The nickel jangles in the slot. The disk begins to revolve. It grates and begins its introductory mechanical clinkety-clinkety clink. A small child wails dismally as the music shivers through the room."Jesus, lover of my soul,Let me to Thy bosom fly.While the nearer waters roll,While the tempest still is high.Hide me, O, my Saviour, hideTill the storm of life is past.Safe into the haven guide,O, receive my soul at last."Rosie's hands drop from her hips as the song begins. The dancing impulse passes from her limbs. Even the muscles of her face harden convulsively.
The nickel jangles in the slot. The disk begins to revolve. It grates and begins its introductory mechanical clinkety-clinkety clink. A small child wails dismally as the music shivers through the room.
"Jesus, lover of my soul,Let me to Thy bosom fly.While the nearer waters roll,While the tempest still is high.Hide me, O, my Saviour, hideTill the storm of life is past.Safe into the haven guide,O, receive my soul at last."
"Jesus, lover of my soul,Let me to Thy bosom fly.While the nearer waters roll,While the tempest still is high.Hide me, O, my Saviour, hideTill the storm of life is past.Safe into the haven guide,O, receive my soul at last."
"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly.
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high.
Hide me, O, my Saviour, hide
Till the storm of life is past.
Safe into the haven guide,
O, receive my soul at last."
Rosie's hands drop from her hips as the song begins. The dancing impulse passes from her limbs. Even the muscles of her face harden convulsively.
Rosie (hysterically).Oh, I can't stand that, Murphy. For Gawd's sake, can't you stop it?
She starts over toward the machine impulsively. Then something catches her, she pauses and is held a moment while a superstitious awe makes her eyes again the big roundness of childhood's wonder. She draws the back of her hand across her forehead in an endeavor to bring herself out of the daze.
She starts over toward the machine impulsively. Then something catches her, she pauses and is held a moment while a superstitious awe makes her eyes again the big roundness of childhood's wonder. She draws the back of her hand across her forehead in an endeavor to bring herself out of the daze.
Rosie (falling sobbing beside the bench). "O, receive my soul at last." Why did you leave your little Rosie? Mother, Oh, mother. I ain't fit to come to you no more, mother—I ain't fit, I ain't fit.
One of the mothers reaches over and strokes her hair.
One of the mothers reaches over and strokes her hair.
Old Moll's Daughter (opening the door and stepping out into the lonely street as she laughs madly).Old Murphy in cahoots with the minister. Oh, hell!
The door slams shut. The glasses on the bar jangle harshly. A snatch of song boldly defiant rings in from the street: "Don't tell me that you've lost your dog." Murphy walks over and stands looking at the music box. It is still grinding out the music."Other refuge have I none.Hangs my helpless soul on Thee.Leave, ah, leave me not alone.Still support and comfort me.All my trust on Thee is staid.All my help from Thee I bring.Cover my defenseless headWith the shadow of Thy wing."The wives are all crying quietly. Rosie and Bett are sobbing with the wild abandon that such natures know. Tears are falling upon the idle hands at the card table. The men at the bar are strangely quiet.
The door slams shut. The glasses on the bar jangle harshly. A snatch of song boldly defiant rings in from the street: "Don't tell me that you've lost your dog." Murphy walks over and stands looking at the music box. It is still grinding out the music.
"Other refuge have I none.Hangs my helpless soul on Thee.Leave, ah, leave me not alone.Still support and comfort me.All my trust on Thee is staid.All my help from Thee I bring.Cover my defenseless headWith the shadow of Thy wing."
"Other refuge have I none.Hangs my helpless soul on Thee.Leave, ah, leave me not alone.Still support and comfort me.All my trust on Thee is staid.All my help from Thee I bring.Cover my defenseless headWith the shadow of Thy wing."
"Other refuge have I none.
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee.
Leave, ah, leave me not alone.
Still support and comfort me.
All my trust on Thee is staid.
All my help from Thee I bring.
Cover my defenseless head
With the shadow of Thy wing."
The wives are all crying quietly. Rosie and Bett are sobbing with the wild abandon that such natures know. Tears are falling upon the idle hands at the card table. The men at the bar are strangely quiet.
Man at the Faro Table (lifting himself up on his elbow).I ushe shing—I ushe shing zhat—I ushe shing Jeshus—Jeshus—I ushe shing—(He drops his head over on the table and weeps drunkenly.)
Little Child (pulling at her mother's shoulders and whining peevishly).Who is Jesus, mamma? Do we know Jesus? (Happily.) Will he cover my head with a pretty birdie's wing? (The mother shakes with sobs and the child speaks more caressingly.) Don't cry, mother. I like my hat with the posies on it. You can have the feathers, nice, good mamma. Don't cry.
Murphy (absently, looking at the minister).They sang that at the funeral. Sally didn't have no call to hide anything. She was that white and pure. I always felt her slippin'—slippin' away. She worried so them last days because of the little kid. "Take him back home, Murph," she kept sayin'. "A little child has got to have some raisin'. A kid has got to go to Sunday school, Tim, dear, and there ain't never no meetin's in God's Back Yard."
Man at the Bar (dejectedly, going over to the door).It's all right for the young-uns, but when a man has got a thirst and is down on his luck, I don't allow that God is going to help much. You got to get 'em young, parson, and keep 'em headed straight. It's hell turning back. I tried it, and I couldn't make it go.
Minister (gently, as if speaking to someone very near).Oh, Jesus, lover of all these misguided souls, come down to this little room to-night, for it is dark here, and, Oh, so cold and dreary. Speak to them, Jesus, as you did to me. Let them see the glory of Thy face. Will someone pray?
Murphy (looking across at the loafers and speaking half as an invitation, half as a command).Are you staying, boys?
One of the Men (doggedly, as they look at one another sheepishly and no one moves to go).Ain't we always stayin' till closin' time?
Murphy (warmly).You sure do, boys. (He buries his head in his crossed arms over the music-box.) It's your lead, parson.
The Wild Crab Apple
By Julia Ellen Rogers
The wild, sweet-scented crab apple! The bare mention of its name is enough to make the heart leap up, though spring be months away, and barriers of brick hem us in. In the corner of the back pasture stands a clump of these trees, huddled together like cattle. Their flat, matted tops reach out sidewise until the stubby limbs of neighboring trees meet. It would not occur to anyone to call them handsome trees. But wait! The twigs silver over with young foliage, then coral buds appear, thickly sprinkling the green leaves. Now all their asperity is softened, and a great burst of rose-colored bloom overspreads the treetops and fills the air with perfume. It is not mere sweetness, but an exquisite, spicy, stimulating fragrance that belongs only to wild crab-apple flowers. Linnæus probably never saw more than a dried specimen, but he named this tree most worthily,coronaria, "fit for crowns and garlands."
