VTHE MOON IN THE MARSH

THE MOON IN THE MARSH(From the Author’s Etching)

Thereis a hazy mist on the horizon where the red rim of the October sun left the sky-line. The twilight of Indian Summer is stealing over the marsh. There is a hush of vibrant voices and a muffled movement of tiny life in the darkened places. Sorrow rests upon the world, for the time of the requiem of the leaves has come. The red arrows are abroad; a flush of crimson is creeping through the forest. An elusive fragrance of fruition is in the air, and a drowsy languor droops the stems and branches.

Royal robes rustle faintly on the hills and in the shadows of the woods. From among the living trees a mighty presence has vanished. A queen who came in green has departed as a nun in gray, and the color fairies have entered the bereaved realm with offerings of red and gold.

A vague unrest troubles the trembling aspens and the little sassafras trees that flock like timid children beyond the sturdy sycamores. Thegnarled oaks mutely await the winds of winter on their castanets of cold dead leaves—music of our Mother Earth to which we all must listen until our slumber hour comes.

Through darkening masses of tangled thickets, and over bogs concealed by matted grasses, some soggy and decayed logs, covered with moss and slime, lead out over the wet margin of the tarn to the edge of the clear water. A startled bittern rises clumsily out of the rushes. A pair of wild ducks tower out and glide away over the tree-tops. There are stifled rustlings in the ferns and sedges, and little wings are fluttering furtively among unseen branches. There is a soft splash near the edge of the woods. From out the shadow the curling wake of a muskrat stretches across an open space. A mottled water-snake drops stealthily into a wet labyrinth—the muffled movements cease—and muted echoes of vesper choirs sweeten the solitude that broods over the tarn.

After a period of silence another whir of pinions overhead heralds the return of the ducks. They circle swiftly and invisibly in the deep shadows—their silhouettes dart across the sky openings, and, with a loud swish, they strike thewater and settle comfortably for the night behind some weedy bogs close to the opposite shore.

In the gathering gloom tiny beams creep into the depths of the water. One by one the starry host begins to twinkle in the inverted canopy of the heavens. The full-orbed silver moon rides into the sky through the delicate lacery of the trees with a flood of soft light. Another disk sinks majestically into the abyss.

The asterisms of the astronomer are in the firmament above, rolling in mighty cycles to the ordered destinies of the spheres, but the stars of Arcady are in the quiet pools, the placid bosoms of gently flowing rivers, and far out in seas that are beyond our ken. They sparkle in the smooth curves of heavy swells on distant deeps, and shine far below coral worlds in ocean depths. These stars are measureless. They gleam in awful profundities and illumine a world of dreams. We may look down to them from the windows of a fair castle in which a noble spirit dwells, but beyond its walls we may not go. There are travellers in that dimly lighted vault, for dark wings blur the points of pallid radiance in swift and silent flight. Eternity is not there, for its constellationswill tremble and vanish with a passing zephyr on the surface of the pool.

A white web of mist gathers on the water. A phosphorescent trunk in the distance glows with ghostly light. The fluffy movement of the wings of a small owl is visible against a patch of sky, and a moment later the dusky form whisks by in the gloom. Agile bats wheel and plunge noiselessly in pursuit of invisible prey. A few bulrushes in a near-by clump are slightly disturbed. The night life has begun to move in the slough, for it is nature’s law that it must kill to live.

The veil of mist thickens—the stars in the depths disappear—the moon’s reflection becomes a nebula of pale effulgence, and is finally lost in vaporous obscurity. Like the soft fabric of forgetfulness that time weaves over sorrow, the mist envelopes the tarn. Like wraiths of dead years, filmy wreaths trail tenderly and delicately through the solemn woods. The purple darkness has become gray. A clammy wetness clings to the tall grasses. Beads of crystal on their bending points mirror feeble beams of light, and the heaviness of humidity is upon the boughs and fallen leaves.

The moods of Nature are manifold in expressionand power. In her infinite alchemy she reflects a different ray into every facet of the human soul. She echoes its exaltation, has sweet unguents for its weariness, and leads it upon lofty paths of promise when hope has died. The music of her strings brings forth hidden melodies, and it is with her that we must go if we would reach the heights.

The dark morass becomes a dreamland. Through it stately legions go. Ethereal aisles wind through the trees. Cloudy walls rise along its borders, and beyond them are kingdoms in elf-land where fancy may spin fabrics of gossamer and build mansions remote from earthly being.

There is a life of the soul as well as of the body. We may ponder as to its immortality, but undeniably it is in the present, if not in a state to come. Hope grasps at a shadowy vision of the future that dissolves at our touch. Reason gives only the substance of the present, elusive though it be. We live in a world of illusion, where seeming realities may be but phantoms. We wander in a maze of speculative thought. The paths are intricate and only lead to narrow cells. The Forest Gods that dwell in the high and hidden places speak alanguage that is without words. The fallen leaf is as eloquent as established dogma or voice of hoary seer. In our own hearts must we find our shrines, for the obscurity beyond the borderland of philosophy is as deep as the mould below the leaves. The multitudes that have come upon the earth and vanished have left no clue.

The key lies at the bottom of the tarn, and the story is in the marsh.

“Holy Zeke”

“And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth.”—Ezekiel7:9

Afteran industrious day with my sketch book among the dunes, I walked over to the lake shore and looked up the beach toward Sipes’s shanty. In the gathering twilight a faint gleam came through the small window. Not having seen my old friend for nearly a year, I decided to pay him a visit. My acquaintance with him had brought me many happy hours as I listened to his reminiscences, some of which are recorded in former stories.

He had been a salt water sailor, and, with his shipmate Bill Saunders, had met with many thrilling adventures. He had finally drifted to the sand-hills, where he had found a quiet refuge after a stormy life. Fishing and hunting smallgame yielded him a scanty but comparatively happy livelihood. He was a queer, bewhiskered little man, somewhere in the seventies, with many idiosyncrasies, a fund of unconscious humor, much profanity, a great deal of homely philosophy, and with many ideas that were peculiarly his own.

He wore what he called a “hatch” over the place which his right eye formerly occupied, and explained the absence of the eye by telling me that it had been blown out in a gale somewhere off the coast of Japan. He said that “it was glass anyway” and he “never thought much of it.” Saunders figured more or less in all of his stories of the sea.

On approaching the nondescript driftwood structure, I heard a stentorian voice, the tones of which the little shanty was too frail to confine, and which seemed to be pitched for the solemn pines that fringed the brink of the dark ravine beyond.

“Now all ye hell-destined sinners that are in this holy edifice, listen to me! Ye who are steeped in sin shall frizzle in the fires o’ damnation. The seethin’ cauldrons yawn. Ye have deserved the fiery pit an’ yer already sentenced to it. Hell is gaping fer this whole outfit. The flames gatheran’ flash. The fury o’ the wrath to come is almost ’ere. Yer souls are damned an’ you may all be in hell ’fore tomorrer mornin’. The red clouds o’ comin’ vengeance are over yer miserable heads. You’ll be enveloped in fiery floods fer all eternity—fer millions of ages will ye sizzle. Ye hang by a slender thread. The flames may singe it any minute an’ in ye go. Ye have reason to wonder that yer not already in hell! Yer accursed bodies shall be laid on live coals, an’ with red-hot pitch-forks shall ye be sorted into writhin’ piles an’ hurled into bottomless pits of endless torment. I’m the scourge o’ the Almighty. I’m Ezekiel-seven-nine. This is yer last chance to quit, an’ you’ve got to git in line, an’ do it quick if ye want to keep from bein’ soused in torrents o’ burnin’ brimstone, an’ have melted metal poured into yer blasphemous throats!”

