"HE WAS UNCONSCIOUS AS A CHILD""HE WAS UNCONSCIOUS AS A CHILD"Miss Selwyn had chanced upon this unique function, the pigeons' Sunday banquet. Here were no appealing graces of architecture and Venetian balm of atmosphere. The rough pavement on which the yellow corn was scattered was a contrast to the smooth and perfect floor of the great Piazza. On one side was the inevitable American drug store, plain, matter-of-fact, yet giving, by its crimson and purple window globes, the only touch of pure color in that part of the street. Across the way was a hotel. A clothing store, with its paraphernalia of advertisement, occupied another corner. It was Clark and Madison Streets.Miss Selwyn saw every detail of this scene at a glance, and then her eyes were fastened upon one figure.Standing among the others was Henry Bryant. His straight, powerful figure, commanding in presence and pose, seemed to separate him, in a way, from the men around him. But, like all the onlookers, he bought corn and scattered the grain on the ground, watching the pigeons as they clustered around his largess. He was as unconscious as a child, and as gentle, about his simple pleasure. His face was a little worn and changed by the suffering of the days of separationfrom her—Margaret's eyes were quick to see that.That was the man from whom she had separated after a wordy war over wordy books. That was her lover over there. His whole look, attitude and occupation appealed to her tenderness. Love rushed tumultuously onward, a tide of irresistible strength, sweeping away every carefully-built structure of repulse and every barrier of opinion. Their quarrel was forgotten. Yet the reserve of a proud nature and of custom kept Miss Selwyn from crossing over to speak to Bryant.She walked home with a springing step. Once the thought came into her mind that Bryant might go away somewhere at once; that the message she was hurrying to send him might not reach him, and at the idea she felt faint and disheartened. She stopped and, for an instant, almost turned back, but, checking herself with a smile at her own impatience and trivial forebodings, she held on her homeward way again.She could see her lover, and see him as plainly as when he was in reality before her, all unconscious of her presence, half absent-mindedly and all tenderly scattering grain for the cooing, fluttering pigeons at his feet.The next morning, Bryant, looking over his mail with little relish—for much of the interest in living was out of him just then—found a letter which aroused him most effectually from his mood of listlessness. It said:Dear: I am "blue-mouldy for want of a batin'." Come to me.Margaret.CHAPTER XXIIABERCROMBIE'S WOOINGNone but could smile upon the spinster and be glad of the little tale she told. Half the world knows of the pigeons so nourished on one of the most crowded corners in the heart of a great, turbulent city, but none had thought before of what might accompany this exhibition of the fact that there is still a regard for beings of the lower and less grasping life. Very pleasant was the conversation and very understanding were the comments, but the Colonel, like many a commander of the past, from Joshua down, noted the swift passing of the hours of day and was insatiate for more of what might be attained before it was too late. He called upon the Banker. That gentleman, easy, suave and really a good specimen of the class which inclines us to save by taking care of our savings—and only rarely departing with them—was quite equal to the demand at the paying-teller's window. "I have listened," he said, "to these accounts, some of adventure, some of fancy, some of loveand persistence, and it has occurred to me that even I might contribute something to the general fund. Oddly enough, as coming from me, what I shall tell is a story of love and courage and persistence all combined. It is not a tale of some far country, but one of our modern life, a tale of true lovers whose union was opposed but who came together at last in spite of obstacles. I think we may term itABERCROMBIE'S WOOINGMr. Gentil Abercrombie is a fine fellow, quick-witted, and amiable, with prospects in the world, but he is not, as yet, wealthy. Last spring he fell in love with Miss Frances Dobson, and the young lady seemed not entirely oblivious of the fact nor altogether displeased with it. The affair appeared prosperous to the hopeful Abercrombie until the middle of June, when the Dobson family moved to their country home at a modest little watering place not far from the city, leaving the suitor in a position he did not like. A resolute gentleman, though, is Mr. Abercrombie, and he followed his star, taking apartments at the watering-place hotel, coming into town by train daily and returning in the evening.The young lady thus sought had the fortune to be the only daughter of her somewhat austere parents, Mr. James Dobson and Mrs. Irene Dobson, each distinctly of the class not to be trifled with by any too aspiring suitor. Abercrombie was admitted to the Dobson residence, for he has good social standing—but his reception was not as warm as the weather. It appeared to each of the lovers early in the season that it was best to be politic, and that Abercrombie was not, as yet, looked upon by the father and mother as a person with that superabundance of worldly goods and of stability of character and wisdom which should appertain to the husband of the Family Pride. Hence it came that Abercrombie made an effort whenever an opportunity offered to become what he remarked to himself as "solid with the old folks." Hence it came, too, that at a certain trying time there arrived in his immediate vicinity a certain quantity and quality of disaster.It chanced that on one occasion, Abercrombie, seeking, as usual, to ingratiate himself with the parents, drifted into a discussion concerning the bringing up of children and expressed himself to the effect that, in placeof the usual inane though amusing fairy stories and things of that sort, children should in their youth, when the memory fairly petrifies things, be entertained with pleasant tales about natural history and in fact about anything likely to aid most in future equipment for the great struggle in the world. Of natural history he made a point. Well, one evening, in just what poets call the "gloaming," Abercrombie, the parents, Frances and young Erastus Dobson were sitting together upon the front porch, when, suddenly, from some inscrutable impulse, Erastus broke out with the exclamation:"Mr. Abercrombie, tell me a story."Here was a situation! It flashed upon Abercrombie, that he had, as already mentioned, impressed upon the elder people the fact that, in his opinion, the youthful mind should be loaded with natural history when tales were imposed upon it. There was no alternative. Here were the older people listening and expectant. Here was Erastus, vociferous. Here was his own sweetheart, sitting in the half darkness and wondering if he were equal to the occasion!Abercrombie quivered for a moment tryingto collect his senses which seemed to have been, somehow, "jolted" by Erastus' request, and then suddenly became so desperate and cold-blooded that he could not understand himself."Yes, Erastus," he said, affably; "I will tell you a story, most willingly." Then he continued:"This is the story of the Boy and the Bull and the Horned Hen. Once there was a boy. It has frequently happened that there was a boy, so that it is hardly worth while referring to such a thing now, but, since we have mentioned it, we'll let it go. Tum-a-row! This boy lived in the country and was kind to a Hen. Little did he know that the hen appreciated and remembered it, but she did! One day this boy started to cross a meadow in which was a savage bull, and the boy forgot he had on his red sweater. In the middle of the meadow stood a tree which was blasted and which looked almost like a cone. It was what a young kindergarten teacher might describe as a trunk from which the branches had been riven away in some of Nature's convulsions, probably electric. Anyhow, the bull started for the boy and the boy started for the tree. Tum-a-row! The boy reached the tree fourand one-third seconds before the bull reached the same place, and the boy began climbing and was at least thirty feet from the ground before the bull arrived. It is needless to say that the boy climbed with much rapidity. The bull followed rapaciously—yes, that's the word—and began climbing also with great rapidity behind the boy, and there was a race to what—if the term may be applied to such a dead trunk of a tree—to the topmast. There the tree sloped to a point, which the boy, climbing with avidity—that's the word,—reached easily, under the stress of circumstances. The bull, climbing swiftly after, attained a height of between ten and fifteen feet from his intended victim, and then, reaching the slope of compression, as one may say, of the dead tree, suddenly found himself without sufficient grasp and slid down, again and again, as he sought to reach the apex of the cone. The boy, meanwhile, was and properly, too, in a state of utmost fear, as the bull from time to time seemed almost successful in his upward attempts."But there is a limit to endeavor. The bull, fatigued at last, slid downward to the ground, just as the hen, who, happily for the boy, hadnoted from the distant barnyard what was going on, came desperately to the rescue. The struggle which ensued was something doubtless without a parallel, or anything else in the way of similitude, in the history of single combats. It was something frightful! The bellowing of the hen, the hissing and cackling of the bull, the scattering of scales from both adversaries as they clashed together, cannot be adequately described. But the end came quickly. There came a moment, when perspiring and panting, the hen gored the bull with all her might, mind and strength, and he fell lifeless to the ground."The moral of this story is, be kind to a hen. Tum-a-row!""Why do you say 'Tum-a-row'?" suddenly demanded Erastus."Well, I hardly know, myself," said Abercrombie. "I guess it's a sort of accompaniment. It came in an old farmer's song I heard when I was a little boy, in an old song which told about a young man who went 'down in the medder for to mow,' and who 'mowed around till he did feel a pizen sarpint bite him on the heel;' and, every little while, through the song came the word 'Tum-a-row.' That's the reason'Tum-a-row' comes in so often in the story. It isn't my fault; it just seems to belong. Tum-a-row!""Tell me another! Tell me another!" shouted young Erastus, but there came no sound from the twilight which encompassed the old people, nor from the gloaming about the sweetheart, though little did it matter. Abercrombie had passed the caring point!"One more will I tell you," he said, speaking in a resonant and rotund voice, to the wide-mouthed and expectant Erastus. "This is the story of the Dark Forest, the Charcoal Burners, the Witch and the Boa Constrictor."Once there was a forest so dark that you cannot conceive of its darkness. Oh! it was just a forest dark from Darkville! It was fringed about with a forest which was somewhat lighter, in which things lived, but nothing lived in the forest itself; it was too black! Among the people who lived in this lighter fringe of forest were some Charcoal Burners. You will always find Charcoal Burners connected with a deep forest story, particularly in the German Medieval Legends. The Charcoal Burners in those stories usually lived in some glade in the middle of the wood, but the Charcoal Burnerswe are telling about lived on the outside for the reason we have given—but they ought not really to be called 'burners,' because they did not burn anything. Whenever orders came for charcoal they simply took their shovels and went down an aisle into the depth of the inner wood and dug out great hunks of the blackness, which they brought out and stacked upon wagons, and which were conveyed to Vienna and Wiesbaden and Oshkosh and all the other charcoal commercial centers."Now all this has nothing to do with the story. These matters about the Charcoal Burners I have related only because it chances that from the Charcoal Burners themselves the real story was gained. We ought to be grateful to them for what they have told."Four or five miles east of the Charcoal Burners lived a Boa Constrictor. He was sixty feet long and had a gilt-edged appetite. I don't believe in using slang, and gilt-edged is slightly slangy, but the bald fact stands out that he had a gilt-edged appetite. He lived mostly on wild boars, but, when the supply of wild boars gave out on any occasion, he lived on most anything that came along."Now, five miles east of the Boa Constrictorlived a Witch, and she was a witch from Witchville. She was not any common witch, but one whose slightest anathema would just curl your hair. Talk about brimstone! Why brimstone would be just ice cream in any comparison you could make between this witch and other things in the world. She knew her business! Well, this Witch had three children, two sons and a daughter, nice little children, in their way. It happened, unfortunately, one afternoon, that they strayed into the forest; and this afternoon happened to be the particular afternoon on which the Boa Constrictor had run out of wild boars. He consumed the kids—I beg your pardon; young as you are, I beg your pardon—I meant to say that he devoured the three young children, that he encompassed them after the constrictor manner."By and by, the Witch missed her children and, induced by maternal instinct, went out looking for them, and so came to the abode of the Constrictor. They had been on good enough terms and she approached him affably."'Good morning, Mr. Constrictor,' said she."'Good afternoon, Mrs. Witch,' said the Constrictor."'Have you seen my children?' asked the lady."'I have not', said the Constrictor."The Witch was about to depart when a thought seemed to seize her and she turned just about half way, assuming what may be designated as a suddenly reflective attitude;"'Are you sure, Mr. Constrictor?' said she."'I am sure,' said he."Only a person with nerves under absolute control could have been present on that occasion and considered unmoved the changes in the Witch's face. The accumulative grimness of her countenance became something startling. She spoke slowly but her voice had that hard, low, even tone which we read about in novels."'What is the reason that you are so big in the middle?' said she."'I am not big in the middle, your eyes deceive you,' said he."'You are lying, Mr. Constrictor,' said she, 'and I'm going to make you tell the truth. I am going to make an Incantation over and around and all about you that will give you some idea of what forces are at work in the universe.'"Then from