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The Magic Egg, and Other Stories

by Frank R. Stockton · English · Gutenberg #429 · 440,618 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Magic Egg, and Other Stories

Author: Frank R. Stockton


        
Release date: February 1, 1996 [eBook #429]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/429


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAGIC EGG, AND OTHER STORIES ***









THE MAGIC EGG

AND OTHER STORIES


BY

FRANK R. STOCKTON




CONTENTS


  THE MAGIC EGG
  "HIS WIFE'S DECEASED SISTER"
  THE WIDOW'S CRUISE
  CAPTAIN ELI'S BEST EAR
  LOVE BEFORE BREAKFAST
  THE STAYING POWER OF SIR ROHAN
  A PIECE OF RED CALICO
  THE CHRISTMAS WRECK
  MY WELL AND WHAT CAME OUT OF IT
  MR. TOLMAN
  MY UNWILLING NEIGHBOR
  OUR ARCHERY CLUB




THE MAGIC EGG

The pretty little theatre attached to the building of the Unicorn Club
had been hired for a certain January afternoon by Mr. Herbert Loring,
who wished to give therein a somewhat novel performance, to which he
had invited a small audience consisting entirely of friends and
acquaintances.

Loring was a handsome fellow about thirty years old, who had travelled
far and studied much.  He had recently made a long sojourn in the far
East, and his friends had been invited to the theatre to see some of
the wonderful things he had brought from that country of wonders.  As
Loring was a club-man, and belonged to a family of good social
standing, his circle of acquaintances was large, and in this circle a
good many unpleasant remarks had been made regarding the proposed
entertainment--made, of course, by the people who had not been invited
to be present.  Some of the gossip on the subject had reached Loring,
who did not hesitate to say that he could not talk to a crowd, and that
he did not care to show the curious things he had collected to people
who would not thoroughly appreciate them.  He had been very particular
in regard to his invitations.

At three o'clock on the appointed afternoon nearly all the people who
had been invited to the Unicorn Theatre were in their seats.  No one
had stayed away except for some very good reason, for it was well known
that if Herbert Loring offered to show anything it was worth seeing.

About forty people were present, who sat talking to one another, or
admiring the decoration of the theatre.  As Loring stood upon the
stage--where he was entirely alone, his exhibition requiring no
assistants--he gazed through a loophole in the curtain upon a very
interesting array of faces.  There were the faces of many men and women
of society, of students, of workers in various fields of thought, and
even of idlers in all fields of thought; but there was not one which
indicated a frivolous or listless disposition.  The owners of those
faces had come to see something, and they wished to see it.

For a quarter of an hour after the time announced for the opening of
the exhibition Loring peered through the hole in the curtain, and then,
although all the people he had expected had not arrived, he felt it
would not do for him to wait any longer.  The audience was composed of
well-bred and courteous men and women, but despite their polite
self-restraint Loring could see that some of them were getting tired of
waiting.  So, very reluctantly, and feeling that further delay was
impossible, he raised the curtain and came forward on the stage.

Briefly he announced that the exhibition would open with some fireworks
he had brought from Corea.  It was plain to see that the statement that
fireworks were about to be set off on a theatre stage, by an amateur,
had rather startled some of the audience, and Loring hastened to
explain that these were not real fireworks, but that they were
contrivances made of colored glass, which were illuminated by the
powerful lens of a lantern which was placed out of sight, and while the
apparent pyrotechnic display would resemble fireworks of strange and
grotesque designs, it would be absolutely without danger.  He brought
out some little bunches of bits of colored glass, hung them at some
distance apart on a wire which was stretched across the stage just high
enough for him to reach it, and then lighted his lantern, which he
placed in one of the wings, lowered all the lights in the theatre, and
began his exhibition.

As Loring turned his lantern on one of the clusters of glass lenses,
strips, and points, and, unseen himself, caused them to move by means
of long cords attached, the effects were beautiful and marvellous.
Little wheels of colored fire rapidly revolved, miniature rockets
appeared to rise a few feet and to explode in the air, and while all
the ordinary forms of fireworks were produced on a diminutive scale,
there were some effects that were entirely novel to the audience.  As
the light was turned successively upon one and another of the clusters
of glass, sometimes it would flash along the whole line so rapidly that
all the various combinations of color and motion seemed to be combined
in one, and then for a time each particular set of fireworks would
blaze, sparkle, and coruscate by itself, scattering particles of
colored light as if they had been real sparks of fire.

This curious and beautiful exhibition of miniature pyrotechnics was
extremely interesting to the audience, who gazed upward with rapt and
eager attention at the line of wheels, stars, and revolving spheres.
So far as interest gave evidence of satisfaction, there was never a
better satisfied audience.  At first there had been some hushed murmurs
of pleasure, but very soon the attention of every one seemed so
completely engrossed by the dazzling display that they simply gazed in
silence.

For twenty minutes or longer the glittering show went on, and not a
sign of weariness or inattention was made by any one of the assembled
company.  Then gradually the colors of the little fireworks faded, the
stars and wheels revolved more slowly, the lights in the body of the
theatre were gradually raised, and the stage curtain went softly down.

Anxiously, and a little pale, Herbert Loring peered through the
loophole in the curtain.  It was not easy to judge of the effects of
his exhibition, and he did not know whether or not it had been a
success.  There was no applause, but, on the other hand, there was no
signs that any one resented the exhibition as a childish display of
colored lights.  It was impossible to look upon that audience without
believing that they had been thoroughly interested in what they had
seen, and that they expected to see more.

For two or three minutes Loring gazed through his loophole, and then,
still with some doubt in his heart, but with a little more color in his
checks, he prepared for the second part of his performance.

At this moment there entered the theatre, at the very back of the
house, a young lady.  She was handsome and well dressed, and as she
opened the door--Loring had employed no ushers or other assistants in
this little social performance--she paused for a moment and looked into
the theatre, and then noiselessly stepped to a chair in the back row
and sat down.

This was Edith Starr, who, a month before, had been betrothed to
Herbert Loring.  Edith and her mother had been invited to this
performance, and front seats had been reserved for them, for each guest
had received a numbered card.  But Mrs. Starr had a headache, and could
not go out that afternoon, and for a time her daughter had thought that
she, too, must give up the pleasure Loring had promised her, and stay
with her mother.  But when the elder lady dropped into a quiet sleep,
Edith thought that, late as it was, she would go by herself, and see
what she could of the performance.

She was quite certain that if her presence were known to Loring he
would stop whatever he was doing until she had been provided with a
seat which he thought suitable for her, for he had made a point of her
being properly seated when he gave the invitations.  Therefore, being
equally desirous of not disturbing the performance and of not being
herself conspicuous, she sat behind two rather large men, where she
could see the stage perfectly well, but where she herself would not be
likely to be seen.

In a few moments the curtain rose, and Loring came forward, carrying a
small, light table, which he placed near the front of the stage, and
for a moment stood quietly by it.  Edith noticed upon his face the
expression of uncertainty and anxiety which had not yet left it.
Standing by the side of the table, and speaking very slowly, but so
clearly that his words could be heard distinctly in all parts of the
room, he began some introductory remarks regarding the second part of
his performance.

"The extraordinary, and I may say marvellous, thing which I am about to
show you," he said, "is known among East Indian magicians as the magic
egg.  The exhibition is a very uncommon one, and has seldom been seen
by Americans or Europeans, and it was by a piece of rare good fortune
that I became possessed of the appliances necessary for this
exhibition.  They are indeed very few and simple, but never before, to
the best of my knowledge and belief, have they been seen outside of
India.

"I will now get the little box which contains the articles necessary
for this magical performance, and I will say that if I had time to tell
you of the strange and amazing adventure which resulted in my
possession of this box, I am sure you would be as much interested in
that as I expect you to be in the contents of the box.  But in order
that none of you may think this is an ordinary trick, executed by means
of concealed traps or doors, I wish you to take particular notice of
this table, which is, as you see, a plain, unpainted pine table, with
nothing but a flat top, and four straight legs at the corners.  You can
see under and around it, and it gives no opportunity to conceal
anything." Then, standing for a few moments as if he had something else
to say, he turned and stepped toward one of the wings.

Edith was troubled as she looked at her lover during these remarks.
Her interest was great, greater, indeed, than that of the people about
her, but it was not a pleasant interest.  As Loring stopped speaking,
and looked about him, there was a momentary flush on his face.  She
knew this was caused by excitement, and she was pale from the same
cause.

Very soon Loring came forward, and stood by the table.

"Here is the box," he said, "of which I spoke, and as I hold it up I
think you all can see it.  It is not large, being certainly not more
than twelve inches in length and two deep, but it contains some very
wonderful things.  The outside of this box is covered with delicate
engraving and carving which you cannot see, and these marks and lines
have, I think, some magical meaning, but I do not know what it is.  I
will now open the box and show you what is inside.  The first thing I
take out is this little stick, not thicker than a lead-pencil, but
somewhat longer, as you see.  This is a magical wand, and is covered
with inscriptions of the same character as those on the outside of the
box.  The next thing is this little red bag, well filled, as you see,
which I shall put on the table, for I shall not yet need it.

"Now I take out a piece of cloth which is folded into a very small
compass, but as I unfold it you will perceive that it is more than a
foot square, and is covered with embroidery.  All those strange lines
and figures in gold and red, which you can plainly see on the cloth as
I hold it up, are also characters in the same magic language as those
on the box and wand.  I will now spread the cloth on the table, and
then take out the only remaining thing in the box, and this is nothing
in the world but an egg--a simple, ordinary hen's egg, as you all see
as I hold it up.  It may be a trifle larger than an ordinary egg, but
then, after all, it is nothing but a common egg--that is, in
appearance.  In reality it is a good deal more.

"Now I will begin the performance."  And as he stood by the back of the
table, over which he had been slightly bending, and threw his eyes over
the audience, his voice was stronger, and his face had lost all its
pallor.  He was evidently warming up with his subject.

"I now take up this wand," he said, "which, while I hold it, gives me
power to produce the phenomena which you are about to behold.  You may
not all believe that there is any magic whatever about this little
performance, and that it is all a bit of machinery; but whatever you
may think about it, you shall see what you shall see.

"Now with this wand I gently touch this egg which is lying on the
square of cloth.  I do not believe you can see what has happened to
this egg, but I will tell you.  There is a little line, like a hair,
entirely around it.  Now that line has become a crack.  Now you can see
it, I know.  It grows wider and wider!  Look!  The shell of the egg is
separating in the middle.  The whole egg slightly moves.  Do you notice
that?  Now you can see something yellow showing itself between the two
parts of the shell.  See!  It is moving a good deal, and the two halves
of the shell are separating more and more.  And now out tumbles this
queer little object.  Do you see what it is?  It is a poor, weak,
little chick, not able to stand, but alive--alive!  You can all
perceive that it is alive.  Now you can see that it is standing on its
feet, feebly enough, but still standing.

"Behold, it takes a few steps!  You cannot doubt that it is alive, and
came out of that egg.  It is beginning to walk about over the cloth.
Do you notice that it is picking the embroidery?  Now, little chick, I
will give you something to eat.  This little red bag contains grain, a
magical grain, with which I shall feed the chicken.  You must excuse my
awkwardness in opening the bag, as I still hold the wand; but this
little stick I must not drop.  See, little chick, there are some
grains!  They look like rice, but, in fact, I have no idea what they
are.  But he knows, he knows!  Look at him!  See how he picks it up!
There!  He has swallowed one, two, three.  That will do, little chick,
for a first meal.

"The grain seems to have strengthened him already, for see how lively
he is, and how his yellow down stands out on him, so puffy and warm!
You are looking for some more grain, are you?  Well, you cannot have it
just yet, and keep away from those pieces of eggshell, which, by the
way, I will put back into the box.  Now, sir, try to avoid the edge of
the table, and, to quiet you, I will give you a little tap on the back
with my wand.  Now, then, please observe closely.  The down which just
now covered him has almost gone.  He is really a good deal bigger, and
ever so much uglier.  See the little pin-feathers sticking out over
him!  Some spots here and there are almost bare, but he is ever so much
more active.  Ha!  Listen to that!  He is so strong that you can hear
his beak as he pecks at the table.  He is actually growing bigger and
bigger before our very eyes!  See that funny little tail, how it begins
to stick up, and quills are showing at the end of his wings.

"Another tap, and a few more grains.  Careful, sir!  Don't tear the
cloth!  See how rapidly he grows!  He is fairly covered with feathers,
red and black, with a tip of yellow in front.  You could hardly get
that fellow into an ostrich egg!  Now, then, what do you think of him?
He is big enough for a broiler, though I don't think any one would want
to take him for that purpose.  Some more grain, and another tap from my
wand.  See!  He does not mind the little stick, for he has been used to
it from his very birth.  Now, then, he is what you would call a good
half-grown chick.  Rather more than half grown, I should say.  Do you
notice his tail?  There is no mistaking him for a pullet.  The long
feathers are beginning to curl over already.  He must have a little
more grain.  Look out, sir, or you will be off the table!  Come back
here!  This table is too small for him, but if he were on the floor you
could not see him so well.

"Another tap.  Now see that comb on the top of his head; you scarcely
noticed it before, and now it is bright red.  And see his spurs
beginning to show--on good thick legs, too.  There is a fine young
fellow for you!  Look how he jerks his head from side to side, like the
young prince of a poultry-yard, as he well deserves to be!"

The attentive interest which had at first characterized the audience
now changed to excited admiration and amazement.  Some leaned forward
with mouths wide open.  Others stood up so that they could see better.
Ejaculations of astonishment and wonder were heard on every side, and a
more thoroughly fascinated and absorbed audience was never seen.

"Now, my friends," Loring continued, "I will give this handsome fowl
another tap.  Behold the result--a noble, full-grown cock!  Behold his
spurs!  They are nearly an inch long!  See, there is a comb for you!
And what a magnificent tail of green and black, contrasting so finely
with the deep red of the rest of his body!  Well, sir, you are truly
too big for this table.  As I cannot give you more room, I will set you
up higher.  Move over a little, and I will set this chair on the table.
There!  Upon the seat!  That's right, but don't stop.  There is the
back, which is higher yet!  Up with you!  Ha!  There, he nearly upset
the chair, but I will hold it.  See!  He has turned around.  Now, then,
look at him.  See his wings as he flaps them!  He could fly with such
wings.  Look at him!  See that swelling breast!  Ha, ha!  Listen!  Did
you ever hear a crow like that?  It fairly rings through the house.
Yes, I knew it!  There is another!"

At this point the people in the house were in a state of wild
excitement.  Nearly all of them were on their feet, and they were in
such a condition of frantic enthusiasm that Loring was afraid some of
them might make a run for the stage.

"Come, sir," cried Loring, now almost shouting, "that will do.  You
have shown us the strength of your lungs.  Jump down on the seat of the
chair; now on the table.  There, I will take away the chair, and you
can stand for a moment on the table and let our friends look at you;
but only for a moment.  Take that tap on your back.  Now do you see any
difference?  Perhaps you may not, but I do.  Yes, I believe you all do.
He is not the big fellow he was a minute ago.  He is really
smaller--only a fine cockerel.  A nice tail that, but with none of the
noble sweep that it had a minute ago.  No, don't try to get off the
table.  You can't escape my wand.  Another tap.  Behold a half-grown
chicken, good to eat, but with not a crow in him.  Hungry, are you?
But you need not pick at the table that way.  You get no more grain,
but only this little tap.  Ha, ha!  What are you coming to?  There is a
chicken barely feathered enough for us to tell what color he is going
to be.

"Another tap will take still more of the conceit out of him.  Look at
him!  There are his pin-feathers, and his bare spots.  Don't try to get
away; I can easily tap you again.  Now then.  Here is a lovely little
chick, fluffy with yellow down.  He is active enough, but I shall quiet
him.  One tap, and now what do you see?  A poor, feeble chicken,
scarcely able to stand, with his down all packed close to him as if he
had been out in the rain.  Ah, little chick, I will take the two halves
of the egg-shell from which you came, and put them on each side of you.
Come, now get in!  I close them up.  You are lost to view.  There is
nothing to be seen but a crack around the shell!  Now it has gone!
There, my friends; as I hold it on high, behold the magic egg, exactly
as it was when I first took it out of the box, into which I will place
it again, with the cloth and the wand and the little red bag, and shut
it up with a snap.  I will let you take one more look at this box
before I put it away behind the scenes.  Are you satisfied with what I
have shown you?  Do you think it is really as wonderful as you supposed
it would be?"

At these words the whole audience burst into riotous applause, during
which Loring disappeared, but he was back in a moment.

"Thank you!" he cried, bowing low, and waving his arms before him in
the manner of an Eastern magician making a salaam.  From side to side
he turned, bowing and thanking, and then, with a hearty "Good-by to
you; good-by to you all!" he stepped back and let down the curtain.

For some moments the audience remained in their seats as if they were
expecting something more, and then they rose quietly and began to
disperse.  Most of them were acquainted with one another, and there was
a good deal of greeting and talking as they went out of the theatre.

When Loring was sure the last person had departed, he turned down the
lights, locked the door, and gave the key to the steward of the club.

He walked to his home a happy man.  His exhibition had been a perfect
success, with not a break or a flaw in it from beginning to end.

"I feel," thought the young man, as he strode along, "as if I could fly
to the top of that steeple, and flap and crow until all the world heard
me."

That evening, as was his daily custom, Herbert Loring called upon Miss
Starr.  He found the young lady in the library.

"I came in here," she said, "because I have a good deal to talk to you
about, and I do not want interruptions."

With this arrangement the young man expressed his entire satisfaction,
and immediately began to inquire the cause of her absence from his
exhibition in the afternoon.

"But I was there," said Edith.  "You did not see me, but I was there.
Mother had a headache, and I went by myself."

"You were there!" exclaimed Loring, almost starting from his chair.  "I
don't understand.  You were not in your seat."

 "No," answered Edith.  "I was on the very back row of seats.
You could not see me, and I did not wish you to see me."

"Edith!" exclaimed Loring, rising to his feet and leaning over the
library table, which was between them.  "When did you come?  How much
of the performance did you see?"

"I was late," she said.  "I did not arrive until after the fireworks,
or whatever they were."

For a moment Loring was silent, as if he did not understand the
situation.

"Fireworks!" he said.  "How did you know there had been fireworks?"

"I heard the people talking of them as they left the theatre," she
answered.

"And what did they say?" he inquired quickly.

"They seemed to like them very well," she replied, "but I do not think
they were quite satisfied.  From what I heard some persons say, I
inferred that they thought it was not very much of a show to which you
had invited them."

Again Loring stood in thought, looking down at the table.  But before
he could speak again, Edith sprang to her feet.

"Herbert Loring," she cried, "what does all this mean?  I was there
during the whole of the exhibition of what you called the magic egg.  I
saw all those people wild with excitement at the wonderful sight of the
chicken that came out of the egg, and grew to full size, and then
dwindled down again, and went back into the egg, and, Herbert, there
was no egg, and there was no little box, and there was no wand, and no
embroidered cloth, and there was no red bag, nor any little chick, and
there was no full-grown fowl, and there was no chair that you put on
the table!  There was nothing, absolutely nothing, but you and that
table!  Even the table was not what you said it was.  It was not an
unpainted pine table with four straight legs.  It was a table of dark
polished wood, and it stood on a single post with feet.  There was
nothing there that you said was there.  Everything was a sham and a
delusion; every word you spoke was untrue.  And yet everybody in that
theatre, excepting you and me, saw all the things that you said were on
the stage.  I know they saw them all, for I was with the people, and
heard them, and saw them, and at times I fairly felt the thrill of
enthusiasm which possessed them as they glared at the miracles and
wonders you said were happening."

Loring smiled.  "Sit down, my dear Edith," he said.  "You are excited,
and there is not the slightest cause for it.  I will explain the whole
affair to you.  It is simple enough.  You know that study is the great
object of my life.  I study all sorts of things; and just now I am
greatly interested in hypnotism.  The subject has become fascinating to
me.  I have made a great many successful trials of my power, and the
affair of this afternoon was nothing but a trial of my powers on a more
extensive scale than anything I have yet attempted.  I wanted to see if
it were possible for me to hypnotize a considerable number of people
without any one suspecting what I intended to do. The result was a
success.  I hypnotized all those people by means of the first part of
my performance, which consisted of some combinations of colored glass
with lights thrown upon them.  They revolved, and looked like
fireworks, and were strung on a wire high up on the stage.

"I kept up the glittering and dazzling show--which was well worth
seeing, I can assure you--until the people had been straining their
eyes upward for almost half an hour.  And this sort of thing--I will
tell you if you do not know it--is one of the methods of producing
hypnotic sleep.

