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The Boss of Little Arcady

by Harry Leon Wilson · English · Gutenberg #10358 · 510,000 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Boss of Little Arcady

Author: Harry Leon Wilson

Illustrator: Rose Cecil O'Neill


        
Release date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #10358]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10358

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOSS OF LITTLE ARCADY ***

[Illustration: THE BOSS OF LITTLE ARCADY]

[Illustration: "A-CHESTIN' OUT HIS CHEST LAHK A OLE MA'ASH FRAWG."]




THE BOSS OF LITTLE ARCADY

BY

HARRY LEON WILSON


1905




TO

MY MOTHER





CONTENTS


_THE BOOK OF COLONEL POTTS_

CHAPTER

I. How the Boss won his Title

II. The Golden Day of Colonel Potts

III. The Perfect Lover

IV. Dreams and Wakings

V. A Mad Prank of the Gods

VI. A Matter of Personal Property

VII. "A World of Fine Fabling"

VIII. Adventure of Billy Durgin, Sleuth

IX. How the Boss saved Himself

X. A Lady of Powers

XI. How Little Arcady was Uplifted

XII. Troubled Waters are Stilled


_THE BOOK OF MISS CAROLINE_

XIII. A Catastrophe in Furniture

XIV. The Coming of Miss Caroline

XV. Little Arcady views a Parade

XVI. The Spectre of Scandal is Raised

XVII. The Truth about Shakspere at Last

XVIII. In which the Game was Played

XIX. A Worthless Black Hound

XX. In which Something must be Done

XXI. Little Arcady is grievously Shaken


_THE BOOK OF LITTLE MISS_

XXII. The Time of Dreams

XXIII. The Strain of Peavey

XXIV. The Loyalty of Jim

XXV. The Case of Fatty Budlow

XXVI. A Little Mystery is Solved

XXVII. How a Truce was Troublesome

XXVIII. The Abdication of the Boss

XXIX. In which All Rules are Broken

XXX. By Another Hand




ILLUSTRATIONS

"A chestin' out his chest lahk a ole ma'ash
frawg"

"And yet I have been pestered by cheap flings
at my personal bearing"

"We might get him to make a barrel of it for
the Sunday-school picnic"

"That will do," I said severely. "Remember
there is a gentleman present"




The Book of
COLONEL POTTS




CHAPTER I


HOW THE BOSS WON HIS TITLE

=Late last Thursday evening one Jonas Rodney Potts, better known to this
community as "Upright" Potts, stumbled into the mill-race, where it had
providentially been left open just north of Cady's mill. Everything was
going along finely until two hopeless busybodies were attracted to the
spot by his screams, and fished him out. It is feared that he will
recover. We withhold the names of his rescuers, although under strong
temptation to publish them broadcast.--_Little Arcady Argus_ of May
21st.=

Looking back to that time from a happier present, I am filled by a
genuine awe of J. Rodney Potts. Reflecting upon those benign ends which
the gods chose to make him serve, I can but marvel how lightly each of
us may meet and scorn a casual Potts, unrecking his gracious and
predestined office in the play of Fate.

Of the present--to me--supreme drama of the Little Country, I can only
say that the gods had selected their agent with a cunning so flawless
that suspicion of his portents could not well have been aroused in one
lacking discernment like unto the gods' very own. So trivially, so
utterly, so pitiably casual, to eyes of the flesh, was this Potts of
Little Arcady, from his immortal soul to the least item of his inferior
raiment!

Thus craftily are we fooled by the Lords of Destiny, whose caprice it is
to affect remoteness from us and a lofty unconcern for our poor little
doings.

There is bitterness in the lines of that _Argus_ paragraph, and a
flippant incivility might be read between them by the least discerning.

Arcady of the Little Country, however, knows there is neither bitterness
nor real cynicism in Solon Denney, founder, editor, and proprietor of
the _Little Arcady Argus_; motto, "Hew to the Line, Let the Chips Fall
Where they May!" Indeed, we do know Solon. Often enough has the _Argus_
hewn inexorably to the line, when that line led straight through the
heart of its guiding genius and through the hearts of us all. One who
had seen him, as I did, stand uncovered in the presence of his new
Washington hand-press, the day that dynamo of Light was erected in the
_Argus_ office, could never suppose him to lack humanity or the just
reverence demanded by his craft.

We may concede without disloyalty that Solon is peculiar unto himself.
In his presence you are cursed with an unquiet suspicion that he may
become frivolous with you at any moment,--may, indeed, be so at that
moment, despite a due facial gravity and tones of weight,--for he will
not infrequently seem to be both trivial and serious in the same breath.
Again, he is amazingly sensitive for one not devoid of humor. In a
pleasant sense he is acutely aware of himself, and he does not dislike
to know that you feel his quality. Still again, he is bound to spice his
writing. Were it his lot to report events on the Day of Judgment, I
believe the _Argus_ account would be thought too highly colored by many
persons of good taste.

But Little Arcady knows that Solon is loyal to its welfare--knows that
he is fit to wield the mightiest lever of Civilization in its behalf on
Wednesday of each week.

We know now, moreover, that an undercurrent of circumstance existed
which did not even ripple the surface of that apparently facetious
brutality hurled at J. Rodney Potts.

The truth may not be told in a word. But it was in this affair that
Solon Denney won his title of "Boss of Little Arcady," a title first
rendered unto him somewhat in derision, I regret to say, by a number of
our leading citizens, who sought, as it were, to make sport of him.

It began in a jest, as do all the choicest tragedies of the gods,--a few
lines of idle badinage, meant to spice Solon's column of business locals
with a readable sprightliness. The thing was printed, in fact, between
"Let Harpin Cust shine your face with his new razors" and "See that line
of clocks at Chislett's for sixty cents. They look like cuckoos and keep
good time."

"Not much news this week," the item blithely ran, "so we hereby start
the rumor that 'Upright' Potts is going to leave town. We would incite
no community to lawless endeavor, but--may the Colonel encounter swiftly
in his new environment that warm reception to which his qualities of
mind, no less than his qualities of heart, so richly entitle him,--that
reception, in short, which our own debilitated public spirit has timidly
refused him. We claim the right to start any rumor of this sort that
will cheer the souls of an admiring constituency. Now is the time to pay
up that subscription."

The intention, of course, was openly playful--a not subtle sally meant
to be read and forgotten. Yet--will it be credited?--more than one of us
read it so hurriedly, perhaps with so passionate a longing to have it
the truth, as not to perceive its satirical indirections. The rumor
actually lived for a day that Potts was to disembarrass the town of his
presence.

And then, from the fictitious stuff of this rumor was spawned a
veritable inspiration. Several of our most public-spirited citizens
seemed to father it simultaneously.

"Why should Potts _not_ leave town--why should he not seek out a new
field of effort?"

"Field of effort" was a rank bit of poesy, it being certain that Potts
would never make an effort worthy of the name in any field whatsoever;
but the sense of it was plain.

Increasingly with the years had plans been devised to alleviate the
condition of Potts's residence among us. Some of these had required a
too definite and artificial abruptness in the mechanics of his removal;
others, like Eustace Eubanks's plot for having all our best people
refuse to notice him, depended upon a sensitiveness in the person aimed
at which he did not possess. Besides, there had been talk of disbarring
him from the practice of his profession, and I, as a lawyer, had been
urged to instigate that proceeding. Unquestionably there was ground for
it.

But now this random pleasantry of Solon Denney's set our minds to
working in another direction.

In the broad, pleasant window of the post-office, under the "NO LOAFING
HERE!" sign, half a dozen of us discussed it while we waited for the
noon mail. There seemed to be a half-formed belief that Potts might
adroitly be made to perceive advantages in leaving us.

"It's a whole lot better to manipulate and be subtle in a case like
this," suggested the editor of the _Argus_. "Threats of violence,
forcible expulsion, disbarment proceedings--all crude--and besides they
won't move Potts. Jonas Rodney may not be gifted with a giant intellect,
but he is cunning."

"The cunning of a precocious boy," prompted Eustace Eubanks, who was one
of us. "He is well aware that we would not dare attempt lawless
violence."

"Exactly, Eustace," answered Solon. "I tell you, gentlemen, this
thriving little town needs a canning factory, as we all know; but more
than a canning factory it needs a Boss,--one of those strong characters
that make tools of their fellow-men, who rule our cities with an iron
hand but take care to keep the hand in a velvet glove,--a Boss that is
diplomatic, yet an autocrat."

That careless use of the term "Boss" was afterward seen to be
unfortunate for Solon. They remembered it against him.

"That's right," said Westley Keyts. "Let's be diplomatic with him."

"How would _you_ begin, Westley, if you don't mind telling us?" Solon
had already begun to shape a scheme of his own.

"Why," answered Westley, looking very earnest, "just go up to him in a
quiet, refined manner--no blustering, understand--and say in a low tone,
kind of off-hand but serious, 'Now, look a' here, Potts, old boy, let's
talk this thing over like a couple of gentlemen had ought to.' 'Well,
all right,' says Potts, 'that's fair--I couldn't refuse _that_ as from
one gentleman to another gentleman.' Well, then, say to him, 'Now,
Potts, you know as well as any man in this town that you're an all-round
no-good--you're a human _Not_--and a darn scalawag into the bargain. So
what's the _use_? Will you go, or won't you?' Then if he'd begin to hem
and haw and try to put it off with one thing or another, why, just hint
in a roundabout way--perfectly genteel, you understand--that there'd be
doings with a kittle of tar and feathers that same night at
eight-thirty sharp, rain or shine, with a free ride right afterward to
the town line and mebbe a bit beyond, without no cushions. Up about the
Narrows would be a good place to say farewell," he concluded
thoughtfully.

We had listened patiently enough, but this was too summary. Westley
Keyts is our butcher, a good, honest, energetic, downright business man
with a square forehead and a blunt jaw and red hair that bristles with
challenges. But he seems compelled to say too nearly what he means to
render him useful in negotiations requiring any considerable finesse.

"We were speaking, Westley, of the gentle functions of diplomacy,"
remarked Solon, cuttingly. "Of course, we _could_ waylay Potts and kill
him with one of your cleavers and have his noble head stuffed and
mounted to hang up over Barney Skeyhan's bar, but it wouldn't be
subtle--it would not be what the newspapers call 'a triumph of
diplomacy'! And then, again, reports of it might be carried to other
towns, and talk would be caused."

"Now, say," retorted Westley, somewhat abashed, "I was thinking I
answered all _that_ by winding up the way like I did, asking him,--not
mad-like, you understand,--'Now will you go or _won't_ you?' just like
that. All I can say is, if that ain't diplomacy, then I don't know what
in Time diplomacy _is_!"

I think we conceded this, in silence, be it understood, for Westley is
respected. But we looked to Solon for a more tenuous subtlety. Nor did
he fail us. Two days later Potts upon the public street actually
announced his early departure from Little Arcady.