somewhere about her skirt, she pulled out a broomstick, and waved it five times, and said; 'Abracadabra, Pentagon' and someother things, and, of course, the performance had its effect and the Constrictor had to tell the truth. He simply had to! He admitted the consumption of the three children."Imagine the demeanor of the Witch when she learned that her three children had been devoured by the Constrictor! For a little time she was speechless and white in the face, then, as reason and the control of her powers returned, the malignant look which came was something that simply defies description. Her voice, as she spoke to the Constrictor this time, was shrill and raucous."'I am going to pronounce an Anathema upon you,' she said, 'and I'm going to do it now. I am going to make you the same at both ends.'"A very adroit and clever Constrictor was this, and he said nothing. But he chuckled to himself: 'If she makes me the same at both ends, I will have more fun than ever. With a mouth at each end, I can eat twice as many wild boars and be twice as happy.' He coiled closer to the ground with a look of affected submission, and the Witch went on with her Anathema."It was a fine anathema, there was no questionabout it. Even the leaves on the trees about first turned brown, then crackled and then smoked, as she was making her few remarks. She completed the formula and departed, leaving the Constrictor to become the same at both ends, and he lay there, still chuckling, waiting for his double-headedness and double enjoyment in the future."Then came to him a sort of quivery feeling, and he knew that he was changing. It did not take more than an hour at the utmost, when that Constrictor suddenly realized that he was the same at both ends, but—he did not have two heads! He had two tails! There he was, a great Boa Constrictor, sixty feet long, with a tail at each end. Of course only one thing could happen to a Boa Constrictor with a tail at each end. He must starve to death, simply because he could not eat. Day after day passed, and the Constrictor grew less and less in dimensions, and, finally, the day came when there was only a little worm, smaller than an angle-worm. Then the day came when there was no worm at all."And that is the end of the story, because there isn't any more worm!"The last sentence of the tale was concluded.Silence prevailed for a moment or two, and then there was a gasp of delight and approval from Erastus."That's bully!" he said. "Will you tell me some more, some other time, Mr. Abercrombie?""Certainly, my boy," said Abercrombie. "It is well that we should become acquainted with natural history, and in the simple tales I tell you I shall endeavor at all times to introduce such information as will increase your store of knowledge. Above all, we must get acquainted with natural history."He paused. The boy had nothing to say. Unfortunately, nobody else had anything to say. To Abercrombie the silence seemed, in a vague way that he could not fully comprehend, destructive. There was something the matter with the atmosphere and he knew it. The gloaming had drifted into darkness, and he could no longer see either his prospective father-in-law or mother-in-law or his sweetheart. He knew only that, as an adviser of parents of the younger male offspring of the two who were also parents of his one object in life, he had flashed presumptuously in the pan, that, too, in the dimness of the gathering darkness, when people are most reflective and thathe had accomplished the possibility irretrievable.The silence was broken at last by the voice of Mrs. Dobson. The voice was thin and didn't seem to really "break" the silence. It seemed to split it neatly."Are those your ideas, Mr. Abercrombie, as to the sort of knowledge of natural history which should be conveyed to young children?""Yes, I'd like to know, myself," added Mr. Dobson.Not a laugh, not a comment, not a sound came from the corner where sat Miss Frances Dobson. She was strictly an aside.Abercrombie pondered through swift seconds. He was in what, in his own mind—so much are we addicted to the pernicious habit of thinking in the vernacular—'in a hole'. But, the man at bay has frequently proved a hero in a plain North American way. Abercrombie arose to the occasion!"It may be," he said, "that in the telling to Erastus of these simple tales, I have not followed precisely the practices of those generally engaged in the teaching of youth. It may be that I have not instructed him in the manner in which I might have done had I allowed afew years to lapse and my beard to grow longer and had shaved my upper lip. It may be that in the tales I have told Erastus there are certain discrepancies, synchronisms, and anachronisms. My pictures may have possessed a shade too much of the impressionist character. But what of it? What I wanted to do was to give Erastus a general idea of Black Forests, Witches, and Boa Constrictors."Silence reigned again, and reigned very thoroughly for some time. Then up rose the modern young woman.No one in the room could see any one else, but all could hear. What the parents heard was the sound of light footsteps along the porch and then, after a pause;"You're a ridiculous gentleman,—Don't pull me so!"What they heard also was a thoughtful and generally commendatory remark from Erastus:"Say, old man, you're all right. You're the stuff!"They heard no more at the time. The next morning was a fine morning—there have been lots of them—and, as breakfast was about ending, there took place a conversation between her parents and Miss Dobson—a conversationinaugurated by them but ended, decidedly, by her.Given a young woman, the only one in the family and possessed of character, she can usually make her parents "know their place," though doing all this, of course, with kindness and consideration. Miss Dobson and Abercrombie are formally engaged. The fortunate but alarmed young man had not realized what would happen when the reinforcements came up.CHAPTER XXIIIEVAN CUMMINGS' COURTSHIPThere was frivolous talk and disputation and some serious reasoning, as the necessary sequence of what had been told. There was discussion as to what excuse there had been for the demeanor of Mr. Abercrombie, and even some quiet suggestion to the Banker that, very much to his credit, he could, himself, imagine things, upon occasions such as this, and that, possibly, he might have risen somewhat to the emergency, but the chaffing was of the listless sort. The sun was not visible save from the rear end of the rear car of the train, but its rays deflected, slanted, yellow-red, along the sides of the pass calling the attention of all to the fact that it was almost supper-time. More hanging together in a Wayside Tales companionship? Hardly! They had appetites and they dissolved as dissolve the vapors, or the friends made by letters of introduction, or snow on the top of a distillery, or your dreams, or Mary when you need her, or anything else. Similes arethe cheapest thing on the market! The sum of it was that an afternoon had been killed without undue atrocity and now all scattered and prepared themselves and went in to supper. They enjoyed themselves together and then the ladies drifted back to the talking habitat, while the men, or at least a number of them, found the smoking compartments, either the big one of the Cassowary or one of those in other coaches.There are all kinds of traveling men. This is not generally understood, but it is a fact. The impression has, somehow, obtained that a traveling man or "Drummer," or whatever we should call Dickens' "Bagman" in the western Hemisphere, is a person who is careless of the conventionalities, who relies upon a certain hardihood in thrusting himself anywhere into the place of immediate consequence or convenience. Never was a greater mistake in popular opinion. There are blatant commercial travelers, of course. There will be fools in any part of the world's work. It is a matter of fact, though, that the man whose business it is to influence mentally other men and women must, necessarily, have tact and understanding and that he must be often morequick of conception and more readily responsive to the proper demand of his fellow-creatures than one less extremely educated in certain ways of the vagrant world.The man called upon was one of the greater type. He laughingly accepted the situation:"Yes," he said, "I'll tell you a story, but it is so foolish that I can hardly expect you to believe it. It is merely the story of one man I knew and of how he got his wife. He did not get her in quite the ordinary way. I'll tell you all I know about him, and I've known him almost from boyhood. I'll tell you everything as it was."EVAN CUMMINGS' COURTSHIPI think Evan Cummings had the most remarkable personality of any traveling man I ever met, a personality which indicated itself especially in the closing incident of his love affair. He was a good-looking fellow, of Scotch descent, with all the tenacity of purpose of his race. He was a good man to meet upon the train. When we were gathered in the smoking compartment Evan was as full of spirits as the rest, but I noticed that, while taking an active part in the conversation, he never toldany of the somewhat risque stories that the air of the smoking compartment too often breeds. Instead, he would tell uncanny tales of Scotland in the old days, tales of wizards and warlocks, and of the strange things to be seen at night on ancient battle-fields, and we always listened to him with interest. He was mightily fixed in his views and many a good-natured dispute we had with him over this or that. Eh, but he was stubborn!Evan was a good man of business, though, and had a host of friends. Among these was the conductor of a train on which he often traveled and the friendship developed into such a degree of intimacy that one day the conductor, Luke Johnson, invited him out to dinner with him. Evan, having no particular business on hand that evening, accepted the invitation.Johnson's house was in the suburbs, decidedly. It was on the very picket line of the army of houses of the ever-marching city, out on the prairie at least a couple of blocks distant from any other house. A plank sidewalk extended to it from the more settled district near and, with its barns and sheds and vine-covered front, it did not have a lonesome look. Inside Evan found the house quite as prepossessingas its exterior and he found something else there more prepossessing still.Johnson's family consisted of himself, his wife, his child, little Gabriel, about four years old, and his sister-in-law, a Miss Salome Hinman. Evan found Mrs. Johnson a pleasant sort of a woman and found in Miss Hinman his undeniable affinity. Stolid as he usually was in the presence of femininity, he felt, in the very marrow of his bones, that he was a lost man. That he succumbed so quickly was not altogether to be wondered at. Miss Hinman was pretty, was very slender—what a school-girl writer would call willowy or lissom or, possibly, svelte—and was wildly devoted to her little nephew, of whom she had the chief care.Well, Evan didn't waste any time. He contrived it so that he was in the city often and, as often, was at Johnson's house, making vigorous love to Miss Salome. Finally, he accepted a good city position with his firm and abandoned the road, just for the sake of being near his sweetheart, though he liked the road better. All would have gone well now, but for the young lady. He knew she cared for him, for she had admitted it, but she was a bit of a coquette and couldn't resist the temptation of playing a fishso firmly hooked. Urge as Evan might, he could not persuade her to fix a date for their marriage. She would not absolutely deny him, but she was elusive. He became desperate. Something must be done. It was.One day just as Evan, brooding as he walked, neared the home of his sweetheart to renew his useless pleading, he noticed little Gabriel playing in the yard with a toy balloon the string of which was tied to a button-hole of his jacket and which tugged strenuously away at him. Evan sat down upon the horse-block in front of the house, watching the boy dreamily, and trying to devise a plan to bring Miss Salome to terms, when, all at once, his planning ceased as suddenly as the stopping of a clock. The boy and the balloon had given him an awful inspiration! He returned to town.That evening Evan Cummings bought a toy balloon, some bird-shot and one of the tiniest of little baskets. In his room at the hotel he attached the string of the balloon to the handle of the basket. Then, as the balloon with its burden rose toward the ceiling, he dropped shot after shot into the little receptacle until the balloon could no longer raise it. Taking the little basket of shot to the drug store, he hadthe basket and shot carefully weighed. He now knew the exact lifting power of a toy balloon—it was just five ounces. He had seen Gabriel weighed and knew that he tipped the scale at forty-two pounds. The calculation was easy; sixteen ounces in a pound; sixteen multiplied by forty-two makes six hundred and seventy-two. Gabriel, therefore, weighed 672 ounces: a single toy balloon would lift not quite five ounces; five goes into six hundred and seventy-two, one hundred and thirty-four times; one hundred and thirty-five toy balloons would lift little Gabriel. The next day Evan went to a harness shop and had a stout leather harness made which would just about fit Gabriel, passing round his small body under the arms and over his shoulders, from each of which two broad straps extended upward and met in a strong iron ring. Then he went out and invested in two hundred and fifty toy balloons—thus adding over an hundred for requirements and contingencies. He bought, also, a stout piece of clothesline, fifty feet long, and a thick cord two hundred feet long, which would, if required, sustain the weight of a man. The next afternoon he attached the balloons to the clothesline, not all in a bunch, but at intervals,that in the event of an accident to one, another would not be affected. At the lower end of the clothesline was a strong steel snap.At about three o'clock in the afternoon, when he knew Mrs. Johnson was to be absent in town, Evan hired a covered express-wagon, in which he imprisoned his balloons and was driven near the Johnson's place. A block or two away from there, he dismissed the driver and wagon and went on alone, the balloons tugging at him fiercely as he walked. He saw little Gabriel playing in the yard, as usual, and called to him. The youth came running out and shouted in childish glee when he saw the mountain of red balloons."Would you like to take a ride, Gabriel?" asked Evan kindly."Yep, Yep!" cried Gabriel. "Gimme a ride."Evan carefully and securely adjusted the harness upon the youngster and then snapped