" Look what you're about, won't you ? " said the boy sharply.
*^ Look what you are about, youngster," said the man, springing to his feet and leaning over the counter. The boy winced and picked up the cup sulkily.
"Can I assist you, madame?" the man continued, turning to Anna and lifting his hat.
"Don't you know me, Robert Deering?" she asked.
"Why, it's Anna—Anna Kinloch, still?" he said pleasantly, holding out his hand.
She felt with a sudden thrill what a big, strong hand it was that she put hers into, and was not surprised a moment later to find herself following Deering to a neat little cloth covered table by a window in the corner. He had the same masterful way to him
that she knew so well in the old days, and it pleased her now as much as it had displeased her then, so she sat down at his bidding and waited for him to serve her.
" It\s nicer here/^ he said, pouring her a cup of coffee from the steaming pot which the boy brought at his direction.
^^ But you don't know how glad I am to see you, Miss Anna," he went on, filling his own cup and cutting a wedge from his sandwich; ^^ it seems quite like old times, doesn't it? And I don't believe you've changed one bit."
'^ Neither have you," she said, looking at him steadily for a moment before she spoke.
'^ Oh, never mind me, please," he said, hastily, almost nervous under her steady gaze. '^ We shall not mention my grey hairs, for instance, and I shall promise not to reproach you for the part you played in their production. I'm too glad to see you for that, and I only wish—" he began, looking through the window toward the sleeper that stood on the track without.
^' Oh, don't, Robert, please," she interrupted him eagerly.
The people at the lunch counter had begun to disperse, and the two had the waiting-room almost to themselves. ''Don't reproach me: I cannot bear it. You do not know how I have suffered, you do not know how glad I am to see you. It seems like one more chance of life left to me. I love you—" her words were coming rapidly, and though he looked up sharply she did not stop. " I love yon, Robert Deer-
ing, I love you. 1 loved you long ago, and I strove against it. I thought it was strength that made me : I know now it was weakness. I am stronger now, strong enough to tell you that I was not honest with you in those old days, that I was untrue to myself, and the falsehood has darkened all my life. I have been walking in the shadow."
She would have kept on, her grey eyes kindled, and her cheeks flushed, but Deering had risen to his feet. He thought, as he looked down into her upturned face, that she had never been so beautiful as she was then. He held his watch open in his palm, and without upon the platform the conductor hallooed, " All aboard !"
Anna heard the watch ticks like the thumping of great heart-beats. From between her tense lids she saw the grey hairs rise and fall on Deering's temples: she heard his quick breath stirring his mustache. From the window of the Pullman which was beginning slowly to move, a woman in a grey suit poked out her shapely head crowned with its smooth, fair braids. Deering lifted his hat and smiled back at her.
" That is my wife, Anna," he said gently.
For a moment he held the girl's hand in his, and in another he had stepped upon the rear end of the receding train, and was gone out of her life forever. Anna saw him like one in a dream, but the hoarse shriek of the departing whistle roused her.
In one moment she had broken down the reserve of years, and the overflow of pent-up passion left her stunned as by a blow. She stood dazed and helpless, leaning against the table where Deering had left her,
staring out through the open doorway. A man who had been walking back and forth on the platform came in by and by and stood quite close to her, his cap in hand, before she seemed aware of his presence.
'^ Can I get your baggage checked, or anything, Miss?^^ he said, politely. '^ B'lieve you said you's goin' north, an' your train will pass in a few minutes now."
Anna winced as she looked at him. He was the brakesman on the local train which had brought her in that morning; she remembered him by a pleasant little way he had of wrinkling his nose when he smiled.
^' If you will put ray things back on your train, please, I shall be glad. I am going back with you this afternoon."
The words seemed to have come from her without her own volition almost, but the sound of them strengthened her.
^' That's right," said the man, soothingly, trying not to show the surprise which he felt. " Better not turn loose once you've put your hands to the plow. Some of 'em was sayin' to me this mornin' they didn't know what they'd do 'bout a school now you'd left. They said you certainly made the children learn, whatever else you did." It was faint praise enough, but Anna grasped it eagerly.
^' Do you really think I can succeed if I try again ? " she asked simply.
'' I know you can," he said with a man's decisiveness. ^^ Now, if I's in your place," he went on kindly, " I'd go in the ladies' room there and rest up a bit.
There ain't many 'coinmodations but it's better'n out liere."
She followed him across the room gratefully. '^ I tell you/' he said, as he held the door open for her, '' s'pose you let me fetch a pitcher of hot water from the luncii stand over there. It'll do you the most good in the world. My wife says hot water beats all the patent medicines goin'. What do you say?"
'^ Oh, thank you so much ; you are very kind," and there were tears in Anna's eyes as she spoke. They Avere tears of repentance this time, and they softened her.
The steaming water upon her face and the back of her neck refreshed her beyond measure, and by the time she had recoiled her heavy liair she felt like a new person.
The clouds had driven on westward, and by the time the brakesman came for her baggage, the sky was beautifully clear. The great prairies fairly gleamed, and the trees glistened with the sunlight on their wet leaves. The whole vast plain was one realm of beauty, as boundless as hope, as full of happy possibilities. Anna opened her window to drink in the draughts of pure ozone and felt the rich blood of a new life quicken within her. Her way lay clear before her, fair as the sky and limitless as the horizon.
The friendly brakesman was on hand to help her off w^ien the train stopped. ^^I'm goin' to sen' my little girl to school to you," he said.
It was quite dark when Anna got to Mrs. Gaddy's, and she found the old woman taking her solitary supper in the little kitchen.
She hustled about, startled and disturbed by the girPs sudden appearance.
^^ You ain't met with no accident?" she asked sharply.
*' No/' said Anna, " I changed my mind about going, that is all, and I've come back to stay this time, if you will let me, please, Mrs. Gaddy."
" That's as you're a minter," said the old woman ungraciously. '^ Your room's as you left it. Better go in there tell I can cook vou up sumpnuther fittin' to eat."
" I should be so glad if you would just let me sit here and share your supper, please, Mrs. Gaddy," Anna said, taking otf her hat and cloak.
She found a plate and knife and fork on the shelf, and sat down on the other side of the deal table without waiting for the old woman to answer.
Mrs. Gaddy had a vague suspicion that the girl was daft, and scarce ate a morsel for wonderment.
When the meal was over, Anna turned up her sleeves and poured the water from the steaming kettle into the dish-pan.
'^ You must let me wash up dishes for you this evening, Mrs. Gaddy, if you don't mind," she said. "You see, I am beginning life over again, and it will remind me of when I was a little child, and mother used to tuck up my sleeves and stand me up in a chair beside her while she washed the dishes. Now and then she would give me a little piece from the scalding water to wipe, and it pleased me to think I was helping her."
" Your mother dead ? " asked Mrs. Gaddy.
no
^^ Yes/' said Anna, softly. '^ 1 am all alone in the world."
'^ Why didn't you tell me before, honey, why didn't you?" And the old woman put her arm about the girl's shoulders and looked at her with tears in her dim eyes. ^' Seem like I'd 'a knowed better how to ^a treated you if you'd a-told me."
She sat down by and by and got out her knitting, watching the girl eagerly as she went back and forth with the dishes. She was thinking of her own little girl, a slim, peaked, puny thing, who died when she was no higher than the table.
She told Anna about her after a while, dwelling on the meagre reminiscences that made up all that was left of her now. " Somehow you put me in mind of her when you's talkin' 'bout helpin'your Ma, and I can't help thinkin' what my little gal mought 'a been to me when I see you gittin' roun' so pyeart."
It had not been hard to find the way to one heart, Anna thought, as she went to sleep in her old bed that night.
She surprised the blacksmith by an early call for the key next morning, and had the schoolroom swept and a fire burning long before it was time to ring the first bell. Most of the poor little scared children, who never understood why they had been sent home the day before, were on hand when school opened, and before the week was out the desks were full.
^* We've got a new teacher," they said, and Anna smiled gratefully into their happy faces.
'^ You are gettin' on better. Miss, fur all the place ain't fittin' fur you," said the blacksmith.
" I was not fit for the place, before," Anna said.
¦ hi, Katton, /r//"—Page 113.
Neighbors.
fHERE are two little houses on the corner where the ragged street turns bayou-ward—two little houses just alike, showing each a sombre-grey face to the world, with a couple of brown-shuttered windows looking like a pair of sad eyes out upon the passers-by. Two small brown-trimmed doors split the space between the windows, a narrow strip of gallery runs along the front, and at the end a rickety flight of steps turns sharply, breaking through the few feet of terrace down to the grass-grown banquette. Against the corner of each house leans a straggling china tree, overshadowing the steps and rotting the shingles on the roof. A little red brick chimney-top breaks the roof line midway, and the two spirals of smoke that curl therefrom twine and intertwine their wreaths or swerve and drift apart, according to the veering of the wind.
Twin houses they are, making a landlord of Alix, the little black-browned, thick-lipped groceryman on the levee, who comes himself every month to collect the rent, and so close together are they that once the Old Madame leaning over the banisters of the one
might have shaken hands with her neighbor on the gallery of the other. Not that Madame ever thought of doing such a thing, however—oh, no!
" One must be kind to her, yes, the poor Mees Maree," Madame would say, with a wave of her palms and a shrug of her shoulders.
'^ But—one must be kind to her, by the reason that we must have always charity and she is my neighbor, not? If I have a little plain sewing once a wdiile it is just as well I give it to her; it makes nothing to me, and she must live. I have plenty, me, with my flowers and my birds and the flfty dollars mbnsieur sends me every month—oh, dear I " Somehow Old Madame always sighed Avhen she spoke of monsieur. "Yes, I have plenty, me, and Mees Maree has nothing, poor thing. What makes a bit of a leg boiled in lard to me when I may have a whole turkey ? And if I pass it to her out of the window, why should not a slice of bread and a sip of wine go along to keep it company and make the roses bloom in her pale cheeks, the poor thing! "
There were plenty of people whom Madame might tell these things to ! Aunt Sophie, perhaps, when she drew her cart up close by the window-side and leaned out to pass Madame lier little bunch of onions or a tiny measure of peas, wdth now and then in the springtime, a sprig of cress from the convent marsh ; or the tailoress maybe, who lived in the next block, and who came and went as clockwork, with her armful of ripping and stitching, or the men in blue blouses, friends all, who stopped on the banquette in the evenings on their way home to chat with the old woman as she
sat on the little porch behind the vines and the flower-boxes, swinging to and fro in the big chair.
She had been pretty once, this Old Madame, and she was pictnresque still, with her dark hair, wrinkled skin and bright eyes. Her hair had been black, of course, when she had any, and now that it was gone she made up for it by wearing a braid and a frizzed front of the old hue. There was usually a red rose pinned low on her neck, just touching the lace of her white dress, when Madame appeared in the evenings, and her high old voice made the whole square gay as she spoke to every passer-by, bidding her toll of gossip, or calling to the little terrier that was her sole companion in the lonely house.
^'He is so smart, that dog! lei, Ratton, ici!^'' and Madame would wave her cane like a director's baton while the dog danced up and down the narrow gallery, and Miss Mary leaned over the banister to see. " Ah, ha, ah, ha, my little Ratton ! " the old woman would say. '^ He is my baby, my only one now," and interrupting herself, she would lean forward to put her wrinkled lips on the dog's nose. ^'See, he loves me, heinf Oh, my little one, my little one ! " And the little fellow would lay his head upon her knees and look up into her face with patient tenderness in his bright eyes. '^ See how he loves me! He looks at me with his eyes big, like my own little one, my baby, only her eyes were blue, blue and so beautiful, like monsieur's, O dear!" and the Old Madame would sigh and lay her head on Ratton's again.
Once, when Madame spoke of her blue-eyed baby. Miss Mary leaned forward eagerly and pressed her
thin hands together. ^' And did your baby have blue eyes too?" she asked.
" Too ! " poor Miss Mary !
"Did I not tell you?" said the Old Madame, her voice brightening and a softer light coming into her eyes as she spoke. " Ah, you should have seen her, my blue-eyed little one. Monsieur's eyes she had, dark blue, like violets in the shade, with her long lashes sweeping over. God was good, not? to give me so beautiful a little one, me with my black skin and my black hair like a crow. O dear! O dear! But we were so gay then, monsieur and I and baby, and in the evenings he would come up from the shop, looking so fine, my beautiful husband, and I would dress the little one all in white, and put a rose in my hair like this, and look so nice, O dear! But we were happy, and monsieur, how proud he was, and how he would puff, puff his cigar, and take baby on his knee like this— ki, Ratton, ici! Up, petite, up! ah, ha, ah, ha!—he would take baby on his knee like this, and trot, trot, trot her up and down with his big legs, till she would crow and laugh and pull at his mustache, O dear me ! " and Madame would crow and coo herself in an ecstacy of memories, and always end by wiping her eyes with the corner of her embroidered handkerchief.
Of this period of her existence, indeed. Old Madame seemed never to tire of telling. In fact, she had dwelt npon it and magnified it till this one memory may have swallowed up all that went before and all that came after, perhaps.
