Short Stories From Life

The 81 Prize Stories in “Life’s”
Shortest Story Contest

With an Introduction by
Thomas L. Masson

Managing Editor of “Life”

Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1916

CONTENTS

[Introduction] By Thomas L. Masson [Thicker Than Water] (First Prize) By Ralph Henry Barbour and George Randolph Osborne [The Answer] (Second Prize) By Harry Stillwell Edwards [Her Memory] (Third Prize Divided) By Dwight M. Wiley [Business and Ethics] (Third Prize Divided) By Redfield Ingalls [N. B.] By Joseph Hall [The Clearest Call] By Brevard Mays Connor [Greater Love Hath No Man] By Selwyn Grattan [The Gretchen Plan] By William Johnston [The Glory of War] By M. B. Levick [The Aviator] By Hornell Hart [Loyalty] By Clarence Herbert New [Moses Comes to Burning Bush] By W. T. Larned [North of Fifty-three] By Mary Woodbury Caswell [The Old Things] By Jessie Anderson Chase [The Forced March] By Hornell Hart [Approximating the Ultimate with Aunt Sarah] By Charles Earl Gaymon [The Horse Heaver] By Lyman Bryson [The Ego of the Metropolis] By Thomas T. Hoyne [The Gay Deceiver] By Howard P. Stephenson [In Cold Blood] By Joseph Hall [Housework—and the Man] By Freeman Tilden [His Journey’s End] By Ruth Sterry [Food for Thought] By Harriet Lummis Smith [Hope] By Edward Thomas Noonan [Collusion] By Lincoln Steffens [Faithful to the End] By Clair W. Perry [Arletta] By Margaret Ade [Which?] By Joseph Hall [What the Vandals Leave] By Herbert Riley Howe [Ben. T. Allen, Atty., vs. Himself] By William H. Hamby [The Joke on Preston] By Lewis Allen [The Idyl] By Joseph F. Whelan [Withheld] By Ella B. Argo [Up and Down] By Bertha Lowry Gwynne [Patches] By Francis E. Norris [The Arm at Gravelotte] By William Almon Wolff [The Bad Man] By Harry C. Goodwin [Nemesis] By Mary Clark [The Black Door] By Gordon Seagrove [The Man Who Told] By John Cutler [The Unanswered Call] By Thomas T. Hayne [The Women in the Case] By Mary Sams Cooke [The Cat That Came Back] By Virginia West [“Solitaire” Bill] By Arthur Felix McEachern [Just a Pal] By Elsie D. Knisely [When “Kultur” Was Beaten] By Lieutenant X [Presumption of Innocence] By Lyman Bryson [A Mexican Vivandière] By H. C. Washburn [Mother’s Birthday Present] By Carrie Seever [Red Blood or Blue] By E. Montgomery [Impulsive Mr. Jiggs] By Roger Brown [Tomaso and Me] By Graham Clark [The Old Grove Crossing] By Albert H. Coggins [Lost and Found] By John Kendrick Bangs [You Never Can Tell] By “B. MacArthur” [The Escape] By A. Leslie Goodwin [Two Letters, a Telegram, and a Finale] By H. S. Haskins [The Intruder] By Reginald Barlow [Molten Metal] By Hornell Hart [The Winner’s Loss] By Elliott Flower [The Recoil of the Gun] By Marian Parker [“Man May Love”] By Robert Sharp [One Way—and Another] By Noble May [The Black Patch] By Randolph Hartley [A Shipboard Romance] By Lewis Allen [The Coward] By Philip Francis Cook [The Heart of a Burglar] By Jane Dahl [The Reward] By Herbert Heron [The First Girl] By Louise Pond Jewell [A Sophistry of Art] By Eugene Smith [The Message in the Air] By B. R. Stevens [In a Garden] By Catherine Runscomb [A Clever Catch] By Lloyd F. Loux [Strictly Business] By Lincoln Steffens [The Advent of the Majority] By Stella Wynne Herron [The Night Nurse] By Will S. Gidley [Why the Trench Was Lost] By Charles F. Pietsch [The King of the Pledgers] By H. R. R. Hertzberg [A Po-lice-man] By Lincoln Steffens [The Quest of the V. C.] By A. Byers Fletcher [Somewhere in Belgium] By Percy Godfrey Savage

INTRODUCTION

By Thomas L. Masson
Managing Editor of Life

It was at a luncheon party that the idea of Life’s Short Story Contest was first suggested by Mr. Lincoln Steffens. He propounded this interesting query:

“How short can a short story be and still be a short story?”

It was thereupon determined to discover, if possible, a practical answer to this interesting question. The columns of Life were thrown open to contributors for many months, prizes aggregating $1,750 were offered and eighty-one short stories were published. This book contains these stories, including the four prize winners.

The contest cost in round numbers a little less than $12,000. Over thirty thousand manuscripts were received. They came from all over the world—from sufferers on hospital cots, from literary toilers in the Philippines, from Europe, Asia, and Africa, and from every State in the Union. One manuscript was sent from a trench at the French battle front, where the story had been written between hand grenades. Every kind of story was represented, the war story and the love story being the leaders. Every kind of writing was represented, from the short compound of trite banalities to the terse, dramatic, carefully wrought out climax. Back of many of these efforts the spectral forms of Guy de Maupassant and O. Henry hovered in sardonic triumph. Tragedy predominated. The light touch was few and far between. But it was still there, as the stories published show.

Here let me pay a just tribute to the readers who, with almost superhuman courage, struggled through these thirty thousand manuscripts. In the beginning they were a noble band of highly intelligent and cultivated men and women, with strong constitutions, ready and willing to face literature in any form. I understand that many of them survived the contest. This speaks well for the virility of our American stock. Theirs was a noble and enduring toil, and theirs will be a noble and enduring fame. Without them this book now might contain twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and eleven poor stories instead of eighty-one good ones. To those among them who still live, a long life and, let us hope, an ultimate recovery!

Naturally, in the method of securing the stories, there had to be some way of getting the contributors to make them as short as possible. Mr. Steffens’ ingenious suggestion admirably attained this end. First, a limit of fifteen hundred words was placed upon all stories submitted, no story longer than this being admitted to the contest. For each story accepted the contributor was paid, not for what he wrote, but for what he did not write. That is to say, he was paid at the rate of ten cents a word for the difference between what he wrote and fifteen hundred words. If his story, for example, happened to be 1,500 words in length, he got nothing. If it was 1,490 words he got one dollar. If there had been a story only ten words long, the author would have received $149. To be accurate, the longest story actually accepted for the contest was 1,495 words, for which the author received fifty cents, and the shortest was 76 words, for which the author received $142.40. The interested reader will be able to discover the identity of these two stories by examining the stories in the book. At the original luncheon party a large part of the warm discussion that took place turned on how short a story could be made and still come within the definition of a short story. It was really a question as to when is a story not a story, but only an anecdote. When a story is a story, is it a combination of plot, character, and setting or is it determined by only one of these three elements? Must it end when you have ended it or must it suggest something beyond the reading? I shall not attempt to answer these questions. The definition of the short story should be relegated to the realm of “What is Humor?” “Who is the mother of the chickens?” and “How Old is Ann?” If you really wish to vary the monotony of your intellectual life and get it away from “Who Wrote Shakespeare?” or “Who killed Jack Robinson?” start a discussion as to what a short story is. It has long been my private opinion that the best short story in the world is the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, but I have no doubt that, should I venture this assertion in the company of others, there would be one to ask: “What has that to do with the price of oil now?”