the contrivance at the end of the clothesline into the ring above the boy's head. He tied one end of his two hundred feet of cord firmly to the same ring. Holding on to the cord, he eased up gently and had the satisfaction of seeing Gabriel lifted from his feet.At the height of thirty feet little Gabrielemitted a sudden bawl such as a four year-old probably never gave before; at fifty feet his screams were something startling and when, at last, he hung dangling two hundred feet above, the string of balloons rising fifty feet higher still, the volume and loudness of his shrieking seemed scarce diminished by the distance. He swung and swayed far away up there a wonderful kicking object, the string of balloons uplifting above him like a pillar of fire, the whole forming a wonderful vision against the sky. Evan calmly tied the end of the cord to the hitching staple in the horse-block, then sat down upon the block and drew out and opened his pocket knife.The front door of the house suddenly flew open and a hysterical young woman reached Evan's side in the fraction of an instant. She looked upwards and shrieked out:"Oh! Oh! What are you doing with little Gabriel! He'll be killed! Oh! he'll be killed!""No he won't," answered Evan, quietly, "I can pull him down at any time. He'll stay where he is—that is unless I cut this cord," he added reflectively, as he held the blade of his knife against it. "Salome, will you marry meand fix the date for the ceremony now? If you won't promise, I'll cut the cord!""Oh, you brute! Oh, you murderer! I'll never— Oh—""I tell you he's all right," explained Evan. "Promise when we'll be married, and I'll pull him down."The girl but shrieked the louder and, sinking down, clung pleadingly to his knees."Save him!" she cried. "He'll be killed! Oh, poor little Gabriel!""I tell you he won't be killed! Little Gabriel has only gone aloft, to be nearer his namesake. He's almost up to where 'the cherubim and seraphim continually do sing.' Don't you hear him singing himself, already? Will you fix the date or shall I cut the cord?"The girl was getting calmer, though quivering all over. She only sobbed now; "He'll be killed! He'll be killed! Oh my poor little Gabriel!""I tell you he will not," reiterated Evan. "I don't believe he will be killed even when I cut the string. He will alight gently somewhere, as the gas in the balloons gradually exudes, and somebody will take care of him. It may notbe in this county, but he will alight. When will you marry me?"The young woman did not answer."Salome," said Evan, now pleadingly. "You know that you love me and that I love you. Why not stop all this dalliance and coquetting? you know you are going to be my wife. Will you not make it all definite?"Salome looked up into her lover's eyes, then bowed her head. Finally she looked up again and sobbed out:"Y-e-s, only pull down little Gabriel.""When shall the wedding be? Will the twentieth of next month do?""Y-e-s."Evan closed his pocket knife. Then taking hold of the cord he began pulling little Gabriel down. As that youth, still loudly bellowing, reached the ground, Salome caught him up and darted into the house with him. Evan paid slight attention to people who came running to see what the red thing aloft had been. He said only that he had been trying an experiment. Then he gathered up the balloons and carried them into the woodshed, where they rose in a mass to the roof and stayed there. Then he went into the house and had a talk with theindignant Salome. It was an exciting session, but it ended peaceably.Well, she married him, as she had promised, for honesty was among her virtues. She looks upon her husband as a desperate character and, so, is in love with him, of course.I'm not surprised at the whole business. It was Evan all over.CHAPTER XXIVTHE SWISS FAMILY ROBERTSONThe fact as was learned early in the morning, that there must elapse one more day before relief came, was, it must be feared, absolutely a relief to Colonel Livingstone. When Stafford told him the situation he beamed. He was certainly at his best. He called upon the Man From Nowhere.The title of The Man From Nowhere had been bestowed upon a quiet and dignified gentleman who but smiled and listened all the time, but had said very little. During the first stress of the imprisonment, he had been one of the most energetic and helpful among those of the passengers who had shown the quality of facing a situation. He had exerted himself to some purpose from the beginning and had assisted in making more or less comfortable those who did not seem capable of taking care of themselves. He had been given the title of "The Man From Nowhere," because he had declared that he really had no home but was a wandererfor pleasure, with no fixed place of abode. He was a man of about sixty years of age, grey-mustached and affable. Now, as he came forward, with an apparent degree of awakened interest in what was going on, he was received with applause. It was the Colonel, as usual, who expressed himself:"Glad to see you aroused, sir. Are you, too, going to favor us with a story?"The Man From Nowhere laughed: "It's hardly a story," he said, "but, in listening to the brief discussion as to the degree in which we are appreciated in this world, I was involuntarily reminded of the bitter experience of a young friend or rather of five young friends of mine. They were not appreciated, and took steps accordingly. What they did was merely to segregate themselves. You will readily perceive that by segregating yourself you may avoid all the annoyance of non-appreciation. That the experiment did not, in this instance, result at once in a permanent remedy for all oppressive circumstances was, I think, due, not to any lack of proper conception in the minds of my young friends, but rather to their inexperience in certain matters of detail. In some of its aspects it was a sad affair, but I willrelate the whole thing to you just as it was told me by the principal actor. It is but the simple story ofTHE SWISS FAMILY ROBERTSONWhen I look back across the years—I am nearly thirteen now—the vision which arises of trying adventure with my sister and three brothers seems like what I have seen somewhere alluded to as the baseless fabric of a dream, or, if not that, at least some freak of the waking imagination. Yet certain it is that the five of us, John, Mary, Francis, Herbert and Elwyn Robertson, aged respectively eleven, nine, eight and six years—Herbert and Elwyn being twins—had such strange experiences in a strange land as can never be forgotten by any of us. Hard indeed to undergo were some of our vicissitudes, and always thankful am I, when the memory of that time returns, that my greater age and possibly greater force of character enabled me to become guide and mentor when certainly a counselor was needed.Strangely enough, all our adventures were the indirect result of an earnest perusal of a most fascinating volume entitled The Swiss Family Robinson, in which was related the storyof a family named Robinson, cast away upon a lone island in the Pacific Ocean. The family was a remarkable one, and the character of the father I admired especially. Not only was he a man of extended general information, but one who regarded thoughtfully the circumstance that almost any condition may be improved by the diligent, and who was truly grateful for something in every chapter of the book. The mother and children each displayed traits almost as admirable. The island, too, was as remarkable as the family, since, though it was but a small place, the castaways were fortunate enough to discover almost every useful plant, bird and beast known to the torrid, temperate or frigid zones. Taken altogether, the tale was such as to arouse a spirit of something nearly akin to envy in the minds of all of us save the twins, who were, of course, too young to understand. It was no wonder, since our great-great-grandfather on our mother's side was said to have come from Switzerland, that the three oldest of us called ourselves the Swiss Family Robertson and imagined many things. There came a time when the fancy became a grave reality, even to the twins.It is with no little feeling and hesitation thatI approach any allusion to the causes which led to the practical expatriation of five people—in the prime of youth, it is true, but inexperienced—and their subjection to a manner of existence such as they had never imagined could be real. Even now the matter so affects me that I must be pardoned by the reader for not relating the unpleasant details. Suffice it to say that occasions arose when the views of our parents unhappily failed to coincide with those of Mary, Francis and myself, and that our conduct was held, by those who had the power, to merit corporal punishment, a punishment which, it has always seemed to me, was inflicted with far more vehemence than any possible occasion could demand. Our spirits revolted at what occurred, and the three of us, who, as explained, had just finished reading The Swiss Family Robinson, held inflamed but deliberate counsel together and determined resolutely upon a course which should give us liberty of conscience and of action. I admit frankly that, being of a self-respecting disposition, and it may be to an extent a natural leader, I was foremost in these councils and mapped out the general plan of action. Increasing years have given me more philosophy and takenfrom my impulsiveness, but at that time I did not hesitate. In short, under my inspiration we resolved to seek a more congenial clime, where, if we did not luxuriate in all the so-called advantages of a super-refined civilization, we should at least have the more quiet and assured happiness which obtains where Nature is primeval. Our resolution became fixed. That Herbert and Elwyn, the twins, became of the emigrating party was but an incident, they having discovered our plans for departure and insisting upon accompanying us. Their wish was reluctantly granted lest the clamor they would inevitably raise in the event of a refusal should reveal our plans.Not only were we determined upon the new life, but we resolved to isolate ourselves so completely from the unpleasant recent past as even to change our names, it being decided that each should select a new one for himself or herself. As for me, having lately read a story of the Norsemen, I selected the name of Wolfgang; Mary chose that of Abyssinia, and Francis, for what reason I cannot imagine, adopted that of Chickum. The naming of Herbert and Elwyn was left to Abyssinia, who, after looking over anewspaper, called one Krag and the other Jörgensen. Then began in earnest our preparations for departure.It was, of course, necessary, as I endeavored to impress upon my fellows—if Abyssinia may be included in such a term—to observe the utmost secrecy and discretion in all our movements. This injunction was observed faithfully by all save Krag and Jörgensen, whose course was frequently such as might, I feared, attract the attention of our parents. Fortunately they appeared all unknowing of our designs.The first thing to be accomplished was the getting together and bestowal in a safe place of such stores as we could carry away and as would be most serviceable to us in an uninhabited and possibly barren region. In this difficult task Abyssinia, Chickum and I shared about equally. The place of concealment finally decided upon was a small shed which had formerly been a henhouse, and which stood against a board fence on the eastern side of the kitchen garden. Here, beneath a heap of straw, we concealed our accumulations. I pondered deeply over what the nature of our stores shouldbe, and I trust I may say, with a pride not altogether unbecoming, that my selections were justified by the result. Slowly but surely the material accumulated until there came a time when we felt that we were fairly equipped for our departure. It was just after the beginning of July, and the weather was sultry, but, with an eye for the future, Abyssinia secured from the extra household supplies four quilts, five large sheets and six jars of raspberry and strawberry jam. She contributed also a bag of salt, pepper, some old knives and forks, half a dozen tin plates and as many tin cups, a breadpan, a frying-pan with a broken handle, and two tin pails. I added a light but excellent ax, several boxes of matches, a great ball of stout cord, an enormous slab of dried beef, two boxes of crackers, a box of candles, some large potatoes, an old carving-knife, some fishhooks, a steel trap, and at least half a barrel of flour in bags not too large to be carried by Chickum or me. Chickum brought two jars of butter, another ax, and his bow and arrow. Of course we had our pocket-knives, and Abyssinia had needles and strong thread. The hour came when we only awaited an auspicious occasion for departure.It had become apparent that not a third ofour stores could be removed in a single journey, and, after considering the matter most thoughtfully, I resolved that the only wise course was to determine upon the site for our new home, complete it, and to it carry our goods from time to time. Upon Chickum and me must necessarily fall the burden of this initial labor, and we set about it at once. Our homestead sloped from the roadway to the north and was bounded in that direction by a grassy expanse through which flowed a small creek, crossed by a plank. The creek separated this green area from a wild and comparatively deserted region known as the Wooded Pasture. Some hundreds of yards distant from the creek rose an extremely wide and dense growth of willows, and in the midst of this miniature forest, as we had at one time discovered, was a small open space, dry and bare of growth. Here, after new exploration in company with Chickum, I decided should be established our tranquil home. The site was not discernible from the home of our parents, nor indeed from any part of the place we were leaving except from an elevated point in a meadow to the west, and even from this station the view was indistinct.We bided our time impatiently now; butwe did not have long to wait. A day came when our parents were away upon a visit, the hired girl was occupied in-doors, and the hired man busy in the cornfield where the dense growth of the valued cereal prevented him from seeing us or being seen. Quietly Chickum and I departed, burdened with the quilts, sheets, our axes, and the ball of twine. Our journey to the willows was uneventful and our labors there were unmolested.The plan of our shelter had already been designed by me, and we lost no time in trivial debating over details, Chickum submitting without question to each suggestion of the stronger mind. Under my direction we cut down eight small willows as straight as we could find, and cut from each a length of nearly six feet, four