungs demanded room. He
tumbled down from his perch, swung over the fence, and ran shouting
towards the front door of the Trescotts'. Then he hammered on the
door, using his fists as if they were mallets. Mrs. Trescott instantly
came to one of the windows on the second floor. Afterwards she knew
she had been about to say, "The doctor is not at home, but if you will
leave your name, I will let him know as soon as he comes."

Hannigan's bawling was for a minute incoherent, but she understood
that it was not about croup.

"What?" she said, raising the window swiftly.

"Your house is on fire! You're all ablaze! Move quick if--" His cries
were resounding in the street as if it were a cave of echoes. Many
feet pattered swiftly on the stones. There was one man who ran with an
almost fabulous speed. He wore lavender trousers. A straw hat with a
bright silk band was held half crumpled in his hand.

As Henry reached the front door, Hannigan had just broken the lock
with a kick. A thick cloud of smoke poured over them, and Henry,
ducking his head, rushed into it. From Hannigan's clamor he knew only
one thing, but it turned him blue with horror. In the hall a lick of
flame had found the cord that supported "Signing the Declaration." The
engraving slumped suddenly down at one end, and then dropped to the
floor, where it burst with the sound of a bomb. The fire was already
roaring like a winter wind among the pines.

At the head of the stairs Mrs. Trescott was waving her arms as if they
were two reeds. "Jimmie! Save Jimmie!" she screamed in Henry's face.
He plunged past her and disappeared, taking the long-familiar routes
among these upper chambers, where he had once held office as a sort of
second assistant house-maid.

Hannigan had followed him up the stairs, and grappled the arm of the
maniacal woman there. His face was black with rage. "You must come
down," he bellowed.

She would only scream at him in reply: "Jimmie! Jimmie! Save Jimmie!"
But he dragged her forth while she babbled at him.

As they swung out into the open air a man ran across the lawn, and
seizing a shutter, pulled it from its hinges and flung it far out upon
the grass. Then he frantically attacked the other shutters one by one.
It was a kind of temporary insanity.

"Here, you," howled Hannigan, "hold Mrs. Trescott--And stop--"

The news had been telegraphed by a twist of the wrist of a neighbor
who had gone to the fire-box at the corner, and the time when Hannigan
and his charge struggled out of the house was the time when the
whistle roared its hoarse night call, smiting the crowd in the park,
causing the leader of the band, who was about to order the first
triumphal clang of a military march, to let his hand drop slowly to
his knees.



Chapter VII.



Henry pawed awkwardly through the smoke in the upper halls. He had
attempted to guide himself by the walls, but they were too hot. The
paper was crimpling, and he expected at any moment to have a flame
burst from under his hands.

"Jimmie!"

He did not call very loud, as if in fear that the humming flames below
would overhear him.

"Jimmie! Oh, Jimmie!"

Stumbling and panting, he speedily reached the entrance to Jimmie's
room and flung open the door. The little chamber had no smoke in it at
all. It was faintly illumined by a beautiful rosy light reflected
circuitously from the flames that were consuming the house. The boy
had apparently just been aroused by the noise. He sat in his bed, his
lips apart, his eyes wide, while upon his little white-robed figure
played caressingly the light from the fire. As the door flew open he
had before him this apparition of his pal, a terror-stricken negro,
all tousled and with wool scorching, who leaped upon him and bore him
up in a blanket as if the whole affair were a case of kidnapping by a
dreadful robber chief. Without waiting to go through the usual short
but complete process of wrinkling up his face, Jimmie let out a
gorgeous bawl, which resembled the expression of a calf's deepest
terror. As Johnson, bearing him, reeled into the smoke of the hall, he
flung his arms about his neck and buried his face in the blanket. He
called twice in muffled tones: "Mam-ma! Mam-ma!"

When Johnson came to the top of the stairs with his burden, he took a
quick step backwards. Through the smoke that rolled to him he could
see that the lower hall was all ablaze. He cried out then in a howl
that resembled Jimmie's former achievement. His legs gained a
frightful faculty of bending sideways. Swinging about precariously on
these reedy legs, he made his way back slowly, back along the upper
hall. From the way of him then, he had given up almost all idea of
escaping from the burning house, and with it the desire. He was
submitting, submitting because of his fathers, bending his mind in a
most perfect slavery to this conflagration.

He now clutched Jimmie as unconsciously as when, running toward the
house, he had clutched the hat with the bright silk band.

Suddenly he remembered a little private staircase which led from a
bedroom to an apartment which the doctor had fitted up as a laboratory
and work-house, where he used some of his leisure, and also hours when
he might have been sleeping, in devoting himself to experiments which
came in the way of his study and interest.

When Johnson recalled this stairway the submission to the blaze
departed instantly. He had been perfectly familiar with it, but his
confusion had destroyed the memory of it.

In his sudden momentary apathy there had been little that resembled
fear, but now, as a way of safety came to him, the old frantic terror
caught him. He was no longer creature to the flames, and he was afraid
of the battle with them. It was a singular and swift set of
alternations in which he feared twice without submission, and
submitted once without fear.

"Jimmie!" he wailed, as he staggered on his way. He wished this little
inanimate body at his breast to participate in his tremblings. But the
child had lain limp and still during these headlong charges and
countercharges, and no sign came from him.

Johnson passed through two rooms and came to the head of the stairs.
As he opened the door great billows of smoke poured out, but gripping
Jimmie closer, he plunged down through them. All manner of odors
assailed him during this flight. They seemed to be alive with envy,
hatred, and malice. At the entrance to the laboratory he confronted a
strange spectacle. The room was like a garden in the region where
might be burning flowers. Flames of violet, crimson, green, blue,
orange, and purple were blooming everywhere. There was one blaze that
was precisely the hue of a delicate coral. In another place was a mass
that lay merely in phosphorescent inaction like a pile of emeralds.
But all these marvels were to be seen dimly through clouds of heaving,
turning, deadly smoke.

Johnson halted for a moment on the threshold. He cried out again in
the negro wail that had in it the sadness of the swamps. Then he
rushed across the room. An orange-colored flame leaped like a panther
at the lavender trousers. This animal bit deeply into Johnson. There
was an explosion at one side, and suddenly before him there reared a
delicate, trembling sapphire shape like a fairy lady. With a quiet
smile she blocked his path and doomed him and Jimmie. Johnson
shrieked, and then ducked in the manner of his race in fights. He
aimed to pass under the left guard of the sapphire lady. But she was
swifter than eagles, and her talons caught in him as he plunged past
her. Bowing his head as if his neck had been struck, Johnson lurched
forward, twisting this way and that way. He fell on his back. The
still form in the blanket flung from his arms, rolled to the edge of
the floor and beneath the window.

Johnson had fallen with his head at the base of an old-fashioned desk.
There was a row of jars upon the top of this desk. For the most part,
they were silent amid this rioting, but there was one which seemed to
hold a scintillant and writhing serpent.

Suddenly the glass splintered, and a ruby-red snakelike thing poured
its thick length out upon the top of the old desk. It coiled and
hesitated, and then began to swim a languorous way down the mahogany
slant. At the angle it waved its sizzling molten head to and fro over
the closed eyes of the man beneath it. Then, in a moment, with mystic
impulse, it moved again, and the red snake flowed directly down into
Johnson's upturned face.

Afterwards the trail of this creature seemed to reek, and amid flames
and low explosions drops like red-hot jewels pattered softly down it
at leisurely intervals.



Chapter VIII.



Suddenly all roads led to Dr. Trescott's. The whole town flowed toward
one point. Chippeway Hose Company Number One toiled desperately up
Bridge Street Hill even as the Tuscaroras came in an impetuous sweep
down Niagara Avenue. Meanwhile the machine of the hook-and-ladder
experts from across the creek was spinning on its way. The chief of
the fire department had been playing poker in the rear room of
Whiteley's cigar-store, but at the first breath of the alarm he sprang
through the door like a man escaping with the kitty.

In Whilomville, on these occasions, there was always a number of
people who instantly turned their attention to the bells in the
churches and school-houses. The bells not only emphasized the alarm,
but it was the habit to send these sounds rolling across the sky in a
stirring brazen uproar until the flames were practically vanquished.
There was also a kind of rivalry as to which bell should be made to
produce the greatest din. Even the Valley Church, four miles away
among the farms, had heard the voices of its brethren, and immediately
added a quaint little yelp.

Doctor Trescott had been driving homeward, slowly smoking a cigar, and
feeling glad that this last case was now in complete obedience to him,
like a wild animal that he had subdued, when he heard the long
whistle, and chirped to his horse under the unlicensed but perfectly
distinct impression that a fire had broken out in Oakhurst, a new and
rather high-flying suburb of the town which was at least two miles
from his own home. But in the second blast and in the ensuing silence
he read the designation of his own district. He was then only a few
blocks from his house. He took out the whip and laid it lightly on the
mare. Surprised and frightened at this extraordinary action, she
leaped forward, and as the reins straightened like steel bands, the
doctor leaned backward a trifle. When the mare whirled him up to the
closed gate he was wondering whose house could be afire. The man who
had rung the signal-box yelled something at him, but he already knew.
He left the mare to her will.

In front of his door was a maniacal woman in a wrapper. "Ned!" she
screamed at sight of him. "Jimmie! Save Jimmie!"

Trescott had grown hard and chill.

"Where?" he said. "Where?"

Mrs. Trescott's voice began to bubble. "Up--up--up--" She pointed at
the second-story windows.

Hannigan was already shouting: "Don't go in that way! You can't go in
that way!"

Trescott ran around the corner of the house and disappeared from them.
He knew from the view he had taken of the main hall that it would be
impossible to ascend from there. His hopes were fastened now to the
stairway which led from the laboratory. The door which opened from
this room out upon the lawn was fastened with a bolt and lock, but he
kicked close to the lock and then close to the bolt. The door with a
loud crash flew back. The doctor recoiled from the roll of smoke, and
then bending low, he stepped into the garden of burning flowers. On
the floor his stinging eyes could make out a form in a smouldering
blanket near the window. Then, as he carried his son toward the door,
he saw that the whole lawn seemed now alive with men and boys, the
leaders in the great charge that the whole town was making. They
seized him and his burden, and overpowered him in wet blankets and
water.

But Hannigan was howling: "Johnson is in there yet! Henry Johnson is
in there yet! He went in after the kid! Johnson is in there yet!"

These cries penetrated to the sleepy senses of Trescott, and he
struggled with his captors, swearing unknown to him and to them, all
the deep blasphemies of his medical-student days. He arose to his feet
and went again toward the door of the laboratory. They endeavored to
restrain him, although they were much affrighted at him.

But a young man who was a brakeman on the railway, and lived in one of
the rear streets near the Trescotts, had gone into the laboratory and
brought forth a thing which he laid on the grass.



Chapter IX.



There were hoarse commands from in front of the house. "Turn on your
water, Five!" "Let 'er go, One!" The gathering crowd swayed this way
and that way. The flames, towering high, cast a wild red light on
their faces. There came the clangor of a gong from along some adjacent
street. The crowd exclaimed at it. "Here comes Number Three!" "That's
Three a-comin'!" A panting and irregular mob dashed into view,
dragging a hose-cart. A cry of exultation arose from the little boys.
"Here's Three!" The lads welcomed Never-Die Hose Company Number Three
as if it was composed of a chariot dragged by a band of gods. The
perspiring citizens flung themselves into the fray. The boys danced in
impish joy at the displays of prowess. They acclaimed the approach of
Number Two. They welcomed Number Four with cheers. They were so deeply
moved by this whole affair that they bitterly guyed the late
appearance of the hook and ladder company, whose heavy apparatus had
almost stalled them on the Bridge Street hill. The lads hated and
feared a fire, of course. They did not particularly want to have
anybody's house burn, but still it was fine to see the gathering of
the companies, and amid a great noise to watch their heroes perform
all manner of prodigies.