But in order that the reader may have some idea of the method adopted in judging the stories which were finally selected, it may be well to give what I may term a composite definition of what a short story is, gathered from the various opinions offered when the contest was originally under discussion by the judges. This definition is not intended to be complete or final. It is not the cohesive opinion of one individual, but only a number of rather off-hand opinions which are of undoubted psychological interest as bearing upon the final decisions.

A short story must contain at least two characters, for otherwise there would be no contrast or struggle. A situation must be depicted in which there are two opposing forces.

A short story must be a picture out of real life which gives the reader a definite sensation, such as he gets upon looking at a masterpiece of painting. While it must be complete in itself, the art of it lies in what it suggests to the reader beyond its own limits. That is to say, it must convey an idea much larger than itself. This is the open sesame to the golden principle. (This is well illustrated in the story that took the first prize.)

Every short story must of necessity deal with human beings, either directly or indirectly. It must reveal in the briefest manner possible—as it were, like a lightning flash—a situation that carries the reader beyond it. It is, therefore, inevitable that the supreme test of the short story lies in its climax. The climax must gather up everything that has gone before, and perhaps by only one word epitomize the whole situation in such a way as to produce in the reader a sense of revelation—just as if he were the sole spectator of a supremely interesting human mystery now suddenly made plain.

The technique of the short story should be such that no word in its vocabulary will suggest triteness or the fatal thought that the author is dependent upon others for his phrasing. When, for example, we read “With a glad cry she threw her arms about him” “A hoarse shout went up from the vast throng” “He flicked the ashes,” we know at once that the author is only dealing in echoes.

These were some of the general considerations which governed the readers and judges, but it would be unfair to say that there were not other considerations which came up later on. In a number of instances, manuscripts which were interesting and well written, and even longer than others that were accepted for the contest, were rejected because it was felt that they were not really stories, but more in the nature of descriptive sketches.

So far as the practical method pursued was concerned, it will not be amiss to state briefly how the work was carried on.

It was deemed best, on general principles, to let the authors of the stories have a hand in the matter, the editors feeling frankly that they preferred a disinterested method which would relieve them in a measure from the fullest responsibility. The conditions were therefore made to read that:

“The editors of ‘Life’ will first select out of all the stories published, the twelve which are, in their judgment, the best. The authors of these twelve stories will then be asked to become judges of the whole contest, which will then include all the stories published. These twelve authors will decide which are the best three stories, in the order of their merit, to be awarded the prizes. In case for any reason any one or more of these twelve authors should be unable to act as a judge, then the contest will be decided by the rest.

“Each of these twelve judges will, of course, if he so wishes, vote for his own story first, so that the final result may probably be determined by the combined second, third, and fourth choices of all the judges. This, however, will not affect the result. In case of a division among the judges, the Editors of ‘Life’ will cast the deciding vote.”

This method worked well and was fully justified by the final result. As the manuscripts were received they were registered according to a careful clerical system and turned over to the readers, who were from five to seven in number, including three women. The rule was that each story should be read independently by at least two readers, their verdicts separately recorded. If they were unanimous in rejecting a story, it was returned. If they were agreed upon its merits, or if they were at all doubtful, it was then passed up to the five members of Life’s editorial staff. It was read and reread by them, and the individual comments of each editor recorded independently. By this sifting process, each story was subjected to a final process of discussion and elimination. The stories, as accepted, were paid for on the basis of ten cents a word for all the words under 1,500 which the story did not contain and were published in Life. From the authors of the eighty-one stories published, the editors selected the following twelve judges, each one of whom consented to serve:

Herbert Heron, Carmel, Cal.
J. H. Ranxom, Houston, Texas.
Ralph Henry Barbour, Manchester, Mass.
Clarence Herbert New, Brooklyn, N. Y.
William Johnston, New York City.
Graham Clark, New York City.
Mrs. Elsie D. Knisely, Everett, Wash.
Mrs. Jane Dahl, San Francisco, Cal.
Selwyn Grattan, New York City.
E. L. Smith, Ft. Worth, Texas.
Herbert Riley Howe, Sioux Falls, S. Dak.
Miss Ruth Sterry, Los Angeles, Cal.

These judges, independently of each other, sent in their opinions, several of them not voting for their own stories as the first prize, although this was allowable under the rules. There was no difficulty on their part in awarding the first prize of one thousand dollars and the second prize of five hundred dollars. In the case of the third prize there was such a division of opinion that the editors, under the rule of the competition that gave them the final decision, determined that it would be fair to divide the third prize between two competitors who had received the same number of the judges’ votes.

The prize winners were as follows:

FIRST PRIZE Ralph Henry Barbour of Manchester, Mass., and George Randolph Osborne of Cambridge, Mass., joint authors of “Thicker Than Water.” SECOND PRIZE Harry Stillwell Edwards of Macon, Georgia, author of “The Answer.” THIRD PRIZE Dwight M. Wiley of Princeton, Ill., author of “Her Memory,” and Redfield Ingalls of New York City, author of “Business and Ethics.” This prize was divided.

This book is now offered to the public in the confident hope and the firm belief that it will be found a valuable contribution to the literature of short fiction, in addition to the interest it also merits because of the stories themselves.

One final point should be emphasized. This book is not, in the very nature of the case, a book of uniform literary style; it is not the polished expression of the highest literary art. It is the best of thirty thousand attempts to write a short story, by all sorts and conditions of minds—a fair proportion of them amateurs, a fair proportion writers of considerable experience, and a small proportion excellently skilled craftsmen. In their final selection of these stories, the readers and judges were governed, not so much by the question “Is this superfine literary art?” as they were by the question “Is this interesting?” By this touchstone the book certainly justifies its existence.

T. L. M.

N. B.

By Joseph Hall

Lieutenant Ludwig Kreusler glanced hurriedly through the mail that had accumulated during the month that the X-8 had been away from base. At the bottom of the pile he found the letter he had been seeking and his eyes brightened. It was a fat letter, addressed in feminine handwriting, and its original postmark was Washington, D. C., U. S. A.

“His Excellency will see you, sir.” The orderly had entered quietly and stood at attention.

With a slightly impatient shrug the Lieutenant shoved the letters into his pocket and left the room.

He found Admiral Von Herpitz, the wizard of the sea, at his desk. As the young man entered the old Admiral rose and came forward. This unusual mark of favour somewhat embarrassed the young officer until the old man, placing both huge hands upon his shoulders, looked into his eyes.

“Excellent.”

The one word conveyed a volume of praise, gratification. The old sea dog was known as a silent man. Censure was more frequent from him than applause.

The Lieutenant could find no word. The situation was for him embarrassing in the extreme. He, like Herpitz, was a man of actions, and words confused him.