At this point the door partially opened and a furtive figure slipped out. “Let all them that has hard hearts an’ soft heads git out!” roared the voice. The figure moved swiftly toward me and I recognized Sipes.

“Gosh! Is that you? You keep away from that place,” he sputtered, as he came up.

“What seems to be the trouble?” I asked.

“It’s Holy Zeke an’ he’s cussin’ the bunch. It looks like we’d all have a gloomy finish. He was up ’ere this mornin’ an’ ast me if ’e could ’ave a reevival in my place tonight. He’s ’ad pretty much ev’rythin’ else that was loose ’round ’ere, an’ like a damn fool I told ’im O. K., an’ this is wot I git. I thought it was sump’n else. You c’n go an’ listen to ’is roar if you want to, but I got some business to ’tend to ’bout ten miles from ’ere, an’ I wont be back ’till tomorrer, an’ w’en I come back it’ll be by water. I’m goin’ to lay fer that ol’ skeet with my scatter gun, an’ he’ll think he’s got hot cinders under ’is skin w’en I git to ’im. I’ll give ’im all the hell I can without murderin’ ’im.” Sipes then disappeared into the gloom, muttering to himself.

His “scatter gun” was a sinister weapon. It had once been a smooth-bore army musket. The barrel had been sawed off to within a foot of the breach. It was kept loaded with about six ounces of black powder, and, wadded on top of this, was a handful of pellets which the old man had made of flour dough, mixed with red pepper, and hardened in the sun. He claimed that, at three rods,such a charge would go just under the skin. “It wouldn’t kill nothin’, but it ’ud be hot stuff.”

I sat on a pile of driftwood for some time and waited for the turmoil in the shanty to subside. Finally the door opened and four more figures emerged. I was glad to recognize my old friend “Happy Cal,” whom I had not seen since his mysterious departure from the sand-hills several years ago, after his dispute with Sipes over some tangled set-lines. Evidently the two old derelicts had amicably adjusted their differences, and Cal had rejoined the widely scattered colony. Another old acquaintance, “Catfish John,” was also in the party. After greetings were exchanged, John introduced me to a short stocky man with gray whiskers.

“Shake hands with Bill Saunders,” said he.

This I did with pleasure, as Sipes’s yarns of the many exploits of this supposedly mythical individual invested him with much interest.

“This ’ere’s Ezekiel-seven-nine,” continued John, indicating the remaining member of the quartette.

I offered “Ezekiel-seven-nine” my hand, but it was ignored. He looked at me sternly. “Yersmokin’ a vile an’ filthy weed,” said he. “It defiles yer soul an’ yer body. It’s an abomination in the sight o’ the Lord. Yer unclean to my touch.” With that he turned away.

I glanced at his hands and if anything could be “unclean” to them its condition must be quite serious. I quite agreed with him, but from a different standpoint, that the cigar was “an abomination,” and, after a few more doubtful whiffs, I threw it away, as I had been tempted to do several times after lighting it. Its purchase had proved an error of judgment.

Zeke’s impressions of me were evidently not very favorable. He walked away a short distance and stopped. In the dim light I could see that he was regarding us with disapproval. He took no part in the conversation. He finally seated himself on the sand and gazed moodily toward the lake for some time, probably reflecting upon the unutterable depravity of his present associates, and calculating their proximity to eternal fire.

“Holy Zeke,” as Sipes had called him, was about six feet two. His clothes indicated that they had been worn uninterruptedly for a longtime. The mass of bushy red whiskers would have offered a tempting refuge for wild mice, and from under his shaggy brows the piercing eyes glowed with fanatic light.

Calvinism had placed its dark and heavy seal upon his soul, and the image of an angry and pitiless Creator enthralled his mind—a God who paves infernal regions with tender infants who neglect theology, who marks the fall of a sparrow, but sends war, pestilence and famine to annihilate the meek and pure in heart.

The wonderful drama of the creation, and the beautiful story of Omnipotent love carried no message for him. Lakes of brimstone and fire awaited all of earth’s blindly groping children who failed to find the creed of the self-elect. Notwithstanding the fact that the national governing board of an orthodox church, with plenary powers, convened a few years ago, officially abolished infant damnation, and exonerated and redeemed all infants, who up to that time had been subjected to the fury of Divine wrath, Zeke’s doctrine was unaltered. It glowed with undiminished fervor. He was a restless exponent of a vicious and cruel man-made dogma, which was as evil as the punishmentsit prescribed, and as futile as the rewards it promised.

To me Holy Zeke was an incarnation. His eyes and whiskers bespoke the flames of his theology, and his personality was suggestive of its place in modern thought. His battered plug hat was also Calvinistic. It looked like hades. It was indescribable. One edge of the rim had been scorched, and a rent in the side of the crown suggested the possibility of the escape of volcanic thought in that direction. Like his theology, he had picturesque quality.

If he had been a Mohammedan, his eyes would have had the same gleam, and he would have called the faithful to prayer from a minaret with the same fierce fervor as that with which he conjured up the eternal fires in Sipes’s shanty. Had not Calvinism obsessed him, his type of mind might have made him a murderous criminal and outlaw, who, with submarines and poison gas, would deny mercy to mankind, for there was no quality of mercy in those cruel orbs. They were the baleful eyes of the jungle, that coldly regard the chances of the kill. In Holy Zeke’s case the kill was the forcible snatching of the quarry fromhell, not that he desired its salvation, but was anxious to deprive the devil of it. He had no idea of pointing a way to righteousness. There was no spiritual interest in the individual to be rescued. He was the devil’s implacable enemy, and it was purely a matter of successful attack upon the property of his foe. Predestination or preordination did not bother him. He made no distinctions. There was no escape for any human being whose belief differed from his; even the slightest variation from his infallible creed meant the bottomless pit.

Zeke had one redeeming quality. He was not a mercenary. No board of trustees paid him the wages of hypocrisy. He did not arch his brows and fingers and deliver carefully prepared eloquent addresses to the Creator, designed more for the ears of his listeners than for the throne above. He did not beseech the Almighty for private favors, or for money to pay a church debt. He regarded himself as a messenger of wrath, and considered that he was authorized to go forth and smite and curse anything and everything within his radius of action. This radius was restricted to the old derelicts who lived in the little driftwoodshanties along the beach and among the sand-hills. There were but few of them, but the limited scope of Zeke’s labors enabled him to concentrate his power instead of diffusing and losing it in larger fields.

Zeke soon left our little party and followed a path up into the ravine. After his departure we built a fire of driftwood, sat around it on the sand, and discussed the “scourge.”

“I hate to see anythin’ that looks like a fire, after wot we’ve been up ag’inst tonight,” remarked Cal, as he threw on some more sticks, “but as ’e ain’t ’ere to chuck us in, I guess we’ll be safe if we don’t put on too much wood. Where d’ye s’pose ’e gits all that dope? I had a Bible once’t, but I didn’t see nothin’ like that in it. There was a place in it where some fellers got throwed in a fiery furnace an’ nothin’ happened to ’em at all, an’ there was another place where it said that the wicked ’ud have their part in hell fire, but I didn’t read all o’ the book an’ mebbe there’s a lot o’ hot stuff in it I missed. W’en did you fust see that ol’ cuss, John?”