They were divided into parties over the worth of different companies,
and supported their creeds with no small violence. For instance, in
that part of the little city where Number Four had its home it would
be most daring for a boy to contend the superiority of any other
company. Likewise, in another quarter, when a strange boy was asked
which fire company was the best in Whilomville, he was expected to
answer "Number One." Feuds, which the boys forgot and remembered
according to chance or the importance of some recent event, existed
all through the town.

They did not care much for John Shipley, the chief of the department.
It was true that he went to a fire with the speed of a falling angel,
but when there he invariably lapsed into a certain still mood, which
was almost a preoccupation, moving leisurely around the burning
structure and surveying it, puffing meanwhile at a cigar. This quiet
man, who even when life was in danger seldom raised his voice, was not
much to their fancy. Now old Sykes Huntington, when he was chief, used
to bellow continually like a bull and gesticulate in a sort of
delirium. He was much finer as a spectacle than this Shipley, who
viewed a fire with the same steadiness that he viewed a raise in a
large jackpot. The greater number of the boys could never understand
why the members of these companies persisted in re-electing Shipley,
although they often pretended to understand it, because "My father
says" was a very formidable phrase in argument, and the fathers seemed
almost unanimous in advocating Shipley.

At this time there was considerable discussion as to which company had
gotten the first stream of water on the fire. Most of the boys claimed
that Number Five owned that distinction, but there was a determined
minority who contended for Number One. Boys who were the blood
adherents of other companies were obliged to choose between the two on
this occasion, and the talk waxed warm.

But a great rumor went among the crowds. It was told with hushed
voices. Afterward a reverent silence fell even upon the boys. Jimmie
Trescott and Henry Johnson had been burned to death, and Dr. Trescott
himself had been most savagely hurt. The crowd did not even feel the
police pushing at them. They raised their eyes, shining now with awe,
toward the high flames.

The man who had information was at his best. In low tones he described
the whole affair. "That was the kid's room--in the corner there. He
had measles or somethin', and this coon--Johnson--was a-settin' up
with 'im, and Johnson got sleepy or somethin' and upset the lamp, and
the doctor he was down in his office, and he came running up, and they
all got burned together till they dragged 'em out."

Another man, always preserved for the deliverance of the final
judgment, was saying: "Oh, they'll die sure. Burned to flinders. No
chance. Hull lot of 'em. Anybody can see." The crowd concentrated its
gaze still more closely upon these flags of fire which waved joyfully
against the black sky. The bells of the town were clashing
unceasingly.

A little procession moved across the lawn and toward the street. There
were three cots, borne by twelve of the firemen. The police moved
sternly, but it needed no effort of theirs to open a lane for this
slow corte'ge. The men who bore the cots were well known to the crowd,
but in this solemn parade during the ringing of the bells and the
shouting, and with the red glare upon the sky, they seemed utterly
foreign, and Whilomville paid them a deep respect. Each man in this
stretcher party had gained a reflected majesty. They were footmen to
death, and the crowd made subtle obeisance to this august dignity
derived from three prospective graves. One woman turned away with a
shriek at sight of the covered body on the first stretcher, and people
faced her suddenly in silent and mournful indignation. Otherwise there
was barely a sound as these twelve important men with measured tread
carried their burdens through the throng.

The little boys no longer discussed the merits of the different fire
companies. For the greater part they had been routed. Only the more
courageous viewed closely the three figures veiled in yellow blankets.



Chapter X.



Old Judge Denning Hagenthorpe, who lived nearly opposite the
Trescotts, had thrown his door wide open to receive the afflicted
family. When it was publicly learned that the doctor and his son and
the negro were still alive, it required a specially detailed policeman
to prevent people from scaling the front porch and interviewing these
sorely wounded. One old lady appeared with a miraculous poultice, and
she quoted most damning scripture to the officer when he said that she
could not pass him. Throughout the night some lads old enough to be
given privileges or to compel them from their mothers remained
vigilantly upon the kerb in anticipation of a death or some such
event. The reporter of the Morning Tribune rode thither on his bicycle
every hour until three o'clock.

Six of the ten doctors in Whilomville attended at Judge Hagenthorpe's
house.

Almost at once they were able to know that Trescott's burns were not
vitally important. The child would possibly be scarred badly, but his
life was undoubtedly safe. As for the negro Henry Johnson, he could
not live. His body was frightfully seared, but more than that, he now
had no face. His face had simply been burned away.

Trescott was always asking news of the two other patients. In the
morning he seemed fresh and strong, so they told him that Johnson was
doomed. They then saw him stir on the bed, and sprang quickly to see
if the bandages needed readjusting. In the sudden glance he threw from
one to another he impressed them as being both leonine and
impracticable.

The morning paper announced the death of Henry Johnson. It contained a
long interview with Edward J. Hannigan, in which the latter described
in full the performance of Johnson at the fire. There was also an
editorial built from all the best words in the vocabulary of the
staff. The town halted in its accustomed road of thought, and turned a
reverent attention to the memory of this hostler. In the breasts of
many people was the regret that they had not known enough to give him
a hand and a lift when he was alive, and they judged themselves stupid
and ungenerous for this failure.

The name of Henry Johnson became suddenly the title of a saint to the
little boys. The one who thought of it first could, by quoting it in
an argument, at once overthrow his antagonist, whether it applied to
the subject or whether it did not. Nigger, nigger, never die, Black
face and shiny eye.

Boys who had called this odious couplet in the rear of Johnson's march
buried the fact at the bottom of their hearts.

Later in the day Miss Bella Farragut, of No. 7 Watermelon Alley,
announced that she had been engaged to marry Mr. Henry Johnson.



Chapter XI.



The old judge had a cane with an ivory head. He could never think at
his best until he was leaning slightly on this stick and smoothing the
white top with slow movements of his hands. It was also to him a kind
of narcotic. If by any chance he mislaid it, he grew at once very
irritable, and was likely to speak sharply to his sister, whose mental
incapacity he had patiently endured for thirty years in the old
mansion on Ontario Street. She was not at all aware of her brother's
opinion of her endowments, and so it might be said that the judge had
successfully dissembled for more than a quarter of a century, only
risking the truth at the times when his cane was lost.

On a particular day the judge sat in his arm-chair on the porch. The
sunshine sprinkled through the lilac-bushes and poured great coins on
the boards. The sparrows disputed in the trees that lined the
pavements. The judge mused deeply, while his hands gently caressed the
ivory head of his cane.

Finally he arose and entered the house, his brow still furrowed in a
thoughtful frown. His stick thumped solemnly in regular beats. On the
second floor he entered a room where Dr. Trescott was working about
the bedside of Henry Johnson. The bandages on the negro's head allowed
only one thing to appear, an eye, which unwinkingly stared at the
judge. The latter spoke to Trescott on the condition of the patient.
Afterward he evidently had something further to say, but he seemed to
be kept from it by the scrutiny of the unwinking eye, at which he
furtively glanced from time to time.

When Jimmie Trescott was sufficiently recovered, his mother had taken
him to pay a visit to his grandparents in Connecticut. The doctor had
remained to take care of his patients, but as a matter of truth he
spent most of his time at Judge Hagenthorpe's house, where lay Henry
Johnson. Here he slept and ate almost every meal in the long nights
and days of his vigil.

At dinner, and away from the magic of the unwinking eye, the judge
said, suddenly, "Trescott, do you think it is--" As Trescott paused
expectantly, the judge fingered his knife. He said, thoughtfully, "No
one wants to advance such ideas, but somehow I think that that poor
fellow ought to die."

There was in Trescott's face at once a look of recognition, as if in
this tangent of the judge he saw an old problem. He merely sighed and
answered, "Who knows?" The words were spoken in a deep tone that gave
them an elusive kind of significance.

The judge retreated to the cold manner of the bench. "Perhaps we may
not talk with propriety of this kind of action, but I am induced to
say that you are performing a questionable charity in preserving this
negro's life. As near as I can understand, he will hereafter be a
monster, a perfect monster, and probably with an affected brain. No
man can observe you as I have observed you and not know that it was a
matter of conscience with you, but I am afraid, my friend, that it is
one of the blunders of virtue." The judge had delivered his views with
his habitual oratory. The last three words he spoke with a particular
emphasis, as if the phrase was his discovery.

The doctor made a weary gesture. "He saved my boy's life."

"Yes," said the judge, swiftly--"yes, I know!"

"And what am I to do?" said Trescott, his eyes suddenly lighting like
an outburst from smouldering peat. "What am I to do? He gave himself
for--for Jimmie. What am I to do for him?"

The judge abased himself completely before these words. He lowered his
eyes for a moment. He picked at his cucumbers.

Presently he braced himself straightly in his chair. "He will be your
creation, you understand. He is purely your creation. Nature has very
evidently given him up. He is dead. You are restoring him to life. You
are making him, and he will be a monster, and with no mind."

"He will be what you like, judge," cried Trescott, in sudden, polite
fury. "He will be anything, but, by God! he saved my boy."

The judge interrupted in a voice trembling with emotion: "Trescott!
Trescott! Don't I know?"

Trescott had subsided to a sullen mood. "Yes, you know," he answered,
acidly; "but you don't know all about your own boy being saved from
death." This was a perfectly childish allusion to the judge's
bachelorhood. Trescott knew that the remark was infantile, but he
seemed to take desperate delight in it.

But it passed the judge completely. It was not his spot.

"I am puzzled," said he, in profound thought. "I don't know what to
say."

Trescott had become repentant. "Don't think I don't appreciate what
you say, judge. But--"

"Of course!" responded the judge, quickly. "Of course."

"It--" began Trescott.

"Of course," said the judge.

In silence they resumed their dinner.

"Well," said the judge, ultimately, "it is hard for a man to know what
to do."

"It is," said the doctor, fervidly.

There was another silence. It was broken by the judge:

"Look here, Trescott; I don't want you to think--"

"No, certainly not," answered the doctor, earnestly.

"Well, I don't want you to think I would say anything to--It was only
that I thought that I might be able to suggest to you that--perhaps--
the affair was a little dubious."

With an appearance of suddenly disclosing his real mental
perturbation, the doctor said: "Well, what would you do? Would you
kill him?" he asked, abruptly and sternly.

"Trescott, you fool," said the old man, gently.

"Oh, well, I know, judge, but then--" He turned red, and spoke with
new violence: "Say, he saved my boy--do you see? He saved my boy."

"You bet he did," cried the judge, with enthusiasm. "You bet he did."
And they remained for a time gazing at each other, their faces
illuminated with memories of a certain deed.

After another silence, the judge said, "It is hard for a man to know
what to do."



Chapter XII.



Late one evening Trescott, returning from a professional call, paused
his buggy at the Hagenthorpe gate. He tied the mare to the old tin-
covered post, and entered the house. Ultimately he appeared with a
companion--a man who walked slowly and carefully, as if he were
learning. He was wrapped to the heels in an old-fashioned ulster. They
entered the buggy and drove away.

After a silence only broken by the swift and musical humming of the
wheels on the smooth road, Trescott spoke. "Henry," he said, "I've got
you a home here with old Alek Williams. You will have everything you
want to eat and a good place to sleep, and I hope you will get along
there all right. I will pay all your expenses, and come to see you as
often as I can. If you don't get along, I want you to let me know as
soon as possible, and then we will do what we can to make it better."

The dark figure at the doctor's side answered with a cheerful laugh.
"These buggy wheels don' look like I washed 'em yesterday, docteh," he
said.

Trescott hesitated for a moment, and then went on insistently, "I am
taking you to Alek Williams, Henry, and I--"

The figure chuckled again. "No, 'deed! No, seh! Alek Williams don'
know a hoss! 'Deed he don't. He don' know a hoss from a pig." The
laugh that followed was like the rattle of pebbles.

Trescott turned and looked sternly and coldly at the dim form in the
gloom from the buggy-top. "Henry," he said, "I didn't say anything
about horses. I was saying--"

"Hoss? Hoss?" said the quavering voice from these near shadows. "Hoss?
'Deed I don' know all erbout a hoss! 'Deed I don't." There was a
satirical chuckle.

