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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Perfection City, by Adela Orpen

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and

-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms

-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at

-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you

-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before

-using this eBook.

-

-Title: Perfection City

-

-Author: Adela Orpen

-

-Release Date: March 3, 2022 [eBook #67549]

-

-Language: English

-

-Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading

-             Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from

-             images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

-

-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERFECTION CITY ***

-

-

-                                                            =Appletons’

-                                                        Town and Country

-                                                            Library=

-

-                                                            No. 212

-

- PERFECTION CITY

-

-

-

-

-                            PERFECTION CITY

-

-

-                                    BY

-

-                                MRS. ORPEN

-

- AUTHOR OF MARGARETA COLBERG, MR. ADOLF, THE CHRONICLES OF THE SID, ETC.

-

-[Illustration]

-

-                                NEW YORK

-                        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

-                                  1897

-

-

-

-

-                            COPYRIGHT, 1897,

-                      BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

-

-

-

-

-                               CONTENTS.

-

-

-                CHAPTER                            PAGE

-                    I.— HOME-COMING OF THE BRIDE      1

-                   II.— UNCLE DAVID                  11

-                  III.— SISTER MARY WINKLE           21

-                   IV.— MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH        27

-                    V.— CORN PLANTING                43

-                   VI.— NON-RESISTANCE               54

-                  VII.— WILLETTE                     66

-                 VIII.— MR. PERSEUS                  84

-                   IX.— FIRST LESSONS               101

-                    X.— PRACTICAL COMMUNISM         111

-                   XI.— A CHANCE MEETING            125

-                  XII.— THE PRAIRIE FIRE            141

-                 XIII.— THE RESCUE                  156

-                  XIV.— COTTERELL “WANTED”          170

-                   XV.— IN QUEST OF NEWS            185

-                  XVI.— HORSE-THIEVES               204

-                 XVII.— A LIFE AT STAKE             219

-                XVIII.— LYNCH-LAW                   237

-                  XIX.— OLIVE MISSING               251

-                   XX.— MADAME’S SYMPATHY           263

-                  XXI.— THE MESSAGE                 277

-                 XXII.— OLIVE’S SECOND HOME-COMING  293

-                XXIII.— CONCLUSION                  305

-

-

-

-

-                            PERFECTION CITY.

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER I.

-                       HOME-COMING OF THE BRIDE.

-

-

-“This road isn’t called Perfection Road, is it?” she asked jerkily, as

-she held tight hold of the edge of the waggon to prevent herself from

-being pitched head foremost off the seat. She would have laid her head

-against her companion’s shoulder only that it was square and hard, and

-she was afraid of getting her temple “stove in,” as the sailors say, by

-the terrific bumps caused by the wheels going over a big stone or down

-into a deep rut. She was a bride, and he was bringing her to their new

-home on the Kansas Prairie.

-

-“My poor little pet,” he said tenderly, “it is very rough here. We are

-going down into Cotton Wood Creek, and these stones were cast up by the

-last freshet which pretty well washed the road away.”

-

-They plunged headlong into the muddy waters of the Creek, and the little

-bride would have felt frightened only that “he” was by her side, for the

-waggon creaked and groaned with the strain, and the horses snorted

-uneasily, feeling their way carefully through the rushing torrent. The

-Creek was safely passed, and they slowly toiled up the long hill out of

-the bottom-lands, and pulled up when once more on the high prairie.

-

-“There is our home, dearie,” he said, pointing with his whip to some

-scattered houses a couple of miles away. And being a bridegroom he

-kissed her.

-

-“So that is Perfection City, is it?” said she, shading her eyes with her

-hand, for the afternoon sun sent level rays into her face. “You know,

-Ezra, it is such a funny name, I always feel inclined to laugh when I

-say it. And how I shall ever dare to put it at the top of my letters as

-a real address when I write to the girls at the College at Smyrna, is

-more than I know.”

-

-“Then don’t write it,” replied Ezra, a trifle sternly. “It will hurt our

-feelings very much if you laugh at it. You know it means a great deal to

-all of us.”

-

-“Then I’ll never laugh at it,” said the little bride.

-

-“Which is our house?” she asked a moment later.

-

-“The one half way up the slope.”

-

-“Oh, that is nice. I like looking down across things. I shouldn’t like

-to live in a valley and always have to look up, you know.”

-

-“The large building is the Academy,” said Ezra. “That is where we hold

-our meetings and gather together for all the best purposes of our little

-community-life.”

-

-“Is it there that Madame Morozoff-Smith lives?” asked his wife.

-

-“Her house is the one just opposite.”

-

-“Oh, that big one! It is quite the largest in the village—the City, I

-mean.”

-

-Ezra did not make any reply to this remark. He had never realised that

-Madame’s house was indeed the largest in their Community, and now he

-felt vexed that this fact should have been the first his wife noted.

-

-A small boy with shining black face and shining white teeth, along with

-a yellow puppy, welcomed them.

-

-“This is Napoleon Pompey,” said Ezra, with much decorum presenting the

-small darkie who grinned and bobbed his head. “And this is Diana,”

-pointing to the puppy that had come up to the bars along with the negro.

-Diana jumped upon her new mistress and left two black dust marks on her

-dress. Dust is black in London and on the western prairie, nowhere else.

-

-“Oh, you dirty dog,” said the little bride, who was a very natty body.

-

-“You’ll have to get used to dirt in all degrees out here, Ollie,” said

-her husband as he led her to the door. She looked like a little girl as

-she stood beside him, for he was tall and angular and long of leg. A

-sloping plank with battens nailed across it led to the door, there were

-no steps. As the pair entered, Napoleon Pompey and Diana took the horses

-and waggon to the stable and began respectively to unharness and worry

-them.

-

-“What a dear little house! It is just like a toy! And do look at the

-saws hanging on the walls beside the covers of the pots! Oh, won’t it be

-so nice and free living here! I shall feel like an explorer in a far

-country. And how funny to have nail-kegs for seats, and oh, you dear old

-darling!”

-

-Olive jumped up and kissed her big husband.

-

-“Things are rough now, dearie,” he said with infinite tenderness,

-looking at her with loving admiration, “but by and by we shall have

-everything very nice.”

-

-“But I think it is just as nice as it can be now.”

-

-“This is our room,” said he, opening a door to the right.

-

-“Why, if you haven’t gone and got a rocking-chair!” exclaimed Olive,

-glancing around the small apartment.

-

-“I made it for you myself in spare time,” answered Ezra, pleased that

-she had noticed the chair the first thing: he had often wondered, when

-working at that rocking-chair, whether she would be pleased with it.

-“You see,” he continued, “we have to work only five days a week for the

-Community. All the rest of our time is at our own disposal, and by and

-by, when we are flourishing, four days for the Community will suffice.”

-

-“Do you like working for other people and not being paid?” asked Olive.

-

-“I do not consider it as working for other people without pay,” replied

-her husband, with some quickness. “We each work for the general good,

-and if I happen to plant corn that someone else will eat, then some

-other member of the Community raises potatoes that I shall eat.”

-

-“There, there, don’t be cross,” said the little wife, noting the flush

-that had risen to his brow as he spoke. “I am sure it is nice, and I

-shall like it when I understand it all. At any rate we shall be very

-happy whatever happens, and I like my dear little house, and please, I

-am very thirsty, can I have a drink?”

-

-He brought her some water in a tin dipper with a long handle, and she

-did not make a face, but drank the water gratefully. She determined in

-her own mind, however, to have a glass tumbler the very next day, but

-she was new to the prairie, and she did not get the tumbler the next

-day, nor the next week, nor for many, many long months.

-

-“What time are we to have breakfast?” she asked, when taking over the

-household from Napoleon Pompey and Diana, who had run the establishment

-while her husband had been to fetch her from Ohio.

-

-“Yo’ kin eat when yo’ like,” said Napoleon Pompey, desiring to be all

-that was polite to his new mistress.

-

-“But I want to know what time you have breakfast?” repeated Olive with

-persistence.

-

-“We uns got ter be hout on der lan’ ploughin’ afore sun-up,” said

-Napoleon Pompey concisely.

-

-“Dear me! Why, that is before six o’clock!” exclaimed Olive.

-

-“I calkerlate,” said Napoleon Pompey affably.

-

-Ezra did not want Olive to think she was bound to get up and prepare the

-working-man’s breakfast.

-

-“You are not used to that sort of hard work, dearie. We can do very well

-with cold corn-bread.”

-

-“Of all things the most stoggy and hopelessly uninviting,” interrupted

-his wife. “No, Ezra, I won’t have any of the people out here think I am

-a little fool that can’t do any useful work. I have my pride as well as

-other folks. I shall cook your breakfast to-morrow and every day

-afterwards, and I shall cook it well, see if I don’t.”

-

-“I am sure of that,” said her husband with the confidence of a

-bridegroom.

-

-The house of which the young bride had just taken possession was by no

-means an ordinary prairie house. Far from it. It had pretensions to

-comfort which the true prairie house should never possess, and it lacked

-the few elements of picturesqueness with which the genuine article is

-sometimes endowed. The plan on which it was built was of the

-simplest—the same that children adopt in building their doll’s

-houses—four sides and a sloping roof, all of wood from top to bottom. It

-was not a log-house, which has a few broken lines to rest the eye of the

-beholder and present possibilities to the artist, it was a frame house,

-that is, the straightest, stiffest, squarest, most hopelessly

-unpicturesque object that it is possible to imagine, and to make matters

-worse it was painted a glaring white from eave to foundation. There was

-not a broken line or a broken tint anywhere to refresh the eye, and it

-stood on the high prairie, as if hurled into a glaring world by a

-Titan’s hand.

-

-The prairie is fertile, and in the eye of a farmer may possess the

-beauty of usefulness, but otherwise it is hideous. The long rolling

-billows of grass present no character, while the trees are confined to

-the river valleys where they find refuge from prairie fires, and can

-therefore lead a sufficiently undisturbed existence to reach quite a

-respectable height. A couple of small locust trees, not three feet high,

-were all that did duty as shade-giving plants near Olive’s house, which

-accordingly faced the world and its storms entirely on its own

-individual merits. Judged by prairie standard the house was “tip-top.”

-It possessed no less than four rooms, while the regular settler’s cabin

-was wont to indulge in only a single comprehensive apartment, which was

-kitchen, parlour and bedroom all in one. The two lower rooms were the

-kitchen, which was fairly large, and a smaller one off it, reserved for

-the private use of the young wife. The kitchen looked like a ship’s

-cabin, only that it had more light than usually penetrates into a ship’s

-cabin. In fact it was very light, for there were two large windows, one

-to the north and one to the south, geometrically opposite each other.

-These two windows, so exactly facing each other, were fairly typical of

-the house itself, which was the embodiment of mathematical accuracy. The

-building was placed exactly east and west, as if it had been a carefully

-oriented church. There was a door on the south side, exactly in the

-middle, and a window on either side of the door, placed accurately in

-the centre of the space left between the side of the door and the end of

-the house. Over these two windows were two others exactly one half their

-size, giving light to the loft, and exactly in the centre of the

-roof-ridge was a black stove-pipe.

-

-The average prairie man is a genius in the way of doing without things.

-He can live in a house of the smallest dimensions, containing the

-minimum of utensils. In fact, his idea of a house is that it should be a

-miner’s tent solidified into substantiality. The miner in a

-newly-prospected gold-field is a person who spends his days in a hole,

-and has no belongings but the clothes on his back and the shovel in his

-hand. He lives on his expectations. The regular prairie settler, would

-arrive in the spring, camp in his waggon, stick grains of corn under the

-sod, and think himself lucky if he could raise both the corn and a

-loghut, fourteen by twelve feet, before the cold weather set in. Those

-who have passed through such a severe school prune down their

-requirements. Therefore the house to which Ezra Weston brought his

-little bride was rightly considered to be a model of luxury, or in

-prairie phraseology to be “powerful full o’ truck.”

-

-The kitchen certainly was full. The stove, black and business-like,

-stood near the partition wall, and on it rested a couple of huge iron

-pots with covers. Chairs there were none, as Olive had remarked, but

-boxes and nail-kegs did as well and were useful in holding things. There

-was a large wooden table, very strongly made, on one side, and a set of

-shelves in one corner. The walls and ceiling, which were of wood closely

-jointed, added to the ship-like appearance of the room, but the presence

-of two large saws and a horse-collar which hung above them made a

-considerable deduction from the nautical character of the apartment.

-

-This model dwelling stood in the midst of a large tract of fenced-in

-land. Part of this was already under cultivation and showed a dark

-purple surface to the heavens, betokening newly turned up prairie sod

-full of the natural plant foods stored there for thousands of ages.

-These were now about to be recklessly used up by the ordinary system of

-prairie farming, which consisted of taking everything out of the land

-and of putting nothing back into it. A sort of road, that is to say a

-beaten track with deep channels on either side, led from the house to

-the bars, which did duty as gate to the premises. These bars were

-precisely what the name implies, bars of wood lying on supports made for

-them between posts, and they were simply let down whenever horses or

-other animals had to pass in or out, and were climbed over by active

-children too lazy to let them down or rather, perhaps, too lazy to put

-them up again.

-

-On one side of the bars stretching out at an angle was an orchard just

-planted with trees that probably would be worth having twenty years

-hence, and further away was another field consisting simply of fenced-in

-prairie grass. The fields, and indeed everything else, were square, and

-every fence that did not run north and south, ran east and west. The

-whole place seemed under a despotism of compass and measuring chain.

-Indeed, the prairie itself was under the same iron rule: and by the

-authorities had been plotted out into squares of a mile each way called

-“sections,” of which persons could buy of the Government quarter

-sections or multiples of a quarter section at a low rate. Fortunately

-for humanity this conspiracy to turn the world into a surveyor’s map was

-to some extent defeated by the rivers and streams, which ran as Heaven

-and the water-sheds decreed, and not as the officials at Washington

-desired. This fact, and this alone, has in some measure saved the

-prairie from the awful fate of mathematical damnation.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER II.

-                              UNCLE DAVID.

-

-

-Mrs. Weston was tired and sat down in her rocking-chair to rest. Her

-day’s work was fairly over. The breakfast had been ready punctually at

-half past five, and it was well-cooked, as she had boasted it would

-be—corn-bread smoking hot, fried chicken, potatoes, flap-jacks and

-molasses—a meal for a king, to say nothing of a working-man and his

-negro help. Ezra and Napoleon Pompey had partaken heartily, especially

-the latter, for he had been living on underdone hoe-cake and cold pork.

-Then they had gone off to the ploughing, while Olive had bustled around

-and got forward with her house-work. At eleven o’clock she had run up

-the towel against the shady side of the house, a signal easily seen from

-the distant field, and signifying that dinner was ready. They had come

-home, men and horses thoroughly hungry and ready for food and rest. Ezra

-lay on the kitchen floor and talked to her while she washed up the

-dishes. And now it was three o’clock, and all the work was done. She

-thought she would read a little. She had several books with her that she

-had been looking forward to reading. So she took up one of them and

-seated herself comfortably in the rocking-chair. The door was open and a

-warm air came in from the south along with the gleaming sunshine. Diana

-lay across the door-way, but kept one eye open, so as to see when the

-black hen came near enough to have a spring at her with any chance of

-grabbing a mouthful of tail-feathers. Olive’s eyes rested very little on

-the book, but much on the view outside. It looked pleasant enough in the

-bright May sunshine. The long brown patch of the garden showed a few

-methodical green lines that spoke of vegetables beginning to sprout. The

-meadow of blue grass just beyond was likewise by its hue showing the

-on-coming of the warm spring weather, and yet again further off, on the

-other side of the meadow, lay the vast field which her husband was

-ploughing. Once in every half hour she could see him turn at the

-head-land, and noted how seldom he seemed to stop and rest. Napoleon

-Pompey was riding the off leader, and from that distance they seemed

-little insects gently crawling backwards and forwards across the land.

-Pleasant it looked too and by no means hard work. Olive determined to go

-out to the field one day soon and watch the process from a nearer point

-of view; she might indeed herself hold the plough-handles, it looked

-easy, she would ask Ezra to let her, she would like to learn to do all

-sorts of work so as to be very useful, she would—confused images swept

-slowly over her mind, she leaned back her pretty little head and slept

-in her chair.

-

-She awoke with a start. A large square figure stood in the door-way,

-blocking out the sunshine, and Diana, with the insane friendliness of a

-puppy, was trying to clamber up one of his legs.

-

-“Well, little gal, I reckon you’re ’most tired out, ain’t you?” said the

-big man, coming straight into the room.

-

-Mrs. Weston rose to her utmost height of five feet two inches, and tried

-to be dignified.

-

-“Do you wish to see my husband?” she inquired stiffly.

-

-“No, I don’t want to see Ezry. I come to talk to you a spell, and see

-you.”

-

-“You are very kind I’m sure,” returned the little lady icily, but the

-stranger did not seem one whit abashed. He took a nail-keg and sat down

-on it and looked about him. “Wal, now,” he remarked, nodding his head,

-“Ezry is real downright handy. He’s gone and got your house fine and

-fixed up, ain’t he now?”

-

-“It is extremely comfortable, Mr.—ah—I don’t think you mentioned your

-name,” said Mrs. Weston, with a snap of her black eyes. She didn’t at

-all relish the free and easy way in which this man spoke of her husband.

-

-“Do tell!” exclaimed the stranger with vast cordiality. “An’ you didn’t

-know who I was. Why, I’m Uncle David. I guessed everybody ’ud know me.

-There ain’t nobody else so big and awkward looking ’bout here on this

-prairie as me. Why, there was a man over to Perfection City yesterday,

-he come from beyond Cotton Wood Creek, and he said he calculated I’d be

-powerful useful on washing days, ’cause if they tied the clothes-line to

-me I’d do instead of a pole, an’ timber is mighty scarce anyhow.”

-

-Uncle David gave a long loud laugh that set Diana into an ecstasy of

-delight, and was of itself so joyous that, after a moment, Olive also

-joined in with a merry titter. She had often heard her husband speak of

-Uncle David, as being one of the kindest and most simple-hearted of men.

-Her frigid manner melted rapidly and completely.

-

-“Wal, now,” began Uncle David again, after his merriment had subsided,

-“how do you like our name?”

-

-“Your name,” repeated Olive considerably puzzled.

-

-“No, our name, the name of the Community, Perfection City. Do you like

-it?”

-

-“I don’t think I do,” replied she.

-

-“Jes’ so,” broke in Uncle David, apparently much pleased with this

-answer. “I knew you wouldn’t. Nobody does.”

-

-“Why did you call it such a name—such a horrid name—and if nobody likes

-it, what is the use?”

-

-“There now, that’s what they all say, until I talk to ’em,” said Uncle

-David. “You see I gave the name to the place.”

-

-“Oh, it was your choice!” said Olive.

-

-“When we came here, Niece and I, there wasn’t no town nor nothing, it

-was just open prairie. Ezry he come along too with us, and the

-Carpenters, and Mrs. Ruby, and the Wrights.”

-

-“You leave out Madame Morozoff-Smith,” interrupted Olive.

-

-“I thought you knew. Why, Madame, she’s Niece. She ain’t my real niece,

-she wasn’t born in my family, but she’s niece by adoption, and I hold

-she’s more to me than half the nieces I ever seen. I ain’t cute like

-most of the folks here, an’ there wasn’t no use in having me at

-Perfection City. I can’t do nothing. I can’t compose papers like Brother

-Wright. So I was studyin’ to see some way for me to come with ’em. It

-would ha’ broke my heart to be left behind. Madame, she come to me, an’

-says she: ‘You’ll be my uncle. I want an uncle very much, and I’ll love

-you dearly.’ An’ so I was. I call it the greatest honour of my life when

-Madame made me her uncle, and added my name to hers.” Uncle David

-stooped and patted Diana’s head thoughtfully.

-

-“When did you think of the name?” said Olive with a view to bringing him

-back to the point.

-

-“Yes, jes’ so, that’s ’xactly what I was comin’ to. You see, when Ezry

-fust come here with us he wasn’t quite clear in his mind ’bout joinin’

-in with us, leastways not to be one of the Community for his whole

-mortal life. It’s a serious step to take, and he was a-doubtin’ in his

-mind, leastways till Madame she talked to him for a spell. He wasn’t

-sure fust if he’d got a call to community-life. He knowed it was the

-best, of course, and the true life: he knowed all that right enough, but

-he didn’t feel sure of himself as bein’ fit to found a city. It is a

-most responsible thing to be a founder. ’Taint everybody as is fit for

-it. Then Madame made it clear how she was a founder, an’ she is the most

-wonderful woman ever lived in this world, an’ she showed Ezry how it was

-his duty to help in this great work, an’ when he saw that clear he was

-dreadful sot on it too. We was a-gettin’ our houses up as spry as ever

-we could, and ole Wright he was a-buildin’ th’ Academy, then Ezry says:

-‘What’s goin’ to be our name?’ It was jes’ called Weddell’s Gully,

-’cause we bought from a man o’ that name. So Ezry said: ‘Let’s call it

-something to signify our principles,’ and one person said one name and

-one said another, then Wright said ‘Let’s call it Teleiopolis.’”

-

-“Oh, that sounds very pretty,” exclaimed Olive. “Why didn’t you?”

-

-“Wal, now, I said that’s very pretty, jes’ the same as you did. What

-does it mean, do you know?”

-

-“No, I don’t know. I suppose it is Greek for something.”

-

-“’Zactly so. It is Greek for something, and that something is Perfection

-City.”

-

-“It sounds nicer.”

-

-“Maybe so, but you look here. Are we Greeks?”

-

-“No, of course not.”

-

-“Then why talk in Greek?”

-

-“I don’t know, except it is prettier.”

-

-“Do you suppose them old Greeks, when they went an’ founded cities, they

-called ’em names out o’ some other language they didn’t understand, or

-did they called ’em good solid Greek names as any little boy ’ud know

-what they meant?” asked Uncle David with rising energy.

-

-“I believe they called their cities by Greek names, in fact I know they

-did,” said Olive, hastily reviewing her stock of history.

-

-“An’ why?” asked Uncle David.

-

-“I don’t know.”

-

-“Because they wasn’t ’shamed o’ their mother tongue like we are. That’s

-why,” said Uncle David, clapping his big hand on his knee.

-

-“Oh indeed,” said Olive.

-

-“An’ that’s what I said, says I, ‘We are ’Mericans, we are founding a

-new city that’s goin’ to be great things one day. We have our

-principles. Let’s live up to them. We hain’t shamed o’ nothin’.

-Leastways not to my knowledge. We are goin’ to be an example to these

-folks roun’ here. We are goin’ to show ’em how to live a better life nor

-they ever did before. An’ how in thunder can we do that if we start by

-being ’shamed of our own mother tongue? We hain’t Greeks, we don’t talk

-in Greek. This hain’t Teleiopolis, this is Perfection City.’ That is

-what I said to ’em.”

-

-“What did they say to that?” asked Olive, much interested in the rugged

-honesty of Uncle David.

-

-“Wal, I don’t know as they said anything much, on’y Ezry, he said he

-guessed he’d had his fust lesson, an’ he come and shook hands an’ said

-it certainly should be Perfection City, an’ so it was.”

-

-“I shall think better of the name now,” said Olive. “Only at first I was

-afraid of people laughing, people who didn’t understand it, you see.”

-

-“Oh, people’ll laugh,” said Uncle David. “People does a heap o’ laughing

-in this world without makin’ it one mite merrier for anybody. I like

-laughing myself. It’s awful good an’ satisfyin’ to have a real square

-laugh, but t’aint that sort. Mos’ folks’ laugh hain’t got no more fun in

-it than the laugh of a hoot-owl. I’d a heap sight rather have none at

-all. You ain’t agoin’ to mind that sort, I hope?” Uncle David spoke with

-a shade of anxiety in his manner.

-

-“Oh no, I’m not thin-skinned,” said Olive with a superior smile.

-

-“Some folks is made that way. When they have found a tender spot in

-anybody they can’t rest no how till they’ve stuck some sort o’ pin into

-it.”

-

-“Tell me, does everything belong to everybody generally out here? It is

-so puzzling. This house, for instance, is it ours or yours or

-everybody’s?” asked Olive.

-

-“The land an’ the horses an’ the cattle an’ waggons was mostly bought

-with community-money, that is Madame, she gave the money, she’s rich you

-know, an’ she’s generous and always givin’ to the Community, her whole

-heart is in it. But Ezry worked a heap on this house, he mostly built it

-all, an’ it’s his, an’ t’other folks’ houses are theirs. That’s Brother

-Wright’s over yonder, an’ that’s our house beside the ’Cademy, most

-everybody worked to get it up and fix it comfortable for Madame. Old

-Mrs. Ruby, she lives to herself in the log cabin we bought from Weddell,

-we had it moved there a purpose over from the Gully, ’cause she liked to

-live beside the spring so as to get her water handy. She had a little

-mite of money which we used in buyin’ stock.”

-

-“So you do have some things as private property, just like ordinary

-people,” observed Olive.

-

-“Of course. It would not be any sort o’ use to have everything in

-common, ’cause folks’ notions don’t always ’xactly suit. An’ what we

-want is to have everybody free, so they can be perfectly happy here. We

-don’t want to have no strife, an’ no jealousy, an’ no ill feeling one

-towards another. But there can’t be community in all things. What sort

-o’ use would it be for you an’ me to have community o’ boots an’ shoes?”

-said Uncle David with a great laugh, sticking out his enormous foot

-towards where Olive’s dainty little slipper peeped from beneath her

-dress.

-

-“Your shoes, my dear, wouldn’t go on my two fingers, an’ mine ’ud be big

-enough to make a tol’eble boat for you. There couldn’t be community in

-shoes, so there ain’t none. But with the lan’ it’s different. We all

-work that for the benefit of everybody, there ain’t no strugglin’ to be

-fust an’ get ahead o’ one another. We are all brothers at Perfection

-City.”

-

-Olive was full of excitement when Ezra came back at sun-down.

-

-“Just fancy, I’ve had my first visitor,” she said as she stood beside

-her husband while he was watering the horses.

-

-“Who was it? Mrs. Ruby?”

-

-“No, it was Uncle David,” and she gave a merry little laugh.

-

-“Well, and how did you like him?”

-

-“I think he is just charming. He is just like a piece of granite or oak

-or something of that sort, not smooth or shiny on the outside, but solid

-and sound to the very core. Oh! I shall love Uncle David.”

-

-“That’s right. He is a good man,” said Ezra.

-

-“And you know? he has made me understand about Perfection City. I shan’t

-want to laugh at it any more, and I don’t care if anybody else does. It

-was real brave of you showing your colours plain and sticking to them,”

-said Olive with a skip and a clap of her little hands.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER III.

-                          SISTER MARY WINKLE.

-

-

-The very next morning just as she was washing her potatoes for dinner,

-another visitor called upon Olive, a visitor of whose sex she was for a

-moment or two in doubt. The visitor wore a large sunbonnet, a check

-blouse, and a pair of Zouave trowsers fastened in at the ankle.

-

-“How do you do, Olive Weston?” said this person, in a deep serious

-voice. Olive, who had not seen her, started in surprise and dropped her

-potato into the basin.

-

-“I am Mary Winkle. That’s my house over yonder.”

-

-“Oh, the Wrights’! Yes, to be sure. Come in and sit down,” said Olive

-hospitably, although she felt considerable surprise at her visitor’s

-appearance.

-

-“You don’t wear the reformed dress yet, I see,” said Mary Winkle.

-

-“No, I don’t,” acquiesced Olive.

-

-“Shall you?”

-

-“I don’t know. I have not thought about it. I suppose there is no

-regulation about what one wears on the prairie. There is no fashion here

-I suppose,” said Olive politely.

-

-“No, only the fashion of common sense.”

-

-“Do all the ladies dress that way, Miss Winkle?” inquired Olive.

-

-“Only my daughter and myself.”

-

-“I beg your pardon, I should have said Mrs. Winkle,” said Olive, in some

-confusion.

-

-“No, you shouldn’t,” replied her visitor. “I am not Mrs. Winkle.”

-

-“I am afraid I am very stupid. Would you tell me then how I should

-address you. I don’t understand.”

-

-“Address me as Mary Winkle, and my husband as John Wright.”

-

-Olive stared at her.

-

-“Are you not Mrs. Wright then?”

-

-“No, certainly not. I scorn the title. It is a symbol of subjection. I

-did not lose my identity when I chose to marry. I am the same Mary

-Winkle that I was before, and as such I desire to retain the name that I

-always possessed. Why should I take a new name simply because I am

-married?”

-

-“It is usual,” stammered Olive. “I shouldn’t like not to be called Mrs.

-Weston. It is so confusing, you see.”

-

-“Mere custom and prejudice. Why should not your husband take your name,

-instead of its always being the wife who is absorbed?”

-

-“I don’t know, but I never heard of it before.”

-

-“Ah, that is one of the first changes that must be made when women get

-their rights,” observed Mary Winkle.

-

-“But I don’t want the change one bit. I much prefer the old way.”

-

-“I dare say. Slaves often feel no want of freedom.”

-

-“I’m not a slave,” said Olive, flushing angrily. “You cannot be in the

-least acquainted with my husband.”

-

-“Oh, I know your husband very well, an excellent man in many respects,

-but narrow in others; however, I referred to general slavery, to custom,

-not to any individual slavery in your case.”

-

-“I don’t think there is any good in destroying customs, unless there is

-something better to be got in a new custom.”

-

-“Ah yes, no doubt it seems so to you; but there is inestimable gain in

-the mere protest against tyranny. Why, that’s what we are all here for,

-to protest against everything and live a life of freedom.”

-

-“And freedom may as well begin here and now, and in its name I will wear

-long dresses and be called Mrs. Weston, because I prefer the older

-customs,” said Olive with some archness.

-

-“Yes, you may do as you like, but you will get heartily sick of those

-skirts, I can tell you.”

-

-Olive remembering sundry pretty dresses she had in her trunk, was

-privately convinced she would not get sick of them.

-

-“I haven’t seen Madame yet,” she said, “and I feel the greatest

-curiosity about her. She must be a remarkable woman by all accounts.

-Does she wear the same sort of dress as you do?”

-

-“No, she doesn’t, and it’s a great pity, for her influence would be very

-great with the other women. I suppose you’ll see her to-morrow evening.

-You’ll come to the Academy, won’t you?”

-

-“Yes, certainly, if Ezra is going. I should like to go ever so much and

-see all my neighbours, but perhaps he will be too tired. He does work

-dreadfully hard, it seems to me.”

-

-“He ought to do a little brain-work. Wright says nothing rests one like

-brain-work. He’s been doing a spell of that lately. He’s been writing an

-essay on ‘The Ultimate Perfection of Being.’ He’ll most likely read some

-of it to-morrow at the Academy.”

-

-“I shouldn’t think essays would be much use in planting corn,” said

-Olive rather tartly, remembering at what hour her husband had come from

-the harrowing.

-

-“Wright and I, we don’t believe in making a god of work. We have a much

-higher ideal of life than that. We don’t want anything sordid in our

-lives, Wright and I. We haven’t any sympathy with this restless striving

-to get on. One of the great advantages of Perfection City is that we all

-have time for the cultivation of our higher natures.”

-

-“Just now,” said Olive, “my husband seems to have no thought in his mind

-but the cultivation of that field over there. He is at work early and

-late. No person could possibly work harder for himself or his individual

-advantage than he does for the Community.”

-

-“There’s just a case in point,” remarked Mary Winkle complacently. “I

-always thought your husband very narrow in his views. He slaves away at

-this corn planting as if that were the chief end and object of his

-existence. It is all very well to work at times, but working in order to

-store up food for the body is the lowest possible form that human

-activity can take.”

-

-“It is the most indispensable form,” remarked Olive.

-

-“By no means,” replied Mary Winkle with precision. “That observation

-would seem to indicate that you are more narrow even than your husband.

-The body is merely the servant of the mind: the mind needs to be fed,

-and it is the food for the mind which your husband appears so careless

-about providing. Fortunately for Perfection City, Wright has taken

-thought on that subject. Wright has a very high standard of what is

-necessary for the mind.”

-

-“It appears to me,” said Olive with a snap of her black eyes and an

-ominous red spot on her cheeks, “that if we all lived up to your

-standard, it might very well happen that by next winter our minds might

-be uncomfortably full and our stomachs correspondingly empty. If Ezra

-did not plough and get his land ready for planting as fast as mortal man

-can, how is the land to be got ready? It doesn’t plough itself, does it,

-even at Perfection City?”

-

-“I see you will have to get rid of many prejudices,” observed Mary

-Winkle. “Of course community-life only comes easy to people who are

-adapted to it. Wright and I are adapted. We like it. We shall stay here.

-We shall succeed therefore. You and Brother Ezra will have to go through

-a season of training first. You both need it. I dare say you may hear

-something that you will find useful to you to-morrow from Wright. I will

-just mention to him where your particular blindness seems to lie. Wright

-is a very profound thinker. He has given great thought to the subject of

-the Ultimate Perfection of People. He can explain every step in the

-training of a perfect communist, and show clearly just where everybody

-has hitherto gone wrong in their attempts to realize their ideal, and

-exactly what mistakes they have made. I am glad you have come in time to

-hear his paper; it will be of lasting good to you. You will be able to

-profit by it, because you are in great need of proper training. I dare

-say you need it more even than Ezra. For, after all, he must have

-learned something from us in the year he has been with us.”

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER IV.

-                         MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH.

-

-

-The Academy at Perfection City was not a pretentious building in

-anything but in name. It was a plain wooden house, almost square, having

-a window on three sides and a door on the fourth, facing south. Inside

-there were several rough benches, two tables, an iron stove, and a large

-easy chair, with a small desk beside it, upon which stood a pair of

-candles. There were no curtains and no carpets, absolutely no attempts

-at beautifying the place. But the board-floor was clean.

-

-Olive dressed herself in a flutter of expectation for her first visit to

-this abode of wisdom.

-

-“I expect everybody will be there, because they’ll all want to see you,

-little woman,” said her husband, who, tired as he was after his day’s

-work, changed his earth-stained clothes for a fresh suit. Olive wore a

-white dress with lavender ribbons, and looked as fresh as a daisy as she

-tripped along daintily holding up her skirts. She wore the nattiest of

-boots over the neatest of feet, altogether a bright and unexpected sight

-upon the glum-looking prairie. It was a quarter of a mile to the

-Academy, down a road hardly more than a cart-track, and across a dry

-gully where there were no stepping stones.

-

-As Ezra had predicted, everybody had turned out to welcome the new

-bride. Uncle David met her at the door.

-

-“Wal, little girl,” he said, “we’re all a-looking out for you. Here’s

-Sister Mary Winkle, you’ve seen her, and this is her husband, Brother

-Wright.”

-

-Olive shook hands with a dark, broad-shouldered man who spoke in snaps

-as if he had been a dog. He had glittering white teeth.

-

-“We’ve been looking to have your husband back,” he said.

-

-“I’m sure you’re very kind,” murmured Olive conventionally.

-

-“We needed him for the ploughing,” snapped Wright.

-

-“Oh indeed!” said Olive less cordially.

-

-“This is the busy time of the year.”

-

-“All times a-year is the busy time in my ’pinion and ’sperience,” said

-Uncle David smiling comprehensively, “but most everyone spares time one

-way or ’nother to get married if they have a mind that way. Come along

-an’ see Brother and Sister Dummy. That ain’t their name, but we call ’em

-so, they’re deaf and mostly dumb now. They’re real good folks too.”

-

-A sad-eyed red-haired man shook hands with her, and a sad-eyed woman

-kissed her. They put into her hand a slip of paper on which was written

-a message of welcome.

-

-“They can talk a little, but they can’t hear one mite, and they don’t

-like to talk, because they can’t tell when they are whispering and when

-they are yelling, and it makes strangers jump to hear them sometimes.”

-

-Olive felt drawn towards this poor silent pair, but did not know how to

-express her sympathy. There were others in the room, but before she had

-time to speak to them the door opened and Madame Morozoff-Smith entered,

-and from that moment she seemed to see no one else. Madame was a

-remarkable looking woman. She was tall, large and fair, with keen grey

-eyes, full red lips, and a mass of pale gold hair rising over a forehead

-that was broad and smooth. A woman of indeterminate age with an air of

-youthfulness and command about her. She was dressed in a dark dress and

-wore a bright bunch of ribbons in her hair. It looked at first sight

-like a rose, only roses don’t grow on the prairie in the month of May.

-She came straight to where Olive was standing. She gave one the

-impression of floating, for although a large woman, she walked so

-lightly as to make no noticeable sound on the wooden floor. Taking

-Olive’s two hands in her warm large grasp, she kissed her on the

-forehead murmuring “Welcome,” and then stepping back she said in a clear

-voice that vibrated through the room:

-

-“Ah! now I understand that hurried courtship and swift marriage. I see

-what it was in Brother Ezra’s case. It was love at first sight. You are

-very pretty. I suppose, however, you know that very well. It is a secret

-seldom kept from young girls.”

-

-Olive was so startled by this unexpected address that she blushed to the

-roots of her black hair. Ezra stood looking down at his little wife

-smiling with pleasure. He was delighted to think that Madame found her

-so pretty. He had indeed thought her beautiful from the first moment

-when his eyes had rested on her, but then he loved her, and it was but

-natural that in his eyes she should be lovely. Madame, however, judged

-her unprejudiced, and yet if his delighted heart had room for one

-regret, it was that Madame’s praise had been so very public. If she had

-only whispered it softly to him in that wonderful voice of hers, which

-had often caught up his inmost thoughts and clothed them in words of

-eloquence, how much more precious would the tribute have been. He

-dismissed the half-formed regret as unworthy, and took himself to task

-for not exulting at this moment. The meeting of Madame and Olive was an

-event in his life. Olive, his sweet little rose-bud of a wife, on the

-one hand, and Madame, his venerated, nay his worshipped, friend, on the

-other. The one, the companion of his heart: the other, the guide of his

-mind who embodied in herself all that he held highest in the

-possibilities of womanhood, his true and noble-hearted friend, his

-inspired leader. How blest was the portion of him who stood that night

-the husband of the one, the disciple of the other! Ezra’s dark eyes

-shone with joy, and his square chin quivered with the smiles that lurked

-about his lips. He was not a handsome man, perhaps, but there was

-something grand in the large full forehead, strong eyebrows, and deep

-dark eyes. His massive frame bespoke strength, which in itself has

-always a great attraction for women.

-

-When Madame had addressed those words to the new sister all the members

-of the Community had scanned her narrowly, for the opinion of their

-leader had immense weight with the Pioneers. The men looked at Olive

-with increased admiration, and the women with envy. Only Uncle David

-appeared disappointed and wiped his face many times with his red

-pocket-handkerchief saying, “Wal, wal, now,” in a tone of earnest

-reproof.

-

-After this bewildering introduction in which her vanity had been not a

-little excited, Olive received a salutary check from the words of

-Brother Wright.

-

-“Before beginning to read my paper,” said he, “I should like to say a

-few words to the new sister who has come among us. We expect soon to be

-having new members join us so fast that perhaps we shall not be able to

-specially mark the entrance of each. But in this case there are peculiar

-reasons for exhortation. Sister Olive has not joined under ordinary

-circumstances. She did not, like the rest of us, feel a call to the

-higher life: she only came out of personal affection for one of the

-members of the Community.”

-

-Olive looked with a shy glance towards her husband, who took her hand in

-his for a moment, while Uncle David, who sat at the end of the room near

-Madame, said in a loud voice:

-

-“Quite right, quite right, couldn’t ha’ had a better reason.”

-

-“Therefore it becomes our duty to impress upon our new sister the

-principles which have been active in forming this Community,” said

-Brother Wright, without paying any heed to Uncle David’s interruption.

-“Perfection City has been founded to teach the world how to live. The

-old civilization has been tried and found wanting. It is time for a new

-one. Perfection City is the beginning of a new era. We are the Pioneers

-of a new world. We shall show the old and worn-out world how to banish

-evil from life. We cannot perhaps banish all physical evil, and for a

-time at least there may be sickness even among us, but we shall at once

-set about freeing ourselves from all the other troubles of life. There

-is nobody in Perfection City who will get rich, and nobody will ever be

-poor. We are all alike, and we shall none of us envy our neighbours his

-belongings, simply because everything belongs to all. The lesson we have

-to teach is the grandest the world ever saw, and when men know what it

-is, I foresee a future before Perfection City greater than that of any

-other city of the world. Rome lasted a good long while, but Rome didn’t

-possess the vital spark of life: Rome wasn’t communistic, therefore Rome

-fell. Perfection City won’t fall like that, but will go on teaching the

-world after we, its founders, are all dead. But our memories will live

-for the great things that we taught and through our example have made

-possible.”

-

-Brother Wright stopped for a few seconds, and Uncle David said

-admiringly,

-

-“You have a fine command of words, Brother Wright, and you have a way of

-making things sound uncommon grand. It always does me good to hear you

-talk of the grand future of our City; but we’ll have to get up some

-houses, and bigger ones, ’fore folks ’ull believe us.”

-

-Uncle David was as simple as a child, or some of his hearers might have

-suspected a sarcasm in his words.

-

-“Rome wasn’t built in a day, as I’ve heard say,” remarked Brother Green,

-with a strong English accent, “and I shall be glad if our little village

-ever grows to half its power and honour.”

-

-“Brother Green, I should refuse to have anything to say to the founding

-of another city like Rome,” interrupted Brother Wright with

-decisiveness.

-

-“It seems to me,” said Ezra in a shy hesitating manner, “that what we

-are here for is to demonstrate, if we can, how a better life can be

-lived here than is possible in the older communities, where

-circumstances are too strong and too hampering for people to rise above

-them. The older civilization has done much, it has raised our race to a

-high standard. What we want to do is to carry on that work, and above

-all to bring everyone within reach of the best that life has to offer.

-The older civilization has left so many stranded ones, who have lost

-their strength in the wild struggle; while we hope to bring all along

-equally and give to each a share of happiness. As usual, my friends,

-when I try to express my ideas I find that someone else has already put

-them into incomparably finer language than I can ever command. It has

-been so again. I find that our great poet, Walt Whitman, has said better

-than I can what I feel. May I quote him to you?

-

-                 ‘Have the elder races halted?

- Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?

- We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,

-                 Pioneers! O pioneers!’”

-

-Ezra sat down after reciting his verse, and his wife looked at him with

-glowing eyes. He had not said much, but his words had seemed to her so

-much fuller of thought and feeling than the easy monotonous flow from

-Brother Wright. That individual himself had not received Ezra’s remarks

-with quite so much delight. It was Brother Wright’s nature to see fight

-and contradiction in all things, even the most pacific. His eyes would

-flash and his black beard bristle in argument, almost as if he were a

-dog preparing to fight, and if one might be permitted to liken any

-Pioneer to one of the canine species, the bull-dog would undoubtedly be

-the variety most nearly resembling Brother Wright.

-

-“I don’t see that we need be beholden to anyone, poet or otherwise,” he

-said sharply, “for our opinions or sentiments. We have found them for

-ourselves, just as we have founded our City. It is our work, both

-opinions and practice.”

-

-“I think,” said Madame, rising and speaking with a deep clear voice,

-which a slight foreign accent seemed to render only the more attractive,

-“I think I see better than they do themselves where our two brothers

-agree. Brother Ezra, with that diffidence which strong natures often

-exhibit, thought he found in the lines of another man his own ideas more

-succinctly embodied than they would have been in his own words. Brother

-Ezra should not doubt his powers. Speech comes slowly to those who most

-deeply think, but he should consider how much we benefit by his words

-and how grateful we are to him for them. Brother Wright, it seems to me

-that you, perhaps, do not sufficiently appreciate the efforts of others

-who have gone before us on this road. We are not the first who have been

-discontented with the actual order of things, nor are we the first who

-have striven to make life brighter and easier. In all ages there have

-been those penetrated with these thoughts, and in different ways men,

-and women too, have striven earnestly, devotedly, to realize these

-ideas. Some indeed have imagined they had found a solution of all doubts

-and difficulties, and have in perfect good faith and self-satisfaction

-buried themselves in convents and monasteries and have ‘roll’d the psalm

-to wintry skies,’ and have ‘built them fanes of fruitless prayer.’ We

-have come to different conclusions by following a different road. We do

-not shut ourselves out of the world, rather we endeavour to raise it by

-showing a living example of what may be done now, in this age, by human

-beings such as we are. But if we are to succeed we must not reject the

-experience, nor fail to profit by the example, of others who have gone

-before us and felt earnestly on this subject.”

-

-Madame paused for a moment, and her keen glance rested upon the small

-assembly. Each individual seemed to feel that she was looking at him or

-at her. Certainly each member was looking intently at her. She seldom

-made speeches to them; she only interposed her observations, as on this

-occasion, between the speakers; but the last word usually remained with

-her.

-

-“Brother Wright, will you now read us your paper, as the evening is

-passing and we are all anxious to hear it. What is the title and

-subject?”

-

-“The Ultimate Perfection of Being is the title,” said Brother Wright,

-“and I think that pretty well sums up the subject also.”

-

-So apparently thought the audience, which resigned itself to a severe

-mental excursion into the unknown regions of Brother Wright’s

-imaginative metaphysics. Some of them fell out very soon, finding the

-road harder to follow than they had foreseen; but Brother Wright kept

-sturdily on, unheeding the signs of weakness and disaffection as

-betrayed by movings of feet and stifled yawns.

-

-Olive, not being able to understand what Brother Wright was saying,

-employed herself in watching Madame, who sat motionless beside her

-table, resting her head upon her supple white hand. At her feet lay what

-seemed to be a large brown rug, but was in fact her dog Balthasar, a

-blood-hound, who always stayed with her and was as gentle as a lamb,

-notwithstanding his name and breed.

-

-“Brother Green! That’s the second time you’ve snored,” suddenly

-exclaimed Brother Wright in the midst of his reading. Everybody was wide

-awake in an instant. Madame hid a smile with her hand, but not before

-Olive had noticed it.

-

-“Brother Green is perhaps tired. His work is very hard,” said Madame.

-

-“Well, the fact is I had to put a new point to the ploughshare this

-morning before I went to fetch my load of iron, and I began work before

-daybreak. I am very tired.”

-

-Brother Green was the blacksmith of Perfection City, an industrious

-hard-working man who thought life would show him a fairer side on the

-prairie than it had ever done in the far-away village in Sussex where he

-was born.

-

-“I think that it might be better to have our gatherings rather shorter

-now,” said Madame softly. “The workers in our little hive are all tired.

-I wish I could do more of the labour that is needed. I would gladly——”

-

-Madame was interrupted by a sharp rap on the table, a signal from

-Brother Huntley that he wanted to speak. He was the deaf and dumb man.

-She instantly rose and bowed to him with singular graciousness. Madame’s

-manner towards the deaf brethren was all that was exquisite. Huntley

-stood up and began in a voice almost inaudible which rose by sudden

-degrees to the intensity of a steam-whistle.

-

-“I want to know when we’re going to get our corn planted? We’re

-behindhand; most other folk’s corn is in already.”

-

-“As usual, Brother Huntley has something practical to say,” observed

-Madame.

-

-“He didn’t know we were discussing quite another subject, else his

-remark would have been rude and irrelevant,” said Wright, vexed at this

-cutting into his paper on the ultimate perfection of his and everybody’s

-being.

-

-“I think it would be very useful to see what we can do about the corn,”

-said the blacksmith. “If we are late the chances are there’ll be another

-drought in July, and our crop won’t be first-class.”

-

-“Is anyone’s land ready for planting?” inquired Madame.

-

-“None as I know of, except Brother Dummy’s,” said Uncle David. “He’s

-more forward nor anybody: always first in work.”

-

-“Of course, poor deaf creature! he can’t do anything but dumbly work

-like a——” began Brother Wright.

-

-“My land is ready for planting,” burst in Brother Huntley with a scream.

-

-“Then it shall be planted to-morrow,” cried Madame. “I’ll go myself.”

-

-“You!” exclaimed Olive.

-

-“Certainly, child. Don’t you think I can work as well as any other

-woman?”

-

-She rapidly wrote a few words on a slip of paper and passed it to

-Brother Huntley, who read it, nodded with satisfaction, and said: “Five

-o’clock in the morning!” in a voice so low that no one knew he was

-speaking.

-

-“I suppose he begins work about six?” said Madame.

-

-“No, he don’t, he’s mighty spry,” said old Mrs. Ruby, who lived near the

-Huntleys. “I hear him a-movin’ off with his plough every morning at five

-by the clock. He’s terrible sot on his work.”

-

-“Then I shall be there ready to go to work at five o’clock in the

-morning, and I shall begin by going to bed now, so as to be able to give

-a good day’s work. Good-night, friends all.”

-

-She rose, included them all in a sweeping salute and left the room as

-lightly as she had entered. Balthasar rose and slowly followed her.

-

-When Madame left the room the meeting broke up. No one felt inclined to

-linger when she was gone. It was from her they drew their interest in

-each other, as well as their belief in themselves and in Perfection

-City. She possessed the secret of influencing people without seeming to

-do so. The thought that she was going out on the land at five in the

-morning to plant corn made everyone ten times more eager to work than

-heretofore.

-

-Wright and his independent spouse, Mary Winkle, were infected by her

-example as they went home.

-

-“Now, Wright, don’t you go and do any more essaying till the crop is in.

-I think people oughtn’t to write except in winter time,” said Mary

-Winkle with firmness.

-

-“I never believed in nothing but manual work. Why, if I did, I should be

-still slaving away on that farm out in Illinois, instead of joining a

-community here where one can follow the bent of his higher nature, to

-the advantage of his neighbours as well as of himself,” said Wright.

-

-“Well, let that be,” said Mary hastily, recognising her own words and

-oft-expressed opinions, but not quite knowing what to do with them—a

-predicament not unexampled among theoretical philosophers, “but see and

-be out on the land to-morrow as early as anyone. Are you ready for the

-planting? Because I’ll go out and plant if you are.”

-

-“No, my drills won’t be ready for the planting till day after

-to-morrow.”

-

-“Then I’ll go and plant on Brother Dummy’s piece along with Madame.”

-

-“You’d better not. You’re not fit for such work. You’ll get sick and not

-be able to cook me any supper when I come home.”

-

-“No, I shan’t get sick. I ain’t going to let any person beat me at work,

-when I set my mind to it, and she in her long skirts too! I’ll show her

-the advantage of the reformed dress anyhow.”

-

-Thus the Wright and Winkle pair on their way home.

-

-“And will she really plant corn?” asked Olive in some curiosity.

-

-“Certainly she will. Madame never despised work.”

-

-“Oh! I don’t despise work, but she seems such a fine lady to go out on

-the land and plant corn just like a negro woman.”

-

-“That is one of the things our life here is intended to show, dearie,

-that no one is too grand for any honest work that he or she is

-physically capable of performing.”

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER V.

-                             CORN PLANTING.

-

-

-Punctual to the minute, there was Madame with her bag of corn on her

-left arm, following Brother Huntley and his plough-horses to the field,

-in the damp white fog of sunrise. Balthasar in deep disgust was there

-too, as in duty bound, but he had not a wag for anybody. How could a

-rational dog be in good spirits at that hour of the morning! Madame was

-dressed in a short calico frock well up to her ankles. Her fair hair was

-loosely wisped at the back of her head, and a large straw hat, tied down

-with a green gauze veil, made her look at once comfortable in the fog

-and ready for the expected sunshine. There were no corn-planters at

-Perfection City: farm-machinery was not then so plentiful on the prairie

-as now, and money was if possible scarcer. Corn planting was, therefore,

-done by hand. Brother Dummy’s drills of longitude were already ploughed,

-and he began on the drills of latitude forthwith. Into the hollows made

-by the intersection of these two sets of drills Madame was to drop three

-grains of corn, neither more nor less. It is dizzying work. After

-walking up and down the drills for hours one becomes oppressed by the

-never-ceasing square constantly recurring every two steps. The check

-pattern bewilders you, and you begin to wonder how a chess-man would

-feel if, endowed with sensibility and the power of motion, he had to

-march up and down his chess-board, always keeping to the lines for hours

-at a stretch.

-

-About seven o’clock Mary Winkle came upon the scene and plodded and

-planted for four hours. The sun was blazing down upon them pitilessly,

-and the parching south wind blew the fine black dust up from the rich

-dry soil, until their eyes and ears and noses were full of it.

-

-The field which they were planting was on the extreme verge of the

-community-land, far away from the houses. These were somewhat clustered

-towards the centre of the holding, which consisted of two sections or a

-little over twelve hundred acres. The workers, therefore, were a long

-way from home, considerably over a mile, and since corn planting entails

-ceaseless walking through heavy ploughed land, it had been settled that

-their dinner should be brought out to them, so as to enable the workers

-to rest during the whole dinner hour. Olive and Mrs. Ruby were to supply

-the necessary food, and the former, aided by Napoleon Pompey, was to

-bring it to the field at eleven o’clock. The little grove of locust

-trees just beginning to grow beside the far spring was the trysting

-place. Water would thus be handy, and the horses’ feed was already put

-there by the provident Brother Huntley. A little before the hour Olive

-and her black attendant arrived at the grove, bringing their load of

-food, and Olive set down her big tin can with a sigh of relief. Her arms

-ached with carrying it, for it was heavy and the way was long. Napoleon

-Pompey had carried two cans, each heavier than hers, but the lad seemed

-to feel no inconvenience from the load. Olive looked at him with envy

-and thought with contempt of her own muscles which appeared so

-inefficient. As she unpacked the food, it seemed to her that nothing she

-had learnt at Smyrna and could best do, was wanted on the prairie, and

-she remembered with some amusement and not a little bitterness Mary

-Winkle’s words about food for the mind. At this moment she reflected

-that all the learning in the world was not so much needed by that

-philosophical lady as the very gross and material food which was being

-taken out of the heavy tin cans and laid on the grass. The

-working-party, men, women and horses, arrived while Olive was thus

-engaged. Mary Winkle instantly sat down and leaned against a tree and

-threw off her sunbonnet. Her thin black hair was matted down to her

-temples, her cheeks were yellow, and her eyes looked dull. Madame also

-took off her hat and veil and shook up the coil of hair on her head with

-a sigh of relief.

-

-“Does your head ache too?” said Mary Winkle wearily.

-

-“Not in the least,” replied Madame. “A sunbonnet is a bad shelter

-against heat. You should wear a good hat, it is far better.”

-

-“I wonder how you can bear all that hair on your head. Why don’t you cut

-it off?”

-

-“Why, it is an admirable protection against both heat and cold,” said

-Madame laughing. “It is my greatest comfort.” She might have added her

-greatest beauty.

-

-The food which Olive brought was most appetising, roast chicken, hot

-corn-bread, and pumpkin pies, with plenty of milk and water to drink.

-Before eating Madame went to the spring to wash her hands and face, and

-Mary Winkle sat limply against the tree trunk with her eyes shut.

-

-“Eat something, it will revive you,” said Olive, looking with pity upon

-her sallow cheeks.

-

-“I don’t feel hardly able to eat,” she said in a weak voice. “It seems

-to me I don’t ever want to open my eyes again.”

-

-“You are overworking yourself,” said Olive, “you should not attempt this

-field work: it is beyond your strength.”

-

-“What! and let her see me give in?” said Mary Winkle with reviving

-spirit.

-

-Madame came up at this moment looking as fresh as a lily: she glanced

-sharply at Sister Mary. “You appear very much exhausted,” she remarked.

-

-Sister Mary raised her head and opened her eyes, but did not speak.

-

-“It’s a pity you don’t take wine,” she continued, sitting down and

-beginning on her piece of chicken with relish. “A good glass of Burgundy

-would set you up in no time.”

-

-Sister Mary herself sat up at this.

-

-“I wouldn’t touch wine, no, not if I was dying,” she said resolutely.

-

-Madame smiled. “I didn’t recommend it because you were dying: wine as

-everything else is then useless: but because you look weak. I suggested

-a medicine.”

-

-“As a medicine it is worse than useless, and as a drink I scorn to take

-a rank poison.”

-

-“Poisons are sometimes given as medicine, witness strychnine in small

-doses for certain forms of dyspepsia, and I believe satisfactorily,”

-said Madame.

-

-“Wine is worse than strychnine, because more insidious in its action and

-more liable to abuse,” said Mary Winkle decisively, as she took the tin

-cup of milk and water handed her by Olive, and drank it with eagerness.

-

-“Well, at all events admit that wine has been of benefit to you on this

-occasion,” observed Madame smiling. “I merely mentioned it to you, and

-you look already revived and more like yourself. Doesn’t she, Sister

-Olive?”

-

-“It was the milk and water did it,” said Sister Mary Winkle hurriedly,

-at which Madame smiled again.

-

-Brother Dummy and Napoleon Pompey now came up to the group of women.

-They had been watering and unharnessing the horses who were at the

-present moment munching their corn. The white man, although dirty as a

-ploughman would be after half a day’s hard work, sat down promptly

-beside Mary Winkle and helped himself to a leg of chicken: the negro boy

-stood aside doubtfully, eyeing the group and the food with longing

-looks.

-

-“Come along, N. P.,” said Olive brightly, “sit down there.” She pointed

-to a place on the other side of Mary Winkle, where there seemed a good

-opening in front of a huge piece of corn-bread.

-

-“No, if you please,” said Sister Mary, rising to her feet with

-resentment.

-

-“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Olive flushing with surprise. “Napoleon

-Pompey won’t bite you.”

-

-“I have never sat down to eat beside a negro, and I don’t feel inclined

-to begin now.”

-

-“Let the lad sit beside me,” said Madame gently. “I have seen people of

-too many shades of colour and no colour to mind a little extra dash of

-black. Come here, boy, come and have this piece of bread and meat.”

-

-Napoleon Pompey grinning with all his white teeth sprang to the place

-beside Madame, and buried those same teeth eagerly in his chunk of

-bread. Mary Winkle sat down again and leaned against the tree. Olive’s

-face took a deeper tinge of red and her eyes snapped.

-

-“Do you consider yourself made of such fine clay that it won’t bear

-contact with a negro?” she asked hotly. “It seems to me a little of what

-used to be called Christian charity might come in useful here. I never

-aspired to the heights of Perfection City people, but I never refused

-the rights of brotherhood to the negro simply because of the curl of his

-hair or the colour of his skin.”

-

-“I am quite willing to give them all their rights and will be glad to

-see them educated and all that, but I never sat at dinner with a negro,

-and I am not going to begin now,” said Mary Winkle setting her thin pale

-lips with the utmost stubbornness.

-

-“Well, I call it perfectly monstrous,” retorted Olive, “and you setting

-yourself up to show the better life and all the rest of it! I should

-have thought the first thing to do before teaching the highest

-perfection was to practise the simplest justice.”

-

-“And you, Sister Olive,” said Madame’s cool sweet voice, “will have to

-learn to respect the prejudices of other people even when they run

-counter to your most cherished theories. I do not myself share the

-feeling of repulsion that Sister Mary has in this case, but I respect

-it. I would suggest to you to do the same. It is an inconvenient fact,

-perhaps, that people do not all think alike, but it is one that must be

-resolutely faced nevertheless.”

-

-Olive was silent under this reproof, but she looked angrily at Mary

-Winkle from time to time, and revenged herself by feeding up Napoleon

-Pompey and petting him to an alarming extent, much to the delight of

-that young darkie who ate until he seemed to ooze out unctuous joy.

-

-Brother Dummy ate, as he worked, silently, conscientiously,

-continuously. Olive was amazed at the amount he seemed able to consume,

-while of milk and water he drank half a gallon or thereabouts.

-

-“How can he do it?” said Olive in astonishment.

-

-“You forget,” replied Madame, “that he has been following that plough

-for six long hours, and the dry wind raised such a dust around him that

-he must have swallowed a vast quantity of it in the course of the day.

-It takes a good deal to slake the thirst after such a dust visitation as

-that.”

-

-When Brother Dummy had eaten and drunk his fill he lay down on the grass

-and went instantly to sleep. The three women looked at him for a moment

-or two.

-

-“He seems to have very little enjoyment in his life,” said Olive

-compassionately.

-

-“But then he has also few sorrows,” said Madame. “The high lights are

-wanting, perhaps, but so are the dark shadows. His life is like a grey

-landscape. It has a beauty of its own, but not everyone can see it.”

-

-“To live in eternal silence seems to me the most awful curse,” said

-Olive.

-

-“I can imagine many a worse one,” replied Madame, looking out from among

-the few bare trees away across the open prairie.

-

-“What could be worse?”

-

-“Well, for example, to know that someone you loved did not love you. To

-have to shut up your heart within iron doors, and never open them to let

-it out. That would be worse than to be denied the power of speech, which

-after all can now be supplemented in many ways by artificial means.

-Brother Huntley is not actively unhappy, I should judge. He and his wife

-have always appeared to me to be a very united couple.”

-

-“They cannot quarrel, at all events,” said Olive.

-

-“No, not, at least, in the ordinary way,” replied Madame.

-

-When Brother Dummy awoke after his little snooze, he got up, looked at

-the sun to see what time of day it was, and then signed to Napoleon

-Pompey to rouse up. That young person was lethargic, owing to his

-anaconda-like meal, accordingly Brother Dummy roused him with his foot.

-The darkie rolled over and said “Yah!” and started for the horses, who

-were nodding over their corn-cobs, now nibbled down to the smallest

-dimensions. Olive, whose resentment at the slight put upon Napoleon

-Pompey by Mary Winkle urged her to identify herself with the negro boy,

-walked away with him and Brother Dummy to watch the hitching up. Madame

-employed herself in throwing scraps of bread to Balthasar, who would

-have much preferred eating the chicken bones, only that was a debauch

-not permitted to a dog of his manners. Mary Winkle looked hopelessly

-along those weary furrows, up and down which it would be her duty to

-march again, dropping her seeds of corn as before.

-

-“Are you going to work all the afternoon?” she asked of her companion.

-

-“Yes, I think so. We shall get this field planted and covered in by

-sun-down, I should think. And that will be a great piece of work done.

-We cannot afford to let the individualists beat us at corn planting, can

-we? We must do at least as well as they, and I should hope we might do

-better.”

-

-“I don’t know how you can stand so much heat and hard work,” said Mary,

-“and in that dress too. Why, if I were to attempt to work in long skirts

-I should be dead in a week.”

-

-“I don’t mind my dress at all,” said Madame. “It never bothers me. I

-don’t think about it.”

-

-“But don’t you think about it when your back aches?”

-

-“It never does.”

-

-“I don’t understand it,” says Mary once more.

-

-“I suspect that the reason you American women find your dress such a

-burden is because you are so weak yourselves,” said Madame.

-

-“American women accomplish as much or more than any others, I should

-say,” observed Mary.

-

-“Precisely, but not from their muscular strength. They work out of their

-nerves, and that is why they never last any length of time.”

-

-Madame finished her day’s work at six o’clock, and then walked home

-humming a German dance tune to herself. Mary Winkle stopped at four

-o’clock, and dragged herself home to bed with a fearsome headache, still

-puzzling how it was that her perfect dress had not done better for her

-in that day’s trial. She did not know that all her scientific dressing

-was as nothing compared with the robust vitality, which Madame brought

-with her from another land, and which, running in such vigorous beats

-through her blood, was inherited from generations of strong healthy

-ancestors. Madame’s father was a Russian colonel noted for his size and

-strength and also for his wildness. Her mother was a pretty English

-girl, who had nothing to bequeath to her daughter but health, personal

-beauty, and this piece of advice: “Never stake your happiness on any

-man, it always brings disaster to the woman.” Mary Winkle’s mother, on

-the other hand, was a nervous invalid at thirty, and her father was a

-dyspeptic dietetic reformer, who pinned his salvation on never eating

-salt. Small wonder, therefore, that the daughter of the one pair should

-be able to plant corn all day long and walk lightly home at evening,

-while the offspring of the other pair could do only three quarters of a

-day’s work, after which headache and nervous exhaustion.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER VI.

-                            NON-RESISTANCE.

-

-

-It was the custom of the Pioneers to send once a week to Union Mills in

-order to do their necessary marketing and to get the post, which came

-there twice a week from Kansas City by stage-coach. The subject of the

-post was one that had been rather hotly debated at Perfection City,

-although to the outsider it would seem a very harmless topic, and not

-fruitful of division. The fact was, however, that there was only one

-member of the Community who showed any eagerness about getting letters

-regularly and often, and that member was Madame. She indeed did receive

-a most unconscionable number of letters and periodicals, so the other

-members thought. She got several American Magazines, such as the

-Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s, but she also received English papers, and

-French ones, and occasionally German ones as well. The Community

-thought, but did not dare to give public expression to the thought, that

-Madame should have rested content with the mental sustenance provided by

-themselves for home consumption. Brother Wright in particular felt

-himself equal to the task of providing everybody with all they needed in

-the way of correct views upon even the highest subjects. But Madame,

-although she listened with politeness and apparent attention to what he

-had to say, found this sustenance too meagre for the wants of her

-nature. Moreover she took a deep interest in the affairs of the outside

-world, an interest almost offensive to persons who prided themselves

-upon having risen above the world and all its concerns. It was really

-humiliating to think that the leading spirit of their Community should

-occupy her mind with the relations between Prussia and Austria, when

-such questions as affected the future of humanity and of Perfection City

-were what filled their souls. She even evinced a keen interest in the

-career and personality of the Prussian minister, Bismarck, and that,

-too, when Brother Wright was willing to give her the light of his

-thoughts upon all really important questions. It was painful to the

-feeling of the Pioneers, who were all in all to themselves and wished to

-be so to others, but they had to put up with it, since Madame was their

-leader and, moreover, the only one who had a purse with some money in

-it. Ezra was the only member of the Community who sided with Madame in

-her taste for reading the new books and the latest periodicals. He and

-she had that taste, with many others, in common, and it drew them

-together in an especial degree. On his last trip East during the winter,

-when he had been so unexpectedly delayed, as they now knew, by meeting

-with his fate in the shape of Olive, one of his commissions had been to

-bring back a box of books, which were now arranged in neat shelves in

-Madame’s private sitting-room. And yet notwithstanding all these books,

-a hundred or more, the steady stream of papers, periodicals, and

-magazines continued as before, and had to be fetched regularly from

-Union Mills.

-

-The brethren took it in turns to go to the town, which was some ten

-miles distant, and they always combined some useful business with the

-fetching of the letters. Brother Wright was a frequent messenger, for he

-liked going better than Ezra did, while of course Brother Dummy was

-precluded by his affliction from going, and Brother Carpenter was

-hopelessly unable to drive horses. Some of the women generally contrived

-to find an excuse for going to Union Mills, for women like to get away

-from the petty cares of house and home, a peculiarity from which the

-sisters of Perfection City were by no means exempt. In particular Mrs.

-Ruby, invariably called Aunt Ruby, loved to go. She thus got a chance of

-seeing new faces and talking with new people. She would not for worlds

-have confessed that she was tired of the restricted society of

-Perfection City, but she knew so well what each had to say, that it was

-refreshing to go out sometimes into the world and meet people whose

-ideas could not always be guessed beforehand.

-

-It so happened that the day after the corn planting it became necessary

-to go to Union Mills in order to take a grist of corn to be ground.

-Madame suggested that Brother Wright should go, while Brother Dummy took

-up his plough-handles and finished the field the former was preparing

-for the corn. Mary Winkle, still prostrated by the previous day’s hard

-work, urged her spouse to go, “For then,” said she, “if you ain’t here I

-needn’t get any dinner. I’ll just send Willette over to Sister Olive’s

-for dinner, and I needn’t stir till milking time.” This seemed a happy

-arrangement, and her husband set off shortly after breakfast, picking up

-Aunt Ruby as he passed her cottage.

-

-“Be you lonesome living in that house by yourself?” asked Brother Wright

-as they jogged along over the prairie, for it had struck him as very

-lonely that morning as he drove up.

-

-“No, no, I ain’t lonely, least not most whiles,” answered Aunt Ruby, an

-alert little old woman, not unlike a bird in her quick movements. “In

-the summer-time there’s allus the chickens to see to an’ feed an’ ten’,

-an’ chickens is powerful spry an’ talkin’ birds. They most allus has

-somethin’ to scold an’ chatter ’bout, chickens an’ hens has, an’ cocks.

-Then in the winter I hev the clock tickin’ loud o’ evenin’s, an’ that’s

-most as good as a pusson in the room, an’ there’s allus the cat, an’

-mostly the kettle singin’ on the stove. Come to think on’t, there’s a

-heap o’ company in a house like mine, if you on’y has ears to hear an’

-un’erstan’ what is said by beasts an’ things.”

-

-Yet notwithstanding this “heap o’ company” Aunt Ruby dearly loved a good

-gossip with the saddler’s wife at Union Mills, whenever that luxury was

-attainable. On the present occasion Aunt Ruby had a real good time, for

-Brother Wright was delayed longer than usual, first in order to get some

-harness mended, and afterwards to have a shoe replaced that suddenly

-showed signs of coming off one of the horses. Thus it was very near

-sun-down before they left Union Mills. Aunt Ruby, owing in large measure

-to her gossip, and also partly to an exceptionally strong cup of tea,

-was in a highly nervous and excitable frame of mind.

-

-Had Brother Wright, she asked, heard of that rumour about the Cherokees?

-And did he think there was any danger of their leaving their Reservation

-and going on the war-path? Brother Wright, who had a poor opinion of

-Indians, and a worse one of the way in which the white men had treated

-them, thought on the whole that the rumour might be considered false.

-This comforted Aunt Ruby, to whom the word “Injun” suggested torture and

-death and all sorts of horrors. She remained comforted until she

-remembered that other rumour—about the raid of border ruffians from out

-of Missouri. Brother Wright thought it highly probable that this rumour

-might prove to be true. Missouri men had raided Kansas more than once,

-and it was possible they might do so again at any moment. With

-conversation such as this they came to the end of the daylight and the

-beginning of the trees around Cotton Wood Creek about the same time.

-

-“I shall be glad when we are safe over this ford and out of the dark

-wood beyond,” said Brother Wright, trying to urge his horses along, but

-he had a heavy load of timber and coal and some iron bars for

-smith-work.

-

-“Ain’t it near here that those people over beyond Jacksonville got

-robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby, nervously peering about in the gloom with her

-weak old eyes. At this moment some distant creature made a shrill scream

-or howl.

-

-“Oh! what was that,” exclaimed Aunt Ruby nervously.

-

-“That was a prairie wolf, I guess,” answered Brother Wright quietly.

-

-Silence followed, except for the creaking of the waggon, the straining

-of the horses at their traces, and an occasional clang made by one of

-the bars of iron which was not sufficiently wedged up with hay.

-

-“If those Missouri border ruffians came to Perfection City, do you

-reckon our principles would save us from being robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby.

-“Most everybody knows as we are non-resistants.”

-

-“I don’t think our principles would stand in the way of a Missouri man.

-More likely they would take advantage of them. They are mean cusses, and

-are used to riding rough-shod over principles and rights. It is a

-recognised thing everywhere that women and children are non-resistants,

-yet that does not save ’em from being raided and robbed by border

-ruffians.”

-

-“And you think they would rob us, peaceful folks as ha’n’t no arms nor

-nothin’?” asked Aunt Ruby anxiously.

-

-“I guess they would try,” replied Brother Wright.

-

-“Then I think as we oughter reconsider our principles a mite,” said Aunt

-Ruby. “For if we are robbed and killed by folks as can’t un’erstan’ the

-higher life, we shan’t be able to teach the world nothin’. An’ what’s

-the good o’ principles when you’re dead an’ gone an’ undergroun’?”

-

-“That is so,” assented Brother Wright.

-

-“I didn’t never think on’t in this light afore,” said Aunt Ruby. “It

-’pears to me as how we should meet together an’ try an’ settle some way

-as how we can keep our principles an’ yet live on the prairie.”

-

-“I guess you’ve pretty nearly said the truth,” said Brother Wright.

-

-“What we hev to do is to live here an’ show ’em our principles at work,

-an’ not die straightway afore we’ve done anything to improve mankind.

-That’s my view,” said Aunt Ruby. “What do you think, Brother Wright?”

-

-Instead of answering Brother Wright pulled up short and looked intently

-in front of him.

-

-“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Aunt Ruby in a high-pitched voice of

-alarm.

-

-“Hush!” replied her companion, “don’t make a noise.”

-

-Aunt Ruby’s heart began to beat violently. “Do you see anything?” she

-asked in a whisper.

-

-“I see a man over there by the road, sitting on horseback with his right

-arm out pointing towards the waggon.”

-

-“Oh! brother, I wish you had a carnal weapon of defence,” said Aunt Ruby

-in a shaking voice.

-

-“I have,” replied Brother Wright, pulling an uncommonly useful-looking

-Colt’s revolver from his breeches pocket. “I always carry one in case of

-Injuns.”

-

-Again they sat silent for a moment, the horses shook their heads, and

-one of them stamped a foot.

-

-“Who goes there?” hailed Brother Wright in a loud defiant voice. “Drop

-that right arm of yours or I’ll fire.”

-

-No answer.

-

-The figure sat motionless, the right hand still raised in that menacing

-attitude.

-

-“I am a man of my word,” said Brother Wright, rising to his feet and

-sighting his revolver steadily on the figure, while to Aunt Ruby he

-said, “Hold on tight, the horses will jump.”

-

-A shot rang out on the still night air. The horses nearly jumped out of

-their skins with fright, and would certainly have run away, only the

-waggon was very heavy, and they decided to run in different directions.

-Hence they only jerked each other almost to the ground and then stood

-still amazed and trembling.

-

-“Better make sure,” said Brother Wright, emptying another barrel at the

-figure which appeared to remain motionless in the uncertain foggy light.

-This time the horses came to the same conclusion and tried to turn round

-abruptly, but the attempt was expertly frustrated by Brother Wright and

-a cowhide whip of exceptional stinging power. Having thus reduced the

-horses to reason, he again turned his attention to the figure and saw

-with amazement that it still sat on horseback in the same spot.

-

-“Well, I swan!” said Brother Wright, rubbing his eyes. “That beats all!

-It can’t be a mortal man, or he would have either dropped or returned

-fire. I guess I’ll drive on and do no more shooting this time.”

-

-He stowed his pistol away in his pocket and drove on.

-

-“Hadn’t you better keep the weapon handy?” suggested Aunt Ruby. “You

-might lay it down in my lap, if you like.”

-

-“No, thank’ee,” replied Brother Wright. “I don’t generally give that

-sort of thing to women to hold for me.”

-

-He pulled up at a little opening just near the ford, where the faint

-light of a crescent moon showed between the bare branches of the trees,

-and a sort of water-fog hung along the elder bushes by the banks.

-

-“This is the spot he was standing,” remarked Wright, “the exact spot. I

-guess I’ll just look and see if there is any trail. The ground is soft

-about here and should show up pretty clear.”

-

-He descended from the waggon and carefully examined the side of the

-road, but could see nothing. There was a large stump with a broken

-branch sticking out which attracted his attention, and he walked around

-it a couple of times, surveying it critically in the uncertain light.

-

-“Well, I swan!” he exclaimed, after the third inspection. “I didn’t

-think I could have been mistaken.”

-

-Then he climbed back into the waggon, and said, “Gee-up!”

-

-“Did you fin’ any tracks o’ robbers?” asked his companion anxiously.

-

-“No,” replied Brother Wright, “no tracks of robbers, but I lighted on

-the trail of a doggauned fool. Guess we’ll not say much about the attack

-made on our waggon, at Little Cotton Wood Creek.”

-

-“I won’t mention it at all,” remarked Aunt Ruby, “’cause it might

-frighten the folks up to Perfection City an’ make ’em uneasy ’bout

-coming to Union Mills.”

-

-Brother Wright only chuckled in reply, possibly because his whole

-attention was required at this juncture to get his horses and waggon

-safely through the water, for it was certainly very dark in that

-bottom-land. Once the creek was crossed and the high prairie reached, it

-became easy enough to see by the light of the new moon and the stars,

-and the pair reached Perfection City in safety, although very late.

-

-Brother Wright was very eager to unravel the mystery of that horseman at

-the ford on Little Cotton Wood Creek, so he made a private expedition

-thither on horseback as soon as he could frame an excuse for a morning’s

-absence. He went to the place whence he had first seen the alarming

-stranger, half closed his sharp grey eyes, and looked.

-

-“Well, I swan!” he remarked, as this expression seemed somehow to

-relieve his feelings. By daylight there was nothing suspicious to be

-seen, but the old stump with the broken branch sticking out from it

-straight towards the spectator. Brother Wright surveyed this stump

-critically and came to the conclusion that with the help of darkness, a

-slight mist, a new moon, and a nervous companion, the old stump might

-take on an alarming aspect. He rode up to the stump, got off his horse,

-and examined it.

-

-“I should like to know that I hit him plumb with both bullets anyhow,”

-remarked he, with a grin most unbecoming to a Perfection City

-non-resistant. He had hit “him” plumb, but so had other people, and the

-amazed Brother Wright counted no less than seventeen bullet holes, both

-old and new, in the body of that long suffering stump.

-

-“Well, I be jiggered!” said Brother Wright as he mounted his horse.

-“What a sight of blamed fools there must be in the world!” and with this

-comforting reflection he rode home, and ever after held his peace about

-the episode on the ford of Little Cotton Wood Creek. And so likewise did

-Aunt Ruby, that talkative old lady. But sometimes, when she and Brother

-Wright looked into each other’s eyes, they grinned a little sheepishly,

-showing that the recollection of it had not quite faded from their

-minds.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER VII.

-                               WILLETTE.

-

-

-Willette, the only child of the Wright and Winkle pair, was a young

-person of considerable character, which had undergone little of the

-attempted modification which we call education. At the time of Olive’s

-arrival at Perfection City this child was about eleven years old, and

-was as wild a specimen of a girl as could be easily found even on the

-prairie. Her mother had endeavoured to clothe her in garments known as

-the “reform-dress,” and had made her a suit of lilac calico, consisting

-of short tunic, and full-gathered trousers of the prescribed pattern.

-Willette had put on these things and had promptly complained of

-“scratchiness” around the neck and arm-holes, owing probably to

-deficiency of skill on the part of her mother in the making of the said

-garments. Shortly afterwards, being called upon to do some

-cattle-hunting, Willette had set out in all the pride of her new clothes

-to ride down some young steers who were proving refractory. The steers

-took shelter in the bottom-land along Little Cotton Wood Creek, and

-skilfully hid themselves in the brushwood there, among the trailing wild

-vines and the spiky wilder plums which formed a very good barrier

-against pursuing man. Willette plunged bravely into the brush, and after

-a fierce struggle returned with one steer and half her dress. The other

-half remained in the brush along with the rest of the steers. Repeated

-onslaughts reduced her almost to nakedness, but she brought home the

-full complement of steers and an abundant assortment of scratches on her

-legs. After that Willette had enough of her mother’s system of dress,

-and accordingly she evolved one of her own.

-

-“I ain’t agoin’ to cattle-hunt in no more o’ your cobwebs, Ma,”

-explained this young person. “I reckon I’ll go a-ridin’ like a boy next

-time.”

-

-Willette appropriated one of her father’s pants made of the material

-known as hickory, which is supposed to resist any tear or strain. The

-current legend attached to real out-and-out hickory is as follows. A

-farmer arrayed in hickory was one day rooting out old stumps from a

-newly-cleared field with a new patent plough. He came to a regular

-stunner which jerked the plough clean out of the land. He backed up,

-took a good hold of the plough-handles, gave a mighty yell to the

-horses, and drove the plough clean through the stump, which split open

-in the middle. The plough and the man passed through, but the stump

-closed up again and caught his hickory trousers. The horses strained at

-the collar, but the man would not let go of the plough, nor would the

-stump relinquish its grasp of the hickory trousers. So he rested his

-horses a spell, took a big breath, and said “Hallelujah!” whereupon the

-horses went forward with a bound and brought plough, man, trousers, and

-stump along with them!

-

-It was a garment of this incomparable material that Willette

-appropriated to her use. She cut off the legs until the length suited

-her stature, regardless of the fit of the waist, clothed the upper part

-of her body in a pink check shirt, put a boy’s cap upon her head, and

-announced her intention of henceforth dressing like that. She was a chip

-off the old block with a vengeance, and Mary Winkle, after one

-affrighted gasp, was obliged to admit that her own principles, as put

-into practice by her daughter, were too much for her. Wright laughed

-immensely, and said she was a boy now and would do first-rate.

-

-Willette was totally uneducated, could not write her name and could

-scarcely read, but she did not lack for intelligence. She knew the hour

-of the day, by looking at the sun, as well as a negro, and she could

-distinguish a horse from a cow at four miles distance. She knew every

-beast for miles around, and to whom it belonged, and could remember for

-a month every cow she had come across on the prairie and which way it

-was heading. She understood the moods and intentions of all kinds of

-animals almost as if she was one of the species herself, and she never

-was at fault on a cattle-trail.

-

-Olive found immense amusement in talking to Willette, who expressed

-herself with the utmost freedom upon all subjects in language which

-would have done credit to a nigger. The child, on the other hand, had a

-supreme contempt for Olive’s abilities and attainments, which seemed

-ludicrously deficient, but felt a kindly patronising sort of regard for

-her, and liked to look at her pretty face and touch her smooth round

-cheeks. The pair were therefore often together, and Willette undertook

-to teach her friend to ride, provided she would get some sensible

-clothes and ride in the only way that Willette imagined it possible for

-a two-legged human being to bestride a quadruped. Olive therefore made

-herself a bewitching riding-habit with Turkish trousers, and rode a

-high-peaked Mexican saddle, out of which even a sack of meal could not

-tumble if it tried. As soon as Olive began to feel confidence in herself

-and her horse, she enjoyed the riding immensely. She claimed the refusal

-of a horse on every possible opportunity when one could be spared from

-the farm work. Ezra, delighted to see her so pleased with a healthy

-exercise, encouraged her to go cattle-hunting with Willette, and enjoyed

-the spirited reports which she used to bring home from these

-exhilarating expeditions.

-

-“I do wish I had a pony of my very own which I could take out whenever I

-wanted a ride, and which would be always there for me,” said Olive one

-day to Ezra after she had been riding by herself on Rebel. Ezra was

-hoeing up the newly sprouted sweet-corn, and the horses were not at work

-on the land. In his inmost heart he re-echoed the wish, and would at

-that moment have given anything to be an individualist and be able to

-say: “Darling, I’ll buy you a pony with the first load of corn I sell.”

-He looked at his pretty wife’s glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and

-thought with a groan that he was tied by his principles and prevented by

-them and the public opinion of the Community from giving his wife this

-enjoyment. It was the first time that his heart had come into conflict

-with the perfect theories of Perfection City, and he was amazed and

-disturbed to find how very much he was vexed by them. Fortunately Olive

-dismissed the idea of a pony of her own as an unattainable bliss, and

-contented herself with chance rides on Rebel and Queen Katherine, the

-two horses which inhabited Ezra’s stable and were generally used by him

-on his side of the community-land.

-

-Olive’s courage and spirit of independence, fostered by a very

-mild-tempered horse, grew apace. She soon felt able to dispense with the

-escort and instruction of Willette and go cattle-hunting alone. She

-learned quickly enough to know the sixty head of cattle belonging to the

-Community, and where to look for them. The cattle, which consisted of

-the usual mixture of milch cows, steers, yearlings, and calves, had been

-bought at different times and were apportioned to the different families

-in rough division, chiefly because each woman liked to have the cows she

-was to milk, driven up to her own fence near to her own house to save

-trouble. The cattle, consequently, seemed to have become intensely

-individualistic in their tendencies, and absolutely refused to graze in

-common. Each bell-cow led off her own herd of steers and yearlings where

-she thought best on the prairie, and it was seldom that any two of those

-“leading ladies” chose to go to the same spot. If they did they

-generally quarrelled and fought a bit. Cattle-hunting, therefore, became

-a sufficiently diversified occupation in which the unexpected frequently

-occurred.

-

-One day it happened that Olive and Diana, now old enough to run with her

-on her expeditions, had been to the head of Little Cotton Wood Creek to

-look for a cow that had hidden away her calf there, after the manner of

-prairie cows. Olive found the truant and the “little stranger,” along

-with half a dozen young cattle, and was driving them slowly homewards,

-when she became convinced from Rebel’s demonstrations that something was

-annoying him under the flap of his saddle. In fact he was constantly

-trying to bite Olive’s leg in a way which agitated her not a little.

-Accordingly she resolved to take off the saddle and make an inspection.

-She dismounted, undid the girths, and lifted off the heavy Mexican

-saddle. Rebel, who had always hitherto regarded this proceeding as

-indicating immediate liberty, no sooner felt the saddle removed than he

-took a base advantage of Olive, and kicking up his heels bounded away

-from her. She set the saddle in the grass and walked pacifically after

-Rebel, held out a deceitful hand and called him endearing names. Rebel

-listened to her honeyed words with his ears flat on his neck, and as

-soon as she came near, again kicked up his heels and bounded off.

-

-Diana considering all this a joke in which a puppy might lend valuable

-assistance, now pranced forward with energetic barks, and the cows and

-calves deeming themselves to be driven with fierceness, set up a

-lumbering trot across the prairie, the new-made mother every now and

-then diving ineffectually after Diana with a plunge and a snort. A

-stampede had set in among the animals, and Olive sat down and cried with

-vexation and alarm. Her home showed clear and distinct against the

-horizon just four miles in a bee-line from where she sat shedding her

-ineffectual tears. Now Diana, although a feminine creature and also a

-puppy, and therefore endowed with a double dose of original foolishness,

-was likewise a dog, and consequently amenable to the highest

-inspirations of a noble nature. Having therefore in her character of

-puppy worried and distracted the animals to her heart’s content, she

-suddenly felt bound to exhibit some of the better sides of her nature,

-among which remains forever pre-eminent fidelity to the master. Seeing

-that Olive was not in the scrimmage, Diana turned her back resolutely

-upon the delights of snapping at calves’ heels, and putting her nose to

-the ground raced straight back to Olive weeping in the grass. After an

-apologetic wriggle Diana sat down and looked at Olive. Now no

-philosopher or other mortal has ever succeeded in being as wise as a

-tired puppy can look. Therefore when Olive in spite of her woe caught

-sight of Diana’s face and attitude, she burst into a laugh in the midst

-of her tears, whereupon the latter sprang merrily up and licked her

-face. Thus comforted, Olive arose, and then became aware that she didn’t

-know where the saddle was. She had neglected to mark its position in any

-way when going on that deceitful embassy to Rebel, but indeed it would

-not have been easy to mark the position of the saddle. The grass was in

-its greatest summer height, and there was neither bush nor tree anywhere

-for miles around. There was not even a hillock or knoll of ground to

-give individuality to one spot more than another, all was the relentless

-rolling prairie—a vast grassy sea where one billow was exactly like a

-hundred others.

-

-Olive was in dismay. Here was a fresh cause for tribulation, for the

-saddle was new and expensive, and moreover it belonged to the Community.

-She would not have minded facing Ezra with a tale of any sort of

-disaster or loss, for she knew he would kiss her and pet her and say,

-“Never mind, darling, don’t grieve, it doesn’t matter two jack-straws.”

-But a community-saddle was quite another matter, and Olive shrank from

-the ordeal of community-anger at the loss of its saddle, and

-community-contempt for her carelessness in unsaddling on the prairie

-without putting the reins over her arm. She perceived now that anyone

-but a fool would have taken that simple precaution against disaster.

-“I’m not fit to live on the prairie,” sobbed Olive to herself. “My

-education is no use to me, and I have not got the wits of that boy-girl

-Willette. Diana, you idiot, why don’t you help me?”

-

-This reproach was addressed to the puppy, who was wallowing blissfully

-in the grass and thus refreshing herself after her scamper. Olive began

-to walk aimlessly up and down in the hope of stumbling on the saddle,

-and Diana began to do likewise, but with far more system. Diana’s

-researches were speedily crowned with success, and she soon sat down to

-an uninterrupted gnaw at the flap of the big Mexican saddle. Becoming at

-length aware of the disappearance of Diana, Olive called to her, and the

-puppy reared a mischievous face over the grass some twenty yards away.

-Going to the spot, Olive perceived the saddle and also the depredations

-of Diana’s sharp teeth upon the flap. She whipped the dog with a stirrup

-leather most ineffectually and then said:

-

-“What’s to be done now?” but Diana, feeling that her efforts had been

-badly rewarded, made no suggestions.

-

-Indeed Olive’s plight after finding the saddle was considerably worse

-than before. The thing was very heavy. Mexican saddles are built on

-wood, large, strong and ponderous, and weigh heavier and heavier in

-proportion to the distance one carries them. Olive put it on her

-shoulders and began to see stars, she then tried her head and found that

-position still worse. She dragged it along by a stirrup-leather and

-found she was ruining it. Then she sat down and cried, which was the

-most useless effort she had made. What was she to do? If she were to

-leave the saddle and walk home she would never be able to find it again.

-There was absolutely nothing to mark the spot. By this time the cattle

-were distant specks moving solemnly homewards, with Rebel decorously

-following in the rear. Olive decided to remain where she was until Rebel

-and the cattle, by their arrival without her, should have given the

-alarm, which would bring Ezra and the rest of the Community to the

-rescue, somewhere about the middle of the night, she supposed. It would

-be humiliating, but she thought it would be better than abandoning the

-saddle which she could not possibly carry. She sat down to wait with

-what patience she could for rescue and humiliation. There was nothing to

-expect along that weary stretch of grassy sea, and yet Olive kept

-looking and looking away to the north, east, south, and west. By and by

-she beheld a horseman coming up from the distant west and holding a

-slanting course which would carry him past Perfection City some mile or

-so to the north. She resolved to intercept this man and ask his aid, so

-she stood up and signalled wildly with her hat. Of course he saw her

-instantly, although he was a couple of miles away, and equally of course

-he at once turned his horse towards her and set off at a gallop. People

-on the prairie ask and give help freely, and Olive had not the slightest

-hesitation in calling this unknown horseman up to her aid, although she

-had not the remotest idea who he might be. Probably he was a

-cattle-hunter like herself, at any rate a man and a horse would be able

-to give her and her saddle effectual assistance. The man galloped

-steadily on and soon took the ordinary appearance: big hat, red shirt,

-riding boots, belt with probably a revolver somewhere in it. He slowed

-up a little as he came near and seemed to be very intently looking at

-Olive.

-

-“I am very sorry to have troubled you,” began Olive.

-

-“Don’t mention it. I shall be delighted if I can be of use,” said the

-man, taking off his big hat.

-

-They both stopped short and looked hard at each other, for their speech

-had mutually revealed the fact that they were a lady and a gentleman, a

-most uncommon encounter on the Kansas prairie beyond the last bit of

-cultivated land.

-

-“Have you had an accident? Are you hurt?” asked the man, jumping off his

-horse and mechanically slinging the bridle-rein over his left arm, as

-Olive noted with some self-reproach. She told him what had happened, and

-she saw a smile creep round his mouth and light up his blue eyes.

-

-“That is easily remedied. I feared you must have been thrown,” said he.

-“Just mount my horse. He’s quiet. I’ll take you home.”

-

-“But the saddle,” said Olive looking very anxiously at that burden.

-

-“Oh! that’s nothing,” said the stranger. “I’ll carry it on my arm.”

-

-“You must not dream of such a thing. I could not think of allowing it.

-You are very kind, I am sure, but if you would take up the saddle in

-front of you that is all I want. The saddle is the only difficulty. I

-can walk quite well. I live in that house over there on the brow of the

-bluff. It is not far, but I could not carry that terrible saddle.”

-

-“Why, that’s Perfection City, where the Communists live,” said he,

-looking at her curiously.

-

-“Yes, I live there,” replied Olive with a slight blush, noting the look.

-

-“And are you a communist, if I may presume to ask the question?” queried

-the stranger.

-

-“My husband was one of the founders of the—the—of Perfection City,” said

-Olive, valiantly determined to defend the absent.

-

-“But you are not one of the original members. You are surely a

-new-comer. I know most of them, by sight at all events.”

-

-“I am Mrs. Weston,” replied Olive with dignity.

-

-The stranger again took off his hat, as if this were an introduction.

-

-“I have seen your husband then, a magnificent specimen of manhood, to

-judge from the only example I had of his physical strength.”

-

-Olive felt at once mollified. Meanwhile, the stranger had shortened the

-stirrup-leathers of his horse, and turning to Olive he said,

-

-“And now, Mrs. Weston, allow me to give you a hand up to mount you on my

-big horse. He is quite gentle and I will hold the bridle.”

-

-Olive hesitated. “I don’t like to take your horse,” she said. “If you

-would be so kind as to leave the saddle——”

-

-“No, no, you must not deprive me of the pleasure of your company,”

-interposed the stranger. “We will manage the saddle all right. Just

-spring up. Your riding-habit is admirably adapted for prairie life, and

-the prettiest I ever saw. Pardon my bluntness, but I am so little used

-to society, I fear I am very rough.”

-

-“You don’t fear anything of the sort,” replied Olive quickly. “You are

-perfectly aware that your manners are infinitely superior to the article

-in general use hereabouts.”

-

-The man laughed pleasantly at this sally. “Well, let me amend my

-pleading,” said he, “and say, it is so long since I met a lady in these

-wilds, and that is true enough, Heaven knows!”

-

-Olive mounted the big horse with the dextrous help of his hand and

-signed to him to give her the saddle.

-

-“I couldn’t think of it,” said he, thrusting his arm under the saddle

-and hoisting it on to his shoulder. “It would be unspeakably

-uncomfortable for you to hold, with the stirrups whacking you at every

-step.”

-

-“Then you shall put it on the horse’s neck in front of me, or I’ll hop

-down this instant. It’s bad enough to appropriate your horse without

-making you carry my saddle as well.”

-

-Seeing her so determined, he, with a slight show of reluctance, placed

-the saddle on the neck of his horse, who after a shake or two submitted

-to the burden, and so they eventually turned homewards.

-

-“I suppose you are not surprised that we settlers out here take

-considerable interest in your experiment in communism,” remarked the man

-as they walked along.

-

-“No doubt anything out of the common excites comment,” said Olive

-guardedly, “but I should not have thought you could be classed as a

-settler out here. I have seen a good many, and know the type.”

-

-She felt interested in the man and curious to know who he was, he seemed

-so utterly different from all those she had hitherto met.

-

-“I have lived here, nevertheless, for some years now. I have a farm on

-the north side of Big Cotton Wood Creek. My name is Cotterell. Have you

-ever heard it?”

-

-“No, I never heard the name, but then I’ve only been here a very short

-time, only two months. I—that is, we came in May,” said Olive blushing

-somewhat.

-

-The stranger smiled a winning smile and looked up at her face as he

-answered,

-

-“I see you have only just come, and come as a bride to Perfection City.

-It has a very suitable sound in that connection.”

-

-He again lifted his hat, and Olive blushed more vividly still.

-

-“The prairie does not seem a very hopeful place for experiments in

-perfection,” continued the stranger. “To my eyes it looks a most

-God-forsaken place, but under certain circumstances I should be disposed

-to modify that view.”

-

-“I think any place will do to try and live a good life in, and that is

-what is aimed at in our little Community,” said Olive, standing bravely

-to her defence.

-

-He was silent for a time and then spoke again.

-

-“Any place can be made better by the presence of a good woman, I think.”

-

-“We want to show how it is possible to banish some of the evil out of

-life,” said Olive, marshalling the expressions she had heard at the

-Academy with what skill she could.

-

-“With some it is only necessary to be what God made them in order to

-banish evil from their presence,” said he.

-

-“And we have a very noble woman as leader,” said Olive not quite sure of

-his meaning.

-

-“Ah, indeed! You praise her, that should count for much. There are very

-mixed reports about her character on the prairie. Many seem to dislike

-and distrust her.”

-

-“As for that I suppose there are mixed reports about us all,” observed

-Olive impartially.

-

-“Indeed there are. For instance, it is most confusing what people say

-concerning the extent to which you carry your communistic theories. Some

-assert that there is no limit and that you are logical.”

-

-“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Olive, knitting her brows.

-

-“I presume now that the land is held in common?”

-

-“Yes, certainly, and the farm implements and the horses and cows,”

-answered Olive.

-

-“All those don’t really touch the question. You live in separate houses,

-I believe.”

-

-“Of course we do. I should hate not having my own little house. It would

-be like a hotel or a penitentiary for all to live under one roof. I

-wouldn’t do it for worlds. We have our home-life just like other people,

-but I should like to have a pony of my own, only I suppose my husband

-would not think it right to have a horse that was not a

-community-horse.”

-

-“What a confounded shame! I beg your pardon. You see I am rough. I mean,

-I think your husband ought to get you a pony, a nice well-trained lady’s

-pony, for you to ride, and not a big farm-horse.”

-

-“I should like one,” observed Olive simply, and then suddenly

-remembering that she was speaking to a stranger, she added hastily, “I

-mean it would be nice to have a horse always at hand, one not liable to

-be wanted for farm work.”

-

-“I just happen to know of an excellent animal that would suit you down

-to the ground. It belongs to Tom Mills, and he wants to sell it. It will

-go cheap too. If you would speak to your husband about it, I would bring

-it over for you to look at. Mills lives close to my house.”

-

-“No, pray don’t,” said Olive anxiously. “I am ever so much obliged to

-you, but I really ought not to have spoken about it.”

-

-“Very well,” said he, seeing she was distressed, “we’ll not pursue the

-subject further.” But in his own mind he reflected that were he in

-Weston’s place, he would have got that pony for his wife, principles or

-no principles, and it is highly probable that he would have done so.

-

-He left Olive and her saddle at her own door, refusing her invitation to

-enter, saying that he would avail himself of her permission to come some

-other day to see her. And she cordially invited him to do so, for was

-not hospitality one of the commonest virtues of the prairie, and surely

-Perfection City must not be behindhand in the practice thereof?

-

-

-

-

-                             CHAPTER VIII.

-                              MR. PERSEUS.

-

-

-When Olive got home, she was at first pleased to see that her husband

-had not come in, therefore he had not been made uneasy about her

-absence. Napoleon Pompey had caught Rebel and turned him into the

-pasture field, and was returning after that job when he met Olive near

-the hen-house. Napoleon Pompey grinned at her and remarked with relish:

-“Ole hoss, he done throw yer, den run clar ’way home.”

-

-“No, he didn’t,” retorted Olive, indignant at this slur upon her

-equestrian skill, “I just got off to change the saddle, and he ran away

-from me.”

-

-“Land!” said Napoleon Pompey, “an’ didn’t yer chuck yer reins roun’ yer

-arm?”

-

-“No, I forgot to,” confessed Olive.

-

-“Golly Ned!” said Napoleon Pompey with vast amusement.

-

-Olive felt annoyed and inquired stiffly where her husband was.

-

-“Ole man he done gone ter git ole hoe men’d up, den he gwine ter go to

-der ’Sumbly, he done eat supper ’ready. Me an’ you’uns got ter eat our’n

-now. Ole man done tol’ me.”

-

-Napoleon Pompey meant no disrespect in speaking of Ezra as “ole man,”

-for the lad knew of only two titles to bestow on white men, one was

-“Mas’r” the other was “ole man.” Ezra had requested him not to use the

-expression Mas’r, which grated on his ears, and contained suggestions of

-servitude at variance with the ideas that prevailed at Perfection City.

-Napoleon Pompey was therefore obliged to fall back upon his one other

-title. Olive had been greatly shocked when she first heard her husband

-called “ole man,” but she was now used to the expression.

-

-She was very disappointed not to see Ezra at once, for she was full of

-her adventure, but she knew from experience she must possess her soul in

-patience, for the “’Sumbly,” as Napoleon Pompey called it, was sure to

-take a good while, and Ezra always stayed conscientiously to the last.

-The institution was none other than the bi-weekly Assembly, which met at

-the Academy, and at which all the business of the Community was settled

-and the routine work of the farm arranged for. All the members were free

-to attend and speak their minds, but in practice it had resolved itself

-into a Junta of Madame, Ezra, Wright, Green, and Uncle David, of whom

-the two latter were sleeping members. The women of Perfection City did

-not care to attend the Assembly very often. Women are not good debaters,

-and they dislike arguments carried on under strict rule. They prefer to

-go their own way, do what seems best at the moment, and reserve an

-unlimited right of grumbling and jealousy. Madame, who was an exception

-to the general rule, usually presided at the Assembly and ruled it, as

-she did most things, without seeming to do so. Ezra and Brother Wright

-understood the farm work and generally mapped out the daily labour

-pretty well. Brother Dummy required only to be told what to do and went

-on contentedly doing it, without comment or commotion. Nobody, of

-course, was ordered to work, but it was suggested that if Brother Wright

-would do so and so, Brother Ezra would be able to do this, that, or the

-other, while Brother Carpenter would be free to perform such another

-task, and Brother Dummy would probably prefer to work at whatever

-happened to be wanted at the moment. Madame seldom interfered, and then

-only when necessary to smooth over a rough edge. She usually found the

-men’s arrangements excellent and for the general weal. Brother Green,

-who was a first-rate smith, was the only member of the Community who, at

-this time, received any money, for he worked in his spare time for

-outsiders. With great pride he used to bring the money he earned to the

-’Sumbly and give it into Madame’s charge to be expended as seemed best.

-She kept the accounts and used to furnish all the rest of the necessary

-cash. Sometimes the brethren expressed compunction at calling so often

-on her resources, but Madame always made the most graceful speeches in

-reply to their objections. Of course an undertaking such as this

-required capital to start it. It would be foolish to starve the whole

-project for want of a little expenditure now. By and by they would be

-self-supporting, but in order to reach that stage quickly they must not

-be stingy now. So she gave her dollars by the hundred when needed, and

-the brethren were eternally grateful and privately wondered if there was

-any limit to her wealth and generosity. At the Assembly it would be

-debated whether the next load of timber that was bought should go to

-building a hen-house for Brother Carpenter or to putting up a

-cattle-shed for Brother Ezra, and it speaks well for the honest

-conviction of the Pioneers that it was usually Brother Ezra who argued

-in favour of the hen-house, while Brother Carpenter expressed an anxious

-desire for the cattle-shed. The difficulty would perhaps be settled by

-Madame desiring to know how much timber was required for both buildings

-and deciding to buy that amount at the earliest opportunity.

-

-At this particular Assembly to which we refer, Ezra was several times on

-the point of saying that he wished to get a pony for his wife, but his

-heart failed him. He knew he did want the pony very much, but he also

-knew that it was not really wanted for the Community. So he could not

-bring himself to give utterance to the individualistic wish, and after

-arranging the necessary business of the Community, he came home with his

-wish unstated.

-

-Olive was waiting for him with the greatest impatience. She went,

-indeed, as far as the bars to meet him, but the road looked so lonesome

-and the sky so black with cold trembling specks of stars, that she ran

-back again in a flutter of panic to the house and shut herself in with

-the candles for company. At last he came back, and Olive poured forth

-the pent-up torrent of her news. Ezra was much amused at her description

-of the disaster and interested in her account of the rescuer.

-

-“And I am so vexed,” said Olive, “I can’t for the life of me remember

-what he said his name was. I know I never heard it before, but he lives

-here on the prairie. It is so silly!”

-

-“Call him Perseus,” said Ezra laughing, “he was the gallant who came to

-the rescue of distressed damsels.”

-

-“What a good joke!” said Olive gleefully, “and I was a distressed

-damsel, I assure you. I cried with vexation.”

-

-“I have no doubt that Andromeda shed tears when she was bound to the

-rock,” said Ezra, amused.

-

-“And I was bound to that odious saddle by the bonds of duty,” said

-Olive. “What a joke! Mr. Perseus!”

-

-So they laughed and chatted, and Olive was as bright as possible, and

-Ezra thought again with a pang of that pony and almost wished he had

-spoken at the Assembly about it. Olive, however, never mentioned what

-Mr. Perseus had said about the pony Mills had for sale. The idea seemed

-to have passed from her mind.

-

-It happened that about a week later Olive again found herself in the

-neighbourhood of Little Cotton Wood Creek, and by an extraordinary

-coincidence Mr. Perseus chanced to meet her. She was very much

-surprised, and he seemed to be no less so. However, the meeting was

-mutually pleasant, and they soon fell into conversation, as it appeared

-he was going her way.

-

-“I have thought a great deal about what you said to me the other day,

-about trying to make life better and all that,” said he with a certain

-self-consciousness, as if he was unaccustomed to speaking upon such a

-subject. Olive looked at him with bright clear eyes.

-

-“I am very glad if anything I said could be of use to you, but I am

-myself very ignorant. I should like you to come and hear what Brother

-Wright says, and Ezra. Brother Wright is considered very eloquent. I

-can’t always understand him myself, but that is my own deficiency!”

-

-“I would much prefer talking with you, Mrs. Weston,” said the stranger

-hastily. “I am very restive under men’s teaching, but I am docile enough

-when led by a woman’s gentle hand.”

-

-“Why are you living here?” asked Olive suddenly. “You seem so unsuited

-to this life.”

-

-“I am sick of civilization and all its horrors,” said he. “I wanted to

-get away to something fresh and new.”

-

-“That is almost like what a Pioneer would say,” remarked Olive with a

-smile. “They don’t think very highly of what civilization has done so

-far.”

-

-“Materially it has done much, morally it has done badly for a good

-number of human beings,” he remarked.

-

-“I think you sound like a very hopeful convert to the principles of

-communism. Why don’t you come to Perfection City?” asked Olive.

-

-“Would you be glad to see me there, Mrs. Weston?”

-

-“Certainly, Mr. Perseus, and I should be so pleased to make you and my

-husband known to each other.”

-

-He looked at her curiously for some moments and then said, “Why do you

-call me Mr. Perseus?”

-

-Olive gave him one horrified glance and then blushed scarlet.

-

-“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she stammered in great confusion. “I did not

-know I said so. I really am most sorry.”

-

-“But why that name?” he persisted, still looking at her blushing face.

-

-“I may as well tell you the truth,” she said still much confused. “The

-fact is I forgot what you said your name was, and my husband suggested

-in a joke that I should call you Perseus, because—because——”

-

-“I rescued you in distress,” said he as he broke into a deep musical

-laugh. “It is a capital name, I am delighted with it.”

-

-“I am so ashamed of myself,” said Olive, also laughing, “but I was in

-the habit of speaking of you as Mr. Perseus, and the name slipped off my

-tongue unawares. What is your real name? Pray tell me.”

-

-“Not for worlds, dear Mrs. Weston. To you I shall remain Mr. Perseus,

-and I shall never think of the name without a thrill of pleasure.”

-

-“But this is most unfair,” said Olive. “You know my name and who I am

-and all about me, and yet I am to be kept in the dark as to your

-identity.”

-

-“Forgive my not doing at once what you wish, but really I cannot. This

-will be a sweet little innocent romance to me, and before you I shall

-appear in my very best light, leaving all the vices and evils of my real

-nature behind me for the time. Ah no! don’t deprive me of such a

-harmless joy. If you knew what a lonely uncared for life is mine, your

-tender heart would be touched.”

-

-Her heart was touched by the quiver in his deep voice, as he intended it

-should be, and Olive did not press her point any further. They rode on

-together talking about a hundred subjects, and she found him the most

-agreeable of men. She happened to mention a great novel just then coming

-out in Harper’s, the scene of which was laid in Florence, and he said

-musingly:

-

-“Ah yes! Florence is a lovely city, nestling among the blue hills.”

-

-“Have you ever seen it then?” asked Olive much surprised.

-

-“Yes, long ago, when I was a young fellow.”

-

-She gazed at him. “You are a most incomprehensible person,” she said,

-“living here on this prairie and yet you have seen Florence.”

-

-“You forget Perseus travels easily with his winged feet, from here to

-Florence would be a bagatelle to him.”

-

-“I begin to think there must be something uncanny about you.”

-

-“Now don’t go and change me into any other personality. Remember you are

-all-powerful, and by your word alone have made me Perseus. Your word is

-mighty, and you can cast me down into hell and make me a devil by a

-breath,” said he half banteringly.

-

-“What odd language!” said Olive, looking a little frightened. “How you

-must astonish the natives when you talk in that way!”

-

-“Do you fancy I talk to anyone as I do to you? Don’t you understand that

-I am Perseus to you, but to nobody else in the world?”

-

-Olive laughed, and put her horse to a canter in order to snap the thread

-of talk which was becoming too difficult for her. Mr. Perseus remained

-in her company while she was driving home the cattle, but they had no

-further particular conversation, as the exigencies of driving the herd

-occupied their attention most of the time. On parting from her about a

-mile from her home, he promised to come some day to see her, and Olive

-added, “I do hope Ezra will be in, for I should so like you two to talk

-together. I am sure you have much in common.”

-

-“We have one point in common, at all events,” thought Mr. Perseus as he

-rode away back towards the Big Cotton Wood Creek, “but I doubt very much

-if that would at all add to the harmony of our relations.”

-

-Olive was full of her meeting with Mr. Perseus, an account of which she

-retailed to Ezra at supper.

-

-“And just fancy his oddity! He wouldn’t tell me his real name after my

-unlucky slip, so he is Mr. Perseus to the end of the chapter, I suppose.

-He thought it such a joke.”

-

-“So he saw the application,” remarked Ezra. “He must be a man of

-education.”

-

-“He is a most superior man, I can see that. He has read everything I

-ever did and more too. And do you know, Ezra, I shouldn’t wonder if he

-had leanings towards community-life, many things he said pointed that

-way. Wouldn’t it be funny if I were to be the one to bring in your first

-convert, poor little me that never had any leanings until I saw you.”

-

-Ezra looked sharply at his wife during this speech, for a sudden and by

-no means pleasant suspicion sprang into his mind concerning the

-mysterious Mr. Perseus. However, Olive looked so perfectly innocent of

-even all knowledge of evil that he felt ashamed of himself.

-

-“I wouldn’t be too friendly with this man. We don’t know anything about

-him, nor who he is, remember,” remarked Ezra.

-

-“He said he knew you and that you were a fine-looking man, you old dear,

-and he is acquainted with most of the members of the Community by sight.

-Besides, I thought it was a point of etiquette on the prairie to make no

-inquiries into a person’s character, but to take him in his boots just

-as he stands, and ask him to dinner. Don’t you remember Charlie Clarke,

-and how he came to supper by your invitation and you found him so

-pleasant, and he a horse-thief and a murderer all the while, only we

-didn’t know it.”

-

-This was all very true, but Charlie Clarke had evinced no “leanings” to

-community-life, and above all Olive had been profoundly uninterested in

-him and was delighted when he left. Ezra hated himself for the feeling

-in his heart, but he had his suspicions of Mr. Perseus, and he knew his

-wife was distractingly pretty. So he advised her to keep aloof from Mr.

-Perseus as much as practicable. Several times afterwards he made excuses

-to go riding with her, which Olive enjoyed immensely, but then something

-was said to her about his shirking his share of the work, and she was

-furiously angry. She wanted her husband to be first, and since the only

-theatre for the exhibition of his abilities was the somewhat restricted

-one of Perfection City, she wanted him to be always near the front.

-

-“Shirking indeed!” she said tossing her pretty head. “I’ll have Mary

-Winkle know my husband never shirked in his life.”

-

-In a blaze of wrath she met Ezra and ordered him to go to work and never

-mind riding with her till the harvest was over. She wouldn’t ride any

-more, she would work until she was black in the face. Shirking indeed!

-She’d let Mary Winkle see! And so on and so forth, till her burst of

-anger had spent itself.

-

-Olive was not slow to perceive that her husband had some sort of dislike

-to the idea of her seeing Mr. Perseus. She could not exactly explain to

-herself why this should be, and she was heartily sorry for it. She had

-fancied that in time Mr. Perseus might possibly come to be a member of

-the Community. She would indeed have been frankly glad to have him

-become a brother, for, as far as she could judge, he seemed a man of

-brilliant parts, and certainly his manners were most charming. To tell

-the truth, she found the members as a whole very uninteresting. Mary

-Winkle she positively disliked, and yet she was the one nearest to her

-own age. She sometimes wondered how Ezra could be satisfied with the

-companionship of those same people, who seemed to her to be walking in

-such a narrow circle, and always to be saying the same things in pretty

-nearly the same words. Now, Mr. Perseus said such original things and in

-such a charming voice. Altogether it was a pity that Ezra should have

-taken a prejudice into his head against this stranger. Olive wondered

-whether, if they met, the mutual recognition of their abilities would

-dissipate her husband’s suspicions. Such being her notions, it was most

-unlucky that the first time Mr. Perseus came to see them Ezra should

-have been gone to Union Mills. He went so very seldom that it was a most

-unfortunate coincidence, as she explained to Mr. Perseus, who did not in

-return explain that having himself seen Ezra at Union Mills he had

-straightway ridden off to visit her, and ridden so hard too that his

-horse was in a white lather when he arrived at Perfection City by a

-somewhat circuitous route. Napoleon Pompey was gone, so Olive showed him

-where to put his horse in the dark stable so that the flies would not

-torment the animal. She remarked on the horse’s state and asked Mr.

-Perseus had he been running down cattle, and he muttered something about

-young horses showing every bit of work in hot weather.

-

-He was profoundly interested in Olive’s little home. She showed him with

-pride the garden she had made, where already the balsams were just

-coming into blossom; she then took him to see the prairie chickens she

-was trying to rear, little black and yellow downy things, with fierce

-wild eyes utterly untamed and only looking out for a favourable

-opportunity to make a dash for freedom.

-

-“Do you think I can ever tame them?” asked Olive, as she noted the

-hostile manner in which they scuttled away from her food-giving hand.

-

-“If anyone could tame them you could, the ungrateful little brutes!”

-remarked Mr. Perseus.

-

-“I don’t see that it is ungrateful of them to resent being taken from

-their proper home and natural mother to be put under a fat stupid hen,”

-said Olive.

-

-“No, but it is rank ingratitude not to be tame to you,” said he.

-

-“I don’t think you are truthful,” said Olive bluntly.

-

-“Why?” asked Mr. Perseus.

-

-“Because you are always saying things like that,” she answered, somewhat

-resentfully.

-

-“Well, I do call that hard,” complained Mr. Perseus, “to charge a fellow

-with being untruthful when he was shaking in his shoes from terror at

-having perhaps let out too much of the truth.”

-

-Olive looked down at his big boots, knitting her brows, and then led the

-way into the house.

-

-“I’ll get you some dinner. I am sure you are hungry,” she said

-hospitably, it being about two o’clock in the afternoon.

-

-“I am hungry, starving, mind, body, and soul,” said her visitor in

-reply.

-

-“I’ll get a chicken-pie for you, that will go some way,” answered Olive

-with a laugh.

-

-“And if you will talk with me, that will go far to complete the work of

-charity,” said he.

-

-Olive brought him the food, and he set to work upon it, being evidently,

-as he said, very hungry.

-

-“Do you know I am beginning to look upon Perfection City as a sort of

-earthly paradise,” said Mr. Perseus.

-

-“Indeed.”

-

-“Yes, a paradise from which I am shut out. Have you any young men here,

-Mrs. Weston, unmarried men, or are they against your rules?”

-

-“No. Unmarried men are not against our rules,” said Olive archly. “We

-had one here lately, but we haven’t now.”

-

-“Why, what did you do with him?” asked Mr. Perseus, in some surprise.

-

-“I married him,” said Olive dimpling and blushing.

-

-“Lucky beggar!” remarked her visitor, turning again to his dinner.

-

-Mr. Perseus stayed some time, but refused Olive’s invitation to wait to

-see her husband, saying as an excuse that he had a long way to ride

-home. Olive wanted to know where he lived, but he laughingly put her

-off. He would not tell her, lest she should discover his real name, and

-then much of the romance of his life would be destroyed.

-

-“You don’t know what this is to me, and how when I am leading my lonely

-life, I recall every word and look and again go through these meetings,

-Mrs. Weston. I suppose it seems silly to you, but remember, human

-companionship is man’s most precious inheritance, and those who have but

-little of it prize what they have at perhaps an extravagant figure. Did

-you ever hear of Silvio Pellico?” he asked abruptly.

-

-“No,” replied Olive.

-

-“Well, he was a prisoner entirely shut off from human companionship, and

-he at last made friends with a spider, and at length the spider was

-crushed by the turnkey’s foot, and Silvio wept tears of anguish. I am

-like a prisoner out here on this desolate prairie.”

-

-“And am I like the horrible spider, then?” said Olive brightly.

-

-“Mrs. Weston!” he exclaimed reproachfully. “I have opened my heart to

-you because I felt that you could feel with me, although the world might

-count us as strangers, but I thought you would understand what I meant

-even when I blundered through the expression of my thoughts. This is the

-first time you have misunderstood me. But I believe it was only

-pretended misunderstanding and that you do know what I meant.”

-

-He said good-bye, and left Olive with a feeling of sadness and

-oppression on her mind. He had not been as bright as before, and she

-wondered who he was and why he was so anxious not to see anyone but her.

-She mentioned his visit to Ezra, but somehow she had less to tell about

-him than on former occasions. There seemed nothing to say. Ezra, too,

-did not appear as much amused as formerly at the joke of Mr. Perseus. No

-doubt it was getting stale by this time.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER IX.

-                             FIRST LESSONS.

-

-

-Summer came on apace. The field had been duly run over in both

-directions with the shovel-plough, so as to leave between the

-cross-ploughing little “hills” of earth, out of which sprang the

-corn-clumps. The broad green ribbons of leaves fluttered in the wind,

-making a soft murmur as of a forest. Olive took great delight in her

-little flower-garden at the east end of the house, and worked and weeded

-at it both early and late. Napoleon Pompey, typical negro boy, which

-being interpreted means laziest of mortals, forgot his laziness to work

-for “Mis’ Ollie” as he called her. Together they had planted their

-balsams, trained their morning-glory, and rooted out brown beetles with

-zeal, to be amply repaid in July by a glorious profusion of blossoms.

-

-“This is my very ownest own garden,” said Olive, exhibiting her balsams

-with pride to Ezra. “Mind, this is not community-land, it’s mine.”

-

-“Does it make you enjoy the flowers more to think that nobody else has

-them?” asked Ezra, with a tinge of sadness in his voice. “Would it make

-you any the happier to keep the sunshine all to yourself, do you think?”

-

-“No, certainly not, that’s quite different. But I’ve planted these

-flowers and grown them. I shall give them to whomsoever I like. You for

-instance.” She smiled coaxingly at him.

-

-“You pretty child,” he said, disarmed.

-

-“Why, I brought some over to Mrs. Carpenter to-day. I went to help her

-with her washing. And, do you know!” said Olive, “I was so amused.”

-

-“At what?”

-

-“Mr. Carpenter was educating his children.”

-

-“He’s always doing that,” said Ezra.

-

-“Yes, but to-day there was a special lesson. He was at Union Mills

-yesterday, and he got a present for both of them, I mean two presents,

-one for Johnny and one for Nelly. You know he is always saying boys and

-girls would have the same tastes if they were brought up in the same

-way.”

-

-“He’ll find out one day, maybe, that boys will be boys, no matter how

-you bring them up.”

-

-“He has found it out already. Wait till you hear. By way of correcting

-any early bias, he gave a hammer and nails to Nelly and a doll to

-Johnny.”

-

-“You don’t say so! What did the children do?”

-

-“Well, they went off without a word, each carrying its toy, and Mr.

-Carpenter told me his ideas about education, and how well they worked.

-Suddenly we heard shrieks from behind the wood-pile where the children

-were playing. We ran out to see what was the matter. Nelly had got a

-handkerchief tied over the head of her hammer, and she was cuddling it

-to sleep in her arms. Johnny had got some of the nails and was trying to

-drive them into a piece of wood with the head of the doll for hammer.

-Nelly was screaming because he was killing poor Dolly.”

-

-Ezra laughed, and Olive joined in at the recollection of the scene. “You

-cannot think how disappointed Mr. Carpenter looked. His wife said he’d

-got something to do if he was expecting to cure little girls of dolls in

-a hurry. We changed the presents and left him to reconcile it with his

-theories as best he could; both children were quite happy and contented

-afterwards.”

-

-“Poor Carpenter! He’ll have to learn by bitter experience that he cannot

-change human nature all at once,” said Ezra, sympathetically. “I fear

-children are still in the savage stage of development, they are not

-communists.”

-

-“Nobody is communist about things they care very much about,” said

-Olive, in desperate courage.

-

-“Why, Ollie! What a thing to say! I am a thorough-going communist I

-hope. I’d give the coat off my back without a pang.”

-

-“Of course you would, because it is a horrid old thing any way, and men

-look frights in coats always. Men don’t care about clothes, only just to

-cover themselves and keep themselves warm. One rag would do as well as

-another.”

-

-“You are an incorrigible little individualist and a greedy one as well,

-I do declare,” said Ezra, half laughing at her vehemence.

-

-“No, it’s not that, only I see what is what,” replied Olive oracularly.

-

-“And what might that be?”

-

-“The Pioneers are only communistic for rubbish and rags, and not for

-dolls and hammers. That’s what they are,” said Olive, with her face

-aflame.

-

-“Rubbish and rags! What an absurd thing to say. Who ever heard such

-nonsense?” said Ezra, loftily ignoring his wife’s argument in a way that

-wise men often affect.

-

-“’Tisn’t nonsense,” said Olive hotly. “It is just what people say of

-Perfection City.”

-

-“What people say it?” asked Ezra.

-

-“Well, Mr. Perseus for one,” said Olive, repenting of her daring in

-getting into the subject at all.

-

-“Mr. Perseus,” repeated Ezra with a sudden frown, “so you talk over our

-principles with him. When did you do so last?”

-

-“I don’t know exactly when. The other day. He often passes by here on

-his way cattle-hunting. Sometimes he looks in for a moment, but

-sometimes he can’t stay long, only to water his horse. Of course I talk

-over the principles that have made you found a City here. Don’t you

-suppose people know about them and talk them over eagerly? They are

-different enough from the generality of people’s ideas, and Mr. Perseus

-said they considered you only went a little way into communism, and had

-a little bit of this and a little bit of that in common, and weren’t at

-all logical. People sneer at Perfection City, I can assure you.”

-

-“And you, doubtless, enjoyed his sneers,” retorted Ezra injudiciously.

-

-“No, I didn’t, only I saw what other people say of us. Mr. Perseus,

-even, once said he’d like to come and be a communist himself, if we were

-only consistent throughout, and lived up to our principles.”

-

-“You may tell your friend Perseus that he would not be a welcome

-recruit,” said Ezra, in considerable agitation. “I may as well tell you

-now what I have suspected for some time. I know pretty well who your

-mysterious Mr. Perseus is. He is a man of the name of Cotterell. I know

-him very well by sight and better still by reputation. To convince you,

-I will just mention a point or two about his appearance. He is about

-five feet ten in height, very fair in complexion, with a yellow

-moustache, and bright blue eyes, and whenever he takes his hat off you

-see the blue veins very markedly on his temples. He is, I suppose, what

-a woman would call a very handsome man, and he usually rides a black

-horse with a blaze on his face and white hind feet.”

-

-“Yes, that’s the man,” said Olive who remembered the horse well, and who

-moreover recognized the perfect accuracy of her husband’s description.

-

-“Very well. Now I will tell you something about his character and

-history. He is an Englishman and perhaps has been badly brought up. At

-all events he hasn’t the morals we approve of. I know his libertine

-London ways. He probably didn’t tell you about it, but I remember very

-well the poor girl who shot herself the first summer we came here,

-because Cotterell had abandoned her. If the neighbours had been quite

-sure of all the facts of the case, there would in all probability have

-been a shooting party at Cotterell’s house, so I was told. But they were

-not quite sure so they gave him the benefit of the doubt. Accordingly he

-still has his handsome face to go on with and maybe wreck more homes.

-That is the career of Mr. Cotterell, alias Mr. Perseus,” said Ezra with

-considerable heat.

-

-“It was you who gave him the name of Perseus,” replied Olive also much

-agitated. “He did not appear under a false name of his own accord. And

-now that you tell me his real name I remember that was the one he gave

-the first time I saw him, and he asked me if I had ever heard it

-before.”

-

-“I won’t say anything on that point, it may have been a joke on his

-part, but it must stop now. Understand me, Olive. I don’t wish to seem

-harsh, but you must not meet and talk with this man again. If you chance

-on him, pass by and say you can have no further communication with him.

-If he urges an objection, say I have forbidden you to see him, as I do

-forbid you, here and now. He will take that for an answer, scoundrel as

-he is, for among people of his stamp personal vanity does duty for

-better feelings. He won’t come again to a house where the lady has once

-shown him the door. You don’t in the least understand what his motives

-are in this new-fangled interest of his in Perfection City, but I

-understand them very clearly, and my wish is that you never see him

-again. Harm is sure to come of it if you do.”

-

-Olive was very much alarmed at her husband’s stern manner and peremptory

-order, but she was also indignant. Mr. Perseus or Cotterell, as she must

-now call him, had shown great respect and deference to her and had

-evinced a desire to be guided by her to higher aspirations. She was not

-sure of the meaning of some of his remarks, or rather she wished she

-could find some other reasonable explanation for them than the one most

-people would undoubtedly attach to them. Still she resented her

-husband’s masterful manner.

-

-“I will of course obey your orders, Ezra,” she said with a tart emphasis

-on the word which made him wince, “because I hold old-fashioned ideas of

-what wifely duty is, quite at variance with the high standard of

-individual liberty as maintained and explained, I believe, by the

-brethren of Perfection City. You may rest quite satisfied, I will obey

-you.”

-

-Having thus stabbed her husband in his most vulnerable point and

-dexterously driven the poignard up to the hilt in the wound, Olive

-walked away, leaving Ezra to feel himself a selfish brute.

-

-Ezra spent a wretched half day of self-reproach, and then crept back

-repentant, begging to be forgiven for being a tyrant to his poor little

-pet. And his little pet who had paid for her pride with abundant tears,

-allowed him to kiss her and fondle her and call her sweet silly names,

-while she declared she never cared to see or speak to that wretched Mr.

-Cotterell again, and no wonder he was ashamed of his own name, etc.,

-etc., all in the most foolish and approved manner possible to the newly

-married.

-

-All the same, after a time Olive began to feel sorry for Mr. Cotterell,

-and to pity him for the very errors of his past life, about which she

-now saw that he was penitent without wishing to explain to her why. Also

-she had very much enjoyed meeting him; he was so fresh, cultivated, and

-original, in his conversation. It was really very dull sometimes with no

-one to talk to, and the long hot day shimmering by, making her feel as

-if she were a potato being slowly baked in a hotair oven. There was no

-excitement in the house-work and—and it was very dreary sometimes. Men

-delight in reverting to primitive savagery. The most highly civilized

-man “reverts” in a way which is surprising both for completeness and for

-rapidity, but women hate the process. Savage woman was a slave, and the

-more completely a woman becomes subject to primitive conditions the more

-closely she resembles a slave, and is in virtual bondage either to some

-human being or to hampering circumstances.

-

-Of appropriate companions of her own sex Olive had absolutely none. Mary

-Winkle was a rigid reformer, a person all angles, of the sort that never

-becomes a companion to anyone, for she was always on the war-path, and,

-besides, between her and Olive there was an unexpressed, but no less

-real, antipathy. Her daughter, Willette, that creature half boy, half

-girl, and wholly wild, was always on horseback careering after stray

-cattle, and though by her ignorance and eccentricity she sometimes

-amused Olive, she had really no ideas beyond those very concrete ones

-impressed upon her from without by her open-air life on the prairie.

-Mrs. Carpenter was a good soul, but a mere stout housewife, with no

-ideas and only one hope, namely, “that Carpenter would give up his

-high-fallutin’ notions, an’ go back to York State, an’ settle down

-comfortable again, an’ be a preacher in a Baptist church.” Mrs. Ruby was

-old in body, but the youngest of them all in mind, except Uncle David,

-who was her senior by four years. Mrs. Ruby believed in Perfection City,

-though she reserved the right of private judgment on certain of the

-tenets of its founders, and in particular, she had lately felt

-misgivings as to the worldly wisdom of their principle of

-non-resistance. She knew, however, that the Pioneers were going to show

-the world the new and better way—the way which led into no competition

-for supremacy, but into peaceful paths of universal progress. Property

-and its attendant imps, greed, strife, jealousy, envy, hatred, and

-malice, were all banished from Perfection City, and in their place peace

-and good-will and perfect trust in each other were to reign forever. It

-was a high ideal, but not a new one. It was eighteen centuries old,

-though it had never yet been realised. Mrs. Ruby and Uncle David felt

-sure they had reached the ideal, and all through Madame Morozoff-Smith,

-the most whole-souled, unselfish, glorious woman of her century. It was

-a pity she had not a larger theatre in which to present before mankind

-the new principles of social life it was their privilege to put into

-practice.

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER X.

-                          PRACTICAL COMMUNISM.

-

-

-A day or two after Ezra had laid his commands upon his wife, as we saw

-in the last chapter, he came home in the evening to find her in floods

-of tears. Her eyelids were all red with weeping, and she broke out

-afresh on seeing him.

-

-“What’s the matter?” asked Ezra, in much concern. “What has happened?”

-

-“My poor flowers, my pretty balsams!” sobbed Olive.

-

-“Has the calf got into your garden and spoiled your flowers, my poor

-child?” he said tenderly.

-

-“No, it wasn’t the calf, but they are all gone. Mary Winkle took them

-all.”

-

-“Oh!” said Ezra with a slight shock of surprise.

-

-“Yes, she has cleared the whole garden. She came to-day while I was out

-at Mrs. Huntley’s.”

-

-“How do you know it is she who has taken them?”

-

-“Napoleon Pompey told me he saw her pick them.”

-

-“Depend upon it, he is lying,” said Ezra with emphasis. “Negroes are as

-mischievous as monkeys, and——”

-

-“No, he didn’t do anything to the flowers,” interrupted Olive. “He was

-as pleased with them almost as I was myself, and worked ever so hard to

-help keep down the weeds. Besides, I went to Mary Winkle and saw them.”

-

-“Oh!” said Ezra helplessly. He wished it had been the calf or Napoleon

-Pompey or anybody or anything rather than Mary Winkle. He braced himself

-for what was coming.

-

-“She told me she did it with a purpose. She said I was getting more

-individualistic in my leanings every day, and that time was not curing

-me at all, that I was selfishly proud of my flowers. It isn’t one bit

-true,” sobbed Olive, with quivering chin. “I gave heaps of them away. I

-gathered a bunch for Mrs. Huntley just as I was going this morning.”

-

-Ezra groaned. “I know you did, dear,” he said.

-

-“She said I gloated over them and rejoiced because nobody else had any.

-I didn’t. I only loved them because I had tended them and reared them,

-and I knew them and watched for their buds. She said they didn’t belong

-to me, but to the Community, and that she took them on behalf of the

-general weal. Those are all grand words for nasty mean jealousy and

-covetousness,” said Olive passionately. “I hate Mary Winkle and I hate

-the Community.”

-

-“Oh, Olive, Olive!” cried Ezra with a gesture of entreaty. “Don’t say

-that, dear. It strikes me to the heart. Think of me, dear.”

-

-“My pretty flowers!” she said with a drooping of her mouth that

-betokened fresh tears.

-

-“I am so sorry, oh, more sorry than I can say,” said Ezra. “Mary Winkle

-has done wrong, and has administered a lesson in a cruel, brutal way.”

-

-“She has no business to give me lessons at all, and I won’t take them

-from her,” cried Olive passionately. “I hate being the one to be always

-taught. They think themselves so superior and are always stooping to

-raise me. Let them raise themselves first. I can see where Mary Winkle

-needs teaching and correction as plainly as anybody. She is only

-communistic in regard to things she doesn’t really care about.”

-

-“No, no Ollie, darling. It is really a deep conviction with us all,

-although in this case most unkindly illustrated,” said Ezra gently.

-

-“I know you think so in all honesty, but it isn’t so in reality. Nobody

-is nor can be communistic about what they love, if it is real love. If

-they are communistic about a thing it is because they don’t really

-care.”

-

-Ezra knew by the pang of jealousy in his own heart that this was an

-insurmountable truth his little wife was hurling forth in her anger.

-

-“Mary Winkle isn’t communistic. I’m not clever and able to say wise

-things and use long words that amaze people like Brother Wright, but for

-all that I can see some things clearly enough. Mary Winkle isn’t any

-more communistic than I am, only we love different things.”

-

-“I think you mistake,” said Ezra.

-

-“No, I don’t mistake one bit. Let Mary Winkle, if she is communistic in

-all the moods and tenses, lump her child with the two little Carpenters

-and draw lots to take one of the three for her own. Would that satisfy

-her heart, although the precious principles would be right enough? Of

-course not, because her heart would step in and claim its own by the

-divine right of love. I should be thoroughly communistic on the score of

-these children. I shouldn’t mind to draw lots as to whether Willette or

-Nelly or Johnny Carpenter was going to come to live with me. One would

-do as well as another, and I could be thoroughly communistic, because I

-don’t love any of them very deeply. My little flowers I did love. It

-wasn’t that I had worked for them and grudged the fruit of my labour. I

-would work in a turnip field and let anyone who liked have the turnips,

-nasty, watery, pulpy things, but I loved those flowers and tended them

-and they were mine. I don’t care about the philosophy of the question.

-You will perhaps some day see what I mean, Ezra, and understand me. I

-know you don’t now. You think me a silly child.”

-

-In his own heart he thought he understood more clearly than he liked to

-confess, that Olive was speaking more than philosophy, she was

-announcing stubborn facts. However, he strove his utmost to soothe her

-feelings, for he could see that if an attitude of strife and hostility

-were once set up between her and Mary Winkle, it would not only affect

-his wife’s happiness but might have very serious results upon the future

-of Perfection City. There were only a very few of them, and if the

-experiment was to succeed it could only do so through unity, while

-strife and internal dissensions would certainly destroy it without

-giving it a chance. This point was fruitful of deep meditation, and

-occasioned heart-searchings to Ezra. It indeed augured ill for the

-future, not only of Perfection City, but of all those other cities of

-their imagination which should spring from this mother plant, if the

-personal feelings of a couple of good women were potent enough to wreck

-the scheme. Surely, in the dozen or so choice spirits who now formed the

-entire population of that City, there could be none of those latent

-forces making for destruction which would have to be reckoned with in

-the future and larger experiments in communism they were leading up to.

-If it was so difficult to soothe ruffled feelings in Perfection City

-now, and to compose a quarrel about some wretched little balsams, what

-would happen when, in a larger Perfection City, deeper cause of dispute

-arose between numbers of persons? Ezra’s mind recoiled aghast at the

-answer which rose up in his mind in reply to that question. There would

-have to be some strong, some overwhelming central power, a despot in

-short. Was this then the goal which they were to reach after toiling

-along a hard and stony road of personal effort? A despotism or a

-monasticism, in either case tyranny and subjection. Surely, oh surely,

-there must be some other solution which his mind, disturbed by the sight

-of his little wife’s distress, had unaccountably failed to formulate. He

-would go to Madame and would seek guidance from her illumined mind.

-

-Olive, spent by her emotions, had gone to sleep quite early, so Ezra

-sallied forth to seek counsel where he was used to find it. Madame would

-be sure to be still up—though it was late by prairie hours, after nine

-o’clock—as he knew by experience, for in his bachelor days he had often

-spent long evenings in discussion and talk with her. Since his marriage,

-however, he had never gone alone in the evening to talk with Madame.

-Happy in his own love, he had felt no need of other companionship, and

-now as he walked along to her house, he began to wonder if she had

-noticed the sudden cessation of the evening talks, and also to wonder if

-she had missed them. It was thoughtless never to have gone near her

-during all these weeks. It was selfish, seeing how kind, how always

-sympathetic she had been to him for so many months, during the time when

-he felt lonely and full of undefined longings, before his heart had

-found complete rest in Olive’s love and above all in his love for her.

-Ezra thinking of these things was smitten with remorse, and made a

-resolution to go and see Madame of an evening sometimes and to bring

-Olive with him. Meantime he walked along and in a few moments knocked at

-the familiar door. Madame opened it herself, with Balthasar in close

-attendance. The latter, on satisfying himself that it was a person of

-friendly intentions who claimed admittance, walked back to the spot

-where he had been lying, and resumed the thread of his interrupted

-slumbers.

-

-“Brother Ezra, this is indeed a most unexpected visit. I hope it is not

-because there is anything wrong in your little home,” said Madame

-gravely.

-

-Ezra felt much embarrassed. He could hardly say there was nothing the

-matter, and still less could he apologise for having forgotten during

-all these happy weeks to come to see her. He did the best thing under

-the circumstances. He ignored Madame’s remark and question, and plunged

-boldly into the business which had brought him.

-

-She listened gravely without making any observation, but occasionally

-the faintest shadow of a smile fluttered around her lips. Ezra watched

-her face somewhat anxiously. In the old days, he had been used to read

-her face when they talked together, and to catch the meaning of her

-words from the mobile and everchanging expression of her clear blue

-eyes. But to-day, somehow, as he looked, he felt he had lost the power

-to read. The face was now a mask which seemed to conceal the real woman

-underneath, and yet it was the same fair smooth brow, the same sharply

-defined eyebrows, and, beneath, the same eyes. No, the eyes were not the

-same. They no longer looked clear and full at Ezra, but were often

-averted in a strange and uncertain manner, as if seeking to hide or to

-flee. At least such was the curious impression they produced upon him,

-as he sat looking at her and telling of the mighty wave of wrath that

-had surged up about that handful of balsam blossoms.

-

-“It is a most singular cause of division, and one I could almost laugh

-at, except for the very real passions of anger and of hatred it has

-aroused,” he said in conclusion.

-

-“One often sees terrible bursts of anger and fury in immature minds,”

-observed Madame in the preamble of her answer. “Young children and

-people of weak intellect frequently exhibit the most pitiable extremes

-of fury over trifling causes.”

-

-Ezra was not quite certain to what she referred. If to Olive, then she

-was mistaken in considering her a child. He recalled very vividly what

-she had said about communism in what one loves, and he was not at all

-prepared to admit that her arguments were those of a person of weak

-intellect.

-

-“I don’t think this is a case for ‘criticism-cure’ in the Assembly, do

-you?” she said.

-

-“No, certainly not,” replied Ezra, who was keenly alive to the

-possibility of his wife’s blazing up into uncompromising criticism

-herself, if they attempted to apply the famous “cure” upon her.

-

-“Criticism-cure” existed rather in theory than in practice in Perfection

-City, but it was held that if a brother or a sister should be guilty of

-any offence against the common weal, it would be an edifying experience

-to summon him or her to the Assembly, and let all the members tell him

-or her exactly what each one thought of the conduct in question. In

-theory this was supposed to work admirably, and to be a weapon capable

-of reducing to reason the most refractory member of the Community, but

-when Ezra remembered it and imagined for a moment its possible effects

-on Olive, he foresaw a whole train of deplorable results. Suppose she

-defended herself, she could say sharp rankling things with a surprising

-amount of unanswerable truth in them, or suppose she didn’t defend

-herself, but took the scolding silently. Her eyes would get bigger and

-bigger with tears which would roll over her cheeks, and her sweet little

-chin would quiver, and she would look imploringly at him. He couldn’t

-stand that, he knew, but would rush up and take her in his arms, and

-carry her off out from the midst of the carping, criticising brethren,

-and he would call her sweet pet and darling, and say she was right and

-they were horrid brutes to scold her, and he would be very angry and

-would be quite capable of knocking Brother Wright down, if he, as was

-likely, had been savage with the little pet. No, criticism-cure should

-not be applied to Olive. And Ezra, arguing thence into wider fields,

-began to feel some doubts as to the value of that remarkable weapon as a

-means of eradicating the naturally evil tendencies of the human heart.

-Theories which had seemed sound and complete in the abstract had a

-curious habit of ringing false when he imagined himself as applying them

-to Olive. It was very curious, but they did not seem to fit her, or was

-it possible that the theories themselves were wrong? No, he dismissed

-that thought as entailing too much mental demolition and carting away of

-rubbish. Of one thing only was he sure, the “criticism-cure” was not to

-be tried on his little wife.

-

-“I think it is a case for petting rather than for punishing,” remarked

-Madame, after an interval during which they had both been severally

-following out the ramifications of their own reflections.

-

-Ezra jumped at this idea. He was of that opinion too, as he impartially

-observed. Indeed he was always of opinion that Olive required petting.

-

-“Yes, I think I understand the case,” continued Madame. “The flowers

-were a toy, doubly prized now they are gone. What is wanted is to

-provide a new and more attractive toy, so that the baby-mind will

-lightly forget the old grief.”

-

-Ezra did not quite like this way of referring to Olive, but he had

-called in Madame’s aid, and he had no choice but to listen to the

-physician’s diagnosis and prescription regarding the case in question.

-Madame meanwhile looked at him half pityingly, having apparently

-overcome her eyes’ desire to avoid his glance.

-

-“Poor Ezra!” she said softly. “You are mated to a child, petulant,

-wilful, hard to manage, and very bewitching. You will find that you

-cannot in this case work by the light of pure reason. You must bring

-yourself down to her level and try to see with her eyes, to take delight

-in the petty trifles that interest her. ’Tis weary work! The task of

-Sisyphus was none the less severe because it produced no tangible good.”

-

-She was silent, and Ezra began to repent that he had sought counsel from

-so exalted a source, since it was delivered to him with such a liberal

-seasoning of the bitter salt of implied reproof.

-

-“I think that I can apply a remedy in this instance,” resumed Madame. “I

-know a woman’s mind as well as most people, and I know too the vain

-weaknesses of a silly girl—perhaps the knowledge comes from a memory, or

-perhaps from a shattered hope, who knows? At all events, dear friend and

-brother, it will serve you now.”

-

-She left him to go into the small inner apartment which was her bedroom,

-and came out again in a few moments carrying a small gold bracelet of

-curious workmanship, an Oriental trinket.

-

-“Here is a little trifle I happen to have by me. Do you think this toy

-would dry the little one’s tears?”

-

-She handed the bracelet to Ezra, who, though ignorant enough on such

-matters, did not fail to recognise the flash of diamonds in the jewel.

-

-“This is a very valuable piece of jewellery,” he said. “You must not

-give it away.”

-

-“I don’t value such things except for the power of making someone

-happy,” replied Madame. “Take it, dear friend, and think that I speak

-truly when I say I would gladly give all I possess to ease your mind of

-trouble and make your path in life a pleasant one. And the child-wife

-may like it. Now, go to her. Good-night! You look tired and harassed.”

-

-She gently put her hand upon his forehead as if to smooth out wrinkles,

-and left the room.

-

-As Ezra walked home with the diamond bracelet in his pocket, he seemed

-to feel her cool soft touch still, and the thought came into his mind

-that Olive never petted him. No, it was he who always petted her. Well,

-she was very sweet and pretty, and he hoped the bracelet would comfort

-her.

-

-There was no doubt about that. Olive danced for joy when she saw the

-trinket. She put it on her smooth little wrist and flashed it about in

-the sunshine. Her eyes rivalled the diamonds for brightness.

-

-“Do you like it, Ollie?”

-

-“Like it! Why, it’s too lovely for anything, and Madame is just a

-darling, and she is kind. Just fancy giving me a diamond bracelet! A

-thing I never dreamt of ever owning. And how shall I ever thank her?”

-

-Olive was skipping with joy. Suddenly she stopped short.

-

-“Ezra, is this mine, or is it a community-bracelet?”

-

-“It is yours, child.”

-

-“Mary Winkle can’t come and take it away for the good of my soul, can

-she?”

-

-“No, certainly not. We are allowed to hold private property in such

-personal trifles, as you know quite well. Besides, Sister Mary would not

-wish to take from you what you particularly prized.”

-

-“Oh, of that I am not at all so sure. If your principles allowed it, I

-would not give much for Sister Mary’s self-restraint in the matter. She

-might want the bracelet for herself or for Willette, for what I know. I

-shall tell her the bracelet is mine even by community-law.”

-

-Olive began to skip again.

-

-“You are an intractable little mortal, for all you look so soft and

-yielding,” said Ezra. He could not help smiling at her pretty kittenish

-ways, but he was filled with a sort of amazement to perceive how

-impossible it was to change the trend of her mind. Had she been an

-angular woman, all bones, like Mary Winkle, it would not have seemed so

-strange. Olive brought her frollicking to a conclusion and looked wisely

-at her husband, shaking her pretty little head at him.

-

-“No, no, Ezra. It is not that, but you are trying to stuff me into a

-wrong-shaped mould, and I don’t fit. As if any mortal woman ever could

-care for a community-bracelet!”

-

-She danced away to put her treasure in some safe place, and Ezra went

-off to his work, wondering in his own mind if there was something

-radically antagonistic to communism in the female nature. If there was

-any such fundamental incompatibility of temperament, then farewell to

-all ideas of a successful issue to their experiment. Absolute equality

-between men and women in position, power, and influence was the key-note

-of their theories, but what would become of these theories if it should

-appear that the female mind refused to accept the first and greatest

-postulate upon which they were all founded?

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XI.

-                           A CHANCE MEETING.

-

-

-The spring whence the Westons drew their water was about a quarter of a

-mile from the house across an angle of the corn field. A little

-foot-path winding in and out among the hills of corn led to it. As the

-corn grew, this path changed in character and became at length a track

-through a miniature forest. The corn grew to about eight feet in height,

-and of course the first to be covered was little Olive, with her brief

-five feet two inches, but by the end of July it had covered them all.

-Then it became Olive’s greatest delight to go down through that forest

-where the corn shook in the breeze. The satin-smooth stalks coming up

-like bamboos, and the broad fibrous ribbons of leaves, were a constant

-pleasure. But greatest joy of all was to watch the coming of the silk.

-When the young ears of grain were forming they threw off great skeins of

-exquisite silken threads, changing through every tint from palest green

-to rich dark crimson. These bunches of silk were like soft plumes

-falling from the crest of the husk that held the ears, and were most

-tempting to twist through idle fingers. A forest of tall-growing prairie

-corn is just the place for fairies, only alas! the wee folk had departed

-this life long before ever Olive went to live at Perfection City. So

-charmed was she with this dwarf forest, which afforded the only shade to

-be enjoyed on that glaring prairie, that during the summer she always

-went to the spring for an extra pail of fresh water every afternoon

-before supper-time, as this errand gave her an excuse for loitering

-among the corn stalks and amusing herself with her own playful fancies.

-

-Diana of course accompanied her young mistress upon these walks to the

-spring, for the puppy was attached to her by bonds of firmest canine

-affection, while Olive, on her side, was never tired of laughing at

-Diana’s ridiculous freaks, although they sometimes caused her

-considerable trouble.

-

-Take an example.

-

-A day so hot and scorching that words fail to convey any idea of it, and

-Olive in a great fuss, for she was behindhand with her work. At four

-o’clock, the very most blistering hour of the whole twenty-four, she set

-off hastily for the spring to fetch the fresh water, and with her Diana,

-her tongue lolling out half a hand’s breath. Knowing the object of the

-expedition, the puppy took the path through the corn, and Olive

-sweltered after her. It seemed as if the shelter of the corn was

-powerless against the slanting shafts of sunlight that danced and

-chequered between the broad hanging leaves, while the very air seemed

-endowed with such a load of heat as to press down with more than the

-allotted weight upon Olive’s head. She climbed over the fence and walked

-across the grass to where the spring started from under a tiny

-overhanging ledge of limestone rock. It was an excellent spring with the

-best of water, and would have been made into the holiest of wells by a

-spreading tree or a shady thorn-bush near it. There was, however,

-nothing of this sort, but only a clear pool of water some two feet

-across and about a foot deep, just enough, in fact, to enable one to get

-a good dip with the bucket. As Olive, hot and tired, hurried to this

-little pool of water, she beheld the accomplished Diana sitting in the

-middle of it, cooling herself and slobbering water up and down over her

-nose in supreme bliss. Poor Olive! She did not know whether to laugh or

-to cry, but eventually decided upon the first-named course. Then she sat

-down beside Diana and paddled her feet in the water, after which

-refreshment she returned home with her water-pail empty. The spring had

-an undisturbed night in which to renew its freshness, and in the future

-Olive kept her eye on Diana when they went together for water. The dog

-always wanted to go first, but Olive kept her severely to heel until the

-water was obtained, after which Diana was free to indulge in what

-diversions she pleased.

-

-One day as Olive emerged from the pathway through the corn, her heart

-gave a great bound of alarm as she saw a man standing beside the spring,

-holding his horse’s bridle. He was a tall man in a red shirt and

-large-brimmed hat. He carried a revolver at his belt, but it was not

-that which frightened Olive, she was well accustomed to seeing armed

-men. On catching sight of her the stranger took off his hat with a

-sweeping bow, and coming forward greeted her with the greatest

-eagerness.

-

-“This is indeed a delightful meeting, Mrs. Weston. Quite idyllic, if I

-may say so. And are you coming to fetch water? It is a subject for a

-poem, only I am not a poet. I can feel all the beauty of it, but must be

-dumb. You’ll let me carry back your pail for you, won’t you? It is too

-heavy for those wee hands.”

-

-“Thank you, Mr. Cotterell. I can quite easily carry my pail. I do it

-every day,” said Olive speaking with much embarrassment.

-

-“Mr. Cotterell!” he repeated with infinite sadness in manner, and with a

-look of much meaning in his bold blue eyes. “You call me Mr. Cotterell,

-then I am no longer Mr. Perseus, and my sweet romance is shattered

-forever!”

-

-“I know now that you are Mr. Cotterell,” said Olive, in keen distress.

-

-“And knowing that, you are disillusioned and have lost faith in me, and

-you will not even let me carry your pail of water for you,” said he,

-sadly, in a way which cut Olive to the heart, “yet I am the same man I

-was. To you at least I have never changed.”

-

-“I know you are very kind,” said Olive, “but if you please I’d rather

-you didn’t carry the pail for me.”

-

-She was dreadfully sorry to say anything to hurt his feelings, but she

-remembered her promise, and she must make him understand here and now

-that their acquaintance was to cease. She wanted to do it as kindly as

-she could, but she must do it at once.

-

-Cotterell was not slow to read her thoughts, indeed her distress was too

-real and undisguised for him to fail to understand.

-

-“Is this an order of dismissal, Mrs. Weston? Am I not to come to see you

-any more?” he asked abruptly, with a look of pain in his face.

-

-Olive glancing up saw the pain and felt sorrier than ever, but she went

-bravely forward.

-

-“I am deeply pained, Mr. Cotterell, but I must ask you not to come to

-see me; my husband does not want you to,” she said, unable in her

-distress to find any words which would convey her meaning unmistakably,

-and yet not sound too unkind.

-

-“Your husband has forbidden you to see me?” said Cotterell, biting his

-yellow moustache savagely.

-

-“Yes,” said Olive simply.

-

-“Your husband’s sentiments would do credit to a dog in the manger, Mrs.

-Weston, but are not what one exactly looks for from a professing

-communist, who poses as a shining light for his poor fellow-creatures

-still groping in the darkness of their ignorance.”

-

-“He says you are a bad man, Mr. Cotterell,” said Olive with a view to

-defending her husband and perhaps finding out the facts of the case

-about her mysterious friend, in whose personality she felt a great

-interest.

-

-“I don’t pretend to be a good man, Heaven knows! but I’m a poor lonely

-devil living quite by myself, and your husband, with all that the world

-can give in the way of happiness, grudges me the brief pleasure of

-talking for half an hour with a good woman. That’s not the way to make

-me a better man, Mrs. Weston, and God knows I need all the help I can

-get.”

-

-“I’m so sorry,” faltered Olive in ready sympathy, and the tears welled

-up into her tender black eyes.

-

-“You sweet pitying angel,” said Mr. Cotterell, coming nearer and

-speaking very gently. “Your influence would save me if anything could.”

-

-“Oh, you mustn’t talk like that,” said Olive, with a catch in her voice.

-“And you will be a good man, won’t you?”

-

-He bent his handsome face low, and taking her hand implanted a kiss upon

-it with a grace that might have charmed a duchess.

-

-“A woman can make or mar a man’s life,” said he. “Happy are they who

-draw the prizes. Goodbye!”

-

-He sprang upon his horse and galloped away. Olive stood watching him,

-her eyes swimming in tears, she scarcely knew why, only he seemed so sad

-and so handsome. Ezra was unkind to say she must never see him any more

-and try to make his life less sad and wicked, and she was so sorry to

-think that she would never have any more talks with him.

-

-At this moment a low growl from Diana made Olive turn round to encounter

-the clear cool gaze of Madame Morozoff-Smith.

-

-“I followed you down here,” she said. “Napoleon Pompey told me that you

-were most likely gone to the spring.”

-

-“Have you been here long?” asked Olive, blushing in her surprise and

-confusion. “I only came for a pail of fresh water.”

-

-“No, I just saw Mr. Cotterell say good-bye and ride off,” observed

-Madame gently. “Do you see him often? He hasn’t a good reputation.”

-

-“I don’t believe he is as bad as people say, I am very sorry for him

-living alone.”

-

-“He need not have been alone only that he chose it, indeed it ought to

-have been quite otherwise, if report goes true.”

-

-“We ought to be the last persons on earth to credit reports,” said Olive

-hotly. “I am sure there is a nice crop of them about us and our life

-here at Perfection City, if it comes to that.”

-

-“True, I daresay there are,” said Madame. “One should be charitable.”

-

-Olive was evidently ill at ease, and Madame drawing from a totally

-different experience of life her own conclusions, became convinced that

-Ezra’s wife was carrying on a secret acquaintanceship with a man of whom

-he thought very ill.

-

-Madame’s position as leader at Perfection City gave her many rights and

-imposed certain duties. She considered that of private admonition as one

-of them. She did not speak for some moments, and the two walked along in

-silence. Madame was debating in her own mind whether she should speak to

-Olive and endeavour to turn her from the dangerous path towards which

-she seemed to be directing her steps; or whether she should keep silence

-and let her destiny be accomplished. She reflected that if she spoke to

-Olive, that rather high-spirited young woman would probably resent her

-interference, and might possibly complain to Ezra, with the result of

-estranging him from herself. On the other hand, if she left the silly

-wife to go her foolish way, she would break her husband’s heart.

-Madame’s well-shaped lips curled with a smile of contempt for herself as

-these thoughts passed rapidly through her brain. What a fool she was to

-stir in the matter! Let the giddy girl follow her own impulses and

-then—No, no! She would be true to her best self, she would put forth a

-hand and draw back the blind fool from the precipice that lay before

-her.

-

-She spoke therefore to Olive in that soft quiet voice of hers that

-seemed to have more power of arresting the attention and holding it than

-the roar of an avalanche.

-

-“I think you are, perhaps, not acquainted with Mr. Cotterell’s

-character,” said she. “I am sure you would not wish to associate with a

-bad man.”

-

-“Why do you think he is a bad man? Do you know him?”

-

-“No, I don’t know him, but I am sure I am right in saying that he is a

-man of loose morals,” said Madame.

-

-“I don’t believe it,” said Olive.

-

-“Why not? How can you know?”

-

-“Because I have talked with him a great deal, and he speaks like a man

-with high aspirations, and not at all like the bad man you say he is.”

-

-“But what can you know of a man’s real character from a chance word or

-two as you run across him in an afternoon’s stroll?” observed Madame.

-

-“I don’t judge from a chance word, I have had long talks with him.”

-

-“Indeed! and where? Do you meet him here at the spring then, so often?”

-

-“I never met him at the spring before, but I used to meet him pretty

-often, when I was out cattle-hunting and he would generally accompany me

-for a bit. Sometimes too, he used to pass our house on his way

-cattle-hunting, and then he would look in and water his horse and stop

-to talk to me for a time,” said Olive in explanation.

-

-“Really!” said Madame looking keenly at her companion, “and did Ezra

-know of these visits?”

-

-“Ezra said he wasn’t to come any more, and I told Mr. Cotterell so

-to-day.”

-

-“Oh! and what did he say?”

-

-“He called Ezra a dog in the manger, and I do think Ezra oughtn’t to be

-so harsh about Mr. Cotterell. He would like to be a better man, I know,

-if he had any chance, and people were kind to him.”

-

-“Did he intimate that you could influence him towards the better way?”

-

-“I don’t see why I can’t try to use my influence in trying to make my

-fellow-creatures happier and better. You and Ezra are always talking

-about doing good that way. Why do you want to stop me the moment I see a

-chance of doing a little good?”

-

-“Because you would only do harm.”

-

-“No, I shouldn’t. A woman has great influence over a man. He said so

-himself.”

-

-“Mr. Cotterell said so?” inquired Madame.

-

-“Yes.”

-

-“It is a very dangerous thing for a young woman to attempt to influence

-men of that sort.”

-

-“You don’t know what sort he is, nor anything about him. You are only

-following reports. And how can you talk about the danger of influencing

-men? That is just what you are always doing yourself.”

-

-“With me it is quite different,” said Madame hastily.

-

-“That is what everybody says to me whenever I want to do what other

-people find it right to do. I hate being treated like a baby.”

-

-“You are very young and very pretty, child, and that makes it all the

-more necessary for your friends to guard you against dangers which you

-don’t perceive as clearly as they do.”

-

-“I hate being young and—well—pretty, if it’s always going to make me be

-treated like that,” said Olive angrily.

-

-“Like what?”

-

-“Like a naughty child. That’s what Ezra does, and he goes to you to ask

-what he should do to me, you know he does.” She was beginning to cry,

-just like a naughty child.

-

-Madame smiled contemptuously as she glanced at her companion. “What

-could have possessed that quiet reserved Ezra to marry such a

-feather-headed vain little puss?” she thought bitterly.

-

-Olive dried her eyes angrily, she saw the contempt expressed by Madame’s

-curling lips, and her pride was thoroughly aroused.

-

-“I want to know why things are different as soon as they apply to me?”

-she asked with doubtful grammar but unmistakable import. “It isn’t this

-once only, but it is always so. Personal liberty is the corner-stone of

-Perfection City, that is what you are here for, to enjoy liberty and

-protest against things. Mary Winkle won’t take her husband’s name, and

-dresses like a fright, and nobody minds. She’s free. But as soon as I

-try a little flight of my own, that doesn’t hurt anybody, I’m to be

-popped into a cage, and you and Ezra come and shut the door on me. I met

-this man by chance and liked talking to him. He is well-mannered and

-well educated, and likes the same books as I do, and has travelled and

-could tell me heaps and heaps of interesting things. He wasn’t forever

-talking in the same little muddling circle, and wasn’t always full of

-himself. He tried to interest me. You are an educated woman, Madame, and

-you know as well as I do that, except for you and Ezra, there is not an

-educated person in Perfection City, nor one who has the same tastes as I

-have. Mr. Cotterell used to come and talk to me, and I liked it; then

-Ezra gets very angry, says he is a bad man, and forbids my seeing him.

-He forbids me, mind you. Not a bit the sort of language you would expect

-in Perfection City, but I believe in wifely obedience and I obeyed him.

-I told Mr. Cotterell he must not come to see me any more, and he won’t

-do so. He always showed the best spirit in everything he said, and I

-won’t believe he is so very wicked just on mere report. We once had a

-horse-thief and murderer to stay to supper, and we did not inquire into

-his character before we asked him to stop and rest and feed his horse.

-Mr. Cotterell said my influence might help him to be a better man, and

-perhaps it might. At all events, I want to know why I wasn’t to try to

-influence him, and I want to know why Perfection City ideas, when they

-make for freedom, are not applicable to me, but have to be all turned

-upside down when I come into play? Can you, Madame, answer me that?”

-

-Madame was considerably dumbfoundered by this attack delivered so

-unexpectedly and so very straight from the shoulder. She hastily recast

-her idea that Olive was a silly little fool, and most unaccountably

-found herself anxiously seeking about for means of defence.

-

-“The fact of the matter is, you are too pretty to do these things,” she

-replied, helplessly telling the truth in her extremity.

-

-“Can Perfection City then only succeed if all the women are ugly?” asked

-Olive scornfully. “You had better not proclaim that fact, or you’ll have

-all the women running away.”

-

-Madame was in the habit of being worshipped by men, and was not at all

-prepared to have her remarks ridiculed by a slip of a girl. She did not

-like it, and therefore replied with some asperity,

-

-“You are really too silly, Sister Olive. You must surely perceive that

-there is great danger in your associating with Mr. Cotterell on so

-familiar a footing, that, in short, he may fall in love with you, and I

-presume you can understand the danger of that.”

-

-“Precisely, a fresh set of laws must, as usual, be applied to me, and

-not those which govern the rest of you,” said Olive calmly.

-

-“I don’t understand to what you refer,” said Madame looking at her

-doubtfully.

-

-“Mr. Cotterell knew from the outset that I was a married woman. I don’t

-see the alarmingness of the danger that he might fall in love with me,

-simply because we talked together. The idea has only struck you in

-reference to me; it does not seem to have done so with regard to the

-similar circumstances of you and Ezra.”

-

-Madame turned white with anger. “How dare you insult me by such an

-insinuation?” she exclaimed.

-

-“I didn’t dare until after you had first given utterance to the

-insinuation against me,” replied Olive, with provoking calmness.

-

-Madame turned as if she could have struck her, but she controlled

-herself with a desperate effort.

-

-“It seems to me, Sister Olive, that your remarks are very ill-judged,”

-she said in a voice that shook in spite of her. “I have no wish to bandy

-words with you. I spoke merely out of a desire to do my duty, and to

-save you, if possible, from a danger which I imagined I foresaw more

-clearly than you did. I see that your words were prompted by quite

-another wish than to seek advice or counsel in a difficult moment.”

-

-“I sought for neither advice or counsel,” returned Olive. “I simply

-wanted to discover, if possible, how to fit the theories of Perfection

-City, which I know pretty well by heart now, into the practice as

-applied to me.”

-

-Madame looked at her with eyes of anger and even of hate, and Olive,

-conscious of having been almost more successful than she had imagined

-possible in argument with so distinguished a mind, returned the look

-with one suggestive of triumph. Alas for the perfect harmony of

-Perfection City!

-

-“I am surprised, I will not say pained, because you would care little

-for that, but I am surprised, I repeat, at such words in the mouth of

-Ezra Weston’s wife. He must have been strangely mistaken in your

-character, or you cannot have revealed your true self to him, for I

-cannot imagine him binding himself for life to a mate who scorns and

-flouts in this manner what he holds so dear. You are mocking the

-principles to which he has devoted his life. You are too foolish to see

-what you are doing, but one day you will be punished, and then perhaps

-you will repent—when it will be too late.”

-

-Madame turned and walked rapidly away, leaving Olive feeling very angry

-and very much frightened as well.

-

-That evening Napoleon Pompey carried a note and a small parcel to

-Madame, who guessed pretty well what it was. The note was brief, it

-contained but these words:

-

-“I thought you sent the bracelet as a present, therefore I accepted it

-and was grateful: now I know you sent it as a reproof, therefore I

-return it.”

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XII.

-                           THE PRAIRIE FIRE.

-

-

-The summer had been a particularly dry one, and since the beginning of

-July not a drop of rain had fallen. The water-melons revelled in the

-heat, and Olive revelled in the water-melons: for by a blessed

-compensation of Nature the hotter and drier the land, the cooler and

-juicier the water-melons seem to be. The water-melon of the western

-prairie is as different from the pallid green-fleshed vegetable which

-masquerades under its name in this country, as the full moon of the

-heavens is superior to the lime-light article manufactured for use on

-the stage. The real prairie water-melon is an enormous affair, being

-about as large as the roll of rugs without which fussy gentlemen

-consider it impossible to travel. The skin is of the darkest green and

-as hard as a board, a most unripe-looking object at all times. Indeed

-the only way one can find out the condition of a water-melon’s insides

-is by surgical operation. You simply cut out a plug about an inch square

-from the top side of the melon, and look to see if the flesh has turned

-crimson at the centre. If it is still white or pale pink you know the

-psychological moment, when the truly wise will eat the melon, has not

-yet arrived. Accordingly you put back the plug, and leave the sun to

-work a little longer on it, at a temperature of a hundred and twenty or

-so. Since it never rains at the melon season of the year, the plug does

-not do any harm if left on the top side, but the beginner sometimes

-leaves it on the lower side, with the result that all the water runs

-away. It is a curious fact, but the water of a melon, even of one picked

-in the middle of a scorching hot day, never seems tepid. It is always

-cool and refreshing, even at times when ordinary water tastes

-unutterably mawkish owing to the excessive heat. The crimson spongy

-flesh, specked with purple-black seeds, is eaten in moderation or in

-immoderation according to the taste of the individual, but the water is

-always greedily drunk up by everybody. The scorching winds of the plains

-seem to dry one’s very marrow, and nothing can exceed the thirst of a

-man who is obliged to be out all day in such weather and to work hard at

-the same time. Animals, too, suffer from extreme thirst, and after a

-morning’s ploughing when the farm horses are brought up to water, they

-drink and drink and drink, swelling visibly under one’s eye, as if they

-were india-rubber horses under the action of some new patent inflator.

-They are never stinted in their drink and swallow bucketsful before

-attacking their corn.

-

-But to return to our water-melons.

-

-Napoleon Pompey used to bring up a wheelbarrow full from the melon patch

-each morning for the day’s consumption. He, like a true negro, was

-inordinately fond of melons, or “millions” as he called them, and would

-have sucked them all day long if left to his own devices. Whenever he

-had to go anywhere in the waggon, as occasionally happened, he would lay

-in a store of “millions,” and lay himself beside them, and suck them,

-just as if he were a black caterpillar of unlimited capacity. The horses

-meantime, far too oppressed with the heat to require much attention,

-would plod along with their eyes shut, trying to keep out the glaring

-light. There was nothing to stumble over or fall into, so the driving

-became of the most elementary pattern, requiring only an occasional

-rattle of the reins and a comment or two, such as: “Yo’, Reb, g’ ’long

-will yer, g’ out o’ dat.”

-

-Olive during this period found the heat stifling, and used to sit out of

-doors on the shady side of the house, until the terrible wind blew up

-from the Plains, when she would flee as before the breath of a volcano,

-and shutting herself tight up in her room with closed doors and windows,

-would gasp through the visitation as best she might. She was no worse

-off than anyone else, and the nights were always cool and refreshing.

-That was an unspeakable blessing. All this heat dried up the thick

-prairie grass until it was like a vast plain of dry hay standing erect.

-

-The corn crop at Perfection City had turned out exceptionally good.

-There was ample for all the needs of the Community and a good surplus

-which was to be sold at Mapleton in order to enable them to buy some

-farm-machinery that was greatly needed. Consequently the whole Community

-worked hard at getting in the corn so as to be early in the market. The

-heavy ears of corn with their twenty rows of golden yellow grains were

-stripped off the tall stalks by hand: a most limb-lacerating job, for

-the “shucks,” or coverings to the ear, are masses of fibrous leaves with

-sawlike edges. These edges have the power of cutting an exposed finger

-in a most painful manner, and they are by no means loath to use the

-power.

-

-All this hurry and concentration of the workers upon the cornfield was

-possible only if every other sort of work was neglected for the moment.

-It seemed the wisest plan to hasten off with their harvest in spite of

-the risk, and, unused as they were to prairie life, yet even they

-realized that there was some risk in thus leaving their farms

-unprotected. Ezra was perfectly aware of it, but like so many people he

-shut his eyes and hoped for good luck. He spoke to Olive on the subject.

-

-“If anyone so much as drops a lighted match on the prairie we shall be

-lost,” he said.

-

-“Why, what do you mean?” asked his wife in surprise. She was still so

-new to the prairie that she did not understand to what he referred. They

-happened to be on that outside landing of the stairs which looked out

-over the wide boundless western prairie. This stairway from its position

-made an exceptionally good place from which to take a survey of the

-whole prospect.

-

-“That grass is like tinder, and if anybody leaves a coal of fire burning

-at his camping-place or drops his pipe, the thing will catch in a

-second, and if there is a strong west wind we shall see about as bad a

-prairie fire as we care to.”

-

-“Oh, but that’s dreadful! What shall we do?” said Olive, much alarmed.

-

-“As soon as our corn is sold at Mapleton, we shall plough all round

-Perfection City and back-fire, if we can only get a calm day. We must

-not back-fire in a high wind, because that would probably start a

-prairie fire and just cause the very mischief we want to guard against.

-It would take fifty people to keep a line of fire under control for a

-mile’s length with grass like that and a strong wind.” So spoke Ezra,

-critically scanning the horizon for any sign of smoke which might

-betoken danger. He was very uneasy, and the fierce west wind, which

-seemed never weary of blowing, made him all the more anxious, as it

-might prevent them guarding themselves by running the usual belt of

-burnt prairie all around Perfection City.

-

-It was not a light job to get a safety belt of about four miles long,

-for that was the circumference of the portion of their land fenced in,

-and it was an impossible one in the face of a high wind with their small

-force—unless indeed they did as selfish individualists did, namely let

-the fire go and burn out whom it liked and what it liked once they were

-themselves safe. The Pioneers refused to be guilty of this act of

-treachery to the common weal of the inhabitants of the prairie. It is a

-comparatively easy thing to keep one line of fire safe and so protect

-your own fields; the real difficulty begins when you want to stop the

-fire from spreading in other directions as well. Most of the settlers

-back-fired their own land, and left Providence or the Devil to see to

-the result as regards their neighbours. The Pioneers had naturally a

-higher standard of public duty than this, therefore they did not

-back-fire in the high wind.

-

-The corn being stripped off the stalks, Olive’s fairy forest was sadly

-mutilated, for the great ears were all gone and many of the streaming

-leaves were torn away; the walk to the spring, therefore, was no longer

-so delightful as it had been earlier in the summer. Still she and Diana

-used to go there pretty often, especially since Napoleon Pompey was

-always kept busy helping in the field. Coming up from the spring one

-afternoon just before sun-down, she was amazed to see her husband

-galloping madly along the far side of the field on Queen Katherine, the

-big brown mare, her harness banging her hot flanks at every stride,

-while Napoleon Pompey on Rebel was tearing after him waving his tattered

-old straw hat. Olive for a moment or two stared in blank amazement at

-them, and then began to run towards the house which appeared to be their

-destination also. Ezra and Napoleon Pompey with frantic gestures seemed

-to invite her attention to the setting sun, now sinking to rest like a

-shimmering copper ball. She looked, but saw nothing except the molten

-mass, unless it were a faint blue haze on the horizon, the result, as

-she supposed, of the intense heat.

-

-When Olive reached the house a few moments later, it was to see her

-husband going hurriedly down the road to the bars on the other side of

-the house. The horses were hitched to the plough and were trotting fast,

-while Napoleon Pompey was urging them on with voice and whip. The

-plough, unaccustomed to such speed, was jerking from side to side. A

-moment’s halt at the bars, while Napoleon Pompey threw down the rails,

-and Ezra turning round put both hands to his mouth and shouted “Fire” in

-a long re-echoing whoop. He wheeled around then and seizing his

-plough-handles set off at a hand-gallop, bounding along with his

-ungainly implement.

-

-Now Olive understood what that blue haze meant. It was a prairie fire

-coming down on them from the west along with a fierce wind. Oh dear! oh

-dear! What should she do? There must be something women could help at,

-in such a moment, if she only knew what. But who to ask? Everybody was

-far away, and the dreadful fire began to show up now that the sun was no

-longer casting such bright rays.

-

-“Come ’long, git yer shingle,” shouted a familiar voice behind her.

-

-“Oh, Willette, is that you? What shall I do? It’s a fire, and I don’t

-know what’s wanted.”

-

-“Nothin’ but a shingle an’ a box o’ matches. Quick now! We’ll hev ter

-pike, you bet. Pa and Ma is out firin’ a’ready down yonder, ’side our

-house.”

-

-“I am so glad you’ve come,” said Olive hurrying along with two wooden

-shingles under her arm.

-

-The shingles were merely the thin wooden “slates” with which the houses

-were roofed. When thoroughly dried they are admirably adapted for

-spreading a fire from house to house in a street, and accordingly they

-are now prohibited by law in most towns and cities. On the prairie they

-were used in emergencies as paddles to keep the back-firing within

-limits.

-

-“Yes, Ma said she ’lowed you wouldn’t know the fust thing ter do,”

-remarked Willette complacently. “An’ Pa said he reckoned school larnin’

-in the East could make folks more like nateral born fools than anything

-under the sun.”

-

-Olive was very little obliged to the Wright and Winkle spouses for their

-opinion of her. She remained therefore silent.

-

-They soon reached the furrows that were being so desperately ploughed by

-Ezra and his foam-covered horses. The swift twilight was almost upon

-them, but they could see Wright urging his horses along the south side

-of the land nearest his house, while away across at the east side of

-Perfection City Brother Dummy was thundering along with his waggon

-bringing up his plough to the rescue, and that completed all the

-horse-power of the Community. Little tongues of flame here and there

-along the furrows denoted that the back-firing had begun in several

-spots. Meanwhile the sky was reddening up with the reflection of the

-on-coming conflagration, and the fierce wind blew ever harder directly

-from its long blood-red line.

-

-“Now you jes’ set afire ’long hyar, front this hyar furrow,” said

-Willette, kneeling down with her matches and starting the fire as she

-spoke. “Now then, yo’ jes’ see to that, an’ don’t yo’ let that ar fire

-hop over behind yer, or it’ll be worse nor nothin’.”

-

-“What am I to do?” asked Olive trembling with excitement and fear, it

-was all so strange and alarming. “I never saw a fire and don’t know

-anything about it,” she added.

-

-“Jes’ paddle it out with yer shingle, ef it gits over. There ain’t no

-sight o’ larnin’ wanted for that,” said Willette in scorn. “Mind yer

-ends, and look after tongues in the middle. They’ll be powerful handy at

-jumpin’ over this hyar furrow, and you mustn’t let the fire git away

-from yer, else yo’ll be clear done for. Keep yer eyes behind yer and

-min’ the back line,” said Willette walking away.

-

-“Land o’ liberty! look at that!”

-

-Willette made one bound behind Olive and commenced furiously beating the

-ground with her wooden paddle, while Olive, bewildered, turned round to

-see that she had indeed let the fire get behind her even as Willette was

-uttering her warning.

-

-“We ’uns would ha’ been clear burnt out in one grasshopper’s jump on’y I

-was there,” said Willette looking critically to see if any little spark

-of fire lingered in the tall grass which could by any chance start into

-life again.

-

-“Oh I can never manage it! What shall I do?”

-

-“Be spry and—Look at that again now!” Willette sprang to a new place and

-beat the ground. She was back again in an instant, here there and every

-where, with the activity of a monkey, beating down for dear life,

-whenever the fire crossed the narrow base-line of the up-turned sod, and

-as the wind was high it was frequently doing this. Constant vigilance

-was required, especially as Ezra had only had time to run a few furrows

-with the plough, instead of a band five or six feet wide.

-

-“Powerful heavy work in this hyar high wind,” said the child, “and on’y

-that ar furrow to start from.”

-

-Willette was in her element. Not an inch of the line escaped her

-lynx-eye, and all the while she kept giving advice to Olive, who stood

-in awe of her superior practical knowledge in this emergency.

-

-“Now this hyar fire’s agoin’ to spread along, an’ yo’ jes’ got ter mind

-this end by yerself.”

-

-She darted twenty yards away and paddled out a flame and came back, her

-face begrimed with smoke and dirt, so that she looked not unlike the

-nigger whose modes of speech she so much affected.

-

-“You jes’ take off that ar hat and them big skirts, else you’ll be burnt

-to death right hyar,” said Willette surveying Olive with considerable

-disapproval.

-

-Willette’s hickory trousers and shirt were exactly the thing for a

-prairie fire in a high wind, as indeed they were for most of the

-occupations that fell to her lot. What with the constant bounding

-backwards and forwards over the flame, Olive indeed thought that she had

-better accept the advice and slip off her wide calico skirt which was

-forever in the way and might easily catch fire. She put it along with

-her hat just at the top of the slope where Weddell’s Gully began, where

-she could easily get them next day, if all went well.

-

-It was night now and would have been quite dark but for the bright glare

-from the fire. All the inhabitants of the Community were out working

-desperately. Olive paddled down her fire and kept her line bravely for a

-couple of hours, in spite of choking smoke and clouds of dust and many a

-burn. Willette was far away, lost in the darkness, following her end of

-the fire, and only became visible as she leaped backwards and forwards

-over her line of fire like some agile fiend engaged in roasting its

-victims. Olive was all alone. She felt very much frightened, for she did

-not know what might happen, nor what in any new emergency she would have

-to do. She wished somebody would come, for it was a strange experience

-to be in the black night and lurid glare all alone minding a fire. The

-air was full of the burnt fluff from the big fire, and the roar as it

-now had come near was terrifying. True the worst of it was passing to

-the south, and their land was now pretty well guarded on all sides.

-Suddenly the cheerful black face of Napoleon Pompey appeared in the

-light of the flame.

-

-“Oh, Pompey, I’m so glad you’ve come. Where is everybody?” said Olive,

-overjoyed to see a human being once more.

-

-“Wal, Mis’ Ollie, I on’y jes’ take ole plough to de bars. We’uns rip up

-dat furrow golly spry. Done turn de hosses loose.”

-

-“Why, the poor horses will be burnt!” exclaimed Olive in dismay.

-

-“Dem hosses, dey dre’ful cute critters. Dey go off slap to de bottom

-lan’. You bet hosses knows mos’ as well nor white folks ’bout prairie

-fires. I come min’ yo’ fire fo’ yer, Mis’ Ollie. Ole man he done tole

-me.”

-

-“Very well, you can take my shingle then. There is not much more, I

-suppose, to be done now, only you must keep both edges between the two

-furrows here. They told me not to let it get away and run down into the

-Gully. Do you understand?”

-

-“You bet,” replied Napoleon Pompey who knew far better than Olive could

-tell him just what should be done.

-

-“I am going to get my hat and skirt. I left them near the corner of

-Weddell’s Gully. I think I will just run across the old field and get

-them: it will be much shorter than going all the way round by the

-furrows. It will be light enough to see yet awhile so I can follow the

-path through the Gully.”

-

-Olive looked at the fire that was fast roaring its way towards the

-south-east, and deciding it would easily light her on her way she

-tripped off and disappeared in the gloom down towards the Gully.

-

-In a few minutes Napoleon Pompey began to show signs of immense

-excitement.

-

-“Golly Ned! I never seed yonder. Mis’ Ollie whar yo’ be? Come back! Come

-back, Mis’ Ollie! Golly! Golly!”

-

-He ran violently backwards and forwards along his line of fire, which,

-however, he dared not leave, exclaiming “Golly!” and “Oh Lordy!” at

-every step. In a minute or two he ran into Ezra who was coming along to

-fetch Olive home, if she was still there.

-

-“Lordy! dat yo’, Mas’r Ezra. Yo’ go right ’long down dish hyar Gully.

-Mis’ Ollie she down dar.”

-

-Ezra was dead beat. He could scarcely drag his limbs along. The terrific

-exertion of that furious ploughing, coming at the end of a long and hard

-day’s work, had almost over-taxed even his iron frame.

-

-“I thought I would find her here on my way home,” he said languidly. “We

-are pretty safe now. Tell her to come back with the others. I’m going

-home to get something to eat.”

-

-“No, sir-ee,” said Napoleon Pompey vehemently. “You’ hain’t gwine ter do

-dat. Golly Ned! Yo’ dunno see. Mis’ Ollie she done gone down inter de

-Gully, fetch ole hat. Dat fire. Yo’ see dat fire startin’ up yonder, she

-never seed dat, I didn’t see it nudder nohow: dat fire’ll crope up an’

-cotch her.”

-

-“My God! where is she?” cried Ezra, roused to sudden energy as it dawned

-upon him what Napoleon Pompey was explaining.

-

-“Down de Gully dar, she say she gwine down dar.”

-

-“Amongst those tall weeds and that fire coming on! Oh my God!”

-

-His fatigue was all gone now. He leaped forward and sprang with

-desperate bounds down the straggling path towards Weddell’s Gully,

-where, in a deserted field once tilled by that individual, prairie weeds

-were growing to the height of six feet and more, they had dry stalks and

-fluffy downy heads that would burn like petroleum, if the fire once

-touch them. It was down there that Olive had gone, all ignorant of that

-tiny red line creeping slowly around the brow of the hill, up against

-the wind, and now approaching that very spot with vicious little tongues

-of red flame. No wonder Ezra bounded along the pathway, no wonder his

-heart beat ready to burst, and no wonder if his voice sounded harsh and

-choking as he cried “Olive! Olive! Olive!” again and again until his

-brain reeled. He got no answer except the crackle of the fire. He

-stumbled along not knowing which way to turn, and twice fell forward as

-his foot caught in the tangled grass. He staggered to his feet and

-raising his agonised face cried in a harsh whisper, “Oh God! my wife, my

-wife!” He tried to shout again, but his dry throat made no articulate

-sound. His temples seemed bursting, he dashed forward blindly, not

-knowing where to look for Olive in the horrid darkness, soon to be

-turned into still more horrid light. His foot struck against an old rail

-at the edge of Weddell’s deserted field, he fell heavily, hitting his

-head against the projecting end of the rail, rolled over and lay still.

-The little flames crept nearer and nearer lapping out their malicious

-red tongues as if in anticipation.

-

-

-

-

-                             CHAPTER XIII.

-                              THE RESCUE.

-

-

-Madame had worked hard with the rest in beating back the fire, and now

-that she saw that their united efforts had been successful and that

-Perfection City was safe, she, in company with Balthasar, was going the

-circuit of the defences of their home, just to see that there remained

-nothing further for her to do. In the course of time she came to

-Napoleon Pompey, who was in charge of the last scrap of back-firing,

-intent on maintaining guard and on effecting a complete junction of the

-two lines of fire, so as not to leave so much as a handsbreadth of

-standing grass whereby the enemy might even at the last minute burst in

-upon them. This finishing of the circle was important, and the lad was

-in the midst of his work and his distress when Madame loomed out through

-the darkness.

-

-“Oh, Lordy, dey is both burned, dey is! Oh Lordy! Oh Lordy,” cried

-Napoleon Pompey the instant he set eyes upon Madame.

-

-“Who is burned?” asked Madame in bewilderment, well used to the

-extravagant modes of speech indulged in by negroes.

-

-“Mis’ Ollie an’ Mas’r Ezra fo’ shu’.”

-

-“Are you mad, fool, what do you mean?” said Madame furiously.

-

-“Mis’ Ollie done gone in der Gully ter fetch ole hat, an’ de fire’s

-crope up, an’ it’ll cotch her, oh Lordy! oh Lordy! An’ Mas’r Ezra he

-done gone ter fin’ her down dar,” said the boy, beginning to whimper.

-

-Madame gripped his shoulder with a grasp of iron.

-

-“Be quiet, and tell me what you mean. Sister Olive has gone home, I

-passed her myself with her hat under her arm, and she told me to tell

-Ezra she had gone back.”

-

-“De Lord be praised!” ejaculated Napoleon Pompey. “Den it’s on’y Mas’r

-Ezra’ll be burnt. Yah, you lemme go!”

-

-This exclamation was in answer to the sudden pressure of Madame’s hand,

-which was like the clutch of a vice.

-

-“Where is Ezra? Tell me or I’ll wring your neck,” she said in a voice

-the like of which Napoleon Pompey had never heard before in his life.

-

-“Down dar,” said he terrified, pointing to the Gully.

-

-“Show me where he started from.”

-

-Madame still kept her hand upon Napoleon Pompey who hurried to the spot

-where Ezra had stood.

-

-“Dar’s his shingle, what he done drap when he run.”

-

-“Ha!” said Madame pouncing upon the shingle. “Here, Balthasar, here

-sweetheart!”

-

-The dog came up to her, and she passed her trembling hands over his long

-ears and whispered to him half crying, half coaxing. “Here, dear heart,

-do this for me or I die.”

-

-She put the shingle to his nose. He sniffed, raised his long and pointed

-head. Then she lay upon the ground coaxing him to put his nose down. He

-sniffed again, took a step to the right, to the left, back, then

-forward. Madame followed clasping the shingle to her bosom and murmuring

-cooing words of love to her dog. He raised his great tan head and gave a

-long deep bay that echoed far and wide.

-

-“Golly! She gwine ter run him down like he nigger slave,” said Napoleon

-Pompey with a shiver, as he heard the dog’s voice.

-

-Balthasar set off and Madame kept close at his heels. It was easy

-enough, for the trail was fresh and strong. In three minutes they stood

-beside the motionless form of Ezra at the brink of the tall weeds, and

-Balthasar whined in anxiety as Madame lifted his head and called upon

-him in agonised tones. Just then the sky was lit up with a lurid glare.

-The first red tongue had tasted the dry fluffy weeds on Weddell’s

-abandoned farm. Madame, startled by the flame, sprang to her feet and

-gave one hasty glance around. Ezra lay motionless. She stepped a few

-paces into the shorter grass of the ordinary prairie and set it on fire.

-The little ring of flame spread on all sides, like the ripple from a

-stone cast into still water. Then she paddled out the fire on the side

-next Ezra, and the ripple of fire continued to spread rapidly in a sort

-of broken circle. The roar of the burning weeds was like the on-coming

-of an avalanche. Madame turned to Ezra and seizing him under the

-shoulders dragged him backwards within the safety of her oasis of burnt

-prairie. He was a big man and a heavy one, but her arm seemed endowed

-with more than mortal strength. She dragged him further and further

-within the circle, and then seeing that he was out of all danger, she

-sat down beside him and took his head in her lap. She opened his collar

-and fanned him with her hat. The now brightly burning weeds made it

-light as day, and she could see that he looked pale even under the

-blackened smoke that smeared his face, but his pulse was beating, he was

-only hurt and stunned, not dead.

-

-Balthasar was terrified. Ringed round by fire and with the ground where

-he stood still smoking hot, what dog would not be alarmed? He lifted up

-his voice once more in a long howl, and then sniffing at Ezra gave a

-sweeping lick with his tongue all over his face.

-

-“Ah! Ollie! Where are you? Come!” said Ezra, roused by this combined

-demonstration. He raised his head in a weak and bewildered way. Madame

-placed her hand on his forehead as he sank down again. He put his own

-hand up and taking hers said: “Little wife!”

-

-Madame shivered, and then steadying her voice said, “Olive is quite

-safe!”

-

-Ezra started up.

-

-“Why, what are you doing here? Where is my wife?”

-

-“I came to tell you that Olive had gone home, and that she had got her

-hat all right. She never was in any danger at all. It was a mistake on

-the part of that negro boy.”

-

-“Madame!” began Ezra.

-

-“Dear friend,” said she.

-

-“I feel so strange and bewildered, I don’t seem to know what has

-happened.”

-

-“Lay your head down again,” said Madame, very gently. “You have had a

-blow. You will soon be all right.”

-

-Ezra’s head sank again into her lap. He gave a deep sigh.

-

-“You came down here into the Gully after Olive who, according to the

-negro, had gone in search of her hat. You could not surely have realized

-that the fire was coming up against the wind and that it would be death

-to be caught among the weeds.”

-

-“I knew, I knew,” said Ezra. “That was why I came. Olive was here.”

-

-“But she wasn’t, she never had been here at all,” interrupted Madame.

-

-“I shouted, but no answer came. I could not find Olive. I remember the

-awful agony of it. My head seemed turning to fire and I couldn’t find

-Olive. I don’t remember any more.”

-

-“You fell and knocked yourself senseless,” said Madame.

-

-“Is Olive safe? Tell me, are you sure Olive is safe?”

-

-“Didn’t I tell you I passed her on her way home?” said Madame a little

-sharply.

-

-“But this fire!” exclaimed Ezra, starting up. “We must get out of this.”

-

-“Hush, lie down again,” said Madame, her voice dropping again into its

-tone of caressing entreaty. “Your head must be still giddy or you would

-perceive that we are surrounded. We can’t get out until the fires meet

-and extinguish each other. Rest and be patient.”

-

-Ezra saw that this was true. They were entirely surrounded by a ring of

-retreating fire, the heat from which was oppressive. He sat down again,

-but did not lay his head in Madame’s lap. Perhaps it was because he felt

-less giddy.

-

-He asked her how she came there, and Madame very briefly told him,

-dwelling not at all upon her share in finding him, but rather upon the

-sagacity of Balthasar. Ezra, however, was not to be deceived.

-

-“You risked your life for me this night, Madame,” he said slowly, when

-she had finished speaking.

-

-“Possibly. I never thought about it. I could not leave you here to die,

-to be burnt to death. Had the case been reversed you would have come to

-my rescue.”

-

-“You are the most generous of mortals, the noblest of women,” said Ezra

-earnestly. “It was assuredly the brightest day of my life that led me

-across your path. You taught me how to live, and to-night your generous

-hand has saved me from death.”

-

-“Hush!” said Madame faintly.

-

-“I owe my life to you,” repeated Ezra. “What shall I do to repay such a

-debt?”

-

-“Am I a usurer that I should exact my pound of flesh?” answered Madame.

-

-“Usurer!” exclaimed Ezra. “That is indeed the last word to be applied to

-you. Is a usurer one who is always giving? Giving from her wealth freely

-and without stint? Is a usurer one who is ever helping and directing

-into the paths of righteousness those who are feeble and faltering of

-step? Ah, Madame, I never can half tell you all that I owe you! How

-narrow and selfish would my life have been but for you! Devoted to petty

-cares, absorbed in personal ambitions, rejoicing in sordid gains,—such

-would have been my fate, only Providence brought me to you to be taught,

-guided, elevated, purified. My life is yours, you have made it, dearest,

-wisest, best, of friends.”

-

-“And Olive?” said Madame quietly.

-

-“Ah, there too shall be your handiwork seen,” said Ezra. “My little

-Olive is very young. Sometimes I think her mind is even younger than her

-body, and she is barely twenty, you know, a mere child and easily

-moulded.”

-

-Madame remembering her last encounter with Olive, seemed to recall very

-little that was either childlike or plastic in the concluding portion of

-their conversation, but she did not say so to Ezra who went on talking.

-

-“She often, however, puzzles me, she has such sudden freaks and fancies,

-as if her heart was a wild creature not fully tamed and ever dashing

-against the bars of its environment. I sometimes feel that I have not

-the necessary wisdom or tact to guide and counsel her. She seems to need

-someone who is wiser and more skilful than I am. Sometimes I fear she

-does not quite realise the responsibilities of life. The problems which

-have come up before us and which cry aloud for solution, seem to her but

-trivial matters that may be trusted to settle themselves. We must

-endeavour, dear friend, to arouse Olive’s enthusiasm about Perfection

-City. She is capable of the highest and noblest aspirations, but her

-heart must be turned into the right direction. She evinces a certain

-hesitancy in throwing herself into our work and aims.”

-

-“Perhaps she is opposed to the whole thing,” suggested Madame.

-

-“That cannot be,” replied Ezra earnestly. “She must see as we do, when

-she comes thoroughly to understand our motives in founding Perfection

-City. I look to you, Madame, to open her eyes to the truth.”

-

-“Ah!” said Madame laconically, and then she added, after a moment’s

-pause, “I will ask you to do one thing for me.”

-

-“Anything you ask I will do if it is in my power,” said Ezra.

-

-“Do not tell Olive of your fall here, nor of the danger you were in, nor

-of my coming to find you.”

-

-After a moment of puzzled silence Ezra said, “Of course your wishes are

-to me law. But may I ask why you make such a request?”

-

-“Perhaps I am judging wrongly, but I am acting as if Olive had the same

-feelings as I should have. If I were in her place, I should hate it.”

-

-“Why?” asked Ezra in surprise.

-

-Madame rose up, her pale face illumined by the light of the fire.

-

-“If I loved a man,” she said, beginning very quietly, but her voice

-gathered in intensity as she spoke. “If I loved a man, I could not bear

-it. To think that my love had failed him in his sorest need. He was

-lying stunned, helpless, within the clutch of deadly peril, and I went

-home unwarned, leaving him to his fate, all unconscious of the whole

-thing, while another woman—not I, but another woman—went to his rescue,

-another woman—not I—found him, saved him, drew him out of danger, while

-I walked heedlessly home. I should hate myself, I should hate—ah! I

-should hate to the verge of killing that other woman who had saved him.

-That is the way I should feel, if I loved.”

-

-She concluded hastily, her voice dropping to a whisper. Ezra looked up

-at her in amazement.

-

-“Yours is a many-sided nature. I never suspected you could feel like

-that. I never thought of you as being—as capable of——” he stopped in

-confusion.

-

-“Ah yes! You never thought of me as being able to love—to love a man and

-not an impersonal cause. Ah yes! You never quite looked upon me as a

-mere woman.”

-

-“I have always regarded you as something higher than a mere woman,” said

-Ezra.

-

-“Listen,” she said, sitting down again beside him. “You have yet to know

-me—the woman, I mean, and not the pioneer of Perfection City. My father

-was a man of passionate nature. He had fine instincts, but these were

-not developed. He was a Russian noble. I come of very good blood, as

-they say in the old world.”

-

-“I always knew you were of distinguished birth,” said Ezra.

-

-“Not at all, quite the contrary,” said Madame, with a laugh that sounded

-harsh. “My father was a wild, self-willed Russian noble. He was to have

-married a lady of princely house, only that he refused to do one thing

-which they made a condition of the marriage.”

-

-“What was that?”

-

-“To give up my mother. Do you understand? He could not marry the

-princess, and he sacrificed wealth, position, and worldly honour,

-because he would not give up the pale-haired English girl whom he loved

-passionately, and who was my mother. She died, and my father died too,

-not many years afterwards. He did what he could for me by leaving me his

-fortune and the permission to bear his name, to which I had no legal

-right. From my mother I inherited my brain, but my heart I inherited

-from my father. Now let us go.”

-

-“Must we?” said Ezra, to whom Madame’s sudden confession had been full

-of interest. “There is nothing further for us to do. Perfection City is

-safe.”

-

-“But we must return to real life, Brother Ezra. Sitting here, ringed

-around with fire, we were alone in a world of our own. For a few moments

-we lived for each other, as it were. Our spirits communed, and I opened

-my heart to you as never before to mortal being. Now we must go back to

-real life again. See the fires are all out, and the world is itself

-again—all dark.”

-

-Ezra rose to his feet and staggered a little, as Madame perceived from

-the stumble he made. She seemed preternaturally acute, and to be able to

-understand by the help of some new sense, for she put out her hand and

-touched his arm, “Lean on me, brother, you are still giddy from your

-accident. We will walk very slowly.”

-

-Ezra, feeling indeed faint enough, gratefully accepted the proffered

-help and put his hand within her arm; thus very slowly they started back

-towards the house through the inky black night. “Friend, what I said is

-to be locked in your breast, a secret,” said Madame.

-

-“I fully understand that,” replied Ezra, “and I feel it a high honour

-that you should have chosen me as the repository of the secret of your

-life. It is safe, nay more, it is sacred, with me.”

-

-It took them a long time in the intense darkness to reach Ezra’s house

-where a light was glimmering from the window. When they at length

-reached the bars, Madame said, “I will not go in. Oh, I know what you

-would say, but I would prefer not. Olive would resent my bringing you

-back to her.”

-

-“You mistake Olive utterly,” said Ezra earnestly. “Believe me, hers is a

-simple nature, she would have no such feelings as you think.”

-

-“Perhaps you are right, and that she is a child in mind and not yet a

-woman in heart. Possibly I endow her with feelings she could not even

-understand. I judge her by myself, and maybe all the while her little

-soul is possessed with nothing but content at the thought that her

-pretty hat is all safe. The butterfly must not be blamed if it does not

-rise as high as the lark. Farewell.”

-

-Olive was waiting for him impatiently, anxiously.

-

-“Oh Ezra, where have you been? And isn’t your face black? You are every

-whit as black as Napoleon Pompey. Wasn’t it fun?”

-

-“Fun? What was fun?” asked Ezra languidly.

-

-“Why, the fire of course, now that it is all over. It was so exciting. I

-was as hungry as a hawk when I came in. I really could not wait, so I

-had supper. You must have yours this very minute. Do you know, it is one

-o’clock at night, and you have not tasted a morsel of food since twelve

-o’clock yesterday? Do you realize that?”

-

-She bustled around and got his supper ready, chatting brightly all the

-while over the incidents of the fire, making fun and merriment out of

-them all. Ezra sat stupidly watching her, his head throbbing so heavily

-that he could scarcely think. He could eat nothing when the supper was

-ready, and Olive felt aggrieved. “I think you might, just to please me.

-It would do you good, for you must be hungry, I should think.”

-

-He swallowed a few morsels and said he would go to bed, that rest was

-what he most needed, his head ached badly. He was thankful she made no

-inquiries after his adventures during that eventful night. He would have

-found it difficult to tell a connected tale with that pain in his head.

-He asked Olive if she had gone down into the Gully.

-

-“No,” she said, “I started to go, but it was darker than I thought, so I

-came up again and followed round by the high prairie where there was a

-chance of meeting somebody. I came home with Willette.”

-

-“The fire did get into the old field after all,” said Ezra.

-

-“And were the weeds burnt?”

-

-“Yes.”

-

-“Oh! I wish I had been there to see. Wasn’t it a lovely blaze-up?”

-

-“Yes, it blazed up,” said Ezra.

-

-Olive didn’t notice that he seemed ill, he thought with some bitterness.

-Madame would have divined it, no matter how hard he had tried to conceal

-the fact. After all, it was not her fault that she was made differently.

-The butterfly was not to be blamed if it did not soar as high as the

-lark.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XIV.

-                          COTTERELL “WANTED.”

-

-

-The day after the fire was an idle one at Perfection City. No one felt

-able to work, Ezra least of all. He lay upon the floor of the kitchen

-with a wet handkerchief on his head, and several times he asked Olive

-not to make so much noise. She was as still as a mouse, she thought, but

-then his head ached, poor fellow! So she went out and sat in the shade

-of the house among her morning-glories, while the hens walked about with

-their wings down and their tongues lolling out, trying to cool

-themselves. The black burnt prairie seemed to send up shafts of heat to

-the copper-coloured sky.

-

-A man rode up to the bars, and for one moment Olive’s heart stood still.

-She feared it might be Mr. Cotterell, whom she had not seen since the

-day at the spring, now some weeks past. It was not Mr. Cotterell,

-however, but one of the settlers from the other side of Cotton Wood

-Creek. He came forward with his bridle-rein over his arm, his horse

-following, head down.

-

-“Wal, how’d you ’uns git ’long with that pesky fire?” he observed,

-without any preliminary greeting. He was a Missouri man, and they often

-prided themselves on their rudeness. It was their way of showing their

-independence.

-

-“Good morning, Mr. Owen,” said Olive, who knew the man quite well. “We

-have escaped all right, thank you. I hope you were not injured?” She was

-extra careful in her manner, as the politeness for two had all to be

-furnished by herself.

-

-“Yer hain’t been burnt out I see. You all’s mighty silly anyhow. Why in

-thunder didn’t yer back-fire before? ’Tain’t agin’ yer principles, is

-it?” Mr. Owen grinned under the impression that he was funny.

-

-“We didn’t back-fire, because we thought it wrong to start a fire in

-such a wind and let it possibly burn up our neighbours,” said Olive

-stiffly.

-

-“Then ’tis agin yer principles to back-fire, by Gosh! The boys was

-’lowing as much over to Union Mills.”

-

-“It is against our principles to injure our neighbours. You don’t object

-to that, Mr. Owen, do you?” said Olive.

-

-“I reckon you’ll git mighty tired o’ them idees ef yer live long on the

-prairie,” observed Mr. Owen.

-

-“Seen ole man Cotterell lately?” he inquired suddenly, half shutting his

-green-grey eyes and looking at Olive intently.

-

-She was somewhat surprised at the question, but knowing from experience

-how inquisitive the average settler is, she answered readily enough.

-

-“No, I haven’t seen him for a long time. Was he burnt out? I didn’t know

-the fire had gone so far.”

-

-“I calkerlate he warn’t tetched by the fire,” said Mr. Owen, very

-slowly. He made long pauses between his remarks, during which he

-continued unremittingly the steady occupation of his life, namely,

-chewing tobacco. Olive began to feel impatient. She did not like to ask

-him into the house for fear of disturbing Ezra, so she sat down again in

-her chair, and pointing to a log of wood which lay near and seated on

-which he could still hold his horse, she asked him to take a seat also.

-Mr. Owen sat down with a grunt.

-

-“Never seed ony pusson so sot on posies as you ’uns be,” he observed

-conversationally.

-

-“Yes, I am very fond of flowers. They make the house more home-like, I

-think. The prairie is very bare looking,” replied Olive politely.

-

-“Yer ole man oughter rared his house t’other side the Gully, an’ further

-down yon’er. This hyar ’ull be powerful col’ when we git col’ snaps in

-Jan’ary. Yer dunno nothin’ ’bout things in this hyar all-fired ’Fection

-City,” said Mr. Owen, looking around him in criticism.

-

-“Perhaps not,” said Olive, rather nettled, “but we know how to mind our

-own business.”

-

-Mr. Owen did not feel one whit abashed. He was far too near akin to the

-pachyderms for Olive’s delicate little shafts to have any effect on him.

-Another long silence followed, and Olive began to wonder if Owen was

-like that man from Jacksonville, who came to see them once and stayed

-four hours, during which time he made only two remarks and they

-possessed no particular interest. The man and his stony silence had

-driven her nearly wild, until she reflected how much more awful it would

-have been had she been obliged to entertain him with conversation. A

-recollection of this visitation and a dread born of that recollection

-began to invade her mind. Mr. Owen, however, was not going to stay for

-four hours, and he was going to make a remark of very particular

-interest, a remark that would quickly scatter all Olive’s other ideas.

-He delivered it slowly and with the monotonous enunciation which

-proclaimed him a Missouri man.

-

-“The boys is hout huntin’ down ole man Cotterell.”

-

-“What!” exclaimed Olive turning very white. Then, steadying her voice as

-well as she could she said, “Why are they hunting him?”

-

-“To cotch him,” replied her visitor concisely.

-

-“But what for?” asked Olive, looking at him with wide eyes of horror.

-She knew only too well what hunting down a man portended.

-

-“Wal, there’s bin a shootin’ over to his house, an’ one o’ thim boys o’

-Mills is shot, shot dead. Cotterell done it. And now he’s gone an’ run

-off. The boys they ’lowed Cotterell best be hung this time. Las’ time he

-was let off. He won’t be agin, you bet.”

-

-“How do you know he has shot young Mills? What evidence have you of it?”

-asked Olive in terror, yet she could not help pressing the man to tell

-her, although each word was like a stab.

-

-He gave a silent inward laugh as if his thoughts were facetious.

-“Evidence an’ enough,” he said. “Jake Mills’ body with a bullet through

-his heart. Yer can’t git nothin’ plainer in the way of evidence than

-that, I reckon.”

-

-“But how do you know it was Mr. Cotterell shot him?” asked Olive.

-

-“Damn my eyes! but yer mus’ be a nateral born fool, Mis’ Weston. Jake

-Mills were foun’ on Cotterell’s lan’. Who else could ha’ done it?

-Besides, he did, an’ that’s a fac’ anyhow.”

-

-“I think it is perfectly monstrous,” burst out Olive, trembling with

-agitation. “I never heard of a wickeder thing. Here is this man you have

-decided to hang, and you don’t even know if he has done the thing you

-accuse him of. If that is what you call prairie law and justice I can

-only say I never heard of a more sinful and unjust law. Black savages

-couldn’t do worse.”

-

-“Mos’ like the boys will let him hev a trial, ef he’s partic’lar sot

-on’t. That won’t si’nify nothin’,” said Mr. Owen, again surveying Olive

-through the narrow aperture of his half-closed eyes, and again applying

-himself to his habitual occupation with vigour. She looked at him with a

-face in which horror and disgust struggled for mastery.

-

-“If this horrid murder is committed by your neighbours, Mr. Owen, I

-shall think that prairie men are a disgrace to civilization,” said

-Olive.

-

-“We prairie folks ain’t partic’lar sot on civilization,” remarked Mr.

-Owen with affability.

-

-“I hope you’ll never catch him,” said Olive, with a sound very like a

-sob in her voice.

-

-“The boys they ’lowed you’uns was mighty good frien’s o’ his’n, an’ he’d

-a mos’ likely come this hyar way to make for the Pottawattamie ’fore

-we’uns could cotch him. That’s why I come ’long ter look for him hyar,”

-observed Mr. Owen, rising and putting his head under his saddle flap in

-order to tighten up the girth a couple of holes.

-

-“Oh, you’ve come here to spy out, have you?” said Olive, in passionate

-anger. “Why didn’t you say so at first, and ask the question like a man,

-and not come sneaking around? Do you want to hunt all over the house and

-see if we’ve got anybody hidden away?”

-

-“No,” said Owen slowly. “Guess that’ll do. I ain’t agoin’ ter hunt

-roun’. We ain’t no great shakes at bein’ fine folks out hyar on the

-prairie, but we allers takes the word of a lady, by Gosh. You said you

-hain’t seen nothin’ o’ ole man Cotterell, guess that’ll do for the boys.

-Mornin’.”

-

-Mr. Owen rode away, feeling that in the contest of politeness that

-morning he had certainly scored off Mrs. Weston with her stuck-up

-Eastern ways.

-

-Olive was in an agony of doubt and terror. That the boys were out

-hunting for Cotterell was, she knew, but the preliminary to his death,

-if they caught him. The boys seldom or never let off any one they

-caught, so she gathered from the stories she had heard of their doings

-in time past. What was she to do in this difficult dilemma? Should she

-tell Ezra?

-

-Under ordinary circumstances her first impulse would have been to go

-straight to her husband with the story she had heard, but in this

-instance she felt that such a course would be impossible. She knew that

-Ezra was jealous of Mr. Cotterell, he had betrayed his feelings more

-than once, and in her heart she knew that few men can be just towards

-the man who arouses their jealousy. Her husband was a very just man, and

-could, more than any one she knew, put himself in the place of others

-and see what was right and what was wrong. But in this instance it was

-not justice Olive wanted, it was justice that she feared. Although she

-spoke bravely enough to Owen, a terrible fear lurked in her breast that

-the evidence, though ludicrously deficient by the rules of procedure

-that obtain in old established communities, was quite sufficient to

-convince a prairie jury. Ezra would not sit on a hanging jury, nor would

-he be a party to catching Mr. Cotterell, but his sense of justice and

-what was due to the principles professed at Perfection City might carry

-him no further than this passively inactive point? Would he assist

-Cotterell to escape? Guilty or not, that was what Olive wanted, and to

-help in such an undertaking, she felt sure, was what her husband might

-very well refuse to do.

-

-Was Cotterell guilty? Olive debated this point anxiously in her mind.

-She knew he went armed, but so did many other men. In fact, to be armed

-was the rule on the prairie. The doctrine of non-resistance was one of

-the least understood tenets of the Pioneers at Perfection City, and was

-observed by nobody else on the prairie. Even Brother Wright, as we have

-seen—though Olive was quite unaware of this—had granted to himself a

-special indulgence in this matter. So the mere fact of Mr. Cotterell’s

-always having his revolver in his belt did not really count for

-anything, one way or the other. He had always been so gentle and so

-chivalrous in his manner to her, she found it difficult to force her

-mind to keep hold of the fact that he was a very passionate man.

-Everyone said so, and she knew, too, that the Mills’ were a bad lot,

-drunken quarrelsome men, who, as Ezra said, combined in their character

-all the vices of the prairie and preserved none of its virtues. How easy

-it would be for a proud, passionate man like Mr. Cotterell to bring his

-revolver into a heated argument with Jake Mills, who might be mad with

-drink. But surely such a shooting was not murder according to prairie

-law. In her distress Olive found herself falling back upon the probable

-laxity of that very prairie justice which a short time before she had so

-scornfully characterised to Owen.

-

-The “boys” who were hunting Cotterell were, as Olive well knew, the most

-relentless men on the prairie, regular settlers who had found by

-experience that the only way to keep order was to keep it with their own

-right hands. They had hung several horse-thieves lately, and had

-declared they were going to put a stop to the “shooting round

-promiscuous” of the younger blades. They were not unjust men, but they

-were hasty, and were moreover already terribly prejudiced against

-Cotterell.

-

-Having decided that it was best not to tell Ezra what she had heard,

-Olive was immediately assailed with a hundred doubts. Suppose Mr.

-Cotterell came to them in his extremity, should she try to conceal him?

-But how utterly impossible to do so without the co-operation of her

-husband! The mere attempt to do such a thing might involve her in

-difficulties without being of any use to the unhappy man himself. Then

-there was Madame. Should she appeal to her for help? Her heart revolted

-from such a course. After their last meeting, when they had interchanged

-hot words on the subject of this very man, Olive felt it was impossible

-to ask Madame’s aid or to tell her anything about it. Then there was no

-one, and Olive resolved to keep the secret of what she had heard, hoping

-that something might turn up which would justify her action, or at least

-make any further action unnecessary. Thus do people often put off on the

-shoulders of chance the burden of a decision which taxes too much their

-powers of forecasting events. It was a heavy secret to keep to herself,

-and her face looked white and scared as she entered the kitchen on

-tip-toe to see how Ezra felt. He roused up as she came in.

-

-“I am better now, little woman,” he said in answer to her inquiries.

-“The pain is all gone. I will get up and begin to stir around again.”

-

-He went out with her and with the keenness which is soon a habit with a

-prairie man, he noticed the hoof-marks of Owen’s horse, where it had

-stamped rather briskly, owing to the flies.

-

-“Who has been here? Those are fresh,” he said, pointing to the marks.

-

-“That man from over beyond Cotton Wood Creek was here a little while

-ago, Owen is his name: you know the man,” said Olive, with a beating

-heart.

-

-“Cattle-hunting after the fire, I suppose. Were they burnt out

-yesterday?” asked Ezra, with slight show of interest.

-

-“No, I believe not, he did not say. He sneered at the Pioneers for not

-having safe-guarded themselves, heedless of the welfare of the other

-settlers, so I suppose he had been betimes with his back-firing, at

-least if he lives up to his principles,” remarked Olive.

-

-“It is too late to go and hunt for our horses,” said Ezra, “and I feel

-too tired to start out on foot after them. They may very well be five

-miles away by this time. Did you ask Owen if he had seen them?”

-

-“No, I never thought of doing so.”

-

-“Don’t forget always to ask everyone if they have seen your horses

-whenever they are out on the prairie: it is one of the golden rules of

-prairie life,” said Ezra, tapping her chin.

-

-“But he wouldn’t have known Queen Katharine and Rebel even if he did

-happen to meet them,” objected Olive. “How could he know one pair of

-strange horses from another?”

-

-“Bless your sweet eyes, Owen knows every horse and cow belonging to his

-neighbours for a radius of ten miles from his house, at the very least.

-Telling a neighbour where his cattle are, is the only rule of politeness

-known to many of them, and they are punctilious about it,” said Ezra

-laughing.

-

-“I wish I had known that, because I found him deficient in many of the

-rules I have been taught,” said Olive. “Possibly he found me as lacking,

-according to his estimate.”

-

-Ezra did not go out to hunt for the horses the next morning as he had

-intended. Other work, which seemed more important, turned up for him.

-Brother Wright came that same evening to arrange about it.

-

-“Good evening, friends,” he said. “I trust you are both rested after

-yesterday. It was a hard day and a harder night. Brother Ezra, you did

-splendidly.”

-

-“We were much alarmed for the safety of Perfection City: I don’t think

-it is ever likely to be in greater danger,” said Ezra.

-

-“No, I suppose, not from the outside,” said Wright.

-

-“And we are not likely to be set on fire from the inside, are we?”

-observed Ezra with a laugh.

-

-“Accidents may happen,” said Olive.

-

-“Even in the best regulated communities,” added Brother Wright.

-“However, what I came to talk about was the future, and not the past.

-We’ve got two good loads of corn ready, it ought to be sold at once in

-Mapleton. We’ll get top price. I stepped into Madame’s as I came along,

-and she agreed with me. We must sell at once. Brother Dummy has got his

-waggon loaded up ready to start. It is a marvel how much that man does

-get through in the way of work. Well, the question is, who will go with

-the corn? Brother Dummy must drive his own team, because no other man

-could manage that black horse for half an hour. Biting Bill would kick

-the waggon into match-wood in two minutes, if any of us attempted to

-touch his reins. I wonder whether it is the absolutely silent driving

-which cows him? You are out and out the best one for attending to

-business of any here. Madame thinks it would be well for you to go, and

-so do I.”

-

-“I am quite ready,” replied Ezra. “But my horses are both out on the

-prairie. I turned them loose after the fire to let them run off to the

-Creek, as I had no time to put them up and feed them. To-day I did not

-feel able to hunt after them.”

-

-“Well, suppose you take my team, and I will find your horses for you

-to-morrow. Will that do?”

-

-“All right, then I’ll go to Mapleton.”

-

-“The corn is already shucked, it won’t take half an hour to load up. You

-and I will do it while the horses are feeding. You ought to get off by

-six, I will feed the horses at five.”

-

-Each spoke of _his_ horses and _his_ waggons much in the same way as an

-artillery officer speaks of his guns. There were three pairs of horses

-in the Community, and, in theory at least, everyone was equally free to

-use them, but experience showed that that sort of handling did not suit

-horses, who do better if left always in the care of the same persons.

-Therefore it came about that Brother Dummy always had Biting Bill, since

-no one else could manage the brute, and Ezra generally had Queen

-Katharine and Rebel, while Brother Wright kept the greys. Now these

-animals, although common property, were invariably spoken of by their

-drivers as _theirs_, for the use of certain familiar phrases, which to

-the outsider might seem to denote the idea of private property, came

-naturally to their lips. It is often more difficult to change habits of

-speech than laws of property. Reformers who start out to alter the whole

-course of modern ideas and to rearrange the world according to a plan of

-their own devising, would do well to meditate upon this peculiarity and

-see what it points to. Surely so slight a thing as a word might easily

-be eradicated from human speech, and yet how difficult it is to do so.

-But the point to consider is that the pertinacity, which shows itself in

-modes of expression, may very well exist in just as strong a form in

-habits of thought and feeling. The Pioneers, like others of that sort,

-passed over and disregarded such expressions as “my horse,” “my waggon,”

-and “your plough,” not apparently recognizing that the expressions

-denoted a habit of thought that might very easily strike at the very

-root of their institution. They were communists, as Olive had said, in

-bits of this and scraps of that, but the old leaven of individualism was

-there still among them, only dormant. The Pioneers never expected that

-the leaven would again become an active principle. Like other people,

-they were unable to see into the future, and therefore rejoiced in their

-escape from the perils of the prairie fire and considered that they had

-no further danger to apprehend for this winter at least. The sea was

-smooth and the sky was serene, so to speak, and they did not perceive

-the sunken rocks that lay in the track of their experimental bark.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XV.

-                           IN QUEST OF NEWS.

-

-

-Olive was early astir the next morning, in order to see her husband off

-and also to provide him with food in ample abundance to last him for the

-trip. He carried a plentiful store of dried beef, a portable commodity

-much in request on the prairie. The old trappers had showed the settlers

-how to make it, and the trappers had acquired the art from the Indians.

-Dried beef is precisely what its name indicates. It is raw beef,

-somewhat salted, and then dried in the sun until it is like a piece of

-solid leather. It has to be cut into thin slices across the grain before

-the stoutest teeth can make the slightest impression upon it. It may be

-also cooked in a batter of eggs for the dainty, but has only to be

-sliced up with a jack-knife to be eaten by the average teamster on the

-prairie. Besides the dried meat and plenty of corn-bread, Ezra had milk

-in a bottle and one of Olive’s wedding presents to eat, namely, a tin of

-peaches. He travelled therefore in extreme luxury. He set off along with

-Brother Dummy just as the sun was rising, and the canvas covers of the

-waggons showed for a long time as two moving white specks as they slowly

-crept across the blackened landscape, finally disappearing behind the

-Mounds some twelve miles to the west of Perfection City.

-

-Olive remained alone at home with Napoleon Pompey and Diana to keep her

-company, until Ezra should return in four days’ time. It was only with

-great reluctance that he had consented to this. He did not at all like

-the idea of her remaining alone in the house. As usual, when it came to

-Olive doing what the ordinary prairie settler’s wife did as a matter of

-course, Ezra’s love took fright. He urged her to go and stay at Madame’s

-house, she would be more than welcome, he declared, in fact it seemed to

-him almost necessary that she should go, and he insisted strongly upon

-the plan. Olive was as strongly opposed to it. Why couldn’t she stay in

-her own house? She would much prefer it, so as to be on hand to feed the

-chickens and milk the cows and generally see to things. Besides, she

-felt quite sure she would be vastly in Madame’s way. Ezra combated this

-position vigorously. Olive could not be in anyone’s way, even if she

-tried. Moreover, was not Madame a communist like the rest of them, and

-she would be only too pleased to take Olive into her home as she had

-already done into her heart. His spouse made no comment, except a mental

-one, to this argument, but reiterated her preference for staying at

-home. It would only be three days or four at most, and she would be very

-busy. Ezra hinted at possible danger if it were known she was alone in

-the house.

-

-“But I won’t be alone: there is Napoleon Pompey for one and Diana for

-two. Surely between so stout a pair nothing on earth can happen to me,”

-she said, smiling at his anxious face.

-

-“I don’t feel easy about you,” said Ezra, looking at her with mournful

-eyes. “I never left you alone before, and it suddenly seems to me a most

-portentous thing.”

-

-“Why, you dear silly old thing!” exclaimed Olive, “I do believe you’ll

-have omens next, and will look into tea-cups to see if it is a

-propitious moment for the success of this undertaking. I never knew you

-‘take on’ like this before.”

-

-“I never did so, but it is all because I love you, dear. I quite

-understand what it means, to be foolish with love. I used not to know

-what it was. I wonder do women ever feel the same as we men do?”

-

-“Women, my dear, are sent into this world for the express purpose of

-making men do what they ought and not be silly,” said Olive severely.

-“Now I know you’ll have the feed for the horses all right, but remember

-the feed for yourself is in this basket, everything you’ll want, and

-there is salt for the boiled eggs.”

-

-When the hurry of getting the waggons off was over, Olive sat down to

-think, and immediately there rose up before her the image of a hunted

-man flying for his life. In some ways it was a relief that Ezra was

-gone, she would not have to be constantly making an effort to hide the

-real anxiety in her mind. Then she thought of Ezra and of his great and

-boundless devotion to her, and the words Madame had spoken in her wrath

-rose up before her and rebuked her. Were they true? Had she hidden her

-real nature from her husband before her marriage? She had never meant to

-do so, but in their long pre-nuptial conversations it had not appeared

-to her that she and Ezra were so different in their views of life and

-its duties as perhaps was now the case. He certainly had told her of the

-experiment of Perfection City, and she had accepted him and the

-experiment together because they were indissoluble. She of herself would

-never have initiated the communistic idea; but then there was nothing

-wonderful in that, woman never do initiate anything, they only follow

-some man’s lead with more or less enthusiasm and intelligence.

-

-Were she to have expressed her own private predilection, it certainly

-would have been for a little home of her own on the usual lines, which

-little home it would have been her pride and her pleasure to make as

-beautiful as she could. Olive did not possess a large and speculative

-mind, capable of vast dreamy projects, whose limitless possibilities

-were in imagination not checked by small practical obstacles. On the

-contrary, it was the tendency of her intellect to perceive those

-obstacles with startling clearness, and to demonstrate, by a few biting

-truisms, the impossibility of turning the dreamy vastnesses to use. She

-was neither hard-headed nor dull-headed, but hers was a practical

-nature, very much jarred by idle vapourings, and above all she was kept

-in the straight path of common sense by her keen appreciation of the

-ridiculous.

-

-This faculty enabled her to perceive how often reformers run off the

-track of common sense, and while pinning their faith to one particular

-little tenet which they constitute the corner-stone of their philosophy,

-lose sight of the whole world beyond. Olive possessed in a high degree

-the sense of proportion, which in a true reformer is generally absent.

-When Ezra with his cultivated mind and really fine intellect, talked to

-her of the reforming of the present type of civilization, and briefly

-sketched out what he hoped would be the result of the introduction of

-the communistic idea into life, she could not help remarking that he

-used very much the same expressions, and seemed animated by very much

-the same hopes, as those indulged in by one of the dietetic reformers

-she knew in Smyrna, who promised all the glories of the golden age to

-mankind if the human race would only give up the baneful practices of

-eating meat and of cooking vegetables!

-

-And every few minutes, across the mirror of her reflections, there came

-a shadow of a desperate man spurring on a jaded horse. Olive could not

-shake off a sense of impending disaster, but unlike Ezra, who attributed

-his melancholy to his great love for Olive and a vague, unreasoning

-dread of something happening to her in his absence, she knew quite well

-what she feared and why.

-

-As the morning wore on, Olive began to feel it impossible to remain

-quietly at home in the midst of her anxiety. She must go out and hear

-what news there was, or at all events she must learn if there was any

-news. Resolved not to hold any communication with Madame other than what

-was publicly necessary—for between the two there was now maintained a

-sort of armed neutrality—she decided to call at the blacksmith’s, as

-Brother Green was in the way of most of the gossip, if gossip is a term

-that could be rightly applied to the feeble and intermittent stream of

-prairie news that trickled through the smithy. Brother Green was a

-silent, self-absorbed man who worked steadily and brought much personal

-devotion into the project of Perfection City. He was a lonely man, a

-widower, and to judge by appearances a disappointed man as well. He was

-surprised to see Sister Olive, and very pleased, but could not shake

-hands as he was very dirty, and she looked so brightly clean. Having

-wiped a wooden bench with his leather apron and again with the sleeve of

-his shirt, he invited her to be seated. Brother Green was welding some

-iron, and Olive waited until the operation was concluded and the

-plough-hook made before she talked to him. Meanwhile she watched with

-interest the white glowing fire and the pulpy white-hot iron-bar,

-helplessly bending over at the end like a piece of half boiled molasses

-candy.

-

-“I felt so lonesome, I thought I would come out and talk to someone,”

-she said, by way of excuse for a first visit. “Diana isn’t a bit of

-company when you feel really lonesome. Ezra is gone for four days, did

-you know?”

-

-Diana had cocked one ear at the mention of her name, but had speedily

-uncocked it again on becoming satisfied that nothing in the way of

-excitement was at hand.

-

-“Yes, I suppose you do feel lonely,” said Brother Green slowly, as he

-seated himself on his anvil and crossed his brawny arms. “I’ve been used

-to it for so long, I have almost forgotten how anything else feels.”

-

-Olive looked kindly at him. “Are you ever homesick, and do you ever wish

-you had stayed in England? It must be very different from here.”

-

-“Very,” said Brother Green gazing with a far-away sort of look through

-the large forge door out over the shimmering prairie. He suddenly seemed

-to see rolling hills with oak woods tufting their slopes, and a deep

-valley, where blue curling smoke ascended in high spirals, and a church

-steeple rose from among elms, and jackdaws croaked around the steeple.

-He put his head a little on one side, almost as if he would catch more

-distinctly the hoarse croak of the jackdaws, or maybe the first sound of

-the bell which hung in the steeple and used to ring on Sundays.

-

-“Yes,” he said, as this picture faded away and the prairie returned in

-its place, “there can’t be much greater differences in the world than

-between Perfection City and the little village in Sussex, where I was

-born.”

-

-“Which do you like best, Brother Green?” asked Olive a little

-thoughtlessly.

-

-“I don’t expect ever to be as unhappy again as I was in that pretty

-little village,” said Brother Green, and Olive remembered that she had

-been told he had lost a young wife in his youth. She felt sorry for him,

-and regretted having touched upon an old wound that still could throb

-with pain.

-

-“Have you heard any news lately? Has anybody been to the forge? You are

-always the first to hear news,” said she quickly, desiring to change the

-subject.

-

-“A man from down south passed this morning.”

-

-“Did he?” said Olive anxiously, “what did he say?”

-

-“He said the fire was just bellowing its way towards Fort Scott, and had

-done a good deal of damage one way or another. It was one of the hottest

-they ever had and the hardest to stop. It crossed one of the South Fork

-Creeks and got into the broken land round Osage.”

-

-“We had a very narrow escape ourselves,” said Olive, feeling remarkably

-little interest in the fire. “Did he say anything else? Who was he?”

-

-“A stranger, I never saw him before. No, he didn’t say anything else,

-except to tell me that he calkerlated Britishers were mos’ly fools and

-couldn’t do a day’s work ’gain ’Mericans, no matter what it were,

-rail-splitting or tobacco-chawin’.”

-

-Brother Green gave a deep gentle laugh, like the distant boom of a

-waterfall hidden among trees.

-

-“Don’t you think these prairie folk are most conceited?” asked Olive, in

-some scorn.

-

-“No, not more than other people, Sister,” replied Brother Green somewhat

-unexpectedly, “they only say what they think with remarkable frankness.”

-

-“But that is conceit,” persisted Olive.

-

-“I am not certain that it is more conceited to say what you think, than

-to think your thoughts in silence, and be consumed with a vast contempt

-for all the world. We are a conceited people too.”

-

-“I thought the English prided themselves on not being conceited,” said

-Olive.

-

-“We pride ourselves on showing no feeling of conceit and if possible on

-showing no feeling on any other subject either. If an Englishman’s heart

-were skinned, I think it would weigh up pretty much the same as an

-American’s. The difference lies in the tongue only.”

-

-“Is that so?” said Olive.

-

-“Yes, this morning, for instance, that man informed me that he was a

-better man than I, and that his country could lick mine. Well, in my

-heart I knew he was wrong on both points, and that the precise contrary

-was the fact. As far as essentials go, I think we were pretty equal in

-the contest of conceit.”

-

-“But you didn’t tell him what you thought,” remarked Olive.

-

-“No, that was the difference of tongue, not of heart,” replied Brother

-Green.

-

-“I didn’t know you were so severe in your criticisms and judgments. I

-wonder much what you really think of Perfection City,” said Olive,

-looking at him curiously. She had never particularly noticed him

-hitherto, and had not realized that he could have a store of knowledge

-of many things which lay far outside her experience.

-

-“I think Perfection City will do good,” said Brother Green with

-conviction.

-

-“Do you, and why?” asked Olive.

-

-“Any honest human effort to benefit the world and raise mankind does

-good,” said Brother Green.

-

-“But people have done such different things and all from a desire to do

-what seemed to them good,” objected Olive with feminine vagueness.

-

-“I consider they have done good if their purpose was single-hearted,”

-maintained Brother Green.

-

-“They didn’t succeed in doing what they aimed at very often, at all

-events,” observed Olive, “something quite different came out of their

-endeavours from what they had expected.”

-

-“Nevertheless, if they honestly tried, then that very trying was of

-itself good.”

-

-“Do you think Perfection City will do the good the Pioneers expect, or

-will something quite different come out of it too?”

-

-“I think Perfection City will be the means of teaching a valuable

-lesson,” said Brother Green cordially.

-

-“Do you think it is any use to try to change the world and its ideas?”

-

-“If anyone has a truth let him preach it fearlessly. Who can foretell

-the moment when the world will listen and when it is ready to profit by

-your example.”

-

-Olive longed to ask him what he thought of Madame, but dared not do so.

-She felt a little afraid before this simple-minded man, with his

-fervent, childlike faith and his sad and lonely life. Belief in

-Perfection City might be his only comfort now, shut off as he was from

-the joys of home and family, she would do nothing to lessen his belief

-and make him more lonely still. For what is more lonely than the heart

-out of which a faith has departed never to return? So she bade him

-good-bye, and then seeing Aunt Ruby’s chimney giving off the cheerful

-smoke of habitation, she turned her steps thither. Olive walked slowly

-along, for it was very hot indeed with a dry suffocating heat that made

-exertion somewhat irksome, and Diana, the discreet, followed dutifully

-behind her.

-

-Aunt Ruby, as has been already hinted, had surrounded herself with a

-large family of chickens of all ages, to whose wants it was her great

-duty to attend. She had a rare hand for chickens, and could pick up the

-most spasmodic specimen and turn it upside down and examine it for the

-gapes without hurting it in the least. Her driving of the hens to roost

-was an exhibition of the talent of generalship worthy of a wider field.

-No screamings nor scurryings, no rushings madly hither and thither, took

-place, and above all no sticks were used in the ceremony: Aunt Ruby

-merely took her skirts gently at the side in each hand, and said “Shoo!

-Shoo!” in a soothing voice, while at the same time she slightly

-oscillated the folds of her skirt. The hens appeared hypnotized by the

-action, and no matter how eagerly they might be pursuing the afternoon

-fly, they would at once settle down into a conversational chuck-a-chu

-and begin forthwith to meander towards the hen-roost.

-

-Aunt Ruby’s numerous hens and chickens were all in the yard and around

-the wood-pile, seeking in an aimless over-fed fashion after chance

-insects, when suddenly, without a moment’s warning, the devil was upon

-them according to the gallinaceous imagination. The devil was possessed

-of four paws, a most terrifying bark, and a mouth that seemed to the

-affrighted birds to be on the point of devouring each one especially and

-individually. The dog flew hither and thither, and so did the chickens,

-and so did the tail-feathers.

-

-“Diana! Bad dog, down, down!” screamed Olive, rushing to the rescue,

-while Aunt Ruby with shrill cry and a broom-stick appeared in the

-door-way. Never before or since did a more tempestuous guest appear at

-Aunt Ruby’s house. Full a quarter of an hour of gentle “shoo-shooings”

-to the hens, interspersed with smart whippings to Diana, elapsed before

-quiet was restored, and the ladies could even begin their visit

-together. Even then there was a sort of nervous tension on Aunt Ruby’s

-part, which prevented her thorough enjoyment of the opportunity for a

-gossip. Her attention was distracted by Diana, who lay with lamb-like

-docility at Olive’s feet and slept the sleep of the just.

-

-“I wouldn’t keep a dawg roun’ nohow,” said Aunt Ruby eyeing the

-delinquent sternly. “I’d mos’ as lief hev a rattlesnake. I shouldn’t

-never sleep easy in my bed won’erin’ an’ won’erin’ what the pesky

-crittur ’ud do nex’.”

-

-“I know that Diana is very naughty now, but she is only a puppy, and

-she’ll get sense by and bye, and it is so nice to have something that is

-your own and loves you, and doesn’t care for any body else, you know,”

-observed Olive somewhat rashly.

-

-“Wal, I reckon you’ll hev a sight o’ trouble ’long o’ that dawg ’fore

-you learn it the rights o’ people, let alone teachin’ it community

-idees,” said Aunt Ruby.

-

-“No, you can’t teach a dog communistic notions, thank goodness,”

-observed Olive, patting the sinful Diana.

-

-“Reckon you ain’t partic’ler sot on the idees of Perfection City,” said

-the old lady, looking at her visitor with bright twinkling eyes. “I

-allow there be a p’int or two we’ll hev to consider over agin at

-’Sembly. We are gettin’ on too fas’ fur this here prairie folk, they

-hain’t got the sense to un’erstan’ all o’ our highest principles. Guess

-while there’s Injuns roun’ we hed better jes’ hol’ back a mite ’bout

-non-resistance.”

-

-“Oh,” said Olive, who had never given any attention to this point, being

-as indifferent as the wives of strong men usually are. “I never heard a

-word about Indians. Are there any about?”

-

-“Not as I hearn on special. But there’s Injuns and worse nor Injuns in

-the world, an’ I reckon we’d better take that p’int up at ’Sembly and

-see if we can’t do su’thin’ to make things a bit straight,” said Aunt

-Ruby in language that was vaguely enough expressed to serve in the

-highest walks of diplomacy.

-

-“Oh, I dare say,” replied Olive carelessly, “some very excellent reason

-could be devised to excuse a departure from any one of the Perfection

-City principles, which seem more difficult to manage in practice than on

-paper. They are all pretty new, and of course can’t be expected to be as

-useful in all the difficult circumstances of life as principles which

-have stood the test of time.”

-

-“Dear me, suz!” exclaimed Aunt Ruby admiringly. “How gran’ you kin talk!

-Deal sight finer nor Brother Wright. Why don’t you hold forth in

-’Sembly? I’d liefer hear you nor any on ’em. I’m jes’ ’bout tired o’

-listenin’ to Brother Wright. Lard! how he do love to hear his own voice!

-Hens is jes’ like that too, they’ll talk an’ talk till you’re mos’

-crazy, an’ they hain’t nothin’ to say, on’y jes’ to cackle an’ hear

-themselves talk.”

-

-Olive agreed with Aunt Ruby, but hardly dared to express her opinion in

-all its force. Therefore she turned the conversation by inquiring had

-she ever heard anything about lynch-law and about its being put into

-practice in their neighbourhood?

-

-“Course I hev, an’ hearn o’ hangin’ too.”

-

-“Do Perfection City principles uphold hanging?” asked Olive.

-

-“Guess not,” was the reply.

-

-“No matter if it was for murder?”

-

-“Wal, I don’t see as we could ever be called upon to settle that p’int,

-’cause no ’Fectionist could ever be a murderer no how,” said Aunt Ruby.

-

-“But suppose an outsider who had shot a man, even if it was not a real

-bad murder, came to us for protection, would they help him, do you

-think?” asked Olive.

-

-“Wal, I never hearn that debated at the ’Sembly, but I reckon Perfection

-City don’t lay out to hide folks as has killed a feller critter. It

-don’t ’pear to me as how we was called upon to min’ anyone ’cept our own

-selves, an’ we hed best keep clear ’way o’ them sort o’ folks. That’s

-pretty nigh my ’pinion, an’ I guess it’s mos’ folks too as hes a mite o’

-common sense.”

-

-Olive was fain to confess to herself that in all probability Aunt Ruby

-did fairly express the collective opinion of Perfection City. They had

-only enough righteousness for themselves, and, like a ship already short

-of provisions, could not help another vessel, even though it might be

-flying the Union Jack upside down and showing all the other flags of

-acute distress recognized in the naval code of signals. Had Aunt Ruby

-heard of anything concerning a horse-thief who was supposed to be

-somewhere around, inquired Olive with a view to eliciting information,

-but she only elicited feminine alarms in overwhelming abundance.

-

-“Do tell! Land o’ liberty! Was there horse-thieves ’bout? What a pity

-Brother Ezry an’ Brother Dummy was both gone jes’ now: they might meet

-in ’Sembly right away an’ discuss the p’int o’ non-resistance an’ buy

-revolvers next time anyone went to Union Mills. Horse-thieves was mos’

-as bad as Injuns, an’ if it was lawful an’ right to defen’ yourself

-’gainst Injuns as was ign’rant savages as never hed Christian teachin’,

-it couldn’t be wrong to look a’ter your hosses as was bought an’ paid

-for by ’Fection City money.”

-

-Aunt Ruby was so convinced and loquacious upon this subject and upon the

-aspect of the case as presented to her mind by her terrors, that Olive

-heartily regretted her question, and began to try and do away with the

-effects of it as far as possible. It was only a vague report she

-averred, and Olive herself had not the slightest idea that there were

-horse-thieves about. Upon the strength of this assurance Aunt Ruby,

-somewhat comforted, allowed her attention to be engaged by other topics

-of conversation. She was much distressed that she could not persuade her

-visitor to stay all the rest of the day and have a real good

-soul-satisfying talk, but Olive declared she must go home and see to her

-own chickens, an argument that appealed very strongly to Aunt Ruby’s

-maternal instincts.

-

-A difficulty arose as to how Diana was to be decently conducted out

-through the yard.

-

-“I’d mos’ as soon hev to conten’ with a roarin’ lion as that pup,”

-remarked Aunt Ruby as the difficulty presented itself to her mind in an

-acute form.

-

-“If I could get her past without seeing the hens and chickens she would

-be all right,” said Olive, who of course had no whip, regarding

-meditatively the dog, who of course had no collar.

-

-“Wal, that ’ud do, I guess, sort o’ take her out o’ the way o’

-temptation,” said Aunt Ruby, surveying Diana with an anxious eye. “I kin

-give you an ole caliker skirt o’ mine, an’ you kin tie up her head in

-that reg’lar tight, so as she wouldn’t see ne’er a hen this side o’

-Christmas, ’less you took it off.”

-

-This seemed a hopeful arrangement; so the “caliker skirt” was brought,

-and the misguided Diana, under the impression that a brand new game was

-on foot, allowed her head to be hidden in the folds of the skirt. Olive

-then led her to the door, but Diana objected, not seeing where the joke

-came in for her; and as soon as she found that she was ignominiously

-tied into the dreadful skirt, her rage was boundless. In an instant she

-wrenched herself free from Olive’s guiding hand. She then commenced a

-wild career around the yard backwards, swaying this way and that in the

-most ghastly and unlooked-for manner.

-

-The hens and chickens no sooner beheld this portent than with one

-universal squawk of horror they betook themselves to places of safety

-under the corn-crib and into the cracks of the wood-pile, whence they

-could not again be coaxed for many hours. Diana meanwhile continued her

-fearsome course and ere long came into violent contact with the

-chicken-tub, a large receptacle with loose wooden cover where various

-sorts of food suitable for fowls were collected together, first thinned

-with water and then thickened into a glutinous mass by intermixture of

-corn-meal. Into this tub Diana sat with extreme violence and then rolled

-over. Olive caught her as she was emerging from the chicken-tub and by

-uncovering her eyes restored her to reason. Aunt Ruby, speechless with

-indignation, and Olive, equally speechless with laughter, then set to

-work with two big spoons to scrape the chicken food from the ground and

-from the hind quarters of the dog. Diana, now at peace with all the

-world, wagged her tail benevolently during this process, and soon

-specked Olive over with corn-meal, potatoes, scraps of peelings, and

-bits of greens, until she looked as if she had been out in a snow-storm

-as severe in character as it was diversified in composition. When this

-job was over Aunt Ruby arose and straightened her old back with a groan.

-

-“Wal, I guess I would a deal sight sooner hev a rattlesnake to look

-a’ter than a dawg,” she observed.

-

-Olive, apologetic, departed along with the unrepentant Diana, and

-together they returned homewards.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XVI.

-                             HORSE-THIEVES.

-

-

-Olive spent a few quiet hours at home along with Diana, and then took

-supper in company with Napoleon Pompey, whose manners at table were now

-all that could be desired. Indeed, the negro in this connection easily

-takes a higher polish than might be expected: he prides himself on being

-punctilious in all the forms and phrases of the best white society he

-has ever come in contact with, and being highly imitative, is quickly

-trained. Given a white boy and a black boy of similar ages and depths of

-ignorance, the black one will more quickly tame into a seemingly quiet

-human being, while very frequently the same vanity which prompts a negro

-to be over-zealous in the use of “please” and “thank you” will cause the

-white boy to act roughly and assert his independence by extravagances of

-rude behaviour. Napoleon Pompey was magnificently polite to “Mis’

-Ollie,” whom he adored, and for whom he was ready even to work: that is

-to make the greatest sacrifice possible to a negro lad of twelve. He

-never forgot to carry in wood for her or to pick up chips in generous

-quantity for the lighting of the afternoon fire, and he collected

-abundance of corn-cobs and had them duly dried in the sun ready at her

-hand in case she was in sudden want of a hot fire. When working for

-Ezra, Napoleon Pompey reverted to his natural black standard of

-diligence and shirked as much as he possibly could, lying down in

-fence-corners to sleep like a shiny black lizard when he should have

-been stripping corn, but he never shirked “Mis’ Ollie’s” work. She

-didn’t scold the lad, but ruled him by her gentleness and her beauty,

-and he fell into meekest subjection to her.

-

-Olive always tried to talk with Napoleon Pompey at meals, even when Ezra

-was there, being anxious to make him feel at his ease and happy in their

-presence; and to-day being alone with him she thought she might get some

-information out of him on the subject which was weighing so heavily upon

-her mind.

-

-“Napoleon Pompey, did you ever hear of their hunting down men on the

-prairie here?”

-

-“Yo’ bet, Mis’ Ollie, I seed darkie what went to de hangin’ ole man

-Howard. He done seed him hoisted over de tree slap up. He told me——”

-

-“Hush!” said Olive sternly.

-

-The young savage was abashed, he had meant no harm, but thought some

-pleasing details “o’ de hangin’,” which he himself had relished

-mightily, would prove equally acceptable to Olive’s taste. She was

-disgusted to think that with all her teaching of the forms and symbols

-of politeness and gentle manners, which the young scamp had received

-with such docility, she had not really touched his heart at all: he was

-just a black savage, still rejoicing in vivid details of horrors and

-cruelty.

-

-“Don’t tell me,” she said sternly, “that it is possible you could like

-to see a human being, a fellow creature, made in God’s image, no matter

-how guilty he might be, put to death. It may be necessary, Napoleon

-Pompey, sometimes to hang men who have done wicked things, so as to

-prevent others from doing the same, but it is an awful thing, a sad and

-terrible sight. You would never wish to see it, Napoleon Pompey,” said

-Olive solemnly.

-

-“It ’ud be bully ter see ’um kickin’ in de air wid rope roun’ his neck,”

-said Napoleon Pompey simply.

-

-Olive turned white with disgust and left the kitchen, retiring with

-Diana to her own little private room. Napoleon Pompey, conscious of no

-shortcomings, cleared away the supper things very handily, washed the

-few dishes, set the candles upon the white deal table, and whistling in

-the innocence of his youthful heart went out to “walk roun’” and see

-that all was right, and the hen-house fastened up securely against

-possible visits from pole-cats, before he retired to his loft upstairs

-shortly after sun-down. Like the chickens, Napoleon Pompey went early to

-roost.

-

-Conscious from the all-pervading stillness that the lad was gone to bed,

-Ollie returned to the kitchen, and her heart smote her as she saw two

-tallow candles in their tin candle-sticks placed on the table in

-convenient position for her to read, if such should be her wish. Poor

-Napoleon Pompey! Olive thought compassionately of what an affectionate

-boy he was, and of how it was not his fault if he still had savage

-tastes. Indeed, it was rather the fault of everybody else. His not very

-remote ancestors were unreclaimed African savages, and the career of

-those more immediate forefathers, whose lot had been cast in slavery

-down South, had not had an elevating tendency. It was wonderful, not

-that he still had savage tastes, but that he had got rid of so many of

-them. She was sorry that she had not been better able to control her

-feelings, and determined forthwith to institute a careful system of

-training with a view to leading him to the higher life by the shortest

-possible road. Having settled in her own mind a few of the more

-important lines upon which this training was to be conducted, Olive

-turned at last to her reading. But she could not keep her mind on her

-book, it kept wandering off in all sorts of directions, and at last took

-that of being frightened at the loneliness and stillness of the house.

-When so firmly combating the notion of being afraid to stay in the house

-during Ezra’s absence, Olive had not realized how appalling the

-stillness would be. In the daytime there were multitudes of unregarded

-sounds, which went to make up the sum total of the idea of life and

-fellowship, but at night these had completely ceased, and she seemed to

-hear the stillness with awful intensity.

-

-Then, too there were no shutters to the windows, which were, of course,

-open to let in the cool night air, and the thought suddenly came into

-Olive’s mind of how exposed she really was, sitting there in the light

-of her candles, plainly to be seen, but unable to see out. A thought

-such as this needs but little time to grow into a veritable feeling of

-panic. She glanced at the black gaping windows and stared out into the

-measureless blackness beyond. At one moment she raised her hand to

-extinguish the candles and so to hide herself in the dark along with her

-fears, but she knew that would only make matters worse. She would see in

-her terrified imagination a hundred glaring eyes peering in through the

-window. She got up and walked about the room, trying by a little

-movement to throw off the oppressive sense of terror. Diana suddenly

-seemed to be interested in something, and raised her head and sniffed

-inquiringly, and her mistress, nervously awake to every sight or sound,

-looked anxiously around her and stopped in her uneasy walk. Diana arose

-and went to the door, and being a puppy wagged her tail effusively, then

-suddenly remembering that she ought to be a dog, barked with vehemence.

-Olive was ready to scream with nervous terror as she heard a step upon

-the slanting board which led up to the door and a second later a knock

-against the resounding wood. She stood spell-bound, unable to speak or

-move. Diana ceased barking, and looked with eager delight for the

-opening of the door.

-

-“It is I, friends, let me come in,” said a deep voice which thrilled

-Olive to the heart.

-

-The door opened and Mr. Cotterell entered.

-

-“Mr. Cotterell! What are you here for?” gasped Olive, as he came in and

-stood in the light, gaunt-eyed and hollow-cheeked.

-

-“I am flying for my life, Mrs. Weston. The men are out hunting me down.

-I have come to ask your help. Where is your husband?”

-

-“He is gone away to Mapleton.”

-

-“Ah!” said Cotterell, with a sigh that had some relief in the sound.

-“Then you will help me, won’t you?”

-

-“What have you done?” asked Olive, gazing at him in terror. He was

-wild-looking and so different from the charming gentleman she had known

-before.

-

-“I’ve shot Jake Mills,” he replied, without any attempt at

-dissimulation.

-

-“Do you mean that you’ve murdered him?” gasped Olive, starting back from

-him.

-

-“Good God! Mrs. Weston, no. I’ve not murdered him, although he is dead

-by my hand. There’s been a quarrel between us about some land he rented

-from me. He was a very low-bred fellow and violent, and I despised him,

-and—well, I said some harsh things to him about cheating the last time

-we met. He swore that he would pay me out. He came to my cabin the other

-day. I don’t know how long ago, it seems a life-time. He was mad with

-drink and fury. I told him he was a hound. He whipped out his revolver

-and fired at me, but he was too tipsy to aim straight, his shots went

-wide of the mark. Well, I got my shot in, I was not drunk. That is how

-it was, Mrs. Weston. Upon my honour as a man, that is the exact truth,

-you would not call it murder, would you?”

-

-“No, it was in self-defence. But why didn’t you go and tell the

-neighbours at once? They understand that sort of thing on the prairie.”

-

-“Ah, there’s just my hard luck. There was a brute of a negro who saw it

-all, a fellow I thrashed once for stealing and lying, and he said with

-such a meaning look, niggers were free men now, they could give evidence

-against white men now,” said Cotterell in a voice of despair.

-

-“Could not you silence him?” said Olive, “or make him tell the truth?”

-

-“Yes, I could have silenced him easily enough, and I had my finger on

-the trigger to do it. But I sickened at the thought. I couldn’t shoot

-him, although it was my life against his in all probability. I fled and

-he gave the alarm. I have no chance with these men around here to try

-me, and that negro to give his lying version of the fight. If it was a

-jury of men like your husband, it would be different, but these ignorant

-settlers are desperately prejudiced against me already as a foreigner,

-and because of several things in the past.”

-

-Olive thought of what her husband had said, and knew only too well that

-there was indeed much prejudice against the unhappy fugitive.

-

-“What am I to do? You cannot stay here, Mr. Cotterell. They have already

-been looking for you. Mr. Owen was here yesterday afternoon.”

-

-“Did he tell you what I had done? Did he seem to consider it murder?”

-

-“Yes, he did,” said Olive in a whisper, not daring to remember what he

-had said should he Cotterell’s punishment.

-

-“But you don’t look upon it in that light?” said he, wistfully.

-

-“No, certainly not. It was a terrible misfortune that might happen to

-anybody, given the preliminary quarrel.”

-

-“Thank you,” said Cotterell brokenly. “When a poor devil is being hunted

-down it is a comfort for him to find someone who can still believe in

-him, and I knew in my heart I could come to you for help when all else

-had abandoned me. I am starving, Mrs. Weston. I have eaten nothing for

-two days. Can you give me some food?”

-

-“Poor fellow!” cried Olive, more struck perhaps by his bodily needs than

-by those of the mind. “Sit down here, I’ll get you something in a jiffy.

-There is a good chicken-pie in the cellar.”

-

-She took a lantern and hurried off to the cellar which was under the

-house, but to which entrance was effected by an outside door. She

-brought him food and drink and sat by him as he ate ravenously,

-wolfishly.

-

-“I must sleep or I shall never be able to hold out for the flight

-to-morrow. Let me lie here, will you, and wake me at mid-night. Will you

-do that for me? I must sleep. I have been hiding in the bottom-land of

-Cotton Wood Creek in the brushwood ever since I left home. I didn’t dare

-to ride across the prairie with everybody out on account of the fire. I

-should have been seen by someone, even if I could have got clear of the

-fire. The hunt must be over now on this side of the county, and I may

-dare snatch a little sleep.”

-

-He flung himself down on the floor, and almost before Olive could fetch

-a pillow for his head he was in a deep sleep. She sat watching him and

-wondering what his life was. Somewhere away in England, perhaps, there

-was a blue-eyed girl waiting for him to come home, a girl whose blue

-eyes were getting dim with the tears she shed in that long, long

-waiting. He was a very handsome man, with his yellow moustache and

-clear-cut features. His hat was off, leaving a sort of high-water mark

-plainly visible on his forehead, where the sun-burn ended and the smooth

-white skin showed upon his temples. The veins were marked in blue like a

-baby’s, she remembered how Ezra had commented on these blue veins. She

-wondered who he was and why he came there to live, and all the while she

-watched the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed in his sleep

-with his right hand nervelessly holding his revolver. How he would start

-up and grip that weapon, and how his blue eyes would flash, if his

-pursuers should come upon him! He was a man that had a reputation for

-bravery even on the prairie, where few men were cowards. She thought of

-Prince Charlie and his wanderings, and all the stories she had read as a

-girl about that charming prince. Here was a fugitive seeking her aid,

-and she—well, she would act the part of Flora Macdonald. By the time it

-was mid-night, Olive had worked herself into a most romantic frame of

-mind and was determined to help Mr. Cotterell at every hazard. She was

-not a person to do a thing by halves. She made a parcel of food for him

-out of the remains of the chicken-pie, and then, it being just

-mid-night, she awoke him.

-

-“Ah, Mrs. Weston, how can I ever show my gratitude to you? You are in

-veriest truth my guardian angel. I shall carry your image in my heart

-till I die,” said Cotterell in his soft persuasive voice. “I should like

-to think that you had some memory of me.”

-

-“I shall not forget you, and shall pray that you may escape all

-dangers,” said Olive gently.

-

-“I have absolutely nothing that I can call my own. Would you accept this

-ring of mine as a token of my gratitude, and sometimes wear it in memory

-of me? When you look at it, think that somewhere in this weary world

-there is one heart that will be grateful to you until it ceases to

-beat.”

-

-He pulled a ring from his finger and put it into her hand. At the same

-time he stooped his tall form and softly kissed her forehead, saying:

-“God bless you!”

-

-Olive’s eyes were full of tears. “You must be going or it will be too

-late,” she said with a sob.

-

-“Yes, I must not tarry.” He looked to his revolver, jerked his

-cartridge-case round into a more convenient position for rapidly opening

-it, and took up his hat.

-

-“Where is your horse?”

-

-“I hitched him to the bars.”

-

-“Then I will take the lantern and light you on your way. The night is

-very dark. Once on horseback you can ride by the light of the stars,”

-said Olive.

-

-“Yes, I’ll shape my course for the Missouri border, if I can run the

-gauntlet of the people here. Once I reach a town and civilization I

-shall be all right.”

-

-They went to the bars, Olive holding her little lantern which threw a

-feeble ray along the pathway.

-

-“Great God!” cried Cotterell.

-

-“Oh, what is it? Are they coming after you?” said Olive in alarm,

-dropping her lantern which instantly went out.

-

-“My horse is gone!” said Cotterell, whose eyes were now becoming

-accustomed to the darkness. “I left him hitched here. He was a wild

-young colt, not half broken. See, this is the lariat-rope wrenched in

-two. I was a fool to trust to that rope, and a double-dyed fool to leave

-him here in the dark. But I was too hungry and too sleepy to think

-clearly of what I was doing. That sleep will cost me my life. I shall

-have plenty of time to sleep, aye forever, if daylight catches me here.

-Mrs. Weston will you add one more benefit to the many that have gone

-before? Will you give me a horse?”

-

-“Oh, so gladly if I had one,” said Olive, beginning to cry with grief

-and helplessness.

-

-“Haven’t you any horses?” asked Cotterell with a gasp.

-

-“No. Ezra and Brother Huntley have taken two teams to Mapleton.”

-

-“Are there no more about the place?”

-

-“Only our two that were out on the prairie. Brother Wright was to hunt

-for them.”

-

-“Did he find them?”

-

-“I don’t know. Perhaps he did.”

-

-“Then you must give me one of them. They are yours.”

-

-“They are not mine. Oh, I have not anything in this dreadful Community.

-It is horrible,” wailed Olive.

-

-“Don’t, pray don’t,” said Cotterell feeling for her hand in the darkness

-and crushing it in a passionate grasp. “Come with me and help me get

-one.”

-

-“What! steal one of our horses?”

-

-“Yes, God help me! if that must be the word. If I live, the Community

-shall have the horse’s price ten times over. If I am hanged, put it down

-for the Recording Angel’s tears. Come.”

-

-“The horses are not here. They are at Brother Wright’s if anywhere.”

-

-“Can you find the way in the dark? Then come all the same.”

-

-He held her hand. Was it for fear lest she should turn back, or was it

-for some other reason? They walked in silence towards the Wrights’

-house, two dark shadows stealing through the blackness.

-

-“Mr. Cotterell,” whispered Olive with chattering teeth. “If anyone

-should come out of the house on account of the noise, don’t fire. We are

-all non-resistants, you know, here, and he won’t have a pistol.” Olive

-had no knowledge of the plenary indulgence which Brother Wright had seen

-fit to bestow upon himself in this matter.

-

-“Dear heart! don’t fear,” said Cotterell tenderly. “I am a desperate man

-flying for his life, it is true, but I am not a dastard. No human being

-at Perfection City shall ever be hurt by my hand. They are all sacred to

-me for your sweet sake. Ah yes, how truly it is Perfection City, none

-but I really know.”

-

-They walked on again in silence.

-

-“Is there a dog?”

-

-“Yes, but he knows me well. We are coming to the back of the stable

-now.”

-

-“Then go and speak to the dog through the chinks of the logs, else he

-will bark at me.”

-

-Olive crept up quietly, and putting her lips to a crevice in the rough

-log-stable said softly, “Pluto, good dog!” Pluto answered with a whine

-of satisfaction, and a soft, purring trumpet from Queen Katharine

-announced that she too was within, and that she recognised her

-mistress’s voice.

-

-“The horses are here,” whispered Olive. “I will go round and bring out

-Queen Katharine; there is only a wooden bolt on the outside to fasten

-the door. You had better not go near them for fear of exciting them,

-which might make the dog bark.”

-

-“It is dangerous for you in the dark. I fear the horses may hurt you,”

-said Cotterell, slow in bringing himself to give up the little hand he

-had held all during that strange night walk.

-

-“I am not afraid of the horses: they know me and I know them,” said

-Olive.

-

-Cotterell heard her talking softly to Queen Katharine as she quietly

-undid her halter and brought her out of the stable. Not a creature

-seemed awake in the house, and not a word was spoken by the two as they

-stole past down to the bars. Once out of earshot, Cotterell sprang upon

-Queen Katharine and stooping down lifted Olive up before him. She never

-could quite remember the wild things he said as he rode back to their

-house, holding her in his arms on the horse. She was dizzy, frightened,

-and confused, so perhaps he did not say all those wild words, and

-perhaps she dreamed them. He got Ezra’s saddle and put it on Queen

-Katharine, Olive did not forget to give him the parcel of food and a

-flask of milk and water, and then he said good-bye. Such a strange

-good-bye. He knelt before her, clasped her two hands in his own, and

-said: “Now I know why men have worshipped the image of pure womanhood.

-It made them better. I shall be made a better man by my worship.” And

-then he was gone without another word, and Olive crept into the house

-just as the first grey streaks of dawn appeared.

-

-

-

-

-                             CHAPTER XVII.

-                            A LIFE AT STAKE.

-

-

-When Brother Wright early next morning discovered the loss of the brown

-mare, he was thrown into a state of the most unphilosophic rage. He had

-not a moment’s doubt as to what had happened, nor a moment’s hesitation

-as to the course he should pursue. He hurried back to the house and

-without any effort at concealment got out his revolver and stuck it into

-his belt.

-

-“Wright,” said Mary, his wife, “whatever have you got there?” She was

-filled with amazement.

-

-“A pistol,” replied he with firmness.

-

-“What are you going to do with it?”

-

-“Shoot a damned horse-thief, who has been and broken into the stable and

-stolen Queen Katharine.”

-

-He jammed down his hat on his head and made for the door, while Mary

-Winkle gave a scream that would have done credit to the finest lady in

-the land.

-

-“You shan’t do any such thing! You will be killed! What do you know

-about pistols? You will be shot by those murderous horse-thieves, and

-what will become of me—and Willette?” Mary Winkle urged the very

-arguments that have before now been known to make brave men falter and

-turn back from running risks.

-

-“I—I shan’t do anything rash,” said Wright sheepishly. “I’ll just go

-round and rouse the neighbours and see if we can’t catch him, he can’t

-have got very far as yet. What beats me is why Pluto didn’t bark. The

-dog’s a fool, I’ll drown him.”

-

-“Oh, I am thankful he didn’t bark, for you might have been dead by now

-if he had. You shan’t drown him, for he has saved your life.

-Horse-thieves are desperate men and wouldn’t respect our principles of

-non-resistance,” said Mary Winkle.

-

-“Ahem,” said her husband, tucking the revolver out of sight until

-required.

-

-“What we’ve got to do is to go to Madame and summon an Assembly of

-Urgency and talk this matter over, and see what the Community is to do.

-Wright, you can’t go and rouse the neighbours till you’ve got the

-sanction of the Assembly. You know that is the rule in all important

-matters, and this is about the most important matter that has ever come

-up for discussion.”

-

-“Damn discussion!” said Wright angrily. “While we’re discussing that

-thief will get away. Sharp is the word for catching horse-thieves.”

-

-“But sharp is not the word for determining the action of Perfection City

-in an important juncture like the present. Wright, I am surprised at

-you, and also at your language,” said his wife severely.

-

-“Oh these infernal horse-thieves would provoke a saint,—not that I am

-one,” said Wright, still in a rage most unbecoming to a professed

-non-resistant, and Mary Winkle looked a whole essay full of rebuke at

-him. She carried the day, however, and together they carried their

-complaint to Madame.

-

-They found Madame sitting at breakfast along with Uncle David, and being

-waited upon by a negro-servant, Lucinda, the mother of Napoleon Pompey.

-The heat of a cooking-stove made Madame ill, therefore she required a

-servant, and she had what she required, principles of equality to the

-contrary notwithstanding.

-

-“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Uncle David in much excitement and perturbation.

-“Wal, to think now o’ what big raskills there is in the worl’, an’ we

-a-settin’ ’em such a good ’xample here o’ honesty an’ uprightness.”

-

-“We must summon the Assembly,” said Mary Winkle firmly. “It is a great

-pity Brothers Ezra and Dummy are both away, but there are quite enough

-left to deliberate.”

-

-“If you think that is the best plan, we had better do it at once, there

-should be no time wasted,” said Madame, looking interrogatively at

-Brother Wright’s frowning face.

-

-“If you ask me——” he began when his wife interrupted him.

-

-“We don’t ask you, Wright, at least not until the Assembly of Urgency is

-convened. Your vote doesn’t count for more than mine, and I demand an

-Assembly.”

-

-Wright shrugged his shoulders, and Madame smiled a little sarcastically.

-“We will summon it,” she said.

-

-“An’ I’ll jes’ step roun’ an’ fetch Sister Olive,” said Uncle David,

-putting on his hat as he spoke, “an’ you can bring together the rest of

-the brethren.”

-

-They came quickly enough when they heard of the loss of the brown mare,

-only Olive was absent. She was ill in bed with a headache and spoke to

-Uncle David out of a darkened room.

-

-Brother Wright detailed the loss of the horse, while the Assembly

-listened in deepest attention.

-

-“What we have to consider is the best means of recovering the horse if

-possible,” said Madame. “Does anyone know what is usually done under

-similar circumstances?”

-

-“The neighbours join together and run down the thief as quickly as

-possible,” said Brother Wright, with sharp emphasis.

-

-“And having run him down, hang him,” added Mary Winkle.

-

-“That course is impossible for us,” observed Madame.

-

-“That is a point I should like to debate,” said Brother Wright. “If we

-are to live here we must have horses, and we can’t keep horses if it is

-known to be against our principles to shoot a horse-thief. That is all

-I’ve got to say.”

-

-“An’ I want to notice the p’int o’ Injuns,” said Aunt Ruby. “Ef there’s

-Injuns as will do any wickedness un’er the sun, I want to know are we to

-sit still an’ be roasted on our own fires by wile savages like that, or

-will the men-folks defen’ us as other men do? An’ I likewise would wish

-to p’int out to the ’Sembly as border ruffians is mos’ly as bad as

-Injuns, an’ it stan’s to reason as horse-thieves is ’bout the same.”

-

-“It seems to me,” said Brother Green, speaking with great deliberation,

-“that our principles were formed and adopted because we thought them

-right. I don’t see in what we should differ from anybody else if we took

-to the usual prairie arms the moment we felt the shoe pinch! If

-non-resistance is right, it should be practised against horse-thieves;

-if it is wrong, then we should be prepared to shoot the thieves of other

-men’s horses. There is no middle course. The throwing away of our

-settled convictions just because our horse has been stolen is not

-consistent.”

-

-“I’ll vote for non-resistance and the maintenance of our principles,”

-said Mary Winkle severely, “and I further think that what is decided by

-the majority in this meeting should bind all the members.”

-

-She fixed her eye upon Wright with meaning.

-

-“It is a most difficult juncture,” remarked Madame. “I wish much we had

-the help of Brother Ezra’s wisdom to guide us.”

-

-“Yes,” said Uncle David cordially, “an’ sister Olive too.”

-

-“I do not see how Sister Olive can have any experience that would enable

-her to give good advice on this subject,” said Madame acidly.

-

-“Oh, Sister Olive has consider’ble ’cuteness,” remarked Uncle David.

-“Now you’d be ’stonished to hear the wise things she says, an’ she as

-purty as a kitten or a rose all the while.”

-

-“Then I guess we’ll just do nothing at all? Is that the decision of this

-Assembly?” asked Brother Wright abruptly.

-

-“There is great force in passive resistance,” said Brother Carpenter, a

-boneless individual who counted for little either for work in the

-fields, or for advice in the councils, of Perfection City. “Where

-passive resistance has been applied by large numbers and for a long time

-it has effected great changes,” he observed conversationally.

-

-“I think principles are principles,” said Brother Green, “and may not be

-lightly set aside.”

-

-“Well, I guess I’ll go home then, since nothing is going to be done,”

-said Brother Wright angrily, “and I’ll try and keep hold of the last

-horse, else that thief will come and take him too, when he finds what

-fools he’s got to deal with.”

-

-The Assembly broke up, having decided nothing at all, and having only

-succeeded in embittering the feelings of several persons, and in

-widening the chasm of differences which had revealed itself in the

-course of the debate, a result that has often followed the meeting of

-larger and more notorious Assemblies.

-

-Although Brother Wright could not now violate one of the fundamental

-doctrines of Perfection City, it was open to him to use a little worldly

-wisdom in the way of setting others upon the track of the thief.

-Accordingly, without saying a single word to Mary Winkle or anyone else,

-he mounted Rebel and proceeded to rouse the neighbours who were not at

-all bound by non-resistant theories. Nothing gets up a prairie man’s

-anger quicker than the knowledge that a horse-thief has begun active

-operations in his vicinity. Horses are absolutely necessary to his daily

-life, and to be suddenly deprived of his horses is one of the greatest

-calamities that can overtake a settler. They can take a merciful view of

-homicide at times, but never of horse-stealing. Brother Wright relied on

-this known propensity, and by visiting the most hardy of his neighbours

-had before night started as relentless a set of hunters after Queen

-Katharine as ever put leg over horse or drew pistol from belt.

-

-Olive meanwhile remained at home all unconscious of what had taken place

-at the Assembly, and of the pursuit organized afterwards as the effect

-of Brother Wright’s embassies. She had decided in her own mind that the

-best course for her to adopt was to keep absolute silence until Ezra

-should come home. To him she would explain everything, and she felt

-convinced that he was just enough, albeit no friend of Cotterell’s, to

-be ready to sacrifice a horse in order to facilitate his escape. She did

-not feel at all so sure about some of the other members of the

-Community. At all events Cotterell’s best chance of safety lay in her

-keeping firmly to her resolution of silence about him. The best way for

-her to keep silent without exciting suspicion was not to talk with

-anyone, and feeling pretty well convinced that somebody would come to

-talk over the great calamity with her, she resolved to be out of the

-way. In any case she was very miserable and very anxious, and could not

-stay at home, so she wandered off for a walk. She went to the spring,

-then she went to Weddell’s Gully and looked at the black burnt waste.

-She tried to think about the interest and excitement of the fire, but

-could think of nothing but Cotterell riding for his life and of the men

-who were riding after him. Olive knew nothing of the second set of men

-sent after the horse-thief; her mind was still anxiously dwelling on the

-probability of his being captured by those who had “wanted” him for the

-murder of Jake Mills. The fact was, however, that this first

-hunting-party had given over their quest, for a man must be caught by

-the second day on the prairie if he is to be caught at all. This,

-however, Olive did not know, and she kept wondering and picturing all

-sorts of terrible possibilities. Had the men found the trail? Would

-Queen Katharine hold out till he got to the border? True she had been

-resting for a whole day, but then a man’s life depended on her

-endurance, and Olive remembered with a cold dread that Queen Katharine

-was only a farm-horse and not trained to such desperate efforts as this.

-Then she remembered the others, those dreadful hunters, were also

-mounted on farm horses, and this thought gave her some small comfort.

-She came home again after a most wretched day spent in aimless rambling

-over the hopeless black prairie and crept up to the outside platform to

-scan once more that dreary waste towards the endless western horizon.

-Far away towards the north-west she saw a band of horsemen huddled

-together and moving rapidly in an easterly direction. Olive’s heart

-stood still with terror. Oh! who were they? And why were they riding

-rapidly? Men rode in bands to funerals, but then they went slowly: they

-rode fast only when out on a man-hunt. She did not call up Napoleon

-Pompey, although he could see like a hawk; she dreaded to hear what his

-explanation would be. She watched with straining eyes until the men had

-disappeared within the belt of timber that marked the course of the

-Creek, then she came downstairs with her miserable discovery hidden in

-her heart.

-

-The next day dragged slowly by, Olive feeling more and more wretched and

-anxious each moment, and longing for Ezra’s return. Napoleon Pompey did

-nothing but speculate about the horse-thief and the probabilities of his

-capture. He regaled Olive with accounts of the numbers of men out on the

-hunt, the desperate character of their courage, and the murderous

-accuracy of their aim with revolvers. Sick at heart she had to listen to

-him and try and collect her terrified senses in order to make occasional

-comments and replies. Again she hid herself away from her neighbours and

-spent most of the day in a corn-stack, not two hundred yards from the

-house, whence she could see plainly without being seen. Uncle David came

-and stayed so long waiting for her, that she nearly smothered in the

-corn-stack before he went away, and she was able to come out and catch a

-breath of fresh air. Then Aunt Ruby came and peered all about

-everywhere, even down into the cellar, and stayed a good while there

-examining Olive’s milkpans, until Olive bethought herself of the device

-of sending off Diana to hasten Aunt Ruby’s exit from the cellar. This

-device succeeded: Aunt Ruby was so dismayed at seeing that redoubtable

-puppy lolloping up to her that she incontinently fled, and Olive emerged

-once more from the suffocation of the corn-stack.

-

-Mary Winkle came twice, fortunately without Willette, for that astute

-young person would instantly have discovered Olive, owing to the

-pertinacious company of Diana. A dog does not hang around a corn-stack

-the live-long day unless there is something interesting inside it

-claiming attention. Olive began to feel like a hunted criminal herself.

-

-Napoleon Pompey had been sent away in the morning to look for some young

-cattle that had not been seen since the fire, and having to go on foot

-he did not come back till the afternoon. He burst in upon her with these

-appalling words:

-

-“Dey’s done cotch him!”

-

-“Who told you?” asked Olive, not pretending any miscomprehension of what

-was only too plain to her mind.

-

-“Ole nigger seed ’em. Dey bringin’ him back. Ole man Cotterell he de

-hoss-thief, him ridin’ Queen Katharine when dey cotch him. Nigger tole

-me he seed ’em yonder.”

-

-“Have they shot him?” asked Olive with white lips.

-

-“No, dey’s gwine ter jury-try him, den dey hang him ’cause he done stole

-hoss and he kill ole Mill’s Jake.” Napoleon Pompey licked his lips and

-grinned. Olive turned from him in horror.

-

-“Where have they taken him to?”

-

-“Dunno. Nigger he ’lowed dey gwine ter Jacksonville.”

-

-Olive made up her mind and took her resolution. She questioned Napoleon

-Pompey very carefully, found exactly what negro it was from whom he had

-obtained his information concerning the capture of Cotterell. He worked

-with the Halls who lived over the other side of Cotton Wood Creek, and

-she made minute inquiries as to how to reach their house. Then she told

-the boy to give Rebel a double feed of corn and to bring in the new

-lariat-rope and mallet and pin. Rebel had been removed back to his own

-stable by Brother Wright’s desire, as he had no belief now in Pluto as a

-watch-dog. Napoleon Pompey was open-mouthed with wonder at Olive’s

-directions about the horse, and asked “whar she gwine?” She told him to

-do as she bid him and to say nothing to anybody about it, whereat he was

-still more open-mouthed. Olive got a large shawl and rolled it up into a

-tight bundle, and then dressed herself in a strong serviceable stuff

-dress and went to supper with Napoleon Pompey, to whom she never spoke a

-single word. When supper was over she sent him down to his mother to ask

-her to bake a pumpkin-pie for her. Napoleon Pompey said he would go

-“fust thing in de mornin’,” and she told him sternly to go at once and

-do as he was bid. When Napoleon Pompey came back Olive was gone, and so

-was Rebel, with lariat-rope picket-pin and mallet, and so was her

-tightly rolled shawl.