Catfish John contemplated the fire for a while, shifted his quid of “natural leaf,” and relighted hispipe. He always said that he “couldn’t git no enjoyment out o’ tobacco without usin’ it both ways.”

“He come ’long by my place one day ’bout three years ago,” said the old man. “It was Sunday an’ ’e stopped an’ read some verses out of ’is Bible while I was workin’ on my boat. He said the Lord rested on the seventh day, an’ I’d go to hell if I didn’t stop work on the Sabbath. I told ’im that my boat would go to hell if I didn’t fix it, an’ they wasn’t no other day to do it. Then ’e gave me wot ’e called ‘tracks’ fer me to read an’ went on. The Almighty’s got some funny fellers workin’ fer ’im. This one’s got hell on the brain an’ ’e ought to stay out in the lake where it’s cool. Ev’ry little while ’e comes ’round an’ talks ’bout loaves an’ fishes, an’ sometimes I give ’im a fish, w’en I have a lot of ’em. He does the loaf part ’imself, fer sometimes ’e sticks ’round fer an hour or two. Then ’e tells me some more ’bout hell an’ goes off some’r’s, prob’ly to cook ’is fish.”

“Sipes must ’a’ come back. Let’s go over there,” suggested Saunders, as he called our attention to the glimmer of a light in the shanty.

As we approached the place the light was extinguished, and a voice called out, “Who’s there?”

After the identity of the party had been established, and the assurance given that Holy Zeke was not in it, the light reappeared and we were hospitably received.

“Wot did you fellers do with that hell-fire cuss?” demanded Sipes when we were all seated in the shanty. “Look wot’s ’ere!” and he picked up a small, greasy hymn book which the orator had forgotten in the excitement. Sipes handed me the book. I opened it at random and read:

“Not all the blood of beasts, on Jewish altars slain,Can give the guilty conscience peace, or wash away the stain.”

“Gimme that!” yelled Sipes, and I heard the little volume strike the sand somewhere out in the dark near the water. “Wot d’ye s’pose I got this place fer if it ain’t to have peace an’ quiet ’ere, an’ wot’s this red-headed devil comin’ ’round ’ere fer an’ fussin’ me all up tell’n’ me where I’m goin’ w’en I die, w’en I don’t give a whoop where I go when I die. That feller’s bunk an’ don’t you fergit it, an’ ’e’s worse’n that, fer look ’ere wot I found in that basket where I had about two pounds o’ salt pork!”

He produced a piece of soiled and crumpled paper, on which were scrawled the following quotations: “Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch. They are unclean to you” (Leviticus 11:8). “Curséd shall be thy basket and thy store” (Deuteronomy 28:17).

“It’s all right fer ’im to cuss my basket if ’e wants to, but I ain’t got no store. I’ll bet ’e frisked that hunk o’ pork an’ chucked in them texts ’fore you fellers got ’ere an’ I got in off’n the lake. It was in ’is big coat pocket all the time he was makin’ that hot spiel, an’ that’s w’y ’e didn’t ’ave no room fer ’is hymn book. He’s swiped my food an’ I can’t fry them texts, an’ you fellers are all in on it fer I was goin’ to cook the pork an’ we’d all have sump’n to eat. He cert’nly spread hell ’round ’ere thick tonight. Some day he’ll be yellin’ fer ice all right. Who are them Leviticus an’ Deuteronomy fellers anyhow? They ain’t no friends o’ mine!

“I’m weary o’ that name o’ Zekiel-seven-nine he’s carryin’ ’round. ’E ought to have an eight spot in it, an’ with a six an’ a ten ’e’d ’ave a straight an’ it ’ud take a flush er a full house to beat ’im. I bet ’e’s a poker sharp, an’ ’e’s hidin’from sump’n over ’ere, an’ ’e ain’t the fust one that’s done it. I seen ’im stewed once’t an’ ’e had a lovely still. He’d oozed in the juice over to the county seat an’ come over ’ere an’ felt bad about it in my shanty. He come up to the window w’en I was fixin’ my pipe an yelled, ‘Bow ye not down ’afore idols!’ I went out an’ hustled ’im in out o’ the wet. It was rainin’ pretty bad an’ ’e was soaked, but ’e said ’e didn’t care so long’s none of it didn’t git in ’is stummick. I dassent light a match near ’is breath.

“I had ’im ’ere two days, an’ ’e said he’d took sump’n by mistake, an’ ’e had. I had to keep givin’ ’im more air all the time. He drunk enough water the next mornin’ to put out a big fire an’ I guess ’e had one in ’im all right. After that ’e ast me if I had any whiskey, an’ w’en I told ’im I didn’t, ’e said ’e was glad of it, fer it was devil’s lure. He’d ’a’ stowed it if he’d got to it. I did ’ave a little an’ I guess now’s a good time to git it out, an’ I hope I don’t find no texts stuck in the jug. We all need bracin’ up, so ’ere goes! That feller’s a blankety-blankety-blank—blank-blank, an’ besides that ’e’s got other faults!”

It seems a pity to have to expurgate Sipes’soriginal and ornate profanity from his discourses, but common decency requires it. The old man left the shanty with a lantern and shovel. A few minutes later we saw his light at the edge of the lake where he was washing the sand from the outside of his jug. Evidently it had been buried treasure.

“I’ve et an’ drunk so much sand since I been livin’ ’ere on this beach that my throat’s all wore out an’ full o’ little holes, an’ I ain’t goin’ to swaller no more’n I c’n help after this,” he remarked, as he came in and hung the lantern on its hook in the ceiling; “now you fellers drink hearty.”

At this juncture a wailing sepulchral voice, loud and deep, came out of the darkness in the distance.

“Beware! Beware! Beware! In the earth have ye found damnation!”

“There ’e is!” yelled Sipes, as he leaped across the floor for his scatter-gun. He ran out with it and was gone for some time. He returned with an expression of disgust on his weather-beaten face. “I’ll wing that cuss some night ’fore the snow falls,” he remarked, as he resumed his seat.“We’d better soak up all this booze tonight fer it won’t be safe in any o’ the ground ’round ’ere any more. Gosh! but this is a fine country to live in!”

The party broke up quite late. Happy Cal had imbibed rather freely. Catfish John had been more temperate, and thought he had “better go ’long with Cal,” and it seemed better that he should. As they went away I could hear Cal entertaining John with snatches of some old air about “wine, women, an’ song.” They stopped a while at the margin of the lake, where the wet sand made the walking better, and Cal affectionately assured John of his eternal devotion. They then disappeared.

I bade Sipes and his old shipmate good-night, and left them alone with the demon in the jug. There was very little chance of any of it ever falling into the hands of “the scourge,” who was evidently lurking in the vicinity.

The glory of the full moon over the lake caused Sipes to remark that “ev’rythin’s full tonight,” as he followed me out to bid me another good-by. After I left I could hear noisy vocalism in the shanty. The words, which were sung over and over, were:

“Comrades, comrades, ever since we was boys,—Sharing each other’s sorrows, sharing each other’s joys.”

After each repetition there would be boisterous, rhythmic pounding of heavy boots on the wooden floor.