"There was no one present who was not an impressionable subject, for I
was very careful in sending out my invitations, and when I became
almost certain that my audience was thoroughly hypnotized, I stopped
the show and began the real exhibition, which was not really for their
benefit, but for mine.

"Of course, I was dreadfully anxious for fear I had not succeeded
entirely, and that there might be at least some one person who had not
succumbed to the hypnotic influences, and so I tested the matter by
bringing out that table and telling them it was something it was not.
If I had had any reason for supposing that some of the audience saw the
table as it really was, I had an explanation ready, and I could have
retired from my position without any one supposing that I had intended
making hypnotic experiments.  The rest of the exhibition would have
been some things that any one could see, and as soon as possible I
would have released from their spell those who were hypnotized.  But
when I became positively assured that every one saw a light pine table
with four straight legs, I confidently went on with the performances of
the magic egg."

Edith Starr was still standing by the library table.  She had not
heeded Loring's advice to sit down, and she was trembling with emotion.

"Herbert Loring," she said, "you invited my mother and me to that
exhibition.  You gave us tickets for front seats, where we would be
certain to be hypnotized if your experiment succeeded, and you would
have made us see that false show, which faded from those people's minds
as soon as they recovered from the spell, for as they went away they
were talking only of the fireworks, and not one of them mentioned a
magic egg, or a chicken, or anything of the kind.  Answer me this: did
you not intend that I should come and be put under that spell?"

Loring smiled.  "Yes," he said, "of course I did.  But then your case
would have been different from that of the other spectators: I should
have explained the whole thing to you, and I am sure we would have had
a great deal of pleasure, and profit too, in discussing your
experiences.  The subject is extremely--"

"Explain to me!" she cried.  "You would not have dared to do it!  I do
not know how brave you may be, but I know you would not have had the
courage to come here and tell me that you had taken away my reason and
my judgment, as you took them away from all those people, and that you
had made me a mere tool of your will--glaring and panting with
excitement at the wonderful things you told me to see where nothing
existed.  I have nothing to say about the others.  They can speak for
themselves if they ever come to know what you did to them.  I speak for
myself.  I stood up with the rest of the people.  I gazed with all my
power, and over and over again I asked myself if it could be possible
that anything was the matter with my eyes or my brain, and if I could
be the only person there who could not see the marvellous spectacle
that you were describing.  But now I know that nothing was real, not
even the little pine table--not even the man!"

"Not even me!" exclaimed Loring.  "Surely I was real enough!"

"On that stage, yes," she said.  "But you there proved you were not the
Herbert Loring to whom I promised myself.  He was an unreal being.  If
he had existed he would not have been a man who would have brought me
to that public place, all ignorant of his intentions, to cloud my
perceptions, to subject my intellect to his own, and make me believe a
lie.  If a man should treat me in that way once he would treat me so at
other times, and in other ways, if he had the chance.  You have treated
me in the past as to-day you treated those people who glared at the
magic egg.  In the days gone by you made me see an unreal man, but you
will never do it again!  Good-by."

"Edith," cried Loring, "you don't--"

But she had disappeared through a side door, and he never spoke to her
again.

Walking home through the dimly lighted streets, Loring involuntarily
spoke aloud.

"And this," he said, "is what came out of the magic egg!"




"HIS WIFE'S DECEASED SISTER"

It is now five years since an event occurred which so colored my life,
or rather so changed some of its original colors, that I have thought
it well to write an account of it, deeming that its lessons may be of
advantage to persons whose situations in life are similar to my own.

When I was quite a young man I adopted literature as a profession, and
having passed through the necessary preparatory grades, I found myself,
after a good many years of hard and often unremunerative work, in
possession of what might be called a fair literary practice.  My
articles, grave, gay, practical, or fanciful, had come to be considered
with a favor by the editors of the various periodicals for which I
wrote, on which I found in time I could rely with a very comfortable
certainty.  My productions created no enthusiasm in the reading public;
they gave me no great reputation or very valuable pecuniary return; but
they were always accepted, and my receipts from them, at the time to
which I have referred, were as regular and reliable as a salary, and
quite sufficient to give me more than a comfortable support.

It was at this time I married.  I had been engaged for more than a
year, but had not been willing to assume the support of a wife until I
felt that my pecuniary position was so assured that I could do so with
full satisfaction to my own conscience.  There was now no doubt in
regard to this position, either in my mind or in that of my wife.  I
worked with great steadiness and regularity, I knew exactly where to
place the productions of my pen, and could calculate, with a fair
degree of accuracy, the sums I should receive for them.  We were by no
means rich, but we had enough, and were thoroughly satisfied and
content.

Those of my readers who are married will have no difficulty in
remembering the peculiar ecstasy of the first weeks of their wedded
life.  It is then that the flowers of this world bloom brightest; that
its sun is the most genial; that its clouds are the scarcest; that its
fruit is the most delicious; that the air is the most balmy; that its
cigars are of the highest flavor; that the warmth and radiance of early
matrimonial felicity so rarefy the intellectual atmosphere that the
soul mounts higher, and enjoys a wider prospect, than ever before.

These experiences were mine.  The plain claret of my mind was changed
to sparkling champagne, and at the very height of its effervescence I
wrote a story.  The happy thought that then struck me for a tale was of
a very peculiar character, and it interested me so much that I went to
work at it with great delight and enthusiasm, and finished it in a
comparatively short time.  The title of the story was "His Wife's
Deceased Sister," and when I read it to Hypatia she was delighted with
it, and at times was so affected by its pathos that her uncontrollable
emotion caused a sympathetic dimness in my eyes which prevented my
seeing the words I had written.  When the reading was ended and my wife
had dried her eyes, she turned to me and said, "This story will make
your fortune.  There has been nothing so pathetic since Lamartine's
`History of a Servant Girl.'"

As soon as possible the next day I sent my story to the editor of the
periodical for which I wrote most frequently, and in which my best
productions generally appeared.  In a few days I had a letter from the
editor, in which he praised my story as he had never before praised
anything from my pen.  It had interested and charmed, he said, not only
himself, but all his associates in the office.  Even old Gibson, who
never cared to read anything until it was in proof, and who never
praised anything which had not a joke in it, was induced by the example
of the others to read this manuscript, and shed, as he asserted, the
first tears that had come from his eyes since his final paternal
castigation some forty years before.  The story would appear, the
editor assured me, as soon as he could possibly find room for it.

 If anything could make our skies more genial, our flowers
brighter, and the flavor of our fruit and cigars more delicious, it was
a letter like this.  And when, in a very short time, the story was
published, we found that the reading public was inclined to receive it
with as much sympathetic interest and favor as had been shown to it by
the editors.  My personal friends soon began to express enthusiastic
opinions upon it.  It was highly praised in many of the leading
newspapers, and, altogether, it was a great literary success.  I am not
inclined to be vain of my writings, and, in general, my wife tells me,
I think too little of them.  But I did feel a good deal of pride and
satisfaction in the success of "His Wife's Deceased Sister." If it did
not make my fortune, as my wife asserted it would, it certainly would
help me very much in my literary career.

In less than a month from the writing of this story, something very
unusual and unexpected happened to me.  A manuscript was returned by
the editor of the periodical in which "His Wife's Deceased Sister" had
appeared.


"It is a good story," he wrote, "but not equal to what you have just
done.  You have made a great hit, and it would not do to interfere with
the reputation you have gained by publishing anything inferior to `His
Wife's Deceased Sister,' which has had such a deserved success."


I was so unaccustomed to having my work thrown back on my hands that I
think I must have turned a little pale when I read the letter.  I said
nothing of the matter to my wife, for it would be foolish to drop such
grains of sand as this into the smoothly oiled machinery of our
domestic felicity, but I immediately sent the story to another editor.
I am not able to express the astonishment I felt when, in the course of
a week, it was sent back to me.  The tone of the note accompanying it
indicated a somewhat injured feeling on the part of the editor.


"I am reluctant," he said, "to decline a manuscript from you; but you
know very well that if you sent me anything like `His Wife's Deceased
Sister' it would be most promptly accepted."

I now felt obliged to speak of the affair to my wife, who was quite as
much surprised, though, perhaps, not quite as much shocked, as I had
been.

"Let us read the story again," she said, "and see what is the matter
with it."  When we had finished its perusal, Hypatia remarked:  "It is
quite as good as many of the stories you have had printed, and I think
it very interesting, although, of course, it is not equal to `His
Wife's Deceased Sister.'"

"Of course not," said I; "that was an inspiration that I cannot expect
every day.  But there must be something wrong about this last story
which we do not perceive.  Perhaps my recent success may have made me a
little careless in writing it."

"I don't believe that," said Hypatia.

"At any rate," I continued, "I will lay it aside, and will go to work
on a new one."

In due course of time I had another manuscript finished, and I sent it
to my favorite periodical.  It was retained some weeks, and then came
back to me.

"It will never do," the editor wrote, quite warmly, "for you to go
backward.  The demand for the number containing `His Wife's Deceased
Sister' still continues, and we do not intend to let you disappoint
that great body of readers who would be so eager to see another number
containing one of your stories."


I sent this manuscript to four other periodicals, and from each of them
it was returned with remarks to the effect that, although it was not a
bad story in itself, it was not what they would expect from the author
of "His Wife's Deceased Sister."

The editor of a Western magazine wrote to me for a story to be
published in a special number which he would issue for the holidays.  I
wrote him one of the character and length he desired, and sent it to
him.  By return mail it came back to me.


"I had hoped," the editor wrote, "when I asked for a story from your
pen, to receive something like `His Wife's Deceased Sister,' and I must
own that I am very much disappointed."


I was so filled with anger when I read this note that I openly
objurgated "His Wife's Deceased Sister."  "You must excuse me," I said
to my astonished wife, "for expressing myself thus in your presence,
but that confounded story will be the ruin of me yet.  Until it is
forgotten nobody will ever take anything I write."

"And you cannot expect it ever to be forgotten," said Hypatia, with
tears in her eyes.

It is needless for me to detail my literary efforts in the course of
the next few months.  The ideas of the editors with whom my principal
business had been done, in regard to my literary ability, had been so
raised by my unfortunate story of "His Wife's Deceased Sister" that I
found it was of no use to send them anything of lesser merit.  And as
to the other journals which I tried, they evidently considered it an
insult for me to send them matter inferior to that by which my
reputation had lately risen.  The fact was that my successful story had
ruined me.  My income was at an end, and want actually stared me in the
face; and I must admit that I did not like the expression of its
countenance.  It was of no use for me to try to write another story
like "His Wife's Deceased Sister."  I could not get married every time
I began a new manuscript, and it was the exaltation of mind caused by
my wedded felicity which produced that story.

"It's perfectly dreadful!" said my wife.  "If I had had a sister, and
she had died, I would have thought it was my fault."

"It could not be your fault," I answered, "and I do not think it was
mine.  I had no intention of deceiving anybody into the belief that I
could do that sort of thing every time, and it ought not to be expected
of me.  Suppose Raphael's patrons had tried to keep him screwed up to
the pitch of the Sistine Madonna, and had refused to buy anything which
was not as good as that.  In that case I think he would have occupied a
much earlier and narrower grave than the one on which Mr. Morris Moore
hangs his funeral decorations."

"But, my dear," said Hypatia, who was posted on such subjects, "the
Sistine Madonna was one of his latest paintings."

"Very true," said I.  "But if he had married as I did, he would have
painted it earlier."

I was walking homeward one afternoon about this time, when I met
Barbel, a man I had known well in my early literary career.  He was now
about fifty years of age, but looked older.  His hair and beard were
quite gray, and his clothes, which were of the same general hue, gave
me the idea that they, like his hair, had originally been black.  Age
is very hard on a man's external appointments.  Barbel had an air of
having been to let for a long time, and quite out of repair.  But there
was a kindly gleam in his eye, and he welcomed me cordially.

"Why, what is the matter, old fellow?" said he.  "I never saw you look
so woe-begone."

I had no reason to conceal anything from Barbel.  In my younger days he
had been of great use to me, and he had a right to know the state of my
affairs.  I laid the whole case plainly before him.

"Look here," he said, when I had finished; "come with me to my room; I
have something I would like to say to you there."

I followed Barbel to his room.  It was at the top of a very dirty and
well-worn house, which stood in a narrow and lumpy street, into which
few vehicles ever penetrated, except the ash and garbage-carts, and the
rickety wagons of the venders of stale vegetables.

"This is not exactly a fashionable promenade," said Barbel, as we
approached the house, "but in some respects it reminds me of the
streets in Italian towns, where the palaces lean over toward each other
in such a friendly way."

Barbel's room was, to my mind, rather more doleful than the street.  It
was dark, it was dusty, and cobwebs hung from every corner.  The few
chairs upon the floor and the books upon a greasy table seemed to be
afflicted with some dorsal epidemic, for their backs were either gone
or broken.  A little bedstead in the corner was covered with a spread
made of New York "Heralds" with their edges pasted together.

"There is nothing better," said Barbel, noticing my glance toward this
novel counterpane, "for a bed-covering than newspapers; they keep you
as warm as a blanket, and are much lighter.  I used to use `Tribunes,'
but they rattled too much."

The only part of the room which was well lighted was one end near the
solitary window.  Here, upon a table with a spliced leg, stood a little
grindstone.

"At the other end of the room," said Barbel, "is my cook-stove, which
you can't see unless I light the candle in the bottle which stands by
it.  But if you don't care particularly to examine it, I won't go to
the expense of lighting up.  You might pick up a good many odd pieces
of bric-a-brac, around here, if you chose to strike a match and
investigate.  But I would not advise you to do so.  It would pay better
to throw the things out of the window than to carry them down-stairs.
The particular piece of indoor decoration to which I wish to call your
attention is this."  And he led me to a little wooden frame which hung
against the wall near the window.  Behind a dusty piece of glass it
held what appeared to be a leaf from a small magazine or journal.
"There," said he, "you see a page from the `Grasshopper,' a humorous
paper which flourished in this city some half-dozen years ago.  I used
to write regularly for that paper, as you may remember."

"Oh, yes, indeed!" I exclaimed.  "And I shall never forget your
`Conundrum of the Anvil' which appeared in it.  How often have I
laughed at that most wonderful conceit, and how often have I put it to
my friends!"

Barbel gazed at me silently for a moment, and then he pointed to the
frame.  "That printed page," he said solemnly, "contains the `Conundrum
of the Anvil.'  I hang it there so that I can see it while I work.
That conundrum ruined me.  It was the last thing I wrote for the
`Grasshopper.'  How I ever came to imagine it, I cannot tell.  It is
one of those things which occur to a man but once in a lifetime.  After
the wild shout of delight with which the public greeted that conundrum,
my subsequent efforts met with hoots of derision.  The `Grasshopper'
turned its hind legs upon me.  I sank from bad to worse,--much
worse,--until at last I found myself reduced to my present occupation,
which is that of grinding points on pins.  By this I procure my bread,
coffee, and tobacco, and sometimes potatoes and meat.  One day while I
was hard at work, an organ-grinder came into the street below.  He
played the serenade from `Trovatore' and the familiar notes brought
back visions of old days and old delights, when the successful writer
wore good clothes and sat at operas, when he looked into sweet eyes and
talked of Italian airs, when his future appeared all a succession of
bright scenery and joyous acts, without any provision for a
drop-curtain.  And as my ear listened, and my mind wandered in this
happy retrospect, my every faculty seemed exalted, and, without any
thought upon the matter, I ground points upon my pins so fine, so
regular, and so smooth that they would have pierced with ease the
leather of a boot, or slipped, without abrasion, among the finest
threads of rare old lace.  When the organ stopped, and I fell back into
my real world of cobwebs and mustiness, I gazed upon the pins I had
just ground, and, without a moment's hesitation, I threw them into the
street, and reported the lot as spoiled.  This cost me a little money,
but it saved me my livelihood."

After a few moments of silence, Barbel resumed:

"I have no more to say to you, my young friend.  All I want you to do
is to look upon that framed conundrum, then upon this grindstone, and
then to go home and reflect.  As for me, I have a gross of pins to
grind before the sun goes down."

I cannot say that my depression of mind was at all relieved by what I
had seen and heard.  I had lost sight of Barbel for some years, and I
had supposed him still floating on the sun-sparkling stream of
prosperity where I had last seen him.  It was a great shock to me to
find him in such a condition of poverty and squalor, and to see a man
who had originated the "Conundrum of the Anvil" reduced to the
soul-depressing occupation of grinding pin-points.  As I walked and
thought, the dreadful picture of a totally eclipsed future arose before
my mind.  The moral of Barbel sank deep into my heart.

When I reached home I told my wife the story of my friend Barbel.  She
listened with a sad and eager interest.

"I am afraid," she said, "if our fortunes do not quickly mend, that we
shall have to buy two little grindstones.  You know I could help you at
that sort of thing."

For a long time we sat together and talked, and devised many plans for
the future.  I did not think it necessary yet for me to look out for a
pin contract; but I must find some way of making money, or we should
starve to death.  Of course, the first thing that suggested itself was
the possibility of finding some other business.  But, apart from the
difficulty of immediately obtaining remunerative work in occupations to
which I had not been trained, I felt a great and natural reluctance to
give up a profession for which I had carefully prepared myself, and
which I had adopted as my life-work.  It would be very hard for me to
lay down my pen forever, and to close the top of my inkstand upon all
the bright and happy fancies which I had seen mirrored in its tranquil
pool.  We talked and pondered the rest of that day and a good deal of
the night, but we came to no conclusion as to what it would be best for
us to do.

The next day I determined to go and call upon the editor of the journal
for which, in happier days, before the blight of "His Wife's Deceased
Sister" rested upon me, I used most frequently to write, and, having
frankly explained my condition to him, to ask his advice.  The editor
was a good man, and had always been my friend.  He listened with great
attention to what I told him, and evidently sympathized with me in my
trouble.

"As we have written to you," he said, "the only reason why we did not
accept the manuscripts you sent us was that they would have
disappointed the high hopes that the public had formed in regard to
you.  We have had letter after letter asking when we were going to
publish another story like `His Wife's Deceased Sister.'  We felt, and
we still feel, that it would be wrong to allow you to destroy the fair
fabric which you yourself have raised.  But," he added, with a kind
smile, "I see very plainly that your well-deserved reputation will be
of little advantage to you if you should starve at the moment that its
genial beams are, so to speak, lighting you up."

"Its beams are not genial," I answered.  "They have scorched and
withered me."

"How would you like," said the editor, after a short reflection, "to
allow us to publish the stories you have recently written under some
other name than your own?  That would satisfy us and the public, would
put money in your pocket, and would not interfere with your reputation."

Joyfully I seized the noble fellow by the hand, and instantly accepted
his proposition.  "Of course," said I, "a reputation is a very good
thing; but no reputation can take the place of food, clothes, and a
house to live in, and I gladly agree to sink my over-illumined name
into oblivion, and to appear before the public as a new and unknown
writer."

"I hope that need not be for long," he said, "for I feel sure that you
will yet write stories as good as `His Wife's Deceased Sister.'"

All the manuscripts I had on hand I now sent to my good friend the
editor, and in due and proper order they appeared in his journal under
the name of John Darmstadt, which I had selected as a substitute for my
own, permanently disabled.  I made a similar arrangement with other
editors, and John Darmstadt received the credit of everything that
proceeded from my pen.  Our circumstances now became very comfortable,
and occasionally we even allowed ourselves to indulge in little dreams
of prosperity.

Time passed on very pleasantly.  One year, another, and then a little
son was born to us.  It is often difficult, I believe, for thoughtful
persons to decide whether the beginning of their conjugal career, or
the earliest weeks in the life of their first-born, be the happiest and
proudest period of their existence.  For myself I can only say that the
same exaltation of mind, the same rarefication of idea and invention,
which succeeded upon my wedding day came upon me now.  As then, my
ecstatic emotions crystallized themselves into a motive for a story,
and without delay I set myself to work upon it.  My boy was about six
weeks old when the manuscript was finished, and one evening, as we sat
before a comfortable fire in our sitting-room, with the curtains drawn,
and the soft lamp lighted, and the baby sleeping soundly in the
adjoining chamber, I read the story to my wife.

When I had finished, my wife arose and threw herself into my arms.  "I
was never so proud of you," she said, her glad eyes sparkling, "as I am
at this moment.  That is a wonderful story!  It is, indeed I am sure it
is, just as good as `His Wife's Deceased Sister.'"