-

-Perfection City had further cause for amazement and hurried meeting in

-Assembly.

-

-Olive, meanwhile, was riding fast towards Cotton Wood Creek which she

-reached and crossed by the last shreds of daylight. She stumbled up out

-of the bottom-lands on to the high prairie, then perceiving by the sound

-of Rebel’s hoofs that at last she had struck grass again, for the fire

-had not crossed the Creek, she determined to camp. It was a black night,

-but she knew how to drive her picket and unsaddle her horse blindfold.

-Taking her saddle and shawl out of the circle of Rebel’s night-range,

-she wrapped herself up to wait until daylight should permit her again to

-go forward. She was not in the least frightened, although the prairie

-wolves were yelping in the distance. The nervous terrors that had beset

-her when sitting in her own comfortable little kitchen with her dog at

-her feet, and a stout lad in the room overhead, were quite gone. Yet

-there was enough to frighten a more valiant person than our poor little

-Olive, with her half-defined thoughts and her generous impulses.

-

-What was it she proposed to herself in this expedition? First of all to

-overtake Cotterell and his captors, and then to do what the wit of woman

-could devise to save him from their fury. In her ignorance of prairie

-feelings and ideas she attached no importance to the fact that he would

-have been captured riding the well-known brown mare belonging to

-Perfection City. He would of course explain that she had lent him the

-animal, and that question would at once drop out of the debate. Then the

-terrible one of the shooting of Jake Mills would have to be settled.

-That was what she feared for Cotterell, and that was where her testimony

-and pleading might avail. She knew from his own lips how the fatal

-affray had occurred, and she would be able in some measure, perhaps, to

-counteract the evidence of that wicked lying negro who out of revenge

-was going to swear away Cotterell’s life. Olive hated to do it, but she

-knew she could say things to any western jury that would make it

-difficult for them to admit negro evidence. For once in a way the mighty

-race-prejudice could be relied upon to work for justice, and poor Olive,

-fanatical friend of the negro, had to confess she was glad to have so

-strong a lever to her hand in this dreadful emergency.

-

-Meanwhile the never-ending night wore on. How long, how unutterably long

-are the hours of darkness to them who wait sleeplessly for the dawn! The

-twinkling stars passed over her head, and Olive tried to fix her eyes

-steadily on one or two of them in order to convince herself that they

-really did move after all. Thus staring at the stars, her eyes became

-weary, and the lids dropped slowly over them, and she fell into a

-troubled sleep, haunted with fearsome visions.

-

-She must have slept some little time, for when she awoke the stars had

-certainly changed places and were moreover becoming pale in the first

-grey streaks of morning. Olive awoke shivering with cold and drenched

-with the heavy prairie dew. Her teeth chattered, so she could hear them

-like a piece of broken machinery moving inside her head, while her

-fingers were almost numb. As soon as she could make out Rebel in the

-approaching dawn, she saddled him, and, woman-like, did not forget the

-lariat-rope, picket-pin and mallet, even in the midst of her terrible

-anxiety. She thought of Cotterell in the hands of his foes, and the

-recollection came back to her, like a blow that almost stunned her, that

-this would be the last time he would ever see the sun rise unless she

-hurried to his rescue. The thought spurred her to renewed activity, the

-horror of it drove the chilled blood with a rush to her heart. She

-caught her breath, and then felt hot. She did not shiver any more, and

-her chattering teeth were set in a desperate resolve. She clambered up

-on the horse’s back and set off at a gallop towards that house where she

-would get positive news which would help her to find the lynching-party

-quickly. Ah! merciful God! The lynching-party! She urged Rebel into a

-harder gallop, for the sun was just beginning to appear over the

-horizon, and she could see where she was going. She reached the cabin

-where the Halls lived in due course. They didn’t know her, but they

-invited her to breakfast with prairie courtesy. She saw the negro man

-who had told the news to Napoleon Pompey.

-

-“Yes, he seed ’em totin’ ole man Cotterell back.” There was never any

-doubt in Olive’s mind as to the fact that they had caught him, what she

-wanted to know was the destination of the party. “He ’lowed dey was

-gwine ter Jacksonville, ’cause down yonder was whar dey hang de las’

-man; den dey jury-try him, an’ Jacksonville mighty handy anyhow, dar

-heaps o’ trees dar.”

-

-Olive could not repress a shudder of horror which the negro saw, and so

-did the Halls. She would not stop a moment to eat a bit of breakfast,

-notwithstanding their urgent entreaties, but got directions as to the

-shortest road to Jacksonville and hastened away on her errand of mercy.

-

-Mrs. Hall looking after her rapidly vanishing figure, and remembering

-the look of misery on her face, “reckoned ’twas one o’ them po’ silly

-gals as is cotched by a yaller ’stache. She was powerful sorry for her

-anyhow, she ’peared mos’ broke down an’ sick. She ’lowed if the boys hed

-hung ole man Cotterell when Glover’s gal shot herself ’cause he wouldn’t

-marry her, ’twould hev been a sight better anyhow.” Her husband was of

-opinion that “gals was fules gapin’ a’ter strangers an’ furrin fellers,

-not bein’ content along o’ their nat’ral men-folks as b’longed to ’em,

-app’inted by the hand o’ Providence.”

-

-Olive rode through the hot September day feeling very faint and tired,

-but never for a moment faltering in her determination; and well on in

-the afternoon she came to Jacksonville, a place with two houses standing

-and the stakes for three more stuck into the ground to signify

-possession. There was only one woman in the place along with a flock of

-children. No sign of men anywhere. The woman did not know much about the

-movements of the “boys.” “They hadn’t passed that way at all, but she

-hearn tell they had been out catching a horse-thief and murderer, and

-they had caught him too, a Britisher, she was told, and it was a shame

-those foreigners should be allowed to come to America to steal honest

-folks horses, and true born Americans too, as always worked for every

-cent before they spent it. They had taken him to Union Mills to try him

-and she hoped—well she didn’t want to say anything unbecoming to a

-professing Christian, but wouldn’t Olive come in and eat a bit and rest

-before going further, she didn’t look fit for such hard riding.” Olive,

-feeling sick with disappointment, accepted a morsel of food, and asking

-her way to Union Mills started off. She had come thirty-eight miles

-already, and if she had only known where to go she would have been there

-hours ago. It was nearly twenty miles to Union Mills, she could not hope

-to reach it that night, but she started nevertheless although the sun

-was getting low in the west. The horrid thought kept pressing against

-her heart: was she already too late? But no, she would force it out of

-her mind, and come what might she would never stop until she had done

-her utmost to save him. She therefore pressed forward, but Rebel showed

-signs of giving out. He lay down with her suddenly and tried to roll.

-This would never do. All depended on her horse, if he failed her then

-Cotterell’s last chance of life was gone. She rode slowly, now following

-a prairie track and now riding along side it, because Rebel stumbled in

-the ruts. It got dark, she did not know where she was, but followed the

-track for some time mechanically. A light suddenly showed up on her

-left. Rebel pricked up his ears and turned towards it. After some

-difficulty she reached the door. Could they harbour her for the night?

-She was caught out and could go no further.

-

-“Land o’ Goshen! ’course they could, an’ whar in sin was she gwine that

-time o’ night ’thout nobody, not even a dawg?” Olive said it was a case

-of life and death and she must do it. They were deeply sorry, they fed

-her with corn-bread and bacon, they fed her horse, and were kindness

-itself. The cabin had only one room with a bed in one corner for the man

-and his wife. Olive was desperately tired. The wife said “she’d be

-doggauned sick ’less she went to bed.” So Olive lay down on the bed, and

-the settler’s wife lay down beside her, and the man slept on the floor

-with his head on a pile of corn-shucks. Long before daylight he went out

-and fed her horse. The wife cooked a good breakfast and pressed Olive

-again and again “to scrouge down suthin’ more,” and sent her off with

-many good wishes as to her finding her husband better, who, she was

-sure, ’ud be tickled to death at seeing her.

-

-

-

-

-                             CHAPTER XVIII.

-                               LYNCH-LAW.

-

-

-Union Mills was full of people, mostly men, and Phillipps’ Store, which

-was the only shop in the place, as well as being the Post-Office, was

-crowded to suffocation. Those who couldn’t get inside stood around the

-door talking loudly as they chewed their tobacco. Inside the talking and

-tobacco-chewing were carried on likewise. A ring of men were sitting on

-barrels and nail-kegs and coils of rope and extemporized chairs of all

-kinds. Of these, twelve arranged together at one side formed the jury,

-and the rest were witnesses and spectators. In their midst stood

-Cotterell. He was not bound or specially guarded in any way, but he was

-unarmed, while pistols hung at the belts of all the other men there.

-Cotterell held his head erect, his eyes looked clear, and his lips were

-firm. A careful observer might have noticed that his nostrils sometimes

-twitched, but his hands were perfectly steady. Yet he was on trial for

-his life, without appeal and without a friend in “the court.” Several of

-the men had asked him questions which he had answered, shortly and

-sharply perhaps, but with a perfectly steady voice.

-

-“I dunno what we’re gwine on talkin’ for,” said a jury man with a twang

-that bespoke Arkansas. “Hain’t it clar this hyar feller, what was wanted

-for the shootin’ o’ Ole Mills’ boy, he’s the same cuss as stole the mare

-from them damned fools up to ’Fection City? He’s got ter be hanged,

-anyhow. I want ter go home. I hain’t a-gwine to stick hyar all day, by

-Gosh!”

-

-“I did not steal the mare,” said Cotterell, his nostrils dilating.

-

-“You hear that,” said the foreman, who sat on a sugar-barrel.

-

-“You was ridin’ her when we come up t’yer,” said one who had been out on

-the hunt.

-

-“I was.”

-

-“How’d yer git her then ’cept by stealin’?”

-

-“She was lent to me by one of the members of the Community,” said

-Cotterell.

-

-“They’s damn fools, I know, but I reckon they hain’t such all-fired damn

-fools as ter give their best hoss ter you,” said the man from Arkansas.

-

-Cotterell’s lips curled with contempt, but he did not speak.

-

-“Look hyar, fellow jury-men,” said one of them who prided himself on the

-accuracy of his language on all occasions. “I’d axe leave ter make a few

-remarks. We were informed by the gentlemen what caught the prisoner that

-they were notified o’ the stealing by one o’ them Perfection City

-fellers. If the horse was lent how is it the owner didn’t know about the

-lending?”

-

-“Yes,” said one of the gentlemen referred to, “ole man Wright, he come

-and tol’ me ’bout the stealin’ o’ the hoss, an’ he ’lowed, on’y it was

-agin his principles, he’d like ter hev been out with the boys. It don’t

-’pear ter my min’ as there was much len’ing ’bout it.”

-

-“This trial, gen’lemen, is all fair and square an’ ’cordin’ to law.

-We’ll settle this p’int ’fore we go further,” said the foreman. “You say

-the horse was lent to you?”

-

-“I do say so emphatically,” replied the prisoner.

-

-“Wal, we’ve got one o’ them ’Fection City fellers to say the hoss was

-stolen, he’ll swear to that, an’ I reckon by their idees he was

-part-owner of it anyhow. Now, that’s the witness agin yer. Who have you

-got to swear yer was lent the horse fair and square?”

-

-“I have had no chance of getting any witness, as you very well know,”

-replied Cotterell.

-

-“Wal, I reckon yo’ hev bin kep’ purty toler’ble close. Anyhow, it shan’t

-be said as we hain’t gi’en yer a good chance. Now, which might be yer

-witness to the len’ing? There hain’t such a damn sight o’ folks up to

-’Fection City as ’ud make yer forget so ready as all that.”

-

-Cotterell hesitated.

-

-“Hain’t yo’ got no tongue? Who lent yer the hoss, I say?” repeated the

-foreman.

-

-“Mrs. Weston,” said Cotterell at last.

-

-“That’s a lie, anyhow,” burst out one of the bystanders.

-

-“It is not a lie, it is the truth,” said Cotterell hotly.

-

-“Wal, now, see hyar. I was over to ole man Weston’s, an’ I seed Mis’

-Weston myself, an’ she tole me she hadn’t sot eyes on yer. Now then?”

-

-It was Owen who spoke, he had been out, as we know, on the first

-hunting-party and was now present as a spectator. He would have been on

-the jury, only it was considered more delicate for him to stand aside,

-considering that he had been out to catch Cotterell, and prairie men are

-punctilious in the observance of all those forms of etiquette with which

-they are familiar. Although not on the jury, Owen was quite free to

-intervene in the trial, he was one of the foremost settlers on the

-prairie. Cotterell looked hard at him as he spoke.

-

-“Did she tell you that herself?” he asked, drawing his eyebrows tightly

-together.

-

-“Yes, she tole me herself,” replied Owen.

-

-“Then I have nothing further to say,” said Cotterell, setting his teeth

-grimly under his moustache. He realised very clearly what he was doing,

-he was throwing away his last chance of life; but his resolution never

-wavered for a moment. The thought flashed through his mind that most

-people would think him a fool to act as he did, risk the certainty of

-death for the sake of a fantastic loyalty to a woman who could never be

-to him anything but the distant friend another man’s wife should be.

-Then came the recollection that no one, not even she for whom he was

-sacrificing his life, would ever know what he had done. There was

-something fantastic surely in all this. Their whole acquaintance had

-been fantastic in a sense: Mr. Perseus was a fancy, but how dangerously

-sweet it had been while it lasted. And now it was over, he would never

-hear the sound of her voice again nor feel the touch of her little hand.

-Poor child! He could well imagine, with that jealous husband of hers,

-how she might have been driven to save herself from his anger by

-declaring she had never seen him. Jealousy was a monster surely, if

-there ever was a monster on this earth. Cotterell almost smiled to

-himself as he thought how once again he would act the part of Perseus to

-the unhappy one and save her by his silence from the monster’s fangs.

-Thoughts such as these swept through his mind as he stood facing the

-jury, while they were somewhat nonplussed as to their future proceedings

-owing to his determination not to say anything further. It appeared

-almost indecent to hang a man who would not argue out the points with

-them: they had never met such a one before.

-

-“There’s a gal hyar a-wantin’ ter come in,” said one of the men who was

-standing just outside the door.

-

-“Keep her hout,” said one of the jury. “We hain’t agoin’ ter hev any

-women a screech-owlin’ hyar. It’s one o’ his gals as he’s lef’ to die

-maybe of a broken heart ’thout the satisfaction o’ bein’ a widder.”

-

-“Let me pass, please,” said an imperious little voice that thrilled

-Cotterell to the heart. “I am one of the witnesses in this trial. I have

-important evidence to give.”

-

-The men fell back and left the passage free. Western men, even armed

-ones, can’t do anything against a woman.

-

-Olive came into the crowded room, Olive dirty, dishevelled,

-travel-stained, her face begrimed with prairie dust, her hair unkempt,

-her dress crumpled and with many a rent in it. Cotterell hardly knew

-her.

-

-“Who mought yer be, miss?” inquired one of the jury.

-

-“I am Mrs. Weston.”

-

-“Whar’s yer husband? Yer hadn’t oughter be hyar a follerin’ this feller

-roun’ the prairie. Tain’t——”

-

-“Shut yer mouth or I’ll send a bullet down yer gullet,” roared the

-foreman, putting his hand to his revolver. “Take a cheer,” he added,

-gallantly offering Olive the sugar-barrel upon which he had been sitting

-in his official capacity.

-

-“No, thank you,” said Olive. “I will stand.” She took her place beside

-Cotterell, but without looking at him or addressing a single word to

-him.

-

-“What are you trying this man for?” she asked, facing the jury

-dauntlessly.

-

-“Wal, mos’ly fur stealin’ yer hoss,” said one of them.

-

-“He didn’t steal it. I myself lent him the horse. It belongs to us,” was

-the reply.

-

-“By Gosh!” exclaimed Owen, “you tole me yerself yer hadn’t sot n’ary an

-eye on him.”

-

-“So I hadn’t when you were there, he did not come until the next day.”

-

-The jury whistled collectively and incredulously.

-

-“Silence!” said the foreman.

-

-“I can now explain,” said Cotterell. “I didn’t go to Mrs. Weston’s house

-until two days after—after Mills’ death——”

-

-“A’ter yer killed him,” corrected Owen.

-

-“And you were there the next day,” concluded Cotterell, not taking any

-notice of the interruption.

-

-“Yes, that is it. Mr. Cotterell came the next evening but one after the

-prairie fire, and I gave him the mare to go away on, because his colt

-broke loose from the bars in the dark.” Olive spoke quite quietly, with

-no trace of excitement beyond a knitting of her pretty eyebrows.

-

-“Wal, I reckon we hain’t got nuthin’ more to do then,” said one of the

-jury-men, getting up from his nail-keg and strapping up his holster.

-

-“There’s the murder too,” objected one, “not as I put it fust noways,

-on’y we might go inter it now, seein’ there hain’t nuthin’ ter be got

-outer the hoss-stealin’ business.”

-

-“Yer hain’t got evidence for the murder case too, has yer?” sneered the

-man who had been so peremptorily silenced by the foreman on his first

-objection to Olive’s presence.

-

-“Only this. You are not non-resistants, are you?”

-

-“We hain’t such blasted fools,” observed the Arkansas man genially.

-

-“Well, then, when this poor Jake Mills in his drunken fury came up and

-fired at Mr. Cotterell, was he or was he not to fire in self-defence,

-according to your ideas and practice?”

-

-“Of course he was,” said the jury in unison.

-

-“Then that is what he did. Jake Mills fired first.”

-

-“Two shots,” said Cotterell in a low voice, but every man in the room

-heard him distinctly.

-

-“That coloured man we saw yesterday swore that Cotterell lay in wait for

-Mills, and fired from under cover as he came up to the house,” said a

-man from Illinois who had not spoken hitherto.

-

-“Wal now,” said the Arkansas man, “I didn’t say nuthin’ ’bout that

-yesterday. Long as it was hoss-stealin’ we knowed whar we was an’ what

-we hed ter do, ’cause we hed the hoss. But this hyar shootin’ business

-hain’t noways the same. Any gen’leman hyar might hev a difference with

-any other gen’leman, an’ ’s long as it were done fair, I don’t see as

-how anyone hes any business to say they shouldn’t settle it with pistols

-or bowie-knives accordin’ to taste. We are all for freedom in this

-country I reckon, an’ that’s how it hes been done in Arkansas often an’

-satisfact’ry.”

-

-“This ain’t Arkansas, an’ we are determined to put a stop to this

-shootin’ round every day,” said the Illinois man firmly. “It ain’t

-respectable and it stops quiet settlers from coming here to take farms.

-We are going to stop it.”

-

-“Then you should have stopped Jake Mills when he went to Mr. Cotterell’s

-and fired at him first,” said Olive quickly.

-

-“There’s somethin’ in that,” said the foreman, whose native gallantry

-led him to side with a pretty woman. “In a trial we hev to consider all

-the p’ints o’ the case. I consider that as for the horse-stealin’, that

-hes mostly broke down under evidence. We must now go into the other

-charge, which is shootin’ Jake Mills, an’ a damned scoundrel he was

-too.”

-

-The jury laughed pleasantly at this sally from the bench, or to speak

-more accurately from the sugar-barrel. Even Cotterell seemed a trifle

-amused, only Olive did not unknit her eyebrows, nor did the hard lines

-around her mouth in the least relax.

-

-“We are in consider’ble difficulty ’bout this here shootin’ case,”

-continued the foreman when the mirth had subsided, “and if I had knowed

-as that was all we was up for tryin’, I don’t reckon we ’ud all on us

-ha’ been here as is now collected together to maintain the rights an’

-freedom o’ our country.”

-

-The jury murmured applause, upon recognising well-known Fourth of July

-phrases, which have perennial power to stir the American breast.

-

-“Why ain’t we agoin’ on with this blamed trial?” asked an impatient jury

-man. “We hev purty nigh lost a whole day’s work a’ready an’ hain’t

-finished nothin’ yit. When we strung up ole Howard for hoss-stealin’ we

-hed the job done clar up afore noon, an’ we could go home to dinner

-comfor’ble.”

-

-Olive gave a faint inarticulate cry and put her hands up to her ears, or

-was it perchance to her neck? Cotterell turned anxiously towards her as

-if she was going to faint, and he would catch her before she fell. She

-steadied herself in an instant and again faced the jury like a tiny

-lioness, small in body but with unconquerable courage.

-

-“Well, gen’lemen, I’m agreeable to proceed with the evidence,” said the

-foreman graciously.

-

-“I was told we had evidence o’ deliberate murder,” said the Illinois

-juror.

-

-“We most on us hearn what the nigger said,” remarked another carelessly,

-“some on us fooled roun’ with that yesterday an’ lost a fair half day’s

-work.”

-

-“Wal, gen’lemen, you could ha’ had the nigger again here to-day, on’y it

-was not considered necessary, as we was mostly of opinion to fin’ a true

-bill on the horse-stealin’ count. We can send for the nigger. He’s mos’

-likely sneakin’ roun’ here. Them niggers is jes’ like buzzards, they can

-scent out where there’s a hangin’,—ahem, gen’lemen, we’ll proceed,” said

-the foreman, suddenly recollecting himself and Olive’s presence barely

-in time.

-

-“I vote for sending for the coloured man,” said the Illinois juror

-firmly. “We’ll confront him with the prisoner.”

-

-“Nigger be damned!” roared the Arkansas man jumping violently off his

-nail-keg. “Yo’ reckon I’m agoin’ ter sit hyar an’ see a white man hanged

-on nigger evidence. No, sir. I won’t stan’ such a insult to my race as

-that. There be some things a man o’ honour won’t stan’ an’ that’s one o’

-them. Thar hain’t no man spryer to light out an’ catch a hoss-thief nor

-I be, an’ I’ll do my dooty in the hangin’ too, an’ hol’ the rope as

-tight as ony o’ yo’all. But I’ll bust up afore I’ll take nigger evidence

-’gin a white man. I reckon there hain’t none o’ yo’ gen’lemen as is

-pertikler sot on that nigger, be yer?”

-

-Olive’s heart gave a bound of joy as the Arkansas juror poured forth his

-torrent of protest. Alas, poor Olive and her high-flown love of the

-black race! She was bound to confess that her best hope for effecting

-the end she was struggling for, lay in the blind race-prejudice of this

-ignorant Southerner.

-

-“I guess we ought to take all the evidence, white or black, that bears

-on the case,” observed he of Illinois.

-

-“If that thar nigger comes inter this hyar room to conten’ with this

-hyar jury an’ give his evidence, I’ll shoot him, ’fore he gits over that

-door-sill, so I will, by God, an’ no man as knows me ever said I went

-back o’ my word in shootin’.”

-

-The Arkansas juror faced them with his black eyes ablaze and his dark

-visage twitching with suppressed fury. He was quivering under the sting

-of what was to him an intolerable insult, and there was nothing he would

-not do to wipe out that insult.

-

-Olive looked at Cotterell for the first time, and as their eyes met he

-was horrified to see the white, drawn expression on her face. He

-attributed it to the very natural womanly fear that she might be

-involved in a promiscuous shooting affray in that crowded room.

-

-“Don’t be alarmed, they will not bring the negro in here,” he said

-soothingly.

-

-“I am not afraid for myself,” she answered, simply and truthfully.

-

-“Wal, gen’lemen,” said the foreman pleasantly. “I reckon we hev finished

-for this spell anyhow. I consider the prisoner hes hed as fair a trial

-as ony man could wish, and I hev on’y ter thank yer all for yer help

-upon this occasion in maintain’ the laws and freedom of our beloved

-country, as belongs to the duty of free-born citizens.”

-

-“Hurrah!” said the jury, with another relapse into Fourth of Julyism.

-

-“We’ve purty nigh lost two whole days’ work ’long o’ this hyar foolin’,”

-observed the Arkansas man angrily. “Them coons up to ’Fection City is

-nat’ral born fools anyhow. Fust they blaze roun’ an’ set us on ter run

-down a hoss-thief fur ’em. Soon as we’ve done cotch him, they sen’ roun’

-a woman to say the hoss was lent. If the blamed critters come to me

-again, reckon I’ll stick to my plough-handles. I’ll not light out for

-them, you bet.” And he immediately walked out of the store followed by

-the entire jury and the foreman.

-

-When the Court broke up, Olive and Cotterell were left alone in the

-store along with Phillipps, the storekeeper. The latter handed Cotterell

-his revolver, which the jury had considerately left for him.

-

-“I suppose I’m a free man,” said Cotterell, with more sign of emotion in

-his manner than he had yet shown.

-

-“Thanks to Mrs. Weston you are free,” said Phillipps.

-

-He turned to Olive, who seemed in a daze, and said, “Shall we go now?”

-

-“Yes,” she answered, and they left the store together.

-

-The crowd in the road before the door was already fast dispersing. The

-exciting climax for which they had waited was not to come off, so there

-remained no further inducement to stay. Some straggled into the smithy,

-some went towards the mills, but most of the men were getting their

-horses, putting on saddles, and settling halters and reins. The Arkansas

-man had a waggon and was hitching his horses to it, as Olive, riding on

-Rebel, and Cotterell on Queen Katharine, passed by.

-

-“Be yo’ gwine with him?” asked the Arkansas man, pointing to Olive.

-

-“Yes,” said Olive shortly.

-

-“Wish we’d hanged the damned cuss ’fore she come in,” said the Arkansas

-man regretfully to his companion, who had also been present at the

-trial. “She’s gwine ter ’lope with him, an’ ole man Weston he on’y jes’

-married her las’ spring.”

-

-“Reckon she don’t like ’Fection City idees. Gals mos’ allers likes a

-fightin’ man best, an’ this hyar one is reg’lar downright handsome too.”

-

-“If we’d on’y hed a-hanged him she couldn’t hev run off with the coon,”

-repeated the Arkansas man with conviction, shaking his head sorrowfully

-as he watched the two disappearing among the trees on the South Fork.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XIX.

-                             OLIVE MISSING.

-

-

-There was dire dismay at Perfection City when the flight of Olive became

-known. Napoleon Pompey informed Madame of it the same evening, but, for

-reasons best known to herself, she did not announce the fact until the

-next morning, when the brethren and sisters flocked to her house to talk

-over this surprising event in all its bearings. The members accounted

-for it in different ways and explained it according to their

-preconceived notions. Madame at once said that she had evidently left

-her husband whom she had never really loved at all.

-

-“I think we must all have noticed how utterly unsuited she was to him

-and how uncongenial. She was no fit companion for a man of Ezra’s mind,”

-said Madame.

-

-“Wal, now,” observed Uncle David, “I think such a purty little gal with

-sweet little kitten-ways was a most congenial companion.”

-

-“Uncle, you don’t understand men. Men with minds and high aspirations

-want a companion capable of sharing their ideas and aims, they don’t

-want a kitten or a plaything.”

-

-“My ’pinion is most men is satisfied with kittens, if they’re as soft

-an’ coaxin’ in their ways as little Ollie is,” replied Uncle David.

-

-“I guess she couldn’t stand the bondage of marriage,” said Mary Winkle.

-“When she first came she was all for being absorbed in her husband, she

-would be Mrs. Weston forsooth, she wanted to sink her individuality. She

-has naturally found out her mistake. I respect her and sympathize with

-her in her efforts to shake off the trammels of custom and make a dash

-for freedom. I dare say we shall soon have her coming back again, having

-resumed her own name, and perhaps ready to lecture on the absurdity of

-women giving up their names on marriage, as if they ceased to exist.

-Marriage under these circumstances becomes a sort of death to a woman.

-It is extinction.”

-

-“’Tain’t no such thing, Sister Mary,” said Uncle David. “It is an

-honourable distinction our forefathers have used, findin’ the same handy

-and convenient. I don’t believe little Ollie has gone a-lecterin’, she

-ain’t that sort o’ gal. I guess she’s jes’ tired an’ lonesome feelin’,

-an’ thought she’d ride out an’ meet Ezry comin’ home.”

-

-“She hasn’t done that, Uncle, for I’ve seen a man from over Jacksonville

-way, and he told me she had been seen the other side of Big Cotton Wood

-Creek, and that she was asking for news of Cotterell,” said Brother

-Wright.

-

-“Then she has gone to him,” said Madame with decision.

-

-“She hain’t neither,” contradicted Uncle David, “you hain’t got no

-business to tell wicked stories like that.”

-

-“She has been carrying on a secret acquaintance with him all the summer.

-I know that, for I surprised them together at the spring some weeks

-ago.”

-

-“She didn’t do nothin’ that was dishonest an’ secret,” said Uncle David

-anxiously. “I ain’t agoin’ ter believe anything ’gin little Ollie. She’s

-a good little gal.”

-

-He wiped his forehead nervously with his large bony hand, and then took

-out his red handkerchief and passed it several times across his face.

-

-“The power of love is strong,” said Madame, looking at him with

-compassion.

-

-“Yes, yes,” he replied quickly, “jes’ what I say, an’ she did love her

-husban’, an’ hain’t done nothin’ wrong.”

-

-“She didn’t love him,” burst out Madame with excitement. “It often

-filled me with anger to see how she took all his love and made no

-return. Everyone saw it.”

-

-“I guess the rest of us didn’t pay so much attention to them and their

-affairs. We had our own,” said Mary Winkle, at which Madame winced.

-

-“You don’t know what her feelin’s was. She loved Ezry, else she wouldn’t

-ha’ married him an’ followed him way out here on this lonesome prairie.

-I ain’t never goin’ to believe wrong o’ little Ollie.” Uncle David’s big

-chest heaved with a sob that would burst out.

-

-Madame placed her hand gently upon his. “The falling of one’s idol has

-always been a grievous sorrow, and has bruised many a loving heart.”

-

-“She wasn’t fit to live here on the prairie,” said Aunt Ruby, wiping her

-spectacles with her big checked handkerchief. “She was too young an’

-purty an’ frolicksome to be here anyhow. Ezry hed ought ter hev kep’ her

-in the East, where she was raised, an’ where she could go to parties,

-an’ put on purty clo’s, an’ dance, an’ so forth. It’s nat’ral for them

-young gals to dance an’ love fin’ry, jes’ as it’s nat’ral for lambs to

-skip an’ play in the sunshine. They is born so, an’ I guess the Lord put

-the right idees into their min’s at the beginnin’. I don’ wan’ ter skip,

-an’ Sister Mary she don’t wan’ ter neither, we hev got ole an’ stiff by

-now; but that chile she did wan’ ter, on’y mos’ likely she didn’t know

-it. Sweet purty little thing, too, she was, it done my eyes good ter

-look at her. She wasn’t fit for ’Fection City, we hain’t got nothin’ for

-young folks as don’t care mos’ly to argy ’bout principles, they loves

-ter be gay. Why, it wasn’t further back nor day ’fore yesterday she come

-ter my house ’long with that pup o’ hern. My stars, didn’t she laugh

-when it took ter scootin’ roun’ ’mong my hens! It done me a heap o’ good

-ter hear her, it was like a silver bell, an’ she hedn’t nothin’ for to

-amuse her. I think it was downright sinful o’ Brother Ezry to take such

-a sweet purty little thing ’way from her proper home.”

-

-Aunt Ruby ended her long speech with the twin-sob to the one that had

-escaped from Uncle David.

-

-“Sister, you’re a downright good woman,” said he gratefully. The two old

-people nodded at each other in complete harmony of affection and

-affliction.

-

-A long day passed over Perfection City, a day without any positive news

-or confirmation of previous rumours. The brethren were full of their

-various theories in regard to Olive’s disappearance, which they found

-necessary to discuss and re-discuss over and over again. All work was at

-a stand-still, for the members congregated at Madame’s house both early

-and late, as they considered she would be the first to get any news from

-the outside world. Without a horse they were practically cut off from

-all communication with the outside, and were entirely dependent on the

-thoughtfulness of such neighbours as might come to bring them news. It

-was in the afternoon of the day of the abortive trial at Union Mills

-that the first authentic tidings reached them. They were talking the

-matter over together for the fiftieth time when Brother Green was seen

-coming very hurriedly from his forge along with a stranger, who waited

-outside the door with an amount of diffidence unusual on the prairie.

-Brother Green’s grimy face wore a look of alarm.

-

-“We’ve got news of them both,” he exclaimed, bursting into the room

-regardless of ceremony, he who was generally the most heedful of the

-little forms of politeness. “She has gone after him, and they’ve gone

-away, and he stole her and said we lent her to him,” said Brother Green

-distractedly.

-

-“Brother, I don’t understand,” said Madame. “Who lent what? And where

-has she gone?”

-

-“I mean Sister Olive—oh! I’m so sorry—poor Brother Ezra!—Sister Olive

-has gone off with Cotterell, and it was he who stole Queen Katharine,

-only it was proved at the trial that she lent her to him.”

-

-Brother Green was too distressed to be a good witness.

-

-“Who told you?” asked Madame.

-

-“Whoever did told a lie,” said Uncle David.

-

-“He’s outside. He was at the trial and has come to tell us about it.”

-

-“Then bring him in,” said Madame.

-

-The stranger entered, looking somewhat abashed. He was truly sorry to be

-the bearer of such bad tidings.

-

-“Young man, before you begin this wicked tale, I charge you think of God

-and tell the truth.” Uncle David stood before him like an avenging

-spirit.

-

-“Sir, excuse him,” said Madame in her sweet voice. “The old man is

-painfully distracted by grief, he does not know what he is saying. You

-have come to bring us definite news, have you not?”

-

-“I’m thund’rin’ sorry, so I am, an’ if we’d ha’ knowed how it would ha’

-ended, the boys ’ud ha’ made sure by bangin’ him fust an’ havin’ the

-trial a’terwards.”

-

-“Are you speaking about Mr. Cotterell? We have not had any news for

-days, so perhaps you will explain it all clearly,” said Madame.

-

-“Yes, wal, when ole man Wright come an’ tole as how yer hoss was stole,

-the boys they ’lowed as you was all such damn—such all-fired pertikler

-folks as didn’t do yer own shootin’, they ’lowed they oughter kinder be

-neighbourly an’ do it for yer. So we sot out to run down the cuss. We

-got word from a teamster from beyond the Creek, he seed a man on a mare

-jes’ like yourn agoin’ toward the border. So we picked up the trail

-right away. He warn’t worth a red cent to hide a trail. He jes’ follered

-straight ahead ’long the road, axin’ his way an’ follerin’ plumb on the

-d’rections. Any fool could ha’ run down such a coon as him. He war

-ridin’ yer brown mare when they come up, an’ he didn’t show fight, jes’

-said he’d stan’ trial, an’ he ’lowed it ’ud be fair. The boys

-calkerlated it wouldn’t be a fair trial ’less they toted him roun’ to

-Union Mills, which are his own post-office, an’ if that ain’t treatin’ a

-man fair nothin’ is. An’ they got a new set o’ men to stan’ jury as what

-cotch him, ’cause mos’ on ’em was that mad for leavin’ the corn-shuckin’

-to run down such a nat’ral born fool, they’d ha’ mos’ likely strung him

-slap up. It war all done fair, we kep’ him down to Phillipps’ store over

-night, an’ I tuk a spell o’ stan’in’ guard. We didn’t sen’ for none o’

-yo’uns, ’cause we knowed yer be all sot agin hangin’, an’ yer can’t have

-a man on a jury who’s sot agin hangin’ when that’s all yer want ter git

-done, can yer? So we was a-tryin’ of him fair, with ole man Strong for

-foreman ’cause he knowed all the forms, as he was out to the hangin’ of

-Howard an’ that thief over to Jacksonville an’ mos’ on ’em. He was

-pertikler to do it all straight ’cordin’ to law, an’ we was gittin’

-’long slick, when Mis’ Weston come an’ bust it all up. She said she lent

-him the hoss, an’ it war hern.”

-

-The narrator stopped to observe the effect of this announcement. He felt

-repaid.

-

-“I don’t believe it,” sobbed Uncle David.

-

-“I hearn her say it,” said the man. His complete enjoyment of the effect

-was marred by the tears of that poor old man.

-

-“We had to let him off, o’ course, for the stealin’, an’ we couldn’t

-hang him for the shootin’ o’ Jake Mills, ’cause some o’ the boys said

-they’d never hang on nigger evidence, an’ we hadn’t none other. Anyhow,

-that nigger he drowned hisself in lies right away, an’ we didn’t lay

-much on what he done tole us, you bet. But we was powerful sorry

-a’terwards when we seen what we’d done. She’s gone off with him plumb.”

-

-“No, no, not that,” said Uncle David, “tain’t so, you didn’t

-un’erstan’.”

-

-“We axed her war she a-gwine with him, an’ she said, ‘yes,’ I hearn her

-say so.”

-

-“She was on’y goin’ home,” said Uncle David tremulously.

-

-“She had not come home half an hour ago,” observed Madame.

-

-“They rode ’long to the South Fork, an’ that don’t lie on her road home

-from Union Mills, do it? I stayed behin’ at the Store, the boys was

-talkin’ if they hadn’t bes’ go right a’ter him an’ shoot him anyhow, but

-we ’lowed he’d ha’ showed fight then, an’ maybe she’d ha’ been killed in

-the shootin’. Yer can’t never say who’ll be hit when everybody’s firin’

-like blazes. I didn’t quit the Mills for a spell, an’ mos’ the boys was

-’ready gone home, an’ they allowed I oughter tell yer we done our best

-for yer.”

-

-They thanked him, and he went his way.

-

-“Somebody has got to tell Brother Ezra, he will be coming home

-to-night,” said the blacksmith, wiping his sleeve across his forehead.

-“Poor Ezra! What a home-coming!”

-

-Brother Green remained silent for a long time, then he spoke again in a

-soft low voice, almost as if he was communing with himself.

-

-“When I laid my young wife in her grave with her babe on her breast,

-fifteen years ago last Midsummer, I thought I had known the greatest

-sorrow possible to the human heart. But my loss was not so great as

-Brother Ezra’s, his cup is filled to the brim, and oh, how bitter! How

-great a power of suffering lies in the human heart!”

-

-“It is through suffering that the heart is purified,” said Madame to him

-in reply.

-

-“Aye, so they say: but some sorts of sorrow may very well embitter.

-People talk of the purifying by sorrow. It seems to me that happiness

-can purify too. We are all sure to get our share of the sorrow in this

-world, it is the happiness that so seldom comes to a man. Brother Ezra

-was happy, is happy, poor man, since he does not yet know of the wreck

-of his home. It was a delight to see him so happy. And she, poor young

-thing, my heart aches for her! She was in my forge the other day, said

-she was lonesome and came to talk. Poor child! We are all to blame. Why

-did we leave her alone? Why didn’t I think of going to see her, instead

-of merely remembering how bright she was in the forge. We should have

-looked after her. Madame, why didn’t you do so? You are the chief.”

-Brother Green’s voice had a stern ring in it, that immensely surprised

-Madame in her self-contained calm.

-

-“I!” she exclaimed hastily. “I had absolutely no control over her, and

-no influence. She was one of the most determined young women I ever

-knew, and the least liable to yield to the judgment of others.”

-

-“No, I don’t think that was her character,” said Brother Green.

-

-“You are taken by the pretty face, like Brother Ezra, and are utterly

-ignorant of the mind within. Men are always like that in regard to a

-pretty woman,” said Madame scornfully.

-

-“Beauty is a great power, no doubt,” admitted Brother Green, “but people

-may err just as widely by judging everything from the prejudiced point

-of view as by yielding too far to favourable impressions.”

-

-“Brother Green,” said Uncle David earnestly, “I’m right glad you’re like

-me, you won’t believe nothin’ ’gainst little Ollie, will you, no more

-than I will?”

-

-“I will hope for the best and that there may be some reasonable

-explanation of her disappearance,” said Brother Green, looking

-compassionately at the piteous old face that scanned his so eagerly for

-some scrap of comfort.

-

-“I don’t see what explanation there can be but the one we have already

-received,” said Madame icily.

-

-“Who will break this sorrowful news to Ezra?” asked Brother Green. “Will

-you do it, Uncle David? You would do it tenderly, as you have faith in

-her still.”

-

-“No, no, I couldn’t bear to see the look o’ death in his eyes, an’ it

-’ud come no matter how I told it, when I came to sayin’ little Ollie was

-gone an’ we didn’t know where.”

-

-“I think perhaps I had best take this painful duty upon myself,”

-suggested Madame.

-

-“Well, after all, maybe you are the best person. But remember to deal

-tenderly with him in his sorrow. You will know what to say to instil

-some hope into his heart,” said Brother Green sadly.

-

-“An’ don’t you tell him she’s gone off with that man Cotterell, for she

-hain’t done no such thing,” said Uncle David anxiously. “You jes’ say we

-don’t know why she went away, an’ kinder hint as you’re expectin’ she’ll

-he home to-morrow or nex’ day. Do you understand?”

-

-Madame told no one what she would say to Ezra, and made no promises as

-to how she would say it.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XX.

-                           MADAME’S SYMPATHY.

-

-

-When Madame saw the white covers of the returning waggons creeping

-across the prairie she set out to meet Ezra in order to deliver her

-message to him. Her manner was as quiet and collected as ever, her white

-smooth brow was perfectly unruffled, and her blue eyes were as gentle in

-expression as her friends had ever known them to be. Was her heart in

-reality as calm as her outward appearance would have led the casual

-observer to conclude? No one ever knew what was passing in Madame’s

-mind. Still she must have known that she was about to stab to the heart

-a man upon whose friendship she had seemed to set great value. Having

-reached the slope over Weddell’s Gully, whence she could see that

-blackened field where she had saved Ezra on the night of the fire, she

-sat down and waited until his waggon came up.

-

-“Ah, Madame!” said he cheerily, as he pulled up. “How glad I am to get

-home again! It has seemed such a long four days to me.”

-

-“And to us also,” answered Madame.

-

-“All well, I hope,” said Ezra reaching down his hand in order to help

-her up to the seat beside himself.

-

-“We have had misfortunes at Perfection City. The brown mare has been

-stolen.”

-

-“What! Queen Katharine gone, and our most valuable animal too! That is

-indeed a loss!”

-

-“Just wait a few minutes,” said she, putting her hand on his to stop him

-from giving the signal to the horses to start on again. “I have some

-things to talk about, Ezra. Do you remember that night, not long ago in

-reality, though it seems an age, when I found you lying here on the edge

-of the fire?”

-

-“Is it likely I could ever forget that or who it was came to my rescue?”

-said Ezra warmly.

-

-“I was thinking as you drove up that perhaps it would have been a kinder

-act to have left you to die in your unconsciousness.”

-

-“What’s the matter?” said Ezra, greatly startled by her words.

-

-“I have bad news,” said Madame.

-

-“Is it Olive?” asked Ezra, hoarsely.

-

-“Yes, it is Olive.”

-

-“Is she ill?”

-

-“Worse than that.”

-

-“My God, is my wife dead?” cried Ezra in a stifled whisper.

-

-“Worse than that.”

-

-“There can’t be worse,” said Ezra.

-

-“Yes, there can. She has left you and gone off with Cotterell.”

-

-Ezra threw up his arms and fell backwards. Madame thought for a moment

-or two that he was dying, for an awful blue-purple look passed over his

-face as if his heart had stopped beating. He recovered himself and sat

-up, turned ghastly white, and moved his lips. He was trying to speak,

-but no sound came. At length he gasped,

-

-“Olive, Olive, where is she?”

-

-“We don’t know. Cotterell took the brown mare, the men turned out and

-caught him. Olive disappeared, no one knew where, night before last,

-taking our last horse. There was a sort of lynch-law trial at Union

-Mills, she appeared in the middle of the proceedings and said she gave

-him the horse, and then they went off together and have not since been

-heard of.”

-

-“Olive, Olive, Olive!” Ezra kept moaning as Madame drove him back to his

-deserted home. He seemed dazed and stupefied.

-

-Surely terrible news was never more crudely broken to a sufferer than

-was his bereavement to Ezra Weston, and by that tender and sympathetic

-friend, Madame Morozoff-Smith. Had Uncle David or Brother Green heard

-her, they would have been shocked beyond measure at having entrusted the

-painful embassy to such hands. Not one word of hope or comfort or of

-doubt even, nothing but the bald hideous story in its worst complexion

-thrown at him.

-

-Olive was gone from him—gone with Cotterell!

-

-Yet after having thus dealt him a death-blow, Madame seemed full of pity

-and little acts of personal attention. She helped him out of the waggon,

-brought him into the house, took his hands and washed them, cooled his

-forehead with a wet towel, offered him food, and in short treated him

-much as if he had been a suffering child whom she was tending. At last

-he seemed to recover himself somewhat as she was passing her soft hand

-across his brow.

-

-“You are very good to me,” he said brokenly, “and if I seem to accept

-your kindness unheedingly, forgive me. I am not myself to-night. I don’t

-know what I am doing. Oh, it can’t be!” he suddenly burst out. “She is

-not gone. I shall see her again. She will come back. How do you know she

-has gone with him? I don’t believe it.”

-

-“Poor Ezra, love dies hard, I know. Some of the men asked if she was

-going with him, and she answered distinctly, ‘Yes.’ Then they were

-sorry, they said, they had not hung him before she came up with them.”

-

-“No, I won’t believe it. Something has happened to her. Why should she

-go off with him?” said Ezra distractedly.

-

-“Did you not know that he was repeatedly here to see her, whenever you

-were out of the way?” said Madame, who did not think she was

-exaggerating in any way.

-

-“She told me all that,” answered Ezra nervously, “but she was only

-amused by his talk.”

-

-“No, your love is blind. Dear Ezra, I wish I could soften the blow.

-There is no doubt about it. I saw them once together at the spring, he

-kissed her at parting. It was a man and the woman he loved. I cannot be

-mistaken. Remember he was very handsome and winning in his manners, and

-she was young and pretty.”

-

-“Ah, my sweet little Ollie! My little rose-bud,” cried Ezra, starting to

-his feet. “I’ll go to her, she shall not wander away out of my reach

-without one effort to save her from herself. She was only a child. Why

-didn’t you look after her?” he asked, suddenly facing Madame with an

-angry glance.

-

-“Did you give her into my charge either by word or hint?” returned she,

-somewhat taken aback.

-

-“It was not your fault. Forgive me. I am too distracted to know what I

-say. I remember she refused to go to you. She said she would rather stay

-at home. I tried to urge her, but she would not consent to it,” said

-Ezra in a low voice.

-

-“Ah,” remarked Madame, “very possibly she expected him to come to her

-during your absence.”

-

-“No, no, you shall not say that!” said Ezra in agony. “I cannot bear it.

-She had no such thought. She was as innocent as the flowers, as she

-looked at me with her sweet eyes. She had no such thought, I know.”

-

-“It is ever thus,” said Madame, coming closer to him and speaking with

-an unwonted tremor in her voice. “Love seems always at cross purposes.

-You give all your love to Olive, who gives all hers to Cotterell.

-Another gives all her love to you. We are equally unhappy.”

-

-Ezra gazed at her in silent amazement as if he were doubting that he had

-understood her.

-

-“Yes,” she went on more calmly in her deep sweet voice. “I am more in

-need of pity than you. Your love has left you, and you grieve, but men

-will give you sympathy. When I lost my love I had to smile and pretend

-delight. I had to look on his joy and hers. You are not called upon to

-congratulate Cotterell on his happiness.”

-

-“Great God, is that you, Madame? Or is it that I am going mad, and is

-this some mocking fiend?” gasped Ezra, starting up.

-

-“Not a mocking fiend, Ezra, but I myself who for once in this world am

-enjoying the rare privilege of telling the truth. Ezra Weston, you are

-not the most unhappy person in Perfection City. I have long enjoyed that

-melancholy pre-eminence. Now in a common misfortune let us comfort one

-another.”

-

-Ezra sat down again and dropped his head in his hands. Occasionally he

-looked at her as she moved about the room putting everything in order.

-It almost seemed as if he was trying to understand who she was and that

-he could hardly do so, his mind was in such a turmoil of grief and

-misery. She laid out two more candles beside those already alight in the

-candle-sticks.

-

-“You will sit up all night,” she said at last. “These candles will last

-half the time, then light the other two. It is hard sitting in the dark

-alone with one’s breaking thoughts. Light the candles and keep them

-burning. That is what I did on the night you left to go to Smyrna to be

-married, and on the night when you brought her home here to Perfection

-City.”

-

-She closed the door and left him alone with those two thoughts. Was it

-her marvellous reading of the human heart which prompted this

-extraordinary woman to declare her love to Ezra in those bold

-uncompromising words on this night of all others in his life? She knew

-that he would sit there in his deserted home, brooding over his lost

-wife, she knew also that every now and then the scorching recollection

-of what she had said would break in upon the brooding thoughts and

-scatter them. This then was the means, the almost unheard-of means, she

-had taken in order to soften the blow that had fallen upon him. He would

-not be able to think of himself as the most unhappy individual in

-Perfection City, because she had claimed that distinction in words which

-he never could forget. It was just as she had foreseen. It repeatedly

-happened during the course of that long and dreadful night that Ezra

-forgot why he was sitting alone in the kitchen, so lost was he in

-amazement at the recollection of the words which Madame had spoken. As

-the hours wore on it seemed to him that they became more and more

-impossible, until he began to think of them as the work of a brain

-unhinged by sorrow. Was it all a hideous dream, and would he awake by

-and bye? The first pair of candles burned out, and he lighted the second

-pair, recalling as he did so what she had said she did when he brought

-Olive home. Ah, Olive, Olive! His heart kept calling out in its misery.

-

-He went into their little private room off the kitchen, in a sort of

-infatuation to see if she might be there. No. All was silent, still,

-deserted. He examined the tiny room minutely, saw the half-withered

-flowers on the table, took them up, and would have kissed them in his

-misery, only his eye lighted on a strange object he had never seen

-before. It was a man’s heavy seal-ring. He picked it up and examined it

-by the light of the candle: a plain gold ring set with a well-cut onyx

-intaglio of a griffin’s head. As he turned it about the light showed

-something-engraved in the inside of the ring. He held the candle nearer

-and read “J. G. C.”

-

-He dropped the ring as if it had been an adder, and fled out of the

-room. As if pursued by furies, he rushed from the house and wandered

-about out of doors. Diana, who since Olive’s departure had been in a

-most miserable frame of mind, followed him about dejectedly, with her

-tail between her legs. Ezra, turning, saw the dog and for one moment

-felt a savage desire to kill it, for Olive had loved the dog and Olive

-had broken his heart. This phase passed, and in a passion of grief and

-despair he stooped and kissed the animal, for Olive had often patted

-Diana’s head, and fondled her long ears. The dog whined in sympathy and

-turned suggestively back to the house. Ezra followed mechanically. He

-would not go into the room where that ring lay, but remained in the

-kitchen. Exhausted nature could stand no more, and towards morning he

-fell into a troubled sleep, with his head resting upon his arms crossed

-on the table. Then in his dreams Olive came back to him in that vivid

-yet unsatisfying way in which our dearest do sometimes return to us,

-seemingly but to mock our grief. Olive was there, standing before him,

-but she looked at him not with her eyes, but with Madame’s. There was

-something terrible in seeing her own expression gone and in its place

-the look of another, and yet it was Olive, and she called on him to

-follow her. He hurried after her with the lead-clogged feet that always

-walk in dreams, and strained to reach her. When he did so, he found

-Madame. Olive and Madame flitted before his fevered fancy, always

-shifting and changing one into another, until he panted with the horror

-of it.

-

-He awoke with a start as the door opened. His half-aroused eyes saw a

-vaguely defined figure in the door-way, blocking out the light of the

-morning.

-

-“Olive,” he said, putting out his hand blindly.

-

-“I have come to cook your breakfast,” said Madame’s soft smooth voice.

-

-“Don’t. I can’t eat it,” said Ezra, falling back into despair.

-

-“Life must go on, even when all joy is banished from it,” she said. “We

-have each one of us to learn that lesson, friend Ezra.”

-

-She began deftly enough to light the fire and make the necessary

-preparations for breakfast. Madame knew how to do the ordinary

-house-work that falls to woman’s lot, only she did not choose to do it

-in her own home. Therefore she employed Lucinda for this purpose, until

-other and stronger motives arose which prompted her to undertake the

-work herself. The habit of every day life is strong, and when Ezra saw

-Madame getting breakfast ready, as a matter of course he arose and got

-himself ready, by changing his clothes and generally performing the

-necessary preliminaries to the morning meal. He was less wild and

-hollow-eyed after this ceremony, but the extraordinary drawn and aged

-look on his face seemed only the more marked.

-

-Madame cooked an omelette with scraps of savoury dried beef in it, and

-after the first mouthful Ezra was obliged to admit that he relished the

-food. He could not go on living on his grief, as Madame said. She sat

-with him and took her breakfast also. Napoleon Pompey, who would have

-been in the way, was relegated to the society of his mother, who divided

-her emotions between maternal anger at boyish shortcomings and maternal

-love for the short-comer, both of which were expressed with the exalted

-vehemence customary to the negro nature.

-

-“I shall come each day and cook your food for you. I have often longed

-to be able to do something for you, Ezra. Do not forbid my coming. I

-have had so little joy in my life,” said Madame, with a strange humility

-of manner totally at variance with her usual character, which was almost

-domineering, one might say. Ezra looked at her in a troubled sort of

-way. It soothed him to have her there, and he was glad that somebody,

-that anybody, could take an interest in him. Still there came across his

-mind flashes of doubt as to what this interest meant. He could not

-forget those words that Madame had used on the evening before. No man

-who had ever heard such words from a woman’s lips, if ever man did hear

-them under similar circumstances, would ever again be able to drive them

-from his memory, but in his bruised and suffering state Ezra was content

-to drift on and let things rest. So Madame came daily to his house and

-cooked his food and saw that he ate something at each meal.

-

-Uncle David and the brethren came to see him, but that gave him no

-comfort. He shrank from their sympathy, expressed with kindness, but

-each word was like a drop of molten lead upon a raw wound. Willette was

-perhaps the only one who gave him real consolation in this awful time.

-

-“I say,” remarked the child, in a clear voice and without a trace of

-embarrassment, “Sister Ollie’s gone an’ lost herself down there in the

-bush, I reckon. She was ’bout the greenest hand at keepin’ to the Pole

-Star ever I see. You could throw her out o’ her direction quicker nor

-nothin’. I guess she headed plumb for the Missouri border when she come

-’long with Cotterell to show him out o’ Union Mills. Guess she’ll ride

-’bout down to Saint Jo ’fore she knows she’s headin’ wrong. I wouldn’t

-’spect her back ’fore a fortnight.” Willette laughed pleasantly, and

-poor Ezra derived some comfort from the preposterous convictions of the

-child and her unshakable belief in Olive.

-

-He went to Union Mills to make some inquiries about his lost wife, and

-met there the same story that Madame had already told, but the story was

-so brutally hurled at him he could not bear it, and came home bruised

-and stricken, his heart bleeding tears of agony. Instinctively he went

-to Madame for comfort.

-

-“Ezra, perhaps this terrible trial was needed to purify us all, to make

-us all more perfect communists. I can discern a valuable lesson that may

-be of profit to the brethren. I begin to think that after all marriage

-is selfish: perfect love alone is unselfish. You would not have kept

-Olive beside you by force, if her heart had gone from you, would you?”

-

-“I thought our marriage was for life.”

-

-“Yes, but she made a mistake as to her feelings; she found she loved

-someone else better. It was wise of her, after all, to break the bond.

-It would only have galled you both.”

-

-“I should have been content if she had only let me love her,” said Ezra.

-

-“Ah yes, I know that feeling but too well,” said Madame, bringing his

-mind with a shock to the thought that she never long allowed to sleep.

-

-“It is a terrible world,” said Ezra beginning to realize what a spell

-she was weaving around him.

-

-“It rests with ourselves to make it easier in the only way,” replied

-Madame.

-

-Uncle David took up a firm position of his own and refused to listen to

-anybody or anything.

-

-“I hain’t agoin’ to b’lieve nothin’ ’gin little Ollie,” he announced. “I

-don’t care ’bout proofs an’ things. Land! If I b’lieved in proofs there

-hain’t no sort o’ foolishness I shouldn’t be up to. I b’lieve in

-pussons.”

-

-That was his position, and he stuck to it with unswerving fidelity. He

-was happy in his blind faith, and no one tried to shake it. The old man

-then began a strange sort of hunt after Olive. He would sit all day long

-at the forge, where, of course, strangers were most likely to pass, and

-to each he would put questions about the “little gal” he was so

-pathetically seeking. He spoke little, he who used to be so chatty, but

-sat hour after hour in silent patient expectation of the return of his

-loved one. The brethren began to think he must be losing his wits from

-sorrow, poor old man!

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XXI.

-                              THE MESSAGE.

-

-

-A long weary fortnight had passed since the day when Ezra came home to

-find his wife gone. Life went on at Perfection City much the same as

-before, although to him it seemed as if the Universe was out of gear. He

-took no part or interest in the daily affairs of the Community, never

-coming to the Assembly or consulting with the brethren upon any matters.

-He withdrew himself from the companionship of his fellows, and only that

-Madame continued to come to his house every day in order to cook his

-dinner and sit with him while he ate it, he would have been absolutely

-alone. Ezra acquiesced in her devotion, and dared not ask himself how

-the debt was to be repaid that she was piling up against him. The

-Pioneers, who during the past fortnight had revelled in a perfect

-carnival of gossip, felt themselves at liberty to express an opinion

-upon this new development of the drama that was being acted in their

-midst. Sister Carpenter said to Sister Winkle that she thought there

-ought to be a period of mourning allowed, however brief, between first

-and second marriage, and that Brother Ezra hadn’t ought to go a-courting

-so soon. She did not know that it was Madame who did the courting in

-that strange, forward, imperial way that we must suppose the Empress

-Katharine affected. Uncle David, whom love for Olive had rendered

-extremely keen-sighted as to what was going on, evinced very great

-displeasure. Madame had no right to try and make Ezra’s home happy, and

-he told her so in language of unmistakable import. She was angry to a

-degree that terrified him, and he shrank back alarmed beyond measure at

-the wrath which he had provoked.

-

-“Yes, I know, you want Ezra’s life to be wrecked by that vain, selfish

-little hussy who never cared for him, and who went off with the first

-gallant that beckoned to her. Ezra’s life shall not be wrecked, mine

-shall be expended in drawing it into a haven of rest. Olive is not

-worthy of tying the latchet of his shoe. I hope she will be cast off by

-her lover, and left to sink amid the mud and mire of such as she. I hate

-her!”

-

-Uncle David was frightened and crept away to Brother Green, where he sat

-hour after hour mournfully watching the fire. It was on one of these

-days when he was in the forge that a young negro on a raw-boned Indian

-pony rode up to Madame, who was on the point of starting for her daily

-expedition to Ezra’s, and inquired “whar ole man Weston lived,” as he

-had a message for him. Instead of answering directly, Madame endeavoured

-to find out what the boy wanted of Ezra. The little darkie thereupon

-produced a scrap of crumpled paper from the recesses of his ragged shirt

-and informed Madame he wanted to give him “dat ar’.” Madame took the

-paper, opened it, and gave a gasp. Then in a moment she recovered

-herself with an effort, and assured the negro it was all right, and that

-she would see to it. She made most particular inquiries as to where he

-lived, and then sent him off, happy with a piece of corn-bread and a

-dollar for himself.

-

-Having thus got rid of the negro lad, Madame proceeded on her way to

-Ezra’s house in order to perform her daily task there. She seemed

-strangely excited, and her blue eyes glittered like sapphires. Her whole

-bearing was that of a person labouring under intense excitement, all

-traces of which she was endeavouring to conceal. Her very voice had a

-new ring in it as she talked with Ezra, and her breath came quick and

-fast. Had his senses been less dulled by suffering, he could not have

-failed to notice the change in her, notwithstanding her efforts at

-concealment. He was sitting, looking with unseeing eyes across the

-vacant cornfield, when suddenly she spoke.

-

-“Ezra, let us go away from this place. Let us leave all the

-recollections of Perfection City behind us, and begin life afresh.”

-

-He turned his eyes upon her with a slow questioning look, showing how

-far away had been his thoughts at the moment.

-

-“How can we leave this place? There is too much money and too much

-labour sunk in it for us all to leave and go to some other spot.”

-

-“Not all, dear friend, only you and I,” said Madame, in her caressing

-voice.

-

-Ezra started. “That is even more impossible,” he said, in great

-agitation.

-

-“Why impossible? I have money. It will more than suffice for all our

-needs, nay, it will give us all the luxuries we can sigh for.”

-

-“It is not that, but you forget——”

-

-“No, Ezra, I don’t forget, but I want you to forget. I want you to draw

-a wet sponge over the recollection of the past and begin anew. It is not

-too late.”

-

-“You don’t know what you are saying, Madame. You cannot mean it.”

-

-“I do mean it, and I know what it means. You have no tie——”

-

-Ezra shivered.

-

-“Neither have I. We are both free to make our lives what we list.”

-

-“You mistake, we are both tied by all our past lives, and with bonds

-that may not be lightly broken. We are tied by our own feelings as well

-as by the good opinion of the world at large.”

-

-Madame snapped her fingers with scorn.

-

-“That for the world at large and its opinions. Do you remember what I

-told you about my father and my birth? Thank God, I have no name to

-lose.”

-

-“I cannot do less than tell you the truth,” said Ezra in great distress.

-“Wherever I went my heart would remain here, where I have known true

-happiness, and it will always be looking for my lost one to come back to

-me.”

-

-“She won’t come back till Cotterell is tired of her,” said Madame

-brutally. “Will you be grateful for his cast-off mistress?”

-

-“Stop,” said Ezra, putting his hand quickly before her lips, “you must

-not speak so of her to me.”

-

-“Fool that I am!” muttered Madame under her breath. She turned from him

-with a gesture of anger.

-

-“Oh, forgive me,” exclaimed Ezra, seeing and feeling what the expression

-meant. “Never was man so miserable, never was one so unhappily placed. I

-owe you more than words can say, I owe you my best thoughts, I owe you

-my very life itself. I would willingly give you my life——”

-

-“Then why not give it and come with me?” burst out Madame. “Leave all

-this misery behind you, I will make your path as smooth as heart could

-wish. Come.”

-

-“My heart can never follow any other path, it will dwell amid the ruins

-of its former happiness. Do not speak again of this. Let us remain

-friends as before.”

-

-“It can never be again as it was before,” said Madame with heaving

-bosom.

-

-“Why not?” asked Ezra. “I have not much else left in life.”

-

-“Why not,” repeated Madame in scorn. “You ask me why not! Would you care

-for Olive’s friendship when all her love was given to Cotterell?”

-

-“Stop,” cried Ezra, and this time there was a ring of anger in his

-voice. “Even you may presume too far. Do not again speak that name to

-me.”

-

-There is something untamed and untameable in the Russian nature which

-now and then comes to the surface and drives an excited Muscovite into

-acts seemingly at variance with the highly cultivated standard to which

-he aspires. The phenomenon may by the learned be attributed to a sudden

-reversion to the ancestral Asiatic savage. Madame was at this moment

-rapidly going back to the state of furious anger, when all sense of

-dignity would be lost. She was reverting to the Asiatic. And under the

-influence of her passion her physical appearance changed, her eyes

-became narrow slanting openings emitting sparks of steel-blue flame, her

-full red lips were drawn tightly over her teeth. She hissed out her

-words.

-

-“Does her image still come between us?”

-

-“It does come between us,” said Ezra looking almost as white as she did.

-“Her image will always come between me and every other woman on the

-whole earth, blotting out every other image and making me only hers. Oh,

-Olive! Oh, my wife!”

-

-He gave a great sob of agony.

-

-“Besotted fool!” burst from Madame’s colourless lips, “do you hold this

-language to me? You scorn me and my love! Then on your own head be the

-consequences. Ah, now nothing shall stop me. An angel from heaven, no,

-nor God Himself shall stand between me and my revenge. Ezra Weston,

-farewell!”

-

-She left the room, shutting the door upon him and his misery. Unhappy

-man! His world seemed crumbling beneath his feet. He had lost his wife,

-and now his friend, the one whom he most revered, had cast him out from

-her regard. What could he do? His heart answered, nothing but dumbly

-suffer in the deserted home where he was left alone. What a black and

-barren waste was his life! And how fair and smiling it had looked a few

-short weeks ago! It was as if a devastating fire had passed over him

-leaving his heart like the desolated prairie, black and hopeless.

-

-Madame went away alone for one day, no one knew whither, and came back

-with a look on her face that struck terror into all who saw her. Her

-smooth white face looked cruel and pitiless, and the gleam from her eyes

-reminded one of cold steel. Her soft hands sometimes closed on their own

-pink palms with a spasmodic clutch, as if she had the throat of an enemy

-between their cruel grasp and was crushing the life out of him. A cold

-dreadful face, a cruel sickening look that made Napoleon Pompey and

-Uncle David shiver within their souls, and caused the brethren to draw

-away affrighted from their once beloved leader. Perfection City was the

-abode of wretchedness. The Academy never opened its doors to the

-assembled Pioneers, who were afraid to come near Madame’s house. Each

-lived by himself, looking askance at his neighbour, for over all had

-fallen a spirit of suspicion. Only Brother Huntley, the deaf brother,

-and his mute wife were happy, working on contentedly, shielded by their

-misfortune from the full knowledge of the disasters that had come upon

-the Community.

-

-The days dragged miserably by, seemingly endowed with a miraculous

-length of hours, for the sufferings of a life-time were compressed into

-that hideous fortnight. The glaring sun blazing down upon the blackened

-prairie seemed to Ezra to have become no unfitting symbol of hell. The

-light was hateful, darkness, eternal darkness would have been a relief

-to his brain. Could it be possible that he was going to live his life

-out in a realized purgatory? He was young, only twenty-five, and if his

-life was to stretch even to the average span of human existence, what an

-eternity of suffering lay before him! A brokenhearted man amid the ruins

-of his broken life.

-

-It was on one of these days of utter black despair, like the days that

-had gone before and the days that were still to come, that the same

-ragged negro boy on the straggly Indian pony, who once before had made

-his appearance at Perfection City, was seen skulking around the old land

-near Weddell’s Gully. He seemed to want to see without being seen. By

-and bye Napoleon Pompey chanced that way and of course pounced upon him

-with the universal query of “whar he gwine?” The boy after some

-hesitation made it clear that he had come on a secret mission. He wanted

-to find Uncle David without being seen by anyone else, especially not by

-the white-faced lady, Madame, of whom he stood in shivering dread.

-Napoleon Pompey, sympathising with the dread, volunteered to take a

-letter to Uncle David without fear of detection. Thereupon the darkie

-delivered over to him a scrap of newspaper upon which was written a

-scrawl with the burnt end of a stick, and having done so galloped off on

-his straggly pony with a whoop of delight, as one who had escaped

-dreadful peril. Napoleon Pompey, finding it difficult to deliver his

-embassy to Uncle David undetected, gave the curious missive to Ezra with

-intimations that it was to be put into Uncle David’s hands right away.

-

-Ezra took the scrap of paper, saying there must be some letter inside,

-and mechanically unfolded it, when the hoarse scream that he uttered

-almost made Napoleon Pompey jump through the window.

-

-“Where did you get this?” he panted.

-

-“Darkie gin it ter me jes’ while back.”

-

-“Who gave it? What was his name? Where did he live? Who sent him here?”

-asked Ezra in a breath.

-

-“Darkie he didn’t go for to say nuffin, on’y jes’ gin dat ar, an’ tole

-me ter pike to ole Uncle David wid it.”

-

-Ezra darted out of the house and ran like a mad-man to Madame’s and

-burst into the room where she and Uncle David were just sitting down to

-supper. He held out the scrap of paper to the old man and gasped:

-

-“Olive is somewhere!”

-

-“I presume that was already known, and that it can hardly be considered

-news,” said Madame’s cool cutting voice, which brought Ezra somewhat to

-his senses.

-

-“She is somewhere near. She sent a negro boy with this. Read it.” He

-shoved it under Uncle David’s nose.

-

-“I can’t see to read it, read it aloud, let me hear all she says in her

-letter,” said the old man with trembling eagerness.

-

-“It isn’t a letter. It says, ’Uncle come to Olive,’ only those four

-words, nothing else, and just look, scratched with a bit of burnt stick

-on a piece of newspaper! Oh, think of it! Where can she be? Why didn’t

-she write before if she was in trouble? What has happened?”

-

-“Perhaps it is a hoax,” said Madame between her drawn white lips.

-

-“There hain’t in this world a bein’ so lost to all feelin’ as would make

-a joke o’ our sorrow,” said Uncle David. “No, Ezra, that’s writ by our

-little gal. We must go to her. Come ’long, brother.” He put on his hat

-and started cheerfully for the door.

-

-“Where are you going?” asked Madame, in a muffled voice.

-

-“I’m agoin’ to little Ollie.”

-

-“Where is she, do you know?”

-

-“Ezry, don’t you know where we’ve got to go to?”

-

-“I know nothing, except that this scrap of paper has been brought by a

-negro boy.”

-

-Ezra kissed the paper, and Madame’s lips curled in contempt.

-

-“Is it not rather a wild-goose chase to start you know not whither, and

-at this time of the evening too?”

-

-“We can’t wait here after little Ollie’s told us to come,” said Uncle

-David simply.

-

-“Cannot you suggest some plan?” asked Ezra, turning to Madame by force

-of habit.

-

-“Not I,” she replied contemptuously. “Shall you go east, west, north, or

-south? The world lies all before you.”

-

-“Ain’t you glad little Ollie’s found?” asked Uncle David, looking

-wistfully at her.

-

-Madame laughed harshly. They went out of the room together feeling her

-presence insupportable. Just round the corner they came upon Napoleon

-Pompey who was peeping around to see if he could pick up any scraps of

-news. He had divined there was news from Olive, and with the

-inquisitiveness of his race had followed Ezra when he had rushed so

-wildly out of the house.

-

-“D’yer know whar ter go?” he inquired.

-

-“No,” said Ezra. “Can you tell us anything of that negro boy? Do you

-know where he lives?”

-

-“Ask her,” said Napoleon Pompey, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in

-the direction of the door from which they had just emerged.

-

-“Ask who?”

-

-“Madame,” said Napoleon Pompey.

-

-“Does she know?” asked Ezra, amazed.

-

-“I seed dat ar pony hyar afore,” replied Napoleon Pompey.

-

-“Great Heavens!” said Ezra as drops of sweat burst out on his forehead.

-He hurried back to the house with Uncle David. Neither of them spoke a

-word.

-

-“Madame,” said Ezra, as they once more stood in the room, “I have come

-to ask you a question. Do you know where my wife is?”

-

-She looked him unflinchingly in the face and answered:

-

-“Yes.”

-

-“May the Lord forgive you!” said Uncle David, in a voice hardly above a

-whisper, and for some seconds there was a complete silence in the room,

-broken only by the sound of Ezra’s heavy breathing.

-

-“Where is she?” he demanded sternly.

-

-“Go and find her,” was the mocking answer.

-

-Ezra sprang furiously forward, and almost yelled out,

-

-“Tell me at once or——”

-

-“Ay yes,” she said with a steady look, “you will drag the secret out,

-will you?”

-

-She tore open her dress and exposed her snow-white throat.

-

-“See, there it is handy. Take a knife and cut my throat. See if I shall

-flinch. The last gurgle of my blood bubbling up through the wound, shall

-bear a sound of mocking laughter. Strike!”

-

-Ezra turned from her in horror. “She must be mad,” he said to Uncle

-David.

-

-“Not mad now, I have been mad all these months, all these years. Mad to

-love you, mad in loving such a one as you. Now I am sane. Ah, how I hate

-you!”

-

-“This is horrible,” said Ezra, putting his hand before his eyes.

-

-“Horrible, is it? It is the waking from love’s young dream. Ha, ha!”

-

-“Madame, dear child, think of all you have been to us,” said Uncle

-David, reaching his hands out to her imploringly. “You have led us,

-think of all that.”

-

-“I do think of all that. I think of how I found this boy,” she said,

-pointing in scorn to Ezra, “ignorant, unformed, with wild crude

-longings. I think of how I infused light and life into the darkness of

-his mind. How I rose, aye, above myself, in order to lead him up and on.

-I think of all his half-formed longings put into working form and

-endowed with vital power that he might see his thoughts taking shape. I

-made him. He was mine. Then he left me for a few brief weeks. He saw a

-pretty doll’s face with an empty head, and straightway he loves with

-never a thought of me. You ask me to think. I do think of how even this

-I bore, and so great was my love that for his sake I welcomed the doll

-that had stolen my place, and smiled on her. Even this I did and

-remained his friend. She, the doll, attracted by a handsome face, her

-love aroused by the stolen kisses of a yellow moustache, left him. Then

-I was free to love him once more. I laid my heart at his feet. He

-spurned me. All my love was as nothing against the memory of the doll

-who had deserted him. She may die and rot before word of mine shall

-restore her to him.”

-

-Neither Ezra nor Uncle David had attempted to speak while Madame was

-pouring forth the torrent of her bitter words. Ezra felt too overwhelmed

-to say anything, for a moment, in the downfall of so many illusions and

-high hopes, he forgot even Olive. Uncle David was the first to recover

-himself.

-

-“Dear child,” he said, for the first time in his life addressing her as

-one beneath him. “These are wild words you’ve been sayin’. I can’t find

-it in my heart to believe they’re true. You are disappointed, an’ you

-think wrong can be made right by turnin’ things upside down. Tain’t so.

-You’ll have to learn that right an’ wrong can’t change places, nohow you

-fix it. You have still your duty here in the City you’ve founded an’ the

-principles you’ve set up.”

-

-Madame looked at him with glittering eyes.

-

-“Will you hear the truth about Perfection City too? Then listen. It is

-not an experiment in new principles, it is an example of the oldest the

-world has seen—of the folly of a fond woman. I founded Perfection City

-so that he might love the founder. I staked my all on a throw of love’s

-dice, and lost. Women have done it before and will do it again. Some

-fools degrade their body to win a man, I degraded my mind. The

-foundation-stone of Perfection City was my heart, see what will happen

-when it is crushed! Ah, why can we not profit by the experience of our

-elders! My mother warned me, having tried it, never to stake my

-happiness on the love of man. I followed her advice for five-and-thirty

-happy years. Then I saw _him_, and the curse fell.”

-

-She threw up her arms over her head and backed towards the door of her

-own apartment.

-

-“The curse, the curse!” she exclaimed, as she passed through out of

-their sight.

-

-Ezra had a confused feeling that he had just seen someone drowning who

-had reached appealing hands towards heaven as she went under.

-

-

-

-

-                             CHAPTER XXII.

-                      OLIVE’S SECOND HOME-COMING.

-

-

-And where was Olive all this time? She and Cotterell rode out of Union

-Mills together, as we have seen, and as was seen by nearly all the men

-who had assembled there that morning in the expectation of seeing him

-hanged. They rode silently among “the boys” getting their horses ready,

-they silently passed among the trees to the south and crossed the ford

-of the Creek. Then Cotterell spoke, pouring forth his words of thanks

-and gratitude to her. He was not ashamed to show that he was deeply

-moved, now that none but Olive could see his emotion. She, on the other

-hand, seemed almost in an unconscious state so little heed did she give

-to his eager words.

-

-“Speak to me, tell me what you wish,” he pleaded very gently, noticing

-her abstraction.

-

-“I want you to go away,” she said slowly. “You are safe from their anger

-for this time, but do not stay here and court danger. This is no place

-for a man like you to live. Go while there is yet time. There is now a

-blood-feud between you and the Mills. They will mark you for vengeance,

-and they are wild bad men.”

-

-“And you?” said Cotterell, looking anxiously at her. “I want to see you

-safely at home. You are ill, I fear.”

-

-“I am all right,” answered Olive wearily. “You must go to the South Fork

-at once. Take the Kansas City stage this very night and go. There is no

-time to be lost.”

-

-“I cannot, and will not,” answered Cotterell. “I must take you home

-first. You look frightfully tired and ill.”

-

-“No, it would be the crudest thing you could do to bring me home. I want

-to go back to Ezra, I am so tired,” said Olive plaintively.

-

-“Must I let you go all by yourself over this lonely prairie? I cannot

-bear the thought of it.”

-

-“I have been two days and one night all by myself out on this lonely

-prairie in order to save you. Please do what I ask. Tie Queen

-Katharine’s rein to Rebel’s bit, they will then go quietly together.”

-

-“Tell me,” said Cotterell breathlessly, “why have you been out all this

-time on the prairie alone?”

-

-“I was following the men who had captured you in order to save you if I

-could.”

-

-“Great Heavens!” he burst out, with his blue eyes aflame. “And you did

-this heroic act because you——”

-

-“I did it because you are an innocent man, and I wanted you to go back

-to your country to live a better life and be a better man than you ever

-had been before.”

-

-The light died out of his eyes. He looked down, his hands trembled as

-they had never trembled when on his trial.

-

-“Your sacrifice shall not have been in vain,” he said in a low voice.

-

-“Then good-bye, and all good blessings attend you.”

-

-She shook hands with him and left him standing at the parting of the

-ways. When she was quite out of sight over the ridge on her way towards

-Cotton Wood Creek, he, with blinding tears streaming down his sun-burnt

-face, turned and walked to the South Fork, caught the Kansas City

-stage-coach and departed out of Olive’s life.

-

-She hardly knew what she was doing she felt so ill. It seemed a relief

-not to have to talk any more, for she found it difficult to keep hold of

-her thoughts, they seemed constantly to be slipping away from her. The

-sun was burning hot, and she had a long way to go, for she had come out

-of Union Mills by the south side instead of the north. Therefore she

-must make a great sweep round to the right in order to reach her home,

-and she must remember that the Creek was only to be safely forded at

-certain places. She rode on and on, feeling the sun hotter and hotter

-and her head heavier and heavier. At last she was so dizzy she could no

-longer see where she was going. Whatever happened she must lie down for

-a few minutes. Somehow she got off her horse and lay down at the side of

-the track she had been following, but whether in sleep or in

-unconsciousness she never knew.

-

-By and by she came to herself again. The horses were both gone! She had

-forgotten to picket them. She did not remember where she was, but

-mechanically stumbled along the road and at length was overtaken by a

-negro woman driving an ox-waggon. She begged of the woman to let her get

-into the waggon and take her home for she felt ill, and the negress,

-struck with pity, declared she would, “fo’ de po’ chile was mos’ sick to

-deaf anyhow.” Olive got into the waggon and knew no more for hours—or

-was it days, or was it weeks? Two nights out in the poisonous prairie

-dew had done their work: she was down with chills and fever, a raving

-panting lunatic, or else a stupid heavy sleeping log, taking no heed of

-day or night or the hours as they flew, only craving water to drink,

-ever more water to drink. By and by she began to have intervals when she

-knew that she was in a strange place with strange black faces around

-her. Then at last her senses returned, and she sent an imploring message

-to Ezra to come to her. In reply had come Madame, stern, fierce-eyed, to

-see her and crush her with the awful news that Ezra was dead. Olive fell

-back into unconsciousness under the blow, she did not know for how long.

-But after weary suffering she awoke again, still in that same strange

-place, still with those black faces around her, kind and pitying, but

-faces she did not know.

-

-Trying feebly to gather up again the threads of her life, she wished to

-send word to the friends at Perfection City that she was still alive.

-The negroes, who were the only inhabitants of the wretched house where

-she was, seemed not to heed her wishes. They refused to take any

-messages, but would not say why. Olive grew stronger, for her young

-vitality exerted itself. She demanded to know why they would not do as

-she wished, but they fled from her questions and left her to her

-suspicions. She tormented them with questions, and at last they said the

-white-faced lady had forbidden them ever to come near her house again,

-and they were afraid: she was a very terrible looking lady when she was

-angry. Then Olive used her powers of persuasion upon the negro lad and

-eventually got him to take her message in spite of what his mother said.

-That was the scrap of paper that had come into Ezra’s hands.

-

-The Pioneers scattered in systematic search for Olive, spreading out in

-all directions in a way that could not fail to be speedily successful.

-Brother Green found her on the second day, while Ezra found the two

-horses which a thrifty settler had impounded in his own fields and was

-unobtrusively working until they should be called for by their owner.

-

-Brother Green was overjoyed at finding Olive and was not so overwhelmed

-at hearing of her long illness as, under different circumstances, he

-might have been. In fact he was almost pleased, for that fact, taken

-together with the negro woman’s graphic account of finding her alone and

-ill on the prairie on the day “o’ de hoss-thief tryin’,” made it clear

-to him that she had never been with Cotterell since she was at the

-abortive trial. She was very weak and languid and took little heed of

-him or his remarks.

-

-“Ezra will be out of his mind with joy,” he said, by way of rousing her

-to some interest, as he was settling her as comfortably as he could in

-the ox-waggon, preparatory to setting out on their return.

-

-“Ezra is dead,” said Olive wearily.

-

-Brother Green stared hard at her. “What crazy fancy is this? Ezra is

-alive and riding over towards Jacksonville at this moment hunting for

-you.”

-

-“She told me he was dead,” said Olive, beginning to cry from the

-revulsion of feeling combined with physical suffering.

-

-“How dared the woman tell such a lie!” exclaimed Brother Green angrily,

-and then after a moment he added more mildly, “Perhaps it was a mere

-mistake, she seems to have been kind to you, but negroes are not a

-truth-telling race.”

-

-“It was not the negro woman, it was Madame,” said Olive in a hushed and

-awe-struck voice.

-

-“Nonsense, you are raving, Sister Olive,” said he sharply.

-

-“She came to me and told me during my illness.”

-

-“When?”

-

-“I can’t tell. I don’t remember when things happened. I was so ill.”

-

-“Then depend upon it, you have fancied this. Fever fancies seem very

-real at times.”

-

-He experienced a certain relief in speaking thus confidently on the

-subject to her.

-

-“The negro woman knows. Ask her who came here and forbade them to bring

-any more messages from me to Perfection City.”

-

-It was singular, considering the way he had spoken, that Brother Green

-did not take this simple means of assuring himself that Olive’s idea was

-the effect of the disordered workings of a fevered brain. But he said

-never a word to the negro woman on the subject, but drove slowly and

-thoughtfully back to Perfection City, with Olive in the ox-waggon, lying

-on a heap of corn-shucks covered with the ragged patch-quilt the woman

-had lent her. It was a long and a weary journey thus creeping back home

-over the blackened prairie. Olive sometimes wondered if she would get

-there alive, and she moaned in her misery. For the rest, Brother Green

-spoke but little. Since assuring Olive of the falseness of her idea that

-Madame had been to see her, he appeared to have lost the cheerfulness he

-had shown upon finding her. Brother Green was thinking of the future of

-Perfection City, and it looked black enough to him. It was no secret

-that Madame had refused to reveal Olive’s whereabouts to her husband,

-and in the light of that circumstance he could foresee nothing but

-strife, ill-will and enmity in Perfection City. How were Olive and

-Madame to meet, and above all how were they to live in harmony for the

-future? These were the thoughts that occupied his mind and kept him

-silent during that long slow drive.

-

-Olive, too, was trying to look into the future, and she shivered with

-dread as she did so. Madame’s pitiless eyes were before her still, but

-Ezra would be there, he would shield her and comfort her, and she could

-rest her head peacefully on his honest breast. Dear Ezra! Why had he not

-come to her when she had sent for him? She hoped he would be there to

-greet her and to save her from that terrible woman, whose colourless

-face in its icy cruelty still haunted her, filling her with a great

-dread. She need not have been so afraid, for when she reached Perfection

-City Madame was gone.

-

-The Pioneers had indeed a life of much inward excitement during these

-days. The return of Olive and the departure of Madame were events almost

-equally calculated to disturb their equanimity as a Community.

-

-Ezra being still away looking for his wife in the wrong direction, there

-was no one to receive her when she got home. Therefore Brother Green

-took her to Sister Mary Winkle’s at once on their arrival. Olive was

-weak, ill, and peevish, she cried with disappointment at not seeing

-Ezra. Sister Mary Winkle administered a stimulant in the way of advice.

-

-“I wouldn’t take on so like a baby, Olive Weston, if I were you. Ezra’ll

-come home probably to-day or to-morrow, and one day more or less ain’t

-much in a life-time.”

-

-Olive dried her eyes with energy.

-

-“Everybody said you had gone off with that man Cotterell, and so we all

-thought too,” observed Sister Winkle conversationally.

-

-“How dare you suggest such a thing to me?” exclaimed Olive, with an

-amount of angry energy surprising in one so weak.

-

-“Well, we had it from the people who saw you go away with him, and who

-heard you say you were going. I don’t see how we could possibly have

-thought other than we did.”

-

-“You must be a wicked woman to think such a thing,” said Olive. Her chin

-began to quiver piteously.

-

-“I am not going to condemn you,” replied Sister Winkle, in a philosophic

-vein. “If you found you preferred him to Ezra I don’t think you would

-have been wrong in showing your preference in an unmistakable manner.

-Marriage is a partnership which either side should be free to dissolve.

-Mistakes are sometimes made in it as in other affairs. Our marriage is

-not a mistake, because Wright and I don’t make mistakes, but other

-people are different, and I don’t see why they should be punished for an

-honest mistake. Marriage should be free. Perfection City was founded on

-freedom. We thought that you had used your right of choice, and since

-you liked Cotterell best had gone with him. We thought that Madame would

-soon marry Ezra, since he was now free, and she had always wanted to.”

-

-Olive sprang from her chair and steadied herself with her trembling

-hands by clutching the back of it.

-

-“Mary Winkle, I hate you,” she said, in a voice choking with emotion.

-“Perfection City is a sinful, wicked place. I wish I had never seen it.

-If I live, and Ezra loves me, I hope he will take me away so I may never

-hear its name again.”

-

-She stamped bravely out of the house under the influence of her anger,

-but her strength did not carry her far, and she sank down upon the

-wood-pile weeping bitterly, unable to walk another step. Sister Mary,

-somewhat disgusted at the way in which her philosophy had been received,

-resolved to let her cool off a little before going out to offer Olive an

-arm to conduct her back into the house. Thus it came about that Olive

-was still sitting weeping on the wood-pile when Uncle David came

-hurrying up, having just heard of her arrival, and close behind him came

-Ezra running like a mad-man. When Olive saw him she started towards her

-husband with outstretched arms, but her weakness overcame her, and she

-would have fallen to the ground only that he was just in time to catch

-her in his arms, where she fell laughing and crying in the most

-incoherent manner imaginable.

-

-“Oh, Ezra, you didn’t believe that wicked story? And you do love me,

-don’t you? And you won’t marry her, and you aren’t dead, are you? Tell

-Mary Winkle you hate her too. And why didn’t you come to me when I sent

-for you?”

-

-Ezra could only kiss her, and pet her, and soothe her in every way while

-Olive kept saying hysterically, “You won’t, will you?” and “You will,

-won’t you?” All of which Ezra promised faithfully to perform. She

-absolutely refused to re-enter Sister Mary Winkle’s house, whereupon the

-latter, somewhat conscience-stricken, offered to send in food for their

-supper at their own house, provided Olive was not told who had sent it.

-The secret was kept, and Olive partook heartily of what otherwise would

-undoubtedly have choked her.

-

-Uncle David hovered over her with anxious love and remorse. “Bless her

-heart, o’ course he didn’t b’lieve nothin’ ’bout her goin’ off. Yer bet

-he didn’t, he knowed it was all right, on’y she was so long a-com-in’

-home he sorter kinder got oneasy, an’ that’s why they went out to fin’

-her, an’ dear, dear, had she been an’ gone an’ got that plaguey ague,

-an’ he not there to see a’ter her, an’ there wasn’t nothin’ like Ayre’s

-Ague Cure for that, an’ he would go right ’long home this minute an’ get

-her some right away.”

-

-Ezra wanted to hear her story, and she told him everything from the

-beginning to the end. When she came to the end and told him of Madame’s

-visit, he shivered and said it must have been delirium, he bade her

-think no more of it and never speak of it again. His mind started back

-from the thoughts such a story raised up before him. He was afraid, and

-looked away from the abyss, terrified at what lay but half hidden there.

-

-

-

-

-                             CHAPTER XXIII.

-                              CONCLUSION.

-

-

-Madame left Perfection City alone and unattended. No one knew that she

-was going, and no one knew whither she went. Her spirit, however, still

-hovered over the city of her founding and made itself most potently

-felt. She sold all her rights in the place, and since these included the

-land, horses, and implements, as well as most of the houses, the

-Pioneers awoke in early winter to find themselves homeless and

-houseless, cast upon the bleak world again. In a tempest of indignation,

-Sister Mary Winkle and her husband departed out of the place, and after

-them the Carpenters. The going of the Wrights was highly characteristic.

-They had managed to save a waggon and a pair of horses out of the

-general wreck, along with a few of the most primitive household

-necessaries. These, with his wife and daughter, Brother Wright packed

-into his waggon and started for Union Mills. At the store there he

-bought a rifle, a bowie-knife, and a plentiful supply of ammunition. He

-came out of the store looking like a buccaneer ready equipped for

-Central America. Mary Winkle raised her hands in speechless horror.

-

-“I say, pa, be yer goin’ to be a jay-hawker?” asked Willette, grinning

-with delight.

-

-Wright got into the waggon in grim silence.

-

-“What _are_ you going to be?” asked Sister Mary recovering her speech at

-last.

-

-“I’m going to be a man, Mrs. Wright, and not a blamed fool any longer.

-Guess I’ll pre-empt some land near the Cherokee Reservation, and stick

-to it and get the fruits of my toil, anyhow.”

-

-“Your principles——” stammered his wife.

-

-“Damn principles, Mrs. Wright. I’ve had about enough of them. Common

-sense is what I want, and so do you. I guess a spell of that will come

-handy now.”

-

-Thus they journeyed out of sight, but a legend came floating back from

-near the Cherokee lands that at a difficult ford Wright was attacked by

-a couple of robbers, whereupon he took up that new rifle of his and

-fired so uncommonly straight that one man fell into the river, and the

-other ran away.

-

-Brother Green remained at his forge, for blacksmiths were much in

-request on the prairie, and such a one as he was hard to find. The new

-owner of Perfection City offered him good inducements to stay, so he

-stayed. He is still there shoeing horses and mending ploughs. The name

-has been changed to Mountainburg, in order to emphasise the existence of

-the rising ground over Weddell’s Gully. Brother Green is almost the

-oldest inhabitant now, and sometimes he thinks of that far-off English

-village where he was born, and it looks brighter and more beautiful to

-him as the years roll him away from it. He thinks too of the grass-grown

-grave in the church-yard where the jackdaws caw overhead, and it seems

-to him that when his last day’s work shall be done he would rest more

-peacefully beside that mound than in any other spot beneath the broad

-canopy of heaven.

-

-Brother Dummy decided not to leave when the rest of the Pioneers

-scattered. He preferred to stay where he was and rent a bit of land from

-the new owner. By and by he was enabled to buy his bit outright. For

-there came a letter addressed to “The Pioneers of Perfection City” and

-containing a draft for five hundred dollars “for the hire of one horse”

-from an ever grateful friend. And Brother Dummy was given this money by

-the united wish of Olive, Ezra, Brother Green, and Uncle David, the last

-of the Pioneers, because, as they said, he was the only one who didn’t

-know why it had been sent, and he was the only one who had not suffered

-through that episode that had so nearly wrecked their lives.

-

-On a cold winter’s day, when the snow lay in patches on the black

-prairie, Olive and her husband and Uncle David set out from Perfection

-City. She was pale and thin, and looked very ill as she stood leaning

-against the door-way of her dismantled home.

-

-“I wish I could feel sorry at leaving the prairie, but I can’t. I never

-want to see Perfection City again, but I’m sorry for my little home, and

-I would like to see my garden blossom again.” So spoke Olive to Uncle

-David, standing beside her with shawls on his arm.

-

-“Wal, now,” replied he sadly, “we came here full o’ the notion o’

-teachin’ folks things, but it ’pears like as if it wasn’t so much other

-folks out here as needed teachin’ as jes’ our own selves. We hev hed a

-hard lesson to learn, Ollie, my little gal, but I reckon we’ve pretty

-well learned it by now. It mos’ likely comes to the same thing, on’y

-it’s a sight more comfortin’ to human pride to set up as a teacher than

-to sit down as a learner. We was as certain as anything we had a bran’

-new truth to teach to the world, an’ we was goin’ to show ’em how they’d

-been doin’ wrong in everything ’fore we come to set ’em right. We was

-jes’ bustin’ with pride and vanity, that’s what we was. We had foun’ a

-new road to Kingdom Come, we had. ’Twasn’t no road at all, on’y a coon

-track leadin’ into a swamp. Guess we’ll foller the road other folks has

-trod before, an’ if we can fill up a slough or help anyone over the

-rough bits as is scattered plentiful all the way, that’ll do for us.

-Ain’t that your ’pinion, Ezry?”

-

-“Yes, Uncle, we made a mistake. We thought the great thing to do was to

-reform the ways of the world. We forgot that the human heart needed

-reforming first of all,” said Ezra, looking sadly at his poor

-wan-cheeked little wife.

-

-“And if the heart is right it doesn’t matter about the rest, does it,

-dear?” said Olive, looking timidly at him.

-

-He was sad and down-hearted and the eager enthusiasm was gone out of his

-manner. Ezra was much older-looking than he should have been, if life be

-reckoned by solar time alone. He had been aged by a lapse of mental time

-and suffering of which the almanac can take no heed. His wife saw and

-understood how he was, at this moment, realizing the downfall of his

-young hopes and beliefs, that was why he gazed so sadly across the

-desolate fields.

-

-“We take nothing away with us except sad experience,” he said as he

-lifted her into the waggon and drove off.

-

-“And our love, dear, which nothing can ever destroy,” she whispered,

-pressing his hand.

-

-He stooped and kissed her. There were tears in his eyes. But they made a

-mistake. They took something else with them. Something that came tearing

-over the prairie with tongue out and tail stiff-stretched and nose to

-the ground—Diana, who had been turned over to Napoleon Pompey to have

-and to hold, but he could not hold her when she saw the waggon going

-off, therefore he could not have her. She caught them up when they were

-two miles off, and Olive let the dog clamber all over her, regardless of

-wet paws, and lick her face, so delighted were they to meet again.

-

-

-                                THE END.

-

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-

-

-

-

-                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

-

-

- 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in

-      spelling.

- 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.

- 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

- 4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.