Break off an armful of these blossoming twigs and take them home. They will never be missed. Be thankful that your friends in distant parts of the country may share your pleasure, for though this particular species does not cover the whole United States, yet there is a wild crab apple for each region.
In the fall the tree is covered with hard little yellow apples. They have a delightful fragrance, but they are neither sweet nor mellow. Take a few home and make them into jelly. Then you will understand why the early settlers gathered them for winter use. The jelly has a wild tang in it, an indescribable piquancy of flavor as different from common apple jelly as the flowers are in their way more charming than ordinary appleblossoms. It is the rare gamy taste of a primitive apple.
Well-meaning horticulturists have tried what they could do toward domesticating thisMalus coronaria. The effort has not been a success. The fruit remains acerb and hard; the tree declines to be "ameliorated" for the good of mankind. Isn't it, after all, a gratuitous office? Do we not need our wild crab apple just as it is, as much as we need more kinds of orchard trees? How spirited and fine is its resistance! It seems as if this wayward beauty of our woodside thickets considered that the best way to serve mankind was to keep inviolate those charms that set it apart from other trees and make its remotest haunt the Mecca of eager pilgrims every spring.
The wild crab apple is not a tree to plant by itself in park or garden. Plant it in companies on the edge of woods, or in obscure and ugly fence corners, where there is a background, or where, at least, each tree can lose its individuality in the mass. Now, go away and let them alone. They do not need mulching nor pruning. Let them gang their ain gait, and in a few years you will have a crab-apple thicket. You will also have succeeded in bringing home with these trees something of the spirit of the wild woods where you found them.
—FromThe Tree Book.
A Ballad of the Corn
By S. H. M. Byers
Oh, the undulating prairies,And the fields of yellow corn,Like a million soldiers waiting for the fray.Oh, the rustling of the corn leavesLike a distant fairy's hornAnd the notes the fairy bugles seem to play."We have risen from the bosomOf the beauteous mother earth,Where the farmer plowed his furrow straight and long.There was gladness and rejoicingWhen the summer gave us birth,In the tumult and the dancing and the song."When the sumach turns to scarlet,And the vines along the laneAre garmented in autumn's golden wine—Then the land shall smile for plenty,And the toiler for his pain,When the soldiers of our army stand in line."With our shining blades before us,And our banners flaming far,Want and hunger shall be slain forevermore.And the cornfield's lord of plentyIn his golden-covered carThen shall stop at every happy toiler's door."Oh, the sunshine and the beautyOn the fields of ripened corn,And the wigwams and the corn-rows where they stand.In the lanes I hear the musicOf the faintly blowing hornAnd the blessed Indian summer's on the land.
Oh, the undulating prairies,And the fields of yellow corn,Like a million soldiers waiting for the fray.Oh, the rustling of the corn leavesLike a distant fairy's hornAnd the notes the fairy bugles seem to play.
Oh, the undulating prairies,
And the fields of yellow corn,
Like a million soldiers waiting for the fray.
Oh, the rustling of the corn leaves
Like a distant fairy's horn
And the notes the fairy bugles seem to play.
"We have risen from the bosomOf the beauteous mother earth,Where the farmer plowed his furrow straight and long.There was gladness and rejoicingWhen the summer gave us birth,In the tumult and the dancing and the song.
"We have risen from the bosom
Of the beauteous mother earth,
Where the farmer plowed his furrow straight and long.
There was gladness and rejoicing
When the summer gave us birth,
In the tumult and the dancing and the song.
"When the sumach turns to scarlet,And the vines along the laneAre garmented in autumn's golden wine—Then the land shall smile for plenty,And the toiler for his pain,When the soldiers of our army stand in line.
"When the sumach turns to scarlet,
And the vines along the lane
Are garmented in autumn's golden wine—
Then the land shall smile for plenty,
And the toiler for his pain,
When the soldiers of our army stand in line.
"With our shining blades before us,And our banners flaming far,Want and hunger shall be slain forevermore.And the cornfield's lord of plentyIn his golden-covered carThen shall stop at every happy toiler's door."
"With our shining blades before us,
And our banners flaming far,
Want and hunger shall be slain forevermore.
And the cornfield's lord of plenty
In his golden-covered car
Then shall stop at every happy toiler's door."
Oh, the sunshine and the beautyOn the fields of ripened corn,And the wigwams and the corn-rows where they stand.In the lanes I hear the musicOf the faintly blowing hornAnd the blessed Indian summer's on the land.
Oh, the sunshine and the beauty
On the fields of ripened corn,
And the wigwams and the corn-rows where they stand.
In the lanes I hear the music
Of the faintly blowing horn
And the blessed Indian summer's on the land.
The Children's Blessing
By Virginia Roderick
On the slope of a hill, beneath silvery olives, a group was gathered about the young stranger. He had entered the village only that morning, seeking the companionship of such Nazarenes as might be there. And they had brought him out here in the open to receive his message. But though he carried them greetings, and news from the distant groups of the Christ's followers, it was plain that he had not been sent to them on a mission.
They waited until he should be ready to explain his quest.
"You did not see Him, then?"
Into the young man's eyes there came a great, yearning sadness. "No," he answered. "But you," he asked eagerly, "did none of you see Him?"
They shook their heads, all of them.
"We were too far away," one murmured.
"But I had for spiritual father one who had seen Him," the traveler offered, his face lighting. "You know how He blessed a company of little children? How He put His hands upon them?" He paused and they nodded silently. "My teacher was one of those children," he said, his dark eyes aglow with reverent pride.
A quick glance flashed about the group; but no one spoke and the traveler went on, the radiance of his face blotted out again in sadness. "It is because he is gone that I am a wanderer now. I was always with him, and we went about together, preaching the Kingdom. It was all so clear to my teacher because he had seen Him. He told me of His wonderful look."
They fell silent, brooding and thoughtful.
Then one asked: "What was it like—the blessing He gave your teacher? Did he gain goods and store?"
The young traveler's eyes opened in amazement. "Why no! How could that be? My teacher was like Him," he explained simply.
Again the quick look passed about the circle. At last one spoke, slowly: "There is a man here in the village who was also blessed with the children."
The young traveler started up joyously. "Take me to him," he entreated. "Let me talk with him; that is what I have come here seeking—another teacher."
"Nay, friend—" began one; but another hurriedly whispered: "Let us not tell him. Perhaps he can help." And so the first speaker finished: "I fear you will not find him like your teacher, but you shall go; it is only a step."
