CHAPTER IX

HOW THE BOSS SAVED HIMSELF

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is it true?" I asked.

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

"Well—what of it?"

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

The gallant young detective turned from the window.

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

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

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

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

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

He paused in his walk and lowered his voice impressively.

"Between you and me, Cal,—you know I've had about six letters from her,—it's just possible that Potts had his reasons. I don'tsayhe did, mind you,—but strange things happen in this world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How?" said Big Joe.

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

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

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

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

Across the top of theBanner'sfirst page was its campaign slogan as usual:—

"POTTS FOREVER! POTTS THE COMING MAN!"

Across the top of theArgusin similar type ran the pregnant line:—

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

A LADY OF POWERS

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

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

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

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

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

"Say, Cal, do you believe inpowers?"

"What kind of powers?"

"Well, I don't know—every kind—justpowers—mystic, occult powers."

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

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

"For example—"

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

I gasped. This indeed savored of the blackest magic.

"What did shedoto you?"

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

"Heavens! You're shivering!"

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

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

Again his deeply thoughtful gaze bore upon me.

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

"Did she say so?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Very good—ver-rygood—but for the present you maylisten. Now, Mr. Denney—" she turned to Solon with the latestArgusin her hand,—"perusing your sheet, my eye lights upon this sentence:—"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shame mantled the brow of Solon Denney.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HOW LITTLE ARCADY WAS UPLIFTED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eustace followed with a solo:—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How do you know?" I asked sternly.

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

"Well, there's a sell, you know, Uncle Maje. You say, 'They're goin' to tear the schoolhouse down,' or something like that, and the other boy says, 'What fur?' and then you say, quick as you can, 'Cat-fur to make kitten britches of,' and then we all laugh and yell, and I caught Ginger Potts on it, and he got mad when we yelled and come at me, and they pushed him against me and they pushed me against him, and they said he dassent, and they said I dassent, and then it happened, only when I got him down, he begun to say, 'Oh, it's wrong to fight! I promised my mother I would never fight!' but I wouldn't 'a' stopped forthat, because teacher says he's by far the brightest boy in school—only just then Eustace Eubanks come along, and he laid down the meat he was taking home to dinner and jumped into the crowd and says: 'Boys, boys, shame on you to act so like the brutes!Thatisn't any way to act!' and he pulled me off'n Ginger, and—and that's all, but I had him licked fair."

"I shall not tell your father of this," I said sternly.

"He has enough to worry him," said my namesake.

"Exactly," I said. "But I advise you to cultivate a friendly feeling for Roscoe Potts. Boys should not fight."

"Well—now—I would—but he's a regular teacher's pet."

And remembering the letter that was not sent to Sam Murdock,—that the teacher was my namesake's love,—I perceived that this breach was not to be healed.

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