To know how pleasing an excitement this created one should know more
about Potts. It will have been inferred that he was objectionable. For
the fact, he was objectionable in every way: as a human being, a man, a
citizen, a member of the Slocum County bar, and a veteran of our late
civil conflict. He was shiftless, untidy, a borrower, a pompous
braggart, a trouble-maker, forever driving some poor devil into
senseless litigation. Moreover, he was blithely unscrupulous in his
dealings with the Court, his clients, his brother-attorneys, and his
fellow-men at large. When I add that he was given to spells of hard
drinking, during which he became obnoxious beyond the wildest possible
dreams of that quality, it will be seen that we of Little Arcady were
not without reason for wishing him away.

He had drifted casually in upon us after the war, accompanied somewhat
elegantly by one John Randolph Clement Tuckerman, an ex-slave. He came
with much talk of his regiment,--a fat-cheeked, florid man of forty-five
or so, with shifty blue eyes and an address moderately insinuating. Very
tall he was, and so erect that he seemed to lean a little backward. This
physical trait, combining with a fancy for referring to himself freely
as "an upright citizen of this reunited and glorious republic, sir!" had
speedily made him known as "Upright" Potts. He was of a slender build
and a bony frame, except in front. His long, single-breasted frock-coat
hung loosely enough about his shoulders, yet buttoned tightly over a
stomach that was so incongruous as to seem artificial. The sleeves of
the coat were glossy from much desk rubbing, and its front advertised a
rather inattentive behavior at table. The Colonel's dress was completed
by drab overgaiters and poorly draped trousers of the same once-delicate
hue. Upon his bald head, which was high and peaked, like Sir Walter
Scott's, he carried a silk hat in an inferior state of preservation.
When he began to drink it was his custom to repair at once to a barber
and submit to having his side-whiskers trimmed fastidiously. Sober, he
seemed to feel little pride of person, and his whiskers at such a time
merely called attention somewhat unprettily to his lack of a chin. His
other possessions were an ebony walking stick with a gold head and what
he referred to in moments of expansion as his "library." This consisted
of a copy of the Revised Statutes, a directory of Cincinnati, Ohio, for
the year 1867, and two volumes of Patent Office reports.

At the time of which I speak the Colonel had long been sober, and the
day that Solon Denney completed those mysterious negotiations with him
he was as far from conventional standards of the beautiful as I remember
to have seen him.

The guise of Solon's subtlety, the touch of his iron hand in a glove of
softest velvet, had been in this wise: he had pointed out to the Colonel
that there were richer fields of endeavor to the west of us; newer,
larger towns, fitter abodes for a man of his parts; communities which
had honors and emoluments to lavish upon the worthy,--prizes which it
would doubtless never be in our poor power to bestow.

Potts was stirred by all this, but he was not blinded to certain
disadvantages,--"a stranger in a strange land," etc., while in Little
Arcady he had already "made himself known."

But, suggested Solon, with a ready wit, if the stranger were to go
fortified with certificates of character from the leading citizens of
his late home?

This was a thing to consider. Potts reflected more favorably; but still
he hesitated. He was unable to believe that these certificates of his
excellence might be obtained. The bar and the commercial element of
Little Arcady had been cold, not to say suspicious, toward him. It was
an unpleasant thing to mention, but a cabal had undeniably been formed.

Solon was politely incredulous. He pledged his word of honor as a
gentleman to provide the letters,--a laudatory, an uplifting letter,
from every citizen in town whose testimony would be of weight; also a
half-column of fit praise in the next issue of the _Argus_, twelve
copies of which Potts should freely carry off with him for judicious
scattering about the fortunate town in which his journey should end.

Then Potts spoke openly of the expenses of travel. Solon, royally
promising a purse of gold to take him on his way, clenched the winning
of a neat and bloodless victory.

No one has ever denied that Denney must have employed a faultless, an
incomparable tact, to bring J. Rodney Potts to this agreement. By tact
alone had he achieved that which open sneers, covert insult, abuse,
ridicule, contumely, and forthright threats had failed to consummate,
and in the first flush of the news we all felt much as Westley Keyts
said he did.

"Solon Denney is some subtler than me," said Westley, in a winning
spirit of concession; "I can see that, now. He's the Boss of Little
Arcady after this, all right, so far as _I_ know."

Nevertheless, there was misgiving about the letters for Potts. Old Asa
Bundy, our banker, wanted to know, somewhat peevishly, if it seemed
quite honest to send Potts to another town with a satchel full of
letters certifying to his rare values as a man and a citizen. What would
that town think of us two or three days later?

"This is no time to split hairs, Bundy," said Solon; and I believe I
added, "Don't be quixotic, Mr. Bundy!"

Hereupon Westley Keyts broke in brightly.

"Why, now, they'll see in a minute that the whole thing was meant as a
joke. They'll see that the laugh is on _them_, and they'll have a lot of
fun out of it, and then send the old cuss along to another town with
some more funny letters to fool the next ones." "That's all very
_well_, but it isn't high conduct," insisted Bundy.

Westley Keyts now achieved the nearest approach to diplomacy I have ever
known of him.

"Oh, well, Asa, after all, this is a world of give and take. 'Live and
let live' is my motto."

"We must use common sense in these matters, you know, Bundy," observed
Solon, judicially.

And that sophistry prevailed, for we were weak unto faintness from our
burden.

We gave letters setting forth that J. Rodney Potts was the ideal
inhabitant of a city larger than our own. We glowed in describing the
virtues of our departing townsman; his honesty of purpose, his integrity
of character, his learning in the law, his wide range of achievement,
civic and military,--all those attributes that fitted him to become a
stately ornament and a tower of strength to any community larger in the
least degree than our own modest town.

And there was the purse. Fifty dollars was suggested by Eustace Eubanks,
but Asa Bundy said that this would not take Potts far enough. Eustace
said that a man could travel an immense distance for fifty dollars.
Bundy retorted that an ordinary man might perhaps go far enough on that
sum, but not Potts.

"If we are to perpetrate this outrage at all," insisted Bundy, pulling
in calculation at his little chin-whisker, "let us do it thoroughly. A
hundred dollars can't take Potts any too far. We must see that he keeps
going until he could never get back--" We all nodded to this.

"--and another thing, the farther away from this town those letters are
read,--why, the better for our reputations."

A hundred dollars it was. Purse and letters were turned over to Solon
Denney to deliver to Potts. The _Argus_ came out with its promised
eulogy, a thing so fulsome that any human being but J. Rodney Potts
would have sickened to read it of himself.

But our little town was elated. One could observe that last day a
subdued but confident gayety along its streets as citizens greeted one
another.

On every hand were good fellowship and kind words, the light-hearted
salute, the joyous mien. It was an occasion that came near to being
festal, and Solon Denney was its hero. He sought to bear his honors with
the modesty that is native to him, but in his heart he knew that we now
spoke of him glibly as the Boss of Little Arcady, and the consciousness
of it bubbled in his manner in spite of him.

When it was all over,--though I had not once raised my voice in protest,
and had frankly connived with the others,--I confess that I felt shame
for us and pity for the friendless man we were sending out into the
world. Something childlike in his acceptance of the proposal, a few
phrases of naive enthusiasm for his new prospects, repeated to me by
Solon, touched me strangely. It was, therefore, with real embarrassment
that I read the _Argus_ notice. "With profound regret," it began, "we
are obliged to announce to our readers the determination of our
distinguished fellow-townsman, Colonel J. Rodney Potts, to shake the
dust of Little Arcady from his feet. Deaf to entreaties from our leading
citizens, the gallant Colonel has resolved that in simple justice to
himself he must remove to some larger field of action, where his native
genius, his flawless probity, and his profound learning in the law may
secure for him those richer rewards which a man of his unusual caliber
commendably craves and so abundantly merits."

There followed an overflowing half-column of warmest praise, embodying
felicitations to the unnamed city so fortunate as to secure this
"peerless pleader and Prince of Gentlemen." It ended with the assurance
that Colonel Potts would take with him the cordial good-will of every
member of a community to which he had endeared himself, no less by his
sterling civic virtues than by his splendid qualities of mind and heart.

The thing filled me with an indignant pity. I tried in vain to sleep. In
the darkness of night our plan came to seem like an atrocious outrage
upon a guileless, defenceless ne'er-do-well. For my share of the guilt,
I resolved to convey to Potts privately on the morrow a more than
perfunctory promise of aid, should he find himself distressed at any
time in what he would doubtless term his new field of endeavor.




CHAPTER II


THE GOLDEN DAY OF COLONEL POTTS

I awoke the next morning under most vivid portents of calamity. I
believe I am neither notional, nor given to small, vulgar superstitions,
but I have learned that this peculiar sensation is never without
significance. I remember that I felt it the night our wagon bridge went
out by high water. I tried to read the presentiment as I dressed. But
not until I was shaving did it relate itself to the going out of Potts.
Then the illumination came with a speed so electric that I gashed my
chin under the shock of it. Instantly I seemed to know, as well as I
know to-day, that the Potts affair had, in some manner, been botched.

So apprehensive was I that I lingered an hour on my little riverside
porch, dreading the events that I felt the day must unfold. Inevitably,
however, I was drawn to the centre of things. Turning down Main Street
at the City Hotel corner, on the way to my office, I had to pass the
barber-shop of Harpin Cust, in front of which I found myself impelled to
stop. Looking over the row of potted geraniums in the window, I beheld
Colonel Potts in the chair, swathed to the chin in the barber's white
cloth, a gaze of dignified admiration riveted upon his counterpart in
the mirror. Seen thus, he was not without a similarity to pictures of
the Matterhorn, his bare, rugged peak rising fearsomely above his
snow-draped bulk. Harpin appeared to be putting the last snipping
touches to the Colonel's too-long neglected side-whiskers. On the table
lay his hat and gold-headed cane, and close at hand stood his bulging
valise.

I walked hastily on. The thing was ominous. Yet, might it not merely
denote that Potts wished to enter upon his new life well barbered? The
bulging bag supported this possibility, and yet I was ill at ease.

Reaching my office, I sought to engage myself with the papers of an
approaching suit, but it was impossible to ignore the darkling cloud of
disaster which impended. I returned to the street anxiously.

On my way to the City Hotel, where I had resolved to await like a man
what calamity there might be, I again passed the barber-shop.

Harpin Cust now leaned, gracefully attentive, on the back of the empty
chair, absently swishing his little whisk broom. Before him was planted
Potts, his left foot advanced, his head thrown back, reading to Harpin
from a spread page of the _Argus_. I divined that he was reading Solon's
comment upon himself, and I shuddered.

As I paused at the door of the hotel Potts emerged from the barber-shop.
In one hand he carried his bag, in the other his cane and the _Little
Arcady Argus_. His hat was a bit to one side, and it seemed to me
that he was leaning back farther than usual. He had started briskly down
the street in the opposite direction from me, but halted on meeting
Eustace Eubanks. The Colonel put down his bag and they shook hands.
Eustace seemed eager to pass on, but the Colonel detained him and began
reading from the _Argus_. His voice carried well on the morning air, and
various phrases, to which he gave the full meed of emphasis, floated to
me on the gentle breeze. "That peerless pleader and Prince of
Gentlemen," came crisply to my ears. Eustace appeared to be restive, but
the Colonel, through caution, or, perhaps, mere friendliness, had moored
him by a coat lapel.