“These English,” the old Admiral spoke grimly, “we will teach them. Have you seen the reports? They are having quite a little panic in America also over the Seronica. Two hundred of the passengers lost were American.”

A file of papers lay on the table. Kreusler ran through them hurriedly. The Berlin journals gave the sinking of the Seronica great headlines followed by columns of sheer joy. The London and Paris and some of the New York sheets called the exploit a crime and its perpetrators pirates. But they all gave it utter and undivided thought. The X-8 had become the horror craft of the world. Berlin figuratively carried her young commander on her shoulders. He found himself the hero of the hour.

“You have done well for the Fatherland,” Von Herpitz repeated as the Lieutenant was going out.

In his own cabin Kreusler forgot the Seronica and the X-8. The fat letter with the Washington postmark absorbed him.

Two years, ending with the outbreak of the great war, Kreusler had been naval attaché to the German embassy at Washington. He had been popular in the society of the American capital. He was highly educated, a profound scientist, an original thinker, and an adaptable and interesting dinner guest. Dorothy Washburn, the youngest daughter of the Senator from Oregon, had made her début in Washington during the second winter of Kreusler’s presence there. The two had met. They were exact opposites; he tall, severe, blond, thoughtfully serious; she, small, dark, vivacious, bubbling with the joy of life. Love was inevitable.

The fat letter was engrossing. It breathed in every line and word and syllable the fine love this wonder woman gave him. One paragraph was most astounding. It read:

“To be near thee, loved one, I have arranged, through the gracious kindness of our friends, to come to Berlin as a nurse. Just when is as yet uncertain, but come I will, fear not, as quickly as may be. Dost long for me, to see me, dearest heart, as I for thee? Well, soon perhaps that may not be so far away. Couldst not thou arrange to be wounded—only slightly, of course, my love—so that I might attend thee?”

The letter ended with tender love messages and assurances of devotion. The last sheet bore a single word, “Over,” and on the reverse side a woman’s most important news, a postscript. This read:

“P. S. Arrangements have been completed. Everything is settled. Even my father has consented, knowing of my great love. I sail next week.”

And then:

“N. B. The ship on which I sail is the Seronica.”

THE CLEAREST CALL

By Brevard Mays Connor

“Don’t worry,” said the great surgeon. “She will pull through. She has a fine constitution.”

“She will pull through because you are handling the case,” the nurse murmured, with an admiring glance.

“She will pull through,” agreed the Reverend Paul Templeton, “because I shall pray.”

He did not see the ironical glance which passed between nurse and doctor, materialists both. He had stooped and kissed his wife, who lay on the wheeled table that was to carry her to the operating room. She was asleep, for the narcotic had taken immediate effect.

For a moment he hung over her and then he moved aside. When the door of the operating room had closed on the wheeled table with its sheeted burden he stepped out on the little upper balcony beneath the stars, knelt, and earnestly addressed himself to his Maker.

A distant clock struck eight. The operation would take an hour....

Humbly he prayed, but with superb confidence. He had lived a blameless life, and his efforts were in behalf of a life equally blameless. It was inconceivable that he who had given all and asked nothing should be refused this, his first request. It was even more inconceivable that his wife, who was so worthy of pardon, should be condemned. Humbly he prayed, but not without assurance of a friendly Auditor.

It was a sweet May night, satin-soft, blossom-scented. The south wind was whispering confidences to the elms; the stars were unutterably benign. Surely God was in His heaven, thought the Reverend Paul Templeton.

Then up from the darkness beneath the trees came the low, thrilling laugh of a girl. He lifted his face from his hands and stared, scarce breathing, into the night, while his ears still held every note of that low, thrilling laugh, which spoke of youth in love in the springtime.

The black bulk of the hospital behind him faded into obscurity as swiftly as a scene struck on a darkened stage. He was no longer on a little upper porch, but in an old-fashioned summer-house, hidden from the tactless moon by a mesh of honeysuckle in bloom. He was no longer on his knees before his Maker, but sitting beside the girl who had been Ellen McCartney.

She was dressed in white. She was so close he could feel the warmth of her. Somehow, in that darkness, their hands met and clung, shoulder touched shoulder—the fragrance of her hair in his nostrils. The soft, womanly yielding of her body.

Now her palms were resting against his cheeks, drawing his head down; now, as lightly as a butterfly upon a flower, her lips brushed his one closed eye and then the other; now she laughed, a low, thrilling laugh, which spoke of youth in love in the springtime.

Prayer had gone dry at its source, choked by the luxuriant vegetation of memory. He remembered other kisses and thrilled in sympathy with the delight of other time....

The distant clock struck nine, but he did not hear it. The shriek of a woman in pain sliced through the silence but could not penetrate the walls of his dream. The girl who had been Ellen McCartney lay in his arms, her lips to his.

Then a hand fell upon his shoulder.

“Come,” said the nurse, and slipped back into the room.

The Reverend Paul Templeton came back with a wrench to consciousness of the time and place, and horror surged through his veins like a burning poison. It was over—and he had not prayed! And worse! When his whole being should have been prostrate in humble supplication he had allowed it to walk brazenly erect among memories that at the best were frivolous and at the worst—carnal! He seemed to hear a voice saying:

“I am the Lord of Vengeance. Heavy is mine hand against them that slight Me!”

Mastered by despair, he clung to the iron railing. What could he hope of science when he had failed in his duty to faith? Somehow he managed to struggle to his feet and gain the room.

The sheeted figure on the bed was very still, the face paler than the pillow on which it lay. He crumpled down beside her and hid his face, too sick with shame to weep. He knew with a horrid certainty that she was dead and that he had killed her.

And then:

“Paul!”

It was the merest wisp of sound, almost too impalpable to be human utterance. He lifted his head and looked into the face of the great surgeon.... He was smiling.

“Paul!”

He looked now into the pale face of his wife ... and she was smiling.

“There, there,” said the great surgeon. “I told you she would come back. Her constitution——”

“Constitution!” scoffed the nurse. “It was you.”

“Or,” smiled the surgeon, magnanimously, “your prayers, sir.”

But the sick woman made a gesture of dissent.

“No,” she said, “it was none of those things. I came back when I remembered——”

“Paul,” she whispered, “lean down.”

He obeyed. Her palms fluttered against his cheeks, and, as lightly as a butterfly on a flower, her lips brushed his one closed eye and then the other. And then the girl who had been Ellen McCartney laughed a low, thrilling laugh, which spoke of youth in love in the springtime.

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN

By Selwyn Grattan

The empty vial—the odour of bitter almonds—and in the chair what had been a man.

On the desk this note:

“Farewell. From the day of our marriage I have known. I love you. I love my friend. Better that I should go and leave you two to find happiness than that I should stay and the three of us wear out wretched lives. Again farewell—and bless you.

“Robert.”

THE GRETCHEN PLAN

By William Johnston

“And Solomon had seven hundred wives,” read Pastor Brandt.

Gretchen Edeler sat up to listen. A new idea had come to her. A distressing state of affairs existed in the village of Eisen. There had gone to the war from the village over three hundred men. From the war there had returned fifty-one—only fifty-one—and there in Eisen were two hundred and eighty-one girls wanting husbands.