At the end of three miles the mare slackened and the doctor leaned
forward, peering, while holding tight reins. The wheels of the buggy
bumped often over out-cropping bowlders. A window shone forth, a
simple square of topaz on a great black hill-side. Four dogs charged
the buggy with ferocity, and when it did not promptly retreat, they
circled courageously around the flanks, baying. A door opened near the
window in the hill-side, and a man came and stood on a beach of yellow
light.

"Yah! yah! You Roveh! You Susie! Come yah! Come yah this minit!"

Trescott called across the dark sea of grass, "Hello, Alek!"

"Hello!"

"Come down here and show me where to drive."

The man plunged from the beach into the surf, and Trescott could then
only trace his course by the fervid and polite ejaculations of a host
who was somewhere approaching. Presently Williams took the mare by the
head, and uttering cries of welcome and scolding the swarming dogs,
led the equipage toward the lights. When they halted at the door and
Trescott was climbing out, Williams cried, "Will she stand, docteh?"

"She'll stand all right, but you better hold her for a minute. Now,
Henry." The doctor turned and held both arms to the dark figure. It
crawled to him painfully like a man going down a ladder. Williams took
the mare away to be tied to a little tree, and when he returned he
found them awaiting him in the gloom beyond the rays from the door.

He burst out then like a siphon pressed by a nervous thumb. "Hennery!
Hennery, ma ol' frien'. Well, if I ain' glade. If I ain' glade!"

Trescott had taken the silent shape by the arm and led it forward into
the full revelation of the light. "Well, now, Alek, you can take Henry
and put him to bed, and in the morning I will--"

Near the end of this sentence old Williams had come front to front
with Johnson. He gasped for a second, and then yelled the yell of a
man stabbed in the heart.

For a fraction of a moment Trescott seemed to be looking for epithets.
Then he roared: "You old black chump! You old black--Shut up! Shut up!
Do you hear?"

Williams obeyed instantly in the matter of his screams, but he
continued in a lowered voice: "Ma Lode amassy! Who'd ever think? Ma
Lode amassy!"

Trescott spoke again in the manner of a commander of a battalion.
"Alek!"

The old negro again surrendered, but to himself he repeated in a
whisper, "Ma Lode!" He was aghast and trembling.

As these three points of widening shadows approached the golden
doorway a hale old negress appeared there, bowing. "Good-evenin',
docteh! Good-evenin'! Come in! come in!" She had evidently just
retired from a tempestuous struggle to place the room in order, but
she was now bowing rapidly. She made the effort of a person swimming.

"Don't trouble yourself, Mary," said Trescott, entering. "I've brought
Henry for you to take care of, and all you've got to do is to carry
out what I tell you." Learning that he was not followed, he faced the
door, and said, "Come in, Henry."

Johnson entered. "Whee!" shrieked Mrs. Williams. She almost achieved a
back somersault. Six young members of the tribe of Williams made
simultaneous plunge for a position behind the stove, and formed a
wailing heap.



Chapter XIII.



"You know very well that you and your family lived usually on less
than three dollars a week, and now that Doctor Trescott pays you five
dollars a week for Johnson's board, you live like millionaires. You
haven't done a stroke of work since Johnson began to board with you--
everybody knows that--and so what are you kicking about?"

The judge sat in his chair on the porch, fondling his cane, and gazing
down at old Williams, who stood under the lilac-bushes. "Yes, I know,
jedge," said the negro, wagging his head in a puzzled manner. "'Tain't
like as if I didn't 'preciate what the docteh done, but--but--well,
yeh see, jedge," he added, gaining a new impetus, "it's--it's hard
wuk. This ol' man nev' did wuk so hard. Lode, no."

"Don't talk such nonsense, Alek," spoke the judge, sharply. "You have
never really worked in your life--anyhow enough to support a family of
sparrows, and now when you are in a more prosperous condition than
ever before, you come around talking like an old fool."

The negro began to scratch his head. "Yeh see, jedge," he said at
last, "my ol' 'ooman she cain't 'ceive no lady callahs, nohow."

"Hang lady callers!" said the judge, irascibly. "If you have flour in
the barrel and meat in the pot, your wife can get along without
receiving lady callers, can't she?"

"But they won't come ainyhow, jedge," replied Williams, with an air of
still deeper stupefaction. "Noner ma wife's frien's ner noner ma
frien's'll come near ma res'dence."

"Well, let them stay home if they are such silly people."

The old negro seemed to be seeking a way to elude this argument, but
evidently finding none, he was about to shuffle meekly off. He halted,
however. "Jedge," said he, "ma ol' 'ooman's near driv' abstracted."

"Your old woman is an idiot," responded the judge.

Williams came very close and peered solemnly through a branch of
lilac. "Jedge," he whispered, "the chillens."

"What about them?"

Dropping his voice to funereal depths, Williams said, "They--they
cain't eat."

"Can't eat!" scoffed the judge, loudly. "Can't eat! You must think I
am as big an old fool as you are. Can't eat--the little rascals!
What's to prevent them from eating?"

In answer, Williams said, with mournful emphasis, "Hennery." Moved
with a kind of satisfaction at his tragic use of the name, he remained
staring at the judge for a sign of its effect.

The judge made a gesture of irritation. "Come, now, you old scoundrel,
don't beat around the bush any more. What are you up to? What do you
want? Speak out like a man, and don't give me any more of this
tiresome rigamarole."

"I ain't er-beatin' round 'bout nuffin, jedge," replied Williams,
indignantly. "No, seh; I say whatter got to say right out. 'Deed I
do."

"Well, say it, then."

"Jedge," began the negro, taking off his hat and switching his knee
with it, "Lode knows I'd do jes 'bout as much fer five dollehs er week
as ainy cul'd man, but--but this yere business is awful, jedge. I
raikon 'ain't been no sleep in--in my house sence docteh done fetch
'im."

"Well, what do you propose to do about it?"

Williams lifted his eyes from the ground and gazed off through the
trees. "Raikon I got good appetite, an' sleep jes like er dog, but
he--he's done broke me all up. 'Tain't no good, nohow. I wake up in
the night; I hear 'im, mebbe, er-whimperin' an' er-whimperin', an' I
sneak an' I sneak until I try th' do' to see if he locked in. An' he
keep me er-puzzlin' an' er-quakin' all night long. Don't know how 'll
do in th' winter. Can't let 'im out where th' chillen is. He'll done
freeze where he is now." Williams spoke these sentences as if he were
talking to himself. After a silence of deep reflection he continued:
"Folks go round sayin' he ain't Hennery Johnson at all. They say he's
er devil!"

"What?" cried the judge.

"Yesseh," repeated Williams in tones of injury, as if his veracity had
been challenged. "Yesseh. I'm er-tellin' it to yeh straight, jedge.
Plenty cul'd people folks up my way say it is a devil."

"Well, you don't think so yourself, do you?"

"No. 'Tain't no devil. It's Hennery Johnson."

"Well, then, what is the matter with you? You don't care what a lot of
foolish people say. Go on 'tending to your business, and pay no
attention to such idle nonsense."

"'Tis nonsense, jedge; but he looks like er devil."

"What do you care what he looks like?" demanded the judge.

"Ma rent is two dollehs and er half er month," said Williams, slowly.

"It might just as well be ten thousand dollars a month," responded the
judge. "You never pay it, anyhow."

"Then, anoth' thing," continued Williams, in his reflective tone. "If
he was all right in his haid I could stan' it; but, jedge, he's
crazier 'n er loon. Then when he looks like er devil, an' done skears
all ma frien's away, an' ma chillens cain't eat, an' ma ole 'ooman jes
raisin' Cain all the time, an' ma rent two dollehs an' er half er
month, an' him not right in his haid, it seems like five dollehs er
week--"

The judge's stick came down sharply and suddenly upon the floor of the
porch. "There," he said, "I thought that was what you were driving
at."

Williams began swinging his head from side to side in the strange
racial mannerism. "Now hol' on a minnet, jedge," he said, defensively.
"'Tain't like as if I didn't 'preciate what the docteh done. 'Tain't
that. Docteh Trescott is er kind man, an' 'tain't like as if I didn't
'preciate what he done; but--but--"

"But what? You are getting painful, Alek. Now tell me this: did you
ever have five dollars a week regularly before in your life?"

Williams at once drew himself up with great dignity, but in the pause
after that question he drooped gradually to another attitude. In the
end he answered, heroically: "No, jedge, I 'ain't. An' 'tain't like as
if I was er-sayin' five dollehs wasn't er lot er money for a man like
me. But, jedge, what er man oughter git fer this kinder wuk is er
salary. Yesseh, jedge," he repeated, with a great impressive gesture;
"fer this kinder wuk er man oughter git er Salary." He laid a terrible
emphasis upon the final word.

The judge laughed. "I know Dr. Trescott's mind concerning this affair,
Alek; and if you are dissatisfied with your boarder, he is quite ready
to move him to some other place; so, if you care to leave word with me
that you are tired of the arrangement and wish it changed, he will
come and take Johnson away."

Williams scratched his head again in deep perplexity. "Five dollehs is
er big price fer bo'd, but 'tain't no big price fer the bo'd of er
crazy man," he said, finally.

"What do you think you ought to get?" asked the judge.

"Well," answered Alek, in the manner of one deep in a balancing of the
scales, "he looks like er devil, an' done skears e'rybody, an' ma
chillens cain't eat, an' I cain't sleep, an' he ain't right in his
haid, an'--"

"You told me all those things."

After scratching his wool, and beating his knee with his hat, and
gazing off through the trees and down at the ground, Williams said, as
he kicked nervously at the gravel, "Well, jedge, I think it is wuth--"
He stuttered.

"Worth what?"

"Six dollehs," answered Williams, in a desperate outburst.

The judge lay back in his great arm-chair and went through all the
motions of a man laughing heartily, but he made no sound save a slight
cough. Williams had been watching him with apprehension.

"Well," said the judge, "do you call six dollars a salary?"

"No, seh," promptly responded Williams. "'Tain't a salary. No, 'deed!
'Tain't a salary." He looked with some anger upon the man who
questioned his intelligence in this way.

"Well, supposing your children can't eat?"

"I--"

"And supposing he looks like a devil? And supposing all those things
continue? Would you be satisfied with six dollars a week?"

Recollections seemed to throng in Williams's mind at these
interrogations, and he answered dubiously. "Of co'se a man who ain't
right in his haid, an' looks like er devil--But six dollehs--" After
these two attempts at a sentence Williams suddenly appeared as an
orator, with a great shiny palm waving in the air. "I tell yeh, jedge,
six dollehs is six dollehs, but if I git six dollehs for bo'ding
Hennery Johnson, I uhns it! I uhns it!"

"I don't doubt that you earn six dollars for every week's work you
do," said the judge.

"Well, if I bo'd Hennery Johnson fer six dollehs a week, I uhns it! I
uhns it!" cried Williams, wildly.



Chapter XIV.



Reifsnyder's assistant had gone to his supper, and the owner of the
shop was trying to placate four men who wished to be shaved at once.
Reifsnyder was very garrulous--a fact which made him rather remarkable
among barbers, who, as a class, are austerely speechless, having been
taught silence by the hammering reiteration of a tradition. It is the
customers who talk in the ordinary event.

As Reifsnyder waved his razor down the cheek of a man in the chair, he
turned often to cool the impatience of the others with pleasant talk,
which they did not particularly heed.

"Oh, he should have let him die," said Bainbridge, a railway engineer,
finally replying to one of the barber's orations. "Shut up, Reif, and
go on with your business!"

Instead, Reifsnyder paused shaving entirely, and turned to front the
speaker. "Let him die?" he demanded. "How vas that? How can you let a
man die?"

"By letting him die, you chump," said the engineer. The others laughed
a little, and Reifsnyder turned at once to his work, sullenly, as a
man overwhelmed by the derision of numbers.