The reading done, I saw that Eustace declined some urgent request of the
Colonel's, drawing away the moment his coat was released. As they
parted, my worst fears were confirmed, for I saw the Colonel progress
flourishingly to the corner and turn in under the sign, "Barney Skeyhan;
Choice Wines, Liquors, and Cigars."

"What did he say?" I asked of Eustace as he came up.

"It was exceedingly distasteful, Major." Eustace was not a little
perturbed by the encounter. "He read every word of that disgusting
article in the _Argus_ and then he begged me to go into that Skeyhan's
drinking-place with him and have a glass of liquor. I said very sharply,
'Colonel Potts, I have never known the taste of liquor in my whole life
nor used tobacco in any form.' At that he looked at me in the utmost
astonishment and said: 'Bless my soul! _Really?_ Young man, don't you
put it off another day--life is awful uncertain.' 'Why, Colonel,' I
said, '_that_ isn't any way to talk,' but he simply tore down the
street, saying that I was taking great chances."

"And now he is reading his piece to Barney Skeyhan!" I groaned.

"Rum is the scourge of our American civilization," remarked Eustace,
warmly.

"Barney Skeyhan's rum would scourge anybody's civilization," I said.

"Of course I meant _all_ civilization," suggested Eustace, in polite
help to my lame understanding.

Precisely at nine o'clock Potts issued from Skeyhan's, bearing his bag,
cane, and _Argus_ as before. He looked up and down the quiet street
interestedly, then crossed over to Hermann Hoffmuller's, another
establishment in which our civilization was especially menaced. He was
followed cordially by five of Little Arcady's lesser citizens, who had
obviously sustained the relation of guests to him at Skeyhan's. In
company with Westley Keyts and Eubanks, I watched this procession from
the windows of the City Hotel. Solon Denney chanced to pass at the
moment, and we hailed him.

"Oh, I'll soon fix _that_," said Solon, confidently. "Don't you worry!"

And forthwith he sent Billy Durgin, who works in the City Hotel, to
Hoffmuller's. He was to remind Colonel Potts that his train left at
eleven-eight.

Billy returned with news. Potts was reading the piece to Hoffmuller and
a number of his patrons. Further, he had bought, and the crowd was then
consuming, the two fly-specked bottles of champagne which Hoffmuller had
kept back of his bar, one on either side of a stuffed owl, since the day
he began business eleven years before.

Billy also brought two messages to Solon: one from Potts that he had
been mistaken about the attitude of Little Arcady toward himself--that
he was seeing this more clearly every minute. The other was from
Hoffmuller. Solon Denney was to know that some people might be just as
good as other people who thought themselves a lot better, and would he
please not take some shingles off a man's roof?

Solon, ever the incorrigible optimist, said, "Of course I might have
waited till he was on the train to give him the money; but don't worry,
he'll be ready enough to go when the 'bus starts."

I felt unable to share his confidence. That presentiment had for the
moment corrupted my natural hopefulness.

It was a few moments after ten when Potts next appeared to our group of
anxious watchers. This time he had more friends. They swarmed
respectfully but enthusiastically after him out of Hoffmuller's place, a
dozen at least of our ne'er-do-wells. One of these, "Big Joe" Kestril,
a genial lout of a section-hand, ostentatiously carried the bag and had
an arm locked tenderly through one of the Colonel's. These two led the
procession. It halted at the corner, where the Colonel began to read his
_Argus_ notice to Bela Bedford, our druggist, who had been on the point
of entering his store. But the newspaper had suffered. It was damp from
being laid on bars, and parts of it were in tatters. The reader paused,
midway of the first paragraph, to piece a tear across the column, and
Bedford escaped by dashing into his store. The Colonel, suddenly
discovering that he could recite the thing from memory, did so with
considerable dramatic effect, seeming not to notice the defection of
Bedford. The crowd cheered madly when he had finished, and followed him
across the street to the bar of the City Hotel.

We could now observe better. The bar of the City Hotel is next the
office. A door is open between them with a wooden screen standing before
it. Inside the carouse raged, while we, who had thought to set Potts at
large, listened and wondered. The taller among us could overlook the
screen. We beheld Potts, one elbow resting on the bar, his other hand
with the cane in it waving forward his unreluctant train, while he
loudly inquired if there were drink to be had suitable for a gentleman
who was prepared to spend his money like a lord.

"None of that cooking whiskey, mind--nothing but the best bottled goods,
if you please!" was the next suggestion.

Again the crowd cheered. New faces were constantly appearing. The news
had gone out with an incredible rapidity. Honest men, inflamed by the
report, were leaving their works and speeding to the front from as far
north as the fair-grounds and as far south as the depot.

"Soon," said Potts, after the first drink, "ah, too soon, I shall be
miles away from your thriving little hamlet,--as pretty a spot, by the
way, as God ever made,--seeing none but strange faces, longing for the
old hearty hand-clasps, seeking, perhaps, in vain, for one kindly look
which--which is now to be observed on every hand. But, friends, Colonel
J. Rodney will not forget you. I have rare prospects, but no matter. To
this little spot, the fairest in all Nature,--here among your simple,
heartfelt faces, where I first got my start,--here my feelings will ever
and anon return; for--why should I conceal it?--it is you, my friends,
who have made me the man I am."

Here Potts put an arm over the shoulder of Big Joe and urged pleadingly:
"Another verse of that sweet old song, boys. I tell you that has the
true heart-stuff in it--now--"

They roared out a verse of "Auld Lang Syne," with execrable attempts at
part-singing, little Dan Lefferts, a dissolute house-painter,
contributing a tenor that was simply maniacal.

Potts ordered more drinks. This done, he leaned heavily upon the bar and
burst into tears. The varlets crowded about him with tender, soothing
words, while we in the other room anxiously watched them and the clock.

He was overcome, it seemed, by the affection which it now transpired
that Little Arcady bore for him. Presently he half dried his tears and
drew from an inner pocket of his coat the package of our letters.

With eyes again streaming, in a sob-riven voice, he read them all to the
pleased crowd. At the end, he regained control of himself.

"Gentlemen, believe it or not, nothing has touched me like this since I
bade farewell to my regiment in '65. You are getting under the heart of
Jonas Rodney this time--I can't deny that."

He began on the letters again, selecting the choicest, and not
forgetting at intervals to rebuke the bar-tender for alleged inactivity.

At last the clock marked ten-forty, and we heard the welcome rumble of
the 'bus wheels. There was a hurried consultation with Amos Deane, the
driver. He was to enter the bar in a brisk, businesslike way, seize the
bag, and hustle the Colonel out before he had time to reflect. We peered
over the screen, knowing the fateful moment was come.

We saw the Colonel resist the attack on his bag and listen with marked
astonishment to the assertion of Amos that there was just time to catch
the train.

"Time was made for slaves," said Potts.

"That there train ain't goin' to wait a minute," reminded Amos,
civilly. The Colonel turned upon him with a large sweetness of manner.

"Ah, yes, my friend, but trains will be passing through your pretty
little hamlet for years--I hope for ages--yet. They pass every day, but
you can't have Jonas Rodney Potts every day."

Here, with a gesture, he directed the crowd's attention to Amos.

"Look at him, gentlemen. Speak to him for me--for I cannot. I ask you to
note the condition he's in." Here, again, the Colonel burst into tears.
"And, oh, my God!" he sobbed, "could they ask me to trust myself to a
drunken rowdy of a driver, even if I _was_ going?" Amos was not only
sober, he was a shrewd observer of events, a seasoned judge of men. He
turned away without further parley. Big Joe told him he ought to be in
better business than trying to break up a pleasant party.

As the 'bus started, the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" floated to us
again, and we knew the day was lost.

"A hand of iron in a cunning little velvet glove," said Westley Keyts,
in deep disgust as he left us. "It looks to me a darned sight more like
a hand of mush in a glove of the _same!_"

I have often been brought to realize that the latent nobility in our
human nature is never so effectually aroused as at the second stage of
alcoholic dementia. The victim sustains a shock of illumination hardly
less than divine. On a sudden he is vividly cognizant of his
overwhelming spiritual worth. Dazed in the first moment of this flooding
consciousness, he is presently to be heard recalling instances of his
noble conduct under difficulty, of righteous fortitude under strain.
Especially does he find himself endowed with the antique virtues--with
courage and a rugged fidelity, a stainless purity of motive, a fond and
measureless generosity.

To this stage the libations of Potts had now brought him. He began to
refresh the crowd with comments upon his own worth, interspersed with
kindly but hurt appreciations of the great world's lack of discernment.
He besought and defied each gentleman present to recall an occasion,
however trivial, when his conduct had fallen short of the loftiest
standards. Especially were they begged to cite an instance when he had
deviated in the least degree from a line of strictest loyalty to any
friend. Big Joe Kestril was overcome at this. He broke down and wept out
upon the shoulder of Potts his hopeless inability to comply with that
outrageous request. The entire crowd became emotional, and a dozen
lighted matches were thrust forward toward an apparently incombustible
cigar with which Potts had long striven.

Recovering from these first ravages of his self-analysis, the Colonel
became just a bit critical.

"But you see, boys, a man of my attributes is hampered and kept down in
a one-horse place like this. Remarks have been passed about me here that
I should blush to repeat. I say it in confidence, but I have again and
again been made the sport of a wayward and wanton ridicule. I say,
gentlemen, I have always conducted myself as only a Potts knows how to
conduct himself--and yet I have been pestered by cheap flings at my
personal bearing. Is this courtesy, is it common fairness, is it the
boasted civilization of our nineteenth century?"

[Illustration: "AND YET I HAVE BEEN PESTERED BY CHEAP FLINGS AT MY
PERSONAL BEARING."]

Hoarse expressions of incredulity, of execration, of disgust, came from
the crowd as it raised glasses once more. The Colonel glared down the
sloppy length of the bar, then gazed aloft into the smoky heights. The
crowd waited for him to say something.

"This is a beautiful day, gentlemen. A fine, balmy spring day. Let us be
out and away to mossy dells. Why stay in this low drinking-place when
all Nature beckons? Come on back to Hoffmuller's. Besides,"--he cast a
reproachful look at the bar-tender,--"the hospitality of this place is
not what an upright citizen of this great republic has a right to expect
when he's throwing his good money right and left."

He marched out in hurt dignity, followed by his train, many of whom, in
loyalty to their host, sneered openly at the bar-tender as they passed.

Outside the Colonel poised himself in gala attitude, and benignantly
surveyed our quiet little Main Street in both directions. Across the way
in the door of the First National Bank stood Asa Bundy, a look of
interest on his face.

The Colonel's sweeping glance halted upon Bundy. With a glad cry he
started across to him, but Bundy, beholding the move, fled actively
inside. The Colonel reached the door of the bank and tried the knob, but
the key had been turned in the lock, and the next moment the curtains of
the door were swiftly drawn. "Bank Closed" was printed upon them in
large gold letters.

Potts stepped aside to look into the window, and the curtain of that
descended relentlessly. The bank had suddenly taken on an aspect of
Sabbath blankness. Once more the Colonel rattled the knob, then he
turned to his gathering followers.