-

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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67549 ***
+
+                                                            =Appletons’
+                                                        Town and Country
+                                                            Library=
+
+                                                            No. 212
+
+ PERFECTION CITY
+
+
+
+
+                            PERFECTION CITY
+
+
+                                    BY
+
+                                MRS. ORPEN
+
+ AUTHOR OF MARGARETA COLBERG, MR. ADOLF, THE CHRONICLES OF THE SID, ETC.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+                                  1897
+
+
+
+
+                            COPYRIGHT, 1897,
+                      BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+                CHAPTER                            PAGE
+                    I.— HOME-COMING OF THE BRIDE      1
+                   II.— UNCLE DAVID                  11
+                  III.— SISTER MARY WINKLE           21
+                   IV.— MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH        27
+                    V.— CORN PLANTING                43
+                   VI.— NON-RESISTANCE               54
+                  VII.— WILLETTE                     66
+                 VIII.— MR. PERSEUS                  84
+                   IX.— FIRST LESSONS               101
+                    X.— PRACTICAL COMMUNISM         111
+                   XI.— A CHANCE MEETING            125
+                  XII.— THE PRAIRIE FIRE            141
+                 XIII.— THE RESCUE                  156
+                  XIV.— COTTERELL “WANTED”          170
+                   XV.— IN QUEST OF NEWS            185
+                  XVI.— HORSE-THIEVES               204
+                 XVII.— A LIFE AT STAKE             219
+                XVIII.— LYNCH-LAW                   237
+                  XIX.— OLIVE MISSING               251
+                   XX.— MADAME’S SYMPATHY           263
+                  XXI.— THE MESSAGE                 277
+                 XXII.— OLIVE’S SECOND HOME-COMING  293
+                XXIII.— CONCLUSION                  305
+
+
+
+
+                            PERFECTION CITY.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+                       HOME-COMING OF THE BRIDE.
+
+
+“This road isn’t called Perfection Road, is it?” she asked jerkily, as
+she held tight hold of the edge of the waggon to prevent herself from
+being pitched head foremost off the seat. She would have laid her head
+against her companion’s shoulder only that it was square and hard, and
+she was afraid of getting her temple “stove in,” as the sailors say, by
+the terrific bumps caused by the wheels going over a big stone or down
+into a deep rut. She was a bride, and he was bringing her to their new
+home on the Kansas Prairie.
+
+“My poor little pet,” he said tenderly, “it is very rough here. We are
+going down into Cotton Wood Creek, and these stones were cast up by the
+last freshet which pretty well washed the road away.”
+
+They plunged headlong into the muddy waters of the Creek, and the little
+bride would have felt frightened only that “he” was by her side, for the
+waggon creaked and groaned with the strain, and the horses snorted
+uneasily, feeling their way carefully through the rushing torrent. The
+Creek was safely passed, and they slowly toiled up the long hill out of
+the bottom-lands, and pulled up when once more on the high prairie.
+
+“There is our home, dearie,” he said, pointing with his whip to some
+scattered houses a couple of miles away. And being a bridegroom he
+kissed her.
+
+“So that is Perfection City, is it?” said she, shading her eyes with her
+hand, for the afternoon sun sent level rays into her face. “You know,
+Ezra, it is such a funny name, I always feel inclined to laugh when I
+say it. And how I shall ever dare to put it at the top of my letters as
+a real address when I write to the girls at the College at Smyrna, is
+more than I know.”
+
+“Then don’t write it,” replied Ezra, a trifle sternly. “It will hurt our
+feelings very much if you laugh at it. You know it means a great deal to
+all of us.”
+
+“Then I’ll never laugh at it,” said the little bride.
+
+“Which is our house?” she asked a moment later.
+
+“The one half way up the slope.”
+
+“Oh, that is nice. I like looking down across things. I shouldn’t like
+to live in a valley and always have to look up, you know.”
+
+“The large building is the Academy,” said Ezra. “That is where we hold
+our meetings and gather together for all the best purposes of our little
+community-life.”
+
+“Is it there that Madame Morozoff-Smith lives?” asked his wife.
+
+“Her house is the one just opposite.”
+
+“Oh, that big one! It is quite the largest in the village—the City, I
+mean.”
+
+Ezra did not make any reply to this remark. He had never realised that
+Madame’s house was indeed the largest in their Community, and now he
+felt vexed that this fact should have been the first his wife noted.
+
+A small boy with shining black face and shining white teeth, along with
+a yellow puppy, welcomed them.
+
+“This is Napoleon Pompey,” said Ezra, with much decorum presenting the
+small darkie who grinned and bobbed his head. “And this is Diana,”
+pointing to the puppy that had come up to the bars along with the negro.
+Diana jumped upon her new mistress and left two black dust marks on her
+dress. Dust is black in London and on the western prairie, nowhere else.
+
+“Oh, you dirty dog,” said the little bride, who was a very natty body.
+
+“You’ll have to get used to dirt in all degrees out here, Ollie,” said
+her husband as he led her to the door. She looked like a little girl as
+she stood beside him, for he was tall and angular and long of leg. A
+sloping plank with battens nailed across it led to the door, there were
+no steps. As the pair entered, Napoleon Pompey and Diana took the horses
+and waggon to the stable and began respectively to unharness and worry
+them.
+
+“What a dear little house! It is just like a toy! And do look at the
+saws hanging on the walls beside the covers of the pots! Oh, won’t it be
+so nice and free living here! I shall feel like an explorer in a far
+country. And how funny to have nail-kegs for seats, and oh, you dear old
+darling!”
+
+Olive jumped up and kissed her big husband.
+
+“Things are rough now, dearie,” he said with infinite tenderness,
+looking at her with loving admiration, “but by and by we shall have
+everything very nice.”
+
+“But I think it is just as nice as it can be now.”
+
+“This is our room,” said he, opening a door to the right.
+
+“Why, if you haven’t gone and got a rocking-chair!” exclaimed Olive,
+glancing around the small apartment.
+
+“I made it for you myself in spare time,” answered Ezra, pleased that
+she had noticed the chair the first thing: he had often wondered, when
+working at that rocking-chair, whether she would be pleased with it.
+“You see,” he continued, “we have to work only five days a week for the
+Community. All the rest of our time is at our own disposal, and by and
+by, when we are flourishing, four days for the Community will suffice.”
+
+“Do you like working for other people and not being paid?” asked Olive.
+
+“I do not consider it as working for other people without pay,” replied
+her husband, with some quickness. “We each work for the general good,
+and if I happen to plant corn that someone else will eat, then some
+other member of the Community raises potatoes that I shall eat.”
+
+“There, there, don’t be cross,” said the little wife, noting the flush
+that had risen to his brow as he spoke. “I am sure it is nice, and I
+shall like it when I understand it all. At any rate we shall be very
+happy whatever happens, and I like my dear little house, and please, I
+am very thirsty, can I have a drink?”
+
+He brought her some water in a tin dipper with a long handle, and she
+did not make a face, but drank the water gratefully. She determined in
+her own mind, however, to have a glass tumbler the very next day, but
+she was new to the prairie, and she did not get the tumbler the next
+day, nor the next week, nor for many, many long months.
+
+“What time are we to have breakfast?” she asked, when taking over the
+household from Napoleon Pompey and Diana, who had run the establishment
+while her husband had been to fetch her from Ohio.
+
+“Yo’ kin eat when yo’ like,” said Napoleon Pompey, desiring to be all
+that was polite to his new mistress.
+
+“But I want to know what time you have breakfast?” repeated Olive with
+persistence.
+
+“We uns got ter be hout on der lan’ ploughin’ afore sun-up,” said
+Napoleon Pompey concisely.
+
+“Dear me! Why, that is before six o’clock!” exclaimed Olive.
+
+“I calkerlate,” said Napoleon Pompey affably.
+
+Ezra did not want Olive to think she was bound to get up and prepare the
+working-man’s breakfast.
+
+“You are not used to that sort of hard work, dearie. We can do very well
+with cold corn-bread.”
+
+“Of all things the most stoggy and hopelessly uninviting,” interrupted
+his wife. “No, Ezra, I won’t have any of the people out here think I am
+a little fool that can’t do any useful work. I have my pride as well as
+other folks. I shall cook your breakfast to-morrow and every day
+afterwards, and I shall cook it well, see if I don’t.”
+
+“I am sure of that,” said her husband with the confidence of a
+bridegroom.
+
+The house of which the young bride had just taken possession was by no
+means an ordinary prairie house. Far from it. It had pretensions to
+comfort which the true prairie house should never possess, and it lacked
+the few elements of picturesqueness with which the genuine article is
+sometimes endowed. The plan on which it was built was of the
+simplest—the same that children adopt in building their doll’s
+houses—four sides and a sloping roof, all of wood from top to bottom. It
+was not a log-house, which has a few broken lines to rest the eye of the
+beholder and present possibilities to the artist, it was a frame house,
+that is, the straightest, stiffest, squarest, most hopelessly
+unpicturesque object that it is possible to imagine, and to make matters
+worse it was painted a glaring white from eave to foundation. There was
+not a broken line or a broken tint anywhere to refresh the eye, and it
+stood on the high prairie, as if hurled into a glaring world by a
+Titan’s hand.
+
+The prairie is fertile, and in the eye of a farmer may possess the
+beauty of usefulness, but otherwise it is hideous. The long rolling
+billows of grass present no character, while the trees are confined to
+the river valleys where they find refuge from prairie fires, and can
+therefore lead a sufficiently undisturbed existence to reach quite a
+respectable height. A couple of small locust trees, not three feet high,
+were all that did duty as shade-giving plants near Olive’s house, which
+accordingly faced the world and its storms entirely on its own
+individual merits. Judged by prairie standard the house was “tip-top.”
+It possessed no less than four rooms, while the regular settler’s cabin
+was wont to indulge in only a single comprehensive apartment, which was
+kitchen, parlour and bedroom all in one. The two lower rooms were the
+kitchen, which was fairly large, and a smaller one off it, reserved for
+the private use of the young wife. The kitchen looked like a ship’s
+cabin, only that it had more light than usually penetrates into a ship’s
+cabin. In fact it was very light, for there were two large windows, one
+to the north and one to the south, geometrically opposite each other.
+These two windows, so exactly facing each other, were fairly typical of
+the house itself, which was the embodiment of mathematical accuracy. The
+building was placed exactly east and west, as if it had been a carefully
+oriented church. There was a door on the south side, exactly in the
+middle, and a window on either side of the door, placed accurately in
+the centre of the space left between the side of the door and the end of
+the house. Over these two windows were two others exactly one half their
+size, giving light to the loft, and exactly in the centre of the
+roof-ridge was a black stove-pipe.
+
+The average prairie man is a genius in the way of doing without things.
+He can live in a house of the smallest dimensions, containing the
+minimum of utensils. In fact, his idea of a house is that it should be a
+miner’s tent solidified into substantiality. The miner in a
+newly-prospected gold-field is a person who spends his days in a hole,
+and has no belongings but the clothes on his back and the shovel in his
+hand. He lives on his expectations. The regular prairie settler, would
+arrive in the spring, camp in his waggon, stick grains of corn under the
+sod, and think himself lucky if he could raise both the corn and a
+loghut, fourteen by twelve feet, before the cold weather set in. Those
+who have passed through such a severe school prune down their
+requirements. Therefore the house to which Ezra Weston brought his
+little bride was rightly considered to be a model of luxury, or in
+prairie phraseology to be “powerful full o’ truck.”
+
+The kitchen certainly was full. The stove, black and business-like,
+stood near the partition wall, and on it rested a couple of huge iron
+pots with covers. Chairs there were none, as Olive had remarked, but
+boxes and nail-kegs did as well and were useful in holding things. There
+was a large wooden table, very strongly made, on one side, and a set of
+shelves in one corner. The walls and ceiling, which were of wood closely
+jointed, added to the ship-like appearance of the room, but the presence
+of two large saws and a horse-collar which hung above them made a
+considerable deduction from the nautical character of the apartment.
+
+This model dwelling stood in the midst of a large tract of fenced-in
+land. Part of this was already under cultivation and showed a dark
+purple surface to the heavens, betokening newly turned up prairie sod
+full of the natural plant foods stored there for thousands of ages.
+These were now about to be recklessly used up by the ordinary system of
+prairie farming, which consisted of taking everything out of the land
+and of putting nothing back into it. A sort of road, that is to say a
+beaten track with deep channels on either side, led from the house to
+the bars, which did duty as gate to the premises. These bars were
+precisely what the name implies, bars of wood lying on supports made for
+them between posts, and they were simply let down whenever horses or
+other animals had to pass in or out, and were climbed over by active
+children too lazy to let them down or rather, perhaps, too lazy to put
+them up again.
+
+On one side of the bars stretching out at an angle was an orchard just
+planted with trees that probably would be worth having twenty years
+hence, and further away was another field consisting simply of fenced-in
+prairie grass. The fields, and indeed everything else, were square, and
+every fence that did not run north and south, ran east and west. The
+whole place seemed under a despotism of compass and measuring chain.
+Indeed, the prairie itself was under the same iron rule: and by the
+authorities had been plotted out into squares of a mile each way called
+“sections,” of which persons could buy of the Government quarter
+sections or multiples of a quarter section at a low rate. Fortunately
+for humanity this conspiracy to turn the world into a surveyor’s map was
+to some extent defeated by the rivers and streams, which ran as Heaven
+and the water-sheds decreed, and not as the officials at Washington
+desired. This fact, and this alone, has in some measure saved the
+prairie from the awful fate of mathematical damnation.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+                              UNCLE DAVID.
+
+
+Mrs. Weston was tired and sat down in her rocking-chair to rest. Her
+day’s work was fairly over. The breakfast had been ready punctually at
+half past five, and it was well-cooked, as she had boasted it would
+be—corn-bread smoking hot, fried chicken, potatoes, flap-jacks and
+molasses—a meal for a king, to say nothing of a working-man and his
+negro help. Ezra and Napoleon Pompey had partaken heartily, especially
+the latter, for he had been living on underdone hoe-cake and cold pork.
+Then they had gone off to the ploughing, while Olive had bustled around
+and got forward with her house-work. At eleven o’clock she had run up
+the towel against the shady side of the house, a signal easily seen from
+the distant field, and signifying that dinner was ready. They had come
+home, men and horses thoroughly hungry and ready for food and rest. Ezra
+lay on the kitchen floor and talked to her while she washed up the
+dishes. And now it was three o’clock, and all the work was done. She
+thought she would read a little. She had several books with her that she
+had been looking forward to reading. So she took up one of them and
+seated herself comfortably in the rocking-chair. The door was open and a
+warm air came in from the south along with the gleaming sunshine. Diana
+lay across the door-way, but kept one eye open, so as to see when the
+black hen came near enough to have a spring at her with any chance of
+grabbing a mouthful of tail-feathers. Olive’s eyes rested very little on
+the book, but much on the view outside. It looked pleasant enough in the
+bright May sunshine. The long brown patch of the garden showed a few
+methodical green lines that spoke of vegetables beginning to sprout. The
+meadow of blue grass just beyond was likewise by its hue showing the
+on-coming of the warm spring weather, and yet again further off, on the
+other side of the meadow, lay the vast field which her husband was
+ploughing. Once in every half hour she could see him turn at the
+head-land, and noted how seldom he seemed to stop and rest. Napoleon
+Pompey was riding the off leader, and from that distance they seemed
+little insects gently crawling backwards and forwards across the land.
+Pleasant it looked too and by no means hard work. Olive determined to go
+out to the field one day soon and watch the process from a nearer point
+of view; she might indeed herself hold the plough-handles, it looked
+easy, she would ask Ezra to let her, she would like to learn to do all
+sorts of work so as to be very useful, she would—confused images swept
+slowly over her mind, she leaned back her pretty little head and slept
+in her chair.
+
+She awoke with a start. A large square figure stood in the door-way,
+blocking out the sunshine, and Diana, with the insane friendliness of a
+puppy, was trying to clamber up one of his legs.
+
+“Well, little gal, I reckon you’re ’most tired out, ain’t you?” said the
+big man, coming straight into the room.
+
+Mrs. Weston rose to her utmost height of five feet two inches, and tried
+to be dignified.
+
+“Do you wish to see my husband?” she inquired stiffly.
+
+“No, I don’t want to see Ezry. I come to talk to you a spell, and see
+you.”
+
+“You are very kind I’m sure,” returned the little lady icily, but the
+stranger did not seem one whit abashed. He took a nail-keg and sat down
+on it and looked about him. “Wal, now,” he remarked, nodding his head,
+“Ezry is real downright handy. He’s gone and got your house fine and
+fixed up, ain’t he now?”
+
+“It is extremely comfortable, Mr.—ah—I don’t think you mentioned your
+name,” said Mrs. Weston, with a snap of her black eyes. She didn’t at
+all relish the free and easy way in which this man spoke of her husband.
+
+“Do tell!” exclaimed the stranger with vast cordiality. “An’ you didn’t
+know who I was. Why, I’m Uncle David. I guessed everybody ’ud know me.
+There ain’t nobody else so big and awkward looking ’bout here on this
+prairie as me. Why, there was a man over to Perfection City yesterday,
+he come from beyond Cotton Wood Creek, and he said he calculated I’d be
+powerful useful on washing days, ’cause if they tied the clothes-line to
+me I’d do instead of a pole, an’ timber is mighty scarce anyhow.”
+
+Uncle David gave a long loud laugh that set Diana into an ecstasy of
+delight, and was of itself so joyous that, after a moment, Olive also
+joined in with a merry titter. She had often heard her husband speak of
+Uncle David, as being one of the kindest and most simple-hearted of men.
+Her frigid manner melted rapidly and completely.
+
+“Wal, now,” began Uncle David again, after his merriment had subsided,
+“how do you like our name?”
+
+“Your name,” repeated Olive considerably puzzled.
+
+“No, our name, the name of the Community, Perfection City. Do you like
+it?”
+
+“I don’t think I do,” replied she.
+
+“Jes’ so,” broke in Uncle David, apparently much pleased with this
+answer. “I knew you wouldn’t. Nobody does.”
+
+“Why did you call it such a name—such a horrid name—and if nobody likes
+it, what is the use?”
+
+“There now, that’s what they all say, until I talk to ’em,” said Uncle
+David. “You see I gave the name to the place.”
+
+“Oh, it was your choice!” said Olive.
+
+“When we came here, Niece and I, there wasn’t no town nor nothing, it
+was just open prairie. Ezry he come along too with us, and the
+Carpenters, and Mrs. Ruby, and the Wrights.”
+
+“You leave out Madame Morozoff-Smith,” interrupted Olive.
+
+“I thought you knew. Why, Madame, she’s Niece. She ain’t my real niece,
+she wasn’t born in my family, but she’s niece by adoption, and I hold
+she’s more to me than half the nieces I ever seen. I ain’t cute like
+most of the folks here, an’ there wasn’t no use in having me at
+Perfection City. I can’t do nothing. I can’t compose papers like Brother
+Wright. So I was studyin’ to see some way for me to come with ’em. It
+would ha’ broke my heart to be left behind. Madame, she come to me, an’
+says she: ‘You’ll be my uncle. I want an uncle very much, and I’ll love
+you dearly.’ An’ so I was. I call it the greatest honour of my life when
+Madame made me her uncle, and added my name to hers.” Uncle David
+stooped and patted Diana’s head thoughtfully.
+
+“When did you think of the name?” said Olive with a view to bringing him
+back to the point.
+
+“Yes, jes’ so, that’s ’xactly what I was comin’ to. You see, when Ezry
+fust come here with us he wasn’t quite clear in his mind ’bout joinin’
+in with us, leastways not to be one of the Community for his whole
+mortal life. It’s a serious step to take, and he was a-doubtin’ in his
+mind, leastways till Madame she talked to him for a spell. He wasn’t
+sure fust if he’d got a call to community-life. He knowed it was the
+best, of course, and the true life: he knowed all that right enough, but
+he didn’t feel sure of himself as bein’ fit to found a city. It is a
+most responsible thing to be a founder. ’Taint everybody as is fit for
+it. Then Madame made it clear how she was a founder, an’ she is the most
+wonderful woman ever lived in this world, an’ she showed Ezry how it was
+his duty to help in this great work, an’ when he saw that clear he was
+dreadful sot on it too. We was a-gettin’ our houses up as spry as ever
+we could, and ole Wright he was a-buildin’ th’ Academy, then Ezry says:
+‘What’s goin’ to be our name?’ It was jes’ called Weddell’s Gully,
+’cause we bought from a man o’ that name. So Ezry said: ‘Let’s call it
+something to signify our principles,’ and one person said one name and
+one said another, then Wright said ‘Let’s call it Teleiopolis.’”
+
+“Oh, that sounds very pretty,” exclaimed Olive. “Why didn’t you?”
+
+“Wal, now, I said that’s very pretty, jes’ the same as you did. What
+does it mean, do you know?”
+
+“No, I don’t know. I suppose it is Greek for something.”
+
+“’Zactly so. It is Greek for something, and that something is Perfection
+City.”
+
+“It sounds nicer.”
+
+“Maybe so, but you look here. Are we Greeks?”
+
+“No, of course not.”
+
+“Then why talk in Greek?”
+
+“I don’t know, except it is prettier.”
+
+“Do you suppose them old Greeks, when they went an’ founded cities, they
+called ’em names out o’ some other language they didn’t understand, or
+did they called ’em good solid Greek names as any little boy ’ud know
+what they meant?” asked Uncle David with rising energy.
+
+“I believe they called their cities by Greek names, in fact I know they
+did,” said Olive, hastily reviewing her stock of history.
+
+“An’ why?” asked Uncle David.
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Because they wasn’t ’shamed o’ their mother tongue like we are. That’s
+why,” said Uncle David, clapping his big hand on his knee.
+
+“Oh indeed,” said Olive.
+
+“An’ that’s what I said, says I, ‘We are ’Mericans, we are founding a
+new city that’s goin’ to be great things one day. We have our
+principles. Let’s live up to them. We hain’t shamed o’ nothin’.
+Leastways not to my knowledge. We are goin’ to be an example to these
+folks roun’ here. We are goin’ to show ’em how to live a better life nor
+they ever did before. An’ how in thunder can we do that if we start by
+being ’shamed of our own mother tongue? We hain’t Greeks, we don’t talk
+in Greek. This hain’t Teleiopolis, this is Perfection City.’ That is
+what I said to ’em.”
+
+“What did they say to that?” asked Olive, much interested in the rugged
+honesty of Uncle David.
+
+“Wal, I don’t know as they said anything much, on’y Ezry, he said he
+guessed he’d had his fust lesson, an’ he come and shook hands an’ said
+it certainly should be Perfection City, an’ so it was.”
+
+“I shall think better of the name now,” said Olive. “Only at first I was
+afraid of people laughing, people who didn’t understand it, you see.”
+
+“Oh, people’ll laugh,” said Uncle David. “People does a heap o’ laughing
+in this world without makin’ it one mite merrier for anybody. I like
+laughing myself. It’s awful good an’ satisfyin’ to have a real square
+laugh, but t’aint that sort. Mos’ folks’ laugh hain’t got no more fun in
+it than the laugh of a hoot-owl. I’d a heap sight rather have none at
+all. You ain’t agoin’ to mind that sort, I hope?” Uncle David spoke with
+a shade of anxiety in his manner.
+
+“Oh no, I’m not thin-skinned,” said Olive with a superior smile.
+
+“Some folks is made that way. When they have found a tender spot in
+anybody they can’t rest no how till they’ve stuck some sort o’ pin into
+it.”
+
+“Tell me, does everything belong to everybody generally out here? It is
+so puzzling. This house, for instance, is it ours or yours or
+everybody’s?” asked Olive.
+
+“The land an’ the horses an’ the cattle an’ waggons was mostly bought
+with community-money, that is Madame, she gave the money, she’s rich you
+know, an’ she’s generous and always givin’ to the Community, her whole
+heart is in it. But Ezry worked a heap on this house, he mostly built it
+all, an’ it’s his, an’ t’other folks’ houses are theirs. That’s Brother
+Wright’s over yonder, an’ that’s our house beside the ’Cademy, most
+everybody worked to get it up and fix it comfortable for Madame. Old
+Mrs. Ruby, she lives to herself in the log cabin we bought from Weddell,
+we had it moved there a purpose over from the Gully, ’cause she liked to
+live beside the spring so as to get her water handy. She had a little
+mite of money which we used in buyin’ stock.”
+
+“So you do have some things as private property, just like ordinary
+people,” observed Olive.
+
+“Of course. It would not be any sort o’ use to have everything in
+common, ’cause folks’ notions don’t always ’xactly suit. An’ what we
+want is to have everybody free, so they can be perfectly happy here. We
+don’t want to have no strife, an’ no jealousy, an’ no ill feeling one
+towards another. But there can’t be community in all things. What sort
+o’ use would it be for you an’ me to have community o’ boots an’ shoes?”
+said Uncle David with a great laugh, sticking out his enormous foot
+towards where Olive’s dainty little slipper peeped from beneath her
+dress.
+
+“Your shoes, my dear, wouldn’t go on my two fingers, an’ mine ’ud be big
+enough to make a tol’eble boat for you. There couldn’t be community in
+shoes, so there ain’t none. But with the lan’ it’s different. We all
+work that for the benefit of everybody, there ain’t no strugglin’ to be
+fust an’ get ahead o’ one another. We are all brothers at Perfection
+City.”
+
+Olive was full of excitement when Ezra came back at sun-down.
+
+“Just fancy, I’ve had my first visitor,” she said as she stood beside
+her husband while he was watering the horses.
+
+“Who was it? Mrs. Ruby?”
+
+“No, it was Uncle David,” and she gave a merry little laugh.
+
+“Well, and how did you like him?”
+
+“I think he is just charming. He is just like a piece of granite or oak
+or something of that sort, not smooth or shiny on the outside, but solid
+and sound to the very core. Oh! I shall love Uncle David.”
+
+“That’s right. He is a good man,” said Ezra.
+
+“And you know? he has made me understand about Perfection City. I shan’t
+want to laugh at it any more, and I don’t care if anybody else does. It
+was real brave of you showing your colours plain and sticking to them,”
+said Olive with a skip and a clap of her little hands.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+                          SISTER MARY WINKLE.
+
+
+The very next morning just as she was washing her potatoes for dinner,
+another visitor called upon Olive, a visitor of whose sex she was for a
+moment or two in doubt. The visitor wore a large sunbonnet, a check
+blouse, and a pair of Zouave trowsers fastened in at the ankle.
+
+“How do you do, Olive Weston?” said this person, in a deep serious
+voice. Olive, who had not seen her, started in surprise and dropped her
+potato into the basin.
+
+“I am Mary Winkle. That’s my house over yonder.”
+
+“Oh, the Wrights’! Yes, to be sure. Come in and sit down,” said Olive
+hospitably, although she felt considerable surprise at her visitor’s
+appearance.
+
+“You don’t wear the reformed dress yet, I see,” said Mary Winkle.
+
+“No, I don’t,” acquiesced Olive.
+
+“Shall you?”
+
+“I don’t know. I have not thought about it. I suppose there is no
+regulation about what one wears on the prairie. There is no fashion here
+I suppose,” said Olive politely.
+
+“No, only the fashion of common sense.”
+
+“Do all the ladies dress that way, Miss Winkle?” inquired Olive.
+
+“Only my daughter and myself.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, I should have said Mrs. Winkle,” said Olive, in some
+confusion.
+
+“No, you shouldn’t,” replied her visitor. “I am not Mrs. Winkle.”
+
+“I am afraid I am very stupid. Would you tell me then how I should
+address you. I don’t understand.”
+
+“Address me as Mary Winkle, and my husband as John Wright.”
+
+Olive stared at her.
+
+“Are you not Mrs. Wright then?”
+
+“No, certainly not. I scorn the title. It is a symbol of subjection. I
+did not lose my identity when I chose to marry. I am the same Mary
+Winkle that I was before, and as such I desire to retain the name that I
+always possessed. Why should I take a new name simply because I am
+married?”
+
+“It is usual,” stammered Olive. “I shouldn’t like not to be called Mrs.
+Weston. It is so confusing, you see.”
+
+“Mere custom and prejudice. Why should not your husband take your name,
+instead of its always being the wife who is absorbed?”
+
+“I don’t know, but I never heard of it before.”
+
+“Ah, that is one of the first changes that must be made when women get
+their rights,” observed Mary Winkle.
+
+“But I don’t want the change one bit. I much prefer the old way.”
+
+“I dare say. Slaves often feel no want of freedom.”
+
+“I’m not a slave,” said Olive, flushing angrily. “You cannot be in the
+least acquainted with my husband.”
+
+“Oh, I know your husband very well, an excellent man in many respects,
+but narrow in others; however, I referred to general slavery, to custom,
+not to any individual slavery in your case.”
+
+“I don’t think there is any good in destroying customs, unless there is
+something better to be got in a new custom.”
+
+“Ah yes, no doubt it seems so to you; but there is inestimable gain in
+the mere protest against tyranny. Why, that’s what we are all here for,
+to protest against everything and live a life of freedom.”
+
+“And freedom may as well begin here and now, and in its name I will wear
+long dresses and be called Mrs. Weston, because I prefer the older
+customs,” said Olive with some archness.
+
+“Yes, you may do as you like, but you will get heartily sick of those
+skirts, I can tell you.”
+
+Olive remembering sundry pretty dresses she had in her trunk, was
+privately convinced she would not get sick of them.
+
+“I haven’t seen Madame yet,” she said, “and I feel the greatest
+curiosity about her. She must be a remarkable woman by all accounts.
+Does she wear the same sort of dress as you do?”
+
+“No, she doesn’t, and it’s a great pity, for her influence would be very
+great with the other women. I suppose you’ll see her to-morrow evening.
+You’ll come to the Academy, won’t you?”
+
+“Yes, certainly, if Ezra is going. I should like to go ever so much and
+see all my neighbours, but perhaps he will be too tired. He does work
+dreadfully hard, it seems to me.”
+
+“He ought to do a little brain-work. Wright says nothing rests one like
+brain-work. He’s been doing a spell of that lately. He’s been writing an
+essay on ‘The Ultimate Perfection of Being.’ He’ll most likely read some
+of it to-morrow at the Academy.”
+
+“I shouldn’t think essays would be much use in planting corn,” said
+Olive rather tartly, remembering at what hour her husband had come from
+the harrowing.
+
+“Wright and I, we don’t believe in making a god of work. We have a much
+higher ideal of life than that. We don’t want anything sordid in our
+lives, Wright and I. We haven’t any sympathy with this restless striving
+to get on. One of the great advantages of Perfection City is that we all
+have time for the cultivation of our higher natures.”
+
+“Just now,” said Olive, “my husband seems to have no thought in his mind
+but the cultivation of that field over there. He is at work early and
+late. No person could possibly work harder for himself or his individual
+advantage than he does for the Community.”
+
+“There’s just a case in point,” remarked Mary Winkle complacently. “I
+always thought your husband very narrow in his views. He slaves away at
+this corn planting as if that were the chief end and object of his
+existence. It is all very well to work at times, but working in order to
+store up food for the body is the lowest possible form that human
+activity can take.”
+
+“It is the most indispensable form,” remarked Olive.
+
+“By no means,” replied Mary Winkle with precision. “That observation
+would seem to indicate that you are more narrow even than your husband.
+The body is merely the servant of the mind: the mind needs to be fed,
+and it is the food for the mind which your husband appears so careless
+about providing. Fortunately for Perfection City, Wright has taken
+thought on that subject. Wright has a very high standard of what is
+necessary for the mind.”
+
+“It appears to me,” said Olive with a snap of her black eyes and an
+ominous red spot on her cheeks, “that if we all lived up to your
+standard, it might very well happen that by next winter our minds might
+be uncomfortably full and our stomachs correspondingly empty. If Ezra
+did not plough and get his land ready for planting as fast as mortal man
+can, how is the land to be got ready? It doesn’t plough itself, does it,
+even at Perfection City?”
+
+“I see you will have to get rid of many prejudices,” observed Mary
+Winkle. “Of course community-life only comes easy to people who are
+adapted to it. Wright and I are adapted. We like it. We shall stay here.
+We shall succeed therefore. You and Brother Ezra will have to go through
+a season of training first. You both need it. I dare say you may hear
+something that you will find useful to you to-morrow from Wright. I will
+just mention to him where your particular blindness seems to lie. Wright
+is a very profound thinker. He has given great thought to the subject of
+the Ultimate Perfection of People. He can explain every step in the
+training of a perfect communist, and show clearly just where everybody
+has hitherto gone wrong in their attempts to realize their ideal, and
+exactly what mistakes they have made. I am glad you have come in time to
+hear his paper; it will be of lasting good to you. You will be able to
+profit by it, because you are in great need of proper training. I dare
+say you need it more even than Ezra. For, after all, he must have
+learned something from us in the year he has been with us.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+                         MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH.
+
+
+The Academy at Perfection City was not a pretentious building in
+anything but in name. It was a plain wooden house, almost square, having
+a window on three sides and a door on the fourth, facing south. Inside
+there were several rough benches, two tables, an iron stove, and a large
+easy chair, with a small desk beside it, upon which stood a pair of
+candles. There were no curtains and no carpets, absolutely no attempts
+at beautifying the place. But the board-floor was clean.
+
+Olive dressed herself in a flutter of expectation for her first visit to
+this abode of wisdom.
+
+“I expect everybody will be there, because they’ll all want to see you,
+little woman,” said her husband, who, tired as he was after his day’s
+work, changed his earth-stained clothes for a fresh suit. Olive wore a
+white dress with lavender ribbons, and looked as fresh as a daisy as she
+tripped along daintily holding up her skirts. She wore the nattiest of
+boots over the neatest of feet, altogether a bright and unexpected sight
+upon the glum-looking prairie. It was a quarter of a mile to the
+Academy, down a road hardly more than a cart-track, and across a dry
+gully where there were no stepping stones.
+
+As Ezra had predicted, everybody had turned out to welcome the new
+bride. Uncle David met her at the door.
+
+“Wal, little girl,” he said, “we’re all a-looking out for you. Here’s
+Sister Mary Winkle, you’ve seen her, and this is her husband, Brother
+Wright.”
+
+Olive shook hands with a dark, broad-shouldered man who spoke in snaps
+as if he had been a dog. He had glittering white teeth.
+
+“We’ve been looking to have your husband back,” he said.
+
+“I’m sure you’re very kind,” murmured Olive conventionally.
+
+“We needed him for the ploughing,” snapped Wright.
+
+“Oh indeed!” said Olive less cordially.
+
+“This is the busy time of the year.”
+
+“All times a-year is the busy time in my ’pinion and ’sperience,” said
+Uncle David smiling comprehensively, “but most everyone spares time one
+way or ’nother to get married if they have a mind that way. Come along
+an’ see Brother and Sister Dummy. That ain’t their name, but we call ’em
+so, they’re deaf and mostly dumb now. They’re real good folks too.”
+
+A sad-eyed red-haired man shook hands with her, and a sad-eyed woman
+kissed her. They put into her hand a slip of paper on which was written
+a message of welcome.
+
+“They can talk a little, but they can’t hear one mite, and they don’t
+like to talk, because they can’t tell when they are whispering and when
+they are yelling, and it makes strangers jump to hear them sometimes.”
+
+Olive felt drawn towards this poor silent pair, but did not know how to
+express her sympathy. There were others in the room, but before she had
+time to speak to them the door opened and Madame Morozoff-Smith entered,
+and from that moment she seemed to see no one else. Madame was a
+remarkable looking woman. She was tall, large and fair, with keen grey
+eyes, full red lips, and a mass of pale gold hair rising over a forehead
+that was broad and smooth. A woman of indeterminate age with an air of
+youthfulness and command about her. She was dressed in a dark dress and
+wore a bright bunch of ribbons in her hair. It looked at first sight
+like a rose, only roses don’t grow on the prairie in the month of May.
+She came straight to where Olive was standing. She gave one the
+impression of floating, for although a large woman, she walked so
+lightly as to make no noticeable sound on the wooden floor. Taking
+Olive’s two hands in her warm large grasp, she kissed her on the
+forehead murmuring “Welcome,” and then stepping back she said in a clear
+voice that vibrated through the room:
+
+“Ah! now I understand that hurried courtship and swift marriage. I see
+what it was in Brother Ezra’s case. It was love at first sight. You are
+very pretty. I suppose, however, you know that very well. It is a secret
+seldom kept from young girls.”
+
+Olive was so startled by this unexpected address that she blushed to the
+roots of her black hair. Ezra stood looking down at his little wife
+smiling with pleasure. He was delighted to think that Madame found her
+so pretty. He had indeed thought her beautiful from the first moment
+when his eyes had rested on her, but then he loved her, and it was but
+natural that in his eyes she should be lovely. Madame, however, judged
+her unprejudiced, and yet if his delighted heart had room for one
+regret, it was that Madame’s praise had been so very public. If she had
+only whispered it softly to him in that wonderful voice of hers, which
+had often caught up his inmost thoughts and clothed them in words of
+eloquence, how much more precious would the tribute have been. He
+dismissed the half-formed regret as unworthy, and took himself to task
+for not exulting at this moment. The meeting of Madame and Olive was an
+event in his life. Olive, his sweet little rose-bud of a wife, on the
+one hand, and Madame, his venerated, nay his worshipped, friend, on the
+other. The one, the companion of his heart: the other, the guide of his
+mind who embodied in herself all that he held highest in the
+possibilities of womanhood, his true and noble-hearted friend, his
+inspired leader. How blest was the portion of him who stood that night
+the husband of the one, the disciple of the other! Ezra’s dark eyes
+shone with joy, and his square chin quivered with the smiles that lurked
+about his lips. He was not a handsome man, perhaps, but there was
+something grand in the large full forehead, strong eyebrows, and deep
+dark eyes. His massive frame bespoke strength, which in itself has
+always a great attraction for women.
+
+When Madame had addressed those words to the new sister all the members
+of the Community had scanned her narrowly, for the opinion of their
+leader had immense weight with the Pioneers. The men looked at Olive
+with increased admiration, and the women with envy. Only Uncle David
+appeared disappointed and wiped his face many times with his red
+pocket-handkerchief saying, “Wal, wal, now,” in a tone of earnest
+reproof.
+
+After this bewildering introduction in which her vanity had been not a
+little excited, Olive received a salutary check from the words of
+Brother Wright.
+
+“Before beginning to read my paper,” said he, “I should like to say a
+few words to the new sister who has come among us. We expect soon to be
+having new members join us so fast that perhaps we shall not be able to
+specially mark the entrance of each. But in this case there are peculiar
+reasons for exhortation. Sister Olive has not joined under ordinary
+circumstances. She did not, like the rest of us, feel a call to the
+higher life: she only came out of personal affection for one of the
+members of the Community.”
+
+Olive looked with a shy glance towards her husband, who took her hand in
+his for a moment, while Uncle David, who sat at the end of the room near
+Madame, said in a loud voice:
+
+“Quite right, quite right, couldn’t ha’ had a better reason.”
+
+“Therefore it becomes our duty to impress upon our new sister the
+principles which have been active in forming this Community,” said
+Brother Wright, without paying any heed to Uncle David’s interruption.
+“Perfection City has been founded to teach the world how to live. The
+old civilization has been tried and found wanting. It is time for a new
+one. Perfection City is the beginning of a new era. We are the Pioneers
+of a new world. We shall show the old and worn-out world how to banish
+evil from life. We cannot perhaps banish all physical evil, and for a
+time at least there may be sickness even among us, but we shall at once
+set about freeing ourselves from all the other troubles of life. There
+is nobody in Perfection City who will get rich, and nobody will ever be
+poor. We are all alike, and we shall none of us envy our neighbours his
+belongings, simply because everything belongs to all. The lesson we have
+to teach is the grandest the world ever saw, and when men know what it
+is, I foresee a future before Perfection City greater than that of any
+other city of the world. Rome lasted a good long while, but Rome didn’t
+possess the vital spark of life: Rome wasn’t communistic, therefore Rome
+fell. Perfection City won’t fall like that, but will go on teaching the
+world after we, its founders, are all dead. But our memories will live
+for the great things that we taught and through our example have made
+possible.”
+
+Brother Wright stopped for a few seconds, and Uncle David said
+admiringly,
+
+“You have a fine command of words, Brother Wright, and you have a way of
+making things sound uncommon grand. It always does me good to hear you
+talk of the grand future of our City; but we’ll have to get up some
+houses, and bigger ones, ’fore folks ’ull believe us.”
+
+Uncle David was as simple as a child, or some of his hearers might have
+suspected a sarcasm in his words.
+
+“Rome wasn’t built in a day, as I’ve heard say,” remarked Brother Green,
+with a strong English accent, “and I shall be glad if our little village
+ever grows to half its power and honour.”
+
+“Brother Green, I should refuse to have anything to say to the founding
+of another city like Rome,” interrupted Brother Wright with
+decisiveness.
+
+“It seems to me,” said Ezra in a shy hesitating manner, “that what we
+are here for is to demonstrate, if we can, how a better life can be
+lived here than is possible in the older communities, where
+circumstances are too strong and too hampering for people to rise above
+them. The older civilization has done much, it has raised our race to a
+high standard. What we want to do is to carry on that work, and above
+all to bring everyone within reach of the best that life has to offer.
+The older civilization has left so many stranded ones, who have lost
+their strength in the wild struggle; while we hope to bring all along
+equally and give to each a share of happiness. As usual, my friends,
+when I try to express my ideas I find that someone else has already put
+them into incomparably finer language than I can ever command. It has
+been so again. I find that our great poet, Walt Whitman, has said better
+than I can what I feel. May I quote him to you?
+
+                 ‘Have the elder races halted?
+ Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
+ We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
+                 Pioneers! O pioneers!’”
+
+Ezra sat down after reciting his verse, and his wife looked at him with
+glowing eyes. He had not said much, but his words had seemed to her so
+much fuller of thought and feeling than the easy monotonous flow from
+Brother Wright. That individual himself had not received Ezra’s remarks
+with quite so much delight. It was Brother Wright’s nature to see fight
+and contradiction in all things, even the most pacific. His eyes would
+flash and his black beard bristle in argument, almost as if he were a
+dog preparing to fight, and if one might be permitted to liken any
+Pioneer to one of the canine species, the bull-dog would undoubtedly be
+the variety most nearly resembling Brother Wright.
+
+“I don’t see that we need be beholden to anyone, poet or otherwise,” he
+said sharply, “for our opinions or sentiments. We have found them for
+ourselves, just as we have founded our City. It is our work, both
+opinions and practice.”
+
+“I think,” said Madame, rising and speaking with a deep clear voice,
+which a slight foreign accent seemed to render only the more attractive,
+“I think I see better than they do themselves where our two brothers
+agree. Brother Ezra, with that diffidence which strong natures often
+exhibit, thought he found in the lines of another man his own ideas more
+succinctly embodied than they would have been in his own words. Brother
+Ezra should not doubt his powers. Speech comes slowly to those who most
+deeply think, but he should consider how much we benefit by his words
+and how grateful we are to him for them. Brother Wright, it seems to me
+that you, perhaps, do not sufficiently appreciate the efforts of others
+who have gone before us on this road. We are not the first who have been
+discontented with the actual order of things, nor are we the first who
+have striven to make life brighter and easier. In all ages there have
+been those penetrated with these thoughts, and in different ways men,
+and women too, have striven earnestly, devotedly, to realize these
+ideas. Some indeed have imagined they had found a solution of all doubts
+and difficulties, and have in perfect good faith and self-satisfaction
+buried themselves in convents and monasteries and have ‘roll’d the psalm
+to wintry skies,’ and have ‘built them fanes of fruitless prayer.’ We
+have come to different conclusions by following a different road. We do
+not shut ourselves out of the world, rather we endeavour to raise it by
+showing a living example of what may be done now, in this age, by human
+beings such as we are. But if we are to succeed we must not reject the
+experience, nor fail to profit by the example, of others who have gone
+before us and felt earnestly on this subject.”
+
+Madame paused for a moment, and her keen glance rested upon the small
+assembly. Each individual seemed to feel that she was looking at him or
+at her. Certainly each member was looking intently at her. She seldom
+made speeches to them; she only interposed her observations, as on this
+occasion, between the speakers; but the last word usually remained with
+her.
+
+“Brother Wright, will you now read us your paper, as the evening is
+passing and we are all anxious to hear it. What is the title and
+subject?”
+
+“The Ultimate Perfection of Being is the title,” said Brother Wright,
+“and I think that pretty well sums up the subject also.”
+
+So apparently thought the audience, which resigned itself to a severe
+mental excursion into the unknown regions of Brother Wright’s
+imaginative metaphysics. Some of them fell out very soon, finding the
+road harder to follow than they had foreseen; but Brother Wright kept
+sturdily on, unheeding the signs of weakness and disaffection as
+betrayed by movings of feet and stifled yawns.
+
+Olive, not being able to understand what Brother Wright was saying,
+employed herself in watching Madame, who sat motionless beside her
+table, resting her head upon her supple white hand. At her feet lay what
+seemed to be a large brown rug, but was in fact her dog Balthasar, a
+blood-hound, who always stayed with her and was as gentle as a lamb,
+notwithstanding his name and breed.
+
+“Brother Green! That’s the second time you’ve snored,” suddenly
+exclaimed Brother Wright in the midst of his reading. Everybody was wide
+awake in an instant. Madame hid a smile with her hand, but not before
+Olive had noticed it.
+
+“Brother Green is perhaps tired. His work is very hard,” said Madame.
+
+“Well, the fact is I had to put a new point to the ploughshare this
+morning before I went to fetch my load of iron, and I began work before
+daybreak. I am very tired.”
+
+Brother Green was the blacksmith of Perfection City, an industrious
+hard-working man who thought life would show him a fairer side on the
+prairie than it had ever done in the far-away village in Sussex where he
+was born.
+
+“I think that it might be better to have our gatherings rather shorter
+now,” said Madame softly. “The workers in our little hive are all tired.
+I wish I could do more of the labour that is needed. I would gladly——”
+
+Madame was interrupted by a sharp rap on the table, a signal from
+Brother Huntley that he wanted to speak. He was the deaf and dumb man.
+She instantly rose and bowed to him with singular graciousness. Madame’s
+manner towards the deaf brethren was all that was exquisite. Huntley
+stood up and began in a voice almost inaudible which rose by sudden
+degrees to the intensity of a steam-whistle.
+
+“I want to know when we’re going to get our corn planted? We’re
+behindhand; most other folk’s corn is in already.”
+
+“As usual, Brother Huntley has something practical to say,” observed
+Madame.
+
+“He didn’t know we were discussing quite another subject, else his
+remark would have been rude and irrelevant,” said Wright, vexed at this
+cutting into his paper on the ultimate perfection of his and everybody’s
+being.
+
+“I think it would be very useful to see what we can do about the corn,”
+said the blacksmith. “If we are late the chances are there’ll be another
+drought in July, and our crop won’t be first-class.”
+
+“Is anyone’s land ready for planting?” inquired Madame.
+
+“None as I know of, except Brother Dummy’s,” said Uncle David. “He’s
+more forward nor anybody: always first in work.”
+
+“Of course, poor deaf creature! he can’t do anything but dumbly work
+like a——” began Brother Wright.
+
+“My land is ready for planting,” burst in Brother Huntley with a scream.
+
+“Then it shall be planted to-morrow,” cried Madame. “I’ll go myself.”
+
+“You!” exclaimed Olive.
+
+“Certainly, child. Don’t you think I can work as well as any other
+woman?”
+
+She rapidly wrote a few words on a slip of paper and passed it to
+Brother Huntley, who read it, nodded with satisfaction, and said: “Five
+o’clock in the morning!” in a voice so low that no one knew he was
+speaking.
+
+“I suppose he begins work about six?” said Madame.
+
+“No, he don’t, he’s mighty spry,” said old Mrs. Ruby, who lived near the
+Huntleys. “I hear him a-movin’ off with his plough every morning at five
+by the clock. He’s terrible sot on his work.”
+
+“Then I shall be there ready to go to work at five o’clock in the
+morning, and I shall begin by going to bed now, so as to be able to give
+a good day’s work. Good-night, friends all.”
+
+She rose, included them all in a sweeping salute and left the room as
+lightly as she had entered. Balthasar rose and slowly followed her.
+
+When Madame left the room the meeting broke up. No one felt inclined to
+linger when she was gone. It was from her they drew their interest in
+each other, as well as their belief in themselves and in Perfection
+City. She possessed the secret of influencing people without seeming to
+do so. The thought that she was going out on the land at five in the
+morning to plant corn made everyone ten times more eager to work than
+heretofore.
+
+Wright and his independent spouse, Mary Winkle, were infected by her
+example as they went home.
+
+“Now, Wright, don’t you go and do any more essaying till the crop is in.
+I think people oughtn’t to write except in winter time,” said Mary
+Winkle with firmness.
+
+“I never believed in nothing but manual work. Why, if I did, I should be
+still slaving away on that farm out in Illinois, instead of joining a
+community here where one can follow the bent of his higher nature, to
+the advantage of his neighbours as well as of himself,” said Wright.
+
+“Well, let that be,” said Mary hastily, recognising her own words and
+oft-expressed opinions, but not quite knowing what to do with them—a
+predicament not unexampled among theoretical philosophers, “but see and
+be out on the land to-morrow as early as anyone. Are you ready for the
+planting? Because I’ll go out and plant if you are.”
+
+“No, my drills won’t be ready for the planting till day after
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Then I’ll go and plant on Brother Dummy’s piece along with Madame.”
+
+“You’d better not. You’re not fit for such work. You’ll get sick and not
+be able to cook me any supper when I come home.”
+
+“No, I shan’t get sick. I ain’t going to let any person beat me at work,
+when I set my mind to it, and she in her long skirts too! I’ll show her
+the advantage of the reformed dress anyhow.”
+
+Thus the Wright and Winkle pair on their way home.
+
+“And will she really plant corn?” asked Olive in some curiosity.
+
+“Certainly she will. Madame never despised work.”
+
+“Oh! I don’t despise work, but she seems such a fine lady to go out on
+the land and plant corn just like a negro woman.”
+
+“That is one of the things our life here is intended to show, dearie,
+that no one is too grand for any honest work that he or she is
+physically capable of performing.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+                             CORN PLANTING.
+
+
+Punctual to the minute, there was Madame with her bag of corn on her
+left arm, following Brother Huntley and his plough-horses to the field,
+in the damp white fog of sunrise. Balthasar in deep disgust was there
+too, as in duty bound, but he had not a wag for anybody. How could a
+rational dog be in good spirits at that hour of the morning! Madame was
+dressed in a short calico frock well up to her ankles. Her fair hair was
+loosely wisped at the back of her head, and a large straw hat, tied down
+with a green gauze veil, made her look at once comfortable in the fog
+and ready for the expected sunshine. There were no corn-planters at
+Perfection City: farm-machinery was not then so plentiful on the prairie
+as now, and money was if possible scarcer. Corn planting was, therefore,
+done by hand. Brother Dummy’s drills of longitude were already ploughed,
+and he began on the drills of latitude forthwith. Into the hollows made
+by the intersection of these two sets of drills Madame was to drop three
+grains of corn, neither more nor less. It is dizzying work. After
+walking up and down the drills for hours one becomes oppressed by the
+never-ceasing square constantly recurring every two steps. The check
+pattern bewilders you, and you begin to wonder how a chess-man would
+feel if, endowed with sensibility and the power of motion, he had to
+march up and down his chess-board, always keeping to the lines for hours
+at a stretch.
+
+About seven o’clock Mary Winkle came upon the scene and plodded and
+planted for four hours. The sun was blazing down upon them pitilessly,
+and the parching south wind blew the fine black dust up from the rich
+dry soil, until their eyes and ears and noses were full of it.
+
+The field which they were planting was on the extreme verge of the
+community-land, far away from the houses. These were somewhat clustered
+towards the centre of the holding, which consisted of two sections or a
+little over twelve hundred acres. The workers, therefore, were a long
+way from home, considerably over a mile, and since corn planting entails
+ceaseless walking through heavy ploughed land, it had been settled that
+their dinner should be brought out to them, so as to enable the workers
+to rest during the whole dinner hour. Olive and Mrs. Ruby were to supply
+the necessary food, and the former, aided by Napoleon Pompey, was to
+bring it to the field at eleven o’clock. The little grove of locust
+trees just beginning to grow beside the far spring was the trysting
+place. Water would thus be handy, and the horses’ feed was already put
+there by the provident Brother Huntley. A little before the hour Olive
+and her black attendant arrived at the grove, bringing their load of
+food, and Olive set down her big tin can with a sigh of relief. Her arms
+ached with carrying it, for it was heavy and the way was long. Napoleon
+Pompey had carried two cans, each heavier than hers, but the lad seemed
+to feel no inconvenience from the load. Olive looked at him with envy
+and thought with contempt of her own muscles which appeared so
+inefficient. As she unpacked the food, it seemed to her that nothing she
+had learnt at Smyrna and could best do, was wanted on the prairie, and
+she remembered with some amusement and not a little bitterness Mary
+Winkle’s words about food for the mind. At this moment she reflected
+that all the learning in the world was not so much needed by that
+philosophical lady as the very gross and material food which was being
+taken out of the heavy tin cans and laid on the grass. The
+working-party, men, women and horses, arrived while Olive was thus
+engaged. Mary Winkle instantly sat down and leaned against a tree and
+threw off her sunbonnet. Her thin black hair was matted down to her
+temples, her cheeks were yellow, and her eyes looked dull. Madame also
+took off her hat and veil and shook up the coil of hair on her head with
+a sigh of relief.
+
+“Does your head ache too?” said Mary Winkle wearily.
+
+“Not in the least,” replied Madame. “A sunbonnet is a bad shelter
+against heat. You should wear a good hat, it is far better.”
+
+“I wonder how you can bear all that hair on your head. Why don’t you cut
+it off?”
+
+“Why, it is an admirable protection against both heat and cold,” said
+Madame laughing. “It is my greatest comfort.” She might have added her
+greatest beauty.
+
+The food which Olive brought was most appetising, roast chicken, hot
+corn-bread, and pumpkin pies, with plenty of milk and water to drink.
+Before eating Madame went to the spring to wash her hands and face, and
+Mary Winkle sat limply against the tree trunk with her eyes shut.
+
+“Eat something, it will revive you,” said Olive, looking with pity upon
+her sallow cheeks.
+
+“I don’t feel hardly able to eat,” she said in a weak voice. “It seems
+to me I don’t ever want to open my eyes again.”
+
+“You are overworking yourself,” said Olive, “you should not attempt this
+field work: it is beyond your strength.”
+
+“What! and let her see me give in?” said Mary Winkle with reviving
+spirit.
+
+Madame came up at this moment looking as fresh as a lily: she glanced
+sharply at Sister Mary. “You appear very much exhausted,” she remarked.
+
+Sister Mary raised her head and opened her eyes, but did not speak.
+
+“It’s a pity you don’t take wine,” she continued, sitting down and
+beginning on her piece of chicken with relish. “A good glass of Burgundy
+would set you up in no time.”
+
+Sister Mary herself sat up at this.
+
+“I wouldn’t touch wine, no, not if I was dying,” she said resolutely.
+
+Madame smiled. “I didn’t recommend it because you were dying: wine as
+everything else is then useless: but because you look weak. I suggested
+a medicine.”
+
+“As a medicine it is worse than useless, and as a drink I scorn to take
+a rank poison.”
+
+“Poisons are sometimes given as medicine, witness strychnine in small
+doses for certain forms of dyspepsia, and I believe satisfactorily,”
+said Madame.
+
+“Wine is worse than strychnine, because more insidious in its action and
+more liable to abuse,” said Mary Winkle decisively, as she took the tin
+cup of milk and water handed her by Olive, and drank it with eagerness.
+
+“Well, at all events admit that wine has been of benefit to you on this
+occasion,” observed Madame smiling. “I merely mentioned it to you, and
+you look already revived and more like yourself. Doesn’t she, Sister
+Olive?”
+
+“It was the milk and water did it,” said Sister Mary Winkle hurriedly,
+at which Madame smiled again.
+
+Brother Dummy and Napoleon Pompey now came up to the group of women.
+They had been watering and unharnessing the horses who were at the
+present moment munching their corn. The white man, although dirty as a
+ploughman would be after half a day’s hard work, sat down promptly
+beside Mary Winkle and helped himself to a leg of chicken: the negro boy
+stood aside doubtfully, eyeing the group and the food with longing
+looks.
+
+“Come along, N. P.,” said Olive brightly, “sit down there.” She pointed
+to a place on the other side of Mary Winkle, where there seemed a good
+opening in front of a huge piece of corn-bread.
+
+“No, if you please,” said Sister Mary, rising to her feet with
+resentment.
+
+“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Olive flushing with surprise. “Napoleon
+Pompey won’t bite you.”
+
+“I have never sat down to eat beside a negro, and I don’t feel inclined
+to begin now.”
+
+“Let the lad sit beside me,” said Madame gently. “I have seen people of
+too many shades of colour and no colour to mind a little extra dash of
+black. Come here, boy, come and have this piece of bread and meat.”
+
+Napoleon Pompey grinning with all his white teeth sprang to the place
+beside Madame, and buried those same teeth eagerly in his chunk of
+bread. Mary Winkle sat down again and leaned against the tree. Olive’s
+face took a deeper tinge of red and her eyes snapped.
+
+“Do you consider yourself made of such fine clay that it won’t bear
+contact with a negro?” she asked hotly. “It seems to me a little of what
+used to be called Christian charity might come in useful here. I never
+aspired to the heights of Perfection City people, but I never refused
+the rights of brotherhood to the negro simply because of the curl of his
+hair or the colour of his skin.”
+
+“I am quite willing to give them all their rights and will be glad to
+see them educated and all that, but I never sat at dinner with a negro,
+and I am not going to begin now,” said Mary Winkle setting her thin pale
+lips with the utmost stubbornness.
+
+“Well, I call it perfectly monstrous,” retorted Olive, “and you setting
+yourself up to show the better life and all the rest of it! I should
+have thought the first thing to do before teaching the highest
+perfection was to practise the simplest justice.”
+
+“And you, Sister Olive,” said Madame’s cool sweet voice, “will have to
+learn to respect the prejudices of other people even when they run
+counter to your most cherished theories. I do not myself share the
+feeling of repulsion that Sister Mary has in this case, but I respect
+it. I would suggest to you to do the same. It is an inconvenient fact,
+perhaps, that people do not all think alike, but it is one that must be
+resolutely faced nevertheless.”
+
+Olive was silent under this reproof, but she looked angrily at Mary
+Winkle from time to time, and revenged herself by feeding up Napoleon
+Pompey and petting him to an alarming extent, much to the delight of
+that young darkie who ate until he seemed to ooze out unctuous joy.
+
+Brother Dummy ate, as he worked, silently, conscientiously,
+continuously. Olive was amazed at the amount he seemed able to consume,
+while of milk and water he drank half a gallon or thereabouts.
+
+“How can he do it?” said Olive in astonishment.
+
+“You forget,” replied Madame, “that he has been following that plough
+for six long hours, and the dry wind raised such a dust around him that
+he must have swallowed a vast quantity of it in the course of the day.
+It takes a good deal to slake the thirst after such a dust visitation as
+that.”
+
+When Brother Dummy had eaten and drunk his fill he lay down on the grass
+and went instantly to sleep. The three women looked at him for a moment
+or two.
+
+“He seems to have very little enjoyment in his life,” said Olive
+compassionately.
+
+“But then he has also few sorrows,” said Madame. “The high lights are
+wanting, perhaps, but so are the dark shadows. His life is like a grey
+landscape. It has a beauty of its own, but not everyone can see it.”
+
+“To live in eternal silence seems to me the most awful curse,” said
+Olive.
+
+“I can imagine many a worse one,” replied Madame, looking out from among
+the few bare trees away across the open prairie.
+
+“What could be worse?”
+
+“Well, for example, to know that someone you loved did not love you. To
+have to shut up your heart within iron doors, and never open them to let
+it out. That would be worse than to be denied the power of speech, which
+after all can now be supplemented in many ways by artificial means.
+Brother Huntley is not actively unhappy, I should judge. He and his wife
+have always appeared to me to be a very united couple.”
+
+“They cannot quarrel, at all events,” said Olive.
+
+“No, not, at least, in the ordinary way,” replied Madame.
+
+When Brother Dummy awoke after his little snooze, he got up, looked at
+the sun to see what time of day it was, and then signed to Napoleon
+Pompey to rouse up. That young person was lethargic, owing to his
+anaconda-like meal, accordingly Brother Dummy roused him with his foot.
+The darkie rolled over and said “Yah!” and started for the horses, who
+were nodding over their corn-cobs, now nibbled down to the smallest
+dimensions. Olive, whose resentment at the slight put upon Napoleon
+Pompey by Mary Winkle urged her to identify herself with the negro boy,
+walked away with him and Brother Dummy to watch the hitching up. Madame
+employed herself in throwing scraps of bread to Balthasar, who would
+have much preferred eating the chicken bones, only that was a debauch
+not permitted to a dog of his manners. Mary Winkle looked hopelessly
+along those weary furrows, up and down which it would be her duty to
+march again, dropping her seeds of corn as before.
+
+“Are you going to work all the afternoon?” she asked of her companion.
+
+“Yes, I think so. We shall get this field planted and covered in by
+sun-down, I should think. And that will be a great piece of work done.
+We cannot afford to let the individualists beat us at corn planting, can
+we? We must do at least as well as they, and I should hope we might do
+better.”
+
+“I don’t know how you can stand so much heat and hard work,” said Mary,
+“and in that dress too. Why, if I were to attempt to work in long skirts
+I should be dead in a week.”
+
+“I don’t mind my dress at all,” said Madame. “It never bothers me. I
+don’t think about it.”
+
+“But don’t you think about it when your back aches?”
+
+“It never does.”
+
+“I don’t understand it,” says Mary once more.
+
+“I suspect that the reason you American women find your dress such a
+burden is because you are so weak yourselves,” said Madame.
+
+“American women accomplish as much or more than any others, I should
+say,” observed Mary.
+
+“Precisely, but not from their muscular strength. They work out of their
+nerves, and that is why they never last any length of time.”
+
+Madame finished her day’s work at six o’clock, and then walked home
+humming a German dance tune to herself. Mary Winkle stopped at four
+o’clock, and dragged herself home to bed with a fearsome headache, still
+puzzling how it was that her perfect dress had not done better for her
+in that day’s trial. She did not know that all her scientific dressing
+was as nothing compared with the robust vitality, which Madame brought
+with her from another land, and which, running in such vigorous beats
+through her blood, was inherited from generations of strong healthy
+ancestors. Madame’s father was a Russian colonel noted for his size and
+strength and also for his wildness. Her mother was a pretty English
+girl, who had nothing to bequeath to her daughter but health, personal
+beauty, and this piece of advice: “Never stake your happiness on any
+man, it always brings disaster to the woman.” Mary Winkle’s mother, on
+the other hand, was a nervous invalid at thirty, and her father was a
+dyspeptic dietetic reformer, who pinned his salvation on never eating
+salt. Small wonder, therefore, that the daughter of the one pair should
+be able to plant corn all day long and walk lightly home at evening,
+while the offspring of the other pair could do only three quarters of a
+day’s work, after which headache and nervous exhaustion.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+                            NON-RESISTANCE.
+
+
+It was the custom of the Pioneers to send once a week to Union Mills in
+order to do their necessary marketing and to get the post, which came
+there twice a week from Kansas City by stage-coach. The subject of the
+post was one that had been rather hotly debated at Perfection City,
+although to the outsider it would seem a very harmless topic, and not
+fruitful of division. The fact was, however, that there was only one
+member of the Community who showed any eagerness about getting letters
+regularly and often, and that member was Madame. She indeed did receive
+a most unconscionable number of letters and periodicals, so the other
+members thought. She got several American Magazines, such as the
+Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s, but she also received English papers, and
+French ones, and occasionally German ones as well. The Community
+thought, but did not dare to give public expression to the thought, that
+Madame should have rested content with the mental sustenance provided by
+themselves for home consumption. Brother Wright in particular felt
+himself equal to the task of providing everybody with all they needed in
+the way of correct views upon even the highest subjects. But Madame,
+although she listened with politeness and apparent attention to what he
+had to say, found this sustenance too meagre for the wants of her
+nature. Moreover she took a deep interest in the affairs of the outside
+world, an interest almost offensive to persons who prided themselves
+upon having risen above the world and all its concerns. It was really
+humiliating to think that the leading spirit of their Community should
+occupy her mind with the relations between Prussia and Austria, when
+such questions as affected the future of humanity and of Perfection City
+were what filled their souls. She even evinced a keen interest in the
+career and personality of the Prussian minister, Bismarck, and that,
+too, when Brother Wright was willing to give her the light of his
+thoughts upon all really important questions. It was painful to the
+feeling of the Pioneers, who were all in all to themselves and wished to
+be so to others, but they had to put up with it, since Madame was their
+leader and, moreover, the only one who had a purse with some money in
+it. Ezra was the only member of the Community who sided with Madame in
+her taste for reading the new books and the latest periodicals. He and
+she had that taste, with many others, in common, and it drew them
+together in an especial degree. On his last trip East during the winter,
+when he had been so unexpectedly delayed, as they now knew, by meeting
+with his fate in the shape of Olive, one of his commissions had been to
+bring back a box of books, which were now arranged in neat shelves in
+Madame’s private sitting-room. And yet notwithstanding all these books,
+a hundred or more, the steady stream of papers, periodicals, and
+magazines continued as before, and had to be fetched regularly from
+Union Mills.
+
+The brethren took it in turns to go to the town, which was some ten
+miles distant, and they always combined some useful business with the
+fetching of the letters. Brother Wright was a frequent messenger, for he
+liked going better than Ezra did, while of course Brother Dummy was
+precluded by his affliction from going, and Brother Carpenter was
+hopelessly unable to drive horses. Some of the women generally contrived
+to find an excuse for going to Union Mills, for women like to get away
+from the petty cares of house and home, a peculiarity from which the
+sisters of Perfection City were by no means exempt. In particular Mrs.
+Ruby, invariably called Aunt Ruby, loved to go. She thus got a chance of
+seeing new faces and talking with new people. She would not for worlds
+have confessed that she was tired of the restricted society of
+Perfection City, but she knew so well what each had to say, that it was
+refreshing to go out sometimes into the world and meet people whose
+ideas could not always be guessed beforehand.
+
+It so happened that the day after the corn planting it became necessary
+to go to Union Mills in order to take a grist of corn to be ground.
+Madame suggested that Brother Wright should go, while Brother Dummy took
+up his plough-handles and finished the field the former was preparing
+for the corn. Mary Winkle, still prostrated by the previous day’s hard
+work, urged her spouse to go, “For then,” said she, “if you ain’t here I
+needn’t get any dinner. I’ll just send Willette over to Sister Olive’s
+for dinner, and I needn’t stir till milking time.” This seemed a happy
+arrangement, and her husband set off shortly after breakfast, picking up
+Aunt Ruby as he passed her cottage.
+
+“Be you lonesome living in that house by yourself?” asked Brother Wright
+as they jogged along over the prairie, for it had struck him as very
+lonely that morning as he drove up.
+
+“No, no, I ain’t lonely, least not most whiles,” answered Aunt Ruby, an
+alert little old woman, not unlike a bird in her quick movements. “In
+the summer-time there’s allus the chickens to see to an’ feed an’ ten’,
+an’ chickens is powerful spry an’ talkin’ birds. They most allus has
+somethin’ to scold an’ chatter ’bout, chickens an’ hens has, an’ cocks.
+Then in the winter I hev the clock tickin’ loud o’ evenin’s, an’ that’s
+most as good as a pusson in the room, an’ there’s allus the cat, an’
+mostly the kettle singin’ on the stove. Come to think on’t, there’s a
+heap o’ company in a house like mine, if you on’y has ears to hear an’
+un’erstan’ what is said by beasts an’ things.”
+
+Yet notwithstanding this “heap o’ company” Aunt Ruby dearly loved a good
+gossip with the saddler’s wife at Union Mills, whenever that luxury was
+attainable. On the present occasion Aunt Ruby had a real good time, for
+Brother Wright was delayed longer than usual, first in order to get some
+harness mended, and afterwards to have a shoe replaced that suddenly
+showed signs of coming off one of the horses. Thus it was very near
+sun-down before they left Union Mills. Aunt Ruby, owing in large measure
+to her gossip, and also partly to an exceptionally strong cup of tea,
+was in a highly nervous and excitable frame of mind.
+
+Had Brother Wright, she asked, heard of that rumour about the Cherokees?
+And did he think there was any danger of their leaving their Reservation
+and going on the war-path? Brother Wright, who had a poor opinion of
+Indians, and a worse one of the way in which the white men had treated
+them, thought on the whole that the rumour might be considered false.
+This comforted Aunt Ruby, to whom the word “Injun” suggested torture and
+death and all sorts of horrors. She remained comforted until she
+remembered that other rumour—about the raid of border ruffians from out
+of Missouri. Brother Wright thought it highly probable that this rumour
+might prove to be true. Missouri men had raided Kansas more than once,
+and it was possible they might do so again at any moment. With
+conversation such as this they came to the end of the daylight and the
+beginning of the trees around Cotton Wood Creek about the same time.
+
+“I shall be glad when we are safe over this ford and out of the dark
+wood beyond,” said Brother Wright, trying to urge his horses along, but
+he had a heavy load of timber and coal and some iron bars for
+smith-work.
+
+“Ain’t it near here that those people over beyond Jacksonville got
+robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby, nervously peering about in the gloom with her
+weak old eyes. At this moment some distant creature made a shrill scream
+or howl.
+
+“Oh! what was that,” exclaimed Aunt Ruby nervously.
+
+“That was a prairie wolf, I guess,” answered Brother Wright quietly.
+
+Silence followed, except for the creaking of the waggon, the straining
+of the horses at their traces, and an occasional clang made by one of
+the bars of iron which was not sufficiently wedged up with hay.
+
+“If those Missouri border ruffians came to Perfection City, do you
+reckon our principles would save us from being robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby.
+“Most everybody knows as we are non-resistants.”
+
+“I don’t think our principles would stand in the way of a Missouri man.
+More likely they would take advantage of them. They are mean cusses, and
+are used to riding rough-shod over principles and rights. It is a
+recognised thing everywhere that women and children are non-resistants,
+yet that does not save ’em from being raided and robbed by border
+ruffians.”
+
+“And you think they would rob us, peaceful folks as ha’n’t no arms nor
+nothin’?” asked Aunt Ruby anxiously.
+
+“I guess they would try,” replied Brother Wright.
+
+“Then I think as we oughter reconsider our principles a mite,” said Aunt
+Ruby. “For if we are robbed and killed by folks as can’t un’erstan’ the
+higher life, we shan’t be able to teach the world nothin’. An’ what’s
+the good o’ principles when you’re dead an’ gone an’ undergroun’?”
+
+“That is so,” assented Brother Wright.
+
+“I didn’t never think on’t in this light afore,” said Aunt Ruby. “It
+’pears to me as how we should meet together an’ try an’ settle some way
+as how we can keep our principles an’ yet live on the prairie.”
+
+“I guess you’ve pretty nearly said the truth,” said Brother Wright.
+
+“What we hev to do is to live here an’ show ’em our principles at work,
+an’ not die straightway afore we’ve done anything to improve mankind.
+That’s my view,” said Aunt Ruby. “What do you think, Brother Wright?”
+
+Instead of answering Brother Wright pulled up short and looked intently
+in front of him.
+
+“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Aunt Ruby in a high-pitched voice of
+alarm.
+
+“Hush!” replied her companion, “don’t make a noise.”
+
+Aunt Ruby’s heart began to beat violently. “Do you see anything?” she
+asked in a whisper.
+
+“I see a man over there by the road, sitting on horseback with his right
+arm out pointing towards the waggon.”
+
+“Oh! brother, I wish you had a carnal weapon of defence,” said Aunt Ruby
+in a shaking voice.
+
+“I have,” replied Brother Wright, pulling an uncommonly useful-looking
+Colt’s revolver from his breeches pocket. “I always carry one in case of
+Injuns.”
+
+Again they sat silent for a moment, the horses shook their heads, and
+one of them stamped a foot.
+
+“Who goes there?” hailed Brother Wright in a loud defiant voice. “Drop
+that right arm of yours or I’ll fire.”
+
+No answer.
+
+The figure sat motionless, the right hand still raised in that menacing
+attitude.
+
+“I am a man of my word,” said Brother Wright, rising to his feet and
+sighting his revolver steadily on the figure, while to Aunt Ruby he
+said, “Hold on tight, the horses will jump.”
+
+A shot rang out on the still night air. The horses nearly jumped out of
+their skins with fright, and would certainly have run away, only the
+waggon was very heavy, and they decided to run in different directions.
+Hence they only jerked each other almost to the ground and then stood
+still amazed and trembling.
+
+“Better make sure,” said Brother Wright, emptying another barrel at the
+figure which appeared to remain motionless in the uncertain foggy light.
+This time the horses came to the same conclusion and tried to turn round
+abruptly, but the attempt was expertly frustrated by Brother Wright and
+a cowhide whip of exceptional stinging power. Having thus reduced the
+horses to reason, he again turned his attention to the figure and saw
+with amazement that it still sat on horseback in the same spot.
+
+“Well, I swan!” said Brother Wright, rubbing his eyes. “That beats all!
+It can’t be a mortal man, or he would have either dropped or returned
+fire. I guess I’ll drive on and do no more shooting this time.”
+
+He stowed his pistol away in his pocket and drove on.
+
+“Hadn’t you better keep the weapon handy?” suggested Aunt Ruby. “You
+might lay it down in my lap, if you like.”
+
+“No, thank’ee,” replied Brother Wright. “I don’t generally give that
+sort of thing to women to hold for me.”
+
+He pulled up at a little opening just near the ford, where the faint
+light of a crescent moon showed between the bare branches of the trees,
+and a sort of water-fog hung along the elder bushes by the banks.
+
+“This is the spot he was standing,” remarked Wright, “the exact spot. I
+guess I’ll just look and see if there is any trail. The ground is soft
+about here and should show up pretty clear.”
+
+He descended from the waggon and carefully examined the side of the
+road, but could see nothing. There was a large stump with a broken
+branch sticking out which attracted his attention, and he walked around
+it a couple of times, surveying it critically in the uncertain light.
+
+“Well, I swan!” he exclaimed, after the third inspection. “I didn’t
+think I could have been mistaken.”
+
+Then he climbed back into the waggon, and said, “Gee-up!”
+
+“Did you fin’ any tracks o’ robbers?” asked his companion anxiously.
+
+“No,” replied Brother Wright, “no tracks of robbers, but I lighted on
+the trail of a doggauned fool. Guess we’ll not say much about the attack
+made on our waggon, at Little Cotton Wood Creek.”
+
+“I won’t mention it at all,” remarked Aunt Ruby, “’cause it might
+frighten the folks up to Perfection City an’ make ’em uneasy ’bout
+coming to Union Mills.”
+
+Brother Wright only chuckled in reply, possibly because his whole
+attention was required at this juncture to get his horses and waggon
+safely through the water, for it was certainly very dark in that
+bottom-land. Once the creek was crossed and the high prairie reached, it
+became easy enough to see by the light of the new moon and the stars,
+and the pair reached Perfection City in safety, although very late.
+
+Brother Wright was very eager to unravel the mystery of that horseman at
+the ford on Little Cotton Wood Creek, so he made a private expedition
+thither on horseback as soon as he could frame an excuse for a morning’s
+absence. He went to the place whence he had first seen the alarming
+stranger, half closed his sharp grey eyes, and looked.
+
+“Well, I swan!” he remarked, as this expression seemed somehow to
+relieve his feelings. By daylight there was nothing suspicious to be
+seen, but the old stump with the broken branch sticking out from it
+straight towards the spectator. Brother Wright surveyed this stump
+critically and came to the conclusion that with the help of darkness, a
+slight mist, a new moon, and a nervous companion, the old stump might
+take on an alarming aspect. He rode up to the stump, got off his horse,
+and examined it.
+
+“I should like to know that I hit him plumb with both bullets anyhow,”
+remarked he, with a grin most unbecoming to a Perfection City
+non-resistant. He had hit “him” plumb, but so had other people, and the
+amazed Brother Wright counted no less than seventeen bullet holes, both
+old and new, in the body of that long suffering stump.
+
+“Well, I be jiggered!” said Brother Wright as he mounted his horse.
+“What a sight of blamed fools there must be in the world!” and with this
+comforting reflection he rode home, and ever after held his peace about
+the episode on the ford of Little Cotton Wood Creek. And so likewise did
+Aunt Ruby, that talkative old lady. But sometimes, when she and Brother
+Wright looked into each other’s eyes, they grinned a little sheepishly,
+showing that the recollection of it had not quite faded from their
+minds.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+                               WILLETTE.
+
+
+Willette, the only child of the Wright and Winkle pair, was a young
+person of considerable character, which had undergone little of the
+attempted modification which we call education. At the time of Olive’s
+arrival at Perfection City this child was about eleven years old, and
+was as wild a specimen of a girl as could be easily found even on the
+prairie. Her mother had endeavoured to clothe her in garments known as
+the “reform-dress,” and had made her a suit of lilac calico, consisting
+of short tunic, and full-gathered trousers of the prescribed pattern.
+Willette had put on these things and had promptly complained of
+“scratchiness” around the neck and arm-holes, owing probably to
+deficiency of skill on the part of her mother in the making of the said
+garments. Shortly afterwards, being called upon to do some
+cattle-hunting, Willette had set out in all the pride of her new clothes
+to ride down some young steers who were proving refractory. The steers
+took shelter in the bottom-land along Little Cotton Wood Creek, and
+skilfully hid themselves in the brushwood there, among the trailing wild
+vines and the spiky wilder plums which formed a very good barrier
+against pursuing man. Willette plunged bravely into the brush, and after
+a fierce struggle returned with one steer and half her dress. The other
+half remained in the brush along with the rest of the steers. Repeated
+onslaughts reduced her almost to nakedness, but she brought home the
+full complement of steers and an abundant assortment of scratches on her
+legs. After that Willette had enough of her mother’s system of dress,
+and accordingly she evolved one of her own.
+
+“I ain’t agoin’ to cattle-hunt in no more o’ your cobwebs, Ma,”
+explained this young person. “I reckon I’ll go a-ridin’ like a boy next
+time.”
+
+Willette appropriated one of her father’s pants made of the material
+known as hickory, which is supposed to resist any tear or strain. The
+current legend attached to real out-and-out hickory is as follows. A
+farmer arrayed in hickory was one day rooting out old stumps from a
+newly-cleared field with a new patent plough. He came to a regular
+stunner which jerked the plough clean out of the land. He backed up,
+took a good hold of the plough-handles, gave a mighty yell to the
+horses, and drove the plough clean through the stump, which split open
+in the middle. The plough and the man passed through, but the stump
+closed up again and caught his hickory trousers. The horses strained at
+the collar, but the man would not let go of the plough, nor would the
+stump relinquish its grasp of the hickory trousers. So he rested his
+horses a spell, took a big breath, and said “Hallelujah!” whereupon the
+horses went forward with a bound and brought plough, man, trousers, and
+stump along with them!
+
+It was a garment of this incomparable material that Willette
+appropriated to her use. She cut off the legs until the length suited
+her stature, regardless of the fit of the waist, clothed the upper part
+of her body in a pink check shirt, put a boy’s cap upon her head, and
+announced her intention of henceforth dressing like that. She was a chip
+off the old block with a vengeance, and Mary Winkle, after one
+affrighted gasp, was obliged to admit that her own principles, as put
+into practice by her daughter, were too much for her. Wright laughed
+immensely, and said she was a boy now and would do first-rate.
+
+Willette was totally uneducated, could not write her name and could
+scarcely read, but she did not lack for intelligence. She knew the hour
+of the day, by looking at the sun, as well as a negro, and she could
+distinguish a horse from a cow at four miles distance. She knew every
+beast for miles around, and to whom it belonged, and could remember for
+a month every cow she had come across on the prairie and which way it
+was heading. She understood the moods and intentions of all kinds of
+animals almost as if she was one of the species herself, and she never
+was at fault on a cattle-trail.
+
+Olive found immense amusement in talking to Willette, who expressed
+herself with the utmost freedom upon all subjects in language which
+would have done credit to a nigger. The child, on the other hand, had a
+supreme contempt for Olive’s abilities and attainments, which seemed
+ludicrously deficient, but felt a kindly patronising sort of regard for
+her, and liked to look at her pretty face and touch her smooth round
+cheeks. The pair were therefore often together, and Willette undertook
+to teach her friend to ride, provided she would get some sensible
+clothes and ride in the only way that Willette imagined it possible for
+a two-legged human being to bestride a quadruped. Olive therefore made
+herself a bewitching riding-habit with Turkish trousers, and rode a
+high-peaked Mexican saddle, out of which even a sack of meal could not
+tumble if it tried. As soon as Olive began to feel confidence in herself
+and her horse, she enjoyed the riding immensely. She claimed the refusal
+of a horse on every possible opportunity when one could be spared from
+the farm work. Ezra, delighted to see her so pleased with a healthy
+exercise, encouraged her to go cattle-hunting with Willette, and enjoyed
+the spirited reports which she used to bring home from these
+exhilarating expeditions.
+
+“I do wish I had a pony of my very own which I could take out whenever I
+wanted a ride, and which would be always there for me,” said Olive one
+day to Ezra after she had been riding by herself on Rebel. Ezra was
+hoeing up the newly sprouted sweet-corn, and the horses were not at work
+on the land. In his inmost heart he re-echoed the wish, and would at
+that moment have given anything to be an individualist and be able to
+say: “Darling, I’ll buy you a pony with the first load of corn I sell.”
+He looked at his pretty wife’s glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and
+thought with a groan that he was tied by his principles and prevented by
+them and the public opinion of the Community from giving his wife this
+enjoyment. It was the first time that his heart had come into conflict
+with the perfect theories of Perfection City, and he was amazed and
+disturbed to find how very much he was vexed by them. Fortunately Olive
+dismissed the idea of a pony of her own as an unattainable bliss, and
+contented herself with chance rides on Rebel and Queen Katherine, the
+two horses which inhabited Ezra’s stable and were generally used by him
+on his side of the community-land.
+
+Olive’s courage and spirit of independence, fostered by a very
+mild-tempered horse, grew apace. She soon felt able to dispense with the
+escort and instruction of Willette and go cattle-hunting alone. She
+learned quickly enough to know the sixty head of cattle belonging to the
+Community, and where to look for them. The cattle, which consisted of
+the usual mixture of milch cows, steers, yearlings, and calves, had been
+bought at different times and were apportioned to the different families
+in rough division, chiefly because each woman liked to have the cows she
+was to milk, driven up to her own fence near to her own house to save
+trouble. The cattle, consequently, seemed to have become intensely
+individualistic in their tendencies, and absolutely refused to graze in
+common. Each bell-cow led off her own herd of steers and yearlings where
+she thought best on the prairie, and it was seldom that any two of those
+“leading ladies” chose to go to the same spot. If they did they
+generally quarrelled and fought a bit. Cattle-hunting, therefore, became
+a sufficiently diversified occupation in which the unexpected frequently
+occurred.
+
+One day it happened that Olive and Diana, now old enough to run with her
+on her expeditions, had been to the head of Little Cotton Wood Creek to
+look for a cow that had hidden away her calf there, after the manner of
+prairie cows. Olive found the truant and the “little stranger,” along
+with half a dozen young cattle, and was driving them slowly homewards,
+when she became convinced from Rebel’s demonstrations that something was
+annoying him under the flap of his saddle. In fact he was constantly
+trying to bite Olive’s leg in a way which agitated her not a little.
+Accordingly she resolved to take off the saddle and make an inspection.
+She dismounted, undid the girths, and lifted off the heavy Mexican
+saddle. Rebel, who had always hitherto regarded this proceeding as
+indicating immediate liberty, no sooner felt the saddle removed than he
+took a base advantage of Olive, and kicking up his heels bounded away
+from her. She set the saddle in the grass and walked pacifically after
+Rebel, held out a deceitful hand and called him endearing names. Rebel
+listened to her honeyed words with his ears flat on his neck, and as
+soon as she came near, again kicked up his heels and bounded off.
+
+Diana considering all this a joke in which a puppy might lend valuable
+assistance, now pranced forward with energetic barks, and the cows and
+calves deeming themselves to be driven with fierceness, set up a
+lumbering trot across the prairie, the new-made mother every now and
+then diving ineffectually after Diana with a plunge and a snort. A
+stampede had set in among the animals, and Olive sat down and cried with
+vexation and alarm. Her home showed clear and distinct against the
+horizon just four miles in a bee-line from where she sat shedding her
+ineffectual tears. Now Diana, although a feminine creature and also a
+puppy, and therefore endowed with a double dose of original foolishness,
+was likewise a dog, and consequently amenable to the highest
+inspirations of a noble nature. Having therefore in her character of
+puppy worried and distracted the animals to her heart’s content, she
+suddenly felt bound to exhibit some of the better sides of her nature,
+among which remains forever pre-eminent fidelity to the master. Seeing
+that Olive was not in the scrimmage, Diana turned her back resolutely
+upon the delights of snapping at calves’ heels, and putting her nose to
+the ground raced straight back to Olive weeping in the grass. After an
+apologetic wriggle Diana sat down and looked at Olive. Now no
+philosopher or other mortal has ever succeeded in being as wise as a
+tired puppy can look. Therefore when Olive in spite of her woe caught
+sight of Diana’s face and attitude, she burst into a laugh in the midst
+of her tears, whereupon the latter sprang merrily up and licked her
+face. Thus comforted, Olive arose, and then became aware that she didn’t
+know where the saddle was. She had neglected to mark its position in any
+way when going on that deceitful embassy to Rebel, but indeed it would
+not have been easy to mark the position of the saddle. The grass was in
+its greatest summer height, and there was neither bush nor tree anywhere
+for miles around. There was not even a hillock or knoll of ground to
+give individuality to one spot more than another, all was the relentless
+rolling prairie—a vast grassy sea where one billow was exactly like a
+hundred others.
+
+Olive was in dismay. Here was a fresh cause for tribulation, for the
+saddle was new and expensive, and moreover it belonged to the Community.
+She would not have minded facing Ezra with a tale of any sort of
+disaster or loss, for she knew he would kiss her and pet her and say,
+“Never mind, darling, don’t grieve, it doesn’t matter two jack-straws.”
+But a community-saddle was quite another matter, and Olive shrank from
+the ordeal of community-anger at the loss of its saddle, and
+community-contempt for her carelessness in unsaddling on the prairie
+without putting the reins over her arm. She perceived now that anyone
+but a fool would have taken that simple precaution against disaster.
+“I’m not fit to live on the prairie,” sobbed Olive to herself. “My
+education is no use to me, and I have not got the wits of that boy-girl
+Willette. Diana, you idiot, why don’t you help me?”
+
+This reproach was addressed to the puppy, who was wallowing blissfully
+in the grass and thus refreshing herself after her scamper. Olive began
+to walk aimlessly up and down in the hope of stumbling on the saddle,
+and Diana began to do likewise, but with far more system. Diana’s
+researches were speedily crowned with success, and she soon sat down to
+an uninterrupted gnaw at the flap of the big Mexican saddle. Becoming at
+length aware of the disappearance of Diana, Olive called to her, and the
+puppy reared a mischievous face over the grass some twenty yards away.
+Going to the spot, Olive perceived the saddle and also the depredations
+of Diana’s sharp teeth upon the flap. She whipped the dog with a stirrup
+leather most ineffectually and then said:
+
+“What’s to be done now?” but Diana, feeling that her efforts had been
+badly rewarded, made no suggestions.
+
+Indeed Olive’s plight after finding the saddle was considerably worse
+than before. The thing was very heavy. Mexican saddles are built on
+wood, large, strong and ponderous, and weigh heavier and heavier in
+proportion to the distance one carries them. Olive put it on her
+shoulders and began to see stars, she then tried her head and found that
+position still worse. She dragged it along by a stirrup-leather and
+found she was ruining it. Then she sat down and cried, which was the
+most useless effort she had made. What was she to do? If she were to
+leave the saddle and walk home she would never be able to find it again.
+There was absolutely nothing to mark the spot. By this time the cattle
+were distant specks moving solemnly homewards, with Rebel decorously
+following in the rear. Olive decided to remain where she was until Rebel
+and the cattle, by their arrival without her, should have given the
+alarm, which would bring Ezra and the rest of the Community to the
+rescue, somewhere about the middle of the night, she supposed. It would
+be humiliating, but she thought it would be better than abandoning the
+saddle which she could not possibly carry. She sat down to wait with
+what patience she could for rescue and humiliation. There was nothing to
+expect along that weary stretch of grassy sea, and yet Olive kept
+looking and looking away to the north, east, south, and west. By and by
+she beheld a horseman coming up from the distant west and holding a
+slanting course which would carry him past Perfection City some mile or
+so to the north. She resolved to intercept this man and ask his aid, so
+she stood up and signalled wildly with her hat. Of course he saw her
+instantly, although he was a couple of miles away, and equally of course
+he at once turned his horse towards her and set off at a gallop. People
+on the prairie ask and give help freely, and Olive had not the slightest
+hesitation in calling this unknown horseman up to her aid, although she
+had not the remotest idea who he might be. Probably he was a
+cattle-hunter like herself, at any rate a man and a horse would be able
+to give her and her saddle effectual assistance. The man galloped
+steadily on and soon took the ordinary appearance: big hat, red shirt,
+riding boots, belt with probably a revolver somewhere in it. He slowed
+up a little as he came near and seemed to be very intently looking at
+Olive.
+
+“I am very sorry to have troubled you,” began Olive.
+
+“Don’t mention it. I shall be delighted if I can be of use,” said the
+man, taking off his big hat.
+
+They both stopped short and looked hard at each other, for their speech
+had mutually revealed the fact that they were a lady and a gentleman, a
+most uncommon encounter on the Kansas prairie beyond the last bit of
+cultivated land.
+
+“Have you had an accident? Are you hurt?” asked the man, jumping off his
+horse and mechanically slinging the bridle-rein over his left arm, as
+Olive noted with some self-reproach. She told him what had happened, and
+she saw a smile creep round his mouth and light up his blue eyes.
+
+“That is easily remedied. I feared you must have been thrown,” said he.
+“Just mount my horse. He’s quiet. I’ll take you home.”
+
+“But the saddle,” said Olive looking very anxiously at that burden.
+
+“Oh! that’s nothing,” said the stranger. “I’ll carry it on my arm.”
+
+“You must not dream of such a thing. I could not think of allowing it.
+You are very kind, I am sure, but if you would take up the saddle in
+front of you that is all I want. The saddle is the only difficulty. I
+can walk quite well. I live in that house over there on the brow of the
+bluff. It is not far, but I could not carry that terrible saddle.”
+
+“Why, that’s Perfection City, where the Communists live,” said he,
+looking at her curiously.
+
+“Yes, I live there,” replied Olive with a slight blush, noting the look.
+
+“And are you a communist, if I may presume to ask the question?” queried
+the stranger.
+
+“My husband was one of the founders of the—the—of Perfection City,” said
+Olive, valiantly determined to defend the absent.
+
+“But you are not one of the original members. You are surely a
+new-comer. I know most of them, by sight at all events.”
+
+“I am Mrs. Weston,” replied Olive with dignity.
+
+The stranger again took off his hat, as if this were an introduction.
+
+“I have seen your husband then, a magnificent specimen of manhood, to
+judge from the only example I had of his physical strength.”
+
+Olive felt at once mollified. Meanwhile, the stranger had shortened the
+stirrup-leathers of his horse, and turning to Olive he said,
+
+“And now, Mrs. Weston, allow me to give you a hand up to mount you on my
+big horse. He is quite gentle and I will hold the bridle.”
+
+Olive hesitated. “I don’t like to take your horse,” she said. “If you
+would be so kind as to leave the saddle——”
+
+“No, no, you must not deprive me of the pleasure of your company,”
+interposed the stranger. “We will manage the saddle all right. Just
+spring up. Your riding-habit is admirably adapted for prairie life, and
+the prettiest I ever saw. Pardon my bluntness, but I am so little used
+to society, I fear I am very rough.”
+
+“You don’t fear anything of the sort,” replied Olive quickly. “You are
+perfectly aware that your manners are infinitely superior to the article
+in general use hereabouts.”
+
+The man laughed pleasantly at this sally. “Well, let me amend my
+pleading,” said he, “and say, it is so long since I met a lady in these
+wilds, and that is true enough, Heaven knows!”
+
+Olive mounted the big horse with the dextrous help of his hand and
+signed to him to give her the saddle.
+
+“I couldn’t think of it,” said he, thrusting his arm under the saddle
+and hoisting it on to his shoulder. “It would be unspeakably
+uncomfortable for you to hold, with the stirrups whacking you at every
+step.”
+
+“Then you shall put it on the horse’s neck in front of me, or I’ll hop
+down this instant. It’s bad enough to appropriate your horse without
+making you carry my saddle as well.”
+
+Seeing her so determined, he, with a slight show of reluctance, placed
+the saddle on the neck of his horse, who after a shake or two submitted
+to the burden, and so they eventually turned homewards.
+
+“I suppose you are not surprised that we settlers out here take
+considerable interest in your experiment in communism,” remarked the man
+as they walked along.
+
+“No doubt anything out of the common excites comment,” said Olive
+guardedly, “but I should not have thought you could be classed as a
+settler out here. I have seen a good many, and know the type.”
+
+She felt interested in the man and curious to know who he was, he seemed
+so utterly different from all those she had hitherto met.
+
+“I have lived here, nevertheless, for some years now. I have a farm on
+the north side of Big Cotton Wood Creek. My name is Cotterell. Have you
+ever heard it?”
+
+“No, I never heard the name, but then I’ve only been here a very short
+time, only two months. I—that is, we came in May,” said Olive blushing
+somewhat.
+
+The stranger smiled a winning smile and looked up at her face as he
+answered,
+
+“I see you have only just come, and come as a bride to Perfection City.
+It has a very suitable sound in that connection.”
+
+He again lifted his hat, and Olive blushed more vividly still.
+
+“The prairie does not seem a very hopeful place for experiments in
+perfection,” continued the stranger. “To my eyes it looks a most
+God-forsaken place, but under certain circumstances I should be disposed
+to modify that view.”
+
+“I think any place will do to try and live a good life in, and that is
+what is aimed at in our little Community,” said Olive, standing bravely
+to her defence.
+
+He was silent for a time and then spoke again.
+
+“Any place can be made better by the presence of a good woman, I think.”
+
+“We want to show how it is possible to banish some of the evil out of
+life,” said Olive, marshalling the expressions she had heard at the
+Academy with what skill she could.
+
+“With some it is only necessary to be what God made them in order to
+banish evil from their presence,” said he.
+
+“And we have a very noble woman as leader,” said Olive not quite sure of
+his meaning.
+
+“Ah, indeed! You praise her, that should count for much. There are very
+mixed reports about her character on the prairie. Many seem to dislike
+and distrust her.”
+
+“As for that I suppose there are mixed reports about us all,” observed
+Olive impartially.
+
+“Indeed there are. For instance, it is most confusing what people say
+concerning the extent to which you carry your communistic theories. Some
+assert that there is no limit and that you are logical.”
+
+“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Olive, knitting her brows.
+
+“I presume now that the land is held in common?”
+
+“Yes, certainly, and the farm implements and the horses and cows,”
+answered Olive.
+
+“All those don’t really touch the question. You live in separate houses,
+I believe.”
+
+“Of course we do. I should hate not having my own little house. It would
+be like a hotel or a penitentiary for all to live under one roof. I
+wouldn’t do it for worlds. We have our home-life just like other people,
+but I should like to have a pony of my own, only I suppose my husband
+would not think it right to have a horse that was not a
+community-horse.”
+
+“What a confounded shame! I beg your pardon. You see I am rough. I mean,
+I think your husband ought to get you a pony, a nice well-trained lady’s
+pony, for you to ride, and not a big farm-horse.”
+
+“I should like one,” observed Olive simply, and then suddenly
+remembering that she was speaking to a stranger, she added hastily, “I
+mean it would be nice to have a horse always at hand, one not liable to
+be wanted for farm work.”
+
+“I just happen to know of an excellent animal that would suit you down
+to the ground. It belongs to Tom Mills, and he wants to sell it. It will
+go cheap too. If you would speak to your husband about it, I would bring
+it over for you to look at. Mills lives close to my house.”
+
+“No, pray don’t,” said Olive anxiously. “I am ever so much obliged to
+you, but I really ought not to have spoken about it.”
+
+“Very well,” said he, seeing she was distressed, “we’ll not pursue the
+subject further.” But in his own mind he reflected that were he in
+Weston’s place, he would have got that pony for his wife, principles or
+no principles, and it is highly probable that he would have done so.
+
+He left Olive and her saddle at her own door, refusing her invitation to
+enter, saying that he would avail himself of her permission to come some
+other day to see her. And she cordially invited him to do so, for was
+not hospitality one of the commonest virtues of the prairie, and surely
+Perfection City must not be behindhand in the practice thereof?
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+                              MR. PERSEUS.
+
+
+When Olive got home, she was at first pleased to see that her husband
+had not come in, therefore he had not been made uneasy about her
+absence. Napoleon Pompey had caught Rebel and turned him into the
+pasture field, and was returning after that job when he met Olive near
+the hen-house. Napoleon Pompey grinned at her and remarked with relish:
+“Ole hoss, he done throw yer, den run clar ’way home.”
+
+“No, he didn’t,” retorted Olive, indignant at this slur upon her
+equestrian skill, “I just got off to change the saddle, and he ran away
+from me.”
+
+“Land!” said Napoleon Pompey, “an’ didn’t yer chuck yer reins roun’ yer
+arm?”
+
+“No, I forgot to,” confessed Olive.
+
+“Golly Ned!” said Napoleon Pompey with vast amusement.
+
+Olive felt annoyed and inquired stiffly where her husband was.
+
+“Ole man he done gone ter git ole hoe men’d up, den he gwine ter go to
+der ’Sumbly, he done eat supper ’ready. Me an’ you’uns got ter eat our’n
+now. Ole man done tol’ me.”
+
+Napoleon Pompey meant no disrespect in speaking of Ezra as “ole man,”
+for the lad knew of only two titles to bestow on white men, one was
+“Mas’r” the other was “ole man.” Ezra had requested him not to use the
+expression Mas’r, which grated on his ears, and contained suggestions of
+servitude at variance with the ideas that prevailed at Perfection City.
+Napoleon Pompey was therefore obliged to fall back upon his one other
+title. Olive had been greatly shocked when she first heard her husband
+called “ole man,” but she was now used to the expression.
+
+She was very disappointed not to see Ezra at once, for she was full of
+her adventure, but she knew from experience she must possess her soul in
+patience, for the “’Sumbly,” as Napoleon Pompey called it, was sure to
+take a good while, and Ezra always stayed conscientiously to the last.
+The institution was none other than the bi-weekly Assembly, which met at
+the Academy, and at which all the business of the Community was settled
+and the routine work of the farm arranged for. All the members were free
+to attend and speak their minds, but in practice it had resolved itself
+into a Junta of Madame, Ezra, Wright, Green, and Uncle David, of whom
+the two latter were sleeping members. The women of Perfection City did
+not care to attend the Assembly very often. Women are not good debaters,
+and they dislike arguments carried on under strict rule. They prefer to
+go their own way, do what seems best at the moment, and reserve an
+unlimited right of grumbling and jealousy. Madame, who was an exception
+to the general rule, usually presided at the Assembly and ruled it, as
+she did most things, without seeming to do so. Ezra and Brother Wright
+understood the farm work and generally mapped out the daily labour
+pretty well. Brother Dummy required only to be told what to do and went
+on contentedly doing it, without comment or commotion. Nobody, of
+course, was ordered to work, but it was suggested that if Brother Wright
+would do so and so, Brother Ezra would be able to do this, that, or the
+other, while Brother Carpenter would be free to perform such another
+task, and Brother Dummy would probably prefer to work at whatever
+happened to be wanted at the moment. Madame seldom interfered, and then
+only when necessary to smooth over a rough edge. She usually found the
+men’s arrangements excellent and for the general weal. Brother Green,
+who was a first-rate smith, was the only member of the Community who, at
+this time, received any money, for he worked in his spare time for
+outsiders. With great pride he used to bring the money he earned to the
+’Sumbly and give it into Madame’s charge to be expended as seemed best.
+She kept the accounts and used to furnish all the rest of the necessary
+cash. Sometimes the brethren expressed compunction at calling so often
+on her resources, but Madame always made the most graceful speeches in
+reply to their objections. Of course an undertaking such as this
+required capital to start it. It would be foolish to starve the whole
+project for want of a little expenditure now. By and by they would be
+self-supporting, but in order to reach that stage quickly they must not
+be stingy now. So she gave her dollars by the hundred when needed, and
+the brethren were eternally grateful and privately wondered if there was
+any limit to her wealth and generosity. At the Assembly it would be
+debated whether the next load of timber that was bought should go to
+building a hen-house for Brother Carpenter or to putting up a
+cattle-shed for Brother Ezra, and it speaks well for the honest
+conviction of the Pioneers that it was usually Brother Ezra who argued
+in favour of the hen-house, while Brother Carpenter expressed an anxious
+desire for the cattle-shed. The difficulty would perhaps be settled by
+Madame desiring to know how much timber was required for both buildings
+and deciding to buy that amount at the earliest opportunity.
+
+At this particular Assembly to which we refer, Ezra was several times on
+the point of saying that he wished to get a pony for his wife, but his
+heart failed him. He knew he did want the pony very much, but he also
+knew that it was not really wanted for the Community. So he could not
+bring himself to give utterance to the individualistic wish, and after
+arranging the necessary business of the Community, he came home with his
+wish unstated.
+
+Olive was waiting for him with the greatest impatience. She went,
+indeed, as far as the bars to meet him, but the road looked so lonesome
+and the sky so black with cold trembling specks of stars, that she ran
+back again in a flutter of panic to the house and shut herself in with
+the candles for company. At last he came back, and Olive poured forth
+the pent-up torrent of her news. Ezra was much amused at her description
+of the disaster and interested in her account of the rescuer.
+
+“And I am so vexed,” said Olive, “I can’t for the life of me remember
+what he said his name was. I know I never heard it before, but he lives
+here on the prairie. It is so silly!”
+
+“Call him Perseus,” said Ezra laughing, “he was the gallant who came to
+the rescue of distressed damsels.”
+
+“What a good joke!” said Olive gleefully, “and I was a distressed
+damsel, I assure you. I cried with vexation.”
+
+“I have no doubt that Andromeda shed tears when she was bound to the
+rock,” said Ezra, amused.
+
+“And I was bound to that odious saddle by the bonds of duty,” said
+Olive. “What a joke! Mr. Perseus!”
+
+So they laughed and chatted, and Olive was as bright as possible, and
+Ezra thought again with a pang of that pony and almost wished he had
+spoken at the Assembly about it. Olive, however, never mentioned what
+Mr. Perseus had said about the pony Mills had for sale. The idea seemed
+to have passed from her mind.
+
+It happened that about a week later Olive again found herself in the
+neighbourhood of Little Cotton Wood Creek, and by an extraordinary
+coincidence Mr. Perseus chanced to meet her. She was very much
+surprised, and he seemed to be no less so. However, the meeting was
+mutually pleasant, and they soon fell into conversation, as it appeared
+he was going her way.
+
+“I have thought a great deal about what you said to me the other day,
+about trying to make life better and all that,” said he with a certain
+self-consciousness, as if he was unaccustomed to speaking upon such a
+subject. Olive looked at him with bright clear eyes.
+
+“I am very glad if anything I said could be of use to you, but I am
+myself very ignorant. I should like you to come and hear what Brother
+Wright says, and Ezra. Brother Wright is considered very eloquent. I
+can’t always understand him myself, but that is my own deficiency!”
+
+“I would much prefer talking with you, Mrs. Weston,” said the stranger
+hastily. “I am very restive under men’s teaching, but I am docile enough
+when led by a woman’s gentle hand.”
+
+“Why are you living here?” asked Olive suddenly. “You seem so unsuited
+to this life.”
+
+“I am sick of civilization and all its horrors,” said he. “I wanted to
+get away to something fresh and new.”
+
+“That is almost like what a Pioneer would say,” remarked Olive with a
+smile. “They don’t think very highly of what civilization has done so
+far.”
+
+“Materially it has done much, morally it has done badly for a good
+number of human beings,” he remarked.
+
+“I think you sound like a very hopeful convert to the principles of
+communism. Why don’t you come to Perfection City?” asked Olive.
+
+“Would you be glad to see me there, Mrs. Weston?”
+
+“Certainly, Mr. Perseus, and I should be so pleased to make you and my
+husband known to each other.”
+
+He looked at her curiously for some moments and then said, “Why do you
+call me Mr. Perseus?”
+
+Olive gave him one horrified glance and then blushed scarlet.
+
+“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she stammered in great confusion. “I did not
+know I said so. I really am most sorry.”
+
+“But why that name?” he persisted, still looking at her blushing face.
+
+“I may as well tell you the truth,” she said still much confused. “The
+fact is I forgot what you said your name was, and my husband suggested
+in a joke that I should call you Perseus, because—because——”
+
+“I rescued you in distress,” said he as he broke into a deep musical
+laugh. “It is a capital name, I am delighted with it.”
+
+“I am so ashamed of myself,” said Olive, also laughing, “but I was in
+the habit of speaking of you as Mr. Perseus, and the name slipped off my
+tongue unawares. What is your real name? Pray tell me.”
+
+“Not for worlds, dear Mrs. Weston. To you I shall remain Mr. Perseus,
+and I shall never think of the name without a thrill of pleasure.”
+
+“But this is most unfair,” said Olive. “You know my name and who I am
+and all about me, and yet I am to be kept in the dark as to your
+identity.”
+
+“Forgive my not doing at once what you wish, but really I cannot. This
+will be a sweet little innocent romance to me, and before you I shall
+appear in my very best light, leaving all the vices and evils of my real
+nature behind me for the time. Ah no! don’t deprive me of such a
+harmless joy. If you knew what a lonely uncared for life is mine, your
+tender heart would be touched.”
+
+Her heart was touched by the quiver in his deep voice, as he intended it
+should be, and Olive did not press her point any further. They rode on
+together talking about a hundred subjects, and she found him the most
+agreeable of men. She happened to mention a great novel just then coming
+out in Harper’s, the scene of which was laid in Florence, and he said
+musingly:
+
+“Ah yes! Florence is a lovely city, nestling among the blue hills.”
+
+“Have you ever seen it then?” asked Olive much surprised.
+
+“Yes, long ago, when I was a young fellow.”
+
+She gazed at him. “You are a most incomprehensible person,” she said,
+“living here on this prairie and yet you have seen Florence.”
+
+“You forget Perseus travels easily with his winged feet, from here to
+Florence would be a bagatelle to him.”
+
+“I begin to think there must be something uncanny about you.”
+
+“Now don’t go and change me into any other personality. Remember you are
+all-powerful, and by your word alone have made me Perseus. Your word is
+mighty, and you can cast me down into hell and make me a devil by a
+breath,” said he half banteringly.
+
+“What odd language!” said Olive, looking a little frightened. “How you
+must astonish the natives when you talk in that way!”
+
+“Do you fancy I talk to anyone as I do to you? Don’t you understand that
+I am Perseus to you, but to nobody else in the world?”
+
+Olive laughed, and put her horse to a canter in order to snap the thread
+of talk which was becoming too difficult for her. Mr. Perseus remained
+in her company while she was driving home the cattle, but they had no
+further particular conversation, as the exigencies of driving the herd
+occupied their attention most of the time. On parting from her about a
+mile from her home, he promised to come some day to see her, and Olive
+added, “I do hope Ezra will be in, for I should so like you two to talk
+together. I am sure you have much in common.”
+
+“We have one point in common, at all events,” thought Mr. Perseus as he
+rode away back towards the Big Cotton Wood Creek, “but I doubt very much
+if that would at all add to the harmony of our relations.”
+
+Olive was full of her meeting with Mr. Perseus, an account of which she
+retailed to Ezra at supper.
+
+“And just fancy his oddity! He wouldn’t tell me his real name after my
+unlucky slip, so he is Mr. Perseus to the end of the chapter, I suppose.
+He thought it such a joke.”
+
+“So he saw the application,” remarked Ezra. “He must be a man of
+education.”
+
+“He is a most superior man, I can see that. He has read everything I
+ever did and more too. And do you know, Ezra, I shouldn’t wonder if he
+had leanings towards community-life, many things he said pointed that
+way. Wouldn’t it be funny if I were to be the one to bring in your first
+convert, poor little me that never had any leanings until I saw you.”
+
+Ezra looked sharply at his wife during this speech, for a sudden and by
+no means pleasant suspicion sprang into his mind concerning the
+mysterious Mr. Perseus. However, Olive looked so perfectly innocent of
+even all knowledge of evil that he felt ashamed of himself.
+
+“I wouldn’t be too friendly with this man. We don’t know anything about
+him, nor who he is, remember,” remarked Ezra.
+
+“He said he knew you and that you were a fine-looking man, you old dear,
+and he is acquainted with most of the members of the Community by sight.
+Besides, I thought it was a point of etiquette on the prairie to make no
+inquiries into a person’s character, but to take him in his boots just
+as he stands, and ask him to dinner. Don’t you remember Charlie Clarke,
+and how he came to supper by your invitation and you found him so
+pleasant, and he a horse-thief and a murderer all the while, only we
+didn’t know it.”
+
+This was all very true, but Charlie Clarke had evinced no “leanings” to
+community-life, and above all Olive had been profoundly uninterested in
+him and was delighted when he left. Ezra hated himself for the feeling
+in his heart, but he had his suspicions of Mr. Perseus, and he knew his
+wife was distractingly pretty. So he advised her to keep aloof from Mr.
+Perseus as much as practicable. Several times afterwards he made excuses
+to go riding with her, which Olive enjoyed immensely, but then something
+was said to her about his shirking his share of the work, and she was
+furiously angry. She wanted her husband to be first, and since the only
+theatre for the exhibition of his abilities was the somewhat restricted
+one of Perfection City, she wanted him to be always near the front.
+
+“Shirking indeed!” she said tossing her pretty head. “I’ll have Mary
+Winkle know my husband never shirked in his life.”
+
+In a blaze of wrath she met Ezra and ordered him to go to work and never
+mind riding with her till the harvest was over. She wouldn’t ride any
+more, she would work until she was black in the face. Shirking indeed!
+She’d let Mary Winkle see! And so on and so forth, till her burst of
+anger had spent itself.
+
+Olive was not slow to perceive that her husband had some sort of dislike
+to the idea of her seeing Mr. Perseus. She could not exactly explain to
+herself why this should be, and she was heartily sorry for it. She had
+fancied that in time Mr. Perseus might possibly come to be a member of
+the Community. She would indeed have been frankly glad to have him
+become a brother, for, as far as she could judge, he seemed a man of
+brilliant parts, and certainly his manners were most charming. To tell
+the truth, she found the members as a whole very uninteresting. Mary
+Winkle she positively disliked, and yet she was the one nearest to her
+own age. She sometimes wondered how Ezra could be satisfied with the
+companionship of those same people, who seemed to her to be walking in
+such a narrow circle, and always to be saying the same things in pretty
+nearly the same words. Now, Mr. Perseus said such original things and in
+such a charming voice. Altogether it was a pity that Ezra should have
+taken a prejudice into his head against this stranger. Olive wondered
+whether, if they met, the mutual recognition of their abilities would
+dissipate her husband’s suspicions. Such being her notions, it was most
+unlucky that the first time Mr. Perseus came to see them Ezra should
+have been gone to Union Mills. He went so very seldom that it was a most
+unfortunate coincidence, as she explained to Mr. Perseus, who did not in
+return explain that having himself seen Ezra at Union Mills he had
+straightway ridden off to visit her, and ridden so hard too that his
+horse was in a white lather when he arrived at Perfection City by a
+somewhat circuitous route. Napoleon Pompey was gone, so Olive showed him
+where to put his horse in the dark stable so that the flies would not
+torment the animal. She remarked on the horse’s state and asked Mr.
+Perseus had he been running down cattle, and he muttered something about
+young horses showing every bit of work in hot weather.
+
+He was profoundly interested in Olive’s little home. She showed him with
+pride the garden she had made, where already the balsams were just
+coming into blossom; she then took him to see the prairie chickens she
+was trying to rear, little black and yellow downy things, with fierce
+wild eyes utterly untamed and only looking out for a favourable
+opportunity to make a dash for freedom.
+
+“Do you think I can ever tame them?” asked Olive, as she noted the
+hostile manner in which they scuttled away from her food-giving hand.
+
+“If anyone could tame them you could, the ungrateful little brutes!”
+remarked Mr. Perseus.
+
+“I don’t see that it is ungrateful of them to resent being taken from
+their proper home and natural mother to be put under a fat stupid hen,”
+said Olive.
+
+“No, but it is rank ingratitude not to be tame to you,” said he.
+
+“I don’t think you are truthful,” said Olive bluntly.
+
+“Why?” asked Mr. Perseus.
+
+“Because you are always saying things like that,” she answered, somewhat
+resentfully.
+
+“Well, I do call that hard,” complained Mr. Perseus, “to charge a fellow
+with being untruthful when he was shaking in his shoes from terror at
+having perhaps let out too much of the truth.”
+
+Olive looked down at his big boots, knitting her brows, and then led the
+way into the house.
+
+“I’ll get you some dinner. I am sure you are hungry,” she said
+hospitably, it being about two o’clock in the afternoon.
+
+“I am hungry, starving, mind, body, and soul,” said her visitor in
+reply.
+
+“I’ll get a chicken-pie for you, that will go some way,” answered Olive
+with a laugh.
+
+“And if you will talk with me, that will go far to complete the work of
+charity,” said he.
+
+Olive brought him the food, and he set to work upon it, being evidently,
+as he said, very hungry.
+
+“Do you know I am beginning to look upon Perfection City as a sort of
+earthly paradise,” said Mr. Perseus.
+
+“Indeed.”
+
+“Yes, a paradise from which I am shut out. Have you any young men here,
+Mrs. Weston, unmarried men, or are they against your rules?”
+
+“No. Unmarried men are not against our rules,” said Olive archly. “We
+had one here lately, but we haven’t now.”
+
+“Why, what did you do with him?” asked Mr. Perseus, in some surprise.
+
+“I married him,” said Olive dimpling and blushing.
+
+“Lucky beggar!” remarked her visitor, turning again to his dinner.
+
+Mr. Perseus stayed some time, but refused Olive’s invitation to wait to
+see her husband, saying as an excuse that he had a long way to ride
+home. Olive wanted to know where he lived, but he laughingly put her
+off. He would not tell her, lest she should discover his real name, and
+then much of the romance of his life would be destroyed.
+
+“You don’t know what this is to me, and how when I am leading my lonely
+life, I recall every word and look and again go through these meetings,
+Mrs. Weston. I suppose it seems silly to you, but remember, human
+companionship is man’s most precious inheritance, and those who have but
+little of it prize what they have at perhaps an extravagant figure. Did
+you ever hear of Silvio Pellico?” he asked abruptly.
+
+“No,” replied Olive.
+
+“Well, he was a prisoner entirely shut off from human companionship, and
+he at last made friends with a spider, and at length the spider was
+crushed by the turnkey’s foot, and Silvio wept tears of anguish. I am
+like a prisoner out here on this desolate prairie.”
+
+“And am I like the horrible spider, then?” said Olive brightly.
+
+“Mrs. Weston!” he exclaimed reproachfully. “I have opened my heart to
+you because I felt that you could feel with me, although the world might
+count us as strangers, but I thought you would understand what I meant
+even when I blundered through the expression of my thoughts. This is the
+first time you have misunderstood me. But I believe it was only
+pretended misunderstanding and that you do know what I meant.”
+
+He said good-bye, and left Olive with a feeling of sadness and
+oppression on her mind. He had not been as bright as before, and she
+wondered who he was and why he was so anxious not to see anyone but her.
+She mentioned his visit to Ezra, but somehow she had less to tell about
+him than on former occasions. There seemed nothing to say. Ezra, too,
+did not appear as much amused as formerly at the joke of Mr. Perseus. No
+doubt it was getting stale by this time.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+                             FIRST LESSONS.
+
+
+Summer came on apace. The field had been duly run over in both
+directions with the shovel-plough, so as to leave between the
+cross-ploughing little “hills” of earth, out of which sprang the
+corn-clumps. The broad green ribbons of leaves fluttered in the wind,
+making a soft murmur as of a forest. Olive took great delight in her
+little flower-garden at the east end of the house, and worked and weeded
+at it both early and late. Napoleon Pompey, typical negro boy, which
+being interpreted means laziest of mortals, forgot his laziness to work
+for “Mis’ Ollie” as he called her. Together they had planted their
+balsams, trained their morning-glory, and rooted out brown beetles with
+zeal, to be amply repaid in July by a glorious profusion of blossoms.
+
+“This is my very ownest own garden,” said Olive, exhibiting her balsams
+with pride to Ezra. “Mind, this is not community-land, it’s mine.”
+
+“Does it make you enjoy the flowers more to think that nobody else has
+them?” asked Ezra, with a tinge of sadness in his voice. “Would it make
+you any the happier to keep the sunshine all to yourself, do you think?”
+
+“No, certainly not, that’s quite different. But I’ve planted these
+flowers and grown them. I shall give them to whomsoever I like. You for
+instance.” She smiled coaxingly at him.
+
+“You pretty child,” he said, disarmed.
+
+“Why, I brought some over to Mrs. Carpenter to-day. I went to help her
+with her washing. And, do you know!” said Olive, “I was so amused.”
+
+“At what?”
+
+“Mr. Carpenter was educating his children.”
+
+“He’s always doing that,” said Ezra.
+
+“Yes, but to-day there was a special lesson. He was at Union Mills
+yesterday, and he got a present for both of them, I mean two presents,
+one for Johnny and one for Nelly. You know he is always saying boys and
+girls would have the same tastes if they were brought up in the same
+way.”
+
+“He’ll find out one day, maybe, that boys will be boys, no matter how
+you bring them up.”
+
+“He has found it out already. Wait till you hear. By way of correcting
+any early bias, he gave a hammer and nails to Nelly and a doll to
+Johnny.”
+
+“You don’t say so! What did the children do?”
+
+“Well, they went off without a word, each carrying its toy, and Mr.
+Carpenter told me his ideas about education, and how well they worked.
+Suddenly we heard shrieks from behind the wood-pile where the children
+were playing. We ran out to see what was the matter. Nelly had got a
+handkerchief tied over the head of her hammer, and she was cuddling it
+to sleep in her arms. Johnny had got some of the nails and was trying to
+drive them into a piece of wood with the head of the doll for hammer.
+Nelly was screaming because he was killing poor Dolly.”
+
+Ezra laughed, and Olive joined in at the recollection of the scene. “You
+cannot think how disappointed Mr. Carpenter looked. His wife said he’d
+got something to do if he was expecting to cure little girls of dolls in
+a hurry. We changed the presents and left him to reconcile it with his
+theories as best he could; both children were quite happy and contented
+afterwards.”
+
+“Poor Carpenter! He’ll have to learn by bitter experience that he cannot
+change human nature all at once,” said Ezra, sympathetically. “I fear
+children are still in the savage stage of development, they are not
+communists.”
+
+“Nobody is communist about things they care very much about,” said
+Olive, in desperate courage.
+
+“Why, Ollie! What a thing to say! I am a thorough-going communist I
+hope. I’d give the coat off my back without a pang.”
+
+“Of course you would, because it is a horrid old thing any way, and men
+look frights in coats always. Men don’t care about clothes, only just to
+cover themselves and keep themselves warm. One rag would do as well as
+another.”
+
+“You are an incorrigible little individualist and a greedy one as well,
+I do declare,” said Ezra, half laughing at her vehemence.
+
+“No, it’s not that, only I see what is what,” replied Olive oracularly.
+
+“And what might that be?”
+
+“The Pioneers are only communistic for rubbish and rags, and not for
+dolls and hammers. That’s what they are,” said Olive, with her face
+aflame.
+
+“Rubbish and rags! What an absurd thing to say. Who ever heard such
+nonsense?” said Ezra, loftily ignoring his wife’s argument in a way that
+wise men often affect.
+
+“’Tisn’t nonsense,” said Olive hotly. “It is just what people say of
+Perfection City.”
+
+“What people say it?” asked Ezra.
+
+“Well, Mr. Perseus for one,” said Olive, repenting of her daring in
+getting into the subject at all.
+
+“Mr. Perseus,” repeated Ezra with a sudden frown, “so you talk over our
+principles with him. When did you do so last?”
+
+“I don’t know exactly when. The other day. He often passes by here on
+his way cattle-hunting. Sometimes he looks in for a moment, but
+sometimes he can’t stay long, only to water his horse. Of course I talk
+over the principles that have made you found a City here. Don’t you
+suppose people know about them and talk them over eagerly? They are
+different enough from the generality of people’s ideas, and Mr. Perseus
+said they considered you only went a little way into communism, and had
+a little bit of this and a little bit of that in common, and weren’t at
+all logical. People sneer at Perfection City, I can assure you.”
+
+“And you, doubtless, enjoyed his sneers,” retorted Ezra injudiciously.
+
+“No, I didn’t, only I saw what other people say of us. Mr. Perseus,
+even, once said he’d like to come and be a communist himself, if we were
+only consistent throughout, and lived up to our principles.”
+
+“You may tell your friend Perseus that he would not be a welcome
+recruit,” said Ezra, in considerable agitation. “I may as well tell you
+now what I have suspected for some time. I know pretty well who your
+mysterious Mr. Perseus is. He is a man of the name of Cotterell. I know
+him very well by sight and better still by reputation. To convince you,
+I will just mention a point or two about his appearance. He is about
+five feet ten in height, very fair in complexion, with a yellow
+moustache, and bright blue eyes, and whenever he takes his hat off you
+see the blue veins very markedly on his temples. He is, I suppose, what
+a woman would call a very handsome man, and he usually rides a black
+horse with a blaze on his face and white hind feet.”
+
+“Yes, that’s the man,” said Olive who remembered the horse well, and who
+moreover recognized the perfect accuracy of her husband’s description.
+
+“Very well. Now I will tell you something about his character and
+history. He is an Englishman and perhaps has been badly brought up. At
+all events he hasn’t the morals we approve of. I know his libertine
+London ways. He probably didn’t tell you about it, but I remember very
+well the poor girl who shot herself the first summer we came here,
+because Cotterell had abandoned her. If the neighbours had been quite
+sure of all the facts of the case, there would in all probability have
+been a shooting party at Cotterell’s house, so I was told. But they were
+not quite sure so they gave him the benefit of the doubt. Accordingly he
+still has his handsome face to go on with and maybe wreck more homes.
+That is the career of Mr. Cotterell, alias Mr. Perseus,” said Ezra with
+considerable heat.
+
+“It was you who gave him the name of Perseus,” replied Olive also much
+agitated. “He did not appear under a false name of his own accord. And
+now that you tell me his real name I remember that was the one he gave
+the first time I saw him, and he asked me if I had ever heard it
+before.”
+
+“I won’t say anything on that point, it may have been a joke on his
+part, but it must stop now. Understand me, Olive. I don’t wish to seem
+harsh, but you must not meet and talk with this man again. If you chance
+on him, pass by and say you can have no further communication with him.
+If he urges an objection, say I have forbidden you to see him, as I do
+forbid you, here and now. He will take that for an answer, scoundrel as
+he is, for among people of his stamp personal vanity does duty for
+better feelings. He won’t come again to a house where the lady has once
+shown him the door. You don’t in the least understand what his motives
+are in this new-fangled interest of his in Perfection City, but I
+understand them very clearly, and my wish is that you never see him
+again. Harm is sure to come of it if you do.”
+
+Olive was very much alarmed at her husband’s stern manner and peremptory
+order, but she was also indignant. Mr. Perseus or Cotterell, as she must
+now call him, had shown great respect and deference to her and had
+evinced a desire to be guided by her to higher aspirations. She was not
+sure of the meaning of some of his remarks, or rather she wished she
+could find some other reasonable explanation for them than the one most
+people would undoubtedly attach to them. Still she resented her
+husband’s masterful manner.
+
+“I will of course obey your orders, Ezra,” she said with a tart emphasis
+on the word which made him wince, “because I hold old-fashioned ideas of
+what wifely duty is, quite at variance with the high standard of
+individual liberty as maintained and explained, I believe, by the
+brethren of Perfection City. You may rest quite satisfied, I will obey
+you.”
+
+Having thus stabbed her husband in his most vulnerable point and
+dexterously driven the poignard up to the hilt in the wound, Olive
+walked away, leaving Ezra to feel himself a selfish brute.
+
+Ezra spent a wretched half day of self-reproach, and then crept back
+repentant, begging to be forgiven for being a tyrant to his poor little
+pet. And his little pet who had paid for her pride with abundant tears,
+allowed him to kiss her and fondle her and call her sweet silly names,
+while she declared she never cared to see or speak to that wretched Mr.
+Cotterell again, and no wonder he was ashamed of his own name, etc.,
+etc., all in the most foolish and approved manner possible to the newly
+married.
+
+All the same, after a time Olive began to feel sorry for Mr. Cotterell,
+and to pity him for the very errors of his past life, about which she
+now saw that he was penitent without wishing to explain to her why. Also
+she had very much enjoyed meeting him; he was so fresh, cultivated, and
+original, in his conversation. It was really very dull sometimes with no
+one to talk to, and the long hot day shimmering by, making her feel as
+if she were a potato being slowly baked in a hotair oven. There was no
+excitement in the house-work and—and it was very dreary sometimes. Men
+delight in reverting to primitive savagery. The most highly civilized
+man “reverts” in a way which is surprising both for completeness and for
+rapidity, but women hate the process. Savage woman was a slave, and the
+more completely a woman becomes subject to primitive conditions the more
+closely she resembles a slave, and is in virtual bondage either to some
+human being or to hampering circumstances.
+
+Of appropriate companions of her own sex Olive had absolutely none. Mary
+Winkle was a rigid reformer, a person all angles, of the sort that never
+becomes a companion to anyone, for she was always on the war-path, and,
+besides, between her and Olive there was an unexpressed, but no less
+real, antipathy. Her daughter, Willette, that creature half boy, half
+girl, and wholly wild, was always on horseback careering after stray
+cattle, and though by her ignorance and eccentricity she sometimes
+amused Olive, she had really no ideas beyond those very concrete ones
+impressed upon her from without by her open-air life on the prairie.
+Mrs. Carpenter was a good soul, but a mere stout housewife, with no
+ideas and only one hope, namely, “that Carpenter would give up his
+high-fallutin’ notions, an’ go back to York State, an’ settle down
+comfortable again, an’ be a preacher in a Baptist church.” Mrs. Ruby was
+old in body, but the youngest of them all in mind, except Uncle David,
+who was her senior by four years. Mrs. Ruby believed in Perfection City,
+though she reserved the right of private judgment on certain of the
+tenets of its founders, and in particular, she had lately felt
+misgivings as to the worldly wisdom of their principle of
+non-resistance. She knew, however, that the Pioneers were going to show
+the world the new and better way—the way which led into no competition
+for supremacy, but into peaceful paths of universal progress. Property
+and its attendant imps, greed, strife, jealousy, envy, hatred, and
+malice, were all banished from Perfection City, and in their place peace
+and good-will and perfect trust in each other were to reign forever. It
+was a high ideal, but not a new one. It was eighteen centuries old,
+though it had never yet been realised. Mrs. Ruby and Uncle David felt
+sure they had reached the ideal, and all through Madame Morozoff-Smith,
+the most whole-souled, unselfish, glorious woman of her century. It was
+a pity she had not a larger theatre in which to present before mankind
+the new principles of social life it was their privilege to put into
+practice.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+                          PRACTICAL COMMUNISM.
+
+
+A day or two after Ezra had laid his commands upon his wife, as we saw
+in the last chapter, he came home in the evening to find her in floods
+of tears. Her eyelids were all red with weeping, and she broke out
+afresh on seeing him.
+
+“What’s the matter?” asked Ezra, in much concern. “What has happened?”
+
+“My poor flowers, my pretty balsams!” sobbed Olive.
+
+“Has the calf got into your garden and spoiled your flowers, my poor
+child?” he said tenderly.
+
+“No, it wasn’t the calf, but they are all gone. Mary Winkle took them
+all.”
+
+“Oh!” said Ezra with a slight shock of surprise.
+
+“Yes, she has cleared the whole garden. She came to-day while I was out
+at Mrs. Huntley’s.”
+
+“How do you know it is she who has taken them?”
+
+“Napoleon Pompey told me he saw her pick them.”
+
+“Depend upon it, he is lying,” said Ezra with emphasis. “Negroes are as
+mischievous as monkeys, and——”
+
+“No, he didn’t do anything to the flowers,” interrupted Olive. “He was
+as pleased with them almost as I was myself, and worked ever so hard to
+help keep down the weeds. Besides, I went to Mary Winkle and saw them.”
+
+“Oh!” said Ezra helplessly. He wished it had been the calf or Napoleon
+Pompey or anybody or anything rather than Mary Winkle. He braced himself
+for what was coming.
+
+“She told me she did it with a purpose. She said I was getting more
+individualistic in my leanings every day, and that time was not curing
+me at all, that I was selfishly proud of my flowers. It isn’t one bit
+true,” sobbed Olive, with quivering chin. “I gave heaps of them away. I
+gathered a bunch for Mrs. Huntley just as I was going this morning.”
+
+Ezra groaned. “I know you did, dear,” he said.
+
+“She said I gloated over them and rejoiced because nobody else had any.
+I didn’t. I only loved them because I had tended them and reared them,
+and I knew them and watched for their buds. She said they didn’t belong
+to me, but to the Community, and that she took them on behalf of the
+general weal. Those are all grand words for nasty mean jealousy and
+covetousness,” said Olive passionately. “I hate Mary Winkle and I hate
+the Community.”
+
+“Oh, Olive, Olive!” cried Ezra with a gesture of entreaty. “Don’t say
+that, dear. It strikes me to the heart. Think of me, dear.”
+
+“My pretty flowers!” she said with a drooping of her mouth that
+betokened fresh tears.
+
+“I am so sorry, oh, more sorry than I can say,” said Ezra. “Mary Winkle
+has done wrong, and has administered a lesson in a cruel, brutal way.”
+
+“She has no business to give me lessons at all, and I won’t take them
+from her,” cried Olive passionately. “I hate being the one to be always
+taught. They think themselves so superior and are always stooping to
+raise me. Let them raise themselves first. I can see where Mary Winkle
+needs teaching and correction as plainly as anybody. She is only
+communistic in regard to things she doesn’t really care about.”
+
+“No, no Ollie, darling. It is really a deep conviction with us all,
+although in this case most unkindly illustrated,” said Ezra gently.
+
+“I know you think so in all honesty, but it isn’t so in reality. Nobody
+is nor can be communistic about what they love, if it is real love. If
+they are communistic about a thing it is because they don’t really
+care.”
+
+Ezra knew by the pang of jealousy in his own heart that this was an
+insurmountable truth his little wife was hurling forth in her anger.
+
+“Mary Winkle isn’t communistic. I’m not clever and able to say wise
+things and use long words that amaze people like Brother Wright, but for
+all that I can see some things clearly enough. Mary Winkle isn’t any
+more communistic than I am, only we love different things.”
+
+“I think you mistake,” said Ezra.
+
+“No, I don’t mistake one bit. Let Mary Winkle, if she is communistic in
+all the moods and tenses, lump her child with the two little Carpenters
+and draw lots to take one of the three for her own. Would that satisfy
+her heart, although the precious principles would be right enough? Of
+course not, because her heart would step in and claim its own by the
+divine right of love. I should be thoroughly communistic on the score of
+these children. I shouldn’t mind to draw lots as to whether Willette or
+Nelly or Johnny Carpenter was going to come to live with me. One would
+do as well as another, and I could be thoroughly communistic, because I
+don’t love any of them very deeply. My little flowers I did love. It
+wasn’t that I had worked for them and grudged the fruit of my labour. I
+would work in a turnip field and let anyone who liked have the turnips,
+nasty, watery, pulpy things, but I loved those flowers and tended them
+and they were mine. I don’t care about the philosophy of the question.
+You will perhaps some day see what I mean, Ezra, and understand me. I
+know you don’t now. You think me a silly child.”
+
+In his own heart he thought he understood more clearly than he liked to
+confess, that Olive was speaking more than philosophy, she was
+announcing stubborn facts. However, he strove his utmost to soothe her
+feelings, for he could see that if an attitude of strife and hostility
+were once set up between her and Mary Winkle, it would not only affect
+his wife’s happiness but might have very serious results upon the future
+of Perfection City. There were only a very few of them, and if the
+experiment was to succeed it could only do so through unity, while
+strife and internal dissensions would certainly destroy it without
+giving it a chance. This point was fruitful of deep meditation, and
+occasioned heart-searchings to Ezra. It indeed augured ill for the
+future, not only of Perfection City, but of all those other cities of
+their imagination which should spring from this mother plant, if the
+personal feelings of a couple of good women were potent enough to wreck
+the scheme. Surely, in the dozen or so choice spirits who now formed the
+entire population of that City, there could be none of those latent
+forces making for destruction which would have to be reckoned with in
+the future and larger experiments in communism they were leading up to.
+If it was so difficult to soothe ruffled feelings in Perfection City
+now, and to compose a quarrel about some wretched little balsams, what
+would happen when, in a larger Perfection City, deeper cause of dispute
+arose between numbers of persons? Ezra’s mind recoiled aghast at the
+answer which rose up in his mind in reply to that question. There would
+have to be some strong, some overwhelming central power, a despot in
+short. Was this then the goal which they were to reach after toiling
+along a hard and stony road of personal effort? A despotism or a
+monasticism, in either case tyranny and subjection. Surely, oh surely,
+there must be some other solution which his mind, disturbed by the sight
+of his little wife’s distress, had unaccountably failed to formulate. He
+would go to Madame and would seek guidance from her illumined mind.
+
+Olive, spent by her emotions, had gone to sleep quite early, so Ezra
+sallied forth to seek counsel where he was used to find it. Madame would
+be sure to be still up—though it was late by prairie hours, after nine
+o’clock—as he knew by experience, for in his bachelor days he had often
+spent long evenings in discussion and talk with her. Since his marriage,
+however, he had never gone alone in the evening to talk with Madame.
+Happy in his own love, he had felt no need of other companionship, and
+now as he walked along to her house, he began to wonder if she had
+noticed the sudden cessation of the evening talks, and also to wonder if
+she had missed them. It was thoughtless never to have gone near her
+during all these weeks. It was selfish, seeing how kind, how always
+sympathetic she had been to him for so many months, during the time when
+he felt lonely and full of undefined longings, before his heart had
+found complete rest in Olive’s love and above all in his love for her.
+Ezra thinking of these things was smitten with remorse, and made a
+resolution to go and see Madame of an evening sometimes and to bring
+Olive with him. Meantime he walked along and in a few moments knocked at
+the familiar door. Madame opened it herself, with Balthasar in close
+attendance. The latter, on satisfying himself that it was a person of
+friendly intentions who claimed admittance, walked back to the spot
+where he had been lying, and resumed the thread of his interrupted
+slumbers.
+
+“Brother Ezra, this is indeed a most unexpected visit. I hope it is not
+because there is anything wrong in your little home,” said Madame
+gravely.
+
+Ezra felt much embarrassed. He could hardly say there was nothing the
+matter, and still less could he apologise for having forgotten during
+all these happy weeks to come to see her. He did the best thing under
+the circumstances. He ignored Madame’s remark and question, and plunged
+boldly into the business which had brought him.
+
+She listened gravely without making any observation, but occasionally
+the faintest shadow of a smile fluttered around her lips. Ezra watched
+her face somewhat anxiously. In the old days, he had been used to read
+her face when they talked together, and to catch the meaning of her
+words from the mobile and everchanging expression of her clear blue
+eyes. But to-day, somehow, as he looked, he felt he had lost the power
+to read. The face was now a mask which seemed to conceal the real woman
+underneath, and yet it was the same fair smooth brow, the same sharply
+defined eyebrows, and, beneath, the same eyes. No, the eyes were not the
+same. They no longer looked clear and full at Ezra, but were often
+averted in a strange and uncertain manner, as if seeking to hide or to
+flee. At least such was the curious impression they produced upon him,
+as he sat looking at her and telling of the mighty wave of wrath that
+had surged up about that handful of balsam blossoms.
+
+“It is a most singular cause of division, and one I could almost laugh
+at, except for the very real passions of anger and of hatred it has
+aroused,” he said in conclusion.
+
+“One often sees terrible bursts of anger and fury in immature minds,”
+observed Madame in the preamble of her answer. “Young children and
+people of weak intellect frequently exhibit the most pitiable extremes
+of fury over trifling causes.”
+
+Ezra was not quite certain to what she referred. If to Olive, then she
+was mistaken in considering her a child. He recalled very vividly what
+she had said about communism in what one loves, and he was not at all
+prepared to admit that her arguments were those of a person of weak
+intellect.
+
+“I don’t think this is a case for ‘criticism-cure’ in the Assembly, do
+you?” she said.
+
+“No, certainly not,” replied Ezra, who was keenly alive to the
+possibility of his wife’s blazing up into uncompromising criticism
+herself, if they attempted to apply the famous “cure” upon her.
+
+“Criticism-cure” existed rather in theory than in practice in Perfection
+City, but it was held that if a brother or a sister should be guilty of
+any offence against the common weal, it would be an edifying experience
+to summon him or her to the Assembly, and let all the members tell him
+or her exactly what each one thought of the conduct in question. In
+theory this was supposed to work admirably, and to be a weapon capable
+of reducing to reason the most refractory member of the Community, but
+when Ezra remembered it and imagined for a moment its possible effects
+on Olive, he foresaw a whole train of deplorable results. Suppose she
+defended herself, she could say sharp rankling things with a surprising
+amount of unanswerable truth in them, or suppose she didn’t defend
+herself, but took the scolding silently. Her eyes would get bigger and
+bigger with tears which would roll over her cheeks, and her sweet little
+chin would quiver, and she would look imploringly at him. He couldn’t
+stand that, he knew, but would rush up and take her in his arms, and
+carry her off out from the midst of the carping, criticising brethren,
+and he would call her sweet pet and darling, and say she was right and
+they were horrid brutes to scold her, and he would be very angry and
+would be quite capable of knocking Brother Wright down, if he, as was
+likely, had been savage with the little pet. No, criticism-cure should
+not be applied to Olive. And Ezra, arguing thence into wider fields,
+began to feel some doubts as to the value of that remarkable weapon as a
+means of eradicating the naturally evil tendencies of the human heart.
+Theories which had seemed sound and complete in the abstract had a
+curious habit of ringing false when he imagined himself as applying them
+to Olive. It was very curious, but they did not seem to fit her, or was
+it possible that the theories themselves were wrong? No, he dismissed
+that thought as entailing too much mental demolition and carting away of
+rubbish. Of one thing only was he sure, the “criticism-cure” was not to
+be tried on his little wife.
+
+“I think it is a case for petting rather than for punishing,” remarked
+Madame, after an interval during which they had both been severally
+following out the ramifications of their own reflections.
+
+Ezra jumped at this idea. He was of that opinion too, as he impartially
+observed. Indeed he was always of opinion that Olive required petting.
+
+“Yes, I think I understand the case,” continued Madame. “The flowers
+were a toy, doubly prized now they are gone. What is wanted is to
+provide a new and more attractive toy, so that the baby-mind will
+lightly forget the old grief.”
+
+Ezra did not quite like this way of referring to Olive, but he had
+called in Madame’s aid, and he had no choice but to listen to the
+physician’s diagnosis and prescription regarding the case in question.
+Madame meanwhile looked at him half pityingly, having apparently
+overcome her eyes’ desire to avoid his glance.
+
+“Poor Ezra!” she said softly. “You are mated to a child, petulant,
+wilful, hard to manage, and very bewitching. You will find that you
+cannot in this case work by the light of pure reason. You must bring
+yourself down to her level and try to see with her eyes, to take delight
+in the petty trifles that interest her. ’Tis weary work! The task of
+Sisyphus was none the less severe because it produced no tangible good.”
+
+She was silent, and Ezra began to repent that he had sought counsel from
+so exalted a source, since it was delivered to him with such a liberal
+seasoning of the bitter salt of implied reproof.
+
+“I think that I can apply a remedy in this instance,” resumed Madame. “I
+know a woman’s mind as well as most people, and I know too the vain
+weaknesses of a silly girl—perhaps the knowledge comes from a memory, or
+perhaps from a shattered hope, who knows? At all events, dear friend and
+brother, it will serve you now.”
+
+She left him to go into the small inner apartment which was her bedroom,
+and came out again in a few moments carrying a small gold bracelet of
+curious workmanship, an Oriental trinket.
+
+“Here is a little trifle I happen to have by me. Do you think this toy
+would dry the little one’s tears?”
+
+She handed the bracelet to Ezra, who, though ignorant enough on such
+matters, did not fail to recognise the flash of diamonds in the jewel.
+
+“This is a very valuable piece of jewellery,” he said. “You must not
+give it away.”
+
+“I don’t value such things except for the power of making someone
+happy,” replied Madame. “Take it, dear friend, and think that I speak
+truly when I say I would gladly give all I possess to ease your mind of
+trouble and make your path in life a pleasant one. And the child-wife
+may like it. Now, go to her. Good-night! You look tired and harassed.”
+
+She gently put her hand upon his forehead as if to smooth out wrinkles,
+and left the room.
+
+As Ezra walked home with the diamond bracelet in his pocket, he seemed
+to feel her cool soft touch still, and the thought came into his mind
+that Olive never petted him. No, it was he who always petted her. Well,
+she was very sweet and pretty, and he hoped the bracelet would comfort
+her.
+
+There was no doubt about that. Olive danced for joy when she saw the
+trinket. She put it on her smooth little wrist and flashed it about in
+the sunshine. Her eyes rivalled the diamonds for brightness.
+
+“Do you like it, Ollie?”
+
+“Like it! Why, it’s too lovely for anything, and Madame is just a
+darling, and she is kind. Just fancy giving me a diamond bracelet! A
+thing I never dreamt of ever owning. And how shall I ever thank her?”
+
+Olive was skipping with joy. Suddenly she stopped short.
+
+“Ezra, is this mine, or is it a community-bracelet?”
+
+“It is yours, child.”
+
+“Mary Winkle can’t come and take it away for the good of my soul, can
+she?”
+
+“No, certainly not. We are allowed to hold private property in such
+personal trifles, as you know quite well. Besides, Sister Mary would not
+wish to take from you what you particularly prized.”
+
+“Oh, of that I am not at all so sure. If your principles allowed it, I
+would not give much for Sister Mary’s self-restraint in the matter. She
+might want the bracelet for herself or for Willette, for what I know. I
+shall tell her the bracelet is mine even by community-law.”
+
+Olive began to skip again.
+
+“You are an intractable little mortal, for all you look so soft and
+yielding,” said Ezra. He could not help smiling at her pretty kittenish
+ways, but he was filled with a sort of amazement to perceive how
+impossible it was to change the trend of her mind. Had she been an
+angular woman, all bones, like Mary Winkle, it would not have seemed so
+strange. Olive brought her frollicking to a conclusion and looked wisely
+at her husband, shaking her pretty little head at him.
+
+“No, no, Ezra. It is not that, but you are trying to stuff me into a
+wrong-shaped mould, and I don’t fit. As if any mortal woman ever could
+care for a community-bracelet!”
+
+She danced away to put her treasure in some safe place, and Ezra went
+off to his work, wondering in his own mind if there was something
+radically antagonistic to communism in the female nature. If there was
+any such fundamental incompatibility of temperament, then farewell to
+all ideas of a successful issue to their experiment. Absolute equality
+between men and women in position, power, and influence was the key-note
+of their theories, but what would become of these theories if it should
+appear that the female mind refused to accept the first and greatest
+postulate upon which they were all founded?
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+                           A CHANCE MEETING.
+
+
+The spring whence the Westons drew their water was about a quarter of a
+mile from the house across an angle of the corn field. A little
+foot-path winding in and out among the hills of corn led to it. As the
+corn grew, this path changed in character and became at length a track
+through a miniature forest. The corn grew to about eight feet in height,
+and of course the first to be covered was little Olive, with her brief
+five feet two inches, but by the end of July it had covered them all.
+Then it became Olive’s greatest delight to go down through that forest
+where the corn shook in the breeze. The satin-smooth stalks coming up
+like bamboos, and the broad fibrous ribbons of leaves, were a constant
+pleasure. But greatest joy of all was to watch the coming of the silk.
+When the young ears of grain were forming they threw off great skeins of
+exquisite silken threads, changing through every tint from palest green
+to rich dark crimson. These bunches of silk were like soft plumes
+falling from the crest of the husk that held the ears, and were most
+tempting to twist through idle fingers. A forest of tall-growing prairie
+corn is just the place for fairies, only alas! the wee folk had departed
+this life long before ever Olive went to live at Perfection City. So
+charmed was she with this dwarf forest, which afforded the only shade to
+be enjoyed on that glaring prairie, that during the summer she always
+went to the spring for an extra pail of fresh water every afternoon
+before supper-time, as this errand gave her an excuse for loitering
+among the corn stalks and amusing herself with her own playful fancies.
+
+Diana of course accompanied her young mistress upon these walks to the
+spring, for the puppy was attached to her by bonds of firmest canine
+affection, while Olive, on her side, was never tired of laughing at
+Diana’s ridiculous freaks, although they sometimes caused her
+considerable trouble.
+
+Take an example.
+
+A day so hot and scorching that words fail to convey any idea of it, and
+Olive in a great fuss, for she was behindhand with her work. At four
+o’clock, the very most blistering hour of the whole twenty-four, she set
+off hastily for the spring to fetch the fresh water, and with her Diana,
+her tongue lolling out half a hand’s breath. Knowing the object of the
+expedition, the puppy took the path through the corn, and Olive
+sweltered after her. It seemed as if the shelter of the corn was
+powerless against the slanting shafts of sunlight that danced and
+chequered between the broad hanging leaves, while the very air seemed
+endowed with such a load of heat as to press down with more than the
+allotted weight upon Olive’s head. She climbed over the fence and walked
+across the grass to where the spring started from under a tiny
+overhanging ledge of limestone rock. It was an excellent spring with the
+best of water, and would have been made into the holiest of wells by a
+spreading tree or a shady thorn-bush near it. There was, however,
+nothing of this sort, but only a clear pool of water some two feet
+across and about a foot deep, just enough, in fact, to enable one to get
+a good dip with the bucket. As Olive, hot and tired, hurried to this
+little pool of water, she beheld the accomplished Diana sitting in the
+middle of it, cooling herself and slobbering water up and down over her
+nose in supreme bliss. Poor Olive! She did not know whether to laugh or
+to cry, but eventually decided upon the first-named course. Then she sat
+down beside Diana and paddled her feet in the water, after which
+refreshment she returned home with her water-pail empty. The spring had
+an undisturbed night in which to renew its freshness, and in the future
+Olive kept her eye on Diana when they went together for water. The dog
+always wanted to go first, but Olive kept her severely to heel until the
+water was obtained, after which Diana was free to indulge in what
+diversions she pleased.
+
+One day as Olive emerged from the pathway through the corn, her heart
+gave a great bound of alarm as she saw a man standing beside the spring,
+holding his horse’s bridle. He was a tall man in a red shirt and
+large-brimmed hat. He carried a revolver at his belt, but it was not
+that which frightened Olive, she was well accustomed to seeing armed
+men. On catching sight of her the stranger took off his hat with a
+sweeping bow, and coming forward greeted her with the greatest
+eagerness.
+
+“This is indeed a delightful meeting, Mrs. Weston. Quite idyllic, if I
+may say so. And are you coming to fetch water? It is a subject for a
+poem, only I am not a poet. I can feel all the beauty of it, but must be
+dumb. You’ll let me carry back your pail for you, won’t you? It is too
+heavy for those wee hands.”
+
+“Thank you, Mr. Cotterell. I can quite easily carry my pail. I do it
+every day,” said Olive speaking with much embarrassment.
+
+“Mr. Cotterell!” he repeated with infinite sadness in manner, and with a
+look of much meaning in his bold blue eyes. “You call me Mr. Cotterell,
+then I am no longer Mr. Perseus, and my sweet romance is shattered
+forever!”
+
+“I know now that you are Mr. Cotterell,” said Olive, in keen distress.
+
+“And knowing that, you are disillusioned and have lost faith in me, and
+you will not even let me carry your pail of water for you,” said he,
+sadly, in a way which cut Olive to the heart, “yet I am the same man I
+was. To you at least I have never changed.”
+
+“I know you are very kind,” said Olive, “but if you please I’d rather
+you didn’t carry the pail for me.”
+
+She was dreadfully sorry to say anything to hurt his feelings, but she
+remembered her promise, and she must make him understand here and now
+that their acquaintance was to cease. She wanted to do it as kindly as
+she could, but she must do it at once.
+
+Cotterell was not slow to read her thoughts, indeed her distress was too
+real and undisguised for him to fail to understand.
+
+“Is this an order of dismissal, Mrs. Weston? Am I not to come to see you
+any more?” he asked abruptly, with a look of pain in his face.
+
+Olive glancing up saw the pain and felt sorrier than ever, but she went
+bravely forward.
+
+“I am deeply pained, Mr. Cotterell, but I must ask you not to come to
+see me; my husband does not want you to,” she said, unable in her
+distress to find any words which would convey her meaning unmistakably,
+and yet not sound too unkind.
+
+“Your husband has forbidden you to see me?” said Cotterell, biting his
+yellow moustache savagely.
+
+“Yes,” said Olive simply.
+
+“Your husband’s sentiments would do credit to a dog in the manger, Mrs.
+Weston, but are not what one exactly looks for from a professing
+communist, who poses as a shining light for his poor fellow-creatures
+still groping in the darkness of their ignorance.”
+
+“He says you are a bad man, Mr. Cotterell,” said Olive with a view to
+defending her husband and perhaps finding out the facts of the case
+about her mysterious friend, in whose personality she felt a great
+interest.
+
+“I don’t pretend to be a good man, Heaven knows! but I’m a poor lonely
+devil living quite by myself, and your husband, with all that the world
+can give in the way of happiness, grudges me the brief pleasure of
+talking for half an hour with a good woman. That’s not the way to make
+me a better man, Mrs. Weston, and God knows I need all the help I can
+get.”
+
+“I’m so sorry,” faltered Olive in ready sympathy, and the tears welled
+up into her tender black eyes.
+
+“You sweet pitying angel,” said Mr. Cotterell, coming nearer and
+speaking very gently. “Your influence would save me if anything could.”
+
+“Oh, you mustn’t talk like that,” said Olive, with a catch in her voice.
+“And you will be a good man, won’t you?”
+
+He bent his handsome face low, and taking her hand implanted a kiss upon
+it with a grace that might have charmed a duchess.
+
+“A woman can make or mar a man’s life,” said he. “Happy are they who
+draw the prizes. Goodbye!”
+
+He sprang upon his horse and galloped away. Olive stood watching him,
+her eyes swimming in tears, she scarcely knew why, only he seemed so sad
+and so handsome. Ezra was unkind to say she must never see him any more
+and try to make his life less sad and wicked, and she was so sorry to
+think that she would never have any more talks with him.
+
+At this moment a low growl from Diana made Olive turn round to encounter
+the clear cool gaze of Madame Morozoff-Smith.
+
+“I followed you down here,” she said. “Napoleon Pompey told me that you
+were most likely gone to the spring.”
+
+“Have you been here long?” asked Olive, blushing in her surprise and
+confusion. “I only came for a pail of fresh water.”
+
+“No, I just saw Mr. Cotterell say good-bye and ride off,” observed
+Madame gently. “Do you see him often? He hasn’t a good reputation.”
+
+“I don’t believe he is as bad as people say, I am very sorry for him
+living alone.”
+
+“He need not have been alone only that he chose it, indeed it ought to
+have been quite otherwise, if report goes true.”
+
+“We ought to be the last persons on earth to credit reports,” said Olive
+hotly. “I am sure there is a nice crop of them about us and our life
+here at Perfection City, if it comes to that.”
+
+“True, I daresay there are,” said Madame. “One should be charitable.”
+
+Olive was evidently ill at ease, and Madame drawing from a totally
+different experience of life her own conclusions, became convinced that
+Ezra’s wife was carrying on a secret acquaintanceship with a man of whom
+he thought very ill.
+
+Madame’s position as leader at Perfection City gave her many rights and
+imposed certain duties. She considered that of private admonition as one
+of them. She did not speak for some moments, and the two walked along in
+silence. Madame was debating in her own mind whether she should speak to
+Olive and endeavour to turn her from the dangerous path towards which
+she seemed to be directing her steps; or whether she should keep silence
+and let her destiny be accomplished. She reflected that if she spoke to
+Olive, that rather high-spirited young woman would probably resent her
+interference, and might possibly complain to Ezra, with the result of
+estranging him from herself. On the other hand, if she left the silly
+wife to go her foolish way, she would break her husband’s heart.
+Madame’s well-shaped lips curled with a smile of contempt for herself as
+these thoughts passed rapidly through her brain. What a fool she was to
+stir in the matter! Let the giddy girl follow her own impulses and
+then—No, no! She would be true to her best self, she would put forth a
+hand and draw back the blind fool from the precipice that lay before
+her.
+
+She spoke therefore to Olive in that soft quiet voice of hers that
+seemed to have more power of arresting the attention and holding it than
+the roar of an avalanche.
+
+“I think you are, perhaps, not acquainted with Mr. Cotterell’s
+character,” said she. “I am sure you would not wish to associate with a
+bad man.”
+
+“Why do you think he is a bad man? Do you know him?”
+
+“No, I don’t know him, but I am sure I am right in saying that he is a
+man of loose morals,” said Madame.
+
+“I don’t believe it,” said Olive.
+
+“Why not? How can you know?”
+
+“Because I have talked with him a great deal, and he speaks like a man
+with high aspirations, and not at all like the bad man you say he is.”
+
+“But what can you know of a man’s real character from a chance word or
+two as you run across him in an afternoon’s stroll?” observed Madame.
+
+“I don’t judge from a chance word, I have had long talks with him.”
+
+“Indeed! and where? Do you meet him here at the spring then, so often?”
+
+“I never met him at the spring before, but I used to meet him pretty
+often, when I was out cattle-hunting and he would generally accompany me
+for a bit. Sometimes too, he used to pass our house on his way
+cattle-hunting, and then he would look in and water his horse and stop
+to talk to me for a time,” said Olive in explanation.
+
+“Really!” said Madame looking keenly at her companion, “and did Ezra
+know of these visits?”
+
+“Ezra said he wasn’t to come any more, and I told Mr. Cotterell so
+to-day.”
+
+“Oh! and what did he say?”
+
+“He called Ezra a dog in the manger, and I do think Ezra oughtn’t to be
+so harsh about Mr. Cotterell. He would like to be a better man, I know,
+if he had any chance, and people were kind to him.”
+
+“Did he intimate that you could influence him towards the better way?”
+
+“I don’t see why I can’t try to use my influence in trying to make my
+fellow-creatures happier and better. You and Ezra are always talking
+about doing good that way. Why do you want to stop me the moment I see a
+chance of doing a little good?”
+
+“Because you would only do harm.”
+
+“No, I shouldn’t. A woman has great influence over a man. He said so
+himself.”
+
+“Mr. Cotterell said so?” inquired Madame.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It is a very dangerous thing for a young woman to attempt to influence
+men of that sort.”
+
+“You don’t know what sort he is, nor anything about him. You are only
+following reports. And how can you talk about the danger of influencing
+men? That is just what you are always doing yourself.”
+
+“With me it is quite different,” said Madame hastily.
+
+“That is what everybody says to me whenever I want to do what other
+people find it right to do. I hate being treated like a baby.”
+
+“You are very young and very pretty, child, and that makes it all the
+more necessary for your friends to guard you against dangers which you
+don’t perceive as clearly as they do.”
+
+“I hate being young and—well—pretty, if it’s always going to make me be
+treated like that,” said Olive angrily.
+
+“Like what?”
+
+“Like a naughty child. That’s what Ezra does, and he goes to you to ask
+what he should do to me, you know he does.” She was beginning to cry,
+just like a naughty child.
+
+Madame smiled contemptuously as she glanced at her companion. “What
+could have possessed that quiet reserved Ezra to marry such a
+feather-headed vain little puss?” she thought bitterly.
+
+Olive dried her eyes angrily, she saw the contempt expressed by Madame’s
+curling lips, and her pride was thoroughly aroused.
+
+“I want to know why things are different as soon as they apply to me?”
+she asked with doubtful grammar but unmistakable import. “It isn’t this
+once only, but it is always so. Personal liberty is the corner-stone of
+Perfection City, that is what you are here for, to enjoy liberty and
+protest against things. Mary Winkle won’t take her husband’s name, and
+dresses like a fright, and nobody minds. She’s free. But as soon as I
+try a little flight of my own, that doesn’t hurt anybody, I’m to be
+popped into a cage, and you and Ezra come and shut the door on me. I met
+this man by chance and liked talking to him. He is well-mannered and
+well educated, and likes the same books as I do, and has travelled and
+could tell me heaps and heaps of interesting things. He wasn’t forever
+talking in the same little muddling circle, and wasn’t always full of
+himself. He tried to interest me. You are an educated woman, Madame, and
+you know as well as I do that, except for you and Ezra, there is not an
+educated person in Perfection City, nor one who has the same tastes as I
+have. Mr. Cotterell used to come and talk to me, and I liked it; then
+Ezra gets very angry, says he is a bad man, and forbids my seeing him.
+He forbids me, mind you. Not a bit the sort of language you would expect
+in Perfection City, but I believe in wifely obedience and I obeyed him.
+I told Mr. Cotterell he must not come to see me any more, and he won’t
+do so. He always showed the best spirit in everything he said, and I
+won’t believe he is so very wicked just on mere report. We once had a
+horse-thief and murderer to stay to supper, and we did not inquire into
+his character before we asked him to stop and rest and feed his horse.
+Mr. Cotterell said my influence might help him to be a better man, and
+perhaps it might. At all events, I want to know why I wasn’t to try to
+influence him, and I want to know why Perfection City ideas, when they
+make for freedom, are not applicable to me, but have to be all turned
+upside down when I come into play? Can you, Madame, answer me that?”
+
+Madame was considerably dumbfoundered by this attack delivered so
+unexpectedly and so very straight from the shoulder. She hastily recast
+her idea that Olive was a silly little fool, and most unaccountably
+found herself anxiously seeking about for means of defence.
+
+“The fact of the matter is, you are too pretty to do these things,” she
+replied, helplessly telling the truth in her extremity.
+
+“Can Perfection City then only succeed if all the women are ugly?” asked
+Olive scornfully. “You had better not proclaim that fact, or you’ll have
+all the women running away.”
+
+Madame was in the habit of being worshipped by men, and was not at all
+prepared to have her remarks ridiculed by a slip of a girl. She did not
+like it, and therefore replied with some asperity,
+
+“You are really too silly, Sister Olive. You must surely perceive that
+there is great danger in your associating with Mr. Cotterell on so
+familiar a footing, that, in short, he may fall in love with you, and I
+presume you can understand the danger of that.”
+
+“Precisely, a fresh set of laws must, as usual, be applied to me, and
+not those which govern the rest of you,” said Olive calmly.
+
+“I don’t understand to what you refer,” said Madame looking at her
+doubtfully.
+
+“Mr. Cotterell knew from the outset that I was a married woman. I don’t
+see the alarmingness of the danger that he might fall in love with me,
+simply because we talked together. The idea has only struck you in
+reference to me; it does not seem to have done so with regard to the
+similar circumstances of you and Ezra.”
+
+Madame turned white with anger. “How dare you insult me by such an
+insinuation?” she exclaimed.
+
+“I didn’t dare until after you had first given utterance to the
+insinuation against me,” replied Olive, with provoking calmness.
+
+Madame turned as if she could have struck her, but she controlled
+herself with a desperate effort.
+
+“It seems to me, Sister Olive, that your remarks are very ill-judged,”
+she said in a voice that shook in spite of her. “I have no wish to bandy
+words with you. I spoke merely out of a desire to do my duty, and to
+save you, if possible, from a danger which I imagined I foresaw more
+clearly than you did. I see that your words were prompted by quite
+another wish than to seek advice or counsel in a difficult moment.”
+
+“I sought for neither advice or counsel,” returned Olive. “I simply
+wanted to discover, if possible, how to fit the theories of Perfection
+City, which I know pretty well by heart now, into the practice as
+applied to me.”
+
+Madame looked at her with eyes of anger and even of hate, and Olive,
+conscious of having been almost more successful than she had imagined
+possible in argument with so distinguished a mind, returned the look
+with one suggestive of triumph. Alas for the perfect harmony of
+Perfection City!
+
+“I am surprised, I will not say pained, because you would care little
+for that, but I am surprised, I repeat, at such words in the mouth of
+Ezra Weston’s wife. He must have been strangely mistaken in your
+character, or you cannot have revealed your true self to him, for I
+cannot imagine him binding himself for life to a mate who scorns and
+flouts in this manner what he holds so dear. You are mocking the
+principles to which he has devoted his life. You are too foolish to see
+what you are doing, but one day you will be punished, and then perhaps
+you will repent—when it will be too late.”
+
+Madame turned and walked rapidly away, leaving Olive feeling very angry
+and very much frightened as well.
+
+That evening Napoleon Pompey carried a note and a small parcel to
+Madame, who guessed pretty well what it was. The note was brief, it
+contained but these words:
+
+“I thought you sent the bracelet as a present, therefore I accepted it
+and was grateful: now I know you sent it as a reproof, therefore I
+return it.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+                           THE PRAIRIE FIRE.
+
+
+The summer had been a particularly dry one, and since the beginning of
+July not a drop of rain had fallen. The water-melons revelled in the
+heat, and Olive revelled in the water-melons: for by a blessed
+compensation of Nature the hotter and drier the land, the cooler and
+juicier the water-melons seem to be. The water-melon of the western
+prairie is as different from the pallid green-fleshed vegetable which
+masquerades under its name in this country, as the full moon of the
+heavens is superior to the lime-light article manufactured for use on
+the stage. The real prairie water-melon is an enormous affair, being
+about as large as the roll of rugs without which fussy gentlemen
+consider it impossible to travel. The skin is of the darkest green and
+as hard as a board, a most unripe-looking object at all times. Indeed
+the only way one can find out the condition of a water-melon’s insides
+is by surgical operation. You simply cut out a plug about an inch square
+from the top side of the melon, and look to see if the flesh has turned
+crimson at the centre. If it is still white or pale pink you know the
+psychological moment, when the truly wise will eat the melon, has not
+yet arrived. Accordingly you put back the plug, and leave the sun to
+work a little longer on it, at a temperature of a hundred and twenty or
+so. Since it never rains at the melon season of the year, the plug does
+not do any harm if left on the top side, but the beginner sometimes
+leaves it on the lower side, with the result that all the water runs
+away. It is a curious fact, but the water of a melon, even of one picked
+in the middle of a scorching hot day, never seems tepid. It is always
+cool and refreshing, even at times when ordinary water tastes
+unutterably mawkish owing to the excessive heat. The crimson spongy
+flesh, specked with purple-black seeds, is eaten in moderation or in
+immoderation according to the taste of the individual, but the water is
+always greedily drunk up by everybody. The scorching winds of the plains
+seem to dry one’s very marrow, and nothing can exceed the thirst of a
+man who is obliged to be out all day in such weather and to work hard at
+the same time. Animals, too, suffer from extreme thirst, and after a
+morning’s ploughing when the farm horses are brought up to water, they
+drink and drink and drink, swelling visibly under one’s eye, as if they
+were india-rubber horses under the action of some new patent inflator.
+They are never stinted in their drink and swallow bucketsful before
+attacking their corn.
+
+But to return to our water-melons.
+
+Napoleon Pompey used to bring up a wheelbarrow full from the melon patch
+each morning for the day’s consumption. He, like a true negro, was
+inordinately fond of melons, or “millions” as he called them, and would
+have sucked them all day long if left to his own devices. Whenever he
+had to go anywhere in the waggon, as occasionally happened, he would lay
+in a store of “millions,” and lay himself beside them, and suck them,
+just as if he were a black caterpillar of unlimited capacity. The horses
+meantime, far too oppressed with the heat to require much attention,
+would plod along with their eyes shut, trying to keep out the glaring
+light. There was nothing to stumble over or fall into, so the driving
+became of the most elementary pattern, requiring only an occasional
+rattle of the reins and a comment or two, such as: “Yo’, Reb, g’ ’long
+will yer, g’ out o’ dat.”
+
+Olive during this period found the heat stifling, and used to sit out of
+doors on the shady side of the house, until the terrible wind blew up
+from the Plains, when she would flee as before the breath of a volcano,
+and shutting herself tight up in her room with closed doors and windows,
+would gasp through the visitation as best she might. She was no worse
+off than anyone else, and the nights were always cool and refreshing.
+That was an unspeakable blessing. All this heat dried up the thick
+prairie grass until it was like a vast plain of dry hay standing erect.
+
+The corn crop at Perfection City had turned out exceptionally good.
+There was ample for all the needs of the Community and a good surplus
+which was to be sold at Mapleton in order to enable them to buy some
+farm-machinery that was greatly needed. Consequently the whole Community
+worked hard at getting in the corn so as to be early in the market. The
+heavy ears of corn with their twenty rows of golden yellow grains were
+stripped off the tall stalks by hand: a most limb-lacerating job, for
+the “shucks,” or coverings to the ear, are masses of fibrous leaves with
+sawlike edges. These edges have the power of cutting an exposed finger
+in a most painful manner, and they are by no means loath to use the
+power.
+
+All this hurry and concentration of the workers upon the cornfield was
+possible only if every other sort of work was neglected for the moment.
+It seemed the wisest plan to hasten off with their harvest in spite of
+the risk, and, unused as they were to prairie life, yet even they
+realized that there was some risk in thus leaving their farms
+unprotected. Ezra was perfectly aware of it, but like so many people he
+shut his eyes and hoped for good luck. He spoke to Olive on the subject.
+
+“If anyone so much as drops a lighted match on the prairie we shall be
+lost,” he said.
+
+“Why, what do you mean?” asked his wife in surprise. She was still so
+new to the prairie that she did not understand to what he referred. They
+happened to be on that outside landing of the stairs which looked out
+over the wide boundless western prairie. This stairway from its position
+made an exceptionally good place from which to take a survey of the
+whole prospect.
+
+“That grass is like tinder, and if anybody leaves a coal of fire burning
+at his camping-place or drops his pipe, the thing will catch in a
+second, and if there is a strong west wind we shall see about as bad a
+prairie fire as we care to.”
+
+“Oh, but that’s dreadful! What shall we do?” said Olive, much alarmed.
+
+“As soon as our corn is sold at Mapleton, we shall plough all round
+Perfection City and back-fire, if we can only get a calm day. We must
+not back-fire in a high wind, because that would probably start a
+prairie fire and just cause the very mischief we want to guard against.
+It would take fifty people to keep a line of fire under control for a
+mile’s length with grass like that and a strong wind.” So spoke Ezra,
+critically scanning the horizon for any sign of smoke which might
+betoken danger. He was very uneasy, and the fierce west wind, which
+seemed never weary of blowing, made him all the more anxious, as it
+might prevent them guarding themselves by running the usual belt of
+burnt prairie all around Perfection City.
+
+It was not a light job to get a safety belt of about four miles long,
+for that was the circumference of the portion of their land fenced in,
+and it was an impossible one in the face of a high wind with their small
+force—unless indeed they did as selfish individualists did, namely let
+the fire go and burn out whom it liked and what it liked once they were
+themselves safe. The Pioneers refused to be guilty of this act of
+treachery to the common weal of the inhabitants of the prairie. It is a
+comparatively easy thing to keep one line of fire safe and so protect
+your own fields; the real difficulty begins when you want to stop the
+fire from spreading in other directions as well. Most of the settlers
+back-fired their own land, and left Providence or the Devil to see to
+the result as regards their neighbours. The Pioneers had naturally a
+higher standard of public duty than this, therefore they did not
+back-fire in the high wind.
+
+The corn being stripped off the stalks, Olive’s fairy forest was sadly
+mutilated, for the great ears were all gone and many of the streaming
+leaves were torn away; the walk to the spring, therefore, was no longer
+so delightful as it had been earlier in the summer. Still she and Diana
+used to go there pretty often, especially since Napoleon Pompey was
+always kept busy helping in the field. Coming up from the spring one
+afternoon just before sun-down, she was amazed to see her husband
+galloping madly along the far side of the field on Queen Katherine, the
+big brown mare, her harness banging her hot flanks at every stride,
+while Napoleon Pompey on Rebel was tearing after him waving his tattered
+old straw hat. Olive for a moment or two stared in blank amazement at
+them, and then began to run towards the house which appeared to be their
+destination also. Ezra and Napoleon Pompey with frantic gestures seemed
+to invite her attention to the setting sun, now sinking to rest like a
+shimmering copper ball. She looked, but saw nothing except the molten
+mass, unless it were a faint blue haze on the horizon, the result, as
+she supposed, of the intense heat.
+
+When Olive reached the house a few moments later, it was to see her
+husband going hurriedly down the road to the bars on the other side of
+the house. The horses were hitched to the plough and were trotting fast,
+while Napoleon Pompey was urging them on with voice and whip. The
+plough, unaccustomed to such speed, was jerking from side to side. A
+moment’s halt at the bars, while Napoleon Pompey threw down the rails,
+and Ezra turning round put both hands to his mouth and shouted “Fire” in
+a long re-echoing whoop. He wheeled around then and seizing his
+plough-handles set off at a hand-gallop, bounding along with his
+ungainly implement.
+
+Now Olive understood what that blue haze meant. It was a prairie fire
+coming down on them from the west along with a fierce wind. Oh dear! oh
+dear! What should she do? There must be something women could help at,
+in such a moment, if she only knew what. But who to ask? Everybody was
+far away, and the dreadful fire began to show up now that the sun was no
+longer casting such bright rays.
+
+“Come ’long, git yer shingle,” shouted a familiar voice behind her.
+
+“Oh, Willette, is that you? What shall I do? It’s a fire, and I don’t
+know what’s wanted.”
+
+“Nothin’ but a shingle an’ a box o’ matches. Quick now! We’ll hev ter
+pike, you bet. Pa and Ma is out firin’ a’ready down yonder, ’side our
+house.”
+
+“I am so glad you’ve come,” said Olive hurrying along with two wooden
+shingles under her arm.
+
+The shingles were merely the thin wooden “slates” with which the houses
+were roofed. When thoroughly dried they are admirably adapted for
+spreading a fire from house to house in a street, and accordingly they
+are now prohibited by law in most towns and cities. On the prairie they
+were used in emergencies as paddles to keep the back-firing within
+limits.
+
+“Yes, Ma said she ’lowed you wouldn’t know the fust thing ter do,”
+remarked Willette complacently. “An’ Pa said he reckoned school larnin’
+in the East could make folks more like nateral born fools than anything
+under the sun.”
+
+Olive was very little obliged to the Wright and Winkle spouses for their
+opinion of her. She remained therefore silent.
+
+They soon reached the furrows that were being so desperately ploughed by
+Ezra and his foam-covered horses. The swift twilight was almost upon
+them, but they could see Wright urging his horses along the south side
+of the land nearest his house, while away across at the east side of
+Perfection City Brother Dummy was thundering along with his waggon
+bringing up his plough to the rescue, and that completed all the
+horse-power of the Community. Little tongues of flame here and there
+along the furrows denoted that the back-firing had begun in several
+spots. Meanwhile the sky was reddening up with the reflection of the
+on-coming conflagration, and the fierce wind blew ever harder directly
+from its long blood-red line.
+
+“Now you jes’ set afire ’long hyar, front this hyar furrow,” said
+Willette, kneeling down with her matches and starting the fire as she
+spoke. “Now then, yo’ jes’ see to that, an’ don’t yo’ let that ar fire
+hop over behind yer, or it’ll be worse nor nothin’.”
+
+“What am I to do?” asked Olive trembling with excitement and fear, it
+was all so strange and alarming. “I never saw a fire and don’t know
+anything about it,” she added.
+
+“Jes’ paddle it out with yer shingle, ef it gits over. There ain’t no
+sight o’ larnin’ wanted for that,” said Willette in scorn. “Mind yer
+ends, and look after tongues in the middle. They’ll be powerful handy at
+jumpin’ over this hyar furrow, and you mustn’t let the fire git away
+from yer, else yo’ll be clear done for. Keep yer eyes behind yer and
+min’ the back line,” said Willette walking away.
+
+“Land o’ liberty! look at that!”
+
+Willette made one bound behind Olive and commenced furiously beating the
+ground with her wooden paddle, while Olive, bewildered, turned round to
+see that she had indeed let the fire get behind her even as Willette was
+uttering her warning.
+
+“We ’uns would ha’ been clear burnt out in one grasshopper’s jump on’y I
+was there,” said Willette looking critically to see if any little spark
+of fire lingered in the tall grass which could by any chance start into
+life again.
+
+“Oh I can never manage it! What shall I do?”
+
+“Be spry and—Look at that again now!” Willette sprang to a new place and
+beat the ground. She was back again in an instant, here there and every
+where, with the activity of a monkey, beating down for dear life,
+whenever the fire crossed the narrow base-line of the up-turned sod, and
+as the wind was high it was frequently doing this. Constant vigilance
+was required, especially as Ezra had only had time to run a few furrows
+with the plough, instead of a band five or six feet wide.
+
+“Powerful heavy work in this hyar high wind,” said the child, “and on’y
+that ar furrow to start from.”
+
+Willette was in her element. Not an inch of the line escaped her
+lynx-eye, and all the while she kept giving advice to Olive, who stood
+in awe of her superior practical knowledge in this emergency.
+
+“Now this hyar fire’s agoin’ to spread along, an’ yo’ jes’ got ter mind
+this end by yerself.”
+
+She darted twenty yards away and paddled out a flame and came back, her
+face begrimed with smoke and dirt, so that she looked not unlike the
+nigger whose modes of speech she so much affected.
+
+“You jes’ take off that ar hat and them big skirts, else you’ll be burnt
+to death right hyar,” said Willette surveying Olive with considerable
+disapproval.
+
+Willette’s hickory trousers and shirt were exactly the thing for a
+prairie fire in a high wind, as indeed they were for most of the
+occupations that fell to her lot. What with the constant bounding
+backwards and forwards over the flame, Olive indeed thought that she had
+better accept the advice and slip off her wide calico skirt which was
+forever in the way and might easily catch fire. She put it along with
+her hat just at the top of the slope where Weddell’s Gully began, where
+she could easily get them next day, if all went well.
+
+It was night now and would have been quite dark but for the bright glare
+from the fire. All the inhabitants of the Community were out working
+desperately. Olive paddled down her fire and kept her line bravely for a
+couple of hours, in spite of choking smoke and clouds of dust and many a
+burn. Willette was far away, lost in the darkness, following her end of
+the fire, and only became visible as she leaped backwards and forwards
+over her line of fire like some agile fiend engaged in roasting its
+victims. Olive was all alone. She felt very much frightened, for she did
+not know what might happen, nor what in any new emergency she would have
+to do. She wished somebody would come, for it was a strange experience
+to be in the black night and lurid glare all alone minding a fire. The
+air was full of the burnt fluff from the big fire, and the roar as it
+now had come near was terrifying. True the worst of it was passing to
+the south, and their land was now pretty well guarded on all sides.
+Suddenly the cheerful black face of Napoleon Pompey appeared in the
+light of the flame.
+
+“Oh, Pompey, I’m so glad you’ve come. Where is everybody?” said Olive,
+overjoyed to see a human being once more.
+
+“Wal, Mis’ Ollie, I on’y jes’ take ole plough to de bars. We’uns rip up
+dat furrow golly spry. Done turn de hosses loose.”
+
+“Why, the poor horses will be burnt!” exclaimed Olive in dismay.
+
+“Dem hosses, dey dre’ful cute critters. Dey go off slap to de bottom
+lan’. You bet hosses knows mos’ as well nor white folks ’bout prairie
+fires. I come min’ yo’ fire fo’ yer, Mis’ Ollie. Ole man he done tole
+me.”
+
+“Very well, you can take my shingle then. There is not much more, I
+suppose, to be done now, only you must keep both edges between the two
+furrows here. They told me not to let it get away and run down into the
+Gully. Do you understand?”
+
+“You bet,” replied Napoleon Pompey who knew far better than Olive could
+tell him just what should be done.
+
+“I am going to get my hat and skirt. I left them near the corner of
+Weddell’s Gully. I think I will just run across the old field and get
+them: it will be much shorter than going all the way round by the
+furrows. It will be light enough to see yet awhile so I can follow the
+path through the Gully.”
+
+Olive looked at the fire that was fast roaring its way towards the
+south-east, and deciding it would easily light her on her way she
+tripped off and disappeared in the gloom down towards the Gully.
+
+In a few minutes Napoleon Pompey began to show signs of immense
+excitement.
+
+“Golly Ned! I never seed yonder. Mis’ Ollie whar yo’ be? Come back! Come
+back, Mis’ Ollie! Golly! Golly!”
+
+He ran violently backwards and forwards along his line of fire, which,
+however, he dared not leave, exclaiming “Golly!” and “Oh Lordy!” at
+every step. In a minute or two he ran into Ezra who was coming along to
+fetch Olive home, if she was still there.
+
+“Lordy! dat yo’, Mas’r Ezra. Yo’ go right ’long down dish hyar Gully.
+Mis’ Ollie she down dar.”
+
+Ezra was dead beat. He could scarcely drag his limbs along. The terrific
+exertion of that furious ploughing, coming at the end of a long and hard
+day’s work, had almost over-taxed even his iron frame.
+
+“I thought I would find her here on my way home,” he said languidly. “We
+are pretty safe now. Tell her to come back with the others. I’m going
+home to get something to eat.”
+
+“No, sir-ee,” said Napoleon Pompey vehemently. “You’ hain’t gwine ter do
+dat. Golly Ned! Yo’ dunno see. Mis’ Ollie she done gone down inter de
+Gully, fetch ole hat. Dat fire. Yo’ see dat fire startin’ up yonder, she
+never seed dat, I didn’t see it nudder nohow: dat fire’ll crope up an’
+cotch her.”
+
+“My God! where is she?” cried Ezra, roused to sudden energy as it dawned
+upon him what Napoleon Pompey was explaining.
+
+“Down de Gully dar, she say she gwine down dar.”
+
+“Amongst those tall weeds and that fire coming on! Oh my God!”
+
+His fatigue was all gone now. He leaped forward and sprang with
+desperate bounds down the straggling path towards Weddell’s Gully,
+where, in a deserted field once tilled by that individual, prairie weeds
+were growing to the height of six feet and more, they had dry stalks and
+fluffy downy heads that would burn like petroleum, if the fire once
+touch them. It was down there that Olive had gone, all ignorant of that
+tiny red line creeping slowly around the brow of the hill, up against
+the wind, and now approaching that very spot with vicious little tongues
+of red flame. No wonder Ezra bounded along the pathway, no wonder his
+heart beat ready to burst, and no wonder if his voice sounded harsh and
+choking as he cried “Olive! Olive! Olive!” again and again until his
+brain reeled. He got no answer except the crackle of the fire. He
+stumbled along not knowing which way to turn, and twice fell forward as
+his foot caught in the tangled grass. He staggered to his feet and
+raising his agonised face cried in a harsh whisper, “Oh God! my wife, my
+wife!” He tried to shout again, but his dry throat made no articulate
+sound. His temples seemed bursting, he dashed forward blindly, not
+knowing where to look for Olive in the horrid darkness, soon to be
+turned into still more horrid light. His foot struck against an old rail
+at the edge of Weddell’s deserted field, he fell heavily, hitting his
+head against the projecting end of the rail, rolled over and lay still.
+The little flames crept nearer and nearer lapping out their malicious
+red tongues as if in anticipation.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+                              THE RESCUE.
+
+
+Madame had worked hard with the rest in beating back the fire, and now
+that she saw that their united efforts had been successful and that
+Perfection City was safe, she, in company with Balthasar, was going the
+circuit of the defences of their home, just to see that there remained
+nothing further for her to do. In the course of time she came to
+Napoleon Pompey, who was in charge of the last scrap of back-firing,
+intent on maintaining guard and on effecting a complete junction of the
+two lines of fire, so as not to leave so much as a handsbreadth of
+standing grass whereby the enemy might even at the last minute burst in
+upon them. This finishing of the circle was important, and the lad was
+in the midst of his work and his distress when Madame loomed out through
+the darkness.
+
+“Oh, Lordy, dey is both burned, dey is! Oh Lordy! Oh Lordy,” cried
+Napoleon Pompey the instant he set eyes upon Madame.
+
+“Who is burned?” asked Madame in bewilderment, well used to the
+extravagant modes of speech indulged in by negroes.
+
+“Mis’ Ollie an’ Mas’r Ezra fo’ shu’.”
+
+“Are you mad, fool, what do you mean?” said Madame furiously.
+
+“Mis’ Ollie done gone in der Gully ter fetch ole hat, an’ de fire’s
+crope up, an’ it’ll cotch her, oh Lordy! oh Lordy! An’ Mas’r Ezra he
+done gone ter fin’ her down dar,” said the boy, beginning to whimper.
+
+Madame gripped his shoulder with a grasp of iron.
+
+“Be quiet, and tell me what you mean. Sister Olive has gone home, I
+passed her myself with her hat under her arm, and she told me to tell
+Ezra she had gone back.”
+
+“De Lord be praised!” ejaculated Napoleon Pompey. “Den it’s on’y Mas’r
+Ezra’ll be burnt. Yah, you lemme go!”
+
+This exclamation was in answer to the sudden pressure of Madame’s hand,
+which was like the clutch of a vice.
+
+“Where is Ezra? Tell me or I’ll wring your neck,” she said in a voice
+the like of which Napoleon Pompey had never heard before in his life.
+
+“Down dar,” said he terrified, pointing to the Gully.
+
+“Show me where he started from.”
+
+Madame still kept her hand upon Napoleon Pompey who hurried to the spot
+where Ezra had stood.
+
+“Dar’s his shingle, what he done drap when he run.”
+
+“Ha!” said Madame pouncing upon the shingle. “Here, Balthasar, here
+sweetheart!”
+
+The dog came up to her, and she passed her trembling hands over his long
+ears and whispered to him half crying, half coaxing. “Here, dear heart,
+do this for me or I die.”
+
+She put the shingle to his nose. He sniffed, raised his long and pointed
+head. Then she lay upon the ground coaxing him to put his nose down. He
+sniffed again, took a step to the right, to the left, back, then
+forward. Madame followed clasping the shingle to her bosom and murmuring
+cooing words of love to her dog. He raised his great tan head and gave a
+long deep bay that echoed far and wide.
+
+“Golly! She gwine ter run him down like he nigger slave,” said Napoleon
+Pompey with a shiver, as he heard the dog’s voice.
+
+Balthasar set off and Madame kept close at his heels. It was easy
+enough, for the trail was fresh and strong. In three minutes they stood
+beside the motionless form of Ezra at the brink of the tall weeds, and
+Balthasar whined in anxiety as Madame lifted his head and called upon
+him in agonised tones. Just then the sky was lit up with a lurid glare.
+The first red tongue had tasted the dry fluffy weeds on Weddell’s
+abandoned farm. Madame, startled by the flame, sprang to her feet and
+gave one hasty glance around. Ezra lay motionless. She stepped a few
+paces into the shorter grass of the ordinary prairie and set it on fire.
+The little ring of flame spread on all sides, like the ripple from a
+stone cast into still water. Then she paddled out the fire on the side
+next Ezra, and the ripple of fire continued to spread rapidly in a sort
+of broken circle. The roar of the burning weeds was like the on-coming
+of an avalanche. Madame turned to Ezra and seizing him under the
+shoulders dragged him backwards within the safety of her oasis of burnt
+prairie. He was a big man and a heavy one, but her arm seemed endowed
+with more than mortal strength. She dragged him further and further
+within the circle, and then seeing that he was out of all danger, she
+sat down beside him and took his head in her lap. She opened his collar
+and fanned him with her hat. The now brightly burning weeds made it
+light as day, and she could see that he looked pale even under the
+blackened smoke that smeared his face, but his pulse was beating, he was
+only hurt and stunned, not dead.
+
+Balthasar was terrified. Ringed round by fire and with the ground where
+he stood still smoking hot, what dog would not be alarmed? He lifted up
+his voice once more in a long howl, and then sniffing at Ezra gave a
+sweeping lick with his tongue all over his face.
+
+“Ah! Ollie! Where are you? Come!” said Ezra, roused by this combined
+demonstration. He raised his head in a weak and bewildered way. Madame
+placed her hand on his forehead as he sank down again. He put his own
+hand up and taking hers said: “Little wife!”
+
+Madame shivered, and then steadying her voice said, “Olive is quite
+safe!”
+
+Ezra started up.
+
+“Why, what are you doing here? Where is my wife?”
+
+“I came to tell you that Olive had gone home, and that she had got her
+hat all right. She never was in any danger at all. It was a mistake on
+the part of that negro boy.”
+
+“Madame!” began Ezra.
+
+“Dear friend,” said she.
+
+“I feel so strange and bewildered, I don’t seem to know what has
+happened.”
+
+“Lay your head down again,” said Madame, very gently. “You have had a
+blow. You will soon be all right.”
+
+Ezra’s head sank again into her lap. He gave a deep sigh.
+
+“You came down here into the Gully after Olive who, according to the
+negro, had gone in search of her hat. You could not surely have realized
+that the fire was coming up against the wind and that it would be death
+to be caught among the weeds.”
+
+“I knew, I knew,” said Ezra. “That was why I came. Olive was here.”
+
+“But she wasn’t, she never had been here at all,” interrupted Madame.
+
+“I shouted, but no answer came. I could not find Olive. I remember the
+awful agony of it. My head seemed turning to fire and I couldn’t find
+Olive. I don’t remember any more.”
+
+“You fell and knocked yourself senseless,” said Madame.
+
+“Is Olive safe? Tell me, are you sure Olive is safe?”
+
+“Didn’t I tell you I passed her on her way home?” said Madame a little
+sharply.
+
+“But this fire!” exclaimed Ezra, starting up. “We must get out of this.”
+
+“Hush, lie down again,” said Madame, her voice dropping again into its
+tone of caressing entreaty. “Your head must be still giddy or you would
+perceive that we are surrounded. We can’t get out until the fires meet
+and extinguish each other. Rest and be patient.”
+
+Ezra saw that this was true. They were entirely surrounded by a ring of
+retreating fire, the heat from which was oppressive. He sat down again,
+but did not lay his head in Madame’s lap. Perhaps it was because he felt
+less giddy.
+
+He asked her how she came there, and Madame very briefly told him,
+dwelling not at all upon her share in finding him, but rather upon the
+sagacity of Balthasar. Ezra, however, was not to be deceived.
+
+“You risked your life for me this night, Madame,” he said slowly, when
+she had finished speaking.
+
+“Possibly. I never thought about it. I could not leave you here to die,
+to be burnt to death. Had the case been reversed you would have come to
+my rescue.”
+
+“You are the most generous of mortals, the noblest of women,” said Ezra
+earnestly. “It was assuredly the brightest day of my life that led me
+across your path. You taught me how to live, and to-night your generous
+hand has saved me from death.”
+
+“Hush!” said Madame faintly.
+
+“I owe my life to you,” repeated Ezra. “What shall I do to repay such a
+debt?”
+
+“Am I a usurer that I should exact my pound of flesh?” answered Madame.
+
+“Usurer!” exclaimed Ezra. “That is indeed the last word to be applied to
+you. Is a usurer one who is always giving? Giving from her wealth freely
+and without stint? Is a usurer one who is ever helping and directing
+into the paths of righteousness those who are feeble and faltering of
+step? Ah, Madame, I never can half tell you all that I owe you! How
+narrow and selfish would my life have been but for you! Devoted to petty
+cares, absorbed in personal ambitions, rejoicing in sordid gains,—such
+would have been my fate, only Providence brought me to you to be taught,
+guided, elevated, purified. My life is yours, you have made it, dearest,
+wisest, best, of friends.”
+
+“And Olive?” said Madame quietly.
+
+“Ah, there too shall be your handiwork seen,” said Ezra. “My little
+Olive is very young. Sometimes I think her mind is even younger than her
+body, and she is barely twenty, you know, a mere child and easily
+moulded.”
+
+Madame remembering her last encounter with Olive, seemed to recall very
+little that was either childlike or plastic in the concluding portion of
+their conversation, but she did not say so to Ezra who went on talking.
+
+“She often, however, puzzles me, she has such sudden freaks and fancies,
+as if her heart was a wild creature not fully tamed and ever dashing
+against the bars of its environment. I sometimes feel that I have not
+the necessary wisdom or tact to guide and counsel her. She seems to need
+someone who is wiser and more skilful than I am. Sometimes I fear she
+does not quite realise the responsibilities of life. The problems which
+have come up before us and which cry aloud for solution, seem to her but
+trivial matters that may be trusted to settle themselves. We must
+endeavour, dear friend, to arouse Olive’s enthusiasm about Perfection
+City. She is capable of the highest and noblest aspirations, but her
+heart must be turned into the right direction. She evinces a certain
+hesitancy in throwing herself into our work and aims.”
+
+“Perhaps she is opposed to the whole thing,” suggested Madame.
+
+“That cannot be,” replied Ezra earnestly. “She must see as we do, when
+she comes thoroughly to understand our motives in founding Perfection
+City. I look to you, Madame, to open her eyes to the truth.”
+
+“Ah!” said Madame laconically, and then she added, after a moment’s
+pause, “I will ask you to do one thing for me.”
+
+“Anything you ask I will do if it is in my power,” said Ezra.
+
+“Do not tell Olive of your fall here, nor of the danger you were in, nor
+of my coming to find you.”
+
+After a moment of puzzled silence Ezra said, “Of course your wishes are
+to me law. But may I ask why you make such a request?”
+
+“Perhaps I am judging wrongly, but I am acting as if Olive had the same
+feelings as I should have. If I were in her place, I should hate it.”
+
+“Why?” asked Ezra in surprise.
+
+Madame rose up, her pale face illumined by the light of the fire.
+
+“If I loved a man,” she said, beginning very quietly, but her voice
+gathered in intensity as she spoke. “If I loved a man, I could not bear
+it. To think that my love had failed him in his sorest need. He was
+lying stunned, helpless, within the clutch of deadly peril, and I went
+home unwarned, leaving him to his fate, all unconscious of the whole
+thing, while another woman—not I, but another woman—went to his rescue,
+another woman—not I—found him, saved him, drew him out of danger, while
+I walked heedlessly home. I should hate myself, I should hate—ah! I
+should hate to the verge of killing that other woman who had saved him.
+That is the way I should feel, if I loved.”
+
+She concluded hastily, her voice dropping to a whisper. Ezra looked up
+at her in amazement.
+
+“Yours is a many-sided nature. I never suspected you could feel like
+that. I never thought of you as being—as capable of——” he stopped in
+confusion.
+
+“Ah yes! You never thought of me as being able to love—to love a man and
+not an impersonal cause. Ah yes! You never quite looked upon me as a
+mere woman.”
+
+“I have always regarded you as something higher than a mere woman,” said
+Ezra.
+
+“Listen,” she said, sitting down again beside him. “You have yet to know
+me—the woman, I mean, and not the pioneer of Perfection City. My father
+was a man of passionate nature. He had fine instincts, but these were
+not developed. He was a Russian noble. I come of very good blood, as
+they say in the old world.”
+
+“I always knew you were of distinguished birth,” said Ezra.
+
+“Not at all, quite the contrary,” said Madame, with a laugh that sounded
+harsh. “My father was a wild, self-willed Russian noble. He was to have
+married a lady of princely house, only that he refused to do one thing
+which they made a condition of the marriage.”
+
+“What was that?”
+
+“To give up my mother. Do you understand? He could not marry the
+princess, and he sacrificed wealth, position, and worldly honour,
+because he would not give up the pale-haired English girl whom he loved
+passionately, and who was my mother. She died, and my father died too,
+not many years afterwards. He did what he could for me by leaving me his
+fortune and the permission to bear his name, to which I had no legal
+right. From my mother I inherited my brain, but my heart I inherited
+from my father. Now let us go.”
+
+“Must we?” said Ezra, to whom Madame’s sudden confession had been full
+of interest. “There is nothing further for us to do. Perfection City is
+safe.”
+
+“But we must return to real life, Brother Ezra. Sitting here, ringed
+around with fire, we were alone in a world of our own. For a few moments
+we lived for each other, as it were. Our spirits communed, and I opened
+my heart to you as never before to mortal being. Now we must go back to
+real life again. See the fires are all out, and the world is itself
+again—all dark.”
+
+Ezra rose to his feet and staggered a little, as Madame perceived from
+the stumble he made. She seemed preternaturally acute, and to be able to
+understand by the help of some new sense, for she put out her hand and
+touched his arm, “Lean on me, brother, you are still giddy from your
+accident. We will walk very slowly.”
+
+Ezra, feeling indeed faint enough, gratefully accepted the proffered
+help and put his hand within her arm; thus very slowly they started back
+towards the house through the inky black night. “Friend, what I said is
+to be locked in your breast, a secret,” said Madame.
+
+“I fully understand that,” replied Ezra, “and I feel it a high honour
+that you should have chosen me as the repository of the secret of your
+life. It is safe, nay more, it is sacred, with me.”
+
+It took them a long time in the intense darkness to reach Ezra’s house
+where a light was glimmering from the window. When they at length
+reached the bars, Madame said, “I will not go in. Oh, I know what you
+would say, but I would prefer not. Olive would resent my bringing you
+back to her.”
+
+“You mistake Olive utterly,” said Ezra earnestly. “Believe me, hers is a
+simple nature, she would have no such feelings as you think.”
+
+“Perhaps you are right, and that she is a child in mind and not yet a
+woman in heart. Possibly I endow her with feelings she could not even
+understand. I judge her by myself, and maybe all the while her little
+soul is possessed with nothing but content at the thought that her
+pretty hat is all safe. The butterfly must not be blamed if it does not
+rise as high as the lark. Farewell.”
+
+Olive was waiting for him impatiently, anxiously.
+
+“Oh Ezra, where have you been? And isn’t your face black? You are every
+whit as black as Napoleon Pompey. Wasn’t it fun?”
+
+“Fun? What was fun?” asked Ezra languidly.
+
+“Why, the fire of course, now that it is all over. It was so exciting. I
+was as hungry as a hawk when I came in. I really could not wait, so I
+had supper. You must have yours this very minute. Do you know, it is one
+o’clock at night, and you have not tasted a morsel of food since twelve
+o’clock yesterday? Do you realize that?”
+
+She bustled around and got his supper ready, chatting brightly all the
+while over the incidents of the fire, making fun and merriment out of
+them all. Ezra sat stupidly watching her, his head throbbing so heavily
+that he could scarcely think. He could eat nothing when the supper was
+ready, and Olive felt aggrieved. “I think you might, just to please me.
+It would do you good, for you must be hungry, I should think.”
+
+He swallowed a few morsels and said he would go to bed, that rest was
+what he most needed, his head ached badly. He was thankful she made no
+inquiries after his adventures during that eventful night. He would have
+found it difficult to tell a connected tale with that pain in his head.
+He asked Olive if she had gone down into the Gully.
+
+“No,” she said, “I started to go, but it was darker than I thought, so I
+came up again and followed round by the high prairie where there was a
+chance of meeting somebody. I came home with Willette.”
+
+“The fire did get into the old field after all,” said Ezra.
+
+“And were the weeds burnt?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Oh! I wish I had been there to see. Wasn’t it a lovely blaze-up?”
+
+“Yes, it blazed up,” said Ezra.
+
+Olive didn’t notice that he seemed ill, he thought with some bitterness.
+Madame would have divined it, no matter how hard he had tried to conceal
+the fact. After all, it was not her fault that she was made differently.
+The butterfly was not to be blamed if it did not soar as high as the
+lark.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+                          COTTERELL “WANTED.”
+
+
+The day after the fire was an idle one at Perfection City. No one felt
+able to work, Ezra least of all. He lay upon the floor of the kitchen
+with a wet handkerchief on his head, and several times he asked Olive
+not to make so much noise. She was as still as a mouse, she thought, but
+then his head ached, poor fellow! So she went out and sat in the shade
+of the house among her morning-glories, while the hens walked about with
+their wings down and their tongues lolling out, trying to cool
+themselves. The black burnt prairie seemed to send up shafts of heat to
+the copper-coloured sky.
+
+A man rode up to the bars, and for one moment Olive’s heart stood still.
+She feared it might be Mr. Cotterell, whom she had not seen since the
+day at the spring, now some weeks past. It was not Mr. Cotterell,
+however, but one of the settlers from the other side of Cotton Wood
+Creek. He came forward with his bridle-rein over his arm, his horse
+following, head down.
+
+“Wal, how’d you ’uns git ’long with that pesky fire?” he observed,
+without any preliminary greeting. He was a Missouri man, and they often
+prided themselves on their rudeness. It was their way of showing their
+independence.
+
+“Good morning, Mr. Owen,” said Olive, who knew the man quite well. “We
+have escaped all right, thank you. I hope you were not injured?” She was
+extra careful in her manner, as the politeness for two had all to be
+furnished by herself.
+
+“Yer hain’t been burnt out I see. You all’s mighty silly anyhow. Why in
+thunder didn’t yer back-fire before? ’Tain’t agin’ yer principles, is
+it?” Mr. Owen grinned under the impression that he was funny.
+
+“We didn’t back-fire, because we thought it wrong to start a fire in
+such a wind and let it possibly burn up our neighbours,” said Olive
+stiffly.
+
+“Then ’tis agin yer principles to back-fire, by Gosh! The boys was
+’lowing as much over to Union Mills.”
+
+“It is against our principles to injure our neighbours. You don’t object
+to that, Mr. Owen, do you?” said Olive.
+
+“I reckon you’ll git mighty tired o’ them idees ef yer live long on the
+prairie,” observed Mr. Owen.
+
+“Seen ole man Cotterell lately?” he inquired suddenly, half shutting his
+green-grey eyes and looking at Olive intently.
+
+She was somewhat surprised at the question, but knowing from experience
+how inquisitive the average settler is, she answered readily enough.
+
+“No, I haven’t seen him for a long time. Was he burnt out? I didn’t know
+the fire had gone so far.”
+
+“I calkerlate he warn’t tetched by the fire,” said Mr. Owen, very
+slowly. He made long pauses between his remarks, during which he
+continued unremittingly the steady occupation of his life, namely,
+chewing tobacco. Olive began to feel impatient. She did not like to ask
+him into the house for fear of disturbing Ezra, so she sat down again in
+her chair, and pointing to a log of wood which lay near and seated on
+which he could still hold his horse, she asked him to take a seat also.
+Mr. Owen sat down with a grunt.
+
+“Never seed ony pusson so sot on posies as you ’uns be,” he observed
+conversationally.
+
+“Yes, I am very fond of flowers. They make the house more home-like, I
+think. The prairie is very bare looking,” replied Olive politely.
+
+“Yer ole man oughter rared his house t’other side the Gully, an’ further
+down yon’er. This hyar ’ull be powerful col’ when we git col’ snaps in
+Jan’ary. Yer dunno nothin’ ’bout things in this hyar all-fired ’Fection
+City,” said Mr. Owen, looking around him in criticism.
+
+“Perhaps not,” said Olive, rather nettled, “but we know how to mind our
+own business.”
+
+Mr. Owen did not feel one whit abashed. He was far too near akin to the
+pachyderms for Olive’s delicate little shafts to have any effect on him.
+Another long silence followed, and Olive began to wonder if Owen was
+like that man from Jacksonville, who came to see them once and stayed
+four hours, during which time he made only two remarks and they
+possessed no particular interest. The man and his stony silence had
+driven her nearly wild, until she reflected how much more awful it would
+have been had she been obliged to entertain him with conversation. A
+recollection of this visitation and a dread born of that recollection
+began to invade her mind. Mr. Owen, however, was not going to stay for
+four hours, and he was going to make a remark of very particular
+interest, a remark that would quickly scatter all Olive’s other ideas.
+He delivered it slowly and with the monotonous enunciation which
+proclaimed him a Missouri man.
+
+“The boys is hout huntin’ down ole man Cotterell.”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Olive turning very white. Then, steadying her voice as
+well as she could she said, “Why are they hunting him?”
+
+“To cotch him,” replied her visitor concisely.
+
+“But what for?” asked Olive, looking at him with wide eyes of horror.
+She knew only too well what hunting down a man portended.
+
+“Wal, there’s bin a shootin’ over to his house, an’ one o’ thim boys o’
+Mills is shot, shot dead. Cotterell done it. And now he’s gone an’ run
+off. The boys they ’lowed Cotterell best be hung this time. Las’ time he
+was let off. He won’t be agin, you bet.”
+
+“How do you know he has shot young Mills? What evidence have you of it?”
+asked Olive in terror, yet she could not help pressing the man to tell
+her, although each word was like a stab.
+
+He gave a silent inward laugh as if his thoughts were facetious.
+“Evidence an’ enough,” he said. “Jake Mills’ body with a bullet through
+his heart. Yer can’t git nothin’ plainer in the way of evidence than
+that, I reckon.”
+
+“But how do you know it was Mr. Cotterell shot him?” asked Olive.
+
+“Damn my eyes! but yer mus’ be a nateral born fool, Mis’ Weston. Jake
+Mills were foun’ on Cotterell’s lan’. Who else could ha’ done it?
+Besides, he did, an’ that’s a fac’ anyhow.”
+
+“I think it is perfectly monstrous,” burst out Olive, trembling with
+agitation. “I never heard of a wickeder thing. Here is this man you have
+decided to hang, and you don’t even know if he has done the thing you
+accuse him of. If that is what you call prairie law and justice I can
+only say I never heard of a more sinful and unjust law. Black savages
+couldn’t do worse.”
+
+“Mos’ like the boys will let him hev a trial, ef he’s partic’lar sot
+on’t. That won’t si’nify nothin’,” said Mr. Owen, again surveying Olive
+through the narrow aperture of his half-closed eyes, and again applying
+himself to his habitual occupation with vigour. She looked at him with a
+face in which horror and disgust struggled for mastery.
+
+“If this horrid murder is committed by your neighbours, Mr. Owen, I
+shall think that prairie men are a disgrace to civilization,” said
+Olive.
+
+“We prairie folks ain’t partic’lar sot on civilization,” remarked Mr.
+Owen with affability.
+
+“I hope you’ll never catch him,” said Olive, with a sound very like a
+sob in her voice.
+
+“The boys they ’lowed you’uns was mighty good frien’s o’ his’n, an’ he’d
+a mos’ likely come this hyar way to make for the Pottawattamie ’fore
+we’uns could cotch him. That’s why I come ’long ter look for him hyar,”
+observed Mr. Owen, rising and putting his head under his saddle flap in
+order to tighten up the girth a couple of holes.
+
+“Oh, you’ve come here to spy out, have you?” said Olive, in passionate
+anger. “Why didn’t you say so at first, and ask the question like a man,
+and not come sneaking around? Do you want to hunt all over the house and
+see if we’ve got anybody hidden away?”
+
+“No,” said Owen slowly. “Guess that’ll do. I ain’t agoin’ ter hunt
+roun’. We ain’t no great shakes at bein’ fine folks out hyar on the
+prairie, but we allers takes the word of a lady, by Gosh. You said you
+hain’t seen nothin’ o’ ole man Cotterell, guess that’ll do for the boys.
+Mornin’.”
+
+Mr. Owen rode away, feeling that in the contest of politeness that
+morning he had certainly scored off Mrs. Weston with her stuck-up
+Eastern ways.
+
+Olive was in an agony of doubt and terror. That the boys were out
+hunting for Cotterell was, she knew, but the preliminary to his death,
+if they caught him. The boys seldom or never let off any one they
+caught, so she gathered from the stories she had heard of their doings
+in time past. What was she to do in this difficult dilemma? Should she
+tell Ezra?
+
+Under ordinary circumstances her first impulse would have been to go
+straight to her husband with the story she had heard, but in this
+instance she felt that such a course would be impossible. She knew that
+Ezra was jealous of Mr. Cotterell, he had betrayed his feelings more
+than once, and in her heart she knew that few men can be just towards
+the man who arouses their jealousy. Her husband was a very just man, and
+could, more than any one she knew, put himself in the place of others
+and see what was right and what was wrong. But in this instance it was
+not justice Olive wanted, it was justice that she feared. Although she
+spoke bravely enough to Owen, a terrible fear lurked in her breast that
+the evidence, though ludicrously deficient by the rules of procedure
+that obtain in old established communities, was quite sufficient to
+convince a prairie jury. Ezra would not sit on a hanging jury, nor would
+he be a party to catching Mr. Cotterell, but his sense of justice and
+what was due to the principles professed at Perfection City might carry
+him no further than this passively inactive point? Would he assist
+Cotterell to escape? Guilty or not, that was what Olive wanted, and to
+help in such an undertaking, she felt sure, was what her husband might
+very well refuse to do.
+
+Was Cotterell guilty? Olive debated this point anxiously in her mind.
+She knew he went armed, but so did many other men. In fact, to be armed
+was the rule on the prairie. The doctrine of non-resistance was one of
+the least understood tenets of the Pioneers at Perfection City, and was
+observed by nobody else on the prairie. Even Brother Wright, as we have
+seen—though Olive was quite unaware of this—had granted to himself a
+special indulgence in this matter. So the mere fact of Mr. Cotterell’s
+always having his revolver in his belt did not really count for
+anything, one way or the other. He had always been so gentle and so
+chivalrous in his manner to her, she found it difficult to force her
+mind to keep hold of the fact that he was a very passionate man.
+Everyone said so, and she knew, too, that the Mills’ were a bad lot,
+drunken quarrelsome men, who, as Ezra said, combined in their character
+all the vices of the prairie and preserved none of its virtues. How easy
+it would be for a proud, passionate man like Mr. Cotterell to bring his
+revolver into a heated argument with Jake Mills, who might be mad with
+drink. But surely such a shooting was not murder according to prairie
+law. In her distress Olive found herself falling back upon the probable
+laxity of that very prairie justice which a short time before she had so
+scornfully characterised to Owen.
+
+The “boys” who were hunting Cotterell were, as Olive well knew, the most
+relentless men on the prairie, regular settlers who had found by
+experience that the only way to keep order was to keep it with their own
+right hands. They had hung several horse-thieves lately, and had
+declared they were going to put a stop to the “shooting round
+promiscuous” of the younger blades. They were not unjust men, but they
+were hasty, and were moreover already terribly prejudiced against
+Cotterell.
+
+Having decided that it was best not to tell Ezra what she had heard,
+Olive was immediately assailed with a hundred doubts. Suppose Mr.
+Cotterell came to them in his extremity, should she try to conceal him?
+But how utterly impossible to do so without the co-operation of her
+husband! The mere attempt to do such a thing might involve her in
+difficulties without being of any use to the unhappy man himself. Then
+there was Madame. Should she appeal to her for help? Her heart revolted
+from such a course. After their last meeting, when they had interchanged
+hot words on the subject of this very man, Olive felt it was impossible
+to ask Madame’s aid or to tell her anything about it. Then there was no
+one, and Olive resolved to keep the secret of what she had heard, hoping
+that something might turn up which would justify her action, or at least
+make any further action unnecessary. Thus do people often put off on the
+shoulders of chance the burden of a decision which taxes too much their
+powers of forecasting events. It was a heavy secret to keep to herself,
+and her face looked white and scared as she entered the kitchen on
+tip-toe to see how Ezra felt. He roused up as she came in.
+
+“I am better now, little woman,” he said in answer to her inquiries.
+“The pain is all gone. I will get up and begin to stir around again.”
+
+He went out with her and with the keenness which is soon a habit with a
+prairie man, he noticed the hoof-marks of Owen’s horse, where it had
+stamped rather briskly, owing to the flies.
+
+“Who has been here? Those are fresh,” he said, pointing to the marks.
+
+“That man from over beyond Cotton Wood Creek was here a little while
+ago, Owen is his name: you know the man,” said Olive, with a beating
+heart.
+
+“Cattle-hunting after the fire, I suppose. Were they burnt out
+yesterday?” asked Ezra, with slight show of interest.
+
+“No, I believe not, he did not say. He sneered at the Pioneers for not
+having safe-guarded themselves, heedless of the welfare of the other
+settlers, so I suppose he had been betimes with his back-firing, at
+least if he lives up to his principles,” remarked Olive.
+
+“It is too late to go and hunt for our horses,” said Ezra, “and I feel
+too tired to start out on foot after them. They may very well be five
+miles away by this time. Did you ask Owen if he had seen them?”
+
+“No, I never thought of doing so.”
+
+“Don’t forget always to ask everyone if they have seen your horses
+whenever they are out on the prairie: it is one of the golden rules of
+prairie life,” said Ezra, tapping her chin.
+
+“But he wouldn’t have known Queen Katharine and Rebel even if he did
+happen to meet them,” objected Olive. “How could he know one pair of
+strange horses from another?”
+
+“Bless your sweet eyes, Owen knows every horse and cow belonging to his
+neighbours for a radius of ten miles from his house, at the very least.
+Telling a neighbour where his cattle are, is the only rule of politeness
+known to many of them, and they are punctilious about it,” said Ezra
+laughing.
+
+“I wish I had known that, because I found him deficient in many of the
+rules I have been taught,” said Olive. “Possibly he found me as lacking,
+according to his estimate.”
+
+Ezra did not go out to hunt for the horses the next morning as he had
+intended. Other work, which seemed more important, turned up for him.
+Brother Wright came that same evening to arrange about it.
+
+“Good evening, friends,” he said. “I trust you are both rested after
+yesterday. It was a hard day and a harder night. Brother Ezra, you did
+splendidly.”
+
+“We were much alarmed for the safety of Perfection City: I don’t think
+it is ever likely to be in greater danger,” said Ezra.
+
+“No, I suppose, not from the outside,” said Wright.
+
+“And we are not likely to be set on fire from the inside, are we?”
+observed Ezra with a laugh.
+
+“Accidents may happen,” said Olive.
+
+“Even in the best regulated communities,” added Brother Wright.
+“However, what I came to talk about was the future, and not the past.
+We’ve got two good loads of corn ready, it ought to be sold at once in
+Mapleton. We’ll get top price. I stepped into Madame’s as I came along,
+and she agreed with me. We must sell at once. Brother Dummy has got his
+waggon loaded up ready to start. It is a marvel how much that man does
+get through in the way of work. Well, the question is, who will go with
+the corn? Brother Dummy must drive his own team, because no other man
+could manage that black horse for half an hour. Biting Bill would kick
+the waggon into match-wood in two minutes, if any of us attempted to
+touch his reins. I wonder whether it is the absolutely silent driving
+which cows him? You are out and out the best one for attending to
+business of any here. Madame thinks it would be well for you to go, and
+so do I.”
+
+“I am quite ready,” replied Ezra. “But my horses are both out on the
+prairie. I turned them loose after the fire to let them run off to the
+Creek, as I had no time to put them up and feed them. To-day I did not
+feel able to hunt after them.”
+
+“Well, suppose you take my team, and I will find your horses for you
+to-morrow. Will that do?”
+
+“All right, then I’ll go to Mapleton.”
+
+“The corn is already shucked, it won’t take half an hour to load up. You
+and I will do it while the horses are feeding. You ought to get off by
+six, I will feed the horses at five.”
+
+Each spoke of _his_ horses and _his_ waggons much in the same way as an
+artillery officer speaks of his guns. There were three pairs of horses
+in the Community, and, in theory at least, everyone was equally free to
+use them, but experience showed that that sort of handling did not suit
+horses, who do better if left always in the care of the same persons.
+Therefore it came about that Brother Dummy always had Biting Bill, since
+no one else could manage the brute, and Ezra generally had Queen
+Katharine and Rebel, while Brother Wright kept the greys. Now these
+animals, although common property, were invariably spoken of by their
+drivers as _theirs_, for the use of certain familiar phrases, which to
+the outsider might seem to denote the idea of private property, came
+naturally to their lips. It is often more difficult to change habits of
+speech than laws of property. Reformers who start out to alter the whole
+course of modern ideas and to rearrange the world according to a plan of
+their own devising, would do well to meditate upon this peculiarity and
+see what it points to. Surely so slight a thing as a word might easily
+be eradicated from human speech, and yet how difficult it is to do so.
+But the point to consider is that the pertinacity, which shows itself in
+modes of expression, may very well exist in just as strong a form in
+habits of thought and feeling. The Pioneers, like others of that sort,
+passed over and disregarded such expressions as “my horse,” “my waggon,”
+and “your plough,” not apparently recognizing that the expressions
+denoted a habit of thought that might very easily strike at the very
+root of their institution. They were communists, as Olive had said, in
+bits of this and scraps of that, but the old leaven of individualism was
+there still among them, only dormant. The Pioneers never expected that
+the leaven would again become an active principle. Like other people,
+they were unable to see into the future, and therefore rejoiced in their
+escape from the perils of the prairie fire and considered that they had
+no further danger to apprehend for this winter at least. The sea was
+smooth and the sky was serene, so to speak, and they did not perceive
+the sunken rocks that lay in the track of their experimental bark.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+                           IN QUEST OF NEWS.
+
+
+Olive was early astir the next morning, in order to see her husband off
+and also to provide him with food in ample abundance to last him for the
+trip. He carried a plentiful store of dried beef, a portable commodity
+much in request on the prairie. The old trappers had showed the settlers
+how to make it, and the trappers had acquired the art from the Indians.
+Dried beef is precisely what its name indicates. It is raw beef,
+somewhat salted, and then dried in the sun until it is like a piece of
+solid leather. It has to be cut into thin slices across the grain before
+the stoutest teeth can make the slightest impression upon it. It may be
+also cooked in a batter of eggs for the dainty, but has only to be
+sliced up with a jack-knife to be eaten by the average teamster on the
+prairie. Besides the dried meat and plenty of corn-bread, Ezra had milk
+in a bottle and one of Olive’s wedding presents to eat, namely, a tin of
+peaches. He travelled therefore in extreme luxury. He set off along with
+Brother Dummy just as the sun was rising, and the canvas covers of the
+waggons showed for a long time as two moving white specks as they slowly
+crept across the blackened landscape, finally disappearing behind the
+Mounds some twelve miles to the west of Perfection City.
+
+Olive remained alone at home with Napoleon Pompey and Diana to keep her
+company, until Ezra should return in four days’ time. It was only with
+great reluctance that he had consented to this. He did not at all like
+the idea of her remaining alone in the house. As usual, when it came to
+Olive doing what the ordinary prairie settler’s wife did as a matter of
+course, Ezra’s love took fright. He urged her to go and stay at Madame’s
+house, she would be more than welcome, he declared, in fact it seemed to
+him almost necessary that she should go, and he insisted strongly upon
+the plan. Olive was as strongly opposed to it. Why couldn’t she stay in
+her own house? She would much prefer it, so as to be on hand to feed the
+chickens and milk the cows and generally see to things. Besides, she
+felt quite sure she would be vastly in Madame’s way. Ezra combated this
+position vigorously. Olive could not be in anyone’s way, even if she
+tried. Moreover, was not Madame a communist like the rest of them, and
+she would be only too pleased to take Olive into her home as she had
+already done into her heart. His spouse made no comment, except a mental
+one, to this argument, but reiterated her preference for staying at
+home. It would only be three days or four at most, and she would be very
+busy. Ezra hinted at possible danger if it were known she was alone in
+the house.
+
+“But I won’t be alone: there is Napoleon Pompey for one and Diana for
+two. Surely between so stout a pair nothing on earth can happen to me,”
+she said, smiling at his anxious face.
+
+“I don’t feel easy about you,” said Ezra, looking at her with mournful
+eyes. “I never left you alone before, and it suddenly seems to me a most
+portentous thing.”
+
+“Why, you dear silly old thing!” exclaimed Olive, “I do believe you’ll
+have omens next, and will look into tea-cups to see if it is a
+propitious moment for the success of this undertaking. I never knew you
+‘take on’ like this before.”
+
+“I never did so, but it is all because I love you, dear. I quite
+understand what it means, to be foolish with love. I used not to know
+what it was. I wonder do women ever feel the same as we men do?”
+
+“Women, my dear, are sent into this world for the express purpose of
+making men do what they ought and not be silly,” said Olive severely.
+“Now I know you’ll have the feed for the horses all right, but remember
+the feed for yourself is in this basket, everything you’ll want, and
+there is salt for the boiled eggs.”
+
+When the hurry of getting the waggons off was over, Olive sat down to
+think, and immediately there rose up before her the image of a hunted
+man flying for his life. In some ways it was a relief that Ezra was
+gone, she would not have to be constantly making an effort to hide the
+real anxiety in her mind. Then she thought of Ezra and of his great and
+boundless devotion to her, and the words Madame had spoken in her wrath
+rose up before her and rebuked her. Were they true? Had she hidden her
+real nature from her husband before her marriage? She had never meant to
+do so, but in their long pre-nuptial conversations it had not appeared
+to her that she and Ezra were so different in their views of life and
+its duties as perhaps was now the case. He certainly had told her of the
+experiment of Perfection City, and she had accepted him and the
+experiment together because they were indissoluble. She of herself would
+never have initiated the communistic idea; but then there was nothing
+wonderful in that, woman never do initiate anything, they only follow
+some man’s lead with more or less enthusiasm and intelligence.
+
+Were she to have expressed her own private predilection, it certainly
+would have been for a little home of her own on the usual lines, which
+little home it would have been her pride and her pleasure to make as
+beautiful as she could. Olive did not possess a large and speculative
+mind, capable of vast dreamy projects, whose limitless possibilities
+were in imagination not checked by small practical obstacles. On the
+contrary, it was the tendency of her intellect to perceive those
+obstacles with startling clearness, and to demonstrate, by a few biting
+truisms, the impossibility of turning the dreamy vastnesses to use. She
+was neither hard-headed nor dull-headed, but hers was a practical
+nature, very much jarred by idle vapourings, and above all she was kept
+in the straight path of common sense by her keen appreciation of the
+ridiculous.
+
+This faculty enabled her to perceive how often reformers run off the
+track of common sense, and while pinning their faith to one particular
+little tenet which they constitute the corner-stone of their philosophy,
+lose sight of the whole world beyond. Olive possessed in a high degree
+the sense of proportion, which in a true reformer is generally absent.
+When Ezra with his cultivated mind and really fine intellect, talked to
+her of the reforming of the present type of civilization, and briefly
+sketched out what he hoped would be the result of the introduction of
+the communistic idea into life, she could not help remarking that he
+used very much the same expressions, and seemed animated by very much
+the same hopes, as those indulged in by one of the dietetic reformers
+she knew in Smyrna, who promised all the glories of the golden age to
+mankind if the human race would only give up the baneful practices of
+eating meat and of cooking vegetables!
+
+And every few minutes, across the mirror of her reflections, there came
+a shadow of a desperate man spurring on a jaded horse. Olive could not
+shake off a sense of impending disaster, but unlike Ezra, who attributed
+his melancholy to his great love for Olive and a vague, unreasoning
+dread of something happening to her in his absence, she knew quite well
+what she feared and why.
+
+As the morning wore on, Olive began to feel it impossible to remain
+quietly at home in the midst of her anxiety. She must go out and hear
+what news there was, or at all events she must learn if there was any
+news. Resolved not to hold any communication with Madame other than what
+was publicly necessary—for between the two there was now maintained a
+sort of armed neutrality—she decided to call at the blacksmith’s, as
+Brother Green was in the way of most of the gossip, if gossip is a term
+that could be rightly applied to the feeble and intermittent stream of
+prairie news that trickled through the smithy. Brother Green was a
+silent, self-absorbed man who worked steadily and brought much personal
+devotion into the project of Perfection City. He was a lonely man, a
+widower, and to judge by appearances a disappointed man as well. He was
+surprised to see Sister Olive, and very pleased, but could not shake
+hands as he was very dirty, and she looked so brightly clean. Having
+wiped a wooden bench with his leather apron and again with the sleeve of
+his shirt, he invited her to be seated. Brother Green was welding some
+iron, and Olive waited until the operation was concluded and the
+plough-hook made before she talked to him. Meanwhile she watched with
+interest the white glowing fire and the pulpy white-hot iron-bar,
+helplessly bending over at the end like a piece of half boiled molasses
+candy.
+
+“I felt so lonesome, I thought I would come out and talk to someone,”
+she said, by way of excuse for a first visit. “Diana isn’t a bit of
+company when you feel really lonesome. Ezra is gone for four days, did
+you know?”
+
+Diana had cocked one ear at the mention of her name, but had speedily
+uncocked it again on becoming satisfied that nothing in the way of
+excitement was at hand.
+
+“Yes, I suppose you do feel lonely,” said Brother Green slowly, as he
+seated himself on his anvil and crossed his brawny arms. “I’ve been used
+to it for so long, I have almost forgotten how anything else feels.”
+
+Olive looked kindly at him. “Are you ever homesick, and do you ever wish
+you had stayed in England? It must be very different from here.”
+
+“Very,” said Brother Green gazing with a far-away sort of look through
+the large forge door out over the shimmering prairie. He suddenly seemed
+to see rolling hills with oak woods tufting their slopes, and a deep
+valley, where blue curling smoke ascended in high spirals, and a church
+steeple rose from among elms, and jackdaws croaked around the steeple.
+He put his head a little on one side, almost as if he would catch more
+distinctly the hoarse croak of the jackdaws, or maybe the first sound of
+the bell which hung in the steeple and used to ring on Sundays.
+
+“Yes,” he said, as this picture faded away and the prairie returned in
+its place, “there can’t be much greater differences in the world than
+between Perfection City and the little village in Sussex, where I was
+born.”
+
+“Which do you like best, Brother Green?” asked Olive a little
+thoughtlessly.
+
+“I don’t expect ever to be as unhappy again as I was in that pretty
+little village,” said Brother Green, and Olive remembered that she had
+been told he had lost a young wife in his youth. She felt sorry for him,
+and regretted having touched upon an old wound that still could throb
+with pain.
+
+“Have you heard any news lately? Has anybody been to the forge? You are
+always the first to hear news,” said she quickly, desiring to change the
+subject.
+
+“A man from down south passed this morning.”
+
+“Did he?” said Olive anxiously, “what did he say?”
+
+“He said the fire was just bellowing its way towards Fort Scott, and had
+done a good deal of damage one way or another. It was one of the hottest
+they ever had and the hardest to stop. It crossed one of the South Fork
+Creeks and got into the broken land round Osage.”
+
+“We had a very narrow escape ourselves,” said Olive, feeling remarkably
+little interest in the fire. “Did he say anything else? Who was he?”
+
+“A stranger, I never saw him before. No, he didn’t say anything else,
+except to tell me that he calkerlated Britishers were mos’ly fools and
+couldn’t do a day’s work ’gain ’Mericans, no matter what it were,
+rail-splitting or tobacco-chawin’.”
+
+Brother Green gave a deep gentle laugh, like the distant boom of a
+waterfall hidden among trees.
+
+“Don’t you think these prairie folk are most conceited?” asked Olive, in
+some scorn.
+
+“No, not more than other people, Sister,” replied Brother Green somewhat
+unexpectedly, “they only say what they think with remarkable frankness.”
+
+“But that is conceit,” persisted Olive.
+
+“I am not certain that it is more conceited to say what you think, than
+to think your thoughts in silence, and be consumed with a vast contempt
+for all the world. We are a conceited people too.”
+
+“I thought the English prided themselves on not being conceited,” said
+Olive.
+
+“We pride ourselves on showing no feeling of conceit and if possible on
+showing no feeling on any other subject either. If an Englishman’s heart
+were skinned, I think it would weigh up pretty much the same as an
+American’s. The difference lies in the tongue only.”
+
+“Is that so?” said Olive.
+
+“Yes, this morning, for instance, that man informed me that he was a
+better man than I, and that his country could lick mine. Well, in my
+heart I knew he was wrong on both points, and that the precise contrary
+was the fact. As far as essentials go, I think we were pretty equal in
+the contest of conceit.”
+
+“But you didn’t tell him what you thought,” remarked Olive.
+
+“No, that was the difference of tongue, not of heart,” replied Brother
+Green.
+
+“I didn’t know you were so severe in your criticisms and judgments. I
+wonder much what you really think of Perfection City,” said Olive,
+looking at him curiously. She had never particularly noticed him
+hitherto, and had not realized that he could have a store of knowledge
+of many things which lay far outside her experience.
+
+“I think Perfection City will do good,” said Brother Green with
+conviction.
+
+“Do you, and why?” asked Olive.
+
+“Any honest human effort to benefit the world and raise mankind does
+good,” said Brother Green.
+
+“But people have done such different things and all from a desire to do
+what seemed to them good,” objected Olive with feminine vagueness.
+
+“I consider they have done good if their purpose was single-hearted,”
+maintained Brother Green.
+
+“They didn’t succeed in doing what they aimed at very often, at all
+events,” observed Olive, “something quite different came out of their
+endeavours from what they had expected.”
+
+“Nevertheless, if they honestly tried, then that very trying was of
+itself good.”
+
+“Do you think Perfection City will do the good the Pioneers expect, or
+will something quite different come out of it too?”
+
+“I think Perfection City will be the means of teaching a valuable
+lesson,” said Brother Green cordially.
+
+“Do you think it is any use to try to change the world and its ideas?”
+
+“If anyone has a truth let him preach it fearlessly. Who can foretell
+the moment when the world will listen and when it is ready to profit by
+your example.”
+
+Olive longed to ask him what he thought of Madame, but dared not do so.
+She felt a little afraid before this simple-minded man, with his
+fervent, childlike faith and his sad and lonely life. Belief in
+Perfection City might be his only comfort now, shut off as he was from
+the joys of home and family, she would do nothing to lessen his belief
+and make him more lonely still. For what is more lonely than the heart
+out of which a faith has departed never to return? So she bade him
+good-bye, and then seeing Aunt Ruby’s chimney giving off the cheerful
+smoke of habitation, she turned her steps thither. Olive walked slowly
+along, for it was very hot indeed with a dry suffocating heat that made
+exertion somewhat irksome, and Diana, the discreet, followed dutifully
+behind her.
+
+Aunt Ruby, as has been already hinted, had surrounded herself with a
+large family of chickens of all ages, to whose wants it was her great
+duty to attend. She had a rare hand for chickens, and could pick up the
+most spasmodic specimen and turn it upside down and examine it for the
+gapes without hurting it in the least. Her driving of the hens to roost
+was an exhibition of the talent of generalship worthy of a wider field.
+No screamings nor scurryings, no rushings madly hither and thither, took
+place, and above all no sticks were used in the ceremony: Aunt Ruby
+merely took her skirts gently at the side in each hand, and said “Shoo!
+Shoo!” in a soothing voice, while at the same time she slightly
+oscillated the folds of her skirt. The hens appeared hypnotized by the
+action, and no matter how eagerly they might be pursuing the afternoon
+fly, they would at once settle down into a conversational chuck-a-chu
+and begin forthwith to meander towards the hen-roost.
+
+Aunt Ruby’s numerous hens and chickens were all in the yard and around
+the wood-pile, seeking in an aimless over-fed fashion after chance
+insects, when suddenly, without a moment’s warning, the devil was upon
+them according to the gallinaceous imagination. The devil was possessed
+of four paws, a most terrifying bark, and a mouth that seemed to the
+affrighted birds to be on the point of devouring each one especially and
+individually. The dog flew hither and thither, and so did the chickens,
+and so did the tail-feathers.
+
+“Diana! Bad dog, down, down!” screamed Olive, rushing to the rescue,
+while Aunt Ruby with shrill cry and a broom-stick appeared in the
+door-way. Never before or since did a more tempestuous guest appear at
+Aunt Ruby’s house. Full a quarter of an hour of gentle “shoo-shooings”
+to the hens, interspersed with smart whippings to Diana, elapsed before
+quiet was restored, and the ladies could even begin their visit
+together. Even then there was a sort of nervous tension on Aunt Ruby’s
+part, which prevented her thorough enjoyment of the opportunity for a
+gossip. Her attention was distracted by Diana, who lay with lamb-like
+docility at Olive’s feet and slept the sleep of the just.
+
+“I wouldn’t keep a dawg roun’ nohow,” said Aunt Ruby eyeing the
+delinquent sternly. “I’d mos’ as lief hev a rattlesnake. I shouldn’t
+never sleep easy in my bed won’erin’ an’ won’erin’ what the pesky
+crittur ’ud do nex’.”
+
+“I know that Diana is very naughty now, but she is only a puppy, and
+she’ll get sense by and bye, and it is so nice to have something that is
+your own and loves you, and doesn’t care for any body else, you know,”
+observed Olive somewhat rashly.
+
+“Wal, I reckon you’ll hev a sight o’ trouble ’long o’ that dawg ’fore
+you learn it the rights o’ people, let alone teachin’ it community
+idees,” said Aunt Ruby.
+
+“No, you can’t teach a dog communistic notions, thank goodness,”
+observed Olive, patting the sinful Diana.
+
+“Reckon you ain’t partic’ler sot on the idees of Perfection City,” said
+the old lady, looking at her visitor with bright twinkling eyes. “I
+allow there be a p’int or two we’ll hev to consider over agin at
+’Sembly. We are gettin’ on too fas’ fur this here prairie folk, they
+hain’t got the sense to un’erstan’ all o’ our highest principles. Guess
+while there’s Injuns roun’ we hed better jes’ hol’ back a mite ’bout
+non-resistance.”
+
+“Oh,” said Olive, who had never given any attention to this point, being
+as indifferent as the wives of strong men usually are. “I never heard a
+word about Indians. Are there any about?”
+
+“Not as I hearn on special. But there’s Injuns and worse nor Injuns in
+the world, an’ I reckon we’d better take that p’int up at ’Sembly and
+see if we can’t do su’thin’ to make things a bit straight,” said Aunt
+Ruby in language that was vaguely enough expressed to serve in the
+highest walks of diplomacy.
+
+“Oh, I dare say,” replied Olive carelessly, “some very excellent reason
+could be devised to excuse a departure from any one of the Perfection
+City principles, which seem more difficult to manage in practice than on
+paper. They are all pretty new, and of course can’t be expected to be as
+useful in all the difficult circumstances of life as principles which
+have stood the test of time.”
+
+“Dear me, suz!” exclaimed Aunt Ruby admiringly. “How gran’ you kin talk!
+Deal sight finer nor Brother Wright. Why don’t you hold forth in
+’Sembly? I’d liefer hear you nor any on ’em. I’m jes’ ’bout tired o’
+listenin’ to Brother Wright. Lard! how he do love to hear his own voice!
+Hens is jes’ like that too, they’ll talk an’ talk till you’re mos’
+crazy, an’ they hain’t nothin’ to say, on’y jes’ to cackle an’ hear
+themselves talk.”
+
+Olive agreed with Aunt Ruby, but hardly dared to express her opinion in
+all its force. Therefore she turned the conversation by inquiring had
+she ever heard anything about lynch-law and about its being put into
+practice in their neighbourhood?
+
+“Course I hev, an’ hearn o’ hangin’ too.”
+
+“Do Perfection City principles uphold hanging?” asked Olive.
+
+“Guess not,” was the reply.
+
+“No matter if it was for murder?”
+
+“Wal, I don’t see as we could ever be called upon to settle that p’int,
+’cause no ’Fectionist could ever be a murderer no how,” said Aunt Ruby.
+
+“But suppose an outsider who had shot a man, even if it was not a real
+bad murder, came to us for protection, would they help him, do you
+think?” asked Olive.
+
+“Wal, I never hearn that debated at the ’Sembly, but I reckon Perfection
+City don’t lay out to hide folks as has killed a feller critter. It
+don’t ’pear to me as how we was called upon to min’ anyone ’cept our own
+selves, an’ we hed best keep clear ’way o’ them sort o’ folks. That’s
+pretty nigh my ’pinion, an’ I guess it’s mos’ folks too as hes a mite o’
+common sense.”
+
+Olive was fain to confess to herself that in all probability Aunt Ruby
+did fairly express the collective opinion of Perfection City. They had
+only enough righteousness for themselves, and, like a ship already short
+of provisions, could not help another vessel, even though it might be
+flying the Union Jack upside down and showing all the other flags of
+acute distress recognized in the naval code of signals. Had Aunt Ruby
+heard of anything concerning a horse-thief who was supposed to be
+somewhere around, inquired Olive with a view to eliciting information,
+but she only elicited feminine alarms in overwhelming abundance.
+
+“Do tell! Land o’ liberty! Was there horse-thieves ’bout? What a pity
+Brother Ezry an’ Brother Dummy was both gone jes’ now: they might meet
+in ’Sembly right away an’ discuss the p’int o’ non-resistance an’ buy
+revolvers next time anyone went to Union Mills. Horse-thieves was mos’
+as bad as Injuns, an’ if it was lawful an’ right to defen’ yourself
+’gainst Injuns as was ign’rant savages as never hed Christian teachin’,
+it couldn’t be wrong to look a’ter your hosses as was bought an’ paid
+for by ’Fection City money.”
+
+Aunt Ruby was so convinced and loquacious upon this subject and upon the
+aspect of the case as presented to her mind by her terrors, that Olive
+heartily regretted her question, and began to try and do away with the
+effects of it as far as possible. It was only a vague report she
+averred, and Olive herself had not the slightest idea that there were
+horse-thieves about. Upon the strength of this assurance Aunt Ruby,
+somewhat comforted, allowed her attention to be engaged by other topics
+of conversation. She was much distressed that she could not persuade her
+visitor to stay all the rest of the day and have a real good
+soul-satisfying talk, but Olive declared she must go home and see to her
+own chickens, an argument that appealed very strongly to Aunt Ruby’s
+maternal instincts.
+
+A difficulty arose as to how Diana was to be decently conducted out
+through the yard.
+
+“I’d mos’ as soon hev to conten’ with a roarin’ lion as that pup,”
+remarked Aunt Ruby as the difficulty presented itself to her mind in an
+acute form.
+
+“If I could get her past without seeing the hens and chickens she would
+be all right,” said Olive, who of course had no whip, regarding
+meditatively the dog, who of course had no collar.
+
+“Wal, that ’ud do, I guess, sort o’ take her out o’ the way o’
+temptation,” said Aunt Ruby, surveying Diana with an anxious eye. “I kin
+give you an ole caliker skirt o’ mine, an’ you kin tie up her head in
+that reg’lar tight, so as she wouldn’t see ne’er a hen this side o’
+Christmas, ’less you took it off.”
+
+This seemed a hopeful arrangement; so the “caliker skirt” was brought,
+and the misguided Diana, under the impression that a brand new game was
+on foot, allowed her head to be hidden in the folds of the skirt. Olive
+then led her to the door, but Diana objected, not seeing where the joke
+came in for her; and as soon as she found that she was ignominiously
+tied into the dreadful skirt, her rage was boundless. In an instant she
+wrenched herself free from Olive’s guiding hand. She then commenced a
+wild career around the yard backwards, swaying this way and that in the
+most ghastly and unlooked-for manner.
+
+The hens and chickens no sooner beheld this portent than with one
+universal squawk of horror they betook themselves to places of safety
+under the corn-crib and into the cracks of the wood-pile, whence they
+could not again be coaxed for many hours. Diana meanwhile continued her
+fearsome course and ere long came into violent contact with the
+chicken-tub, a large receptacle with loose wooden cover where various
+sorts of food suitable for fowls were collected together, first thinned
+with water and then thickened into a glutinous mass by intermixture of
+corn-meal. Into this tub Diana sat with extreme violence and then rolled
+over. Olive caught her as she was emerging from the chicken-tub and by
+uncovering her eyes restored her to reason. Aunt Ruby, speechless with
+indignation, and Olive, equally speechless with laughter, then set to
+work with two big spoons to scrape the chicken food from the ground and
+from the hind quarters of the dog. Diana, now at peace with all the
+world, wagged her tail benevolently during this process, and soon
+specked Olive over with corn-meal, potatoes, scraps of peelings, and
+bits of greens, until she looked as if she had been out in a snow-storm
+as severe in character as it was diversified in composition. When this
+job was over Aunt Ruby arose and straightened her old back with a groan.
+
+“Wal, I guess I would a deal sight sooner hev a rattlesnake to look
+a’ter than a dawg,” she observed.
+
+Olive, apologetic, departed along with the unrepentant Diana, and
+together they returned homewards.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+                             HORSE-THIEVES.
+
+
+Olive spent a few quiet hours at home along with Diana, and then took
+supper in company with Napoleon Pompey, whose manners at table were now
+all that could be desired. Indeed, the negro in this connection easily
+takes a higher polish than might be expected: he prides himself on being
+punctilious in all the forms and phrases of the best white society he
+has ever come in contact with, and being highly imitative, is quickly
+trained. Given a white boy and a black boy of similar ages and depths of
+ignorance, the black one will more quickly tame into a seemingly quiet
+human being, while very frequently the same vanity which prompts a negro
+to be over-zealous in the use of “please” and “thank you” will cause the
+white boy to act roughly and assert his independence by extravagances of
+rude behaviour. Napoleon Pompey was magnificently polite to “Mis’
+Ollie,” whom he adored, and for whom he was ready even to work: that is
+to make the greatest sacrifice possible to a negro lad of twelve. He
+never forgot to carry in wood for her or to pick up chips in generous
+quantity for the lighting of the afternoon fire, and he collected
+abundance of corn-cobs and had them duly dried in the sun ready at her
+hand in case she was in sudden want of a hot fire. When working for
+Ezra, Napoleon Pompey reverted to his natural black standard of
+diligence and shirked as much as he possibly could, lying down in
+fence-corners to sleep like a shiny black lizard when he should have
+been stripping corn, but he never shirked “Mis’ Ollie’s” work. She
+didn’t scold the lad, but ruled him by her gentleness and her beauty,
+and he fell into meekest subjection to her.
+
+Olive always tried to talk with Napoleon Pompey at meals, even when Ezra
+was there, being anxious to make him feel at his ease and happy in their
+presence; and to-day being alone with him she thought she might get some
+information out of him on the subject which was weighing so heavily upon
+her mind.
+
+“Napoleon Pompey, did you ever hear of their hunting down men on the
+prairie here?”
+
+“Yo’ bet, Mis’ Ollie, I seed darkie what went to de hangin’ ole man
+Howard. He done seed him hoisted over de tree slap up. He told me——”
+
+“Hush!” said Olive sternly.
+
+The young savage was abashed, he had meant no harm, but thought some
+pleasing details “o’ de hangin’,” which he himself had relished
+mightily, would prove equally acceptable to Olive’s taste. She was
+disgusted to think that with all her teaching of the forms and symbols
+of politeness and gentle manners, which the young scamp had received
+with such docility, she had not really touched his heart at all: he was
+just a black savage, still rejoicing in vivid details of horrors and
+cruelty.
+
+“Don’t tell me,” she said sternly, “that it is possible you could like
+to see a human being, a fellow creature, made in God’s image, no matter
+how guilty he might be, put to death. It may be necessary, Napoleon
+Pompey, sometimes to hang men who have done wicked things, so as to
+prevent others from doing the same, but it is an awful thing, a sad and
+terrible sight. You would never wish to see it, Napoleon Pompey,” said
+Olive solemnly.
+
+“It ’ud be bully ter see ’um kickin’ in de air wid rope roun’ his neck,”
+said Napoleon Pompey simply.
+
+Olive turned white with disgust and left the kitchen, retiring with
+Diana to her own little private room. Napoleon Pompey, conscious of no
+shortcomings, cleared away the supper things very handily, washed the
+few dishes, set the candles upon the white deal table, and whistling in
+the innocence of his youthful heart went out to “walk roun’” and see
+that all was right, and the hen-house fastened up securely against
+possible visits from pole-cats, before he retired to his loft upstairs
+shortly after sun-down. Like the chickens, Napoleon Pompey went early to
+roost.
+
+Conscious from the all-pervading stillness that the lad was gone to bed,
+Ollie returned to the kitchen, and her heart smote her as she saw two
+tallow candles in their tin candle-sticks placed on the table in
+convenient position for her to read, if such should be her wish. Poor
+Napoleon Pompey! Olive thought compassionately of what an affectionate
+boy he was, and of how it was not his fault if he still had savage
+tastes. Indeed, it was rather the fault of everybody else. His not very
+remote ancestors were unreclaimed African savages, and the career of
+those more immediate forefathers, whose lot had been cast in slavery
+down South, had not had an elevating tendency. It was wonderful, not
+that he still had savage tastes, but that he had got rid of so many of
+them. She was sorry that she had not been better able to control her
+feelings, and determined forthwith to institute a careful system of
+training with a view to leading him to the higher life by the shortest
+possible road. Having settled in her own mind a few of the more
+important lines upon which this training was to be conducted, Olive
+turned at last to her reading. But she could not keep her mind on her
+book, it kept wandering off in all sorts of directions, and at last took
+that of being frightened at the loneliness and stillness of the house.
+When so firmly combating the notion of being afraid to stay in the house
+during Ezra’s absence, Olive had not realized how appalling the
+stillness would be. In the daytime there were multitudes of unregarded
+sounds, which went to make up the sum total of the idea of life and
+fellowship, but at night these had completely ceased, and she seemed to
+hear the stillness with awful intensity.
+
+Then, too there were no shutters to the windows, which were, of course,
+open to let in the cool night air, and the thought suddenly came into
+Olive’s mind of how exposed she really was, sitting there in the light
+of her candles, plainly to be seen, but unable to see out. A thought
+such as this needs but little time to grow into a veritable feeling of
+panic. She glanced at the black gaping windows and stared out into the
+measureless blackness beyond. At one moment she raised her hand to
+extinguish the candles and so to hide herself in the dark along with her
+fears, but she knew that would only make matters worse. She would see in
+her terrified imagination a hundred glaring eyes peering in through the
+window. She got up and walked about the room, trying by a little
+movement to throw off the oppressive sense of terror. Diana suddenly
+seemed to be interested in something, and raised her head and sniffed
+inquiringly, and her mistress, nervously awake to every sight or sound,
+looked anxiously around her and stopped in her uneasy walk. Diana arose
+and went to the door, and being a puppy wagged her tail effusively, then
+suddenly remembering that she ought to be a dog, barked with vehemence.
+Olive was ready to scream with nervous terror as she heard a step upon
+the slanting board which led up to the door and a second later a knock
+against the resounding wood. She stood spell-bound, unable to speak or
+move. Diana ceased barking, and looked with eager delight for the
+opening of the door.
+
+“It is I, friends, let me come in,” said a deep voice which thrilled
+Olive to the heart.
+
+The door opened and Mr. Cotterell entered.
+
+“Mr. Cotterell! What are you here for?” gasped Olive, as he came in and
+stood in the light, gaunt-eyed and hollow-cheeked.
+
+“I am flying for my life, Mrs. Weston. The men are out hunting me down.
+I have come to ask your help. Where is your husband?”
+
+“He is gone away to Mapleton.”
+
+“Ah!” said Cotterell, with a sigh that had some relief in the sound.
+“Then you will help me, won’t you?”
+
+“What have you done?” asked Olive, gazing at him in terror. He was
+wild-looking and so different from the charming gentleman she had known
+before.
+
+“I’ve shot Jake Mills,” he replied, without any attempt at
+dissimulation.
+
+“Do you mean that you’ve murdered him?” gasped Olive, starting back from
+him.
+
+“Good God! Mrs. Weston, no. I’ve not murdered him, although he is dead
+by my hand. There’s been a quarrel between us about some land he rented
+from me. He was a very low-bred fellow and violent, and I despised him,
+and—well, I said some harsh things to him about cheating the last time
+we met. He swore that he would pay me out. He came to my cabin the other
+day. I don’t know how long ago, it seems a life-time. He was mad with
+drink and fury. I told him he was a hound. He whipped out his revolver
+and fired at me, but he was too tipsy to aim straight, his shots went
+wide of the mark. Well, I got my shot in, I was not drunk. That is how
+it was, Mrs. Weston. Upon my honour as a man, that is the exact truth,
+you would not call it murder, would you?”
+
+“No, it was in self-defence. But why didn’t you go and tell the
+neighbours at once? They understand that sort of thing on the prairie.”
+
+“Ah, there’s just my hard luck. There was a brute of a negro who saw it
+all, a fellow I thrashed once for stealing and lying, and he said with
+such a meaning look, niggers were free men now, they could give evidence
+against white men now,” said Cotterell in a voice of despair.
+
+“Could not you silence him?” said Olive, “or make him tell the truth?”
+
+“Yes, I could have silenced him easily enough, and I had my finger on
+the trigger to do it. But I sickened at the thought. I couldn’t shoot
+him, although it was my life against his in all probability. I fled and
+he gave the alarm. I have no chance with these men around here to try
+me, and that negro to give his lying version of the fight. If it was a
+jury of men like your husband, it would be different, but these ignorant
+settlers are desperately prejudiced against me already as a foreigner,
+and because of several things in the past.”
+
+Olive thought of what her husband had said, and knew only too well that
+there was indeed much prejudice against the unhappy fugitive.
+
+“What am I to do? You cannot stay here, Mr. Cotterell. They have already
+been looking for you. Mr. Owen was here yesterday afternoon.”
+
+“Did he tell you what I had done? Did he seem to consider it murder?”
+
+“Yes, he did,” said Olive in a whisper, not daring to remember what he
+had said should he Cotterell’s punishment.
+
+“But you don’t look upon it in that light?” said he, wistfully.
+
+“No, certainly not. It was a terrible misfortune that might happen to
+anybody, given the preliminary quarrel.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Cotterell brokenly. “When a poor devil is being hunted
+down it is a comfort for him to find someone who can still believe in
+him, and I knew in my heart I could come to you for help when all else
+had abandoned me. I am starving, Mrs. Weston. I have eaten nothing for
+two days. Can you give me some food?”
+
+“Poor fellow!” cried Olive, more struck perhaps by his bodily needs than
+by those of the mind. “Sit down here, I’ll get you something in a jiffy.
+There is a good chicken-pie in the cellar.”
+
+She took a lantern and hurried off to the cellar which was under the
+house, but to which entrance was effected by an outside door. She
+brought him food and drink and sat by him as he ate ravenously,
+wolfishly.
+
+“I must sleep or I shall never be able to hold out for the flight
+to-morrow. Let me lie here, will you, and wake me at mid-night. Will you
+do that for me? I must sleep. I have been hiding in the bottom-land of
+Cotton Wood Creek in the brushwood ever since I left home. I didn’t dare
+to ride across the prairie with everybody out on account of the fire. I
+should have been seen by someone, even if I could have got clear of the
+fire. The hunt must be over now on this side of the county, and I may
+dare snatch a little sleep.”
+
+He flung himself down on the floor, and almost before Olive could fetch
+a pillow for his head he was in a deep sleep. She sat watching him and
+wondering what his life was. Somewhere away in England, perhaps, there
+was a blue-eyed girl waiting for him to come home, a girl whose blue
+eyes were getting dim with the tears she shed in that long, long
+waiting. He was a very handsome man, with his yellow moustache and
+clear-cut features. His hat was off, leaving a sort of high-water mark
+plainly visible on his forehead, where the sun-burn ended and the smooth
+white skin showed upon his temples. The veins were marked in blue like a
+baby’s, she remembered how Ezra had commented on these blue veins. She
+wondered who he was and why he came there to live, and all the while she
+watched the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed in his sleep
+with his right hand nervelessly holding his revolver. How he would start
+up and grip that weapon, and how his blue eyes would flash, if his
+pursuers should come upon him! He was a man that had a reputation for
+bravery even on the prairie, where few men were cowards. She thought of
+Prince Charlie and his wanderings, and all the stories she had read as a
+girl about that charming prince. Here was a fugitive seeking her aid,
+and she—well, she would act the part of Flora Macdonald. By the time it
+was mid-night, Olive had worked herself into a most romantic frame of
+mind and was determined to help Mr. Cotterell at every hazard. She was
+not a person to do a thing by halves. She made a parcel of food for him
+out of the remains of the chicken-pie, and then, it being just
+mid-night, she awoke him.
+
+“Ah, Mrs. Weston, how can I ever show my gratitude to you? You are in
+veriest truth my guardian angel. I shall carry your image in my heart
+till I die,” said Cotterell in his soft persuasive voice. “I should like
+to think that you had some memory of me.”
+
+“I shall not forget you, and shall pray that you may escape all
+dangers,” said Olive gently.
+
+“I have absolutely nothing that I can call my own. Would you accept this
+ring of mine as a token of my gratitude, and sometimes wear it in memory
+of me? When you look at it, think that somewhere in this weary world
+there is one heart that will be grateful to you until it ceases to
+beat.”
+
+He pulled a ring from his finger and put it into her hand. At the same
+time he stooped his tall form and softly kissed her forehead, saying:
+“God bless you!”
+
+Olive’s eyes were full of tears. “You must be going or it will be too
+late,” she said with a sob.
+
+“Yes, I must not tarry.” He looked to his revolver, jerked his
+cartridge-case round into a more convenient position for rapidly opening
+it, and took up his hat.
+
+“Where is your horse?”
+
+“I hitched him to the bars.”
+
+“Then I will take the lantern and light you on your way. The night is
+very dark. Once on horseback you can ride by the light of the stars,”
+said Olive.
+
+“Yes, I’ll shape my course for the Missouri border, if I can run the
+gauntlet of the people here. Once I reach a town and civilization I
+shall be all right.”
+
+They went to the bars, Olive holding her little lantern which threw a
+feeble ray along the pathway.
+
+“Great God!” cried Cotterell.
+
+“Oh, what is it? Are they coming after you?” said Olive in alarm,
+dropping her lantern which instantly went out.
+
+“My horse is gone!” said Cotterell, whose eyes were now becoming
+accustomed to the darkness. “I left him hitched here. He was a wild
+young colt, not half broken. See, this is the lariat-rope wrenched in
+two. I was a fool to trust to that rope, and a double-dyed fool to leave
+him here in the dark. But I was too hungry and too sleepy to think
+clearly of what I was doing. That sleep will cost me my life. I shall
+have plenty of time to sleep, aye forever, if daylight catches me here.
+Mrs. Weston will you add one more benefit to the many that have gone
+before? Will you give me a horse?”
+
+“Oh, so gladly if I had one,” said Olive, beginning to cry with grief
+and helplessness.
+
+“Haven’t you any horses?” asked Cotterell with a gasp.
+
+“No. Ezra and Brother Huntley have taken two teams to Mapleton.”
+
+“Are there no more about the place?”
+
+“Only our two that were out on the prairie. Brother Wright was to hunt
+for them.”
+
+“Did he find them?”
+
+“I don’t know. Perhaps he did.”
+
+“Then you must give me one of them. They are yours.”
+
+“They are not mine. Oh, I have not anything in this dreadful Community.
+It is horrible,” wailed Olive.
+
+“Don’t, pray don’t,” said Cotterell feeling for her hand in the darkness
+and crushing it in a passionate grasp. “Come with me and help me get
+one.”
+
+“What! steal one of our horses?”
+
+“Yes, God help me! if that must be the word. If I live, the Community
+shall have the horse’s price ten times over. If I am hanged, put it down
+for the Recording Angel’s tears. Come.”
+
+“The horses are not here. They are at Brother Wright’s if anywhere.”
+
+“Can you find the way in the dark? Then come all the same.”
+
+He held her hand. Was it for fear lest she should turn back, or was it
+for some other reason? They walked in silence towards the Wrights’
+house, two dark shadows stealing through the blackness.
+
+“Mr. Cotterell,” whispered Olive with chattering teeth. “If anyone
+should come out of the house on account of the noise, don’t fire. We are
+all non-resistants, you know, here, and he won’t have a pistol.” Olive
+had no knowledge of the plenary indulgence which Brother Wright had seen
+fit to bestow upon himself in this matter.
+
+“Dear heart! don’t fear,” said Cotterell tenderly. “I am a desperate man
+flying for his life, it is true, but I am not a dastard. No human being
+at Perfection City shall ever be hurt by my hand. They are all sacred to
+me for your sweet sake. Ah yes, how truly it is Perfection City, none
+but I really know.”
+
+They walked on again in silence.
+
+“Is there a dog?”
+
+“Yes, but he knows me well. We are coming to the back of the stable
+now.”
+
+“Then go and speak to the dog through the chinks of the logs, else he
+will bark at me.”
+
+Olive crept up quietly, and putting her lips to a crevice in the rough
+log-stable said softly, “Pluto, good dog!” Pluto answered with a whine
+of satisfaction, and a soft, purring trumpet from Queen Katharine
+announced that she too was within, and that she recognised her
+mistress’s voice.
+
+“The horses are here,” whispered Olive. “I will go round and bring out
+Queen Katharine; there is only a wooden bolt on the outside to fasten
+the door. You had better not go near them for fear of exciting them,
+which might make the dog bark.”
+
+“It is dangerous for you in the dark. I fear the horses may hurt you,”
+said Cotterell, slow in bringing himself to give up the little hand he
+had held all during that strange night walk.
+
+“I am not afraid of the horses: they know me and I know them,” said
+Olive.
+
+Cotterell heard her talking softly to Queen Katharine as she quietly
+undid her halter and brought her out of the stable. Not a creature
+seemed awake in the house, and not a word was spoken by the two as they
+stole past down to the bars. Once out of earshot, Cotterell sprang upon
+Queen Katharine and stooping down lifted Olive up before him. She never
+could quite remember the wild things he said as he rode back to their
+house, holding her in his arms on the horse. She was dizzy, frightened,
+and confused, so perhaps he did not say all those wild words, and
+perhaps she dreamed them. He got Ezra’s saddle and put it on Queen
+Katharine, Olive did not forget to give him the parcel of food and a
+flask of milk and water, and then he said good-bye. Such a strange
+good-bye. He knelt before her, clasped her two hands in his own, and
+said: “Now I know why men have worshipped the image of pure womanhood.
+It made them better. I shall be made a better man by my worship.” And
+then he was gone without another word, and Olive crept into the house
+just as the first grey streaks of dawn appeared.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+                            A LIFE AT STAKE.
+
+
+When Brother Wright early next morning discovered the loss of the brown
+mare, he was thrown into a state of the most unphilosophic rage. He had
+not a moment’s doubt as to what had happened, nor a moment’s hesitation
+as to the course he should pursue. He hurried back to the house and
+without any effort at concealment got out his revolver and stuck it into
+his belt.
+
+“Wright,” said Mary, his wife, “whatever have you got there?” She was
+filled with amazement.
+
+“A pistol,” replied he with firmness.
+
+“What are you going to do with it?”
+
+“Shoot a damned horse-thief, who has been and broken into the stable and
+stolen Queen Katharine.”
+
+He jammed down his hat on his head and made for the door, while Mary
+Winkle gave a scream that would have done credit to the finest lady in
+the land.
+
+“You shan’t do any such thing! You will be killed! What do you know
+about pistols? You will be shot by those murderous horse-thieves, and
+what will become of me—and Willette?” Mary Winkle urged the very
+arguments that have before now been known to make brave men falter and
+turn back from running risks.
+
+“I—I shan’t do anything rash,” said Wright sheepishly. “I’ll just go
+round and rouse the neighbours and see if we can’t catch him, he can’t
+have got very far as yet. What beats me is why Pluto didn’t bark. The
+dog’s a fool, I’ll drown him.”
+
+“Oh, I am thankful he didn’t bark, for you might have been dead by now
+if he had. You shan’t drown him, for he has saved your life.
+Horse-thieves are desperate men and wouldn’t respect our principles of
+non-resistance,” said Mary Winkle.
+
+“Ahem,” said her husband, tucking the revolver out of sight until
+required.
+
+“What we’ve got to do is to go to Madame and summon an Assembly of
+Urgency and talk this matter over, and see what the Community is to do.
+Wright, you can’t go and rouse the neighbours till you’ve got the
+sanction of the Assembly. You know that is the rule in all important
+matters, and this is about the most important matter that has ever come
+up for discussion.”
+
+“Damn discussion!” said Wright angrily. “While we’re discussing that
+thief will get away. Sharp is the word for catching horse-thieves.”
+
+“But sharp is not the word for determining the action of Perfection City
+in an important juncture like the present. Wright, I am surprised at
+you, and also at your language,” said his wife severely.
+
+“Oh these infernal horse-thieves would provoke a saint,—not that I am
+one,” said Wright, still in a rage most unbecoming to a professed
+non-resistant, and Mary Winkle looked a whole essay full of rebuke at
+him. She carried the day, however, and together they carried their
+complaint to Madame.
+
+They found Madame sitting at breakfast along with Uncle David, and being
+waited upon by a negro-servant, Lucinda, the mother of Napoleon Pompey.
+The heat of a cooking-stove made Madame ill, therefore she required a
+servant, and she had what she required, principles of equality to the
+contrary notwithstanding.
+
+“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Uncle David in much excitement and perturbation.
+“Wal, to think now o’ what big raskills there is in the worl’, an’ we
+a-settin’ ’em such a good ’xample here o’ honesty an’ uprightness.”
+
+“We must summon the Assembly,” said Mary Winkle firmly. “It is a great
+pity Brothers Ezra and Dummy are both away, but there are quite enough
+left to deliberate.”
+
+“If you think that is the best plan, we had better do it at once, there
+should be no time wasted,” said Madame, looking interrogatively at
+Brother Wright’s frowning face.
+
+“If you ask me——” he began when his wife interrupted him.
+
+“We don’t ask you, Wright, at least not until the Assembly of Urgency is
+convened. Your vote doesn’t count for more than mine, and I demand an
+Assembly.”
+
+Wright shrugged his shoulders, and Madame smiled a little sarcastically.
+“We will summon it,” she said.
+
+“An’ I’ll jes’ step roun’ an’ fetch Sister Olive,” said Uncle David,
+putting on his hat as he spoke, “an’ you can bring together the rest of
+the brethren.”
+
+They came quickly enough when they heard of the loss of the brown mare,
+only Olive was absent. She was ill in bed with a headache and spoke to
+Uncle David out of a darkened room.
+
+Brother Wright detailed the loss of the horse, while the Assembly
+listened in deepest attention.
+
+“What we have to consider is the best means of recovering the horse if
+possible,” said Madame. “Does anyone know what is usually done under
+similar circumstances?”
+
+“The neighbours join together and run down the thief as quickly as
+possible,” said Brother Wright, with sharp emphasis.
+
+“And having run him down, hang him,” added Mary Winkle.
+
+“That course is impossible for us,” observed Madame.
+
+“That is a point I should like to debate,” said Brother Wright. “If we
+are to live here we must have horses, and we can’t keep horses if it is
+known to be against our principles to shoot a horse-thief. That is all
+I’ve got to say.”
+
+“An’ I want to notice the p’int o’ Injuns,” said Aunt Ruby. “Ef there’s
+Injuns as will do any wickedness un’er the sun, I want to know are we to
+sit still an’ be roasted on our own fires by wile savages like that, or
+will the men-folks defen’ us as other men do? An’ I likewise would wish
+to p’int out to the ’Sembly as border ruffians is mos’ly as bad as
+Injuns, an’ it stan’s to reason as horse-thieves is ’bout the same.”
+
+“It seems to me,” said Brother Green, speaking with great deliberation,
+“that our principles were formed and adopted because we thought them
+right. I don’t see in what we should differ from anybody else if we took
+to the usual prairie arms the moment we felt the shoe pinch! If
+non-resistance is right, it should be practised against horse-thieves;
+if it is wrong, then we should be prepared to shoot the thieves of other
+men’s horses. There is no middle course. The throwing away of our
+settled convictions just because our horse has been stolen is not
+consistent.”
+
+“I’ll vote for non-resistance and the maintenance of our principles,”
+said Mary Winkle severely, “and I further think that what is decided by
+the majority in this meeting should bind all the members.”
+
+She fixed her eye upon Wright with meaning.
+
+“It is a most difficult juncture,” remarked Madame. “I wish much we had
+the help of Brother Ezra’s wisdom to guide us.”
+
+“Yes,” said Uncle David cordially, “an’ sister Olive too.”
+
+“I do not see how Sister Olive can have any experience that would enable
+her to give good advice on this subject,” said Madame acidly.
+
+“Oh, Sister Olive has consider’ble ’cuteness,” remarked Uncle David.
+“Now you’d be ’stonished to hear the wise things she says, an’ she as
+purty as a kitten or a rose all the while.”
+
+“Then I guess we’ll just do nothing at all? Is that the decision of this
+Assembly?” asked Brother Wright abruptly.
+
+“There is great force in passive resistance,” said Brother Carpenter, a
+boneless individual who counted for little either for work in the
+fields, or for advice in the councils, of Perfection City. “Where
+passive resistance has been applied by large numbers and for a long time
+it has effected great changes,” he observed conversationally.
+
+“I think principles are principles,” said Brother Green, “and may not be
+lightly set aside.”
+
+“Well, I guess I’ll go home then, since nothing is going to be done,”
+said Brother Wright angrily, “and I’ll try and keep hold of the last
+horse, else that thief will come and take him too, when he finds what
+fools he’s got to deal with.”
+
+The Assembly broke up, having decided nothing at all, and having only
+succeeded in embittering the feelings of several persons, and in
+widening the chasm of differences which had revealed itself in the
+course of the debate, a result that has often followed the meeting of
+larger and more notorious Assemblies.
+
+Although Brother Wright could not now violate one of the fundamental
+doctrines of Perfection City, it was open to him to use a little worldly
+wisdom in the way of setting others upon the track of the thief.
+Accordingly, without saying a single word to Mary Winkle or anyone else,
+he mounted Rebel and proceeded to rouse the neighbours who were not at
+all bound by non-resistant theories. Nothing gets up a prairie man’s
+anger quicker than the knowledge that a horse-thief has begun active
+operations in his vicinity. Horses are absolutely necessary to his daily
+life, and to be suddenly deprived of his horses is one of the greatest
+calamities that can overtake a settler. They can take a merciful view of
+homicide at times, but never of horse-stealing. Brother Wright relied on
+this known propensity, and by visiting the most hardy of his neighbours
+had before night started as relentless a set of hunters after Queen
+Katharine as ever put leg over horse or drew pistol from belt.
+
+Olive meanwhile remained at home all unconscious of what had taken place
+at the Assembly, and of the pursuit organized afterwards as the effect
+of Brother Wright’s embassies. She had decided in her own mind that the
+best course for her to adopt was to keep absolute silence until Ezra
+should come home. To him she would explain everything, and she felt
+convinced that he was just enough, albeit no friend of Cotterell’s, to
+be ready to sacrifice a horse in order to facilitate his escape. She did
+not feel at all so sure about some of the other members of the
+Community. At all events Cotterell’s best chance of safety lay in her
+keeping firmly to her resolution of silence about him. The best way for
+her to keep silent without exciting suspicion was not to talk with
+anyone, and feeling pretty well convinced that somebody would come to
+talk over the great calamity with her, she resolved to be out of the
+way. In any case she was very miserable and very anxious, and could not
+stay at home, so she wandered off for a walk. She went to the spring,
+then she went to Weddell’s Gully and looked at the black burnt waste.
+She tried to think about the interest and excitement of the fire, but
+could think of nothing but Cotterell riding for his life and of the men
+who were riding after him. Olive knew nothing of the second set of men
+sent after the horse-thief; her mind was still anxiously dwelling on the
+probability of his being captured by those who had “wanted” him for the
+murder of Jake Mills. The fact was, however, that this first
+hunting-party had given over their quest, for a man must be caught by
+the second day on the prairie if he is to be caught at all. This,
+however, Olive did not know, and she kept wondering and picturing all
+sorts of terrible possibilities. Had the men found the trail? Would
+Queen Katharine hold out till he got to the border? True she had been
+resting for a whole day, but then a man’s life depended on her
+endurance, and Olive remembered with a cold dread that Queen Katharine
+was only a farm-horse and not trained to such desperate efforts as this.
+Then she remembered the others, those dreadful hunters, were also
+mounted on farm horses, and this thought gave her some small comfort.
+She came home again after a most wretched day spent in aimless rambling
+over the hopeless black prairie and crept up to the outside platform to
+scan once more that dreary waste towards the endless western horizon.
+Far away towards the north-west she saw a band of horsemen huddled
+together and moving rapidly in an easterly direction. Olive’s heart
+stood still with terror. Oh! who were they? And why were they riding
+rapidly? Men rode in bands to funerals, but then they went slowly: they
+rode fast only when out on a man-hunt. She did not call up Napoleon
+Pompey, although he could see like a hawk; she dreaded to hear what his
+explanation would be. She watched with straining eyes until the men had
+disappeared within the belt of timber that marked the course of the
+Creek, then she came downstairs with her miserable discovery hidden in
+her heart.
+
+The next day dragged slowly by, Olive feeling more and more wretched and
+anxious each moment, and longing for Ezra’s return. Napoleon Pompey did
+nothing but speculate about the horse-thief and the probabilities of his
+capture. He regaled Olive with accounts of the numbers of men out on the
+hunt, the desperate character of their courage, and the murderous
+accuracy of their aim with revolvers. Sick at heart she had to listen to
+him and try and collect her terrified senses in order to make occasional
+comments and replies. Again she hid herself away from her neighbours and
+spent most of the day in a corn-stack, not two hundred yards from the
+house, whence she could see plainly without being seen. Uncle David came
+and stayed so long waiting for her, that she nearly smothered in the
+corn-stack before he went away, and she was able to come out and catch a
+breath of fresh air. Then Aunt Ruby came and peered all about
+everywhere, even down into the cellar, and stayed a good while there
+examining Olive’s milkpans, until Olive bethought herself of the device
+of sending off Diana to hasten Aunt Ruby’s exit from the cellar. This
+device succeeded: Aunt Ruby was so dismayed at seeing that redoubtable
+puppy lolloping up to her that she incontinently fled, and Olive emerged
+once more from the suffocation of the corn-stack.
+
+Mary Winkle came twice, fortunately without Willette, for that astute
+young person would instantly have discovered Olive, owing to the
+pertinacious company of Diana. A dog does not hang around a corn-stack
+the live-long day unless there is something interesting inside it
+claiming attention. Olive began to feel like a hunted criminal herself.
+
+Napoleon Pompey had been sent away in the morning to look for some young
+cattle that had not been seen since the fire, and having to go on foot
+he did not come back till the afternoon. He burst in upon her with these
+appalling words:
+
+“Dey’s done cotch him!”
+
+“Who told you?” asked Olive, not pretending any miscomprehension of what
+was only too plain to her mind.
+
+“Ole nigger seed ’em. Dey bringin’ him back. Ole man Cotterell he de
+hoss-thief, him ridin’ Queen Katharine when dey cotch him. Nigger tole
+me he seed ’em yonder.”
+
+“Have they shot him?” asked Olive with white lips.
+
+“No, dey’s gwine ter jury-try him, den dey hang him ’cause he done stole
+hoss and he kill ole Mill’s Jake.” Napoleon Pompey licked his lips and
+grinned. Olive turned from him in horror.
+
+“Where have they taken him to?”
+
+“Dunno. Nigger he ’lowed dey gwine ter Jacksonville.”
+
+Olive made up her mind and took her resolution. She questioned Napoleon
+Pompey very carefully, found exactly what negro it was from whom he had
+obtained his information concerning the capture of Cotterell. He worked
+with the Halls who lived over the other side of Cotton Wood Creek, and
+she made minute inquiries as to how to reach their house. Then she told
+the boy to give Rebel a double feed of corn and to bring in the new
+lariat-rope and mallet and pin. Rebel had been removed back to his own
+stable by Brother Wright’s desire, as he had no belief now in Pluto as a
+watch-dog. Napoleon Pompey was open-mouthed with wonder at Olive’s
+directions about the horse, and asked “whar she gwine?” She told him to
+do as she bid him and to say nothing to anybody about it, whereat he was
+still more open-mouthed. Olive got a large shawl and rolled it up into a
+tight bundle, and then dressed herself in a strong serviceable stuff
+dress and went to supper with Napoleon Pompey, to whom she never spoke a
+single word. When supper was over she sent him down to his mother to ask
+her to bake a pumpkin-pie for her. Napoleon Pompey said he would go
+“fust thing in de mornin’,” and she told him sternly to go at once and
+do as he was bid. When Napoleon Pompey came back Olive was gone, and so
+was Rebel, with lariat-rope picket-pin and mallet, and so was her
+tightly rolled shawl.
+
+Perfection City had further cause for amazement and hurried meeting in
+Assembly.
+
+Olive, meanwhile, was riding fast towards Cotton Wood Creek which she
+reached and crossed by the last shreds of daylight. She stumbled up out
+of the bottom-lands on to the high prairie, then perceiving by the sound
+of Rebel’s hoofs that at last she had struck grass again, for the fire
+had not crossed the Creek, she determined to camp. It was a black night,
+but she knew how to drive her picket and unsaddle her horse blindfold.
+Taking her saddle and shawl out of the circle of Rebel’s night-range,
+she wrapped herself up to wait until daylight should permit her again to
+go forward. She was not in the least frightened, although the prairie
+wolves were yelping in the distance. The nervous terrors that had beset
+her when sitting in her own comfortable little kitchen with her dog at
+her feet, and a stout lad in the room overhead, were quite gone. Yet
+there was enough to frighten a more valiant person than our poor little
+Olive, with her half-defined thoughts and her generous impulses.
+
+What was it she proposed to herself in this expedition? First of all to
+overtake Cotterell and his captors, and then to do what the wit of woman
+could devise to save him from their fury. In her ignorance of prairie
+feelings and ideas she attached no importance to the fact that he would
+have been captured riding the well-known brown mare belonging to
+Perfection City. He would of course explain that she had lent him the
+animal, and that question would at once drop out of the debate. Then the
+terrible one of the shooting of Jake Mills would have to be settled.
+That was what she feared for Cotterell, and that was where her testimony
+and pleading might avail. She knew from his own lips how the fatal
+affray had occurred, and she would be able in some measure, perhaps, to
+counteract the evidence of that wicked lying negro who out of revenge
+was going to swear away Cotterell’s life. Olive hated to do it, but she
+knew she could say things to any western jury that would make it
+difficult for them to admit negro evidence. For once in a way the mighty
+race-prejudice could be relied upon to work for justice, and poor Olive,
+fanatical friend of the negro, had to confess she was glad to have so
+strong a lever to her hand in this dreadful emergency.
+
+Meanwhile the never-ending night wore on. How long, how unutterably long
+are the hours of darkness to them who wait sleeplessly for the dawn! The
+twinkling stars passed over her head, and Olive tried to fix her eyes
+steadily on one or two of them in order to convince herself that they
+really did move after all. Thus staring at the stars, her eyes became
+weary, and the lids dropped slowly over them, and she fell into a
+troubled sleep, haunted with fearsome visions.
+
+She must have slept some little time, for when she awoke the stars had
+certainly changed places and were moreover becoming pale in the first
+grey streaks of morning. Olive awoke shivering with cold and drenched
+with the heavy prairie dew. Her teeth chattered, so she could hear them
+like a piece of broken machinery moving inside her head, while her
+fingers were almost numb. As soon as she could make out Rebel in the
+approaching dawn, she saddled him, and, woman-like, did not forget the
+lariat-rope, picket-pin and mallet, even in the midst of her terrible
+anxiety. She thought of Cotterell in the hands of his foes, and the
+recollection came back to her, like a blow that almost stunned her, that
+this would be the last time he would ever see the sun rise unless she
+hurried to his rescue. The thought spurred her to renewed activity, the
+horror of it drove the chilled blood with a rush to her heart. She
+caught her breath, and then felt hot. She did not shiver any more, and
+her chattering teeth were set in a desperate resolve. She clambered up
+on the horse’s back and set off at a gallop towards that house where she
+would get positive news which would help her to find the lynching-party
+quickly. Ah! merciful God! The lynching-party! She urged Rebel into a
+harder gallop, for the sun was just beginning to appear over the
+horizon, and she could see where she was going. She reached the cabin
+where the Halls lived in due course. They didn’t know her, but they
+invited her to breakfast with prairie courtesy. She saw the negro man
+who had told the news to Napoleon Pompey.
+
+“Yes, he seed ’em totin’ ole man Cotterell back.” There was never any
+doubt in Olive’s mind as to the fact that they had caught him, what she
+wanted to know was the destination of the party. “He ’lowed dey was
+gwine ter Jacksonville, ’cause down yonder was whar dey hang de las’
+man; den dey jury-try him, an’ Jacksonville mighty handy anyhow, dar
+heaps o’ trees dar.”
+
+Olive could not repress a shudder of horror which the negro saw, and so
+did the Halls. She would not stop a moment to eat a bit of breakfast,
+notwithstanding their urgent entreaties, but got directions as to the
+shortest road to Jacksonville and hastened away on her errand of mercy.
+
+Mrs. Hall looking after her rapidly vanishing figure, and remembering
+the look of misery on her face, “reckoned ’twas one o’ them po’ silly
+gals as is cotched by a yaller ’stache. She was powerful sorry for her
+anyhow, she ’peared mos’ broke down an’ sick. She ’lowed if the boys hed
+hung ole man Cotterell when Glover’s gal shot herself ’cause he wouldn’t
+marry her, ’twould hev been a sight better anyhow.” Her husband was of
+opinion that “gals was fules gapin’ a’ter strangers an’ furrin fellers,
+not bein’ content along o’ their nat’ral men-folks as b’longed to ’em,
+app’inted by the hand o’ Providence.”
+
+Olive rode through the hot September day feeling very faint and tired,
+but never for a moment faltering in her determination; and well on in
+the afternoon she came to Jacksonville, a place with two houses standing
+and the stakes for three more stuck into the ground to signify
+possession. There was only one woman in the place along with a flock of
+children. No sign of men anywhere. The woman did not know much about the
+movements of the “boys.” “They hadn’t passed that way at all, but she
+hearn tell they had been out catching a horse-thief and murderer, and
+they had caught him too, a Britisher, she was told, and it was a shame
+those foreigners should be allowed to come to America to steal honest
+folks horses, and true born Americans too, as always worked for every
+cent before they spent it. They had taken him to Union Mills to try him
+and she hoped—well she didn’t want to say anything unbecoming to a
+professing Christian, but wouldn’t Olive come in and eat a bit and rest
+before going further, she didn’t look fit for such hard riding.” Olive,
+feeling sick with disappointment, accepted a morsel of food, and asking
+her way to Union Mills started off. She had come thirty-eight miles
+already, and if she had only known where to go she would have been there
+hours ago. It was nearly twenty miles to Union Mills, she could not hope
+to reach it that night, but she started nevertheless although the sun
+was getting low in the west. The horrid thought kept pressing against
+her heart: was she already too late? But no, she would force it out of
+her mind, and come what might she would never stop until she had done
+her utmost to save him. She therefore pressed forward, but Rebel showed
+signs of giving out. He lay down with her suddenly and tried to roll.
+This would never do. All depended on her horse, if he failed her then
+Cotterell’s last chance of life was gone. She rode slowly, now following
+a prairie track and now riding along side it, because Rebel stumbled in
+the ruts. It got dark, she did not know where she was, but followed the
+track for some time mechanically. A light suddenly showed up on her
+left. Rebel pricked up his ears and turned towards it. After some
+difficulty she reached the door. Could they harbour her for the night?
+She was caught out and could go no further.
+
+“Land o’ Goshen! ’course they could, an’ whar in sin was she gwine that
+time o’ night ’thout nobody, not even a dawg?” Olive said it was a case
+of life and death and she must do it. They were deeply sorry, they fed
+her with corn-bread and bacon, they fed her horse, and were kindness
+itself. The cabin had only one room with a bed in one corner for the man
+and his wife. Olive was desperately tired. The wife said “she’d be
+doggauned sick ’less she went to bed.” So Olive lay down on the bed, and
+the settler’s wife lay down beside her, and the man slept on the floor
+with his head on a pile of corn-shucks. Long before daylight he went out
+and fed her horse. The wife cooked a good breakfast and pressed Olive
+again and again “to scrouge down suthin’ more,” and sent her off with
+many good wishes as to her finding her husband better, who, she was
+sure, ’ud be tickled to death at seeing her.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+                               LYNCH-LAW.
+
+
+Union Mills was full of people, mostly men, and Phillipps’ Store, which
+was the only shop in the place, as well as being the Post-Office, was
+crowded to suffocation. Those who couldn’t get inside stood around the
+door talking loudly as they chewed their tobacco. Inside the talking and
+tobacco-chewing were carried on likewise. A ring of men were sitting on
+barrels and nail-kegs and coils of rope and extemporized chairs of all
+kinds. Of these, twelve arranged together at one side formed the jury,
+and the rest were witnesses and spectators. In their midst stood
+Cotterell. He was not bound or specially guarded in any way, but he was
+unarmed, while pistols hung at the belts of all the other men there.
+Cotterell held his head erect, his eyes looked clear, and his lips were
+firm. A careful observer might have noticed that his nostrils sometimes
+twitched, but his hands were perfectly steady. Yet he was on trial for
+his life, without appeal and without a friend in “the court.” Several of
+the men had asked him questions which he had answered, shortly and
+sharply perhaps, but with a perfectly steady voice.
+
+“I dunno what we’re gwine on talkin’ for,” said a jury man with a twang
+that bespoke Arkansas. “Hain’t it clar this hyar feller, what was wanted
+for the shootin’ o’ Ole Mills’ boy, he’s the same cuss as stole the mare
+from them damned fools up to ’Fection City? He’s got ter be hanged,
+anyhow. I want ter go home. I hain’t a-gwine to stick hyar all day, by
+Gosh!”
+
+“I did not steal the mare,” said Cotterell, his nostrils dilating.
+
+“You hear that,” said the foreman, who sat on a sugar-barrel.
+
+“You was ridin’ her when we come up t’yer,” said one who had been out on
+the hunt.
+
+“I was.”
+
+“How’d yer git her then ’cept by stealin’?”
+
+“She was lent to me by one of the members of the Community,” said
+Cotterell.
+
+“They’s damn fools, I know, but I reckon they hain’t such all-fired damn
+fools as ter give their best hoss ter you,” said the man from Arkansas.
+
+Cotterell’s lips curled with contempt, but he did not speak.
+
+“Look hyar, fellow jury-men,” said one of them who prided himself on the
+accuracy of his language on all occasions. “I’d axe leave ter make a few
+remarks. We were informed by the gentlemen what caught the prisoner that
+they were notified o’ the stealing by one o’ them Perfection City
+fellers. If the horse was lent how is it the owner didn’t know about the
+lending?”
+
+“Yes,” said one of the gentlemen referred to, “ole man Wright, he come
+and tol’ me ’bout the stealin’ o’ the hoss, an’ he ’lowed, on’y it was
+agin his principles, he’d like ter hev been out with the boys. It don’t
+’pear ter my min’ as there was much len’ing ’bout it.”
+
+“This trial, gen’lemen, is all fair and square an’ ’cordin’ to law.
+We’ll settle this p’int ’fore we go further,” said the foreman. “You say
+the horse was lent to you?”
+
+“I do say so emphatically,” replied the prisoner.
+
+“Wal, we’ve got one o’ them ’Fection City fellers to say the hoss was
+stolen, he’ll swear to that, an’ I reckon by their idees he was
+part-owner of it anyhow. Now, that’s the witness agin yer. Who have you
+got to swear yer was lent the horse fair and square?”
+
+“I have had no chance of getting any witness, as you very well know,”
+replied Cotterell.
+
+“Wal, I reckon yo’ hev bin kep’ purty toler’ble close. Anyhow, it shan’t
+be said as we hain’t gi’en yer a good chance. Now, which might be yer
+witness to the len’ing? There hain’t such a damn sight o’ folks up to
+’Fection City as ’ud make yer forget so ready as all that.”
+
+Cotterell hesitated.
+
+“Hain’t yo’ got no tongue? Who lent yer the hoss, I say?” repeated the
+foreman.
+
+“Mrs. Weston,” said Cotterell at last.
+
+“That’s a lie, anyhow,” burst out one of the bystanders.
+
+“It is not a lie, it is the truth,” said Cotterell hotly.
+
+“Wal, now, see hyar. I was over to ole man Weston’s, an’ I seed Mis’
+Weston myself, an’ she tole me she hadn’t sot eyes on yer. Now then?”
+
+It was Owen who spoke, he had been out, as we know, on the first
+hunting-party and was now present as a spectator. He would have been on
+the jury, only it was considered more delicate for him to stand aside,
+considering that he had been out to catch Cotterell, and prairie men are
+punctilious in the observance of all those forms of etiquette with which
+they are familiar. Although not on the jury, Owen was quite free to
+intervene in the trial, he was one of the foremost settlers on the
+prairie. Cotterell looked hard at him as he spoke.
+
+“Did she tell you that herself?” he asked, drawing his eyebrows tightly
+together.
+
+“Yes, she tole me herself,” replied Owen.
+
+“Then I have nothing further to say,” said Cotterell, setting his teeth
+grimly under his moustache. He realised very clearly what he was doing,
+he was throwing away his last chance of life; but his resolution never
+wavered for a moment. The thought flashed through his mind that most
+people would think him a fool to act as he did, risk the certainty of
+death for the sake of a fantastic loyalty to a woman who could never be
+to him anything but the distant friend another man’s wife should be.
+Then came the recollection that no one, not even she for whom he was
+sacrificing his life, would ever know what he had done. There was
+something fantastic surely in all this. Their whole acquaintance had
+been fantastic in a sense: Mr. Perseus was a fancy, but how dangerously
+sweet it had been while it lasted. And now it was over, he would never
+hear the sound of her voice again nor feel the touch of her little hand.
+Poor child! He could well imagine, with that jealous husband of hers,
+how she might have been driven to save herself from his anger by
+declaring she had never seen him. Jealousy was a monster surely, if
+there ever was a monster on this earth. Cotterell almost smiled to
+himself as he thought how once again he would act the part of Perseus to
+the unhappy one and save her by his silence from the monster’s fangs.
+Thoughts such as these swept through his mind as he stood facing the
+jury, while they were somewhat nonplussed as to their future proceedings
+owing to his determination not to say anything further. It appeared
+almost indecent to hang a man who would not argue out the points with
+them: they had never met such a one before.
+
+“There’s a gal hyar a-wantin’ ter come in,” said one of the men who was
+standing just outside the door.
+
+“Keep her hout,” said one of the jury. “We hain’t agoin’ ter hev any
+women a screech-owlin’ hyar. It’s one o’ his gals as he’s lef’ to die
+maybe of a broken heart ’thout the satisfaction o’ bein’ a widder.”
+
+“Let me pass, please,” said an imperious little voice that thrilled
+Cotterell to the heart. “I am one of the witnesses in this trial. I have
+important evidence to give.”
+
+The men fell back and left the passage free. Western men, even armed
+ones, can’t do anything against a woman.
+
+Olive came into the crowded room, Olive dirty, dishevelled,
+travel-stained, her face begrimed with prairie dust, her hair unkempt,
+her dress crumpled and with many a rent in it. Cotterell hardly knew
+her.
+
+“Who mought yer be, miss?” inquired one of the jury.
+
+“I am Mrs. Weston.”
+
+“Whar’s yer husband? Yer hadn’t oughter be hyar a follerin’ this feller
+roun’ the prairie. Tain’t——”
+
+“Shut yer mouth or I’ll send a bullet down yer gullet,” roared the
+foreman, putting his hand to his revolver. “Take a cheer,” he added,
+gallantly offering Olive the sugar-barrel upon which he had been sitting
+in his official capacity.
+
+“No, thank you,” said Olive. “I will stand.” She took her place beside
+Cotterell, but without looking at him or addressing a single word to
+him.
+
+“What are you trying this man for?” she asked, facing the jury
+dauntlessly.
+
+“Wal, mos’ly fur stealin’ yer hoss,” said one of them.
+
+“He didn’t steal it. I myself lent him the horse. It belongs to us,” was
+the reply.
+
+“By Gosh!” exclaimed Owen, “you tole me yerself yer hadn’t sot n’ary an
+eye on him.”
+
+“So I hadn’t when you were there, he did not come until the next day.”
+
+The jury whistled collectively and incredulously.
+
+“Silence!” said the foreman.
+
+“I can now explain,” said Cotterell. “I didn’t go to Mrs. Weston’s house
+until two days after—after Mills’ death——”
+
+“A’ter yer killed him,” corrected Owen.
+
+“And you were there the next day,” concluded Cotterell, not taking any
+notice of the interruption.
+
+“Yes, that is it. Mr. Cotterell came the next evening but one after the
+prairie fire, and I gave him the mare to go away on, because his colt
+broke loose from the bars in the dark.” Olive spoke quite quietly, with
+no trace of excitement beyond a knitting of her pretty eyebrows.
+
+“Wal, I reckon we hain’t got nuthin’ more to do then,” said one of the
+jury-men, getting up from his nail-keg and strapping up his holster.
+
+“There’s the murder too,” objected one, “not as I put it fust noways,
+on’y we might go inter it now, seein’ there hain’t nuthin’ ter be got
+outer the hoss-stealin’ business.”
+
+“Yer hain’t got evidence for the murder case too, has yer?” sneered the
+man who had been so peremptorily silenced by the foreman on his first
+objection to Olive’s presence.
+
+“Only this. You are not non-resistants, are you?”
+
+“We hain’t such blasted fools,” observed the Arkansas man genially.
+
+“Well, then, when this poor Jake Mills in his drunken fury came up and
+fired at Mr. Cotterell, was he or was he not to fire in self-defence,
+according to your ideas and practice?”
+
+“Of course he was,” said the jury in unison.
+
+“Then that is what he did. Jake Mills fired first.”
+
+“Two shots,” said Cotterell in a low voice, but every man in the room
+heard him distinctly.
+
+“That coloured man we saw yesterday swore that Cotterell lay in wait for
+Mills, and fired from under cover as he came up to the house,” said a
+man from Illinois who had not spoken hitherto.
+
+“Wal now,” said the Arkansas man, “I didn’t say nuthin’ ’bout that
+yesterday. Long as it was hoss-stealin’ we knowed whar we was an’ what
+we hed ter do, ’cause we hed the hoss. But this hyar shootin’ business
+hain’t noways the same. Any gen’leman hyar might hev a difference with
+any other gen’leman, an’ ’s long as it were done fair, I don’t see as
+how anyone hes any business to say they shouldn’t settle it with pistols
+or bowie-knives accordin’ to taste. We are all for freedom in this
+country I reckon, an’ that’s how it hes been done in Arkansas often an’
+satisfact’ry.”
+
+“This ain’t Arkansas, an’ we are determined to put a stop to this
+shootin’ round every day,” said the Illinois man firmly. “It ain’t
+respectable and it stops quiet settlers from coming here to take farms.
+We are going to stop it.”
+
+“Then you should have stopped Jake Mills when he went to Mr. Cotterell’s
+and fired at him first,” said Olive quickly.
+
+“There’s somethin’ in that,” said the foreman, whose native gallantry
+led him to side with a pretty woman. “In a trial we hev to consider all
+the p’ints o’ the case. I consider that as for the horse-stealin’, that
+hes mostly broke down under evidence. We must now go into the other
+charge, which is shootin’ Jake Mills, an’ a damned scoundrel he was
+too.”
+
+The jury laughed pleasantly at this sally from the bench, or to speak
+more accurately from the sugar-barrel. Even Cotterell seemed a trifle
+amused, only Olive did not unknit her eyebrows, nor did the hard lines
+around her mouth in the least relax.
+
+“We are in consider’ble difficulty ’bout this here shootin’ case,”
+continued the foreman when the mirth had subsided, “and if I had knowed
+as that was all we was up for tryin’, I don’t reckon we ’ud all on us
+ha’ been here as is now collected together to maintain the rights an’
+freedom o’ our country.”
+
+The jury murmured applause, upon recognising well-known Fourth of July
+phrases, which have perennial power to stir the American breast.
+
+“Why ain’t we agoin’ on with this blamed trial?” asked an impatient jury
+man. “We hev purty nigh lost a whole day’s work a’ready an’ hain’t
+finished nothin’ yit. When we strung up ole Howard for hoss-stealin’ we
+hed the job done clar up afore noon, an’ we could go home to dinner
+comfor’ble.”
+
+Olive gave a faint inarticulate cry and put her hands up to her ears, or
+was it perchance to her neck? Cotterell turned anxiously towards her as
+if she was going to faint, and he would catch her before she fell. She
+steadied herself in an instant and again faced the jury like a tiny
+lioness, small in body but with unconquerable courage.
+
+“Well, gen’lemen, I’m agreeable to proceed with the evidence,” said the
+foreman graciously.
+
+“I was told we had evidence o’ deliberate murder,” said the Illinois
+juror.
+
+“We most on us hearn what the nigger said,” remarked another carelessly,
+“some on us fooled roun’ with that yesterday an’ lost a fair half day’s
+work.”
+
+“Wal, gen’lemen, you could ha’ had the nigger again here to-day, on’y it
+was not considered necessary, as we was mostly of opinion to fin’ a true
+bill on the horse-stealin’ count. We can send for the nigger. He’s mos’
+likely sneakin’ roun’ here. Them niggers is jes’ like buzzards, they can
+scent out where there’s a hangin’,—ahem, gen’lemen, we’ll proceed,” said
+the foreman, suddenly recollecting himself and Olive’s presence barely
+in time.
+
+“I vote for sending for the coloured man,” said the Illinois juror
+firmly. “We’ll confront him with the prisoner.”
+
+“Nigger be damned!” roared the Arkansas man jumping violently off his
+nail-keg. “Yo’ reckon I’m agoin’ ter sit hyar an’ see a white man hanged
+on nigger evidence. No, sir. I won’t stan’ such a insult to my race as
+that. There be some things a man o’ honour won’t stan’ an’ that’s one o’
+them. Thar hain’t no man spryer to light out an’ catch a hoss-thief nor
+I be, an’ I’ll do my dooty in the hangin’ too, an’ hol’ the rope as
+tight as ony o’ yo’all. But I’ll bust up afore I’ll take nigger evidence
+’gin a white man. I reckon there hain’t none o’ yo’ gen’lemen as is
+pertikler sot on that nigger, be yer?”
+
+Olive’s heart gave a bound of joy as the Arkansas juror poured forth his
+torrent of protest. Alas, poor Olive and her high-flown love of the
+black race! She was bound to confess that her best hope for effecting
+the end she was struggling for, lay in the blind race-prejudice of this
+ignorant Southerner.
+
+“I guess we ought to take all the evidence, white or black, that bears
+on the case,” observed he of Illinois.
+
+“If that thar nigger comes inter this hyar room to conten’ with this
+hyar jury an’ give his evidence, I’ll shoot him, ’fore he gits over that
+door-sill, so I will, by God, an’ no man as knows me ever said I went
+back o’ my word in shootin’.”
+
+The Arkansas juror faced them with his black eyes ablaze and his dark
+visage twitching with suppressed fury. He was quivering under the sting
+of what was to him an intolerable insult, and there was nothing he would
+not do to wipe out that insult.
+
+Olive looked at Cotterell for the first time, and as their eyes met he
+was horrified to see the white, drawn expression on her face. He
+attributed it to the very natural womanly fear that she might be
+involved in a promiscuous shooting affray in that crowded room.
+
+“Don’t be alarmed, they will not bring the negro in here,” he said
+soothingly.
+
+“I am not afraid for myself,” she answered, simply and truthfully.
+
+“Wal, gen’lemen,” said the foreman pleasantly. “I reckon we hev finished
+for this spell anyhow. I consider the prisoner hes hed as fair a trial
+as ony man could wish, and I hev on’y ter thank yer all for yer help
+upon this occasion in maintain’ the laws and freedom of our beloved
+country, as belongs to the duty of free-born citizens.”
+
+“Hurrah!” said the jury, with another relapse into Fourth of Julyism.
+
+“We’ve purty nigh lost two whole days’ work ’long o’ this hyar foolin’,”
+observed the Arkansas man angrily. “Them coons up to ’Fection City is
+nat’ral born fools anyhow. Fust they blaze roun’ an’ set us on ter run
+down a hoss-thief fur ’em. Soon as we’ve done cotch him, they sen’ roun’
+a woman to say the hoss was lent. If the blamed critters come to me
+again, reckon I’ll stick to my plough-handles. I’ll not light out for
+them, you bet.” And he immediately walked out of the store followed by
+the entire jury and the foreman.
+
+When the Court broke up, Olive and Cotterell were left alone in the
+store along with Phillipps, the storekeeper. The latter handed Cotterell
+his revolver, which the jury had considerately left for him.
+
+“I suppose I’m a free man,” said Cotterell, with more sign of emotion in
+his manner than he had yet shown.
+
+“Thanks to Mrs. Weston you are free,” said Phillipps.
+
+He turned to Olive, who seemed in a daze, and said, “Shall we go now?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, and they left the store together.
+
+The crowd in the road before the door was already fast dispersing. The
+exciting climax for which they had waited was not to come off, so there
+remained no further inducement to stay. Some straggled into the smithy,
+some went towards the mills, but most of the men were getting their
+horses, putting on saddles, and settling halters and reins. The Arkansas
+man had a waggon and was hitching his horses to it, as Olive, riding on
+Rebel, and Cotterell on Queen Katharine, passed by.
+
+“Be yo’ gwine with him?” asked the Arkansas man, pointing to Olive.
+
+“Yes,” said Olive shortly.
+
+“Wish we’d hanged the damned cuss ’fore she come in,” said the Arkansas
+man regretfully to his companion, who had also been present at the
+trial. “She’s gwine ter ’lope with him, an’ ole man Weston he on’y jes’
+married her las’ spring.”
+
+“Reckon she don’t like ’Fection City idees. Gals mos’ allers likes a
+fightin’ man best, an’ this hyar one is reg’lar downright handsome too.”
+
+“If we’d on’y hed a-hanged him she couldn’t hev run off with the coon,”
+repeated the Arkansas man with conviction, shaking his head sorrowfully
+as he watched the two disappearing among the trees on the South Fork.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+                             OLIVE MISSING.
+
+
+There was dire dismay at Perfection City when the flight of Olive became
+known. Napoleon Pompey informed Madame of it the same evening, but, for
+reasons best known to herself, she did not announce the fact until the
+next morning, when the brethren and sisters flocked to her house to talk
+over this surprising event in all its bearings. The members accounted
+for it in different ways and explained it according to their
+preconceived notions. Madame at once said that she had evidently left
+her husband whom she had never really loved at all.
+
+“I think we must all have noticed how utterly unsuited she was to him
+and how uncongenial. She was no fit companion for a man of Ezra’s mind,”
+said Madame.
+
+“Wal, now,” observed Uncle David, “I think such a purty little gal with
+sweet little kitten-ways was a most congenial companion.”
+
+“Uncle, you don’t understand men. Men with minds and high aspirations
+want a companion capable of sharing their ideas and aims, they don’t
+want a kitten or a plaything.”
+
+“My ’pinion is most men is satisfied with kittens, if they’re as soft
+an’ coaxin’ in their ways as little Ollie is,” replied Uncle David.
+
+“I guess she couldn’t stand the bondage of marriage,” said Mary Winkle.
+“When she first came she was all for being absorbed in her husband, she
+would be Mrs. Weston forsooth, she wanted to sink her individuality. She
+has naturally found out her mistake. I respect her and sympathize with
+her in her efforts to shake off the trammels of custom and make a dash
+for freedom. I dare say we shall soon have her coming back again, having
+resumed her own name, and perhaps ready to lecture on the absurdity of
+women giving up their names on marriage, as if they ceased to exist.
+Marriage under these circumstances becomes a sort of death to a woman.
+It is extinction.”
+
+“’Tain’t no such thing, Sister Mary,” said Uncle David. “It is an
+honourable distinction our forefathers have used, findin’ the same handy
+and convenient. I don’t believe little Ollie has gone a-lecterin’, she
+ain’t that sort o’ gal. I guess she’s jes’ tired an’ lonesome feelin’,
+an’ thought she’d ride out an’ meet Ezry comin’ home.”
+
+“She hasn’t done that, Uncle, for I’ve seen a man from over Jacksonville
+way, and he told me she had been seen the other side of Big Cotton Wood
+Creek, and that she was asking for news of Cotterell,” said Brother
+Wright.
+
+“Then she has gone to him,” said Madame with decision.
+
+“She hain’t neither,” contradicted Uncle David, “you hain’t got no
+business to tell wicked stories like that.”
+
+“She has been carrying on a secret acquaintance with him all the summer.
+I know that, for I surprised them together at the spring some weeks
+ago.”
+
+“She didn’t do nothin’ that was dishonest an’ secret,” said Uncle David
+anxiously. “I ain’t agoin’ ter believe anything ’gin little Ollie. She’s
+a good little gal.”
+
+He wiped his forehead nervously with his large bony hand, and then took
+out his red handkerchief and passed it several times across his face.
+
+“The power of love is strong,” said Madame, looking at him with
+compassion.
+
+“Yes, yes,” he replied quickly, “jes’ what I say, an’ she did love her
+husban’, an’ hain’t done nothin’ wrong.”
+
+“She didn’t love him,” burst out Madame with excitement. “It often
+filled me with anger to see how she took all his love and made no
+return. Everyone saw it.”
+
+“I guess the rest of us didn’t pay so much attention to them and their
+affairs. We had our own,” said Mary Winkle, at which Madame winced.
+
+“You don’t know what her feelin’s was. She loved Ezry, else she wouldn’t
+ha’ married him an’ followed him way out here on this lonesome prairie.
+I ain’t never goin’ to believe wrong o’ little Ollie.” Uncle David’s big
+chest heaved with a sob that would burst out.
+
+Madame placed her hand gently upon his. “The falling of one’s idol has
+always been a grievous sorrow, and has bruised many a loving heart.”
+
+“She wasn’t fit to live here on the prairie,” said Aunt Ruby, wiping her
+spectacles with her big checked handkerchief. “She was too young an’
+purty an’ frolicksome to be here anyhow. Ezry hed ought ter hev kep’ her
+in the East, where she was raised, an’ where she could go to parties,
+an’ put on purty clo’s, an’ dance, an’ so forth. It’s nat’ral for them
+young gals to dance an’ love fin’ry, jes’ as it’s nat’ral for lambs to
+skip an’ play in the sunshine. They is born so, an’ I guess the Lord put
+the right idees into their min’s at the beginnin’. I don’ wan’ ter skip,
+an’ Sister Mary she don’t wan’ ter neither, we hev got ole an’ stiff by
+now; but that chile she did wan’ ter, on’y mos’ likely she didn’t know
+it. Sweet purty little thing, too, she was, it done my eyes good ter
+look at her. She wasn’t fit for ’Fection City, we hain’t got nothin’ for
+young folks as don’t care mos’ly to argy ’bout principles, they loves
+ter be gay. Why, it wasn’t further back nor day ’fore yesterday she come
+ter my house ’long with that pup o’ hern. My stars, didn’t she laugh
+when it took ter scootin’ roun’ ’mong my hens! It done me a heap o’ good
+ter hear her, it was like a silver bell, an’ she hedn’t nothin’ for to
+amuse her. I think it was downright sinful o’ Brother Ezry to take such
+a sweet purty little thing ’way from her proper home.”
+
+Aunt Ruby ended her long speech with the twin-sob to the one that had
+escaped from Uncle David.
+
+“Sister, you’re a downright good woman,” said he gratefully. The two old
+people nodded at each other in complete harmony of affection and
+affliction.
+
+A long day passed over Perfection City, a day without any positive news
+or confirmation of previous rumours. The brethren were full of their
+various theories in regard to Olive’s disappearance, which they found
+necessary to discuss and re-discuss over and over again. All work was at
+a stand-still, for the members congregated at Madame’s house both early
+and late, as they considered she would be the first to get any news from
+the outside world. Without a horse they were practically cut off from
+all communication with the outside, and were entirely dependent on the
+thoughtfulness of such neighbours as might come to bring them news. It
+was in the afternoon of the day of the abortive trial at Union Mills
+that the first authentic tidings reached them. They were talking the
+matter over together for the fiftieth time when Brother Green was seen
+coming very hurriedly from his forge along with a stranger, who waited
+outside the door with an amount of diffidence unusual on the prairie.
+Brother Green’s grimy face wore a look of alarm.
+
+“We’ve got news of them both,” he exclaimed, bursting into the room
+regardless of ceremony, he who was generally the most heedful of the
+little forms of politeness. “She has gone after him, and they’ve gone
+away, and he stole her and said we lent her to him,” said Brother Green
+distractedly.
+
+“Brother, I don’t understand,” said Madame. “Who lent what? And where
+has she gone?”
+
+“I mean Sister Olive—oh! I’m so sorry—poor Brother Ezra!—Sister Olive
+has gone off with Cotterell, and it was he who stole Queen Katharine,
+only it was proved at the trial that she lent her to him.”
+
+Brother Green was too distressed to be a good witness.
+
+“Who told you?” asked Madame.
+
+“Whoever did told a lie,” said Uncle David.
+
+“He’s outside. He was at the trial and has come to tell us about it.”
+
+“Then bring him in,” said Madame.
+
+The stranger entered, looking somewhat abashed. He was truly sorry to be
+the bearer of such bad tidings.
+
+“Young man, before you begin this wicked tale, I charge you think of God
+and tell the truth.” Uncle David stood before him like an avenging
+spirit.
+
+“Sir, excuse him,” said Madame in her sweet voice. “The old man is
+painfully distracted by grief, he does not know what he is saying. You
+have come to bring us definite news, have you not?”
+
+“I’m thund’rin’ sorry, so I am, an’ if we’d ha’ knowed how it would ha’
+ended, the boys ’ud ha’ made sure by bangin’ him fust an’ havin’ the
+trial a’terwards.”
+
+“Are you speaking about Mr. Cotterell? We have not had any news for
+days, so perhaps you will explain it all clearly,” said Madame.
+
+“Yes, wal, when ole man Wright come an’ tole as how yer hoss was stole,
+the boys they ’lowed as you was all such damn—such all-fired pertikler
+folks as didn’t do yer own shootin’, they ’lowed they oughter kinder be
+neighbourly an’ do it for yer. So we sot out to run down the cuss. We
+got word from a teamster from beyond the Creek, he seed a man on a mare
+jes’ like yourn agoin’ toward the border. So we picked up the trail
+right away. He warn’t worth a red cent to hide a trail. He jes’ follered
+straight ahead ’long the road, axin’ his way an’ follerin’ plumb on the
+d’rections. Any fool could ha’ run down such a coon as him. He war
+ridin’ yer brown mare when they come up, an’ he didn’t show fight, jes’
+said he’d stan’ trial, an’ he ’lowed it ’ud be fair. The boys
+calkerlated it wouldn’t be a fair trial ’less they toted him roun’ to
+Union Mills, which are his own post-office, an’ if that ain’t treatin’ a
+man fair nothin’ is. An’ they got a new set o’ men to stan’ jury as what
+cotch him, ’cause mos’ on ’em was that mad for leavin’ the corn-shuckin’
+to run down such a nat’ral born fool, they’d ha’ mos’ likely strung him
+slap up. It war all done fair, we kep’ him down to Phillipps’ store over
+night, an’ I tuk a spell o’ stan’in’ guard. We didn’t sen’ for none o’
+yo’uns, ’cause we knowed yer be all sot agin hangin’, an’ yer can’t have
+a man on a jury who’s sot agin hangin’ when that’s all yer want ter git
+done, can yer? So we was a-tryin’ of him fair, with ole man Strong for
+foreman ’cause he knowed all the forms, as he was out to the hangin’ of
+Howard an’ that thief over to Jacksonville an’ mos’ on ’em. He was
+pertikler to do it all straight ’cordin’ to law, an’ we was gittin’
+’long slick, when Mis’ Weston come an’ bust it all up. She said she lent
+him the hoss, an’ it war hern.”
+
+The narrator stopped to observe the effect of this announcement. He felt
+repaid.
+
+“I don’t believe it,” sobbed Uncle David.
+
+“I hearn her say it,” said the man. His complete enjoyment of the effect
+was marred by the tears of that poor old man.
+
+“We had to let him off, o’ course, for the stealin’, an’ we couldn’t
+hang him for the shootin’ o’ Jake Mills, ’cause some o’ the boys said
+they’d never hang on nigger evidence, an’ we hadn’t none other. Anyhow,
+that nigger he drowned hisself in lies right away, an’ we didn’t lay
+much on what he done tole us, you bet. But we was powerful sorry
+a’terwards when we seen what we’d done. She’s gone off with him plumb.”
+
+“No, no, not that,” said Uncle David, “tain’t so, you didn’t
+un’erstan’.”
+
+“We axed her war she a-gwine with him, an’ she said, ‘yes,’ I hearn her
+say so.”
+
+“She was on’y goin’ home,” said Uncle David tremulously.
+
+“She had not come home half an hour ago,” observed Madame.
+
+“They rode ’long to the South Fork, an’ that don’t lie on her road home
+from Union Mills, do it? I stayed behin’ at the Store, the boys was
+talkin’ if they hadn’t bes’ go right a’ter him an’ shoot him anyhow, but
+we ’lowed he’d ha’ showed fight then, an’ maybe she’d ha’ been killed in
+the shootin’. Yer can’t never say who’ll be hit when everybody’s firin’
+like blazes. I didn’t quit the Mills for a spell, an’ mos’ the boys was
+’ready gone home, an’ they allowed I oughter tell yer we done our best
+for yer.”
+
+They thanked him, and he went his way.
+
+“Somebody has got to tell Brother Ezra, he will be coming home
+to-night,” said the blacksmith, wiping his sleeve across his forehead.
+“Poor Ezra! What a home-coming!”
+
+Brother Green remained silent for a long time, then he spoke again in a
+soft low voice, almost as if he was communing with himself.
+
+“When I laid my young wife in her grave with her babe on her breast,
+fifteen years ago last Midsummer, I thought I had known the greatest
+sorrow possible to the human heart. But my loss was not so great as
+Brother Ezra’s, his cup is filled to the brim, and oh, how bitter! How
+great a power of suffering lies in the human heart!”
+
+“It is through suffering that the heart is purified,” said Madame to him
+in reply.
+
+“Aye, so they say: but some sorts of sorrow may very well embitter.
+People talk of the purifying by sorrow. It seems to me that happiness
+can purify too. We are all sure to get our share of the sorrow in this
+world, it is the happiness that so seldom comes to a man. Brother Ezra
+was happy, is happy, poor man, since he does not yet know of the wreck
+of his home. It was a delight to see him so happy. And she, poor young
+thing, my heart aches for her! She was in my forge the other day, said
+she was lonesome and came to talk. Poor child! We are all to blame. Why
+did we leave her alone? Why didn’t I think of going to see her, instead
+of merely remembering how bright she was in the forge. We should have
+looked after her. Madame, why didn’t you do so? You are the chief.”
+Brother Green’s voice had a stern ring in it, that immensely surprised
+Madame in her self-contained calm.
+
+“I!” she exclaimed hastily. “I had absolutely no control over her, and
+no influence. She was one of the most determined young women I ever
+knew, and the least liable to yield to the judgment of others.”
+
+“No, I don’t think that was her character,” said Brother Green.
+
+“You are taken by the pretty face, like Brother Ezra, and are utterly
+ignorant of the mind within. Men are always like that in regard to a
+pretty woman,” said Madame scornfully.
+
+“Beauty is a great power, no doubt,” admitted Brother Green, “but people
+may err just as widely by judging everything from the prejudiced point
+of view as by yielding too far to favourable impressions.”
+
+“Brother Green,” said Uncle David earnestly, “I’m right glad you’re like
+me, you won’t believe nothin’ ’gainst little Ollie, will you, no more
+than I will?”
+
+“I will hope for the best and that there may be some reasonable
+explanation of her disappearance,” said Brother Green, looking
+compassionately at the piteous old face that scanned his so eagerly for
+some scrap of comfort.
+
+“I don’t see what explanation there can be but the one we have already
+received,” said Madame icily.
+
+“Who will break this sorrowful news to Ezra?” asked Brother Green. “Will
+you do it, Uncle David? You would do it tenderly, as you have faith in
+her still.”
+
+“No, no, I couldn’t bear to see the look o’ death in his eyes, an’ it
+’ud come no matter how I told it, when I came to sayin’ little Ollie was
+gone an’ we didn’t know where.”
+
+“I think perhaps I had best take this painful duty upon myself,”
+suggested Madame.
+
+“Well, after all, maybe you are the best person. But remember to deal
+tenderly with him in his sorrow. You will know what to say to instil
+some hope into his heart,” said Brother Green sadly.
+
+“An’ don’t you tell him she’s gone off with that man Cotterell, for she
+hain’t done no such thing,” said Uncle David anxiously. “You jes’ say we
+don’t know why she went away, an’ kinder hint as you’re expectin’ she’ll
+he home to-morrow or nex’ day. Do you understand?”
+
+Madame told no one what she would say to Ezra, and made no promises as
+to how she would say it.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+                           MADAME’S SYMPATHY.
+
+
+When Madame saw the white covers of the returning waggons creeping
+across the prairie she set out to meet Ezra in order to deliver her
+message to him. Her manner was as quiet and collected as ever, her white
+smooth brow was perfectly unruffled, and her blue eyes were as gentle in
+expression as her friends had ever known them to be. Was her heart in
+reality as calm as her outward appearance would have led the casual
+observer to conclude? No one ever knew what was passing in Madame’s
+mind. Still she must have known that she was about to stab to the heart
+a man upon whose friendship she had seemed to set great value. Having
+reached the slope over Weddell’s Gully, whence she could see that
+blackened field where she had saved Ezra on the night of the fire, she
+sat down and waited until his waggon came up.
+
+“Ah, Madame!” said he cheerily, as he pulled up. “How glad I am to get
+home again! It has seemed such a long four days to me.”
+
+“And to us also,” answered Madame.
+
+“All well, I hope,” said Ezra reaching down his hand in order to help
+her up to the seat beside himself.
+
+“We have had misfortunes at Perfection City. The brown mare has been
+stolen.”
+
+“What! Queen Katharine gone, and our most valuable animal too! That is
+indeed a loss!”
+
+“Just wait a few minutes,” said she, putting her hand on his to stop him
+from giving the signal to the horses to start on again. “I have some
+things to talk about, Ezra. Do you remember that night, not long ago in
+reality, though it seems an age, when I found you lying here on the edge
+of the fire?”
+
+“Is it likely I could ever forget that or who it was came to my rescue?”
+said Ezra warmly.
+
+“I was thinking as you drove up that perhaps it would have been a kinder
+act to have left you to die in your unconsciousness.”
+
+“What’s the matter?” said Ezra, greatly startled by her words.
+
+“I have bad news,” said Madame.
+
+“Is it Olive?” asked Ezra, hoarsely.
+
+“Yes, it is Olive.”
+
+“Is she ill?”
+
+“Worse than that.”
+
+“My God, is my wife dead?” cried Ezra in a stifled whisper.
+
+“Worse than that.”
+
+“There can’t be worse,” said Ezra.
+
+“Yes, there can. She has left you and gone off with Cotterell.”
+
+Ezra threw up his arms and fell backwards. Madame thought for a moment
+or two that he was dying, for an awful blue-purple look passed over his
+face as if his heart had stopped beating. He recovered himself and sat
+up, turned ghastly white, and moved his lips. He was trying to speak,
+but no sound came. At length he gasped,
+
+“Olive, Olive, where is she?”
+
+“We don’t know. Cotterell took the brown mare, the men turned out and
+caught him. Olive disappeared, no one knew where, night before last,
+taking our last horse. There was a sort of lynch-law trial at Union
+Mills, she appeared in the middle of the proceedings and said she gave
+him the horse, and then they went off together and have not since been
+heard of.”
+
+“Olive, Olive, Olive!” Ezra kept moaning as Madame drove him back to his
+deserted home. He seemed dazed and stupefied.
+
+Surely terrible news was never more crudely broken to a sufferer than
+was his bereavement to Ezra Weston, and by that tender and sympathetic
+friend, Madame Morozoff-Smith. Had Uncle David or Brother Green heard
+her, they would have been shocked beyond measure at having entrusted the
+painful embassy to such hands. Not one word of hope or comfort or of
+doubt even, nothing but the bald hideous story in its worst complexion
+thrown at him.
+
+Olive was gone from him—gone with Cotterell!
+
+Yet after having thus dealt him a death-blow, Madame seemed full of pity
+and little acts of personal attention. She helped him out of the waggon,
+brought him into the house, took his hands and washed them, cooled his
+forehead with a wet towel, offered him food, and in short treated him
+much as if he had been a suffering child whom she was tending. At last
+he seemed to recover himself somewhat as she was passing her soft hand
+across his brow.
+
+“You are very good to me,” he said brokenly, “and if I seem to accept
+your kindness unheedingly, forgive me. I am not myself to-night. I don’t
+know what I am doing. Oh, it can’t be!” he suddenly burst out. “She is
+not gone. I shall see her again. She will come back. How do you know she
+has gone with him? I don’t believe it.”
+
+“Poor Ezra, love dies hard, I know. Some of the men asked if she was
+going with him, and she answered distinctly, ‘Yes.’ Then they were
+sorry, they said, they had not hung him before she came up with them.”
+
+“No, I won’t believe it. Something has happened to her. Why should she
+go off with him?” said Ezra distractedly.
+
+“Did you not know that he was repeatedly here to see her, whenever you
+were out of the way?” said Madame, who did not think she was
+exaggerating in any way.
+
+“She told me all that,” answered Ezra nervously, “but she was only
+amused by his talk.”
+
+“No, your love is blind. Dear Ezra, I wish I could soften the blow.
+There is no doubt about it. I saw them once together at the spring, he
+kissed her at parting. It was a man and the woman he loved. I cannot be
+mistaken. Remember he was very handsome and winning in his manners, and
+she was young and pretty.”
+
+“Ah, my sweet little Ollie! My little rose-bud,” cried Ezra, starting to
+his feet. “I’ll go to her, she shall not wander away out of my reach
+without one effort to save her from herself. She was only a child. Why
+didn’t you look after her?” he asked, suddenly facing Madame with an
+angry glance.
+
+“Did you give her into my charge either by word or hint?” returned she,
+somewhat taken aback.
+
+“It was not your fault. Forgive me. I am too distracted to know what I
+say. I remember she refused to go to you. She said she would rather stay
+at home. I tried to urge her, but she would not consent to it,” said
+Ezra in a low voice.
+
+“Ah,” remarked Madame, “very possibly she expected him to come to her
+during your absence.”
+
+“No, no, you shall not say that!” said Ezra in agony. “I cannot bear it.
+She had no such thought. She was as innocent as the flowers, as she
+looked at me with her sweet eyes. She had no such thought, I know.”
+
+“It is ever thus,” said Madame, coming closer to him and speaking with
+an unwonted tremor in her voice. “Love seems always at cross purposes.
+You give all your love to Olive, who gives all hers to Cotterell.
+Another gives all her love to you. We are equally unhappy.”
+
+Ezra gazed at her in silent amazement as if he were doubting that he had
+understood her.
+
+“Yes,” she went on more calmly in her deep sweet voice. “I am more in
+need of pity than you. Your love has left you, and you grieve, but men
+will give you sympathy. When I lost my love I had to smile and pretend
+delight. I had to look on his joy and hers. You are not called upon to
+congratulate Cotterell on his happiness.”
+
+“Great God, is that you, Madame? Or is it that I am going mad, and is
+this some mocking fiend?” gasped Ezra, starting up.
+
+“Not a mocking fiend, Ezra, but I myself who for once in this world am
+enjoying the rare privilege of telling the truth. Ezra Weston, you are
+not the most unhappy person in Perfection City. I have long enjoyed that
+melancholy pre-eminence. Now in a common misfortune let us comfort one
+another.”
+
+Ezra sat down again and dropped his head in his hands. Occasionally he
+looked at her as she moved about the room putting everything in order.
+It almost seemed as if he was trying to understand who she was and that
+he could hardly do so, his mind was in such a turmoil of grief and
+misery. She laid out two more candles beside those already alight in the
+candle-sticks.
+
+“You will sit up all night,” she said at last. “These candles will last
+half the time, then light the other two. It is hard sitting in the dark
+alone with one’s breaking thoughts. Light the candles and keep them
+burning. That is what I did on the night you left to go to Smyrna to be
+married, and on the night when you brought her home here to Perfection
+City.”
+
+She closed the door and left him alone with those two thoughts. Was it
+her marvellous reading of the human heart which prompted this
+extraordinary woman to declare her love to Ezra in those bold
+uncompromising words on this night of all others in his life? She knew
+that he would sit there in his deserted home, brooding over his lost
+wife, she knew also that every now and then the scorching recollection
+of what she had said would break in upon the brooding thoughts and
+scatter them. This then was the means, the almost unheard-of means, she
+had taken in order to soften the blow that had fallen upon him. He would
+not be able to think of himself as the most unhappy individual in
+Perfection City, because she had claimed that distinction in words which
+he never could forget. It was just as she had foreseen. It repeatedly
+happened during the course of that long and dreadful night that Ezra
+forgot why he was sitting alone in the kitchen, so lost was he in
+amazement at the recollection of the words which Madame had spoken. As
+the hours wore on it seemed to him that they became more and more
+impossible, until he began to think of them as the work of a brain
+unhinged by sorrow. Was it all a hideous dream, and would he awake by
+and bye? The first pair of candles burned out, and he lighted the second
+pair, recalling as he did so what she had said she did when he brought
+Olive home. Ah, Olive, Olive! His heart kept calling out in its misery.
+
+He went into their little private room off the kitchen, in a sort of
+infatuation to see if she might be there. No. All was silent, still,
+deserted. He examined the tiny room minutely, saw the half-withered
+flowers on the table, took them up, and would have kissed them in his
+misery, only his eye lighted on a strange object he had never seen
+before. It was a man’s heavy seal-ring. He picked it up and examined it
+by the light of the candle: a plain gold ring set with a well-cut onyx
+intaglio of a griffin’s head. As he turned it about the light showed
+something-engraved in the inside of the ring. He held the candle nearer
+and read “J. G. C.”
+
+He dropped the ring as if it had been an adder, and fled out of the
+room. As if pursued by furies, he rushed from the house and wandered
+about out of doors. Diana, who since Olive’s departure had been in a
+most miserable frame of mind, followed him about dejectedly, with her
+tail between her legs. Ezra, turning, saw the dog and for one moment
+felt a savage desire to kill it, for Olive had loved the dog and Olive
+had broken his heart. This phase passed, and in a passion of grief and
+despair he stooped and kissed the animal, for Olive had often patted
+Diana’s head, and fondled her long ears. The dog whined in sympathy and
+turned suggestively back to the house. Ezra followed mechanically. He
+would not go into the room where that ring lay, but remained in the
+kitchen. Exhausted nature could stand no more, and towards morning he
+fell into a troubled sleep, with his head resting upon his arms crossed
+on the table. Then in his dreams Olive came back to him in that vivid
+yet unsatisfying way in which our dearest do sometimes return to us,
+seemingly but to mock our grief. Olive was there, standing before him,
+but she looked at him not with her eyes, but with Madame’s. There was
+something terrible in seeing her own expression gone and in its place
+the look of another, and yet it was Olive, and she called on him to
+follow her. He hurried after her with the lead-clogged feet that always
+walk in dreams, and strained to reach her. When he did so, he found
+Madame. Olive and Madame flitted before his fevered fancy, always
+shifting and changing one into another, until he panted with the horror
+of it.
+
+He awoke with a start as the door opened. His half-aroused eyes saw a
+vaguely defined figure in the door-way, blocking out the light of the
+morning.
+
+“Olive,” he said, putting out his hand blindly.
+
+“I have come to cook your breakfast,” said Madame’s soft smooth voice.
+
+“Don’t. I can’t eat it,” said Ezra, falling back into despair.
+
+“Life must go on, even when all joy is banished from it,” she said. “We
+have each one of us to learn that lesson, friend Ezra.”
+
+She began deftly enough to light the fire and make the necessary
+preparations for breakfast. Madame knew how to do the ordinary
+house-work that falls to woman’s lot, only she did not choose to do it
+in her own home. Therefore she employed Lucinda for this purpose, until
+other and stronger motives arose which prompted her to undertake the
+work herself. The habit of every day life is strong, and when Ezra saw
+Madame getting breakfast ready, as a matter of course he arose and got
+himself ready, by changing his clothes and generally performing the
+necessary preliminaries to the morning meal. He was less wild and
+hollow-eyed after this ceremony, but the extraordinary drawn and aged
+look on his face seemed only the more marked.
+
+Madame cooked an omelette with scraps of savoury dried beef in it, and
+after the first mouthful Ezra was obliged to admit that he relished the
+food. He could not go on living on his grief, as Madame said. She sat
+with him and took her breakfast also. Napoleon Pompey, who would have
+been in the way, was relegated to the society of his mother, who divided
+her emotions between maternal anger at boyish shortcomings and maternal
+love for the short-comer, both of which were expressed with the exalted
+vehemence customary to the negro nature.
+
+“I shall come each day and cook your food for you. I have often longed
+to be able to do something for you, Ezra. Do not forbid my coming. I
+have had so little joy in my life,” said Madame, with a strange humility
+of manner totally at variance with her usual character, which was almost
+domineering, one might say. Ezra looked at her in a troubled sort of
+way. It soothed him to have her there, and he was glad that somebody,
+that anybody, could take an interest in him. Still there came across his
+mind flashes of doubt as to what this interest meant. He could not
+forget those words that Madame had used on the evening before. No man
+who had ever heard such words from a woman’s lips, if ever man did hear
+them under similar circumstances, would ever again be able to drive them
+from his memory, but in his bruised and suffering state Ezra was content
+to drift on and let things rest. So Madame came daily to his house and
+cooked his food and saw that he ate something at each meal.
+
+Uncle David and the brethren came to see him, but that gave him no
+comfort. He shrank from their sympathy, expressed with kindness, but
+each word was like a drop of molten lead upon a raw wound. Willette was
+perhaps the only one who gave him real consolation in this awful time.
+
+“I say,” remarked the child, in a clear voice and without a trace of
+embarrassment, “Sister Ollie’s gone an’ lost herself down there in the
+bush, I reckon. She was ’bout the greenest hand at keepin’ to the Pole
+Star ever I see. You could throw her out o’ her direction quicker nor
+nothin’. I guess she headed plumb for the Missouri border when she come
+’long with Cotterell to show him out o’ Union Mills. Guess she’ll ride
+’bout down to Saint Jo ’fore she knows she’s headin’ wrong. I wouldn’t
+’spect her back ’fore a fortnight.” Willette laughed pleasantly, and
+poor Ezra derived some comfort from the preposterous convictions of the
+child and her unshakable belief in Olive.
+
+He went to Union Mills to make some inquiries about his lost wife, and
+met there the same story that Madame had already told, but the story was
+so brutally hurled at him he could not bear it, and came home bruised
+and stricken, his heart bleeding tears of agony. Instinctively he went
+to Madame for comfort.
+
+“Ezra, perhaps this terrible trial was needed to purify us all, to make
+us all more perfect communists. I can discern a valuable lesson that may
+be of profit to the brethren. I begin to think that after all marriage
+is selfish: perfect love alone is unselfish. You would not have kept
+Olive beside you by force, if her heart had gone from you, would you?”
+
+“I thought our marriage was for life.”
+
+“Yes, but she made a mistake as to her feelings; she found she loved
+someone else better. It was wise of her, after all, to break the bond.
+It would only have galled you both.”
+
+“I should have been content if she had only let me love her,” said Ezra.
+
+“Ah yes, I know that feeling but too well,” said Madame, bringing his
+mind with a shock to the thought that she never long allowed to sleep.
+
+“It is a terrible world,” said Ezra beginning to realize what a spell
+she was weaving around him.
+
+“It rests with ourselves to make it easier in the only way,” replied
+Madame.
+
+Uncle David took up a firm position of his own and refused to listen to
+anybody or anything.
+
+“I hain’t agoin’ to b’lieve nothin’ ’gin little Ollie,” he announced. “I
+don’t care ’bout proofs an’ things. Land! If I b’lieved in proofs there
+hain’t no sort o’ foolishness I shouldn’t be up to. I b’lieve in
+pussons.”
+
+That was his position, and he stuck to it with unswerving fidelity. He
+was happy in his blind faith, and no one tried to shake it. The old man
+then began a strange sort of hunt after Olive. He would sit all day long
+at the forge, where, of course, strangers were most likely to pass, and
+to each he would put questions about the “little gal” he was so
+pathetically seeking. He spoke little, he who used to be so chatty, but
+sat hour after hour in silent patient expectation of the return of his
+loved one. The brethren began to think he must be losing his wits from
+sorrow, poor old man!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+                              THE MESSAGE.
+
+
+A long weary fortnight had passed since the day when Ezra came home to
+find his wife gone. Life went on at Perfection City much the same as
+before, although to him it seemed as if the Universe was out of gear. He
+took no part or interest in the daily affairs of the Community, never
+coming to the Assembly or consulting with the brethren upon any matters.
+He withdrew himself from the companionship of his fellows, and only that
+Madame continued to come to his house every day in order to cook his
+dinner and sit with him while he ate it, he would have been absolutely
+alone. Ezra acquiesced in her devotion, and dared not ask himself how
+the debt was to be repaid that she was piling up against him. The
+Pioneers, who during the past fortnight had revelled in a perfect
+carnival of gossip, felt themselves at liberty to express an opinion
+upon this new development of the drama that was being acted in their
+midst. Sister Carpenter said to Sister Winkle that she thought there
+ought to be a period of mourning allowed, however brief, between first
+and second marriage, and that Brother Ezra hadn’t ought to go a-courting
+so soon. She did not know that it was Madame who did the courting in
+that strange, forward, imperial way that we must suppose the Empress
+Katharine affected. Uncle David, whom love for Olive had rendered
+extremely keen-sighted as to what was going on, evinced very great
+displeasure. Madame had no right to try and make Ezra’s home happy, and
+he told her so in language of unmistakable import. She was angry to a
+degree that terrified him, and he shrank back alarmed beyond measure at
+the wrath which he had provoked.
+
+“Yes, I know, you want Ezra’s life to be wrecked by that vain, selfish
+little hussy who never cared for him, and who went off with the first
+gallant that beckoned to her. Ezra’s life shall not be wrecked, mine
+shall be expended in drawing it into a haven of rest. Olive is not
+worthy of tying the latchet of his shoe. I hope she will be cast off by
+her lover, and left to sink amid the mud and mire of such as she. I hate
+her!”
+
+Uncle David was frightened and crept away to Brother Green, where he sat
+hour after hour mournfully watching the fire. It was on one of these
+days when he was in the forge that a young negro on a raw-boned Indian
+pony rode up to Madame, who was on the point of starting for her daily
+expedition to Ezra’s, and inquired “whar ole man Weston lived,” as he
+had a message for him. Instead of answering directly, Madame endeavoured
+to find out what the boy wanted of Ezra. The little darkie thereupon
+produced a scrap of crumpled paper from the recesses of his ragged shirt
+and informed Madame he wanted to give him “dat ar’.” Madame took the
+paper, opened it, and gave a gasp. Then in a moment she recovered
+herself with an effort, and assured the negro it was all right, and that
+she would see to it. She made most particular inquiries as to where he
+lived, and then sent him off, happy with a piece of corn-bread and a
+dollar for himself.
+
+Having thus got rid of the negro lad, Madame proceeded on her way to
+Ezra’s house in order to perform her daily task there. She seemed
+strangely excited, and her blue eyes glittered like sapphires. Her whole
+bearing was that of a person labouring under intense excitement, all
+traces of which she was endeavouring to conceal. Her very voice had a
+new ring in it as she talked with Ezra, and her breath came quick and
+fast. Had his senses been less dulled by suffering, he could not have
+failed to notice the change in her, notwithstanding her efforts at
+concealment. He was sitting, looking with unseeing eyes across the
+vacant cornfield, when suddenly she spoke.
+
+“Ezra, let us go away from this place. Let us leave all the
+recollections of Perfection City behind us, and begin life afresh.”
+
+He turned his eyes upon her with a slow questioning look, showing how
+far away had been his thoughts at the moment.
+
+“How can we leave this place? There is too much money and too much
+labour sunk in it for us all to leave and go to some other spot.”
+
+“Not all, dear friend, only you and I,” said Madame, in her caressing
+voice.
+
+Ezra started. “That is even more impossible,” he said, in great
+agitation.
+
+“Why impossible? I have money. It will more than suffice for all our
+needs, nay, it will give us all the luxuries we can sigh for.”
+
+“It is not that, but you forget——”
+
+“No, Ezra, I don’t forget, but I want you to forget. I want you to draw
+a wet sponge over the recollection of the past and begin anew. It is not
+too late.”
+
+“You don’t know what you are saying, Madame. You cannot mean it.”
+
+“I do mean it, and I know what it means. You have no tie——”
+
+Ezra shivered.
+
+“Neither have I. We are both free to make our lives what we list.”
+
+“You mistake, we are both tied by all our past lives, and with bonds
+that may not be lightly broken. We are tied by our own feelings as well
+as by the good opinion of the world at large.”
+
+Madame snapped her fingers with scorn.
+
+“That for the world at large and its opinions. Do you remember what I
+told you about my father and my birth? Thank God, I have no name to
+lose.”
+
+“I cannot do less than tell you the truth,” said Ezra in great distress.
+“Wherever I went my heart would remain here, where I have known true
+happiness, and it will always be looking for my lost one to come back to
+me.”
+
+“She won’t come back till Cotterell is tired of her,” said Madame
+brutally. “Will you be grateful for his cast-off mistress?”
+
+“Stop,” said Ezra, putting his hand quickly before her lips, “you must
+not speak so of her to me.”
+
+“Fool that I am!” muttered Madame under her breath. She turned from him
+with a gesture of anger.
+
+“Oh, forgive me,” exclaimed Ezra, seeing and feeling what the expression
+meant. “Never was man so miserable, never was one so unhappily placed. I
+owe you more than words can say, I owe you my best thoughts, I owe you
+my very life itself. I would willingly give you my life——”
+
+“Then why not give it and come with me?” burst out Madame. “Leave all
+this misery behind you, I will make your path as smooth as heart could
+wish. Come.”
+
+“My heart can never follow any other path, it will dwell amid the ruins
+of its former happiness. Do not speak again of this. Let us remain
+friends as before.”
+
+“It can never be again as it was before,” said Madame with heaving
+bosom.
+
+“Why not?” asked Ezra. “I have not much else left in life.”
+
+“Why not,” repeated Madame in scorn. “You ask me why not! Would you care
+for Olive’s friendship when all her love was given to Cotterell?”
+
+“Stop,” cried Ezra, and this time there was a ring of anger in his
+voice. “Even you may presume too far. Do not again speak that name to
+me.”
+
+There is something untamed and untameable in the Russian nature which
+now and then comes to the surface and drives an excited Muscovite into
+acts seemingly at variance with the highly cultivated standard to which
+he aspires. The phenomenon may by the learned be attributed to a sudden
+reversion to the ancestral Asiatic savage. Madame was at this moment
+rapidly going back to the state of furious anger, when all sense of
+dignity would be lost. She was reverting to the Asiatic. And under the
+influence of her passion her physical appearance changed, her eyes
+became narrow slanting openings emitting sparks of steel-blue flame, her
+full red lips were drawn tightly over her teeth. She hissed out her
+words.
+
+“Does her image still come between us?”
+
+“It does come between us,” said Ezra looking almost as white as she did.
+“Her image will always come between me and every other woman on the
+whole earth, blotting out every other image and making me only hers. Oh,
+Olive! Oh, my wife!”
+
+He gave a great sob of agony.
+
+“Besotted fool!” burst from Madame’s colourless lips, “do you hold this
+language to me? You scorn me and my love! Then on your own head be the
+consequences. Ah, now nothing shall stop me. An angel from heaven, no,
+nor God Himself shall stand between me and my revenge. Ezra Weston,
+farewell!”
+
+She left the room, shutting the door upon him and his misery. Unhappy
+man! His world seemed crumbling beneath his feet. He had lost his wife,
+and now his friend, the one whom he most revered, had cast him out from
+her regard. What could he do? His heart answered, nothing but dumbly
+suffer in the deserted home where he was left alone. What a black and
+barren waste was his life! And how fair and smiling it had looked a few
+short weeks ago! It was as if a devastating fire had passed over him
+leaving his heart like the desolated prairie, black and hopeless.
+
+Madame went away alone for one day, no one knew whither, and came back
+with a look on her face that struck terror into all who saw her. Her
+smooth white face looked cruel and pitiless, and the gleam from her eyes
+reminded one of cold steel. Her soft hands sometimes closed on their own
+pink palms with a spasmodic clutch, as if she had the throat of an enemy
+between their cruel grasp and was crushing the life out of him. A cold
+dreadful face, a cruel sickening look that made Napoleon Pompey and
+Uncle David shiver within their souls, and caused the brethren to draw
+away affrighted from their once beloved leader. Perfection City was the
+abode of wretchedness. The Academy never opened its doors to the
+assembled Pioneers, who were afraid to come near Madame’s house. Each
+lived by himself, looking askance at his neighbour, for over all had
+fallen a spirit of suspicion. Only Brother Huntley, the deaf brother,
+and his mute wife were happy, working on contentedly, shielded by their
+misfortune from the full knowledge of the disasters that had come upon
+the Community.
+
+The days dragged miserably by, seemingly endowed with a miraculous
+length of hours, for the sufferings of a life-time were compressed into
+that hideous fortnight. The glaring sun blazing down upon the blackened
+prairie seemed to Ezra to have become no unfitting symbol of hell. The
+light was hateful, darkness, eternal darkness would have been a relief
+to his brain. Could it be possible that he was going to live his life
+out in a realized purgatory? He was young, only twenty-five, and if his
+life was to stretch even to the average span of human existence, what an
+eternity of suffering lay before him! A brokenhearted man amid the ruins
+of his broken life.
+
+It was on one of these days of utter black despair, like the days that
+had gone before and the days that were still to come, that the same
+ragged negro boy on the straggly Indian pony, who once before had made
+his appearance at Perfection City, was seen skulking around the old land
+near Weddell’s Gully. He seemed to want to see without being seen. By
+and bye Napoleon Pompey chanced that way and of course pounced upon him
+with the universal query of “whar he gwine?” The boy after some
+hesitation made it clear that he had come on a secret mission. He wanted
+to find Uncle David without being seen by anyone else, especially not by
+the white-faced lady, Madame, of whom he stood in shivering dread.
+Napoleon Pompey, sympathising with the dread, volunteered to take a
+letter to Uncle David without fear of detection. Thereupon the darkie
+delivered over to him a scrap of newspaper upon which was written a
+scrawl with the burnt end of a stick, and having done so galloped off on
+his straggly pony with a whoop of delight, as one who had escaped
+dreadful peril. Napoleon Pompey, finding it difficult to deliver his
+embassy to Uncle David undetected, gave the curious missive to Ezra with
+intimations that it was to be put into Uncle David’s hands right away.
+
+Ezra took the scrap of paper, saying there must be some letter inside,
+and mechanically unfolded it, when the hoarse scream that he uttered
+almost made Napoleon Pompey jump through the window.
+
+“Where did you get this?” he panted.
+
+“Darkie gin it ter me jes’ while back.”
+
+“Who gave it? What was his name? Where did he live? Who sent him here?”
+asked Ezra in a breath.
+
+“Darkie he didn’t go for to say nuffin, on’y jes’ gin dat ar, an’ tole
+me ter pike to ole Uncle David wid it.”
+
+Ezra darted out of the house and ran like a mad-man to Madame’s and
+burst into the room where she and Uncle David were just sitting down to
+supper. He held out the scrap of paper to the old man and gasped:
+
+“Olive is somewhere!”
+
+“I presume that was already known, and that it can hardly be considered
+news,” said Madame’s cool cutting voice, which brought Ezra somewhat to
+his senses.
+
+“She is somewhere near. She sent a negro boy with this. Read it.” He
+shoved it under Uncle David’s nose.
+
+“I can’t see to read it, read it aloud, let me hear all she says in her
+letter,” said the old man with trembling eagerness.
+
+“It isn’t a letter. It says, ’Uncle come to Olive,’ only those four
+words, nothing else, and just look, scratched with a bit of burnt stick
+on a piece of newspaper! Oh, think of it! Where can she be? Why didn’t
+she write before if she was in trouble? What has happened?”
+
+“Perhaps it is a hoax,” said Madame between her drawn white lips.
+
+“There hain’t in this world a bein’ so lost to all feelin’ as would make
+a joke o’ our sorrow,” said Uncle David. “No, Ezra, that’s writ by our
+little gal. We must go to her. Come ’long, brother.” He put on his hat
+and started cheerfully for the door.
+
+“Where are you going?” asked Madame, in a muffled voice.
+
+“I’m agoin’ to little Ollie.”
+
+“Where is she, do you know?”
+
+“Ezry, don’t you know where we’ve got to go to?”
+
+“I know nothing, except that this scrap of paper has been brought by a
+negro boy.”
+
+Ezra kissed the paper, and Madame’s lips curled in contempt.
+
+“Is it not rather a wild-goose chase to start you know not whither, and
+at this time of the evening too?”
+
+“We can’t wait here after little Ollie’s told us to come,” said Uncle
+David simply.
+
+“Cannot you suggest some plan?” asked Ezra, turning to Madame by force
+of habit.
+
+“Not I,” she replied contemptuously. “Shall you go east, west, north, or
+south? The world lies all before you.”
+
+“Ain’t you glad little Ollie’s found?” asked Uncle David, looking
+wistfully at her.
+
+Madame laughed harshly. They went out of the room together feeling her
+presence insupportable. Just round the corner they came upon Napoleon
+Pompey who was peeping around to see if he could pick up any scraps of
+news. He had divined there was news from Olive, and with the
+inquisitiveness of his race had followed Ezra when he had rushed so
+wildly out of the house.
+
+“D’yer know whar ter go?” he inquired.
+
+“No,” said Ezra. “Can you tell us anything of that negro boy? Do you
+know where he lives?”
+
+“Ask her,” said Napoleon Pompey, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in
+the direction of the door from which they had just emerged.
+
+“Ask who?”
+
+“Madame,” said Napoleon Pompey.
+
+“Does she know?” asked Ezra, amazed.
+
+“I seed dat ar pony hyar afore,” replied Napoleon Pompey.
+
+“Great Heavens!” said Ezra as drops of sweat burst out on his forehead.
+He hurried back to the house with Uncle David. Neither of them spoke a
+word.
+
+“Madame,” said Ezra, as they once more stood in the room, “I have come
+to ask you a question. Do you know where my wife is?”
+
+She looked him unflinchingly in the face and answered:
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“May the Lord forgive you!” said Uncle David, in a voice hardly above a
+whisper, and for some seconds there was a complete silence in the room,
+broken only by the sound of Ezra’s heavy breathing.
+
+“Where is she?” he demanded sternly.
+
+“Go and find her,” was the mocking answer.
+
+Ezra sprang furiously forward, and almost yelled out,
+
+“Tell me at once or——”
+
+“Ay yes,” she said with a steady look, “you will drag the secret out,
+will you?”
+
+She tore open her dress and exposed her snow-white throat.
+
+“See, there it is handy. Take a knife and cut my throat. See if I shall
+flinch. The last gurgle of my blood bubbling up through the wound, shall
+bear a sound of mocking laughter. Strike!”
+
+Ezra turned from her in horror. “She must be mad,” he said to Uncle
+David.
+
+“Not mad now, I have been mad all these months, all these years. Mad to
+love you, mad in loving such a one as you. Now I am sane. Ah, how I hate
+you!”
+
+“This is horrible,” said Ezra, putting his hand before his eyes.
+
+“Horrible, is it? It is the waking from love’s young dream. Ha, ha!”
+
+“Madame, dear child, think of all you have been to us,” said Uncle
+David, reaching his hands out to her imploringly. “You have led us,
+think of all that.”
+
+“I do think of all that. I think of how I found this boy,” she said,
+pointing in scorn to Ezra, “ignorant, unformed, with wild crude
+longings. I think of how I infused light and life into the darkness of
+his mind. How I rose, aye, above myself, in order to lead him up and on.
+I think of all his half-formed longings put into working form and
+endowed with vital power that he might see his thoughts taking shape. I
+made him. He was mine. Then he left me for a few brief weeks. He saw a
+pretty doll’s face with an empty head, and straightway he loves with
+never a thought of me. You ask me to think. I do think of how even this
+I bore, and so great was my love that for his sake I welcomed the doll
+that had stolen my place, and smiled on her. Even this I did and
+remained his friend. She, the doll, attracted by a handsome face, her
+love aroused by the stolen kisses of a yellow moustache, left him. Then
+I was free to love him once more. I laid my heart at his feet. He
+spurned me. All my love was as nothing against the memory of the doll
+who had deserted him. She may die and rot before word of mine shall
+restore her to him.”
+
+Neither Ezra nor Uncle David had attempted to speak while Madame was
+pouring forth the torrent of her bitter words. Ezra felt too overwhelmed
+to say anything, for a moment, in the downfall of so many illusions and
+high hopes, he forgot even Olive. Uncle David was the first to recover
+himself.
+
+“Dear child,” he said, for the first time in his life addressing her as
+one beneath him. “These are wild words you’ve been sayin’. I can’t find
+it in my heart to believe they’re true. You are disappointed, an’ you
+think wrong can be made right by turnin’ things upside down. Tain’t so.
+You’ll have to learn that right an’ wrong can’t change places, nohow you
+fix it. You have still your duty here in the City you’ve founded an’ the
+principles you’ve set up.”
+
+Madame looked at him with glittering eyes.
+
+“Will you hear the truth about Perfection City too? Then listen. It is
+not an experiment in new principles, it is an example of the oldest the
+world has seen—of the folly of a fond woman. I founded Perfection City
+so that he might love the founder. I staked my all on a throw of love’s
+dice, and lost. Women have done it before and will do it again. Some
+fools degrade their body to win a man, I degraded my mind. The
+foundation-stone of Perfection City was my heart, see what will happen
+when it is crushed! Ah, why can we not profit by the experience of our
+elders! My mother warned me, having tried it, never to stake my
+happiness on the love of man. I followed her advice for five-and-thirty
+happy years. Then I saw _him_, and the curse fell.”
+
+She threw up her arms over her head and backed towards the door of her
+own apartment.
+
+“The curse, the curse!” she exclaimed, as she passed through out of
+their sight.
+
+Ezra had a confused feeling that he had just seen someone drowning who
+had reached appealing hands towards heaven as she went under.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+                      OLIVE’S SECOND HOME-COMING.
+
+
+And where was Olive all this time? She and Cotterell rode out of Union
+Mills together, as we have seen, and as was seen by nearly all the men
+who had assembled there that morning in the expectation of seeing him
+hanged. They rode silently among “the boys” getting their horses ready,
+they silently passed among the trees to the south and crossed the ford
+of the Creek. Then Cotterell spoke, pouring forth his words of thanks
+and gratitude to her. He was not ashamed to show that he was deeply
+moved, now that none but Olive could see his emotion. She, on the other
+hand, seemed almost in an unconscious state so little heed did she give
+to his eager words.
+
+“Speak to me, tell me what you wish,” he pleaded very gently, noticing
+her abstraction.
+
+“I want you to go away,” she said slowly. “You are safe from their anger
+for this time, but do not stay here and court danger. This is no place
+for a man like you to live. Go while there is yet time. There is now a
+blood-feud between you and the Mills. They will mark you for vengeance,
+and they are wild bad men.”
+
+“And you?” said Cotterell, looking anxiously at her. “I want to see you
+safely at home. You are ill, I fear.”
+
+“I am all right,” answered Olive wearily. “You must go to the South Fork
+at once. Take the Kansas City stage this very night and go. There is no
+time to be lost.”
+
+“I cannot, and will not,” answered Cotterell. “I must take you home
+first. You look frightfully tired and ill.”
+
+“No, it would be the crudest thing you could do to bring me home. I want
+to go back to Ezra, I am so tired,” said Olive plaintively.
+
+“Must I let you go all by yourself over this lonely prairie? I cannot
+bear the thought of it.”
+
+“I have been two days and one night all by myself out on this lonely
+prairie in order to save you. Please do what I ask. Tie Queen
+Katharine’s rein to Rebel’s bit, they will then go quietly together.”
+
+“Tell me,” said Cotterell breathlessly, “why have you been out all this
+time on the prairie alone?”
+
+“I was following the men who had captured you in order to save you if I
+could.”
+
+“Great Heavens!” he burst out, with his blue eyes aflame. “And you did
+this heroic act because you——”
+
+“I did it because you are an innocent man, and I wanted you to go back
+to your country to live a better life and be a better man than you ever
+had been before.”
+
+The light died out of his eyes. He looked down, his hands trembled as
+they had never trembled when on his trial.
+
+“Your sacrifice shall not have been in vain,” he said in a low voice.
+
+“Then good-bye, and all good blessings attend you.”
+
+She shook hands with him and left him standing at the parting of the
+ways. When she was quite out of sight over the ridge on her way towards
+Cotton Wood Creek, he, with blinding tears streaming down his sun-burnt
+face, turned and walked to the South Fork, caught the Kansas City
+stage-coach and departed out of Olive’s life.
+
+She hardly knew what she was doing she felt so ill. It seemed a relief
+not to have to talk any more, for she found it difficult to keep hold of
+her thoughts, they seemed constantly to be slipping away from her. The
+sun was burning hot, and she had a long way to go, for she had come out
+of Union Mills by the south side instead of the north. Therefore she
+must make a great sweep round to the right in order to reach her home,
+and she must remember that the Creek was only to be safely forded at
+certain places. She rode on and on, feeling the sun hotter and hotter
+and her head heavier and heavier. At last she was so dizzy she could no
+longer see where she was going. Whatever happened she must lie down for
+a few minutes. Somehow she got off her horse and lay down at the side of
+the track she had been following, but whether in sleep or in
+unconsciousness she never knew.
+
+By and by she came to herself again. The horses were both gone! She had
+forgotten to picket them. She did not remember where she was, but
+mechanically stumbled along the road and at length was overtaken by a
+negro woman driving an ox-waggon. She begged of the woman to let her get
+into the waggon and take her home for she felt ill, and the negress,
+struck with pity, declared she would, “fo’ de po’ chile was mos’ sick to
+deaf anyhow.” Olive got into the waggon and knew no more for hours—or
+was it days, or was it weeks? Two nights out in the poisonous prairie
+dew had done their work: she was down with chills and fever, a raving
+panting lunatic, or else a stupid heavy sleeping log, taking no heed of
+day or night or the hours as they flew, only craving water to drink,
+ever more water to drink. By and by she began to have intervals when she
+knew that she was in a strange place with strange black faces around
+her. Then at last her senses returned, and she sent an imploring message
+to Ezra to come to her. In reply had come Madame, stern, fierce-eyed, to
+see her and crush her with the awful news that Ezra was dead. Olive fell
+back into unconsciousness under the blow, she did not know for how long.
+But after weary suffering she awoke again, still in that same strange
+place, still with those black faces around her, kind and pitying, but
+faces she did not know.
+
+Trying feebly to gather up again the threads of her life, she wished to
+send word to the friends at Perfection City that she was still alive.
+The negroes, who were the only inhabitants of the wretched house where
+she was, seemed not to heed her wishes. They refused to take any
+messages, but would not say why. Olive grew stronger, for her young
+vitality exerted itself. She demanded to know why they would not do as
+she wished, but they fled from her questions and left her to her
+suspicions. She tormented them with questions, and at last they said the
+white-faced lady had forbidden them ever to come near her house again,
+and they were afraid: she was a very terrible looking lady when she was
+angry. Then Olive used her powers of persuasion upon the negro lad and
+eventually got him to take her message in spite of what his mother said.
+That was the scrap of paper that had come into Ezra’s hands.
+
+The Pioneers scattered in systematic search for Olive, spreading out in
+all directions in a way that could not fail to be speedily successful.
+Brother Green found her on the second day, while Ezra found the two
+horses which a thrifty settler had impounded in his own fields and was
+unobtrusively working until they should be called for by their owner.
+
+Brother Green was overjoyed at finding Olive and was not so overwhelmed
+at hearing of her long illness as, under different circumstances, he
+might have been. In fact he was almost pleased, for that fact, taken
+together with the negro woman’s graphic account of finding her alone and
+ill on the prairie on the day “o’ de hoss-thief tryin’,” made it clear
+to him that she had never been with Cotterell since she was at the
+abortive trial. She was very weak and languid and took little heed of
+him or his remarks.
+
+“Ezra will be out of his mind with joy,” he said, by way of rousing her
+to some interest, as he was settling her as comfortably as he could in
+the ox-waggon, preparatory to setting out on their return.
+
+“Ezra is dead,” said Olive wearily.
+
+Brother Green stared hard at her. “What crazy fancy is this? Ezra is
+alive and riding over towards Jacksonville at this moment hunting for
+you.”
+
+“She told me he was dead,” said Olive, beginning to cry from the
+revulsion of feeling combined with physical suffering.
+
+“How dared the woman tell such a lie!” exclaimed Brother Green angrily,
+and then after a moment he added more mildly, “Perhaps it was a mere
+mistake, she seems to have been kind to you, but negroes are not a
+truth-telling race.”
+
+“It was not the negro woman, it was Madame,” said Olive in a hushed and
+awe-struck voice.
+
+“Nonsense, you are raving, Sister Olive,” said he sharply.
+
+“She came to me and told me during my illness.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“I can’t tell. I don’t remember when things happened. I was so ill.”
+
+“Then depend upon it, you have fancied this. Fever fancies seem very
+real at times.”
+
+He experienced a certain relief in speaking thus confidently on the
+subject to her.
+
+“The negro woman knows. Ask her who came here and forbade them to bring
+any more messages from me to Perfection City.”
+
+It was singular, considering the way he had spoken, that Brother Green
+did not take this simple means of assuring himself that Olive’s idea was
+the effect of the disordered workings of a fevered brain. But he said
+never a word to the negro woman on the subject, but drove slowly and
+thoughtfully back to Perfection City, with Olive in the ox-waggon, lying
+on a heap of corn-shucks covered with the ragged patch-quilt the woman
+had lent her. It was a long and a weary journey thus creeping back home
+over the blackened prairie. Olive sometimes wondered if she would get
+there alive, and she moaned in her misery. For the rest, Brother Green
+spoke but little. Since assuring Olive of the falseness of her idea that
+Madame had been to see her, he appeared to have lost the cheerfulness he
+had shown upon finding her. Brother Green was thinking of the future of
+Perfection City, and it looked black enough to him. It was no secret
+that Madame had refused to reveal Olive’s whereabouts to her husband,
+and in the light of that circumstance he could foresee nothing but
+strife, ill-will and enmity in Perfection City. How were Olive and
+Madame to meet, and above all how were they to live in harmony for the
+future? These were the thoughts that occupied his mind and kept him
+silent during that long slow drive.
+
+Olive, too, was trying to look into the future, and she shivered with
+dread as she did so. Madame’s pitiless eyes were before her still, but
+Ezra would be there, he would shield her and comfort her, and she could
+rest her head peacefully on his honest breast. Dear Ezra! Why had he not
+come to her when she had sent for him? She hoped he would be there to
+greet her and to save her from that terrible woman, whose colourless
+face in its icy cruelty still haunted her, filling her with a great
+dread. She need not have been so afraid, for when she reached Perfection
+City Madame was gone.
+
+The Pioneers had indeed a life of much inward excitement during these
+days. The return of Olive and the departure of Madame were events almost
+equally calculated to disturb their equanimity as a Community.
+
+Ezra being still away looking for his wife in the wrong direction, there
+was no one to receive her when she got home. Therefore Brother Green
+took her to Sister Mary Winkle’s at once on their arrival. Olive was
+weak, ill, and peevish, she cried with disappointment at not seeing
+Ezra. Sister Mary Winkle administered a stimulant in the way of advice.
+
+“I wouldn’t take on so like a baby, Olive Weston, if I were you. Ezra’ll
+come home probably to-day or to-morrow, and one day more or less ain’t
+much in a life-time.”
+
+Olive dried her eyes with energy.
+
+“Everybody said you had gone off with that man Cotterell, and so we all
+thought too,” observed Sister Winkle conversationally.
+
+“How dare you suggest such a thing to me?” exclaimed Olive, with an
+amount of angry energy surprising in one so weak.
+
+“Well, we had it from the people who saw you go away with him, and who
+heard you say you were going. I don’t see how we could possibly have
+thought other than we did.”
+
+“You must be a wicked woman to think such a thing,” said Olive. Her chin
+began to quiver piteously.
+
+“I am not going to condemn you,” replied Sister Winkle, in a philosophic
+vein. “If you found you preferred him to Ezra I don’t think you would
+have been wrong in showing your preference in an unmistakable manner.
+Marriage is a partnership which either side should be free to dissolve.
+Mistakes are sometimes made in it as in other affairs. Our marriage is
+not a mistake, because Wright and I don’t make mistakes, but other
+people are different, and I don’t see why they should be punished for an
+honest mistake. Marriage should be free. Perfection City was founded on
+freedom. We thought that you had used your right of choice, and since
+you liked Cotterell best had gone with him. We thought that Madame would
+soon marry Ezra, since he was now free, and she had always wanted to.”
+
+Olive sprang from her chair and steadied herself with her trembling
+hands by clutching the back of it.
+
+“Mary Winkle, I hate you,” she said, in a voice choking with emotion.
+“Perfection City is a sinful, wicked place. I wish I had never seen it.
+If I live, and Ezra loves me, I hope he will take me away so I may never
+hear its name again.”
+
+She stamped bravely out of the house under the influence of her anger,
+but her strength did not carry her far, and she sank down upon the
+wood-pile weeping bitterly, unable to walk another step. Sister Mary,
+somewhat disgusted at the way in which her philosophy had been received,
+resolved to let her cool off a little before going out to offer Olive an
+arm to conduct her back into the house. Thus it came about that Olive
+was still sitting weeping on the wood-pile when Uncle David came
+hurrying up, having just heard of her arrival, and close behind him came
+Ezra running like a mad-man. When Olive saw him she started towards her
+husband with outstretched arms, but her weakness overcame her, and she
+would have fallen to the ground only that he was just in time to catch
+her in his arms, where she fell laughing and crying in the most
+incoherent manner imaginable.
+
+“Oh, Ezra, you didn’t believe that wicked story? And you do love me,
+don’t you? And you won’t marry her, and you aren’t dead, are you? Tell
+Mary Winkle you hate her too. And why didn’t you come to me when I sent
+for you?”
+
+Ezra could only kiss her, and pet her, and soothe her in every way while
+Olive kept saying hysterically, “You won’t, will you?” and “You will,
+won’t you?” All of which Ezra promised faithfully to perform. She
+absolutely refused to re-enter Sister Mary Winkle’s house, whereupon the
+latter, somewhat conscience-stricken, offered to send in food for their
+supper at their own house, provided Olive was not told who had sent it.
+The secret was kept, and Olive partook heartily of what otherwise would
+undoubtedly have choked her.
+
+Uncle David hovered over her with anxious love and remorse. “Bless her
+heart, o’ course he didn’t b’lieve nothin’ ’bout her goin’ off. Yer bet
+he didn’t, he knowed it was all right, on’y she was so long a-com-in’
+home he sorter kinder got oneasy, an’ that’s why they went out to fin’
+her, an’ dear, dear, had she been an’ gone an’ got that plaguey ague,
+an’ he not there to see a’ter her, an’ there wasn’t nothin’ like Ayre’s
+Ague Cure for that, an’ he would go right ’long home this minute an’ get
+her some right away.”
+
+Ezra wanted to hear her story, and she told him everything from the
+beginning to the end. When she came to the end and told him of Madame’s
+visit, he shivered and said it must have been delirium, he bade her
+think no more of it and never speak of it again. His mind started back
+from the thoughts such a story raised up before him. He was afraid, and
+looked away from the abyss, terrified at what lay but half hidden there.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+                              CONCLUSION.
+
+
+Madame left Perfection City alone and unattended. No one knew that she
+was going, and no one knew whither she went. Her spirit, however, still
+hovered over the city of her founding and made itself most potently
+felt. She sold all her rights in the place, and since these included the
+land, horses, and implements, as well as most of the houses, the
+Pioneers awoke in early winter to find themselves homeless and
+houseless, cast upon the bleak world again. In a tempest of indignation,
+Sister Mary Winkle and her husband departed out of the place, and after
+them the Carpenters. The going of the Wrights was highly characteristic.
+They had managed to save a waggon and a pair of horses out of the
+general wreck, along with a few of the most primitive household
+necessaries. These, with his wife and daughter, Brother Wright packed
+into his waggon and started for Union Mills. At the store there he
+bought a rifle, a bowie-knife, and a plentiful supply of ammunition. He
+came out of the store looking like a buccaneer ready equipped for
+Central America. Mary Winkle raised her hands in speechless horror.
+
+“I say, pa, be yer goin’ to be a jay-hawker?” asked Willette, grinning
+with delight.
+
+Wright got into the waggon in grim silence.
+
+“What _are_ you going to be?” asked Sister Mary recovering her speech at
+last.
+
+“I’m going to be a man, Mrs. Wright, and not a blamed fool any longer.
+Guess I’ll pre-empt some land near the Cherokee Reservation, and stick
+to it and get the fruits of my toil, anyhow.”
+
+“Your principles——” stammered his wife.
+
+“Damn principles, Mrs. Wright. I’ve had about enough of them. Common
+sense is what I want, and so do you. I guess a spell of that will come
+handy now.”
+
+Thus they journeyed out of sight, but a legend came floating back from
+near the Cherokee lands that at a difficult ford Wright was attacked by
+a couple of robbers, whereupon he took up that new rifle of his and
+fired so uncommonly straight that one man fell into the river, and the
+other ran away.
+
+Brother Green remained at his forge, for blacksmiths were much in
+request on the prairie, and such a one as he was hard to find. The new
+owner of Perfection City offered him good inducements to stay, so he
+stayed. He is still there shoeing horses and mending ploughs. The name
+has been changed to Mountainburg, in order to emphasise the existence of
+the rising ground over Weddell’s Gully. Brother Green is almost the
+oldest inhabitant now, and sometimes he thinks of that far-off English
+village where he was born, and it looks brighter and more beautiful to
+him as the years roll him away from it. He thinks too of the grass-grown
+grave in the church-yard where the jackdaws caw overhead, and it seems
+to him that when his last day’s work shall be done he would rest more
+peacefully beside that mound than in any other spot beneath the broad
+canopy of heaven.
+
+Brother Dummy decided not to leave when the rest of the Pioneers
+scattered. He preferred to stay where he was and rent a bit of land from
+the new owner. By and by he was enabled to buy his bit outright. For
+there came a letter addressed to “The Pioneers of Perfection City” and
+containing a draft for five hundred dollars “for the hire of one horse”
+from an ever grateful friend. And Brother Dummy was given this money by
+the united wish of Olive, Ezra, Brother Green, and Uncle David, the last
+of the Pioneers, because, as they said, he was the only one who didn’t
+know why it had been sent, and he was the only one who had not suffered
+through that episode that had so nearly wrecked their lives.
+
+On a cold winter’s day, when the snow lay in patches on the black
+prairie, Olive and her husband and Uncle David set out from Perfection
+City. She was pale and thin, and looked very ill as she stood leaning
+against the door-way of her dismantled home.
+
+“I wish I could feel sorry at leaving the prairie, but I can’t. I never
+want to see Perfection City again, but I’m sorry for my little home, and
+I would like to see my garden blossom again.” So spoke Olive to Uncle
+David, standing beside her with shawls on his arm.
+
+“Wal, now,” replied he sadly, “we came here full o’ the notion o’
+teachin’ folks things, but it ’pears like as if it wasn’t so much other
+folks out here as needed teachin’ as jes’ our own selves. We hev hed a
+hard lesson to learn, Ollie, my little gal, but I reckon we’ve pretty
+well learned it by now. It mos’ likely comes to the same thing, on’y
+it’s a sight more comfortin’ to human pride to set up as a teacher than
+to sit down as a learner. We was as certain as anything we had a bran’
+new truth to teach to the world, an’ we was goin’ to show ’em how they’d
+been doin’ wrong in everything ’fore we come to set ’em right. We was
+jes’ bustin’ with pride and vanity, that’s what we was. We had foun’ a
+new road to Kingdom Come, we had. ’Twasn’t no road at all, on’y a coon
+track leadin’ into a swamp. Guess we’ll foller the road other folks has
+trod before, an’ if we can fill up a slough or help anyone over the
+rough bits as is scattered plentiful all the way, that’ll do for us.
+Ain’t that your ’pinion, Ezry?”
+
+“Yes, Uncle, we made a mistake. We thought the great thing to do was to
+reform the ways of the world. We forgot that the human heart needed
+reforming first of all,” said Ezra, looking sadly at his poor
+wan-cheeked little wife.
+
+“And if the heart is right it doesn’t matter about the rest, does it,
+dear?” said Olive, looking timidly at him.
+
+He was sad and down-hearted and the eager enthusiasm was gone out of his
+manner. Ezra was much older-looking than he should have been, if life be
+reckoned by solar time alone. He had been aged by a lapse of mental time
+and suffering of which the almanac can take no heed. His wife saw and
+understood how he was, at this moment, realizing the downfall of his
+young hopes and beliefs, that was why he gazed so sadly across the
+desolate fields.
+
+“We take nothing away with us except sad experience,” he said as he
+lifted her into the waggon and drove off.
+
+“And our love, dear, which nothing can ever destroy,” she whispered,
+pressing his hand.
+
+He stooped and kissed her. There were tears in his eyes. But they made a
+mistake. They took something else with them. Something that came tearing
+over the prairie with tongue out and tail stiff-stretched and nose to
+the ground—Diana, who had been turned over to Napoleon Pompey to have
+and to hold, but he could not hold her when she saw the waggon going
+off, therefore he could not have her. She caught them up when they were
+two miles off, and Olive let the dog clamber all over her, regardless of
+wet paws, and lick her face, so delighted were they to meet again.
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
+      spelling.
+ 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
+ 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ 4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67549 ***
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Perfection City, by Adela Orpen</p>

-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and

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-country where you are located before using this eBook.

-</div>

-

-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Perfection City</p>

-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Adela Orpen</p>

-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 3, 2022 [eBook #67549]</p>

-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>

-  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p>

-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERFECTION CITY ***</div>

-

-<div class='tnotes covernote'>

-

-<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class='lg-container-r'>

-  <div class='linegroup'>

-    <div class='group'>

-      <div class='line in4'><strong>Appletons’</strong></div>

-      <div class='line'><strong>Town and Country</strong></div>

-      <div class='line in4'><strong>Library</strong></div>

-    </div>

-    <div class='group'>

-      <div class='line in4'>No. 212</div>

-    </div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='lg-container-l'>

-  <div class='linegroup'>

-    <div class='group'>

-      <div class='line'>PERFECTION CITY</div>

-    </div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='titlepage'>

-

-<div>

-  <h1 class='c001'>PERFECTION CITY</h1>

-</div>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c0'>

-<div class='nf-center c002'>

-    <div>BY</div>

-    <div class='c003'><span class='xlarge'>MRS. ORPEN</span></div>

-    <div class='c003'>AUTHOR OF MARGARETA COLBERG, MR. ADOLF, THE CHRONICLES OF THE SID, ETC.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div  class='figcenter id001'>

-<img src='images/title.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-</div>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c0'>

-  <div class='nf-center'>

-    <div><span class='large'>NEW YORK</span></div>

-    <div><span class='large'>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</span></div>

-    <div><span class='large'>1897</span></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c0'>

-<div class='nf-center c004'>

-    <div><span class='sc'>Copyright, 1897,</span></div>

-    <div><span class='sc'>By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.</span></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS.</h2>

-</div>

-

-<table class='table0'>

-  <tr>

-    <th class='c006'><span class='small'>CHAPTER</span></th>

-    <th class='c007'>&#160;</th>

-    <th class='c008'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></th>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>I.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Home-coming of the bride</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>II.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Uncle David</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_11'>11</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>III.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Sister Mary Winkle</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_21'>21</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>IV.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Madame Morozoff-Smith</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_27'>27</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>V.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Corn planting</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>VI.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Non-resistance</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_54'>54</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>VII.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Willette</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_66'>66</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>VIII.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Mr. Perseus</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_84'>84</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>IX.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>First lessons</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_101'>101</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>X.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Practical communism</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_111'>111</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XI.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>A chance meeting</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_125'>125</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XII.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>The prairie fire</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_141'>141</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XIII.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>The rescue</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_156'>156</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XIV.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Cotterell “wanted”</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_170'>170</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XV.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>In quest of news</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_185'>185</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XVI.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Horse-thieves</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_204'>204</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XVII.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>A life at stake</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_219'>219</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XVIII.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Lynch-law</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_237'>237</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XIX.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Olive missing</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_251'>251</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XX.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Madame’s sympathy</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_263'>263</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XXI.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>The message</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_277'>277</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XXII.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Olive’s second home-coming</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_293'>293</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c006'>XXIII.—</td>

-    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Conclusion</span></td>

-    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_305'>305</a></td>

-  </tr>

-</table>

-

-<div class='chapter ph1'>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c0'>

-<div class='nf-center c004'>

-    <div>PERFECTION CITY.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-</div>

-<div>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER I.<br /> <span class='large'>HOME-COMING OF THE BRIDE.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>“This road isn’t called Perfection Road, is it?”

-she asked jerkily, as she held tight hold of the edge

-of the waggon to prevent herself from being pitched

-head foremost off the seat. She would have laid her

-head against her companion’s shoulder only that it

-was square and hard, and she was afraid of getting

-her temple “stove in,” as the sailors say, by the terrific

-bumps caused by the wheels going over a big

-stone or down into a deep rut. She was a bride, and

-he was bringing her to their new home on the Kansas

-Prairie.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“My poor little pet,” he said tenderly, “it is very

-rough here. We are going down into Cotton Wood

-Creek, and these stones were cast up by the last freshet

-which pretty well washed the road away.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>They plunged headlong into the muddy waters

-of the Creek, and the little bride would have felt

-frightened only that “he” was by her side, for the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>waggon creaked and groaned with the strain, and the

-horses snorted uneasily, feeling their way carefully

-through the rushing torrent. The Creek was safely

-passed, and they slowly toiled up the long hill out of

-the bottom-lands, and pulled up when once more on

-the high prairie.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“There is our home, dearie,” he said, pointing

-with his whip to some scattered houses a couple of

-miles away. And being a bridegroom he kissed her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“So that is Perfection City, is it?” said she, shading

-her eyes with her hand, for the afternoon sun sent

-level rays into her face. “You know, Ezra, it is such

-a funny name, I always feel inclined to laugh when

-I say it. And how I shall ever dare to put it at the

-top of my letters as a real address when I write to

-the girls at the College at Smyrna, is more than I

-know.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then don’t write it,” replied Ezra, a trifle sternly.

-“It will hurt our feelings very much if you laugh

-at it. You know it means a great deal to all of us.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then I’ll never laugh at it,” said the little

-bride.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Which is our house?” she asked a moment later.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The one half way up the slope.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, that is nice. I like looking down across

-things. I shouldn’t like to live in a valley and always

-have to look up, you know.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The large building is the Academy,” said Ezra.

-“That is where we hold our meetings and gather together

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>for all the best purposes of our little community-life.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Is it there that Madame Morozoff-Smith lives?”

-asked his wife.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Her house is the one just opposite.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, that big one! It is quite the largest in the

-village—the City, I mean.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra did not make any reply to this remark. He

-had never realised that Madame’s house was indeed

-the largest in their Community, and now he felt vexed

-that this fact should have been the first his wife noted.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>A small boy with shining black face and shining

-white teeth, along with a yellow puppy, welcomed

-them.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“This is Napoleon Pompey,” said Ezra, with much

-decorum presenting the small darkie who grinned and

-bobbed his head. “And this is Diana,” pointing to

-the puppy that had come up to the bars along with

-the negro. Diana jumped upon her new mistress and

-left two black dust marks on her dress. Dust is

-black in London and on the western prairie, nowhere

-else.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, you dirty dog,” said the little bride, who was

-a very natty body.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You’ll have to get used to dirt in all degrees

-out here, Ollie,” said her husband as he led her to

-the door. She looked like a little girl as she stood

-beside him, for he was tall and angular and long of

-leg. A sloping plank with battens nailed across it

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>led to the door, there were no steps. As the pair entered,

-Napoleon Pompey and Diana took the horses

-and waggon to the stable and began respectively to unharness

-and worry them.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What a dear little house! It is just like a toy!

-And do look at the saws hanging on the walls beside

-the covers of the pots! Oh, won’t it be so nice and

-free living here! I shall feel like an explorer in a

-far country. And how funny to have nail-kegs for

-seats, and oh, you dear old darling!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive jumped up and kissed her big husband.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Things are rough now, dearie,” he said with

-infinite tenderness, looking at her with loving admiration,

-“but by and by we shall have everything very

-nice.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But I think it is just as nice as it can be

-now.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“This is our room,” said he, opening a door to

-the right.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, if you haven’t gone and got a rocking-chair!”

-exclaimed Olive, glancing around the small

-apartment.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I made it for you myself in spare time,” answered

-Ezra, pleased that she had noticed the chair the first

-thing: he had often wondered, when working at that

-rocking-chair, whether she would be pleased with it.

-“You see,” he continued, “we have to work only

-five days a week for the Community. All the rest

-of our time is at our own disposal, and by and by,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>when we are flourishing, four days for the Community

-will suffice.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you like working for other people and not

-being paid?” asked Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I do not consider it as working for other people

-without pay,” replied her husband, with some quickness.

-“We each work for the general good, and if I

-happen to plant corn that someone else will eat, then

-some other member of the Community raises potatoes

-that I shall eat.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“There, there, don’t be cross,” said the little wife,

-noting the flush that had risen to his brow as he spoke.

-“I am sure it is nice, and I shall like it when I

-understand it all. At any rate we shall be very

-happy whatever happens, and I like my dear little

-house, and please, I am very thirsty, can I have a

-drink?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He brought her some water in a tin dipper with

-a long handle, and she did not make a face, but drank

-the water gratefully. She determined in her own mind,

-however, to have a glass tumbler the very next day, but

-she was new to the prairie, and she did not get the

-tumbler the next day, nor the next week, nor for

-many, many long months.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What time are we to have breakfast?” she asked,

-when taking over the household from Napoleon Pompey

-and Diana, who had run the establishment while

-her husband had been to fetch her from Ohio.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yo’ kin eat when yo’ like,” said Napoleon Pompey,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>desiring to be all that was polite to his new mistress.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But I want to know what time you have breakfast?”

-repeated Olive with persistence.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We uns got ter be hout on der lan’ ploughin’

-afore sun-up,” said Napoleon Pompey concisely.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Dear me! Why, that is before six o’clock!” exclaimed

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I calkerlate,” said Napoleon Pompey affably.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra did not want Olive to think she was bound

-to get up and prepare the working-man’s breakfast.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You are not used to that sort of hard work,

-dearie. We can do very well with cold corn-bread.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Of all things the most stoggy and hopelessly uninviting,”

-interrupted his wife. “No, Ezra, I won’t

-have any of the people out here think I am a little

-fool that can’t do any useful work. I have my pride

-as well as other folks. I shall cook your breakfast

-to-morrow and every day afterwards, and I shall cook

-it well, see if I don’t.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am sure of that,” said her husband with the

-confidence of a bridegroom.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The house of which the young bride had just taken

-possession was by no means an ordinary prairie house.

-Far from it. It had pretensions to comfort which the

-true prairie house should never possess, and it lacked

-the few elements of picturesqueness with which the

-genuine article is sometimes endowed. The plan on

-which it was built was of the simplest—the same that

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>children adopt in building their doll’s houses—four

-sides and a sloping roof, all of wood from top to bottom.

-It was not a log-house, which has a few broken

-lines to rest the eye of the beholder and present possibilities

-to the artist, it was a frame house, that is,

-the straightest, stiffest, squarest, most hopelessly unpicturesque

-object that it is possible to imagine, and to

-make matters worse it was painted a glaring white

-from eave to foundation. There was not a broken line

-or a broken tint anywhere to refresh the eye, and

-it stood on the high prairie, as if hurled into a glaring

-world by a Titan’s hand.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The prairie is fertile, and in the eye of a farmer

-may possess the beauty of usefulness, but otherwise it

-is hideous. The long rolling billows of grass present

-no character, while the trees are confined to the river

-valleys where they find refuge from prairie fires, and

-can therefore lead a sufficiently undisturbed existence

-to reach quite a respectable height. A couple of

-small locust trees, not three feet high, were all that

-did duty as shade-giving plants near Olive’s house,

-which accordingly faced the world and its storms entirely

-on its own individual merits. Judged by prairie

-standard the house was “tip-top.” It possessed no

-less than four rooms, while the regular settler’s cabin

-was wont to indulge in only a single comprehensive

-apartment, which was kitchen, parlour and bedroom

-all in one. The two lower rooms were the kitchen,

-which was fairly large, and a smaller one off it, reserved

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>for the private use of the young wife. The

-kitchen looked like a ship’s cabin, only that it had

-more light than usually penetrates into a ship’s cabin.

-In fact it was very light, for there were two large windows,

-one to the north and one to the south, geometrically

-opposite each other. These two windows,

-so exactly facing each other, were fairly typical of the

-house itself, which was the embodiment of mathematical

-accuracy. The building was placed exactly east

-and west, as if it had been a carefully oriented church.

-There was a door on the south side, exactly in the

-middle, and a window on either side of the door, placed

-accurately in the centre of the space left between the

-side of the door and the end of the house. Over these

-two windows were two others exactly one half their

-size, giving light to the loft, and exactly in the centre

-of the roof-ridge was a black stove-pipe.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The average prairie man is a genius in the way

-of doing without things. He can live in a house of

-the smallest dimensions, containing the minimum of

-utensils. In fact, his idea of a house is that it should

-be a miner’s tent solidified into substantiality. The

-miner in a newly-prospected gold-field is a person who

-spends his days in a hole, and has no belongings but

-the clothes on his back and the shovel in his hand.

-He lives on his expectations. The regular prairie settler,

-would arrive in the spring, camp in his waggon,

-stick grains of corn under the sod, and think himself

-lucky if he could raise both the corn and a loghut,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>fourteen by twelve feet, before the cold weather

-set in. Those who have passed through such a severe

-school prune down their requirements. Therefore the

-house to which Ezra Weston brought his little bride

-was rightly considered to be a model of luxury, or in

-prairie phraseology to be “powerful full o’ truck.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The kitchen certainly was full. The stove, black

-and business-like, stood near the partition wall, and

-on it rested a couple of huge iron pots with covers.

-Chairs there were none, as Olive had remarked, but

-boxes and nail-kegs did as well and were useful in

-holding things. There was a large wooden table,

-very strongly made, on one side, and a set of shelves

-in one corner. The walls and ceiling, which were of

-wood closely jointed, added to the ship-like appearance

-of the room, but the presence of two large saws

-and a horse-collar which hung above them made a considerable

-deduction from the nautical character of the

-apartment.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>This model dwelling stood in the midst of a large

-tract of fenced-in land. Part of this was already

-under cultivation and showed a dark purple surface

-to the heavens, betokening newly turned up prairie

-sod full of the natural plant foods stored there for

-thousands of ages. These were now about to be recklessly

-used up by the ordinary system of prairie farming,

-which consisted of taking everything out of the

-land and of putting nothing back into it. A sort of

-road, that is to say a beaten track with deep channels

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>on either side, led from the house to the bars, which

-did duty as gate to the premises. These bars were precisely

-what the name implies, bars of wood lying on

-supports made for them between posts, and they were

-simply let down whenever horses or other animals

-had to pass in or out, and were climbed over by active

-children too lazy to let them down or rather, perhaps,

-too lazy to put them up again.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>On one side of the bars stretching out at an angle

-was an orchard just planted with trees that probably

-would be worth having twenty years hence, and further

-away was another field consisting simply of fenced-in

-prairie grass. The fields, and indeed everything else,

-were square, and every fence that did not run north

-and south, ran east and west. The whole place seemed

-under a despotism of compass and measuring chain.

-Indeed, the prairie itself was under the same iron rule:

-and by the authorities had been plotted out into squares

-of a mile each way called “sections,” of which persons

-could buy of the Government quarter sections or

-multiples of a quarter section at a low rate. Fortunately

-for humanity this conspiracy to turn the world

-into a surveyor’s map was to some extent defeated by

-the rivers and streams, which ran as Heaven and the

-water-sheds decreed, and not as the officials at Washington

-desired. This fact, and this alone, has in some

-measure saved the prairie from the awful fate of mathematical

-damnation.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER II.<br /> <span class='large'>UNCLE DAVID.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>Mrs. Weston was tired and sat down in her rocking-chair

-to rest. Her day’s work was fairly over.

-The breakfast had been ready punctually at half past

-five, and it was well-cooked, as she had boasted it

-would be—corn-bread smoking hot, fried chicken, potatoes,

-flap-jacks and molasses—a meal for a king,

-to say nothing of a working-man and his negro help.

-Ezra and Napoleon Pompey had partaken heartily,

-especially the latter, for he had been living on underdone

-hoe-cake and cold pork. Then they had gone

-off to the ploughing, while Olive had bustled around

-and got forward with her house-work. At eleven

-o’clock she had run up the towel against the shady

-side of the house, a signal easily seen from the distant

-field, and signifying that dinner was ready. They

-had come home, men and horses thoroughly hungry

-and ready for food and rest. Ezra lay on the kitchen

-floor and talked to her while she washed up the dishes.

-And now it was three o’clock, and all the work was

-done. She thought she would read a little. She had

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>several books with her that she had been looking forward

-to reading. So she took up one of them and

-seated herself comfortably in the rocking-chair. The

-door was open and a warm air came in from the south

-along with the gleaming sunshine. Diana lay across

-the door-way, but kept one eye open, so as to see

-when the black hen came near enough to have a spring

-at her with any chance of grabbing a mouthful of tail-feathers.

-Olive’s eyes rested very little on the book,

-but much on the view outside. It looked pleasant

-enough in the bright May sunshine. The long brown

-patch of the garden showed a few methodical green

-lines that spoke of vegetables beginning to sprout.

-The meadow of blue grass just beyond was likewise

-by its hue showing the on-coming of the warm spring

-weather, and yet again further off, on the other side

-of the meadow, lay the vast field which her husband

-was ploughing. Once in every half hour she could

-see him turn at the head-land, and noted how seldom

-he seemed to stop and rest. Napoleon Pompey was

-riding the off leader, and from that distance they

-seemed little insects gently crawling backwards and

-forwards across the land. Pleasant it looked too and

-by no means hard work. Olive determined to go out

-to the field one day soon and watch the process from a

-nearer point of view; she might indeed herself hold

-the plough-handles, it looked easy, she would ask Ezra

-to let her, she would like to learn to do all sorts of

-work so as to be very useful, she would—confused images

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>swept slowly over her mind, she leaned back her

-pretty little head and slept in her chair.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She awoke with a start. A large square figure

-stood in the door-way, blocking out the sunshine, and

-Diana, with the insane friendliness of a puppy, was

-trying to clamber up one of his legs.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, little gal, I reckon you’re ’most tired out,

-ain’t you?” said the big man, coming straight into

-the room.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Mrs. Weston rose to her utmost height of five feet

-two inches, and tried to be dignified.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you wish to see my husband?” she inquired

-stiffly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t want to see Ezry. I come to talk to

-you a spell, and see you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You are very kind I’m sure,” returned the little

-lady icily, but the stranger did not seem one whit

-abashed. He took a nail-keg and sat down on it and

-looked about him. “Wal, now,” he remarked, nodding

-his head, “Ezry is real downright handy. He’s

-gone and got your house fine and fixed up, ain’t he

-now?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is extremely comfortable, Mr.—ah—I don’t

-think you mentioned your name,” said Mrs. Weston,

-with a snap of her black eyes. She didn’t at all relish

-the free and easy way in which this man spoke of her

-husband.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do tell!” exclaimed the stranger with vast cordiality.

-“An’ you didn’t know who I was. Why, I’m

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>Uncle David. I guessed everybody ’ud know me.

-There ain’t nobody else so big and awkward looking

-’bout here on this prairie as me. Why, there was

-a man over to Perfection City yesterday, he come from

-beyond Cotton Wood Creek, and he said he calculated

-I’d be powerful useful on washing days, ’cause if they

-tied the clothes-line to me I’d do instead of a pole,

-an’ timber is mighty scarce anyhow.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Uncle David gave a long loud laugh that set Diana

-into an ecstasy of delight, and was of itself so joyous

-that, after a moment, Olive also joined in with a merry

-titter. She had often heard her husband speak of

-Uncle David, as being one of the kindest and most

-simple-hearted of men. Her frigid manner melted rapidly

-and completely.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, now,” began Uncle David again, after his

-merriment had subsided, “how do you like our

-name?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Your name,” repeated Olive considerably puzzled.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, our name, the name of the Community, Perfection

-City. Do you like it?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t think I do,” replied she.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Jes’ so,” broke in Uncle David, apparently much

-pleased with this answer. “I knew you wouldn’t. Nobody

-does.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why did you call it such a name—such a horrid

-name—and if nobody likes it, what is the use?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“There now, that’s what they all say, until I talk

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>to ’em,” said Uncle David. “You see I gave the name

-to the place.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, it was your choice!” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“When we came here, Niece and I, there wasn’t

-no town nor nothing, it was just open prairie. Ezry

-he come along too with us, and the Carpenters, and

-Mrs. Ruby, and the Wrights.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You leave out Madame Morozoff-Smith,” interrupted

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I thought you knew. Why, Madame, she’s Niece.

-She ain’t my real niece, she wasn’t born in my family,

-but she’s niece by adoption, and I hold she’s more to

-me than half the nieces I ever seen. I ain’t cute like

-most of the folks here, an’ there wasn’t no use in having

-me at Perfection City. I can’t do nothing. I

-can’t compose papers like Brother Wright. So I was

-studyin’ to see some way for me to come with ’em.

-It would ha’ broke my heart to be left behind. Madame,

-she come to me, an’ says she: ‘You’ll be my

-uncle. I want an uncle very much, and I’ll love you

-dearly.’ An’ so I was. I call it the greatest honour

-of my life when Madame made me her uncle, and added

-my name to hers.” Uncle David stooped and patted

-Diana’s head thoughtfully.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“When did you think of the name?” said Olive

-with a view to bringing him back to the point.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, jes’ so, that’s ’xactly what I was comin’ to.

-You see, when Ezry fust come here with us he wasn’t

-quite clear in his mind ’bout joinin’ in with us, leastways

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>not to be one of the Community for his whole

-mortal life. It’s a serious step to take, and he was

-a-doubtin’ in his mind, leastways till Madame she

-talked to him for a spell. He wasn’t sure fust if he’d

-got a call to community-life. He knowed it was the

-best, of course, and the true life: he knowed all that

-right enough, but he didn’t feel sure of himself as bein’

-fit to found a city. It is a most responsible thing to

-be a founder. ’Taint everybody as is fit for it. Then

-Madame made it clear how she was a founder, an’ she

-is the most wonderful woman ever lived in this world,

-an’ she showed Ezry how it was his duty to help in

-this great work, an’ when he saw that clear he was

-dreadful sot on it too. We was a-gettin’ our houses

-up as spry as ever we could, and ole Wright he was

-a-buildin’ th’ Academy, then Ezry says: ‘What’s goin’

-to be our name?’ It was jes’ called Weddell’s Gully,

-’cause we bought from a man o’ that name. So Ezry

-said: ‘Let’s call it something to signify our principles,’

-and one person said one name and one said another,

-then Wright said ‘Let’s call it Teleiopolis.’”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, that sounds very pretty,” exclaimed Olive.

-“Why didn’t you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, now, I said that’s very pretty, jes’ the same

-as you did. What does it mean, do you know?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t know. I suppose it is Greek for

-something.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“’Zactly so. It is Greek for something, and that

-something is Perfection City.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>“It sounds nicer.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Maybe so, but you look here. Are we Greeks?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, of course not.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then why talk in Greek?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t know, except it is prettier.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you suppose them old Greeks, when they went

-an’ founded cities, they called ’em names out o’ some

-other language they didn’t understand, or did they

-called ’em good solid Greek names as any little boy

-’ud know what they meant?” asked Uncle David with

-rising energy.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I believe they called their cities by Greek names,

-in fact I know they did,” said Olive, hastily reviewing

-her stock of history.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“An’ why?” asked Uncle David.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t know.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Because they wasn’t ’shamed o’ their mother

-tongue like we are. That’s why,” said Uncle David,

-clapping his big hand on his knee.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh indeed,” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“An’ that’s what I said, says I, ‘We are ’Mericans,

-we are founding a new city that’s goin’ to be great

-things one day. We have our principles. Let’s live

-up to them. We hain’t shamed o’ nothin’. Leastways

-not to my knowledge. We are goin’ to be an example

-to these folks roun’ here. We are goin’ to show

-’em how to live a better life nor they ever did before.

-An’ how in thunder can we do that if we start by

-being ’shamed of our own mother tongue? We hain’t

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>Greeks, we don’t talk in Greek. This hain’t Teleiopolis,

-this is Perfection City.’ That is what I said to

-’em.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What did they say to that?” asked Olive,

-much interested in the rugged honesty of Uncle

-David.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, I don’t know as they said anything much,

-on’y Ezry, he said he guessed he’d had his fust lesson,

-an’ he come and shook hands an’ said it certainly

-should be Perfection City, an’ so it was.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I shall think better of the name now,” said Olive.

-“Only at first I was afraid of people laughing, people

-who didn’t understand it, you see.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, people’ll laugh,” said Uncle David. “People

-does a heap o’ laughing in this world without makin’

-it one mite merrier for anybody. I like laughing

-myself. It’s awful good an’ satisfyin’ to have a real

-square laugh, but t’aint that sort. Mos’ folks’ laugh

-hain’t got no more fun in it than the laugh of a hoot-owl.

-I’d a heap sight rather have none at all. You

-ain’t agoin’ to mind that sort, I hope?” Uncle David

-spoke with a shade of anxiety in his manner.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh no, I’m not thin-skinned,” said Olive with

-a superior smile.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Some folks is made that way. When they have

-found a tender spot in anybody they can’t rest no

-how till they’ve stuck some sort o’ pin into it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Tell me, does everything belong to everybody

-generally out here? It is so puzzling. This house,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>for instance, is it ours or yours or everybody’s?”

-asked Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The land an’ the horses an’ the cattle an’ waggons

-was mostly bought with community-money, that is

-Madame, she gave the money, she’s rich you know,

-an’ she’s generous and always givin’ to the Community,

-her whole heart is in it. But Ezry worked a heap on

-this house, he mostly built it all, an’ it’s his, an’ t’other

-folks’ houses are theirs. That’s Brother Wright’s over

-yonder, an’ that’s our house beside the ’Cademy, most

-everybody worked to get it up and fix it comfortable for

-Madame. Old Mrs. Ruby, she lives to herself in the

-log cabin we bought from Weddell, we had it moved

-there a purpose over from the Gully, ’cause she liked

-to live beside the spring so as to get her water handy.

-She had a little mite of money which we used in buyin’

-stock.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“So you do have some things as private property,

-just like ordinary people,” observed Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Of course. It would not be any sort o’ use to

-have everything in common, ’cause folks’ notions

-don’t always ’xactly suit. An’ what we want is to

-have everybody free, so they can be perfectly happy

-here. We don’t want to have no strife, an’ no jealousy,

-an’ no ill feeling one towards another. But there

-can’t be community in all things. What sort o’

-use would it be for you an’ me to have community

-o’ boots an’ shoes?” said Uncle David with a great

-laugh, sticking out his enormous foot towards where

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>Olive’s dainty little slipper peeped from beneath her

-dress.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Your shoes, my dear, wouldn’t go on my two

-fingers, an’ mine ’ud be big enough to make a tol’eble

-boat for you. There couldn’t be community in shoes,

-so there ain’t none. But with the lan’ it’s different.

-We all work that for the benefit of everybody, there

-ain’t no strugglin’ to be fust an’ get ahead o’ one another.

-We are all brothers at Perfection City.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was full of excitement when Ezra came back

-at sun-down.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Just fancy, I’ve had my first visitor,” she said

-as she stood beside her husband while he was watering

-the horses.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Who was it? Mrs. Ruby?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, it was Uncle David,” and she gave a merry

-little laugh.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, and how did you like him?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think he is just charming. He is just like a

-piece of granite or oak or something of that sort, not

-smooth or shiny on the outside, but solid and sound

-to the very core. Oh! I shall love Uncle David.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That’s right. He is a good man,” said Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And you know? he has made me understand

-about Perfection City. I shan’t want to laugh at it

-any more, and I don’t care if anybody else does. It

-was real brave of you showing your colours plain and

-sticking to them,” said Olive with a skip and a clap

-of her little hands.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER III.<br /> <span class='large'>SISTER MARY WINKLE.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>The very next morning just as she was washing

-her potatoes for dinner, another visitor called upon

-Olive, a visitor of whose sex she was for a moment

-or two in doubt. The visitor wore a large sunbonnet,

-a check blouse, and a pair of Zouave trowsers fastened

-in at the ankle.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“How do you do, Olive Weston?” said this person,

-in a deep serious voice. Olive, who had not seen

-her, started in surprise and dropped her potato into

-the basin.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am Mary Winkle. That’s my house over yonder.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, the Wrights’! Yes, to be sure. Come in and

-sit down,” said Olive hospitably, although she felt

-considerable surprise at her visitor’s appearance.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You don’t wear the reformed dress yet, I see,”

-said Mary Winkle.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t,” acquiesced Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Shall you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t know. I have not thought about it.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>I suppose there is no regulation about what one wears

-on the prairie. There is no fashion here I suppose,”

-said Olive politely.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, only the fashion of common sense.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do all the ladies dress that way, Miss Winkle?”

-inquired Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Only my daughter and myself.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I beg your pardon, I should have said Mrs. Winkle,”

-said Olive, in some confusion.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, you shouldn’t,” replied her visitor. “I am

-not Mrs. Winkle.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am afraid I am very stupid. Would you tell me

-then how I should address you. I don’t understand.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Address me as Mary Winkle, and my husband

-as John Wright.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive stared at her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Are you not Mrs. Wright then?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not. I scorn the title. It is a

-symbol of subjection. I did not lose my identity when

-I chose to marry. I am the same Mary Winkle that

-I was before, and as such I desire to retain the name

-that I always possessed. Why should I take a new

-name simply because I am married?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is usual,” stammered Olive. “I shouldn’t like

-not to be called Mrs. Weston. It is so confusing, you

-see.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mere custom and prejudice. Why should not

-your husband take your name, instead of its always

-being the wife who is absorbed?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>“I don’t know, but I never heard of it before.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah, that is one of the first changes that must

-be made when women get their rights,” observed Mary

-Winkle.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But I don’t want the change one bit. I much

-prefer the old way.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I dare say. Slaves often feel no want of freedom.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I’m not a slave,” said Olive, flushing angrily.

-“You cannot be in the least acquainted with my husband.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, I know your husband very well, an excellent

-man in many respects, but narrow in others;

-however, I referred to general slavery, to custom, not

-to any individual slavery in your case.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t think there is any good in destroying

-customs, unless there is something better to be got

-in a new custom.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah yes, no doubt it seems so to you; but there

-is inestimable gain in the mere protest against tyranny.

-Why, that’s what we are all here for, to protest

-against everything and live a life of freedom.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And freedom may as well begin here and now,

-and in its name I will wear long dresses and be called

-Mrs. Weston, because I prefer the older customs,”

-said Olive with some archness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, you may do as you like, but you will get

-heartily sick of those skirts, I can tell you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive remembering sundry pretty dresses she had

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>in her trunk, was privately convinced she would not

-get sick of them.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I haven’t seen Madame yet,” she said, “and I

-feel the greatest curiosity about her. She must be

-a remarkable woman by all accounts. Does she wear

-the same sort of dress as you do?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, she doesn’t, and it’s a great pity, for her

-influence would be very great with the other women.

-I suppose you’ll see her to-morrow evening. You’ll

-come to the Academy, won’t you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, certainly, if Ezra is going. I should like to

-go ever so much and see all my neighbours, but perhaps

-he will be too tired. He does work dreadfully

-hard, it seems to me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He ought to do a little brain-work. Wright

-says nothing rests one like brain-work. He’s been

-doing a spell of that lately. He’s been writing an

-essay on ‘The Ultimate Perfection of Being.’ He’ll

-most likely read some of it to-morrow at the Academy.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I shouldn’t think essays would be much use in

-planting corn,” said Olive rather tartly, remembering

-at what hour her husband had come from the harrowing.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wright and I, we don’t believe in making a god

-of work. We have a much higher ideal of life than

-that. We don’t want anything sordid in our lives,

-Wright and I. We haven’t any sympathy with this

-restless striving to get on. One of the great advantages

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>of Perfection City is that we all have time for

-the cultivation of our higher natures.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Just now,” said Olive, “my husband seems to

-have no thought in his mind but the cultivation of

-that field over there. He is at work early and late.

-No person could possibly work harder for himself

-or his individual advantage than he does for the Community.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“There’s just a case in point,” remarked Mary

-Winkle complacently. “I always thought your husband

-very narrow in his views. He slaves away at

-this corn planting as if that were the chief end and

-object of his existence. It is all very well to work

-at times, but working in order to store up food for

-the body is the lowest possible form that human activity

-can take.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is the most indispensable form,” remarked

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“By no means,” replied Mary Winkle with precision.

-“That observation would seem to indicate that

-you are more narrow even than your husband. The

-body is merely the servant of the mind: the mind

-needs to be fed, and it is the food for the mind which

-your husband appears so careless about providing.

-Fortunately for Perfection City, Wright has taken

-thought on that subject. Wright has a very high

-standard of what is necessary for the mind.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It appears to me,” said Olive with a snap of her

-black eyes and an ominous red spot on her cheeks,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>“that if we all lived up to your standard, it might

-very well happen that by next winter our minds might

-be uncomfortably full and our stomachs correspondingly

-empty. If Ezra did not plough and get his land

-ready for planting as fast as mortal man can, how

-is the land to be got ready? It doesn’t plough itself,

-does it, even at Perfection City?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I see you will have to get rid of many prejudices,”

-observed Mary Winkle. “Of course community-life

-only comes easy to people who are adapted to it.

-Wright and I are adapted. We like it. We shall stay

-here. We shall succeed therefore. You and Brother

-Ezra will have to go through a season of training

-first. You both need it. I dare say you may hear

-something that you will find useful to you to-morrow

-from Wright. I will just mention to him where

-your particular blindness seems to lie. Wright is a

-very profound thinker. He has given great thought

-to the subject of the Ultimate Perfection of People.

-He can explain every step in the training of a perfect

-communist, and show clearly just where everybody

-has hitherto gone wrong in their attempts to realize

-their ideal, and exactly what mistakes they have made.

-I am glad you have come in time to hear his paper;

-it will be of lasting good to you. You will be able

-to profit by it, because you are in great need of proper

-training. I dare say you need it more even than Ezra.

-For, after all, he must have learned something from

-us in the year he has been with us.”</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IV.<br /> <span class='large'>MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>The Academy at Perfection City was not a pretentious

-building in anything but in name. It was

-a plain wooden house, almost square, having a window

-on three sides and a door on the fourth, facing south.

-Inside there were several rough benches, two tables,

-an iron stove, and a large easy chair, with a small desk

-beside it, upon which stood a pair of candles. There

-were no curtains and no carpets, absolutely no attempts

-at beautifying the place. But the board-floor

-was clean.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive dressed herself in a flutter of expectation

-for her first visit to this abode of wisdom.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I expect everybody will be there, because they’ll

-all want to see you, little woman,” said her husband,

-who, tired as he was after his day’s work, changed

-his earth-stained clothes for a fresh suit. Olive wore

-a white dress with lavender ribbons, and looked as

-fresh as a daisy as she tripped along daintily holding

-up her skirts. She wore the nattiest of boots over

-the neatest of feet, altogether a bright and unexpected

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>sight upon the glum-looking prairie. It was a quarter

-of a mile to the Academy, down a road hardly

-more than a cart-track, and across a dry gully where

-there were no stepping stones.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>As Ezra had predicted, everybody had turned out

-to welcome the new bride. Uncle David met her at

-the door.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, little girl,” he said, “we’re all a-looking out

-for you. Here’s Sister Mary Winkle, you’ve seen

-her, and this is her husband, Brother Wright.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive shook hands with a dark, broad-shouldered

-man who spoke in snaps as if he had been a dog. He

-had glittering white teeth.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We’ve been looking to have your husband back,”

-he said.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I’m sure you’re very kind,” murmured Olive

-conventionally.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We needed him for the ploughing,” snapped

-Wright.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh indeed!” said Olive less cordially.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“This is the busy time of the year.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“All times a-year is the busy time in my ’pinion

-and ’sperience,” said Uncle David smiling comprehensively,

-“but most everyone spares time one way

-or ’nother to get married if they have a mind that

-way. Come along an’ see Brother and Sister Dummy.

-That ain’t their name, but we call ’em so, they’re

-deaf and mostly dumb now. They’re real good folks

-too.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>A sad-eyed red-haired man shook hands with her,

-and a sad-eyed woman kissed her. They put into

-her hand a slip of paper on which was written a message

-of welcome.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“They can talk a little, but they can’t hear one

-mite, and they don’t like to talk, because they can’t

-tell when they are whispering and when they are

-yelling, and it makes strangers jump to hear them

-sometimes.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive felt drawn towards this poor silent pair, but

-did not know how to express her sympathy. There

-were others in the room, but before she had time to

-speak to them the door opened and Madame Morozoff-Smith

-entered, and from that moment she seemed to

-see no one else. Madame was a remarkable looking

-woman. She was tall, large and fair, with keen grey

-eyes, full red lips, and a mass of pale gold hair rising

-over a forehead that was broad and smooth. A woman

-of indeterminate age with an air of youthfulness and

-command about her. She was dressed in a dark dress

-and wore a bright bunch of ribbons in her hair. It

-looked at first sight like a rose, only roses don’t grow

-on the prairie in the month of May. She came straight

-to where Olive was standing. She gave one the impression

-of floating, for although a large woman, she

-walked so lightly as to make no noticeable sound on

-the wooden floor. Taking Olive’s two hands in her

-warm large grasp, she kissed her on the forehead

-murmuring “Welcome,” and then stepping back

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>she said in a clear voice that vibrated through the

-room:</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah! now I understand that hurried courtship

-and swift marriage. I see what it was in Brother

-Ezra’s case. It was love at first sight. You are very

-pretty. I suppose, however, you know that very well.

-It is a secret seldom kept from young girls.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was so startled by this unexpected address

-that she blushed to the roots of her black hair. Ezra

-stood looking down at his little wife smiling with

-pleasure. He was delighted to think that Madame

-found her so pretty. He had indeed thought her beautiful

-from the first moment when his eyes had rested

-on her, but then he loved her, and it was but natural

-that in his eyes she should be lovely. Madame, however,

-judged her unprejudiced, and yet if his delighted

-heart had room for one regret, it was that Madame’s

-praise had been so very public. If she had only whispered

-it softly to him in that wonderful voice of hers,

-which had often caught up his inmost thoughts and

-clothed them in words of eloquence, how much more

-precious would the tribute have been. He dismissed

-the half-formed regret as unworthy, and took himself

-to task for not exulting at this moment. The meeting

-of Madame and Olive was an event in his life. Olive,

-his sweet little rose-bud of a wife, on the one hand,

-and Madame, his venerated, nay his worshipped, friend,

-on the other. The one, the companion of his heart:

-the other, the guide of his mind who embodied in herself

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>all that he held highest in the possibilities of

-womanhood, his true and noble-hearted friend, his

-inspired leader. How blest was the portion of him

-who stood that night the husband of the one, the disciple

-of the other! Ezra’s dark eyes shone with joy,

-and his square chin quivered with the smiles that

-lurked about his lips. He was not a handsome man,

-perhaps, but there was something grand in the large

-full forehead, strong eyebrows, and deep dark eyes.

-His massive frame bespoke strength, which in itself

-has always a great attraction for women.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>When Madame had addressed those words to the

-new sister all the members of the Community had

-scanned her narrowly, for the opinion of their leader

-had immense weight with the Pioneers. The men

-looked at Olive with increased admiration, and the

-women with envy. Only Uncle David appeared disappointed

-and wiped his face many times with his red

-pocket-handkerchief saying, “Wal, wal, now,” in a

-tone of earnest reproof.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>After this bewildering introduction in which her

-vanity had been not a little excited, Olive received

-a salutary check from the words of Brother Wright.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Before beginning to read my paper,” said he,

-“I should like to say a few words to the new sister

-who has come among us. We expect soon to be having

-new members join us so fast that perhaps we

-shall not be able to specially mark the entrance of

-each. But in this case there are peculiar reasons for

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>exhortation. Sister Olive has not joined under ordinary

-circumstances. She did not, like the rest of us,

-feel a call to the higher life: she only came out of

-personal affection for one of the members of the Community.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive looked with a shy glance towards her husband,

-who took her hand in his for a moment, while

-Uncle David, who sat at the end of the room near

-Madame, said in a loud voice:</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Quite right, quite right, couldn’t ha’ had a better

-reason.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Therefore it becomes our duty to impress upon

-our new sister the principles which have been active

-in forming this Community,” said Brother Wright,

-without paying any heed to Uncle David’s interruption.

-“Perfection City has been founded to teach

-the world how to live. The old civilization has been

-tried and found wanting. It is time for a new one.

-Perfection City is the beginning of a new era. We

-are the Pioneers of a new world. We shall show

-the old and worn-out world how to banish evil from

-life. We cannot perhaps banish all physical evil, and

-for a time at least there may be sickness even among

-us, but we shall at once set about freeing ourselves

-from all the other troubles of life. There is nobody

-in Perfection City who will get rich, and nobody will

-ever be poor. We are all alike, and we shall none of

-us envy our neighbours his belongings, simply because

-everything belongs to all. The lesson we have to

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>teach is the grandest the world ever saw, and when

-men know what it is, I foresee a future before Perfection

-City greater than that of any other city of the

-world. Rome lasted a good long while, but Rome

-didn’t possess the vital spark of life: Rome wasn’t

-communistic, therefore Rome fell. Perfection City

-won’t fall like that, but will go on teaching the world

-after we, its founders, are all dead. But our memories

-will live for the great things that we taught and

-through our example have made possible.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Wright stopped for a few seconds, and

-Uncle David said admiringly,</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You have a fine command of words, Brother

-Wright, and you have a way of making things sound

-uncommon grand. It always does me good to hear

-you talk of the grand future of our City; but we’ll

-have to get up some houses, and bigger ones, ’fore

-folks ’ull believe us.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Uncle David was as simple as a child, or some

-of his hearers might have suspected a sarcasm in his

-words.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Rome wasn’t built in a day, as I’ve heard say,”

-remarked Brother Green, with a strong English accent,

-“and I shall be glad if our little village ever

-grows to half its power and honour.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Brother Green, I should refuse to have anything

-to say to the founding of another city like Rome,”

-interrupted Brother Wright with decisiveness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It seems to me,” said Ezra in a shy hesitating

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>manner, “that what we are here for is to demonstrate,

-if we can, how a better life can be lived here than

-is possible in the older communities, where circumstances

-are too strong and too hampering for people

-to rise above them. The older civilization has done

-much, it has raised our race to a high standard. What

-we want to do is to carry on that work, and above

-all to bring everyone within reach of the best that life

-has to offer. The older civilization has left so many

-stranded ones, who have lost their strength in the wild

-struggle; while we hope to bring all along equally

-and give to each a share of happiness. As usual, my

-friends, when I try to express my ideas I find that

-someone else has already put them into incomparably

-finer language than I can ever command. It has been

-so again. I find that our great poet, Walt Whitman,

-has said better than I can what I feel. May I quote

-him to you?</p>

-

-<div class='lg-container-b c011'>

-  <div class='linegroup'>

-    <div class='group'>

-      <div class='line in16'>‘Have the elder races halted?</div>

-      <div class='line'>Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?</div>

-      <div class='line'>We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,</div>

-      <div class='line in16'>Pioneers! O pioneers!’”</div>

-    </div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra sat down after reciting his verse, and his wife

-looked at him with glowing eyes. He had not said

-much, but his words had seemed to her so much fuller

-of thought and feeling than the easy monotonous flow

-from Brother Wright. That individual himself had

-not received Ezra’s remarks with quite so much delight.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>It was Brother Wright’s nature to see fight and

-contradiction in all things, even the most pacific. His

-eyes would flash and his black beard bristle in argument,

-almost as if he were a dog preparing to fight,

-and if one might be permitted to liken any Pioneer

-to one of the canine species, the bull-dog would undoubtedly

-be the variety most nearly resembling Brother

-Wright.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t see that we need be beholden to anyone,

-poet or otherwise,” he said sharply, “for our opinions

-or sentiments. We have found them for ourselves,

-just as we have founded our City. It is our work,

-both opinions and practice.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think,” said Madame, rising and speaking with

-a deep clear voice, which a slight foreign accent

-seemed to render only the more attractive, “I think

-I see better than they do themselves where our two

-brothers agree. Brother Ezra, with that diffidence

-which strong natures often exhibit, thought he found

-in the lines of another man his own ideas more succinctly

-embodied than they would have been in his

-own words. Brother Ezra should not doubt his powers.

-Speech comes slowly to those who most deeply

-think, but he should consider how much we benefit

-by his words and how grateful we are to him for them.

-Brother Wright, it seems to me that you, perhaps,

-do not sufficiently appreciate the efforts of others who

-have gone before us on this road. We are not the first

-who have been discontented with the actual order of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>things, nor are we the first who have striven to make

-life brighter and easier. In all ages there have been

-those penetrated with these thoughts, and in different

-ways men, and women too, have striven earnestly,

-devotedly, to realize these ideas. Some indeed have

-imagined they had found a solution of all doubts and

-difficulties, and have in perfect good faith and self-satisfaction

-buried themselves in convents and monasteries

-and have ‘roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,’ and

-have ‘built them fanes of fruitless prayer.’ We have

-come to different conclusions by following a different

-road. We do not shut ourselves out of the world,

-rather we endeavour to raise it by showing a living

-example of what may be done now, in this age, by

-human beings such as we are. But if we are to succeed

-we must not reject the experience, nor fail to

-profit by the example, of others who have gone before

-us and felt earnestly on this subject.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame paused for a moment, and her keen glance

-rested upon the small assembly. Each individual

-seemed to feel that she was looking at him or at

-her. Certainly each member was looking intently at

-her. She seldom made speeches to them; she only

-interposed her observations, as on this occasion, between

-the speakers; but the last word usually remained

-with her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Brother Wright, will you now read us your paper,

-as the evening is passing and we are all anxious to

-hear it. What is the title and subject?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>“The Ultimate Perfection of Being is the title,”

-said Brother Wright, “and I think that pretty well

-sums up the subject also.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>So apparently thought the audience, which

-resigned itself to a severe mental excursion into

-the unknown regions of Brother Wright’s imaginative

-metaphysics. Some of them fell out very

-soon, finding the road harder to follow than they

-had foreseen; but Brother Wright kept sturdily

-on, unheeding the signs of weakness and disaffection

-as betrayed by movings of feet and stifled

-yawns.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive, not being able to understand what Brother

-Wright was saying, employed herself in watching

-Madame, who sat motionless beside her table, resting

-her head upon her supple white hand. At her feet

-lay what seemed to be a large brown rug, but was in

-fact her dog Balthasar, a blood-hound, who always

-stayed with her and was as gentle as a lamb, notwithstanding

-his name and breed.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Brother Green! That’s the second time you’ve

-snored,” suddenly exclaimed Brother Wright in the

-midst of his reading. Everybody was wide awake in

-an instant. Madame hid a smile with her hand, but

-not before Olive had noticed it.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Brother Green is perhaps tired. His work is very

-hard,” said Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, the fact is I had to put a new point to

-the ploughshare this morning before I went to fetch

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>my load of iron, and I began work before daybreak.

-I am very tired.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Green was the blacksmith of Perfection

-City, an industrious hard-working man who thought

-life would show him a fairer side on the prairie than

-it had ever done in the far-away village in Sussex

-where he was born.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think that it might be better to have our gatherings

-rather shorter now,” said Madame softly. “The

-workers in our little hive are all tired. I wish I

-could do more of the labour that is needed. I would

-gladly——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame was interrupted by a sharp rap on the

-table, a signal from Brother Huntley that he wanted

-to speak. He was the deaf and dumb man. She instantly

-rose and bowed to him with singular graciousness.

-Madame’s manner towards the deaf brethren

-was all that was exquisite. Huntley stood up

-and began in a voice almost inaudible which rose

-by sudden degrees to the intensity of a steam-whistle.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I want to know when we’re going to get our

-corn planted? We’re behindhand; most other folk’s

-corn is in already.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“As usual, Brother Huntley has something practical

-to say,” observed Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He didn’t know we were discussing quite another

-subject, else his remark would have been rude

-and irrelevant,” said Wright, vexed at this cutting

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>into his paper on the ultimate perfection of his and

-everybody’s being.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think it would be very useful to see what we

-can do about the corn,” said the blacksmith. “If we

-are late the chances are there’ll be another drought in

-July, and our crop won’t be first-class.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Is anyone’s land ready for planting?” inquired

-Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“None as I know of, except Brother Dummy’s,”

-said Uncle David. “He’s more forward nor anybody:

-always first in work.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Of course, poor deaf creature! he can’t do anything

-but dumbly work like a——” began Brother

-Wright.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“My land is ready for planting,” burst in Brother

-Huntley with a scream.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then it shall be planted to-morrow,” cried Madame.

-“I’ll go myself.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You!” exclaimed Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Certainly, child. Don’t you think I can work as

-well as any other woman?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She rapidly wrote a few words on a slip of paper

-and passed it to Brother Huntley, who read it, nodded

-with satisfaction, and said: “Five o’clock in the morning!”

-in a voice so low that no one knew he was

-speaking.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I suppose he begins work about six?” said Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, he don’t, he’s mighty spry,” said old Mrs.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>Ruby, who lived near the Huntleys. “I hear him

-a-movin’ off with his plough every morning at five

-by the clock. He’s terrible sot on his work.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then I shall be there ready to go to work at five

-o’clock in the morning, and I shall begin by going

-to bed now, so as to be able to give a good day’s

-work. Good-night, friends all.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She rose, included them all in a sweeping salute

-and left the room as lightly as she had entered. Balthasar

-rose and slowly followed her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>When Madame left the room the meeting broke

-up. No one felt inclined to linger when she was gone.

-It was from her they drew their interest in each other,

-as well as their belief in themselves and in Perfection

-City. She possessed the secret of influencing people

-without seeming to do so. The thought that she was

-going out on the land at five in the morning to plant

-corn made everyone ten times more eager to work

-than heretofore.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Wright and his independent spouse, Mary Winkle,

-were infected by her example as they went

-home.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Now, Wright, don’t you go and do any more

-essaying till the crop is in. I think people oughtn’t

-to write except in winter time,” said Mary Winkle

-with firmness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I never believed in nothing but manual work.

-Why, if I did, I should be still slaving away on that

-farm out in Illinois, instead of joining a community

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>here where one can follow the bent of his higher nature,

-to the advantage of his neighbours as well as of

-himself,” said Wright.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, let that be,” said Mary hastily, recognising

-her own words and oft-expressed opinions, but not

-quite knowing what to do with them—a predicament

-not unexampled among theoretical philosophers,

-“but see and be out on the land to-morrow as early

-as anyone. Are you ready for the planting? Because

-I’ll go out and plant if you are.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, my drills won’t be ready for the planting

-till day after to-morrow.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then I’ll go and plant on Brother Dummy’s

-piece along with Madame.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You’d better not. You’re not fit for such work.

-You’ll get sick and not be able to cook me any supper

-when I come home.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I shan’t get sick. I ain’t going to let

-any person beat me at work, when I set my mind

-to it, and she in her long skirts too! I’ll show

-her the advantage of the reformed dress anyhow.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Thus the Wright and Winkle pair on their way

-home.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And will she really plant corn?” asked Olive in

-some curiosity.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Certainly she will. Madame never despised

-work.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh! I don’t despise work, but she seems such

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>a fine lady to go out on the land and plant corn just

-like a negro woman.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That is one of the things our life here is intended

-to show, dearie, that no one is too grand for any honest

-work that he or she is physically capable of performing.”</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER V.<br /> <span class='large'>CORN PLANTING.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>Punctual to the minute, there was Madame with

-her bag of corn on her left arm, following Brother

-Huntley and his plough-horses to the field, in the

-damp white fog of sunrise. Balthasar in deep disgust

-was there too, as in duty bound, but he had not a

-wag for anybody. How could a rational dog be in

-good spirits at that hour of the morning! Madame

-was dressed in a short calico frock well up to her

-ankles. Her fair hair was loosely wisped at the back

-of her head, and a large straw hat, tied down with

-a green gauze veil, made her look at once comfortable

-in the fog and ready for the expected sunshine. There

-were no corn-planters at Perfection City: farm-machinery

-was not then so plentiful on the prairie as

-now, and money was if possible scarcer. Corn planting

-was, therefore, done by hand. Brother Dummy’s

-drills of longitude were already ploughed, and he

-began on the drills of latitude forthwith. Into the

-hollows made by the intersection of these two sets

-of drills Madame was to drop three grains of corn,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>neither more nor less. It is dizzying work. After

-walking up and down the drills for hours one becomes

-oppressed by the never-ceasing square constantly recurring

-every two steps. The check pattern bewilders

-you, and you begin to wonder how a chess-man would

-feel if, endowed with sensibility and the power of

-motion, he had to march up and down his chess-board,

-always keeping to the lines for hours at a stretch.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>About seven o’clock Mary Winkle came upon the

-scene and plodded and planted for four hours. The

-sun was blazing down upon them pitilessly, and the

-parching south wind blew the fine black dust up from

-the rich dry soil, until their eyes and ears and noses

-were full of it.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The field which they were planting was on the

-extreme verge of the community-land, far away from

-the houses. These were somewhat clustered towards

-the centre of the holding, which consisted of two sections

-or a little over twelve hundred acres. The

-workers, therefore, were a long way from home, considerably

-over a mile, and since corn planting entails

-ceaseless walking through heavy ploughed land, it had

-been settled that their dinner should be brought out

-to them, so as to enable the workers to rest during

-the whole dinner hour. Olive and Mrs. Ruby were

-to supply the necessary food, and the former, aided

-by Napoleon Pompey, was to bring it to the field at

-eleven o’clock. The little grove of locust trees just

-beginning to grow beside the far spring was the trysting

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>place. Water would thus be handy, and the horses’

-feed was already put there by the provident Brother

-Huntley. A little before the hour Olive and her black

-attendant arrived at the grove, bringing their load of

-food, and Olive set down her big tin can with a sigh

-of relief. Her arms ached with carrying it, for it was

-heavy and the way was long. Napoleon Pompey had

-carried two cans, each heavier than hers, but the lad

-seemed to feel no inconvenience from the load. Olive

-looked at him with envy and thought with contempt

-of her own muscles which appeared so inefficient. As

-she unpacked the food, it seemed to her that nothing

-she had learnt at Smyrna and could best do, was

-wanted on the prairie, and she remembered with some

-amusement and not a little bitterness Mary Winkle’s

-words about food for the mind. At this moment she

-reflected that all the learning in the world was not so

-much needed by that philosophical lady as the very

-gross and material food which was being taken out

-of the heavy tin cans and laid on the grass. The

-working-party, men, women and horses, arrived while

-Olive was thus engaged. Mary Winkle instantly sat

-down and leaned against a tree and threw off her sunbonnet.

-Her thin black hair was matted down to her

-temples, her cheeks were yellow, and her eyes looked

-dull. Madame also took off her hat and veil and shook

-up the coil of hair on her head with a sigh of relief.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Does your head ache too?” said Mary Winkle

-wearily.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>“Not in the least,” replied Madame. “A sunbonnet

-is a bad shelter against heat. You should

-wear a good hat, it is far better.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I wonder how you can bear all that hair on your

-head. Why don’t you cut it off?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, it is an admirable protection against both

-heat and cold,” said Madame laughing. “It is my

-greatest comfort.” She might have added her greatest

-beauty.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The food which Olive brought was most appetising,

-roast chicken, hot corn-bread, and pumpkin pies,

-with plenty of milk and water to drink. Before eating

-Madame went to the spring to wash her hands and

-face, and Mary Winkle sat limply against the tree

-trunk with her eyes shut.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Eat something, it will revive you,” said Olive,

-looking with pity upon her sallow cheeks.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t feel hardly able to eat,” she said in a

-weak voice. “It seems to me I don’t ever want to

-open my eyes again.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You are overworking yourself,” said Olive, “you

-should not attempt this field work: it is beyond your

-strength.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What! and let her see me give in?” said Mary

-Winkle with reviving spirit.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame came up at this moment looking as

-fresh as a lily: she glanced sharply at Sister Mary.

-“You appear very much exhausted,” she remarked.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>Sister Mary raised her head and opened her eyes,

-but did not speak.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It’s a pity you don’t take wine,” she continued,

-sitting down and beginning on her piece of chicken

-with relish. “A good glass of Burgundy would set

-you up in no time.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Sister Mary herself sat up at this.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t touch wine, no, not if I was dying,”

-she said resolutely.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame smiled. “I didn’t recommend it because

-you were dying: wine as everything else is then useless:

-but because you look weak. I suggested a medicine.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“As a medicine it is worse than useless, and as a

-drink I scorn to take a rank poison.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Poisons are sometimes given as medicine, witness

-strychnine in small doses for certain forms of dyspepsia,

-and I believe satisfactorily,” said Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wine is worse than strychnine, because more

-insidious in its action and more liable to abuse,” said

-Mary Winkle decisively, as she took the tin cup of

-milk and water handed her by Olive, and drank it

-with eagerness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, at all events admit that wine has been

-of benefit to you on this occasion,” observed Madame

-smiling. “I merely mentioned it to you, and you

-look already revived and more like yourself. Doesn’t

-she, Sister Olive?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It was the milk and water did it,” said Sister

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>Mary Winkle hurriedly, at which Madame smiled

-again.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Dummy and Napoleon Pompey now came

-up to the group of women. They had been watering

-and unharnessing the horses who were at the present

-moment munching their corn. The white man, although

-dirty as a ploughman would be after half a

-day’s hard work, sat down promptly beside Mary Winkle

-and helped himself to a leg of chicken: the negro

-boy stood aside doubtfully, eyeing the group and the

-food with longing looks.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Come along, N. P.,” said Olive brightly, “sit

-down there.” She pointed to a place on the other

-side of Mary Winkle, where there seemed a good opening

-in front of a huge piece of corn-bread.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, if you please,” said Sister Mary, rising to

-her feet with resentment.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Olive flushing

-with surprise. “Napoleon Pompey won’t bite you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have never sat down to eat beside a negro, and

-I don’t feel inclined to begin now.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Let the lad sit beside me,” said Madame gently.

-“I have seen people of too many shades of colour

-and no colour to mind a little extra dash of black.

-Come here, boy, come and have this piece of bread

-and meat.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Napoleon Pompey grinning with all his white teeth

-sprang to the place beside Madame, and buried those

-same teeth eagerly in his chunk of bread. Mary Winkle

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>sat down again and leaned against the tree. Olive’s

-face took a deeper tinge of red and her eyes snapped.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you consider yourself made of such fine clay

-that it won’t bear contact with a negro?” she asked

-hotly. “It seems to me a little of what used to be

-called Christian charity might come in useful here. I

-never aspired to the heights of Perfection City people,

-but I never refused the rights of brotherhood to the

-negro simply because of the curl of his hair or the

-colour of his skin.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am quite willing to give them all their rights

-and will be glad to see them educated and all that,

-but I never sat at dinner with a negro, and I am not

-going to begin now,” said Mary Winkle setting her

-thin pale lips with the utmost stubbornness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, I call it perfectly monstrous,” retorted

-Olive, “and you setting yourself up to show the better

-life and all the rest of it! I should have thought the

-first thing to do before teaching the highest perfection

-was to practise the simplest justice.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And you, Sister Olive,” said Madame’s cool sweet

-voice, “will have to learn to respect the prejudices

-of other people even when they run counter to your

-most cherished theories. I do not myself share the

-feeling of repulsion that Sister Mary has in this case,

-but I respect it. I would suggest to you to do the

-same. It is an inconvenient fact, perhaps, that people

-do not all think alike, but it is one that must be resolutely

-faced nevertheless.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>Olive was silent under this reproof, but she looked

-angrily at Mary Winkle from time to time, and revenged

-herself by feeding up Napoleon Pompey and

-petting him to an alarming extent, much to the delight

-of that young darkie who ate until he seemed

-to ooze out unctuous joy.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Dummy ate, as he worked, silently, conscientiously,

-continuously. Olive was amazed at the

-amount he seemed able to consume, while of milk and

-water he drank half a gallon or thereabouts.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“How can he do it?” said Olive in astonishment.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You forget,” replied Madame, “that he has been

-following that plough for six long hours, and the

-dry wind raised such a dust around him that he must

-have swallowed a vast quantity of it in the course of

-the day. It takes a good deal to slake the thirst after

-such a dust visitation as that.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>When Brother Dummy had eaten and drunk his

-fill he lay down on the grass and went instantly to

-sleep. The three women looked at him for a moment

-or two.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He seems to have very little enjoyment in his

-life,” said Olive compassionately.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But then he has also few sorrows,” said Madame.

-“The high lights are wanting, perhaps, but so are the

-dark shadows. His life is like a grey landscape. It

-has a beauty of its own, but not everyone can see it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“To live in eternal silence seems to me the most

-awful curse,” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>“I can imagine many a worse one,” replied Madame,

-looking out from among the few bare trees

-away across the open prairie.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What could be worse?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, for example, to know that someone you

-loved did not love you. To have to shut up your heart

-within iron doors, and never open them to let it out.

-That would be worse than to be denied the power of

-speech, which after all can now be supplemented in

-many ways by artificial means. Brother Huntley is

-not actively unhappy, I should judge. He and his

-wife have always appeared to me to be a very united

-couple.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“They cannot quarrel, at all events,” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, not, at least, in the ordinary way,” replied

-Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>When Brother Dummy awoke after his little

-snooze, he got up, looked at the sun to see what time

-of day it was, and then signed to Napoleon Pompey

-to rouse up. That young person was lethargic, owing

-to his anaconda-like meal, accordingly Brother Dummy

-roused him with his foot. The darkie rolled over

-and said “Yah!” and started for the horses, who were

-nodding over their corn-cobs, now nibbled down to

-the smallest dimensions. Olive, whose resentment at

-the slight put upon Napoleon Pompey by Mary Winkle

-urged her to identify herself with the negro boy,

-walked away with him and Brother Dummy to watch

-the hitching up. Madame employed herself in throwing

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>scraps of bread to Balthasar, who would have much

-preferred eating the chicken bones, only that was a

-debauch not permitted to a dog of his manners. Mary

-Winkle looked hopelessly along those weary furrows,

-up and down which it would be her duty to march

-again, dropping her seeds of corn as before.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Are you going to work all the afternoon?” she

-asked of her companion.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, I think so. We shall get this field planted

-and covered in by sun-down, I should think. And

-that will be a great piece of work done. We cannot

-afford to let the individualists beat us at corn planting,

-can we? We must do at least as well as they, and I

-should hope we might do better.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t know how you can stand so much heat

-and hard work,” said Mary, “and in that dress too.

-Why, if I were to attempt to work in long skirts I

-should be dead in a week.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t mind my dress at all,” said Madame.

-“It never bothers me. I don’t think about it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But don’t you think about it when your back

-aches?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It never does.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t understand it,” says Mary once more.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I suspect that the reason you American women

-find your dress such a burden is because you are so

-weak yourselves,” said Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“American women accomplish as much or more

-than any others, I should say,” observed Mary.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>“Precisely, but not from their muscular strength.

-They work out of their nerves, and that is why they

-never last any length of time.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame finished her day’s work at six o’clock, and

-then walked home humming a German dance tune to

-herself. Mary Winkle stopped at four o’clock, and

-dragged herself home to bed with a fearsome headache,

-still puzzling how it was that her perfect dress had

-not done better for her in that day’s trial. She did

-not know that all her scientific dressing was as nothing

-compared with the robust vitality, which Madame

-brought with her from another land, and which, running

-in such vigorous beats through her blood, was

-inherited from generations of strong healthy ancestors.

-Madame’s father was a Russian colonel noted

-for his size and strength and also for his wildness.

-Her mother was a pretty English girl, who had nothing

-to bequeath to her daughter but health, personal

-beauty, and this piece of advice: “Never stake your

-happiness on any man, it always brings disaster to

-the woman.” Mary Winkle’s mother, on the other

-hand, was a nervous invalid at thirty, and her father

-was a dyspeptic dietetic reformer, who pinned his salvation

-on never eating salt. Small wonder, therefore,

-that the daughter of the one pair should be able to

-plant corn all day long and walk lightly home at evening,

-while the offspring of the other pair could do

-only three quarters of a day’s work, after which headache

-and nervous exhaustion.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VI.<br /> <span class='large'>NON-RESISTANCE.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>It was the custom of the Pioneers to send once a

-week to Union Mills in order to do their necessary

-marketing and to get the post, which came there twice

-a week from Kansas City by stage-coach. The subject

-of the post was one that had been rather hotly

-debated at Perfection City, although to the outsider

-it would seem a very harmless topic, and not fruitful

-of division. The fact was, however, that there was

-only one member of the Community who showed any

-eagerness about getting letters regularly and often,

-and that member was Madame. She indeed did receive

-a most unconscionable number of letters and periodicals,

-so the other members thought. She got several

-American Magazines, such as the Atlantic Monthly

-and Harper’s, but she also received English papers,

-and French ones, and occasionally German ones as

-well. The Community thought, but did not dare to

-give public expression to the thought, that Madame

-should have rested content with the mental sustenance

-provided by themselves for home consumption.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>Brother Wright in particular felt himself equal to the

-task of providing everybody with all they needed in

-the way of correct views upon even the highest subjects.

-But Madame, although she listened with politeness

-and apparent attention to what he had to say,

-found this sustenance too meagre for the wants of her

-nature. Moreover she took a deep interest in the affairs

-of the outside world, an interest almost offensive

-to persons who prided themselves upon having risen

-above the world and all its concerns. It was really

-humiliating to think that the leading spirit of their

-Community should occupy her mind with the relations

-between Prussia and Austria, when such questions as

-affected the future of humanity and of Perfection City

-were what filled their souls. She even evinced a keen

-interest in the career and personality of the Prussian

-minister, Bismarck, and that, too, when Brother

-Wright was willing to give her the light of his

-thoughts upon all really important questions. It was

-painful to the feeling of the Pioneers, who were all

-in all to themselves and wished to be so to others, but

-they had to put up with it, since Madame was their

-leader and, moreover, the only one who had a purse

-with some money in it. Ezra was the only member of

-the Community who sided with Madame in her taste

-for reading the new books and the latest periodicals.

-He and she had that taste, with many others, in common,

-and it drew them together in an especial degree.

-On his last trip East during the winter, when he

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>had been so unexpectedly delayed, as they now knew,

-by meeting with his fate in the shape of Olive, one of

-his commissions had been to bring back a box of books,

-which were now arranged in neat shelves in Madame’s

-private sitting-room. And yet notwithstanding all

-these books, a hundred or more, the steady stream of

-papers, periodicals, and magazines continued as before,

-and had to be fetched regularly from Union

-Mills.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The brethren took it in turns to go to the town,

-which was some ten miles distant, and they always combined

-some useful business with the fetching of the

-letters. Brother Wright was a frequent messenger,

-for he liked going better than Ezra did, while of course

-Brother Dummy was precluded by his affliction from

-going, and Brother Carpenter was hopelessly unable

-to drive horses. Some of the women generally contrived

-to find an excuse for going to Union Mills, for

-women like to get away from the petty cares of house

-and home, a peculiarity from which the sisters of

-Perfection City were by no means exempt. In particular

-Mrs. Ruby, invariably called Aunt Ruby, loved

-to go. She thus got a chance of seeing new faces and

-talking with new people. She would not for worlds

-have confessed that she was tired of the restricted

-society of Perfection City, but she knew so well what

-each had to say, that it was refreshing to go out sometimes

-into the world and meet people whose ideas

-could not always be guessed beforehand.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>It so happened that the day after the corn planting

-it became necessary to go to Union Mills in order to

-take a grist of corn to be ground. Madame suggested

-that Brother Wright should go, while Brother Dummy

-took up his plough-handles and finished the field

-the former was preparing for the corn. Mary Winkle,

-still prostrated by the previous day’s hard work, urged

-her spouse to go, “For then,” said she, “if you ain’t

-here I needn’t get any dinner. I’ll just send Willette

-over to Sister Olive’s for dinner, and I needn’t stir

-till milking time.” This seemed a happy arrangement,

-and her husband set off shortly after breakfast,

-picking up Aunt Ruby as he passed her cottage.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Be you lonesome living in that house by yourself?”

-asked Brother Wright as they jogged along

-over the prairie, for it had struck him as very lonely

-that morning as he drove up.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, no, I ain’t lonely, least not most whiles,”

-answered Aunt Ruby, an alert little old woman, not

-unlike a bird in her quick movements. “In the

-summer-time there’s allus the chickens to see to an’

-feed an’ ten’, an’ chickens is powerful spry an’ talkin’

-birds. They most allus has somethin’ to scold an’

-chatter ’bout, chickens an’ hens has, an’ cocks. Then

-in the winter I hev the clock tickin’ loud o’ evenin’s,

-an’ that’s most as good as a pusson in the room, an’

-there’s allus the cat, an’ mostly the kettle singin’ on

-the stove. Come to think on’t, there’s a heap o’ company

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>in a house like mine, if you on’y has ears to hear

-an’ un’erstan’ what is said by beasts an’ things.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Yet notwithstanding this “heap o’ company” Aunt

-Ruby dearly loved a good gossip with the saddler’s

-wife at Union Mills, whenever that luxury was attainable.

-On the present occasion Aunt Ruby had a real

-good time, for Brother Wright was delayed longer

-than usual, first in order to get some harness mended,

-and afterwards to have a shoe replaced that suddenly

-showed signs of coming off one of the horses. Thus

-it was very near sun-down before they left Union

-Mills. Aunt Ruby, owing in large measure to her

-gossip, and also partly to an exceptionally strong cup

-of tea, was in a highly nervous and excitable frame

-of mind.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Had Brother Wright, she asked, heard of that

-rumour about the Cherokees? And did he think there

-was any danger of their leaving their Reservation and

-going on the war-path? Brother Wright, who had a

-poor opinion of Indians, and a worse one of the way

-in which the white men had treated them, thought on

-the whole that the rumour might be considered false.

-This comforted Aunt Ruby, to whom the word “Injun”

-suggested torture and death and all sorts of

-horrors. She remained comforted until she remembered

-that other rumour—about the raid of border

-ruffians from out of Missouri. Brother Wright thought

-it highly probable that this rumour might prove to be

-true. Missouri men had raided Kansas more than once,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>and it was possible they might do so again at any moment.

-With conversation such as this they came to

-the end of the daylight and the beginning of the trees

-around Cotton Wood Creek about the same time.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I shall be glad when we are safe over this ford

-and out of the dark wood beyond,” said Brother

-Wright, trying to urge his horses along, but he had

-a heavy load of timber and coal and some iron bars

-for smith-work.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ain’t it near here that those people over beyond

-Jacksonville got robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby, nervously

-peering about in the gloom with her weak old

-eyes. At this moment some distant creature made a

-shrill scream or howl.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh! what was that,” exclaimed Aunt Ruby nervously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That was a prairie wolf, I guess,” answered

-Brother Wright quietly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Silence followed, except for the creaking of the

-waggon, the straining of the horses at their traces,

-and an occasional clang made by one of the bars of

-iron which was not sufficiently wedged up with hay.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“If those Missouri border ruffians came to Perfection

-City, do you reckon our principles would save

-us from being robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby. “Most

-everybody knows as we are non-resistants.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t think our principles would stand in the

-way of a Missouri man. More likely they would take

-advantage of them. They are mean cusses, and are

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>used to riding rough-shod over principles and rights.

-It is a recognised thing everywhere that women and

-children are non-resistants, yet that does not save ’em

-from being raided and robbed by border ruffians.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And you think they would rob us, peaceful folks

-as ha’n’t no arms nor nothin’?” asked Aunt Ruby

-anxiously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I guess they would try,” replied Brother Wright.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then I think as we oughter reconsider our principles

-a mite,” said Aunt Ruby. “For if we are robbed

-and killed by folks as can’t un’erstan’ the higher life,

-we shan’t be able to teach the world nothin’. An’

-what’s the good o’ principles when you’re dead an’

-gone an’ undergroun’?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That is so,” assented Brother Wright.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I didn’t never think on’t in this light afore,” said

-Aunt Ruby. “It ’pears to me as how we should

-meet together an’ try an’ settle some way as how

-we can keep our principles an’ yet live on the

-prairie.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I guess you’ve pretty nearly said the truth,” said

-Brother Wright.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What we hev to do is to live here an’ show ’em

-our principles at work, an’ not die straightway afore

-we’ve done anything to improve mankind. That’s

-my view,” said Aunt Ruby. “What do you think,

-Brother Wright?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Instead of answering Brother Wright pulled up

-short and looked intently in front of him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Aunt Ruby in

-a high-pitched voice of alarm.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Hush!” replied her companion, “don’t make a

-noise.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby’s heart began to beat violently. “Do

-you see anything?” she asked in a whisper.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I see a man over there by the road, sitting on

-horseback with his right arm out pointing towards the

-waggon.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh! brother, I wish you had a carnal weapon

-of defence,” said Aunt Ruby in a shaking voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have,” replied Brother Wright, pulling an uncommonly

-useful-looking Colt’s revolver from his

-breeches pocket. “I always carry one in case of

-Injuns.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Again they sat silent for a moment, the horses

-shook their heads, and one of them stamped a foot.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Who goes there?” hailed Brother Wright in a

-loud defiant voice. “Drop that right arm of yours

-or I’ll fire.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>No answer.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The figure sat motionless, the right hand still

-raised in that menacing attitude.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am a man of my word,” said Brother Wright,

-rising to his feet and sighting his revolver steadily

-on the figure, while to Aunt Ruby he said, “Hold on

-tight, the horses will jump.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>A shot rang out on the still night air. The horses

-nearly jumped out of their skins with fright, and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>would certainly have run away, only the waggon was

-very heavy, and they decided to run in different directions.

-Hence they only jerked each other almost

-to the ground and then stood still amazed and trembling.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Better make sure,” said Brother Wright, emptying

-another barrel at the figure which appeared to remain

-motionless in the uncertain foggy light. This

-time the horses came to the same conclusion and tried

-to turn round abruptly, but the attempt was expertly

-frustrated by Brother Wright and a cowhide whip of

-exceptional stinging power. Having thus reduced the

-horses to reason, he again turned his attention to the

-figure and saw with amazement that it still sat on

-horseback in the same spot.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, I swan!” said Brother Wright, rubbing

-his eyes. “That beats all! It can’t be a mortal

-man, or he would have either dropped or returned

-fire. I guess I’ll drive on and do no more shooting

-this time.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He stowed his pistol away in his pocket and

-drove on.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Hadn’t you better keep the weapon handy?”

-suggested Aunt Ruby. “You might lay it down in

-my lap, if you like.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, thank’ee,” replied Brother Wright. “I don’t

-generally give that sort of thing to women to hold

-for me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He pulled up at a little opening just near the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>ford, where the faint light of a crescent moon showed

-between the bare branches of the trees, and a sort

-of water-fog hung along the elder bushes by the banks.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“This is the spot he was standing,” remarked

-Wright, “the exact spot. I guess I’ll just look and

-see if there is any trail. The ground is soft about

-here and should show up pretty clear.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He descended from the waggon and carefully examined

-the side of the road, but could see nothing.

-There was a large stump with a broken branch sticking

-out which attracted his attention, and he walked

-around it a couple of times, surveying it critically in

-the uncertain light.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, I swan!” he exclaimed, after the third

-inspection. “I didn’t think I could have been mistaken.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Then he climbed back into the waggon, and said,

-“Gee-up!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Did you fin’ any tracks o’ robbers?” asked his

-companion anxiously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No,” replied Brother Wright, “no tracks of robbers,

-but I lighted on the trail of a doggauned fool.

-Guess we’ll not say much about the attack made on

-our waggon, at Little Cotton Wood Creek.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I won’t mention it at all,” remarked Aunt Ruby,

-“’cause it might frighten the folks up to Perfection

-City an’ make ’em uneasy ’bout coming to Union

-Mills.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Wright only chuckled in reply, possibly

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>because his whole attention was required at this juncture

-to get his horses and waggon safely through the

-water, for it was certainly very dark in that bottom-land.

-Once the creek was crossed and the high prairie

-reached, it became easy enough to see by the light

-of the new moon and the stars, and the pair reached

-Perfection City in safety, although very late.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Wright was very eager to unravel the

-mystery of that horseman at the ford on Little Cotton

-Wood Creek, so he made a private expedition thither

-on horseback as soon as he could frame an excuse for

-a morning’s absence. He went to the place whence

-he had first seen the alarming stranger, half closed

-his sharp grey eyes, and looked.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, I swan!” he remarked, as this expression

-seemed somehow to relieve his feelings. By daylight

-there was nothing suspicious to be seen, but the old

-stump with the broken branch sticking out from it

-straight towards the spectator. Brother Wright surveyed

-this stump critically and came to the conclusion

-that with the help of darkness, a slight mist, a

-new moon, and a nervous companion, the old stump

-might take on an alarming aspect. He rode up to the

-stump, got off his horse, and examined it.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I should like to know that I hit him plumb with

-both bullets anyhow,” remarked he, with a grin most

-unbecoming to a Perfection City non-resistant. He

-had hit “him” plumb, but so had other people, and

-the amazed Brother Wright counted no less than seventeen

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>bullet holes, both old and new, in the body of

-that long suffering stump.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, I be jiggered!” said Brother Wright as he

-mounted his horse. “What a sight of blamed fools

-there must be in the world!” and with this comforting

-reflection he rode home, and ever after held his

-peace about the episode on the ford of Little Cotton

-Wood Creek. And so likewise did Aunt Ruby, that

-talkative old lady. But sometimes, when she and

-Brother Wright looked into each other’s eyes, they

-grinned a little sheepishly, showing that the recollection

-of it had not quite faded from their minds.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VII.<br /> <span class='large'>WILLETTE.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>Willette, the only child of the Wright and Winkle

-pair, was a young person of considerable character,

-which had undergone little of the attempted modification

-which we call education. At the time of

-Olive’s arrival at Perfection City this child was about

-eleven years old, and was as wild a specimen of a

-girl as could be easily found even on the prairie. Her

-mother had endeavoured to clothe her in garments

-known as the “reform-dress,” and had made her a

-suit of lilac calico, consisting of short tunic, and full-gathered

-trousers of the prescribed pattern. Willette

-had put on these things and had promptly complained

-of “scratchiness” around the neck and arm-holes,

-owing probably to deficiency of skill on the part of

-her mother in the making of the said garments. Shortly

-afterwards, being called upon to do some cattle-hunting,

-Willette had set out in all the pride of her

-new clothes to ride down some young steers who were

-proving refractory. The steers took shelter in the

-bottom-land along Little Cotton Wood Creek, and skilfully

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>hid themselves in the brushwood there, among

-the trailing wild vines and the spiky wilder plums

-which formed a very good barrier against pursuing

-man. Willette plunged bravely into the brush, and

-after a fierce struggle returned with one steer and

-half her dress. The other half remained in the brush

-along with the rest of the steers. Repeated onslaughts

-reduced her almost to nakedness, but she brought home

-the full complement of steers and an abundant assortment

-of scratches on her legs. After that Willette

-had enough of her mother’s system of dress, and accordingly

-she evolved one of her own.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I ain’t agoin’ to cattle-hunt in no more o’ your

-cobwebs, Ma,” explained this young person. “I

-reckon I’ll go a-ridin’ like a boy next time.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Willette appropriated one of her father’s pants

-made of the material known as hickory, which is supposed

-to resist any tear or strain. The current legend

-attached to real out-and-out hickory is as follows. A

-farmer arrayed in hickory was one day rooting out

-old stumps from a newly-cleared field with a new

-patent plough. He came to a regular stunner which

-jerked the plough clean out of the land. He backed

-up, took a good hold of the plough-handles, gave a

-mighty yell to the horses, and drove the plough clean

-through the stump, which split open in the middle.

-The plough and the man passed through, but the

-stump closed up again and caught his hickory trousers.

-The horses strained at the collar, but the man

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>would not let go of the plough, nor would the stump

-relinquish its grasp of the hickory trousers. So he

-rested his horses a spell, took a big breath, and said

-“Hallelujah!” whereupon the horses went forward

-with a bound and brought plough, man, trousers, and

-stump along with them!</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>It was a garment of this incomparable material that

-Willette appropriated to her use. She cut off the legs

-until the length suited her stature, regardless of the

-fit of the waist, clothed the upper part of her body

-in a pink check shirt, put a boy’s cap upon her head,

-and announced her intention of henceforth dressing

-like that. She was a chip off the old block with a vengeance,

-and Mary Winkle, after one affrighted gasp,

-was obliged to admit that her own principles, as put

-into practice by her daughter, were too much for her.

-Wright laughed immensely, and said she was a boy

-now and would do first-rate.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Willette was totally uneducated, could not write

-her name and could scarcely read, but she did not

-lack for intelligence. She knew the hour of the day,

-by looking at the sun, as well as a negro, and

-she could distinguish a horse from a cow at four

-miles distance. She knew every beast for miles

-around, and to whom it belonged, and could remember

-for a month every cow she had come across

-on the prairie and which way it was heading. She

-understood the moods and intentions of all kinds

-of animals almost as if she was one of the species

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>herself, and she never was at fault on a cattle-trail.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive found immense amusement in talking to

-Willette, who expressed herself with the utmost freedom

-upon all subjects in language which would have

-done credit to a nigger. The child, on the other hand,

-had a supreme contempt for Olive’s abilities and attainments,

-which seemed ludicrously deficient, but

-felt a kindly patronising sort of regard for her, and

-liked to look at her pretty face and touch her smooth

-round cheeks. The pair were therefore often together,

-and Willette undertook to teach her friend to ride,

-provided she would get some sensible clothes and ride

-in the only way that Willette imagined it possible

-for a two-legged human being to bestride a quadruped.

-Olive therefore made herself a bewitching riding-habit

-with Turkish trousers, and rode a high-peaked

-Mexican saddle, out of which even a sack of meal

-could not tumble if it tried. As soon as Olive began

-to feel confidence in herself and her horse, she enjoyed

-the riding immensely. She claimed the refusal of a

-horse on every possible opportunity when one could

-be spared from the farm work. Ezra, delighted to see

-her so pleased with a healthy exercise, encouraged

-her to go cattle-hunting with Willette, and enjoyed

-the spirited reports which she used to bring home from

-these exhilarating expeditions.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I do wish I had a pony of my very own which

-I could take out whenever I wanted a ride, and which

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>would be always there for me,” said Olive one day

-to Ezra after she had been riding by herself on Rebel.