Poor Madame! Did it swallow up the memory of the old first husband—the bald-pated, watery-eyed
first husband who had brought her, a pretty young girl, from her cozy home behind the gay little Parisian glove-shop, to make her weigh coffee and sugar and meat in his dirty corner grocery; to make her pinch and grind till her hands were rough and her face wrinkled, and her heart was starved and she hated the ugly, wizened old face of her master? Had she forgotten, the Old Madame? Perhaps, but when the watery eyes were closed at last forever, and Madame was left alone in the little shop with the big bank account and her starved heart, is it any wonder that the handsome young bookkeeper stepped down from his high stool one morning to find a glass of iced wine and Madame's self awaiting him in the pleasant sitting-room behind the vines? Is it any wonder? What mattered a slight discrepancy in their ages, with the odd years on Madame's side of the account? The shrewd young clerk w^as expert in manipulating the trial-balance, and he became monsieur number two, reckoning his youth and his beauty against her love and her bank account.
Then was the spring-time of life come again to the old woman, and she forgot to pinch and to grind and to save, and grew young herself along with her young husband and her young child and her young love.
Is it any wonder then that the old monsieur was forgotten ? Any wonder that the memory of those happy days blotted the past? Did it blot out what came after, poor Madame? Could time or eternity do that? Could all the love left in her heart heal the misery of it? And would the vision of a sweet
young maiden grown to womanhood among the Howers of heaven conij>ensate her for the little grass-grown mound hack yonder in the old home? Who can say by what means He tempers tiic wind t«» the shorn lamb? Was there not enough besiiles to deepen the wrinkles in Madanie's old cheeks and tighten the chords aroun<l her heart ?
'' It was only by the reason that monsieur was young," she wouM say sometimes to Alix when he oame for the rent. Alix had swept the little gh>ve-shop of Madame's father in tlic old l^arisiaii days, and knew as well as Madame herself how the color had faded from her cheek and the lightness from her stej>. *'Yes, monsieur was young I I must j)ray that I forgive him, not? We must have always charity, charity, charity, Alix. Monsicin- was young, and he forgot me. That is all. I was old, (dd even then, l)ut I was a woman. There is the difference. Women never forget, never. They remember with their hearts. But monsieur, is he not kind to me. He pays your rent, is it not, Alix? And he h'ts me have my wine and my birds and my Howers and plenty to divide with the pool-. Isn't that enouuh for an ohl woman like me ? "
But Alix only i-olled his l)lack iye> up under his heavy lids and turned down the corners of his thick lips for a moment. Then he bade Madame adieu, and went to collect Miss Mary's rent. Miss Mary was more than occasionally behind with her rent, poor thing, and Alix would scold and roll his black eyes under his lids, while she would stamp her foot and beg and weep and wait until he was gone to go out
and lean over the banisters with her swollen eyes and her towsled hair to tell Madame what a hard world this was to live in.
Years came and went, but their passing brought little change to the two houses; the china trees at the corner grew larger and the patch of rotten shingles spread beneath, and that was all. Yet within the one Miss Mary's cheeks grew thinner and more pinched, and within the other the Madame's grew yellower and more wrinkled. The old woman leaned more heavily upon her staiF as she walked, and sometimes whole days would pass when no smoke curled from her little chimney's mouth. The bird in the cage would pick drearily among yesterday's seed husks, and Madame herself only hobbled to the door in her bedgown for the loaf which the baker had left and down into the cellar for a bottle of vin ordinaire.
But by and by the little houses seemed to grow closer and closer together, and if Madame saw Ratton burrowing under the dividing fence she forgot to call him back, though she always wondeied afterward where he got the bones and bits that made almost his daily meals, now that her rheumatism was so bad. She would wait too, in the mornings, till a little stealthy tread had died from her own gallery and she heard Miss Mary's door close softly, to go out for the baker's loaf, but she always wondered, the shrewd Madame, what passing friend had left the new laid Qgg or the little breakfast-pudding which she grew to look for along with the bread. She still told her friends that they ^' must have always charity " when they shrugged their shoulders or nodded their heads
toward Miss Mary's closed door, and still gave Alix an extra dollar or two now and then and told him to be good to the poor tiling if she liad not all the rent readv for him. Poor Madame ! The shadows were lengtiiening fast, and she drew ('h)ser and ('h)ser to the banisters under the china tree, and leaned more and more toward the other little house.
*'This was my baby's first shoe," she would say sometimes, as she held out a little ju-rfunicd package for Miss Mary to see. And then Mi>> Mary would forget again, and fumble in her bosom for a little yellow curl tied with blue ribbon, and both their hearts would bleed anew and both their eyes would grow red with weeping.
One evening as they sat thus, so near that they migiit have touched each other, the Old Madame held a little casket in her lap, and now and then she opened and shut it gently, or caressed it tenderly with her wrinkled brown fingers. At the same time, beside her own little banisters, Miss Mary sat holding a little packet, now and then dropping a tear u])on the pictured face that stared up at her behind its oval ot glass. Was it chance or was it fate that thus they sat side by side, these two? Who can say, for it was the throbbing time of early spring, and both their hearts were stirred with the nu'inory of long-ago love.
'* He was very handsome, my baby's father," said Miss Mary softly by and by, as she rubbed the blurred glass with her thin work-hardened palm.
"A-a-hl" said Madame, and her voice was a prayer, though a gleam of yellow shot from her dim
eyes, " not handsomer than monsieur, Mees Maree,
not handsomer than my beautiful husband. Wait till I show you/'
'^ And I, Madame/^ said Miss Mary.
Madame opened the casket with a click, and both leaned forward eagerly. They were very near together, the two hands, and as Miss Mary looked into Madame's she saw the smiling face of her baby's father; as Madame looked into Miss Mary's she saw the beautiful face of monsieur. Was it chance or fate?
'' O God!" said Miss Mary, and the two pictures fell face downward, crushed and broken in the weeds that grew and sprawled upon the dividing fence.
And the Old Madame? Where now was the curse she had held in her heart so long for the woman who had stolen monsieur's love? Lift up your voice, Madame, and curse her face to face. She must have been pretty once with her yellow hair and her blue eyes; she must have been young not very long ago, have you forgotten, Madame ? Curse her now though the hair is grey and the eyes are faded; have you forgotten, Madame?
Poor Madame ! They were Miss Mary's arms that picked her up and laid her on the bed behind the curtains by and by, but she stirred not nor spoke. The nimble old tongue had lost its cunning forever, the poor tottering old limbs were paralyzed.
The days are passing still over the heads of the
two neighbors, but one little house covers them both
now. Miss Mary flits almost gayly about among the
flowers and birds on Madame's gallery, or chats with
9
the friends when they stop on the banquette in the evenings, but oftenest she sits beside the okl woman's bed singing and sewing, and the poor dim eyes that watch for her coming are soft with love and tenderness. Who indeed shall say how He may temper the wind to the shorn lamb ?
^^^^^
Another Valentine.
<^ LINGERED a moment with my hand on the "§% latch, leaning upon the gate, and looking over ^ at the straggling flower-beds and the little grass-grown walks which led to the old house beyond. A poor, tumbled-down house it was, to be sure, yet how much a part of Miss Letty's very self it seemed, growing grey just as she grew grey, in little patches where the rain had stained and the paint had crumbled off. In the old garden, the cedars and boxwood had grown gnarled and woody, and cape-jessamines burst their young spring buds high on the ancient stock almost out of reach. Crepe-myrtles and altheas met in a tangled archway that led from the gate to the house, where honey-suckle and ivy clustered close around the eaves.
There began a lively tapping on one of the window-panes within as I loitered, and looking up, I saw Miss Letty shaking a slim thimbled finger at me.
" Come in, child, do,^' she said, when I opened the door behind her, and poked my head in, " you'll catch your death out there on the damp ground, without your rubbers, too, I'll be bound."
" Why, Miss Letty, it is almost spring-time/' I said, with the door-knob still in my hand, '' and already the young grass is beginning to peep up here and there, and I am sure there are pink tips swelling on the tea-roses. Please come and see/^
" Are you coming in, Eleanor ? " asked Miss Letty, in a tone of voice which w^ould have commanded obedience even if she had not called me Eleanor, instead of Nell, which latter is all that I ever hoped for from my friends.
" What is it, Miss Letty, please?" I said, closing the door with a bang, wondering at the dear old lady\s unwonted excitement.
" What do you suppose?'' she asked with a smile, as she folded her work, giving a little tap on top of it, and putting away her needle and thimble.
" Not the—piano—" I began fearfully.
But Miss Letty broke me off eagerly. ^* Yes, it is tho' Nell, just,'' she said, as she looked up at me over her steel-rimmed glasses, shaking her temple curls at me gayly.
'' O Miss Letty ! Where is it ? " I cried, joyfully peering about as if I expected to see a piano hiding in every corner, or peeping out from under every chair.
" What a little goose you are, Nell," said Miss Letty in her pleased little way. " It isn't bought yet you know, I only wanted you to recount the money with me to be sure there is enough, and then we shall see at once about getting the piano."
" O you sweet Miss Letty," I cried, catching her in my arms and whirling her about with me till our heads were dizzy.
^^ Suppose some one had seen us, Nell, you silly child," Miss Letty remonstrated when she had got her breath. " How old are you anyway, nine ? ^'
" Twice nine, Miss Letty, and ^ going on,' '' I said. ^^But it makes me feel young again to think of having the piano at last."
^^ At last, and you only eighteen/^ said Miss Letty a little wistfully. ^^ Heigho! But never mind, I am to have it at last, as you say. Now I am going to get my strong box, and I want you to count the savings over for me."
One by one we spread out the bills, and piled up the coins till the little, round, marble-topped table was full of Miss Letty^s small hoard, and I looked at it all reverently, each piece becoming sacred to me when I thought of the years of privation and toil it had cost her.
"Do you know what that is, Nell?" said Miss Letty, unfolding a silver dollar from its little wrapper of white paper. " That was for making your first short frock. You don't remember it—a white lawn with a pink leaf, and you looked for all the world when you had it on as if a shower of peach-blow petals had fallen on you. I can see you now. And this yellow gold piece was for making your mother's wedding dress, think of it. A white silk it was, that stood alone when it was finished. And this was for making Mr. Pitman's last pepper-and-salt. Poor old man ! They buried him in it. He asked them to, the day before he died, because, as he said, it ^ sot to him' better than anything he ever had on his back."
" What do you 'spose that little bit was for ?'' asked Miss Letty by and by, as she emptied a few small coins, all quarters and dimes and nickles out on the table, drawing them up together. '^ That was for making Mary Ann Perry's wedding dress. Tlie bargain was that I should only help, and get four dollars and six bits for my work. But you know how things are sometimes. If Mary Ann herself stuck needle in that lilac delaine of hers I never found it out, and after all, three ten was all I ever got for making it. Mary Ann was always close, even when she was a girl; just for the world like her old father before her. You've heard tell how d'reckly after the surrender folks had to go to work and hire negroes, allowing them a fourth of the crop as wages. Well, old man Runnells, Mary Ann's father that was, he honeyfugled many a poor ignorant negro into believing that a fourth warn't enough, and caused them to leave good homes to go and work for a fifth with him. So you see Mary Ann come honestly by her shrewdness, and I reckon we ought to bear this in mind, and excuse it in her more than we are prone to do."
Five hundred dollars was all the box contained, and every piece of it teeming with memories for dear Miss Letty—memories into which she had pricked with her busy needle the patient pattern of her life— memories that brought the tears into her old eyes now and then as she told of them, and into mine too as I listened.
*^ Tell me all about the piano," I said to her once as I sat beside her watching her busy needle come and go, '^ tell me from the very beginning."
'^ Well, I don^t know the very beginning myself/' she had answered. ^^ I can't remember when I did not want a piano. But father wasn't rich you know, ever, and so I had to wait. He promised when I began taking music lessons that I might have one f my teacher thought I had any talent, and I remember as if it were yesterday, how pleased he was at the end of the session, when I played ^ Home, Sweet Home,' with variations, and never lost a note. I got the silver music-medal too that night, don't you remember, I showed it to you once, with ^ perseverance' engraved across the face ? Father was very proud of me, and the people all applauded, and Rob Taylor threw me a bouquet. It was all sweet-shrub and wild honeysuckle and yellow jessamine that he had plucked in the woods as he came along, but my! I can smel them yet."
When Miss Letty stooped down to bite off her thread, it was a tear that she wiped from her eye ?
^^ What ever became of him. Miss Letty?" asked, poor, little, romantic soul that I was, forgetting my politeness, " what became of the boy that threw the flowers."
^^What diiference does that make, child, I wonder," she said a little sharply for Miss Letty, I fancied. " Do you want me to tell you about the piano ? "
" Oh, yes. Miss Letty, please," and she went on.