"How vas that?" he grumbled later. "How can you let a man die when he
vas done so much for you?"

"'When he vas done so much for you?'" repeated Bainbridge. "You better
shave some people. How vas that? Maybe this ain't a barber shop?"

A man hitherto silent now said, "If I had been the doctor, I would
have done the same thing."

"Of course," said Reifsnyder. "Any man vould do it. Any man that vas
not like you, you--old--flint-hearted--fish." He had sought the final
words with painful care, and he delivered the collection triumphantly
at Bainbridge. The engineer laughed.

The man in the chair now lifted himself higher, while Reifsnyder began
an elaborate ceremony of anointing and combing his hair. Now free to
join comfortably in the talk, the man said: "They say he is the most
terrible thing in the world. Young Johnnie Bernard--that drives the
grocery wagon--saw him up at Alek Williams's shanty, and he says he
couldn't eat anything for two days."

"Chee!" said Reifsnyder.

"Well, what makes him so terrible?" asked another.

"Because he hasn't got any face," replied the barber and the engineer
in duet.

"Hasn't got any face?" repeated the man. "How can he do without any
face!" "He has no face in the front of his head, In the place where
his face ought to grow."

Bainbridge sang these lines pathetically as he arose and hung his hat
on a hook. The man in the chair was about to abdicate in his favor.
"Get a gait on you now," he said to Reifsnyder. "I go out at 7.31."

As the barber foamed the lather on the cheeks of the engineer he
seemed to be thinking heavily. Then suddenly he burst out. "How would
you like to be with no face?" he cried to the assemblage.

"Oh, if I had to have a face like yours--" answered one customer.

Bainbridge's voice came from a sea of lather. "You're kicking because
if losing faces becomes popular, you'd have to go out of business."

"I don't think it will become so much popular," said Reifsnyder.

"Not if it's got to be taken off in the way his was taken off," said
another man. "I'd rather keep mine, if you don't mind."

"I guess so!" cried the barber. "Just think!"

The shaving of Bainbridge had arrived at a time of comparative liberty
for him. "I wonder what the doctor says to himself?" he observed. "He
may be sorry he made him live."

"It was the only thing he could do," replied a man. The others seemed
to agree with him.

"Supposing you were in his place," said one, "and Johnson had saved
your kid. What would you do?"

"Certainly!"

"Of course! You would do anything on earth for him. You'd take all the
trouble in the world for him. And spend your last dollar on him. Well,
then?"

"I wonder how it feels to be without any face?" said Reifsnyder,
musingly.

The man who had previously spoken, feeling that he had expressed
himself well, repeated the whole thing. "You would do anything on
earth for him. You'd take all the trouble in the world for him. And
spend your last dollar on him. Well, then?"

"No, but look," said Reifsnyder; "supposing you don't got a face!"



Chapter XV.



As soon as Williams was hidden from the view of the old judge he began
to gesture and talk to himself. An elation had evidently penetrated to
his vitals, and caused him to dilate as if he had been filled with
gas. He snapped his fingers in the air, and whistled fragments of
triumphal music. At times, in his progress toward his shanty, he
indulged in a shuffling movement that was really a dance. It was to be
learned from the intermediate monologue that he had emerged from his
trials laurelled and proud. He was the unconquerable Alexander
Williams. Nothing could exceed the bold self-reliance of his manner.
His kingly stride, his heroic song, the derisive flourish of his
hands--all betokened a man who had successfully defied the world.

On his way he saw Zeke Paterson coming to town. They hailed each other
at a distance of fifty yards.

"How do, Broth' Paterson?"

"How do, Broth' Williams?"

They were both deacons.

"Is you' folks well, Broth' Paterson?"

"Middlin', middlin'. How's you' folks, Broth' Williams?"

Neither of them had slowed his pace in the smallest degree. They had
simply begun this talk when a considerable space separated them,
continued it as they passed, and added polite questions as they
drifted steadily apart. Williams's mind seemed to be a balloon. He had
been so inflated that he had not noticed that Paterson had definitely
shied into the dry ditch as they came to the point of ordinary
contact.

Afterward, as he went a lonely way, he burst out again in song and
pantomimic celebration of his estate. His feet moved in prancing
steps.

When he came in sight of his cabin, the fields were bathed in a blue
dusk, and the light in the window was pale. Cavorting and
gesticulating, he gazed joyfully for some moments upon this light.
Then suddenly another idea seemed to attack his mind, and he stopped,
with an air of being suddenly dampened. In the end he approached his
home as if it were the fortress of an enemy.

Some dogs disputed his advance for a loud moment, and then discovering
their lord, slunk away embarrassed. His reproaches were addressed to
them in muffled tones.

Arriving at the door, he pushed it open with the timidity of a new
thief. He thrust his head cautiously sideways, and his eyes met the
eyes of his wife, who sat by the table, the lamp-light defining a half
of her face. "Sh!" he said, uselessly. His glance travelled swiftly to
the inner door which shielded the one bed-chamber. The pickaninnies,
strewn upon the floor of the living-room, were softly snoring. After a
hearty meal they had promptly dispersed themselves about the place and
gone to sleep. "Sh!" said Williams again to his motionless and silent
wife. He had allowed only his head to appear. His wife, with one hand
upon the edge of the table and the other at her knee, was regarding
him with wide eyes and parted lips as if he were a spectre. She looked
to be one who was living in terror, and even the familiar face at the
door had thrilled her because it had come suddenly.

Williams broke the tense silence. "Is he all right?" he whispered,
waving his eyes toward the inner door. Following his glance
timorously, his wife nodded, and in a low tone answered.

"I raikon he's done gone t'sleep."

Williams then slunk noiselessly across his threshold.

He lifted a chair, and with infinite care placed it so that it faced
the dreaded inner door. His wife moved slightly, so as to also
squarely face it. A silence came upon them in which they seemed to be
waiting for a calamity, pealing and deadly.

Williams finally coughed behind his hand. His wife started, and looked
upon him in alarm. "'Pears like he done gwine keep quiet ter-night,"
he breathed. They continually pointed their speech and their looks at
the inner door, paying it the homage due to a corpse or a phantom.
Another long stillness followed this sentence. Their eyes shone white
and wide. A wagon rattled down the distant road. From their chairs
they looked at the window, and the effect of the light in the cabin
was a presentation of an intensely black and solemn night. The old
woman adopted the attitude used always in church at funerals. At times
she seemed to be upon the point of breaking out in prayer.

"He mighty quiet ter-night," whispered Williams. "Was he good ter-
day?" For answer his wife raised her eyes to the ceiling in the
supplication of Job. Williams moved restlessly. Finally he tip-toed to
the door. He knelt slowly and without a sound, and placed his ear near
the key-hole. Hearing a noise behind him, he turned quickly. His wife
was staring at him aghast. She stood in front of the stove, and her
arms were spread out in the natural movement to protect all her
sleeping ducklings.

But Williams arose without having touched the door. "I raikon he er-
sleep," he said, fingering his wool. He debated with himself for some
time. During this interval his wife remained, a great fat statue of a
mother shielding her children.

It was plain that his mind was swept suddenly by a wave of temerity.
With a sounding step he moved toward the door. His fingers were almost
upon the knob when he swiftly ducked and dodged away, clapping his
hands to the back of his head. It was as if the portal had threatened
him. There was a little tumult near the stove, where Mrs. Williams's
desperate retreat had involved her feet with the prostrate children.

After the panic Williams bore traces of a feeling of shame. He
returned to the charge. He firmly grasped the knob with his left hand,
and with his other hand turned the key in the lock. He pushed the
door, and as it swung portentously open he sprang nimbly to one side
like the fearful slave liberating the lion. Near the stove a group had
formed, the terror-stricken mother with her arms stretched, and the
aroused children clinging frenziedly to her skirts.

The light streamed after the swinging door, and disclosed a room six
feet one way and six feet the other way. It was small enough to enable
the radiance to lay it plain. Williams peered warily around the corner
made by the door-post.

Suddenly he advanced, retired, and advanced again with a howl. His
palsied family had expected him to spring backward, and at his howl
they heaped themselves wondrously. But Williams simply stood in the
little room emitting his howls before an open window. "He's gone! He's
gone! He's gone!" His eye and his hand had speedily proved the fact.
He had even thrown open a little cupboard.

Presently he came flying out. He grabbed his hat, and hurled the outer
door back upon its hinges. Then he tumbled headlong into the night. He
was yelling: "Docteh Trescott! Docteh Trescott!" He ran wildly through
the fields, and galloped in the direction of town. He continued to
call to Trescott as if the latter was within easy hearing. It was as
if Trescott was poised in the contemplative sky over the running
negro, and could heed this reaching voice--"Docteh Trescott!"

In the cabin, Mrs. Williams, supported by relays from the battalion of
children, stood quaking watch until the truth of daylight came as a
re-enforcement and made them arrogant, strutting, swashbuckler
children, and a mother who proclaimed her illimitable courage.



Chapter XVI.



Theresa Page was giving a party. It was the outcome of a long series
of arguments addressed to her mother, which had been overheard in part
by her father. He had at last said five words, "Oh, let her have it."
The mother had then gladly capitulated.

Theresa had written nineteen invitations, and distributed them at
recess to her schoolmates. Later her mother had composed five large
cakes, and still later a vast amount of lemonade.

So the nine little girls and the ten little boys sat quite primly in
the dining-room, while Theresa and her mother plied them with cake and
lemonade, and also with ice-cream. This primness sat now quite
strangely upon them. It was owing to the presence of Mrs. Page.
Previously in the parlor alone with their games they had overturned a
chair; the boys had let more or less of their hoodlum spirit shine
forth. But when circumstances could be possibly magnified to warrant
it, the girls made the boys victims of an insufferable pride, snubbing
them mercilessly. So in the dining-room they resembled a class at
Sunday-school, if it were not for the subterranean smiles, gestures,
rebuffs, and poutings which stamped the affair as a children's party.

Two little girls of this subdued gathering were planted in a settle
with their backs to the broad window. They were beaming lovingly upon
each other with an effect of scorning the boys.

Hearing a noise behind her at the window, one little girl turned to
face it. Instantly she screamed and sprang away, covering her face
with her hands. "What was it? What was it?" cried every one in a roar.
Some slight movement of the eyes of the weeping and shuddering child
informed the company that she had been frightened by an appearance at
the window. At once they all faced the imperturbable window, and for a
moment there was a silence. An astute lad made an immediate census of
the other lads. The prank of slipping out and looming spectrally at a
window was too venerable. But the little boys were all present and
astonished.

As they recovered their minds they uttered warlike cries, and through
a side-door sallied rapidly out against the terror. They vied with
each other in daring.

None wished particularly to encounter a dragon in the darkness of the
garden, but there could be no faltering when the fair ones in the
dining-room were present. Calling to each other in stern voices, they
went dragooning over the lawn, attacking the shadows with ferocity,
but still with the caution of reasonable beings. They found, however,
nothing new to the peace of the night. Of course there was a lad who
told a great lie. He described a grim figure, bending low and slinking
off along the fence. He gave a number of details, rendering his lie
more splendid by a repetition of certain forms which he recalled from
romances. For instance, he insisted that he had heard the creature
emit a hollow laugh.

Inside the house the little girl who had raised the alarm was still
shuddering and weeping. With the utmost difficulty was she brought to
a state approximating calmness by Mrs. Page. Then she wanted to go
home at once.

Page entered the house at this time. He had exiled himself until he
concluded that this children's party was finished and gone. He was
obliged to escort the little girl home because she screamed again when
they opened the door and she saw the night.

She was not coherent even to her mother. Was it a man? She didn't
know. It was simply a thing, a dreadful thing.



Chapter XVII.



In Watermelon Alley the Farraguts were spending their evening as usual
on the little rickety porch. Sometimes they howled gossip to other
people on other rickety porches. The thin wail of a baby arose from a
near house. A man had a terrific altercation with his wife, to which
the alley paid no attention at all.