As she spoke these words, a sudden and chilling sensation crept over us
both.  All her warmth and fervor, and the proud and happy glow
engendered within me by this praise and appreciation from one I loved,
vanished in an instant.  We stepped apart, and gazed upon each other
with pallid faces.  In the same moment the terrible truth had flashed
upon us both.  This story WAS as good as "His Wife's Deceased Sister"!

We stood silent.  The exceptional lot of Barbel's super-pointed pins
seemed to pierce our very souls.  A dreadful vision rose before me of
an impending fall and crash, in which our domestic happiness should
vanish, and our prospects for our boy be wrecked, just as we had began
to build them up.

My wife approached me, and took my hand in hers, which was as cold as
ice.  "Be strong and firm," she said.  "A great danger threatens us,
but you must brace yourself against it.  Be strong and firm."

I pressed her hand, and we said no more that night.

The next day I took the manuscript I had just written, and carefully
infolded it in stout wrapping-paper.  Then I went to a neighboring
grocery store and bought a small, strong, tin box, originally intended
for biscuit, with a cover that fitted tightly.  In this I placed my
manuscript, and then I took the box to a tinsmith and had the top
fastened on with hard solder.  When I went home I ascended into the
garret and brought down to my study a ship's cash-box, which had once
belonged to one of my family who was a sea-captain.  This box was very
heavy, and firmly bound with iron, and was secured by two massive
locks.  Calling my wife, I told her of the contents of the tin case,
which I then placed in the box, and having shut down the heavy lid, I
doubly locked it.

"This key," said I, putting it in my pocket, "I shall throw into the
river when I go out this afternoon."

My wife watched me eagerly, with a pallid and firm-set countenance, but
upon which I could see the faint glimmer of returning happiness.

"Wouldn't it be well," she said, "to secure it still further by
sealing-wax and pieces of tape?"

"No," said I.  "I do not believe that any one will attempt to tamper
with our prosperity.  And now, my dear," I continued in an impressive
voice, "no one but you, and, in the course of time, our son, shall know
that this manuscript exists.  When I am dead, those who survive me may,
if they see fit, cause this box to be split open and the story
published.  The reputation it may give my name cannot harm me then."




THE WIDOW'S CRUISE

The Widow Ducket lived in a small village about ten miles from the New
Jersey sea-coast.  In this village she was born, here she had married
and buried her husband, and here she expected somebody to bury her; but
she was in no hurry for this, for she had scarcely reached middle age.
She was a tall woman with no apparent fat in her composition, and full
of activity, both muscular and mental.

She rose at six o'clock in the morning, cooked breakfast, set the
table, washed the dishes when the meal was over, milked, churned,
swept, washed, ironed, worked in her little garden, attended to the
flowers in the front yard, and in the afternoon knitted and quilted and
sewed, and after tea she either went to see her neighbors or had them
come to see her.  When it was really dark she lighted the lamp in her
parlor and read for an hour, and if it happened to be one of Miss Mary
Wilkins's books that she read she expressed doubts as to the realism of
the characters therein described.

These doubts she expressed to Dorcas Networthy, who was a small, plump
woman, with a solemn face, who had lived with the widow for many years
and who had become her devoted disciple.  Whatever the widow did, that
also did Dorcas--not so well, for her heart told her she could never
expect to do that, but with a yearning anxiety to do everything as well
as she could.  She rose at five minutes past six, and in a subsidiary
way she helped to get the breakfast, to eat it, to wash up the dishes,
to work in the garden, to quilt, to sew, to visit and receive, and no
one could have tried harder than she did to keep awake when the widow
read aloud in the evening.

All these things happened every day in the summertime, but in the
winter the widow and Dorcas cleared the snow from their little front
path instead of attending to the flowers, and in the evening they
lighted a fire as well as a lamp in the parlor.

Sometimes, however, something different happened, but this was not
often, only a few times in the year.  One of the different things
occurred when Mrs. Ducket and Dorcas were sitting on their little front
porch one summer afternoon, one on the little bench on one side of the
door, and the other on the little bench on the other side of the door,
each waiting until she should hear the clock strike five, to prepare
tea.  But it was not yet a quarter to five when a one-horse wagon
containing four men came slowly down the street.  Dorcas first saw the
wagon, and she instantly stopped knitting.

"Mercy on me!" she exclaimed.  "Whoever those people are, they are
strangers here, and they don't know where to stop, for they first go to
one side of the street and then to the other."

The widow looked around sharply.  "Humph!" said she.  "Those men are
sailormen.  You might see that in a twinklin' of an eye.  Sailormen
always drive that way, because that is the way they sail ships.  They
first tack in one direction and then in another."

"Mr. Ducket didn't like the sea?" remarked Dorcas, for about the three
hundredth time.

"No, he didn't," answered the widow, for about the two hundred and
fiftieth time, for there had been occasions when she thought Dorcas put
this question inopportunely.  "He hated it, and he was drowned in it
through trustin' a sailorman, which I never did nor shall.  Do you
really believe those men are comin' here?"

"Upon my word I do!" said Dorcas, and her opinion was correct.

The wagon drew up in front of Mrs. Ducket's little white house, and the
two women sat rigidly, their hands in their laps, staring at the man
who drove.

This was an elderly personage with whitish hair, and under his chin a
thin whitish beard, which waved in the gentle breeze and gave Dorcas
the idea that his head was filled with hair which was leaking out from
below.

"Is this the Widow Ducket's?" inquired this elderly man, in a strong,
penetrating voice.

"That's my name," said the widow, and laying her knitting on the bench
beside her, she went to the gate.  Dorcas also laid her knitting on the
bench beside her and went to the gate.

"I was told," said the elderly man, "at a house we touched at about a
quarter of a mile back, that the Widow Ducket's was the only house in
this village where there was any chance of me and my mates getting a
meal.  We are four sailors, and we are making from the bay over to
Cuppertown, and that's eight miles ahead yet, and we are all pretty
sharp set for something to eat."

"This is the place," said the widow, "and I do give meals if there is
enough in the house and everything comes handy."

"Does everything come handy to-day?" said he.

"It does," said she, "and you can hitch your horse and come in; but I
haven't got anything for him."

"Oh, that's all right," said the man, "we brought along stores for him,
so we'll just make fast and then come in."

The two women hurried into the house in a state of bustling
preparation, for the furnishing of this meal meant one dollar in cash.

The four mariners, all elderly men, descended from the wagon, each one
scrambling with alacrity over a different wheel.

A box of broken ship-biscuit was brought out and put on the ground in
front of the horse, who immediately set himself to eating with great
satisfaction.

Tea was a little late that day, because there were six persons to
provide for instead of two, but it was a good meal, and after the four
seamen had washed their hands and faces at the pump in the back yard
and had wiped them on two towels furnished by Dorcas, they all came in
and sat down.  Mrs. Ducket seated herself at the head of the table with
the dignity proper to the mistress of the house, and Dorcas seated
herself at the other end with the dignity proper to the disciple of the
mistress.  No service was necessary, for everything that was to be
eaten or drunk was on the table.

When each of the elderly mariners had had as much bread and butter,
quickly baked soda-biscuit, dried beef, cold ham, cold tongue, and
preserved fruit of every variety known, as his storage capacity would
permit, the mariner in command, Captain Bird, pushed back his chair,
whereupon the other mariners pushed back their chairs.

"Madam," said Captain Bird, "we have all made a good meal, which didn't
need to be no better nor more of it, and we're satisfied; but that
horse out there has not had time to rest himself enough to go the eight
miles that lies ahead of us, so, if it's all the same to you and this
good lady, we'd like to sit on that front porch awhile and smoke our
pipes.  I was a-looking at that porch when I came in, and I bethought
to myself what a rare good place it was to smoke a pipe in."

"There's pipes been smoked there," said the widow, rising, "and it can
be done again.  Inside the house I don't allow tobacco, but on the
porch neither of us minds."

 So the four captains betook themselves to the porch, two of
them seating themselves on the little bench on one side of the door,
and two of them on the little bench on the other side of the door, and
lighted their pipes.

"Shall we clear off the table and wash up the dishes," said Dorcas, "or
wait until they are gone?"

"We will wait until they are gone," said the widow, "for now that they
are here we might as well have a bit of a chat with them.  When a
sailorman lights his pipe he is generally willin' to talk, but when he
is eatin' you can't get a word out of him."

Without thinking it necessary to ask permission, for the house belonged
to her, the Widow Ducket brought a chair and put it in the hall close
to the open front door, and Dorcas brought another chair and seated
herself by the side of the widow.

"Do all you sailormen belong down there at the bay?" asked Mrs. Ducket;
thus the conversation began, and in a few minutes it had reached a
point at which Captain Bird thought it proper to say that a great many
strange things happen to seamen sailing on the sea which lands-people
never dream of.

"Such as anything in particular?" asked the widow, at which remark
Dorcas clasped her hands in expectancy.

At this question each of the mariners took his pipe from his mouth and
gazed upon the floor in thought.

"There's a good many strange things happened to me and my mates at sea.
Would you and that other lady like to hear any of them?" asked Captain
Bird.

"We would like to hear them if they are true," said the widow.

"There's nothing happened to me and my mates that isn't true," said
Captain Bird, "and here is something that once happened to me:  I was
on a whaling v'yage when a big sperm-whale, just as mad as a fiery
bull, came at us, head on, and struck the ship at the stern with such
tremendous force that his head crashed right through her timbers and he
went nearly half his length into her hull.  The hold was mostly filled
with empty barrels, for we was just beginning our v'yage, and when he
had made kindling-wood of these there was room enough for him.  We all
expected that it wouldn't take five minutes for the vessel to fill and
go to the bottom, and we made ready to take to the boats; but it turned
out we didn't need to take to no boats, for as fast as the water rushed
into the hold of the ship, that whale drank it and squirted it up
through the two blow-holes in the top of his head, and as there was an
open hatchway just over his head, the water all went into the sea
again, and that whale kept working day and night pumping the water out
until we beached the vessel on the island of Trinidad--the whale
helping us wonderful on our way over by the powerful working of his
tail, which, being outside in the water, acted like a propeller.  I
don't believe any thing stranger than that ever happened to a whaling
ship."

"No," said the widow, "I don't believe anything ever did."

Captain Bird now looked at Captain Sanderson, and the latter took his
pipe out of his mouth and said that in all his sailing around the world
he had never known anything queerer than what happened to a big
steamship he chanced to be on, which ran into an island in a fog.
Everybody on board thought the ship was wrecked, but it had twin
screws, and was going at such a tremendous speed that it turned the
island entirely upside down and sailed over it, and he had heard tell
that even now people sailing over the spot could look down into the
water and see the roots of the trees and the cellars of the houses.

Captain Sanderson now put his pipe back into his mouth, and Captain
Burress took out his pipe.

"I was once in an obelisk-ship," said he, "that used to trade regular
between Egypt and New York, carrying obelisks.  We had a big obelisk on
board.  The way they ship obelisks is to make a hole in the stern of
the ship, and run the obelisk in, p'inted end foremost; and this
obelisk filled up nearly the whole of that ship from stern to bow.  We
was about ten days out, and sailing afore a northeast gale with the
engines at full speed, when suddenly we spied breakers ahead, and our
Captain saw we was about to run on a bank.  Now if we hadn't had an
obelisk on board we might have sailed over that bank, but the captain
knew that with an obelisk on board we drew too much water for this, and
that we'd be wrecked in about fifty-five seconds if something wasn't
done quick.  So he had to do something quick, and this is what he did:
He ordered all steam on, and drove slam-bang on that bank.  Just as he
expected, we stopped so suddint that that big obelisk bounced for'ard,
its p'inted end foremost, and went clean through the bow and shot out
into the sea.  The minute it did that the vessel was so lightened that
it rose in the water and we easily steamed over the bank.  There was
one man knocked overboard by the shock when we struck, but as soon as
we missed him we went back after him and we got him all right.  You
see, when that obelisk went overboard, its butt-end, which was
heaviest, went down first, and when it touched the bottom it just stood
there, and as it was such a big obelisk there was about five and a half
feet of it stuck out of the water.  The man who was knocked overboard
he just swum for that obelisk and he climbed up the hiryglyphics.  It
was a mighty fine obelisk, and the Egyptians had cut their hiryglyphics
good and deep, so that the man could get hand and foot-hold; and when
we got to him and took him off, he was sitting high and dry on the
p'inted end of that obelisk.  It was a great pity about the obelisk,
for it was a good obelisk, but as I never heard the company tried to
raise it, I expect it is standing there yet."

Captain Burress now put his pipe back into his mouth and looked at
Captain Jenkinson, who removed his pipe and said:

"The queerest thing that ever happened to me was about a shark.  We was
off the Banks, and the time of year was July, and the ice was coming
down, and we got in among a lot of it.  Not far away, off our weather
bow, there was a little iceberg which had such a queerness about it
that the captain and three men went in a boat to look at it.  The ice
was mighty clear ice, and you could see almost through it, and right
inside of it, not more than three feet above the waterline, and about
two feet, or maybe twenty inches, inside the ice, was a whopping big
shark, about fourteen feet long,--a regular man-eater,--frozen in there
hard and fast.  `Bless my soul,' said the captain, `this is a wonderful
curiosity, and I'm going to git him out.'  Just then one of the men
said he saw that shark wink, but the captain wouldn't believe him, for
he said that shark was frozen stiff and hard and couldn't wink.  You
see, the captain had his own idees about things, and he knew that
whales was warm-blooded and would freeze if they was shut up in ice,
but he forgot that sharks was not whales and that they're cold-blooded
just like toads.  And there is toads that has been shut up in rocks for
thousands of years, and they stayed alive, no matter how cold the place
was, because they was cold-blooded, and when the rocks was split, out
hopped the frog.  But, as I said before, the captain forgot sharks was
cold-blooded, and he determined to git that one out.

"Now you both know, being housekeepers, that if you take a needle and
drive it into a hunk of ice you can split it.  The captain had a
sail-needle with him, and so he drove it into the iceberg right
alongside of the shark and split it.  Now the minute he did it he knew
that the man was right when he said he saw the shark wink, for it
flopped out of that iceberg quicker nor a flash of lightning."

"What a happy fish he must have been!" ejaculated Dorcas, forgetful of
precedent, so great was her emotion.

"Yes," said Captain Jenkinson, "it was a happy fish enough, but it
wasn't a happy captain.  You see, that shark hadn't had anything to
eat, perhaps for a thousand years, until the captain came along with
his sail-needle."

"Surely you sailormen do see strange things," now said the widow, "and
the strangest thing about them is that they are true."

"Yes, indeed," said Dorcas, "that is the most wonderful thing."

"You wouldn't suppose," said the Widow Ducket, glancing from one bench
of mariners to the other, "that I have a sea-story to tell, but I have,
and if you like I will tell it to you."

Captain Bird looked up a little surprised.

"We would like to hear it--indeed, we would, madam," said he.

"Ay, ay!" said Captain Burress, and the two other mariners nodded.

"It was a good while ago," she said, "when I was living on the shore
near the head of the bay, that my husband was away and I was left alone
in the house.  One mornin' my sister-in-law, who lived on the other
side of the bay, sent me word by a boy on a horse that she hadn't any
oil in the house to fill the lamp that she always put in the window to
light her husband home, who was a fisherman, and if I would send her
some by the boy she would pay me back as soon as they bought oil.  The
boy said he would stop on his way home and take the oil to her, but he
never did stop, or perhaps he never went back, and about five o'clock I
began to get dreadfully worried, for I knew if that lamp wasn't in my
sister-in-law's window by dark she might be a widow before midnight.
So I said to myself, `I've got to get that oil to her, no matter what
happens or how it's done.'  Of course I couldn't tell what might
happen, but there was only one way it could be done, and that was for
me to get into the boat that was tied to the post down by the water,
and take it to her, for it was too far for me to walk around by the
head of the bay.  Now, the trouble was, I didn't know no more about a
boat and the managin' of it than any one of you sailormen knows about
clear starchin'.  But there wasn't no use of thinkin' what I knew and
what I didn't know, for I had to take it to her, and there was no way
of doin' it except in that boat.  So I filled a gallon can, for I
thought I might as well take enough while I was about it, and I went
down to the water and I unhitched that boat and I put the oil-can into
her, and then I got in, and off I started, and when I was about a
quarter of a mile from the shore--"

"Madam," interrupted Captain Bird, "did you row or--or was there a sail
to the boat?"

The widow looked at the questioner for a moment.  "No," said she, "I
didn't row.  I forgot to bring the oars from the house; but it didn't
matter, for I didn't know how to use them, and if there had been a sail
I couldn't have put it up, for I didn't know how to use it, either.  I
used the rudder to make the boat go.  The rudder was the only thing I
knew anything about.  I'd held a rudder when I was a little girl, and I
knew how to work it.  So I just took hold of the handle of the rudder
and turned it round and round, and that made the boat go ahead, you
know, and--"

"Madam!" exclaimed Captain Bird, and the other elderly mariners took
their pipes from their mouths.

"Yes, that is the way I did it," continued the widow, briskly.  "Big
steamships are made to go by a propeller turning round and round at
their back ends, and I made the rudder work in the same way, and I got
along very well, too, until suddenly, when I was about a quarter of a
mile from the shore, a most terrible and awful storm arose.  There must
have been a typhoon or a cyclone out at sea, for the waves came up the
bay bigger than houses, and when they got to the head of the bay they
turned around and tried to get out to sea again.  So in this way they
continually met, and made the most awful and roarin' pilin' up of waves
that ever was known.

"My little boat was pitched about as if it had been a feather in a
breeze, and when the front part of it was cleavin' itself down into the
water the hind part was stickin' up until the rudder whizzed around
like a patent churn with no milk in it.  The thunder began to roar and
the lightnin' flashed, and three seagulls, so nearly frightened to
death that they began to turn up the whites of their eyes, flew down
and sat on one of the seats of the boat, forgettin' in that awful
moment that man was their nat'ral enemy.  I had a couple of biscuits in
my pocket, because I had thought I might want a bite in crossing, and I
crumbled up one of these and fed the poor creatures.  Then I began to
wonder what I was goin' to do, for things were gettin' awfuller and
awfuller every instant, and the little boat was a-heavin' and
a-pitchin' and a-rollin' and h'istin' itself up, first on one end and
then on the other, to such an extent that if I hadn't kept tight hold
of the rudder-handle I'd slipped off the seat I was sittin' on.

"All of a sudden I remembered that oil in the can; but just as I was
puttin' my fingers on the cork my conscience smote me.  `Am I goin' to
use this oil,' I said to myself, `and let my sister-in-law's husband be
wrecked for want of it?'  And then I thought that he wouldn't want it
all that night, and perhaps they would buy oil the next day, and so I
poured out about a tumblerful of it on the water, and I can just tell
you sailormen that you never saw anything act as prompt as that did.
In three seconds, or perhaps five, the water all around me, for the
distance of a small front yard, was just as flat as a table and as
smooth as glass, and so invitin' in appearance that the three gulls
jumped out of the boat and began to swim about on it, primin' their
feathers and lookin' at themselves in the transparent depths, though I
must say that one of them made an awful face as he dipped his bill into
the water and tasted kerosene.

"Now I had time to sit quiet in the midst of the placid space I had
made for myself, and rest from workin' of the rudder.  Truly it was a
wonderful and marvellous thing to look at.  The waves was roarin' and
leapin' up all around me higher than the roof of this house, and
sometimes their tops would reach over so that they nearly met and shut
out all view of the stormy sky, which seemed as if it was bein' torn to
pieces by blazin' lightnin', while the thunder pealed so tremendous
that it almost drowned the roar of the waves.  Not only above and all
around me was every thing terrific and fearful, but even under me it
was the same, for there was a big crack in the bottom of the boat as
wide as my hand, and through this I could see down into the water
beneath, and there was--"

"Madam!" ejaculated Captain Bird, the hand which had been holding his
pipe a few inches from his mouth now dropping to his knee; and at this
motion the hands which held the pipes of the three other mariners
dropped to their knees.

"Of course it sounds strange," continued the widow, "but I know that
people can see down into clear water, and the water under me was clear,
and the crack was wide enough for me to see through, and down under me
was sharks and swordfishes and other horrible water creatures, which I
had never seen before, all driven into the bay, I haven't a doubt, by
the violence of the storm out at sea.  The thought of my bein' upset
and fallin' in among those monsters made my very blood run cold, and
involuntary-like I began to turn the handle of the rudder, and in a
moment I shot into a wall of ragin' sea-water that was towerin' around
me.  For a second I was fairly blinded and stunned, but I had the cork
out of that oil-can in no time, and very soon--you'd scarcely believe
it if I told you how soon--I had another placid mill-pond surroundin'
of me.  I sat there a-pantin' and fannin' with my straw hat, for you'd
better believe I was flustered, and then I began to think how long it
would take me to make a line of mill-ponds clean across the head of the
bay, and how much oil it would need, and whether I had enough.  So I
sat and calculated that if a tumblerful of oil would make a smooth
place about seven yards across, which I should say was the width of the
one I was in,--which I calculated by a measure of my eye as to how many
breadths of carpet it would take to cover it,--and if the bay was two
miles across betwixt our house and my sister-in-law's, and, although I
couldn't get the thing down to exact figures, I saw pretty soon that I
wouldn't have oil enough to make a level cuttin' through all those
mountainous billows, and besides, even if I had enough to take me
across, what would be the good of goin' if there wasn't any oil left to
fill my sister-in-law's lamp?