" As I was saying when you interrupted me, father was very proud of me, and got Mr. Rogers to write to his commission merchant in New Orleans to see about a piano for me. But the war was coming on then, and we waited, and pretty soon it was come and
gone, and with it the money to bay the piano. Poor £itherl There was so many of us then to provide for, tho' I'm the only one of the family left now, dean- me I Dick never came back from the war, and mother died soon after, and the girls followed one by one. Somehow, there waru't any of 'em strong, and pretty soon father died. The little plantation had to go then to pay debts, poor lather, and tiiere was left ('Illy the little ht»mc-place. 1 went to teaching music liit'U at the coUegt-—the old college, child, tliat stood behind the church by the laboratory well—but it warn't long before that burned. I rememl>er how I cried the night of the fire, but it was all because of the piano, the poor, battered, tuneless old thing that I had practiced on. Well, after the college wa-gone, there was no school of any kind in Mt. Lebanon for a long time, and there was nothing for me but sewing. I don't mean to complain, for I've always had plenty to do, and I made up my mind at the start that I would lay by a little every year till I had saved • ii'Uirh to buy a piano. It seems a long time to you < Lil.i. doesn't it? But God has been very good to me." Poor Misf! l^tty I
There was not many pianos left in the whole town then ; the doctor's daughter had one, and Mrs. Rod-gers another, and there were one or two more among the old families, and at these we all loved to see Miss Letty sit, with a glad light in her dim old eyes, and her nimble lingers cha-^ing each other over the keys. Indeed, had not most of us learned our first dancing steps to Miss Letty's playing? And surely there was music enough yet in her " Virginia Reel" and ** Sol-
dier's Joy " to set us all a-tingle to the tune of it, and we grew up looking forward, as for a great joy that was to come into our narrow lives, to an endless round of reels and cotillions, when Miss Letty should have a piano of her very own.
We younger ones could not remember when Miss Letty had not made our " Sunday dresses " for us. But this, however, I think most of us accepted as a special favor vouchsafed to us just as we did the sugarplums and tea-cake that we sometimes found in the pocket of a new lindsey frock at its first outing, comfortably stored away here by Miss Letty to help us over the tedium of Sunday^s sermon. I can distinctly recall more than one occasion when I sat in my pew-corner discretely munching my pocket's treasure-trove, to the tune of " Am I a Soldier of the Cross.'' I was fired by the martial strains to buy a piano myself and present it to Miss Letty, when I grew up.
Somehow, it seemed to me as I looked back upon it, that there had once been a time when all the hopes of the village had been centered around Miss Letty's piano. We had all heard our mothers say over and often that they would have Miss Letty in for a day's sewing, since it would give them a lift, and help along with the piano. Some of us had heard our fathers say that they would order an extra soft bit of stuif from the little factory that sent its brown smoke curling up above the tree-tops beyond the tan-yard, and have Miss Letty make a suit. *^ It will wear better than ready-made clothes do," they would say, " and besides, it will count toward the piano."
But gradually as our keen interest must have
waned, we all knew that the little spark of hope still glowed fresh and warm in Miss Letty's breast, and we respected it, even the yonnger ones, though we passed beyond the days of wide-eyed wonderment Avhen the rumble of a heavy wagon would send us running to the window to see if the piano were coming at last. And I think none of us quite forgave old Peter Smith for scoffing at Miss Letty's little hope. To be sure old Peter scoffed with impunity at everything in heaven and on earth, but when it came to Miss Letty, and in such a public way, that was more than the village people could submit to. It came about in this way, for we all heard of it; one day as the little German shoemaker sat in the midst of his busy pegging, singing in his bright, cheery voice, so that all the town might hear, " Dere's a better time a-coming, Hallelujah !" old Peter had taken his pipe from his mouth, and, perhaps impressed with the enormity of his daring, had for once in his life spit quite clear of the store-gallery, to say to the crowd of loungers that hung about, ^^ Yes, there's a better time a-comin', but, plague-on-it, it's like Miss Letty's piano, it never gits here."
I w^as thinking of just this while Miss Letty went to put the tin box away, and that I should like to be the first to tell old Peter when the piano came.
Consumed with this devout desire, I got no further in my retrospect when I heard the little front gate creak on its hinges, and Miss Letty returned a moment later, bringing Mary Ann Perry in with her.
Everybody in the village called her Mary Ann^ and we younger ones were no exceptions, elsewhere
than before her face, whose thin, sharp features underneath her flapping sunbonnet were the butt of a perennial jest among us.
^^ Don't you think your fire is mighty brisk for this time o' year, Letitia/' said Mary Ann, taking a half-way seat on the edge of her chair, and fanning herself with her sunbonnet.
'^ I don^t know as I had thought of it, Mary Ann. Does the room seem close to you ?'^ asked Miss Letty, rising to lift a window.
^'Oh, it warn't that I meant," interposed MaryAnn. ^^ I guess I can stand as much heat as anybody, seein' I've been used to good fires all my life. I was only thinking times is mighty hard for so much wood to be wasted.^'
"¦ Well, maybe you're right, Mary Ann,'' answered Miss Letty, taking her seat, and folding her hands on her lap placidly. ^' Hard times has been the cry ever since I can remember, but I don't know as they seem to get any harder now. However, father always told me I didn't have a saving bone in me. As he said— poor father—I burnt off my caudle double at one end what I saved at the other."
'^ Well, of course you are free to do as you please, Letitia," said Mary Ann. "You are just one to yourself, and when you are gone, you'll leave none behind to suffer. But as for times bein' no harder, whatever are you thinkin' of? What's to hinder them f'om bein' hard, with cotton at five cents, and meat a-gettin' higher? Maybe you just ain't had it brought home to you, but there's no tellin' how soon it may come. As for me, now, I can't he'p f'om
feelin' sorry for them as do suffer, even if I'm spared myself, which I thank God I have been, so far. There's Rob Taylor, f'rinstance. S'pose you've heard tell o' his trouble."
I saw MissLetty's eyelids quiver behind her spectacles, as she snatched the little hearth-broom from the brass rack in the corner, and began to sweep the immaculate bricks desperately in search of an imaginary ash. But Mary Ann went on.
*'Yes, there's Rob and his folks goin' to be turned out into the big road come the fourteenth, they say. Reckon it'll go hard on 'em all, him an' his wife both gittin' along in years, an' with their big house-full of girls, too. Somehow, tho', I can't seem to he'p f'om feelin' it's a kinder judgment sent on Rob. I ain't never got over the way he done you, Letty, goin' off that-away without a word, and you never hearin' nothin'tel news come that he was married to Lou Abercrombie over there to Arcady. 'Twarn't right o' Rob, and I, for one, always said so."
^' I think most of you have been too hard on Rob, maybe, Mary Ann," said Miss Letty, gently. '' His word was not given to me ever, and he had a right to marry whom he pleased." The words came a little tremulously towards the end, but she finished them quite bravely.
" Well, that's as you're a mind to look at it," Mary Ann replied. " Rob was as good as bound to you, word or no word, an' kept away more than one man as might have made you a good husband. You can't he'p f om knowin' that now, Letty, for all you say. An' that's why I sayit seem like a judgment sent on
Rob. Not that I think youVe missed anything by not marryin' him, for he never was no great shakes, nohow, an^ it just shows how low down he's got when he's goin' to be sold out to satisfy a claim for five hundred dollars.''
''J^'ive hundred dollars?" Miss Letty fairly gasped. ^^ Five hundred dollars, did you say, Mary Ann ?"
'^ Yes, that's all, an' it do seem a pitiful sum now, don't it, when you think of the fortune he got by Lou Aberorombie. That proves this is a punishment for him ever marryin' of her."
'^ Five hundred dollars ! Just five hundred!" Miss Letty said over and over again, her voice sounding scarce above a whisper. ^^ It seems like providence!"
'^ Who did you say held this mortgage, Mary Ann—this mortgage against Rob Taylor ?" she asked by and by, with a firmness that startled me, it was so sudden.
^^ The mortgage—who holds it, 'd you say, Le-titia?" said Mary Ann hesitatingly. ^^Oh, Perry, you know, he holds it. Rob, he got money f'om us two year ago when his wife was so low an' the chillun was down sick."
^^ Five hundred dollars—" Miss Letty began again. '^ Wait a moment, Mary Ann, please," she went on quite firmly, ^^ and do you come with me, Nellie, child, just—"
I think I had never seen my dear Miss Letty look quite so determined, tho' her hands were working nervously together.
"Oh, you must not do it, Miss Letty, dear, indeed and indeed you must not!" I said, divining her purpose, and ])uttino: my arms about her when the door had closed l)ehind us.
She turned my head haek, looking into my face for a moment without speaking, while her poor wrinkled old lips trembled, and the tears trickled down her cheeks.
"Suppose you were me, and Uob was Ali)cit Marcy, what then, child?" she asked softly.
And I? Then for answer, I only drew her closer up to me and kissed tlie poor, tnMnblin«r, patient old lips.
She made me carry the little tin box in, and she and Mary Ann stood by the table silent, uncomprehending while I counted (tver again Mi-- Letty's lifelong savings.
"There it is, Mary Ann,'" she -aid, when 1 was done. "Just five hundred dollars, you see. That is what you said Rob owed you, wasn't it ? Take it, Mary Ann, take it, j)lease, and—go."
"But the piano, IvCtty ?" asked Mary Ann, almost gently.
"That will wait, and you won't, I'm afraid, Mary Ann," Miss Letty said.
Mary Ann looked up hastily, but she was not quite equal to the passing thought of generosity. Rob Taylor's farm was a poor one at best, and five hundred dollars was a goodly price for it.
" Do you come home with me, child," she said when she had gathered up all the money from the table, putting it into the crown of her bonnet, " do
you come with me, and take a receipt for this. I want everything to be straight.''
When I came back by and by with the receipt, I found Miss Letty sitting before the fire looking into the crumbling coals, a little faded gleam of youth in her dim blue eyes, and a sandal-wood box in her hands.
'^ These were Rob's presents to me," she said quite sweetly, showing within the uncertain, daguerreotyped face of a handsome, black-eyed boy with a slack mouth, a crumbled bouquet of what had once been jessamine and azalea and sweet shrub, and on top of all a little old-fashioned valentine, faded and yellow with age. ^* From your valentine," was scrawled in an unsteady, boyish hand across one corner.
" He knew I would understand," said Miss Letty, simply. ^^And now, Nell, I think I shall write just the same, you know, ^ from your valentine,' and send it with this receipt to Rob. It can make no difference to Lou Abercrombie, and Rob will not know— perhaps."
Poor Miss Letty, putting all the love of a lifetime into one little " perhaps."
^
Mrxican Joe's Freedom,
EXICAN JOE was the most notorious cattle stealer in the wiiole valley, and the wonder was that his handsome brown neck had escaped the hahcr. But times had changed in Texas since the days when justice was administered summarily, and to the point—usually a rope's point. So about the little cabin across the creek, where Joe and Ninita kept house, there were always hanging strings of meat for the sun to dry.
But Joe had always ready a way of explaining his possession of the meat strings and the tallow and hides which kept him in whisky and tobacco, and the droves that he depleted by his careful depredations were so far away that there were no means of tracing his roguery.
But, of course, a day of reckoning did come for Joe, as it comes for all of us sooner or later, though I'was not his cattle-stealing that brought it about.
One day during the summer a man had been found murdered on the other side of Flat Top, and the most earnest effort resulted in the discovery of no clue to the guilty party. The District Attorney was a new
man, a tall young fellow, who set his broad-brimmed hat a little jauntily a-top of his over-long locks, but the evil-doers knew him for a ^^ hustler'^ nevertheless. Nobody was surprised therefore, Avhen, the following winter, the murdered man's watch and knife were found in pawn at the second-hand store on the corner, and Mexican Joe was arrested.
The trial created a stir in quiet little Lampasas, and the courthouse was crowded with spectators. There was some difficulty in impaneling a jury, ^nd the case began to draw itself out, but the interest did not waver.
The only listless figure in the whole crowd was Ninita.
Never once, as the case dragged, and witness after witness rose for testimony, did she turn her big, beautiful eyes towards the prisoner's box. With the shawl still pinned up about her pretty, brown-skinned face, she sat, not moving, save now and then to dispense the little shuck rolls from her basket to the hungry people about her, slipping the nickels carefully into her bosom. When adjournment came, she would swing her basket over her arm, and moving with the crowd, call out " Hot tamales V with sweet-voiced indifference.
But finally the last day came. The District Attorney made a strong case, telling off a string of Joe's evil deeds, which were as he said, " too numerous to mention."
The attorney for the defence, a young fellow whom the Court had appointed, did the best he could with the material in hand. At the end of his flowery 10
speech he iiiade an appeal in Ix'lialf (»f Xinita, pointing to her with a mighty flourish of his k)ng arm, and calling her a " poor, heart-hroken wife."
But she, the '' poor, heart-l)roken wife,'' sat dry-eyed and stolid through it all, and the solemn-looking jury filed out, to return almost immediately, with a verdict of guilty.
Then, and not till then, Ninita looked at Joe, and a glance that puzzled those who saw it, flashed back at lu'r from his great dark eyes. It might have been a challenge; it might liave been a question ; was it a command, or was it a farewell?
She got up when all was over, slipping out through the crowd, but lingered in the square without till the sheriff came leading the prisoner t(> the little stone jail across the way, whence he was to be taken next day to Austin.