-Ezra was hoeing up the newly sprouted sweet-corn, and

-the horses were not at work on the land. In his inmost

-heart he re-echoed the wish, and would at that

-moment have given anything to be an individualist

-and be able to say: “Darling, I’ll buy you a pony with

-the first load of corn I sell.” He looked at his pretty

-wife’s glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and thought

-with a groan that he was tied by his principles and

-prevented by them and the public opinion of the Community

-from giving his wife this enjoyment. It was

-the first time that his heart had come into conflict

-with the perfect theories of Perfection City, and he

-was amazed and disturbed to find how very much he

-was vexed by them. Fortunately Olive dismissed the

-idea of a pony of her own as an unattainable bliss,

-and contented herself with chance rides on Rebel

-and Queen Katherine, the two horses which inhabited

-Ezra’s stable and were generally used by him on his

-side of the community-land.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive’s courage and spirit of independence, fostered

-by a very mild-tempered horse, grew apace. She soon

-felt able to dispense with the escort and instruction

-of Willette and go cattle-hunting alone. She learned

-quickly enough to know the sixty head of cattle belonging

-to the Community, and where to look for

-them. The cattle, which consisted of the usual mixture

-of milch cows, steers, yearlings, and calves, had

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>been bought at different times and were apportioned

-to the different families in rough division, chiefly because

-each woman liked to have the cows she was to

-milk, driven up to her own fence near to her own

-house to save trouble. The cattle, consequently,

-seemed to have become intensely individualistic in

-their tendencies, and absolutely refused to graze in

-common. Each bell-cow led off her own herd of steers

-and yearlings where she thought best on the prairie,

-and it was seldom that any two of those “leading

-ladies” chose to go to the same spot. If they did

-they generally quarrelled and fought a bit. Cattle-hunting,

-therefore, became a sufficiently diversified occupation

-in which the unexpected frequently occurred.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>One day it happened that Olive and Diana, now

-old enough to run with her on her expeditions, had

-been to the head of Little Cotton Wood Creek to look

-for a cow that had hidden away her calf there, after

-the manner of prairie cows. Olive found the truant

-and the “little stranger,” along with half a dozen

-young cattle, and was driving them slowly homewards,

-when she became convinced from Rebel’s demonstrations

-that something was annoying him under the flap

-of his saddle. In fact he was constantly trying to bite

-Olive’s leg in a way which agitated her not a little. Accordingly

-she resolved to take off the saddle and make

-an inspection. She dismounted, undid the girths, and

-lifted off the heavy Mexican saddle. Rebel, who had

-always hitherto regarded this proceeding as indicating

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>immediate liberty, no sooner felt the saddle removed

-than he took a base advantage of Olive, and

-kicking up his heels bounded away from her. She

-set the saddle in the grass and walked pacifically after

-Rebel, held out a deceitful hand and called him endearing

-names. Rebel listened to her honeyed words with

-his ears flat on his neck, and as soon as she came near,

-again kicked up his heels and bounded off.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Diana considering all this a joke in which a puppy

-might lend valuable assistance, now pranced forward

-with energetic barks, and the cows and calves deeming

-themselves to be driven with fierceness, set up a

-lumbering trot across the prairie, the new-made mother

-every now and then diving ineffectually after Diana

-with a plunge and a snort. A stampede had set in

-among the animals, and Olive sat down and cried

-with vexation and alarm. Her home showed clear

-and distinct against the horizon just four miles in a

-bee-line from where she sat shedding her ineffectual

-tears. Now Diana, although a feminine creature and

-also a puppy, and therefore endowed with a double

-dose of original foolishness, was likewise a dog, and

-consequently amenable to the highest inspirations of

-a noble nature. Having therefore in her character of

-puppy worried and distracted the animals to her

-heart’s content, she suddenly felt bound to exhibit

-some of the better sides of her nature, among which

-remains forever pre-eminent fidelity to the master.

-Seeing that Olive was not in the scrimmage, Diana

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>turned her back resolutely upon the delights of snapping

-at calves’ heels, and putting her nose to the

-ground raced straight back to Olive weeping in the

-grass. After an apologetic wriggle Diana sat down

-and looked at Olive. Now no philosopher or other

-mortal has ever succeeded in being as wise as a tired

-puppy can look. Therefore when Olive in spite of

-her woe caught sight of Diana’s face and attitude, she

-burst into a laugh in the midst of her tears, whereupon

-the latter sprang merrily up and licked her face. Thus

-comforted, Olive arose, and then became aware that

-she didn’t know where the saddle was. She had neglected

-to mark its position in any way when going

-on that deceitful embassy to Rebel, but indeed it would

-not have been easy to mark the position of the saddle.

-The grass was in its greatest summer height, and there

-was neither bush nor tree anywhere for miles around.

-There was not even a hillock or knoll of ground to

-give individuality to one spot more than another, all

-was the relentless rolling prairie—a vast grassy sea

-where one billow was exactly like a hundred others.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was in dismay. Here was a fresh cause for

-tribulation, for the saddle was new and expensive,

-and moreover it belonged to the Community. She

-would not have minded facing Ezra with a tale of any

-sort of disaster or loss, for she knew he would kiss

-her and pet her and say, “Never mind, darling, don’t

-grieve, it doesn’t matter two jack-straws.” But a community-saddle

-was quite another matter, and Olive

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>shrank from the ordeal of community-anger at the

-loss of its saddle, and community-contempt for her

-carelessness in unsaddling on the prairie without putting

-the reins over her arm. She perceived now that

-anyone but a fool would have taken that simple precaution

-against disaster. “I’m not fit to live on the

-prairie,” sobbed Olive to herself. “My education is

-no use to me, and I have not got the wits of that boy-girl

-Willette. Diana, you idiot, why don’t you help

-me?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>This reproach was addressed to the puppy, who

-was wallowing blissfully in the grass and thus refreshing

-herself after her scamper. Olive began to walk

-aimlessly up and down in the hope of stumbling on

-the saddle, and Diana began to do likewise, but with

-far more system. Diana’s researches were speedily

-crowned with success, and she soon sat down to an uninterrupted

-gnaw at the flap of the big Mexican saddle.

-Becoming at length aware of the disappearance of

-Diana, Olive called to her, and the puppy reared a

-mischievous face over the grass some twenty yards

-away. Going to the spot, Olive perceived the saddle

-and also the depredations of Diana’s sharp teeth upon

-the flap. She whipped the dog with a stirrup leather

-most ineffectually and then said:</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What’s to be done now?” but Diana, feeling that

-her efforts had been badly rewarded, made no suggestions.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Indeed Olive’s plight after finding the saddle was

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>considerably worse than before. The thing was very

-heavy. Mexican saddles are built on wood, large,

-strong and ponderous, and weigh heavier and heavier

-in proportion to the distance one carries them. Olive

-put it on her shoulders and began to see stars, she

-then tried her head and found that position still worse.

-She dragged it along by a stirrup-leather and found

-she was ruining it. Then she sat down and cried,

-which was the most useless effort she had made. What

-was she to do? If she were to leave the saddle and

-walk home she would never be able to find it again.

-There was absolutely nothing to mark the spot. By

-this time the cattle were distant specks moving solemnly

-homewards, with Rebel decorously following in

-the rear. Olive decided to remain where she was until

-Rebel and the cattle, by their arrival without her,

-should have given the alarm, which would bring Ezra

-and the rest of the Community to the rescue, somewhere

-about the middle of the night, she supposed.

-It would be humiliating, but she thought it would be

-better than abandoning the saddle which she could not

-possibly carry. She sat down to wait with what patience

-she could for rescue and humiliation. There

-was nothing to expect along that weary stretch of

-grassy sea, and yet Olive kept looking and looking

-away to the north, east, south, and west. By and by

-she beheld a horseman coming up from the distant

-west and holding a slanting course which would carry

-him past Perfection City some mile or so to the north.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>She resolved to intercept this man and ask his aid, so

-she stood up and signalled wildly with her hat. Of

-course he saw her instantly, although he was a couple

-of miles away, and equally of course he at once turned

-his horse towards her and set off at a gallop. People

-on the prairie ask and give help freely, and Olive

-had not the slightest hesitation in calling this unknown

-horseman up to her aid, although she had not

-the remotest idea who he might be. Probably he was

-a cattle-hunter like herself, at any rate a man and a

-horse would be able to give her and her saddle effectual

-assistance. The man galloped steadily on and soon

-took the ordinary appearance: big hat, red shirt, riding

-boots, belt with probably a revolver somewhere in it.

-He slowed up a little as he came near and seemed to

-be very intently looking at Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am very sorry to have troubled you,” began

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Don’t mention it. I shall be delighted if I can

-be of use,” said the man, taking off his big hat.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>They both stopped short and looked hard at each

-other, for their speech had mutually revealed the fact

-that they were a lady and a gentleman, a most uncommon

-encounter on the Kansas prairie beyond the

-last bit of cultivated land.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Have you had an accident? Are you hurt?”

-asked the man, jumping off his horse and mechanically

-slinging the bridle-rein over his left arm, as Olive

-noted with some self-reproach. She told him what

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>had happened, and she saw a smile creep round his

-mouth and light up his blue eyes.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That is easily remedied. I feared you must have

-been thrown,” said he. “Just mount my horse. He’s

-quiet. I’ll take you home.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But the saddle,” said Olive looking very anxiously

-at that burden.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh! that’s nothing,” said the stranger. “I’ll

-carry it on my arm.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You must not dream of such a thing. I could

-not think of allowing it. You are very kind, I am

-sure, but if you would take up the saddle in front

-of you that is all I want. The saddle is the only difficulty.

-I can walk quite well. I live in that house

-over there on the brow of the bluff. It is not far, but

-I could not carry that terrible saddle.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, that’s Perfection City, where the Communists

-live,” said he, looking at her curiously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, I live there,” replied Olive with a slight

-blush, noting the look.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And are you a communist, if I may presume to

-ask the question?” queried the stranger.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“My husband was one of the founders of the—the—of

-Perfection City,” said Olive, valiantly determined

-to defend the absent.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But you are not one of the original members.

-You are surely a new-comer. I know most of them,

-by sight at all events.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am Mrs. Weston,” replied Olive with dignity.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>The stranger again took off his hat, as if this were

-an introduction.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have seen your husband then, a magnificent

-specimen of manhood, to judge from the only example

-I had of his physical strength.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive felt at once mollified. Meanwhile, the

-stranger had shortened the stirrup-leathers of his

-horse, and turning to Olive he said,</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And now, Mrs. Weston, allow me to give you

-a hand up to mount you on my big horse. He is quite

-gentle and I will hold the bridle.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive hesitated. “I don’t like to take your horse,”

-she said. “If you would be so kind as to leave the

-saddle——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, no, you must not deprive me of the pleasure

-of your company,” interposed the stranger. “We

-will manage the saddle all right. Just spring up.

-Your riding-habit is admirably adapted for prairie

-life, and the prettiest I ever saw. Pardon my bluntness,

-but I am so little used to society, I fear I am

-very rough.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You don’t fear anything of the sort,” replied

-Olive quickly. “You are perfectly aware that your

-manners are infinitely superior to the article in general

-use hereabouts.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The man laughed pleasantly at this sally. “Well,

-let me amend my pleading,” said he, “and say, it

-is so long since I met a lady in these wilds, and that

-is true enough, Heaven knows!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>Olive mounted the big horse with the dextrous

-help of his hand and signed to him to give her the

-saddle.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I couldn’t think of it,” said he, thrusting his arm

-under the saddle and hoisting it on to his shoulder.

-“It would be unspeakably uncomfortable for you

-to hold, with the stirrups whacking you at every

-step.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then you shall put it on the horse’s neck in

-front of me, or I’ll hop down this instant. It’s bad

-enough to appropriate your horse without making you

-carry my saddle as well.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Seeing her so determined, he, with a slight show

-of reluctance, placed the saddle on the neck of his

-horse, who after a shake or two submitted to the burden,

-and so they eventually turned homewards.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I suppose you are not surprised that we settlers

-out here take considerable interest in your experiment

-in communism,” remarked the man as they

-walked along.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No doubt anything out of the common excites

-comment,” said Olive guardedly, “but I should not

-have thought you could be classed as a settler out

-here. I have seen a good many, and know the type.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She felt interested in the man and curious to know

-who he was, he seemed so utterly different from all

-those she had hitherto met.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have lived here, nevertheless, for some years

-now. I have a farm on the north side of Big Cotton

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>Wood Creek. My name is Cotterell. Have you ever

-heard it?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I never heard the name, but then I’ve only

-been here a very short time, only two months. I—that

-is, we came in May,” said Olive blushing somewhat.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The stranger smiled a winning smile and looked

-up at her face as he answered,</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I see you have only just come, and come as a

-bride to Perfection City. It has a very suitable sound

-in that connection.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He again lifted his hat, and Olive blushed more

-vividly still.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The prairie does not seem a very hopeful place

-for experiments in perfection,” continued the stranger.

-“To my eyes it looks a most God-forsaken place, but

-under certain circumstances I should be disposed to

-modify that view.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think any place will do to try and live a good

-life in, and that is what is aimed at in our little Community,”

-said Olive, standing bravely to her defence.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He was silent for a time and then spoke again.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Any place can be made better by the presence

-of a good woman, I think.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We want to show how it is possible to banish

-some of the evil out of life,” said Olive, marshalling

-the expressions she had heard at the Academy with

-what skill she could.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“With some it is only necessary to be what God

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>made them in order to banish evil from their presence,”

-said he.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And we have a very noble woman as leader,”

-said Olive not quite sure of his meaning.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah, indeed! You praise her, that should count

-for much. There are very mixed reports about her

-character on the prairie. Many seem to dislike and

-distrust her.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“As for that I suppose there are mixed reports

-about us all,” observed Olive impartially.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Indeed there are. For instance, it is most

-confusing what people say concerning the extent

-to which you carry your communistic theories.

-Some assert that there is no limit and that you are

-logical.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Olive,

-knitting her brows.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I presume now that the land is held in common?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, certainly, and the farm implements and the

-horses and cows,” answered Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“All those don’t really touch the question. You

-live in separate houses, I believe.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Of course we do. I should hate not having my

-own little house. It would be like a hotel or a penitentiary

-for all to live under one roof. I wouldn’t do

-it for worlds. We have our home-life just like other

-people, but I should like to have a pony of my

-own, only I suppose my husband would not think

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>it right to have a horse that was not a community-horse.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What a confounded shame! I beg your pardon.

-You see I am rough. I mean, I think your

-husband ought to get you a pony, a nice well-trained

-lady’s pony, for you to ride, and not a big farm-horse.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I should like one,” observed Olive simply, and

-then suddenly remembering that she was speaking to

-a stranger, she added hastily, “I mean it would be

-nice to have a horse always at hand, one not liable to

-be wanted for farm work.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I just happen to know of an excellent animal

-that would suit you down to the ground. It belongs

-to Tom Mills, and he wants to sell it. It will go cheap

-too. If you would speak to your husband about it,

-I would bring it over for you to look at. Mills lives

-close to my house.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, pray don’t,” said Olive anxiously. “I am

-ever so much obliged to you, but I really ought not

-to have spoken about it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Very well,” said he, seeing she was distressed,

-“we’ll not pursue the subject further.” But in his

-own mind he reflected that were he in Weston’s place,

-he would have got that pony for his wife, principles

-or no principles, and it is highly probable that he

-would have done so.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He left Olive and her saddle at her own door,

-refusing her invitation to enter, saying that he would

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>avail himself of her permission to come some

-other day to see her. And she cordially invited him

-to do so, for was not hospitality one of the commonest

-virtues of the prairie, and surely Perfection

-City must not be behindhand in the practice

-thereof?</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> <span class='large'>MR. PERSEUS.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>When Olive got home, she was at first pleased to

-see that her husband had not come in, therefore he

-had not been made uneasy about her absence. Napoleon

-Pompey had caught Rebel and turned him into

-the pasture field, and was returning after that job when

-he met Olive near the hen-house. Napoleon Pompey

-grinned at her and remarked with relish: “Ole hoss,

-he done throw yer, den run clar ’way home.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, he didn’t,” retorted Olive, indignant at this

-slur upon her equestrian skill, “I just got off to

-change the saddle, and he ran away from me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Land!” said Napoleon Pompey, “an’ didn’t yer

-chuck yer reins roun’ yer arm?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I forgot to,” confessed Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Golly Ned!” said Napoleon Pompey with vast

-amusement.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive felt annoyed and inquired stiffly where her

-husband was.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ole man he done gone ter git ole hoe men’d

-up, den he gwine ter go to der ’Sumbly, he done eat

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>supper ’ready. Me an’ you’uns got ter eat our’n now.

-Ole man done tol’ me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Napoleon Pompey meant no disrespect in speaking

-of Ezra as “ole man,” for the lad knew of only two

-titles to bestow on white men, one was “Mas’r” the

-other was “ole man.” Ezra had requested him not to

-use the expression Mas’r, which grated on his ears,

-and contained suggestions of servitude at variance with

-the ideas that prevailed at Perfection City. Napoleon

-Pompey was therefore obliged to fall back upon his

-one other title. Olive had been greatly shocked when

-she first heard her husband called “ole man,” but she

-was now used to the expression.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She was very disappointed not to see Ezra at once,

-for she was full of her adventure, but she knew from

-experience she must possess her soul in patience, for

-the “’Sumbly,” as Napoleon Pompey called it, was

-sure to take a good while, and Ezra always stayed

-conscientiously to the last. The institution was none

-other than the bi-weekly Assembly, which met at the

-Academy, and at which all the business of the Community

-was settled and the routine work of the farm

-arranged for. All the members were free to attend

-and speak their minds, but in practice it had resolved

-itself into a Junta of Madame, Ezra, Wright, Green, and

-Uncle David, of whom the two latter were sleeping

-members. The women of Perfection City did not care

-to attend the Assembly very often. Women are not

-good debaters, and they dislike arguments carried on

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>under strict rule. They prefer to go their own way,

-do what seems best at the moment, and reserve an unlimited

-right of grumbling and jealousy. Madame, who

-was an exception to the general rule, usually presided

-at the Assembly and ruled it, as she did most things,

-without seeming to do so. Ezra and Brother Wright

-understood the farm work and generally mapped out

-the daily labour pretty well. Brother Dummy required

-only to be told what to do and went on contentedly

-doing it, without comment or commotion.

-Nobody, of course, was ordered to work, but it was

-suggested that if Brother Wright would do so and

-so, Brother Ezra would be able to do this, that, or

-the other, while Brother Carpenter would be free to

-perform such another task, and Brother Dummy would

-probably prefer to work at whatever happened to be

-wanted at the moment. Madame seldom interfered,

-and then only when necessary to smooth over a rough

-edge. She usually found the men’s arrangements

-excellent and for the general weal. Brother Green,

-who was a first-rate smith, was the only member of

-the Community who, at this time, received any money,

-for he worked in his spare time for outsiders. With

-great pride he used to bring the money he earned to

-the ’Sumbly and give it into Madame’s charge to be

-expended as seemed best. She kept the accounts and

-used to furnish all the rest of the necessary cash.

-Sometimes the brethren expressed compunction at calling

-so often on her resources, but Madame always

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>made the most graceful speeches in reply to their objections.

-Of course an undertaking such as this required

-capital to start it. It would be foolish to starve

-the whole project for want of a little expenditure

-now. By and by they would be self-supporting, but in

-order to reach that stage quickly they must not be

-stingy now. So she gave her dollars by the hundred

-when needed, and the brethren were eternally grateful

-and privately wondered if there was any limit to

-her wealth and generosity. At the Assembly it would

-be debated whether the next load of timber that was

-bought should go to building a hen-house for Brother

-Carpenter or to putting up a cattle-shed for Brother

-Ezra, and it speaks well for the honest conviction of

-the Pioneers that it was usually Brother Ezra who

-argued in favour of the hen-house, while Brother Carpenter

-expressed an anxious desire for the cattle-shed.

-The difficulty would perhaps be settled by Madame

-desiring to know how much timber was required

-for both buildings and deciding to buy that amount

-at the earliest opportunity.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>At this particular Assembly to which we refer,

-Ezra was several times on the point of saying that

-he wished to get a pony for his wife, but his

-heart failed him. He knew he did want the pony

-very much, but he also knew that it was not

-really wanted for the Community. So he could not

-bring himself to give utterance to the individualistic

-wish, and after arranging the necessary business of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>the Community, he came home with his wish unstated.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was waiting for him with the greatest impatience.

-She went, indeed, as far as the bars to meet

-him, but the road looked so lonesome and the sky so

-black with cold trembling specks of stars, that she

-ran back again in a flutter of panic to the house and

-shut herself in with the candles for company. At last

-he came back, and Olive poured forth the pent-up

-torrent of her news. Ezra was much amused at her

-description of the disaster and interested in her account

-of the rescuer.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And I am so vexed,” said Olive, “I can’t for the

-life of me remember what he said his name was. I

-know I never heard it before, but he lives here on the

-prairie. It is so silly!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Call him Perseus,” said Ezra laughing, “he was

-the gallant who came to the rescue of distressed damsels.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What a good joke!” said Olive gleefully, “and

-I was a distressed damsel, I assure you. I cried with

-vexation.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have no doubt that Andromeda shed tears when

-she was bound to the rock,” said Ezra, amused.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And I was bound to that odious saddle by the

-bonds of duty,” said Olive. “What a joke! Mr. Perseus!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>So they laughed and chatted, and Olive was as

-bright as possible, and Ezra thought again with a pang

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>of that pony and almost wished he had spoken at the

-Assembly about it. Olive, however, never mentioned

-what Mr. Perseus had said about the pony Mills had

-for sale. The idea seemed to have passed from her

-mind.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>It happened that about a week later Olive again

-found herself in the neighbourhood of Little Cotton

-Wood Creek, and by an extraordinary coincidence Mr.

-Perseus chanced to meet her. She was very much

-surprised, and he seemed to be no less so. However,

-the meeting was mutually pleasant, and they soon fell

-into conversation, as it appeared he was going her

-way.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have thought a great deal about what you said

-to me the other day, about trying to make life better

-and all that,” said he with a certain self-consciousness,

-as if he was unaccustomed to speaking upon such

-a subject. Olive looked at him with bright clear

-eyes.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am very glad if anything I said could be of

-use to you, but I am myself very ignorant. I should

-like you to come and hear what Brother Wright says,

-and Ezra. Brother Wright is considered very eloquent.

-I can’t always understand him myself, but

-that is my own deficiency!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I would much prefer talking with you, Mrs.

-Weston,” said the stranger hastily. “I am very restive

-under men’s teaching, but I am docile enough

-when led by a woman’s gentle hand.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>“Why are you living here?” asked Olive suddenly.

-“You seem so unsuited to this life.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am sick of civilization and all its horrors,” said

-he. “I wanted to get away to something fresh and

-new.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That is almost like what a Pioneer would say,”

-remarked Olive with a smile. “They don’t think

-very highly of what civilization has done so far.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Materially it has done much, morally it has done

-badly for a good number of human beings,” he remarked.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think you sound like a very hopeful convert

-to the principles of communism. Why don’t you come

-to Perfection City?” asked Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Would you be glad to see me there, Mrs. Weston?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Certainly, Mr. Perseus, and I should be so pleased

-to make you and my husband known to each other.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He looked at her curiously for some moments and

-then said, “Why do you call me Mr. Perseus?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive gave him one horrified glance and then

-blushed scarlet.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she stammered in great

-confusion. “I did not know I said so. I really am

-most sorry.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But why that name?” he persisted, still looking

-at her blushing face.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I may as well tell you the truth,” she said still

-much confused. “The fact is I forgot what you said

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>your name was, and my husband suggested in a joke

-that I should call you Perseus, because—because——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I rescued you in distress,” said he as he broke

-into a deep musical laugh. “It is a capital name, I

-am delighted with it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am so ashamed of myself,” said Olive, also

-laughing, “but I was in the habit of speaking of

-you as Mr. Perseus, and the name slipped off my

-tongue unawares. What is your real name? Pray

-tell me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Not for worlds, dear Mrs. Weston. To you I

-shall remain Mr. Perseus, and I shall never think

-of the name without a thrill of pleasure.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But this is most unfair,” said Olive. “You know

-my name and who I am and all about me, and yet

-I am to be kept in the dark as to your identity.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Forgive my not doing at once what you wish,

-but really I cannot. This will be a sweet little innocent

-romance to me, and before you I shall appear in

-my very best light, leaving all the vices and evils of

-my real nature behind me for the time. Ah no! don’t

-deprive me of such a harmless joy. If you knew what

-a lonely uncared for life is mine, your tender heart

-would be touched.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Her heart was touched by the quiver in his deep

-voice, as he intended it should be, and Olive did not

-press her point any further. They rode on together

-talking about a hundred subjects, and she found him

-the most agreeable of men. She happened to mention

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>a great novel just then coming out in Harper’s,

-the scene of which was laid in Florence, and he said

-musingly:</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah yes! Florence is a lovely city, nestling among

-the blue hills.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Have you ever seen it then?” asked Olive much

-surprised.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, long ago, when I was a young fellow.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She gazed at him. “You are a most incomprehensible

-person,” she said, “living here on this prairie

-and yet you have seen Florence.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You forget Perseus travels easily with his winged

-feet, from here to Florence would be a bagatelle to

-him.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I begin to think there must be something uncanny

-about you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Now don’t go and change me into any other personality.

-Remember you are all-powerful, and by your

-word alone have made me Perseus. Your word is

-mighty, and you can cast me down into hell and make

-me a devil by a breath,” said he half banteringly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What odd language!” said Olive, looking a little

-frightened. “How you must astonish the natives

-when you talk in that way!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you fancy I talk to anyone as I do to you?

-Don’t you understand that I am Perseus to you, but

-to nobody else in the world?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive laughed, and put her horse to a canter in

-order to snap the thread of talk which was becoming

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>too difficult for her. Mr. Perseus remained in her

-company while she was driving home the cattle, but

-they had no further particular conversation, as the exigencies

-of driving the herd occupied their attention

-most of the time. On parting from her about a mile

-from her home, he promised to come some day to see

-her, and Olive added, “I do hope Ezra will be in, for

-I should so like you two to talk together. I am sure

-you have much in common.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We have one point in common, at all events,”

-thought Mr. Perseus as he rode away back towards

-the Big Cotton Wood Creek, “but I doubt very much

-if that would at all add to the harmony of our relations.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was full of her meeting with Mr. Perseus,

-an account of which she retailed to Ezra at supper.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And just fancy his oddity! He wouldn’t tell me

-his real name after my unlucky slip, so he is Mr. Perseus

-to the end of the chapter, I suppose. He thought

-it such a joke.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“So he saw the application,” remarked Ezra.

-“He must be a man of education.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He is a most superior man, I can see that. He

-has read everything I ever did and more too. And

-do you know, Ezra, I shouldn’t wonder if he had leanings

-towards community-life, many things he said

-pointed that way. Wouldn’t it be funny if I were

-to be the one to bring in your first convert, poor little

-me that never had any leanings until I saw you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>Ezra looked sharply at his wife during this speech,

-for a sudden and by no means pleasant suspicion

-sprang into his mind concerning the mysterious Mr.

-Perseus. However, Olive looked so perfectly innocent

-of even all knowledge of evil that he felt ashamed of

-himself.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t be too friendly with this man. We

-don’t know anything about him, nor who he is, remember,”

-remarked Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He said he knew you and that you were a fine-looking

-man, you old dear, and he is acquainted with

-most of the members of the Community by sight.

-Besides, I thought it was a point of etiquette on the

-prairie to make no inquiries into a person’s character,

-but to take him in his boots just as he stands, and ask

-him to dinner. Don’t you remember Charlie Clarke,

-and how he came to supper by your invitation and

-you found him so pleasant, and he a horse-thief and a

-murderer all the while, only we didn’t know it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>This was all very true, but Charlie Clarke had

-evinced no “leanings” to community-life, and above

-all Olive had been profoundly uninterested in him and

-was delighted when he left. Ezra hated himself for

-the feeling in his heart, but he had his suspicions of

-Mr. Perseus, and he knew his wife was distractingly

-pretty. So he advised her to keep aloof from Mr.

-Perseus as much as practicable. Several times afterwards

-he made excuses to go riding with her, which

-Olive enjoyed immensely, but then something was

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>said to her about his shirking his share of the work,

-and she was furiously angry. She wanted her husband

-to be first, and since the only theatre for the exhibition

-of his abilities was the somewhat restricted one

-of Perfection City, she wanted him to be always near

-the front.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Shirking indeed!” she said tossing her pretty

-head. “I’ll have Mary Winkle know my husband

-never shirked in his life.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>In a blaze of wrath she met Ezra and ordered him

-to go to work and never mind riding with her till

-the harvest was over. She wouldn’t ride any more,

-she would work until she was black in the face. Shirking

-indeed! She’d let Mary Winkle see! And so on

-and so forth, till her burst of anger had spent itself.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was not slow to perceive that her husband

-had some sort of dislike to the idea of her seeing Mr.

-Perseus. She could not exactly explain to herself

-why this should be, and she was heartily sorry for it.

-She had fancied that in time Mr. Perseus might possibly

-come to be a member of the Community. She would

-indeed have been frankly glad to have him become a

-brother, for, as far as she could judge, he seemed a

-man of brilliant parts, and certainly his manners were

-most charming. To tell the truth, she found the

-members as a whole very uninteresting. Mary Winkle

-she positively disliked, and yet she was the one nearest

-to her own age. She sometimes wondered how

-Ezra could be satisfied with the companionship of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>those same people, who seemed to her to be walking

-in such a narrow circle, and always to be saying the

-same things in pretty nearly the same words. Now,

-Mr. Perseus said such original things and in such a

-charming voice. Altogether it was a pity that Ezra

-should have taken a prejudice into his head against

-this stranger. Olive wondered whether, if they met,

-the mutual recognition of their abilities would dissipate

-her husband’s suspicions. Such being her notions,

-it was most unlucky that the first time Mr.

-Perseus came to see them Ezra should have been gone

-to Union Mills. He went so very seldom that it was

-a most unfortunate coincidence, as she explained to

-Mr. Perseus, who did not in return explain that having

-himself seen Ezra at Union Mills he had straightway

-ridden off to visit her, and ridden so hard too that

-his horse was in a white lather when he arrived at

-Perfection City by a somewhat circuitous route. Napoleon

-Pompey was gone, so Olive showed him where

-to put his horse in the dark stable so that the flies

-would not torment the animal. She remarked on the

-horse’s state and asked Mr. Perseus had he been running

-down cattle, and he muttered something about

-young horses showing every bit of work in hot weather.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He was profoundly interested in Olive’s little home.

-She showed him with pride the garden she had made,

-where already the balsams were just coming into blossom;

-she then took him to see the prairie chickens

-she was trying to rear, little black and yellow downy

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>things, with fierce wild eyes utterly untamed and

-only looking out for a favourable opportunity to make

-a dash for freedom.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you think I can ever tame them?” asked

-Olive, as she noted the hostile manner in which they

-scuttled away from her food-giving hand.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“If anyone could tame them you could, the ungrateful

-little brutes!” remarked Mr. Perseus.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t see that it is ungrateful of them to resent

-being taken from their proper home and natural mother

-to be put under a fat stupid hen,” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, but it is rank ingratitude not to be tame to

-you,” said he.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t think you are truthful,” said Olive

-bluntly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why?” asked Mr. Perseus.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Because you are always saying things like that,”

-she answered, somewhat resentfully.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, I do call that hard,” complained Mr. Perseus,

-“to charge a fellow with being untruthful when

-he was shaking in his shoes from terror at having perhaps

-let out too much of the truth.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive looked down at his big boots, knitting her

-brows, and then led the way into the house.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I’ll get you some dinner. I am sure you are

-hungry,” she said hospitably, it being about two o’clock

-in the afternoon.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am hungry, starving, mind, body, and soul,”

-said her visitor in reply.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>“I’ll get a chicken-pie for you, that will go some

-way,” answered Olive with a laugh.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And if you will talk with me, that will go far

-to complete the work of charity,” said he.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive brought him the food, and he set to work

-upon it, being evidently, as he said, very hungry.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you know I am beginning to look upon Perfection

-City as a sort of earthly paradise,” said Mr.

-Perseus.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Indeed.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, a paradise from which I am shut out. Have

-you any young men here, Mrs. Weston, unmarried

-men, or are they against your rules?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No. Unmarried men are not against our rules,”

-said Olive archly. “We had one here lately, but we

-haven’t now.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, what did you do with him?” asked Mr.

-Perseus, in some surprise.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I married him,” said Olive dimpling and blushing.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Lucky beggar!” remarked her visitor, turning

-again to his dinner.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Mr. Perseus stayed some time, but refused Olive’s

-invitation to wait to see her husband, saying as an

-excuse that he had a long way to ride home. Olive

-wanted to know where he lived, but he laughingly

-put her off. He would not tell her, lest she should

-discover his real name, and then much of the romance

-of his life would be destroyed.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>“You don’t know what this is to me, and how

-when I am leading my lonely life, I recall every word

-and look and again go through these meetings, Mrs.

-Weston. I suppose it seems silly to you, but remember,

-human companionship is man’s most precious

-inheritance, and those who have but little of it prize

-what they have at perhaps an extravagant figure. Did

-you ever hear of Silvio Pellico?” he asked abruptly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No,” replied Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, he was a prisoner entirely shut off from

-human companionship, and he at last made friends

-with a spider, and at length the spider was crushed

-by the turnkey’s foot, and Silvio wept tears of anguish.

-I am like a prisoner out here on this desolate

-prairie.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And am I like the horrible spider, then?” said

-Olive brightly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mrs. Weston!” he exclaimed reproachfully. “I

-have opened my heart to you because I felt that you

-could feel with me, although the world might count

-us as strangers, but I thought you would understand

-what I meant even when I blundered through the expression

-of my thoughts. This is the first time you

-have misunderstood me. But I believe it was only

-pretended misunderstanding and that you do know

-what I meant.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He said good-bye, and left Olive with a feeling of

-sadness and oppression on her mind. He had not been

-as bright as before, and she wondered who he was

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>and why he was so anxious not to see anyone but her.

-She mentioned his visit to Ezra, but somehow she

-had less to tell about him than on former occasions.

-There seemed nothing to say. Ezra, too, did not appear

-as much amused as formerly at the joke of Mr.

-Perseus. No doubt it was getting stale by this time.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IX.<br /> <span class='large'>FIRST LESSONS.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>Summer came on apace. The field had been duly

-run over in both directions with the shovel-plough,

-so as to leave between the cross-ploughing little “hills”

-of earth, out of which sprang the corn-clumps. The

-broad green ribbons of leaves fluttered in the wind,

-making a soft murmur as of a forest. Olive took great

-delight in her little flower-garden at the east end of

-the house, and worked and weeded at it both early and

-late. Napoleon Pompey, typical negro boy, which

-being interpreted means laziest of mortals, forgot his

-laziness to work for “Mis’ Ollie” as he called her.

-Together they had planted their balsams, trained their

-morning-glory, and rooted out brown beetles with zeal,

-to be amply repaid in July by a glorious profusion of

-blossoms.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“This is my very ownest own garden,” said Olive,

-exhibiting her balsams with pride to Ezra. “Mind,

-this is not community-land, it’s mine.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Does it make you enjoy the flowers more to think

-that nobody else has them?” asked Ezra, with a tinge

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>of sadness in his voice. “Would it make you any the

-happier to keep the sunshine all to yourself, do you

-think?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not, that’s quite different. But I’ve

-planted these flowers and grown them. I shall give

-them to whomsoever I like. You for instance.” She

-smiled coaxingly at him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You pretty child,” he said, disarmed.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, I brought some over to Mrs. Carpenter

-to-day. I went to help her with her washing. And,

-do you know!” said Olive, “I was so amused.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“At what?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mr. Carpenter was educating his children.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He’s always doing that,” said Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, but to-day there was a special lesson. He

-was at Union Mills yesterday, and he got a present

-for both of them, I mean two presents, one for Johnny

-and one for Nelly. You know he is always saying

-boys and girls would have the same tastes if they were

-brought up in the same way.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He’ll find out one day, maybe, that boys will be

-boys, no matter how you bring them up.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He has found it out already. Wait till you hear.

-By way of correcting any early bias, he gave a hammer

-and nails to Nelly and a doll to Johnny.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You don’t say so! What did the children do?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, they went off without a word, each carrying

-its toy, and Mr. Carpenter told me his ideas about

-education, and how well they worked. Suddenly we

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>heard shrieks from behind the wood-pile where the

-children were playing. We ran out to see what was

-the matter. Nelly had got a handkerchief tied over

-the head of her hammer, and she was cuddling it to

-sleep in her arms. Johnny had got some of the nails

-and was trying to drive them into a piece of wood with

-the head of the doll for hammer. Nelly was screaming

-because he was killing poor Dolly.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra laughed, and Olive joined in at the recollection

-of the scene. “You cannot think how disappointed

-Mr. Carpenter looked. His wife said he’d

-got something to do if he was expecting to cure little

-girls of dolls in a hurry. We changed the presents and

-left him to reconcile it with his theories as best he

-could; both children were quite happy and contented

-afterwards.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Poor Carpenter! He’ll have to learn by bitter

-experience that he cannot change human nature all

-at once,” said Ezra, sympathetically. “I fear children

-are still in the savage stage of development, they are

-not communists.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Nobody is communist about things they care very

-much about,” said Olive, in desperate courage.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, Ollie! What a thing to say! I am a thorough-going

-communist I hope. I’d give the coat off

-my back without a pang.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Of course you would, because it is a horrid old

-thing any way, and men look frights in coats always.

-Men don’t care about clothes, only just to cover themselves

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>and keep themselves warm. One rag would do

-as well as another.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You are an incorrigible little individualist and

-a greedy one as well, I do declare,” said Ezra, half

-laughing at her vehemence.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, it’s not that, only I see what is what,” replied

-Olive oracularly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And what might that be?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The Pioneers are only communistic for rubbish

-and rags, and not for dolls and hammers. That’s what

-they are,” said Olive, with her face aflame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Rubbish and rags! What an absurd thing to

-say. Who ever heard such nonsense?” said Ezra,

-loftily ignoring his wife’s argument in a way that wise

-men often affect.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“’Tisn’t nonsense,” said Olive hotly. “It is just

-what people say of Perfection City.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What people say it?” asked Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, Mr. Perseus for one,” said Olive, repenting

-of her daring in getting into the subject at all.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mr. Perseus,” repeated Ezra with a sudden frown,

-“so you talk over our principles with him. When did

-you do so last?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t know exactly when. The other day. He

-often passes by here on his way cattle-hunting. Sometimes

-he looks in for a moment, but sometimes he can’t

-stay long, only to water his horse. Of course I talk

-over the principles that have made you found a City

-here. Don’t you suppose people know about them

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>and talk them over eagerly? They are different enough

-from the generality of people’s ideas, and Mr. Perseus

-said they considered you only went a little way into

-communism, and had a little bit of this and a little

-bit of that in common, and weren’t at all logical.

-People sneer at Perfection City, I can assure you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And you, doubtless, enjoyed his sneers,” retorted

-Ezra injudiciously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I didn’t, only I saw what other people say

-of us. Mr. Perseus, even, once said he’d like to

-come and be a communist himself, if we were only

-consistent throughout, and lived up to our principles.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You may tell your friend Perseus that he would

-not be a welcome recruit,” said Ezra, in considerable

-agitation. “I may as well tell you now what I have

-suspected for some time. I know pretty well who

-your mysterious Mr. Perseus is. He is a man of the

-name of Cotterell. I know him very well by sight

-and better still by reputation. To convince you, I will

-just mention a point or two about his appearance. He

-is about five feet ten in height, very fair in complexion,

-with a yellow moustache, and bright blue eyes, and

-whenever he takes his hat off you see the blue veins

-very markedly on his temples. He is, I suppose, what

-a woman would call a very handsome man, and he

-usually rides a black horse with a blaze on his face

-and white hind feet.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, that’s the man,” said Olive who remembered

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>the horse well, and who moreover recognized the perfect

-accuracy of her husband’s description.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Very well. Now I will tell you something about

-his character and history. He is an Englishman and

-perhaps has been badly brought up. At all events he

-hasn’t the morals we approve of. I know his libertine

-London ways. He probably didn’t tell you about it,

-but I remember very well the poor girl who shot

-herself the first summer we came here, because Cotterell

-had abandoned her. If the neighbours had been

-quite sure of all the facts of the case, there would in

-all probability have been a shooting party at Cotterell’s

-house, so I was told. But they were not quite sure

-so they gave him the benefit of the doubt. Accordingly

-he still has his handsome face to go on with and

-maybe wreck more homes. That is the career of Mr.

-Cotterell, alias Mr. Perseus,” said Ezra with considerable

-heat.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It was you who gave him the name of Perseus,”

-replied Olive also much agitated. “He did not appear

-under a false name of his own accord. And now that

-you tell me his real name I remember that was the

-one he gave the first time I saw him, and he asked

-me if I had ever heard it before.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I won’t say anything on that point, it may have

-been a joke on his part, but it must stop now. Understand

-me, Olive. I don’t wish to seem harsh, but

-you must not meet and talk with this man again.

-If you chance on him, pass by and say you can have

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>no further communication with him. If he urges an

-objection, say I have forbidden you to see him, as

-I do forbid you, here and now. He will take that

-for an answer, scoundrel as he is, for among people of

-his stamp personal vanity does duty for better feelings.

-He won’t come again to a house where the lady

-has once shown him the door. You don’t in the least

-understand what his motives are in this new-fangled

-interest of his in Perfection City, but I understand

-them very clearly, and my wish is that you never see

-him again. Harm is sure to come of it if you do.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was very much alarmed at her husband’s

-stern manner and peremptory order, but she was also

-indignant. Mr. Perseus or Cotterell, as she must now

-call him, had shown great respect and deference to

-her and had evinced a desire to be guided by her to

-higher aspirations. She was not sure of the meaning

-of some of his remarks, or rather she wished she could

-find some other reasonable explanation for them than

-the one most people would undoubtedly attach to them.

-Still she resented her husband’s masterful manner.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I will of course obey your orders, Ezra,” she

-said with a tart emphasis on the word which made

-him wince, “because I hold old-fashioned ideas of

-what wifely duty is, quite at variance with the high

-standard of individual liberty as maintained and explained,

-I believe, by the brethren of Perfection City.

-You may rest quite satisfied, I will obey you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Having thus stabbed her husband in his most vulnerable

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>point and dexterously driven the poignard up

-to the hilt in the wound, Olive walked away, leaving

-Ezra to feel himself a selfish brute.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra spent a wretched half day of self-reproach,

-and then crept back repentant, begging to be forgiven

-for being a tyrant to his poor little pet. And

-his little pet who had paid for her pride with abundant

-tears, allowed him to kiss her and fondle her and call

-her sweet silly names, while she declared she never

-cared to see or speak to that wretched Mr. Cotterell

-again, and no wonder he was ashamed of his own

-name, etc., etc., all in the most foolish and approved

-manner possible to the newly married.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>All the same, after a time Olive began to feel sorry

-for Mr. Cotterell, and to pity him for the very errors

-of his past life, about which she now saw that he was

-penitent without wishing to explain to her why. Also

-she had very much enjoyed meeting him; he was so

-fresh, cultivated, and original, in his conversation. It

-was really very dull sometimes with no one to talk to,

-and the long hot day shimmering by, making her feel

-as if she were a potato being slowly baked in a hotair

-oven. There was no excitement in the house-work

-and—and it was very dreary sometimes. Men delight

-in reverting to primitive savagery. The most highly

-civilized man “reverts” in a way which is surprising

-both for completeness and for rapidity, but women

-hate the process. Savage woman was a slave, and the

-more completely a woman becomes subject to primitive

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>conditions the more closely she resembles a slave, and

-is in virtual bondage either to some human being or

-to hampering circumstances.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Of appropriate companions of her own sex Olive

-had absolutely none. Mary Winkle was a rigid reformer,

-a person all angles, of the sort that never becomes

-a companion to anyone, for she was always on

-the war-path, and, besides, between her and Olive there

-was an unexpressed, but no less real, antipathy. Her

-daughter, Willette, that creature half boy, half girl,

-and wholly wild, was always on horseback careering

-after stray cattle, and though by her ignorance and

-eccentricity she sometimes amused Olive, she had really

-no ideas beyond those very concrete ones impressed

-upon her from without by her open-air life on the

-prairie. Mrs. Carpenter was a good soul, but a mere

-stout housewife, with no ideas and only one hope,

-namely, “that Carpenter would give up his high-fallutin’

-notions, an’ go back to York State, an’ settle

-down comfortable again, an’ be a preacher in a Baptist

-church.” Mrs. Ruby was old in body, but the youngest

-of them all in mind, except Uncle David, who was

-her senior by four years. Mrs. Ruby believed in Perfection

-City, though she reserved the right of private

-judgment on certain of the tenets of its founders, and

-in particular, she had lately felt misgivings as to the

-worldly wisdom of their principle of non-resistance.

-She knew, however, that the Pioneers were going to

-show the world the new and better way—the way

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>which led into no competition for supremacy, but into

-peaceful paths of universal progress. Property and

-its attendant imps, greed, strife, jealousy, envy, hatred,

-and malice, were all banished from Perfection City,

-and in their place peace and good-will and perfect trust

-in each other were to reign forever. It was a high

-ideal, but not a new one. It was eighteen centuries

-old, though it had never yet been realised. Mrs. Ruby

-and Uncle David felt sure they had reached the ideal,

-and all through Madame Morozoff-Smith, the most

-whole-souled, unselfish, glorious woman of her century.

-It was a pity she had not a larger theatre in

-which to present before mankind the new principles of

-social life it was their privilege to put into practice.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER X.<br /> <span class='large'>PRACTICAL COMMUNISM.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>A day or two after Ezra had laid his commands

-upon his wife, as we saw in the last chapter, he came

-home in the evening to find her in floods of tears.

-Her eyelids were all red with weeping, and she broke

-out afresh on seeing him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What’s the matter?” asked Ezra, in much concern.

-“What has happened?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“My poor flowers, my pretty balsams!” sobbed

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Has the calf got into your garden and spoiled

-your flowers, my poor child?” he said tenderly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, it wasn’t the calf, but they are all gone.

-Mary Winkle took them all.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh!” said Ezra with a slight shock of surprise.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, she has cleared the whole garden. She

-came to-day while I was out at Mrs. Huntley’s.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“How do you know it is she who has taken them?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Napoleon Pompey told me he saw her pick

-them.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Depend upon it, he is lying,” said Ezra with

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>emphasis. “Negroes are as mischievous as monkeys,

-and——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, he didn’t do anything to the flowers,” interrupted

-Olive. “He was as pleased with them almost

-as I was myself, and worked ever so hard to help

-keep down the weeds. Besides, I went to Mary Winkle

-and saw them.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh!” said Ezra helplessly. He wished it had

-been the calf or Napoleon Pompey or anybody or anything

-rather than Mary Winkle. He braced himself

-for what was coming.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She told me she did it with a purpose. She

-said I was getting more individualistic in my leanings

-every day, and that time was not curing me at all,

-that I was selfishly proud of my flowers. It isn’t one

-bit true,” sobbed Olive, with quivering chin. “I gave

-heaps of them away. I gathered a bunch for Mrs.

-Huntley just as I was going this morning.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra groaned. “I know you did, dear,” he said.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She said I gloated over them and rejoiced because

-nobody else had any. I didn’t. I only loved

-them because I had tended them and reared them, and

-I knew them and watched for their buds. She said

-they didn’t belong to me, but to the Community, and

-that she took them on behalf of the general weal.

-Those are all grand words for nasty mean jealousy and

-covetousness,” said Olive passionately. “I hate Mary

-Winkle and I hate the Community.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, Olive, Olive!” cried Ezra with a gesture of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>entreaty. “Don’t say that, dear. It strikes me to

-the heart. Think of me, dear.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“My pretty flowers!” she said with a drooping

-of her mouth that betokened fresh tears.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am so sorry, oh, more sorry than I can say,”

-said Ezra. “Mary Winkle has done wrong, and has

-administered a lesson in a cruel, brutal way.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She has no business to give me lessons at all,

-and I won’t take them from her,” cried Olive passionately.

-“I hate being the one to be always taught.

-They think themselves so superior and are always

-stooping to raise me. Let them raise themselves first.

-I can see where Mary Winkle needs teaching and correction

-as plainly as anybody. She is only communistic

-in regard to things she doesn’t really care about.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, no Ollie, darling. It is really a deep conviction

-with us all, although in this case most unkindly

-illustrated,” said Ezra gently.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I know you think so in all honesty, but it isn’t

-so in reality. Nobody is nor can be communistic about

-what they love, if it is real love. If they are communistic

-about a thing it is because they don’t really

-care.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra knew by the pang of jealousy in his own

-heart that this was an insurmountable truth his little

-wife was hurling forth in her anger.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mary Winkle isn’t communistic. I’m not clever

-and able to say wise things and use long words that

-amaze people like Brother Wright, but for all that I

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>can see some things clearly enough. Mary Winkle

-isn’t any more communistic than I am, only we love

-different things.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think you mistake,” said Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t mistake one bit. Let Mary Winkle,

-if she is communistic in all the moods and tenses,

-lump her child with the two little Carpenters and draw

-lots to take one of the three for her own. Would that

-satisfy her heart, although the precious principles

-would be right enough? Of course not, because her

-heart would step in and claim its own by the divine

-right of love. I should be thoroughly communistic

-on the score of these children. I shouldn’t mind to

-draw lots as to whether Willette or Nelly or Johnny

-Carpenter was going to come to live with me. One

-would do as well as another, and I could be thoroughly

-communistic, because I don’t love any of them

-very deeply. My little flowers I did love. It wasn’t

-that I had worked for them and grudged the fruit of

-my labour. I would work in a turnip field and let

-anyone who liked have the turnips, nasty, watery,

-pulpy things, but I loved those flowers and tended them

-and they were mine. I don’t care about the philosophy

-of the question. You will perhaps some day see

-what I mean, Ezra, and understand me. I know you

-don’t now. You think me a silly child.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>In his own heart he thought he understood more

-clearly than he liked to confess, that Olive was speaking

-more than philosophy, she was announcing stubborn

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>facts. However, he strove his utmost to soothe

-her feelings, for he could see that if an attitude of

-strife and hostility were once set up between her and

-Mary Winkle, it would not only affect his wife’s happiness

-but might have very serious results upon the

-future of Perfection City. There were only a very

-few of them, and if the experiment was to succeed it

-could only do so through unity, while strife and internal

-dissensions would certainly destroy it without

-giving it a chance. This point was fruitful of deep

-meditation, and occasioned heart-searchings to Ezra.

-It indeed augured ill for the future, not only of Perfection

-City, but of all those other cities of their imagination

-which should spring from this mother plant,

-if the personal feelings of a couple of good women

-were potent enough to wreck the scheme. Surely, in

-the dozen or so choice spirits who now formed the

-entire population of that City, there could be none

-of those latent forces making for destruction which

-would have to be reckoned with in the future and

-larger experiments in communism they were leading

-up to. If it was so difficult to soothe ruffled feelings

-in Perfection City now, and to compose a quarrel about

-some wretched little balsams, what would happen

-when, in a larger Perfection City, deeper cause of dispute

-arose between numbers of persons? Ezra’s mind

-recoiled aghast at the answer which rose up in his

-mind in reply to that question. There would have

-to be some strong, some overwhelming central power,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>a despot in short. Was this then the goal which they

-were to reach after toiling along a hard and stony

-road of personal effort? A despotism or a monasticism,

-in either case tyranny and subjection. Surely, oh

-surely, there must be some other solution which his

-mind, disturbed by the sight of his little wife’s distress,

-had unaccountably failed to formulate. He

-would go to Madame and would seek guidance from

-her illumined mind.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive, spent by her emotions, had gone to sleep

-quite early, so Ezra sallied forth to seek counsel where

-he was used to find it. Madame would be sure to be

-still up—though it was late by prairie hours, after

-nine o’clock—as he knew by experience, for in his

-bachelor days he had often spent long evenings in discussion

-and talk with her. Since his marriage, however,

-he had never gone alone in the evening to talk

-with Madame. Happy in his own love, he had felt

-no need of other companionship, and now as he walked

-along to her house, he began to wonder if she had

-noticed the sudden cessation of the evening talks, and

-also to wonder if she had missed them. It was thoughtless

-never to have gone near her during all these

-weeks. It was selfish, seeing how kind, how always

-sympathetic she had been to him for so many months,

-during the time when he felt lonely and full of undefined

-longings, before his heart had found complete

-rest in Olive’s love and above all in his love for her.

-Ezra thinking of these things was smitten with remorse,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>and made a resolution to go and see Madame

-of an evening sometimes and to bring Olive with him.

-Meantime he walked along and in a few moments

-knocked at the familiar door. Madame opened it herself,

-with Balthasar in close attendance. The latter,

-on satisfying himself that it was a person of friendly

-intentions who claimed admittance, walked back to

-the spot where he had been lying, and resumed the

-thread of his interrupted slumbers.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Brother Ezra, this is indeed a most unexpected

-visit. I hope it is not because there is anything wrong

-in your little home,” said Madame gravely.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra felt much embarrassed. He could hardly say

-there was nothing the matter, and still less could he

-apologise for having forgotten during all these happy

-weeks to come to see her. He did the best thing

-under the circumstances. He ignored Madame’s remark

-and question, and plunged boldly into the business

-which had brought him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She listened gravely without making any observation,

-but occasionally the faintest shadow of a smile

-fluttered around her lips. Ezra watched her face somewhat

-anxiously. In the old days, he had been used to

-read her face when they talked together, and to catch

-the meaning of her words from the mobile and everchanging

-expression of her clear blue eyes. But to-day,

-somehow, as he looked, he felt he had lost the

-power to read. The face was now a mask which seemed

-to conceal the real woman underneath, and yet it was

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>the same fair smooth brow, the same sharply defined

-eyebrows, and, beneath, the same eyes. No, the eyes

-were not the same. They no longer looked clear and

-full at Ezra, but were often averted in a strange and

-uncertain manner, as if seeking to hide or to flee. At

-least such was the curious impression they produced

-upon him, as he sat looking at her and telling of the

-mighty wave of wrath that had surged up about that

-handful of balsam blossoms.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is a most singular cause of division, and one

-I could almost laugh at, except for the very real passions

-of anger and of hatred it has aroused,” he said

-in conclusion.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“One often sees terrible bursts of anger and

-fury in immature minds,” observed Madame in

-the preamble of her answer. “Young children

-and people of weak intellect frequently exhibit

-the most pitiable extremes of fury over trifling

-causes.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra was not quite certain to what she referred.

-If to Olive, then she was mistaken in considering her

-a child. He recalled very vividly what she had said

-about communism in what one loves, and he was not

-at all prepared to admit that her arguments were those

-of a person of weak intellect.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t think this is a case for ‘criticism-cure’

-in the Assembly, do you?” she said.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not,” replied Ezra, who was keenly

-alive to the possibility of his wife’s blazing up into uncompromising

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>criticism herself, if they attempted to

-apply the famous “cure” upon her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Criticism-cure” existed rather in theory than in

-practice in Perfection City, but it was held that if a

-brother or a sister should be guilty of any offence

-against the common weal, it would be an edifying

-experience to summon him or her to the Assembly,

-and let all the members tell him or her exactly what

-each one thought of the conduct in question. In

-theory this was supposed to work admirably, and to

-be a weapon capable of reducing to reason the most

-refractory member of the Community, but when Ezra

-remembered it and imagined for a moment its possible

-effects on Olive, he foresaw a whole train of deplorable

-results. Suppose she defended herself, she could

-say sharp rankling things with a surprising amount

-of unanswerable truth in them, or suppose she didn’t

-defend herself, but took the scolding silently. Her

-eyes would get bigger and bigger with tears which

-would roll over her cheeks, and her sweet little chin

-would quiver, and she would look imploringly at him.

-He couldn’t stand that, he knew, but would rush up

-and take her in his arms, and carry her off out from

-the midst of the carping, criticising brethren, and he

-would call her sweet pet and darling, and say she was

-right and they were horrid brutes to scold her, and

-he would be very angry and would be quite capable

-of knocking Brother Wright down, if he, as was likely,

-had been savage with the little pet. No, criticism-cure

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>should not be applied to Olive. And Ezra, arguing

-thence into wider fields, began to feel some doubts as

-to the value of that remarkable weapon as a means

-of eradicating the naturally evil tendencies of the human

-heart. Theories which had seemed sound and

-complete in the abstract had a curious habit of ringing

-false when he imagined himself as applying them

-to Olive. It was very curious, but they did not seem

-to fit her, or was it possible that the theories themselves

-were wrong? No, he dismissed that thought as

-entailing too much mental demolition and carting away

-of rubbish. Of one thing only was he sure, the “criticism-cure”

-was not to be tried on his little wife.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think it is a case for petting rather than for

-punishing,” remarked Madame, after an interval during

-which they had both been severally following out

-the ramifications of their own reflections.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra jumped at this idea. He was of that opinion

-too, as he impartially observed. Indeed he was always

-of opinion that Olive required petting.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, I think I understand the case,” continued

-Madame. “The flowers were a toy, doubly prized now

-they are gone. What is wanted is to provide a new

-and more attractive toy, so that the baby-mind will

-lightly forget the old grief.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra did not quite like this way of referring to

-Olive, but he had called in Madame’s aid, and he had

-no choice but to listen to the physician’s diagnosis

-and prescription regarding the case in question. Madame

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>meanwhile looked at him half pityingly, having

-apparently overcome her eyes’ desire to avoid his

-glance.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Poor Ezra!” she said softly. “You are mated

-to a child, petulant, wilful, hard to manage, and very

-bewitching. You will find that you cannot in this

-case work by the light of pure reason. You must

-bring yourself down to her level and try to see with

-her eyes, to take delight in the petty trifles that interest

-her. ’Tis weary work! The task of Sisyphus was none

-the less severe because it produced no tangible good.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She was silent, and Ezra began to repent that he

-had sought counsel from so exalted a source, since it

-was delivered to him with such a liberal seasoning of

-the bitter salt of implied reproof.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think that I can apply a remedy in this instance,”

-resumed Madame. “I know a woman’s mind

-as well as most people, and I know too the vain weaknesses

-of a silly girl—perhaps the knowledge comes

-from a memory, or perhaps from a shattered hope,

-who knows? At all events, dear friend and brother,

-it will serve you now.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She left him to go into the small inner apartment

-which was her bedroom, and came out again in a few

-moments carrying a small gold bracelet of curious

-workmanship, an Oriental trinket.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Here is a little trifle I happen to have by me.

-Do you think this toy would dry the little one’s

-tears?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>She handed the bracelet to Ezra, who, though ignorant

-enough on such matters, did not fail to recognise

-the flash of diamonds in the jewel.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“This is a very valuable piece of jewellery,” he

-said. “You must not give it away.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t value such things except for the power

-of making someone happy,” replied Madame. “Take

-it, dear friend, and think that I speak truly when I

-say I would gladly give all I possess to ease your mind

-of trouble and make your path in life a pleasant one.

-And the child-wife may like it. Now, go to her. Good-night!

-You look tired and harassed.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She gently put her hand upon his forehead as if

-to smooth out wrinkles, and left the room.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>As Ezra walked home with the diamond bracelet

-in his pocket, he seemed to feel her cool soft touch

-still, and the thought came into his mind that Olive

-never petted him. No, it was he who always petted

-her. Well, she was very sweet and pretty, and he

-hoped the bracelet would comfort her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>There was no doubt about that. Olive danced

-for joy when she saw the trinket. She put it on her

-smooth little wrist and flashed it about in the sunshine.

-Her eyes rivalled the diamonds for brightness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you like it, Ollie?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Like it! Why, it’s too lovely for anything, and

-Madame is just a darling, and she is kind. Just fancy

-giving me a diamond bracelet! A thing I never dreamt

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>of ever owning. And how shall I ever thank

-her?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was skipping with joy. Suddenly she stopped

-short.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ezra, is this mine, or is it a community-bracelet?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is yours, child.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mary Winkle can’t come and take it away for the

-good of my soul, can she?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not. We are allowed to hold

-private property in such personal trifles, as you

-know quite well. Besides, Sister Mary would

-not wish to take from you what you particularly

-prized.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, of that I am not at all so sure. If your

-principles allowed it, I would not give much for Sister

-Mary’s self-restraint in the matter. She might want

-the bracelet for herself or for Willette, for what I

-know. I shall tell her the bracelet is mine even by

-community-law.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive began to skip again.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You are an intractable little mortal, for all you

-look so soft and yielding,” said Ezra. He could not

-help smiling at her pretty kittenish ways, but he was

-filled with a sort of amazement to perceive how impossible

-it was to change the trend of her mind. Had

-she been an angular woman, all bones, like Mary Winkle,

-it would not have seemed so strange. Olive

-brought her frollicking to a conclusion and looked

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>wisely at her husband, shaking her pretty little head

-at him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, no, Ezra. It is not that, but you are trying

-to stuff me into a wrong-shaped mould, and I don’t

-fit. As if any mortal woman ever could care for a

-community-bracelet!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She danced away to put her treasure in some safe

-place, and Ezra went off to his work, wondering in

-his own mind if there was something radically antagonistic

-to communism in the female nature. If there

-was any such fundamental incompatibility of temperament,

-then farewell to all ideas of a successful issue

-to their experiment. Absolute equality between men

-and women in position, power, and influence was the

-key-note of their theories, but what would become of

-these theories if it should appear that the female mind

-refused to accept the first and greatest postulate upon

-which they were all founded?</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XI.<br /> <span class='large'>A CHANCE MEETING.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>The spring whence the Westons drew their water

-was about a quarter of a mile from the house across

-an angle of the corn field. A little foot-path winding

-in and out among the hills of corn led to it. As

-the corn grew, this path changed in character and became

-at length a track through a miniature forest.

-The corn grew to about eight feet in height, and of

-course the first to be covered was little Olive, with her

-brief five feet two inches, but by the end of July it

-had covered them all. Then it became Olive’s greatest

-delight to go down through that forest where the

-corn shook in the breeze. The satin-smooth stalks

-coming up like bamboos, and the broad fibrous ribbons

-of leaves, were a constant pleasure. But greatest

-joy of all was to watch the coming of the silk.

-When the young ears of grain were forming they

-threw off great skeins of exquisite silken threads,

-changing through every tint from palest green to rich

-dark crimson. These bunches of silk were like soft

-plumes falling from the crest of the husk that held

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>the ears, and were most tempting to twist through

-idle fingers. A forest of tall-growing prairie corn

-is just the place for fairies, only alas! the wee folk

-had departed this life long before ever Olive went

-to live at Perfection City. So charmed was she with

-this dwarf forest, which afforded the only shade to be

-enjoyed on that glaring prairie, that during the summer

-she always went to the spring for an extra pail

-of fresh water every afternoon before supper-time,

-as this errand gave her an excuse for loitering among

-the corn stalks and amusing herself with her own

-playful fancies.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Diana of course accompanied her young mistress

-upon these walks to the spring, for the puppy was

-attached to her by bonds of firmest canine affection,

-while Olive, on her side, was never tired of laughing

-at Diana’s ridiculous freaks, although they sometimes

-caused her considerable trouble.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Take an example.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>A day so hot and scorching that words fail to convey

-any idea of it, and Olive in a great fuss, for she

-was behindhand with her work. At four o’clock, the

-very most blistering hour of the whole twenty-four,

-she set off hastily for the spring to fetch the fresh

-water, and with her Diana, her tongue lolling out

-half a hand’s breath. Knowing the object of the expedition,

-the puppy took the path through the corn,

-and Olive sweltered after her. It seemed as if the

-shelter of the corn was powerless against the slanting

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>shafts of sunlight that danced and chequered between

-the broad hanging leaves, while the very air seemed

-endowed with such a load of heat as to press down

-with more than the allotted weight upon Olive’s head.

-She climbed over the fence and walked across the

-grass to where the spring started from under a tiny

-overhanging ledge of limestone rock. It was an excellent

-spring with the best of water, and would have

-been made into the holiest of wells by a spreading

-tree or a shady thorn-bush near it. There was, however,

-nothing of this sort, but only a clear pool of

-water some two feet across and about a foot deep,

-just enough, in fact, to enable one to get a good dip

-with the bucket. As Olive, hot and tired, hurried to

-this little pool of water, she beheld the accomplished

-Diana sitting in the middle of it, cooling herself and

-slobbering water up and down over her nose in supreme

-bliss. Poor Olive! She did not know whether

-to laugh or to cry, but eventually decided upon the

-first-named course. Then she sat down beside Diana

-and paddled her feet in the water, after which refreshment

-she returned home with her water-pail empty.

-The spring had an undisturbed night in which to

-renew its freshness, and in the future Olive kept her

-eye on Diana when they went together for water.

-The dog always wanted to go first, but Olive kept her

-severely to heel until the water was obtained, after

-which Diana was free to indulge in what diversions

-she pleased.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>One day as Olive emerged from the pathway

-through the corn, her heart gave a great bound of

-alarm as she saw a man standing beside the spring,

-holding his horse’s bridle. He was a tall man in a

-red shirt and large-brimmed hat. He carried a revolver

-at his belt, but it was not that which frightened

-Olive, she was well accustomed to seeing armed men.

-On catching sight of her the stranger took off his hat

-with a sweeping bow, and coming forward greeted her

-with the greatest eagerness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“This is indeed a delightful meeting, Mrs. Weston.

-Quite idyllic, if I may say so. And are you coming

-to fetch water? It is a subject for a poem, only I

-am not a poet. I can feel all the beauty of it, but

-must be dumb. You’ll let me carry back your pail

-for you, won’t you? It is too heavy for those wee

-hands.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Thank you, Mr. Cotterell. I can quite easily

-carry my pail. I do it every day,” said Olive speaking

-with much embarrassment.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell!” he repeated with infinite sadness

-in manner, and with a look of much meaning in his

-bold blue eyes. “You call me Mr. Cotterell, then I

-am no longer Mr. Perseus, and my sweet romance is

-shattered forever!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I know now that you are Mr. Cotterell,” said

-Olive, in keen distress.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And knowing that, you are disillusioned and have

-lost faith in me, and you will not even let me carry

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>your pail of water for you,” said he, sadly, in a way

-which cut Olive to the heart, “yet I am the same man

-I was. To you at least I have never changed.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I know you are very kind,” said Olive, “but if

-you please I’d rather you didn’t carry the pail for

-me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She was dreadfully sorry to say anything to hurt

-his feelings, but she remembered her promise, and

-she must make him understand here and now that

-their acquaintance was to cease. She wanted to do

-it as kindly as she could, but she must do it at once.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Cotterell was not slow to read her thoughts, indeed

-her distress was too real and undisguised for him

-to fail to understand.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Is this an order of dismissal, Mrs. Weston? Am

-I not to come to see you any more?” he asked abruptly,

-with a look of pain in his face.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive glancing up saw the pain and felt sorrier

-than ever, but she went bravely forward.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am deeply pained, Mr. Cotterell, but I must

-ask you not to come to see me; my husband does not

-want you to,” she said, unable in her distress to find

-any words which would convey her meaning unmistakably,

-and yet not sound too unkind.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Your husband has forbidden you to see me?”

-said Cotterell, biting his yellow moustache savagely.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said Olive simply.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Your husband’s sentiments would do credit to

-a dog in the manger, Mrs. Weston, but are not what

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>one exactly looks for from a professing communist,

-who poses as a shining light for his poor fellow-creatures

-still groping in the darkness of their ignorance.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He says you are a bad man, Mr. Cotterell,”

-said Olive with a view to defending her husband and

-perhaps finding out the facts of the case about her

-mysterious friend, in whose personality she felt a great

-interest.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t pretend to be a good man, Heaven knows!

-but I’m a poor lonely devil living quite by myself, and

-your husband, with all that the world can give in

-the way of happiness, grudges me the brief pleasure

-of talking for half an hour with a good woman. That’s

-not the way to make me a better man, Mrs. Weston,

-and God knows I need all the help I can get.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I’m so sorry,” faltered Olive in ready sympathy,

-and the tears welled up into her tender black eyes.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You sweet pitying angel,” said Mr. Cotterell,

-coming nearer and speaking very gently. “Your influence

-would save me if anything could.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, you mustn’t talk like that,” said Olive, with

-a catch in her voice. “And you will be a good man,

-won’t you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He bent his handsome face low, and taking her

-hand implanted a kiss upon it with a grace that might

-have charmed a duchess.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“A woman can make or mar a man’s life,” said

-he. “Happy are they who draw the prizes. Goodbye!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>He sprang upon his horse and galloped away.

-Olive stood watching him, her eyes swimming in tears,

-she scarcely knew why, only he seemed so sad and

-so handsome. Ezra was unkind to say she must

-never see him any more and try to make his life

-less sad and wicked, and she was so sorry to

-think that she would never have any more talks

-with him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>At this moment a low growl from Diana made

-Olive turn round to encounter the clear cool gaze of

-Madame Morozoff-Smith.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I followed you down here,” she said. “Napoleon

-Pompey told me that you were most likely gone to

-the spring.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Have you been here long?” asked Olive, blushing

-in her surprise and confusion. “I only came for

-a pail of fresh water.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I just saw Mr. Cotterell say good-bye and

-ride off,” observed Madame gently. “Do you see him

-often? He hasn’t a good reputation.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t believe he is as bad as people say, I am

-very sorry for him living alone.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He need not have been alone only that he chose

-it, indeed it ought to have been quite otherwise, if

-report goes true.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We ought to be the last persons on earth to

-credit reports,” said Olive hotly. “I am sure there

-is a nice crop of them about us and our life here at

-Perfection City, if it comes to that.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>“True, I daresay there are,” said Madame. “One

-should be charitable.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was evidently ill at ease, and Madame drawing

-from a totally different experience of life her own

-conclusions, became convinced that Ezra’s wife was

-carrying on a secret acquaintanceship with a man of

-whom he thought very ill.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame’s position as leader at Perfection City

-gave her many rights and imposed certain duties. She

-considered that of private admonition as one of them.

-She did not speak for some moments, and the two

-walked along in silence. Madame was debating in her

-own mind whether she should speak to Olive and endeavour

-to turn her from the dangerous path towards

-which she seemed to be directing her steps; or whether

-she should keep silence and let her destiny be accomplished.

-She reflected that if she spoke to Olive,

-that rather high-spirited young woman would probably

-resent her interference, and might possibly complain

-to Ezra, with the result of estranging him from

-herself. On the other hand, if she left the silly wife

-to go her foolish way, she would break her husband’s

-heart. Madame’s well-shaped lips curled with a smile

-of contempt for herself as these thoughts passed rapidly

-through her brain. What a fool she was to stir

-in the matter! Let the giddy girl follow her own impulses

-and then—No, no! She would be true to her

-best self, she would put forth a hand and draw back

-the blind fool from the precipice that lay before her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>She spoke therefore to Olive in that soft quiet

-voice of hers that seemed to have more power of arresting

-the attention and holding it than the roar of

-an avalanche.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think you are, perhaps, not acquainted with

-Mr. Cotterell’s character,” said she. “I am sure you

-would not wish to associate with a bad man.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why do you think he is a bad man? Do you

-know him?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t know him, but I am sure I am right

-in saying that he is a man of loose morals,” said Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t believe it,” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why not? How can you know?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Because I have talked with him a great deal,

-and he speaks like a man with high aspirations, and

-not at all like the bad man you say he is.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But what can you know of a man’s real character

-from a chance word or two as you run across

-him in an afternoon’s stroll?” observed Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t judge from a chance word, I have had

-long talks with him.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Indeed! and where? Do you meet him here at

-the spring then, so often?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I never met him at the spring before, but I used

-to meet him pretty often, when I was out cattle-hunting

-and he would generally accompany me for a bit.

-Sometimes too, he used to pass our house on his way

-cattle-hunting, and then he would look in and water

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>his horse and stop to talk to me for a time,” said Olive

-in explanation.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Really!” said Madame looking keenly at her

-companion, “and did Ezra know of these visits?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ezra said he wasn’t to come any more, and I

-told Mr. Cotterell so to-day.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh! and what did he say?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He called Ezra a dog in the manger, and I do

-think Ezra oughtn’t to be so harsh about Mr. Cotterell.

-He would like to be a better man, I know, if he

-had any chance, and people were kind to him.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Did he intimate that you could influence him

-towards the better way?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t see why I can’t try to use my influence

-in trying to make my fellow-creatures happier and

-better. You and Ezra are always talking about

-doing good that way. Why do you want to stop

-me the moment I see a chance of doing a little

-good?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Because you would only do harm.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I shouldn’t. A woman has great influence

-over a man. He said so himself.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell said so?” inquired Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is a very dangerous thing for a young woman

-to attempt to influence men of that sort.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You don’t know what sort he is, nor anything

-about him. You are only following reports. And

-how can you talk about the danger of influencing

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>men? That is just what you are always doing yourself.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“With me it is quite different,” said Madame

-hastily.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That is what everybody says to me whenever

-I want to do what other people find it right to do. I

-hate being treated like a baby.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You are very young and very pretty, child, and

-that makes it all the more necessary for your friends

-to guard you against dangers which you don’t perceive

-as clearly as they do.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I hate being young and—well—pretty, if it’s always

-going to make me be treated like that,” said

-Olive angrily.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Like what?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Like a naughty child. That’s what Ezra does,

-and he goes to you to ask what he should do to me,

-you know he does.” She was beginning to cry, just

-like a naughty child.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame smiled contemptuously as she glanced at

-her companion. “What could have possessed that

-quiet reserved Ezra to marry such a feather-headed

-vain little puss?” she thought bitterly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive dried her eyes angrily, she saw the contempt

-expressed by Madame’s curling lips, and her pride

-was thoroughly aroused.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I want to know why things are different as soon

-as they apply to me?” she asked with doubtful grammar

-but unmistakable import. “It isn’t this once

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>only, but it is always so. Personal liberty is the corner-stone

-of Perfection City, that is what you are

-here for, to enjoy liberty and protest against things.

-Mary Winkle won’t take her husband’s name, and

-dresses like a fright, and nobody minds. She’s free.

-But as soon as I try a little flight of my own, that

-doesn’t hurt anybody, I’m to be popped into a cage,

-and you and Ezra come and shut the door on me.

-I met this man by chance and liked talking to him.

-He is well-mannered and well educated, and likes the

-same books as I do, and has travelled and could tell

-me heaps and heaps of interesting things. He wasn’t

-forever talking in the same little muddling circle, and

-wasn’t always full of himself. He tried to interest

-me. You are an educated woman, Madame, and you

-know as well as I do that, except for you and Ezra,

-there is not an educated person in Perfection City,

-nor one who has the same tastes as I have. Mr. Cotterell

-used to come and talk to me, and I liked it;

-then Ezra gets very angry, says he is a bad man, and

-forbids my seeing him. He forbids me, mind you.

-Not a bit the sort of language you would expect in

-Perfection City, but I believe in wifely obedience and

-I obeyed him. I told Mr. Cotterell he must not come

-to see me any more, and he won’t do so. He always

-showed the best spirit in everything he said, and I

-won’t believe he is so very wicked just on mere report.

-We once had a horse-thief and murderer to stay

-to supper, and we did not inquire into his character

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>before we asked him to stop and rest and feed his

-horse. Mr. Cotterell said my influence might help

-him to be a better man, and perhaps it might. At

-all events, I want to know why I wasn’t to try to influence

-him, and I want to know why Perfection City

-ideas, when they make for freedom, are not applicable

-to me, but have to be all turned upside down when

-I come into play? Can you, Madame, answer me

-that?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame was considerably dumbfoundered by this

-attack delivered so unexpectedly and so very straight

-from the shoulder. She hastily recast her idea that

-Olive was a silly little fool, and most unaccountably

-found herself anxiously seeking about for means of defence.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The fact of the matter is, you are too pretty to

-do these things,” she replied, helplessly telling the

-truth in her extremity.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Can Perfection City then only succeed if all the

-women are ugly?” asked Olive scornfully. “You had

-better not proclaim that fact, or you’ll have all the

-women running away.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame was in the habit of being worshipped by

-men, and was not at all prepared to have her remarks

-ridiculed by a slip of a girl. She did not like it, and

-therefore replied with some asperity,</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You are really too silly, Sister Olive. You must

-surely perceive that there is great danger in your

-associating with Mr. Cotterell on so familiar a footing,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>that, in short, he may fall in love with you, and I

-presume you can understand the danger of that.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Precisely, a fresh set of laws must, as usual, be

-applied to me, and not those which govern the rest

-of you,” said Olive calmly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t understand to what you refer,” said Madame

-looking at her doubtfully.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell knew from the outset that I was

-a married woman. I don’t see the alarmingness of

-the danger that he might fall in love with me, simply

-because we talked together. The idea has only struck

-you in reference to me; it does not seem to have done

-so with regard to the similar circumstances of you and

-Ezra.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame turned white with anger. “How dare

-you insult me by such an insinuation?” she exclaimed.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I didn’t dare until after you had first given utterance

-to the insinuation against me,” replied Olive,

-with provoking calmness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame turned as if she could have struck her,

-but she controlled herself with a desperate effort.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It seems to me, Sister Olive, that your remarks

-are very ill-judged,” she said in a voice that shook

-in spite of her. “I have no wish to bandy words

-with you. I spoke merely out of a desire to do my

-duty, and to save you, if possible, from a danger

-which I imagined I foresaw more clearly than you

-did. I see that your words were prompted by quite

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>another wish than to seek advice or counsel in a difficult

-moment.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I sought for neither advice or counsel,” returned

-Olive. “I simply wanted to discover, if possible, how

-to fit the theories of Perfection City, which I know

-pretty well by heart now, into the practice as applied

-to me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame looked at her with eyes of anger and even

-of hate, and Olive, conscious of having been almost

-more successful than she had imagined possible in

-argument with so distinguished a mind, returned the

-look with one suggestive of triumph. Alas for the

-perfect harmony of Perfection City!</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am surprised, I will not say pained, because

-you would care little for that, but I am surprised, I

-repeat, at such words in the mouth of Ezra Weston’s

-wife. He must have been strangely mistaken in your

-character, or you cannot have revealed your true self

-to him, for I cannot imagine him binding himself for

-life to a mate who scorns and flouts in this manner

-what he holds so dear. You are mocking the principles

-to which he has devoted his life. You are too

-foolish to see what you are doing, but one day you

-will be punished, and then perhaps you will repent—when

-it will be too late.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame turned and walked rapidly away, leaving

-Olive feeling very angry and very much frightened

-as well.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>That evening Napoleon Pompey carried a note

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>and a small parcel to Madame, who guessed pretty well

-what it was. The note was brief, it contained but

-these words:</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I thought you sent the bracelet as a present,

-therefore I accepted it and was grateful: now I know

-you sent it as a reproof, therefore I return it.”</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XII.<br /> <span class='large'>THE PRAIRIE FIRE.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>The summer had been a particularly dry one, and

-since the beginning of July not a drop of rain had

-fallen. The water-melons revelled in the heat, and

-Olive revelled in the water-melons: for by a blessed

-compensation of Nature the hotter and drier the land,

-the cooler and juicier the water-melons seem to be.

-The water-melon of the western prairie is as different

-from the pallid green-fleshed vegetable which masquerades

-under its name in this country, as the full moon

-of the heavens is superior to the lime-light article

-manufactured for use on the stage. The real prairie

-water-melon is an enormous affair, being about as large

-as the roll of rugs without which fussy gentlemen

-consider it impossible to travel. The skin is of the

-darkest green and as hard as a board, a most unripe-looking

-object at all times. Indeed the only way one

-can find out the condition of a water-melon’s insides

-is by surgical operation. You simply cut out a plug

-about an inch square from the top side of the melon,

-and look to see if the flesh has turned crimson at the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>centre. If it is still white or pale pink you know the

-psychological moment, when the truly wise will eat

-the melon, has not yet arrived. Accordingly you put

-back the plug, and leave the sun to work a little longer

-on it, at a temperature of a hundred and twenty or

-so. Since it never rains at the melon season of the

-year, the plug does not do any harm if left on the top

-side, but the beginner sometimes leaves it on the

-lower side, with the result that all the water runs away.

-It is a curious fact, but the water of a melon, even

-of one picked in the middle of a scorching hot day,

-never seems tepid. It is always cool and refreshing,

-even at times when ordinary water tastes unutterably

-mawkish owing to the excessive heat. The crimson

-spongy flesh, specked with purple-black seeds, is eaten

-in moderation or in immoderation according to the

-taste of the individual, but the water is always greedily

-drunk up by everybody. The scorching winds of the

-plains seem to dry one’s very marrow, and nothing can

-exceed the thirst of a man who is obliged to be out all

-day in such weather and to work hard at the same time.

-Animals, too, suffer from extreme thirst, and after a

-morning’s ploughing when the farm horses are brought

-up to water, they drink and drink and drink, swelling

-visibly under one’s eye, as if they were india-rubber

-horses under the action of some new patent inflator.

-They are never stinted in their drink and swallow

-bucketsful before attacking their corn.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>But to return to our water-melons.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>Napoleon Pompey used to bring up a wheelbarrow

-full from the melon patch each morning for

-the day’s consumption. He, like a true negro, was

-inordinately fond of melons, or “millions” as he

-called them, and would have sucked them all day long

-if left to his own devices. Whenever he had to go

-anywhere in the waggon, as occasionally happened,

-he would lay in a store of “millions,” and lay himself

-beside them, and suck them, just as if he were a black

-caterpillar of unlimited capacity. The horses meantime,

-far too oppressed with the heat to require much

-attention, would plod along with their eyes shut, trying

-to keep out the glaring light. There was nothing

-to stumble over or fall into, so the driving became

-of the most elementary pattern, requiring only an

-occasional rattle of the reins and a comment or two,

-such as: “Yo’, Reb, g’ ’long will yer, g’ out o’ dat.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive during this period found the heat stifling,

-and used to sit out of doors on the shady side of the

-house, until the terrible wind blew up from the Plains,

-when she would flee as before the breath of a volcano,

-and shutting herself tight up in her room with closed

-doors and windows, would gasp through the visitation

-as best she might. She was no worse off than anyone

-else, and the nights were always cool and refreshing.

-That was an unspeakable blessing. All this heat dried

-up the thick prairie grass until it was like a vast plain

-of dry hay standing erect.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The corn crop at Perfection City had turned out

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>exceptionally good. There was ample for all the needs

-of the Community and a good surplus which was to

-be sold at Mapleton in order to enable them to buy

-some farm-machinery that was greatly needed. Consequently

-the whole Community worked hard at getting

-in the corn so as to be early in the market. The

-heavy ears of corn with their twenty rows of golden

-yellow grains were stripped off the tall stalks by hand:

-a most limb-lacerating job, for the “shucks,” or coverings

-to the ear, are masses of fibrous leaves with sawlike

-edges. These edges have the power of cutting an

-exposed finger in a most painful manner, and they are

-by no means loath to use the power.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>All this hurry and concentration of the workers

-upon the cornfield was possible only if every other

-sort of work was neglected for the moment. It seemed

-the wisest plan to hasten off with their harvest in spite

-of the risk, and, unused as they were to prairie life,

-yet even they realized that there was some risk in thus

-leaving their farms unprotected. Ezra was perfectly

-aware of it, but like so many people he shut his eyes

-and hoped for good luck. He spoke to Olive on the

-subject.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“If anyone so much as drops a lighted match on

-the prairie we shall be lost,” he said.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, what do you mean?” asked his wife in

-surprise. She was still so new to the prairie that she

-did not understand to what he referred. They happened

-to be on that outside landing of the stairs which

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>looked out over the wide boundless western prairie.

-This stairway from its position made an exceptionally

-good place from which to take a survey of the whole

-prospect.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That grass is like tinder, and if anybody leaves

-a coal of fire burning at his camping-place or drops

-his pipe, the thing will catch in a second, and if there

-is a strong west wind we shall see about as bad a prairie

-fire as we care to.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, but that’s dreadful! What shall we do?”

-said Olive, much alarmed.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“As soon as our corn is sold at Mapleton, we shall

-plough all round Perfection City and back-fire, if we

-can only get a calm day. We must not back-fire in

-a high wind, because that would probably start a prairie

-fire and just cause the very mischief we want to

-guard against. It would take fifty people to keep a

-line of fire under control for a mile’s length with grass

-like that and a strong wind.” So spoke Ezra, critically

-scanning the horizon for any sign of smoke which

-might betoken danger. He was very uneasy, and the

-fierce west wind, which seemed never weary of blowing,

-made him all the more anxious, as it might prevent

-them guarding themselves by running the usual

-belt of burnt prairie all around Perfection City.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>It was not a light job to get a safety belt of about

-four miles long, for that was the circumference of the

-portion of their land fenced in, and it was an impossible

-one in the face of a high wind with their small

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>force—unless indeed they did as selfish individualists

-did, namely let the fire go and burn out whom it liked

-and what it liked once they were themselves safe.

-The Pioneers refused to be guilty of this act of treachery

-to the common weal of the inhabitants of the prairie.

-It is a comparatively easy thing to keep one line

-of fire safe and so protect your own fields; the real

-difficulty begins when you want to stop the fire from

-spreading in other directions as well. Most of the

-settlers back-fired their own land, and left Providence

-or the Devil to see to the result as regards their neighbours.

-The Pioneers had naturally a higher standard

-of public duty than this, therefore they did not back-fire

-in the high wind.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The corn being stripped off the stalks, Olive’s

-fairy forest was sadly mutilated, for the great ears

-were all gone and many of the streaming leaves were

-torn away; the walk to the spring, therefore, was no

-longer so delightful as it had been earlier in the summer.

-Still she and Diana used to go there pretty

-often, especially since Napoleon Pompey was always

-kept busy helping in the field. Coming up from the

-spring one afternoon just before sun-down, she was

-amazed to see her husband galloping madly along the

-far side of the field on Queen Katherine, the big brown

-mare, her harness banging her hot flanks at every

-stride, while Napoleon Pompey on Rebel was tearing

-after him waving his tattered old straw hat. Olive

-for a moment or two stared in blank amazement at

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>them, and then began to run towards the house which

-appeared to be their destination also. Ezra and Napoleon

-Pompey with frantic gestures seemed to invite

-her attention to the setting sun, now sinking to rest

-like a shimmering copper ball. She looked, but saw

-nothing except the molten mass, unless it were a faint

-blue haze on the horizon, the result, as she supposed,

-of the intense heat.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>When Olive reached the house a few moments

-later, it was to see her husband going hurriedly down

-the road to the bars on the other side of the house.

-The horses were hitched to the plough and were trotting

-fast, while Napoleon Pompey was urging them on

-with voice and whip. The plough, unaccustomed to

-such speed, was jerking from side to side. A moment’s

-halt at the bars, while Napoleon Pompey threw down

-the rails, and Ezra turning round put both hands to

-his mouth and shouted “Fire” in a long re-echoing

-whoop. He wheeled around then and seizing his

-plough-handles set off at a hand-gallop, bounding

-along with his ungainly implement.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Now Olive understood what that blue haze meant.

-It was a prairie fire coming down on them from the

-west along with a fierce wind. Oh dear! oh dear!

-What should she do? There must be something women

-could help at, in such a moment, if she only knew

-what. But who to ask? Everybody was far away,

-and the dreadful fire began to show up now that the

-sun was no longer casting such bright rays.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>“Come ’long, git yer shingle,” shouted a familiar

-voice behind her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, Willette, is that you? What shall I do? It’s

-a fire, and I don’t know what’s wanted.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Nothin’ but a shingle an’ a box o’ matches.

-Quick now! We’ll hev ter pike, you bet. Pa and Ma

-is out firin’ a’ready down yonder, ’side our house.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am so glad you’ve come,” said Olive hurrying

-along with two wooden shingles under her arm.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The shingles were merely the thin wooden “slates”

-with which the houses were roofed. When thoroughly

-dried they are admirably adapted for spreading a fire

-from house to house in a street, and accordingly they

-are now prohibited by law in most towns and cities.

-On the prairie they were used in emergencies as paddles

-to keep the back-firing within limits.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, Ma said she ’lowed you wouldn’t know the

-fust thing ter do,” remarked Willette complacently.

-“An’ Pa said he reckoned school larnin’ in the East

-could make folks more like nateral born fools than

-anything under the sun.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was very little obliged to the Wright and

-Winkle spouses for their opinion of her. She remained

-therefore silent.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>They soon reached the furrows that were being

-so desperately ploughed by Ezra and his foam-covered

-horses. The swift twilight was almost upon them,

-but they could see Wright urging his horses along

-the south side of the land nearest his house, while

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>away across at the east side of Perfection City Brother

-Dummy was thundering along with his waggon bringing

-up his plough to the rescue, and that completed

-all the horse-power of the Community. Little tongues

-of flame here and there along the furrows denoted that

-the back-firing had begun in several spots. Meanwhile

-the sky was reddening up with the reflection

-of the on-coming conflagration, and the fierce wind

-blew ever harder directly from its long blood-red line.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Now you jes’ set afire ’long hyar, front this hyar

-furrow,” said Willette, kneeling down with her matches

-and starting the fire as she spoke. “Now then, yo’

-jes’ see to that, an’ don’t yo’ let that ar fire hop over

-behind yer, or it’ll be worse nor nothin’.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What am I to do?” asked Olive trembling with

-excitement and fear, it was all so strange and alarming.

-“I never saw a fire and don’t know anything

-about it,” she added.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Jes’ paddle it out with yer shingle, ef it gits over.

-There ain’t no sight o’ larnin’ wanted for that,” said

-Willette in scorn. “Mind yer ends, and look after

-tongues in the middle. They’ll be powerful handy

-at jumpin’ over this hyar furrow, and you mustn’t let

-the fire git away from yer, else yo’ll be clear done for.

-Keep yer eyes behind yer and min’ the back line,” said

-Willette walking away.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Land o’ liberty! look at that!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Willette made one bound behind Olive and commenced

-furiously beating the ground with her wooden

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>paddle, while Olive, bewildered, turned round to see

-that she had indeed let the fire get behind her even

-as Willette was uttering her warning.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We ’uns would ha’ been clear burnt out in one

-grasshopper’s jump on’y I was there,” said Willette

-looking critically to see if any little spark of fire lingered

-in the tall grass which could by any chance start

-into life again.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh I can never manage it! What shall I do?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Be spry and—Look at that again now!” Willette

-sprang to a new place and beat the ground. She was

-back again in an instant, here there and every where,

-with the activity of a monkey, beating down for dear

-life, whenever the fire crossed the narrow base-line

-of the up-turned sod, and as the wind was high it was

-frequently doing this. Constant vigilance was required,

-especially as Ezra had only had time to run

-a few furrows with the plough, instead of a band five

-or six feet wide.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Powerful heavy work in this hyar high wind,”

-said the child, “and on’y that ar furrow to start from.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Willette was in her element. Not an inch of the

-line escaped her lynx-eye, and all the while she kept

-giving advice to Olive, who stood in awe of her superior

-practical knowledge in this emergency.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Now this hyar fire’s agoin’ to spread along, an’

-yo’ jes’ got ter mind this end by yerself.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She darted twenty yards away and paddled out a

-flame and came back, her face begrimed with smoke

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>and dirt, so that she looked not unlike the nigger

-whose modes of speech she so much affected.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You jes’ take off that ar hat and them big skirts,

-else you’ll be burnt to death right hyar,” said Willette

-surveying Olive with considerable disapproval.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Willette’s hickory trousers and shirt were exactly

-the thing for a prairie fire in a high wind, as indeed

-they were for most of the occupations that fell to her

-lot. What with the constant bounding backwards and

-forwards over the flame, Olive indeed thought that

-she had better accept the advice and slip off her wide

-calico skirt which was forever in the way and might

-easily catch fire. She put it along with her hat just

-at the top of the slope where Weddell’s Gully began,

-where she could easily get them next day, if all went

-well.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>It was night now and would have been quite dark

-but for the bright glare from the fire. All the inhabitants

-of the Community were out working desperately.

-Olive paddled down her fire and kept her line

-bravely for a couple of hours, in spite of choking

-smoke and clouds of dust and many a burn. Willette

-was far away, lost in the darkness, following her end

-of the fire, and only became visible as she leaped backwards

-and forwards over her line of fire like some agile

-fiend engaged in roasting its victims. Olive was all

-alone. She felt very much frightened, for she did

-not know what might happen, nor what in any new

-emergency she would have to do. She wished somebody

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>would come, for it was a strange experience to be

-in the black night and lurid glare all alone minding a

-fire. The air was full of the burnt fluff from the big

-fire, and the roar as it now had come near was terrifying.

-True the worst of it was passing to the south, and

-their land was now pretty well guarded on all sides.

-Suddenly the cheerful black face of Napoleon Pompey

-appeared in the light of the flame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, Pompey, I’m so glad you’ve come. Where

-is everybody?” said Olive, overjoyed to see a human

-being once more.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, Mis’ Ollie, I on’y jes’ take ole plough to

-de bars. We’uns rip up dat furrow golly spry. Done

-turn de hosses loose.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, the poor horses will be burnt!” exclaimed

-Olive in dismay.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Dem hosses, dey dre’ful cute critters. Dey go

-off slap to de bottom lan’. You bet hosses knows

-mos’ as well nor white folks ’bout prairie fires. I

-come min’ yo’ fire fo’ yer, Mis’ Ollie. Ole man he

-done tole me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Very well, you can take my shingle then. There

-is not much more, I suppose, to be done now, only

-you must keep both edges between the two furrows

-here. They told me not to let it get away and run

-down into the Gully. Do you understand?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You bet,” replied Napoleon Pompey who knew

-far better than Olive could tell him just what should

-be done.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>“I am going to get my hat and skirt. I left them

-near the corner of Weddell’s Gully. I think I will

-just run across the old field and get them: it will be

-much shorter than going all the way round by the

-furrows. It will be light enough to see yet awhile so

-I can follow the path through the Gully.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive looked at the fire that was fast roaring its

-way towards the south-east, and deciding it would

-easily light her on her way she tripped off and disappeared

-in the gloom down towards the Gully.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>In a few minutes Napoleon Pompey began to show

-signs of immense excitement.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Golly Ned! I never seed yonder. Mis’ Ollie

-whar yo’ be? Come back! Come back, Mis’ Ollie!

-Golly! Golly!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He ran violently backwards and forwards along

-his line of fire, which, however, he dared not leave,

-exclaiming “Golly!” and “Oh Lordy!” at every

-step. In a minute or two he ran into Ezra who was

-coming along to fetch Olive home, if she was still

-there.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Lordy! dat yo’, Mas’r Ezra. Yo’ go right ’long

-down dish hyar Gully. Mis’ Ollie she down dar.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra was dead beat. He could scarcely drag his

-limbs along. The terrific exertion of that furious

-ploughing, coming at the end of a long and hard day’s

-work, had almost over-taxed even his iron frame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I thought I would find her here on my way

-home,” he said languidly. “We are pretty safe now.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>Tell her to come back with the others. I’m going

-home to get something to eat.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, sir-ee,” said Napoleon Pompey vehemently.

-“You’ hain’t gwine ter do dat. Golly Ned! Yo’

-dunno see. Mis’ Ollie she done gone down inter de

-Gully, fetch ole hat. Dat fire. Yo’ see dat fire startin’

-up yonder, she never seed dat, I didn’t see it nudder

-nohow: dat fire’ll crope up an’ cotch her.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“My God! where is she?” cried Ezra, roused to

-sudden energy as it dawned upon him what Napoleon

-Pompey was explaining.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Down de Gully dar, she say she gwine down

-dar.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Amongst those tall weeds and that fire coming

-on! Oh my God!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>His fatigue was all gone now. He leaped forward

-and sprang with desperate bounds down the straggling

-path towards Weddell’s Gully, where, in a deserted

-field once tilled by that individual, prairie weeds

-were growing to the height of six feet and more, they

-had dry stalks and fluffy downy heads that would

-burn like petroleum, if the fire once touch them. It

-was down there that Olive had gone, all ignorant of

-that tiny red line creeping slowly around the brow of

-the hill, up against the wind, and now approaching

-that very spot with vicious little tongues of red flame.

-No wonder Ezra bounded along the pathway, no wonder

-his heart beat ready to burst, and no wonder if

-his voice sounded harsh and choking as he cried

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>“Olive! Olive! Olive!” again and again until his

-brain reeled. He got no answer except the crackle of

-the fire. He stumbled along not knowing which way

-to turn, and twice fell forward as his foot caught in

-the tangled grass. He staggered to his feet and raising

-his agonised face cried in a harsh whisper, “Oh

-God! my wife, my wife!” He tried to shout again,

-but his dry throat made no articulate sound. His

-temples seemed bursting, he dashed forward blindly,

-not knowing where to look for Olive in the horrid

-darkness, soon to be turned into still more horrid

-light. His foot struck against an old rail at the edge

-of Weddell’s deserted field, he fell heavily, hitting his

-head against the projecting end of the rail, rolled over

-and lay still. The little flames crept nearer and nearer

-lapping out their malicious red tongues as if in anticipation.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIII.<br /> <span class='large'>THE RESCUE.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>Madame had worked hard with the rest in beating

-back the fire, and now that she saw that their united

-efforts had been successful and that Perfection City

-was safe, she, in company with Balthasar, was going

-the circuit of the defences of their home, just to see

-that there remained nothing further for her to do.

-In the course of time she came to Napoleon Pompey,

-who was in charge of the last scrap of back-firing, intent

-on maintaining guard and on effecting a complete

-junction of the two lines of fire, so as not to

-leave so much as a handsbreadth of standing grass

-whereby the enemy might even at the last minute

-burst in upon them. This finishing of the circle was

-important, and the lad was in the midst of his work

-and his distress when Madame loomed out through the

-darkness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, Lordy, dey is both burned, dey is! Oh

-Lordy! Oh Lordy,” cried Napoleon Pompey the instant

-he set eyes upon Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Who is burned?” asked Madame in bewilderment,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>well used to the extravagant modes of speech

-indulged in by negroes.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mis’ Ollie an’ Mas’r Ezra fo’ shu’.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Are you mad, fool, what do you mean?” said

-Madame furiously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mis’ Ollie done gone in der Gully ter fetch ole

-hat, an’ de fire’s crope up, an’ it’ll cotch her, oh Lordy!

-oh Lordy! An’ Mas’r Ezra he done gone ter fin’ her

-down dar,” said the boy, beginning to whimper.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame gripped his shoulder with a grasp of iron.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Be quiet, and tell me what you mean. Sister

-Olive has gone home, I passed her myself with her

-hat under her arm, and she told me to tell Ezra she

-had gone back.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“De Lord be praised!” ejaculated Napoleon Pompey.

-“Den it’s on’y Mas’r Ezra’ll be burnt. Yah, you

-lemme go!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>This exclamation was in answer to the sudden

-pressure of Madame’s hand, which was like the clutch

-of a vice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Where is Ezra? Tell me or I’ll wring your neck,”

-she said in a voice the like of which Napoleon Pompey

-had never heard before in his life.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Down dar,” said he terrified, pointing to the

-Gully.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Show me where he started from.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame still kept her hand upon Napoleon

-Pompey who hurried to the spot where Ezra had

-stood.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>“Dar’s his shingle, what he done drap when he

-run.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ha!” said Madame pouncing upon the shingle.

-“Here, Balthasar, here sweetheart!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The dog came up to her, and she passed her trembling

-hands over his long ears and whispered to him

-half crying, half coaxing. “Here, dear heart, do this

-for me or I die.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She put the shingle to his nose. He sniffed, raised

-his long and pointed head. Then she lay upon the

-ground coaxing him to put his nose down. He sniffed

-again, took a step to the right, to the left, back, then

-forward. Madame followed clasping the shingle to

-her bosom and murmuring cooing words of love to her

-dog. He raised his great tan head and gave a long

-deep bay that echoed far and wide.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Golly! She gwine ter run him down like he

-nigger slave,” said Napoleon Pompey with a shiver,

-as he heard the dog’s voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Balthasar set off and Madame kept close at his

-heels. It was easy enough, for the trail was fresh and

-strong. In three minutes they stood beside the motionless

-form of Ezra at the brink of the tall weeds,

-and Balthasar whined in anxiety as Madame lifted his

-head and called upon him in agonised tones. Just

-then the sky was lit up with a lurid glare. The first

-red tongue had tasted the dry fluffy weeds on Weddell’s

-abandoned farm. Madame, startled by the flame,

-sprang to her feet and gave one hasty glance around.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>Ezra lay motionless. She stepped a few paces into

-the shorter grass of the ordinary prairie and set it on

-fire. The little ring of flame spread on all sides, like

-the ripple from a stone cast into still water. Then

-she paddled out the fire on the side next Ezra, and the

-ripple of fire continued to spread rapidly in a sort of

-broken circle. The roar of the burning weeds was

-like the on-coming of an avalanche. Madame turned

-to Ezra and seizing him under the shoulders dragged

-him backwards within the safety of her oasis of burnt

-prairie. He was a big man and a heavy one, but her

-arm seemed endowed with more than mortal strength.

-She dragged him further and further within the circle,

-and then seeing that he was out of all danger, she sat

-down beside him and took his head in her lap. She

-opened his collar and fanned him with her hat. The

-now brightly burning weeds made it light as day, and

-she could see that he looked pale even under the

-blackened smoke that smeared his face, but his pulse

-was beating, he was only hurt and stunned, not dead.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Balthasar was terrified. Ringed round by fire and

-with the ground where he stood still smoking hot,

-what dog would not be alarmed? He lifted up his

-voice once more in a long howl, and then sniffing at

-Ezra gave a sweeping lick with his tongue all over his

-face.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah! Ollie! Where are you? Come!” said Ezra,

-roused by this combined demonstration. He raised

-his head in a weak and bewildered way. Madame

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>placed her hand on his forehead as he sank down again.

-He put his own hand up and taking hers said: “Little

-wife!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame shivered, and then steadying her voice

-said, “Olive is quite safe!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra started up.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, what are you doing here? Where is my

-wife?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I came to tell you that Olive had gone home,

-and that she had got her hat all right. She never

-was in any danger at all. It was a mistake on the

-part of that negro boy.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Madame!” began Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Dear friend,” said she.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I feel so strange and bewildered, I don’t seem

-to know what has happened.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Lay your head down again,” said Madame, very

-gently. “You have had a blow. You will soon be

-all right.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra’s head sank again into her lap. He gave a

-deep sigh.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You came down here into the Gully after Olive

-who, according to the negro, had gone in search

-of her hat. You could not surely have realized

-that the fire was coming up against the wind and

-that it would be death to be caught among the

-weeds.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I knew, I knew,” said Ezra. “That was why I

-came. Olive was here.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>“But she wasn’t, she never had been here at all,”

-interrupted Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I shouted, but no answer came. I could not

-find Olive. I remember the awful agony of it. My

-head seemed turning to fire and I couldn’t find Olive.

-I don’t remember any more.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You fell and knocked yourself senseless,” said

-Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Is Olive safe? Tell me, are you sure Olive is

-safe?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Didn’t I tell you I passed her on her way home?”

-said Madame a little sharply.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But this fire!” exclaimed Ezra, starting up.

-“We must get out of this.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Hush, lie down again,” said Madame, her voice

-dropping again into its tone of caressing entreaty.

-“Your head must be still giddy or you would perceive

-that we are surrounded. We can’t get out until

-the fires meet and extinguish each other. Rest and be

-patient.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra saw that this was true. They were entirely

-surrounded by a ring of retreating fire, the heat from

-which was oppressive. He sat down again, but did

-not lay his head in Madame’s lap. Perhaps it was because

-he felt less giddy.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He asked her how she came there, and Madame

-very briefly told him, dwelling not at all upon her

-share in finding him, but rather upon the sagacity of

-Balthasar. Ezra, however, was not to be deceived.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>“You risked your life for me this night, Madame,”

-he said slowly, when she had finished speaking.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Possibly. I never thought about it. I could

-not leave you here to die, to be burnt to death. Had

-the case been reversed you would have come to my

-rescue.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You are the most generous of mortals, the noblest

-of women,” said Ezra earnestly. “It was assuredly

-the brightest day of my life that led me across

-your path. You taught me how to live, and to-night

-your generous hand has saved me from death.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Hush!” said Madame faintly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I owe my life to you,” repeated Ezra. “What

-shall I do to repay such a debt?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Am I a usurer that I should exact my pound of

-flesh?” answered Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Usurer!” exclaimed Ezra. “That is indeed the

-last word to be applied to you. Is a usurer one who

-is always giving? Giving from her wealth freely and

-without stint? Is a usurer one who is ever helping

-and directing into the paths of righteousness those

-who are feeble and faltering of step? Ah, Madame,

-I never can half tell you all that I owe you! How

-narrow and selfish would my life have been but for

-you! Devoted to petty cares, absorbed in personal

-ambitions, rejoicing in sordid gains,—such would have

-been my fate, only Providence brought me to you to

-be taught, guided, elevated, purified. My life is yours,

-you have made it, dearest, wisest, best, of friends.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>“And Olive?” said Madame quietly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah, there too shall be your handiwork seen,”

-said Ezra. “My little Olive is very young. Sometimes

-I think her mind is even younger than her body,

-and she is barely twenty, you know, a mere child and

-easily moulded.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame remembering her last encounter with

-Olive, seemed to recall very little that was either

-childlike or plastic in the concluding portion of their

-conversation, but she did not say so to Ezra who went

-on talking.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She often, however, puzzles me, she has such

-sudden freaks and fancies, as if her heart was a wild

-creature not fully tamed and ever dashing against

-the bars of its environment. I sometimes feel that

-I have not the necessary wisdom or tact to guide and

-counsel her. She seems to need someone who is wiser

-and more skilful than I am. Sometimes I fear she

-does not quite realise the responsibilities of life. The

-problems which have come up before us and which

-cry aloud for solution, seem to her but trivial matters

-that may be trusted to settle themselves. We must

-endeavour, dear friend, to arouse Olive’s enthusiasm

-about Perfection City. She is capable of the highest

-and noblest aspirations, but her heart must be turned

-into the right direction. She evinces a certain hesitancy

-in throwing herself into our work and aims.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Perhaps she is opposed to the whole thing,” suggested

-Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>“That cannot be,” replied Ezra earnestly. “She

-must see as we do, when she comes thoroughly to

-understand our motives in founding Perfection City.

-I look to you, Madame, to open her eyes to the truth.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah!” said Madame laconically, and then she

-added, after a moment’s pause, “I will ask you to

-do one thing for me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Anything you ask I will do if it is in my power,”

-said Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do not tell Olive of your fall here, nor of the

-danger you were in, nor of my coming to find you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>After a moment of puzzled silence Ezra said, “Of

-course your wishes are to me law. But may I ask

-why you make such a request?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Perhaps I am judging wrongly, but I am acting

-as if Olive had the same feelings as I should have.

-If I were in her place, I should hate it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why?” asked Ezra in surprise.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame rose up, her pale face illumined by the

-light of the fire.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“If I loved a man,” she said, beginning very

-quietly, but her voice gathered in intensity as she

-spoke. “If I loved a man, I could not bear it. To

-think that my love had failed him in his sorest need.

-He was lying stunned, helpless, within the clutch of

-deadly peril, and I went home unwarned, leaving

-him to his fate, all unconscious of the whole thing,

-while another woman—not I, but another woman—went

-to his rescue, another woman—not I—found

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>him, saved him, drew him out of danger, while I

-walked heedlessly home. I should hate myself, I

-should hate—ah! I should hate to the verge of killing

-that other woman who had saved him. That is the

-way I should feel, if I loved.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She concluded hastily, her voice dropping to a

-whisper. Ezra looked up at her in amazement.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yours is a many-sided nature. I never suspected

-you could feel like that. I never thought of you as

-being—as capable of——” he stopped in confusion.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah yes! You never thought of me as being able

-to love—to love a man and not an impersonal cause.

-Ah yes! You never quite looked upon me as a mere

-woman.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have always regarded you as something higher

-than a mere woman,” said Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Listen,” she said, sitting down again beside him.

-“You have yet to know me—the woman, I mean,

-and not the pioneer of Perfection City. My father

-was a man of passionate nature. He had fine instincts,

-but these were not developed. He was a Russian

-noble. I come of very good blood, as they say in the

-old world.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I always knew you were of distinguished birth,”

-said Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Not at all, quite the contrary,” said Madame,

-with a laugh that sounded harsh. “My father was

-a wild, self-willed Russian noble. He was to have

-married a lady of princely house, only that he refused

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>to do one thing which they made a condition of

-the marriage.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What was that?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“To give up my mother. Do you understand?

-He could not marry the princess, and he sacrificed

-wealth, position, and worldly honour, because he

-would not give up the pale-haired English girl whom

-he loved passionately, and who was my mother. She

-died, and my father died too, not many years afterwards.

-He did what he could for me by leaving me

-his fortune and the permission to bear his name, to

-which I had no legal right. From my mother I inherited

-my brain, but my heart I inherited from my

-father. Now let us go.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Must we?” said Ezra, to whom Madame’s sudden

-confession had been full of interest. “There is nothing

-further for us to do. Perfection City is safe.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But we must return to real life, Brother Ezra.

-Sitting here, ringed around with fire, we were alone

-in a world of our own. For a few moments we lived

-for each other, as it were. Our spirits communed, and

-I opened my heart to you as never before to mortal

-being. Now we must go back to real life again. See

-the fires are all out, and the world is itself again—all

-dark.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra rose to his feet and staggered a little, as Madame

-perceived from the stumble he made. She seemed

-preternaturally acute, and to be able to understand by

-the help of some new sense, for she put out her hand

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>and touched his arm, “Lean on me, brother, you are

-still giddy from your accident. We will walk very

-slowly.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra, feeling indeed faint enough, gratefully accepted

-the proffered help and put his hand within her

-arm; thus very slowly they started back towards the

-house through the inky black night. “Friend, what

-I said is to be locked in your breast, a secret,” said

-Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I fully understand that,” replied Ezra, “and I

-feel it a high honour that you should have chosen me

-as the repository of the secret of your life. It is safe,

-nay more, it is sacred, with me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>It took them a long time in the intense darkness

-to reach Ezra’s house where a light was glimmering

-from the window. When they at length reached

-the bars, Madame said, “I will not go in. Oh, I

-know what you would say, but I would prefer

-not. Olive would resent my bringing you back to

-her.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You mistake Olive utterly,” said Ezra earnestly.

-“Believe me, hers is a simple nature, she would have

-no such feelings as you think.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Perhaps you are right, and that she is a child

-in mind and not yet a woman in heart. Possibly I

-endow her with feelings she could not even understand.

-I judge her by myself, and maybe all the while

-her little soul is possessed with nothing but content

-at the thought that her pretty hat is all safe. The

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>butterfly must not be blamed if it does not rise as

-high as the lark. Farewell.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was waiting for him impatiently, anxiously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh Ezra, where have you been? And isn’t your

-face black? You are every whit as black as Napoleon

-Pompey. Wasn’t it fun?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Fun? What was fun?” asked Ezra languidly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, the fire of course, now that it is all over.

-It was so exciting. I was as hungry as a hawk when

-I came in. I really could not wait, so I had supper.

-You must have yours this very minute. Do you know,

-it is one o’clock at night, and you have not tasted a

-morsel of food since twelve o’clock yesterday? Do

-you realize that?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She bustled around and got his supper ready, chatting

-brightly all the while over the incidents of the

-fire, making fun and merriment out of them all. Ezra

-sat stupidly watching her, his head throbbing so heavily

-that he could scarcely think. He could eat nothing

-when the supper was ready, and Olive felt aggrieved.

-“I think you might, just to please me. It would do

-you good, for you must be hungry, I should think.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He swallowed a few morsels and said he would go

-to bed, that rest was what he most needed, his head

-ached badly. He was thankful she made no inquiries

-after his adventures during that eventful night. He

-would have found it difficult to tell a connected tale

-with that pain in his head. He asked Olive if she

-had gone down into the Gully.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>“No,” she said, “I started to go, but it was darker

-than I thought, so I came up again and followed round

-by the high prairie where there was a chance of meeting

-somebody. I came home with Willette.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The fire did get into the old field after all,” said

-Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And were the weeds burnt?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh! I wish I had been there to see. Wasn’t it

-a lovely blaze-up?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, it blazed up,” said Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive didn’t notice that he seemed ill, he thought

-with some bitterness. Madame would have divined

-it, no matter how hard he had tried to conceal the

-fact. After all, it was not her fault that she was made

-differently. The butterfly was not to be blamed if

-it did not soar as high as the lark.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIV.<br /> <span class='large'>COTTERELL “WANTED.”</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>The day after the fire was an idle one at Perfection

-City. No one felt able to work, Ezra least of

-all. He lay upon the floor of the kitchen with a wet

-handkerchief on his head, and several times he asked

-Olive not to make so much noise. She was as still as

-a mouse, she thought, but then his head ached, poor

-fellow! So she went out and sat in the shade of the

-house among her morning-glories, while the hens

-walked about with their wings down and their tongues

-lolling out, trying to cool themselves. The black burnt

-prairie seemed to send up shafts of heat to the

-copper-coloured sky.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>A man rode up to the bars, and for one moment

-Olive’s heart stood still. She feared it might be Mr.

-Cotterell, whom she had not seen since the day at

-the spring, now some weeks past. It was not Mr.

-Cotterell, however, but one of the settlers from the

-other side of Cotton Wood Creek. He came forward

-with his bridle-rein over his arm, his horse following,

-head down.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>“Wal, how’d you ’uns git ’long with that pesky

-fire?” he observed, without any preliminary greeting.

-He was a Missouri man, and they often prided themselves

-on their rudeness. It was their way of showing

-their independence.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Good morning, Mr. Owen,” said Olive, who knew

-the man quite well. “We have escaped all right,

-thank you. I hope you were not injured?” She was

-extra careful in her manner, as the politeness for two

-had all to be furnished by herself.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yer hain’t been burnt out I see. You all’s mighty

-silly anyhow. Why in thunder didn’t yer back-fire

-before? ’Tain’t agin’ yer principles, is it?” Mr.

-Owen grinned under the impression that he was

-funny.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We didn’t back-fire, because we thought it wrong

-to start a fire in such a wind and let it possibly burn

-up our neighbours,” said Olive stiffly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then ’tis agin yer principles to back-fire, by

-Gosh! The boys was ’lowing as much over to Union

-Mills.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is against our principles to injure our neighbours.

-You don’t object to that, Mr. Owen, do you?”

-said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I reckon you’ll git mighty tired o’ them idees ef

-yer live long on the prairie,” observed Mr. Owen.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Seen ole man Cotterell lately?” he inquired suddenly,

-half shutting his green-grey eyes and looking

-at Olive intently.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>She was somewhat surprised at the question, but

-knowing from experience how inquisitive the average

-settler is, she answered readily enough.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I haven’t seen him for a long time. Was he

-burnt out? I didn’t know the fire had gone so far.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I calkerlate he warn’t tetched by the fire,” said

-Mr. Owen, very slowly. He made long pauses between

-his remarks, during which he continued unremittingly

-the steady occupation of his life, namely,

-chewing tobacco. Olive began to feel impatient. She

-did not like to ask him into the house for fear of

-disturbing Ezra, so she sat down again in her chair,

-and pointing to a log of wood which lay near and

-seated on which he could still hold his horse, she

-asked him to take a seat also. Mr. Owen sat down

-with a grunt.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Never seed ony pusson so sot on posies as you

-’uns be,” he observed conversationally.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, I am very fond of flowers. They make

-the house more home-like, I think. The prairie is

-very bare looking,” replied Olive politely.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yer ole man oughter rared his house t’other side

-the Gully, an’ further down yon’er. This hyar ’ull

-be powerful col’ when we git col’ snaps in Jan’ary.

-Yer dunno nothin’ ’bout things in this hyar all-fired

-’Fection City,” said Mr. Owen, looking around him

-in criticism.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Perhaps not,” said Olive, rather nettled, “but

-we know how to mind our own business.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>Mr. Owen did not feel one whit abashed. He was

-far too near akin to the pachyderms for Olive’s delicate

-little shafts to have any effect on him. Another

-long silence followed, and Olive began to wonder if

-Owen was like that man from Jacksonville, who came

-to see them once and stayed four hours, during which

-time he made only two remarks and they possessed

-no particular interest. The man and his stony silence

-had driven her nearly wild, until she reflected how

-much more awful it would have been had she been

-obliged to entertain him with conversation. A recollection

-of this visitation and a dread born of that

-recollection began to invade her mind. Mr. Owen,

-however, was not going to stay for four hours, and he

-was going to make a remark of very particular interest,

-a remark that would quickly scatter all Olive’s other

-ideas. He delivered it slowly and with the monotonous

-enunciation which proclaimed him a Missouri man.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The boys is hout huntin’ down ole man Cotterell.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What!” exclaimed Olive turning very white.

-Then, steadying her voice as well as she could she

-said, “Why are they hunting him?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“To cotch him,” replied her visitor concisely.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But what for?” asked Olive, looking at him with

-wide eyes of horror. She knew only too well what

-hunting down a man portended.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, there’s bin a shootin’ over to his house,

-an’ one o’ thim boys o’ Mills is shot, shot dead. Cotterell

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>done it. And now he’s gone an’ run off. The

-boys they ’lowed Cotterell best be hung this time.

-Las’ time he was let off. He won’t be agin, you

-bet.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“How do you know he has shot young Mills?

-What evidence have you of it?” asked Olive in terror,

-yet she could not help pressing the man to tell her,

-although each word was like a stab.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He gave a silent inward laugh as if his thoughts

-were facetious. “Evidence an’ enough,” he said.

-“Jake Mills’ body with a bullet through his heart.

-Yer can’t git nothin’ plainer in the way of evidence

-than that, I reckon.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But how do you know it was Mr. Cotterell shot

-him?” asked Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Damn my eyes! but yer mus’ be a nateral born

-fool, Mis’ Weston. Jake Mills were foun’ on Cotterell’s

-lan’. Who else could ha’ done it? Besides, he

-did, an’ that’s a fac’ anyhow.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think it is perfectly monstrous,” burst out

-Olive, trembling with agitation. “I never heard of

-a wickeder thing. Here is this man you have decided

-to hang, and you don’t even know if he has done

-the thing you accuse him of. If that is what you call

-prairie law and justice I can only say I never heard

-of a more sinful and unjust law. Black savages

-couldn’t do worse.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mos’ like the boys will let him hev a trial, ef

-he’s partic’lar sot on’t. That won’t si’nify nothin’,”

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>said Mr. Owen, again surveying Olive through the

-narrow aperture of his half-closed eyes, and again applying

-himself to his habitual occupation with vigour.

-She looked at him with a face in which horror and

-disgust struggled for mastery.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“If this horrid murder is committed by your

-neighbours, Mr. Owen, I shall think that prairie men

-are a disgrace to civilization,” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We prairie folks ain’t partic’lar sot on civilization,”

-remarked Mr. Owen with affability.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I hope you’ll never catch him,” said Olive, with

-a sound very like a sob in her voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The boys they ’lowed you’uns was mighty good

-frien’s o’ his’n, an’ he’d a mos’ likely come this hyar

-way to make for the Pottawattamie ’fore we’uns could

-cotch him. That’s why I come ’long ter look for him

-hyar,” observed Mr. Owen, rising and putting his

-head under his saddle flap in order to tighten up the

-girth a couple of holes.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, you’ve come here to spy out, have you?”

-said Olive, in passionate anger. “Why didn’t you

-say so at first, and ask the question like a man, and

-not come sneaking around? Do you want to hunt all

-over the house and see if we’ve got anybody hidden

-away?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No,” said Owen slowly. “Guess that’ll do. I

-ain’t agoin’ ter hunt roun’. We ain’t no great shakes

-at bein’ fine folks out hyar on the prairie, but we

-allers takes the word of a lady, by Gosh. You said

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>you hain’t seen nothin’ o’ ole man Cotterell, guess

-that’ll do for the boys. Mornin’.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Mr. Owen rode away, feeling that in the contest

-of politeness that morning he had certainly scored off

-Mrs. Weston with her stuck-up Eastern ways.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was in an agony of doubt and terror. That

-the boys were out hunting for Cotterell was, she knew,

-but the preliminary to his death, if they caught him.

-The boys seldom or never let off any one they caught,

-so she gathered from the stories she had heard of their

-doings in time past. What was she to do in this difficult

-dilemma? Should she tell Ezra?</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Under ordinary circumstances her first impulse

-would have been to go straight to her husband with

-the story she had heard, but in this instance she felt

-that such a course would be impossible. She knew

-that Ezra was jealous of Mr. Cotterell, he had betrayed

-his feelings more than once, and in her heart

-she knew that few men can be just towards the man

-who arouses their jealousy. Her husband was a very

-just man, and could, more than any one she knew,

-put himself in the place of others and see what was

-right and what was wrong. But in this instance it

-was not justice Olive wanted, it was justice that she

-feared. Although she spoke bravely enough to Owen,

-a terrible fear lurked in her breast that the evidence,

-though ludicrously deficient by the rules of procedure

-that obtain in old established communities, was quite

-sufficient to convince a prairie jury. Ezra would not

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>sit on a hanging jury, nor would he be a party to

-catching Mr. Cotterell, but his sense of justice and

-what was due to the principles professed at Perfection

-City might carry him no further than this passively

-inactive point? Would he assist Cotterell to escape?

-Guilty or not, that was what Olive wanted, and to

-help in such an undertaking, she felt sure, was what

-her husband might very well refuse to do.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Was Cotterell guilty? Olive debated this point

-anxiously in her mind. She knew he went armed,

-but so did many other men. In fact, to be armed

-was the rule on the prairie. The doctrine of non-resistance

-was one of the least understood tenets of the

-Pioneers at Perfection City, and was observed by nobody

-else on the prairie. Even Brother Wright, as

-we have seen—though Olive was quite unaware of

-this—had granted to himself a special indulgence in

-this matter. So the mere fact of Mr. Cotterell’s always

-having his revolver in his belt did not really count

-for anything, one way or the other. He had always

-been so gentle and so chivalrous in his manner to her,

-she found it difficult to force her mind to keep hold

-of the fact that he was a very passionate man. Everyone

-said so, and she knew, too, that the Mills’ were

-a bad lot, drunken quarrelsome men, who, as Ezra

-said, combined in their character all the vices of the

-prairie and preserved none of its virtues. How easy

-it would be for a proud, passionate man like Mr.

-Cotterell to bring his revolver into a heated argument

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>with Jake Mills, who might be mad with drink. But

-surely such a shooting was not murder according to

-prairie law. In her distress Olive found herself falling

-back upon the probable laxity of that very prairie

-justice which a short time before she had so scornfully

-characterised to Owen.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The “boys” who were hunting Cotterell were,

-as Olive well knew, the most relentless men on the

-prairie, regular settlers who had found by experience

-that the only way to keep order was to keep it with

-their own right hands. They had hung several horse-thieves

-lately, and had declared they were going to

-put a stop to the “shooting round promiscuous” of

-the younger blades. They were not unjust men, but

-they were hasty, and were moreover already terribly

-prejudiced against Cotterell.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Having decided that it was best not to tell Ezra

-what she had heard, Olive was immediately assailed

-with a hundred doubts. Suppose Mr. Cotterell came

-to them in his extremity, should she try to conceal

-him? But how utterly impossible to do so without

-the co-operation of her husband! The mere attempt

-to do such a thing might involve her in difficulties

-without being of any use to the unhappy man himself.

-Then there was Madame. Should she appeal

-to her for help? Her heart revolted from such a

-course. After their last meeting, when they had interchanged

-hot words on the subject of this very man,

-Olive felt it was impossible to ask Madame’s aid or to

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>tell her anything about it. Then there was no one,

-and Olive resolved to keep the secret of what she

-had heard, hoping that something might turn up

-which would justify her action, or at least make any

-further action unnecessary. Thus do people often put

-off on the shoulders of chance the burden of a decision

-which taxes too much their powers of forecasting

-events. It was a heavy secret to keep to herself, and

-her face looked white and scared as she entered the

-kitchen on tip-toe to see how Ezra felt. He roused

-up as she came in.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am better now, little woman,” he said in answer

-to her inquiries. “The pain is all gone. I will

-get up and begin to stir around again.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He went out with her and with the keenness which

-is soon a habit with a prairie man, he noticed the

-hoof-marks of Owen’s horse, where it had stamped

-rather briskly, owing to the flies.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Who has been here? Those are fresh,” he said,

-pointing to the marks.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That man from over beyond Cotton Wood Creek

-was here a little while ago, Owen is his name: you

-know the man,” said Olive, with a beating heart.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Cattle-hunting after the fire, I suppose. Were

-they burnt out yesterday?” asked Ezra, with slight

-show of interest.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I believe not, he did not say. He sneered

-at the Pioneers for not having safe-guarded themselves,

-heedless of the welfare of the other settlers,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>so I suppose he had been betimes with his back-firing,

-at least if he lives up to his principles,” remarked

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is too late to go and hunt for our horses,”

-said Ezra, “and I feel too tired to start out on foot

-after them. They may very well be five miles away

-by this time. Did you ask Owen if he had seen

-them?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I never thought of doing so.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Don’t forget always to ask everyone if they have

-seen your horses whenever they are out on the prairie:

-it is one of the golden rules of prairie life,” said Ezra,

-tapping her chin.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But he wouldn’t have known Queen Katharine

-and Rebel even if he did happen to meet them,” objected

-Olive. “How could he know one pair of strange

-horses from another?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Bless your sweet eyes, Owen knows every horse

-and cow belonging to his neighbours for a radius of

-ten miles from his house, at the very least. Telling

-a neighbour where his cattle are, is the only rule of

-politeness known to many of them, and they are punctilious

-about it,” said Ezra laughing.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I wish I had known that, because I found him

-deficient in many of the rules I have been taught,”

-said Olive. “Possibly he found me as lacking, according

-to his estimate.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra did not go out to hunt for the horses

-the next morning as he had intended. Other work,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>which seemed more important, turned up for him.

-Brother Wright came that same evening to arrange

-about it.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Good evening, friends,” he said. “I trust you

-are both rested after yesterday. It was a hard day

-and a harder night. Brother Ezra, you did splendidly.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We were much alarmed for the safety of Perfection

-City: I don’t think it is ever likely to be in

-greater danger,” said Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I suppose, not from the outside,” said

-Wright.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And we are not likely to be set on fire

-from the inside, are we?” observed Ezra with a

-laugh.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Accidents may happen,” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Even in the best regulated communities,” added

-Brother Wright. “However, what I came to talk

-about was the future, and not the past. We’ve got

-two good loads of corn ready, it ought to be sold at

-once in Mapleton. We’ll get top price. I stepped

-into Madame’s as I came along, and she agreed with

-me. We must sell at once. Brother Dummy has got

-his waggon loaded up ready to start. It is a marvel

-how much that man does get through in the way of

-work. Well, the question is, who will go with the

-corn? Brother Dummy must drive his own team,

-because no other man could manage that black horse

-for half an hour. Biting Bill would kick the waggon

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>into match-wood in two minutes, if any of us attempted

-to touch his reins. I wonder whether it is

-the absolutely silent driving which cows him? You

-are out and out the best one for attending to business

-of any here. Madame thinks it would be well for you

-to go, and so do I.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am quite ready,” replied Ezra. “But my horses

-are both out on the prairie. I turned them loose after

-the fire to let them run off to the Creek, as I had no

-time to put them up and feed them. To-day I did not

-feel able to hunt after them.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, suppose you take my team, and I will

-find your horses for you to-morrow. Will that

-do?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“All right, then I’ll go to Mapleton.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The corn is already shucked, it won’t take half

-an hour to load up. You and I will do it while the

-horses are feeding. You ought to get off by six, I

-will feed the horses at five.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Each spoke of <i>his</i> horses and <i>his</i> waggons much

-in the same way as an artillery officer speaks of his

-guns. There were three pairs of horses in the Community,

-and, in theory at least, everyone was equally

-free to use them, but experience showed that that sort

-of handling did not suit horses, who do better if left

-always in the care of the same persons. Therefore

-it came about that Brother Dummy always had Biting

-Bill, since no one else could manage the brute, and

-Ezra generally had Queen Katharine and Rebel, while

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>Brother Wright kept the greys. Now these animals,

-although common property, were invariably spoken of

-by their drivers as <i>theirs</i>, for the use of certain familiar

-phrases, which to the outsider might seem to denote

-the idea of private property, came naturally to

-their lips. It is often more difficult to change habits

-of speech than laws of property. Reformers who

-start out to alter the whole course of modern ideas and

-to rearrange the world according to a plan of their

-own devising, would do well to meditate upon this

-peculiarity and see what it points to. Surely so slight

-a thing as a word might easily be eradicated from

-human speech, and yet how difficult it is to do so.

-But the point to consider is that the pertinacity, which

-shows itself in modes of expression, may very well

-exist in just as strong a form in habits of thought

-and feeling. The Pioneers, like others of that sort,

-passed over and disregarded such expressions as “my

-horse,” “my waggon,” and “your plough,” not apparently

-recognizing that the expressions denoted a habit

-of thought that might very easily strike at the very

-root of their institution. They were communists, as

-Olive had said, in bits of this and scraps of that, but

-the old leaven of individualism was there still among

-them, only dormant. The Pioneers never expected

-that the leaven would again become an active principle.

-Like other people, they were unable to see into the

-future, and therefore rejoiced in their escape from

-the perils of the prairie fire and considered that they

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>had no further danger to apprehend for this winter

-at least. The sea was smooth and the sky was serene,

-so to speak, and they did not perceive the sunken

-rocks that lay in the track of their experimental

-bark.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XV.<br /> <span class='large'>IN QUEST OF NEWS.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>Olive was early astir the next morning, in order

-to see her husband off and also to provide him with

-food in ample abundance to last him for the trip. He

-carried a plentiful store of dried beef, a portable commodity

-much in request on the prairie. The old trappers

-had showed the settlers how to make it, and the

-trappers had acquired the art from the Indians. Dried

-beef is precisely what its name indicates. It is raw

-beef, somewhat salted, and then dried in the sun until

-it is like a piece of solid leather. It has to be cut into

-thin slices across the grain before the stoutest teeth

-can make the slightest impression upon it. It may

-be also cooked in a batter of eggs for the dainty, but

-has only to be sliced up with a jack-knife to be eaten

-by the average teamster on the prairie. Besides the

-dried meat and plenty of corn-bread, Ezra had milk

-in a bottle and one of Olive’s wedding presents to eat,

-namely, a tin of peaches. He travelled therefore in

-extreme luxury. He set off along with Brother Dummy

-just as the sun was rising, and the canvas covers

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>of the waggons showed for a long time as two moving

-white specks as they slowly crept across the blackened

-landscape, finally disappearing behind the Mounds

-some twelve miles to the west of Perfection City.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive remained alone at home with Napoleon Pompey

-and Diana to keep her company, until Ezra should

-return in four days’ time. It was only with great reluctance

-that he had consented to this. He did not at

-all like the idea of her remaining alone in the house.

-As usual, when it came to Olive doing what the ordinary

-prairie settler’s wife did as a matter of course,

-Ezra’s love took fright. He urged her to go and stay

-at Madame’s house, she would be more than welcome,

-he declared, in fact it seemed to him almost necessary

-that she should go, and he insisted strongly upon the

-plan. Olive was as strongly opposed to it. Why

-couldn’t she stay in her own house? She would much

-prefer it, so as to be on hand to feed the chickens and

-milk the cows and generally see to things. Besides,

-she felt quite sure she would be vastly in Madame’s

-way. Ezra combated this position vigorously. Olive

-could not be in anyone’s way, even if she tried. Moreover,

-was not Madame a communist like the rest of

-them, and she would be only too pleased to take Olive

-into her home as she had already done into her heart.

-His spouse made no comment, except a mental one, to

-this argument, but reiterated her preference for staying

-at home. It would only be three days or four at

-most, and she would be very busy. Ezra hinted at

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>possible danger if it were known she was alone in the

-house.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But I won’t be alone: there is Napoleon Pompey

-for one and Diana for two. Surely between so stout

-a pair nothing on earth can happen to me,” she said,

-smiling at his anxious face.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t feel easy about you,” said Ezra, looking at

-her with mournful eyes. “I never left you alone

-before, and it suddenly seems to me a most portentous

-thing.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why, you dear silly old thing!” exclaimed Olive,

-“I do believe you’ll have omens next, and will look

-into tea-cups to see if it is a propitious moment for

-the success of this undertaking. I never knew you

-‘take on’ like this before.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I never did so, but it is all because I love you,

-dear. I quite understand what it means, to be foolish

-with love. I used not to know what it was. I wonder

-do women ever feel the same as we men do?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Women, my dear, are sent into this world for

-the express purpose of making men do what they ought

-and not be silly,” said Olive severely. “Now I know

-you’ll have the feed for the horses all right, but remember

-the feed for yourself is in this basket, everything

-you’ll want, and there is salt for the boiled

-eggs.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>When the hurry of getting the waggons off was

-over, Olive sat down to think, and immediately there

-rose up before her the image of a hunted man flying

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>for his life. In some ways it was a relief that Ezra

-was gone, she would not have to be constantly making

-an effort to hide the real anxiety in her mind. Then

-she thought of Ezra and of his great and boundless

-devotion to her, and the words Madame had spoken in

-her wrath rose up before her and rebuked her. Were

-they true? Had she hidden her real nature from her

-husband before her marriage? She had never meant

-to do so, but in their long pre-nuptial conversations

-it had not appeared to her that she and Ezra were so

-different in their views of life and its duties as perhaps

-was now the case. He certainly had told her of the

-experiment of Perfection City, and she had accepted

-him and the experiment together because they were

-indissoluble. She of herself would never have initiated

-the communistic idea; but then there was nothing

-wonderful in that, woman never do initiate anything,

-they only follow some man’s lead with more or less

-enthusiasm and intelligence.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Were she to have expressed her own private predilection,

-it certainly would have been for a little

-home of her own on the usual lines, which little home

-it would have been her pride and her pleasure to make

-as beautiful as she could. Olive did not possess a large

-and speculative mind, capable of vast dreamy projects,

-whose limitless possibilities were in imagination not

-checked by small practical obstacles. On the contrary,

-it was the tendency of her intellect to perceive

-those obstacles with startling clearness, and to demonstrate,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>by a few biting truisms, the impossibility of

-turning the dreamy vastnesses to use. She was neither

-hard-headed nor dull-headed, but hers was a practical

-nature, very much jarred by idle vapourings, and

-above all she was kept in the straight path of common

-sense by her keen appreciation of the ridiculous.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>This faculty enabled her to perceive how often reformers

-run off the track of common sense, and while

-pinning their faith to one particular little tenet which

-they constitute the corner-stone of their philosophy,

-lose sight of the whole world beyond. Olive possessed

-in a high degree the sense of proportion, which in a

-true reformer is generally absent. When Ezra with

-his cultivated mind and really fine intellect, talked

-to her of the reforming of the present type of civilization,

-and briefly sketched out what he hoped would

-be the result of the introduction of the communistic

-idea into life, she could not help remarking that he

-used very much the same expressions, and seemed animated

-by very much the same hopes, as those indulged

-in by one of the dietetic reformers she knew in Smyrna,

-who promised all the glories of the golden age to mankind

-if the human race would only give up the baneful

-practices of eating meat and of cooking vegetables!</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>And every few minutes, across the mirror of her

-reflections, there came a shadow of a desperate man

-spurring on a jaded horse. Olive could not shake off

-a sense of impending disaster, but unlike Ezra, who

-attributed his melancholy to his great love for Olive

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>and a vague, unreasoning dread of something happening

-to her in his absence, she knew quite well what

-she feared and why.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>As the morning wore on, Olive began to feel it

-impossible to remain quietly at home in the midst

-of her anxiety. She must go out and hear what news

-there was, or at all events she must learn if there was

-any news. Resolved not to hold any communication

-with Madame other than what was publicly necessary—for

-between the two there was now maintained a

-sort of armed neutrality—she decided to call at the

-blacksmith’s, as Brother Green was in the way of most

-of the gossip, if gossip is a term that could be rightly

-applied to the feeble and intermittent stream of prairie

-news that trickled through the smithy. Brother

-Green was a silent, self-absorbed man who worked

-steadily and brought much personal devotion into the

-project of Perfection City. He was a lonely man,

-a widower, and to judge by appearances a disappointed

-man as well. He was surprised to see Sister Olive,

-and very pleased, but could not shake hands as he was

-very dirty, and she looked so brightly clean. Having

-wiped a wooden bench with his leather apron and

-again with the sleeve of his shirt, he invited her to

-be seated. Brother Green was welding some iron, and

-Olive waited until the operation was concluded and

-the plough-hook made before she talked to him. Meanwhile

-she watched with interest the white glowing

-fire and the pulpy white-hot iron-bar, helplessly bending

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>over at the end like a piece of half boiled molasses

-candy.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I felt so lonesome, I thought I would come out

-and talk to someone,” she said, by way of excuse for

-a first visit. “Diana isn’t a bit of company when you

-feel really lonesome. Ezra is gone for four days, did

-you know?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Diana had cocked one ear at the mention of her

-name, but had speedily uncocked it again on becoming

-satisfied that nothing in the way of excitement

-was at hand.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, I suppose you do feel lonely,” said Brother

-Green slowly, as he seated himself on his anvil and

-crossed his brawny arms. “I’ve been used to it for so

-long, I have almost forgotten how anything else feels.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive looked kindly at him. “Are you ever homesick,

-and do you ever wish you had stayed in England?

-It must be very different from here.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Very,” said Brother Green gazing with a far-away

-sort of look through the large forge door out

-over the shimmering prairie. He suddenly seemed to

-see rolling hills with oak woods tufting their slopes,

-and a deep valley, where blue curling smoke ascended

-in high spirals, and a church steeple rose from among

-elms, and jackdaws croaked around the steeple. He

-put his head a little on one side, almost as if he would

-catch more distinctly the hoarse croak of the jackdaws,

-or maybe the first sound of the bell which hung in

-the steeple and used to ring on Sundays.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>“Yes,” he said, as this picture faded away and

-the prairie returned in its place, “there can’t be much

-greater differences in the world than between Perfection

-City and the little village in Sussex, where I was

-born.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Which do you like best, Brother Green?” asked

-Olive a little thoughtlessly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t expect ever to be as unhappy again as I

-was in that pretty little village,” said Brother Green,

-and Olive remembered that she had been told he had

-lost a young wife in his youth. She felt sorry for

-him, and regretted having touched upon an old wound

-that still could throb with pain.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Have you heard any news lately? Has anybody

-been to the forge? You are always the first to hear

-news,” said she quickly, desiring to change the subject.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“A man from down south passed this morning.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Did he?” said Olive anxiously, “what did he

-say?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He said the fire was just bellowing its way towards

-Fort Scott, and had done a good deal of damage

-one way or another. It was one of the hottest

-they ever had and the hardest to stop. It crossed

-one of the South Fork Creeks and got into the broken

-land round Osage.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We had a very narrow escape ourselves,” said

-Olive, feeling remarkably little interest in the fire.

-“Did he say anything else? Who was he?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>“A stranger, I never saw him before. No, he

-didn’t say anything else, except to tell me that he

-calkerlated Britishers were mos’ly fools and couldn’t

-do a day’s work ’gain ’Mericans, no matter what it

-were, rail-splitting or tobacco-chawin’.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Green gave a deep gentle laugh, like the

-distant boom of a waterfall hidden among trees.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Don’t you think these prairie folk are most conceited?”

-asked Olive, in some scorn.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, not more than other people, Sister,” replied

-Brother Green somewhat unexpectedly, “they only

-say what they think with remarkable frankness.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But that is conceit,” persisted Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am not certain that it is more conceited to say

-what you think, than to think your thoughts in silence,

-and be consumed with a vast contempt for all

-the world. We are a conceited people too.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I thought the English prided themselves on not

-being conceited,” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We pride ourselves on showing no feeling of

-conceit and if possible on showing no feeling on any

-other subject either. If an Englishman’s heart were

-skinned, I think it would weigh up pretty much the

-same as an American’s. The difference lies in the

-tongue only.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Is that so?” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, this morning, for instance, that man informed

-me that he was a better man than I, and that

-his country could lick mine. Well, in my heart I

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>knew he was wrong on both points, and that the precise

-contrary was the fact. As far as essentials go, I

-think we were pretty equal in the contest of conceit.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But you didn’t tell him what you thought,” remarked

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, that was the difference of tongue, not of

-heart,” replied Brother Green.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I didn’t know you were so severe in your criticisms

-and judgments. I wonder much what you really

-think of Perfection City,” said Olive, looking at him

-curiously. She had never particularly noticed him

-hitherto, and had not realized that he could have a

-store of knowledge of many things which lay far outside

-her experience.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think Perfection City will do good,” said

-Brother Green with conviction.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you, and why?” asked Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Any honest human effort to benefit the world

-and raise mankind does good,” said Brother Green.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But people have done such different things and

-all from a desire to do what seemed to them good,”

-objected Olive with feminine vagueness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I consider they have done good if their purpose

-was single-hearted,” maintained Brother Green.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“They didn’t succeed in doing what they aimed

-at very often, at all events,” observed Olive, “something

-quite different came out of their endeavours

-from what they had expected.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>“Nevertheless, if they honestly tried, then that

-very trying was of itself good.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you think Perfection City will do the good

-the Pioneers expect, or will something quite different

-come out of it too?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think Perfection City will be the means of

-teaching a valuable lesson,” said Brother Green cordially.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you think it is any use to try to change the

-world and its ideas?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“If anyone has a truth let him preach it fearlessly.

-Who can foretell the moment when the world will

-listen and when it is ready to profit by your example.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive longed to ask him what he thought of Madame,

-but dared not do so. She felt a little afraid

-before this simple-minded man, with his fervent, childlike

-faith and his sad and lonely life. Belief in Perfection

-City might be his only comfort now, shut off

-as he was from the joys of home and family, she would

-do nothing to lessen his belief and make him more

-lonely still. For what is more lonely than the heart

-out of which a faith has departed never to return?

-So she bade him good-bye, and then seeing Aunt

-Ruby’s chimney giving off the cheerful smoke of habitation,

-she turned her steps thither. Olive walked

-slowly along, for it was very hot indeed with a dry

-suffocating heat that made exertion somewhat irksome,

-and Diana, the discreet, followed dutifully behind

-her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>Aunt Ruby, as has been already hinted, had surrounded

-herself with a large family of chickens of

-all ages, to whose wants it was her great duty to attend.

-She had a rare hand for chickens, and could

-pick up the most spasmodic specimen and turn it upside

-down and examine it for the gapes without hurting

-it in the least. Her driving of the hens to roost

-was an exhibition of the talent of generalship worthy

-of a wider field. No screamings nor scurryings, no

-rushings madly hither and thither, took place, and

-above all no sticks were used in the ceremony: Aunt

-Ruby merely took her skirts gently at the side in each

-hand, and said “Shoo! Shoo!” in a soothing voice,

-while at the same time she slightly oscillated the folds

-of her skirt. The hens appeared hypnotized by the

-action, and no matter how eagerly they might be pursuing

-the afternoon fly, they would at once settle

-down into a conversational chuck-a-chu and begin

-forthwith to meander towards the hen-roost.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby’s numerous hens and chickens were all

-in the yard and around the wood-pile, seeking in an

-aimless over-fed fashion after chance insects, when

-suddenly, without a moment’s warning, the devil was

-upon them according to the gallinaceous imagination.

-The devil was possessed of four paws, a most terrifying

-bark, and a mouth that seemed to the affrighted birds

-to be on the point of devouring each one especially

-and individually. The dog flew hither and thither, and

-so did the chickens, and so did the tail-feathers.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>“Diana! Bad dog, down, down!” screamed Olive,

-rushing to the rescue, while Aunt Ruby with shrill

-cry and a broom-stick appeared in the door-way.

-Never before or since did a more tempestuous guest

-appear at Aunt Ruby’s house. Full a quarter of an

-hour of gentle “shoo-shooings” to the hens, interspersed

-with smart whippings to Diana, elapsed before

-quiet was restored, and the ladies could even begin

-their visit together. Even then there was a sort of

-nervous tension on Aunt Ruby’s part, which prevented

-her thorough enjoyment of the opportunity for

-a gossip. Her attention was distracted by Diana, who

-lay with lamb-like docility at Olive’s feet and slept

-the sleep of the just.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t keep a dawg roun’ nohow,” said Aunt

-Ruby eyeing the delinquent sternly. “I’d mos’ as lief

-hev a rattlesnake. I shouldn’t never sleep easy in

-my bed won’erin’ an’ won’erin’ what the pesky crittur

-’ud do nex’.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I know that Diana is very naughty now, but she

-is only a puppy, and she’ll get sense by and bye, and

-it is so nice to have something that is your own and

-loves you, and doesn’t care for any body else, you

-know,” observed Olive somewhat rashly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, I reckon you’ll hev a sight o’ trouble ’long

-o’ that dawg ’fore you learn it the rights o’ people,

-let alone teachin’ it community idees,” said Aunt

-Ruby.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, you can’t teach a dog communistic notions,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>thank goodness,” observed Olive, patting the sinful

-Diana.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Reckon you ain’t partic’ler sot on the idees of

-Perfection City,” said the old lady, looking at her

-visitor with bright twinkling eyes. “I allow there

-be a p’int or two we’ll hev to consider over agin at

-’Sembly. We are gettin’ on too fas’ fur this here

-prairie folk, they hain’t got the sense to un’erstan’

-all o’ our highest principles. Guess while there’s Injuns

-roun’ we hed better jes’ hol’ back a mite ’bout

-non-resistance.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh,” said Olive, who had never given any attention

-to this point, being as indifferent as the wives of

-strong men usually are. “I never heard a word about

-Indians. Are there any about?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Not as I hearn on special. But there’s Injuns

-and worse nor Injuns in the world, an’ I reckon we’d

-better take that p’int up at ’Sembly and see if we

-can’t do su’thin’ to make things a bit straight,” said

-Aunt Ruby in language that was vaguely enough expressed

-to serve in the highest walks of diplomacy.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, I dare say,” replied Olive carelessly, “some

-very excellent reason could be devised to excuse a

-departure from any one of the Perfection City principles,

-which seem more difficult to manage in practice

-than on paper. They are all pretty new, and of

-course can’t be expected to be as useful in all the

-difficult circumstances of life as principles which have

-stood the test of time.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>“Dear me, suz!” exclaimed Aunt Ruby admiringly.

-“How gran’ you kin talk! Deal sight finer nor Brother

-Wright. Why don’t you hold forth in ’Sembly?

-I’d liefer hear you nor any on ’em. I’m jes’ ’bout tired

-o’ listenin’ to Brother Wright. Lard! how he do love

-to hear his own voice! Hens is jes’ like that too, they’ll

-talk an’ talk till you’re mos’ crazy, an’ they hain’t

-nothin’ to say, on’y jes’ to cackle an’ hear themselves

-talk.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive agreed with Aunt Ruby, but hardly dared to

-express her opinion in all its force. Therefore she

-turned the conversation by inquiring had she ever

-heard anything about lynch-law and about its being

-put into practice in their neighbourhood?</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Course I hev, an’ hearn o’ hangin’ too.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do Perfection City principles uphold hanging?”

-asked Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Guess not,” was the reply.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No matter if it was for murder?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, I don’t see as we could ever be called upon

-to settle that p’int, ’cause no ’Fectionist could ever be

-a murderer no how,” said Aunt Ruby.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But suppose an outsider who had shot a man, even

-if it was not a real bad murder, came to us for protection,

-would they help him, do you think?” asked

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, I never hearn that debated at the ’Sembly,

-but I reckon Perfection City don’t lay out to hide

-folks as has killed a feller critter. It don’t ’pear to

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>me as how we was called upon to min’ anyone ’cept

-our own selves, an’ we hed best keep clear ’way o’

-them sort o’ folks. That’s pretty nigh my ’pinion,

-an’ I guess it’s mos’ folks too as hes a mite o’ common

-sense.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was fain to confess to herself that in all

-probability Aunt Ruby did fairly express the collective

-opinion of Perfection City. They had only enough

-righteousness for themselves, and, like a ship already

-short of provisions, could not help another vessel, even

-though it might be flying the Union Jack upside down

-and showing all the other flags of acute distress recognized

-in the naval code of signals. Had Aunt Ruby

-heard of anything concerning a horse-thief who was

-supposed to be somewhere around, inquired Olive with

-a view to eliciting information, but she only elicited

-feminine alarms in overwhelming abundance.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do tell! Land o’ liberty! Was there horse-thieves

-’bout? What a pity Brother Ezry an’ Brother Dummy

-was both gone jes’ now: they might meet in ’Sembly

-right away an’ discuss the p’int o’ non-resistance an’

-buy revolvers next time anyone went to Union Mills.

-Horse-thieves was mos’ as bad as Injuns, an’ if it was

-lawful an’ right to defen’ yourself ’gainst Injuns as

-was ign’rant savages as never hed Christian teachin’,

-it couldn’t be wrong to look a’ter your hosses as was

-bought an’ paid for by ’Fection City money.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby was so convinced and loquacious upon

-this subject and upon the aspect of the case as presented

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>to her mind by her terrors, that Olive heartily regretted

-her question, and began to try and do away with the

-effects of it as far as possible. It was only a vague

-report she averred, and Olive herself had not the

-slightest idea that there were horse-thieves about.

-Upon the strength of this assurance Aunt Ruby, somewhat

-comforted, allowed her attention to be engaged

-by other topics of conversation. She was much distressed

-that she could not persuade her visitor to stay

-all the rest of the day and have a real good soul-satisfying

-talk, but Olive declared she must go home and

-see to her own chickens, an argument that appealed

-very strongly to Aunt Ruby’s maternal instincts.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>A difficulty arose as to how Diana was to be decently

-conducted out through the yard.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I’d mos’ as soon hev to conten’ with a roarin’

-lion as that pup,” remarked Aunt Ruby as the difficulty

-presented itself to her mind in an acute form.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“If I could get her past without seeing the hens

-and chickens she would be all right,” said Olive, who

-of course had no whip, regarding meditatively the

-dog, who of course had no collar.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, that ’ud do, I guess, sort o’ take her out

-o’ the way o’ temptation,” said Aunt Ruby, surveying

-Diana with an anxious eye. “I kin give you an ole

-caliker skirt o’ mine, an’ you kin tie up her head in

-that reg’lar tight, so as she wouldn’t see ne’er a hen

-this side o’ Christmas, ’less you took it off.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>This seemed a hopeful arrangement; so the “caliker

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>skirt” was brought, and the misguided Diana,

-under the impression that a brand new game was on

-foot, allowed her head to be hidden in the folds of the

-skirt. Olive then led her to the door, but Diana objected,

-not seeing where the joke came in for her;

-and as soon as she found that she was ignominiously

-tied into the dreadful skirt, her rage was boundless.

-In an instant she wrenched herself free from Olive’s

-guiding hand. She then commenced a wild career

-around the yard backwards, swaying this way and that

-in the most ghastly and unlooked-for manner.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The hens and chickens no sooner beheld this portent

-than with one universal squawk of horror they

-betook themselves to places of safety under the corn-crib

-and into the cracks of the wood-pile, whence they

-could not again be coaxed for many hours. Diana

-meanwhile continued her fearsome course and ere

-long came into violent contact with the chicken-tub,

-a large receptacle with loose wooden cover where various

-sorts of food suitable for fowls were collected together,

-first thinned with water and then thickened

-into a glutinous mass by intermixture of corn-meal.

-Into this tub Diana sat with extreme violence and then

-rolled over. Olive caught her as she was emerging

-from the chicken-tub and by uncovering her eyes restored

-her to reason. Aunt Ruby, speechless with indignation,

-and Olive, equally speechless with laughter,

-then set to work with two big spoons to scrape the

-chicken food from the ground and from the hind

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>quarters of the dog. Diana, now at peace with all the

-world, wagged her tail benevolently during this process,

-and soon specked Olive over with corn-meal, potatoes,

-scraps of peelings, and bits of greens, until she

-looked as if she had been out in a snow-storm as severe

-in character as it was diversified in composition. When

-this job was over Aunt Ruby arose and straightened

-her old back with a groan.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, I guess I would a deal sight sooner hev a

-rattlesnake to look a’ter than a dawg,” she observed.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive, apologetic, departed along with the unrepentant

-Diana, and together they returned homewards.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVI.<br /> <span class='large'>HORSE-THIEVES.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>Olive spent a few quiet hours at home along with

-Diana, and then took supper in company with Napoleon

-Pompey, whose manners at table were now

-all that could be desired. Indeed, the negro in this

-connection easily takes a higher polish than might

-be expected: he prides himself on being punctilious

-in all the forms and phrases of the best white society

-he has ever come in contact with, and being highly

-imitative, is quickly trained. Given a white boy and

-a black boy of similar ages and depths of ignorance,

-the black one will more quickly tame into a seemingly

-quiet human being, while very frequently the same

-vanity which prompts a negro to be over-zealous in the

-use of “please” and “thank you” will cause the

-white boy to act roughly and assert his independence

-by extravagances of rude behaviour. Napoleon Pompey

-was magnificently polite to “Mis’ Ollie,” whom he

-adored, and for whom he was ready even to work: that

-is to make the greatest sacrifice possible to a negro lad

-of twelve. He never forgot to carry in wood for her

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>or to pick up chips in generous quantity for the

-lighting of the afternoon fire, and he collected abundance

-of corn-cobs and had them duly dried in the sun

-ready at her hand in case she was in sudden want of

-a hot fire. When working for Ezra, Napoleon Pompey

-reverted to his natural black standard of diligence

-and shirked as much as he possibly could, lying down

-in fence-corners to sleep like a shiny black lizard when

-he should have been stripping corn, but he never

-shirked “Mis’ Ollie’s” work. She didn’t scold the

-lad, but ruled him by her gentleness and her beauty,

-and he fell into meekest subjection to her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive always tried to talk with Napoleon Pompey

-at meals, even when Ezra was there, being anxious

-to make him feel at his ease and happy in their presence;

-and to-day being alone with him she thought

-she might get some information out of him on the

-subject which was weighing so heavily upon her mind.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Napoleon Pompey, did you ever hear of their

-hunting down men on the prairie here?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yo’ bet, Mis’ Ollie, I seed darkie what went to

-de hangin’ ole man Howard. He done seed him

-hoisted over de tree slap up. He told me——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Hush!” said Olive sternly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The young savage was abashed, he had meant no

-harm, but thought some pleasing details “o’ de hangin’,”

-which he himself had relished mightily, would

-prove equally acceptable to Olive’s taste. She was

-disgusted to think that with all her teaching of the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>forms and symbols of politeness and gentle manners,

-which the young scamp had received with such docility,

-she had not really touched his heart at all: he was

-just a black savage, still rejoicing in vivid details of

-horrors and cruelty.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Don’t tell me,” she said sternly, “that it is possible

-you could like to see a human being, a fellow

-creature, made in God’s image, no matter how guilty

-he might be, put to death. It may be necessary,

-Napoleon Pompey, sometimes to hang men who have

-done wicked things, so as to prevent others from doing

-the same, but it is an awful thing, a sad and terrible

-sight. You would never wish to see it, Napoleon Pompey,”

-said Olive solemnly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It ’ud be bully ter see ’um kickin’ in de air

-wid rope roun’ his neck,” said Napoleon Pompey

-simply.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive turned white with disgust and left the

-kitchen, retiring with Diana to her own little private

-room. Napoleon Pompey, conscious of no shortcomings,

-cleared away the supper things very handily,

-washed the few dishes, set the candles upon the white

-deal table, and whistling in the innocence of his

-youthful heart went out to “walk roun’” and see

-that all was right, and the hen-house fastened up securely

-against possible visits from pole-cats, before

-he retired to his loft upstairs shortly after sun-down.

-Like the chickens, Napoleon Pompey went early to

-roost.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>Conscious from the all-pervading stillness that the

-lad was gone to bed, Ollie returned to the kitchen,

-and her heart smote her as she saw two tallow candles

-in their tin candle-sticks placed on the table in convenient

-position for her to read, if such should be her

-wish. Poor Napoleon Pompey! Olive thought compassionately

-of what an affectionate boy he was, and

-of how it was not his fault if he still had savage

-tastes. Indeed, it was rather the fault of everybody

-else. His not very remote ancestors were unreclaimed

-African savages, and the career of those more immediate

-forefathers, whose lot had been cast in slavery

-down South, had not had an elevating tendency. It

-was wonderful, not that he still had savage tastes, but

-that he had got rid of so many of them. She was

-sorry that she had not been better able to control her

-feelings, and determined forthwith to institute a careful

-system of training with a view to leading him to

-the higher life by the shortest possible road. Having

-settled in her own mind a few of the more important

-lines upon which this training was to be conducted,

-Olive turned at last to her reading. But she could

-not keep her mind on her book, it kept wandering

-off in all sorts of directions, and at last took that

-of being frightened at the loneliness and stillness of

-the house. When so firmly combating the notion

-of being afraid to stay in the house during Ezra’s

-absence, Olive had not realized how appalling the

-stillness would be. In the daytime there were multitudes

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>of unregarded sounds, which went to make up

-the sum total of the idea of life and fellowship, but

-at night these had completely ceased, and she seemed

-to hear the stillness with awful intensity.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Then, too there were no shutters to the windows,

-which were, of course, open to let in the cool night

-air, and the thought suddenly came into Olive’s mind

-of how exposed she really was, sitting there in the

-light of her candles, plainly to be seen, but unable

-to see out. A thought such as this needs but little

-time to grow into a veritable feeling of panic. She

-glanced at the black gaping windows and stared out

-into the measureless blackness beyond. At one moment

-she raised her hand to extinguish the candles

-and so to hide herself in the dark along with her fears,

-but she knew that would only make matters worse.

-She would see in her terrified imagination a hundred

-glaring eyes peering in through the window. She

-got up and walked about the room, trying by a little

-movement to throw off the oppressive sense of terror.

-Diana suddenly seemed to be interested in something,

-and raised her head and sniffed inquiringly, and her

-mistress, nervously awake to every sight or sound,

-looked anxiously around her and stopped in her uneasy

-walk. Diana arose and went to the door, and

-being a puppy wagged her tail effusively, then suddenly

-remembering that she ought to be a dog, barked

-with vehemence. Olive was ready to scream with

-nervous terror as she heard a step upon the slanting

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>board which led up to the door and a second later

-a knock against the resounding wood. She stood

-spell-bound, unable to speak or move. Diana ceased

-barking, and looked with eager delight for the opening

-of the door.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is I, friends, let me come in,” said a deep

-voice which thrilled Olive to the heart.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The door opened and Mr. Cotterell entered.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell! What are you here for?” gasped

-Olive, as he came in and stood in the light, gaunt-eyed

-and hollow-cheeked.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am flying for my life, Mrs. Weston. The men

-are out hunting me down. I have come to ask your

-help. Where is your husband?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He is gone away to Mapleton.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah!” said Cotterell, with a sigh that had some

-relief in the sound. “Then you will help me, won’t

-you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What have you done?” asked Olive, gazing at

-him in terror. He was wild-looking and so different

-from the charming gentleman she had known before.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I’ve shot Jake Mills,” he replied, without any

-attempt at dissimulation.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Do you mean that you’ve murdered him?”

-gasped Olive, starting back from him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Good God! Mrs. Weston, no. I’ve not murdered

-him, although he is dead by my hand. There’s

-been a quarrel between us about some land he rented

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>from me. He was a very low-bred fellow and violent,

-and I despised him, and—well, I said some harsh

-things to him about cheating the last time we met.

-He swore that he would pay me out. He came to

-my cabin the other day. I don’t know how long

-ago, it seems a life-time. He was mad with drink

-and fury. I told him he was a hound. He whipped

-out his revolver and fired at me, but he was too tipsy

-to aim straight, his shots went wide of the mark. Well,

-I got my shot in, I was not drunk. That is how it was,

-Mrs. Weston. Upon my honour as a man, that is the

-exact truth, you would not call it murder, would

-you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, it was in self-defence. But why didn’t you

-go and tell the neighbours at once? They understand

-that sort of thing on the prairie.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah, there’s just my hard luck. There was a

-brute of a negro who saw it all, a fellow I thrashed

-once for stealing and lying, and he said with such

-a meaning look, niggers were free men now, they

-could give evidence against white men now,” said

-Cotterell in a voice of despair.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Could not you silence him?” said Olive, “or

-make him tell the truth?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, I could have silenced him easily enough,

-and I had my finger on the trigger to do it. But

-I sickened at the thought. I couldn’t shoot him,

-although it was my life against his in all probability.

-I fled and he gave the alarm. I have no chance with

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>these men around here to try me, and that negro

-to give his lying version of the fight. If it was a jury

-of men like your husband, it would be different, but

-these ignorant settlers are desperately prejudiced

-against me already as a foreigner, and because of several

-things in the past.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive thought of what her husband had said, and

-knew only too well that there was indeed much prejudice

-against the unhappy fugitive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What am I to do? You cannot stay here, Mr.

-Cotterell. They have already been looking for you.

-Mr. Owen was here yesterday afternoon.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Did he tell you what I had done? Did he seem

-to consider it murder?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, he did,” said Olive in a whisper, not daring

-to remember what he had said should he Cotterell’s

-punishment.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But you don’t look upon it in that light?” said

-he, wistfully.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not. It was a terrible misfortune

-that might happen to anybody, given the preliminary

-quarrel.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Thank you,” said Cotterell brokenly. “When

-a poor devil is being hunted down it is a comfort

-for him to find someone who can still believe in

-him, and I knew in my heart I could come to you

-for help when all else had abandoned me. I am

-starving, Mrs. Weston. I have eaten nothing for two

-days. Can you give me some food?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>“Poor fellow!” cried Olive, more struck perhaps

-by his bodily needs than by those of the mind. “Sit

-down here, I’ll get you something in a jiffy. There

-is a good chicken-pie in the cellar.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She took a lantern and hurried off to the cellar

-which was under the house, but to which entrance

-was effected by an outside door. She brought him

-food and drink and sat by him as he ate ravenously,

-wolfishly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I must sleep or I shall never be able to hold

-out for the flight to-morrow. Let me lie here, will

-you, and wake me at mid-night. Will you do that

-for me? I must sleep. I have been hiding in the

-bottom-land of Cotton Wood Creek in the brushwood

-ever since I left home. I didn’t dare to ride

-across the prairie with everybody out on account of

-the fire. I should have been seen by someone, even

-if I could have got clear of the fire. The hunt must

-be over now on this side of the county, and I may

-dare snatch a little sleep.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He flung himself down on the floor, and almost

-before Olive could fetch a pillow for his head he

-was in a deep sleep. She sat watching him and wondering

-what his life was. Somewhere away in England,

-perhaps, there was a blue-eyed girl waiting for

-him to come home, a girl whose blue eyes were getting

-dim with the tears she shed in that long, long

-waiting. He was a very handsome man, with his yellow

-moustache and clear-cut features. His hat was off,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>leaving a sort of high-water mark plainly visible on

-his forehead, where the sun-burn ended and the

-smooth white skin showed upon his temples. The

-veins were marked in blue like a baby’s, she remembered

-how Ezra had commented on these blue veins.

-She wondered who he was and why he came there to

-live, and all the while she watched the slow rise and

-fall of his chest as he breathed in his sleep with his

-right hand nervelessly holding his revolver. How he

-would start up and grip that weapon, and how his

-blue eyes would flash, if his pursuers should come

-upon him! He was a man that had a reputation for

-bravery even on the prairie, where few men were

-cowards. She thought of Prince Charlie and his

-wanderings, and all the stories she had read as a girl

-about that charming prince. Here was a fugitive

-seeking her aid, and she—well, she would act the

-part of Flora Macdonald. By the time it was mid-night,

-Olive had worked herself into a most romantic

-frame of mind and was determined to help Mr.

-Cotterell at every hazard. She was not a person

-to do a thing by halves. She made a parcel of

-food for him out of the remains of the chicken-pie,

-and then, it being just mid-night, she awoke

-him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah, Mrs. Weston, how can I ever show my gratitude

-to you? You are in veriest truth my guardian

-angel. I shall carry your image in my heart till I

-die,” said Cotterell in his soft persuasive voice. “I

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>should like to think that you had some memory of

-me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I shall not forget you, and shall pray that you

-may escape all dangers,” said Olive gently.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have absolutely nothing that I can call my

-own. Would you accept this ring of mine as a token

-of my gratitude, and sometimes wear it in memory

-of me? When you look at it, think that somewhere

-in this weary world there is one heart that will be

-grateful to you until it ceases to beat.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He pulled a ring from his finger and put it into her

-hand. At the same time he stooped his tall form and

-softly kissed her forehead, saying: “God bless you!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive’s eyes were full of tears. “You must be

-going or it will be too late,” she said with a sob.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, I must not tarry.” He looked to his revolver,

-jerked his cartridge-case round into a more

-convenient position for rapidly opening it, and took

-up his hat.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Where is your horse?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I hitched him to the bars.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then I will take the lantern and light you on

-your way. The night is very dark. Once on horseback

-you can ride by the light of the stars,” said

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, I’ll shape my course for the Missouri border,

-if I can run the gauntlet of the people here. Once

-I reach a town and civilization I shall be all right.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>They went to the bars, Olive holding her little

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>lantern which threw a feeble ray along the pathway.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Great God!” cried Cotterell.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, what is it? Are they coming after you?”

-said Olive in alarm, dropping her lantern which instantly

-went out.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“My horse is gone!” said Cotterell, whose eyes

-were now becoming accustomed to the darkness. “I

-left him hitched here. He was a wild young colt,

-not half broken. See, this is the lariat-rope wrenched

-in two. I was a fool to trust to that rope, and a double-dyed

-fool to leave him here in the dark. But I was

-too hungry and too sleepy to think clearly of what

-I was doing. That sleep will cost me my life. I

-shall have plenty of time to sleep, aye forever, if daylight

-catches me here. Mrs. Weston will you add one

-more benefit to the many that have gone before?

-Will you give me a horse?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, so gladly if I had one,” said Olive, beginning

-to cry with grief and helplessness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Haven’t you any horses?” asked Cotterell with

-a gasp.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No. Ezra and Brother Huntley have taken two

-teams to Mapleton.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Are there no more about the place?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Only our two that were out on the prairie.

-Brother Wright was to hunt for them.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Did he find them?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t know. Perhaps he did.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>“Then you must give me one of them. They

-are yours.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“They are not mine. Oh, I have not anything

-in this dreadful Community. It is horrible,” wailed

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Don’t, pray don’t,” said Cotterell feeling for her

-hand in the darkness and crushing it in a passionate

-grasp. “Come with me and help me get one.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What! steal one of our horses?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, God help me! if that must be the word.

-If I live, the Community shall have the horse’s price

-ten times over. If I am hanged, put it down for

-the Recording Angel’s tears. Come.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The horses are not here. They are at Brother

-Wright’s if anywhere.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Can you find the way in the dark? Then come

-all the same.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He held her hand. Was it for fear lest she should

-turn back, or was it for some other reason? They

-walked in silence towards the Wrights’ house, two

-dark shadows stealing through the blackness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell,” whispered Olive with chattering

-teeth. “If anyone should come out of the house

-on account of the noise, don’t fire. We are all non-resistants,

-you know, here, and he won’t have a pistol.”

-Olive had no knowledge of the plenary indulgence

-which Brother Wright had seen fit to bestow upon

-himself in this matter.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Dear heart! don’t fear,” said Cotterell tenderly.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>“I am a desperate man flying for his life, it is true,

-but I am not a dastard. No human being at Perfection

-City shall ever be hurt by my hand. They

-are all sacred to me for your sweet sake. Ah yes, how

-truly it is Perfection City, none but I really know.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>They walked on again in silence.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Is there a dog?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, but he knows me well. We are coming to

-the back of the stable now.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then go and speak to the dog through the

-chinks of the logs, else he will bark at me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive crept up quietly, and putting her lips to a

-crevice in the rough log-stable said softly, “Pluto,

-good dog!” Pluto answered with a whine of satisfaction,

-and a soft, purring trumpet from Queen

-Katharine announced that she too was within, and

-that she recognised her mistress’s voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The horses are here,” whispered Olive. “I will

-go round and bring out Queen Katharine; there is

-only a wooden bolt on the outside to fasten the door.

-You had better not go near them for fear of exciting

-them, which might make the dog bark.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is dangerous for you in the dark. I fear the

-horses may hurt you,” said Cotterell, slow in bringing

-himself to give up the little hand he had held all

-during that strange night walk.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am not afraid of the horses: they know me

-and I know them,” said Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Cotterell heard her talking softly to Queen Katharine

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>as she quietly undid her halter and brought her

-out of the stable. Not a creature seemed awake in

-the house, and not a word was spoken by the two as

-they stole past down to the bars. Once out of earshot,

-Cotterell sprang upon Queen Katharine and

-stooping down lifted Olive up before him. She never

-could quite remember the wild things he said as he

-rode back to their house, holding her in his arms on

-the horse. She was dizzy, frightened, and confused,

-so perhaps he did not say all those wild words, and

-perhaps she dreamed them. He got Ezra’s saddle

-and put it on Queen Katharine, Olive did not forget

-to give him the parcel of food and a flask of milk and

-water, and then he said good-bye. Such a strange

-good-bye. He knelt before her, clasped her two

-hands in his own, and said: “Now I know why men

-have worshipped the image of pure womanhood. It

-made them better. I shall be made a better man by

-my worship.” And then he was gone without another

-word, and Olive crept into the house just as the first

-grey streaks of dawn appeared.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVII.<br /> <span class='large'>A LIFE AT STAKE.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>When Brother Wright early next morning discovered

-the loss of the brown mare, he was thrown into

-a state of the most unphilosophic rage. He had not

-a moment’s doubt as to what had happened, nor a

-moment’s hesitation as to the course he should pursue.

-He hurried back to the house and without any

-effort at concealment got out his revolver and stuck

-it into his belt.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wright,” said Mary, his wife, “whatever have

-you got there?” She was filled with amazement.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“A pistol,” replied he with firmness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What are you going to do with it?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Shoot a damned horse-thief, who has been and

-broken into the stable and stolen Queen Katharine.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He jammed down his hat on his head and made

-for the door, while Mary Winkle gave a scream that

-would have done credit to the finest lady in the land.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You shan’t do any such thing! You will be

-killed! What do you know about pistols? You will

-be shot by those murderous horse-thieves, and what

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>will become of me—and Willette?” Mary Winkle

-urged the very arguments that have before now been

-known to make brave men falter and turn back from

-running risks.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I—I shan’t do anything rash,” said Wright sheepishly.

-“I’ll just go round and rouse the neighbours

-and see if we can’t catch him, he can’t have got very

-far as yet. What beats me is why Pluto didn’t bark.

-The dog’s a fool, I’ll drown him.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, I am thankful he didn’t bark, for you might

-have been dead by now if he had. You shan’t drown

-him, for he has saved your life. Horse-thieves are

-desperate men and wouldn’t respect our principles of

-non-resistance,” said Mary Winkle.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ahem,” said her husband, tucking the revolver

-out of sight until required.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What we’ve got to do is to go to Madame and

-summon an Assembly of Urgency and talk this matter

-over, and see what the Community is to do. Wright,

-you can’t go and rouse the neighbours till you’ve got

-the sanction of the Assembly. You know that is the

-rule in all important matters, and this is about the

-most important matter that has ever come up for discussion.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Damn discussion!” said Wright angrily. “While

-we’re discussing that thief will get away. Sharp is

-the word for catching horse-thieves.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“But sharp is not the word for determining the

-action of Perfection City in an important juncture

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>like the present. Wright, I am surprised at

-you, and also at your language,” said his wife severely.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh these infernal horse-thieves would provoke a

-saint,—not that I am one,” said Wright, still in a rage

-most unbecoming to a professed non-resistant, and

-Mary Winkle looked a whole essay full of rebuke at

-him. She carried the day, however, and together

-they carried their complaint to Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>They found Madame sitting at breakfast along

-with Uncle David, and being waited upon by a negro-servant,

-Lucinda, the mother of Napoleon Pompey.

-The heat of a cooking-stove made Madame ill, therefore

-she required a servant, and she had what she

-required, principles of equality to the contrary notwithstanding.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Uncle David in much

-excitement and perturbation. “Wal, to think now

-o’ what big raskills there is in the worl’, an’ we a-settin’

-’em such a good ’xample here o’ honesty an’ uprightness.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We must summon the Assembly,” said Mary

-Winkle firmly. “It is a great pity Brothers Ezra and

-Dummy are both away, but there are quite enough

-left to deliberate.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“If you think that is the best plan, we had better

-do it at once, there should be no time wasted,”

-said Madame, looking interrogatively at Brother

-Wright’s frowning face.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>“If you ask me——” he began when his wife interrupted

-him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We don’t ask you, Wright, at least not until

-the Assembly of Urgency is convened. Your vote

-doesn’t count for more than mine, and I demand an

-Assembly.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Wright shrugged his shoulders, and Madame

-smiled a little sarcastically. “We will summon it,”

-she said.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“An’ I’ll jes’ step roun’ an’ fetch Sister Olive,”

-said Uncle David, putting on his hat as he spoke, “an’

-you can bring together the rest of the brethren.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>They came quickly enough when they heard of

-the loss of the brown mare, only Olive was absent.

-She was ill in bed with a headache and spoke to

-Uncle David out of a darkened room.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Wright detailed the loss of the horse,

-while the Assembly listened in deepest attention.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What we have to consider is the best means of

-recovering the horse if possible,” said Madame. “Does

-anyone know what is usually done under similar circumstances?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The neighbours join together and run down the

-thief as quickly as possible,” said Brother Wright,

-with sharp emphasis.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And having run him down, hang him,” added

-Mary Winkle.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That course is impossible for us,” observed

-Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>“That is a point I should like to debate,” said

-Brother Wright. “If we are to live here we must

-have horses, and we can’t keep horses if it is known

-to be against our principles to shoot a horse-thief.

-That is all I’ve got to say.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“An’ I want to notice the p’int o’ Injuns,” said

-Aunt Ruby. “Ef there’s Injuns as will do any

-wickedness un’er the sun, I want to know are we to

-sit still an’ be roasted on our own fires by wile savages

-like that, or will the men-folks defen’ us as other men

-do? An’ I likewise would wish to p’int out to the

-’Sembly as border ruffians is mos’ly as bad as Injuns,

-an’ it stan’s to reason as horse-thieves is ’bout the

-same.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It seems to me,” said Brother Green, speaking

-with great deliberation, “that our principles were

-formed and adopted because we thought them right.

-I don’t see in what we should differ from anybody

-else if we took to the usual prairie arms the moment

-we felt the shoe pinch! If non-resistance is right,

-it should be practised against horse-thieves; if it is

-wrong, then we should be prepared to shoot the

-thieves of other men’s horses. There is no middle

-course. The throwing away of our settled convictions

-just because our horse has been stolen is not

-consistent.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I’ll vote for non-resistance and the maintenance

-of our principles,” said Mary Winkle severely,

-“and I further think that what is decided by the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>majority in this meeting should bind all the members.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She fixed her eye upon Wright with meaning.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is a most difficult juncture,” remarked Madame.

-“I wish much we had the help of Brother

-Ezra’s wisdom to guide us.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said Uncle David cordially, “an’ sister

-Olive too.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I do not see how Sister Olive can have any experience

-that would enable her to give good advice

-on this subject,” said Madame acidly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, Sister Olive has consider’ble ’cuteness,” remarked

-Uncle David. “Now you’d be ’stonished to

-hear the wise things she says, an’ she as purty as a

-kitten or a rose all the while.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then I guess we’ll just do nothing at all? Is

-that the decision of this Assembly?” asked Brother

-Wright abruptly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“There is great force in passive resistance,” said

-Brother Carpenter, a boneless individual who counted

-for little either for work in the fields, or for advice

-in the councils, of Perfection City. “Where passive

-resistance has been applied by large numbers and for

-a long time it has effected great changes,” he observed

-conversationally.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think principles are principles,” said Brother

-Green, “and may not be lightly set aside.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, I guess I’ll go home then, since nothing

-is going to be done,” said Brother Wright angrily,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>“and I’ll try and keep hold of the last horse, else

-that thief will come and take him too, when he finds

-what fools he’s got to deal with.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The Assembly broke up, having decided nothing

-at all, and having only succeeded in embittering the

-feelings of several persons, and in widening the chasm

-of differences which had revealed itself in the course

-of the debate, a result that has often followed the

-meeting of larger and more notorious Assemblies.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Although Brother Wright could not now violate

-one of the fundamental doctrines of Perfection City,

-it was open to him to use a little worldly wisdom

-in the way of setting others upon the track of the

-thief. Accordingly, without saying a single word

-to Mary Winkle or anyone else, he mounted Rebel

-and proceeded to rouse the neighbours who were not

-at all bound by non-resistant theories. Nothing gets

-up a prairie man’s anger quicker than the knowledge

-that a horse-thief has begun active operations in his

-vicinity. Horses are absolutely necessary to his daily

-life, and to be suddenly deprived of his horses is one

-of the greatest calamities that can overtake a settler.

-They can take a merciful view of homicide at times,

-but never of horse-stealing. Brother Wright relied

-on this known propensity, and by visiting the most

-hardy of his neighbours had before night started as

-relentless a set of hunters after Queen Katharine as

-ever put leg over horse or drew pistol from belt.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive meanwhile remained at home all unconscious

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>of what had taken place at the Assembly, and of the

-pursuit organized afterwards as the effect of Brother

-Wright’s embassies. She had decided in her own mind

-that the best course for her to adopt was to keep absolute

-silence until Ezra should come home. To him

-she would explain everything, and she felt convinced

-that he was just enough, albeit no friend of Cotterell’s,

-to be ready to sacrifice a horse in order to

-facilitate his escape. She did not feel at all so sure

-about some of the other members of the Community.

-At all events Cotterell’s best chance of safety lay in

-her keeping firmly to her resolution of silence about

-him. The best way for her to keep silent without exciting

-suspicion was not to talk with anyone, and feeling

-pretty well convinced that somebody would come

-to talk over the great calamity with her, she resolved

-to be out of the way. In any case she was very miserable

-and very anxious, and could not stay at home,

-so she wandered off for a walk. She went to the

-spring, then she went to Weddell’s Gully and looked

-at the black burnt waste. She tried to think about

-the interest and excitement of the fire, but could think

-of nothing but Cotterell riding for his life and of

-the men who were riding after him. Olive knew

-nothing of the second set of men sent after the horse-thief;

-her mind was still anxiously dwelling on the

-probability of his being captured by those who had

-“wanted” him for the murder of Jake Mills. The fact

-was, however, that this first hunting-party had given

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>over their quest, for a man must be caught by the

-second day on the prairie if he is to be caught at all.

-This, however, Olive did not know, and she kept wondering

-and picturing all sorts of terrible possibilities.

-Had the men found the trail? Would Queen Katharine

-hold out till he got to the border? True she

-had been resting for a whole day, but then a man’s

-life depended on her endurance, and Olive remembered

-with a cold dread that Queen Katharine was

-only a farm-horse and not trained to such desperate

-efforts as this. Then she remembered the others, those

-dreadful hunters, were also mounted on farm horses,

-and this thought gave her some small comfort. She

-came home again after a most wretched day spent

-in aimless rambling over the hopeless black prairie

-and crept up to the outside platform to scan once

-more that dreary waste towards the endless western

-horizon. Far away towards the north-west she saw

-a band of horsemen huddled together and moving

-rapidly in an easterly direction. Olive’s heart stood

-still with terror. Oh! who were they? And why

-were they riding rapidly? Men rode in bands to

-funerals, but then they went slowly: they rode fast

-only when out on a man-hunt. She did not call up

-Napoleon Pompey, although he could see like a hawk;

-she dreaded to hear what his explanation would be.

-She watched with straining eyes until the men had

-disappeared within the belt of timber that marked

-the course of the Creek, then she came downstairs

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>with her miserable discovery hidden in her

-heart.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The next day dragged slowly by, Olive feeling

-more and more wretched and anxious each moment,

-and longing for Ezra’s return. Napoleon Pompey

-did nothing but speculate about the horse-thief and

-the probabilities of his capture. He regaled Olive

-with accounts of the numbers of men out on the hunt,

-the desperate character of their courage, and the murderous

-accuracy of their aim with revolvers. Sick at

-heart she had to listen to him and try and collect her

-terrified senses in order to make occasional comments

-and replies. Again she hid herself away from her

-neighbours and spent most of the day in a corn-stack,

-not two hundred yards from the house, whence she

-could see plainly without being seen. Uncle David

-came and stayed so long waiting for her, that she

-nearly smothered in the corn-stack before he went

-away, and she was able to come out and catch a breath

-of fresh air. Then Aunt Ruby came and peered all

-about everywhere, even down into the cellar, and

-stayed a good while there examining Olive’s milkpans,

-until Olive bethought herself of the device of

-sending off Diana to hasten Aunt Ruby’s exit from

-the cellar. This device succeeded: Aunt Ruby was

-so dismayed at seeing that redoubtable puppy lolloping

-up to her that she incontinently fled, and Olive

-emerged once more from the suffocation of the corn-stack.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>Mary Winkle came twice, fortunately without

-Willette, for that astute young person would instantly

-have discovered Olive, owing to the pertinacious company

-of Diana. A dog does not hang around a corn-stack

-the live-long day unless there is something interesting

-inside it claiming attention. Olive began

-to feel like a hunted criminal herself.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Napoleon Pompey had been sent away in the morning

-to look for some young cattle that had not been

-seen since the fire, and having to go on foot he did not

-come back till the afternoon. He burst in upon her

-with these appalling words:</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Dey’s done cotch him!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Who told you?” asked Olive, not pretending

-any miscomprehension of what was only too plain to

-her mind.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ole nigger seed ’em. Dey bringin’ him back.

-Ole man Cotterell he de hoss-thief, him ridin’ Queen

-Katharine when dey cotch him. Nigger tole me he

-seed ’em yonder.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Have they shot him?” asked Olive with white

-lips.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, dey’s gwine ter jury-try him, den dey hang

-him ’cause he done stole hoss and he kill ole Mill’s

-Jake.” Napoleon Pompey licked his lips and grinned.

-Olive turned from him in horror.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Where have they taken him to?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Dunno. Nigger he ’lowed dey gwine ter Jacksonville.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>Olive made up her mind and took her resolution.

-She questioned Napoleon Pompey very carefully,

-found exactly what negro it was from whom he had

-obtained his information concerning the capture of

-Cotterell. He worked with the Halls who lived over

-the other side of Cotton Wood Creek, and she made

-minute inquiries as to how to reach their house. Then

-she told the boy to give Rebel a double feed of corn

-and to bring in the new lariat-rope and mallet and

-pin. Rebel had been removed back to his own stable

-by Brother Wright’s desire, as he had no belief now

-in Pluto as a watch-dog. Napoleon Pompey was open-mouthed

-with wonder at Olive’s directions about the

-horse, and asked “whar she gwine?” She told him

-to do as she bid him and to say nothing to anybody

-about it, whereat he was still more open-mouthed.

-Olive got a large shawl and rolled it up into a tight

-bundle, and then dressed herself in a strong serviceable

-stuff dress and went to supper with Napoleon Pompey,

-to whom she never spoke a single word. When supper

-was over she sent him down to his mother to ask

-her to bake a pumpkin-pie for her. Napoleon Pompey

-said he would go “fust thing in de mornin’,” and

-she told him sternly to go at once and do as he was

-bid. When Napoleon Pompey came back Olive was

-gone, and so was Rebel, with lariat-rope picket-pin

-and mallet, and so was her tightly rolled shawl.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Perfection City had further cause for amazement

-and hurried meeting in Assembly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>Olive, meanwhile, was riding fast towards Cotton

-Wood Creek which she reached and crossed by the

-last shreds of daylight. She stumbled up out of the

-bottom-lands on to the high prairie, then perceiving by

-the sound of Rebel’s hoofs that at last she had struck

-grass again, for the fire had not crossed the Creek,

-she determined to camp. It was a black night, but

-she knew how to drive her picket and unsaddle her

-horse blindfold. Taking her saddle and shawl out of

-the circle of Rebel’s night-range, she wrapped herself

-up to wait until daylight should permit her again to

-go forward. She was not in the least frightened, although

-the prairie wolves were yelping in the distance.

-The nervous terrors that had beset her when sitting

-in her own comfortable little kitchen with her dog

-at her feet, and a stout lad in the room overhead,

-were quite gone. Yet there was enough to frighten

-a more valiant person than our poor little Olive,

-with her half-defined thoughts and her generous impulses.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>What was it she proposed to herself in this expedition?

-First of all to overtake Cotterell and his

-captors, and then to do what the wit of woman could

-devise to save him from their fury. In her ignorance

-of prairie feelings and ideas she attached no importance

-to the fact that he would have been captured

-riding the well-known brown mare belonging to Perfection

-City. He would of course explain that she had

-lent him the animal, and that question would at once

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>drop out of the debate. Then the terrible one of the

-shooting of Jake Mills would have to be settled. That

-was what she feared for Cotterell, and that was where

-her testimony and pleading might avail. She knew

-from his own lips how the fatal affray had occurred,

-and she would be able in some measure, perhaps, to

-counteract the evidence of that wicked lying negro

-who out of revenge was going to swear away Cotterell’s

-life. Olive hated to do it, but she knew she could

-say things to any western jury that would make it

-difficult for them to admit negro evidence. For once

-in a way the mighty race-prejudice could be relied

-upon to work for justice, and poor Olive, fanatical

-friend of the negro, had to confess she was glad to

-have so strong a lever to her hand in this dreadful

-emergency.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Meanwhile the never-ending night wore on. How

-long, how unutterably long are the hours of darkness

-to them who wait sleeplessly for the dawn! The

-twinkling stars passed over her head, and Olive tried

-to fix her eyes steadily on one or two of them in order

-to convince herself that they really did move after all.

-Thus staring at the stars, her eyes became weary, and

-the lids dropped slowly over them, and she fell into a

-troubled sleep, haunted with fearsome visions.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She must have slept some little time, for when she

-awoke the stars had certainly changed places and

-were moreover becoming pale in the first grey streaks

-of morning. Olive awoke shivering with cold and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>drenched with the heavy prairie dew. Her teeth chattered,

-so she could hear them like a piece of broken

-machinery moving inside her head, while her fingers

-were almost numb. As soon as she could make out

-Rebel in the approaching dawn, she saddled him, and,

-woman-like, did not forget the lariat-rope, picket-pin

-and mallet, even in the midst of her terrible anxiety.

-She thought of Cotterell in the hands of his foes, and

-the recollection came back to her, like a blow that

-almost stunned her, that this would be the last time

-he would ever see the sun rise unless she hurried to

-his rescue. The thought spurred her to renewed activity,

-the horror of it drove the chilled blood with a

-rush to her heart. She caught her breath, and then

-felt hot. She did not shiver any more, and her chattering

-teeth were set in a desperate resolve. She

-clambered up on the horse’s back and set off at a gallop

-towards that house where she would get positive

-news which would help her to find the lynching-party

-quickly. Ah! merciful God! The lynching-party!

-She urged Rebel into a harder gallop, for the sun was

-just beginning to appear over the horizon, and she

-could see where she was going. She reached the

-cabin where the Halls lived in due course. They didn’t

-know her, but they invited her to breakfast with prairie

-courtesy. She saw the negro man who had told

-the news to Napoleon Pompey.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, he seed ’em totin’ ole man Cotterell back.”

-There was never any doubt in Olive’s mind as to the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>fact that they had caught him, what she wanted to

-know was the destination of the party. “He ’lowed

-dey was gwine ter Jacksonville, ’cause down yonder

-was whar dey hang de las’ man; den dey jury-try

-him, an’ Jacksonville mighty handy anyhow, dar heaps

-o’ trees dar.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive could not repress a shudder of horror which

-the negro saw, and so did the Halls. She would not

-stop a moment to eat a bit of breakfast, notwithstanding

-their urgent entreaties, but got directions as to

-the shortest road to Jacksonville and hastened away

-on her errand of mercy.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Mrs. Hall looking after her rapidly vanishing figure,

-and remembering the look of misery on her face,

-“reckoned ’twas one o’ them po’ silly gals as is cotched

-by a yaller ’stache. She was powerful sorry for her

-anyhow, she ’peared mos’ broke down an’ sick. She

-’lowed if the boys hed hung ole man Cotterell when

-Glover’s gal shot herself ’cause he wouldn’t marry her,

-’twould hev been a sight better anyhow.” Her husband

-was of opinion that “gals was fules gapin’ a’ter

-strangers an’ furrin fellers, not bein’ content along o’

-their nat’ral men-folks as b’longed to ’em, app’inted

-by the hand o’ Providence.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive rode through the hot September day feeling

-very faint and tired, but never for a moment faltering

-in her determination; and well on in the afternoon

-she came to Jacksonville, a place with two houses

-standing and the stakes for three more stuck into the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>ground to signify possession. There was only one

-woman in the place along with a flock of children.

-No sign of men anywhere. The woman did not know

-much about the movements of the “boys.” “They

-hadn’t passed that way at all, but she hearn tell they

-had been out catching a horse-thief and murderer, and

-they had caught him too, a Britisher, she was told,

-and it was a shame those foreigners should be allowed

-to come to America to steal honest folks horses, and

-true born Americans too, as always worked for every

-cent before they spent it. They had taken him to

-Union Mills to try him and she hoped—well she didn’t

-want to say anything unbecoming to a professing

-Christian, but wouldn’t Olive come in and eat a bit

-and rest before going further, she didn’t look fit for

-such hard riding.” Olive, feeling sick with disappointment,

-accepted a morsel of food, and asking her

-way to Union Mills started off. She had come thirty-eight

-miles already, and if she had only known where

-to go she would have been there hours ago. It was

-nearly twenty miles to Union Mills, she could not

-hope to reach it that night, but she started nevertheless

-although the sun was getting low in the west.

-The horrid thought kept pressing against her heart:

-was she already too late? But no, she would force

-it out of her mind, and come what might she would

-never stop until she had done her utmost to save him.

-She therefore pressed forward, but Rebel showed signs

-of giving out. He lay down with her suddenly and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>tried to roll. This would never do. All depended on

-her horse, if he failed her then Cotterell’s last chance

-of life was gone. She rode slowly, now following a

-prairie track and now riding along side it, because

-Rebel stumbled in the ruts. It got dark, she did not

-know where she was, but followed the track for some

-time mechanically. A light suddenly showed up on

-her left. Rebel pricked up his ears and turned towards

-it. After some difficulty she reached the door. Could

-they harbour her for the night? She was caught out

-and could go no further.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Land o’ Goshen! ’course they could, an’ whar

-in sin was she gwine that time o’ night ’thout nobody,

-not even a dawg?” Olive said it was a case of life

-and death and she must do it. They were deeply

-sorry, they fed her with corn-bread and bacon, they

-fed her horse, and were kindness itself. The cabin

-had only one room with a bed in one corner for the

-man and his wife. Olive was desperately tired. The

-wife said “she’d be doggauned sick ’less she went to

-bed.” So Olive lay down on the bed, and the settler’s

-wife lay down beside her, and the man slept on the

-floor with his head on a pile of corn-shucks. Long

-before daylight he went out and fed her horse. The

-wife cooked a good breakfast and pressed Olive again

-and again “to scrouge down suthin’ more,” and sent

-her off with many good wishes as to her finding her

-husband better, who, she was sure, ’ud be tickled to

-death at seeing her.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVIII.<br /> <span class='large'>LYNCH-LAW.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>Union Mills was full of people, mostly men, and

-Phillipps’ Store, which was the only shop in the place,

-as well as being the Post-Office, was crowded to suffocation.

-Those who couldn’t get inside stood around

-the door talking loudly as they chewed their tobacco.

-Inside the talking and tobacco-chewing were carried

-on likewise. A ring of men were sitting on barrels

-and nail-kegs and coils of rope and extemporized chairs

-of all kinds. Of these, twelve arranged together at

-one side formed the jury, and the rest were witnesses

-and spectators. In their midst stood Cotterell. He

-was not bound or specially guarded in any way, but

-he was unarmed, while pistols hung at the belts of all

-the other men there. Cotterell held his head erect,

-his eyes looked clear, and his lips were firm. A careful

-observer might have noticed that his nostrils sometimes

-twitched, but his hands were perfectly steady.

-Yet he was on trial for his life, without appeal and

-without a friend in “the court.” Several of the men

-had asked him questions which he had answered,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>shortly and sharply perhaps, but with a perfectly steady

-voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I dunno what we’re gwine on talkin’ for,” said

-a jury man with a twang that bespoke Arkansas.

-“Hain’t it clar this hyar feller, what was wanted for

-the shootin’ o’ Ole Mills’ boy, he’s the same cuss as

-stole the mare from them damned fools up to ’Fection

-City? He’s got ter be hanged, anyhow. I want ter

-go home. I hain’t a-gwine to stick hyar all day, by

-Gosh!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I did not steal the mare,” said Cotterell, his nostrils

-dilating.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You hear that,” said the foreman, who sat on a

-sugar-barrel.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You was ridin’ her when we come up t’yer,”

-said one who had been out on the hunt.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I was.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“How’d yer git her then ’cept by stealin’?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She was lent to me by one of the members of

-the Community,” said Cotterell.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“They’s damn fools, I know, but I reckon they

-hain’t such all-fired damn fools as ter give their best

-hoss ter you,” said the man from Arkansas.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Cotterell’s lips curled with contempt, but he did

-not speak.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Look hyar, fellow jury-men,” said one of them

-who prided himself on the accuracy of his language

-on all occasions. “I’d axe leave ter make a few remarks.

-We were informed by the gentlemen what

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>caught the prisoner that they were notified o’ the

-stealing by one o’ them Perfection City fellers. If

-the horse was lent how is it the owner didn’t know

-about the lending?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said one of the gentlemen referred to,

-“ole man Wright, he come and tol’ me ’bout the stealin’

-o’ the hoss, an’ he ’lowed, on’y it was agin his principles,

-he’d like ter hev been out with the boys. It

-don’t ’pear ter my min’ as there was much len’ing

-’bout it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“This trial, gen’lemen, is all fair and square an’

-’cordin’ to law. We’ll settle this p’int ’fore we go

-further,” said the foreman. “You say the horse was

-lent to you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I do say so emphatically,” replied the prisoner.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, we’ve got one o’ them ’Fection City fellers

-to say the hoss was stolen, he’ll swear to that, an’ I

-reckon by their idees he was part-owner of it anyhow.

-Now, that’s the witness agin yer. Who have you got

-to swear yer was lent the horse fair and square?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have had no chance of getting any witness, as

-you very well know,” replied Cotterell.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, I reckon yo’ hev bin kep’ purty toler’ble

-close. Anyhow, it shan’t be said as we hain’t gi’en yer

-a good chance. Now, which might be yer witness to

-the len’ing? There hain’t such a damn sight o’ folks

-up to ’Fection City as ’ud make yer forget so ready

-as all that.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Cotterell hesitated.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>“Hain’t yo’ got no tongue? Who lent yer the

-hoss, I say?” repeated the foreman.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mrs. Weston,” said Cotterell at last.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That’s a lie, anyhow,” burst out one of the bystanders.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is not a lie, it is the truth,” said Cotterell

-hotly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, now, see hyar. I was over to ole man Weston’s,

-an’ I seed Mis’ Weston myself, an’ she tole me

-she hadn’t sot eyes on yer. Now then?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>It was Owen who spoke, he had been out, as we

-know, on the first hunting-party and was now present

-as a spectator. He would have been on the jury, only

-it was considered more delicate for him to stand aside,

-considering that he had been out to catch Cotterell,

-and prairie men are punctilious in the observance of

-all those forms of etiquette with which they are familiar.

-Although not on the jury, Owen was quite free

-to intervene in the trial, he was one of the foremost

-settlers on the prairie. Cotterell looked hard at him

-as he spoke.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Did she tell you that herself?” he asked, drawing

-his eyebrows tightly together.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, she tole me herself,” replied Owen.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then I have nothing further to say,” said Cotterell,

-setting his teeth grimly under his moustache.

-He realised very clearly what he was doing, he was

-throwing away his last chance of life; but his resolution

-never wavered for a moment. The thought

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>flashed through his mind that most people would

-think him a fool to act as he did, risk the certainty

-of death for the sake of a fantastic loyalty to a woman

-who could never be to him anything but the distant

-friend another man’s wife should be. Then came the

-recollection that no one, not even she for whom he

-was sacrificing his life, would ever know what he had

-done. There was something fantastic surely in all

-this. Their whole acquaintance had been fantastic

-in a sense: Mr. Perseus was a fancy, but how dangerously

-sweet it had been while it lasted. And now it

-was over, he would never hear the sound of her voice

-again nor feel the touch of her little hand. Poor

-child! He could well imagine, with that jealous husband

-of hers, how she might have been driven to save

-herself from his anger by declaring she had never seen

-him. Jealousy was a monster surely, if there ever

-was a monster on this earth. Cotterell almost smiled

-to himself as he thought how once again he would

-act the part of Perseus to the unhappy one and save

-her by his silence from the monster’s fangs. Thoughts

-such as these swept through his mind as he stood facing

-the jury, while they were somewhat nonplussed

-as to their future proceedings owing to his determination

-not to say anything further. It appeared almost

-indecent to hang a man who would not argue out the

-points with them: they had never met such a one

-before.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“There’s a gal hyar a-wantin’ ter come in,” said

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>one of the men who was standing just outside the

-door.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Keep her hout,” said one of the jury. “We

-hain’t agoin’ ter hev any women a screech-owlin’ hyar.

-It’s one o’ his gals as he’s lef’ to die maybe of a broken

-heart ’thout the satisfaction o’ bein’ a widder.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Let me pass, please,” said an imperious little

-voice that thrilled Cotterell to the heart. “I am one

-of the witnesses in this trial. I have important evidence

-to give.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The men fell back and left the passage free. Western

-men, even armed ones, can’t do anything against

-a woman.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive came into the crowded room, Olive dirty,

-dishevelled, travel-stained, her face begrimed with

-prairie dust, her hair unkempt, her dress crumpled

-and with many a rent in it. Cotterell hardly knew

-her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Who mought yer be, miss?” inquired one of the

-jury.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am Mrs. Weston.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Whar’s yer husband? Yer hadn’t oughter be hyar

-a follerin’ this feller roun’ the prairie. Tain’t——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Shut yer mouth or I’ll send a bullet down yer

-gullet,” roared the foreman, putting his hand to his

-revolver. “Take a cheer,” he added, gallantly offering

-Olive the sugar-barrel upon which he had been sitting

-in his official capacity.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, thank you,” said Olive. “I will stand.”

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>She took her place beside Cotterell, but without looking

-at him or addressing a single word to him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What are you trying this man for?” she asked,

-facing the jury dauntlessly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, mos’ly fur stealin’ yer hoss,” said one of

-them.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He didn’t steal it. I myself lent him the horse.

-It belongs to us,” was the reply.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“By Gosh!” exclaimed Owen, “you tole me yerself

-yer hadn’t sot n’ary an eye on him.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“So I hadn’t when you were there, he did not

-come until the next day.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The jury whistled collectively and incredulously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Silence!” said the foreman.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I can now explain,” said Cotterell. “I didn’t go

-to Mrs. Weston’s house until two days after—after

-Mills’ death——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“A’ter yer killed him,” corrected Owen.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And you were there the next day,” concluded

-Cotterell, not taking any notice of the interruption.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, that is it. Mr. Cotterell came the next evening

-but one after the prairie fire, and I gave him the

-mare to go away on, because his colt broke loose from

-the bars in the dark.” Olive spoke quite quietly, with

-no trace of excitement beyond a knitting of her pretty

-eyebrows.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, I reckon we hain’t got nuthin’ more to do

-then,” said one of the jury-men, getting up from his

-nail-keg and strapping up his holster.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>“There’s the murder too,” objected one, “not as

-I put it fust noways, on’y we might go inter it now,

-seein’ there hain’t nuthin’ ter be got outer the hoss-stealin’

-business.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yer hain’t got evidence for the murder case too,

-has yer?” sneered the man who had been so peremptorily

-silenced by the foreman on his first objection

-to Olive’s presence.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Only this. You are not non-resistants, are you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We hain’t such blasted fools,” observed the Arkansas

-man genially.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, then, when this poor Jake Mills in his

-drunken fury came up and fired at Mr. Cotterell, was

-he or was he not to fire in self-defence, according to

-your ideas and practice?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Of course he was,” said the jury in unison.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then that is what he did. Jake Mills fired

-first.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Two shots,” said Cotterell in a low voice, but

-every man in the room heard him distinctly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That coloured man we saw yesterday swore that

-Cotterell lay in wait for Mills, and fired from under

-cover as he came up to the house,” said a man from

-Illinois who had not spoken hitherto.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal now,” said the Arkansas man, “I didn’t

-say nuthin’ ’bout that yesterday. Long as it was hoss-stealin’

-we knowed whar we was an’ what we hed

-ter do, ’cause we hed the hoss. But this hyar shootin’

-business hain’t noways the same. Any gen’leman hyar

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>might hev a difference with any other gen’leman, an’

-’s long as it were done fair, I don’t see as how anyone

-hes any business to say they shouldn’t settle it

-with pistols or bowie-knives accordin’ to taste. We

-are all for freedom in this country I reckon, an’ that’s

-how it hes been done in Arkansas often an’ satisfact’ry.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“This ain’t Arkansas, an’ we are determined to

-put a stop to this shootin’ round every day,” said the

-Illinois man firmly. “It ain’t respectable and it stops

-quiet settlers from coming here to take farms. We

-are going to stop it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then you should have stopped Jake Mills when

-he went to Mr. Cotterell’s and fired at him first,” said

-Olive quickly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“There’s somethin’ in that,” said the foreman,

-whose native gallantry led him to side with a pretty

-woman. “In a trial we hev to consider all the p’ints

-o’ the case. I consider that as for the horse-stealin’,

-that hes mostly broke down under evidence. We must

-now go into the other charge, which is shootin’ Jake

-Mills, an’ a damned scoundrel he was too.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The jury laughed pleasantly at this sally from

-the bench, or to speak more accurately from the sugar-barrel.

-Even Cotterell seemed a trifle amused, only

-Olive did not unknit her eyebrows, nor did the hard

-lines around her mouth in the least relax.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We are in consider’ble difficulty ’bout this here

-shootin’ case,” continued the foreman when the mirth

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>had subsided, “and if I had knowed as that was all

-we was up for tryin’, I don’t reckon we ’ud all on us

-ha’ been here as is now collected together to maintain

-the rights an’ freedom o’ our country.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The jury murmured applause, upon recognising

-well-known Fourth of July phrases, which have perennial

-power to stir the American breast.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why ain’t we agoin’ on with this blamed trial?”

-asked an impatient jury man. “We hev purty nigh

-lost a whole day’s work a’ready an’ hain’t finished

-nothin’ yit. When we strung up ole Howard for hoss-stealin’

-we hed the job done clar up afore noon, an’

-we could go home to dinner comfor’ble.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive gave a faint inarticulate cry and put her

-hands up to her ears, or was it perchance to her neck?

-Cotterell turned anxiously towards her as if she was

-going to faint, and he would catch her before she fell.

-She steadied herself in an instant and again faced the

-jury like a tiny lioness, small in body but with unconquerable

-courage.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, gen’lemen, I’m agreeable to proceed with

-the evidence,” said the foreman graciously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I was told we had evidence o’ deliberate murder,”

-said the Illinois juror.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We most on us hearn what the nigger said,” remarked

-another carelessly, “some on us fooled roun’

-with that yesterday an’ lost a fair half day’s work.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, gen’lemen, you could ha’ had the nigger

-again here to-day, on’y it was not considered necessary,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>as we was mostly of opinion to fin’ a true bill

-on the horse-stealin’ count. We can send for the nigger.

-He’s mos’ likely sneakin’ roun’ here. Them niggers

-is jes’ like buzzards, they can scent out where

-there’s a hangin’,—ahem, gen’lemen, we’ll proceed,”

-said the foreman, suddenly recollecting himself and

-Olive’s presence barely in time.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I vote for sending for the coloured man,” said

-the Illinois juror firmly. “We’ll confront him with

-the prisoner.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Nigger be damned!” roared the Arkansas man

-jumping violently off his nail-keg. “Yo’ reckon I’m

-agoin’ ter sit hyar an’ see a white man hanged on

-nigger evidence. No, sir. I won’t stan’ such a insult

-to my race as that. There be some things a

-man o’ honour won’t stan’ an’ that’s one o’ them. Thar

-hain’t no man spryer to light out an’ catch a hoss-thief

-nor I be, an’ I’ll do my dooty in the hangin’ too,

-an’ hol’ the rope as tight as ony o’ yo’all. But I’ll

-bust up afore I’ll take nigger evidence ’gin a white

-man. I reckon there hain’t none o’ yo’ gen’lemen as

-is pertikler sot on that nigger, be yer?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive’s heart gave a bound of joy as the Arkansas

-juror poured forth his torrent of protest. Alas,

-poor Olive and her high-flown love of the black race!

-She was bound to confess that her best hope for effecting

-the end she was struggling for, lay in the blind

-race-prejudice of this ignorant Southerner.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I guess we ought to take all the evidence, white

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>or black, that bears on the case,” observed he of Illinois.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“If that thar nigger comes inter this hyar room

-to conten’ with this hyar jury an’ give his evidence,

-I’ll shoot him, ’fore he gits over that door-sill, so I

-will, by God, an’ no man as knows me ever said I went

-back o’ my word in shootin’.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The Arkansas juror faced them with his black

-eyes ablaze and his dark visage twitching with suppressed

-fury. He was quivering under the sting of

-what was to him an intolerable insult, and there

-was nothing he would not do to wipe out that insult.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive looked at Cotterell for the first time, and

-as their eyes met he was horrified to see the white,

-drawn expression on her face. He attributed it to the

-very natural womanly fear that she might be involved

-in a promiscuous shooting affray in that crowded room.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Don’t be alarmed, they will not bring the negro

-in here,” he said soothingly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am not afraid for myself,” she answered, simply

-and truthfully.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, gen’lemen,” said the foreman pleasantly.

-“I reckon we hev finished for this spell anyhow. I

-consider the prisoner hes hed as fair a trial as ony man

-could wish, and I hev on’y ter thank yer all for yer

-help upon this occasion in maintain’ the laws and freedom

-of our beloved country, as belongs to the duty of

-free-born citizens.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>“Hurrah!” said the jury, with another relapse

-into Fourth of Julyism.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We’ve purty nigh lost two whole days’ work ’long

-o’ this hyar foolin’,” observed the Arkansas man angrily.

-“Them coons up to ’Fection City is nat’ral born

-fools anyhow. Fust they blaze roun’ an’ set us on ter

-run down a hoss-thief fur ’em. Soon as we’ve done

-cotch him, they sen’ roun’ a woman to say the hoss

-was lent. If the blamed critters come to me again,

-reckon I’ll stick to my plough-handles. I’ll not light

-out for them, you bet.” And he immediately walked

-out of the store followed by the entire jury and the

-foreman.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>When the Court broke up, Olive and Cotterell were

-left alone in the store along with Phillipps, the storekeeper.

-The latter handed Cotterell his revolver,

-which the jury had considerately left for him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I suppose I’m a free man,” said Cotterell, with

-more sign of emotion in his manner than he had yet

-shown.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Thanks to Mrs. Weston you are free,” said Phillipps.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He turned to Olive, who seemed in a daze, and

-said, “Shall we go now?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes,” she answered, and they left the store together.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The crowd in the road before the door was already

-fast dispersing. The exciting climax for which they

-had waited was not to come off, so there remained

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>no further inducement to stay. Some straggled into

-the smithy, some went towards the mills, but most of

-the men were getting their horses, putting on saddles,

-and settling halters and reins. The Arkansas man

-had a waggon and was hitching his horses to it, as

-Olive, riding on Rebel, and Cotterell on Queen Katharine,

-passed by.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Be yo’ gwine with him?” asked the Arkansas

-man, pointing to Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said Olive shortly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wish we’d hanged the damned cuss ’fore she

-come in,” said the Arkansas man regretfully to his

-companion, who had also been present at the trial.

-“She’s gwine ter ’lope with him, an’ ole man Weston

-he on’y jes’ married her las’ spring.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Reckon she don’t like ’Fection City idees. Gals

-mos’ allers likes a fightin’ man best, an’ this hyar one

-is reg’lar downright handsome too.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“If we’d on’y hed a-hanged him she couldn’t hev

-run off with the coon,” repeated the Arkansas man

-with conviction, shaking his head sorrowfully as he

-watched the two disappearing among the trees on the

-South Fork.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIX.<br /> <span class='large'>OLIVE MISSING.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>There was dire dismay at Perfection City when

-the flight of Olive became known. Napoleon Pompey

-informed Madame of it the same evening, but, for

-reasons best known to herself, she did not announce

-the fact until the next morning, when the brethren

-and sisters flocked to her house to talk over this surprising

-event in all its bearings. The members accounted

-for it in different ways and explained it according

-to their preconceived notions. Madame at

-once said that she had evidently left her husband

-whom she had never really loved at all.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think we must all have noticed how utterly

-unsuited she was to him and how uncongenial. She

-was no fit companion for a man of Ezra’s mind,” said

-Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, now,” observed Uncle David, “I think such

-a purty little gal with sweet little kitten-ways was

-a most congenial companion.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Uncle, you don’t understand men. Men with

-minds and high aspirations want a companion capable

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>of sharing their ideas and aims, they don’t want a

-kitten or a plaything.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“My ’pinion is most men is satisfied with kittens,

-if they’re as soft an’ coaxin’ in their ways as little

-Ollie is,” replied Uncle David.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I guess she couldn’t stand the bondage of marriage,”

-said Mary Winkle. “When she first came

-she was all for being absorbed in her husband, she

-would be Mrs. Weston forsooth, she wanted to sink

-her individuality. She has naturally found out her

-mistake. I respect her and sympathize with her in

-her efforts to shake off the trammels of custom and

-make a dash for freedom. I dare say we shall soon

-have her coming back again, having resumed her own

-name, and perhaps ready to lecture on the absurdity

-of women giving up their names on marriage, as if

-they ceased to exist. Marriage under these circumstances

-becomes a sort of death to a woman. It is extinction.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“’Tain’t no such thing, Sister Mary,” said Uncle

-David. “It is an honourable distinction our forefathers

-have used, findin’ the same handy and convenient.

-I don’t believe little Ollie has gone a-lecterin’,

-she ain’t that sort o’ gal. I guess she’s jes’ tired

-an’ lonesome feelin’, an’ thought she’d ride out an’

-meet Ezry comin’ home.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She hasn’t done that, Uncle, for I’ve seen a man

-from over Jacksonville way, and he told me she had

-been seen the other side of Big Cotton Wood Creek,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>and that she was asking for news of Cotterell,” said

-Brother Wright.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then she has gone to him,” said Madame with

-decision.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She hain’t neither,” contradicted Uncle David,

-“you hain’t got no business to tell wicked stories like

-that.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She has been carrying on a secret acquaintance

-with him all the summer. I know that, for I surprised

-them together at the spring some weeks ago.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She didn’t do nothin’ that was dishonest an’ secret,”

-said Uncle David anxiously. “I ain’t agoin’

-ter believe anything ’gin little Ollie. She’s a good

-little gal.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He wiped his forehead nervously with his large

-bony hand, and then took out his red handkerchief

-and passed it several times across his face.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The power of love is strong,” said Madame, looking

-at him with compassion.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, yes,” he replied quickly, “jes’ what I say,

-an’ she did love her husban’, an’ hain’t done nothin’

-wrong.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She didn’t love him,” burst out Madame with

-excitement. “It often filled me with anger to see

-how she took all his love and made no return. Everyone

-saw it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I guess the rest of us didn’t pay so much attention

-to them and their affairs. We had our own,” said

-Mary Winkle, at which Madame winced.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>“You don’t know what her feelin’s was. She loved

-Ezry, else she wouldn’t ha’ married him an’ followed

-him way out here on this lonesome prairie. I ain’t

-never goin’ to believe wrong o’ little Ollie.” Uncle

-David’s big chest heaved with a sob that would burst

-out.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame placed her hand gently upon his. “The

-falling of one’s idol has always been a grievous sorrow,

-and has bruised many a loving heart.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She wasn’t fit to live here on the prairie,” said

-Aunt Ruby, wiping her spectacles with her big checked

-handkerchief. “She was too young an’ purty an’ frolicksome

-to be here anyhow. Ezry hed ought ter hev

-kep’ her in the East, where she was raised, an’ where

-she could go to parties, an’ put on purty clo’s, an’

-dance, an’ so forth. It’s nat’ral for them young gals

-to dance an’ love fin’ry, jes’ as it’s nat’ral for lambs to

-skip an’ play in the sunshine. They is born so, an’

-I guess the Lord put the right idees into their min’s

-at the beginnin’. I don’ wan’ ter skip, an’ Sister Mary

-she don’t wan’ ter neither, we hev got ole an’ stiff

-by now; but that chile she did wan’ ter, on’y mos’

-likely she didn’t know it. Sweet purty little thing, too,

-she was, it done my eyes good ter look at her. She

-wasn’t fit for ’Fection City, we hain’t got nothin’ for

-young folks as don’t care mos’ly to argy ’bout principles,

-they loves ter be gay. Why, it wasn’t further

-back nor day ’fore yesterday she come ter my house

-’long with that pup o’ hern. My stars, didn’t she

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>laugh when it took ter scootin’ roun’ ’mong my hens!

-It done me a heap o’ good ter hear her, it was like

-a silver bell, an’ she hedn’t nothin’ for to amuse her.

-I think it was downright sinful o’ Brother Ezry to

-take such a sweet purty little thing ’way from her

-proper home.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby ended her long speech with the twin-sob

-to the one that had escaped from Uncle David.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Sister, you’re a downright good woman,” said

-he gratefully. The two old people nodded at each

-other in complete harmony of affection and affliction.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>A long day passed over Perfection City, a day

-without any positive news or confirmation of previous

-rumours. The brethren were full of their various

-theories in regard to Olive’s disappearance, which they

-found necessary to discuss and re-discuss over and

-over again. All work was at a stand-still, for the members

-congregated at Madame’s house both early and

-late, as they considered she would be the first to get

-any news from the outside world. Without a horse

-they were practically cut off from all communication

-with the outside, and were entirely dependent on the

-thoughtfulness of such neighbours as might come to

-bring them news. It was in the afternoon of the day

-of the abortive trial at Union Mills that the first authentic

-tidings reached them. They were talking the

-matter over together for the fiftieth time when Brother

-Green was seen coming very hurriedly from his forge

-along with a stranger, who waited outside the door

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>with an amount of diffidence unusual on the prairie.

-Brother Green’s grimy face wore a look of alarm.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We’ve got news of them both,” he exclaimed,

-bursting into the room regardless of ceremony, he who

-was generally the most heedful of the little forms of

-politeness. “She has gone after him, and they’ve gone

-away, and he stole her and said we lent her to him,”

-said Brother Green distractedly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Brother, I don’t understand,” said Madame.

-“Who lent what? And where has she gone?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I mean Sister Olive—oh! I’m so sorry—poor

-Brother Ezra!—Sister Olive has gone off with Cotterell,

-and it was he who stole Queen Katharine, only

-it was proved at the trial that she lent her to him.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Green was too distressed to be a good witness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Who told you?” asked Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Whoever did told a lie,” said Uncle David.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“He’s outside. He was at the trial and has come

-to tell us about it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then bring him in,” said Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The stranger entered, looking somewhat abashed.

-He was truly sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Young man, before you begin this wicked tale,

-I charge you think of God and tell the truth.” Uncle

-David stood before him like an avenging spirit.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Sir, excuse him,” said Madame in her sweet

-voice. “The old man is painfully distracted by grief,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>he does not know what he is saying. You have come

-to bring us definite news, have you not?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I’m thund’rin’ sorry, so I am, an’ if we’d ha’

-knowed how it would ha’ ended, the boys ’ud ha’

-made sure by bangin’ him fust an’ havin’ the trial

-a’terwards.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Are you speaking about Mr. Cotterell? We have

-not had any news for days, so perhaps you will explain

-it all clearly,” said Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, wal, when ole man Wright come an’ tole

-as how yer hoss was stole, the boys they ’lowed as

-you was all such damn—such all-fired pertikler folks

-as didn’t do yer own shootin’, they ’lowed they oughter

-kinder be neighbourly an’ do it for yer. So we sot

-out to run down the cuss. We got word from a teamster

-from beyond the Creek, he seed a man on a mare

-jes’ like yourn agoin’ toward the border. So we

-picked up the trail right away. He warn’t worth a

-red cent to hide a trail. He jes’ follered straight

-ahead ’long the road, axin’ his way an’ follerin’ plumb

-on the d’rections. Any fool could ha’ run down such

-a coon as him. He war ridin’ yer brown mare when

-they come up, an’ he didn’t show fight, jes’ said he’d

-stan’ trial, an’ he ’lowed it ’ud be fair. The boys calkerlated

-it wouldn’t be a fair trial ’less they toted him

-roun’ to Union Mills, which are his own post-office,

-an’ if that ain’t treatin’ a man fair nothin’ is. An’

-they got a new set o’ men to stan’ jury as what cotch

-him, ’cause mos’ on ’em was that mad for leavin’ the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>corn-shuckin’ to run down such a nat’ral born fool,

-they’d ha’ mos’ likely strung him slap up. It war all

-done fair, we kep’ him down to Phillipps’ store over

-night, an’ I tuk a spell o’ stan’in’ guard. We didn’t

-sen’ for none o’ yo’uns, ’cause we knowed yer be all

-sot agin hangin’, an’ yer can’t have a man on a jury

-who’s sot agin hangin’ when that’s all yer want ter

-git done, can yer? So we was a-tryin’ of him fair, with

-ole man Strong for foreman ’cause he knowed all the

-forms, as he was out to the hangin’ of Howard an’

-that thief over to Jacksonville an’ mos’ on ’em. He

-was pertikler to do it all straight ’cordin’ to law, an’

-we was gittin’ ’long slick, when Mis’ Weston come an’

-bust it all up. She said she lent him the hoss, an’ it

-war hern.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The narrator stopped to observe the effect of this

-announcement. He felt repaid.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t believe it,” sobbed Uncle David.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I hearn her say it,” said the man. His complete

-enjoyment of the effect was marred by the tears

-of that poor old man.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We had to let him off, o’ course, for the stealin’,

-an’ we couldn’t hang him for the shootin’ o’ Jake

-Mills, ’cause some o’ the boys said they’d never hang

-on nigger evidence, an’ we hadn’t none other. Anyhow,

-that nigger he drowned hisself in lies right away,

-an’ we didn’t lay much on what he done tole us, you

-bet. But we was powerful sorry a’terwards when we

-seen what we’d done. She’s gone off with him plumb.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>“No, no, not that,” said Uncle David, “tain’t so,

-you didn’t un’erstan’.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We axed her war she a-gwine with him, an’ she

-said, ‘yes,’ I hearn her say so.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She was on’y goin’ home,” said Uncle David

-tremulously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She had not come home half an hour ago,” observed

-Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“They rode ’long to the South Fork, an’ that don’t

-lie on her road home from Union Mills, do it? I

-stayed behin’ at the Store, the boys was talkin’ if they

-hadn’t bes’ go right a’ter him an’ shoot him anyhow,

-but we ’lowed he’d ha’ showed fight then, an’ maybe

-she’d ha’ been killed in the shootin’. Yer can’t never

-say who’ll be hit when everybody’s firin’ like blazes.

-I didn’t quit the Mills for a spell, an’ mos’ the boys

-was ’ready gone home, an’ they allowed I oughter tell

-yer we done our best for yer.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>They thanked him, and he went his way.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Somebody has got to tell Brother Ezra, he will

-be coming home to-night,” said the blacksmith, wiping

-his sleeve across his forehead. “Poor Ezra! What

-a home-coming!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Green remained silent for a long time,

-then he spoke again in a soft low voice, almost as if

-he was communing with himself.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“When I laid my young wife in her grave with

-her babe on her breast, fifteen years ago last Midsummer,

-I thought I had known the greatest sorrow

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>possible to the human heart. But my loss was not

-so great as Brother Ezra’s, his cup is filled to the brim,

-and oh, how bitter! How great a power of suffering

-lies in the human heart!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is through suffering that the heart is purified,”

-said Madame to him in reply.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Aye, so they say: but some sorts of sorrow may

-very well embitter. People talk of the purifying by

-sorrow. It seems to me that happiness can purify

-too. We are all sure to get our share of the sorrow

-in this world, it is the happiness that so seldom comes

-to a man. Brother Ezra was happy, is happy, poor

-man, since he does not yet know of the wreck of his

-home. It was a delight to see him so happy. And she,

-poor young thing, my heart aches for her! She was

-in my forge the other day, said she was lonesome and

-came to talk. Poor child! We are all to blame. Why

-did we leave her alone? Why didn’t I think of going

-to see her, instead of merely remembering how bright

-she was in the forge. We should have looked after

-her. Madame, why didn’t you do so? You are the

-chief.” Brother Green’s voice had a stern ring in it,

-that immensely surprised Madame in her self-contained

-calm.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I!” she exclaimed hastily. “I had absolutely

-no control over her, and no influence. She was one

-of the most determined young women I ever

-knew, and the least liable to yield to the judgment of

-others.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>“No, I don’t think that was her character,” said

-Brother Green.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You are taken by the pretty face, like Brother

-Ezra, and are utterly ignorant of the mind within.

-Men are always like that in regard to a pretty woman,”

-said Madame scornfully.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Beauty is a great power, no doubt,” admitted

-Brother Green, “but people may err just as widely

-by judging everything from the prejudiced point of

-view as by yielding too far to favourable impressions.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Brother Green,” said Uncle David earnestly,

-“I’m right glad you’re like me, you won’t believe

-nothin’ ’gainst little Ollie, will you, no more than

-I will?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I will hope for the best and that there may be

-some reasonable explanation of her disappearance,”

-said Brother Green, looking compassionately at the

-piteous old face that scanned his so eagerly for some

-scrap of comfort.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I don’t see what explanation there can be but

-the one we have already received,” said Madame

-icily.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Who will break this sorrowful news to Ezra?”

-asked Brother Green. “Will you do it, Uncle David?

-You would do it tenderly, as you have faith in her

-still.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, no, I couldn’t bear to see the look o’ death

-in his eyes, an’ it ’ud come no matter how I told it,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>when I came to sayin’ little Ollie was gone an’ we

-didn’t know where.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I think perhaps I had best take this painful duty

-upon myself,” suggested Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, after all, maybe you are the best person.

-But remember to deal tenderly with him in his sorrow.

-You will know what to say to instil some hope

-into his heart,” said Brother Green sadly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“An’ don’t you tell him she’s gone off with that

-man Cotterell, for she hain’t done no such thing,”

-said Uncle David anxiously. “You jes’ say we don’t

-know why she went away, an’ kinder hint as you’re

-expectin’ she’ll he home to-morrow or nex’ day. Do

-you understand?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame told no one what she would say to Ezra,

-and made no promises as to how she would say it.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XX.<br /> <span class='large'>MADAME’S SYMPATHY.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>When Madame saw the white covers of the returning

-waggons creeping across the prairie she set

-out to meet Ezra in order to deliver her message to

-him. Her manner was as quiet and collected as ever,

-her white smooth brow was perfectly unruffled, and

-her blue eyes were as gentle in expression as her

-friends had ever known them to be. Was her heart

-in reality as calm as her outward appearance would

-have led the casual observer to conclude? No one

-ever knew what was passing in Madame’s mind. Still

-she must have known that she was about to stab to

-the heart a man upon whose friendship she had seemed

-to set great value. Having reached the slope over

-Weddell’s Gully, whence she could see that blackened

-field where she had saved Ezra on the night of the fire,

-she sat down and waited until his waggon came up.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah, Madame!” said he cheerily, as he pulled up.

-“How glad I am to get home again! It has seemed

-such a long four days to me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And to us also,” answered Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>“All well, I hope,” said Ezra reaching down his

-hand in order to help her up to the seat beside himself.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We have had misfortunes at Perfection City.

-The brown mare has been stolen.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What! Queen Katharine gone, and our most

-valuable animal too! That is indeed a loss!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Just wait a few minutes,” said she, putting her

-hand on his to stop him from giving the signal to

-the horses to start on again. “I have some things

-to talk about, Ezra. Do you remember that night,

-not long ago in reality, though it seems an age, when

-I found you lying here on the edge of the fire?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Is it likely I could ever forget that or who it

-was came to my rescue?” said Ezra warmly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I was thinking as you drove up that perhaps it

-would have been a kinder act to have left you to die

-in your unconsciousness.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What’s the matter?” said Ezra, greatly startled

-by her words.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have bad news,” said Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Is it Olive?” asked Ezra, hoarsely.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, it is Olive.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Is she ill?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Worse than that.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“My God, is my wife dead?” cried Ezra in a

-stifled whisper.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Worse than that.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“There can’t be worse,” said Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>“Yes, there can. She has left you and gone off

-with Cotterell.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra threw up his arms and fell backwards. Madame

-thought for a moment or two that he was dying,

-for an awful blue-purple look passed over his face

-as if his heart had stopped beating. He recovered

-himself and sat up, turned ghastly white, and moved

-his lips. He was trying to speak, but no sound came.

-At length he gasped,</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Olive, Olive, where is she?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We don’t know. Cotterell took the brown mare,

-the men turned out and caught him. Olive disappeared,

-no one knew where, night before last, taking

-our last horse. There was a sort of lynch-law trial

-at Union Mills, she appeared in the middle of the proceedings

-and said she gave him the horse, and then

-they went off together and have not since been heard

-of.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Olive, Olive, Olive!” Ezra kept moaning as

-Madame drove him back to his deserted home. He

-seemed dazed and stupefied.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Surely terrible news was never more crudely broken

-to a sufferer than was his bereavement to Ezra Weston,

-and by that tender and sympathetic friend, Madame

-Morozoff-Smith. Had Uncle David or Brother Green

-heard her, they would have been shocked beyond

-measure at having entrusted the painful embassy

-to such hands. Not one word of hope or

-comfort or of doubt even, nothing but the bald

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>hideous story in its worst complexion thrown at

-him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive was gone from him—gone with Cotterell!</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Yet after having thus dealt him a death-blow,

-Madame seemed full of pity and little acts of personal

-attention. She helped him out of the waggon, brought

-him into the house, took his hands and washed them,

-cooled his forehead with a wet towel, offered him food,

-and in short treated him much as if he had been a

-suffering child whom she was tending. At last he

-seemed to recover himself somewhat as she was passing

-her soft hand across his brow.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You are very good to me,” he said brokenly,

-“and if I seem to accept your kindness unheedingly,

-forgive me. I am not myself to-night. I don’t know

-what I am doing. Oh, it can’t be!” he suddenly

-burst out. “She is not gone. I shall see her again.

-She will come back. How do you know she has gone

-with him? I don’t believe it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Poor Ezra, love dies hard, I know. Some of

-the men asked if she was going with him, and she

-answered distinctly, ‘Yes.’ Then they were sorry,

-they said, they had not hung him before she came

-up with them.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, I won’t believe it. Something has happened

-to her. Why should she go off with him?” said Ezra

-distractedly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Did you not know that he was repeatedly here

-to see her, whenever you were out of the way?” said

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>Madame, who did not think she was exaggerating in

-any way.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She told me all that,” answered Ezra nervously,

-“but she was only amused by his talk.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, your love is blind. Dear Ezra, I wish I

-could soften the blow. There is no doubt about it.

-I saw them once together at the spring, he kissed her

-at parting. It was a man and the woman he loved.

-I cannot be mistaken. Remember he was very handsome

-and winning in his manners, and she was young

-and pretty.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah, my sweet little Ollie! My little rose-bud,”

-cried Ezra, starting to his feet. “I’ll go to her, she

-shall not wander away out of my reach without one

-effort to save her from herself. She was only a child.

-Why didn’t you look after her?” he asked, suddenly

-facing Madame with an angry glance.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Did you give her into my charge either by word

-or hint?” returned she, somewhat taken aback.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It was not your fault. Forgive me. I am too

-distracted to know what I say. I remember she refused

-to go to you. She said she would rather stay

-at home. I tried to urge her, but she would not consent

-to it,” said Ezra in a low voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah,” remarked Madame, “very possibly she expected

-him to come to her during your absence.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, no, you shall not say that!” said Ezra in

-agony. “I cannot bear it. She had no such thought.

-She was as innocent as the flowers, as she looked at me

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>with her sweet eyes. She had no such thought, I

-know.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is ever thus,” said Madame, coming closer to

-him and speaking with an unwonted tremor in her

-voice. “Love seems always at cross purposes. You

-give all your love to Olive, who gives all hers to Cotterell.

-Another gives all her love to you. We are

-equally unhappy.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra gazed at her in silent amazement as if he

-were doubting that he had understood her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes,” she went on more calmly in her deep sweet

-voice. “I am more in need of pity than you. Your

-love has left you, and you grieve, but men will give

-you sympathy. When I lost my love I had to smile

-and pretend delight. I had to look on his joy and

-hers. You are not called upon to congratulate Cotterell

-on his happiness.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Great God, is that you, Madame? Or is it that

-I am going mad, and is this some mocking fiend?”

-gasped Ezra, starting up.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Not a mocking fiend, Ezra, but I myself who

-for once in this world am enjoying the rare privilege

-of telling the truth. Ezra Weston, you are not the

-most unhappy person in Perfection City. I have long

-enjoyed that melancholy pre-eminence. Now in a

-common misfortune let us comfort one another.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra sat down again and dropped his head in his

-hands. Occasionally he looked at her as she moved

-about the room putting everything in order. It almost

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>seemed as if he was trying to understand who

-she was and that he could hardly do so, his mind was

-in such a turmoil of grief and misery. She laid out

-two more candles beside those already alight in the

-candle-sticks.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You will sit up all night,” she said at last.

-“These candles will last half the time, then light the

-other two. It is hard sitting in the dark alone with

-one’s breaking thoughts. Light the candles and keep

-them burning. That is what I did on the night you

-left to go to Smyrna to be married, and on the night

-when you brought her home here to Perfection City.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She closed the door and left him alone with those

-two thoughts. Was it her marvellous reading of the

-human heart which prompted this extraordinary

-woman to declare her love to Ezra in those bold uncompromising

-words on this night of all others in

-his life? She knew that he would sit there in his

-deserted home, brooding over his lost wife, she knew

-also that every now and then the scorching recollection

-of what she had said would break in upon the

-brooding thoughts and scatter them. This then was

-the means, the almost unheard-of means, she had

-taken in order to soften the blow that had fallen upon

-him. He would not be able to think of himself as the

-most unhappy individual in Perfection City, because

-she had claimed that distinction in words which he

-never could forget. It was just as she had foreseen.

-It repeatedly happened during the course of that long

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>and dreadful night that Ezra forgot why he was sitting

-alone in the kitchen, so lost was he in amazement at

-the recollection of the words which Madame had

-spoken. As the hours wore on it seemed to him that

-they became more and more impossible, until he began

-to think of them as the work of a brain unhinged by

-sorrow. Was it all a hideous dream, and would he

-awake by and bye? The first pair of candles burned

-out, and he lighted the second pair, recalling as he

-did so what she had said she did when he brought

-Olive home. Ah, Olive, Olive! His heart kept calling

-out in its misery.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He went into their little private room off the

-kitchen, in a sort of infatuation to see if she might

-be there. No. All was silent, still, deserted. He examined

-the tiny room minutely, saw the half-withered

-flowers on the table, took them up, and would have

-kissed them in his misery, only his eye lighted on a

-strange object he had never seen before. It was a

-man’s heavy seal-ring. He picked it up and examined

-it by the light of the candle: a plain gold ring

-set with a well-cut onyx intaglio of a griffin’s head.

-As he turned it about the light showed something-engraved

-in the inside of the ring. He held the candle

-nearer and read “J. G. C.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He dropped the ring as if it had been an adder,

-and fled out of the room. As if pursued by furies,

-he rushed from the house and wandered about out

-of doors. Diana, who since Olive’s departure had

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>been in a most miserable frame of mind, followed

-him about dejectedly, with her tail between her legs.

-Ezra, turning, saw the dog and for one moment felt

-a savage desire to kill it, for Olive had loved the dog

-and Olive had broken his heart. This phase passed,

-and in a passion of grief and despair he stooped and

-kissed the animal, for Olive had often patted Diana’s

-head, and fondled her long ears. The dog whined

-in sympathy and turned suggestively back to the house.

-Ezra followed mechanically. He would not go into

-the room where that ring lay, but remained in the

-kitchen. Exhausted nature could stand no more, and

-towards morning he fell into a troubled sleep, with

-his head resting upon his arms crossed on the table.

-Then in his dreams Olive came back to him in that

-vivid yet unsatisfying way in which our dearest do

-sometimes return to us, seemingly but to mock our

-grief. Olive was there, standing before him, but she

-looked at him not with her eyes, but with Madame’s.

-There was something terrible in seeing her own expression

-gone and in its place the look of another,

-and yet it was Olive, and she called on him to follow

-her. He hurried after her with the lead-clogged

-feet that always walk in dreams, and strained to reach

-her. When he did so, he found Madame. Olive and

-Madame flitted before his fevered fancy, always shifting

-and changing one into another, until he panted

-with the horror of it.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He awoke with a start as the door opened. His

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>half-aroused eyes saw a vaguely defined figure in the

-door-way, blocking out the light of the morning.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Olive,” he said, putting out his hand blindly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have come to cook your breakfast,” said

-Madame’s soft smooth voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Don’t. I can’t eat it,” said Ezra, falling back

-into despair.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Life must go on, even when all joy is banished

-from it,” she said. “We have each one of us to learn

-that lesson, friend Ezra.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She began deftly enough to light the fire and make

-the necessary preparations for breakfast. Madame

-knew how to do the ordinary house-work that falls

-to woman’s lot, only she did not choose to do it in

-her own home. Therefore she employed Lucinda for

-this purpose, until other and stronger motives arose

-which prompted her to undertake the work herself.

-The habit of every day life is strong, and when Ezra

-saw Madame getting breakfast ready, as a matter of

-course he arose and got himself ready, by changing

-his clothes and generally performing the necessary

-preliminaries to the morning meal. He was less wild

-and hollow-eyed after this ceremony, but the extraordinary

-drawn and aged look on his face seemed only

-the more marked.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame cooked an omelette with scraps of savoury

-dried beef in it, and after the first mouthful Ezra

-was obliged to admit that he relished the food. He

-could not go on living on his grief, as Madame said.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>She sat with him and took her breakfast also. Napoleon

-Pompey, who would have been in the way,

-was relegated to the society of his mother, who divided

-her emotions between maternal anger at boyish shortcomings

-and maternal love for the short-comer, both

-of which were expressed with the exalted vehemence

-customary to the negro nature.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I shall come each day and cook your food for

-you. I have often longed to be able to do something

-for you, Ezra. Do not forbid my coming. I have

-had so little joy in my life,” said Madame, with a

-strange humility of manner totally at variance with

-her usual character, which was almost domineering,

-one might say. Ezra looked at her in a troubled

-sort of way. It soothed him to have her there, and

-he was glad that somebody, that anybody, could take

-an interest in him. Still there came across his mind

-flashes of doubt as to what this interest meant. He

-could not forget those words that Madame had used

-on the evening before. No man who had ever heard

-such words from a woman’s lips, if ever man did

-hear them under similar circumstances, would ever

-again be able to drive them from his memory, but

-in his bruised and suffering state Ezra was content

-to drift on and let things rest. So Madame came

-daily to his house and cooked his food and saw that

-he ate something at each meal.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Uncle David and the brethren came to see him,

-but that gave him no comfort. He shrank from their

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>sympathy, expressed with kindness, but each word was

-like a drop of molten lead upon a raw wound. Willette

-was perhaps the only one who gave him real consolation

-in this awful time.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I say,” remarked the child, in a clear voice and

-without a trace of embarrassment, “Sister Ollie’s gone

-an’ lost herself down there in the bush, I reckon. She

-was ’bout the greenest hand at keepin’ to the Pole

-Star ever I see. You could throw her out o’ her direction

-quicker nor nothin’. I guess she headed plumb

-for the Missouri border when she come ’long with

-Cotterell to show him out o’ Union Mills. Guess she’ll

-ride ’bout down to Saint Jo ’fore she knows she’s

-headin’ wrong. I wouldn’t ’spect her back ’fore a

-fortnight.” Willette laughed pleasantly, and poor

-Ezra derived some comfort from the preposterous convictions

-of the child and her unshakable belief in

-Olive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He went to Union Mills to make some inquiries

-about his lost wife, and met there the same story

-that Madame had already told, but the story was

-so brutally hurled at him he could not bear it, and

-came home bruised and stricken, his heart bleeding

-tears of agony. Instinctively he went to Madame

-for comfort.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ezra, perhaps this terrible trial was needed to

-purify us all, to make us all more perfect communists.

-I can discern a valuable lesson that may be

-of profit to the brethren. I begin to think that after

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>all marriage is selfish: perfect love alone is unselfish.

-You would not have kept Olive beside you by force,

-if her heart had gone from you, would you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I thought our marriage was for life.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, but she made a mistake as to her feelings;

-she found she loved someone else better. It was wise

-of her, after all, to break the bond. It would only

-have galled you both.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I should have been content if she had only let

-me love her,” said Ezra.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ah yes, I know that feeling but too well,” said

-Madame, bringing his mind with a shock to the

-thought that she never long allowed to sleep.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is a terrible world,” said Ezra beginning to

-realize what a spell she was weaving around him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It rests with ourselves to make it easier in the

-only way,” replied Madame.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Uncle David took up a firm position of his own

-and refused to listen to anybody or anything.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I hain’t agoin’ to b’lieve nothin’ ’gin little

-Ollie,” he announced. “I don’t care ’bout proofs an’

-things. Land! If I b’lieved in proofs there hain’t no

-sort o’ foolishness I shouldn’t be up to. I b’lieve in

-pussons.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>That was his position, and he stuck to it with unswerving

-fidelity. He was happy in his blind faith,

-and no one tried to shake it. The old man then began

-a strange sort of hunt after Olive. He would sit all

-day long at the forge, where, of course, strangers were

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>most likely to pass, and to each he would put questions

-about the “little gal” he was so pathetically

-seeking. He spoke little, he who used to be so chatty,

-but sat hour after hour in silent patient expectation

-of the return of his loved one. The brethren began

-to think he must be losing his wits from sorrow, poor

-old man!</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXI.<br /> <span class='large'>THE MESSAGE.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>A long weary fortnight had passed since the day

-when Ezra came home to find his wife gone. Life

-went on at Perfection City much the same as before,

-although to him it seemed as if the Universe was

-out of gear. He took no part or interest in the daily

-affairs of the Community, never coming to the Assembly

-or consulting with the brethren upon any matters.

-He withdrew himself from the companionship

-of his fellows, and only that Madame continued to

-come to his house every day in order to cook his dinner

-and sit with him while he ate it, he would have been

-absolutely alone. Ezra acquiesced in her devotion,

-and dared not ask himself how the debt was to be repaid

-that she was piling up against him. The Pioneers,

-who during the past fortnight had revelled in a perfect

-carnival of gossip, felt themselves at liberty to

-express an opinion upon this new development of the

-drama that was being acted in their midst. Sister

-Carpenter said to Sister Winkle that she thought there

-ought to be a period of mourning allowed, however

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>brief, between first and second marriage, and that

-Brother Ezra hadn’t ought to go a-courting so soon.

-She did not know that it was Madame who did the

-courting in that strange, forward, imperial way that

-we must suppose the Empress Katharine affected.

-Uncle David, whom love for Olive had rendered extremely

-keen-sighted as to what was going on, evinced

-very great displeasure. Madame had no right to try

-and make Ezra’s home happy, and he told her so in

-language of unmistakable import. She was angry

-to a degree that terrified him, and he shrank back

-alarmed beyond measure at the wrath which he had

-provoked.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, I know, you want Ezra’s life to be wrecked

-by that vain, selfish little hussy who never cared for

-him, and who went off with the first gallant that

-beckoned to her. Ezra’s life shall not be wrecked,

-mine shall be expended in drawing it into a haven

-of rest. Olive is not worthy of tying the latchet of

-his shoe. I hope she will be cast off by her lover, and

-left to sink amid the mud and mire of such as she.

-I hate her!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Uncle David was frightened and crept away to

-Brother Green, where he sat hour after hour mournfully

-watching the fire. It was on one of these days

-when he was in the forge that a young negro on a

-raw-boned Indian pony rode up to Madame, who was

-on the point of starting for her daily expedition to

-Ezra’s, and inquired “whar ole man Weston lived,”

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>as he had a message for him. Instead of answering

-directly, Madame endeavoured to find out what the

-boy wanted of Ezra. The little darkie thereupon produced

-a scrap of crumpled paper from the recesses

-of his ragged shirt and informed Madame he wanted

-to give him “dat ar’.” Madame took the paper, opened

-it, and gave a gasp. Then in a moment she recovered

-herself with an effort, and assured the negro it was all

-right, and that she would see to it. She made most

-particular inquiries as to where he lived, and then

-sent him off, happy with a piece of corn-bread and a

-dollar for himself.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Having thus got rid of the negro lad, Madame

-proceeded on her way to Ezra’s house in order to

-perform her daily task there. She seemed strangely

-excited, and her blue eyes glittered like sapphires.

-Her whole bearing was that of a person labouring

-under intense excitement, all traces of which she was

-endeavouring to conceal. Her very voice had a new

-ring in it as she talked with Ezra, and her breath came

-quick and fast. Had his senses been less dulled by

-suffering, he could not have failed to notice the change

-in her, notwithstanding her efforts at concealment.

-He was sitting, looking with unseeing eyes across the

-vacant cornfield, when suddenly she spoke.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ezra, let us go away from this place. Let us

-leave all the recollections of Perfection City behind

-us, and begin life afresh.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He turned his eyes upon her with a slow questioning

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>look, showing how far away had been his

-thoughts at the moment.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“How can we leave this place? There is too

-much money and too much labour sunk in it for us

-all to leave and go to some other spot.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Not all, dear friend, only you and I,” said Madame,

-in her caressing voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra started. “That is even more impossible,” he

-said, in great agitation.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why impossible? I have money. It will more

-than suffice for all our needs, nay, it will give us

-all the luxuries we can sigh for.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It is not that, but you forget——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, Ezra, I don’t forget, but I want you to forget.

-I want you to draw a wet sponge over the recollection

-of the past and begin anew. It is not too late.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You don’t know what you are saying, Madame.

-You cannot mean it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I do mean it, and I know what it means. You

-have no tie——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra shivered.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Neither have I. We are both free to make our

-lives what we list.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You  mistake, we are both tied by all our past

-lives, and with bonds that may not be lightly broken.

-We are tied by our own feelings as well as by the

-good opinion of the world at large.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame snapped her fingers with scorn.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“That for the world at large and its opinions.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>Do you remember what I told you about my father

-and my birth? Thank God, I have no name to

-lose.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I cannot do less than tell you the truth,” said

-Ezra in great distress. “Wherever I went my heart

-would remain here, where I have known true happiness,

-and it will always be looking for my lost one to

-come back to me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She won’t come back till Cotterell is tired of her,”

-said Madame brutally. “Will you be grateful for

-his cast-off mistress?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Stop,” said Ezra, putting his hand quickly before

-her lips, “you must not speak so of her to me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Fool that I am!” muttered Madame under her

-breath. She turned from him with a gesture of anger.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, forgive me,” exclaimed Ezra, seeing and feeling

-what the expression meant. “Never was man so

-miserable, never was one so unhappily placed. I owe

-you more than words can say, I owe you my best

-thoughts, I owe you my very life itself. I would willingly

-give you my life——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then why not give it and come with me?”

-burst out Madame. “Leave all this misery behind

-you, I will make your path as smooth as heart could

-wish. Come.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“My heart can never follow any other path, it

-will dwell amid the ruins of its former happiness.

-Do not speak again of this. Let us remain friends

-as before.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>“It can never be again as it was before,” said

-Madame with heaving bosom.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why not?” asked Ezra. “I have not much else

-left in life.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Why not,” repeated Madame in scorn. “You

-ask me why not! Would you care for Olive’s friendship

-when all her love was given to Cotterell?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Stop,” cried Ezra, and this time there was a

-ring of anger in his voice. “Even you may presume

-too far. Do not again speak that name to

-me.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>There is something untamed and untameable in

-the Russian nature which now and then comes to the

-surface and drives an excited Muscovite into acts seemingly

-at variance with the highly cultivated standard

-to which he aspires. The phenomenon may by the

-learned be attributed to a sudden reversion to the

-ancestral Asiatic savage. Madame was at this moment

-rapidly going back to the state of furious anger, when

-all sense of dignity would be lost. She was reverting

-to the Asiatic. And under the influence of her passion

-her physical appearance changed, her eyes became

-narrow slanting openings emitting sparks of

-steel-blue flame, her full red lips were drawn tightly

-over her teeth. She hissed out her words.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Does her image still come between us?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It does come between us,” said Ezra looking almost

-as white as she did. “Her image will always

-come between me and every other woman on the whole

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>earth, blotting out every other image and making

-me only hers. Oh, Olive! Oh, my wife!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He gave a great sob of agony.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Besotted fool!” burst from Madame’s colourless

-lips, “do you hold this language to me? You scorn

-me and my love! Then on your own head be the consequences.

-Ah, now nothing shall stop me. An angel

-from heaven, no, nor God Himself shall stand between

-me and my revenge. Ezra Weston, farewell!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She left the room, shutting the door upon him

-and his misery. Unhappy man! His world seemed

-crumbling beneath his feet. He had lost his wife,

-and now his friend, the one whom he most revered,

-had cast him out from her regard. What could he

-do? His heart answered, nothing but dumbly suffer

-in the deserted home where he was left alone. What

-a black and barren waste was his life! And how fair

-and smiling it had looked a few short weeks ago!

-It was as if a devastating fire had passed over him

-leaving his heart like the desolated prairie, black and

-hopeless.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame went away alone for one day, no one

-knew whither, and came back with a look on her

-face that struck terror into all who saw her. Her

-smooth white face looked cruel and pitiless, and the

-gleam from her eyes reminded one of cold steel. Her

-soft hands sometimes closed on their own pink palms

-with a spasmodic clutch, as if she had the throat of

-an enemy between their cruel grasp and was crushing

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>the life out of him. A cold dreadful face, a cruel

-sickening look that made Napoleon Pompey and Uncle

-David shiver within their souls, and caused the brethren

-to draw away affrighted from their once beloved

-leader. Perfection City was the abode of wretchedness.

-The Academy never opened its doors to the

-assembled Pioneers, who were afraid to come near

-Madame’s house. Each lived by himself, looking

-askance at his neighbour, for over all had fallen a

-spirit of suspicion. Only Brother Huntley, the deaf

-brother, and his mute wife were happy, working on

-contentedly, shielded by their misfortune from the

-full knowledge of the disasters that had come upon

-the Community.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The days dragged miserably by, seemingly endowed

-with a miraculous length of hours, for the sufferings

-of a life-time were compressed into that hideous

-fortnight. The glaring sun blazing down upon the

-blackened prairie seemed to Ezra to have become no

-unfitting symbol of hell. The light was hateful, darkness,

-eternal darkness would have been a relief to his

-brain. Could it be possible that he was going to

-live his life out in a realized purgatory? He was

-young, only twenty-five, and if his life was to stretch

-even to the average span of human existence, what

-an eternity of suffering lay before him! A brokenhearted

-man amid the ruins of his broken life.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>It was on one of these days of utter black despair,

-like the days that had gone before and the days that

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>were still to come, that the same ragged negro boy on

-the straggly Indian pony, who once before had made

-his appearance at Perfection City, was seen skulking

-around the old land near Weddell’s Gully. He seemed

-to want to see without being seen. By and bye Napoleon

-Pompey chanced that way and of course

-pounced upon him with the universal query of “whar

-he gwine?” The boy after some hesitation made it

-clear that he had come on a secret mission. He wanted

-to find Uncle David without being seen by anyone else,

-especially not by the white-faced lady, Madame, of

-whom he stood in shivering dread. Napoleon Pompey,

-sympathising with the dread, volunteered to take a

-letter to Uncle David without fear of detection. Thereupon

-the darkie delivered over to him a scrap of newspaper

-upon which was written a scrawl with the burnt

-end of a stick, and having done so galloped off on

-his straggly pony with a whoop of delight, as one

-who had escaped dreadful peril. Napoleon Pompey,

-finding it difficult to deliver his embassy to Uncle

-David undetected, gave the curious missive to Ezra

-with intimations that it was to be put into Uncle

-David’s hands right away.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra took the scrap of paper, saying there must

-be some letter inside, and mechanically unfolded it,

-when the hoarse scream that he uttered almost made

-Napoleon Pompey jump through the window.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Where did you get this?” he panted.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Darkie gin it ter me jes’ while back.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>“Who gave it? What was his name? Where

-did he live? Who sent him here?” asked Ezra in a

-breath.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Darkie he didn’t go for to say nuffin, on’y jes’

-gin dat ar, an’ tole me ter pike to ole Uncle David

-wid it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra darted out of the house and ran like a mad-man

-to Madame’s and burst into the room where she

-and Uncle David were just sitting down to supper.

-He held out the scrap of paper to the old man and

-gasped:</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Olive is somewhere!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I presume that was already known, and that it can

-hardly be considered news,” said Madame’s cool cutting

-voice, which brought Ezra somewhat to his senses.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She is somewhere near. She sent a negro boy

-with this. Read it.” He shoved it under Uncle

-David’s nose.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I can’t see to read it, read it aloud, let me hear

-all she says in her letter,” said the old man with trembling

-eagerness.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It isn’t a letter. It says, ’Uncle come to Olive,’

-only those four words, nothing else, and just look,

-scratched with a bit of burnt stick on a piece of newspaper!

-Oh, think of it! Where can she be? Why

-didn’t she write before if she was in trouble? What

-has happened?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Perhaps it is a hoax,” said Madame between her

-drawn white lips.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>“There hain’t in this world a bein’ so lost to all

-feelin’ as would make a joke o’ our sorrow,” said

-Uncle David. “No, Ezra, that’s writ by our little

-gal. We must go to her. Come ’long, brother.” He

-put on his hat and started cheerfully for the door.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Where are you going?” asked Madame, in a

-muffled voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I’m agoin’ to little Ollie.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Where is she, do you know?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ezry, don’t you know where we’ve got to go

-to?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I know nothing, except that this scrap of paper

-has been brought by a negro boy.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra kissed the paper, and Madame’s lips curled

-in contempt.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Is it not rather a wild-goose chase to start you

-know not whither, and at this time of the evening

-too?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We can’t wait here after little Ollie’s told us to

-come,” said Uncle David simply.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Cannot you suggest some plan?” asked Ezra,

-turning to Madame by force of habit.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Not I,” she replied contemptuously. “Shall you

-go east, west, north, or south? The world lies all before

-you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ain’t you glad little Ollie’s found?” asked Uncle

-David, looking wistfully at her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame laughed harshly. They went out of the

-room together feeling her presence insupportable.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>Just round the corner they came upon Napoleon Pompey

-who was peeping around to see if he could pick

-up any scraps of news. He had divined there was

-news from Olive, and with the inquisitiveness of his

-race had followed Ezra when he had rushed so wildly

-out of the house.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“D’yer know whar ter go?” he inquired.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No,” said Ezra. “Can you tell us anything of

-that negro boy? Do you know where he lives?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ask her,” said Napoleon Pompey, jerking his

-thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door

-from which they had just emerged.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ask who?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Madame,” said Napoleon Pompey.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Does she know?” asked Ezra, amazed.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I seed dat ar pony hyar afore,” replied Napoleon

-Pompey.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Great Heavens!” said Ezra as drops of sweat

-burst out on his forehead. He hurried back to the

-house with Uncle David. Neither of them spoke a

-word.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Madame,” said Ezra, as they once more stood

-in the room, “I have come to ask you a question.

-Do you know where my wife is?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She looked him unflinchingly in the face and answered:</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“May the Lord forgive you!” said Uncle David,

-in a voice hardly above a whisper, and for some seconds

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>there was a complete silence in the room, broken

-only by the sound of Ezra’s heavy breathing.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Where is she?” he demanded sternly.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Go and find her,” was the mocking answer.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra sprang furiously forward, and almost yelled

-out,</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Tell me at once or——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ay yes,” she said with a steady look, “you will

-drag the secret out, will you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She tore open her dress and exposed her snow-white

-throat.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“See, there it is handy. Take a knife and cut

-my throat. See if I shall flinch. The last gurgle of

-my blood bubbling up through the wound, shall bear

-a sound of mocking laughter. Strike!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra turned from her in horror. “She must be

-mad,” he said to Uncle David.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Not mad now, I have been mad all these months,

-all these years. Mad to love you, mad in loving such

-a one as you. Now I am sane. Ah, how I hate

-you!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“This is horrible,” said Ezra, putting his hand before

-his eyes.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Horrible, is it? It is the waking from love’s

-young dream. Ha, ha!”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Madame, dear child, think of all you have been

-to us,” said Uncle David, reaching his hands out to

-her imploringly. “You have led us, think of all

-that.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>“I do think of all that. I think of how I found

-this boy,” she said, pointing in scorn to Ezra, “ignorant,

-unformed, with wild crude longings. I think

-of how I infused light and life into the darkness of

-his mind. How I rose, aye, above myself, in order to

-lead him up and on. I think of all his half-formed

-longings put into working form and endowed with

-vital power that he might see his thoughts taking

-shape. I made him. He was mine. Then he left me

-for a few brief weeks. He saw a pretty doll’s face

-with an empty head, and straightway he loves with

-never a thought of me. You ask me to think. I do

-think of how even this I bore, and so great was my

-love that for his sake I welcomed the doll that had

-stolen my place, and smiled on her. Even this I did

-and remained his friend. She, the doll, attracted by

-a handsome face, her love aroused by the stolen kisses

-of a yellow moustache, left him. Then I was free to

-love him once more. I laid my heart at his feet. He

-spurned me. All my love was as nothing against the

-memory of the doll who had deserted him. She may

-die and rot before word of mine shall restore her to

-him.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Neither Ezra nor Uncle David had attempted to

-speak while Madame was pouring forth the torrent

-of her bitter words. Ezra felt too overwhelmed to

-say anything, for a moment, in the downfall of so

-many illusions and high hopes, he forgot even Olive.

-Uncle David was the first to recover himself.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>“Dear child,” he said, for the first time in his life

-addressing her as one beneath him. “These are wild

-words you’ve been sayin’. I can’t find it in my heart

-to believe they’re true. You are disappointed,

-an’ you think wrong can be made right by turnin’

-things upside down. Tain’t so. You’ll have to

-learn that right an’ wrong can’t change places, nohow

-you fix it. You have still your duty here in

-the City you’ve founded an’ the principles you’ve set

-up.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Madame looked at him with glittering eyes.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Will you hear the truth about Perfection City

-too? Then listen. It is not an experiment in new

-principles, it is an example of the oldest the world

-has seen—of the folly of a fond woman. I founded

-Perfection City so that he might love the founder.

-I staked my all on a throw of love’s dice, and lost.

-Women have done it before and will do it again.

-Some fools degrade their body to win a man, I

-degraded my mind. The foundation-stone of Perfection

-City was my heart, see what will happen

-when it is crushed! Ah, why can we not profit by

-the experience of our elders! My mother warned

-me, having tried it, never to stake my happiness on

-the love of man. I followed her advice for five-and-thirty

-happy years. Then I saw <i>him</i>, and the curse

-fell.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She threw up her arms over her head and backed

-towards the door of her own apartment.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>“The curse, the curse!” she exclaimed, as she

-passed through out of their sight.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra had a confused feeling that he had just seen

-someone drowning who had reached appealing hands

-towards heaven as she went under.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXII.<br /> <span class='large'>OLIVE’S SECOND HOME-COMING.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>And where was Olive all this time? She and Cotterell

-rode out of Union Mills together, as we have

-seen, and as was seen by nearly all the men who had assembled

-there that morning in the expectation of seeing

-him hanged. They rode silently among “the

-boys” getting their horses ready, they silently passed

-among the trees to the south and crossed the ford of

-the Creek. Then Cotterell spoke, pouring forth his

-words of thanks and gratitude to her. He was not

-ashamed to show that he was deeply moved, now that

-none but Olive could see his emotion. She, on the

-other hand, seemed almost in an unconscious state so

-little heed did she give to his eager words.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Speak to me, tell me what you wish,” he pleaded

-very gently, noticing her abstraction.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I want you to go away,” she said slowly. “You

-are safe from their anger for this time, but do not

-stay here and court danger. This is no place for a

-man like you to live. Go while there is yet time.

-There is now a blood-feud between you and the Mills.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>They will mark you for vengeance, and they are wild

-bad men.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And you?” said Cotterell, looking anxiously at

-her. “I want to see you safely at home. You are

-ill, I fear.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am all right,” answered Olive wearily. “You

-must go to the South Fork at once. Take the Kansas

-City stage this very night and go. There is no time

-to be lost.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I cannot, and will not,” answered Cotterell. “I

-must take you home first. You look frightfully tired

-and ill.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“No, it would be the crudest thing you could

-do to bring me home. I want to go back to Ezra,

-I am so tired,” said Olive plaintively.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Must I let you go all by yourself over this lonely

-prairie? I cannot bear the thought of it.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I have been two days and one night all by myself

-out on this lonely prairie in order to save you.

-Please do what I ask. Tie Queen Katharine’s rein to

-Rebel’s bit, they will then go quietly together.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Tell me,” said Cotterell breathlessly, “why have

-you been out all this time on the prairie alone?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I was following the men who had captured you

-in order to save you if I could.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Great Heavens!” he burst out, with his blue

-eyes aflame. “And you did this heroic act because

-you——”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I did it because you are an innocent man, and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>I wanted you to go back to your country to live a

-better life and be a better man than you ever had

-been before.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The light died out of his eyes. He looked down,

-his hands trembled as they had never trembled when

-on his trial.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Your sacrifice shall not have been in vain,” he

-said in a low voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then good-bye, and all good blessings attend

-you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She shook hands with him and left him standing

-at the parting of the ways. When she was quite out

-of sight over the ridge on her way towards Cotton

-Wood Creek, he, with blinding tears streaming down

-his sun-burnt face, turned and walked to the South

-Fork, caught the Kansas City stage-coach and departed

-out of Olive’s life.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She hardly knew what she was doing she felt so

-ill. It seemed a relief not to have to talk any more,

-for she found it difficult to keep hold of her thoughts,

-they seemed constantly to be slipping away from her.

-The sun was burning hot, and she had a long way to

-go, for she had come out of Union Mills by the south

-side instead of the north. Therefore she must make

-a great sweep round to the right in order to reach her

-home, and she must remember that the Creek was only

-to be safely forded at certain places. She rode on

-and on, feeling the sun hotter and hotter and her head

-heavier and heavier. At last she was so dizzy she

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>could no longer see where she was going. Whatever

-happened she must lie down for a few minutes. Somehow

-she got off her horse and lay down at the side of

-the track she had been following, but whether in

-sleep or in unconsciousness she never knew.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>By and by she came to herself again. The horses

-were both gone! She had forgotten to picket them.

-She did not remember where she was, but mechanically

-stumbled along the road and at length was overtaken

-by a negro woman driving an ox-waggon. She begged

-of the woman to let her get into the waggon and take

-her home for she felt ill, and the negress, struck with

-pity, declared she would, “fo’ de po’ chile was mos’

-sick to deaf anyhow.” Olive got into the waggon

-and knew no more for hours—or was it days, or was it

-weeks? Two nights out in the poisonous prairie dew

-had done their work: she was down with chills and

-fever, a raving panting lunatic, or else a stupid heavy

-sleeping log, taking no heed of day or night or the

-hours as they flew, only craving water to drink, ever

-more water to drink. By and by she began to have

-intervals when she knew that she was in a strange

-place with strange black faces around her. Then at

-last her senses returned, and she sent an imploring

-message to Ezra to come to her. In reply had come

-Madame, stern, fierce-eyed, to see her and crush her

-with the awful news that Ezra was dead. Olive fell

-back into unconsciousness under the blow, she did not

-know for how long. But after weary suffering she

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>awoke again, still in that same strange place, still with

-those black faces around her, kind and pitying, but

-faces she did not know.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Trying feebly to gather up again the threads of

-her life, she wished to send word to the friends at

-Perfection City that she was still alive. The negroes,

-who were the only inhabitants of the wretched house

-where she was, seemed not to heed her wishes. They

-refused to take any messages, but would not say why.

-Olive grew stronger, for her young vitality exerted

-itself. She demanded to know why they would not

-do as she wished, but they fled from her questions

-and left her to her suspicions. She tormented them

-with questions, and at last they said the white-faced

-lady had forbidden them ever to come near her house

-again, and they were afraid: she was a very terrible

-looking lady when she was angry. Then Olive used

-her powers of persuasion upon the negro lad and

-eventually got him to take her message in spite of

-what his mother said. That was the scrap of paper

-that had come into Ezra’s hands.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The Pioneers scattered in systematic search for

-Olive, spreading out in all directions in a way that

-could not fail to be speedily successful. Brother

-Green found her on the second day, while Ezra found

-the two horses which a thrifty settler had impounded

-in his own fields and was unobtrusively working until

-they should be called for by their owner.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Green was overjoyed at finding Olive

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>and was not so overwhelmed at hearing of her long

-illness as, under different circumstances, he might have

-been. In fact he was almost pleased, for that fact,

-taken together with the negro woman’s graphic account

-of finding her alone and ill on the prairie on

-the day “o’ de hoss-thief tryin’,” made it clear to him

-that she had never been with Cotterell since she was

-at the abortive trial. She was very weak and languid

-and took little heed of him or his remarks.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ezra will be out of his mind with joy,” he said,

-by way of rousing her to some interest, as he was

-settling her as comfortably as he could in the ox-waggon,

-preparatory to setting out on their return.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Ezra is dead,” said Olive wearily.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Green stared hard at her. “What crazy

-fancy is this? Ezra is alive and riding over towards

-Jacksonville at this moment hunting for you.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“She told me he was dead,” said Olive, beginning

-to cry from the revulsion of feeling combined with

-physical suffering.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“How dared the woman tell such a lie!” exclaimed

-Brother Green angrily, and then after a moment

-he added more mildly, “Perhaps it was a mere

-mistake, she seems to have been kind to you, but

-negroes are not a truth-telling race.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“It was not the negro woman, it was Madame,”

-said Olive in a hushed and awe-struck voice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Nonsense, you are raving, Sister Olive,” said

-he sharply.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>“She came to me and told me during my illness.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“When?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I can’t tell. I don’t remember when things happened.

-I was so ill.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Then depend upon it, you have fancied this.

-Fever fancies seem very real at times.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He experienced a certain relief in speaking thus

-confidently on the subject to her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“The negro woman knows. Ask her who came

-here and forbade them to bring any more messages

-from me to Perfection City.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>It was singular, considering the way he had spoken,

-that Brother Green did not take this simple means of

-assuring himself that Olive’s idea was the effect of

-the disordered workings of a fevered brain. But he

-said never a word to the negro woman on the subject,

-but drove slowly and thoughtfully back to Perfection

-City, with Olive in the ox-waggon, lying on a heap of

-corn-shucks covered with the ragged patch-quilt the

-woman had lent her. It was a long and a weary journey

-thus creeping back home over the blackened prairie.

-Olive sometimes wondered if she would get there

-alive, and she moaned in her misery. For the rest,

-Brother Green spoke but little. Since assuring Olive

-of the falseness of her idea that Madame had been to

-see her, he appeared to have lost the cheerfulness he

-had shown upon finding her. Brother Green was

-thinking of the future of Perfection City, and it looked

-black enough to him. It was no secret that Madame

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>had refused to reveal Olive’s whereabouts to her husband,

-and in the light of that circumstance he could

-foresee nothing but strife, ill-will and enmity in Perfection

-City. How were Olive and Madame to meet,

-and above all how were they to live in harmony for

-the future? These were the thoughts that occupied

-his mind and kept him silent during that long slow

-drive.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive, too, was trying to look into the future, and

-she shivered with dread as she did so. Madame’s pitiless

-eyes were before her still, but Ezra would be

-there, he would shield her and comfort her, and she

-could rest her head peacefully on his honest breast.

-Dear Ezra! Why had he not come to her when she

-had sent for him? She hoped he would be there to

-greet her and to save her from that terrible woman,

-whose colourless face in its icy cruelty still haunted

-her, filling her with a great dread. She need not

-have been so afraid, for when she reached Perfection

-City Madame was gone.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>The Pioneers had indeed a life of much inward

-excitement during these days. The return of Olive

-and the departure of Madame were events almost

-equally calculated to disturb their equanimity as a

-Community.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra being still away looking for his wife in the

-wrong direction, there was no one to receive her when

-she got home. Therefore Brother Green took her to

-Sister Mary Winkle’s at once on their arrival. Olive

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>was weak, ill, and peevish, she cried with disappointment

-at not seeing Ezra. Sister Mary Winkle administered

-a stimulant in the way of advice.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t take on so like a baby, Olive Weston,

-if I were you. Ezra’ll come home probably to-day

-or to-morrow, and one day more or less ain’t much

-in a life-time.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive dried her eyes with energy.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Everybody said you had gone off with that man

-Cotterell, and so we all thought too,” observed Sister

-Winkle conversationally.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“How dare you suggest such a thing to me?”

-exclaimed Olive, with an amount of angry energy surprising

-in one so weak.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Well, we had it from the people who saw you

-go away with him, and who heard you say you were

-going. I don’t see how we could possibly have thought

-other than we did.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“You must be a wicked woman to think such

-a thing,” said Olive. Her chin began to quiver piteously.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I am not going to condemn you,” replied Sister

-Winkle, in a philosophic vein. “If you found you

-preferred him to Ezra I don’t think you would have

-been wrong in showing your preference in an unmistakable

-manner. Marriage is a partnership which

-either side should be free to dissolve. Mistakes are

-sometimes made in it as in other affairs. Our marriage

-is not a mistake, because Wright and I don’t

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>make mistakes, but other people are different, and I

-don’t see why they should be punished for an honest

-mistake. Marriage should be free. Perfection City

-was founded on freedom. We thought that you had

-used your right of choice, and since you liked Cotterell

-best had gone with him. We thought that Madame

-would soon marry Ezra, since he was now free,

-and she had always wanted to.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Olive sprang from her chair and steadied herself

-with her trembling hands by clutching the back of it.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Mary Winkle, I hate you,” she said, in a voice

-choking with emotion. “Perfection City is a sinful,

-wicked place. I wish I had never seen it. If I live,

-and Ezra loves me, I hope he will take me away so I

-may never hear its name again.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>She stamped bravely out of the house under the

-influence of her anger, but her strength did not carry

-her far, and she sank down upon the wood-pile weeping

-bitterly, unable to walk another step. Sister Mary,

-somewhat disgusted at the way in which her philosophy

-had been received, resolved to let her cool off a

-little before going out to offer Olive an arm to conduct

-her back into the house. Thus it came about

-that Olive was still sitting weeping on the wood-pile

-when Uncle David came hurrying up, having just

-heard of her arrival, and close behind him came Ezra

-running like a mad-man. When Olive saw him she

-started towards her husband with outstretched arms,

-but her weakness overcame her, and she would have

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>fallen to the ground only that he was just in time to

-catch her in his arms, where she fell laughing and crying

-in the most incoherent manner imaginable.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Oh, Ezra, you didn’t believe that wicked story?

-And you do love me, don’t you? And you won’t

-marry her, and you aren’t dead, are you? Tell Mary

-Winkle you hate her too. And why didn’t you come

-to me when I sent for you?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Ezra could only kiss her, and pet her, and soothe

-her in every way while Olive kept saying hysterically,

-“You won’t, will you?” and “You will, won’t you?”

-All of which Ezra promised faithfully to perform.

-She absolutely refused to re-enter Sister Mary Winkle’s

-house, whereupon the latter, somewhat conscience-stricken,

-offered to send in food for their supper

-at their own house, provided Olive was not told

-who had sent it. The secret was kept, and Olive partook

-heartily of what otherwise would undoubtedly

-have choked her.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Uncle David hovered over her with anxious love

-and remorse. “Bless her heart, o’ course he didn’t

-b’lieve nothin’ ’bout her goin’ off. Yer bet he didn’t,

-he knowed it was all right, on’y she was so long a-com-in’

-home he sorter kinder got oneasy, an’ that’s why

-they went out to fin’ her, an’ dear, dear, had she been

-an’ gone an’ got that plaguey ague, an’ he not there

-to see a’ter her, an’ there wasn’t nothin’ like Ayre’s

-Ague Cure for that, an’ he would go right ’long home

-this minute an’ get her some right away.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>Ezra wanted to hear her story, and she told him

-everything from the beginning to the end. When

-she came to the end and told him of Madame’s visit,

-he shivered and said it must have been delirium, he

-bade her think no more of it and never speak of it

-again. His mind started back from the thoughts such

-a story raised up before him. He was afraid, and

-looked away from the abyss, terrified at what lay but

-half hidden there.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>

-  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXIII.<br /> <span class='large'>CONCLUSION.</span></h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c009'>Madame left Perfection City alone and unattended.