of which we sharpened at one end. These, one of us standing upon a dead uprooted stump which we rolled about, we drove into the earth at distances of six feet apart, the stakes, rising some five feet, forming the four corners of a square. The remaining four poles we tied firmly so that they extended from the top of one stake to another, and upon the frame so constructed we stretched one of the sheets, cutting holesclose to the hems and through them tying the sheet to the cross-pieces. Our dwelling was now roofed. The four remaining sheets, similarly tied, made the four sides of the structure, one being left partly unattached so that it might be lifted, thus serving for a door. Upon the grassy floor of the house one of the quilts was spread, and there was our Tented Home! Chickum was wild with delight and capered about hilariously, but I reminded him that the time for an exhibition of such exuberance of spirit had not arrived. Much yet remained to be accomplished. Days passed before all our stores were, with exercise of the greatest caution, safely bestowed within the tent.It was six o'clock one pleasant evening, when we had just finished dinner, that our parents again absented themselves to make a call upon a neighbor. Our time had come. Quietly all of us, including Abyssinia and the twins, slipped down through the kitchen garden, across the creek, across a part of the Wooded Pasture and into the Willow Grove. There was what I may call a certain tremulousness, but no faltering. We reached our place of refuge. "Welcome to this sylvan grove!" shouted Chickum—quoting, I firmly believe, something he hadread in a story, for Chickum's ordinary mode of expression was not such as I could in many respects desire—and all entered the tent and made themselves at home. Here were peace and happiness at last! We chatted and planned until darkness fell, and then, digging a hole with my knife into a potato, I inserted one of the candles we had brought and found the place illuminated finely. But we did not remain long awake. It had been a season of labor and excitement, and a sense of drowsiness soon overcame us all.It was nearly midnight when I was aroused by an exclamation from Abyssinia and the sobbing of the twins. "What is it?" whispered Abyssinia, and as she spoke there came a strange, gulping cry from a marshy strip beside the creek, and then, nearer us, one more musical but quite as mournful. The creatures of the night were calling. From my wider experience I recognized their harmlessness; I knew the voices of the bullfrog and the whippoorwill, but with the others it was different. Though my rest had been disturbed, I could not but explain all graciously, and soon the three were sleeping again, though fitfully. As for Chickum, he hadnot awakened. When we awoke, morning had come and the birds were chirping all about us. We ate heartily of jam and crackers, and felt the blood coursing in our respective veins as it had never done before. How glorious the sense of freedom!How unstable, too, are sometimes the happiest of conditions! Little did I imagine that bright morning as I noted idly the performance of a red-hooded woodpecker,Melanerpes erythrocephalus, who was eating a long white grub in sections, little, I reiterate, did I imagine that before nightfall all our hopeful plans would be disarranged, and that, like some weakling tribe compelled ever to flee before an encroaching power, we must decide, in self-protection, to risk all the dangers of a wilder home.It was noon when, looking to the southwest, I perceived far in the distance our hired man working about a stump on the elevated spot in the meadow from which could be obtained the only glimpse of our white home amid the greenery. I have not, I hope, one of those minds ever open to suspicion, but I may say that it is one somewhat more than ordinarily keen in the formation of deductions. Why was the hired man there, chopping about a hugestump which he could not possibly remove unaided? Were we discovered? Could the man have been placed there to exercise a distant surveillance over us? The idea grew upon me, and an apprehension I could scarce explain—an apprehension shared by Abyssinia and Chickum, with whom I at once consulted. Under the circumstances, with me to think was but to act. "Come," I said to Chickum, "there is but one course to pursue. We must face the issue as courageously as we can. Abyssinia and the twins will remain here while you and I must venture farther in search of a place where, no matter what may surround us, our isolation will be complete." To this even the sometimes thoughtless Chickum assented promptly. "I am ready, brother," was his answer. "Let us start at once."Little preparation was required. We provided ourselves with crackers and dried beef and set forth immediately, I carrying one of the axes and Chickum arming himself with the carving knife.The country for quite a distance, as we found, was partly bare, though there were occasional small oaks and tangles of hazel and blackberry bushes. As we advanced, though, the treesbecame taller and grew more closely together, and finally, as we ascended a gradually sloping ridge, we found ourselves in what must have been almost the forest primeval. We knew not what we should discover. The shadows were deep, and the wind made a constant sighing overhead. Descending the ridge upon the other side, and pursuing our course far to the northwest, we emerged at last upon a small open glade through which tumbled a noisy creek and near the centre of which grew a few small elms, four of them, as I noted, forming the angles of a square. We advanced and looked about us. From the glade there was an opening in but one direction, to the northeast, through which could be seen far away part of a hillside field. My heart beat fast. I recognized the advantages of the site at a single glance. "Here," I said, "shall be our home!"Chickum assented gladly and we took up our long homeward march, reaching the tent in time for the evening meal. We were informed by Abyssinia that the day had been uneventful save that Krag had stooped too closely in examination of a bumblebee upon a clover blossom. One of his eyes was closed, but he appeared in his usual spirits. I have ever admired thewonderful recuperative powers of youth. Abyssinia told us, also, that the twins had devoured one entire pot of our limited supply of jam.For two days Chickum and I labored in the distant forest upon the erection of our new and more substantial home. Sheets would no longer suffice for roof and walls. We cut strong cross-poles and tied them from tree to tree, and, finding great heaps of hemlock bark cut for the tanneries in a small abandoned clearing some distance from our glade, we brought all that we required of the great slabs and, leaning them against our cross-poles, made sides to the dwelling which promised to be wind and rain proof. The roof was constructed of the same material. We now had a home solid and roomy and offering pleasant contrast to the frail tent amid the willows. Laboriously our stores were carried in repeated journeys over the long route, and three days later all of our little company were contentedly at home in Hemlock Castle, a name suggested by Abyssinia, who declared that, like the people on the Pacific island, we should certainly have names for the objects and localities about us. The open space in the forest was christened Haven Glade, the creekreceived the title of Skelter Walter, and the deep, wooded land about us was known as Darkland.We were now most happily established. Our only possible anxiety, and that as yet a light one, related to our food supply, which was gradually diminishing. But we had plenty of flour, and Abyssinia now began making bread.Thoughtful and far-seeing as I had proved myself in the earlier preparations for our flight, I had forgotten one thing. I shall never cease to reproach myself with not having requested Abyssinia, while we were still under the dominion of our parents, to ingratiate herself with the hired girl and acquire at least some rudimentary idea of the art of breadmaking. As it now appeared, she was, though hopeful, absolutely unacquainted with the manner of preparation of this so generally popular article of food. We elders held a council on the subject and each expressed an idea. Abyssinia thought that to merely mix some of the flour with water and then put the dough in the frying-pan was all that was required for bread. Chickum asserted that he had seen the hired girl mix a little salt in the dough. I, personally, was confident that butter was added. It was resolved to experimenton a small scale, and Abyssinia took up her household duties, I must admit, with bravery.Some of the flour was mixed with water and salt and a little butter and put into the hot frying-pan. It soon browned upon one side and was then turned over with some difficulty because of its extraordinary adhesiveness. When finally extracted it resembled nothing I had ever seen before, but was certainly baked. It was buttered and we all ate. The food was tenacious in quality and its flavor proved exceedingly novel to us. Chickum, later, complained of pain. But we had no other bread, and after I had reasoned calmly with all upon the merit of resignation, we accepted the situation daily. What a wonderful organ is the human stomach!I am not exaggerating when I relate that the days now passed with blitheness. To our food was added an almost unlimited supply of wild gooseberries and blackberries, and the mandrake apples were ripening. There were deep pools in Skelter Water, and there, with the hooks my foresight had provided, we caught many of the fish known as the common bull-head, which we wrapped in clay and cast into the open fire. When the clay appeared wellhardened, we drew it from the fire, cracked it open, and therein found the fish, cooked to a turn, and even a delicacy when eaten with butter and pepper and salt. How inevitably does intelligence, when in stress, arise to the demands of circumstance!One day Abyssinia came running in, jubilantly crying: "Bees! Bees! I've found a hive of wild bees! Let us tame them, as the people did on the island, and so have all the honey we can eat!"This assuredly was glorious news, and we all accompanied Abyssinia to the scene of her discovery. There were the bees and their home. Suspended from the swaying end of a beech bough, hanging so low that it was only four or five feet from the ground, appeared a great oval object which looked as made of grayish paper. There were orifices in the bottom about which the insects were humming in great numbers. They seemed somewhat longer than domesticated bees, and had yellowish rings around their bodies, the difference in appearance from the ordinary honey-gatherer being, I assumed, due to their environment and different mode of life. I at once resolved to secure the hive and bring it to Haven Glade, where it wouldafford a most desirable addition to our daily fare. I determined that the only way to accomplish this was to come at night when the bees were at rest, cut off the limb above the hive, and so carry it to our home. This was easily accomplished. The end of the limb where it had been cut away was inserted in a hole made through the bark of our rear wall, and there, on the outside, hung the hive for the honey-making.Some days passed and the bees appeared to be working industriously, no one going very near the suspended hive lest they be disturbed. It chanced, however, that we had one morning an exceedingly early breakfast, and Chickum, who always had a taste for sweets, suggested that, as the bees were not yet astir, he go out, cut a hole in the side of the hive and secure a lump of comb for our delectation. Impelled by curiosity, I followed, observing Chickum's operations from a distance. Chickum, using a pocket knife, cut around a piece about six inches square from the side of the queer hive, then removed to look within for the honey. Never shall I forget what then occurred immediately. How remarkable are some of the traits of the insect world! From the openingthat Chickum had made there burst, fairly in his face, a whirling, venomously buzzing cloud of the great bees. He leaped backward and fled along the creek. Very fleet of foot has Chickum always been, and I have never felt it humiliating to be defeated by him in our friendly races, but never before had I seen accomplished, even by him, such an amazing burst of speed. His career, so far as I may infer from pictures I have seen, resembled that of the antelope of the arid wastes, but the bees kept pace with him. With each leap Chickum gave vent to the remarkable cry of "Hep! Hep!" At first I thought him shouting instinctively for help, but it was not that; it was, I have since concluded, but a spasmodic exclamation, the result of his alarm and pain and of his violent physical exertion. I followed, first calling to Abyssinia to bring the twins from the house, for I knew the flight must be a brief one. Suddenly, Chickum, in his desperation, plunged into one of the pools of the creek and sank down until only his nose was visible. That organ, as I could see, received at once most violent attention from the hovering pursuers, but by splashing water Chickum finally drove the bees away and they returned scatteringlyto their desecrated home. When Chickum emerged from the creek his appearance was such that had I not been witness to the transformation I could scarcely have identified him. Each eye was closed so that, as he walked, he was compelled to hold the lids of one apart with thumb and finger, and his nose, but for its hue, resembled some monster puff-ball of the fields.That day our forest home was temporarily abandoned, and when night came I removed the hive with the utmost care a long distance into the forest. Days later I found it abandoned and, examining it, found breeding cells, but not a trace of honey. I recognized at once and, as is always my way, admitted to myself that I had erred. The hive was not that of the wild honey bee,Apis mellifica, but of the aggressive tree wasp,Vespidæ. I could not understand why I had been so mistaken. I had been most carefully instructed in natural history, and Miss Clitherose, my teacher for several terms, had been kind enough to speak of my remarkable aptitude in that direction. I had acquired not only the common but many of the Latin names of the soulless creatures, and, indeed, rather preferred the Latin. I well remember the daywhen I puzzled even Miss Clitherose, who prided herself somewhat on her acquirements. I asked her to give me the old Latin names for turkey and potato and she failed in the attempt. Little did she comprehend how I had reasoned that as there had been no turkeys nor potatoes in the Old World there could have been no Latin names for them. But I digress.