Of the fifty-one returned soldiers twenty had wives and families already. Two had married during the war, married the nurses they had had in the hospital. Hilda Sachs, the rich widow, had captured one. That left just twenty-eight men available for husbands—twenty-eight to two hundred and eighty-one girls.

Yet no marriages occurred. The men wished to marry as much as the girls, but how could a man decide with so many to pick from? Thus stood matters that Sunday morning.

After the service Gretchen waited to speak to Pastor Brandt.

“Everything in the Bible,” she asked anxiously, “is it always right?”

“Ja,” the herr pastor affirmed, “the Bible always gives right.”

“About everything?”

“Ja, about everything.”

“The Bible says that Jacob had two wives and that Solomon had seven hundred wives. Is it right for men to have many wives?”

“It was right in Bible days,” affirmed the pastor guardedly. “In those times many wives were needed to populate the land.”

“Many wives are needed now to populate the land,” asserted Gretchen. “Why should not each man in Eisen take now ten wives?”

“It is against the law,” declared the pastor.

“It is not against Bible law.”

The pastor pondered ten minutes.

“Nein,” he answered, “it is not against Bible law.”

“It would be for the good of the Fatherland.”

The pastor pondered twenty minutes.

“Ja,” he decided, “it would be for the good of the Fatherland.”

“We will do it,” announced Gretchen. “Ten of us will take one husband. Better a tenth of a husband than never any husband. Will you marry us?”

The pastor pondered thirty minutes.

“Ja,” he said at length, “for the good of the Fatherland.”

Quickly Gretchen spread her news. Quickly the girls accepted the Gretchen plan. Quickly they formed themselves into groups of ten and selected a husband. Quickly the twenty-eight men accepted. What man wouldn’t?

Only Selma Kronk, the homeliest of homely old maids, was left unmated. In indignant dismay she hastened to Frau Werner’s kaffee-klatch and unfolded to the married women assembled there the schreckliche Gretchen plan.

“Impossible!” asserted Frau Stern.

“Unspeakable!” declared Frau Heitner.

“It must not be!” announced Frau Werner.

In outraged wrath they appealed to their husbands to interfere.

“It is for the good of the Fatherland,” the husbands one and all declared. “What man would not have ten wives if he could?”

They appealed to the Mayor, to the Governor, even to the Kaiser himself, but in vain. To a man they welcomed the idea.

So the Gretchen plan was carried out. Each war hero took ten wives, not only in Eisen, but throughout the land.

Nevertheless, Frau Werner and the other aggrieved respectable advocates of monogamy had their revenge.

As invariably happens after a war, all the babies born were boy babies.

“Aha!” cried Frau Werner exultantly, as each new birth was announced. “Twenty years from now there will not be women enough to go around. Each wife then will have to have ten husbands. I wonder how the men will like that?”

THE GLORY OF WAR

By M. B. Levick

He was an orderly in the hospital and had got the job through a friend in his Grand Army Post. The work was not for a fastidious man, but John was not fastidious. In his duties he affected the bluff manner of a veteran, and, peering at the internes with a wise squint, would say, “Oh, this ain’t nothin’; an old soldier is used to such things. If y’ want t’ see the real thing, jus’ go to war.” And he would laugh at them and they would laugh at him.

He wore his G. A. R. emblem conspicuously on all occasions. At the slightest chance he became a bore with long tales of fighting, of how he had chased Johnny Reb and how those were the days. The students, still near enough to the classroom to hold a lingering repugnance for the text-books’ overemphasis on the Civil War, would guy him, but John never suspected.

On Decoration Day he marched and attended as many exercises as he could squeeze into the too short hours. He wore a committee ribbon like a decoration for valour. Once he carried a flag in a parade, and for weeks talked about Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, and regimental colours that had changed hands in distant frays.

And he had fought only to save his country, he would assert. He didn’t have no eye on Uncle Sam’s purse, not he; he could take care of himself, and if not, why, there was them as would. When the youths accused him of sinking his pension, he turned hotly to remind them of their lack of beard.

He was ever so ready to defend himself with an ancient vigour that the students and the nurses were sorry when he fell ill. Perhaps his campaigning had taken from his vitality, they surmised. The house surgeon told them he would never get up. After that—and the afterward was not long—John told his tales to more sober auditors.

He had been in bed a week and had begun to suspect the state of affairs when he called to him one evening the youth who of all had shown him the most deference.

“Sit down,” he said, without looking the youngster in the eye; and for a time there were heard only the noises of the day-weary ward. Presently John spoke, in an apprehensive tone of confidences.

“I’ve been a soldier now for forty-five years,” he said, “an’ for once I want to be just myself.... I kind o’ like you, an’ there ain’t nobody else I can talk to, for I ain’t got any one....

“In ’61 I was on my father’s farm in Pennsylvani’. I was on’y a kid then—fifteen—but when the war come I wanted the worst way to go. But my mother, she cried an’ begged me not to, an’ my daddy said he’d lick me, so I tried t’ forget it.

“But I couldn’t. Lots o’ other boys was goin’ away t’ enlist an’ they was all treated like heroes. Ye’d ’a’ thought they’d won the war already by themselves the way folks carried on when they left—the girls cryin’ about ’em an’ the teacher an’ the minister an’ the circuit judge speakin’ to ’em an’ all the stay-at-homes mad because they wasn’t goin’, too.

“It kept gettin’ harder an’ harder to work on the farm, an’ finally I said, ‘Well, I’ll go anyway.’ I knew pa an’ ma wouldn’t change their mind, so I didn’t say nothin’ to them. But I went to all the other boys an’ told them. ‘I’m goin’ away t’ enlist,’ I’d say, an’ when they’d laugh an’ say, ‘Why, y’r ma won’t let ye,’ I’d look wise an’ tell ’em to watch me, an’ I’d strut aroun’ an’ wink sly-like.

“They got to talkin’ about it so much I was scairt my dad would find out, but he didn’t, an’ I held back as long as I could, because all the other boys was lookin’ up to me. I was a man, all right, then. None o’ ’em that went away was the mogul I was. The girls got wind of it, too, an’ I could see ’em out o’ the tail o’ my eye watchin’ me an’ whisperin’ an’ sayin’, girl-like, all the things the boys was tryin’ not to say. That on’y made the boys talk more, too.

“So after a few days I ran away. The first night I hung roun’ near the town an’ after dark sneaked back to hear ’em talkin’. ‘He’ll be back soon,’ one feller said. Another, just to show he knew more, spoke up, ‘No, he won’ come back ’less in blue or in a coffin.’ An’ the others laughed.

“I thought that was fine—in blue or a coffin. ‘You bet I won’t; I’m the man f’r that,’ says I to myself.

“It took me three days to walk to the city. When I told the recruitin’ sergeant I wanted to be high corporal he laughed an’ pounded me an’ put me through my paces. Then he said I couldn’t be a soldier. My eyes wasn’t good enough.