-No one knew that she was going, and no one

-knew whither she went. Her spirit, however, still hovered

-over the city of her founding and made itself

-most potently felt. She sold all her rights in the

-place, and since these included the land, horses, and

-implements, as well as most of the houses, the Pioneers

-awoke in early winter to find themselves homeless

-and houseless, cast upon the bleak world again. In a

-tempest of indignation, Sister Mary Winkle and her

-husband departed out of the place, and after them

-the Carpenters. The going of the Wrights was highly

-characteristic. They had managed to save a waggon

-and a pair of horses out of the general wreck, along

-with a few of the most primitive household necessaries.

-These, with his wife and daughter, Brother Wright

-packed into his waggon and started for Union Mills.

-At the store there he bought a rifle, a bowie-knife, and

-a plentiful supply of ammunition. He came out of

-the store looking like a buccaneer ready equipped for

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>Central America. Mary Winkle raised her hands in

-speechless horror.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I say, pa, be yer goin’ to be a jay-hawker?”

-asked Willette, grinning with delight.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Wright got into the waggon in grim silence.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“What <i>are</i> you going to be?” asked Sister Mary

-recovering her speech at last.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I’m going to be a man, Mrs. Wright, and not a

-blamed fool any longer. Guess I’ll pre-empt some

-land near the Cherokee Reservation, and stick to it

-and get the fruits of my toil, anyhow.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Your principles——” stammered his wife.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Damn principles, Mrs. Wright. I’ve had about

-enough of them. Common sense is what I want, and

-so do you. I guess a spell of that will come handy

-now.”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Thus they journeyed out of sight, but a legend

-came floating back from near the Cherokee lands that

-at a difficult ford Wright was attacked by a couple of

-robbers, whereupon he took up that new rifle of his

-and fired so uncommonly straight that one man fell

-into the river, and the other ran away.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Green remained at his forge, for blacksmiths

-were much in request on the prairie, and such

-a one as he was hard to find. The new owner of Perfection

-City offered him good inducements to stay,

-so he stayed. He is still there shoeing horses and

-mending ploughs. The name has been changed to

-Mountainburg, in order to emphasise the existence of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>the rising ground over Weddell’s Gully. Brother

-Green is almost the oldest inhabitant now, and sometimes

-he thinks of that far-off English village where

-he was born, and it looks brighter and more beautiful

-to him as the years roll him away from it. He thinks

-too of the grass-grown grave in the church-yard

-where the jackdaws caw overhead, and it seems to

-him that when his last day’s work shall be done he

-would rest more peacefully beside that mound than

-in any other spot beneath the broad canopy of

-heaven.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>Brother Dummy decided not to leave when the

-rest of the Pioneers scattered. He preferred to stay

-where he was and rent a bit of land from the new

-owner. By and by he was enabled to buy his bit outright.

-For there came a letter addressed to “The

-Pioneers of Perfection City” and containing a draft

-for five hundred dollars “for the hire of one horse”

-from an ever grateful friend. And Brother Dummy

-was given this money by the united wish of Olive,

-Ezra, Brother Green, and Uncle David, the last

-of the Pioneers, because, as they said, he was the

-only one who didn’t know why it had been sent,

-and he was the only one who had not suffered

-through that episode that had so nearly wrecked their

-lives.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>On a cold winter’s day, when the snow lay in

-patches on the black prairie, Olive and her husband

-and Uncle David set out from Perfection City. She

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>was pale and thin, and looked very ill as she stood

-leaning against the door-way of her dismantled home.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“I wish I could feel sorry at leaving the prairie,

-but I can’t. I never want to see Perfection City again,

-but I’m sorry for my little home, and I would like to

-see my garden blossom again.” So spoke Olive to

-Uncle David, standing beside her with shawls on his

-arm.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Wal, now,” replied he sadly, “we came here full

-o’ the notion o’ teachin’ folks things, but it ’pears

-like as if it wasn’t so much other folks out here as

-needed teachin’ as jes’ our own selves. We hev hed

-a hard lesson to learn, Ollie, my little gal, but I reckon

-we’ve pretty well learned it by now. It mos’ likely

-comes to the same thing, on’y it’s a sight more comfortin’

-to human pride to set up as a teacher than to

-sit down as a learner. We was as certain as anything

-we had a bran’ new truth to teach to the world, an’

-we was goin’ to show ’em how they’d been doin’ wrong

-in everything ’fore we come to set ’em right. We was

-jes’ bustin’ with pride and vanity, that’s what we was.

-We had foun’ a new road to Kingdom Come, we had.

-’Twasn’t no road at all, on’y a coon track leadin’ into

-a swamp. Guess we’ll foller the road other folks has

-trod before, an’ if we can fill up a slough or help anyone

-over the rough bits as is scattered plentiful all

-the way, that’ll do for us. Ain’t that your ’pinion,

-Ezry?”</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“Yes, Uncle, we made a mistake. We thought

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>the great thing to do was to reform the ways of the

-world. We forgot that the human heart needed reforming

-first of all,” said Ezra, looking sadly at his

-poor wan-cheeked little wife.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And if the heart is right it doesn’t matter about

-the rest, does it, dear?” said Olive, looking timidly

-at him.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He was sad and down-hearted and the eager enthusiasm

-was gone out of his manner. Ezra was much

-older-looking than he should have been, if life be

-reckoned by solar time alone. He had been aged

-by a lapse of mental time and suffering of which

-the almanac can take no heed. His wife saw and

-understood how he was, at this moment, realizing

-the downfall of his young hopes and beliefs, that

-was why he gazed so sadly across the desolate

-fields.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“We take nothing away with us except sad experience,”

-he said as he lifted her into the waggon

-and drove off.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>“And our love, dear, which nothing can ever destroy,”

-she whispered, pressing his hand.</p>

-

-<p class='c010'>He stooped and kissed her. There were tears in

-his eyes. But they made a mistake. They took something

-else with them. Something that came tearing

-over the prairie with tongue out and tail stiff-stretched

-and nose to the ground—Diana, who had been turned

-over to Napoleon Pompey to have and to hold, but he

-could not hold her when she saw the waggon going

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>off, therefore he could not have her. She caught

-them up when they were two miles off, and Olive let

-the dog clamber all over her, regardless of wet paws,

-and lick her face, so delighted were they to meet

-again.</p>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c0'>

-<div class='nf-center c002'>

-    <div>THE END.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='pbb'>

- <hr class='pb c003' />

-</div>

-<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>

-

-<div class='chapter ph2'>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c0'>

-<div class='nf-center c004'>

-    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-</div>

-

- <ol class='ol_1 c002'>

-    <li>Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.

-

-    </li>

-    <li>Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.

