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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7e0829d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69427 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69427) diff --git a/old/69427-0.txt b/old/69427-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 11ad5b5..0000000 --- a/old/69427-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3122 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Stonepastures, by Eleanor Stuart -Childs - -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: Stonepastures - -Author: Eleanor Stuart Childs - -Release Date: November 26, 2022 [eBook #69427] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by University of California - libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STONEPASTURES *** - - - - - -Stonepastures - - - - - Stonepastures - - - BY - ELEANOR STUART - - - NEW YORK - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - 1895 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1895, - BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I.--A CITY WITHOUT A STREET 1 - II.--WEDDING GLOOM 9 - III.--THE BLAST RITE 29 - IV.--QUARRY THE SCHEMER 57 - V.--HOPE AHEAD 71 - VI.--A BAD BARGAIN 86 - VII.--TROUBLE ACCUMULATES 99 - VIII.--QUARRY’S ATTEMPT AT EXPLANATION 111 - IX.--BREAKING UP A HOME 120 - X.--QUARRY RECKONS WITHOUT HIS - HOSTESS 135 - XI.--THE STRIKE 149 - XII.--THE EYE OF GOD 166 - EPILOGUE 175 - - - - -STONEPASTURES. - - - - -I. - -A CITY WITHOUT A STREET. - - “To know a man well you must learn his city.” - - -THERE are three districts in Soot City: By the Bridge, By the Tracks, -and the Stonepastures. - -Simeon Quarry--who lived with the Buttes By the Tracks, and who knew -more of this story than I do--always began the tale of his town with -this phrase, “As way back as ‘30”; for that was the year when the big -birds sitting on the big boulders first watched the strangers with the -strings and water levels, and heard the strangers’ words. - -There abode in the wilderness of those days--for everything was -Stonepastures then--a Methodist preacher with a taste for the -scripturally obscure. His circuit included the site of Soot City, to -which place he gave the name of Padan-Aram, which endures as the county -name until to-day. - -Among the strange words the birds heard were “ile,” “iron,” and -“smelt-oven.” These sounds were each an “open sesame” to hordes of -foreign workers, with a proportion of native Americans generalled by Jo -Bentley--grandfather of the Bentley whose plant is still the first in -Soot City. - -In a single lustre there sprang from the arid strip of country confined -with treeless hills--“Baldhead Rangers” and “Cleanshorns”--rows on rows -of mean houses, containing men and women every year lessening their -acquaintance with the world without. Soot City was their cradle, the -arena of their endeavour, their deathbed, and their sepulchre. - -By the Bridge dwelt foreman, bookkeepers, furnace masters, together -with the Bentleys’ outdoor servants--for they had a great place now. -The son had rowed in the Cambridge boat, the daughters had become -Episcopalians and gave great house parties, and the people By the -Bridge who knew them best were the lawyer, the doctor, the baker, and -the undertaker, who conspired against the rest of humanity as occasion -permitted. - -Soot City has no street. Instead, it has narrow-gauge tracks, along -which the workmen go forth to and return from labour in the empty ore -cars. The houses By the Tracks are ranged on either side of them, and -are inhabited by mechanics, iron workers, truckmen, freight handlers, -and preachers of minor denominations. - -Beyond the bridge are the Stonepastures, and beyond these the ore bed, -the smelting place, and the nutt and bolt factory. The bridge straddles -the tracks so that the highroad may traverse the town, and the narrow -gauge runs from the gate of Bentley’s Place to the ore bed under the -bridge and over the Stonepastures. The tracks are only four miles long, -joining the main line at the furnaces. - -No townsman ever looked at the sunset, because it went down on the -Stonepastures. Every one’s sunset was “over there”; and in the mean -hovels that stood out sharply to the town gaze in an evening’s -afterglow dwelt men who had the white-lead poison in their hands, or -who had been scorched in a blast, or who, trying to preserve themselves -in alcohol, had failed. - -The men were hungry and chafed, wrenching themselves from sleep of -a morning to a dull day, three parts thirst to one of hunger. The -children went to school and learned to know their parents’ mistakes, -bringing home bitterness instead of bread. The mothers washed rags -in rusty water, prayed and played with the children, or picked up -scrap-iron for the men to sell. - -Accident and sudden death were about as frequent as night and day. A -squeeze between two ore cars, or a tendency to slumber on the tracks -after a “cosey of arrack” at Grigg’s drinkshop, meant black on some -one’s door-handle. But the “blast” was the horror that made the women -kiss their men with the fervour of the last parting when they went -off to work at the ore bed. The blast was not famous for respect of -persons. It rarely killed, but its victims were rarely cured. There was -a rocky stretch by the ore bed which young Bentley was having blown -out for the town reservoir, and the new iron vein backed against it. -Scarcely a blast had been managed without some one being thrown to the -earth, mangled with jagged stones--“the throw” the men called them. -It might be that some one would fall with the shock and find himself -thereafter deaf to everything but the “dumb roaring,” and such a one -would die of what the unlettered Methodist preacher said was “eternal -injuries.” The very children feared the blast. - -There were, however, three things that Soot City loved: Pay-day, -Jarlsen, and the cinder flare. At night they would pause in their -homeward way from drinkshop or chapel or Jarlsen’s neat sitting room, -and look toward the smelting furnace. And as the blaze jumped into the -yawning sky they would bless its fierceness, and look at the houses and -tracks standing out clearly, saying along with their good-nights and -good-byes, “God’s lookin’ at cher, Bill!” - -For they named the light from the dumped cinder “The eye of God.” - - - - -II. - -WEDDING GLOOM. - - “Death doesn’t wait for a man to have his laugh out.”--_Salt-miners - saying._ - - -IT is hard for people who have never seen places like Soot City to -believe in natures like Emma Butte’s and August Jarlsen’s. In river -cities the labouring population may be augmented daily with a load of -tramps and paupers who can travel on the river about as cheaply as -their own feet can take them. No travel is as cheap as river boating. -River fares cost much less than shoes, and no other cities have the -shifting masses that the river cities get. - -This is not the nature of an inland town whose mine or iron vein is -booming. No one leaves it. What is usual with one man may become the -common talk of his district, if he be an influence in it. The vice of -a member of the town corporation is the sorrow of the county. The men -have gained their livelihood at the hands of the town; they nurse their -birthplace when its resource is threatened; they work for it. Even as -they live by it they die for it. - -In feeling Jarlsen was an American; his ideals were American. He went -to church soberly, had a bust of Lincoln on his mantel, eschewed -labour unions, and gave away a third of the not too princely stipend -awarded him by the Bentleys for his position of payman. - -For all that, when the native Swedes got very drunk of an evening and, -congregating By the Bridge, swore in their high, unearthly voices, he -would be much ashamed and wish and even urge them farther. For he too -was born in Sweden, and said “y” for “j” even yet, if the men hurried -him. - -His room was By the Bridge. His wont was to ask the better set, the -more American labourers, to his room of an evening. He then, like King -David, charmed them with a harp. He would sit in front of the stove -on a packing-box covered with pinkish jute, and there play and sing -strange, sweet songs about birds and lonely mountains, and kings’ -daughters and sad forests, and immortality; for these are of the kinds -of songs that come from the North. - -Jarlsen’s generosity was remarkable; for his countrymen are -money-getters beyond any non-Semitic people. The knowledge of the -value of money is born in them. There is a saying at the ore beds -that testifies to this: “A Swede will go farther for a dollar than an -Irishman will for a drink.” - -But when Jarlsen took Emma Butte, in the face of the whole town, the -men of his acquaintance marvelled greatly. If he were the man whom -Soot City loved, Emma was the woman who ruled it. She “had not the -class” that her lover had. - -Coming into the city as a child, she had learned the less rough speech -of the town labour and taken on herself the somewhat milder manners -of the people she now saw. But she had never tried to make a place -among them; she lived with her father, plying her odd trade--she was -a barber--and making her oddest pennies in another way, as shall be -presently set forth. - -In the lighter social semblance of their town the Bentleys were -paramount. Their doings came to the town ear somehow, and the people -followed their lead, if it were a possible thing for them. For -example, one of the clerical workers By the Bridge had invented an -intrenching tool, a spade, which had been adopted by the army. As a -consequence, he was invited to eat at the Bentleys’ Place. On his -return from the feast he reported to his eager circle that not only had -the ground-floor rooms been filled with people, but that Miss Bentley’s -bedroom looked like an intelligence office, so full was it of the maids -of the ladies below. - -This detail of magnificence so possessed the minds of the female -portion of the inventor’s acquaintance that By the Tracks was drawn -on for Abigails. Male escort was frowned down completely. One might -return from a Soot City revel with a man, but to go with one--if -he were not “steady company”--was proof positive that there was no -quarter-dollar wherewith to hire attendance. Emma was often retained as -lady-in-waiting, and through this curiously pretentious institution met -and obtained Jarlsen, as well as her fees. - -Quarry boarded in the Butte household. No one knew why. He imposed -on them always, and made them uncomfortable with his odd ways and -bad tongue. His board was paid intermittently and with recurrent ill -will. He was always a stranger and equally an inmate. He had a fashion -of rapping at Emma’s window (her room was on the ground floor) -and complaining to her of slights imposed on him by members of her -acquaintance. - -She felt him to be the only man life had shown her whose faults were -not condoned by a liking for herself. - -Every Sunday found her in a leather apron giving Quarry his Sunday -morning’s dram of