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INTRODUCTION

Contents

First published in The Canadian Magazine, August 1910

If Mr. Ellis of Ellis and Company, importers of silks and fine fabrics, had applied to any one else the profane epithets he was applying to himself he would have been arrested. He was walking back and forth in his private room swearing at himself quietly but vehemently, with a skill that showed long experience. Anyone hearing him would have been certain that at some time in his career he had been either a truck-driver in New York or a sailor before the mast; but he took special care that no one should hear him. Presently he regained his self-control, seated himself at his desk and wrote a memorandum. He then gave his desk bell a vicious slap. In response to the signal his bookkeeper entered.

“Here, Jones, charge cheque No. 659, that I have just drown, to profit and loss.”

“Yes, sir. Anything more to-day?”

“Nothing more, thank you. Good evening.”

He then closed his desk and was reaching for his overcoat when an office boy entered with a card.

“Mr. Hart, of Hart and Hall, wishes to see you, sir.”

“Um—Hart and Hall, dealers in heavy chemicals, dyestuffs. What can he want with me? Show him in.”

A moment later Mr. Hart entered. He was faultlessly attired and, like Mr. Ellis, had all the appearance of a prosperous business man and member of good society. And they were alike in that the expressions of their faces were keen but kindly and showed great force of character.

“I presume,” began Mr. Hart, as he seated himself slowly and gingerly, “that you are at a loss to understand to what you owe this visit.”

“I confess that I am.”

“Then I will come to the point at once. The Black Sheep Club has decided that you are eligible for membership, and I have called to ask if you can make it convenient to come up to our club-rooms to-night and be initiated.”

“The Black Sheep Club! I never heard of it.”

“Certainly not. It is the most secret and yet the most beneficent organisation in the world.”

“Well, Mr. Hart, I know you by reputation as a business man and gentleman, and feel sure you would not try to play a joke on me; but I would like to know something more about this club before consenting to become a member.”

“Naturally, and if you will pledge yourself to the most absolute secrecy I will tell you all I dare. I may say, however, that this pledge is hardly necessary, as no one to whom membership was offered ever refused to join. That is why the secret never got out.”

The required pledge was given, and Mr. Hart resumed.

“If I am not mistaken you are just in the humour to be initiated. Before I came in you were reviling yourself with every emphatic word and phrase in your vocabulary, were you not?”

“See here! This club of yours is not a Theosophical affair, is it?”

“Not at all! I am no mind reader. But I know this is true because I met that loafer, Spencer Smythe, coming downstairs as I was coming up. You have been supporting him for the last couple of months—not because he has any claim on you, but because you are easy on wrongdoers for the reason that you know what it is to have gone wrong yourself.”

“How dare you talk to me like this, sir?” exclaimed Mr. Ellis, angrily, springing from his seat. “I have never discussed such matters with my nearest friends.”

“No,” replied Mr. Hart calmly, “and no one is going to ask you to do it now. I merely do it in order to give you some idea of our club. It is wholly composed of hard-headed business and professional men who are tender-hearted and cannot help allowing themselves to be imposed upon by good-for-nothings like Smythe, just as you have been doing. Like you, every one of them began life by being a black sheep, and some of them still have Southdown markings.”

“Look here! What do you know about my past life?”

“Pardon me for speaking of it, for you have already lived it down so far as the world is concerned, though it still worries you and makes you swear retrospectively whenever you think of it; but I know all about that little escapade of yours when you ran away from home and disgraced your family by tramping to Michigan, where you lived for several summers as shanty-man in winter and a drunken dock-walloper in summer.”

Mr. Ellis cowered in his chair and covered his face with his hands.

“Yes, yes,” he whispered brokenly, “and I have been punished for it enough without its coming back to disgrace me now.”

“Disgrace nothing,” said Mr. Hart cheerily. “It is what put backbone in you, and all your success has been due to the fact that you have been trying to live down that episode in your life. Believe me, there is no such thing as ambition in the world. Men merely strive for success because they want to live down their past. It is the same with everyone in our club. I made a —— —— idiot of myself when I was a boy, and I don’t dare to be idle for fear I’ll think of it. The result is that I work with the ferocity that compels success. Talk about your blithering fools! I was the—”

“Hold on!” exclaimed Ellis, “I begin to catch your drift. You are all successful men because you have sore places in your memories that goad you on. But what benefit do you derive from your club?”

“What do you feel like when you think of your early misdeeds—or of any fool thing that you do?”

“I feel that I want to be kicked!”

“Exactly! So do we all! And the beauty of it is that we get kicked. It wouldn’t do for a gentleman to hire someone to kick him, so we attend to that for one another.”

Ellis laughed a nervous laugh, in which Hart joined.

“I tell you, our club fills a long-felt want!” he exclaimed. “Won’t you join us?”

“Certainly I will,” cried Ellis. “I am in just the mood for it.”

“I thought you would be. Let us hurry, for they are holding dinner for us.”

On the way uptown in a cab Hart explained more thoroughly the workings of the club.

“When a man is initiated we try to give him a kicking that will make up for all the kickings he has yearned for in the past. For this we charge an initiation fee of twenty-five dollars. We have no monthly dues, but whenever a man wants to be kicked he pays in ten dollars to the treasurer and is obliged. We find that this enables us to maintain our club luxuriously.”

“But it isn’t chartered as the Black Sheep Club, is it?”

“Certainly not! It is called the Business Men’s Benevolent Association. You will be surprised to learn that many of your dearest friends belong to it. They are men whom perhaps you have considered selfish because they always show a preference for cushioned and luxurious seats when visiting, because they sit in cushioned chairs in their offices. But that is not selfishness. It is the result of membership in this club. Though we knew that you must have a past because you were successful and allowed yourself to be sponged on, it took us a long time to discover what your past was. But we finally found that you too had been a black sheep.”

“Oh, sink my past! Our peccadilloes are not the subject of all conversation, are they?” exclaimed Ellis.

“What do you take us for? A camp-meeting? We leave that sort of thing to unctuous deacons and callow boys. We are all men of the world, and, besides, there is a rule of the club which provides that anyone speaking of his past gets kicked free.”

“But, of course,” he continued, “every member of the club knows your past. That was necessary before you could be admitted.”

Mr. Ellis quailed. “Good Heavens!” he groaned. “How can I ever face them? They all know just what an ass I have been!”

“How does it make you feel?”

“As if I wanted to be kicked!” yelled the victim.

“That’s good!” said Mr. Hart grimly, “for you are going to be.”

A moment later Mr. Ellis was hurried into the general room of the club and Mr. Hart announced in a loud tone that he was to become one of them. While he was paying his initiation fee, the members of the club arranged themselves in two files about four feet apart and extending across the room. When Mr. Ellis was led to the rear rank, each member leaned forward, supporting his whole weight on his left foot and letting his right foot, which was extended backward, rest on the toe, ready for action.

Mr. Hart faced Mr. Ellis in the proper direction, then stepped back and started him down the line with a kick that made his teeth snap like a bear-trap. As he passed along, each member, with practiced foot, contributed a kick that made him forget the sins of his past and his hopes of the future.

When he landed with a grunt against the opposite wall the President of the Club hastened to his side and picked him up. He then led him into the grill-room and gave him a seat in a softly cushioned chair.

“Do your sins trouble you now?”

“No,” said Mr. Ellis, shifting uneasily. “With such a counter-irritant neither my conscience nor anything else can hurt me for weeks to come.”

When he finally got more comfortable he looked about and recognised dozens of successful citizens—judges, doctors, lawyers, merchants, college professors and prominent men whose lives he had always supposed to have run smoothly from Sunday school to success. Finally when the dinner was over Mr. Hart came to him with a worried expression on his face, and before Mr. Ellis could thank him for his kindness, he exclaimed:

“Say, Mr. Ellis, I feel that I made an ass of myself in the way that I introduced the subject of membership to you. I did it so clumsily you must have thought me a blackmailer. I want to be kicked.”

Before he could be dissuaded he paid in his ten dollars and the double line formed again. As soon as Mr. Ellis learned that he being the youngest member it was his privilege to contribute to Mr. Hart his initial velocity, a dangerous gleam lit his kindly eye. When the word was given he started Mr. Hart on his way to peace of mind with a long swinging hitch and kick that lifted him past the first half dozen members.

Shortly afterward the two new friends went home arm in arm, totally oblivious of the blackened past and thinking only of the present, with its pleasures and pains.

First published in The Canadian Magazine, September 1910

“Here is your last chance for a bargain to-day,” roared Old Sneath, the auctioneer, waving a hammer over his head. “This horse is the last item on our programme. I want you to take a good look at him before you make your bids. If there is another six-year-old in all Western Ontario that can outdraw him, I’d like to know who is his owner.”

“Hach!” interrupted a farmer in the crowd that was standing about discussing the points of the animal; “that horse is ten years old if he is a day.”

Before the auctioneer had time to make a crushing reply the man who was holding the horse said, quietly:

“He will be twelve years old next July.”

“Well, Dugald,” said the auctioneer, half-angrily, “how can you expect me to sell things at a profit for you if you won’t give me a better chance? If you wasn’t so blamed honest, I wouldn’t be having the job of selling you out to-day.”

Satisfied that he had but done his duty, Dugald patted the neck of the old horse and made no reply.

“That’s right, Bill Evans,” resumed Sneath; “examine them front legs carefully and maybe you’ll find a bone-spavin.”

This jest, which was perhaps contemporary with the first horse, was greeted with proper respect by all except Evans. He attempted a defense.

“Well, if I can’t find bone-spavins on his front legs, I can’t find much meat on his carcass.”

“He’s the better of that! It takes a lean horse for a long pull.”

That delighted every one but Evans, who was thoroughly silenced.

“Come now, what am I bid for this horse? Make a start some one.”

“Fifteen dollars!” said some one.

“Fifty dollars I am bid! Fifty dollars! Fifty dollars! Any advance on fifty dollars? Come, speak up!”

By this time the bidder had managed to stop him.

“I didn’t bid fifty dollars,” he shouted, “I bid fifteen!”

“Fifteen dollars! Ain’t you ashamed of yourself? No one but a Scotchman would make such a bid! I won’t take it. Won’t some one give me a decent bid to start with?”

“Twenty-five dollars!”

“Twenty-five dollars I am bid! That is bad enough, but it’s better than fifteen. Twenty-five dollars I am bid!”

For some minutes he went on joking and calling for advances. Finally, when the bids had increased to thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents and it was impossible to get another advance, he started in on his familiar, final sing-song.

“Going at thirty-seven fifty, once! Going at thirty-seven fifty, twice! Going at thirty-seven fifty, third and last time! Any advance on thirty-seven fifty? Gone! Sold to Pat Burke for thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents.”

Stepping down from the upturned waggon-box that served as his platform—with a salt barrel for an auction block—the auctioneer announced that the sale was over. He then went to the granary, where the note signing had already commenced. A lawyer’s clerk who was in attendance was busy making out the notes under the careful supervision of the mortgagee, Neil McNab, in whose interests the stock and implements of the farm were being sold. All conversation was carried on in an undertone, presumably so as not to bother the clerk and cause him to make mistakes, but really because the signing of notes is a solemn function in the country—almost as solemn as the paying of them.

“Well, what does it all tote up?” he asked.

“Just twenty dollars more than the amount of the chattel mortgage and the expenses,” said McNab.

“It was bad time to close on him. Stock never sells well in the spring.”

“Well, I had to get my own,” said McNab, doggedly, as he stroked his thin hair with his rough, crooked fingers. He had few friends among those who were assembled at the sale, for he had been the local Shylock for many years. During the hard times that followed the Russian war he had lent money to his neighbours at the most exhorbitant rates of interest, and had in that way accumulated the competence that had enabled him to give up farming and retire to the town. As money lender he knew no mercy, and everything the law would allow him he grasped.

He held a mortgage on Dugald’s farm; and one year, when the interest was not ready on time, he took a chattel mortgage on the stock and implements. When the chattel mortgage fell due, Dugald could not pay it on account of the failure of his crops, and McNab foreclosed it without a thought of pity. He would do the same when the land mortgage was due, for, without stock of implements, Dugald could not hope to pay it off. He could but look forward to seeing the land that his father had cleared sold by the sheriff, and himself and his mother turned out-of-doors. But his piety and good-nature made him bear his troubles without complaining. The most he ever said about it was to quote to a neighbour who condoled with him on having fallen a prey to McNab and his two mortgages the humourously appropriate text: “Issacher is a strong ass couching down between two burdens.”