While the song was in many keys, and was technically open to much criticism, it was evidently sincere. The old shipmates were happy, and, after all, besides happiness, how much is there in the world really worth striving for?

I walked along the beach for a couple of miles to my temporary quarters in the dunes, and the stirring events of the evening furnished much food for reflection. I was interested in the advent of Bill Saunders, concerning whom I had heard so much from Sipes. Bill was a good deal of a mystery. He had “showed up” a few days before in response to a letter which Sipes told me he had “put inpustoffice fer ’im.” He may at some time have lived on the “unknown island in the South Pacific” that Sipes told me about, where he and Bill had been wrecked, and Bill had “married into the royal family several times,” but evidently he had deserted his black and tanhousehold. For at least two years he had been living over on the river. Sipes explained that he stayed there “so as to be unbeknown.” For some reason which I did not learn, he and Sipes considered it advisable for him to “keep dark” for a while. The trouble, whatever it was, had evidently blown over, and Bill had returned to the sand-hills.

There was a rudely painted sign on the shanty a few days later, which read:

$IPE$ & $AUNDER$—FRE$H FI$H

“It might ’a’ been Saunders & Sipes,” said the old man to me, confidentially, “but I think Sipes & Saunders sounds more dignified like, don’t you? We got ‘fresh fish’ on the sign so’s people won’t git ’em mixed up with the kind o’ fish John peddles. Them fish are fresh w’en John gits ’em ’ere, but after ’e’s ’ad ’em ’round a while there’s invisible bein’s gits into ’em out o’ the air, an’ you c’n smell ’em a mile. W’en they git to be candydates fer ’is smoke-house their ol’ friends wouldn’t know ’em, an’ I put them up an’ down lines in them S’s in them names so’s to make the sign look like cash money.”

Several days later I discovered that my tent had been visited during my absence. Outside, pinned to the flap, was a piece of paper on which was written:

“All ye who smoke or chew the filthy weed shall be damned.”

“The breath of hell, an angry breath,Supplies and fans the fire,When smokers taste the second deathAnd shriek and howl, but can’t expire.”

Inside, on the cot, were several tracts containing extracts from sermons on hell by an old ranter of early New England days, setting forth the practical impossibility of anybody ever escaping it.

I examined the literature with interest and amusement. Some of the more virulent paragraphs were marked for my benefit.

I looked out over the landscape, with its glorious autumn coloring, to the expanse of turquoise waters beyond, and wondered if, above the fleecy clouds and the infinite blue of the heavens, there was an Omnipotent monstrosity Who gloried in the torture of what He created, and brought forth life that He might wreak vengeance upon it. Ignorance, fear, and superstition have led men intostrange paths. It may be that our philosophy will finally lead us back to the beginning, and teach us that we are humble, wondering children who do not understand, and that there is a border land beyond which we may not go.

I met the firm of Sipes & Saunders on the beach one morning, on their way to Catfish John’s place, which was about four miles from their shanty. John’s abode was on a low bluff, and on the beach near it, about a hundred feet from the lake, was the little structure in which he smoked what Sipes called “them much-deceased fish” which he had failed to sell. His peddling trips were made through the back country with a queer little wagon and a rheumatic horse, that bore the name of “Napoleon” with his other troubles. Some of the fish were from his own nets, but most of his supplies were obtained from Sipes on a consignment basis.

At the earnest solicitation of the old mariners, I turned back and went with them to call on John. Sipes said that I “had better come along fer there’s goin’ to be sump’n doin’.”

We found the old man out on the sand repairing his gill-nets.

“Wot ’ave I done that I should be descended on like this?” he asked jocularly, as we came up. “You fellers must be lookin’ fer trouble, fer Zeke’s comin’ ’ere this mornin’ fer a fish that I told ’im ’e could ’ave if I got any.

“I figgered it all out,” said Sipes, “cause Bill heard you tell ’im you was goin’ to lift the nets Sunday, an’ I seen you out’n the lake with the spotter, an’ as Bill an’ me’s got some business with Zeke, we thought we’d drop ’round.”

Sipes’s “spotter” was an old spy glass, which he declared “had been on salt water.” Through a small hole in the side of his shanty he could sweep the curving shore for several miles with the rickety instrument.

I walked over to the smoke-house with the party and inspected it with much interest. The smoke supply came from a dilapidated old stove on the sand from which a rusty pipe entered the side of the structure. The smoke escaped slowly through various cracks in the roof, which provided a light draft for the fire.

“That smoke gits a lot of experience in this place ’fore it goes out through them cracks,” remarked Sipes, as he opened the door and peeredinside. “I don’t blame it fer leavin’. Can ye lock this door tight, John?”

I curiously awaited further developments.

It was not long before we saw Zeke plodding toward us on the sand.

“Now don’t you fellers say nothin’. You jest set ’round careless like, an’ let me do the talkin’,” cautioned Sipes, as he filled his pipe. With an expressive closing of his single eye, he turned to me confidentially and said with a chuckle, “We’re goin’ to fumigate Zeke.”

There was a look of quiet determination in his face, and guile in his smile as he contemplated the approaching visitor.

“Hello, Zeke!” he called out, as soon as that frowsy individual was within hailing distance, “wot’s the news from hell this fine mornin’?”

We smiled at Sipes’s sally. Zeke looked at us solemnly, and in deep impressive tones replied: “Verily, them that laughs at sin, laughs w’en their Maker frowns, laughs with the sword o’ vengeance over their heads.”

“Oh, come on, Zeke, cut that out,” said Sipes, “an’ let’s go in an’ see the big sturgeon wot John got this mornin’. It’s ’ere in the smoke-house.”Sipes led the way to the door and opened it. Zeke peeked in cautiously.

“It’s over in that big box with them other fish near the wall,” said Sipes. Zeke stepped inside. Sipes instantly closed the door and sprung the padlock that secured it. He then ran around to the stove and lighted the fuel with which it was stuffed.

An angry roar came from the interior, as we departed. After we reached the damp sand on the shore, Sipes joyfully exclaimed, “Verily we’ll now ’ave to git a new scourge, fer this one’s up ag’inst damnation!”

While John had passively acquiesced in the proceedings, I knew that he did not intend to allow Sipes’s escapade to go too far, so I did not worry about Zeke.

As we walked down the shore, Sipes and Bill turned frequently to look at the softly ascending wreaths from the roof with much glee.

“That coop’s never ’ad nothin’ wuss in it than it’s got now,” declared Sipes. “That ol’ bunch o’ whiskers ’as got wot’s comin’ to ’im this time, an’ I wish I’d stuck John’s rubber boots in that stove, but, honest, I fergot it.”

We had gone quite a distance when I turned and discerned a retreating form far beyond the smoke-house close to the bluff. One side of the structure was wrecked, and it was evident that the “scourge” had broken through and escaped. I said nothing, as I did not want to mar the pleasure of the old shipmates. To them it was “the end of a perfect day.”

A little further on I left them and turned into the dunes. As they waved farewell, Sipes called out cheerily, “You c’n travel anywheres ’round ’ere now without git’n’ burnt!”

Later, from far away over the sands, I could faintly hear:

“Shipmates, shipmates, ever since we was boys—Sharing each other’s sorrows, sharing each other’s joys!”

One night I encased myself in storm-defying raiment and went down to the shore to contemplate a drama that was being enacted in the skies.