"While I was thinkin' and calculatin' a perfectly dreadful thing
happened, which made me think if I didn't get out of this pretty soon
I'd find myself in a mighty risky predicament.  The oil-can, which I
had forgotten to put the cork in, toppled over, and before I could grab
it every drop of the oil ran into the hind part of the boat, where it
was soaked up by a lot of dry dust that was there.  No wonder my heart
sank when I saw this.  Glancin' wildly around me, as people will do
when they are scared, I saw the smooth place I was in gettin' smaller
and smaller, for the kerosene was evaporatin', as it will do even off
woollen clothes if you give it time enough.  The first pond I had come
out of seemed to be covered up, and the great, towerin', throbbin'
precipice of sea-water was a-closin' around me.

"Castin' down my eyes in despair, I happened to look through the crack
in the bottom of the boat, and oh, what a blessed relief it was! for
down there everything was smooth and still, and I could see the sand on
the bottom, as level and hard, no doubt, as it was on the beach.
Suddenly the thought struck me that that bottom would give me the only
chance I had of gettin' out of the frightful fix I was in.  If I could
fill that oil-can with air, and then puttin' it under my arm and takin'
a long breath if I could drop down on that smooth bottom, I might run
along toward shore, as far as I could, and then, when I felt my breath
was givin' out, I could take a pull at the oil-can and take another
run, and then take another pull and another run, and perhaps the can
would hold air enough for me until I got near enough to shore to wade
to dry land.  To be sure, the sharks and other monsters were down
there, but then they must have been awfully frightened, and perhaps
they might not remember that man was their nat'ral enemy.  Anyway, I
thought it would be better to try the smooth water passage down there
than stay and be swallowed up by the ragin' waves on top.

"So I blew the can full of air and corked it, and then I tore up some
of the boards from the bottom of the boat so as to make a hole big
enough for me to get through,--and you sailormen needn't wriggle so
when I say that, for you all know a divin'-bell hasn't any bottom at
all and the water never comes in,--and so when I got the hole big
enough I took the oil-can under my arm, and was just about to slip down
through it when I saw an awful turtle a-walkin' through the sand at the
bottom.  Now, I might trust sharks and swordfishes and sea-serpents to
be frightened and forget about their nat'ral enemies, but I never could
trust a gray turtle as big as a cart, with a black neck a yard long,
with yellow bags to its jaws, to forget anything or to remember
anything.  I'd as lieve get into a bath-tub with a live crab as to go
down there.  It wasn't of no use even so much as thinkin' of it, so I
gave up that plan and didn't once look through that hole again."

"And what did you do, madam?" asked Captain Bird, who was regarding her
with a face of stone.

"I used electricity," she said.  "Now don't start as if you had a shock
of it.  That's what I used.  When I was younger than I was then, and
sometimes visited friends in the city, we often amused ourselves by
rubbing our feet on the carpet until we got ourselves so full of
electricity that we could put up our fingers and light the gas.  So I
said to myself that if I could get full of electricity for the purpose
of lightin' the gas I could get full of it for other purposes, and so,
without losin' a moment, I set to work.  I stood up on one of the
seats, which was dry, and I rubbed the bottoms of my shoes backward and
forward on it with such violence and swiftness that they pretty soon
got warm and I began fillin' with electricity, and when I was fully
charged with it from my toes to the top of my head, I just sprang into
the water and swam ashore.  Of course I couldn't sink, bein' full of
electricity."

Captain Bird heaved a long sigh and rose to his feet, whereupon the
other mariners rose to their feet "Madam," said Captain Bird, "what's
to pay for the supper and--the rest of the entertainment?"

"The supper is twenty-five cents apiece," said the Widow Ducket, "and
everything else is free, gratis."

Whereupon each mariner put his hand into his trousers pocket, pulled
out a silver quarter, and handed it to the widow.  Then, with four
solemn "Good evenin's," they went out to the front gate.

"Cast off, Captain Jenkinson," said Captain Bird, "and you, Captain
Burress, clew him up for'ard.  You can stay in the bow, Captain
Sanderson, and take the sheet-lines.  I'll go aft."

All being ready, each of the elderly mariners clambered over a wheel,
and having seated themselves, they prepared to lay their course for
Cuppertown.

But just as they were about to start, Captain Jenkinson asked that they
lay to a bit, and clambering down over his wheel, he reentered the
front gate and went up to the door of the house, where the widow and
Dorcas were still standing.

"Madam," said he, "I just came back to ask what became of your
brother-in-law through his wife's not bein' able to put no light in the
window?"

"The storm drove him ashore on our side of the bay," said she, "and the
next mornin' he came up to our house, and I told him all that had
happened to me.  And when he took our boat and went home and told that
story to his wife, she just packed up and went out West, and got
divorced from him.  And it served him right, too."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Captain Jenkinson, and going out of the gate,
he clambered up over the wheel, and the wagon cleared for Cuppertown.

When the elderly mariners were gone, the Widow Ducket, still standing
in the door, turned to Dorcas.

"Think of it!" she said.  "To tell all that to me, in my own house!
And after I had opened my one jar of brandied peaches, that I'd been
keepin' for special company!"

"In your own house!" ejaculated Dorcas.  "And not one of them brandied
peaches left!"

The widow jingled the four quarters in her hand before she slipped them
into her pocket.

"Anyway, Dorcas," she remarked, "I think we can now say we are square
with all the world, and so let's go in and wash the dishes."

"Yes," said Dorcas, "we're square."




CAPTAIN ELI'S BEST EAR

The little seaside village of Sponkannis lies so quietly upon a
protected spot on our Atlantic coast that it makes no more stir in the
world than would a pebble which, held between one's finger and thumb,
should be dipped below the surface of a millpond and then dropped.
About the post-office and the store--both under the same roof--the
greater number of the houses cluster, as if they had come for their
week's groceries, or were waiting for the mail, while toward the west
the dwellings become fewer and fewer, until at last the village blends
into a long stretch of sandy coast and scrubby pine-woods.  Eastward
the village ends abruptly at the foot of a windswept bluff, on which no
one cares to build.

Among the last houses in the western end of the village stood two neat,
substantial dwellings, one belonging to Captain Eli Bunker, and the
other to Captain Cephas Dyer.  These householders were two very
respectable retired mariners, the first a widower about fifty, and the
other a bachelor of perhaps the same age, a few years more or less
making but little difference in this region of weather-beaten youth and
seasoned age.

Each of these good captains lived alone, and each took entire charge of
his own domestic affairs, not because he was poor, but because it
pleased him to do so.  When Captain Eli retired from the sea he was the
owner of a good vessel, which he sold at a fair profit; and Captain
Cephas had made money in many a voyage before he built his house in
Sponkannis and settled there.

When Captain Eli's wife was living she was his household manager.  But
Captain Cephas had never had a woman in his house, except during the
first few months of his occupancy, when certain female neighbors came
in occasionally to attend to little matters of cleaning which,
according to popular notions, properly belong to the sphere of woman.

But Captain Cephas soon put an end to this sort of thing.  He did not
like a woman's ways, especially her ways of attending to domestic
affairs.  He liked to live in sailor fashion, and to keep house in
sailor fashion.  In his establishment everything was shipshape, and
everything which could be stowed away was stowed away, and, if
possible, in a bunker.  The floors were holystoned nearly every day,
and the whole house was repainted about twice a year, a little at a
time, when the weather was suitable for this marine recreation.  Things
not in frequent use were lashed securely to the walls, or perhaps put
out of the way by being hauled up to the ceiling by means of blocks and
tackle.  His cooking was done sailor fashion, like everything else, and
he never failed to have plum-duff on Sunday.  His well was near his
house, and every morning he dropped into it a lead and line, and noted
down the depth of water.  Three times a day he entered in a little
note-book the state of the weather, the height of the mercury in
barometer and thermometer, the direction of the wind, and special
weather points when necessary.

Captain Eli managed his domestic affairs in an entirely different way.
He kept house woman fashion--not, however, in the manner of an ordinary
woman, but after the manner of his late wife, Miranda Bunker, now dead
some seven years.  Like his friend, Captain Cephas, he had had the
assistance of his female neighbors during the earlier days of his
widowerhood.  But he soon found that these women did not do things as
Miranda used to do them, and, although he frequently suggested that
they should endeavor to imitate the methods of his late consort, they
did not even try to do things as she used to do them, preferring their
own ways.  Therefore it was that Captain Eli determined to keep house
by himself, and to do it, as nearly as his nature would allow, as
Miranda used to do it.  He swept his doors and he shook his door-mats;
he washed his paint with soap and hot water; he dusted his furniture
with a soft cloth, which he afterwards stuck behind a chest of drawers.
He made his bed very neatly, turning down the sheet at the top, and
setting the pillow upon edge, smoothing it carefully after he had done
so.  His cooking was based on the methods of the late Miranda.  He had
never been able to make bread rise properly, but he had always liked
ship-biscuit, and he now greatly preferred them to the risen bread made
by his neighbors.  And as to coffee and the plainer articles of food
with which he furnished his table, even Miranda herself would not have
objected to them had she been alive and very hungry.

The houses of the two captains were not very far apart, and they were
good neighbors, often smoking their pipes together and talking of the
sea.  But this was always on the little porch in front of Captain
Cephas's house, or by his kitchen fire in the winter.  Captain Eli did
not like the smell of tobacco smoke in his house, or even in front of
it in summer-time, when the doors were open.  He had no objection
himself to the odor of tobacco, but it was contrary to the principles
of woman housekeeping that rooms should smell of it, and he was always
true to those principles.

It was late in a certain December, and through the village there was a
pleasant little flutter of Christmas preparations.  Captain Eli had
been up to the store, and he had stayed there a good while, warming
himself by the stove, and watching the women coming in to buy things
for Christmas.  It was strange how many things they bought for presents
or for holiday use--fancy soap and candy, handkerchiefs and little
woollen shawls for old people, and a lot of pretty little things which
he knew the use of, but which Captain Cephas would never have
understood at all had he been there.

As Captain Eli came out of the store he saw a cart in which were two
good-sized Christmas trees, which had been cut in the woods, and were
going, one to Captain Holmes's house, and the other to Mother Nelson's.
Captain Holmes had grandchildren, and Mother Nelson, with never a child
of her own, good old soul, had three little orphan nieces who never
wanted for anything needful at Christmas-time or any other time.

Captain Eli walked home very slowly, taking observations in his mind.
It was more than seven years since he had had anything to do with
Christmas, except that on that day he had always made himself a
mince-pie, the construction and the consumption of which were equally
difficult.  It is true that neighbors had invited him, and they had
invited Captain Cephas, to their Christmas dinners, but neither of
these worthy seamen had ever accepted any of these invitations.  Even
holiday food, when not cooked in sailor fashion, did not agree with
Captain Cephas, and it would have pained the good heart of Captain Eli
if he had been forced to make believe to enjoy a Christmas dinner so
very inferior to those which Miranda used to set before him.

But now the heart of Captain Eli was gently moved by a Christmas
flutter.  It had been foolish, perhaps, for him to go up to the store
at such a time as this, but the mischief had been done.  Old feelings
had come back to him, and he would be glad to celebrate Christmas this
year if he could think of any good way to do it.  And the result of his
mental observations was that he went over to Captain Cephas's house to
talk to him about it.

Captain Cephas was in his kitchen, smoking his third morning pipe.
Captain Eli filled his pipe, lighted it, and sat down by the fire.

"Cap'n," said he, "what do you say to our keepin Christmas this year?
A Christmas dinner is no good if it's got to be eat alone, and you and
me might eat ourn together.  It might be in my house, or it might be in
your house--it won't make no great difference to me which.  Of course,
I like woman housekeepin', as is laid down in the rules of service fer
my house.  But next best to that I like sailor housekeepin', so I don't
mind which house the dinner is in, Cap'n Cephas, so it suits you."

Captain Cephas took his pipe from his mouth.  "You're pretty late
thinkin' about it," said he, "fer day after to-morrow's Christmas."

"That don't make no difference," said Captain Eli.  "What things we
want that are not in my house or your house we can easily get either up
at the store or else in the woods."

"In the woods!" exclaimed Captain Cephas.  "What in the name of thunder
do you expect to get in the woods for Christmas?"

"A Christmas tree," said Captain Eli.  "I thought it might be a nice
thing to have a Christmas tree fer Christmas.  Cap'n Holmes has got
one, and Mother Nelson's got another.  I guess nearly everybody's got
one.  It won't cost anything--I can go and cut it."

Captain Cephas grinned a grin, as if a great leak had been sprung in
the side of a vessel, stretching nearly from stem to stern.

"A Christmas tree!" he exclaimed.  "Well, I am blessed!  But look here,
Cap'n Eli.  You don't know what a Christmas tree's fer.  It's fer
children, and not fer grown-ups.  Nobody ever does have a Christmas
tree in any house where there ain't no children."

Captain Eli rose and stood with his back to the fire.  "I didn't think
of that," he said, "but I guess it's so.  And when I come to think of
it, a Christmas isn't much of a Christmas, anyway, without children."

"You never had none," said Captain Cephas, "and you've kept Christmas."

"Yes," replied Captain Eli, reflectively, "we did do it, but there was
always a lackment--Miranda has said so, and I have said so."

"You didn't have no Christmas tree," said Captain Cephas.

"No, we didn't.  But I don't think that folks was as much set on
Christmas trees then as they 'pear to be now.  I wonder," he continued,
thoughtfully gazing at the ceiling, "if we was to fix up a Christmas
tree--and you and me's got a lot of pretty things that we've picked up
all over the world, that would go miles ahead of anything that could be
bought at the store fer Christmas trees--if we was to fix up a tree
real nice, if we couldn't get some child or other that wasn't likely to
have a tree to come in and look at it, and stay awhile, and make
Christmas more like Christmas.  And then, when it went away, it could
take along the things that was hangin' on the tree, and keep 'em fer
its own."

"That wouldn't work," said Captain Cephas.  "If you get a child into
this business, you must let it hang up its stockin' before it goes to
bed, and find it full in the mornin', and then tell it an all-fired lie
about Santa Claus if it asks any questions.  Most children think more
of stockin's than they do of trees--so I've heard, at least."

"I've got no objections to stockin's," said Captain Eli.  "If it wanted
to hang one up, it could hang one up either here or in my house,
wherever we kept Christmas."

"You couldn't keep a child all night," sardonically remarked Captain
Cephas, "and no more could I.  Fer if it was to get up a croup in the
night, it would be as if we was on a lee shore with anchors draggin'
and a gale a-blowin'."

"That's so," said Captain Eli.  "You've put it fair.  I suppose if we
did keep a child all night, we'd have to have some sort of a woman
within hail in case of a sudden blow."

Captain Cephas sniffed.  "What's the good of talkin'?" said he.  "There
ain't no child, and there ain't no woman that you could hire to sit all
night on my front step or on your front step, a-waitin' to be piped on
deck in case of croup."

"No," said Captain Eli.  "I don't suppose there's any child in this
village that ain't goin' to be provided with a Christmas tree or a
Christmas stockin', or perhaps both--except, now I come to think of it,
that little gal that was brought down here with her mother last summer,
and has been kept by Mrs. Crumley sence her mother died."

"And won't be kept much longer," said Captain Cephas, "fer I've hearn
Mrs. Crumley say she couldn't afford it."

"That's so," said Captain Eli.  "If she can't afford to keep the little
gal, she can't afford to give no Christmas trees nor stockin's, and so
it seems to me, cap'n, that that little gal would be a pretty good
child to help us keep Christmas."

"You're all the time forgettin'," said the other, "that nuther of us
can keep a child all night."

Captain Eli seated himself, and looked ponderingly into the fire.
"You're right, cap'n," said he.  "We'd have to ship some woman to take
care of her.  Of course, it wouldn't be no use to ask Mrs. Crumley?"

Captain Cephas laughed.  "I should say not."

"And there doesn't seem to be anybody else," said his companion.  "Can
you think of anybody, cap'n?"

"There ain't anybody to think of," replied Captain Cephas, "unless it
might be Eliza Trimmer.  She's generally ready enough to do anything
that turns up.  But she wouldn't be no good--her house is too far away
for either you or me to hail her in case a croup came up suddint."

"That's so," said Captain Eli.  "She does live a long way off."

"So that settles the whole business," said Captain Cephas.  "She's too
far away to come if wanted, and nuther of us couldn't keep no child
without somebody to come if they was wanted, and it's no use to have a
Christmas tree without a child.  A Christmas without a Christmas tree
don't seem agreeable to you, cap'n, so I guess we'd better get along
just the same as we've been in the habit of doin', and eat our
Christmas dinner, as we do our other meals in our own houses."

Captain Eli looked into the fire.  "I don't like to give up things if I
can help it.  That was always my way.  If wind and tide's ag'in' me, I
can wait till one or the other, or both of them, serve."

 "Yes," said Captain Cephas, "you was always that kind of a
man."

"That's so.  But it does 'pear to me as if I'd have to give up this
time, though it's a pity to do it, on account of the little gal, fer
she ain't likely to have any Christmas this year.  She's a nice little
gal, and takes as natural to navigation as if she'd been born at sea.
I've given her two or three things because she's so pretty, but there's
nothing she likes so much as a little ship I gave her."

"Perhaps she was born at sea," remarked Captain Cephas.

"Perhaps she was," said the other; "and that makes it the bigger pity."

For a few moments nothing was said.  Then Captain Eli suddenly
exclaimed, "I'll tell you what we might do, cap'n!  We might ask Mrs.
Trimmer to lend a hand in givin' the little gal a Christmas.  She ain't
got nobody in her house but herself, and I guess she'd be glad enough
to help give that little gal a regular Christmas.  She could go and get
the child, and bring her to your house or to my house, or wherever
we're goin' to keep Christmas, and--"

"Well," said Captain Cephas, with an air of scrutinizing inquiry,
"what?"

"Well," replied the other, a little hesitatingly, "so far as I'm
concerned,--that is, I don't mind one way or the other,--she might take
her Christmas dinner along with us and the little gal, and then she
could fix her stockin' to be hung up, and help with the Christmas tree,
and--"

"Well," demanded Captain Cephas, "what?"

"Well," said Captain Eli, "she could--that is, it doesn't make any
difference to me one way or the other--she might stay all night at
whatever house we kept Christmas in, and then you and me might spend
the night in the other house, and then she could be ready there to help
the child in the mornin', when she came to look at her stockin'."

Captain Cephas fixed upon his friend an earnest glare.  "That's pretty
considerable of an idea to come upon you so suddint," said he.  "But I
can tell you one thing: there ain't a-goin' to be any such doin's in my
house.  If you choose to come over here to sleep, and give up your
house to any woman you can find to take care of the little gal, all
right.  But the thing can't be done here."

There was a certain severity in these remarks, but they appeared to
affect Captain Eli very pleasantly.

"Well," said he, "if you're satisfied, I am.  I'll agree to any plan
you choose to make.  It doesn't matter to me which house it's in, and
if you say my house, I say my house.  All I want is to make the
business agreeable to all concerned.  Now it's time fer me to go to my
dinner, and this afternoon we'd better go and try to get things
straightened out, because the little gal, and whatever woman comes with
her, ought to be at my house to-morrow before dark.  S'posin' we divide
up this business: I'll go and see Mrs. Crumley about the little gal,
and you can go and see Mrs. Trimmer."

"No, sir," promptly replied Captain Cephas, "I don't go to see no Mrs.
Trimmer.  You can see both of them just the same as you can see
one--they're all along the same way.  I'll go cut the Christmas tree."

"All right," said Captain Eli.  "It don't make no difference to me
which does which.  But if I was you, cap'n, I'd cut a good big tree,
because we might as well have a good one while we're about it."