“I cried at that; on’y a kid, y’ know—the’ was lots of ’em younger than me fightin’. But I remembered the feller what said, ‘He won’t come back ’cept in blue or a coffin,’ so I went where the soldiers was an’ bummed an’ hobnobbed with ’em till they let me help at peelin’ vegetables and pot-wrastlin’ an’ such things. Then I got to be a sort o’ water boy. My, I was proud!... But that on’y lasted a month, an’ I had to get out.

“I jus’ couldn’t go home without the blue, an’ it seemed too soon to get a coffin yet, so I went to New York an’ stayed all through the war. Nearly starved, too.

“After it was over I went back home. They didn’t suspicion, o’ course, an’ the first thing I knew I’d told ’em I’d been in the army. Hadn’t planned to, but some way it just popped out.

“Right away it was hail-fellow-well-met with them that had been at the front, an’ we were goin’ roun’ givin’ oursel’s airs an’ the girls seemed to think we was better than all the rest.... Well, sometimes I....

“I was jus’ a young fellow, y’ know, an’ kep’ gettin’ in deeper an’ deeper an’ never thought it’d mean anything. When a man says, ‘John, you remember that clump o’ trees the Fifty-eighth lay under at Antietam?’ why, you say, ‘Yes.’ An’ the next time y’r tellin’ about Antietam you jus’ throw in them trees without thinkin’. That’s the way it was with me. An’ I read books to get my facks straight an’ no one never caught me nappin’. I used t’ correct them.... At last I got to believe it all myself....

“Then the G. A. R. Post was organized in our town.... An’ so it went.

“Well, it’s been a long time. If I’d ’a’ known in the first place maybe it’d ’a’ been different.... But it was my right, anyway, wasn’t it, now? Say, don’t you think it was comin’ to me? It wasn’t my fault. By God, I wanted to fight! Jus’ one chance an’ so help me——

“They cheated me out o’ it an’ I got even. That’s all it was. I never took no pension. I’ve had the glory, like ’em.... I’ve paid for it.... I on’y took my own.

“And the Post will bury me.”

THE AVIATOR

By Hornell Hart

“The French Government declines to accept your services.” The words said themselves over and over in his ears in the drone of the motor, as the monoplane climbed into the velvet night sky. Was that diplomatic blunder of two years ago so utterly unforgivable? Was exile not enough? Would the Republic deny him even the right to fight under her colours? “The French Government declines to accept your services.” The recruiting officer had said it, and General Joffre had reiterated the unrelenting statement in reply to his direct appeal for enlistment. And now the drone of the propeller, the hum of the motor, and the rush of the air through the braces whispered the words ceaselessly into his ears as the great wings carried him up into the darkness.

Below, the ghostly searchlight fingers of the fortress reached up, groping toward him. The central searchlight of the fortress was playing on a French cruiser which had crept up recklessly close to the fort and was pouring shells in rapid salvos up into the battlements on the hill. The sparks of fire from the ship’s side seemed but tiny points of light far down below. Momentarily balls of flame appeared above and around the dim outlines of the fortifications, and the smoke of bursting shells drifted wanly across the white, searching pencils of light. Down there France, undaunted, grappled the Turk in the darkness. From the farther shore distant lights of Asia twinkled in the night.

Behind that central searchlight, Henri had said, lay the entrance to the powder magazine. That passageway was the vital spot of the fortress. An explosion there would ignite the ammunition and shatter the entire centre of the fortifications.

A searchlight came wheeling across the sky and shot past just behind the monoplane. The flash of the guns on the hill were now just beneath him, and their roar formed a surging background of sound to the whirr of the machine. He swept in a huge curve toward a position back of the fortress. The searchlight was circling the sky again. For a fraction of a second the aeroplane was silhouetted in its full glare. The beam wavered and returned zigzagging to pick him up again. This time it caught and followed him. A shell burst below him. If one fragment of shrapnel should strike the nitroglycerine which he carried France would profit little from this last ride of his.

The fortress was not far behind him. He swept about and pointed the nose of the monoplane downward straight toward the base of the central searchlight. Its beam had ceased to play on the battleship and was lifting swiftly toward him. Suddenly its glare caught him straight in the eyes. He gripped the controls and steered tensely for that dazzling target.

“The French Government declines to accept your services.” He smiled grimly. They could not well decline them now. The air rushed past him so swiftly that it seemed stiff like a stream of water under high pressure. Below him at that point of light death stood smiling. The crash of a shell bursting behind him was lost in the gale of wind in his ears. The light grew swiftly larger and the outlines of the battlements became distinct. “The French Government——” the world ended in a crash of blistering whiteness.

“He was pointed directly at the magazine,” said Abdul, the gunner. “If the shell from the French cruiser had not struck him we should all by now have been with Allah.”

LOYALTY

By Clarence Herbert New

They had been playing “cut-in” Bridge until the Charltons went home, at midnight. Instead of following them Norris returned to the library with Steuler and his wife. In the old days Barclay Norris had asked Barbara to marry him; but Steuler’s impetuous love-making appealed to her imagination, and Norris had remained their loyal friend. In the library, Steuler yawned—without apology. Extracting a suit-case from the coat-closet, he started for the stairs.

“You and Barbara may sit up all night, my friend; but me—I haf been travelling, I cannot keep my eyes open! Good-night!”

Norris stopped him with a slight motion of the head, nodded to a chair by the table, lighted a cigar rather deliberately, and sat down.

“There’s a matter I want to discuss with you, Max—now.... Don’t go away, Bab. It concerns you—rather deeply.” He inspected his cigar critically during a few moments of silence. “Max, you may have heard that my law practice brought me occasionally in touch with the Government, but you didn’t know I was officially connected with the Secret Service. When we were drawn into this war your probable sympathies were considered. But you enlisted for the Spanish War, though you never got farther than Chattanooga. You took the oath of allegiance. We considered your loyalty had been demonstrated, so we trusted you. We’ve had a constant fight against treachery, however, in the most undreamed-of places. You were again suspected. Is it necessary for me to say more? Lieutenant Schmidt was arrested ten minutes after you left him this morning. I saw you receive from him specifications for the Wright Multiplane, the Maxim Chlorine Shell, and the perfected ‘Lake’ Submarine. I also know you have a copy of the State Department’s code-book.”

Barbara Steuler had remained standing at the end of the table, her eyes dilating with an expression of incredulous, outraged amazement.

“Barclay! Are you insane? Are you accusing Max of these horrible things? My husband?”

Norris spoke gently but firmly.

“I’m stating facts, Bab—not accusing. Because I’ve been your friend, and his, I’m giving him this chance to return the papers and code before it’s too late. At this moment I’m the only one who really knows. He meant to sail on Grunwald’s yacht for Christiania at sunrise. There’s still time for him to get aboard and escape. I’m personally answerable for the unknown man I’ve been following to-day!”

She whirled upon her husband, saw, with horror, that he was making no denial, that he was looking at their old friend with a gleam of hatred in his eyes. Presently he pulled open a drawer in the table, thrusting one hand into the back part of it.

“So! You efen suspect where I put the codebook? Yess? Well, it iss the fortune of war, I suppose. You think I will not arrested be, if I reach the yacht before morning? Nein? You are the only one who knows—yet? Und suppose I nefer come back? My wife I mus’ leave with the man who always haf lofed——” There was a flash, a stunning report. Norris staggered up from his chair and pitched headlong upon the floor.