sweetened rum in his tea, to keep him quiet through -shaving hours. He came from Ryde, Isle of Wight, and drank tea to the -memory of his old home, which had long since forgotten him. - -Then Emma would get to work. Her apron was of red leather hemmed up -with brass-topped nails. It had a pocket lined with tin, where her -lather brush was put when she took the razor from under the straps on -her left sleeve to stroke a labourer’s jowl. Her lips would be pressed -together tightly then, her curling hair caught back with a round comb, -like a child’s. When she lathered she talked and laughed, but when she -shaved she was silent. - -Jarlsen shaved himself latterly, and no one understood it but Emma. -All the men thought she “had a fluke and struck ile, when she was just -digging for potatoes.” That she, in the exercise of her odd function, -should have secured Jarlsen seemed to them a wonderful thing. But it -was not. - -Emma was a very good woman, and that is just the same as a lady to men -of Jarlsen’s make. - -He had begun to shave himself the day he felt he loved his barber. -The town discovered his feelings the very day he did, and promptly -prophesied trouble. “Jest es soon es he felt like marryin’ her he -should hev broke her into shavin’ weekdays, an’ kep’ a clean chin on -him all the time,” was what every one said. - -Of course, in the eyes of her townspeople Emma put on airs also, for -she took to going to church. She never went so far as to stand during -the singing, for that would have cost her all her trade. No one stands -up in the extremely unorthodox Methodist chapel Soot City operatives -affect, except those who are converted or those desiring the prayers of -converts. - -Now, Jarlsen stood always and was never criticised. His friends said he -could sing better if he stood. No one ever asked him if this were true, -because they were sure he would say it was not. Thus it may appear that -Soot City was not religious, except at blast rites and funerals. - -Emma’s heart grew mellow with his singing as she sat beside him. She -loved him dearly, as young women do love the men who enrich their -lives; there was a large element of gratitude in what she felt. She -never talked as the others talked about their men, for, as was said, -she was a very good woman. And so she got the name of being a lady. The -others hated her, and most of the men asked her advice and acted on it. - -On the eve of her wedding she sat in her white pique wedding dress, -listening to the snarl of the country fiddles as they were played for -the dancers. They snarled for two reasons: they were not good fiddles -and they were not well played. - -The bride-elect was not to go into the dancing room--erst kitchen -and tonsorial arena--until Jarlsen came and led her thither. He was -a little behind his time, she thought, but her serenity remained -complete. There had been yet no clamour of voices and no clatter of -feet, going the faster because so near the last dance. She could hear -her name and Jarlsen’s. One man told how he had gone to pay off the -extra men who were to be discharged after the blast by the new vein. - -She remembered that Quarry was on that detail as machinist. That made -her think it must have been a long job, for Quarry’s voice carried -wonderfully, and she did not distinguish it among the others in the -kitchen. Her mind wandered to the consideration of the capabilities -of her shaving apron as a cover for the packing-box her lover sat on -when he played. That suggested to her the probability she should never -shave again, and that no woman would dare after her marriage to stand -in her doorway and say in venomous admiration, “How elegant you shave!” -They had done it often heretofore, God knew. - -Her window was raised slightly, and some one tapped on the jamb. She -turned her head at this usual intrusion. “Come off, Quarry!” she said -hotly. - -He came in through the window and stood by the door. “It’s a real pity -Jarlsen’s late,” he answered. His voice was hard and nasal, the most -effective voice for taunts. - -“Is he late?” she asked more crossly. - -Quarry laughed. “I guess,” he said, “you knew he was late before it -would have been quite time for him to come. You know the listening -heart worries terrible they say, and you ain’t got no call to be so -high with me. You can hear them girls in the kitchen laughin’ at you, -same’s I do. I guess Jarlsen’s getting tired, maybe. He’s kinder in -demand, seein’ he’s the only fellow that’s kep’ his complexion in the -whole plant.” - -Emma grew rather white. “Stop your nasty tongue!” she cried -imperatively. “You’re always lying! Your face is lying and your eyes -can’t see straight. You let what people do to me alone, or you’ll have -business of your own to settle. If I was a man, and couldn’t get a -respectable girl to marry me because I was a liar and she hated me, I’d -let her alone for shame’s sake, when she took up with a man who can -tell the truth.” - -Her voice sounded very loud in her ears as she stopped; for the two -fiddles were still, and there was no talking among the dancers. - -Quarry opened the door as if some one had knocked, and looked out. His -features acquired a sudden prominence as the colour flew from his face. -Fear crept into Emma’s eyes while she looked at him, shaking with his -shadow on the half-open door. - -She forgot him in the great cry that burst from the other room. It was -a horrified, helpless cry, that gave place to a shocked silence. - -She wrenched the door back and stood on the threshold in her white, -scant gown of mechanic’s bride’s finery. Her attitude showed faintness, -and her head hung down for lack of courage. - -The two fiddlers were kneeling, with their tears streaming like rain; -they were Polacks, and knelt in gratitude for any excitement. The other -men were hushed and stern. - -On the big table where the arrack punch had been in company with the -less heady beer there was a long, writhing hummock, covered with burlap. - -No form was discernible, but Emma knew at the first strong heart-beat -that it was Jarlsen, singed and crippled with a careless blast, as many -another had been. - -The women wailed at her, and the men tried to stay her with their rusty -hands. Yet she went forward, pity for him drawing her, and did not -pause until she looked him in the face. - -It was black. The hair was gone; his teeth were fixed in the cracked -lower lip, and the eyes, once so wide and bold, were pinkish seams -beneath the puffed-out temples. - -The women had crowded to her back. Their breathing was heavy and in -unison. - -Emma leaned over him and said softly, in a mother’s voice, “Do you -hear me speak?” She raised his head on her arm, but it settled back on -the table with a sharp crack. He had not heard. - -She scanned him closely. She had not yet the full sense of this man -covered with burlap and disabled; she only knew that it was not death. -But now her lower lip jerked down at the corners, though her eyes were -dry. The Polack fiddlers drew each a long breath; they saw the crisis -of the scene approaching, and were preparing to bellow loudly. - -Emma raised her head. “God’s name,” she said, “he’s blasted!” - -The women’s faces were curious, inquisitive; and Quarry stood at her -side sobbing like a Polack. - -The men who had lifted the Swede in after the blast raised him again, -and laid him on the bed in Emma’s room. - - - - -III. - -THE BLAST RITE. - - “Sometimes if you make ready for bad luck it doesn’t come.” - - -NO one in Soot City was surprised at a funeral for a man yet in the -flesh. Such rites were a custom in the terrible, black little town, -where the birds flew low for the damp of steam and the prevalence of -soot in the air, and where any fine man who took life eagerly in the -morning might be blasted at the noontide snack. - -The Scandinavian labourers gave a tone to all the customs of the town, -as the Polacks gave an intensity to all its dissipations. The drink of -expatriated Poland is crude alcohol and water, and their drunkenness is -a restless insanity that would be murderous in a less childish people. -One idea that is directly referable to the Swede minds is that which -gave rise to the blast rites. Their feeling had become general that -a man might “get beyond the blast”--that is, get over its scorch and -shock--if only his friends could be brought to behave as if he were -really dead. - -Emma was more than Norse in her superstitious observances. She would -put a handful of soil from her bit of garden into her wedding shoes, -just like any tow-headed bride in the Swede quarter. This was called -“getting the favour of home.” It was very solemn, and often followed by -hysterics. - -But the circumstances of Jarlsen’s mishap favoured the idea of complete -death. He had left a paper with his landlord, “Wavering Jim,” providing -for Emma in case of “death, accident, or blast.” It wasn’t a legalized -proceeding, but the ignorance of Soot City respected writing beyond -most things, and no one would dispute a paper with names signed to it. -The three hundred dollars coming thus yearly to Emma would mean a great -deal of comfort to her. - -The blast rite was to be at Emma’s house, as Jarlsen’s body was -as much an essential to it as if there could have been a sequent -interment. The men came in and out a good deal and whispered as to how -to tell Emma of her legacy, for every one felt it would be unbecoming -to force the news on her. The way in which they broke it to her would -have been tactful even for gentlemen. - -Wavering Jim came down the tracks in an ore car that sided by the -Buttes’s gate every night. He didn’t get out of it, but waved his -hand to her. Emma guessed that he wanted to say something in private, -and went to the gate to hear it. “Well,” he said, “the weather ain’t -stopped bein’ fine, cert’in’y.” Emma knew it must be something very -important to call for a preamble as ornate as this remark about the -weather. - -Jim paused and looked about him. “Quarry ain’t in,” said Emma -instinctively. “Emma,” he said, “I’m stone sure you’re frettin’ -yourself into a terrible chafe ’bout gettin’ Mr. Jarlsen proper -accommodations, regardin’ soup, soft victual, and invalid’s board -generally.” - -The girl’s eyes bulged with apprehension. “We don’t want no -subscription papers for us, and if Miss Bentley sends her soup here -I’ll water the flowers with it. We ain’t no Stonepasture poverty yet, -to drink the dishwater outer By the Bridge kitchen. He can’t eat -nothing but what I get and cook.” - -“Now jest dry up, Emma Butte,” said Jim very gently; “old sheep -Bentley with her soup and her weepin’ ain’t goin’ to come soothin’ and -scratchin’ ’round this yard. Jarlsen left a little paper with me that -fixes that. All that you’ve got to do is to practise your signature -on his papers in the presence of a few old friends. He grabbed -considerable ’fore he was taken,” said Jim sympathetically. Leaving the -car, he walked nimbly down tracks. No one understands the Godsend news -is, in a labouring community. Jim felt elated that he had lodged a man -who had