Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep,From which none ever wake to weep—A calm and undisturbed repose,Unbroken by the last of foes.Asleep in Jesus! Oh, how sweetTo be for such a slumber meet!With holy confidence to singThat death has lost its venom sting.
Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep,From which none ever wake to weep—A calm and undisturbed repose,Unbroken by the last of foes.Asleep in Jesus! Oh, how sweetTo be for such a slumber meet!With holy confidence to singThat death has lost its venom sting.
Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep,
From which none ever wake to weep—
A calm and undisturbed repose,
Unbroken by the last of foes.
Asleep in Jesus! Oh, how sweet
To be for such a slumber meet!
With holy confidence to sing
That death has lost its venom sting.
Both words and tune were unfamiliar to him. Was it the song itself, sung to the sweetly pathetic tune of "Rest," was it the strangely beautiful and solemnvoice of the singer, or was it common curiosity to see the owner of the unusual voice that proved the attraction prompting him to step into the vestibule? Unseen he watched as the song went on:
Asleep in Jesus! peaceful rest,Whose waking is supremely blest.No fear nor foe shall dim the hourThat manifests the Savior's power.Asleep in Jesus! Oh, for meMay such a blissful refuge be!Securely shall my ashes lieAnd wait the summons from the sky.
Asleep in Jesus! peaceful rest,Whose waking is supremely blest.No fear nor foe shall dim the hourThat manifests the Savior's power.Asleep in Jesus! Oh, for meMay such a blissful refuge be!Securely shall my ashes lieAnd wait the summons from the sky.
Asleep in Jesus! peaceful rest,
Whose waking is supremely blest.
No fear nor foe shall dim the hour
That manifests the Savior's power.
Asleep in Jesus! Oh, for me
May such a blissful refuge be!
Securely shall my ashes lie
And wait the summons from the sky.
The sweet voice of the singer died away, and the stillness was broken only by low sobbing. Then the minister arose.
Gilbert Allison had seen enough. The plain, dark coffin just before the altar railing told him that another human soul had left its earthly body and had gone beyond.
He was not interested in this. His mind dwelt on the singer. She was rather small, a well-formed and graceful appearing young woman of perhaps twenty-two or twenty-four. She wore a plain dark dress, and a round hat rested on the masses of red-brown hair that framed her face and crowned her shapely head. Here and there in the mass a carved silver hair-pin showed itself, and Gilbert Allison found himself studying the effect as he walked down the street; found himself puzzled as to why he had stopped and noticed her hair or her. Evidently she had made animpression on him. He tried, in a way, to analyze this, and finally gave it up, yet found himself continually recalling the face in its frame of red-brown hair.
He had known many charming women in his three and thirty years of life, but he had never felt before the indescribable charm that had suddenly, like the fragrance of a hidden violet, come to him for the unknown singer in the dingy chapel. Gilbert Allison had guarded well his heart's affections, but there comes a time in the lives of most men when the heart refuses to be subject to the will and obstinately goes whither it pleases. This man's heart was about to assert its rights. The daughter of a Republican was to have a lover, for it was Miss Thorn who sang.
That Miss Thorn should sing had been the wish of the now lifeless sleeper, and Jean had done her best.
All that was mortal of Maggie Crowley rested in the plain, dark coffin. A life fraught with sorrow and tears and an innocent shame was ended; a body racked with hunger and pain and cold was at rest. From the time of her awful hurt, now a year ago, Maggie had been an invalid. The children had gone out to work, and the frail mother had tried to cheer them as she toiled in the valley of despair. A new sorrow had come into the wretched home: Cora, yet a child in years, because she had a fair face and a drunkard for a father, had been robbed of her one priceless possession—her unspotted character—by a man whose name was familiar in high circles, andwhose hand was courted by more than one mother for some cherished daughter.
From the time that her sister had bartered away her purity, in the bitter, thankless battle that she fought for bread, Maggie had steadily grown weaker, and when the mother knew the time was near at hand for her to go she sent for Miss Thorn.
Jean had never been beside a death-bed, but she did not hesitate.
Maggie was lying, white and thin, upon the pillow. She looked eagerly toward the door. Her eyes lit with a lingering light, and a faint smile came around the corners of her drawn mouth when she saw that it was Jean. She spoke slowly and softly, without much effort, and quite distinctly.
"I'm going pretty soon, Miss Thorn, and I wanted to see you. You've been so good to us—God will bless you for it. When I am gone, don't forget poor mother. Please don't, Miss Thorn! She will be sad. I'm the only one that remembered the other days, and we used sometimes to talk of them and pray that they might come back. Maybe God will send them back some day—but I will not be here. I'm not afraid to die. Christ died for the drunkard's child—I'm sure he did. I'm so glad to go. In my Father's house are many mansions—many mansions—one for us."
She closed her eyes as she repeated the words softly.
"When I am gone, do not feel sad, mother—not too sad," she continued in a moment. "Think thatI have only gone to sleep to wake up where there is no more sorrow. I'll be waiting in our mansion, mother, and there we will be happy, for the Book says he will not be there who puts the bottle to his neighbor's lips."
She stopped to rest. The room was very quiet.
"When my father comes," a look of intense longing came into her sunken eyes, and for a moment she struggled to force back the great sob of sorrow that seemed choking her, "tell him 'goodby' for Maggie. Perhaps he will be sorry—not like he once would have been—just a little. Don't let the children forget me. Dear children! How I wish I could take them all to the mansion. And Cora, poor Cora——"
The last tears that ever shone in Maggie's eyes filled them now.
"God knows about Cora," said Jean, tenderly, while the mother wept in silence.
The dying girl lay quite exhausted, and, while she rested, her eyes wandered from one to the other of the few around the bed and rested lovingly on her mother's face. Her minutes were numbered. Mortality was ebbing away. When she spoke again it was with more of an effort, pausing now and then for breath.