And they guided him, all but impatient, to a mean hovel just within the town. There they left him.
It was a man with a dark, bitter face that answered his knock. "May I speak with Nemuel?" the stranger asked courteously.
"I am Nemuel," growled the man curtly.
"But I mean Nemuel who was one of the children that Jesus blessed," persisted the young traveler, his face softly alight as the name passed his lips.
"Come in; I am the man." He straightened proudly. "I was a child seven years old when I saw Him——"
He stopped, for the young stranger, pale and gasping, broke in: "You saw Him! He touched you! You have seen His face, and yet your own—forgive me, friend. But my master was also one of the children blessed by the Christ, and he was … different." He hesitated, still looking at the somber face in puzzled distress.
The man caught the young stranger's arm. "You knew another of those He blessed? Tell me, did he have great wealth, palaces, honors? Did he wait long? Did the blessing tarry so long in the fulfilment as with me?"
The young stranger shook his head in deep bewilderment. "I do not understand. No, he had no wealth, no palaces, no honors. He followed the Christ. He was blessed by His spirit. Why, how could one want goods and honors when one had seen His wonderful smile, when His arms—" He broke off, gazing at his host in appalled incomprehension.
Nemuel's dark face grew darker, more bitter. "Then thereisno blessing, after all," he said slowly. "I have waited, believing, trusting. I have kept my life clean. I have kept myself holy—away from those He had not touched—" The stranger drew a quick breath and his eyes softened with pity. "I have never forgotten that I was blessed above others. And now thereisno blessing." And he covered his face with his hands.
There was a silence and then the young stranger spoke very gently: "The blessing my master taught me, was for all children—for all childlike faith and trust and purity. It was a sanctification of the child spirit."
Nemuel had lifted his head and was listening, his eyes fastened wonderingly on the stranger's face.
"And it was not a blessing to be wrapped up in a napkin. It was not one to bring you good fortune, as if it had been a sorcerer's charm. It was a blessing for you to take and to make—to use it—to give it to others. Through you He blessedallchildren…. And yet—" the stranger's voice deepened—"yet therewassomething special too."
"What was it?" Nemuel breathed.
The stranger bent on him a gaze full of yearning. "Have you not remembered His face?" he asked. "His wonderful look—just for you?" There was a pleading note of reproach in his voice as he leaned toward Nemuel, but his face was all love and tenderness.
Nemuel began to shake his head slowly, still fixing the stranger with his gaze.
"No," he confessed. "I haven't been able to remember—not for years. At first I did. Afterward IknewHis face was wonderful, but I could notseeit. But now—now I begin to remember——"
The young stranger waited for the halting words, his face lighting softly with a holy hope and joy.
"Why, your face—" Nemuel still hesitated, groping, and then suddenly his voice rang out in triumph, and memory dawned clearly in his eyes—"why,your face—is—like—His! Oh, I do remember!—and—I begin to understand."
Kitchener's Mob
From The Atlantic Monthly
By James Norman Hall
Trench-mortaring was more to our liking. That is an infantryman's game, and while extremely hazardous, the men in the trenches have a sporting chance. Everyone forgot breakfast when word was passed down the line that we were going to "mortarfy" Fritzie. Our projectiles were immense balls of hollow steel, filled with high explosive. Eagerly, expectantly, the boys gathered in the first-line trenches to watch the fun. First a dull boom from the reserve trench in rear where the mortar was operated.
"There she is!" "See 'er?" "Goin' true as a die!" All the boys would be shouting at once.
Up it goes, turning over and over, rising to a height of several hundred feet. Then, if well aimed, it reaches the end of its upward journey directly over the enemy's line, and falls straight into his trench. There is a moment of silence, followed by a terrific explosion which throws dirt and débris high in the air. By this time, the Tommies all along the line are standing on the firing benches, head and shoulders above the parapet, forgetting their danger in their excitement, and shouting at the top of their voices:
"'Ow's that one, Fritzie boy?"
"Guten morgen, you Proosian sausage wallopers!"
"Tyke a bit o' that there 'ome to yer missus!"
But Fritzie kept up his end of the game, always. He gave us just as good as we sent, and often he added something for good measure. His surprise packages were sausage-shaped missiles which came wobbling toward us, slowly, almost awkwardly; but they dropped with lightning speed. The explosion was terrible, and alas for any Tommy who misjudged the place of its fall! However, everyone had a chance. Trench-mortar projectiles are so large, and they describe so leisurely an arc before they fall, that men have time to run.
I've always admired Tommy Atkins for his sense of fair play. He loved giving Fritz "a little bit of all right," but he never resented it when Fritz had his own fun at our expense. I used to believe, in the far-off days of peace, that men had lost their old primal love for dangerous sport, their native ignorance of fear. But on those trench-mortaring days, when I watched boys playing with death with right good zest, heard them shouting and laughing as they tumbled over one another in their eagerness to escape being killed, I was convinced that I was wrong. Daily I saw men going through the test of fire triumphantly, and at the last, what a fearful test it was, and how splendidly they met it! During six months, continuously in the firing line, I met less than a dozen natural-born cowards; and my experience was largely among clerks, barbers, plumbers, shopkeepers, men who had no fighting tradition to back them up, to make them heroic in spite of themselves.
The better I knew Tommy, the better I liked him. He hasn't a shred of sentimentality in his make-up. There is plenty of sentiment, sincere feeling, but it is very well concealed. I had been a soldier of the King for many months before I realized that the men with whom I was living, sharing rations and hardships, were anything other than the healthy animals they looked. They seemed to live for their food. They talked of it, anticipated it with the zest of men who were experiencing for the first time the joy of being genuinely hungry. They watched their muscles harden with the satisfaction known to every normal man when he is becoming physically fit for the first time. But they said nothing about patriotism, or the duty of Englishmen in wartime. And if I tried to start a conversation on that line, they walked right over me with their boots on.
This was a great disappointment at first. I would never have known, from anything that was said, that a man of them was stirred at the thought of fighting for old England. England was all right, but, "I ain't a-goin' balmy about the old flag and all that stuff." Many of them insisted that they were in the army for personal and selfish reasons alone. They went out of their way to ridicule any and every indication of sentiment.