Swiftly moving battalions of stygian clouds were illuminated by almost continuous flashes of lightning. Heavy peals of thunder rolled through the convoluted masses, and reverberatedalong the horizon. The wind-driven rain came in thin sheets that mingled with the flying spray from the waves that swept the beach. The sublimity of the storm was soul stirring and inspiring. I plodded for half a mile or so along the surf-washed sand to the foot of a bluff on which were a few old pines, to see the effect of the gnarled branches against the lightning-charged clouds.

A brilliant flash revealed a silhouetted figure with gesticulating arms. It was Holy Zeke. His battered plug was jammed down over the back of his head, and his long coat tails were flapping in the gale. The apparition was grotesque and startling, but seemed naturally to take its place in the wild pageant of the elements. It added a note of human interest that seemed strangely harmonious.

I did not wish to intrude on him, or allow him to interfere with my enjoyment of the storm, but passed near enough to hear his resonant voice above the roar of the wind.

He was in his element. He had sought a height from which he could behold the scourging of the earth, and pour forth imprecations on imaginarymultitudes of heretics and unbelievers. With fanatic fervor he was calling down curses upon a world of hopeless sin. Hatred of human kind was exhaled from his poisoned soul amid the fury of the storm.

To his disordered imagination, any unusual manifestation of nature’s forces was an expression of Divine wrath. Condemnation was now coming out of the black vault above him, and the vengeance of an incensed Diety was being heralded from on high. Unregenerate sinners and rejectors of Zeke’s creed were in the hands of an angry God. The scroll of earth’s infamy was being unrolled out of the clouds. “The seventh vial” was being poured out, and the hour of final damnation was at hand.

In the armor of his infallible orthodoxy, like Ajax, he stood unafraid before the lurid shafts. Serene in his exclusive holiness he was immune from the fiery pit and the shambles of the damned, and gloried in the coming destruction of all those unblessed with his faultless dogma.

The storm was increasing in violence, and I had started to return. After going some distance I turned for a final view of Zeke, and it was unexpectedly dramatic.

There was a sudden dazzling glare, and a deafening crash. A tall tree, not far from where he stood, was shattered into fragments. The shock was terrific. He was gone when a succeeding flash lighted the scene. Fearing that the old man might have met fatality, or at least have been badly injured, I hurried back and climbed the steep path that led to the top of the promontory from the ravine beyond it. Careful search, with the aid of an electric pocket light and the lightning flashes, failed to reveal any traces of the old fanatic, and it was safe to assume that he had retreated in good order from surroundings that he had reluctantly decided were untenable.

The bolt that struck the tree was charged with an obvious moral that was probably lost on the fugitive.

The old shipmates were much interested when they heard the tale of the night’s adventure.

“That ol’ cuss’ll git his, sometime, good an’ plenty,” observed Sipes. “Sump’n took a pot shot at Zeke an’ made a bad score. It would ’a’ helped some if the lightnin’ ’ad only got that ol’ hat o’ his. Prob’ly it’s been hit before. Zeke ’ad better look out. He’s been talkin’ too much ’boutthem things. It’s too bad fer a nice tree like that to git all busted up. No feller with a two-gallon hat an’ red whiskers ever oughta buzz ’round in a thunder storm.”

John was quite philosophical about Zeke.

“He ought to learn to stay in w’en it’s wet. His kind o’ relig’n don’t mix with water, an’ some night ’e’ll go out in a storm like that an’ ’e won’t come back. He was ’round ’ere this mornin’ tell’n me ’bout the signs o’ the times an’ heav’nly fires.

“Them ol’ fellers hadn’t ought to fuss so much ’bout ’im. They come up ’ere the day after they smoked ’im, an’ fixed my smoke-house all up fer me. They said thar was too many cracks ’round in it, an’ the boards ’round the sides was all too thin. They got some heavy boards an’ big nails an’ they done a good job. They said they’d fixed it so it ’ud hold a grizzly b’ar if I wanted to keep one, an’ I was glad they come up.

“When Zeke broke through ’e didn’t fergit ’is fish. He took the biggest one thar was in the box. When ’e went off ’e was yell’n sump’n ’bout them that stoned an’ mocked the prophets, an’ sump’n ’bout a feller named Elijah, that wasgoin’ up in a big wind in a chair o’ fire, but I didn’t hear all of it, fer ’e was excited. Zeke’s a poor ol’ feller. It’s all right fer ’em to cuss ’im, fer ’e gives it to ’em pretty hard w’en ’e gits down thar, but that don’t do no harm. They ain’t no nearer hell than they’d be without Zeke tell’n ’em ’bout it all the time. He’s part o’ the people what’s ’round us, an’ we ought to git ’long with ’im. I’ll alw’ys give ’im a fish when ’e’s hungry, even if ’e does think I’m goin’ to hell.”

Mrs Elvirey Smetters

“Happy Cal”had been a member of the widely scattered colony of derelicts along the wild coast for many years; in fact, he was its beginning, for when he came through the sand-hills and gathered the driftwood to build his humble dwelling, there were no human neighbors.

The circling gulls, the crows, and the big blue herons that stalked along the wave-washed beach looked curiously at the intruder into their solitudes. The blue-jays scolded boisterously, and many pairs of concealed eyes peered at him slyly from tangled masses of tree roots that lay denuded upon the slopes of the wind-swept dunes.

Nature’s slow and orderly processes of generation and decay were now to be disturbed by a new element, for man, who changes, destroys, and makes ugly the fair world he looks upon, had entered these sanctuaries. The furred and featheredthings instinctively resented the advent of the despoiler. They heard strange noises as rusty nails were pounded, and odd pieces of gray, smooth wood were fashioned into the queer-looking structure that obtruded itself among the undulations of the sand.

Happy Cal was human wreckage. He had been thrown upon this desolate shore by the cruel forces of a social system which he was unable to combat. They had cast him aside and he had sought isolation. As he expressed it, “there was too much goin’ on.”

Cal’s stories of his early life, and his final escape from a heartless world, incited derisive comment from his friend Sipes.

On still, cool days the smoke ascended softly from Cal’s shanty, and my sketching was often neglected for an hour or two with its interesting occupant.

He sometimes prowled around through the country back of the dunes at night, and the necessaries for his rude housekeeping were collected gradually. His age was difficult to guess; perhaps he looked older than he was. His lustreless eyes, weather-beaten face, grizzled unkempt beard, andrough hands, carried the story of a struggle on the raw edges of life.

While he said that he had “been up ag’inst it,” he seemed now comparatively contented. His interests were few, but they filled his days, and, as he expressed it, he “didn’t need nothin’ to think about nights.” Sipes claimed, however, that “Cal done all ’s thinkin’ at night, if ’e done any, fer ’e don’t never do none in the daytime.”

Sipes and Cal met occasionally. With the exception of a few serious misunderstandings, which were always eventually patched up, they got along very well with each other. Sipes’s attitude, while generally friendly, was not very charitable. He was disposed to comment caustically upon the many flaws he found in Cal, who, he believed, was destined for a hot hereafter. It is only fair to Cal to say that Sipes did not know of anybody in the dune country who would not have a hot hereafter, except his friend “Catfish John,” and his old shipmate, Bill Saunders, who lived with him, and with whom, in early life, he had sailed many stormy seas. He transacted his fish business with John, and was very fond of him. He once remarked that, “Old John don’t never wash,an’ ’e smells pretty fishy, but you bet ’e treats me all right, an’ wot’s the difference? I c’n always stay to wind’ard if I want to.”