-    </li>

-  </ol>

-

-</div>

-

-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERFECTION CITY ***</div>

-<div style='text-align:left'>

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+  </head>
+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67549 ***</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in4'><strong>Appletons’</strong></div>
+      <div class='line'><strong>Town and Country</strong></div>
+      <div class='line in4'><strong>Library</strong></div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in4'>No. 212</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>PERFECTION CITY</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='titlepage'>
+
+<div>
+  <h1 class='c001'>PERFECTION CITY</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div>BY</div>
+    <div class='c003'><span class='xlarge'>MRS. ORPEN</span></div>
+    <div class='c003'>AUTHOR OF MARGARETA COLBERG, MR. ADOLF, THE CHRONICLES OF THE SID, ETC.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/title.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div><span class='large'>NEW YORK</span></div>
+    <div><span class='large'>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</span></div>
+    <div><span class='large'>1897</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>Copyright, 1897,</span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c006'><span class='small'>CHAPTER</span></th>
+    <th class='c007'>&#160;</th>
+    <th class='c008'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>I.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Home-coming of the bride</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>II.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Uncle David</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_11'>11</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>III.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Sister Mary Winkle</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_21'>21</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>IV.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Madame Morozoff-Smith</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_27'>27</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>V.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Corn planting</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>VI.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Non-resistance</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_54'>54</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>VII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Willette</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_66'>66</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>VIII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Mr. Perseus</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_84'>84</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>IX.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>First lessons</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_101'>101</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>X.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Practical communism</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_111'>111</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XI.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>A chance meeting</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_125'>125</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>The prairie fire</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_141'>141</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XIII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>The rescue</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_156'>156</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XIV.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Cotterell “wanted”</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_170'>170</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XV.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>In quest of news</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_185'>185</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XVI.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Horse-thieves</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_204'>204</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XVII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>A life at stake</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_219'>219</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XVIII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Lynch-law</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_237'>237</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XIX.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Olive missing</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_251'>251</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XX.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Madame’s sympathy</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_263'>263</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XXI.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>The message</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_277'>277</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XXII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Olive’s second home-coming</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_293'>293</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XXIII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Conclusion</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_305'>305</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='chapter ph1'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div>PERFECTION CITY.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+<div>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER I.<br /> <span class='large'>HOME-COMING OF THE BRIDE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“This road isn’t called Perfection Road, is it?”
+she asked jerkily, as she held tight hold of the edge
+of the waggon to prevent herself from being pitched
+head foremost off the seat. She would have laid her
+head against her companion’s shoulder only that it
+was square and hard, and she was afraid of getting
+her temple “stove in,” as the sailors say, by the terrific
+bumps caused by the wheels going over a big
+stone or down into a deep rut. She was a bride, and
+he was bringing her to their new home on the Kansas
+Prairie.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My poor little pet,” he said tenderly, “it is very
+rough here. We are going down into Cotton Wood
+Creek, and these stones were cast up by the last freshet
+which pretty well washed the road away.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They plunged headlong into the muddy waters
+of the Creek, and the little bride would have felt
+frightened only that “he” was by her side, for the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>waggon creaked and groaned with the strain, and the
+horses snorted uneasily, feeling their way carefully
+through the rushing torrent. The Creek was safely
+passed, and they slowly toiled up the long hill out of
+the bottom-lands, and pulled up when once more on
+the high prairie.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There is our home, dearie,” he said, pointing
+with his whip to some scattered houses a couple of
+miles away. And being a bridegroom he kissed her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“So that is Perfection City, is it?” said she, shading
+her eyes with her hand, for the afternoon sun sent
+level rays into her face. “You know, Ezra, it is such
+a funny name, I always feel inclined to laugh when
+I say it. And how I shall ever dare to put it at the
+top of my letters as a real address when I write to
+the girls at the College at Smyrna, is more than I
+know.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then don’t write it,” replied Ezra, a trifle sternly.
+“It will hurt our feelings very much if you laugh
+at it. You know it means a great deal to all of us.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I’ll never laugh at it,” said the little
+bride.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Which is our house?” she asked a moment later.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The one half way up the slope.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, that is nice. I like looking down across
+things. I shouldn’t like to live in a valley and always
+have to look up, you know.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The large building is the Academy,” said Ezra.
+“That is where we hold our meetings and gather together
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>for all the best purposes of our little community-life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is it there that Madame Morozoff-Smith lives?”
+asked his wife.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Her house is the one just opposite.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, that big one! It is quite the largest in the
+village—the City, I mean.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra did not make any reply to this remark. He
+had never realised that Madame’s house was indeed
+the largest in their Community, and now he felt vexed
+that this fact should have been the first his wife noted.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A small boy with shining black face and shining
+white teeth, along with a yellow puppy, welcomed
+them.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is Napoleon Pompey,” said Ezra, with much
+decorum presenting the small darkie who grinned and
+bobbed his head. “And this is Diana,” pointing to
+the puppy that had come up to the bars along with
+the negro. Diana jumped upon her new mistress and
+left two black dust marks on her dress. Dust is
+black in London and on the western prairie, nowhere
+else.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, you dirty dog,” said the little bride, who was
+a very natty body.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You’ll have to get used to dirt in all degrees
+out here, Ollie,” said her husband as he led her to
+the door. She looked like a little girl as she stood
+beside him, for he was tall and angular and long of
+leg. A sloping plank with battens nailed across it
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>led to the door, there were no steps. As the pair entered,
+Napoleon Pompey and Diana took the horses
+and waggon to the stable and began respectively to unharness
+and worry them.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What a dear little house! It is just like a toy!
+And do look at the saws hanging on the walls beside
+the covers of the pots! Oh, won’t it be so nice and
+free living here! I shall feel like an explorer in a
+far country. And how funny to have nail-kegs for
+seats, and oh, you dear old darling!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive jumped up and kissed her big husband.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Things are rough now, dearie,” he said with
+infinite tenderness, looking at her with loving admiration,
+“but by and by we shall have everything very
+nice.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But I think it is just as nice as it can be
+now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is our room,” said he, opening a door to
+the right.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, if you haven’t gone and got a rocking-chair!”
+exclaimed Olive, glancing around the small
+apartment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I made it for you myself in spare time,” answered
+Ezra, pleased that she had noticed the chair the first
+thing: he had often wondered, when working at that
+rocking-chair, whether she would be pleased with it.
+“You see,” he continued, “we have to work only
+five days a week for the Community. All the rest
+of our time is at our own disposal, and by and by,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>when we are flourishing, four days for the Community
+will suffice.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you like working for other people and not
+being paid?” asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I do not consider it as working for other people
+without pay,” replied her husband, with some quickness.
+“We each work for the general good, and if I
+happen to plant corn that someone else will eat, then
+some other member of the Community raises potatoes
+that I shall eat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There, there, don’t be cross,” said the little wife,
+noting the flush that had risen to his brow as he spoke.
+“I am sure it is nice, and I shall like it when I
+understand it all. At any rate we shall be very
+happy whatever happens, and I like my dear little
+house, and please, I am very thirsty, can I have a
+drink?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He brought her some water in a tin dipper with
+a long handle, and she did not make a face, but drank
+the water gratefully. She determined in her own mind,
+however, to have a glass tumbler the very next day, but
+she was new to the prairie, and she did not get the
+tumbler the next day, nor the next week, nor for
+many, many long months.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What time are we to have breakfast?” she asked,
+when taking over the household from Napoleon Pompey
+and Diana, who had run the establishment while
+her husband had been to fetch her from Ohio.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yo’ kin eat when yo’ like,” said Napoleon Pompey,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>desiring to be all that was polite to his new mistress.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But I want to know what time you have breakfast?”
+repeated Olive with persistence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We uns got ter be hout on der lan’ ploughin’
+afore sun-up,” said Napoleon Pompey concisely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dear me! Why, that is before six o’clock!” exclaimed
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I calkerlate,” said Napoleon Pompey affably.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra did not want Olive to think she was bound
+to get up and prepare the working-man’s breakfast.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are not used to that sort of hard work,
+dearie. We can do very well with cold corn-bread.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of all things the most stoggy and hopelessly uninviting,”
+interrupted his wife. “No, Ezra, I won’t
+have any of the people out here think I am a little
+fool that can’t do any useful work. I have my pride
+as well as other folks. I shall cook your breakfast
+to-morrow and every day afterwards, and I shall cook
+it well, see if I don’t.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am sure of that,” said her husband with the
+confidence of a bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The house of which the young bride had just taken
+possession was by no means an ordinary prairie house.
+Far from it. It had pretensions to comfort which the
+true prairie house should never possess, and it lacked
+the few elements of picturesqueness with which the
+genuine article is sometimes endowed. The plan on
+which it was built was of the simplest—the same that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>children adopt in building their doll’s houses—four
+sides and a sloping roof, all of wood from top to bottom.
+It was not a log-house, which has a few broken
+lines to rest the eye of the beholder and present possibilities
+to the artist, it was a frame house, that is,
+the straightest, stiffest, squarest, most hopelessly unpicturesque
+object that it is possible to imagine, and to
+make matters worse it was painted a glaring white
+from eave to foundation. There was not a broken line
+or a broken tint anywhere to refresh the eye, and
+it stood on the high prairie, as if hurled into a glaring
+world by a Titan’s hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The prairie is fertile, and in the eye of a farmer
+may possess the beauty of usefulness, but otherwise it
+is hideous. The long rolling billows of grass present
+no character, while the trees are confined to the river
+valleys where they find refuge from prairie fires, and
+can therefore lead a sufficiently undisturbed existence
+to reach quite a respectable height. A couple of
+small locust trees, not three feet high, were all that
+did duty as shade-giving plants near Olive’s house,
+which accordingly faced the world and its storms entirely
+on its own individual merits. Judged by prairie
+standard the house was “tip-top.” It possessed no
+less than four rooms, while the regular settler’s cabin
+was wont to indulge in only a single comprehensive
+apartment, which was kitchen, parlour and bedroom
+all in one. The two lower rooms were the kitchen,
+which was fairly large, and a smaller one off it, reserved
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>for the private use of the young wife. The
+kitchen looked like a ship’s cabin, only that it had
+more light than usually penetrates into a ship’s cabin.
+In fact it was very light, for there were two large windows,
+one to the north and one to the south, geometrically
+opposite each other. These two windows,
+so exactly facing each other, were fairly typical of the
+house itself, which was the embodiment of mathematical
+accuracy. The building was placed exactly east
+and west, as if it had been a carefully oriented church.
+There was a door on the south side, exactly in the
+middle, and a window on either side of the door, placed
+accurately in the centre of the space left between the
+side of the door and the end of the house. Over these
+two windows were two others exactly one half their
+size, giving light to the loft, and exactly in the centre
+of the roof-ridge was a black stove-pipe.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The average prairie man is a genius in the way
+of doing without things. He can live in a house of
+the smallest dimensions, containing the minimum of
+utensils. In fact, his idea of a house is that it should
+be a miner’s tent solidified into substantiality. The
+miner in a newly-prospected gold-field is a person who
+spends his days in a hole, and has no belongings but
+the clothes on his back and the shovel in his hand.
+He lives on his expectations. The regular prairie settler,
+would arrive in the spring, camp in his waggon,
+stick grains of corn under the sod, and think himself
+lucky if he could raise both the corn and a loghut,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>fourteen by twelve feet, before the cold weather
+set in. Those who have passed through such a severe
+school prune down their requirements. Therefore the
+house to which Ezra Weston brought his little bride
+was rightly considered to be a model of luxury, or in
+prairie phraseology to be “powerful full o’ truck.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The kitchen certainly was full. The stove, black
+and business-like, stood near the partition wall, and
+on it rested a couple of huge iron pots with covers.
+Chairs there were none, as Olive had remarked, but
+boxes and nail-kegs did as well and were useful in
+holding things. There was a large wooden table,
+very strongly made, on one side, and a set of shelves
+in one corner. The walls and ceiling, which were of
+wood closely jointed, added to the ship-like appearance
+of the room, but the presence of two large saws
+and a horse-collar which hung above them made a considerable
+deduction from the nautical character of the
+apartment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This model dwelling stood in the midst of a large
+tract of fenced-in land. Part of this was already
+under cultivation and showed a dark purple surface
+to the heavens, betokening newly turned up prairie
+sod full of the natural plant foods stored there for
+thousands of ages. These were now about to be recklessly
+used up by the ordinary system of prairie farming,
+which consisted of taking everything out of the
+land and of putting nothing back into it. A sort of
+road, that is to say a beaten track with deep channels
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>on either side, led from the house to the bars, which
+did duty as gate to the premises. These bars were precisely
+what the name implies, bars of wood lying on
+supports made for them between posts, and they were
+simply let down whenever horses or other animals
+had to pass in or out, and were climbed over by active
+children too lazy to let them down or rather, perhaps,
+too lazy to put them up again.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>On one side of the bars stretching out at an angle
+was an orchard just planted with trees that probably
+would be worth having twenty years hence, and further
+away was another field consisting simply of fenced-in
+prairie grass. The fields, and indeed everything else,
+were square, and every fence that did not run north
+and south, ran east and west. The whole place seemed
+under a despotism of compass and measuring chain.
+Indeed, the prairie itself was under the same iron rule:
+and by the authorities had been plotted out into squares
+of a mile each way called “sections,” of which persons
+could buy of the Government quarter sections or
+multiples of a quarter section at a low rate. Fortunately
+for humanity this conspiracy to turn the world
+into a surveyor’s map was to some extent defeated by
+the rivers and streams, which ran as Heaven and the
+water-sheds decreed, and not as the officials at Washington
+desired. This fact, and this alone, has in some
+measure saved the prairie from the awful fate of mathematical
+damnation.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER II.<br /> <span class='large'>UNCLE DAVID.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Mrs. Weston was tired and sat down in her rocking-chair
+to rest. Her day’s work was fairly over.
+The breakfast had been ready punctually at half past
+five, and it was well-cooked, as she had boasted it
+would be—corn-bread smoking hot, fried chicken, potatoes,
+flap-jacks and molasses—a meal for a king,
+to say nothing of a working-man and his negro help.
+Ezra and Napoleon Pompey had partaken heartily,
+especially the latter, for he had been living on underdone
+hoe-cake and cold pork. Then they had gone
+off to the ploughing, while Olive had bustled around
+and got forward with her house-work. At eleven
+o’clock she had run up the towel against the shady
+side of the house, a signal easily seen from the distant
+field, and signifying that dinner was ready. They
+had come home, men and horses thoroughly hungry
+and ready for food and rest. Ezra lay on the kitchen
+floor and talked to her while she washed up the dishes.
+And now it was three o’clock, and all the work was
+done. She thought she would read a little. She had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>several books with her that she had been looking forward
+to reading. So she took up one of them and
+seated herself comfortably in the rocking-chair. The
+door was open and a warm air came in from the south
+along with the gleaming sunshine. Diana lay across
+the door-way, but kept one eye open, so as to see
+when the black hen came near enough to have a spring
+at her with any chance of grabbing a mouthful of tail-feathers.
+Olive’s eyes rested very little on the book,
+but much on the view outside. It looked pleasant
+enough in the bright May sunshine. The long brown
+patch of the garden showed a few methodical green
+lines that spoke of vegetables beginning to sprout.
+The meadow of blue grass just beyond was likewise
+by its hue showing the on-coming of the warm spring
+weather, and yet again further off, on the other side
+of the meadow, lay the vast field which her husband
+was ploughing. Once in every half hour she could
+see him turn at the head-land, and noted how seldom
+he seemed to stop and rest. Napoleon Pompey was
+riding the off leader, and from that distance they
+seemed little insects gently crawling backwards and
+forwards across the land. Pleasant it looked too and
+by no means hard work. Olive determined to go out
+to the field one day soon and watch the process from a
+nearer point of view; she might indeed herself hold
+the plough-handles, it looked easy, she would ask Ezra
+to let her, she would like to learn to do all sorts of
+work so as to be very useful, she would—confused images
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>swept slowly over her mind, she leaned back her
+pretty little head and slept in her chair.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She awoke with a start. A large square figure
+stood in the door-way, blocking out the sunshine, and
+Diana, with the insane friendliness of a puppy, was
+trying to clamber up one of his legs.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, little gal, I reckon you’re ’most tired out,
+ain’t you?” said the big man, coming straight into
+the room.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Mrs. Weston rose to her utmost height of five feet
+two inches, and tried to be dignified.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you wish to see my husband?” she inquired
+stiffly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t want to see Ezry. I come to talk to
+you a spell, and see you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are very kind I’m sure,” returned the little
+lady icily, but the stranger did not seem one whit
+abashed. He took a nail-keg and sat down on it and
+looked about him. “Wal, now,” he remarked, nodding
+his head, “Ezry is real downright handy. He’s
+gone and got your house fine and fixed up, ain’t he
+now?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is extremely comfortable, Mr.—ah—I don’t
+think you mentioned your name,” said Mrs. Weston,
+with a snap of her black eyes. She didn’t at all relish
+the free and easy way in which this man spoke of her
+husband.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do tell!” exclaimed the stranger with vast cordiality.
+“An’ you didn’t know who I was. Why, I’m
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>Uncle David. I guessed everybody ’ud know me.
+There ain’t nobody else so big and awkward looking
+’bout here on this prairie as me. Why, there was
+a man over to Perfection City yesterday, he come from
+beyond Cotton Wood Creek, and he said he calculated
+I’d be powerful useful on washing days, ’cause if they
+tied the clothes-line to me I’d do instead of a pole,
+an’ timber is mighty scarce anyhow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David gave a long loud laugh that set Diana
+into an ecstasy of delight, and was of itself so joyous
+that, after a moment, Olive also joined in with a merry
+titter. She had often heard her husband speak of
+Uncle David, as being one of the kindest and most
+simple-hearted of men. Her frigid manner melted rapidly
+and completely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, now,” began Uncle David again, after his
+merriment had subsided, “how do you like our
+name?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your name,” repeated Olive considerably puzzled.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, our name, the name of the Community, Perfection
+City. Do you like it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t think I do,” replied she.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Jes’ so,” broke in Uncle David, apparently much
+pleased with this answer. “I knew you wouldn’t. Nobody
+does.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why did you call it such a name—such a horrid
+name—and if nobody likes it, what is the use?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There now, that’s what they all say, until I talk
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>to ’em,” said Uncle David. “You see I gave the name
+to the place.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, it was your choice!” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“When we came here, Niece and I, there wasn’t
+no town nor nothing, it was just open prairie. Ezry
+he come along too with us, and the Carpenters, and
+Mrs. Ruby, and the Wrights.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You leave out Madame Morozoff-Smith,” interrupted
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I thought you knew. Why, Madame, she’s Niece.
+She ain’t my real niece, she wasn’t born in my family,
+but she’s niece by adoption, and I hold she’s more to
+me than half the nieces I ever seen. I ain’t cute like
+most of the folks here, an’ there wasn’t no use in having
+me at Perfection City. I can’t do nothing. I
+can’t compose papers like Brother Wright. So I was
+studyin’ to see some way for me to come with ’em.
+It would ha’ broke my heart to be left behind. Madame,
+she come to me, an’ says she: ‘You’ll be my
+uncle. I want an uncle very much, and I’ll love you
+dearly.’ An’ so I was. I call it the greatest honour
+of my life when Madame made me her uncle, and added
+my name to hers.” Uncle David stooped and patted
+Diana’s head thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“When did you think of the name?” said Olive
+with a view to bringing him back to the point.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, jes’ so, that’s ’xactly what I was comin’ to.
+You see, when Ezry fust come here with us he wasn’t
+quite clear in his mind ’bout joinin’ in with us, leastways
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>not to be one of the Community for his whole
+mortal life. It’s a serious step to take, and he was
+a-doubtin’ in his mind, leastways till Madame she
+talked to him for a spell. He wasn’t sure fust if he’d
+got a call to community-life. He knowed it was the
+best, of course, and the true life: he knowed all that
+right enough, but he didn’t feel sure of himself as bein’
+fit to found a city. It is a most responsible thing to
+be a founder. ’Taint everybody as is fit for it. Then
+Madame made it clear how she was a founder, an’ she
+is the most wonderful woman ever lived in this world,
+an’ she showed Ezry how it was his duty to help in
+this great work, an’ when he saw that clear he was
+dreadful sot on it too. We was a-gettin’ our houses
+up as spry as ever we could, and ole Wright he was
+a-buildin’ th’ Academy, then Ezry says: ‘What’s goin’
+to be our name?’ It was jes’ called Weddell’s Gully,
+’cause we bought from a man o’ that name. So Ezry
+said: ‘Let’s call it something to signify our principles,’
+and one person said one name and one said another,
+then Wright said ‘Let’s call it Teleiopolis.’”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, that sounds very pretty,” exclaimed Olive.
+“Why didn’t you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, now, I said that’s very pretty, jes’ the same
+as you did. What does it mean, do you know?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t know. I suppose it is Greek for
+something.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“’Zactly so. It is Greek for something, and that
+something is Perfection City.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>“It sounds nicer.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Maybe so, but you look here. Are we Greeks?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, of course not.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then why talk in Greek?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know, except it is prettier.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you suppose them old Greeks, when they went
+an’ founded cities, they called ’em names out o’ some
+other language they didn’t understand, or did they
+called ’em good solid Greek names as any little boy
+’ud know what they meant?” asked Uncle David with
+rising energy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I believe they called their cities by Greek names,
+in fact I know they did,” said Olive, hastily reviewing
+her stock of history.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“An’ why?” asked Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Because they wasn’t ’shamed o’ their mother
+tongue like we are. That’s why,” said Uncle David,
+clapping his big hand on his knee.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh indeed,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“An’ that’s what I said, says I, ‘We are ’Mericans,
+we are founding a new city that’s goin’ to be great
+things one day. We have our principles. Let’s live
+up to them. We hain’t shamed o’ nothin’. Leastways
+not to my knowledge. We are goin’ to be an example
+to these folks roun’ here. We are goin’ to show
+’em how to live a better life nor they ever did before.
+An’ how in thunder can we do that if we start by
+being ’shamed of our own mother tongue? We hain’t
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>Greeks, we don’t talk in Greek. This hain’t Teleiopolis,
+this is Perfection City.’ That is what I said to
+’em.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What did they say to that?” asked Olive,
+much interested in the rugged honesty of Uncle
+David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I don’t know as they said anything much,
+on’y Ezry, he said he guessed he’d had his fust lesson,
+an’ he come and shook hands an’ said it certainly
+should be Perfection City, an’ so it was.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shall think better of the name now,” said Olive.
+“Only at first I was afraid of people laughing, people
+who didn’t understand it, you see.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, people’ll laugh,” said Uncle David. “People
+does a heap o’ laughing in this world without makin’
+it one mite merrier for anybody. I like laughing
+myself. It’s awful good an’ satisfyin’ to have a real
+square laugh, but t’aint that sort. Mos’ folks’ laugh
+hain’t got no more fun in it than the laugh of a hoot-owl.
+I’d a heap sight rather have none at all. You
+ain’t agoin’ to mind that sort, I hope?” Uncle David
+spoke with a shade of anxiety in his manner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh no, I’m not thin-skinned,” said Olive with
+a superior smile.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Some folks is made that way. When they have
+found a tender spot in anybody they can’t rest no
+how till they’ve stuck some sort o’ pin into it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Tell me, does everything belong to everybody
+generally out here? It is so puzzling. This house,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>for instance, is it ours or yours or everybody’s?”
+asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The land an’ the horses an’ the cattle an’ waggons
+was mostly bought with community-money, that is
+Madame, she gave the money, she’s rich you know,
+an’ she’s generous and always givin’ to the Community,
+her whole heart is in it. But Ezry worked a heap on
+this house, he mostly built it all, an’ it’s his, an’ t’other
+folks’ houses are theirs. That’s Brother Wright’s over
+yonder, an’ that’s our house beside the ’Cademy, most
+everybody worked to get it up and fix it comfortable for
+Madame. Old Mrs. Ruby, she lives to herself in the
+log cabin we bought from Weddell, we had it moved
+there a purpose over from the Gully, ’cause she liked
+to live beside the spring so as to get her water handy.
+She had a little mite of money which we used in buyin’
+stock.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“So you do have some things as private property,
+just like ordinary people,” observed Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of course. It would not be any sort o’ use to
+have everything in common, ’cause folks’ notions
+don’t always ’xactly suit. An’ what we want is to
+have everybody free, so they can be perfectly happy
+here. We don’t want to have no strife, an’ no jealousy,
+an’ no ill feeling one towards another. But there
+can’t be community in all things. What sort o’
+use would it be for you an’ me to have community
+o’ boots an’ shoes?” said Uncle David with a great
+laugh, sticking out his enormous foot towards where
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>Olive’s dainty little slipper peeped from beneath her
+dress.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your shoes, my dear, wouldn’t go on my two
+fingers, an’ mine ’ud be big enough to make a tol’eble
+boat for you. There couldn’t be community in shoes,
+so there ain’t none. But with the lan’ it’s different.
+We all work that for the benefit of everybody, there
+ain’t no strugglin’ to be fust an’ get ahead o’ one another.
+We are all brothers at Perfection City.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was full of excitement when Ezra came back
+at sun-down.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Just fancy, I’ve had my first visitor,” she said
+as she stood beside her husband while he was watering
+the horses.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who was it? Mrs. Ruby?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, it was Uncle David,” and she gave a merry
+little laugh.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, and how did you like him?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think he is just charming. He is just like a
+piece of granite or oak or something of that sort, not
+smooth or shiny on the outside, but solid and sound
+to the very core. Oh! I shall love Uncle David.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That’s right. He is a good man,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you know? he has made me understand
+about Perfection City. I shan’t want to laugh at it
+any more, and I don’t care if anybody else does. It
+was real brave of you showing your colours plain and
+sticking to them,” said Olive with a skip and a clap
+of her little hands.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER III.<br /> <span class='large'>SISTER MARY WINKLE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The very next morning just as she was washing
+her potatoes for dinner, another visitor called upon
+Olive, a visitor of whose sex she was for a moment
+or two in doubt. The visitor wore a large sunbonnet,
+a check blouse, and a pair of Zouave trowsers fastened
+in at the ankle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How do you do, Olive Weston?” said this person,
+in a deep serious voice. Olive, who had not seen
+her, started in surprise and dropped her potato into
+the basin.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am Mary Winkle. That’s my house over yonder.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, the Wrights’! Yes, to be sure. Come in and
+sit down,” said Olive hospitably, although she felt
+considerable surprise at her visitor’s appearance.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You don’t wear the reformed dress yet, I see,”
+said Mary Winkle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t,” acquiesced Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Shall you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know. I have not thought about it.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>I suppose there is no regulation about what one wears
+on the prairie. There is no fashion here I suppose,”
+said Olive politely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, only the fashion of common sense.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do all the ladies dress that way, Miss Winkle?”
+inquired Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Only my daughter and myself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I beg your pardon, I should have said Mrs. Winkle,”
+said Olive, in some confusion.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, you shouldn’t,” replied her visitor. “I am
+not Mrs. Winkle.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am afraid I am very stupid. Would you tell me
+then how I should address you. I don’t understand.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Address me as Mary Winkle, and my husband
+as John Wright.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive stared at her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Are you not Mrs. Wright then?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not. I scorn the title. It is a
+symbol of subjection. I did not lose my identity when
+I chose to marry. I am the same Mary Winkle that
+I was before, and as such I desire to retain the name
+that I always possessed. Why should I take a new
+name simply because I am married?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is usual,” stammered Olive. “I shouldn’t like
+not to be called Mrs. Weston. It is so confusing, you
+see.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mere custom and prejudice. Why should not
+your husband take your name, instead of its always
+being the wife who is absorbed?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>“I don’t know, but I never heard of it before.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, that is one of the first changes that must
+be made when women get their rights,” observed Mary
+Winkle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But I don’t want the change one bit. I much
+prefer the old way.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I dare say. Slaves often feel no want of freedom.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m not a slave,” said Olive, flushing angrily.
+“You cannot be in the least acquainted with my husband.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, I know your husband very well, an excellent
+man in many respects, but narrow in others;
+however, I referred to general slavery, to custom, not
+to any individual slavery in your case.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t think there is any good in destroying
+customs, unless there is something better to be got
+in a new custom.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah yes, no doubt it seems so to you; but there
+is inestimable gain in the mere protest against tyranny.
+Why, that’s what we are all here for, to protest
+against everything and live a life of freedom.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And freedom may as well begin here and now,
+and in its name I will wear long dresses and be called
+Mrs. Weston, because I prefer the older customs,”
+said Olive with some archness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, you may do as you like, but you will get
+heartily sick of those skirts, I can tell you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive remembering sundry pretty dresses she had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>in her trunk, was privately convinced she would not
+get sick of them.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I haven’t seen Madame yet,” she said, “and I
+feel the greatest curiosity about her. She must be
+a remarkable woman by all accounts. Does she wear
+the same sort of dress as you do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, she doesn’t, and it’s a great pity, for her
+influence would be very great with the other women.
+I suppose you’ll see her to-morrow evening. You’ll
+come to the Academy, won’t you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, certainly, if Ezra is going. I should like to
+go ever so much and see all my neighbours, but perhaps
+he will be too tired. He does work dreadfully
+hard, it seems to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He ought to do a little brain-work. Wright
+says nothing rests one like brain-work. He’s been
+doing a spell of that lately. He’s been writing an
+essay on ‘The Ultimate Perfection of Being.’ He’ll
+most likely read some of it to-morrow at the Academy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shouldn’t think essays would be much use in
+planting corn,” said Olive rather tartly, remembering
+at what hour her husband had come from the harrowing.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wright and I, we don’t believe in making a god
+of work. We have a much higher ideal of life than
+that. We don’t want anything sordid in our lives,
+Wright and I. We haven’t any sympathy with this
+restless striving to get on. One of the great advantages
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>of Perfection City is that we all have time for
+the cultivation of our higher natures.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Just now,” said Olive, “my husband seems to
+have no thought in his mind but the cultivation of
+that field over there. He is at work early and late.
+No person could possibly work harder for himself
+or his individual advantage than he does for the Community.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There’s just a case in point,” remarked Mary
+Winkle complacently. “I always thought your husband
+very narrow in his views. He slaves away at
+this corn planting as if that were the chief end and
+object of his existence. It is all very well to work
+at times, but working in order to store up food for
+the body is the lowest possible form that human activity
+can take.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is the most indispensable form,” remarked
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“By no means,” replied Mary Winkle with precision.
+“That observation would seem to indicate that
+you are more narrow even than your husband. The
+body is merely the servant of the mind: the mind
+needs to be fed, and it is the food for the mind which
+your husband appears so careless about providing.
+Fortunately for Perfection City, Wright has taken
+thought on that subject. Wright has a very high
+standard of what is necessary for the mind.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It appears to me,” said Olive with a snap of her
+black eyes and an ominous red spot on her cheeks,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>“that if we all lived up to your standard, it might
+very well happen that by next winter our minds might
+be uncomfortably full and our stomachs correspondingly
+empty. If Ezra did not plough and get his land
+ready for planting as fast as mortal man can, how
+is the land to be got ready? It doesn’t plough itself,
+does it, even at Perfection City?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I see you will have to get rid of many prejudices,”
+observed Mary Winkle. “Of course community-life
+only comes easy to people who are adapted to it.
+Wright and I are adapted. We like it. We shall stay
+here. We shall succeed therefore. You and Brother
+Ezra will have to go through a season of training
+first. You both need it. I dare say you may hear
+something that you will find useful to you to-morrow
+from Wright. I will just mention to him where
+your particular blindness seems to lie. Wright is a
+very profound thinker. He has given great thought
+to the subject of the Ultimate Perfection of People.
+He can explain every step in the training of a perfect
+communist, and show clearly just where everybody
+has hitherto gone wrong in their attempts to realize
+their ideal, and exactly what mistakes they have made.
+I am glad you have come in time to hear his paper;
+it will be of lasting good to you. You will be able
+to profit by it, because you are in great need of proper
+training. I dare say you need it more even than Ezra.
+For, after all, he must have learned something from
+us in the year he has been with us.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IV.<br /> <span class='large'>MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Academy at Perfection City was not a pretentious
+building in anything but in name. It was
+a plain wooden house, almost square, having a window
+on three sides and a door on the fourth, facing south.
+Inside there were several rough benches, two tables,
+an iron stove, and a large easy chair, with a small desk
+beside it, upon which stood a pair of candles. There
+were no curtains and no carpets, absolutely no attempts
+at beautifying the place. But the board-floor
+was clean.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive dressed herself in a flutter of expectation
+for her first visit to this abode of wisdom.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I expect everybody will be there, because they’ll
+all want to see you, little woman,” said her husband,
+who, tired as he was after his day’s work, changed
+his earth-stained clothes for a fresh suit. Olive wore
+a white dress with lavender ribbons, and looked as
+fresh as a daisy as she tripped along daintily holding
+up her skirts. She wore the nattiest of boots over
+the neatest of feet, altogether a bright and unexpected
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>sight upon the glum-looking prairie. It was a quarter
+of a mile to the Academy, down a road hardly
+more than a cart-track, and across a dry gully where
+there were no stepping stones.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>As Ezra had predicted, everybody had turned out
+to welcome the new bride. Uncle David met her at
+the door.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, little girl,” he said, “we’re all a-looking out
+for you. Here’s Sister Mary Winkle, you’ve seen
+her, and this is her husband, Brother Wright.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive shook hands with a dark, broad-shouldered
+man who spoke in snaps as if he had been a dog. He
+had glittering white teeth.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We’ve been looking to have your husband back,”
+he said.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m sure you’re very kind,” murmured Olive
+conventionally.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We needed him for the ploughing,” snapped
+Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh indeed!” said Olive less cordially.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is the busy time of the year.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“All times a-year is the busy time in my ’pinion
+and ’sperience,” said Uncle David smiling comprehensively,
+“but most everyone spares time one way
+or ’nother to get married if they have a mind that
+way. Come along an’ see Brother and Sister Dummy.
+That ain’t their name, but we call ’em so, they’re
+deaf and mostly dumb now. They’re real good folks
+too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>A sad-eyed red-haired man shook hands with her,
+and a sad-eyed woman kissed her. They put into
+her hand a slip of paper on which was written a message
+of welcome.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They can talk a little, but they can’t hear one
+mite, and they don’t like to talk, because they can’t
+tell when they are whispering and when they are
+yelling, and it makes strangers jump to hear them
+sometimes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive felt drawn towards this poor silent pair, but
+did not know how to express her sympathy. There
+were others in the room, but before she had time to
+speak to them the door opened and Madame Morozoff-Smith
+entered, and from that moment she seemed to
+see no one else. Madame was a remarkable looking
+woman. She was tall, large and fair, with keen grey
+eyes, full red lips, and a mass of pale gold hair rising
+over a forehead that was broad and smooth. A woman
+of indeterminate age with an air of youthfulness and
+command about her. She was dressed in a dark dress
+and wore a bright bunch of ribbons in her hair. It
+looked at first sight like a rose, only roses don’t grow
+on the prairie in the month of May. She came straight
+to where Olive was standing. She gave one the impression
+of floating, for although a large woman, she
+walked so lightly as to make no noticeable sound on
+the wooden floor. Taking Olive’s two hands in her
+warm large grasp, she kissed her on the forehead
+murmuring “Welcome,” and then stepping back
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>she said in a clear voice that vibrated through the
+room:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah! now I understand that hurried courtship
+and swift marriage. I see what it was in Brother
+Ezra’s case. It was love at first sight. You are very
+pretty. I suppose, however, you know that very well.
+It is a secret seldom kept from young girls.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was so startled by this unexpected address
+that she blushed to the roots of her black hair. Ezra
+stood looking down at his little wife smiling with
+pleasure. He was delighted to think that Madame
+found her so pretty. He had indeed thought her beautiful
+from the first moment when his eyes had rested
+on her, but then he loved her, and it was but natural
+that in his eyes she should be lovely. Madame, however,
+judged her unprejudiced, and yet if his delighted
+heart had room for one regret, it was that Madame’s
+praise had been so very public. If she had only whispered
+it softly to him in that wonderful voice of hers,
+which had often caught up his inmost thoughts and
+clothed them in words of eloquence, how much more
+precious would the tribute have been. He dismissed
+the half-formed regret as unworthy, and took himself
+to task for not exulting at this moment. The meeting
+of Madame and Olive was an event in his life. Olive,
+his sweet little rose-bud of a wife, on the one hand,
+and Madame, his venerated, nay his worshipped, friend,
+on the other. The one, the companion of his heart:
+the other, the guide of his mind who embodied in herself
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>all that he held highest in the possibilities of
+womanhood, his true and noble-hearted friend, his
+inspired leader. How blest was the portion of him
+who stood that night the husband of the one, the disciple
+of the other! Ezra’s dark eyes shone with joy,
+and his square chin quivered with the smiles that
+lurked about his lips. He was not a handsome man,
+perhaps, but there was something grand in the large
+full forehead, strong eyebrows, and deep dark eyes.
+His massive frame bespoke strength, which in itself
+has always a great attraction for women.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When Madame had addressed those words to the
+new sister all the members of the Community had
+scanned her narrowly, for the opinion of their leader
+had immense weight with the Pioneers. The men
+looked at Olive with increased admiration, and the
+women with envy. Only Uncle David appeared disappointed
+and wiped his face many times with his red
+pocket-handkerchief saying, “Wal, wal, now,” in a
+tone of earnest reproof.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>After this bewildering introduction in which her
+vanity had been not a little excited, Olive received
+a salutary check from the words of Brother Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Before beginning to read my paper,” said he,
+“I should like to say a few words to the new sister
+who has come among us. We expect soon to be having
+new members join us so fast that perhaps we
+shall not be able to specially mark the entrance of
+each. But in this case there are peculiar reasons for
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>exhortation. Sister Olive has not joined under ordinary
+circumstances. She did not, like the rest of us,
+feel a call to the higher life: she only came out of
+personal affection for one of the members of the Community.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive looked with a shy glance towards her husband,
+who took her hand in his for a moment, while
+Uncle David, who sat at the end of the room near
+Madame, said in a loud voice:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Quite right, quite right, couldn’t ha’ had a better
+reason.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Therefore it becomes our duty to impress upon
+our new sister the principles which have been active
+in forming this Community,” said Brother Wright,
+without paying any heed to Uncle David’s interruption.
+“Perfection City has been founded to teach
+the world how to live. The old civilization has been
+tried and found wanting. It is time for a new one.
+Perfection City is the beginning of a new era. We
+are the Pioneers of a new world. We shall show
+the old and worn-out world how to banish evil from
+life. We cannot perhaps banish all physical evil, and
+for a time at least there may be sickness even among
+us, but we shall at once set about freeing ourselves
+from all the other troubles of life. There is nobody
+in Perfection City who will get rich, and nobody will
+ever be poor. We are all alike, and we shall none of
+us envy our neighbours his belongings, simply because
+everything belongs to all. The lesson we have to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>teach is the grandest the world ever saw, and when
+men know what it is, I foresee a future before Perfection
+City greater than that of any other city of the
+world. Rome lasted a good long while, but Rome
+didn’t possess the vital spark of life: Rome wasn’t
+communistic, therefore Rome fell. Perfection City
+won’t fall like that, but will go on teaching the world
+after we, its founders, are all dead. But our memories
+will live for the great things that we taught and
+through our example have made possible.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Wright stopped for a few seconds, and
+Uncle David said admiringly,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You have a fine command of words, Brother
+Wright, and you have a way of making things sound
+uncommon grand. It always does me good to hear
+you talk of the grand future of our City; but we’ll
+have to get up some houses, and bigger ones, ’fore
+folks ’ull believe us.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David was as simple as a child, or some
+of his hearers might have suspected a sarcasm in his
+words.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Rome wasn’t built in a day, as I’ve heard say,”
+remarked Brother Green, with a strong English accent,
+“and I shall be glad if our little village ever
+grows to half its power and honour.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Green, I should refuse to have anything
+to say to the founding of another city like Rome,”
+interrupted Brother Wright with decisiveness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It seems to me,” said Ezra in a shy hesitating
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>manner, “that what we are here for is to demonstrate,
+if we can, how a better life can be lived here than
+is possible in the older communities, where circumstances
+are too strong and too hampering for people
+to rise above them. The older civilization has done
+much, it has raised our race to a high standard. What
+we want to do is to carry on that work, and above
+all to bring everyone within reach of the best that life
+has to offer. The older civilization has left so many
+stranded ones, who have lost their strength in the wild
+struggle; while we hope to bring all along equally
+and give to each a share of happiness. As usual, my
+friends, when I try to express my ideas I find that
+someone else has already put them into incomparably
+finer language than I can ever command. It has been
+so again. I find that our great poet, Walt Whitman,
+has said better than I can what I feel. May I quote
+him to you?</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in16'>‘Have the elder races halted?</div>
+      <div class='line'>Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?</div>
+      <div class='line'>We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,</div>
+      <div class='line in16'>Pioneers! O pioneers!’”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra sat down after reciting his verse, and his wife
+looked at him with glowing eyes. He had not said
+much, but his words had seemed to her so much fuller
+of thought and feeling than the easy monotonous flow
+from Brother Wright. That individual himself had
+not received Ezra’s remarks with quite so much delight.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>It was Brother Wright’s nature to see fight and
+contradiction in all things, even the most pacific. His
+eyes would flash and his black beard bristle in argument,
+almost as if he were a dog preparing to fight,
+and if one might be permitted to liken any Pioneer
+to one of the canine species, the bull-dog would undoubtedly
+be the variety most nearly resembling Brother
+Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t see that we need be beholden to anyone,
+poet or otherwise,” he said sharply, “for our opinions
+or sentiments. We have found them for ourselves,
+just as we have founded our City. It is our work,
+both opinions and practice.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think,” said Madame, rising and speaking with
+a deep clear voice, which a slight foreign accent
+seemed to render only the more attractive, “I think
+I see better than they do themselves where our two
+brothers agree. Brother Ezra, with that diffidence
+which strong natures often exhibit, thought he found
+in the lines of another man his own ideas more succinctly
+embodied than they would have been in his
+own words. Brother Ezra should not doubt his powers.
+Speech comes slowly to those who most deeply
+think, but he should consider how much we benefit
+by his words and how grateful we are to him for them.
+Brother Wright, it seems to me that you, perhaps,
+do not sufficiently appreciate the efforts of others who
+have gone before us on this road. We are not the first
+who have been discontented with the actual order of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>things, nor are we the first who have striven to make
+life brighter and easier. In all ages there have been
+those penetrated with these thoughts, and in different
+ways men, and women too, have striven earnestly,
+devotedly, to realize these ideas. Some indeed have
+imagined they had found a solution of all doubts and
+difficulties, and have in perfect good faith and self-satisfaction
+buried themselves in convents and monasteries
+and have ‘roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,’ and
+have ‘built them fanes of fruitless prayer.’ We have
+come to different conclusions by following a different
+road. We do not shut ourselves out of the world,
+rather we endeavour to raise it by showing a living
+example of what may be done now, in this age, by
+human beings such as we are. But if we are to succeed
+we must not reject the experience, nor fail to
+profit by the example, of others who have gone before
+us and felt earnestly on this subject.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame paused for a moment, and her keen glance
+rested upon the small assembly. Each individual
+seemed to feel that she was looking at him or at
+her. Certainly each member was looking intently at
+her. She seldom made speeches to them; she only
+interposed her observations, as on this occasion, between
+the speakers; but the last word usually remained
+with her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Wright, will you now read us your paper,
+as the evening is passing and we are all anxious to
+hear it. What is the title and subject?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>“The Ultimate Perfection of Being is the title,”
+said Brother Wright, “and I think that pretty well
+sums up the subject also.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>So apparently thought the audience, which
+resigned itself to a severe mental excursion into
+the unknown regions of Brother Wright’s imaginative
+metaphysics. Some of them fell out very
+soon, finding the road harder to follow than they
+had foreseen; but Brother Wright kept sturdily
+on, unheeding the signs of weakness and disaffection
+as betrayed by movings of feet and stifled
+yawns.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive, not being able to understand what Brother
+Wright was saying, employed herself in watching
+Madame, who sat motionless beside her table, resting
+her head upon her supple white hand. At her feet
+lay what seemed to be a large brown rug, but was in
+fact her dog Balthasar, a blood-hound, who always
+stayed with her and was as gentle as a lamb, notwithstanding
+his name and breed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Green! That’s the second time you’ve
+snored,” suddenly exclaimed Brother Wright in the
+midst of his reading. Everybody was wide awake in
+an instant. Madame hid a smile with her hand, but
+not before Olive had noticed it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Green is perhaps tired. His work is very
+hard,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, the fact is I had to put a new point to
+the ploughshare this morning before I went to fetch
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>my load of iron, and I began work before daybreak.
+I am very tired.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green was the blacksmith of Perfection
+City, an industrious hard-working man who thought
+life would show him a fairer side on the prairie than
+it had ever done in the far-away village in Sussex
+where he was born.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think that it might be better to have our gatherings
+rather shorter now,” said Madame softly. “The
+workers in our little hive are all tired. I wish I
+could do more of the labour that is needed. I would
+gladly——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame was interrupted by a sharp rap on the
+table, a signal from Brother Huntley that he wanted
+to speak. He was the deaf and dumb man. She instantly
+rose and bowed to him with singular graciousness.
+Madame’s manner towards the deaf brethren
+was all that was exquisite. Huntley stood up
+and began in a voice almost inaudible which rose
+by sudden degrees to the intensity of a steam-whistle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I want to know when we’re going to get our
+corn planted? We’re behindhand; most other folk’s
+corn is in already.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“As usual, Brother Huntley has something practical
+to say,” observed Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He didn’t know we were discussing quite another
+subject, else his remark would have been rude
+and irrelevant,” said Wright, vexed at this cutting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>into his paper on the ultimate perfection of his and
+everybody’s being.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think it would be very useful to see what we
+can do about the corn,” said the blacksmith. “If we
+are late the chances are there’ll be another drought in
+July, and our crop won’t be first-class.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is anyone’s land ready for planting?” inquired
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“None as I know of, except Brother Dummy’s,”
+said Uncle David. “He’s more forward nor anybody:
+always first in work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of course, poor deaf creature! he can’t do anything
+but dumbly work like a——” began Brother
+Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My land is ready for planting,” burst in Brother
+Huntley with a scream.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then it shall be planted to-morrow,” cried Madame.
+“I’ll go myself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You!” exclaimed Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Certainly, child. Don’t you think I can work as
+well as any other woman?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She rapidly wrote a few words on a slip of paper
+and passed it to Brother Huntley, who read it, nodded
+with satisfaction, and said: “Five o’clock in the morning!”
+in a voice so low that no one knew he was
+speaking.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I suppose he begins work about six?” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, he don’t, he’s mighty spry,” said old Mrs.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>Ruby, who lived near the Huntleys. “I hear him
+a-movin’ off with his plough every morning at five
+by the clock. He’s terrible sot on his work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I shall be there ready to go to work at five
+o’clock in the morning, and I shall begin by going
+to bed now, so as to be able to give a good day’s
+work. Good-night, friends all.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She rose, included them all in a sweeping salute
+and left the room as lightly as she had entered. Balthasar
+rose and slowly followed her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When Madame left the room the meeting broke
+up. No one felt inclined to linger when she was gone.
+It was from her they drew their interest in each other,
+as well as their belief in themselves and in Perfection
+City. She possessed the secret of influencing people
+without seeming to do so. The thought that she was
+going out on the land at five in the morning to plant
+corn made everyone ten times more eager to work
+than heretofore.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Wright and his independent spouse, Mary Winkle,
+were infected by her example as they went
+home.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Now, Wright, don’t you go and do any more
+essaying till the crop is in. I think people oughtn’t
+to write except in winter time,” said Mary Winkle
+with firmness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I never believed in nothing but manual work.
+Why, if I did, I should be still slaving away on that
+farm out in Illinois, instead of joining a community
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>here where one can follow the bent of his higher nature,
+to the advantage of his neighbours as well as of
+himself,” said Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, let that be,” said Mary hastily, recognising
+her own words and oft-expressed opinions, but not
+quite knowing what to do with them—a predicament
+not unexampled among theoretical philosophers,
+“but see and be out on the land to-morrow as early
+as anyone. Are you ready for the planting? Because
+I’ll go out and plant if you are.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, my drills won’t be ready for the planting
+till day after to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I’ll go and plant on Brother Dummy’s
+piece along with Madame.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You’d better not. You’re not fit for such work.
+You’ll get sick and not be able to cook me any supper
+when I come home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I shan’t get sick. I ain’t going to let
+any person beat me at work, when I set my mind
+to it, and she in her long skirts too! I’ll show
+her the advantage of the reformed dress anyhow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Thus the Wright and Winkle pair on their way
+home.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And will she really plant corn?” asked Olive in
+some curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Certainly she will. Madame never despised
+work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! I don’t despise work, but she seems such
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>a fine lady to go out on the land and plant corn just
+like a negro woman.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That is one of the things our life here is intended
+to show, dearie, that no one is too grand for any honest
+work that he or she is physically capable of performing.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER V.<br /> <span class='large'>CORN PLANTING.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Punctual to the minute, there was Madame with
+her bag of corn on her left arm, following Brother
+Huntley and his plough-horses to the field, in the
+damp white fog of sunrise. Balthasar in deep disgust
+was there too, as in duty bound, but he had not a
+wag for anybody. How could a rational dog be in
+good spirits at that hour of the morning! Madame
+was dressed in a short calico frock well up to her
+ankles. Her fair hair was loosely wisped at the back
+of her head, and a large straw hat, tied down with
+a green gauze veil, made her look at once comfortable
+in the fog and ready for the expected sunshine. There
+were no corn-planters at Perfection City: farm-machinery
+was not then so plentiful on the prairie as
+now, and money was if possible scarcer. Corn planting
+was, therefore, done by hand. Brother Dummy’s
+drills of longitude were already ploughed, and he
+began on the drills of latitude forthwith. Into the
+hollows made by the intersection of these two sets
+of drills Madame was to drop three grains of corn,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>neither more nor less. It is dizzying work. After
+walking up and down the drills for hours one becomes
+oppressed by the never-ceasing square constantly recurring
+every two steps. The check pattern bewilders
+you, and you begin to wonder how a chess-man would
+feel if, endowed with sensibility and the power of
+motion, he had to march up and down his chess-board,
+always keeping to the lines for hours at a stretch.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>About seven o’clock Mary Winkle came upon the
+scene and plodded and planted for four hours. The
+sun was blazing down upon them pitilessly, and the
+parching south wind blew the fine black dust up from
+the rich dry soil, until their eyes and ears and noses
+were full of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The field which they were planting was on the
+extreme verge of the community-land, far away from
+the houses. These were somewhat clustered towards
+the centre of the holding, which consisted of two sections
+or a little over twelve hundred acres. The
+workers, therefore, were a long way from home, considerably
+over a mile, and since corn planting entails
+ceaseless walking through heavy ploughed land, it had
+been settled that their dinner should be brought out
+to them, so as to enable the workers to rest during
+the whole dinner hour. Olive and Mrs. Ruby were
+to supply the necessary food, and the former, aided
+by Napoleon Pompey, was to bring it to the field at
+eleven o’clock. The little grove of locust trees just
+beginning to grow beside the far spring was the trysting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>place. Water would thus be handy, and the horses’
+feed was already put there by the provident Brother
+Huntley. A little before the hour Olive and her black
+attendant arrived at the grove, bringing their load of
+food, and Olive set down her big tin can with a sigh
+of relief. Her arms ached with carrying it, for it was
+heavy and the way was long. Napoleon Pompey had
+carried two cans, each heavier than hers, but the lad
+seemed to feel no inconvenience from the load. Olive
+looked at him with envy and thought with contempt
+of her own muscles which appeared so inefficient. As
+she unpacked the food, it seemed to her that nothing
+she had learnt at Smyrna and could best do, was
+wanted on the prairie, and she remembered with some
+amusement and not a little bitterness Mary Winkle’s
+words about food for the mind. At this moment she
+reflected that all the learning in the world was not so
+much needed by that philosophical lady as the very
+gross and material food which was being taken out
+of the heavy tin cans and laid on the grass. The
+working-party, men, women and horses, arrived while
+Olive was thus engaged. Mary Winkle instantly sat
+down and leaned against a tree and threw off her sunbonnet.
+Her thin black hair was matted down to her
+temples, her cheeks were yellow, and her eyes looked
+dull. Madame also took off her hat and veil and shook
+up the coil of hair on her head with a sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Does your head ache too?” said Mary Winkle
+wearily.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>“Not in the least,” replied Madame. “A sunbonnet
+is a bad shelter against heat. You should
+wear a good hat, it is far better.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wonder how you can bear all that hair on your
+head. Why don’t you cut it off?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, it is an admirable protection against both
+heat and cold,” said Madame laughing. “It is my
+greatest comfort.” She might have added her greatest
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The food which Olive brought was most appetising,
+roast chicken, hot corn-bread, and pumpkin pies,
+with plenty of milk and water to drink. Before eating
+Madame went to the spring to wash her hands and
+face, and Mary Winkle sat limply against the tree
+trunk with her eyes shut.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Eat something, it will revive you,” said Olive,
+looking with pity upon her sallow cheeks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t feel hardly able to eat,” she said in a
+weak voice. “It seems to me I don’t ever want to
+open my eyes again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are overworking yourself,” said Olive, “you
+should not attempt this field work: it is beyond your
+strength.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What! and let her see me give in?” said Mary
+Winkle with reviving spirit.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame came up at this moment looking as
+fresh as a lily: she glanced sharply at Sister Mary.
+“You appear very much exhausted,” she remarked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>Sister Mary raised her head and opened her eyes,
+but did not speak.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It’s a pity you don’t take wine,” she continued,
+sitting down and beginning on her piece of chicken
+with relish. “A good glass of Burgundy would set
+you up in no time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Sister Mary herself sat up at this.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t touch wine, no, not if I was dying,”
+she said resolutely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame smiled. “I didn’t recommend it because
+you were dying: wine as everything else is then useless:
+but because you look weak. I suggested a medicine.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“As a medicine it is worse than useless, and as a
+drink I scorn to take a rank poison.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Poisons are sometimes given as medicine, witness
+strychnine in small doses for certain forms of dyspepsia,
+and I believe satisfactorily,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wine is worse than strychnine, because more
+insidious in its action and more liable to abuse,” said
+Mary Winkle decisively, as she took the tin cup of
+milk and water handed her by Olive, and drank it
+with eagerness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, at all events admit that wine has been
+of benefit to you on this occasion,” observed Madame
+smiling. “I merely mentioned it to you, and you
+look already revived and more like yourself. Doesn’t
+she, Sister Olive?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It was the milk and water did it,” said Sister
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>Mary Winkle hurriedly, at which Madame smiled
+again.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Dummy and Napoleon Pompey now came
+up to the group of women. They had been watering
+and unharnessing the horses who were at the present
+moment munching their corn. The white man, although
+dirty as a ploughman would be after half a
+day’s hard work, sat down promptly beside Mary Winkle
+and helped himself to a leg of chicken: the negro
+boy stood aside doubtfully, eyeing the group and the
+food with longing looks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Come along, N. P.,” said Olive brightly, “sit
+down there.” She pointed to a place on the other
+side of Mary Winkle, where there seemed a good opening
+in front of a huge piece of corn-bread.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, if you please,” said Sister Mary, rising to
+her feet with resentment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Olive flushing
+with surprise. “Napoleon Pompey won’t bite you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have never sat down to eat beside a negro, and
+I don’t feel inclined to begin now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Let the lad sit beside me,” said Madame gently.
+“I have seen people of too many shades of colour
+and no colour to mind a little extra dash of black.
+Come here, boy, come and have this piece of bread
+and meat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Napoleon Pompey grinning with all his white teeth
+sprang to the place beside Madame, and buried those
+same teeth eagerly in his chunk of bread. Mary Winkle
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>sat down again and leaned against the tree. Olive’s
+face took a deeper tinge of red and her eyes snapped.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you consider yourself made of such fine clay
+that it won’t bear contact with a negro?” she asked
+hotly. “It seems to me a little of what used to be
+called Christian charity might come in useful here. I
+never aspired to the heights of Perfection City people,
+but I never refused the rights of brotherhood to the
+negro simply because of the curl of his hair or the
+colour of his skin.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am quite willing to give them all their rights
+and will be glad to see them educated and all that,
+but I never sat at dinner with a negro, and I am not
+going to begin now,” said Mary Winkle setting her
+thin pale lips with the utmost stubbornness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I call it perfectly monstrous,” retorted
+Olive, “and you setting yourself up to show the better
+life and all the rest of it! I should have thought the
+first thing to do before teaching the highest perfection
+was to practise the simplest justice.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you, Sister Olive,” said Madame’s cool sweet
+voice, “will have to learn to respect the prejudices
+of other people even when they run counter to your
+most cherished theories. I do not myself share the
+feeling of repulsion that Sister Mary has in this case,
+but I respect it. I would suggest to you to do the
+same. It is an inconvenient fact, perhaps, that people
+do not all think alike, but it is one that must be resolutely
+faced nevertheless.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>Olive was silent under this reproof, but she looked
+angrily at Mary Winkle from time to time, and revenged
+herself by feeding up Napoleon Pompey and
+petting him to an alarming extent, much to the delight
+of that young darkie who ate until he seemed
+to ooze out unctuous joy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Dummy ate, as he worked, silently, conscientiously,
+continuously. Olive was amazed at the
+amount he seemed able to consume, while of milk and
+water he drank half a gallon or thereabouts.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How can he do it?” said Olive in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You forget,” replied Madame, “that he has been
+following that plough for six long hours, and the
+dry wind raised such a dust around him that he must
+have swallowed a vast quantity of it in the course of
+the day. It takes a good deal to slake the thirst after
+such a dust visitation as that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When Brother Dummy had eaten and drunk his
+fill he lay down on the grass and went instantly to
+sleep. The three women looked at him for a moment
+or two.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He seems to have very little enjoyment in his
+life,” said Olive compassionately.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But then he has also few sorrows,” said Madame.
+“The high lights are wanting, perhaps, but so are the
+dark shadows. His life is like a grey landscape. It
+has a beauty of its own, but not everyone can see it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“To live in eternal silence seems to me the most
+awful curse,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>“I can imagine many a worse one,” replied Madame,
+looking out from among the few bare trees
+away across the open prairie.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What could be worse?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, for example, to know that someone you
+loved did not love you. To have to shut up your heart
+within iron doors, and never open them to let it out.
+That would be worse than to be denied the power of
+speech, which after all can now be supplemented in
+many ways by artificial means. Brother Huntley is
+not actively unhappy, I should judge. He and his
+wife have always appeared to me to be a very united
+couple.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They cannot quarrel, at all events,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, not, at least, in the ordinary way,” replied
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When Brother Dummy awoke after his little
+snooze, he got up, looked at the sun to see what time
+of day it was, and then signed to Napoleon Pompey
+to rouse up. That young person was lethargic, owing
+to his anaconda-like meal, accordingly Brother Dummy
+roused him with his foot. The darkie rolled over
+and said “Yah!” and started for the horses, who were
+nodding over their corn-cobs, now nibbled down to
+the smallest dimensions. Olive, whose resentment at
+the slight put upon Napoleon Pompey by Mary Winkle
+urged her to identify herself with the negro boy,
+walked away with him and Brother Dummy to watch
+the hitching up. Madame employed herself in throwing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>scraps of bread to Balthasar, who would have much
+preferred eating the chicken bones, only that was a
+debauch not permitted to a dog of his manners. Mary
+Winkle looked hopelessly along those weary furrows,
+up and down which it would be her duty to march
+again, dropping her seeds of corn as before.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Are you going to work all the afternoon?” she
+asked of her companion.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I think so. We shall get this field planted
+and covered in by sun-down, I should think. And
+that will be a great piece of work done. We cannot
+afford to let the individualists beat us at corn planting,
+can we? We must do at least as well as they, and I
+should hope we might do better.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know how you can stand so much heat
+and hard work,” said Mary, “and in that dress too.
+Why, if I were to attempt to work in long skirts I
+should be dead in a week.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t mind my dress at all,” said Madame.
+“It never bothers me. I don’t think about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But don’t you think about it when your back
+aches?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It never does.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t understand it,” says Mary once more.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I suspect that the reason you American women
+find your dress such a burden is because you are so
+weak yourselves,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“American women accomplish as much or more
+than any others, I should say,” observed Mary.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>“Precisely, but not from their muscular strength.
+They work out of their nerves, and that is why they
+never last any length of time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame finished her day’s work at six o’clock, and
+then walked home humming a German dance tune to
+herself. Mary Winkle stopped at four o’clock, and
+dragged herself home to bed with a fearsome headache,
+still puzzling how it was that her perfect dress had
+not done better for her in that day’s trial. She did
+not know that all her scientific dressing was as nothing
+compared with the robust vitality, which Madame
+brought with her from another land, and which, running
+in such vigorous beats through her blood, was
+inherited from generations of strong healthy ancestors.
+Madame’s father was a Russian colonel noted
+for his size and strength and also for his wildness.
+Her mother was a pretty English girl, who had nothing
+to bequeath to her daughter but health, personal
+beauty, and this piece of advice: “Never stake your
+happiness on any man, it always brings disaster to
+the woman.” Mary Winkle’s mother, on the other
+hand, was a nervous invalid at thirty, and her father
+was a dyspeptic dietetic reformer, who pinned his salvation
+on never eating salt. Small wonder, therefore,
+that the daughter of the one pair should be able to
+plant corn all day long and walk lightly home at evening,
+while the offspring of the other pair could do
+only three quarters of a day’s work, after which headache
+and nervous exhaustion.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VI.<br /> <span class='large'>NON-RESISTANCE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was the custom of the Pioneers to send once a
+week to Union Mills in order to do their necessary
+marketing and to get the post, which came there twice
+a week from Kansas City by stage-coach. The subject
+of the post was one that had been rather hotly
+debated at Perfection City, although to the outsider
+it would seem a very harmless topic, and not fruitful
+of division. The fact was, however, that there was
+only one member of the Community who showed any
+eagerness about getting letters regularly and often,
+and that member was Madame. She indeed did receive
+a most unconscionable number of letters and periodicals,
+so the other members thought. She got several
+American Magazines, such as the Atlantic Monthly
+and Harper’s, but she also received English papers,
+and French ones, and occasionally German ones as
+well. The Community thought, but did not dare to
+give public expression to the thought, that Madame
+should have rested content with the mental sustenance
+provided by themselves for home consumption.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>Brother Wright in particular felt himself equal to the
+task of providing everybody with all they needed in
+the way of correct views upon even the highest subjects.
+But Madame, although she listened with politeness
+and apparent attention to what he had to say,
+found this sustenance too meagre for the wants of her
+nature. Moreover she took a deep interest in the affairs
+of the outside world, an interest almost offensive
+to persons who prided themselves upon having risen
+above the world and all its concerns. It was really
+humiliating to think that the leading spirit of their
+Community should occupy her mind with the relations
+between Prussia and Austria, when such questions as
+affected the future of humanity and of Perfection City
+were what filled their souls. She even evinced a keen
+interest in the career and personality of the Prussian
+minister, Bismarck, and that, too, when Brother
+Wright was willing to give her the light of his
+thoughts upon all really important questions. It was
+painful to the feeling of the Pioneers, who were all
+in all to themselves and wished to be so to others, but
+they had to put up with it, since Madame was their
+leader and, moreover, the only one who had a purse
+with some money in it. Ezra was the only member of
+the Community who sided with Madame in her taste
+for reading the new books and the latest periodicals.
+He and she had that taste, with many others, in common,
+and it drew them together in an especial degree.
+On his last trip East during the winter, when he
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>had been so unexpectedly delayed, as they now knew,
+by meeting with his fate in the shape of Olive, one of
+his commissions had been to bring back a box of books,
+which were now arranged in neat shelves in Madame’s
+private sitting-room. And yet notwithstanding all
+these books, a hundred or more, the steady stream of
+papers, periodicals, and magazines continued as before,
+and had to be fetched regularly from Union
+Mills.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The brethren took it in turns to go to the town,
+which was some ten miles distant, and they always combined
+some useful business with the fetching of the
+letters. Brother Wright was a frequent messenger,
+for he liked going better than Ezra did, while of course
+Brother Dummy was precluded by his affliction from
+going, and Brother Carpenter was hopelessly unable
+to drive horses. Some of the women generally contrived
+to find an excuse for going to Union Mills, for
+women like to get away from the petty cares of house
+and home, a peculiarity from which the sisters of
+Perfection City were by no means exempt. In particular
+Mrs. Ruby, invariably called Aunt Ruby, loved
+to go. She thus got a chance of seeing new faces and
+talking with new people. She would not for worlds
+have confessed that she was tired of the restricted
+society of Perfection City, but she knew so well what
+each had to say, that it was refreshing to go out sometimes
+into the world and meet people whose ideas
+could not always be guessed beforehand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>It so happened that the day after the corn planting
+it became necessary to go to Union Mills in order to
+take a grist of corn to be ground. Madame suggested
+that Brother Wright should go, while Brother Dummy
+took up his plough-handles and finished the field
+the former was preparing for the corn. Mary Winkle,
+still prostrated by the previous day’s hard work, urged
+her spouse to go, “For then,” said she, “if you ain’t
+here I needn’t get any dinner. I’ll just send Willette
+over to Sister Olive’s for dinner, and I needn’t stir
+till milking time.” This seemed a happy arrangement,
+and her husband set off shortly after breakfast,
+picking up Aunt Ruby as he passed her cottage.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Be you lonesome living in that house by yourself?”
+asked Brother Wright as they jogged along
+over the prairie, for it had struck him as very lonely
+that morning as he drove up.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no, I ain’t lonely, least not most whiles,”
+answered Aunt Ruby, an alert little old woman, not
+unlike a bird in her quick movements. “In the
+summer-time there’s allus the chickens to see to an’
+feed an’ ten’, an’ chickens is powerful spry an’ talkin’
+birds. They most allus has somethin’ to scold an’
+chatter ’bout, chickens an’ hens has, an’ cocks. Then
+in the winter I hev the clock tickin’ loud o’ evenin’s,
+an’ that’s most as good as a pusson in the room, an’
+there’s allus the cat, an’ mostly the kettle singin’ on
+the stove. Come to think on’t, there’s a heap o’ company
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>in a house like mine, if you on’y has ears to hear
+an’ un’erstan’ what is said by beasts an’ things.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Yet notwithstanding this “heap o’ company” Aunt
+Ruby dearly loved a good gossip with the saddler’s
+wife at Union Mills, whenever that luxury was attainable.
+On the present occasion Aunt Ruby had a real
+good time, for Brother Wright was delayed longer
+than usual, first in order to get some harness mended,
+and afterwards to have a shoe replaced that suddenly
+showed signs of coming off one of the horses. Thus
+it was very near sun-down before they left Union
+Mills. Aunt Ruby, owing in large measure to her
+gossip, and also partly to an exceptionally strong cup
+of tea, was in a highly nervous and excitable frame
+of mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Had Brother Wright, she asked, heard of that
+rumour about the Cherokees? And did he think there
+was any danger of their leaving their Reservation and
+going on the war-path? Brother Wright, who had a
+poor opinion of Indians, and a worse one of the way
+in which the white men had treated them, thought on
+the whole that the rumour might be considered false.
+This comforted Aunt Ruby, to whom the word “Injun”
+suggested torture and death and all sorts of
+horrors. She remained comforted until she remembered
+that other rumour—about the raid of border
+ruffians from out of Missouri. Brother Wright thought
+it highly probable that this rumour might prove to be
+true. Missouri men had raided Kansas more than once,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>and it was possible they might do so again at any moment.
+With conversation such as this they came to
+the end of the daylight and the beginning of the trees
+around Cotton Wood Creek about the same time.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shall be glad when we are safe over this ford
+and out of the dark wood beyond,” said Brother
+Wright, trying to urge his horses along, but he had
+a heavy load of timber and coal and some iron bars
+for smith-work.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ain’t it near here that those people over beyond
+Jacksonville got robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby, nervously
+peering about in the gloom with her weak old
+eyes. At this moment some distant creature made a
+shrill scream or howl.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! what was that,” exclaimed Aunt Ruby nervously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That was a prairie wolf, I guess,” answered
+Brother Wright quietly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Silence followed, except for the creaking of the
+waggon, the straining of the horses at their traces,
+and an occasional clang made by one of the bars of
+iron which was not sufficiently wedged up with hay.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If those Missouri border ruffians came to Perfection
+City, do you reckon our principles would save
+us from being robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby. “Most
+everybody knows as we are non-resistants.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t think our principles would stand in the
+way of a Missouri man. More likely they would take
+advantage of them. They are mean cusses, and are
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>used to riding rough-shod over principles and rights.
+It is a recognised thing everywhere that women and
+children are non-resistants, yet that does not save ’em
+from being raided and robbed by border ruffians.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you think they would rob us, peaceful folks
+as ha’n’t no arms nor nothin’?” asked Aunt Ruby
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I guess they would try,” replied Brother Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I think as we oughter reconsider our principles
+a mite,” said Aunt Ruby. “For if we are robbed
+and killed by folks as can’t un’erstan’ the higher life,
+we shan’t be able to teach the world nothin’. An’
+what’s the good o’ principles when you’re dead an’
+gone an’ undergroun’?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That is so,” assented Brother Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I didn’t never think on’t in this light afore,” said
+Aunt Ruby. “It ’pears to me as how we should
+meet together an’ try an’ settle some way as how
+we can keep our principles an’ yet live on the
+prairie.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I guess you’ve pretty nearly said the truth,” said
+Brother Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What we hev to do is to live here an’ show ’em
+our principles at work, an’ not die straightway afore
+we’ve done anything to improve mankind. That’s
+my view,” said Aunt Ruby. “What do you think,
+Brother Wright?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Instead of answering Brother Wright pulled up
+short and looked intently in front of him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Aunt Ruby in
+a high-pitched voice of alarm.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Hush!” replied her companion, “don’t make a
+noise.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby’s heart began to beat violently. “Do
+you see anything?” she asked in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I see a man over there by the road, sitting on
+horseback with his right arm out pointing towards the
+waggon.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! brother, I wish you had a carnal weapon
+of defence,” said Aunt Ruby in a shaking voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have,” replied Brother Wright, pulling an uncommonly
+useful-looking Colt’s revolver from his
+breeches pocket. “I always carry one in case of
+Injuns.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Again they sat silent for a moment, the horses
+shook their heads, and one of them stamped a foot.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who goes there?” hailed Brother Wright in a
+loud defiant voice. “Drop that right arm of yours
+or I’ll fire.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>No answer.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The figure sat motionless, the right hand still
+raised in that menacing attitude.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am a man of my word,” said Brother Wright,
+rising to his feet and sighting his revolver steadily
+on the figure, while to Aunt Ruby he said, “Hold on
+tight, the horses will jump.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A shot rang out on the still night air. The horses
+nearly jumped out of their skins with fright, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>would certainly have run away, only the waggon was
+very heavy, and they decided to run in different directions.
+Hence they only jerked each other almost
+to the ground and then stood still amazed and trembling.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Better make sure,” said Brother Wright, emptying
+another barrel at the figure which appeared to remain
+motionless in the uncertain foggy light. This
+time the horses came to the same conclusion and tried
+to turn round abruptly, but the attempt was expertly
+frustrated by Brother Wright and a cowhide whip of
+exceptional stinging power. Having thus reduced the
+horses to reason, he again turned his attention to the
+figure and saw with amazement that it still sat on
+horseback in the same spot.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I swan!” said Brother Wright, rubbing
+his eyes. “That beats all! It can’t be a mortal
+man, or he would have either dropped or returned
+fire. I guess I’ll drive on and do no more shooting
+this time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He stowed his pistol away in his pocket and
+drove on.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Hadn’t you better keep the weapon handy?”
+suggested Aunt Ruby. “You might lay it down in
+my lap, if you like.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, thank’ee,” replied Brother Wright. “I don’t
+generally give that sort of thing to women to hold
+for me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He pulled up at a little opening just near the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>ford, where the faint light of a crescent moon showed
+between the bare branches of the trees, and a sort
+of water-fog hung along the elder bushes by the banks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is the spot he was standing,” remarked
+Wright, “the exact spot. I guess I’ll just look and
+see if there is any trail. The ground is soft about
+here and should show up pretty clear.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He descended from the waggon and carefully examined
+the side of the road, but could see nothing.
+There was a large stump with a broken branch sticking
+out which attracted his attention, and he walked
+around it a couple of times, surveying it critically in
+the uncertain light.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I swan!” he exclaimed, after the third
+inspection. “I didn’t think I could have been mistaken.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Then he climbed back into the waggon, and said,
+“Gee-up!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did you fin’ any tracks o’ robbers?” asked his
+companion anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No,” replied Brother Wright, “no tracks of robbers,
+but I lighted on the trail of a doggauned fool.
+Guess we’ll not say much about the attack made on
+our waggon, at Little Cotton Wood Creek.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I won’t mention it at all,” remarked Aunt Ruby,
+“’cause it might frighten the folks up to Perfection
+City an’ make ’em uneasy ’bout coming to Union
+Mills.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Wright only chuckled in reply, possibly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>because his whole attention was required at this juncture
+to get his horses and waggon safely through the
+water, for it was certainly very dark in that bottom-land.
+Once the creek was crossed and the high prairie
+reached, it became easy enough to see by the light
+of the new moon and the stars, and the pair reached
+Perfection City in safety, although very late.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Wright was very eager to unravel the
+mystery of that horseman at the ford on Little Cotton
+Wood Creek, so he made a private expedition thither
+on horseback as soon as he could frame an excuse for
+a morning’s absence. He went to the place whence
+he had first seen the alarming stranger, half closed
+his sharp grey eyes, and looked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I swan!” he remarked, as this expression
+seemed somehow to relieve his feelings. By daylight
+there was nothing suspicious to be seen, but the old
+stump with the broken branch sticking out from it
+straight towards the spectator. Brother Wright surveyed
+this stump critically and came to the conclusion
+that with the help of darkness, a slight mist, a
+new moon, and a nervous companion, the old stump
+might take on an alarming aspect. He rode up to the
+stump, got off his horse, and examined it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I should like to know that I hit him plumb with
+both bullets anyhow,” remarked he, with a grin most
+unbecoming to a Perfection City non-resistant. He
+had hit “him” plumb, but so had other people, and
+the amazed Brother Wright counted no less than seventeen
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>bullet holes, both old and new, in the body of
+that long suffering stump.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I be jiggered!” said Brother Wright as he
+mounted his horse. “What a sight of blamed fools
+there must be in the world!” and with this comforting
+reflection he rode home, and ever after held his
+peace about the episode on the ford of Little Cotton
+Wood Creek. And so likewise did Aunt Ruby, that
+talkative old lady. But sometimes, when she and
+Brother Wright looked into each other’s eyes, they
+grinned a little sheepishly, showing that the recollection
+of it had not quite faded from their minds.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VII.<br /> <span class='large'>WILLETTE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Willette, the only child of the Wright and Winkle
+pair, was a young person of considerable character,
+which had undergone little of the attempted modification
+which we call education. At the time of
+Olive’s arrival at Perfection City this child was about
+eleven years old, and was as wild a specimen of a
+girl as could be easily found even on the prairie. Her
+mother had endeavoured to clothe her in garments
+known as the “reform-dress,” and had made her a
+suit of lilac calico, consisting of short tunic, and full-gathered
+trousers of the prescribed pattern. Willette
+had put on these things and had promptly complained
+of “scratchiness” around the neck and arm-holes,
+owing probably to deficiency of skill on the part of
+her mother in the making of the said garments. Shortly
+afterwards, being called upon to do some cattle-hunting,
+Willette had set out in all the pride of her
+new clothes to ride down some young steers who were
+proving refractory. The steers took shelter in the
+bottom-land along Little Cotton Wood Creek, and skilfully
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>hid themselves in the brushwood there, among
+the trailing wild vines and the spiky wilder plums
+which formed a very good barrier against pursuing
+man. Willette plunged bravely into the brush, and
+after a fierce struggle returned with one steer and
+half her dress. The other half remained in the brush
+along with the rest of the steers. Repeated onslaughts
+reduced her almost to nakedness, but she brought home
+the full complement of steers and an abundant assortment
+of scratches on her legs. After that Willette
+had enough of her mother’s system of dress, and accordingly
+she evolved one of her own.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I ain’t agoin’ to cattle-hunt in no more o’ your
+cobwebs, Ma,” explained this young person. “I
+reckon I’ll go a-ridin’ like a boy next time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Willette appropriated one of her father’s pants
+made of the material known as hickory, which is supposed
+to resist any tear or strain. The current legend
+attached to real out-and-out hickory is as follows. A
+farmer arrayed in hickory was one day rooting out
+old stumps from a newly-cleared field with a new
+patent plough. He came to a regular stunner which
+jerked the plough clean out of the land. He backed
+up, took a good hold of the plough-handles, gave a
+mighty yell to the horses, and drove the plough clean
+through the stump, which split open in the middle.
+The plough and the man passed through, but the
+stump closed up again and caught his hickory trousers.
+The horses strained at the collar, but the man
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>would not let go of the plough, nor would the stump
+relinquish its grasp of the hickory trousers. So he
+rested his horses a spell, took a big breath, and said
+“Hallelujah!” whereupon the horses went forward
+with a bound and brought plough, man, trousers, and
+stump along with them!</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was a garment of this incomparable material that
+Willette appropriated to her use. She cut off the legs
+until the length suited her stature, regardless of the
+fit of the waist, clothed the upper part of her body
+in a pink check shirt, put a boy’s cap upon her head,
+and announced her intention of henceforth dressing
+like that. She was a chip off the old block with a vengeance,
+and Mary Winkle, after one affrighted gasp,
+was obliged to admit that her own principles, as put
+into practice by her daughter, were too much for her.
+Wright laughed immensely, and said she was a boy
+now and would do first-rate.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Willette was totally uneducated, could not write
+her name and could scarcely read, but she did not
+lack for intelligence. She knew the hour of the day,
+by looking at the sun, as well as a negro, and
+she could distinguish a horse from a cow at four
+miles distance. She knew every beast for miles
+around, and to whom it belonged, and could remember
+for a month every cow she had come across
+on the prairie and which way it was heading. She
+understood the moods and intentions of all kinds
+of animals almost as if she was one of the species
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>herself, and she never was at fault on a cattle-trail.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive found immense amusement in talking to
+Willette, who expressed herself with the utmost freedom
+upon all subjects in language which would have
+done credit to a nigger. The child, on the other hand,
+had a supreme contempt for Olive’s abilities and attainments,
+which seemed ludicrously deficient, but
+felt a kindly patronising sort of regard for her, and
+liked to look at her pretty face and touch her smooth
+round cheeks. The pair were therefore often together,
+and Willette undertook to teach her friend to ride,
+provided she would get some sensible clothes and ride
+in the only way that Willette imagined it possible
+for a two-legged human being to bestride a quadruped.
+Olive therefore made herself a bewitching riding-habit
+with Turkish trousers, and rode a high-peaked
+Mexican saddle, out of which even a sack of meal
+could not tumble if it tried. As soon as Olive began
+to feel confidence in herself and her horse, she enjoyed
+the riding immensely. She claimed the refusal of a
+horse on every possible opportunity when one could
+be spared from the farm work. Ezra, delighted to see
+her so pleased with a healthy exercise, encouraged
+her to go cattle-hunting with Willette, and enjoyed
+the spirited reports which she used to bring home from
+these exhilarating expeditions.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I do wish I had a pony of my very own which
+I could take out whenever I wanted a ride, and which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>would be always there for me,” said Olive one day
+to Ezra after she had been riding by herself on Rebel.
+Ezra was hoeing up the newly sprouted sweet-corn, and
+the horses were not at work on the land. In his inmost
+heart he re-echoed the wish, and would at that
+moment have given anything to be an individualist
+and be able to say: “Darling, I’ll buy you a pony with
+the first load of corn I sell.” He looked at his pretty
+wife’s glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and thought
+with a groan that he was tied by his principles and
+prevented by them and the public opinion of the Community
+from giving his wife this enjoyment. It was
+the first time that his heart had come into conflict
+with the perfect theories of Perfection City, and he
+was amazed and disturbed to find how very much he
+was vexed by them. Fortunately Olive dismissed the
+idea of a pony of her own as an unattainable bliss,
+and contented herself with chance rides on Rebel
+and Queen Katherine, the two horses which inhabited
+Ezra’s stable and were generally used by him on his
+side of the community-land.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive’s courage and spirit of independence, fostered
+by a very mild-tempered horse, grew apace. She soon
+felt able to dispense with the escort and instruction
+of Willette and go cattle-hunting alone. She learned
+quickly enough to know the sixty head of cattle belonging
+to the Community, and where to look for
+them. The cattle, which consisted of the usual mixture
+of milch cows, steers, yearlings, and calves, had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>been bought at different times and were apportioned
+to the different families in rough division, chiefly because
+each woman liked to have the cows she was to
+milk, driven up to her own fence near to her own
+house to save trouble. The cattle, consequently,
+seemed to have become intensely individualistic in
+their tendencies, and absolutely refused to graze in
+common. Each bell-cow led off her own herd of steers
+and yearlings where she thought best on the prairie,
+and it was seldom that any two of those “leading
+ladies” chose to go to the same spot. If they did
+they generally quarrelled and fought a bit. Cattle-hunting,
+therefore, became a sufficiently diversified occupation
+in which the unexpected frequently occurred.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>One day it happened that Olive and Diana, now
+old enough to run with her on her expeditions, had
+been to the head of Little Cotton Wood Creek to look
+for a cow that had hidden away her calf there, after
+the manner of prairie cows. Olive found the truant
+and the “little stranger,” along with half a dozen
+young cattle, and was driving them slowly homewards,
+when she became convinced from Rebel’s demonstrations
+that something was annoying him under the flap
+of his saddle. In fact he was constantly trying to bite
+Olive’s leg in a way which agitated her not a little. Accordingly
+she resolved to take off the saddle and make
+an inspection. She dismounted, undid the girths, and
+lifted off the heavy Mexican saddle. Rebel, who had
+always hitherto regarded this proceeding as indicating
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>immediate liberty, no sooner felt the saddle removed
+than he took a base advantage of Olive, and
+kicking up his heels bounded away from her. She
+set the saddle in the grass and walked pacifically after
+Rebel, held out a deceitful hand and called him endearing
+names. Rebel listened to her honeyed words with
+his ears flat on his neck, and as soon as she came near,
+again kicked up his heels and bounded off.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Diana considering all this a joke in which a puppy
+might lend valuable assistance, now pranced forward
+with energetic barks, and the cows and calves deeming
+themselves to be driven with fierceness, set up a
+lumbering trot across the prairie, the new-made mother
+every now and then diving ineffectually after Diana
+with a plunge and a snort. A stampede had set in
+among the animals, and Olive sat down and cried
+with vexation and alarm. Her home showed clear
+and distinct against the horizon just four miles in a
+bee-line from where she sat shedding her ineffectual
+tears. Now Diana, although a feminine creature and
+also a puppy, and therefore endowed with a double
+dose of original foolishness, was likewise a dog, and
+consequently amenable to the highest inspirations of
+a noble nature. Having therefore in her character of
+puppy worried and distracted the animals to her
+heart’s content, she suddenly felt bound to exhibit
+some of the better sides of her nature, among which
+remains forever pre-eminent fidelity to the master.
+Seeing that Olive was not in the scrimmage, Diana
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>turned her back resolutely upon the delights of snapping
+at calves’ heels, and putting her nose to the
+ground raced straight back to Olive weeping in the
+grass. After an apologetic wriggle Diana sat down
+and looked at Olive. Now no philosopher or other
+mortal has ever succeeded in being as wise as a tired
+puppy can look. Therefore when Olive in spite of
+her woe caught sight of Diana’s face and attitude, she
+burst into a laugh in the midst of her tears, whereupon
+the latter sprang merrily up and licked her face. Thus
+comforted, Olive arose, and then became aware that
+she didn’t know where the saddle was. She had neglected
+to mark its position in any way when going
+on that deceitful embassy to Rebel, but indeed it would
+not have been easy to mark the position of the saddle.
+The grass was in its greatest summer height, and there
+was neither bush nor tree anywhere for miles around.
+There was not even a hillock or knoll of ground to
+give individuality to one spot more than another, all
+was the relentless rolling prairie—a vast grassy sea
+where one billow was exactly like a hundred others.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was in dismay. Here was a fresh cause for
+tribulation, for the saddle was new and expensive,
+and moreover it belonged to the Community. She
+would not have minded facing Ezra with a tale of any
+sort of disaster or loss, for she knew he would kiss
+her and pet her and say, “Never mind, darling, don’t
+grieve, it doesn’t matter two jack-straws.” But a community-saddle
+was quite another matter, and Olive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>shrank from the ordeal of community-anger at the
+loss of its saddle, and community-contempt for her
+carelessness in unsaddling on the prairie without putting
+the reins over her arm. She perceived now that
+anyone but a fool would have taken that simple precaution
+against disaster. “I’m not fit to live on the
+prairie,” sobbed Olive to herself. “My education is
+no use to me, and I have not got the wits of that boy-girl
+Willette. Diana, you idiot, why don’t you help
+me?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This reproach was addressed to the puppy, who
+was wallowing blissfully in the grass and thus refreshing
+herself after her scamper. Olive began to walk
+aimlessly up and down in the hope of stumbling on
+the saddle, and Diana began to do likewise, but with
+far more system. Diana’s researches were speedily
+crowned with success, and she soon sat down to an uninterrupted
+gnaw at the flap of the big Mexican saddle.
+Becoming at length aware of the disappearance of
+Diana, Olive called to her, and the puppy reared a
+mischievous face over the grass some twenty yards
+away. Going to the spot, Olive perceived the saddle
+and also the depredations of Diana’s sharp teeth upon
+the flap. She whipped the dog with a stirrup leather
+most ineffectually and then said:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What’s to be done now?” but Diana, feeling that
+her efforts had been badly rewarded, made no suggestions.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Indeed Olive’s plight after finding the saddle was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>considerably worse than before. The thing was very
+heavy. Mexican saddles are built on wood, large,
+strong and ponderous, and weigh heavier and heavier
+in proportion to the distance one carries them. Olive
+put it on her shoulders and began to see stars, she
+then tried her head and found that position still worse.
+She dragged it along by a stirrup-leather and found
+she was ruining it. Then she sat down and cried,
+which was the most useless effort she had made. What
+was she to do? If she were to leave the saddle and
+walk home she would never be able to find it again.
+There was absolutely nothing to mark the spot. By
+this time the cattle were distant specks moving solemnly
+homewards, with Rebel decorously following in
+the rear. Olive decided to remain where she was until
+Rebel and the cattle, by their arrival without her,
+should have given the alarm, which would bring Ezra
+and the rest of the Community to the rescue, somewhere
+about the middle of the night, she supposed.
+It would be humiliating, but she thought it would be
+better than abandoning the saddle which she could not
+possibly carry. She sat down to wait with what patience
+she could for rescue and humiliation. There
+was nothing to expect along that weary stretch of
+grassy sea, and yet Olive kept looking and looking
+away to the north, east, south, and west. By and by
+she beheld a horseman coming up from the distant
+west and holding a slanting course which would carry
+him past Perfection City some mile or so to the north.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>She resolved to intercept this man and ask his aid, so
+she stood up and signalled wildly with her hat. Of
+course he saw her instantly, although he was a couple
+of miles away, and equally of course he at once turned
+his horse towards her and set off at a gallop. People
+on the prairie ask and give help freely, and Olive
+had not the slightest hesitation in calling this unknown
+horseman up to her aid, although she had not
+the remotest idea who he might be. Probably he was
+a cattle-hunter like herself, at any rate a man and a
+horse would be able to give her and her saddle effectual
+assistance. The man galloped steadily on and soon
+took the ordinary appearance: big hat, red shirt, riding
+boots, belt with probably a revolver somewhere in it.
+He slowed up a little as he came near and seemed to
+be very intently looking at Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am very sorry to have troubled you,” began
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t mention it. I shall be delighted if I can
+be of use,” said the man, taking off his big hat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They both stopped short and looked hard at each
+other, for their speech had mutually revealed the fact
+that they were a lady and a gentleman, a most uncommon
+encounter on the Kansas prairie beyond the
+last bit of cultivated land.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Have you had an accident? Are you hurt?”
+asked the man, jumping off his horse and mechanically
+slinging the bridle-rein over his left arm, as Olive
+noted with some self-reproach. She told him what
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>had happened, and she saw a smile creep round his
+mouth and light up his blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That is easily remedied. I feared you must have
+been thrown,” said he. “Just mount my horse. He’s
+quiet. I’ll take you home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But the saddle,” said Olive looking very anxiously
+at that burden.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! that’s nothing,” said the stranger. “I’ll
+carry it on my arm.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You must not dream of such a thing. I could
+not think of allowing it. You are very kind, I am
+sure, but if you would take up the saddle in front
+of you that is all I want. The saddle is the only difficulty.
+I can walk quite well. I live in that house
+over there on the brow of the bluff. It is not far, but
+I could not carry that terrible saddle.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, that’s Perfection City, where the Communists
+live,” said he, looking at her curiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I live there,” replied Olive with a slight
+blush, noting the look.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And are you a communist, if I may presume to
+ask the question?” queried the stranger.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My husband was one of the founders of the—the—of
+Perfection City,” said Olive, valiantly determined
+to defend the absent.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But you are not one of the original members.
+You are surely a new-comer. I know most of them,
+by sight at all events.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am Mrs. Weston,” replied Olive with dignity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>The stranger again took off his hat, as if this were
+an introduction.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have seen your husband then, a magnificent
+specimen of manhood, to judge from the only example
+I had of his physical strength.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive felt at once mollified. Meanwhile, the
+stranger had shortened the stirrup-leathers of his
+horse, and turning to Olive he said,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And now, Mrs. Weston, allow me to give you
+a hand up to mount you on my big horse. He is quite
+gentle and I will hold the bridle.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive hesitated. “I don’t like to take your horse,”
+she said. “If you would be so kind as to leave the
+saddle——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no, you must not deprive me of the pleasure
+of your company,” interposed the stranger. “We
+will manage the saddle all right. Just spring up.
+Your riding-habit is admirably adapted for prairie
+life, and the prettiest I ever saw. Pardon my bluntness,
+but I am so little used to society, I fear I am
+very rough.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You don’t fear anything of the sort,” replied
+Olive quickly. “You are perfectly aware that your
+manners are infinitely superior to the article in general
+use hereabouts.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The man laughed pleasantly at this sally. “Well,
+let me amend my pleading,” said he, “and say, it
+is so long since I met a lady in these wilds, and that
+is true enough, Heaven knows!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>Olive mounted the big horse with the dextrous
+help of his hand and signed to him to give her the
+saddle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I couldn’t think of it,” said he, thrusting his arm
+under the saddle and hoisting it on to his shoulder.
+“It would be unspeakably uncomfortable for you
+to hold, with the stirrups whacking you at every
+step.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then you shall put it on the horse’s neck in
+front of me, or I’ll hop down this instant. It’s bad
+enough to appropriate your horse without making you
+carry my saddle as well.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Seeing her so determined, he, with a slight show
+of reluctance, placed the saddle on the neck of his
+horse, who after a shake or two submitted to the burden,
+and so they eventually turned homewards.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I suppose you are not surprised that we settlers
+out here take considerable interest in your experiment
+in communism,” remarked the man as they
+walked along.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No doubt anything out of the common excites
+comment,” said Olive guardedly, “but I should not
+have thought you could be classed as a settler out
+here. I have seen a good many, and know the type.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She felt interested in the man and curious to know
+who he was, he seemed so utterly different from all
+those she had hitherto met.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have lived here, nevertheless, for some years
+now. I have a farm on the north side of Big Cotton
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>Wood Creek. My name is Cotterell. Have you ever
+heard it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I never heard the name, but then I’ve only
+been here a very short time, only two months. I—that
+is, we came in May,” said Olive blushing somewhat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The stranger smiled a winning smile and looked
+up at her face as he answered,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I see you have only just come, and come as a
+bride to Perfection City. It has a very suitable sound
+in that connection.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He again lifted his hat, and Olive blushed more
+vividly still.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The prairie does not seem a very hopeful place
+for experiments in perfection,” continued the stranger.
+“To my eyes it looks a most God-forsaken place, but
+under certain circumstances I should be disposed to
+modify that view.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think any place will do to try and live a good
+life in, and that is what is aimed at in our little Community,”
+said Olive, standing bravely to her defence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He was silent for a time and then spoke again.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Any place can be made better by the presence
+of a good woman, I think.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We want to show how it is possible to banish
+some of the evil out of life,” said Olive, marshalling
+the expressions she had heard at the Academy with
+what skill she could.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“With some it is only necessary to be what God
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>made them in order to banish evil from their presence,”
+said he.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And we have a very noble woman as leader,”
+said Olive not quite sure of his meaning.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, indeed! You praise her, that should count
+for much. There are very mixed reports about her
+character on the prairie. Many seem to dislike and
+distrust her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“As for that I suppose there are mixed reports
+about us all,” observed Olive impartially.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Indeed there are. For instance, it is most
+confusing what people say concerning the extent
+to which you carry your communistic theories.
+Some assert that there is no limit and that you are
+logical.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Olive,
+knitting her brows.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I presume now that the land is held in common?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, certainly, and the farm implements and the
+horses and cows,” answered Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“All those don’t really touch the question. You
+live in separate houses, I believe.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of course we do. I should hate not having my
+own little house. It would be like a hotel or a penitentiary
+for all to live under one roof. I wouldn’t do
+it for worlds. We have our home-life just like other
+people, but I should like to have a pony of my
+own, only I suppose my husband would not think
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>it right to have a horse that was not a community-horse.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What a confounded shame! I beg your pardon.
+You see I am rough. I mean, I think your
+husband ought to get you a pony, a nice well-trained
+lady’s pony, for you to ride, and not a big farm-horse.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I should like one,” observed Olive simply, and
+then suddenly remembering that she was speaking to
+a stranger, she added hastily, “I mean it would be
+nice to have a horse always at hand, one not liable to
+be wanted for farm work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I just happen to know of an excellent animal
+that would suit you down to the ground. It belongs
+to Tom Mills, and he wants to sell it. It will go cheap
+too. If you would speak to your husband about it,
+I would bring it over for you to look at. Mills lives
+close to my house.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, pray don’t,” said Olive anxiously. “I am
+ever so much obliged to you, but I really ought not
+to have spoken about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Very well,” said he, seeing she was distressed,
+“we’ll not pursue the subject further.” But in his
+own mind he reflected that were he in Weston’s place,
+he would have got that pony for his wife, principles
+or no principles, and it is highly probable that he
+would have done so.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He left Olive and her saddle at her own door,
+refusing her invitation to enter, saying that he would
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>avail himself of her permission to come some
+other day to see her. And she cordially invited him
+to do so, for was not hospitality one of the commonest
+virtues of the prairie, and surely Perfection
+City must not be behindhand in the practice
+thereof?</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> <span class='large'>MR. PERSEUS.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>When Olive got home, she was at first pleased to
+see that her husband had not come in, therefore he
+had not been made uneasy about her absence. Napoleon
+Pompey had caught Rebel and turned him into
+the pasture field, and was returning after that job when
+he met Olive near the hen-house. Napoleon Pompey
+grinned at her and remarked with relish: “Ole hoss,
+he done throw yer, den run clar ’way home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, he didn’t,” retorted Olive, indignant at this
+slur upon her equestrian skill, “I just got off to
+change the saddle, and he ran away from me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Land!” said Napoleon Pompey, “an’ didn’t yer
+chuck yer reins roun’ yer arm?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I forgot to,” confessed Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Golly Ned!” said Napoleon Pompey with vast
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive felt annoyed and inquired stiffly where her
+husband was.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ole man he done gone ter git ole hoe men’d
+up, den he gwine ter go to der ’Sumbly, he done eat
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>supper ’ready. Me an’ you’uns got ter eat our’n now.
+Ole man done tol’ me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Napoleon Pompey meant no disrespect in speaking
+of Ezra as “ole man,” for the lad knew of only two
+titles to bestow on white men, one was “Mas’r” the
+other was “ole man.” Ezra had requested him not to
+use the expression Mas’r, which grated on his ears,
+and contained suggestions of servitude at variance with
+the ideas that prevailed at Perfection City. Napoleon
+Pompey was therefore obliged to fall back upon his
+one other title. Olive had been greatly shocked when
+she first heard her husband called “ole man,” but she
+was now used to the expression.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She was very disappointed not to see Ezra at once,
+for she was full of her adventure, but she knew from
+experience she must possess her soul in patience, for
+the “’Sumbly,” as Napoleon Pompey called it, was
+sure to take a good while, and Ezra always stayed
+conscientiously to the last. The institution was none
+other than the bi-weekly Assembly, which met at the
+Academy, and at which all the business of the Community
+was settled and the routine work of the farm
+arranged for. All the members were free to attend
+and speak their minds, but in practice it had resolved
+itself into a Junta of Madame, Ezra, Wright, Green, and
+Uncle David, of whom the two latter were sleeping
+members. The women of Perfection City did not care
+to attend the Assembly very often. Women are not
+good debaters, and they dislike arguments carried on
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>under strict rule. They prefer to go their own way,
+do what seems best at the moment, and reserve an unlimited
+right of grumbling and jealousy. Madame, who
+was an exception to the general rule, usually presided
+at the Assembly and ruled it, as she did most things,
+without seeming to do so. Ezra and Brother Wright
+understood the farm work and generally mapped out
+the daily labour pretty well. Brother Dummy required
+only to be told what to do and went on contentedly
+doing it, without comment or commotion.
+Nobody, of course, was ordered to work, but it was
+suggested that if Brother Wright would do so and
+so, Brother Ezra would be able to do this, that, or
+the other, while Brother Carpenter would be free to
+perform such another task, and Brother Dummy would
+probably prefer to work at whatever happened to be
+wanted at the moment. Madame seldom interfered,
+and then only when necessary to smooth over a rough
+edge. She usually found the men’s arrangements
+excellent and for the general weal. Brother Green,
+who was a first-rate smith, was the only member of
+the Community who, at this time, received any money,
+for he worked in his spare time for outsiders. With
+great pride he used to bring the money he earned to
+the ’Sumbly and give it into Madame’s charge to be
+expended as seemed best. She kept the accounts and
+used to furnish all the rest of the necessary cash.
+Sometimes the brethren expressed compunction at calling
+so often on her resources, but Madame always
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>made the most graceful speeches in reply to their objections.
+Of course an undertaking such as this required
+capital to start it. It would be foolish to starve
+the whole project for want of a little expenditure
+now. By and by they would be self-supporting, but in
+order to reach that stage quickly they must not be
+stingy now. So she gave her dollars by the hundred
+when needed, and the brethren were eternally grateful
+and privately wondered if there was any limit to
+her wealth and generosity. At the Assembly it would
+be debated whether the next load of timber that was
+bought should go to building a hen-house for Brother
+Carpenter or to putting up a cattle-shed for Brother
+Ezra, and it speaks well for the honest conviction of
+the Pioneers that it was usually Brother Ezra who
+argued in favour of the hen-house, while Brother Carpenter
+expressed an anxious desire for the cattle-shed.
+The difficulty would perhaps be settled by Madame
+desiring to know how much timber was required
+for both buildings and deciding to buy that amount
+at the earliest opportunity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>At this particular Assembly to which we refer,
+Ezra was several times on the point of saying that
+he wished to get a pony for his wife, but his
+heart failed him. He knew he did want the pony
+very much, but he also knew that it was not
+really wanted for the Community. So he could not
+bring himself to give utterance to the individualistic
+wish, and after arranging the necessary business of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>the Community, he came home with his wish unstated.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was waiting for him with the greatest impatience.
+She went, indeed, as far as the bars to meet
+him, but the road looked so lonesome and the sky so
+black with cold trembling specks of stars, that she
+ran back again in a flutter of panic to the house and
+shut herself in with the candles for company. At last
+he came back, and Olive poured forth the pent-up
+torrent of her news. Ezra was much amused at her
+description of the disaster and interested in her account
+of the rescuer.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And I am so vexed,” said Olive, “I can’t for the
+life of me remember what he said his name was. I
+know I never heard it before, but he lives here on the
+prairie. It is so silly!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Call him Perseus,” said Ezra laughing, “he was
+the gallant who came to the rescue of distressed damsels.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What a good joke!” said Olive gleefully, “and
+I was a distressed damsel, I assure you. I cried with
+vexation.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have no doubt that Andromeda shed tears when
+she was bound to the rock,” said Ezra, amused.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And I was bound to that odious saddle by the
+bonds of duty,” said Olive. “What a joke! Mr. Perseus!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>So they laughed and chatted, and Olive was as
+bright as possible, and Ezra thought again with a pang
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>of that pony and almost wished he had spoken at the
+Assembly about it. Olive, however, never mentioned
+what Mr. Perseus had said about the pony Mills had
+for sale. The idea seemed to have passed from her
+mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It happened that about a week later Olive again
+found herself in the neighbourhood of Little Cotton
+Wood Creek, and by an extraordinary coincidence Mr.
+Perseus chanced to meet her. She was very much
+surprised, and he seemed to be no less so. However,
+the meeting was mutually pleasant, and they soon fell
+into conversation, as it appeared he was going her
+way.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have thought a great deal about what you said
+to me the other day, about trying to make life better
+and all that,” said he with a certain self-consciousness,
+as if he was unaccustomed to speaking upon such
+a subject. Olive looked at him with bright clear
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am very glad if anything I said could be of
+use to you, but I am myself very ignorant. I should
+like you to come and hear what Brother Wright says,
+and Ezra. Brother Wright is considered very eloquent.
+I can’t always understand him myself, but
+that is my own deficiency!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I would much prefer talking with you, Mrs.
+Weston,” said the stranger hastily. “I am very restive
+under men’s teaching, but I am docile enough
+when led by a woman’s gentle hand.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>“Why are you living here?” asked Olive suddenly.
+“You seem so unsuited to this life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am sick of civilization and all its horrors,” said
+he. “I wanted to get away to something fresh and
+new.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That is almost like what a Pioneer would say,”
+remarked Olive with a smile. “They don’t think
+very highly of what civilization has done so far.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Materially it has done much, morally it has done
+badly for a good number of human beings,” he remarked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think you sound like a very hopeful convert
+to the principles of communism. Why don’t you come
+to Perfection City?” asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Would you be glad to see me there, Mrs. Weston?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Certainly, Mr. Perseus, and I should be so pleased
+to make you and my husband known to each other.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He looked at her curiously for some moments and
+then said, “Why do you call me Mr. Perseus?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive gave him one horrified glance and then
+blushed scarlet.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she stammered in great
+confusion. “I did not know I said so. I really am
+most sorry.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But why that name?” he persisted, still looking
+at her blushing face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I may as well tell you the truth,” she said still
+much confused. “The fact is I forgot what you said
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>your name was, and my husband suggested in a joke
+that I should call you Perseus, because—because——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I rescued you in distress,” said he as he broke
+into a deep musical laugh. “It is a capital name, I
+am delighted with it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am so ashamed of myself,” said Olive, also
+laughing, “but I was in the habit of speaking of
+you as Mr. Perseus, and the name slipped off my
+tongue unawares. What is your real name? Pray
+tell me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not for worlds, dear Mrs. Weston. To you I
+shall remain Mr. Perseus, and I shall never think
+of the name without a thrill of pleasure.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But this is most unfair,” said Olive. “You know
+my name and who I am and all about me, and yet
+I am to be kept in the dark as to your identity.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Forgive my not doing at once what you wish,
+but really I cannot. This will be a sweet little innocent
+romance to me, and before you I shall appear in
+my very best light, leaving all the vices and evils of
+my real nature behind me for the time. Ah no! don’t
+deprive me of such a harmless joy. If you knew what
+a lonely uncared for life is mine, your tender heart
+would be touched.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Her heart was touched by the quiver in his deep
+voice, as he intended it should be, and Olive did not
+press her point any further. They rode on together
+talking about a hundred subjects, and she found him
+the most agreeable of men. She happened to mention
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>a great novel just then coming out in Harper’s,
+the scene of which was laid in Florence, and he said
+musingly:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah yes! Florence is a lovely city, nestling among
+the blue hills.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Have you ever seen it then?” asked Olive much
+surprised.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, long ago, when I was a young fellow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She gazed at him. “You are a most incomprehensible
+person,” she said, “living here on this prairie
+and yet you have seen Florence.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You forget Perseus travels easily with his winged
+feet, from here to Florence would be a bagatelle to
+him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I begin to think there must be something uncanny
+about you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Now don’t go and change me into any other personality.
+Remember you are all-powerful, and by your
+word alone have made me Perseus. Your word is
+mighty, and you can cast me down into hell and make
+me a devil by a breath,” said he half banteringly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What odd language!” said Olive, looking a little
+frightened. “How you must astonish the natives
+when you talk in that way!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you fancy I talk to anyone as I do to you?
+Don’t you understand that I am Perseus to you, but
+to nobody else in the world?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive laughed, and put her horse to a canter in
+order to snap the thread of talk which was becoming
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>too difficult for her. Mr. Perseus remained in her
+company while she was driving home the cattle, but
+they had no further particular conversation, as the exigencies
+of driving the herd occupied their attention
+most of the time. On parting from her about a mile
+from her home, he promised to come some day to see
+her, and Olive added, “I do hope Ezra will be in, for
+I should so like you two to talk together. I am sure
+you have much in common.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We have one point in common, at all events,”
+thought Mr. Perseus as he rode away back towards
+the Big Cotton Wood Creek, “but I doubt very much
+if that would at all add to the harmony of our relations.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was full of her meeting with Mr. Perseus,
+an account of which she retailed to Ezra at supper.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And just fancy his oddity! He wouldn’t tell me
+his real name after my unlucky slip, so he is Mr. Perseus
+to the end of the chapter, I suppose. He thought
+it such a joke.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“So he saw the application,” remarked Ezra.
+“He must be a man of education.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He is a most superior man, I can see that. He
+has read everything I ever did and more too. And
+do you know, Ezra, I shouldn’t wonder if he had leanings
+towards community-life, many things he said
+pointed that way. Wouldn’t it be funny if I were
+to be the one to bring in your first convert, poor little
+me that never had any leanings until I saw you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>Ezra looked sharply at his wife during this speech,
+for a sudden and by no means pleasant suspicion
+sprang into his mind concerning the mysterious Mr.
+Perseus. However, Olive looked so perfectly innocent
+of even all knowledge of evil that he felt ashamed of
+himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t be too friendly with this man. We
+don’t know anything about him, nor who he is, remember,”
+remarked Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He said he knew you and that you were a fine-looking
+man, you old dear, and he is acquainted with
+most of the members of the Community by sight.
+Besides, I thought it was a point of etiquette on the
+prairie to make no inquiries into a person’s character,
+but to take him in his boots just as he stands, and ask
+him to dinner. Don’t you remember Charlie Clarke,
+and how he came to supper by your invitation and
+you found him so pleasant, and he a horse-thief and a
+murderer all the while, only we didn’t know it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This was all very true, but Charlie Clarke had
+evinced no “leanings” to community-life, and above
+all Olive had been profoundly uninterested in him and
+was delighted when he left. Ezra hated himself for
+the feeling in his heart, but he had his suspicions of
+Mr. Perseus, and he knew his wife was distractingly
+pretty. So he advised her to keep aloof from Mr.
+Perseus as much as practicable. Several times afterwards
+he made excuses to go riding with her, which
+Olive enjoyed immensely, but then something was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>said to her about his shirking his share of the work,
+and she was furiously angry. She wanted her husband
+to be first, and since the only theatre for the exhibition
+of his abilities was the somewhat restricted one
+of Perfection City, she wanted him to be always near
+the front.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Shirking indeed!” she said tossing her pretty
+head. “I’ll have Mary Winkle know my husband
+never shirked in his life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>In a blaze of wrath she met Ezra and ordered him
+to go to work and never mind riding with her till
+the harvest was over. She wouldn’t ride any more,
+she would work until she was black in the face. Shirking
+indeed! She’d let Mary Winkle see! And so on
+and so forth, till her burst of anger had spent itself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was not slow to perceive that her husband
+had some sort of dislike to the idea of her seeing Mr.
+Perseus. She could not exactly explain to herself
+why this should be, and she was heartily sorry for it.
+She had fancied that in time Mr. Perseus might possibly
+come to be a member of the Community. She would
+indeed have been frankly glad to have him become a
+brother, for, as far as she could judge, he seemed a
+man of brilliant parts, and certainly his manners were
+most charming. To tell the truth, she found the
+members as a whole very uninteresting. Mary Winkle
+she positively disliked, and yet she was the one nearest
+to her own age. She sometimes wondered how
+Ezra could be satisfied with the companionship of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>those same people, who seemed to her to be walking
+in such a narrow circle, and always to be saying the
+same things in pretty nearly the same words. Now,
+Mr. Perseus said such original things and in such a
+charming voice. Altogether it was a pity that Ezra
+should have taken a prejudice into his head against
+this stranger. Olive wondered whether, if they met,
+the mutual recognition of their abilities would dissipate
+her husband’s suspicions. Such being her notions,
+it was most unlucky that the first time Mr.
+Perseus came to see them Ezra should have been gone
+to Union Mills. He went so very seldom that it was
+a most unfortunate coincidence, as she explained to
+Mr. Perseus, who did not in return explain that having
+himself seen Ezra at Union Mills he had straightway
+ridden off to visit her, and ridden so hard too that
+his horse was in a white lather when he arrived at
+Perfection City by a somewhat circuitous route. Napoleon
+Pompey was gone, so Olive showed him where
+to put his horse in the dark stable so that the flies
+would not torment the animal. She remarked on the
+horse’s state and asked Mr. Perseus had he been running
+down cattle, and he muttered something about
+young horses showing every bit of work in hot weather.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He was profoundly interested in Olive’s little home.
+She showed him with pride the garden she had made,
+where already the balsams were just coming into blossom;
+she then took him to see the prairie chickens
+she was trying to rear, little black and yellow downy
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>things, with fierce wild eyes utterly untamed and
+only looking out for a favourable opportunity to make
+a dash for freedom.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you think I can ever tame them?” asked
+Olive, as she noted the hostile manner in which they
+scuttled away from her food-giving hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If anyone could tame them you could, the ungrateful
+little brutes!” remarked Mr. Perseus.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t see that it is ungrateful of them to resent
+being taken from their proper home and natural mother
+to be put under a fat stupid hen,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, but it is rank ingratitude not to be tame to
+you,” said he.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t think you are truthful,” said Olive
+bluntly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why?” asked Mr. Perseus.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Because you are always saying things like that,”
+she answered, somewhat resentfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I do call that hard,” complained Mr. Perseus,
+“to charge a fellow with being untruthful when
+he was shaking in his shoes from terror at having perhaps
+let out too much of the truth.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive looked down at his big boots, knitting her
+brows, and then led the way into the house.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’ll get you some dinner. I am sure you are
+hungry,” she said hospitably, it being about two o’clock
+in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am hungry, starving, mind, body, and soul,”
+said her visitor in reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>“I’ll get a chicken-pie for you, that will go some
+way,” answered Olive with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And if you will talk with me, that will go far
+to complete the work of charity,” said he.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive brought him the food, and he set to work
+upon it, being evidently, as he said, very hungry.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you know I am beginning to look upon Perfection
+City as a sort of earthly paradise,” said Mr.
+Perseus.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Indeed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, a paradise from which I am shut out. Have
+you any young men here, Mrs. Weston, unmarried
+men, or are they against your rules?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No. Unmarried men are not against our rules,”
+said Olive archly. “We had one here lately, but we
+haven’t now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, what did you do with him?” asked Mr.
+Perseus, in some surprise.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I married him,” said Olive dimpling and blushing.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Lucky beggar!” remarked her visitor, turning
+again to his dinner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Mr. Perseus stayed some time, but refused Olive’s
+invitation to wait to see her husband, saying as an
+excuse that he had a long way to ride home. Olive
+wanted to know where he lived, but he laughingly
+put her off. He would not tell her, lest she should
+discover his real name, and then much of the romance
+of his life would be destroyed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>“You don’t know what this is to me, and how
+when I am leading my lonely life, I recall every word
+and look and again go through these meetings, Mrs.
+Weston. I suppose it seems silly to you, but remember,
+human companionship is man’s most precious
+inheritance, and those who have but little of it prize
+what they have at perhaps an extravagant figure. Did
+you ever hear of Silvio Pellico?” he asked abruptly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No,” replied Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, he was a prisoner entirely shut off from
+human companionship, and he at last made friends
+with a spider, and at length the spider was crushed
+by the turnkey’s foot, and Silvio wept tears of anguish.
+I am like a prisoner out here on this desolate
+prairie.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And am I like the horrible spider, then?” said
+Olive brightly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mrs. Weston!” he exclaimed reproachfully. “I
+have opened my heart to you because I felt that you
+could feel with me, although the world might count
+us as strangers, but I thought you would understand
+what I meant even when I blundered through the expression
+of my thoughts. This is the first time you
+have misunderstood me. But I believe it was only
+pretended misunderstanding and that you do know
+what I meant.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He said good-bye, and left Olive with a feeling of
+sadness and oppression on her mind. He had not been
+as bright as before, and she wondered who he was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>and why he was so anxious not to see anyone but her.
+She mentioned his visit to Ezra, but somehow she
+had less to tell about him than on former occasions.
+There seemed nothing to say. Ezra, too, did not appear
+as much amused as formerly at the joke of Mr.
+Perseus. No doubt it was getting stale by this time.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IX.<br /> <span class='large'>FIRST LESSONS.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Summer came on apace. The field had been duly
+run over in both directions with the shovel-plough,
+so as to leave between the cross-ploughing little “hills”
+of earth, out of which sprang the corn-clumps. The
+broad green ribbons of leaves fluttered in the wind,
+making a soft murmur as of a forest. Olive took great
+delight in her little flower-garden at the east end of
+the house, and worked and weeded at it both early and
+late. Napoleon Pompey, typical negro boy, which
+being interpreted means laziest of mortals, forgot his
+laziness to work for “Mis’ Ollie” as he called her.
+Together they had planted their balsams, trained their
+morning-glory, and rooted out brown beetles with zeal,
+to be amply repaid in July by a glorious profusion of
+blossoms.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is my very ownest own garden,” said Olive,
+exhibiting her balsams with pride to Ezra. “Mind,
+this is not community-land, it’s mine.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Does it make you enjoy the flowers more to think
+that nobody else has them?” asked Ezra, with a tinge
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>of sadness in his voice. “Would it make you any the
+happier to keep the sunshine all to yourself, do you
+think?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not, that’s quite different. But I’ve
+planted these flowers and grown them. I shall give
+them to whomsoever I like. You for instance.” She
+smiled coaxingly at him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You pretty child,” he said, disarmed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, I brought some over to Mrs. Carpenter
+to-day. I went to help her with her washing. And,
+do you know!” said Olive, “I was so amused.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“At what?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Carpenter was educating his children.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He’s always doing that,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, but to-day there was a special lesson. He
+was at Union Mills yesterday, and he got a present
+for both of them, I mean two presents, one for Johnny
+and one for Nelly. You know he is always saying
+boys and girls would have the same tastes if they were
+brought up in the same way.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He’ll find out one day, maybe, that boys will be
+boys, no matter how you bring them up.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He has found it out already. Wait till you hear.
+By way of correcting any early bias, he gave a hammer
+and nails to Nelly and a doll to Johnny.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You don’t say so! What did the children do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, they went off without a word, each carrying
+its toy, and Mr. Carpenter told me his ideas about
+education, and how well they worked. Suddenly we
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>heard shrieks from behind the wood-pile where the
+children were playing. We ran out to see what was
+the matter. Nelly had got a handkerchief tied over
+the head of her hammer, and she was cuddling it to
+sleep in her arms. Johnny had got some of the nails
+and was trying to drive them into a piece of wood with
+the head of the doll for hammer. Nelly was screaming
+because he was killing poor Dolly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra laughed, and Olive joined in at the recollection
+of the scene. “You cannot think how disappointed
+Mr. Carpenter looked. His wife said he’d
+got something to do if he was expecting to cure little
+girls of dolls in a hurry. We changed the presents and
+left him to reconcile it with his theories as best he
+could; both children were quite happy and contented
+afterwards.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Poor Carpenter! He’ll have to learn by bitter
+experience that he cannot change human nature all
+at once,” said Ezra, sympathetically. “I fear children
+are still in the savage stage of development, they are
+not communists.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Nobody is communist about things they care very
+much about,” said Olive, in desperate courage.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, Ollie! What a thing to say! I am a thorough-going
+communist I hope. I’d give the coat off
+my back without a pang.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of course you would, because it is a horrid old
+thing any way, and men look frights in coats always.
+Men don’t care about clothes, only just to cover themselves
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>and keep themselves warm. One rag would do
+as well as another.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are an incorrigible little individualist and
+a greedy one as well, I do declare,” said Ezra, half
+laughing at her vehemence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, it’s not that, only I see what is what,” replied
+Olive oracularly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And what might that be?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The Pioneers are only communistic for rubbish
+and rags, and not for dolls and hammers. That’s what
+they are,” said Olive, with her face aflame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Rubbish and rags! What an absurd thing to
+say. Who ever heard such nonsense?” said Ezra,
+loftily ignoring his wife’s argument in a way that wise
+men often affect.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“’Tisn’t nonsense,” said Olive hotly. “It is just
+what people say of Perfection City.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What people say it?” asked Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, Mr. Perseus for one,” said Olive, repenting
+of her daring in getting into the subject at all.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Perseus,” repeated Ezra with a sudden frown,
+“so you talk over our principles with him. When did
+you do so last?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know exactly when. The other day. He
+often passes by here on his way cattle-hunting. Sometimes
+he looks in for a moment, but sometimes he can’t
+stay long, only to water his horse. Of course I talk
+over the principles that have made you found a City
+here. Don’t you suppose people know about them
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>and talk them over eagerly? They are different enough
+from the generality of people’s ideas, and Mr. Perseus
+said they considered you only went a little way into
+communism, and had a little bit of this and a little
+bit of that in common, and weren’t at all logical.
+People sneer at Perfection City, I can assure you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you, doubtless, enjoyed his sneers,” retorted
+Ezra injudiciously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I didn’t, only I saw what other people say
+of us. Mr. Perseus, even, once said he’d like to
+come and be a communist himself, if we were only
+consistent throughout, and lived up to our principles.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You may tell your friend Perseus that he would
+not be a welcome recruit,” said Ezra, in considerable
+agitation. “I may as well tell you now what I have
+suspected for some time. I know pretty well who
+your mysterious Mr. Perseus is. He is a man of the
+name of Cotterell. I know him very well by sight
+and better still by reputation. To convince you, I will
+just mention a point or two about his appearance. He
+is about five feet ten in height, very fair in complexion,
+with a yellow moustache, and bright blue eyes, and
+whenever he takes his hat off you see the blue veins
+very markedly on his temples. He is, I suppose, what
+a woman would call a very handsome man, and he
+usually rides a black horse with a blaze on his face
+and white hind feet.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, that’s the man,” said Olive who remembered
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>the horse well, and who moreover recognized the perfect
+accuracy of her husband’s description.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Very well. Now I will tell you something about
+his character and history. He is an Englishman and
+perhaps has been badly brought up. At all events he
+hasn’t the morals we approve of. I know his libertine
+London ways. He probably didn’t tell you about it,
+but I remember very well the poor girl who shot
+herself the first summer we came here, because Cotterell
+had abandoned her. If the neighbours had been
+quite sure of all the facts of the case, there would in
+all probability have been a shooting party at Cotterell’s
+house, so I was told. But they were not quite sure
+so they gave him the benefit of the doubt. Accordingly
+he still has his handsome face to go on with and
+maybe wreck more homes. That is the career of Mr.
+Cotterell, alias Mr. Perseus,” said Ezra with considerable
+heat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It was you who gave him the name of Perseus,”
+replied Olive also much agitated. “He did not appear
+under a false name of his own accord. And now that
+you tell me his real name I remember that was the
+one he gave the first time I saw him, and he asked
+me if I had ever heard it before.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I won’t say anything on that point, it may have
+been a joke on his part, but it must stop now. Understand
+me, Olive. I don’t wish to seem harsh, but
+you must not meet and talk with this man again.
+If you chance on him, pass by and say you can have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>no further communication with him. If he urges an
+objection, say I have forbidden you to see him, as
+I do forbid you, here and now. He will take that
+for an answer, scoundrel as he is, for among people of
+his stamp personal vanity does duty for better feelings.
+He won’t come again to a house where the lady
+has once shown him the door. You don’t in the least
+understand what his motives are in this new-fangled
+interest of his in Perfection City, but I understand
+them very clearly, and my wish is that you never see
+him again. Harm is sure to come of it if you do.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was very much alarmed at her husband’s
+stern manner and peremptory order, but she was also
+indignant. Mr. Perseus or Cotterell, as she must now
+call him, had shown great respect and deference to
+her and had evinced a desire to be guided by her to
+higher aspirations. She was not sure of the meaning
+of some of his remarks, or rather she wished she could
+find some other reasonable explanation for them than
+the one most people would undoubtedly attach to them.
+Still she resented her husband’s masterful manner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I will of course obey your orders, Ezra,” she
+said with a tart emphasis on the word which made
+him wince, “because I hold old-fashioned ideas of
+what wifely duty is, quite at variance with the high
+standard of individual liberty as maintained and explained,
+I believe, by the brethren of Perfection City.
+You may rest quite satisfied, I will obey you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Having thus stabbed her husband in his most vulnerable
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>point and dexterously driven the poignard up
+to the hilt in the wound, Olive walked away, leaving
+Ezra to feel himself a selfish brute.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra spent a wretched half day of self-reproach,
+and then crept back repentant, begging to be forgiven
+for being a tyrant to his poor little pet. And
+his little pet who had paid for her pride with abundant
+tears, allowed him to kiss her and fondle her and call
+her sweet silly names, while she declared she never
+cared to see or speak to that wretched Mr. Cotterell
+again, and no wonder he was ashamed of his own
+name, etc., etc., all in the most foolish and approved
+manner possible to the newly married.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>All the same, after a time Olive began to feel sorry
+for Mr. Cotterell, and to pity him for the very errors
+of his past life, about which she now saw that he was
+penitent without wishing to explain to her why. Also
+she had very much enjoyed meeting him; he was so
+fresh, cultivated, and original, in his conversation. It
+was really very dull sometimes with no one to talk to,
+and the long hot day shimmering by, making her feel
+as if she were a potato being slowly baked in a hotair
+oven. There was no excitement in the house-work
+and—and it was very dreary sometimes. Men delight
+in reverting to primitive savagery. The most highly
+civilized man “reverts” in a way which is surprising
+both for completeness and for rapidity, but women
+hate the process. Savage woman was a slave, and the
+more completely a woman becomes subject to primitive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>conditions the more closely she resembles a slave, and
+is in virtual bondage either to some human being or
+to hampering circumstances.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Of appropriate companions of her own sex Olive
+had absolutely none. Mary Winkle was a rigid reformer,
+a person all angles, of the sort that never becomes
+a companion to anyone, for she was always on
+the war-path, and, besides, between her and Olive there
+was an unexpressed, but no less real, antipathy. Her
+daughter, Willette, that creature half boy, half girl,
+and wholly wild, was always on horseback careering
+after stray cattle, and though by her ignorance and
+eccentricity she sometimes amused Olive, she had really
+no ideas beyond those very concrete ones impressed
+upon her from without by her open-air life on the
+prairie. Mrs. Carpenter was a good soul, but a mere
+stout housewife, with no ideas and only one hope,
+namely, “that Carpenter would give up his high-fallutin’
+notions, an’ go back to York State, an’ settle
+down comfortable again, an’ be a preacher in a Baptist
+church.” Mrs. Ruby was old in body, but the youngest
+of them all in mind, except Uncle David, who was
+her senior by four years. Mrs. Ruby believed in Perfection
+City, though she reserved the right of private
+judgment on certain of the tenets of its founders, and
+in particular, she had lately felt misgivings as to the
+worldly wisdom of their principle of non-resistance.
+She knew, however, that the Pioneers were going to
+show the world the new and better way—the way
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>which led into no competition for supremacy, but into
+peaceful paths of universal progress. Property and
+its attendant imps, greed, strife, jealousy, envy, hatred,
+and malice, were all banished from Perfection City,
+and in their place peace and good-will and perfect trust
+in each other were to reign forever. It was a high
+ideal, but not a new one. It was eighteen centuries
+old, though it had never yet been realised. Mrs. Ruby
+and Uncle David felt sure they had reached the ideal,
+and all through Madame Morozoff-Smith, the most
+whole-souled, unselfish, glorious woman of her century.
+It was a pity she had not a larger theatre in
+which to present before mankind the new principles of
+social life it was their privilege to put into practice.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER X.<br /> <span class='large'>PRACTICAL COMMUNISM.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>A day or two after Ezra had laid his commands
+upon his wife, as we saw in the last chapter, he came
+home in the evening to find her in floods of tears.
+Her eyelids were all red with weeping, and she broke
+out afresh on seeing him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What’s the matter?” asked Ezra, in much concern.
+“What has happened?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My poor flowers, my pretty balsams!” sobbed
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Has the calf got into your garden and spoiled
+your flowers, my poor child?” he said tenderly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, it wasn’t the calf, but they are all gone.
+Mary Winkle took them all.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh!” said Ezra with a slight shock of surprise.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, she has cleared the whole garden. She
+came to-day while I was out at Mrs. Huntley’s.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How do you know it is she who has taken them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Napoleon Pompey told me he saw her pick
+them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Depend upon it, he is lying,” said Ezra with
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>emphasis. “Negroes are as mischievous as monkeys,
+and——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, he didn’t do anything to the flowers,” interrupted
+Olive. “He was as pleased with them almost
+as I was myself, and worked ever so hard to help
+keep down the weeds. Besides, I went to Mary Winkle
+and saw them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh!” said Ezra helplessly. He wished it had
+been the calf or Napoleon Pompey or anybody or anything
+rather than Mary Winkle. He braced himself
+for what was coming.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She told me she did it with a purpose. She
+said I was getting more individualistic in my leanings
+every day, and that time was not curing me at all,
+that I was selfishly proud of my flowers. It isn’t one
+bit true,” sobbed Olive, with quivering chin. “I gave
+heaps of them away. I gathered a bunch for Mrs.
+Huntley just as I was going this morning.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra groaned. “I know you did, dear,” he said.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She said I gloated over them and rejoiced because
+nobody else had any. I didn’t. I only loved
+them because I had tended them and reared them, and
+I knew them and watched for their buds. She said
+they didn’t belong to me, but to the Community, and
+that she took them on behalf of the general weal.
+Those are all grand words for nasty mean jealousy and
+covetousness,” said Olive passionately. “I hate Mary
+Winkle and I hate the Community.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Olive, Olive!” cried Ezra with a gesture of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>entreaty. “Don’t say that, dear. It strikes me to
+the heart. Think of me, dear.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My pretty flowers!” she said with a drooping
+of her mouth that betokened fresh tears.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am so sorry, oh, more sorry than I can say,”
+said Ezra. “Mary Winkle has done wrong, and has
+administered a lesson in a cruel, brutal way.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She has no business to give me lessons at all,
+and I won’t take them from her,” cried Olive passionately.
+“I hate being the one to be always taught.
+They think themselves so superior and are always
+stooping to raise me. Let them raise themselves first.
+I can see where Mary Winkle needs teaching and correction
+as plainly as anybody. She is only communistic
+in regard to things she doesn’t really care about.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no Ollie, darling. It is really a deep conviction
+with us all, although in this case most unkindly
+illustrated,” said Ezra gently.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I know you think so in all honesty, but it isn’t
+so in reality. Nobody is nor can be communistic about
+what they love, if it is real love. If they are communistic
+about a thing it is because they don’t really
+care.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra knew by the pang of jealousy in his own
+heart that this was an insurmountable truth his little
+wife was hurling forth in her anger.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mary Winkle isn’t communistic. I’m not clever
+and able to say wise things and use long words that
+amaze people like Brother Wright, but for all that I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>can see some things clearly enough. Mary Winkle
+isn’t any more communistic than I am, only we love
+different things.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think you mistake,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t mistake one bit. Let Mary Winkle,
+if she is communistic in all the moods and tenses,
+lump her child with the two little Carpenters and draw
+lots to take one of the three for her own. Would that
+satisfy her heart, although the precious principles
+would be right enough? Of course not, because her
+heart would step in and claim its own by the divine
+right of love. I should be thoroughly communistic
+on the score of these children. I shouldn’t mind to
+draw lots as to whether Willette or Nelly or Johnny
+Carpenter was going to come to live with me. One
+would do as well as another, and I could be thoroughly
+communistic, because I don’t love any of them
+very deeply. My little flowers I did love. It wasn’t
+that I had worked for them and grudged the fruit of
+my labour. I would work in a turnip field and let
+anyone who liked have the turnips, nasty, watery,
+pulpy things, but I loved those flowers and tended them
+and they were mine. I don’t care about the philosophy
+of the question. You will perhaps some day see
+what I mean, Ezra, and understand me. I know you
+don’t now. You think me a silly child.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>In his own heart he thought he understood more
+clearly than he liked to confess, that Olive was speaking
+more than philosophy, she was announcing stubborn
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>facts. However, he strove his utmost to soothe
+her feelings, for he could see that if an attitude of
+strife and hostility were once set up between her and
+Mary Winkle, it would not only affect his wife’s happiness
+but might have very serious results upon the
+future of Perfection City. There were only a very
+few of them, and if the experiment was to succeed it
+could only do so through unity, while strife and internal
+dissensions would certainly destroy it without
+giving it a chance. This point was fruitful of deep
+meditation, and occasioned heart-searchings to Ezra.
+It indeed augured ill for the future, not only of Perfection
+City, but of all those other cities of their imagination
+which should spring from this mother plant,
+if the personal feelings of a couple of good women
+were potent enough to wreck the scheme. Surely, in
+the dozen or so choice spirits who now formed the
+entire population of that City, there could be none
+of those latent forces making for destruction which
+would have to be reckoned with in the future and
+larger experiments in communism they were leading
+up to. If it was so difficult to soothe ruffled feelings
+in Perfection City now, and to compose a quarrel about
+some wretched little balsams, what would happen
+when, in a larger Perfection City, deeper cause of dispute
+arose between numbers of persons? Ezra’s mind
+recoiled aghast at the answer which rose up in his
+mind in reply to that question. There would have
+to be some strong, some overwhelming central power,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>a despot in short. Was this then the goal which they
+were to reach after toiling along a hard and stony
+road of personal effort? A despotism or a monasticism,
+in either case tyranny and subjection. Surely, oh
+surely, there must be some other solution which his
+mind, disturbed by the sight of his little wife’s distress,
+had unaccountably failed to formulate. He
+would go to Madame and would seek guidance from
+her illumined mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive, spent by her emotions, had gone to sleep
+quite early, so Ezra sallied forth to seek counsel where
+he was used to find it. Madame would be sure to be
+still up—though it was late by prairie hours, after
+nine o’clock—as he knew by experience, for in his
+bachelor days he had often spent long evenings in discussion
+and talk with her. Since his marriage, however,
+he had never gone alone in the evening to talk
+with Madame. Happy in his own love, he had felt
+no need of other companionship, and now as he walked
+along to her house, he began to wonder if she had
+noticed the sudden cessation of the evening talks, and
+also to wonder if she had missed them. It was thoughtless
+never to have gone near her during all these
+weeks. It was selfish, seeing how kind, how always
+sympathetic she had been to him for so many months,
+during the time when he felt lonely and full of undefined
+longings, before his heart had found complete
+rest in Olive’s love and above all in his love for her.
+Ezra thinking of these things was smitten with remorse,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>and made a resolution to go and see Madame
+of an evening sometimes and to bring Olive with him.
+Meantime he walked along and in a few moments
+knocked at the familiar door. Madame opened it herself,
+with Balthasar in close attendance. The latter,
+on satisfying himself that it was a person of friendly
+intentions who claimed admittance, walked back to
+the spot where he had been lying, and resumed the
+thread of his interrupted slumbers.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Ezra, this is indeed a most unexpected
+visit. I hope it is not because there is anything wrong
+in your little home,” said Madame gravely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra felt much embarrassed. He could hardly say
+there was nothing the matter, and still less could he
+apologise for having forgotten during all these happy
+weeks to come to see her. He did the best thing
+under the circumstances. He ignored Madame’s remark
+and question, and plunged boldly into the business
+which had brought him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She listened gravely without making any observation,
+but occasionally the faintest shadow of a smile
+fluttered around her lips. Ezra watched her face somewhat
+anxiously. In the old days, he had been used to
+read her face when they talked together, and to catch
+the meaning of her words from the mobile and everchanging
+expression of her clear blue eyes. But to-day,
+somehow, as he looked, he felt he had lost the
+power to read. The face was now a mask which seemed
+to conceal the real woman underneath, and yet it was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>the same fair smooth brow, the same sharply defined
+eyebrows, and, beneath, the same eyes. No, the eyes
+were not the same. They no longer looked clear and
+full at Ezra, but were often averted in a strange and
+uncertain manner, as if seeking to hide or to flee. At
+least such was the curious impression they produced
+upon him, as he sat looking at her and telling of the
+mighty wave of wrath that had surged up about that
+handful of balsam blossoms.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is a most singular cause of division, and one
+I could almost laugh at, except for the very real passions
+of anger and of hatred it has aroused,” he said
+in conclusion.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“One often sees terrible bursts of anger and
+fury in immature minds,” observed Madame in
+the preamble of her answer. “Young children
+and people of weak intellect frequently exhibit
+the most pitiable extremes of fury over trifling
+causes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra was not quite certain to what she referred.
+If to Olive, then she was mistaken in considering her
+a child. He recalled very vividly what she had said
+about communism in what one loves, and he was not
+at all prepared to admit that her arguments were those
+of a person of weak intellect.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t think this is a case for ‘criticism-cure’
+in the Assembly, do you?” she said.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not,” replied Ezra, who was keenly
+alive to the possibility of his wife’s blazing up into uncompromising
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>criticism herself, if they attempted to
+apply the famous “cure” upon her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Criticism-cure” existed rather in theory than in
+practice in Perfection City, but it was held that if a
+brother or a sister should be guilty of any offence
+against the common weal, it would be an edifying
+experience to summon him or her to the Assembly,
+and let all the members tell him or her exactly what
+each one thought of the conduct in question. In
+theory this was supposed to work admirably, and to
+be a weapon capable of reducing to reason the most
+refractory member of the Community, but when Ezra
+remembered it and imagined for a moment its possible
+effects on Olive, he foresaw a whole train of deplorable
+results. Suppose she defended herself, she could
+say sharp rankling things with a surprising amount
+of unanswerable truth in them, or suppose she didn’t
+defend herself, but took the scolding silently. Her
+eyes would get bigger and bigger with tears which
+would roll over her cheeks, and her sweet little chin
+would quiver, and she would look imploringly at him.
+He couldn’t stand that, he knew, but would rush up
+and take her in his arms, and carry her off out from
+the midst of the carping, criticising brethren, and he
+would call her sweet pet and darling, and say she was
+right and they were horrid brutes to scold her, and
+he would be very angry and would be quite capable
+of knocking Brother Wright down, if he, as was likely,
+had been savage with the little pet. No, criticism-cure
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>should not be applied to Olive. And Ezra, arguing
+thence into wider fields, began to feel some doubts as
+to the value of that remarkable weapon as a means
+of eradicating the naturally evil tendencies of the human
+heart. Theories which had seemed sound and
+complete in the abstract had a curious habit of ringing
+false when he imagined himself as applying them
+to Olive. It was very curious, but they did not seem
+to fit her, or was it possible that the theories themselves
+were wrong? No, he dismissed that thought as
+entailing too much mental demolition and carting away
+of rubbish. Of one thing only was he sure, the “criticism-cure”
+was not to be tried on his little wife.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think it is a case for petting rather than for
+punishing,” remarked Madame, after an interval during
+which they had both been severally following out
+the ramifications of their own reflections.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra jumped at this idea. He was of that opinion
+too, as he impartially observed. Indeed he was always
+of opinion that Olive required petting.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I think I understand the case,” continued
+Madame. “The flowers were a toy, doubly prized now
+they are gone. What is wanted is to provide a new
+and more attractive toy, so that the baby-mind will
+lightly forget the old grief.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra did not quite like this way of referring to
+Olive, but he had called in Madame’s aid, and he had
+no choice but to listen to the physician’s diagnosis
+and prescription regarding the case in question. Madame
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>meanwhile looked at him half pityingly, having
+apparently overcome her eyes’ desire to avoid his
+glance.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Poor Ezra!” she said softly. “You are mated
+to a child, petulant, wilful, hard to manage, and very
+bewitching. You will find that you cannot in this
+case work by the light of pure reason. You must
+bring yourself down to her level and try to see with
+her eyes, to take delight in the petty trifles that interest
+her. ’Tis weary work! The task of Sisyphus was none
+the less severe because it produced no tangible good.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She was silent, and Ezra began to repent that he
+had sought counsel from so exalted a source, since it
+was delivered to him with such a liberal seasoning of
+the bitter salt of implied reproof.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think that I can apply a remedy in this instance,”
+resumed Madame. “I know a woman’s mind
+as well as most people, and I know too the vain weaknesses
+of a silly girl—perhaps the knowledge comes
+from a memory, or perhaps from a shattered hope,
+who knows? At all events, dear friend and brother,
+it will serve you now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She left him to go into the small inner apartment
+which was her bedroom, and came out again in a few
+moments carrying a small gold bracelet of curious
+workmanship, an Oriental trinket.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Here is a little trifle I happen to have by me.
+Do you think this toy would dry the little one’s
+tears?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>She handed the bracelet to Ezra, who, though ignorant
+enough on such matters, did not fail to recognise
+the flash of diamonds in the jewel.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is a very valuable piece of jewellery,” he
+said. “You must not give it away.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t value such things except for the power
+of making someone happy,” replied Madame. “Take
+it, dear friend, and think that I speak truly when I
+say I would gladly give all I possess to ease your mind
+of trouble and make your path in life a pleasant one.
+And the child-wife may like it. Now, go to her. Good-night!
+You look tired and harassed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She gently put her hand upon his forehead as if
+to smooth out wrinkles, and left the room.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>As Ezra walked home with the diamond bracelet
+in his pocket, he seemed to feel her cool soft touch
+still, and the thought came into his mind that Olive
+never petted him. No, it was he who always petted
+her. Well, she was very sweet and pretty, and he
+hoped the bracelet would comfort her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>There was no doubt about that. Olive danced
+for joy when she saw the trinket. She put it on her
+smooth little wrist and flashed it about in the sunshine.
+Her eyes rivalled the diamonds for brightness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you like it, Ollie?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Like it! Why, it’s too lovely for anything, and
+Madame is just a darling, and she is kind. Just fancy
+giving me a diamond bracelet! A thing I never dreamt
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>of ever owning. And how shall I ever thank
+her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was skipping with joy. Suddenly she stopped
+short.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra, is this mine, or is it a community-bracelet?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is yours, child.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mary Winkle can’t come and take it away for the
+good of my soul, can she?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not. We are allowed to hold
+private property in such personal trifles, as you
+know quite well. Besides, Sister Mary would
+not wish to take from you what you particularly
+prized.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, of that I am not at all so sure. If your
+principles allowed it, I would not give much for Sister
+Mary’s self-restraint in the matter. She might want
+the bracelet for herself or for Willette, for what I
+know. I shall tell her the bracelet is mine even by
+community-law.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive began to skip again.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are an intractable little mortal, for all you
+look so soft and yielding,” said Ezra. He could not
+help smiling at her pretty kittenish ways, but he was
+filled with a sort of amazement to perceive how impossible
+it was to change the trend of her mind. Had
+she been an angular woman, all bones, like Mary Winkle,
+it would not have seemed so strange. Olive
+brought her frollicking to a conclusion and looked
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>wisely at her husband, shaking her pretty little head
+at him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no, Ezra. It is not that, but you are trying
+to stuff me into a wrong-shaped mould, and I don’t
+fit. As if any mortal woman ever could care for a
+community-bracelet!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She danced away to put her treasure in some safe
+place, and Ezra went off to his work, wondering in
+his own mind if there was something radically antagonistic
+to communism in the female nature. If there
+was any such fundamental incompatibility of temperament,
+then farewell to all ideas of a successful issue
+to their experiment. Absolute equality between men
+and women in position, power, and influence was the
+key-note of their theories, but what would become of
+these theories if it should appear that the female mind
+refused to accept the first and greatest postulate upon
+which they were all founded?</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XI.<br /> <span class='large'>A CHANCE MEETING.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The spring whence the Westons drew their water
+was about a quarter of a mile from the house across
+an angle of the corn field. A little foot-path winding
+in and out among the hills of corn led to it. As
+the corn grew, this path changed in character and became
+at length a track through a miniature forest.
+The corn grew to about eight feet in height, and of
+course the first to be covered was little Olive, with her
+brief five feet two inches, but by the end of July it
+had covered them all. Then it became Olive’s greatest
+delight to go down through that forest where the
+corn shook in the breeze. The satin-smooth stalks
+coming up like bamboos, and the broad fibrous ribbons
+of leaves, were a constant pleasure. But greatest
+joy of all was to watch the coming of the silk.
+When the young ears of grain were forming they
+threw off great skeins of exquisite silken threads,
+changing through every tint from palest green to rich
+dark crimson. These bunches of silk were like soft
+plumes falling from the crest of the husk that held
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>the ears, and were most tempting to twist through
+idle fingers. A forest of tall-growing prairie corn
+is just the place for fairies, only alas! the wee folk
+had departed this life long before ever Olive went
+to live at Perfection City. So charmed was she with
+this dwarf forest, which afforded the only shade to be
+enjoyed on that glaring prairie, that during the summer
+she always went to the spring for an extra pail
+of fresh water every afternoon before supper-time,
+as this errand gave her an excuse for loitering among
+the corn stalks and amusing herself with her own
+playful fancies.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Diana of course accompanied her young mistress
+upon these walks to the spring, for the puppy was
+attached to her by bonds of firmest canine affection,
+while Olive, on her side, was never tired of laughing
+at Diana’s ridiculous freaks, although they sometimes
+caused her considerable trouble.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Take an example.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A day so hot and scorching that words fail to convey
+any idea of it, and Olive in a great fuss, for she
+was behindhand with her work. At four o’clock, the
+very most blistering hour of the whole twenty-four,
+she set off hastily for the spring to fetch the fresh
+water, and with her Diana, her tongue lolling out
+half a hand’s breath. Knowing the object of the expedition,
+the puppy took the path through the corn,
+and Olive sweltered after her. It seemed as if the
+shelter of the corn was powerless against the slanting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>shafts of sunlight that danced and chequered between
+the broad hanging leaves, while the very air seemed
+endowed with such a load of heat as to press down
+with more than the allotted weight upon Olive’s head.
+She climbed over the fence and walked across the
+grass to where the spring started from under a tiny
+overhanging ledge of limestone rock. It was an excellent
+spring with the best of water, and would have
+been made into the holiest of wells by a spreading
+tree or a shady thorn-bush near it. There was, however,
+nothing of this sort, but only a clear pool of
+water some two feet across and about a foot deep,
+just enough, in fact, to enable one to get a good dip
+with the bucket. As Olive, hot and tired, hurried to
+this little pool of water, she beheld the accomplished
+Diana sitting in the middle of it, cooling herself and
+slobbering water up and down over her nose in supreme
+bliss. Poor Olive! She did not know whether
+to laugh or to cry, but eventually decided upon the
+first-named course. Then she sat down beside Diana
+and paddled her feet in the water, after which refreshment
+she returned home with her water-pail empty.
+The spring had an undisturbed night in which to
+renew its freshness, and in the future Olive kept her
+eye on Diana when they went together for water.
+The dog always wanted to go first, but Olive kept her
+severely to heel until the water was obtained, after
+which Diana was free to indulge in what diversions
+she pleased.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>One day as Olive emerged from the pathway
+through the corn, her heart gave a great bound of
+alarm as she saw a man standing beside the spring,
+holding his horse’s bridle. He was a tall man in a
+red shirt and large-brimmed hat. He carried a revolver
+at his belt, but it was not that which frightened
+Olive, she was well accustomed to seeing armed men.
+On catching sight of her the stranger took off his hat
+with a sweeping bow, and coming forward greeted her
+with the greatest eagerness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is indeed a delightful meeting, Mrs. Weston.
+Quite idyllic, if I may say so. And are you coming
+to fetch water? It is a subject for a poem, only I
+am not a poet. I can feel all the beauty of it, but
+must be dumb. You’ll let me carry back your pail
+for you, won’t you? It is too heavy for those wee
+hands.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Thank you, Mr. Cotterell. I can quite easily
+carry my pail. I do it every day,” said Olive speaking
+with much embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell!” he repeated with infinite sadness
+in manner, and with a look of much meaning in his
+bold blue eyes. “You call me Mr. Cotterell, then I
+am no longer Mr. Perseus, and my sweet romance is
+shattered forever!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I know now that you are Mr. Cotterell,” said
+Olive, in keen distress.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And knowing that, you are disillusioned and have
+lost faith in me, and you will not even let me carry
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>your pail of water for you,” said he, sadly, in a way
+which cut Olive to the heart, “yet I am the same man
+I was. To you at least I have never changed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I know you are very kind,” said Olive, “but if
+you please I’d rather you didn’t carry the pail for
+me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She was dreadfully sorry to say anything to hurt
+his feelings, but she remembered her promise, and
+she must make him understand here and now that
+their acquaintance was to cease. She wanted to do
+it as kindly as she could, but she must do it at once.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Cotterell was not slow to read her thoughts, indeed
+her distress was too real and undisguised for him
+to fail to understand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is this an order of dismissal, Mrs. Weston? Am
+I not to come to see you any more?” he asked abruptly,
+with a look of pain in his face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive glancing up saw the pain and felt sorrier
+than ever, but she went bravely forward.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am deeply pained, Mr. Cotterell, but I must
+ask you not to come to see me; my husband does not
+want you to,” she said, unable in her distress to find
+any words which would convey her meaning unmistakably,
+and yet not sound too unkind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your husband has forbidden you to see me?”
+said Cotterell, biting his yellow moustache savagely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said Olive simply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your husband’s sentiments would do credit to
+a dog in the manger, Mrs. Weston, but are not what
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>one exactly looks for from a professing communist,
+who poses as a shining light for his poor fellow-creatures
+still groping in the darkness of their ignorance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He says you are a bad man, Mr. Cotterell,”
+said Olive with a view to defending her husband and
+perhaps finding out the facts of the case about her
+mysterious friend, in whose personality she felt a great
+interest.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t pretend to be a good man, Heaven knows!
+but I’m a poor lonely devil living quite by myself, and
+your husband, with all that the world can give in
+the way of happiness, grudges me the brief pleasure
+of talking for half an hour with a good woman. That’s
+not the way to make me a better man, Mrs. Weston,
+and God knows I need all the help I can get.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m so sorry,” faltered Olive in ready sympathy,
+and the tears welled up into her tender black eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You sweet pitying angel,” said Mr. Cotterell,
+coming nearer and speaking very gently. “Your influence
+would save me if anything could.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, you mustn’t talk like that,” said Olive, with
+a catch in her voice. “And you will be a good man,
+won’t you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He bent his handsome face low, and taking her
+hand implanted a kiss upon it with a grace that might
+have charmed a duchess.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“A woman can make or mar a man’s life,” said
+he. “Happy are they who draw the prizes. Goodbye!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>He sprang upon his horse and galloped away.
+Olive stood watching him, her eyes swimming in tears,
+she scarcely knew why, only he seemed so sad and
+so handsome. Ezra was unkind to say she must
+never see him any more and try to make his life
+less sad and wicked, and she was so sorry to
+think that she would never have any more talks
+with him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>At this moment a low growl from Diana made
+Olive turn round to encounter the clear cool gaze of
+Madame Morozoff-Smith.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I followed you down here,” she said. “Napoleon
+Pompey told me that you were most likely gone to
+the spring.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Have you been here long?” asked Olive, blushing
+in her surprise and confusion. “I only came for
+a pail of fresh water.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I just saw Mr. Cotterell say good-bye and
+ride off,” observed Madame gently. “Do you see him
+often? He hasn’t a good reputation.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t believe he is as bad as people say, I am
+very sorry for him living alone.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He need not have been alone only that he chose
+it, indeed it ought to have been quite otherwise, if
+report goes true.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We ought to be the last persons on earth to
+credit reports,” said Olive hotly. “I am sure there
+is a nice crop of them about us and our life here at
+Perfection City, if it comes to that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>“True, I daresay there are,” said Madame. “One
+should be charitable.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was evidently ill at ease, and Madame drawing
+from a totally different experience of life her own
+conclusions, became convinced that Ezra’s wife was
+carrying on a secret acquaintanceship with a man of
+whom he thought very ill.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame’s position as leader at Perfection City
+gave her many rights and imposed certain duties. She
+considered that of private admonition as one of them.
+She did not speak for some moments, and the two
+walked along in silence. Madame was debating in her
+own mind whether she should speak to Olive and endeavour
+to turn her from the dangerous path towards
+which she seemed to be directing her steps; or whether
+she should keep silence and let her destiny be accomplished.
+She reflected that if she spoke to Olive,
+that rather high-spirited young woman would probably
+resent her interference, and might possibly complain
+to Ezra, with the result of estranging him from
+herself. On the other hand, if she left the silly wife
+to go her foolish way, she would break her husband’s
+heart. Madame’s well-shaped lips curled with a smile
+of contempt for herself as these thoughts passed rapidly
+through her brain. What a fool she was to stir
+in the matter! Let the giddy girl follow her own impulses
+and then—No, no! She would be true to her
+best self, she would put forth a hand and draw back
+the blind fool from the precipice that lay before her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>She spoke therefore to Olive in that soft quiet
+voice of hers that seemed to have more power of arresting
+the attention and holding it than the roar of
+an avalanche.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think you are, perhaps, not acquainted with
+Mr. Cotterell’s character,” said she. “I am sure you
+would not wish to associate with a bad man.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why do you think he is a bad man? Do you
+know him?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t know him, but I am sure I am right
+in saying that he is a man of loose morals,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t believe it,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why not? How can you know?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Because I have talked with him a great deal,
+and he speaks like a man with high aspirations, and
+not at all like the bad man you say he is.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But what can you know of a man’s real character
+from a chance word or two as you run across
+him in an afternoon’s stroll?” observed Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t judge from a chance word, I have had
+long talks with him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Indeed! and where? Do you meet him here at
+the spring then, so often?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I never met him at the spring before, but I used
+to meet him pretty often, when I was out cattle-hunting
+and he would generally accompany me for a bit.
+Sometimes too, he used to pass our house on his way
+cattle-hunting, and then he would look in and water
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>his horse and stop to talk to me for a time,” said Olive
+in explanation.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Really!” said Madame looking keenly at her
+companion, “and did Ezra know of these visits?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra said he wasn’t to come any more, and I
+told Mr. Cotterell so to-day.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! and what did he say?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He called Ezra a dog in the manger, and I do
+think Ezra oughtn’t to be so harsh about Mr. Cotterell.
+He would like to be a better man, I know, if he
+had any chance, and people were kind to him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did he intimate that you could influence him
+towards the better way?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t see why I can’t try to use my influence
+in trying to make my fellow-creatures happier and
+better. You and Ezra are always talking about
+doing good that way. Why do you want to stop
+me the moment I see a chance of doing a little
+good?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Because you would only do harm.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I shouldn’t. A woman has great influence
+over a man. He said so himself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell said so?” inquired Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is a very dangerous thing for a young woman
+to attempt to influence men of that sort.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You don’t know what sort he is, nor anything
+about him. You are only following reports. And
+how can you talk about the danger of influencing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>men? That is just what you are always doing yourself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“With me it is quite different,” said Madame
+hastily.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That is what everybody says to me whenever
+I want to do what other people find it right to do. I
+hate being treated like a baby.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are very young and very pretty, child, and
+that makes it all the more necessary for your friends
+to guard you against dangers which you don’t perceive
+as clearly as they do.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I hate being young and—well—pretty, if it’s always
+going to make me be treated like that,” said
+Olive angrily.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Like what?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Like a naughty child. That’s what Ezra does,
+and he goes to you to ask what he should do to me,
+you know he does.” She was beginning to cry, just
+like a naughty child.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame smiled contemptuously as she glanced at
+her companion. “What could have possessed that
+quiet reserved Ezra to marry such a feather-headed
+vain little puss?” she thought bitterly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive dried her eyes angrily, she saw the contempt
+expressed by Madame’s curling lips, and her pride
+was thoroughly aroused.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I want to know why things are different as soon
+as they apply to me?” she asked with doubtful grammar
+but unmistakable import. “It isn’t this once
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>only, but it is always so. Personal liberty is the corner-stone
+of Perfection City, that is what you are
+here for, to enjoy liberty and protest against things.
+Mary Winkle won’t take her husband’s name, and
+dresses like a fright, and nobody minds. She’s free.
+But as soon as I try a little flight of my own, that
+doesn’t hurt anybody, I’m to be popped into a cage,
+and you and Ezra come and shut the door on me.
+I met this man by chance and liked talking to him.
+He is well-mannered and well educated, and likes the
+same books as I do, and has travelled and could tell
+me heaps and heaps of interesting things. He wasn’t
+forever talking in the same little muddling circle, and
+wasn’t always full of himself. He tried to interest
+me. You are an educated woman, Madame, and you
+know as well as I do that, except for you and Ezra,
+there is not an educated person in Perfection City,
+nor one who has the same tastes as I have. Mr. Cotterell
+used to come and talk to me, and I liked it;
+then Ezra gets very angry, says he is a bad man, and
+forbids my seeing him. He forbids me, mind you.
+Not a bit the sort of language you would expect in
+Perfection City, but I believe in wifely obedience and
+I obeyed him. I told Mr. Cotterell he must not come
+to see me any more, and he won’t do so. He always
+showed the best spirit in everything he said, and I
+won’t believe he is so very wicked just on mere report.
+We once had a horse-thief and murderer to stay
+to supper, and we did not inquire into his character
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>before we asked him to stop and rest and feed his
+horse. Mr. Cotterell said my influence might help
+him to be a better man, and perhaps it might. At
+all events, I want to know why I wasn’t to try to influence
+him, and I want to know why Perfection City
+ideas, when they make for freedom, are not applicable
+to me, but have to be all turned upside down when
+I come into play? Can you, Madame, answer me
+that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame was considerably dumbfoundered by this
+attack delivered so unexpectedly and so very straight
+from the shoulder. She hastily recast her idea that
+Olive was a silly little fool, and most unaccountably
+found herself anxiously seeking about for means of defence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The fact of the matter is, you are too pretty to
+do these things,” she replied, helplessly telling the
+truth in her extremity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Can Perfection City then only succeed if all the
+women are ugly?” asked Olive scornfully. “You had
+better not proclaim that fact, or you’ll have all the
+women running away.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame was in the habit of being worshipped by
+men, and was not at all prepared to have her remarks
+ridiculed by a slip of a girl. She did not like it, and
+therefore replied with some asperity,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are really too silly, Sister Olive. You must
+surely perceive that there is great danger in your
+associating with Mr. Cotterell on so familiar a footing,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>that, in short, he may fall in love with you, and I
+presume you can understand the danger of that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Precisely, a fresh set of laws must, as usual, be
+applied to me, and not those which govern the rest
+of you,” said Olive calmly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t understand to what you refer,” said Madame
+looking at her doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell knew from the outset that I was
+a married woman. I don’t see the alarmingness of
+the danger that he might fall in love with me, simply
+because we talked together. The idea has only struck
+you in reference to me; it does not seem to have done
+so with regard to the similar circumstances of you and
+Ezra.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame turned white with anger. “How dare
+you insult me by such an insinuation?” she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I didn’t dare until after you had first given utterance
+to the insinuation against me,” replied Olive,
+with provoking calmness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame turned as if she could have struck her,
+but she controlled herself with a desperate effort.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It seems to me, Sister Olive, that your remarks
+are very ill-judged,” she said in a voice that shook
+in spite of her. “I have no wish to bandy words
+with you. I spoke merely out of a desire to do my
+duty, and to save you, if possible, from a danger
+which I imagined I foresaw more clearly than you
+did. I see that your words were prompted by quite
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>another wish than to seek advice or counsel in a difficult
+moment.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I sought for neither advice or counsel,” returned
+Olive. “I simply wanted to discover, if possible, how
+to fit the theories of Perfection City, which I know
+pretty well by heart now, into the practice as applied
+to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame looked at her with eyes of anger and even
+of hate, and Olive, conscious of having been almost
+more successful than she had imagined possible in
+argument with so distinguished a mind, returned the
+look with one suggestive of triumph. Alas for the
+perfect harmony of Perfection City!</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am surprised, I will not say pained, because
+you would care little for that, but I am surprised, I
+repeat, at such words in the mouth of Ezra Weston’s
+wife. He must have been strangely mistaken in your
+character, or you cannot have revealed your true self
+to him, for I cannot imagine him binding himself for
+life to a mate who scorns and flouts in this manner
+what he holds so dear. You are mocking the principles
+to which he has devoted his life. You are too
+foolish to see what you are doing, but one day you
+will be punished, and then perhaps you will repent—when
+it will be too late.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame turned and walked rapidly away, leaving
+Olive feeling very angry and very much frightened
+as well.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>That evening Napoleon Pompey carried a note
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>and a small parcel to Madame, who guessed pretty well
+what it was. The note was brief, it contained but
+these words:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I thought you sent the bracelet as a present,
+therefore I accepted it and was grateful: now I know
+you sent it as a reproof, therefore I return it.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XII.<br /> <span class='large'>THE PRAIRIE FIRE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The summer had been a particularly dry one, and
+since the beginning of July not a drop of rain had
+fallen. The water-melons revelled in the heat, and
+Olive revelled in the water-melons: for by a blessed
+compensation of Nature the hotter and drier the land,
+the cooler and juicier the water-melons seem to be.
+The water-melon of the western prairie is as different
+from the pallid green-fleshed vegetable which masquerades
+under its name in this country, as the full moon
+of the heavens is superior to the lime-light article
+manufactured for use on the stage. The real prairie
+water-melon is an enormous affair, being about as large
+as the roll of rugs without which fussy gentlemen
+consider it impossible to travel. The skin is of the
+darkest green and as hard as a board, a most unripe-looking
+object at all times. Indeed the only way one
+can find out the condition of a water-melon’s insides
+is by surgical operation. You simply cut out a plug
+about an inch square from the top side of the melon,
+and look to see if the flesh has turned crimson at the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>centre. If it is still white or pale pink you know the
+psychological moment, when the truly wise will eat
+the melon, has not yet arrived. Accordingly you put
+back the plug, and leave the sun to work a little longer
+on it, at a temperature of a hundred and twenty or
+so. Since it never rains at the melon season of the
+year, the plug does not do any harm if left on the top
+side, but the beginner sometimes leaves it on the
+lower side, with the result that all the water runs away.
+It is a curious fact, but the water of a melon, even
+of one picked in the middle of a scorching hot day,
+never seems tepid. It is always cool and refreshing,
+even at times when ordinary water tastes unutterably
+mawkish owing to the excessive heat. The crimson
+spongy flesh, specked with purple-black seeds, is eaten
+in moderation or in immoderation according to the
+taste of the individual, but the water is always greedily
+drunk up by everybody. The scorching winds of the
+plains seem to dry one’s very marrow, and nothing can
+exceed the thirst of a man who is obliged to be out all
+day in such weather and to work hard at the same time.
+Animals, too, suffer from extreme thirst, and after a
+morning’s ploughing when the farm horses are brought
+up to water, they drink and drink and drink, swelling
+visibly under one’s eye, as if they were india-rubber
+horses under the action of some new patent inflator.
+They are never stinted in their drink and swallow
+bucketsful before attacking their corn.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>But to return to our water-melons.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>Napoleon Pompey used to bring up a wheelbarrow
+full from the melon patch each morning for
+the day’s consumption. He, like a true negro, was
+inordinately fond of melons, or “millions” as he
+called them, and would have sucked them all day long
+if left to his own devices. Whenever he had to go
+anywhere in the waggon, as occasionally happened,
+he would lay in a store of “millions,” and lay himself
+beside them, and suck them, just as if he were a black
+caterpillar of unlimited capacity. The horses meantime,
+far too oppressed with the heat to require much
+attention, would plod along with their eyes shut, trying
+to keep out the glaring light. There was nothing
+to stumble over or fall into, so the driving became
+of the most elementary pattern, requiring only an
+occasional rattle of the reins and a comment or two,
+such as: “Yo’, Reb, g’ ’long will yer, g’ out o’ dat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive during this period found the heat stifling,
+and used to sit out of doors on the shady side of the
+house, until the terrible wind blew up from the Plains,
+when she would flee as before the breath of a volcano,
+and shutting herself tight up in her room with closed
+doors and windows, would gasp through the visitation
+as best she might. She was no worse off than anyone
+else, and the nights were always cool and refreshing.
+That was an unspeakable blessing. All this heat dried
+up the thick prairie grass until it was like a vast plain
+of dry hay standing erect.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The corn crop at Perfection City had turned out
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>exceptionally good. There was ample for all the needs
+of the Community and a good surplus which was to
+be sold at Mapleton in order to enable them to buy
+some farm-machinery that was greatly needed. Consequently
+the whole Community worked hard at getting
+in the corn so as to be early in the market. The
+heavy ears of corn with their twenty rows of golden
+yellow grains were stripped off the tall stalks by hand:
+a most limb-lacerating job, for the “shucks,” or coverings
+to the ear, are masses of fibrous leaves with sawlike
+edges. These edges have the power of cutting an
+exposed finger in a most painful manner, and they are
+by no means loath to use the power.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>All this hurry and concentration of the workers
+upon the cornfield was possible only if every other
+sort of work was neglected for the moment. It seemed
+the wisest plan to hasten off with their harvest in spite
+of the risk, and, unused as they were to prairie life,
+yet even they realized that there was some risk in thus
+leaving their farms unprotected. Ezra was perfectly
+aware of it, but like so many people he shut his eyes
+and hoped for good luck. He spoke to Olive on the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If anyone so much as drops a lighted match on
+the prairie we shall be lost,” he said.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, what do you mean?” asked his wife in
+surprise. She was still so new to the prairie that she
+did not understand to what he referred. They happened
+to be on that outside landing of the stairs which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>looked out over the wide boundless western prairie.
+This stairway from its position made an exceptionally
+good place from which to take a survey of the whole
+prospect.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That grass is like tinder, and if anybody leaves
+a coal of fire burning at his camping-place or drops
+his pipe, the thing will catch in a second, and if there
+is a strong west wind we shall see about as bad a prairie
+fire as we care to.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, but that’s dreadful! What shall we do?”
+said Olive, much alarmed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“As soon as our corn is sold at Mapleton, we shall
+plough all round Perfection City and back-fire, if we
+can only get a calm day. We must not back-fire in
+a high wind, because that would probably start a prairie
+fire and just cause the very mischief we want to
+guard against. It would take fifty people to keep a
+line of fire under control for a mile’s length with grass
+like that and a strong wind.” So spoke Ezra, critically
+scanning the horizon for any sign of smoke which
+might betoken danger. He was very uneasy, and the
+fierce west wind, which seemed never weary of blowing,
+made him all the more anxious, as it might prevent
+them guarding themselves by running the usual
+belt of burnt prairie all around Perfection City.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was not a light job to get a safety belt of about
+four miles long, for that was the circumference of the
+portion of their land fenced in, and it was an impossible
+one in the face of a high wind with their small
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>force—unless indeed they did as selfish individualists
+did, namely let the fire go and burn out whom it liked
+and what it liked once they were themselves safe.
+The Pioneers refused to be guilty of this act of treachery
+to the common weal of the inhabitants of the prairie.
+It is a comparatively easy thing to keep one line
+of fire safe and so protect your own fields; the real
+difficulty begins when you want to stop the fire from
+spreading in other directions as well. Most of the
+settlers back-fired their own land, and left Providence
+or the Devil to see to the result as regards their neighbours.
+The Pioneers had naturally a higher standard
+of public duty than this, therefore they did not back-fire
+in the high wind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The corn being stripped off the stalks, Olive’s
+fairy forest was sadly mutilated, for the great ears
+were all gone and many of the streaming leaves were
+torn away; the walk to the spring, therefore, was no
+longer so delightful as it had been earlier in the summer.
+Still she and Diana used to go there pretty
+often, especially since Napoleon Pompey was always
+kept busy helping in the field. Coming up from the
+spring one afternoon just before sun-down, she was
+amazed to see her husband galloping madly along the
+far side of the field on Queen Katherine, the big brown
+mare, her harness banging her hot flanks at every
+stride, while Napoleon Pompey on Rebel was tearing
+after him waving his tattered old straw hat. Olive
+for a moment or two stared in blank amazement at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>them, and then began to run towards the house which
+appeared to be their destination also. Ezra and Napoleon
+Pompey with frantic gestures seemed to invite
+her attention to the setting sun, now sinking to rest
+like a shimmering copper ball. She looked, but saw
+nothing except the molten mass, unless it were a faint
+blue haze on the horizon, the result, as she supposed,
+of the intense heat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When Olive reached the house a few moments
+later, it was to see her husband going hurriedly down
+the road to the bars on the other side of the house.
+The horses were hitched to the plough and were trotting
+fast, while Napoleon Pompey was urging them on
+with voice and whip. The plough, unaccustomed to
+such speed, was jerking from side to side. A moment’s
+halt at the bars, while Napoleon Pompey threw down
+the rails, and Ezra turning round put both hands to
+his mouth and shouted “Fire” in a long re-echoing
+whoop. He wheeled around then and seizing his
+plough-handles set off at a hand-gallop, bounding
+along with his ungainly implement.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Now Olive understood what that blue haze meant.
+It was a prairie fire coming down on them from the
+west along with a fierce wind. Oh dear! oh dear!
+What should she do? There must be something women
+could help at, in such a moment, if she only knew
+what. But who to ask? Everybody was far away,
+and the dreadful fire began to show up now that the
+sun was no longer casting such bright rays.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>“Come ’long, git yer shingle,” shouted a familiar
+voice behind her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Willette, is that you? What shall I do? It’s
+a fire, and I don’t know what’s wanted.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Nothin’ but a shingle an’ a box o’ matches.
+Quick now! We’ll hev ter pike, you bet. Pa and Ma
+is out firin’ a’ready down yonder, ’side our house.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am so glad you’ve come,” said Olive hurrying
+along with two wooden shingles under her arm.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The shingles were merely the thin wooden “slates”
+with which the houses were roofed. When thoroughly
+dried they are admirably adapted for spreading a fire
+from house to house in a street, and accordingly they
+are now prohibited by law in most towns and cities.
+On the prairie they were used in emergencies as paddles
+to keep the back-firing within limits.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, Ma said she ’lowed you wouldn’t know the
+fust thing ter do,” remarked Willette complacently.
+“An’ Pa said he reckoned school larnin’ in the East
+could make folks more like nateral born fools than
+anything under the sun.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was very little obliged to the Wright and
+Winkle spouses for their opinion of her. She remained
+therefore silent.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They soon reached the furrows that were being
+so desperately ploughed by Ezra and his foam-covered
+horses. The swift twilight was almost upon them,
+but they could see Wright urging his horses along
+the south side of the land nearest his house, while
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>away across at the east side of Perfection City Brother
+Dummy was thundering along with his waggon bringing
+up his plough to the rescue, and that completed
+all the horse-power of the Community. Little tongues
+of flame here and there along the furrows denoted that
+the back-firing had begun in several spots. Meanwhile
+the sky was reddening up with the reflection
+of the on-coming conflagration, and the fierce wind
+blew ever harder directly from its long blood-red line.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Now you jes’ set afire ’long hyar, front this hyar
+furrow,” said Willette, kneeling down with her matches
+and starting the fire as she spoke. “Now then, yo’
+jes’ see to that, an’ don’t yo’ let that ar fire hop over
+behind yer, or it’ll be worse nor nothin’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What am I to do?” asked Olive trembling with
+excitement and fear, it was all so strange and alarming.
+“I never saw a fire and don’t know anything
+about it,” she added.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Jes’ paddle it out with yer shingle, ef it gits over.
+There ain’t no sight o’ larnin’ wanted for that,” said
+Willette in scorn. “Mind yer ends, and look after
+tongues in the middle. They’ll be powerful handy
+at jumpin’ over this hyar furrow, and you mustn’t let
+the fire git away from yer, else yo’ll be clear done for.
+Keep yer eyes behind yer and min’ the back line,” said
+Willette walking away.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Land o’ liberty! look at that!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Willette made one bound behind Olive and commenced
+furiously beating the ground with her wooden
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>paddle, while Olive, bewildered, turned round to see
+that she had indeed let the fire get behind her even
+as Willette was uttering her warning.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We ’uns would ha’ been clear burnt out in one
+grasshopper’s jump on’y I was there,” said Willette
+looking critically to see if any little spark of fire lingered
+in the tall grass which could by any chance start
+into life again.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh I can never manage it! What shall I do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Be spry and—Look at that again now!” Willette
+sprang to a new place and beat the ground. She was
+back again in an instant, here there and every where,
+with the activity of a monkey, beating down for dear
+life, whenever the fire crossed the narrow base-line
+of the up-turned sod, and as the wind was high it was
+frequently doing this. Constant vigilance was required,
+especially as Ezra had only had time to run
+a few furrows with the plough, instead of a band five
+or six feet wide.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Powerful heavy work in this hyar high wind,”
+said the child, “and on’y that ar furrow to start from.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Willette was in her element. Not an inch of the
+line escaped her lynx-eye, and all the while she kept
+giving advice to Olive, who stood in awe of her superior
+practical knowledge in this emergency.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Now this hyar fire’s agoin’ to spread along, an’
+yo’ jes’ got ter mind this end by yerself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She darted twenty yards away and paddled out a
+flame and came back, her face begrimed with smoke
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>and dirt, so that she looked not unlike the nigger
+whose modes of speech she so much affected.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You jes’ take off that ar hat and them big skirts,
+else you’ll be burnt to death right hyar,” said Willette
+surveying Olive with considerable disapproval.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Willette’s hickory trousers and shirt were exactly
+the thing for a prairie fire in a high wind, as indeed
+they were for most of the occupations that fell to her
+lot. What with the constant bounding backwards and
+forwards over the flame, Olive indeed thought that
+she had better accept the advice and slip off her wide
+calico skirt which was forever in the way and might
+easily catch fire. She put it along with her hat just
+at the top of the slope where Weddell’s Gully began,
+where she could easily get them next day, if all went
+well.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was night now and would have been quite dark
+but for the bright glare from the fire. All the inhabitants
+of the Community were out working desperately.
+Olive paddled down her fire and kept her line
+bravely for a couple of hours, in spite of choking
+smoke and clouds of dust and many a burn. Willette
+was far away, lost in the darkness, following her end
+of the fire, and only became visible as she leaped backwards
+and forwards over her line of fire like some agile
+fiend engaged in roasting its victims. Olive was all
+alone. She felt very much frightened, for she did
+not know what might happen, nor what in any new
+emergency she would have to do. She wished somebody
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>would come, for it was a strange experience to be
+in the black night and lurid glare all alone minding a
+fire. The air was full of the burnt fluff from the big
+fire, and the roar as it now had come near was terrifying.
+True the worst of it was passing to the south, and
+their land was now pretty well guarded on all sides.
+Suddenly the cheerful black face of Napoleon Pompey
+appeared in the light of the flame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Pompey, I’m so glad you’ve come. Where
+is everybody?” said Olive, overjoyed to see a human
+being once more.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, Mis’ Ollie, I on’y jes’ take ole plough to
+de bars. We’uns rip up dat furrow golly spry. Done
+turn de hosses loose.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, the poor horses will be burnt!” exclaimed
+Olive in dismay.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dem hosses, dey dre’ful cute critters. Dey go
+off slap to de bottom lan’. You bet hosses knows
+mos’ as well nor white folks ’bout prairie fires. I
+come min’ yo’ fire fo’ yer, Mis’ Ollie. Ole man he
+done tole me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Very well, you can take my shingle then. There
+is not much more, I suppose, to be done now, only
+you must keep both edges between the two furrows
+here. They told me not to let it get away and run
+down into the Gully. Do you understand?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You bet,” replied Napoleon Pompey who knew
+far better than Olive could tell him just what should
+be done.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>“I am going to get my hat and skirt. I left them
+near the corner of Weddell’s Gully. I think I will
+just run across the old field and get them: it will be
+much shorter than going all the way round by the
+furrows. It will be light enough to see yet awhile so
+I can follow the path through the Gully.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive looked at the fire that was fast roaring its
+way towards the south-east, and deciding it would
+easily light her on her way she tripped off and disappeared
+in the gloom down towards the Gully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>In a few minutes Napoleon Pompey began to show
+signs of immense excitement.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Golly Ned! I never seed yonder. Mis’ Ollie
+whar yo’ be? Come back! Come back, Mis’ Ollie!
+Golly! Golly!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He ran violently backwards and forwards along
+his line of fire, which, however, he dared not leave,
+exclaiming “Golly!” and “Oh Lordy!” at every
+step. In a minute or two he ran into Ezra who was
+coming along to fetch Olive home, if she was still
+there.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Lordy! dat yo’, Mas’r Ezra. Yo’ go right ’long
+down dish hyar Gully. Mis’ Ollie she down dar.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra was dead beat. He could scarcely drag his
+limbs along. The terrific exertion of that furious
+ploughing, coming at the end of a long and hard day’s
+work, had almost over-taxed even his iron frame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I thought I would find her here on my way
+home,” he said languidly. “We are pretty safe now.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>Tell her to come back with the others. I’m going
+home to get something to eat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, sir-ee,” said Napoleon Pompey vehemently.
+“You’ hain’t gwine ter do dat. Golly Ned! Yo’
+dunno see. Mis’ Ollie she done gone down inter de
+Gully, fetch ole hat. Dat fire. Yo’ see dat fire startin’
+up yonder, she never seed dat, I didn’t see it nudder
+nohow: dat fire’ll crope up an’ cotch her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My God! where is she?” cried Ezra, roused to
+sudden energy as it dawned upon him what Napoleon
+Pompey was explaining.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Down de Gully dar, she say she gwine down
+dar.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Amongst those tall weeds and that fire coming
+on! Oh my God!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>His fatigue was all gone now. He leaped forward
+and sprang with desperate bounds down the straggling
+path towards Weddell’s Gully, where, in a deserted
+field once tilled by that individual, prairie weeds
+were growing to the height of six feet and more, they
+had dry stalks and fluffy downy heads that would
+burn like petroleum, if the fire once touch them. It
+was down there that Olive had gone, all ignorant of
+that tiny red line creeping slowly around the brow of
+the hill, up against the wind, and now approaching
+that very spot with vicious little tongues of red flame.
+No wonder Ezra bounded along the pathway, no wonder
+his heart beat ready to burst, and no wonder if
+his voice sounded harsh and choking as he cried
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>“Olive! Olive! Olive!” again and again until his
+brain reeled. He got no answer except the crackle of
+the fire. He stumbled along not knowing which way
+to turn, and twice fell forward as his foot caught in
+the tangled grass. He staggered to his feet and raising
+his agonised face cried in a harsh whisper, “Oh
+God! my wife, my wife!” He tried to shout again,
+but his dry throat made no articulate sound. His
+temples seemed bursting, he dashed forward blindly,
+not knowing where to look for Olive in the horrid
+darkness, soon to be turned into still more horrid
+light. His foot struck against an old rail at the edge
+of Weddell’s deserted field, he fell heavily, hitting his
+head against the projecting end of the rail, rolled over
+and lay still. The little flames crept nearer and nearer
+lapping out their malicious red tongues as if in anticipation.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIII.<br /> <span class='large'>THE RESCUE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Madame had worked hard with the rest in beating
+back the fire, and now that she saw that their united
+efforts had been successful and that Perfection City
+was safe, she, in company with Balthasar, was going
+the circuit of the defences of their home, just to see
+that there remained nothing further for her to do.
+In the course of time she came to Napoleon Pompey,
+who was in charge of the last scrap of back-firing, intent
+on maintaining guard and on effecting a complete
+junction of the two lines of fire, so as not to
+leave so much as a handsbreadth of standing grass
+whereby the enemy might even at the last minute
+burst in upon them. This finishing of the circle was
+important, and the lad was in the midst of his work
+and his distress when Madame loomed out through the
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Lordy, dey is both burned, dey is! Oh
+Lordy! Oh Lordy,” cried Napoleon Pompey the instant
+he set eyes upon Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who is burned?” asked Madame in bewilderment,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>well used to the extravagant modes of speech
+indulged in by negroes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mis’ Ollie an’ Mas’r Ezra fo’ shu’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Are you mad, fool, what do you mean?” said
+Madame furiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mis’ Ollie done gone in der Gully ter fetch ole
+hat, an’ de fire’s crope up, an’ it’ll cotch her, oh Lordy!
+oh Lordy! An’ Mas’r Ezra he done gone ter fin’ her
+down dar,” said the boy, beginning to whimper.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame gripped his shoulder with a grasp of iron.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Be quiet, and tell me what you mean. Sister
+Olive has gone home, I passed her myself with her
+hat under her arm, and she told me to tell Ezra she
+had gone back.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“De Lord be praised!” ejaculated Napoleon Pompey.
+“Den it’s on’y Mas’r Ezra’ll be burnt. Yah, you
+lemme go!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This exclamation was in answer to the sudden
+pressure of Madame’s hand, which was like the clutch
+of a vice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where is Ezra? Tell me or I’ll wring your neck,”
+she said in a voice the like of which Napoleon Pompey
+had never heard before in his life.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Down dar,” said he terrified, pointing to the
+Gully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Show me where he started from.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame still kept her hand upon Napoleon
+Pompey who hurried to the spot where Ezra had
+stood.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>“Dar’s his shingle, what he done drap when he
+run.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ha!” said Madame pouncing upon the shingle.
+“Here, Balthasar, here sweetheart!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The dog came up to her, and she passed her trembling
+hands over his long ears and whispered to him
+half crying, half coaxing. “Here, dear heart, do this
+for me or I die.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She put the shingle to his nose. He sniffed, raised
+his long and pointed head. Then she lay upon the
+ground coaxing him to put his nose down. He sniffed
+again, took a step to the right, to the left, back, then
+forward. Madame followed clasping the shingle to
+her bosom and murmuring cooing words of love to her
+dog. He raised his great tan head and gave a long
+deep bay that echoed far and wide.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Golly! She gwine ter run him down like he
+nigger slave,” said Napoleon Pompey with a shiver,
+as he heard the dog’s voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Balthasar set off and Madame kept close at his
+heels. It was easy enough, for the trail was fresh and
+strong. In three minutes they stood beside the motionless
+form of Ezra at the brink of the tall weeds,
+and Balthasar whined in anxiety as Madame lifted his
+head and called upon him in agonised tones. Just
+then the sky was lit up with a lurid glare. The first
+red tongue had tasted the dry fluffy weeds on Weddell’s
+abandoned farm. Madame, startled by the flame,
+sprang to her feet and gave one hasty glance around.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>Ezra lay motionless. She stepped a few paces into
+the shorter grass of the ordinary prairie and set it on
+fire. The little ring of flame spread on all sides, like
+the ripple from a stone cast into still water. Then
+she paddled out the fire on the side next Ezra, and the
+ripple of fire continued to spread rapidly in a sort of
+broken circle. The roar of the burning weeds was
+like the on-coming of an avalanche. Madame turned
+to Ezra and seizing him under the shoulders dragged
+him backwards within the safety of her oasis of burnt
+prairie. He was a big man and a heavy one, but her
+arm seemed endowed with more than mortal strength.
+She dragged him further and further within the circle,
+and then seeing that he was out of all danger, she sat
+down beside him and took his head in her lap. She
+opened his collar and fanned him with her hat. The
+now brightly burning weeds made it light as day, and
+she could see that he looked pale even under the
+blackened smoke that smeared his face, but his pulse
+was beating, he was only hurt and stunned, not dead.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Balthasar was terrified. Ringed round by fire and
+with the ground where he stood still smoking hot,
+what dog would not be alarmed? He lifted up his
+voice once more in a long howl, and then sniffing at
+Ezra gave a sweeping lick with his tongue all over his
+face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah! Ollie! Where are you? Come!” said Ezra,
+roused by this combined demonstration. He raised
+his head in a weak and bewildered way. Madame
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>placed her hand on his forehead as he sank down again.
+He put his own hand up and taking hers said: “Little
+wife!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame shivered, and then steadying her voice
+said, “Olive is quite safe!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra started up.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, what are you doing here? Where is my
+wife?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I came to tell you that Olive had gone home,
+and that she had got her hat all right. She never
+was in any danger at all. It was a mistake on the
+part of that negro boy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Madame!” began Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dear friend,” said she.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I feel so strange and bewildered, I don’t seem
+to know what has happened.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Lay your head down again,” said Madame, very
+gently. “You have had a blow. You will soon be
+all right.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra’s head sank again into her lap. He gave a
+deep sigh.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You came down here into the Gully after Olive
+who, according to the negro, had gone in search
+of her hat. You could not surely have realized
+that the fire was coming up against the wind and
+that it would be death to be caught among the
+weeds.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I knew, I knew,” said Ezra. “That was why I
+came. Olive was here.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>“But she wasn’t, she never had been here at all,”
+interrupted Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shouted, but no answer came. I could not
+find Olive. I remember the awful agony of it. My
+head seemed turning to fire and I couldn’t find Olive.
+I don’t remember any more.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You fell and knocked yourself senseless,” said
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is Olive safe? Tell me, are you sure Olive is
+safe?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Didn’t I tell you I passed her on her way home?”
+said Madame a little sharply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But this fire!” exclaimed Ezra, starting up.
+“We must get out of this.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Hush, lie down again,” said Madame, her voice
+dropping again into its tone of caressing entreaty.
+“Your head must be still giddy or you would perceive
+that we are surrounded. We can’t get out until
+the fires meet and extinguish each other. Rest and be
+patient.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra saw that this was true. They were entirely
+surrounded by a ring of retreating fire, the heat from
+which was oppressive. He sat down again, but did
+not lay his head in Madame’s lap. Perhaps it was because
+he felt less giddy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He asked her how she came there, and Madame
+very briefly told him, dwelling not at all upon her
+share in finding him, but rather upon the sagacity of
+Balthasar. Ezra, however, was not to be deceived.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>“You risked your life for me this night, Madame,”
+he said slowly, when she had finished speaking.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Possibly. I never thought about it. I could
+not leave you here to die, to be burnt to death. Had
+the case been reversed you would have come to my
+rescue.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are the most generous of mortals, the noblest
+of women,” said Ezra earnestly. “It was assuredly
+the brightest day of my life that led me across
+your path. You taught me how to live, and to-night
+your generous hand has saved me from death.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Hush!” said Madame faintly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I owe my life to you,” repeated Ezra. “What
+shall I do to repay such a debt?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Am I a usurer that I should exact my pound of
+flesh?” answered Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Usurer!” exclaimed Ezra. “That is indeed the
+last word to be applied to you. Is a usurer one who
+is always giving? Giving from her wealth freely and
+without stint? Is a usurer one who is ever helping
+and directing into the paths of righteousness those
+who are feeble and faltering of step? Ah, Madame,
+I never can half tell you all that I owe you! How
+narrow and selfish would my life have been but for
+you! Devoted to petty cares, absorbed in personal
+ambitions, rejoicing in sordid gains,—such would have
+been my fate, only Providence brought me to you to
+be taught, guided, elevated, purified. My life is yours,
+you have made it, dearest, wisest, best, of friends.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>“And Olive?” said Madame quietly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, there too shall be your handiwork seen,”
+said Ezra. “My little Olive is very young. Sometimes
+I think her mind is even younger than her body,
+and she is barely twenty, you know, a mere child and
+easily moulded.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame remembering her last encounter with
+Olive, seemed to recall very little that was either
+childlike or plastic in the concluding portion of their
+conversation, but she did not say so to Ezra who went
+on talking.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She often, however, puzzles me, she has such
+sudden freaks and fancies, as if her heart was a wild
+creature not fully tamed and ever dashing against
+the bars of its environment. I sometimes feel that
+I have not the necessary wisdom or tact to guide and
+counsel her. She seems to need someone who is wiser
+and more skilful than I am. Sometimes I fear she
+does not quite realise the responsibilities of life. The
+problems which have come up before us and which
+cry aloud for solution, seem to her but trivial matters
+that may be trusted to settle themselves. We must
+endeavour, dear friend, to arouse Olive’s enthusiasm
+about Perfection City. She is capable of the highest
+and noblest aspirations, but her heart must be turned
+into the right direction. She evinces a certain hesitancy
+in throwing herself into our work and aims.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Perhaps she is opposed to the whole thing,” suggested
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>“That cannot be,” replied Ezra earnestly. “She
+must see as we do, when she comes thoroughly to
+understand our motives in founding Perfection City.
+I look to you, Madame, to open her eyes to the truth.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah!” said Madame laconically, and then she
+added, after a moment’s pause, “I will ask you to
+do one thing for me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Anything you ask I will do if it is in my power,”
+said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do not tell Olive of your fall here, nor of the
+danger you were in, nor of my coming to find you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>After a moment of puzzled silence Ezra said, “Of
+course your wishes are to me law. But may I ask
+why you make such a request?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Perhaps I am judging wrongly, but I am acting
+as if Olive had the same feelings as I should have.
+If I were in her place, I should hate it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why?” asked Ezra in surprise.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame rose up, her pale face illumined by the
+light of the fire.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If I loved a man,” she said, beginning very
+quietly, but her voice gathered in intensity as she
+spoke. “If I loved a man, I could not bear it. To
+think that my love had failed him in his sorest need.
+He was lying stunned, helpless, within the clutch of
+deadly peril, and I went home unwarned, leaving
+him to his fate, all unconscious of the whole thing,
+while another woman—not I, but another woman—went
+to his rescue, another woman—not I—found
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>him, saved him, drew him out of danger, while I
+walked heedlessly home. I should hate myself, I
+should hate—ah! I should hate to the verge of killing
+that other woman who had saved him. That is the
+way I should feel, if I loved.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She concluded hastily, her voice dropping to a
+whisper. Ezra looked up at her in amazement.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yours is a many-sided nature. I never suspected
+you could feel like that. I never thought of you as
+being—as capable of——” he stopped in confusion.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah yes! You never thought of me as being able
+to love—to love a man and not an impersonal cause.
+Ah yes! You never quite looked upon me as a mere
+woman.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have always regarded you as something higher
+than a mere woman,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Listen,” she said, sitting down again beside him.
+“You have yet to know me—the woman, I mean,
+and not the pioneer of Perfection City. My father
+was a man of passionate nature. He had fine instincts,
+but these were not developed. He was a Russian
+noble. I come of very good blood, as they say in the
+old world.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I always knew you were of distinguished birth,”
+said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not at all, quite the contrary,” said Madame,
+with a laugh that sounded harsh. “My father was
+a wild, self-willed Russian noble. He was to have
+married a lady of princely house, only that he refused
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>to do one thing which they made a condition of
+the marriage.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What was that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“To give up my mother. Do you understand?
+He could not marry the princess, and he sacrificed
+wealth, position, and worldly honour, because he
+would not give up the pale-haired English girl whom
+he loved passionately, and who was my mother. She
+died, and my father died too, not many years afterwards.
+He did what he could for me by leaving me
+his fortune and the permission to bear his name, to
+which I had no legal right. From my mother I inherited
+my brain, but my heart I inherited from my
+father. Now let us go.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Must we?” said Ezra, to whom Madame’s sudden
+confession had been full of interest. “There is nothing
+further for us to do. Perfection City is safe.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But we must return to real life, Brother Ezra.
+Sitting here, ringed around with fire, we were alone
+in a world of our own. For a few moments we lived
+for each other, as it were. Our spirits communed, and
+I opened my heart to you as never before to mortal
+being. Now we must go back to real life again. See
+the fires are all out, and the world is itself again—all
+dark.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra rose to his feet and staggered a little, as Madame
+perceived from the stumble he made. She seemed
+preternaturally acute, and to be able to understand by
+the help of some new sense, for she put out her hand
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>and touched his arm, “Lean on me, brother, you are
+still giddy from your accident. We will walk very
+slowly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra, feeling indeed faint enough, gratefully accepted
+the proffered help and put his hand within her
+arm; thus very slowly they started back towards the
+house through the inky black night. “Friend, what
+I said is to be locked in your breast, a secret,” said
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I fully understand that,” replied Ezra, “and I
+feel it a high honour that you should have chosen me
+as the repository of the secret of your life. It is safe,
+nay more, it is sacred, with me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It took them a long time in the intense darkness
+to reach Ezra’s house where a light was glimmering
+from the window. When they at length reached
+the bars, Madame said, “I will not go in. Oh, I
+know what you would say, but I would prefer
+not. Olive would resent my bringing you back to
+her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You mistake Olive utterly,” said Ezra earnestly.
+“Believe me, hers is a simple nature, she would have
+no such feelings as you think.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Perhaps you are right, and that she is a child
+in mind and not yet a woman in heart. Possibly I
+endow her with feelings she could not even understand.
+I judge her by myself, and maybe all the while
+her little soul is possessed with nothing but content
+at the thought that her pretty hat is all safe. The
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>butterfly must not be blamed if it does not rise as
+high as the lark. Farewell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was waiting for him impatiently, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh Ezra, where have you been? And isn’t your
+face black? You are every whit as black as Napoleon
+Pompey. Wasn’t it fun?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Fun? What was fun?” asked Ezra languidly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, the fire of course, now that it is all over.
+It was so exciting. I was as hungry as a hawk when
+I came in. I really could not wait, so I had supper.
+You must have yours this very minute. Do you know,
+it is one o’clock at night, and you have not tasted a
+morsel of food since twelve o’clock yesterday? Do
+you realize that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She bustled around and got his supper ready, chatting
+brightly all the while over the incidents of the
+fire, making fun and merriment out of them all. Ezra
+sat stupidly watching her, his head throbbing so heavily
+that he could scarcely think. He could eat nothing
+when the supper was ready, and Olive felt aggrieved.
+“I think you might, just to please me. It would do
+you good, for you must be hungry, I should think.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He swallowed a few morsels and said he would go
+to bed, that rest was what he most needed, his head
+ached badly. He was thankful she made no inquiries
+after his adventures during that eventful night. He
+would have found it difficult to tell a connected tale
+with that pain in his head. He asked Olive if she
+had gone down into the Gully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>“No,” she said, “I started to go, but it was darker
+than I thought, so I came up again and followed round
+by the high prairie where there was a chance of meeting
+somebody. I came home with Willette.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The fire did get into the old field after all,” said
+Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And were the weeds burnt?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! I wish I had been there to see. Wasn’t it
+a lovely blaze-up?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, it blazed up,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive didn’t notice that he seemed ill, he thought
+with some bitterness. Madame would have divined
+it, no matter how hard he had tried to conceal the
+fact. After all, it was not her fault that she was made
+differently. The butterfly was not to be blamed if
+it did not soar as high as the lark.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIV.<br /> <span class='large'>COTTERELL “WANTED.”</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The day after the fire was an idle one at Perfection
+City. No one felt able to work, Ezra least of
+all. He lay upon the floor of the kitchen with a wet
+handkerchief on his head, and several times he asked
+Olive not to make so much noise. She was as still as
+a mouse, she thought, but then his head ached, poor
+fellow! So she went out and sat in the shade of the
+house among her morning-glories, while the hens
+walked about with their wings down and their tongues
+lolling out, trying to cool themselves. The black burnt
+prairie seemed to send up shafts of heat to the
+copper-coloured sky.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A man rode up to the bars, and for one moment
+Olive’s heart stood still. She feared it might be Mr.
+Cotterell, whom she had not seen since the day at
+the spring, now some weeks past. It was not Mr.
+Cotterell, however, but one of the settlers from the
+other side of Cotton Wood Creek. He came forward
+with his bridle-rein over his arm, his horse following,
+head down.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>“Wal, how’d you ’uns git ’long with that pesky
+fire?” he observed, without any preliminary greeting.
+He was a Missouri man, and they often prided themselves
+on their rudeness. It was their way of showing
+their independence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Good morning, Mr. Owen,” said Olive, who knew
+the man quite well. “We have escaped all right,
+thank you. I hope you were not injured?” She was
+extra careful in her manner, as the politeness for two
+had all to be furnished by herself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yer hain’t been burnt out I see. You all’s mighty
+silly anyhow. Why in thunder didn’t yer back-fire
+before? ’Tain’t agin’ yer principles, is it?” Mr.
+Owen grinned under the impression that he was
+funny.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We didn’t back-fire, because we thought it wrong
+to start a fire in such a wind and let it possibly burn
+up our neighbours,” said Olive stiffly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then ’tis agin yer principles to back-fire, by
+Gosh! The boys was ’lowing as much over to Union
+Mills.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is against our principles to injure our neighbours.
+You don’t object to that, Mr. Owen, do you?”
+said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I reckon you’ll git mighty tired o’ them idees ef
+yer live long on the prairie,” observed Mr. Owen.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Seen ole man Cotterell lately?” he inquired suddenly,
+half shutting his green-grey eyes and looking
+at Olive intently.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>She was somewhat surprised at the question, but
+knowing from experience how inquisitive the average
+settler is, she answered readily enough.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I haven’t seen him for a long time. Was he
+burnt out? I didn’t know the fire had gone so far.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I calkerlate he warn’t tetched by the fire,” said
+Mr. Owen, very slowly. He made long pauses between
+his remarks, during which he continued unremittingly
+the steady occupation of his life, namely,
+chewing tobacco. Olive began to feel impatient. She
+did not like to ask him into the house for fear of
+disturbing Ezra, so she sat down again in her chair,
+and pointing to a log of wood which lay near and
+seated on which he could still hold his horse, she
+asked him to take a seat also. Mr. Owen sat down
+with a grunt.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Never seed ony pusson so sot on posies as you
+’uns be,” he observed conversationally.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I am very fond of flowers. They make
+the house more home-like, I think. The prairie is
+very bare looking,” replied Olive politely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yer ole man oughter rared his house t’other side
+the Gully, an’ further down yon’er. This hyar ’ull
+be powerful col’ when we git col’ snaps in Jan’ary.
+Yer dunno nothin’ ’bout things in this hyar all-fired
+’Fection City,” said Mr. Owen, looking around him
+in criticism.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Perhaps not,” said Olive, rather nettled, “but
+we know how to mind our own business.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>Mr. Owen did not feel one whit abashed. He was
+far too near akin to the pachyderms for Olive’s delicate
+little shafts to have any effect on him. Another
+long silence followed, and Olive began to wonder if
+Owen was like that man from Jacksonville, who came
+to see them once and stayed four hours, during which
+time he made only two remarks and they possessed
+no particular interest. The man and his stony silence
+had driven her nearly wild, until she reflected how
+much more awful it would have been had she been
+obliged to entertain him with conversation. A recollection
+of this visitation and a dread born of that
+recollection began to invade her mind. Mr. Owen,
+however, was not going to stay for four hours, and he
+was going to make a remark of very particular interest,
+a remark that would quickly scatter all Olive’s other
+ideas. He delivered it slowly and with the monotonous
+enunciation which proclaimed him a Missouri man.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The boys is hout huntin’ down ole man Cotterell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What!” exclaimed Olive turning very white.
+Then, steadying her voice as well as she could she
+said, “Why are they hunting him?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“To cotch him,” replied her visitor concisely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But what for?” asked Olive, looking at him with
+wide eyes of horror. She knew only too well what
+hunting down a man portended.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, there’s bin a shootin’ over to his house,
+an’ one o’ thim boys o’ Mills is shot, shot dead. Cotterell
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>done it. And now he’s gone an’ run off. The
+boys they ’lowed Cotterell best be hung this time.
+Las’ time he was let off. He won’t be agin, you
+bet.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How do you know he has shot young Mills?
+What evidence have you of it?” asked Olive in terror,
+yet she could not help pressing the man to tell her,
+although each word was like a stab.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He gave a silent inward laugh as if his thoughts
+were facetious. “Evidence an’ enough,” he said.
+“Jake Mills’ body with a bullet through his heart.
+Yer can’t git nothin’ plainer in the way of evidence
+than that, I reckon.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But how do you know it was Mr. Cotterell shot
+him?” asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Damn my eyes! but yer mus’ be a nateral born
+fool, Mis’ Weston. Jake Mills were foun’ on Cotterell’s
+lan’. Who else could ha’ done it? Besides, he
+did, an’ that’s a fac’ anyhow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think it is perfectly monstrous,” burst out
+Olive, trembling with agitation. “I never heard of
+a wickeder thing. Here is this man you have decided
+to hang, and you don’t even know if he has done
+the thing you accuse him of. If that is what you call
+prairie law and justice I can only say I never heard
+of a more sinful and unjust law. Black savages
+couldn’t do worse.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mos’ like the boys will let him hev a trial, ef
+he’s partic’lar sot on’t. That won’t si’nify nothin’,”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>said Mr. Owen, again surveying Olive through the
+narrow aperture of his half-closed eyes, and again applying
+himself to his habitual occupation with vigour.
+She looked at him with a face in which horror and
+disgust struggled for mastery.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If this horrid murder is committed by your
+neighbours, Mr. Owen, I shall think that prairie men
+are a disgrace to civilization,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We prairie folks ain’t partic’lar sot on civilization,”
+remarked Mr. Owen with affability.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I hope you’ll never catch him,” said Olive, with
+a sound very like a sob in her voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The boys they ’lowed you’uns was mighty good
+frien’s o’ his’n, an’ he’d a mos’ likely come this hyar
+way to make for the Pottawattamie ’fore we’uns could
+cotch him. That’s why I come ’long ter look for him
+hyar,” observed Mr. Owen, rising and putting his
+head under his saddle flap in order to tighten up the
+girth a couple of holes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, you’ve come here to spy out, have you?”
+said Olive, in passionate anger. “Why didn’t you
+say so at first, and ask the question like a man, and
+not come sneaking around? Do you want to hunt all
+over the house and see if we’ve got anybody hidden
+away?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No,” said Owen slowly. “Guess that’ll do. I
+ain’t agoin’ ter hunt roun’. We ain’t no great shakes
+at bein’ fine folks out hyar on the prairie, but we
+allers takes the word of a lady, by Gosh. You said
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>you hain’t seen nothin’ o’ ole man Cotterell, guess
+that’ll do for the boys. Mornin’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Mr. Owen rode away, feeling that in the contest
+of politeness that morning he had certainly scored off
+Mrs. Weston with her stuck-up Eastern ways.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was in an agony of doubt and terror. That
+the boys were out hunting for Cotterell was, she knew,
+but the preliminary to his death, if they caught him.
+The boys seldom or never let off any one they caught,
+so she gathered from the stories she had heard of their
+doings in time past. What was she to do in this difficult
+dilemma? Should she tell Ezra?</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Under ordinary circumstances her first impulse
+would have been to go straight to her husband with
+the story she had heard, but in this instance she felt
+that such a course would be impossible. She knew
+that Ezra was jealous of Mr. Cotterell, he had betrayed
+his feelings more than once, and in her heart
+she knew that few men can be just towards the man
+who arouses their jealousy. Her husband was a very
+just man, and could, more than any one she knew,
+put himself in the place of others and see what was
+right and what was wrong. But in this instance it
+was not justice Olive wanted, it was justice that she
+feared. Although she spoke bravely enough to Owen,
+a terrible fear lurked in her breast that the evidence,
+though ludicrously deficient by the rules of procedure
+that obtain in old established communities, was quite
+sufficient to convince a prairie jury. Ezra would not
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>sit on a hanging jury, nor would he be a party to
+catching Mr. Cotterell, but his sense of justice and
+what was due to the principles professed at Perfection
+City might carry him no further than this passively
+inactive point? Would he assist Cotterell to escape?
+Guilty or not, that was what Olive wanted, and to
+help in such an undertaking, she felt sure, was what
+her husband might very well refuse to do.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Was Cotterell guilty? Olive debated this point
+anxiously in her mind. She knew he went armed,
+but so did many other men. In fact, to be armed
+was the rule on the prairie. The doctrine of non-resistance
+was one of the least understood tenets of the
+Pioneers at Perfection City, and was observed by nobody
+else on the prairie. Even Brother Wright, as
+we have seen—though Olive was quite unaware of
+this—had granted to himself a special indulgence in
+this matter. So the mere fact of Mr. Cotterell’s always
+having his revolver in his belt did not really count
+for anything, one way or the other. He had always
+been so gentle and so chivalrous in his manner to her,
+she found it difficult to force her mind to keep hold
+of the fact that he was a very passionate man. Everyone
+said so, and she knew, too, that the Mills’ were
+a bad lot, drunken quarrelsome men, who, as Ezra
+said, combined in their character all the vices of the
+prairie and preserved none of its virtues. How easy
+it would be for a proud, passionate man like Mr.
+Cotterell to bring his revolver into a heated argument
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>with Jake Mills, who might be mad with drink. But
+surely such a shooting was not murder according to
+prairie law. In her distress Olive found herself falling
+back upon the probable laxity of that very prairie
+justice which a short time before she had so scornfully
+characterised to Owen.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The “boys” who were hunting Cotterell were,
+as Olive well knew, the most relentless men on the
+prairie, regular settlers who had found by experience
+that the only way to keep order was to keep it with
+their own right hands. They had hung several horse-thieves
+lately, and had declared they were going to
+put a stop to the “shooting round promiscuous” of
+the younger blades. They were not unjust men, but
+they were hasty, and were moreover already terribly
+prejudiced against Cotterell.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Having decided that it was best not to tell Ezra
+what she had heard, Olive was immediately assailed
+with a hundred doubts. Suppose Mr. Cotterell came
+to them in his extremity, should she try to conceal
+him? But how utterly impossible to do so without
+the co-operation of her husband! The mere attempt
+to do such a thing might involve her in difficulties
+without being of any use to the unhappy man himself.
+Then there was Madame. Should she appeal
+to her for help? Her heart revolted from such a
+course. After their last meeting, when they had interchanged
+hot words on the subject of this very man,
+Olive felt it was impossible to ask Madame’s aid or to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>tell her anything about it. Then there was no one,
+and Olive resolved to keep the secret of what she
+had heard, hoping that something might turn up
+which would justify her action, or at least make any
+further action unnecessary. Thus do people often put
+off on the shoulders of chance the burden of a decision
+which taxes too much their powers of forecasting
+events. It was a heavy secret to keep to herself, and
+her face looked white and scared as she entered the
+kitchen on tip-toe to see how Ezra felt. He roused
+up as she came in.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am better now, little woman,” he said in answer
+to her inquiries. “The pain is all gone. I will
+get up and begin to stir around again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He went out with her and with the keenness which
+is soon a habit with a prairie man, he noticed the
+hoof-marks of Owen’s horse, where it had stamped
+rather briskly, owing to the flies.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who has been here? Those are fresh,” he said,
+pointing to the marks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That man from over beyond Cotton Wood Creek
+was here a little while ago, Owen is his name: you
+know the man,” said Olive, with a beating heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Cattle-hunting after the fire, I suppose. Were
+they burnt out yesterday?” asked Ezra, with slight
+show of interest.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I believe not, he did not say. He sneered
+at the Pioneers for not having safe-guarded themselves,
+heedless of the welfare of the other settlers,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>so I suppose he had been betimes with his back-firing,
+at least if he lives up to his principles,” remarked
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is too late to go and hunt for our horses,”
+said Ezra, “and I feel too tired to start out on foot
+after them. They may very well be five miles away
+by this time. Did you ask Owen if he had seen
+them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I never thought of doing so.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t forget always to ask everyone if they have
+seen your horses whenever they are out on the prairie:
+it is one of the golden rules of prairie life,” said Ezra,
+tapping her chin.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But he wouldn’t have known Queen Katharine
+and Rebel even if he did happen to meet them,” objected
+Olive. “How could he know one pair of strange
+horses from another?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Bless your sweet eyes, Owen knows every horse
+and cow belonging to his neighbours for a radius of
+ten miles from his house, at the very least. Telling
+a neighbour where his cattle are, is the only rule of
+politeness known to many of them, and they are punctilious
+about it,” said Ezra laughing.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wish I had known that, because I found him
+deficient in many of the rules I have been taught,”
+said Olive. “Possibly he found me as lacking, according
+to his estimate.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra did not go out to hunt for the horses
+the next morning as he had intended. Other work,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>which seemed more important, turned up for him.
+Brother Wright came that same evening to arrange
+about it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Good evening, friends,” he said. “I trust you
+are both rested after yesterday. It was a hard day
+and a harder night. Brother Ezra, you did splendidly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We were much alarmed for the safety of Perfection
+City: I don’t think it is ever likely to be in
+greater danger,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I suppose, not from the outside,” said
+Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And we are not likely to be set on fire
+from the inside, are we?” observed Ezra with a
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Accidents may happen,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Even in the best regulated communities,” added
+Brother Wright. “However, what I came to talk
+about was the future, and not the past. We’ve got
+two good loads of corn ready, it ought to be sold at
+once in Mapleton. We’ll get top price. I stepped
+into Madame’s as I came along, and she agreed with
+me. We must sell at once. Brother Dummy has got
+his waggon loaded up ready to start. It is a marvel
+how much that man does get through in the way of
+work. Well, the question is, who will go with the
+corn? Brother Dummy must drive his own team,
+because no other man could manage that black horse
+for half an hour. Biting Bill would kick the waggon
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>into match-wood in two minutes, if any of us attempted
+to touch his reins. I wonder whether it is
+the absolutely silent driving which cows him? You
+are out and out the best one for attending to business
+of any here. Madame thinks it would be well for you
+to go, and so do I.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am quite ready,” replied Ezra. “But my horses
+are both out on the prairie. I turned them loose after
+the fire to let them run off to the Creek, as I had no
+time to put them up and feed them. To-day I did not
+feel able to hunt after them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, suppose you take my team, and I will
+find your horses for you to-morrow. Will that
+do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“All right, then I’ll go to Mapleton.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The corn is already shucked, it won’t take half
+an hour to load up. You and I will do it while the
+horses are feeding. You ought to get off by six, I
+will feed the horses at five.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Each spoke of <i>his</i> horses and <i>his</i> waggons much
+in the same way as an artillery officer speaks of his
+guns. There were three pairs of horses in the Community,
+and, in theory at least, everyone was equally
+free to use them, but experience showed that that sort
+of handling did not suit horses, who do better if left
+always in the care of the same persons. Therefore
+it came about that Brother Dummy always had Biting
+Bill, since no one else could manage the brute, and
+Ezra generally had Queen Katharine and Rebel, while
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>Brother Wright kept the greys. Now these animals,
+although common property, were invariably spoken of
+by their drivers as <i>theirs</i>, for the use of certain familiar
+phrases, which to the outsider might seem to denote
+the idea of private property, came naturally to
+their lips. It is often more difficult to change habits
+of speech than laws of property. Reformers who
+start out to alter the whole course of modern ideas and
+to rearrange the world according to a plan of their
+own devising, would do well to meditate upon this
+peculiarity and see what it points to. Surely so slight
+a thing as a word might easily be eradicated from
+human speech, and yet how difficult it is to do so.
+But the point to consider is that the pertinacity, which
+shows itself in modes of expression, may very well
+exist in just as strong a form in habits of thought
+and feeling. The Pioneers, like others of that sort,
+passed over and disregarded such expressions as “my
+horse,” “my waggon,” and “your plough,” not apparently
+recognizing that the expressions denoted a habit
+of thought that might very easily strike at the very
+root of their institution. They were communists, as
+Olive had said, in bits of this and scraps of that, but
+the old leaven of individualism was there still among
+them, only dormant. The Pioneers never expected
+that the leaven would again become an active principle.
+Like other people, they were unable to see into the
+future, and therefore rejoiced in their escape from
+the perils of the prairie fire and considered that they
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>had no further danger to apprehend for this winter
+at least. The sea was smooth and the sky was serene,
+so to speak, and they did not perceive the sunken
+rocks that lay in the track of their experimental
+bark.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XV.<br /> <span class='large'>IN QUEST OF NEWS.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Olive was early astir the next morning, in order
+to see her husband off and also to provide him with
+food in ample abundance to last him for the trip. He
+carried a plentiful store of dried beef, a portable commodity
+much in request on the prairie. The old trappers
+had showed the settlers how to make it, and the
+trappers had acquired the art from the Indians. Dried
+beef is precisely what its name indicates. It is raw
+beef, somewhat salted, and then dried in the sun until
+it is like a piece of solid leather. It has to be cut into
+thin slices across the grain before the stoutest teeth
+can make the slightest impression upon it. It may
+be also cooked in a batter of eggs for the dainty, but
+has only to be sliced up with a jack-knife to be eaten
+by the average teamster on the prairie. Besides the
+dried meat and plenty of corn-bread, Ezra had milk
+in a bottle and one of Olive’s wedding presents to eat,
+namely, a tin of peaches. He travelled therefore in
+extreme luxury. He set off along with Brother Dummy
+just as the sun was rising, and the canvas covers
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>of the waggons showed for a long time as two moving
+white specks as they slowly crept across the blackened
+landscape, finally disappearing behind the Mounds
+some twelve miles to the west of Perfection City.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive remained alone at home with Napoleon Pompey
+and Diana to keep her company, until Ezra should
+return in four days’ time. It was only with great reluctance
+that he had consented to this. He did not at
+all like the idea of her remaining alone in the house.
+As usual, when it came to Olive doing what the ordinary
+prairie settler’s wife did as a matter of course,
+Ezra’s love took fright. He urged her to go and stay
+at Madame’s house, she would be more than welcome,
+he declared, in fact it seemed to him almost necessary
+that she should go, and he insisted strongly upon the
+plan. Olive was as strongly opposed to it. Why
+couldn’t she stay in her own house? She would much
+prefer it, so as to be on hand to feed the chickens and
+milk the cows and generally see to things. Besides,
+she felt quite sure she would be vastly in Madame’s
+way. Ezra combated this position vigorously. Olive
+could not be in anyone’s way, even if she tried. Moreover,
+was not Madame a communist like the rest of
+them, and she would be only too pleased to take Olive
+into her home as she had already done into her heart.
+His spouse made no comment, except a mental one, to
+this argument, but reiterated her preference for staying
+at home. It would only be three days or four at
+most, and she would be very busy. Ezra hinted at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>possible danger if it were known she was alone in the
+house.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But I won’t be alone: there is Napoleon Pompey
+for one and Diana for two. Surely between so stout
+a pair nothing on earth can happen to me,” she said,
+smiling at his anxious face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t feel easy about you,” said Ezra, looking at
+her with mournful eyes. “I never left you alone
+before, and it suddenly seems to me a most portentous
+thing.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, you dear silly old thing!” exclaimed Olive,
+“I do believe you’ll have omens next, and will look
+into tea-cups to see if it is a propitious moment for
+the success of this undertaking. I never knew you
+‘take on’ like this before.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I never did so, but it is all because I love you,
+dear. I quite understand what it means, to be foolish
+with love. I used not to know what it was. I wonder
+do women ever feel the same as we men do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Women, my dear, are sent into this world for
+the express purpose of making men do what they ought
+and not be silly,” said Olive severely. “Now I know
+you’ll have the feed for the horses all right, but remember
+the feed for yourself is in this basket, everything
+you’ll want, and there is salt for the boiled
+eggs.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When the hurry of getting the waggons off was
+over, Olive sat down to think, and immediately there
+rose up before her the image of a hunted man flying
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>for his life. In some ways it was a relief that Ezra
+was gone, she would not have to be constantly making
+an effort to hide the real anxiety in her mind. Then
+she thought of Ezra and of his great and boundless
+devotion to her, and the words Madame had spoken in
+her wrath rose up before her and rebuked her. Were
+they true? Had she hidden her real nature from her
+husband before her marriage? She had never meant
+to do so, but in their long pre-nuptial conversations
+it had not appeared to her that she and Ezra were so
+different in their views of life and its duties as perhaps
+was now the case. He certainly had told her of the
+experiment of Perfection City, and she had accepted
+him and the experiment together because they were
+indissoluble. She of herself would never have initiated
+the communistic idea; but then there was nothing
+wonderful in that, woman never do initiate anything,
+they only follow some man’s lead with more or less
+enthusiasm and intelligence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Were she to have expressed her own private predilection,
+it certainly would have been for a little
+home of her own on the usual lines, which little home
+it would have been her pride and her pleasure to make
+as beautiful as she could. Olive did not possess a large
+and speculative mind, capable of vast dreamy projects,
+whose limitless possibilities were in imagination not
+checked by small practical obstacles. On the contrary,
+it was the tendency of her intellect to perceive
+those obstacles with startling clearness, and to demonstrate,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>by a few biting truisms, the impossibility of
+turning the dreamy vastnesses to use. She was neither
+hard-headed nor dull-headed, but hers was a practical
+nature, very much jarred by idle vapourings, and
+above all she was kept in the straight path of common
+sense by her keen appreciation of the ridiculous.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This faculty enabled her to perceive how often reformers
+run off the track of common sense, and while
+pinning their faith to one particular little tenet which
+they constitute the corner-stone of their philosophy,
+lose sight of the whole world beyond. Olive possessed
+in a high degree the sense of proportion, which in a
+true reformer is generally absent. When Ezra with
+his cultivated mind and really fine intellect, talked
+to her of the reforming of the present type of civilization,
+and briefly sketched out what he hoped would
+be the result of the introduction of the communistic
+idea into life, she could not help remarking that he
+used very much the same expressions, and seemed animated
+by very much the same hopes, as those indulged
+in by one of the dietetic reformers she knew in Smyrna,
+who promised all the glories of the golden age to mankind
+if the human race would only give up the baneful
+practices of eating meat and of cooking vegetables!</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>And every few minutes, across the mirror of her
+reflections, there came a shadow of a desperate man
+spurring on a jaded horse. Olive could not shake off
+a sense of impending disaster, but unlike Ezra, who
+attributed his melancholy to his great love for Olive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>and a vague, unreasoning dread of something happening
+to her in his absence, she knew quite well what
+she feared and why.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>As the morning wore on, Olive began to feel it
+impossible to remain quietly at home in the midst
+of her anxiety. She must go out and hear what news
+there was, or at all events she must learn if there was
+any news. Resolved not to hold any communication
+with Madame other than what was publicly necessary—for
+between the two there was now maintained a
+sort of armed neutrality—she decided to call at the
+blacksmith’s, as Brother Green was in the way of most
+of the gossip, if gossip is a term that could be rightly
+applied to the feeble and intermittent stream of prairie
+news that trickled through the smithy. Brother
+Green was a silent, self-absorbed man who worked
+steadily and brought much personal devotion into the
+project of Perfection City. He was a lonely man,
+a widower, and to judge by appearances a disappointed
+man as well. He was surprised to see Sister Olive,
+and very pleased, but could not shake hands as he was
+very dirty, and she looked so brightly clean. Having
+wiped a wooden bench with his leather apron and
+again with the sleeve of his shirt, he invited her to
+be seated. Brother Green was welding some iron, and
+Olive waited until the operation was concluded and
+the plough-hook made before she talked to him. Meanwhile
+she watched with interest the white glowing
+fire and the pulpy white-hot iron-bar, helplessly bending
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>over at the end like a piece of half boiled molasses
+candy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I felt so lonesome, I thought I would come out
+and talk to someone,” she said, by way of excuse for
+a first visit. “Diana isn’t a bit of company when you
+feel really lonesome. Ezra is gone for four days, did
+you know?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Diana had cocked one ear at the mention of her
+name, but had speedily uncocked it again on becoming
+satisfied that nothing in the way of excitement
+was at hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I suppose you do feel lonely,” said Brother
+Green slowly, as he seated himself on his anvil and
+crossed his brawny arms. “I’ve been used to it for so
+long, I have almost forgotten how anything else feels.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive looked kindly at him. “Are you ever homesick,
+and do you ever wish you had stayed in England?
+It must be very different from here.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Very,” said Brother Green gazing with a far-away
+sort of look through the large forge door out
+over the shimmering prairie. He suddenly seemed to
+see rolling hills with oak woods tufting their slopes,
+and a deep valley, where blue curling smoke ascended
+in high spirals, and a church steeple rose from among
+elms, and jackdaws croaked around the steeple. He
+put his head a little on one side, almost as if he would
+catch more distinctly the hoarse croak of the jackdaws,
+or maybe the first sound of the bell which hung in
+the steeple and used to ring on Sundays.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>“Yes,” he said, as this picture faded away and
+the prairie returned in its place, “there can’t be much
+greater differences in the world than between Perfection
+City and the little village in Sussex, where I was
+born.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Which do you like best, Brother Green?” asked
+Olive a little thoughtlessly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t expect ever to be as unhappy again as I
+was in that pretty little village,” said Brother Green,
+and Olive remembered that she had been told he had
+lost a young wife in his youth. She felt sorry for
+him, and regretted having touched upon an old wound
+that still could throb with pain.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Have you heard any news lately? Has anybody
+been to the forge? You are always the first to hear
+news,” said she quickly, desiring to change the subject.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“A man from down south passed this morning.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did he?” said Olive anxiously, “what did he
+say?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He said the fire was just bellowing its way towards
+Fort Scott, and had done a good deal of damage
+one way or another. It was one of the hottest
+they ever had and the hardest to stop. It crossed
+one of the South Fork Creeks and got into the broken
+land round Osage.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We had a very narrow escape ourselves,” said
+Olive, feeling remarkably little interest in the fire.
+“Did he say anything else? Who was he?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>“A stranger, I never saw him before. No, he
+didn’t say anything else, except to tell me that he
+calkerlated Britishers were mos’ly fools and couldn’t
+do a day’s work ’gain ’Mericans, no matter what it
+were, rail-splitting or tobacco-chawin’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green gave a deep gentle laugh, like the
+distant boom of a waterfall hidden among trees.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t you think these prairie folk are most conceited?”
+asked Olive, in some scorn.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, not more than other people, Sister,” replied
+Brother Green somewhat unexpectedly, “they only
+say what they think with remarkable frankness.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But that is conceit,” persisted Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am not certain that it is more conceited to say
+what you think, than to think your thoughts in silence,
+and be consumed with a vast contempt for all
+the world. We are a conceited people too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I thought the English prided themselves on not
+being conceited,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We pride ourselves on showing no feeling of
+conceit and if possible on showing no feeling on any
+other subject either. If an Englishman’s heart were
+skinned, I think it would weigh up pretty much the
+same as an American’s. The difference lies in the
+tongue only.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is that so?” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, this morning, for instance, that man informed
+me that he was a better man than I, and that
+his country could lick mine. Well, in my heart I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>knew he was wrong on both points, and that the precise
+contrary was the fact. As far as essentials go, I
+think we were pretty equal in the contest of conceit.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But you didn’t tell him what you thought,” remarked
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, that was the difference of tongue, not of
+heart,” replied Brother Green.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I didn’t know you were so severe in your criticisms
+and judgments. I wonder much what you really
+think of Perfection City,” said Olive, looking at him
+curiously. She had never particularly noticed him
+hitherto, and had not realized that he could have a
+store of knowledge of many things which lay far outside
+her experience.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think Perfection City will do good,” said
+Brother Green with conviction.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you, and why?” asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Any honest human effort to benefit the world
+and raise mankind does good,” said Brother Green.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But people have done such different things and
+all from a desire to do what seemed to them good,”
+objected Olive with feminine vagueness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I consider they have done good if their purpose
+was single-hearted,” maintained Brother Green.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They didn’t succeed in doing what they aimed
+at very often, at all events,” observed Olive, “something
+quite different came out of their endeavours
+from what they had expected.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>“Nevertheless, if they honestly tried, then that
+very trying was of itself good.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you think Perfection City will do the good
+the Pioneers expect, or will something quite different
+come out of it too?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think Perfection City will be the means of
+teaching a valuable lesson,” said Brother Green cordially.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you think it is any use to try to change the
+world and its ideas?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If anyone has a truth let him preach it fearlessly.
+Who can foretell the moment when the world will
+listen and when it is ready to profit by your example.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive longed to ask him what he thought of Madame,
+but dared not do so. She felt a little afraid
+before this simple-minded man, with his fervent, childlike
+faith and his sad and lonely life. Belief in Perfection
+City might be his only comfort now, shut off
+as he was from the joys of home and family, she would
+do nothing to lessen his belief and make him more
+lonely still. For what is more lonely than the heart
+out of which a faith has departed never to return?
+So she bade him good-bye, and then seeing Aunt
+Ruby’s chimney giving off the cheerful smoke of habitation,
+she turned her steps thither. Olive walked
+slowly along, for it was very hot indeed with a dry
+suffocating heat that made exertion somewhat irksome,
+and Diana, the discreet, followed dutifully behind
+her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>Aunt Ruby, as has been already hinted, had surrounded
+herself with a large family of chickens of
+all ages, to whose wants it was her great duty to attend.
+She had a rare hand for chickens, and could
+pick up the most spasmodic specimen and turn it upside
+down and examine it for the gapes without hurting
+it in the least. Her driving of the hens to roost
+was an exhibition of the talent of generalship worthy
+of a wider field. No screamings nor scurryings, no
+rushings madly hither and thither, took place, and
+above all no sticks were used in the ceremony: Aunt
+Ruby merely took her skirts gently at the side in each
+hand, and said “Shoo! Shoo!” in a soothing voice,
+while at the same time she slightly oscillated the folds
+of her skirt. The hens appeared hypnotized by the
+action, and no matter how eagerly they might be pursuing
+the afternoon fly, they would at once settle
+down into a conversational chuck-a-chu and begin
+forthwith to meander towards the hen-roost.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby’s numerous hens and chickens were all
+in the yard and around the wood-pile, seeking in an
+aimless over-fed fashion after chance insects, when
+suddenly, without a moment’s warning, the devil was
+upon them according to the gallinaceous imagination.
+The devil was possessed of four paws, a most terrifying
+bark, and a mouth that seemed to the affrighted birds
+to be on the point of devouring each one especially
+and individually. The dog flew hither and thither, and
+so did the chickens, and so did the tail-feathers.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>“Diana! Bad dog, down, down!” screamed Olive,
+rushing to the rescue, while Aunt Ruby with shrill
+cry and a broom-stick appeared in the door-way.
+Never before or since did a more tempestuous guest
+appear at Aunt Ruby’s house. Full a quarter of an
+hour of gentle “shoo-shooings” to the hens, interspersed
+with smart whippings to Diana, elapsed before
+quiet was restored, and the ladies could even begin
+their visit together. Even then there was a sort of
+nervous tension on Aunt Ruby’s part, which prevented
+her thorough enjoyment of the opportunity for
+a gossip. Her attention was distracted by Diana, who
+lay with lamb-like docility at Olive’s feet and slept
+the sleep of the just.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t keep a dawg roun’ nohow,” said Aunt
+Ruby eyeing the delinquent sternly. “I’d mos’ as lief
+hev a rattlesnake. I shouldn’t never sleep easy in
+my bed won’erin’ an’ won’erin’ what the pesky crittur
+’ud do nex’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I know that Diana is very naughty now, but she
+is only a puppy, and she’ll get sense by and bye, and
+it is so nice to have something that is your own and
+loves you, and doesn’t care for any body else, you
+know,” observed Olive somewhat rashly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I reckon you’ll hev a sight o’ trouble ’long
+o’ that dawg ’fore you learn it the rights o’ people,
+let alone teachin’ it community idees,” said Aunt
+Ruby.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, you can’t teach a dog communistic notions,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>thank goodness,” observed Olive, patting the sinful
+Diana.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Reckon you ain’t partic’ler sot on the idees of
+Perfection City,” said the old lady, looking at her
+visitor with bright twinkling eyes. “I allow there
+be a p’int or two we’ll hev to consider over agin at
+’Sembly. We are gettin’ on too fas’ fur this here
+prairie folk, they hain’t got the sense to un’erstan’
+all o’ our highest principles. Guess while there’s Injuns
+roun’ we hed better jes’ hol’ back a mite ’bout
+non-resistance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh,” said Olive, who had never given any attention
+to this point, being as indifferent as the wives of
+strong men usually are. “I never heard a word about
+Indians. Are there any about?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not as I hearn on special. But there’s Injuns
+and worse nor Injuns in the world, an’ I reckon we’d
+better take that p’int up at ’Sembly and see if we
+can’t do su’thin’ to make things a bit straight,” said
+Aunt Ruby in language that was vaguely enough expressed
+to serve in the highest walks of diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, I dare say,” replied Olive carelessly, “some
+very excellent reason could be devised to excuse a
+departure from any one of the Perfection City principles,
+which seem more difficult to manage in practice
+than on paper. They are all pretty new, and of
+course can’t be expected to be as useful in all the
+difficult circumstances of life as principles which have
+stood the test of time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>“Dear me, suz!” exclaimed Aunt Ruby admiringly.
+“How gran’ you kin talk! Deal sight finer nor Brother
+Wright. Why don’t you hold forth in ’Sembly?
+I’d liefer hear you nor any on ’em. I’m jes’ ’bout tired
+o’ listenin’ to Brother Wright. Lard! how he do love
+to hear his own voice! Hens is jes’ like that too, they’ll
+talk an’ talk till you’re mos’ crazy, an’ they hain’t
+nothin’ to say, on’y jes’ to cackle an’ hear themselves
+talk.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive agreed with Aunt Ruby, but hardly dared to
+express her opinion in all its force. Therefore she
+turned the conversation by inquiring had she ever
+heard anything about lynch-law and about its being
+put into practice in their neighbourhood?</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Course I hev, an’ hearn o’ hangin’ too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do Perfection City principles uphold hanging?”
+asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Guess not,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No matter if it was for murder?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I don’t see as we could ever be called upon
+to settle that p’int, ’cause no ’Fectionist could ever be
+a murderer no how,” said Aunt Ruby.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But suppose an outsider who had shot a man, even
+if it was not a real bad murder, came to us for protection,
+would they help him, do you think?” asked
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I never hearn that debated at the ’Sembly,
+but I reckon Perfection City don’t lay out to hide
+folks as has killed a feller critter. It don’t ’pear to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>me as how we was called upon to min’ anyone ’cept
+our own selves, an’ we hed best keep clear ’way o’
+them sort o’ folks. That’s pretty nigh my ’pinion,
+an’ I guess it’s mos’ folks too as hes a mite o’ common
+sense.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was fain to confess to herself that in all
+probability Aunt Ruby did fairly express the collective
+opinion of Perfection City. They had only enough
+righteousness for themselves, and, like a ship already
+short of provisions, could not help another vessel, even
+though it might be flying the Union Jack upside down
+and showing all the other flags of acute distress recognized
+in the naval code of signals. Had Aunt Ruby
+heard of anything concerning a horse-thief who was
+supposed to be somewhere around, inquired Olive with
+a view to eliciting information, but she only elicited
+feminine alarms in overwhelming abundance.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do tell! Land o’ liberty! Was there horse-thieves
+’bout? What a pity Brother Ezry an’ Brother Dummy
+was both gone jes’ now: they might meet in ’Sembly
+right away an’ discuss the p’int o’ non-resistance an’
+buy revolvers next time anyone went to Union Mills.
+Horse-thieves was mos’ as bad as Injuns, an’ if it was
+lawful an’ right to defen’ yourself ’gainst Injuns as
+was ign’rant savages as never hed Christian teachin’,
+it couldn’t be wrong to look a’ter your hosses as was
+bought an’ paid for by ’Fection City money.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby was so convinced and loquacious upon
+this subject and upon the aspect of the case as presented
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>to her mind by her terrors, that Olive heartily regretted
+her question, and began to try and do away with the
+effects of it as far as possible. It was only a vague
+report she averred, and Olive herself had not the
+slightest idea that there were horse-thieves about.
+Upon the strength of this assurance Aunt Ruby, somewhat
+comforted, allowed her attention to be engaged
+by other topics of conversation. She was much distressed
+that she could not persuade her visitor to stay
+all the rest of the day and have a real good soul-satisfying
+talk, but Olive declared she must go home and
+see to her own chickens, an argument that appealed
+very strongly to Aunt Ruby’s maternal instincts.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A difficulty arose as to how Diana was to be decently
+conducted out through the yard.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’d mos’ as soon hev to conten’ with a roarin’
+lion as that pup,” remarked Aunt Ruby as the difficulty
+presented itself to her mind in an acute form.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If I could get her past without seeing the hens
+and chickens she would be all right,” said Olive, who
+of course had no whip, regarding meditatively the
+dog, who of course had no collar.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, that ’ud do, I guess, sort o’ take her out
+o’ the way o’ temptation,” said Aunt Ruby, surveying
+Diana with an anxious eye. “I kin give you an ole
+caliker skirt o’ mine, an’ you kin tie up her head in
+that reg’lar tight, so as she wouldn’t see ne’er a hen
+this side o’ Christmas, ’less you took it off.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This seemed a hopeful arrangement; so the “caliker
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>skirt” was brought, and the misguided Diana,
+under the impression that a brand new game was on
+foot, allowed her head to be hidden in the folds of the
+skirt. Olive then led her to the door, but Diana objected,
+not seeing where the joke came in for her;
+and as soon as she found that she was ignominiously
+tied into the dreadful skirt, her rage was boundless.
+In an instant she wrenched herself free from Olive’s
+guiding hand. She then commenced a wild career
+around the yard backwards, swaying this way and that
+in the most ghastly and unlooked-for manner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The hens and chickens no sooner beheld this portent
+than with one universal squawk of horror they
+betook themselves to places of safety under the corn-crib
+and into the cracks of the wood-pile, whence they
+could not again be coaxed for many hours. Diana
+meanwhile continued her fearsome course and ere
+long came into violent contact with the chicken-tub,
+a large receptacle with loose wooden cover where various
+sorts of food suitable for fowls were collected together,
+first thinned with water and then thickened
+into a glutinous mass by intermixture of corn-meal.
+Into this tub Diana sat with extreme violence and then
+rolled over. Olive caught her as she was emerging
+from the chicken-tub and by uncovering her eyes restored
+her to reason. Aunt Ruby, speechless with indignation,
+and Olive, equally speechless with laughter,
+then set to work with two big spoons to scrape the
+chicken food from the ground and from the hind
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>quarters of the dog. Diana, now at peace with all the
+world, wagged her tail benevolently during this process,
+and soon specked Olive over with corn-meal, potatoes,
+scraps of peelings, and bits of greens, until she
+looked as if she had been out in a snow-storm as severe
+in character as it was diversified in composition. When
+this job was over Aunt Ruby arose and straightened
+her old back with a groan.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I guess I would a deal sight sooner hev a
+rattlesnake to look a’ter than a dawg,” she observed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive, apologetic, departed along with the unrepentant
+Diana, and together they returned homewards.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVI.<br /> <span class='large'>HORSE-THIEVES.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Olive spent a few quiet hours at home along with
+Diana, and then took supper in company with Napoleon
+Pompey, whose manners at table were now
+all that could be desired. Indeed, the negro in this
+connection easily takes a higher polish than might
+be expected: he prides himself on being punctilious
+in all the forms and phrases of the best white society
+he has ever come in contact with, and being highly
+imitative, is quickly trained. Given a white boy and
+a black boy of similar ages and depths of ignorance,
+the black one will more quickly tame into a seemingly
+quiet human being, while very frequently the same
+vanity which prompts a negro to be over-zealous in the
+use of “please” and “thank you” will cause the
+white boy to act roughly and assert his independence
+by extravagances of rude behaviour. Napoleon Pompey
+was magnificently polite to “Mis’ Ollie,” whom he
+adored, and for whom he was ready even to work: that
+is to make the greatest sacrifice possible to a negro lad
+of twelve. He never forgot to carry in wood for her
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>or to pick up chips in generous quantity for the
+lighting of the afternoon fire, and he collected abundance
+of corn-cobs and had them duly dried in the sun
+ready at her hand in case she was in sudden want of
+a hot fire. When working for Ezra, Napoleon Pompey
+reverted to his natural black standard of diligence
+and shirked as much as he possibly could, lying down
+in fence-corners to sleep like a shiny black lizard when
+he should have been stripping corn, but he never
+shirked “Mis’ Ollie’s” work. She didn’t scold the
+lad, but ruled him by her gentleness and her beauty,
+and he fell into meekest subjection to her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive always tried to talk with Napoleon Pompey
+at meals, even when Ezra was there, being anxious
+to make him feel at his ease and happy in their presence;
+and to-day being alone with him she thought
+she might get some information out of him on the
+subject which was weighing so heavily upon her mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Napoleon Pompey, did you ever hear of their
+hunting down men on the prairie here?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yo’ bet, Mis’ Ollie, I seed darkie what went to
+de hangin’ ole man Howard. He done seed him
+hoisted over de tree slap up. He told me——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Hush!” said Olive sternly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The young savage was abashed, he had meant no
+harm, but thought some pleasing details “o’ de hangin’,”
+which he himself had relished mightily, would
+prove equally acceptable to Olive’s taste. She was
+disgusted to think that with all her teaching of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>forms and symbols of politeness and gentle manners,
+which the young scamp had received with such docility,
+she had not really touched his heart at all: he was
+just a black savage, still rejoicing in vivid details of
+horrors and cruelty.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t tell me,” she said sternly, “that it is possible
+you could like to see a human being, a fellow
+creature, made in God’s image, no matter how guilty
+he might be, put to death. It may be necessary,
+Napoleon Pompey, sometimes to hang men who have
+done wicked things, so as to prevent others from doing
+the same, but it is an awful thing, a sad and terrible
+sight. You would never wish to see it, Napoleon Pompey,”
+said Olive solemnly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It ’ud be bully ter see ’um kickin’ in de air
+wid rope roun’ his neck,” said Napoleon Pompey
+simply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive turned white with disgust and left the
+kitchen, retiring with Diana to her own little private
+room. Napoleon Pompey, conscious of no shortcomings,
+cleared away the supper things very handily,
+washed the few dishes, set the candles upon the white
+deal table, and whistling in the innocence of his
+youthful heart went out to “walk roun’” and see
+that all was right, and the hen-house fastened up securely
+against possible visits from pole-cats, before
+he retired to his loft upstairs shortly after sun-down.
+Like the chickens, Napoleon Pompey went early to
+roost.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>Conscious from the all-pervading stillness that the
+lad was gone to bed, Ollie returned to the kitchen,
+and her heart smote her as she saw two tallow candles
+in their tin candle-sticks placed on the table in convenient
+position for her to read, if such should be her
+wish. Poor Napoleon Pompey! Olive thought compassionately
+of what an affectionate boy he was, and
+of how it was not his fault if he still had savage
+tastes. Indeed, it was rather the fault of everybody
+else. His not very remote ancestors were unreclaimed
+African savages, and the career of those more immediate
+forefathers, whose lot had been cast in slavery
+down South, had not had an elevating tendency. It
+was wonderful, not that he still had savage tastes, but
+that he had got rid of so many of them. She was
+sorry that she had not been better able to control her
+feelings, and determined forthwith to institute a careful
+system of training with a view to leading him to
+the higher life by the shortest possible road. Having
+settled in her own mind a few of the more important
+lines upon which this training was to be conducted,
+Olive turned at last to her reading. But she could
+not keep her mind on her book, it kept wandering
+off in all sorts of directions, and at last took that
+of being frightened at the loneliness and stillness of
+the house. When so firmly combating the notion
+of being afraid to stay in the house during Ezra’s
+absence, Olive had not realized how appalling the
+stillness would be. In the daytime there were multitudes
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>of unregarded sounds, which went to make up
+the sum total of the idea of life and fellowship, but
+at night these had completely ceased, and she seemed
+to hear the stillness with awful intensity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Then, too there were no shutters to the windows,
+which were, of course, open to let in the cool night
+air, and the thought suddenly came into Olive’s mind
+of how exposed she really was, sitting there in the
+light of her candles, plainly to be seen, but unable
+to see out. A thought such as this needs but little
+time to grow into a veritable feeling of panic. She
+glanced at the black gaping windows and stared out
+into the measureless blackness beyond. At one moment
+she raised her hand to extinguish the candles
+and so to hide herself in the dark along with her fears,
+but she knew that would only make matters worse.
+She would see in her terrified imagination a hundred
+glaring eyes peering in through the window. She
+got up and walked about the room, trying by a little
+movement to throw off the oppressive sense of terror.
+Diana suddenly seemed to be interested in something,
+and raised her head and sniffed inquiringly, and her
+mistress, nervously awake to every sight or sound,
+looked anxiously around her and stopped in her uneasy
+walk. Diana arose and went to the door, and
+being a puppy wagged her tail effusively, then suddenly
+remembering that she ought to be a dog, barked
+with vehemence. Olive was ready to scream with
+nervous terror as she heard a step upon the slanting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>board which led up to the door and a second later
+a knock against the resounding wood. She stood
+spell-bound, unable to speak or move. Diana ceased
+barking, and looked with eager delight for the opening
+of the door.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is I, friends, let me come in,” said a deep
+voice which thrilled Olive to the heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The door opened and Mr. Cotterell entered.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell! What are you here for?” gasped
+Olive, as he came in and stood in the light, gaunt-eyed
+and hollow-cheeked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am flying for my life, Mrs. Weston. The men
+are out hunting me down. I have come to ask your
+help. Where is your husband?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He is gone away to Mapleton.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah!” said Cotterell, with a sigh that had some
+relief in the sound. “Then you will help me, won’t
+you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What have you done?” asked Olive, gazing at
+him in terror. He was wild-looking and so different
+from the charming gentleman she had known before.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’ve shot Jake Mills,” he replied, without any
+attempt at dissimulation.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you mean that you’ve murdered him?”
+gasped Olive, starting back from him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Good God! Mrs. Weston, no. I’ve not murdered
+him, although he is dead by my hand. There’s
+been a quarrel between us about some land he rented
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>from me. He was a very low-bred fellow and violent,
+and I despised him, and—well, I said some harsh
+things to him about cheating the last time we met.
+He swore that he would pay me out. He came to
+my cabin the other day. I don’t know how long
+ago, it seems a life-time. He was mad with drink
+and fury. I told him he was a hound. He whipped
+out his revolver and fired at me, but he was too tipsy
+to aim straight, his shots went wide of the mark. Well,
+I got my shot in, I was not drunk. That is how it was,
+Mrs. Weston. Upon my honour as a man, that is the
+exact truth, you would not call it murder, would
+you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, it was in self-defence. But why didn’t you
+go and tell the neighbours at once? They understand
+that sort of thing on the prairie.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, there’s just my hard luck. There was a
+brute of a negro who saw it all, a fellow I thrashed
+once for stealing and lying, and he said with such
+a meaning look, niggers were free men now, they
+could give evidence against white men now,” said
+Cotterell in a voice of despair.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Could not you silence him?” said Olive, “or
+make him tell the truth?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I could have silenced him easily enough,
+and I had my finger on the trigger to do it. But
+I sickened at the thought. I couldn’t shoot him,
+although it was my life against his in all probability.
+I fled and he gave the alarm. I have no chance with
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>these men around here to try me, and that negro
+to give his lying version of the fight. If it was a jury
+of men like your husband, it would be different, but
+these ignorant settlers are desperately prejudiced
+against me already as a foreigner, and because of several
+things in the past.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive thought of what her husband had said, and
+knew only too well that there was indeed much prejudice
+against the unhappy fugitive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What am I to do? You cannot stay here, Mr.
+Cotterell. They have already been looking for you.
+Mr. Owen was here yesterday afternoon.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did he tell you what I had done? Did he seem
+to consider it murder?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, he did,” said Olive in a whisper, not daring
+to remember what he had said should he Cotterell’s
+punishment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But you don’t look upon it in that light?” said
+he, wistfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not. It was a terrible misfortune
+that might happen to anybody, given the preliminary
+quarrel.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Thank you,” said Cotterell brokenly. “When
+a poor devil is being hunted down it is a comfort
+for him to find someone who can still believe in
+him, and I knew in my heart I could come to you
+for help when all else had abandoned me. I am
+starving, Mrs. Weston. I have eaten nothing for two
+days. Can you give me some food?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>“Poor fellow!” cried Olive, more struck perhaps
+by his bodily needs than by those of the mind. “Sit
+down here, I’ll get you something in a jiffy. There
+is a good chicken-pie in the cellar.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She took a lantern and hurried off to the cellar
+which was under the house, but to which entrance
+was effected by an outside door. She brought him
+food and drink and sat by him as he ate ravenously,
+wolfishly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I must sleep or I shall never be able to hold
+out for the flight to-morrow. Let me lie here, will
+you, and wake me at mid-night. Will you do that
+for me? I must sleep. I have been hiding in the
+bottom-land of Cotton Wood Creek in the brushwood
+ever since I left home. I didn’t dare to ride
+across the prairie with everybody out on account of
+the fire. I should have been seen by someone, even
+if I could have got clear of the fire. The hunt must
+be over now on this side of the county, and I may
+dare snatch a little sleep.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He flung himself down on the floor, and almost
+before Olive could fetch a pillow for his head he
+was in a deep sleep. She sat watching him and wondering
+what his life was. Somewhere away in England,
+perhaps, there was a blue-eyed girl waiting for
+him to come home, a girl whose blue eyes were getting
+dim with the tears she shed in that long, long
+waiting. He was a very handsome man, with his yellow
+moustache and clear-cut features. His hat was off,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>leaving a sort of high-water mark plainly visible on
+his forehead, where the sun-burn ended and the
+smooth white skin showed upon his temples. The
+veins were marked in blue like a baby’s, she remembered
+how Ezra had commented on these blue veins.
+She wondered who he was and why he came there to
+live, and all the while she watched the slow rise and
+fall of his chest as he breathed in his sleep with his
+right hand nervelessly holding his revolver. How he
+would start up and grip that weapon, and how his
+blue eyes would flash, if his pursuers should come
+upon him! He was a man that had a reputation for
+bravery even on the prairie, where few men were
+cowards. She thought of Prince Charlie and his
+wanderings, and all the stories she had read as a girl
+about that charming prince. Here was a fugitive
+seeking her aid, and she—well, she would act the
+part of Flora Macdonald. By the time it was mid-night,
+Olive had worked herself into a most romantic
+frame of mind and was determined to help Mr.
+Cotterell at every hazard. She was not a person
+to do a thing by halves. She made a parcel of
+food for him out of the remains of the chicken-pie,
+and then, it being just mid-night, she awoke
+him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, Mrs. Weston, how can I ever show my gratitude
+to you? You are in veriest truth my guardian
+angel. I shall carry your image in my heart till I
+die,” said Cotterell in his soft persuasive voice. “I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>should like to think that you had some memory of
+me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shall not forget you, and shall pray that you
+may escape all dangers,” said Olive gently.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have absolutely nothing that I can call my
+own. Would you accept this ring of mine as a token
+of my gratitude, and sometimes wear it in memory
+of me? When you look at it, think that somewhere
+in this weary world there is one heart that will be
+grateful to you until it ceases to beat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He pulled a ring from his finger and put it into her
+hand. At the same time he stooped his tall form and
+softly kissed her forehead, saying: “God bless you!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive’s eyes were full of tears. “You must be
+going or it will be too late,” she said with a sob.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I must not tarry.” He looked to his revolver,
+jerked his cartridge-case round into a more
+convenient position for rapidly opening it, and took
+up his hat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where is your horse?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I hitched him to the bars.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I will take the lantern and light you on
+your way. The night is very dark. Once on horseback
+you can ride by the light of the stars,” said
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I’ll shape my course for the Missouri border,
+if I can run the gauntlet of the people here. Once
+I reach a town and civilization I shall be all right.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They went to the bars, Olive holding her little
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>lantern which threw a feeble ray along the pathway.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Great God!” cried Cotterell.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, what is it? Are they coming after you?”
+said Olive in alarm, dropping her lantern which instantly
+went out.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My horse is gone!” said Cotterell, whose eyes
+were now becoming accustomed to the darkness. “I
+left him hitched here. He was a wild young colt,
+not half broken. See, this is the lariat-rope wrenched
+in two. I was a fool to trust to that rope, and a double-dyed
+fool to leave him here in the dark. But I was
+too hungry and too sleepy to think clearly of what
+I was doing. That sleep will cost me my life. I
+shall have plenty of time to sleep, aye forever, if daylight
+catches me here. Mrs. Weston will you add one
+more benefit to the many that have gone before?
+Will you give me a horse?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, so gladly if I had one,” said Olive, beginning
+to cry with grief and helplessness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Haven’t you any horses?” asked Cotterell with
+a gasp.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No. Ezra and Brother Huntley have taken two
+teams to Mapleton.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Are there no more about the place?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Only our two that were out on the prairie.
+Brother Wright was to hunt for them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did he find them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know. Perhaps he did.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>“Then you must give me one of them. They
+are yours.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They are not mine. Oh, I have not anything
+in this dreadful Community. It is horrible,” wailed
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t, pray don’t,” said Cotterell feeling for her
+hand in the darkness and crushing it in a passionate
+grasp. “Come with me and help me get one.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What! steal one of our horses?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, God help me! if that must be the word.
+If I live, the Community shall have the horse’s price
+ten times over. If I am hanged, put it down for
+the Recording Angel’s tears. Come.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The horses are not here. They are at Brother
+Wright’s if anywhere.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Can you find the way in the dark? Then come
+all the same.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He held her hand. Was it for fear lest she should
+turn back, or was it for some other reason? They
+walked in silence towards the Wrights’ house, two
+dark shadows stealing through the blackness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell,” whispered Olive with chattering
+teeth. “If anyone should come out of the house
+on account of the noise, don’t fire. We are all non-resistants,
+you know, here, and he won’t have a pistol.”
+Olive had no knowledge of the plenary indulgence
+which Brother Wright had seen fit to bestow upon
+himself in this matter.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dear heart! don’t fear,” said Cotterell tenderly.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>“I am a desperate man flying for his life, it is true,
+but I am not a dastard. No human being at Perfection
+City shall ever be hurt by my hand. They
+are all sacred to me for your sweet sake. Ah yes, how
+truly it is Perfection City, none but I really know.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They walked on again in silence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is there a dog?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, but he knows me well. We are coming to
+the back of the stable now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then go and speak to the dog through the
+chinks of the logs, else he will bark at me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive crept up quietly, and putting her lips to a
+crevice in the rough log-stable said softly, “Pluto,
+good dog!” Pluto answered with a whine of satisfaction,
+and a soft, purring trumpet from Queen
+Katharine announced that she too was within, and
+that she recognised her mistress’s voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The horses are here,” whispered Olive. “I will
+go round and bring out Queen Katharine; there is
+only a wooden bolt on the outside to fasten the door.
+You had better not go near them for fear of exciting
+them, which might make the dog bark.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is dangerous for you in the dark. I fear the
+horses may hurt you,” said Cotterell, slow in bringing
+himself to give up the little hand he had held all
+during that strange night walk.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am not afraid of the horses: they know me
+and I know them,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Cotterell heard her talking softly to Queen Katharine
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>as she quietly undid her halter and brought her
+out of the stable. Not a creature seemed awake in
+the house, and not a word was spoken by the two as
+they stole past down to the bars. Once out of earshot,
+Cotterell sprang upon Queen Katharine and
+stooping down lifted Olive up before him. She never
+could quite remember the wild things he said as he
+rode back to their house, holding her in his arms on
+the horse. She was dizzy, frightened, and confused,
+so perhaps he did not say all those wild words, and
+perhaps she dreamed them. He got Ezra’s saddle
+and put it on Queen Katharine, Olive did not forget
+to give him the parcel of food and a flask of milk and
+water, and then he said good-bye. Such a strange
+good-bye. He knelt before her, clasped her two
+hands in his own, and said: “Now I know why men
+have worshipped the image of pure womanhood. It
+made them better. I shall be made a better man by
+my worship.” And then he was gone without another
+word, and Olive crept into the house just as the first
+grey streaks of dawn appeared.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVII.<br /> <span class='large'>A LIFE AT STAKE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>When Brother Wright early next morning discovered
+the loss of the brown mare, he was thrown into
+a state of the most unphilosophic rage. He had not
+a moment’s doubt as to what had happened, nor a
+moment’s hesitation as to the course he should pursue.
+He hurried back to the house and without any
+effort at concealment got out his revolver and stuck
+it into his belt.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wright,” said Mary, his wife, “whatever have
+you got there?” She was filled with amazement.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“A pistol,” replied he with firmness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What are you going to do with it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Shoot a damned horse-thief, who has been and
+broken into the stable and stolen Queen Katharine.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He jammed down his hat on his head and made
+for the door, while Mary Winkle gave a scream that
+would have done credit to the finest lady in the land.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You shan’t do any such thing! You will be
+killed! What do you know about pistols? You will
+be shot by those murderous horse-thieves, and what
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>will become of me—and Willette?” Mary Winkle
+urged the very arguments that have before now been
+known to make brave men falter and turn back from
+running risks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I—I shan’t do anything rash,” said Wright sheepishly.
+“I’ll just go round and rouse the neighbours
+and see if we can’t catch him, he can’t have got very
+far as yet. What beats me is why Pluto didn’t bark.
+The dog’s a fool, I’ll drown him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, I am thankful he didn’t bark, for you might
+have been dead by now if he had. You shan’t drown
+him, for he has saved your life. Horse-thieves are
+desperate men and wouldn’t respect our principles of
+non-resistance,” said Mary Winkle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ahem,” said her husband, tucking the revolver
+out of sight until required.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What we’ve got to do is to go to Madame and
+summon an Assembly of Urgency and talk this matter
+over, and see what the Community is to do. Wright,
+you can’t go and rouse the neighbours till you’ve got
+the sanction of the Assembly. You know that is the
+rule in all important matters, and this is about the
+most important matter that has ever come up for discussion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Damn discussion!” said Wright angrily. “While
+we’re discussing that thief will get away. Sharp is
+the word for catching horse-thieves.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But sharp is not the word for determining the
+action of Perfection City in an important juncture
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>like the present. Wright, I am surprised at
+you, and also at your language,” said his wife severely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh these infernal horse-thieves would provoke a
+saint,—not that I am one,” said Wright, still in a rage
+most unbecoming to a professed non-resistant, and
+Mary Winkle looked a whole essay full of rebuke at
+him. She carried the day, however, and together
+they carried their complaint to Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They found Madame sitting at breakfast along
+with Uncle David, and being waited upon by a negro-servant,
+Lucinda, the mother of Napoleon Pompey.
+The heat of a cooking-stove made Madame ill, therefore
+she required a servant, and she had what she
+required, principles of equality to the contrary notwithstanding.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Uncle David in much
+excitement and perturbation. “Wal, to think now
+o’ what big raskills there is in the worl’, an’ we a-settin’
+’em such a good ’xample here o’ honesty an’ uprightness.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We must summon the Assembly,” said Mary
+Winkle firmly. “It is a great pity Brothers Ezra and
+Dummy are both away, but there are quite enough
+left to deliberate.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If you think that is the best plan, we had better
+do it at once, there should be no time wasted,”
+said Madame, looking interrogatively at Brother
+Wright’s frowning face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>“If you ask me——” he began when his wife interrupted
+him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We don’t ask you, Wright, at least not until
+the Assembly of Urgency is convened. Your vote
+doesn’t count for more than mine, and I demand an
+Assembly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Wright shrugged his shoulders, and Madame
+smiled a little sarcastically. “We will summon it,”
+she said.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“An’ I’ll jes’ step roun’ an’ fetch Sister Olive,”
+said Uncle David, putting on his hat as he spoke, “an’
+you can bring together the rest of the brethren.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They came quickly enough when they heard of
+the loss of the brown mare, only Olive was absent.
+She was ill in bed with a headache and spoke to
+Uncle David out of a darkened room.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Wright detailed the loss of the horse,
+while the Assembly listened in deepest attention.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What we have to consider is the best means of
+recovering the horse if possible,” said Madame. “Does
+anyone know what is usually done under similar circumstances?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The neighbours join together and run down the
+thief as quickly as possible,” said Brother Wright,
+with sharp emphasis.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And having run him down, hang him,” added
+Mary Winkle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That course is impossible for us,” observed
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>“That is a point I should like to debate,” said
+Brother Wright. “If we are to live here we must
+have horses, and we can’t keep horses if it is known
+to be against our principles to shoot a horse-thief.
+That is all I’ve got to say.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“An’ I want to notice the p’int o’ Injuns,” said
+Aunt Ruby. “Ef there’s Injuns as will do any
+wickedness un’er the sun, I want to know are we to
+sit still an’ be roasted on our own fires by wile savages
+like that, or will the men-folks defen’ us as other men
+do? An’ I likewise would wish to p’int out to the
+’Sembly as border ruffians is mos’ly as bad as Injuns,
+an’ it stan’s to reason as horse-thieves is ’bout the
+same.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It seems to me,” said Brother Green, speaking
+with great deliberation, “that our principles were
+formed and adopted because we thought them right.
+I don’t see in what we should differ from anybody
+else if we took to the usual prairie arms the moment
+we felt the shoe pinch! If non-resistance is right,
+it should be practised against horse-thieves; if it is
+wrong, then we should be prepared to shoot the
+thieves of other men’s horses. There is no middle
+course. The throwing away of our settled convictions
+just because our horse has been stolen is not
+consistent.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’ll vote for non-resistance and the maintenance
+of our principles,” said Mary Winkle severely,
+“and I further think that what is decided by the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>majority in this meeting should bind all the members.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She fixed her eye upon Wright with meaning.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is a most difficult juncture,” remarked Madame.
+“I wish much we had the help of Brother
+Ezra’s wisdom to guide us.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said Uncle David cordially, “an’ sister
+Olive too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I do not see how Sister Olive can have any experience
+that would enable her to give good advice
+on this subject,” said Madame acidly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Sister Olive has consider’ble ’cuteness,” remarked
+Uncle David. “Now you’d be ’stonished to
+hear the wise things she says, an’ she as purty as a
+kitten or a rose all the while.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I guess we’ll just do nothing at all? Is
+that the decision of this Assembly?” asked Brother
+Wright abruptly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There is great force in passive resistance,” said
+Brother Carpenter, a boneless individual who counted
+for little either for work in the fields, or for advice
+in the councils, of Perfection City. “Where passive
+resistance has been applied by large numbers and for
+a long time it has effected great changes,” he observed
+conversationally.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think principles are principles,” said Brother
+Green, “and may not be lightly set aside.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I guess I’ll go home then, since nothing
+is going to be done,” said Brother Wright angrily,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>“and I’ll try and keep hold of the last horse, else
+that thief will come and take him too, when he finds
+what fools he’s got to deal with.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The Assembly broke up, having decided nothing
+at all, and having only succeeded in embittering the
+feelings of several persons, and in widening the chasm
+of differences which had revealed itself in the course
+of the debate, a result that has often followed the
+meeting of larger and more notorious Assemblies.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Although Brother Wright could not now violate
+one of the fundamental doctrines of Perfection City,
+it was open to him to use a little worldly wisdom
+in the way of setting others upon the track of the
+thief. Accordingly, without saying a single word
+to Mary Winkle or anyone else, he mounted Rebel
+and proceeded to rouse the neighbours who were not
+at all bound by non-resistant theories. Nothing gets
+up a prairie man’s anger quicker than the knowledge
+that a horse-thief has begun active operations in his
+vicinity. Horses are absolutely necessary to his daily
+life, and to be suddenly deprived of his horses is one
+of the greatest calamities that can overtake a settler.
+They can take a merciful view of homicide at times,
+but never of horse-stealing. Brother Wright relied
+on this known propensity, and by visiting the most
+hardy of his neighbours had before night started as
+relentless a set of hunters after Queen Katharine as
+ever put leg over horse or drew pistol from belt.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive meanwhile remained at home all unconscious
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>of what had taken place at the Assembly, and of the
+pursuit organized afterwards as the effect of Brother
+Wright’s embassies. She had decided in her own mind
+that the best course for her to adopt was to keep absolute
+silence until Ezra should come home. To him
+she would explain everything, and she felt convinced
+that he was just enough, albeit no friend of Cotterell’s,
+to be ready to sacrifice a horse in order to
+facilitate his escape. She did not feel at all so sure
+about some of the other members of the Community.
+At all events Cotterell’s best chance of safety lay in
+her keeping firmly to her resolution of silence about
+him. The best way for her to keep silent without exciting
+suspicion was not to talk with anyone, and feeling
+pretty well convinced that somebody would come
+to talk over the great calamity with her, she resolved
+to be out of the way. In any case she was very miserable
+and very anxious, and could not stay at home,
+so she wandered off for a walk. She went to the
+spring, then she went to Weddell’s Gully and looked
+at the black burnt waste. She tried to think about
+the interest and excitement of the fire, but could think
+of nothing but Cotterell riding for his life and of
+the men who were riding after him. Olive knew
+nothing of the second set of men sent after the horse-thief;
+her mind was still anxiously dwelling on the
+probability of his being captured by those who had
+“wanted” him for the murder of Jake Mills. The fact
+was, however, that this first hunting-party had given
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>over their quest, for a man must be caught by the
+second day on the prairie if he is to be caught at all.
+This, however, Olive did not know, and she kept wondering
+and picturing all sorts of terrible possibilities.
+Had the men found the trail? Would Queen Katharine
+hold out till he got to the border? True she
+had been resting for a whole day, but then a man’s
+life depended on her endurance, and Olive remembered
+with a cold dread that Queen Katharine was
+only a farm-horse and not trained to such desperate
+efforts as this. Then she remembered the others, those
+dreadful hunters, were also mounted on farm horses,
+and this thought gave her some small comfort. She
+came home again after a most wretched day spent
+in aimless rambling over the hopeless black prairie
+and crept up to the outside platform to scan once
+more that dreary waste towards the endless western
+horizon. Far away towards the north-west she saw
+a band of horsemen huddled together and moving
+rapidly in an easterly direction. Olive’s heart stood
+still with terror. Oh! who were they? And why
+were they riding rapidly? Men rode in bands to
+funerals, but then they went slowly: they rode fast
+only when out on a man-hunt. She did not call up
+Napoleon Pompey, although he could see like a hawk;
+she dreaded to hear what his explanation would be.
+She watched with straining eyes until the men had
+disappeared within the belt of timber that marked
+the course of the Creek, then she came downstairs
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>with her miserable discovery hidden in her
+heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The next day dragged slowly by, Olive feeling
+more and more wretched and anxious each moment,
+and longing for Ezra’s return. Napoleon Pompey
+did nothing but speculate about the horse-thief and
+the probabilities of his capture. He regaled Olive
+with accounts of the numbers of men out on the hunt,
+the desperate character of their courage, and the murderous
+accuracy of their aim with revolvers. Sick at
+heart she had to listen to him and try and collect her
+terrified senses in order to make occasional comments
+and replies. Again she hid herself away from her
+neighbours and spent most of the day in a corn-stack,
+not two hundred yards from the house, whence she
+could see plainly without being seen. Uncle David
+came and stayed so long waiting for her, that she
+nearly smothered in the corn-stack before he went
+away, and she was able to come out and catch a breath
+of fresh air. Then Aunt Ruby came and peered all
+about everywhere, even down into the cellar, and
+stayed a good while there examining Olive’s milkpans,
+until Olive bethought herself of the device of
+sending off Diana to hasten Aunt Ruby’s exit from
+the cellar. This device succeeded: Aunt Ruby was
+so dismayed at seeing that redoubtable puppy lolloping
+up to her that she incontinently fled, and Olive
+emerged once more from the suffocation of the corn-stack.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>Mary Winkle came twice, fortunately without
+Willette, for that astute young person would instantly
+have discovered Olive, owing to the pertinacious company
+of Diana. A dog does not hang around a corn-stack
+the live-long day unless there is something interesting
+inside it claiming attention. Olive began
+to feel like a hunted criminal herself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Napoleon Pompey had been sent away in the morning
+to look for some young cattle that had not been
+seen since the fire, and having to go on foot he did not
+come back till the afternoon. He burst in upon her
+with these appalling words:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dey’s done cotch him!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who told you?” asked Olive, not pretending
+any miscomprehension of what was only too plain to
+her mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ole nigger seed ’em. Dey bringin’ him back.
+Ole man Cotterell he de hoss-thief, him ridin’ Queen
+Katharine when dey cotch him. Nigger tole me he
+seed ’em yonder.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Have they shot him?” asked Olive with white
+lips.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, dey’s gwine ter jury-try him, den dey hang
+him ’cause he done stole hoss and he kill ole Mill’s
+Jake.” Napoleon Pompey licked his lips and grinned.
+Olive turned from him in horror.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where have they taken him to?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dunno. Nigger he ’lowed dey gwine ter Jacksonville.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>Olive made up her mind and took her resolution.
+She questioned Napoleon Pompey very carefully,
+found exactly what negro it was from whom he had
+obtained his information concerning the capture of
+Cotterell. He worked with the Halls who lived over
+the other side of Cotton Wood Creek, and she made
+minute inquiries as to how to reach their house. Then
+she told the boy to give Rebel a double feed of corn
+and to bring in the new lariat-rope and mallet and
+pin. Rebel had been removed back to his own stable
+by Brother Wright’s desire, as he had no belief now
+in Pluto as a watch-dog. Napoleon Pompey was open-mouthed
+with wonder at Olive’s directions about the
+horse, and asked “whar she gwine?” She told him
+to do as she bid him and to say nothing to anybody
+about it, whereat he was still more open-mouthed.
+Olive got a large shawl and rolled it up into a tight
+bundle, and then dressed herself in a strong serviceable
+stuff dress and went to supper with Napoleon Pompey,
+to whom she never spoke a single word. When supper
+was over she sent him down to his mother to ask
+her to bake a pumpkin-pie for her. Napoleon Pompey
+said he would go “fust thing in de mornin’,” and
+she told him sternly to go at once and do as he was
+bid. When Napoleon Pompey came back Olive was
+gone, and so was Rebel, with lariat-rope picket-pin
+and mallet, and so was her tightly rolled shawl.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Perfection City had further cause for amazement
+and hurried meeting in Assembly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>Olive, meanwhile, was riding fast towards Cotton
+Wood Creek which she reached and crossed by the
+last shreds of daylight. She stumbled up out of the
+bottom-lands on to the high prairie, then perceiving by
+the sound of Rebel’s hoofs that at last she had struck
+grass again, for the fire had not crossed the Creek,
+she determined to camp. It was a black night, but
+she knew how to drive her picket and unsaddle her
+horse blindfold. Taking her saddle and shawl out of
+the circle of Rebel’s night-range, she wrapped herself
+up to wait until daylight should permit her again to
+go forward. She was not in the least frightened, although
+the prairie wolves were yelping in the distance.
+The nervous terrors that had beset her when sitting
+in her own comfortable little kitchen with her dog
+at her feet, and a stout lad in the room overhead,
+were quite gone. Yet there was enough to frighten
+a more valiant person than our poor little Olive,
+with her half-defined thoughts and her generous impulses.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>What was it she proposed to herself in this expedition?
+First of all to overtake Cotterell and his
+captors, and then to do what the wit of woman could
+devise to save him from their fury. In her ignorance
+of prairie feelings and ideas she attached no importance
+to the fact that he would have been captured
+riding the well-known brown mare belonging to Perfection
+City. He would of course explain that she had
+lent him the animal, and that question would at once
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>drop out of the debate. Then the terrible one of the
+shooting of Jake Mills would have to be settled. That
+was what she feared for Cotterell, and that was where
+her testimony and pleading might avail. She knew
+from his own lips how the fatal affray had occurred,
+and she would be able in some measure, perhaps, to
+counteract the evidence of that wicked lying negro
+who out of revenge was going to swear away Cotterell’s
+life. Olive hated to do it, but she knew she could
+say things to any western jury that would make it
+difficult for them to admit negro evidence. For once
+in a way the mighty race-prejudice could be relied
+upon to work for justice, and poor Olive, fanatical
+friend of the negro, had to confess she was glad to
+have so strong a lever to her hand in this dreadful
+emergency.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Meanwhile the never-ending night wore on. How
+long, how unutterably long are the hours of darkness
+to them who wait sleeplessly for the dawn! The
+twinkling stars passed over her head, and Olive tried
+to fix her eyes steadily on one or two of them in order
+to convince herself that they really did move after all.
+Thus staring at the stars, her eyes became weary, and
+the lids dropped slowly over them, and she fell into a
+troubled sleep, haunted with fearsome visions.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She must have slept some little time, for when she
+awoke the stars had certainly changed places and
+were moreover becoming pale in the first grey streaks
+of morning. Olive awoke shivering with cold and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>drenched with the heavy prairie dew. Her teeth chattered,
+so she could hear them like a piece of broken
+machinery moving inside her head, while her fingers
+were almost numb. As soon as she could make out
+Rebel in the approaching dawn, she saddled him, and,
+woman-like, did not forget the lariat-rope, picket-pin
+and mallet, even in the midst of her terrible anxiety.
+She thought of Cotterell in the hands of his foes, and
+the recollection came back to her, like a blow that
+almost stunned her, that this would be the last time
+he would ever see the sun rise unless she hurried to
+his rescue. The thought spurred her to renewed activity,
+the horror of it drove the chilled blood with a
+rush to her heart. She caught her breath, and then
+felt hot. She did not shiver any more, and her chattering
+teeth were set in a desperate resolve. She
+clambered up on the horse’s back and set off at a gallop
+towards that house where she would get positive
+news which would help her to find the lynching-party
+quickly. Ah! merciful God! The lynching-party!
+She urged Rebel into a harder gallop, for the sun was
+just beginning to appear over the horizon, and she
+could see where she was going. She reached the
+cabin where the Halls lived in due course. They didn’t
+know her, but they invited her to breakfast with prairie
+courtesy. She saw the negro man who had told
+the news to Napoleon Pompey.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, he seed ’em totin’ ole man Cotterell back.”
+There was never any doubt in Olive’s mind as to the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>fact that they had caught him, what she wanted to
+know was the destination of the party. “He ’lowed
+dey was gwine ter Jacksonville, ’cause down yonder
+was whar dey hang de las’ man; den dey jury-try
+him, an’ Jacksonville mighty handy anyhow, dar heaps
+o’ trees dar.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive could not repress a shudder of horror which
+the negro saw, and so did the Halls. She would not
+stop a moment to eat a bit of breakfast, notwithstanding
+their urgent entreaties, but got directions as to
+the shortest road to Jacksonville and hastened away
+on her errand of mercy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Mrs. Hall looking after her rapidly vanishing figure,
+and remembering the look of misery on her face,
+“reckoned ’twas one o’ them po’ silly gals as is cotched
+by a yaller ’stache. She was powerful sorry for her
+anyhow, she ’peared mos’ broke down an’ sick. She
+’lowed if the boys hed hung ole man Cotterell when
+Glover’s gal shot herself ’cause he wouldn’t marry her,
+’twould hev been a sight better anyhow.” Her husband
+was of opinion that “gals was fules gapin’ a’ter
+strangers an’ furrin fellers, not bein’ content along o’
+their nat’ral men-folks as b’longed to ’em, app’inted
+by the hand o’ Providence.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive rode through the hot September day feeling
+very faint and tired, but never for a moment faltering
+in her determination; and well on in the afternoon
+she came to Jacksonville, a place with two houses
+standing and the stakes for three more stuck into the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>ground to signify possession. There was only one
+woman in the place along with a flock of children.
+No sign of men anywhere. The woman did not know
+much about the movements of the “boys.” “They
+hadn’t passed that way at all, but she hearn tell they
+had been out catching a horse-thief and murderer, and
+they had caught him too, a Britisher, she was told,
+and it was a shame those foreigners should be allowed
+to come to America to steal honest folks horses, and
+true born Americans too, as always worked for every
+cent before they spent it. They had taken him to
+Union Mills to try him and she hoped—well she didn’t
+want to say anything unbecoming to a professing
+Christian, but wouldn’t Olive come in and eat a bit
+and rest before going further, she didn’t look fit for
+such hard riding.” Olive, feeling sick with disappointment,
+accepted a morsel of food, and asking her
+way to Union Mills started off. She had come thirty-eight
+miles already, and if she had only known where
+to go she would have been there hours ago. It was
+nearly twenty miles to Union Mills, she could not
+hope to reach it that night, but she started nevertheless
+although the sun was getting low in the west.
+The horrid thought kept pressing against her heart:
+was she already too late? But no, she would force
+it out of her mind, and come what might she would
+never stop until she had done her utmost to save him.
+She therefore pressed forward, but Rebel showed signs
+of giving out. He lay down with her suddenly and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>tried to roll. This would never do. All depended on
+her horse, if he failed her then Cotterell’s last chance
+of life was gone. She rode slowly, now following a
+prairie track and now riding along side it, because
+Rebel stumbled in the ruts. It got dark, she did not
+know where she was, but followed the track for some
+time mechanically. A light suddenly showed up on
+her left. Rebel pricked up his ears and turned towards
+it. After some difficulty she reached the door. Could
+they harbour her for the night? She was caught out
+and could go no further.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Land o’ Goshen! ’course they could, an’ whar
+in sin was she gwine that time o’ night ’thout nobody,
+not even a dawg?” Olive said it was a case of life
+and death and she must do it. They were deeply
+sorry, they fed her with corn-bread and bacon, they
+fed her horse, and were kindness itself. The cabin
+had only one room with a bed in one corner for the
+man and his wife. Olive was desperately tired. The
+wife said “she’d be doggauned sick ’less she went to
+bed.” So Olive lay down on the bed, and the settler’s
+wife lay down beside her, and the man slept on the
+floor with his head on a pile of corn-shucks. Long
+before daylight he went out and fed her horse. The
+wife cooked a good breakfast and pressed Olive again
+and again “to scrouge down suthin’ more,” and sent
+her off with many good wishes as to her finding her
+husband better, who, she was sure, ’ud be tickled to
+death at seeing her.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVIII.<br /> <span class='large'>LYNCH-LAW.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Union Mills was full of people, mostly men, and
+Phillipps’ Store, which was the only shop in the place,
+as well as being the Post-Office, was crowded to suffocation.
+Those who couldn’t get inside stood around
+the door talking loudly as they chewed their tobacco.
+Inside the talking and tobacco-chewing were carried
+on likewise. A ring of men were sitting on barrels
+and nail-kegs and coils of rope and extemporized chairs
+of all kinds. Of these, twelve arranged together at
+one side formed the jury, and the rest were witnesses
+and spectators. In their midst stood Cotterell. He
+was not bound or specially guarded in any way, but
+he was unarmed, while pistols hung at the belts of all
+the other men there. Cotterell held his head erect,
+his eyes looked clear, and his lips were firm. A careful
+observer might have noticed that his nostrils sometimes
+twitched, but his hands were perfectly steady.
+Yet he was on trial for his life, without appeal and
+without a friend in “the court.” Several of the men
+had asked him questions which he had answered,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>shortly and sharply perhaps, but with a perfectly steady
+voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I dunno what we’re gwine on talkin’ for,” said
+a jury man with a twang that bespoke Arkansas.
+“Hain’t it clar this hyar feller, what was wanted for
+the shootin’ o’ Ole Mills’ boy, he’s the same cuss as
+stole the mare from them damned fools up to ’Fection
+City? He’s got ter be hanged, anyhow. I want ter
+go home. I hain’t a-gwine to stick hyar all day, by
+Gosh!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I did not steal the mare,” said Cotterell, his nostrils
+dilating.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You hear that,” said the foreman, who sat on a
+sugar-barrel.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You was ridin’ her when we come up t’yer,”
+said one who had been out on the hunt.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I was.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How’d yer git her then ’cept by stealin’?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She was lent to me by one of the members of
+the Community,” said Cotterell.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They’s damn fools, I know, but I reckon they
+hain’t such all-fired damn fools as ter give their best
+hoss ter you,” said the man from Arkansas.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Cotterell’s lips curled with contempt, but he did
+not speak.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Look hyar, fellow jury-men,” said one of them
+who prided himself on the accuracy of his language
+on all occasions. “I’d axe leave ter make a few remarks.
+We were informed by the gentlemen what
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>caught the prisoner that they were notified o’ the
+stealing by one o’ them Perfection City fellers. If
+the horse was lent how is it the owner didn’t know
+about the lending?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said one of the gentlemen referred to,
+“ole man Wright, he come and tol’ me ’bout the stealin’
+o’ the hoss, an’ he ’lowed, on’y it was agin his principles,
+he’d like ter hev been out with the boys. It
+don’t ’pear ter my min’ as there was much len’ing
+’bout it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This trial, gen’lemen, is all fair and square an’
+’cordin’ to law. We’ll settle this p’int ’fore we go
+further,” said the foreman. “You say the horse was
+lent to you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I do say so emphatically,” replied the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, we’ve got one o’ them ’Fection City fellers
+to say the hoss was stolen, he’ll swear to that, an’ I
+reckon by their idees he was part-owner of it anyhow.
+Now, that’s the witness agin yer. Who have you got
+to swear yer was lent the horse fair and square?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have had no chance of getting any witness, as
+you very well know,” replied Cotterell.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I reckon yo’ hev bin kep’ purty toler’ble
+close. Anyhow, it shan’t be said as we hain’t gi’en yer
+a good chance. Now, which might be yer witness to
+the len’ing? There hain’t such a damn sight o’ folks
+up to ’Fection City as ’ud make yer forget so ready
+as all that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Cotterell hesitated.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>“Hain’t yo’ got no tongue? Who lent yer the
+hoss, I say?” repeated the foreman.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mrs. Weston,” said Cotterell at last.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That’s a lie, anyhow,” burst out one of the bystanders.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is not a lie, it is the truth,” said Cotterell
+hotly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, now, see hyar. I was over to ole man Weston’s,
+an’ I seed Mis’ Weston myself, an’ she tole me
+she hadn’t sot eyes on yer. Now then?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was Owen who spoke, he had been out, as we
+know, on the first hunting-party and was now present
+as a spectator. He would have been on the jury, only
+it was considered more delicate for him to stand aside,
+considering that he had been out to catch Cotterell,
+and prairie men are punctilious in the observance of
+all those forms of etiquette with which they are familiar.
+Although not on the jury, Owen was quite free
+to intervene in the trial, he was one of the foremost
+settlers on the prairie. Cotterell looked hard at him
+as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did she tell you that herself?” he asked, drawing
+his eyebrows tightly together.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, she tole me herself,” replied Owen.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I have nothing further to say,” said Cotterell,
+setting his teeth grimly under his moustache.
+He realised very clearly what he was doing, he was
+throwing away his last chance of life; but his resolution
+never wavered for a moment. The thought
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>flashed through his mind that most people would
+think him a fool to act as he did, risk the certainty
+of death for the sake of a fantastic loyalty to a woman
+who could never be to him anything but the distant
+friend another man’s wife should be. Then came the
+recollection that no one, not even she for whom he
+was sacrificing his life, would ever know what he had
+done. There was something fantastic surely in all
+this. Their whole acquaintance had been fantastic
+in a sense: Mr. Perseus was a fancy, but how dangerously
+sweet it had been while it lasted. And now it
+was over, he would never hear the sound of her voice
+again nor feel the touch of her little hand. Poor
+child! He could well imagine, with that jealous husband
+of hers, how she might have been driven to save
+herself from his anger by declaring she had never seen
+him. Jealousy was a monster surely, if there ever
+was a monster on this earth. Cotterell almost smiled
+to himself as he thought how once again he would
+act the part of Perseus to the unhappy one and save
+her by his silence from the monster’s fangs. Thoughts
+such as these swept through his mind as he stood facing
+the jury, while they were somewhat nonplussed
+as to their future proceedings owing to his determination
+not to say anything further. It appeared almost
+indecent to hang a man who would not argue out the
+points with them: they had never met such a one
+before.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There’s a gal hyar a-wantin’ ter come in,” said
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>one of the men who was standing just outside the
+door.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Keep her hout,” said one of the jury. “We
+hain’t agoin’ ter hev any women a screech-owlin’ hyar.
+It’s one o’ his gals as he’s lef’ to die maybe of a broken
+heart ’thout the satisfaction o’ bein’ a widder.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Let me pass, please,” said an imperious little
+voice that thrilled Cotterell to the heart. “I am one
+of the witnesses in this trial. I have important evidence
+to give.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The men fell back and left the passage free. Western
+men, even armed ones, can’t do anything against
+a woman.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive came into the crowded room, Olive dirty,
+dishevelled, travel-stained, her face begrimed with
+prairie dust, her hair unkempt, her dress crumpled
+and with many a rent in it. Cotterell hardly knew
+her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who mought yer be, miss?” inquired one of the
+jury.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am Mrs. Weston.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Whar’s yer husband? Yer hadn’t oughter be hyar
+a follerin’ this feller roun’ the prairie. Tain’t——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Shut yer mouth or I’ll send a bullet down yer
+gullet,” roared the foreman, putting his hand to his
+revolver. “Take a cheer,” he added, gallantly offering
+Olive the sugar-barrel upon which he had been sitting
+in his official capacity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, thank you,” said Olive. “I will stand.”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>She took her place beside Cotterell, but without looking
+at him or addressing a single word to him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What are you trying this man for?” she asked,
+facing the jury dauntlessly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, mos’ly fur stealin’ yer hoss,” said one of
+them.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He didn’t steal it. I myself lent him the horse.
+It belongs to us,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“By Gosh!” exclaimed Owen, “you tole me yerself
+yer hadn’t sot n’ary an eye on him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“So I hadn’t when you were there, he did not
+come until the next day.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The jury whistled collectively and incredulously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Silence!” said the foreman.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I can now explain,” said Cotterell. “I didn’t go
+to Mrs. Weston’s house until two days after—after
+Mills’ death——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“A’ter yer killed him,” corrected Owen.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you were there the next day,” concluded
+Cotterell, not taking any notice of the interruption.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, that is it. Mr. Cotterell came the next evening
+but one after the prairie fire, and I gave him the
+mare to go away on, because his colt broke loose from
+the bars in the dark.” Olive spoke quite quietly, with
+no trace of excitement beyond a knitting of her pretty
+eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I reckon we hain’t got nuthin’ more to do
+then,” said one of the jury-men, getting up from his
+nail-keg and strapping up his holster.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>“There’s the murder too,” objected one, “not as
+I put it fust noways, on’y we might go inter it now,
+seein’ there hain’t nuthin’ ter be got outer the hoss-stealin’
+business.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yer hain’t got evidence for the murder case too,
+has yer?” sneered the man who had been so peremptorily
+silenced by the foreman on his first objection
+to Olive’s presence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Only this. You are not non-resistants, are you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We hain’t such blasted fools,” observed the Arkansas
+man genially.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, then, when this poor Jake Mills in his
+drunken fury came up and fired at Mr. Cotterell, was
+he or was he not to fire in self-defence, according to
+your ideas and practice?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of course he was,” said the jury in unison.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then that is what he did. Jake Mills fired
+first.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Two shots,” said Cotterell in a low voice, but
+every man in the room heard him distinctly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That coloured man we saw yesterday swore that
+Cotterell lay in wait for Mills, and fired from under
+cover as he came up to the house,” said a man from
+Illinois who had not spoken hitherto.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal now,” said the Arkansas man, “I didn’t
+say nuthin’ ’bout that yesterday. Long as it was hoss-stealin’
+we knowed whar we was an’ what we hed
+ter do, ’cause we hed the hoss. But this hyar shootin’
+business hain’t noways the same. Any gen’leman hyar
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>might hev a difference with any other gen’leman, an’
+’s long as it were done fair, I don’t see as how anyone
+hes any business to say they shouldn’t settle it
+with pistols or bowie-knives accordin’ to taste. We
+are all for freedom in this country I reckon, an’ that’s
+how it hes been done in Arkansas often an’ satisfact’ry.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This ain’t Arkansas, an’ we are determined to
+put a stop to this shootin’ round every day,” said the
+Illinois man firmly. “It ain’t respectable and it stops
+quiet settlers from coming here to take farms. We
+are going to stop it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then you should have stopped Jake Mills when
+he went to Mr. Cotterell’s and fired at him first,” said
+Olive quickly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There’s somethin’ in that,” said the foreman,
+whose native gallantry led him to side with a pretty
+woman. “In a trial we hev to consider all the p’ints
+o’ the case. I consider that as for the horse-stealin’,
+that hes mostly broke down under evidence. We must
+now go into the other charge, which is shootin’ Jake
+Mills, an’ a damned scoundrel he was too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The jury laughed pleasantly at this sally from
+the bench, or to speak more accurately from the sugar-barrel.
+Even Cotterell seemed a trifle amused, only
+Olive did not unknit her eyebrows, nor did the hard
+lines around her mouth in the least relax.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We are in consider’ble difficulty ’bout this here
+shootin’ case,” continued the foreman when the mirth
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>had subsided, “and if I had knowed as that was all
+we was up for tryin’, I don’t reckon we ’ud all on us
+ha’ been here as is now collected together to maintain
+the rights an’ freedom o’ our country.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The jury murmured applause, upon recognising
+well-known Fourth of July phrases, which have perennial
+power to stir the American breast.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why ain’t we agoin’ on with this blamed trial?”
+asked an impatient jury man. “We hev purty nigh
+lost a whole day’s work a’ready an’ hain’t finished
+nothin’ yit. When we strung up ole Howard for hoss-stealin’
+we hed the job done clar up afore noon, an’
+we could go home to dinner comfor’ble.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive gave a faint inarticulate cry and put her
+hands up to her ears, or was it perchance to her neck?
+Cotterell turned anxiously towards her as if she was
+going to faint, and he would catch her before she fell.
+She steadied herself in an instant and again faced the
+jury like a tiny lioness, small in body but with unconquerable
+courage.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, gen’lemen, I’m agreeable to proceed with
+the evidence,” said the foreman graciously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I was told we had evidence o’ deliberate murder,”
+said the Illinois juror.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We most on us hearn what the nigger said,” remarked
+another carelessly, “some on us fooled roun’
+with that yesterday an’ lost a fair half day’s work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, gen’lemen, you could ha’ had the nigger
+again here to-day, on’y it was not considered necessary,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>as we was mostly of opinion to fin’ a true bill
+on the horse-stealin’ count. We can send for the nigger.
+He’s mos’ likely sneakin’ roun’ here. Them niggers
+is jes’ like buzzards, they can scent out where
+there’s a hangin’,—ahem, gen’lemen, we’ll proceed,”
+said the foreman, suddenly recollecting himself and
+Olive’s presence barely in time.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I vote for sending for the coloured man,” said
+the Illinois juror firmly. “We’ll confront him with
+the prisoner.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Nigger be damned!” roared the Arkansas man
+jumping violently off his nail-keg. “Yo’ reckon I’m
+agoin’ ter sit hyar an’ see a white man hanged on
+nigger evidence. No, sir. I won’t stan’ such a insult
+to my race as that. There be some things a
+man o’ honour won’t stan’ an’ that’s one o’ them. Thar
+hain’t no man spryer to light out an’ catch a hoss-thief
+nor I be, an’ I’ll do my dooty in the hangin’ too,
+an’ hol’ the rope as tight as ony o’ yo’all. But I’ll
+bust up afore I’ll take nigger evidence ’gin a white
+man. I reckon there hain’t none o’ yo’ gen’lemen as
+is pertikler sot on that nigger, be yer?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive’s heart gave a bound of joy as the Arkansas
+juror poured forth his torrent of protest. Alas,
+poor Olive and her high-flown love of the black race!
+She was bound to confess that her best hope for effecting
+the end she was struggling for, lay in the blind
+race-prejudice of this ignorant Southerner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I guess we ought to take all the evidence, white
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>or black, that bears on the case,” observed he of Illinois.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If that thar nigger comes inter this hyar room
+to conten’ with this hyar jury an’ give his evidence,
+I’ll shoot him, ’fore he gits over that door-sill, so I
+will, by God, an’ no man as knows me ever said I went
+back o’ my word in shootin’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The Arkansas juror faced them with his black
+eyes ablaze and his dark visage twitching with suppressed
+fury. He was quivering under the sting of
+what was to him an intolerable insult, and there
+was nothing he would not do to wipe out that insult.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive looked at Cotterell for the first time, and
+as their eyes met he was horrified to see the white,
+drawn expression on her face. He attributed it to the
+very natural womanly fear that she might be involved
+in a promiscuous shooting affray in that crowded room.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t be alarmed, they will not bring the negro
+in here,” he said soothingly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am not afraid for myself,” she answered, simply
+and truthfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, gen’lemen,” said the foreman pleasantly.
+“I reckon we hev finished for this spell anyhow. I
+consider the prisoner hes hed as fair a trial as ony man
+could wish, and I hev on’y ter thank yer all for yer
+help upon this occasion in maintain’ the laws and freedom
+of our beloved country, as belongs to the duty of
+free-born citizens.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>“Hurrah!” said the jury, with another relapse
+into Fourth of Julyism.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We’ve purty nigh lost two whole days’ work ’long
+o’ this hyar foolin’,” observed the Arkansas man angrily.
+“Them coons up to ’Fection City is nat’ral born
+fools anyhow. Fust they blaze roun’ an’ set us on ter
+run down a hoss-thief fur ’em. Soon as we’ve done
+cotch him, they sen’ roun’ a woman to say the hoss
+was lent. If the blamed critters come to me again,
+reckon I’ll stick to my plough-handles. I’ll not light
+out for them, you bet.” And he immediately walked
+out of the store followed by the entire jury and the
+foreman.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When the Court broke up, Olive and Cotterell were
+left alone in the store along with Phillipps, the storekeeper.
+The latter handed Cotterell his revolver,
+which the jury had considerately left for him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I suppose I’m a free man,” said Cotterell, with
+more sign of emotion in his manner than he had yet
+shown.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Thanks to Mrs. Weston you are free,” said Phillipps.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He turned to Olive, who seemed in a daze, and
+said, “Shall we go now?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” she answered, and they left the store together.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The crowd in the road before the door was already
+fast dispersing. The exciting climax for which they
+had waited was not to come off, so there remained
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>no further inducement to stay. Some straggled into
+the smithy, some went towards the mills, but most of
+the men were getting their horses, putting on saddles,
+and settling halters and reins. The Arkansas man
+had a waggon and was hitching his horses to it, as
+Olive, riding on Rebel, and Cotterell on Queen Katharine,
+passed by.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Be yo’ gwine with him?” asked the Arkansas
+man, pointing to Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said Olive shortly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wish we’d hanged the damned cuss ’fore she
+come in,” said the Arkansas man regretfully to his
+companion, who had also been present at the trial.
+“She’s gwine ter ’lope with him, an’ ole man Weston
+he on’y jes’ married her las’ spring.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Reckon she don’t like ’Fection City idees. Gals
+mos’ allers likes a fightin’ man best, an’ this hyar one
+is reg’lar downright handsome too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If we’d on’y hed a-hanged him she couldn’t hev
+run off with the coon,” repeated the Arkansas man
+with conviction, shaking his head sorrowfully as he
+watched the two disappearing among the trees on the
+South Fork.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIX.<br /> <span class='large'>OLIVE MISSING.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>There was dire dismay at Perfection City when
+the flight of Olive became known. Napoleon Pompey
+informed Madame of it the same evening, but, for
+reasons best known to herself, she did not announce
+the fact until the next morning, when the brethren
+and sisters flocked to her house to talk over this surprising
+event in all its bearings. The members accounted
+for it in different ways and explained it according
+to their preconceived notions. Madame at
+once said that she had evidently left her husband
+whom she had never really loved at all.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think we must all have noticed how utterly
+unsuited she was to him and how uncongenial. She
+was no fit companion for a man of Ezra’s mind,” said
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, now,” observed Uncle David, “I think such
+a purty little gal with sweet little kitten-ways was
+a most congenial companion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Uncle, you don’t understand men. Men with
+minds and high aspirations want a companion capable
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>of sharing their ideas and aims, they don’t want a
+kitten or a plaything.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My ’pinion is most men is satisfied with kittens,
+if they’re as soft an’ coaxin’ in their ways as little
+Ollie is,” replied Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I guess she couldn’t stand the bondage of marriage,”
+said Mary Winkle. “When she first came
+she was all for being absorbed in her husband, she
+would be Mrs. Weston forsooth, she wanted to sink
+her individuality. She has naturally found out her
+mistake. I respect her and sympathize with her in
+her efforts to shake off the trammels of custom and
+make a dash for freedom. I dare say we shall soon
+have her coming back again, having resumed her own
+name, and perhaps ready to lecture on the absurdity
+of women giving up their names on marriage, as if
+they ceased to exist. Marriage under these circumstances
+becomes a sort of death to a woman. It is extinction.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“’Tain’t no such thing, Sister Mary,” said Uncle
+David. “It is an honourable distinction our forefathers
+have used, findin’ the same handy and convenient.
+I don’t believe little Ollie has gone a-lecterin’,
+she ain’t that sort o’ gal. I guess she’s jes’ tired
+an’ lonesome feelin’, an’ thought she’d ride out an’
+meet Ezry comin’ home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She hasn’t done that, Uncle, for I’ve seen a man
+from over Jacksonville way, and he told me she had
+been seen the other side of Big Cotton Wood Creek,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>and that she was asking for news of Cotterell,” said
+Brother Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then she has gone to him,” said Madame with
+decision.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She hain’t neither,” contradicted Uncle David,
+“you hain’t got no business to tell wicked stories like
+that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She has been carrying on a secret acquaintance
+with him all the summer. I know that, for I surprised
+them together at the spring some weeks ago.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She didn’t do nothin’ that was dishonest an’ secret,”
+said Uncle David anxiously. “I ain’t agoin’
+ter believe anything ’gin little Ollie. She’s a good
+little gal.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He wiped his forehead nervously with his large
+bony hand, and then took out his red handkerchief
+and passed it several times across his face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The power of love is strong,” said Madame, looking
+at him with compassion.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, yes,” he replied quickly, “jes’ what I say,
+an’ she did love her husban’, an’ hain’t done nothin’
+wrong.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She didn’t love him,” burst out Madame with
+excitement. “It often filled me with anger to see
+how she took all his love and made no return. Everyone
+saw it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I guess the rest of us didn’t pay so much attention
+to them and their affairs. We had our own,” said
+Mary Winkle, at which Madame winced.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>“You don’t know what her feelin’s was. She loved
+Ezry, else she wouldn’t ha’ married him an’ followed
+him way out here on this lonesome prairie. I ain’t
+never goin’ to believe wrong o’ little Ollie.” Uncle
+David’s big chest heaved with a sob that would burst
+out.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame placed her hand gently upon his. “The
+falling of one’s idol has always been a grievous sorrow,
+and has bruised many a loving heart.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She wasn’t fit to live here on the prairie,” said
+Aunt Ruby, wiping her spectacles with her big checked
+handkerchief. “She was too young an’ purty an’ frolicksome
+to be here anyhow. Ezry hed ought ter hev
+kep’ her in the East, where she was raised, an’ where
+she could go to parties, an’ put on purty clo’s, an’
+dance, an’ so forth. It’s nat’ral for them young gals
+to dance an’ love fin’ry, jes’ as it’s nat’ral for lambs to
+skip an’ play in the sunshine. They is born so, an’
+I guess the Lord put the right idees into their min’s
+at the beginnin’. I don’ wan’ ter skip, an’ Sister Mary
+she don’t wan’ ter neither, we hev got ole an’ stiff
+by now; but that chile she did wan’ ter, on’y mos’
+likely she didn’t know it. Sweet purty little thing, too,
+she was, it done my eyes good ter look at her. She
+wasn’t fit for ’Fection City, we hain’t got nothin’ for
+young folks as don’t care mos’ly to argy ’bout principles,
+they loves ter be gay. Why, it wasn’t further
+back nor day ’fore yesterday she come ter my house
+’long with that pup o’ hern. My stars, didn’t she
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>laugh when it took ter scootin’ roun’ ’mong my hens!
+It done me a heap o’ good ter hear her, it was like
+a silver bell, an’ she hedn’t nothin’ for to amuse her.
+I think it was downright sinful o’ Brother Ezry to
+take such a sweet purty little thing ’way from her
+proper home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby ended her long speech with the twin-sob
+to the one that had escaped from Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Sister, you’re a downright good woman,” said
+he gratefully. The two old people nodded at each
+other in complete harmony of affection and affliction.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A long day passed over Perfection City, a day
+without any positive news or confirmation of previous
+rumours. The brethren were full of their various
+theories in regard to Olive’s disappearance, which they
+found necessary to discuss and re-discuss over and
+over again. All work was at a stand-still, for the members
+congregated at Madame’s house both early and
+late, as they considered she would be the first to get
+any news from the outside world. Without a horse
+they were practically cut off from all communication
+with the outside, and were entirely dependent on the
+thoughtfulness of such neighbours as might come to
+bring them news. It was in the afternoon of the day
+of the abortive trial at Union Mills that the first authentic
+tidings reached them. They were talking the
+matter over together for the fiftieth time when Brother
+Green was seen coming very hurriedly from his forge
+along with a stranger, who waited outside the door
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>with an amount of diffidence unusual on the prairie.
+Brother Green’s grimy face wore a look of alarm.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We’ve got news of them both,” he exclaimed,
+bursting into the room regardless of ceremony, he who
+was generally the most heedful of the little forms of
+politeness. “She has gone after him, and they’ve gone
+away, and he stole her and said we lent her to him,”
+said Brother Green distractedly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother, I don’t understand,” said Madame.
+“Who lent what? And where has she gone?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I mean Sister Olive—oh! I’m so sorry—poor
+Brother Ezra!—Sister Olive has gone off with Cotterell,
+and it was he who stole Queen Katharine, only
+it was proved at the trial that she lent her to him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green was too distressed to be a good witness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who told you?” asked Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Whoever did told a lie,” said Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He’s outside. He was at the trial and has come
+to tell us about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then bring him in,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The stranger entered, looking somewhat abashed.
+He was truly sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Young man, before you begin this wicked tale,
+I charge you think of God and tell the truth.” Uncle
+David stood before him like an avenging spirit.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Sir, excuse him,” said Madame in her sweet
+voice. “The old man is painfully distracted by grief,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>he does not know what he is saying. You have come
+to bring us definite news, have you not?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m thund’rin’ sorry, so I am, an’ if we’d ha’
+knowed how it would ha’ ended, the boys ’ud ha’
+made sure by bangin’ him fust an’ havin’ the trial
+a’terwards.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Are you speaking about Mr. Cotterell? We have
+not had any news for days, so perhaps you will explain
+it all clearly,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, wal, when ole man Wright come an’ tole
+as how yer hoss was stole, the boys they ’lowed as
+you was all such damn—such all-fired pertikler folks
+as didn’t do yer own shootin’, they ’lowed they oughter
+kinder be neighbourly an’ do it for yer. So we sot
+out to run down the cuss. We got word from a teamster
+from beyond the Creek, he seed a man on a mare
+jes’ like yourn agoin’ toward the border. So we
+picked up the trail right away. He warn’t worth a
+red cent to hide a trail. He jes’ follered straight
+ahead ’long the road, axin’ his way an’ follerin’ plumb
+on the d’rections. Any fool could ha’ run down such
+a coon as him. He war ridin’ yer brown mare when
+they come up, an’ he didn’t show fight, jes’ said he’d
+stan’ trial, an’ he ’lowed it ’ud be fair. The boys calkerlated
+it wouldn’t be a fair trial ’less they toted him
+roun’ to Union Mills, which are his own post-office,
+an’ if that ain’t treatin’ a man fair nothin’ is. An’
+they got a new set o’ men to stan’ jury as what cotch
+him, ’cause mos’ on ’em was that mad for leavin’ the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>corn-shuckin’ to run down such a nat’ral born fool,
+they’d ha’ mos’ likely strung him slap up. It war all
+done fair, we kep’ him down to Phillipps’ store over
+night, an’ I tuk a spell o’ stan’in’ guard. We didn’t
+sen’ for none o’ yo’uns, ’cause we knowed yer be all
+sot agin hangin’, an’ yer can’t have a man on a jury
+who’s sot agin hangin’ when that’s all yer want ter
+git done, can yer? So we was a-tryin’ of him fair, with
+ole man Strong for foreman ’cause he knowed all the
+forms, as he was out to the hangin’ of Howard an’
+that thief over to Jacksonville an’ mos’ on ’em. He
+was pertikler to do it all straight ’cordin’ to law, an’
+we was gittin’ ’long slick, when Mis’ Weston come an’
+bust it all up. She said she lent him the hoss, an’ it
+war hern.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The narrator stopped to observe the effect of this
+announcement. He felt repaid.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t believe it,” sobbed Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I hearn her say it,” said the man. His complete
+enjoyment of the effect was marred by the tears
+of that poor old man.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We had to let him off, o’ course, for the stealin’,
+an’ we couldn’t hang him for the shootin’ o’ Jake
+Mills, ’cause some o’ the boys said they’d never hang
+on nigger evidence, an’ we hadn’t none other. Anyhow,
+that nigger he drowned hisself in lies right away,
+an’ we didn’t lay much on what he done tole us, you
+bet. But we was powerful sorry a’terwards when we
+seen what we’d done. She’s gone off with him plumb.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>“No, no, not that,” said Uncle David, “tain’t so,
+you didn’t un’erstan’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We axed her war she a-gwine with him, an’ she
+said, ‘yes,’ I hearn her say so.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She was on’y goin’ home,” said Uncle David
+tremulously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She had not come home half an hour ago,” observed
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They rode ’long to the South Fork, an’ that don’t
+lie on her road home from Union Mills, do it? I
+stayed behin’ at the Store, the boys was talkin’ if they
+hadn’t bes’ go right a’ter him an’ shoot him anyhow,
+but we ’lowed he’d ha’ showed fight then, an’ maybe
+she’d ha’ been killed in the shootin’. Yer can’t never
+say who’ll be hit when everybody’s firin’ like blazes.
+I didn’t quit the Mills for a spell, an’ mos’ the boys
+was ’ready gone home, an’ they allowed I oughter tell
+yer we done our best for yer.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They thanked him, and he went his way.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Somebody has got to tell Brother Ezra, he will
+be coming home to-night,” said the blacksmith, wiping
+his sleeve across his forehead. “Poor Ezra! What
+a home-coming!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green remained silent for a long time,
+then he spoke again in a soft low voice, almost as if
+he was communing with himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“When I laid my young wife in her grave with
+her babe on her breast, fifteen years ago last Midsummer,
+I thought I had known the greatest sorrow
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>possible to the human heart. But my loss was not
+so great as Brother Ezra’s, his cup is filled to the brim,
+and oh, how bitter! How great a power of suffering
+lies in the human heart!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is through suffering that the heart is purified,”
+said Madame to him in reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Aye, so they say: but some sorts of sorrow may
+very well embitter. People talk of the purifying by
+sorrow. It seems to me that happiness can purify
+too. We are all sure to get our share of the sorrow
+in this world, it is the happiness that so seldom comes
+to a man. Brother Ezra was happy, is happy, poor
+man, since he does not yet know of the wreck of his
+home. It was a delight to see him so happy. And she,
+poor young thing, my heart aches for her! She was
+in my forge the other day, said she was lonesome and
+came to talk. Poor child! We are all to blame. Why
+did we leave her alone? Why didn’t I think of going
+to see her, instead of merely remembering how bright
+she was in the forge. We should have looked after
+her. Madame, why didn’t you do so? You are the
+chief.” Brother Green’s voice had a stern ring in it,
+that immensely surprised Madame in her self-contained
+calm.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I!” she exclaimed hastily. “I had absolutely
+no control over her, and no influence. She was one
+of the most determined young women I ever
+knew, and the least liable to yield to the judgment of
+others.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>“No, I don’t think that was her character,” said
+Brother Green.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are taken by the pretty face, like Brother
+Ezra, and are utterly ignorant of the mind within.
+Men are always like that in regard to a pretty woman,”
+said Madame scornfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Beauty is a great power, no doubt,” admitted
+Brother Green, “but people may err just as widely
+by judging everything from the prejudiced point of
+view as by yielding too far to favourable impressions.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Green,” said Uncle David earnestly,
+“I’m right glad you’re like me, you won’t believe
+nothin’ ’gainst little Ollie, will you, no more than
+I will?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I will hope for the best and that there may be
+some reasonable explanation of her disappearance,”
+said Brother Green, looking compassionately at the
+piteous old face that scanned his so eagerly for some
+scrap of comfort.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t see what explanation there can be but
+the one we have already received,” said Madame
+icily.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who will break this sorrowful news to Ezra?”
+asked Brother Green. “Will you do it, Uncle David?
+You would do it tenderly, as you have faith in her
+still.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no, I couldn’t bear to see the look o’ death
+in his eyes, an’ it ’ud come no matter how I told it,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>when I came to sayin’ little Ollie was gone an’ we
+didn’t know where.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think perhaps I had best take this painful duty
+upon myself,” suggested Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, after all, maybe you are the best person.
+But remember to deal tenderly with him in his sorrow.
+You will know what to say to instil some hope
+into his heart,” said Brother Green sadly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“An’ don’t you tell him she’s gone off with that
+man Cotterell, for she hain’t done no such thing,”
+said Uncle David anxiously. “You jes’ say we don’t
+know why she went away, an’ kinder hint as you’re
+expectin’ she’ll he home to-morrow or nex’ day. Do
+you understand?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame told no one what she would say to Ezra,
+and made no promises as to how she would say it.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XX.<br /> <span class='large'>MADAME’S SYMPATHY.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>When Madame saw the white covers of the returning
+waggons creeping across the prairie she set
+out to meet Ezra in order to deliver her message to
+him. Her manner was as quiet and collected as ever,
+her white smooth brow was perfectly unruffled, and
+her blue eyes were as gentle in expression as her
+friends had ever known them to be. Was her heart
+in reality as calm as her outward appearance would
+have led the casual observer to conclude? No one
+ever knew what was passing in Madame’s mind. Still
+she must have known that she was about to stab to
+the heart a man upon whose friendship she had seemed
+to set great value. Having reached the slope over
+Weddell’s Gully, whence she could see that blackened
+field where she had saved Ezra on the night of the fire,
+she sat down and waited until his waggon came up.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, Madame!” said he cheerily, as he pulled up.
+“How glad I am to get home again! It has seemed
+such a long four days to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And to us also,” answered Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>“All well, I hope,” said Ezra reaching down his
+hand in order to help her up to the seat beside himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We have had misfortunes at Perfection City.
+The brown mare has been stolen.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What! Queen Katharine gone, and our most
+valuable animal too! That is indeed a loss!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Just wait a few minutes,” said she, putting her
+hand on his to stop him from giving the signal to
+the horses to start on again. “I have some things
+to talk about, Ezra. Do you remember that night,
+not long ago in reality, though it seems an age, when
+I found you lying here on the edge of the fire?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is it likely I could ever forget that or who it
+was came to my rescue?” said Ezra warmly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I was thinking as you drove up that perhaps it
+would have been a kinder act to have left you to die
+in your unconsciousness.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What’s the matter?” said Ezra, greatly startled
+by her words.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have bad news,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is it Olive?” asked Ezra, hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, it is Olive.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is she ill?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Worse than that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My God, is my wife dead?” cried Ezra in a
+stifled whisper.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Worse than that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There can’t be worse,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>“Yes, there can. She has left you and gone off
+with Cotterell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra threw up his arms and fell backwards. Madame
+thought for a moment or two that he was dying,
+for an awful blue-purple look passed over his face
+as if his heart had stopped beating. He recovered
+himself and sat up, turned ghastly white, and moved
+his lips. He was trying to speak, but no sound came.
+At length he gasped,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Olive, Olive, where is she?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We don’t know. Cotterell took the brown mare,
+the men turned out and caught him. Olive disappeared,
+no one knew where, night before last, taking
+our last horse. There was a sort of lynch-law trial
+at Union Mills, she appeared in the middle of the proceedings
+and said she gave him the horse, and then
+they went off together and have not since been heard
+of.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Olive, Olive, Olive!” Ezra kept moaning as
+Madame drove him back to his deserted home. He
+seemed dazed and stupefied.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Surely terrible news was never more crudely broken
+to a sufferer than was his bereavement to Ezra Weston,
+and by that tender and sympathetic friend, Madame
+Morozoff-Smith. Had Uncle David or Brother Green
+heard her, they would have been shocked beyond
+measure at having entrusted the painful embassy
+to such hands. Not one word of hope or
+comfort or of doubt even, nothing but the bald
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>hideous story in its worst complexion thrown at
+him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was gone from him—gone with Cotterell!</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Yet after having thus dealt him a death-blow,
+Madame seemed full of pity and little acts of personal
+attention. She helped him out of the waggon, brought
+him into the house, took his hands and washed them,
+cooled his forehead with a wet towel, offered him food,
+and in short treated him much as if he had been a
+suffering child whom she was tending. At last he
+seemed to recover himself somewhat as she was passing
+her soft hand across his brow.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are very good to me,” he said brokenly,
+“and if I seem to accept your kindness unheedingly,
+forgive me. I am not myself to-night. I don’t know
+what I am doing. Oh, it can’t be!” he suddenly
+burst out. “She is not gone. I shall see her again.
+She will come back. How do you know she has gone
+with him? I don’t believe it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Poor Ezra, love dies hard, I know. Some of
+the men asked if she was going with him, and she
+answered distinctly, ‘Yes.’ Then they were sorry,
+they said, they had not hung him before she came
+up with them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I won’t believe it. Something has happened
+to her. Why should she go off with him?” said Ezra
+distractedly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did you not know that he was repeatedly here
+to see her, whenever you were out of the way?” said
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>Madame, who did not think she was exaggerating in
+any way.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She told me all that,” answered Ezra nervously,
+“but she was only amused by his talk.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, your love is blind. Dear Ezra, I wish I
+could soften the blow. There is no doubt about it.
+I saw them once together at the spring, he kissed her
+at parting. It was a man and the woman he loved.
+I cannot be mistaken. Remember he was very handsome
+and winning in his manners, and she was young
+and pretty.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, my sweet little Ollie! My little rose-bud,”
+cried Ezra, starting to his feet. “I’ll go to her, she
+shall not wander away out of my reach without one
+effort to save her from herself. She was only a child.
+Why didn’t you look after her?” he asked, suddenly
+facing Madame with an angry glance.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did you give her into my charge either by word
+or hint?” returned she, somewhat taken aback.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It was not your fault. Forgive me. I am too
+distracted to know what I say. I remember she refused
+to go to you. She said she would rather stay
+at home. I tried to urge her, but she would not consent
+to it,” said Ezra in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah,” remarked Madame, “very possibly she expected
+him to come to her during your absence.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no, you shall not say that!” said Ezra in
+agony. “I cannot bear it. She had no such thought.
+She was as innocent as the flowers, as she looked at me
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>with her sweet eyes. She had no such thought, I
+know.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is ever thus,” said Madame, coming closer to
+him and speaking with an unwonted tremor in her
+voice. “Love seems always at cross purposes. You
+give all your love to Olive, who gives all hers to Cotterell.
+Another gives all her love to you. We are
+equally unhappy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra gazed at her in silent amazement as if he
+were doubting that he had understood her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” she went on more calmly in her deep sweet
+voice. “I am more in need of pity than you. Your
+love has left you, and you grieve, but men will give
+you sympathy. When I lost my love I had to smile
+and pretend delight. I had to look on his joy and
+hers. You are not called upon to congratulate Cotterell
+on his happiness.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Great God, is that you, Madame? Or is it that
+I am going mad, and is this some mocking fiend?”
+gasped Ezra, starting up.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not a mocking fiend, Ezra, but I myself who
+for once in this world am enjoying the rare privilege
+of telling the truth. Ezra Weston, you are not the
+most unhappy person in Perfection City. I have long
+enjoyed that melancholy pre-eminence. Now in a
+common misfortune let us comfort one another.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra sat down again and dropped his head in his
+hands. Occasionally he looked at her as she moved
+about the room putting everything in order. It almost
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>seemed as if he was trying to understand who
+she was and that he could hardly do so, his mind was
+in such a turmoil of grief and misery. She laid out
+two more candles beside those already alight in the
+candle-sticks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You will sit up all night,” she said at last.
+“These candles will last half the time, then light the
+other two. It is hard sitting in the dark alone with
+one’s breaking thoughts. Light the candles and keep
+them burning. That is what I did on the night you
+left to go to Smyrna to be married, and on the night
+when you brought her home here to Perfection City.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She closed the door and left him alone with those
+two thoughts. Was it her marvellous reading of the
+human heart which prompted this extraordinary
+woman to declare her love to Ezra in those bold uncompromising
+words on this night of all others in
+his life? She knew that he would sit there in his
+deserted home, brooding over his lost wife, she knew
+also that every now and then the scorching recollection
+of what she had said would break in upon the
+brooding thoughts and scatter them. This then was
+the means, the almost unheard-of means, she had
+taken in order to soften the blow that had fallen upon
+him. He would not be able to think of himself as the
+most unhappy individual in Perfection City, because
+she had claimed that distinction in words which he
+never could forget. It was just as she had foreseen.
+It repeatedly happened during the course of that long
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>and dreadful night that Ezra forgot why he was sitting
+alone in the kitchen, so lost was he in amazement at
+the recollection of the words which Madame had
+spoken. As the hours wore on it seemed to him that
+they became more and more impossible, until he began
+to think of them as the work of a brain unhinged by
+sorrow. Was it all a hideous dream, and would he
+awake by and bye? The first pair of candles burned
+out, and he lighted the second pair, recalling as he
+did so what she had said she did when he brought
+Olive home. Ah, Olive, Olive! His heart kept calling
+out in its misery.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He went into their little private room off the
+kitchen, in a sort of infatuation to see if she might
+be there. No. All was silent, still, deserted. He examined
+the tiny room minutely, saw the half-withered
+flowers on the table, took them up, and would have
+kissed them in his misery, only his eye lighted on a
+strange object he had never seen before. It was a
+man’s heavy seal-ring. He picked it up and examined
+it by the light of the candle: a plain gold ring
+set with a well-cut onyx intaglio of a griffin’s head.
+As he turned it about the light showed something-engraved
+in the inside of the ring. He held the candle
+nearer and read “J. G. C.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He dropped the ring as if it had been an adder,
+and fled out of the room. As if pursued by furies,
+he rushed from the house and wandered about out
+of doors. Diana, who since Olive’s departure had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>been in a most miserable frame of mind, followed
+him about dejectedly, with her tail between her legs.
+Ezra, turning, saw the dog and for one moment felt
+a savage desire to kill it, for Olive had loved the dog
+and Olive had broken his heart. This phase passed,
+and in a passion of grief and despair he stooped and
+kissed the animal, for Olive had often patted Diana’s
+head, and fondled her long ears. The dog whined
+in sympathy and turned suggestively back to the house.
+Ezra followed mechanically. He would not go into
+the room where that ring lay, but remained in the
+kitchen. Exhausted nature could stand no more, and
+towards morning he fell into a troubled sleep, with
+his head resting upon his arms crossed on the table.
+Then in his dreams Olive came back to him in that
+vivid yet unsatisfying way in which our dearest do
+sometimes return to us, seemingly but to mock our
+grief. Olive was there, standing before him, but she
+looked at him not with her eyes, but with Madame’s.
+There was something terrible in seeing her own expression
+gone and in its place the look of another,
+and yet it was Olive, and she called on him to follow
+her. He hurried after her with the lead-clogged
+feet that always walk in dreams, and strained to reach
+her. When he did so, he found Madame. Olive and
+Madame flitted before his fevered fancy, always shifting
+and changing one into another, until he panted
+with the horror of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He awoke with a start as the door opened. His
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>half-aroused eyes saw a vaguely defined figure in the
+door-way, blocking out the light of the morning.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Olive,” he said, putting out his hand blindly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have come to cook your breakfast,” said
+Madame’s soft smooth voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t. I can’t eat it,” said Ezra, falling back
+into despair.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Life must go on, even when all joy is banished
+from it,” she said. “We have each one of us to learn
+that lesson, friend Ezra.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She began deftly enough to light the fire and make
+the necessary preparations for breakfast. Madame
+knew how to do the ordinary house-work that falls
+to woman’s lot, only she did not choose to do it in
+her own home. Therefore she employed Lucinda for
+this purpose, until other and stronger motives arose
+which prompted her to undertake the work herself.
+The habit of every day life is strong, and when Ezra
+saw Madame getting breakfast ready, as a matter of
+course he arose and got himself ready, by changing
+his clothes and generally performing the necessary
+preliminaries to the morning meal. He was less wild
+and hollow-eyed after this ceremony, but the extraordinary
+drawn and aged look on his face seemed only
+the more marked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame cooked an omelette with scraps of savoury
+dried beef in it, and after the first mouthful Ezra
+was obliged to admit that he relished the food. He
+could not go on living on his grief, as Madame said.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>She sat with him and took her breakfast also. Napoleon
+Pompey, who would have been in the way,
+was relegated to the society of his mother, who divided
+her emotions between maternal anger at boyish shortcomings
+and maternal love for the short-comer, both
+of which were expressed with the exalted vehemence
+customary to the negro nature.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shall come each day and cook your food for
+you. I have often longed to be able to do something
+for you, Ezra. Do not forbid my coming. I have
+had so little joy in my life,” said Madame, with a
+strange humility of manner totally at variance with
+her usual character, which was almost domineering,
+one might say. Ezra looked at her in a troubled
+sort of way. It soothed him to have her there, and
+he was glad that somebody, that anybody, could take
+an interest in him. Still there came across his mind
+flashes of doubt as to what this interest meant. He
+could not forget those words that Madame had used
+on the evening before. No man who had ever heard
+such words from a woman’s lips, if ever man did
+hear them under similar circumstances, would ever
+again be able to drive them from his memory, but
+in his bruised and suffering state Ezra was content
+to drift on and let things rest. So Madame came
+daily to his house and cooked his food and saw that
+he ate something at each meal.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David and the brethren came to see him,
+but that gave him no comfort. He shrank from their
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>sympathy, expressed with kindness, but each word was
+like a drop of molten lead upon a raw wound. Willette
+was perhaps the only one who gave him real consolation
+in this awful time.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I say,” remarked the child, in a clear voice and
+without a trace of embarrassment, “Sister Ollie’s gone
+an’ lost herself down there in the bush, I reckon. She
+was ’bout the greenest hand at keepin’ to the Pole
+Star ever I see. You could throw her out o’ her direction
+quicker nor nothin’. I guess she headed plumb
+for the Missouri border when she come ’long with
+Cotterell to show him out o’ Union Mills. Guess she’ll
+ride ’bout down to Saint Jo ’fore she knows she’s
+headin’ wrong. I wouldn’t ’spect her back ’fore a
+fortnight.” Willette laughed pleasantly, and poor
+Ezra derived some comfort from the preposterous convictions
+of the child and her unshakable belief in
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He went to Union Mills to make some inquiries
+about his lost wife, and met there the same story
+that Madame had already told, but the story was
+so brutally hurled at him he could not bear it, and
+came home bruised and stricken, his heart bleeding
+tears of agony. Instinctively he went to Madame
+for comfort.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra, perhaps this terrible trial was needed to
+purify us all, to make us all more perfect communists.
+I can discern a valuable lesson that may be
+of profit to the brethren. I begin to think that after
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>all marriage is selfish: perfect love alone is unselfish.
+You would not have kept Olive beside you by force,
+if her heart had gone from you, would you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I thought our marriage was for life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, but she made a mistake as to her feelings;
+she found she loved someone else better. It was wise
+of her, after all, to break the bond. It would only
+have galled you both.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I should have been content if she had only let
+me love her,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah yes, I know that feeling but too well,” said
+Madame, bringing his mind with a shock to the
+thought that she never long allowed to sleep.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is a terrible world,” said Ezra beginning to
+realize what a spell she was weaving around him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It rests with ourselves to make it easier in the
+only way,” replied Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David took up a firm position of his own
+and refused to listen to anybody or anything.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I hain’t agoin’ to b’lieve nothin’ ’gin little
+Ollie,” he announced. “I don’t care ’bout proofs an’
+things. Land! If I b’lieved in proofs there hain’t no
+sort o’ foolishness I shouldn’t be up to. I b’lieve in
+pussons.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>That was his position, and he stuck to it with unswerving
+fidelity. He was happy in his blind faith,
+and no one tried to shake it. The old man then began
+a strange sort of hunt after Olive. He would sit all
+day long at the forge, where, of course, strangers were
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>most likely to pass, and to each he would put questions
+about the “little gal” he was so pathetically
+seeking. He spoke little, he who used to be so chatty,
+but sat hour after hour in silent patient expectation
+of the return of his loved one. The brethren began
+to think he must be losing his wits from sorrow, poor
+old man!</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXI.<br /> <span class='large'>THE MESSAGE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>A long weary fortnight had passed since the day
+when Ezra came home to find his wife gone. Life
+went on at Perfection City much the same as before,
+although to him it seemed as if the Universe was
+out of gear. He took no part or interest in the daily
+affairs of the Community, never coming to the Assembly
+or consulting with the brethren upon any matters.
+He withdrew himself from the companionship
+of his fellows, and only that Madame continued to
+come to his house every day in order to cook his dinner
+and sit with him while he ate it, he would have been
+absolutely alone. Ezra acquiesced in her devotion,
+and dared not ask himself how the debt was to be repaid
+that she was piling up against him. The Pioneers,
+who during the past fortnight had revelled in a perfect
+carnival of gossip, felt themselves at liberty to
+express an opinion upon this new development of the
+drama that was being acted in their midst. Sister
+Carpenter said to Sister Winkle that she thought there
+ought to be a period of mourning allowed, however
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>brief, between first and second marriage, and that
+Brother Ezra hadn’t ought to go a-courting so soon.
+She did not know that it was Madame who did the
+courting in that strange, forward, imperial way that
+we must suppose the Empress Katharine affected.
+Uncle David, whom love for Olive had rendered extremely
+keen-sighted as to what was going on, evinced
+very great displeasure. Madame had no right to try
+and make Ezra’s home happy, and he told her so in
+language of unmistakable import. She was angry
+to a degree that terrified him, and he shrank back
+alarmed beyond measure at the wrath which he had
+provoked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I know, you want Ezra’s life to be wrecked
+by that vain, selfish little hussy who never cared for
+him, and who went off with the first gallant that
+beckoned to her. Ezra’s life shall not be wrecked,
+mine shall be expended in drawing it into a haven
+of rest. Olive is not worthy of tying the latchet of
+his shoe. I hope she will be cast off by her lover, and
+left to sink amid the mud and mire of such as she.
+I hate her!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David was frightened and crept away to
+Brother Green, where he sat hour after hour mournfully
+watching the fire. It was on one of these days
+when he was in the forge that a young negro on a
+raw-boned Indian pony rode up to Madame, who was
+on the point of starting for her daily expedition to
+Ezra’s, and inquired “whar ole man Weston lived,”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>as he had a message for him. Instead of answering
+directly, Madame endeavoured to find out what the
+boy wanted of Ezra. The little darkie thereupon produced
+a scrap of crumpled paper from the recesses
+of his ragged shirt and informed Madame he wanted
+to give him “dat ar’.” Madame took the paper, opened
+it, and gave a gasp. Then in a moment she recovered
+herself with an effort, and assured the negro it was all
+right, and that she would see to it. She made most
+particular inquiries as to where he lived, and then
+sent him off, happy with a piece of corn-bread and a
+dollar for himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Having thus got rid of the negro lad, Madame
+proceeded on her way to Ezra’s house in order to
+perform her daily task there. She seemed strangely
+excited, and her blue eyes glittered like sapphires.
+Her whole bearing was that of a person labouring
+under intense excitement, all traces of which she was
+endeavouring to conceal. Her very voice had a new
+ring in it as she talked with Ezra, and her breath came
+quick and fast. Had his senses been less dulled by
+suffering, he could not have failed to notice the change
+in her, notwithstanding her efforts at concealment.
+He was sitting, looking with unseeing eyes across the
+vacant cornfield, when suddenly she spoke.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra, let us go away from this place. Let us
+leave all the recollections of Perfection City behind
+us, and begin life afresh.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He turned his eyes upon her with a slow questioning
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>look, showing how far away had been his
+thoughts at the moment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How can we leave this place? There is too
+much money and too much labour sunk in it for us
+all to leave and go to some other spot.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not all, dear friend, only you and I,” said Madame,
+in her caressing voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra started. “That is even more impossible,” he
+said, in great agitation.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why impossible? I have money. It will more
+than suffice for all our needs, nay, it will give us
+all the luxuries we can sigh for.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is not that, but you forget——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, Ezra, I don’t forget, but I want you to forget.
+I want you to draw a wet sponge over the recollection
+of the past and begin anew. It is not too late.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You don’t know what you are saying, Madame.
+You cannot mean it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I do mean it, and I know what it means. You
+have no tie——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra shivered.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Neither have I. We are both free to make our
+lives what we list.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You  mistake, we are both tied by all our past
+lives, and with bonds that may not be lightly broken.
+We are tied by our own feelings as well as by the
+good opinion of the world at large.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame snapped her fingers with scorn.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That for the world at large and its opinions.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>Do you remember what I told you about my father
+and my birth? Thank God, I have no name to
+lose.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I cannot do less than tell you the truth,” said
+Ezra in great distress. “Wherever I went my heart
+would remain here, where I have known true happiness,
+and it will always be looking for my lost one to
+come back to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She won’t come back till Cotterell is tired of her,”
+said Madame brutally. “Will you be grateful for
+his cast-off mistress?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Stop,” said Ezra, putting his hand quickly before
+her lips, “you must not speak so of her to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Fool that I am!” muttered Madame under her
+breath. She turned from him with a gesture of anger.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, forgive me,” exclaimed Ezra, seeing and feeling
+what the expression meant. “Never was man so
+miserable, never was one so unhappily placed. I owe
+you more than words can say, I owe you my best
+thoughts, I owe you my very life itself. I would willingly
+give you my life——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then why not give it and come with me?”
+burst out Madame. “Leave all this misery behind
+you, I will make your path as smooth as heart could
+wish. Come.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My heart can never follow any other path, it
+will dwell amid the ruins of its former happiness.
+Do not speak again of this. Let us remain friends
+as before.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>“It can never be again as it was before,” said
+Madame with heaving bosom.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why not?” asked Ezra. “I have not much else
+left in life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why not,” repeated Madame in scorn. “You
+ask me why not! Would you care for Olive’s friendship
+when all her love was given to Cotterell?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Stop,” cried Ezra, and this time there was a
+ring of anger in his voice. “Even you may presume
+too far. Do not again speak that name to
+me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>There is something untamed and untameable in
+the Russian nature which now and then comes to the
+surface and drives an excited Muscovite into acts seemingly
+at variance with the highly cultivated standard
+to which he aspires. The phenomenon may by the
+learned be attributed to a sudden reversion to the
+ancestral Asiatic savage. Madame was at this moment
+rapidly going back to the state of furious anger, when
+all sense of dignity would be lost. She was reverting
+to the Asiatic. And under the influence of her passion
+her physical appearance changed, her eyes became
+narrow slanting openings emitting sparks of
+steel-blue flame, her full red lips were drawn tightly
+over her teeth. She hissed out her words.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Does her image still come between us?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It does come between us,” said Ezra looking almost
+as white as she did. “Her image will always
+come between me and every other woman on the whole
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>earth, blotting out every other image and making
+me only hers. Oh, Olive! Oh, my wife!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He gave a great sob of agony.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Besotted fool!” burst from Madame’s colourless
+lips, “do you hold this language to me? You scorn
+me and my love! Then on your own head be the consequences.
+Ah, now nothing shall stop me. An angel
+from heaven, no, nor God Himself shall stand between
+me and my revenge. Ezra Weston, farewell!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She left the room, shutting the door upon him
+and his misery. Unhappy man! His world seemed
+crumbling beneath his feet. He had lost his wife,
+and now his friend, the one whom he most revered,
+had cast him out from her regard. What could he
+do? His heart answered, nothing but dumbly suffer
+in the deserted home where he was left alone. What
+a black and barren waste was his life! And how fair
+and smiling it had looked a few short weeks ago!
+It was as if a devastating fire had passed over him
+leaving his heart like the desolated prairie, black and
+hopeless.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame went away alone for one day, no one
+knew whither, and came back with a look on her
+face that struck terror into all who saw her. Her
+smooth white face looked cruel and pitiless, and the
+gleam from her eyes reminded one of cold steel. Her
+soft hands sometimes closed on their own pink palms
+with a spasmodic clutch, as if she had the throat of
+an enemy between their cruel grasp and was crushing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>the life out of him. A cold dreadful face, a cruel
+sickening look that made Napoleon Pompey and Uncle
+David shiver within their souls, and caused the brethren
+to draw away affrighted from their once beloved
+leader. Perfection City was the abode of wretchedness.
+The Academy never opened its doors to the
+assembled Pioneers, who were afraid to come near
+Madame’s house. Each lived by himself, looking
+askance at his neighbour, for over all had fallen a
+spirit of suspicion. Only Brother Huntley, the deaf
+brother, and his mute wife were happy, working on
+contentedly, shielded by their misfortune from the
+full knowledge of the disasters that had come upon
+the Community.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The days dragged miserably by, seemingly endowed
+with a miraculous length of hours, for the sufferings
+of a life-time were compressed into that hideous
+fortnight. The glaring sun blazing down upon the
+blackened prairie seemed to Ezra to have become no
+unfitting symbol of hell. The light was hateful, darkness,
+eternal darkness would have been a relief to his
+brain. Could it be possible that he was going to
+live his life out in a realized purgatory? He was
+young, only twenty-five, and if his life was to stretch
+even to the average span of human existence, what
+an eternity of suffering lay before him! A brokenhearted
+man amid the ruins of his broken life.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was on one of these days of utter black despair,
+like the days that had gone before and the days that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>were still to come, that the same ragged negro boy on
+the straggly Indian pony, who once before had made
+his appearance at Perfection City, was seen skulking
+around the old land near Weddell’s Gully. He seemed
+to want to see without being seen. By and bye Napoleon
+Pompey chanced that way and of course
+pounced upon him with the universal query of “whar
+he gwine?” The boy after some hesitation made it
+clear that he had come on a secret mission. He wanted
+to find Uncle David without being seen by anyone else,
+especially not by the white-faced lady, Madame, of
+whom he stood in shivering dread. Napoleon Pompey,
+sympathising with the dread, volunteered to take a
+letter to Uncle David without fear of detection. Thereupon
+the darkie delivered over to him a scrap of newspaper
+upon which was written a scrawl with the burnt
+end of a stick, and having done so galloped off on
+his straggly pony with a whoop of delight, as one
+who had escaped dreadful peril. Napoleon Pompey,
+finding it difficult to deliver his embassy to Uncle
+David undetected, gave the curious missive to Ezra
+with intimations that it was to be put into Uncle
+David’s hands right away.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra took the scrap of paper, saying there must
+be some letter inside, and mechanically unfolded it,
+when the hoarse scream that he uttered almost made
+Napoleon Pompey jump through the window.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where did you get this?” he panted.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Darkie gin it ter me jes’ while back.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>“Who gave it? What was his name? Where
+did he live? Who sent him here?” asked Ezra in a
+breath.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Darkie he didn’t go for to say nuffin, on’y jes’
+gin dat ar, an’ tole me ter pike to ole Uncle David
+wid it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra darted out of the house and ran like a mad-man
+to Madame’s and burst into the room where she
+and Uncle David were just sitting down to supper.
+He held out the scrap of paper to the old man and
+gasped:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Olive is somewhere!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I presume that was already known, and that it can
+hardly be considered news,” said Madame’s cool cutting
+voice, which brought Ezra somewhat to his senses.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She is somewhere near. She sent a negro boy
+with this. Read it.” He shoved it under Uncle
+David’s nose.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I can’t see to read it, read it aloud, let me hear
+all she says in her letter,” said the old man with trembling
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It isn’t a letter. It says, ’Uncle come to Olive,’
+only those four words, nothing else, and just look,
+scratched with a bit of burnt stick on a piece of newspaper!
+Oh, think of it! Where can she be? Why
+didn’t she write before if she was in trouble? What
+has happened?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Perhaps it is a hoax,” said Madame between her
+drawn white lips.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>“There hain’t in this world a bein’ so lost to all
+feelin’ as would make a joke o’ our sorrow,” said
+Uncle David. “No, Ezra, that’s writ by our little
+gal. We must go to her. Come ’long, brother.” He
+put on his hat and started cheerfully for the door.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where are you going?” asked Madame, in a
+muffled voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m agoin’ to little Ollie.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where is she, do you know?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezry, don’t you know where we’ve got to go
+to?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I know nothing, except that this scrap of paper
+has been brought by a negro boy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra kissed the paper, and Madame’s lips curled
+in contempt.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is it not rather a wild-goose chase to start you
+know not whither, and at this time of the evening
+too?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We can’t wait here after little Ollie’s told us to
+come,” said Uncle David simply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Cannot you suggest some plan?” asked Ezra,
+turning to Madame by force of habit.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not I,” she replied contemptuously. “Shall you
+go east, west, north, or south? The world lies all before
+you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ain’t you glad little Ollie’s found?” asked Uncle
+David, looking wistfully at her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame laughed harshly. They went out of the
+room together feeling her presence insupportable.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>Just round the corner they came upon Napoleon Pompey
+who was peeping around to see if he could pick
+up any scraps of news. He had divined there was
+news from Olive, and with the inquisitiveness of his
+race had followed Ezra when he had rushed so wildly
+out of the house.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“D’yer know whar ter go?” he inquired.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No,” said Ezra. “Can you tell us anything of
+that negro boy? Do you know where he lives?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ask her,” said Napoleon Pompey, jerking his
+thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door
+from which they had just emerged.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ask who?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Madame,” said Napoleon Pompey.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Does she know?” asked Ezra, amazed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I seed dat ar pony hyar afore,” replied Napoleon
+Pompey.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Great Heavens!” said Ezra as drops of sweat
+burst out on his forehead. He hurried back to the
+house with Uncle David. Neither of them spoke a
+word.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Madame,” said Ezra, as they once more stood
+in the room, “I have come to ask you a question.
+Do you know where my wife is?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She looked him unflinchingly in the face and answered:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“May the Lord forgive you!” said Uncle David,
+in a voice hardly above a whisper, and for some seconds
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>there was a complete silence in the room, broken
+only by the sound of Ezra’s heavy breathing.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where is she?” he demanded sternly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Go and find her,” was the mocking answer.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra sprang furiously forward, and almost yelled
+out,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Tell me at once or——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ay yes,” she said with a steady look, “you will
+drag the secret out, will you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She tore open her dress and exposed her snow-white
+throat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“See, there it is handy. Take a knife and cut
+my throat. See if I shall flinch. The last gurgle of
+my blood bubbling up through the wound, shall bear
+a sound of mocking laughter. Strike!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra turned from her in horror. “She must be
+mad,” he said to Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not mad now, I have been mad all these months,
+all these years. Mad to love you, mad in loving such
+a one as you. Now I am sane. Ah, how I hate
+you!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is horrible,” said Ezra, putting his hand before
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Horrible, is it? It is the waking from love’s
+young dream. Ha, ha!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Madame, dear child, think of all you have been
+to us,” said Uncle David, reaching his hands out to
+her imploringly. “You have led us, think of all
+that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>“I do think of all that. I think of how I found
+this boy,” she said, pointing in scorn to Ezra, “ignorant,
+unformed, with wild crude longings. I think
+of how I infused light and life into the darkness of
+his mind. How I rose, aye, above myself, in order to
+lead him up and on. I think of all his half-formed
+longings put into working form and endowed with
+vital power that he might see his thoughts taking
+shape. I made him. He was mine. Then he left me
+for a few brief weeks. He saw a pretty doll’s face
+with an empty head, and straightway he loves with
+never a thought of me. You ask me to think. I do
+think of how even this I bore, and so great was my
+love that for his sake I welcomed the doll that had
+stolen my place, and smiled on her. Even this I did
+and remained his friend. She, the doll, attracted by
+a handsome face, her love aroused by the stolen kisses
+of a yellow moustache, left him. Then I was free to
+love him once more. I laid my heart at his feet. He
+spurned me. All my love was as nothing against the
+memory of the doll who had deserted him. She may
+die and rot before word of mine shall restore her to
+him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Neither Ezra nor Uncle David had attempted to
+speak while Madame was pouring forth the torrent
+of her bitter words. Ezra felt too overwhelmed to
+say anything, for a moment, in the downfall of so
+many illusions and high hopes, he forgot even Olive.
+Uncle David was the first to recover himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>“Dear child,” he said, for the first time in his life
+addressing her as one beneath him. “These are wild
+words you’ve been sayin’. I can’t find it in my heart
+to believe they’re true. You are disappointed,
+an’ you think wrong can be made right by turnin’
+things upside down. Tain’t so. You’ll have to
+learn that right an’ wrong can’t change places, nohow
+you fix it. You have still your duty here in
+the City you’ve founded an’ the principles you’ve set
+up.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame looked at him with glittering eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Will you hear the truth about Perfection City