When the notes were signed the buyers gathered their purchases and departed. There was little hand-shaking or leave-taking; for a sheriff’s sale is never a genial affair, and no one went to the house for the meal that usually follows country auctions.

After bidding “good-bye” to the last of the neighbours who lingered after the sale, Dugald stood for some time looking vacantly up at the sky. The good-humoured twinkle that was usually in his eye had left it, and the sadness of his face was accentuated by the drooping underlip that betrayed the weakness of his character. Though his face glowed with animation when he spoke to anyone, its lines showed that his good-humour was unaccompanied by shrewdness. If his thoughts after the proceedings of the day were melancholy, it was certainly excusable. But suddenly the expression of his face changed, and he murmured, half audibly:

“ ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein’; and yet I have been complaining.”

He started as if rebuked and walked rapidly to the house. He found his mother waiting for him in what was at once the kitchen, dining-room and sitting-room of the old log house.

“Is no one coming to supper?” she asked.

“No. None of them would stay.”

“Everything is sold now?”

“Yes; but we must not be cast down. I am still strong to work; and as I was thinking of our condition and feeling rather low-spirited, ‘The Word’ came to me quite plainly: ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.’ ”

“Yes; and if He be with us who can be against us?”

While they were talking the mother was preparing the supper. They sat down together, and he asked a blessing. They ate in silence, and when the meal was concluded, she gave thanks. After some desultory conversation about the sale, the mother said:

“A passage of Scripture came to my mind to-day, and I cannot understand what it may mean.”

“What is it?”

“It is Samson’s riddle: ‘Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.’ ”

“It is a strange passage to come to you to-day; but it will, no doubt, be made clear to you in the Lord’s own time.”

Like all who belong to their sect, the old Kirk of Scotland, neither doubted that the Lord spoke to them audibly through his Scriptures; and at every crisis of their lives they arrived at conclusions by having guiding verses borne in on their minds in this way. Their religion was not a matter of Sabbaths; it was a part of their lives. The Word of God guided them in their goings-out and comings-in, encouraged them in their hours of sorrow and weakness, and rebuked them when they were in danger of going astray. Their faith admitted of no doubts and, stern though the Bible’s rule over them was, it was wholesome, and their lives were upright and sincere.

As the evening wore on they talked of plans for the future and spoke of McNab’s severity more in sorrow than in anger.

“He has been a hard creditor,” said Dugald; “but he can’t do more than the Lord will allow. I wonder what Katie and Janet think of this day’s work, and what has been done?”

A half-humourous expression crossed Dugald’s face as an opportunity for applying literally a verse of Scripture occurred to him.

“The horse-leech hath two daughters, crying, ‘Give! Give!’ ”

“You should not say that against them, for they are not like their father.”

“But, I mean that they say ‘Give! Give!’ in charity.”

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in!” said the mother.

A moment later the door swung open and Janet McNab stood on the threshold. Her cheeks and eyes were bright, partly with the exercise of walking and partly with excitement; and the natural grace of her tall figure was increased by the passions that were moving her at the time. As they both rose to greet her, she said:

“Stop! Before we shake hands I want to know if you think I had anything to do with to-day’s disgraceful work.”

“Of course not!” they both answered.

As she shook hands and laid off her shawl, her excitement gave way to tears. When she had calmed somewhat, she began:

“I didn’t know anything about it until Father came home and I asked him where he had been all afternoon. He must have been ashamed of himself, because he didn’t want to tell me. To think that he should sell you out! You, who have always been a mother to me; and Dugald has always been like—like a brother. It is a shame—a shame!”

“Hush! Hush!” said the elder woman, as she put out her hand and laid it soothingly on the other’s head. “He is your father, and he did but what the law allows.”

“Then it is a cruel law that lets a man, who has no need for more money, rob those who are needy. Who has he to leave his money to but Katie and me! and we don’t want money that is bought at such a price. It would have been bad enough to sell out any one; but you”—and she burst into tears again. “I couldn’t keep from telling him my mind. Haven’t I worked like a slave for him all my life, and mightn’t he have shown me kindness in this? I always obeyed him in everything.”

“It is written ‘Children, obey your parents.’ ”

“Yes, ‘obey them in the Lord;’ but surely this work is not of the Lord! It is also written ‘Fathers, provoke not your children.’ Oh, this had to come some time!” she continued. “That town life was not for me. I couldn’t bear being cooped up in a house all day, doing things I hated. The idea of trying to make a lady of me, after I had worked on a farm for so many years, choring and slaving. Just think of it! I had to try to learn to play on an organ! Hach! I could get more music that I like out of scraping the bottom of a pot.”

They laughed at her sally, and the conversation took a lighter turn.

“It might do well enough for Katie, for she is younger, and I always watched that the weight of the care and work never came on her. But me! I always was and will be a country girl. I’d rather come and help you wash the supper dishes. Aunty”—for so she called her old friend—“than go to the finest tea-meeting I was ever at!”

Dugald took no part in the conversation, though his attention to it was intense. He moved awkwardly in his chair from time to time as if he were greatly disturbed. Nor was this strange. He had loved Janet for years and had long hoped to make her his wife.

“But what are you going to do, child!” asked Mrs. McNeil. “You have parted with your father in anger. Don’t you think you should go back to him?”

“I can’t! He has made life bitter to me; and this disgraceful day’s work makes me ashamed to lift up my head. I’m going to work out somewhere.”

“That doesn’t seem right.”

“I know it doesn’t; but it seemed to-day that I couldn’t bear more.”

“Does he know where you went?”

“I didn’t tell him; but he knew well enough I would come here. Where could I go but to you, when I was in trouble? You have always been a mother to me since my own mother died.”

“There is some one coming!” said Dugald, suddenly; and as they listened they heard an approaching footstep.

“Perhaps it is father!” exclaimed Janet, clutching at something in the folds of her dress.

Without knocking, her father opened the door and entered. He was evidently in a high temper; but as he looked at the placid face of his old friend and neighbour he seemed abashed. But when his eye rested on the shrinking form of his daughter his anger returned.

“Where is that paper you stole?”

She made no answer.

“You needn’t think I’d have come after you if I hadn’t found that you took that mortgage!”

“What is this? What paper have you taken, Janet?” asked Mrs. McNeil.

“She took the mortgage I hold on this farm!”

“And you’ll never collect it if I can help it!” cried Janet, taking the paper from her bosom and rushing toward the fire.

Dugald stopped her and snatched the paper from her hand. Foiled in her purpose, she burst into tears and turned toward her father.

“Father! Father! why will you break my heart! I never asked you for anything before, as I ask you for this. Have pity on this mother and son, who have been so good to us all in other days. Don’t drive them from their home! Of what use will the money be to you? It is only for Katie and me you can save it, and there is more than enough for us already.”

“You are a fool!” said the father, as he took the mortgage from Dugald’s hand.

“See, father,” she cried, “I go down on my knees to beg that you will burn that paper yourself!”

“Burning it will not pay for it. Besides there is a copy of it in the registry office.”

“But you needn’t press your claim. Remember how good Aunty McNeil used to be to Katie and me, and how Dugald used to help you with your work, like a son, before the hard times came.”

“Janet! Janet!” exclaimed Mrs. McNeil, “don’t say such things. We only did our duty.”

But Janet did not heed. “I know, if my mother were alive to-night, she would beg of you as I do! She would beg of you not to be so hard.”

The reference to her dead mother seemed to touch some sober chord in the old man’s heart, and an expression came over his face as if he were wavering. “What would she think if she could see her daughter kneeling before you like this?”

“Come, get up!” he said gruffly. “You have talked too much already. If you want to come home with me, come. I have the buggy with me. But if you are going to stay here, stay and starve.”

McNab was turning sulkily toward the door, when Janet suddenly stepped toward Dugald.

“Here, Dugald!” she exclaimed; “since he will not show pity, this is what I’ll do. I’ll be your wife, and then, if he turns us out-of-doors, he will have the disgrace of turning out his own daughter.”

As they all waited breathlessly for his answer, the Scripture came to his mind, as it never failed to in times of need: “Houses and riches are the inheritance of fathers, and a prudent wife is from the Lord.” He stepped forward and took her hand.

“Yes, Janet, I will make you my wife. The word of God is with me.”

“So you think you will cheat me in this way!” stormed her father; “but you will see. You are handy with the word of God, I must say. If you had less of the grace of God in your heart, you would have more money in your pocket to pay your debts with. As for you, forward, disobedient huss, I cast you off forever! Who has brought the most disgrace on us now? I, in doing what is lawful and right, or you in giving yourself away to a canting loafer?”

With that he stepped through the door and left them.

Janet sank to the floor, overcome by terror and shame.

“What have I done—what have I done?” she sobbed.

“You have done nothing that you need ever be ashamed of; and I hope you will never have cause to be sorry,” said Dugald, as he lifted her to her feet.

“I can work to support you and mother; and what does the land matter, if we are contented and happy!” and he quoted to her the verse of Scripture that had decided him.

“And you are sure,” she persisted, “that you will never despise me for throwing myself at you like this?”

His answer was: “ ‘Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need to spoil.’ ”

“There can be no wrong,” said the mother, as she came forward and laid her hands in benediction upon them, “since the word of God is with you so strongly. How often have I longed and prayed for this hour, though I never hoped to see it. And now the Scripture that came to me so darkly to-day is fulfilled: ‘Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.’ ”

First published in The Canadian Magazine, September 1910

The age of tyranny has passed, but the sovereign voter still enjoys the advantages of the ancient tyrant. A telephone on a party line gives opportunities for eaves-dropping undreamed of by the subtle Syracusan. With this explanation we may proceed with our up-to-the-minute Canadian story.

The Reverend Peregrine Low was sitting in his sunlit study preparing his sermon for the following Sabbath. But that is hardly exact. He was trying to prepare his sermon. He had selected a text as comprehensive as Browning’s “great text in Galatians”—which I have never been able to locate—and was trying to work out its manifold lessons. In spite of his rosy youthfulness, or perhaps because of it, he was a very earnest shepherd and it grieved him that on this particular May morning he could not keep his mind on his high task. For through the open window came a flood of alluring sunshine, the soft earthy smells of spring gardening, and the madly happy song of birds. All these things he might have resisted and driven from his mind by a supreme effort of concentration, but there was something more—very much more. Just as he was grasping some great and vital truth the gray eyes of Phoebe Featherstone would come between him and the paper on which he was writing; and because they were flooded with the soft light of twice the oldest and greatest truth in the world, the Reverend Peregrine’s mind would relax and drift away into a realm of rosy dreams.

After this had happened about a dozen times during the preparation of the first couple of inter-lined and spatch-cocked pages the young rector pushed back his chair with an exclamation of impatience. Being an Englishman, his natural impulse was to clear his mind by taking a brisk walk. Placing his low-crowned felt hat on his curly auburn locks and stopping for just a moment before the hall mirror to stroke his silky mustache he took his stick from the hatrack and opened the front door.

“Going out, Perry?” called a voice of softly English modulation, from one of the upper rooms of the rectory.

“Yes, Aunty. I am going for a walk.”

“Put on your rubbers; the roads are still wet,” commanded the affectionate voice.

“Fiddlesticks!” said the Reverend Perry, with sudden annoyance, and closed the door behind him.

Aunt Sophia was shocked. Never before had he spoken to her so disrespectfully. He must have something on his mind. But what could it be? Never since his boyhood had he had a secret from her, and now that she had followed him from England to be his housekeeper their confidential relationship had, if anything, grown closer. “Fiddlesticks!” How could he say anything so shocking and disrespectful! She must make him a Yorkshire pudding to go with the roast beef at dinner and then, when he had lit his pipe, he would tell her all that was troubling him.