Mrs. Elvirey Smetters lived over in the back country, on the road that led from the sleepy village to the marshy strip, and through it over into the dunes, where it was finally lost in the sand. It was a township line road and was seldom used for traffic. Travellers on it usually walked. The house, which had once been painted white, with green blinds, was rather shabby. Two tall evergreens stood in the front yard. In the carefully kept flower-beds along the fence the geraniums, cockscombs, marigolds, and verbenas bloomed gorgeously. They were constantly refreshed from the wooden pump near the back door. A smooth path led from the front gate, flanked with a luxurious growth of myrtle.

I pulled the brown bell handle one morning with a view of buying one of the young ducks which were waddling and quacking about the yard. I was going over to visit my old friend Sipes and intended it as a present for his Sunday dinner.

Mrs. Smetters, whom I had often met, openedthe door. She wiped her face with her apron, and was profuse with her apologies for the appearance of everything. She explained at length the various causes that had brought about the disorderly conditions, which I must know would be different if so and so, and so and so, and so and so.

She was tall, muscular, of many angles, red-headed, and freckled. The pupils of the piercing eyes behind the brass-rimmed spectacles had a reddish tinge, and her square, protruding chin suggested anything but domestic docility. It was such a chin that took Napoleon over the Alps, and Cæsar into Gaul.

She had buried three husbands. They were resting, as Sipes said, “fer the fust time in their lives,” in the church-yard beyond the village, where flowers from the little garden were often laid upon the mounds.

A village gossip had said that Mrs. Smetters would sometimes return to the mounds, after she had left them, and transfer a bunch of geraniums from one to another, and once, she had cleaned off two of them and piled all of the offerings over the one near the tree. Sometimes the otherswould have all of the geraniums. The gossips could see these things, but they could not look into the secret chambers of Elvirey Smetters’s heart.

On the walls of such chambers are recorded something that is never told. Thoughtful deeds, tender looks of sympathy and understanding, and years devoted, leave their traces there. With a thread of gossamer, memory leads us gently to them, and out into the world again, where we carry flowers to silent places. The strongest sometimes become the weakest, but who knows if such weakness is not the strength of the mighty?

Time had softened the sorrows of Elvirey Smetters. Little wrinkles were beginning to tell the story of her passing years, for she was nearly sixty, and a sense of life’s futility was creeping over her. She felt the need of new environment and new sensations.

“Now before you begin talkin’ about any duck you want to buy,” said Mrs. Smetters, after the object of the visit was explained, “I want to know if you’ve seen anythin’ o’ Cal. I ain’t seen ’im fer a month, an’ if you run across ’im, I want you to tell ’im I’m sick, an’ ’e better come an’ see howI am. I’ll make you a present o’ that duck if you’ll just walk in on ’im an’ tell ’im sump’n that don’t look like it come from me, that’ll make ’im come over ’ere. You needn’t let on that I want to see ’im, but you fix it somehow so’s ’e’llcome.”

I solemnly promised to do this, but insisted upon settling for the duck, which was soon dressed and wrapped in an old copy ofThe Weekly Clarion, which was published at the county seat.

“Now you be careful an’ not let ’im know I said a word about ’im,” was her parting injunction at the gate, “butyou git ’im ’ere, an’ don’t say nothin’ to Sipes either!”

She was assured that great care would be exercised.

During the walk through the dunes I mused upon the wiles of Mrs. Smetters’s sex, and reflected upon the futility of any attempt to escape them, when they are practiced by an adept upon an average man. It is a world-old story—as old as the Garden of Eden. The lure of the feminine rules the earth, and it is a part of the scheme of things that it should be so. The female of all breathing creatures controls the wooing—fromthe lady-bug to Elvirey Smetters. However masculine vanity may seek to disguise it, the wooer is as clay in the hands of the potter. The meditations of some of the world’s greatest men have been devoted to the complexities of female human nature, and during these meditations they have often married.

Along toward noon the duck was turned over to Sipes in front of his shanty. He was greatly pleased. It varied the monotony of small gifts of tobacco and cigars which usually reciprocated his many hospitalities.

“Elvirey’s got a lot o’ them birds,” he remarked, “an’ I was goin’ over some night to persuade one of ’em to come to my shanty. If she wasn’t a woman, they’d all been gone long ago. I hear ’em spatterin’ in the ditch ev’ry time I go by, an’ I often think, s’posen them lily-white ducks b’longed to some o’ them fellers that set ’round the village store, wot would I do?”

I inquired if he had seen anything of Cal lately.

“Cal’s snoopin’ ’round ’is coop right now. You c’n see ’im with the spotter,” said the old man, as he brought out his rickety old brass spy-glass.Through it I could just make out a figure moving about on the sand near the distant shanty.

I left the old mariner, intending to come out of the dunes near Cal’s place sometime during the afternoon, being really anxious to accommodate Mrs. Smetters.

In the course of time I reached Cal’s shanty and found him sharpening a knife near the door. We shook hands and, after discussing various matters of mutual interest, I mentioned the call on Mrs. Smetters for the purpose of buying a duck for Sipes.

“W’y didn’t you git me a duck too if you was git’n one fer him?” he asked rather peevishly. He was placated with a cigar and the explanation that I had not expected to see him on this trip. He betrayed no curiosity at the mention of Mrs. Smetters. I tried again, and told him that I had had a long talk with her and she did not look as though she was very well; she appeared sad, and seemed ill. At this he began to show interest.

“Wot d’ye s’pose is the matter with ’er? W’y don’t she eat some catnip if she’s sick?”

I replied that probably she found it rather lonely since her last husband died.

“Say, d’ye know wot I think I’ll do? I’ll go over there tomorrer an’ take ’er some fresh fish, an’ mebbe she’ll gimme a duck. I ain’t seen ’er fer a long time.”

Having approved of his suggestion, and realizing that the mission had been accomplished, I departed after we had talked of other things for a while. Visits to Cal were always enjoyable, although his reminiscences were to be accepted with a grain of salt. His logic, morals, and language were bad, but his narratives had the charm of originality, and he never failed to be entertaining. Naturally, I was curious as to the outcome of the projected call on Mrs. Smetters, but not being concerned in further developments, I dismissed it from my mind. Interest was quickly revived on meeting Sipes a month later.

“Say, wot d’ye think’s happened?” exclaimed the old man. “Elvirey’s snared Cal good an’ plenty. That ol’ cuss has been up to see ’er a dozen times in the last two weeks. Bill an’ me’s been watchin’ ’em with the spotter from up yonder in them trees on top o’ that big dune where we c’n see ’er house. Say, you’d laugh yerself sick. Gener’ly ’e sneaks ’round an’ goes along the edgeo’ the marsh over back o’ here, so’s ’e won’t ’ave to go by our place. Last night ’e come by with a collar on. His whiskers was combed an’ so was ’is hair. He was all lit up an’ reminded Bill an’ me o’ that hiker we found walkin’ on the beach once’t that we piloted off a couple o’ miles to show ’im where we told ’im ’e could cetch some mock-turtles. Bill’s up there with the spotter watchin’ now. We call that place the masthead.”