"HE WAS UNCONSCIOUS AS A CHILD"
"HE WAS UNCONSCIOUS AS A CHILD"
Miss Selwyn had chanced upon this unique function, the pigeons' Sunday banquet. Here were no appealing graces of architecture and Venetian balm of atmosphere. The rough pavement on which the yellow corn was scattered was a contrast to the smooth and perfect floor of the great Piazza. On one side was the inevitable American drug store, plain, matter-of-fact, yet giving, by its crimson and purple window globes, the only touch of pure color in that part of the street. Across the way was a hotel. A clothing store, with its paraphernalia of advertisement, occupied another corner. It was Clark and Madison Streets.
Miss Selwyn saw every detail of this scene at a glance, and then her eyes were fastened upon one figure.
Standing among the others was Henry Bryant. His straight, powerful figure, commanding in presence and pose, seemed to separate him, in a way, from the men around him. But, like all the onlookers, he bought corn and scattered the grain on the ground, watching the pigeons as they clustered around his largess. He was as unconscious as a child, and as gentle, about his simple pleasure. His face was a little worn and changed by the suffering of the days of separationfrom her—Margaret's eyes were quick to see that.
That was the man from whom she had separated after a wordy war over wordy books. That was her lover over there. His whole look, attitude and occupation appealed to her tenderness. Love rushed tumultuously onward, a tide of irresistible strength, sweeping away every carefully-built structure of repulse and every barrier of opinion. Their quarrel was forgotten. Yet the reserve of a proud nature and of custom kept Miss Selwyn from crossing over to speak to Bryant.
She walked home with a springing step. Once the thought came into her mind that Bryant might go away somewhere at once; that the message she was hurrying to send him might not reach him, and at the idea she felt faint and disheartened. She stopped and, for an instant, almost turned back, but, checking herself with a smile at her own impatience and trivial forebodings, she held on her homeward way again.
She could see her lover, and see him as plainly as when he was in reality before her, all unconscious of her presence, half absent-mindedly and all tenderly scattering grain for the cooing, fluttering pigeons at his feet.
The next morning, Bryant, looking over his mail with little relish—for much of the interest in living was out of him just then—found a letter which aroused him most effectually from his mood of listlessness. It said:
Dear: I am "blue-mouldy for want of a batin'." Come to me.Margaret.
Dear: I am "blue-mouldy for want of a batin'." Come to me.Margaret.
ABERCROMBIE'S WOOING
None but could smile upon the spinster and be glad of the little tale she told. Half the world knows of the pigeons so nourished on one of the most crowded corners in the heart of a great, turbulent city, but none had thought before of what might accompany this exhibition of the fact that there is still a regard for beings of the lower and less grasping life. Very pleasant was the conversation and very understanding were the comments, but the Colonel, like many a commander of the past, from Joshua down, noted the swift passing of the hours of day and was insatiate for more of what might be attained before it was too late. He called upon the Banker. That gentleman, easy, suave and really a good specimen of the class which inclines us to save by taking care of our savings—and only rarely departing with them—was quite equal to the demand at the paying-teller's window. "I have listened," he said, "to these accounts, some of adventure, some of fancy, some of loveand persistence, and it has occurred to me that even I might contribute something to the general fund. Oddly enough, as coming from me, what I shall tell is a story of love and courage and persistence all combined. It is not a tale of some far country, but one of our modern life, a tale of true lovers whose union was opposed but who came together at last in spite of obstacles. I think we may term it
ABERCROMBIE'S WOOING
Mr. Gentil Abercrombie is a fine fellow, quick-witted, and amiable, with prospects in the world, but he is not, as yet, wealthy. Last spring he fell in love with Miss Frances Dobson, and the young lady seemed not entirely oblivious of the fact nor altogether displeased with it. The affair appeared prosperous to the hopeful Abercrombie until the middle of June, when the Dobson family moved to their country home at a modest little watering place not far from the city, leaving the suitor in a position he did not like. A resolute gentleman, though, is Mr. Abercrombie, and he followed his star, taking apartments at the watering-place hotel, coming into town by train daily and returning in the evening.
The young lady thus sought had the fortune to be the only daughter of her somewhat austere parents, Mr. James Dobson and Mrs. Irene Dobson, each distinctly of the class not to be trifled with by any too aspiring suitor. Abercrombie was admitted to the Dobson residence, for he has good social standing—but his reception was not as warm as the weather. It appeared to each of the lovers early in the season that it was best to be politic, and that Abercrombie was not, as yet, looked upon by the father and mother as a person with that superabundance of worldly goods and of stability of character and wisdom which should appertain to the husband of the Family Pride. Hence it came that Abercrombie made an effort whenever an opportunity offered to become what he remarked to himself as "solid with the old folks." Hence it came, too, that at a certain trying time there arrived in his immediate vicinity a certain quantity and quality of disaster.
It chanced that on one occasion, Abercrombie, seeking, as usual, to ingratiate himself with the parents, drifted into a discussion concerning the bringing up of children and expressed himself to the effect that, in placeof the usual inane though amusing fairy stories and things of that sort, children should in their youth, when the memory fairly petrifies things, be entertained with pleasant tales about natural history and in fact about anything likely to aid most in future equipment for the great struggle in the world. Of natural history he made a point. Well, one evening, in just what poets call the "gloaming," Abercrombie, the parents, Frances and young Erastus Dobson were sitting together upon the front porch, when, suddenly, from some inscrutable impulse, Erastus broke out with the exclamation:
"Mr. Abercrombie, tell me a story."
Here was a situation! It flashed upon Abercrombie, that he had, as already mentioned, impressed upon the elder people the fact that, in his opinion, the youthful mind should be loaded with natural history when tales were imposed upon it. There was no alternative. Here were the older people listening and expectant. Here was Erastus, vociferous. Here was his own sweetheart, sitting in the half darkness and wondering if he were equal to the occasion!
Abercrombie quivered for a moment tryingto collect his senses which seemed to have been, somehow, "jolted" by Erastus' request, and then suddenly became so desperate and cold-blooded that he could not understand himself.
"Yes, Erastus," he said, affably; "I will tell you a story, most willingly." Then he continued:
"This is the story of the Boy and the Bull and the Horned Hen. Once there was a boy. It has frequently happened that there was a boy, so that it is hardly worth while referring to such a thing now, but, since we have mentioned it, we'll let it go. Tum-a-row! This boy lived in the country and was kind to a Hen. Little did he know that the hen appreciated and remembered it, but she did! One day this boy started to cross a meadow in which was a savage bull, and the boy forgot he had on his red sweater. In the middle of the meadow stood a tree which was blasted and which looked almost like a cone. It was what a young kindergarten teacher might describe as a trunk from which the branches had been riven away in some of Nature's convulsions, probably electric. Anyhow, the bull started for the boy and the boy started for the tree. Tum-a-row! The boy reached the tree fourand one-third seconds before the bull reached the same place, and the boy began climbing and was at least thirty feet from the ground before the bull arrived. It is needless to say that the boy climbed with much rapidity. The bull followed rapaciously—yes, that's the word—and began climbing also with great rapidity behind the boy, and there was a race to what—if the term may be applied to such a dead trunk of a tree—to the topmast. There the tree sloped to a point, which the boy, climbing with avidity—that's the word,—reached easily, under the stress of circumstances. The bull, climbing swiftly after, attained a height of between ten and fifteen feet from his intended victim, and then, reaching the slope of compression, as one may say, of the dead tree, suddenly found himself without sufficient grasp and slid down, again and again, as he sought to reach the apex of the cone. The boy, meanwhile, was and properly, too, in a state of utmost fear, as the bull from time to time seemed almost successful in his upward attempts.
"But there is a limit to endeavor. The bull, fatigued at last, slid downward to the ground, just as the hen, who, happily for the boy, hadnoted from the distant barnyard what was going on, came desperately to the rescue. The struggle which ensued was something doubtless without a parallel, or anything else in the way of similitude, in the history of single combats. It was something frightful! The bellowing of the hen, the hissing and cackling of the bull, the scattering of scales from both adversaries as they clashed together, cannot be adequately described. But the end came quickly. There came a moment, when perspiring and panting, the hen gored the bull with all her might, mind and strength, and he fell lifeless to the ground.
"The moral of this story is, be kind to a hen. Tum-a-row!"
"Why do you say 'Tum-a-row'?" suddenly demanded Erastus.
"Well, I hardly know, myself," said Abercrombie. "I guess it's a sort of accompaniment. It came in an old farmer's song I heard when I was a little boy, in an old song which told about a young man who went 'down in the medder for to mow,' and who 'mowed around till he did feel a pizen sarpint bite him on the heel;' and, every little while, through the song came the word 'Tum-a-row.' That's the reason'Tum-a-row' comes in so often in the story. It isn't my fault; it just seems to belong. Tum-a-row!"
"Tell me another! Tell me another!" shouted young Erastus, but there came no sound from the twilight which encompassed the old people, nor from the gloaming about the sweetheart, though little did it matter. Abercrombie had passed the caring point!
"One more will I tell you," he said, speaking in a resonant and rotund voice, to the wide-mouthed and expectant Erastus. "This is the story of the Dark Forest, the Charcoal Burners, the Witch and the Boa Constrictor.
"Once there was a forest so dark that you cannot conceive of its darkness. Oh! it was just a forest dark from Darkville! It was fringed about with a forest which was somewhat lighter, in which things lived, but nothing lived in the forest itself; it was too black! Among the people who lived in this lighter fringe of forest were some Charcoal Burners. You will always find Charcoal Burners connected with a deep forest story, particularly in the German Medieval Legends. The Charcoal Burners in those stories usually lived in some glade in the middle of the wood, but the Charcoal Burnerswe are telling about lived on the outside for the reason we have given—but they ought not really to be called 'burners,' because they did not burn anything. Whenever orders came for charcoal they simply took their shovels and went down an aisle into the depth of the inner wood and dug out great hunks of the blackness, which they brought out and stacked upon wagons, and which were conveyed to Vienna and Wiesbaden and Oshkosh and all the other charcoal commercial centers.
"Now all this has nothing to do with the story. These matters about the Charcoal Burners I have related only because it chances that from the Charcoal Burners themselves the real story was gained. We ought to be grateful to them for what they have told.
"Four or five miles east of the Charcoal Burners lived a Boa Constrictor. He was sixty feet long and had a gilt-edged appetite. I don't believe in using slang, and gilt-edged is slightly slangy, but the bald fact stands out that he had a gilt-edged appetite. He lived mostly on wild boars, but, when the supply of wild boars gave out on any occasion, he lived on most anything that came along.
"Now, five miles east of the Boa Constrictorlived a Witch, and she was a witch from Witchville. She was not any common witch, but one whose slightest anathema would just curl your hair. Talk about brimstone! Why brimstone would be just ice cream in any comparison you could make between this witch and other things in the world. She knew her business! Well, this Witch had three children, two sons and a daughter, nice little children, in their way. It happened, unfortunately, one afternoon, that they strayed into the forest; and this afternoon happened to be the particular afternoon on which the Boa Constrictor had run out of wild boars. He consumed the kids—I beg your pardon; young as you are, I beg your pardon—I meant to say that he devoured the three young children, that he encompassed them after the constrictor manner.
"By and by, the Witch missed her children and, induced by maternal instinct, went out looking for them, and so came to the abode of the Constrictor. They had been on good enough terms and she approached him affably.
"'Good morning, Mr. Constrictor,' said she.
"'Good afternoon, Mrs. Witch,' said the Constrictor.
"'Have you seen my children?' asked the lady.
"'I have not', said the Constrictor.
"The Witch was about to depart when a thought seemed to seize her and she turned just about half way, assuming what may be designated as a suddenly reflective attitude;
"'Are you sure, Mr. Constrictor?' said she.
"'I am sure,' said he.
"Only a person with nerves under absolute control could have been present on that occasion and considered unmoved the changes in the Witch's face. The accumulative grimness of her countenance became something startling. She spoke slowly but her voice had that hard, low, even tone which we read about in novels.
"'What is the reason that you are so big in the middle?' said she.
"'I am not big in the middle, your eyes deceive you,' said he.