"Stoop over, mother; let me put—my arms around—your dear, kind neck. Put your face down—so I can put my cheek—against yours—as I did when we were happy. I'm going back—to it. I smell the roses. I hear the pigeons—on the roof. Lift me—mother—gently. I am—tired. Sing—my—good night—song—I'll—go—to—sleep."
Mrs. Crowley drew the dying girl's head close to her heart and tried to sing; but her voice failed. Then, in the presence of the death angel, Jean sang for the girl's long sleeping.
Suddenly a clear, happy, childish voice rang out on the stillness—"Papa's coming!"
It was the last. The arms around the mother's neck unclasped. The weary head sank upon the pillow. The eyelids fluttered. The breaths came shorter and shorter—the weary girl had entered into rest.
The soul of the drunkard's daughter had gone where justice reigns supreme; where a God of justice watches the kingdoms of the earth and in mercy stays the doom that comes a certain penalty of the nation that sells its maids and youths to the rum fiend.
Mrs. Crowley stood looking down on the wan face of her first-born.
"Thank God she is happy! But it's hard—so hard!"
A mother's love is the same the world around. This mother threw herself down by the bedside, and, holding one of the lifeless hands to her lips, sobbed bitterly.
It seemed a desecration that just now the father should come stumbling into the scene, filling the room with the fumes of liquor and muttering drunkencurses. But Maggie was beyond the reach of human harm. This would never pain her heart again.
Neighbors came in, and Jean stepped out into the fresh air.
It was nearly noontime. The streets were busy, and as she went towards home she saw the beer wagons driving in every direction, loaded with their freight of sorrow and pain and death. As she passed the palaces of gilded doom, arrayed in cut glass and mirrors, luring the souls of men and boys to hell, she thought of the Christian voters of the nation who allow it to be so because, bound by party ties and fooled by party leaders, they will not force this mighty issue to the front and demand its recognition at the ballot-box; and these words rang in her ears: "Because I have called and ye have refused, ye have set at naught all my counsel. I also will laugh at your calamity when your destruction cometh as a whirlwind."
The words burned in her mind, and when she reached home she entered the library and without removing hat or gloves threw herself upon a sofa.
It was not quite time for luncheon. The house was quiet.
Vivian had, during the year, married the rector of a large and fashionable city church. For weeks before the eventful occasion life had been one round of shopping and fitting, of entertaining and rehearsing. Jean, as maid of honor, had figured conspicuously in the different functions, and for a time her mind was so absorbed with the fragrance and sunshine of lifethat its seamy side was forgotten. But after it was all over her thoughts and sympathies went out again to that family of the "other half" that she had so strangely become interested in, and the old question pressed itself for solution, why, in a Christian land of plenty, such a state of life for such vast numbers was allowable or even possible.
With the sound of the dying girl's voice in her ears and the sight of a nation's legalized poison yet before her vision she rested, and so engrossed was she with her thoughts that she did not notice the entrance of her father.
"A penny for your thoughts, my dear."
Jean looked up suddenly. Then she caught her father's hand and drew him to her side.
"I have seen a death to-day, father—a death, a drunkard, loads of beer and whisky."
"Crowley dead at last?"
"Maggie."
"Poor girl. No doubt she is better off."
"Yes, better off," repeated Jean. "But, father, I have been thinking of the whirlwind. You know the Book that has voiced unerringly the stage play of the ages says destruction is coming as a whirlwind—as a whirlwind. Can you not catch its roaring under the bluster of silver and tariff and war? Do you never hear the mutterings of its power? Are there not signs of the coming whirlwind—signs unmistakable—roastings in the South and lynchings in the North, bloody strikes from east to west, deep-seated unrest among the nation's laboring masses, and the steadily increasing cry of a multitude of suffering and helpless people writhing under the heel of the great iniquity? Couple the signs of the times, father, with an indisputable knowledge of corruption in politics, the inefficacy of the law because of the absolute power of rum and 'boodle' and the utter absence of any fixed moral principle in the dealings of the great majority of the old party leaders, and have we not an 'issue' that imperatively demands the attention of every loyal American?
"The more I think, the less I blame the laboring element for their dissatisfaction, bordering on madness at times. I feel that they have just cause to be alarmed. Am I a pessimist, father, or is there a cancer eating out the nation's life?"
The young woman stood in the center of the room, erect and with arm extended. The lawyer was looking at her with a gleam of fatherly admiration; but as she closed the outburst with her question he grew grave and stroked his beard. The facts were not unfamiliar to him.
"I do wish," he said thoughtfully, "that the laboring element would see that it is to their interests to stand by that party that promises them the most in the way of reform, instead of making so much fuss and striking and splitting into small parties that canhope to effect nothing and might cripple their best friend and put the country hopelessly in the hands of the political enemies of progress and reform."
Jean laughed.
"You look now for all the world, father, like a child whom I saw a few days ago. I came upon her holding a doll's body, with a stump of neck where the head had once been. She looked down at it tenderly and smiled a dear little motherly smile. 'What do you see, child?' I asked. 'My dolly's beautiful face,' she said. 'Where is it?' said I. 'It's gone,' she answered, proudly, but with the fond look still in her eyes. You view the reform element in your party in about the same light."
"When did you turn champion of the labor party?" said the judge, a trifle impatiently.
"I have done no turning. There is but one party standing for the real good of the people. What is the use of organizing a party to exterminate trusts and then being afraid to measure arms politically with the greatest trust on earth? The laboring element will seek their best interests sooner or later."
"Your party has added a few labor planks to catch votes."
"I beg your pardon, father. Almost from the beginning, some thirty years ago, this party stood as it does now. The trouble with you is, if I may be allowed to say it, you know nothing of the party I have discovered. Let me read you its platform."