money to look after. This vicarious business transaction was -the biggest in his life. - -Then the undertaker called that evening. He made the same announcement. -Small and sympathetic, he threw a cheerfulness into all his sombre -doings. He was a rarely lovely man, and had as little jealousy as a -sleeping child. He attended blast rites where he never made a penny, -as faithfully as he did funerals whereby he supported himself and his -friends. - -His family were four striped cats. - -He was extremely fond of prayers and hymns, and, consequently, women. -The men never guessed it of him. They knew that he would lend money, -but had not yet discovered that, had they been able to repeat a sacred -stanza, they need not have repaid him. - -Emma’s heart beat fast with gratitude when Jeremy Black kissed her. She -felt all along that one of the women might have done so, and it added -to her uneasiness about Quarry’s visiting, for he would look at her and -smile, and then wag his shaggy head, as he had always done when he had -been about the Tracks telling lies. - -She held little, black-coated Jerry very close to her, as disappointed -children hug the family cat or dog. The day before she had gone in to -kiss Jarlsen, but his poor face was sore with scorch and his side was -bruised from where the blast threw him. So she had spread her longing -hands over him in realization that the women wouldn’t love the barber -and that her man couldn’t see her sorrow. - -Jeremy was immensely pleased with her. He came soon to the subject of -the blast rite, and arranged it in his deprecating way, holding his -barber’s brown hand against his side and calling her Jarlsen’s love -names, but in a safe, motherly voice that made Emma sure she need not -fear the women even if they saw her with him. “Now, Emma, you can’t get -a regular preacher to pray over anything but a sure and cold corpse, -so we’ll get Quarry to say the sermon, alludin’ to past virtues and -the future crown. It’ll make things right with Quarry, who ain’t the -Tracks’ darling just exactly, and I’ll take the prayers myself. Then -the Polacks will fiddle and I’ll sing ‘The land beyond the sky’ and -‘Peace comes after pain’--that’s a nice song, perfectly novel, with -three acts and a chorus. I won’t let on it has a chorus, for them -Polacks is so insaturated with alcohol they might get things noisy.” - -“But do speak good and loud,” said Emma, “for August might hear -something to please him.” - -“That’s right,” said Jerry, “don’t you lose your grit. You kin never -tell how far a man will get beyond the blast with good nursing.” - -Every one knew that Jarlsen was stone-deaf since the blast, and Emma -spoke of his hearing the--in one sense--post-mortem eulogies from a -desire to combat the idea. Perhaps Jeremy feared she might appeal to -him for encouragement on this point, for he hurried on to the next. - -“Since the beloved lips is silent, I expect I’m the first singer in the -city. He had a way of doing gargles on the upper notes that would beat -a seraph singing. But I’m goin’ to organize as notional a rite as I -can, bringing forty years of experience, man and boy, to bear on this -one sad occasion. It’ll be the blasted best blast rite ever you saw. -It’s queer they can’t cover them blasts or get the men off in time, or -so’s they won’t touch the torch to it before the word’s given! I’ve -had some corpses in two years from blasts, and all jest es ragged and -singed es could be, let alone the blasts that’s lying deaf and blind -round the city yet!” - -The day of the mock-death service dawned clear and bright, which was -held to be bad by the weather-weird-wise, as the Scotch among them -said. Quarry had rum in his tea as early as 6 A. M. He was always up -early on rum days, but he beat his own precedent this morning. - -He insisted upon setting the house in readiness. He had formed a habit -of talking to himself since he had grown fearful of committing himself -with talking to the other men, for Quarry had many things to hide, and -knew his limitations as regarded discretion. His main thought was that -he would rather spend money on what was only an approach to Jarlsen’s -corpse than hoard it. Besides that, he had the cosy consciousness that -it had looked friendly when he and Emma had issued together from her -room on the night when Jarlsen came singed to his wedding dance. - -“The greatest thing happened me since my first drink,” he kept saying -like a refrain, as he cut long festoons of coloured paper to hang about -the mantel and the thinly gilt picture frames. He went By the Bridge -to Jarlsen’s old room, which was still in some confusion, with his -working clothes tossed aside by Wavering Jim. Jarlsen had folded them -neatly when he had donned his wedding suit to go pay off the men. It -was Jarlsen’s portrait in crayon that Quarry had come for. He tied it -up with a lank bow-knot of cheap _crêpe_, and laughed in real mirth. - -“Now, Jarlsen,” he said in banter, “I do seem to see myself somehow in -the glass over your portrait. Funny, ain’t it?” - -By the Bridge he purchased five sticks of pretzels, for in Soot City -long sticks are run by venders through these open-work wares. - -When all was ready at the Buttes’s, he helped lift the big Swede from -Emma’s cot to the kitchen table. He was dressed, of course, in what -was to have been his wedding suit, and the odd lengths of hair that -were left him were brushed out on either side of his head to make a -good show. His beard had not grown on one cheek, and Quarry surveyed -him with great satisfaction. “Seems they’ve kind o’ singed them -right-hand glands where the hair starts out,” he said. “It’s real hard -to keep your complexion right here.” - -Emma had been sleeping on a couple of ironing boards laid on the hard -clay of the lean-to where the pans and scant house-tackle were kept. -The thought of hardship had not occurred to her. She had saved her -heartbroken minutes for the sordid privacy of the chill lean-to. The -place had for her the charm of liberty, which, we are told, is the -charm of paradise itself. - -Her behaviour was not very agonized. She crouched on the blanketed -boards and courted the slow tears that crept from her eyes and were -healing to her hurt. They alone relieved her; and sometimes, when they -would not come, she would grip the scant old skirt that covered her and -pray in a loud whisper, with the vital faith of the poor. - -When she woke on the morning of the blast rite they had already moved -Jarlsen. He lay on the table, roused, but baffled by the strange -dimness in him. No voices and no light could come into his world -except through memory; he was heir to a limitless pain in the sense of -tyrannic suppression that possessed him. - -Etiquette assigned Emma the place by the stove. She took it at once as -the mourners were gathering rapidly. The company at the wedding dance -was indistinguishable in the crowd of to-day. - -There were many operatives and all the foremen--of the new vein, the -nutt, and bolt factory, etc. These last had their clerks in attendance. -Miss Bentley came among the first arrivals, bringing Emma sweet -crackers and a hymn-book. - -And Emma cursed her--a great, ignorant, insolent, heartfelt -curse--because she thought these things could console her; things the -Misses Bentley would never offer each other if their men had the blast. -But Miss Bentley was one more of those devout women, not a few, who, -because of a congenital shyness, can not do a kindness kindly. Emma -would have given thanks for the same things given another way. - -The foremen also brought their wives, worthy women with sleek children, -who consumed many pretzels with a brisk crunching that annoyed Emma -greatly. She wanted people to be sad and unable to eat; to be upset -with the trouble that had faded out her future with one too vivid -moment of pain. - -Quarry sat at a table that was covered with a white cloth. Upon this -lay a Bible and a bound time-table. The fitness of this was in the -binding, which was ecclesiastically purple. - -The table was flanked by the Polacks, looking wretched, as if they had -wept all night and grieved since morning on empty stomachs. They tuned -their fiddles with writhing faces, and played the “Land o’ the Leal,” -as the remaining space in Emma’s kitchen was being filled with the less -shy among the labourers. The others stood at the open windows where the -sunlight should have been. - -Jeremy Black offered prayer, shyly enough, for the Methodist minister -was attending as a layman. He prayed for this and that, rather -inconsequently, and with a red face; but Emma liked it better than -anything else in the service. It was like her own prayer of last night: -“O Lord, thou knowest what I want and what I don’t want. Please don’t -send me what I don’t want. Good-night.” Even to God Emma could not name -Jarlsen’s death. - -Her father came in at the climax of Jerry’s petition. He shook his -head at Jarlsen’s big, quiet shape on the table, and announced in a -voice that shook with emotion that “young men would be young men.” No -one but Emma was galled with this needlessly irrelevant statement. In -the less book-learned phases of life many people use expressions just -because they admire them, not because they express their feeling, their -fancy, or a fact. It is no more to be wondered at than the prayers -they make, which would read like telegraphic messages in a High Church -congregation. - -After his prayer Jerry sang. It is confessed that he sang less for art -than for audience. He loved to sing. His voice was thin and rather -sweet; his intonation very sure and happy. He contrived to infuse a -wistfulness into the most martial or condemnatory ballads, types of -song he particularly affected. - -There is always a good deal of preface to singing like his, and he was -not above throat-clearing and loud swallowing. The verse he sang had -been used at blast rites since the Swedes came first to Soot City. Its -refrain was sung softly by every one to an accompaniment of rocking -bodies: - - “Don’t fret, old wife, nor cry, - For God won’t pass you by; - He may come late, but if you wait, - You’ll get behind the sky.” - -Then Quarry rose with some pomp and spoke thus: “Ladies and friends: -Some lives is all chair-cars and champagne; some lives is neither. I’m -not saying what they are, for this is no time to start more tears. Some -feels the whip, some wears the willow, some gets their own way. These -last says the skimpiest ‘Glory be to God!’ - -“This house is a house of mourning. The one ewe lamb went to the -pasture, and come home bit by the wolf! Here to-day, there to-morrow! -Our God is a very fearful thing!” - -Quarry was considered an orator in Soot City. He always spoke at social -functions and stirred his audiences. - -“This man”--here the blackest Polack snorted like the report of -firearms, and every one at the sound burst into weeping--“this man,” -screamed Quarry, strengthening his effect, “was a good man! He knew ten -at night as well as the town clock. He was a Christian gentleman, and -done as well by his friends as he did by the chapel, and what more can -a man do? In passing out, those that knowed him good, or any of the men -that were pretty common with him, can put their hands on his hand, as -some has the feelin’ it’s best.” - -Thereupon Quarry made way for himself to the kitchen table, and -stood striving against a triumph so strong that it seemed a physical -sensation. And Jarlsen lay scorched, inert, and blasted. - -To any one knowing the old Saxon custom of touching a corpse as a means -of finding its unconfessed murderer the scene would have been more -intense from the moment that the first hand--a woman’s--was laid on the -least sore member of Jarlsen’s wrecked body. - -None but Miss Bentley knew that the custom was a primitive habit of -the race. She alone had a vision of spurting blood as the guilty hand -touched its victim. That vision was usual to her at the blast rites, -and she felt a strange thrill of uncertainty when she put her own -innocent, helping hand on a blasted labourer. - -The greater part of the crowd strolled off, subdued, into the bright -morning. The rest lingered to lay hands on an old friend. - -Jarlsen, the man who had given his ear to their sorrows and lent his -high, searching voice to all their social joys, was virtually dead -to them; and it was in tense silence that the heavy-footed workmen -approached the table. Then there would be a sobbing sigh, and some -one would pass out at the door. Few people can touch the dead without -tears, and as Jerry Black said, “The blasts is dead men with live -tongues.” - -They had all gone; the room grew light as the crowd moved from the -windows. Sunlight bathed the floor at Emma’s feet, and Black stood -beside her, knowing she feared to be without him when Jarlsen was deaf -to her and Quarry spoke his kind of love to her, and her father was -only a peevish old child. Quarry laid a nervous hand on Jarlsen, who -had been roused more than once through his tactile sense as some old -friend’s hand had lain for a moment on his. - -When Quarry’s touch fell on him, he cried out, “O Emma, Emma! am I -dead, that I can not hear you? Is your voice gone behind the sky, that -you hold your mouth yet? Is your hand cut off you? Don’t marry Quarry -till I am home again! Emma, tell me where you are. It is all black -inside me!” - -Emma leaped to him. She was “swift as a wicked cat,” Quarry told her -later on when he cursed her. - -She hurt him cruelly, but Jarlsen smiled, and his blackened face grew -brighter. “I shall not marry until Heaven--” she vowed, but he could -not hear. The pain of her embrace was fearful, but she clung fast, and -called out in her big voice the loyalty he longed for and that he felt -in the suffering her strong arms caused him, even though he could not -hear. - -And then Jerry touched her. “I’m afraid he’s fainted,” he said, as -though he apologized. - - - - -IV. - -QUARRY THE SCHEMER. - - “The winged word of spite outstrips a kindness.” - - -EMMA was too tired to feel her unhappiness, and too relieved, now -that everything was over, to feel her loneliness very much. The blast -rite had somehow robbed her of her hope of Jarlsen’s recovery, and -established the idea of his death in her mind. Jeremy Black nursed him -at first, after her outburst. In the neighbours’ phrase, he “turned and -fed the poor blast.” - -Emma’s crude nature found a pleasure--never before known to her--in -food, and in lying on the lean-to floor and thanking God that her -barber days were over. Her voice was harsh and loud; she had always -hidden it from Jarlsen. To-day she sang and was not ashamed. - -Then Black went mysteriously to the city. This might mean New York, -Pittsburg, Philadelphia, or some nearer, smaller town than either of -these. He left at the beginning of the drought, and Emma, with the rest -of his townspeople, envied him sorely. Her resumed service to Jarlsen -was automatic. He spoke, but she did not listen; she was afraid of -being hurt if she heard his words. The drought made her double work, -for her patient drank a great deal of water, and refused it with a -wearied patience if it were not cold. She often went at noon to the -Bridge well, her tin dipper growing burning hot beneath a sun that made -the mica specks shine in the roadside dust. She lagged heavily down the -hill, the people greeting her and she answering without knowledge of -what they said. She had learned that forgetfulness is the better part -of wisdom. - -She could not ignore Quarry; he was merciless. On Sunday she went at -six for Jarlsen’s drink from the well. She had a handful of oatmeal to -put in it; and, as she leaned over and caught the dripping bucket, she -heard Quarry’s voice in the alder thicket that smelt sweet with the -heavy dew on it. - -“She’s a real good girl, and I can’t help but feel, ef she could let -me at her wedding dance, set alone with her waitin’ till Jarlsen come, -that I owe it to her to marry her, and I think when she’s worn out her -mourning thet she’d be agreeable. He was a queer fellow; hed them fancy -virtues thet prevents a man from making a good husband jest as sure -as his havin’ the vices would. He give his money to lame-legged and -blind-eyed, and thet’s keepin’ it from wifie jest es much es if he give -it up for drink.” - -A woman’s voice answered him in full assent: “You’ll not be the only -one to marry her, though; she’s got money now, and a rare head for -livin’ straight.” - -Emma had not seen the woman, but guessed it must be one of those who -“wrought” in the offices of the plant, writing, or sorting the mass of -mail. Excepting herself Quarry rarely spoke to any one of less class -among the women. - -She was very angry, and could see how Quarry had used it all in his -talk; all the circumstances of her courtship he could twist into -evidence that she had loved nothing of Jarlsen but what he had left -her. She could hear the woman’s opinion that her conduct was not quite -right, uttered in the dry tone she used when speaking of her straight -life. - -She said to herself just as fiercely as ever that Quarry was a liar, -but she felt that happiness had given her the power to fight him, and -now her happiness was gone. She remembered with a dim horror that -Quarry had resumed a practice, since Jarlsen’s mishap, that she hoped -her engagement had ended. Up to the day that they had spoken of their -marriage publicly, Quarry would take things into his hands that Emma -had lately touched and fondle them. He had done so again the day of the -blast rite, she remembered. - -She had intended to revel in her grief at chapel that morning, and -Quarry had divined her intention. She meant to stand in the singing, -as Jarlsen had stood, and sob when the preacher shivered and scowled -and beat the reading-desk with his fists. She would not go now. She -felt that no one would believe that she mourned for him if Quarry had -been talking about her very much in the way she had heard. She burned -to speak with him of the traitor’s part he had played. - -It was as usual in Soot City as in other places for folks to bethink -themselves of the church when trouble thwarts them; and so every one -went to church expecting Emma. And Quarry’s tongue was not quite long -enough to have reached the general ear in so short a time. - -The congregation was very large, and the flattered minister observed -Emma’s absence with satisfaction. He never thought that his hearers -could have been ignorant of her intention to stay at home, and supposed -that in the sudden calamity come upon the town they had found a warning -anent churchless ways. He announced an extra service at three in the -afternoon, and the only person who answered it was Jeremy Black’s -foreman, who came to protest. - -After service Quarry went straight to Emma’s room. He could not account -for her absence; he had intended to sit with her in the front pew while -she stood in the singing. He expected to colour his stories with her -behaviour and satisfy every one that she had loved the money Jarlsen -left her the best of all his attentions. - -She was sitting with her charge, who lay with his face turned away from -the sun--blind, maimed, deaf--yet as conscious of Quarry’s presence as -when last week he had turned to him with lazy scorn and a short word. - -“Emma,” said Quarry. - -“Yes,” she said, after a pause. She had been wondering if he could have -been telling about the money everywhere and “setting the men on her.” - -Quarry looked at her and at Jarlsen with a twist in his mouth that -he thought of as “his smile.” He realized that he could insult Emma -thoroughly in the presence of a Soot citizen who could not stir to -protect her. - -“The women think you might as well marry,” he said. “You’ve got the -fixin’s, and if you take me you’ve got the husband. The whole place -expects a wedding off you. You’ve got the extra money to care for your -friend here.” - -“I’d rather give up the money than take you; besides,” she said -spitefully, “there’s better men nor you in the town that knows I have -money for my man. You ain’t no kind to love me after what I’ve had, and -I don’t want you should make my love for this one shabby, talkin’ it -over all the time. You can get out,” she said very quietly. - -Quarry went; and, as he said himself, his heart was sour. - -Then Emma stayed at Jarlsen’s side and prayed in the hot afternoon -silence, and wondered why God didn’t do something worth while--that -is how she thought it. But she never doubted Him nor the fate that He -ordained, but rocked in her only rocking-chair and kissed her helpless -lover boldly, longing for a woman’s touch as a sick child longs for its -mother. - -When Jarlsen spoke her name she trembled with love of him; she was -awake now and filled with pity. She did not answer, but, like a child, -prayed God to tell Jarlsen she heard him call, and then slept till the -coolness of dusk awoke her. Jarlsen slept a little while too, and told -her he had talked with her in dreams. - -She got the supper, talking within herself. “I can feel things mend,” -she said. “Every one will come out right, and my big man will live -again and lick that terrible scant Christian, Quarry!” - -She ate her supper opposite her silent old father. It was quite late; -they had candles and a lamp, which was only an extravagance for -courting-time in the sordid social usage of Soot City. - -Emma had not thought of this till Ben Bowa, the youngest foreman, stood -in the narrow doorway. - -“I didn’t know to come in till I saw lights making the shine,” he -explained in Swedes’ English. And then many more came in, and the -kitchen was full. Jarlsen cried for water from the next room, and -before Emma could get to her feet Quarry had gone to him. - -“How can I show them I don’t want one of them?” she thought. There was -no word of Jarlsen, and everything went on as it had when the one or -two men courted her before Jarlsen took her. - -Bowa cut profiles out of paper and asked whose they were, and the -other men performed their trifling social accomplishments. They were -endeavouring to “raise a laugh”; none came. - -Late at night