"Gentlemen, I came here to press the hand of one of Nature's noblemen,
my tried friend, the Honorable Asa Bundy, whom we have just seen
retreating to his precincts, as I might say, with a modesty that is
rarely beautiful. But no matter." Here the Colonel mounted the top step
and glowed out upon his faithful and ever enlarging band.

"Instead, my friends, allow me to read you this splendid tribute from
Bundy, and I trust that after this I shall never hear one of you utter a
word in his disparagement."

Rapidly fluttering the packet of letters, he drew out one bearing the
imprint of the First National Bank of Little Arcady. The crowd, pressing
closer, was cheerfully animated. From down the street on both sides
anxious looks were bent upon the scene by many of our leading citizens.

"'To Whom it May Concern,'" began the Colonel, in a voice that carried
to the confines of our business centre; "'The determination of our
esteemed citizen, Colonel J. Rodney Potts, to remove from our town makes
it fitting that I record my high appreciation of his character as a man
and his unusual attainments as a lawyer. His going will be a grievous
loss to our community, atoned for only by the knowledge that he will
better himself in a field of richer opportunities. He has proved himself
to possess in full measure those qualities which go to the making of the
best American citizenship, and these, as exercised in our behalf during
his all too-short sojourn among us, entitle him to be cordially
commended as worthy of all trust in any position to which he may aspire.
Very sincerely, A. Bundy, President.'"

Again and again the crowd cheered, and there were encouraging calls for
Bundy; but the First National Bank stolidly preserved its Sabbath front.

A moment later the Colonel was leading his steadfast cohort across the
street again. Marvin Chislett had unwarily peeped from inside the door
of his mercantile establishment. There was but time to turn the key and
draw the curtains before the procession halted. Such behavior may have
perplexed Potts, but daunt him it could not. From Chislett's top step he
read Chislett's letter to the delighted throng, a letter in which Potts
was said to bear an unblemished reputation, and to be a gentleman and a
scholar, amply meriting any trust that might be reposed in him.

From Chislett's they moved on to the foot of the stairs leading to the
_Argus_ office. Potts sent Big Joe up for twenty-five copies of the
latest number, and, standing on the coal box, he gallantly distributed
these to the crowd as it filed before him, intoning from memory,
meantime, snatches of the eulogy, while the crowd flourished the papers
and gurgled noisily.

A brief plunge into the lethal flood at Skeyhan's, and they came once
more abroad, this time closing the Boston Cash Store most expeditiously.
Potts, enthroned upon a big box in front, among bolts of muslin, straw
hats, and bunches of innocent early lettuce, read the splendid tribute
of the store's proprietor to his capacity as an expert in jurisprudence
and his fitness for a seat of judicial honor. The bank and Chislett's
being still closed, the little street, except in the near vicinity of
Potts, began to sleep in a strange calm.

There were other doors to conquer, however, and Potts, at the head of
his _Argus_-waving crowd of degenerates, vanquished them all.

Up and down he wandered busily, doors closing and curtains falling
swiftly at his approach. Then would he turn majestically, and say, with
a hand raised, "My friends, a moment's silence, while I read you this
magnificent tribute from one who is unfortunately not among us."

He was so impressive with this that at last the crowd would remove hats
at each reading, to the Colonel's manifest approval. The doffed hat and
the clutched _Argus_ became the mark of his drink-bought serfs. By four
o'clock the only hospitable doorways on the street were those of the
three saloons. Our leading business men were departing from their
establishments by back doors and the secrecy of gracious alleys.

From Skeyhan's to Hoffmuller's, from Hoffmuller's to the City Hotel, the
crowd sang and shouted its irregular progress, the air being "Auld Lang
Syne."

It was about this time that the Colonel unhappily caught a glimpse of
myself through the window of the hotel. A glad light came into his eyes,
and at once he searched among the letters, crying, meanwhile: "My
brother in arms! A younger brother, but a gallant officer, none the
less--"

I knew that he sought my letter. Egress from the City Hotel may be
achieved, when desirable, by a side door, and I saw no more of Potts
that day. I believe my letter spoke of him as an able and graceful
pleader, meriting judicial honors, or something of that sort. I had
forgotten its exact words, but I did not wish to hear Potts read them.
So I fled to spend the remainder of that eventful day quietly among
rosebushes and tender, budding hyacinths, unspotted of the world,
receiving, however, occasional bulletins of the orgy from passers-by.
From these and sundry narratives gleaned the following day, I was able
to trace the later hours of this scandalous saturnalia.

By six o'clock Potts had spent all his money. By six-fifteen this fact
could no longer be concealed, and such of his following as had not
already fallen by the wayside crept, one by one, to rest. They left the
Colonel dreamily, murmurously happy in a chair at the end of the City
Hotel bar.

Here, he was discovered about six-thirty by Eustace Eubanks, who had
incautiously thought to rebuke him.

"For shame, Colonel Potts!" began Eustace, seeking to fix the uncertain
eyes with his finger of scorn. "For shame to have squandered all that
money for rum. Don't you know, sir, that a hundred and sixty thousand
men die yearly in our land from the effects of rum?"

"Hundred sixty thousand!" mused the Colonel, in polite amazement. "Well,
well, figures can't lie! What of it?"

"You have dishonestly spent that money given to you in sacred trust."

This seemed to arouse Potts, and he surveyed Eubanks with more curiosity
than delight. He arose, buttoned his coat, fixed his hat firmly upon his
head, and took up his stick and bag. He put upon Eustace a glance of
dignified urbanity, as he spoke.

"I don't know who you are, sir,--never saw you before in my life,--but I
have done what every good citizen should do. I have spent my money at
home. This is a cheap place, full of cheap men. What the town needs,
sir, is capital--capital to develop its attributes and industries. It
needs more men with the public spirit of J. Rodney, sir. I bid you good
evening! Ah, this has been indeed a _beautiful day_!"

He walked out. Those who watched him until he turned out of Main Street
into Fourth, and so toward the river, aver--marvelling duly at his
powers of resistance--that the head of Potts was erect, his gaze bent
aloft, and his gait one of perfect directness save that he stepped a
little high.

I like to think of him in that last walk. I like to bring up as nearly
as I can his intense exaltation. It _had_ been a beautiful day. And now,
as he looked aloft, walking with an automatic precision, his eyes must
have beheld glorious vistas, in which he rode a chariot of triumph at
the head of a splendid procession, while his ears rang with chaste
tributes to his worth trumpeted by outriding heralds. And the good earth
was firm beneath his tread, stretching broadly off for him to walk upon
and behold his apotheosis.

I cannot wonder that he stepped high, nor can I find it in my heart to
begrudge him his day. Cunningly had he clutched a few golden moments
from the hoard that Fate, the niggard, guards from us so jealously. To
myself I acclaimed him as one to be envied.

I have always liked to believe that the splendors of that last walk
endured to the end--that there was no uncertainty, no hesitation, above
all, no vulgar stumbling; but that the last high step, which plunged him
into the chill waters of the race, was lifted in the same exulting
serenity as the first.

I stood in my garden that evening, charmed by the wild, sweet,
gusty-gentle music of the spring night.

Northward, in the gathering dusk, came a solitary figure walking
rapidly--a slight, nervous figure, a soft hat drawn well over the face,
the skirts of its coat streaming to the breeze. As it passed me, I
recognized Solon Denney. He was gesticulating with some violence, and I
could see his expressive face work as if he uttered words to himself. I
thought it possible that he might be composing a piece for his
newspaper. Instantly there came to my mind that rather coarse paraphrase
of Westley Keyts--"A hand of mush in a glove of the _same!_"

I did not intrude upon my friend as he passed.




CHAPTER III


THE PERFECT LOVER

To the crime of being Potts the wretched Colonel had now added
malversation of a trust fund. But I crave surcease, while it may be
mine, from the immediately troubling waters of Potts. Let me turn more
broadly to our town and its good people for that needed recreation which
they never fail to afford me.

"Arcady of the Little Country," we often say. On maps it is Little
Arcady, county seat of Slocum County, an isle and haven in the dreary
land sea that flattens away from it on every side,--north to the big
woods, south to the swamp counties, and east and west, one might almost
say, a thousand miles to the mountains. Our point is one from which to
say either "back East" or "out West." It is neither, of itself, though
it touches both.

We are so ancient that plenty of us remember the stone fireplace in the
log-cabin, with its dusters for the hearth of buffalo tail and
wild-turkey wing, with iron pot hung by a chain from the chimney hook,
with pewter or wooden plates from which to eat with horn-handled knives
and iron spoons. But yet are we so modern that we have fine new houses
with bay windows, ornamental cupolas, and porches raving woodenly in
that frettish fever which the infamous scroll-saw put upon fifty years
of our land's domestic architecture. And these houses are furnished with
splendid modern furniture, even with black walnut, gold touched and
upholstered in blue plush and maroon, fresh from the best factories. Our
fairly old people remember when they hunted deer and were hunted by the
red Indian on our town site, while their grandchildren have only the
memories of the town-born, of the cottage-organ, the novel railroad, and
the two-story brick block with ornamental false front. In short, we
round an epoch within ourselves, historically and socially.

The country, however, keeps its first purity of charm, a country of
little hills and little valleys lined with little quick rivers. These
beauties, indeed, have not gone unsung. Years ago a woman poet eased her
heart of ecstasies about this Little Country.

"Here swells the river in its boldest course," she wrote, "interspersed
by halcyon isles on which Nature has lavished all her prodigality in
tree, vine, and flower, banked by noble bluffs three hundred feet high,
their sharp ridges as exquisitely definite as the edge of a shell; their
summits adorned with those same beautiful trees and with buttresses of
rich rock, crested with old hemlocks that wear a touching and antique
grace amid the softer and more luxuriant vegetation."

Not spectacular, this--not sensational--not even unusual. Common enough
little hills, as the world goes, with the usual ragged-edged village
between them and the river, peopled by human beings entirely usual both
in their outer and inner lives. It seems to be, indeed, not a place in
which events could occur with any romantic fitness.

Perhaps I have grown to love this Little Country because I am a usual
man. Perhaps I would have felt as much for it even had I not been held
to it by a memory that would bind me to any spot howsoever unlovely. But
I rejoiced always in its beauty, and more than ever when it made easier
for me the only life it once appeared that I should live. I quote again
from our visiting poet: "The aspect of this country was to me enchanting
beyond any I have ever seen, from its fulness of expression, its bold
and impassioned sweetness. Here the flood has passed over and marked
everywhere its course by a smile. The fragments of rock touch it with a
mildness and liberality which give just the needed relief. I should
never be tired here, though I have elsewhere seen country of more secret
and alluring charms, better calculated to stimulate and suggest. Here
the eye and heart are filled."

Here, too, my eye and heart were filled--emptied--and wondrously filled
yet again, for which last I hold Potts to be curiously--but I wander.

Enough to say that I stored a harvest of memories in a secret place here
years ago. And I went to this on days when I was downhearted. Your boy
of fifteen, I think, is the only perfect lover--giving all, demanding
nothing, save, indeed, the right to his secret cherishings.