And from a small, green book Jean began her reading, while Judge Thorn listened attentively. But before she had finished James appeared with the evening paper, and almost unconsciously he opened it. As he cast his eyes on the page a smile overspread his face, and the words of the reading were lost. Jean finished presently, and frowned a little, when she saw her father so deeply engrossed in his paper. Presently he looked up, the broad smile still upon his face.
"Jean, my girl, listen!" and he read an account of the dramatic passage of the anti-canteen law by Congress.
Judge Thorn had been deeply interested in the canteen question. He had known a boy, the son of a professional friend, who had been most carefully and prayerfully reared at home in fear of the inheritance of an appetite for liquor, but who had gone at his country's call to uphold her honor, and had become a drunkard through the regimental canteen. He himself had seen the fifty law-breaking canteens in Camp Thomas at Chickamauga, with their daily sales amounting to hundreds of dollars. He had seen something of the same evil at the little army post near their own city; and a young man who had been his confidential clerk before the war, and who was now with one of the volunteer regiments at Manila, had written to him of the canteen: "It has been the curse of this army, and has caused more deaths than the Mauser bullets. It is a recognized fact thatin regiments where canteens are established drinking is not restrained, rather encouraged, and numerous sprees are started that are finished in the saloons just outside. Six cases of delirium tremens have resulted from the establishment of the regimental groggery. Our army is in danger a thousand times greater than any foreign foe may ever bring against us. When will the government take action?"
The lawyer's clear mind had seen where the responsibility for the whole system lay, and, sorely tried by the President's inaction, partly to lift from his party the odium of the canteen disgrace and partly as a matter of real heart choice, he had worked with more than his usual vigor to help bring to bear a pressure in Washington great enough to abolish the army saloon.
"Cheer, Jean!" he said. "Cheer for the party in power. The bill has passed."
"Was it your party or public sentiment in spite of your party that brought about the passage of the bill?" asked Jean.
"Sentiment, my dear girl," said the judge, dogmatically, "without machinery back of it, is good for nothing."
"Exactly. If you remember, father, that has been the burden of my plea for a new party. Answer me a question, and I will cheer so that I may be heard a block. You tell me that the position of this party you ask me to cheer for is high license; nowhere is a list of ninety-five of the principal cities of the country, forty-six high license and forty-nine low license. The total arrests for drunkenness in the high license cities was 288,907, as against 208,537 in the low license cities. What I want to know is this: How is this sort of a temperance measure going to 'promote temperance and morality'? Public control, local option, mulct tax and other measures you devise figure up about the same way. Take these statistics and in the light of them solve the puzzle for me."
"Statistics are hard to dwell in unity with. Take them to a preacher. This is a matter for them to deal with," laughed the judge.
"Why do they not deal with them, then? Seven million church member voters in this country! Why do not they focus their religion and do something? I divine a reason. While they live all the rest of the year with prayers and resolutions, they go out on a moral debauch on election day with a disreputable individual known as Party."
The judge stroked his beard and smiled. Then he turned again to his paper. "No need," he said, complacently, "for a better party than what we have. Listen!" and again he read the measure that had so pleased him. "Is it not splendid, and so plainly worded that a wayfaring man, though a fool or a third-rate lawyer, cannot mistake the meaning of it. Now watch the machinery work. We shall have 'father's boy' back cheering for the grand old partyyet," and the judge placed his hand fondly on Jean's shoulder.
"I'll keep my eye on the 'machine,'" answered Jean, playfully, "but I am woefully afraid it is punctured, though I wouldn't mention it for anything."
Vote for Whisky, Boys!
It was the municipal election day. Judge Thorn was alone in his office. He sat at his desk, which was piled with papers which he was busy sorting. The door opened and Miss Thorn entered. The judge looked over his shoulder. "You are a bit late," he said.
Jean looked at her watch.
"A trifle," she answered, "but I have always wanted to know what sort of people run our government, and I have been out satisfying my curiosity. I have been to the polls."
"To the polls," echoed the judge, sharply, whirling around from his desk with a sudden movement that scattered his papers over the floor.
"That is what I said, father. I have been to the polls; and worse, I took an active part in the proceedings by offering the voters 'no license' tickets."
"Jean, I must say you have overstepped the bounds of all propriety. You are a young lady who has been allowed a good many privileges, but this is carrying things a little too far," said the judge, almost hotly.
"You were there this morning, I believe, father," Jean answered, coolly.
"I believe I was, but that is no reason you should go. It is no fit place for a decent woman."
"I will admit that, father, and I will go a little further and say it is no fit place for a decent man either."
"Men have grown used to such sights and sounds as are seen and heard around a polling place."
"I suppose so. But if decent men can grow used to such things and escape contamination, I think decent women can do the same; and if decent men cannot I suppose you would advise them to stay away from the polls."
"No; no, indeed. The bad element largely predominates now, and it is the duty of every good citizen to stand by his colors at the ballot box. But we will not discuss the matter further. The fact remains the same. Of course you are of age and can go where you choose, yet I am nevertheless displeased."
"I am sorry that you are displeased, father, and if my doing so will afford you any satisfaction, I will promise you that I will not be caught in such a howling mob again until I can go as an equal of some of the specimens I have seen today."
Jean removed her hat and jabbed the hat pin into it with some asperity.
"I have been grossly insulted," she said.
"Just what I have expected to hear," said herfather, "and what can be done when you put yourself in the way of it?"
"I have not the remotest idea how I put myself in the way of it, but you will probably be able to explain to me. Our venerable Uncle Sam is the offending party, and the offense is something like the indignity you would offer me if you gave Vivian all the privileges and love that you should share with me, because she happened to be born with black hair, and then should try to keep me in a state of blissful delusion by telling me I had the sweeter disposition. There would be about as much sense and justice in such a procedure, coming from you, as there is in the way Uncle Sam treats women.