There was the matter of talk about mothers, for example. I can't imagine this being the case in a volunteer army of American boys; but never, during sixteen months of British army life, did I hear a discussion of mothers. When the weekly parcels post from England arrived, and the boys were sharing their cake and chocolate and tobacco, one of them would say, "Good old mum. She ain't a bad sort," to be answered with reluctant, mouth-filled grunts, or grudging nods of approval. As for fathers, I often thought to myself, "This is certainly a tremendous army of posthumous sons!" Months before I should have been astonished at this reticence. But I had learned to understand Tommy. His silences were as eloquent as any splendid outbursts or glowing tributes could have been. It was a matter of constant wonder to me that men living in the daily and hourly presence of death could so control and conceal their feelings. Their talk was of anything but home; and yet I knew that they thought of little else.
One of our boys was killed, and there was a letter to be written to his parents. Three Tommies who knew him best were to attempt this. They made innumerable beginnings. Each of them was afraid of blundering, of causing unnecessary pain by an indelicate revelation of the facts. There was a feminine fineness about their concern which was beautiful to see. The final draft of the letter was a masterpiece, not of English, but of insight; such a letter as any one of us would have liked his own parents to receive under similar circumstances. Nothing was forgotten which could make the news in the slightest degree more endurable. Every trifling personal belonging was carefully saved up and packed in a little box to follow the letter. All this was done amid much boisterous jesting; and there was hilarious singing to the wheezing accompaniment of an old mouth-organ. But of reference to home, or mothers, or comradeship, not a word.
Rarely a night passed without its burial parties. "Digging in the garden," Tommy calls the grave-making. The bodies, wrapped in blankets or water-proof ground-sheets, are lifted over the parados and carried back a convenient twenty yards or more. The desolation of that garden was indescribable. It was strewn with wreckage, gaping with shell-holes, billowing with numberless nameless graves, a waste land speechlessly pathetic. The poplars and willow hedges had been blasted and splintered by shell-fire. Tommy calls these "Kaiser Bill's flowers." Coming from England, he feels more deeply than he would care to admit the crimes done to trees in the name of war.
Our chaplain was a devout man, but prudent to a fault. He never visited us in the trenches; therefore our burial parties proceeded without the rites of the church. This arrangement was highly satisfactory to Tommy. He liked to "get the planting done" with the least possible delay or fuss. His whispered conversations, while the graves were being scooped, were, to say the least, quite out of the spirit of the occasion. Once we were burying two boys with whom we had been having a supper a few hours before. There was an artillery duel in progress, the shells whistling high over our heads and bursting in great splotches of white fire, far in rear of the opposing lines of trenches. The grave-making went speedily on while the diggers argued in whispers as to the calibre of the guns. Some said they were six-inch, while others thought nine-inch. Discussion was momentarily suspended when trench-rockets went soaring up from the enemy's line. We crouched motionless until the welcome darkness spread again. And then, in loud whispers—
"'Ere! If they was nine-inch they would 'ave more screech."
And one of different opinion would reply:
"Don't talk so bloomin' silly! Ain't I a-tellin' you you can't always size 'em by the screech?"
Not a prayer. Not a word either of censure or praise for the boys who had gone. Not an expression of opinion as to the meaning of the great change which had come to them and which might come as suddenly to any or all of us. And yet I knew that every man was thinking of these things.
There were days when the front was really quiet. The thin trickle of rifle-fire only accentuated the stillness of an early summer morning. Far down the line many a Tommy could be heard singing to himself as he sat in the door of his dug-out, cleaning his rifle. There would be the pleasant crackle of burning pine sticks, the sizzle of frying bacon, the lazy buzzing of swarms of bluebottle flies. Occasionally, across a pool of noonday silence, we heard the birds singing; for they didn't desert us. When we gave them a hearing, they did their cheery little best to assure us that everything would come right in the end. Once we heard a skylark, an English skylark, and for a while it made the world beautiful again. It was a fine thing to watch the faces of those English lads as they listened. I was deeply touched when one of them said, "Ain't 'e a plucky little chap, singin' right in front of Fritzie's trenches fer us English blokes?"
It was a sincere and beautiful tribute.
The Professor
By Calista Halsey Patchin
The professor had been dead two months. He had left the world very quietly, at that precise hour of the early evening when he was accustomed to say that his "spirit friends" came to him. The hospital nurse had noticed that there was always a time at twilight when the patient had a good hour; when pain and restlessness seemed to be charmed away, and he did not mind being left alone, and did not care whether or not there was a light in the room. Then it was that those who had gone came back to him with quiet, friendly ways and loving touch. He said nothing of this to the nurse. It was an old friend who told me that this had been his belief and solace for years.
When the professor had first come to town he had spoken of the wife who would follow him shortly, from the East. He did not display her picture, he did not talk about her enough so that the town, though it made an honest effort, ever really visualized her. She would come—without a doubt she would come—but not just yet. It was only that the East still held her. Gradually, he spoke of her less and less often, with a dignified reserve that brooked no inquiry, and finally not at all.
The town forgot. It was only when his illness became so serious that all felt someone should be written to, that it was discovered there was no one. The professor, when he was appealed to, said so. Then also, the hospital nurse noticed that at the twilight hour, when he talked quietly to his unseen friends, there was always One who stayed longer than the rest.
But he had been dead two months now, and the undertaker was pressing his bill, and there were other expenses which had been cheerfully borne by friends at the time, and indeed if there had been no other reason, it remains that something must become of the personal possessions of a man who leaves neither will nor known heirs. So the professor's effects were appraised, and a brief local appeared in the daily paper until it had made a dent in the memory of the public, apprising them that his personal property would be offered at public auction at two p.m. of a Thursday, in his rooms on the third floor of the Eureka Block.
It was the merest thread of curiosity that drew me to this sale. I did not want to buy anything. It was a sort of posthumous curiosity, and it concerned itself solely with the individuality of the dead man. Not having had the opportunity of knowing him well in life, and never having known until I read his obituary what I had missed, I took this last chance of trying to evolve the man from his belongings. All I did know was that he was a teacher of music of the past generation in a Western town which grew so fast that it made a man seem older than he was. More than this, he was a composer, a music master, who took crude young voices, shrill with the tension of the Western winds and the electric air, and tamed and trained them till they fell in love with harmony. When he heard a voice he knew it. One of his contraltos is singing now in grand opera across the sea. A tenor that he discovered has charmed the world with an "upper note."
All the same, the professor had grown old—a new generation had arisen which knew not Joseph; he failed to advertise, and every young girl who "gave lessons" crowded him closer to the wall. Now and then there would appear in the daily paper—not the next morning, but a few days after the presentation of some opera—a column of musical criticism, keen, delicate, reminiscent—fragrant with the rosemary that is for remembrance. When "Elijah" was given by home talent with soloists imported from Chicago, it was the professor who kindly wrote, beforehand this time, luminous articles full of sympathetic interpretation of the great masters. And at rare intervals there would appear a communication from him on the beauty of the woods and the fields, the suburbs of the town and the country, as though he were some simple prophet of nature who stood by the wayside. And this was no affectation. Long, solitary walks were his recreation.