There appeared suddenly before the Farraguts a monster making a low
and sweeping bow. There was an instant's pause, and then occurred
something that resembled the effect of an upheaval of the earth's
surface. The old woman hurled herself backward with a dreadful cry.
Young Sim had been perched gracefully on a railing. At sight of the
monster he simply fell over it to the ground. He made no sound, his
eyes stuck out, his nerveless hands tried to grapple the rail to
prevent a tumble, and then he vanished. Bella, blubbering, and with
her hair suddenly and mysteriously dishevelled, was crawling on her
hands and knees fearsomely up the steps.

Standing before this wreck of a family gathering, the monster
continued to bow. It even raised a deprecatory claw. "Don' make no
botheration 'bout me, Miss Fa'gut," it said, politely. "No, 'deed. I
jes drap in ter ax if yer well this evenin', Miss Fa'gut. Don' make no
botheration. No, 'deed. I gwine ax you to go to er daince with me,
Miss Fa'gut. I ax you if I can have the magnifercent gratitude of you'
company on that 'casion, Miss Fa'gut."

The girl cast a miserable glance behind her. She was still crawling
away. On the ground beside the porch young Sim raised a strange bleat,
which expressed both his fright and his lack of wind. Presently the
monster, with a fashionable amble, ascended the steps after the girl.

She grovelled in a corner of the room as the creature took a chair. It
seated itself very elegantly on the edge. It held an old cap in both
hands. "Don' make no botheration, Miss Fa'gut. Don' make no
botherations. No, 'deed. I jes drap in ter ax you if you won' do me
the proud of acceptin' ma humble invitation to er daince, Miss
Fa'gut."

She shielded her eyes with her arms and tried to crawl past it, but
the genial monster blocked the way. "I jes drap in ter ax you 'bout er
daince, Miss Fa'gut. I ax you if I kin have the magnifercent gratitude
of you' company on that 'casion, Miss Fa'gut."

In a last outbreak of despair, the girl, shuddering and wailing, threw
herself face downward on the floor, while the monster sat on the edge
of the chair gabbling courteous invitations, and holding the old hat
daintily to its stomach.

At the back of the house, Mrs. Farragut, who was of enormous weight,
and who for eight years had done little more than sit in an arm-chair
and describe her various ailments, had with speed and agility scaled a
high board fence.



Chapter XVIII.



The black mass in the middle of Trescott's property was hardly allowed
to cool before the builders were at work on another house. It had
sprung upward at a fabulous rate. It was like a magical composition
born of the ashes. The doctor's office was the first part to be
completed, and he had already moved in his new books and instruments
and medicines.

Trescott sat before his desk when the chief of police arrived. "Well,
we found him," said the latter.

"Did you?" cried the doctor. "Where?"

"Shambling around the streets at daylight this morning. I'll be blamed
if I can figure on where he passed the night."

"Where is he now?"

"Oh, we jugged him. I didn't know what else to do with him. That's
what I want you to tell me. Of course we can't keep him. No charge
could be made, you know."

"I'll come down and get him."

The official grinned retrospectively. "Must say he had a fine career
while he was out. First thing he did was to break up a children's
party at Page's. Then he went to Watermelon Alley. Whoo! He stampeded
the whole outfit. Men, women, and children running pell-mell, and
yelling. They say one old woman broke her leg, or something, shinning
over a fence. Then he went right out on the main street, and an Irish
girl threw a fit, and there was a sort of riot. He began to run, and a
big crowd chased him, firing rocks. But he gave them the slip somehow
down there by the foundry and in the railroad yard. We looked for him
all night, but couldn't find him."

"Was he hurt any? Did anybody hit him with a stone?"

"Guess there isn't much of him to hurt any more, is there? Guess he's
been hurt up to the limit. No. They never touched him. Of course
nobody really wanted to hit him, but you know how a crowd gets. It's
like--it's like--"

"Yes, I know."

For a moment the chief of the police looked reflectively at the floor.
Then he spoke hesitatingly. "You know Jake Winter's little girl was
the one that he scared at the party. She is pretty sick, they say."

"Is she? Why, they didn't call me. I always attend the Winter family."

"No? Didn't they?" asked the chief, slowly. "Well--you know--Winter
is--well, Winter has gone clean crazy over this business. He wanted--
he wanted to have you arrested."

"Have me arrested? The idiot! What in the name of wonder could he have
me arrested for?"

"Of course. He is a fool. I told him to keep his trap shut. But then
you know how he'll go all over town yapping about the thing. I thought
I'd better tip you."

"Oh, he is of no consequence; but then, of course, I'm obliged to you,
Sam."

"That's all right. Well, you'll be down to-night and take him out, eh?
You'll get a good welcome from the jailer. He don't like his job for a
cent. He says you can have your man whenever you want him. He's got no
use for him."

"But what is this business of Winter's about having me arrested?"

"Oh, it's a lot of chin about your having no right to allow this--
this--this man to be at large. But I told him to tend to his own
business. Only I thought I'd better let you know. And I might as well
say right now, doctor, that there is a good deal of talk about this
thing. If I were you, I'd come to the jail pretty late at night,
because there is likely to be a crowd around the door, and I'd bring
a--er--mask, or some kind of a veil, anyhow."



Chapter XIX.



Martha Goodwin was single, and well along into the thin years. She
lived with her married sister in Whilomville. She performed nearly all
the house-work in exchange for the privilege of existence. Every one
tacitly recognized her labor as a form of penance for the early end of
her betrothed, who had died of small-pox, which he had not caught from
her.

But despite the strenuous and unceasing workaday of her life, she was
a woman of great mind. She had adamantine opinions upon the situation
in Armenia, the condition of women in China, the flirtation between
Mrs. Minster of Niagara Avenue and young Griscom, the conflict in the
Bible class of the Baptist Sunday-school, the duty of the United
States toward the Cuban insurgents, and many other colossal matters.
Her fullest experience of violence was gained on an occasion when she
had seen a hound clubbed, but in the plan which she had made for the
reform of the world she advocated drastic measures. For instance, she
contended that all the Turks should be pushed into the sea and
drowned, and that Mrs. Minster and young Griscom should be hanged side
by side on twin gallows. In fact, this woman of peace, who had seen
only peace, argued constantly for a creed of illimitable ferocity. She
was invulnerable on these questions, because eventually she overrode
all opponents with a sniff. This sniff was an active force. It was to
her antagonists like a bang over the head, and none was known to
recover from this expression of exalted contempt. It left them
windless and conquered. They never again came forward as candidates
for suppression. And Martha walked her kitchen with a stern brow, an
invincible being like Napoleon.

Nevertheless her acquaintances, from the pain of their defeats, had
been long in secret revolt. It was in no wise a conspiracy, because
they did not care to state their open rebellion, but nevertheless it
was understood that any woman who could not coincide with one of
Martha's contentions was entitled to the support of others in the
small circle. It amounted to an arrangement by which all were required
to disbelieve any theory for which Martha fought. This, however, did
not prevent them from speaking of her mind with profound respect.

Two people bore the brunt of her ability. Her sister Kate was visibly
afraid of her, while Carrie Dungen sailed across from her kitchen to
sit respectfully at Martha's feet and learn the business of the world.
To be sure, afterwards, under another sun, she always laughed at
Martha and pretended to deride her ideas, but in the presence of the
sovereign she always remained silent or admiring. Kate, the sister,
was of no consequence at all. Her principal delusion was that she did
all the work in the upstairs rooms of the house, while Martha did it
downstairs. The truth was seen only by the husband, who treated Martha
with a kindness that was half banter, half deference. Martha herself
had no suspicion that she was the only pillar of the domestic edifice.
The situation was without definitions. Martha made definitions, but
she devoted them entirely to the Armenians and Griscom and the Chinese
and other subjects. Her dreams, which in early days had been of love
of meadows and the shade of trees, of the face of a man, were now
involved otherwise, and they were companioned in the kitchen
curiously, Cuba, the hot-water kettle, Armenia, the washing of the
dishes, and the whole thing being jumbled. In regard to social
misdemeanors, she who was simply the mausoleum of a dead passion was
probably the most savage critic in town. This unknown woman, hidden in
a kitchen as in a well, was sure to have a considerable effect of the
one kind or the other in the life of the town. Every time it moved a
yard, she had personally contributed an inch. She could hammer so
stoutly upon the door of a proposition that it would break from its
hinges and fall upon her, but at any rate it moved. She was an engine,
and the fact that she did not know that she was an engine contributed
largely to the effect. One reason that she was formidable was that she
did not even imagine that she was formidable. She remained a weak,
innocent, and pig-headed creature, who alone would defy the universe
if she thought the universe merited this proceeding.

One day Carrie Dungen came across from her kitchen with speed. She had
a great deal of grist. "Oh," she cried, "Henry Johnson got away from
where they was keeping him, and came to town last night, and scared
everybody almost to death."

Martha was shining a dish-pan, polishing madly. No reasonable person
could see cause for this operation, because the pan already glistened
like silver. "Well!" she ejaculated. She imparted to the word a deep
meaning. "This, my prophecy, has come to pass." It was a habit.

The overplus of information was choking Carrie. Before she could go on
she was obliged to struggle for a moment. "And, oh, little Sadie
Winter is awful sick, and they say Jake Winter was around this morning
trying to get Doctor Trescott arrested. And poor old Mrs. Farragut
sprained her ankle in trying to climb a fence. And there's a crowd
around the jail all the time. They put Henry in jail because they
didn't know what else to do with him, I guess. They say he is
perfectly terrible."

Martha finally released the dish-pan and confronted the headlong
speaker. "Well!" she said again, poising a great brown rag. Kate had
heard the excited new-comer, and drifted down from the novel in her
room. She was a shivery little woman. Her shoulder-blades seemed to be
two panes of ice, for she was constantly shrugging and shrugging.
"Serves him right if he was to lose all his patients," she said
suddenly, in bloodthirsty tones. She snipped her words out as if her
lips were scissors.

"Well, he's likely to," shouted Carrie Dungen. "Don't a lot of people
say that they won't have him any more? If you're sick and nervous,
Doctor Trescott would scare the life out of you, wouldn't he? He would
me. I'd keep thinking."

Martha, stalking to and fro, sometimes surveyed the two other women
with a contemplative frown.



Chapter XX.



After the return from Connecticut, little Jimmie was at first much
afraid of the monster who lived in the room over the carriage-house.
He could not identify it in any way. Gradually, however, his fear
dwindled under the influence of a weird fascination. He sidled into
closer and closer relations with it.

One time the monster was seated on a box behind the stable basking in
the rays of the afternoon sun. A heavy crepe veil was swathed about
its head.

Little Jimmie and many companions came around the corner of the
stable. They were all in what was popularly known as the baby class,
and consequently escaped from school a half-hour before the other
children. They halted abruptly at sight of the figure on the box.
Jimmie waved his hand with the air of a proprietor.

"There he is," he said.

"O-o-o!" murmured all the little boys--"o-o-o!" They shrank back, and
grouped according to courage or experience, as at the sound the
monster slowly turned its head. Jimmie had remained in the van alone.
"Don't be afraid! I won't let him hurt you," he said, delighted.

"Huh!" they replied, contemptuously. "We ain't afraid."

Jimmie seemed to reap all the joys of the owner and exhibitor of one
of the world's marvels, while his audience remained at a distance--
awed and entranced, fearful and envious.

One of them addressed Jimmie gloomily. "Bet you dassent walk right up
to him." He was an older boy than Jimmie, and habitually oppressed him
to a small degree. This new social elevation of the smaller lad
probably seemed revolutionary to him.

"Huh!" said Jimmie, with deep scorn. "Dassent I? Dassent I, hey?
Dassent I?"

The group was immensely excited. It turned its eyes upon the boy that
Jimmie addressed. "No, you dassent," he said, stolidly, facing a moral
defeat. He could see that Jimmie was resolved. "No, you dassent," he
repeated, doggedly.

"Ho!" cried Jimmie. "You just watch!--you just watch!"