With the long, sure strides of a football player whose favourite form of exercise was walking, the young rector passed along the street to the outskirts of the town. Though he nodded to women who were busy in their gardens it was with a preoccupied air. The day was exuberant with life—with mating life—and his heart ached with the urge of spring. The new leaves were lisping to the wandering south wind, the sun was “shining on both sides of the fence,” and everywhere song-sparrows were snatching moments from the labours of nest-building to pour forth the fullness of their hearts in “Divine, high-piping Pehlevi.” It was a wonderful day—a Canadian spring day at its best.

At the outskirts of the town the brisk walker came to a bridge, and when his steps boomed hollow on the planks a slate-coloured bird flew out and perched on the top of a fence-post.

“Phoebe! Phoebe!” it called impudently. The Reverend Peregrine blushed a brighter red than was justified by the exertions of walking and shook his stick at the feathered tease.

“Phoebe! Phoebe!” it sauced back, unafraid. And then a pair of gray eyes flashed at him from his own inner consciousness. Taking a firmer grip of his stick, he increased his pace. At a gait that would have done credit to Weston, he passed between the square fields towards the south. He would walk around a couple of country blocks—a breather of nine or ten miles—and be home in time for dinner, with a clear head. It was a perfect day for walking—green springy sod underfoot and harmonics of infinite shades of green wherever he turned his eyes. There were farmers planting corn in the fields—but fortunately none of them were near enough to the road to make conversation imperative. He had the fresh green world and the wide, warm sunshine all to himself—and his dreams.

Now it chanced that the walker passed the home of Mrs. Melville Hall just as she was feeding the chickens with scraps from the breakfast table. She watched him pass and then meditated smilingly.

“Perhaps he is going down to the river to help Phemy Black with her flower-beds. They say she has set her cap for him. Of course, he may be only out for a walk, for they say he is a great walker, but sometimes the heart guides the feet.”

If Mrs. Hall had been poetical, she would have clinched this thought with a quotation from Shelley:

But she was not poetical, and she wasted no time looking for confirmation of her suspicions in the lyrics of Shelley. She was just a plump country-woman, with a taste for gossip, who had learned how handy the telephone is for this kind of out-pouring of spirit. After chuckling to herself for a while, as she went about the work of putting the house to rights, she finally took down the telephone receiver and called up her particular crony, Mrs. John Baxter. For a couple of minutes she asked advice about a new dress she was making, and then began on the real subject that had taken her to the telephone. And just at that moment Miss Polly Brown, who had a telephone on that party line, got her fingers clear of the dough in which she was working and took down the receiver with a practised skill that caused hardly a click. Owing to the bread-making, she missed the first part of the conversation, but this is what she heard Mrs. Hall say to Mrs. Baxter and Mrs. Baxter say to Mrs. Hall:

“The Reverend Low passed here a few minutes ago, headed towards the river. Going to see Phemy Black, I bet.”

“You don’t tell me?”

“Yes, and they say the way she has been throwing herself at his head is simply scandalous.”

“Well, if she’s anything like her mother she’ll elope with him when she gets him down there.”

“Wouldn’t it be a joke if she did?”

“I just bet she will. This would be a splendid day for an elopement.”

And so on and so on.

When the conversation ended Polly Brown hung up the receiver and thrilled with ecstasy. The delicious awfulness of the possibility uplifted her beyond herself. As she thought it over she became absolutely convinced that it was true and for a few minutes she wriggled with excitement while her “shaping spirit of imagination” bodied forth the details that Pooh Bah would consider necessary to “give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”

And all the while the Reverend Peregrine Low was striding manfully along the quiet country road.

When Polly had perfected her story, she called up her chum, Minnie Addison. Just as the connection had been made, Deacon Pullen took down his receiver to call up the farrier about a horse that was suffering from colic. This was the story that poured into his large, hairy, funnel-shaped and avid ear. While he listened his nostrils distended like those of a horse sniffling at an oat-bin he cannot reach.

“O, Minnie, have you heard?”

“No. What?”

“You can never guess. Reverend Low has eloped with Phemy Black. He went down the town-line this morn almost at a run and carrying his suit-case. They say they are going across the river to catch the Michigan Central train at Dufferin. Ain’t it awful? What is the world coming to, anyway?”

And so on and so on.

When this delectable conversation had ended, Deacon Pullen hung up his receiver and “haw-hawed!” He belonged to a denomination that did not feel it was straining the bonds of brotherly love or rending the veil of Charity if it enjoyed a joke on the Anglicans. After he had told his wife what he had heard, and they had both laughed over it, he called up his Anglican friend, Ezra Drake, who was now a retired farmer in the village, and laughed at him about the elopement of the rector. And while he was doing this, little Amelia Blossom took down her telephone receiver and listened. Poor little Amelia—she never had any luck, anyway. If there was a picnic she always had the toothache, or if there was a tea-meeting her epiglottis would be sure to be inflamed so that she couldn’t swallow anything. She never got a story right, even when she heard the whole of it, and she was always in forlorn misery about something. So it was only natural that she should miss the first part of this story, the part that had the names in it. This was the fragment that Amelia heard Deacon Pullen bellowing joyously to Ezra Drake:

“Yes, they have eloped all right. Cut across the country to Dufferin, with her father chasing them on horseback. Haw! Haw!”

Poor Amelia had to guess the rest of the story, and, of course, she guessed wrong. After she had thought over all the lovers she knew of she decided that the butcher’s boy had eloped with the grocer’s hired girl, and in her turn she started a story that was overheard and repeated until it had caused the breaking of two engagements and numberless heartaches. But the blunders of Amelia have nothing to do with this story.

While all this was happening, the Reverend Peregrine had travelled south as far as he wished to go, had achieved his perithelion, and was striding back to town along the back road. I wish we could journey with him for a while, for a wonderful thing had happened. The spirit of spring had mastered him, and he was treading on the sunlit air as he walked. He had arrived at the Great Decision. But we must be back in town ahead of him.

Being a retired farmer, Ezra Drake had nothing to do but to talk, and even though the scandal was on his own church, he had to give it currency or burst. His news sense was as highly developed as that of the New York reporter who telephoned to his city editor that he had a two-column scoop for him. His mother had run away with an actor, and he was the only person who knew about it. So Ezra toddled about town, telling the story of the elopement to everyone, until the whole place was buzzing with it. Half an hour after he got the news, Miss Mary Gall, sour and sixty, put on her mourning clothes and went to the rectory to sympathize with Aunt Sophia. She did not like the superior Englishwoman, and another chance like this might not happen in a life-time.

Here we leave the activities of Mary Gall and Sophia Low to your imagination, merely reminding you that because of the disrespectful “Fiddlesticks!” Aunt Sophia was ready to believe anything. Now let us return to the Reverend Peregrine. He was returning home, thrilled with the Great Purpose. And just as he reached the maple knoll about a mile east of the town, someone climbed gracefully over the rail fence, with a bouquet of wild-flowers in her hand. To his ravished eyes she seemed a blessed angel, “new-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.” On that morning Phoebe Featherstone had found her heart so troubled that she longed for the solitude of the forest, and she had gone to gather wild-flowers. The little god that looks after all mating creatures in spring weather so contrived matters that she should return to the road just as the Reverend Peregrine and his Great Purpose were approaching under a full head of steam. When he hailed her she trembled and blushed, and her gray eyes were even more expressive in reality than to the eye of fancy. A lock of jet hair had tumbled loose from under her wide hat and was caressing her clear white cheek. As the Reverend Peregrine looked at her he grew almost giddy with the overwhelming sense of her beauty. But he had a Great Purpose, and he was not the man to flinch. Under the shade of the maples he told her the oldest story in the world, and she thought it the newest. And the birds put all their energy into a rapturous chorus of song. And the little south wind whispered and laughed, and the big, happy sun poured down a benediction on them.

When everything was settled they walked slowly back to town and agreed to keep their engagement secret—except that he should tell it to his aunt and she should tell it to her mother. This meant that it would be privately published instead of publicly, but they were young and trusting, so what did it matter.

When the Reverend Peregrine reached the rectory he searched the lower rooms and then raced up the stairs three steps at a time and caught his Aunt Sophia in his arms and kissed her, before he realized that anything was wrong. She pushed him away sternly and faced him with tearful eyes.

“Wha-what’s the matter?” he gasped.

“O, Perry, I never thought you would deceive me like this.”

Seeing that he was dumb with amazement, she turned and went on with her packing.

“But what has happened? You are surely not packing to go away.”

“I am.”

The Reverend Peregrine dropped into a chair.

“And on this day, when I am so happy, too!” he mourned.

“I am leaving you to your happiness.” Then she added viciously: “To think that you should take up with that brazen huzzy! I wouldn’t have dreamed it!”

The Reverend Peregrine rose with dignity.

“Aunt Sophia, I cannot allow even you to speak of my affianced wife in that way.”

“Affianced?” she clutched at the straw. “Then you are not married yet?”

“Why, we haven’t been engaged half an hour, and how you know about it already is past my knowledge, unless a bird of the air has reported the matter. And I always thought you approved of Phoebe,” he added dolefully.

“Phoebe?” exclaimed the enraptured Aunt Sophia. “Do you mean that you are engaged to Phoebe Featherstone?”

“She has done me the honour to consent to be my wife.”

“O, Perry!” And she flung herself on his neck, weeping and laughing. “And that meddlesome Mary Gall told me you had eloped with Phemy Black.”

“Eloped? Phemy Black? Fiddlesticks!”

So everything was straightened out, and Aunt Sophia unpacked and took charge of the preparations for the wedding, and everybody was happy, except Amelia Blossom, who did not get the story right—though she got a piece of the wedding-cake to dream on and wish on.

And this is only one of the many strange and tangled stories that are being whispered and overheard every day in the telephone—our modern Ear of Dionysius.

First published in The Canadian Magazine, December 1911

This is a story of John Smith the millionaire told for the benefit of John Smith the populist.

John Smith was a millionaire of the kind that all toilers hope to be some day. He had risen from the lower ranks by his own efforts, and, as he rose, he observed and learned, so that when his fortune was made he was able to marry a cultured wife and move in good society without causing pain to those with whom he came in contact.

In fact, he was partly civilised, and as he was a jolly soul who never showed more than a justifiable pride in his achievements, he was popular with all men. But no man, however high he may rise, can wholly rid himself of his past any more than a transplanted tree can thrive unless some of the original soil clings to its roots. So it is not surprising that some of John Smith’s early tastes should still cling to him and occasionally make him unhappy amid his luxuries.

One afternoon he went down to this office feeling out of sorts, for his digestion was not all that could be desired. When lunch hour came, he sat at his mahogany desk and wondered what he would like to eat. Suddenly a memory came to him with an overpowering longing. He would like to have a plate of pork and beans, such as he used to get in his youth when he was a clerk working for eight dollars a week. Fine, meally beans, clinging to one another, soft and succulent, with here and there a clot of sweet, half-transparent pork-fat shot with streaks of fine, delicious lean meat. His mouth watered at the thought of it. Years had passed since he had eaten a plate of pork and beans. In fact, he had not tasted them since he had rounded off his first hundred thousand dollars, for the expensive chef in the kitchen of his Fifth Avenue palace never sent to the table anything so gross and populistic as pork and beans.

As soon as he decided what his jaded appetite demanded, he picked up his hat, with the intention of rushing away to Guggenheimer’s restaurant on William Street, where he used to eat years ago. But suddenly he paused. How would it look for a man of his eminence in the financial world to eat at Guggenheimer’s? The reporters always spoke of him as one of the habitués of Delmonico’s, and if they should see him at Guggenheimer’s it would give them something new and breezy to write about. They would gibe at him as only newspapermen writing on space can. And even if they didn’t see him, Guggenheimer himself, old, fat and greasy, would certainly remember him from of old and disgust him with fawning attentions. He simply couldn’t go there—that was flat.

*    *    *

“No man, however high he may rise, can wholly rid himself of his past any more than a transplanted tree can thrive unless some of the original soil clings to its roots. So it is not surprising that some of John Smith’s early tastes should still cling to him and occasionally make him unhappy amid his business.”

“My dear,” he said to his wife, as they sat at the dinner table that night, “this dinner does credit to your judgment and the chef’s ability, but do you know, I would rather have one old-fashioned dish than all of it.”

“What is it, dear?”