“Max! Max! A traitor! A murderer! My God!”

He took a canvas-bound book from the drawer, thrusting it hastily into the suit-case, then fetched overcoat and hat from the closet. In his hurry he overlooked the automatic pistol which lay upon the table. So intent was he upon escaping with what he had that he seemed to have forgotten her entirely. But a low, gasping voice made him whirl about at the door.

“Another step—and I’ll—kill you!” The pistol steadily covered his heart. (He’d seen her shoot.)

“Put that book on the table.” He hesitated, meditating a spring through the doorway. “When I count three! One!...” With a muttered curse he took the code from the suit-case.

“Empty your pockets!”

There was no mistaking the expression in her eyes. He emptied his pockets.

“Now—go! Without the suit-case!”

“Barbara! You would haf me leave you! Like this!” Her face was colourless, in her eyes a brooding horror, a dazed consciousness of that motionless body on the floor behind the table.

“My people fought at Lexington and Concord—for principles dearer than life to them. You swore allegiance to those principles, to their flag. And you are—this! You’ve murdered our loyal friend—when he was giving a traitor a chance, at great personal risk! Go! Quickly!”

As the front door slammed she ran to the window, watched him down the block. A man who did such things might return later, catch her unarmed, secure the papers. Her brain worked automatically. There was no safe place to conceal them. They must be destroyed at once! Tearing the book to pieces, she piled the leaves upon the andirons in the fireplace with the other papers, then lighted the heap. When they were entirely destroyed a patter of footsteps echoed from the stairs; a little figure in pajamas came peeking around the portière. (A thrill of passionate thankfulness ran through her that he resembled her people, with no trace of the alien blood.)

“Mo-ther! What was that big noise?”

“Possibly some one’s automobile, dear—a blowout or a back-fire, you know.” She forced herself to speak quietly, standing so that he couldn’t look behind the table.

“Mo-ther, who was down here wiv you?”

“Uncle Barclay, sweetheart. But—oh, God!—he’s gone now.” (Norris’s love had been the truer, deeper affection; she’d known it for some time.) “Run along back to beddy, darling. Mother will come up presently.”

She had a feeling of suffocation as the boy hugged her impetuously and padded softly upstairs. As she listened to his careful progress another sound, a faint rustling from behind the table made her heart stop beating for a second. With trembling limbs she leaned across the table and looked. The dead man lay in a slightly different position; there was a barely perceptible movement of the chest. She reached breathlessly for the telephone.

“Give me Bryant 9702, please!... Yes! Doctor Marvin’s house! Quickly!”

MOSES COMES TO BURNING BUSH

By W. T. Larned

Melting snow in the spring and cloud-bursting rains in the fall poured their floods from the foothills, through the arroyo, and were licked up and lost in the arid lands below. The Mormons came, dammed the outlet in the ridge—and, lo! there was a lake. Thus Burning Bush, Cortez County, New Mexico, was created, on the edge of green alfalfa fields. And because there was coal the railroad ran a spur to collect it; and because there was a railroad cowmen came in with their beeves and sheepmen with their mutton and wool.

In the terms of a now-discarded census classification, the “souls” composing Cortez County’s population were officially designated as “white men, Mormons, and Mexicans.” Also, there were Indians, who could not vote and did not count. Finally, there was Ah Sin.

Ah Sin was no common coolie. He had been, indeed, the prize pupil at the Chinese mission on the Coast. He could speak and read English, do sums with his head in American arithmetic, and recite whole passages from the Bible. With a cash capital accumulated in ten years of dogged domestic service, he had come to Burning Bush and opened a general store. It was the only one in town, and it paid.

Ah Sin—smiling, courteous, honest—worked fifteen hours a day, and put his profits in the bank. In time he would go back to China a rich man. Then Moses came.

That Moses should come to Burning Bush was inevitable. Burning Bush had begun to boom. The odour of its prosperity had been wafted afar, and the nostrils of the Israelite knew it.

The new store, lavishly painted in greens and yellows, was the most noticeable thing in town. When Moses had moved in, even the Montezuma hotel seemed to shrink. It had two show windows of pure plate glass—their contents tagged with legends proclaiming cut prices. Across the full width of its imposing false-front elevation there appeared this sign:

STOP! LOOK! LISTEN!

THE ORIGINAL MOSES

GOLDEN RULE EMPORIUM.

With such simple lures are the simple enticed. Burning Bush stopped, looked—and listened to maneuvering Moses. It is the new thing that catches the eye and fills the ear. Ah Sin had forgotten to beat his gong. Custom fell off, and found its way to the newcomer. In a month or so the Celestial hardly held his own.

Ah Sin, losing trade, was troubled. Meeting the cut in prices did not bring back his customers. With Oriental taste he organized a novel window display—in vain. Something was the matter. But what?

Ah Sin’s guileless mind could not grasp it. Thrown on his own mental resources, he grappled as best he could with the problem. The Bible teachers had taught him that the Jews were a race dispersed and paying the penalty of their transgressions. Ah Sin believed this to be literally the truth. Yet he, a Christian, seemed about to be overcome by the competition of an Israelite.

“Velly funny,” said Ah Sin to himself. “Heblew make good. Chlistian catchee hell.”

He strolled out into the street, his shop being empty for the time, and contemplated long and earnestly the place of his competitor across the way. Something about the sign seemed to puzzle him and to make him think. He shook his head. Then he backed off and looked critically at his own shop, with its modest device: “Ah Sin—General Store.” Presently his impassive face lighted up; and that night his sleep was shortened by an hour devoted to a search of the Scriptures. Had not his teachers told him to turn to the Bible in time of doubt and trial? They were not here to counsel him, but he had a clew.

He awoke next morning clothed and girded with strength. And all that day, when business permitted, he laboured on a canvas sign, which he lettered himself, with brush and India ink, smiling contentedly the while.

It was Curly Bob, foreman of the Frying Pan outfit on Sun Creek, who saw it first. Coming into town at a lope, in quest of cut plug, his roving eye was arrested by the new announcement of Ah Sin. By temperament and training Curly was unemotional, but, seeing Ah Sin’s handiwork, he pulled so suddenly on his spade bit that the cayuse fell back on its haunches. For there, in the eyelids of the morning, Ah Sin, seeking an everlasting sign, had flung forth a banner that prevailed against the Jew. In black, bold letters a foot high, it beckoned to the trade of Burning Bush:

STOP! LOOK! LISTEN!

THE ORIGINAL SIN

TEN PER CENT. FORGIVEN FOR CASH

Whereupon Curly Bob, swearing softly in admiration, blew himself to tobacco for the whole outfit.

BUSINESS AND ETHICS

By Redfield Ingalls

In the dingy office of A. Slivowitz & Co., manufacturers of dyes, things were humming. Every clerk was bent over his desk, hard and cheerfully at work, and there was a general air of bustle and efficiency.

That was because A. Slivowitz stood in the doorway of his private office looking on.

The portly head of the firm watched the scene complacently for a few minutes. Then, catching the eye of his young but efficient private secretary, he beckoned him with an air of mystery to the inner sanctum.