+too? Then listen. It is not an experiment in new
+principles, it is an example of the oldest the world
+has seen—of the folly of a fond woman. I founded
+Perfection City so that he might love the founder.
+I staked my all on a throw of love’s dice, and lost.
+Women have done it before and will do it again.
+Some fools degrade their body to win a man, I
+degraded my mind. The foundation-stone of Perfection
+City was my heart, see what will happen
+when it is crushed! Ah, why can we not profit by
+the experience of our elders! My mother warned
+me, having tried it, never to stake my happiness on
+the love of man. I followed her advice for five-and-thirty
+happy years. Then I saw <i>him</i>, and the curse
+fell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She threw up her arms over her head and backed
+towards the door of her own apartment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>“The curse, the curse!” she exclaimed, as she
+passed through out of their sight.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra had a confused feeling that he had just seen
+someone drowning who had reached appealing hands
+towards heaven as she went under.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXII.<br /> <span class='large'>OLIVE’S SECOND HOME-COMING.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>And where was Olive all this time? She and Cotterell
+rode out of Union Mills together, as we have
+seen, and as was seen by nearly all the men who had assembled
+there that morning in the expectation of seeing
+him hanged. They rode silently among “the
+boys” getting their horses ready, they silently passed
+among the trees to the south and crossed the ford of
+the Creek. Then Cotterell spoke, pouring forth his
+words of thanks and gratitude to her. He was not
+ashamed to show that he was deeply moved, now that
+none but Olive could see his emotion. She, on the
+other hand, seemed almost in an unconscious state so
+little heed did she give to his eager words.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Speak to me, tell me what you wish,” he pleaded
+very gently, noticing her abstraction.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I want you to go away,” she said slowly. “You
+are safe from their anger for this time, but do not
+stay here and court danger. This is no place for a
+man like you to live. Go while there is yet time.
+There is now a blood-feud between you and the Mills.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>They will mark you for vengeance, and they are wild
+bad men.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you?” said Cotterell, looking anxiously at
+her. “I want to see you safely at home. You are
+ill, I fear.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am all right,” answered Olive wearily. “You
+must go to the South Fork at once. Take the Kansas
+City stage this very night and go. There is no time
+to be lost.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I cannot, and will not,” answered Cotterell. “I
+must take you home first. You look frightfully tired
+and ill.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, it would be the crudest thing you could
+do to bring me home. I want to go back to Ezra,
+I am so tired,” said Olive plaintively.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Must I let you go all by yourself over this lonely
+prairie? I cannot bear the thought of it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have been two days and one night all by myself
+out on this lonely prairie in order to save you.
+Please do what I ask. Tie Queen Katharine’s rein to
+Rebel’s bit, they will then go quietly together.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Tell me,” said Cotterell breathlessly, “why have
+you been out all this time on the prairie alone?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I was following the men who had captured you
+in order to save you if I could.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Great Heavens!” he burst out, with his blue
+eyes aflame. “And you did this heroic act because
+you——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I did it because you are an innocent man, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>I wanted you to go back to your country to live a
+better life and be a better man than you ever had
+been before.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The light died out of his eyes. He looked down,
+his hands trembled as they had never trembled when
+on his trial.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your sacrifice shall not have been in vain,” he
+said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then good-bye, and all good blessings attend
+you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She shook hands with him and left him standing
+at the parting of the ways. When she was quite out
+of sight over the ridge on her way towards Cotton
+Wood Creek, he, with blinding tears streaming down
+his sun-burnt face, turned and walked to the South
+Fork, caught the Kansas City stage-coach and departed
+out of Olive’s life.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She hardly knew what she was doing she felt so
+ill. It seemed a relief not to have to talk any more,
+for she found it difficult to keep hold of her thoughts,
+they seemed constantly to be slipping away from her.
+The sun was burning hot, and she had a long way to
+go, for she had come out of Union Mills by the south
+side instead of the north. Therefore she must make
+a great sweep round to the right in order to reach her
+home, and she must remember that the Creek was only
+to be safely forded at certain places. She rode on
+and on, feeling the sun hotter and hotter and her head
+heavier and heavier. At last she was so dizzy she
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>could no longer see where she was going. Whatever
+happened she must lie down for a few minutes. Somehow
+she got off her horse and lay down at the side of
+the track she had been following, but whether in
+sleep or in unconsciousness she never knew.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>By and by she came to herself again. The horses
+were both gone! She had forgotten to picket them.
+She did not remember where she was, but mechanically
+stumbled along the road and at length was overtaken
+by a negro woman driving an ox-waggon. She begged
+of the woman to let her get into the waggon and take
+her home for she felt ill, and the negress, struck with
+pity, declared she would, “fo’ de po’ chile was mos’
+sick to deaf anyhow.” Olive got into the waggon
+and knew no more for hours—or was it days, or was it
+weeks? Two nights out in the poisonous prairie dew
+had done their work: she was down with chills and
+fever, a raving panting lunatic, or else a stupid heavy
+sleeping log, taking no heed of day or night or the
+hours as they flew, only craving water to drink, ever
+more water to drink. By and by she began to have
+intervals when she knew that she was in a strange
+place with strange black faces around her. Then at
+last her senses returned, and she sent an imploring
+message to Ezra to come to her. In reply had come
+Madame, stern, fierce-eyed, to see her and crush her
+with the awful news that Ezra was dead. Olive fell
+back into unconsciousness under the blow, she did not
+know for how long. But after weary suffering she
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>awoke again, still in that same strange place, still with
+those black faces around her, kind and pitying, but
+faces she did not know.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Trying feebly to gather up again the threads of
+her life, she wished to send word to the friends at
+Perfection City that she was still alive. The negroes,
+who were the only inhabitants of the wretched house
+where she was, seemed not to heed her wishes. They
+refused to take any messages, but would not say why.
+Olive grew stronger, for her young vitality exerted
+itself. She demanded to know why they would not
+do as she wished, but they fled from her questions
+and left her to her suspicions. She tormented them
+with questions, and at last they said the white-faced
+lady had forbidden them ever to come near her house
+again, and they were afraid: she was a very terrible
+looking lady when she was angry. Then Olive used
+her powers of persuasion upon the negro lad and
+eventually got him to take her message in spite of
+what his mother said. That was the scrap of paper
+that had come into Ezra’s hands.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The Pioneers scattered in systematic search for
+Olive, spreading out in all directions in a way that
+could not fail to be speedily successful. Brother
+Green found her on the second day, while Ezra found
+the two horses which a thrifty settler had impounded
+in his own fields and was unobtrusively working until
+they should be called for by their owner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green was overjoyed at finding Olive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>and was not so overwhelmed at hearing of her long
+illness as, under different circumstances, he might have
+been. In fact he was almost pleased, for that fact,
+taken together with the negro woman’s graphic account
+of finding her alone and ill on the prairie on
+the day “o’ de hoss-thief tryin’,” made it clear to him
+that she had never been with Cotterell since she was
+at the abortive trial. She was very weak and languid
+and took little heed of him or his remarks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra will be out of his mind with joy,” he said,
+by way of rousing her to some interest, as he was
+settling her as comfortably as he could in the ox-waggon,
+preparatory to setting out on their return.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra is dead,” said Olive wearily.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green stared hard at her. “What crazy
+fancy is this? Ezra is alive and riding over towards
+Jacksonville at this moment hunting for you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She told me he was dead,” said Olive, beginning
+to cry from the revulsion of feeling combined with
+physical suffering.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How dared the woman tell such a lie!” exclaimed
+Brother Green angrily, and then after a moment
+he added more mildly, “Perhaps it was a mere
+mistake, she seems to have been kind to you, but
+negroes are not a truth-telling race.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It was not the negro woman, it was Madame,”
+said Olive in a hushed and awe-struck voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Nonsense, you are raving, Sister Olive,” said
+he sharply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>“She came to me and told me during my illness.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“When?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I can’t tell. I don’t remember when things happened.
+I was so ill.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then depend upon it, you have fancied this.
+Fever fancies seem very real at times.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He experienced a certain relief in speaking thus
+confidently on the subject to her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The negro woman knows. Ask her who came
+here and forbade them to bring any more messages
+from me to Perfection City.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was singular, considering the way he had spoken,
+that Brother Green did not take this simple means of
+assuring himself that Olive’s idea was the effect of
+the disordered workings of a fevered brain. But he
+said never a word to the negro woman on the subject,
+but drove slowly and thoughtfully back to Perfection
+City, with Olive in the ox-waggon, lying on a heap of
+corn-shucks covered with the ragged patch-quilt the
+woman had lent her. It was a long and a weary journey
+thus creeping back home over the blackened prairie.
+Olive sometimes wondered if she would get there
+alive, and she moaned in her misery. For the rest,
+Brother Green spoke but little. Since assuring Olive
+of the falseness of her idea that Madame had been to
+see her, he appeared to have lost the cheerfulness he
+had shown upon finding her. Brother Green was
+thinking of the future of Perfection City, and it looked
+black enough to him. It was no secret that Madame
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>had refused to reveal Olive’s whereabouts to her husband,
+and in the light of that circumstance he could
+foresee nothing but strife, ill-will and enmity in Perfection
+City. How were Olive and Madame to meet,
+and above all how were they to live in harmony for
+the future? These were the thoughts that occupied
+his mind and kept him silent during that long slow
+drive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive, too, was trying to look into the future, and
+she shivered with dread as she did so. Madame’s pitiless
+eyes were before her still, but Ezra would be
+there, he would shield her and comfort her, and she
+could rest her head peacefully on his honest breast.
+Dear Ezra! Why had he not come to her when she
+had sent for him? She hoped he would be there to
+greet her and to save her from that terrible woman,
+whose colourless face in its icy cruelty still haunted
+her, filling her with a great dread. She need not
+have been so afraid, for when she reached Perfection
+City Madame was gone.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The Pioneers had indeed a life of much inward
+excitement during these days. The return of Olive
+and the departure of Madame were events almost
+equally calculated to disturb their equanimity as a
+Community.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra being still away looking for his wife in the
+wrong direction, there was no one to receive her when
+she got home. Therefore Brother Green took her to
+Sister Mary Winkle’s at once on their arrival. Olive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>was weak, ill, and peevish, she cried with disappointment
+at not seeing Ezra. Sister Mary Winkle administered
+a stimulant in the way of advice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t take on so like a baby, Olive Weston,
+if I were you. Ezra’ll come home probably to-day
+or to-morrow, and one day more or less ain’t much
+in a life-time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive dried her eyes with energy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Everybody said you had gone off with that man
+Cotterell, and so we all thought too,” observed Sister
+Winkle conversationally.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How dare you suggest such a thing to me?”
+exclaimed Olive, with an amount of angry energy surprising
+in one so weak.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, we had it from the people who saw you
+go away with him, and who heard you say you were
+going. I don’t see how we could possibly have thought
+other than we did.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You must be a wicked woman to think such
+a thing,” said Olive. Her chin began to quiver piteously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am not going to condemn you,” replied Sister
+Winkle, in a philosophic vein. “If you found you
+preferred him to Ezra I don’t think you would have
+been wrong in showing your preference in an unmistakable
+manner. Marriage is a partnership which
+either side should be free to dissolve. Mistakes are
+sometimes made in it as in other affairs. Our marriage
+is not a mistake, because Wright and I don’t
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>make mistakes, but other people are different, and I
+don’t see why they should be punished for an honest
+mistake. Marriage should be free. Perfection City
+was founded on freedom. We thought that you had
+used your right of choice, and since you liked Cotterell
+best had gone with him. We thought that Madame
+would soon marry Ezra, since he was now free,
+and she had always wanted to.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive sprang from her chair and steadied herself
+with her trembling hands by clutching the back of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mary Winkle, I hate you,” she said, in a voice
+choking with emotion. “Perfection City is a sinful,
+wicked place. I wish I had never seen it. If I live,
+and Ezra loves me, I hope he will take me away so I
+may never hear its name again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She stamped bravely out of the house under the
+influence of her anger, but her strength did not carry
+her far, and she sank down upon the wood-pile weeping
+bitterly, unable to walk another step. Sister Mary,
+somewhat disgusted at the way in which her philosophy
+had been received, resolved to let her cool off a
+little before going out to offer Olive an arm to conduct
+her back into the house. Thus it came about
+that Olive was still sitting weeping on the wood-pile
+when Uncle David came hurrying up, having just
+heard of her arrival, and close behind him came Ezra
+running like a mad-man. When Olive saw him she
+started towards her husband with outstretched arms,
+but her weakness overcame her, and she would have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>fallen to the ground only that he was just in time to
+catch her in his arms, where she fell laughing and crying
+in the most incoherent manner imaginable.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Ezra, you didn’t believe that wicked story?
+And you do love me, don’t you? And you won’t
+marry her, and you aren’t dead, are you? Tell Mary
+Winkle you hate her too. And why didn’t you come
+to me when I sent for you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra could only kiss her, and pet her, and soothe
+her in every way while Olive kept saying hysterically,
+“You won’t, will you?” and “You will, won’t you?”
+All of which Ezra promised faithfully to perform.
+She absolutely refused to re-enter Sister Mary Winkle’s
+house, whereupon the latter, somewhat conscience-stricken,
+offered to send in food for their supper
+at their own house, provided Olive was not told
+who had sent it. The secret was kept, and Olive partook
+heartily of what otherwise would undoubtedly
+have choked her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David hovered over her with anxious love
+and remorse. “Bless her heart, o’ course he didn’t
+b’lieve nothin’ ’bout her goin’ off. Yer bet he didn’t,
+he knowed it was all right, on’y she was so long a-com-in’
+home he sorter kinder got oneasy, an’ that’s why
+they went out to fin’ her, an’ dear, dear, had she been
+an’ gone an’ got that plaguey ague, an’ he not there
+to see a’ter her, an’ there wasn’t nothin’ like Ayre’s
+Ague Cure for that, an’ he would go right ’long home
+this minute an’ get her some right away.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>Ezra wanted to hear her story, and she told him
+everything from the beginning to the end. When
+she came to the end and told him of Madame’s visit,
+he shivered and said it must have been delirium, he
+bade her think no more of it and never speak of it
+again. His mind started back from the thoughts such
+a story raised up before him. He was afraid, and
+looked away from the abyss, terrified at what lay but
+half hidden there.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXIII.<br /> <span class='large'>CONCLUSION.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Madame left Perfection City alone and unattended.
+No one knew that she was going, and no one
+knew whither she went. Her spirit, however, still hovered
+over the city of her founding and made itself
+most potently felt. She sold all her rights in the
+place, and since these included the land, horses, and
+implements, as well as most of the houses, the Pioneers
+awoke in early winter to find themselves homeless
+and houseless, cast upon the bleak world again. In a
+tempest of indignation, Sister Mary Winkle and her
+husband departed out of the place, and after them
+the Carpenters. The going of the Wrights was highly
+characteristic. They had managed to save a waggon
+and a pair of horses out of the general wreck, along
+with a few of the most primitive household necessaries.
+These, with his wife and daughter, Brother Wright
+packed into his waggon and started for Union Mills.
+At the store there he bought a rifle, a bowie-knife, and
+a plentiful supply of ammunition. He came out of
+the store looking like a buccaneer ready equipped for
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>Central America. Mary Winkle raised her hands in
+speechless horror.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I say, pa, be yer goin’ to be a jay-hawker?”
+asked Willette, grinning with delight.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Wright got into the waggon in grim silence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What <i>are</i> you going to be?” asked Sister Mary
+recovering her speech at last.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m going to be a man, Mrs. Wright, and not a
+blamed fool any longer. Guess I’ll pre-empt some
+land near the Cherokee Reservation, and stick to it
+and get the fruits of my toil, anyhow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your principles——” stammered his wife.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Damn principles, Mrs. Wright. I’ve had about
+enough of them. Common sense is what I want, and
+so do you. I guess a spell of that will come handy
+now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Thus they journeyed out of sight, but a legend
+came floating back from near the Cherokee lands that
+at a difficult ford Wright was attacked by a couple of
+robbers, whereupon he took up that new rifle of his
+and fired so uncommonly straight that one man fell
+into the river, and the other ran away.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green remained at his forge, for blacksmiths
+were much in request on the prairie, and such
+a one as he was hard to find. The new owner of Perfection
+City offered him good inducements to stay,
+so he stayed. He is still there shoeing horses and
+mending ploughs. The name has been changed to
+Mountainburg, in order to emphasise the existence of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>the rising ground over Weddell’s Gully. Brother
+Green is almost the oldest inhabitant now, and sometimes
+he thinks of that far-off English village where
+he was born, and it looks brighter and more beautiful
+to him as the years roll him away from it. He thinks
+too of the grass-grown grave in the church-yard
+where the jackdaws caw overhead, and it seems to
+him that when his last day’s work shall be done he
+would rest more peacefully beside that mound than
+in any other spot beneath the broad canopy of
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Dummy decided not to leave when the
+rest of the Pioneers scattered. He preferred to stay
+where he was and rent a bit of land from the new
+owner. By and by he was enabled to buy his bit outright.
+For there came a letter addressed to “The
+Pioneers of Perfection City” and containing a draft
+for five hundred dollars “for the hire of one horse”
+from an ever grateful friend. And Brother Dummy
+was given this money by the united wish of Olive,
+Ezra, Brother Green, and Uncle David, the last
+of the Pioneers, because, as they said, he was the
+only one who didn’t know why it had been sent,
+and he was the only one who had not suffered
+through that episode that had so nearly wrecked their
+lives.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>On a cold winter’s day, when the snow lay in
+patches on the black prairie, Olive and her husband
+and Uncle David set out from Perfection City. She
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>was pale and thin, and looked very ill as she stood
+leaning against the door-way of her dismantled home.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wish I could feel sorry at leaving the prairie,
+but I can’t. I never want to see Perfection City again,
+but I’m sorry for my little home, and I would like to
+see my garden blossom again.” So spoke Olive to
+Uncle David, standing beside her with shawls on his
+arm.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, now,” replied he sadly, “we came here full
+o’ the notion o’ teachin’ folks things, but it ’pears
+like as if it wasn’t so much other folks out here as
+needed teachin’ as jes’ our own selves. We hev hed
+a hard lesson to learn, Ollie, my little gal, but I reckon
+we’ve pretty well learned it by now. It mos’ likely
+comes to the same thing, on’y it’s a sight more comfortin’
+to human pride to set up as a teacher than to
+sit down as a learner. We was as certain as anything
+we had a bran’ new truth to teach to the world, an’
+we was goin’ to show ’em how they’d been doin’ wrong
+in everything ’fore we come to set ’em right. We was
+jes’ bustin’ with pride and vanity, that’s what we was.
+We had foun’ a new road to Kingdom Come, we had.
+’Twasn’t no road at all, on’y a coon track leadin’ into
+a swamp. Guess we’ll foller the road other folks has
+trod before, an’ if we can fill up a slough or help anyone
+over the rough bits as is scattered plentiful all
+the way, that’ll do for us. Ain’t that your ’pinion,
+Ezry?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, Uncle, we made a mistake. We thought
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>the great thing to do was to reform the ways of the
+world. We forgot that the human heart needed reforming
+first of all,” said Ezra, looking sadly at his
+poor wan-cheeked little wife.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And if the heart is right it doesn’t matter about
+the rest, does it, dear?” said Olive, looking timidly
+at him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He was sad and down-hearted and the eager enthusiasm
+was gone out of his manner. Ezra was much
+older-looking than he should have been, if life be
+reckoned by solar time alone. He had been aged
+by a lapse of mental time and suffering of which
+the almanac can take no heed. His wife saw and
+understood how he was, at this moment, realizing
+the downfall of his young hopes and beliefs, that
+was why he gazed so sadly across the desolate
+fields.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We take nothing away with us except sad experience,”
+he said as he lifted her into the waggon
+and drove off.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And our love, dear, which nothing can ever destroy,”
+she whispered, pressing his hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He stooped and kissed her. There were tears in
+his eyes. But they made a mistake. They took something
+else with them. Something that came tearing
+over the prairie with tongue out and tail stiff-stretched
+and nose to the ground—Diana, who had been turned
+over to Napoleon Pompey to have and to hold, but he
+could not hold her when she saw the waggon going
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>off, therefore he could not have her. She caught
+them up when they were two miles off, and Olive let
+the dog clamber all over her, regardless of wet paws,
+and lick her face, so delighted were they to meet
+again.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div>THE END.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c003' />
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+ <ol class='ol_1 c002'>
+    <li>Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
+    </li>
+  </ol>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67549 ***</div>
+  </body>
+  <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57c on 2022-02-09 23:30:02 GMT -->
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Perfection City, by Adela Orpen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Perfection City
+
+Author: Adela Orpen
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2022 [eBook #67549]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+             Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+             images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERFECTION CITY ***
+
+
+                                                            =Appletons’
+                                                        Town and Country
+                                                            Library=
+
+                                                            No. 212
+
+ PERFECTION CITY
+
+
+
+
+                            PERFECTION CITY
+
+
+                                    BY
+
+                                MRS. ORPEN
+
+ AUTHOR OF MARGARETA COLBERG, MR. ADOLF, THE CHRONICLES OF THE SID, ETC.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+                                  1897
+
+
+
+
+                            COPYRIGHT, 1897,
+                      BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+                CHAPTER                            PAGE
+                    I.— HOME-COMING OF THE BRIDE      1
+                   II.— UNCLE DAVID                  11
+                  III.— SISTER MARY WINKLE           21
+                   IV.— MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH        27
+                    V.— CORN PLANTING                43
+                   VI.— NON-RESISTANCE               54
+                  VII.— WILLETTE                     66
+                 VIII.— MR. PERSEUS                  84
+                   IX.— FIRST LESSONS               101
+                    X.— PRACTICAL COMMUNISM         111
+                   XI.— A CHANCE MEETING            125
+                  XII.— THE PRAIRIE FIRE            141
+                 XIII.— THE RESCUE                  156
+                  XIV.— COTTERELL “WANTED”          170
+                   XV.— IN QUEST OF NEWS            185
+                  XVI.— HORSE-THIEVES               204
+                 XVII.— A LIFE AT STAKE             219
+                XVIII.— LYNCH-LAW                   237
+                  XIX.— OLIVE MISSING               251
+                   XX.— MADAME’S SYMPATHY           263
+                  XXI.— THE MESSAGE                 277
+                 XXII.— OLIVE’S SECOND HOME-COMING  293
+                XXIII.— CONCLUSION                  305
+
+
+
+
+                            PERFECTION CITY.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+                       HOME-COMING OF THE BRIDE.
+
+
+“This road isn’t called Perfection Road, is it?” she asked jerkily, as
+she held tight hold of the edge of the waggon to prevent herself from
+being pitched head foremost off the seat. She would have laid her head
+against her companion’s shoulder only that it was square and hard, and
+she was afraid of getting her temple “stove in,” as the sailors say, by
+the terrific bumps caused by the wheels going over a big stone or down
+into a deep rut. She was a bride, and he was bringing her to their new
+home on the Kansas Prairie.
+
+“My poor little pet,” he said tenderly, “it is very rough here. We are
+going down into Cotton Wood Creek, and these stones were cast up by the
+last freshet which pretty well washed the road away.”
+
+They plunged headlong into the muddy waters of the Creek, and the little
+bride would have felt frightened only that “he” was by her side, for the
+waggon creaked and groaned with the strain, and the horses snorted
+uneasily, feeling their way carefully through the rushing torrent. The
+Creek was safely passed, and they slowly toiled up the long hill out of
+the bottom-lands, and pulled up when once more on the high prairie.
+
+“There is our home, dearie,” he said, pointing with his whip to some
+scattered houses a couple of miles away. And being a bridegroom he
+kissed her.
+
+“So that is Perfection City, is it?” said she, shading her eyes with her
+hand, for the afternoon sun sent level rays into her face. “You know,
+Ezra, it is such a funny name, I always feel inclined to laugh when I
+say it. And how I shall ever dare to put it at the top of my letters as
+a real address when I write to the girls at the College at Smyrna, is
+more than I know.”
+
+“Then don’t write it,” replied Ezra, a trifle sternly. “It will hurt our
+feelings very much if you laugh at it. You know it means a great deal to
+all of us.”
+
+“Then I’ll never laugh at it,” said the little bride.
+
+“Which is our house?” she asked a moment later.
+
+“The one half way up the slope.”
+
+“Oh, that is nice. I like looking down across things. I shouldn’t like
+to live in a valley and always have to look up, you know.”
+
+“The large building is the Academy,” said Ezra. “That is where we hold
+our meetings and gather together for all the best purposes of our little
+community-life.”
+
+“Is it there that Madame Morozoff-Smith lives?” asked his wife.
+
+“Her house is the one just opposite.”
+
+“Oh, that big one! It is quite the largest in the village—the City, I
+mean.”
+
+Ezra did not make any reply to this remark. He had never realised that
+Madame’s house was indeed the largest in their Community, and now he
+felt vexed that this fact should have been the first his wife noted.
+
+A small boy with shining black face and shining white teeth, along with
+a yellow puppy, welcomed them.
+
+“This is Napoleon Pompey,” said Ezra, with much decorum presenting the
+small darkie who grinned and bobbed his head. “And this is Diana,”
+pointing to the puppy that had come up to the bars along with the negro.
+Diana jumped upon her new mistress and left two black dust marks on her
+dress. Dust is black in London and on the western prairie, nowhere else.
+
+“Oh, you dirty dog,” said the little bride, who was a very natty body.
+
+“You’ll have to get used to dirt in all degrees out here, Ollie,” said
+her husband as he led her to the door. She looked like a little girl as
+she stood beside him, for he was tall and angular and long of leg. A
+sloping plank with battens nailed across it led to the door, there were
+no steps. As the pair entered, Napoleon Pompey and Diana took the horses
+and waggon to the stable and began respectively to unharness and worry
+them.
+
+“What a dear little house! It is just like a toy! And do look at the
+saws hanging on the walls beside the covers of the pots! Oh, won’t it be
+so nice and free living here! I shall feel like an explorer in a far
+country. And how funny to have nail-kegs for seats, and oh, you dear old
+darling!”
+
+Olive jumped up and kissed her big husband.
+
+“Things are rough now, dearie,” he said with infinite tenderness,
+looking at her with loving admiration, “but by and by we shall have
+everything very nice.”
+
+“But I think it is just as nice as it can be now.”
+
+“This is our room,” said he, opening a door to the right.
+
+“Why, if you haven’t gone and got a rocking-chair!” exclaimed Olive,
+glancing around the small apartment.
+
+“I made it for you myself in spare time,” answered Ezra, pleased that
+she had noticed the chair the first thing: he had often wondered, when
+working at that rocking-chair, whether she would be pleased with it.
+“You see,” he continued, “we have to work only five days a week for the
+Community. All the rest of our time is at our own disposal, and by and
+by, when we are flourishing, four days for the Community will suffice.”
+
+“Do you like working for other people and not being paid?” asked Olive.
+
+“I do not consider it as working for other people without pay,” replied
+her husband, with some quickness. “We each work for the general good,
+and if I happen to plant corn that someone else will eat, then some
+other member of the Community raises potatoes that I shall eat.”
+
+“There, there, don’t be cross,” said the little wife, noting the flush
+that had risen to his brow as he spoke. “I am sure it is nice, and I
+shall like it when I understand it all. At any rate we shall be very
+happy whatever happens, and I like my dear little house, and please, I
+am very thirsty, can I have a drink?”
+
+He brought her some water in a tin dipper with a long handle, and she
+did not make a face, but drank the water gratefully. She determined in
+her own mind, however, to have a glass tumbler the very next day, but
+she was new to the prairie, and she did not get the tumbler the next
+day, nor the next week, nor for many, many long months.
+
+“What time are we to have breakfast?” she asked, when taking over the
+household from Napoleon Pompey and Diana, who had run the establishment
+while her husband had been to fetch her from Ohio.
+
+“Yo’ kin eat when yo’ like,” said Napoleon Pompey, desiring to be all
+that was polite to his new mistress.
+
+“But I want to know what time you have breakfast?” repeated Olive with
+persistence.
+
+“We uns got ter be hout on der lan’ ploughin’ afore sun-up,” said
+Napoleon Pompey concisely.
+
+“Dear me! Why, that is before six o’clock!” exclaimed Olive.
+
+“I calkerlate,” said Napoleon Pompey affably.
+
+Ezra did not want Olive to think she was bound to get up and prepare the
+working-man’s breakfast.
+
+“You are not used to that sort of hard work, dearie. We can do very well
+with cold corn-bread.”
+
+“Of all things the most stoggy and hopelessly uninviting,” interrupted
+his wife. “No, Ezra, I won’t have any of the people out here think I am
+a little fool that can’t do any useful work. I have my pride as well as
+other folks. I shall cook your breakfast to-morrow and every day
+afterwards, and I shall cook it well, see if I don’t.”
+
+“I am sure of that,” said her husband with the confidence of a
+bridegroom.
+
+The house of which the young bride had just taken possession was by no
+means an ordinary prairie house. Far from it. It had pretensions to
+comfort which the true prairie house should never possess, and it lacked
+the few elements of picturesqueness with which the genuine article is
+sometimes endowed. The plan on which it was built was of the
+simplest—the same that children adopt in building their doll’s
+houses—four sides and a sloping roof, all of wood from top to bottom. It
+was not a log-house, which has a few broken lines to rest the eye of the
+beholder and present possibilities to the artist, it was a frame house,
+that is, the straightest, stiffest, squarest, most hopelessly
+unpicturesque object that it is possible to imagine, and to make matters
+worse it was painted a glaring white from eave to foundation. There was
+not a broken line or a broken tint anywhere to refresh the eye, and it
+stood on the high prairie, as if hurled into a glaring world by a
+Titan’s hand.
+
+The prairie is fertile, and in the eye of a farmer may possess the
+beauty of usefulness, but otherwise it is hideous. The long rolling
+billows of grass present no character, while the trees are confined to
+the river valleys where they find refuge from prairie fires, and can
+therefore lead a sufficiently undisturbed existence to reach quite a
+respectable height. A couple of small locust trees, not three feet high,
+were all that did duty as shade-giving plants near Olive’s house, which
+accordingly faced the world and its storms entirely on its own
+individual merits. Judged by prairie standard the house was “tip-top.”
+It possessed no less than four rooms, while the regular settler’s cabin
+was wont to indulge in only a single comprehensive apartment, which was
+kitchen, parlour and bedroom all in one. The two lower rooms were the
+kitchen, which was fairly large, and a smaller one off it, reserved for
+the private use of the young wife. The kitchen looked like a ship’s
+cabin, only that it had more light than usually penetrates into a ship’s
+cabin. In fact it was very light, for there were two large windows, one
+to the north and one to the south, geometrically opposite each other.
+These two windows, so exactly facing each other, were fairly typical of
+the house itself, which was the embodiment of mathematical accuracy. The
+building was placed exactly east and west, as if it had been a carefully
+oriented church. There was a door on the south side, exactly in the
+middle, and a window on either side of the door, placed accurately in
+the centre of the space left between the side of the door and the end of
+the house. Over these two windows were two others exactly one half their
+size, giving light to the loft, and exactly in the centre of the
+roof-ridge was a black stove-pipe.
+
+The average prairie man is a genius in the way of doing without things.
+He can live in a house of the smallest dimensions, containing the
+minimum of utensils. In fact, his idea of a house is that it should be a
+miner’s tent solidified into substantiality. The miner in a
+newly-prospected gold-field is a person who spends his days in a hole,
+and has no belongings but the clothes on his back and the shovel in his
+hand. He lives on his expectations. The regular prairie settler, would
+arrive in the spring, camp in his waggon, stick grains of corn under the
+sod, and think himself lucky if he could raise both the corn and a
+loghut, fourteen by twelve feet, before the cold weather set in. Those
+who have passed through such a severe school prune down their
+requirements. Therefore the house to which Ezra Weston brought his
+little bride was rightly considered to be a model of luxury, or in
+prairie phraseology to be “powerful full o’ truck.”
+
+The kitchen certainly was full. The stove, black and business-like,
+stood near the partition wall, and on it rested a couple of huge iron
+pots with covers. Chairs there were none, as Olive had remarked, but
+boxes and nail-kegs did as well and were useful in holding things. There
+was a large wooden table, very strongly made, on one side, and a set of
+shelves in one corner. The walls and ceiling, which were of wood closely
+jointed, added to the ship-like appearance of the room, but the presence
+of two large saws and a horse-collar which hung above them made a
+considerable deduction from the nautical character of the apartment.
+
+This model dwelling stood in the midst of a large tract of fenced-in
+land. Part of this was already under cultivation and showed a dark
+purple surface to the heavens, betokening newly turned up prairie sod
+full of the natural plant foods stored there for thousands of ages.
+These were now about to be recklessly used up by the ordinary system of
+prairie farming, which consisted of taking everything out of the land
+and of putting nothing back into it. A sort of road, that is to say a
+beaten track with deep channels on either side, led from the house to
+the bars, which did duty as gate to the premises. These bars were
+precisely what the name implies, bars of wood lying on supports made for
+them between posts, and they were simply let down whenever horses or
+other animals had to pass in or out, and were climbed over by active
+children too lazy to let them down or rather, perhaps, too lazy to put
+them up again.
+
+On one side of the bars stretching out at an angle was an orchard just
+planted with trees that probably would be worth having twenty years
+hence, and further away was another field consisting simply of fenced-in
+prairie grass. The fields, and indeed everything else, were square, and
+every fence that did not run north and south, ran east and west. The
+whole place seemed under a despotism of compass and measuring chain.
+Indeed, the prairie itself was under the same iron rule: and by the
+authorities had been plotted out into squares of a mile each way called
+“sections,” of which persons could buy of the Government quarter
+sections or multiples of a quarter section at a low rate. Fortunately
+for humanity this conspiracy to turn the world into a surveyor’s map was
+to some extent defeated by the rivers and streams, which ran as Heaven
+and the water-sheds decreed, and not as the officials at Washington
+desired. This fact, and this alone, has in some measure saved the
+prairie from the awful fate of mathematical damnation.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+                              UNCLE DAVID.
+
+
+Mrs. Weston was tired and sat down in her rocking-chair to rest. Her
+day’s work was fairly over. The breakfast had been ready punctually at
+half past five, and it was well-cooked, as she had boasted it would
+be—corn-bread smoking hot, fried chicken, potatoes, flap-jacks and
+molasses—a meal for a king, to say nothing of a working-man and his
+negro help. Ezra and Napoleon Pompey had partaken heartily, especially
+the latter, for he had been living on underdone hoe-cake and cold pork.
+Then they had gone off to the ploughing, while Olive had bustled around
+and got forward with her house-work. At eleven o’clock she had run up
+the towel against the shady side of the house, a signal easily seen from
+the distant field, and signifying that dinner was ready. They had come
+home, men and horses thoroughly hungry and ready for food and rest. Ezra
+lay on the kitchen floor and talked to her while she washed up the
+dishes. And now it was three o’clock, and all the work was done. She
+thought she would read a little. She had several books with her that she
+had been looking forward to reading. So she took up one of them and
+seated herself comfortably in the rocking-chair. The door was open and a
+warm air came in from the south along with the gleaming sunshine. Diana
+lay across the door-way, but kept one eye open, so as to see when the
+black hen came near enough to have a spring at her with any chance of
+grabbing a mouthful of tail-feathers. Olive’s eyes rested very little on
+the book, but much on the view outside. It looked pleasant enough in the
+bright May sunshine. The long brown patch of the garden showed a few
+methodical green lines that spoke of vegetables beginning to sprout. The
+meadow of blue grass just beyond was likewise by its hue showing the
+on-coming of the warm spring weather, and yet again further off, on the
+other side of the meadow, lay the vast field which her husband was
+ploughing. Once in every half hour she could see him turn at the
+head-land, and noted how seldom he seemed to stop and rest. Napoleon
+Pompey was riding the off leader, and from that distance they seemed
+little insects gently crawling backwards and forwards across the land.
+Pleasant it looked too and by no means hard work. Olive determined to go
+out to the field one day soon and watch the process from a nearer point
+of view; she might indeed herself hold the plough-handles, it looked
+easy, she would ask Ezra to let her, she would like to learn to do all
+sorts of work so as to be very useful, she would—confused images swept
+slowly over her mind, she leaned back her pretty little head and slept
+in her chair.
+
+She awoke with a start. A large square figure stood in the door-way,
+blocking out the sunshine, and Diana, with the insane friendliness of a
+puppy, was trying to clamber up one of his legs.
+
+“Well, little gal, I reckon you’re ’most tired out, ain’t you?” said the
+big man, coming straight into the room.
+
+Mrs. Weston rose to her utmost height of five feet two inches, and tried
+to be dignified.
+
+“Do you wish to see my husband?” she inquired stiffly.
+
+“No, I don’t want to see Ezry. I come to talk to you a spell, and see
+you.”
+
+“You are very kind I’m sure,” returned the little lady icily, but the
+stranger did not seem one whit abashed. He took a nail-keg and sat down
+on it and looked about him. “Wal, now,” he remarked, nodding his head,
+“Ezry is real downright handy. He’s gone and got your house fine and
+fixed up, ain’t he now?”
+
+“It is extremely comfortable, Mr.—ah—I don’t think you mentioned your
+name,” said Mrs. Weston, with a snap of her black eyes. She didn’t at
+all relish the free and easy way in which this man spoke of her husband.
+
+“Do tell!” exclaimed the stranger with vast cordiality. “An’ you didn’t
+know who I was. Why, I’m Uncle David. I guessed everybody ’ud know me.
+There ain’t nobody else so big and awkward looking ’bout here on this
+prairie as me. Why, there was a man over to Perfection City yesterday,
+he come from beyond Cotton Wood Creek, and he said he calculated I’d be
+powerful useful on washing days, ’cause if they tied the clothes-line to
+me I’d do instead of a pole, an’ timber is mighty scarce anyhow.”
+
+Uncle David gave a long loud laugh that set Diana into an ecstasy of
+delight, and was of itself so joyous that, after a moment, Olive also
+joined in with a merry titter. She had often heard her husband speak of
+Uncle David, as being one of the kindest and most simple-hearted of men.
+Her frigid manner melted rapidly and completely.
+
+“Wal, now,” began Uncle David again, after his merriment had subsided,
+“how do you like our name?”
+
+“Your name,” repeated Olive considerably puzzled.
+
+“No, our name, the name of the Community, Perfection City. Do you like
+it?”
+
+“I don’t think I do,” replied she.
+
+“Jes’ so,” broke in Uncle David, apparently much pleased with this
+answer. “I knew you wouldn’t. Nobody does.”
+
+“Why did you call it such a name—such a horrid name—and if nobody likes
+it, what is the use?”
+
+“There now, that’s what they all say, until I talk to ’em,” said Uncle
+David. “You see I gave the name to the place.”
+
+“Oh, it was your choice!” said Olive.
+
+“When we came here, Niece and I, there wasn’t no town nor nothing, it
+was just open prairie. Ezry he come along too with us, and the
+Carpenters, and Mrs. Ruby, and the Wrights.”
+
+“You leave out Madame Morozoff-Smith,” interrupted Olive.
+
+“I thought you knew. Why, Madame, she’s Niece. She ain’t my real niece,
+she wasn’t born in my family, but she’s niece by adoption, and I hold
+she’s more to me than half the nieces I ever seen. I ain’t cute like
+most of the folks here, an’ there wasn’t no use in having me at
+Perfection City. I can’t do nothing. I can’t compose papers like Brother
+Wright. So I was studyin’ to see some way for me to come with ’em. It
+would ha’ broke my heart to be left behind. Madame, she come to me, an’
+says she: ‘You’ll be my uncle. I want an uncle very much, and I’ll love
+you dearly.’ An’ so I was. I call it the greatest honour of my life when
+Madame made me her uncle, and added my name to hers.” Uncle David
+stooped and patted Diana’s head thoughtfully.
+
+“When did you think of the name?” said Olive with a view to bringing him
+back to the point.
+
+“Yes, jes’ so, that’s ’xactly what I was comin’ to. You see, when Ezry
+fust come here with us he wasn’t quite clear in his mind ’bout joinin’
+in with us, leastways not to be one of the Community for his whole
+mortal life. It’s a serious step to take, and he was a-doubtin’ in his
+mind, leastways till Madame she talked to him for a spell. He wasn’t
+sure fust if he’d got a call to community-life. He knowed it was the
+best, of course, and the true life: he knowed all that right enough, but
+he didn’t feel sure of himself as bein’ fit to found a city. It is a
+most responsible thing to be a founder. ’Taint everybody as is fit for
+it. Then Madame made it clear how she was a founder, an’ she is the most
+wonderful woman ever lived in this world, an’ she showed Ezry how it was
+his duty to help in this great work, an’ when he saw that clear he was
+dreadful sot on it too. We was a-gettin’ our houses up as spry as ever
+we could, and ole Wright he was a-buildin’ th’ Academy, then Ezry says:
+‘What’s goin’ to be our name?’ It was jes’ called Weddell’s Gully,
+’cause we bought from a man o’ that name. So Ezry said: ‘Let’s call it
+something to signify our principles,’ and one person said one name and
+one said another, then Wright said ‘Let’s call it Teleiopolis.’”
+
+“Oh, that sounds very pretty,” exclaimed Olive. “Why didn’t you?”
+
+“Wal, now, I said that’s very pretty, jes’ the same as you did. What
+does it mean, do you know?”
+
+“No, I don’t know. I suppose it is Greek for something.”
+
+“’Zactly so. It is Greek for something, and that something is Perfection
+City.”
+
+“It sounds nicer.”
+
+“Maybe so, but you look here. Are we Greeks?”
+
+“No, of course not.”
+
+“Then why talk in Greek?”
+
+“I don’t know, except it is prettier.”
+
+“Do you suppose them old Greeks, when they went an’ founded cities, they
+called ’em names out o’ some other language they didn’t understand, or
+did they called ’em good solid Greek names as any little boy ’ud know
+what they meant?” asked Uncle David with rising energy.
+
+“I believe they called their cities by Greek names, in fact I know they
+did,” said Olive, hastily reviewing her stock of history.
+
+“An’ why?” asked Uncle David.
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Because they wasn’t ’shamed o’ their mother tongue like we are. That’s
+why,” said Uncle David, clapping his big hand on his knee.
+
+“Oh indeed,” said Olive.
+
+“An’ that’s what I said, says I, ‘We are ’Mericans, we are founding a
+new city that’s goin’ to be great things one day. We have our
+principles. Let’s live up to them. We hain’t shamed o’ nothin’.
+Leastways not to my knowledge. We are goin’ to be an example to these
+folks roun’ here. We are goin’ to show ’em how to live a better life nor
+they ever did before. An’ how in thunder can we do that if we start by
+being ’shamed of our own mother tongue? We hain’t Greeks, we don’t talk
+in Greek. This hain’t Teleiopolis, this is Perfection City.’ That is
+what I said to ’em.”
+
+“What did they say to that?” asked Olive, much interested in the rugged
+honesty of Uncle David.
+
+“Wal, I don’t know as they said anything much, on’y Ezry, he said he
+guessed he’d had his fust lesson, an’ he come and shook hands an’ said
+it certainly should be Perfection City, an’ so it was.”
+
+“I shall think better of the name now,” said Olive. “Only at first I was
+afraid of people laughing, people who didn’t understand it, you see.”
+
+“Oh, people’ll laugh,” said Uncle David. “People does a heap o’ laughing
+in this world without makin’ it one mite merrier for anybody. I like
+laughing myself. It’s awful good an’ satisfyin’ to have a real square
+laugh, but t’aint that sort. Mos’ folks’ laugh hain’t got no more fun in
+it than the laugh of a hoot-owl. I’d a heap sight rather have none at
+all. You ain’t agoin’ to mind that sort, I hope?” Uncle David spoke with
+a shade of anxiety in his manner.
+
+“Oh no, I’m not thin-skinned,” said Olive with a superior smile.
+
+“Some folks is made that way. When they have found a tender spot in
+anybody they can’t rest no how till they’ve stuck some sort o’ pin into
+it.”
+
+“Tell me, does everything belong to everybody generally out here? It is
+so puzzling. This house, for instance, is it ours or yours or
+everybody’s?” asked Olive.
+
+“The land an’ the horses an’ the cattle an’ waggons was mostly bought
+with community-money, that is Madame, she gave the money, she’s rich you
+know, an’ she’s generous and always givin’ to the Community, her whole
+heart is in it. But Ezry worked a heap on this house, he mostly built it
+all, an’ it’s his, an’ t’other folks’ houses are theirs. That’s Brother
+Wright’s over yonder, an’ that’s our house beside the ’Cademy, most
+everybody worked to get it up and fix it comfortable for Madame. Old
+Mrs. Ruby, she lives to herself in the log cabin we bought from Weddell,
+we had it moved there a purpose over from the Gully, ’cause she liked to
+live beside the spring so as to get her water handy. She had a little
+mite of money which we used in buyin’ stock.”
+
+“So you do have some things as private property, just like ordinary
+people,” observed Olive.
+
+“Of course. It would not be any sort o’ use to have everything in
+common, ’cause folks’ notions don’t always ’xactly suit. An’ what we
+want is to have everybody free, so they can be perfectly happy here. We
+don’t want to have no strife, an’ no jealousy, an’ no ill feeling one
+towards another. But there can’t be community in all things. What sort
+o’ use would it be for you an’ me to have community o’ boots an’ shoes?”
+said Uncle David with a great laugh, sticking out his enormous foot
+towards where Olive’s dainty little slipper peeped from beneath her
+dress.
+
+“Your shoes, my dear, wouldn’t go on my two fingers, an’ mine ’ud be big
+enough to make a tol’eble boat for you. There couldn’t be community in
+shoes, so there ain’t none. But with the lan’ it’s different. We all
+work that for the benefit of everybody, there ain’t no strugglin’ to be
+fust an’ get ahead o’ one another. We are all brothers at Perfection
+City.”
+
+Olive was full of excitement when Ezra came back at sun-down.
+
+“Just fancy, I’ve had my first visitor,” she said as she stood beside
+her husband while he was watering the horses.
+
+“Who was it? Mrs. Ruby?”
+
+“No, it was Uncle David,” and she gave a merry little laugh.
+
+“Well, and how did you like him?”
+
+“I think he is just charming. He is just like a piece of granite or oak
+or something of that sort, not smooth or shiny on the outside, but solid
+and sound to the very core. Oh! I shall love Uncle David.”
+
+“That’s right. He is a good man,” said Ezra.
+
+“And you know? he has made me understand about Perfection City. I shan’t
+want to laugh at it any more, and I don’t care if anybody else does. It
+was real brave of you showing your colours plain and sticking to them,”
+said Olive with a skip and a clap of her little hands.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+                          SISTER MARY WINKLE.
+
+
+The very next morning just as she was washing her potatoes for dinner,
+another visitor called upon Olive, a visitor of whose sex she was for a
+moment or two in doubt. The visitor wore a large sunbonnet, a check
+blouse, and a pair of Zouave trowsers fastened in at the ankle.
+
+“How do you do, Olive Weston?” said this person, in a deep serious
+voice. Olive, who had not seen her, started in surprise and dropped her
+potato into the basin.
+
+“I am Mary Winkle. That’s my house over yonder.”
+
+“Oh, the Wrights’! Yes, to be sure. Come in and sit down,” said Olive
+hospitably, although she felt considerable surprise at her visitor’s
+appearance.
+
+“You don’t wear the reformed dress yet, I see,” said Mary Winkle.
+
+“No, I don’t,” acquiesced Olive.
+
+“Shall you?”
+
+“I don’t know. I have not thought about it. I suppose there is no
+regulation about what one wears on the prairie. There is no fashion here
+I suppose,” said Olive politely.
+
+“No, only the fashion of common sense.”
+
+“Do all the ladies dress that way, Miss Winkle?” inquired Olive.
+
+“Only my daughter and myself.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, I should have said Mrs. Winkle,” said Olive, in some
+confusion.
+
+“No, you shouldn’t,” replied her visitor. “I am not Mrs. Winkle.”
+
+“I am afraid I am very stupid. Would you tell me then how I should
+address you. I don’t understand.”
+
+“Address me as Mary Winkle, and my husband as John Wright.”
+
+Olive stared at her.
+
+“Are you not Mrs. Wright then?”
+
+“No, certainly not. I scorn the title. It is a symbol of subjection. I
+did not lose my identity when I chose to marry. I am the same Mary
+Winkle that I was before, and as such I desire to retain the name that I
+always possessed. Why should I take a new name simply because I am
+married?”
+
+“It is usual,” stammered Olive. “I shouldn’t like not to be called Mrs.
+Weston. It is so confusing, you see.”
+
+“Mere custom and prejudice. Why should not your husband take your name,
+instead of its always being the wife who is absorbed?”
+
+“I don’t know, but I never heard of it before.”
+
+“Ah, that is one of the first changes that must be made when women get
+their rights,” observed Mary Winkle.
+
+“But I don’t want the change one bit. I much prefer the old way.”
+
+“I dare say. Slaves often feel no want of freedom.”
+
+“I’m not a slave,” said Olive, flushing angrily. “You cannot be in the
+least acquainted with my husband.”
+
+“Oh, I know your husband very well, an excellent man in many respects,
+but narrow in others; however, I referred to general slavery, to custom,
+not to any individual slavery in your case.”
+
+“I don’t think there is any good in destroying customs, unless there is
+something better to be got in a new custom.”
+
+“Ah yes, no doubt it seems so to you; but there is inestimable gain in
+the mere protest against tyranny. Why, that’s what we are all here for,
+to protest against everything and live a life of freedom.”
+
+“And freedom may as well begin here and now, and in its name I will wear
+long dresses and be called Mrs. Weston, because I prefer the older
+customs,” said Olive with some archness.
+
+“Yes, you may do as you like, but you will get heartily sick of those
+skirts, I can tell you.”
+
+Olive remembering sundry pretty dresses she had in her trunk, was
+privately convinced she would not get sick of them.
+
+“I haven’t seen Madame yet,” she said, “and I feel the greatest
+curiosity about her. She must be a remarkable woman by all accounts.
+Does she wear the same sort of dress as you do?”
+
+“No, she doesn’t, and it’s a great pity, for her influence would be very
+great with the other women. I suppose you’ll see her to-morrow evening.
+You’ll come to the Academy, won’t you?”
+
+“Yes, certainly, if Ezra is going. I should like to go ever so much and
+see all my neighbours, but perhaps he will be too tired. He does work
+dreadfully hard, it seems to me.”
+
+“He ought to do a little brain-work. Wright says nothing rests one like
+brain-work. He’s been doing a spell of that lately. He’s been writing an
+essay on ‘The Ultimate Perfection of Being.’ He’ll most likely read some
+of it to-morrow at the Academy.”
+
+“I shouldn’t think essays would be much use in planting corn,” said
+Olive rather tartly, remembering at what hour her husband had come from
+the harrowing.
+
+“Wright and I, we don’t believe in making a god of work. We have a much
+higher ideal of life than that. We don’t want anything sordid in our
+lives, Wright and I. We haven’t any sympathy with this restless striving
+to get on. One of the great advantages of Perfection City is that we all
+have time for the cultivation of our higher natures.”
+
+“Just now,” said Olive, “my husband seems to have no thought in his mind
+but the cultivation of that field over there. He is at work early and
+late. No person could possibly work harder for himself or his individual
+advantage than he does for the Community.”
+
+“There’s just a case in point,” remarked Mary Winkle complacently. “I
+always thought your husband very narrow in his views. He slaves away at
+this corn planting as if that were the chief end and object of his
+existence. It is all very well to work at times, but working in order to
+store up food for the body is the lowest possible form that human
+activity can take.”
+
+“It is the most indispensable form,” remarked Olive.
+
+“By no means,” replied Mary Winkle with precision. “That observation
+would seem to indicate that you are more narrow even than your husband.
+The body is merely the servant of the mind: the mind needs to be fed,
+and it is the food for the mind which your husband appears so careless
+about providing. Fortunately for Perfection City, Wright has taken
+thought on that subject. Wright has a very high standard of what is
+necessary for the mind.”
+
+“It appears to me,” said Olive with a snap of her black eyes and an
+ominous red spot on her cheeks, “that if we all lived up to your
+standard, it might very well happen that by next winter our minds might
+be uncomfortably full and our stomachs correspondingly empty. If Ezra
+did not plough and get his land ready for planting as fast as mortal man
+can, how is the land to be got ready? It doesn’t plough itself, does it,
+even at Perfection City?”
+
+“I see you will have to get rid of many prejudices,” observed Mary
+Winkle. “Of course community-life only comes easy to people who are
+adapted to it. Wright and I are adapted. We like it. We shall stay here.
+We shall succeed therefore. You and Brother Ezra will have to go through
+a season of training first. You both need it. I dare say you may hear
+something that you will find useful to you to-morrow from Wright. I will
+just mention to him where your particular blindness seems to lie. Wright
+is a very profound thinker. He has given great thought to the subject of
+the Ultimate Perfection of People. He can explain every step in the
+training of a perfect communist, and show clearly just where everybody
+has hitherto gone wrong in their attempts to realize their ideal, and
+exactly what mistakes they have made. I am glad you have come in time to
+hear his paper; it will be of lasting good to you. You will be able to
+profit by it, because you are in great need of proper training. I dare
+say you need it more even than Ezra. For, after all, he must have
+learned something from us in the year he has been with us.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+                         MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH.
+
+
+The Academy at Perfection City was not a pretentious building in
+anything but in name. It was a plain wooden house, almost square, having
+a window on three sides and a door on the fourth, facing south. Inside
+there were several rough benches, two tables, an iron stove, and a large
+easy chair, with a small desk beside it, upon which stood a pair of
+candles. There were no curtains and no carpets, absolutely no attempts
+at beautifying the place. But the board-floor was clean.
+
+Olive dressed herself in a flutter of expectation for her first visit to
+this abode of wisdom.
+
+“I expect everybody will be there, because they’ll all want to see you,
+little woman,” said her husband, who, tired as he was after his day’s
+work, changed his earth-stained clothes for a fresh suit. Olive wore a
+white dress with lavender ribbons, and looked as fresh as a daisy as she
+tripped along daintily holding up her skirts. She wore the nattiest of
+boots over the neatest of feet, altogether a bright and unexpected sight
+upon the glum-looking prairie. It was a quarter of a mile to the
+Academy, down a road hardly more than a cart-track, and across a dry
+gully where there were no stepping stones.
+
+As Ezra had predicted, everybody had turned out to welcome the new
+bride. Uncle David met her at the door.
+
+“Wal, little girl,” he said, “we’re all a-looking out for you. Here’s
+Sister Mary Winkle, you’ve seen her, and this is her husband, Brother
+Wright.”
+
+Olive shook hands with a dark, broad-shouldered man who spoke in snaps
+as if he had been a dog. He had glittering white teeth.
+
+“We’ve been looking to have your husband back,” he said.
+
+“I’m sure you’re very kind,” murmured Olive conventionally.
+
+“We needed him for the ploughing,” snapped Wright.
+
+“Oh indeed!” said Olive less cordially.
+
+“This is the busy time of the year.”
+
+“All times a-year is the busy time in my ’pinion and ’sperience,” said
+Uncle David smiling comprehensively, “but most everyone spares time one
+way or ’nother to get married if they have a mind that way. Come along
+an’ see Brother and Sister Dummy. That ain’t their name, but we call ’em
+so, they’re deaf and mostly dumb now. They’re real good folks too.”
+
+A sad-eyed red-haired man shook hands with her, and a sad-eyed woman
+kissed her. They put into her hand a slip of paper on which was written
+a message of welcome.
+
+“They can talk a little, but they can’t hear one mite, and they don’t
+like to talk, because they can’t tell when they are whispering and when
+they are yelling, and it makes strangers jump to hear them sometimes.”
+
+Olive felt drawn towards this poor silent pair, but did not know how to
+express her sympathy. There were others in the room, but before she had
+time to speak to them the door opened and Madame Morozoff-Smith entered,
+and from that moment she seemed to see no one else. Madame was a
+remarkable looking woman. She was tall, large and fair, with keen grey
+eyes, full red lips, and a mass of pale gold hair rising over a forehead
+that was broad and smooth. A woman of indeterminate age with an air of
+youthfulness and command about her. She was dressed in a dark dress and
+wore a bright bunch of ribbons in her hair. It looked at first sight
+like a rose, only roses don’t grow on the prairie in the month of May.
+She came straight to where Olive was standing. She gave one the
+impression of floating, for although a large woman, she walked so
+lightly as to make no noticeable sound on the wooden floor. Taking
+Olive’s two hands in her warm large grasp, she kissed her on the
+forehead murmuring “Welcome,” and then stepping back she said in a clear
+voice that vibrated through the room:
+
+“Ah! now I understand that hurried courtship and swift marriage. I see
+what it was in Brother Ezra’s case. It was love at first sight. You are
+very pretty. I suppose, however, you know that very well. It is a secret
+seldom kept from young girls.”
+
+Olive was so startled by this unexpected address that she blushed to the
+roots of her black hair. Ezra stood looking down at his little wife
+smiling with pleasure. He was delighted to think that Madame found her
+so pretty. He had indeed thought her beautiful from the first moment
+when his eyes had rested on her, but then he loved her, and it was but
+natural that in his eyes she should be lovely. Madame, however, judged
+her unprejudiced, and yet if his delighted heart had room for one
+regret, it was that Madame’s praise had been so very public. If she had
+only whispered it softly to him in that wonderful voice of hers, which
+had often caught up his inmost thoughts and clothed them in words of
+eloquence, how much more precious would the tribute have been. He
+dismissed the half-formed regret as unworthy, and took himself to task
+for not exulting at this moment. The meeting of Madame and Olive was an
+event in his life. Olive, his sweet little rose-bud of a wife, on the
+one hand, and Madame, his venerated, nay his worshipped, friend, on the
+other. The one, the companion of his heart: the other, the guide of his
+mind who embodied in herself all that he held highest in the
+possibilities of womanhood, his true and noble-hearted friend, his
+inspired leader. How blest was the portion of him who stood that night
+the husband of the one, the disciple of the other! Ezra’s dark eyes
+shone with joy, and his square chin quivered with the smiles that lurked
+about his lips. He was not a handsome man, perhaps, but there was
+something grand in the large full forehead, strong eyebrows, and deep
+dark eyes. His massive frame bespoke strength, which in itself has
+always a great attraction for women.
+
+When Madame had addressed those words to the new sister all the members
+of the Community had scanned her narrowly, for the opinion of their
+leader had immense weight with the Pioneers. The men looked at Olive
+with increased admiration, and the women with envy. Only Uncle David
+appeared disappointed and wiped his face many times with his red
+pocket-handkerchief saying, “Wal, wal, now,” in a tone of earnest
+reproof.
+
+After this bewildering introduction in which her vanity had been not a
+little excited, Olive received a salutary check from the words of
+Brother Wright.
+
+“Before beginning to read my paper,” said he, “I should like to say a
+few words to the new sister who has come among us. We expect soon to be
+having new members join us so fast that perhaps we shall not be able to
+specially mark the entrance of each. But in this case there are peculiar
+reasons for exhortation. Sister Olive has not joined under ordinary
+circumstances. She did not, like the rest of us, feel a call to the
+higher life: she only came out of personal affection for one of the
+members of the Community.”
+
+Olive looked with a shy glance towards her husband, who took her hand in
+his for a moment, while Uncle David, who sat at the end of the room near
+Madame, said in a loud voice:
+
+“Quite right, quite right, couldn’t ha’ had a better reason.”
+
+“Therefore it becomes our duty to impress upon our new sister the
+principles which have been active in forming this Community,” said
+Brother Wright, without paying any heed to Uncle David’s interruption.
+“Perfection City has been founded to teach the world how to live. The
+old civilization has been tried and found wanting. It is time for a new
+one. Perfection City is the beginning of a new era. We are the Pioneers
+of a new world. We shall show the old and worn-out world how to banish
+evil from life. We cannot perhaps banish all physical evil, and for a
+time at least there may be sickness even among us, but we shall at once
+set about freeing ourselves from all the other troubles of life. There
+is nobody in Perfection City who will get rich, and nobody will ever be
+poor. We are all alike, and we shall none of us envy our neighbours his
+belongings, simply because everything belongs to all. The lesson we have
+to teach is the grandest the world ever saw, and when men know what it
+is, I foresee a future before Perfection City greater than that of any
+other city of the world. Rome lasted a good long while, but Rome didn’t
+possess the vital spark of life: Rome wasn’t communistic, therefore Rome
+fell. Perfection City won’t fall like that, but will go on teaching the
+world after we, its founders, are all dead. But our memories will live
+for the great things that we taught and through our example have made
+possible.”
+
+Brother Wright stopped for a few seconds, and Uncle David said
+admiringly,
+
+“You have a fine command of words, Brother Wright, and you have a way of
+making things sound uncommon grand. It always does me good to hear you
+talk of the grand future of our City; but we’ll have to get up some
+houses, and bigger ones, ’fore folks ’ull believe us.”
+
+Uncle David was as simple as a child, or some of his hearers might have
+suspected a sarcasm in his words.
+
+“Rome wasn’t built in a day, as I’ve heard say,” remarked Brother Green,
+with a strong English accent, “and I shall be glad if our little village
+ever grows to half its power and honour.”
+
+“Brother Green, I should refuse to have anything to say to the founding
+of another city like Rome,” interrupted Brother Wright with
+decisiveness.
+
+“It seems to me,” said Ezra in a shy hesitating manner, “that what we
+are here for is to demonstrate, if we can, how a better life can be
+lived here than is possible in the older communities, where
+circumstances are too strong and too hampering for people to rise above
+them. The older civilization has done much, it has raised our race to a
+high standard. What we want to do is to carry on that work, and above
+all to bring everyone within reach of the best that life has to offer.
+The older civilization has left so many stranded ones, who have lost
+their strength in the wild struggle; while we hope to bring all along
+equally and give to each a share of happiness. As usual, my friends,
+when I try to express my ideas I find that someone else has already put
+them into incomparably finer language than I can ever command. It has
+been so again. I find that our great poet, Walt Whitman, has said better
+than I can what I feel. May I quote him to you?
+
+                 ‘Have the elder races halted?
+ Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
+ We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
+                 Pioneers! O pioneers!’”
+
+Ezra sat down after reciting his verse, and his wife looked at him with
+glowing eyes. He had not said much, but his words had seemed to her so
+much fuller of thought and feeling than the easy monotonous flow from
+Brother Wright. That individual himself had not received Ezra’s remarks
+with quite so much delight. It was Brother Wright’s nature to see fight
+and contradiction in all things, even the most pacific. His eyes would
+flash and his black beard bristle in argument, almost as if he were a
+dog preparing to fight, and if one might be permitted to liken any
+Pioneer to one of the canine species, the bull-dog would undoubtedly be
+the variety most nearly resembling Brother Wright.
+
+“I don’t see that we need be beholden to anyone, poet or otherwise,” he
+said sharply, “for our opinions or sentiments. We have found them for
+ourselves, just as we have founded our City. It is our work, both
+opinions and practice.”
+
+“I think,” said Madame, rising and speaking with a deep clear voice,
+which a slight foreign accent seemed to render only the more attractive,
+“I think I see better than they do themselves where our two brothers
+agree. Brother Ezra, with that diffidence which strong natures often
+exhibit, thought he found in the lines of another man his own ideas more
+succinctly embodied than they would have been in his own words. Brother
+Ezra should not doubt his powers. Speech comes slowly to those who most
+deeply think, but he should consider how much we benefit by his words
+and how grateful we are to him for them. Brother Wright, it seems to me
+that you, perhaps, do not sufficiently appreciate the efforts of others
+who have gone before us on this road. We are not the first who have been
+discontented with the actual order of things, nor are we the first who
+have striven to make life brighter and easier. In all ages there have
+been those penetrated with these thoughts, and in different ways men,
+and women too, have striven earnestly, devotedly, to realize these
+ideas. Some indeed have imagined they had found a solution of all doubts
+and difficulties, and have in perfect good faith and self-satisfaction
+buried themselves in convents and monasteries and have ‘roll’d the psalm
+to wintry skies,’ and have ‘built them fanes of fruitless prayer.’ We
+have come to different conclusions by following a different road. We do
+not shut ourselves out of the world, rather we endeavour to raise it by
+showing a living example of what may be done now, in this age, by human
+beings such as we are. But if we are to succeed we must not reject the
+experience, nor fail to profit by the example, of others who have gone
+before us and felt earnestly on this subject.”
+
+Madame paused for a moment, and her keen glance rested upon the small
+assembly. Each individual seemed to feel that she was looking at him or
+at her. Certainly each member was looking intently at her. She seldom
+made speeches to them; she only interposed her observations, as on this
+occasion, between the speakers; but the last word usually remained with
+her.
+
+“Brother Wright, will you now read us your paper, as the evening is
+passing and we are all anxious to hear it. What is the title and
+subject?”
+
+“The Ultimate Perfection of Being is the title,” said Brother Wright,
+“and I think that pretty well sums up the subject also.”
+
+So apparently thought the audience, which resigned itself to a severe
+mental excursion into the unknown regions of Brother Wright’s
+imaginative metaphysics. Some of them fell out very soon, finding the
+road harder to follow than they had foreseen; but Brother Wright kept
+sturdily on, unheeding the signs of weakness and disaffection as
+betrayed by movings of feet and stifled yawns.
+
+Olive, not being able to understand what Brother Wright was saying,
+employed herself in watching Madame, who sat motionless beside her
+table, resting her head upon her supple white hand. At her feet lay what
+seemed to be a large brown rug, but was in fact her dog Balthasar, a
+blood-hound, who always stayed with her and was as gentle as a lamb,
+notwithstanding his name and breed.
+
+“Brother Green! That’s the second time you’ve snored,” suddenly
+exclaimed Brother Wright in the midst of his reading. Everybody was wide
+awake in an instant. Madame hid a smile with her hand, but not before
+Olive had noticed it.
+
+“Brother Green is perhaps tired. His work is very hard,” said Madame.
+
+“Well, the fact is I had to put a new point to the ploughshare this
+morning before I went to fetch my load of iron, and I began work before
+daybreak. I am very tired.”
+
+Brother Green was the blacksmith of Perfection City, an industrious
+hard-working man who thought life would show him a fairer side on the
+prairie than it had ever done in the far-away village in Sussex where he
+was born.
+
+“I think that it might be better to have our gatherings rather shorter
+now,” said Madame softly. “The workers in our little hive are all tired.
+I wish I could do more of the labour that is needed. I would gladly——”
+
+Madame was interrupted by a sharp rap on the table, a signal from
+Brother Huntley that he wanted to speak. He was the deaf and dumb man.
+She instantly rose and bowed to him with singular graciousness. Madame’s
+manner towards the deaf brethren was all that was exquisite. Huntley
+stood up and began in a voice almost inaudible which rose by sudden
+degrees to the intensity of a steam-whistle.
+
+“I want to know when we’re going to get our corn planted? We’re
+behindhand; most other folk’s corn is in already.”
+
+“As usual, Brother Huntley has something practical to say,” observed
+Madame.
+
+“He didn’t know we were discussing quite another subject, else his
+remark would have been rude and irrelevant,” said Wright, vexed at this
+cutting into his paper on the ultimate perfection of his and everybody’s
+being.
+
+“I think it would be very useful to see what we can do about the corn,”
+said the blacksmith. “If we are late the chances are there’ll be another
+drought in July, and our crop won’t be first-class.”
+
+“Is anyone’s land ready for planting?” inquired Madame.
+
+“None as I know of, except Brother Dummy’s,” said Uncle David. “He’s
+more forward nor anybody: always first in work.”
+
+“Of course, poor deaf creature! he can’t do anything but dumbly work
+like a——” began Brother Wright.
+
+“My land is ready for planting,” burst in Brother Huntley with a scream.
+
+“Then it shall be planted to-morrow,” cried Madame. “I’ll go myself.”
+
+“You!” exclaimed Olive.
+
+“Certainly, child. Don’t you think I can work as well as any other
+woman?”
+
+She rapidly wrote a few words on a slip of paper and passed it to
+Brother Huntley, who read it, nodded with satisfaction, and said: “Five
+o’clock in the morning!” in a voice so low that no one knew he was
+speaking.
+
+“I suppose he begins work about six?” said Madame.
+
+“No, he don’t, he’s mighty spry,” said old Mrs. Ruby, who lived near the
+Huntleys. “I hear him a-movin’ off with his plough every morning at five
+by the clock. He’s terrible sot on his work.”
+
+“Then I shall be there ready to go to work at five o’clock in the
+morning, and I shall begin by going to bed now, so as to be able to give
+a good day’s work. Good-night, friends all.”
+
+She rose, included them all in a sweeping salute and left the room as
+lightly as she had entered. Balthasar rose and slowly followed her.
+
+When Madame left the room the meeting broke up. No one felt inclined to
+linger when she was gone. It was from her they drew their interest in
+each other, as well as their belief in themselves and in Perfection
+City. She possessed the secret of influencing people without seeming to
+do so. The thought that she was going out on the land at five in the
+morning to plant corn made everyone ten times more eager to work than
+heretofore.
+
+Wright and his independent spouse, Mary Winkle, were infected by her
+example as they went home.
+
+“Now, Wright, don’t you go and do any more essaying till the crop is in.
+I think people oughtn’t to write except in winter time,” said Mary
+Winkle with firmness.
+
+“I never believed in nothing but manual work. Why, if I did, I should be
+still slaving away on that farm out in Illinois, instead of joining a
+community here where one can follow the bent of his higher nature, to
+the advantage of his neighbours as well as of himself,” said Wright.
+
+“Well, let that be,” said Mary hastily, recognising her own words and
+oft-expressed opinions, but not quite knowing what to do with them—a
+predicament not unexampled among theoretical philosophers, “but see and
+be out on the land to-morrow as early as anyone. Are you ready for the
+planting? Because I’ll go out and plant if you are.”
+
+“No, my drills won’t be ready for the planting till day after
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Then I’ll go and plant on Brother Dummy’s piece along with Madame.”
+
+“You’d better not. You’re not fit for such work. You’ll get sick and not
+be able to cook me any supper when I come home.”
+
+“No, I shan’t get sick. I ain’t going to let any person beat me at work,
+when I set my mind to it, and she in her long skirts too! I’ll show her
+the advantage of the reformed dress anyhow.”
+
+Thus the Wright and Winkle pair on their way home.
+
+“And will she really plant corn?” asked Olive in some curiosity.
+
+“Certainly she will. Madame never despised work.”
+
+“Oh! I don’t despise work, but she seems such a fine lady to go out on
+the land and plant corn just like a negro woman.”
+
+“That is one of the things our life here is intended to show, dearie,
+that no one is too grand for any honest work that he or she is
+physically capable of performing.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+                             CORN PLANTING.
+
+
+Punctual to the minute, there was Madame with her bag of corn on her
+left arm, following Brother Huntley and his plough-horses to the field,
+in the damp white fog of sunrise. Balthasar in deep disgust was there
+too, as in duty bound, but he had not a wag for anybody. How could a
+rational dog be in good spirits at that hour of the morning! Madame was
+dressed in a short calico frock well up to her ankles. Her fair hair was
+loosely wisped at the back of her head, and a large straw hat, tied down
+with a green gauze veil, made her look at once comfortable in the fog
+and ready for the expected sunshine. There were no corn-planters at
+Perfection City: farm-machinery was not then so plentiful on the prairie
+as now, and money was if possible scarcer. Corn planting was, therefore,
+done by hand. Brother Dummy’s drills of longitude were already ploughed,
+and he began on the drills of latitude forthwith. Into the hollows made
+by the intersection of these two sets of drills Madame was to drop three
+grains of corn, neither more nor less. It is dizzying work. After
+walking up and down the drills for hours one becomes oppressed by the
+never-ceasing square constantly recurring every two steps. The check
+pattern bewilders you, and you begin to wonder how a chess-man would
+feel if, endowed with sensibility and the power of motion, he had to
+march up and down his chess-board, always keeping to the lines for hours
+at a stretch.
+
+About seven o’clock Mary Winkle came upon the scene and plodded and
+planted for four hours. The sun was blazing down upon them pitilessly,
+and the parching south wind blew the fine black dust up from the rich
+dry soil, until their eyes and ears and noses were full of it.
+
+The field which they were planting was on the extreme verge of the
+community-land, far away from the houses. These were somewhat clustered
+towards the centre of the holding, which consisted of two sections or a
+little over twelve hundred acres. The workers, therefore, were a long
+way from home, considerably over a mile, and since corn planting entails
+ceaseless walking through heavy ploughed land, it had been settled that
+their dinner should be brought out to them, so as to enable the workers
+to rest during the whole dinner hour. Olive and Mrs. Ruby were to supply
+the necessary food, and the former, aided by Napoleon Pompey, was to
+bring it to the field at eleven o’clock. The little grove of locust
+trees just beginning to grow beside the far spring was the trysting
+place. Water would thus be handy, and the horses’ feed was already put
+there by the provident Brother Huntley. A little before the hour Olive
+and her black attendant arrived at the grove, bringing their load of
+food, and Olive set down her big tin can with a sigh of relief. Her arms
+ached with carrying it, for it was heavy and the way was long. Napoleon
+Pompey had carried two cans, each heavier than hers, but the lad seemed
+to feel no inconvenience from the load. Olive looked at him with envy
+and thought with contempt of her own muscles which appeared so
+inefficient. As she unpacked the food, it seemed to her that nothing she
+had learnt at Smyrna and could best do, was wanted on the prairie, and
+she remembered with some amusement and not a little bitterness Mary
+Winkle’s words about food for the mind. At this moment she reflected
+that all the learning in the world was not so much needed by that
+philosophical lady as the very gross and material food which was being
+taken out of the heavy tin cans and laid on the grass. The
+working-party, men, women and horses, arrived while Olive was thus
+engaged. Mary Winkle instantly sat down and leaned against a tree and
+threw off her sunbonnet. Her thin black hair was matted down to her
+temples, her cheeks were yellow, and her eyes looked dull. Madame also
+took off her hat and veil and shook up the coil of hair on her head with
+a sigh of relief.
+
+“Does your head ache too?” said Mary Winkle wearily.
+
+“Not in the least,” replied Madame. “A sunbonnet is a bad shelter
+against heat. You should wear a good hat, it is far better.”
+
+“I wonder how you can bear all that hair on your head. Why don’t you cut
+it off?”
+
+“Why, it is an admirable protection against both heat and cold,” said
+Madame laughing. “It is my greatest comfort.” She might have added her
+greatest beauty.
+
+The food which Olive brought was most appetising, roast chicken, hot
+corn-bread, and pumpkin pies, with plenty of milk and water to drink.
+Before eating Madame went to the spring to wash her hands and face, and
+Mary Winkle sat limply against the tree trunk with her eyes shut.
+
+“Eat something, it will revive you,” said Olive, looking with pity upon
+her sallow cheeks.
+
+“I don’t feel hardly able to eat,” she said in a weak voice. “It seems
+to me I don’t ever want to open my eyes again.”
+
+“You are overworking yourself,” said Olive, “you should not attempt this
+field work: it is beyond your strength.”
+
+“What! and let her see me give in?” said Mary Winkle with reviving
+spirit.
+
+Madame came up at this moment looking as fresh as a lily: she glanced
+sharply at Sister Mary. “You appear very much exhausted,” she remarked.
+
+Sister Mary raised her head and opened her eyes, but did not speak.
+
+“It’s a pity you don’t take wine,” she continued, sitting down and
+beginning on her piece of chicken with relish. “A good glass of Burgundy
+would set you up in no time.”
+
+Sister Mary herself sat up at this.
+
+“I wouldn’t touch wine, no, not if I was dying,” she said resolutely.
+
+Madame smiled. “I didn’t recommend it because you were dying: wine as
+everything else is then useless: but because you look weak. I suggested
+a medicine.”
+
+“As a medicine it is worse than useless, and as a drink I scorn to take
+a rank poison.”
+
+“Poisons are sometimes given as medicine, witness strychnine in small
+doses for certain forms of dyspepsia, and I believe satisfactorily,”
+said Madame.
+
+“Wine is worse than strychnine, because more insidious in its action and
+more liable to abuse,” said Mary Winkle decisively, as she took the tin
+cup of milk and water handed her by Olive, and drank it with eagerness.
+
+“Well, at all events admit that wine has been of benefit to you on this
+occasion,” observed Madame smiling. “I merely mentioned it to you, and
+you look already revived and more like yourself. Doesn’t she, Sister
+Olive?”
+
+“It was the milk and water did it,” said Sister Mary Winkle hurriedly,
+at which Madame smiled again.
+
+Brother Dummy and Napoleon Pompey now came up to the group of women.
+They had been watering and unharnessing the horses who were at the
+present moment munching their corn. The white man, although dirty as a
+ploughman would be after half a day’s hard work, sat down promptly
+beside Mary Winkle and helped himself to a leg of chicken: the negro boy
+stood aside doubtfully, eyeing the group and the food with longing
+looks.
+
+“Come along, N. P.,” said Olive brightly, “sit down there.” She pointed
+to a place on the other side of Mary Winkle, where there seemed a good
+opening in front of a huge piece of corn-bread.
+
+“No, if you please,” said Sister Mary, rising to her feet with
+resentment.
+
+“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Olive flushing with surprise. “Napoleon
+Pompey won’t bite you.”
+
+“I have never sat down to eat beside a negro, and I don’t feel inclined
+to begin now.”
+
+“Let the lad sit beside me,” said Madame gently. “I have seen people of
+too many shades of colour and no colour to mind a little extra dash of
+black. Come here, boy, come and have this piece of bread and meat.”
+
+Napoleon Pompey grinning with all his white teeth sprang to the place
+beside Madame, and buried those same teeth eagerly in his chunk of
+bread. Mary Winkle sat down again and leaned against the tree. Olive’s
+face took a deeper tinge of red and her eyes snapped.
+
+“Do you consider yourself made of such fine clay that it won’t bear
+contact with a negro?” she asked hotly. “It seems to me a little of what
+used to be called Christian charity might come in useful here. I never
+aspired to the heights of Perfection City people, but I never refused
+the rights of brotherhood to the negro simply because of the curl of his
+hair or the colour of his skin.”
+
+“I am quite willing to give them all their rights and will be glad to
+see them educated and all that, but I never sat at dinner with a negro,
+and I am not going to begin now,” said Mary Winkle setting her thin pale
+lips with the utmost stubbornness.
+
+“Well, I call it perfectly monstrous,” retorted Olive, “and you setting
+yourself up to show the better life and all the rest of it! I should
+have thought the first thing to do before teaching the highest
+perfection was to practise the simplest justice.”
+
+“And you, Sister Olive,” said Madame’s cool sweet voice, “will have to
+learn to respect the prejudices of other people even when they run
+counter to your most cherished theories. I do not myself share the
+feeling of repulsion that Sister Mary has in this case, but I respect
+it. I would suggest to you to do the same. It is an inconvenient fact,
+perhaps, that people do not all think alike, but it is one that must be
+resolutely faced nevertheless.”
+
+Olive was silent under this reproof, but she looked angrily at Mary
+Winkle from time to time, and revenged herself by feeding up Napoleon
+Pompey and petting him to an alarming extent, much to the delight of
+that young darkie who ate until he seemed to ooze out unctuous joy.
+
+Brother Dummy ate, as he worked, silently, conscientiously,
+continuously. Olive was amazed at the amount he seemed able to consume,
+while of milk and water he drank half a gallon or thereabouts.
+
+“How can he do it?” said Olive in astonishment.
+
+“You forget,” replied Madame, “that he has been following that plough
+for six long hours, and the dry wind raised such a dust around him that
+he must have swallowed a vast quantity of it in the course of the day.
+It takes a good deal to slake the thirst after such a dust visitation as
+that.”
+
+When Brother Dummy had eaten and drunk his fill he lay down on the grass
+and went instantly to sleep. The three women looked at him for a moment
+or two.
+
+“He seems to have very little enjoyment in his life,” said Olive
+compassionately.
+
+“But then he has also few sorrows,” said Madame. “The high lights are
+wanting, perhaps, but so are the dark shadows. His life is like a grey
+landscape. It has a beauty of its own, but not everyone can see it.”
+
+“To live in eternal silence seems to me the most awful curse,” said
+Olive.
+
+“I can imagine many a worse one,” replied Madame, looking out from among
+the few bare trees away across the open prairie.
+
+“What could be worse?”
+
+“Well, for example, to know that someone you loved did not love you. To
+have to shut up your heart within iron doors, and never open them to let
+it out. That would be worse than to be denied the power of speech, which
+after all can now be supplemented in many ways by artificial means.
+Brother Huntley is not actively unhappy, I should judge. He and his wife
+have always appeared to me to be a very united couple.”
+
+“They cannot quarrel, at all events,” said Olive.
+
+“No, not, at least, in the ordinary way,” replied Madame.
+
+When Brother Dummy awoke after his little snooze, he got up, looked at
+the sun to see what time of day it was, and then signed to Napoleon
+Pompey to rouse up. That young person was lethargic, owing to his
+anaconda-like meal, accordingly Brother Dummy roused him with his foot.
+The darkie rolled over and said “Yah!” and started for the horses, who
+were nodding over their corn-cobs, now nibbled down to the smallest
+dimensions. Olive, whose resentment at the slight put upon Napoleon
+Pompey by Mary Winkle urged her to identify herself with the negro boy,
+walked away with him and Brother Dummy to watch the hitching up. Madame
+employed herself in throwing scraps of bread to Balthasar, who would
+have much preferred eating the chicken bones, only that was a debauch
+not permitted to a dog of his manners. Mary Winkle looked hopelessly
+along those weary furrows, up and down which it would be her duty to
+march again, dropping her seeds of corn as before.
+
+“Are you going to work all the afternoon?” she asked of her companion.
+
+“Yes, I think so. We shall get this field planted and covered in by
+sun-down, I should think. And that will be a great piece of work done.
+We cannot afford to let the individualists beat us at corn planting, can
+we? We must do at least as well as they, and I should hope we might do
+better.”
+
+“I don’t know how you can stand so much heat and hard work,” said Mary,
+“and in that dress too. Why, if I were to attempt to work in long skirts
+I should be dead in a week.”
+
+“I don’t mind my dress at all,” said Madame. “It never bothers me. I
+don’t think about it.”
+
+“But don’t you think about it when your back aches?”
+
+“It never does.”
+
+“I don’t understand it,” says Mary once more.
+
+“I suspect that the reason you American women find your dress such a
+burden is because you are so weak yourselves,” said Madame.
+
+“American women accomplish as much or more than any others, I should
+say,” observed Mary.
+
+“Precisely, but not from their muscular strength. They work out of their
+nerves, and that is why they never last any length of time.”
+
+Madame finished her day’s work at six o’clock, and then walked home
+humming a German dance tune to herself. Mary Winkle stopped at four
+o’clock, and dragged herself home to bed with a fearsome headache, still
+puzzling how it was that her perfect dress had not done better for her
+in that day’s trial. She did not know that all her scientific dressing
+was as nothing compared with the robust vitality, which Madame brought
+with her from another land, and which, running in such vigorous beats
+through her blood, was inherited from generations of strong healthy
+ancestors. Madame’s father was a Russian colonel noted for his size and
+strength and also for his wildness. Her mother was a pretty English
+girl, who had nothing to bequeath to her daughter but health, personal
+beauty, and this piece of advice: “Never stake your happiness on any
+man, it always brings disaster to the woman.” Mary Winkle’s mother, on
+the other hand, was a nervous invalid at thirty, and her father was a
+dyspeptic dietetic reformer, who pinned his salvation on never eating
+salt. Small wonder, therefore, that the daughter of the one pair should
+be able to plant corn all day long and walk lightly home at evening,
+while the offspring of the other pair could do only three quarters of a
+day’s work, after which headache and nervous exhaustion.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+                            NON-RESISTANCE.
+
+
+It was the custom of the Pioneers to send once a week to Union Mills in
+order to do their necessary marketing and to get the post, which came
+there twice a week from Kansas City by stage-coach. The subject of the
+post was one that had been rather hotly debated at Perfection City,
+although to the outsider it would seem a very harmless topic, and not
+fruitful of division. The fact was, however, that there was only one
+member of the Community who showed any eagerness about getting letters
+regularly and often, and that member was Madame. She indeed did receive
+a most unconscionable number of letters and periodicals, so the other
+members thought. She got several American Magazines, such as the
+Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s, but she also received English papers, and
+French ones, and occasionally German ones as well. The Community
+thought, but did not dare to give public expression to the thought, that
+Madame should have rested content with the mental sustenance provided by
+themselves for home consumption. Brother Wright in particular felt
+himself equal to the task of providing everybody with all they needed in
+the way of correct views upon even the highest subjects. But Madame,
+although she listened with politeness and apparent attention to what he
+had to say, found this sustenance too meagre for the wants of her
+nature. Moreover she took a deep interest in the affairs of the outside
+world, an interest almost offensive to persons who prided themselves
+upon having risen above the world and all its concerns. It was really
+humiliating to think that the leading spirit of their Community should
+occupy her mind with the relations between Prussia and Austria, when
+such questions as affected the future of humanity and of Perfection City
+were what filled their souls. She even evinced a keen interest in the
+career and personality of the Prussian minister, Bismarck, and that,
+too, when Brother Wright was willing to give her the light of his
+thoughts upon all really important questions. It was painful to the
+feeling of the Pioneers, who were all in all to themselves and wished to
+be so to others, but they had to put up with it, since Madame was their
+leader and, moreover, the only one who had a purse with some money in
+it. Ezra was the only member of the Community who sided with Madame in
+her taste for reading the new books and the latest periodicals. He and
+she had that taste, with many others, in common, and it drew them
+together in an especial degree. On his last trip East during the winter,
+when he had been so unexpectedly delayed, as they now knew, by meeting
+with his fate in the shape of Olive, one of his commissions had been to
+bring back a box of books, which were now arranged in neat shelves in
+Madame’s private sitting-room. And yet notwithstanding all these books,
+a hundred or more, the steady stream of papers, periodicals, and
+magazines continued as before, and had to be fetched regularly from
+Union Mills.
+
+The brethren took it in turns to go to the town, which was some ten
+miles distant, and they always combined some useful business with the
+fetching of the letters. Brother Wright was a frequent messenger, for he
+liked going better than Ezra did, while of course Brother Dummy was
+precluded by his affliction from going, and Brother Carpenter was
+hopelessly unable to drive horses. Some of the women generally contrived
+to find an excuse for going to Union Mills, for women like to get away
+from the petty cares of house and home, a peculiarity from which the
+sisters of Perfection City were by no means exempt. In particular Mrs.
+Ruby, invariably called Aunt Ruby, loved to go. She thus got a chance of
+seeing new faces and talking with new people. She would not for worlds
+have confessed that she was tired of the restricted society of
+Perfection City, but she knew so well what each had to say, that it was
+refreshing to go out sometimes into the world and meet people whose
+ideas could not always be guessed beforehand.
+
+It so happened that the day after the corn planting it became necessary
+to go to Union Mills in order to take a grist of corn to be ground.
+Madame suggested that Brother Wright should go, while Brother Dummy took
+up his plough-handles and finished the field the former was preparing
+for the corn. Mary Winkle, still prostrated by the previous day’s hard
+work, urged her spouse to go, “For then,” said she, “if you ain’t here I
+needn’t get any dinner. I’ll just send Willette over to Sister Olive’s
+for dinner, and I needn’t stir till milking time.” This seemed a happy
+arrangement, and her husband set off shortly after breakfast, picking up
+Aunt Ruby as he passed her cottage.
+
+“Be you lonesome living in that house by yourself?” asked Brother Wright
+as they jogged along over the prairie, for it had struck him as very
+lonely that morning as he drove up.
+
+“No, no, I ain’t lonely, least not most whiles,” answered Aunt Ruby, an
+alert little old woman, not unlike a bird in her quick movements. “In
+the summer-time there’s allus the chickens to see to an’ feed an’ ten’,
+an’ chickens is powerful spry an’ talkin’ birds. They most allus has
+somethin’ to scold an’ chatter ’bout, chickens an’ hens has, an’ cocks.
+Then in the winter I hev the clock tickin’ loud o’ evenin’s, an’ that’s
+most as good as a pusson in the room, an’ there’s allus the cat, an’
+mostly the kettle singin’ on the stove. Come to think on’t, there’s a
+heap o’ company in a house like mine, if you on’y has ears to hear an’
+un’erstan’ what is said by beasts an’ things.”
+
+Yet notwithstanding this “heap o’ company” Aunt Ruby dearly loved a good
+gossip with the saddler’s wife at Union Mills, whenever that luxury was
+attainable. On the present occasion Aunt Ruby had a real good time, for
+Brother Wright was delayed longer than usual, first in order to get some
+harness mended, and afterwards to have a shoe replaced that suddenly
+showed signs of coming off one of the horses. Thus it was very near
+sun-down before they left Union Mills. Aunt Ruby, owing in large measure
+to her gossip, and also partly to an exceptionally strong cup of tea,
+was in a highly nervous and excitable frame of mind.
+
+Had Brother Wright, she asked, heard of that rumour about the Cherokees?
+And did he think there was any danger of their leaving their Reservation
+and going on the war-path? Brother Wright, who had a poor opinion of
+Indians, and a worse one of the way in which the white men had treated
+them, thought on the whole that the rumour might be considered false.
+This comforted Aunt Ruby, to whom the word “Injun” suggested torture and
+death and all sorts of horrors. She remained comforted until she
+remembered that other rumour—about the raid of border ruffians from out
+of Missouri. Brother Wright thought it highly probable that this rumour
+might prove to be true. Missouri men had raided Kansas more than once,
+and it was possible they might do so again at any moment. With
+conversation such as this they came to the end of the daylight and the
+beginning of the trees around Cotton Wood Creek about the same time.
+
+“I shall be glad when we are safe over this ford and out of the dark
+wood beyond,” said Brother Wright, trying to urge his horses along, but
+he had a heavy load of timber and coal and some iron bars for
+smith-work.
+
+“Ain’t it near here that those people over beyond Jacksonville got
+robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby, nervously peering about in the gloom with her
+weak old eyes. At this moment some distant creature made a shrill scream
+or howl.
+
+“Oh! what was that,” exclaimed Aunt Ruby nervously.
+
+“That was a prairie wolf, I guess,” answered Brother Wright quietly.
+
+Silence followed, except for the creaking of the waggon, the straining
+of the horses at their traces, and an occasional clang made by one of
+the bars of iron which was not sufficiently wedged up with hay.
+
+“If those Missouri border ruffians came to Perfection City, do you
+reckon our principles would save us from being robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby.
+“Most everybody knows as we are non-resistants.”
+
+“I don’t think our principles would stand in the way of a Missouri man.
+More likely they would take advantage of them. They are mean cusses, and
+are used to riding rough-shod over principles and rights. It is a
+recognised thing everywhere that women and children are non-resistants,
+yet that does not save ’em from being raided and robbed by border
+ruffians.”
+
+“And you think they would rob us, peaceful folks as ha’n’t no arms nor
+nothin’?” asked Aunt Ruby anxiously.
+
+“I guess they would try,” replied Brother Wright.
+
+“Then I think as we oughter reconsider our principles a mite,” said Aunt
+Ruby. “For if we are robbed and killed by folks as can’t un’erstan’ the
+higher life, we shan’t be able to teach the world nothin’. An’ what’s
+the good o’ principles when you’re dead an’ gone an’ undergroun’?”
+
+“That is so,” assented Brother Wright.
+
+“I didn’t never think on’t in this light afore,” said Aunt Ruby. “It
+’pears to me as how we should meet together an’ try an’ settle some way
+as how we can keep our principles an’ yet live on the prairie.”
+
+“I guess you’ve pretty nearly said the truth,” said Brother Wright.
+
+“What we hev to do is to live here an’ show ’em our principles at work,
+an’ not die straightway afore we’ve done anything to improve mankind.
+That’s my view,” said Aunt Ruby. “What do you think, Brother Wright?”
+
+Instead of answering Brother Wright pulled up short and looked intently
+in front of him.
+
+“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Aunt Ruby in a high-pitched voice of
+alarm.
+
+“Hush!” replied her companion, “don’t make a noise.”
+
+Aunt Ruby’s heart began to beat violently. “Do you see anything?” she
+asked in a whisper.
+
+“I see a man over there by the road, sitting on horseback with his right
+arm out pointing towards the waggon.”
+
+“Oh! brother, I wish you had a carnal weapon of defence,” said Aunt Ruby
+in a shaking voice.
+
+“I have,” replied Brother Wright, pulling an uncommonly useful-looking
+Colt’s revolver from his breeches pocket. “I always carry one in case of
+Injuns.”
+
+Again they sat silent for a moment, the horses shook their heads, and
+one of them stamped a foot.
+
+“Who goes there?” hailed Brother Wright in a loud defiant voice. “Drop
+that right arm of yours or I’ll fire.”
+
+No answer.
+
+The figure sat motionless, the right hand still raised in that menacing
+attitude.
+
+“I am a man of my word,” said Brother Wright, rising to his feet and
+sighting his revolver steadily on the figure, while to Aunt Ruby he
+said, “Hold on tight, the horses will jump.”
+
+A shot rang out on the still night air. The horses nearly jumped out of
+their skins with fright, and would certainly have run away, only the
+waggon was very heavy, and they decided to run in different directions.
+Hence they only jerked each other almost to the ground and then stood
+still amazed and trembling.
+
+“Better make sure,” said Brother Wright, emptying another barrel at the
+figure which appeared to remain motionless in the uncertain foggy light.
+This time the horses came to the same conclusion and tried to turn round
+abruptly, but the attempt was expertly frustrated by Brother Wright and
+a cowhide whip of exceptional stinging power. Having thus reduced the
+horses to reason, he again turned his attention to the figure and saw
+with amazement that it still sat on horseback in the same spot.
+
+“Well, I swan!” said Brother Wright, rubbing his eyes. “That beats all!
+It can’t be a mortal man, or he would have either dropped or returned
+fire. I guess I’ll drive on and do no more shooting this time.”
+
+He stowed his pistol away in his pocket and drove on.
+
+“Hadn’t you better keep the weapon handy?” suggested Aunt Ruby. “You
+might lay it down in my lap, if you like.”
+
+“No, thank’ee,” replied Brother Wright. “I don’t generally give that
+sort of thing to women to hold for me.”
+
+He pulled up at a little opening just near the ford, where the faint
+light of a crescent moon showed between the bare branches of the trees,
+and a sort of water-fog hung along the elder bushes by the banks.
+
+“This is the spot he was standing,” remarked Wright, “the exact spot. I
+guess I’ll just look and see if there is any trail. The ground is soft
+about here and should show up pretty clear.”
+
+He descended from the waggon and carefully examined the side of the
+road, but could see nothing. There was a large stump with a broken
+branch sticking out which attracted his attention, and he walked around
+it a couple of times, surveying it critically in the uncertain light.
+
+“Well, I swan!” he exclaimed, after the third inspection. “I didn’t
+think I could have been mistaken.”
+
+Then he climbed back into the waggon, and said, “Gee-up!”
+
+“Did you fin’ any tracks o’ robbers?” asked his companion anxiously.
+
+“No,” replied Brother Wright, “no tracks of robbers, but I lighted on
+the trail of a doggauned fool. Guess we’ll not say much about the attack
+made on our waggon, at Little Cotton Wood Creek.”
+
+“I won’t mention it at all,” remarked Aunt Ruby, “’cause it might
+frighten the folks up to Perfection City an’ make ’em uneasy ’bout
+coming to Union Mills.”
+
+Brother Wright only chuckled in reply, possibly because his whole
+attention was required at this juncture to get his horses and waggon
+safely through the water, for it was certainly very dark in that
+bottom-land. Once the creek was crossed and the high prairie reached, it
+became easy enough to see by the light of the new moon and the stars,
+and the pair reached Perfection City in safety, although very late.
+
+Brother Wright was very eager to unravel the mystery of that horseman at
+the ford on Little Cotton Wood Creek, so he made a private expedition
+thither on horseback as soon as he could frame an excuse for a morning’s
+absence. He went to the place whence he had first seen the alarming
+stranger, half closed his sharp grey eyes, and looked.
+
+“Well, I swan!” he remarked, as this expression seemed somehow to
+relieve his feelings. By daylight there was nothing suspicious to be
+seen, but the old stump with the broken branch sticking out from it
+straight towards the spectator. Brother Wright surveyed this stump
+critically and came to the conclusion that with the help of darkness, a
+slight mist, a new moon, and a nervous companion, the old stump might
+take on an alarming aspect. He rode up to the stump, got off his horse,
+and examined it.
+
+“I should like to know that I hit him plumb with both bullets anyhow,”
+remarked he, with a grin most unbecoming to a Perfection City
+non-resistant. He had hit “him” plumb, but so had other people, and the
+amazed Brother Wright counted no less than seventeen bullet holes, both
+old and new, in the body of that long suffering stump.
+
+“Well, I be jiggered!” said Brother Wright as he mounted his horse.
+“What a sight of blamed fools there must be in the world!” and with this
+comforting reflection he rode home, and ever after held his peace about
+the episode on the ford of Little Cotton Wood Creek. And so likewise did
+Aunt Ruby, that talkative old lady. But sometimes, when she and Brother
+Wright looked into each other’s eyes, they grinned a little sheepishly,
+showing that the recollection of it had not quite faded from their
+minds.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+                               WILLETTE.
+
+
+Willette, the only child of the Wright and Winkle pair, was a young
+person of considerable character, which had undergone little of the
+attempted modification which we call education. At the time of Olive’s
+arrival at Perfection City this child was about eleven years old, and
+was as wild a specimen of a girl as could be easily found even on the
+prairie. Her mother had endeavoured to clothe her in garments known as
+the “reform-dress,” and had made her a suit of lilac calico, consisting
+of short tunic, and full-gathered trousers of the prescribed pattern.
+Willette had put on these things and had promptly complained of
+“scratchiness” around the neck and arm-holes, owing probably to
+deficiency of skill on the part of her mother in the making of the said
+garments. Shortly afterwards, being called upon to do some
+cattle-hunting, Willette had set out in all the pride of her new clothes
+to ride down some young steers who were proving refractory. The steers
+took shelter in the bottom-land along Little Cotton Wood Creek, and
+skilfully hid themselves in the brushwood there, among the trailing wild
+vines and the spiky wilder plums which formed a very good barrier
+against pursuing man. Willette plunged bravely into the brush, and after
+a fierce struggle returned with one steer and half her dress. The other
+half remained in the brush along with the rest of the steers. Repeated
+onslaughts reduced her almost to nakedness, but she brought home the
+full complement of steers and an abundant assortment of scratches on her
+legs. After that Willette had enough of her mother’s system of dress,
+and accordingly she evolved one of her own.
+
+“I ain’t agoin’ to cattle-hunt in no more o’ your cobwebs, Ma,”
+explained this young person. “I reckon I’ll go a-ridin’ like a boy next
+time.”
+
+Willette appropriated one of her father’s pants made of the material
+known as hickory, which is supposed to resist any tear or strain. The
+current legend attached to real out-and-out hickory is as follows. A
+farmer arrayed in hickory was one day rooting out old stumps from a
+newly-cleared field with a new patent plough. He came to a regular
+stunner which jerked the plough clean out of the land. He backed up,
+took a good hold of the plough-handles, gave a mighty yell to the
+horses, and drove the plough clean through the stump, which split open
+in the middle. The plough and the man passed through, but the stump
+closed up again and caught his hickory trousers. The horses strained at
+the collar, but the man would not let go of the plough, nor would the
+stump relinquish its grasp of the hickory trousers. So he rested his
+horses a spell, took a big breath, and said “Hallelujah!” whereupon the
+horses went forward with a bound and brought plough, man, trousers, and
+stump along with them!
+
+It was a garment of this incomparable material that Willette
+appropriated to her use. She cut off the legs until the length suited
+her stature, regardless of the fit of the waist, clothed the upper part
+of her body in a pink check shirt, put a boy’s cap upon her head, and
+announced her intention of henceforth dressing like that. She was a chip
+off the old block with a vengeance, and Mary Winkle, after one
+affrighted gasp, was obliged to admit that her own principles, as put
+into practice by her daughter, were too much for her. Wright laughed
+immensely, and said she was a boy now and would do first-rate.
+
+Willette was totally uneducated, could not write her name and could
+scarcely read, but she did not lack for intelligence. She knew the hour
+of the day, by looking at the sun, as well as a negro, and she could
+distinguish a horse from a cow at four miles distance. She knew every
+beast for miles around, and to whom it belonged, and could remember for
+a month every cow she had come across on the prairie and which way it
+was heading. She understood the moods and intentions of all kinds of
+animals almost as if she was one of the species herself, and she never
+was at fault on a cattle-trail.
+
+Olive found immense amusement in talking to Willette, who expressed
+herself with the utmost freedom upon all subjects in language which
+would have done credit to a nigger. The child, on the other hand, had a
+supreme contempt for Olive’s abilities and attainments, which seemed
+ludicrously deficient, but felt a kindly patronising sort of regard for
+her, and liked to look at her pretty face and touch her smooth round
+cheeks. The pair were therefore often together, and Willette undertook
+to teach her friend to ride, provided she would get some sensible
+clothes and ride in the only way that Willette imagined it possible for
+a two-legged human being to bestride a quadruped. Olive therefore made
+herself a bewitching riding-habit with Turkish trousers, and rode a
+high-peaked Mexican saddle, out of which even a sack of meal could not
+tumble if it tried. As soon as Olive began to feel confidence in herself
+and her horse, she enjoyed the riding immensely. She claimed the refusal
+of a horse on every possible opportunity when one could be spared from
+the farm work. Ezra, delighted to see her so pleased with a healthy
+exercise, encouraged her to go cattle-hunting with Willette, and enjoyed
+the spirited reports which she used to bring home from these
+exhilarating expeditions.
+
+“I do wish I had a pony of my very own which I could take out whenever I
+wanted a ride, and which would be always there for me,” said Olive one
+day to Ezra after she had been riding by herself on Rebel. Ezra was
+hoeing up the newly sprouted sweet-corn, and the horses were not at work
+on the land. In his inmost heart he re-echoed the wish, and would at
+that moment have given anything to be an individualist and be able to
+say: “Darling, I’ll buy you a pony with the first load of corn I sell.”
+He looked at his pretty wife’s glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and
+thought with a groan that he was tied by his principles and prevented by
+them and the public opinion of the Community from giving his wife this
+enjoyment. It was the first time that his heart had come into conflict
+with the perfect theories of Perfection City, and he was amazed and
+disturbed to find how very much he was vexed by them. Fortunately Olive
+dismissed the idea of a pony of her own as an unattainable bliss, and
+contented herself with chance rides on Rebel and Queen Katherine, the
+two horses which inhabited Ezra’s stable and were generally used by him
+on his side of the community-land.
+
+Olive’s courage and spirit of independence, fostered by a very
+mild-tempered horse, grew apace. She soon felt able to dispense with the
+escort and instruction of Willette and go cattle-hunting alone. She
+learned quickly enough to know the sixty head of cattle belonging to the
+Community, and where to look for them. The cattle, which consisted of
+the usual mixture of milch cows, steers, yearlings, and calves, had been
+bought at different times and were apportioned to the different families
+in rough division, chiefly because each woman liked to have the cows she
+was to milk, driven up to her own fence near to her own house to save
+trouble. The cattle, consequently, seemed to have become intensely
+individualistic in their tendencies, and absolutely refused to graze in
+common. Each bell-cow led off her own herd of steers and yearlings where
+she thought best on the prairie, and it was seldom that any two of those
+“leading ladies” chose to go to the same spot. If they did they
+generally quarrelled and fought a bit. Cattle-hunting, therefore, became
+a sufficiently diversified occupation in which the unexpected frequently
+occurred.
+
+One day it happened that Olive and Diana, now old enough to run with her
+on her expeditions, had been to the head of Little Cotton Wood Creek to
+look for a cow that had hidden away her calf there, after the manner of
+prairie cows. Olive found the truant and the “little stranger,” along
+with half a dozen young cattle, and was driving them slowly homewards,
+when she became convinced from Rebel’s demonstrations that something was
+annoying him under the flap of his saddle. In fact he was constantly
+trying to bite Olive’s leg in a way which agitated her not a little.
+Accordingly she resolved to take off the saddle and make an inspection.
+She dismounted, undid the girths, and lifted off the heavy Mexican
+saddle. Rebel, who had always hitherto regarded this proceeding as
+indicating immediate liberty, no sooner felt the saddle removed than he
+took a base advantage of Olive, and kicking up his heels bounded away
+from her. She set the saddle in the grass and walked pacifically after
+Rebel, held out a deceitful hand and called him endearing names. Rebel
+listened to her honeyed words with his ears flat on his neck, and as
+soon as she came near, again kicked up his heels and bounded off.
+
+Diana considering all this a joke in which a puppy might lend valuable
+assistance, now pranced forward with energetic barks, and the cows and
+calves deeming themselves to be driven with fierceness, set up a
+lumbering trot across the prairie, the new-made mother every now and
+then diving ineffectually after Diana with a plunge and a snort. A
+stampede had set in among the animals, and Olive sat down and cried with
+vexation and alarm. Her home showed clear and distinct against the
+horizon just four miles in a bee-line from where she sat shedding her
+ineffectual tears. Now Diana, although a feminine creature and also a
+puppy, and therefore endowed with a double dose of original foolishness,
+was likewise a dog, and consequently amenable to the highest
+inspirations of a noble nature. Having therefore in her character of
+puppy worried and distracted the animals to her heart’s content, she
+suddenly felt bound to exhibit some of the better sides of her nature,
+among which remains forever pre-eminent fidelity to the master. Seeing
+that Olive was not in the scrimmage, Diana turned her back resolutely
+upon the delights of snapping at calves’ heels, and putting her nose to
+the ground raced straight back to Olive weeping in the grass. After an
+apologetic wriggle Diana sat down and looked at Olive. Now no
+philosopher or other mortal has ever succeeded in being as wise as a
+tired puppy can look. Therefore when Olive in spite of her woe caught
+sight of Diana’s face and attitude, she burst into a laugh in the midst
+of her tears, whereupon the latter sprang merrily up and licked her
+face. Thus comforted, Olive arose, and then became aware that she didn’t
+know where the saddle was. She had neglected to mark its position in any
+way when going on that deceitful embassy to Rebel, but indeed it would
+not have been easy to mark the position of the saddle. The grass was in
+its greatest summer height, and there was neither bush nor tree anywhere
+for miles around. There was not even a hillock or knoll of ground to
+give individuality to one spot more than another, all was the relentless
+rolling prairie—a vast grassy sea where one billow was exactly like a
+hundred others.
+
+Olive was in dismay. Here was a fresh cause for tribulation, for the
+saddle was new and expensive, and moreover it belonged to the Community.
+She would not have minded facing Ezra with a tale of any sort of
+disaster or loss, for she knew he would kiss her and pet her and say,
+“Never mind, darling, don’t grieve, it doesn’t matter two jack-straws.”
+But a community-saddle was quite another matter, and Olive shrank from
+the ordeal of community-anger at the loss of its saddle, and
+community-contempt for her carelessness in unsaddling on the prairie
+without putting the reins over her arm. She perceived now that anyone
+but a fool would have taken that simple precaution against disaster.
+“I’m not fit to live on the prairie,” sobbed Olive to herself. “My
+education is no use to me, and I have not got the wits of that boy-girl
+Willette. Diana, you idiot, why don’t you help me?”
+
+This reproach was addressed to the puppy, who was wallowing blissfully
+in the grass and thus refreshing herself after her scamper. Olive began
+to walk aimlessly up and down in the hope of stumbling on the saddle,
+and Diana began to do likewise, but with far more system. Diana’s
+researches were speedily crowned with success, and she soon sat down to
+an uninterrupted gnaw at the flap of the big Mexican saddle. Becoming at
+length aware of the disappearance of Diana, Olive called to her, and the
+puppy reared a mischievous face over the grass some twenty yards away.
+Going to the spot, Olive perceived the saddle and also the depredations
+of Diana’s sharp teeth upon the flap. She whipped the dog with a stirrup
+leather most ineffectually and then said:
+
+“What’s to be done now?” but Diana, feeling that her efforts had been
+badly rewarded, made no suggestions.
+
+Indeed Olive’s plight after finding the saddle was considerably worse
+than before. The thing was very heavy. Mexican saddles are built on
+wood, large, strong and ponderous, and weigh heavier and heavier in
+proportion to the distance one carries them. Olive put it on her
+shoulders and began to see stars, she then tried her head and found that
+position still worse. She dragged it along by a stirrup-leather and
+found she was ruining it. Then she sat down and cried, which was the
+most useless effort she had made. What was she to do? If she were to
+leave the saddle and walk home she would never be able to find it again.
+There was absolutely nothing to mark the spot. By this time the cattle
+were distant specks moving solemnly homewards, with Rebel decorously
+following in the rear. Olive decided to remain where she was until Rebel
+and the cattle, by their arrival without her, should have given the
+alarm, which would bring Ezra and the rest of the Community to the
+rescue, somewhere about the middle of the night, she supposed. It would
+be humiliating, but she thought it would be better than abandoning the
+saddle which she could not possibly carry. She sat down to wait with
+what patience she could for rescue and humiliation. There was nothing to
+expect along that weary stretch of grassy sea, and yet Olive kept
+looking and looking away to the north, east, south, and west. By and by
+she beheld a horseman coming up from the distant west and holding a
+slanting course which would carry him past Perfection City some mile or
+so to the north. She resolved to intercept this man and ask his aid, so
+she stood up and signalled wildly with her hat. Of course he saw her
+instantly, although he was a couple of miles away, and equally of course
+he at once turned his horse towards her and set off at a gallop. People
+on the prairie ask and give help freely, and Olive had not the slightest
+hesitation in calling this unknown horseman up to her aid, although she
+had not the remotest idea who he might be. Probably he was a
+cattle-hunter like herself, at any rate a man and a horse would be able
+to give her and her saddle effectual assistance. The man galloped
+steadily on and soon took the ordinary appearance: big hat, red shirt,
+riding boots, belt with probably a revolver somewhere in it. He slowed
+up a little as he came near and seemed to be very intently looking at
+Olive.
+
+“I am very sorry to have troubled you,” began Olive.
+
+“Don’t mention it. I shall be delighted if I can be of use,” said the
+man, taking off his big hat.
+
+They both stopped short and looked hard at each other, for their speech
+had mutually revealed the fact that they were a lady and a gentleman, a
+most uncommon encounter on the Kansas prairie beyond the last bit of
+cultivated land.
+
+“Have you had an accident? Are you hurt?” asked the man, jumping off his
+horse and mechanically slinging the bridle-rein over his left arm, as
+Olive noted with some self-reproach. She told him what had happened, and
+she saw a smile creep round his mouth and light up his blue eyes.
+
+“That is easily remedied. I feared you must have been thrown,” said he.
+“Just mount my horse. He’s quiet. I’ll take you home.”
+
+“But the saddle,” said Olive looking very anxiously at that burden.
+
+“Oh! that’s nothing,” said the stranger. “I’ll carry it on my arm.”
+
+“You must not dream of such a thing. I could not think of allowing it.
+You are very kind, I am sure, but if you would take up the saddle in
+front of you that is all I want. The saddle is the only difficulty. I
+can walk quite well. I live in that house over there on the brow of the
+bluff. It is not far, but I could not carry that terrible saddle.”
+
+“Why, that’s Perfection City, where the Communists live,” said he,
+looking at her curiously.
+
+“Yes, I live there,” replied Olive with a slight blush, noting the look.
+
+“And are you a communist, if I may presume to ask the question?” queried
+the stranger.
+
+“My husband was one of the founders of the—the—of Perfection City,” said
+Olive, valiantly determined to defend the absent.
+
+“But you are not one of the original members. You are surely a
+new-comer. I know most of them, by sight at all events.”
+
+“I am Mrs. Weston,” replied Olive with dignity.
+
+The stranger again took off his hat, as if this were an introduction.
+
+“I have seen your husband then, a magnificent specimen of manhood, to
+judge from the only example I had of his physical strength.”
+
+Olive felt at once mollified. Meanwhile, the stranger had shortened the
+stirrup-leathers of his horse, and turning to Olive he said,
+
+“And now, Mrs. Weston, allow me to give you a hand up to mount you on my
+big horse. He is quite gentle and I will hold the bridle.”
+
+Olive hesitated. “I don’t like to take your horse,” she said. “If you
+would be so kind as to leave the saddle——”
+
+“No, no, you must not deprive me of the pleasure of your company,”
+interposed the stranger. “We will manage the saddle all right. Just
+spring up. Your riding-habit is admirably adapted for prairie life, and
+the prettiest I ever saw. Pardon my bluntness, but I am so little used
+to society, I fear I am very rough.”
+
+“You don’t fear anything of the sort,” replied Olive quickly. “You are
+perfectly aware that your manners are infinitely superior to the article
+in general use hereabouts.”
+
+The man laughed pleasantly at this sally. “Well, let me amend my
+pleading,” said he, “and say, it is so long since I met a lady in these
+wilds, and that is true enough, Heaven knows!”
+
+Olive mounted the big horse with the dextrous help of his hand and
+signed to him to give her the saddle.
+
+“I couldn’t think of it,” said he, thrusting his arm under the saddle
+and hoisting it on to his shoulder. “It would be unspeakably
+uncomfortable for you to hold, with the stirrups whacking you at every
+step.”
+
+“Then you shall put it on the horse’s neck in front of me, or I’ll hop
+down this instant. It’s bad enough to appropriate your horse without
+making you carry my saddle as well.”
+
+Seeing her so determined, he, with a slight show of reluctance, placed
+the saddle on the neck of his horse, who after a shake or two submitted
+to the burden, and so they eventually turned homewards.
+
+“I suppose you are not surprised that we settlers out here take
+considerable interest in your experiment in communism,” remarked the man
+as they walked along.
+
+“No doubt anything out of the common excites comment,” said Olive
+guardedly, “but I should not have thought you could be classed as a
+settler out here. I have seen a good many, and know the type.”
+
+She felt interested in the man and curious to know who he was, he seemed
+so utterly different from all those she had hitherto met.
+
+“I have lived here, nevertheless, for some years now. I have a farm on
+the north side of Big Cotton Wood Creek. My name is Cotterell. Have you
+ever heard it?”
+
+“No, I never heard the name, but then I’ve only been here a very short
+time, only two months. I—that is, we came in May,” said Olive blushing
+somewhat.
+
+The stranger smiled a winning smile and looked up at her face as he
+answered,
+
+“I see you have only just come, and come as a bride to Perfection City.
+It has a very suitable sound in that connection.”
+
+He again lifted his hat, and Olive blushed more vividly still.
+
+“The prairie does not seem a very hopeful place for experiments in
+perfection,” continued the stranger. “To my eyes it looks a most
+God-forsaken place, but under certain circumstances I should be disposed
+to modify that view.”
+
+“I think any place will do to try and live a good life in, and that is
+what is aimed at in our little Community,” said Olive, standing bravely
+to her defence.
+
+He was silent for a time and then spoke again.
+
+“Any place can be made better by the presence of a good woman, I think.”
+
+“We want to show how it is possible to banish some of the evil out of
+life,” said Olive, marshalling the expressions she had heard at the
+Academy with what skill she could.
+
+“With some it is only necessary to be what God made them in order to
+banish evil from their presence,” said he.
+
+“And we have a very noble woman as leader,” said Olive not quite sure of
+his meaning.
+
+“Ah, indeed! You praise her, that should count for much. There are very
+mixed reports about her character on the prairie. Many seem to dislike
+and distrust her.”
+
+“As for that I suppose there are mixed reports about us all,” observed
+Olive impartially.
+
+“Indeed there are. For instance, it is most confusing what people say
+concerning the extent to which you carry your communistic theories. Some
+assert that there is no limit and that you are logical.”
+
+“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Olive, knitting her brows.
+
+“I presume now that the land is held in common?”
+
+“Yes, certainly, and the farm implements and the horses and cows,”
+answered Olive.
+
+“All those don’t really touch the question. You live in separate houses,
+I believe.”
+
+“Of course we do. I should hate not having my own little house. It would
+be like a hotel or a penitentiary for all to live under one roof. I
+wouldn’t do it for worlds. We have our home-life just like other people,
+but I should like to have a pony of my own, only I suppose my husband
+would not think it right to have a horse that was not a
+community-horse.”
+
+“What a confounded shame! I beg your pardon. You see I am rough. I mean,
+I think your husband ought to get you a pony, a nice well-trained lady’s
+pony, for you to ride, and not a big farm-horse.”
+
+“I should like one,” observed Olive simply, and then suddenly
+remembering that she was speaking to a stranger, she added hastily, “I
+mean it would be nice to have a horse always at hand, one not liable to
+be wanted for farm work.”
+
+“I just happen to know of an excellent animal that would suit you down
+to the ground. It belongs to Tom Mills, and he wants to sell it. It will
+go cheap too. If you would speak to your husband about it, I would bring
+it over for you to look at. Mills lives close to my house.”
+
+“No, pray don’t,” said Olive anxiously. “I am ever so much obliged to
+you, but I really ought not to have spoken about it.”
+
+“Very well,” said he, seeing she was distressed, “we’ll not pursue the
+subject further.” But in his own mind he reflected that were he in
+Weston’s place, he would have got that pony for his wife, principles or
+no principles, and it is highly probable that he would have done so.
+
+He left Olive and her saddle at her own door, refusing her invitation to
+enter, saying that he would avail himself of her permission to come some
+other day to see her. And she cordially invited him to do so, for was
+not hospitality one of the commonest virtues of the prairie, and surely
+Perfection City must not be behindhand in the practice thereof?
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+                              MR. PERSEUS.
+
+
+When Olive got home, she was at first pleased to see that her husband
+had not come in, therefore he had not been made uneasy about her
+absence. Napoleon Pompey had caught Rebel and turned him into the
+pasture field, and was returning after that job when he met Olive near
+the hen-house. Napoleon Pompey grinned at her and remarked with relish:
+“Ole hoss, he done throw yer, den run clar ’way home.”
+
+“No, he didn’t,” retorted Olive, indignant at this slur upon her
+equestrian skill, “I just got off to change the saddle, and he ran away
+from me.”
+
+“Land!” said Napoleon Pompey, “an’ didn’t yer chuck yer reins roun’ yer
+arm?”
+
+“No, I forgot to,” confessed Olive.
+
+“Golly Ned!” said Napoleon Pompey with vast amusement.
+
+Olive felt annoyed and inquired stiffly where her husband was.
+
+“Ole man he done gone ter git ole hoe men’d up, den he gwine ter go to
+der ’Sumbly, he done eat supper ’ready. Me an’ you’uns got ter eat our’n
+now. Ole man done tol’ me.”
+
+Napoleon Pompey meant no disrespect in speaking of Ezra as “ole man,”
+for the lad knew of only two titles to bestow on white men, one was
+“Mas’r” the other was “ole man.” Ezra had requested him not to use the
+expression Mas’r, which grated on his ears, and contained suggestions of
+servitude at variance with the ideas that prevailed at Perfection City.
+Napoleon Pompey was therefore obliged to fall back upon his one other
+title. Olive had been greatly shocked when she first heard her husband
+called “ole man,” but she was now used to the expression.
+
+She was very disappointed not to see Ezra at once, for she was full of
+her adventure, but she knew from experience she must possess her soul in
+patience, for the “’Sumbly,” as Napoleon Pompey called it, was sure to
+take a good while, and Ezra always stayed conscientiously to the last.
+The institution was none other than the bi-weekly Assembly, which met at
+the Academy, and at which all the business of the Community was settled
+and the routine work of the farm arranged for. All the members were free
+to attend and speak their minds, but in practice it had resolved itself
+into a Junta of Madame, Ezra, Wright, Green, and Uncle David, of whom
+the two latter were sleeping members. The women of Perfection City did
+not care to attend the Assembly very often. Women are not good debaters,
+and they dislike arguments carried on under strict rule. They prefer to
+go their own way, do what seems best at the moment, and reserve an
+unlimited right of grumbling and jealousy. Madame, who was an exception
+to the general rule, usually presided at the Assembly and ruled it, as
+she did most things, without seeming to do so. Ezra and Brother Wright
+understood the farm work and generally mapped out the daily labour
+pretty well. Brother Dummy required only to be told what to do and went
+on contentedly doing it, without comment or commotion. Nobody, of
+course, was ordered to work, but it was suggested that if Brother Wright
+would do so and so, Brother Ezra would be able to do this, that, or the
+other, while Brother Carpenter would be free to perform such another
+task, and Brother Dummy would probably prefer to work at whatever
+happened to be wanted at the moment. Madame seldom interfered, and then
+only when necessary to smooth over a rough edge. She usually found the
+men’s arrangements excellent and for the general weal. Brother Green,
+who was a first-rate smith, was the only member of the Community who, at
+this time, received any money, for he worked in his spare time for
+outsiders. With great pride he used to bring the money he earned to the
+’Sumbly and give it into Madame’s charge to be expended as seemed best.
+She kept the accounts and used to furnish all the rest of the necessary
+cash. Sometimes the brethren expressed compunction at calling so often
+on her resources, but Madame always made the most graceful speeches in
+reply to their objections. Of course an undertaking such as this
+required capital to start it. It would be foolish to starve the whole
+project for want of a little expenditure now. By and by they would be
+self-supporting, but in order to reach that stage quickly they must not
+be stingy now. So she gave her dollars by the hundred when needed, and
+the brethren were eternally grateful and privately wondered if there was
+any limit to her wealth and generosity. At the Assembly it would be
+debated whether the next load of timber that was bought should go to
+building a hen-house for Brother Carpenter or to putting up a
+cattle-shed for Brother Ezra, and it speaks well for the honest
+conviction of the Pioneers that it was usually Brother Ezra who argued
+in favour of the hen-house, while Brother Carpenter expressed an anxious
+desire for the cattle-shed. The difficulty would perhaps be settled by
+Madame desiring to know how much timber was required for both buildings
+and deciding to buy that amount at the earliest opportunity.
+
+At this particular Assembly to which we refer, Ezra was several times on
+the point of saying that he wished to get a pony for his wife, but his
+heart failed him. He knew he did want the pony very much, but he also
+knew that it was not really wanted for the Community. So he could not
+bring himself to give utterance to the individualistic wish, and after
+arranging the necessary business of the Community, he came home with his
+wish unstated.
+
+Olive was waiting for him with the greatest impatience. She went,
+indeed, as far as the bars to meet him, but the road looked so lonesome
+and the sky so black with cold trembling specks of stars, that she ran
+back again in a flutter of panic to the house and shut herself in with
+the candles for company. At last he came back, and Olive poured forth
+the pent-up torrent of her news. Ezra was much amused at her description
+of the disaster and interested in her account of the rescuer.
+
+“And I am so vexed,” said Olive, “I can’t for the life of me remember
+what he said his name was. I know I never heard it before, but he lives
+here on the prairie. It is so silly!”
+
+“Call him Perseus,” said Ezra laughing, “he was the gallant who came to
+the rescue of distressed damsels.”
+
+“What a good joke!” said Olive gleefully, “and I was a distressed
+damsel, I assure you. I cried with vexation.”
+
+“I have no doubt that Andromeda shed tears when she was bound to the
+rock,” said Ezra, amused.
+
+“And I was bound to that odious saddle by the bonds of duty,” said
+Olive. “What a joke! Mr. Perseus!”
+
+So they laughed and chatted, and Olive was as bright as possible, and
+Ezra thought again with a pang of that pony and almost wished he had
+spoken at the Assembly about it. Olive, however, never mentioned what
+Mr. Perseus had said about the pony Mills had for sale. The idea seemed
+to have passed from her mind.
+
+It happened that about a week later Olive again found herself in the
+neighbourhood of Little Cotton Wood Creek, and by an extraordinary
+coincidence Mr. Perseus chanced to meet her. She was very much
+surprised, and he seemed to be no less so. However, the meeting was
+mutually pleasant, and they soon fell into conversation, as it appeared
+he was going her way.
+
+“I have thought a great deal about what you said to me the other day,
+about trying to make life better and all that,” said he with a certain
+self-consciousness, as if he was unaccustomed to speaking upon such a
+subject. Olive looked at him with bright clear eyes.
+
+“I am very glad if anything I said could be of use to you, but I am
+myself very ignorant. I should like you to come and hear what Brother
+Wright says, and Ezra. Brother Wright is considered very eloquent. I
+can’t always understand him myself, but that is my own deficiency!”
+
+“I would much prefer talking with you, Mrs. Weston,” said the stranger
+hastily. “I am very restive under men’s teaching, but I am docile enough
+when led by a woman’s gentle hand.”
+
+“Why are you living here?” asked Olive suddenly. “You seem so unsuited
+to this life.”
+
+“I am sick of civilization and all its horrors,” said he. “I wanted to
+get away to something fresh and new.”
+
+“That is almost like what a Pioneer would say,” remarked Olive with a
+smile. “They don’t think very highly of what civilization has done so
+far.”
+
+“Materially it has done much, morally it has done badly for a good
+number of human beings,” he remarked.
+
+“I think you sound like a very hopeful convert to the principles of
+communism. Why don’t you come to Perfection City?” asked Olive.
+
+“Would you be glad to see me there, Mrs. Weston?”
+
+“Certainly, Mr. Perseus, and I should be so pleased to make you and my
+husband known to each other.”
+
+He looked at her curiously for some moments and then said, “Why do you
+call me Mr. Perseus?”
+
+Olive gave him one horrified glance and then blushed scarlet.
+
+“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she stammered in great confusion. “I did not
+know I said so. I really am most sorry.”
+
+“But why that name?” he persisted, still looking at her blushing face.
+
+“I may as well tell you the truth,” she said still much confused. “The
+fact is I forgot what you said your name was, and my husband suggested
+in a joke that I should call you Perseus, because—because——”
+
+“I rescued you in distress,” said he as he broke into a deep musical
+laugh. “It is a capital name, I am delighted with it.”
+
+“I am so ashamed of myself,” said Olive, also laughing, “but I was in
+the habit of speaking of you as Mr. Perseus, and the name slipped off my
+tongue unawares. What is your real name? Pray tell me.”
+
+“Not for worlds, dear Mrs. Weston. To you I shall remain Mr. Perseus,
+and I shall never think of the name without a thrill of pleasure.”
+
+“But this is most unfair,” said Olive. “You know my name and who I am
+and all about me, and yet I am to be kept in the dark as to your
+identity.”
+
+“Forgive my not doing at once what you wish, but really I cannot. This
+will be a sweet little innocent romance to me, and before you I shall
+appear in my very best light, leaving all the vices and evils of my real
+nature behind me for the time. Ah no! don’t deprive me of such a
+harmless joy. If you knew what a lonely uncared for life is mine, your
+tender heart would be touched.”
+
+Her heart was touched by the quiver in his deep voice, as he intended it
+should be, and Olive did not press her point any further. They rode on
+together talking about a hundred subjects, and she found him the most
+agreeable of men. She happened to mention a great novel just then coming
+out in Harper’s, the scene of which was laid in Florence, and he said
+musingly:
+
+“Ah yes! Florence is a lovely city, nestling among the blue hills.”
+
+“Have you ever seen it then?” asked Olive much surprised.
+
+“Yes, long ago, when I was a young fellow.”
+
+She gazed at him. “You are a most incomprehensible person,” she said,
+“living here on this prairie and yet you have seen Florence.”
+
+“You forget Perseus travels easily with his winged feet, from here to
+Florence would be a bagatelle to him.”
+
+“I begin to think there must be something uncanny about you.”
+
+“Now don’t go and change me into any other personality. Remember you are
+all-powerful, and by your word alone have made me Perseus. Your word is
+mighty, and you can cast me down into hell and make me a devil by a
+breath,” said he half banteringly.
+
+“What odd language!” said Olive, looking a little frightened. “How you
+must astonish the natives when you talk in that way!”
+
+“Do you fancy I talk to anyone as I do to you? Don’t you understand that
+I am Perseus to you, but to nobody else in the world?”
+
+Olive laughed, and put her horse to a canter in order to snap the thread
+of talk which was becoming too difficult for her. Mr. Perseus remained
+in her company while she was driving home the cattle, but they had no
+further particular conversation, as the exigencies of driving the herd
+occupied their attention most of the time. On parting from her about a
+mile from her home, he promised to come some day to see her, and Olive
+added, “I do hope Ezra will be in, for I should so like you two to talk
+together. I am sure you have much in common.”
+
+“We have one point in common, at all events,” thought Mr. Perseus as he
+rode away back towards the Big Cotton Wood Creek, “but I doubt very much
+if that would at all add to the harmony of our relations.”
+
+Olive was full of her meeting with Mr. Perseus, an account of which she
+retailed to Ezra at supper.
+
+“And just fancy his oddity! He wouldn’t tell me his real name after my
+unlucky slip, so he is Mr. Perseus to the end of the chapter, I suppose.
+He thought it such a joke.”
+
+“So he saw the application,” remarked Ezra. “He must be a man of
+education.”
+
+“He is a most superior man, I can see that. He has read everything I
+ever did and more too. And do you know, Ezra, I shouldn’t wonder if he
+had leanings towards community-life, many things he said pointed that
+way. Wouldn’t it be funny if I were to be the one to bring in your first
+convert, poor little me that never had any leanings until I saw you.”
+
+Ezra looked sharply at his wife during this speech, for a sudden and by
+no means pleasant suspicion sprang into his mind concerning the
+mysterious Mr. Perseus. However, Olive looked so perfectly innocent of
+even all knowledge of evil that he felt ashamed of himself.
+
+“I wouldn’t be too friendly with this man. We don’t know anything about
+him, nor who he is, remember,” remarked Ezra.
+
+“He said he knew you and that you were a fine-looking man, you old dear,
+and he is acquainted with most of the members of the Community by sight.
+Besides, I thought it was a point of etiquette on the prairie to make no
+inquiries into a person’s character, but to take him in his boots just
+as he stands, and ask him to dinner. Don’t you remember Charlie Clarke,
+and how he came to supper by your invitation and you found him so
+pleasant, and he a horse-thief and a murderer all the while, only we
+didn’t know it.”
+
+This was all very true, but Charlie Clarke had evinced no “leanings” to
+community-life, and above all Olive had been profoundly uninterested in
+him and was delighted when he left. Ezra hated himself for the feeling
+in his heart, but he had his suspicions of Mr. Perseus, and he knew his
+wife was distractingly pretty. So he advised her to keep aloof from Mr.
+Perseus as much as practicable. Several times afterwards he made excuses
+to go riding with her, which Olive enjoyed immensely, but then something
+was said to her about his shirking his share of the work, and she was
+furiously angry. She wanted her husband to be first, and since the only
+theatre for the exhibition of his abilities was the somewhat restricted
+one of Perfection City, she wanted him to be always near the front.
+
+“Shirking indeed!” she said tossing her pretty head. “I’ll have Mary
+Winkle know my husband never shirked in his life.”
+
+In a blaze of wrath she met Ezra and ordered him to go to work and never
+mind riding with her till the harvest was over. She wouldn’t ride any
+more, she would work until she was black in the face. Shirking indeed!
+She’d let Mary Winkle see! And so on and so forth, till her burst of
+anger had spent itself.
+
+Olive was not slow to perceive that her husband had some sort of dislike
+to the idea of her seeing Mr. Perseus. She could not exactly explain to
+herself why this should be, and she was heartily sorry for it. She had
+fancied that in time Mr. Perseus might possibly come to be a member of
+the Community. She would indeed have been frankly glad to have him
+become a brother, for, as far as she could judge, he seemed a man of
+brilliant parts, and certainly his manners were most charming. To tell
+the truth, she found the members as a whole very uninteresting. Mary
+Winkle she positively disliked, and yet she was the one nearest to her
+own age. She sometimes wondered how Ezra could be satisfied with the
+companionship of those same people, who seemed to her to be walking in
+such a narrow circle, and always to be saying the same things in pretty
+nearly the same words. Now, Mr. Perseus said such original things and in
+such a charming voice. Altogether it was a pity that Ezra should have
+taken a prejudice into his head against this stranger. Olive wondered
+whether, if they met, the mutual recognition of their abilities would
+dissipate her husband’s suspicions. Such being her notions, it was most
+unlucky that the first time Mr. Perseus came to see them Ezra should
+have been gone to Union Mills. He went so very seldom that it was a most
+unfortunate coincidence, as she explained to Mr. Perseus, who did not in
+return explain that having himself seen Ezra at Union Mills he had
+straightway ridden off to visit her, and ridden so hard too that his
+horse was in a white lather when he arrived at Perfection City by a
+somewhat circuitous route. Napoleon Pompey was gone, so Olive showed him
+where to put his horse in the dark stable so that the flies would not
+torment the animal. She remarked on the horse’s state and asked Mr.
+Perseus had he been running down cattle, and he muttered something about
+young horses showing every bit of work in hot weather.
+
+He was profoundly interested in Olive’s little home. She showed him with
+pride the garden she had made, where already the balsams were just
+coming into blossom; she then took him to see the prairie chickens she
+was trying to rear, little black and yellow downy things, with fierce
+wild eyes utterly untamed and only looking out for a favourable
+opportunity to make a dash for freedom.
+
+“Do you think I can ever tame them?” asked Olive, as she noted the
+hostile manner in which they scuttled away from her food-giving hand.
+
+“If anyone could tame them you could, the ungrateful little brutes!”
+remarked Mr. Perseus.
+
+“I don’t see that it is ungrateful of them to resent being taken from
+their proper home and natural mother to be put under a fat stupid hen,”
+said Olive.
+
+“No, but it is rank ingratitude not to be tame to you,” said he.
+
+“I don’t think you are truthful,” said Olive bluntly.
+
+“Why?” asked Mr. Perseus.
+
+“Because you are always saying things like that,” she answered, somewhat
+resentfully.
+
+“Well, I do call that hard,” complained Mr. Perseus, “to charge a fellow
+with being untruthful when he was shaking in his shoes from terror at
+having perhaps let out too much of the truth.”
+
+Olive looked down at his big boots, knitting her brows, and then led the
+way into the house.
+
+“I’ll get you some dinner. I am sure you are hungry,” she said
+hospitably, it being about two o’clock in the afternoon.
+
+“I am hungry, starving, mind, body, and soul,” said her visitor in
+reply.
+
+“I’ll get a chicken-pie for you, that will go some way,” answered Olive
+with a laugh.
+
+“And if you will talk with me, that will go far to complete the work of
+charity,” said he.
+
+Olive brought him the food, and he set to work upon it, being evidently,
+as he said, very hungry.
+
+“Do you know I am beginning to look upon Perfection City as a sort of
+earthly paradise,” said Mr. Perseus.
+
+“Indeed.”
+
+“Yes, a paradise from which I am shut out. Have you any young men here,
+Mrs. Weston, unmarried men, or are they against your rules?”
+
+“No. Unmarried men are not against our rules,” said Olive archly. “We
+had one here lately, but we haven’t now.”
+
+“Why, what did you do with him?” asked Mr. Perseus, in some surprise.
+
+“I married him,” said Olive dimpling and blushing.
+
+“Lucky beggar!” remarked her visitor, turning again to his dinner.
+
+Mr. Perseus stayed some time, but refused Olive’s invitation to wait to
+see her husband, saying as an excuse that he had a long way to ride
+home. Olive wanted to know where he lived, but he laughingly put her
+off. He would not tell her, lest she should discover his real name, and
+then much of the romance of his life would be destroyed.
+
+“You don’t know what this is to me, and how when I am leading my lonely
+life, I recall every word and look and again go through these meetings,
+Mrs. Weston. I suppose it seems silly to you, but remember, human
+companionship is man’s most precious inheritance, and those who have but
+little of it prize what they have at perhaps an extravagant figure. Did
+you ever hear of Silvio Pellico?” he asked abruptly.
+
+“No,” replied Olive.
+
+“Well, he was a prisoner entirely shut off from human companionship, and
+he at last made friends with a spider, and at length the spider was
+crushed by the turnkey’s foot, and Silvio wept tears of anguish. I am
+like a prisoner out here on this desolate prairie.”
+
+“And am I like the horrible spider, then?” said Olive brightly.
+
+“Mrs. Weston!” he exclaimed reproachfully. “I have opened my heart to
+you because I felt that you could feel with me, although the world might
+count us as strangers, but I thought you would understand what I meant
+even when I blundered through the expression of my thoughts. This is the
+first time you have misunderstood me. But I believe it was only
+pretended misunderstanding and that you do know what I meant.”
+
+He said good-bye, and left Olive with a feeling of sadness and
+oppression on her mind. He had not been as bright as before, and she
+wondered who he was and why he was so anxious not to see anyone but her.
+She mentioned his visit to Ezra, but somehow she had less to tell about
+him than on former occasions. There seemed nothing to say. Ezra, too,
+did not appear as much amused as formerly at the joke of Mr. Perseus. No
+doubt it was getting stale by this time.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+                             FIRST LESSONS.
+
+
+Summer came on apace. The field had been duly run over in both
+directions with the shovel-plough, so as to leave between the
+cross-ploughing little “hills” of earth, out of which sprang the
+corn-clumps. The broad green ribbons of leaves fluttered in the wind,
+making a soft murmur as of a forest. Olive took great delight in her
+little flower-garden at the east end of the house, and worked and weeded
+at it both early and late. Napoleon Pompey, typical negro boy, which
+being interpreted means laziest of mortals, forgot his laziness to work
+for “Mis’ Ollie” as he called her. Together they had planted their
+balsams, trained their morning-glory, and rooted out brown beetles with
+zeal, to be amply repaid in July by a glorious profusion of blossoms.
+
+“This is my very ownest own garden,” said Olive, exhibiting her balsams
+with pride to Ezra. “Mind, this is not community-land, it’s mine.”
+
+“Does it make you enjoy the flowers more to think that nobody else has
+them?” asked Ezra, with a tinge of sadness in his voice. “Would it make
+you any the happier to keep the sunshine all to yourself, do you think?”
+
+“No, certainly not, that’s quite different. But I’ve planted these
+flowers and grown them. I shall give them to whomsoever I like. You for
+instance.” She smiled coaxingly at him.
+
+“You pretty child,” he said, disarmed.
+
+“Why, I brought some over to Mrs. Carpenter to-day. I went to help her
+with her washing. And, do you know!” said Olive, “I was so amused.”
+
+“At what?”
+
+“Mr. Carpenter was educating his children.”
+
+“He’s always doing that,” said Ezra.
+
+“Yes, but to-day there was a special lesson. He was at Union Mills
+yesterday, and he got a present for both of them, I mean two presents,
+one for Johnny and one for Nelly. You know he is always saying boys and
+girls would have the same tastes if they were brought up in the same
+way.”
+
+“He’ll find out one day, maybe, that boys will be boys, no matter how
+you bring them up.”
+
+“He has found it out already. Wait till you hear. By way of correcting
+any early bias, he gave a hammer and nails to Nelly and a doll to
+Johnny.”
+
+“You don’t say so! What did the children do?”
+
+“Well, they went off without a word, each carrying its toy, and Mr.
+Carpenter told me his ideas about education, and how well they worked.
+Suddenly we heard shrieks from behind the wood-pile where the children
+were playing. We ran out to see what was the matter. Nelly had got a
+handkerchief tied over the head of her hammer, and she was cuddling it
+to sleep in her arms. Johnny had got some of the nails and was trying to
+drive them into a piece of wood with the head of the doll for hammer.
+Nelly was screaming because he was killing poor Dolly.”
+
+Ezra laughed, and Olive joined in at the recollection of the scene. “You
+cannot think how disappointed Mr. Carpenter looked. His wife said he’d
+got something to do if he was expecting to cure little girls of dolls in
+a hurry. We changed the presents and left him to reconcile it with his
+theories as best he could; both children were quite happy and contented
+afterwards.”
+
+“Poor Carpenter! He’ll have to learn by bitter experience that he cannot
+change human nature all at once,” said Ezra, sympathetically. “I fear
+children are still in the savage stage of development, they are not
+communists.”
+
+“Nobody is communist about things they care very much about,” said
+Olive, in desperate courage.
+
+“Why, Ollie! What a thing to say! I am a thorough-going communist I
+hope. I’d give the coat off my back without a pang.”
+
+“Of course you would, because it is a horrid old thing any way, and men
+look frights in coats always. Men don’t care about clothes, only just to
+cover themselves and keep themselves warm. One rag would do as well as
+another.”
+
+“You are an incorrigible little individualist and a greedy one as well,
+I do declare,” said Ezra, half laughing at her vehemence.
+
+“No, it’s not that, only I see what is what,” replied Olive oracularly.
+
+“And what might that be?”
+
+“The Pioneers are only communistic for rubbish and rags, and not for
+dolls and hammers. That’s what they are,” said Olive, with her face
+aflame.
+
+“Rubbish and rags! What an absurd thing to say. Who ever heard such
+nonsense?” said Ezra, loftily ignoring his wife’s argument in a way that
+wise men often affect.
+
+“’Tisn’t nonsense,” said Olive hotly. “It is just what people say of
+Perfection City.”
+
+“What people say it?” asked Ezra.
+
+“Well, Mr. Perseus for one,” said Olive, repenting of her daring in
+getting into the subject at all.
+
+“Mr. Perseus,” repeated Ezra with a sudden frown, “so you talk over our
+principles with him. When did you do so last?”
+
+“I don’t know exactly when. The other day. He often passes by here on
+his way cattle-hunting. Sometimes he looks in for a moment, but
+sometimes he can’t stay long, only to water his horse. Of course I talk
+over the principles that have made you found a City here. Don’t you
+suppose people know about them and talk them over eagerly? They are
+different enough from the generality of people’s ideas, and Mr. Perseus
+said they considered you only went a little way into communism, and had
+a little bit of this and a little bit of that in common, and weren’t at
+all logical. People sneer at Perfection City, I can assure you.”
+
+“And you, doubtless, enjoyed his sneers,” retorted Ezra injudiciously.
+
+“No, I didn’t, only I saw what other people say of us. Mr. Perseus,
+even, once said he’d like to come and be a communist himself, if we were
+only consistent throughout, and lived up to our principles.”
+
+“You may tell your friend Perseus that he would not be a welcome
+recruit,” said Ezra, in considerable agitation. “I may as well tell you
+now what I have suspected for some time. I know pretty well who your
+mysterious Mr. Perseus is. He is a man of the name of Cotterell. I know
+him very well by sight and better still by reputation. To convince you,
+I will just mention a point or two about his appearance. He is about
+five feet ten in height, very fair in complexion, with a yellow
+moustache, and bright blue eyes, and whenever he takes his hat off you
+see the blue veins very markedly on his temples. He is, I suppose, what
+a woman would call a very handsome man, and he usually rides a black
+horse with a blaze on his face and white hind feet.”
+
+“Yes, that’s the man,” said Olive who remembered the horse well, and who
+moreover recognized the perfect accuracy of her husband’s description.
+
+“Very well. Now I will tell you something about his character and
+history. He is an Englishman and perhaps has been badly brought up. At
+all events he hasn’t the morals we approve of. I know his libertine
+London ways. He probably didn’t tell you about it, but I remember very
+well the poor girl who shot herself the first summer we came here,
+because Cotterell had abandoned her. If the neighbours had been quite
+sure of all the facts of the case, there would in all probability have
+been a shooting party at Cotterell’s house, so I was told. But they were
+not quite sure so they gave him the benefit of the doubt. Accordingly he
+still has his handsome face to go on with and maybe wreck more homes.
+That is the career of Mr. Cotterell, alias Mr. Perseus,” said Ezra with
+considerable heat.
+
+“It was you who gave him the name of Perseus,” replied Olive also much
+agitated. “He did not appear under a false name of his own accord. And
+now that you tell me his real name I remember that was the one he gave
+the first time I saw him, and he asked me if I had ever heard it
+before.”
+
+“I won’t say anything on that point, it may have been a joke on his
+part, but it must stop now. Understand me, Olive. I don’t wish to seem
+harsh, but you must not meet and talk with this man again. If you chance
+on him, pass by and say you can have no further communication with him.
+If he urges an objection, say I have forbidden you to see him, as I do
+forbid you, here and now. He will take that for an answer, scoundrel as
+he is, for among people of his stamp personal vanity does duty for
+better feelings. He won’t come again to a house where the lady has once
+shown him the door. You don’t in the least understand what his motives
+are in this new-fangled interest of his in Perfection City, but I
+understand them very clearly, and my wish is that you never see him
+again. Harm is sure to come of it if you do.”
+
+Olive was very much alarmed at her husband’s stern manner and peremptory
+order, but she was also indignant. Mr. Perseus or Cotterell, as she must
+now call him, had shown great respect and deference to her and had
+evinced a desire to be guided by her to higher aspirations. She was not
+sure of the meaning of some of his remarks, or rather she wished she
+could find some other reasonable explanation for them than the one most
+people would undoubtedly attach to them. Still she resented her
+husband’s masterful manner.
+
+“I will of course obey your orders, Ezra,” she said with a tart emphasis
+on the word which made him wince, “because I hold old-fashioned ideas of
+what wifely duty is, quite at variance with the high standard of
+individual liberty as maintained and explained, I believe, by the
+brethren of Perfection City. You may rest quite satisfied, I will obey
+you.”
+
+Having thus stabbed her husband in his most vulnerable point and
+dexterously driven the poignard up to the hilt in the wound, Olive
+walked away, leaving Ezra to feel himself a selfish brute.
+
+Ezra spent a wretched half day of self-reproach, and then crept back
+repentant, begging to be forgiven for being a tyrant to his poor little
+pet. And his little pet who had paid for her pride with abundant tears,
+allowed him to kiss her and fondle her and call her sweet silly names,
+while she declared she never cared to see or speak to that wretched Mr.
+Cotterell again, and no wonder he was ashamed of his own name, etc.,
+etc., all in the most foolish and approved manner possible to the newly
+married.
+
+All the same, after a time Olive began to feel sorry for Mr. Cotterell,
+and to pity him for the very errors of his past life, about which she
+now saw that he was penitent without wishing to explain to her why. Also
+she had very much enjoyed meeting him; he was so fresh, cultivated, and
+original, in his conversation. It was really very dull sometimes with no
+one to talk to, and the long hot day shimmering by, making her feel as
+if she were a potato being slowly baked in a hotair oven. There was no
+excitement in the house-work and—and it was very dreary sometimes. Men
+delight in reverting to primitive savagery. The most highly civilized
+man “reverts” in a way which is surprising both for completeness and for
+rapidity, but women hate the process. Savage woman was a slave, and the
+more completely a woman becomes subject to primitive conditions the more
+closely she resembles a slave, and is in virtual bondage either to some
+human being or to hampering circumstances.
+
+Of appropriate companions of her own sex Olive had absolutely none. Mary
+Winkle was a rigid reformer, a person all angles, of the sort that never
+becomes a companion to anyone, for she was always on the war-path, and,
+besides, between her and Olive there was an unexpressed, but no less
+real, antipathy. Her daughter, Willette, that creature half boy, half
+girl, and wholly wild, was always on horseback careering after stray
+cattle, and though by her ignorance and eccentricity she sometimes
+amused Olive, she had really no ideas beyond those very concrete ones
+impressed upon her from without by her open-air life on the prairie.
+Mrs. Carpenter was a good soul, but a mere stout housewife, with no
+ideas and only one hope, namely, “that Carpenter would give up his
+high-fallutin’ notions, an’ go back to York State, an’ settle down
+comfortable again, an’ be a preacher in a Baptist church.” Mrs. Ruby was
+old in body, but the youngest of them all in mind, except Uncle David,
+who was her senior by four years. Mrs. Ruby believed in Perfection City,
+though she reserved the right of private judgment on certain of the
+tenets of its founders, and in particular, she had lately felt
+misgivings as to the worldly wisdom of their principle of
+non-resistance. She knew, however, that the Pioneers were going to show
+the world the new and better way—the way which led into no competition
+for supremacy, but into peaceful paths of universal progress. Property
+and its attendant imps, greed, strife, jealousy, envy, hatred, and
+malice, were all banished from Perfection City, and in their place peace
+and good-will and perfect trust in each other were to reign forever. It
+was a high ideal, but not a new one. It was eighteen centuries old,
+though it had never yet been realised. Mrs. Ruby and Uncle David felt
+sure they had reached the ideal, and all through Madame Morozoff-Smith,
+the most whole-souled, unselfish, glorious woman of her century. It was
+a pity she had not a larger theatre in which to present before mankind
+the new principles of social life it was their privilege to put into
+practice.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+                          PRACTICAL COMMUNISM.
+
+
+A day or two after Ezra had laid his commands upon his wife, as we saw
+in the last chapter, he came home in the evening to find her in floods
+of tears. Her eyelids were all red with weeping, and she broke out
+afresh on seeing him.
+
+“What’s the matter?” asked Ezra, in much concern. “What has happened?”
+
+“My poor flowers, my pretty balsams!” sobbed Olive.
+
+“Has the calf got into your garden and spoiled your flowers, my poor
+child?” he said tenderly.
+
+“No, it wasn’t the calf, but they are all gone. Mary Winkle took them
+all.”
+
+“Oh!” said Ezra with a slight shock of surprise.
+
+“Yes, she has cleared the whole garden. She came to-day while I was out
+at Mrs. Huntley’s.”
+
+“How do you know it is she who has taken them?”
+
+“Napoleon Pompey told me he saw her pick them.”
+
+“Depend upon it, he is lying,” said Ezra with emphasis. “Negroes are as
+mischievous as monkeys, and——”
+
+“No, he didn’t do anything to the flowers,” interrupted Olive. “He was
+as pleased with them almost as I was myself, and worked ever so hard to
+help keep down the weeds. Besides, I went to Mary Winkle and saw them.”
+
+“Oh!” said Ezra helplessly. He wished it had been the calf or Napoleon
+Pompey or anybody or anything rather than Mary Winkle. He braced himself
+for what was coming.
+
+“She told me she did it with a purpose. She said I was getting more
+individualistic in my leanings every day, and that time was not curing
+me at all, that I was selfishly proud of my flowers. It isn’t one bit
+true,” sobbed Olive, with quivering chin. “I gave heaps of them away. I
+gathered a bunch for Mrs. Huntley just as I was going this morning.”
+
+Ezra groaned. “I know you did, dear,” he said.
+
+“She said I gloated over them and rejoiced because nobody else had any.
+I didn’t. I only loved them because I had tended them and reared them,
+and I knew them and watched for their buds. She said they didn’t belong
+to me, but to the Community, and that she took them on behalf of the
+general weal. Those are all grand words for nasty mean jealousy and
+covetousness,” said Olive passionately. “I hate Mary Winkle and I hate
+the Community.”
+
+“Oh, Olive, Olive!” cried Ezra with a gesture of entreaty. “Don’t say
+that, dear. It strikes me to the heart. Think of me, dear.”
+
+“My pretty flowers!” she said with a drooping of her mouth that
+betokened fresh tears.
+
+“I am so sorry, oh, more sorry than I can say,” said Ezra. “Mary Winkle
+has done wrong, and has administered a lesson in a cruel, brutal way.”
+
+“She has no business to give me lessons at all, and I won’t take them
+from her,” cried Olive passionately. “I hate being the one to be always
+taught. They think themselves so superior and are always stooping to
+raise me. Let them raise themselves first. I can see where Mary Winkle
+needs teaching and correction as plainly as anybody. She is only
+communistic in regard to things she doesn’t really care about.”
+
+“No, no Ollie, darling. It is really a deep conviction with us all,
+although in this case most unkindly illustrated,” said Ezra gently.
+
+“I know you think so in all honesty, but it isn’t so in reality. Nobody
+is nor can be communistic about what they love, if it is real love. If
+they are communistic about a thing it is because they don’t really
+care.”
+
+Ezra knew by the pang of jealousy in his own heart that this was an
+insurmountable truth his little wife was hurling forth in her anger.
+
+“Mary Winkle isn’t communistic. I’m not clever and able to say wise
+things and use long words that amaze people like Brother Wright, but for
+all that I can see some things clearly enough. Mary Winkle isn’t any
+more communistic than I am, only we love different things.”
+
+“I think you mistake,” said Ezra.
+
+“No, I don’t mistake one bit. Let Mary Winkle, if she is communistic in
+all the moods and tenses, lump her child with the two little Carpenters
+and draw lots to take one of the three for her own. Would that satisfy
+her heart, although the precious principles would be right enough? Of
+course not, because her heart would step in and claim its own by the
+divine right of love. I should be thoroughly communistic on the score of
+these children. I shouldn’t mind to draw lots as to whether Willette or
+Nelly or Johnny Carpenter was going to come to live with me. One would
+do as well as another, and I could be thoroughly communistic, because I
+don’t love any of them very deeply. My little flowers I did love. It
+wasn’t that I had worked for them and grudged the fruit of my labour. I
+would work in a turnip field and let anyone who liked have the turnips,
+nasty, watery, pulpy things, but I loved those flowers and tended them
+and they were mine. I don’t care about the philosophy of the question.
+You will perhaps some day see what I mean, Ezra, and understand me. I
+know you don’t now. You think me a silly child.”
+
+In his own heart he thought he understood more clearly than he liked to
+confess, that Olive was speaking more than philosophy, she was
+announcing stubborn facts. However, he strove his utmost to soothe her
+feelings, for he could see that if an attitude of strife and hostility
+were once set up between her and Mary Winkle, it would not only affect
+his wife’s happiness but might have very serious results upon the future
+of Perfection City. There were only a very few of them, and if the
+experiment was to succeed it could only do so through unity, while
+strife and internal dissensions would certainly destroy it without
+giving it a chance. This point was fruitful of deep meditation, and
+occasioned heart-searchings to Ezra. It indeed augured ill for the
+future, not only of Perfection City, but of all those other cities of
+their imagination which should spring from this mother plant, if the
+personal feelings of a couple of good women were potent enough to wreck
+the scheme. Surely, in the dozen or so choice spirits who now formed the
+entire population of that City, there could be none of those latent
+forces making for destruction which would have to be reckoned with in
+the future and larger experiments in communism they were leading up to.
+If it was so difficult to soothe ruffled feelings in Perfection City
+now, and to compose a quarrel about some wretched little balsams, what
+would happen when, in a larger Perfection City, deeper cause of dispute
+arose between numbers of persons? Ezra’s mind recoiled aghast at the
+answer which rose up in his mind in reply to that question. There would
+have to be some strong, some overwhelming central power, a despot in
+short. Was this then the goal which they were to reach after toiling
+along a hard and stony road of personal effort? A despotism or a
+monasticism, in either case tyranny and subjection. Surely, oh surely,
+there must be some other solution which his mind, disturbed by the sight
+of his little wife’s distress, had unaccountably failed to formulate. He
+would go to Madame and would seek guidance from her illumined mind.
+
+Olive, spent by her emotions, had gone to sleep quite early, so Ezra
+sallied forth to seek counsel where he was used to find it. Madame would
+be sure to be still up—though it was late by prairie hours, after nine
+o’clock—as he knew by experience, for in his bachelor days he had often
+spent long evenings in discussion and talk with her. Since his marriage,
+however, he had never gone alone in the evening to talk with Madame.
+Happy in his own love, he had felt no need of other companionship, and
+now as he walked along to her house, he began to wonder if she had
+noticed the sudden cessation of the evening talks, and also to wonder if
+she had missed them. It was thoughtless never to have gone near her
+during all these weeks. It was selfish, seeing how kind, how always
+sympathetic she had been to him for so many months, during the time when
+he felt lonely and full of undefined longings, before his heart had
+found complete rest in Olive’s love and above all in his love for her.
+Ezra thinking of these things was smitten with remorse, and made a
+resolution to go and see Madame of an evening sometimes and to bring
+Olive with him. Meantime he walked along and in a few moments knocked at
+the familiar door. Madame opened it herself, with Balthasar in close
+attendance. The latter, on satisfying himself that it was a person of
+friendly intentions who claimed admittance, walked back to the spot
+where he had been lying, and resumed the thread of his interrupted
+slumbers.
+
+“Brother Ezra, this is indeed a most unexpected visit. I hope it is not
+because there is anything wrong in your little home,” said Madame
+gravely.
+
+Ezra felt much embarrassed. He could hardly say there was nothing the
+matter, and still less could he apologise for having forgotten during
+all these happy weeks to come to see her. He did the best thing under
+the circumstances. He ignored Madame’s remark and question, and plunged
+boldly into the business which had brought him.
+
+She listened gravely without making any observation, but occasionally
+the faintest shadow of a smile fluttered around her lips. Ezra watched
+her face somewhat anxiously. In the old days, he had been used to read
+her face when they talked together, and to catch the meaning of her
+words from the mobile and everchanging expression of her clear blue
+eyes. But to-day, somehow, as he looked, he felt he had lost the power
+to read. The face was now a mask which seemed to conceal the real woman
+underneath, and yet it was the same fair smooth brow, the same sharply
+defined eyebrows, and, beneath, the same eyes. No, the eyes were not the
+same. They no longer looked clear and full at Ezra, but were often
+averted in a strange and uncertain manner, as if seeking to hide or to
+flee. At least such was the curious impression they produced upon him,
+as he sat looking at her and telling of the mighty wave of wrath that
+had surged up about that handful of balsam blossoms.
+
+“It is a most singular cause of division, and one I could almost laugh
+at, except for the very real passions of anger and of hatred it has
+aroused,” he said in conclusion.
+
+“One often sees terrible bursts of anger and fury in immature minds,”
+observed Madame in the preamble of her answer. “Young children and
+people of weak intellect frequently exhibit the most pitiable extremes
+of fury over trifling causes.”
+
+Ezra was not quite certain to what she referred. If to Olive, then she
+was mistaken in considering her a child. He recalled very vividly what
+she had said about communism in what one loves, and he was not at all
+prepared to admit that her arguments were those of a person of weak
+intellect.
+
+“I don’t think this is a case for ‘criticism-cure’ in the Assembly, do
+you?” she said.
+
+“No, certainly not,” replied Ezra, who was keenly alive to the
+possibility of his wife’s blazing up into uncompromising criticism
+herself, if they attempted to apply the famous “cure” upon her.
+
+“Criticism-cure” existed rather in theory than in practice in Perfection
+City, but it was held that if a brother or a sister should be guilty of
+any offence against the common weal, it would be an edifying experience
+to summon him or her to the Assembly, and let all the members tell him
+or her exactly what each one thought of the conduct in question. In
+theory this was supposed to work admirably, and to be a weapon capable
+of reducing to reason the most refractory member of the Community, but
+when Ezra remembered it and imagined for a moment its possible effects
+on Olive, he foresaw a whole train of deplorable results. Suppose she
+defended herself, she could say sharp rankling things with a surprising
+amount of unanswerable truth in them, or suppose she didn’t defend
+herself, but took the scolding silently. Her eyes would get bigger and
+bigger with tears which would roll over her cheeks, and her sweet little
+chin would quiver, and she would look imploringly at him. He couldn’t
+stand that, he knew, but would rush up and take her in his arms, and
+carry her off out from the midst of the carping, criticising brethren,
+and he would call her sweet pet and darling, and say she was right and
+they were horrid brutes to scold her, and he would be very angry and
+would be quite capable of knocking Brother Wright down, if he, as was
+likely, had been savage with the little pet. No, criticism-cure should
+not be applied to Olive. And Ezra, arguing thence into wider fields,
+began to feel some doubts as to the value of that remarkable weapon as a
+means of eradicating the naturally evil tendencies of the human heart.
+Theories which had seemed sound and complete in the abstract had a
+curious habit of ringing false when he imagined himself as applying them
+to Olive. It was very curious, but they did not seem to fit her, or was
+it possible that the theories themselves were wrong? No, he dismissed
+that thought as entailing too much mental demolition and carting away of
+rubbish. Of one thing only was he sure, the “criticism-cure” was not to
+be tried on his little wife.
+
+“I think it is a case for petting rather than for punishing,” remarked
+Madame, after an interval during which they had both been severally
+following out the ramifications of their own reflections.
+
+Ezra jumped at this idea. He was of that opinion too, as he impartially
+observed. Indeed he was always of opinion that Olive required petting.
+
+“Yes, I think I understand the case,” continued Madame. “The flowers
+were a toy, doubly prized now they are gone. What is wanted is to
+provide a new and more attractive toy, so that the baby-mind will
+lightly forget the old grief.”
+
+Ezra did not quite like this way of referring to Olive, but he had
+called in Madame’s aid, and he had no choice but to listen to the
+physician’s diagnosis and prescription regarding the case in question.
+Madame meanwhile looked at him half pityingly, having apparently
+overcome her eyes’ desire to avoid his glance.
+
+“Poor Ezra!” she said softly. “You are mated to a child, petulant,
+wilful, hard to manage, and very bewitching. You will find that you
+cannot in this case work by the light of pure reason. You must bring
+yourself down to her level and try to see with her eyes, to take delight
+in the petty trifles that interest her. ’Tis weary work! The task of
+Sisyphus was none the less severe because it produced no tangible good.”
+
+She was silent, and Ezra began to repent that he had sought counsel from
+so exalted a source, since it was delivered to him with such a liberal
+seasoning of the bitter salt of implied reproof.
+
+“I think that I can apply a remedy in this instance,” resumed Madame. “I
+know a woman’s mind as well as most people, and I know too the vain
+weaknesses of a silly girl—perhaps the knowledge comes from a memory, or
+perhaps from a shattered hope, who knows? At all events, dear friend and
+brother, it will serve you now.”
+
+She left him to go into the small inner apartment which was her bedroom,
+and came out again in a few moments carrying a small gold bracelet of
+curious workmanship, an Oriental trinket.
+
+“Here is a little trifle I happen to have by me. Do you think this toy
+would dry the little one’s tears?”
+
+She handed the bracelet to Ezra, who, though ignorant enough on such
+matters, did not fail to recognise the flash of diamonds in the jewel.
+
+“This is a very valuable piece of jewellery,” he said. “You must not
+give it away.”
+
+“I don’t value such things except for the power of making someone
+happy,” replied Madame. “Take it, dear friend, and think that I speak
+truly when I say I would gladly give all I possess to ease your mind of
+trouble and make your path in life a pleasant one. And the child-wife
+may like it. Now, go to her. Good-night! You look tired and harassed.”
+
+She gently put her hand upon his forehead as if to smooth out wrinkles,
+and left the room.
+
+As Ezra walked home with the diamond bracelet in his pocket, he seemed
+to feel her cool soft touch still, and the thought came into his mind
+that Olive never petted him. No, it was he who always petted her. Well,
+she was very sweet and pretty, and he hoped the bracelet would comfort
+her.
+
+There was no doubt about that. Olive danced for joy when she saw the
+trinket. She put it on her smooth little wrist and flashed it about in
+the sunshine. Her eyes rivalled the diamonds for brightness.
+
+“Do you like it, Ollie?”
+
+“Like it! Why, it’s too lovely for anything, and Madame is just a
+darling, and she is kind. Just fancy giving me a diamond bracelet! A
+thing I never dreamt of ever owning. And how shall I ever thank her?”
+
+Olive was skipping with joy. Suddenly she stopped short.
+
+“Ezra, is this mine, or is it a community-bracelet?”
+
+“It is yours, child.”
+
+“Mary Winkle can’t come and take it away for the good of my soul, can
+she?”
+
+“No, certainly not. We are allowed to hold private property in such
+personal trifles, as you know quite well. Besides, Sister Mary would not
+wish to take from you what you particularly prized.”
+
+“Oh, of that I am not at all so sure. If your principles allowed it, I
+would not give much for Sister Mary’s self-restraint in the matter. She
+might want the bracelet for herself or for Willette, for what I know. I
+shall tell her the bracelet is mine even by community-law.”
+
+Olive began to skip again.
+
+“You are an intractable little mortal, for all you look so soft and
+yielding,” said Ezra. He could not help smiling at her pretty kittenish
+ways, but he was filled with a sort of amazement to perceive how
+impossible it was to change the trend of her mind. Had she been an
+angular woman, all bones, like Mary Winkle, it would not have seemed so
+strange. Olive brought her frollicking to a conclusion and looked wisely
+at her husband, shaking her pretty little head at him.
+
+“No, no, Ezra. It is not that, but you are trying to stuff me into a
+wrong-shaped mould, and I don’t fit. As if any mortal woman ever could
+care for a community-bracelet!”
+
+She danced away to put her treasure in some safe place, and Ezra went
+off to his work, wondering in his own mind if there was something
+radically antagonistic to communism in the female nature. If there was
+any such fundamental incompatibility of temperament, then farewell to
+all ideas of a successful issue to their experiment. Absolute equality
+between men and women in position, power, and influence was the key-note
+of their theories, but what would become of these theories if it should
+appear that the female mind refused to accept the first and greatest
+postulate upon which they were all founded?
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+                           A CHANCE MEETING.
+
+
+The spring whence the Westons drew their water was about a quarter of a
+mile from the house across an angle of the corn field. A little
+foot-path winding in and out among the hills of corn led to it. As the
+corn grew, this path changed in character and became at length a track
+through a miniature forest. The corn grew to about eight feet in height,
+and of course the first to be covered was little Olive, with her brief
+five feet two inches, but by the end of July it had covered them all.
+Then it became Olive’s greatest delight to go down through that forest
+where the corn shook in the breeze. The satin-smooth stalks coming up
+like bamboos, and the broad fibrous ribbons of leaves, were a constant
+pleasure. But greatest joy of all was to watch the coming of the silk.
+When the young ears of grain were forming they threw off great skeins of
+exquisite silken threads, changing through every tint from palest green
+to rich dark crimson. These bunches of silk were like soft plumes
+falling from the crest of the husk that held the ears, and were most
+tempting to twist through idle fingers. A forest of tall-growing prairie
+corn is just the place for fairies, only alas! the wee folk had departed
+this life long before ever Olive went to live at Perfection City. So
+charmed was she with this dwarf forest, which afforded the only shade to
+be enjoyed on that glaring prairie, that during the summer she always
+went to the spring for an extra pail of fresh water every afternoon
+before supper-time, as this errand gave her an excuse for loitering
+among the corn stalks and amusing herself with her own playful fancies.
+
+Diana of course accompanied her young mistress upon these walks to the
+spring, for the puppy was attached to her by bonds of firmest canine
+affection, while Olive, on her side, was never tired of laughing at
+Diana’s ridiculous freaks, although they sometimes caused her
+considerable trouble.
+
+Take an example.
+
+A day so hot and scorching that words fail to convey any idea of it, and
+Olive in a great fuss, for she was behindhand with her work. At four
+o’clock, the very most blistering hour of the whole twenty-four, she set
+off hastily for the spring to fetch the fresh water, and with her Diana,
+her tongue lolling out half a hand’s breath. Knowing the object of the
+expedition, the puppy took the path through the corn, and Olive
+sweltered after her. It seemed as if the shelter of the corn was
+powerless against the slanting shafts of sunlight that danced and
+chequered between the broad hanging leaves, while the very air seemed
+endowed with such a load of heat as to press down with more than the
+allotted weight upon Olive’s head. She climbed over the fence and walked
+across the grass to where the spring started from under a tiny
+overhanging ledge of limestone rock. It was an excellent spring with the
+best of water, and would have been made into the holiest of wells by a
+spreading tree or a shady thorn-bush near it. There was, however,
+nothing of this sort, but only a clear pool of water some two feet
+across and about a foot deep, just enough, in fact, to enable one to get
+a good dip with the bucket. As Olive, hot and tired, hurried to this
+little pool of water, she beheld the accomplished Diana sitting in the
+middle of it, cooling herself and slobbering water up and down over her
+nose in supreme bliss. Poor Olive! She did not know whether to laugh or
+to cry, but eventually decided upon the first-named course. Then she sat
+down beside Diana and paddled her feet in the water, after which
+refreshment she returned home with her water-pail empty. The spring had
+an undisturbed night in which to renew its freshness, and in the future
+Olive kept her eye on Diana when they went together for water. The dog
+always wanted to go first, but Olive kept her severely to heel until the
+water was obtained, after which Diana was free to indulge in what
+diversions she pleased.
+
+One day as Olive emerged from the pathway through the corn, her heart
+gave a great bound of alarm as she saw a man standing beside the spring,
+holding his horse’s bridle. He was a tall man in a red shirt and
+large-brimmed hat. He carried a revolver at his belt, but it was not
+that which frightened Olive, she was well accustomed to seeing armed
+men. On catching sight of her the stranger took off his hat with a
+sweeping bow, and coming forward greeted her with the greatest
+eagerness.
+
+“This is indeed a delightful meeting, Mrs. Weston. Quite idyllic, if I
+may say so. And are you coming to fetch water? It is a subject for a
+poem, only I am not a poet. I can feel all the beauty of it, but must be
+dumb. You’ll let me carry back your pail for you, won’t you? It is too
+heavy for those wee hands.”
+
+“Thank you, Mr. Cotterell. I can quite easily carry my pail. I do it
+every day,” said Olive speaking with much embarrassment.
+
+“Mr. Cotterell!” he repeated with infinite sadness in manner, and with a
+look of much meaning in his bold blue eyes. “You call me Mr. Cotterell,
+then I am no longer Mr. Perseus, and my sweet romance is shattered
+forever!”
+
+“I know now that you are Mr. Cotterell,” said Olive, in keen distress.
+
+“And knowing that, you are disillusioned and have lost faith in me, and
+you will not even let me carry your pail of water for you,” said he,
+sadly, in a way which cut Olive to the heart, “yet I am the same man I
+was. To you at least I have never changed.”
+
+“I know you are very kind,” said Olive, “but if you please I’d rather
+you didn’t carry the pail for me.”
+
+She was dreadfully sorry to say anything to hurt his feelings, but she
+remembered her promise, and she must make him understand here and now
+that their acquaintance was to cease. She wanted to do it as kindly as
+she could, but she must do it at once.
+
+Cotterell was not slow to read her thoughts, indeed her distress was too
+real and undisguised for him to fail to understand.
+
+“Is this an order of dismissal, Mrs. Weston? Am I not to come to see you
+any more?” he asked abruptly, with a look of pain in his face.
+
+Olive glancing up saw the pain and felt sorrier than ever, but she went
+bravely forward.
+
+“I am deeply pained, Mr. Cotterell, but I must ask you not to come to
+see me; my husband does not want you to,” she said, unable in her
+distress to find any words which would convey her meaning unmistakably,
+and yet not sound too unkind.
+
+“Your husband has forbidden you to see me?” said Cotterell, biting his
+yellow moustache savagely.
+
+“Yes,” said Olive simply.
+
+“Your husband’s sentiments would do credit to a dog in the manger, Mrs.
+Weston, but are not what one exactly looks for from a professing
+communist, who poses as a shining light for his poor fellow-creatures
+still groping in the darkness of their ignorance.”
+
+“He says you are a bad man, Mr. Cotterell,” said Olive with a view to
+defending her husband and perhaps finding out the facts of the case
+about her mysterious friend, in whose personality she felt a great
+interest.
+
+“I don’t pretend to be a good man, Heaven knows! but I’m a poor lonely
+devil living quite by myself, and your husband, with all that the world
+can give in the way of happiness, grudges me the brief pleasure of
+talking for half an hour with a good woman. That’s not the way to make
+me a better man, Mrs. Weston, and God knows I need all the help I can
+get.”
+
+“I’m so sorry,” faltered Olive in ready sympathy, and the tears welled
+up into her tender black eyes.
+
+“You sweet pitying angel,” said Mr. Cotterell, coming nearer and
+speaking very gently. “Your influence would save me if anything could.”
+
+“Oh, you mustn’t talk like that,” said Olive, with a catch in her voice.
+“And you will be a good man, won’t you?”
+
+He bent his handsome face low, and taking her hand implanted a kiss upon
+it with a grace that might have charmed a duchess.
+
+“A woman can make or mar a man’s life,” said he. “Happy are they who
+draw the prizes. Goodbye!”
+
+He sprang upon his horse and galloped away. Olive stood watching him,
+her eyes swimming in tears, she scarcely knew why, only he seemed so sad
+and so handsome. Ezra was unkind to say she must never see him any more
+and try to make his life less sad and wicked, and she was so sorry to
+think that she would never have any more talks with him.
+
+At this moment a low growl from Diana made Olive turn round to encounter
+the clear cool gaze of Madame Morozoff-Smith.
+
+“I followed you down here,” she said. “Napoleon Pompey told me that you
+were most likely gone to the spring.”
+
+“Have you been here long?” asked Olive, blushing in her surprise and
+confusion. “I only came for a pail of fresh water.”
+
+“No, I just saw Mr. Cotterell say good-bye and ride off,” observed
+Madame gently. “Do you see him often? He hasn’t a good reputation.”
+
+“I don’t believe he is as bad as people say, I am very sorry for him
+living alone.”
+
+“He need not have been alone only that he chose it, indeed it ought to
+have been quite otherwise, if report goes true.”
+
+“We ought to be the last persons on earth to credit reports,” said Olive
+hotly. “I am sure there is a nice crop of them about us and our life
+here at Perfection City, if it comes to that.”
+
+“True, I daresay there are,” said Madame. “One should be charitable.”
+
+Olive was evidently ill at ease, and Madame drawing from a totally
+different experience of life her own conclusions, became convinced that
+Ezra’s wife was carrying on a secret acquaintanceship with a man of whom
+he thought very ill.
+
+Madame’s position as leader at Perfection City gave her many rights and
+imposed certain duties. She considered that of private admonition as one
+of them. She did not speak for some moments, and the two walked along in
+silence. Madame was debating in her own mind whether she should speak to
+Olive and endeavour to turn her from the dangerous path towards which
+she seemed to be directing her steps; or whether she should keep silence
+and let her destiny be accomplished. She reflected that if she spoke to
+Olive, that rather high-spirited young woman would probably resent her
+interference, and might possibly complain to Ezra, with the result of
+estranging him from herself. On the other hand, if she left the silly
+wife to go her foolish way, she would break her husband’s heart.
+Madame’s well-shaped lips curled with a smile of contempt for herself as
+these thoughts passed rapidly through her brain. What a fool she was to
+stir in the matter! Let the giddy girl follow her own impulses and
+then—No, no! She would be true to her best self, she would put forth a
+hand and draw back the blind fool from the precipice that lay before
+her.
+
+She spoke therefore to Olive in that soft quiet voice of hers that
+seemed to have more power of arresting the attention and holding it than
+the roar of an avalanche.
+
+“I think you are, perhaps, not acquainted with Mr. Cotterell’s
+character,” said she. “I am sure you would not wish to associate with a
+bad man.”
+
+“Why do you think he is a bad man? Do you know him?”
+
+“No, I don’t know him, but I am sure I am right in saying that he is a
+man of loose morals,” said Madame.
+
+“I don’t believe it,” said Olive.
+
+“Why not? How can you know?”
+
+“Because I have talked with him a great deal, and he speaks like a man
+with high aspirations, and not at all like the bad man you say he is.”
+
+“But what can you know of a man’s real character from a chance word or
+two as you run across him in an afternoon’s stroll?” observed Madame.
+
+“I don’t judge from a chance word, I have had long talks with him.”
+
+“Indeed! and where? Do you meet him here at the spring then, so often?”
+
+“I never met him at the spring before, but I used to meet him pretty
+often, when I was out cattle-hunting and he would generally accompany me
+for a bit. Sometimes too, he used to pass our house on his way
+cattle-hunting, and then he would look in and water his horse and stop
+to talk to me for a time,” said Olive in explanation.
+
+“Really!” said Madame looking keenly at her companion, “and did Ezra
+know of these visits?”
+
+“Ezra said he wasn’t to come any more, and I told Mr. Cotterell so
+to-day.”
+
+“Oh! and what did he say?”
+
+“He called Ezra a dog in the manger, and I do think Ezra oughtn’t to be
+so harsh about Mr. Cotterell. He would like to be a better man, I know,
+if he had any chance, and people were kind to him.”
+
+“Did he intimate that you could influence him towards the better way?”
+
+“I don’t see why I can’t try to use my influence in trying to make my
+fellow-creatures happier and better. You and Ezra are always talking
+about doing good that way. Why do you want to stop me the moment I see a
+chance of doing a little good?”
+
+“Because you would only do harm.”
+
+“No, I shouldn’t. A woman has great influence over a man. He said so
+himself.”
+
+“Mr. Cotterell said so?” inquired Madame.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It is a very dangerous thing for a young woman to attempt to influence
+men of that sort.”
+
+“You don’t know what sort he is, nor anything about him. You are only
+following reports. And how can you talk about the danger of influencing
+men? That is just what you are always doing yourself.”
+
+“With me it is quite different,” said Madame hastily.
+
+“That is what everybody says to me whenever I want to do what other
+people find it right to do. I hate being treated like a baby.”
+
+“You are very young and very pretty, child, and that makes it all the
+more necessary for your friends to guard you against dangers which you
+don’t perceive as clearly as they do.”
+
+“I hate being young and—well—pretty, if it’s always going to make me be
+treated like that,” said Olive angrily.
+
+“Like what?”
+
+“Like a naughty child. That’s what Ezra does, and he goes to you to ask
+what he should do to me, you know he does.” She was beginning to cry,
+just like a naughty child.
+
+Madame smiled contemptuously as she glanced at her companion. “What
+could have possessed that quiet reserved Ezra to marry such a
+feather-headed vain little puss?” she thought bitterly.
+
+Olive dried her eyes angrily, she saw the contempt expressed by Madame’s
+curling lips, and her pride was thoroughly aroused.
+
+“I want to know why things are different as soon as they apply to me?”
+she asked with doubtful grammar but unmistakable import. “It isn’t this
+once only, but it is always so. Personal liberty is the corner-stone of
+Perfection City, that is what you are here for, to enjoy liberty and
+protest against things. Mary Winkle won’t take her husband’s name, and
+dresses like a fright, and nobody minds. She’s free. But as soon as I
+try a little flight of my own, that doesn’t hurt anybody, I’m to be
+popped into a cage, and you and Ezra come and shut the door on me. I met
+this man by chance and liked talking to him. He is well-mannered and
+well educated, and likes the same books as I do, and has travelled and
+could tell me heaps and heaps of interesting things. He wasn’t forever
+talking in the same little muddling circle, and wasn’t always full of
+himself. He tried to interest me. You are an educated woman, Madame, and
+you know as well as I do that, except for you and Ezra, there is not an
+educated person in Perfection City, nor one who has the same tastes as I
+have. Mr. Cotterell used to come and talk to me, and I liked it; then
+Ezra gets very angry, says he is a bad man, and forbids my seeing him.
+He forbids me, mind you. Not a bit the sort of language you would expect
+in Perfection City, but I believe in wifely obedience and I obeyed him.
+I told Mr. Cotterell he must not come to see me any more, and he won’t
+do so. He always showed the best spirit in everything he said, and I
+won’t believe he is so very wicked just on mere report. We once had a
+horse-thief and murderer to stay to supper, and we did not inquire into
+his character before we asked him to stop and rest and feed his horse.
+Mr. Cotterell said my influence might help him to be a better man, and
+perhaps it might. At all events, I want to know why I wasn’t to try to
+influence him, and I want to know why Perfection City ideas, when they
+make for freedom, are not applicable to me, but have to be all turned
+upside down when I come into play? Can you, Madame, answer me that?”
+
+Madame was considerably dumbfoundered by this attack delivered so
+unexpectedly and so very straight from the shoulder. She hastily recast
+her idea that Olive was a silly little fool, and most unaccountably
+found herself anxiously seeking about for means of defence.
+
+“The fact of the matter is, you are too pretty to do these things,” she
+replied, helplessly telling the truth in her extremity.
+
+“Can Perfection City then only succeed if all the women are ugly?” asked
+Olive scornfully. “You had better not proclaim that fact, or you’ll have
+all the women running away.”
+
+Madame was in the habit of being worshipped by men, and was not at all
+prepared to have her remarks ridiculed by a slip of a girl. She did not
+like it, and therefore replied with some asperity,
+
+“You are really too silly, Sister Olive. You must surely perceive that
+there is great danger in your associating with Mr. Cotterell on so
+familiar a footing, that, in short, he may fall in love with you, and I
+presume you can understand the danger of that.”
+
+“Precisely, a fresh set of laws must, as usual, be applied to me, and
+not those which govern the rest of you,” said Olive calmly.
+
+“I don’t understand to what you refer,” said Madame looking at her
+doubtfully.
+
+“Mr. Cotterell knew from the outset that I was a married woman. I don’t
+see the alarmingness of the danger that he might fall in love with me,
+simply because we talked together. The idea has only struck you in
+reference to me; it does not seem to have done so with regard to the
+similar circumstances of you and Ezra.”
+
+Madame turned white with anger. “How dare you insult me by such an
+insinuation?” she exclaimed.
+
+“I didn’t dare until after you had first given utterance to the
+insinuation against me,” replied Olive, with provoking calmness.
+
+Madame turned as if she could have struck her, but she controlled
+herself with a desperate effort.
+
+“It seems to me, Sister Olive, that your remarks are very ill-judged,”
+she said in a voice that shook in spite of her. “I have no wish to bandy
+words with you. I spoke merely out of a desire to do my duty, and to
+save you, if possible, from a danger which I imagined I foresaw more
+clearly than you did. I see that your words were prompted by quite
+another wish than to seek advice or counsel in a difficult moment.”
+
+“I sought for neither advice or counsel,” returned Olive. “I simply
+wanted to discover, if possible, how to fit the theories of Perfection
+City, which I know pretty well by heart now, into the practice as
+applied to me.”
+
+Madame looked at her with eyes of anger and even of hate, and Olive,
+conscious of having been almost more successful than she had imagined
+possible in argument with so distinguished a mind, returned the look
+with one suggestive of triumph. Alas for the perfect harmony of
+Perfection City!
+
+“I am surprised, I will not say pained, because you would care little
+for that, but I am surprised, I repeat, at such words in the mouth of
+Ezra Weston’s wife. He must have been strangely mistaken in your
+character, or you cannot have revealed your true self to him, for I
+cannot imagine him binding himself for life to a mate who scorns and
+flouts in this manner what he holds so dear. You are mocking the
+principles to which he has devoted his life. You are too foolish to see
+what you are doing, but one day you will be punished, and then perhaps
+you will repent—when it will be too late.”
+
+Madame turned and walked rapidly away, leaving Olive feeling very angry
+and very much frightened as well.
+
+That evening Napoleon Pompey carried a note and a small parcel to
+Madame, who guessed pretty well what it was. The note was brief, it
+contained but these words:
+
+“I thought you sent the bracelet as a present, therefore I accepted it
+and was grateful: now I know you sent it as a reproof, therefore I
+return it.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+                           THE PRAIRIE FIRE.
+
+
+The summer had been a particularly dry one, and since the beginning of
+July not a drop of rain had fallen. The water-melons revelled in the
+heat, and Olive revelled in the water-melons: for by a blessed
+compensation of Nature the hotter and drier the land, the cooler and
+juicier the water-melons seem to be. The water-melon of the western
+prairie is as different from the pallid green-fleshed vegetable which
+masquerades under its name in this country, as the full moon of the
+heavens is superior to the lime-light article manufactured for use on
+the stage. The real prairie water-melon is an enormous affair, being
+about as large as the roll of rugs without which fussy gentlemen
+consider it impossible to travel. The skin is of the darkest green and
+as hard as a board, a most unripe-looking object at all times. Indeed
+the only way one can find out the condition of a water-melon’s insides
+is by surgical operation. You simply cut out a plug about an inch square
+from the top side of the melon, and look to see if the flesh has turned
+crimson at the centre. If it is still white or pale pink you know the
+psychological moment, when the truly wise will eat the melon, has not
+yet arrived. Accordingly you put back the plug, and leave the sun to
+work a little longer on it, at a temperature of a hundred and twenty or
+so. Since it never rains at the melon season of the year, the plug does
+not do any harm if left on the top side, but the beginner sometimes
+leaves it on the lower side, with the result that all the water runs
+away. It is a curious fact, but the water of a melon, even of one picked
+in the middle of a scorching hot day, never seems tepid. It is always
+cool and refreshing, even at times when ordinary water tastes
+unutterably mawkish owing to the excessive heat. The crimson spongy
+flesh, specked with purple-black seeds, is eaten in moderation or in
+immoderation according to the taste of the individual, but the water is
+always greedily drunk up by everybody. The scorching winds of the plains
+seem to dry one’s very marrow, and nothing can exceed the thirst of a
+man who is obliged to be out all day in such weather and to work hard at
+the same time. Animals, too, suffer from extreme thirst, and after a
+morning’s ploughing when the farm horses are brought up to water, they
+drink and drink and drink, swelling visibly under one’s eye, as if they
+were india-rubber horses under the action of some new patent inflator.
+They are never stinted in their drink and swallow bucketsful before
+attacking their corn.
+
+But to return to our water-melons.
+
+Napoleon Pompey used to bring up a wheelbarrow full from the melon patch
+each morning for the day’s consumption. He, like a true negro, was
+inordinately fond of melons, or “millions” as he called them, and would
+have sucked them all day long if left to his own devices. Whenever he
+had to go anywhere in the waggon, as occasionally happened, he would lay
+in a store of “millions,” and lay himself beside them, and suck them,
+just as if he were a black caterpillar of unlimited capacity. The horses
+meantime, far too oppressed with the heat to require much attention,
+would plod along with their eyes shut, trying to keep out the glaring
+light. There was nothing to stumble over or fall into, so the driving
+became of the most elementary pattern, requiring only an occasional
+rattle of the reins and a comment or two, such as: “Yo’, Reb, g’ ’long
+will yer, g’ out o’ dat.”
+
+Olive during this period found the heat stifling, and used to sit out of
+doors on the shady side of the house, until the terrible wind blew up
+from the Plains, when she would flee as before the breath of a volcano,
+and shutting herself tight up in her room with closed doors and windows,
+would gasp through the visitation as best she might. She was no worse
+off than anyone else, and the nights were always cool and refreshing.
+That was an unspeakable blessing. All this heat dried up the thick
+prairie grass until it was like a vast plain of dry hay standing erect.
+
+The corn crop at Perfection City had turned out exceptionally good.
+There was ample for all the needs of the Community and a good surplus
+which was to be sold at Mapleton in order to enable them to buy some
+farm-machinery that was greatly needed. Consequently the whole Community
+worked hard at getting in the corn so as to be early in the market. The
+heavy ears of corn with their twenty rows of golden yellow grains were
+stripped off the tall stalks by hand: a most limb-lacerating job, for
+the “shucks,” or coverings to the ear, are masses of fibrous leaves with
+sawlike edges. These edges have the power of cutting an exposed finger
+in a most painful manner, and they are by no means loath to use the
+power.
+
+All this hurry and concentration of the workers upon the cornfield was
+possible only if every other sort of work was neglected for the moment.
+It seemed the wisest plan to hasten off with their harvest in spite of
+the risk, and, unused as they were to prairie life, yet even they
+realized that there was some risk in thus leaving their farms
+unprotected. Ezra was perfectly aware of it, but like so many people he
+shut his eyes and hoped for good luck. He spoke to Olive on the subject.
+
+“If anyone so much as drops a lighted match on the prairie we shall be
+lost,” he said.
+
+“Why, what do you mean?” asked his wife in surprise. She was still so
+new to the prairie that she did not understand to what he referred. They
+happened to be on that outside landing of the stairs which looked out
+over the wide boundless western prairie. This stairway from its position
+made an exceptionally good place from which to take a survey of the
+whole prospect.
+
+“That grass is like tinder, and if anybody leaves a coal of fire burning
+at his camping-place or drops his pipe, the thing will catch in a
+second, and if there is a strong west wind we shall see about as bad a
+prairie fire as we care to.”
+
+“Oh, but that’s dreadful! What shall we do?” said Olive, much alarmed.
+
+“As soon as our corn is sold at Mapleton, we shall plough all round
+Perfection City and back-fire, if we can only get a calm day. We must
+not back-fire in a high wind, because that would probably start a
+prairie fire and just cause the very mischief we want to guard against.
+It would take fifty people to keep a line of fire under control for a
+mile’s length with grass like that and a strong wind.” So spoke Ezra,
+critically scanning the horizon for any sign of smoke which might
+betoken danger. He was very uneasy, and the fierce west wind, which
+seemed never weary of blowing, made him all the more anxious, as it
+might prevent them guarding themselves by running the usual belt of
+burnt prairie all around Perfection City.
+
+It was not a light job to get a safety belt of about four miles long,
+for that was the circumference of the portion of their land fenced in,
+and it was an impossible one in the face of a high wind with their small
+force—unless indeed they did as selfish individualists did, namely let
+the fire go and burn out whom it liked and what it liked once they were
+themselves safe. The Pioneers refused to be guilty of this act of
+treachery to the common weal of the inhabitants of the prairie. It is a
+comparatively easy thing to keep one line of fire safe and so protect
+your own fields; the real difficulty begins when you want to stop the
+fire from spreading in other directions as well. Most of the settlers
+back-fired their own land, and left Providence or the Devil to see to
+the result as regards their neighbours. The Pioneers had naturally a
+higher standard of public duty than this, therefore they did not
+back-fire in the high wind.
+
+The corn being stripped off the stalks, Olive’s fairy forest was sadly
+mutilated, for the great ears were all gone and many of the streaming
+leaves were torn away; the walk to the spring, therefore, was no longer
+so delightful as it had been earlier in the summer. Still she and Diana
+used to go there pretty often, especially since Napoleon Pompey was
+always kept busy helping in the field. Coming up from the spring one
+afternoon just before sun-down, she was amazed to see her husband
+galloping madly along the far side of the field on Queen Katherine, the
+big brown mare, her harness banging her hot flanks at every stride,
+while Napoleon Pompey on Rebel was tearing after him waving his tattered
+old straw hat. Olive for a moment or two stared in blank amazement at
+them, and then began to run towards the house which appeared to be their
+destination also. Ezra and Napoleon Pompey with frantic gestures seemed
+to invite her attention to the setting sun, now sinking to rest like a
+shimmering copper ball. She looked, but saw nothing except the molten
+mass, unless it were a faint blue haze on the horizon, the result, as
+she supposed, of the intense heat.
+
+When Olive reached the house a few moments later, it was to see her
+husband going hurriedly down the road to the bars on the other side of
+the house. The horses were hitched to the plough and were trotting fast,
+while Napoleon Pompey was urging them on with voice and whip. The
+plough, unaccustomed to such speed, was jerking from side to side. A
+moment’s halt at the bars, while Napoleon Pompey threw down the rails,
+and Ezra turning round put both hands to his mouth and shouted “Fire” in
+a long re-echoing whoop. He wheeled around then and seizing his
+plough-handles set off at a hand-gallop, bounding along with his
+ungainly implement.
+
+Now Olive understood what that blue haze meant. It was a prairie fire
+coming down on them from the west along with a fierce wind. Oh dear! oh
+dear! What should she do? There must be something women could help at,
+in such a moment, if she only knew what. But who to ask? Everybody was
+far away, and the dreadful fire began to show up now that the sun was no
+longer casting such bright rays.
+
+“Come ’long, git yer shingle,” shouted a familiar voice behind her.
+
+“Oh, Willette, is that you? What shall I do? It’s a fire, and I don’t
+know what’s wanted.”
+
+“Nothin’ but a shingle an’ a box o’ matches. Quick now! We’ll hev ter
+pike, you bet. Pa and Ma is out firin’ a’ready down yonder, ’side our
+house.”
+
+“I am so glad you’ve come,” said Olive hurrying along with two wooden
+shingles under her arm.
+
+The shingles were merely the thin wooden “slates” with which the houses
+were roofed. When thoroughly dried they are admirably adapted for
+spreading a fire from house to house in a street, and accordingly they
+are now prohibited by law in most towns and cities. On the prairie they
+were used in emergencies as paddles to keep the back-firing within
+limits.
+
+“Yes, Ma said she ’lowed you wouldn’t know the fust thing ter do,”
+remarked Willette complacently. “An’ Pa said he reckoned school larnin’
+in the East could make folks more like nateral born fools than anything
+under the sun.”
+
+Olive was very little obliged to the Wright and Winkle spouses for their
+opinion of her. She remained therefore silent.
+
+They soon reached the furrows that were being so desperately ploughed by
+Ezra and his foam-covered horses. The swift twilight was almost upon
+them, but they could see Wright urging his horses along the south side
+of the land nearest his house, while away across at the east side of
+Perfection City Brother Dummy was thundering along with his waggon
+bringing up his plough to the rescue, and that completed all the
+horse-power of the Community. Little tongues of flame here and there
+along the furrows denoted that the back-firing had begun in several
+spots. Meanwhile the sky was reddening up with the reflection of the
+on-coming conflagration, and the fierce wind blew ever harder directly
+from its long blood-red line.
+
+“Now you jes’ set afire ’long hyar, front this hyar furrow,” said
+Willette, kneeling down with her matches and starting the fire as she
+spoke. “Now then, yo’ jes’ see to that, an’ don’t yo’ let that ar fire
+hop over behind yer, or it’ll be worse nor nothin’.”
+
+“What am I to do?” asked Olive trembling with excitement and fear, it
+was all so strange and alarming. “I never saw a fire and don’t know
+anything about it,” she added.
+
+“Jes’ paddle it out with yer shingle, ef it gits over. There ain’t no
+sight o’ larnin’ wanted for that,” said Willette in scorn. “Mind yer
+ends, and look after tongues in the middle. They’ll be powerful handy at
+jumpin’ over this hyar furrow, and you mustn’t let the fire git away
+from yer, else yo’ll be clear done for. Keep yer eyes behind yer and
+min’ the back line,” said Willette walking away.
+
+“Land o’ liberty! look at that!”
+
+Willette made one bound behind Olive and commenced furiously beating the
+ground with her wooden paddle, while Olive, bewildered, turned round to
+see that she had indeed let the fire get behind her even as Willette was
+uttering her warning.
+
+“We ’uns would ha’ been clear burnt out in one grasshopper’s jump on’y I
+was there,” said Willette looking critically to see if any little spark
+of fire lingered in the tall grass which could by any chance start into
+life again.
+
+“Oh I can never manage it! What shall I do?”
+
+“Be spry and—Look at that again now!” Willette sprang to a new place and
+beat the ground. She was back again in an instant, here there and every
+where, with the activity of a monkey, beating down for dear life,
+whenever the fire crossed the narrow base-line of the up-turned sod, and
+as the wind was high it was frequently doing this. Constant vigilance
+was required, especially as Ezra had only had time to run a few furrows
+with the plough, instead of a band five or six feet wide.
+
+“Powerful heavy work in this hyar high wind,” said the child, “and on’y
+that ar furrow to start from.”
+
+Willette was in her element. Not an inch of the line escaped her
+lynx-eye, and all the while she kept giving advice to Olive, who stood
+in awe of her superior practical knowledge in this emergency.
+
+“Now this hyar fire’s agoin’ to spread along, an’ yo’ jes’ got ter mind
+this end by yerself.”
+
+She darted twenty yards away and paddled out a flame and came back, her
+face begrimed with smoke and dirt, so that she looked not unlike the
+nigger whose modes of speech she so much affected.
+
+“You jes’ take off that ar hat and them big skirts, else you’ll be burnt
+to death right hyar,” said Willette surveying Olive with considerable
+disapproval.
+
+Willette’s hickory trousers and shirt were exactly the thing for a
+prairie fire in a high wind, as indeed they were for most of the
+occupations that fell to her lot. What with the constant bounding
+backwards and forwards over the flame, Olive indeed thought that she had
+better accept the advice and slip off her wide calico skirt which was
+forever in the way and might easily catch fire. She put it along with
+her hat just at the top of the slope where Weddell’s Gully began, where
+she could easily get them next day, if all went well.
+
+It was night now and would have been quite dark but for the bright glare
+from the fire. All the inhabitants of the Community were out working
+desperately. Olive paddled down her fire and kept her line bravely for a
+couple of hours, in spite of choking smoke and clouds of dust and many a
+burn. Willette was far away, lost in the darkness, following her end of
+the fire, and only became visible as she leaped backwards and forwards
+over her line of fire like some agile fiend engaged in roasting its
+victims. Olive was all alone. She felt very much frightened, for she did
+not know what might happen, nor what in any new emergency she would have
+to do. She wished somebody would come, for it was a strange experience
+to be in the black night and lurid glare all alone minding a fire. The
+air was full of the burnt fluff from the big fire, and the roar as it
+now had come near was terrifying. True the worst of it was passing to
+the south, and their land was now pretty well guarded on all sides.
+Suddenly the cheerful black face of Napoleon Pompey appeared in the
+light of the flame.
+
+“Oh, Pompey, I’m so glad you’ve come. Where is everybody?” said Olive,
+overjoyed to see a human being once more.
+
+“Wal, Mis’ Ollie, I on’y jes’ take ole plough to de bars. We’uns rip up
+dat furrow golly spry. Done turn de hosses loose.”
+
+“Why, the poor horses will be burnt!” exclaimed Olive in dismay.
+
+“Dem hosses, dey dre’ful cute critters. Dey go off slap to de bottom
+lan’. You bet hosses knows mos’ as well nor white folks ’bout prairie
+fires. I come min’ yo’ fire fo’ yer, Mis’ Ollie. Ole man he done tole
+me.”
+
+“Very well, you can take my shingle then. There is not much more, I
+suppose, to be done now, only you must keep both edges between the two
+furrows here. They told me not to let it get away and run down into the
+Gully. Do you understand?”
+
+“You bet,” replied Napoleon Pompey who knew far better than Olive could
+tell him just what should be done.
+
+“I am going to get my hat and skirt. I left them near the corner of
+Weddell’s Gully. I think I will just run across the old field and get
+them: it will be much shorter than going all the way round by the
+furrows. It will be light enough to see yet awhile so I can follow the
+path through the Gully.”
+
+Olive looked at the fire that was fast roaring its way towards the
+south-east, and deciding it would easily light her on her way she
+tripped off and disappeared in the gloom down towards the Gully.
+
+In a few minutes Napoleon Pompey began to show signs of immense
+excitement.
+
+“Golly Ned! I never seed yonder. Mis’ Ollie whar yo’ be? Come back! Come
+back, Mis’ Ollie! Golly! Golly!”
+
+He ran violently backwards and forwards along his line of fire, which,
+however, he dared not leave, exclaiming “Golly!” and “Oh Lordy!” at
+every step. In a minute or two he ran into Ezra who was coming along to
+fetch Olive home, if she was still there.
+
+“Lordy! dat yo’, Mas’r Ezra. Yo’ go right ’long down dish hyar Gully.
+Mis’ Ollie she down dar.”
+
+Ezra was dead beat. He could scarcely drag his limbs along. The terrific
+exertion of that furious ploughing, coming at the end of a long and hard
+day’s work, had almost over-taxed even his iron frame.
+
+“I thought I would find her here on my way home,” he said languidly. “We
+are pretty safe now. Tell her to come back with the others. I’m going
+home to get something to eat.”
+
+“No, sir-ee,” said Napoleon Pompey vehemently. “You’ hain’t gwine ter do
+dat. Golly Ned! Yo’ dunno see. Mis’ Ollie she done gone down inter de
+Gully, fetch ole hat. Dat fire. Yo’ see dat fire startin’ up yonder, she
+never seed dat, I didn’t see it nudder nohow: dat fire’ll crope up an’
+cotch her.”
+
+“My God! where is she?” cried Ezra, roused to sudden energy as it dawned
+upon him what Napoleon Pompey was explaining.
+
+“Down de Gully dar, she say she gwine down dar.”
+
+“Amongst those tall weeds and that fire coming on! Oh my God!”
+
+His fatigue was all gone now. He leaped forward and sprang with
+desperate bounds down the straggling path towards Weddell’s Gully,
+where, in a deserted field once tilled by that individual, prairie weeds
+were growing to the height of six feet and more, they had dry stalks and
+fluffy downy heads that would burn like petroleum, if the fire once
+touch them. It was down there that Olive had gone, all ignorant of that
+tiny red line creeping slowly around the brow of the hill, up against
+the wind, and now approaching that very spot with vicious little tongues
+of red flame. No wonder Ezra bounded along the pathway, no wonder his
+heart beat ready to burst, and no wonder if his voice sounded harsh and
+choking as he cried “Olive! Olive! Olive!” again and again until his
+brain reeled. He got no answer except the crackle of the fire. He
+stumbled along not knowing which way to turn, and twice fell forward as
+his foot caught in the tangled grass. He staggered to his feet and
+raising his agonised face cried in a harsh whisper, “Oh God! my wife, my
+wife!” He tried to shout again, but his dry throat made no articulate
+sound. His temples seemed bursting, he dashed forward blindly, not
+knowing where to look for Olive in the horrid darkness, soon to be
+turned into still more horrid light. His foot struck against an old rail
+at the edge of Weddell’s deserted field, he fell heavily, hitting his
+head against the projecting end of the rail, rolled over and lay still.
+The little flames crept nearer and nearer lapping out their malicious
+red tongues as if in anticipation.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+                              THE RESCUE.
+
+
+Madame had worked hard with the rest in beating back the fire, and now
+that she saw that their united efforts had been successful and that
+Perfection City was safe, she, in company with Balthasar, was going the
+circuit of the defences of their home, just to see that there remained
+nothing further for her to do. In the course of time she came to
+Napoleon Pompey, who was in charge of the last scrap of back-firing,
+intent on maintaining guard and on effecting a complete junction of the
+two lines of fire, so as not to leave so much as a handsbreadth of
+standing grass whereby the enemy might even at the last minute burst in
+upon them. This finishing of the circle was important, and the lad was
+in the midst of his work and his distress when Madame loomed out through
+the darkness.
+
+“Oh, Lordy, dey is both burned, dey is! Oh Lordy! Oh Lordy,” cried
+Napoleon Pompey the instant he set eyes upon Madame.
+
+“Who is burned?” asked Madame in bewilderment, well used to the
+extravagant modes of speech indulged in by negroes.
+
+“Mis’ Ollie an’ Mas’r Ezra fo’ shu’.”
+
+“Are you mad, fool, what do you mean?” said Madame furiously.
+
+“Mis’ Ollie done gone in der Gully ter fetch ole hat, an’ de fire’s
+crope up, an’ it’ll cotch her, oh Lordy! oh Lordy! An’ Mas’r Ezra he
+done gone ter fin’ her down dar,” said the boy, beginning to whimper.
+
+Madame gripped his shoulder with a grasp of iron.
+
+“Be quiet, and tell me what you mean. Sister Olive has gone home, I
+passed her myself with her hat under her arm, and she told me to tell
+Ezra she had gone back.”
+
+“De Lord be praised!” ejaculated Napoleon Pompey. “Den it’s on’y Mas’r
+Ezra’ll be burnt. Yah, you lemme go!”
+
+This exclamation was in answer to the sudden pressure of Madame’s hand,
+which was like the clutch of a vice.
+
+“Where is Ezra? Tell me or I’ll wring your neck,” she said in a voice
+the like of which Napoleon Pompey had never heard before in his life.
+
+“Down dar,” said he terrified, pointing to the Gully.
+
+“Show me where he started from.”
+
+Madame still kept her hand upon Napoleon Pompey who hurried to the spot
+where Ezra had stood.
+
+“Dar’s his shingle, what he done drap when he run.”
+
+“Ha!” said Madame pouncing upon the shingle. “Here, Balthasar, here
+sweetheart!”
+
+The dog came up to her, and she passed her trembling hands over his long
+ears and whispered to him half crying, half coaxing. “Here, dear heart,
+do this for me or I die.”
+
+She put the shingle to his nose. He sniffed, raised his long and pointed
+head. Then she lay upon the ground coaxing him to put his nose down. He
+sniffed again, took a step to the right, to the left, back, then
+forward. Madame followed clasping the shingle to her bosom and murmuring
+cooing words of love to her dog. He raised his great tan head and gave a
+long deep bay that echoed far and wide.
+
+“Golly! She gwine ter run him down like he nigger slave,” said Napoleon
+Pompey with a shiver, as he heard the dog’s voice.
+
+Balthasar set off and Madame kept close at his heels. It was easy
+enough, for the trail was fresh and strong. In three minutes they stood
+beside the motionless form of Ezra at the brink of the tall weeds, and
+Balthasar whined in anxiety as Madame lifted his head and called upon
+him in agonised tones. Just then the sky was lit up with a lurid glare.
+The first red tongue had tasted the dry fluffy weeds on Weddell’s
+abandoned farm. Madame, startled by the flame, sprang to her feet and
+gave one hasty glance around. Ezra lay motionless. She stepped a few
+paces into the shorter grass of the ordinary prairie and set it on fire.
+The little ring of flame spread on all sides, like the ripple from a
+stone cast into still water. Then she paddled out the fire on the side
+next Ezra, and the ripple of fire continued to spread rapidly in a sort
+of broken circle. The roar of the burning weeds was like the on-coming
+of an avalanche. Madame turned to Ezra and seizing him under the
+shoulders dragged him backwards within the safety of her oasis of burnt
+prairie. He was a big man and a heavy one, but her arm seemed endowed
+with more than mortal strength. She dragged him further and further
+within the circle, and then seeing that he was out of all danger, she
+sat down beside him and took his head in her lap. She opened his collar
+and fanned him with her hat. The now brightly burning weeds made it
+light as day, and she could see that he looked pale even under the
+blackened smoke that smeared his face, but his pulse was beating, he was
+only hurt and stunned, not dead.
+
+Balthasar was terrified. Ringed round by fire and with the ground where
+he stood still smoking hot, what dog would not be alarmed? He lifted up
+his voice once more in a long howl, and then sniffing at Ezra gave a
+sweeping lick with his tongue all over his face.
+
+“Ah! Ollie! Where are you? Come!” said Ezra, roused by this combined
+demonstration. He raised his head in a weak and bewildered way. Madame
+placed her hand on his forehead as he sank down again. He put his own
+hand up and taking hers said: “Little wife!”
+
+Madame shivered, and then steadying her voice said, “Olive is quite
+safe!”
+
+Ezra started up.
+
+“Why, what are you doing here? Where is my wife?”
+
+“I came to tell you that Olive had gone home, and that she had got her
+hat all right. She never was in any danger at all. It was a mistake on
+the part of that negro boy.”
+
+“Madame!” began Ezra.
+
+“Dear friend,” said she.
+
+“I feel so strange and bewildered, I don’t seem to know what has
+happened.”
+
+“Lay your head down again,” said Madame, very gently. “You have had a
+blow. You will soon be all right.”
+
+Ezra’s head sank again into her lap. He gave a deep sigh.
+
+“You came down here into the Gully after Olive who, according to the
+negro, had gone in search of her hat. You could not surely have realized
+that the fire was coming up against the wind and that it would be death
+to be caught among the weeds.”
+
+“I knew, I knew,” said Ezra. “That was why I came. Olive was here.”
+
+“But she wasn’t, she never had been here at all,” interrupted Madame.
+
+“I shouted, but no answer came. I could not find Olive. I remember the
+awful agony of it. My head seemed turning to fire and I couldn’t find
+Olive. I don’t remember any more.”
+
+“You fell and knocked yourself senseless,” said Madame.
+
+“Is Olive safe? Tell me, are you sure Olive is safe?”
+
+“Didn’t I tell you I passed her on her way home?” said Madame a little
+sharply.
+
+“But this fire!” exclaimed Ezra, starting up. “We must get out of this.”
+
+“Hush, lie down again,” said Madame, her voice dropping again into its
+tone of caressing entreaty. “Your head must be still giddy or you would
+perceive that we are surrounded. We can’t get out until the fires meet
+and extinguish each other. Rest and be patient.”
+
+Ezra saw that this was true. They were entirely surrounded by a ring of
+retreating fire, the heat from which was oppressive. He sat down again,
+but did not lay his head in Madame’s lap. Perhaps it was because he felt
+less giddy.
+
+He asked her how she came there, and Madame very briefly told him,
+dwelling not at all upon her share in finding him, but rather upon the
+sagacity of Balthasar. Ezra, however, was not to be deceived.
+
+“You risked your life for me this night, Madame,” he said slowly, when
+she had finished speaking.
+
+“Possibly. I never thought about it. I could not leave you here to die,
+to be burnt to death. Had the case been reversed you would have come to
+my rescue.”
+
+“You are the most generous of mortals, the noblest of women,” said Ezra
+earnestly. “It was assuredly the brightest day of my life that led me
+across your path. You taught me how to live, and to-night your generous
+hand has saved me from death.”
+
+“Hush!” said Madame faintly.
+
+“I owe my life to you,” repeated Ezra. “What shall I do to repay such a
+debt?”
+
+“Am I a usurer that I should exact my pound of flesh?” answered Madame.
+
+“Usurer!” exclaimed Ezra. “That is indeed the last word to be applied to
+you. Is a usurer one who is always giving? Giving from her wealth freely
+and without stint? Is a usurer one who is ever helping and directing
+into the paths of righteousness those who are feeble and faltering of
+step? Ah, Madame, I never can half tell you all that I owe you! How
+narrow and selfish would my life have been but for you! Devoted to petty
+cares, absorbed in personal ambitions, rejoicing in sordid gains,—such
+would have been my fate, only Providence brought me to you to be taught,
+guided, elevated, purified. My life is yours, you have made it, dearest,
+wisest, best, of friends.”
+
+“And Olive?” said Madame quietly.
+
+“Ah, there too shall be your handiwork seen,” said Ezra. “My little
+Olive is very young. Sometimes I think her mind is even younger than her
+body, and she is barely twenty, you know, a mere child and easily
+moulded.”
+
+Madame remembering her last encounter with Olive, seemed to recall very
+little that was either childlike or plastic in the concluding portion of
+their conversation, but she did not say so to Ezra who went on talking.
+
+“She often, however, puzzles me, she has such sudden freaks and fancies,
+as if her heart was a wild creature not fully tamed and ever dashing
+against the bars of its environment. I sometimes feel that I have not
+the necessary wisdom or tact to guide and counsel her. She seems to need
+someone who is wiser and more skilful than I am. Sometimes I fear she
+does not quite realise the responsibilities of life. The problems which
+have come up before us and which cry aloud for solution, seem to her but
+trivial matters that may be trusted to settle themselves. We must
+endeavour, dear friend, to arouse Olive’s enthusiasm about Perfection
+City. She is capable of the highest and noblest aspirations, but her
+heart must be turned into the right direction. She evinces a certain
+hesitancy in throwing herself into our work and aims.”
+
+“Perhaps she is opposed to the whole thing,” suggested Madame.
+
+“That cannot be,” replied Ezra earnestly. “She must see as we do, when
+she comes thoroughly to understand our motives in founding Perfection
+City. I look to you, Madame, to open her eyes to the truth.”
+
+“Ah!” said Madame laconically, and then she added, after a moment’s
+pause, “I will ask you to do one thing for me.”
+
+“Anything you ask I will do if it is in my power,” said Ezra.
+
+“Do not tell Olive of your fall here, nor of the danger you were in, nor
+of my coming to find you.”
+
+After a moment of puzzled silence Ezra said, “Of course your wishes are
+to me law. But may I ask why you make such a request?”
+
+“Perhaps I am judging wrongly, but I am acting as if Olive had the same
+feelings as I should have. If I were in her place, I should hate it.”
+
+“Why?” asked Ezra in surprise.
+
+Madame rose up, her pale face illumined by the light of the fire.
+
+“If I loved a man,” she said, beginning very quietly, but her voice
+gathered in intensity as she spoke. “If I loved a man, I could not bear
+it. To think that my love had failed him in his sorest need. He was
+lying stunned, helpless, within the clutch of deadly peril, and I went
+home unwarned, leaving him to his fate, all unconscious of the whole
+thing, while another woman—not I, but another woman—went to his rescue,
+another woman—not I—found him, saved him, drew him out of danger, while
+I walked heedlessly home. I should hate myself, I should hate—ah! I
+should hate to the verge of killing that other woman who had saved him.
+That is the way I should feel, if I loved.”
+
+She concluded hastily, her voice dropping to a whisper. Ezra looked up
+at her in amazement.
+
+“Yours is a many-sided nature. I never suspected you could feel like
+that. I never thought of you as being—as capable of——” he stopped in
+confusion.
+
+“Ah yes! You never thought of me as being able to love—to love a man and
+not an impersonal cause. Ah yes! You never quite looked upon me as a
+mere woman.”
+
+“I have always regarded you as something higher than a mere woman,” said
+Ezra.
+
+“Listen,” she said, sitting down again beside him. “You have yet to know
+me—the woman, I mean, and not the pioneer of Perfection City. My father
+was a man of passionate nature. He had fine instincts, but these were
+not developed. He was a Russian noble. I come of very good blood, as
+they say in the old world.”
+
+“I always knew you were of distinguished birth,” said Ezra.
+
+“Not at all, quite the contrary,” said Madame, with a laugh that sounded
+harsh. “My father was a wild, self-willed Russian noble. He was to have
+married a lady of princely house, only that he refused to do one thing
+which they made a condition of the marriage.”
+
+“What was that?”
+
+“To give up my mother. Do you understand? He could not marry the
+princess, and he sacrificed wealth, position, and worldly honour,
+because he would not give up the pale-haired English girl whom he loved
+passionately, and who was my mother. She died, and my father died too,
+not many years afterwards. He did what he could for me by leaving me his
+fortune and the permission to bear his name, to which I had no legal
+right. From my mother I inherited my brain, but my heart I inherited
+from my father. Now let us go.”
+
+“Must we?” said Ezra, to whom Madame’s sudden confession had been full
+of interest. “There is nothing further for us to do. Perfection City is
+safe.”
+
+“But we must return to real life, Brother Ezra. Sitting here, ringed
+around with fire, we were alone in a world of our own. For a few moments
+we lived for each other, as it were. Our spirits communed, and I opened
+my heart to you as never before to mortal being. Now we must go back to
+real life again. See the fires are all out, and the world is itself
+again—all dark.”
+
+Ezra rose to his feet and staggered a little, as Madame perceived from
+the stumble he made. She seemed preternaturally acute, and to be able to
+understand by the help of some new sense, for she put out her hand and
+touched his arm, “Lean on me, brother, you are still giddy from your
+accident. We will walk very slowly.”
+
+Ezra, feeling indeed faint enough, gratefully accepted the proffered
+help and put his hand within her arm; thus very slowly they started back
+towards the house through the inky black night. “Friend, what I said is
+to be locked in your breast, a secret,” said Madame.
+
+“I fully understand that,” replied Ezra, “and I feel it a high honour
+that you should have chosen me as the repository of the secret of your
+life. It is safe, nay more, it is sacred, with me.”
+
+It took them a long time in the intense darkness to reach Ezra’s house
+where a light was glimmering from the window. When they at length
+reached the bars, Madame said, “I will not go in. Oh, I know what you
+would say, but I would prefer not. Olive would resent my bringing you
+back to her.”
+
+“You mistake Olive utterly,” said Ezra earnestly. “Believe me, hers is a
+simple nature, she would have no such feelings as you think.”
+
+“Perhaps you are right, and that she is a child in mind and not yet a
+woman in heart. Possibly I endow her with feelings she could not even
+understand. I judge her by myself, and maybe all the while her little
+soul is possessed with nothing but content at the thought that her
+pretty hat is all safe. The butterfly must not be blamed if it does not
+rise as high as the lark. Farewell.”
+
+Olive was waiting for him impatiently, anxiously.
+
+“Oh Ezra, where have you been? And isn’t your face black? You are every
+whit as black as Napoleon Pompey. Wasn’t it fun?”
+
+“Fun? What was fun?” asked Ezra languidly.
+
+“Why, the fire of course, now that it is all over. It was so exciting. I
+was as hungry as a hawk when I came in. I really could not wait, so I
+had supper. You must have yours this very minute. Do you know, it is one
+o’clock at night, and you have not tasted a morsel of food since twelve
+o’clock yesterday? Do you realize that?”
+
+She bustled around and got his supper ready, chatting brightly all the
+while over the incidents of the fire, making fun and merriment out of
+them all. Ezra sat stupidly watching her, his head throbbing so heavily
+that he could scarcely think. He could eat nothing when the supper was
+ready, and Olive felt aggrieved. “I think you might, just to please me.
+It would do you good, for you must be hungry, I should think.”
+
+He swallowed a few morsels and said he would go to bed, that rest was
+what he most needed, his head ached badly. He was thankful she made no
+inquiries after his adventures during that eventful night. He would have
+found it difficult to tell a connected tale with that pain in his head.
+He asked Olive if she had gone down into the Gully.
+
+“No,” she said, “I started to go, but it was darker than I thought, so I
+came up again and followed round by the high prairie where there was a
+chance of meeting somebody. I came home with Willette.”
+
+“The fire did get into the old field after all,” said Ezra.
+
+“And were the weeds burnt?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Oh! I wish I had been there to see. Wasn’t it a lovely blaze-up?”
+
+“Yes, it blazed up,” said Ezra.
+
+Olive didn’t notice that he seemed ill, he thought with some bitterness.
+Madame would have divined it, no matter how hard he had tried to conceal
+the fact. After all, it was not her fault that she was made differently.
+The butterfly was not to be blamed if it did not soar as high as the
+lark.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+                          COTTERELL “WANTED.”
+
+
+The day after the fire was an idle one at Perfection City. No one felt
+able to work, Ezra least of all. He lay upon the floor of the kitchen
+with a wet handkerchief on his head, and several times he asked Olive
+not to make so much noise. She was as still as a mouse, she thought, but
+then his head ached, poor fellow! So she went out and sat in the shade
+of the house among her morning-glories, while the hens walked about with
+their wings down and their tongues lolling out, trying to cool
+themselves. The black burnt prairie seemed to send up shafts of heat to
+the copper-coloured sky.
+
+A man rode up to the bars, and for one moment Olive’s heart stood still.
+She feared it might be Mr. Cotterell, whom she had not seen since the
+day at the spring, now some weeks past. It was not Mr. Cotterell,
+however, but one of the settlers from the other side of Cotton Wood
+Creek. He came forward with his bridle-rein over his arm, his horse
+following, head down.
+
+“Wal, how’d you ’uns git ’long with that pesky fire?” he observed,
+without any preliminary greeting. He was a Missouri man, and they often
+prided themselves on their rudeness. It was their way of showing their
+independence.
+
+“Good morning, Mr. Owen,” said Olive, who knew the man quite well. “We
+have escaped all right, thank you. I hope you were not injured?” She was
+extra careful in her manner, as the politeness for two had all to be
+furnished by herself.
+
+“Yer hain’t been burnt out I see. You all’s mighty silly anyhow. Why in
+thunder didn’t yer back-fire before? ’Tain’t agin’ yer principles, is
+it?” Mr. Owen grinned under the impression that he was funny.
+
+“We didn’t back-fire, because we thought it wrong to start a fire in
+such a wind and let it possibly burn up our neighbours,” said Olive
+stiffly.
+
+“Then ’tis agin yer principles to back-fire, by Gosh! The boys was
+’lowing as much over to Union Mills.”
+
+“It is against our principles to injure our neighbours. You don’t object
+to that, Mr. Owen, do you?” said Olive.
+
+“I reckon you’ll git mighty tired o’ them idees ef yer live long on the
+prairie,” observed Mr. Owen.
+
+“Seen ole man Cotterell lately?” he inquired suddenly, half shutting his
+green-grey eyes and looking at Olive intently.
+
+She was somewhat surprised at the question, but knowing from experience
+how inquisitive the average settler is, she answered readily enough.
+
+“No, I haven’t seen him for a long time. Was he burnt out? I didn’t know
+the fire had gone so far.”
+
+“I calkerlate he warn’t tetched by the fire,” said Mr. Owen, very
+slowly. He made long pauses between his remarks, during which he
+continued unremittingly the steady occupation of his life, namely,
+chewing tobacco. Olive began to feel impatient. She did not like to ask
+him into the house for fear of disturbing Ezra, so she sat down again in
+her chair, and pointing to a log of wood which lay near and seated on
+which he could still hold his horse, she asked him to take a seat also.
+Mr. Owen sat down with a grunt.
+
+“Never seed ony pusson so sot on posies as you ’uns be,” he observed
+conversationally.
+
+“Yes, I am very fond of flowers. They make the house more home-like, I
+think. The prairie is very bare looking,” replied Olive politely.
+
+“Yer ole man oughter rared his house t’other side the Gully, an’ further
+down yon’er. This hyar ’ull be powerful col’ when we git col’ snaps in
+Jan’ary. Yer dunno nothin’ ’bout things in this hyar all-fired ’Fection
+City,” said Mr. Owen, looking around him in criticism.
+
+“Perhaps not,” said Olive, rather nettled, “but we know how to mind our
+own business.”
+
+Mr. Owen did not feel one whit abashed. He was far too near akin to the
+pachyderms for Olive’s delicate little shafts to have any effect on him.
+Another long silence followed, and Olive began to wonder if Owen was
+like that man from Jacksonville, who came to see them once and stayed
+four hours, during which time he made only two remarks and they
+possessed no particular interest. The man and his stony silence had
+driven her nearly wild, until she reflected how much more awful it would
+have been had she been obliged to entertain him with conversation. A
+recollection of this visitation and a dread born of that recollection
+began to invade her mind. Mr. Owen, however, was not going to stay for
+four hours, and he was going to make a remark of very particular
+interest, a remark that would quickly scatter all Olive’s other ideas.
+He delivered it slowly and with the monotonous enunciation which
+proclaimed him a Missouri man.
+
+“The boys is hout huntin’ down ole man Cotterell.”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Olive turning very white. Then, steadying her voice as
+well as she could she said, “Why are they hunting him?”
+
+“To cotch him,” replied her visitor concisely.
+
+“But what for?” asked Olive, looking at him with wide eyes of horror.
+She knew only too well what hunting down a man portended.
+
+“Wal, there’s bin a shootin’ over to his house, an’ one o’ thim boys o’
+Mills is shot, shot dead. Cotterell done it. And now he’s gone an’ run
+off. The boys they ’lowed Cotterell best be hung this time. Las’ time he
+was let off. He won’t be agin, you bet.”
+
+“How do you know he has shot young Mills? What evidence have you of it?”
+asked Olive in terror, yet she could not help pressing the man to tell
+her, although each word was like a stab.
+
+He gave a silent inward laugh as if his thoughts were facetious.
+“Evidence an’ enough,” he said. “Jake Mills’ body with a bullet through
+his heart. Yer can’t git nothin’ plainer in the way of evidence than
+that, I reckon.”
+
+“But how do you know it was Mr. Cotterell shot him?” asked Olive.
+
+“Damn my eyes! but yer mus’ be a nateral born fool, Mis’ Weston. Jake
+Mills were foun’ on Cotterell’s lan’. Who else could ha’ done it?
+Besides, he did, an’ that’s a fac’ anyhow.”
+
+“I think it is perfectly monstrous,” burst out Olive, trembling with
+agitation. “I never heard of a wickeder thing. Here is this man you have
+decided to hang, and you don’t even know if he has done the thing you
+accuse him of. If that is what you call prairie law and justice I can
+only say I never heard of a more sinful and unjust law. Black savages
+couldn’t do worse.”
+
+“Mos’ like the boys will let him hev a trial, ef he’s partic’lar sot
+on’t. That won’t si’nify nothin’,” said Mr. Owen, again surveying Olive
+through the narrow aperture of his half-closed eyes, and again applying
+himself to his habitual occupation with vigour. She looked at him with a
+face in which horror and disgust struggled for mastery.
+
+“If this horrid murder is committed by your neighbours, Mr. Owen, I
+shall think that prairie men are a disgrace to civilization,” said
+Olive.
+
+“We prairie folks ain’t partic’lar sot on civilization,” remarked Mr.
+Owen with affability.
+
+“I hope you’ll never catch him,” said Olive, with a sound very like a
+sob in her voice.
+
+“The boys they ’lowed you’uns was mighty good frien’s o’ his’n, an’ he’d
+a mos’ likely come this hyar way to make for the Pottawattamie ’fore
+we’uns could cotch him. That’s why I come ’long ter look for him hyar,”
+observed Mr. Owen, rising and putting his head under his saddle flap in
+order to tighten up the girth a couple of holes.
+
+“Oh, you’ve come here to spy out, have you?” said Olive, in passionate
+anger. “Why didn’t you say so at first, and ask the question like a man,
+and not come sneaking around? Do you want to hunt all over the house and
+see if we’ve got anybody hidden away?”
+
+“No,” said Owen slowly. “Guess that’ll do. I ain’t agoin’ ter hunt
+roun’. We ain’t no great shakes at bein’ fine folks out hyar on the
+prairie, but we allers takes the word of a lady, by Gosh. You said you
+hain’t seen nothin’ o’ ole man Cotterell, guess that’ll do for the boys.
+Mornin’.”
+
+Mr. Owen rode away, feeling that in the contest of politeness that
+morning he had certainly scored off Mrs. Weston with her stuck-up
+Eastern ways.
+
+Olive was in an agony of doubt and terror. That the boys were out
+hunting for Cotterell was, she knew, but the preliminary to his death,
+if they caught him. The boys seldom or never let off any one they
+caught, so she gathered from the stories she had heard of their doings
+in time past. What was she to do in this difficult dilemma? Should she
+tell Ezra?
+
+Under ordinary circumstances her first impulse would have been to go
+straight to her husband with the story she had heard, but in this
+instance she felt that such a course would be impossible. She knew that
+Ezra was jealous of Mr. Cotterell, he had betrayed his feelings more
+than once, and in her heart she knew that few men can be just towards
+the man who arouses their jealousy. Her husband was a very just man, and
+could, more than any one she knew, put himself in the place of others
+and see what was right and what was wrong. But in this instance it was
+not justice Olive wanted, it was justice that she feared. Although she
+spoke bravely enough to Owen, a terrible fear lurked in her breast that
+the evidence, though ludicrously deficient by the rules of procedure
+that obtain in old established communities, was quite sufficient to
+convince a prairie jury. Ezra would not sit on a hanging jury, nor would
+he be a party to catching Mr. Cotterell, but his sense of justice and
+what was due to the principles professed at Perfection City might carry
+him no further than this passively inactive point? Would he assist
+Cotterell to escape? Guilty or not, that was what Olive wanted, and to
+help in such an undertaking, she felt sure, was what her husband might
+very well refuse to do.
+
+Was Cotterell guilty? Olive debated this point anxiously in her mind.
+She knew he went armed, but so did many other men. In fact, to be armed
+was the rule on the prairie. The doctrine of non-resistance was one of
+the least understood tenets of the Pioneers at Perfection City, and was
+observed by nobody else on the prairie. Even Brother Wright, as we have
+seen—though Olive was quite unaware of this—had granted to himself a
+special indulgence in this matter. So the mere fact of Mr. Cotterell’s
+always having his revolver in his belt did not really count for
+anything, one way or the other. He had always been so gentle and so
+chivalrous in his manner to her, she found it difficult to force her
+mind to keep hold of the fact that he was a very passionate man.
+Everyone said so, and she knew, too, that the Mills’ were a bad lot,
+drunken quarrelsome men, who, as Ezra said, combined in their character
+all the vices of the prairie and preserved none of its virtues. How easy
+it would be for a proud, passionate man like Mr. Cotterell to bring his
+revolver into a heated argument with Jake Mills, who might be mad with
+drink. But surely such a shooting was not murder according to prairie
+law. In her distress Olive found herself falling back upon the probable
+laxity of that very prairie justice which a short time before she had so
+scornfully characterised to Owen.
+
+The “boys” who were hunting Cotterell were, as Olive well knew, the most
+relentless men on the prairie, regular settlers who had found by
+experience that the only way to keep order was to keep it with their own
+right hands. They had hung several horse-thieves lately, and had
+declared they were going to put a stop to the “shooting round
+promiscuous” of the younger blades. They were not unjust men, but they
+were hasty, and were moreover already terribly prejudiced against
+Cotterell.
+
+Having decided that it was best not to tell Ezra what she had heard,
+Olive was immediately assailed with a hundred doubts. Suppose Mr.
+Cotterell came to them in his extremity, should she try to conceal him?
+But how utterly impossible to do so without the co-operation of her
+husband! The mere attempt to do such a thing might involve her in
+difficulties without being of any use to the unhappy man himself. Then
+there was Madame. Should she appeal to her for help? Her heart revolted
+from such a course. After their last meeting, when they had interchanged
+hot words on the subject of this very man, Olive felt it was impossible
+to ask Madame’s aid or to tell her anything about it. Then there was no
+one, and Olive resolved to keep the secret of what she had heard, hoping
+that something might turn up which would justify her action, or at least
+make any further action unnecessary. Thus do people often put off on the
+shoulders of chance the burden of a decision which taxes too much their
+powers of forecasting events. It was a heavy secret to keep to herself,
+and her face looked white and scared as she entered the kitchen on
+tip-toe to see how Ezra felt. He roused up as she came in.
+
+“I am better now, little woman,” he said in answer to her inquiries.
+“The pain is all gone. I will get up and begin to stir around again.”
+
+He went out with her and with the keenness which is soon a habit with a
+prairie man, he noticed the hoof-marks of Owen’s horse, where it had
+stamped rather briskly, owing to the flies.
+
+“Who has been here? Those are fresh,” he said, pointing to the marks.
+
+“That man from over beyond Cotton Wood Creek was here a little while
+ago, Owen is his name: you know the man,” said Olive, with a beating
+heart.
+
+“Cattle-hunting after the fire, I suppose. Were they burnt out
+yesterday?” asked Ezra, with slight show of interest.
+
+“No, I believe not, he did not say. He sneered at the Pioneers for not
+having safe-guarded themselves, heedless of the welfare of the other
+settlers, so I suppose he had been betimes with his back-firing, at
+least if he lives up to his principles,” remarked Olive.
+
+“It is too late to go and hunt for our horses,” said Ezra, “and I feel
+too tired to start out on foot after them. They may very well be five
+miles away by this time. Did you ask Owen if he had seen them?”
+
+“No, I never thought of doing so.”
+
+“Don’t forget always to ask everyone if they have seen your horses
+whenever they are out on the prairie: it is one of the golden rules of
+prairie life,” said Ezra, tapping her chin.
+
+“But he wouldn’t have known Queen Katharine and Rebel even if he did
+happen to meet them,” objected Olive. “How could he know one pair of
+strange horses from another?”
+
+“Bless your sweet eyes, Owen knows every horse and cow belonging to his
+neighbours for a radius of ten miles from his house, at the very least.
+Telling a neighbour where his cattle are, is the only rule of politeness
+known to many of them, and they are punctilious about it,” said Ezra
+laughing.
+
+“I wish I had known that, because I found him deficient in many of the
+rules I have been taught,” said Olive. “Possibly he found me as lacking,
+according to his estimate.”
+
+Ezra did not go out to hunt for the horses the next morning as he had
+intended. Other work, which seemed more important, turned up for him.
+Brother Wright came that same evening to arrange about it.
+
+“Good evening, friends,” he said. “I trust you are both rested after
+yesterday. It was a hard day and a harder night. Brother Ezra, you did
+splendidly.”
+
+“We were much alarmed for the safety of Perfection City: I don’t think
+it is ever likely to be in greater danger,” said Ezra.
+
+“No, I suppose, not from the outside,” said Wright.
+
+“And we are not likely to be set on fire from the inside, are we?”
+observed Ezra with a laugh.
+
+“Accidents may happen,” said Olive.
+
+“Even in the best regulated communities,” added Brother Wright.
+“However, what I came to talk about was the future, and not the past.
+We’ve got two good loads of corn ready, it ought to be sold at once in
+Mapleton. We’ll get top price. I stepped into Madame’s as I came along,
+and she agreed with me. We must sell at once. Brother Dummy has got his
+waggon loaded up ready to start. It is a marvel how much that man does
+get through in the way of work. Well, the question is, who will go with
+the corn? Brother Dummy must drive his own team, because no other man
+could manage that black horse for half an hour. Biting Bill would kick
+the waggon into match-wood in two minutes, if any of us attempted to
+touch his reins. I wonder whether it is the absolutely silent driving
+which cows him? You are out and out the best one for attending to
+business of any here. Madame thinks it would be well for you to go, and
+so do I.”
+
+“I am quite ready,” replied Ezra. “But my horses are both out on the
+prairie. I turned them loose after the fire to let them run off to the
+Creek, as I had no time to put them up and feed them. To-day I did not
+feel able to hunt after them.”
+
+“Well, suppose you take my team, and I will find your horses for you
+to-morrow. Will that do?”
+
+“All right, then I’ll go to Mapleton.”
+
+“The corn is already shucked, it won’t take half an hour to load up. You
+and I will do it while the horses are feeding. You ought to get off by
+six, I will feed the horses at five.”
+
+Each spoke of _his_ horses and _his_ waggons much in the same way as an
+artillery officer speaks of his guns. There were three pairs of horses
+in the Community, and, in theory at least, everyone was equally free to
+use them, but experience showed that that sort of handling did not suit
+horses, who do better if left always in the care of the same persons.
+Therefore it came about that Brother Dummy always had Biting Bill, since
+no one else could manage the brute, and Ezra generally had Queen
+Katharine and Rebel, while Brother Wright kept the greys. Now these
+animals, although common property, were invariably spoken of by their
+drivers as _theirs_, for the use of certain familiar phrases, which to
+the outsider might seem to denote the idea of private property, came
+naturally to their lips. It is often more difficult to change habits of
+speech than laws of property. Reformers who start out to alter the whole
+course of modern ideas and to rearrange the world according to a plan of
+their own devising, would do well to meditate upon this peculiarity and
+see what it points to. Surely so slight a thing as a word might easily
+be eradicated from human speech, and yet how difficult it is to do so.
+But the point to consider is that the pertinacity, which shows itself in
+modes of expression, may very well exist in just as strong a form in
+habits of thought and feeling. The Pioneers, like others of that sort,
+passed over and disregarded such expressions as “my horse,” “my waggon,”
+and “your plough,” not apparently recognizing that the expressions
+denoted a habit of thought that might very easily strike at the very
+root of their institution. They were communists, as Olive had said, in
+bits of this and scraps of that, but the old leaven of individualism was
+there still among them, only dormant. The Pioneers never expected that
+the leaven would again become an active principle. Like other people,
+they were unable to see into the future, and therefore rejoiced in their
+escape from the perils of the prairie fire and considered that they had
+no further danger to apprehend for this winter at least. The sea was
+smooth and the sky was serene, so to speak, and they did not perceive
+the sunken rocks that lay in the track of their experimental bark.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+                           IN QUEST OF NEWS.
+
+
+Olive was early astir the next morning, in order to see her husband off
+and also to provide him with food in ample abundance to last him for the
+trip. He carried a plentiful store of dried beef, a portable commodity
+much in request on the prairie. The old trappers had showed the settlers
+how to make it, and the trappers had acquired the art from the Indians.
+Dried beef is precisely what its name indicates. It is raw beef,
+somewhat salted, and then dried in the sun until it is like a piece of
+solid leather. It has to be cut into thin slices across the grain before
+the stoutest teeth can make the slightest impression upon it. It may be
+also cooked in a batter of eggs for the dainty, but has only to be
+sliced up with a jack-knife to be eaten by the average teamster on the
+prairie. Besides the dried meat and plenty of corn-bread, Ezra had milk
+in a bottle and one of Olive’s wedding presents to eat, namely, a tin of
+peaches. He travelled therefore in extreme luxury. He set off along with
+Brother Dummy just as the sun was rising, and the canvas covers of the
+waggons showed for a long time as two moving white specks as they slowly
+crept across the blackened landscape, finally disappearing behind the
+Mounds some twelve miles to the west of Perfection City.
+
+Olive remained alone at home with Napoleon Pompey and Diana to keep her
+company, until Ezra should return in four days’ time. It was only with
+great reluctance that he had consented to this. He did not at all like
+the idea of her remaining alone in the house. As usual, when it came to
+Olive doing what the ordinary prairie settler’s wife did as a matter of
+course, Ezra’s love took fright. He urged her to go and stay at Madame’s
+house, she would be more than welcome, he declared, in fact it seemed to
+him almost necessary that she should go, and he insisted strongly upon
+the plan. Olive was as strongly opposed to it. Why couldn’t she stay in
+her own house? She would much prefer it, so as to be on hand to feed the
+chickens and milk the cows and generally see to things. Besides, she
+felt quite sure she would be vastly in Madame’s way. Ezra combated this
+position vigorously. Olive could not be in anyone’s way, even if she
+tried. Moreover, was not Madame a communist like the rest of them, and
+she would be only too pleased to take Olive into her home as she had
+already done into her heart. His spouse made no comment, except a mental
+one, to this argument, but reiterated her preference for staying at
+home. It would only be three days or four at most, and she would be very
+busy. Ezra hinted at possible danger if it were known she was alone in
+the house.
+
+“But I won’t be alone: there is Napoleon Pompey for one and Diana for
+two. Surely between so stout a pair nothing on earth can happen to me,”
+she said, smiling at his anxious face.
+
+“I don’t feel easy about you,” said Ezra, looking at her with mournful
+eyes. “I never left you alone before, and it suddenly seems to me a most
+portentous thing.”
+
+“Why, you dear silly old thing!” exclaimed Olive, “I do believe you’ll
+have omens next, and will look into tea-cups to see if it is a
+propitious moment for the success of this undertaking. I never knew you
+‘take on’ like this before.”
+
+“I never did so, but it is all because I love you, dear. I quite
+understand what it means, to be foolish with love. I used not to know
+what it was. I wonder do women ever feel the same as we men do?”
+
+“Women, my dear, are sent into this world for the express purpose of
+making men do what they ought and not be silly,” said Olive severely.
+“Now I know you’ll have the feed for the horses all right, but remember
+the feed for yourself is in this basket, everything you’ll want, and
+there is salt for the boiled eggs.”
+
+When the hurry of getting the waggons off was over, Olive sat down to
+think, and immediately there rose up before her the image of a hunted
+man flying for his life. In some ways it was a relief that Ezra was
+gone, she would not have to be constantly making an effort to hide the
+real anxiety in her mind. Then she thought of Ezra and of his great and
+boundless devotion to her, and the words Madame had spoken in her wrath
+rose up before her and rebuked her. Were they true? Had she hidden her
+real nature from her husband before her marriage? She had never meant to
+do so, but in their long pre-nuptial conversations it had not appeared
+to her that she and Ezra were so different in their views of life and
+its duties as perhaps was now the case. He certainly had told her of the
+experiment of Perfection City, and she had accepted him and the
+experiment together because they were indissoluble. She of herself would
+never have initiated the communistic idea; but then there was nothing
+wonderful in that, woman never do initiate anything, they only follow
+some man’s lead with more or less enthusiasm and intelligence.
+
+Were she to have expressed her own private predilection, it certainly
+would have been for a little home of her own on the usual lines, which
+little home it would have been her pride and her pleasure to make as
+beautiful as she could. Olive did not possess a large and speculative
+mind, capable of vast dreamy projects, whose limitless possibilities
+were in imagination not checked by small practical obstacles. On the
+contrary, it was the tendency of her intellect to perceive those
+obstacles with startling clearness, and to demonstrate, by a few biting
+truisms, the impossibility of turning the dreamy vastnesses to use. She
+was neither hard-headed nor dull-headed, but hers was a practical
+nature, very much jarred by idle vapourings, and above all she was kept
+in the straight path of common sense by her keen appreciation of the
+ridiculous.
+
+This faculty enabled her to perceive how often reformers run off the
+track of common sense, and while pinning their faith to one particular
+little tenet which they constitute the corner-stone of their philosophy,
+lose sight of the whole world beyond. Olive possessed in a high degree
+the sense of proportion, which in a true reformer is generally absent.
+When Ezra with his cultivated mind and really fine intellect, talked to
+her of the reforming of the present type of civilization, and briefly
+sketched out what he hoped would be the result of the introduction of
+the communistic idea into life, she could not help remarking that he
+used very much the same expressions, and seemed animated by very much
+the same hopes, as those indulged in by one of the dietetic reformers
+she knew in Smyrna, who promised all the glories of the golden age to
+mankind if the human race would only give up the baneful practices of
+eating meat and of cooking vegetables!
+
+And every few minutes, across the mirror of her reflections, there came
+a shadow of a desperate man spurring on a jaded horse. Olive could not
+shake off a sense of impending disaster, but unlike Ezra, who attributed
+his melancholy to his great love for Olive and a vague, unreasoning
+dread of something happening to her in his absence, she knew quite well
+what she feared and why.
+
+As the morning wore on, Olive began to feel it impossible to remain
+quietly at home in the midst of her anxiety. She must go out and hear
+what news there was, or at all events she must learn if there was any
+news. Resolved not to hold any communication with Madame other than what
+was publicly necessary—for between the two there was now maintained a
+sort of armed neutrality—she decided to call at the blacksmith’s, as
+Brother Green was in the way of most of the gossip, if gossip is a term
+that could be rightly applied to the feeble and intermittent stream of
+prairie news that trickled through the smithy. Brother Green was a
+silent, self-absorbed man who worked steadily and brought much personal
+devotion into the project of Perfection City. He was a lonely man, a
+widower, and to judge by appearances a disappointed man as well. He was
+surprised to see Sister Olive, and very pleased, but could not shake
+hands as he was very dirty, and she looked so brightly clean. Having
+wiped a wooden bench with his leather apron and again with the sleeve of
+his shirt, he invited her to be seated. Brother Green was welding some
+iron, and Olive waited until the operation was concluded and the
+plough-hook made before she talked to him. Meanwhile she watched with
+interest the white glowing fire and the pulpy white-hot iron-bar,
+helplessly bending over at the end like a piece of half boiled molasses
+candy.
+
+“I felt so lonesome, I thought I would come out and talk to someone,”
+she said, by way of excuse for a first visit. “Diana isn’t a bit of
+company when you feel really lonesome. Ezra is gone for four days, did
+you know?”
+
+Diana had cocked one ear at the mention of her name, but had speedily
+uncocked it again on becoming satisfied that nothing in the way of
+excitement was at hand.
+
+“Yes, I suppose you do feel lonely,” said Brother Green slowly, as he
+seated himself on his anvil and crossed his brawny arms. “I’ve been used
+to it for so long, I have almost forgotten how anything else feels.”
+
+Olive looked kindly at him. “Are you ever homesick, and do you ever wish
+you had stayed in England? It must be very different from here.”
+
+“Very,” said Brother Green gazing with a far-away sort of look through
+the large forge door out over the shimmering prairie. He suddenly seemed
+to see rolling hills with oak woods tufting their slopes, and a deep
+valley, where blue curling smoke ascended in high spirals, and a church
+steeple rose from among elms, and jackdaws croaked around the steeple.
+He put his head a little on one side, almost as if he would catch more
+distinctly the hoarse croak of the jackdaws, or maybe the first sound of
+the bell which hung in the steeple and used to ring on Sundays.
+
+“Yes,” he said, as this picture faded away and the prairie returned in
+its place, “there can’t be much greater differences in the world than
+between Perfection City and the little village in Sussex, where I was
+born.”
+
+“Which do you like best, Brother Green?” asked Olive a little
+thoughtlessly.
+
+“I don’t expect ever to be as unhappy again as I was in that pretty
+little village,” said Brother Green, and Olive remembered that she had
+been told he had lost a young wife in his youth. She felt sorry for him,
+and regretted having touched upon an old wound that still could throb
+with pain.
+
+“Have you heard any news lately? Has anybody been to the forge? You are
+always the first to hear news,” said she quickly, desiring to change the
+subject.
+
+“A man from down south passed this morning.”
+
+“Did he?” said Olive anxiously, “what did he say?”
+
+“He said the fire was just bellowing its way towards Fort Scott, and had
+done a good deal of damage one way or another. It was one of the hottest
+they ever had and the hardest to stop. It crossed one of the South Fork
+Creeks and got into the broken land round Osage.”
+
+“We had a very narrow escape ourselves,” said Olive, feeling remarkably
+little interest in the fire. “Did he say anything else? Who was he?”
+
+“A stranger, I never saw him before. No, he didn’t say anything else,
+except to tell me that he calkerlated Britishers were mos’ly fools and
+couldn’t do a day’s work ’gain ’Mericans, no matter what it were,
+rail-splitting or tobacco-chawin’.”
+
+Brother Green gave a deep gentle laugh, like the distant boom of a
+waterfall hidden among trees.
+
+“Don’t you think these prairie folk are most conceited?” asked Olive, in
+some scorn.
+
+“No, not more than other people, Sister,” replied Brother Green somewhat
+unexpectedly, “they only say what they think with remarkable frankness.”
+
+“But that is conceit,” persisted Olive.
+
+“I am not certain that it is more conceited to say what you think, than
+to think your thoughts in silence, and be consumed with a vast contempt
+for all the world. We are a conceited people too.”
+
+“I thought the English prided themselves on not being conceited,” said
+Olive.
+
+“We pride ourselves on showing no feeling of conceit and if possible on
+showing no feeling on any other subject either. If an Englishman’s heart
+were skinned, I think it would weigh up pretty much the same as an
+American’s. The difference lies in the tongue only.”
+
+“Is that so?” said Olive.
+
+“Yes, this morning, for instance, that man informed me that he was a
+better man than I, and that his country could lick mine. Well, in my
+heart I knew he was wrong on both points, and that the precise contrary
+was the fact. As far as essentials go, I think we were pretty equal in
+the contest of conceit.”
+
+“But you didn’t tell him what you thought,” remarked Olive.
+
+“No, that was the difference of tongue, not of heart,” replied Brother
+Green.
+
+“I didn’t know you were so severe in your criticisms and judgments. I
+wonder much what you really think of Perfection City,” said Olive,
+looking at him curiously. She had never particularly noticed him
+hitherto, and had not realized that he could have a store of knowledge
+of many things which lay far outside her experience.
+
+“I think Perfection City will do good,” said Brother Green with
+conviction.
+
+“Do you, and why?” asked Olive.
+
+“Any honest human effort to benefit the world and raise mankind does
+good,” said Brother Green.
+
+“But people have done such different things and all from a desire to do
+what seemed to them good,” objected Olive with feminine vagueness.
+
+“I consider they have done good if their purpose was single-hearted,”
+maintained Brother Green.
+
+“They didn’t succeed in doing what they aimed at very often, at all
+events,” observed Olive, “something quite different came out of their
+endeavours from what they had expected.”
+
+“Nevertheless, if they honestly tried, then that very trying was of
+itself good.”
+
+“Do you think Perfection City will do the good the Pioneers expect, or
+will something quite different come out of it too?”
+
+“I think Perfection City will be the means of teaching a valuable
+lesson,” said Brother Green cordially.
+
+“Do you think it is any use to try to change the world and its ideas?”
+
+“If anyone has a truth let him preach it fearlessly. Who can foretell
+the moment when the world will listen and when it is ready to profit by
+your example.”
+
+Olive longed to ask him what he thought of Madame, but dared not do so.
+She felt a little afraid before this simple-minded man, with his
+fervent, childlike faith and his sad and lonely life. Belief in
+Perfection City might be his only comfort now, shut off as he was from
+the joys of home and family, she would do nothing to lessen his belief
+and make him more lonely still. For what is more lonely than the heart
+out of which a faith has departed never to return? So she bade him
+good-bye, and then seeing Aunt Ruby’s chimney giving off the cheerful
+smoke of habitation, she turned her steps thither. Olive walked slowly
+along, for it was very hot indeed with a dry suffocating heat that made
+exertion somewhat irksome, and Diana, the discreet, followed dutifully
+behind her.
+
+Aunt Ruby, as has been already hinted, had surrounded herself with a
+large family of chickens of all ages, to whose wants it was her great
+duty to attend. She had a rare hand for chickens, and could pick up the
+most spasmodic specimen and turn it upside down and examine it for the
+gapes without hurting it in the least. Her driving of the hens to roost
+was an exhibition of the talent of generalship worthy of a wider field.
+No screamings nor scurryings, no rushings madly hither and thither, took
+place, and above all no sticks were used in the ceremony: Aunt Ruby
+merely took her skirts gently at the side in each hand, and said “Shoo!
+Shoo!” in a soothing voice, while at the same time she slightly
+oscillated the folds of her skirt. The hens appeared hypnotized by the
+action, and no matter how eagerly they might be pursuing the afternoon
+fly, they would at once settle down into a conversational chuck-a-chu
+and begin forthwith to meander towards the hen-roost.
+
+Aunt Ruby’s numerous hens and chickens were all in the yard and around
+the wood-pile, seeking in an aimless over-fed fashion after chance
+insects, when suddenly, without a moment’s warning, the devil was upon
+them according to the gallinaceous imagination. The devil was possessed
+of four paws, a most terrifying bark, and a mouth that seemed to the
+affrighted birds to be on the point of devouring each one especially and
+individually. The dog flew hither and thither, and so did the chickens,
+and so did the tail-feathers.
+
+“Diana! Bad dog, down, down!” screamed Olive, rushing to the rescue,
+while Aunt Ruby with shrill cry and a broom-stick appeared in the
+door-way. Never before or since did a more tempestuous guest appear at
+Aunt Ruby’s house. Full a quarter of an hour of gentle “shoo-shooings”
+to the hens, interspersed with smart whippings to Diana, elapsed before
+quiet was restored, and the ladies could even begin their visit
+together. Even then there was a sort of nervous tension on Aunt Ruby’s
+part, which prevented her thorough enjoyment of the opportunity for a
+gossip. Her attention was distracted by Diana, who lay with lamb-like
+docility at Olive’s feet and slept the sleep of the just.
+
+“I wouldn’t keep a dawg roun’ nohow,” said Aunt Ruby eyeing the
+delinquent sternly. “I’d mos’ as lief hev a rattlesnake. I shouldn’t
+never sleep easy in my bed won’erin’ an’ won’erin’ what the pesky
+crittur ’ud do nex’.”
+
+“I know that Diana is very naughty now, but she is only a puppy, and
+she’ll get sense by and bye, and it is so nice to have something that is
+your own and loves you, and doesn’t care for any body else, you know,”
+observed Olive somewhat rashly.
+
+“Wal, I reckon you’ll hev a sight o’ trouble ’long o’ that dawg ’fore
+you learn it the rights o’ people, let alone teachin’ it community
+idees,” said Aunt Ruby.
+
+“No, you can’t teach a dog communistic notions, thank goodness,”
+observed Olive, patting the sinful Diana.
+
+“Reckon you ain’t partic’ler sot on the idees of Perfection City,” said
+the old lady, looking at her visitor with bright twinkling eyes. “I
+allow there be a p’int or two we’ll hev to consider over agin at
+’Sembly. We are gettin’ on too fas’ fur this here prairie folk, they
+hain’t got the sense to un’erstan’ all o’ our highest principles. Guess
+while there’s Injuns roun’ we hed better jes’ hol’ back a mite ’bout
+non-resistance.”
+
+“Oh,” said Olive, who had never given any attention to this point, being
+as indifferent as the wives of strong men usually are. “I never heard a
+word about Indians. Are there any about?”
+
+“Not as I hearn on special. But there’s Injuns and worse nor Injuns in
+the world, an’ I reckon we’d better take that p’int up at ’Sembly and
+see if we can’t do su’thin’ to make things a bit straight,” said Aunt
+Ruby in language that was vaguely enough expressed to serve in the
+highest walks of diplomacy.
+
+“Oh, I dare say,” replied Olive carelessly, “some very excellent reason
+could be devised to excuse a departure from any one of the Perfection
+City principles, which seem more difficult to manage in practice than on
+paper. They are all pretty new, and of course can’t be expected to be as
+useful in all the difficult circumstances of life as principles which
+have stood the test of time.”
+
+“Dear me, suz!” exclaimed Aunt Ruby admiringly. “How gran’ you kin talk!
+Deal sight finer nor Brother Wright. Why don’t you hold forth in
+’Sembly? I’d liefer hear you nor any on ’em. I’m jes’ ’bout tired o’
+listenin’ to Brother Wright. Lard! how he do love to hear his own voice!
+Hens is jes’ like that too, they’ll talk an’ talk till you’re mos’
+crazy, an’ they hain’t nothin’ to say, on’y jes’ to cackle an’ hear
+themselves talk.”
+
+Olive agreed with Aunt Ruby, but hardly dared to express her opinion in
+all its force. Therefore she turned the conversation by inquiring had
+she ever heard anything about lynch-law and about its being put into
+practice in their neighbourhood?
+
+“Course I hev, an’ hearn o’ hangin’ too.”
+
+“Do Perfection City principles uphold hanging?” asked Olive.
+
+“Guess not,” was the reply.
+
+“No matter if it was for murder?”
+
+“Wal, I don’t see as we could ever be called upon to settle that p’int,
+’cause no ’Fectionist could ever be a murderer no how,” said Aunt Ruby.
+
+“But suppose an outsider who had shot a man, even if it was not a real
+bad murder, came to us for protection, would they help him, do you
+think?” asked Olive.
+
+“Wal, I never hearn that debated at the ’Sembly, but I reckon Perfection
+City don’t lay out to hide folks as has killed a feller critter. It
+don’t ’pear to me as how we was called upon to min’ anyone ’cept our own
+selves, an’ we hed best keep clear ’way o’ them sort o’ folks. That’s
+pretty nigh my ’pinion, an’ I guess it’s mos’ folks too as hes a mite o’
+common sense.”
+
+Olive was fain to confess to herself that in all probability Aunt Ruby
+did fairly express the collective opinion of Perfection City. They had
+only enough righteousness for themselves, and, like a ship already short
+of provisions, could not help another vessel, even though it might be
+flying the Union Jack upside down and showing all the other flags of
+acute distress recognized in the naval code of signals. Had Aunt Ruby
+heard of anything concerning a horse-thief who was supposed to be
+somewhere around, inquired Olive with a view to eliciting information,
+but she only elicited feminine alarms in overwhelming abundance.
+
+“Do tell! Land o’ liberty! Was there horse-thieves ’bout? What a pity
+Brother Ezry an’ Brother Dummy was both gone jes’ now: they might meet
+in ’Sembly right away an’ discuss the p’int o’ non-resistance an’ buy
+revolvers next time anyone went to Union Mills. Horse-thieves was mos’
+as bad as Injuns, an’ if it was lawful an’ right to defen’ yourself
+’gainst Injuns as was ign’rant savages as never hed Christian teachin’,
+it couldn’t be wrong to look a’ter your hosses as was bought an’ paid
+for by ’Fection City money.”
+
+Aunt Ruby was so convinced and loquacious upon this subject and upon the
+aspect of the case as presented to her mind by her terrors, that Olive
+heartily regretted her question, and began to try and do away with the
+effects of it as far as possible. It was only a vague report she
+averred, and Olive herself had not the slightest idea that there were
+horse-thieves about. Upon the strength of this assurance Aunt Ruby,
+somewhat comforted, allowed her attention to be engaged by other topics
+of conversation. She was much distressed that she could not persuade her
+visitor to stay all the rest of the day and have a real good
+soul-satisfying talk, but Olive declared she must go home and see to her
+own chickens, an argument that appealed very strongly to Aunt Ruby’s
+maternal instincts.
+
+A difficulty arose as to how Diana was to be decently conducted out
+through the yard.
+
+“I’d mos’ as soon hev to conten’ with a roarin’ lion as that pup,”
+remarked Aunt Ruby as the difficulty presented itself to her mind in an
+acute form.
+
+“If I could get her past without seeing the hens and chickens she would
+be all right,” said Olive, who of course had no whip, regarding
+meditatively the dog, who of course had no collar.
+
+“Wal, that ’ud do, I guess, sort o’ take her out o’ the way o’
+temptation,” said Aunt Ruby, surveying Diana with an anxious eye. “I kin
+give you an ole caliker skirt o’ mine, an’ you kin tie up her head in
+that reg’lar tight, so as she wouldn’t see ne’er a hen this side o’
+Christmas, ’less you took it off.”
+
+This seemed a hopeful arrangement; so the “caliker skirt” was brought,
+and the misguided Diana, under the impression that a brand new game was
+on foot, allowed her head to be hidden in the folds of the skirt. Olive
+then led her to the door, but Diana objected, not seeing where the joke
+came in for her; and as soon as she found that she was ignominiously
+tied into the dreadful skirt, her rage was boundless. In an instant she
+wrenched herself free from Olive’s guiding hand. She then commenced a
+wild career around the yard backwards, swaying this way and that in the
+most ghastly and unlooked-for manner.
+
+The hens and chickens no sooner beheld this portent than with one
+universal squawk of horror they betook themselves to places of safety
+under the corn-crib and into the cracks of the wood-pile, whence they
+could not again be coaxed for many hours. Diana meanwhile continued her
+fearsome course and ere long came into violent contact with the
+chicken-tub, a large receptacle with loose wooden cover where various
+sorts of food suitable for fowls were collected together, first thinned
+with water and then thickened into a glutinous mass by intermixture of
+corn-meal. Into this tub Diana sat with extreme violence and then rolled
+over. Olive caught her as she was emerging from the chicken-tub and by
+uncovering her eyes restored her to reason. Aunt Ruby, speechless with
+indignation, and Olive, equally speechless with laughter, then set to
+work with two big spoons to scrape the chicken food from the ground and
+from the hind quarters of the dog. Diana, now at peace with all the
+world, wagged her tail benevolently during this process, and soon
+specked Olive over with corn-meal, potatoes, scraps of peelings, and
+bits of greens, until she looked as if she had been out in a snow-storm
+as severe in character as it was diversified in composition. When this
+job was over Aunt Ruby arose and straightened her old back with a groan.
+
+“Wal, I guess I would a deal sight sooner hev a rattlesnake to look
+a’ter than a dawg,” she observed.
+
+Olive, apologetic, departed along with the unrepentant Diana, and
+together they returned homewards.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+                             HORSE-THIEVES.
+
+
+Olive spent a few quiet hours at home along with Diana, and then took
+supper in company with Napoleon Pompey, whose manners at table were now
+all that could be desired. Indeed, the negro in this connection easily
+takes a higher polish than might be expected: he prides himself on being
+punctilious in all the forms and phrases of the best white society he
+has ever come in contact with, and being highly imitative, is quickly
+trained. Given a white boy and a black boy of similar ages and depths of
+ignorance, the black one will more quickly tame into a seemingly quiet
+human being, while very frequently the same vanity which prompts a negro
+to be over-zealous in the use of “please” and “thank you” will cause the
+white boy to act roughly and assert his independence by extravagances of
+rude behaviour. Napoleon Pompey was magnificently polite to “Mis’
+Ollie,” whom he adored, and for whom he was ready even to work: that is
+to make the greatest sacrifice possible to a negro lad of twelve. He
+never forgot to carry in wood for her or to pick up chips in generous
+quantity for the lighting of the afternoon fire, and he collected
+abundance of corn-cobs and had them duly dried in the sun ready at her
+hand in case she was in sudden want of a hot fire. When working for
+Ezra, Napoleon Pompey reverted to his natural black standard of
+diligence and shirked as much as he possibly could, lying down in
+fence-corners to sleep like a shiny black lizard when he should have
+been stripping corn, but he never shirked “Mis’ Ollie’s” work. She
+didn’t scold the lad, but ruled him by her gentleness and her beauty,
+and he fell into meekest subjection to her.
+
+Olive always tried to talk with Napoleon Pompey at meals, even when Ezra
+was there, being anxious to make him feel at his ease and happy in their
+presence; and to-day being alone with him she thought she might get some
+information out of him on the subject which was weighing so heavily upon
+her mind.
+
+“Napoleon Pompey, did you ever hear of their hunting down men on the
+prairie here?”
+
+“Yo’ bet, Mis’ Ollie, I seed darkie what went to de hangin’ ole man
+Howard. He done seed him hoisted over de tree slap up. He told me——”
+
+“Hush!” said Olive sternly.
+
+The young savage was abashed, he had meant no harm, but thought some
+pleasing details “o’ de hangin’,” which he himself had relished
+mightily, would prove equally acceptable to Olive’s taste. She was
+disgusted to think that with all her teaching of the forms and symbols
+of politeness and gentle manners, which the young scamp had received
+with such docility, she had not really touched his heart at all: he was
+just a black savage, still rejoicing in vivid details of horrors and
+cruelty.
+
+“Don’t tell me,” she said sternly, “that it is possible you could like
+to see a human being, a fellow creature, made in God’s image, no matter
+how guilty he might be, put to death. It may be necessary, Napoleon
+Pompey, sometimes to hang men who have done wicked things, so as to
+prevent others from doing the same, but it is an awful thing, a sad and
+terrible sight. You would never wish to see it, Napoleon Pompey,” said
+Olive solemnly.
+
+“It ’ud be bully ter see ’um kickin’ in de air wid rope roun’ his neck,”
+said Napoleon Pompey simply.
+
+Olive turned white with disgust and left the kitchen, retiring with
+Diana to her own little private room. Napoleon Pompey, conscious of no
+shortcomings, cleared away the supper things very handily, washed the
+few dishes, set the candles upon the white deal table, and whistling in
+the innocence of his youthful heart went out to “walk roun’” and see
+that all was right, and the hen-house fastened up securely against
+possible visits from pole-cats, before he retired to his loft upstairs
+shortly after sun-down. Like the chickens, Napoleon Pompey went early to
+roost.
+
+Conscious from the all-pervading stillness that the lad was gone to bed,
+Ollie returned to the kitchen, and her heart smote her as she saw two
+tallow candles in their tin candle-sticks placed on the table in
+convenient position for her to read, if such should be her wish. Poor
+Napoleon Pompey! Olive thought compassionately of what an affectionate
+boy he was, and of how it was not his fault if he still had savage
+tastes. Indeed, it was rather the fault of everybody else. His not very
+remote ancestors were unreclaimed African savages, and the career of
+those more immediate forefathers, whose lot had been cast in slavery
+down South, had not had an elevating tendency. It was wonderful, not
+that he still had savage tastes, but that he had got rid of so many of
+them. She was sorry that she had not been better able to control her
+feelings, and determined forthwith to institute a careful system of
+training with a view to leading him to the higher life by the shortest
+possible road. Having settled in her own mind a few of the more
+important lines upon which this training was to be conducted, Olive
+turned at last to her reading. But she could not keep her mind on her
+book, it kept wandering off in all sorts of directions, and at last took
+that of being frightened at the loneliness and stillness of the house.
+When so firmly combating the notion of being afraid to stay in the house
+during Ezra’s absence, Olive had not realized how appalling the
+stillness would be. In the daytime there were multitudes of unregarded
+sounds, which went to make up the sum total of the idea of life and
+fellowship, but at night these had completely ceased, and she seemed to
+hear the stillness with awful intensity.
+
+Then, too there were no shutters to the windows, which were, of course,
+open to let in the cool night air, and the thought suddenly came into
+Olive’s mind of how exposed she really was, sitting there in the light
+of her candles, plainly to be seen, but unable to see out. A thought
+such as this needs but little time to grow into a veritable feeling of
+panic. She glanced at the black gaping windows and stared out into the
+measureless blackness beyond. At one moment she raised her hand to
+extinguish the candles and so to hide herself in the dark along with her
+fears, but she knew that would only make matters worse. She would see in
+her terrified imagination a hundred glaring eyes peering in through the
+window. She got up and walked about the room, trying by a little
+movement to throw off the oppressive sense of terror. Diana suddenly
+seemed to be interested in something, and raised her head and sniffed
+inquiringly, and her mistress, nervously awake to every sight or sound,
+looked anxiously around her and stopped in her uneasy walk. Diana arose
+and went to the door, and being a puppy wagged her tail effusively, then
+suddenly remembering that she ought to be a dog, barked with vehemence.
+Olive was ready to scream with nervous terror as she heard a step upon
+the slanting board which led up to the door and a second later a knock
+against the resounding wood. She stood spell-bound, unable to speak or
+move. Diana ceased barking, and looked with eager delight for the
+opening of the door.
+
+“It is I, friends, let me come in,” said a deep voice which thrilled
+Olive to the heart.
+
+The door opened and Mr. Cotterell entered.
+
+“Mr. Cotterell! What are you here for?” gasped Olive, as he came in and
+stood in the light, gaunt-eyed and hollow-cheeked.
+
+“I am flying for my life, Mrs. Weston. The men are out hunting me down.
+I have come to ask your help. Where is your husband?”
+
+“He is gone away to Mapleton.”
+
+“Ah!” said Cotterell, with a sigh that had some relief in the sound.
+“Then you will help me, won’t you?”
+
+“What have you done?” asked Olive, gazing at him in terror. He was
+wild-looking and so different from the charming gentleman she had known
+before.
+
+“I’ve shot Jake Mills,” he replied, without any attempt at
+dissimulation.
+
+“Do you mean that you’ve murdered him?” gasped Olive, starting back from
+him.
+
+“Good God! Mrs. Weston, no. I’ve not murdered him, although he is dead
+by my hand. There’s been a quarrel between us about some land he rented
+from me. He was a very low-bred fellow and violent, and I despised him,
+and—well, I said some harsh things to him about cheating the last time
+we met. He swore that he would pay me out. He came to my cabin the other
+day. I don’t know how long ago, it seems a life-time. He was mad with
+drink and fury. I told him he was a hound. He whipped out his revolver
+and fired at me, but he was too tipsy to aim straight, his shots went
+wide of the mark. Well, I got my shot in, I was not drunk. That is how
+it was, Mrs. Weston. Upon my honour as a man, that is the exact truth,
+you would not call it murder, would you?”
+
+“No, it was in self-defence. But why didn’t you go and tell the
+neighbours at once? They understand that sort of thing on the prairie.”
+
+“Ah, there’s just my hard luck. There was a brute of a negro who saw it
+all, a fellow I thrashed once for stealing and lying, and he said with
+such a meaning look, niggers were free men now, they could give evidence
+against white men now,” said Cotterell in a voice of despair.
+
+“Could not you silence him?” said Olive, “or make him tell the truth?”
+
+“Yes, I could have silenced him easily enough, and I had my finger on
+the trigger to do it. But I sickened at the thought. I couldn’t shoot
+him, although it was my life against his in all probability. I fled and
+he gave the alarm. I have no chance with these men around here to try
+me, and that negro to give his lying version of the fight. If it was a
+jury of men like your husband, it would be different, but these ignorant
+settlers are desperately prejudiced against me already as a foreigner,
+and because of several things in the past.”
+
+Olive thought of what her husband had said, and knew only too well that
+there was indeed much prejudice against the unhappy fugitive.
+
+“What am I to do? You cannot stay here, Mr. Cotterell. They have already
+been looking for you. Mr. Owen was here yesterday afternoon.”
+
+“Did he tell you what I had done? Did he seem to consider it murder?”
+
+“Yes, he did,” said Olive in a whisper, not daring to remember what he
+had said should he Cotterell’s punishment.
+
+“But you don’t look upon it in that light?” said he, wistfully.
+
+“No, certainly not. It was a terrible misfortune that might happen to
+anybody, given the preliminary quarrel.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Cotterell brokenly. “When a poor devil is being hunted
+down it is a comfort for him to find someone who can still believe in
+him, and I knew in my heart I could come to you for help when all else
+had abandoned me. I am starving, Mrs. Weston. I have eaten nothing for
+two days. Can you give me some food?”
+
+“Poor fellow!” cried Olive, more struck perhaps by his bodily needs than
+by those of the mind. “Sit down here, I’ll get you something in a jiffy.
+There is a good chicken-pie in the cellar.”
+
+She took a lantern and hurried off to the cellar which was under the
+house, but to which entrance was effected by an outside door. She
+brought him food and drink and sat by him as he ate ravenously,
+wolfishly.
+
+“I must sleep or I shall never be able to hold out for the flight
+to-morrow. Let me lie here, will you, and wake me at mid-night. Will you
+do that for me? I must sleep. I have been hiding in the bottom-land of
+Cotton Wood Creek in the brushwood ever since I left home. I didn’t dare
+to ride across the prairie with everybody out on account of the fire. I
+should have been seen by someone, even if I could have got clear of the
+fire. The hunt must be over now on this side of the county, and I may
+dare snatch a little sleep.”
+
+He flung himself down on the floor, and almost before Olive could fetch
+a pillow for his head he was in a deep sleep. She sat watching him and
+wondering what his life was. Somewhere away in England, perhaps, there
+was a blue-eyed girl waiting for him to come home, a girl whose blue
+eyes were getting dim with the tears she shed in that long, long
+waiting. He was a very handsome man, with his yellow moustache and
+clear-cut features. His hat was off, leaving a sort of high-water mark
+plainly visible on his forehead, where the sun-burn ended and the smooth
+white skin showed upon his temples. The veins were marked in blue like a
+baby’s, she remembered how Ezra had commented on these blue veins. She
+wondered who he was and why he came there to live, and all the while she
+watched the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed in his sleep
+with his right hand nervelessly holding his revolver. How he would start
+up and grip that weapon, and how his blue eyes would flash, if his
+pursuers should come upon him! He was a man that had a reputation for
+bravery even on the prairie, where few men were cowards. She thought of
+Prince Charlie and his wanderings, and all the stories she had read as a
+girl about that charming prince. Here was a fugitive seeking her aid,
+and she—well, she would act the part of Flora Macdonald. By the time it
+was mid-night, Olive had worked herself into a most romantic frame of
+mind and was determined to help Mr. Cotterell at every hazard. She was
+not a person to do a thing by halves. She made a parcel of food for him
+out of the remains of the chicken-pie, and then, it being just
+mid-night, she awoke him.
+
+“Ah, Mrs. Weston, how can I ever show my gratitude to you? You are in
+veriest truth my guardian angel. I shall carry your image in my heart
+till I die,” said Cotterell in his soft persuasive voice. “I should like
+to think that you had some memory of me.”
+
+“I shall not forget you, and shall pray that you may escape all
+dangers,” said Olive gently.
+
+“I have absolutely nothing that I can call my own. Would you accept this
+ring of mine as a token of my gratitude, and sometimes wear it in memory
+of me? When you look at it, think that somewhere in this weary world
+there is one heart that will be grateful to you until it ceases to
+beat.”
+
+He pulled a ring from his finger and put it into her hand. At the same
+time he stooped his tall form and softly kissed her forehead, saying:
+“God bless you!”
+
+Olive’s eyes were full of tears. “You must be going or it will be too
+late,” she said with a sob.
+
+“Yes, I must not tarry.” He looked to his revolver, jerked his
+cartridge-case round into a more convenient position for rapidly opening
+it, and took up his hat.
+
+“Where is your horse?”
+
+“I hitched him to the bars.”
+
+“Then I will take the lantern and light you on your way. The night is
+very dark. Once on horseback you can ride by the light of the stars,”
+said Olive.
+
+“Yes, I’ll shape my course for the Missouri border, if I can run the
+gauntlet of the people here. Once I reach a town and civilization I
+shall be all right.”
+
+They went to the bars, Olive holding her little lantern which threw a
+feeble ray along the pathway.
+
+“Great God!” cried Cotterell.
+
+“Oh, what is it? Are they coming after you?” said Olive in alarm,
+dropping her lantern which instantly went out.
+
+“My horse is gone!” said Cotterell, whose eyes were now becoming
+accustomed to the darkness. “I left him hitched here. He was a wild
+young colt, not half broken. See, this is the lariat-rope wrenched in
+two. I was a fool to trust to that rope, and a double-dyed fool to leave
+him here in the dark. But I was too hungry and too sleepy to think
+clearly of what I was doing. That sleep will cost me my life. I shall
+have plenty of time to sleep, aye forever, if daylight catches me here.
+Mrs. Weston will you add one more benefit to the many that have gone
+before? Will you give me a horse?”
+
+“Oh, so gladly if I had one,” said Olive, beginning to cry with grief
+and helplessness.
+
+“Haven’t you any horses?” asked Cotterell with a gasp.
+
+“No. Ezra and Brother Huntley have taken two teams to Mapleton.”
+
+“Are there no more about the place?”
+
+“Only our two that were out on the prairie. Brother Wright was to hunt
+for them.”
+
+“Did he find them?”
+
+“I don’t know. Perhaps he did.”
+
+“Then you must give me one of them. They are yours.”
+
+“They are not mine. Oh, I have not anything in this dreadful Community.
+It is horrible,” wailed Olive.
+
+“Don’t, pray don’t,” said Cotterell feeling for her hand in the darkness
+and crushing it in a passionate grasp. “Come with me and help me get
+one.”
+
+“What! steal one of our horses?”
+
+“Yes, God help me! if that must be the word. If I live, the Community
+shall have the horse’s price ten times over. If I am hanged, put it down
+for the Recording Angel’s tears. Come.”
+
+“The horses are not here. They are at Brother Wright’s if anywhere.”
+
+“Can you find the way in the dark? Then come all the same.”
+
+He held her hand. Was it for fear lest she should turn back, or was it
+for some other reason? They walked in silence towards the Wrights’
+house, two dark shadows stealing through the blackness.
+
+“Mr. Cotterell,” whispered Olive with chattering teeth. “If anyone
+should come out of the house on account of the noise, don’t fire. We are
+all non-resistants, you know, here, and he won’t have a pistol.” Olive
+had no knowledge of the plenary indulgence which Brother Wright had seen
+fit to bestow upon himself in this matter.
+
+“Dear heart! don’t fear,” said Cotterell tenderly. “I am a desperate man
+flying for his life, it is true, but I am not a dastard. No human being
+at Perfection City shall ever be hurt by my hand. They are all sacred to
+me for your sweet sake. Ah yes, how truly it is Perfection City, none
+but I really know.”
+
+They walked on again in silence.
+
+“Is there a dog?”
+
+“Yes, but he knows me well. We are coming to the back of the stable
+now.”
+
+“Then go and speak to the dog through the chinks of the logs, else he
+will bark at me.”
+
+Olive crept up quietly, and putting her lips to a crevice in the rough
+log-stable said softly, “Pluto, good dog!” Pluto answered with a whine
+of satisfaction, and a soft, purring trumpet from Queen Katharine
+announced that she too was within, and that she recognised her
+mistress’s voice.
+
+“The horses are here,” whispered Olive. “I will go round and bring out
+Queen Katharine; there is only a wooden bolt on the outside to fasten
+the door. You had better not go near them for fear of exciting them,
+which might make the dog bark.”
+
+“It is dangerous for you in the dark. I fear the horses may hurt you,”
+said Cotterell, slow in bringing himself to give up the little hand he
+had held all during that strange night walk.
+
+“I am not afraid of the horses: they know me and I know them,” said
+Olive.
+
+Cotterell heard her talking softly to Queen Katharine as she quietly
+undid her halter and brought her out of the stable. Not a creature
+seemed awake in the house, and not a word was spoken by the two as they
+stole past down to the bars. Once out of earshot, Cotterell sprang upon
+Queen Katharine and stooping down lifted Olive up before him. She never
+could quite remember the wild things he said as he rode back to their
+house, holding her in his arms on the horse. She was dizzy, frightened,
+and confused, so perhaps he did not say all those wild words, and
+perhaps she dreamed them. He got Ezra’s saddle and put it on Queen
+Katharine, Olive did not forget to give him the parcel of food and a
+flask of milk and water, and then he said good-bye. Such a strange
+good-bye. He knelt before her, clasped her two hands in his own, and
+said: “Now I know why men have worshipped the image of pure womanhood.
+It made them better. I shall be made a better man by my worship.” And
+then he was gone without another word, and Olive crept into the house
+just as the first grey streaks of dawn appeared.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+                            A LIFE AT STAKE.
+
+
+When Brother Wright early next morning discovered the loss of the brown
+mare, he was thrown into a state of the most unphilosophic rage. He had
+not a moment’s doubt as to what had happened, nor a moment’s hesitation
+as to the course he should pursue. He hurried back to the house and
+without any effort at concealment got out his revolver and stuck it into
+his belt.
+
+“Wright,” said Mary, his wife, “whatever have you got there?” She was
+filled with amazement.
+
+“A pistol,” replied he with firmness.
+
+“What are you going to do with it?”
+
+“Shoot a damned horse-thief, who has been and broken into the stable and
+stolen Queen Katharine.”
+
+He jammed down his hat on his head and made for the door, while Mary
+Winkle gave a scream that would have done credit to the finest lady in
+the land.
+
+“You shan’t do any such thing! You will be killed! What do you know
+about pistols? You will be shot by those murderous horse-thieves, and
+what will become of me—and Willette?” Mary Winkle urged the very
+arguments that have before now been known to make brave men falter and
+turn back from running risks.
+
+“I—I shan’t do anything rash,” said Wright sheepishly. “I’ll just go
+round and rouse the neighbours and see if we can’t catch him, he can’t
+have got very far as yet. What beats me is why Pluto didn’t bark. The
+dog’s a fool, I’ll drown him.”
+
+“Oh, I am thankful he didn’t bark, for you might have been dead by now
+if he had. You shan’t drown him, for he has saved your life.
+Horse-thieves are desperate men and wouldn’t respect our principles of
+non-resistance,” said Mary Winkle.
+
+“Ahem,” said her husband, tucking the revolver out of sight until
+required.
+
+“What we’ve got to do is to go to Madame and summon an Assembly of
+Urgency and talk this matter over, and see what the Community is to do.
+Wright, you can’t go and rouse the neighbours till you’ve got the
+sanction of the Assembly. You know that is the rule in all important
+matters, and this is about the most important matter that has ever come
+up for discussion.”
+
+“Damn discussion!” said Wright angrily. “While we’re discussing that
+thief will get away. Sharp is the word for catching horse-thieves.”
+
+“But sharp is not the word for determining the action of Perfection City
+in an important juncture like the present. Wright, I am surprised at
+you, and also at your language,” said his wife severely.
+
+“Oh these infernal horse-thieves would provoke a saint,—not that I am
+one,” said Wright, still in a rage most unbecoming to a professed
+non-resistant, and Mary Winkle looked a whole essay full of rebuke at
+him. She carried the day, however, and together they carried their
+complaint to Madame.
+
+They found Madame sitting at breakfast along with Uncle David, and being
+waited upon by a negro-servant, Lucinda, the mother of Napoleon Pompey.
+The heat of a cooking-stove made Madame ill, therefore she required a
+servant, and she had what she required, principles of equality to the
+contrary notwithstanding.
+
+“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Uncle David in much excitement and perturbation.
+“Wal, to think now o’ what big raskills there is in the worl’, an’ we
+a-settin’ ’em such a good ’xample here o’ honesty an’ uprightness.”
+
+“We must summon the Assembly,” said Mary Winkle firmly. “It is a great
+pity Brothers Ezra and Dummy are both away, but there are quite enough
+left to deliberate.”
+
+“If you think that is the best plan, we had better do it at once, there
+should be no time wasted,” said Madame, looking interrogatively at
+Brother Wright’s frowning face.
+
+“If you ask me——” he began when his wife interrupted him.
+
+“We don’t ask you, Wright, at least not until the Assembly of Urgency is
+convened. Your vote doesn’t count for more than mine, and I demand an
+Assembly.”
+
+Wright shrugged his shoulders, and Madame smiled a little sarcastically.
+“We will summon it,” she said.
+
+“An’ I’ll jes’ step roun’ an’ fetch Sister Olive,” said Uncle David,
+putting on his hat as he spoke, “an’ you can bring together the rest of
+the brethren.”
+
+They came quickly enough when they heard of the loss of the brown mare,
+only Olive was absent. She was ill in bed with a headache and spoke to
+Uncle David out of a darkened room.
+
+Brother Wright detailed the loss of the horse, while the Assembly
+listened in deepest attention.
+
+“What we have to consider is the best means of recovering the horse if
+possible,” said Madame. “Does anyone know what is usually done under
+similar circumstances?”
+
+“The neighbours join together and run down the thief as quickly as
+possible,” said Brother Wright, with sharp emphasis.
+
+“And having run him down, hang him,” added Mary Winkle.
+
+“That course is impossible for us,” observed Madame.
+
+“That is a point I should like to debate,” said Brother Wright. “If we
+are to live here we must have horses, and we can’t keep horses if it is
+known to be against our principles to shoot a horse-thief. That is all
+I’ve got to say.”
+
+“An’ I want to notice the p’int o’ Injuns,” said Aunt Ruby. “Ef there’s
+Injuns as will do any wickedness un’er the sun, I want to know are we to
+sit still an’ be roasted on our own fires by wile savages like that, or
+will the men-folks defen’ us as other men do? An’ I likewise would wish
+to p’int out to the ’Sembly as border ruffians is mos’ly as bad as
+Injuns, an’ it stan’s to reason as horse-thieves is ’bout the same.”
+
+“It seems to me,” said Brother Green, speaking with great deliberation,
+“that our principles were formed and adopted because we thought them
+right. I don’t see in what we should differ from anybody else if we took
+to the usual prairie arms the moment we felt the shoe pinch! If
+non-resistance is right, it should be practised against horse-thieves;
+if it is wrong, then we should be prepared to shoot the thieves of other
+men’s horses. There is no middle course. The throwing away of our
+settled convictions just because our horse has been stolen is not
+consistent.”
+
+“I’ll vote for non-resistance and the maintenance of our principles,”
+said Mary Winkle severely, “and I further think that what is decided by
+the majority in this meeting should bind all the members.”
+
+She fixed her eye upon Wright with meaning.
+
+“It is a most difficult juncture,” remarked Madame. “I wish much we had
+the help of Brother Ezra’s wisdom to guide us.”
+
+“Yes,” said Uncle David cordially, “an’ sister Olive too.”
+
+“I do not see how Sister Olive can have any experience that would enable
+her to give good advice on this subject,” said Madame acidly.
+
+“Oh, Sister Olive has consider’ble ’cuteness,” remarked Uncle David.
+“Now you’d be ’stonished to hear the wise things she says, an’ she as
+purty as a kitten or a rose all the while.”
+
+“Then I guess we’ll just do nothing at all? Is that the decision of this
+Assembly?” asked Brother Wright abruptly.
+
+“There is great force in passive resistance,” said Brother Carpenter, a
+boneless individual who counted for little either for work in the
+fields, or for advice in the councils, of Perfection City. “Where
+passive resistance has been applied by large numbers and for a long time
+it has effected great changes,” he observed conversationally.
+
+“I think principles are principles,” said Brother Green, “and may not be
+lightly set aside.”
+
+“Well, I guess I’ll go home then, since nothing is going to be done,”
+said Brother Wright angrily, “and I’ll try and keep hold of the last
+horse, else that thief will come and take him too, when he finds what
+fools he’s got to deal with.”
+
+The Assembly broke up, having decided nothing at all, and having only
+succeeded in embittering the feelings of several persons, and in
+widening the chasm of differences which had revealed itself in the
+course of the debate, a result that has often followed the meeting of
+larger and more notorious Assemblies.
+
+Although Brother Wright could not now violate one of the fundamental
+doctrines of Perfection City, it was open to him to use a little worldly
+wisdom in the way of setting others upon the track of the thief.
+Accordingly, without saying a single word to Mary Winkle or anyone else,
+he mounted Rebel and proceeded to rouse the neighbours who were not at
+all bound by non-resistant theories. Nothing gets up a prairie man’s
+anger quicker than the knowledge that a horse-thief has begun active
+operations in his vicinity. Horses are absolutely necessary to his daily
+life, and to be suddenly deprived of his horses is one of the greatest
+calamities that can overtake a settler. They can take a merciful view of
+homicide at times, but never of horse-stealing. Brother Wright relied on
+this known propensity, and by visiting the most hardy of his neighbours
+had before night started as relentless a set of hunters after Queen
+Katharine as ever put leg over horse or drew pistol from belt.
+
+Olive meanwhile remained at home all unconscious of what had taken place
+at the Assembly, and of the pursuit organized afterwards as the effect
+of Brother Wright’s embassies. She had decided in her own mind that the
+best course for her to adopt was to keep absolute silence until Ezra
+should come home. To him she would explain everything, and she felt
+convinced that he was just enough, albeit no friend of Cotterell’s, to
+be ready to sacrifice a horse in order to facilitate his escape. She did
+not feel at all so sure about some of the other members of the
+Community. At all events Cotterell’s best chance of safety lay in her
+keeping firmly to her resolution of silence about him. The best way for
+her to keep silent without exciting suspicion was not to talk with
+anyone, and feeling pretty well convinced that somebody would come to
+talk over the great calamity with her, she resolved to be out of the
+way. In any case she was very miserable and very anxious, and could not
+stay at home, so she wandered off for a walk. She went to the spring,
+then she went to Weddell’s Gully and looked at the black burnt waste.
+She tried to think about the interest and excitement of the fire, but
+could think of nothing but Cotterell riding for his life and of the men
+who were riding after him. Olive knew nothing of the second set of men
+sent after the horse-thief; her mind was still anxiously dwelling on the
+probability of his being captured by those who had “wanted” him for the
+murder of Jake Mills. The fact was, however, that this first
+hunting-party had given over their quest, for a man must be caught by
+the second day on the prairie if he is to be caught at all. This,
+however, Olive did not know, and she kept wondering and picturing all
+sorts of terrible possibilities. Had the men found the trail? Would
+Queen Katharine hold out till he got to the border? True she had been
+resting for a whole day, but then a man’s life depended on her
+endurance, and Olive remembered with a cold dread that Queen Katharine
+was only a farm-horse and not trained to such desperate efforts as this.
+Then she remembered the others, those dreadful hunters, were also
+mounted on farm horses, and this thought gave her some small comfort.
+She came home again after a most wretched day spent in aimless rambling
+over the hopeless black prairie and crept up to the outside platform to
+scan once more that dreary waste towards the endless western horizon.
+Far away towards the north-west she saw a band of horsemen huddled
+together and moving rapidly in an easterly direction. Olive’s heart
+stood still with terror. Oh! who were they? And why were they riding
+rapidly? Men rode in bands to funerals, but then they went slowly: they
+rode fast only when out on a man-hunt. She did not call up Napoleon
+Pompey, although he could see like a hawk; she dreaded to hear what his
+explanation would be. She watched with straining eyes until the men had
+disappeared within the belt of timber that marked the course of the
+Creek, then she came downstairs with her miserable discovery hidden in
+her heart.
+
+The next day dragged slowly by, Olive feeling more and more wretched and
+anxious each moment, and longing for Ezra’s return. Napoleon Pompey did
+nothing but speculate about the horse-thief and the probabilities of his
+capture. He regaled Olive with accounts of the numbers of men out on the
+hunt, the desperate character of their courage, and the murderous
+accuracy of their aim with revolvers. Sick at heart she had to listen to
+him and try and collect her terrified senses in order to make occasional
+comments and replies. Again she hid herself away from her neighbours and
+spent most of the day in a corn-stack, not two hundred yards from the
+house, whence she could see plainly without being seen. Uncle David came
+and stayed so long waiting for her, that she nearly smothered in the
+corn-stack before he went away, and she was able to come out and catch a
+breath of fresh air. Then Aunt Ruby came and peered all about
+everywhere, even down into the cellar, and stayed a good while there
+examining Olive’s milkpans, until Olive bethought herself of the device
+of sending off Diana to hasten Aunt Ruby’s exit from the cellar. This
+device succeeded: Aunt Ruby was so dismayed at seeing that redoubtable
+puppy lolloping up to her that she incontinently fled, and Olive emerged
+once more from the suffocation of the corn-stack.
+
+Mary Winkle came twice, fortunately without Willette, for that astute
+young person would instantly have discovered Olive, owing to the
+pertinacious company of Diana. A dog does not hang around a corn-stack
+the live-long day unless there is something interesting inside it
+claiming attention. Olive began to feel like a hunted criminal herself.
+
+Napoleon Pompey had been sent away in the morning to look for some young
+cattle that had not been seen since the fire, and having to go on foot
+he did not come back till the afternoon. He burst in upon her with these
+appalling words:
+
+“Dey’s done cotch him!”
+
+“Who told you?” asked Olive, not pretending any miscomprehension of what
+was only too plain to her mind.
+
+“Ole nigger seed ’em. Dey bringin’ him back. Ole man Cotterell he de
+hoss-thief, him ridin’ Queen Katharine when dey cotch him. Nigger tole
+me he seed ’em yonder.”
+
+“Have they shot him?” asked Olive with white lips.
+
+“No, dey’s gwine ter jury-try him, den dey hang him ’cause he done stole
+hoss and he kill ole Mill’s Jake.” Napoleon Pompey licked his lips and
+grinned. Olive turned from him in horror.
+
+“Where have they taken him to?”
+
+“Dunno. Nigger he ’lowed dey gwine ter Jacksonville.”
+
+Olive made up her mind and took her resolution. She questioned Napoleon
+Pompey very carefully, found exactly what negro it was from whom he had
+obtained his information concerning the capture of Cotterell. He worked
+with the Halls who lived over the other side of Cotton Wood Creek, and
+she made minute inquiries as to how to reach their house. Then she told
+the boy to give Rebel a double feed of corn and to bring in the new
+lariat-rope and mallet and pin. Rebel had been removed back to his own
+stable by Brother Wright’s desire, as he had no belief now in Pluto as a
+watch-dog. Napoleon Pompey was open-mouthed with wonder at Olive’s
+directions about the horse, and asked “whar she gwine?” She told him to
+do as she bid him and to say nothing to anybody about it, whereat he was
+still more open-mouthed. Olive got a large shawl and rolled it up into a
+tight bundle, and then dressed herself in a strong serviceable stuff
+dress and went to supper with Napoleon Pompey, to whom she never spoke a
+single word. When supper was over she sent him down to his mother to ask
+her to bake a pumpkin-pie for her. Napoleon Pompey said he would go
+“fust thing in de mornin’,” and she told him sternly to go at once and
+do as he was bid. When Napoleon Pompey came back Olive was gone, and so
+was Rebel, with lariat-rope picket-pin and mallet, and so was her
+tightly rolled shawl.
+
+Perfection City had further cause for amazement and hurried meeting in
+Assembly.
+
+Olive, meanwhile, was riding fast towards Cotton Wood Creek which she
+reached and crossed by the last shreds of daylight. She stumbled up out
+of the bottom-lands on to the high prairie, then perceiving by the sound
+of Rebel’s hoofs that at last she had struck grass again, for the fire
+had not crossed the Creek, she determined to camp. It was a black night,
+but she knew how to drive her picket and unsaddle her horse blindfold.
+Taking her saddle and shawl out of the circle of Rebel’s night-range,
+she wrapped herself up to wait until daylight should permit her again to
+go forward. She was not in the least frightened, although the prairie
+wolves were yelping in the distance. The nervous terrors that had beset
+her when sitting in her own comfortable little kitchen with her dog at
+her feet, and a stout lad in the room overhead, were quite gone. Yet
+there was enough to frighten a more valiant person than our poor little
+Olive, with her half-defined thoughts and her generous impulses.
+
+What was it she proposed to herself in this expedition? First of all to
+overtake Cotterell and his captors, and then to do what the wit of woman
+could devise to save him from their fury. In her ignorance of prairie
+feelings and ideas she attached no importance to the fact that he would
+have been captured riding the well-known brown mare belonging to
+Perfection City. He would of course explain that she had lent him the
+animal, and that question would at once drop out of the debate. Then the
+terrible one of the shooting of Jake Mills would have to be settled.
+That was what she feared for Cotterell, and that was where her testimony
+and pleading might avail. She knew from his own lips how the fatal
+affray had occurred, and she would be able in some measure, perhaps, to
+counteract the evidence of that wicked lying negro who out of revenge
+was going to swear away Cotterell’s life. Olive hated to do it, but she
+knew she could say things to any western jury that would make it
+difficult for them to admit negro evidence. For once in a way the mighty
+race-prejudice could be relied upon to work for justice, and poor Olive,
+fanatical friend of the negro, had to confess she was glad to have so
+strong a lever to her hand in this dreadful emergency.
+
+Meanwhile the never-ending night wore on. How long, how unutterably long
+are the hours of darkness to them who wait sleeplessly for the dawn! The
+twinkling stars passed over her head, and Olive tried to fix her eyes
+steadily on one or two of them in order to convince herself that they
+really did move after all. Thus staring at the stars, her eyes became
+weary, and the lids dropped slowly over them, and she fell into a
+troubled sleep, haunted with fearsome visions.
+
+She must have slept some little time, for when she awoke the stars had
+certainly changed places and were moreover becoming pale in the first
+grey streaks of morning. Olive awoke shivering with cold and drenched
+with the heavy prairie dew. Her teeth chattered, so she could hear them
+like a piece of broken machinery moving inside her head, while her
+fingers were almost numb. As soon as she could make out Rebel in the
+approaching dawn, she saddled him, and, woman-like, did not forget the
+lariat-rope, picket-pin and mallet, even in the midst of her terrible
+anxiety. She thought of Cotterell in the hands of his foes, and the
+recollection came back to her, like a blow that almost stunned her, that
+this would be the last time he would ever see the sun rise unless she
+hurried to his rescue. The thought spurred her to renewed activity, the
+horror of it drove the chilled blood with a rush to her heart. She
+caught her breath, and then felt hot. She did not shiver any more, and
+her chattering teeth were set in a desperate resolve. She clambered up
+on the horse’s back and set off at a gallop towards that house where she
+would get positive news which would help her to find the lynching-party
+quickly. Ah! merciful God! The lynching-party! She urged Rebel into a
+harder gallop, for the sun was just beginning to appear over the
+horizon, and she could see where she was going. She reached the cabin
+where the Halls lived in due course. They didn’t know her, but they
+invited her to breakfast with prairie courtesy. She saw the negro man
+who had told the news to Napoleon Pompey.
+
+“Yes, he seed ’em totin’ ole man Cotterell back.” There was never any
+doubt in Olive’s mind as to the fact that they had caught him, what she
+wanted to know was the destination of the party. “He ’lowed dey was
+gwine ter Jacksonville, ’cause down yonder was whar dey hang de las’
+man; den dey jury-try him, an’ Jacksonville mighty handy anyhow, dar
+heaps o’ trees dar.”
+
+Olive could not repress a shudder of horror which the negro saw, and so
+did the Halls. She would not stop a moment to eat a bit of breakfast,
+notwithstanding their urgent entreaties, but got directions as to the
+shortest road to Jacksonville and hastened away on her errand of mercy.
+
+Mrs. Hall looking after her rapidly vanishing figure, and remembering
+the look of misery on her face, “reckoned ’twas one o’ them po’ silly
+gals as is cotched by a yaller ’stache. She was powerful sorry for her
+anyhow, she ’peared mos’ broke down an’ sick. She ’lowed if the boys hed
+hung ole man Cotterell when Glover’s gal shot herself ’cause he wouldn’t
+marry her, ’twould hev been a sight better anyhow.” Her husband was of
+opinion that “gals was fules gapin’ a’ter strangers an’ furrin fellers,
+not bein’ content along o’ their nat’ral men-folks as b’longed to ’em,
+app’inted by the hand o’ Providence.”
+
+Olive rode through the hot September day feeling very faint and tired,
+but never for a moment faltering in her determination; and well on in
+the afternoon she came to Jacksonville, a place with two houses standing
+and the stakes for three more stuck into the ground to signify
+possession. There was only one woman in the place along with a flock of
+children. No sign of men anywhere. The woman did not know much about the
+movements of the “boys.” “They hadn’t passed that way at all, but she
+hearn tell they had been out catching a horse-thief and murderer, and
+they had caught him too, a Britisher, she was told, and it was a shame
+those foreigners should be allowed to come to America to steal honest
+folks horses, and true born Americans too, as always worked for every
+cent before they spent it. They had taken him to Union Mills to try him
+and she hoped—well she didn’t want to say anything unbecoming to a
+professing Christian, but wouldn’t Olive come in and eat a bit and rest
+before going further, she didn’t look fit for such hard riding.” Olive,
+feeling sick with disappointment, accepted a morsel of food, and asking
+her way to Union Mills started off. She had come thirty-eight miles
+already, and if she had only known where to go she would have been there
+hours ago. It was nearly twenty miles to Union Mills, she could not hope
+to reach it that night, but she started nevertheless although the sun
+was getting low in the west. The horrid thought kept pressing against
+her heart: was she already too late? But no, she would force it out of
+her mind, and come what might she would never stop until she had done
+her utmost to save him. She therefore pressed forward, but Rebel showed
+signs of giving out. He lay down with her suddenly and tried to roll.
+This would never do. All depended on her horse, if he failed her then
+Cotterell’s last chance of life was gone. She rode slowly, now following
+a prairie track and now riding along side it, because Rebel stumbled in
+the ruts. It got dark, she did not know where she was, but followed the
+track for some time mechanically. A light suddenly showed up on her
+left. Rebel pricked up his ears and turned towards it. After some
+difficulty she reached the door. Could they harbour her for the night?
+She was caught out and could go no further.
+
+“Land o’ Goshen! ’course they could, an’ whar in sin was she gwine that
+time o’ night ’thout nobody, not even a dawg?” Olive said it was a case
+of life and death and she must do it. They were deeply sorry, they fed
+her with corn-bread and bacon, they fed her horse, and were kindness
+itself. The cabin had only one room with a bed in one corner for the man
+and his wife. Olive was desperately tired. The wife said “she’d be
+doggauned sick ’less she went to bed.” So Olive lay down on the bed, and
+the settler’s wife lay down beside her, and the man slept on the floor
+with his head on a pile of corn-shucks. Long before daylight he went out
+and fed her horse. The wife cooked a good breakfast and pressed Olive
+again and again “to scrouge down suthin’ more,” and sent her off with
+many good wishes as to her finding her husband better, who, she was
+sure, ’ud be tickled to death at seeing her.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+                               LYNCH-LAW.
+
+
+Union Mills was full of people, mostly men, and Phillipps’ Store, which
+was the only shop in the place, as well as being the Post-Office, was
+crowded to suffocation. Those who couldn’t get inside stood around the
+door talking loudly as they chewed their tobacco. Inside the talking and
+tobacco-chewing were carried on likewise. A ring of men were sitting on
+barrels and nail-kegs and coils of rope and extemporized chairs of all
+kinds. Of these, twelve arranged together at one side formed the jury,
+and the rest were witnesses and spectators. In their midst stood
+Cotterell. He was not bound or specially guarded in any way, but he was
+unarmed, while pistols hung at the belts of all the other men there.
+Cotterell held his head erect, his eyes looked clear, and his lips were
+firm. A careful observer might have noticed that his nostrils sometimes
+twitched, but his hands were perfectly steady. Yet he was on trial for
+his life, without appeal and without a friend in “the court.” Several of
+the men had asked him questions which he had answered, shortly and
+sharply perhaps, but with a perfectly steady voice.
+
+“I dunno what we’re gwine on talkin’ for,” said a jury man with a twang
+that bespoke Arkansas. “Hain’t it clar this hyar feller, what was wanted
+for the shootin’ o’ Ole Mills’ boy, he’s the same cuss as stole the mare
+from them damned fools up to ’Fection City? He’s got ter be hanged,
+anyhow. I want ter go home. I hain’t a-gwine to stick hyar all day, by
+Gosh!”
+
+“I did not steal the mare,” said Cotterell, his nostrils dilating.
+
+“You hear that,” said the foreman, who sat on a sugar-barrel.
+
+“You was ridin’ her when we come up t’yer,” said one who had been out on
+the hunt.
+
+“I was.”
+
+“How’d yer git her then ’cept by stealin’?”
+
+“She was lent to me by one of the members of the Community,” said
+Cotterell.
+
+“They’s damn fools, I know, but I reckon they hain’t such all-fired damn
+fools as ter give their best hoss ter you,” said the man from Arkansas.
+
+Cotterell’s lips curled with contempt, but he did not speak.
+
+“Look hyar, fellow jury-men,” said one of them who prided himself on the
+accuracy of his language on all occasions. “I’d axe leave ter make a few
+remarks. We were informed by the gentlemen what caught the prisoner that
+they were notified o’ the stealing by one o’ them Perfection City
+fellers. If the horse was lent how is it the owner didn’t know about the
+lending?”
+
+“Yes,” said one of the gentlemen referred to, “ole man Wright, he come
+and tol’ me ’bout the stealin’ o’ the hoss, an’ he ’lowed, on’y it was
+agin his principles, he’d like ter hev been out with the boys. It don’t
+’pear ter my min’ as there was much len’ing ’bout it.”
+
+“This trial, gen’lemen, is all fair and square an’ ’cordin’ to law.
+We’ll settle this p’int ’fore we go further,” said the foreman. “You say
+the horse was lent to you?”
+
+“I do say so emphatically,” replied the prisoner.
+
+“Wal, we’ve got one o’ them ’Fection City fellers to say the hoss was
+stolen, he’ll swear to that, an’ I reckon by their idees he was
+part-owner of it anyhow. Now, that’s the witness agin yer. Who have you
+got to swear yer was lent the horse fair and square?”
+
+“I have had no chance of getting any witness, as you very well know,”
+replied Cotterell.
+
+“Wal, I reckon yo’ hev bin kep’ purty toler’ble close. Anyhow, it shan’t
+be said as we hain’t gi’en yer a good chance. Now, which might be yer
+witness to the len’ing? There hain’t such a damn sight o’ folks up to
+’Fection City as ’ud make yer forget so ready as all that.”
+
+Cotterell hesitated.
+
+“Hain’t yo’ got no tongue? Who lent yer the hoss, I say?” repeated the
+foreman.
+
+“Mrs. Weston,” said Cotterell at last.
+
+“That’s a lie, anyhow,” burst out one of the bystanders.
+
+“It is not a lie, it is the truth,” said Cotterell hotly.
+
+“Wal, now, see hyar. I was over to ole man Weston’s, an’ I seed Mis’
+Weston myself, an’ she tole me she hadn’t sot eyes on yer. Now then?”
+
+It was Owen who spoke, he had been out, as we know, on the first
+hunting-party and was now present as a spectator. He would have been on
+the jury, only it was considered more delicate for him to stand aside,
+considering that he had been out to catch Cotterell, and prairie men are
+punctilious in the observance of all those forms of etiquette with which
+they are familiar. Although not on the jury, Owen was quite free to
+intervene in the trial, he was one of the foremost settlers on the
+prairie. Cotterell looked hard at him as he spoke.
+
+“Did she tell you that herself?” he asked, drawing his eyebrows tightly
+together.
+
+“Yes, she tole me herself,” replied Owen.
+
+“Then I have nothing further to say,” said Cotterell, setting his teeth
+grimly under his moustache. He realised very clearly what he was doing,
+he was throwing away his last chance of life; but his resolution never
+wavered for a moment. The thought flashed through his mind that most
+people would think him a fool to act as he did, risk the certainty of
+death for the sake of a fantastic loyalty to a woman who could never be
+to him anything but the distant friend another man’s wife should be.
+Then came the recollection that no one, not even she for whom he was
+sacrificing his life, would ever know what he had done. There was
+something fantastic surely in all this. Their whole acquaintance had
+been fantastic in a sense: Mr. Perseus was a fancy, but how dangerously
+sweet it had been while it lasted. And now it was over, he would never
+hear the sound of her voice again nor feel the touch of her little hand.
+Poor child! He could well imagine, with that jealous husband of hers,
+how she might have been driven to save herself from his anger by
+declaring she had never seen him. Jealousy was a monster surely, if
+there ever was a monster on this earth. Cotterell almost smiled to
+himself as he thought how once again he would act the part of Perseus to
+the unhappy one and save her by his silence from the monster’s fangs.
+Thoughts such as these swept through his mind as he stood facing the
+jury, while they were somewhat nonplussed as to their future proceedings
+owing to his determination not to say anything further. It appeared
+almost indecent to hang a man who would not argue out the points with
+them: they had never met such a one before.
+
+“There’s a gal hyar a-wantin’ ter come in,” said one of the men who was
+standing just outside the door.
+
+“Keep her hout,” said one of the jury. “We hain’t agoin’ ter hev any
+women a screech-owlin’ hyar. It’s one o’ his gals as he’s lef’ to die
+maybe of a broken heart ’thout the satisfaction o’ bein’ a widder.”
+
+“Let me pass, please,” said an imperious little voice that thrilled
+Cotterell to the heart. “I am one of the witnesses in this trial. I have
+important evidence to give.”
+
+The men fell back and left the passage free. Western men, even armed
+ones, can’t do anything against a woman.
+
+Olive came into the crowded room, Olive dirty, dishevelled,
+travel-stained, her face begrimed with prairie dust, her hair unkempt,
+her dress crumpled and with many a rent in it. Cotterell hardly knew
+her.
+
+“Who mought yer be, miss?” inquired one of the jury.
+
+“I am Mrs. Weston.”
+
+“Whar’s yer husband? Yer hadn’t oughter be hyar a follerin’ this feller
+roun’ the prairie. Tain’t——”
+
+“Shut yer mouth or I’ll send a bullet down yer gullet,” roared the
+foreman, putting his hand to his revolver. “Take a cheer,” he added,
+gallantly offering Olive the sugar-barrel upon which he had been sitting
+in his official capacity.
+
+“No, thank you,” said Olive. “I will stand.” She took her place beside
+Cotterell, but without looking at him or addressing a single word to
+him.
+
+“What are you trying this man for?” she asked, facing the jury
+dauntlessly.
+
+“Wal, mos’ly fur stealin’ yer hoss,” said one of them.
+
+“He didn’t steal it. I myself lent him the horse. It belongs to us,” was
+the reply.
+
+“By Gosh!” exclaimed Owen, “you tole me yerself yer hadn’t sot n’ary an
+eye on him.”
+
+“So I hadn’t when you were there, he did not come until the next day.”
+
+The jury whistled collectively and incredulously.
+
+“Silence!” said the foreman.
+
+“I can now explain,” said Cotterell. “I didn’t go to Mrs. Weston’s house
+until two days after—after Mills’ death——”
+
+“A’ter yer killed him,” corrected Owen.
+
+“And you were there the next day,” concluded Cotterell, not taking any
+notice of the interruption.
+
+“Yes, that is it. Mr. Cotterell came the next evening but one after the
+prairie fire, and I gave him the mare to go away on, because his colt
+broke loose from the bars in the dark.” Olive spoke quite quietly, with
+no trace of excitement beyond a knitting of her pretty eyebrows.
+
+“Wal, I reckon we hain’t got nuthin’ more to do then,” said one of the
+jury-men, getting up from his nail-keg and strapping up his holster.
+
+“There’s the murder too,” objected one, “not as I put it fust noways,
+on’y we might go inter it now, seein’ there hain’t nuthin’ ter be got
+outer the hoss-stealin’ business.”
+
+“Yer hain’t got evidence for the murder case too, has yer?” sneered the
+man who had been so peremptorily silenced by the foreman on his first
+objection to Olive’s presence.
+
+“Only this. You are not non-resistants, are you?”
+
+“We hain’t such blasted fools,” observed the Arkansas man genially.
+
+“Well, then, when this poor Jake Mills in his drunken fury came up and
+fired at Mr. Cotterell, was he or was he not to fire in self-defence,
+according to your ideas and practice?”
+
+“Of course he was,” said the jury in unison.
+
+“Then that is what he did. Jake Mills fired first.”
+
+“Two shots,” said Cotterell in a low voice, but every man in the room
+heard him distinctly.
+
+“That coloured man we saw yesterday swore that Cotterell lay in wait for
+Mills, and fired from under cover as he came up to the house,” said a
+man from Illinois who had not spoken hitherto.
+
+“Wal now,” said the Arkansas man, “I didn’t say nuthin’ ’bout that
+yesterday. Long as it was hoss-stealin’ we knowed whar we was an’ what
+we hed ter do, ’cause we hed the hoss. But this hyar shootin’ business
+hain’t noways the same. Any gen’leman hyar might hev a difference with
+any other gen’leman, an’ ’s long as it were done fair, I don’t see as
+how anyone hes any business to say they shouldn’t settle it with pistols
+or bowie-knives accordin’ to taste. We are all for freedom in this
+country I reckon, an’ that’s how it hes been done in Arkansas often an’
+satisfact’ry.”
+
+“This ain’t Arkansas, an’ we are determined to put a stop to this
+shootin’ round every day,” said the Illinois man firmly. “It ain’t
+respectable and it stops quiet settlers from coming here to take farms.
+We are going to stop it.”
+
+“Then you should have stopped Jake Mills when he went to Mr. Cotterell’s
+and fired at him first,” said Olive quickly.
+
+“There’s somethin’ in that,” said the foreman, whose native gallantry
+led him to side with a pretty woman. “In a trial we hev to consider all
+the p’ints o’ the case. I consider that as for the horse-stealin’, that
+hes mostly broke down under evidence. We must now go into the other
+charge, which is shootin’ Jake Mills, an’ a damned scoundrel he was
+too.”
+
+The jury laughed pleasantly at this sally from the bench, or to speak
+more accurately from the sugar-barrel. Even Cotterell seemed a trifle
+amused, only Olive did not unknit her eyebrows, nor did the hard lines
+around her mouth in the least relax.
+
+“We are in consider’ble difficulty ’bout this here shootin’ case,”
+continued the foreman when the mirth had subsided, “and if I had knowed
+as that was all we was up for tryin’, I don’t reckon we ’ud all on us
+ha’ been here as is now collected together to maintain the rights an’
+freedom o’ our country.”
+
+The jury murmured applause, upon recognising well-known Fourth of July
+phrases, which have perennial power to stir the American breast.
+
+“Why ain’t we agoin’ on with this blamed trial?” asked an impatient jury
+man. “We hev purty nigh lost a whole day’s work a’ready an’ hain’t
+finished nothin’ yit. When we strung up ole Howard for hoss-stealin’ we
+hed the job done clar up afore noon, an’ we could go home to dinner
+comfor’ble.”
+
+Olive gave a faint inarticulate cry and put her hands up to her ears, or
+was it perchance to her neck? Cotterell turned anxiously towards her as
+if she was going to faint, and he would catch her before she fell. She
+steadied herself in an instant and again faced the jury like a tiny
+lioness, small in body but with unconquerable courage.
+
+“Well, gen’lemen, I’m agreeable to proceed with the evidence,” said the
+foreman graciously.
+
+“I was told we had evidence o’ deliberate murder,” said the Illinois
+juror.
+
+“We most on us hearn what the nigger said,” remarked another carelessly,
+“some on us fooled roun’ with that yesterday an’ lost a fair half day’s
+work.”
+
+“Wal, gen’lemen, you could ha’ had the nigger again here to-day, on’y it
+was not considered necessary, as we was mostly of opinion to fin’ a true
+bill on the horse-stealin’ count. We can send for the nigger. He’s mos’
+likely sneakin’ roun’ here. Them niggers is jes’ like buzzards, they can
+scent out where there’s a hangin’,—ahem, gen’lemen, we’ll proceed,” said
+the foreman, suddenly recollecting himself and Olive’s presence barely
+in time.
+
+“I vote for sending for the coloured man,” said the Illinois juror
+firmly. “We’ll confront him with the prisoner.”
+
+“Nigger be damned!” roared the Arkansas man jumping violently off his
+nail-keg. “Yo’ reckon I’m agoin’ ter sit hyar an’ see a white man hanged
+on nigger evidence. No, sir. I won’t stan’ such a insult to my race as
+that. There be some things a man o’ honour won’t stan’ an’ that’s one o’
+them. Thar hain’t no man spryer to light out an’ catch a hoss-thief nor
+I be, an’ I’ll do my dooty in the hangin’ too, an’ hol’ the rope as
+tight as ony o’ yo’all. But I’ll bust up afore I’ll take nigger evidence
+’gin a white man. I reckon there hain’t none o’ yo’ gen’lemen as is
+pertikler sot on that nigger, be yer?”
+
+Olive’s heart gave a bound of joy as the Arkansas juror poured forth his
+torrent of protest. Alas, poor Olive and her high-flown love of the
+black race! She was bound to confess that her best hope for effecting
+the end she was struggling for, lay in the blind race-prejudice of this
+ignorant Southerner.
+
+“I guess we ought to take all the evidence, white or black, that bears
+on the case,” observed he of Illinois.
+
+“If that thar nigger comes inter this hyar room to conten’ with this
+hyar jury an’ give his evidence, I’ll shoot him, ’fore he gits over that
+door-sill, so I will, by God, an’ no man as knows me ever said I went
+back o’ my word in shootin’.”
+
+The Arkansas juror faced them with his black eyes ablaze and his dark
+visage twitching with suppressed fury. He was quivering under the sting
+of what was to him an intolerable insult, and there was nothing he would
+not do to wipe out that insult.
+
+Olive looked at Cotterell for the first time, and as their eyes met he
+was horrified to see the white, drawn expression on her face. He
+attributed it to the very natural womanly fear that she might be
+involved in a promiscuous shooting affray in that crowded room.
+
+“Don’t be alarmed, they will not bring the negro in here,” he said
+soothingly.
+
+“I am not afraid for myself,” she answered, simply and truthfully.
+
+“Wal, gen’lemen,” said the foreman pleasantly. “I reckon we hev finished
+for this spell anyhow. I consider the prisoner hes hed as fair a trial
+as ony man could wish, and I hev on’y ter thank yer all for yer help
+upon this occasion in maintain’ the laws and freedom of our beloved
+country, as belongs to the duty of free-born citizens.”
+
+“Hurrah!” said the jury, with another relapse into Fourth of Julyism.
+
+“We’ve purty nigh lost two whole days’ work ’long o’ this hyar foolin’,”
+observed the Arkansas man angrily. “Them coons up to ’Fection City is
+nat’ral born fools anyhow. Fust they blaze roun’ an’ set us on ter run
+down a hoss-thief fur ’em. Soon as we’ve done cotch him, they sen’ roun’
+a woman to say the hoss was lent. If the blamed critters come to me
+again, reckon I’ll stick to my plough-handles. I’ll not light out for
+them, you bet.” And he immediately walked out of the store followed by
+the entire jury and the foreman.
+
+When the Court broke up, Olive and Cotterell were left alone in the
+store along with Phillipps, the storekeeper. The latter handed Cotterell
+his revolver, which the jury had considerately left for him.
+
+“I suppose I’m a free man,” said Cotterell, with more sign of emotion in
+his manner than he had yet shown.
+
+“Thanks to Mrs. Weston you are free,” said Phillipps.
+
+He turned to Olive, who seemed in a daze, and said, “Shall we go now?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, and they left the store together.
+
+The crowd in the road before the door was already fast dispersing. The
+exciting climax for which they had waited was not to come off, so there
+remained no further inducement to stay. Some straggled into the smithy,
+some went towards the mills, but most of the men were getting their
+horses, putting on saddles, and settling halters and reins. The Arkansas
+man had a waggon and was hitching his horses to it, as Olive, riding on
+Rebel, and Cotterell on Queen Katharine, passed by.
+
+“Be yo’ gwine with him?” asked the Arkansas man, pointing to Olive.
+
+“Yes,” said Olive shortly.
+
+“Wish we’d hanged the damned cuss ’fore she come in,” said the Arkansas
+man regretfully to his companion, who had also been present at the
+trial. “She’s gwine ter ’lope with him, an’ ole man Weston he on’y jes’
+married her las’ spring.”
+
+“Reckon she don’t like ’Fection City idees. Gals mos’ allers likes a
+fightin’ man best, an’ this hyar one is reg’lar downright handsome too.”
+
+“If we’d on’y hed a-hanged him she couldn’t hev run off with the coon,”
+repeated the Arkansas man with conviction, shaking his head sorrowfully
+as he watched the two disappearing among the trees on the South Fork.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+                             OLIVE MISSING.
+
+
+There was dire dismay at Perfection City when the flight of Olive became
+known. Napoleon Pompey informed Madame of it the same evening, but, for
+reasons best known to herself, she did not announce the fact until the
+next morning, when the brethren and sisters flocked to her house to talk
+over this surprising event in all its bearings. The members accounted
+for it in different ways and explained it according to their
+preconceived notions. Madame at once said that she had evidently left
+her husband whom she had never really loved at all.
+
+“I think we must all have noticed how utterly unsuited she was to him
+and how uncongenial. She was no fit companion for a man of Ezra’s mind,”
+said Madame.
+
+“Wal, now,” observed Uncle David, “I think such a purty little gal with
+sweet little kitten-ways was a most congenial companion.”
+
+“Uncle, you don’t understand men. Men with minds and high aspirations
+want a companion capable of sharing their ideas and aims, they don’t
+want a kitten or a plaything.”
+
+“My ’pinion is most men is satisfied with kittens, if they’re as soft
+an’ coaxin’ in their ways as little Ollie is,” replied Uncle David.
+
+“I guess she couldn’t stand the bondage of marriage,” said Mary Winkle.
+“When she first came she was all for being absorbed in her husband, she
+would be Mrs. Weston forsooth, she wanted to sink her individuality. She
+has naturally found out her mistake. I respect her and sympathize with
+her in her efforts to shake off the trammels of custom and make a dash
+for freedom. I dare say we shall soon have her coming back again, having
+resumed her own name, and perhaps ready to lecture on the absurdity of
+women giving up their names on marriage, as if they ceased to exist.
+Marriage under these circumstances becomes a sort of death to a woman.
+It is extinction.”
+
+“’Tain’t no such thing, Sister Mary,” said Uncle David. “It is an
+honourable distinction our forefathers have used, findin’ the same handy
+and convenient. I don’t believe little Ollie has gone a-lecterin’, she
+ain’t that sort o’ gal. I guess she’s jes’ tired an’ lonesome feelin’,
+an’ thought she’d ride out an’ meet Ezry comin’ home.”
+
+“She hasn’t done that, Uncle, for I’ve seen a man from over Jacksonville
+way, and he told me she had been seen the other side of Big Cotton Wood
+Creek, and that she was asking for news of Cotterell,” said Brother
+Wright.
+
+“Then she has gone to him,” said Madame with decision.
+
+“She hain’t neither,” contradicted Uncle David, “you hain’t got no
+business to tell wicked stories like that.”
+
+“She has been carrying on a secret acquaintance with him all the summer.
+I know that, for I surprised them together at the spring some weeks
+ago.”
+
+“She didn’t do nothin’ that was dishonest an’ secret,” said Uncle David
+anxiously. “I ain’t agoin’ ter believe anything ’gin little Ollie. She’s
+a good little gal.”
+
+He wiped his forehead nervously with his large bony hand, and then took
+out his red handkerchief and passed it several times across his face.
+
+“The power of love is strong,” said Madame, looking at him with
+compassion.
+
+“Yes, yes,” he replied quickly, “jes’ what I say, an’ she did love her
+husban’, an’ hain’t done nothin’ wrong.”
+
+“She didn’t love him,” burst out Madame with excitement. “It often
+filled me with anger to see how she took all his love and made no
+return. Everyone saw it.”
+
+“I guess the rest of us didn’t pay so much attention to them and their
+affairs. We had our own,” said Mary Winkle, at which Madame winced.
+
+“You don’t know what her feelin’s was. She loved Ezry, else she wouldn’t
+ha’ married him an’ followed him way out here on this lonesome prairie.
+I ain’t never goin’ to believe wrong o’ little Ollie.” Uncle David’s big
+chest heaved with a sob that would burst out.
+
+Madame placed her hand gently upon his. “The falling of one’s idol has
+always been a grievous sorrow, and has bruised many a loving heart.”
+
+“She wasn’t fit to live here on the prairie,” said Aunt Ruby, wiping her
+spectacles with her big checked handkerchief. “She was too young an’
+purty an’ frolicksome to be here anyhow. Ezry hed ought ter hev kep’ her
+in the East, where she was raised, an’ where she could go to parties,
+an’ put on purty clo’s, an’ dance, an’ so forth. It’s nat’ral for them
+young gals to dance an’ love fin’ry, jes’ as it’s nat’ral for lambs to
+skip an’ play in the sunshine. They is born so, an’ I guess the Lord put
+the right idees into their min’s at the beginnin’. I don’ wan’ ter skip,
+an’ Sister Mary she don’t wan’ ter neither, we hev got ole an’ stiff by
+now; but that chile she did wan’ ter, on’y mos’ likely she didn’t know
+it. Sweet purty little thing, too, she was, it done my eyes good ter
+look at her. She wasn’t fit for ’Fection City, we hain’t got nothin’ for
+young folks as don’t care mos’ly to argy ’bout principles, they loves
+ter be gay. Why, it wasn’t further back nor day ’fore yesterday she come
+ter my house ’long with that pup o’ hern. My stars, didn’t she laugh
+when it took ter scootin’ roun’ ’mong my hens! It done me a heap o’ good
+ter hear her, it was like a silver bell, an’ she hedn’t nothin’ for to
+amuse her. I think it was downright sinful o’ Brother Ezry to take such
+a sweet purty little thing ’way from her proper home.”
+
+Aunt Ruby ended her long speech with the twin-sob to the one that had
+escaped from Uncle David.
+
+“Sister, you’re a downright good woman,” said he gratefully. The two old
+people nodded at each other in complete harmony of affection and
+affliction.
+
+A long day passed over Perfection City, a day without any positive news
+or confirmation of previous rumours. The brethren were full of their
+various theories in regard to Olive’s disappearance, which they found
+necessary to discuss and re-discuss over and over again. All work was at
+a stand-still, for the members congregated at Madame’s house both early
+and late, as they considered she would be the first to get any news from
+the outside world. Without a horse they were practically cut off from
+all communication with the outside, and were entirely dependent on the
+thoughtfulness of such neighbours as might come to bring them news. It
+was in the afternoon of the day of the abortive trial at Union Mills
+that the first authentic tidings reached them. They were talking the
+matter over together for the fiftieth time when Brother Green was seen
+coming very hurriedly from his forge along with a stranger, who waited
+outside the door with an amount of diffidence unusual on the prairie.
+Brother Green’s grimy face wore a look of alarm.
+
+“We’ve got news of them both,” he exclaimed, bursting into the room
+regardless of ceremony, he who was generally the most heedful of the
+little forms of politeness. “She has gone after him, and they’ve gone
+away, and he stole her and said we lent her to him,” said Brother Green
+distractedly.
+
+“Brother, I don’t understand,” said Madame. “Who lent what? And where
+has she gone?”
+
+“I mean Sister Olive—oh! I’m so sorry—poor Brother Ezra!—Sister Olive
+has gone off with Cotterell, and it was he who stole Queen Katharine,
+only it was proved at the trial that she lent her to him.”
+
+Brother Green was too distressed to be a good witness.
+
+“Who told you?” asked Madame.
+
+“Whoever did told a lie,” said Uncle David.
+
+“He’s outside. He was at the trial and has come to tell us about it.”
+
+“Then bring him in,” said Madame.
+
+The stranger entered, looking somewhat abashed. He was truly sorry to be
+the bearer of such bad tidings.
+
+“Young man, before you begin this wicked tale, I charge you think of God
+and tell the truth.” Uncle David stood before him like an avenging
+spirit.
+
+“Sir, excuse him,” said Madame in her sweet voice. “The old man is
+painfully distracted by grief, he does not know what he is saying. You
+have come to bring us definite news, have you not?”
+
+“I’m thund’rin’ sorry, so I am, an’ if we’d ha’ knowed how it would ha’
+ended, the boys ’ud ha’ made sure by bangin’ him fust an’ havin’ the
+trial a’terwards.”
+
+“Are you speaking about Mr. Cotterell? We have not had any news for
+days, so perhaps you will explain it all clearly,” said Madame.
+
+“Yes, wal, when ole man Wright come an’ tole as how yer hoss was stole,
+the boys they ’lowed as you was all such damn—such all-fired pertikler
+folks as didn’t do yer own shootin’, they ’lowed they oughter kinder be
+neighbourly an’ do it for yer. So we sot out to run down the cuss. We
+got word from a teamster from beyond the Creek, he seed a man on a mare
+jes’ like yourn agoin’ toward the border. So we picked up the trail
+right away. He warn’t worth a red cent to hide a trail. He jes’ follered
+straight ahead ’long the road, axin’ his way an’ follerin’ plumb on the
+d’rections. Any fool could ha’ run down such a coon as him. He war
+ridin’ yer brown mare when they come up, an’ he didn’t show fight, jes’
+said he’d stan’ trial, an’ he ’lowed it ’ud be fair. The boys
+calkerlated it wouldn’t be a fair trial ’less they toted him roun’ to
+Union Mills, which are his own post-office, an’ if that ain’t treatin’ a
+man fair nothin’ is. An’ they got a new set o’ men to stan’ jury as what
+cotch him, ’cause mos’ on ’em was that mad for leavin’ the corn-shuckin’
+to run down such a nat’ral born fool, they’d ha’ mos’ likely strung him
+slap up. It war all done fair, we kep’ him down to Phillipps’ store over
+night, an’ I tuk a spell o’ stan’in’ guard. We didn’t sen’ for none o’
+yo’uns, ’cause we knowed yer be all sot agin hangin’, an’ yer can’t have
+a man on a jury who’s sot agin hangin’ when that’s all yer want ter git
+done, can yer? So we was a-tryin’ of him fair, with ole man Strong for
+foreman ’cause he knowed all the forms, as he was out to the hangin’ of
+Howard an’ that thief over to Jacksonville an’ mos’ on ’em. He was
+pertikler to do it all straight ’cordin’ to law, an’ we was gittin’
+’long slick, when Mis’ Weston come an’ bust it all up. She said she lent
+him the hoss, an’ it war hern.”
+
+The narrator stopped to observe the effect of this announcement. He felt
+repaid.
+
+“I don’t believe it,” sobbed Uncle David.
+
+“I hearn her say it,” said the man. His complete enjoyment of the effect
+was marred by the tears of that poor old man.
+
+“We had to let him off, o’ course, for the stealin’, an’ we couldn’t
+hang him for the shootin’ o’ Jake Mills, ’cause some o’ the boys said
+they’d never hang on nigger evidence, an’ we hadn’t none other. Anyhow,
+that nigger he drowned hisself in lies right away, an’ we didn’t lay
+much on what he done tole us, you bet. But we was powerful sorry
+a’terwards when we seen what we’d done. She’s gone off with him plumb.”
+
+“No, no, not that,” said Uncle David, “tain’t so, you didn’t
+un’erstan’.”
+
+“We axed her war she a-gwine with him, an’ she said, ‘yes,’ I hearn her
+say so.”
+
+“She was on’y goin’ home,” said Uncle David tremulously.
+
+“She had not come home half an hour ago,” observed Madame.
+
+“They rode ’long to the South Fork, an’ that don’t lie on her road home
+from Union Mills, do it? I stayed behin’ at the Store, the boys was
+talkin’ if they hadn’t bes’ go right a’ter him an’ shoot him anyhow, but
+we ’lowed he’d ha’ showed fight then, an’ maybe she’d ha’ been killed in
+the shootin’. Yer can’t never say who’ll be hit when everybody’s firin’
+like blazes. I didn’t quit the Mills for a spell, an’ mos’ the boys was
+’ready gone home, an’ they allowed I oughter tell yer we done our best
+for yer.”
+
+They thanked him, and he went his way.
+
+“Somebody has got to tell Brother Ezra, he will be coming home
+to-night,” said the blacksmith, wiping his sleeve across his forehead.
+“Poor Ezra! What a home-coming!”
+
+Brother Green remained silent for a long time, then he spoke again in a
+soft low voice, almost as if he was communing with himself.
+
+“When I laid my young wife in her grave with her babe on her breast,
+fifteen years ago last Midsummer, I thought I had known the greatest
+sorrow possible to the human heart. But my loss was not so great as
+Brother Ezra’s, his cup is filled to the brim, and oh, how bitter! How
+great a power of suffering lies in the human heart!”
+
+“It is through suffering that the heart is purified,” said Madame to him
+in reply.
+
+“Aye, so they say: but some sorts of sorrow may very well embitter.
+People talk of the purifying by sorrow. It seems to me that happiness
+can purify too. We are all sure to get our share of the sorrow in this
+world, it is the happiness that so seldom comes to a man. Brother Ezra
+was happy, is happy, poor man, since he does not yet know of the wreck
+of his home. It was a delight to see him so happy. And she, poor young
+thing, my heart aches for her! She was in my forge the other day, said
+she was lonesome and came to talk. Poor child! We are all to blame. Why
+did we leave her alone? Why didn’t I think of going to see her, instead
+of merely remembering how bright she was in the forge. We should have
+looked after her. Madame, why didn’t you do so? You are the chief.”
+Brother Green’s voice had a stern ring in it, that immensely surprised
+Madame in her self-contained calm.
+
+“I!” she exclaimed hastily. “I had absolutely no control over her, and
+no influence. She was one of the most determined young women I ever
+knew, and the least liable to yield to the judgment of others.”
+
+“No, I don’t think that was her character,” said Brother Green.
+
+“You are taken by the pretty face, like Brother Ezra, and are utterly
+ignorant of the mind within. Men are always like that in regard to a
+pretty woman,” said Madame scornfully.
+
+“Beauty is a great power, no doubt,” admitted Brother Green, “but people
+may err just as widely by judging everything from the prejudiced point
+of view as by yielding too far to favourable impressions.”
+
+“Brother Green,” said Uncle David earnestly, “I’m right glad you’re like
+me, you won’t believe nothin’ ’gainst little Ollie, will you, no more
+than I will?”
+
+“I will hope for the best and that there may be some reasonable
+explanation of her disappearance,” said Brother Green, looking
+compassionately at the piteous old face that scanned his so eagerly for
+some scrap of comfort.
+
+“I don’t see what explanation there can be but the one we have already
+received,” said Madame icily.
+
+“Who will break this sorrowful news to Ezra?” asked Brother Green. “Will
+you do it, Uncle David? You would do it tenderly, as you have faith in
+her still.”
+
+“No, no, I couldn’t bear to see the look o’ death in his eyes, an’ it
+’ud come no matter how I told it, when I came to sayin’ little Ollie was
+gone an’ we didn’t know where.”
+
+“I think perhaps I had best take this painful duty upon myself,”
+suggested Madame.
+
+“Well, after all, maybe you are the best person. But remember to deal
+tenderly with him in his sorrow. You will know what to say to instil
+some hope into his heart,” said Brother Green sadly.
+
+“An’ don’t you tell him she’s gone off with that man Cotterell, for she
+hain’t done no such thing,” said Uncle David anxiously. “You jes’ say we
+don’t know why she went away, an’ kinder hint as you’re expectin’ she’ll
+he home to-morrow or nex’ day. Do you understand?”
+
+Madame told no one what she would say to Ezra, and made no promises as
+to how she would say it.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+                           MADAME’S SYMPATHY.
+
+
+When Madame saw the white covers of the returning waggons creeping
+across the prairie she set out to meet Ezra in order to deliver her
+message to him. Her manner was as quiet and collected as ever, her white
+smooth brow was perfectly unruffled, and her blue eyes were as gentle in
+expression as her friends had ever known them to be. Was her heart in
+reality as calm as her outward appearance would have led the casual
+observer to conclude? No one ever knew what was passing in Madame’s
+mind. Still she must have known that she was about to stab to the heart
+a man upon whose friendship she had seemed to set great value. Having
+reached the slope over Weddell’s Gully, whence she could see that
+blackened field where she had saved Ezra on the night of the fire, she
+sat down and waited until his waggon came up.
+
+“Ah, Madame!” said he cheerily, as he pulled up. “How glad I am to get
+home again! It has seemed such a long four days to me.”
+
+“And to us also,” answered Madame.
+
+“All well, I hope,” said Ezra reaching down his hand in order to help
+her up to the seat beside himself.
+
+“We have had misfortunes at Perfection City. The brown mare has been
+stolen.”
+
+“What! Queen Katharine gone, and our most valuable animal too! That is
+indeed a loss!”
+
+“Just wait a few minutes,” said she, putting her hand on his to stop him
+from giving the signal to the horses to start on again. “I have some
+things to talk about, Ezra. Do you remember that night, not long ago in
+reality, though it seems an age, when I found you lying here on the edge
+of the fire?”
+
+“Is it likely I could ever forget that or who it was came to my rescue?”
+said Ezra warmly.
+
+“I was thinking as you drove up that perhaps it would have been a kinder
+act to have left you to die in your unconsciousness.”
+
+“What’s the matter?” said Ezra, greatly startled by her words.
+
+“I have bad news,” said Madame.
+
+“Is it Olive?” asked Ezra, hoarsely.
+
+“Yes, it is Olive.”
+
+“Is she ill?”
+
+“Worse than that.”
+
+“My God, is my wife dead?” cried Ezra in a stifled whisper.
+
+“Worse than that.”
+
+“There can’t be worse,” said Ezra.
+
+“Yes, there can. She has left you and gone off with Cotterell.”
+
+Ezra threw up his arms and fell backwards. Madame thought for a moment
+or two that he was dying, for an awful blue-purple look passed over his
+face as if his heart had stopped beating. He recovered himself and sat
+up, turned ghastly white, and moved his lips. He was trying to speak,
+but no sound came. At length he gasped,
+
+“Olive, Olive, where is she?”
+
+“We don’t know. Cotterell took the brown mare, the men turned out and
+caught him. Olive disappeared, no one knew where, night before last,
+taking our last horse. There was a sort of lynch-law trial at Union
+Mills, she appeared in the middle of the proceedings and said she gave
+him the horse, and then they went off together and have not since been
+heard of.”
+
+“Olive, Olive, Olive!” Ezra kept moaning as Madame drove him back to his
+deserted home. He seemed dazed and stupefied.
+
+Surely terrible news was never more crudely broken to a sufferer than
+was his bereavement to Ezra Weston, and by that tender and sympathetic
+friend, Madame Morozoff-Smith. Had Uncle David or Brother Green heard
+her, they would have been shocked beyond measure at having entrusted the
+painful embassy to such hands. Not one word of hope or comfort or of
+doubt even, nothing but the bald hideous story in its worst complexion
+thrown at him.
+
+Olive was gone from him—gone with Cotterell!
+
+Yet after having thus dealt him a death-blow, Madame seemed full of pity
+and little acts of personal attention. She helped him out of the waggon,
+brought him into the house, took his hands and washed them, cooled his
+forehead with a wet towel, offered him food, and in short treated him
+much as if he had been a suffering child whom she was tending. At last
+he seemed to recover himself somewhat as she was passing her soft hand
+across his brow.
+
+“You are very good to me,” he said brokenly, “and if I seem to accept
+your kindness unheedingly, forgive me. I am not myself to-night. I don’t
+know what I am doing. Oh, it can’t be!” he suddenly burst out. “She is
+not gone. I shall see her again. She will come back. How do you know she
+has gone with him? I don’t believe it.”
+
+“Poor Ezra, love dies hard, I know. Some of the men asked if she was
+going with him, and she answered distinctly, ‘Yes.’ Then they were
+sorry, they said, they had not hung him before she came up with them.”
+
+“No, I won’t believe it. Something has happened to her. Why should she
+go off with him?” said Ezra distractedly.
+
+“Did you not know that he was repeatedly here to see her, whenever you
+were out of the way?” said Madame, who did not think she was
+exaggerating in any way.
+
+“She told me all that,” answered Ezra nervously, “but she was only
+amused by his talk.”
+
+“No, your love is blind. Dear Ezra, I wish I could soften the blow.
+There is no doubt about it. I saw them once together at the spring, he
+kissed her at parting. It was a man and the woman he loved. I cannot be
+mistaken. Remember he was very handsome and winning in his manners, and
+she was young and pretty.”
+
+“Ah, my sweet little Ollie! My little rose-bud,” cried Ezra, starting to
+his feet. “I’ll go to her, she shall not wander away out of my reach
+without one effort to save her from herself. She was only a child. Why
+didn’t you look after her?” he asked, suddenly facing Madame with an
+angry glance.
+
+“Did you give her into my charge either by word or hint?” returned she,
+somewhat taken aback.
+
+“It was not your fault. Forgive me. I am too distracted to know what I
+say. I remember she refused to go to you. She said she would rather stay
+at home. I tried to urge her, but she would not consent to it,” said
+Ezra in a low voice.
+
+“Ah,” remarked Madame, “very possibly she expected him to come to her
+during your absence.”
+
+“No, no, you shall not say that!” said Ezra in agony. “I cannot bear it.
+She had no such thought. She was as innocent as the flowers, as she
+looked at me with her sweet eyes. She had no such thought, I know.”
+
+“It is ever thus,” said Madame, coming closer to him and speaking with
+an unwonted tremor in her voice. “Love seems always at cross purposes.
+You give all your love to Olive, who gives all hers to Cotterell.
+Another gives all her love to you. We are equally unhappy.”
+
+Ezra gazed at her in silent amazement as if he were doubting that he had
+understood her.
+
+“Yes,” she went on more calmly in her deep sweet voice. “I am more in
+need of pity than you. Your love has left you, and you grieve, but men
+will give you sympathy. When I lost my love I had to smile and pretend
+delight. I had to look on his joy and hers. You are not called upon to
+congratulate Cotterell on his happiness.”
+
+“Great God, is that you, Madame? Or is it that I am going mad, and is
+this some mocking fiend?” gasped Ezra, starting up.
+
+“Not a mocking fiend, Ezra, but I myself who for once in this world am
+enjoying the rare privilege of telling the truth. Ezra Weston, you are
+not the most unhappy person in Perfection City. I have long enjoyed that
+melancholy pre-eminence. Now in a common misfortune let us comfort one
+another.”
+
+Ezra sat down again and dropped his head in his hands. Occasionally he
+looked at her as she moved about the room putting everything in order.
+It almost seemed as if he was trying to understand who she was and that
+he could hardly do so, his mind was in such a turmoil of grief and
+misery. She laid out two more candles beside those already alight in the
+candle-sticks.
+
+“You will sit up all night,” she said at last. “These candles will last
+half the time, then light the other two. It is hard sitting in the dark
+alone with one’s breaking thoughts. Light the candles and keep them
+burning. That is what I did on the night you left to go to Smyrna to be
+married, and on the night when you brought her home here to Perfection
+City.”
+
+She closed the door and left him alone with those two thoughts. Was it
+her marvellous reading of the human heart which prompted this
+extraordinary woman to declare her love to Ezra in those bold
+uncompromising words on this night of all others in his life? She knew
+that he would sit there in his deserted home, brooding over his lost
+wife, she knew also that every now and then the scorching recollection
+of what she had said would break in upon the brooding thoughts and
+scatter them. This then was the means, the almost unheard-of means, she
+had taken in order to soften the blow that had fallen upon him. He would
+not be able to think of himself as the most unhappy individual in
+Perfection City, because she had claimed that distinction in words which
+he never could forget. It was just as she had foreseen. It repeatedly
+happened during the course of that long and dreadful night that Ezra
+forgot why he was sitting alone in the kitchen, so lost was he in
+amazement at the recollection of the words which Madame had spoken. As
+the hours wore on it seemed to him that they became more and more
+impossible, until he began to think of them as the work of a brain
+unhinged by sorrow. Was it all a hideous dream, and would he awake by
+and bye? The first pair of candles burned out, and he lighted the second
+pair, recalling as he did so what she had said she did when he brought
+Olive home. Ah, Olive, Olive! His heart kept calling out in its misery.
+
+He went into their little private room off the kitchen, in a sort of
+infatuation to see if she might be there. No. All was silent, still,
+deserted. He examined the tiny room minutely, saw the half-withered
+flowers on the table, took them up, and would have kissed them in his
+misery, only his eye lighted on a strange object he had never seen
+before. It was a man’s heavy seal-ring. He picked it up and examined it
+by the light of the candle: a plain gold ring set with a well-cut onyx
+intaglio of a griffin’s head. As he turned it about the light showed
+something-engraved in the inside of the ring. He held the candle nearer
+and read “J. G. C.”
+
+He dropped the ring as if it had been an adder, and fled out of the
+room. As if pursued by furies, he rushed from the house and wandered
+about out of doors. Diana, who since Olive’s departure had been in a
+most miserable frame of mind, followed him about dejectedly, with her
+tail between her legs. Ezra, turning, saw the dog and for one moment
+felt a savage desire to kill it, for Olive had loved the dog and Olive
+had broken his heart. This phase passed, and in a passion of grief and
+despair he stooped and kissed the animal, for Olive had often patted
+Diana’s head, and fondled her long ears. The dog whined in sympathy and
+turned suggestively back to the house. Ezra followed mechanically. He
+would not go into the room where that ring lay, but remained in the
+kitchen. Exhausted nature could stand no more, and towards morning he
+fell into a troubled sleep, with his head resting upon his arms crossed
+on the table. Then in his dreams Olive came back to him in that vivid
+yet unsatisfying way in which our dearest do sometimes return to us,
+seemingly but to mock our grief. Olive was there, standing before him,
+but she looked at him not with her eyes, but with Madame’s. There was
+something terrible in seeing her own expression gone and in its place
+the look of another, and yet it was Olive, and she called on him to
+follow her. He hurried after her with the lead-clogged feet that always
+walk in dreams, and strained to reach her. When he did so, he found
+Madame. Olive and Madame flitted before his fevered fancy, always
+shifting and changing one into another, until he panted with the horror
+of it.
+
+He awoke with a start as the door opened. His half-aroused eyes saw a
+vaguely defined figure in the door-way, blocking out the light of the
+morning.
+
+“Olive,” he said, putting out his hand blindly.
+
+“I have come to cook your breakfast,” said Madame’s soft smooth voice.
+
+“Don’t. I can’t eat it,” said Ezra, falling back into despair.
+
+“Life must go on, even when all joy is banished from it,” she said. “We
+have each one of us to learn that lesson, friend Ezra.”
+
+She began deftly enough to light the fire and make the necessary
+preparations for breakfast. Madame knew how to do the ordinary
+house-work that falls to woman’s lot, only she did not choose to do it
+in her own home. Therefore she employed Lucinda for this purpose, until
+other and stronger motives arose which prompted her to undertake the
+work herself. The habit of every day life is strong, and when Ezra saw
+Madame getting breakfast ready, as a matter of course he arose and got
+himself ready, by changing his clothes and generally performing the
+necessary preliminaries to the morning meal. He was less wild and
+hollow-eyed after this ceremony, but the extraordinary drawn and aged
+look on his face seemed only the more marked.
+
+Madame cooked an omelette with scraps of savoury dried beef in it, and
+after the first mouthful Ezra was obliged to admit that he relished the
+food. He could not go on living on his grief, as Madame said. She sat
+with him and took her breakfast also. Napoleon Pompey, who would have
+been in the way, was relegated to the society of his mother, who divided
+her emotions between maternal anger at boyish shortcomings and maternal
+love for the short-comer, both of which were expressed with the exalted
+vehemence customary to the negro nature.
+
+“I shall come each day and cook your food for you. I have often longed
+to be able to do something for you, Ezra. Do not forbid my coming. I
+have had so little joy in my life,” said Madame, with a strange humility
+of manner totally at variance with her usual character, which was almost
+domineering, one might say. Ezra looked at her in a troubled sort of
+way. It soothed him to have her there, and he was glad that somebody,
+that anybody, could take an interest in him. Still there came across his
+mind flashes of doubt as to what this interest meant. He could not
+forget those words that Madame had used on the evening before. No man
+who had ever heard such words from a woman’s lips, if ever man did hear
+them under similar circumstances, would ever again be able to drive them
+from his memory, but in his bruised and suffering state Ezra was content
+to drift on and let things rest. So Madame came daily to his house and
+cooked his food and saw that he ate something at each meal.
+
+Uncle David and the brethren came to see him, but that gave him no
+comfort. He shrank from their sympathy, expressed with kindness, but
+each word was like a drop of molten lead upon a raw wound. Willette was
+perhaps the only one who gave him real consolation in this awful time.
+
+“I say,” remarked the child, in a clear voice and without a trace of
+embarrassment, “Sister Ollie’s gone an’ lost herself down there in the
+bush, I reckon. She was ’bout the greenest hand at keepin’ to the Pole
+Star ever I see. You could throw her out o’ her direction quicker nor
+nothin’. I guess she headed plumb for the Missouri border when she come
+’long with Cotterell to show him out o’ Union Mills. Guess she’ll ride
+’bout down to Saint Jo ’fore she knows she’s headin’ wrong. I wouldn’t
+’spect her back ’fore a fortnight.” Willette laughed pleasantly, and
+poor Ezra derived some comfort from the preposterous convictions of the
+child and her unshakable belief in Olive.
+
+He went to Union Mills to make some inquiries about his lost wife, and
+met there the same story that Madame had already told, but the story was
+so brutally hurled at him he could not bear it, and came home bruised
+and stricken, his heart bleeding tears of agony. Instinctively he went
+to Madame for comfort.
+
+“Ezra, perhaps this terrible trial was needed to purify us all, to make
+us all more perfect communists. I can discern a valuable lesson that may
+be of profit to the brethren. I begin to think that after all marriage
+is selfish: perfect love alone is unselfish. You would not have kept
+Olive beside you by force, if her heart had gone from you, would you?”
+
+“I thought our marriage was for life.”
+
+“Yes, but she made a mistake as to her feelings; she found she loved
+someone else better. It was wise of her, after all, to break the bond.
+It would only have galled you both.”
+
+“I should have been content if she had only let me love her,” said Ezra.
+
+“Ah yes, I know that feeling but too well,” said Madame, bringing his
+mind with a shock to the thought that she never long allowed to sleep.
+
+“It is a terrible world,” said Ezra beginning to realize what a spell
+she was weaving around him.
+
+“It rests with ourselves to make it easier in the only way,” replied
+Madame.
+
+Uncle David took up a firm position of his own and refused to listen to
+anybody or anything.
+
+“I hain’t agoin’ to b’lieve nothin’ ’gin little Ollie,” he announced. “I
+don’t care ’bout proofs an’ things. Land! If I b’lieved in proofs there
+hain’t no sort o’ foolishness I shouldn’t be up to. I b’lieve in
+pussons.”
+
+That was his position, and he stuck to it with unswerving fidelity. He
+was happy in his blind faith, and no one tried to shake it. The old man
+then began a strange sort of hunt after Olive. He would sit all day long
+at the forge, where, of course, strangers were most likely to pass, and
+to each he would put questions about the “little gal” he was so
+pathetically seeking. He spoke little, he who used to be so chatty, but
+sat hour after hour in silent patient expectation of the return of his
+loved one. The brethren began to think he must be losing his wits from
+sorrow, poor old man!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+                              THE MESSAGE.
+
+
+A long weary fortnight had passed since the day when Ezra came home to
+find his wife gone. Life went on at Perfection City much the same as
+before, although to him it seemed as if the Universe was out of gear. He
+took no part or interest in the daily affairs of the Community, never
+coming to the Assembly or consulting with the brethren upon any matters.
+He withdrew himself from the companionship of his fellows, and only that
+Madame continued to come to his house every day in order to cook his
+dinner and sit with him while he ate it, he would have been absolutely
+alone. Ezra acquiesced in her devotion, and dared not ask himself how
+the debt was to be repaid that she was piling up against him. The
+Pioneers, who during the past fortnight had revelled in a perfect
+carnival of gossip, felt themselves at liberty to express an opinion
+upon this new development of the drama that was being acted in their
+midst. Sister Carpenter said to Sister Winkle that she thought there
+ought to be a period of mourning allowed, however brief, between first
+and second marriage, and that Brother Ezra hadn’t ought to go a-courting
+so soon. She did not know that it was Madame who did the courting in
+that strange, forward, imperial way that we must suppose the Empress
+Katharine affected. Uncle David, whom love for Olive had rendered
+extremely keen-sighted as to what was going on, evinced very great
+displeasure. Madame had no right to try and make Ezra’s home happy, and
+he told her so in language of unmistakable import. She was angry to a
+degree that terrified him, and he shrank back alarmed beyond measure at
+the wrath which he had provoked.
+
+“Yes, I know, you want Ezra’s life to be wrecked by that vain, selfish
+little hussy who never cared for him, and who went off with the first
+gallant that beckoned to her. Ezra’s life shall not be wrecked, mine
+shall be expended in drawing it into a haven of rest. Olive is not
+worthy of tying the latchet of his shoe. I hope she will be cast off by
+her lover, and left to sink amid the mud and mire of such as she. I hate
+her!”
+
+Uncle David was frightened and crept away to Brother Green, where he sat
+hour after hour mournfully watching the fire. It was on one of these
+days when he was in the forge that a young negro on a raw-boned Indian
+pony rode up to Madame, who was on the point of starting for her daily
+expedition to Ezra’s, and inquired “whar ole man Weston lived,” as he
+had a message for him. Instead of answering directly, Madame endeavoured
+to find out what the boy wanted of Ezra. The little darkie thereupon
+produced a scrap of crumpled paper from the recesses of his ragged shirt
+and informed Madame he wanted to give him “dat ar’.” Madame took the
+paper, opened it, and gave a gasp. Then in a moment she recovered
+herself with an effort, and assured the negro it was all right, and that
+she would see to it. She made most particular inquiries as to where he
+lived, and then sent him off, happy with a piece of corn-bread and a
+dollar for himself.
+
+Having thus got rid of the negro lad, Madame proceeded on her way to
+Ezra’s house in order to perform her daily task there. She seemed
+strangely excited, and her blue eyes glittered like sapphires. Her whole
+bearing was that of a person labouring under intense excitement, all
+traces of which she was endeavouring to conceal. Her very voice had a
+new ring in it as she talked with Ezra, and her breath came quick and
+fast. Had his senses been less dulled by suffering, he could not have
+failed to notice the change in her, notwithstanding her efforts at
+concealment. He was sitting, looking with unseeing eyes across the
+vacant cornfield, when suddenly she spoke.
+
+“Ezra, let us go away from this place. Let us leave all the
+recollections of Perfection City behind us, and begin life afresh.”
+
+He turned his eyes upon her with a slow questioning look, showing how
+far away had been his thoughts at the moment.
+
+“How can we leave this place? There is too much money and too much
+labour sunk in it for us all to leave and go to some other spot.”
+
+“Not all, dear friend, only you and I,” said Madame, in her caressing
+voice.
+
+Ezra started. “That is even more impossible,” he said, in great
+agitation.
+
+“Why impossible? I have money. It will more than suffice for all our
+needs, nay, it will give us all the luxuries we can sigh for.”
+
+“It is not that, but you forget——”
+
+“No, Ezra, I don’t forget, but I want you to forget. I want you to draw
+a wet sponge over the recollection of the past and begin anew. It is not
+too late.”
+
+“You don’t know what you are saying, Madame. You cannot mean it.”
+
+“I do mean it, and I know what it means. You have no tie——”
+
+Ezra shivered.
+
+“Neither have I. We are both free to make our lives what we list.”
+
+“You mistake, we are both tied by all our past lives, and with bonds
+that may not be lightly broken. We are tied by our own feelings as well
+as by the good opinion of the world at large.”
+
+Madame snapped her fingers with scorn.
+
+“That for the world at large and its opinions. Do you remember what I
+told you about my father and my birth? Thank God, I have no name to
+lose.”
+
+“I cannot do less than tell you the truth,” said Ezra in great distress.
+“Wherever I went my heart would remain here, where I have known true
+happiness, and it will always be looking for my lost one to come back to
+me.”
+
+“She won’t come back till Cotterell is tired of her,” said Madame
+brutally. “Will you be grateful for his cast-off mistress?”
+
+“Stop,” said Ezra, putting his hand quickly before her lips, “you must
+not speak so of her to me.”
+
+“Fool that I am!” muttered Madame under her breath. She turned from him
+with a gesture of anger.
+
+“Oh, forgive me,” exclaimed Ezra, seeing and feeling what the expression
+meant. “Never was man so miserable, never was one so unhappily placed. I
+owe you more than words can say, I owe you my best thoughts, I owe you
+my very life itself. I would willingly give you my life——”
+
+“Then why not give it and come with me?” burst out Madame. “Leave all
+this misery behind you, I will make your path as smooth as heart could
+wish. Come.”
+
+“My heart can never follow any other path, it will dwell amid the ruins
+of its former happiness. Do not speak again of this. Let us remain
+friends as before.”
+
+“It can never be again as it was before,” said Madame with heaving
+bosom.
+
+“Why not?” asked Ezra. “I have not much else left in life.”
+
+“Why not,” repeated Madame in scorn. “You ask me why not! Would you care
+for Olive’s friendship when all her love was given to Cotterell?”
+
+“Stop,” cried Ezra, and this time there was a ring of anger in his
+voice. “Even you may presume too far. Do not again speak that name to
+me.”
+
+There is something untamed and untameable in the Russian nature which
+now and then comes to the surface and drives an excited Muscovite into
+acts seemingly at variance with the highly cultivated standard to which
+he aspires. The phenomenon may by the learned be attributed to a sudden
+reversion to the ancestral Asiatic savage. Madame was at this moment
+rapidly going back to the state of furious anger, when all sense of
+dignity would be lost. She was reverting to the Asiatic. And under the
+influence of her passion her physical appearance changed, her eyes
+became narrow slanting openings emitting sparks of steel-blue flame, her
+full red lips were drawn tightly over her teeth. She hissed out her
+words.
+
+“Does her image still come between us?”
+
+“It does come between us,” said Ezra looking almost as white as she did.
+“Her image will always come between me and every other woman on the
+whole earth, blotting out every other image and making me only hers. Oh,
+Olive! Oh, my wife!”
+
+He gave a great sob of agony.
+
+“Besotted fool!” burst from Madame’s colourless lips, “do you hold this
+language to me? You scorn me and my love! Then on your own head be the
+consequences. Ah, now nothing shall stop me. An angel from heaven, no,
+nor God Himself shall stand between me and my revenge. Ezra Weston,
+farewell!”
+
+She left the room, shutting the door upon him and his misery. Unhappy
+man! His world seemed crumbling beneath his feet. He had lost his wife,
+and now his friend, the one whom he most revered, had cast him out from
+her regard. What could he do? His heart answered, nothing but dumbly
+suffer in the deserted home where he was left alone. What a black and
+barren waste was his life! And how fair and smiling it had looked a few
+short weeks ago! It was as if a devastating fire had passed over him
+leaving his heart like the desolated prairie, black and hopeless.
+
+Madame went away alone for one day, no one knew whither, and came back
+with a look on her face that struck terror into all who saw her. Her
+smooth white face looked cruel and pitiless, and the gleam from her eyes
+reminded one of cold steel. Her soft hands sometimes closed on their own
+pink palms with a spasmodic clutch, as if she had the throat of an enemy
+between their cruel grasp and was crushing the life out of him. A cold
+dreadful face, a cruel sickening look that made Napoleon Pompey and
+Uncle David shiver within their souls, and caused the brethren to draw
+away affrighted from their once beloved leader. Perfection City was the
+abode of wretchedness. The Academy never opened its doors to the
+assembled Pioneers, who were afraid to come near Madame’s house. Each
+lived by himself, looking askance at his neighbour, for over all had
+fallen a spirit of suspicion. Only Brother Huntley, the deaf brother,
+and his mute wife were happy, working on contentedly, shielded by their
+misfortune from the full knowledge of the disasters that had come upon
+the Community.
+
+The days dragged miserably by, seemingly endowed with a miraculous
+length of hours, for the sufferings of a life-time were compressed into
+that hideous fortnight. The glaring sun blazing down upon the blackened
+prairie seemed to Ezra to have become no unfitting symbol of hell. The
+light was hateful, darkness, eternal darkness would have been a relief
+to his brain. Could it be possible that he was going to live his life
+out in a realized purgatory? He was young, only twenty-five, and if his
+life was to stretch even to the average span of human existence, what an
+eternity of suffering lay before him! A brokenhearted man amid the ruins
+of his broken life.
+
+It was on one of these days of utter black despair, like the days that
+had gone before and the days that were still to come, that the same
+ragged negro boy on the straggly Indian pony, who once before had made
+his appearance at Perfection City, was seen skulking around the old land
+near Weddell’s Gully. He seemed to want to see without being seen. By
+and bye Napoleon Pompey chanced that way and of course pounced upon him
+with the universal query of “whar he gwine?” The boy after some
+hesitation made it clear that he had come on a secret mission. He wanted
+to find Uncle David without being seen by anyone else, especially not by
+the white-faced lady, Madame, of whom he stood in shivering dread.
+Napoleon Pompey, sympathising with the dread, volunteered to take a
+letter to Uncle David without fear of detection. Thereupon the darkie
+delivered over to him a scrap of newspaper upon which was written a
+scrawl with the burnt end of a stick, and having done so galloped off on
+his straggly pony with a whoop of delight, as one who had escaped
+dreadful peril. Napoleon Pompey, finding it difficult to deliver his
+embassy to Uncle David undetected, gave the curious missive to Ezra with
+intimations that it was to be put into Uncle David’s hands right away.
+
+Ezra took the scrap of paper, saying there must be some letter inside,
+and mechanically unfolded it, when the hoarse scream that he uttered
+almost made Napoleon Pompey jump through the window.
+
+“Where did you get this?” he panted.
+
+“Darkie gin it ter me jes’ while back.”
+
+“Who gave it? What was his name? Where did he live? Who sent him here?”
+asked Ezra in a breath.
+
+“Darkie he didn’t go for to say nuffin, on’y jes’ gin dat ar, an’ tole
+me ter pike to ole Uncle David wid it.”
+
+Ezra darted out of the house and ran like a mad-man to Madame’s and
+burst into the room where she and Uncle David were just sitting down to
+supper. He held out the scrap of paper to the old man and gasped:
+
+“Olive is somewhere!”
+
+“I presume that was already known, and that it can hardly be considered
+news,” said Madame’s cool cutting voice, which brought Ezra somewhat to
+his senses.
+
+“She is somewhere near. She sent a negro boy with this. Read it.” He
+shoved it under Uncle David’s nose.
+
+“I can’t see to read it, read it aloud, let me hear all she says in her
+letter,” said the old man with trembling eagerness.
+
+“It isn’t a letter. It says, ’Uncle come to Olive,’ only those four
+words, nothing else, and just look, scratched with a bit of burnt stick
+on a piece of newspaper! Oh, think of it! Where can she be? Why didn’t
+she write before if she was in trouble? What has happened?”
+
+“Perhaps it is a hoax,” said Madame between her drawn white lips.
+
+“There hain’t in this world a bein’ so lost to all feelin’ as would make
+a joke o’ our sorrow,” said Uncle David. “No, Ezra, that’s writ by our
+little gal. We must go to her. Come ’long, brother.” He put on his hat
+and started cheerfully for the door.
+
+“Where are you going?” asked Madame, in a muffled voice.
+
+“I’m agoin’ to little Ollie.”
+
+“Where is she, do you know?”
+
+“Ezry, don’t you know where we’ve got to go to?”
+
+“I know nothing, except that this scrap of paper has been brought by a
+negro boy.”
+
+Ezra kissed the paper, and Madame’s lips curled in contempt.
+
+“Is it not rather a wild-goose chase to start you know not whither, and
+at this time of the evening too?”
+
+“We can’t wait here after little Ollie’s told us to come,” said Uncle
+David simply.
+
+“Cannot you suggest some plan?” asked Ezra, turning to Madame by force
+of habit.
+
+“Not I,” she replied contemptuously. “Shall you go east, west, north, or
+south? The world lies all before you.”
+
+“Ain’t you glad little Ollie’s found?” asked Uncle David, looking
+wistfully at her.
+
+Madame laughed harshly. They went out of the room together feeling her
+presence insupportable. Just round the corner they came upon Napoleon
+Pompey who was peeping around to see if he could pick up any scraps of
+news. He had divined there was news from Olive, and with the
+inquisitiveness of his race had followed Ezra when he had rushed so
+wildly out of the house.
+
+“D’yer know whar ter go?” he inquired.
+
+“No,” said Ezra. “Can you tell us anything of that negro boy? Do you
+know where he lives?”
+
+“Ask her,” said Napoleon Pompey, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in
+the direction of the door from which they had just emerged.
+
+“Ask who?”
+
+“Madame,” said Napoleon Pompey.
+
+“Does she know?” asked Ezra, amazed.
+
+“I seed dat ar pony hyar afore,” replied Napoleon Pompey.
+
+“Great Heavens!” said Ezra as drops of sweat burst out on his forehead.
+He hurried back to the house with Uncle David. Neither of them spoke a
+word.
+
+“Madame,” said Ezra, as they once more stood in the room, “I have come
+to ask you a question. Do you know where my wife is?”
+
+She looked him unflinchingly in the face and answered:
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“May the Lord forgive you!” said Uncle David, in a voice hardly above a
+whisper, and for some seconds there was a complete silence in the room,
+broken only by the sound of Ezra’s heavy breathing.
+
+“Where is she?” he demanded sternly.
+
+“Go and find her,” was the mocking answer.
+
+Ezra sprang furiously forward, and almost yelled out,
+
+“Tell me at once or——”
+
+“Ay yes,” she said with a steady look, “you will drag the secret out,
+will you?”
+
+She tore open her dress and exposed her snow-white throat.
+
+“See, there it is handy. Take a knife and cut my throat. See if I shall
+flinch. The last gurgle of my blood bubbling up through the wound, shall
+bear a sound of mocking laughter. Strike!”
+
+Ezra turned from her in horror. “She must be mad,” he said to Uncle
+David.
+
+“Not mad now, I have been mad all these months, all these years. Mad to
+love you, mad in loving such a one as you. Now I am sane. Ah, how I hate
+you!”
+
+“This is horrible,” said Ezra, putting his hand before his eyes.
+
+“Horrible, is it? It is the waking from love’s young dream. Ha, ha!”
+
+“Madame, dear child, think of all you have been to us,” said Uncle
+David, reaching his hands out to her imploringly. “You have led us,
+think of all that.”
+
+“I do think of all that. I think of how I found this boy,” she said,
+pointing in scorn to Ezra, “ignorant, unformed, with wild crude
+longings. I think of how I infused light and life into the darkness of
+his mind. How I rose, aye, above myself, in order to lead him up and on.
+I think of all his half-formed longings put into working form and
+endowed with vital power that he might see his thoughts taking shape. I
+made him. He was mine. Then he left me for a few brief weeks. He saw a
+pretty doll’s face with an empty head, and straightway he loves with
+never a thought of me. You ask me to think. I do think of how even this
+I bore, and so great was my love that for his sake I welcomed the doll
+that had stolen my place, and smiled on her. Even this I did and
+remained his friend. She, the doll, attracted by a handsome face, her
+love aroused by the stolen kisses of a yellow moustache, left him. Then
+I was free to love him once more. I laid my heart at his feet. He
+spurned me. All my love was as nothing against the memory of the doll
+who had deserted him. She may die and rot before word of mine shall
+restore her to him.”
+
+Neither Ezra nor Uncle David had attempted to speak while Madame was
+pouring forth the torrent of her bitter words. Ezra felt too overwhelmed
+to say anything, for a moment, in the downfall of so many illusions and
+high hopes, he forgot even Olive. Uncle David was the first to recover
+himself.
+
+“Dear child,” he said, for the first time in his life addressing her as
+one beneath him. “These are wild words you’ve been sayin’. I can’t find
+it in my heart to believe they’re true. You are disappointed, an’ you
+think wrong can be made right by turnin’ things upside down. Tain’t so.
+You’ll have to learn that right an’ wrong can’t change places, nohow you
+fix it. You have still your duty here in the City you’ve founded an’ the
+principles you’ve set up.”
+
+Madame looked at him with glittering eyes.
+
+“Will you hear the truth about Perfection City too? Then listen. It is
+not an experiment in new principles, it is an example of the oldest the
+world has seen—of the folly of a fond woman. I founded Perfection City
+so that he might love the founder. I staked my all on a throw of love’s
+dice, and lost. Women have done it before and will do it again. Some
+fools degrade their body to win a man, I degraded my mind. The
+foundation-stone of Perfection City was my heart, see what will happen
+when it is crushed! Ah, why can we not profit by the experience of our
+elders! My mother warned me, having tried it, never to stake my
+happiness on the love of man. I followed her advice for five-and-thirty
+happy years. Then I saw _him_, and the curse fell.”
+
+She threw up her arms over her head and backed towards the door of her
+own apartment.
+
+“The curse, the curse!” she exclaimed, as she passed through out of
+their sight.
+
+Ezra had a confused feeling that he had just seen someone drowning who
+had reached appealing hands towards heaven as she went under.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+                      OLIVE’S SECOND HOME-COMING.
+
+
+And where was Olive all this time? She and Cotterell rode out of Union
+Mills together, as we have seen, and as was seen by nearly all the men
+who had assembled there that morning in the expectation of seeing him
+hanged. They rode silently among “the boys” getting their horses ready,
+they silently passed among the trees to the south and crossed the ford
+of the Creek. Then Cotterell spoke, pouring forth his words of thanks
+and gratitude to her. He was not ashamed to show that he was deeply
+moved, now that none but Olive could see his emotion. She, on the other
+hand, seemed almost in an unconscious state so little heed did she give
+to his eager words.
+
+“Speak to me, tell me what you wish,” he pleaded very gently, noticing
+her abstraction.
+
+“I want you to go away,” she said slowly. “You are safe from their anger
+for this time, but do not stay here and court danger. This is no place
+for a man like you to live. Go while there is yet time. There is now a
+blood-feud between you and the Mills. They will mark you for vengeance,
+and they are wild bad men.”
+
+“And you?” said Cotterell, looking anxiously at her. “I want to see you
+safely at home. You are ill, I fear.”
+
+“I am all right,” answered Olive wearily. “You must go to the South Fork
+at once. Take the Kansas City stage this very night and go. There is no
+time to be lost.”
+
+“I cannot, and will not,” answered Cotterell. “I must take you home
+first. You look frightfully tired and ill.”
+
+“No, it would be the crudest thing you could do to bring me home. I want
+to go back to Ezra, I am so tired,” said Olive plaintively.
+
+“Must I let you go all by yourself over this lonely prairie? I cannot
+bear the thought of it.”
+
+“I have been two days and one night all by myself out on this lonely
+prairie in order to save you. Please do what I ask. Tie Queen
+Katharine’s rein to Rebel’s bit, they will then go quietly together.”
+
+“Tell me,” said Cotterell breathlessly, “why have you been out all this
+time on the prairie alone?”
+
+“I was following the men who had captured you in order to save you if I
+could.”
+
+“Great Heavens!” he burst out, with his blue eyes aflame. “And you did
+this heroic act because you——”
+
+“I did it because you are an innocent man, and I wanted you to go back
+to your country to live a better life and be a better man than you ever
+had been before.”
+
+The light died out of his eyes. He looked down, his hands trembled as
+they had never trembled when on his trial.
+
+“Your sacrifice shall not have been in vain,” he said in a low voice.
+
+“Then good-bye, and all good blessings attend you.”
+
+She shook hands with him and left him standing at the parting of the
+ways. When she was quite out of sight over the ridge on her way towards
+Cotton Wood Creek, he, with blinding tears streaming down his sun-burnt
+face, turned and walked to the South Fork, caught the Kansas City
+stage-coach and departed out of Olive’s life.
+
+She hardly knew what she was doing she felt so ill. It seemed a relief
+not to have to talk any more, for she found it difficult to keep hold of
+her thoughts, they seemed constantly to be slipping away from her. The
+sun was burning hot, and she had a long way to go, for she had come out
+of Union Mills by the south side instead of the north. Therefore she
+must make a great sweep round to the right in order to reach her home,
+and she must remember that the Creek was only to be safely forded at
+certain places. She rode on and on, feeling the sun hotter and hotter
+and her head heavier and heavier. At last she was so dizzy she could no
+longer see where she was going. Whatever happened she must lie down for
+a few minutes. Somehow she got off her horse and lay down at the side of
+the track she had been following, but whether in sleep or in
+unconsciousness she never knew.
+
+By and by she came to herself again. The horses were both gone! She had
+forgotten to picket them. She did not remember where she was, but
+mechanically stumbled along the road and at length was overtaken by a
+negro woman driving an ox-waggon. She begged of the woman to let her get
+into the waggon and take her home for she felt ill, and the negress,
+struck with pity, declared she would, “fo’ de po’ chile was mos’ sick to
+deaf anyhow.” Olive got into the waggon and knew no more for hours—or
+was it days, or was it weeks? Two nights out in the poisonous prairie
+dew had done their work: she was down with chills and fever, a raving
+panting lunatic, or else a stupid heavy sleeping log, taking no heed of
+day or night or the hours as they flew, only craving water to drink,
+ever more water to drink. By and by she began to have intervals when she
+knew that she was in a strange place with strange black faces around
+her. Then at last her senses returned, and she sent an imploring message
+to Ezra to come to her. In reply had come Madame, stern, fierce-eyed, to
+see her and crush her with the awful news that Ezra was dead. Olive fell
+back into unconsciousness under the blow, she did not know for how long.
+But after weary suffering she awoke again, still in that same strange
+place, still with those black faces around her, kind and pitying, but
+faces she did not know.
+
+Trying feebly to gather up again the threads of her life, she wished to
+send word to the friends at Perfection City that she was still alive.
+The negroes, who were the only inhabitants of the wretched house where
+she was, seemed not to heed her wishes. They refused to take any
+messages, but would not say why. Olive grew stronger, for her young
+vitality exerted itself. She demanded to know why they would not do as
+she wished, but they fled from her questions and left her to her
+suspicions. She tormented them with questions, and at last they said the
+white-faced lady had forbidden them ever to come near her house again,
+and they were afraid: she was a very terrible looking lady when she was
+angry. Then Olive used her powers of persuasion upon the negro lad and
+eventually got him to take her message in spite of what his mother said.
+That was the scrap of paper that had come into Ezra’s hands.
+
+The Pioneers scattered in systematic search for Olive, spreading out in
+all directions in a way that could not fail to be speedily successful.
+Brother Green found her on the second day, while Ezra found the two
+horses which a thrifty settler had impounded in his own fields and was
+unobtrusively working until they should be called for by their owner.
+
+Brother Green was overjoyed at finding Olive and was not so overwhelmed
+at hearing of her long illness as, under different circumstances, he
+might have been. In fact he was almost pleased, for that fact, taken
+together with the negro woman’s graphic account of finding her alone and
+ill on the prairie on the day “o’ de hoss-thief tryin’,” made it clear
+to him that she had never been with Cotterell since she was at the
+abortive trial. She was very weak and languid and took little heed of
+him or his remarks.
+
+“Ezra will be out of his mind with joy,” he said, by way of rousing her
+to some interest, as he was settling her as comfortably as he could in
+the ox-waggon, preparatory to setting out on their return.
+
+“Ezra is dead,” said Olive wearily.
+
+Brother Green stared hard at her. “What crazy fancy is this? Ezra is
+alive and riding over towards Jacksonville at this moment hunting for
+you.”
+
+“She told me he was dead,” said Olive, beginning to cry from the
+revulsion of feeling combined with physical suffering.
+
+“How dared the woman tell such a lie!” exclaimed Brother Green angrily,
+and then after a moment he added more mildly, “Perhaps it was a mere
+mistake, she seems to have been kind to you, but negroes are not a
+truth-telling race.”
+
+“It was not the negro woman, it was Madame,” said Olive in a hushed and
+awe-struck voice.
+
+“Nonsense, you are raving, Sister Olive,” said he sharply.
+
+“She came to me and told me during my illness.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“I can’t tell. I don’t remember when things happened. I was so ill.”
+
+“Then depend upon it, you have fancied this. Fever fancies seem very
+real at times.”
+
+He experienced a certain relief in speaking thus confidently on the
+subject to her.
+
+“The negro woman knows. Ask her who came here and forbade them to bring
+any more messages from me to Perfection City.”
+
+It was singular, considering the way he had spoken, that Brother Green
+did not take this simple means of assuring himself that Olive’s idea was
+the effect of the disordered workings of a fevered brain. But he said
+never a word to the negro woman on the subject, but drove slowly and
+thoughtfully back to Perfection City, with Olive in the ox-waggon, lying
+on a heap of corn-shucks covered with the ragged patch-quilt the woman
+had lent her. It was a long and a weary journey thus creeping back home
+over the blackened prairie. Olive sometimes wondered if she would get
+there alive, and she moaned in her misery. For the rest, Brother Green
+spoke but little. Since assuring Olive of the falseness of her idea that
+Madame had been to see her, he appeared to have lost the cheerfulness he
+had shown upon finding her. Brother Green was thinking of the future of
+Perfection City, and it looked black enough to him. It was no secret
+that Madame had refused to reveal Olive’s whereabouts to her husband,
+and in the light of that circumstance he could foresee nothing but
+strife, ill-will and enmity in Perfection City. How were Olive and
+Madame to meet, and above all how were they to live in harmony for the
+future? These were the thoughts that occupied his mind and kept him
+silent during that long slow drive.
+
+Olive, too, was trying to look into the future, and she shivered with
+dread as she did so. Madame’s pitiless eyes were before her still, but
+Ezra would be there, he would shield her and comfort her, and she could
+rest her head peacefully on his honest breast. Dear Ezra! Why had he not
+come to her when she had sent for him? She hoped he would be there to
+greet her and to save her from that terrible woman, whose colourless
+face in its icy cruelty still haunted her, filling her with a great
+dread. She need not have been so afraid, for when she reached Perfection
+City Madame was gone.
+
+The Pioneers had indeed a life of much inward excitement during these
+days. The return of Olive and the departure of Madame were events almost
+equally calculated to disturb their equanimity as a Community.
+
+Ezra being still away looking for his wife in the wrong direction, there
+was no one to receive her when she got home. Therefore Brother Green
+took her to Sister Mary Winkle’s at once on their arrival. Olive was
+weak, ill, and peevish, she cried with disappointment at not seeing
+Ezra. Sister Mary Winkle administered a stimulant in the way of advice.
+
+“I wouldn’t take on so like a baby, Olive Weston, if I were you. Ezra’ll
+come home probably to-day or to-morrow, and one day more or less ain’t
+much in a life-time.”
+
+Olive dried her eyes with energy.
+
+“Everybody said you had gone off with that man Cotterell, and so we all
+thought too,” observed Sister Winkle conversationally.
+
+“How dare you suggest such a thing to me?” exclaimed Olive, with an
+amount of angry energy surprising in one so weak.
+
+“Well, we had it from the people who saw you go away with him, and who
+heard you say you were going. I don’t see how we could possibly have
+thought other than we did.”
+
+“You must be a wicked woman to think such a thing,” said Olive. Her chin
+began to quiver piteously.
+
+“I am not going to condemn you,” replied Sister Winkle, in a philosophic
+vein. “If you found you preferred him to Ezra I don’t think you would
+have been wrong in showing your preference in an unmistakable manner.
+Marriage is a partnership which either side should be free to dissolve.
+Mistakes are sometimes made in it as in other affairs. Our marriage is
+not a mistake, because Wright and I don’t make mistakes, but other
+people are different, and I don’t see why they should be punished for an
+honest mistake. Marriage should be free. Perfection City was founded on
+freedom. We thought that you had used your right of choice, and since
+you liked Cotterell best had gone with him. We thought that Madame would
+soon marry Ezra, since he was now free, and she had always wanted to.”
+
+Olive sprang from her chair and steadied herself with her trembling
+hands by clutching the back of it.
+
+“Mary Winkle, I hate you,” she said, in a voice choking with emotion.
+“Perfection City is a sinful, wicked place. I wish I had never seen it.
+If I live, and Ezra loves me, I hope he will take me away so I may never
+hear its name again.”
+
+She stamped bravely out of the house under the influence of her anger,
+but her strength did not carry her far, and she sank down upon the
+wood-pile weeping bitterly, unable to walk another step. Sister Mary,
+somewhat disgusted at the way in which her philosophy had been received,
+resolved to let her cool off a little before going out to offer Olive an
+arm to conduct her back into the house. Thus it came about that Olive
+was still sitting weeping on the wood-pile when Uncle David came
+hurrying up, having just heard of her arrival, and close behind him came
+Ezra running like a mad-man. When Olive saw him she started towards her
+husband with outstretched arms, but her weakness overcame her, and she
+would have fallen to the ground only that he was just in time to catch
+her in his arms, where she fell laughing and crying in the most
+incoherent manner imaginable.
+
+“Oh, Ezra, you didn’t believe that wicked story? And you do love me,
+don’t you? And you won’t marry her, and you aren’t dead, are you? Tell
+Mary Winkle you hate her too. And why didn’t you come to me when I sent
+for you?”
+
+Ezra could only kiss her, and pet her, and soothe her in every way while
+Olive kept saying hysterically, “You won’t, will you?” and “You will,
+won’t you?” All of which Ezra promised faithfully to perform. She
+absolutely refused to re-enter Sister Mary Winkle’s house, whereupon the
+latter, somewhat conscience-stricken, offered to send in food for their
+supper at their own house, provided Olive was not told who had sent it.
+The secret was kept, and Olive partook heartily of what otherwise would
+undoubtedly have choked her.
+
+Uncle David hovered over her with anxious love and remorse. “Bless her
+heart, o’ course he didn’t b’lieve nothin’ ’bout her goin’ off. Yer bet
+he didn’t, he knowed it was all right, on’y she was so long a-com-in’
+home he sorter kinder got oneasy, an’ that’s why they went out to fin’
+her, an’ dear, dear, had she been an’ gone an’ got that plaguey ague,
+an’ he not there to see a’ter her, an’ there wasn’t nothin’ like Ayre’s
+Ague Cure for that, an’ he would go right ’long home this minute an’ get
+her some right away.”
+
+Ezra wanted to hear her story, and she told him everything from the
+beginning to the end. When she came to the end and told him of Madame’s
+visit, he shivered and said it must have been delirium, he bade her
+think no more of it and never speak of it again. His mind started back
+from the thoughts such a story raised up before him. He was afraid, and
+looked away from the abyss, terrified at what lay but half hidden there.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+                              CONCLUSION.
+
+
+Madame left Perfection City alone and unattended. No one knew that she
+was going, and no one knew whither she went. Her spirit, however, still
+hovered over the city of her founding and made itself most potently
+felt. She sold all her rights in the place, and since these included the
+land, horses, and implements, as well as most of the houses, the
+Pioneers awoke in early winter to find themselves homeless and
+houseless, cast upon the bleak world again. In a tempest of indignation,
+Sister Mary Winkle and her husband departed out of the place, and after
+them the Carpenters. The going of the Wrights was highly characteristic.
+They had managed to save a waggon and a pair of horses out of the
+general wreck, along with a few of the most primitive household
+necessaries. These, with his wife and daughter, Brother Wright packed
+into his waggon and started for Union Mills. At the store there he
+bought a rifle, a bowie-knife, and a plentiful supply of ammunition. He
+came out of the store looking like a buccaneer ready equipped for
+Central America. Mary Winkle raised her hands in speechless horror.
+
+“I say, pa, be yer goin’ to be a jay-hawker?” asked Willette, grinning
+with delight.
+
+Wright got into the waggon in grim silence.
+
+“What _are_ you going to be?” asked Sister Mary recovering her speech at
+last.
+
+“I’m going to be a man, Mrs. Wright, and not a blamed fool any longer.
+Guess I’ll pre-empt some land near the Cherokee Reservation, and stick
+to it and get the fruits of my toil, anyhow.”
+
+“Your principles——” stammered his wife.
+
+“Damn principles, Mrs. Wright. I’ve had about enough of them. Common
+sense is what I want, and so do you. I guess a spell of that will come
+handy now.”
+
+Thus they journeyed out of sight, but a legend came floating back from
+near the Cherokee lands that at a difficult ford Wright was attacked by
+a couple of robbers, whereupon he took up that new rifle of his and
+fired so uncommonly straight that one man fell into the river, and the
+other ran away.
+
+Brother Green remained at his forge, for blacksmiths were much in
+request on the prairie, and such a one as he was hard to find. The new
+owner of Perfection City offered him good inducements to stay, so he
+stayed. He is still there shoeing horses and mending ploughs. The name
+has been changed to Mountainburg, in order to emphasise the existence of
+the rising ground over Weddell’s Gully. Brother Green is almost the
+oldest inhabitant now, and sometimes he thinks of that far-off English
+village where he was born, and it looks brighter and more beautiful to
+him as the years roll him away from it. He thinks too of the grass-grown
+grave in the church-yard where the jackdaws caw overhead, and it seems
+to him that when his last day’s work shall be done he would rest more
+peacefully beside that mound than in any other spot beneath the broad
+canopy of heaven.
+
+Brother Dummy decided not to leave when the rest of the Pioneers
+scattered. He preferred to stay where he was and rent a bit of land from
+the new owner. By and by he was enabled to buy his bit outright. For
+there came a letter addressed to “The Pioneers of Perfection City” and
+containing a draft for five hundred dollars “for the hire of one horse”
+from an ever grateful friend. And Brother Dummy was given this money by
+the united wish of Olive, Ezra, Brother Green, and Uncle David, the last
+of the Pioneers, because, as they said, he was the only one who didn’t
+know why it had been sent, and he was the only one who had not suffered
+through that episode that had so nearly wrecked their lives.
+
+On a cold winter’s day, when the snow lay in patches on the black
+prairie, Olive and her husband and Uncle David set out from Perfection
+City. She was pale and thin, and looked very ill as she stood leaning
+against the door-way of her dismantled home.
+
+“I wish I could feel sorry at leaving the prairie, but I can’t. I never
+want to see Perfection City again, but I’m sorry for my little home, and
+I would like to see my garden blossom again.” So spoke Olive to Uncle
+David, standing beside her with shawls on his arm.
+
+“Wal, now,” replied he sadly, “we came here full o’ the notion o’
+teachin’ folks things, but it ’pears like as if it wasn’t so much other
+folks out here as needed teachin’ as jes’ our own selves. We hev hed a
+hard lesson to learn, Ollie, my little gal, but I reckon we’ve pretty
+well learned it by now. It mos’ likely comes to the same thing, on’y
+it’s a sight more comfortin’ to human pride to set up as a teacher than
+to sit down as a learner. We was as certain as anything we had a bran’
+new truth to teach to the world, an’ we was goin’ to show ’em how they’d
+been doin’ wrong in everything ’fore we come to set ’em right. We was
+jes’ bustin’ with pride and vanity, that’s what we was. We had foun’ a
+new road to Kingdom Come, we had. ’Twasn’t no road at all, on’y a coon
+track leadin’ into a swamp. Guess we’ll foller the road other folks has
+trod before, an’ if we can fill up a slough or help anyone over the
+rough bits as is scattered plentiful all the way, that’ll do for us.
+Ain’t that your ’pinion, Ezry?”
+
+“Yes, Uncle, we made a mistake. We thought the great thing to do was to
+reform the ways of the world. We forgot that the human heart needed
+reforming first of all,” said Ezra, looking sadly at his poor
+wan-cheeked little wife.
+
+“And if the heart is right it doesn’t matter about the rest, does it,
+dear?” said Olive, looking timidly at him.
+
+He was sad and down-hearted and the eager enthusiasm was gone out of his
+manner. Ezra was much older-looking than he should have been, if life be
+reckoned by solar time alone. He had been aged by a lapse of mental time
+and suffering of which the almanac can take no heed. His wife saw and
+understood how he was, at this moment, realizing the downfall of his
+young hopes and beliefs, that was why he gazed so sadly across the
+desolate fields.
+
+“We take nothing away with us except sad experience,” he said as he
+lifted her into the waggon and drove off.
+
+“And our love, dear, which nothing can ever destroy,” she whispered,
+pressing his hand.
+
+He stooped and kissed her. There were tears in his eyes. But they made a
+mistake. They took something else with them. Something that came tearing
+over the prairie with tongue out and tail stiff-stretched and nose to
+the ground—Diana, who had been turned over to Napoleon Pompey to have
+and to hold, but he could not hold her when she saw the waggon going
+off, therefore he could not have her. She caught them up when they were
+two miles off, and Olive let the dog clamber all over her, regardless of
+wet paws, and lick her face, so delighted were they to meet again.
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
+      spelling.
+ 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
+ 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ 4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERFECTION CITY ***
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+  <body>
+<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Perfection City, by Adela Orpen</p>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+
+<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Perfection City</p>
+<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Adela Orpen</p>
+<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 3, 2022 [eBook #67549]</p>
+<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
+  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERFECTION CITY ***</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in4'><strong>Appletons’</strong></div>
+      <div class='line'><strong>Town and Country</strong></div>
+      <div class='line in4'><strong>Library</strong></div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in4'>No. 212</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>PERFECTION CITY</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='titlepage'>
+
+<div>
+  <h1 class='c001'>PERFECTION CITY</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div>BY</div>
+    <div class='c003'><span class='xlarge'>MRS. ORPEN</span></div>
+    <div class='c003'>AUTHOR OF MARGARETA COLBERG, MR. ADOLF, THE CHRONICLES OF THE SID, ETC.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/title.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div><span class='large'>NEW YORK</span></div>
+    <div><span class='large'>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</span></div>
+    <div><span class='large'>1897</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>Copyright, 1897,</span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c006'><span class='small'>CHAPTER</span></th>
+    <th class='c007'>&#160;</th>
+    <th class='c008'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>I.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Home-coming of the bride</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>II.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Uncle David</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_11'>11</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>III.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Sister Mary Winkle</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_21'>21</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>IV.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Madame Morozoff-Smith</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_27'>27</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>V.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Corn planting</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>VI.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Non-resistance</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_54'>54</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>VII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Willette</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_66'>66</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>VIII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Mr. Perseus</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_84'>84</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>IX.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>First lessons</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_101'>101</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>X.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Practical communism</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_111'>111</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XI.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>A chance meeting</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_125'>125</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>The prairie fire</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_141'>141</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XIII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>The rescue</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_156'>156</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XIV.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Cotterell “wanted”</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_170'>170</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XV.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>In quest of news</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_185'>185</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XVI.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Horse-thieves</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_204'>204</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XVII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>A life at stake</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_219'>219</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XVIII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Lynch-law</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_237'>237</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XIX.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Olive missing</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_251'>251</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XX.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Madame’s sympathy</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_263'>263</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XXI.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>The message</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_277'>277</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XXII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Olive’s second home-coming</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_293'>293</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>XXIII.—</td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Conclusion</span></td>
+    <td class='c008'><a href='#Page_305'>305</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='chapter ph1'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div>PERFECTION CITY.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+<div>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER I.<br /> <span class='large'>HOME-COMING OF THE BRIDE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“This road isn’t called Perfection Road, is it?”
+she asked jerkily, as she held tight hold of the edge
+of the waggon to prevent herself from being pitched
+head foremost off the seat. She would have laid her
+head against her companion’s shoulder only that it
+was square and hard, and she was afraid of getting
+her temple “stove in,” as the sailors say, by the terrific
+bumps caused by the wheels going over a big
+stone or down into a deep rut. She was a bride, and
+he was bringing her to their new home on the Kansas
+Prairie.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My poor little pet,” he said tenderly, “it is very
+rough here. We are going down into Cotton Wood
+Creek, and these stones were cast up by the last freshet
+which pretty well washed the road away.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They plunged headlong into the muddy waters
+of the Creek, and the little bride would have felt
+frightened only that “he” was by her side, for the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>waggon creaked and groaned with the strain, and the
+horses snorted uneasily, feeling their way carefully
+through the rushing torrent. The Creek was safely
+passed, and they slowly toiled up the long hill out of
+the bottom-lands, and pulled up when once more on
+the high prairie.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There is our home, dearie,” he said, pointing
+with his whip to some scattered houses a couple of
+miles away. And being a bridegroom he kissed her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“So that is Perfection City, is it?” said she, shading
+her eyes with her hand, for the afternoon sun sent
+level rays into her face. “You know, Ezra, it is such
+a funny name, I always feel inclined to laugh when
+I say it. And how I shall ever dare to put it at the
+top of my letters as a real address when I write to
+the girls at the College at Smyrna, is more than I
+know.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then don’t write it,” replied Ezra, a trifle sternly.
+“It will hurt our feelings very much if you laugh
+at it. You know it means a great deal to all of us.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I’ll never laugh at it,” said the little
+bride.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Which is our house?” she asked a moment later.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The one half way up the slope.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, that is nice. I like looking down across
+things. I shouldn’t like to live in a valley and always
+have to look up, you know.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The large building is the Academy,” said Ezra.
+“That is where we hold our meetings and gather together
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>for all the best purposes of our little community-life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is it there that Madame Morozoff-Smith lives?”
+asked his wife.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Her house is the one just opposite.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, that big one! It is quite the largest in the
+village—the City, I mean.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra did not make any reply to this remark. He
+had never realised that Madame’s house was indeed
+the largest in their Community, and now he felt vexed
+that this fact should have been the first his wife noted.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A small boy with shining black face and shining
+white teeth, along with a yellow puppy, welcomed
+them.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is Napoleon Pompey,” said Ezra, with much
+decorum presenting the small darkie who grinned and
+bobbed his head. “And this is Diana,” pointing to
+the puppy that had come up to the bars along with
+the negro. Diana jumped upon her new mistress and
+left two black dust marks on her dress. Dust is
+black in London and on the western prairie, nowhere
+else.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, you dirty dog,” said the little bride, who was
+a very natty body.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You’ll have to get used to dirt in all degrees
+out here, Ollie,” said her husband as he led her to
+the door. She looked like a little girl as she stood
+beside him, for he was tall and angular and long of
+leg. A sloping plank with battens nailed across it
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>led to the door, there were no steps. As the pair entered,
+Napoleon Pompey and Diana took the horses
+and waggon to the stable and began respectively to unharness
+and worry them.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What a dear little house! It is just like a toy!
+And do look at the saws hanging on the walls beside
+the covers of the pots! Oh, won’t it be so nice and
+free living here! I shall feel like an explorer in a
+far country. And how funny to have nail-kegs for
+seats, and oh, you dear old darling!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive jumped up and kissed her big husband.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Things are rough now, dearie,” he said with
+infinite tenderness, looking at her with loving admiration,
+“but by and by we shall have everything very
+nice.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But I think it is just as nice as it can be
+now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is our room,” said he, opening a door to
+the right.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, if you haven’t gone and got a rocking-chair!”
+exclaimed Olive, glancing around the small
+apartment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I made it for you myself in spare time,” answered
+Ezra, pleased that she had noticed the chair the first
+thing: he had often wondered, when working at that
+rocking-chair, whether she would be pleased with it.
+“You see,” he continued, “we have to work only
+five days a week for the Community. All the rest
+of our time is at our own disposal, and by and by,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>when we are flourishing, four days for the Community
+will suffice.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you like working for other people and not
+being paid?” asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I do not consider it as working for other people
+without pay,” replied her husband, with some quickness.
+“We each work for the general good, and if I
+happen to plant corn that someone else will eat, then
+some other member of the Community raises potatoes
+that I shall eat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There, there, don’t be cross,” said the little wife,
+noting the flush that had risen to his brow as he spoke.
+“I am sure it is nice, and I shall like it when I
+understand it all. At any rate we shall be very
+happy whatever happens, and I like my dear little
+house, and please, I am very thirsty, can I have a
+drink?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He brought her some water in a tin dipper with
+a long handle, and she did not make a face, but drank
+the water gratefully. She determined in her own mind,
+however, to have a glass tumbler the very next day, but
+she was new to the prairie, and she did not get the
+tumbler the next day, nor the next week, nor for
+many, many long months.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What time are we to have breakfast?” she asked,
+when taking over the household from Napoleon Pompey
+and Diana, who had run the establishment while
+her husband had been to fetch her from Ohio.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yo’ kin eat when yo’ like,” said Napoleon Pompey,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>desiring to be all that was polite to his new mistress.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But I want to know what time you have breakfast?”
+repeated Olive with persistence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We uns got ter be hout on der lan’ ploughin’
+afore sun-up,” said Napoleon Pompey concisely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dear me! Why, that is before six o’clock!” exclaimed
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I calkerlate,” said Napoleon Pompey affably.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra did not want Olive to think she was bound
+to get up and prepare the working-man’s breakfast.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are not used to that sort of hard work,
+dearie. We can do very well with cold corn-bread.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of all things the most stoggy and hopelessly uninviting,”
+interrupted his wife. “No, Ezra, I won’t
+have any of the people out here think I am a little
+fool that can’t do any useful work. I have my pride
+as well as other folks. I shall cook your breakfast
+to-morrow and every day afterwards, and I shall cook
+it well, see if I don’t.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am sure of that,” said her husband with the
+confidence of a bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The house of which the young bride had just taken
+possession was by no means an ordinary prairie house.
+Far from it. It had pretensions to comfort which the
+true prairie house should never possess, and it lacked
+the few elements of picturesqueness with which the
+genuine article is sometimes endowed. The plan on
+which it was built was of the simplest—the same that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>children adopt in building their doll’s houses—four
+sides and a sloping roof, all of wood from top to bottom.
+It was not a log-house, which has a few broken
+lines to rest the eye of the beholder and present possibilities
+to the artist, it was a frame house, that is,
+the straightest, stiffest, squarest, most hopelessly unpicturesque
+object that it is possible to imagine, and to
+make matters worse it was painted a glaring white
+from eave to foundation. There was not a broken line
+or a broken tint anywhere to refresh the eye, and
+it stood on the high prairie, as if hurled into a glaring
+world by a Titan’s hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The prairie is fertile, and in the eye of a farmer
+may possess the beauty of usefulness, but otherwise it
+is hideous. The long rolling billows of grass present
+no character, while the trees are confined to the river
+valleys where they find refuge from prairie fires, and
+can therefore lead a sufficiently undisturbed existence
+to reach quite a respectable height. A couple of
+small locust trees, not three feet high, were all that
+did duty as shade-giving plants near Olive’s house,
+which accordingly faced the world and its storms entirely
+on its own individual merits. Judged by prairie
+standard the house was “tip-top.” It possessed no
+less than four rooms, while the regular settler’s cabin
+was wont to indulge in only a single comprehensive
+apartment, which was kitchen, parlour and bedroom
+all in one. The two lower rooms were the kitchen,
+which was fairly large, and a smaller one off it, reserved
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>for the private use of the young wife. The
+kitchen looked like a ship’s cabin, only that it had
+more light than usually penetrates into a ship’s cabin.
+In fact it was very light, for there were two large windows,
+one to the north and one to the south, geometrically
+opposite each other. These two windows,
+so exactly facing each other, were fairly typical of the
+house itself, which was the embodiment of mathematical
+accuracy. The building was placed exactly east
+and west, as if it had been a carefully oriented church.
+There was a door on the south side, exactly in the
+middle, and a window on either side of the door, placed
+accurately in the centre of the space left between the
+side of the door and the end of the house. Over these
+two windows were two others exactly one half their
+size, giving light to the loft, and exactly in the centre
+of the roof-ridge was a black stove-pipe.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The average prairie man is a genius in the way
+of doing without things. He can live in a house of
+the smallest dimensions, containing the minimum of
+utensils. In fact, his idea of a house is that it should
+be a miner’s tent solidified into substantiality. The
+miner in a newly-prospected gold-field is a person who
+spends his days in a hole, and has no belongings but
+the clothes on his back and the shovel in his hand.
+He lives on his expectations. The regular prairie settler,
+would arrive in the spring, camp in his waggon,
+stick grains of corn under the sod, and think himself
+lucky if he could raise both the corn and a loghut,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>fourteen by twelve feet, before the cold weather
+set in. Those who have passed through such a severe
+school prune down their requirements. Therefore the
+house to which Ezra Weston brought his little bride
+was rightly considered to be a model of luxury, or in
+prairie phraseology to be “powerful full o’ truck.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The kitchen certainly was full. The stove, black
+and business-like, stood near the partition wall, and
+on it rested a couple of huge iron pots with covers.
+Chairs there were none, as Olive had remarked, but
+boxes and nail-kegs did as well and were useful in
+holding things. There was a large wooden table,
+very strongly made, on one side, and a set of shelves
+in one corner. The walls and ceiling, which were of
+wood closely jointed, added to the ship-like appearance
+of the room, but the presence of two large saws
+and a horse-collar which hung above them made a considerable
+deduction from the nautical character of the
+apartment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This model dwelling stood in the midst of a large
+tract of fenced-in land. Part of this was already
+under cultivation and showed a dark purple surface
+to the heavens, betokening newly turned up prairie
+sod full of the natural plant foods stored there for
+thousands of ages. These were now about to be recklessly
+used up by the ordinary system of prairie farming,
+which consisted of taking everything out of the
+land and of putting nothing back into it. A sort of
+road, that is to say a beaten track with deep channels
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>on either side, led from the house to the bars, which
+did duty as gate to the premises. These bars were precisely
+what the name implies, bars of wood lying on
+supports made for them between posts, and they were
+simply let down whenever horses or other animals
+had to pass in or out, and were climbed over by active
+children too lazy to let them down or rather, perhaps,
+too lazy to put them up again.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>On one side of the bars stretching out at an angle
+was an orchard just planted with trees that probably
+would be worth having twenty years hence, and further
+away was another field consisting simply of fenced-in
+prairie grass. The fields, and indeed everything else,
+were square, and every fence that did not run north
+and south, ran east and west. The whole place seemed
+under a despotism of compass and measuring chain.
+Indeed, the prairie itself was under the same iron rule:
+and by the authorities had been plotted out into squares
+of a mile each way called “sections,” of which persons
+could buy of the Government quarter sections or
+multiples of a quarter section at a low rate. Fortunately
+for humanity this conspiracy to turn the world
+into a surveyor’s map was to some extent defeated by
+the rivers and streams, which ran as Heaven and the
+water-sheds decreed, and not as the officials at Washington
+desired. This fact, and this alone, has in some
+measure saved the prairie from the awful fate of mathematical
+damnation.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER II.<br /> <span class='large'>UNCLE DAVID.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Mrs. Weston was tired and sat down in her rocking-chair
+to rest. Her day’s work was fairly over.
+The breakfast had been ready punctually at half past
+five, and it was well-cooked, as she had boasted it
+would be—corn-bread smoking hot, fried chicken, potatoes,
+flap-jacks and molasses—a meal for a king,
+to say nothing of a working-man and his negro help.
+Ezra and Napoleon Pompey had partaken heartily,
+especially the latter, for he had been living on underdone
+hoe-cake and cold pork. Then they had gone
+off to the ploughing, while Olive had bustled around
+and got forward with her house-work. At eleven
+o’clock she had run up the towel against the shady
+side of the house, a signal easily seen from the distant
+field, and signifying that dinner was ready. They
+had come home, men and horses thoroughly hungry
+and ready for food and rest. Ezra lay on the kitchen
+floor and talked to her while she washed up the dishes.
+And now it was three o’clock, and all the work was
+done. She thought she would read a little. She had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>several books with her that she had been looking forward
+to reading. So she took up one of them and
+seated herself comfortably in the rocking-chair. The
+door was open and a warm air came in from the south
+along with the gleaming sunshine. Diana lay across
+the door-way, but kept one eye open, so as to see
+when the black hen came near enough to have a spring
+at her with any chance of grabbing a mouthful of tail-feathers.
+Olive’s eyes rested very little on the book,
+but much on the view outside. It looked pleasant
+enough in the bright May sunshine. The long brown
+patch of the garden showed a few methodical green
+lines that spoke of vegetables beginning to sprout.
+The meadow of blue grass just beyond was likewise
+by its hue showing the on-coming of the warm spring
+weather, and yet again further off, on the other side
+of the meadow, lay the vast field which her husband
+was ploughing. Once in every half hour she could
+see him turn at the head-land, and noted how seldom
+he seemed to stop and rest. Napoleon Pompey was
+riding the off leader, and from that distance they
+seemed little insects gently crawling backwards and
+forwards across the land. Pleasant it looked too and
+by no means hard work. Olive determined to go out
+to the field one day soon and watch the process from a
+nearer point of view; she might indeed herself hold
+the plough-handles, it looked easy, she would ask Ezra
+to let her, she would like to learn to do all sorts of
+work so as to be very useful, she would—confused images
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>swept slowly over her mind, she leaned back her
+pretty little head and slept in her chair.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She awoke with a start. A large square figure
+stood in the door-way, blocking out the sunshine, and
+Diana, with the insane friendliness of a puppy, was
+trying to clamber up one of his legs.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, little gal, I reckon you’re ’most tired out,
+ain’t you?” said the big man, coming straight into
+the room.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Mrs. Weston rose to her utmost height of five feet
+two inches, and tried to be dignified.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you wish to see my husband?” she inquired
+stiffly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t want to see Ezry. I come to talk to
+you a spell, and see you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are very kind I’m sure,” returned the little
+lady icily, but the stranger did not seem one whit
+abashed. He took a nail-keg and sat down on it and
+looked about him. “Wal, now,” he remarked, nodding
+his head, “Ezry is real downright handy. He’s
+gone and got your house fine and fixed up, ain’t he
+now?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is extremely comfortable, Mr.—ah—I don’t
+think you mentioned your name,” said Mrs. Weston,
+with a snap of her black eyes. She didn’t at all relish
+the free and easy way in which this man spoke of her
+husband.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do tell!” exclaimed the stranger with vast cordiality.
+“An’ you didn’t know who I was. Why, I’m
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>Uncle David. I guessed everybody ’ud know me.
+There ain’t nobody else so big and awkward looking
+’bout here on this prairie as me. Why, there was
+a man over to Perfection City yesterday, he come from
+beyond Cotton Wood Creek, and he said he calculated
+I’d be powerful useful on washing days, ’cause if they
+tied the clothes-line to me I’d do instead of a pole,
+an’ timber is mighty scarce anyhow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David gave a long loud laugh that set Diana
+into an ecstasy of delight, and was of itself so joyous
+that, after a moment, Olive also joined in with a merry
+titter. She had often heard her husband speak of
+Uncle David, as being one of the kindest and most
+simple-hearted of men. Her frigid manner melted rapidly
+and completely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, now,” began Uncle David again, after his
+merriment had subsided, “how do you like our
+name?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your name,” repeated Olive considerably puzzled.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, our name, the name of the Community, Perfection
+City. Do you like it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t think I do,” replied she.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Jes’ so,” broke in Uncle David, apparently much
+pleased with this answer. “I knew you wouldn’t. Nobody
+does.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why did you call it such a name—such a horrid
+name—and if nobody likes it, what is the use?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There now, that’s what they all say, until I talk
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>to ’em,” said Uncle David. “You see I gave the name