a wakeful neighbour heard Emma’s door close, and later -God heard her sobbing. “That Quarry’s done me!” was what she said. - -And through the night her eyes burned, and she felt that the darkness -fell like a weight on them. She longed even for Miss Bentley or the -Polack girls’ overdressed Madonnas. - - - - -V. - -HOPE AHEAD. - - “Only the saints and the feeble-minded suffer gladly.” - - -EMMA tossed restlessly that night. Once the cinder flare leaped upon -her walls, staining them with a flickering orange glow. This incident -emphasized to her mind the horrid blackness that had lately fastened on -their household. - -She awoke very early next morning in the final, nervous way that -worried people dread, and sat huddled on the floor of the lean-to in -the still, sunless cold. Jarlsen’s loud talk echoed in the empty -kitchen, but she knew she could not wake him with her voice. The -thought recurred to her with all the force of discovery that, waking or -sleeping, the voices of this world were dead to him. - -Black would return to-day. It was odd to call this hour to-day. -The noontide that would bring Black again to Soot City seemed very -different from any dim time of loud agonies like that which makes the -dawns of the sore-hearted. - -To-day she would also be paid the “blast money,” part accident -insurance and part Jarlsen’s savings. The anticipation of this pleased -her until she moved into disordered kitchen and saw the chairs as Bowa -and the others had left them, and smelt the lamp that was a survival of -the courting days she had prized. Then she groaned. - -For a moment the idea of bringing out the leather barber’s apron and -the keen razors, as a tacit contradiction to any report of her wealth, -seemed a clear inspiration. But with Quarry and Wavering Jim to talk, -she knew all delicate denial to be useless. - -She opened the house and sat along the narrow doorsill, her back to -one jamb, her knees drawn up and fixed against the other. As the sun -came up, the cinder flare crept in a stealthy flush along the earth and -lost its power in the heavens as the day grew bright. - -At last the cold stung her hands, and the sun chased the shivers down -her back, so that she went again into the house, forgetting that an -hour since she had loathed it. Quarry was with Jarlsen, who clamoured -on, asking questions whose answers he could not hear. - -He was learning his deafness by degrees, for his fits of silence were -longer, but with Quarry he talked always. Quarry’s touch was abominable -to the Swede, and his presence pricked to the quick a soul whose every -other approach was blockaded. - -Emma, in pity, took up the jug of sweet oil to bathe the burns. Her -hand was light from shaving, and it had learned a wonderful caution -from the teachings of pain. She could mitigate its brown strength with -a suddenness like the swift softnesses of Jarlsen’s old-time singing, -and he would smile at her as she used to smile at his own skilled -tunefulness. She almost stroked the scorches with her wise, soothing -hands. - -She had meant to spend the morning on the doorsill, in the hope that -a passing woman might be kind and glance her way. She longed so for -a woman’s friendship! She was sure that half the sting of her sorrow -would vanish with recital. - -At the last accident, when they brought home Jerry Black’s -half-sister’s husband from a squeeze between the ore cars; as soon -as every one had made quite sure he was dead, Martha Long--herself a -personage even in the presence of a newly made widow--caught Jerry’s -sister in her arms and rocked to and fro with her standing, until both -women fell on the plush sofa. - -Such scenes dignify sorrow in one type of the common mind. - -Emma knew that Quarry had lied about her, and through the day she -wondered what the lie might have been. The absence of feminine -condolers worried her, and added to her dread of the time when the -hands of the clock should reach half past one. That was the hour of -Jarlsen’s leave-taking on the day before that set for their wedding. -As the time approached the ticking of the clock seemed louder, and she -went into the lean-to to escape from it. She lay there, covered over -and quiet as though night had come. - -The latch rattled, and Martha Long, with her thin face and burning -eyes, stood in the lean-to doorway with her baby’s half-knit hood in -her fingers. She cast a glance of piercing inquiry at Emma, and her -emphasis was not conciliatory. - -“Well,” she said, “God has strange ways with the righteous. You’ve had -your troubles, poor girl!” - -“I don’t see there’s need for that kind o’ talk,” said Emma vaguely; -“them as gives it ain’t had overmuch, I guess!” - -“Well, no offence,” said Martha, overbearingly; “how is he?” - -“Making out--no more. He ain’t got a piece of skin on him that don’t -appear to be fried, and he talks till your heart splits in your body.” - -“It’s a good sign if he’s rebellious. My brother was fearful meek. He -could hear a little, and the whole town had hopes, when one morning he -turned his head in to the wall, and he says to poor Jarlsen, who was -tending him, ‘You give that oatmeal and water where it’s wanted,’ he -says; ‘you can give me a pleasure drink for the last I get.’ He didn’t -drink much ever, and Jarlsen give him a drop of something, and then he -lay still and was dumb dead before your poor feller could rinch the -glass. So it goes!” Martha ended dismally. - -Emma did not find this quite satisfactory, so she said nothing. - -“And there is something you have to be thankful for,” said Martha -further, forgetting that nothing causes man to hate his lot like -telling him to be thankful for it; “you’ve got a good man to fall -back on. That Quarry’s more to you in most ways nor your born mother -would be. Yesterday he was saying as how risky it was to marry where -the language was different. Two tongues like that in a house means -secrets.” - -Emma had started up. “That Quarry says more than his prayers,” she -cried out fiercely; “I knew he’d been lyin’ ’round about me. I don’t -hold by his ways; and I’m goin’ to stick by that husk of a husband in -there, ef he don’t get better till the day I die. He ain’t talked kind -about me, and worse talk is due, I know, but I’ll bide my rights, and -have ’em.” - -Martha felt admiration. Emma was not as Quarry had reported her. She -recited a few more “incidents,” and strolled, without leave-making -and still knitting, toward the door. “Come in some night when you’re -lonesome,” was all she had left in her heart of the invitation she had -meant to give the girl in Bowa’s interest. It was plain to her woman’s -eye that Emma loved Jarlsen maimed better than a town full of men of -sound members. - -She wondered, however, why the girl hadn’t the sense to take Quarry, -who was getting in with the factory hands like water through a leak. - -Black came in a moment after Martha’s departure. He had a wallet in -his hand, and his face was clothed in a bright kindliness that turned -Emma’s heart toward him. - -“I’m glad you’ve had lady’s company,” he said. - -“You’re looking daft, dear,” Emma answered, when she had studied him. - -Suddenly the little fellow spread his hands. “Last night,” he said, “I -went to heaven cheap--fifty cents entrance fee. I heard a man play on a -fiddle; well, if the sweetest voice in heaven sang its best it couldn’t -learn that feller much. I sat there and just pined away to hear the -back door shut, or some other shabby kind of sound, just to show it -was really I situated in the concert hall. But that’s not this,” he -concluded, putting his hand on the wallet; “here’s your due.” - -Jerry held it out to her. His face was red, and he made visible efforts -to control its expression, which changed from conscious diplomacy to -kindly eagerness. - -“I seen a doctor in the town, a professor of blasts, kind of. He knows -the ins and outs and conbinizations of paralysis pretty pat, and I told -him I had a good friend laid up in a blast, and he said he’d charge -maybe a hundred or maybe fifty dollars to come up on purpose to see -him. So that’s your best way of layin’ out his money, Emma.” - -“I was thinkin’ that would be good myself,” Emma answered with a quiver -of gratitude on her lips. - -“And I’m obliged to say that you could offer a little to Quarry, just -to keep his tongue sweet. He’s got a fearful gainin’ way with his -mouth, and them nutt and bolt hands will pick up and listen to all he -has to say. They’ve been in schools, and are crazy for talkin’ and -politics. The kind of foolishness men gets from schools is the worst -kind.” - -Jerry was angry. - -“Ain’t he been talkin’ on me, maybe?” Emma asked. - -“Perhaps so, perhaps no. He’s so mean you could buy him for a small -price. He ain’t much of a luxury.” - -As they talked they heard the dinner pails clanking as some of the men -came down the homeward hill. Then an oar car sided under the window -close by the house. In it were the workmen of the nutt and bolt -factory--Quarry in their midst, his face ardently conceited and his -gestures highly alcoholic. - -Emma scanned him with a fierce contempt. “He wouldn’t be like that if -he could stir around,” she exclaimed, pointing toward her own room door. - -Then she stood by Jarlsen’s bed to avoid Quarry, and as she looked at -him he laughed; it was his old, mirthful, kindly laughter. It seemed to -the girl, who cherished him, that he had brought pain to their house, -and had also been spared its consequences. She suffered--he slept. - - - - -VI. - -A BAD BARGAIN. - - “It is well to pay your debts, on the chance you’ll lose your money.” - - -IN four days’ time Black received a letter from the paralysis -specialist that delighted him. It consisted solely of questions -regarding trains and Soot City conveyances and the distance from the -station to the patient’s abiding place. To the genial undertaker -intercourse with a man too busy to con a time-table was social -promotion. - -He went at once to Emma, and in a mixed state of reverence and elation -read her the physician’s curt note, with his own copious comment. - -“Sounds ’cute, don’t he?” said Black. “He knows I understand him. It -must be a kind of comfort to him comin’ to a strange place to find a -man of his own stamp who feels just his way about the game o’ life.” - -Putting his tongue in his cheek, he was soon lost in wonder to find -himself, after long years of comparative obscurity, so very like this -shining light of medical science. - -Emma almost said her thought aloud; it was well she did not, for she -was saying inwardly, “You can always tell when Jerry Black’s been to -the city, he has such an extra green look.” - -With Martha Long for aid, she prepared for the doctor joyfully. They -washed everything just for the love of the unaccustomed, that seizes -women under suspense. Everything had been washed for the wedding, and -was still much cleaner than its ordinary state. There was one day when -the house-cleaning was finished and the doctor not yet come; so Martha -undertook a little rudimentary cooking, and Emma raked up the little -space