The secretary, who was sharp of eye and alert of manner, rose at once and followed, though it was not the custom of A. Slivowitz to summon him thus. His employer sank ponderously into his swivel chair and motioned to the secretary to shut the door and take a seat. Then for a minute or so he was silent, playing with his massive gold watch chain and studying the young man through puckered lids. But if the secretary was perturbed he did not show it.

“Mr. Sloane,” began Slivowitz, at length, in his heavy voice, “you been with the firm now how long—six or five months, ain’t it?”

“Nearly six,” the dapper young man confirmed briskly.

“You’re a smart feller, Mr. Sloane,” his employer continued, examining the huge diamond on his left hand. “Already you picked it up a lot about dyeing. A fine dyer you should make. Now, Mr. Sloane, I’m going to fire you.”

The secretary’s eyebrows went up a trifle, but otherwise he showed no great perturbation. Perhaps a certain elephantine playfulness in the big man’s tone reassured him.

“By me business is good,” Slivowitz went on, with a fat chuckle. “I’m a business man, Mr. Sloane, first and last, and nobody don’t never put nothing over by me.”

Knowing something of his employer’s business methods, Sloane could have amplified. What he said was: “Thanks to your royal purple, Mr. Slivowitz. You’ve about cornered the trade.”

“They can’t none of ’em touch it, that purple; posi-tive-ly,” agreed the dyer, with much satisfaction. “But”—and he became confidential—“between me and you strictly, this here now Domestic Dye Works, they got it a mauve what gives me a pain.”

He hitched his chair closer and laid a pudgy hand on Sloane’s knee. “I’m going to fire you,” he repeated, with a wink. “I want you should go by the Domestic Dye Works and get it a job. Find out about the formula for their mauve—you understand me—and come back mit it, and you get back your job and a hundred or seventy-five dollars.”

Sloane started. For a moment he stared at his employer, his face going red and pale again; then he rose to his feet.

“Sorry, Mr. Slivowitz, but I can’t consider it,” he said.

“Oh, come now, Mr. Sloane!” protested the dyer, with a laugh, leaning back in his chair. He produced a thick cigar and bit off the end. “These here scruples does you credit, Mr. Sloane, but business is business; and, take it from me, Mr. Sloane, you can’t mix business up mit ethics. Them things is all right, but you gotta skin the other guy before he skins you first, ain’t it?”

“That may be——” began the secretary, as he moved toward the door.

“May be? Ain’t I just told you it is?” Slivowitz paused in the act of striking a match to glare. “You needn’t to be scared they’ll find it out where you come from and fire you, neither, Mr. Sloane,” he added, more quietly and with a cunning expression. “I got brains, I have. A little thing like recommends to a smart man like me——” The match broke. He flung it into the cuspidor and selected another.

Sloane paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Mr. Slivowitz——” he began again.

“Of course,” continued his employer, “I could make it—well, a hundred fifteen, Mr. Sloane. But, believe me, not a cent more, posi-tive-ly.”

The secretary shook his head decidedly.

“What?” roared Slivowitz. “Y’ mean to tell me y’ ain’t goin’ to do it? All right; you’re fired anyhow, you understand me.” Then with an evil glitter in his eyes, “And if you don’t bring by me that formula, you get fired from the Domestic Dye Works; and you don’t get it no job nowheres else, too! Now, you take your choice.” This time the match lighted successfully.

Sloane smiled. “Quite impossible,” he said. “I was going to resign in a day or two, anyway.”

“Eh?” exclaimed the head of the firm, his jaw dropping and his florid face paling a little. In the face of a number of possibilities he forgot the match in his fingers.

“Yes. You see—you’ll know it sooner or later—the Domestic Dye Works sent me here to learn the formula for your royal purple.”

And the door slammed shut behind A. Slivowitz’s private secretary.

NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE

By Mary Woodbury Caswell

The short winter day of Alaska was brightening as Gertrude pushed her chair back from the breakfast table and announced that she proposed to go at once for her constitutional. Her brother placidly assented, but Keith interposed with a worried look.

“Hadn’t you better go with her, Bob? I suppose I’ve grown to be an old granny, but since Jacques told us of that outlaw who threatened to kidnap a white girl for his wife, I don’t like to have Gertrude get out of sight.”

The girl bent over him caressingly.

“Don’t worry, dear,” she said. “Jacques had been drinking hard when he told you of this mythical exile. Besides, I am no Helen of Troy to be abducted for my beauty. I’d really much rather have Bob stay with you.”

And she kissed him, put on warm wraps, took her snowshoes and started for the daily tramp that had kept her fit ever since she had come up on the last boat, hastily summoned by a cable from Bob when her fiancé had his shoulder crushed, and it would be impossible for the young men to return to the States with their stake. She and Bob had nursed him into convalescence, but it had been a hard winter for him, and she did not wonder that he had developed some nervousness, though she considered his fear for her wholly unnecessary, as, indeed, did Bob.

When she was a half-mile from the cabin and a slight rise of ground hid it from her, she saw a dog team approaching, and smiled, thinking that Keith would surely consider that danger was near. As it met her the driver touched his cap, and she had a swift impression of a very different type than she had recently met, and one that made Jacques’s fantastic tale seem less absurd. As she involuntarily glanced back she saw, and now with alarm, that the stranger had turned and was coming toward her. He stopped the dogs close to her and inquired courteously, and with a foreign accent:

“Can you tell me, mademoiselle, how near I am to some residence?”

“Our cabin is over the hill,” she replied quietly, though with growing terror, which was justified, as he sprang toward her, swathing her in a blanket, so that she could neither speak nor struggle, and placing her on the sled.

She could not have told whether it was hours or minutes before she was lifted, carried into a cabin, and the blanket unfolded from her, while a savage-looking husky dog growled a greeting. Her captor shook off his heavy outer coat, removed his cap, and with exaggerated deference said:

“Mademoiselle, pray remove your parka and permit that I relieve you of your snowshoes. I do myself the honour, mademoiselle, to offer you marriage.”

Resolutely conquering her fear, Gertrude looked steadily at him. The man evidently was, or had been, a gentleman; but what must his life have been to bring him to this! As composedly as she could she answered:

“I must decline your offer. Pray permit me to return home.”

“Ah, no, mademoiselle. I fear I cannot allow that. As for marriage—as you please, but in any case you must remain here.”

“Not alive,” she said.

“Ah, but, mademoiselle, how not?” he asked, in mockery of courtesy more pronounced. “It is not so easy to die”—with a sudden bitter sadness.

“There are many ways,” she replied. “Here is one.”

And, seizing a dog whip lying near, she struck the husky a sharp blow and, as he furiously leaped to his feet, flung herself upon the floor before him. He fastened his teeth in her arm as his master grasped his throat, and the struggle shook the cabin. At last the man broke the dog’s hold and dragged him to the door. Gertrude’s heavy clothing had saved her arm from anything but a superficial wound, but as he bound it up she said:

“The dog will not forget, and if he fails me I can find another way.”

His face, which had paled, flushed a dark red as he hastily spoke.