“Well, you know I couldn’t always afford fine things like these, and all to-day I have been craving a plate of old-fashioned pork and beans.”

“Then you shall certainly have them. We would have them to-night, only it always takes time for the chef to concoct a new dish, and I don’t think he has ever cooked pork and beans.”

“Can we have them to-morrow for lunch, do you think?”

“Why certainly!”

“Then I’ll run home from the office for lunch to-morrow, and you and I will have an old-fashioned pork and beans lunch, with a glass of milk and a good big thick slice of pie, eh? It will be just as good as going slumming for you. You will be able to see how the poor live.”

So it was all arranged, and the astonished chef received his orders. But, having been trained abroad, the Jeffersonian simplicity of the recipes for cooking pork and beans did not appeal to him.

“ ‘Let them soak over night, add pinch of soda, drain off water, etc., layers of sliced pork, etc., bake in oven, etc.! Zat was feed for one pig! Ah! we gif ze madame and monsieur one leetle surprise. I show them how cook pork and beans, yes? Sure!’ ”

“Let zem soak over night, add pinch of soda, drain off water, etc., layers of sliced pork, etc., bake in oven, etc.! Zat was feed for one pig! Ah! we gif ze madame and monsieur one leetle surprise. I show zem how cook pork and beans, yes? Sure!”

After purchasing a peck of the best beans, he selected the finest kernels, steeped them, and all night long dreamed of wonderful sauces and gravies that would disguise the plebeian flavours of the rank dish he was to concoct. Next morning even his mistress, when she called to see how he was progressing, found him cross-grained and uncommunicative.

“If madame vill please vait, all vill be vell!” was all the information he would vouchsafe. So after ordering an old-fashioned, deep, thick-crusted apple-pie and a supply of milk, she left him to his own devices.

In the meantime John Smith was down town trying to attend to business. Once when looking over the tape, he found himself mechanically hunting for quotations on pork and beans, and several times he was heard absent-mindedly repeating the words “pork,” so that the impression got abroad that the old man was trying to corner pork. It caused quite a flurry on the street. At last he stopped trying to work, and hurried away to his home.

He was decidedly early for lunch when he greeted his wife.

“Well, are the beans done?”

“I’ll see. I’ll order the dinner at once.”

“You haven’t forgotten the apple-pie, have you, and the milk?”

“No, everything will be just as you asked for.”

A few minutes later she returned, saying that everything was ready and that Monsieur le Chef was so proud of his work that he asked for the privilege of bringing it in himself.

When they were seated monsieur appeared, bearing aloft a large silver cover and smiling as only a Frenchman who has achieved a chef d’oeuvre can. Placing the cover before the master of the house he bowed profoundly and stepped back to await the effect of his master-piece. Smith removed the cover and stared in amazement.

“ ‘What on earth is this?’ he roared. ‘Why have you rubbed these beans through a colander and covered them with a gridiron of sliced bacon? Whew! and the whole thing smells like a burning spice factory!’ ”

“What on earth is this?” he roared. “Why you have rubbed these beans through a colander and covered them with a gridiron of sliced bacon. Whew! and the whole thing smells like a burning spice factory!”

“But vill not monsieur taste?” ventured the cook, startled, but still hopeful. “He may find zem delicious.”

“Delicious nothing! I wanted beans, not a poultice.”

It was in vain that his wife asked for a helping and protested that they were delightful. Smith stormed, and the cook waddled away to his own domain shrugging his shoulders until his head disappeared like a turtle’s.

“The idea of paying $5,000 a year to a cook who can’t cook beans! Bah! The cooks in the lumber shanties can do it. Let me try the pie!”

“Humph! you could paper the wall with the crust, and it might as well be made of turnips as apples, he’s got it so infernally spiced. Pass me the pitcher of milk.”

Smith tried to appease his rising wrath with a draught of milk and then he growled:

“Well thank Heaven he didn’t do anything to the milk. The idea of cooking beans in his Frenchy way! Bah! Now you needn’t start crying! O the devil!”

By this time Mrs. Smith had left the room in tears, and Smith, mad at himself and everybody, stormed out of the house.

There was nothing else to do. He must go to Guggenheimer’s. Of course, it was absurd that he should crave a plate of pork and beans—yet there were precedents. Had not King David longed for a drink from the little well that was by the gate of Bethlehem, and had not Christopher Sly, after being elevated to the peerage, called lustily for “a pot o’ the smallest ale?”

Fortifying himself with such thoughts he made a descent on Guggenheimer’s, but just as he was within a few steps of the door, he was hailed by a couple of brokers. Congratulating himself that they had not noticed his destination, for they would have made an undying joke of it on the street, he fell into step with them and, in a burst of geniality that he was far from feeling, led them to a gilded saloon and stood treat.

It was now clear that he couldn’t go to Guggenheimer’s, but, thinking the matter over, he hit on a bright idea. Why not send for a plate of pork and beans? Hurrying to his office, he called in an office boy.

“Jimmie, he said, if I give you a little job to do, will you keep your mouth shut about it and do it as quickly as you can?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jimmie hopefully.

“Then here is five dollars. Go down to Guggenheimer’s, on William Street, and get a plate of pork and beans for me! Bring it to me in a basket, and don’t on your life let anyone know who it is for or what it is.”

The dazed Jimmie ambled away to fulfill his commission.

A moment later Smith’s old-time friend and fellow epicure, Henry Morton, burst into the room in the most unbusinesslike manner imaginable.

“Where have you been to-day,” he exclaimed. “I have been trying to catch you ever since morning.”

“I have been busy,” growled Smith.

“Busy or not busy, you have got to come with me.”

“What is the matter with you now?”

“You have seen articles in the papers, haven’t you, about the Mexican Iguana, the edible lizard, that is said to be the finest eating of anything to be found between the two poles? Well, I telegraphed to a friend in Mexico to send up a consignment of them to me, and they got here in good condition last night. The chef at Delmonico’s is going to have them cooked for me this afternoon. Now I want you to come up with me right away, and we will have the feast of our lives.” Smith thought of the Iguana, and he also thought of the beans.

“ ‘Pork and Boston’ shouted the waiter down the chute. A few minutes later he slammed the steaming dish before Smith. They did not look attractive, but he tried them heroically. Alas, it was he and not the beans that had changed!”

“No, Henry,” he said, “I cannot do it. I have an engagement this afternoon involving tremendous interest, and I cannot leave my office.”

“Hang it all. You can let your interests wait over until to-morrow.”

“I wish I could, old man; but it is utterly impossible.”

“Well, that is too confounded bad,” said Morton. “I thought I was going to give you a treat.”

“Well, I thank you just the same, but it can’t be done to-day.” After a little more grumbling and arguing, Morton took his departure, and Smith went to the outer office and gave orders that, under no circumstances, was anybody to be admitted to his room for the next hour. He then retired to wait for Jimmie. After a tedious wait he was gladdened by seeing his messenger appear, bearing the basket.

“Put it on my desk,” he said sternly.

Jimmie had no sooner closed the door than Smith hastened to open the basket. The sight that met his eyes was by no means appetising. Bumping against people on the street, Jimmie had shaken a large part of the beans from the plate, and, of course, had forgotten to ask Guggenheimer for a fork. But Smith took a pen-knife and a paper cutter and began the attack. The first mouthful satisfied him. The beans were cold and the pork fat simply greasy, and the whole dish was a mussy, soggy insult to an epicure’s digestion. Those were not the beans he used to get thirty years ago, but the reason was plain. They had been kept too long after cooking, and, besides, they were cold.

It would be tedious to narrate the sufferings of the multi-millionaire during the week that followed. He whirled around Guggenheimer’s like a moth around a candle, but never could summon up the courage to enter. And all the while Jimmie used to look at him, at least so he thought, with an air of accusing knowledge that was very annoying, until at last he raised the boy’s salary and sent him into another department, where he would not see him.

It is hard to say how long this would have gone on had it not been that one day he was walking along William Street, with his coat collar turned up and an umbrella spread before his face to shield him from a passing shower, when he suddenly found himself in front of Guggenheimer’s. He glanced up and down the deserted street, for the longing for a plate of beans had come over him again, and then rushed into the open doorway. Guggenheimer was sitting at his desk in phlegmatic supremacy, watching his patrons feed. He scanned the new-comer with a vacant look that did not show any sign of recognition. This made Smith feel a trifle more at ease, though it was a sad blow to his vanity to find that he was so completely forgotten. Pushing his way to a chair beside a greasy table he finally caught the eye of a waiter and ordered a plate of pork and beans.

“Pork and Boston!” yelled the waiter down the chute. A few moments later he slammed the steaming dish before Smith. They did not look attractive, but he tried them heroically. Alas, it was he and not the beans that had changed! They were no good.

That night John Smith stole humbly home to his Fifth Avenue mansion and meekly apologised to his patient wife, with whom he had been barely on speaking terms for over a week.

Indeed, he felt of so little importance that he almost called up the chef to apologise to him, but his wife would not hear of that, and he sat down to his dinner of turtle soup, porterhouse steak and mushrooms, and a new and wonderful pudding that had lately been achieved by the lord of the kitchen.

Now the moral of this for John Smith populist is that millionaires are all ordinary human beings, with ordinary tastes and longings, just like the rest of us, if they would only admit it. As they will not admit it, the writer will take on himself the responsibility of admitting it for them.

First published in The Canadian Magazine, December 1910

One spring, eighty years ago, the great strength of “Stout Gideon” McPherson melted from him like water, and his big manly voice became a quavering echo of its former self. It was in vain that he drank Peruvian bark and wine, then considered a universal panacea, and tried all the cures suggested by wise women and Indian medicine men. From day to day the decline progressed, and he was beginning, like a true Scot, to consider his latter end when someone made the startling assertion that he had been over-looked with the Evil Eye. This explanation of his ailment at once appealed to his superstitious nature, and many were the futile exorcisms he tested. But as the person with the baleful glance was unknown, it was impossible to get a lock of his hair with which to effect a cure, and it was perhaps as well that no one was suspected; for in those simple and direct times he would have been scalped with scant ceremony in order to secure the needed remedy.

During the spring and summer of Gideon’s affliction the story of his sad case was carried to every part of the Huron Tract, and had it not been for the wisdom and ridicule of Tiger Dunlop, Canada West might have had several pages added to its history fully as sooty as those of Salem. He laughed long and loud at the story of the Evil Eye; but when it was suggested that something should be done to help McPherson and his motherless daughters to reap their twenty acres of wheat that had been sown on the previous fall when Gideon was himself, he was the first to volunteer. Packing his medical case, for he was a full-fledged Doctor as well as literary man and politician, and taking with him his celebrated box of whisky bottles which he had irreverently called “The Twelve Apostles” he undertook the journey over the corduroy road that he himself had done so much to build.

On his arrival at Cnoc-Darroch, or Oak Hill as the McPherson homestead was called, he found over twenty of the stout pioneers of the settlement preparing to attack the field of wheat with their cradles and rakes. The “Tiger” was welcomed uproariously; but he made no pretence of being an expert reaper, and instead of joining in the work he sat under a shady oak and questioned Gideon about his sickness.

“Ah was takin’ rail teemer oot o’ ta swamp when ah felt ta tribble; but ahm theenkin’ ah may hae been ower-lookèd when ah was veesitin’ in York at the New Year,” Gideon explained.

“Umph,” said the “Tiger.” “Pit oot yer tongue.”

Gideon protruded for his scrutiny a tongue like a razor strop.

“That will do. Let me try yer pulse. Umph. Yer in a bad way. Noo tell me all ye hae tried.”

Drawing by C. W. Jefferys

“PIT OOT YER TONGUE”

Gideon began the narrative, which would have made a fair-sized treatise on the quackery of the day, if it had been preserved, and the Tiger listened with barely concealed amusement. Before he had finished the cradling had commenced, and without suggesting any further treatment the Doctor began to comment on the progress of the work.