of yard and dug out the weeds from the beds of cinder-spotted -marigolds. - -She tended Jarlsen more and more, and the friendliness Martha showed -toward her pleased her mightily. She would take her to the Swede’s bed -and show her how his looks were coming back, and then, forgetful of her -presence, would stand in silent wonder at the expression of wisdom fast -becoming habitual to him. - -He seemed to know more of what was, and is, and is to be, than any of -the people she had seen, and he had not seemed so wise when he had -lips wherewith to speak wisely. For a half hour and more she would -sometimes watch him, unconscious of time, and at last a fit of longing, -like a mother’s, would bend her to him. Anxious for his thoughts, she -would put her hand on his temple as if feeling for them. He would -smile and say “Emma”; then her blushes would come as they had when he -was a bright mystery to her, because she dared not raise her eyes to -his face; and she took the utterance of her name as an answer to her -craving. - -Quarry and her father had become cares she could not shoulder; she -simply could not think of them. Quarry never returned from work without -company, and he and his friends would sit in the yard on Emma’s chairs, -which they carried from the kitchen without her permission. In a man -she liked, this proceeding might have been annoying; but from Quarry it -was a liberty that was enraging. - -One day Emma heard him stirring up strife with his tongue; he was a -fascinating speaker, even when--as the Swedes said--he “talked beside -his mouth,” which is their idiom for conversational embellishment. - -She called him to her. “Send them away,” she said shortly. - -Without a word of dissent he made them move, and Mr. Butte shambled out -to bring in the chairs. - -“Take them in yourself,” she called wickedly. “You was strong enough to -get them out there.” - -With a more sullen compliance he put them just within the narrow -doorsill. - -Still she eyed him with her mouth stretched into something like a -smile. “Put ’em in their places,” she said. - -Again Quarry obeyed her. - -Then her contemptuous smile became laughter. “You wouldn’t hev done -thet ef you hedn’t got wind of what I’m goin’ to even to you. See -here--you talk too much. Would you talk less if you had more money? I -guess maybe. Here’s what you said at Martha Long’s party. You showed -how it was a good thing August Jarlsen got the blast, because I kind -o’ leaned toward you latterly. And as for you, you says you’d always -leaned toward me, and it was better to have August Jarlsen saved -learnin’ it.” The girl covered him with her tragic eyes, and expressed -her own strong instinct in a gesture she had learned from the -Polacks--she crossed herself with a rapid hand. She had never before -felt Quarry to be so evil. “Now,” she said, “fifty dollars if you’ll -stop that!” - -For a moment delight leaped from his eyes. He threw out his hand; then -he looked at her darkly, his expression altered to one of fear and -misgiving. - -“All right,” he said finally. - -“Well, I’ll pay you later,” said Emma, and every word she spoke cut -like a whip, her voice was so shrill with contemptuous anger. - -She was a young girl, and had hoped he would not take the money; partly -because she didn’t wish to believe that he could be mean enough to -take it from her, when he knew that he was the last person the Swede -would give it to, had he any longer the power to give. - -Her lips shrank away from her teeth in contemptuous, writhing smiles -when she thought of it. - -She scarcely knew how to array herself for the doctor’s visit. She -wanted to impress him with a sense of her fitness to nurse the patient. -She had had visions of Jarlsen’s departure in an ambulance for some -city hospital, where a uniformed woman would hear his groans and heed -them for hire only. - -Quarry knew nothing of the doctor’s advent. Emma understood that he -would talk about it, and that her enemies would say she must be sure of -Jarlsen’s death when she dared let loose a first-class pill-man on him. - -Then, besides, the Englishman was unreasonable and iterative, like many -Englishmen; and she knew how he would search his mind for ways to tell -her that Jarlsen was as good as dead already. “I ought to pay him right -away, or he’ll do a little of his fancy talkin’, maybe.” - -Black went to the station in a funeral carriage, which was the more -imposing as there were but four in Soot City. (Casually--he paid toll -on the turnpike for the eight horses that drew these vehicles, and they -were always taxed as “pleasure teams.” Again casually--he saw no joke -in this, even when the mourners received legacies.) He wore a red tie -with his black, professionally sombre clothes, and this he did as he -would not imply Jarlsen’s death to the doctor, in case the physician -should be standing on the platform and should see him before he could -get speech of him. Black employed his imagination in this sort of -futile arrangement of improbable circumstance. - -On the doctor’s arrival they drove directly to the Buttes. They -alighted at the Bridge and saw thence to Emma’s doorway, where Quarry -was standing. He looked as though he had had rum in his tea, and as if -even that had not reconciled him to existence. - -“Where’s Emma?” he asked of Black. - -“She’s in with August. Dr. Brent, this gentleman lives here; he’s an -old friend of Mr. Butte’s, and Mr. Jarlsen’s too, I may say.” - -Quarry, returned in the noon recess to find a perfect stranger about -to invade the house; did not understand the situation, as was very -evident. He grinned absently, and went toward Jarlsen’s room door. - -“Emma, come out here.” His tone was wheedling, and his fingers were -tapping nervously on the wall. She came out to him quickly; her eyes -were bright and her face was full of a vigorous hope. - -“Hurry up!” she said; “I want to bring the doctor in.” - -“Could you oblige me with the trifle you named Thursday? I want to blow -it right in this noon.” - -Emma thought it wise to pay him at once, although her heart was beating -in her ears--she longed so for the doctor’s opinion on Jarlsen. She -hesitated, and then said: “It is in the wallet between the shake-downs -in the lean-to chamber. Put it back where you found it.” - -She forgot him as she greeted the doctor; her whole mind was full of -the Swede. - - - - -VII. - -TROUBLE ACCUMULATES. - - “If you’re feeding a mean dog, be sure he’ll bite you when he’s had - enough.” - - -THE doctor let Emma tell him her own complete narrative of Jarlsen’s -mishap; nor did he interrupt once, save with questions that served as -a spur to her flagging memory. Her mode of recital was detailed and -feminine, obnoxious to science. She told, incidentally (but at great -length) how Jarlsen had always treated her; and quoted his sayings, -which were, in her retrospective judgment, prophetic. The doctor’s -manner was so courteous that a more experienced girl than Emma could -not have inferred that Jarlsen’s relations with her before the accident -would not strike his physician as indicative of his condition after it. - -Dr. Brent had a sober, inscrutable smile; he gave the observer -an impression of seeing with great difficulty, although he wore -no glasses. His manner was at times indifferent, yet he inspired -confidence. As Jerry had said, “He don’t have to hustle to cure you, -like these farmin’ pill-men we hev to Soot City.” - -Emma was so rapt in the first uninterrupted recital of her troubles -that she did not observe Quarry as he crossed the kitchen to the house -door. He had the wallet in his hand, which shook; his face twitched and -was chalk white. - -“I hope that is not your father,” said Dr. Brent politely as he would -say: “There is a shower coming; I hope it may not wet you.” - -Emma looked at him and liked him, for she saw that he knew at a glance -what Quarry was. And she had taken lessons in him for a lifetime and -had not learned him yet. Then the doctor rose and went into Jarlsen’s -room. - -Waiting for the doctor’s opinion is one of the fearful things that -civilization has imposed on humanity. It is during such intervals of -suspense that a racked mind learns the pattern of the carpet, the -similarity in outline of some familiar pieces of furniture, and of some -impossible beast or bird sprawling on the wall papers. Emma discovered -stains in the sheer curtains at the window. She prayed in a general -way, and feared the moment when the doctor should appear again. - -For the first time she observed that quite a crowd surrounded the -house, looking in at the windows. They wore long faces beneath their -eager eyes, and looked as though good news would be a (conversational) -calamity. Jerry Black, however, stood among them with the perfect -aspect of honest sympathy. - -It was to him that Emma beckoned. He entered the house in response, -with an air of great importance. He had been telling half the town by -twos and threes, and as a great favour, exactly what he had said to Dr. -Brent. The town listened in the hope of hearing what Dr. Brent had said -to him. - -Emma motioned him to stand close to her. - -“When do you pay?” said she. - -“’Most any time,” said Jerry. “You can pay the first day for a whole -set of visits, or you can pay when he sends a bill, or ’most anyway.” - -“How can I tell how often he’s comin’?” - -“He ain’t let pass that he’s comin’ more than this once, but you’ll -have to go high for this once. Think of the fares here and back; the -car money alone is twenty-five dollars, and not countin’ chair-cars or -meals.” - -“Well, I’ll give him a hundred, and see how he likes that.” - -“All right,” said Jerry; “you give it to him now. He’d be more likely -to come later, if he knew we pay before he can put hat on to go home.” - -She had planned it all; the money should be put in his hand just as he -was leaving. She thought of no receipt, just as she thought of none for -the money she put in the plate on those delightful courtship Sundays. -Indeed, she felt the transactions to be similar. - -She wanted to show, just as she had shown then, that though Jarlsen was -her man, he was no pauper. The bill was to be paid in the sight of the -surrounding multitude at the windows. - -Presently Dr. Brent came out. He looked at the faces set in the window -frames, and made no comment. Emma realized, with hope full grown to -thankfulness, that had he felt there was nothing encouraging to say, he -would have dispersed the waiting men and women before he spoke. - -“Miss Butte,” he said, “I’ve seen worse than he recover. His sight is -gone, sealed up with scorch; but he’ll hear again some day. Get him up -as soon as the smart goes.” - -Some one in the window said, “He’ll make wages dead easy if he hears -again.” - -“I’m glad,” said Dr. Brent, turning toward the window. “Encourage him -to work when the smart is over.” - -He declined Emma’s offered meal, and prepared for departure, writing on -a bit of paper what he wished to have done for Jarlsen. When he rose, -hat in hand, Emma spoke to him. Her voice had a thrill of pride in it, -and