"Here I am, a woman of good moral character, fairly intelligent, I hope, with a good education, denied my right to the ballot because, forsooth, I chanced to be born a woman and am considered too good. To-day's visit to the polls has reminded me of this insult, tendered by our government to its loyal women.
"By the time I got within two blocks of the polling place, I could hear the general commotion. When I arrived on the scene of action, I found a number of women, of good standing in the community, trying to get men to vote against license. Truly a humiliating business! But as they pressed me, I took a few of the ballots and started into the crowd, while a friendly looking policeman followed me.
"I had hardly made a start when some one crossed my path yelling wildly, 'Vote for whisky, boys! Votefor whisky, boys!' He was that half-witted, pumpkin-colored individual that you discharged last winter because he did not know enough to keep the horses' feet clean. Armed with his license ballot, he halted a second before me; then, fluttering the ballot, which he held between his fingers under my nose, he shouted again and again, 'Vote for whisky, boys!"
"He gave me a look that told me plainer than a volume of words could have done that he recognized his importance. He knew that he stood head and shoulders above me in Uncle Sam's estimation, in spite of my learning and morality, because on him had been bestowed a gift denied me.
"I do not like it. I want the right of citizenship. I want to stand on an equality with folks at least that do not know enough to clean a horse's feet."
"It sounds very foolish, Jean," said her father, "for one of your birth and breeding to be talking thus of an equality with such a character as this."
"It does sound foolish, wonderfully foolish," admitted Jean. "You and I know, father, that I am his superior, but when it comes to a question of the social welfare, that is a very different thing. He well understands that he is a privileged character there. He is a unit of society's make-up, and where do I come in? Along with the Chinese, the ex-convict and the insane! I do not relish any such sort of company. God made woman capable of self-government, and expected it of her. Why should she not be on a suffrage equality with man?"
"Why do you want to vote, Jean?" asked the judge, as he would begin with a witness.
"Why do you want to vote, father?" sharply replied the girl.
"Why, my vote is my individuality in the body politic. I could not do without my vote," said the judge, with a slight hesitation.
"Do you not suppose I want some individuality, too?" came the prompt retort.
The judge laughed.
"I have every reason to believe you do," he said.
"Do you not suppose that I would not like to help make the laws that govern me?" asked Jean, taking upon her the role of inquisitor.
"Men can make enough laws for both sexes, I guess," was the reply, uttered in a tone that carried a suspicion of dismissal.
"I guess they can," persisted Jean; "but what sort of laws have they been? Heathenish, some of them!"
"For instance?"
"Laws that have been on our statute books allowing fathers to will away their unborn children; laws allowing the father to appoint guardians of whatever kind or creed over his children, leaving the mother powerless. And what shall we say about the abominable laws made by men everyone of them, that legalize the sale of drink?"
"Well, a woman is a woman, Jean, and the polls is not a fit place for a woman," and the judge set his lips very firmly.
"That is the assertion you made at the outset, father. It is no argument, and much as I respect you, I can hardly accept it as final. You know, father, that if polling places are not fit for decent women, neither are they fit for decent men, and the sooner decent people get around and clean them up, the better it will be for the country. Come, now, if you have a sound, logical reason why women should not vote, bring it on."
"Well," said the judge, "even admitting that the advent of women in politics might have a cleansing effect, women do not want the ballot."
"What women?" demanded Jean.
"The majority of women."
"How do you know they do not?"
"It is to be supposed that if they were clamoring to any great extent for it we would hear of it through the papers."
"What papers? Papers that oppose it to the bitter end? I can show you papers by the dozen and the score that would enlighten you along this line. Women do not ask, but rather they demand, the ballot. But this is begging the question. If it is right for women to have the ballot, it is right, and if it is wrong, it is wrong—that is all there is to it. Now, father, tell me the reasons."
"Why, Jean, have not I given you reasons and have you not overruled them, every one?" was the almost testy answer. "A woman is a woman, and God never intended her to vote."
Jean laughed merrily.
"What are you laughing at?" demanded her father.
"Why, at you; you are back just where you started. Women must not vote because they are women. If you have nothing better to offer there is no use of going over the grounds again. This makes me think of the time I studied circulating decimals."
The judge joined in Jean's laugh, and turned again to his papers, as if glad of a diversion.
After Judge Thorn had picked up and rearranged his papers he looked toward Jean, who had suddenly grown quiet. In her face he saw something that was new to him and that in some way sent a little jealous pang to his heart. Her face was a dream study. A soft, far-away expression rested over it, and her father knew that she was somewhere, away from her surroundings, but he did not interrupt her. Presently she spoke:
"I saw a man to-day."
"I supposed that you had seen several."
"Well, of course," the girl admitted, "but I rarely notice men, and that I remember this one so distinctly and think of him surprises me. He was tall and broad shouldered and dressed in a navy blue business suit, and I think probably he was the handsomest man I have ever seen, though I cannot tell why I think so. His hair and eyes were brown, his hair almost black, it was so dark, and a trifle curly. His eyes were clear and honest looking, with a touch of fun in them andsomething else that I have not been able to define, but that I liked. He wore a mustache, but it only partially concealed his mouth. I think perhaps it was his mouth that I liked best. It was a firm mouth, maybe a hard one, but I admire a firm man."
Judge Thorn laughed.
"You must have examined him pretty closely."
"No, father, I saw him at a glance some way. Perhaps he impressed me as he did because I was so disappointed in him. I saw him standing at a short distance from the animated crowd around the polls, looking on with an air of mingled amusement and disgust. I made up my mind that he was the very individual who would take one of my 'no-license' votes, so I asked him.
"He took off his hat and looked down at me, for he is tall, a look made of a little astonishment, a bit of fun and, I imagined, some pity, and said: 'I am really very sorry that I cannot do as you wish, but I cannot consistently vote against license, being myself engaged in the liquor business.'
"Of course I said no more, but I was never so surprised in my life, and to tell the truth, I was disappointed."