Amid a silence he turned and marched toward the monster. But possibly
the palpable wariness of his companions had an effect upon him that
weighed more than his previous experience, for suddenly, when near to
the monster, he halted dubiously. But his playmates immediately
uttered a derisive shout, and it seemed to force him forward. He went
to the monster and laid his hand delicately on its shoulder. "Hello,
Henry," he said, in a voice that trembled a trifle. The monster was
crooning a weird line of negro melody that was scarcely more than a
thread of sound, and it paid no heed to the boy.

Jimmie strutted back to his companions. They acclaimed him and hooted
his opponent. Amidst this clamor the larger boy with difficulty
preserved a dignified attitude.

"I dassent, dassent I?" said Jimmie to him. "Now, you're so smart,
let's see you do it!"

This challenge brought forth renewed taunts from the others. The
larger boy puffed out his cheeks. "Well, I ain't afraid," he
explained, sullenly. He had made a mistake in diplomacy, and now his
small enemies were tumbling his prestige all about his ears. They
crowed like roosters and bleated like lambs, and made many other
noises which were supposed to bury him in ridicule and dishonor.
"Well, I ain't afraid," he continued to explain through the din.

Jimmie, the hero of the mob, was pitiless. "You ain't afraid, hey?" he
sneered. "If you ain't afraid, go do it, then."

"Well, I would if I wanted to," the other retorted. His eyes wore an
expression of profound misery, but he preserved steadily other
portions of a pot-valiant air. He suddenly faced one of his
persecutors. "If you're so smart, why don't you go do it?" This
persecutor sank promptly through the group to the rear. The incident
gave the badgered one a breathing-spell, and for a moment even turned
the derision in another direction. He took advantage of his interval.
"I'll do it if anybody else will," he announced, swaggering to and
fro.

Candidates for the adventure did not come forward. To defend
themselves from this counter-charge, the other boys again set up their
crowing and bleating. For a while they would hear nothing from him.
Each time he opened his lips their chorus of noises made oratory
impossible. But at last he was able to repeat that he would volunteer
to dare as much in the affair as any other boy.

"Well, you go first," they shouted.

But Jimmie intervened to once more lead the populace against the large
boy. "You're mighty brave, ain't you?" he said to him. "You dared me
to do it, and I did--didn't I? Now who's afraid?" The others cheered
this view loudly, and they instantly resumed the baiting of the large
boy.

He shamefacedly scratched his left shin with his right foot. "Well, I
ain't afraid." He cast an eye at the monster. "Well, I ain't afraid."
With a glare of hatred at his squalling tormentors, he finally
announced a grim intention. "Well, I'll do it, then, since you're so
fresh. Now!"

The mob subsided as with a formidable countenance he turned toward the
impassive figure on the box. The advance was also a regular
progression from high daring to craven hesitation. At last, when some
yards from the monster, the lad came to a full halt, as if he had
encountered a stone wall. The observant little boys in the distance
promptly hooted. Stung again by these cries, the lad sneaked two yards
forward. He was crouched like a young cat ready for a backward spring.
The crowd at the rear, beginning to respect this display, uttered some
encouraging cries. Suddenly the lad gathered himself together, made a
white and desperate rush forward, touched the monster's shoulder with
a far-outstretched finger, and sped away, while his laughter rang out
wild, shrill, and exultant.

The crowd of boys reverenced him at once, and began to throng into his
camp, and look at him, and be his admirers. Jimmie was discomfited for
a moment, but he and the larger boy, without agreement or word of any
kind, seemed to recognize a truce, and they swiftly combined and began
to parade before the others.

"Why, it's just as easy as nothing," puffed the larger boy. "Ain't it,
Jim?"

"Course," blew Jimmie. "Why, it's as e-e-easy."

They were people of another class. If they had been decorated for
courage on twelve battle-fields, they could not have made the other
boys more ashamed of the situation.

Meanwhile they condescended to explain the emotions of the excursion,
expressing unqualified contempt for any one who could hang back. "Why,
it ain't nothin'. He won't do nothin' to you," they told the others,
in tones of exasperation.

One of the very smallest boys in the party showed signs of a wistful
desire to distinguish himself, and they turned their attention to him,
pushing at his shoulders while he swung away from them, and hesitated
dreamily. He was eventually induced to make furtive expedition, but it
was only for a few yards. Then he paused, motionless, gazing with open
mouth. The vociferous entreaties of Jimmie and the large boy had no
power over him.

Mrs. Hannigan had come out on her back porch with a pail of water.
From this coign she had a view of the secluded portion of the Trescott
grounds that was behind the stable. She perceived the group of boys,
and the monster on the box. She shaded her eyes with her hand to
benefit her vision. She screeched then as if she was being murdered.
"Eddie! Eddie! You come home this minute!"

Her son querulously demanded, "Aw, what for?"

"You come home this minute. Do you hear?"

The other boys seemed to think this visitation upon one of their
number required them to preserve for a time the hang-dog air of a
collection of culprits, and they remained in guilty silence until the
little Hannigan, wrathfully protesting, was pushed through the door of
his home. Mrs. Hannigan cast a piercing glance over the group, stared
with a bitter face at the Trescott house, as if this new and handsome
edifice was insulting her, and then followed her son.

There was wavering in the party. An inroad by one mother always caused
them to carefully sweep the horizon to see if there were more coming.
"This is my yard," said Jimmie, proudly. "We don't have to go home."

The monster on the box had turned his black crepe countenance toward
the sky, and was waving its arms in time to a religious chant. "Look
at him now," cried a little boy. They turned, and were transfixed by
the solemnity and mystery of the indefinable gestures. The wail of the
melody was mournful and slow. They drew back. It seemed to spellbind
them with the power of a funeral. They were so absorbed that they did
not hear the doctor's buggy drive up to the stable. Trescott got out,
tied his horse, and approached the group. Jimmie saw him first, and at
his look of dismay the others wheeled.

"What's all this, Jimmie?" asked Trescott, in surprise.

The lad advanced to the front of his companions, halted, and said
nothing. Trescott's face gloomed slightly as he scanned the scene.

"What were you doing, Jimmie?"

"We was playin'," answered Jimmie, huskily.

"Playing at what?"

"Just playin'."

Trescott looked gravely at the other boys, and asked them to please go
home. They proceeded to the street much in the manner of frustrated
and revealed assassins. The crime of trespass on another boy's place
was still a crime when they had only accepted the other boy's cordial
invitation, and they were used to being sent out of all manner of
gardens upon the sudden appearance of a father or a mother. Jimmie had
wretchedly watched the departure of his companions. It involved the
loss of his position as a lad who controlled the privileges of his
father's grounds, but then he knew that in the beginning he had no
right to ask so many boys to be his guests.

Once on the sidewalk, however, they speedily forgot their shame as
trespassers, and the large boy launched forth in a description of his
success in the late trial of courage. As they went rapidly up the
street, the little boy, who had made the furtive expedition cried out
confidently from the rear, "Yes, and I went almost up to him, didn't
I, Willie?"

The large boy crushed him in a few words. "Huh!" he scoffed. "You only
went a little way. I went clear up to him."

The pace of the other boys was so manly that the tiny thing had to
trot, and he remained at the rear, getting entangled in their legs in
his attempts to reach the front rank and become of some importance,
dodging this way and that way, and always piping out his little claim
to glory.



Chapter XXI.



"By-the-way, Grace," said Trescott, looking into the dining-room from
his office door, "I wish you would send Jimmie to me before school-
time."

When Jimmie came, he advanced so quietly that Trescott did not at
first note him. "Oh," he said, wheeling from a cabinet, "here you are,
young man."

"Yes, sir."

Trescott dropped into his chair and tapped the desk with a thoughtful
finger. "Jimmie, what were you doing in the back garden yesterday--you
and the other boys--to Henry?"

"We weren't doing anything, pa."

Trescott looked sternly into the raised eyes of his son. "Are you sure
you were not annoying him in any way? Now what were you doing,
exactly?"

"Why, we--why, we--now--Willie Dalzel said I dassent go right up to
him, and I did; and then he did; and then--the other boys were 'fraid;
and then--you comed."

Trescott groaned deeply. His countenance was so clouded in sorrow that
the lad, bewildered by the mystery of it, burst suddenly forth in
dismal lamentations. "There, there. Don't cry, Jim," said Trescott,
going round the desk. "Only--" He sat in a great leather reading-
chair, and took the boy on his knee. "Only I want to explain to you--"

After Jimmie had gone to school, and as Trescott was about to start on
his round of morning calls, a message arrived from Doctor Moser. It
set forth that the latter's sister was dying in the old homestead,
twenty miles away up the valley, and asked Trescott to care for his
patients for the day at least. There was also in the envelope a little
history of each case and of what had already been done. Trescott
replied to the messenger that he would gladly assent to the
arrangement.

He noted that the first name on Moser's list was Winter, but this did
not seem to strike him as an important fact. When its turn came, he
rang the Winter bell. "Good-morning, Mrs. Winter," he said,
cheerfully, as the door was opened. "Doctor Moser has been obliged to
leave town to-day, and he has asked me to come in his stead. How is
the little girl this morning?"

Mrs. Winter had regarded him in stony surprise. At last she said:
"Come in! I'll see my husband." She bolted into the house. Trescott
entered the hall, and turned to the left into the sitting-room.

Presently Winter shuffled through the door. His eyes flashed toward
Trescott. He did not betray any desire to advance far into the room.
"What do you want?" he said.

"What do I want? What do I want?" repeated Trescott, lifting his head
suddenly. He had heard an utterly new challenge in the night of the
jungle.

"Yes, that's what I want to know," snapped Winter. "What do you want?"

Trescott was silent for a moment. He consulted Moser's memoranda. "I
see that your little girl's case is a trifle serious," he remarked. "I
would advise you to call a physician soon. I will leave you a copy of
Doctor Moser's record to give to any one you may call." He paused to
transcribe the record on a page of his note-book. Tearing out the
leaf, he extended it to Winter as he moved toward the door. The latter
shrunk against the wall. His head was hanging as he reached for the
paper. This caused him to grasp air, and so Trescott simply let the
paper flutter to the feet of the other man.

"Good-morning," said Trescott from the hall. This placid retreat
seemed to suddenly arouse Winter to ferocity. It was as if he had then
recalled all the truths, which he had formulated to hurl at Trescott.
So he followed him into the hall, and down the hall to the door, and
through the door to the porch, barking in fiery rage from a respectful
distance. As Trescott imperturbably turned the mare's head down the
road, Winter stood on the porch, still yelping. He was like a little
dog.



Chapter XXII.



"Have you heard the news?" cried Carrie Dungen, as she sped toward
Martha's kitchen. "Have you heard the news?" Her eyes were shining
with delight.

"No," answered Martha's sister Kate, bending forward eagerly. "What
was it? What was it?"

Carrie appeared triumphantly in the open door. "Oh, there's been an
awful scene between Doctor Trescott and Jake Winter. I never thought
that Jake Winter had any pluck at all, but this morning he told the
doctor just what he thought of him."

"Well, what did he think of him?" asked Martha.

"Oh, he called him everything. Mrs. Howarth heard it through her front
blinds. It was terrible, she says. It's all over town now. Everybody
knows it."

"Didn't the doctor answer back?"

"No! Mrs. Howarth--she says he never said a word. He just walked down
to his buggy and got in, and drove off as co-o-o-l. But Jake gave him
jinks, by all accounts."

"But what did he say?" cried Kate, shrill and excited. She was
evidently at some kind of a feast.

"Oh, he told him that Sadie had never been well since that night Henry
Johnson frightened her at Theresa Page's party, and he held him
responsible, and how dared he cross his threshold--and--and--and--"

"And what?" said Martha.

"Did he swear at him?" said Kate, in fearsome glee.

"No--not much. He did swear at him a little, but not more than a man
does anyhow when he is real mad, Mrs. Howarth says."

"O-oh!" breathed Kate. "And did he call him any names?"