Tremors, born within me that day when old gray, bristling Leggett, our
Principal, opened the schoolroom door upon Lucy Tait, are as poignant,
as sweetly terrible, now as in that far time when the light of her
wondrous presence first fell upon me.

An instant she hesitated timidly in the sombre frame of the doorway,
looking far over our heads. Then old Leggett came in front of her. There
was a word of presentation to Miss Berham, our teacher, the vision was
escorted to a seat at my left front, and I was bade to continue the
reading lesson if I ever expected to learn anything. As a matter of
truth I did not expect to learn anything more. I thought I must suddenly
have learned all there is to know. The page of the ancient reader over
which I then mumbled is now before me. "A Good Investment" was the title
of the day's lesson, and I had been called upon to render the first
paragraph. With lightness, unrecking the great moment so perilously at
hand, I had begun: "'Will you lend me two thousand dollars to establish
myself in a small retail business?' inquired a young man, not yet out of
his teens of a middle-aged gentleman who was poring over his ledger in
the counting room of one of the largest establishments in Boston."

The iron latch rattled, the door swung fatefully back, our heads were
raised, our eyes bored her through and through.

Then swung a new world for me out of primeval chaos, and for aeons of
centuries I dizzied myself gazing upon the pyrotechnic marvel.

"_Continue, Calvin!_--if you ever expect to learn anything."

The fabric of my vision crumbled. Awake, I glared upon a page where the
words ran crazily about like a disrupted colony of ants. I stammered at
the thing, feeling my cheeks blaze, but no two words would stay still
long enough to be related. I glanced a piteous appeal to authority,
while old Leggett, still standing by, crumpled his shaven upper lip into
a professional sneer that I did not like.

"That will _do_, Calvin. Sit down! Solon Denney, you may go on."

With careless confidence, brushing the long brown lock from his fair
brow, came Solon Denney to his feet. With flawless self-possession he
read, and I, disgraced, cowering in my seat, heard words that burned
little inconsequential brands forever into my memory. Well do I recall
that the middle-aged gentleman regarded the young man with a look of
surprise, and inquired, "What security can you give me?" to which the
latter answered, "Nothing but my note."

"'Which I fear would be below par in the market,' replied the merchant,
smiling.

"'Perhaps so,' said the young man, 'but, Mr. Barton, remember that the
boy is not the man; the time may come when Hiram Strosser's note will be
as readily accepted as that of any other man.'

"'True, very true,' replied Mr. Barton, thoughtfully, 'but you know
business men seldom lend money without adequate security; otherwise they
might soon be reduced to penury.'"

"Benny Jeliffe, you may go on!"

During this break I stole my second look at her. The small head was
sweetly bent with an air of studious absorption--a head with two long
plaits of braided gold, a scarlet satin bow at the end of each.

It seems to me now that these bows were like the touch of frosted
woodbine in a yellowing elm, though at the moment I must have been
unequal to this fancy. I saw, too, the tiny chain that clasped her fair
throat, her dress of pale blue, and, most wonderful of all, two tassels
that danced from the tops of her trim little boots. The air was indeed
too heavy with beauty. But the reading lesson continued.

The years that stretch between that time and this have not bereaved me
of the knowledge that Mr. Barton graciously accommodated Hiram Strosser,
after vainly seeking to induce "Mr. Hawley, a wealthy merchant of Milk
Street," to share half the risk.

At this point a row of stars on the page indicated a lapse of ten years.
Mr. Barton, "pale and agitated," examines with deepening despair, "page
after page of his ponderous ledger." At last he exclaims, "I am ruined,
utterly ruined!" "How so?" inquires Hiram Strosser, who enters the room
just in time to hear the cry. Mr. Barton explains,--the failure of
Perleg, Jackson & Co. of London--news brought on last steamer--creditors
pressing him.

"'What amount would tide you over this crisis?' asks Hiram Strosser,
respectfully.

"'Seventy-five thousand dollars!'

"'Then, sir, you shall have it,' replied Hiram, and stepping to the desk
he drew a check for the full amount."

Nor can I ever forget the stroke of poetic justice with which the
anecdote concluded. Mr. Hawley of Milk Street was also embarrassed by
the failure of Perleg, Jackson & Co., but, for want of a trustful friend
in funds, was thrown into bankruptcy. Mr. Barton had the chastened
pleasure of telling Mr. Hawley about Hiram's loan, and of reminding him
that he had neglected a fair opportunity to become a co-benefactor of
that upright and open-handed youth; whereupon the ruined
Hawley--deservedly ruined, the tale implied--"moved on, dejected and
sad, while Mr. Barton returned to his establishment cheered and
animated."

The gross, the immoral romanticism of this tale was not then, of course,
apparent to me. Children are so defenceless! Child that I was, I
believed it would be entirely practicable for a lad in his teens to
borrow two thousand dollars from a Boston merchant, by reminding him
that the boy is not the man. So readily is the young mind poisoned.
During the latter part of the lesson, between looks stolen fearfully at
her profile, I was mentally engaged in borrowing two thousand dollars
from a convenient Mr. Barton with which to establish myself in a small
retail business--preferably a candy store with an ice-cream parlor in
the rear. Then I took her to wife, not forgetting to reward Mr. Barton
handsomely in the day of his ruin. Dimly, in the background of this
hasty dramatization, the distrustful Mr. Hawley, who refused to share
the loan with Mr. Barton, figured as a rival for my love's hand; and
lived to hear her say that she hated, loathed, and despised him.

At recess the others crowded about her, girls at the centre, within a
straggling circumference of young males, who dissembled their gallantry
under a pretence of being mere brutal marauders.

But I, solitary, moped and gloomed in a far grassy corner of the school
yard. I could not be of that crowd, and it was then I perceived for the
first time that the world was too densely populated. I saw how much
better it would be if every one but she and I were dead. Thereupon, in a
breath, I dispeopled the earth of all but us two, and with the courage
gained of this solitude, I saw myself approach her there at the corner
of the old brick schoolhouse, greeting her with assurances that
everything was all right,--and then, after she understood what I had
done, and how fine it was, we came into our own. Alas, how bitter the
crude truth! Instead of this, those wondrous tassels now danced from her
boot tops as she gave chase to Solon Denney, who had pulled one of the
scarlet bows from its yellow braid. Grimly I was aware that he should
be the first to go out of the world, and I called upon a just heaven to
slay him as he fled with his trophy. But nothing sweet and fitting
happened. He went unblasted.

She came back to the group of girls, flushed and lovely beyond compare,
holding up the ravished end of that golden braid with a comic dismay,
while her despoiler laughed coarsely from a distance and pinned the
trophy to his coat lapel. I now saw that blasting was too merciful. He
should be removed by a slower process if the thing could as easily be
arranged.

That was a bitter recess, even though I learned her wonderful name and
the enchanted state "back East" from which she had come. A still more
bitter experience awaited me when we were again in the schoolroom. Miss
Berham, fastening a steely gaze upon Solon Denney, launched heaven upon
him from tightly drawn lips, without in the least meaning to do so.

"Solon Denney, you may return that ribbon at once to its owner!"

With a conscious smirk, amid the titters of the room and the sharp raps
of the ruler on Miss Berham's desk, Solon swaggered offensively to the
seat that enshrined my idol, and flung down the scarlet treasure before
her. She merely pushed the thing away, bending her head lower above her
book--pushed it away with a blind little hand, and with undiminished
bravado her despoiler returned, scathless of heaven's vengeance, to his
seat.

"And you may remain half an hour after school. The A-class, ready for
geography!"

Thus, lightly did our ruler turn from tragedy to comedy. For tragedy,
there was the look my queen lavished upon Solon when she heard his
sentence; a look of blushing merriment, with a maddening dash of pity in
it,--he was to suffer because of her.

"'Twas your beauty that made me do it," he might have quoted, with the
old result. How I longed for the jaunty lightness that would have let me
do a thing like that, tossing me fairly to the pinnacle of a public
association with her! But I, instead, moped alone, knowing well that the
gifts of graceful brigandage were not mine. Had _I_ snatched that
ribbon, there would have been tears and a mad outcry at my brutal
roughness.

Now came the lesson in geography. I had known it, had studied it
faithfully that morning. It treated of the state from which she had so
lately come. But, now, all knowledge of it fled me, save that on the map
it was a large, clumsy state, though yellow, the color of her hair. Was
it to be bounded like any cheaper state? Did it have principal products,
like Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and other ordinary states? Its color
was rightly golden; had it not produced her? But other products,--iron,
coal, wheat,--these were stuffs too base to fellow in the same mind with
her. Had it principal industries, like any red, or green, or blue state
on that pedantic map? I could no longer recall them. Formally confronted
with this problem, I muttered shamefully again that day in the valley
of Humiliation. There was, I knew, a picture at the top of the page in
which strong, rugged men toiled at various tasks; but the natures of
these had escaped me. Were they mining coal or building ships, catching
fish or ploughing furrows in God's green earth? Out of my darkness I
stammered, "Principal industries, agriculture and fish-building--"

"That will _do_, Calvin! You may remain after school to-night." I had
never less liked the way she said this, as if it were a boon at which I
would snatch, instead of a penalty imposed.

Solon Denney followed me, glibly enumerating the industries of a great
and busy state. But I could not listen. Phantom-like in my poor mind
floated a wordless conviction that, however it might once have been, the
state would immediately abandon its industries now that she had come
away from it. I beheld its considerable area desolated, the forges cold,
the hammers stilled, the fields overgrown, the ships rotting at their
docks, the stalwart mechanics drooping idly above their unfinished
tasks. It was not possible to suppose that any one could feel, in a
state which she had left, that interest which good work demands.

My disgrace brought me respite for fresh adventure. I was let alone. The
world could still be peopled; even Solon Denney might survive a little
time, for another picture in the same geography now reproduced itself in
my inflamed mind--the picture of a South Sea island, a sandy beach with
a few indolent natives lolling, negligent of tasks, in the shade of
cocoanut palms. Here, on the outer reef, I wrecked an excellent
steamship. Over the rail sprang a stalwart lad, not out of his teens,
with a lovely golden-haired girl in his arms. With strong, swift
strokes, he struck out for the beach, notwithstanding his burden. The
other passengers, a hazy and quite uninteresting lot, quickly went down;
all save one, a coarse, swaggering youth with too much self-possession
whom I need not name. He, too, sprang over the rail, but, nearing the
beach, a justly enraged providence intervened and he was bitten neatly
in two by a famished and adroit shark.

With some interest I watched his blood stain the lucid green waters, but
it was soon over. Then I bore my fainting burden to the dry sands and
revived her with cocoanut milk and breadfruit, while the natives crowded
respectfully about and made us their king and queen on the spot. We
lived there forever. How flat of sound were it to say that we lived
happily!

And yet I doubt if Solon Denney ever suspected me of aspiring to be his
rival. She, I think, knew it full well, in the way her sex knows matters
not communicated by act or word of mouth. And once, on the afternoon of
that day, a Friday, when we spoke pieces, I feared that Solon had found
me out. He was a fiery orator, and I felt on this occasion that he
delivered himself straight at me, with a very poorly veiled malignance.
Surely, it must be I that he meant, literally, when he thundered out,
"Sir, you are much mistaken if you think your talents have been as great
as your life has been reprehensible!" Fall upon me and upon me alone
seemed to flash his gaze.