Judge Thorn looked relieved.
"I believe I know now why I remembered him so well," continued Jean. "He was the only liquor dealer among those I spoke to to-day, and ignorantly I accosted many, who refused my ticket in a gentlemanly manner. Yes, I have now seen a gentlemanlyliquor dealer. I wonder if I will ever see him again. But see! Here are the horses, father. Come, let us go," she said, taking his arm.
"Poor father! I am sorry for you. It must be a trial to have so strange a child, but really I cannot help it, and I am sure you will forgive me when you remember that I am 'my father's boy.'"
It was one of those prophetic days of early spring when heaven and earth are filled with faint, far promises of the sunshine and verdure of the summer, and when an expectant hush fills all the air, save as now and then a breath of the awakening south wind stirs the faded memories of last autumn's glories where the dried leaves cluster among the thickets or in the fence corners.
The Thorn carriage occupied by Jean and the coachman, James, was rolling along a stretch of suburban road.
Jean had just left the home of the Crowleys', and sat in a reverie of sympathy and indignation. Personally she felt that she was absolutely safe from any harm from the traffic in misery and death; but this very fact made her more pitiful and more determined to use what influence and power she could command against it. The carriage slowed up a bit where the road divided.
"Which way, Miss Jean?"
"To the army post, James," and she continued her brown study, seeming to notice nothing of thelandscape until they entered the massive iron gates of the reservation.
Just inside the gates, on either side, heavy cannons were grouped in triangular fashion and surmounted with cones of cannon balls. At regular intervals black sign-boards, bright with gilt lettering, gave notice that just so far and no farther, and just so fast and no faster, the public might travel in this well-arranged institution of the government.
The drive around the inclosure was a long one, and when the Thorn carriage had reached the side farthest removed from the buildings, a sudden jar and crash startled Jean, and suddenly she found herself lying on the roadside.
Fortunately she was not hurt, and after she had brushed the dust from her eyes and pinned a rent in her skirt she found that only a slight break in the carriage had caused the accident. So after tying the horses to a hitching post at some distance, James pushed the carriage to one side, and with the broken part started to a blacksmith shop at no great distance outside the post, Jean agreeing to wait for him, unless he should be gone too long.
After James had disappeared behind the trees, Jean seated herself comfortably on a bench near by, and with her head resting against a majestic oak, gazed upward at the soft spring sky showing through the brown network of the branches. A bird a great way off circled against the floating clouds for a time and disappeared.
At one end of the inclosure the drill ground, checkered and bare, could be seen. Through the trees the red brick walls of the houses in the officers' quarters showed, while, looking in another direction, she could see a number of stone buildings with porches running their entire length, onto which opened many doors.
A little removed from all these was a common frame building, which, judging by the number of soldiers gathered around it, was the popular resort of the post. This was the canteen.
Jean's eyes fell with displeasure upon this. It seemed to her like a dark blot upon an otherwise fair picture; like a grave mistake in an otherwise well-ordered institution.
A couple of peafowl trailed their plumage over the dry brown grass across the way from her, and in the slanting rays of the sun they looked like brilliant jewels against the rough and dingy background. But their harsh notes seemed at variance with their beauty, and this, too, made Jean think of the government—a government born more beautiful than any other, and reared in its infancy with the care of a child, yet presenting to the world, by its administration, which is a government's voice, an inconsistency appalling.
Far from broken axles and torn skirts Jean's thoughts traveled, until she was brought to a sense of her surroundings by footsteps, and looking up she saw that two soldiers had turned the curve that shut off the view of the main road and were coming toward her.
One was a thick-set man of about middle age. He had that untidy appearance that marks a slovenly person, and will appear even in a soldier in spite of all wise and well-directed efforts on the part of a government to keep him neat. His large, light gray, campaign hat was pulled down well over his eyes and a short cob pipe was clinched between his teeth.
The other man was younger and not as heavy. He wore a long coat, open from the neck down, and his cap, set on one side of his head, left his bleared and bloated face in full view.
As they came nearer the younger man staggered fearfully, and Jean knew that he was intoxicated. A feeling, half fear and half loathing, took possession of her as these two ill-visaged privates came nearer; but supposing they would pass, she kept her seat.
"Take-a-hic-your pipe-a-hic-out, in-a-hic-the presence of-a-hic-ladies," the man in the long cloak said.
The thick-set man took his pipe from his teeth and knocked the ashes out against the palm of his hand.
They were directly in front of Jean now.
The man in the long cloak made a tottering bow and addressed her.
"May a-hic we sit down?"
"Certainly," said Jean, the blood rushing to her face at their boldness, and she hurriedly started to her feet.
"Keep-a-hic-your seat and-a-hic-don't get agitated; we're-a-hic-gentle-mench."
The thick-set man had already seated himself, and the other man followed his example, forcing Jean to a place by his side.
Judging the thick-set man to be the least intoxicated and more decent, she appealed to him for protection. The lower part only of his face was visible, but she saw that he laughed.
"He don't mean no harm. Keep still and he'll go on about his business," he assured her.
Jean's face blazed and her heart beat with the force of four.
The tall man emptied his mouth of tobacco juice and other fluids and substances, and the sickening mixture fell so close to Jean's foot that her boot was spattered. Then he wiped the dribbles on the back of his hand and turned to her.
He bent so close that his hot, foul breath struck her with staggering force and his bloated face almost touched her cheek.
"You're-a-hic-a little peach," he said, with a leer, "and-a-hic-I'm-a-hic-a going to k-k-kiss you."
It was then Jean screamed with all her might, and at the same moment a man sprang to her rescue from a light buggy that had rounded the bend of the drive unobserved.
The thick-set man suddenly disappeared, but the other soldier, either too drunk for rapid movement or too muddled to understand the gravity of the situation, only rose to his feet and stood leering at Jean with disgusting admiration.