Martha, at her work, had been for a time in deep thought. She now
interrupted the others. "It don't seem as if Sadie Winter had been
sick since that time Henry Johnson got loose. She's been to school
almost the whole time since then, hasn't she?"

They combined upon her in immediate indignation. "School? School? I
should say not. Don't think for a moment. School!"

Martha wheeled from the sink. She held an iron spoon, and it seemed as
if she was going to attack them. "Sadie Winter has passed here many a
morning since then carrying her school-bag. Where was she going? To a
wedding?"

The others, long accustomed to a mental tyranny, speedily surrendered.

"Did she?" stammered Kate. "I never saw her."

Carrie Dungen made a weak gesture.

"If I had been Doctor Trescott," exclaimed Martha, loudly, "I'd have
knocked that miserable Jake Winter's head off."

Kate and Carrie, exchanging glances, made an alliance in the air. "I
don't see why you say that, Martha," replied Carrie, with considerable
boldness, gaining support and sympathy from Kate's smile. "I don't see
how anybody can be blamed for getting angry when their little girl
gets almost scared to death and gets sick from it, and all that.
Besides, everybody says--"

"Oh, I don't care what everybody says," said Martha.

"Well, you can't go against the whole town," answered Carrie, in
sudden sharp defiance.

"No, Martha, you can't go against the whole town," piped Kate,
following her leader rapidly.

"'The whole town,'" cried Martha. "I'd like to know what you call 'the
whole town.' Do you call these silly people who are scared of Henry
Johnson 'the whole town'?"

"Why, Martha," said Carrie, in a reasoning tone, "you talk as if you
wouldn't be scared of him!"

"No more would I," retorted Martha.

"O-oh, Martha, how you talk!" said Kate. "Why, the idea! Everybody's
afraid of him."

Carrie was grinning. "You've never seen him, have you?" she asked,
seductively.

"No," admitted Martha.

"Well, then, how do you know that you wouldn't be scared?"

Martha confronted her. "Have you ever seen him? No? Well, then, how do
you know you would be scared?"

The allied forces broke out in chorus: "But, Martha, everybody says
so. Everybody says so."

"Everybody says what?"

"Everybody that's seen him say they were frightened almost to death.
'Tisn't only women, but it's men too. It's awful."

Martha wagged her head solemnly. "I'd try not to be afraid of him."

"But supposing you could not help it?" said Kate.

"Yes, and look here," cried Carrie. "I'll tell you another thing. The
Hannigans are going to move out of the house next door."

"On account of him?" demanded Martha.

Carrie nodded. "Mrs. Hannigan says so herself."

"Well, of all things!" ejaculated Martha. "Going to move, eh? You
don't say so! Where they going to move to?"

"Down on Orchard Avenue."

"Well, of all things! Nice house?"

"I don't know about that. I haven't heard. But there's lots of nice
houses on Orchard."

"Yes, but they're all taken," said Kate. "There isn't a vacant house
on Orchard Avenue."

"Oh yes, there is," said Martha. "The old Hampstead house is vacant."

"Oh, of course," said Kate. "But then I don't believe Mrs. Hannigan
would like it there. I wonder where they can be going to move to?"

"I'm sure I don't know," sighed Martha. "It must be to some place we
don't know about."

"Well," said Carrie Dungen, after a general reflective silence, "it's
easy enough to find out, anyhow."

"Who knows--around here?" asked Kate.

"Why, Mrs. Smith, and there she is in her garden," said Carrie,
jumping to her feet. As she dashed out of the door, Kate and Martha
crowded at the window. Carrie's voice rang out from near the steps.
"Mrs. Smith! Mrs. Smith! Do you know where the Hannigans are going to
move to?"



Chapter XXIII.



The autumn smote the leaves, and the trees of Whilomville were
panoplied in crimson and yellow. The winds grew stronger, and in the
melancholy purple of the nights the home shine of a window became a
finer thing. The little boys, watching the sear and sorrowful leaves
drifting down from the maples, dreamed of the near time when they
could heap bushels in the streets and burn them during the abrupt
evenings.

Three men walked down the Niagara Avenue. As they approached Judge
Hagenthorpe's house he came down his walk to meet them in the manner
of one who has been waiting.

"Are you ready, judge?" one said.

"All ready," he answered.

The four then walked to Trescott's house. He received them in his
office, where he had been reading. He seemed surprised at this visit
of four very active and influential citizens, but he had nothing to
say of it.

After they were all seated, Trescott looked expectantly from one face
to another. There was a little silence. It was broken by John Twelve,
the wholesale grocer, who was worth $400,000, and reported to be worth
over a million.

"Well, doctor," he said, with a short laugh, "I suppose we might as
well admit at once that we've come to interfere in something which is
none of our business."

"Why, what is it?" asked Trescott, again looking from one face to
another. He seemed to appeal particularly to Judge Hagenthorpe, but
the old man had his chin lowered musingly to his cane, and would not
look at him.

"It's about what nobody talks of--much," said Twelve. "It's about
Henry Johnson."

Trescott squared himself in his chair. "Yes?" he said.

Having delivered himself of the title, Twelve seemed to become more
easy. "Yes," he answered, blandly, "we wanted to talk to you about
it."

"Yes?" said Trescott.

Twelve abruptly advanced on the main attack. "Now see here, Trescott,
we like you, and we have come to talk right out about this business.
It may be none of our affairs and all that, and as for me, I don't
mind if you tell me so; but I am not going to keep quiet and see you
ruin yourself. And that's how we all feel."

"I am not ruining myself," answered Trescott.

"No, maybe you are not exactly ruining yourself," said Twelve, slowly,
"but you are doing yourself a great deal of harm. You have changed
from being the leading doctor in town to about the last one. It is
mainly because there are always a large number of people who are very
thoughtless fools, of course, but then that doesn't change the
condition."

A man who had not heretofore spoken said, solemnly, "It's the women."

"Well, what I want to say is this," resumed Twelve: "Even if there are
a lot of fools in the world, we can't see any reason why you should
ruin yourself by opposing them. You can't teach them anything, you
know."

"I am not trying to teach them anything." Trescott smiled wearily.
"I--It is a matter of--well--"

"And there are a good many of us that admire you for it immensely,"
interrupted Twelve; "but that isn't going to change the minds of all
those ninnies."

"It's the women," stated the advocate of this view again.

"Well, what I want to say is this," said Twelve. "We want you to get
out of this trouble and strike your old gait again. You are simply
killing your practice through your infernal pig-headedness. Now this
thing is out of the ordinary, but there must be ways to--to beat the
game somehow, you see. So we've talked it over--about a dozen of us--
and, as I say, if you want to tell us to mind our own business, why,
go ahead; but we've talked it over, and we've come to the conclusion
that the only way to do is to get Johnson a place somewhere off up the
valley, and--"

Trescott wearily gestured. "You don't know, my friend. Everybody is so
afraid of him, they can't even give him good care. Nobody can attend
to him as I do myself."

"But I have a little no-good farm up beyond Clarence Mountain that I
was going to give to Henry," cried Twelve, aggrieved. "And if you--and
if you--if you--through your house burning down, or anything--why, all
the boys were prepared to take him right off your hands, and--and--"

Trescott arose and went to the window. He turned his back upon them.
They sat waiting in silence. When he returned he kept his face in the
shadow. "No, John Twelve," he said, "it can't be done."

There was another stillness. Suddenly a man stirred on his chair.

"Well, then, a public institution--" he began.

"No," said Trescott; "public institutions are all very good, but he is
not going to one."

In the background of the group old Judge Hagenthorpe was thoughtfully
smoothing the polished ivory head of his cane.



Chapter XXIV.



Trescott loudly stamped the snow from his feet and shook the flakes
from his shoulders. When he entered the house he went at once to the
dining-room, and then to the sitting-room. Jimmie was there, reading
painfully in a large book concerning giraffes and tigers and
crocodiles.

"Where is your mother, Jimmie?" asked Trescott.

"I don't know, pa," answered the boy. "I think she is upstairs."

Trescott went to the foot of the stairs and called, but there came no
answer. Seeing that the door of the little drawing-room was open, he
entered. The room was bathed in the half-light that came from the four
dull panes of mica in the front of the great stove. As his eyes grew
used to the shadows he saw his wife curled in an arm-chair. He went to
her. "Why, Grace," he said, "didn't you hear me calling you?"

She made no answer, and as he bent over the chair he heard her trying
to smother a sob in the cushion.

"Grace!" he cried. "You're crying!"

She raised her face. "I've got a headache, a dreadful headache, Ned."

"A headache?" he repeated, in surprise and incredulity.

He pulled a chair close to hers. Later, as he cast his eye over the
zone of light shed by the dull red panes, he saw that a low table had
been drawn close to the stove, and that it was burdened with many
small cups and plates of uncut tea-cake. He remembered that the day
was Wednesday, and that his wife received on Wednesdays.

"Who was here to-day, Gracie?" he asked.

From his shoulder there came a mumble, "Mrs. Twelve."

"Was she--um," he said. "Why--didn't Anna Hagenthorpe come over?"

The mumble from his shoulder continued, "She wasn't well enough."

Glancing down at the cups, Trescott mechanically counted them. There
were fifteen of them. "There, there," he said. "Don't cry, Grace.
Don't cry."

The wind was whining round the house, and the snow beat aslant upon
the windows. Sometimes the coal in the stove settled with a crumbling
sound, and the four panes of mica flashed a sudden new crimson. As he
sat holding her head on his shoulder, Trescott found himself
occasionally trying to count the cups. There were fifteen of them.




AN ILLUSION IN RED AND WHITE

Nights on the Cuban blockade were long, at times exciting, often dull.
The men on the small leaping dispatch-boats became as intimate as if
they had all been buried in the same coffin.

Correspondents, who in New York, had passed as fairly good fellows
sometimes turned out to be perfect rogues of vanity and selfishness,
but still more often the conceited chumps of Park Row became the
kindly and thoughtful men of the Cuban blockade. Also each
correspondent told all he knew, and sometimes more. For this gentle
tale I am indebted to one of the brightening stars of New York
journalism.

"Now, this is how I imagine it happened. I don't say it happened this
way, but this is how I imagine it happened. And it always struck me as
being a very interesting story. I hadn't been on the paper very long,
but just about long enough to get a good show, when the city editor
suddenly gave me this sparkling murder assignment.

"It seems that up in one of the back counties of New York State a
farmer had taken a dislike to his wife; and so he went into the
kitchen with an axe, and in the presence of their four little children
he just casually rapped his wife on the nape of the neck with the head
of this axe. It was early in the morning, but he told the children
they had better go to bed. Then he took his wife's body out in the
woods and buried it.

"This farmer's name was Jones. The widower's eldest child was named
Freddy. A week after the murder, one of the long-distance neighbours
was rattling past the house in his buckboard when he saw Freddy
playing in the road. He pulled up, and asked the boy about the welfare
of the Jones family.

"'Oh, we're all right,' said Freddy, 'only ma--she ain't she's Jead?"

"'Why, when did she die?' cried the startled farmer. 'What did she die
of?'"

"'Oh,' answered Freddy, 'last week a man with red hair and big white
teeth and real white hands came into the kitchen, and killed ma with
an axe."

"The farmer was indignant with the boy for telling him this strange
childish nonsense, and drove off much disgruntled. But he recited the
incident at a tavern that evening, and when people began to miss the
familiar figure of Mrs. Jones at the Methodist Church on Sunday
mornings, they ended by having an investigation. The calm Jones was
arrested for murder, and his wife's body was lifted from its grave in
the woods and buried by her own family."

"The chief interest now centred upon the children. All four declared
that they were in the kitchen at the time of the crime, and that the
murderer had red hair. The hair of the virtuous Jones was grey. They
said that the murderer's teeth were large and white. Jones only had
about eight teeth, and these were small and brown. They said the
murderer's hands were white. Jones's hands were the colour of black
walnuts. They lifted their dazed, innocent faces, and crying, simply
because the mysterious excitement and their new quarters frightened
them, they repeated their heroic legend without important deviation,
and without the parroty sameness which would excite suspicion."