her high spirit lent a dignity to the gaudy finery intended to -decorate her awkward frock. - -“Doctor,” she said, “will you set a minute?” - -She entered the lean-to, erect and elastic. Three minutes passed while -the crowd asked the doctor questions, which he answered in words of -such strangeness to their ears that they enjoyed all the sensations of -those who communicate with spirits. They laughed at his least word, and -he, perceiving it, darkened his sayings the further. - -When Emma returned, her face was set and her cheeks flamed, so that -their heat alone drew the tears to her eyes. Her hands shook, and -hardly held the bit of soiled paper and the stumpy pencil that she -carried. “Will you tell me your name and address?” she asked of the -doctor. - -A sigh broke from her lips that tried not to be a groan. - -Black looked at her, and the colour flew from his face. He said -afterward that his heart beat so that he thought some one knocked on -the door. He knew what had happened. - -So did the doctor. “My accounts are payable in May,” he said, being -kind, and knowing Soot City to be ignorant. - -Emma smiled again, and, with the patronizing manner that is the outcome -of complete shyness, said, “Well, you’re a real good doctor.” - -And so, with a slight constriction of his kindly heart, he shook her -hand and departed. - -But she caught Black at his exit. “That Quarry’s stole!” said she. - -Jerry looked sick and old; his voice sounded bitter. “I ain’t got a -cent just now to spare,” he said. Then he grew fiercer, and cursed the -Englishman exhaustively and with the awkwardness of a man unused to -such conversational indulgence. - -The crowd followed as far as the funeral carriage and stood to watch it -disappear in billows of dust. The white horses and the black barouche -were alike buff before they were out of sight of The Tracks. - -And in sullen quiet Emma set herself to wait for Quarry, not trusting -herself to look at Jarlsen lest the sight of him should soften her hate. - -“He took the whole wallet!” she repeated to herself, “and he was the -only man August wouldn’t give to. He knew it, too, or he’d hev asked -something off him when first he seen we was settin’ it up together.” - - - - -VIII. - -QUARRY’S ATTEMPT AT EXPLANATION. - - “A man will say more to himself in excuse than he will to his God or - his friend.” - - -EMMA’S eyes roved from object to object as though she sought escape; -they always returned to the door, whence she expected Quarry. It was -a duty, she reasoned, to turn this man’s stealing to swift shame. -Words flocked to her tongue that she could not remember having used -before, and her mind’s eye saw the Englishman wince under them. A demon -of invective filled her brain with fierce thoughts as she tore the -shake-downs apart in a final hunt for the wallet. And then a fit of -sobs and shaking beset her as she waited again in the kitchen for what -she hoped would be in some sort vengeance. - -She remembered every mean and, in her characterizing adjective, every -“useless” thing Quarry had done; how he had lied, and when. She -remembered his drunkenness--that terrible drunkenness in which his -self-assurance seemed boundless; the remembered vanity of his face -startled her, and it seemed marvellous that his faults had not kept him -from their household as they had kept him from their hearts. - -When some person has been the provoking cause of emotions so strong -that the mind can not shake off their grasp, it is quick to misconceive -that person. Quarry’s voice was a shock to Emma when at last she heard -it in the yard, although a short time ago she had seen and had speech -with him. - -Her heart sank when she found he was talking with himself and -in a laudatory strain. His effort was to walk straight, but his -accomplishment was slight. He lurched to and from either marigold -border, so that the walk seemed serpentine to Emma’s shocked gaze. -“No,” he said, “the ruins is covered with ivory; I shall pluck away the -vine, and the presspit is discovered.” He spoke as he walked, doing -as much as possible at each lucid interval between lapses. “No friend -shall fall away into the presspit, like I nearly did.” - -His fall was upon nothing more precipitous than the chair by the door. -Seeing anger on Emma’s face, he attempted to soothe her with vague -smiles of fearful extent; they travelled swiftly across his flushed -face and divided it into north and south intemperate zones. - -“Stop _that_,” called Emma; “you’ve done enough!” - -“Not yet!” shouted Quarry, impelled by an erratic enthusiasm; “I’ll -do more for my Emma. I’ve laid out the money real well. We’ll buy the -deepo and live in it! It’s the finest house in Soot City, and if you -want Jarlsen too, you can keep him for hired help. I don’t want there -should be any stinting where love is king.” - -“Give me my wallet,” said Emma. - -“I have given it where it’ll do the most good. The town rejoices that a -good deed was done. Mine the deed though not the money.” He used this -phrase as a sort of chant. - -“Quarry,” said Emma sternly, “sober up, and think true for a minute!” - -But he interrupted to say: “Sober up? Emma, you’re enough to turn -a saint. I am so sober that the boys laugh at me the way they done -at Jarlsen, and I’ve done the wonderfullest thing! Money’ll be so -loose you can pick it up off anything in such a little while! I -invested yours in a great concern; it’s safe. I’m at the head of it!” -He finished, with some tardy regard for truth, and, waving his arms -comprehensively, lapsed again into vagueness. - -“Where did you put it?” Emma uttered her queries with pains, as if she -put them to a foreigner. - -Then came lavish excuse. “I put it in an investment,” said he. He was a -little sobered now, and wore a scared look. “Mr. Jarlsen, ’fore he was -took with the blast, got me to promise to invest his money. He had a -pulmonition of the blast, so he did.” - -Emma looked at him again; her face was white and hopeless, and its -young modelling seemed aged and heavy. - -“You ain’t gone and sunk that altogether, Quarry, hev you? If you hev, -there’s only the Stonepastures left. It’ll be a hard thing to pass the -Bridge once for all and see your work-fellers comin’ through on the -cars, and you only comin’ es fur es the Pastures from the factory. -Can’t you think what you done with it?” - -“I’ve spent it. It’s invested--but still--it’s spent.” - -She saw that the men would have to take the matter up for her. At first -anger had nerved her, but now she felt weakly despairing. It seemed -to her that there was no use in effort to set right circumstances so -awry, until, as she said, “things had stopped happening.” - -“Well, you’re a thief, anyway,” she said, “and I’d fight you if I had -any pith in me!” - -Quarry raised himself. “That’s you all over,” he remarked sadly. “I’ve -seen you leap on Jarlsen quick as a wicked cat; and a lady as lifts a -hand to a half-dead man is no lady. You have made my life very profane, -Emma. I don’t find in you the flavour of a godly woman, Emma Butte,” he -added with a final effort at dignity. “You’re a--a--mean girl!” - -Emma rose, and, standing, looked him over thoroughly. No idea of law -came to aid her ignorant helplessness. She understood now the saying -that women were “put upon.” Some girls would have cried, but Emma had -one sweet drop in the bitter draught. She would have to move to the -Stonepastures, but by so doing she could pay the doctor, even though -she had to shave again. - - - - -IX. - -BREAKING UP A HOME. - - “It is better to live under God’s sky than under a roof when there’s - no luck there.” - - -YOU and I, knowing the use of pen, ink, and paper, and the efficacy -of latter-day postal systems, must remember that there are degrees -of education; also, that all the methods of communication in well -organized communities are as unknown to the ignorant, Americo-alien -population of such places as Soot City as is the fate of nations to the -speculative schoolboy. Emma needed Black’s counsel, but she did not -think of the post as a means of getting a letter to a man in her own -town. She reasoned that post-office people would slight mail matter not -destined to go by train to other cities. So her anxious heart kept her -waking to catch the light, that she might get away in secret to Black’s -house and there put her case in his ever-open and ever-busy hands. - -Youthful weariness demands sleep. Emma was young and overweary, and, as -a consequence, overslept. - -It was in the fear that calamity might have stolen another march on her -that she dressed herself. She had about her a neatness that enraged -the down-at-heel disheartened, of which there are so many in labouring -communities. - -“The world,” she thought, “has thumped me till I ain’t got half the -spring I hed to start on; and that’s the reason I’m goin’ to dress up. -I’ll wear cuffs till I’ve got to sell ’em, and a collar, ef I do have -to shave for a livin’.” - -But she had not enough pleasure in living left to heat the coffee that -her father had used at his breakfast; she was only thankful that he had -gone away for his paper By the Bridge, and that she might set about -vacating the house, with a will. She did not think of consulting him. -When a man has consented all his life to anything and never met any -circumstance, crucial or casual, with aught but irrelevant comment, he -is rarely a factor in other people’s plans. - -She was glad she had not had to get breakfast, for she had to tend -Jarlsen. The day was wet, and his hurts seemed the sorer for the damp. -When she had done all for him she laid her hand on his, but the dread -of packing her wedding things was making war on her energies. She felt -she could not rest till she had packed the white gown out of sight and -mind. Before now she had held a private service of tears over her six -wedding presents. Miss Bentley had given her a jacket edged with good -fur, and her sister had given her some fine stockings; but her lover’s -gift meant more to her than any other inanimate thing. It certainly -meant more than bread, for she would have starved before she sold it, -and died in happiness had her eyes but met it as they closed finally. - -It was a large locket of reddish gold, embossed in clumsy arabesque; -within were two photographs--of Jarlsen and of Cheyne Falls, where they -were to have spent their wedding week. It was the fashionable tribute -from groom to bride in Jarlsen’s circle of Soot citizens, and Emma -felt that with this gift he conferred his higher class on her. It was -just what he would have given the first foreman’s daughter. She opened -the locket and looked in. Eve may have felt like her and Emma thought -of her; it was an angel with a fiery sword who put them both out of -God’s Eden, she remembered. But some of Eve’s memories must have been -self-reproachful, and Emma was spared that misery. She was also a fine -enough type to appreciate that. - -She was shutting up her little shrine when Jerry Black found her. They -met with tears that had not started at their meeting; for Jerry had -wept at