It was a good deal of a rookery, up the flights of narrow, dirty stairs to the third floor of the Eureka Block. And here the professor had lived and taught. Two rooms were made from one by the sort of partition which does not reach to the ceiling—a ceiling which for some inexplicable reason was higher in some places than in others.
The voice of the auctioneer came down that winding way in professional cadences. There were in the room about as many people as might come to a funeral where only friends of the family are invited. It was very still. The auctioneer took an easy conversational tone. There was a silent, forlorn sort of dignity about the five pianos standing in a row that put professional banter and cheap little jokes out of the question. The pianos went without much trouble—a big one of the best make, an old-fashioned cottage piano, a piano with an iron frame. One of the appraisers, himself a musician, became an assistant auctioneer, and kindly played a little—judiciously very little—on each instrument in turn.
Then came the bric-a-brac of personal effects—all the flotsam and jetsam that had floated into these rooms for years. The walls were pockmarked with pictures, big and little. There was no attempt at high art; the professor had bought a picture as a child might buy one—because he thought it was pretty. It was a curious showing of how one artistic faculty may be dormant while another is cultivated to its highest point. But no matter how cheap the picture, it was always conscientiously framed. And this was a great help to the auctioneer. Indeed, it was difficult to see how he could have cried the pictures at all without the frames.
By this time the rooms were fuller of people. There were ladies who had come in quietly, just to get some little thing for a remembrance of their old friend and teacher. These mostly went directly over to the corner where the music lay and began looking for something of "his." If it were manuscript music so much the better. But there was little of this. It appeared that with the professor, as with most of us, early and middle manhood had been his most productive time, and that was long enough ago for everything to have been duly published in sheet and book form—long enough, indeed, for the books themselves to have gone out of date.
There they were—long, green notebooks, bearing the familiar names of well known publishers, and with such a hydra-head of title as "The Celestina, or New Sacred Minstrel; a Repository of Music adapted to every variety of taste and grade of capacity, from the million to the amateur or professor."
There were four or five of these. There was sheet music by the pile. There was an opera, "Joseph," the production of which had been a musical event.
Presently the auctioneer came that way. He had just sold a large oleograph, framed, one of those gorgeous historical pictures which are an apotheosis of good clothes. He approached an engraving of an old-fashioned lady in voluminous muslin draperies, with her hair looped away from her face in a "Book of Beauty" style.
"Heliked that," murmured a lady.
"What do I hear!" cries the auctioneer, softly. "Oh, such a little bid as that—I can't see it at all in this dark corner. Suppose we throw these peaches in—awfully pretty thing for dining room—and this flower piece—shall we group these three?—now, how much for all? Ah, there they go!"
"Here, ladies and gentlemen, is a gold-headed cane which was presented to the deceased by his admiring friends. It is pure gold—youknowthey would not give him anything else. How much for this? How much? No—his name isnotengraved on it—so much the better—what do I hear?"
"Look at this telescope, gentlemen—a good one—you know the professor was quite an astronomer in his way—and this telescope is all right—sound and in good condition"—the auctioneer had officiated at a stock sale the day before. "You can look right into futurity through this tube. Five dollars' worth of futurity? Five—five and a half? Case and all complete."
There was a pocketful of odds and ends; gold pens, lead pencils, some odd pocket knives; these inconsiderable trifles brought more in proportion than articles of greater intrinsic value. Evidently this was an auction of memories, of emotion, of sentiment.
There was a bit of the beam of the barn that was burned down when the cow kicked over the historic lamp that inaugurated the Chicago fire—no less than three persons were ready to testify to their belief in the genuineness of the relic, had anyone been disposed to question it. But no one was. Nearly all the people in the room were the dead music teacher's personal friends; they had heard the story of all these things; they knew who had sent him the stuffed brown prairie chicken that perched like a raven above the door—the little old-fashioned decanter and wine glasses of gilded glass—the artificial begonias—that clever imitation that goes far toward making one forswear begonias forevermore. There were lamps of various shapes and sizes, there was a kit of burglarious looking tools for piano tuning, there was a little globe—"Who wants the earth?" said the auctioneer. "You all want it."
There was a metronome, which, set to go, began to count time in a metallic whisper for some invisible pupil. Over in the corner just beyond the music were the professor's books. Now we shall find him out, for what a man reads he is, or wishes to be. There was a good deal of spiritualistic literature of the better sort. There was a "History of Christianity and Paganism by the Roman Emperor Julian," a copy of "She," a long shelf full ofNorth American Reviews, a dozen or so of almanacs, a copy of Bluebeard. There were none of the "popular" magazines, and if there had been newspapers—those vagrants of literature—they had gone their way. There was a manuscript play for parlor presentation, with each part written out in legible script, entitled, "The Winning Card."
All these and many more things which only the patient appraisers can fully know were sold or set aside as unsalable, until all was done. And then those who had known and loved him and those who had not known or cared for him came down the stairs together.
Fate stood on the landing. As always, Fate ran true to form. She was a woman; a little tired, as a woman might well be who had come a thousand miles; a little out of breath from the two flights of stairs. Her old-fashioned draperies clung about her; her hair was looped away from her face in a "Book of Beauty" style. The man who stood aside to let her pass was talking. "Of course," he was saying, "he was a side-tracked man. But I believe he stands the biggest chance of being remembered of any man in Iowa."
Swift protest at his first words clouded her face; sheer gratitude for his last words illumined it. She bent forward a little and went on up the stairs alone.
She faltered in the doorway, her hand fumbling at her throat. One of the men who had been talking below hastened to her side.
"It's all over," he said, then added, at the dumb misery that grayed her face: "—the auction."
"I—I—didn't come for that," the apathy in her voice holding it steady. "I—I am his wife. His last letter—he sent for me." A sob broke her speech. "It came last week—two months too late."
Drawing of a boy sitting in a field of corn
What the Iowa Boy Hears in the Wind in the Corn
My Baby's Horse
By Emilie Blackmore Stapp
My baby's horse is Daddy's knee;When nighttime comes he rides awayTo Sleepytown by Dreamland Sea;I love to hear their laughter gay.Ride, baby, ride, the Sandman boldIs following close behind you, dear,But Daddy's arms will you enfoldAnd so for you I have no fear.Your prancing steed is slowing down;The Sandman's riding very fast.Oh, here you are at Sleepytown;The Sandman's caught you, dear, at last.He'll tie your steed by Dreamland Sea,And on its shores all night you'll play,Then you'll come riding home to meTo make life sweet another day.