In a little while Aiw'^ face was to be >een behind the bars in one of the upper windows, but Xinita seemed scarce to notice him. \\'ithout speaking, she pulled her shawl close around her and passed (piickly down the street and across the bridge.
That night a type-setter going home late from the office saw a woman flit by him in the moonlight, and crouch down in the shadows of the prison wall. He, too, crossed over and waited, hidden by the darkness.
By and by the crouching figure arose, a pebble rattled against the window overhead, and Joe's face appeared behind the bars, all lit up in the moonlight.
" Is it you, Xinita ?" he said.
" It is"^ I, my Jos^," she answered softly, in her sweet-voiced Spanish. " Is there no other way?"
*^ No other way/' he said quietly. " I am ready.''
" Holy Mother of God intercede for thee and me/' she prayed, kneeling and crossing herself.
" Amen!" came Joe's deep-voiced response.
^^ Pull yourself up by the bars, my Jos^, that I may not touch your beautiful face, and close your lids, that I may not look into your dear eyes."
He did as she had bidden him, holding on to the stout bars. "¦ I am ready," he said.
^^ Adios, my Jos^."
" Adios, my Ninita."
She put her hand to her bosom, there was a little gleam of steel in the moonlight, a pistol shot rang out clear and sharp on the night air, and the woman turned and fled into the darkness.
The relaxed hands loosed hold of the bars above, there was a heavy fall upon the floor within, and Mexican Joe was free.
At thk Turn of the Stair
CTTv GREAT, wide handsoino stair it is, w itli coning fortal)U' steps and railintr ot' carved uak, and ^' somehow it seems to Starr that he h)ves it
more than any other part of the whole honse. Perhaps this is hecanse he always pictnres Aniee npon it, just as he saw her for the first time that Cliristmas morning h)ng ago.
He was sitting alone in the great hall before the l)ig open fire waiting for Kol)ert to come down, when a soft tread upon the steps made him look up, and he saw Anice. She had stopped at the hroad turn of the stair to pluek a hit of trailing vine that hung from the high arched window's ledge, and the early morning sun broke itself about her, besprinkling her blue dress and her gold-brown hair.
She came down when she saw him, holding out her hand. *' I am Anice," she said, simply. ^' Robert told us to expect you, and we are very glad you are come.''
That was all, but even then Starr loved her. She was only a slip of a girl in those days, and he was not a right young man, but he waited, watching for her
every morning during the holidays, and feeling glad the whole day through if he caught a glimpse of her as she came down the stair.
For three years Starr came at intervals with Robert, all the while growing more and more to love the young sister of his friend, and finding always a hearty welcome in his house. The Hastings were people whom everybody knew and everybody liked. Judge Hastings was a hearty, cheerful old man, well past middle life, and his wife w^as one of those rare beings who are ever young because of the youth in their hearts. Besides Anice was an older daughter, Betty, and these, with Robert, made up the family. The two girls belonged to the same general type, and to the casual observer seemed much alike. But the resemblance was slight at most, and Starr never saw it, always secretly resenting any observance of it by others.
Horace Starr was, as I have said, not a young man. His habits of life and character were well grounded, and grey hairs were beginning to show pretty thickly among the black above his temple, but, in spite of this, he was in some respects a man quite unused to the ways of the world. Big of limb and strong of body, he had a mind considerably above the average, which every advantage of travel and study had conspired to cultivate. Yet he was, in one respect, at least, a painfully timid man. He would have stood unflinchingly before the cannon's mouth, and was in all his relations with men a man, yet withal he had a most intense and ungovernable fear of women. Even his own mother inspired him with
a kind of awe wliicli lie could never (jiiite overcome, and it was with niueli the same feelintj^ that he regarded Anice, in spite of his great hjve for her. This made him timid Ix'fore her, and through all the years he had not spoken, only half fancying that she could over care for him, and living during the absences from her njion the picture of her with the sunlight on her face.
()ne morning—it was ('hristma>, the fourth since he had known Anic(—Starr sat before the fresh-bnilt lire in the wide hall, watching the tlame tongues Hare and Hicker and reHect themscKcs in the high brass hand-irons and pidished fender. lie wa< waiting till he sh(Md(l hear .Vniee's footfall on the stair. lie had studied her well througjj the years, and knew it was her custiuu to l)e I'arliest dow n in the morning, and he had always meant to stoji hei- sometime just at the turning wlieii the >un lighte<l all her fice, and tell her that he loved her.
Was she later than u>ual thi- iiioi'iiing, or only his own perturbation that made him think so'.' He felt his heart beat louder than the ci'ackling of the fire, and the passing minutes secmetl houi< in his eager expectancy.
But, at la>t I There was a sound of her footstep, and the soft, almost inaudible murmur of garments. She was coming I He waited till she paused iij)on the turn of the stair and then himself sprang up the few intervening steps to meet her. It seemed to him that his feet scarce touched the stair, and he trembled so that he held on to the railing for su])port. There she stood in the old place, to be sure, with her head
slightly turned and her sweet face making now only a blot against the pane, for the sun was streaming down to him and blinding his eyes.
" Do not come down, please/' he said very gently, holding out his hand to her. ^^ I have been waiting to speak to you just here. I wanted to tell you that I love you, and ask you to be my wife.''
His head was in a whirl, and he bowed it as if in prayer. He heard her take a step forward, he felt her put her little hand in his outstretched one, and, lifting his glad eyes, he found himself face to face with—Betty.
" I shall not say this is a surprise to me, Horace,'' she was saying, "for I have hoped for it always, and have loved you always."
But he heard as one in a dream, feeling his life-tide ebbing with every word, for behind her, coming down the stair, was Anice. Horace looked up at her as she came under the window, and would have thrown himself down at her feet for the very love of her, but Betty stood aside to let her pass, and she swept by him unheeding, her beautiful face all full of pain, and a look in her eyes that crushed him. AVas it for this he had waited? O God! O God! He fancied that he cried aloud in the enormity of his grief, and would have fallen, but Betty, all unheeding in her own joy, slipped her arm in his and led rather than followed him down the stairs.
" I have brought you a son for a Christmas present,^' she said gayly, as they met her father and niother on the way to the breakfast room, but Horace received their cheerful greeting silently. His heart
was l)urstin^, iind he longed to crv out his <:;reat love for Anicc and curse the confusion of his horrible blunder. Yet—he dared not! IJetty had said she loved, had ])roniised to be his wife I He was no longer free I He might never more wait f)r Anice on the stair, nor start up glad for her coming. Was this the price of a man's honor? O God! (3 (iod! Was the suffering only his to bear? What meant the strange look in An ice's eyes when she ])assed him? She had heard, and misunderstood, and now he could never tell her. () (lodl () (lod!
How the breakfast passed he never knew, exce})t that Anice did not come. Some one found her by and by, in the little copse behind the rose garden, lying j)rone upon the frosty earth with the same tense lo(dv on \\vv l)eautiful young face. They picked her up and carried her in, but, save for a pitiful moan as they bore her o'er the turning of the stair, she neither spoke nor uttered a sound. All through the weary days of waiting, as she hiy 'twixt life and death, no word escaped her; only the sharp look of silent suffering never left her face. But once when Betty carried Horace into the room to see her, she turned her big blue eyes up to him and smiled. Had she understood? But the eyelids (juivered, the smile faded from the poor still lips that might speak no more forever!
Horace buried his face in his hand and wept with the sorrow of a strong man stricken when they bore the poor prone body down the stair. The sun in his glory glinted on the silver of the coffin, and the trailing vine swept across it tenderly, but he might
not kiss the poor dead lips of the woman whom he loved!
Long years have passed since then, but the early Christmas morning finds Horace ever faithful at his vigil in the wide hall before the glowing fire, and sometimes he will start up, fancying he hears a step on the stair, and that he will see Anice coming to him across the weary waiting time.
"Have you come at last, Anice ?^' he will cry joyously, to hear Betty's voice call down to him: " It is I, Horace, dear. Why do you always call me Anice, at Christmas time, I wonder?^'
And he only puts his hand before his eyes to keep in yet a little while the picture of his love upon the turning of the stair.
Only a Trami>.
fAY after day ])a.>^scMl, bringini; no rain to the thirsty, windblown valley. The snn earne np every morning into a dry, (in])ty sky, and every evening sank down behind the brown hills in a perfcet bla/e of glory. The dronth held full sway. Tanks weri' <lry, cistern- were drained, and for all the thirsting cattle in tlu' |)ar('hing pastnres there ^vas left only the water of the little cress-grown creek, which, skirting the town, bore on to the river the salt and snlphnrons How from Lampasas' never-failing springs.
From north and sonth and ea>t and we>t, through all the sun-strnek valley, came cowboys driving their herds down the ntirrow streets to the cool creek-side.
One quiet evening down the western hill-slope^ there came a band in full swing, the dry grass breaking crisply beneath the cattle's tread and the fine dust stirred into a dense cloud. Straight on eastward, toward the ford, spurred the leading horseman, calling out his musical halloo; but the grateful smell of the salt water near at hand reached the eager nostrils
of the thirsty cattle, and down an unprotected alleyway running southward, the head of the band turned sharply. In a moment, with digging of spurs, with whoop and halloo and shout and whistle, the horsemen were after, and some even gained the head of the onrushing column. But, 'Met ^ em go,'' called the leader, above the mingle of voices, and the stampeding drove, with five hundered parching throats, followed panting down the narrow lane between lines of barbed wire fence.
A man coming through the alley from the other end, saw the onrushing drove and waited, looking about him frightened and helpless. A pitiful figure he must have been at any time with his poor, stooped shoulders, and his ragged, dust-stained clothes, but in the face of the oncoming danger, he stood a picture of utter impotency.
"Head off the idiot struck dumb there," yelled a cowboy from the rear.
''Gome off! He's only a tramp. Let him run for it," called back the leader, cutting at the man with his quirt as he galloped by. " Clear out of this, can't you ? "
At first the man only started; then, reaching up his arm, he grasped the stout limb of a mesquite under which he was standing, and pulled himself up into the tree, his long legs dangling.
" Take in your shanks, you bloomin' coward," said the cowboy spurring past. There was a sharp whistle as the riata sped through the air, and the man in the tree felt the well-aimed rope whirr across his feet, cutting and burning into the thin ankles that
showed betwoL'ii the ragged trousers and h)\v, loppiug shoes.
But there was someone else in the narrow street besides the tramp wlio saw with consternation the onrushing, nuuhlened cattle. In the middle of the alley, halt-hidden by a clump of green-white milkweed, a child, a little thing, scarce more than a babe, stopped her gathering of" prickly cactus apples, and stood unmoving with wide-open, startled eyes. One of the galloping cowboys, casting his eye backward over his shoulder, caught sight of the little white still figure, and turned his pony sharply, but the mad cows were coming with frantic pace, snorting and bellowing in the dust-cloud.
And the man up in the tree? Looking down from his perch of safety, he saw the child almost beneath him. The rose-red juice of the cactus fruit had stained her lips and dripped down upon her white dress. My God I It looked like blood. The blood of a young child—O God I O God !
With one wild leap through the feathery mescpiite boughs the man was on his feet, a ])istol in each outstretched hand, between the child and the on-coming death. Above the tumult of shout and bellow the bullets sang out clear and sharp: the two foremost cows snorted, sprang their length, and dropped dead in the dust. There was gained only a second's interval, but with sudden swerve the cowboy had caught the child up before him and was galloping on in safety.
And the tramp?
They picked him up by and by w^hen the moving mass of hoofs and horns had passed in the dust-cloud.
his poor mangled body begrimed with his own life's blood.
It was the longest procession Lampasas had ever seen which followed up the northern hill-slope to the little cemetery next day. The cowboys, with big spurs rattling and high heels clinking against the stones, bore the cofBn all the way on their shoulders. In no other way could they so honor the man whom, in the pride of their centaur-like horsemanship, they had taunted as " a tramp.'^
They knew no name to carve upon the marble shaft they reared above him, taller than any in the whole grave-yard, but on the stone one reads now":
^^ To the memory "—not of a tramp, but '^ of a hero.''
The Wild Huntsman of Sequatchie Valeey.
CHAP IKK 1
CTj'LAX (JIFFAKI), scrainhling liiro' the tangle of Ij^ uiulerbru.shjcainesiuldt'nly iijxui a little clearing ^ against the mountain-side wliicli seemed scarce
large enough for the one rickety eahin that it hehl nestling there with its green cabbage garden and few scraggy, stunted fruit trees among the over-hanging oaks and chestnuts. He was (|uite heated by his long-pull, and sat down to rest a moment on a little ledge of rock, putting his color-box down beside him.
"Tired, ain't yer?" He was startled by hearing a voice ask just above him, and looking up he saw, leaning against the broken, half-tumbled-down rail fence, a tliin-faced, keen-eyed old w(mian, who stood contemplating him quite complacently.
"Pretty tired," he said, good-naturedly, smiling up at her with his frank, grey eyes. " I've lost my way, too, and have had (juite a scramble of it over these rocks."
" Lost, air yer ? Now that\s a party come off, ain't it ? Stoppin' up to Monteagle ?'^ the old woman asked.
" Yes," Giffard answered.