The next instant he was felled to the earth and a broad-shouldered man stood over him ready to render a second blow if occasion demanded.
The soldier made an attempt to rise.
"Lie there, you brute," the man cried, hotly, and the drunken fellow obeyed.
"Nice-a-hic-way to treat a-hic-man that's protecting-a-hic-the-a-hic-honor-a-hic, the honor of——" he muttered.
But the gentleman turned to the woman, and Jean, trembling with fear and indignation, with crimson cheeks and flashing eyes, looked a second time into the face of the gentlemanly liquor dealer.
"I am so glad you came!" she gasped, and held out her hand to him.
As they turned to his buggy the gentleman cast a glance back at the prostrate soldier, who had crawled behind a bush to sleep until removed to the guardhouse.
"Such creatures are a disgrace to a civilized government," he exclaimed, with ill-concealed wrath.
"Our government is a disgrace to itself," she added. "It creates such creatures by a legal process, and yonder is the factory," and she pointed in the direction of the canteen.
"Canteen beer—canteen beer," she began again, with warmth, but stopped, for she knew that she was very much excited and that she might not speak wisely.
If she had opened an argument with the gentleman at her side she would have found that he was well posted with the old arguments about the canteen being an institution to keep the soldiers from the greed of evil saloons outside the different posts, but her companion respected her silence, and did not speak until they had passed the great iron gate, when it became necessary.
"Now," said he, "if you will direct the way, and have no objections, it will give me pleasure to see you safely home."
"I am Miss Thorn," said Jean, giving him her address.
"Miss Thorn? Perhaps you are related to Judge Thorn?"
"I am," replied Jean, smiling.
"That is nice. I have had the pleasure of meeting the judge, and I do not know a man whom I would rather oblige. He is a man all men honor."
"I am his daughter," Jean said, proudly, "and I assure you my father will feel under lasting obligations to you for your kindness to me this afternoon, Mr. ——"
"Allison," the gentleman said.
"Allison?" It was Jean's turn to look surprised.
"Yes, madam. Allison—Gilbert Allison."
"Not of the firm of Allison, Russell & Joy?"
"The same, madam."
She looked at him with mingled wonder and regret. The firm name of Allison, Russell & Joy to her mindwas a synonym for heartless destruction of happiness and life. The traffic itself was a great evil generality, and as such met condemnation. But in generalities, as in mountain ranges, there are specific points that tower out distinctively for consideration. Such a pinnacle of iniquity this liquor firm had seemed to Jean to be since her acquaintance with the Crowleys.
"You must be mistaken," she observed at length.
Gilbert Allison had been amused before. Now he laughed. "If I am mistaken, life has been a vast mistake," he said, "for I have supposed myself to be this same Allison for over thirty years. But why do you think so?"
Jean shook her head sadly.
"I do not understand it at all," she said, gravely.
"I beg your pardon; but if you will explain to me the trouble, perhaps I may be able to enlighten your understanding."
"I do not understand how the same person can be so kind and yet so cruel. I do not understand how one person can risk his life to save a life—for perhaps you saved mine to-day—and yet cause death, and you have been the cause of death."
Jean spoke slowly and looked grave.
Mr. Allison felt like laughing again, but politely refrained.
"I have been accused of a number of things in my life," he said, good-naturedly, "but, until to-day, murder has been omitted from the list."
"There are different modes of procedure—but murder is murder after all!"
"Certainly, but I was not aware that I had been connected with a 'procedure.'"
"Men deal out slow death for gold and trust its clinking rattle to still the groans and cryings that they cause." Jean spoke reflectively, as if to herself. "In savage countries where there is no Christianity, where all is black, human life is sometimes offered as a sacrifice to gods. Here in Christian America an altar is piled high with mother hearts and manhood and immortal souls.
"This sacrifice goes on unceasingly; the altar fires are never out, and the wail of the little ones and the groans of the crushed that go up from this great altar only cause this god to laugh.
"This god is made of atoms. EVERY ATOM IS A MAN.
"All this time the Christian men of this Christian nation stand around in a great circle, weeping and calling on a Christian's God to hasten the day when this other god shall be ground to dust, meantime mocking their God by legalizing this monstrous thing with their ballots."
Mr. Allison had probably never heard a young lady talk exactly as this one talked, and yet he enjoyed it, and watched the motion of her hand as she used it to impress her words.
"I am afraid I do not understand you even yet," he said, when she paused. "Do you refer to thetariff or seal fisheries or female suffrage or war or what?"
"I refer to the rum power in America. That is the god I mean. The most heartless, depraved monopoly on earth, yet men and governments grovel in the dust at its feet and cringe like dogs before its power."
Mr. Allison was silent, and she continued, presently, turning her face to him.
"It has always seemed to me that the firm of Allison, Russell & Joy was an important part of this great iniquity; partly, I presume, because I happen to be acquainted with a family that has been utterly destroyed by that firm. Tell me truly—have they, have YOU never heard wails and cries and bitter prayers in the stillness of the night? Have you never felt the burden of yourawfulsin?"
Mr. Allison smiled.
"I am sure," he said, "I have never heard any weeping or wailing that I have been aware of, and really I hope to be pardoned, but the burden that you speak of has failed to make itself felt."
"Well, you will hear it some day. Even legal, licensed murder will have its reckoning time. You will see a face some day; you will hear a voice that will haunt you like the wail of a lost soul."
Mr. Allison shrugged his shoulders as if in apprehension.
"I hope not," he said; "but Miss Thorn, I am afraid you do not enjoy the society of a liquor dealer."
"On general principles, no. And yet I have enjoyed yours very much this afternoon, you may be sure. I thank you for it, and—I am sorry that you are a 'man atom' of the great iniquity."
"I am sorry that you are sorry," he answered, and then the Thorn homestead rose in view.