+to the place.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, it was your choice!” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“When we came here, Niece and I, there wasn’t
+no town nor nothing, it was just open prairie. Ezry
+he come along too with us, and the Carpenters, and
+Mrs. Ruby, and the Wrights.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You leave out Madame Morozoff-Smith,” interrupted
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I thought you knew. Why, Madame, she’s Niece.
+She ain’t my real niece, she wasn’t born in my family,
+but she’s niece by adoption, and I hold she’s more to
+me than half the nieces I ever seen. I ain’t cute like
+most of the folks here, an’ there wasn’t no use in having
+me at Perfection City. I can’t do nothing. I
+can’t compose papers like Brother Wright. So I was
+studyin’ to see some way for me to come with ’em.
+It would ha’ broke my heart to be left behind. Madame,
+she come to me, an’ says she: ‘You’ll be my
+uncle. I want an uncle very much, and I’ll love you
+dearly.’ An’ so I was. I call it the greatest honour
+of my life when Madame made me her uncle, and added
+my name to hers.” Uncle David stooped and patted
+Diana’s head thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“When did you think of the name?” said Olive
+with a view to bringing him back to the point.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, jes’ so, that’s ’xactly what I was comin’ to.
+You see, when Ezry fust come here with us he wasn’t
+quite clear in his mind ’bout joinin’ in with us, leastways
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>not to be one of the Community for his whole
+mortal life. It’s a serious step to take, and he was
+a-doubtin’ in his mind, leastways till Madame she
+talked to him for a spell. He wasn’t sure fust if he’d
+got a call to community-life. He knowed it was the
+best, of course, and the true life: he knowed all that
+right enough, but he didn’t feel sure of himself as bein’
+fit to found a city. It is a most responsible thing to
+be a founder. ’Taint everybody as is fit for it. Then
+Madame made it clear how she was a founder, an’ she
+is the most wonderful woman ever lived in this world,
+an’ she showed Ezry how it was his duty to help in
+this great work, an’ when he saw that clear he was
+dreadful sot on it too. We was a-gettin’ our houses
+up as spry as ever we could, and ole Wright he was
+a-buildin’ th’ Academy, then Ezry says: ‘What’s goin’
+to be our name?’ It was jes’ called Weddell’s Gully,
+’cause we bought from a man o’ that name. So Ezry
+said: ‘Let’s call it something to signify our principles,’
+and one person said one name and one said another,
+then Wright said ‘Let’s call it Teleiopolis.’”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, that sounds very pretty,” exclaimed Olive.
+“Why didn’t you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, now, I said that’s very pretty, jes’ the same
+as you did. What does it mean, do you know?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t know. I suppose it is Greek for
+something.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“’Zactly so. It is Greek for something, and that
+something is Perfection City.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>“It sounds nicer.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Maybe so, but you look here. Are we Greeks?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, of course not.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then why talk in Greek?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know, except it is prettier.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you suppose them old Greeks, when they went
+an’ founded cities, they called ’em names out o’ some
+other language they didn’t understand, or did they
+called ’em good solid Greek names as any little boy
+’ud know what they meant?” asked Uncle David with
+rising energy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I believe they called their cities by Greek names,
+in fact I know they did,” said Olive, hastily reviewing
+her stock of history.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“An’ why?” asked Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Because they wasn’t ’shamed o’ their mother
+tongue like we are. That’s why,” said Uncle David,
+clapping his big hand on his knee.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh indeed,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“An’ that’s what I said, says I, ‘We are ’Mericans,
+we are founding a new city that’s goin’ to be great
+things one day. We have our principles. Let’s live
+up to them. We hain’t shamed o’ nothin’. Leastways
+not to my knowledge. We are goin’ to be an example
+to these folks roun’ here. We are goin’ to show
+’em how to live a better life nor they ever did before.
+An’ how in thunder can we do that if we start by
+being ’shamed of our own mother tongue? We hain’t
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>Greeks, we don’t talk in Greek. This hain’t Teleiopolis,
+this is Perfection City.’ That is what I said to
+’em.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What did they say to that?” asked Olive,
+much interested in the rugged honesty of Uncle
+David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I don’t know as they said anything much,
+on’y Ezry, he said he guessed he’d had his fust lesson,
+an’ he come and shook hands an’ said it certainly
+should be Perfection City, an’ so it was.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shall think better of the name now,” said Olive.
+“Only at first I was afraid of people laughing, people
+who didn’t understand it, you see.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, people’ll laugh,” said Uncle David. “People
+does a heap o’ laughing in this world without makin’
+it one mite merrier for anybody. I like laughing
+myself. It’s awful good an’ satisfyin’ to have a real
+square laugh, but t’aint that sort. Mos’ folks’ laugh
+hain’t got no more fun in it than the laugh of a hoot-owl.
+I’d a heap sight rather have none at all. You
+ain’t agoin’ to mind that sort, I hope?” Uncle David
+spoke with a shade of anxiety in his manner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh no, I’m not thin-skinned,” said Olive with
+a superior smile.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Some folks is made that way. When they have
+found a tender spot in anybody they can’t rest no
+how till they’ve stuck some sort o’ pin into it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Tell me, does everything belong to everybody
+generally out here? It is so puzzling. This house,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>for instance, is it ours or yours or everybody’s?”
+asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The land an’ the horses an’ the cattle an’ waggons
+was mostly bought with community-money, that is
+Madame, she gave the money, she’s rich you know,
+an’ she’s generous and always givin’ to the Community,
+her whole heart is in it. But Ezry worked a heap on
+this house, he mostly built it all, an’ it’s his, an’ t’other
+folks’ houses are theirs. That’s Brother Wright’s over
+yonder, an’ that’s our house beside the ’Cademy, most
+everybody worked to get it up and fix it comfortable for
+Madame. Old Mrs. Ruby, she lives to herself in the
+log cabin we bought from Weddell, we had it moved
+there a purpose over from the Gully, ’cause she liked
+to live beside the spring so as to get her water handy.
+She had a little mite of money which we used in buyin’
+stock.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“So you do have some things as private property,
+just like ordinary people,” observed Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of course. It would not be any sort o’ use to
+have everything in common, ’cause folks’ notions
+don’t always ’xactly suit. An’ what we want is to
+have everybody free, so they can be perfectly happy
+here. We don’t want to have no strife, an’ no jealousy,
+an’ no ill feeling one towards another. But there
+can’t be community in all things. What sort o’
+use would it be for you an’ me to have community
+o’ boots an’ shoes?” said Uncle David with a great
+laugh, sticking out his enormous foot towards where
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>Olive’s dainty little slipper peeped from beneath her
+dress.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your shoes, my dear, wouldn’t go on my two
+fingers, an’ mine ’ud be big enough to make a tol’eble
+boat for you. There couldn’t be community in shoes,
+so there ain’t none. But with the lan’ it’s different.
+We all work that for the benefit of everybody, there
+ain’t no strugglin’ to be fust an’ get ahead o’ one another.
+We are all brothers at Perfection City.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was full of excitement when Ezra came back
+at sun-down.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Just fancy, I’ve had my first visitor,” she said
+as she stood beside her husband while he was watering
+the horses.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who was it? Mrs. Ruby?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, it was Uncle David,” and she gave a merry
+little laugh.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, and how did you like him?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think he is just charming. He is just like a
+piece of granite or oak or something of that sort, not
+smooth or shiny on the outside, but solid and sound
+to the very core. Oh! I shall love Uncle David.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That’s right. He is a good man,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you know? he has made me understand
+about Perfection City. I shan’t want to laugh at it
+any more, and I don’t care if anybody else does. It
+was real brave of you showing your colours plain and
+sticking to them,” said Olive with a skip and a clap
+of her little hands.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER III.<br /> <span class='large'>SISTER MARY WINKLE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The very next morning just as she was washing
+her potatoes for dinner, another visitor called upon
+Olive, a visitor of whose sex she was for a moment
+or two in doubt. The visitor wore a large sunbonnet,
+a check blouse, and a pair of Zouave trowsers fastened
+in at the ankle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How do you do, Olive Weston?” said this person,
+in a deep serious voice. Olive, who had not seen
+her, started in surprise and dropped her potato into
+the basin.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am Mary Winkle. That’s my house over yonder.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, the Wrights’! Yes, to be sure. Come in and
+sit down,” said Olive hospitably, although she felt
+considerable surprise at her visitor’s appearance.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You don’t wear the reformed dress yet, I see,”
+said Mary Winkle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t,” acquiesced Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Shall you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know. I have not thought about it.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>I suppose there is no regulation about what one wears
+on the prairie. There is no fashion here I suppose,”
+said Olive politely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, only the fashion of common sense.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do all the ladies dress that way, Miss Winkle?”
+inquired Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Only my daughter and myself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I beg your pardon, I should have said Mrs. Winkle,”
+said Olive, in some confusion.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, you shouldn’t,” replied her visitor. “I am
+not Mrs. Winkle.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am afraid I am very stupid. Would you tell me
+then how I should address you. I don’t understand.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Address me as Mary Winkle, and my husband
+as John Wright.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive stared at her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Are you not Mrs. Wright then?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not. I scorn the title. It is a
+symbol of subjection. I did not lose my identity when
+I chose to marry. I am the same Mary Winkle that
+I was before, and as such I desire to retain the name
+that I always possessed. Why should I take a new
+name simply because I am married?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is usual,” stammered Olive. “I shouldn’t like
+not to be called Mrs. Weston. It is so confusing, you
+see.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mere custom and prejudice. Why should not
+your husband take your name, instead of its always
+being the wife who is absorbed?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>“I don’t know, but I never heard of it before.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, that is one of the first changes that must
+be made when women get their rights,” observed Mary
+Winkle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But I don’t want the change one bit. I much
+prefer the old way.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I dare say. Slaves often feel no want of freedom.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m not a slave,” said Olive, flushing angrily.
+“You cannot be in the least acquainted with my husband.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, I know your husband very well, an excellent
+man in many respects, but narrow in others;
+however, I referred to general slavery, to custom, not
+to any individual slavery in your case.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t think there is any good in destroying
+customs, unless there is something better to be got
+in a new custom.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah yes, no doubt it seems so to you; but there
+is inestimable gain in the mere protest against tyranny.
+Why, that’s what we are all here for, to protest
+against everything and live a life of freedom.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And freedom may as well begin here and now,
+and in its name I will wear long dresses and be called
+Mrs. Weston, because I prefer the older customs,”
+said Olive with some archness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, you may do as you like, but you will get
+heartily sick of those skirts, I can tell you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive remembering sundry pretty dresses she had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>in her trunk, was privately convinced she would not
+get sick of them.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I haven’t seen Madame yet,” she said, “and I
+feel the greatest curiosity about her. She must be
+a remarkable woman by all accounts. Does she wear
+the same sort of dress as you do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, she doesn’t, and it’s a great pity, for her
+influence would be very great with the other women.
+I suppose you’ll see her to-morrow evening. You’ll
+come to the Academy, won’t you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, certainly, if Ezra is going. I should like to
+go ever so much and see all my neighbours, but perhaps
+he will be too tired. He does work dreadfully
+hard, it seems to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He ought to do a little brain-work. Wright
+says nothing rests one like brain-work. He’s been
+doing a spell of that lately. He’s been writing an
+essay on ‘The Ultimate Perfection of Being.’ He’ll
+most likely read some of it to-morrow at the Academy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shouldn’t think essays would be much use in
+planting corn,” said Olive rather tartly, remembering
+at what hour her husband had come from the harrowing.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wright and I, we don’t believe in making a god
+of work. We have a much higher ideal of life than
+that. We don’t want anything sordid in our lives,
+Wright and I. We haven’t any sympathy with this
+restless striving to get on. One of the great advantages
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>of Perfection City is that we all have time for
+the cultivation of our higher natures.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Just now,” said Olive, “my husband seems to
+have no thought in his mind but the cultivation of
+that field over there. He is at work early and late.
+No person could possibly work harder for himself
+or his individual advantage than he does for the Community.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There’s just a case in point,” remarked Mary
+Winkle complacently. “I always thought your husband
+very narrow in his views. He slaves away at
+this corn planting as if that were the chief end and
+object of his existence. It is all very well to work
+at times, but working in order to store up food for
+the body is the lowest possible form that human activity
+can take.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is the most indispensable form,” remarked
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“By no means,” replied Mary Winkle with precision.
+“That observation would seem to indicate that
+you are more narrow even than your husband. The
+body is merely the servant of the mind: the mind
+needs to be fed, and it is the food for the mind which
+your husband appears so careless about providing.
+Fortunately for Perfection City, Wright has taken
+thought on that subject. Wright has a very high
+standard of what is necessary for the mind.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It appears to me,” said Olive with a snap of her
+black eyes and an ominous red spot on her cheeks,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>“that if we all lived up to your standard, it might
+very well happen that by next winter our minds might
+be uncomfortably full and our stomachs correspondingly
+empty. If Ezra did not plough and get his land
+ready for planting as fast as mortal man can, how
+is the land to be got ready? It doesn’t plough itself,
+does it, even at Perfection City?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I see you will have to get rid of many prejudices,”
+observed Mary Winkle. “Of course community-life
+only comes easy to people who are adapted to it.
+Wright and I are adapted. We like it. We shall stay
+here. We shall succeed therefore. You and Brother
+Ezra will have to go through a season of training
+first. You both need it. I dare say you may hear
+something that you will find useful to you to-morrow
+from Wright. I will just mention to him where
+your particular blindness seems to lie. Wright is a
+very profound thinker. He has given great thought
+to the subject of the Ultimate Perfection of People.
+He can explain every step in the training of a perfect
+communist, and show clearly just where everybody
+has hitherto gone wrong in their attempts to realize
+their ideal, and exactly what mistakes they have made.
+I am glad you have come in time to hear his paper;
+it will be of lasting good to you. You will be able
+to profit by it, because you are in great need of proper
+training. I dare say you need it more even than Ezra.
+For, after all, he must have learned something from
+us in the year he has been with us.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IV.<br /> <span class='large'>MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The Academy at Perfection City was not a pretentious
+building in anything but in name. It was
+a plain wooden house, almost square, having a window
+on three sides and a door on the fourth, facing south.
+Inside there were several rough benches, two tables,
+an iron stove, and a large easy chair, with a small desk
+beside it, upon which stood a pair of candles. There
+were no curtains and no carpets, absolutely no attempts
+at beautifying the place. But the board-floor
+was clean.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive dressed herself in a flutter of expectation
+for her first visit to this abode of wisdom.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I expect everybody will be there, because they’ll
+all want to see you, little woman,” said her husband,
+who, tired as he was after his day’s work, changed
+his earth-stained clothes for a fresh suit. Olive wore
+a white dress with lavender ribbons, and looked as
+fresh as a daisy as she tripped along daintily holding
+up her skirts. She wore the nattiest of boots over
+the neatest of feet, altogether a bright and unexpected
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>sight upon the glum-looking prairie. It was a quarter
+of a mile to the Academy, down a road hardly
+more than a cart-track, and across a dry gully where
+there were no stepping stones.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>As Ezra had predicted, everybody had turned out
+to welcome the new bride. Uncle David met her at
+the door.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, little girl,” he said, “we’re all a-looking out
+for you. Here’s Sister Mary Winkle, you’ve seen
+her, and this is her husband, Brother Wright.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive shook hands with a dark, broad-shouldered
+man who spoke in snaps as if he had been a dog. He
+had glittering white teeth.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We’ve been looking to have your husband back,”
+he said.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m sure you’re very kind,” murmured Olive
+conventionally.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We needed him for the ploughing,” snapped
+Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh indeed!” said Olive less cordially.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is the busy time of the year.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“All times a-year is the busy time in my ’pinion
+and ’sperience,” said Uncle David smiling comprehensively,
+“but most everyone spares time one way
+or ’nother to get married if they have a mind that
+way. Come along an’ see Brother and Sister Dummy.
+That ain’t their name, but we call ’em so, they’re
+deaf and mostly dumb now. They’re real good folks
+too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>A sad-eyed red-haired man shook hands with her,
+and a sad-eyed woman kissed her. They put into
+her hand a slip of paper on which was written a message
+of welcome.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They can talk a little, but they can’t hear one
+mite, and they don’t like to talk, because they can’t
+tell when they are whispering and when they are
+yelling, and it makes strangers jump to hear them
+sometimes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive felt drawn towards this poor silent pair, but
+did not know how to express her sympathy. There
+were others in the room, but before she had time to
+speak to them the door opened and Madame Morozoff-Smith
+entered, and from that moment she seemed to
+see no one else. Madame was a remarkable looking
+woman. She was tall, large and fair, with keen grey
+eyes, full red lips, and a mass of pale gold hair rising
+over a forehead that was broad and smooth. A woman
+of indeterminate age with an air of youthfulness and
+command about her. She was dressed in a dark dress
+and wore a bright bunch of ribbons in her hair. It
+looked at first sight like a rose, only roses don’t grow
+on the prairie in the month of May. She came straight
+to where Olive was standing. She gave one the impression
+of floating, for although a large woman, she
+walked so lightly as to make no noticeable sound on
+the wooden floor. Taking Olive’s two hands in her
+warm large grasp, she kissed her on the forehead
+murmuring “Welcome,” and then stepping back
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>she said in a clear voice that vibrated through the
+room:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah! now I understand that hurried courtship
+and swift marriage. I see what it was in Brother
+Ezra’s case. It was love at first sight. You are very
+pretty. I suppose, however, you know that very well.
+It is a secret seldom kept from young girls.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was so startled by this unexpected address
+that she blushed to the roots of her black hair. Ezra
+stood looking down at his little wife smiling with
+pleasure. He was delighted to think that Madame
+found her so pretty. He had indeed thought her beautiful
+from the first moment when his eyes had rested
+on her, but then he loved her, and it was but natural
+that in his eyes she should be lovely. Madame, however,
+judged her unprejudiced, and yet if his delighted
+heart had room for one regret, it was that Madame’s
+praise had been so very public. If she had only whispered
+it softly to him in that wonderful voice of hers,
+which had often caught up his inmost thoughts and
+clothed them in words of eloquence, how much more
+precious would the tribute have been. He dismissed
+the half-formed regret as unworthy, and took himself
+to task for not exulting at this moment. The meeting
+of Madame and Olive was an event in his life. Olive,
+his sweet little rose-bud of a wife, on the one hand,
+and Madame, his venerated, nay his worshipped, friend,
+on the other. The one, the companion of his heart:
+the other, the guide of his mind who embodied in herself
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>all that he held highest in the possibilities of
+womanhood, his true and noble-hearted friend, his
+inspired leader. How blest was the portion of him
+who stood that night the husband of the one, the disciple
+of the other! Ezra’s dark eyes shone with joy,
+and his square chin quivered with the smiles that
+lurked about his lips. He was not a handsome man,
+perhaps, but there was something grand in the large
+full forehead, strong eyebrows, and deep dark eyes.
+His massive frame bespoke strength, which in itself
+has always a great attraction for women.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When Madame had addressed those words to the
+new sister all the members of the Community had
+scanned her narrowly, for the opinion of their leader
+had immense weight with the Pioneers. The men
+looked at Olive with increased admiration, and the
+women with envy. Only Uncle David appeared disappointed
+and wiped his face many times with his red
+pocket-handkerchief saying, “Wal, wal, now,” in a
+tone of earnest reproof.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>After this bewildering introduction in which her
+vanity had been not a little excited, Olive received
+a salutary check from the words of Brother Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Before beginning to read my paper,” said he,
+“I should like to say a few words to the new sister
+who has come among us. We expect soon to be having
+new members join us so fast that perhaps we
+shall not be able to specially mark the entrance of
+each. But in this case there are peculiar reasons for
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>exhortation. Sister Olive has not joined under ordinary
+circumstances. She did not, like the rest of us,
+feel a call to the higher life: she only came out of
+personal affection for one of the members of the Community.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive looked with a shy glance towards her husband,
+who took her hand in his for a moment, while
+Uncle David, who sat at the end of the room near
+Madame, said in a loud voice:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Quite right, quite right, couldn’t ha’ had a better
+reason.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Therefore it becomes our duty to impress upon
+our new sister the principles which have been active
+in forming this Community,” said Brother Wright,
+without paying any heed to Uncle David’s interruption.
+“Perfection City has been founded to teach
+the world how to live. The old civilization has been
+tried and found wanting. It is time for a new one.
+Perfection City is the beginning of a new era. We
+are the Pioneers of a new world. We shall show
+the old and worn-out world how to banish evil from
+life. We cannot perhaps banish all physical evil, and
+for a time at least there may be sickness even among
+us, but we shall at once set about freeing ourselves
+from all the other troubles of life. There is nobody
+in Perfection City who will get rich, and nobody will
+ever be poor. We are all alike, and we shall none of
+us envy our neighbours his belongings, simply because
+everything belongs to all. The lesson we have to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>teach is the grandest the world ever saw, and when
+men know what it is, I foresee a future before Perfection
+City greater than that of any other city of the
+world. Rome lasted a good long while, but Rome
+didn’t possess the vital spark of life: Rome wasn’t
+communistic, therefore Rome fell. Perfection City
+won’t fall like that, but will go on teaching the world
+after we, its founders, are all dead. But our memories
+will live for the great things that we taught and
+through our example have made possible.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Wright stopped for a few seconds, and
+Uncle David said admiringly,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You have a fine command of words, Brother
+Wright, and you have a way of making things sound
+uncommon grand. It always does me good to hear
+you talk of the grand future of our City; but we’ll
+have to get up some houses, and bigger ones, ’fore
+folks ’ull believe us.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David was as simple as a child, or some
+of his hearers might have suspected a sarcasm in his
+words.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Rome wasn’t built in a day, as I’ve heard say,”
+remarked Brother Green, with a strong English accent,
+“and I shall be glad if our little village ever
+grows to half its power and honour.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Green, I should refuse to have anything
+to say to the founding of another city like Rome,”
+interrupted Brother Wright with decisiveness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It seems to me,” said Ezra in a shy hesitating
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>manner, “that what we are here for is to demonstrate,
+if we can, how a better life can be lived here than
+is possible in the older communities, where circumstances
+are too strong and too hampering for people
+to rise above them. The older civilization has done
+much, it has raised our race to a high standard. What
+we want to do is to carry on that work, and above
+all to bring everyone within reach of the best that life
+has to offer. The older civilization has left so many
+stranded ones, who have lost their strength in the wild
+struggle; while we hope to bring all along equally
+and give to each a share of happiness. As usual, my
+friends, when I try to express my ideas I find that
+someone else has already put them into incomparably
+finer language than I can ever command. It has been
+so again. I find that our great poet, Walt Whitman,
+has said better than I can what I feel. May I quote
+him to you?</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in16'>‘Have the elder races halted?</div>
+      <div class='line'>Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?</div>
+      <div class='line'>We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,</div>
+      <div class='line in16'>Pioneers! O pioneers!’”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra sat down after reciting his verse, and his wife
+looked at him with glowing eyes. He had not said
+much, but his words had seemed to her so much fuller
+of thought and feeling than the easy monotonous flow
+from Brother Wright. That individual himself had
+not received Ezra’s remarks with quite so much delight.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>It was Brother Wright’s nature to see fight and
+contradiction in all things, even the most pacific. His
+eyes would flash and his black beard bristle in argument,
+almost as if he were a dog preparing to fight,
+and if one might be permitted to liken any Pioneer
+to one of the canine species, the bull-dog would undoubtedly
+be the variety most nearly resembling Brother
+Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t see that we need be beholden to anyone,
+poet or otherwise,” he said sharply, “for our opinions
+or sentiments. We have found them for ourselves,
+just as we have founded our City. It is our work,
+both opinions and practice.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think,” said Madame, rising and speaking with
+a deep clear voice, which a slight foreign accent
+seemed to render only the more attractive, “I think
+I see better than they do themselves where our two
+brothers agree. Brother Ezra, with that diffidence
+which strong natures often exhibit, thought he found
+in the lines of another man his own ideas more succinctly
+embodied than they would have been in his
+own words. Brother Ezra should not doubt his powers.
+Speech comes slowly to those who most deeply
+think, but he should consider how much we benefit
+by his words and how grateful we are to him for them.
+Brother Wright, it seems to me that you, perhaps,
+do not sufficiently appreciate the efforts of others who
+have gone before us on this road. We are not the first
+who have been discontented with the actual order of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>things, nor are we the first who have striven to make
+life brighter and easier. In all ages there have been
+those penetrated with these thoughts, and in different
+ways men, and women too, have striven earnestly,
+devotedly, to realize these ideas. Some indeed have
+imagined they had found a solution of all doubts and
+difficulties, and have in perfect good faith and self-satisfaction
+buried themselves in convents and monasteries
+and have ‘roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,’ and
+have ‘built them fanes of fruitless prayer.’ We have
+come to different conclusions by following a different
+road. We do not shut ourselves out of the world,
+rather we endeavour to raise it by showing a living
+example of what may be done now, in this age, by
+human beings such as we are. But if we are to succeed
+we must not reject the experience, nor fail to
+profit by the example, of others who have gone before
+us and felt earnestly on this subject.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame paused for a moment, and her keen glance
+rested upon the small assembly. Each individual
+seemed to feel that she was looking at him or at
+her. Certainly each member was looking intently at
+her. She seldom made speeches to them; she only
+interposed her observations, as on this occasion, between
+the speakers; but the last word usually remained
+with her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Wright, will you now read us your paper,
+as the evening is passing and we are all anxious to
+hear it. What is the title and subject?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>“The Ultimate Perfection of Being is the title,”
+said Brother Wright, “and I think that pretty well
+sums up the subject also.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>So apparently thought the audience, which
+resigned itself to a severe mental excursion into
+the unknown regions of Brother Wright’s imaginative
+metaphysics. Some of them fell out very
+soon, finding the road harder to follow than they
+had foreseen; but Brother Wright kept sturdily
+on, unheeding the signs of weakness and disaffection
+as betrayed by movings of feet and stifled
+yawns.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive, not being able to understand what Brother
+Wright was saying, employed herself in watching
+Madame, who sat motionless beside her table, resting
+her head upon her supple white hand. At her feet
+lay what seemed to be a large brown rug, but was in
+fact her dog Balthasar, a blood-hound, who always
+stayed with her and was as gentle as a lamb, notwithstanding
+his name and breed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Green! That’s the second time you’ve
+snored,” suddenly exclaimed Brother Wright in the
+midst of his reading. Everybody was wide awake in
+an instant. Madame hid a smile with her hand, but
+not before Olive had noticed it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Green is perhaps tired. His work is very
+hard,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, the fact is I had to put a new point to
+the ploughshare this morning before I went to fetch
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>my load of iron, and I began work before daybreak.
+I am very tired.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green was the blacksmith of Perfection
+City, an industrious hard-working man who thought
+life would show him a fairer side on the prairie than
+it had ever done in the far-away village in Sussex
+where he was born.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think that it might be better to have our gatherings
+rather shorter now,” said Madame softly. “The
+workers in our little hive are all tired. I wish I
+could do more of the labour that is needed. I would
+gladly——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame was interrupted by a sharp rap on the
+table, a signal from Brother Huntley that he wanted
+to speak. He was the deaf and dumb man. She instantly
+rose and bowed to him with singular graciousness.
+Madame’s manner towards the deaf brethren
+was all that was exquisite. Huntley stood up
+and began in a voice almost inaudible which rose
+by sudden degrees to the intensity of a steam-whistle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I want to know when we’re going to get our
+corn planted? We’re behindhand; most other folk’s
+corn is in already.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“As usual, Brother Huntley has something practical
+to say,” observed Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He didn’t know we were discussing quite another
+subject, else his remark would have been rude
+and irrelevant,” said Wright, vexed at this cutting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>into his paper on the ultimate perfection of his and
+everybody’s being.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think it would be very useful to see what we
+can do about the corn,” said the blacksmith. “If we
+are late the chances are there’ll be another drought in
+July, and our crop won’t be first-class.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is anyone’s land ready for planting?” inquired
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“None as I know of, except Brother Dummy’s,”
+said Uncle David. “He’s more forward nor anybody:
+always first in work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of course, poor deaf creature! he can’t do anything
+but dumbly work like a——” began Brother
+Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My land is ready for planting,” burst in Brother
+Huntley with a scream.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then it shall be planted to-morrow,” cried Madame.
+“I’ll go myself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You!” exclaimed Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Certainly, child. Don’t you think I can work as
+well as any other woman?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She rapidly wrote a few words on a slip of paper
+and passed it to Brother Huntley, who read it, nodded
+with satisfaction, and said: “Five o’clock in the morning!”
+in a voice so low that no one knew he was
+speaking.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I suppose he begins work about six?” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, he don’t, he’s mighty spry,” said old Mrs.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>Ruby, who lived near the Huntleys. “I hear him
+a-movin’ off with his plough every morning at five
+by the clock. He’s terrible sot on his work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I shall be there ready to go to work at five
+o’clock in the morning, and I shall begin by going
+to bed now, so as to be able to give a good day’s
+work. Good-night, friends all.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She rose, included them all in a sweeping salute
+and left the room as lightly as she had entered. Balthasar
+rose and slowly followed her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When Madame left the room the meeting broke
+up. No one felt inclined to linger when she was gone.
+It was from her they drew their interest in each other,
+as well as their belief in themselves and in Perfection
+City. She possessed the secret of influencing people
+without seeming to do so. The thought that she was
+going out on the land at five in the morning to plant
+corn made everyone ten times more eager to work
+than heretofore.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Wright and his independent spouse, Mary Winkle,
+were infected by her example as they went
+home.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Now, Wright, don’t you go and do any more
+essaying till the crop is in. I think people oughtn’t
+to write except in winter time,” said Mary Winkle
+with firmness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I never believed in nothing but manual work.
+Why, if I did, I should be still slaving away on that
+farm out in Illinois, instead of joining a community
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>here where one can follow the bent of his higher nature,
+to the advantage of his neighbours as well as of
+himself,” said Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, let that be,” said Mary hastily, recognising
+her own words and oft-expressed opinions, but not
+quite knowing what to do with them—a predicament
+not unexampled among theoretical philosophers,
+“but see and be out on the land to-morrow as early
+as anyone. Are you ready for the planting? Because
+I’ll go out and plant if you are.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, my drills won’t be ready for the planting
+till day after to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I’ll go and plant on Brother Dummy’s
+piece along with Madame.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You’d better not. You’re not fit for such work.
+You’ll get sick and not be able to cook me any supper
+when I come home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I shan’t get sick. I ain’t going to let
+any person beat me at work, when I set my mind
+to it, and she in her long skirts too! I’ll show
+her the advantage of the reformed dress anyhow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Thus the Wright and Winkle pair on their way
+home.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And will she really plant corn?” asked Olive in
+some curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Certainly she will. Madame never despised
+work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! I don’t despise work, but she seems such
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>a fine lady to go out on the land and plant corn just
+like a negro woman.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That is one of the things our life here is intended
+to show, dearie, that no one is too grand for any honest
+work that he or she is physically capable of performing.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER V.<br /> <span class='large'>CORN PLANTING.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Punctual to the minute, there was Madame with
+her bag of corn on her left arm, following Brother
+Huntley and his plough-horses to the field, in the
+damp white fog of sunrise. Balthasar in deep disgust
+was there too, as in duty bound, but he had not a
+wag for anybody. How could a rational dog be in
+good spirits at that hour of the morning! Madame
+was dressed in a short calico frock well up to her
+ankles. Her fair hair was loosely wisped at the back
+of her head, and a large straw hat, tied down with
+a green gauze veil, made her look at once comfortable
+in the fog and ready for the expected sunshine. There
+were no corn-planters at Perfection City: farm-machinery
+was not then so plentiful on the prairie as
+now, and money was if possible scarcer. Corn planting
+was, therefore, done by hand. Brother Dummy’s
+drills of longitude were already ploughed, and he
+began on the drills of latitude forthwith. Into the
+hollows made by the intersection of these two sets
+of drills Madame was to drop three grains of corn,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>neither more nor less. It is dizzying work. After
+walking up and down the drills for hours one becomes
+oppressed by the never-ceasing square constantly recurring
+every two steps. The check pattern bewilders
+you, and you begin to wonder how a chess-man would
+feel if, endowed with sensibility and the power of
+motion, he had to march up and down his chess-board,
+always keeping to the lines for hours at a stretch.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>About seven o’clock Mary Winkle came upon the
+scene and plodded and planted for four hours. The
+sun was blazing down upon them pitilessly, and the
+parching south wind blew the fine black dust up from
+the rich dry soil, until their eyes and ears and noses
+were full of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The field which they were planting was on the
+extreme verge of the community-land, far away from
+the houses. These were somewhat clustered towards
+the centre of the holding, which consisted of two sections
+or a little over twelve hundred acres. The
+workers, therefore, were a long way from home, considerably
+over a mile, and since corn planting entails
+ceaseless walking through heavy ploughed land, it had
+been settled that their dinner should be brought out
+to them, so as to enable the workers to rest during
+the whole dinner hour. Olive and Mrs. Ruby were
+to supply the necessary food, and the former, aided
+by Napoleon Pompey, was to bring it to the field at
+eleven o’clock. The little grove of locust trees just
+beginning to grow beside the far spring was the trysting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>place. Water would thus be handy, and the horses’
+feed was already put there by the provident Brother
+Huntley. A little before the hour Olive and her black
+attendant arrived at the grove, bringing their load of
+food, and Olive set down her big tin can with a sigh
+of relief. Her arms ached with carrying it, for it was
+heavy and the way was long. Napoleon Pompey had
+carried two cans, each heavier than hers, but the lad
+seemed to feel no inconvenience from the load. Olive
+looked at him with envy and thought with contempt
+of her own muscles which appeared so inefficient. As
+she unpacked the food, it seemed to her that nothing
+she had learnt at Smyrna and could best do, was
+wanted on the prairie, and she remembered with some
+amusement and not a little bitterness Mary Winkle’s
+words about food for the mind. At this moment she
+reflected that all the learning in the world was not so
+much needed by that philosophical lady as the very
+gross and material food which was being taken out
+of the heavy tin cans and laid on the grass. The
+working-party, men, women and horses, arrived while
+Olive was thus engaged. Mary Winkle instantly sat
+down and leaned against a tree and threw off her sunbonnet.
+Her thin black hair was matted down to her
+temples, her cheeks were yellow, and her eyes looked
+dull. Madame also took off her hat and veil and shook
+up the coil of hair on her head with a sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Does your head ache too?” said Mary Winkle
+wearily.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>“Not in the least,” replied Madame. “A sunbonnet
+is a bad shelter against heat. You should
+wear a good hat, it is far better.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wonder how you can bear all that hair on your
+head. Why don’t you cut it off?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, it is an admirable protection against both
+heat and cold,” said Madame laughing. “It is my
+greatest comfort.” She might have added her greatest
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The food which Olive brought was most appetising,
+roast chicken, hot corn-bread, and pumpkin pies,
+with plenty of milk and water to drink. Before eating
+Madame went to the spring to wash her hands and
+face, and Mary Winkle sat limply against the tree
+trunk with her eyes shut.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Eat something, it will revive you,” said Olive,
+looking with pity upon her sallow cheeks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t feel hardly able to eat,” she said in a
+weak voice. “It seems to me I don’t ever want to
+open my eyes again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are overworking yourself,” said Olive, “you
+should not attempt this field work: it is beyond your
+strength.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What! and let her see me give in?” said Mary
+Winkle with reviving spirit.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame came up at this moment looking as
+fresh as a lily: she glanced sharply at Sister Mary.
+“You appear very much exhausted,” she remarked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>Sister Mary raised her head and opened her eyes,
+but did not speak.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It’s a pity you don’t take wine,” she continued,
+sitting down and beginning on her piece of chicken
+with relish. “A good glass of Burgundy would set
+you up in no time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Sister Mary herself sat up at this.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t touch wine, no, not if I was dying,”
+she said resolutely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame smiled. “I didn’t recommend it because
+you were dying: wine as everything else is then useless:
+but because you look weak. I suggested a medicine.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“As a medicine it is worse than useless, and as a
+drink I scorn to take a rank poison.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Poisons are sometimes given as medicine, witness
+strychnine in small doses for certain forms of dyspepsia,
+and I believe satisfactorily,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wine is worse than strychnine, because more
+insidious in its action and more liable to abuse,” said
+Mary Winkle decisively, as she took the tin cup of
+milk and water handed her by Olive, and drank it
+with eagerness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, at all events admit that wine has been
+of benefit to you on this occasion,” observed Madame
+smiling. “I merely mentioned it to you, and you
+look already revived and more like yourself. Doesn’t
+she, Sister Olive?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It was the milk and water did it,” said Sister
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>Mary Winkle hurriedly, at which Madame smiled
+again.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Dummy and Napoleon Pompey now came
+up to the group of women. They had been watering
+and unharnessing the horses who were at the present
+moment munching their corn. The white man, although
+dirty as a ploughman would be after half a
+day’s hard work, sat down promptly beside Mary Winkle
+and helped himself to a leg of chicken: the negro
+boy stood aside doubtfully, eyeing the group and the
+food with longing looks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Come along, N. P.,” said Olive brightly, “sit
+down there.” She pointed to a place on the other
+side of Mary Winkle, where there seemed a good opening
+in front of a huge piece of corn-bread.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, if you please,” said Sister Mary, rising to
+her feet with resentment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Olive flushing
+with surprise. “Napoleon Pompey won’t bite you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have never sat down to eat beside a negro, and
+I don’t feel inclined to begin now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Let the lad sit beside me,” said Madame gently.
+“I have seen people of too many shades of colour
+and no colour to mind a little extra dash of black.
+Come here, boy, come and have this piece of bread
+and meat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Napoleon Pompey grinning with all his white teeth
+sprang to the place beside Madame, and buried those
+same teeth eagerly in his chunk of bread. Mary Winkle
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>sat down again and leaned against the tree. Olive’s
+face took a deeper tinge of red and her eyes snapped.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you consider yourself made of such fine clay
+that it won’t bear contact with a negro?” she asked
+hotly. “It seems to me a little of what used to be
+called Christian charity might come in useful here. I
+never aspired to the heights of Perfection City people,
+but I never refused the rights of brotherhood to the
+negro simply because of the curl of his hair or the
+colour of his skin.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am quite willing to give them all their rights
+and will be glad to see them educated and all that,
+but I never sat at dinner with a negro, and I am not
+going to begin now,” said Mary Winkle setting her
+thin pale lips with the utmost stubbornness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I call it perfectly monstrous,” retorted
+Olive, “and you setting yourself up to show the better
+life and all the rest of it! I should have thought the
+first thing to do before teaching the highest perfection
+was to practise the simplest justice.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you, Sister Olive,” said Madame’s cool sweet
+voice, “will have to learn to respect the prejudices
+of other people even when they run counter to your
+most cherished theories. I do not myself share the
+feeling of repulsion that Sister Mary has in this case,
+but I respect it. I would suggest to you to do the
+same. It is an inconvenient fact, perhaps, that people
+do not all think alike, but it is one that must be resolutely
+faced nevertheless.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>Olive was silent under this reproof, but she looked
+angrily at Mary Winkle from time to time, and revenged
+herself by feeding up Napoleon Pompey and
+petting him to an alarming extent, much to the delight
+of that young darkie who ate until he seemed
+to ooze out unctuous joy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Dummy ate, as he worked, silently, conscientiously,
+continuously. Olive was amazed at the
+amount he seemed able to consume, while of milk and
+water he drank half a gallon or thereabouts.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How can he do it?” said Olive in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You forget,” replied Madame, “that he has been
+following that plough for six long hours, and the
+dry wind raised such a dust around him that he must
+have swallowed a vast quantity of it in the course of
+the day. It takes a good deal to slake the thirst after
+such a dust visitation as that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When Brother Dummy had eaten and drunk his
+fill he lay down on the grass and went instantly to
+sleep. The three women looked at him for a moment
+or two.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He seems to have very little enjoyment in his
+life,” said Olive compassionately.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But then he has also few sorrows,” said Madame.
+“The high lights are wanting, perhaps, but so are the
+dark shadows. His life is like a grey landscape. It
+has a beauty of its own, but not everyone can see it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“To live in eternal silence seems to me the most
+awful curse,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>“I can imagine many a worse one,” replied Madame,
+looking out from among the few bare trees
+away across the open prairie.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What could be worse?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, for example, to know that someone you
+loved did not love you. To have to shut up your heart
+within iron doors, and never open them to let it out.
+That would be worse than to be denied the power of
+speech, which after all can now be supplemented in
+many ways by artificial means. Brother Huntley is
+not actively unhappy, I should judge. He and his
+wife have always appeared to me to be a very united
+couple.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They cannot quarrel, at all events,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, not, at least, in the ordinary way,” replied
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When Brother Dummy awoke after his little
+snooze, he got up, looked at the sun to see what time
+of day it was, and then signed to Napoleon Pompey
+to rouse up. That young person was lethargic, owing
+to his anaconda-like meal, accordingly Brother Dummy
+roused him with his foot. The darkie rolled over
+and said “Yah!” and started for the horses, who were
+nodding over their corn-cobs, now nibbled down to
+the smallest dimensions. Olive, whose resentment at
+the slight put upon Napoleon Pompey by Mary Winkle
+urged her to identify herself with the negro boy,
+walked away with him and Brother Dummy to watch
+the hitching up. Madame employed herself in throwing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>scraps of bread to Balthasar, who would have much
+preferred eating the chicken bones, only that was a
+debauch not permitted to a dog of his manners. Mary
+Winkle looked hopelessly along those weary furrows,
+up and down which it would be her duty to march
+again, dropping her seeds of corn as before.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Are you going to work all the afternoon?” she
+asked of her companion.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I think so. We shall get this field planted
+and covered in by sun-down, I should think. And
+that will be a great piece of work done. We cannot
+afford to let the individualists beat us at corn planting,
+can we? We must do at least as well as they, and I
+should hope we might do better.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know how you can stand so much heat
+and hard work,” said Mary, “and in that dress too.
+Why, if I were to attempt to work in long skirts I
+should be dead in a week.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t mind my dress at all,” said Madame.
+“It never bothers me. I don’t think about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But don’t you think about it when your back
+aches?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It never does.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t understand it,” says Mary once more.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I suspect that the reason you American women
+find your dress such a burden is because you are so
+weak yourselves,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“American women accomplish as much or more
+than any others, I should say,” observed Mary.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>“Precisely, but not from their muscular strength.
+They work out of their nerves, and that is why they
+never last any length of time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame finished her day’s work at six o’clock, and
+then walked home humming a German dance tune to
+herself. Mary Winkle stopped at four o’clock, and
+dragged herself home to bed with a fearsome headache,
+still puzzling how it was that her perfect dress had
+not done better for her in that day’s trial. She did
+not know that all her scientific dressing was as nothing
+compared with the robust vitality, which Madame
+brought with her from another land, and which, running
+in such vigorous beats through her blood, was
+inherited from generations of strong healthy ancestors.
+Madame’s father was a Russian colonel noted
+for his size and strength and also for his wildness.
+Her mother was a pretty English girl, who had nothing
+to bequeath to her daughter but health, personal
+beauty, and this piece of advice: “Never stake your
+happiness on any man, it always brings disaster to
+the woman.” Mary Winkle’s mother, on the other
+hand, was a nervous invalid at thirty, and her father
+was a dyspeptic dietetic reformer, who pinned his salvation
+on never eating salt. Small wonder, therefore,
+that the daughter of the one pair should be able to
+plant corn all day long and walk lightly home at evening,
+while the offspring of the other pair could do
+only three quarters of a day’s work, after which headache
+and nervous exhaustion.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VI.<br /> <span class='large'>NON-RESISTANCE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>It was the custom of the Pioneers to send once a
+week to Union Mills in order to do their necessary
+marketing and to get the post, which came there twice
+a week from Kansas City by stage-coach. The subject
+of the post was one that had been rather hotly
+debated at Perfection City, although to the outsider
+it would seem a very harmless topic, and not fruitful
+of division. The fact was, however, that there was
+only one member of the Community who showed any
+eagerness about getting letters regularly and often,
+and that member was Madame. She indeed did receive
+a most unconscionable number of letters and periodicals,
+so the other members thought. She got several
+American Magazines, such as the Atlantic Monthly
+and Harper’s, but she also received English papers,
+and French ones, and occasionally German ones as
+well. The Community thought, but did not dare to
+give public expression to the thought, that Madame
+should have rested content with the mental sustenance
+provided by themselves for home consumption.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>Brother Wright in particular felt himself equal to the
+task of providing everybody with all they needed in
+the way of correct views upon even the highest subjects.
+But Madame, although she listened with politeness
+and apparent attention to what he had to say,
+found this sustenance too meagre for the wants of her
+nature. Moreover she took a deep interest in the affairs
+of the outside world, an interest almost offensive
+to persons who prided themselves upon having risen
+above the world and all its concerns. It was really
+humiliating to think that the leading spirit of their
+Community should occupy her mind with the relations
+between Prussia and Austria, when such questions as
+affected the future of humanity and of Perfection City
+were what filled their souls. She even evinced a keen
+interest in the career and personality of the Prussian
+minister, Bismarck, and that, too, when Brother
+Wright was willing to give her the light of his
+thoughts upon all really important questions. It was
+painful to the feeling of the Pioneers, who were all
+in all to themselves and wished to be so to others, but
+they had to put up with it, since Madame was their
+leader and, moreover, the only one who had a purse
+with some money in it. Ezra was the only member of
+the Community who sided with Madame in her taste
+for reading the new books and the latest periodicals.
+He and she had that taste, with many others, in common,
+and it drew them together in an especial degree.
+On his last trip East during the winter, when he
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>had been so unexpectedly delayed, as they now knew,
+by meeting with his fate in the shape of Olive, one of
+his commissions had been to bring back a box of books,
+which were now arranged in neat shelves in Madame’s
+private sitting-room. And yet notwithstanding all
+these books, a hundred or more, the steady stream of
+papers, periodicals, and magazines continued as before,
+and had to be fetched regularly from Union
+Mills.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The brethren took it in turns to go to the town,
+which was some ten miles distant, and they always combined
+some useful business with the fetching of the
+letters. Brother Wright was a frequent messenger,
+for he liked going better than Ezra did, while of course
+Brother Dummy was precluded by his affliction from
+going, and Brother Carpenter was hopelessly unable
+to drive horses. Some of the women generally contrived
+to find an excuse for going to Union Mills, for
+women like to get away from the petty cares of house
+and home, a peculiarity from which the sisters of
+Perfection City were by no means exempt. In particular
+Mrs. Ruby, invariably called Aunt Ruby, loved
+to go. She thus got a chance of seeing new faces and
+talking with new people. She would not for worlds
+have confessed that she was tired of the restricted
+society of Perfection City, but she knew so well what
+each had to say, that it was refreshing to go out sometimes
+into the world and meet people whose ideas
+could not always be guessed beforehand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>It so happened that the day after the corn planting
+it became necessary to go to Union Mills in order to
+take a grist of corn to be ground. Madame suggested
+that Brother Wright should go, while Brother Dummy
+took up his plough-handles and finished the field
+the former was preparing for the corn. Mary Winkle,
+still prostrated by the previous day’s hard work, urged
+her spouse to go, “For then,” said she, “if you ain’t
+here I needn’t get any dinner. I’ll just send Willette
+over to Sister Olive’s for dinner, and I needn’t stir
+till milking time.” This seemed a happy arrangement,
+and her husband set off shortly after breakfast,
+picking up Aunt Ruby as he passed her cottage.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Be you lonesome living in that house by yourself?”
+asked Brother Wright as they jogged along
+over the prairie, for it had struck him as very lonely
+that morning as he drove up.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no, I ain’t lonely, least not most whiles,”
+answered Aunt Ruby, an alert little old woman, not
+unlike a bird in her quick movements. “In the
+summer-time there’s allus the chickens to see to an’
+feed an’ ten’, an’ chickens is powerful spry an’ talkin’
+birds. They most allus has somethin’ to scold an’
+chatter ’bout, chickens an’ hens has, an’ cocks. Then
+in the winter I hev the clock tickin’ loud o’ evenin’s,
+an’ that’s most as good as a pusson in the room, an’
+there’s allus the cat, an’ mostly the kettle singin’ on
+the stove. Come to think on’t, there’s a heap o’ company
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>in a house like mine, if you on’y has ears to hear
+an’ un’erstan’ what is said by beasts an’ things.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Yet notwithstanding this “heap o’ company” Aunt
+Ruby dearly loved a good gossip with the saddler’s
+wife at Union Mills, whenever that luxury was attainable.
+On the present occasion Aunt Ruby had a real
+good time, for Brother Wright was delayed longer
+than usual, first in order to get some harness mended,
+and afterwards to have a shoe replaced that suddenly
+showed signs of coming off one of the horses. Thus
+it was very near sun-down before they left Union
+Mills. Aunt Ruby, owing in large measure to her
+gossip, and also partly to an exceptionally strong cup
+of tea, was in a highly nervous and excitable frame
+of mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Had Brother Wright, she asked, heard of that
+rumour about the Cherokees? And did he think there
+was any danger of their leaving their Reservation and
+going on the war-path? Brother Wright, who had a
+poor opinion of Indians, and a worse one of the way
+in which the white men had treated them, thought on
+the whole that the rumour might be considered false.
+This comforted Aunt Ruby, to whom the word “Injun”
+suggested torture and death and all sorts of
+horrors. She remained comforted until she remembered
+that other rumour—about the raid of border
+ruffians from out of Missouri. Brother Wright thought
+it highly probable that this rumour might prove to be
+true. Missouri men had raided Kansas more than once,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>and it was possible they might do so again at any moment.
+With conversation such as this they came to
+the end of the daylight and the beginning of the trees
+around Cotton Wood Creek about the same time.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shall be glad when we are safe over this ford
+and out of the dark wood beyond,” said Brother
+Wright, trying to urge his horses along, but he had
+a heavy load of timber and coal and some iron bars
+for smith-work.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ain’t it near here that those people over beyond
+Jacksonville got robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby, nervously
+peering about in the gloom with her weak old
+eyes. At this moment some distant creature made a
+shrill scream or howl.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! what was that,” exclaimed Aunt Ruby nervously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That was a prairie wolf, I guess,” answered
+Brother Wright quietly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Silence followed, except for the creaking of the
+waggon, the straining of the horses at their traces,
+and an occasional clang made by one of the bars of
+iron which was not sufficiently wedged up with hay.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If those Missouri border ruffians came to Perfection
+City, do you reckon our principles would save
+us from being robbed?” asked Aunt Ruby. “Most
+everybody knows as we are non-resistants.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t think our principles would stand in the
+way of a Missouri man. More likely they would take
+advantage of them. They are mean cusses, and are
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>used to riding rough-shod over principles and rights.
+It is a recognised thing everywhere that women and
+children are non-resistants, yet that does not save ’em
+from being raided and robbed by border ruffians.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you think they would rob us, peaceful folks
+as ha’n’t no arms nor nothin’?” asked Aunt Ruby
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I guess they would try,” replied Brother Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I think as we oughter reconsider our principles
+a mite,” said Aunt Ruby. “For if we are robbed
+and killed by folks as can’t un’erstan’ the higher life,
+we shan’t be able to teach the world nothin’. An’
+what’s the good o’ principles when you’re dead an’
+gone an’ undergroun’?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That is so,” assented Brother Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I didn’t never think on’t in this light afore,” said
+Aunt Ruby. “It ’pears to me as how we should
+meet together an’ try an’ settle some way as how
+we can keep our principles an’ yet live on the
+prairie.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I guess you’ve pretty nearly said the truth,” said
+Brother Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What we hev to do is to live here an’ show ’em
+our principles at work, an’ not die straightway afore
+we’ve done anything to improve mankind. That’s
+my view,” said Aunt Ruby. “What do you think,
+Brother Wright?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Instead of answering Brother Wright pulled up
+short and looked intently in front of him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Aunt Ruby in
+a high-pitched voice of alarm.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Hush!” replied her companion, “don’t make a
+noise.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby’s heart began to beat violently. “Do
+you see anything?” she asked in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I see a man over there by the road, sitting on
+horseback with his right arm out pointing towards the
+waggon.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! brother, I wish you had a carnal weapon
+of defence,” said Aunt Ruby in a shaking voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have,” replied Brother Wright, pulling an uncommonly
+useful-looking Colt’s revolver from his
+breeches pocket. “I always carry one in case of
+Injuns.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Again they sat silent for a moment, the horses
+shook their heads, and one of them stamped a foot.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who goes there?” hailed Brother Wright in a
+loud defiant voice. “Drop that right arm of yours
+or I’ll fire.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>No answer.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The figure sat motionless, the right hand still
+raised in that menacing attitude.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am a man of my word,” said Brother Wright,
+rising to his feet and sighting his revolver steadily
+on the figure, while to Aunt Ruby he said, “Hold on
+tight, the horses will jump.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A shot rang out on the still night air. The horses
+nearly jumped out of their skins with fright, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>would certainly have run away, only the waggon was
+very heavy, and they decided to run in different directions.
+Hence they only jerked each other almost
+to the ground and then stood still amazed and trembling.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Better make sure,” said Brother Wright, emptying
+another barrel at the figure which appeared to remain
+motionless in the uncertain foggy light. This
+time the horses came to the same conclusion and tried
+to turn round abruptly, but the attempt was expertly
+frustrated by Brother Wright and a cowhide whip of
+exceptional stinging power. Having thus reduced the
+horses to reason, he again turned his attention to the
+figure and saw with amazement that it still sat on
+horseback in the same spot.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I swan!” said Brother Wright, rubbing
+his eyes. “That beats all! It can’t be a mortal
+man, or he would have either dropped or returned
+fire. I guess I’ll drive on and do no more shooting
+this time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He stowed his pistol away in his pocket and
+drove on.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Hadn’t you better keep the weapon handy?”
+suggested Aunt Ruby. “You might lay it down in
+my lap, if you like.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, thank’ee,” replied Brother Wright. “I don’t
+generally give that sort of thing to women to hold
+for me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He pulled up at a little opening just near the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>ford, where the faint light of a crescent moon showed
+between the bare branches of the trees, and a sort
+of water-fog hung along the elder bushes by the banks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is the spot he was standing,” remarked
+Wright, “the exact spot. I guess I’ll just look and
+see if there is any trail. The ground is soft about
+here and should show up pretty clear.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He descended from the waggon and carefully examined
+the side of the road, but could see nothing.
+There was a large stump with a broken branch sticking
+out which attracted his attention, and he walked
+around it a couple of times, surveying it critically in
+the uncertain light.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I swan!” he exclaimed, after the third
+inspection. “I didn’t think I could have been mistaken.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Then he climbed back into the waggon, and said,
+“Gee-up!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did you fin’ any tracks o’ robbers?” asked his
+companion anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No,” replied Brother Wright, “no tracks of robbers,
+but I lighted on the trail of a doggauned fool.
+Guess we’ll not say much about the attack made on
+our waggon, at Little Cotton Wood Creek.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I won’t mention it at all,” remarked Aunt Ruby,
+“’cause it might frighten the folks up to Perfection
+City an’ make ’em uneasy ’bout coming to Union
+Mills.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Wright only chuckled in reply, possibly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>because his whole attention was required at this juncture
+to get his horses and waggon safely through the
+water, for it was certainly very dark in that bottom-land.
+Once the creek was crossed and the high prairie
+reached, it became easy enough to see by the light
+of the new moon and the stars, and the pair reached
+Perfection City in safety, although very late.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Wright was very eager to unravel the
+mystery of that horseman at the ford on Little Cotton
+Wood Creek, so he made a private expedition thither
+on horseback as soon as he could frame an excuse for
+a morning’s absence. He went to the place whence
+he had first seen the alarming stranger, half closed
+his sharp grey eyes, and looked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I swan!” he remarked, as this expression
+seemed somehow to relieve his feelings. By daylight
+there was nothing suspicious to be seen, but the old
+stump with the broken branch sticking out from it
+straight towards the spectator. Brother Wright surveyed
+this stump critically and came to the conclusion
+that with the help of darkness, a slight mist, a
+new moon, and a nervous companion, the old stump
+might take on an alarming aspect. He rode up to the
+stump, got off his horse, and examined it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I should like to know that I hit him plumb with
+both bullets anyhow,” remarked he, with a grin most
+unbecoming to a Perfection City non-resistant. He
+had hit “him” plumb, but so had other people, and
+the amazed Brother Wright counted no less than seventeen
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>bullet holes, both old and new, in the body of
+that long suffering stump.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I be jiggered!” said Brother Wright as he
+mounted his horse. “What a sight of blamed fools
+there must be in the world!” and with this comforting
+reflection he rode home, and ever after held his
+peace about the episode on the ford of Little Cotton
+Wood Creek. And so likewise did Aunt Ruby, that
+talkative old lady. But sometimes, when she and
+Brother Wright looked into each other’s eyes, they
+grinned a little sheepishly, showing that the recollection
+of it had not quite faded from their minds.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VII.<br /> <span class='large'>WILLETTE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Willette, the only child of the Wright and Winkle
+pair, was a young person of considerable character,
+which had undergone little of the attempted modification
+which we call education. At the time of
+Olive’s arrival at Perfection City this child was about
+eleven years old, and was as wild a specimen of a
+girl as could be easily found even on the prairie. Her
+mother had endeavoured to clothe her in garments
+known as the “reform-dress,” and had made her a
+suit of lilac calico, consisting of short tunic, and full-gathered
+trousers of the prescribed pattern. Willette
+had put on these things and had promptly complained
+of “scratchiness” around the neck and arm-holes,
+owing probably to deficiency of skill on the part of
+her mother in the making of the said garments. Shortly
+afterwards, being called upon to do some cattle-hunting,
+Willette had set out in all the pride of her
+new clothes to ride down some young steers who were
+proving refractory. The steers took shelter in the
+bottom-land along Little Cotton Wood Creek, and skilfully
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>hid themselves in the brushwood there, among
+the trailing wild vines and the spiky wilder plums
+which formed a very good barrier against pursuing
+man. Willette plunged bravely into the brush, and
+after a fierce struggle returned with one steer and
+half her dress. The other half remained in the brush
+along with the rest of the steers. Repeated onslaughts
+reduced her almost to nakedness, but she brought home
+the full complement of steers and an abundant assortment
+of scratches on her legs. After that Willette
+had enough of her mother’s system of dress, and accordingly
+she evolved one of her own.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I ain’t agoin’ to cattle-hunt in no more o’ your
+cobwebs, Ma,” explained this young person. “I
+reckon I’ll go a-ridin’ like a boy next time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Willette appropriated one of her father’s pants
+made of the material known as hickory, which is supposed
+to resist any tear or strain. The current legend
+attached to real out-and-out hickory is as follows. A
+farmer arrayed in hickory was one day rooting out
+old stumps from a newly-cleared field with a new
+patent plough. He came to a regular stunner which
+jerked the plough clean out of the land. He backed
+up, took a good hold of the plough-handles, gave a
+mighty yell to the horses, and drove the plough clean
+through the stump, which split open in the middle.
+The plough and the man passed through, but the
+stump closed up again and caught his hickory trousers.
+The horses strained at the collar, but the man
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>would not let go of the plough, nor would the stump
+relinquish its grasp of the hickory trousers. So he
+rested his horses a spell, took a big breath, and said
+“Hallelujah!” whereupon the horses went forward
+with a bound and brought plough, man, trousers, and
+stump along with them!</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was a garment of this incomparable material that
+Willette appropriated to her use. She cut off the legs
+until the length suited her stature, regardless of the
+fit of the waist, clothed the upper part of her body
+in a pink check shirt, put a boy’s cap upon her head,
+and announced her intention of henceforth dressing
+like that. She was a chip off the old block with a vengeance,
+and Mary Winkle, after one affrighted gasp,
+was obliged to admit that her own principles, as put
+into practice by her daughter, were too much for her.
+Wright laughed immensely, and said she was a boy
+now and would do first-rate.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Willette was totally uneducated, could not write
+her name and could scarcely read, but she did not
+lack for intelligence. She knew the hour of the day,
+by looking at the sun, as well as a negro, and
+she could distinguish a horse from a cow at four
+miles distance. She knew every beast for miles
+around, and to whom it belonged, and could remember
+for a month every cow she had come across
+on the prairie and which way it was heading. She
+understood the moods and intentions of all kinds
+of animals almost as if she was one of the species
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>herself, and she never was at fault on a cattle-trail.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive found immense amusement in talking to
+Willette, who expressed herself with the utmost freedom
+upon all subjects in language which would have
+done credit to a nigger. The child, on the other hand,
+had a supreme contempt for Olive’s abilities and attainments,
+which seemed ludicrously deficient, but
+felt a kindly patronising sort of regard for her, and
+liked to look at her pretty face and touch her smooth
+round cheeks. The pair were therefore often together,
+and Willette undertook to teach her friend to ride,
+provided she would get some sensible clothes and ride
+in the only way that Willette imagined it possible
+for a two-legged human being to bestride a quadruped.
+Olive therefore made herself a bewitching riding-habit
+with Turkish trousers, and rode a high-peaked
+Mexican saddle, out of which even a sack of meal
+could not tumble if it tried. As soon as Olive began
+to feel confidence in herself and her horse, she enjoyed
+the riding immensely. She claimed the refusal of a
+horse on every possible opportunity when one could
+be spared from the farm work. Ezra, delighted to see
+her so pleased with a healthy exercise, encouraged
+her to go cattle-hunting with Willette, and enjoyed
+the spirited reports which she used to bring home from
+these exhilarating expeditions.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I do wish I had a pony of my very own which
+I could take out whenever I wanted a ride, and which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>would be always there for me,” said Olive one day
+to Ezra after she had been riding by herself on Rebel.
+Ezra was hoeing up the newly sprouted sweet-corn, and
+the horses were not at work on the land. In his inmost
+heart he re-echoed the wish, and would at that
+moment have given anything to be an individualist
+and be able to say: “Darling, I’ll buy you a pony with
+the first load of corn I sell.” He looked at his pretty
+wife’s glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and thought
+with a groan that he was tied by his principles and
+prevented by them and the public opinion of the Community
+from giving his wife this enjoyment. It was
+the first time that his heart had come into conflict
+with the perfect theories of Perfection City, and he
+was amazed and disturbed to find how very much he
+was vexed by them. Fortunately Olive dismissed the
+idea of a pony of her own as an unattainable bliss,
+and contented herself with chance rides on Rebel
+and Queen Katherine, the two horses which inhabited
+Ezra’s stable and were generally used by him on his
+side of the community-land.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive’s courage and spirit of independence, fostered
+by a very mild-tempered horse, grew apace. She soon
+felt able to dispense with the escort and instruction
+of Willette and go cattle-hunting alone. She learned
+quickly enough to know the sixty head of cattle belonging
+to the Community, and where to look for
+them. The cattle, which consisted of the usual mixture
+of milch cows, steers, yearlings, and calves, had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>been bought at different times and were apportioned
+to the different families in rough division, chiefly because
+each woman liked to have the cows she was to
+milk, driven up to her own fence near to her own
+house to save trouble. The cattle, consequently,
+seemed to have become intensely individualistic in
+their tendencies, and absolutely refused to graze in
+common. Each bell-cow led off her own herd of steers
+and yearlings where she thought best on the prairie,
+and it was seldom that any two of those “leading
+ladies” chose to go to the same spot. If they did
+they generally quarrelled and fought a bit. Cattle-hunting,
+therefore, became a sufficiently diversified occupation
+in which the unexpected frequently occurred.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>One day it happened that Olive and Diana, now
+old enough to run with her on her expeditions, had
+been to the head of Little Cotton Wood Creek to look
+for a cow that had hidden away her calf there, after
+the manner of prairie cows. Olive found the truant
+and the “little stranger,” along with half a dozen
+young cattle, and was driving them slowly homewards,
+when she became convinced from Rebel’s demonstrations
+that something was annoying him under the flap
+of his saddle. In fact he was constantly trying to bite
+Olive’s leg in a way which agitated her not a little. Accordingly
+she resolved to take off the saddle and make
+an inspection. She dismounted, undid the girths, and
+lifted off the heavy Mexican saddle. Rebel, who had
+always hitherto regarded this proceeding as indicating
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>immediate liberty, no sooner felt the saddle removed
+than he took a base advantage of Olive, and
+kicking up his heels bounded away from her. She
+set the saddle in the grass and walked pacifically after
+Rebel, held out a deceitful hand and called him endearing
+names. Rebel listened to her honeyed words with
+his ears flat on his neck, and as soon as she came near,
+again kicked up his heels and bounded off.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Diana considering all this a joke in which a puppy
+might lend valuable assistance, now pranced forward
+with energetic barks, and the cows and calves deeming
+themselves to be driven with fierceness, set up a
+lumbering trot across the prairie, the new-made mother
+every now and then diving ineffectually after Diana
+with a plunge and a snort. A stampede had set in
+among the animals, and Olive sat down and cried
+with vexation and alarm. Her home showed clear
+and distinct against the horizon just four miles in a
+bee-line from where she sat shedding her ineffectual
+tears. Now Diana, although a feminine creature and
+also a puppy, and therefore endowed with a double
+dose of original foolishness, was likewise a dog, and
+consequently amenable to the highest inspirations of
+a noble nature. Having therefore in her character of
+puppy worried and distracted the animals to her
+heart’s content, she suddenly felt bound to exhibit
+some of the better sides of her nature, among which
+remains forever pre-eminent fidelity to the master.
+Seeing that Olive was not in the scrimmage, Diana
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>turned her back resolutely upon the delights of snapping
+at calves’ heels, and putting her nose to the
+ground raced straight back to Olive weeping in the
+grass. After an apologetic wriggle Diana sat down
+and looked at Olive. Now no philosopher or other
+mortal has ever succeeded in being as wise as a tired
+puppy can look. Therefore when Olive in spite of
+her woe caught sight of Diana’s face and attitude, she
+burst into a laugh in the midst of her tears, whereupon
+the latter sprang merrily up and licked her face. Thus
+comforted, Olive arose, and then became aware that
+she didn’t know where the saddle was. She had neglected
+to mark its position in any way when going
+on that deceitful embassy to Rebel, but indeed it would
+not have been easy to mark the position of the saddle.
+The grass was in its greatest summer height, and there
+was neither bush nor tree anywhere for miles around.
+There was not even a hillock or knoll of ground to
+give individuality to one spot more than another, all
+was the relentless rolling prairie—a vast grassy sea
+where one billow was exactly like a hundred others.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was in dismay. Here was a fresh cause for
+tribulation, for the saddle was new and expensive,
+and moreover it belonged to the Community. She
+would not have minded facing Ezra with a tale of any
+sort of disaster or loss, for she knew he would kiss
+her and pet her and say, “Never mind, darling, don’t
+grieve, it doesn’t matter two jack-straws.” But a community-saddle
+was quite another matter, and Olive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>shrank from the ordeal of community-anger at the
+loss of its saddle, and community-contempt for her
+carelessness in unsaddling on the prairie without putting
+the reins over her arm. She perceived now that
+anyone but a fool would have taken that simple precaution
+against disaster. “I’m not fit to live on the
+prairie,” sobbed Olive to herself. “My education is
+no use to me, and I have not got the wits of that boy-girl
+Willette. Diana, you idiot, why don’t you help
+me?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This reproach was addressed to the puppy, who
+was wallowing blissfully in the grass and thus refreshing
+herself after her scamper. Olive began to walk
+aimlessly up and down in the hope of stumbling on
+the saddle, and Diana began to do likewise, but with
+far more system. Diana’s researches were speedily
+crowned with success, and she soon sat down to an uninterrupted
+gnaw at the flap of the big Mexican saddle.
+Becoming at length aware of the disappearance of
+Diana, Olive called to her, and the puppy reared a
+mischievous face over the grass some twenty yards
+away. Going to the spot, Olive perceived the saddle
+and also the depredations of Diana’s sharp teeth upon
+the flap. She whipped the dog with a stirrup leather
+most ineffectually and then said:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What’s to be done now?” but Diana, feeling that
+her efforts had been badly rewarded, made no suggestions.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Indeed Olive’s plight after finding the saddle was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>considerably worse than before. The thing was very
+heavy. Mexican saddles are built on wood, large,
+strong and ponderous, and weigh heavier and heavier
+in proportion to the distance one carries them. Olive
+put it on her shoulders and began to see stars, she
+then tried her head and found that position still worse.
+She dragged it along by a stirrup-leather and found
+she was ruining it. Then she sat down and cried,
+which was the most useless effort she had made. What
+was she to do? If she were to leave the saddle and
+walk home she would never be able to find it again.
+There was absolutely nothing to mark the spot. By
+this time the cattle were distant specks moving solemnly
+homewards, with Rebel decorously following in
+the rear. Olive decided to remain where she was until
+Rebel and the cattle, by their arrival without her,
+should have given the alarm, which would bring Ezra
+and the rest of the Community to the rescue, somewhere
+about the middle of the night, she supposed.
+It would be humiliating, but she thought it would be
+better than abandoning the saddle which she could not
+possibly carry. She sat down to wait with what patience
+she could for rescue and humiliation. There
+was nothing to expect along that weary stretch of
+grassy sea, and yet Olive kept looking and looking
+away to the north, east, south, and west. By and by
+she beheld a horseman coming up from the distant
+west and holding a slanting course which would carry
+him past Perfection City some mile or so to the north.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>She resolved to intercept this man and ask his aid, so
+she stood up and signalled wildly with her hat. Of
+course he saw her instantly, although he was a couple
+of miles away, and equally of course he at once turned
+his horse towards her and set off at a gallop. People
+on the prairie ask and give help freely, and Olive
+had not the slightest hesitation in calling this unknown
+horseman up to her aid, although she had not
+the remotest idea who he might be. Probably he was
+a cattle-hunter like herself, at any rate a man and a
+horse would be able to give her and her saddle effectual
+assistance. The man galloped steadily on and soon
+took the ordinary appearance: big hat, red shirt, riding
+boots, belt with probably a revolver somewhere in it.
+He slowed up a little as he came near and seemed to
+be very intently looking at Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am very sorry to have troubled you,” began
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t mention it. I shall be delighted if I can
+be of use,” said the man, taking off his big hat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They both stopped short and looked hard at each
+other, for their speech had mutually revealed the fact
+that they were a lady and a gentleman, a most uncommon
+encounter on the Kansas prairie beyond the
+last bit of cultivated land.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Have you had an accident? Are you hurt?”
+asked the man, jumping off his horse and mechanically
+slinging the bridle-rein over his left arm, as Olive
+noted with some self-reproach. She told him what
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>had happened, and she saw a smile creep round his
+mouth and light up his blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That is easily remedied. I feared you must have
+been thrown,” said he. “Just mount my horse. He’s
+quiet. I’ll take you home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But the saddle,” said Olive looking very anxiously
+at that burden.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! that’s nothing,” said the stranger. “I’ll
+carry it on my arm.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You must not dream of such a thing. I could
+not think of allowing it. You are very kind, I am
+sure, but if you would take up the saddle in front
+of you that is all I want. The saddle is the only difficulty.
+I can walk quite well. I live in that house
+over there on the brow of the bluff. It is not far, but
+I could not carry that terrible saddle.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, that’s Perfection City, where the Communists
+live,” said he, looking at her curiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I live there,” replied Olive with a slight
+blush, noting the look.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And are you a communist, if I may presume to
+ask the question?” queried the stranger.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My husband was one of the founders of the—the—of
+Perfection City,” said Olive, valiantly determined
+to defend the absent.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But you are not one of the original members.
+You are surely a new-comer. I know most of them,
+by sight at all events.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am Mrs. Weston,” replied Olive with dignity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>The stranger again took off his hat, as if this were
+an introduction.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have seen your husband then, a magnificent
+specimen of manhood, to judge from the only example
+I had of his physical strength.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive felt at once mollified. Meanwhile, the
+stranger had shortened the stirrup-leathers of his
+horse, and turning to Olive he said,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And now, Mrs. Weston, allow me to give you
+a hand up to mount you on my big horse. He is quite
+gentle and I will hold the bridle.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive hesitated. “I don’t like to take your horse,”
+she said. “If you would be so kind as to leave the
+saddle——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no, you must not deprive me of the pleasure
+of your company,” interposed the stranger. “We
+will manage the saddle all right. Just spring up.
+Your riding-habit is admirably adapted for prairie
+life, and the prettiest I ever saw. Pardon my bluntness,
+but I am so little used to society, I fear I am
+very rough.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You don’t fear anything of the sort,” replied
+Olive quickly. “You are perfectly aware that your
+manners are infinitely superior to the article in general
+use hereabouts.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The man laughed pleasantly at this sally. “Well,
+let me amend my pleading,” said he, “and say, it
+is so long since I met a lady in these wilds, and that
+is true enough, Heaven knows!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>Olive mounted the big horse with the dextrous
+help of his hand and signed to him to give her the
+saddle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I couldn’t think of it,” said he, thrusting his arm
+under the saddle and hoisting it on to his shoulder.
+“It would be unspeakably uncomfortable for you
+to hold, with the stirrups whacking you at every
+step.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then you shall put it on the horse’s neck in
+front of me, or I’ll hop down this instant. It’s bad
+enough to appropriate your horse without making you
+carry my saddle as well.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Seeing her so determined, he, with a slight show
+of reluctance, placed the saddle on the neck of his
+horse, who after a shake or two submitted to the burden,
+and so they eventually turned homewards.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I suppose you are not surprised that we settlers
+out here take considerable interest in your experiment
+in communism,” remarked the man as they
+walked along.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No doubt anything out of the common excites
+comment,” said Olive guardedly, “but I should not
+have thought you could be classed as a settler out
+here. I have seen a good many, and know the type.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She felt interested in the man and curious to know
+who he was, he seemed so utterly different from all
+those she had hitherto met.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have lived here, nevertheless, for some years
+now. I have a farm on the north side of Big Cotton
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>Wood Creek. My name is Cotterell. Have you ever
+heard it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I never heard the name, but then I’ve only
+been here a very short time, only two months. I—that
+is, we came in May,” said Olive blushing somewhat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The stranger smiled a winning smile and looked
+up at her face as he answered,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I see you have only just come, and come as a
+bride to Perfection City. It has a very suitable sound
+in that connection.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He again lifted his hat, and Olive blushed more
+vividly still.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The prairie does not seem a very hopeful place
+for experiments in perfection,” continued the stranger.
+“To my eyes it looks a most God-forsaken place, but
+under certain circumstances I should be disposed to
+modify that view.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think any place will do to try and live a good
+life in, and that is what is aimed at in our little Community,”
+said Olive, standing bravely to her defence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He was silent for a time and then spoke again.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Any place can be made better by the presence
+of a good woman, I think.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We want to show how it is possible to banish
+some of the evil out of life,” said Olive, marshalling
+the expressions she had heard at the Academy with
+what skill she could.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“With some it is only necessary to be what God
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>made them in order to banish evil from their presence,”
+said he.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And we have a very noble woman as leader,”
+said Olive not quite sure of his meaning.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, indeed! You praise her, that should count
+for much. There are very mixed reports about her
+character on the prairie. Many seem to dislike and
+distrust her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“As for that I suppose there are mixed reports
+about us all,” observed Olive impartially.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Indeed there are. For instance, it is most
+confusing what people say concerning the extent
+to which you carry your communistic theories.
+Some assert that there is no limit and that you are
+logical.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Olive,
+knitting her brows.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I presume now that the land is held in common?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, certainly, and the farm implements and the
+horses and cows,” answered Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“All those don’t really touch the question. You
+live in separate houses, I believe.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of course we do. I should hate not having my
+own little house. It would be like a hotel or a penitentiary
+for all to live under one roof. I wouldn’t do
+it for worlds. We have our home-life just like other
+people, but I should like to have a pony of my
+own, only I suppose my husband would not think
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>it right to have a horse that was not a community-horse.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What a confounded shame! I beg your pardon.
+You see I am rough. I mean, I think your
+husband ought to get you a pony, a nice well-trained
+lady’s pony, for you to ride, and not a big farm-horse.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I should like one,” observed Olive simply, and
+then suddenly remembering that she was speaking to
+a stranger, she added hastily, “I mean it would be
+nice to have a horse always at hand, one not liable to
+be wanted for farm work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I just happen to know of an excellent animal
+that would suit you down to the ground. It belongs
+to Tom Mills, and he wants to sell it. It will go cheap
+too. If you would speak to your husband about it,
+I would bring it over for you to look at. Mills lives
+close to my house.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, pray don’t,” said Olive anxiously. “I am
+ever so much obliged to you, but I really ought not
+to have spoken about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Very well,” said he, seeing she was distressed,
+“we’ll not pursue the subject further.” But in his
+own mind he reflected that were he in Weston’s place,
+he would have got that pony for his wife, principles
+or no principles, and it is highly probable that he
+would have done so.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He left Olive and her saddle at her own door,
+refusing her invitation to enter, saying that he would
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>avail himself of her permission to come some
+other day to see her. And she cordially invited him
+to do so, for was not hospitality one of the commonest
+virtues of the prairie, and surely Perfection
+City must not be behindhand in the practice
+thereof?</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> <span class='large'>MR. PERSEUS.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>When Olive got home, she was at first pleased to
+see that her husband had not come in, therefore he
+had not been made uneasy about her absence. Napoleon
+Pompey had caught Rebel and turned him into
+the pasture field, and was returning after that job when
+he met Olive near the hen-house. Napoleon Pompey
+grinned at her and remarked with relish: “Ole hoss,
+he done throw yer, den run clar ’way home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, he didn’t,” retorted Olive, indignant at this
+slur upon her equestrian skill, “I just got off to
+change the saddle, and he ran away from me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Land!” said Napoleon Pompey, “an’ didn’t yer
+chuck yer reins roun’ yer arm?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I forgot to,” confessed Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Golly Ned!” said Napoleon Pompey with vast
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive felt annoyed and inquired stiffly where her
+husband was.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ole man he done gone ter git ole hoe men’d
+up, den he gwine ter go to der ’Sumbly, he done eat
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>supper ’ready. Me an’ you’uns got ter eat our’n now.
+Ole man done tol’ me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Napoleon Pompey meant no disrespect in speaking
+of Ezra as “ole man,” for the lad knew of only two
+titles to bestow on white men, one was “Mas’r” the
+other was “ole man.” Ezra had requested him not to
+use the expression Mas’r, which grated on his ears,
+and contained suggestions of servitude at variance with
+the ideas that prevailed at Perfection City. Napoleon
+Pompey was therefore obliged to fall back upon his
+one other title. Olive had been greatly shocked when
+she first heard her husband called “ole man,” but she
+was now used to the expression.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She was very disappointed not to see Ezra at once,
+for she was full of her adventure, but she knew from
+experience she must possess her soul in patience, for
+the “’Sumbly,” as Napoleon Pompey called it, was
+sure to take a good while, and Ezra always stayed
+conscientiously to the last. The institution was none
+other than the bi-weekly Assembly, which met at the
+Academy, and at which all the business of the Community
+was settled and the routine work of the farm
+arranged for. All the members were free to attend
+and speak their minds, but in practice it had resolved
+itself into a Junta of Madame, Ezra, Wright, Green, and
+Uncle David, of whom the two latter were sleeping
+members. The women of Perfection City did not care
+to attend the Assembly very often. Women are not
+good debaters, and they dislike arguments carried on
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>under strict rule. They prefer to go their own way,
+do what seems best at the moment, and reserve an unlimited
+right of grumbling and jealousy. Madame, who
+was an exception to the general rule, usually presided
+at the Assembly and ruled it, as she did most things,
+without seeming to do so. Ezra and Brother Wright
+understood the farm work and generally mapped out
+the daily labour pretty well. Brother Dummy required
+only to be told what to do and went on contentedly
+doing it, without comment or commotion.
+Nobody, of course, was ordered to work, but it was
+suggested that if Brother Wright would do so and
+so, Brother Ezra would be able to do this, that, or
+the other, while Brother Carpenter would be free to
+perform such another task, and Brother Dummy would
+probably prefer to work at whatever happened to be
+wanted at the moment. Madame seldom interfered,
+and then only when necessary to smooth over a rough
+edge. She usually found the men’s arrangements
+excellent and for the general weal. Brother Green,
+who was a first-rate smith, was the only member of
+the Community who, at this time, received any money,
+for he worked in his spare time for outsiders. With
+great pride he used to bring the money he earned to
+the ’Sumbly and give it into Madame’s charge to be
+expended as seemed best. She kept the accounts and
+used to furnish all the rest of the necessary cash.
+Sometimes the brethren expressed compunction at calling
+so often on her resources, but Madame always
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>made the most graceful speeches in reply to their objections.
+Of course an undertaking such as this required
+capital to start it. It would be foolish to starve
+the whole project for want of a little expenditure
+now. By and by they would be self-supporting, but in
+order to reach that stage quickly they must not be
+stingy now. So she gave her dollars by the hundred
+when needed, and the brethren were eternally grateful
+and privately wondered if there was any limit to
+her wealth and generosity. At the Assembly it would
+be debated whether the next load of timber that was
+bought should go to building a hen-house for Brother
+Carpenter or to putting up a cattle-shed for Brother
+Ezra, and it speaks well for the honest conviction of
+the Pioneers that it was usually Brother Ezra who
+argued in favour of the hen-house, while Brother Carpenter
+expressed an anxious desire for the cattle-shed.
+The difficulty would perhaps be settled by Madame
+desiring to know how much timber was required
+for both buildings and deciding to buy that amount
+at the earliest opportunity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>At this particular Assembly to which we refer,
+Ezra was several times on the point of saying that
+he wished to get a pony for his wife, but his
+heart failed him. He knew he did want the pony
+very much, but he also knew that it was not
+really wanted for the Community. So he could not
+bring himself to give utterance to the individualistic
+wish, and after arranging the necessary business of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>the Community, he came home with his wish unstated.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was waiting for him with the greatest impatience.
+She went, indeed, as far as the bars to meet
+him, but the road looked so lonesome and the sky so
+black with cold trembling specks of stars, that she
+ran back again in a flutter of panic to the house and
+shut herself in with the candles for company. At last
+he came back, and Olive poured forth the pent-up
+torrent of her news. Ezra was much amused at her
+description of the disaster and interested in her account
+of the rescuer.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And I am so vexed,” said Olive, “I can’t for the
+life of me remember what he said his name was. I
+know I never heard it before, but he lives here on the
+prairie. It is so silly!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Call him Perseus,” said Ezra laughing, “he was
+the gallant who came to the rescue of distressed damsels.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What a good joke!” said Olive gleefully, “and
+I was a distressed damsel, I assure you. I cried with
+vexation.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have no doubt that Andromeda shed tears when
+she was bound to the rock,” said Ezra, amused.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And I was bound to that odious saddle by the
+bonds of duty,” said Olive. “What a joke! Mr. Perseus!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>So they laughed and chatted, and Olive was as
+bright as possible, and Ezra thought again with a pang
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>of that pony and almost wished he had spoken at the
+Assembly about it. Olive, however, never mentioned
+what Mr. Perseus had said about the pony Mills had
+for sale. The idea seemed to have passed from her
+mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It happened that about a week later Olive again
+found herself in the neighbourhood of Little Cotton
+Wood Creek, and by an extraordinary coincidence Mr.
+Perseus chanced to meet her. She was very much
+surprised, and he seemed to be no less so. However,
+the meeting was mutually pleasant, and they soon fell
+into conversation, as it appeared he was going her
+way.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have thought a great deal about what you said
+to me the other day, about trying to make life better
+and all that,” said he with a certain self-consciousness,
+as if he was unaccustomed to speaking upon such
+a subject. Olive looked at him with bright clear
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am very glad if anything I said could be of
+use to you, but I am myself very ignorant. I should
+like you to come and hear what Brother Wright says,
+and Ezra. Brother Wright is considered very eloquent.
+I can’t always understand him myself, but
+that is my own deficiency!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I would much prefer talking with you, Mrs.
+Weston,” said the stranger hastily. “I am very restive
+under men’s teaching, but I am docile enough
+when led by a woman’s gentle hand.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>“Why are you living here?” asked Olive suddenly.
+“You seem so unsuited to this life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am sick of civilization and all its horrors,” said
+he. “I wanted to get away to something fresh and
+new.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That is almost like what a Pioneer would say,”
+remarked Olive with a smile. “They don’t think
+very highly of what civilization has done so far.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Materially it has done much, morally it has done
+badly for a good number of human beings,” he remarked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think you sound like a very hopeful convert
+to the principles of communism. Why don’t you come
+to Perfection City?” asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Would you be glad to see me there, Mrs. Weston?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Certainly, Mr. Perseus, and I should be so pleased
+to make you and my husband known to each other.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He looked at her curiously for some moments and
+then said, “Why do you call me Mr. Perseus?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive gave him one horrified glance and then
+blushed scarlet.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she stammered in great
+confusion. “I did not know I said so. I really am
+most sorry.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But why that name?” he persisted, still looking
+at her blushing face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I may as well tell you the truth,” she said still
+much confused. “The fact is I forgot what you said
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>your name was, and my husband suggested in a joke
+that I should call you Perseus, because—because——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I rescued you in distress,” said he as he broke
+into a deep musical laugh. “It is a capital name, I
+am delighted with it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am so ashamed of myself,” said Olive, also
+laughing, “but I was in the habit of speaking of
+you as Mr. Perseus, and the name slipped off my
+tongue unawares. What is your real name? Pray
+tell me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not for worlds, dear Mrs. Weston. To you I
+shall remain Mr. Perseus, and I shall never think
+of the name without a thrill of pleasure.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But this is most unfair,” said Olive. “You know
+my name and who I am and all about me, and yet
+I am to be kept in the dark as to your identity.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Forgive my not doing at once what you wish,
+but really I cannot. This will be a sweet little innocent
+romance to me, and before you I shall appear in
+my very best light, leaving all the vices and evils of
+my real nature behind me for the time. Ah no! don’t
+deprive me of such a harmless joy. If you knew what
+a lonely uncared for life is mine, your tender heart
+would be touched.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Her heart was touched by the quiver in his deep
+voice, as he intended it should be, and Olive did not
+press her point any further. They rode on together
+talking about a hundred subjects, and she found him
+the most agreeable of men. She happened to mention
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>a great novel just then coming out in Harper’s,
+the scene of which was laid in Florence, and he said
+musingly:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah yes! Florence is a lovely city, nestling among
+the blue hills.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Have you ever seen it then?” asked Olive much
+surprised.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, long ago, when I was a young fellow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She gazed at him. “You are a most incomprehensible
+person,” she said, “living here on this prairie
+and yet you have seen Florence.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You forget Perseus travels easily with his winged
+feet, from here to Florence would be a bagatelle to
+him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I begin to think there must be something uncanny
+about you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Now don’t go and change me into any other personality.
+Remember you are all-powerful, and by your
+word alone have made me Perseus. Your word is
+mighty, and you can cast me down into hell and make
+me a devil by a breath,” said he half banteringly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What odd language!” said Olive, looking a little
+frightened. “How you must astonish the natives
+when you talk in that way!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you fancy I talk to anyone as I do to you?
+Don’t you understand that I am Perseus to you, but
+to nobody else in the world?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive laughed, and put her horse to a canter in
+order to snap the thread of talk which was becoming
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>too difficult for her. Mr. Perseus remained in her
+company while she was driving home the cattle, but
+they had no further particular conversation, as the exigencies
+of driving the herd occupied their attention
+most of the time. On parting from her about a mile
+from her home, he promised to come some day to see
+her, and Olive added, “I do hope Ezra will be in, for
+I should so like you two to talk together. I am sure
+you have much in common.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We have one point in common, at all events,”
+thought Mr. Perseus as he rode away back towards
+the Big Cotton Wood Creek, “but I doubt very much
+if that would at all add to the harmony of our relations.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was full of her meeting with Mr. Perseus,
+an account of which she retailed to Ezra at supper.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And just fancy his oddity! He wouldn’t tell me
+his real name after my unlucky slip, so he is Mr. Perseus
+to the end of the chapter, I suppose. He thought
+it such a joke.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“So he saw the application,” remarked Ezra.
+“He must be a man of education.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He is a most superior man, I can see that. He
+has read everything I ever did and more too. And
+do you know, Ezra, I shouldn’t wonder if he had leanings
+towards community-life, many things he said
+pointed that way. Wouldn’t it be funny if I were
+to be the one to bring in your first convert, poor little
+me that never had any leanings until I saw you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>Ezra looked sharply at his wife during this speech,
+for a sudden and by no means pleasant suspicion
+sprang into his mind concerning the mysterious Mr.
+Perseus. However, Olive looked so perfectly innocent
+of even all knowledge of evil that he felt ashamed of
+himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t be too friendly with this man. We
+don’t know anything about him, nor who he is, remember,”
+remarked Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He said he knew you and that you were a fine-looking
+man, you old dear, and he is acquainted with
+most of the members of the Community by sight.
+Besides, I thought it was a point of etiquette on the
+prairie to make no inquiries into a person’s character,
+but to take him in his boots just as he stands, and ask
+him to dinner. Don’t you remember Charlie Clarke,
+and how he came to supper by your invitation and
+you found him so pleasant, and he a horse-thief and a
+murderer all the while, only we didn’t know it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This was all very true, but Charlie Clarke had
+evinced no “leanings” to community-life, and above
+all Olive had been profoundly uninterested in him and
+was delighted when he left. Ezra hated himself for
+the feeling in his heart, but he had his suspicions of
+Mr. Perseus, and he knew his wife was distractingly
+pretty. So he advised her to keep aloof from Mr.
+Perseus as much as practicable. Several times afterwards
+he made excuses to go riding with her, which
+Olive enjoyed immensely, but then something was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>said to her about his shirking his share of the work,
+and she was furiously angry. She wanted her husband
+to be first, and since the only theatre for the exhibition
+of his abilities was the somewhat restricted one
+of Perfection City, she wanted him to be always near
+the front.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Shirking indeed!” she said tossing her pretty
+head. “I’ll have Mary Winkle know my husband
+never shirked in his life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>In a blaze of wrath she met Ezra and ordered him
+to go to work and never mind riding with her till
+the harvest was over. She wouldn’t ride any more,
+she would work until she was black in the face. Shirking
+indeed! She’d let Mary Winkle see! And so on
+and so forth, till her burst of anger had spent itself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was not slow to perceive that her husband
+had some sort of dislike to the idea of her seeing Mr.
+Perseus. She could not exactly explain to herself
+why this should be, and she was heartily sorry for it.
+She had fancied that in time Mr. Perseus might possibly
+come to be a member of the Community. She would
+indeed have been frankly glad to have him become a
+brother, for, as far as she could judge, he seemed a
+man of brilliant parts, and certainly his manners were
+most charming. To tell the truth, she found the
+members as a whole very uninteresting. Mary Winkle
+she positively disliked, and yet she was the one nearest
+to her own age. She sometimes wondered how
+Ezra could be satisfied with the companionship of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>those same people, who seemed to her to be walking
+in such a narrow circle, and always to be saying the
+same things in pretty nearly the same words. Now,
+Mr. Perseus said such original things and in such a
+charming voice. Altogether it was a pity that Ezra
+should have taken a prejudice into his head against
+this stranger. Olive wondered whether, if they met,
+the mutual recognition of their abilities would dissipate
+her husband’s suspicions. Such being her notions,
+it was most unlucky that the first time Mr.
+Perseus came to see them Ezra should have been gone
+to Union Mills. He went so very seldom that it was
+a most unfortunate coincidence, as she explained to
+Mr. Perseus, who did not in return explain that having
+himself seen Ezra at Union Mills he had straightway
+ridden off to visit her, and ridden so hard too that
+his horse was in a white lather when he arrived at
+Perfection City by a somewhat circuitous route. Napoleon
+Pompey was gone, so Olive showed him where
+to put his horse in the dark stable so that the flies
+would not torment the animal. She remarked on the
+horse’s state and asked Mr. Perseus had he been running
+down cattle, and he muttered something about
+young horses showing every bit of work in hot weather.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He was profoundly interested in Olive’s little home.
+She showed him with pride the garden she had made,
+where already the balsams were just coming into blossom;
+she then took him to see the prairie chickens
+she was trying to rear, little black and yellow downy
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>things, with fierce wild eyes utterly untamed and
+only looking out for a favourable opportunity to make
+a dash for freedom.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you think I can ever tame them?” asked
+Olive, as she noted the hostile manner in which they
+scuttled away from her food-giving hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If anyone could tame them you could, the ungrateful
+little brutes!” remarked Mr. Perseus.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t see that it is ungrateful of them to resent
+being taken from their proper home and natural mother
+to be put under a fat stupid hen,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, but it is rank ingratitude not to be tame to
+you,” said he.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t think you are truthful,” said Olive
+bluntly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why?” asked Mr. Perseus.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Because you are always saying things like that,”
+she answered, somewhat resentfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I do call that hard,” complained Mr. Perseus,
+“to charge a fellow with being untruthful when
+he was shaking in his shoes from terror at having perhaps
+let out too much of the truth.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive looked down at his big boots, knitting her
+brows, and then led the way into the house.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’ll get you some dinner. I am sure you are
+hungry,” she said hospitably, it being about two o’clock
+in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am hungry, starving, mind, body, and soul,”
+said her visitor in reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>“I’ll get a chicken-pie for you, that will go some
+way,” answered Olive with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And if you will talk with me, that will go far
+to complete the work of charity,” said he.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive brought him the food, and he set to work
+upon it, being evidently, as he said, very hungry.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you know I am beginning to look upon Perfection
+City as a sort of earthly paradise,” said Mr.
+Perseus.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Indeed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, a paradise from which I am shut out. Have
+you any young men here, Mrs. Weston, unmarried
+men, or are they against your rules?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No. Unmarried men are not against our rules,”
+said Olive archly. “We had one here lately, but we
+haven’t now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, what did you do with him?” asked Mr.
+Perseus, in some surprise.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I married him,” said Olive dimpling and blushing.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Lucky beggar!” remarked her visitor, turning
+again to his dinner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Mr. Perseus stayed some time, but refused Olive’s
+invitation to wait to see her husband, saying as an
+excuse that he had a long way to ride home. Olive
+wanted to know where he lived, but he laughingly
+put her off. He would not tell her, lest she should
+discover his real name, and then much of the romance
+of his life would be destroyed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>“You don’t know what this is to me, and how
+when I am leading my lonely life, I recall every word
+and look and again go through these meetings, Mrs.
+Weston. I suppose it seems silly to you, but remember,
+human companionship is man’s most precious
+inheritance, and those who have but little of it prize
+what they have at perhaps an extravagant figure. Did
+you ever hear of Silvio Pellico?” he asked abruptly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No,” replied Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, he was a prisoner entirely shut off from
+human companionship, and he at last made friends
+with a spider, and at length the spider was crushed
+by the turnkey’s foot, and Silvio wept tears of anguish.
+I am like a prisoner out here on this desolate
+prairie.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And am I like the horrible spider, then?” said
+Olive brightly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mrs. Weston!” he exclaimed reproachfully. “I
+have opened my heart to you because I felt that you
+could feel with me, although the world might count
+us as strangers, but I thought you would understand
+what I meant even when I blundered through the expression
+of my thoughts. This is the first time you
+have misunderstood me. But I believe it was only
+pretended misunderstanding and that you do know
+what I meant.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He said good-bye, and left Olive with a feeling of
+sadness and oppression on her mind. He had not been
+as bright as before, and she wondered who he was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>and why he was so anxious not to see anyone but her.
+She mentioned his visit to Ezra, but somehow she
+had less to tell about him than on former occasions.
+There seemed nothing to say. Ezra, too, did not appear
+as much amused as formerly at the joke of Mr.
+Perseus. No doubt it was getting stale by this time.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IX.<br /> <span class='large'>FIRST LESSONS.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Summer came on apace. The field had been duly
+run over in both directions with the shovel-plough,
+so as to leave between the cross-ploughing little “hills”
+of earth, out of which sprang the corn-clumps. The
+broad green ribbons of leaves fluttered in the wind,
+making a soft murmur as of a forest. Olive took great
+delight in her little flower-garden at the east end of
+the house, and worked and weeded at it both early and
+late. Napoleon Pompey, typical negro boy, which
+being interpreted means laziest of mortals, forgot his
+laziness to work for “Mis’ Ollie” as he called her.
+Together they had planted their balsams, trained their
+morning-glory, and rooted out brown beetles with zeal,
+to be amply repaid in July by a glorious profusion of
+blossoms.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is my very ownest own garden,” said Olive,
+exhibiting her balsams with pride to Ezra. “Mind,
+this is not community-land, it’s mine.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Does it make you enjoy the flowers more to think
+that nobody else has them?” asked Ezra, with a tinge
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>of sadness in his voice. “Would it make you any the
+happier to keep the sunshine all to yourself, do you
+think?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not, that’s quite different. But I’ve
+planted these flowers and grown them. I shall give
+them to whomsoever I like. You for instance.” She
+smiled coaxingly at him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You pretty child,” he said, disarmed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, I brought some over to Mrs. Carpenter
+to-day. I went to help her with her washing. And,
+do you know!” said Olive, “I was so amused.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“At what?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Carpenter was educating his children.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He’s always doing that,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, but to-day there was a special lesson. He
+was at Union Mills yesterday, and he got a present
+for both of them, I mean two presents, one for Johnny
+and one for Nelly. You know he is always saying
+boys and girls would have the same tastes if they were
+brought up in the same way.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He’ll find out one day, maybe, that boys will be
+boys, no matter how you bring them up.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He has found it out already. Wait till you hear.
+By way of correcting any early bias, he gave a hammer
+and nails to Nelly and a doll to Johnny.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You don’t say so! What did the children do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, they went off without a word, each carrying
+its toy, and Mr. Carpenter told me his ideas about
+education, and how well they worked. Suddenly we
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>heard shrieks from behind the wood-pile where the
+children were playing. We ran out to see what was
+the matter. Nelly had got a handkerchief tied over
+the head of her hammer, and she was cuddling it to
+sleep in her arms. Johnny had got some of the nails
+and was trying to drive them into a piece of wood with
+the head of the doll for hammer. Nelly was screaming
+because he was killing poor Dolly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra laughed, and Olive joined in at the recollection
+of the scene. “You cannot think how disappointed
+Mr. Carpenter looked. His wife said he’d
+got something to do if he was expecting to cure little
+girls of dolls in a hurry. We changed the presents and
+left him to reconcile it with his theories as best he
+could; both children were quite happy and contented
+afterwards.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Poor Carpenter! He’ll have to learn by bitter
+experience that he cannot change human nature all
+at once,” said Ezra, sympathetically. “I fear children
+are still in the savage stage of development, they are
+not communists.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Nobody is communist about things they care very
+much about,” said Olive, in desperate courage.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, Ollie! What a thing to say! I am a thorough-going
+communist I hope. I’d give the coat off
+my back without a pang.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of course you would, because it is a horrid old
+thing any way, and men look frights in coats always.
+Men don’t care about clothes, only just to cover themselves
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>and keep themselves warm. One rag would do
+as well as another.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are an incorrigible little individualist and
+a greedy one as well, I do declare,” said Ezra, half
+laughing at her vehemence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, it’s not that, only I see what is what,” replied
+Olive oracularly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And what might that be?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The Pioneers are only communistic for rubbish
+and rags, and not for dolls and hammers. That’s what
+they are,” said Olive, with her face aflame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Rubbish and rags! What an absurd thing to
+say. Who ever heard such nonsense?” said Ezra,
+loftily ignoring his wife’s argument in a way that wise
+men often affect.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“’Tisn’t nonsense,” said Olive hotly. “It is just
+what people say of Perfection City.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What people say it?” asked Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, Mr. Perseus for one,” said Olive, repenting
+of her daring in getting into the subject at all.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Perseus,” repeated Ezra with a sudden frown,
+“so you talk over our principles with him. When did
+you do so last?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know exactly when. The other day. He
+often passes by here on his way cattle-hunting. Sometimes
+he looks in for a moment, but sometimes he can’t
+stay long, only to water his horse. Of course I talk
+over the principles that have made you found a City
+here. Don’t you suppose people know about them
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>and talk them over eagerly? They are different enough
+from the generality of people’s ideas, and Mr. Perseus
+said they considered you only went a little way into
+communism, and had a little bit of this and a little
+bit of that in common, and weren’t at all logical.
+People sneer at Perfection City, I can assure you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you, doubtless, enjoyed his sneers,” retorted
+Ezra injudiciously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I didn’t, only I saw what other people say
+of us. Mr. Perseus, even, once said he’d like to
+come and be a communist himself, if we were only
+consistent throughout, and lived up to our principles.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You may tell your friend Perseus that he would
+not be a welcome recruit,” said Ezra, in considerable
+agitation. “I may as well tell you now what I have
+suspected for some time. I know pretty well who
+your mysterious Mr. Perseus is. He is a man of the
+name of Cotterell. I know him very well by sight
+and better still by reputation. To convince you, I will
+just mention a point or two about his appearance. He
+is about five feet ten in height, very fair in complexion,
+with a yellow moustache, and bright blue eyes, and
+whenever he takes his hat off you see the blue veins
+very markedly on his temples. He is, I suppose, what
+a woman would call a very handsome man, and he
+usually rides a black horse with a blaze on his face
+and white hind feet.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, that’s the man,” said Olive who remembered
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>the horse well, and who moreover recognized the perfect
+accuracy of her husband’s description.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Very well. Now I will tell you something about
+his character and history. He is an Englishman and
+perhaps has been badly brought up. At all events he
+hasn’t the morals we approve of. I know his libertine
+London ways. He probably didn’t tell you about it,
+but I remember very well the poor girl who shot
+herself the first summer we came here, because Cotterell
+had abandoned her. If the neighbours had been
+quite sure of all the facts of the case, there would in
+all probability have been a shooting party at Cotterell’s
+house, so I was told. But they were not quite sure
+so they gave him the benefit of the doubt. Accordingly
+he still has his handsome face to go on with and
+maybe wreck more homes. That is the career of Mr.
+Cotterell, alias Mr. Perseus,” said Ezra with considerable
+heat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It was you who gave him the name of Perseus,”
+replied Olive also much agitated. “He did not appear
+under a false name of his own accord. And now that
+you tell me his real name I remember that was the
+one he gave the first time I saw him, and he asked
+me if I had ever heard it before.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I won’t say anything on that point, it may have
+been a joke on his part, but it must stop now. Understand
+me, Olive. I don’t wish to seem harsh, but
+you must not meet and talk with this man again.
+If you chance on him, pass by and say you can have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>no further communication with him. If he urges an
+objection, say I have forbidden you to see him, as
+I do forbid you, here and now. He will take that
+for an answer, scoundrel as he is, for among people of
+his stamp personal vanity does duty for better feelings.
+He won’t come again to a house where the lady
+has once shown him the door. You don’t in the least
+understand what his motives are in this new-fangled
+interest of his in Perfection City, but I understand
+them very clearly, and my wish is that you never see
+him again. Harm is sure to come of it if you do.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was very much alarmed at her husband’s
+stern manner and peremptory order, but she was also
+indignant. Mr. Perseus or Cotterell, as she must now
+call him, had shown great respect and deference to
+her and had evinced a desire to be guided by her to
+higher aspirations. She was not sure of the meaning
+of some of his remarks, or rather she wished she could
+find some other reasonable explanation for them than
+the one most people would undoubtedly attach to them.
+Still she resented her husband’s masterful manner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I will of course obey your orders, Ezra,” she
+said with a tart emphasis on the word which made
+him wince, “because I hold old-fashioned ideas of
+what wifely duty is, quite at variance with the high
+standard of individual liberty as maintained and explained,
+I believe, by the brethren of Perfection City.
+You may rest quite satisfied, I will obey you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Having thus stabbed her husband in his most vulnerable
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>point and dexterously driven the poignard up
+to the hilt in the wound, Olive walked away, leaving
+Ezra to feel himself a selfish brute.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra spent a wretched half day of self-reproach,
+and then crept back repentant, begging to be forgiven
+for being a tyrant to his poor little pet. And
+his little pet who had paid for her pride with abundant
+tears, allowed him to kiss her and fondle her and call
+her sweet silly names, while she declared she never
+cared to see or speak to that wretched Mr. Cotterell
+again, and no wonder he was ashamed of his own
+name, etc., etc., all in the most foolish and approved
+manner possible to the newly married.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>All the same, after a time Olive began to feel sorry
+for Mr. Cotterell, and to pity him for the very errors
+of his past life, about which she now saw that he was
+penitent without wishing to explain to her why. Also
+she had very much enjoyed meeting him; he was so
+fresh, cultivated, and original, in his conversation. It
+was really very dull sometimes with no one to talk to,
+and the long hot day shimmering by, making her feel
+as if she were a potato being slowly baked in a hotair
+oven. There was no excitement in the house-work
+and—and it was very dreary sometimes. Men delight
+in reverting to primitive savagery. The most highly
+civilized man “reverts” in a way which is surprising
+both for completeness and for rapidity, but women
+hate the process. Savage woman was a slave, and the
+more completely a woman becomes subject to primitive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>conditions the more closely she resembles a slave, and
+is in virtual bondage either to some human being or
+to hampering circumstances.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Of appropriate companions of her own sex Olive
+had absolutely none. Mary Winkle was a rigid reformer,
+a person all angles, of the sort that never becomes
+a companion to anyone, for she was always on
+the war-path, and, besides, between her and Olive there
+was an unexpressed, but no less real, antipathy. Her
+daughter, Willette, that creature half boy, half girl,
+and wholly wild, was always on horseback careering
+after stray cattle, and though by her ignorance and
+eccentricity she sometimes amused Olive, she had really
+no ideas beyond those very concrete ones impressed
+upon her from without by her open-air life on the
+prairie. Mrs. Carpenter was a good soul, but a mere
+stout housewife, with no ideas and only one hope,
+namely, “that Carpenter would give up his high-fallutin’
+notions, an’ go back to York State, an’ settle
+down comfortable again, an’ be a preacher in a Baptist
+church.” Mrs. Ruby was old in body, but the youngest
+of them all in mind, except Uncle David, who was
+her senior by four years. Mrs. Ruby believed in Perfection
+City, though she reserved the right of private
+judgment on certain of the tenets of its founders, and
+in particular, she had lately felt misgivings as to the
+worldly wisdom of their principle of non-resistance.
+She knew, however, that the Pioneers were going to
+show the world the new and better way—the way
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>which led into no competition for supremacy, but into
+peaceful paths of universal progress. Property and
+its attendant imps, greed, strife, jealousy, envy, hatred,
+and malice, were all banished from Perfection City,
+and in their place peace and good-will and perfect trust
+in each other were to reign forever. It was a high
+ideal, but not a new one. It was eighteen centuries
+old, though it had never yet been realised. Mrs. Ruby
+and Uncle David felt sure they had reached the ideal,
+and all through Madame Morozoff-Smith, the most
+whole-souled, unselfish, glorious woman of her century.
+It was a pity she had not a larger theatre in
+which to present before mankind the new principles of
+social life it was their privilege to put into practice.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER X.<br /> <span class='large'>PRACTICAL COMMUNISM.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>A day or two after Ezra had laid his commands
+upon his wife, as we saw in the last chapter, he came
+home in the evening to find her in floods of tears.
+Her eyelids were all red with weeping, and she broke
+out afresh on seeing him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What’s the matter?” asked Ezra, in much concern.
+“What has happened?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My poor flowers, my pretty balsams!” sobbed
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Has the calf got into your garden and spoiled
+your flowers, my poor child?” he said tenderly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, it wasn’t the calf, but they are all gone.
+Mary Winkle took them all.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh!” said Ezra with a slight shock of surprise.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, she has cleared the whole garden. She
+came to-day while I was out at Mrs. Huntley’s.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How do you know it is she who has taken them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Napoleon Pompey told me he saw her pick
+them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Depend upon it, he is lying,” said Ezra with
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>emphasis. “Negroes are as mischievous as monkeys,
+and——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, he didn’t do anything to the flowers,” interrupted
+Olive. “He was as pleased with them almost
+as I was myself, and worked ever so hard to help
+keep down the weeds. Besides, I went to Mary Winkle
+and saw them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh!” said Ezra helplessly. He wished it had
+been the calf or Napoleon Pompey or anybody or anything
+rather than Mary Winkle. He braced himself
+for what was coming.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She told me she did it with a purpose. She
+said I was getting more individualistic in my leanings
+every day, and that time was not curing me at all,
+that I was selfishly proud of my flowers. It isn’t one
+bit true,” sobbed Olive, with quivering chin. “I gave
+heaps of them away. I gathered a bunch for Mrs.
+Huntley just as I was going this morning.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra groaned. “I know you did, dear,” he said.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She said I gloated over them and rejoiced because
+nobody else had any. I didn’t. I only loved
+them because I had tended them and reared them, and
+I knew them and watched for their buds. She said
+they didn’t belong to me, but to the Community, and
+that she took them on behalf of the general weal.
+Those are all grand words for nasty mean jealousy and
+covetousness,” said Olive passionately. “I hate Mary
+Winkle and I hate the Community.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Olive, Olive!” cried Ezra with a gesture of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>entreaty. “Don’t say that, dear. It strikes me to
+the heart. Think of me, dear.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My pretty flowers!” she said with a drooping
+of her mouth that betokened fresh tears.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am so sorry, oh, more sorry than I can say,”
+said Ezra. “Mary Winkle has done wrong, and has
+administered a lesson in a cruel, brutal way.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She has no business to give me lessons at all,
+and I won’t take them from her,” cried Olive passionately.
+“I hate being the one to be always taught.
+They think themselves so superior and are always
+stooping to raise me. Let them raise themselves first.
+I can see where Mary Winkle needs teaching and correction
+as plainly as anybody. She is only communistic
+in regard to things she doesn’t really care about.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no Ollie, darling. It is really a deep conviction
+with us all, although in this case most unkindly
+illustrated,” said Ezra gently.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I know you think so in all honesty, but it isn’t
+so in reality. Nobody is nor can be communistic about
+what they love, if it is real love. If they are communistic
+about a thing it is because they don’t really
+care.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra knew by the pang of jealousy in his own
+heart that this was an insurmountable truth his little
+wife was hurling forth in her anger.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mary Winkle isn’t communistic. I’m not clever
+and able to say wise things and use long words that
+amaze people like Brother Wright, but for all that I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>can see some things clearly enough. Mary Winkle
+isn’t any more communistic than I am, only we love
+different things.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think you mistake,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t mistake one bit. Let Mary Winkle,
+if she is communistic in all the moods and tenses,
+lump her child with the two little Carpenters and draw
+lots to take one of the three for her own. Would that
+satisfy her heart, although the precious principles
+would be right enough? Of course not, because her
+heart would step in and claim its own by the divine
+right of love. I should be thoroughly communistic
+on the score of these children. I shouldn’t mind to
+draw lots as to whether Willette or Nelly or Johnny
+Carpenter was going to come to live with me. One
+would do as well as another, and I could be thoroughly
+communistic, because I don’t love any of them
+very deeply. My little flowers I did love. It wasn’t
+that I had worked for them and grudged the fruit of
+my labour. I would work in a turnip field and let
+anyone who liked have the turnips, nasty, watery,
+pulpy things, but I loved those flowers and tended them
+and they were mine. I don’t care about the philosophy
+of the question. You will perhaps some day see
+what I mean, Ezra, and understand me. I know you
+don’t now. You think me a silly child.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>In his own heart he thought he understood more
+clearly than he liked to confess, that Olive was speaking
+more than philosophy, she was announcing stubborn
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>facts. However, he strove his utmost to soothe
+her feelings, for he could see that if an attitude of
+strife and hostility were once set up between her and
+Mary Winkle, it would not only affect his wife’s happiness
+but might have very serious results upon the
+future of Perfection City. There were only a very
+few of them, and if the experiment was to succeed it
+could only do so through unity, while strife and internal
+dissensions would certainly destroy it without
+giving it a chance. This point was fruitful of deep
+meditation, and occasioned heart-searchings to Ezra.
+It indeed augured ill for the future, not only of Perfection
+City, but of all those other cities of their imagination
+which should spring from this mother plant,
+if the personal feelings of a couple of good women
+were potent enough to wreck the scheme. Surely, in
+the dozen or so choice spirits who now formed the
+entire population of that City, there could be none
+of those latent forces making for destruction which
+would have to be reckoned with in the future and
+larger experiments in communism they were leading
+up to. If it was so difficult to soothe ruffled feelings
+in Perfection City now, and to compose a quarrel about
+some wretched little balsams, what would happen
+when, in a larger Perfection City, deeper cause of dispute
+arose between numbers of persons? Ezra’s mind
+recoiled aghast at the answer which rose up in his
+mind in reply to that question. There would have
+to be some strong, some overwhelming central power,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>a despot in short. Was this then the goal which they
+were to reach after toiling along a hard and stony
+road of personal effort? A despotism or a monasticism,
+in either case tyranny and subjection. Surely, oh
+surely, there must be some other solution which his
+mind, disturbed by the sight of his little wife’s distress,
+had unaccountably failed to formulate. He
+would go to Madame and would seek guidance from
+her illumined mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive, spent by her emotions, had gone to sleep
+quite early, so Ezra sallied forth to seek counsel where
+he was used to find it. Madame would be sure to be
+still up—though it was late by prairie hours, after
+nine o’clock—as he knew by experience, for in his
+bachelor days he had often spent long evenings in discussion
+and talk with her. Since his marriage, however,
+he had never gone alone in the evening to talk
+with Madame. Happy in his own love, he had felt
+no need of other companionship, and now as he walked
+along to her house, he began to wonder if she had
+noticed the sudden cessation of the evening talks, and
+also to wonder if she had missed them. It was thoughtless
+never to have gone near her during all these
+weeks. It was selfish, seeing how kind, how always
+sympathetic she had been to him for so many months,
+during the time when he felt lonely and full of undefined
+longings, before his heart had found complete
+rest in Olive’s love and above all in his love for her.
+Ezra thinking of these things was smitten with remorse,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>and made a resolution to go and see Madame
+of an evening sometimes and to bring Olive with him.
+Meantime he walked along and in a few moments
+knocked at the familiar door. Madame opened it herself,
+with Balthasar in close attendance. The latter,
+on satisfying himself that it was a person of friendly
+intentions who claimed admittance, walked back to
+the spot where he had been lying, and resumed the
+thread of his interrupted slumbers.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Ezra, this is indeed a most unexpected
+visit. I hope it is not because there is anything wrong
+in your little home,” said Madame gravely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra felt much embarrassed. He could hardly say
+there was nothing the matter, and still less could he
+apologise for having forgotten during all these happy
+weeks to come to see her. He did the best thing
+under the circumstances. He ignored Madame’s remark
+and question, and plunged boldly into the business
+which had brought him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She listened gravely without making any observation,
+but occasionally the faintest shadow of a smile
+fluttered around her lips. Ezra watched her face somewhat
+anxiously. In the old days, he had been used to
+read her face when they talked together, and to catch
+the meaning of her words from the mobile and everchanging
+expression of her clear blue eyes. But to-day,
+somehow, as he looked, he felt he had lost the
+power to read. The face was now a mask which seemed
+to conceal the real woman underneath, and yet it was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>the same fair smooth brow, the same sharply defined
+eyebrows, and, beneath, the same eyes. No, the eyes
+were not the same. They no longer looked clear and
+full at Ezra, but were often averted in a strange and
+uncertain manner, as if seeking to hide or to flee. At
+least such was the curious impression they produced
+upon him, as he sat looking at her and telling of the
+mighty wave of wrath that had surged up about that
+handful of balsam blossoms.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is a most singular cause of division, and one
+I could almost laugh at, except for the very real passions
+of anger and of hatred it has aroused,” he said
+in conclusion.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“One often sees terrible bursts of anger and
+fury in immature minds,” observed Madame in
+the preamble of her answer. “Young children
+and people of weak intellect frequently exhibit
+the most pitiable extremes of fury over trifling
+causes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra was not quite certain to what she referred.
+If to Olive, then she was mistaken in considering her
+a child. He recalled very vividly what she had said
+about communism in what one loves, and he was not
+at all prepared to admit that her arguments were those
+of a person of weak intellect.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t think this is a case for ‘criticism-cure’
+in the Assembly, do you?” she said.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not,” replied Ezra, who was keenly
+alive to the possibility of his wife’s blazing up into uncompromising
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>criticism herself, if they attempted to
+apply the famous “cure” upon her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Criticism-cure” existed rather in theory than in
+practice in Perfection City, but it was held that if a
+brother or a sister should be guilty of any offence
+against the common weal, it would be an edifying
+experience to summon him or her to the Assembly,
+and let all the members tell him or her exactly what
+each one thought of the conduct in question. In
+theory this was supposed to work admirably, and to
+be a weapon capable of reducing to reason the most
+refractory member of the Community, but when Ezra
+remembered it and imagined for a moment its possible
+effects on Olive, he foresaw a whole train of deplorable
+results. Suppose she defended herself, she could
+say sharp rankling things with a surprising amount
+of unanswerable truth in them, or suppose she didn’t
+defend herself, but took the scolding silently. Her
+eyes would get bigger and bigger with tears which
+would roll over her cheeks, and her sweet little chin
+would quiver, and she would look imploringly at him.
+He couldn’t stand that, he knew, but would rush up
+and take her in his arms, and carry her off out from
+the midst of the carping, criticising brethren, and he
+would call her sweet pet and darling, and say she was
+right and they were horrid brutes to scold her, and
+he would be very angry and would be quite capable
+of knocking Brother Wright down, if he, as was likely,
+had been savage with the little pet. No, criticism-cure
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>should not be applied to Olive. And Ezra, arguing
+thence into wider fields, began to feel some doubts as
+to the value of that remarkable weapon as a means
+of eradicating the naturally evil tendencies of the human
+heart. Theories which had seemed sound and
+complete in the abstract had a curious habit of ringing
+false when he imagined himself as applying them
+to Olive. It was very curious, but they did not seem
+to fit her, or was it possible that the theories themselves
+were wrong? No, he dismissed that thought as
+entailing too much mental demolition and carting away
+of rubbish. Of one thing only was he sure, the “criticism-cure”
+was not to be tried on his little wife.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think it is a case for petting rather than for
+punishing,” remarked Madame, after an interval during
+which they had both been severally following out
+the ramifications of their own reflections.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra jumped at this idea. He was of that opinion
+too, as he impartially observed. Indeed he was always
+of opinion that Olive required petting.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I think I understand the case,” continued
+Madame. “The flowers were a toy, doubly prized now
+they are gone. What is wanted is to provide a new
+and more attractive toy, so that the baby-mind will
+lightly forget the old grief.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra did not quite like this way of referring to
+Olive, but he had called in Madame’s aid, and he had
+no choice but to listen to the physician’s diagnosis
+and prescription regarding the case in question. Madame
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>meanwhile looked at him half pityingly, having
+apparently overcome her eyes’ desire to avoid his
+glance.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Poor Ezra!” she said softly. “You are mated
+to a child, petulant, wilful, hard to manage, and very
+bewitching. You will find that you cannot in this
+case work by the light of pure reason. You must
+bring yourself down to her level and try to see with
+her eyes, to take delight in the petty trifles that interest
+her. ’Tis weary work! The task of Sisyphus was none
+the less severe because it produced no tangible good.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She was silent, and Ezra began to repent that he
+had sought counsel from so exalted a source, since it
+was delivered to him with such a liberal seasoning of
+the bitter salt of implied reproof.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think that I can apply a remedy in this instance,”
+resumed Madame. “I know a woman’s mind
+as well as most people, and I know too the vain weaknesses
+of a silly girl—perhaps the knowledge comes
+from a memory, or perhaps from a shattered hope,
+who knows? At all events, dear friend and brother,
+it will serve you now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She left him to go into the small inner apartment
+which was her bedroom, and came out again in a few
+moments carrying a small gold bracelet of curious
+workmanship, an Oriental trinket.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Here is a little trifle I happen to have by me.
+Do you think this toy would dry the little one’s
+tears?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>She handed the bracelet to Ezra, who, though ignorant
+enough on such matters, did not fail to recognise
+the flash of diamonds in the jewel.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is a very valuable piece of jewellery,” he
+said. “You must not give it away.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t value such things except for the power
+of making someone happy,” replied Madame. “Take
+it, dear friend, and think that I speak truly when I
+say I would gladly give all I possess to ease your mind
+of trouble and make your path in life a pleasant one.
+And the child-wife may like it. Now, go to her. Good-night!
+You look tired and harassed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She gently put her hand upon his forehead as if
+to smooth out wrinkles, and left the room.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>As Ezra walked home with the diamond bracelet
+in his pocket, he seemed to feel her cool soft touch
+still, and the thought came into his mind that Olive
+never petted him. No, it was he who always petted
+her. Well, she was very sweet and pretty, and he
+hoped the bracelet would comfort her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>There was no doubt about that. Olive danced
+for joy when she saw the trinket. She put it on her
+smooth little wrist and flashed it about in the sunshine.
+Her eyes rivalled the diamonds for brightness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you like it, Ollie?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Like it! Why, it’s too lovely for anything, and
+Madame is just a darling, and she is kind. Just fancy
+giving me a diamond bracelet! A thing I never dreamt
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>of ever owning. And how shall I ever thank
+her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was skipping with joy. Suddenly she stopped
+short.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra, is this mine, or is it a community-bracelet?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is yours, child.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mary Winkle can’t come and take it away for the
+good of my soul, can she?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not. We are allowed to hold
+private property in such personal trifles, as you
+know quite well. Besides, Sister Mary would
+not wish to take from you what you particularly
+prized.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, of that I am not at all so sure. If your
+principles allowed it, I would not give much for Sister
+Mary’s self-restraint in the matter. She might want
+the bracelet for herself or for Willette, for what I
+know. I shall tell her the bracelet is mine even by
+community-law.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive began to skip again.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are an intractable little mortal, for all you
+look so soft and yielding,” said Ezra. He could not
+help smiling at her pretty kittenish ways, but he was
+filled with a sort of amazement to perceive how impossible
+it was to change the trend of her mind. Had
+she been an angular woman, all bones, like Mary Winkle,
+it would not have seemed so strange. Olive
+brought her frollicking to a conclusion and looked
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>wisely at her husband, shaking her pretty little head
+at him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no, Ezra. It is not that, but you are trying
+to stuff me into a wrong-shaped mould, and I don’t
+fit. As if any mortal woman ever could care for a
+community-bracelet!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She danced away to put her treasure in some safe
+place, and Ezra went off to his work, wondering in
+his own mind if there was something radically antagonistic
+to communism in the female nature. If there
+was any such fundamental incompatibility of temperament,
+then farewell to all ideas of a successful issue
+to their experiment. Absolute equality between men
+and women in position, power, and influence was the
+key-note of their theories, but what would become of
+these theories if it should appear that the female mind
+refused to accept the first and greatest postulate upon
+which they were all founded?</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XI.<br /> <span class='large'>A CHANCE MEETING.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The spring whence the Westons drew their water
+was about a quarter of a mile from the house across
+an angle of the corn field. A little foot-path winding
+in and out among the hills of corn led to it. As
+the corn grew, this path changed in character and became
+at length a track through a miniature forest.
+The corn grew to about eight feet in height, and of
+course the first to be covered was little Olive, with her
+brief five feet two inches, but by the end of July it
+had covered them all. Then it became Olive’s greatest
+delight to go down through that forest where the
+corn shook in the breeze. The satin-smooth stalks
+coming up like bamboos, and the broad fibrous ribbons
+of leaves, were a constant pleasure. But greatest
+joy of all was to watch the coming of the silk.
+When the young ears of grain were forming they
+threw off great skeins of exquisite silken threads,
+changing through every tint from palest green to rich
+dark crimson. These bunches of silk were like soft
+plumes falling from the crest of the husk that held
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>the ears, and were most tempting to twist through
+idle fingers. A forest of tall-growing prairie corn
+is just the place for fairies, only alas! the wee folk
+had departed this life long before ever Olive went
+to live at Perfection City. So charmed was she with
+this dwarf forest, which afforded the only shade to be
+enjoyed on that glaring prairie, that during the summer
+she always went to the spring for an extra pail
+of fresh water every afternoon before supper-time,
+as this errand gave her an excuse for loitering among
+the corn stalks and amusing herself with her own
+playful fancies.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Diana of course accompanied her young mistress
+upon these walks to the spring, for the puppy was
+attached to her by bonds of firmest canine affection,
+while Olive, on her side, was never tired of laughing
+at Diana’s ridiculous freaks, although they sometimes
+caused her considerable trouble.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Take an example.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A day so hot and scorching that words fail to convey
+any idea of it, and Olive in a great fuss, for she
+was behindhand with her work. At four o’clock, the
+very most blistering hour of the whole twenty-four,
+she set off hastily for the spring to fetch the fresh
+water, and with her Diana, her tongue lolling out
+half a hand’s breath. Knowing the object of the expedition,
+the puppy took the path through the corn,
+and Olive sweltered after her. It seemed as if the
+shelter of the corn was powerless against the slanting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>shafts of sunlight that danced and chequered between
+the broad hanging leaves, while the very air seemed
+endowed with such a load of heat as to press down
+with more than the allotted weight upon Olive’s head.
+She climbed over the fence and walked across the
+grass to where the spring started from under a tiny
+overhanging ledge of limestone rock. It was an excellent
+spring with the best of water, and would have
+been made into the holiest of wells by a spreading
+tree or a shady thorn-bush near it. There was, however,
+nothing of this sort, but only a clear pool of
+water some two feet across and about a foot deep,
+just enough, in fact, to enable one to get a good dip
+with the bucket. As Olive, hot and tired, hurried to
+this little pool of water, she beheld the accomplished
+Diana sitting in the middle of it, cooling herself and
+slobbering water up and down over her nose in supreme
+bliss. Poor Olive! She did not know whether
+to laugh or to cry, but eventually decided upon the
+first-named course. Then she sat down beside Diana
+and paddled her feet in the water, after which refreshment
+she returned home with her water-pail empty.
+The spring had an undisturbed night in which to
+renew its freshness, and in the future Olive kept her
+eye on Diana when they went together for water.
+The dog always wanted to go first, but Olive kept her
+severely to heel until the water was obtained, after
+which Diana was free to indulge in what diversions
+she pleased.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>One day as Olive emerged from the pathway
+through the corn, her heart gave a great bound of
+alarm as she saw a man standing beside the spring,
+holding his horse’s bridle. He was a tall man in a
+red shirt and large-brimmed hat. He carried a revolver
+at his belt, but it was not that which frightened
+Olive, she was well accustomed to seeing armed men.
+On catching sight of her the stranger took off his hat
+with a sweeping bow, and coming forward greeted her
+with the greatest eagerness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is indeed a delightful meeting, Mrs. Weston.
+Quite idyllic, if I may say so. And are you coming
+to fetch water? It is a subject for a poem, only I
+am not a poet. I can feel all the beauty of it, but
+must be dumb. You’ll let me carry back your pail
+for you, won’t you? It is too heavy for those wee
+hands.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Thank you, Mr. Cotterell. I can quite easily
+carry my pail. I do it every day,” said Olive speaking
+with much embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell!” he repeated with infinite sadness
+in manner, and with a look of much meaning in his
+bold blue eyes. “You call me Mr. Cotterell, then I
+am no longer Mr. Perseus, and my sweet romance is
+shattered forever!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I know now that you are Mr. Cotterell,” said
+Olive, in keen distress.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And knowing that, you are disillusioned and have
+lost faith in me, and you will not even let me carry
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>your pail of water for you,” said he, sadly, in a way
+which cut Olive to the heart, “yet I am the same man
+I was. To you at least I have never changed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I know you are very kind,” said Olive, “but if
+you please I’d rather you didn’t carry the pail for
+me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She was dreadfully sorry to say anything to hurt
+his feelings, but she remembered her promise, and
+she must make him understand here and now that
+their acquaintance was to cease. She wanted to do
+it as kindly as she could, but she must do it at once.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Cotterell was not slow to read her thoughts, indeed
+her distress was too real and undisguised for him
+to fail to understand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is this an order of dismissal, Mrs. Weston? Am
+I not to come to see you any more?” he asked abruptly,
+with a look of pain in his face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive glancing up saw the pain and felt sorrier
+than ever, but she went bravely forward.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am deeply pained, Mr. Cotterell, but I must
+ask you not to come to see me; my husband does not
+want you to,” she said, unable in her distress to find
+any words which would convey her meaning unmistakably,
+and yet not sound too unkind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your husband has forbidden you to see me?”
+said Cotterell, biting his yellow moustache savagely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said Olive simply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your husband’s sentiments would do credit to
+a dog in the manger, Mrs. Weston, but are not what
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>one exactly looks for from a professing communist,
+who poses as a shining light for his poor fellow-creatures
+still groping in the darkness of their ignorance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He says you are a bad man, Mr. Cotterell,”
+said Olive with a view to defending her husband and
+perhaps finding out the facts of the case about her
+mysterious friend, in whose personality she felt a great
+interest.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t pretend to be a good man, Heaven knows!
+but I’m a poor lonely devil living quite by myself, and
+your husband, with all that the world can give in
+the way of happiness, grudges me the brief pleasure
+of talking for half an hour with a good woman. That’s
+not the way to make me a better man, Mrs. Weston,
+and God knows I need all the help I can get.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m so sorry,” faltered Olive in ready sympathy,
+and the tears welled up into her tender black eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You sweet pitying angel,” said Mr. Cotterell,
+coming nearer and speaking very gently. “Your influence
+would save me if anything could.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, you mustn’t talk like that,” said Olive, with
+a catch in her voice. “And you will be a good man,
+won’t you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He bent his handsome face low, and taking her
+hand implanted a kiss upon it with a grace that might
+have charmed a duchess.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“A woman can make or mar a man’s life,” said
+he. “Happy are they who draw the prizes. Goodbye!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>He sprang upon his horse and galloped away.
+Olive stood watching him, her eyes swimming in tears,
+she scarcely knew why, only he seemed so sad and
+so handsome. Ezra was unkind to say she must
+never see him any more and try to make his life
+less sad and wicked, and she was so sorry to
+think that she would never have any more talks
+with him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>At this moment a low growl from Diana made
+Olive turn round to encounter the clear cool gaze of
+Madame Morozoff-Smith.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I followed you down here,” she said. “Napoleon
+Pompey told me that you were most likely gone to
+the spring.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Have you been here long?” asked Olive, blushing
+in her surprise and confusion. “I only came for
+a pail of fresh water.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I just saw Mr. Cotterell say good-bye and
+ride off,” observed Madame gently. “Do you see him
+often? He hasn’t a good reputation.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t believe he is as bad as people say, I am
+very sorry for him living alone.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He need not have been alone only that he chose
+it, indeed it ought to have been quite otherwise, if
+report goes true.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We ought to be the last persons on earth to
+credit reports,” said Olive hotly. “I am sure there
+is a nice crop of them about us and our life here at
+Perfection City, if it comes to that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>“True, I daresay there are,” said Madame. “One
+should be charitable.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was evidently ill at ease, and Madame drawing
+from a totally different experience of life her own
+conclusions, became convinced that Ezra’s wife was
+carrying on a secret acquaintanceship with a man of
+whom he thought very ill.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame’s position as leader at Perfection City
+gave her many rights and imposed certain duties. She
+considered that of private admonition as one of them.
+She did not speak for some moments, and the two
+walked along in silence. Madame was debating in her
+own mind whether she should speak to Olive and endeavour
+to turn her from the dangerous path towards
+which she seemed to be directing her steps; or whether
+she should keep silence and let her destiny be accomplished.
+She reflected that if she spoke to Olive,
+that rather high-spirited young woman would probably
+resent her interference, and might possibly complain
+to Ezra, with the result of estranging him from
+herself. On the other hand, if she left the silly wife
+to go her foolish way, she would break her husband’s
+heart. Madame’s well-shaped lips curled with a smile
+of contempt for herself as these thoughts passed rapidly
+through her brain. What a fool she was to stir
+in the matter! Let the giddy girl follow her own impulses
+and then—No, no! She would be true to her
+best self, she would put forth a hand and draw back
+the blind fool from the precipice that lay before her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>She spoke therefore to Olive in that soft quiet
+voice of hers that seemed to have more power of arresting
+the attention and holding it than the roar of
+an avalanche.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think you are, perhaps, not acquainted with
+Mr. Cotterell’s character,” said she. “I am sure you
+would not wish to associate with a bad man.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why do you think he is a bad man? Do you
+know him?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I don’t know him, but I am sure I am right
+in saying that he is a man of loose morals,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t believe it,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why not? How can you know?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Because I have talked with him a great deal,
+and he speaks like a man with high aspirations, and
+not at all like the bad man you say he is.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But what can you know of a man’s real character
+from a chance word or two as you run across
+him in an afternoon’s stroll?” observed Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t judge from a chance word, I have had
+long talks with him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Indeed! and where? Do you meet him here at
+the spring then, so often?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I never met him at the spring before, but I used
+to meet him pretty often, when I was out cattle-hunting
+and he would generally accompany me for a bit.
+Sometimes too, he used to pass our house on his way
+cattle-hunting, and then he would look in and water
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>his horse and stop to talk to me for a time,” said Olive
+in explanation.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Really!” said Madame looking keenly at her
+companion, “and did Ezra know of these visits?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra said he wasn’t to come any more, and I
+told Mr. Cotterell so to-day.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! and what did he say?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He called Ezra a dog in the manger, and I do
+think Ezra oughtn’t to be so harsh about Mr. Cotterell.
+He would like to be a better man, I know, if he
+had any chance, and people were kind to him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did he intimate that you could influence him
+towards the better way?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t see why I can’t try to use my influence
+in trying to make my fellow-creatures happier and
+better. You and Ezra are always talking about
+doing good that way. Why do you want to stop
+me the moment I see a chance of doing a little
+good?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Because you would only do harm.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I shouldn’t. A woman has great influence
+over a man. He said so himself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell said so?” inquired Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is a very dangerous thing for a young woman
+to attempt to influence men of that sort.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You don’t know what sort he is, nor anything
+about him. You are only following reports. And
+how can you talk about the danger of influencing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>men? That is just what you are always doing yourself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“With me it is quite different,” said Madame
+hastily.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That is what everybody says to me whenever
+I want to do what other people find it right to do. I
+hate being treated like a baby.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are very young and very pretty, child, and
+that makes it all the more necessary for your friends
+to guard you against dangers which you don’t perceive
+as clearly as they do.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I hate being young and—well—pretty, if it’s always
+going to make me be treated like that,” said
+Olive angrily.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Like what?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Like a naughty child. That’s what Ezra does,
+and he goes to you to ask what he should do to me,
+you know he does.” She was beginning to cry, just
+like a naughty child.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame smiled contemptuously as she glanced at
+her companion. “What could have possessed that
+quiet reserved Ezra to marry such a feather-headed
+vain little puss?” she thought bitterly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive dried her eyes angrily, she saw the contempt
+expressed by Madame’s curling lips, and her pride
+was thoroughly aroused.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I want to know why things are different as soon
+as they apply to me?” she asked with doubtful grammar
+but unmistakable import. “It isn’t this once
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>only, but it is always so. Personal liberty is the corner-stone
+of Perfection City, that is what you are
+here for, to enjoy liberty and protest against things.
+Mary Winkle won’t take her husband’s name, and
+dresses like a fright, and nobody minds. She’s free.
+But as soon as I try a little flight of my own, that
+doesn’t hurt anybody, I’m to be popped into a cage,
+and you and Ezra come and shut the door on me.
+I met this man by chance and liked talking to him.
+He is well-mannered and well educated, and likes the
+same books as I do, and has travelled and could tell
+me heaps and heaps of interesting things. He wasn’t
+forever talking in the same little muddling circle, and
+wasn’t always full of himself. He tried to interest
+me. You are an educated woman, Madame, and you
+know as well as I do that, except for you and Ezra,
+there is not an educated person in Perfection City,
+nor one who has the same tastes as I have. Mr. Cotterell
+used to come and talk to me, and I liked it;
+then Ezra gets very angry, says he is a bad man, and
+forbids my seeing him. He forbids me, mind you.
+Not a bit the sort of language you would expect in
+Perfection City, but I believe in wifely obedience and
+I obeyed him. I told Mr. Cotterell he must not come
+to see me any more, and he won’t do so. He always
+showed the best spirit in everything he said, and I
+won’t believe he is so very wicked just on mere report.
+We once had a horse-thief and murderer to stay
+to supper, and we did not inquire into his character
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>before we asked him to stop and rest and feed his
+horse. Mr. Cotterell said my influence might help
+him to be a better man, and perhaps it might. At
+all events, I want to know why I wasn’t to try to influence
+him, and I want to know why Perfection City
+ideas, when they make for freedom, are not applicable
+to me, but have to be all turned upside down when
+I come into play? Can you, Madame, answer me
+that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame was considerably dumbfoundered by this
+attack delivered so unexpectedly and so very straight
+from the shoulder. She hastily recast her idea that
+Olive was a silly little fool, and most unaccountably
+found herself anxiously seeking about for means of defence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The fact of the matter is, you are too pretty to
+do these things,” she replied, helplessly telling the
+truth in her extremity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Can Perfection City then only succeed if all the
+women are ugly?” asked Olive scornfully. “You had
+better not proclaim that fact, or you’ll have all the
+women running away.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame was in the habit of being worshipped by
+men, and was not at all prepared to have her remarks
+ridiculed by a slip of a girl. She did not like it, and
+therefore replied with some asperity,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are really too silly, Sister Olive. You must
+surely perceive that there is great danger in your
+associating with Mr. Cotterell on so familiar a footing,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>that, in short, he may fall in love with you, and I
+presume you can understand the danger of that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Precisely, a fresh set of laws must, as usual, be
+applied to me, and not those which govern the rest
+of you,” said Olive calmly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t understand to what you refer,” said Madame
+looking at her doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell knew from the outset that I was
+a married woman. I don’t see the alarmingness of
+the danger that he might fall in love with me, simply
+because we talked together. The idea has only struck
+you in reference to me; it does not seem to have done
+so with regard to the similar circumstances of you and
+Ezra.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame turned white with anger. “How dare
+you insult me by such an insinuation?” she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I didn’t dare until after you had first given utterance
+to the insinuation against me,” replied Olive,
+with provoking calmness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame turned as if she could have struck her,
+but she controlled herself with a desperate effort.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It seems to me, Sister Olive, that your remarks
+are very ill-judged,” she said in a voice that shook
+in spite of her. “I have no wish to bandy words
+with you. I spoke merely out of a desire to do my
+duty, and to save you, if possible, from a danger
+which I imagined I foresaw more clearly than you
+did. I see that your words were prompted by quite
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>another wish than to seek advice or counsel in a difficult
+moment.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I sought for neither advice or counsel,” returned
+Olive. “I simply wanted to discover, if possible, how
+to fit the theories of Perfection City, which I know
+pretty well by heart now, into the practice as applied
+to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame looked at her with eyes of anger and even
+of hate, and Olive, conscious of having been almost
+more successful than she had imagined possible in
+argument with so distinguished a mind, returned the
+look with one suggestive of triumph. Alas for the
+perfect harmony of Perfection City!</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am surprised, I will not say pained, because
+you would care little for that, but I am surprised, I
+repeat, at such words in the mouth of Ezra Weston’s
+wife. He must have been strangely mistaken in your
+character, or you cannot have revealed your true self
+to him, for I cannot imagine him binding himself for
+life to a mate who scorns and flouts in this manner
+what he holds so dear. You are mocking the principles
+to which he has devoted his life. You are too
+foolish to see what you are doing, but one day you
+will be punished, and then perhaps you will repent—when
+it will be too late.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame turned and walked rapidly away, leaving
+Olive feeling very angry and very much frightened
+as well.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>That evening Napoleon Pompey carried a note
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>and a small parcel to Madame, who guessed pretty well
+what it was. The note was brief, it contained but
+these words:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I thought you sent the bracelet as a present,
+therefore I accepted it and was grateful: now I know
+you sent it as a reproof, therefore I return it.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XII.<br /> <span class='large'>THE PRAIRIE FIRE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The summer had been a particularly dry one, and
+since the beginning of July not a drop of rain had
+fallen. The water-melons revelled in the heat, and
+Olive revelled in the water-melons: for by a blessed
+compensation of Nature the hotter and drier the land,
+the cooler and juicier the water-melons seem to be.
+The water-melon of the western prairie is as different
+from the pallid green-fleshed vegetable which masquerades
+under its name in this country, as the full moon
+of the heavens is superior to the lime-light article
+manufactured for use on the stage. The real prairie
+water-melon is an enormous affair, being about as large
+as the roll of rugs without which fussy gentlemen
+consider it impossible to travel. The skin is of the
+darkest green and as hard as a board, a most unripe-looking
+object at all times. Indeed the only way one
+can find out the condition of a water-melon’s insides
+is by surgical operation. You simply cut out a plug
+about an inch square from the top side of the melon,
+and look to see if the flesh has turned crimson at the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>centre. If it is still white or pale pink you know the
+psychological moment, when the truly wise will eat
+the melon, has not yet arrived. Accordingly you put
+back the plug, and leave the sun to work a little longer
+on it, at a temperature of a hundred and twenty or
+so. Since it never rains at the melon season of the
+year, the plug does not do any harm if left on the top
+side, but the beginner sometimes leaves it on the
+lower side, with the result that all the water runs away.
+It is a curious fact, but the water of a melon, even
+of one picked in the middle of a scorching hot day,
+never seems tepid. It is always cool and refreshing,
+even at times when ordinary water tastes unutterably
+mawkish owing to the excessive heat. The crimson
+spongy flesh, specked with purple-black seeds, is eaten
+in moderation or in immoderation according to the
+taste of the individual, but the water is always greedily
+drunk up by everybody. The scorching winds of the
+plains seem to dry one’s very marrow, and nothing can
+exceed the thirst of a man who is obliged to be out all
+day in such weather and to work hard at the same time.
+Animals, too, suffer from extreme thirst, and after a
+morning’s ploughing when the farm horses are brought
+up to water, they drink and drink and drink, swelling
+visibly under one’s eye, as if they were india-rubber
+horses under the action of some new patent inflator.
+They are never stinted in their drink and swallow
+bucketsful before attacking their corn.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>But to return to our water-melons.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>Napoleon Pompey used to bring up a wheelbarrow
+full from the melon patch each morning for
+the day’s consumption. He, like a true negro, was
+inordinately fond of melons, or “millions” as he
+called them, and would have sucked them all day long
+if left to his own devices. Whenever he had to go
+anywhere in the waggon, as occasionally happened,
+he would lay in a store of “millions,” and lay himself
+beside them, and suck them, just as if he were a black
+caterpillar of unlimited capacity. The horses meantime,
+far too oppressed with the heat to require much
+attention, would plod along with their eyes shut, trying
+to keep out the glaring light. There was nothing
+to stumble over or fall into, so the driving became
+of the most elementary pattern, requiring only an
+occasional rattle of the reins and a comment or two,
+such as: “Yo’, Reb, g’ ’long will yer, g’ out o’ dat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive during this period found the heat stifling,
+and used to sit out of doors on the shady side of the
+house, until the terrible wind blew up from the Plains,
+when she would flee as before the breath of a volcano,
+and shutting herself tight up in her room with closed
+doors and windows, would gasp through the visitation
+as best she might. She was no worse off than anyone
+else, and the nights were always cool and refreshing.
+That was an unspeakable blessing. All this heat dried
+up the thick prairie grass until it was like a vast plain
+of dry hay standing erect.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The corn crop at Perfection City had turned out
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>exceptionally good. There was ample for all the needs
+of the Community and a good surplus which was to
+be sold at Mapleton in order to enable them to buy
+some farm-machinery that was greatly needed. Consequently
+the whole Community worked hard at getting
+in the corn so as to be early in the market. The
+heavy ears of corn with their twenty rows of golden
+yellow grains were stripped off the tall stalks by hand:
+a most limb-lacerating job, for the “shucks,” or coverings
+to the ear, are masses of fibrous leaves with sawlike
+edges. These edges have the power of cutting an
+exposed finger in a most painful manner, and they are
+by no means loath to use the power.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>All this hurry and concentration of the workers
+upon the cornfield was possible only if every other
+sort of work was neglected for the moment. It seemed
+the wisest plan to hasten off with their harvest in spite
+of the risk, and, unused as they were to prairie life,
+yet even they realized that there was some risk in thus
+leaving their farms unprotected. Ezra was perfectly
+aware of it, but like so many people he shut his eyes
+and hoped for good luck. He spoke to Olive on the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If anyone so much as drops a lighted match on
+the prairie we shall be lost,” he said.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, what do you mean?” asked his wife in
+surprise. She was still so new to the prairie that she
+did not understand to what he referred. They happened
+to be on that outside landing of the stairs which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>looked out over the wide boundless western prairie.
+This stairway from its position made an exceptionally
+good place from which to take a survey of the whole
+prospect.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That grass is like tinder, and if anybody leaves
+a coal of fire burning at his camping-place or drops
+his pipe, the thing will catch in a second, and if there
+is a strong west wind we shall see about as bad a prairie
+fire as we care to.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, but that’s dreadful! What shall we do?”
+said Olive, much alarmed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“As soon as our corn is sold at Mapleton, we shall
+plough all round Perfection City and back-fire, if we
+can only get a calm day. We must not back-fire in
+a high wind, because that would probably start a prairie
+fire and just cause the very mischief we want to
+guard against. It would take fifty people to keep a
+line of fire under control for a mile’s length with grass
+like that and a strong wind.” So spoke Ezra, critically
+scanning the horizon for any sign of smoke which
+might betoken danger. He was very uneasy, and the
+fierce west wind, which seemed never weary of blowing,
+made him all the more anxious, as it might prevent
+them guarding themselves by running the usual
+belt of burnt prairie all around Perfection City.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was not a light job to get a safety belt of about
+four miles long, for that was the circumference of the
+portion of their land fenced in, and it was an impossible
+one in the face of a high wind with their small
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>force—unless indeed they did as selfish individualists
+did, namely let the fire go and burn out whom it liked
+and what it liked once they were themselves safe.
+The Pioneers refused to be guilty of this act of treachery
+to the common weal of the inhabitants of the prairie.
+It is a comparatively easy thing to keep one line
+of fire safe and so protect your own fields; the real
+difficulty begins when you want to stop the fire from
+spreading in other directions as well. Most of the
+settlers back-fired their own land, and left Providence
+or the Devil to see to the result as regards their neighbours.
+The Pioneers had naturally a higher standard
+of public duty than this, therefore they did not back-fire
+in the high wind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The corn being stripped off the stalks, Olive’s
+fairy forest was sadly mutilated, for the great ears
+were all gone and many of the streaming leaves were
+torn away; the walk to the spring, therefore, was no
+longer so delightful as it had been earlier in the summer.
+Still she and Diana used to go there pretty
+often, especially since Napoleon Pompey was always
+kept busy helping in the field. Coming up from the
+spring one afternoon just before sun-down, she was
+amazed to see her husband galloping madly along the
+far side of the field on Queen Katherine, the big brown
+mare, her harness banging her hot flanks at every
+stride, while Napoleon Pompey on Rebel was tearing
+after him waving his tattered old straw hat. Olive
+for a moment or two stared in blank amazement at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>them, and then began to run towards the house which
+appeared to be their destination also. Ezra and Napoleon
+Pompey with frantic gestures seemed to invite
+her attention to the setting sun, now sinking to rest
+like a shimmering copper ball. She looked, but saw
+nothing except the molten mass, unless it were a faint
+blue haze on the horizon, the result, as she supposed,
+of the intense heat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When Olive reached the house a few moments
+later, it was to see her husband going hurriedly down
+the road to the bars on the other side of the house.
+The horses were hitched to the plough and were trotting
+fast, while Napoleon Pompey was urging them on
+with voice and whip. The plough, unaccustomed to
+such speed, was jerking from side to side. A moment’s
+halt at the bars, while Napoleon Pompey threw down
+the rails, and Ezra turning round put both hands to
+his mouth and shouted “Fire” in a long re-echoing
+whoop. He wheeled around then and seizing his
+plough-handles set off at a hand-gallop, bounding
+along with his ungainly implement.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Now Olive understood what that blue haze meant.
+It was a prairie fire coming down on them from the
+west along with a fierce wind. Oh dear! oh dear!
+What should she do? There must be something women
+could help at, in such a moment, if she only knew
+what. But who to ask? Everybody was far away,
+and the dreadful fire began to show up now that the
+sun was no longer casting such bright rays.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>“Come ’long, git yer shingle,” shouted a familiar
+voice behind her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Willette, is that you? What shall I do? It’s
+a fire, and I don’t know what’s wanted.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Nothin’ but a shingle an’ a box o’ matches.
+Quick now! We’ll hev ter pike, you bet. Pa and Ma
+is out firin’ a’ready down yonder, ’side our house.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am so glad you’ve come,” said Olive hurrying
+along with two wooden shingles under her arm.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The shingles were merely the thin wooden “slates”
+with which the houses were roofed. When thoroughly
+dried they are admirably adapted for spreading a fire
+from house to house in a street, and accordingly they
+are now prohibited by law in most towns and cities.
+On the prairie they were used in emergencies as paddles
+to keep the back-firing within limits.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, Ma said she ’lowed you wouldn’t know the
+fust thing ter do,” remarked Willette complacently.
+“An’ Pa said he reckoned school larnin’ in the East
+could make folks more like nateral born fools than
+anything under the sun.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was very little obliged to the Wright and
+Winkle spouses for their opinion of her. She remained
+therefore silent.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They soon reached the furrows that were being
+so desperately ploughed by Ezra and his foam-covered
+horses. The swift twilight was almost upon them,
+but they could see Wright urging his horses along
+the south side of the land nearest his house, while
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>away across at the east side of Perfection City Brother
+Dummy was thundering along with his waggon bringing
+up his plough to the rescue, and that completed
+all the horse-power of the Community. Little tongues
+of flame here and there along the furrows denoted that
+the back-firing had begun in several spots. Meanwhile
+the sky was reddening up with the reflection
+of the on-coming conflagration, and the fierce wind
+blew ever harder directly from its long blood-red line.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Now you jes’ set afire ’long hyar, front this hyar
+furrow,” said Willette, kneeling down with her matches
+and starting the fire as she spoke. “Now then, yo’
+jes’ see to that, an’ don’t yo’ let that ar fire hop over
+behind yer, or it’ll be worse nor nothin’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What am I to do?” asked Olive trembling with
+excitement and fear, it was all so strange and alarming.
+“I never saw a fire and don’t know anything
+about it,” she added.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Jes’ paddle it out with yer shingle, ef it gits over.
+There ain’t no sight o’ larnin’ wanted for that,” said
+Willette in scorn. “Mind yer ends, and look after
+tongues in the middle. They’ll be powerful handy
+at jumpin’ over this hyar furrow, and you mustn’t let
+the fire git away from yer, else yo’ll be clear done for.
+Keep yer eyes behind yer and min’ the back line,” said
+Willette walking away.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Land o’ liberty! look at that!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Willette made one bound behind Olive and commenced
+furiously beating the ground with her wooden
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>paddle, while Olive, bewildered, turned round to see
+that she had indeed let the fire get behind her even
+as Willette was uttering her warning.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We ’uns would ha’ been clear burnt out in one
+grasshopper’s jump on’y I was there,” said Willette
+looking critically to see if any little spark of fire lingered
+in the tall grass which could by any chance start
+into life again.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh I can never manage it! What shall I do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Be spry and—Look at that again now!” Willette
+sprang to a new place and beat the ground. She was
+back again in an instant, here there and every where,
+with the activity of a monkey, beating down for dear
+life, whenever the fire crossed the narrow base-line
+of the up-turned sod, and as the wind was high it was
+frequently doing this. Constant vigilance was required,
+especially as Ezra had only had time to run
+a few furrows with the plough, instead of a band five
+or six feet wide.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Powerful heavy work in this hyar high wind,”
+said the child, “and on’y that ar furrow to start from.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Willette was in her element. Not an inch of the
+line escaped her lynx-eye, and all the while she kept
+giving advice to Olive, who stood in awe of her superior
+practical knowledge in this emergency.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Now this hyar fire’s agoin’ to spread along, an’
+yo’ jes’ got ter mind this end by yerself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She darted twenty yards away and paddled out a
+flame and came back, her face begrimed with smoke
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>and dirt, so that she looked not unlike the nigger
+whose modes of speech she so much affected.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You jes’ take off that ar hat and them big skirts,
+else you’ll be burnt to death right hyar,” said Willette
+surveying Olive with considerable disapproval.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Willette’s hickory trousers and shirt were exactly
+the thing for a prairie fire in a high wind, as indeed
+they were for most of the occupations that fell to her
+lot. What with the constant bounding backwards and
+forwards over the flame, Olive indeed thought that
+she had better accept the advice and slip off her wide
+calico skirt which was forever in the way and might
+easily catch fire. She put it along with her hat just
+at the top of the slope where Weddell’s Gully began,
+where she could easily get them next day, if all went
+well.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was night now and would have been quite dark
+but for the bright glare from the fire. All the inhabitants
+of the Community were out working desperately.
+Olive paddled down her fire and kept her line
+bravely for a couple of hours, in spite of choking
+smoke and clouds of dust and many a burn. Willette
+was far away, lost in the darkness, following her end
+of the fire, and only became visible as she leaped backwards
+and forwards over her line of fire like some agile
+fiend engaged in roasting its victims. Olive was all
+alone. She felt very much frightened, for she did
+not know what might happen, nor what in any new
+emergency she would have to do. She wished somebody
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>would come, for it was a strange experience to be
+in the black night and lurid glare all alone minding a
+fire. The air was full of the burnt fluff from the big
+fire, and the roar as it now had come near was terrifying.
+True the worst of it was passing to the south, and
+their land was now pretty well guarded on all sides.
+Suddenly the cheerful black face of Napoleon Pompey
+appeared in the light of the flame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Pompey, I’m so glad you’ve come. Where
+is everybody?” said Olive, overjoyed to see a human
+being once more.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, Mis’ Ollie, I on’y jes’ take ole plough to
+de bars. We’uns rip up dat furrow golly spry. Done
+turn de hosses loose.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, the poor horses will be burnt!” exclaimed
+Olive in dismay.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dem hosses, dey dre’ful cute critters. Dey go
+off slap to de bottom lan’. You bet hosses knows
+mos’ as well nor white folks ’bout prairie fires. I
+come min’ yo’ fire fo’ yer, Mis’ Ollie. Ole man he
+done tole me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Very well, you can take my shingle then. There
+is not much more, I suppose, to be done now, only
+you must keep both edges between the two furrows
+here. They told me not to let it get away and run
+down into the Gully. Do you understand?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You bet,” replied Napoleon Pompey who knew
+far better than Olive could tell him just what should
+be done.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>“I am going to get my hat and skirt. I left them
+near the corner of Weddell’s Gully. I think I will
+just run across the old field and get them: it will be
+much shorter than going all the way round by the
+furrows. It will be light enough to see yet awhile so
+I can follow the path through the Gully.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive looked at the fire that was fast roaring its
+way towards the south-east, and deciding it would
+easily light her on her way she tripped off and disappeared
+in the gloom down towards the Gully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>In a few minutes Napoleon Pompey began to show
+signs of immense excitement.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Golly Ned! I never seed yonder. Mis’ Ollie
+whar yo’ be? Come back! Come back, Mis’ Ollie!
+Golly! Golly!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He ran violently backwards and forwards along
+his line of fire, which, however, he dared not leave,
+exclaiming “Golly!” and “Oh Lordy!” at every
+step. In a minute or two he ran into Ezra who was
+coming along to fetch Olive home, if she was still
+there.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Lordy! dat yo’, Mas’r Ezra. Yo’ go right ’long
+down dish hyar Gully. Mis’ Ollie she down dar.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra was dead beat. He could scarcely drag his
+limbs along. The terrific exertion of that furious
+ploughing, coming at the end of a long and hard day’s
+work, had almost over-taxed even his iron frame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I thought I would find her here on my way
+home,” he said languidly. “We are pretty safe now.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>Tell her to come back with the others. I’m going
+home to get something to eat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, sir-ee,” said Napoleon Pompey vehemently.
+“You’ hain’t gwine ter do dat. Golly Ned! Yo’
+dunno see. Mis’ Ollie she done gone down inter de
+Gully, fetch ole hat. Dat fire. Yo’ see dat fire startin’
+up yonder, she never seed dat, I didn’t see it nudder
+nohow: dat fire’ll crope up an’ cotch her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My God! where is she?” cried Ezra, roused to
+sudden energy as it dawned upon him what Napoleon
+Pompey was explaining.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Down de Gully dar, she say she gwine down
+dar.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Amongst those tall weeds and that fire coming
+on! Oh my God!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>His fatigue was all gone now. He leaped forward
+and sprang with desperate bounds down the straggling
+path towards Weddell’s Gully, where, in a deserted
+field once tilled by that individual, prairie weeds
+were growing to the height of six feet and more, they
+had dry stalks and fluffy downy heads that would
+burn like petroleum, if the fire once touch them. It
+was down there that Olive had gone, all ignorant of
+that tiny red line creeping slowly around the brow of
+the hill, up against the wind, and now approaching
+that very spot with vicious little tongues of red flame.
+No wonder Ezra bounded along the pathway, no wonder
+his heart beat ready to burst, and no wonder if
+his voice sounded harsh and choking as he cried
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>“Olive! Olive! Olive!” again and again until his
+brain reeled. He got no answer except the crackle of
+the fire. He stumbled along not knowing which way
+to turn, and twice fell forward as his foot caught in
+the tangled grass. He staggered to his feet and raising
+his agonised face cried in a harsh whisper, “Oh
+God! my wife, my wife!” He tried to shout again,
+but his dry throat made no articulate sound. His
+temples seemed bursting, he dashed forward blindly,
+not knowing where to look for Olive in the horrid
+darkness, soon to be turned into still more horrid
+light. His foot struck against an old rail at the edge
+of Weddell’s deserted field, he fell heavily, hitting his
+head against the projecting end of the rail, rolled over
+and lay still. The little flames crept nearer and nearer
+lapping out their malicious red tongues as if in anticipation.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIII.<br /> <span class='large'>THE RESCUE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Madame had worked hard with the rest in beating
+back the fire, and now that she saw that their united
+efforts had been successful and that Perfection City
+was safe, she, in company with Balthasar, was going
+the circuit of the defences of their home, just to see
+that there remained nothing further for her to do.
+In the course of time she came to Napoleon Pompey,
+who was in charge of the last scrap of back-firing, intent
+on maintaining guard and on effecting a complete
+junction of the two lines of fire, so as not to
+leave so much as a handsbreadth of standing grass
+whereby the enemy might even at the last minute
+burst in upon them. This finishing of the circle was
+important, and the lad was in the midst of his work
+and his distress when Madame loomed out through the
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Lordy, dey is both burned, dey is! Oh
+Lordy! Oh Lordy,” cried Napoleon Pompey the instant
+he set eyes upon Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who is burned?” asked Madame in bewilderment,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>well used to the extravagant modes of speech
+indulged in by negroes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mis’ Ollie an’ Mas’r Ezra fo’ shu’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Are you mad, fool, what do you mean?” said
+Madame furiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mis’ Ollie done gone in der Gully ter fetch ole
+hat, an’ de fire’s crope up, an’ it’ll cotch her, oh Lordy!
+oh Lordy! An’ Mas’r Ezra he done gone ter fin’ her
+down dar,” said the boy, beginning to whimper.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame gripped his shoulder with a grasp of iron.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Be quiet, and tell me what you mean. Sister
+Olive has gone home, I passed her myself with her
+hat under her arm, and she told me to tell Ezra she
+had gone back.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“De Lord be praised!” ejaculated Napoleon Pompey.
+“Den it’s on’y Mas’r Ezra’ll be burnt. Yah, you
+lemme go!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This exclamation was in answer to the sudden
+pressure of Madame’s hand, which was like the clutch
+of a vice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where is Ezra? Tell me or I’ll wring your neck,”
+she said in a voice the like of which Napoleon Pompey
+had never heard before in his life.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Down dar,” said he terrified, pointing to the
+Gully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Show me where he started from.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame still kept her hand upon Napoleon
+Pompey who hurried to the spot where Ezra had
+stood.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>“Dar’s his shingle, what he done drap when he
+run.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ha!” said Madame pouncing upon the shingle.
+“Here, Balthasar, here sweetheart!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The dog came up to her, and she passed her trembling
+hands over his long ears and whispered to him
+half crying, half coaxing. “Here, dear heart, do this
+for me or I die.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She put the shingle to his nose. He sniffed, raised
+his long and pointed head. Then she lay upon the
+ground coaxing him to put his nose down. He sniffed
+again, took a step to the right, to the left, back, then
+forward. Madame followed clasping the shingle to
+her bosom and murmuring cooing words of love to her
+dog. He raised his great tan head and gave a long
+deep bay that echoed far and wide.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Golly! She gwine ter run him down like he
+nigger slave,” said Napoleon Pompey with a shiver,
+as he heard the dog’s voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Balthasar set off and Madame kept close at his
+heels. It was easy enough, for the trail was fresh and
+strong. In three minutes they stood beside the motionless
+form of Ezra at the brink of the tall weeds,
+and Balthasar whined in anxiety as Madame lifted his
+head and called upon him in agonised tones. Just
+then the sky was lit up with a lurid glare. The first
+red tongue had tasted the dry fluffy weeds on Weddell’s
+abandoned farm. Madame, startled by the flame,
+sprang to her feet and gave one hasty glance around.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>Ezra lay motionless. She stepped a few paces into
+the shorter grass of the ordinary prairie and set it on
+fire. The little ring of flame spread on all sides, like
+the ripple from a stone cast into still water. Then
+she paddled out the fire on the side next Ezra, and the
+ripple of fire continued to spread rapidly in a sort of
+broken circle. The roar of the burning weeds was
+like the on-coming of an avalanche. Madame turned
+to Ezra and seizing him under the shoulders dragged
+him backwards within the safety of her oasis of burnt
+prairie. He was a big man and a heavy one, but her
+arm seemed endowed with more than mortal strength.
+She dragged him further and further within the circle,
+and then seeing that he was out of all danger, she sat
+down beside him and took his head in her lap. She
+opened his collar and fanned him with her hat. The
+now brightly burning weeds made it light as day, and
+she could see that he looked pale even under the
+blackened smoke that smeared his face, but his pulse
+was beating, he was only hurt and stunned, not dead.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Balthasar was terrified. Ringed round by fire and
+with the ground where he stood still smoking hot,
+what dog would not be alarmed? He lifted up his
+voice once more in a long howl, and then sniffing at
+Ezra gave a sweeping lick with his tongue all over his
+face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah! Ollie! Where are you? Come!” said Ezra,
+roused by this combined demonstration. He raised
+his head in a weak and bewildered way. Madame
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>placed her hand on his forehead as he sank down again.
+He put his own hand up and taking hers said: “Little
+wife!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame shivered, and then steadying her voice
+said, “Olive is quite safe!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra started up.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, what are you doing here? Where is my
+wife?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I came to tell you that Olive had gone home,
+and that she had got her hat all right. She never
+was in any danger at all. It was a mistake on the
+part of that negro boy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Madame!” began Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dear friend,” said she.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I feel so strange and bewildered, I don’t seem
+to know what has happened.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Lay your head down again,” said Madame, very
+gently. “You have had a blow. You will soon be
+all right.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra’s head sank again into her lap. He gave a
+deep sigh.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You came down here into the Gully after Olive
+who, according to the negro, had gone in search
+of her hat. You could not surely have realized
+that the fire was coming up against the wind and
+that it would be death to be caught among the
+weeds.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I knew, I knew,” said Ezra. “That was why I
+came. Olive was here.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>“But she wasn’t, she never had been here at all,”
+interrupted Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shouted, but no answer came. I could not
+find Olive. I remember the awful agony of it. My
+head seemed turning to fire and I couldn’t find Olive.
+I don’t remember any more.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You fell and knocked yourself senseless,” said
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is Olive safe? Tell me, are you sure Olive is
+safe?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Didn’t I tell you I passed her on her way home?”
+said Madame a little sharply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But this fire!” exclaimed Ezra, starting up.
+“We must get out of this.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Hush, lie down again,” said Madame, her voice
+dropping again into its tone of caressing entreaty.
+“Your head must be still giddy or you would perceive
+that we are surrounded. We can’t get out until
+the fires meet and extinguish each other. Rest and be
+patient.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra saw that this was true. They were entirely
+surrounded by a ring of retreating fire, the heat from
+which was oppressive. He sat down again, but did
+not lay his head in Madame’s lap. Perhaps it was because
+he felt less giddy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He asked her how she came there, and Madame
+very briefly told him, dwelling not at all upon her
+share in finding him, but rather upon the sagacity of
+Balthasar. Ezra, however, was not to be deceived.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>“You risked your life for me this night, Madame,”
+he said slowly, when she had finished speaking.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Possibly. I never thought about it. I could
+not leave you here to die, to be burnt to death. Had
+the case been reversed you would have come to my
+rescue.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are the most generous of mortals, the noblest
+of women,” said Ezra earnestly. “It was assuredly
+the brightest day of my life that led me across
+your path. You taught me how to live, and to-night
+your generous hand has saved me from death.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Hush!” said Madame faintly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I owe my life to you,” repeated Ezra. “What
+shall I do to repay such a debt?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Am I a usurer that I should exact my pound of
+flesh?” answered Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Usurer!” exclaimed Ezra. “That is indeed the
+last word to be applied to you. Is a usurer one who
+is always giving? Giving from her wealth freely and
+without stint? Is a usurer one who is ever helping
+and directing into the paths of righteousness those
+who are feeble and faltering of step? Ah, Madame,
+I never can half tell you all that I owe you! How
+narrow and selfish would my life have been but for
+you! Devoted to petty cares, absorbed in personal
+ambitions, rejoicing in sordid gains,—such would have
+been my fate, only Providence brought me to you to
+be taught, guided, elevated, purified. My life is yours,
+you have made it, dearest, wisest, best, of friends.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>“And Olive?” said Madame quietly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, there too shall be your handiwork seen,”
+said Ezra. “My little Olive is very young. Sometimes
+I think her mind is even younger than her body,
+and she is barely twenty, you know, a mere child and
+easily moulded.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame remembering her last encounter with
+Olive, seemed to recall very little that was either
+childlike or plastic in the concluding portion of their
+conversation, but she did not say so to Ezra who went
+on talking.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She often, however, puzzles me, she has such
+sudden freaks and fancies, as if her heart was a wild
+creature not fully tamed and ever dashing against
+the bars of its environment. I sometimes feel that
+I have not the necessary wisdom or tact to guide and
+counsel her. She seems to need someone who is wiser
+and more skilful than I am. Sometimes I fear she
+does not quite realise the responsibilities of life. The
+problems which have come up before us and which
+cry aloud for solution, seem to her but trivial matters
+that may be trusted to settle themselves. We must
+endeavour, dear friend, to arouse Olive’s enthusiasm
+about Perfection City. She is capable of the highest
+and noblest aspirations, but her heart must be turned
+into the right direction. She evinces a certain hesitancy
+in throwing herself into our work and aims.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Perhaps she is opposed to the whole thing,” suggested
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>“That cannot be,” replied Ezra earnestly. “She
+must see as we do, when she comes thoroughly to
+understand our motives in founding Perfection City.
+I look to you, Madame, to open her eyes to the truth.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah!” said Madame laconically, and then she
+added, after a moment’s pause, “I will ask you to
+do one thing for me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Anything you ask I will do if it is in my power,”
+said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do not tell Olive of your fall here, nor of the
+danger you were in, nor of my coming to find you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>After a moment of puzzled silence Ezra said, “Of
+course your wishes are to me law. But may I ask
+why you make such a request?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Perhaps I am judging wrongly, but I am acting
+as if Olive had the same feelings as I should have.
+If I were in her place, I should hate it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why?” asked Ezra in surprise.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame rose up, her pale face illumined by the
+light of the fire.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If I loved a man,” she said, beginning very
+quietly, but her voice gathered in intensity as she
+spoke. “If I loved a man, I could not bear it. To
+think that my love had failed him in his sorest need.
+He was lying stunned, helpless, within the clutch of
+deadly peril, and I went home unwarned, leaving
+him to his fate, all unconscious of the whole thing,
+while another woman—not I, but another woman—went
+to his rescue, another woman—not I—found
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>him, saved him, drew him out of danger, while I
+walked heedlessly home. I should hate myself, I
+should hate—ah! I should hate to the verge of killing
+that other woman who had saved him. That is the
+way I should feel, if I loved.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She concluded hastily, her voice dropping to a
+whisper. Ezra looked up at her in amazement.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yours is a many-sided nature. I never suspected
+you could feel like that. I never thought of you as
+being—as capable of——” he stopped in confusion.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah yes! You never thought of me as being able
+to love—to love a man and not an impersonal cause.
+Ah yes! You never quite looked upon me as a mere
+woman.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have always regarded you as something higher
+than a mere woman,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Listen,” she said, sitting down again beside him.
+“You have yet to know me—the woman, I mean,
+and not the pioneer of Perfection City. My father
+was a man of passionate nature. He had fine instincts,
+but these were not developed. He was a Russian
+noble. I come of very good blood, as they say in the
+old world.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I always knew you were of distinguished birth,”
+said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not at all, quite the contrary,” said Madame,
+with a laugh that sounded harsh. “My father was
+a wild, self-willed Russian noble. He was to have
+married a lady of princely house, only that he refused
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>to do one thing which they made a condition of
+the marriage.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What was that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“To give up my mother. Do you understand?
+He could not marry the princess, and he sacrificed
+wealth, position, and worldly honour, because he
+would not give up the pale-haired English girl whom
+he loved passionately, and who was my mother. She
+died, and my father died too, not many years afterwards.
+He did what he could for me by leaving me
+his fortune and the permission to bear his name, to
+which I had no legal right. From my mother I inherited
+my brain, but my heart I inherited from my
+father. Now let us go.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Must we?” said Ezra, to whom Madame’s sudden
+confession had been full of interest. “There is nothing
+further for us to do. Perfection City is safe.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But we must return to real life, Brother Ezra.
+Sitting here, ringed around with fire, we were alone
+in a world of our own. For a few moments we lived
+for each other, as it were. Our spirits communed, and
+I opened my heart to you as never before to mortal
+being. Now we must go back to real life again. See
+the fires are all out, and the world is itself again—all
+dark.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra rose to his feet and staggered a little, as Madame
+perceived from the stumble he made. She seemed
+preternaturally acute, and to be able to understand by
+the help of some new sense, for she put out her hand
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>and touched his arm, “Lean on me, brother, you are
+still giddy from your accident. We will walk very
+slowly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra, feeling indeed faint enough, gratefully accepted
+the proffered help and put his hand within her
+arm; thus very slowly they started back towards the
+house through the inky black night. “Friend, what
+I said is to be locked in your breast, a secret,” said
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I fully understand that,” replied Ezra, “and I
+feel it a high honour that you should have chosen me
+as the repository of the secret of your life. It is safe,
+nay more, it is sacred, with me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It took them a long time in the intense darkness
+to reach Ezra’s house where a light was glimmering
+from the window. When they at length reached
+the bars, Madame said, “I will not go in. Oh, I
+know what you would say, but I would prefer
+not. Olive would resent my bringing you back to
+her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You mistake Olive utterly,” said Ezra earnestly.
+“Believe me, hers is a simple nature, she would have
+no such feelings as you think.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Perhaps you are right, and that she is a child
+in mind and not yet a woman in heart. Possibly I
+endow her with feelings she could not even understand.
+I judge her by myself, and maybe all the while
+her little soul is possessed with nothing but content
+at the thought that her pretty hat is all safe. The
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>butterfly must not be blamed if it does not rise as
+high as the lark. Farewell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was waiting for him impatiently, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh Ezra, where have you been? And isn’t your
+face black? You are every whit as black as Napoleon
+Pompey. Wasn’t it fun?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Fun? What was fun?” asked Ezra languidly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, the fire of course, now that it is all over.
+It was so exciting. I was as hungry as a hawk when
+I came in. I really could not wait, so I had supper.
+You must have yours this very minute. Do you know,
+it is one o’clock at night, and you have not tasted a
+morsel of food since twelve o’clock yesterday? Do
+you realize that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She bustled around and got his supper ready, chatting
+brightly all the while over the incidents of the
+fire, making fun and merriment out of them all. Ezra
+sat stupidly watching her, his head throbbing so heavily
+that he could scarcely think. He could eat nothing
+when the supper was ready, and Olive felt aggrieved.
+“I think you might, just to please me. It would do
+you good, for you must be hungry, I should think.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He swallowed a few morsels and said he would go
+to bed, that rest was what he most needed, his head
+ached badly. He was thankful she made no inquiries
+after his adventures during that eventful night. He
+would have found it difficult to tell a connected tale
+with that pain in his head. He asked Olive if she
+had gone down into the Gully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>“No,” she said, “I started to go, but it was darker
+than I thought, so I came up again and followed round
+by the high prairie where there was a chance of meeting
+somebody. I came home with Willette.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The fire did get into the old field after all,” said
+Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And were the weeds burnt?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh! I wish I had been there to see. Wasn’t it
+a lovely blaze-up?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, it blazed up,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive didn’t notice that he seemed ill, he thought
+with some bitterness. Madame would have divined
+it, no matter how hard he had tried to conceal the
+fact. After all, it was not her fault that she was made
+differently. The butterfly was not to be blamed if
+it did not soar as high as the lark.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIV.<br /> <span class='large'>COTTERELL “WANTED.”</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>The day after the fire was an idle one at Perfection
+City. No one felt able to work, Ezra least of
+all. He lay upon the floor of the kitchen with a wet
+handkerchief on his head, and several times he asked
+Olive not to make so much noise. She was as still as
+a mouse, she thought, but then his head ached, poor
+fellow! So she went out and sat in the shade of the
+house among her morning-glories, while the hens
+walked about with their wings down and their tongues
+lolling out, trying to cool themselves. The black burnt
+prairie seemed to send up shafts of heat to the
+copper-coloured sky.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A man rode up to the bars, and for one moment
+Olive’s heart stood still. She feared it might be Mr.
+Cotterell, whom she had not seen since the day at
+the spring, now some weeks past. It was not Mr.
+Cotterell, however, but one of the settlers from the
+other side of Cotton Wood Creek. He came forward
+with his bridle-rein over his arm, his horse following,
+head down.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>“Wal, how’d you ’uns git ’long with that pesky
+fire?” he observed, without any preliminary greeting.
+He was a Missouri man, and they often prided themselves
+on their rudeness. It was their way of showing
+their independence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Good morning, Mr. Owen,” said Olive, who knew
+the man quite well. “We have escaped all right,
+thank you. I hope you were not injured?” She was
+extra careful in her manner, as the politeness for two
+had all to be furnished by herself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yer hain’t been burnt out I see. You all’s mighty
+silly anyhow. Why in thunder didn’t yer back-fire
+before? ’Tain’t agin’ yer principles, is it?” Mr.
+Owen grinned under the impression that he was
+funny.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We didn’t back-fire, because we thought it wrong
+to start a fire in such a wind and let it possibly burn
+up our neighbours,” said Olive stiffly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then ’tis agin yer principles to back-fire, by
+Gosh! The boys was ’lowing as much over to Union
+Mills.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is against our principles to injure our neighbours.
+You don’t object to that, Mr. Owen, do you?”
+said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I reckon you’ll git mighty tired o’ them idees ef
+yer live long on the prairie,” observed Mr. Owen.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Seen ole man Cotterell lately?” he inquired suddenly,
+half shutting his green-grey eyes and looking
+at Olive intently.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>She was somewhat surprised at the question, but
+knowing from experience how inquisitive the average
+settler is, she answered readily enough.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I haven’t seen him for a long time. Was he
+burnt out? I didn’t know the fire had gone so far.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I calkerlate he warn’t tetched by the fire,” said
+Mr. Owen, very slowly. He made long pauses between
+his remarks, during which he continued unremittingly
+the steady occupation of his life, namely,
+chewing tobacco. Olive began to feel impatient. She
+did not like to ask him into the house for fear of
+disturbing Ezra, so she sat down again in her chair,
+and pointing to a log of wood which lay near and
+seated on which he could still hold his horse, she
+asked him to take a seat also. Mr. Owen sat down
+with a grunt.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Never seed ony pusson so sot on posies as you
+’uns be,” he observed conversationally.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I am very fond of flowers. They make
+the house more home-like, I think. The prairie is
+very bare looking,” replied Olive politely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yer ole man oughter rared his house t’other side
+the Gully, an’ further down yon’er. This hyar ’ull
+be powerful col’ when we git col’ snaps in Jan’ary.
+Yer dunno nothin’ ’bout things in this hyar all-fired
+’Fection City,” said Mr. Owen, looking around him
+in criticism.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Perhaps not,” said Olive, rather nettled, “but
+we know how to mind our own business.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>Mr. Owen did not feel one whit abashed. He was
+far too near akin to the pachyderms for Olive’s delicate
+little shafts to have any effect on him. Another
+long silence followed, and Olive began to wonder if
+Owen was like that man from Jacksonville, who came
+to see them once and stayed four hours, during which
+time he made only two remarks and they possessed
+no particular interest. The man and his stony silence
+had driven her nearly wild, until she reflected how
+much more awful it would have been had she been
+obliged to entertain him with conversation. A recollection
+of this visitation and a dread born of that
+recollection began to invade her mind. Mr. Owen,
+however, was not going to stay for four hours, and he
+was going to make a remark of very particular interest,
+a remark that would quickly scatter all Olive’s other
+ideas. He delivered it slowly and with the monotonous
+enunciation which proclaimed him a Missouri man.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The boys is hout huntin’ down ole man Cotterell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What!” exclaimed Olive turning very white.
+Then, steadying her voice as well as she could she
+said, “Why are they hunting him?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“To cotch him,” replied her visitor concisely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But what for?” asked Olive, looking at him with
+wide eyes of horror. She knew only too well what
+hunting down a man portended.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, there’s bin a shootin’ over to his house,
+an’ one o’ thim boys o’ Mills is shot, shot dead. Cotterell
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>done it. And now he’s gone an’ run off. The
+boys they ’lowed Cotterell best be hung this time.
+Las’ time he was let off. He won’t be agin, you
+bet.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How do you know he has shot young Mills?
+What evidence have you of it?” asked Olive in terror,
+yet she could not help pressing the man to tell her,
+although each word was like a stab.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He gave a silent inward laugh as if his thoughts
+were facetious. “Evidence an’ enough,” he said.
+“Jake Mills’ body with a bullet through his heart.
+Yer can’t git nothin’ plainer in the way of evidence
+than that, I reckon.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But how do you know it was Mr. Cotterell shot
+him?” asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Damn my eyes! but yer mus’ be a nateral born
+fool, Mis’ Weston. Jake Mills were foun’ on Cotterell’s
+lan’. Who else could ha’ done it? Besides, he
+did, an’ that’s a fac’ anyhow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think it is perfectly monstrous,” burst out
+Olive, trembling with agitation. “I never heard of
+a wickeder thing. Here is this man you have decided
+to hang, and you don’t even know if he has done
+the thing you accuse him of. If that is what you call
+prairie law and justice I can only say I never heard
+of a more sinful and unjust law. Black savages
+couldn’t do worse.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mos’ like the boys will let him hev a trial, ef
+he’s partic’lar sot on’t. That won’t si’nify nothin’,”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>said Mr. Owen, again surveying Olive through the
+narrow aperture of his half-closed eyes, and again applying
+himself to his habitual occupation with vigour.
+She looked at him with a face in which horror and
+disgust struggled for mastery.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If this horrid murder is committed by your
+neighbours, Mr. Owen, I shall think that prairie men
+are a disgrace to civilization,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We prairie folks ain’t partic’lar sot on civilization,”
+remarked Mr. Owen with affability.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I hope you’ll never catch him,” said Olive, with
+a sound very like a sob in her voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The boys they ’lowed you’uns was mighty good
+frien’s o’ his’n, an’ he’d a mos’ likely come this hyar
+way to make for the Pottawattamie ’fore we’uns could
+cotch him. That’s why I come ’long ter look for him
+hyar,” observed Mr. Owen, rising and putting his
+head under his saddle flap in order to tighten up the
+girth a couple of holes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, you’ve come here to spy out, have you?”
+said Olive, in passionate anger. “Why didn’t you
+say so at first, and ask the question like a man, and
+not come sneaking around? Do you want to hunt all
+over the house and see if we’ve got anybody hidden
+away?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No,” said Owen slowly. “Guess that’ll do. I
+ain’t agoin’ ter hunt roun’. We ain’t no great shakes
+at bein’ fine folks out hyar on the prairie, but we
+allers takes the word of a lady, by Gosh. You said
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>you hain’t seen nothin’ o’ ole man Cotterell, guess
+that’ll do for the boys. Mornin’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Mr. Owen rode away, feeling that in the contest
+of politeness that morning he had certainly scored off
+Mrs. Weston with her stuck-up Eastern ways.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was in an agony of doubt and terror. That
+the boys were out hunting for Cotterell was, she knew,
+but the preliminary to his death, if they caught him.
+The boys seldom or never let off any one they caught,
+so she gathered from the stories she had heard of their
+doings in time past. What was she to do in this difficult
+dilemma? Should she tell Ezra?</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Under ordinary circumstances her first impulse
+would have been to go straight to her husband with
+the story she had heard, but in this instance she felt
+that such a course would be impossible. She knew
+that Ezra was jealous of Mr. Cotterell, he had betrayed
+his feelings more than once, and in her heart
+she knew that few men can be just towards the man
+who arouses their jealousy. Her husband was a very
+just man, and could, more than any one she knew,
+put himself in the place of others and see what was
+right and what was wrong. But in this instance it
+was not justice Olive wanted, it was justice that she
+feared. Although she spoke bravely enough to Owen,
+a terrible fear lurked in her breast that the evidence,
+though ludicrously deficient by the rules of procedure
+that obtain in old established communities, was quite
+sufficient to convince a prairie jury. Ezra would not
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>sit on a hanging jury, nor would he be a party to
+catching Mr. Cotterell, but his sense of justice and
+what was due to the principles professed at Perfection
+City might carry him no further than this passively
+inactive point? Would he assist Cotterell to escape?
+Guilty or not, that was what Olive wanted, and to
+help in such an undertaking, she felt sure, was what
+her husband might very well refuse to do.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Was Cotterell guilty? Olive debated this point
+anxiously in her mind. She knew he went armed,
+but so did many other men. In fact, to be armed
+was the rule on the prairie. The doctrine of non-resistance
+was one of the least understood tenets of the
+Pioneers at Perfection City, and was observed by nobody
+else on the prairie. Even Brother Wright, as
+we have seen—though Olive was quite unaware of
+this—had granted to himself a special indulgence in
+this matter. So the mere fact of Mr. Cotterell’s always
+having his revolver in his belt did not really count
+for anything, one way or the other. He had always
+been so gentle and so chivalrous in his manner to her,
+she found it difficult to force her mind to keep hold
+of the fact that he was a very passionate man. Everyone
+said so, and she knew, too, that the Mills’ were
+a bad lot, drunken quarrelsome men, who, as Ezra
+said, combined in their character all the vices of the
+prairie and preserved none of its virtues. How easy
+it would be for a proud, passionate man like Mr.
+Cotterell to bring his revolver into a heated argument
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>with Jake Mills, who might be mad with drink. But
+surely such a shooting was not murder according to
+prairie law. In her distress Olive found herself falling
+back upon the probable laxity of that very prairie
+justice which a short time before she had so scornfully
+characterised to Owen.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The “boys” who were hunting Cotterell were,
+as Olive well knew, the most relentless men on the
+prairie, regular settlers who had found by experience
+that the only way to keep order was to keep it with
+their own right hands. They had hung several horse-thieves
+lately, and had declared they were going to
+put a stop to the “shooting round promiscuous” of
+the younger blades. They were not unjust men, but
+they were hasty, and were moreover already terribly
+prejudiced against Cotterell.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Having decided that it was best not to tell Ezra
+what she had heard, Olive was immediately assailed
+with a hundred doubts. Suppose Mr. Cotterell came
+to them in his extremity, should she try to conceal
+him? But how utterly impossible to do so without
+the co-operation of her husband! The mere attempt
+to do such a thing might involve her in difficulties
+without being of any use to the unhappy man himself.
+Then there was Madame. Should she appeal
+to her for help? Her heart revolted from such a
+course. After their last meeting, when they had interchanged
+hot words on the subject of this very man,
+Olive felt it was impossible to ask Madame’s aid or to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>tell her anything about it. Then there was no one,
+and Olive resolved to keep the secret of what she
+had heard, hoping that something might turn up
+which would justify her action, or at least make any
+further action unnecessary. Thus do people often put
+off on the shoulders of chance the burden of a decision
+which taxes too much their powers of forecasting
+events. It was a heavy secret to keep to herself, and
+her face looked white and scared as she entered the
+kitchen on tip-toe to see how Ezra felt. He roused
+up as she came in.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am better now, little woman,” he said in answer
+to her inquiries. “The pain is all gone. I will
+get up and begin to stir around again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He went out with her and with the keenness which
+is soon a habit with a prairie man, he noticed the
+hoof-marks of Owen’s horse, where it had stamped
+rather briskly, owing to the flies.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who has been here? Those are fresh,” he said,
+pointing to the marks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That man from over beyond Cotton Wood Creek
+was here a little while ago, Owen is his name: you
+know the man,” said Olive, with a beating heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Cattle-hunting after the fire, I suppose. Were
+they burnt out yesterday?” asked Ezra, with slight
+show of interest.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I believe not, he did not say. He sneered
+at the Pioneers for not having safe-guarded themselves,
+heedless of the welfare of the other settlers,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>so I suppose he had been betimes with his back-firing,
+at least if he lives up to his principles,” remarked
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is too late to go and hunt for our horses,”
+said Ezra, “and I feel too tired to start out on foot
+after them. They may very well be five miles away
+by this time. Did you ask Owen if he had seen
+them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I never thought of doing so.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t forget always to ask everyone if they have
+seen your horses whenever they are out on the prairie:
+it is one of the golden rules of prairie life,” said Ezra,
+tapping her chin.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But he wouldn’t have known Queen Katharine
+and Rebel even if he did happen to meet them,” objected
+Olive. “How could he know one pair of strange
+horses from another?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Bless your sweet eyes, Owen knows every horse
+and cow belonging to his neighbours for a radius of
+ten miles from his house, at the very least. Telling
+a neighbour where his cattle are, is the only rule of
+politeness known to many of them, and they are punctilious
+about it,” said Ezra laughing.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wish I had known that, because I found him
+deficient in many of the rules I have been taught,”
+said Olive. “Possibly he found me as lacking, according
+to his estimate.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra did not go out to hunt for the horses
+the next morning as he had intended. Other work,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>which seemed more important, turned up for him.
+Brother Wright came that same evening to arrange
+about it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Good evening, friends,” he said. “I trust you
+are both rested after yesterday. It was a hard day
+and a harder night. Brother Ezra, you did splendidly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We were much alarmed for the safety of Perfection
+City: I don’t think it is ever likely to be in
+greater danger,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I suppose, not from the outside,” said
+Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And we are not likely to be set on fire
+from the inside, are we?” observed Ezra with a
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Accidents may happen,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Even in the best regulated communities,” added
+Brother Wright. “However, what I came to talk
+about was the future, and not the past. We’ve got
+two good loads of corn ready, it ought to be sold at
+once in Mapleton. We’ll get top price. I stepped
+into Madame’s as I came along, and she agreed with
+me. We must sell at once. Brother Dummy has got
+his waggon loaded up ready to start. It is a marvel
+how much that man does get through in the way of
+work. Well, the question is, who will go with the
+corn? Brother Dummy must drive his own team,
+because no other man could manage that black horse
+for half an hour. Biting Bill would kick the waggon
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>into match-wood in two minutes, if any of us attempted
+to touch his reins. I wonder whether it is
+the absolutely silent driving which cows him? You
+are out and out the best one for attending to business
+of any here. Madame thinks it would be well for you
+to go, and so do I.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am quite ready,” replied Ezra. “But my horses
+are both out on the prairie. I turned them loose after
+the fire to let them run off to the Creek, as I had no
+time to put them up and feed them. To-day I did not
+feel able to hunt after them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, suppose you take my team, and I will
+find your horses for you to-morrow. Will that
+do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“All right, then I’ll go to Mapleton.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The corn is already shucked, it won’t take half
+an hour to load up. You and I will do it while the
+horses are feeding. You ought to get off by six, I
+will feed the horses at five.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Each spoke of <i>his</i> horses and <i>his</i> waggons much
+in the same way as an artillery officer speaks of his
+guns. There were three pairs of horses in the Community,
+and, in theory at least, everyone was equally
+free to use them, but experience showed that that sort
+of handling did not suit horses, who do better if left
+always in the care of the same persons. Therefore
+it came about that Brother Dummy always had Biting
+Bill, since no one else could manage the brute, and
+Ezra generally had Queen Katharine and Rebel, while
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>Brother Wright kept the greys. Now these animals,
+although common property, were invariably spoken of
+by their drivers as <i>theirs</i>, for the use of certain familiar
+phrases, which to the outsider might seem to denote
+the idea of private property, came naturally to
+their lips. It is often more difficult to change habits
+of speech than laws of property. Reformers who
+start out to alter the whole course of modern ideas and
+to rearrange the world according to a plan of their
+own devising, would do well to meditate upon this
+peculiarity and see what it points to. Surely so slight
+a thing as a word might easily be eradicated from
+human speech, and yet how difficult it is to do so.
+But the point to consider is that the pertinacity, which
+shows itself in modes of expression, may very well
+exist in just as strong a form in habits of thought
+and feeling. The Pioneers, like others of that sort,
+passed over and disregarded such expressions as “my
+horse,” “my waggon,” and “your plough,” not apparently
+recognizing that the expressions denoted a habit
+of thought that might very easily strike at the very
+root of their institution. They were communists, as
+Olive had said, in bits of this and scraps of that, but
+the old leaven of individualism was there still among
+them, only dormant. The Pioneers never expected
+that the leaven would again become an active principle.
+Like other people, they were unable to see into the
+future, and therefore rejoiced in their escape from
+the perils of the prairie fire and considered that they
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>had no further danger to apprehend for this winter
+at least. The sea was smooth and the sky was serene,
+so to speak, and they did not perceive the sunken
+rocks that lay in the track of their experimental
+bark.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XV.<br /> <span class='large'>IN QUEST OF NEWS.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Olive was early astir the next morning, in order
+to see her husband off and also to provide him with
+food in ample abundance to last him for the trip. He
+carried a plentiful store of dried beef, a portable commodity
+much in request on the prairie. The old trappers
+had showed the settlers how to make it, and the
+trappers had acquired the art from the Indians. Dried
+beef is precisely what its name indicates. It is raw
+beef, somewhat salted, and then dried in the sun until
+it is like a piece of solid leather. It has to be cut into
+thin slices across the grain before the stoutest teeth
+can make the slightest impression upon it. It may
+be also cooked in a batter of eggs for the dainty, but
+has only to be sliced up with a jack-knife to be eaten
+by the average teamster on the prairie. Besides the
+dried meat and plenty of corn-bread, Ezra had milk
+in a bottle and one of Olive’s wedding presents to eat,
+namely, a tin of peaches. He travelled therefore in
+extreme luxury. He set off along with Brother Dummy
+just as the sun was rising, and the canvas covers
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>of the waggons showed for a long time as two moving
+white specks as they slowly crept across the blackened
+landscape, finally disappearing behind the Mounds
+some twelve miles to the west of Perfection City.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive remained alone at home with Napoleon Pompey
+and Diana to keep her company, until Ezra should
+return in four days’ time. It was only with great reluctance
+that he had consented to this. He did not at
+all like the idea of her remaining alone in the house.
+As usual, when it came to Olive doing what the ordinary
+prairie settler’s wife did as a matter of course,
+Ezra’s love took fright. He urged her to go and stay
+at Madame’s house, she would be more than welcome,
+he declared, in fact it seemed to him almost necessary
+that she should go, and he insisted strongly upon the
+plan. Olive was as strongly opposed to it. Why
+couldn’t she stay in her own house? She would much
+prefer it, so as to be on hand to feed the chickens and
+milk the cows and generally see to things. Besides,
+she felt quite sure she would be vastly in Madame’s
+way. Ezra combated this position vigorously. Olive
+could not be in anyone’s way, even if she tried. Moreover,
+was not Madame a communist like the rest of
+them, and she would be only too pleased to take Olive
+into her home as she had already done into her heart.
+His spouse made no comment, except a mental one, to
+this argument, but reiterated her preference for staying
+at home. It would only be three days or four at
+most, and she would be very busy. Ezra hinted at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>possible danger if it were known she was alone in the
+house.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But I won’t be alone: there is Napoleon Pompey
+for one and Diana for two. Surely between so stout
+a pair nothing on earth can happen to me,” she said,
+smiling at his anxious face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t feel easy about you,” said Ezra, looking at
+her with mournful eyes. “I never left you alone
+before, and it suddenly seems to me a most portentous
+thing.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why, you dear silly old thing!” exclaimed Olive,
+“I do believe you’ll have omens next, and will look
+into tea-cups to see if it is a propitious moment for
+the success of this undertaking. I never knew you
+‘take on’ like this before.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I never did so, but it is all because I love you,
+dear. I quite understand what it means, to be foolish
+with love. I used not to know what it was. I wonder
+do women ever feel the same as we men do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Women, my dear, are sent into this world for
+the express purpose of making men do what they ought
+and not be silly,” said Olive severely. “Now I know
+you’ll have the feed for the horses all right, but remember
+the feed for yourself is in this basket, everything
+you’ll want, and there is salt for the boiled
+eggs.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When the hurry of getting the waggons off was
+over, Olive sat down to think, and immediately there
+rose up before her the image of a hunted man flying
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>for his life. In some ways it was a relief that Ezra
+was gone, she would not have to be constantly making
+an effort to hide the real anxiety in her mind. Then
+she thought of Ezra and of his great and boundless
+devotion to her, and the words Madame had spoken in
+her wrath rose up before her and rebuked her. Were
+they true? Had she hidden her real nature from her
+husband before her marriage? She had never meant
+to do so, but in their long pre-nuptial conversations
+it had not appeared to her that she and Ezra were so
+different in their views of life and its duties as perhaps
+was now the case. He certainly had told her of the
+experiment of Perfection City, and she had accepted
+him and the experiment together because they were
+indissoluble. She of herself would never have initiated
+the communistic idea; but then there was nothing
+wonderful in that, woman never do initiate anything,
+they only follow some man’s lead with more or less
+enthusiasm and intelligence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Were she to have expressed her own private predilection,
+it certainly would have been for a little
+home of her own on the usual lines, which little home
+it would have been her pride and her pleasure to make
+as beautiful as she could. Olive did not possess a large
+and speculative mind, capable of vast dreamy projects,
+whose limitless possibilities were in imagination not
+checked by small practical obstacles. On the contrary,
+it was the tendency of her intellect to perceive
+those obstacles with startling clearness, and to demonstrate,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>by a few biting truisms, the impossibility of
+turning the dreamy vastnesses to use. She was neither
+hard-headed nor dull-headed, but hers was a practical
+nature, very much jarred by idle vapourings, and
+above all she was kept in the straight path of common
+sense by her keen appreciation of the ridiculous.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This faculty enabled her to perceive how often reformers
+run off the track of common sense, and while
+pinning their faith to one particular little tenet which
+they constitute the corner-stone of their philosophy,
+lose sight of the whole world beyond. Olive possessed
+in a high degree the sense of proportion, which in a
+true reformer is generally absent. When Ezra with
+his cultivated mind and really fine intellect, talked
+to her of the reforming of the present type of civilization,
+and briefly sketched out what he hoped would
+be the result of the introduction of the communistic
+idea into life, she could not help remarking that he
+used very much the same expressions, and seemed animated
+by very much the same hopes, as those indulged
+in by one of the dietetic reformers she knew in Smyrna,
+who promised all the glories of the golden age to mankind
+if the human race would only give up the baneful
+practices of eating meat and of cooking vegetables!</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>And every few minutes, across the mirror of her
+reflections, there came a shadow of a desperate man
+spurring on a jaded horse. Olive could not shake off
+a sense of impending disaster, but unlike Ezra, who
+attributed his melancholy to his great love for Olive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>and a vague, unreasoning dread of something happening
+to her in his absence, she knew quite well what
+she feared and why.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>As the morning wore on, Olive began to feel it
+impossible to remain quietly at home in the midst
+of her anxiety. She must go out and hear what news
+there was, or at all events she must learn if there was
+any news. Resolved not to hold any communication
+with Madame other than what was publicly necessary—for
+between the two there was now maintained a
+sort of armed neutrality—she decided to call at the
+blacksmith’s, as Brother Green was in the way of most
+of the gossip, if gossip is a term that could be rightly
+applied to the feeble and intermittent stream of prairie
+news that trickled through the smithy. Brother
+Green was a silent, self-absorbed man who worked
+steadily and brought much personal devotion into the
+project of Perfection City. He was a lonely man,
+a widower, and to judge by appearances a disappointed
+man as well. He was surprised to see Sister Olive,
+and very pleased, but could not shake hands as he was
+very dirty, and she looked so brightly clean. Having
+wiped a wooden bench with his leather apron and
+again with the sleeve of his shirt, he invited her to
+be seated. Brother Green was welding some iron, and
+Olive waited until the operation was concluded and
+the plough-hook made before she talked to him. Meanwhile
+she watched with interest the white glowing
+fire and the pulpy white-hot iron-bar, helplessly bending
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>over at the end like a piece of half boiled molasses
+candy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I felt so lonesome, I thought I would come out
+and talk to someone,” she said, by way of excuse for
+a first visit. “Diana isn’t a bit of company when you
+feel really lonesome. Ezra is gone for four days, did
+you know?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Diana had cocked one ear at the mention of her
+name, but had speedily uncocked it again on becoming
+satisfied that nothing in the way of excitement
+was at hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I suppose you do feel lonely,” said Brother
+Green slowly, as he seated himself on his anvil and
+crossed his brawny arms. “I’ve been used to it for so
+long, I have almost forgotten how anything else feels.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive looked kindly at him. “Are you ever homesick,
+and do you ever wish you had stayed in England?
+It must be very different from here.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Very,” said Brother Green gazing with a far-away
+sort of look through the large forge door out
+over the shimmering prairie. He suddenly seemed to
+see rolling hills with oak woods tufting their slopes,
+and a deep valley, where blue curling smoke ascended
+in high spirals, and a church steeple rose from among
+elms, and jackdaws croaked around the steeple. He
+put his head a little on one side, almost as if he would
+catch more distinctly the hoarse croak of the jackdaws,
+or maybe the first sound of the bell which hung in
+the steeple and used to ring on Sundays.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>“Yes,” he said, as this picture faded away and
+the prairie returned in its place, “there can’t be much
+greater differences in the world than between Perfection
+City and the little village in Sussex, where I was
+born.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Which do you like best, Brother Green?” asked
+Olive a little thoughtlessly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t expect ever to be as unhappy again as I
+was in that pretty little village,” said Brother Green,
+and Olive remembered that she had been told he had
+lost a young wife in his youth. She felt sorry for
+him, and regretted having touched upon an old wound
+that still could throb with pain.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Have you heard any news lately? Has anybody
+been to the forge? You are always the first to hear
+news,” said she quickly, desiring to change the subject.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“A man from down south passed this morning.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did he?” said Olive anxiously, “what did he
+say?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He said the fire was just bellowing its way towards
+Fort Scott, and had done a good deal of damage
+one way or another. It was one of the hottest
+they ever had and the hardest to stop. It crossed
+one of the South Fork Creeks and got into the broken
+land round Osage.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We had a very narrow escape ourselves,” said
+Olive, feeling remarkably little interest in the fire.
+“Did he say anything else? Who was he?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>“A stranger, I never saw him before. No, he
+didn’t say anything else, except to tell me that he
+calkerlated Britishers were mos’ly fools and couldn’t
+do a day’s work ’gain ’Mericans, no matter what it
+were, rail-splitting or tobacco-chawin’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green gave a deep gentle laugh, like the
+distant boom of a waterfall hidden among trees.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t you think these prairie folk are most conceited?”
+asked Olive, in some scorn.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, not more than other people, Sister,” replied
+Brother Green somewhat unexpectedly, “they only
+say what they think with remarkable frankness.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But that is conceit,” persisted Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am not certain that it is more conceited to say
+what you think, than to think your thoughts in silence,
+and be consumed with a vast contempt for all
+the world. We are a conceited people too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I thought the English prided themselves on not
+being conceited,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We pride ourselves on showing no feeling of
+conceit and if possible on showing no feeling on any
+other subject either. If an Englishman’s heart were
+skinned, I think it would weigh up pretty much the
+same as an American’s. The difference lies in the
+tongue only.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is that so?” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, this morning, for instance, that man informed
+me that he was a better man than I, and that
+his country could lick mine. Well, in my heart I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>knew he was wrong on both points, and that the precise
+contrary was the fact. As far as essentials go, I
+think we were pretty equal in the contest of conceit.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But you didn’t tell him what you thought,” remarked
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, that was the difference of tongue, not of
+heart,” replied Brother Green.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I didn’t know you were so severe in your criticisms
+and judgments. I wonder much what you really
+think of Perfection City,” said Olive, looking at him
+curiously. She had never particularly noticed him
+hitherto, and had not realized that he could have a
+store of knowledge of many things which lay far outside
+her experience.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think Perfection City will do good,” said
+Brother Green with conviction.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you, and why?” asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Any honest human effort to benefit the world
+and raise mankind does good,” said Brother Green.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But people have done such different things and
+all from a desire to do what seemed to them good,”
+objected Olive with feminine vagueness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I consider they have done good if their purpose
+was single-hearted,” maintained Brother Green.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They didn’t succeed in doing what they aimed
+at very often, at all events,” observed Olive, “something
+quite different came out of their endeavours
+from what they had expected.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>“Nevertheless, if they honestly tried, then that
+very trying was of itself good.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you think Perfection City will do the good
+the Pioneers expect, or will something quite different
+come out of it too?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think Perfection City will be the means of
+teaching a valuable lesson,” said Brother Green cordially.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you think it is any use to try to change the
+world and its ideas?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If anyone has a truth let him preach it fearlessly.
+Who can foretell the moment when the world will
+listen and when it is ready to profit by your example.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive longed to ask him what he thought of Madame,
+but dared not do so. She felt a little afraid
+before this simple-minded man, with his fervent, childlike
+faith and his sad and lonely life. Belief in Perfection
+City might be his only comfort now, shut off
+as he was from the joys of home and family, she would
+do nothing to lessen his belief and make him more
+lonely still. For what is more lonely than the heart
+out of which a faith has departed never to return?
+So she bade him good-bye, and then seeing Aunt
+Ruby’s chimney giving off the cheerful smoke of habitation,
+she turned her steps thither. Olive walked
+slowly along, for it was very hot indeed with a dry
+suffocating heat that made exertion somewhat irksome,
+and Diana, the discreet, followed dutifully behind
+her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>Aunt Ruby, as has been already hinted, had surrounded
+herself with a large family of chickens of
+all ages, to whose wants it was her great duty to attend.
+She had a rare hand for chickens, and could
+pick up the most spasmodic specimen and turn it upside
+down and examine it for the gapes without hurting
+it in the least. Her driving of the hens to roost
+was an exhibition of the talent of generalship worthy
+of a wider field. No screamings nor scurryings, no
+rushings madly hither and thither, took place, and
+above all no sticks were used in the ceremony: Aunt
+Ruby merely took her skirts gently at the side in each
+hand, and said “Shoo! Shoo!” in a soothing voice,
+while at the same time she slightly oscillated the folds
+of her skirt. The hens appeared hypnotized by the
+action, and no matter how eagerly they might be pursuing
+the afternoon fly, they would at once settle
+down into a conversational chuck-a-chu and begin
+forthwith to meander towards the hen-roost.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby’s numerous hens and chickens were all
+in the yard and around the wood-pile, seeking in an
+aimless over-fed fashion after chance insects, when
+suddenly, without a moment’s warning, the devil was
+upon them according to the gallinaceous imagination.
+The devil was possessed of four paws, a most terrifying
+bark, and a mouth that seemed to the affrighted birds
+to be on the point of devouring each one especially
+and individually. The dog flew hither and thither, and
+so did the chickens, and so did the tail-feathers.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>“Diana! Bad dog, down, down!” screamed Olive,
+rushing to the rescue, while Aunt Ruby with shrill
+cry and a broom-stick appeared in the door-way.
+Never before or since did a more tempestuous guest
+appear at Aunt Ruby’s house. Full a quarter of an
+hour of gentle “shoo-shooings” to the hens, interspersed
+with smart whippings to Diana, elapsed before
+quiet was restored, and the ladies could even begin
+their visit together. Even then there was a sort of
+nervous tension on Aunt Ruby’s part, which prevented
+her thorough enjoyment of the opportunity for
+a gossip. Her attention was distracted by Diana, who
+lay with lamb-like docility at Olive’s feet and slept
+the sleep of the just.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t keep a dawg roun’ nohow,” said Aunt
+Ruby eyeing the delinquent sternly. “I’d mos’ as lief
+hev a rattlesnake. I shouldn’t never sleep easy in
+my bed won’erin’ an’ won’erin’ what the pesky crittur
+’ud do nex’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I know that Diana is very naughty now, but she
+is only a puppy, and she’ll get sense by and bye, and
+it is so nice to have something that is your own and
+loves you, and doesn’t care for any body else, you
+know,” observed Olive somewhat rashly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I reckon you’ll hev a sight o’ trouble ’long
+o’ that dawg ’fore you learn it the rights o’ people,
+let alone teachin’ it community idees,” said Aunt
+Ruby.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, you can’t teach a dog communistic notions,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>thank goodness,” observed Olive, patting the sinful
+Diana.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Reckon you ain’t partic’ler sot on the idees of
+Perfection City,” said the old lady, looking at her
+visitor with bright twinkling eyes. “I allow there
+be a p’int or two we’ll hev to consider over agin at
+’Sembly. We are gettin’ on too fas’ fur this here
+prairie folk, they hain’t got the sense to un’erstan’
+all o’ our highest principles. Guess while there’s Injuns
+roun’ we hed better jes’ hol’ back a mite ’bout
+non-resistance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh,” said Olive, who had never given any attention
+to this point, being as indifferent as the wives of
+strong men usually are. “I never heard a word about
+Indians. Are there any about?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not as I hearn on special. But there’s Injuns
+and worse nor Injuns in the world, an’ I reckon we’d
+better take that p’int up at ’Sembly and see if we
+can’t do su’thin’ to make things a bit straight,” said
+Aunt Ruby in language that was vaguely enough expressed
+to serve in the highest walks of diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, I dare say,” replied Olive carelessly, “some
+very excellent reason could be devised to excuse a
+departure from any one of the Perfection City principles,
+which seem more difficult to manage in practice
+than on paper. They are all pretty new, and of
+course can’t be expected to be as useful in all the
+difficult circumstances of life as principles which have
+stood the test of time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>“Dear me, suz!” exclaimed Aunt Ruby admiringly.
+“How gran’ you kin talk! Deal sight finer nor Brother
+Wright. Why don’t you hold forth in ’Sembly?
+I’d liefer hear you nor any on ’em. I’m jes’ ’bout tired
+o’ listenin’ to Brother Wright. Lard! how he do love
+to hear his own voice! Hens is jes’ like that too, they’ll
+talk an’ talk till you’re mos’ crazy, an’ they hain’t
+nothin’ to say, on’y jes’ to cackle an’ hear themselves
+talk.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive agreed with Aunt Ruby, but hardly dared to
+express her opinion in all its force. Therefore she
+turned the conversation by inquiring had she ever
+heard anything about lynch-law and about its being
+put into practice in their neighbourhood?</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Course I hev, an’ hearn o’ hangin’ too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do Perfection City principles uphold hanging?”
+asked Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Guess not,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No matter if it was for murder?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I don’t see as we could ever be called upon
+to settle that p’int, ’cause no ’Fectionist could ever be
+a murderer no how,” said Aunt Ruby.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But suppose an outsider who had shot a man, even
+if it was not a real bad murder, came to us for protection,
+would they help him, do you think?” asked
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I never hearn that debated at the ’Sembly,
+but I reckon Perfection City don’t lay out to hide
+folks as has killed a feller critter. It don’t ’pear to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>me as how we was called upon to min’ anyone ’cept
+our own selves, an’ we hed best keep clear ’way o’
+them sort o’ folks. That’s pretty nigh my ’pinion,
+an’ I guess it’s mos’ folks too as hes a mite o’ common
+sense.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was fain to confess to herself that in all
+probability Aunt Ruby did fairly express the collective
+opinion of Perfection City. They had only enough
+righteousness for themselves, and, like a ship already
+short of provisions, could not help another vessel, even
+though it might be flying the Union Jack upside down
+and showing all the other flags of acute distress recognized
+in the naval code of signals. Had Aunt Ruby
+heard of anything concerning a horse-thief who was
+supposed to be somewhere around, inquired Olive with
+a view to eliciting information, but she only elicited
+feminine alarms in overwhelming abundance.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do tell! Land o’ liberty! Was there horse-thieves
+’bout? What a pity Brother Ezry an’ Brother Dummy
+was both gone jes’ now: they might meet in ’Sembly
+right away an’ discuss the p’int o’ non-resistance an’
+buy revolvers next time anyone went to Union Mills.
+Horse-thieves was mos’ as bad as Injuns, an’ if it was
+lawful an’ right to defen’ yourself ’gainst Injuns as
+was ign’rant savages as never hed Christian teachin’,
+it couldn’t be wrong to look a’ter your hosses as was
+bought an’ paid for by ’Fection City money.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby was so convinced and loquacious upon
+this subject and upon the aspect of the case as presented
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>to her mind by her terrors, that Olive heartily regretted
+her question, and began to try and do away with the
+effects of it as far as possible. It was only a vague
+report she averred, and Olive herself had not the
+slightest idea that there were horse-thieves about.
+Upon the strength of this assurance Aunt Ruby, somewhat
+comforted, allowed her attention to be engaged
+by other topics of conversation. She was much distressed
+that she could not persuade her visitor to stay
+all the rest of the day and have a real good soul-satisfying
+talk, but Olive declared she must go home and
+see to her own chickens, an argument that appealed
+very strongly to Aunt Ruby’s maternal instincts.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A difficulty arose as to how Diana was to be decently
+conducted out through the yard.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’d mos’ as soon hev to conten’ with a roarin’
+lion as that pup,” remarked Aunt Ruby as the difficulty
+presented itself to her mind in an acute form.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If I could get her past without seeing the hens
+and chickens she would be all right,” said Olive, who
+of course had no whip, regarding meditatively the
+dog, who of course had no collar.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, that ’ud do, I guess, sort o’ take her out
+o’ the way o’ temptation,” said Aunt Ruby, surveying
+Diana with an anxious eye. “I kin give you an ole
+caliker skirt o’ mine, an’ you kin tie up her head in
+that reg’lar tight, so as she wouldn’t see ne’er a hen
+this side o’ Christmas, ’less you took it off.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>This seemed a hopeful arrangement; so the “caliker
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>skirt” was brought, and the misguided Diana,
+under the impression that a brand new game was on
+foot, allowed her head to be hidden in the folds of the
+skirt. Olive then led her to the door, but Diana objected,
+not seeing where the joke came in for her;
+and as soon as she found that she was ignominiously
+tied into the dreadful skirt, her rage was boundless.
+In an instant she wrenched herself free from Olive’s
+guiding hand. She then commenced a wild career
+around the yard backwards, swaying this way and that
+in the most ghastly and unlooked-for manner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The hens and chickens no sooner beheld this portent
+than with one universal squawk of horror they
+betook themselves to places of safety under the corn-crib
+and into the cracks of the wood-pile, whence they
+could not again be coaxed for many hours. Diana
+meanwhile continued her fearsome course and ere
+long came into violent contact with the chicken-tub,
+a large receptacle with loose wooden cover where various
+sorts of food suitable for fowls were collected together,
+first thinned with water and then thickened
+into a glutinous mass by intermixture of corn-meal.
+Into this tub Diana sat with extreme violence and then
+rolled over. Olive caught her as she was emerging
+from the chicken-tub and by uncovering her eyes restored
+her to reason. Aunt Ruby, speechless with indignation,
+and Olive, equally speechless with laughter,
+then set to work with two big spoons to scrape the
+chicken food from the ground and from the hind
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>quarters of the dog. Diana, now at peace with all the
+world, wagged her tail benevolently during this process,
+and soon specked Olive over with corn-meal, potatoes,
+scraps of peelings, and bits of greens, until she
+looked as if she had been out in a snow-storm as severe
+in character as it was diversified in composition. When
+this job was over Aunt Ruby arose and straightened
+her old back with a groan.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I guess I would a deal sight sooner hev a
+rattlesnake to look a’ter than a dawg,” she observed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive, apologetic, departed along with the unrepentant
+Diana, and together they returned homewards.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVI.<br /> <span class='large'>HORSE-THIEVES.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Olive spent a few quiet hours at home along with
+Diana, and then took supper in company with Napoleon
+Pompey, whose manners at table were now
+all that could be desired. Indeed, the negro in this
+connection easily takes a higher polish than might
+be expected: he prides himself on being punctilious
+in all the forms and phrases of the best white society
+he has ever come in contact with, and being highly
+imitative, is quickly trained. Given a white boy and
+a black boy of similar ages and depths of ignorance,
+the black one will more quickly tame into a seemingly
+quiet human being, while very frequently the same
+vanity which prompts a negro to be over-zealous in the
+use of “please” and “thank you” will cause the
+white boy to act roughly and assert his independence
+by extravagances of rude behaviour. Napoleon Pompey
+was magnificently polite to “Mis’ Ollie,” whom he
+adored, and for whom he was ready even to work: that
+is to make the greatest sacrifice possible to a negro lad
+of twelve. He never forgot to carry in wood for her
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>or to pick up chips in generous quantity for the
+lighting of the afternoon fire, and he collected abundance
+of corn-cobs and had them duly dried in the sun
+ready at her hand in case she was in sudden want of
+a hot fire. When working for Ezra, Napoleon Pompey
+reverted to his natural black standard of diligence
+and shirked as much as he possibly could, lying down
+in fence-corners to sleep like a shiny black lizard when
+he should have been stripping corn, but he never
+shirked “Mis’ Ollie’s” work. She didn’t scold the
+lad, but ruled him by her gentleness and her beauty,
+and he fell into meekest subjection to her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive always tried to talk with Napoleon Pompey
+at meals, even when Ezra was there, being anxious
+to make him feel at his ease and happy in their presence;
+and to-day being alone with him she thought
+she might get some information out of him on the
+subject which was weighing so heavily upon her mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Napoleon Pompey, did you ever hear of their
+hunting down men on the prairie here?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yo’ bet, Mis’ Ollie, I seed darkie what went to
+de hangin’ ole man Howard. He done seed him
+hoisted over de tree slap up. He told me——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Hush!” said Olive sternly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The young savage was abashed, he had meant no
+harm, but thought some pleasing details “o’ de hangin’,”
+which he himself had relished mightily, would
+prove equally acceptable to Olive’s taste. She was
+disgusted to think that with all her teaching of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>forms and symbols of politeness and gentle manners,
+which the young scamp had received with such docility,
+she had not really touched his heart at all: he was
+just a black savage, still rejoicing in vivid details of
+horrors and cruelty.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t tell me,” she said sternly, “that it is possible
+you could like to see a human being, a fellow
+creature, made in God’s image, no matter how guilty
+he might be, put to death. It may be necessary,
+Napoleon Pompey, sometimes to hang men who have
+done wicked things, so as to prevent others from doing
+the same, but it is an awful thing, a sad and terrible
+sight. You would never wish to see it, Napoleon Pompey,”
+said Olive solemnly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It ’ud be bully ter see ’um kickin’ in de air
+wid rope roun’ his neck,” said Napoleon Pompey
+simply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive turned white with disgust and left the
+kitchen, retiring with Diana to her own little private
+room. Napoleon Pompey, conscious of no shortcomings,
+cleared away the supper things very handily,
+washed the few dishes, set the candles upon the white
+deal table, and whistling in the innocence of his
+youthful heart went out to “walk roun’” and see
+that all was right, and the hen-house fastened up securely
+against possible visits from pole-cats, before
+he retired to his loft upstairs shortly after sun-down.
+Like the chickens, Napoleon Pompey went early to
+roost.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>Conscious from the all-pervading stillness that the
+lad was gone to bed, Ollie returned to the kitchen,
+and her heart smote her as she saw two tallow candles
+in their tin candle-sticks placed on the table in convenient
+position for her to read, if such should be her
+wish. Poor Napoleon Pompey! Olive thought compassionately
+of what an affectionate boy he was, and
+of how it was not his fault if he still had savage
+tastes. Indeed, it was rather the fault of everybody
+else. His not very remote ancestors were unreclaimed
+African savages, and the career of those more immediate
+forefathers, whose lot had been cast in slavery
+down South, had not had an elevating tendency. It
+was wonderful, not that he still had savage tastes, but
+that he had got rid of so many of them. She was
+sorry that she had not been better able to control her
+feelings, and determined forthwith to institute a careful
+system of training with a view to leading him to
+the higher life by the shortest possible road. Having
+settled in her own mind a few of the more important
+lines upon which this training was to be conducted,
+Olive turned at last to her reading. But she could
+not keep her mind on her book, it kept wandering
+off in all sorts of directions, and at last took that
+of being frightened at the loneliness and stillness of
+the house. When so firmly combating the notion
+of being afraid to stay in the house during Ezra’s
+absence, Olive had not realized how appalling the
+stillness would be. In the daytime there were multitudes
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>of unregarded sounds, which went to make up
+the sum total of the idea of life and fellowship, but
+at night these had completely ceased, and she seemed
+to hear the stillness with awful intensity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Then, too there were no shutters to the windows,
+which were, of course, open to let in the cool night
+air, and the thought suddenly came into Olive’s mind
+of how exposed she really was, sitting there in the
+light of her candles, plainly to be seen, but unable
+to see out. A thought such as this needs but little
+time to grow into a veritable feeling of panic. She
+glanced at the black gaping windows and stared out
+into the measureless blackness beyond. At one moment
+she raised her hand to extinguish the candles
+and so to hide herself in the dark along with her fears,
+but she knew that would only make matters worse.
+She would see in her terrified imagination a hundred
+glaring eyes peering in through the window. She
+got up and walked about the room, trying by a little
+movement to throw off the oppressive sense of terror.
+Diana suddenly seemed to be interested in something,
+and raised her head and sniffed inquiringly, and her
+mistress, nervously awake to every sight or sound,
+looked anxiously around her and stopped in her uneasy
+walk. Diana arose and went to the door, and
+being a puppy wagged her tail effusively, then suddenly
+remembering that she ought to be a dog, barked
+with vehemence. Olive was ready to scream with
+nervous terror as she heard a step upon the slanting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>board which led up to the door and a second later
+a knock against the resounding wood. She stood
+spell-bound, unable to speak or move. Diana ceased
+barking, and looked with eager delight for the opening
+of the door.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is I, friends, let me come in,” said a deep
+voice which thrilled Olive to the heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The door opened and Mr. Cotterell entered.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell! What are you here for?” gasped
+Olive, as he came in and stood in the light, gaunt-eyed
+and hollow-cheeked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am flying for my life, Mrs. Weston. The men
+are out hunting me down. I have come to ask your
+help. Where is your husband?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He is gone away to Mapleton.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah!” said Cotterell, with a sigh that had some
+relief in the sound. “Then you will help me, won’t
+you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What have you done?” asked Olive, gazing at
+him in terror. He was wild-looking and so different
+from the charming gentleman she had known before.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’ve shot Jake Mills,” he replied, without any
+attempt at dissimulation.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Do you mean that you’ve murdered him?”
+gasped Olive, starting back from him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Good God! Mrs. Weston, no. I’ve not murdered
+him, although he is dead by my hand. There’s
+been a quarrel between us about some land he rented
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>from me. He was a very low-bred fellow and violent,
+and I despised him, and—well, I said some harsh
+things to him about cheating the last time we met.
+He swore that he would pay me out. He came to
+my cabin the other day. I don’t know how long
+ago, it seems a life-time. He was mad with drink
+and fury. I told him he was a hound. He whipped
+out his revolver and fired at me, but he was too tipsy
+to aim straight, his shots went wide of the mark. Well,
+I got my shot in, I was not drunk. That is how it was,
+Mrs. Weston. Upon my honour as a man, that is the
+exact truth, you would not call it murder, would
+you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, it was in self-defence. But why didn’t you
+go and tell the neighbours at once? They understand
+that sort of thing on the prairie.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, there’s just my hard luck. There was a
+brute of a negro who saw it all, a fellow I thrashed
+once for stealing and lying, and he said with such
+a meaning look, niggers were free men now, they
+could give evidence against white men now,” said
+Cotterell in a voice of despair.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Could not you silence him?” said Olive, “or
+make him tell the truth?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I could have silenced him easily enough,
+and I had my finger on the trigger to do it. But
+I sickened at the thought. I couldn’t shoot him,
+although it was my life against his in all probability.
+I fled and he gave the alarm. I have no chance with
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>these men around here to try me, and that negro
+to give his lying version of the fight. If it was a jury
+of men like your husband, it would be different, but
+these ignorant settlers are desperately prejudiced
+against me already as a foreigner, and because of several
+things in the past.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive thought of what her husband had said, and
+knew only too well that there was indeed much prejudice
+against the unhappy fugitive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What am I to do? You cannot stay here, Mr.
+Cotterell. They have already been looking for you.
+Mr. Owen was here yesterday afternoon.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did he tell you what I had done? Did he seem
+to consider it murder?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, he did,” said Olive in a whisper, not daring
+to remember what he had said should he Cotterell’s
+punishment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But you don’t look upon it in that light?” said
+he, wistfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, certainly not. It was a terrible misfortune
+that might happen to anybody, given the preliminary
+quarrel.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Thank you,” said Cotterell brokenly. “When
+a poor devil is being hunted down it is a comfort
+for him to find someone who can still believe in
+him, and I knew in my heart I could come to you
+for help when all else had abandoned me. I am
+starving, Mrs. Weston. I have eaten nothing for two
+days. Can you give me some food?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>“Poor fellow!” cried Olive, more struck perhaps
+by his bodily needs than by those of the mind. “Sit
+down here, I’ll get you something in a jiffy. There
+is a good chicken-pie in the cellar.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She took a lantern and hurried off to the cellar
+which was under the house, but to which entrance
+was effected by an outside door. She brought him
+food and drink and sat by him as he ate ravenously,
+wolfishly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I must sleep or I shall never be able to hold
+out for the flight to-morrow. Let me lie here, will
+you, and wake me at mid-night. Will you do that
+for me? I must sleep. I have been hiding in the
+bottom-land of Cotton Wood Creek in the brushwood
+ever since I left home. I didn’t dare to ride
+across the prairie with everybody out on account of
+the fire. I should have been seen by someone, even
+if I could have got clear of the fire. The hunt must
+be over now on this side of the county, and I may
+dare snatch a little sleep.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He flung himself down on the floor, and almost
+before Olive could fetch a pillow for his head he
+was in a deep sleep. She sat watching him and wondering
+what his life was. Somewhere away in England,
+perhaps, there was a blue-eyed girl waiting for
+him to come home, a girl whose blue eyes were getting
+dim with the tears she shed in that long, long
+waiting. He was a very handsome man, with his yellow
+moustache and clear-cut features. His hat was off,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>leaving a sort of high-water mark plainly visible on
+his forehead, where the sun-burn ended and the
+smooth white skin showed upon his temples. The
+veins were marked in blue like a baby’s, she remembered
+how Ezra had commented on these blue veins.
+She wondered who he was and why he came there to
+live, and all the while she watched the slow rise and
+fall of his chest as he breathed in his sleep with his
+right hand nervelessly holding his revolver. How he
+would start up and grip that weapon, and how his
+blue eyes would flash, if his pursuers should come
+upon him! He was a man that had a reputation for
+bravery even on the prairie, where few men were
+cowards. She thought of Prince Charlie and his
+wanderings, and all the stories she had read as a girl
+about that charming prince. Here was a fugitive
+seeking her aid, and she—well, she would act the
+part of Flora Macdonald. By the time it was mid-night,
+Olive had worked herself into a most romantic
+frame of mind and was determined to help Mr.
+Cotterell at every hazard. She was not a person
+to do a thing by halves. She made a parcel of
+food for him out of the remains of the chicken-pie,
+and then, it being just mid-night, she awoke
+him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, Mrs. Weston, how can I ever show my gratitude
+to you? You are in veriest truth my guardian
+angel. I shall carry your image in my heart till I
+die,” said Cotterell in his soft persuasive voice. “I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>should like to think that you had some memory of
+me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shall not forget you, and shall pray that you
+may escape all dangers,” said Olive gently.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have absolutely nothing that I can call my
+own. Would you accept this ring of mine as a token
+of my gratitude, and sometimes wear it in memory
+of me? When you look at it, think that somewhere
+in this weary world there is one heart that will be
+grateful to you until it ceases to beat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He pulled a ring from his finger and put it into her
+hand. At the same time he stooped his tall form and
+softly kissed her forehead, saying: “God bless you!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive’s eyes were full of tears. “You must be
+going or it will be too late,” she said with a sob.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I must not tarry.” He looked to his revolver,
+jerked his cartridge-case round into a more
+convenient position for rapidly opening it, and took
+up his hat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where is your horse?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I hitched him to the bars.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I will take the lantern and light you on
+your way. The night is very dark. Once on horseback
+you can ride by the light of the stars,” said
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I’ll shape my course for the Missouri border,
+if I can run the gauntlet of the people here. Once
+I reach a town and civilization I shall be all right.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They went to the bars, Olive holding her little
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>lantern which threw a feeble ray along the pathway.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Great God!” cried Cotterell.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, what is it? Are they coming after you?”
+said Olive in alarm, dropping her lantern which instantly
+went out.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My horse is gone!” said Cotterell, whose eyes
+were now becoming accustomed to the darkness. “I
+left him hitched here. He was a wild young colt,
+not half broken. See, this is the lariat-rope wrenched
+in two. I was a fool to trust to that rope, and a double-dyed
+fool to leave him here in the dark. But I was
+too hungry and too sleepy to think clearly of what
+I was doing. That sleep will cost me my life. I
+shall have plenty of time to sleep, aye forever, if daylight
+catches me here. Mrs. Weston will you add one
+more benefit to the many that have gone before?
+Will you give me a horse?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, so gladly if I had one,” said Olive, beginning
+to cry with grief and helplessness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Haven’t you any horses?” asked Cotterell with
+a gasp.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No. Ezra and Brother Huntley have taken two
+teams to Mapleton.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Are there no more about the place?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Only our two that were out on the prairie.
+Brother Wright was to hunt for them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did he find them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t know. Perhaps he did.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>“Then you must give me one of them. They
+are yours.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They are not mine. Oh, I have not anything
+in this dreadful Community. It is horrible,” wailed
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t, pray don’t,” said Cotterell feeling for her
+hand in the darkness and crushing it in a passionate
+grasp. “Come with me and help me get one.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What! steal one of our horses?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, God help me! if that must be the word.
+If I live, the Community shall have the horse’s price
+ten times over. If I am hanged, put it down for
+the Recording Angel’s tears. Come.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The horses are not here. They are at Brother
+Wright’s if anywhere.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Can you find the way in the dark? Then come
+all the same.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He held her hand. Was it for fear lest she should
+turn back, or was it for some other reason? They
+walked in silence towards the Wrights’ house, two
+dark shadows stealing through the blackness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cotterell,” whispered Olive with chattering
+teeth. “If anyone should come out of the house
+on account of the noise, don’t fire. We are all non-resistants,
+you know, here, and he won’t have a pistol.”
+Olive had no knowledge of the plenary indulgence
+which Brother Wright had seen fit to bestow upon
+himself in this matter.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dear heart! don’t fear,” said Cotterell tenderly.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>“I am a desperate man flying for his life, it is true,
+but I am not a dastard. No human being at Perfection
+City shall ever be hurt by my hand. They
+are all sacred to me for your sweet sake. Ah yes, how
+truly it is Perfection City, none but I really know.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They walked on again in silence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is there a dog?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, but he knows me well. We are coming to
+the back of the stable now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then go and speak to the dog through the
+chinks of the logs, else he will bark at me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive crept up quietly, and putting her lips to a
+crevice in the rough log-stable said softly, “Pluto,
+good dog!” Pluto answered with a whine of satisfaction,
+and a soft, purring trumpet from Queen
+Katharine announced that she too was within, and
+that she recognised her mistress’s voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The horses are here,” whispered Olive. “I will
+go round and bring out Queen Katharine; there is
+only a wooden bolt on the outside to fasten the door.
+You had better not go near them for fear of exciting
+them, which might make the dog bark.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is dangerous for you in the dark. I fear the
+horses may hurt you,” said Cotterell, slow in bringing
+himself to give up the little hand he had held all
+during that strange night walk.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am not afraid of the horses: they know me
+and I know them,” said Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Cotterell heard her talking softly to Queen Katharine
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>as she quietly undid her halter and brought her
+out of the stable. Not a creature seemed awake in
+the house, and not a word was spoken by the two as
+they stole past down to the bars. Once out of earshot,
+Cotterell sprang upon Queen Katharine and
+stooping down lifted Olive up before him. She never
+could quite remember the wild things he said as he
+rode back to their house, holding her in his arms on
+the horse. She was dizzy, frightened, and confused,
+so perhaps he did not say all those wild words, and
+perhaps she dreamed them. He got Ezra’s saddle
+and put it on Queen Katharine, Olive did not forget
+to give him the parcel of food and a flask of milk and
+water, and then he said good-bye. Such a strange
+good-bye. He knelt before her, clasped her two
+hands in his own, and said: “Now I know why men
+have worshipped the image of pure womanhood. It
+made them better. I shall be made a better man by
+my worship.” And then he was gone without another
+word, and Olive crept into the house just as the first
+grey streaks of dawn appeared.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVII.<br /> <span class='large'>A LIFE AT STAKE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>When Brother Wright early next morning discovered
+the loss of the brown mare, he was thrown into
+a state of the most unphilosophic rage. He had not
+a moment’s doubt as to what had happened, nor a
+moment’s hesitation as to the course he should pursue.
+He hurried back to the house and without any
+effort at concealment got out his revolver and stuck
+it into his belt.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wright,” said Mary, his wife, “whatever have
+you got there?” She was filled with amazement.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“A pistol,” replied he with firmness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What are you going to do with it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Shoot a damned horse-thief, who has been and
+broken into the stable and stolen Queen Katharine.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He jammed down his hat on his head and made
+for the door, while Mary Winkle gave a scream that
+would have done credit to the finest lady in the land.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You shan’t do any such thing! You will be
+killed! What do you know about pistols? You will
+be shot by those murderous horse-thieves, and what
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>will become of me—and Willette?” Mary Winkle
+urged the very arguments that have before now been
+known to make brave men falter and turn back from
+running risks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I—I shan’t do anything rash,” said Wright sheepishly.
+“I’ll just go round and rouse the neighbours
+and see if we can’t catch him, he can’t have got very
+far as yet. What beats me is why Pluto didn’t bark.
+The dog’s a fool, I’ll drown him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, I am thankful he didn’t bark, for you might
+have been dead by now if he had. You shan’t drown
+him, for he has saved your life. Horse-thieves are
+desperate men and wouldn’t respect our principles of
+non-resistance,” said Mary Winkle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ahem,” said her husband, tucking the revolver
+out of sight until required.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What we’ve got to do is to go to Madame and
+summon an Assembly of Urgency and talk this matter
+over, and see what the Community is to do. Wright,
+you can’t go and rouse the neighbours till you’ve got
+the sanction of the Assembly. You know that is the
+rule in all important matters, and this is about the
+most important matter that has ever come up for discussion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Damn discussion!” said Wright angrily. “While
+we’re discussing that thief will get away. Sharp is
+the word for catching horse-thieves.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“But sharp is not the word for determining the
+action of Perfection City in an important juncture
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>like the present. Wright, I am surprised at
+you, and also at your language,” said his wife severely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh these infernal horse-thieves would provoke a
+saint,—not that I am one,” said Wright, still in a rage
+most unbecoming to a professed non-resistant, and
+Mary Winkle looked a whole essay full of rebuke at
+him. She carried the day, however, and together
+they carried their complaint to Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They found Madame sitting at breakfast along
+with Uncle David, and being waited upon by a negro-servant,
+Lucinda, the mother of Napoleon Pompey.
+The heat of a cooking-stove made Madame ill, therefore
+she required a servant, and she had what she
+required, principles of equality to the contrary notwithstanding.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Uncle David in much
+excitement and perturbation. “Wal, to think now
+o’ what big raskills there is in the worl’, an’ we a-settin’
+’em such a good ’xample here o’ honesty an’ uprightness.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We must summon the Assembly,” said Mary
+Winkle firmly. “It is a great pity Brothers Ezra and
+Dummy are both away, but there are quite enough
+left to deliberate.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If you think that is the best plan, we had better
+do it at once, there should be no time wasted,”
+said Madame, looking interrogatively at Brother
+Wright’s frowning face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>“If you ask me——” he began when his wife interrupted
+him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We don’t ask you, Wright, at least not until
+the Assembly of Urgency is convened. Your vote
+doesn’t count for more than mine, and I demand an
+Assembly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Wright shrugged his shoulders, and Madame
+smiled a little sarcastically. “We will summon it,”
+she said.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“An’ I’ll jes’ step roun’ an’ fetch Sister Olive,”
+said Uncle David, putting on his hat as he spoke, “an’
+you can bring together the rest of the brethren.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They came quickly enough when they heard of
+the loss of the brown mare, only Olive was absent.
+She was ill in bed with a headache and spoke to
+Uncle David out of a darkened room.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Wright detailed the loss of the horse,
+while the Assembly listened in deepest attention.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What we have to consider is the best means of
+recovering the horse if possible,” said Madame. “Does
+anyone know what is usually done under similar circumstances?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The neighbours join together and run down the
+thief as quickly as possible,” said Brother Wright,
+with sharp emphasis.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And having run him down, hang him,” added
+Mary Winkle.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That course is impossible for us,” observed
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>“That is a point I should like to debate,” said
+Brother Wright. “If we are to live here we must
+have horses, and we can’t keep horses if it is known
+to be against our principles to shoot a horse-thief.
+That is all I’ve got to say.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“An’ I want to notice the p’int o’ Injuns,” said
+Aunt Ruby. “Ef there’s Injuns as will do any
+wickedness un’er the sun, I want to know are we to
+sit still an’ be roasted on our own fires by wile savages
+like that, or will the men-folks defen’ us as other men
+do? An’ I likewise would wish to p’int out to the
+’Sembly as border ruffians is mos’ly as bad as Injuns,
+an’ it stan’s to reason as horse-thieves is ’bout the
+same.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It seems to me,” said Brother Green, speaking
+with great deliberation, “that our principles were
+formed and adopted because we thought them right.
+I don’t see in what we should differ from anybody
+else if we took to the usual prairie arms the moment
+we felt the shoe pinch! If non-resistance is right,
+it should be practised against horse-thieves; if it is
+wrong, then we should be prepared to shoot the
+thieves of other men’s horses. There is no middle
+course. The throwing away of our settled convictions
+just because our horse has been stolen is not
+consistent.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’ll vote for non-resistance and the maintenance
+of our principles,” said Mary Winkle severely,
+“and I further think that what is decided by the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>majority in this meeting should bind all the members.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She fixed her eye upon Wright with meaning.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is a most difficult juncture,” remarked Madame.
+“I wish much we had the help of Brother
+Ezra’s wisdom to guide us.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said Uncle David cordially, “an’ sister
+Olive too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I do not see how Sister Olive can have any experience
+that would enable her to give good advice
+on this subject,” said Madame acidly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Sister Olive has consider’ble ’cuteness,” remarked
+Uncle David. “Now you’d be ’stonished to
+hear the wise things she says, an’ she as purty as a
+kitten or a rose all the while.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I guess we’ll just do nothing at all? Is
+that the decision of this Assembly?” asked Brother
+Wright abruptly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There is great force in passive resistance,” said
+Brother Carpenter, a boneless individual who counted
+for little either for work in the fields, or for advice
+in the councils, of Perfection City. “Where passive
+resistance has been applied by large numbers and for
+a long time it has effected great changes,” he observed
+conversationally.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think principles are principles,” said Brother
+Green, “and may not be lightly set aside.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, I guess I’ll go home then, since nothing
+is going to be done,” said Brother Wright angrily,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>“and I’ll try and keep hold of the last horse, else
+that thief will come and take him too, when he finds
+what fools he’s got to deal with.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The Assembly broke up, having decided nothing
+at all, and having only succeeded in embittering the
+feelings of several persons, and in widening the chasm
+of differences which had revealed itself in the course
+of the debate, a result that has often followed the
+meeting of larger and more notorious Assemblies.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Although Brother Wright could not now violate
+one of the fundamental doctrines of Perfection City,
+it was open to him to use a little worldly wisdom
+in the way of setting others upon the track of the
+thief. Accordingly, without saying a single word
+to Mary Winkle or anyone else, he mounted Rebel
+and proceeded to rouse the neighbours who were not
+at all bound by non-resistant theories. Nothing gets
+up a prairie man’s anger quicker than the knowledge
+that a horse-thief has begun active operations in his
+vicinity. Horses are absolutely necessary to his daily
+life, and to be suddenly deprived of his horses is one
+of the greatest calamities that can overtake a settler.
+They can take a merciful view of homicide at times,
+but never of horse-stealing. Brother Wright relied
+on this known propensity, and by visiting the most
+hardy of his neighbours had before night started as
+relentless a set of hunters after Queen Katharine as
+ever put leg over horse or drew pistol from belt.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive meanwhile remained at home all unconscious
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>of what had taken place at the Assembly, and of the
+pursuit organized afterwards as the effect of Brother
+Wright’s embassies. She had decided in her own mind
+that the best course for her to adopt was to keep absolute
+silence until Ezra should come home. To him
+she would explain everything, and she felt convinced
+that he was just enough, albeit no friend of Cotterell’s,
+to be ready to sacrifice a horse in order to
+facilitate his escape. She did not feel at all so sure
+about some of the other members of the Community.
+At all events Cotterell’s best chance of safety lay in
+her keeping firmly to her resolution of silence about
+him. The best way for her to keep silent without exciting
+suspicion was not to talk with anyone, and feeling
+pretty well convinced that somebody would come
+to talk over the great calamity with her, she resolved
+to be out of the way. In any case she was very miserable
+and very anxious, and could not stay at home,
+so she wandered off for a walk. She went to the
+spring, then she went to Weddell’s Gully and looked
+at the black burnt waste. She tried to think about
+the interest and excitement of the fire, but could think
+of nothing but Cotterell riding for his life and of
+the men who were riding after him. Olive knew
+nothing of the second set of men sent after the horse-thief;
+her mind was still anxiously dwelling on the
+probability of his being captured by those who had
+“wanted” him for the murder of Jake Mills. The fact
+was, however, that this first hunting-party had given
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>over their quest, for a man must be caught by the
+second day on the prairie if he is to be caught at all.
+This, however, Olive did not know, and she kept wondering
+and picturing all sorts of terrible possibilities.
+Had the men found the trail? Would Queen Katharine
+hold out till he got to the border? True she
+had been resting for a whole day, but then a man’s
+life depended on her endurance, and Olive remembered
+with a cold dread that Queen Katharine was
+only a farm-horse and not trained to such desperate
+efforts as this. Then she remembered the others, those
+dreadful hunters, were also mounted on farm horses,
+and this thought gave her some small comfort. She
+came home again after a most wretched day spent
+in aimless rambling over the hopeless black prairie
+and crept up to the outside platform to scan once
+more that dreary waste towards the endless western
+horizon. Far away towards the north-west she saw
+a band of horsemen huddled together and moving
+rapidly in an easterly direction. Olive’s heart stood
+still with terror. Oh! who were they? And why
+were they riding rapidly? Men rode in bands to
+funerals, but then they went slowly: they rode fast
+only when out on a man-hunt. She did not call up
+Napoleon Pompey, although he could see like a hawk;
+she dreaded to hear what his explanation would be.
+She watched with straining eyes until the men had
+disappeared within the belt of timber that marked
+the course of the Creek, then she came downstairs
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>with her miserable discovery hidden in her
+heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The next day dragged slowly by, Olive feeling
+more and more wretched and anxious each moment,
+and longing for Ezra’s return. Napoleon Pompey
+did nothing but speculate about the horse-thief and
+the probabilities of his capture. He regaled Olive
+with accounts of the numbers of men out on the hunt,
+the desperate character of their courage, and the murderous
+accuracy of their aim with revolvers. Sick at
+heart she had to listen to him and try and collect her
+terrified senses in order to make occasional comments
+and replies. Again she hid herself away from her
+neighbours and spent most of the day in a corn-stack,
+not two hundred yards from the house, whence she
+could see plainly without being seen. Uncle David
+came and stayed so long waiting for her, that she
+nearly smothered in the corn-stack before he went
+away, and she was able to come out and catch a breath
+of fresh air. Then Aunt Ruby came and peered all
+about everywhere, even down into the cellar, and
+stayed a good while there examining Olive’s milkpans,
+until Olive bethought herself of the device of
+sending off Diana to hasten Aunt Ruby’s exit from
+the cellar. This device succeeded: Aunt Ruby was
+so dismayed at seeing that redoubtable puppy lolloping
+up to her that she incontinently fled, and Olive
+emerged once more from the suffocation of the corn-stack.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>Mary Winkle came twice, fortunately without
+Willette, for that astute young person would instantly
+have discovered Olive, owing to the pertinacious company
+of Diana. A dog does not hang around a corn-stack
+the live-long day unless there is something interesting
+inside it claiming attention. Olive began
+to feel like a hunted criminal herself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Napoleon Pompey had been sent away in the morning
+to look for some young cattle that had not been
+seen since the fire, and having to go on foot he did not
+come back till the afternoon. He burst in upon her
+with these appalling words:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dey’s done cotch him!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who told you?” asked Olive, not pretending
+any miscomprehension of what was only too plain to
+her mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ole nigger seed ’em. Dey bringin’ him back.
+Ole man Cotterell he de hoss-thief, him ridin’ Queen
+Katharine when dey cotch him. Nigger tole me he
+seed ’em yonder.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Have they shot him?” asked Olive with white
+lips.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, dey’s gwine ter jury-try him, den dey hang
+him ’cause he done stole hoss and he kill ole Mill’s
+Jake.” Napoleon Pompey licked his lips and grinned.
+Olive turned from him in horror.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where have they taken him to?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Dunno. Nigger he ’lowed dey gwine ter Jacksonville.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>Olive made up her mind and took her resolution.
+She questioned Napoleon Pompey very carefully,
+found exactly what negro it was from whom he had
+obtained his information concerning the capture of
+Cotterell. He worked with the Halls who lived over
+the other side of Cotton Wood Creek, and she made
+minute inquiries as to how to reach their house. Then
+she told the boy to give Rebel a double feed of corn
+and to bring in the new lariat-rope and mallet and
+pin. Rebel had been removed back to his own stable
+by Brother Wright’s desire, as he had no belief now
+in Pluto as a watch-dog. Napoleon Pompey was open-mouthed
+with wonder at Olive’s directions about the
+horse, and asked “whar she gwine?” She told him
+to do as she bid him and to say nothing to anybody
+about it, whereat he was still more open-mouthed.
+Olive got a large shawl and rolled it up into a tight
+bundle, and then dressed herself in a strong serviceable
+stuff dress and went to supper with Napoleon Pompey,
+to whom she never spoke a single word. When supper
+was over she sent him down to his mother to ask
+her to bake a pumpkin-pie for her. Napoleon Pompey
+said he would go “fust thing in de mornin’,” and
+she told him sternly to go at once and do as he was
+bid. When Napoleon Pompey came back Olive was
+gone, and so was Rebel, with lariat-rope picket-pin
+and mallet, and so was her tightly rolled shawl.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Perfection City had further cause for amazement
+and hurried meeting in Assembly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>Olive, meanwhile, was riding fast towards Cotton
+Wood Creek which she reached and crossed by the
+last shreds of daylight. She stumbled up out of the
+bottom-lands on to the high prairie, then perceiving by
+the sound of Rebel’s hoofs that at last she had struck
+grass again, for the fire had not crossed the Creek,
+she determined to camp. It was a black night, but
+she knew how to drive her picket and unsaddle her
+horse blindfold. Taking her saddle and shawl out of
+the circle of Rebel’s night-range, she wrapped herself
+up to wait until daylight should permit her again to
+go forward. She was not in the least frightened, although
+the prairie wolves were yelping in the distance.
+The nervous terrors that had beset her when sitting
+in her own comfortable little kitchen with her dog
+at her feet, and a stout lad in the room overhead,
+were quite gone. Yet there was enough to frighten
+a more valiant person than our poor little Olive,
+with her half-defined thoughts and her generous impulses.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>What was it she proposed to herself in this expedition?
+First of all to overtake Cotterell and his
+captors, and then to do what the wit of woman could
+devise to save him from their fury. In her ignorance
+of prairie feelings and ideas she attached no importance
+to the fact that he would have been captured
+riding the well-known brown mare belonging to Perfection
+City. He would of course explain that she had
+lent him the animal, and that question would at once
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>drop out of the debate. Then the terrible one of the
+shooting of Jake Mills would have to be settled. That
+was what she feared for Cotterell, and that was where
+her testimony and pleading might avail. She knew
+from his own lips how the fatal affray had occurred,
+and she would be able in some measure, perhaps, to
+counteract the evidence of that wicked lying negro
+who out of revenge was going to swear away Cotterell’s
+life. Olive hated to do it, but she knew she could
+say things to any western jury that would make it
+difficult for them to admit negro evidence. For once
+in a way the mighty race-prejudice could be relied
+upon to work for justice, and poor Olive, fanatical
+friend of the negro, had to confess she was glad to
+have so strong a lever to her hand in this dreadful
+emergency.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Meanwhile the never-ending night wore on. How
+long, how unutterably long are the hours of darkness
+to them who wait sleeplessly for the dawn! The
+twinkling stars passed over her head, and Olive tried
+to fix her eyes steadily on one or two of them in order
+to convince herself that they really did move after all.
+Thus staring at the stars, her eyes became weary, and
+the lids dropped slowly over them, and she fell into a
+troubled sleep, haunted with fearsome visions.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She must have slept some little time, for when she
+awoke the stars had certainly changed places and
+were moreover becoming pale in the first grey streaks
+of morning. Olive awoke shivering with cold and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>drenched with the heavy prairie dew. Her teeth chattered,
+so she could hear them like a piece of broken
+machinery moving inside her head, while her fingers
+were almost numb. As soon as she could make out
+Rebel in the approaching dawn, she saddled him, and,
+woman-like, did not forget the lariat-rope, picket-pin
+and mallet, even in the midst of her terrible anxiety.
+She thought of Cotterell in the hands of his foes, and
+the recollection came back to her, like a blow that
+almost stunned her, that this would be the last time
+he would ever see the sun rise unless she hurried to
+his rescue. The thought spurred her to renewed activity,
+the horror of it drove the chilled blood with a
+rush to her heart. She caught her breath, and then
+felt hot. She did not shiver any more, and her chattering
+teeth were set in a desperate resolve. She
+clambered up on the horse’s back and set off at a gallop
+towards that house where she would get positive
+news which would help her to find the lynching-party
+quickly. Ah! merciful God! The lynching-party!
+She urged Rebel into a harder gallop, for the sun was
+just beginning to appear over the horizon, and she
+could see where she was going. She reached the
+cabin where the Halls lived in due course. They didn’t
+know her, but they invited her to breakfast with prairie
+courtesy. She saw the negro man who had told
+the news to Napoleon Pompey.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, he seed ’em totin’ ole man Cotterell back.”
+There was never any doubt in Olive’s mind as to the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>fact that they had caught him, what she wanted to
+know was the destination of the party. “He ’lowed
+dey was gwine ter Jacksonville, ’cause down yonder
+was whar dey hang de las’ man; den dey jury-try
+him, an’ Jacksonville mighty handy anyhow, dar heaps
+o’ trees dar.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive could not repress a shudder of horror which
+the negro saw, and so did the Halls. She would not
+stop a moment to eat a bit of breakfast, notwithstanding
+their urgent entreaties, but got directions as to
+the shortest road to Jacksonville and hastened away
+on her errand of mercy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Mrs. Hall looking after her rapidly vanishing figure,
+and remembering the look of misery on her face,
+“reckoned ’twas one o’ them po’ silly gals as is cotched
+by a yaller ’stache. She was powerful sorry for her
+anyhow, she ’peared mos’ broke down an’ sick. She
+’lowed if the boys hed hung ole man Cotterell when
+Glover’s gal shot herself ’cause he wouldn’t marry her,
+’twould hev been a sight better anyhow.” Her husband
+was of opinion that “gals was fules gapin’ a’ter
+strangers an’ furrin fellers, not bein’ content along o’
+their nat’ral men-folks as b’longed to ’em, app’inted
+by the hand o’ Providence.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive rode through the hot September day feeling
+very faint and tired, but never for a moment faltering
+in her determination; and well on in the afternoon
+she came to Jacksonville, a place with two houses
+standing and the stakes for three more stuck into the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>ground to signify possession. There was only one
+woman in the place along with a flock of children.
+No sign of men anywhere. The woman did not know
+much about the movements of the “boys.” “They
+hadn’t passed that way at all, but she hearn tell they
+had been out catching a horse-thief and murderer, and
+they had caught him too, a Britisher, she was told,
+and it was a shame those foreigners should be allowed
+to come to America to steal honest folks horses, and
+true born Americans too, as always worked for every
+cent before they spent it. They had taken him to
+Union Mills to try him and she hoped—well she didn’t
+want to say anything unbecoming to a professing
+Christian, but wouldn’t Olive come in and eat a bit
+and rest before going further, she didn’t look fit for
+such hard riding.” Olive, feeling sick with disappointment,
+accepted a morsel of food, and asking her
+way to Union Mills started off. She had come thirty-eight
+miles already, and if she had only known where
+to go she would have been there hours ago. It was
+nearly twenty miles to Union Mills, she could not
+hope to reach it that night, but she started nevertheless
+although the sun was getting low in the west.
+The horrid thought kept pressing against her heart:
+was she already too late? But no, she would force
+it out of her mind, and come what might she would
+never stop until she had done her utmost to save him.
+She therefore pressed forward, but Rebel showed signs
+of giving out. He lay down with her suddenly and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>tried to roll. This would never do. All depended on
+her horse, if he failed her then Cotterell’s last chance
+of life was gone. She rode slowly, now following a
+prairie track and now riding along side it, because
+Rebel stumbled in the ruts. It got dark, she did not
+know where she was, but followed the track for some
+time mechanically. A light suddenly showed up on
+her left. Rebel pricked up his ears and turned towards
+it. After some difficulty she reached the door. Could
+they harbour her for the night? She was caught out
+and could go no further.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Land o’ Goshen! ’course they could, an’ whar
+in sin was she gwine that time o’ night ’thout nobody,
+not even a dawg?” Olive said it was a case of life
+and death and she must do it. They were deeply
+sorry, they fed her with corn-bread and bacon, they
+fed her horse, and were kindness itself. The cabin
+had only one room with a bed in one corner for the
+man and his wife. Olive was desperately tired. The
+wife said “she’d be doggauned sick ’less she went to
+bed.” So Olive lay down on the bed, and the settler’s
+wife lay down beside her, and the man slept on the
+floor with his head on a pile of corn-shucks. Long
+before daylight he went out and fed her horse. The
+wife cooked a good breakfast and pressed Olive again
+and again “to scrouge down suthin’ more,” and sent
+her off with many good wishes as to her finding her
+husband better, who, she was sure, ’ud be tickled to
+death at seeing her.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVIII.<br /> <span class='large'>LYNCH-LAW.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Union Mills was full of people, mostly men, and
+Phillipps’ Store, which was the only shop in the place,
+as well as being the Post-Office, was crowded to suffocation.
+Those who couldn’t get inside stood around
+the door talking loudly as they chewed their tobacco.
+Inside the talking and tobacco-chewing were carried
+on likewise. A ring of men were sitting on barrels
+and nail-kegs and coils of rope and extemporized chairs
+of all kinds. Of these, twelve arranged together at
+one side formed the jury, and the rest were witnesses
+and spectators. In their midst stood Cotterell. He
+was not bound or specially guarded in any way, but
+he was unarmed, while pistols hung at the belts of all
+the other men there. Cotterell held his head erect,
+his eyes looked clear, and his lips were firm. A careful
+observer might have noticed that his nostrils sometimes
+twitched, but his hands were perfectly steady.
+Yet he was on trial for his life, without appeal and
+without a friend in “the court.” Several of the men
+had asked him questions which he had answered,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>shortly and sharply perhaps, but with a perfectly steady
+voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I dunno what we’re gwine on talkin’ for,” said
+a jury man with a twang that bespoke Arkansas.
+“Hain’t it clar this hyar feller, what was wanted for
+the shootin’ o’ Ole Mills’ boy, he’s the same cuss as
+stole the mare from them damned fools up to ’Fection
+City? He’s got ter be hanged, anyhow. I want ter
+go home. I hain’t a-gwine to stick hyar all day, by
+Gosh!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I did not steal the mare,” said Cotterell, his nostrils
+dilating.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You hear that,” said the foreman, who sat on a
+sugar-barrel.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You was ridin’ her when we come up t’yer,”
+said one who had been out on the hunt.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I was.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How’d yer git her then ’cept by stealin’?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She was lent to me by one of the members of
+the Community,” said Cotterell.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They’s damn fools, I know, but I reckon they
+hain’t such all-fired damn fools as ter give their best
+hoss ter you,” said the man from Arkansas.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Cotterell’s lips curled with contempt, but he did
+not speak.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Look hyar, fellow jury-men,” said one of them
+who prided himself on the accuracy of his language
+on all occasions. “I’d axe leave ter make a few remarks.
+We were informed by the gentlemen what
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>caught the prisoner that they were notified o’ the
+stealing by one o’ them Perfection City fellers. If
+the horse was lent how is it the owner didn’t know
+about the lending?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said one of the gentlemen referred to,
+“ole man Wright, he come and tol’ me ’bout the stealin’
+o’ the hoss, an’ he ’lowed, on’y it was agin his principles,
+he’d like ter hev been out with the boys. It
+don’t ’pear ter my min’ as there was much len’ing
+’bout it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This trial, gen’lemen, is all fair and square an’
+’cordin’ to law. We’ll settle this p’int ’fore we go
+further,” said the foreman. “You say the horse was
+lent to you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I do say so emphatically,” replied the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, we’ve got one o’ them ’Fection City fellers
+to say the hoss was stolen, he’ll swear to that, an’ I
+reckon by their idees he was part-owner of it anyhow.
+Now, that’s the witness agin yer. Who have you got
+to swear yer was lent the horse fair and square?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have had no chance of getting any witness, as
+you very well know,” replied Cotterell.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I reckon yo’ hev bin kep’ purty toler’ble
+close. Anyhow, it shan’t be said as we hain’t gi’en yer
+a good chance. Now, which might be yer witness to
+the len’ing? There hain’t such a damn sight o’ folks
+up to ’Fection City as ’ud make yer forget so ready
+as all that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Cotterell hesitated.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>“Hain’t yo’ got no tongue? Who lent yer the
+hoss, I say?” repeated the foreman.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mrs. Weston,” said Cotterell at last.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That’s a lie, anyhow,” burst out one of the bystanders.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is not a lie, it is the truth,” said Cotterell
+hotly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, now, see hyar. I was over to ole man Weston’s,
+an’ I seed Mis’ Weston myself, an’ she tole me
+she hadn’t sot eyes on yer. Now then?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was Owen who spoke, he had been out, as we
+know, on the first hunting-party and was now present
+as a spectator. He would have been on the jury, only
+it was considered more delicate for him to stand aside,
+considering that he had been out to catch Cotterell,
+and prairie men are punctilious in the observance of
+all those forms of etiquette with which they are familiar.
+Although not on the jury, Owen was quite free
+to intervene in the trial, he was one of the foremost
+settlers on the prairie. Cotterell looked hard at him
+as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did she tell you that herself?” he asked, drawing
+his eyebrows tightly together.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, she tole me herself,” replied Owen.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then I have nothing further to say,” said Cotterell,
+setting his teeth grimly under his moustache.
+He realised very clearly what he was doing, he was
+throwing away his last chance of life; but his resolution
+never wavered for a moment. The thought
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>flashed through his mind that most people would
+think him a fool to act as he did, risk the certainty
+of death for the sake of a fantastic loyalty to a woman
+who could never be to him anything but the distant
+friend another man’s wife should be. Then came the
+recollection that no one, not even she for whom he
+was sacrificing his life, would ever know what he had
+done. There was something fantastic surely in all
+this. Their whole acquaintance had been fantastic
+in a sense: Mr. Perseus was a fancy, but how dangerously
+sweet it had been while it lasted. And now it
+was over, he would never hear the sound of her voice
+again nor feel the touch of her little hand. Poor
+child! He could well imagine, with that jealous husband
+of hers, how she might have been driven to save
+herself from his anger by declaring she had never seen
+him. Jealousy was a monster surely, if there ever
+was a monster on this earth. Cotterell almost smiled
+to himself as he thought how once again he would
+act the part of Perseus to the unhappy one and save
+her by his silence from the monster’s fangs. Thoughts
+such as these swept through his mind as he stood facing
+the jury, while they were somewhat nonplussed
+as to their future proceedings owing to his determination
+not to say anything further. It appeared almost
+indecent to hang a man who would not argue out the
+points with them: they had never met such a one
+before.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There’s a gal hyar a-wantin’ ter come in,” said
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>one of the men who was standing just outside the
+door.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Keep her hout,” said one of the jury. “We
+hain’t agoin’ ter hev any women a screech-owlin’ hyar.
+It’s one o’ his gals as he’s lef’ to die maybe of a broken
+heart ’thout the satisfaction o’ bein’ a widder.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Let me pass, please,” said an imperious little
+voice that thrilled Cotterell to the heart. “I am one
+of the witnesses in this trial. I have important evidence
+to give.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The men fell back and left the passage free. Western
+men, even armed ones, can’t do anything against
+a woman.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive came into the crowded room, Olive dirty,
+dishevelled, travel-stained, her face begrimed with
+prairie dust, her hair unkempt, her dress crumpled
+and with many a rent in it. Cotterell hardly knew
+her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who mought yer be, miss?” inquired one of the
+jury.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am Mrs. Weston.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Whar’s yer husband? Yer hadn’t oughter be hyar
+a follerin’ this feller roun’ the prairie. Tain’t——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Shut yer mouth or I’ll send a bullet down yer
+gullet,” roared the foreman, putting his hand to his
+revolver. “Take a cheer,” he added, gallantly offering
+Olive the sugar-barrel upon which he had been sitting
+in his official capacity.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, thank you,” said Olive. “I will stand.”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>She took her place beside Cotterell, but without looking
+at him or addressing a single word to him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What are you trying this man for?” she asked,
+facing the jury dauntlessly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, mos’ly fur stealin’ yer hoss,” said one of
+them.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He didn’t steal it. I myself lent him the horse.
+It belongs to us,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“By Gosh!” exclaimed Owen, “you tole me yerself
+yer hadn’t sot n’ary an eye on him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“So I hadn’t when you were there, he did not
+come until the next day.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The jury whistled collectively and incredulously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Silence!” said the foreman.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I can now explain,” said Cotterell. “I didn’t go
+to Mrs. Weston’s house until two days after—after
+Mills’ death——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“A’ter yer killed him,” corrected Owen.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you were there the next day,” concluded
+Cotterell, not taking any notice of the interruption.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, that is it. Mr. Cotterell came the next evening
+but one after the prairie fire, and I gave him the
+mare to go away on, because his colt broke loose from
+the bars in the dark.” Olive spoke quite quietly, with
+no trace of excitement beyond a knitting of her pretty
+eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, I reckon we hain’t got nuthin’ more to do
+then,” said one of the jury-men, getting up from his
+nail-keg and strapping up his holster.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>“There’s the murder too,” objected one, “not as
+I put it fust noways, on’y we might go inter it now,
+seein’ there hain’t nuthin’ ter be got outer the hoss-stealin’
+business.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yer hain’t got evidence for the murder case too,
+has yer?” sneered the man who had been so peremptorily
+silenced by the foreman on his first objection
+to Olive’s presence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Only this. You are not non-resistants, are you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We hain’t such blasted fools,” observed the Arkansas
+man genially.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, then, when this poor Jake Mills in his
+drunken fury came up and fired at Mr. Cotterell, was
+he or was he not to fire in self-defence, according to
+your ideas and practice?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Of course he was,” said the jury in unison.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then that is what he did. Jake Mills fired
+first.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Two shots,” said Cotterell in a low voice, but
+every man in the room heard him distinctly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That coloured man we saw yesterday swore that
+Cotterell lay in wait for Mills, and fired from under
+cover as he came up to the house,” said a man from
+Illinois who had not spoken hitherto.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal now,” said the Arkansas man, “I didn’t
+say nuthin’ ’bout that yesterday. Long as it was hoss-stealin’
+we knowed whar we was an’ what we hed
+ter do, ’cause we hed the hoss. But this hyar shootin’
+business hain’t noways the same. Any gen’leman hyar
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>might hev a difference with any other gen’leman, an’
+’s long as it were done fair, I don’t see as how anyone
+hes any business to say they shouldn’t settle it
+with pistols or bowie-knives accordin’ to taste. We
+are all for freedom in this country I reckon, an’ that’s
+how it hes been done in Arkansas often an’ satisfact’ry.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This ain’t Arkansas, an’ we are determined to
+put a stop to this shootin’ round every day,” said the
+Illinois man firmly. “It ain’t respectable and it stops
+quiet settlers from coming here to take farms. We
+are going to stop it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then you should have stopped Jake Mills when
+he went to Mr. Cotterell’s and fired at him first,” said
+Olive quickly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There’s somethin’ in that,” said the foreman,
+whose native gallantry led him to side with a pretty
+woman. “In a trial we hev to consider all the p’ints
+o’ the case. I consider that as for the horse-stealin’,
+that hes mostly broke down under evidence. We must
+now go into the other charge, which is shootin’ Jake
+Mills, an’ a damned scoundrel he was too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The jury laughed pleasantly at this sally from
+the bench, or to speak more accurately from the sugar-barrel.
+Even Cotterell seemed a trifle amused, only
+Olive did not unknit her eyebrows, nor did the hard
+lines around her mouth in the least relax.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We are in consider’ble difficulty ’bout this here
+shootin’ case,” continued the foreman when the mirth
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>had subsided, “and if I had knowed as that was all
+we was up for tryin’, I don’t reckon we ’ud all on us
+ha’ been here as is now collected together to maintain
+the rights an’ freedom o’ our country.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The jury murmured applause, upon recognising
+well-known Fourth of July phrases, which have perennial
+power to stir the American breast.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why ain’t we agoin’ on with this blamed trial?”
+asked an impatient jury man. “We hev purty nigh
+lost a whole day’s work a’ready an’ hain’t finished
+nothin’ yit. When we strung up ole Howard for hoss-stealin’
+we hed the job done clar up afore noon, an’
+we could go home to dinner comfor’ble.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive gave a faint inarticulate cry and put her
+hands up to her ears, or was it perchance to her neck?
+Cotterell turned anxiously towards her as if she was
+going to faint, and he would catch her before she fell.
+She steadied herself in an instant and again faced the
+jury like a tiny lioness, small in body but with unconquerable
+courage.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, gen’lemen, I’m agreeable to proceed with
+the evidence,” said the foreman graciously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I was told we had evidence o’ deliberate murder,”
+said the Illinois juror.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We most on us hearn what the nigger said,” remarked
+another carelessly, “some on us fooled roun’
+with that yesterday an’ lost a fair half day’s work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, gen’lemen, you could ha’ had the nigger
+again here to-day, on’y it was not considered necessary,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>as we was mostly of opinion to fin’ a true bill
+on the horse-stealin’ count. We can send for the nigger.
+He’s mos’ likely sneakin’ roun’ here. Them niggers
+is jes’ like buzzards, they can scent out where
+there’s a hangin’,—ahem, gen’lemen, we’ll proceed,”
+said the foreman, suddenly recollecting himself and
+Olive’s presence barely in time.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I vote for sending for the coloured man,” said
+the Illinois juror firmly. “We’ll confront him with
+the prisoner.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Nigger be damned!” roared the Arkansas man
+jumping violently off his nail-keg. “Yo’ reckon I’m
+agoin’ ter sit hyar an’ see a white man hanged on
+nigger evidence. No, sir. I won’t stan’ such a insult
+to my race as that. There be some things a
+man o’ honour won’t stan’ an’ that’s one o’ them. Thar
+hain’t no man spryer to light out an’ catch a hoss-thief
+nor I be, an’ I’ll do my dooty in the hangin’ too,
+an’ hol’ the rope as tight as ony o’ yo’all. But I’ll
+bust up afore I’ll take nigger evidence ’gin a white
+man. I reckon there hain’t none o’ yo’ gen’lemen as
+is pertikler sot on that nigger, be yer?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive’s heart gave a bound of joy as the Arkansas
+juror poured forth his torrent of protest. Alas,
+poor Olive and her high-flown love of the black race!
+She was bound to confess that her best hope for effecting
+the end she was struggling for, lay in the blind
+race-prejudice of this ignorant Southerner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I guess we ought to take all the evidence, white
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>or black, that bears on the case,” observed he of Illinois.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If that thar nigger comes inter this hyar room
+to conten’ with this hyar jury an’ give his evidence,
+I’ll shoot him, ’fore he gits over that door-sill, so I
+will, by God, an’ no man as knows me ever said I went
+back o’ my word in shootin’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The Arkansas juror faced them with his black
+eyes ablaze and his dark visage twitching with suppressed
+fury. He was quivering under the sting of
+what was to him an intolerable insult, and there
+was nothing he would not do to wipe out that insult.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive looked at Cotterell for the first time, and
+as their eyes met he was horrified to see the white,
+drawn expression on her face. He attributed it to the
+very natural womanly fear that she might be involved
+in a promiscuous shooting affray in that crowded room.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t be alarmed, they will not bring the negro
+in here,” he said soothingly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am not afraid for myself,” she answered, simply
+and truthfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, gen’lemen,” said the foreman pleasantly.
+“I reckon we hev finished for this spell anyhow. I
+consider the prisoner hes hed as fair a trial as ony man
+could wish, and I hev on’y ter thank yer all for yer
+help upon this occasion in maintain’ the laws and freedom
+of our beloved country, as belongs to the duty of
+free-born citizens.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>“Hurrah!” said the jury, with another relapse
+into Fourth of Julyism.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We’ve purty nigh lost two whole days’ work ’long
+o’ this hyar foolin’,” observed the Arkansas man angrily.
+“Them coons up to ’Fection City is nat’ral born
+fools anyhow. Fust they blaze roun’ an’ set us on ter
+run down a hoss-thief fur ’em. Soon as we’ve done
+cotch him, they sen’ roun’ a woman to say the hoss
+was lent. If the blamed critters come to me again,
+reckon I’ll stick to my plough-handles. I’ll not light
+out for them, you bet.” And he immediately walked
+out of the store followed by the entire jury and the
+foreman.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>When the Court broke up, Olive and Cotterell were
+left alone in the store along with Phillipps, the storekeeper.
+The latter handed Cotterell his revolver,
+which the jury had considerately left for him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I suppose I’m a free man,” said Cotterell, with
+more sign of emotion in his manner than he had yet
+shown.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Thanks to Mrs. Weston you are free,” said Phillipps.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He turned to Olive, who seemed in a daze, and
+said, “Shall we go now?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” she answered, and they left the store together.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The crowd in the road before the door was already
+fast dispersing. The exciting climax for which they
+had waited was not to come off, so there remained
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>no further inducement to stay. Some straggled into
+the smithy, some went towards the mills, but most of
+the men were getting their horses, putting on saddles,
+and settling halters and reins. The Arkansas man
+had a waggon and was hitching his horses to it, as
+Olive, riding on Rebel, and Cotterell on Queen Katharine,
+passed by.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Be yo’ gwine with him?” asked the Arkansas
+man, pointing to Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” said Olive shortly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wish we’d hanged the damned cuss ’fore she
+come in,” said the Arkansas man regretfully to his
+companion, who had also been present at the trial.
+“She’s gwine ter ’lope with him, an’ ole man Weston
+he on’y jes’ married her las’ spring.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Reckon she don’t like ’Fection City idees. Gals
+mos’ allers likes a fightin’ man best, an’ this hyar one
+is reg’lar downright handsome too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“If we’d on’y hed a-hanged him she couldn’t hev
+run off with the coon,” repeated the Arkansas man
+with conviction, shaking his head sorrowfully as he
+watched the two disappearing among the trees on the
+South Fork.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIX.<br /> <span class='large'>OLIVE MISSING.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>There was dire dismay at Perfection City when
+the flight of Olive became known. Napoleon Pompey
+informed Madame of it the same evening, but, for
+reasons best known to herself, she did not announce
+the fact until the next morning, when the brethren
+and sisters flocked to her house to talk over this surprising
+event in all its bearings. The members accounted
+for it in different ways and explained it according
+to their preconceived notions. Madame at
+once said that she had evidently left her husband
+whom she had never really loved at all.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think we must all have noticed how utterly
+unsuited she was to him and how uncongenial. She
+was no fit companion for a man of Ezra’s mind,” said
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, now,” observed Uncle David, “I think such
+a purty little gal with sweet little kitten-ways was
+a most congenial companion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Uncle, you don’t understand men. Men with
+minds and high aspirations want a companion capable
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>of sharing their ideas and aims, they don’t want a
+kitten or a plaything.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My ’pinion is most men is satisfied with kittens,
+if they’re as soft an’ coaxin’ in their ways as little
+Ollie is,” replied Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I guess she couldn’t stand the bondage of marriage,”
+said Mary Winkle. “When she first came
+she was all for being absorbed in her husband, she
+would be Mrs. Weston forsooth, she wanted to sink
+her individuality. She has naturally found out her
+mistake. I respect her and sympathize with her in
+her efforts to shake off the trammels of custom and
+make a dash for freedom. I dare say we shall soon
+have her coming back again, having resumed her own
+name, and perhaps ready to lecture on the absurdity
+of women giving up their names on marriage, as if
+they ceased to exist. Marriage under these circumstances
+becomes a sort of death to a woman. It is extinction.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“’Tain’t no such thing, Sister Mary,” said Uncle
+David. “It is an honourable distinction our forefathers
+have used, findin’ the same handy and convenient.
+I don’t believe little Ollie has gone a-lecterin’,
+she ain’t that sort o’ gal. I guess she’s jes’ tired
+an’ lonesome feelin’, an’ thought she’d ride out an’
+meet Ezry comin’ home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She hasn’t done that, Uncle, for I’ve seen a man
+from over Jacksonville way, and he told me she had
+been seen the other side of Big Cotton Wood Creek,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>and that she was asking for news of Cotterell,” said
+Brother Wright.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then she has gone to him,” said Madame with
+decision.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She hain’t neither,” contradicted Uncle David,
+“you hain’t got no business to tell wicked stories like
+that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She has been carrying on a secret acquaintance
+with him all the summer. I know that, for I surprised
+them together at the spring some weeks ago.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She didn’t do nothin’ that was dishonest an’ secret,”
+said Uncle David anxiously. “I ain’t agoin’
+ter believe anything ’gin little Ollie. She’s a good
+little gal.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He wiped his forehead nervously with his large
+bony hand, and then took out his red handkerchief
+and passed it several times across his face.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The power of love is strong,” said Madame, looking
+at him with compassion.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, yes,” he replied quickly, “jes’ what I say,
+an’ she did love her husban’, an’ hain’t done nothin’
+wrong.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She didn’t love him,” burst out Madame with
+excitement. “It often filled me with anger to see
+how she took all his love and made no return. Everyone
+saw it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I guess the rest of us didn’t pay so much attention
+to them and their affairs. We had our own,” said
+Mary Winkle, at which Madame winced.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>“You don’t know what her feelin’s was. She loved
+Ezry, else she wouldn’t ha’ married him an’ followed
+him way out here on this lonesome prairie. I ain’t
+never goin’ to believe wrong o’ little Ollie.” Uncle
+David’s big chest heaved with a sob that would burst
+out.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame placed her hand gently upon his. “The
+falling of one’s idol has always been a grievous sorrow,
+and has bruised many a loving heart.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She wasn’t fit to live here on the prairie,” said
+Aunt Ruby, wiping her spectacles with her big checked
+handkerchief. “She was too young an’ purty an’ frolicksome
+to be here anyhow. Ezry hed ought ter hev
+kep’ her in the East, where she was raised, an’ where
+she could go to parties, an’ put on purty clo’s, an’
+dance, an’ so forth. It’s nat’ral for them young gals
+to dance an’ love fin’ry, jes’ as it’s nat’ral for lambs to
+skip an’ play in the sunshine. They is born so, an’
+I guess the Lord put the right idees into their min’s
+at the beginnin’. I don’ wan’ ter skip, an’ Sister Mary
+she don’t wan’ ter neither, we hev got ole an’ stiff
+by now; but that chile she did wan’ ter, on’y mos’
+likely she didn’t know it. Sweet purty little thing, too,
+she was, it done my eyes good ter look at her. She
+wasn’t fit for ’Fection City, we hain’t got nothin’ for
+young folks as don’t care mos’ly to argy ’bout principles,
+they loves ter be gay. Why, it wasn’t further
+back nor day ’fore yesterday she come ter my house
+’long with that pup o’ hern. My stars, didn’t she
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>laugh when it took ter scootin’ roun’ ’mong my hens!
+It done me a heap o’ good ter hear her, it was like
+a silver bell, an’ she hedn’t nothin’ for to amuse her.
+I think it was downright sinful o’ Brother Ezry to
+take such a sweet purty little thing ’way from her
+proper home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Aunt Ruby ended her long speech with the twin-sob
+to the one that had escaped from Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Sister, you’re a downright good woman,” said
+he gratefully. The two old people nodded at each
+other in complete harmony of affection and affliction.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>A long day passed over Perfection City, a day
+without any positive news or confirmation of previous
+rumours. The brethren were full of their various
+theories in regard to Olive’s disappearance, which they
+found necessary to discuss and re-discuss over and
+over again. All work was at a stand-still, for the members
+congregated at Madame’s house both early and
+late, as they considered she would be the first to get
+any news from the outside world. Without a horse
+they were practically cut off from all communication
+with the outside, and were entirely dependent on the
+thoughtfulness of such neighbours as might come to
+bring them news. It was in the afternoon of the day
+of the abortive trial at Union Mills that the first authentic
+tidings reached them. They were talking the
+matter over together for the fiftieth time when Brother
+Green was seen coming very hurriedly from his forge
+along with a stranger, who waited outside the door
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>with an amount of diffidence unusual on the prairie.
+Brother Green’s grimy face wore a look of alarm.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We’ve got news of them both,” he exclaimed,
+bursting into the room regardless of ceremony, he who
+was generally the most heedful of the little forms of
+politeness. “She has gone after him, and they’ve gone
+away, and he stole her and said we lent her to him,”
+said Brother Green distractedly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother, I don’t understand,” said Madame.
+“Who lent what? And where has she gone?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I mean Sister Olive—oh! I’m so sorry—poor
+Brother Ezra!—Sister Olive has gone off with Cotterell,
+and it was he who stole Queen Katharine, only
+it was proved at the trial that she lent her to him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green was too distressed to be a good witness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who told you?” asked Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Whoever did told a lie,” said Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“He’s outside. He was at the trial and has come
+to tell us about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then bring him in,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The stranger entered, looking somewhat abashed.
+He was truly sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Young man, before you begin this wicked tale,
+I charge you think of God and tell the truth.” Uncle
+David stood before him like an avenging spirit.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Sir, excuse him,” said Madame in her sweet
+voice. “The old man is painfully distracted by grief,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>he does not know what he is saying. You have come
+to bring us definite news, have you not?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m thund’rin’ sorry, so I am, an’ if we’d ha’
+knowed how it would ha’ ended, the boys ’ud ha’
+made sure by bangin’ him fust an’ havin’ the trial
+a’terwards.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Are you speaking about Mr. Cotterell? We have
+not had any news for days, so perhaps you will explain
+it all clearly,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, wal, when ole man Wright come an’ tole
+as how yer hoss was stole, the boys they ’lowed as
+you was all such damn—such all-fired pertikler folks
+as didn’t do yer own shootin’, they ’lowed they oughter
+kinder be neighbourly an’ do it for yer. So we sot
+out to run down the cuss. We got word from a teamster
+from beyond the Creek, he seed a man on a mare
+jes’ like yourn agoin’ toward the border. So we
+picked up the trail right away. He warn’t worth a
+red cent to hide a trail. He jes’ follered straight
+ahead ’long the road, axin’ his way an’ follerin’ plumb
+on the d’rections. Any fool could ha’ run down such
+a coon as him. He war ridin’ yer brown mare when
+they come up, an’ he didn’t show fight, jes’ said he’d
+stan’ trial, an’ he ’lowed it ’ud be fair. The boys calkerlated
+it wouldn’t be a fair trial ’less they toted him
+roun’ to Union Mills, which are his own post-office,
+an’ if that ain’t treatin’ a man fair nothin’ is. An’
+they got a new set o’ men to stan’ jury as what cotch
+him, ’cause mos’ on ’em was that mad for leavin’ the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>corn-shuckin’ to run down such a nat’ral born fool,
+they’d ha’ mos’ likely strung him slap up. It war all
+done fair, we kep’ him down to Phillipps’ store over
+night, an’ I tuk a spell o’ stan’in’ guard. We didn’t
+sen’ for none o’ yo’uns, ’cause we knowed yer be all
+sot agin hangin’, an’ yer can’t have a man on a jury
+who’s sot agin hangin’ when that’s all yer want ter
+git done, can yer? So we was a-tryin’ of him fair, with
+ole man Strong for foreman ’cause he knowed all the
+forms, as he was out to the hangin’ of Howard an’
+that thief over to Jacksonville an’ mos’ on ’em. He
+was pertikler to do it all straight ’cordin’ to law, an’
+we was gittin’ ’long slick, when Mis’ Weston come an’
+bust it all up. She said she lent him the hoss, an’ it
+war hern.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The narrator stopped to observe the effect of this
+announcement. He felt repaid.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t believe it,” sobbed Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I hearn her say it,” said the man. His complete
+enjoyment of the effect was marred by the tears
+of that poor old man.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We had to let him off, o’ course, for the stealin’,
+an’ we couldn’t hang him for the shootin’ o’ Jake
+Mills, ’cause some o’ the boys said they’d never hang
+on nigger evidence, an’ we hadn’t none other. Anyhow,
+that nigger he drowned hisself in lies right away,
+an’ we didn’t lay much on what he done tole us, you
+bet. But we was powerful sorry a’terwards when we
+seen what we’d done. She’s gone off with him plumb.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>“No, no, not that,” said Uncle David, “tain’t so,
+you didn’t un’erstan’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We axed her war she a-gwine with him, an’ she
+said, ‘yes,’ I hearn her say so.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She was on’y goin’ home,” said Uncle David
+tremulously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She had not come home half an hour ago,” observed
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“They rode ’long to the South Fork, an’ that don’t
+lie on her road home from Union Mills, do it? I
+stayed behin’ at the Store, the boys was talkin’ if they
+hadn’t bes’ go right a’ter him an’ shoot him anyhow,
+but we ’lowed he’d ha’ showed fight then, an’ maybe
+she’d ha’ been killed in the shootin’. Yer can’t never
+say who’ll be hit when everybody’s firin’ like blazes.
+I didn’t quit the Mills for a spell, an’ mos’ the boys
+was ’ready gone home, an’ they allowed I oughter tell
+yer we done our best for yer.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>They thanked him, and he went his way.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Somebody has got to tell Brother Ezra, he will
+be coming home to-night,” said the blacksmith, wiping
+his sleeve across his forehead. “Poor Ezra! What
+a home-coming!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green remained silent for a long time,
+then he spoke again in a soft low voice, almost as if
+he was communing with himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“When I laid my young wife in her grave with
+her babe on her breast, fifteen years ago last Midsummer,
+I thought I had known the greatest sorrow
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>possible to the human heart. But my loss was not
+so great as Brother Ezra’s, his cup is filled to the brim,
+and oh, how bitter! How great a power of suffering
+lies in the human heart!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is through suffering that the heart is purified,”
+said Madame to him in reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Aye, so they say: but some sorts of sorrow may
+very well embitter. People talk of the purifying by
+sorrow. It seems to me that happiness can purify
+too. We are all sure to get our share of the sorrow
+in this world, it is the happiness that so seldom comes
+to a man. Brother Ezra was happy, is happy, poor
+man, since he does not yet know of the wreck of his
+home. It was a delight to see him so happy. And she,
+poor young thing, my heart aches for her! She was
+in my forge the other day, said she was lonesome and
+came to talk. Poor child! We are all to blame. Why
+did we leave her alone? Why didn’t I think of going
+to see her, instead of merely remembering how bright
+she was in the forge. We should have looked after
+her. Madame, why didn’t you do so? You are the
+chief.” Brother Green’s voice had a stern ring in it,
+that immensely surprised Madame in her self-contained
+calm.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I!” she exclaimed hastily. “I had absolutely
+no control over her, and no influence. She was one
+of the most determined young women I ever
+knew, and the least liable to yield to the judgment of
+others.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>“No, I don’t think that was her character,” said
+Brother Green.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are taken by the pretty face, like Brother
+Ezra, and are utterly ignorant of the mind within.
+Men are always like that in regard to a pretty woman,”
+said Madame scornfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Beauty is a great power, no doubt,” admitted
+Brother Green, “but people may err just as widely
+by judging everything from the prejudiced point of
+view as by yielding too far to favourable impressions.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Brother Green,” said Uncle David earnestly,
+“I’m right glad you’re like me, you won’t believe
+nothin’ ’gainst little Ollie, will you, no more than
+I will?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I will hope for the best and that there may be
+some reasonable explanation of her disappearance,”
+said Brother Green, looking compassionately at the
+piteous old face that scanned his so eagerly for some
+scrap of comfort.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I don’t see what explanation there can be but
+the one we have already received,” said Madame
+icily.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Who will break this sorrowful news to Ezra?”
+asked Brother Green. “Will you do it, Uncle David?
+You would do it tenderly, as you have faith in her
+still.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no, I couldn’t bear to see the look o’ death
+in his eyes, an’ it ’ud come no matter how I told it,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>when I came to sayin’ little Ollie was gone an’ we
+didn’t know where.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I think perhaps I had best take this painful duty
+upon myself,” suggested Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, after all, maybe you are the best person.
+But remember to deal tenderly with him in his sorrow.
+You will know what to say to instil some hope
+into his heart,” said Brother Green sadly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“An’ don’t you tell him she’s gone off with that
+man Cotterell, for she hain’t done no such thing,”
+said Uncle David anxiously. “You jes’ say we don’t
+know why she went away, an’ kinder hint as you’re
+expectin’ she’ll he home to-morrow or nex’ day. Do
+you understand?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame told no one what she would say to Ezra,
+and made no promises as to how she would say it.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XX.<br /> <span class='large'>MADAME’S SYMPATHY.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>When Madame saw the white covers of the returning
+waggons creeping across the prairie she set
+out to meet Ezra in order to deliver her message to
+him. Her manner was as quiet and collected as ever,
+her white smooth brow was perfectly unruffled, and
+her blue eyes were as gentle in expression as her
+friends had ever known them to be. Was her heart
+in reality as calm as her outward appearance would
+have led the casual observer to conclude? No one
+ever knew what was passing in Madame’s mind. Still
+she must have known that she was about to stab to
+the heart a man upon whose friendship she had seemed
+to set great value. Having reached the slope over
+Weddell’s Gully, whence she could see that blackened
+field where she had saved Ezra on the night of the fire,
+she sat down and waited until his waggon came up.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, Madame!” said he cheerily, as he pulled up.
+“How glad I am to get home again! It has seemed
+such a long four days to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And to us also,” answered Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>“All well, I hope,” said Ezra reaching down his
+hand in order to help her up to the seat beside himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We have had misfortunes at Perfection City.
+The brown mare has been stolen.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What! Queen Katharine gone, and our most
+valuable animal too! That is indeed a loss!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Just wait a few minutes,” said she, putting her
+hand on his to stop him from giving the signal to
+the horses to start on again. “I have some things
+to talk about, Ezra. Do you remember that night,
+not long ago in reality, though it seems an age, when
+I found you lying here on the edge of the fire?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is it likely I could ever forget that or who it
+was came to my rescue?” said Ezra warmly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I was thinking as you drove up that perhaps it
+would have been a kinder act to have left you to die
+in your unconsciousness.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What’s the matter?” said Ezra, greatly startled
+by her words.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have bad news,” said Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is it Olive?” asked Ezra, hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, it is Olive.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is she ill?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Worse than that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My God, is my wife dead?” cried Ezra in a
+stifled whisper.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Worse than that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“There can’t be worse,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>“Yes, there can. She has left you and gone off
+with Cotterell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra threw up his arms and fell backwards. Madame
+thought for a moment or two that he was dying,
+for an awful blue-purple look passed over his face
+as if his heart had stopped beating. He recovered
+himself and sat up, turned ghastly white, and moved
+his lips. He was trying to speak, but no sound came.
+At length he gasped,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Olive, Olive, where is she?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We don’t know. Cotterell took the brown mare,
+the men turned out and caught him. Olive disappeared,
+no one knew where, night before last, taking
+our last horse. There was a sort of lynch-law trial
+at Union Mills, she appeared in the middle of the proceedings
+and said she gave him the horse, and then
+they went off together and have not since been heard
+of.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Olive, Olive, Olive!” Ezra kept moaning as
+Madame drove him back to his deserted home. He
+seemed dazed and stupefied.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Surely terrible news was never more crudely broken
+to a sufferer than was his bereavement to Ezra Weston,
+and by that tender and sympathetic friend, Madame
+Morozoff-Smith. Had Uncle David or Brother Green
+heard her, they would have been shocked beyond
+measure at having entrusted the painful embassy
+to such hands. Not one word of hope or
+comfort or of doubt even, nothing but the bald
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>hideous story in its worst complexion thrown at
+him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive was gone from him—gone with Cotterell!</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Yet after having thus dealt him a death-blow,
+Madame seemed full of pity and little acts of personal
+attention. She helped him out of the waggon, brought
+him into the house, took his hands and washed them,
+cooled his forehead with a wet towel, offered him food,
+and in short treated him much as if he had been a
+suffering child whom she was tending. At last he
+seemed to recover himself somewhat as she was passing
+her soft hand across his brow.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You are very good to me,” he said brokenly,
+“and if I seem to accept your kindness unheedingly,
+forgive me. I am not myself to-night. I don’t know
+what I am doing. Oh, it can’t be!” he suddenly
+burst out. “She is not gone. I shall see her again.
+She will come back. How do you know she has gone
+with him? I don’t believe it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Poor Ezra, love dies hard, I know. Some of
+the men asked if she was going with him, and she
+answered distinctly, ‘Yes.’ Then they were sorry,
+they said, they had not hung him before she came
+up with them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, I won’t believe it. Something has happened
+to her. Why should she go off with him?” said Ezra
+distractedly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did you not know that he was repeatedly here
+to see her, whenever you were out of the way?” said
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>Madame, who did not think she was exaggerating in
+any way.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She told me all that,” answered Ezra nervously,
+“but she was only amused by his talk.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, your love is blind. Dear Ezra, I wish I
+could soften the blow. There is no doubt about it.
+I saw them once together at the spring, he kissed her
+at parting. It was a man and the woman he loved.
+I cannot be mistaken. Remember he was very handsome
+and winning in his manners, and she was young
+and pretty.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah, my sweet little Ollie! My little rose-bud,”
+cried Ezra, starting to his feet. “I’ll go to her, she
+shall not wander away out of my reach without one
+effort to save her from herself. She was only a child.
+Why didn’t you look after her?” he asked, suddenly
+facing Madame with an angry glance.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Did you give her into my charge either by word
+or hint?” returned she, somewhat taken aback.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It was not your fault. Forgive me. I am too
+distracted to know what I say. I remember she refused
+to go to you. She said she would rather stay
+at home. I tried to urge her, but she would not consent
+to it,” said Ezra in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah,” remarked Madame, “very possibly she expected
+him to come to her during your absence.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, no, you shall not say that!” said Ezra in
+agony. “I cannot bear it. She had no such thought.
+She was as innocent as the flowers, as she looked at me
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>with her sweet eyes. She had no such thought, I
+know.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is ever thus,” said Madame, coming closer to
+him and speaking with an unwonted tremor in her
+voice. “Love seems always at cross purposes. You
+give all your love to Olive, who gives all hers to Cotterell.
+Another gives all her love to you. We are
+equally unhappy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra gazed at her in silent amazement as if he
+were doubting that he had understood her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes,” she went on more calmly in her deep sweet
+voice. “I am more in need of pity than you. Your
+love has left you, and you grieve, but men will give
+you sympathy. When I lost my love I had to smile
+and pretend delight. I had to look on his joy and
+hers. You are not called upon to congratulate Cotterell
+on his happiness.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Great God, is that you, Madame? Or is it that
+I am going mad, and is this some mocking fiend?”
+gasped Ezra, starting up.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not a mocking fiend, Ezra, but I myself who
+for once in this world am enjoying the rare privilege
+of telling the truth. Ezra Weston, you are not the
+most unhappy person in Perfection City. I have long
+enjoyed that melancholy pre-eminence. Now in a
+common misfortune let us comfort one another.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra sat down again and dropped his head in his
+hands. Occasionally he looked at her as she moved
+about the room putting everything in order. It almost
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>seemed as if he was trying to understand who
+she was and that he could hardly do so, his mind was
+in such a turmoil of grief and misery. She laid out
+two more candles beside those already alight in the
+candle-sticks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You will sit up all night,” she said at last.
+“These candles will last half the time, then light the
+other two. It is hard sitting in the dark alone with
+one’s breaking thoughts. Light the candles and keep
+them burning. That is what I did on the night you
+left to go to Smyrna to be married, and on the night
+when you brought her home here to Perfection City.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She closed the door and left him alone with those
+two thoughts. Was it her marvellous reading of the
+human heart which prompted this extraordinary
+woman to declare her love to Ezra in those bold uncompromising
+words on this night of all others in
+his life? She knew that he would sit there in his
+deserted home, brooding over his lost wife, she knew
+also that every now and then the scorching recollection
+of what she had said would break in upon the
+brooding thoughts and scatter them. This then was
+the means, the almost unheard-of means, she had
+taken in order to soften the blow that had fallen upon
+him. He would not be able to think of himself as the
+most unhappy individual in Perfection City, because
+she had claimed that distinction in words which he
+never could forget. It was just as she had foreseen.
+It repeatedly happened during the course of that long
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>and dreadful night that Ezra forgot why he was sitting
+alone in the kitchen, so lost was he in amazement at
+the recollection of the words which Madame had
+spoken. As the hours wore on it seemed to him that
+they became more and more impossible, until he began
+to think of them as the work of a brain unhinged by
+sorrow. Was it all a hideous dream, and would he
+awake by and bye? The first pair of candles burned
+out, and he lighted the second pair, recalling as he
+did so what she had said she did when he brought
+Olive home. Ah, Olive, Olive! His heart kept calling
+out in its misery.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He went into their little private room off the
+kitchen, in a sort of infatuation to see if she might
+be there. No. All was silent, still, deserted. He examined
+the tiny room minutely, saw the half-withered
+flowers on the table, took them up, and would have
+kissed them in his misery, only his eye lighted on a
+strange object he had never seen before. It was a
+man’s heavy seal-ring. He picked it up and examined
+it by the light of the candle: a plain gold ring
+set with a well-cut onyx intaglio of a griffin’s head.
+As he turned it about the light showed something-engraved
+in the inside of the ring. He held the candle
+nearer and read “J. G. C.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He dropped the ring as if it had been an adder,
+and fled out of the room. As if pursued by furies,
+he rushed from the house and wandered about out
+of doors. Diana, who since Olive’s departure had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>been in a most miserable frame of mind, followed
+him about dejectedly, with her tail between her legs.
+Ezra, turning, saw the dog and for one moment felt
+a savage desire to kill it, for Olive had loved the dog
+and Olive had broken his heart. This phase passed,
+and in a passion of grief and despair he stooped and
+kissed the animal, for Olive had often patted Diana’s
+head, and fondled her long ears. The dog whined
+in sympathy and turned suggestively back to the house.
+Ezra followed mechanically. He would not go into
+the room where that ring lay, but remained in the
+kitchen. Exhausted nature could stand no more, and
+towards morning he fell into a troubled sleep, with
+his head resting upon his arms crossed on the table.
+Then in his dreams Olive came back to him in that
+vivid yet unsatisfying way in which our dearest do
+sometimes return to us, seemingly but to mock our
+grief. Olive was there, standing before him, but she
+looked at him not with her eyes, but with Madame’s.
+There was something terrible in seeing her own expression
+gone and in its place the look of another,
+and yet it was Olive, and she called on him to follow
+her. He hurried after her with the lead-clogged
+feet that always walk in dreams, and strained to reach
+her. When he did so, he found Madame. Olive and
+Madame flitted before his fevered fancy, always shifting
+and changing one into another, until he panted
+with the horror of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He awoke with a start as the door opened. His
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>half-aroused eyes saw a vaguely defined figure in the
+door-way, blocking out the light of the morning.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Olive,” he said, putting out his hand blindly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have come to cook your breakfast,” said
+Madame’s soft smooth voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Don’t. I can’t eat it,” said Ezra, falling back
+into despair.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Life must go on, even when all joy is banished
+from it,” she said. “We have each one of us to learn
+that lesson, friend Ezra.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She began deftly enough to light the fire and make
+the necessary preparations for breakfast. Madame
+knew how to do the ordinary house-work that falls
+to woman’s lot, only she did not choose to do it in
+her own home. Therefore she employed Lucinda for
+this purpose, until other and stronger motives arose
+which prompted her to undertake the work herself.
+The habit of every day life is strong, and when Ezra
+saw Madame getting breakfast ready, as a matter of
+course he arose and got himself ready, by changing
+his clothes and generally performing the necessary
+preliminaries to the morning meal. He was less wild
+and hollow-eyed after this ceremony, but the extraordinary
+drawn and aged look on his face seemed only
+the more marked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame cooked an omelette with scraps of savoury
+dried beef in it, and after the first mouthful Ezra
+was obliged to admit that he relished the food. He
+could not go on living on his grief, as Madame said.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>She sat with him and took her breakfast also. Napoleon
+Pompey, who would have been in the way,
+was relegated to the society of his mother, who divided
+her emotions between maternal anger at boyish shortcomings
+and maternal love for the short-comer, both
+of which were expressed with the exalted vehemence
+customary to the negro nature.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I shall come each day and cook your food for
+you. I have often longed to be able to do something
+for you, Ezra. Do not forbid my coming. I have
+had so little joy in my life,” said Madame, with a
+strange humility of manner totally at variance with
+her usual character, which was almost domineering,
+one might say. Ezra looked at her in a troubled
+sort of way. It soothed him to have her there, and
+he was glad that somebody, that anybody, could take
+an interest in him. Still there came across his mind
+flashes of doubt as to what this interest meant. He
+could not forget those words that Madame had used
+on the evening before. No man who had ever heard
+such words from a woman’s lips, if ever man did
+hear them under similar circumstances, would ever
+again be able to drive them from his memory, but
+in his bruised and suffering state Ezra was content
+to drift on and let things rest. So Madame came
+daily to his house and cooked his food and saw that
+he ate something at each meal.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David and the brethren came to see him,
+but that gave him no comfort. He shrank from their
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>sympathy, expressed with kindness, but each word was
+like a drop of molten lead upon a raw wound. Willette
+was perhaps the only one who gave him real consolation
+in this awful time.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I say,” remarked the child, in a clear voice and
+without a trace of embarrassment, “Sister Ollie’s gone
+an’ lost herself down there in the bush, I reckon. She
+was ’bout the greenest hand at keepin’ to the Pole
+Star ever I see. You could throw her out o’ her direction
+quicker nor nothin’. I guess she headed plumb
+for the Missouri border when she come ’long with
+Cotterell to show him out o’ Union Mills. Guess she’ll
+ride ’bout down to Saint Jo ’fore she knows she’s
+headin’ wrong. I wouldn’t ’spect her back ’fore a
+fortnight.” Willette laughed pleasantly, and poor
+Ezra derived some comfort from the preposterous convictions
+of the child and her unshakable belief in
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He went to Union Mills to make some inquiries
+about his lost wife, and met there the same story
+that Madame had already told, but the story was
+so brutally hurled at him he could not bear it, and
+came home bruised and stricken, his heart bleeding
+tears of agony. Instinctively he went to Madame
+for comfort.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra, perhaps this terrible trial was needed to
+purify us all, to make us all more perfect communists.
+I can discern a valuable lesson that may be
+of profit to the brethren. I begin to think that after
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>all marriage is selfish: perfect love alone is unselfish.
+You would not have kept Olive beside you by force,
+if her heart had gone from you, would you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I thought our marriage was for life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, but she made a mistake as to her feelings;
+she found she loved someone else better. It was wise
+of her, after all, to break the bond. It would only
+have galled you both.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I should have been content if she had only let
+me love her,” said Ezra.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ah yes, I know that feeling but too well,” said
+Madame, bringing his mind with a shock to the
+thought that she never long allowed to sleep.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is a terrible world,” said Ezra beginning to
+realize what a spell she was weaving around him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It rests with ourselves to make it easier in the
+only way,” replied Madame.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David took up a firm position of his own
+and refused to listen to anybody or anything.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I hain’t agoin’ to b’lieve nothin’ ’gin little
+Ollie,” he announced. “I don’t care ’bout proofs an’
+things. Land! If I b’lieved in proofs there hain’t no
+sort o’ foolishness I shouldn’t be up to. I b’lieve in
+pussons.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>That was his position, and he stuck to it with unswerving
+fidelity. He was happy in his blind faith,
+and no one tried to shake it. The old man then began
+a strange sort of hunt after Olive. He would sit all
+day long at the forge, where, of course, strangers were
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>most likely to pass, and to each he would put questions
+about the “little gal” he was so pathetically
+seeking. He spoke little, he who used to be so chatty,
+but sat hour after hour in silent patient expectation
+of the return of his loved one. The brethren began
+to think he must be losing his wits from sorrow, poor
+old man!</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXI.<br /> <span class='large'>THE MESSAGE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>A long weary fortnight had passed since the day
+when Ezra came home to find his wife gone. Life
+went on at Perfection City much the same as before,
+although to him it seemed as if the Universe was
+out of gear. He took no part or interest in the daily
+affairs of the Community, never coming to the Assembly
+or consulting with the brethren upon any matters.
+He withdrew himself from the companionship
+of his fellows, and only that Madame continued to
+come to his house every day in order to cook his dinner
+and sit with him while he ate it, he would have been
+absolutely alone. Ezra acquiesced in her devotion,
+and dared not ask himself how the debt was to be repaid
+that she was piling up against him. The Pioneers,
+who during the past fortnight had revelled in a perfect
+carnival of gossip, felt themselves at liberty to
+express an opinion upon this new development of the
+drama that was being acted in their midst. Sister
+Carpenter said to Sister Winkle that she thought there
+ought to be a period of mourning allowed, however
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>brief, between first and second marriage, and that
+Brother Ezra hadn’t ought to go a-courting so soon.
+She did not know that it was Madame who did the
+courting in that strange, forward, imperial way that
+we must suppose the Empress Katharine affected.
+Uncle David, whom love for Olive had rendered extremely
+keen-sighted as to what was going on, evinced
+very great displeasure. Madame had no right to try
+and make Ezra’s home happy, and he told her so in
+language of unmistakable import. She was angry
+to a degree that terrified him, and he shrank back
+alarmed beyond measure at the wrath which he had
+provoked.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, I know, you want Ezra’s life to be wrecked
+by that vain, selfish little hussy who never cared for
+him, and who went off with the first gallant that
+beckoned to her. Ezra’s life shall not be wrecked,
+mine shall be expended in drawing it into a haven
+of rest. Olive is not worthy of tying the latchet of
+his shoe. I hope she will be cast off by her lover, and
+left to sink amid the mud and mire of such as she.
+I hate her!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David was frightened and crept away to
+Brother Green, where he sat hour after hour mournfully
+watching the fire. It was on one of these days
+when he was in the forge that a young negro on a
+raw-boned Indian pony rode up to Madame, who was
+on the point of starting for her daily expedition to
+Ezra’s, and inquired “whar ole man Weston lived,”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>as he had a message for him. Instead of answering
+directly, Madame endeavoured to find out what the
+boy wanted of Ezra. The little darkie thereupon produced
+a scrap of crumpled paper from the recesses
+of his ragged shirt and informed Madame he wanted
+to give him “dat ar’.” Madame took the paper, opened
+it, and gave a gasp. Then in a moment she recovered
+herself with an effort, and assured the negro it was all
+right, and that she would see to it. She made most
+particular inquiries as to where he lived, and then
+sent him off, happy with a piece of corn-bread and a
+dollar for himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Having thus got rid of the negro lad, Madame
+proceeded on her way to Ezra’s house in order to
+perform her daily task there. She seemed strangely
+excited, and her blue eyes glittered like sapphires.
+Her whole bearing was that of a person labouring
+under intense excitement, all traces of which she was
+endeavouring to conceal. Her very voice had a new
+ring in it as she talked with Ezra, and her breath came
+quick and fast. Had his senses been less dulled by
+suffering, he could not have failed to notice the change
+in her, notwithstanding her efforts at concealment.
+He was sitting, looking with unseeing eyes across the
+vacant cornfield, when suddenly she spoke.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra, let us go away from this place. Let us
+leave all the recollections of Perfection City behind
+us, and begin life afresh.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He turned his eyes upon her with a slow questioning
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>look, showing how far away had been his
+thoughts at the moment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How can we leave this place? There is too
+much money and too much labour sunk in it for us
+all to leave and go to some other spot.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not all, dear friend, only you and I,” said Madame,
+in her caressing voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra started. “That is even more impossible,” he
+said, in great agitation.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why impossible? I have money. It will more
+than suffice for all our needs, nay, it will give us
+all the luxuries we can sigh for.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It is not that, but you forget——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, Ezra, I don’t forget, but I want you to forget.
+I want you to draw a wet sponge over the recollection
+of the past and begin anew. It is not too late.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You don’t know what you are saying, Madame.
+You cannot mean it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I do mean it, and I know what it means. You
+have no tie——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra shivered.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Neither have I. We are both free to make our
+lives what we list.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You  mistake, we are both tied by all our past
+lives, and with bonds that may not be lightly broken.
+We are tied by our own feelings as well as by the
+good opinion of the world at large.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame snapped her fingers with scorn.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“That for the world at large and its opinions.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>Do you remember what I told you about my father
+and my birth? Thank God, I have no name to
+lose.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I cannot do less than tell you the truth,” said
+Ezra in great distress. “Wherever I went my heart
+would remain here, where I have known true happiness,
+and it will always be looking for my lost one to
+come back to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She won’t come back till Cotterell is tired of her,”
+said Madame brutally. “Will you be grateful for
+his cast-off mistress?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Stop,” said Ezra, putting his hand quickly before
+her lips, “you must not speak so of her to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Fool that I am!” muttered Madame under her
+breath. She turned from him with a gesture of anger.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, forgive me,” exclaimed Ezra, seeing and feeling
+what the expression meant. “Never was man so
+miserable, never was one so unhappily placed. I owe
+you more than words can say, I owe you my best
+thoughts, I owe you my very life itself. I would willingly
+give you my life——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then why not give it and come with me?”
+burst out Madame. “Leave all this misery behind
+you, I will make your path as smooth as heart could
+wish. Come.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“My heart can never follow any other path, it
+will dwell amid the ruins of its former happiness.
+Do not speak again of this. Let us remain friends
+as before.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>“It can never be again as it was before,” said
+Madame with heaving bosom.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why not?” asked Ezra. “I have not much else
+left in life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Why not,” repeated Madame in scorn. “You
+ask me why not! Would you care for Olive’s friendship
+when all her love was given to Cotterell?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Stop,” cried Ezra, and this time there was a
+ring of anger in his voice. “Even you may presume
+too far. Do not again speak that name to
+me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>There is something untamed and untameable in
+the Russian nature which now and then comes to the
+surface and drives an excited Muscovite into acts seemingly
+at variance with the highly cultivated standard
+to which he aspires. The phenomenon may by the
+learned be attributed to a sudden reversion to the
+ancestral Asiatic savage. Madame was at this moment
+rapidly going back to the state of furious anger, when
+all sense of dignity would be lost. She was reverting
+to the Asiatic. And under the influence of her passion
+her physical appearance changed, her eyes became
+narrow slanting openings emitting sparks of
+steel-blue flame, her full red lips were drawn tightly
+over her teeth. She hissed out her words.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Does her image still come between us?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It does come between us,” said Ezra looking almost
+as white as she did. “Her image will always
+come between me and every other woman on the whole
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>earth, blotting out every other image and making
+me only hers. Oh, Olive! Oh, my wife!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He gave a great sob of agony.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Besotted fool!” burst from Madame’s colourless
+lips, “do you hold this language to me? You scorn
+me and my love! Then on your own head be the consequences.
+Ah, now nothing shall stop me. An angel
+from heaven, no, nor God Himself shall stand between
+me and my revenge. Ezra Weston, farewell!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She left the room, shutting the door upon him
+and his misery. Unhappy man! His world seemed
+crumbling beneath his feet. He had lost his wife,
+and now his friend, the one whom he most revered,
+had cast him out from her regard. What could he
+do? His heart answered, nothing but dumbly suffer
+in the deserted home where he was left alone. What
+a black and barren waste was his life! And how fair
+and smiling it had looked a few short weeks ago!
+It was as if a devastating fire had passed over him
+leaving his heart like the desolated prairie, black and
+hopeless.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame went away alone for one day, no one
+knew whither, and came back with a look on her
+face that struck terror into all who saw her. Her
+smooth white face looked cruel and pitiless, and the
+gleam from her eyes reminded one of cold steel. Her
+soft hands sometimes closed on their own pink palms
+with a spasmodic clutch, as if she had the throat of
+an enemy between their cruel grasp and was crushing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>the life out of him. A cold dreadful face, a cruel
+sickening look that made Napoleon Pompey and Uncle
+David shiver within their souls, and caused the brethren
+to draw away affrighted from their once beloved
+leader. Perfection City was the abode of wretchedness.
+The Academy never opened its doors to the
+assembled Pioneers, who were afraid to come near
+Madame’s house. Each lived by himself, looking
+askance at his neighbour, for over all had fallen a
+spirit of suspicion. Only Brother Huntley, the deaf
+brother, and his mute wife were happy, working on
+contentedly, shielded by their misfortune from the
+full knowledge of the disasters that had come upon
+the Community.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The days dragged miserably by, seemingly endowed
+with a miraculous length of hours, for the sufferings
+of a life-time were compressed into that hideous
+fortnight. The glaring sun blazing down upon the
+blackened prairie seemed to Ezra to have become no
+unfitting symbol of hell. The light was hateful, darkness,
+eternal darkness would have been a relief to his
+brain. Could it be possible that he was going to
+live his life out in a realized purgatory? He was
+young, only twenty-five, and if his life was to stretch
+even to the average span of human existence, what
+an eternity of suffering lay before him! A brokenhearted
+man amid the ruins of his broken life.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was on one of these days of utter black despair,
+like the days that had gone before and the days that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>were still to come, that the same ragged negro boy on
+the straggly Indian pony, who once before had made
+his appearance at Perfection City, was seen skulking
+around the old land near Weddell’s Gully. He seemed
+to want to see without being seen. By and bye Napoleon
+Pompey chanced that way and of course
+pounced upon him with the universal query of “whar
+he gwine?” The boy after some hesitation made it
+clear that he had come on a secret mission. He wanted
+to find Uncle David without being seen by anyone else,
+especially not by the white-faced lady, Madame, of
+whom he stood in shivering dread. Napoleon Pompey,
+sympathising with the dread, volunteered to take a
+letter to Uncle David without fear of detection. Thereupon
+the darkie delivered over to him a scrap of newspaper
+upon which was written a scrawl with the burnt
+end of a stick, and having done so galloped off on
+his straggly pony with a whoop of delight, as one
+who had escaped dreadful peril. Napoleon Pompey,
+finding it difficult to deliver his embassy to Uncle
+David undetected, gave the curious missive to Ezra
+with intimations that it was to be put into Uncle
+David’s hands right away.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra took the scrap of paper, saying there must
+be some letter inside, and mechanically unfolded it,
+when the hoarse scream that he uttered almost made
+Napoleon Pompey jump through the window.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where did you get this?” he panted.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Darkie gin it ter me jes’ while back.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>“Who gave it? What was his name? Where
+did he live? Who sent him here?” asked Ezra in a
+breath.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Darkie he didn’t go for to say nuffin, on’y jes’
+gin dat ar, an’ tole me ter pike to ole Uncle David
+wid it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra darted out of the house and ran like a mad-man
+to Madame’s and burst into the room where she
+and Uncle David were just sitting down to supper.
+He held out the scrap of paper to the old man and
+gasped:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Olive is somewhere!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I presume that was already known, and that it can
+hardly be considered news,” said Madame’s cool cutting
+voice, which brought Ezra somewhat to his senses.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She is somewhere near. She sent a negro boy
+with this. Read it.” He shoved it under Uncle
+David’s nose.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I can’t see to read it, read it aloud, let me hear
+all she says in her letter,” said the old man with trembling
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It isn’t a letter. It says, ’Uncle come to Olive,’
+only those four words, nothing else, and just look,
+scratched with a bit of burnt stick on a piece of newspaper!
+Oh, think of it! Where can she be? Why
+didn’t she write before if she was in trouble? What
+has happened?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Perhaps it is a hoax,” said Madame between her
+drawn white lips.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>“There hain’t in this world a bein’ so lost to all
+feelin’ as would make a joke o’ our sorrow,” said
+Uncle David. “No, Ezra, that’s writ by our little
+gal. We must go to her. Come ’long, brother.” He
+put on his hat and started cheerfully for the door.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where are you going?” asked Madame, in a
+muffled voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m agoin’ to little Ollie.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where is she, do you know?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezry, don’t you know where we’ve got to go
+to?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I know nothing, except that this scrap of paper
+has been brought by a negro boy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra kissed the paper, and Madame’s lips curled
+in contempt.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Is it not rather a wild-goose chase to start you
+know not whither, and at this time of the evening
+too?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We can’t wait here after little Ollie’s told us to
+come,” said Uncle David simply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Cannot you suggest some plan?” asked Ezra,
+turning to Madame by force of habit.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not I,” she replied contemptuously. “Shall you
+go east, west, north, or south? The world lies all before
+you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ain’t you glad little Ollie’s found?” asked Uncle
+David, looking wistfully at her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame laughed harshly. They went out of the
+room together feeling her presence insupportable.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>Just round the corner they came upon Napoleon Pompey
+who was peeping around to see if he could pick
+up any scraps of news. He had divined there was
+news from Olive, and with the inquisitiveness of his
+race had followed Ezra when he had rushed so wildly
+out of the house.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“D’yer know whar ter go?” he inquired.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No,” said Ezra. “Can you tell us anything of
+that negro boy? Do you know where he lives?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ask her,” said Napoleon Pompey, jerking his
+thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door
+from which they had just emerged.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ask who?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Madame,” said Napoleon Pompey.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Does she know?” asked Ezra, amazed.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I seed dat ar pony hyar afore,” replied Napoleon
+Pompey.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Great Heavens!” said Ezra as drops of sweat
+burst out on his forehead. He hurried back to the
+house with Uncle David. Neither of them spoke a
+word.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Madame,” said Ezra, as they once more stood
+in the room, “I have come to ask you a question.
+Do you know where my wife is?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She looked him unflinchingly in the face and answered:</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“May the Lord forgive you!” said Uncle David,
+in a voice hardly above a whisper, and for some seconds
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>there was a complete silence in the room, broken
+only by the sound of Ezra’s heavy breathing.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Where is she?” he demanded sternly.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Go and find her,” was the mocking answer.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra sprang furiously forward, and almost yelled
+out,</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Tell me at once or——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ay yes,” she said with a steady look, “you will
+drag the secret out, will you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She tore open her dress and exposed her snow-white
+throat.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“See, there it is handy. Take a knife and cut
+my throat. See if I shall flinch. The last gurgle of
+my blood bubbling up through the wound, shall bear
+a sound of mocking laughter. Strike!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra turned from her in horror. “She must be
+mad,” he said to Uncle David.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Not mad now, I have been mad all these months,
+all these years. Mad to love you, mad in loving such
+a one as you. Now I am sane. Ah, how I hate
+you!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“This is horrible,” said Ezra, putting his hand before
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Horrible, is it? It is the waking from love’s
+young dream. Ha, ha!”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Madame, dear child, think of all you have been
+to us,” said Uncle David, reaching his hands out to
+her imploringly. “You have led us, think of all
+that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>“I do think of all that. I think of how I found
+this boy,” she said, pointing in scorn to Ezra, “ignorant,
+unformed, with wild crude longings. I think
+of how I infused light and life into the darkness of
+his mind. How I rose, aye, above myself, in order to
+lead him up and on. I think of all his half-formed
+longings put into working form and endowed with
+vital power that he might see his thoughts taking
+shape. I made him. He was mine. Then he left me
+for a few brief weeks. He saw a pretty doll’s face
+with an empty head, and straightway he loves with
+never a thought of me. You ask me to think. I do
+think of how even this I bore, and so great was my
+love that for his sake I welcomed the doll that had
+stolen my place, and smiled on her. Even this I did
+and remained his friend. She, the doll, attracted by
+a handsome face, her love aroused by the stolen kisses
+of a yellow moustache, left him. Then I was free to
+love him once more. I laid my heart at his feet. He
+spurned me. All my love was as nothing against the
+memory of the doll who had deserted him. She may
+die and rot before word of mine shall restore her to
+him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Neither Ezra nor Uncle David had attempted to
+speak while Madame was pouring forth the torrent
+of her bitter words. Ezra felt too overwhelmed to
+say anything, for a moment, in the downfall of so
+many illusions and high hopes, he forgot even Olive.
+Uncle David was the first to recover himself.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>“Dear child,” he said, for the first time in his life
+addressing her as one beneath him. “These are wild
+words you’ve been sayin’. I can’t find it in my heart
+to believe they’re true. You are disappointed,
+an’ you think wrong can be made right by turnin’
+things upside down. Tain’t so. You’ll have to
+learn that right an’ wrong can’t change places, nohow
+you fix it. You have still your duty here in
+the City you’ve founded an’ the principles you’ve set
+up.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Madame looked at him with glittering eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Will you hear the truth about Perfection City
+too? Then listen. It is not an experiment in new
+principles, it is an example of the oldest the world
+has seen—of the folly of a fond woman. I founded
+Perfection City so that he might love the founder.
+I staked my all on a throw of love’s dice, and lost.
+Women have done it before and will do it again.
+Some fools degrade their body to win a man, I
+degraded my mind. The foundation-stone of Perfection
+City was my heart, see what will happen
+when it is crushed! Ah, why can we not profit by
+the experience of our elders! My mother warned
+me, having tried it, never to stake my happiness on
+the love of man. I followed her advice for five-and-thirty
+happy years. Then I saw <i>him</i>, and the curse
+fell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She threw up her arms over her head and backed
+towards the door of her own apartment.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>“The curse, the curse!” she exclaimed, as she
+passed through out of their sight.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra had a confused feeling that he had just seen
+someone drowning who had reached appealing hands
+towards heaven as she went under.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXII.<br /> <span class='large'>OLIVE’S SECOND HOME-COMING.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>And where was Olive all this time? She and Cotterell
+rode out of Union Mills together, as we have
+seen, and as was seen by nearly all the men who had assembled
+there that morning in the expectation of seeing
+him hanged. They rode silently among “the
+boys” getting their horses ready, they silently passed
+among the trees to the south and crossed the ford of
+the Creek. Then Cotterell spoke, pouring forth his
+words of thanks and gratitude to her. He was not
+ashamed to show that he was deeply moved, now that
+none but Olive could see his emotion. She, on the
+other hand, seemed almost in an unconscious state so
+little heed did she give to his eager words.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Speak to me, tell me what you wish,” he pleaded
+very gently, noticing her abstraction.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I want you to go away,” she said slowly. “You
+are safe from their anger for this time, but do not
+stay here and court danger. This is no place for a
+man like you to live. Go while there is yet time.
+There is now a blood-feud between you and the Mills.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>They will mark you for vengeance, and they are wild
+bad men.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And you?” said Cotterell, looking anxiously at
+her. “I want to see you safely at home. You are
+ill, I fear.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am all right,” answered Olive wearily. “You
+must go to the South Fork at once. Take the Kansas
+City stage this very night and go. There is no time
+to be lost.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I cannot, and will not,” answered Cotterell. “I
+must take you home first. You look frightfully tired
+and ill.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“No, it would be the crudest thing you could
+do to bring me home. I want to go back to Ezra,
+I am so tired,” said Olive plaintively.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Must I let you go all by yourself over this lonely
+prairie? I cannot bear the thought of it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I have been two days and one night all by myself
+out on this lonely prairie in order to save you.
+Please do what I ask. Tie Queen Katharine’s rein to
+Rebel’s bit, they will then go quietly together.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Tell me,” said Cotterell breathlessly, “why have
+you been out all this time on the prairie alone?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I was following the men who had captured you
+in order to save you if I could.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Great Heavens!” he burst out, with his blue
+eyes aflame. “And you did this heroic act because
+you——”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I did it because you are an innocent man, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>I wanted you to go back to your country to live a
+better life and be a better man than you ever had
+been before.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The light died out of his eyes. He looked down,
+his hands trembled as they had never trembled when
+on his trial.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your sacrifice shall not have been in vain,” he
+said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then good-bye, and all good blessings attend
+you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She shook hands with him and left him standing
+at the parting of the ways. When she was quite out
+of sight over the ridge on her way towards Cotton
+Wood Creek, he, with blinding tears streaming down
+his sun-burnt face, turned and walked to the South
+Fork, caught the Kansas City stage-coach and departed
+out of Olive’s life.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She hardly knew what she was doing she felt so
+ill. It seemed a relief not to have to talk any more,
+for she found it difficult to keep hold of her thoughts,
+they seemed constantly to be slipping away from her.
+The sun was burning hot, and she had a long way to
+go, for she had come out of Union Mills by the south
+side instead of the north. Therefore she must make
+a great sweep round to the right in order to reach her
+home, and she must remember that the Creek was only
+to be safely forded at certain places. She rode on
+and on, feeling the sun hotter and hotter and her head
+heavier and heavier. At last she was so dizzy she
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>could no longer see where she was going. Whatever
+happened she must lie down for a few minutes. Somehow
+she got off her horse and lay down at the side of
+the track she had been following, but whether in
+sleep or in unconsciousness she never knew.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>By and by she came to herself again. The horses
+were both gone! She had forgotten to picket them.
+She did not remember where she was, but mechanically
+stumbled along the road and at length was overtaken
+by a negro woman driving an ox-waggon. She begged
+of the woman to let her get into the waggon and take
+her home for she felt ill, and the negress, struck with
+pity, declared she would, “fo’ de po’ chile was mos’
+sick to deaf anyhow.” Olive got into the waggon
+and knew no more for hours—or was it days, or was it
+weeks? Two nights out in the poisonous prairie dew
+had done their work: she was down with chills and
+fever, a raving panting lunatic, or else a stupid heavy
+sleeping log, taking no heed of day or night or the
+hours as they flew, only craving water to drink, ever
+more water to drink. By and by she began to have
+intervals when she knew that she was in a strange
+place with strange black faces around her. Then at
+last her senses returned, and she sent an imploring
+message to Ezra to come to her. In reply had come
+Madame, stern, fierce-eyed, to see her and crush her
+with the awful news that Ezra was dead. Olive fell
+back into unconsciousness under the blow, she did not
+know for how long. But after weary suffering she
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>awoke again, still in that same strange place, still with
+those black faces around her, kind and pitying, but
+faces she did not know.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Trying feebly to gather up again the threads of
+her life, she wished to send word to the friends at
+Perfection City that she was still alive. The negroes,
+who were the only inhabitants of the wretched house
+where she was, seemed not to heed her wishes. They
+refused to take any messages, but would not say why.
+Olive grew stronger, for her young vitality exerted
+itself. She demanded to know why they would not
+do as she wished, but they fled from her questions
+and left her to her suspicions. She tormented them
+with questions, and at last they said the white-faced
+lady had forbidden them ever to come near her house
+again, and they were afraid: she was a very terrible
+looking lady when she was angry. Then Olive used
+her powers of persuasion upon the negro lad and
+eventually got him to take her message in spite of
+what his mother said. That was the scrap of paper
+that had come into Ezra’s hands.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The Pioneers scattered in systematic search for
+Olive, spreading out in all directions in a way that
+could not fail to be speedily successful. Brother
+Green found her on the second day, while Ezra found
+the two horses which a thrifty settler had impounded
+in his own fields and was unobtrusively working until
+they should be called for by their owner.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green was overjoyed at finding Olive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>and was not so overwhelmed at hearing of her long
+illness as, under different circumstances, he might have
+been. In fact he was almost pleased, for that fact,
+taken together with the negro woman’s graphic account
+of finding her alone and ill on the prairie on
+the day “o’ de hoss-thief tryin’,” made it clear to him
+that she had never been with Cotterell since she was
+at the abortive trial. She was very weak and languid
+and took little heed of him or his remarks.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra will be out of his mind with joy,” he said,
+by way of rousing her to some interest, as he was
+settling her as comfortably as he could in the ox-waggon,
+preparatory to setting out on their return.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Ezra is dead,” said Olive wearily.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green stared hard at her. “What crazy
+fancy is this? Ezra is alive and riding over towards
+Jacksonville at this moment hunting for you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“She told me he was dead,” said Olive, beginning
+to cry from the revulsion of feeling combined with
+physical suffering.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How dared the woman tell such a lie!” exclaimed
+Brother Green angrily, and then after a moment
+he added more mildly, “Perhaps it was a mere
+mistake, she seems to have been kind to you, but
+negroes are not a truth-telling race.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“It was not the negro woman, it was Madame,”
+said Olive in a hushed and awe-struck voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Nonsense, you are raving, Sister Olive,” said
+he sharply.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>“She came to me and told me during my illness.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“When?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I can’t tell. I don’t remember when things happened.
+I was so ill.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Then depend upon it, you have fancied this.
+Fever fancies seem very real at times.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He experienced a certain relief in speaking thus
+confidently on the subject to her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“The negro woman knows. Ask her who came
+here and forbade them to bring any more messages
+from me to Perfection City.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>It was singular, considering the way he had spoken,
+that Brother Green did not take this simple means of
+assuring himself that Olive’s idea was the effect of
+the disordered workings of a fevered brain. But he
+said never a word to the negro woman on the subject,
+but drove slowly and thoughtfully back to Perfection
+City, with Olive in the ox-waggon, lying on a heap of
+corn-shucks covered with the ragged patch-quilt the
+woman had lent her. It was a long and a weary journey
+thus creeping back home over the blackened prairie.
+Olive sometimes wondered if she would get there
+alive, and she moaned in her misery. For the rest,
+Brother Green spoke but little. Since assuring Olive
+of the falseness of her idea that Madame had been to
+see her, he appeared to have lost the cheerfulness he
+had shown upon finding her. Brother Green was
+thinking of the future of Perfection City, and it looked
+black enough to him. It was no secret that Madame
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>had refused to reveal Olive’s whereabouts to her husband,
+and in the light of that circumstance he could
+foresee nothing but strife, ill-will and enmity in Perfection
+City. How were Olive and Madame to meet,
+and above all how were they to live in harmony for
+the future? These were the thoughts that occupied
+his mind and kept him silent during that long slow
+drive.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive, too, was trying to look into the future, and
+she shivered with dread as she did so. Madame’s pitiless
+eyes were before her still, but Ezra would be
+there, he would shield her and comfort her, and she
+could rest her head peacefully on his honest breast.
+Dear Ezra! Why had he not come to her when she
+had sent for him? She hoped he would be there to
+greet her and to save her from that terrible woman,
+whose colourless face in its icy cruelty still haunted
+her, filling her with a great dread. She need not
+have been so afraid, for when she reached Perfection
+City Madame was gone.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>The Pioneers had indeed a life of much inward
+excitement during these days. The return of Olive
+and the departure of Madame were events almost
+equally calculated to disturb their equanimity as a
+Community.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra being still away looking for his wife in the
+wrong direction, there was no one to receive her when
+she got home. Therefore Brother Green took her to
+Sister Mary Winkle’s at once on their arrival. Olive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>was weak, ill, and peevish, she cried with disappointment
+at not seeing Ezra. Sister Mary Winkle administered
+a stimulant in the way of advice.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wouldn’t take on so like a baby, Olive Weston,
+if I were you. Ezra’ll come home probably to-day
+or to-morrow, and one day more or less ain’t much
+in a life-time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive dried her eyes with energy.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Everybody said you had gone off with that man
+Cotterell, and so we all thought too,” observed Sister
+Winkle conversationally.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“How dare you suggest such a thing to me?”
+exclaimed Olive, with an amount of angry energy surprising
+in one so weak.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Well, we had it from the people who saw you
+go away with him, and who heard you say you were
+going. I don’t see how we could possibly have thought
+other than we did.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“You must be a wicked woman to think such
+a thing,” said Olive. Her chin began to quiver piteously.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I am not going to condemn you,” replied Sister
+Winkle, in a philosophic vein. “If you found you
+preferred him to Ezra I don’t think you would have
+been wrong in showing your preference in an unmistakable
+manner. Marriage is a partnership which
+either side should be free to dissolve. Mistakes are
+sometimes made in it as in other affairs. Our marriage
+is not a mistake, because Wright and I don’t
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>make mistakes, but other people are different, and I
+don’t see why they should be punished for an honest
+mistake. Marriage should be free. Perfection City
+was founded on freedom. We thought that you had
+used your right of choice, and since you liked Cotterell
+best had gone with him. We thought that Madame
+would soon marry Ezra, since he was now free,
+and she had always wanted to.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Olive sprang from her chair and steadied herself
+with her trembling hands by clutching the back of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Mary Winkle, I hate you,” she said, in a voice
+choking with emotion. “Perfection City is a sinful,
+wicked place. I wish I had never seen it. If I live,
+and Ezra loves me, I hope he will take me away so I
+may never hear its name again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>She stamped bravely out of the house under the
+influence of her anger, but her strength did not carry
+her far, and she sank down upon the wood-pile weeping
+bitterly, unable to walk another step. Sister Mary,
+somewhat disgusted at the way in which her philosophy
+had been received, resolved to let her cool off a
+little before going out to offer Olive an arm to conduct
+her back into the house. Thus it came about
+that Olive was still sitting weeping on the wood-pile
+when Uncle David came hurrying up, having just
+heard of her arrival, and close behind him came Ezra
+running like a mad-man. When Olive saw him she
+started towards her husband with outstretched arms,
+but her weakness overcame her, and she would have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>fallen to the ground only that he was just in time to
+catch her in his arms, where she fell laughing and crying
+in the most incoherent manner imaginable.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Oh, Ezra, you didn’t believe that wicked story?
+And you do love me, don’t you? And you won’t
+marry her, and you aren’t dead, are you? Tell Mary
+Winkle you hate her too. And why didn’t you come
+to me when I sent for you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Ezra could only kiss her, and pet her, and soothe
+her in every way while Olive kept saying hysterically,
+“You won’t, will you?” and “You will, won’t you?”
+All of which Ezra promised faithfully to perform.
+She absolutely refused to re-enter Sister Mary Winkle’s
+house, whereupon the latter, somewhat conscience-stricken,
+offered to send in food for their supper
+at their own house, provided Olive was not told
+who had sent it. The secret was kept, and Olive partook
+heartily of what otherwise would undoubtedly
+have choked her.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Uncle David hovered over her with anxious love
+and remorse. “Bless her heart, o’ course he didn’t
+b’lieve nothin’ ’bout her goin’ off. Yer bet he didn’t,
+he knowed it was all right, on’y she was so long a-com-in’
+home he sorter kinder got oneasy, an’ that’s why
+they went out to fin’ her, an’ dear, dear, had she been
+an’ gone an’ got that plaguey ague, an’ he not there
+to see a’ter her, an’ there wasn’t nothin’ like Ayre’s
+Ague Cure for that, an’ he would go right ’long home
+this minute an’ get her some right away.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>Ezra wanted to hear her story, and she told him
+everything from the beginning to the end. When
+she came to the end and told him of Madame’s visit,
+he shivered and said it must have been delirium, he
+bade her think no more of it and never speak of it
+again. His mind started back from the thoughts such
+a story raised up before him. He was afraid, and
+looked away from the abyss, terrified at what lay but
+half hidden there.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XXIII.<br /> <span class='large'>CONCLUSION.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>Madame left Perfection City alone and unattended.
+No one knew that she was going, and no one
+knew whither she went. Her spirit, however, still hovered
+over the city of her founding and made itself
+most potently felt. She sold all her rights in the
+place, and since these included the land, horses, and
+implements, as well as most of the houses, the Pioneers
+awoke in early winter to find themselves homeless
+and houseless, cast upon the bleak world again. In a
+tempest of indignation, Sister Mary Winkle and her
+husband departed out of the place, and after them
+the Carpenters. The going of the Wrights was highly
+characteristic. They had managed to save a waggon
+and a pair of horses out of the general wreck, along
+with a few of the most primitive household necessaries.
+These, with his wife and daughter, Brother Wright
+packed into his waggon and started for Union Mills.
+At the store there he bought a rifle, a bowie-knife, and
+a plentiful supply of ammunition. He came out of
+the store looking like a buccaneer ready equipped for
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>Central America. Mary Winkle raised her hands in
+speechless horror.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I say, pa, be yer goin’ to be a jay-hawker?”
+asked Willette, grinning with delight.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Wright got into the waggon in grim silence.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“What <i>are</i> you going to be?” asked Sister Mary
+recovering her speech at last.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I’m going to be a man, Mrs. Wright, and not a
+blamed fool any longer. Guess I’ll pre-empt some
+land near the Cherokee Reservation, and stick to it
+and get the fruits of my toil, anyhow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Your principles——” stammered his wife.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Damn principles, Mrs. Wright. I’ve had about
+enough of them. Common sense is what I want, and
+so do you. I guess a spell of that will come handy
+now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Thus they journeyed out of sight, but a legend
+came floating back from near the Cherokee lands that
+at a difficult ford Wright was attacked by a couple of
+robbers, whereupon he took up that new rifle of his
+and fired so uncommonly straight that one man fell
+into the river, and the other ran away.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Green remained at his forge, for blacksmiths
+were much in request on the prairie, and such
+a one as he was hard to find. The new owner of Perfection
+City offered him good inducements to stay,
+so he stayed. He is still there shoeing horses and
+mending ploughs. The name has been changed to
+Mountainburg, in order to emphasise the existence of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>the rising ground over Weddell’s Gully. Brother
+Green is almost the oldest inhabitant now, and sometimes
+he thinks of that far-off English village where
+he was born, and it looks brighter and more beautiful
+to him as the years roll him away from it. He thinks
+too of the grass-grown grave in the church-yard
+where the jackdaws caw overhead, and it seems to
+him that when his last day’s work shall be done he
+would rest more peacefully beside that mound than
+in any other spot beneath the broad canopy of
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>Brother Dummy decided not to leave when the
+rest of the Pioneers scattered. He preferred to stay
+where he was and rent a bit of land from the new
+owner. By and by he was enabled to buy his bit outright.
+For there came a letter addressed to “The
+Pioneers of Perfection City” and containing a draft
+for five hundred dollars “for the hire of one horse”
+from an ever grateful friend. And Brother Dummy
+was given this money by the united wish of Olive,
+Ezra, Brother Green, and Uncle David, the last
+of the Pioneers, because, as they said, he was the
+only one who didn’t know why it had been sent,
+and he was the only one who had not suffered
+through that episode that had so nearly wrecked their
+lives.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>On a cold winter’s day, when the snow lay in
+patches on the black prairie, Olive and her husband
+and Uncle David set out from Perfection City. She
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>was pale and thin, and looked very ill as she stood
+leaning against the door-way of her dismantled home.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“I wish I could feel sorry at leaving the prairie,
+but I can’t. I never want to see Perfection City again,
+but I’m sorry for my little home, and I would like to
+see my garden blossom again.” So spoke Olive to
+Uncle David, standing beside her with shawls on his
+arm.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Wal, now,” replied he sadly, “we came here full
+o’ the notion o’ teachin’ folks things, but it ’pears
+like as if it wasn’t so much other folks out here as
+needed teachin’ as jes’ our own selves. We hev hed
+a hard lesson to learn, Ollie, my little gal, but I reckon
+we’ve pretty well learned it by now. It mos’ likely
+comes to the same thing, on’y it’s a sight more comfortin’
+to human pride to set up as a teacher than to
+sit down as a learner. We was as certain as anything
+we had a bran’ new truth to teach to the world, an’
+we was goin’ to show ’em how they’d been doin’ wrong
+in everything ’fore we come to set ’em right. We was
+jes’ bustin’ with pride and vanity, that’s what we was.
+We had foun’ a new road to Kingdom Come, we had.
+’Twasn’t no road at all, on’y a coon track leadin’ into
+a swamp. Guess we’ll foller the road other folks has
+trod before, an’ if we can fill up a slough or help anyone
+over the rough bits as is scattered plentiful all
+the way, that’ll do for us. Ain’t that your ’pinion,
+Ezry?”</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“Yes, Uncle, we made a mistake. We thought
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>the great thing to do was to reform the ways of the
+world. We forgot that the human heart needed reforming
+first of all,” said Ezra, looking sadly at his
+poor wan-cheeked little wife.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And if the heart is right it doesn’t matter about
+the rest, does it, dear?” said Olive, looking timidly
+at him.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He was sad and down-hearted and the eager enthusiasm
+was gone out of his manner. Ezra was much
+older-looking than he should have been, if life be
+reckoned by solar time alone. He had been aged
+by a lapse of mental time and suffering of which
+the almanac can take no heed. His wife saw and
+understood how he was, at this moment, realizing
+the downfall of his young hopes and beliefs, that
+was why he gazed so sadly across the desolate
+fields.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“We take nothing away with us except sad experience,”
+he said as he lifted her into the waggon
+and drove off.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>“And our love, dear, which nothing can ever destroy,”
+she whispered, pressing his hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c010'>He stooped and kissed her. There were tears in
+his eyes. But they made a mistake. They took something
+else with them. Something that came tearing
+over the prairie with tongue out and tail stiff-stretched
+and nose to the ground—Diana, who had been turned
+over to Napoleon Pompey to have and to hold, but he
+could not hold her when she saw the waggon going
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>off, therefore he could not have her. She caught
+them up when they were two miles off, and Olive let
+the dog clamber all over her, regardless of wet paws,
+and lick her face, so delighted were they to meet
+again.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div>THE END.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c003' />
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+ <ol class='ol_1 c002'>
+    <li>Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
+    </li>
+  </ol>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERFECTION CITY ***</div>
+<div style='text-align:left'>
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