'Mir yer to the hotel, or on the Grounds?''
'' On the Grounds."
'' Many folks thar now ?''
^'I don't know, I am sure/' he said. ''I have only just come myself, and this is my first season."
The old woman looked him over from head to foot quite seriously for a moment, with her chin resting upon her folded arms on the fence. Then, fixing her gaze upon the box at Giffard's feet, she said, with a little dip of her head :
'' Book agent ? "
" No," he said, his eyes following her gaze : '^ that's a color-box. I am a painter."
'^ Oh, yer air?" she said. '' 'Lowed yer's sump'-nother time I seen yer didn't have no legs to yer pants."
^' Knickerbockers are better for climbing over your rocks," he said, laughingly, as he got up. 'Mnd now, will you be kind enough to direct me to the shortest trail up to Monteagle?"
'^ The Pipe Line's the nighest way up," she said, without moving.
'' The Pipe Line ? What is that ?" he asked.
" The trail up 'long the line er pipe that takes the water up to Monteagle f'um the spring down thar in the valley. It's the nighest cut, but you couldn't never fin' it by yerse'f"
" I think I should like to try, if you will direct me," he said, picking up his box.
" Don't jes' know wliar 'tis myse'f,'' the old woman went on, still unpiirturhed. '^Vin't never to say been thater way, Imt Loaniie here'll show yer."
For the first time, Ahin noticed the ^irl who had come up from beneatli the peach-trees, and was standing behind her mother. She was a tall, slender, unformed young thing, with a gh)W of color under her brown skin, and a subdued fire in her hirge, dark eyes. There was an irre«:uh\rity and hick of harmonious de-velo})ment about tiic face that made it fall short of being a ])retty one, but even the severe arrangement of.the coal-black, straight hair, which was parted down the middle and brushed into a tight coil high off the neck behind, did not mar the beautv <»f the well-poised head.
(Jiffard noted all this as he followed her quick free strides up the mountain path. Once, an over-hanging branch caught the skirt of her thin calico dress, and her foot slip])ed on a stone. In a moment he was beside her,and, having released her, held out his hand to hel]) her up the next turning. She looked at him a little curiously from beneath her long lashes, and sprang lightly up before him again. She did not speak during the whole way, and at last, when they had climbed up under the projecting stones of Warren's Point, and the peaceful hazy valley lay stretched below, with the sun just dipping like a ball of Hre behind the blue peaks beyond, she only gave a little sidelong glance at Giflard, and, with a gesture that was comprehensive in its very simplicity, waved her hand outward toward the mists and the mountains and the sunset.
" Beautiful/' he said, answering the question of her look, and following her to the Point's edge.
" It^s purtier'n that over thar beyant the mountains where the sun's gone/' she said.
" YouVe been over there ? ^' he asked, looking down at her.
" No/' she said, without turning her head. " I ain't been, that's how I know it's purtier there."
" That is rather doubtful philosophy, I fear," said Giffard, moving nearer to the edge. A moment later, Avhen he turned to speak to the girl, she was gone, and he followed the broad sandy road which he knew would lead him to the Assembly Grounds. Meanwhile, the girl, dropping quickly down the accustomed trail, was startled when she emerged into the mountain road below, to hear the loose rattle of an empty wagon.
" Come up thar, Baldy," said the driver, in the slow mountain drawl.
" Lor', it's Dave," said Loanne, springing back and hiding herself among the dense growth that overhung the road.
The slow lazy oxen passed up the rocky road beneath her, the loose plank that stood for wagon-body rattled noisily, and upon them the empty barrels bumped tipsily together at every jolt. Behind, with long slow strides, followed Dave, clad in an ample shirt of blue stripes and wide trousers of brown jeans. His big ash-colored felt hat flopped down over his ears, his scant, straw-colored hair hung lankly upon his thin neck, and his small grey-blue eyes were closely set above his sallow cheeks. 11
Loaniie hail crouched (h)\\n l)chiiul an uprooted tree, hut as Dave came up just l)eh)\v, a h)()se stone, disphiecd hy her foot, ratth'd noisily in the wooded stillness down into the i-oad before him.
" Lor', Loaiiiic, I like ter not seen yer," lie >«aid, sj>rini;'imi- up the slope, and layin<»; his hand on ln'i-arm.
" Lennne loose, I)ave Jiyee," >he >aid. riiei'e was a look in her eyes that I>a\'e <lid nnt understand, and her words startled him.
" Lor\ Loanne, did 1 -keer yei'V Sho' 1 'lowe(l yer seen me an' war j<'s" hidin' tei- de\il me, sho' 1 did," he said, eoueiliatorily.
" 1 heen't skeert." The girl's eyes Hashed down at him, and she drew widl hack amid the scra<i:gy, ni>-tiirned roots.
" Well, what ails yer now, Loannt*? Yer heen't mad, he yer? Sho\ yer know 1 never aimed to pester yer. I war jes' stud'in' hout'n yer whenst I come erloug. Seem's ef I been stud'in' bout yer sence yer warn't no hii::her'n my boot-lei^-, and yei* beeiTt ;^-oin' back on me n(»w, be yi-rV Sence yer give me yer word to marry me, scem's ef the groun's been too sorf ter tread on an' I's minin' to go down thar an'git yer on my way back an' take yer down the cove ter see how nice the little cabin looks. It's all ready an' waitin' fur yer, Loanne, an' yistiddy I cut a gum log down the ravine, an' sot it up under the ol' ches'nut tree fur yer ash-hopper, an' 1 madi' a bench fur the tubs down ter the spring."
Dave paused, but the girl did nf>t speak and he went on again.
^^ It's mighty lonesome thar now waitin' fur yer, but sometimes, whenst I shet my eyes, seems 'sef yer air jes' settin' thar on the yuther side the chimbly-cornder with yer knittin' in yer han's, an' sometimes I kin hear yer singin' an' badlin' clothes down thar on the little bench 'mongst the laurel. But it's mighty lonesome waitin', an' yer been't mad—yer been't goin' back on me now, Loanne?"
The girl leaned suddenly toward him. There was a quick light in her eyes, and she said, laughingly, "• Well, you be a fool, Dave, but I ain't mad."
Dave made a step forward and reached out his hand, but she was too quick for him. Putting both her hands upon his broad shoulders, she gave a sudden push that sent him sliding down the slope, the dislodged stones rattling about him.
" Yer better g'long after the steers, Dave, or the rackety bar'ls will drap over an' lose all yer pig-slop," called Loanne, as she disappeared up the mountain side.
CHAPTER II.
That night Alan GifFard wrote a letter. It was a long one, and there was much in it that concerned only two people, the woman who read it and the man who wrote it, but toward the end he said :
'^ I think I have found a type for you up here, one that you might use quite effectively. She is too young and undeveloped yet to be beautiful, but her glorious
color and fine eye^^ make her eveu nnw suspiciously Dear to it. I think she will work up pretty well into one of your stories, and I shall make some studies of her so as to be able to illustrate for you au naturel. I shall do my best in the way of collecting material and storintr a\vay l«^cal color to take back to you. In the meantime, the girl's name is L<»anne : will that do for a heruine? That reminds me, I must keep my eves open for a hero ; but the men seem to be an uninteresting lot."
True to his promise Giffard began the very next day to make sketches of the girl. He found her a very willing model, and she p^sed well, being full of the unconscious, lazy naturalness of youth. One day, in the midst of the' posing, Dave's long lank figure appeared in the doorway of the little cabin, and without chanoring her position, I^janne flashed a h>ok of defiance at the big fellow, which in no way disconcerted him, however, f«>r he only sat down complac-entlv where he could watch Giffard's brush-strokes.
*'* It's purtv, sho', that air pictcher yer makin'. Mister," he said, after a little. ''An' I's thiukin', Loanue, I air minded ter get him ter take a portrait uvyer fur me ter hano: up down thar in the little cabin. It'll kinder he'p me out ter wait fur yer, mebbe.
'* Yer see how it air with we'uns. Mister,*" he said, turning to Giflfard. '' Loanne have promised me, an' us air only waitin', an' whilst I air bidin' bv myse'f, a po'trait 'ud be a heap er comp'ny, an' I aimed ter ast ver how much yer'd charge ter take one fur me."
'* Perhaps she will let me present her with one of my sketches a? a wedding gift," answered Giffard.
^^ Portraits are rather expensive things : I sometimes get hundreds of doUars for one of them."
" Then they air fools as buys 'em, I say," said Dave in amazement.
''An' you air a fool yerse'f, I say. Dave Byce," Loanne said, and she got up and went out of the house thro' the back door. For a moment Dave sat stupidly staring after her before he followed her out into the little orchard.
That night Gilfard wrote : " The hero has appeared : a great hulking fellow who will probablv continue in common-place docility for the rest of his days, but who might be worked up into tragic proportions."
When Dave followed Loanne from the house, he found her leaning against the old tumbled down fence overlooking the valley. She turned upon him scorn-iully as he came up.
'^ You air a purty 'un, ain't ye, ter be telliu' the likes uv him in thar that bis pictchers warn't wuth buyin'. You air a purty 'un, ain't yer now ? "
" I air one as ain't afeard to speak my min' ter no man," Dave answered ; '" an' who air he, anyhow, ter come pesterin' 'roun' we'uns with his pictchers an' slick tongue? Tell me that—"
But the girl interrupted him : "An" 1 air one as ain't afeard ter speak my rain' nuther, an' I tell yer. Dave Byce, I air sick an' tired uv yer ugly face an' yer low-life ways. I air sick an' tired uv hearin' 'bout the cabin down the cove. I air sick an' tired uv ever'thing, do yer hear? An' I take back the Avord that I give yer. Do yer hear? I air sick an' tired uv von."
Dave looked at her tor a in<»iuent, as she stood, shaken and Hushed with passion, and then, without speaking, lie turned and went off* (h)wn the trail, the words rankling in his hosoni.
ClIAI'TKIJ III.
A\'hen ( Jitl'ard htokrd out <>t' his window in the f>arly uioi-irmL: <•!' his last day at Monteagle, the heauty of the mountain mist that hid the house tops and the white tents and dip))ed down between the tree-b<dls, envelojiing all in it> soft Muc haze, seemed somehow to ensnare him, too. Ilr had s(> wanted jn>t such a day, and, duriiiLi" all tlic two weeks of his vacation, there had been nothing- hut absolutely heated skies, when the sunliuht h;id seemed to sein-tillate upon the rocky roadside and the green, green 'trees. 1 he >ubtle, undeveloped beauty that he sometimes faneied he found in Loanne had made him wish to paint her in just sueh misty light as the mountains werr' to-day, and tho' everything was all j)aeked for travelling, he could not resist the tem])tation to get out his coh)rs and try to get a fpiiek eff'eet for future working.
He stole downstairs softly, lor the cottagers were not yet awake. Throughout the grounds he met no one; all was (piiet and still. Even the gatekeeper was not at his lodge, and Giffl\rd had to (dimb the fenee to get out. The mist was so beautiful and so illusive that he had a nervous kind of feeling that the
whole thing would lift and float away before he could reach the little cabin down the mountain-side, and it was with a feeling of intense delight, as he came up under a ledge by the spring, that he saw Loanne herself coming down the slope thro' the laurel. The mist was in her hair and clung to her dress, clothing her in beauty. The effect was just what he wanted, and he called to her to stand.
The girl seemed in no way to be startled by seeing him. He had told her he was going away, and now he seemed only to be coming back again out of the haze of her thoughts. She stood still when he called, but her heart was sounding into her very ears, and the blood was dancing in her veins. She dared not speak; her happiness filled her and she feared it, too, would melt in the mist.
Oblivious to everything save the burning fire of his own artistic purpose, Giffard set to work with a will, and Avas soon laying on the color in broad, vigorous dashes. The thing pleased him, and he was thinking of one to whom he would show it, one who Avould like it even better than he.
The snapping of a dry twig sounded in the stillness down the ravine. The girl gave a little start, and let fall the hand that held the parted laurels.
'^ Likely it war a catamount,'' she said in a moment, a little ashamed of her nervousness. ^' They air noneesech good comp'ny, nuther."
She grasped the branch again and tried to resume her old position, but when Giifard turned to his canvas, he frowned, and said in an absorbed impatient way : ^' Oh, she has lost the pose ! "
He spoke scarce above a whisper, aiul might not have been heard twenty steps away, l)iit Loanne's quick eyes cauii:lit tlie h)ok and tlie meaning of liis impatient gesture.
" Don't yer be mad witli me," she >aid, pleadingly ; "don't yer, fur (lod's sake. I'll d<» my best. I'll do anything yon say; I'll do nnytliing you want of me—anything, anything."
There behind the laurel, hidden in the mist, a pair of (piiek ears caught the sound of the girl's voice, and a ])air of sharp eyes pecu'ed all inmbserved thro' the branehes.