"After a rank and clamorous opposition you became--all of a
sudden--silent; you were silent for seven years; you were silent on the
greatest questions--and you were silent _for money!_"

There could be no doubt, I thought, that he singled me from the
multitude of his auditors. It was I who had supported the unparalleled
profusion and jobbing of Lord Harcourt's scandalous ministry; I who had
manufactured stage thunder against Mr. Eden for his anti-American
principles--"You, sir, whom it pleases to chant a hymn to the immortal
Hampden--you, sir, approved of the tyranny exercised against America,
and you, sir, voted four thousand Irish troops to cut the throats of the
Americans."

Under the burden of this imputed ignominy, was it remarkable that I
faltered in my own piece immediately following?

  "The Warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire,
  And sued the haughty King to free his long imprisoned sire."


Not more foully was the blameless Don Sancho done to death than I upon
this Friday murdered the ballad that recounts his fate. And she, who had
hung breathless on Solon's denunciations of me, whispered chattily with
Eva McIntyre during my rendition of "Bernardo del Carpio."

Later events, however, convinced me that I swam never in Solon's ken as
a rival for her smiles. His own triumph was too easy, too widely
heralded. In the second week of her coming, was there not a rhyme
shouted on the playground, full in the hearing of both?


   "First the post and then the gate,
    Solon Denney and Lucy Tait."

Was not this followed by one more subtle, more pointed, more ribald?

   "Solon's mad and I'm glad,
    and I know what will please him;
    a bottle of wine to make him shine
    and Lucy Tait to tease him!"

I thought there was an inhuman, devilish deftness in the rhymes. The
mighty mechanism of English verse had been employed to proclaim my
remoteness from my love.

And yet the gods were once graciously good to me. One wondrous evening
before hope died utterly I survived the ordeal of walking home with her
from church.

She came with her aunt, uncle, and I present by the god's permission,
surmised that she might leave them and go to her own home alone when
church was out. Through that service I worshipped her golden braids and
the pink roses on her leghorn hat. And when they sang, "Praise God from
whom all blessings flow!" my voice soared fervently in the words, for I
had satisfied myself by much craning of the neck that Solon Denney was
not present. Even now the Doxology revives within me that mixed emotion
of relief at his absence and apprehension for the approaching encounter
with her.

She passed me at the portals of the house of a double worship, said good
night to aunt and uncle--and I was at her side.

"May I have the pleasure of seeing you home?"

She managed a timid "Certainly." her hand fluttered within my arm, and
my heart bounded forward like a freed race-horse. We walked!

Now it had been my occupation at quiet moments to devise conversation
against the time of this precise miracle. I had dreamt that it might
come to pass, even as it did, and I knew that talk for it should be
stored safely away. This talk had been the coinage of my leisure. As we
walked I would say, lightly,--"Do you like it here as well as you did
back East?"--or, still better, as sounding more chatty,--"How do you
like it here?"--an easy, masterful pause--"as well as you did back
East?" A thousand times had I rehearsed the inflections until they were
perfect. And now the time was come.

Whether I spoke at all or not until we reached her gate I have never
known. Dimly in my memory is a suggestion that when we passed Uncle
Jerry Honeycutt, I confided to her that he sent to Chicago for his
ear-trumpet and that it cost twelve dollars. If I did this, she must
have made a suitable response, though I retain nothing of it.

I only know that the sky was full of flaming meteors, that golden star
dust rained upon us from an applauding heaven, that the earth rocked
gently as we trod upon it.

Down the wonderful street we went, a strange street shimmering in mystic
light--and then I was opening her gate. I, afterward, decided that
surely at this moment, with the gate between us, I would have
remembered--superbly would I have said, "How do you like it here?--as
well as you did back East?"

But, two staring boys passed us, and one of them spoke thus:--

"There's Horsehead Blake--hello, Horsehead!"

"That ain't old Horsehead," said the other.

"'Tis, too--ain't that _you_, Horsehead?"

"How do you do, boys!" I answered loftily, and they passed on appeased.

"Do they call you Horsehead?" she asked.

"Oh, yes!" I replied brightly. "It's a funny name, isn't it?" and I
laughed murderously.

"Yes, it's very funny."

"Well, I'll have to be going now. Good night!"

"Good night!"

And she left me staring after her, the whole big world and its starry
heavens crying madly within me to be said to her.




CHAPTER IV


DREAMS AND WAKINGS

The incomparable Lucy Tait was still but a star to be adored in her
distant heaven when I went away from Little Arcady to learn some things
not taught in the faded brick schoolhouse. It was six years before I
came back; six years that I lived in a crowded place where people had no
easy ways nor front yards with geranium beds, nor knew enough of their
neighbors either to love or to hate them.

I came back to the Little Country a mannish being, learned in the law,
and with the right sort of laugh in my heart for the old school days,
for the simplicity of my boy's love.

But, there and then, with her old sweet want of pity, did she smite me
again. Through and through she smote the man as she had smitten the boy.
Treacherously it was, within my own citadel, at the very moment of my
coming. Gayly up the remembered path I went, under the flowering
horse-chestnut, to the little house standing back from the street, only
to find that, as of old, she blocked my way. She stood where the
pink-blossomed climber streamed up the columns of the little porch, and
her arm was twined among the strands to draw them to her face. She was
leaving,--but she had stayed too long; not the child with yellow braids,
humorously preserved in my memory, but a blossomed, a fruiting Eve, with
whilom braids massed high in a coronet, their gold a little tarnished.
Later it came to me to think that she was Spring, and had filched a crown
from Autumn. In that first glance, however, I could only wonder
instinctively if the tassels yet danced from her boot tops. I saw at
once that this might not any longer be known. One could only surmise
pleasantly. But straightway was I Atlas, stooping a little, rounding my
shoulders under the earth she deigned to walk upon.

And the disconcerting strangeness of it was in this: that though she was
no longer the woman child, yet with one flash of her gold-curtained eyes
had she reduced me to my ancient schoolboy clumsiness. She was a woman,
but, I was again an awkward, stammering boy, rebelliously declining to
believe that a state she had come away from could retain any
significance, industrial or otherwise. Nor, in the little time left to
us, did I ever achieve a condition higher than this.

Consciously I was a prince of lofty origin in her presence, but ever
unable to make known my excellencies of rank. It was as in a dream when
we must see evil approach without power to raise an averting hand.

She was Spring with a stolen crown of Autumn; and again, she was a
sherbet--sweet, fragrant, cold, and about to melt--but not for me. I
knew that.

I heard presently that she spoke well of me. She spoke of my having a
kind face--even the kindest face in the world.

"The _kindest, plainest_ face in the world," was her fashion of putting
it. And of course that made it hopeless, since, surely, no woman has
ever loved the kindest face she knew.

Only a fool would have hoped after this--and at least I never gave her
ground to call me that. Not even did I commit the folly of revealing my
need. She alone ever knew it, and she only in the way that the child had
known the schoolboy to gloom and rage afar in his passion for her. She
had no word of mine for it then, nor had she now, and I believe she felt
rather certain there never would be any. She seemed to be grateful for
this and doubly kind, with only now and then the flash of a knowing
look, or the trifle of a deep, swiftly questioning glance, born, I dare
say, of that curiosity which the devil contrives to kindle in God's most
angelic women.

Doubtless she had a little speech of refusal patted into kindliness for
me. Perhaps she would not have been wholly anguished to have me hear
this--to be able to assure me tenderly, graciously, of the depth and
pureness of her friendship for me. Who knows? I am older now, and things
once hidden are revealed. Sometimes I think that a certain new respect
for me grew within her as the days tried the metal of my silence--a
respect, but nothing more. Her appreciation of my face was too palpably
without those reservations that so often cry louder than words.

So we sealed our secret, she and I, in an unspoken pledge, and not even
Solon Denney, so keen of scent for rivals, ever divined it.

He called me out with the old boyish whistle the day he confided to me
the tremendous news of his engagement. He laughed, foolish with joy as
he told it, and I felt tingling in my arms that old boyish, brute
impulse to slay him for the wretched ease of his victory. But we were
men, so I thrust one of those rebellious arms in among the strands of
the creeper, where her own arm had once been, and laid the other on his
shoulder in all friendliness. This, while he rambled on of the bigness
of life, the great future before Arcady of the Little Country, the
importance of the _Argus_, which he had just founded, and the supreme
excellence of that splendid mechanism, the new Washington hand-press,
installed the week before.

His life was builded of these many interests, of her and himself and his
country and his town. In the fulness of his heart he even brought out
the latest _Argus_ and read parts from his obituary of Douglas, while I
stood stupidly striving to realize what I had long known must be true.

"A great man has fallen," he read, declaiming a little, as in our school
days. "Stephen A. Douglas is dead. The voice that so lately and
eloquently appealed to his countrymen is hushed in--"

How long he read is uncertain. But from moment to moment his tones would
call me back from visions, and I would vaguely hear that one was gone
who had warned his fellows against the pitfalls of political jealousy,
and bade all who loved their country band against those who would seek
to pluck a laurel from the wreath of our glorious confederacy.

But under visions I had made my resolve. Douglas was dead, but others
were living.

Two months before in a gray dawn, the walls of a fort in Charleston
Harbor had crumbled under fire from a score of rebel batteries. Now the
shots echoed in my ears with a new volume.

"Good luck, Solon--and good-by--I'm going 'on to Richmond.'"

"Oh, _that!_" said he, easily, "that will be over before you can get to
the front."

But I went, forthwith, and, triumphant lover though he was, the editor
of the _Little Arcady Argus_ was less than a prophet.

I went to the "little" war; and of her I carried, as I marched, an
ambrotype in a closed case, which I had obtained deviously. She smiled
in it, a little questioning, inciting smile, that seemed to lurk back in
her eyes rather than along her lips. It was the smile that had availed
to keep me firm in my vows of silence.

It was another picture I brought back five years later--the picture of a
young girl, not smiling but grave, even fearful, as if she had faced the
camera full of apprehension. But I knew her not; the thing had come to
me by chance, and I threw it aside to be forgotten.

It is best to tell quickly that those years were swift and full. Early
in the second a letter from Solon, read at a random camp-fire, told me
of my namesake's coming. For the other years I pleased myself
prodigiously by remembering that she must speak my name openly to her
first-born. And I lusted for battle, then. I was an early Norseman, and
I would escape the prosaic bed-death, since, for those dying thus, Held
waited in her chill prison-house below, with hunger her dish, starvation
her knife, care her bed, and anguish her curtains. To survive for easy
death, long deferred, perhaps, I should have my empty dish and bed of
care at once. Lacking the battle death, I could at least mimic it, as
they did of old, that Odin's choosers of the slain might lead me to
Valhalla. There should I forever fight at dawn and be healed at noon, if
wounded, to be ready for the feast and song. The world was not big
enough for us two if we must stay apart. Life was not to be lived in a
beggarly and ignoble compromise. War was its business, bravery its duty,
and cowardice its greatest crime--above all, that ultimate, puling
cowardice of accepting life empty for its own barren sake.