Far away I could see the glint of the spy-glass, and could dimly make out the figure of the lone sentinel in his eyry upon the height. He was ensconced in a mass of gnarled and tangled roots which the wind-blown sand had left bare on the distant hilltop.

“We got a little place among them roots,” said the old man, “that jest fits the spotter w’en it’s trained on Elvirey’s place, an’ all ye have to do is jest set down an’ look. Bill takes the fust watch w’en we can’t see nothin’ ’round Cal’s shanty, an’ I go aloft in the afternoon. We seen ’im twice yisterd’y. Him an’ Elvirey was out in the yard waterin’ the flowers. I s’pose she wants to keep ’em growin’ nice so’s she c’n lay ’em over Cal like she does the others.

“If there’s sump’n doin’ at Elvirey’s, Bill’ll hang a rag on that big dead limb ye see stickin’ out, an’ it’s there now!” The fluttering signal of “sump’n doin’” was faintly visible.

“That rag’s jest to show he’s seen Cal over there, an’ if ’e thinks I oughta come up, ’e’ll put out another in a minute. That ’ud mean that they was set’n out in the yard, er goin’ off som’er’s together, mebbe to the village.” We kept our eyes on the summit for some time, but the second signal did not appear.

A week later I found Cal at the home of the old shipmates. He looked rather crestfallen. An air of embarrassment and restraint seemed to pervade the place. I feared that I had intruded, and was going away, when Sipes insisted that I remain and go out on the lake with him. He thought that a recent storm might have damaged his gill-nets and wanted to look them over. After Cal’s departure we shoved the row-boat into the water. On the way out to the nets the old man told me the thrilling tale of the love of Happy Cal and Elvirey Smetters.

“This Elvirey’s a queer ol’ girl,” he began. “Them husbands she’s been git’n a c’lection ofover in the cemetery was a bum lot. Before she begun git’n married ’er name was Prokop. Fust she married a feller named Swisher, an’ she was livin’ with ’im w’en I fust come in the hills. He was no good, an’ I never liked ’is name. It sounded kind o’ fishy an’ whistley to me. After a while Swisher commenced git’n thin an’ all yellow, an’ one day ’e skipped. She lit out after ’im an’ brought ’im back from over to the county seat. He died about a month later of sump’n the doctor said ’ad busted up ’is liver. He left ’er that little place, where she lives.

“The next feller’s name was Smythe, an’ ’e was a funny lookin’ gink. He was runnin’ a little circus wot went ’round the country in the summer. He used to wear high brown boots with ’is trowsies stuck in ’em, an’ a velvet vest, with a watch chain that weighed about a pound. He had a wide gray hat, an’ a red neck-tie with a hunk o’ glass on it, an’ a long moustache that looked like a feather duster. He looked fierce, but Elvirey fell fer ’im w’en she seen ’im out in front of ’is tent on a box doin’ a lot o’ funny tricks with cards fer the crowd. The circus busted up an’ ’e moved over to Elvirey’s place. The circusposters said ’is name was Blondini, but ’is real name was Smith. He wrote it Smythe, so’s to make folks think ’e had money an’ was a society bug. He died o’ sump’n, I don’t know wot it was, an’ then poor ol’ Smetters come along. He was a fat feller. He painted the house, an’ fussed ’round on the place fer a year, an’ then ’ad fits. His conniptions would come on most any time, an’ Elvirey let ol’ Doc Looney in on to ’im one night, an’ the next mornin’ ’e was dead. The Doc ’ad given ’im some horse medicine, an’ it finished ’im.

“Them three are all layin’ side by side, wait’n fer Cal, fer ’e told us this mornin’ that ’im an’ Elvirey’s goin’ to git married.

“Bill an’ me seen ’em from the masthead yisterd’y, walkin’ down the road. They set down on the grass, an’ we sneaked over an’ got behind some bushes, an’ we heard ’im callin’ ’er ‘kitten’ an’ she was callin’ ’im a duck. Bill says, ‘Look at them columbines!’ an’ we busted out laughin’. Then they both roasted us fer listenin’. Cal was dead sore, but ’e didn’t say very much. Elvirey pretty near killed Bill with a big stick, an’ knocked ’im into the bushes. He got up an’ lit out, an’ sodid I, fer after Bill was down she started fer me. I didn’t need no clubbin’ an’ scooted. She chased me a ways, but I got home all right. I wonder w’y them that gits love-sick always calls each other animals an’ birds?”

During Sipes’s narrative I felt a pang of regret that I had not spent the day at “the masthead,” for evidently it would have been worth while.

“Cal come over today an’ we had a long talk,” continued the old man. “He said ’e hoped they wasn’t no hard feelin’s, ’cause ’e hadn’t started nothin’ an’ it was us fellers’ fault that Elvirey got to goin’. Bill ’ad a bump on ’is head as big as an aig, but we all shook hands an’ agreed to call it off. An’ now comes this damn wedd’n they’re goin’ to have. Cal says they’re goin’ to be married by Holy Zeke, an’ wot d’ye think? they want to have the wedd’n in our shanty, ’cause Elvirey says she won’t let Bill an’ me come to her house, an’ Cal won’t be married ’less ’e c’n ’ave ’is friends with ’im. His shanty ain’t big enough fer the bunch, an’ ours is halfway between, so they’ve fixed on that, an’ we’re in fer it.

“I don’t know wot Cal’s goin’ to do about ’islast name that ’e’s got to be married with. He says ’e’s been livin’ alone so long ’e’s fergot wot it is, an’ we got to pick out a new one fer ’im. I told ’im ’e better call it Mud, but ’e didn’t cetch on to no joke. Wouldn’t that make a fine soundin’ lot o’ names fer Elvirey’s lot in the church-yard? Swisher, Smythe, Smetters, an’ Mud! Ev’rybody’d stop to look at ’em.

“Cal’s gone to tell John, an’ Saturd’y night him an’ Holy Zeke’ll come down, an’ Cal’s kitten’s going to fetch a cake. Cal said you was invited, an’ if you got any business to close up ’fore you come, you’d better ’tend to it, fer mebbe hell’ll be to pay ’fore it’s over. I’ll bet Elvirey won’t stand fer me an’ Bill w’en she sees wot we’re goin’ to do to the shanty fer the wedd’n.”

After inspecting the nets we returned, and I promised to be on hand Saturday evening. Sipes requested me to come early, “so as to think o’ sump’n us fellers might fergit.”

I looked forward to Saturday with eager anticipation, and arrived at the shanty just before dusk. Evidently the old shipmates had been very busy. They were in high spirits.

A couple of old fish-nets were stretched fromeach side of the door, in parallel lines, to a point about fifty feet away on the sand. Boards, obtained from among the driftwood on the beach, had been laid along between them. “Bill’s a big help about them things,” said the old man. “He says it’s ’is habit w’en ’e gits married to have sump’n like that stretched out fer the bride to walk between so’s nobody’ll try to steal ’er at the last minute.”

The roof of the shanty was thickly covered with dead leaves, held in place by more nets which were laid over them and weighted with stones. “We could ’a’ got green ones,” said Sipes, “but them old leaves looks more fit like. They wasn’t neither of ’em born yisterd’y.

The rusty stove-pipe, which served as a chimney, had been carefully wrapped in white cloth, at least it had once been white, and a long strip of bright red material had been tied to it, which fluttered in the breeze. Sipes said that this was the danger signal. A large bunch of bulrushes and cat-tails was stuffed into the top of the stove-pipe.