My baby's horse is Daddy's knee;When nighttime comes he rides awayTo Sleepytown by Dreamland Sea;I love to hear their laughter gay.
My baby's horse is Daddy's knee;
When nighttime comes he rides away
To Sleepytown by Dreamland Sea;
I love to hear their laughter gay.
Ride, baby, ride, the Sandman boldIs following close behind you, dear,But Daddy's arms will you enfoldAnd so for you I have no fear.
Ride, baby, ride, the Sandman bold
Is following close behind you, dear,
But Daddy's arms will you enfold
And so for you I have no fear.
Your prancing steed is slowing down;The Sandman's riding very fast.Oh, here you are at Sleepytown;The Sandman's caught you, dear, at last.
Your prancing steed is slowing down;
The Sandman's riding very fast.
Oh, here you are at Sleepytown;
The Sandman's caught you, dear, at last.
He'll tie your steed by Dreamland Sea,And on its shores all night you'll play,Then you'll come riding home to meTo make life sweet another day.
He'll tie your steed by Dreamland Sea,
And on its shores all night you'll play,
Then you'll come riding home to me
To make life sweet another day.
The Call of the Race
By Elizabeth Cooper
It was the last day of September, the maple trees were turning to red and gold, the mist of purple haze was in the air, and all Japan was going to the parks and woods to revel in the colors they loved so well.
Three men came out of the American Embassy, and looked for a moment over the roofs below them, half conscious of the beauty of this autumn time. They chatted for a few moments, then one of them motioned to a servant to put his mail bag in the jinrickshaw and slowly stepping into the tiny carriage he was whirled away.
The other men watched him for a few moments in silence, then as they turned to go to the English club, the elder shook his head slowly as he rather viciously bit the end from his cigar.
"Freeman's made a big fool of himself," he said. "Nice man, too."
The younger man looked after the fast disappearing jinrickshaw and asked after a moment's hesitation:
"He's married a Jap, hasn't he? I'm new here but I have heard something about him that's queer."
"Yes," the Ambassador replied. "Married her, preacher, ring, the whole thing."
"How did it happen? Why did hemarryher?" the younger man asked with a laugh.
"We all talked to him. I talked to him like a father, but he wouldn't listen to reason. Saw her at the mission school, fell head and heels in love with her and wouldn't take anyone's advice. Even the missionary was against it. Told him that mixed marriages never came out right; that the girl always reverted to type," said the Ambassador a little bitterly.
"Well, has it turned out as they predicted?" inquired the secretary interestedly.
"Well, no," admitted the Ambassador. "It's been two years, and everything seems to be all right so far. No one ever sees much of either of them. You meet her with him once in a while in some garden admiring the wistaria, or the lotus. She's a beauty—a real beauty—and belongs to one of the old Samurai families up north somewhere."
"How did the mission get her? I thought they went in more for the lower classes," asked the secretary.
"Well, it seems that some missionary up north saw her and was attracted by her cleverness and her pretty face, and she persuaded the girl's parents to send her to school here. They're as poor as Job's turkey; but they live in a great old palace and observe all the old time Jap customs. Haven't changed a bit for centuries. The real thing in old-time aristocracy. But the missionary got past them some way and the girl came down—when was it?—six years ago, I think. Missionary says she's clever, has become a Christian, and evidently forgotten that she's a Jap."
"It'll perhaps be the exception that proves that all mixed marriages are not failures," said the optimistic secretary.
"No," said the older man, "I know Japan and the Japanese. There's something in them that never changes—the call of the blood or whatever it is. No matter how much education they have, change of religion, life in foreign countries—anything—they're Japanese, and in a crisis they go back to their gods and the instincts of their race. We all told Freeman this—the missionary, myself, everybody took a hit at him when we found he really meant business, but he only laughed. He said Yuki was as European as he was. Never thought of the gods, hardly remembered her people, and all that rot. He ought to know better: this is his second post in Japan. Was out here twelve years ago and got in some kind of trouble. I was surprised when the government sent him back; but I suppose they thought it had all blown over, and I presume it has, although the Japs don't forget."
The Ambassador was quiet for a few moments, then he said:
"No, I don't believe at all in intermarriage between the Oriental and the Occidental. Their traditions, customs, everything is different. They have no common meeting ground, and that racial instinct, that inherent something is stronger in the Oriental than in the Westerner. A woman here in this country, for example, is taught from babyhood that she must obey her parents, her clan,absolutely. Her family is first, and she must sacrifice her life if necessary for them, and they will go to any lengths in this obedience. I told this to Freeman, everyone did, but he just gave his happy laugh, and said that his wife-to-be was no more Japanese in feeling and sentiment than he was—that she had outgrown the old religion, the old beliefs. He laughed at the idea that her family would have any influence over her after she was his wife. Yet—I know these people—and have always been a little worried——"
The two men chatted until they entered the doors of the English club.
Morris Freeman with his fast runner was drawn swiftly through the modern streets of new Japan, then more slowly through the little alleys, where the shops were purely native. Finally he drew up at an entrance and stopped under the tiny roof of a gateway. He had been expected, evidently, because no sooner had he stopped than the great gate was swung open and a smiling servant stood in the entrance. Freeman handed him the mail bag and said:
"Tell the Ok San that I will be back in about an hour," and was taken swiftly up the street. The coolie at the gate was still watching the disappearing jinrickshaw when a Japanese approached, and bowing to the servant asked: "Is your mistress within?" The servant answered in the affirmative, looking at him interestedly, as he was different from the average man one sees in Tokio. He was dressed in an old-time costume that immediately told the city-bred servant that the man was from some distant province.
The visitor went to the veranda, dropped his clogs, and entered the doorway. A young girl was kneeling before a koto lightly strumming its strings and did not hear the entrance of the man. He stood for a moment looking around the room; then he saw Yuki and walking over to her sat down facing her. Yuki stared at him first in astonishment; then a look of fear came into her black eyes. He was silent for many minutes, then he coolly remarked:
"You do not speak to your uncle. You do not care to make me welcome in this your home." He looked down at her contemptuously.
She saluted him, touching her head to her folded hands upon the floor. After a few polite phrases she rose, went to the hibachi, fanned the flame a moment, poured water from the kettle into the teapot, and brought a tiny tray on which was a cup and the pot of tea. She poured out the tea, and, taking the cup in both hands, slid it across the floor to him; when he took it, she again touched her head to the floor, and inquired:
"I trust my honorable Uncle is in the enjoyment of good health?"