(liffard did not aii>wei-; indeed, he >earee heard the woi-ds, so intent was he upon his work, and the mist was wasting; he would have to go up and pose her. Springing up tlu' slope, his pallette and brushes still in his left hand, he put his right arm about the girPs shoulders, moving her head back into the old position. With his arm still around her, his hand steadying her head, he drew hims(df w(dl back from her to see the effect, and with absorbed eanu'stiu'.ss lie exchiimed : " Heautiful ! "
To him, the word, the ])osition meant nothing irrelevant to his picture, and he did not feed the tremor that ran thro' the girl at his touch. Her face was very (dose to his, but he did not see a strange light that came into the wide-open startled eyes, nor bear the breath come short and (piick. His thoughts were elsewhere, and, letting fall his arm, he turned and went down the slope to his work.
But the sharp eyes behind the laurel had seen all, and more. Since the day at the cabin, when Dave
had gone away after Loanne's passionate renunciation of him, the seeds of jealous rage which her words had sown had rankled in his heart, and now when he came thus suddenly upon her and GifFard alone in the mist the smouldering fire burst into flame. To him, Giifard's enfolding arm meant an embrace, and he cursed himself for a fi)ol that he had left his gun at home. It would have filled his heart with joy to send a bullet into GiiFard\s and lay him dead at Loanne's feet. Perhaps it would not be too late yet, he thought, as he slipped back thro' the laurel, and this time not a twig snapped beneath his stealthy tread.
By the time the sifting sunlight had stolen away the mist, the sketch was finished, and Giffard's good humor had returned.
" Come down and see it,'' he said, calling up to the girl, and beginning at once to wipe his brushes and clean his bedaubed palette.
Loanne came down the path slowly; her strength Avas spent with the long standing, and she felt still fluttering and tremulous.
^^ I shall take away many things to remind me of the mountains/' Giifiird said w^ith clieerful indifference, "and I want you to let me leave you a little remembrance." He ran his hand into his pocket and held out a five-dollar gold piece.
" I don't want yer money," she said.
" It is only to remember me by," he answered, pleasantly.
She snatched the gold piece from him with sudden purpose, clasping it hard in both her hands.
" Oh, don't yer go 'way an' leave me/' she cried, and her voice was hoarse with j)assion. " Don't yer leave me ; don't yer leave me! Only jes'take me er-long with yer. I won't pester yer; I'll do anything you say, but don't yer leave me ; don't yer leave me ! ''
The girl's words struck him as a blow ; long after-Avards the inemoiw of thcni canic i)ack to him with paini'ul echo.
But now, when her passionate outburst was over, the girl sank down upon the stones at his feet, covering her face with her hands. Bending over her he ])Ut his hand upon her head and said gently :
" There i> no place for you, child, in tiie world where 1 am going. It is better foi* you here. I>y and by it will all come right."
His s(>berness (juieted her. JShe lay in a heap on the stones, sobbing, but making no effort to speak, even when he left her and eliinlxd up the slope betwixt the odorous laurel.
CIlAPrKR IV.
It must have been scarely ten minutes later that, stealing noiselessly through the underl)rush, Dave found Loanne alone upon the stones just as Giifard had left her.
Bending over her, he caught her by the arm and shook her roughly.
" Whar's he gone?'' he demanded.
She looked up at him with wide, startled eyes. For full a moment she was too dazed to think or speak. Then, like a flash, it all came upon her. The breaking of the twig over there in the laurel, the anger now in Dave's queer keen eyes, the menace in his manner, the gun in his hand—she comprehended all, and, at any price, she would save the life of the man she loved.
^^Oh, Dave," she said, as with sudden joyousness, springing up and throwing her arms about his neck, " whar have yer been ter all this long time ? I war up ter the big road time an' time erg'in to see ef yer'd pass thater way ? an' Lor', Dave, I got right down foolish stud'in' 'bout yer takin' me at my word that day down ter the cabin. Yer ougliter knowed me better, Dave, yer oughter knowed me better."
Was it the mist that had beclouded poor Dave's wits ? It seemed that he could in no way comprehend what Loanne had said, but her arms were around his neck and her lips were very close to his. With a murmer of bursting happiness, he folded the girl to his heart.
'' Loanne, honey," he said, after a while as they sat u})on the stones? "I war er fool, I war. I thought yer meant them words yer give that day at the cabin ; I war er fool all erlong, an' ef I'd er found him here whenst I come back with the gun, I'd er kilt him, I would."
Even as he spoke the whistle of a locomotive sounded from above.
''What war that, Dave?" asked Loanne breathlessly.
^' It air the niorninjj^ train Icavin' ^lonteagle," he saifl, and slie knew that her purpose was wrouij^ht, that Gitfiird was safe.
During the few days that foUowed, before Dave and Loanne stood in tlie little front room at Squire ]Miller\s, and were made man and wife, the girl seemed like one daft. She sat looking on, rpiiet and listless, whih' the old woman made a few hasty })reparations for the wedding; but sometimes a strange fire shone in her large dark eyes when she turned them toward the westward as the sun sank
There liad been one or two sketches, wet or unfinished, left l)y (iiffard at the little cabin. These, and an old slouch hat which lie liad used to shade his eyes, and a paint-stained silk handkerchief, L(>anne took the day before her wedding and went with them down the mountain-side.
^'She air goin' ter fling'em inter the Kif't," her mother said to herself, looking sadly after her as she left the cabin.
Dave was a little alarmed when the sad-eyed, white-faced bride who followed him home grew daily sadder and paler. He fancied his own presence wearied her, and left her more and more to herself in the little cabin where he had meant they should be so happy together.
*'8he ain't use'n to me yit," he said.''I'll give her time."
One evening, as he wandered about the mountain, thinking of his wife, and feeling more than usually desolate and lone, he heard, suddenlv, the sound of a
woman's voice. It was in a wild, mnch broken part of the mountains; there were cuts and rifts and deep gorges hiding underneath the brush, and down the slope was a cave, usually Aveird and dark, but from this there seemed to come now a faint flickering light. Crawling close to the cliif ^s edge, Dave lay flat down, peering over, with his rifle in his hand. The light in the cave came from a small bit of candle that flared and sputtered in a bottle's mouth, and it showed on the rough walls a few half-finished sketches, a silk handkerchief pinned up banner-wise, and an old slouch hat. Dave saw and knew them all, and in their midst, kneeling upon the floor of the cave, was Loanne. Up there above on the cliff's edge where he lay concealed, Dave could hear her deep sobbing. For full a moment he only gazed at her, scarce moving a muscle. Then—there was a flash of fire, and a rifle ball sped through the space below, throwing the girl upon her face.
When they found her the next morning, the white tallow of the wasted candle had run down across the pool of blood that crept between her dead lips.
The little cabin down the mountain-side still stands, empty and desolate now, but the gum-hopper under the chestnut has tumbled to the ground long ago, ashless and rotten, and, around the little bench at the spring among the laurel, there lingers only a haunting echo of the dreary beating of dripping clothes.
On the other side of the ridge, sometimes women at their milking in the late eventide, or men tending
cattle in the deep gorges, are startled by the apparition of the " White Stag," and in pursuit of him a strange, fierce-eyed man with long, unkempt, straw-colored hair. They call him ^' The Wild Huntsman of Sequatchie Valley," and the mountains tell no tales.
" She saw coniinu: in to lier a young girl with a l)ig bunrh of rose^ in her hand."—Page 174.
Miss PiM's Party.
lOBODY ever knew how it came about that she gave a party, and least of all Miss Pirn herself. It just popped into her head, she said, and she did it.
Perhaps it was the quantity of oysters that Miss Pim saw every afternoon as she returned home, and the big piles of empty shells which Pasquale himself would be heaping up on the sidewalk next morning as she went back to her work, that first made her think of an oyster supper. Perhaps it was the glowing accounts of balls and parties and receptions and '' five-o'clocks " and high teas that she read about in the stale papers, which her friend '' Gloves'' sometimes gave her as she passed through the salesroom on her way to the fourth-story, for Miss Pim was a cutter in the ready-made department of Great & Co. Now Miss Pim was fond of saying that she had chosen work of this kind because her tastes ran that way. In'the little village up country where had been her home, she had, she declared, excellent advantages in art, and once thought of making it her profession, '' but," and Miss Pim's eyes were seldom
dry when she spoke' of it, " dear papa had died, and there had been mamma to think of," and so she had just eome down to the city and taken work as a cutter because it was in her line, as it were, since she had such an eye for form. Mamma was dead now, and there was only Miss I^im's self for her to think about, but still newspa]>ers were a little beyond her. ^Miloves" confided to her that she herself had them from a *' feller" who was a typesetter, and who sometimes came to walk home with her nights.
But, howL'ver it came about, Miss Pim was fully determined to have an oyster suj)per in honor (»f the anniversary of her own birthday. " In all the born days of her life," she said she had never tasted oysters, and with deliberate avoidance of the important (juestion as to what length of time was measured thereby, would simj)ly add that " she couldn't do it any younger." So that part of the matter was settled ; she would have an oyster supper. It was so very fortunate, she declared, that her birthday came in No-viMuber, a month with the talismanic " r" in it; really it seemed to be intended that she shcndd have an oyster supper.
Miss Pim began to think of it and plan for it weeks before it came of!'. At first she was in a state of great perturbation to know what to have besides ovsters. They were such an unknown (juantity to her tliat she found it difficult to work up a repast with them at the focal point. Perhaps after this she wouldn't like them, they did look so "messy " when Mr. Pasquale took them out of their shells, but try them she must and would. Miss Pim felt it over her like
a covering that she would rather have died than confess to ^^ Gloves" her ignorance in regard to the bivalves, but, nevertheless, determined, since nothing else offered, to obtain from her quondam friend all the second-hand information she could without degradation to herself. She sacrificed her morning nap upon the altar of her desire for knowledge, and spent all her spare moments at the glove counter listening to her friend^s accounts of the ^^entertainments" which she seemed to be in a chronic state of attending. But somehow these conversations always left Miss Pim with only a vague conglomerated idea of '^ fellers " and ^^Wooster" and " oystyers," all of which, and especially the latter pronunciation, convinced Miss Pim that ^^ Gloves " had been a '^ girl " before she became a " saleslady." This settled Miss Pim's mind on the subject of inviting ^' Gloves " to her supper. She was well enough in her way to be sure, and very nice indeed at the store, but—and Miss Pim asked herself the question more than once—" would she be an agreeable social acquaintance ? "
In fact, the question of guests became a very important one. Whom to invite Miss Pim knew not. To be sure the cobbler down stairs spoke to her every morning as she passed, but frequently he had patched her well-worn shoes, so of course he was out of the question. The little milliner on the first floor, with whom she had what she called some '^ social acquaintance," had once given a tea to which Miss Pim was not invited, so that left her out. The Simpkins, Mr. and Mrs., agent and saleslady, were not to be considered, since they were, as Miss Pim expressed it, 12
" utterly devoid of sentiment." Some other time she would invite them, but to this, her first oyster supper, lier guests mu-t ho from the social svorhl—the chosen '*400" itself.
It is true Miss Pirn's \va> only a newspaper ae-quaintiince with ''the set," hut that would serve her jMirpose, perhaps, as well as any. Long before the event was to take place, she conned the social columns of her stock-in-hand of ncwsj)apers, making selection of the guests she would invite. After much cogitation she decided to have four (H)uples and one *'odd irentleman." " The ten of us will make such a nice-sized })arty," she said. Though Missl^im's hair was turned quite grey, and steel-rimmed spectacles held down the loose curls of it that clustered about her ears, her heart began to give a little Huitei when she began to scan the papers for the name of the " odd gentleman" whom she would invite to her supper.
You will sec from all this that Miss Pim was in the highest degree romantic, but, singularly enough, she determined that she wouhl have a good, strong, sensible-sounding name for her '' odd gentleman," and this she hit U|)on to her satisfaction in Adam Croft. It made no diiferenc(> to her that the papers from which she selected were out of date, she saw this name recurring so fre(juently, and the owner of it seemed to be so popular, that she felt perfectly satisfied that her choice was a wnse one.
As to ladies, the first one Miss Pim hit upon to invite was a certain Miss Alexia Brain, who, it would appear, went everywhere. Now, once upon a time, lAiss Pim herself had two names, and that one which
she had lost a^long with her father and mother and the friends of her village childhood was none other than Alexia, and that is why Miss Brain, her namesake, eame to be the heroine of all her romances about the ^^ upper ten,'' as Adam Croft was the hero, and why those two were to be the first invited. The other guests she selected in a haphazard kind of way, set-tlinir upon a D, an E, an F and a G, an H, an I and a J.'
But liow were they to be invited? Miss Pim's first idea was to write a card to each one and then stuff the whole batch of invitations up the chimney, as she had used to do hitters to Santa Claus long ago. But somehow that seemed too much make believe, and she finally determined to spend nine oF lier hoard of pennies for stamps, and mail the cards, addressed to the " city " at large which was as much as Miss Pim knew of the whereabouts of the guests she was inviting. This gave much more tangibility to tlie thing and pleased her beyond measure.