At the last I lay on a cot in a field hospital, entertained for the
moment by the novelty of that vacant, spacious feeling on my left
side--wondering if I could shave now with one arm--without another hand
to pull my face into hard little hummocks for the razor.

I heard the soft quick tread of a hospital steward, and standing before
me, he took from its envelope the letter Solon Denney had sent me to say
that she was dead. I handed it back, told him to burn it, and I shut my
eyes to the sickening shapes of life. My fever came up again, and in the
night I felt inch by inch over ground wet with blood for a picture I had
relinquished in a Quixotic moment. I must have been troublesome, for
they gave me the drug of dreams and I awakened peacefully. I watched the
field surgeons gather about a young line officer brought in with a shot
through his neck. For the better probing of the wound they removed his
head and gave it to me to hold. Seeing that it was Solon Denney's head,
I was seized with a mood of jest--I would hide it and make Solon search.
I advanced craftily down an endless corridor, but came to the edge of a
wood, where there was a wicked spitting of shots. I cried out again, and
once more they gave me the drug. Then I dreamed more quietly. I saw that
the soul of my dead arm searched for her soul--that it would soon be
drawn to her and offer itself to comfort her and never, never leave her.
It would say, "At least take the arm, since you may have it without the
face." It seemed that my other arm should go to her, too. This side of
her there could be nothing for either to close upon. It appeared to me
that I fell asleep on this fancy and dreamt that I awoke painfully to a
poor, one-sided life, effortless, barren, forbidding.

A year later I went back to the Little Country to be counsellor at law
to its people in time of need, and a father to Solon Denney and his two
children. Solon could direct large affairs acceptably, but he and his
babes were as thistle-down in a prairie wind.

He brought the children to visit me the first day that I came home--to a
home where I was now to live alone.

I sat on the little porch above the river bank, by the wall of
blossoming creeper whose tendrils she had once embraced, bringing her
cheek intrepidly against the blossoms of that year, and saw him come
slowly up the path. He seemed so sadly alone because of the two little
creatures that followed him.

I placed a chair for Solon and was confronted by my namesake.

"Did they shoot your arm off in the war?" he asked.

"Yes, in the war."

He patted the empty sleeve, and his eyes beamed with discovery.

"What did you have your sleeve rolled up for when your arm was shot?"

I made plain to him the mystery of the whole sleeve.

"She often spoke of you," said Solon. "She seemed to think you would
like to be a help to us if you could."

I turned to greet the woman child, but she had strayed into the house. I
heard her shouts from my bedroom. Then she came running to us, cooing in
helpless joy.

"Candy--candy--Uncle Maje--lovely candy--all pink and dusty."

Well over a face set with the mother's eyes was spilled that which she
had clutched and eaten of,--a thing pink and dusty, in truth, but which
was not candy.

"She does those things constantly," said the dejected father. "I don't
see what I can do to her."

I saw, however, and did it, first wiping the tooth-powder from her face.
She had called me Uncle Maje.

"She's a regular baddix," announced my namesake, gravely judicial. Then,
as if with intention to indicate delicately that the family afforded
striking contrasts, he added, "_I_ ain't a baddix--I can nearly sing."

The children fribbled about us while we talked away the afternoon. The
woman child at last put me to thinking--to thinking that perhaps
butterflies are not meant to be happily caught. With many shouts she had
clumsily enough imprisoned one--a fairy thing of green and bronze--in a
hand so plump that it seemed to have been quilted. A moment she held it,
then set it free, perhaps for its lack of spirit. It crawled and
fluttered up the vine, trailing a crumpled wing most sadly, and I took
it for my lesson. Assuredly they were not to be caught with any
profit--at least not brutally in an eager hand. Brush them ever so
lightly and the bloom is off the wings. They are to be watched in their
pretty flitting, loved only in their freedom and from afar, with no
clumsy reachings. That was a good thing to know in any world.

The _Argus_ announced my home-coming with a fine flourish of my title in
Solon's best style. It said that I had come back to take up the practice
of the law. Not even Solon knew that I had come back to the memory of
her.

This is how it befell that I was presently engrossed to outward seeming
with the affairs of Little Arcady--even to the extent of a casual Potts,
and those blessed contingencies that were later to unfold from him. Thus
I took my allotted place and the years began.




CHAPTER V


A MAD PRANK OF THE GODS

A week after the publication of that blithe bit of acrimony which opens
this tale, Colonel J. Rodney Potts, recreated and natty in a new summer
suit of alpaca, his hat freshly ironed, sued the town of Little Arcady
for ten thousand dollar damages to his person and announced his
candidacy at the ensuing election for the honorable office of Judge of
Slocum County. He did this at the earnest solicitation of his many
friends, in whose hands he had placed himself,--at least so read his
card of announcement in the _Banner_, our other paper. He did not name
these solicitous friends; but it was an easy suspicion that they were
the Democratic leaders, who thought by this means to draw votes from the
Republican candidate to the advantage of their own, who, otherwise, was
conceded to have no hope of election in a county overwhelmingly
Republican.

It may be told with adequate confidence that Westley Keyts was not of
their number. As to the damage suit, Westley found it unthinkable that
Potts could deteriorate ten thousand dollars worth and still walk the
earth. Indeed, he believed, and uttered a few rough words to express it,
that ten dollars would be an excessive valuation even if Potts were
utterly destroyed.

Being an earnest soul, Westley had taken the Potts affair very
seriously. He made it a point to encounter the Colonel on an early day
and to address him on Main Street in tones that lacked the least
affectation of suavity or diplomatic guile. He had seen diplomacy tried
and found wretchedly wanting. He would have no more of it ever. Like the
straightaway man he was, he went to the meat of the matter.

"You squandered that hundred dollars we give you to git out of town on,"
he burst forth to Potts, breathing with an ominous difficulty.

"You just wait till you hear the worst of it," answered Potts, as he
confidingly dusted the shoulder of Westley's coat. "The worst of it is I
had over twelve dollars of my own money that I'd saved up--you know how
hard it is to save money in these little towns--well, that went, too,
_every cent of it!_"

It was admitted by witnesses competent to form an opinion that Westley's
contorted face, his troubled breathing, his manner of stepping back, and
the curious writhing of his stout arms, all encouraged a supposition
that he might be contemplating immediate violence upon the person of
Potts. At all events, this view was taken by the aggrieved and puzzled
Colonel, who fled through the Boston Cash Store and, by means of a rear
exit from that emporium, gained the office of Truman Baird, Justice of
the Peace, where he swore to a legal document which averred that "the
said Jonas R. Potts" was "in fear of immediate and great bodily harm,
which he has reasonable cause to believe will be inflicted upon him by
the said Westley Keyts."

The majesty of the law being thus invoked, Westley was put under a good
and sufficient bond to refrain from "in any manner of attacking or
molesting the said Potts, against the statutes therein made and
provided, and against the peace and dignity of the State of Illinois."

A proceeding so official somewhat dampened the fires of Mr. Keyts. He
was a citizen, law-abiding by intention, with a patriot's esteem for
government. It had merely not occurred to him that the summary
extinction of Potts could be a performance at all incompatible with the
peace and dignity of the great commonwealth to which he was at heart
loyal. Being convinced otherwise, he abode grimly by the statutes
therein made and provided. Nevertheless he returned to his shop and
proceeded to cut up a quarter of beef with an energy of concentration
and a ruthlessness of fury that caused Potts to shudder as he passed the
door sometime later. By such demeanor, also, were the bondsmen of
Westley--the first flush of their righteous enthusiasm faded--greatly
disturbed. They agreed that he ought to be watched closely by day, and
they even debated the wisdom of sitting up nights with him for a time,
turn by turn. But their charge dissuaded them from this precaution. He
expended his first vicious fury usefully upon his stock in trade, with
knife and saw and cleaver, and thereafter he was but petulant or
sarcastic.

"I had the right of it," he insisted. "The only way to do with a person
like him was to git your feathers and your kittle of tar cooked up all
nice and gooey and git Potts on the ground and _make a believer of him_
right there and then!" This he followed by his pointed reflection upon
the administrative talents of Solon Denney--"A hand of mush in a glove
of the _same_!" When listeners were not by, he would mutter it to
himself in sinister gutturals.

Nor was he alone in this spirit of dissatisfaction with Solon. The
too-trustful editor of the _Argus_ was frankly derided. He was a Boss at
whom they laughed openly. They waited, however, with interest for the
subsequent issues of this paper.

The _Banner_ that week contained the following bit of news:--

=DASTARDLY ASSAULT IN BROAD DAYLIGHT=

=Early last Thursday evening, as Colonel J. Rodney Potts, dean of the
Slocum County bar, was enjoying a quiet stroll along our beautiful river
bank near Cady's mill, he was set upon by a gang of ruffians and would
have been foully dealt with but for his vigorous resistance. Being a man
of splendid proportions and a giant's strength, the Colonel was making
gallant headway against the cowardly miscreants when his foot slipped
and he was precipitated into the chilling waters of the mill-race at a
point where the city fathers have allowed it to remain uncovered. Seeing
their victim plunged into a watery grave, as they thought, the thugs
took to their heels. The Colonel extricated himself from his perilous
plight, by dint of herculean strength, and started to pursue them, but
they had disappeared from sight in the vicinity of Crowder & Fancett's
lumber yard. Things have come to a pretty pass, we must say, if such a
dastardly outrage as this should be allowed to go unpunished. Now that
Colonel Potts has brought suit against the city we suppose the council
will have that mill-race covered. We have repeatedly warned them about
this. We wonder if they ever heard a well-known saying about "locking
the stable door after horse is stolen," etc.=

=The card of Colonel Potts, printed elsewhere in this issue, is a
sufficient refutation of the malicious gossip that has been handed back
and forth lately that he had planned to leave Little Arcady. It looks
now like certain busybodies in this community had over-stepped
themselves and been hoisted up by their own petard. The Colonel is a
fine man for County Judge, and we bespeak for him the suffrages of every
voter who wants an honest judiciary.=

Westley Keyts, reading this, wanted to know what a petard was. Inquiry
disclosed that he hoped it might be something that could be used upon
Potts to the advantage of almost every one concerned. But in the minds
of others of us an agonized suspicion now took form. Had the letters
been upon Potts when he went down? Had they been saved? Were they
legible? And would he use them?

It was decided that Solon Denney should try to illuminate this point
before taking the candidacy of Potts seriously. In the next issue of the
_Argus_, therefore, was this paragraph, meant to be provocative:--

=God's providence has been said to watch over fools and drunkards. We
guess this is so; and that the pretensions of a certain individual in
our midst to its watchfulness in the double capacity indicated can no
longer be in doubt.=

These lines did their work. The next _Banner_ spoke of a foul
conspiracy whose nefarious end it was to blacken the sterling character
of a good man, of that Nestor of the Slocum County Bar, Colonel J.
Rodney Potts. As testimony that the best citizens of the town were not
involved with this infamous ring, it had extorted from Colonel Potts his
consent to print certain letters from these gentlemen setting forth the
Colonel's surpassing virtues in no uncertain terms--letters which his
innate modesty had shrunk from making public, until goaded to
desperation by the hell-hounds of a corrupt and subsidized opposition.