In those days it was the custom for the best cradler to cut the outside swath, and the others followed in the order of merit. The champion of the settlement was a big Irishman named McNulty, and when he stepped forward and ripped his “turkey-wing” into the rattling grain there was no one who felt at liberty to dispute his claim. One by one ten cradlers fell into oblique line behind him, each bringing along his swath a few steps to the right of the man who preceded him, and ten stout binders followed the cradlers. After them came a couple of men whose task it was to shock up the sheaves, and it was not long until the grog-master appeared on the field with a pailful of Canadian whisky, which then sold at a shilling a gallon. Doctor Dunlop acted as advisory to this functionary and prescribed for each man the amount he needed to keep him full of courage without getting befuddled. To Gideon, whose case he had by this time diagnosed, he prescribed mighty potations and set the necessary example.

“Drink, mon,” he would say. “Ye are no lang for this warl at the best, so droon yer sorrow. Ye ken what Solomon says on that heid, an’ wha are ye to question his weesdom. ‘Gi strong drink unto him that is ready to perish.’ An’ it wull preserve yer corp, mon. Shakspeer says ‘a tanner wull last ye nine year,’ but I sweer a mon beeried wi’ a skinfu’ o’ Canada fusky wull last auchteen.”

Gideon shook his head feebly but obeyed the instructions of his physician and long before noon his soul was stirring within him mightily. His fine harvest was in a fair way of being reaped and he was unconsciously forgetting his troubles.

Up to this time there had been no racing among the reapers and all had gone smoothly; but the Tiger was too fond of excitement and practical joking to let the day pass without a taste of his robust humour. Now it so happened that the first “straight-finger” cradle that had ever been seen in the settlement had been brought to the “bee” by Harry Campbell, a young man who had modestly taken his place at the end of the line. His cradle had excited much mirth among the devotees of the “turkey-wing” and many predicted that the “purty toy” wouldn’t last through the first swath. It had been imported from Four Mile Creek in the Niagara district and was the master-piece of its maker. The snath was of willow instead of hickory and the slender fingers of seasoned ash. In consequence it was lighter by several pounds than any cradle on the field, and as the fingers had no more curve than was absolutely necessary to keep the straw from tangling and tumbling off, only a slight dip was needed to free it of its load when laying the swath.

Campbell bore the ridicule of his friends good-naturedly, and after the reaping began they were too busy to notice how well the new cradle was serving its purpose. The Tiger saw the improvement, however, and began to urge the young man to “cut the fellows out.” That meant that he should push forward until he was ahead of the others, then cut his way to the outside and take the lead instead of the redoubtable McNulty. He resisted the tempter; but when Mary McPherson, the youngest and handsomest of Gideon’s daughters, was seen coming to tell that dinner was ready, and Gideon also urged him on, he yielded.

Drawing by C. W. Jefferys

“. . . . CUTTING ACROSS THE INTERVENING SWATH, TOOK HIS PLACE AHEAD OF THE CHAMPION”

So when the cradlers started down the long side of the field, Campbell suddenly increased the rapidity of his swings. In a moment the man who was immediately ahead of him noticed that he was going to cut him out if possible, and leaned forward with all his strength. In that way the race was communicated up the whole line, and when McNulty realised what was in the wind he gave a roar of defiance and plunged forward like a war-horse that snuffs the battle.

The sight was one to stir the soul, and it was by no means lost on such an audience as Gideon, the Tiger, and Mary. The land ahead of the reapers was clear of stumps and snags, and all had a chance to do their best. Onward they rushed with the rhythmic sweep of a mighty machine. The cradles rang as they hit the ripe straw and dropped their loads on the long swaths with a hissing swish. The broad backs of the reapers showed every muscle under the toil-soaked shirts, and the binders, who were equally anxious to share the triumph, raked, stooped to bind and rose to run forward, raking again with almost the precision of clock-work.

Presently the strain of such work under the August sun began to tell on the combatants and several dropped back. They were promptly cut out by those who had been pressing on them, and in a few minutes the whole interest centred on the contest between young Campbell and McNulty.

It was a glorious battle between the old idea and the new and between youth and maturity. For the first fifteen rods the result seemed to hang in the balance. The great strength of McNulty enabled him to take deep bites with his “turkey-wing,” which fully made up for the advantage of the quicker recovery and more rapid swings of the “straight-finger,” but Campbell heard the voice of Mary shrilling to him through the tumult. Swifter and swifter, deeper and deeper went the true strokes, and at last he could barely see McNulty from the tail of his eye as he swung to unload his cradle on the swath. Judging the distance carefully he suddenly wheeled to the left, and, cutting across the intervening swath, took his place ahead of the champion.

But McNulty did not accept his defeat wisely or like a gentleman. When he reached the end of the field in the second place, he dropped his cradle and announced with much irrelevancy and a searching Irish oath that he could “lick any man in the crowd.” He was bound to pick a quarrel with young Campbell, and began to insult him with unreasoning abuse. The young man protested that no offence had been meant, but McNulty, like Rachel, would not be comforted.

“Fat’s this,” roared Gideon, who had lost track of the progress of events while laughing with the Tiger. “Fechting uz ut? Zen, hu dhorra he she’ll tak a hand herself. Ut wuz herself put ze boy up to ut, Tom McNulty, and eef anyone uz to fecht ut wull be herself.”

McNulty replied with a curse, and Gideon hurled himself upon his opponent like an avalanche. They clinched and their fall shook the ground. They wrecked the profane vocabularies of three languages, English, Irish and Gaelic, and tore up the sod like a couple of wild bulls. In a moment the Irish and Scotch had taken sides, for they were at feud in the Huron Tract, and the engagement became general. It was in vain that Tiger Dunlop knocked down a couple of the combatants in the interests of peace, for the whisky was in and the blood was up; but presently an unexpected diversion occurred.

Mary sat down, pulled off a shoe and stocking, and, slipping a smooth stone into the end of the latter, undertook the rôle of peace-maker. With this terrible slung-shot she scattered both friends and foes, and was quickly mistress of the situation. It is even said that she gave Campbell a taste of her strength, probably for his guidance in the future, but that is merely tradition. In the meantime Gideon had vanquished McNulty.

Drawing by C. W. Jefferys

“IN A MOMENT THE IRISH AND SCOTCH HAD TAKEN SIDES”

Sullen peace was restored and the jovial Tiger soon managed to patch up a truce with all except McNulty. Vanquished and bruised, the bully left the field to which he had come in the fine neighbourly spirit of those hearty days.

“A round more peefore deener,” shouted Gideon as he picked up Campbell’s cradle and led off the line, leaving the new champion to walk to the house with Mary.

The Tiger laughed and chuckled to himself, for he knew that Gideon’s malaria, or “dumb ague,” would be broken by the whisky, excitement and toil, which had induced a copious perspiration. But he was too fond of a practical joke to give the scientific cause of the apparently miraculous cure. He assured Gideon that it must have been McNulty who had over-looked him and that by blackening the evil eyes he had broken the spell. His explanation was accepted, and to this day the valley of the Ashkoonie is not a comfortable place for a man whose eyes do not seem to shed a beneficent light.

By nightfall the whole twenty acres of wheat were reaped, and after a plentiful supper Mary unblushingly convoyed Harry Campbell through the moonlight as far as the ford of the Ashkoonie, and from that day they were considered betrothed.

First published in Everywoman’s World, December 1917

Ekfrid, Nov. 10th, 1917.

EAR FATHER:

You will no doubt be surprised to hear from me and, to tell the truth, you would not be hearing from me if it were not for the fix that I am in. The Editor of Everywoman’s World has asked me to contribute something to her paper. What do you think of that? I have contributed to all kinds of publications from a Sporting Extra to a religious monthly, but this is positively the first time I have ever been invited to contribute to a magazine that appeals exclusively to women. I doubt if a young girl was ever more surprised by a proposal than I was by that invitation. Instinctively I gasped:

“This is so sudden.”

When I recovered from the shock I hunted up a copy of Everywoman’s World, and tried to figure out just what I could do that would fit in. As I turned over the pages I made a discovery that gave me an inspiration. I found to my amazement that there was no Sporting Page, Market Reports, Political News, or anything intended to appeal to the father of a family. Yet it is safe to assume that there is a father in every family that takes the paper. Of course I realize that we men folks do not amount to much in family matters, but still, as a matter of business I think the editors should have something intended to interest fathers of families. Clearly, my opportunity was to fill this long-felt want, and if the editor will stand for it I shall certainly do it. Heart to heart talks between fathers might result in the interchange of many valuable hints that would make for the peace of families. If you meet me half-way in this matter we may start something that will bring comfort and happiness to the heart of many a down-trodden husband and father. Here goes.

At this moment I have no doubt you are sitting with your boots off warming your feet in the oven, after doing the chores, while the children are crowded around the lamp doing their homework. If I dared I would ask you to fill your pipe and have a smoke with me, but I am afraid that is against the principles of the paper. However, if the boy gets his head out of the light you may be able to read what I have to say.

Now what shall we deal with first? Considering the nature of the paper I think that Helpful Hints of some kind would be about the right thing—and perhaps a few recipes. I confess that I am so rattled that I find it hard to get my thoughts in order, so my letter will probably be somewhat rambling. Still you may find something that will start a valuable train of thought.

I find that the crying need among fathers at the present time when there is an election in progress, is for a lot of new convincing excuses for being out late. Lodge meetings and sitting up with a sick friend have become so thread-bare that a fellow is ashamed to offer them. I am sorry to say that I haven’t been able to invent anything new, though I did spring a story about stopping out to watch a flight of airships go over—and got away with it,—but now that the United States has joined the Allies I doubt if it would go with a really discriminating wife. If you happen to have hit on a new one I wish you would send it to me privately at the above address, and I will pass it along to as many as possible of the right kind of fellows. Sometimes we may be able to get together somewhere and by exchanging experiences get “Forty Sure and Safe Ways of making the Grand Sneak,” but if we do we will not be foolish enough to tell about them in a Woman’s paper. During a political campaign a fellow simply must get out occasionally and it is very important to have an excuse that will not rip at the seams or ravel at the edges.

Now let us get to something more practical. Have you ever stopped to consider the domestic value of binder-twine? When working about the barn I find it a good idea to have a ball of binder-twine within reach at all times. It is when working about the barn that a man usually does the kind of lifting that “busts his suspenders” and binder-twine is about the handiest thing you can get for mending broken galluses. I have even known a man to make a serviceable belt out of a few strands and for tying up rat-holes in bags it makes a fair substitute for patches.

Binder-twine can also be used instead of shoelaces, but is better to confine its use to farm shoes. When you happen to use it in your Sunday shoes and wear it to church or to town it is apt to attract attention and may give rise to gossip. A man who has a farm to look after has enough to do without being looked upon as a leader of fashion. I have also found that it is a good idea to have a few nails at hand when a button flies off. An eight penny nail cunningly stuck through the waist-band of a pair of trousers has been known to serve for a button for many months.

Come to think of it, most of a man’s problems arise when the family goes to visit some relatives for a holiday and leaves him to look after the farm and “keep bach.” Having had some experience I shall offer a few hints for what they are worth.

Don’t bother sweeping the house while the folks are away. No matter how well you do it, the first thing your wife will say when she comes in through the door will be:

“O what a mess! How on earth will I ever get the house clean again?” Another argument against sweeping is that women inherit the belief that a man invariably sweeps the dust under the sideboard or under the bed, and nothing will make them believe anything else. You might as well

as try to convince them of anything different. Their belief in this matter is touchingly fundamental and it is useless for you to wrestle with it. Therefore don’t sweep.

“Women inherit the belief that a man invariably sweeps the dust under the sideboard.”

It is also a good scheme to use the largest dinner plates for breakfast. You can turn them over for dinner and eat from the bottoms, if you cook your meat without gravy. Supper you take from a newspaper on top of the cupboard. By conserving the family supply of dishes in this way you can make them last through a prolonged period of “baching” and in the loneliness of your life you will have plenty of time to think up a good story telling how you intended to wash the lot, but something happened that drove it out of your mind or made it impossible. A cow got sick or something of that kind.

It is never a good idea to let your women-folks think that you know how to cook a decent meal. Even though you may have had early experience as cook on a gravel train or in a lumber shanty you will find it better to assume a childish helplessness in such matters. This is not entirely because it will make them wait on you tenderly, but because it tends to give them self reliance and more conceit of themselves to think that cooking is a mystery which no man can ever master. I have known the peace of a family to be wrecked by a man who knew how to cook, and refused to accept his wife’s explanations when the bread happened to be soggy or when the potato water got scorched. It is wise to let them retain their feeling of superiority in unimportant matters of this kind.