When he had eaten his dinner, and washed up his dishes, and had put
everything away in neat, housewifely order, Captain Eli went to Mrs.
Crumley's house, and very soon finished his business there.  Mrs.
Crumley kept the only house which might be considered a boarding-house
in the village of Sponkannis; and when she had consented to take charge
of the little girl who had been left on her hands she had hoped it
would not be very long before she would hear from some of her relatives
in regard to her maintenance.  But she had heard nothing, and had now
ceased to expect to hear anything, and in consequence had frequently
remarked that she must dispose of the child some way or other, for she
couldn't afford to keep her any longer.  Even an absence of a day or
two at the house of the good captain would be some relief, and Mrs.
Crumley readily consented to the Christmas scheme.  As to the little
girl, she was delighted.  She already looked upon Captain Eli as her
best friend in the world.

It was not so easy to go to Mrs. Trimmer's house and put the business
before her.  "It ought to be plain sailin' enough," Captain Eli said to
himself, over and over again, "but, fer all that, it don't seem to be
plain sailin'."

But he was not a man to be deterred by difficult navigation, and he
walked straight to Eliza Trimmer's house.

Mrs. Trimmer was a comely woman about thirty-five, who had come to the
village a year before, and had maintained herself, or at least had
tried to, by dressmaking and plain sewing.  She had lived at Stetford,
a seaport about twenty miles away, and from there, three years before,
her husband, Captain Trimmer, had sailed away in a good-sized schooner,
and had never returned.  She had come to Sponkannis because she thought
that there she could live cheaper and get more work than in her former
home.  She had found the first quite possible, but her success in
regard to the work had not been very great.

When Captain Eli entered Mrs. Trimmer's little room, he found her busy
mending a sail.  Here fortune favored him.  "You turn your hand to
'most anything, Mrs. Trimmer," said he, after he had greeted her.

"Oh, yes," she answered, with a smile, "I am obliged to do that.
Mending sails is pretty heavy work, but it's better than nothing."

"I had a notion," said he, "that you was ready to turn your hand to any
good kind of business, so I thought I would step in and ask you if
you'd turn your hand to a little bit of business I've got on the
stocks."

She stopped sewing on the sail, and listened while Captain Eli laid his
plan before her.  "It's very kind in you and Captain Cephas to think of
all that," said she.  "I have often noticed that poor little girl, and
pitied her.  Certainly I'll come, and you needn't say anything about
paying me for it.  I wouldn't think of asking to be paid for doing a
thing like that.  And besides,"--she smiled again as she spoke,--"if
you are going to give me a Christmas dinner, as you say, that will make
things more than square."

Captain Eli did not exactly agree with her, but he was in very good
humor, and she was in good humor, and the matter was soon settled, and
Mrs. Trimmer promised to come to the captain's house in the morning and
help about the Christmas tree, and in the afternoon to go to get the
little girl from Mrs. Crumley's and bring her to the house.

Captain Eli was delighted with the arrangements.  "Things now seem to
be goin' along before a spankin' breeze," said he.  "But I don't know
about the dinner.  I guess you will have to leave that to me.  I don't
believe Captain Cephas could eat a woman-cooked dinner.  He's
accustomed to livin sailor fashion, you know, and he has declared over
and over again to me that woman-cookin' doesn't agree with him."

"But I can cook sailor fashion," said Mrs. Trimmer,--"just as much
sailor fashion as you or Captain Cephas, and if he don't believe it,
I'll prove it to him; so you needn't worry about that."

When the captain had gone, Mrs. Trimmer gayly put away the sail.  There
was no need to finish it in a hurry, and no knowing when she would get
her money for it when it was done.  No one had asked her to a Christmas
dinner that year, and she had expected to have a lonely time of it.
But it would be very pleasant to spend Christmas with the little girl
and the two good captains.  Instead of sewing any more on the sail, she
got out some of her own clothes to see if they needed anything done to
them.

The next morning Mrs. Trimmer went to Captain Eli's house, and finding
Captain Cephas there, they all set to work at the Christmas tree, which
was a very fine one, and had been planted in a box.  Captain Cephas had
brought over a bundle of things from his house, and Captain Eli kept
running here and there, bringing, each time that he returned, some new
object, wonderful or pretty, which he had brought from China or Japan
or Corea, or some spicy island of the Eastern seas; and nearly every
time he came with these treasures Mrs. Trimmer declared that such
things were too good to put upon a Christmas tree, even for such a nice
little girl as the one for which that tree was intended.  The presents
which Captain Cephas brought were much more suitable for the purpose;
they were odd and funny, and some of them pretty, but not expensive, as
were the fans and bits of shellwork and carved ivories which Captain
Eli wished to tie upon the twigs of the tree.

There was a good deal of talk about all this, but Captain Eli had his
own way.

"I don't suppose, after all," said he, "that the little gal ought to
have all the things.  This is such a big tree that it's more like a
family tree.  Cap'n Cephas can take some of my things, and I can take
some of his things, and, Mrs. Trimmer, if there's anything you like,
you can call it your present and take it for your own, so that will be
fair and comfortable all round.  What I want is to make everybody
satisfied."

"I'm sure I think they ought to be," said Mrs. Trimmer, looking very
kindly at Captain Eli.

Mrs. Trimmer went home to her own house to dinner, and in the afternoon
she brought the little girl.  She had said there ought to be an early
supper, so that the child would have time to enjoy the Christmas tree
before she became sleepy.

This meal was prepared entirely by Captain Eli, and in sailor fashion,
not woman fashion, so that Captain Cephas could make no excuse for
eating his supper at home.  Of course they all ought to be together the
whole of that Christmas eve.  As for the big dinner on the morrow, that
was another affair, for Mrs. Trimmer undertook to make Captain Cephas
understand that she had always cooked for Captain Trimmer in sailor
fashion, and if he objected to her plum-duff, or if anybody else
objected to her mince-pie, she was going to be very much surprised.

Captain Cephas ate his supper with a good relish, and was still eating
when the rest had finished.  As to the Christmas tree, it was the most
valuable, if not the most beautiful, that had ever been set up in that
region.  It had no candles upon it, but was lighted by three lamps and
a ship's lantern placed in the four corners of the room, and the little
girl was as happy as if the tree were decorated with little dolls and
glass balls.  Mrs. Trimmer was intensely pleased and interested to see
the child so happy, and Captain Eli was much pleased and interested to
see the child and Mrs. Trimmer so happy, and Captain Cephas was
interested, and perhaps a little amused in a superior fashion, to see
Captain Eli and Mrs. Trimmer and the little child so happy.

Then the distribution of the presents began.  Captain Eli asked Captain
Cephas if he might have the wooden pipe that the latter had brought for
his present.  Captain Cephas said he might take it, for all he cared,
and be welcome to it.  Then Captain Eli gave Captain Cephas a red
bandanna handkerchief of a very curious pattern, and Captain Cephas
thanked him kindly.  After which Captain Eli bestowed upon Mrs. Trimmer
a most beautiful tortoise-shell comb, carved and cut and polished in a
wonderful way, and with it he gave a tortoise-shell fan, carved in the
same fashion, because he said the two things seemed to belong to each
other and ought to go together; and he would not listen to one word of
what Mrs. Trimmer said about the gifts being too good for her, and that
she was not likely ever to use them.

"It seems to me," said Captain Cephas, "that you might be giving
something to the little gal."

Then Captain Eli remembered that the child ought not to be forgotten,
and her soul was lifted into ecstasy by many gifts, some of which Mrs.
Trimmer declared were too good for any child in this wide, wide world.
But Captain Eli answered that they could be taken care of by somebody
until the little girl was old enough to know their value.

Then it was discovered that, unbeknown to anybody else, Mrs. Trimmer
had put some presents on the tree, which were things which had been
brought by Captain Trimmer from somewhere in the far East or the
distant West.  These she bestowed upon Captain Cephas and Captain Eli.
And the end of all this was that in the whole of Sponkannis, from the
foot of the bluff to the east, to the very last house on the shore to
the west, there was not one Christmas eve party so happy as this one.

Captain Cephas was not quite so happy as the three others were, but he
was very much interested.  About nine o'clock the party broke up, and
the two captains put on their caps and buttoned up their pea-jackets,
and started for Captain Cephas's house, but not before Captain Eli had
carefully fastened every window and every door except the front door,
and had told Mrs. Trimmer how to fasten that when they had gone, and
had given her a boatswain's whistle, which she might blow out of the
window if there should be a sudden croup and it should be necessary for
any one to go anywhere.  He was sure he could hear it, for the wind was
exactly right for him to hear a whistle from his house.  When they had
gone Mrs. Trimmer put the little girl to bed, and was delighted to find
in what a wonderfully neat and womanlike fashion that house was kept.

It was nearly twelve o'clock that night when Captain Eli, sleeping in
his bunk opposite that of Captain Cephas, was aroused by hearing a
sound.  He had been lying with his best ear uppermost, so that he
should hear anything if there happened to be anything to hear.  He did
hear something, but it was not a boatswain's whistle; it was a
prolonged cry, and it seemed to come from the sea.

In a moment Captain Eli was sitting on the side of his bunk, listening
intently.  Again came the cry.  The window toward the sea was slightly
open, and he heard it plainly.

"Cap'n!" said he, and at the word Captain Cephas was sitting on the
side of his bunk, listening.  He knew from his companion's attitude,
plainly visible in the light of a lantern which hung on a hook at the
other end of the room, that he had been awakened to listen.  Again came
the cry.

"That's distress at sea," said Captain Cephas.  "Harken!"

They listened again for nearly a minute, when the cry was repeated.

"Bounce on deck, boys!" said Captain Cephas, getting out on the floor.
"There's some one in distress off shore."

Captain Eli jumped to the floor, and began to dress quickly.

"It couldn't be a call from land?" he asked hurriedly.  "It don't sound
a bit to you like a boatswain's whistle, does it?"

"No," said Captain Cephas, disdainfully.  "It's a call from sea." Then,
seizing a lantern, he rushed down the companionway.

As soon as he was convinced that it was a call from sea, Captain Eli
was one in feeling and action with Captain Cephas.  The latter hastily
opened the draughts of the kitchen stove, and put on some wood, and by
the time this was done Captain Eli had the kettle filled and on the
stove.  Then they clapped on their caps and their pea-jackets, each
took an oar from a corner in the back hall, and together they ran down
to the beach.

The night was dark, but not very cold, and Captain Cephas had been to
the store that morning in his boat.

Whenever he went to the store, and the weather permitted, he rowed
there in his boat rather than walk.  At the bow of the boat, which was
now drawn up on the sand, the two men stood and listened.  Again came
the cry from the sea.

"It's something ashore on the Turtle-back Shoal," said Captain Cephas.

"Yes," said Captain Eli, "and it's some small craft, fer that cry is
down pretty nigh to the water."

"Yes," said Captain Cephas.  "And there's only one man aboard, or else
they'd take turns a-hollerin'."

"He's a stranger," said Captain Eli, "or he wouldn't have tried, even
with a cat-boat, to get in over that shoal on ebb-tide."

As they spoke they ran the boat out into the water and jumped in, each
with an oar.  Then they pulled for the Turtle-back Shoal.

Although these two captains were men of fifty or thereabout, they were
as strong and tough as any young fellows in the village, and they
pulled with steady strokes, and sent the heavy boat skimming over the
water, not in a straight line toward the Turtle-back Shoal, but now a
few points in the darkness this way, and now a few points in the
darkness that way, then with a great curve to the south through the
dark night, keeping always near the middle of the only good channel out
of the bay when the tide was ebbing.

Now the cries from seaward had ceased, but the two captains were not
discouraged.

"He's heard the thumpin' of our oars," said Captain Cephas.

"He's listenin', and he'll sing out again if he thinks we're goin'
wrong," said Captain Eli.  "Of course he doesn't know anything about
that."

And so when they made the sweep to the south the cry came again, and
Captain Eli grinned.  "We needn't to spend no breath hollerin'," said
he.  "He'll hear us makin' fer him in a minute."

When they came to head for the shoal they lay on their oars for a
moment, while Captain Cephas turned the lantern in the bow, so that its
light shone out ahead.  He had not wanted the shipwrecked person to see
the light when it would seem as if the boat were rowing away from him.
He had heard of castaway people who became so wild when they imagined
that a ship or boat was going away from them that they jumped overboard.

When the two captains reached the shoal, they found there a cat-boat
aground, with one man aboard.  His tale was quickly told.  He had
expected to run into the little bay that afternoon, but the wind had
fallen, and in trying to get in after dark, and being a stranger, he
had run aground.  If he had not been so cold, he said, he would have
been willing to stay there till the tide rose; but he was getting
chilled, and seeing a light not far away, he concluded to call for help
as long as his voice held out.

The two captains did not ask many questions.  They helped anchor the
cat-boat, and then they took the man on their boat and rowed him to
shore.  He was getting chilled sitting out there doing nothing, and so
when they reached the house they made him some hot grog, and promised
in the morning, when the tide rose, they would go out and help him
bring his boat in.  Then Captain Cephas showed the stranger to a bunk,
and they all went to bed.  Such experiences had not enough of novelty
to the good captains to keep them awake five minutes.

In the morning they were all up very early, and the stranger, who
proved to be a seafaring man with bright blue eyes, said that, as his
cat-boat seemed to be riding all right at its anchorage, he did not
care to go out after her just yet.  Any time during flood-tide would do
for him, and he had some business that he wanted to attend to as soon
as possible.

This suited the two captains very well, for they wished to be on hand
when the little girl discovered her stocking.

"Can you tell me," said the stranger, as he put on his cap, "where I
can find a Mrs. Trimmer, who lives in this village?"

At these words all the sturdy stiffness which, from his youth up, had
characterized the legs of Captain Eli entirely went out of them, and he
sat suddenly upon a bench.  For a few moments there was silence.

Then Captain Cephas, who thought some answer should be made to the
question, nodded his head.

"I want to see her as soon as I can," said the stranger.  "I have come
to see her on particular business that will be a surprise to her.  I
wanted to be here before Christmas began, and that's the reason I took
that cat-boat from Stetford, because I thought I'd come quicker that
way than by land.  But the wind fell, as I told you.  If either one of
you would be good enough to pilot me to where Mrs. Trimmer lives, or to
any point where I can get a sight of the place, I'd be obliged."

Captain Eli rose and with hurried but unsteady steps went into the
house (for they had been upon the little piazza), and beckoned to his
friend to follow.  The two men stood in the kitchen and looked at each
other.  The face of Captain Eli was of the hue of a clam-shell.

"Go with him, cap'n," he said in a hoarse whisper.  "I can't do it."

"To your house?" inquired the other.

"Of course.  Take him to my house.  There ain't no other place where
she is.  Take him along."

Captain Cephas's countenance wore an air of the deepest concern, but he
thought that the best thing to do was to get the stranger away.

 As they walked rapidly toward Captain Eli's house there was
very little said by either Captain Cephas or the stranger.  The latter
seemed anxious to give Mrs. Trimmer a surprise, and not to say anything
which might enable another person to interfere with his project.

The two men had scarcely stepped upon the piazza when Mrs. Trimmer, who
had been expecting early visitors, opened the door.  She was about to
call out "Merry Christmas!" but, her eyes falling upon a stranger, the
words stopped at her lips.  First she turned red, then she turned pale,
and Captain Cephas thought she was about to fall.  But before she could
do this the stranger had her in his arms.  She opened her eyes, which
for a moment she had closed, and, gazing into his face, she put her
arms around his neck.  Then Captain Cephas came away, without thinking
of the little girl and the pleasure she would have in discovering her
Christmas stocking.

When he had been left alone, Captain Eli sat down near the kitchen
stove, close to the very kettle which he had filled with water to heat
for the benefit of the man he had helped bring in from the sea, and,
with his elbows on his knees and his fingers in his hair, he darkly
pondered.

"If I'd only slept with my hard-o'-hearin' ear up," he said to himself,
"I'd never have heard it."

In a few moments his better nature condemned this thought.

"That's next to murder," he muttered, "fer he couldn't have kept
himself from fallin' asleep out there in the cold, and when the tide
riz held have been blowed out to sea with this wind.  If I hadn't heard
him, Captain Cephas never would, fer he wasn't primed up to wake, as I
was."

But, notwithstanding his better nature, Captain Eli was again saying to
himself, when his friend returned, "If I'd only slept with my other ear
up!"

Like the honest, straightforward mariner he was, Captain Cephas made an
exact report of the facts.  "They was huggin' when I left them," he
said, "and I expect they went indoors pretty soon, fer it was too cold
outside.  It's an all-fired shame she happened to be in your house,
cap'n, that's all I've got to say about it. It's a thunderin' shame."

Captain Eli made no answer.  He still sat with his elbows on his knees
and his hands in his hair.

"A better course than you laid down fer these Christmas times was never
dotted on a chart," continued Captain Cephas.  "From port of sailin' to
port of entry you laid it down clear and fine.  But it seems there was
rocks that wasn't marked on the chart."

"Yes," groaned Captain Eli, "there was rocks."

Captain Cephas made no attempt to comfort his friend, but went to work
to get breakfast.

When that meal--a rather silent one--was over, Captain Eli felt better.
"There was rocks," he said, "and not a breaker to show where they lay,
and I struck 'em bow on.  So that's the end of that voyage.  But I've
tuk to my boats, cap'n, I've tuk to my boats."

"I'm glad to hear you've tuk to your boats," said Captain Cephas, with
an approving glance upon his friend.

About ten minutes afterwards Captain Eli said, "I'm goin' up to my
house."

"By yourself?" said the other.

"Yes, by myself.  I'd rather go alone.  I don't intend to mind
anything, and I'm goin' to tell her that she can stay there and spend
Christmas,--the place she lives in ain't no place to spend
Christmas,--and she can make the little gal have a good time, and go
'long just as we intended to go 'long--plum-duff and mince-pie all the
same.  I can stay here, and you and me can have our Christmas dinner
together, if we choose to give it that name.  And if she ain't ready to
go to-morrow, she can stay a day or two longer.  It's all the same to
me, if it's the same to you, cap'n."

Captain Cephas having said that it was the same to him, Captain Eli put
on his cap and buttoned up his pea-jacket, declaring that the sooner he
got to his house the better, as she might be thinking that she would
have to move out of it now that things were different.

Before Captain Eli reached his house he saw something which pleased
him.  He saw the sea-going stranger, with his back toward him, walking
rapidly in the direction of the village store.

Captain Eli quickly entered his house, and in the doorway of the room
where the tree was he met Mrs. Trimmer, beaming brighter than any
morning sun that ever rose.

"Merry Christmas!" she exclaimed, holding out both her hands.  "I've
been wondering and wondering when you'd come to bid me `Merry
Christmas'--the merriest Christmas I've ever had."

Captain Eli took her hands and bid her "Merry Christmas" very gravely.

She looked a little surprised.  "What's the matter, Captain Eli?" she
exclaimed.  "You don't seem to say that as if you meant it."

"Oh, yes, I do," he answered.  "This must be an all-fired--I mean a
thunderin' happy Christmas fer you, Mrs. Trimmer."

"Yes," said she, her face beaming again.  "And to think that it should
happen on Christmas day--that this blessed morning, before anything
else happened, my Bob, my only brother, should--"

"Your what!" roared Captain Eli, as if he had been shouting orders in a
raging storm.

Mrs. Trimmer stepped back almost frightened.  "My brother," said she.
"Didn't he tell you he was my brother--my brother Bob, who sailed away
a year before I was married, and who has been in Africa and China and I
don't know where?  It's so long since I heard that he'd gone into
trading at Singapore that I'd given him up as married and settled in
foreign parts.  And here he has come to me as if he'd tumbled from the
sky on this blessed Christmas morning."

Captain Eli made a step forward, his face very much flushed.

"Your brother, Mrs. Trimmer--did you really say it was your brother?"

"Of course it is," said she.  "Who else could it be?"  Then she paused
for a moment and looked steadfastly at the captain.

"You don't mean to say, Captain Eli," she asked, "that you thought it
was--"

"Yes, I did," said Captain Eli, promptly.

Mrs. Trimmer looked straight in the captain's eyes, then she looked on
the ground.  Then she changed color and changed back again.

"I don't understand," she said hesitatingly, "why--I mean what
difference it made."

"Difference!" exclaimed Captain Eli.  "It was all the difference
between a man on deck and a man overboard--that's the difference it was
to me.  I didn't expect to be talkin' to you so early this Christmas
mornin', but things has been sprung on me, and I can't help it I just
want to ask you one thing:  Did you think I was gettin' up this
Christmas tree and the Christmas dinner and the whole business fer the
good of the little gal, and fer the good of you, and fer the good of
Captain Cephas?"

Mrs. Trimmer had now recovered a very fair possession of herself.  "Of
course I did," she answered, looking up at him as she spoke.  "Who else
could it have been for!"