"'You are lying, Mr. Constrictor,' said she, 'and I'm going to make you tell the truth. I am going to make an Incantation over and around and all about you that will give you some idea of what forces are at work in the universe.'
"Then from somewhere about her skirt, she pulled out a broomstick, and waved it five times, and said; 'Abracadabra, Pentagon' and someother things, and, of course, the performance had its effect and the Constrictor had to tell the truth. He simply had to! He admitted the consumption of the three children.
"Imagine the demeanor of the Witch when she learned that her three children had been devoured by the Constrictor! For a little time she was speechless and white in the face, then, as reason and the control of her powers returned, the malignant look which came was something that simply defies description. Her voice, as she spoke to the Constrictor this time, was shrill and raucous.
"'I am going to pronounce an Anathema upon you,' she said, 'and I'm going to do it now. I am going to make you the same at both ends.'
"A very adroit and clever Constrictor was this, and he said nothing. But he chuckled to himself: 'If she makes me the same at both ends, I will have more fun than ever. With a mouth at each end, I can eat twice as many wild boars and be twice as happy.' He coiled closer to the ground with a look of affected submission, and the Witch went on with her Anathema.
"It was a fine anathema, there was no questionabout it. Even the leaves on the trees about first turned brown, then crackled and then smoked, as she was making her few remarks. She completed the formula and departed, leaving the Constrictor to become the same at both ends, and he lay there, still chuckling, waiting for his double-headedness and double enjoyment in the future.
"Then came to him a sort of quivery feeling, and he knew that he was changing. It did not take more than an hour at the utmost, when that Constrictor suddenly realized that he was the same at both ends, but—he did not have two heads! He had two tails! There he was, a great Boa Constrictor, sixty feet long, with a tail at each end. Of course only one thing could happen to a Boa Constrictor with a tail at each end. He must starve to death, simply because he could not eat. Day after day passed, and the Constrictor grew less and less in dimensions, and, finally, the day came when there was only a little worm, smaller than an angle-worm. Then the day came when there was no worm at all.
"And that is the end of the story, because there isn't any more worm!"
The last sentence of the tale was concluded.Silence prevailed for a moment or two, and then there was a gasp of delight and approval from Erastus.
"That's bully!" he said. "Will you tell me some more, some other time, Mr. Abercrombie?"
"Certainly, my boy," said Abercrombie. "It is well that we should become acquainted with natural history, and in the simple tales I tell you I shall endeavor at all times to introduce such information as will increase your store of knowledge. Above all, we must get acquainted with natural history."
He paused. The boy had nothing to say. Unfortunately, nobody else had anything to say. To Abercrombie the silence seemed, in a vague way that he could not fully comprehend, destructive. There was something the matter with the atmosphere and he knew it. The gloaming had drifted into darkness, and he could no longer see either his prospective father-in-law or mother-in-law or his sweetheart. He knew only that, as an adviser of parents of the younger male offspring of the two who were also parents of his one object in life, he had flashed presumptuously in the pan, that, too, in the dimness of the gathering darkness, when people are most reflective and thathe had accomplished the possibility irretrievable.
The silence was broken at last by the voice of Mrs. Dobson. The voice was thin and didn't seem to really "break" the silence. It seemed to split it neatly.
"Are those your ideas, Mr. Abercrombie, as to the sort of knowledge of natural history which should be conveyed to young children?"
"Yes, I'd like to know, myself," added Mr. Dobson.
Not a laugh, not a comment, not a sound came from the corner where sat Miss Frances Dobson. She was strictly an aside.
Abercrombie pondered through swift seconds. He was in what, in his own mind—so much are we addicted to the pernicious habit of thinking in the vernacular—'in a hole'. But, the man at bay has frequently proved a hero in a plain North American way. Abercrombie arose to the occasion!
"It may be," he said, "that in the telling to Erastus of these simple tales, I have not followed precisely the practices of those generally engaged in the teaching of youth. It may be that I have not instructed him in the manner in which I might have done had I allowed afew years to lapse and my beard to grow longer and had shaved my upper lip. It may be that in the tales I have told Erastus there are certain discrepancies, synchronisms, and anachronisms. My pictures may have possessed a shade too much of the impressionist character. But what of it? What I wanted to do was to give Erastus a general idea of Black Forests, Witches, and Boa Constrictors."
Silence reigned again, and reigned very thoroughly for some time. Then up rose the modern young woman.
No one in the room could see any one else, but all could hear. What the parents heard was the sound of light footsteps along the porch and then, after a pause;
"You're a ridiculous gentleman,—Don't pull me so!"
What they heard also was a thoughtful and generally commendatory remark from Erastus:
"Say, old man, you're all right. You're the stuff!"
They heard no more at the time. The next morning was a fine morning—there have been lots of them—and, as breakfast was about ending, there took place a conversation between her parents and Miss Dobson—a conversationinaugurated by them but ended, decidedly, by her.
Given a young woman, the only one in the family and possessed of character, she can usually make her parents "know their place," though doing all this, of course, with kindness and consideration. Miss Dobson and Abercrombie are formally engaged. The fortunate but alarmed young man had not realized what would happen when the reinforcements came up.
EVAN CUMMINGS' COURTSHIP
There was frivolous talk and disputation and some serious reasoning, as the necessary sequence of what had been told. There was discussion as to what excuse there had been for the demeanor of Mr. Abercrombie, and even some quiet suggestion to the Banker that, very much to his credit, he could, himself, imagine things, upon occasions such as this, and that, possibly, he might have risen somewhat to the emergency, but the chaffing was of the listless sort. The sun was not visible save from the rear end of the rear car of the train, but its rays deflected, slanted, yellow-red, along the sides of the pass calling the attention of all to the fact that it was almost supper-time. More hanging together in a Wayside Tales companionship? Hardly! They had appetites and they dissolved as dissolve the vapors, or the friends made by letters of introduction, or snow on the top of a distillery, or your dreams, or Mary when you need her, or anything else. Similes arethe cheapest thing on the market! The sum of it was that an afternoon had been killed without undue atrocity and now all scattered and prepared themselves and went in to supper. They enjoyed themselves together and then the ladies drifted back to the talking habitat, while the men, or at least a number of them, found the smoking compartments, either the big one of the Cassowary or one of those in other coaches.
There are all kinds of traveling men. This is not generally understood, but it is a fact. The impression has, somehow, obtained that a traveling man or "Drummer," or whatever we should call Dickens' "Bagman" in the western Hemisphere, is a person who is careless of the conventionalities, who relies upon a certain hardihood in thrusting himself anywhere into the place of immediate consequence or convenience. Never was a greater mistake in popular opinion. There are blatant commercial travelers, of course. There will be fools in any part of the world's work. It is a matter of fact, though, that the man whose business it is to influence mentally other men and women must, necessarily, have tact and understanding and that he must be often morequick of conception and more readily responsive to the proper demand of his fellow-creatures than one less extremely educated in certain ways of the vagrant world.
The man called upon was one of the greater type. He laughingly accepted the situation:
"Yes," he said, "I'll tell you a story, but it is so foolish that I can hardly expect you to believe it. It is merely the story of one man I knew and of how he got his wife. He did not get her in quite the ordinary way. I'll tell you all I know about him, and I've known him almost from boyhood. I'll tell you everything as it was."
EVAN CUMMINGS' COURTSHIP
I think Evan Cummings had the most remarkable personality of any traveling man I ever met, a personality which indicated itself especially in the closing incident of his love affair. He was a good-looking fellow, of Scotch descent, with all the tenacity of purpose of his race. He was a good man to meet upon the train. When we were gathered in the smoking compartment Evan was as full of spirits as the rest, but I noticed that, while taking an active part in the conversation, he never toldany of the somewhat risque stories that the air of the smoking compartment too often breeds. Instead, he would tell uncanny tales of Scotland in the old days, tales of wizards and warlocks, and of the strange things to be seen at night on ancient battle-fields, and we always listened to him with interest. He was mightily fixed in his views and many a good-natured dispute we had with him over this or that. Eh, but he was stubborn!
Evan was a good man of business, though, and had a host of friends. Among these was the conductor of a train on which he often traveled and the friendship developed into such a degree of intimacy that one day the conductor, Luke Johnson, invited him out to dinner with him. Evan, having no particular business on hand that evening, accepted the invitation.
Johnson's house was in the suburbs, decidedly. It was on the very picket line of the army of houses of the ever-marching city, out on the prairie at least a couple of blocks distant from any other house. A plank sidewalk extended to it from the more settled district near and, with its barns and sheds and vine-covered front, it did not have a lonesome look. Inside Evan found the house quite as prepossessingas its exterior and he found something else there more prepossessing still.
Johnson's family consisted of himself, his wife, his child, little Gabriel, about four years old, and his sister-in-law, a Miss Salome Hinman. Evan found Mrs. Johnson a pleasant sort of a woman and found in Miss Hinman his undeniable affinity. Stolid as he usually was in the presence of femininity, he felt, in the very marrow of his bones, that he was a lost man. That he succumbed so quickly was not altogether to be wondered at. Miss Hinman was pretty, was very slender—what a school-girl writer would call willowy or lissom or, possibly, svelte—and was wildly devoted to her little nephew, of whom she had the chief care.
Well, Evan didn't waste any time. He contrived it so that he was in the city often and, as often, was at Johnson's house, making vigorous love to Miss Salome. Finally, he accepted a good city position with his firm and abandoned the road, just for the sake of being near his sweetheart, though he liked the road better. All would have gone well now, but for the young lady. He knew she cared for him, for she had admitted it, but she was a bit of a coquette and couldn't resist the temptation of playing a fishso firmly hooked. Urge as Evan might, he could not persuade her to fix a date for their marriage. She would not absolutely deny him, but she was elusive. He became desperate. Something must be done. It was.
One day just as Evan, brooding as he walked, neared the home of his sweetheart to renew his useless pleading, he noticed little Gabriel playing in the yard with a toy balloon the string of which was tied to a button-hole of his jacket and which tugged strenuously away at him. Evan sat down upon the horse-block in front of the house, watching the boy dreamily, and trying to devise a plan to bring Miss Salome to terms, when, all at once, his planning ceased as suddenly as the stopping of a clock. The boy and the balloon had given him an awful inspiration! He returned to town.
That evening Evan Cummings bought a toy balloon, some bird-shot and one of the tiniest of little baskets. In his room at the hotel he attached the string of the balloon to the handle of the basket. Then, as the balloon with its burden rose toward the ceiling, he dropped shot after shot into the little receptacle until the balloon could no longer raise it. Taking the little basket of shot to the drug store, he hadthe basket and shot carefully weighed. He now knew the exact lifting power of a toy balloon—it was just five ounces. He had seen Gabriel weighed and knew that he tipped the scale at forty-two pounds. The calculation was easy; sixteen ounces in a pound; sixteen multiplied by forty-two makes six hundred and seventy-two. Gabriel, therefore, weighed 672 ounces: a single toy balloon would lift not quite five ounces; five goes into six hundred and seventy-two, one hundred and thirty-four times; one hundred and thirty-five toy balloons would lift little Gabriel. The next day Evan went to a harness shop and had a stout leather harness made which would just about fit Gabriel, passing round his small body under the arms and over his shoulders, from each of which two broad straps extended upward and met in a strong iron ring. Then he went out and invested in two hundred and fifty toy balloons—thus adding over an hundred for requirements and contingencies. He bought, also, a stout piece of clothesline, fifty feet long, and a thick cord two hundred feet long, which would, if required, sustain the weight of a man. The next afternoon he attached the balloons to the clothesline, not all in a bunch, but at intervals,that in the event of an accident to one, another would not be affected. At the lower end of the clothesline was a strong steel snap.
At about three o'clock in the afternoon, when he knew Mrs. Johnson was to be absent in town, Evan hired a covered express-wagon, in which he imprisoned his balloons and was driven near the Johnson's place. A block or two away from there, he dismissed the driver and wagon and went on alone, the balloons tugging at him fiercely as he walked. He saw little Gabriel playing in the yard, as usual, and called to him. The youth came running out and shouted in childish glee when he saw the mountain of red balloons.