The man sipped the tea slowly, gazing around the room, taking in all its details. His eyes especially rested upon the shrine in the corner. Then he regarded her long and intently.
"I see you have brought your family shrine to the house of the foreigner with whom you live—the man who has made you forget your people. Have you opened it; do you offer the daily incense; or is it simply an article of furniture for your foreign husband to admire?"
Yuki said nothing; she could not explain to this old man that the shrine had meant nothing to her, but having come from her old home she had kept it simply as a remembrance of the past.
Not receiving an answer the man continued:
"The foreigner is kind to you?"
Yuki smiled and said softly to herself: "Kind—kind—my Dana San." Then seeing her uncle expected an answer, she said in a quiet tone:
"Most kind, my honorable Uncle."
"You wonder why I come to you to-night?" he inquired.
Yuki took the tea-things and put them behind her, then remarked:
"My humble house is honored by your presence."
"Honored, yes," sneered the uncle. "But still you wonder. I will tell you why I came to you to-night. Once upon a time there was a family in Japan—happy, honored—proud of their title, of their history—and, more than all, proud of their overlord. He was impetuous, and like many of the older Japanese, resentful of the foreigner's intrusion. Here, one day on a visit to his capital, he met a stranger, one of that hated race who spoke slightingly of his country, of his gods. There was the quick retort, the blow, and he our lord went to the Land of Shadows. The evil gods of the foreigner protected the man who gave the blow. His name was never discovered—it was claimed he did the cowardly act in self-defense and he got safely away."
Yuki leaned forward eagerly.
"Oh, it is of my honorable father you speak?"
"Yes, it is of your father I speak," said the man in a low, bitter voice. "Since his death the gods have not favored our house; we have lost position, money, everything. But at last—at last our prayers to the gods have been answered. The enemy of our house is delivered into our hands—intoyourhands."
Yuki looked bewildered.
"Myhands? What do you mean, my honorable Uncle?"
"Yuki San, we have learned the name of the man who struck your father!" he exclaimed in a low, tense voice.
Yuki looked at the tragic face before her a moment, then she said: "At last, at last you know?"
"Yes," replied her uncle. "At last, after all these years of patience, revenge is in our hands. Oh, Yuki San, the foreigner, your husband, is the man who killed your father."
Yuki drew back, her face pallid, her body trembling.
"Morris, my Dana San?"
"Yes, your Dana San."
Yuki sat for a moment in bewilderment, then the color came back to her face and she leaned forward eagerly.
"But, my lord, my lord, he could not have done it! He is so kind, so good, he never hurt a thing in all his life."
The man leaned forward, gazing intently into her eyes.
"Has this stranger made you forget your father? Have you forgotten your oath,youroath? Have you forgotten why your father is now in the Land of Shadows?" He pointed to the shrine.
"Look, there is his tablet within that shrine. But the doors are closed. In our home, in our family temple are tablets. The doors of the shrines have never been opened. His spirit has not had the incense to help him on the way. The morning offering has not been his. He has been compelled to travel alone on the way to the gods, because we, his family—you and I—have not avenged his death.
"No, do not speak," he continued, as Yuki was about to interrupt. "He was murdered, and until the man who sent him on his way joins him in his journey, his spirit can have no peace. And you, his daughter, dare not, for fear of the gods, open the shrine to make the offering that the poorest peasant makes to his dead! But to-night I bring you the final word of the clan. To give you the honor of doing the deed that will wash the stain from our name. You know that a servant must avenge the death of his master, a son that of his father, a Samurai the death of his overlord, and I come to give you—a girl, an inheritance that will make you envied of men."
"I do not understand—my lord, you mean——"
"Yuki San, he killed your father, the head of our house, and he must die to-night."
Yuki rose and went to the man. Taking him by the arms she looked up into his face piteously, with wide, frightened eyes.
"My lord, my lord, you can not mean it—that he shall die—Morris die!"
The old man looked down into the pale face, the searching, pitiful eyes; but there shone no mercy in the hard eyes that met the ones raised pleadingly to his.
"Yes, and you, the only child of the man he killed, shall fulfill the sacred oath, and bring peace to your father's honorable soul."
Yuki was utterly bewildered and said falteringly: "I do not understand—I do not understand."
With the monotonous voice of the fatalist the uncle continued:
"It would have been better if a man-child had been born to our lord, as his arm would not falter; but you will take as sure a way, if not as honorable as the sword. Here is the means." He drew a little bottle from the sleeve of his kimono. "A little of this and he sleeps instantly and well."
Yuki held out her hands to the man sitting like fate before her.
"My lord, how can I? We have been so happy! My Dana San has never given me an unkind look, never caused me a moment's sorrow. I love him, Uncle, not as a Japanese woman loves her lord, but as a foreign woman from over the seas loves the man whom she has chosen from all the world. For two years we have been in this little house, for two years he has been my every breath. My first thought in the morning was for Morris, my Dana San, my last thought at night was joy in the thought that I was his and that he loved me. Sometimes I waken and look at him, and wonder how such a great man can care for such a simple Japanese girl as I am. And now you ask me to hurt him?" She drew her head up proudly. "I can not and I will not. He is my husband, and no matter what he has done I will protect him—even from you."
The man rose, and striding to her, grasped her roughly by the arm.
"Woman, you will do as we say. You are a Japanese and you know even unto death you must obey. I have no fear. It will be done—and by you—to-night."
He released her arm, and she, looking down upon the tatami, moved her foot silently to and fro, absorbed with this tragedy that had come into her happy life. Then she had a thought that brought hope to her, and she looked up eagerly. "Perhaps it is not true—perhaps it was not really Morris——"
"Listen," said the man roughly. "It was he. Weknow. But you—if you do not believe—make him confess to-night. If it was not he, then you are free. If it is, you will know what to do—and it will be done to-night—remember."
Yuki looked into the hard black eyes staring at her, fascinating her, taking all the life from her, and she said slowly as if under a spell:
"Yes—if he confesses—if it was he—I know it will be done. But—if the gods take him, they will also take me."
The uncle shook her roughly by the arm.
"No!Listen to me. Your work is not yet done. You must live. It would be too much happiness to have your spirit travel with him the lonely road. He must walk the path alone, without love to guide him. You will return to me to-night, return to your home and family who await you. Our vengeance would be only half complete if we allowed you to journey to the Land of Shadows with him. Come to me—" and he drew her to him. "Look at me. I will await you at the Willow Tea House."