"I never was so frightened in my life," Jean said, as they drove in front of the gate. "It seems that no one is safe from insult and injury in a land where liquor is a legalized drink. I never thought that I should fall a victim to it."
"Or be rescued by a liquor dealer."
"That is true," and Jean laughed merrily.
Then she thanked him again, and for half a minute he held her small, gloved hand in his, as he assisted her from the buggy.
"It is I who am grateful that Fate allowed me to be the knight." Then he lifted his hat gallantly, and Jean was gone, but her parting smile stayed with him.
After the adventure at the army post Mr. Allison called not infrequently at the home of the Thorns, and though, of course, cordially received by both Jean and her father, nearly always succeeded in leaving Jean thoroughly vexed with him. She made speeches and drew statistics for him, enough in strength and numbers to convert the traffic itself, and was generally rewarded for her pains by an amused look and a good-natured laugh. He seemed to her to be asleep, sound asleep; and try as best she might, it seemed impossible to awaken him; and yet she looked for his visits and enjoyed the task she had set herself about more than she would have cared to admit.
The fact was, Mr. Allison had been born asleep as far as his relation with the liquor question was concerned. From his father he inherited his interest in the business firm of which he was the junior member, and having been brought up in this atmosphere, he neither knew nor cared for any other. A man possessing even half a portion of real integrity is so rarely found engaged in the liquor business that this man's character was often spoken of. Whether he washonest may be doubted, but certain it was, he was not bidding for the church vote by making promises and prayers. Yet the cloak of respectability that he wore made him ten times more dangerous than one of baser worth would have been; but his cloak, it is well to remember, differed only in color from the cloak worn by unnumbered men, to-day posing before a long-suffering people as Christian leaders.
In spite of the indifference of Mr. Allison and the vexation of Jean, each felt the subtle power of attraction in the other that neither could explain.
One night when sitting closer than usual to her side, he calmly possessed himself of one of her hands.
"You are quite an enigma to me," he said. "How can you be a bit comfortable in such close proximity to a representative of the ungodly traffic?"
"I cannot," she answered, pulling at her hand. "I will go away."
"Will you?" and he tightened the pressure of his fingers.
Jean dropped her head on her free hand and was very still. Mr. Allison, watching her, presently saw a tear-drop on her cheek.
He put his arm around her, and would have drawn her to him, but with a firm, gentle touch, the meaning of which was unmistakable, she pushed his arm aside, and, rising, stood before him.
The faint trace of tears still marked her eyes, and her voice was a trifle unsteady.
"Mr. Allison, we cannot be even friends! We just cannot! You are a 'man atom of the great iniquity.'"
She crossed the room, and, raising a shade, stood looking absently into the moonlight. Gilbert Allison leaned forward and seemed trying to obtain the solution of some mystery from the outlines of her figure.
She still stood there when Judge Thorn entered from an adjoining room, and while he conversed with her liquor-dealer lover, Jean left the room to return no more that night.
But Mr. Allison was not thus to be disposed of.
A few evenings passed, and he was again announced a visitor at the Thorn home, and Jean appeared really very glad to see him, considering that they were never to be friends. After a few moments of casual conversation he took from his pocket an evening paper, folded so that she could not miss the reading, and held it before her eyes.
From the item thus displayed she learned that Gilbert Allison, late of the firm of Allison, Russell & Joy, had withdrawn his interest in the firm to be placed in other investments.
The conversation that followed the reading of this announcement, while confidential, was not a long one, but at its close Gilbert Allison knew more of that firmness born of a woman's conviction than he had ever dreamed.
* * * * *
Judge Thorn looked comfortable in his leather chair, his slippered feet on a hassock and a new book in his hand. At any rate, Jean thought so, as she studied him from between the parted curtains, but she was relentless. Stealing softly behind him, she pressed her hands over his eyes. The judge started, and the young lady laughed merrily.
Then she tried to steal away his book, but he held it.
"Let me put it up, father, I want to talk to you."
The judge still held the book.
"Then I will say 'please.'"
"Is it to be a political conversation?" he asked, gravely.
"Not a breath of politics about it," she answered.
"Any statistics to be brought in?" he questioned further.
Jean laughed again.
"Really, father," she said, "I think I may hope to win you yet. When a judge, and a Republican at that, finds it hard to vindicate his party's doings, and finds statistics overwhelmingly against his party's policy on moral questions, he will look for better things in better places. At this period of his political transmigration I believe a man is more to be pitied for misplaced confidence than blamed for tardy understanding. No, father, not a statistic to-night, unless you compel me to bring them out in self-defense."
Judge Thorn slowly released his book.
"Now," said Jean triumphantly, "we are ready for a nice long talk, that is, if you feel equal to the task of talking. What I have to say will not take long. It is about a little interview between Mr. Allison and—Judge Thorn's daughter, and if I had been less of a 'crank,' I suppose you would have had another son-in-law in prospect."
"Yes?" questioned the judge. "Then I have been mistaken when I have thought at times that you cared for him."
Jean remained silent a few minutes, then looked up quickly into her father's face.
"You are my best, my dearest friend, father. I will tell you truly. You have not been mistaken. I love Gilbert Allison, and I cannot help it to save my life."
When Judge Thorn spoke again his voice had changed somewhat. He spoke as if his words were escaping from beneath a weight.
"Better than you do me, Jean?"
She did not answer at once; then she caught her father's eye, and smiled as she said:
"You want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"Go on," was the judge's quiet reply.
"Then it is 'yes,' father."
A shadow passed over the face of the judge for an instant that carried Jean back to her childhood days, when she used to wonder, as she mused, why it was that her father always looked so sad.
"You have all the sweet ways of your mother, child," said the old man; "and in you I know the traits and intellect that I had hoped to nurture in the boy. For years you have been my comrade—my best loved daughter. I am growing old, now, quite old, and you must leave me."