"Would you like to take a ride, Gabriel?" asked Evan kindly.
"Yep, Yep!" cried Gabriel. "Gimme a ride."
Evan carefully and securely adjusted the harness upon the youngster and then snapped the contrivance at the end of the clothesline into the ring above the boy's head. He tied one end of his two hundred feet of cord firmly to the same ring. Holding on to the cord, he eased up gently and had the satisfaction of seeing Gabriel lifted from his feet.
At the height of thirty feet little Gabrielemitted a sudden bawl such as a four year-old probably never gave before; at fifty feet his screams were something startling and when, at last, he hung dangling two hundred feet above, the string of balloons rising fifty feet higher still, the volume and loudness of his shrieking seemed scarce diminished by the distance. He swung and swayed far away up there a wonderful kicking object, the string of balloons uplifting above him like a pillar of fire, the whole forming a wonderful vision against the sky. Evan calmly tied the end of the cord to the hitching staple in the horse-block, then sat down upon the block and drew out and opened his pocket knife.
The front door of the house suddenly flew open and a hysterical young woman reached Evan's side in the fraction of an instant. She looked upwards and shrieked out:
"Oh! Oh! What are you doing with little Gabriel! He'll be killed! Oh! he'll be killed!"
"No he won't," answered Evan, quietly, "I can pull him down at any time. He'll stay where he is—that is unless I cut this cord," he added reflectively, as he held the blade of his knife against it. "Salome, will you marry meand fix the date for the ceremony now? If you won't promise, I'll cut the cord!"
"Oh, you brute! Oh, you murderer! I'll never— Oh—"
"I tell you he's all right," explained Evan. "Promise when we'll be married, and I'll pull him down."
The girl but shrieked the louder and, sinking down, clung pleadingly to his knees.
"Save him!" she cried. "He'll be killed! Oh, poor little Gabriel!"
"I tell you he won't be killed! Little Gabriel has only gone aloft, to be nearer his namesake. He's almost up to where 'the cherubim and seraphim continually do sing.' Don't you hear him singing himself, already? Will you fix the date or shall I cut the cord?"
The girl was getting calmer, though quivering all over. She only sobbed now; "He'll be killed! He'll be killed! Oh my poor little Gabriel!"
"I tell you he will not," reiterated Evan. "I don't believe he will be killed even when I cut the string. He will alight gently somewhere, as the gas in the balloons gradually exudes, and somebody will take care of him. It may notbe in this county, but he will alight. When will you marry me?"
The young woman did not answer.
"Salome," said Evan, now pleadingly. "You know that you love me and that I love you. Why not stop all this dalliance and coquetting? you know you are going to be my wife. Will you not make it all definite?"
Salome looked up into her lover's eyes, then bowed her head. Finally she looked up again and sobbed out:
"Y-e-s, only pull down little Gabriel."
"When shall the wedding be? Will the twentieth of next month do?"
"Y-e-s."
Evan closed his pocket knife. Then taking hold of the cord he began pulling little Gabriel down. As that youth, still loudly bellowing, reached the ground, Salome caught him up and darted into the house with him. Evan paid slight attention to people who came running to see what the red thing aloft had been. He said only that he had been trying an experiment. Then he gathered up the balloons and carried them into the woodshed, where they rose in a mass to the roof and stayed there. Then he went into the house and had a talk with theindignant Salome. It was an exciting session, but it ended peaceably.
Well, she married him, as she had promised, for honesty was among her virtues. She looks upon her husband as a desperate character and, so, is in love with him, of course.
I'm not surprised at the whole business. It was Evan all over.
THE SWISS FAMILY ROBERTSON
The fact as was learned early in the morning, that there must elapse one more day before relief came, was, it must be feared, absolutely a relief to Colonel Livingstone. When Stafford told him the situation he beamed. He was certainly at his best. He called upon the Man From Nowhere.
The title of The Man From Nowhere had been bestowed upon a quiet and dignified gentleman who but smiled and listened all the time, but had said very little. During the first stress of the imprisonment, he had been one of the most energetic and helpful among those of the passengers who had shown the quality of facing a situation. He had exerted himself to some purpose from the beginning and had assisted in making more or less comfortable those who did not seem capable of taking care of themselves. He had been given the title of "The Man From Nowhere," because he had declared that he really had no home but was a wandererfor pleasure, with no fixed place of abode. He was a man of about sixty years of age, grey-mustached and affable. Now, as he came forward, with an apparent degree of awakened interest in what was going on, he was received with applause. It was the Colonel, as usual, who expressed himself:
"Glad to see you aroused, sir. Are you, too, going to favor us with a story?"
The Man From Nowhere laughed: "It's hardly a story," he said, "but, in listening to the brief discussion as to the degree in which we are appreciated in this world, I was involuntarily reminded of the bitter experience of a young friend or rather of five young friends of mine. They were not appreciated, and took steps accordingly. What they did was merely to segregate themselves. You will readily perceive that by segregating yourself you may avoid all the annoyance of non-appreciation. That the experiment did not, in this instance, result at once in a permanent remedy for all oppressive circumstances was, I think, due, not to any lack of proper conception in the minds of my young friends, but rather to their inexperience in certain matters of detail. In some of its aspects it was a sad affair, but I willrelate the whole thing to you just as it was told me by the principal actor. It is but the simple story of
THE SWISS FAMILY ROBERTSON
When I look back across the years—I am nearly thirteen now—the vision which arises of trying adventure with my sister and three brothers seems like what I have seen somewhere alluded to as the baseless fabric of a dream, or, if not that, at least some freak of the waking imagination. Yet certain it is that the five of us, John, Mary, Francis, Herbert and Elwyn Robertson, aged respectively eleven, nine, eight and six years—Herbert and Elwyn being twins—had such strange experiences in a strange land as can never be forgotten by any of us. Hard indeed to undergo were some of our vicissitudes, and always thankful am I, when the memory of that time returns, that my greater age and possibly greater force of character enabled me to become guide and mentor when certainly a counselor was needed.
Strangely enough, all our adventures were the indirect result of an earnest perusal of a most fascinating volume entitled The Swiss Family Robinson, in which was related the storyof a family named Robinson, cast away upon a lone island in the Pacific Ocean. The family was a remarkable one, and the character of the father I admired especially. Not only was he a man of extended general information, but one who regarded thoughtfully the circumstance that almost any condition may be improved by the diligent, and who was truly grateful for something in every chapter of the book. The mother and children each displayed traits almost as admirable. The island, too, was as remarkable as the family, since, though it was but a small place, the castaways were fortunate enough to discover almost every useful plant, bird and beast known to the torrid, temperate or frigid zones. Taken altogether, the tale was such as to arouse a spirit of something nearly akin to envy in the minds of all of us save the twins, who were, of course, too young to understand. It was no wonder, since our great-great-grandfather on our mother's side was said to have come from Switzerland, that the three oldest of us called ourselves the Swiss Family Robertson and imagined many things. There came a time when the fancy became a grave reality, even to the twins.
It is with no little feeling and hesitation thatI approach any allusion to the causes which led to the practical expatriation of five people—in the prime of youth, it is true, but inexperienced—and their subjection to a manner of existence such as they had never imagined could be real. Even now the matter so affects me that I must be pardoned by the reader for not relating the unpleasant details. Suffice it to say that occasions arose when the views of our parents unhappily failed to coincide with those of Mary, Francis and myself, and that our conduct was held, by those who had the power, to merit corporal punishment, a punishment which, it has always seemed to me, was inflicted with far more vehemence than any possible occasion could demand. Our spirits revolted at what occurred, and the three of us, who, as explained, had just finished reading The Swiss Family Robinson, held inflamed but deliberate counsel together and determined resolutely upon a course which should give us liberty of conscience and of action. I admit frankly that, being of a self-respecting disposition, and it may be to an extent a natural leader, I was foremost in these councils and mapped out the general plan of action. Increasing years have given me more philosophy and takenfrom my impulsiveness, but at that time I did not hesitate. In short, under my inspiration we resolved to seek a more congenial clime, where, if we did not luxuriate in all the so-called advantages of a super-refined civilization, we should at least have the more quiet and assured happiness which obtains where Nature is primeval. Our resolution became fixed. That Herbert and Elwyn, the twins, became of the emigrating party was but an incident, they having discovered our plans for departure and insisting upon accompanying us. Their wish was reluctantly granted lest the clamor they would inevitably raise in the event of a refusal should reveal our plans.
Not only were we determined upon the new life, but we resolved to isolate ourselves so completely from the unpleasant recent past as even to change our names, it being decided that each should select a new one for himself or herself. As for me, having lately read a story of the Norsemen, I selected the name of Wolfgang; Mary chose that of Abyssinia, and Francis, for what reason I cannot imagine, adopted that of Chickum. The naming of Herbert and Elwyn was left to Abyssinia, who, after looking over anewspaper, called one Krag and the other Jörgensen. Then began in earnest our preparations for departure.
It was, of course, necessary, as I endeavored to impress upon my fellows—if Abyssinia may be included in such a term—to observe the utmost secrecy and discretion in all our movements. This injunction was observed faithfully by all save Krag and Jörgensen, whose course was frequently such as might, I feared, attract the attention of our parents. Fortunately they appeared all unknowing of our designs.
The first thing to be accomplished was the getting together and bestowal in a safe place of such stores as we could carry away and as would be most serviceable to us in an uninhabited and possibly barren region. In this difficult task Abyssinia, Chickum and I shared about equally. The place of concealment finally decided upon was a small shed which had formerly been a henhouse, and which stood against a board fence on the eastern side of the kitchen garden. Here, beneath a heap of straw, we concealed our accumulations. I pondered deeply over what the nature of our stores shouldbe, and I trust I may say, with a pride not altogether unbecoming, that my selections were justified by the result. Slowly but surely the material accumulated until there came a time when we felt that we were fairly equipped for our departure. It was just after the beginning of July, and the weather was sultry, but, with an eye for the future, Abyssinia secured from the extra household supplies four quilts, five large sheets and six jars of raspberry and strawberry jam. She contributed also a bag of salt, pepper, some old knives and forks, half a dozen tin plates and as many tin cups, a breadpan, a frying-pan with a broken handle, and two tin pails. I added a light but excellent ax, several boxes of matches, a great ball of stout cord, an enormous slab of dried beef, two boxes of crackers, a box of candles, some large potatoes, an old carving-knife, some fishhooks, a steel trap, and at least half a barrel of flour in bags not too large to be carried by Chickum or me. Chickum brought two jars of butter, another ax, and his bow and arrow. Of course we had our pocket-knives, and Abyssinia had needles and strong thread. The hour came when we only awaited an auspicious occasion for departure.
It had become apparent that not a third ofour stores could be removed in a single journey, and, after considering the matter most thoughtfully, I resolved that the only wise course was to determine upon the site for our new home, complete it, and to it carry our goods from time to time. Upon Chickum and me must necessarily fall the burden of this initial labor, and we set about it at once. Our homestead sloped from the roadway to the north and was bounded in that direction by a grassy expanse through which flowed a small creek, crossed by a plank. The creek separated this green area from a wild and comparatively deserted region known as the Wooded Pasture. Some hundreds of yards distant from the creek rose an extremely wide and dense growth of willows, and in the midst of this miniature forest, as we had at one time discovered, was a small open space, dry and bare of growth. Here, after new exploration in company with Chickum, I decided should be established our tranquil home. The site was not discernible from the home of our parents, nor indeed from any part of the place we were leaving except from an elevated point in a meadow to the west, and even from this station the view was indistinct.
We bided our time impatiently now; butwe did not have long to wait. A day came when our parents were away upon a visit, the hired girl was occupied in-doors, and the hired man busy in the cornfield where the dense growth of the valued cereal prevented him from seeing us or being seen. Quietly Chickum and I departed, burdened with the quilts, sheets, our axes, and the ball of twine. Our journey to the willows was uneventful and our labors there were unmolested.