He took her face in his hands and gazed steadily into her eyes, saying in a low, tense voice:
"I do not fear—you will obey. Are you not a Japanese? I expect—you—to—come—to—me—after your work is done—and the gods will be with you. Sayonara."
He put on his clogs at the entrance and went away, his form scarcely distinguishable in the gloom as he went down the pathway. Yuki looked after him, then threw herself on her face on the floor with a little moan, beating her hands in the manner of an Eastern woman.
It was absolutely quiet in the room, no noise coming from the street outside, except from a far distance a woman's voice chanting in a tone of singular sweetness words that sounded in their minor key like the soft tones of a flute: "Amma Konitchi Wahyak Mo," then between these sweet calls a plaintive whistle—one long-drawn note, then two shorter ones—the cry of the blind massage woman, making her rounds for her evening's toil.
The cry died away, and only the low moan was heard within the little room. Morris opened the gate and came lightly up the pathway, whistling a few bars of the latest popular song. He came inside the room, and, hardly able to distinguish the objects, looked about wonderingly, then seeing Yuki lying where she had thrown herself, he went over to her and picked her up.
"My sweetheart, what is it? What has happened?" He sat down upon the long chair and held her against him. "Tell me, dear one, tell me."
Morris went over to the lamp after a few moments and lighted it, then came back and showed Yuki a little gift he had brought her. She took it and looked at it with eyes filled with tragic grief; then, pressing it against her face, put her head on his shoulder and began sobbing in a heart-broken way that amazed Morris.
She lay with her face hidden, he softly caressing her hair. Finally she said:
"Morris, we have been here two years. Tell me—have I made you happy?"
Morris threw back his head and laughed happily.
"Happy, Yuki, happy? Dear heart, I had a long time ago put aside the thought that love meant happiness and happiness meant love. Now you have taught me that one cannot exist without the other. I love you, I live with you, you are mine. That tells everything. When you came into my life, into my heart, I was soured and embittered. Life meant only work and duties done; after that, comfort and a cigar—that was all. But now, I love my work as well, I do it as thoroughly, but there is something more. I know when I shut the office-door, I can come here where no one can enter. I can be alone with the woman I love and who loves me. There is no question of society or dinners, but just us two alone, you and me—and," turning up her face, "you are happy with me, my Yuki San? You love me?"
Yuki did not reply at once. Then in a low, sweet voice she replied:
"Morris, we Japanese women never speak of love. It is to us a subject left to singing girls and geishas. Without it we marry, and without it we live, and it is, unless by chance, a closed book to us. I do not know if I love you as the women of your race love their Dana Sans—I know I think of you by day, and I dream of you by night. I live only for you—to be what you wish me to be—and when you take me in your arms and say, 'My Yuki San, my sweetheart,' it seems to me that my heart with its happiness will break! I do not know if that is love—but if it be—I love you, my Dana San, I love you."
She lay quietly, and he rested his face against her hair, caressing it from time to time. After a silence, he inquired lightly:
"What about supper, Yuki?"
Yuki drew him to her again, for he moved as if he would rise.
"Wait, dear, let us talk a little. Tell me, when you to Tokio came—the first time——"
"Twelve years ago, when O Yuki San was a little girl."
"Twelve years ago—there was much trouble then between foreigners and Japanese. You and your friends—had—had trouble."
Morris looked at her quickly and his eyes darkened.
"Where did you hear that?" he asked.
Yuki, carelessly: "Oh, they gossip in the market-place."
Morris rose and walked up and down the room.
"I don't know what you have heard, but I might as well tell you the whole story. I did have trouble here in Japan. One night some of us got in a mix-up—a sort of quarrel with a Japanese, and I don't know how it happened—I never have known—but I struck and killed him. It was in the dark, and I could hardly see him."
After a silence Yuki stammered: "You—killed him?"
"In self-defense, O Yuki San," Morris defended eagerly; "it was in self-defense. But afterwards, what a time it was! Shall I ever forget that night getting back to my ship?" He passed his hand over his face, and then came back to his place beside her on the couch. "Don't speak of it any more; I don't want to think of it."
Yuki slipped down to the floor and sat there with her head against his knee. She sat very quietly, then finally put her hand up to the flower in her dress and slowly took it out and let it fall to the floor, petal by petal, watching the leaves as they fell. Then, after a long silence, she rose and started towards the tea table, hesitated, went a little way, and then came back to him. She knelt by the couch and said, in a low voice:
"Morris, no matter what happens, what you learn, what the gods may teach you soon—remember, I love you with all the love of my life. That I would give that life for you—oh, so willingly, if I only could! That through whatever you pass, I would gladly be with you; but I will come to you soon. I will not send you where I may not follow. I will come. I am yours, and the gods cannot let you go alone. You need me, and I would not be afraid. I love you—I want to go with you—but I am a Japanese—and I understand."
She let her face fall upon her hands and knelt there quietly. Morris looked at her blankly, thinking she was worried about something. Finally he lifted her face and kissed her.
"Never mind, dear one. I don't know what is troubling you, but of course you shall go with me wherever I go. I need you, and could not be without my Yuki San."
He started to read the papers; she rose and stood by the couch a moment, then taking a step toward the tea-things:
"Would my Dana San—like—a cup of tea?"
Morris, absorbed in his papers, assented. "Why, yes, I don't mind if I do."
She turned and walked slowly to the hibachi, knelt beside it, fanned the fire a moment, then poured the water from the iron kettle into the tiny teapot, let it stand a moment, looking over towards Morris. Then she took the bottle from her sleeve and poured a few drops into the cup, filling it with tea. She rose slowly and walked over to the long chair. She looked down at him as he lay half-reclining, hesitated, then handed him the cup. He took it, and looking up at her half laughing, exclaimed:
"To you, sweetheart!" and drank.
He fell back on the chair; the cup dropped from his hands. Yuki looked down at him in silence; then she bent over him, and lovingly crossed his hands upon his breast, touched his face caressingly with her fingers; then bent down and kissed him.
She turned slowly, and, in turning, her eyes fell upon the shrine. She looked at it intently, slowly crossed the room and knelt in front of it, bowed her head to the floor; then opened the doors, and bowed her head again.
She took out two candlesticks, two little jars of incense, a small bowl for rice, and another for water. She lighted the candles, lighted the incense, poured water in one bowl and rice in the other. Then she again touched her head to the floor, once—twice—thrice—rose, and walked backward to the open shojii.
She stood a moment looking around the room that she had loved so well; then turned her face to her lover lying so quietly in the chair. She knelt down facing him, touched her head to the floor and rising in the kneeling position, said, stretching out her arms towards Morris:
"Sayonara, my Dana San, good-bye, good-bye."