As a father of a family I may say that I find my early experiences as an umpire and occasionally as a referee very valuable in settling disputes among the children. To city fathers who may read these words I may say that most families would find it better to hire an experienced referee than a nursery governess.

When the children are being dosed with sulphur and molasses or similar medicines the wise father gets out of the way as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. Wives are apt to be somewhat blind at such times, and if he is not careful he may get a dose out of the over-flow.

There is one job that always falls to the lot of the father of a family on Thanksgiving-day, Christmas and other family festivals. He must carve the fowl. As I have never been able to make anything out of the charts and blue-prints published in family papers and cook books I usually do the job by main strength. If there happens to be guests at the table I invariably put them into good humor by quoting Bill Nye’s advice to carvers.

“When carving a fowl it is not considered good form to place your knee on the breast of the bird.”

This always raises a merry laugh that puts everyone at ease and if a lady happens to get her silk waist splashed with gravy during my struggles she takes it in the spirit in which it was meant and the incident passes off lightly.

By the way, when you are keeping “bach” you should avoid the family cook book as you would the pestilence. One time I hankered for an omelette and indiscreetly went to the family cook book to get plans and specifications for building it. Happening to catch the book by the back it promptly vomited a shower of clippings and papers all over the kitchen floor. When picking them up I found newspaper recipes for everything from mending crockery to hints for healing a daughter’s heart after the young minister has accepted a call to a distant parish. I also found selected poems, early love-letters and recipes for mixed pickles. By the time I had picked up the scattered debris and restored the cookbook to its former corpulence I had lost my appetite and had decided that I didn’t want anything to eat anyway.

Speaking of recipes reminds me that I once saw an article in the family circle of a farm paper which told “How to serve Square Meals on Round Doilies.” If I had known that I would be asked to write this article I would have clipped it and put it away in the “Veterinary Guide” for future reference.

If you happen to use an empty vanilla bottle to store a little supply of varnish while your wife is away and the cake she cooks for the Woman’s Institute after she comes home doesn’t taste right, just lay back your ears and sit tight until the storm blows over. Remember Disraeli’s advice, “Never apologize and never explain.”

If you happen to be nosing around in the cupboard for a left-over piece of pumpkin pie for a late lunch, and happen to run across a bottle of stuffed olives, by that token you may know that high-toned company is going to be entertained in the near future. By using tact you may be able to learn just when the function is to be held, and have a previous engagement in town with the horse doctor or the hog-drover.

I see by the millinery advertisements that bustles are coming in again. I have nothing to say for publication on that subject, but if I happen to meet you down at the livery stable I may make a few remarks.

But oh, but oh, Father there are real troubles ahead of us that I am afraid I can’t deal with in a short letter like this. Has it dawned on you that Woman’s Suffrage is coming just as sure as shooting. As far as the straight political aspects of such a change are concerned I can’t say that I care very much. There may be times when we will have maternalism instead of paternalism in our legislation, but that will not matter very much. Giving the vote to women will only dilute authority still more so that no one’s vote will carry much weight, but that will be a move in the right direction. In a democracy the authority cannot be diluted too much.

After these tolerant remarks you will not be surprised to learn that I am now a confessed Suffragette. I was converted by Miss Grace Blackburn and confirmed by Mrs. Pankhurst, herself—had an interesting interview with her—and I have reached a point where I can refer to the matter without bursting. Perhaps that is because I am not so much interested in politics as I used to be. So you can see that it is not the actual exercise of the franchise by women that disturbs me.

What gets me going is the change that is bound to come over the great game of politics. The oldest and most reverend and hoary of masculine bluffs is about to be finally punctured. No more can we say that we are going to a caucus and then look wise and mysterious. You know as well as I do that we never really knew anything about politics except to yell and vote with the gang—though we wouldn’t let the women-folks know that for worlds.

Just think of it, Father, there will be no more sly meetings in the back room at Dinty Moore’s place where everything was smoky and dirty and free and easy.

No more will we be able to get the last word whispered from the bosses at head-quarters and then go out on the street and bluff ourselves, and everybody else into thinking that we were really doing things, instead of having them done for us by fellows who were leading us by the nose. After the women get the vote, if we want to take part in politics we will have to put on other clothes and attend meetings of the executive in Mrs. Spadina Jones’ front parlor. But what I am most afraid of is the questions that women will ask.

There will be high-brows among them who will want to know all about the principles of representative government, and as the former custodians of the inalienable rights of the people we will be expected to explain just how things are worked out when the sovereign voter expresses his will. Gosh, father, we will never dare to tell the truth about it and they’ll all find out how much we have bluffed them in the past.

I really think the best thing we can do is to get out of politics altogether for a while—put up the bluff that it is a girl’s game now, that no boy wants to play. If we don’t we’ll be found out and the women will have the laugh on us. What do you think about it?

Well, Father, I guess this will be about all for this time. I might give you some good schemes for playing bear with the baby so as to keep him amused, but I think I have tried the patience of the editor quite enough. Possibly she has a fool in her own family and there is a limit to what she can stand.

Wishing you a Merry, Merry and Happy Happy

Peter McArthur

P.S.—As this is meant for a Woman’s paper I realize that I must add a postscript to make it look natural, so I take this opportunity of stating that I did not consult with my wife when writing this letter. If I had it might have lacked something of its engaging frankness and candor.

P. McA.

First published in The Canadian Magazine, May 1913

Jameson was busy opening his morning mail and giving instructions to his clerks with surly curtness. Presently he picked up a large square envelope and paused, with the paper-knife poised, ready to be inserted under the flap. A whiff of violets greeted him.

“Humph!” he snorted, as he looked at the address and the red seal on the back, and wondered whom the unusual letter could be from. Square envelopes have no place in business correspondence, and business letters are more likely to smell of brimstone than of violets. After the first surprise he inserted the paper-knife and gave a savage rip. As the knife passed through, it brought out the end of a little blue ribbon, and a moment later the surly lumber merchant had a birthday card in his hand. He felt dazed as he looked at the flimsy lace paper and the little pink and white Cupids that smiled out at him. Turning it over he saw, written on the back in a childish hand: “With love to papa, from Millie.”

A remembrance from his little daughter, the first he had ever received! He read the simple verse that was printed on it:

As he handled it gently with his rough, hard fingers, a glow pervaded him, as if something for which he had been longing all his life had come at last. Just then he heard a titter behind him, and, turning quickly, saw that the typewriter girl had been watching. With a muttered oath he threw the card to the back of his desk, and a feeling almost of nausea overcame him. The success with which he had been satisfying his pride and starving his heart became odious to him in an instant, and the emptiness of his life came back with stinging force. What did it matter that he had fought his way from the lumbercamps in the backwoods of Maine to the position of foremost lumber dealer in New York? He had allowed himself to be married for his money; he was a stranger in his own house; he was hardly acquainted with his only daughter, because, forsooth, his wife kept them apart for fear the child should acquire the Scotch burr he inherited from his parents, and for which he was freely ridiculed. She must acquire a pure English accent, and to this end had been sent away to a fashionable boarding-school, after a preliminary course of study with an imported governess. Faugh! It made him sick to think of it. Only work would give him even a fleeting relief. He must bestir himself, instead of dreaming. She had sent him the card simply because other girls were sending them, not because she meant it! The heart-sick, lonely man roused himself from his unpleasant reverie and resumed the work of the day. He punished the tittering typewriter by giving her enough work to keep her fingers rattling the keys until after hours. Then he went into the yard to see how things were going on. Everything was wrong.

“Here!” he growled to his foreman, “don’t you know enough to pile them planks wi’ the heart side down? You’re piling them sap down, an’ they’ll check an’ rot. How many times have I told you how to do it? Can’t I ever learn you to do it right?”

One after another, the workmen were scolded, and they, good men, credited it all to the “old man’s stylish wife.”

“He’s been havin’ another row at home,” they said, “an’ is takin’ it out of us.”

*    *    *

What if his little daughter did love him? What if she, alone among strangers, were lonely, too? Humph! What an old fool he was. What could he do about it? He had married a woman who was above his station and below his wealth, and would have to endure his mistake. Still that little card with its flowers and lace paper and silly little rhyme, jammed into a corner of his desk, would force itself upon his mind. And a sweet-faced little girl would look wistfully at him. Was she lonely, too, and heart-sick? How he did long for the pure child-love that his only daughter should be giving him! How he would lavish all his love on her! Then he thought of his Scotch burr, the rolling r’s that he could not soften, and he laughed. His laugh was not good to hear. The heavy grizzled eyebrows were knotted into a fierce frown, and his shaved upper lip became harder, and squarer, and sterner over his whiskered chin. Still the little rhyme and the wistful face would come back to him.

“He carried her in his arms to the carriage”

After making himself thoroughly disagreeable to everybody he returned abruptly to his desk. He made a feint at occupying himself with his papers and finally picked up the card.

One of the Cupids looked out at him with an expression that was indescribably roguish. “Oho, you old dry bones!” it would have said if it could, “you despise me, don’t you? But I have had my sport with you already. Didn’t I make you fall in love with a woman who only loved your money? And I’m going to have more fun with you than ever.”

He looked at the writing again.

“With love to papa, from Millie.” Again the wistful face looked at him, and as the repressed love of his heart welled up a mistiness came over his eyes. He sprang from his seat and walked hurriedly out into the street, with the card in his pocket. Perhaps mingling with the crowd would rid him of his brain-sick fancies. But it didn’t. The Cupid looked out at him more teasingly than ever, and there was a look of loneliness on the childish face that sent a twinge of pain through his heart.

“Dugald Jameson,” he muttered to himself, “are you acting the part of a father, or a Christian, in not ruling your own household? Have you not neglected your duty? Where is all your strength of will and the manliness that has made you succeed in life, if you will let a woman who neither loves nor honours you rule over you?” Then the cold indifference of his wife came back to him like a blow in the face: the bitter discovery that she merely endured his awkward caresses, the feeling that he was repulsive to her, then the years of well-bred contempt. It staggered him, but it was love and not pride that was ruling him now, and he rose serene over all obstacles. He forgot the mother. Only the daughter, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh! How his heart yearned for her! It was then that Jameson was transfigured by a great resolution that lit his hard face with love and changed his uneasy gait to that of a strong and happy man.

The little Cupid said nothing. He had passed from memory. He was only a trifler with the love of boys and girls. This was something beyond him; the love of a father—love that has been long pent up, and now broke out in an irrestible flood.

Jameson telegraphed to the superintendent of the school to send his daughter home by the next train. Then he went home to make preparations for her reception.

“Set things in order in Millie’s room,” he called cheerily to the housekeeper, when he entered the mansion in which he had hitherto been a lodger. “She will be home to-night.”

“What!” exclaimed his astonished wife, who was attracted to the spot by the hearty tone in which the order was given. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that our daughter is coming home! And she’s coming home to stay. I have telegraphed for her.”

“Have you lost your senses?”

“No! I have found them! I am going to be the head of this family!”

“Who has been putting these fine notions into your head?”

“Woman,” he exclaimed, towering to his full height and making use of a Scotticism that at another time would have made her smile, “I have neglected my duty too long. After this my daughter shall be educated in her own home, as a Christian child should be, even if I have to hire the whole school to come here to teach her!”

“This is outrageous!” said his wife angrily. “Is it not enough that I must endure you and your uncouth ways that are a constant source of shame to me among my friends, without Millie being brought home to learn them from you? I intended that she should be a lady.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say—“and you’d marry her to a title as you yourself married money,” but the love that was in him made him feel kindlier to all the world, and all her sarcasms and storming could not affect him. Jameson had covered himself with the panoply of silence that is the birthright of everyone of Scottish descent, and made no reply. Finally she burst into tears and left the room. He then took out the card and looked at it again. To his uneducated taste the little chromo Cupids were high art, and the little sentimental rhyme true poetry. It was beautiful to look at. It should be framed! He looked about the walls to find a suitable place to put it, and decided it should be put in the place of that absurd little Meissonier that had cost such a mint of money. The little Cupid looked more roguish than ever as it realised what its fate was to be, and the face that rose in the old man’s memory was no longer wistful and lonely. It was trustful and happy as a child’s should be and his heart sang within him.