"Women came to the jail and wept over them, and made little frocks for
the girls, and little breeches for the boys, and idiotic detectives
questioned them at length. Always they upheld the theory of the
murderer with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands. Jones sat in
his cell, his chin sullenly on his first vest button. He knew nothing
about any murder, he said. He thought his wife had gone on a visit to
some relatives. He had had a quarrel with her, and she had said that
she was going to leave him for a time, so that he might have proper
opportunities for cooling down. Had he seen the blood on the floor?
Yes, he had seen the blood on the floor. But he had been cleaning and
skinning a rabbit at that spot on the day of his wife's disappearance.
He had thought nothing of it. What had his children said when he
returned from the fields? They had told him that their mother had been
killed by an axe in the hands of a man with red hair, big white teeth,
and white hands. To questions as to why he had not informed the police
of the county, he answered that he had not thought it a matter of
sufficient importance. He had cordially hated his wife, anyhow, and he
was glad to be rid of her. He decided afterward that she had run off,
and he had never credited the fantastic tale of the children."

"Of course, there was very little doubt in the minds of the majority
that Jones was guilty, but there was a fairly strong following who
insisted that Jones was a coarse and brutal man, and perhaps weak in
his head---yes--but not a murderer. They pointed to the children and
declared that children could never lie, and these kids, when asked,
said that the murder had been committed by a man with red hair, large
white teeth, and white hands. I myself had a number of interviews with
the children, and I was amazed at the convincing power of their little
story."

"Shining in the depths of the limpid up-turned eyes, one could fairly
see tiny mirrored images of men with red hair, big white teeth, and
white hands."

"Now, I'll tell you how it happened--how I imagine it was done. Some
time after burying his wife in the woods Jones strolled back into the
house. Seeing nobody, he called out in the familiar fashion, 'Mother!'
Then the kids came out whimpering. 'Where is your mother?' said Jones.
The children looked at him blankly. 'Why, pa;' said Freddy, 'you came
in here, and hit ma with the axe; and then you sent us to bed.' 'Me?'
cried Jones. 'I haven't been near the house since breakfast-time.'"

"The children did not know how to reply. Their meagre little sense
informed them that their father had been the man with the axe, but he
denied it, and to their minds everything was a mere great puzzle with
no meaning whatever, save that it was mysteriously sad and made them
cry."

"'What kind of a looking man was it?'" said Jones.

"Freddy hesitated. 'Now--he looked a good deal like you, pa.'"

"'Like me?' said Jones. 'Why, I thought you said he had red hair?'"

"'No, I didn't: replied Freddy. 'I thought he had grey hair, like
yours.'"

"'Well; said Jones, 'I saw a man with kind of red hair going along the
road up yonder, and I thought maybe that might have been him.'"

"Little Lucy, the second child, here piped up with intense conviction.
'His hair was a little teeny bit red. I saw it.'"

"'No,' said Jones. 'The man I saw had very red hair. And what did his
teeth look like? Were they big and white?'"

"'Yes,' answered Lucy, 'they were.'"

"Even Freddy seemed to incline to think it."

"'His teeth may have been big and white.'"

"Jones said little more at that time. Later he intimated to the
children that their mother had gone off on a visit, and although they
were full of wonder, and sometimes wept because of the oppression of
an incomprehensible feeling in the air, they said nothing. Jones did
his chores."

Everything was smooth.

"The morning after the day of the murder, Jones and his children had a
breakfast of hominy and milk.."

'Well, this man with red hair and big white teeth, Lucy,' said Jones.
'Did you notice anything else about him?'

"Lucy straightened in her chair, and showed the childish desire to
come out with brilliant information which would gain her father's
approval. 'He had white hands--hands all white--'"

"'How about you, Freddy?'"

"'I didn't look at them much, but I think they were white,' answered
the boy."

"'And what did little Martha notice?' cried the tender parent. 'Did
she see the big bad man?'"

"Martha, aged four, replied solemnly, 'His hair was all red, and his
hand was white--all white.'"

"'That's the man I saw up the road,' said Jones to Freddy."

"'Yes, sir, it seems like it must have been him,' said the boy, his
brain now completely muddled."

"Again Jones allowed the subject of his wife's murder to lapse. The
children did not know that it was a murder, of course. Adults were
always performing in a way to make children's heads swim. For
instance, what could be more incomprehensible than that a man with two
horses, dragging a queer thing, should walk all day, making the grass
turn down and the earth turn up?"

And why did they cut the long grass and put it in a barn? And what was
a cow for? Did the water in the well like to be there? All these
actions and things were grand, because they were associated with the
high estate of grown-up people, but they were deeply mysterious. If,
then, a man with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands should hit
their mother on the nape of the neck with an axe, it was merely a
phenomenon of grownup life. Little Henry, the baby, when he had a
want, howled and pounded the table with his spoon. That was all of
life to him. He was not concerned with the fact that his mother had
been murdered.

"One day Jones said to his children suddenly, 'Look here: I wonder if
you could have made a mistake. Are you absolutely sure that the man
you saw had red hair, big white teeth, and white hands?'"

"The children were indignant with their father. 'Why, of course, pa,
we ain't made no mistake. We saw him as plain as day.'"

"Later young Freddy's mind began to work like ketchup. His nights were
haunted with terrible memories of the man with the red hair, big white
teeth, and white hands, and the prolonged absence of his mother made
him wonder and wonder. Presently he quite gratuitously developed the
theory that his mother was dead. He knew about death. He had once seen
a dead dog; also dead chickens, rabbits, and mice. One day he asked
his father, 'Pa, is ma ever coming back?'"

"Jones said: 'Well, no; I don't think she is.' This answer confirmed
the boy in his theory. He knew that dead people did not come back."

"The attitude of Jones toward this descriptive legend of the man with
the axe was very peculiar. He came to be in opposition to it. He
protested against the convictions of the children, but he could not
move them. It was the one thing in their lives of which they were
stonily and absolutely positive."

"Now that really ends the story. But I will continue for your
amusement. The jury hung Jones as high as they could, and they were
quite right: because Jones confessed before he died. Freddy is now a
highly respected driver of a grocery wagon in Ogdensburg. When I was
up there a good many years afterward people told me that when he ever
spoke of the tragedy at all he was certain to denounce the alleged
confession as a lie. He considered his father a victim to the
stupidity of juries, and some day he hopes to meet the man with the
red hair, big white teeth, and white hands, whose image still remains
so distinct in his memory that he could pick him out in a crowd of ten
thousand."




MANACLED

In the First Act there had been a farm scene, wherein real horses had
drunk real water out of real buckets, afterward dragging a real wagon
off stage left. The audience was consumed with admiration of this
play, and the great Theatre Nouveau rang to its roof with the crowd's
plaudits.

The Second Act was now well advanced. The hero, cruelly victimised by
his enemies, stood in prison garb, panting with rage, while two brutal
wardens fastened real handcuffs on his wrists and real anklets on his
ankles. And the hovering villain sneered.

"'Tis well, Aubrey Pettingill," said the prisoner. "You have so far
succeeded; but mark you, there will come a time--"

The villain retorted with a cutting allusion to the young lady whom
the hero loved.

"Curse you," cried the hero, and he made as if to spring upon this
demon; but, as the pitying audience saw, he could only take steps four
inches long.

Drowning the mocking laughter of the villain came cries from both the
audience and the people back of the wings. "Fire! Fire! Fire!"
Throughout the great house resounded the roaring crashes of a throng
of human beings moving in terror, and even above this noise could be
heard the screams of women more shrill than whistles. The building
hummed and shook; it was like a glade which holds some bellowing
cataract of the mountains. Most of the people who were killed on the
stairs still clutched their play-bills in their hands as if they had
resolved to save them at all costs.

The Theatre Nouveau fronted upon a street which was not of the first
importance, especially at night, when it only aroused when the people
came to the theatre, and aroused again when they came out to go home.
On the night of the fire, at the time of the scene between the
enchained hero and his tormentor, the thoroughfare echoed with only
the scraping shovels of some street-cleaners, who were loading carts
with blackened snow and mud. The gleam of lights made the shadowed
pavement deeply blue, save where lay some yellow plum-like reflection.

Suddenly a policeman came running frantically along the street. He
charged upon the fire-box on a corner. Its red light touched with
flame each of his brass buttons and the municipal shield. He pressed a
lever. He had been standing in the entrance of the theatre chatting to
the lonely man in the box-office. To send an alarm was a matter of
seconds.

Out of the theatre poured the first hundreds of fortunate ones, and
some were not altogether fortunate. Women, their bonnets flying, cried
out tender names; men, white as death, scratched and bleeding, looked
wildly from face to face. There were displays of horrible blind
brutality by the strong. Weaker men clutched and clawed like cats.
From the theatre itself came the howl of a gale.

The policeman's fingers had flashed into instant life and action the
most perfect counter-attack to the fire. He listened for some seconds,
and presently he heard the thunder of a charging engine. She swept
around a corner, her three shining enthrilled horses leaping. Her
consort, the hose-cart, roared behind her. There were the loud clicks
of the steel-shod hoofs, hoarse shouts, men running, the flash of
lights, while the crevice-like streets resounded with the charges of
other engines.

At the first cry of fire, the two brutal warders had dropped the arms
of the hero and run off the stage with the villain. The hero cried
after them angrily--

"Where are you going? Here, Pete--Tom--you've left me chained up, damn
you!"

The body of the theatre now resembled a mad surf amid rocks, but the
hero did not look at it. He was filled with fury at the stupidity of
the two brutal warders, in forgetting that they were leaving him
manacled. Calling loudly, he hobbled off stage L, taking steps four
inches long.

Behind the scenes he heard the hum of flames. Smoke, filled with
sparks sweeping on spiral courses, rolled thickly upon him. Suddenly
his face turned chalk-colour beneath his skin of manly bronze for the
stage. His voice shrieked--

"Pete--Tom--damn you--come back--you've left me chained up."

He had played in this theatre for seven years, and he could find his
way without light through the intricate passages which mazed out
behind the stage. He knew that it was a long way to the street door.

The heat was intense. From time to time masses of flaming wood sung
down from above him. He began to jump. Each jump advanced him about
three feet, but the effort soon became heartbreaking. Once he fell,
and it took time to get up on his feet again.

There were stairs to descend. From the top of this flight he tried to
fall feet first. He precipitated himself in a way that would have
broken his hip under common conditions. But every step seemed covered
with glue, and on almost every one he stuck for a moment. He could not
even succeed in falling downstairs. Ultimately he reached the bottom,
windless from the struggle.

There were stairs to climb. At the foot of the flight he lay for an
instant with his mouth close to the floor trying to breathe. Then he
tried to scale this frightful precipice up the face of which many an
actress had gone at a canter.

Each succeeding step arose eight inches from its fellow. The hero
dropped to a seat on the third step, and pulled his feet to the second
step. From this position he lifted himself to a seat on the fourth
step. He had not gone far in this manner before his frenzy caused him
to lose his balance, and he rolled to the foot of the flight. After
all, he could fall downstairs.

He lay there whispering. "They all got out but I. All but I."
Beautiful flames flashed above him, some were crimson, some were
orange, and here and there were tongues of purple, blue, green.

A curiously calm thought came into his head. "What a fool I was not to
foresee this! I shall have Rogers furnish manacles of papiermâché
tomorrow."

The thunder of the fire-lions made the theatre have a palsy.

Suddenly the hero beat his handcuffs against the wall, cursing them in
a loud wail. Blood started from under his finger-nails. Soon he began
to bite the hot steel, and blood fell from his blistered mouth. He
raved like a wolf.

Peace came to him again. There were charming effects amid the
flames...He felt very cool, delightfully cool..."They've left me
chained up."



THE END

This site is full of FREE ebooks - Project Gutenberg Australia