The letters followed in a terrific sequence--a series of laudations
which the Chevalier Bayard need not have scorned to evoke.

Then we waited for Solon, but he was rather disappointing. Said the next
_Argus_:--

=We have heretofore considered J.R. Potts to possess the anti-social
instincts of a parasite without its moderate spirit of enterprise. But
we were wrong. We now concede the spirit of enterprise. As for this
candidacy of Potts, Horace Greeley once said, commenting, we think, on
some action of Weed's, "I like cool things, of ordinary dimensions--an
iceberg or a glacier; but this arctic circle of coagulation appalls
credulity and paralyzes indignation. Hence my numbness!" Hence, also,
our own numbness. But, though Speech lieth prone on a paralytic's couch,
ACTION is hearty and stalketh willingly abroad. In this campaign it will
speak louder than words. Yea! it will be heard high above Noah Webster's
entire assemblage of such of them as are decent. That is all! J.R.P.,
_take notice!_=

It was jaunty enough, but Potts had unquestionably gained a following.
Indeed he had ably cemented the foundations of one by his magnificent
hospitality on that day of days. His whilom serfs were men not easily
offended by faults of taste, and they were voters. To a man they came
out strongly for Potts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER VI


A MATTER OF PERSONAL PROPERTY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked upon me with troubled, grave eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Then what?"

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

Again he stopped to see visions.

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

The last was a pointed reference to the Colonel.

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER VII


"A WORLD OF FINE FABLING"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I shuddered fittingly at the violence of her speech.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I know worse than that--Dut!"

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

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

"Dut is--is _a_ Dut," she answered, somewhat abashed by my want of
enthusiasm.

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

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

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

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

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

"Gamboge," he reminded me, brightly.

"Never mind saying it again!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What's _that_?" she exclaimed sharply, listening again. Then, with
dignity, "Well, if you _don't_ hurry, I'll have to come right in there
and see to you this minute!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I know it," I said quietly.

"Won't it be just fine!"

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

He gave me a quick look of sympathy.

"Wouldn't they let you?"

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

"Off the left hand," he suggested understandingly.

"Of course,--off the left hand."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I don't care--(_a sniff_)--when I'm rich, I'll go to Budd's for an
up-to-date dinner, you bet--(_a snuffle_)--I'll probably go there every
day of my life--(_two snuffles_)--yes, sir--Sundays and all!"

I cheered him as best I could.

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

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

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




CHAPTER VIII


ADVENTURE OF BILLY DURGIN, SLEUTH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A clew to what?"

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

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

"All's fair in love and war."

"Is it really war?"

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

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

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

"Nonsense! But what can Billy Durgin do?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But the graveyard at midnight!"

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

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

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

"Won't this do, Billy?"

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

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

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

"Are you armed?"

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

"Then follow me, but at a distance!"

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

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

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

"Indeed?" we asked.

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

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

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

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

He waited for this to move us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solon brightened wonderfully.

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

"But what _did_ he do?"

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

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

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

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

"My lamp's went out--_darn_ these matches!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER IX


HOW THE BOSS SAVED HIMSELF

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is it true?" I asked.

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

"Well--what of it?"

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

The gallant young detective turned from the window.

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

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

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

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

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

He paused in his walk and lowered his voice impressively.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How?" said Big Joe.

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

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

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

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

Across the top of the _Banner's_ first page was its campaign slogan as
usual:--

"POTTS FOREVER! POTTS THE COMING MAN!"

Across the top of the _Argus_ in similar type ran the pregnant line:--

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




CHAPTER X


A LADY OF POWERS

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What kind of powers?"

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

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

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

"For example--"

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

I gasped. This indeed savored of the blackest magic.

"What did she _do_ to you?"

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

"Heavens! You're shivering!"

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

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

Again his deeply thoughtful gaze bore upon me.

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

"Did she say so?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Very good--_ver-ry_ good--but for the present you may _listen_. Now,
Mr. Denney--" she turned to Solon with the latest _Argus_ in her
hand,--"perusing your sheet, my eye lights upon this sentence:--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shame mantled the brow of Solon Denney.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER XI


HOW LITTLE ARCADY WAS UPLIFTED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eustace followed with a solo:--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again, Westley Keyts could read how to cut up meats. He knew already,
but this chapter, illustrated with neat carcasses marked off into
numbered squares, convinced him that the book was not so light as some
of its other chapters indicated, and determined him to its purchase.

And there were letters for every conceivable emergency. "To a Young Man
who has quarrelled with his Master," "Dismissing a Teacher," "Inquiry
for Lost Baggage," "With a Basket of Fruit to an Invalid," and "To a
Gentleman elected to Congress." Rare indeed, in our earth life, would be
the crisis unmet by this treasury of knowledge. Not only was there an
elevation of tone in our correspondence that winter, resulting from the
persuasive activities of Mrs. Potts, but our writing became decorative
with flourishes in "the muscular" and "whole-arm" movements. We learned
to draw flying birds and bounding deer and floating swans with scrolls
in their beaks, all without lifting pen from paper. Some of us learned
to do it almost as well as the accomplished Mr. Gaskell himself, and
almost all of us showed marked improvement in penmanship. Doubtless
Truman Baird did not, he being engrossed with oratory, striving to
reproduce, "Hate--the right foot advanced, the face turned to the sky,
the gaze directed upward with a fierce expression, the eyes full of a
baleful light," or other phases of passion duly set down. Not for
Truman was the ornate full-arm flourish; he had observed that all
Congressmen write very badly.

But my namesake may be said to have laid the foundations that winter for
an excellent running chirography, under the combined stimuli of Mr.
Gaskell's curves and a hopeless passion for his school-teacher.

As my own teacher had been my own first love, I knew all that he
suffered in voiceless longing for his fair one, throned afar in his
languishing gaze. I knew that he plucked flowers meant to be given to
her, only to lay them carelessly on the floor beside his seat when
school "took in," lacking the courage to bestow them brazenly upon his
idol as others did. I knew, too, his thrill when she came straight down
the aisle, took up the flowers with a glance of sweet reproof for him,
and nested them in the largest vase on her desk. But my poor affair had
been in an earlier day, and my namesake wove novelty into the woof of
his. For in that wonder-book of the fertile-minded Gaskell was a form of
letter which Calvin Blake Denney began to copy early in December, and
which by the following spring he could write in a style that already put
my own poor penning to the blush. Did he write it a hundred times or
five hundred, moved anew each time by its sweet potencies, its rarest of
suggestions? I know not, but it must have been very many times, for I
would find the copies in his school books, growing in beauty of
flourish day by day. As well as if he had confessed it I knew that this
letter was intended for the father of his love--for old Sam Murdock, to
be literal, who uncouthly performed for us the offices of drayman; but
who, in my namesake's eyes, shone pure and splendid for his
relationship. Doubtless the letter was never sent, but I am sure it was
written each time with an iron resolve to send it. Its title in the
excellent book was "From a Lover to a Father on his Attachment to the
Daughter," and it ran:--

=DEAR SIR: As I scorn to act in any manner that may bring
reproach upon myself and family, and hold clandestine proceedings
unbecoming in any man of character, I take the liberty of distinctly
avowing my love for your daughter and humbly request your permission to
pay her my addresses, as I flatter myself my family and expectancies
will be found not unworthy of your notice. I have some reason to imagine
that I am not altogether disagreeable to your daughter, but I assure you
that I have not as yet endeavored to win her affections, for fear it
might be repugnant to a father's will. I am, etc.=

Under this was provided "A Favorable Answer," in which Sam Murdock might
have said that he had long perceived this thing and applauded it, and
would the young man "dine with us to-morrow at six if you are not
engaged, and you will then have an opportunity to plead your own cause."
But chillingly after this graceful assent followed an "Unfavorable
Answer," which Sam Murdock would also see when he opened the book at
page 251; and still more portentously on the same page was a letter
which Miss Selina Murdock herself might choose to write him, a sickening
and dreadful thing entitled, "Unfavorable Reply on the Ground of
Poverty."

"To say that I do not feel pleased and flattered at your proposal would
be to tell a useless untruth," the thing began speciously. "But how are
we situated, what hope of happiness with our unsettled prospects and
worse than small means? Industry has doubtless never been and never will
be wanting on your part, but--" and so to its dreadful end. It was
almost base in its coldness and mercenary calculation. That phrase about
the "useless untruth" implied even a dubious and considering morality;
and the conclusion, "we must not entail misery upon others as well as
ourselves by a too hasty step," argued a nature cautious in the extreme.

Yet Mr. Gaskell was too evidently a man of the world, knowing in his
ripe experience that there existed a sufficient number of such cold
natures to warrant the obtrusion of this heart-rending formula; and I
doubt not that these negative specimens of the possible alone restrained
my namesake from going beyond mere copies of that first letter.

It will be seen that the influence of Mrs. Potts pervaded our utmost
social and commercial limits. And when the "Compendium" had become a
centre-table ornament in the homes of the rich, and a bulky object of awe
in humbler abodes, she went over the ground again with other volumes
calculated to serve her double purpose, from "Dr. Chase's Receipt Book"
to "Picturesque Italy, profusely Illustrated." She also purveyed a line
of "art-pieces," including "Wide Awake and Fast Asleep," "The Monarch of
the Glen," "Woman Gathering Fagots," and "Retreat from Moscow." Also,
little Roscoe, out of school hours, took subscriptions for the _Youth's
Companion_.

Yet the town long bore it with a gentle fortitude. I believe it was not
until the following spring that murmurs were really noticeable.
Naturally they were directed against Solon Denney. By that time Westley
Keyts was greeting Solon morosely, though without open cavil; but Asa
Bundy no longer hesitated to speak out. He quoted Scripture to Solon
about the house that was swept and garnished, and the seven other wicked
spirits that entered it, making its last state worse than its first.

And of course Solon was much troubled by this, though he never failed to
rally to the support of the lady thus maligned, dwelling upon the
advantage her mere presence must always be to the town.

"If she'd only let it go at that--'her mere presence'--" rejoined Bundy.
But Solon protested, defending the lady's activities. He became
sensitive to any mention of her name, and fell to brooding. He believed
her to be a model woman, and little Roscoe to be a model boy.

"Why don't you try to be more like Roscoe Potts?" I heard him ask his
son in a moment of reproof.

My namesake took it meekly; but to me, privately, he said:--

"Hunh! I can lick Ginger Potts with one hand tied behind me!"

"How do you know?" I asked sternly.

He wriggled somewhat at this, but at length confided in me.

"Well, there's a sell, you know, Uncle Maje. You say, 'They're goin' to
tear the schoolhouse down,' or something like that, and the other boy
says, 'What fur?' and then you say, quick as you can, 'Cat-fur to make
kitten britches of,' and then we all laugh and yell, and I caught Ginger
Potts on it, and he got mad when we yelled and come at me, and they

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