"Well," said he, "you were mistaken.  It wasn't fer any one of you.  It
was all fer me--fer my own self."

"You yourself?" said she.  "I don't see how."

"But I see how," he answered.  "It's been a long time since I wanted to
speak my mind to you, Mrs. Trimmer, but I didn't ever have no chance.
And all these Christmas doin's was got up to give me the chance not
only of speakin' to you, but of showin' my colors better than I could
show them in any other way.  Everything went on a-skimmin' till this
mornin', when that stranger that we brought in from the shoal piped up
and asked fer you.  Then I went overboard--at least, I thought I
did--and sunk down, down, clean out of soundin's."

"That was too bad, captain," said she, speaking very gently, "after all
your trouble and kindness."

"But I don't know now," he continued, "whether I went overboard or
whether I am on deck.  Can you tell me, Mrs. Trimmer?"

She looked up at him.  Her eyes were very soft, and her lips trembled
just a little.  "It seems to me, captain," she said, "that you are on
deck--if you want to be."

The captain stepped closer to her.  "Mrs. Trimmer," said he, "is that
brother of yours comin' back?"

"Yes," she answered, surprised at the sudden question.  "He's just gone
up to the store to buy a shirt and some things.  He got himself
splashed trying to push his boat off last night."

"Well, then," said Captain Eli, "would you mind tellin' him when he
comes back that you and me's engaged to be married?  I don't know
whether I've made a mistake in the lights or not, but would you mind
tellin' him that?"

Mrs. Trimmer looked at him.  Her eyes were not so soft as they had
been, but they were brighter.  "I'd rather you'd tell him that
yourself," said she.

The little girl sat on the floor near the Christmas tree, just
finishing a large piece of red-and-white candy which she had taken out
of her stocking.  "People do hug a lot at Christmas-time," said she to
herself.  Then she drew out a piece of blue-and-white candy and began
on that.

Captain Cephas waited a long time for his friend to return, and at last
he thought it would be well to go and look for him.  When he entered
the house he found Mrs. Trimmer sitting on the sofa in the parlor, with
Captain Eli on one side of her and her brother on the other, and each
of them holding one of her hands.

"It looks as if I was in port, don't it?" said Captain Eli to his
astonished friend.  "Well, here I am, and here's my fust mate,"
inclining his head toward Mrs. Trimmer.  "And she's in port too, safe
and sound.  And that strange captain on the other side of her, he's her
brother Bob, who's been away for years and years, and is just home from
Madagascar."

"Singapore," amended Brother Bob.

Captain Cephas looked from one to the other of the three occupants of
the sofa, but made no immediate remark.  Presently a smile of genial
maliciousness stole over his face, and he asked, "How about the poor
little gal?  Have you sent her back to Mrs. Crumley's?"

The little girl came out from behind the Christmas tree, her stocking,
now but half filled, in her hand.  "Here I am," she said.  "Don't you
want to give me a Christmas hug, Captain Cephas?  You and me's the only
ones that hasn't had any."

The Christmas dinner was as truly and perfectly a sailor-cooked meal as
ever was served on board a ship or off it.  Captain Cephas had said
that, and when he had so spoken there was no need of further words.

It was nearly dark that afternoon, and they were all sitting around the
kitchen fire, the three seafaring men smoking, and Mrs. Trimmer greatly
enjoying it.  There could be no objection to the smell of tobacco in
this house so long as its future mistress enjoyed it.  The little girl
sat on the floor nursing a Chinese idol which had been one of her
presents.

"After all," said Captain Eli, meditatively, "this whole business come
out of my sleepin' with my best ear up.  Fer if I'd slept with my
hard-o'-hearin' ear up--"  Mrs. Trimmer put one finger on his lips.
"All right," said Captain Eli, "I won't say no more.  But it would have
been different."

Even now, several years after that Christmas, when there is no Mrs.
Trimmer, and the little girl, who has been regularly adopted by Captain
Eli and his wife, is studying geography, and knows more about latitude
and longitude than her teacher at school, Captain Eli has still a
slight superstitious dread of sleeping with his best ear uppermost.

"Of course it's the most all-fired nonsense," he says to himself over
and over again.  Nevertheless, he feels safer when it is his
"hard-o'-hearin' ear" that is not upon the pillow.




LOVE BEFORE BREAKFAST

I was still a young man when I came into the possession of an excellent
estate.  This consisted of a large country house, surrounded by lawns,
groves, and gardens, and situated not far from the flourishing little
town of Boynton.  Being an orphan with no brothers or sisters, I set up
here a bachelor's hall, in which, for two years, I lived with great
satisfaction and comfort, improving my grounds and furnishing my house.
When I had made all the improvements which were really needed, and
feeling that I now had a most delightful home to come back to, I
thought it would be an excellent thing to take a trip to Europe, give
my mind a run in fresh fields, and pick up a lot of bric-a-brac and
ideas for the adornment and advantage of my house and mind.

It was the custom of the residents in my neighborhood who owned houses
and travelled in the summer to let their houses during their absence,
and my business agent and myself agreed that this would be an excellent
thing for me to do.  If the house were let to a suitable family it
would yield me a considerable income, and the place would not present
on my return that air of retrogression and desolation which I might
expect if it were left unoccupied and in charge of a caretaker.

My agent assured me that I would have no trouble whatever in letting my
place, for it offered many advantages and I expected but a reasonable
rent.  I desired to leave everything just as it stood, house,
furniture, books, horses, cows, and poultry, taking with me only my
clothes and personal requisites, and I desired tenants who would come
in bringing only their clothes and personal requisites, which they
could quietly take away with them when their lease should expire and I
should return home.

In spite, however, of the assurances of the agent, it was not easy to
let my place.  The house was too large for some people, too small for
others, and while some applicants had more horses than I had stalls in
my stable, others did not want even the horses I would leave.  I had
engaged my steamer passage, and the day for my departure drew near, and
yet no suitable tenants had presented themselves.  I had almost come to
the conclusion that the whole matter would have to be left in the hands
of my agent, for I had no intention whatever of giving up my projected
travels, when early one afternoon some people came to look at the
house.  Fortunately I was at home, and I gave myself the pleasure of
personally conducting them about the premises.  It was a pleasure,
because as soon as I comprehended the fact that these applicants
desired to rent my house I wished them to have it.

The family consisted of an elderly gentleman and his wife, with a
daughter of twenty or thereabout.  This was a family that suited me
exactly.  Three in number, no children, people of intelligence and
position, fond of the country, and anxious for just such a place as I
offered them--what could be better?

The more I walked about and talked with these good people and showed
them my possessions, the more I desired that the young lady should take
my house.  Of course her parents were included in this wish, but it was
for her ears that all my remarks were intended, although sometimes
addressed to the others, and she was the tenant I labored to obtain.  I
say "labored" advisedly, because I racked my brain to think of
inducements which might bring them to a speedy and favorable decision.

Apart from the obvious advantages of the arrangement, it would be a
positive delight to me during my summer wanderings in Europe to think
that that beautiful girl would be strolling through my grounds,
enjoying my flowers, and sitting with her book in the shady nooks I had
made so pleasant, lying in my hammocks, spending her evening hours in
my study, reading my books, writing at my desk, and perhaps musing in
my easy-chair.  Before these applicants appeared it had sometimes
pained me to imagine strangers in my home; but no such thought crossed
my mind in regard to this young lady, who, if charming in the house and
on the lawn, grew positively entrancing when she saw my Jersey cows and
my two horses, regarding them with an admiration which even surpassed
my own.

Long before we had completed the tour of inspection I had made up my
mind that this young lady should come to live in my house.  If
obstacles should show themselves they should be removed.  I would tear
down, I would build, I would paper and paint, I would put in all sorts
of electric bells, I would reduce the rent until it suited their
notions exactly, I would have my horses' tails banged if she liked that
kind of tails better than long ones--I would do anything to make them
definitely decide to take the place before they left me.  I trembled to
think of her going elsewhere and giving other householders a chance to
tempt her.  She had looked at a good many country houses, but it was
quite plain that none of them had pleased her so well as mine.

I left them in my library to talk the matter over by themselves, and in
less than ten minutes the young lady herself came out on the lawn to
tell me that her father and mother had decided to take the place and
would like to speak with me.

"I am so glad," she said as we went in.  "I am sure I shall enjoy every
hour of our stay here.  It is so different from anything we have yet
seen."

When everything had been settled I wanted to take them again over the
place and point out a lot of things I had omitted.  I particularly
wanted to show them some lovely walks in the woods.  But there was no
time, for they had to catch a train.

Her name was Vincent--Cora Vincent, as I discovered from her mother's
remarks.

As soon as they departed I had my mare saddled and rode into town to
see my agent.  I went into his office exultant.

"I've let my house," I said, "and I want you to make out the lease and
have everything fixed and settled as soon as possible.  This is the
address of my tenants."

The agent asked me a good many questions, being particularly anxious to
know what rent had been agreed upon.

"Heavens!" he exclaimed, when I mentioned the sum, "that is ever so
much less than I told you you could get.  I am in communication now
with a party whom I know would pay you considerably more than these
people.  Have you definitely settled with them?  Perhaps it is not too
late to withdraw."

"Withdraw!" I cried.  "Never!  They are the only tenants I want.  I was
determined to get them, and I think I must have lowered the rent four
or five times in the course of the afternoon.  I took a big slice out
of it before I mentioned the sum at all.  You see," said I, very
impressively, "these Vincents exactly suit me."  And then I went on to
state fully the advantages of the arrangement, omitting, however, any
references to my visions of Miss Vincent swinging in my hammocks or
musing in my study-chair.

It was now May 15, and my steamer would sail on the twenty-first.  The
intervening days I employed, not in preparing for my travels, but in
making every possible arrangement for the comfort and convenience of my
incoming tenants.  The Vincents did not wish to take possession until
June 1, and I was sorry they had not applied before I had engaged my
passage, for in that case I would have selected a later date.  A very
good steamer sailed on June 3, and it would have suited me just as well.

Happening to be in New York one day, I went to the Vincents' city
residence to consult with them in regard to some awnings which I
proposed putting up at the back of the house.  I found no one at home
but the old gentleman, and it made no difference to him whether the
awnings were black and brown or red and yellow.  I cordially invited
him to come out before I left, and bring his family, that they might
look about the place to see if there was anything they would like to
have done which had not already been attended to.  It was so much
better, I told him, to talk over these matters personally with the
owner than with an agent in his absence.  Agents were often very
unwilling to make changes.  Mr. Vincent was a very quiet and
exceedingly pleasant elderly gentleman, and thanked me very much for my
invitation, but said he did not see how he could find the time to get
out to my house before I sailed.  I did not like to say that it was not
at all necessary for him to neglect his affairs in order to accompany
his family to my place, but I assured him that if any of them wished to
go out at any time before they took possession they must feel at
perfect liberty to do so.

I mentioned this matter to my agent, suggesting that if he happened to
be in New York he might call on the Vincents and repeat my invitation.
It was not likely that the old gentleman would remember to mention it
to his wife and daughter, and it was really important that everything
should be made satisfactory before I left.

"It seems to me," he said, smiling a little grimly, "that the Vincents
had better be kept away from your house until you have gone.  If you do
anything more to it you may find out that it would have been more
profitable to have shut it up while you are away."

He did call, however, partly because I wished him to and partly because
he was curious to see the people  I was so anxious to install in my
home, and to whom he was to be my legal representative.  He reported
the next day that he had found no one at home but Miss Vincent, and
that she had said that she and her mother would be very glad to come
out the next week and go over the place before they took possession.

"Next week!" I exclaimed.  "I shall be gone then!"

"But I shall be here," said Mr. Barker, "and I'll show them about and
take their suggestions."

This did not suit me at all.  It annoyed me very much to think of
Barker showing Miss Vincent about my place.  He was a good-looking
young man and not at all backward in his manners.

"After all," said I, "I suppose that everything that ought to be done
has been done.  I hope you told her that."

"Of course not," said he.  "That would have been running dead against
your orders.  Besides, it's my business to show people about places.  I
don't mind it."

This gave me an unpleasant and uneasy feeling.  I wondered if Mr.
Barker were the agent I ought to have, and if a middle-aged man with a
family and more experience might not be better able to manage my
affairs.

"Barker," said I, a little later, "there will be no use of your going
every month to the Vincents to collect their rent.  I shall write to
Mr. Vincent to pay as he pleases.  He can send a check monthly or at
the end of the season, as it may be convenient.  He is perfectly
responsible, and I would much prefer to have the money in a lump when I
come back."

Barker grinned.  "All right," said he, "but that's not the way to do
business, you know."

I may have been mistaken, but I fancied that I saw in my agent's face
an expression which indicated that he intended to call on the first day
of each month, on the pretext of telling Vincent that it was not
necessary to pay the rent at any particular time, and that he also
proposed to make many other intervening visits to inquire if repairs
were needed.  This might have been a good deal to get out of his
expression, but I think I could have got more if I had thought longer.

On the day before that on which I was to sail, my mind was in such a
disturbed condition that I could not attend to my packing or anything
else.  It almost enraged me to think that I was deliberately leaving
the country ten days before my tenants would come to my house.  There
was no reason why I should do this.  There were many reasons why I
should not.  There was Barker.  I was now of the opinion that he would
personally superintend the removal of the Vincents and their
establishment to my home.  I remembered that the only suggestion he had
made about the improvement of the place had been the construction of a
tennis-court.  I knew that he was a champion player.  Confound it!
What a dreadful mistake I had made in selecting such a man for my
house-agent.  With my mind's eye I could already see Miss Vincent and
Barker selecting a spot for tennis and planning the arrangements of the
court.

I took the first train to New York and went directly to the steamboat
office.  It is astonishing how many obstacles can be removed from a
man's path if he will make up his mind to give them a good kick.  I
found that my steamer was crowded.  The applications for passage
exceeded the accommodations, and the agent was delighted to transfer me
to the steamer that sailed on June 3.  I went home exultant.  Barker
drove over in the evening to take his last instructions, and a blank
look came over his face when I told him that business had delayed my
departure, and that I should not sail the next day.  If I had told him
that part of that business was the laying out of a tennis-court he
might have looked blanker.

Of course the date of my departure did not concern the Vincents,
provided the house was vacated by June 1, and I did not inform them of
the change in my plans, but when the mother and daughter came out the
next week they were much surprised to find me waiting to receive them
instead of Barker.  I hope that they were also pleased, and I am sure
that they had every reason to be so.  Mrs. Vincent, having discovered
that I was a most complacent landlord, accommodated herself easily to
my disposition and made a number of minor requirements, all of which I
granted without the slightest hesitation.  I was delighted at last to
put her into the charge of my housekeeper, and when the two had betaken
themselves to the bedrooms I invited Miss Vincent to come out with me
to select a spot for a tennis-court.  The invitation was accepted with
alacrity, for tennis, she declared, was a passion with her.

The selection of that tennis-court took nearly an hour, for there were
several good places for one and it was hard to make a selection;
besides, I could not lose the opportunity of taking Miss Vincent into
the woods and showing her the walks I had made and the rustic seats I
had placed in pleasant nooks.  Of course she would have discovered
these, but it was a great deal better for her to know all about them
before she came.  At last Mrs. Vincent sent a maid to tell her daughter
that it was time to go for the train, and the court had not been
definitely planned.

The next day I went to Miss Vincent's house with a plan of the grounds,
and she and I talked it over until the matter was settled.  It was
necessary to be prompt about this, I explained, as there would be a
great deal of levelling and rolling to be done.

I also had a talk with the old gentleman about books.  There were
several large boxes of my books in New York which I had never sent out
to my country house.  Many of these I thought might be interesting to
him, and I offered to have them taken out and left at his disposal.
When he heard the titles of some of the books in the collection he was
much interested, but insisted that before he made use of them they
should be catalogued, as were the rest of my effects.  I hesitated a
moment, wondering if I could induce Barker to come to New York and
catalogue four big boxes of books, when, to my surprise, Miss Vincent
incidentally remarked that if they were in any place where she could
get at them she would be pleased to help catalogue them; that sort of
thing was a great pleasure to her.  Instantly I proposed that I should
send the books to the Vincent house, that they should there be taken
out so that Mr. Vincent could select those he might care to read during
the summer, that I would make a list of these, and if Vincent would
assist me I would be grateful for the kindness, and those that were not
desired could be returned to the storehouse.

What a grand idea was this!  I had been internally groaning because I
could think of no possible pretence, for further interviews with Miss
Vincent, and here was something better than I could have imagined.  Her
father declared that he could not put me to so much trouble, but I
would listen to none of his words, and the next morning my books were
spread over his library floor.

The selection and cataloguing of the volumes desired occupied the
mornings of three days.  The old gentleman's part was soon done, but
there were many things in the books which were far more interesting to
me than their titles, and to which I desired to draw Miss Vincent's
attention.  All this greatly protracted our labors.  She was not only a
beautiful girl, but her intelligence and intellectual grasp were
wonderful.  I could not help telling her what a great pleasure it would
be to me to think, while wandering in foreign lands, that such an
appreciative family would be enjoying my books and my place.

"You are so fond of your house and everything you have," said she,
"that we shall almost feel as if we were depriving you of your rights.
But I suppose that Italian lakes and the Alps will make you forget for
a time even your beautiful home."

"Not if you are in it," I longed to say, but I restrained myself.  I
did not believe that it was possible for me to be more in love with
this girl than I was at that moment, but, of course, it would be the
rankest stupidity to tell her so.  To her I was simply her father's
landlord.

I went to that house the next day to see that the boxes were
properly repacked, and I actually went the next day to see if the right
boxes had gone into the country, and the others back to the storehouse.
The first day I saw only the father.  The second day it was the mother
who assured me that everything had been properly attended to.  I began
to feel that if I did not wish a decided rebuff I would better not make
any more pretences of business at the Vincent house.

There were affairs of my own which should have been attended to, and I
ought to have gone home and attended to them, but I could not bear to
do so.  There was no reason to suppose she would go out there before
the first of June.

Thinking over the matter many times, I came to the conclusion that if I
could see her once more I would be satisfied.  Then I would go away,
and carry her image with me into every art-gallery, over every glacier,
and under every lovely sky that I should enjoy abroad, hoping all the
time that, taking my place, as it were, in my home, and making my
possessions, in a measure, her own, she would indirectly become so well
acquainted with me that when I returned I might speak to her without
shocking her.

To obtain this final interview there was but one way.  I had left my
house on Saturday, the Vincents would come on the following Monday, and
I would sail on Wednesday.  I would go on Tuesday to inquire if they
found everything to their satisfaction.  This would be a very proper
attention from a landlord about to leave the country.

When I reached Boynton I determined to walk to my house, for I did not
wish to encumber myself with a hired vehicle.  I might be asked to stay
to luncheon.  A very strange feeling came over me as I entered my
grounds.  They were not mine.  For the time being they belonged to
somebody else.  I was merely a visitor or a trespasser if the Vincents
thought proper so to consider me.  If they did not like people to walk
on the grass I had no right to do it.

None of my servants had been left on the place, and the maid who came
to the door informed me that Mr. Vincent had gone to New York that
morning, and that Mrs. Vincent and her daughter were out driving.  I
ventured to ask if she thought they would soon return, and she answered
that she did not think they would, as they had gone to Rock Lake,
which, from the way they talked about it, must be a long way off.

Rock Lake!  When I had driven over there with my friends, we had taken
luncheon at the inn and returned in the afternoon.  And what did they
know of Rock Lake?  Who had told them of it?  That officious Barker, of
course.

"Will you leave a message, sir?" said the maid, who, of course, did not
know me.

"No," said I, and as I still stood gazing at the piazza floor, she
remarked that if I wished to call again she would go out and speak to
the coachman and ask him if anything had been said to him about the
time of the party's return.

Worse and worse!  Their coachman had not driven them!  Some one who
knew the country had been their companion.  They were not acquainted in
the neighborhood, and there could not be a shadow of a doubt that it
was that obtrusive Barker who had indecently thrust himself upon them
on the very next day after their arrival, and had thus snatched from me
this last interview upon which I had counted so earnestly.

I had no right to ask any more questions.  I left no message nor any
name, and I had no excuse for saying I would call again.

I got back to my hotel without having met any one whom I knew, and that
night I received a note from Barker, stating that he had fully intended
coming to the steamer to see me off, but that an engagement would
prevent him.  He sent, however, his best good wishes for my safe
passage, and assured me that he would keep me fully informed of the
state of my affairs on this side.

"Engagement!" I exclaimed.  "Is he going to drive with her again
to-morrow?"