As he spoke he ran his fingers through his hair, as if in its thinness and fading color he could discern advancing years.
Jean caught the hand that hung over the arm of the chair between her two and pressed it to her cheek.
"You make me happy, father!" she whispered. "Do you remember long ago I told you that you would some day be glad I was your boy? And so you are. Perhaps it is because I am so like you—I only wish I knew I was—or perhaps I have always loved you best, and yet I have not loved you enough, father."
"Yes, child. Yes, enough to drive away a grief and make me happy."
"Then, remember, father; remember always and forever, that I do not love you any less. If I have come to love another more, I tell you truly, I cannot help it. It has come to me—just come and—come and come; and I have fought it every step of the way. A few times I have pictured to myself such a man as I might some time call my husband. He has been learned and clean and upright, with an irrepressible spirit of patriotism, hindered by no party ties that bind to money instead of moral questions; daunted byno fear, and bound by no memory of a past; and the man has come, and he is—a gentlemanly liquor dealer. But I will not leave you, father. I have no thought other than to stay here."
This information did not seem to impress the judge.
"You say so, Jean. You mean so; but you will be married, and a wife's duties come before a daughter's."
Jean laughed again.
"You look almost as disconsolate as Mr. Allison did the last time I saw him. Cheer up! I am not going to be married that I know of."
"No?"
"No, father."
"Why, Jean?"
"I see you know that Mr. Allison is a liquor dealer no longer, or you would hardly ask."
"I know. And I know that he sacrifices something in getting out of it at this time. He is a clean man, and though his name has been connected with the interest, that has been all. One could hardly imagine him standing behind a bar."
"He said something like that in his own defense. Let me see—he said the national politics was the great mother of all lesser political plays, and that at such elections he had cast his vote just as you and your preacher have always done. Therefore, as you were temperance men, so he was a temperance man. How was that for argument?"
Judge Thorn laughed.
"Well, I should not wonder if he were as much of a temperance man as some other folks, after all."
"The more shame for the 'other folks,'" said Jean, a touch of sternness in her voice.
"Have it that way if you wish, but to the original question. I am in no hurry for you to marry, but I suppose you will some time, and Allison is a square man. What he has done in this business move he has done not because he has changed his views on some matters, but all for the love of a woman, and that means much, my girl, these days of fortune hunters and deceivers."
"All for the love of a woman," Jean repeated softly to herself. "That is what he said."
They were both silent a few seconds.
"You have not answered my question, Jean."
"Ah! I forgot, father. You asked me why I could not promise to be the wife of Mr. Allison. I will tell you, as I told him, and I think you will understand as he did.
"If I ever have a husband, he must do right from an honest conviction of right, and because humanity and justice and God demand the right, and never for the 'love of a woman,' although that is a beautiful temptation."
Judge Thorn looked inquiringly at his daughter, and she continued:
"He was not prepared for this, I think, but he understood what I meant, and said that I asked ofhim the impossible; that it was impossible for him to see the liquor traffic in the light that I do.
"But I am sure, father, that the underlying principle of my idea is right, and God makes it possible for all men to see the right, if they seek to."
Jean had risen and stood before her father, her face aglow and her eyes shining.
This mood passed shortly, and she returned to her chair. She clasped her hands behind her head and began again softly, as if speaking to herself:
"And then—then he sat down in a chair by the window, with his face turned away. It was very still in the room.
"I went and stood close by his side, but I hardly dared to speak, it all seemed so strange somehow. I wanted—Oh, you do not know how I longed to throw myself into his arms, just to try to wake him; but you know 'propriety'.
"After a time—perhaps an hour, perhaps a minute—he suddenly rose and kissed me on the forehead.
"'Goodby, dear,' he said, 'I think I had better not come any more,' and he left the room without another word.
"After the door had closed behind him and I heard him stepping down the walk, I put both my hands over my heart, just so, and held it tight, for it seemed that it would bound out and go with him."
They sat in silence a little while after Jean ceased speaking, and then she stepped behind her father's chair and dropped her arms around his neck.
"No, father, you shall never be left alone as long as this big world holds Jean. Lonesomeness is so big and dreary!"
She pressed her lips to his forehead and turned away.
Had such a favor been meted out to the disconsolate Mr. Allison, he would no doubt have been immediately transported to a state of unalloyed happiness. Not so with the judge. The very act, the very words, told him that the woman's affections had been divided, and the streak of selfishness that runs through all humanity had not been overlooked in his make-up.
"Are you not really ashamed of me, father? Just think of it! Me, Jean Thorn, of sound mind and adult years, falling in love with a liquor dealer! It is too strange to believe, and yet I believe the situation would be perfectly delightful if—if—well, if I were not 'my father's boy.' But I will survive, let it be hoped, and if this maddening, sickening, altogether unmanageable love one reads of had rushed upon me like a whirlwind, it would be the same. The man I marry must not be a 'man atom of the great iniquity,' not even to the extent of his vote."
And lest she should mar the impression she hoped to leave upon her father, Jean hurried from the room, waving her hand to him as she passed through the door.
* * * * *
In her own room she sat down to think. Mechanically she unbound the coils of red-brown hair that crowned her head, and holding the quaintly carved silver pins which seemed a part of her identity in her hand, she began a march to and fro across the room. There was no smile on her face, rather a pained, unnatural look that her dearest friend would not have recognized. Presently she stopped.
Raising her hands, the shining hair rippling over her shoulders like a garment, she lifted her face heavenward.
"My Father!" she whispered, brokenly, "he is asleep. Touch his eyes with kindly fingers that the scales may drop away. Put the hollow of thy hand around his heart and kindle there the love that means the brotherhood of man, for I love him—I love him!"
Even as she stood, with her face upturned from the wealth of flowing hair, the man of her prayer was in the toils of fate, seeing a "face" and hearing a voice that touched his ear and clung to his heart, "like the wail of a lost soul."