“For God’s sake do not think—but why should you not? You are free, mademoiselle. Such courage shows me I am not quite the brute I fancied I had become, and also that there is one woman in the world whose ‘no’ assuredly does not mean ‘yes.’ I will take you home at once, on the faith of a Marovitch.”

She stared at him incredulously and said slowly:

“Is it possible—are you Count Boris Marovitch?”

“Yes”—in deep wonder—“that is my name, but how could you know?”

“This letter should interest you,” she said. “It is from Varinka. I was at a convent school in Paris with her.” And she watched him excitedly as he read aloud the passage she indicated.

“Do you remember my telling you of my cousin Boris, who was sent to Siberia for killing Prince —— in a duel? It was supposed that he was shot while trying to escape, but the guard has confessed that he was bribed to assist him, and he may be living. The Czar would gladly pardon him if he would return, his homicidal tendencies being valuable in the present war crisis. And Olga has steadfastly refused to marry any one else, so——”

A sharply drawn breath interrupted the reading, and the letter fell to the floor from his shaking hands as he looked at her, his face white and drawn.

“Mademoiselle, it is too much,” he gasped. “Your courage—your generosity—I insult you unforgivably and you give me back honour, love, life—I cannot say——” And he sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

She went over to him and laid her hand gently on his shoulder.

“I am glad you are happy, Count,” she said, “and I am sure we shall be very good friends. Please take me home now.”

They met Bob halfway, striding along with an anxious face, his rifle over his shoulder. “This is my brother, Mr. Stacey,” said Gertrude. “Bob, this is Count Marovitch, of whom Varinka wrote. He starts to-morrow by dog train to the States on his way to Russia.”

THE OLD THINGS

By Jessie Anderson Chase

Like Sir Roger’s neighbours peering over the hedge, I had daily observed, over my stone wall, a very old gentleman in his shirt sleeves, who pleasantly gave me the rôle of Spectator. A New-Englander of the elder type, with the heavy bent head of the thinker; but, particularly, with the piercing yet so kindly humorous blue eye that loses none of its colour with age, but seems to grow more vivid and vital with the same years that steal from the hair its hue of life and from the walnut cheek its glowing red.

Such an eye, to a lawyer like myself, accustomed to look for a human document in every human face, seemed the very epitome of eighty years: a carefree boyhood among contemporaries—in house furnishings, in barn and pigsty, orchard and gardens; a youth that sees already a new generation in most of these companions of his earthly pilgrimage; a middle age, forced out of the romantic sense of companionship on the road, into the persistent and finally triumphant view of using environment for ends of its own; and then old age, free to return and lavish forgotten endearments upon the “old things!” This or the other “landmark,” dear, and familiar from life’s beginnings. These periods, all slipping unnoticed into their successors, yet each possessing a distinct and tangible outline and colour, had all had their turn at my neighbour’s blue eyes. And the look that comes only at the end, when the life has been prodigal of response and of an unswerving fidelity in the storing up of values—that was the look that I valued as a thing of price.

It was a day of late summer that brought me more directly face to face with its beauty and gravity. The old gentleman appeared, in his shirt sleeves, but with plenty of ceremony in his quiet demeanour, at the door of my little “portable” law office, at the edge of the orchard.

“I am told, sir,” he began, “that you are an attorney at law.”

I bowed, and offered him a chair but he continued standing.

“I have come,” he said, “to request your services in drawing up my last will and testament—that is,” he serenely emended, “in case your vacation time is subject to such interruption.”

While I was formulating my assent he continued:

“You have no doubt, since coming into this rather communicative neighbourhood, been informed that my son owns the homestead.”

The kind, keen old eyes took on a look of what George Eliot names “an enormous patience with the way of the world.”

“Everything belongs to John and Mary. But there are one or two little old things that they don’t care about. They’re up in the lean-to. The old mirror that, as a lad, I used to see my face in over my mother’s shoulder, it’s still holding for me the picture of my mother smiling up at me. And the old ladder-back chair that she used to sit in and cuddle me; and switch, me, too—and maybe that took the most love of all. That’s all. John and Mary don’t want them. They’re only old things, like myself. It’s natural, perfectly natural. At their age I most probably felt just so.”

He paused and looked through the lattice, where the reddened vine-leaves were beginning to fall.

“The young leaf-buds pushing off the old leaves. It’s nature.”

Before sunset—for the old man was strangely impatient—I had his “will” signed, witnessed, and sealed. The old mirror and chair were to go to a wee, odd little old lady, called in the neighbourhood “Miss Tabby” Titcomb because of her forty-odd cats, except for which she lived alone.

“Little Ellen,” he called her, as he fondly spoke of their school days together. “Mother would have been well content if we’d hit it off together, Ellen and I. But a boy is as apt as not, when urged one way, to fly off in another; and I was at the skittish age.

“I’ve never said this before to any man, sir, but I’d have been a better husband to Ellen. Mary was a faithful wife, and better than I deserved. But she was not just aware, like Ellen, of where to bear on hard and where to go a little easy. That’s what a man needs in a woman, sir. Ellen always knew just when and where.”

The next morning, which was Saturday, I was riding down Bare Hill Road—as it chanced, right past Miss Tabby’s—when my horse shied; and that tiny old lady, with an enormous gray cat beside her, rose up from behind the lilac bushes. Bigger people than “little Ellen” have been frightened by Prince’s antics, but she quietly put her hand on his restive neck as if he were only a little larger kitten, and then spoke to me in a soft little purr of a voice:

“I’ve heard—and you’ll excuse me—that you’re a lawyer, Mr. Alden; and I’ve a small matter I don’t wish to entrust to any one here, being private. It’s a letter for Mr. Thomas Sewall, to be delivered upon my demise, which I feel is about to take place.” She spoke with a little note of relief, as if from some long strain.

I took the small envelope.

“It’s just the cats,” she was moved to confide further; “the little ones and the smart ones will all find friends. But the two old ones! Mr. Sewall has a notion for the old things. And”—here she hesitated long, while I breathlessly assured her of my best care for the letter—“there’s—somewhat in the note besides the cats,” she brought out bravely. “You’ll make sure it doesn’t fall into John and Mary’s hands?”

This was Saturday morning. Sunday, as I listened absent-mindedly to the slow toll of the meeting-house bell, my houskeeper remarked, on bringing in my coffee:

“Did you notice, sir? It was eighty-six. There’s an old man and an old woman, both just the same age, in the village, died in the night.”

The old chair, upon which—when they were young together—the little Tom had been spanked and comforted; and the mirror, still treasuring the picture of the round, saucy phiz over his mother’s shoulder, were offered at auction and bid in for a trifle by me. I would have paid gold sovereigns for them, but not into the hands of John and Mary! The cats, likewise, sit by the hearth, on which was burned to ashes the letter “not entirely” about their disposal.

And the “Old Things” that cherished these earthly companions? The minister—himself a rare “old thing”—preached a funeral sermon for the two so strangely united by death; and his thin voice, like the tone of an old, cracked violin, still haunts me:

“Their youth is renewed like the eagle’s.... And they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Short stories from Life: The 81 prize stories in "Life's" Shortest Story Contest