“With what a dainty air Millie played the hostess”

*    *    *

When the train stopped at the station the little girl that was carefully helped off by a prim teacher was picked up with such an embrace as she had never felt before. She was but a little wisp of a thing, and he carried her in his arms to the carriage, as if she were a child of three instead of a young lady of ten, with the irritating grown-up manners that children of these days have. Of course it was a shock to her, but there is something conquering in strength and love, and she was soon cuddling up against his shoulder, listening to his occasional broken expressions of affection and feeling the pressure of his protecting arm about her. The intuition of children is quick, and before they reached home they were like old cronies, and she even forgot to wonder why she and her father had never been like this before.

Her mother’s tearful face was a surprise to her, but the mother was too much overcome by the conflict with her husband in the afternoon to have anything to say. She loved her daughter too, as only a lonely woman who lives a life of self-inflicted suffering can love, but she let her affection spend itself in ambitious plans. But she never took the trouble to understand the man with whom she had linked herself, and now he had risen in his might and she felt that defeat and utter misery were before her. She kissed her child again and again, and pleading a headache left the two together.

“She saw the great good heart that was under all his uncouthness”

What a supper they had, and with what a dainty air Millie played the hostess and poured his tea for him, and how she rattled on about her schoolmates and her little troubles, while he listened with his face beaming unbounded love! After supper he showed her that he had the card safe in his pocket, and they pledged themselves to be true to one another for a year and a day. She sat on his knee, and at last fell asleep while listening to stories that he had heard from his mother, many hard and long years ago. Then he carried her tenderly up to her room and helped a nurse to put her into her cot. After tucking her in, he stood looking at her innocent beautiful face buried in curls and resting on her little tired arm. It was something he had never seen before, and was all so pure and sacred he feared to stoop and kiss her “good-night.”

His reverie was interrupted by the sound of a sob, and looking up hastily, he saw his wife standing half-hidden in the curtains at the other side of the bed. Her face was haggard and miserable. She had suffered too, but why? Then the two souls, that were hitherto blind and dumb and yet joined by the bond of a great love for their child, at last saw and understood. He tip-toed to her side, and as he put his arm about her she did not think him awkward. She saw the great good heart that was under all his uncouthness.

The little card was not put into the frame that held the Meissonier. It was altogether too sacred a thing to be profaned by the eyes of the careless.

First published in The Canadian Magazine, January 1914

Only a slight leverage is needed to turn a new leaf. The whole trouble lies in keeping it turned. This is so true it is hardly worth saying, but as it is the obvious moral of our story it may as well be said at once so that we will be rid of it.

Harold George was one of those comfortable young men who take themselves seriously and for that reason instinctively consider all girls frivolous. But Alma Page’s frivolity was of the kind that pleased him because it set off his solid qualities so well, and he called on her so often that observant people began to talk of a match. Of course, he poohpoohed such a possibility, but continued to enjoy himself by having a jolly time with her whenever the opportunity offered. As for Alma, she liked his society, and to the best of her knowledge was wholly heart free.

This state of affairs had existed for many months and would perhaps have continued indefinitely had it not been for a chat they had one evening during the Christmas holidays.

“Oh, by the way,” exclaimed Alma, “have you made any good resolutions for the new year?”

“Well, no, I can’t say I have,” replied Harold pompously.

“What a paragon you must be if you don’t need to reform in any way! But perhaps you feel that you wouldn’t have the power to keep a good resolution if you made it.”

Now, Harold prided himself on his strength of will, and he hastened to explain.

“As far as that is concerned you are mistaken. I know I have faults, as all men have, but as they have never caused me any trouble so far I don’t feel the necessity of bothering myself about them. However, if you suggest anything in which I need a reform I will show I can do it.”

“Oh, dear, no!” said Alma banteringly. “I wouldn’t for the world do anything to disturb your poise! You are so perfectly balanced that the removal of even one of your faults would spoil your symmetry.”

Harold was not quick of perception, but he realized that he was being laughed at, and in self defence he asked:

“But what have you decided to give up?”

“I can’t make up my mind. I have so many faults I don’t know where to begin.”

At this commonplace statement Harold laughed uproariously, as is the habit of men who have no sense of humour. Her air as she made the statement was so demure, however, that it added to her charm, and as he stopped laughing he looked at her with a patronizing sense of satisfaction that was new to him.

“I don’t see what you are laughing at,” said Alma, with a slight pout that was also bewitching. “I am sure there are lots of things that I should turn over a new leaf about.”

Harold went off into another roar of laughter. The idea of this fluffy bundle of innocence having great faults was very absurd to him. When he finally stopped, she exclaimed:

“I’ll tell you what let’s do. Let us each think it over carefully and then decide to turn over a new leaf about something. We really should, you know, and besides it is the fashion at this time of year.”

“All right; it is a bargain,” he said.

While smoking his cigar on his way home, Harold thought of his proposed reform and laughed to himself at the absurdity of it all. It was foolish of him to allow himself to be led into such nonsense by a girl, but what a girl she was! He was thinking vaguely of giving up smoking as his reform, but he gradually forgot about it thinking about Alma. He had never thought much about her before, but on this night she had interested him. It is true she was frivolous, but so is every woman who is attractive. That she was young and fresh and beautiful was beyond question, and all she needed was a man of strong character, like himself, of course, to direct her and bring out the serious side of her nature. At this point a thought struck him so forcibly that he stopped abruptly with the cigar poised in his hand.

What if Alma was taking his attentions seriously?

It was a disturbing thought, and he walked slowly as he turned it over in his mind. He had always considered it part of his destiny to marry, but he was waiting for the right woman and merely amusing himself in the meantime. But if Alma had learned to love him, and it was quite possible, he might be the cause of a cruel disappointment to her. Women feel such things so deeply, you know. As he thought it all over and recalled many trifling incidents the possibility became a probability, and he was not a little disgusted. It troubled him until he fell asleep and dreamed about her, and in the morning the haunting thought was still in his mind. But he never came to conclusions hastily, and it was not until New Year’s Eve that he made up his mind that perhaps Alma, after all, was the woman to make him happy. But before deciding finally he resolved to sound the depths of her character and stop meeting her frivolity with frivolity. Just then it occurred to him that in doing that he would be turning over a new leaf as he had promised to, and he chuckled over his own cleverness.

Alma in the meantime had canvassed her failings carefully and had decided that her besetting sin was flirting. True, she had never flirted much with any one but Harold, and his self satisfaction was so unspeakable that it was a temptation to tease him. But she really did not love him. He was not her Prince Charming by any means, and she would simply have to give up flirting with him. Full of this noble resolution, she awaited his next visit.

On the first evening of the New Year Harold attired himself faultlessly and called at the Page mansion. He had almost decided that Alma was the one woman he had ever met whom he would care to make his wife, and the impression was heightened when she swept into the room to greet him and wish him the compliments of the season. He had brought her a box of bonbons as a New Year’s gift and was somewhat surprised by the staid and decorous way in which she received it. His surprise became positive when she said:

“Thank you so much, Mr. George. It is very kind of you to bring me this.”

He expected that she would go into raptures as usual, and then the “Mr. George!” They had known each other from childhood, and she had always called him Harold.

“Why, what’s the matter?” he asked.

“The matter? I don’t understand!”

“But—‘Mr. George!’ ”

“Well?”

“But you have always called me”—Then he realized that he was going to make himself ridiculous, and he stopped in some confusion. It was certainly annoying to have her greet him in this way when he intended to start so differently with her.

“You are not angry at me, are you?” he asked after an uncomfortable silence.

“Certainly not. What put that into your head?”

“But you are treating me so differently from the way you usually do, so—”

“I have always treated you politely, haven’t I?”

“Oh, pshaw! I don’t mean that. Now I insist on knowing,” he began pettishly, but she interrupted him with some asperity.

“Insist, Mr. George! I never knew that you had any right to insist on anything with me.”

“I don’t mean that,” he tried to explain, and in the meantime he was losing his temper rapidly at finding his plans so upset, “but you seem so queer to-night.”

“Thanks for the compliment, Mr. George.”

The iteration of “Mr. George” exasperated him completely, and he tried to say something, failed, and then started toward the door, intending to leave the house. But at that moment Mrs. Page entered the room and wished him the compliments of the season.

It would not do to let her see that he was angry, so he chatted with her for a few minutes and gradually recovered his self-control. In the meantime Alma had time to reflect that she had rather overdone her decorous conduct and was anxious to make up friends. To see him angry was something new, and it gave her a very unpleasant feeling about the heart. She didn’t like to think of losing his friendship. Like a true woman, she promptly decided to let the new leaf she had turned over rustle back to its place and begin again with the old one. When her mother left the room, she ran up to Harold and looking up into his eyes with the sweetest penitence pleaded:

“Don’t let us quarrel, Harold. I admit I didn’t treat you nicely. Won’t you let me sing you the new song I have learned?”

Going to the piano, she played her own accompaniment and sang the latest popular song, one that gave her an opportunity to look at him roguishly and flash her beautiful eyes to advantage. He was partly mollified and more in love than ever before she reached the last verse. Her sudden changes from dignity to frivolity bewildered him, but still she was beautiful in all her moods.

“Come!” she said, extending her hand to him. “We are friends again, aren’t we? But you must confess you were not exactly the same as usual to me to-night. You were so woefully serious.”

She did not withdraw her hand from his lingering clasp, for, like the impulsive creature she was, she overdid her reconciliation as she had her reform.

“Yes, I was more serious than usual,” he said, still holding her hand, “but that was because I had made up my mind to turn over a new leaf.”

“And it was because I had turned over a new leaf that I was—” Then she stopped and blushed furiously. It would never do to tell him her resolution, and she withdrew her hand, and blushes became her as much as smiles.

“Oh, what was your resolution?” she asked gaily, trying to cover her confusion.

“I had made up my mind to discover—no, I have made up my mind—I love you, Alma! Will you be my wife?”

“I didn’t expect this!” she whispered in reply.

“But say you will be my wife!”

“Oh, you must give me time to think!”

“Then you do not love me!” he said blankly.

“I don’t know. I always liked you and want to be friends. And to stop flirting with you was my good resolution.”

“I want you to stop flirting with me,” he said eagerly. “I want you to be in earnest.”

“Oh, it is all so sudden!” she protested. “Let us not turn over new leaves, but just go back with the old ones just as we were, you know, for awhile.”

“No,” he said doggedly. “I have turned over a new leaf and over it stays. I want you to be my wife and not simply a jolly friend.”

This speech was in every way characteristic of him, and as she looked at him she felt very weak and foolish in the presence of his firmness and strength. She wanted very much to cry and knew that was foolish, too, but every second she felt herself yielding to his dominant will, and when he suddenly clasped her in his arms she made no resistance.

After that what a trouble they had with their new leaves! Now that he claimed a proprietary interest in her, Harold simply couldn’t help meeting Alma’s frivolity with frivolity and unbending cumbrously in response to her gaiety. And she found it more delightful than ever to flirt with him, now that their little quarrel had made them realize how dear they were to each other. But before the next season of good resolutions had come around they made up their minds that it was altogether too much trouble to turn over two new leaves and keep them turned. So they decided to confine themselves to one leaf and turn it over together.

First published in The Canadian Magazine, July 1913

In affairs of the heart a man, especially a young man, needs a disinterested woman to guide, to encourage, or to check him, as the case may require. Now, Harry Watson was young twenty years ago, and so fortunate as to have a charming widow as his confidant and friend. She was several years his senior, and he was once very much in love with her—or thought he was. She had poohpoohed his proposal and told him that, although she thought him a fine, clever young fellow, she had no desire to take a boy to raise and that he mustn’t talk nonsense. Of course he was very tragic and went out west to hunt for grizzlies, hoping to be masticated by one, but he presently came to his senses and returned to the city. He was naturally rather shame-faced when he met the widow, but she was so jolly that he soon forgot his previous absurdity, and they became fast friends.

But about the middle of the season a change came over him. The widow wondered a little at first and then smiled. He was absent-minded, had no confidences to impart and could no longer be relied on for an escort.