The sign on the shanty—$IPE$ & $AUNDER$—FRE$H FI$Hhad been covered with a strip of rotten canvas, on which was painted,ManyHappy ReTURNS

The conspirators had gathered a lot of thistle blossoms, with plenty of the leaves, with which they had festooned the interior. An old beer-keg, mounted on a box, which stood at one end of the single room, was to serve as the altar. On it were two lemons, with which time had not dealt very gently. Their significance was not explained.

All over the shanty, where the decorations did not interfere, were groups of four vertical chalk-lines. “Them marks is Elvirey’s score,” explained the old man.

A nail keg, with one end knocked out, hung endwise above the altar, and in the opening a large ripe tomato was suspended from the inside by a string. On the keg was painted a large figure 4. “That there’s the marriage bell,” said Sipes.

A lantern on a hook in the ceiling, and a dozen candle stubs were to furnish illumination. The music was also provided for. There was a coveredbox near the wall, with gimlet holes all over it, that evidently contained something alive.

“That’s full o’ hummin’ locusts that me an’ Bill caught,” said Sipes, “an’ when Zeke says it’s all over, I’ll hammer on the box an’ them little singers’ll git busy. We tried ’em this mornin’ an’ it works fine.”

The stove was stuffed with stray pieces of old leather and rubber boots, mixed with oiled rags. “W’en we light that fire, with the chimbly stopped up with them cat-tails, it’ll show that the party’s over,” chuckled the old man.

The arrangements seemed quite complete, and I had no suggestions to offer. The wedding party was to assemble around a drift-wood fire on the sand, some distance away, and proceed to the shanty at eight o’clock. A huge pile of material for the bonfire had been gathered.

The flames soon crackled merrily and lit up the beach. The red light touched the crests of the little waves that lapped the shore, and bathed the side of the sandy bluff with a mellow glow. It illuminated the shanty which, with its grotesque decorations, relieved against the dark green of the ravine beyond, resembled a stage setting for a comic opera.

The wedding guests soon began to arrive. “Catfish John,” with a large package under his arm, accompanied by Holy Zeke, were the first comers, after the fire was lighted. They had walked a long distance, and sat down wearily on the sand, after the conventional greetings. John’s package probably contained some smoked fish which he intended as a present for the bride. Sipes sniffed at it with evident approval.

In a few minutes Mrs. Smetters arrived with her friend Mrs. McCafferty, who carried the cake in a basket. Mrs. McCafferty lived in the sleepy village, several miles away. She was to act as bridesmaid, and was to “give the bride away,” which Sipes declared she would “do anyhow afterwards if she didn’t do it now.” She was a buxom Irish widow, with a fighting record, and a mind of her own. She had brought Mrs. Smetters to the wedding with her buggy and gray horse, which had been left where the sloping road ended in the beach sand. It was her custom to attend all of Elvirey’s weddings in the same capacity. She was her bosom friend and confidante.

Mrs. Smetters was attired in a new white muslin dress, with a bountiful corsage bouquet ofwhite peonies. She was bareheaded, and lilies of the valley accented the bricky red of her hair. As at all weddings, “the bride was very beautiful.”

We rose and greeted the ladies cordially. Mrs. Smetters looked inquiringly around for Cal, but he had not yet arrived. She then seated herself on the shawl which Mrs. McCafferty carefully spread out on the sand. No reference was made to the stormy scene of the interrupted wooing of a few days before. Bill was still nursing his sore head, but made no unpleasant allusions.

The hour had arrived, but the party was still incomplete. Happy Cal was conspicuously absent.

“Mebbe he’s doin’ a lot o’ fixin’ up an’ can’t find ’is perfumery, er mebbe he’s fergot about the wedd’n,” observed Sipes.

An angry glance from Mrs. Smetters was the only response to this sally.

The ladies looked curiously at the shanty, and Sipes had much difficulty in keeping them away from it. He announced that “they wasn’t goin’ to be no rubberin’ ’round the place ’till the wedd’n.” They started several times, but were persuaded to wait until Cal came.

An hour slipped by, and the delinquent did not appear.

“Lo, the bridegroom cometh not,” said Holy Zeke, solemnly.

Clouds of feminine wrath were gathering on the other side of the fire.

“We’re goin’ over to see them fixin’s,” announced Mrs. Smetters, with determination. “This is wot I git fer wearin’ my heart on my sleeve!”

I walked along the beach in the hope that I might meet Cal. Sipes went to the shanty and lit the lantern and the candles. The two females led the rest of the party along between the nets. After they entered it took them but a few seconds to fully comprehend thetout ensemble, and then came the event of the evening.

Mrs. McCafferty started to swoon, but suddenly revived when Mrs. Smetters hurled a stove-lid at Sipes, followed by the keg from the altar. The male members of the party beat a rapid retreat through the door into the welcome shadows. Sipes ran in my direction. We stood about a hundred yards away in the darkness, and surveyed the scene.

With the fury of a woman scorned, Elvireywas smashing up the place. With the able help of her bosom friend, every movable breakable thing was being destroyed and thrown out. The window was demolished early in the proceedings, and through the broken sash went wrecked cooking utensils, blankets, guns, cards, bottles, boxes, pieces of the table, and other things, too numerous to mention. Amid loud blows of an axe, the side of the shanty began to give way.

Suddenly we heard piercing shrieks, and the two maddened women fled wildly from the shanty in the direction of the buggy.

“I’ll bet they’ve busted open them insects!” exclaimed Sipes.

We waited a while, and looked for the other members of the party. We called repeatedly, but no answer came out of the gloom. They had been swallowed in the blackness of the night.

We then went to inspect the wreck. All of the old shipmates’ efforts to make the wedding a success had been “love’s labor lost.” The decorations were mingled with fragments of the stove and the splintered bunks. There seemed to be nothing in the place that was breakable that had not been attended to. The “hummin’ locusts”were innocently crawling about the floor and walls.

“We might as well c’lect this music an’ put it out,” said Sipes, ruefully, as he began picking up the locusts. “We wouldn’t ’a’ had no shanty left if it hadn’t been fer them. I guess I must ’a’ started sump’n. After this I’m goin to let ev’ry feller run ’is own business, an’ me an’ Bill’ll flock by ourselves. Look wot I git fer tryin’ to please ev’rybody all the time! Somebody’s always butt’n in an’ spoilin’ ev’rythin’ I try to do. I got hit with too damn many things out o’ the air tonight to be happy. Wot d’ye ’spose become o’ Cal? He’d ’a’ got a lemon if ’e’d ’a’ married that ol’ swivel-eyed sliver-cat. I’m goin’ up in the ravine to sleep, an’ mebbe Bill’ll show up in the mornin’. Say, wot doyouthink o’ matrimony, anyway? Gosh! but this is rough work. Bill an’ me was in a hurricane once’t out’n the Pacific—the ship’s rudder got busted off an’ we was spun along on the equator fer a thousand miles, but that wasn’t nothin’ ’side o’ this.”

The old man stood disconsolate among his ruins. There was gloom on his face as I bade him good-night, and there was a pressure in hishand grasp, as of one who did not want to be left alone. From a distance down the shore I could see the flickering light of the expiring bonfire, playing upon the scene of the recent drama, as fate toys with the destinies of human lives.

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