My steamer sailed at two o'clock the next day, and after an early
breakfast I went to the company's office to see if I could dispose of
my ticket.  It had become impossible, I told the agent, for me to leave
America at present.  He said it was a very late hour to sell my ticket,
but that he would do what he could, and if an applicant turned up he
would give him my room and refund the money.  He wanted me to change to
another date, but I declined to do this.  I was not able to say when I
should sail.

I now had no plan of action.  All I knew was that I could not leave
America without finding out something definite about this Barker
business.  That is to say, if it should be made known to me that
instead of attending to my business, sending a carpenter to make
repairs, if such were necessary, or going personally to the plumber to
make sure that that erratic personage would give his attention to any
pipes in regard to which Mr. Vincent might have written, Barker should
mingle in sociable relations with my tenants, and drive or play tennis
with the young lady of the house, then would I immediately have done
with him.  I would withdraw my business from his hands and place it in
those of old Mr. Poindexter.  More than that, it might be my duty to
warn Miss Vincent's parents against Barker.  I did not doubt that he
was a very good house and land-agent, but in selecting him as such I
had no idea of introducing him to the Vincents in a social way.  In
fact, the more I thought about it the more I became convinced that if
ever I mentioned Barker to my tenants it would be to warn them against
him.  From certain points of view he was actually a dangerous man.

This, however, I would not do until I found my agent was really
culpable.  To discover what Barker had done, what he was doing, and
what he intended to do, was now my only business in life.  Until I had
satisfied myself on these points I could not think of starting out upon
my travels.

Now that I had determined I would not start for Europe until I had
satisfied myself that Mr. Barker was contenting himself with attending
to my business, and not endeavoring to force himself into social
relations with my tenants, I was anxious that the postponement of my
journey should be unknown to my friends and acquaintances, and I was,
therefore, very glad to see in a newspaper, published on the afternoon
of the day of my intended departure, my name among the list of
passengers who had sailed upon the Mnemonic.  For the first time I
commended the super-enterprise of a reporter who gave more attention to
the timeliness of his news than to its accuracy.

I was stopping at a New York hotel, but I did not wish to stay there.
Until I felt myself ready to start on my travels the neighborhood of
Boynton would suit me better than anywhere else.  I did not wish to go
to the town itself, for Barker lived there, and I knew many of the
townspeople; but there were farmhouses not far away where I might spend
a week.  After considering the matter, I thought of something that
might suit me.  About three miles from my house, on an unfrequented
road, was a mill which stood at the end of an extensive sheet of water,
in reality a mill-pond, but commonly called a lake.  The miller, an old
man, had recently died, and his house near by was occupied by a
newcomer whom I had never seen.  If I could get accommodations there it
would suit me exactly.  I left the train two stations below Boynton and
walked over to the mill.

The country-folk in my neighborhood are always pleased to take summer
boarders if they can get them, and the miller and his wife were glad to
give me a room, not imagining that I was the owner of a good house not
far away.  The place suited my requirements very well.  It was near
her, and I might live here for a time unnoticed, but what I was going
to do with my opportunity I did not know.  Several times the conviction
forced itself upon me that I should get up at once and go to Europe by
the first steamer, and so show myself that I was a man of sense.

This conviction was banished on the second afternoon of my stay at the
mill.  I was sitting under a tree in the orchard near the house,
thinking and smoking my pipe, when along the road which ran by the side
of the lake came Mr. Vincent on my black horse General and his daughter
on my mare Sappho.  Instinctively I pulled my straw hat over my eyes,
but this precaution was not necessary.  They were looking at the
beautiful lake, with its hills and overhanging trees, and saw me not!

When the very tip of Sappho's tail had melted into the foliage of the
road, I arose to my feet and took a deep breath of the happy air.  I
had seen her, and it was with her father she was riding.

I do not believe I slept a minute that night through thinking of her,
and feeling glad that I was near her, and that she had been riding with
her father.

When the early dawn began to break an idea brighter than the dawn broke
upon me: I would get up and go nearer to her.  It is amazing how much
we lose by not getting up early on the long summer days.  How beautiful
the morning might be on this earth I never knew until I found myself
wandering by the edge of my woods and over my lawn with the tender
gray-blue sky above me and all the freshness of the grass and flowers
and trees about me, the birds singing among the branches, and she
sleeping sweetly somewhere within that house with its softly defined
lights and shadows.  How I wished I knew what room she occupied!

The beauties and joys of that hour were lost to every person on the
place, who were all, no doubt, in their soundest sleep.  I did not even
see a dog.  Quietly and stealthily stepping from bush to hedge, I went
around the house, and as I drew near the barn I fancied I could hear
from a little room adjoining it the snores of the coachman.  The lazy
rascal would probably not awaken for two or three hours yet, but I
would ran no risks, and in half an hour I had sped away.

Now I knew exactly why I was staying at the house of the miller.  I was
doing so in order that I might go early in the mornings to my own home,
in which the girl I loved lay dreaming, and that for the rest of the
day and much of the night I might think of her.

"What place in Europe," I said to myself, "could be so beautiful, so
charming, and so helpful to reflection as this sequestered lake, these
noble trees, these stretches of undulating meadow?"

Even if I should care to go abroad, a month or two later would answer
all my purposes.  Why had I ever thought of spending five months away?

There was a pretty stream which ran from the lake and wended its way
through a green and shaded valley, and here, with a rod, I wandered and
fished and thought.  The miller had boats, and in one of these I rowed
far up the lake where it narrowed into a creek, and between the high
hills which shut me out from the world I would float and think.

Every morning, soon after break of day, I went to my home and wandered
about my grounds.  If it rained I did not mind that.  I like a summer
rain.

Day by day I grew bolder.  Nobody in that household thought of getting
up until seven o'clock.  For two hours, at least, I could ramble
undisturbed through my grounds, and much as I had once enjoyed these
grounds, they never afforded me the pleasure they gave me now.  In
these happy mornings I felt all the life and spirits of a boy.  I went
into my little field and stroked the sleek sides of my cows as they
nibbled the dewy grass.  I even peeped through the barred window of
Sappho's box and fed her, as I had been used to doing, with bunches of
clover.  I saw that the young chickens were flourishing.  I went into
the garden and noted the growth of the vegetables, feeling glad that
she would have so many fine strawberries and tender peas.

I had not the slightest doubt that she was fond of flowers, and for her
sake now, as I used to do for my own sake, I visited the flower beds
and borders.  Not far from the house there was a cluster of
old-fashioned pinks which I was sure were not doing very well.  They
had been there too long, perhaps, and they looked stunted and weak.  In
the miller's garden I had noticed great beds of these pinks, and I
asked his wife if I might have some, and she, considering them as mere
wild flowers, said I might have as many as I liked.  She might have
thought I wanted simply the blossoms, but the next morning I went over
to my house with a basket filled with great matted masses of the plants
taken up with the roots and plenty of earth around them, and after
twenty minutes' work in my own bed of pinks, I had taken out all the
old plants and filled their places with fresh, luxuriant masses of buds
and leaves and blossoms.  How glad she would be when she saw the fresh
life that had come to that flower-bed!  With light footsteps I went
away, not feeling the weight of the basket filled with the old plants
and roots.

The summer grew and strengthened, and the sun rose earlier, but as that
had no effect upon the rising of the present inhabitants of my place,
it gave me more time for my morning pursuits.  Gradually I constituted
myself the regular flower-gardener of the premises.  How delightful the
work was, and how foolish I thought I had been never to think of doing
this thing for myself! but no doubt it was because I was doing it for
her that I found it so pleasant.

Once again I had seen Miss Vincent.  It was in the afternoon, and I had
rowed myself to the upper part of the lake, where, with the high hills
and the trees on each side of me, I felt as if I were alone in the
world.  Floating, idly along, with my thoughts about three miles away,
I heard the sound of oars, and looking out on the open part of the
lake, I saw a boat approaching.  The miller was rowing, and in the
stern sat an elderly gentleman and a young lady.  I knew them in an
instant: they were Mr. and Miss Vincent.

With a few vigorous strokes I shot myself into the shadows, and rowed
up the stream into the narrow stretches among the lily-pads, under a
bridge, and around a little wooded point, where I ran the boat ashore
and sprang upon the grassy bank.  Although I did not believe the miller
would bring them as far as this, I went up to a higher spot and watched
for half an hour; but I did not see them again.  How relieved I was!
It would have been terribly embarrassing had they discovered me.  And
how disappointed I was that the miller turned back so soon!

I now extended the supervision of my grounds.  I walked through the
woods, and saw how beautiful they were in the early dawn.  I threw
aside the fallen twigs and cut away encroaching saplings, which were
beginning to encumber the paths I had made, and if I found a bough
which hung too low I cut it off.  There was a great beech-tree, between
which and a dogwood I had the year before suspended a hammock.  In
passing this, one morning, I was amazed to see a hammock swinging from
the hooks I had put in the two trees.  This was a retreat which I had
supposed no one else would fancy or even think of!  In the hammock was
a fan--a common Japanese fan.  For fifteen minutes I stood looking at
that hammock, every nerve a-tingle.  Then I glanced around.  The spot
had been almost unfrequented since last summer.  Little bushes, weeds,
and vines had sprung up here and there between the two trees.  There
were dead twigs and limbs lying about, and the short path to the main
walk was much overgrown.

I looked at my watch.  It was a quarter to six.  I had yet a good hour
for work, and with nothing but my pocket-knife and my hands I began to
clear away the space about that hammock.  When I left it, it looked as
it used to look when it was my pleasure to lie there and swing and read
and reflect.

To approach this spot it was not necessary to go through my grounds,
for my bit of woods adjoined a considerable stretch of forest-land, and
in my morning walks from the mill I often used a path through these
woods.  The next morning when I took this path I was late because I had
unfortunately overslept myself.  When I reached the hammock it wanted
fifteen minutes to seven o'clock.  It was too late for me to do
anything, but I was glad to be able to stay there even for a few
minutes, to breathe that air, to stand on that ground, to touch that
hammock.  I did more than that.  Why shouldn't I?  I got into it.  It
was a better one than that I had hung there.  It was delightfully
comfortable.  At this moment, gently swinging in that woodland
solitude, with the sweet odors of the morning all about me, I felt
myself nearer to her than I had ever been before.

But I knew I must not revel in this place too long.  I was on the point
of rising to leave when I heard approaching footsteps.  My breath
stopped.  Was I at last to be discovered?  This was what came of my
reckless security.  But perhaps the person, some workman most likely,
would pass without noticing me.  To remain quiet seemed the best
course, and I lay motionless.

But the person approaching turned into the little pathway.  The
footsteps came nearer.  I sprang from the hammock.  Before me was Miss
Vincent!

What was my aspect I know not, but I have no doubt I turned fiery red.
She stopped suddenly, but she did not turn red.

"Oh, Mr. Ripley," she exclaimed, "good morning!  You must excuse me.  I
did not know--"

That she should have had sufficient self-possession to say good morning
amazed me.  Her whole appearance, in fact, amazed me.  There seemed to
be something wanting in her manner.  I endeavored to get myself into
condition.

"You must be surprised," I said, "to see me here.  You supposed I was
in Europe, but--"

As I spoke I made a couple of steps toward her, but suddenly stopped.
One of my coat buttons had caught in the meshes of the hammock.  It was
confoundedly awkward.  I tried to loosen the button, but it was badly
entangled.  Then I desperately pulled at it to tear it off.

"Oh, don't do that," she said.  "Let me unfasten it for you." And
taking the threads of the hammock in one of her little hands and the
button in the other, she quickly separated them.  "I should think
buttons would be very inconvenient things--at least, in hammocks," she
said smiling.  "You see, girls don't have any such trouble."

I could not understand her manner.  She seemed to take my being there
as a matter of course.

"I must beg a thousand pardons for this--this trespass," I said.

"Trespass!" said she, with a smile.  "People don't trespass on their
own land--"

"But it is not my land," said I.  "It is your father's for the time
being.  I have no right here whatever.  I do not know how to explain,
but you must think it very strange to find me here when you supposed I
had started for Europe."

"Oh!  I knew you had not started for Europe," said she, "because I have
seen you working in the grounds--"

"Seen me!" I interrupted.  "Is it possible?"

"Oh, yes," said she.  "I don't know how long you had been coming when I
first saw you, but when I found that fresh bed of pinks all
transplanted from somewhere, and just as lovely as they could be,
instead of the old ones, I spoke to the man; but he did not know
anything about it, and said he had not had time to do anything to the
flowers, whereas I had been giving him credit for ever so much weeding
and cleaning up.  Then I supposed that Mr. Barker, who is just as kind
and attentive as he can be, had done it; but I could hardly believe he
was the sort of man to come early in the morning and work out of
doors,"--("Oh, how I wish he had come!" I thought.  "If I had caught
him here working among the flowers!"),--"and when he came that
afternoon to play tennis I found that he had been away for two days,
and could not have planted the pinks.  So I simply got up early one
morning and looked out, and there I saw you, with your coat off,
working just as hard as ever you could."

I stepped back, my mind for a moment a perfect blank.

"What could you have thought of me?" I exclaimed presently.

"Really, at first I did not know what to think," said she.  "Of course
I did not know what had detained you in this country, but I remembered
that I had heard that you were a very particular person about your
flowers and shrubs and grounds, and that most likely you thought they
would be better taken care of if you kept an eye on them, and that when
you found there was so much to do you just went to work and did it.  I
did not speak of this to anybody, because if you did not wish it to be
known that you were taking care of the grounds it was not my business
to tell people about it.  But yesterday, when I found this place where
I had hung my hammock so beautifully cleared up and made so nice and
clean and pleasant in every way, I thought I must come down to tell you
how much obliged I am, and also that you ought not to take so much
trouble for us.  If you think the grounds need more attention, I will
persuade my father to hire another man, now and then, to work about the
place.  Really, Mr. Ripley, you ought not to have to--"

I was humbled, abashed.  She had seen me at my morning devotions, and
this was the way she interpreted them.  She considered me an overnice
fellow who was so desperately afraid his place would be injured that he
came sneaking around every morning to see if any damage had been done
and to put things to rights.

She stood for a moment as if expecting me to speak, brushed a buzzing
fly from her sleeve, and then, looking at me with a gentle smile, she
turned a little as if she were about to leave.

I could not let her go without telling her something.  Her present
opinion of me must not rest in her mind another minute.  And yet, what
story could I devise?  How, indeed, could I devise anything with which
to deceive a girl who spoke and looked at me as this girl did?  I could
not do it.  I must rush away speechless and never see her again, or I
must tell her all.  I came a little nearer to her.

"Miss Vincent," said I, "you do not understand at all why I am
here--why I have been here so much--why I did not go to Europe.  The
truth is, I could not leave.  I do not wish to be away; I want to come
here and live here always--"

"Oh, dear!" she interrupted, "of course it is natural that you should
not want to tear yourself away from your lovely home.  It would be very
hard for us to go away now, especially for father and me, for we have
grown to love this place so much.  But if you want us to leave, I dare
say--"

"I want you to leave!" I exclaimed.  "Never!  When I say that I want to
live here myself, that my heart will not let me go anywhere else, I
mean that I want you to live here too--you, your mother and
father--that I want--"

 "Oh, that would be perfectly splendid!" she said.  "I have
ever so often thought that it was a shame that you should be deprived
of the pleasures you so much enjoy, which I see you can find here and
nowhere else.  Now, I have a plan which I think will work splendidly.
We are a very small family.  Why shouldn't you come here and live with
us?  There is plenty of room, and I know father and mother would be
very glad, and you can pay your board, if that would please you better.
You can have the room at the top of the tower for your study and your
smoking den, and the room under it can be your bedroom, so you can be
just as independent as you please of the rest of us, and you can be
living on your own place without interfering with us in the least.  In
fact, it would be ever so nice, especially as I am in the habit of
going away to the sea-shore with my aunt every summer for six weeks,
and I was thinking how lonely it would be this year for father and
mother to stay here all by themselves."

The tower and the room under it!  For me!  What a contemptibly
little-minded and insignificant person she must think me.  The words
with which I strove to tell her that I wished to live here as lord,
with her as my queen, would not come.  She looked at me for a moment as
I stood on the brink of saying something but not saying it, and then
she turned suddenly toward the hammock.

"Did you see anything of a fan I left here?" she said.  "I know I left
it here, but when I came yesterday it was gone.  Perhaps you may have
noticed it somewhere--"

Now, the morning before, I had taken that fan home with me.  It was an
awkward thing to carry, but I had concealed it under my coat.  It was a
contemptible trick, but the fan had her initials on it, and as it was
the only thing belonging to her of which I could possess myself, the
temptation had been too great to resist.  As she stood waiting for my
answer there was a light in her eye which illuminated my perceptions.

"Did you see me take that fan?" I asked.

"I did," said she.

"Then you know," I exclaimed, stepping nearer to her, "why it is I did
not leave this country as I intended, why it was impossible for me to
tear myself away from this house, why it is that I have been here every
morning, hovering around and doing the things I have been doing?"

She looked up at me, and with her eyes she said, "How could I help
knowing?"  She might have intended to say something with her lips, but
I took my answer from her eyes, and with the quick impulse of a lover I
stopped her speech.

"You have strange ways," she said presently, blushing and gently
pressing back my arm.  "I haven't told you a thing."

"Let us tell each other everything now," I cried, and we seated
ourselves in the hammock.

It was a quarter of an hour later and we were still sitting together in
the hammock.

"You may think," said she, "that, knowing what I did, it was very queer
for me to come out to you this morning, but I could not help it.  You
were getting dreadfully careless, and were staying so late and doing
things which people would have been bound to notice, especially as
father is always talking about our enjoying the fresh hours of the
morning, that I felt I could not let you go on any longer.  And when it
came to that fan business I saw plainly that you must either
immediately start for Europe or--"

"Or what?" I interrupted.

"Or go to my father and regularly engage yourself as a--"

I do not know whether she was going to say "gardener" or not, but it
did not matter.  I stopped her.

It was perhaps twenty minutes later, and we were standing together at
the edge of the woods.  She wanted me to come to the house to take
breakfast with them.

"Oh, I could not do that!" I said.  "They would be so surprised.  I
should have so much to explain before I could even begin to state my
case."

"Well, then, explain," said she.  "You will find father on the front
piazza.  He is always there before breakfast, and there is plenty of
time.  After all that has been said here, I cannot go to breakfast and
look commonplace while you run away."

"But suppose your father objects?" said I.

"Well, then you will have to go back and take breakfast with your
miller," said she.

I never saw a family so little affected by surprises as those Vincents.
When I appeared on the front piazza the old gentleman did not jump.  He
shook hands with me and asked me to sit down, and when I told him
everything he did not even ejaculate, but simply folded his hands
together and looked out over the railing.

"It seemed strange to Mrs. Vincent and myself," he said, "when we first
noticed your extraordinary attachment for our daughter, but, after all,
it was natural enough."

"Noticed it!" I exclaimed.  "When did you do that?"

"Very soon," he said.  "When you and Cora were cataloguing the books at
my house in town I noticed it and spoke to Mrs. Vincent, but she said
it was nothing new to her, for it was plain enough on the day when we
first met you here that you were letting the house to Cora, and that
she had not spoken of it to me because she was afraid I might think it
wrong to accept the favorable and unusual arrangements you were making
with us if I suspected the reason for them.  We talked over the matter,
but, of course, we could do nothing, because there was nothing to do,
and Mrs. Vincent was quite sure you would write to us from Europe.  But
when my man Ambrose told me he had seen some one working about the
place in the very early morning, and that, as it was a gentleman, he
supposed it must be the landlord, for nobody else would be doing such
things, Mrs. Vincent and I looked out of the window the next day, and
when we found it was indeed you who were coming here every day, we felt
that the matter was serious and were a good deal troubled.  We found,
however, that you were conducting affairs in a very honorable
way,--that you were not endeavoring to see Cora, and that you did not
try to have any secret correspondence with her,--and as we had no right
to prevent you from coming on your grounds, we concluded to remain
quiet until you should take some step which we would be authorized to
notice.  Later, when Mr. Barker came and told me that you had not gone
to Europe, and were living with a miller not far from here--"

"Barker!" I cried.  "The scoundrel!"

"You are mistaken, sir," said Mr. Vincent.  "He spoke with the greatest
kindness of you, and said that as it was evident you had your own
reasons for wishing to stay in the neighborhood, and did not wish the
fact to be known, he had spoken of it to no one but me, and he would
not have done this had he not thought it would prevent embarrassment in
case we should meet."

Would that everlasting Barker ever cease meddling in my affairs?

"Do you suppose," I asked, "that he imagined the reason for my staying
here?"