Upon the cards she intended for Alexia Brain and Adam Croft she spent particular pains. On the former she wrote simply in her little, neat, stifi' hand : ^^ At home. Miss Pim. November 21st. Room 17, No. 413 Blank street," and around the margin she scattered pen drawings of oysters on the half shell. She had hit upon this as being an excellent way of announcing ''the style of entertainment;" but the card which Adam Avas to receive she felt must be more ornate still, since he was to be the " odd gentleman ;'' so, instead of pen drawings, she painted forget-me-nots and bow-knots all around in water-color,
ami (lid the \vritiii<: in <rili with ;i vorv tine brush. It wa.s vtTy " pritly,'' as Miss V\in calh-d it, and tlu* next morning as she went dnwn stairs eanyini; her dainty j)a(ket of nine cards, all duly signed, s( aled and acMressi'd, her heart heat very iiist, and she had a va^uc tear that she would trip and x-atter lur precious invitatifuis over the dusty steps.
To make the descent more ditlicult, the new ytKing man was just comiuir up, and Miss Pim was in sucii a state of perturbation that she could scarctdy return the bow he gave her, but which she afterwards, however, stoutly declared wa> a remarkably gallant one. Now, the new young man was a tall, broad-shouldered, good-lo(>king tellow, who had rented the little room at the end of the hall trom Miss l*im\s,and who kept a light burning in his room half the night. Miss Pim's kindly iieart misgave her that she could not invite this y()ung man tt» liei- party. Though he wore a rough great-coat and only a simple wide-awake atop of his crisping waves (d' hair, Miss Pim fancied she detected the prince-in-disguise air about him, and was (juite sure, from a look whi(;h slu' sometimes saw in his handsome grey eyes, that he was in trouble, and she longed to comfort him. She was, moreover, certain that he ate oysters, for she had frequently seen him carrying a little paper box of them to his room. But—and her heart sank—she could not invite him ; she did not even know his name,and besides it would not be proper, since he would be the only one who could really come.
Upon the morning «d' the twenty-tirst Miss Pim rose early. Every crack and cranny of her little
room was swept and garnished. She got out the time-honored white spread that she had known on the company bed at home, and the embroidered pillow-slips, which showed the work of her own dainty girlhood's fingers. She set the table, putting thereon the much-darned cloth of snowy damask, which was still sweet with ancient odor of cedar and lavender. Though her stock of table-ware was exhausted in laying three covers, she kept saying to herself in childish make-believe: '^ Maybe they won't all come.'' There was the plate with the wreath of little tight pink roses all around, and the cup and saucer to match; these she would put at " Alexia's place," she said, and the ones witli garlands and bow-knots must be left for ^Hhe odd gentleman." She herself would use the little set so gay with immodest shepherdesses in short frocks, and who sat so very close to the wry-faced shepherds that Miss Pim fervently hoped none of her guests would observe them.
She kept thinking of it all dow^n at the store, and wondering if she had left anything undone. It seemed to her the day woukl never end, but when the hour for closing came her heart was as light as a feather. There was quite a little spring in her step when she left the elevator, and she was just on the point of inviting ''Gloves" out of hand and taking her olf in triumph to her supper. But "Gloves" greeting to her was to announce that she was going to the theatre with her "feller," so that settled it.
Mr. Pasquale was very gracious when she stopped to make her purchase of the precious oysters, and himself added two for " lagniappe,'' he said. He
st'lccted tlie \vhit(*««t aiul crispest >talks of celery, wrappliiji," tliein up earefiilly so as not to break the tops, and was satislied to weigh only in his soih'd hut douhth'ss i;-enerous tinkers the halt' pound of crackers that coni|)leted Iter order.
The little cohhler was just closinir up for the night, when Miss Pini passed.
" SeasiMiahle weather," he said, pleasantly, and Miss Pini knew fmm ids ujanner there was more to follow.
" Was a lady down heiT < iH|uii-iu' tor you this inornin','' he went on. "Sec aiiythiiiL: of her? A youngish ladv an' prrttv. I -«¦(• that tlToiiLdi her Veil."
"A young lady t'ii(|uii-ing t'oi- nir/"' said Miss l*iiu, blankly.
" Why, you see,'' re-ponthtl the cobbler, warming to his subject under Miss J'im's mystificati<ui, '' first thing I know a carriage drove up, an' the young lady was gettin' out. 'I'ime 1 see her I kuctw she's that girl with so much money she couldn't use it all herself, and so she have jest taken to lookin' roun' to tin' somebody as 'ill spen' it for her. ' Slummin',' vou know, they calls it, an' I see this girl over an' often passin' here on her errans, but I couldn't noways make out whv she's stoppin'. Well, howsomever, she did stop, an' J see she hidt a card in her han', an' she looked first at it, then at the number on the door there, an' then at me agin, an' then she asked (piite pleasant-like: 'Can you tell me, please, if Miss Pim lives upstairs?' 'She (h)es. Ma'am,' says I, an' then afore I know it she's there in the shop, the young
lady was, askiu' me all about you. ^ Do you know her?' says she. 'I do, Ma'am,' says I, * seein' her pass ever day these five years, an' patchin' for her oft an' on, an', if I do say it, a pleasanter lady I never see.' " Miss Pirn blushed quite prettily at this well-rounded compliment, but tlie cobbler went on. ^^ An' so, bein' asked, I up an' told her all about you. Miss, an' likewise I put the question to the young lady, if there was any message she would wish delivered, see-in's I was here constant. But she said there warn't none, an' she thanked me for bein' so kin', an' then she lef as suddint as she come, drivin' off in her carriage."
He waited for Miss Pim to speak, but she was too busy witli her thoughts.
^' You don't know the young lady yourself, Ma'am? " he asked.
" Oh, no, and I have no idea what she could have wanted." The little lady spoke quite truly, but she tripped upstairs with her head as full of fancies as her arms were full of bundles.
Everything in the little room was just as she had left it. A bright fire was soon burning in the grate, and Miss Pim went around the table carefully blowing upon ever vacant spot of cloth, to make sure that no semblance of cinders or dust should cling to the snowy linen. She polished the little array of cups and saucers till they shone again, and put the crisp stalks of celery on a stand in the midst of all. The rest of the work Avas not so easy. She pressed her lips close together, and there was just the least bit of an upward tilt to her nose as she dumped the oysters
out into the little l>ovvl. She stuffevl the soaking paper box in the fire and set the bowl o^inircrly on the table.
*' The things do look so s-s-slip[)ery," she was saying aloud to herself, when a rap at the door startled her almost int«) turning the littb' bowl (|uite over on the eloth.
Though Miss Pini never (lontesscd even afterwards what she had expected, when she held the door open and saw coming in to her a young girl with a big buneh of roses in her hands, she declares in telling of it all now :
" I felt 1 should faint."
What she actually did, however, was to stand slock still and let the girlwith the beautiful eyes, and beautiful mouth and beautiful hair go (piite up tn her and say very sweetly :
" 1 am .Vlexia Brain, Miss Pim, and 1 thank you so much for letting mc come to you to-night. I brought these roses thinking y<>n might like tluMU for your table."
Now, never in Miss Pirn's born days had she seen so many and such beautiful roses, and when she had longed for them she felt that only in heaven would her wish be gratified, and so what did she do but just take tiie precious flowers in her ai*nis and droj) down into the little chair, and cry for very joy and wonderment, to her lifelong regret never saying a word of welcome to her guest. To this day she cannot tell liow it came about that Alexia Brain just laid her fnrs upon the little bed, and sat down beside her in the warm firelight, putting around her a ])air of strong,
young arms, and resting her head upon a firm, young shoulder till the flood of tears was spent.
Slie never knew either how it happened that she soon came to be telling Alexia all the story of her poor life—it needed but a few words for this—and about her party and her invitations.
"And Alexia,'' Miss Pirn would declare afterwards, ** just sat there on my old hair-bottomed chair as natural as if she had never been anyw^iere else in her life, till I fairly blinked to see if I was dreaming."
But she knew that she was not dreaming when she heard firm footsteps resounding in the hallway and there came a moment later a knock upon her door, but, nevertheless, she opened it tremblingly, to find standing upon the threshold, without his great-coat and wide awake, but still broad-shouldered and handsome—the " new young man." But there was a light in his eyes that made her forget their sadness, for they looked quite over Miss Pirn's head, and the girl beyond, in the glow of the firelight felt the warm blood mount to her cheek, as she said eagerly :
"Adam Croft!"
"Adam Croft? " echoed Miss Pim, faintly. Would wonders never cease ?
" I am glad to meet you. Miss Pim. I have seen you frequently, and hope we shall be better neighbors."
That is what the young man's lips said, gallantly, but his eyes w^ere still fire wards, his heart was beating "Alexia, Alexia, Alexia," and a moment later he held her hand in his. The girl looked up into his face, and then a strange thing happened. Adam Croft knew that a question he had been telling himself every day
and hour for the past year he eould uo longer h(H)e to ask, had in tliat moment been asked and answered. And Alexia lirain knew that a question she had so longed to hear had in that moment been asked, and rejoiced that her heart had answere<l truly.
Is there anv more to be told? Yes, still of Miss Pirn's party, and -urely there was never anything like it. *
Hv and bv Alexia put the rose- into the little bowl which Miss Pim callecl the " t>ld blue and white," but which she herself called a Crown Derby.
'i'hei-e wa> only a bit of white at the girl's throat, and she wore a simple blue wool dress, but her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone beneath the curling rings of her brown hair, and Adam ('roft knew she had never l)e<'n more be:iutiful. He watched her cut thin slices from the loaf which Miss I'im had hastily brought from the cupboard, dismayed at the meagre sup})lv of crackers, and himself knelt beside her ou the hearth to helj) with the toasting.
"A knowledge of cooking is what <;ame t<» me as a compensation for that money J lost,'' he said.
" Yes, and a knowledge «)f something elsti, too," said the girl. " Do you think that during the year you have kej)t yourself away from your friends that none of them would be reading and recognizing the books you have written? "
" I hoped you would read them," he said, '^ and in that hope I dipped my pen."
Miss Pirn's joy was su])reme.
"¦ I just sat there," she says, "and looked at the two beautiful things till I was fairly daft for joy at
their happiness. Indeed, I know I was quite daft, else I never could have eaten those horrid s-s-slippery things which Alexia put upon my plate.''
Times have changed for Miss Pirn since that night, however, if she has never learned to eat oysters, and times have changed for Alexia Brain and Adam Croft.
^' I should never have had the courage to speak if you had not come to Miss Pim's party, Alex, dear/' he always says; and she answers confidently, "Then I should have died, Adam, dear."
And Miss Pim at least believes it.
^--^
A Brkak in thh Lhvhe.
CHAPTER I,
Clang! claiit; I clang I mug the big plantation bell, and Jeff'starttMl np, springing (Hit of IkhI bofore he was quite awake.
Lights Hitted baek and forth in the yard below, lanterns waved and Hieki-red high up on tlie embankment at the river's cdgv, an(l beneatli the elang of the bell eame the eonfused shouts <d" many voices, and in all and through all the ominous roar of rushing water.
^'O, God, the levee I " cried the boy, staring out into the night.
Suddenly the lights all eame together, one voice shouted high above the rest, then the sound of fleeing hoof-beats, the clank of the mule's chains, the rattle of scrapes, and darkness! Darkness and silence, and then the sickening splash of caving banks and the inrush of maddened waters !
As Jeff slipped into his clothes he heard the lap of the water when it reached the house, and bv and
by saw the light stream through the window below, gleaming far out across the flooded fields.
" Are you awake, Jeff?^' asked his mother, coming in softly, shading the candle with her hand. "Ah ! You know, then. The break was just in front there, by the big cottonwood tree.'^
"By the big cottonwood?'^ Jeff repeated, breathlessly. " My God, mother, not there, not there ! ^'
" What is it, lad?'' she asked, gently, putting the candle on the table and taking his hand in hers. "What is it, Jeff, dear?" she repeated when he did not answer.
" O, mother," he cried, tearing his hand from hers and covering his face. " How can I tell you, even you ? Do you remember last Wednesday ?—my birthday, you know," he went on, speaking rapidly and clutching his mother's hand again, helplessly. " As I started off to go hunting that morning, riding down the river road there just below the cut-off I met Colonel Cheatham. He stopped and came back with me to show me a weak place in the levee just there by the old cottonwood in front, and he said I must be sure and tell father, and O, mother, what shall I do ? I forgot, I forgot! "
" O, my poor, thoughtless lad ! " said his mother, soothingly.
" You'll tell father for me, Avon't you, mother ? " the boy cried.
" I think I'd better not, dear," answered his mother, but there were tears in her eyes. " This is your first great trial and you must face it like a
There were tears in the boy^s eyes, too, but " 1^11 do it mother, so help me," he said, firmly, and turned at once to leave the room.
'^Mother!" he cried, suddenly, coming back and flinging his arms about lier.
*'God lielj)you, my child," she said, kissing liim, and he was gone."
Jefl* scarce recognized his father in the bowed and broken man lie found in the chamber below. Every lap of the water without was like a sword-thrust into the boy's heart, but he made his confession (juite bravely. Plis father listened, seeming scarce to understand, but when it was over he said, in a voice Jeff never had heard before :
"You forgot, and I may be a ruined man. You had better go now, I think, until I, too, forget."
The words, the tone, smote the boy like a blow, stunning him. He set his lips firmly together ;ind left the room.