The plan of our shelter had already been designed by me, and we lost no time in trivial debating over details, Chickum submitting without question to each suggestion of the stronger mind. Under my direction we cut down eight small willows as straight as we could find, and cut from each a length of nearly six feet, four of which we sharpened at one end. These, one of us standing upon a dead uprooted stump which we rolled about, we drove into the earth at distances of six feet apart, the stakes, rising some five feet, forming the four corners of a square. The remaining four poles we tied firmly so that they extended from the top of one stake to another, and upon the frame so constructed we stretched one of the sheets, cutting holesclose to the hems and through them tying the sheet to the cross-pieces. Our dwelling was now roofed. The four remaining sheets, similarly tied, made the four sides of the structure, one being left partly unattached so that it might be lifted, thus serving for a door. Upon the grassy floor of the house one of the quilts was spread, and there was our Tented Home! Chickum was wild with delight and capered about hilariously, but I reminded him that the time for an exhibition of such exuberance of spirit had not arrived. Much yet remained to be accomplished. Days passed before all our stores were, with exercise of the greatest caution, safely bestowed within the tent.
It was six o'clock one pleasant evening, when we had just finished dinner, that our parents again absented themselves to make a call upon a neighbor. Our time had come. Quietly all of us, including Abyssinia and the twins, slipped down through the kitchen garden, across the creek, across a part of the Wooded Pasture and into the Willow Grove. There was what I may call a certain tremulousness, but no faltering. We reached our place of refuge. "Welcome to this sylvan grove!" shouted Chickum—quoting, I firmly believe, something he hadread in a story, for Chickum's ordinary mode of expression was not such as I could in many respects desire—and all entered the tent and made themselves at home. Here were peace and happiness at last! We chatted and planned until darkness fell, and then, digging a hole with my knife into a potato, I inserted one of the candles we had brought and found the place illuminated finely. But we did not remain long awake. It had been a season of labor and excitement, and a sense of drowsiness soon overcame us all.
It was nearly midnight when I was aroused by an exclamation from Abyssinia and the sobbing of the twins. "What is it?" whispered Abyssinia, and as she spoke there came a strange, gulping cry from a marshy strip beside the creek, and then, nearer us, one more musical but quite as mournful. The creatures of the night were calling. From my wider experience I recognized their harmlessness; I knew the voices of the bullfrog and the whippoorwill, but with the others it was different. Though my rest had been disturbed, I could not but explain all graciously, and soon the three were sleeping again, though fitfully. As for Chickum, he hadnot awakened. When we awoke, morning had come and the birds were chirping all about us. We ate heartily of jam and crackers, and felt the blood coursing in our respective veins as it had never done before. How glorious the sense of freedom!
How unstable, too, are sometimes the happiest of conditions! Little did I imagine that bright morning as I noted idly the performance of a red-hooded woodpecker,Melanerpes erythrocephalus, who was eating a long white grub in sections, little, I reiterate, did I imagine that before nightfall all our hopeful plans would be disarranged, and that, like some weakling tribe compelled ever to flee before an encroaching power, we must decide, in self-protection, to risk all the dangers of a wilder home.
It was noon when, looking to the southwest, I perceived far in the distance our hired man working about a stump on the elevated spot in the meadow from which could be obtained the only glimpse of our white home amid the greenery. I have not, I hope, one of those minds ever open to suspicion, but I may say that it is one somewhat more than ordinarily keen in the formation of deductions. Why was the hired man there, chopping about a hugestump which he could not possibly remove unaided? Were we discovered? Could the man have been placed there to exercise a distant surveillance over us? The idea grew upon me, and an apprehension I could scarce explain—an apprehension shared by Abyssinia and Chickum, with whom I at once consulted. Under the circumstances, with me to think was but to act. "Come," I said to Chickum, "there is but one course to pursue. We must face the issue as courageously as we can. Abyssinia and the twins will remain here while you and I must venture farther in search of a place where, no matter what may surround us, our isolation will be complete." To this even the sometimes thoughtless Chickum assented promptly. "I am ready, brother," was his answer. "Let us start at once."
Little preparation was required. We provided ourselves with crackers and dried beef and set forth immediately, I carrying one of the axes and Chickum arming himself with the carving knife.
The country for quite a distance, as we found, was partly bare, though there were occasional small oaks and tangles of hazel and blackberry bushes. As we advanced, though, the treesbecame taller and grew more closely together, and finally, as we ascended a gradually sloping ridge, we found ourselves in what must have been almost the forest primeval. We knew not what we should discover. The shadows were deep, and the wind made a constant sighing overhead. Descending the ridge upon the other side, and pursuing our course far to the northwest, we emerged at last upon a small open glade through which tumbled a noisy creek and near the centre of which grew a few small elms, four of them, as I noted, forming the angles of a square. We advanced and looked about us. From the glade there was an opening in but one direction, to the northeast, through which could be seen far away part of a hillside field. My heart beat fast. I recognized the advantages of the site at a single glance. "Here," I said, "shall be our home!"
Chickum assented gladly and we took up our long homeward march, reaching the tent in time for the evening meal. We were informed by Abyssinia that the day had been uneventful save that Krag had stooped too closely in examination of a bumblebee upon a clover blossom. One of his eyes was closed, but he appeared in his usual spirits. I have ever admired thewonderful recuperative powers of youth. Abyssinia told us, also, that the twins had devoured one entire pot of our limited supply of jam.
For two days Chickum and I labored in the distant forest upon the erection of our new and more substantial home. Sheets would no longer suffice for roof and walls. We cut strong cross-poles and tied them from tree to tree, and, finding great heaps of hemlock bark cut for the tanneries in a small abandoned clearing some distance from our glade, we brought all that we required of the great slabs and, leaning them against our cross-poles, made sides to the dwelling which promised to be wind and rain proof. The roof was constructed of the same material. We now had a home solid and roomy and offering pleasant contrast to the frail tent amid the willows. Laboriously our stores were carried in repeated journeys over the long route, and three days later all of our little company were contentedly at home in Hemlock Castle, a name suggested by Abyssinia, who declared that, like the people on the Pacific island, we should certainly have names for the objects and localities about us. The open space in the forest was christened Haven Glade, the creekreceived the title of Skelter Walter, and the deep, wooded land about us was known as Darkland.
We were now most happily established. Our only possible anxiety, and that as yet a light one, related to our food supply, which was gradually diminishing. But we had plenty of flour, and Abyssinia now began making bread.
Thoughtful and far-seeing as I had proved myself in the earlier preparations for our flight, I had forgotten one thing. I shall never cease to reproach myself with not having requested Abyssinia, while we were still under the dominion of our parents, to ingratiate herself with the hired girl and acquire at least some rudimentary idea of the art of breadmaking. As it now appeared, she was, though hopeful, absolutely unacquainted with the manner of preparation of this so generally popular article of food. We elders held a council on the subject and each expressed an idea. Abyssinia thought that to merely mix some of the flour with water and then put the dough in the frying-pan was all that was required for bread. Chickum asserted that he had seen the hired girl mix a little salt in the dough. I, personally, was confident that butter was added. It was resolved to experimenton a small scale, and Abyssinia took up her household duties, I must admit, with bravery.
Some of the flour was mixed with water and salt and a little butter and put into the hot frying-pan. It soon browned upon one side and was then turned over with some difficulty because of its extraordinary adhesiveness. When finally extracted it resembled nothing I had ever seen before, but was certainly baked. It was buttered and we all ate. The food was tenacious in quality and its flavor proved exceedingly novel to us. Chickum, later, complained of pain. But we had no other bread, and after I had reasoned calmly with all upon the merit of resignation, we accepted the situation daily. What a wonderful organ is the human stomach!
I am not exaggerating when I relate that the days now passed with blitheness. To our food was added an almost unlimited supply of wild gooseberries and blackberries, and the mandrake apples were ripening. There were deep pools in Skelter Water, and there, with the hooks my foresight had provided, we caught many of the fish known as the common bull-head, which we wrapped in clay and cast into the open fire. When the clay appeared wellhardened, we drew it from the fire, cracked it open, and therein found the fish, cooked to a turn, and even a delicacy when eaten with butter and pepper and salt. How inevitably does intelligence, when in stress, arise to the demands of circumstance!
One day Abyssinia came running in, jubilantly crying: "Bees! Bees! I've found a hive of wild bees! Let us tame them, as the people did on the island, and so have all the honey we can eat!"
This assuredly was glorious news, and we all accompanied Abyssinia to the scene of her discovery. There were the bees and their home. Suspended from the swaying end of a beech bough, hanging so low that it was only four or five feet from the ground, appeared a great oval object which looked as made of grayish paper. There were orifices in the bottom about which the insects were humming in great numbers. They seemed somewhat longer than domesticated bees, and had yellowish rings around their bodies, the difference in appearance from the ordinary honey-gatherer being, I assumed, due to their environment and different mode of life. I at once resolved to secure the hive and bring it to Haven Glade, where it wouldafford a most desirable addition to our daily fare. I determined that the only way to accomplish this was to come at night when the bees were at rest, cut off the limb above the hive, and so carry it to our home. This was easily accomplished. The end of the limb where it had been cut away was inserted in a hole made through the bark of our rear wall, and there, on the outside, hung the hive for the honey-making.
Some days passed and the bees appeared to be working industriously, no one going very near the suspended hive lest they be disturbed. It chanced, however, that we had one morning an exceedingly early breakfast, and Chickum, who always had a taste for sweets, suggested that, as the bees were not yet astir, he go out, cut a hole in the side of the hive and secure a lump of comb for our delectation. Impelled by curiosity, I followed, observing Chickum's operations from a distance. Chickum, using a pocket knife, cut around a piece about six inches square from the side of the queer hive, then removed to look within for the honey. Never shall I forget what then occurred immediately. How remarkable are some of the traits of the insect world! From the openingthat Chickum had made there burst, fairly in his face, a whirling, venomously buzzing cloud of the great bees. He leaped backward and fled along the creek. Very fleet of foot has Chickum always been, and I have never felt it humiliating to be defeated by him in our friendly races, but never before had I seen accomplished, even by him, such an amazing burst of speed. His career, so far as I may infer from pictures I have seen, resembled that of the antelope of the arid wastes, but the bees kept pace with him. With each leap Chickum gave vent to the remarkable cry of "Hep! Hep!" At first I thought him shouting instinctively for help, but it was not that; it was, I have since concluded, but a spasmodic exclamation, the result of his alarm and pain and of his violent physical exertion. I followed, first calling to Abyssinia to bring the twins from the house, for I knew the flight must be a brief one. Suddenly, Chickum, in his desperation, plunged into one of the pools of the creek and sank down until only his nose was visible. That organ, as I could see, received at once most violent attention from the hovering pursuers, but by splashing water Chickum finally drove the bees away and they returned scatteringlyto their desecrated home. When Chickum emerged from the creek his appearance was such that had I not been witness to the transformation I could scarcely have identified him. Each eye was closed so that, as he walked, he was compelled to hold the lids of one apart with thumb and finger, and his nose, but for its hue, resembled some monster puff-ball of the fields.
That day our forest home was temporarily abandoned, and when night came I removed the hive with the utmost care a long distance into the forest. Days later I found it abandoned and, examining it, found breeding cells, but not a trace of honey. I recognized at once and, as is always my way, admitted to myself that I had erred. The hive was not that of the wild honey bee,Apis mellifica, but of the aggressive tree wasp,Vespidæ. I could not understand why I had been so mistaken. I had been most carefully instructed in natural history, and Miss Clitherose, my teacher for several terms, had been kind enough to speak of my remarkable aptitude in that direction. I had acquired not only the common but many of the Latin names of the soulless creatures, and, indeed, rather preferred the Latin. I well remember the daywhen I puzzled even Miss Clitherose, who prided herself somewhat on her acquirements. I asked her to give me the old Latin names for turkey and potato and she failed in the attempt. Little did she comprehend how I had reasoned that as there had been no turkeys nor potatoes in the Old World there could have been no Latin names for them. But I digress.