"I do not know," said the old gentleman, "but after the questions I put
to him I have no doubt he suspected it.  I made many inquiries of him
regarding you, your family, habits, and disposition, for this was a
very vital matter to me, sir, and I am happy to inform you that he said
nothing of you that was not good, so I urged him to keep the matter to
himself.  I determined, however, that if you continued your morning
visits I should take an early opportunity of accosting you and asking
an explanation."

"And you never mentioned anything of this to your daughter?" said I.

"Oh, no," he answered.  "We carefully kept everything from her."

"But, my dear sir," said I, rising, "you have given me no answer.  You
have not told me whether or not you will accept me as a son-in-law."

He smiled.  "Truly," he said, "I have not answered you; but the fact
is, Mrs. Vincent and I have considered the matter so long, and having
come to the conclusion that if you made an honorable and
straightforward proposition, and if Cora were willing to accept you, we
could see no reason to object to--"

At this moment the front door opened and Cora appeared.

"Are you going to stay to breakfast?" she asked.  "Because, if you are,
it is ready."

I stayed to breakfast.

I am now living in my own house, not in the two tower rooms, but in the
whole mansion, of which my former tenant, Cora, is now mistress
supreme.  Mr. and Mrs. Vincent expect to spend the next summer here and
take care of the house while we are travelling.

Mr. Barker, an excellent fellow and a most thorough business man, still
manages my affairs, and there is nothing on the place that flourishes
so vigorously as the bed of pinks which I got from the miller's wife.

By the way, when I went back to my lodging on that eventful day, the
miller's wife met me at the door.

"I kept your breakfast waitin' for you for a good while," said she,
"but as you didn't come, I supposed you were takin' breakfast in your
own house, and I cleared it away."

"Do you know who I am?" I exclaimed.

"Oh, yes, sir," she said.  "We did not at first, but when everybody
began to talk about it we couldn't help knowin' it."

"Everybody!" I gasped.  "And may I ask what you and everybody said
about me?"

"I think it was the general opinion, sir," said she, "that you were
suspicious of them tenants of yours, and nobody wondered at it, for
when city people gets into the country and on other people's property,
there's no trustin' them out of your sight for a minute."

I could not let the good woman hold this opinion of my tenants, and I
briefly told her the truth.  She looked at me with moist admiration in
her eyes.

"I am glad to hear that, sir," said she.  "I like it very much.  But if
I was you I wouldn't be in a hurry to tell my husband and the people in
the neighborhood about it.  They might be a little disappointed at
first, for they had a mighty high opinion of you when they thought that
you was layin' low here to keep an eye on them tenants of yours."




THE STAYING POWER OF SIR ROHAN

During the winter in which I reached my twenty fifth year I lived with
my mother's brother, Dr. Alfred Morris, in Warburton, a small country
town, and I was there beginning the practice of medicine.  I had been
graduated in the spring, and my uncle earnestly advised me to come to
him and act as his assistant, which advice, considering the fact that
he was an elderly man, and that I might hope to succeed him in his
excellent practice, was considered good advice by myself and my family.

At this time I practised very little, but learned a great deal, for as
I often accompanied my uncle on his professional visits, I could not
have taken a better postgraduate course.

I had an invitation to spend the Christmas of that year with the
Collingwoods, who had opened their country house, about twelve miles
from Warburton, for the entertainment of a holiday house party.  I had
gladly accepted the invitation, and on the day before Christmas I went
to the livery stable in the village to hire a horse and sleigh for the
trip.  At the stable I met Uncle Beamish, who had also come to hire a
conveyance.

"Uncle Beamish," as he was generally called in the village, although I
am sure he had no nephews or nieces in the place, was an elderly man
who had retired from some business, I know not what, and was apparently
quite able to live upon whatever income he had.  He was a good man,
rather illiterate, but very shrewd.  Generous in good works, I do not
think he was fond of giving away money, but his services were at the
call of all who needed them.

I liked Uncle Beamish very much, for he was not only a good
story-teller, but he was willing to listen to my stories, and when I
found he wanted to hire a horse and sleigh to go to the house of his
married sister, with whom he intended to spend Christmas, and that his
sister lived on Upper Hill turnpike, on which road the Collingwood
house was situated, I proposed that we should hire a sleigh together.

"That will suit me," said Uncle Beamish.  "There couldn't have been a
better fit if I had been measured for it.  Less than half a mile after
you turn into the turnpike, you pass my sister's house.  Then you can
drop me and go on to the Collingwoods', which I should say isn't more
than three miles further."

The arrangement was made, a horse and sleigh ordered, and early in the
afternoon we started from Warburton.

The sleighing was good, but the same could not be said of the horse.
He was a big roan, powerful and steady, but entirely too deliberate in
action.  Uncle Beamish, however, was quite satisfied with him.

"What you want when you are goin' to take a journey with a horse," said
he, "is stayin' power.  Your fast trotter is all very well for a mile
or two, but if I have got to go into the country in winter, give me a
horse like this."

I did not agree with him, but we jogged along quite pleasantly until
the afternoon grew prematurely dark and it began to snow.

"Now," said I, giving the roan a useless cut, "what we ought to have is
a fast horse, so that we may get there before there is a storm."

"No, doctor, you're wrong," said Uncle Beamish.  "What we want is a
strong horse that will take us there whether it storms or not, and we
have got him.  And who cares for a little snow that won't hurt nobody?"

I did not care for snow, and we turned up our collars and went as
merrily as people can go to the music of slowly jingling sleigh-bells.

The snow began to fall rapidly, and, what was worse, the wind blew
directly in our faces, so that sometimes my eyes were so plastered up
with snowflakes that I could scarcely see how to drive.  I never knew
snow to fall with such violence.  The roadway in front of us, as far as
I could see it, was soon one unbroken stretch of white from fence to
fence.

"This is the big storm of the season," said Uncle Beamish, "and it is a
good thing we started in time, for if the wind keeps blowin', this road
will be pretty hard to travel in a couple of hours."

In about half an hour the wind lulled a little and I could get a better
view of our surroundings, although I could not see very far through the
swiftly descending snow.

"I was thinkin'," said Uncle Beamish, "that it might be a good idee,
when we get to Crocker's place, to stop a little, and let you warm your
fingers and nose.  Crocker's is ruther more than half-way to the pike."

"Oh, I do not want to stop anywhere," I replied quickly.  "I am all
right."

Nothing was said for some time, and then Uncle Beamish remarked:

"I don't want to stop any more than you do, but it does seem strange
that we ain't passed Crocker's yit.  We could hardly miss his house, it
is so close to the road.  This horse is slow, but I tell you one thing,
doctor, he's improvin'.  He is goin' better than he did.  That's the
way with this kind.  It takes them a good while to get warmed up, but
they keep on gettin' fresher instead of tireder."

The big roan was going better, but still we did not reach Crocker's,
which disappointed Uncle Beamish, who wanted to be assured that the
greater part of his journey was over.

"We must have passed it," he said, "when the snow was so blindin'."

I did not wish to discourage him by saying that I did not think we had
yet reached Crocker's, but I believed I had a much better appreciation
of our horse's slowness than he had.

Again the wind began to blow in our faces, and the snow fell faster,
but the violence of the storm seemed to encourage our horse, for his
pace was now greatly increased.

"That's the sort of beast to have," exclaimed Uncle Beamish,
spluttering as the snow blew in his mouth.  "He is gettin' his spirits
up just when they are most wanted.  We must have passed Crocker's a
good while ago, and it can't be long before we get to the pike.  And
it's time we was there, for it's darkenin'."

On and on we went, but still we did not reach the pike.  We had lost a
great deal of time during the first part of the journey, and although
the horse was travelling so much better now, his pace was below the
average of good roadsters.

"When we get to the pike," said Uncle Beamish, "you can't miss it, for
this road doesn't cross it.  All you've got to do is to turn to the
left, and in ten minutes you will see the lights in my sister's house.
And I'll tell you, doctor, if you would like to stop there for the
night, she'd be mighty glad to have you."

"Much obliged," replied I, "but I shall go on.  It's not late yet, and
I can reach the Collingwoods' in good time."

We now drove on in silence, our horse actually arching his neck as he
thumped through the snow.  Drifts had begun to form across the road,
but through these he bravely plunged.

"Stayin' power is what we want, doctor!" exclaimed Uncle Beamish.
"Where would your fast trotter be in drifts like these, I'd like to
know?  We got the right horse when we got this one, but I wish we had
been goin' this fast all the time."

It grew darker and darker, but at last we saw, not far in front of us,
a light.

"That beats me," said Uncle Beamish.  "I don't remember no other house
so near the road.  It can't be we ain't passed Crocker's yit!  If we
ain't got no further than that, I'm in favor of stoppin'.  I'm not
afraid of a snow-storm, but I ain't a fool nuther, and if we haven't
got further than Crocker's it will be foolhardy to try to push on
through the dark and these big drifts, which will be gettin' bigger."

I did not give it up so easily.  I greatly wished to` reach my
destination that night.  But there were three wills in the party, and
one of them belonged to the horse.  Before I had any idea of such a
thing, the animal made a sudden turn,--too sudden for safety,--passed
through a wide gateway, and after a few rapid bounds which, to my
surprise, I could not restrain, he stopped suddenly.

"Hello!" exclaimed Uncle Beamish, peering forward, "here's a barn
door."  And he immediately began to throw off the far robe that covered
our knees.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I'm goin' to open the barn door and let the horse go in," said he.
"He seems to want to.  I don't know whether this is Crocker's barn or
not.  It don't look like it, but I may be mistaken.  Anyway, we will
let the horse in, and then go to the house.  This ain't no night to be
travellin' any further, doctor, and that is the long and the short of
it.  If the people here ain't Crockers, I guess they are Christians!"

I had not much time to consider the situation, for while he had been
speaking, Uncle Beamish had waded through the snow, and finding the
barn door unfastened, had slid it to one side.  Instantly the horse
entered the dark barn, fortunately finding nothing in his way.

"Now," said Uncle Beamish, "if we can get somethin' to tie him with, so
that he don't do no mischief, we can leave him here and go up to the
house."  I carried a pocket lantern, and quickly lighted it.  "By
George!" said Uncle Beamish, as I held up the lantern, "this ain't much
of a barn--it's no more than a wagon-house.  It ain't Crocker's--but no
matter; we'll go up to the house.  Here is a hitchin'-rope."

We fastened the horse, threw a robe over him, shut the barn door behind
us, and slowly made our way to the back of the house, in which there
was a lighted window.  Mounting a little portico, we reached a door,
and were about to knock when it was opened for us.  A woman, plainly a
servant, stood in a kitchen, light and warm.

"Come right in," she said.  "I heard your bells.  Did you put your
horse in the barn?"

"Yes," said Uncle Beamish, "and now we would like to see--"

"All right," interrupted the woman, moving toward an inner door.  "Just
wait here for a minute.  I'm going up to tell her."

"I don't know this place," said Uncle Beamish, as we stood by the
kitchen stove, "but I expect it belongs to a widow woman."

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

"'Cause she said she was goin' to tell HER.  If there had been a man in
the house, she would have gone to tell HIM."

In a few moments the woman returned.

"She says you are to take off your wet things and then go into the
sitting-room.  She'll be down in a minute."

I looked at Uncle Beamish, thinking it was his right to make
explanations, but, giving me a little wink, he began to take off his
overcoat.  It was plain to perceive that Uncle Beamish desired to
assume that a place of refuge would be offered us.

"It's an awful bad night," he said to the woman, as he sat down to take
off his arctic overshoes.

"It's all that," said she.  "You may hang your coats over them chairs.
It won't matter if they do drip on this bare floor.  Now, then, come
right into the sitting-room."

In spite of my disappointment, I was glad to be in a warm house, and
hoped we might be able to stay there.  I could hear the storm beating
furiously against the window-panes behind the drawn shades.  There was
a stove in the sitting-room, and a large lamp.

"Sit down," said the woman.  "She will be here in a minute."

"It strikes me," said Uncle Beamish, when we were left alone, "that
somebody is expected in this house, most likely to spend Christmas, and
that we are mistook for them, whoever they are."

"I have the same idea," I replied, "and we must explain as soon as
possible."

"Of course we will do that," said he, "but I can tell you one thing:
whoever is expected ain't comin', for he can't get here.  But we've got
to stay here tonight, no matter who comes or doesn't come, and we've
got to be keerful in speakin' to the woman of the house.  If she is one
kind of a person, we can offer to pay for lodgin's and horse-feed; but
if she is another kind, we must steer clear of mentionin' pay, for it
will make her angry.  You had better leave the explainin' business to
me."

I was about to reply that I was more than willing to do so when the
door opened and a person entered--evidently the mistress of the house.
She was tall and thin, past middle age, and plainly dressed.  Her pale
countenance wore a defiant look, and behind her spectacles blazed a
pair of dark eyes, which, after an instant's survey of her visitors,
were fixed steadily upon me.  She made but a step into the room, and
stood holding the door.  We both rose from our chairs.

"You can sit down again," she said sharply to me.  "I don't want you.
Now, sir," she continued, turning to Uncle Beamish, "please come with
me."

Uncle Beamish gave a glance of surprise at me, but he immediately
followed the old lady out of the room, and the door was closed behind
them.

For ten minutes, at least, I sat quietly waiting to see what would
happen next--very much surprised at the remark that had been made to
me, and wondering at Uncle Beamish's protracted absence.  Suddenly he
entered the room and closed the door.

"Here's a go!" said he, slapping his leg, but very gently.  "We're
mistook the worst kind.  We're mistook for doctors." "That is only half
a mistake," said I.  "What is the matter, and what can I do?"

"Nothin'," said he, quickly,--"that is, nothin' your own self.  Just
the minute she got me outside that door she began pitchin' into you.
`I suppose that's young Dr. Glover,' said she.  I told her it was, and
then she went on to say, givin' me no chance to explain nothin', that
she didn't want to have anything to do with you; that she thought it
was a shame to turn people's houses into paupers' hospitals for the
purpose of teachin' medical students; that she had heard of you, and
what she had heard she hadn't liked.  All this time she kept goin'
upstairs, and I follerin' her, and the fust thing I knowed she opened a
door and went into a room, and I went in after her, and there, in a
bed, was a patient of some kind.  I was took back dreadful, for the
state of the case came to me like a flash.  Your uncle had been sent
for, and I was mistook for him.  Now, what to say was a puzzle to me,
and I began to think pretty fast.  It was an awkward business to have
to explain things to that sharp-set old woman.  The fact is, I didn't
know how to begin, and was a good deal afraid, besides, but she didn't
give me no time for considerin'.  `I think it's her brain,' said she,
`but perhaps you'll know better.  Catherine, uncover your head!'  And
with that the patient turned over a little and uncovered her head,
which she had had the sheet over.  It was a young woman, and she gave
me a good look, but she didn't say nothin'.  Now I WAS in a state of
mind."

"Of course you must have been," I answered.  "Why didn't you tell her
that you were not a doctor, but that I was.  It would have been easy
enough to explain matters.  She might have thought my uncle could not
come and he had sent me, and that you had come along for company.  The
patient ought to be attended to without delay."

"She's got to be-attended to," said Uncle Beamish, "or else there will
be a row and we'll have to travel--storm or no storm.  But if you had
heard what that old woman said about young doctors, and you in
particular, you would know that you wasn't goin' to have anything to do
with this case--at least, you wouldn't show in it.  But I've got no
more time for talkin'.  I came down here on business.  When the old
lady said, `Catherine, hold out your hand!' and she held it out, I had
nothin' to do but step up and feel her pulse.  I know how to do that,
for I have done a lot of nussin' in my life.  And then it seemed
nat'ral to ask her to put out her tongue, and when she did it I gave a
look at it and nodded my head.  `Do you think it is her brain?' said
the old woman, half whisperin'.  `Can't say anything about that yit,'
said I.  `I must go down-stairs and get the medicine-case.  The fust
thing to do is to give her a draught, and I will bring it up to her as
soon as it is mixed.'  You have got a pocket medicine-case with you,
haven't you?"

"Oh, yes," said I.  "It is in my overcoat."

"I knowed it," said Uncle Beamish.  "An old doctor might go visitin'
without his medicine-case, but a young one would be sure to take it
along, no matter where he was goin'.  Now you get it, please, quick."

"My notion is," said he, when I returned from the kitchen with the
case, "that you mix somethin' that might soothe her a little, if she
has got anything the matter with her brain, and which won't hurt her if
she hasn't.  And then, when I take it up to her, you tell me what
symptoms to look for.  I can do it--I have spent nights lookin' for
symptoms.  Then, when I come down and report, you might send her up
somethin' that would keep her from gettin' any wuss till the doctor can
come in the mornin', for he ain't comin' here to-night."

"A very good plan," said I.  "Now, what can I give her?  What is the
patient's age?"

"Oh, her age don't matter much," said Uncle Beamish, impatiently.  "She
may be twenty, more or less, and any mild stuff will do to begin with."

"I will give her some sweet spirits of nitre," said I, taking out a
little vial.  "Will you ask the servant for a glass of water and a
teaspoon?"

"Now," said I, when I had quickly prepared the mixture, "she can have a
teaspoonful of this, and another in ten minutes, and then we will see
whether we will go on with it or not."

"And what am I to look for?" said he.

"In the first place," said I, producing a clinical thermometer, "you
must take her temperature.  You know how to do that?"

"Oh, yes," said he.  "I have done it hundreds of times.  She must hold
it in her mouth five minutes."

"Yes, and while you are waiting," I continued, "you must try to find
out, in the first place, if there are, or have been, any signs of
delirium.  You might ask the old lady, and besides, you may be able to
judge for yourself."

"I can do that," said he.  "I have seen lots of it."

"Then, again," said I, "you must observe whether or not her pupils are
dilated.  You might also inquire whether there had been any partial
paralysis or numbness in any part of the body.  These things must be
looked for in brain trouble.  Then you can come down, ostensibly to
prepare another prescription, and when you have reported, I have no
doubt I can give you something which will modify, or I should say--"

"Hold her where she is till mornin'," said Uncle Beamish. "That's what
you mean.  Be quick.  Give me that thermometer and the tumbler, and
when I come down again, I reckon you can fit her out with a
prescription just as good as anybody."

He hurried away, and I sat down to consider.  I was full of ambition,
full of enthusiasm for the practice of my profession.  I would have
been willing to pay largely for the privilege of undertaking an
important case by myself, in which it would depend upon me whether or
not I should call in a consulting brother.  So far, in the cases I had
undertaken, a consulting brother had always called himself in--that is,
I had practised in hospitals or with my uncle.  Perhaps it might be
found necessary, notwithstanding all that had been said against me,
that I should go up to take charge of this case.  I wished I had not
forgotten to ask the old man how he had found the tongue and pulse.

In less than a quarter of an hour Uncle Beamish returned.

"Well," said I, quickly, "what are the symptoms?"

"I'll give them to you," said he, taking his seat.  "I'm not in such a
hurry now, because I told the old woman I would like to wait a little
and see how that fust medicine acted.  The patient spoke to me this
time.  When I took the thermometer out of her mouth she says, `You are
comin' up ag'in, doctor?' speakin' low and quickish, as if she wanted
nobody but me to hear."

"But how about the symptoms?" said I, impatiently.

"Well," he answered, "in the fust place her temperature is ninety-eight
and a half, and that's about nat'ral, I take it."

"Yes," I said, "but you didn't tell me about her tongue and pulse."

"There wasn't nothin' remarkable about them," said he.

"All of which means," I remarked, "that there is no fever.  But that is
not at all a necessary accompaniment of brain derangements.  How about
the dilatation of her pupils?"

"There isn't none," said Uncle Beamish; "they are ruther squinched up,
if anything.  And as to delirium, I couldn't see no signs of it, and
when I asked the old lady about the numbness, she said she didn't
believe there had been any."

"No tendency to shiver, no disposition to stretch?"

"No," said the old man, "no chance for quinine."

"The trouble is," said I, standing before the stove and fixing my mind
upon the case with earnest intensity, "that there are so few symptoms
in brain derangement.  If I could only get hold of something tangible--"

"If I was you," interrupted Uncle Beamish, "I wouldn't try to get hold
of nothin'.  I would just give her somethin' to keep her where she is
till mornin'.  If you can do that, I'll guarantee that any good doctor
can take her up and go on with her to-morrow."

Without noticing the implication contained in these remarks, I
continued my consideration of the case.

"If I could get a drop of her blood," said I.

"No, no!" exclaimed Uncle Beamish, "I'm not goin' to do anything of
that sort.  What in the name of common sense would you do with her
blood?"

"I would examine it microscopically," I said.  "I might find out all I
want to know."

Uncle Beamish did not sympathize with this method of di

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