'' Go, until J. too, forget." He heard his father's words over and over again in the sound of his own foot-fall on the bare floor. The hall door stood open and the swinging lam]) within sent its gleam far over the waste of water. Above the submerged steps a little row of boats rose and fell on the lapping waves, tethered to the posts of the veranda. Jefl'soon found his own little green skifl" moored among the rest, and it needed but a moment to reach his hat and coat from the spreading antlers behind the door.
He heard the sound of his mother's foot-fall in the hall as the oars cut the water, but above that, above the beating of his heart and the rush of the
waves, he heard his father's words, and a moment later his skiff skimmed out of the lantern's gleam and the darkness swallowed him up.
CHAPTER II.
At Saunders' big Texas ranch in the early morn of that scorching October day, all was bustle and stir and commotion. On all the parching prairies not a blade of grass was left for the hungry herd ; tanks were empty, streams were dry and the men were making ready to drive the cattle out of the land of drought*to the flush waters and green pastures of the Indian Territory.
In the dusty yard around the cabin, spurs rattled, saddles creaked, ponies neighed, men shouted and hallooed, and beyond in the great corrals, the cattle bleated and bellowed with their thousands of thirsty throats.
" You'll have to go an' he'p Mason git up a bunch of cattle in the north pasture. Little Partner," said Saunders to a boy who stood near the cabin door fastening his spur-strap, with his arm through his pony's bridle.
'' All right, sir," said the boy, springing into the saddle.
" Tell Mason to fetch a thousan' an' fifty-two head, an' meet us at the river to-morrow night, or—bust. We wanter start fur the Nation in the mornin'. A
tliousan' an' iit'tv-twu licail, don't i'lir^rit now, an' ride like liell."
'' 1 shall not forget," said the boy iirnily, but a shadow crossed over his f'aee as he spoke, a sliadow that did not Iciive it as he galloped otl" over the prairie.
The sun streamed down, l)listeriiig his back through his tiannel shirt, and the Hery alkali dust burned into every pore of his body. The dry grass crinkled and crisped under his horse's hoofs, and as tar as the eye could rt-ach was only the scorching waste of brown prairie land. Kveu the empty sky above glowed with a white heat, and through the telesco})ic atmosphere the mountains far to the northward cut against it keen as a knife blade. Heat and dust were everywhere, with now and then the gleam of a white shaly river-bed, dry and glistening like a silver thread winding across the brown prairies, which the dead and dying cattle had turned into vast charnel houses, where the buzzards hehl full sway.
By daybreak the next morning the cattle in the north ]>as'ture were bunched and ready for driving.
'' You'd better lead with me, little 'un," Mason said kindly, when the boy galloped up for orders before the march began. '* There'll be less ridin' in front," the man added to himself, as the boy swung tiirough tlie gate, ''an' the chap is sore to the touch now, 1 can tell by the way he sets his saddle.''
Mason had watched the boy narrowly, with his kind womanly br(>wn eyes, ever since the day of his coming to the ranch, and he knew, no one better, how the lad's bones ached from the constant fatigue which
the short snatches of rest were not long enough to remove; he knew how his temples throblaed when the hot dry air almost boiled the blood in his veins, and stifled his nostrils.
'^ The young 'un's got grit/' he told Saunders in his lazy way after the boy's first round-up, and he kept his eye upon him.
^' We must make the river to-night or bust/' Mason yelled, as the herd swept out of the pen.
The men answered with a shout, and the boy galloping along at the head of the mighty procession felt like a warrior going into battle, and heard Mason's musical halloo as a clarion cry. Behind came the heavy tramp of hoof-beats, the bellow of thirsty throats, the crack of whips and the shouts of the men.
The sun was almost down when the distant smirch of trees against the horizon showed where the river lay. Mason's horse had gone lame toward the middle of the afternoon, and now jogged along stiff and painful but a short distance ahead of the herd.
" Poor nag, maybe I can spell you a bit," he said, preparing to dismount.
As he slipped his foot from the stirrup a noise in the rear startled him ; and he cast a quick eye over his shoulder for a moment.
" My God, the cows have smelt water ! " he said breathlessly. ^' Fly fur your life, little 'un/' he went on, almost gently, as he rose in his saddle and leaned forward. " Bear to the northward," he cried. " Now ride like the devil, and God he'p you." 13
The boy's Imiul tugged at th»^ bridU' aud he telt the pony bound forward, .stun«j^ by a blow from Mason's (|iiii-t. Another niomcnt and he wonhl Ix' safe.
But Mason'.' In one quick backward h»ok the bov saw his spent p(jny ivar (Ui his lame legs, and give one wild leap forward : he heard a heavy thud as they went down, and man and horse were lying in a hea]) together on the dry grass in the path of the stampeding herd.
"O God! () mother!" cried the boy, and his voice was a prayer. The pony wheeled in his tracks, atid bore hiiu back in the face of the oncoiuing deatli.
There was one moment of breathless, eager energy while he slipped the loose end of his riata under Mason's helples> arms, and wound it nmnd the lim}> body; another, and he was in the stirruj) again, witli the lariat's loop held hard and fast on the saddle's horn. He felt his spurs cut deep in the j)ony's hij>s as the ])oor beast sprang forward, he felt the tugging of Mason's imj)otent body as it dragged behind ; he heard the swell and surge of mad voices as the infuriated beasts swej)t on in the dust cloud, he felt their hot breath in his face, and heard the wild neigh of his pony when the hoofs struck him ; then a fierce, sharp pain, and all was over.
CHAPTER III.
'' Mother/'
The boy opened his eyes for a moment, but the whitewashed hospital walls, the narrow cot and Saunders bending over confused him. The eyelids quivered and chjsed.
Slowly it came all back to him; the long ride, the hot sun, the dust and the stampeding cattle.
'^ Where is Mason ? " he asked by and by, looking up again into Saunders^ kind blue eyes.
" He's all right ngw, poor old chap," said Saunders gently, and there was more in the tone than in the words, but the boy understood.
He lay quietly for a long while, with the bedclothes pulled over his eyes, and the sheet was wet when he looked out from under it again.
^^ Mason was kinder to me than anybody in the world had ever been—except my mother,'' he said by and by. " I wish I had been the one to go," he added, wearily.
" Don't you say that, lad, don't you now," Saunders said, stroking the boy's hand with his own brown palm. " It'll all come right."
" But you don't know, Saunders, you don't know," and the boy turned his head over on the pillow wearily.
^' Maybe I do, mo'n you think fur," Saunders went on soothingly. ^' You've been lyin' here prit nigh two months now, you know, and durin' that time I've been here off an' on sorter constant, an'
you've said things as maybe you wouldn't 'a' said to me confidentially like ef you'd been at yourse'f, but I reckon there ain't no harm done. I was only waitin' tell you got strong enough to travel to ast you ef you wanted to go home."
^' O, no ; I can't, Saunders, I can't," the boy cried.
" You mean 'bout the levee, don't you ? " Saunders asked gently. " You see, you've 'tol mos' ever'-thing, and I jest pieced out the rest, little chap, 'an blamed ef I ain't felt mighty sorry fur you. That's straiglit now, an' no mistake, but the mo' I study erbout it the mo' it seem to me there was a kind of a hitch somewhur. Don't you misonderstan' me now, little 'un. I ain't never had no call to preach ; I ain't even been a good man, but somehow, when a feller's spent the best part er his life a-ridin' over these here ol' puraras where there don't seem to be notin' but jest God an' the universe, he natclielly has time to do a deal er thinkin'. An' anyhow seenjs the Lord puts diiFunt thoughts in a head after it begins to turn grey to what He did when it was young. Now, little chap, maybe so I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the bigges' forgettin' you done warn't erbout that break in tiie levee. I know it looked mighty big to you that niglit when the overflow come, and you knowed a word f'um you 'an a few san' bags maybe could 'a' 'kep it out, but what I aim to say is your furgettin' didn't stop there. I own there ain't many a boy as wouldn't 'a' done jest erbout what you did that night when you lef' home. I 'spect I would 'a' done the same thing myse'f twenty years ago, and maybe so I'd 'a' felt jest as proud an' jest as hurt an'
jest as brave as you did. You thought erbout all them that night, didn't you, little partner, an' how you'd do somethin' great to make up fur furgettin,' didn't you ? I bet you did, an' you thought erbout yourse'f an' you thought erbout your father, too, some, maybe, not jest as you would ef you'd 'a' waited tell nex' day or nex' week, but wasn't there somebody you furgot ? Somebody, too, as was wuth the whole worl' to you, somebody as would 'a' gone down into her grave to 'a' saved you, somebody as waited an' watched after the waters went down, an' is waitin' an' watchin' yet, please God, when ever'body else has given you up. Ain't I right erbout it, little man ? "
^^ O, Saunders, O, Saunders," said the boy, taking his friend's hand while the tears streamed down and wet the pillow, '' what shall I do ? "
'^ There ain't no trouble 'bout answerin' that question now," Saunders said, " hard as it is to go back of our wrong-doing an' make things straight, but mothers is mothers wherever you put 'em, an' maybe so I'd a been diffunt ef mine had been left to me longer. But your way is clear enough, an' it ain't sech a powerful long jouruey f'um Texas to Louisiana"
'' Do you mean it, Saunders?" said the boy, with a smile on his wan lips; "and can I go to-day?"
" No, but it won't be very long befo'e you start ef you keep on like this," Saunders answered, " an' somehow, ol' chap, you've made it mighty easy fur me to tell you somethin' I've jest been bustin' to tell you ever sence you've been lyin' here," and Saunders cleared his throat while the boy looked up at him eagerly.
*' You s<'c," he went on slowly, " Mason warn't quite gono when the boys picked him up, tho' he was clone fur bef'o'e you got to him, lad ; the pony had fell aerost him, an' he'd jest breath enou«ih left to tell me all erbout it. Po' oF Mason I They was a smile in them big dyin' woman eyes < r his whrn he looked up at me an' said : ' Didn't 1 tell you the little ehap had gritV An' then he tol' me somethin' else, ])oor oT partnci-. Hv tol' me he didn't have nobody in the worl' but jest hissf^'f, but you could 'a' knowed that by the lonefulness in his eyes, an' he said to let his sheer ei- the cattle go to you. Seem's ef he kinder 'specioned things was pretty bad with you one way or 'nuther, an' in- tol' me to let the cows go the fust chance I got, nn turn the proceeds over to you. What do you say now to a little wad er ten thou^an' dollars to start home witii?"
'* Poor old Mason," the b<»y >ai<l. :md his eyes were brimming with ti'ars as In* sat up in bed. "I can make it up lo father wnv, Saunders, can't I?"
Two weeks later, when the Valley (|ueen steamed through the drawbridge at Shreveport, Jeff stood on her upper deck, glad with the prosp(H't of home near at hantl. How dear and familiar everything looked ! Behind were the bndvcn red hill-slopes dotted with cottages, the slender church spires, the crouching, cavernous warehouses of the little city ; beyond were the black })lantation lowlands, the great sprawling, grass-grown levees, and tlie dark, treacherous river winding between, shrunken now within its muddy banks, waiting calm and cjuiescent for the swell of the spring rainv to send it sweeping on in its work of
destruction. Men stood about in little squads on deck talking of hard times, the low price of cotton, and the calamitous levee system just in the old way, but the boy leaning against the railing looking out over the water heard their voices but dimly.
When the whistle blew and the boat rounded the curve Jeft saw with a little pang of bitterness the old Cottonwood which marked his own home landing, but he sprang ashore joyously before the wavering stage-plank had touched the bank. He was not the only passenger for Steel Dust Plahtation, he found, as the men who crowded after him pushed by, hurrying up to the house. JefP followed eagerly. Was this the home-coming he had pictured so often as he rode over the dusty prairies, or lay on his hospital cot in those sweet days of convalescence?
Surely something was wrong. About the yard and the stable men were hurrying to and fro, while others were sampling cotton from the bursting bales under the big gin-house shed. Teamless wagons blockaded the broad avenue which led to the house, and, under the spreading oaks, mules were bunched or stood in long lines tethered to the lot fence. Barn doors were wide open, and plows and hoes and scrapes, in desolate heaps, littered the lawn.
Jeif saw it all in the brief interval which it took to reach the house, and the noisy chattering of the crowd in the hallway suddenly ceased, even the blatant yell of the auctioneer broke confusedly and his hammer fell to the floor with a bang as a bright
young voice from the doorway shouted clear above the eager bobbing heads:
'' I forbid this sale ! '^
Jeif elbowed his way to the crier's desk, unbuckling the leather belt from beneath his coat as he went.
*^ What is the amount of your attachment, sir?'' he asked.
^' Eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, with costs," replied the astonished auctioneer.
'' Then dismiss the crowd and count your money," Jeff said, pulling a roll of bills from his belt pocket.
And was that the end of tlie triumph? Is there no more to be told ?
Some one was calling his name from the stairway, the crowd fell back for him to pass, and the boy bounded up the steps with a glad light in his eyes.
^' Father, mother," he cried, and they folded him in their hearts. The victory was won, the breach was healed.
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