“Well, Harry,” she finally inquired when her patience was exhausted, “who are you in love with now?”

“How do you know I am in love?”

“Oh, I am so familiar with the symptoms, and besides I have seen you in love before!”

“No, no!” he exclaimed ruefully. “I never knew until now what love means!”

The widow thought of some wild protestations she had once heard and smiled, but her smile was good-natured and forgiving.

“Really,” she said, “this looks serious, and perhaps I was wrong in not interfering sooner! But come, tell me who she is?”

“Who are you in love with now?”

“Miss Townsend.”

“Esther?”

He nodded.

The widow blushed slightly and murmured something altogether irrelevant about taking a boy to raise, after all. Then she exclaimed:

“That is the first sensible thing I have ever known you to do! Have you proposed to her yet?”

“No, indeed! She knows nothing of how I feel toward her!”

“He sank back into his chair with a groan.”

“Perhaps not,” said the widow. “Some girls are queer.”

“And besides she seems altogether unapproachable. Something seems to make it almost a sin to think of loving her.”

The widow understood this at once. Esther’s mother had died some years ago, and, being the only daughter, Esther had become the housekeeper for her father and brothers, and in consequence she naturally assumed a matronly attitude toward young men.

“You poor boy!” said the widow in humorous sympathy. “What would become of you if it were not for me? But if you obey my orders I will guarantee that you will win her.”

“What must I do?” asked Harry brightening.

“You must go and propose to Esther to-night.”

“I haven’t the courage.”

“You don’t need courage. A proper amount of fear and trembling helps a man wonderfully when he is proposing.”

Harry argued for awhile, but the upshot of the matter was that he obeyed the widow and sought Esther with a carefully prepared proposal on the tip of his tongue. Being so occupied with this it was only natural that his conversational efforts were of the blundering kind that it would be cruel to repeat, and after the first few minutes Esther was no more at ease than he was, for embarrassment is very contagious among lovers, whether they realise that they are in love or not. Finally, after much disjointed chat, Harry made the plunge like a man closing his eyes and leaping over a precipice.

“Miss Townsend, I know that I am pre—that I—er—er—I love you.”

Her reply was an inarticulate murmur of surprise.

“I cannot dare to think that you will consent to be my wife just now, but perhaps some day—will you not let me hope? I will do anything to win your love.”

“Please don’t, don’t, Mr. Watson! It is impossible.”

He sank back into his chair with a groan.

“I am so sorry this has happened,” she said with forced calmness. “I like you very much, and I thought we were always to be friends, but you can see that it is impossible for me to marry. It is my duty to take care of papa and my brothers and try to take the place of my poor mother.”

“I felt from the first,” said Harry sorrowfully, “that it was hopeless to think of you. You are too good for me.”

“Don’t say that, please, for I like you very much more than any one I know. If I ever did lo—marry, it would be just such a man as you—good, clever and generous. But you see that it is impossible, don’t you?”

He looked into her appealing eyes, but could not answer. Nothing is so sublimely tragic as a beautiful girl sacrificing herself to a mistaken sense of duty, and she appeared so sublime to him that he couldn’t help thinking her in the right.

“Please leave me now, Mr. Watson. I am so sorry this has happened. You must forget me—no, not that—for I shall always like to think of you as a friend, and when you have forgotten this—this—please go. I must be true to my duty.”

When Harry had reached the street, the weight of his disappointment pressed down on him in the darkness and maddened him. He loved her more than ever and was utterly without hope. When he had walked about until his sorrow had somewhat exhausted itself, he began to crave sympathy and naturally sought the widow. It was a delicate matter to handle, but she questioned him tactfully and soon learned all that she wished to know, and that was that his love was undoubtedly returned.

After talking the whole matter over Harry felt comforted, and he felt sure that the clever widow was going to do all in her power to help him. But he did not imagine that while they were discussing the subject the peerless, self-sacrificing Esther was weeping bitterly and almost rebelling against her fate. It was only by magnifying her duty to an appalling grimness that she finally recovered her composure and soothed the pain at her heart to an aching numbness.

As soon as the widow felt that Harry had recovered from the first bitterness of his disappointment she ordered him to go and call on Esther. He obeyed, and a few such calls restored to some extent their old relationship, and they could talk more like brother and sister. And one evening she talked to him in a most sisterly fashion, warning him wistfully to, beware of the wiles of the widow.

“You know I look upon you as a brother, and I should not like to see one of my brothers as much in her company as you are. Of course she is nice, but is she designing?”

“The little minx,” said the widow when she had heard of it. “I know I am designing, but she will find it is for her happiness I am doing it now—and incidentally for my own—or just the reverse.”

“Take me Home.”

She of course diagnosed the case as one of jealousy and was pleased. Harry didn’t understand the last part of her remark, but he did not question.

“Are you going to the Madison musicale?” the widow asked.

“Yes, Esther and her father will be there,” Harry replied.

“Well, I shall be there, too, and I may want you to do me a favour. Will you do it?”

“Certainly.”

*    *    *

On the night of the musicale the widow was triumphantly beautiful. There was the light of battle in her eyes, and that with good reason, for she had brought her own affairs and those of several other people to a crisis. But no one could look at her perfect figure and animated face without feeling that she could conquer the most obdurate by her charms and have her will. Harry had never seen her looking so bewitching, for he had never seen her so thoroughly alert and aroused. Had Esther not been there the old flame might have rekindled. But Esther was beautiful—in a different way—and as soon as they were alone he promptly proposed to her again, and she as promptly declined to listen.

He groaned in misery.

“I am very sorry,” she said.

They looked at each other silently for a while. At last a slight sob shook her, and she murmured:

“I must get papa to take me home.”

She turned and walked away from him quickly. Before she had gone a dozen paces she stopped as if transfixed and looked with dilated eyes into an alcove she was passing.

Then she ran back to Harry and, almost fainting, caught his arm.

“Take me home! Take me away from here!”

He hastened to call a carriage. When they had entered it, Esther began to cry, and he tried to console her. Instinctively he put his arm about her, and she did not resist. A moment after—it was the natural thing to do—he kissed her, and, leaning her head on his shoulder, she wept until her sorrow had abated. He could not imagine what was the matter, but when they arrived at her home she enlightened him. As she was leaving him in the conservatory she had seen her father kneeling before the widow proposing to her and had seen her grant him a kiss of acceptance. All her illusions about duty vanished in an instant. Her father was getting another to take care of him, and her occupation was gone.

“I shall leave home!” she cried angrily. “If he marries her, I must leave home!”

“I have a home to offer you,” said Harry.

But it is not necessary to follow them through this last scene, which could have but one result—happiness for both.

It never occurred to Harry that the widow had ordered him to propose to Esther so that she could bring her father, as if by accident, to see the little scene. She had watched his movements, and judging the correct moment to a nicety had brought Mr. Townsend to that part of the conservatory. He liked Harry too much to interrupt, which the widow had taken care to learn before she took the step, and she was not sorry when she heard of it.

Harry was naturally profuse in his thanks, for his happiness so blinded him to everything else in the world that he thought it was for his sake it had all been done. When this dawned upon the widow, she laughed loud and long.

“Oh, go away,” she laughed, “to your billing and cooing with Esther! You are such a pair of fools you should be happy together.” And she added somewhat mischievously:

“You see, I am in a sense taking a boy to raise, after all. But you will find me a very indulgent mother-in-law.”

First published in Massey’s Magazine, July 1896

In a burst of confidence, I told a publisher that I proposed writing an article on “The Celebration of Dominion Day in New York.”

“Then,” he replied enthusiastically, “you are just the man I want to write a book for me about snakes in Ireland.”

DRAWN BY C. W. JEFFERYS.

A DOMINION DAY MEETING IN NEW YORK.

Of course, the proposition was scorned, but later developments proved that a man may be too hasty in rejecting an offer that is kindly meant. There once were celebrations of Dominion Day in New York, or this article would not be written, and there must have been snakes in Ireland once, or St. Patrick could not have driven them out. I am going to hunt up that publisher some day, and tell him that the snake book suggestion has been reconsidered.

DRAWN BY JAY HAMBIDGE.

THE PICK SWINGS JUST THE SAME.

As I usually spend Dominion Day in Canada, I knew nothing personally about the celebrations here, and so was obliged to seek information from the more stationary members of the colony. The first man interviewed replied that he had taken part in but one Dominion Day celebration. That time he met a Canadian poet on Broadway, and, in honor of the occasion, introduced him to his first mint julep. Ever since, the poet has been travelling south to meet the spring. The next man said that he had never celebrated the day, and the same answer was made by the whole list of Canadian-born bankers, brokers, artists and business men of all descriptions who were questioned. They all protested loyalty to their native land, with evident sincerity, and yet seemed surprised when asked why they did not celebrate its natal day. “Too busy!” “Never think of it down here!” “Too near the Fourth,” etc., were the answers made. The fact of the matter is, New York is so absolutely a commercial centre that few people think of celebrating anything here, except a financial success, and they celebrate that by retiring from the city to some place where they can enjoy their gains. A large percentage of the native Americans in the city are here to spoil the Egyptians, and are looking forward to the day when they can give up business and retire to their former homes, in some state perhaps more remote from the city than the provinces of Canada, so no particular blame attaches to Canadians if they do not consider themselves sufficiently located here to build up organizations in which the customs of their country can be cherished. Moreover, there is so little difference between Americans and Canadians in their habits, tastes and general behavior, that, unless they stop to think of it they never feel they are living under a foreign flag.

DRAWN BY JAY HAMBIDGE.

THE POET THINKS JUST AS HARD AS ON ANY OTHER DAY.

But it is unnecessary to defend the Canadian colony of New York for its apparent lack of loyal enthusiasm. Its members are, almost without exception, men of strong individuality, who have come here to study or to win fame and fortune, and for that reason they lack the similarity of feather that is proverbial to predispose both men and birds to aggregation. Their hearts are still true to their Mother Country, but they have neither the time nor the inclination to offend, or provoke the smiles of the people with whom they work shoulder to shoulder with alien demonstrations.

DRAWN BY JAY HAMBIDGE.

THE EDITOR’S DOMINION DAY.

At one time there was a Canadian club in New York, and in it were held the celebrations that excuse the writing of this article. The first was held in 1885, and its success was moderate. The second was held in 1886, and was successful in every way. A band of such good Canadians as Messrs. Jackson Wallace, Lewis Fraser, George Munro, Thomas Alva Edison, W. A. Shortt, W. B. Ellison, T. H. Allen, J. Paton, Thomas Willing, and many others, gathered and made it clear how strong are the bonds that bind them to the land of their birth. It was for this occasion that Professor Charles G. D. Roberts wrote his “Dominion Day Collect,” which was read by Mr. Willing, as the poet was unable to be present. In 1887, the preparations for the Queen’s Jubilee, in which British subjects in America and the Anglomaniacs took part, so completely exhausted the energies of the Canadians that they were unable to do more than hoist the flag on their club house on Dominion Day.

DRAWN BY JAY HAMBIDGE.

“ART IS LONG AND TIME IS FLEETING.”

Shortly after this the interests of the members of the club were found to be so diverse that it was impossible to keep it up to a satisfactory standard, and it was allowed to disband; so, after a career as brilliant as it was brief, it expired gently, and bequeathed its name to a popular brand of whiskey. Who shall ever say that it was organized in vain? Since the dissolution of the Canadian Club, there have been no celebrations of Dominion Day in New York, of which I can find a trace, but our friends must not think, for that reason, that the Canadians here are forgetful or disloyal. They love Canada, and they respect the United States, where they are treated with so much courtesy and hospitality; but if the Jingoes here should ever precipitate a war with Canada, which is most unlikely, the majority of her wandering sons would go back and enlist under even the flaming banner of Col. Denison. Could any of our home-keeping friends demand more?

P. McArthur.

DRAWN BY JAY HAMBIDGE.

NO REST FOR THE CANADIAN MONEY-BAGS.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

Some illustrations were moved to facilitate page layout.

A cover was created for this eBook and is placed in the public domain.

[The end of Ten From the Pen of Peter McArthur: Stories and Essays, by Peter McArthur.]