having to return in sorrow to the house where but yesterday -hope had hurried him. - -To begin a new series of troubles just as he had completed an old one -told on his nerves. He had spent the long night praying for Emma, his -head on his shiny rosewood dining table. - -He always showed this table with pride; it was made from the extra wood -he had been commissioned to buy for the Bentley coffins. He had made it -himself, and time and again had shown it to Miss Bentley, in whom he -felt a great disappointment, as she never manifested any satisfaction -at the sight. The cats leaped upon it nightly, as it was Jerry’s -habitual place of prayer, and it sometimes seemed to him that they -exchanged glances with each other in his despite, glances of criticism -at his fervour. He never drove them away, however. - -“Emma,” he said, his lips trembling and his pale eyes filling fast, -“your trouble’s fearful heavy, but you won’t give in. I’ve seen to -Quarry, and it jest ain’t no use; you can’t get anything out of him; -he give it all in to the Workers’ Protective Circle. He give it in to -the aggression fund. They’re going to order a strike for the same pay -for winter days nine hours’ work, as they get for a ten-hours’ summer’s -day. I think that’s it. My work’s among the peaceful, and sometimes I -thank God I hev it mostly among dead men, seein’ what the live ones is -like. But, Emma, he’s give the money in, so’s the strike fund can grow. -He’s a gainin’, winnin’ kind of speaker, and he’s give up what he took -to their cause, and no one ain’t a-goin’ to touch him. Now you jest -remember that the night’s blackest just before the sun comes, and don’t -you loose your grip. When Jarlsen comes out from the blast you want him -to find you jest es straight and steady es when he was took--don’t you -now?” - -The tears slipped from Emma’s eyes at the little man’s tone. Her face -was as tranquil as it was sorrowing, and, as she answered, there was -no bitterness in her voice and no fretfulness or rebellion in gesture -or look. She did not feel bound to exhibit spirit in his presence. “O -Jerry,” she said, “I think I do. But I can’t stay fit for him when I -live with thieves who rob him. I’m glad he got the blast ef I have to -get low-toned; he’ll be nearer a mate for me.” - -Jerry stayed on and helped her. He packed away the white dress; he -was used to handling things that were sacred to the memory of a happy -past, and began to pull Emma’s house to pieces as only a woman could be -expected to do. Martha Long came in; she was sewing as she walked. She -was a brisk woman, and got through half her work on the wing. - -“God’s name!” she said to Black, “what’s come to Emma? She looks hurt, -and white as a death-sheet.” - -Jerry told her what had happened, and Martha, without a word, went -over and took both the girl’s hands in hers and pressed them to her -sides; she never lost hold of her sewing, and presently set to work -again. - -“Well,” she half screamed in indignation, “of all the poison toads -and irregular vipers in the world and out of it, I guess Quarry’s the -lowest down. He’s a dirt-mean man! I suppose you’ll move out, and take -the yeller house on the Pastures. There ain’t no one in it since last -May, and it has a porch. You won’t stay there long,” Martha said with -conviction. “Your kind don’t keep to no rent-free Stonepastures. You’ll -come back to the town, and the crowd’ll cheer you--you’ll see.” - -“Well,” Emma replied, “I’m going this afternoon.” - -Accordingly, at five, or a little later, Jerry brought a funeral -carriage By the Bridge, and old Butte and Emma and Jerry and Martha -carried Jarlsen on a shake-down along the Tracks. The sun, as Jerry -observed, was “leanin’ pretty near the west line,” and the sky was -bright above the Stonepastures. It had cleared in the early afternoon, -and all the odours, bad and good, seemed flying about, riding on the -cool breezes that swept over the Tracks. The high-standing ripe grasses -caught the level shafts of sun and bowed before the wind, glorified -in the bright light. Jarlsen questioned them about his removal, but -gave no evidence that he heard their replies except once, when he said -that Emma “sounded” tired. But his voice died away in groanings, and -he could not answer their other questions. Emma felt that he heard her -voice and did not distinguish the words. - -Jerry felt so too. He reminded Emma of the blind man in the Testament. -“He seen the men first as trees,” he said, “even when he was cured with -grace, and not with herbs and ointment and such; he didn’t get clear -vision right away.” - -Emma felt happier than she had thought possible. She ran back into the -yard and slipped off her shoe. “I’ll get the favour of home for him,” -she thought. - -But while the handful of mould was still in her hand she put her shoe -on again. “I’d liefer shake off the dust from my feet,” she said; “this -ain’t no home to get the favour from.” - -Martha Long stood at the gate, “You’re in a hurry to go,” she remarked. - -“To-morrow begins the new month’s rent,” said Emma. “I quit to-day or -pay to-morrow. I’m goin’ where there ain’t no rents to pay. I can’t -afford rents and city doctors together.” - -Martha’s face darkened. “I’m layin’ for him right here,” she called as -the funeral carriage moved away. She was surprised at Emma’s good-bye -mood; it was so resolute and cheerful. “He’s a pretty low reptile,” was -the last thing she called to Emma as the conveyance grew smaller on the -distant road. - - - - -X. - -QUARRY RECKONS WITHOUT HIS HOSTESS. - - “Strife’s a poor thing to come home to.” - - -IN two days’ time Emma was “settled in.” Hers was an odd house for the -Stonepastures. She paid no rent for it, but there were curtains at the -windows and a shoe-scraper and a mat at the door. She had not been up -an hour on her first morning before the grass around the house was cut -down with a borrowed sickle. The objectless, listless denizens of the -district watched her with some pleasure. They had no individual life, -merely existing as a class and watching the individuality of others -take shape in thrift and then in prosperity with a dull envy. One man -said she “hed a peck of ambition” in a tone that meant on the Pastures, -in “Calamity Row,” that any endeavour to better one’s self comes to -confusion. - -At first the big boulders depressed her somewhat, but Jerry told her -she could “garden on them” in the summer time; and, indeed, flowers -could grow from the thin soil that edged them. For two weeks and more -she lived, quietly amazed to find herself so happy. From day to day -she watched the Swede’s improvement. As the pain left him he took to -singing, but his voice was not so accurate as in the old days when he -heard clearly. Many of the songs she had heard from him in courting -time, and she was infinitely happy to know that he remembered them as -well as she did. He would tell the meaning of each verse after he had -sung it, as she cooked or sewed after shaving all day. - -For she shaved again. It seemed very odd and yet very natural to her. -She had a good deal of business to arrange before “resuming trade.” -Her subscriptions to the Philadelphia Ledger and the Work-fellows’ -Union had run out; in fact, her wedding day had been dependent on their -expiration. Emma had a great idea of doing things the right way, and -news has been the tradition of barber-shops since men’s vanity first -devised a shorn chin. - -Emma was gratified to find her standing unimpaired by her sojourn with -the paupers. Socially she seemed secure. The women were prone to be -officiously sympathetic, and were also inclined to disbelieve the tale -of Quarry’s misdeed. “There’s faults on both sides, maybe,” and “Who -can see the whole show through a slit in the tent?” were felt to be -convenient phrases and used largely as such. The phrase “rent-free” -found its way from the neighbours’ lips to Emma’s ears rather oftener -than she cared for; it spurred her on to grudge herself food and deny -herself the midday beer it had been her wont to consume. She worked -from eight in the morning to six at night, with nothing but bread and -soup at her slack time in the early afternoon. - -The soup was much like Quarry’s stories--made up out of almost nothing. -She carried it to work in a bottle with a screwed-on tin top; this she -put into the little boiler that the shaving water was heated in, “and -so,” she would say, to amuse a new customer, “thet’s all the cooking I -hev to do; I boil my bottle, and there I am!” - -She had rented a room By the Bridge from Miss Bentley, who was much -surprised when Emma paid the rent; and through her new and improved -business situation in the town she was able to command a “high-class -custom.” - -Since the evening that Quarry had suggested the depot as a place of -residence Emma had been free of his presence. She had heard of him -from the men, however, and knew that he was speaking to them from the -Bridge every evening. Revolt was in the air of Soot City; there were -meetings, quite covertly, conducted by socialistic workmen in the -cause of workfellows’ profits. Monopoly and co-operative profit were -talked of constantly, and Grigg sold many drinks. It is a pity that the -workingmen who invent Utopias should attempt to sanctify them with an -alcoholic immersion. It antagonizes even the fair-minded. The preachers -took to finding comparisons, more or less apposite, between Dives and -Lazarus, pronouncing the socialism of him who has not, grabbing from -him who has, to be merely a modern variation of a scriptural scheme -of all things in common. As some men go to church to find biblical -sanction for their shortcomings; the ringleaders of what was fast -becoming an agitation, took to the sanctuaries, whither the rest of the -town felt it safe to follow them. - -Emma regarded Quarry’s effrontery as monumental, but she never -conceived a possibility of his coming to her new house in the -Stonepastures. She felt that, as she had gone down in the world, he -thought he had risen, and that the Stonepastures were very far away -from him now. Her eyes would scan the road, in her swift evening walks -searching for his slightly crooked form. The thought of him distressed -her, as horror comes upon a child in the dark, and after nightfall she -remembered him as such a power for evil. Returning from the town she -always wore for warmth her leathern apron with a shawl, her jacket was -too good to be worn out in the dark. This scruple was pure conscience, -for she no longer had Jarlsen’s eye for which to save her dresses. - -He could tell the difference in footfalls now, and distinguish voices. -Emma longed for the moment when he should be able to hear her speak his -name. This hoped-for moment occupied many of her hours, and she thought -of it on the still, cold night when she saw Quarry walking toward -the Pastures about ten yards ahead of her. She slackened her pace -instantly, and he was soon lost in the starless dark. - -She dreaded him. As she walked she feared she might stumble on him -lying drunk in her path, with his mouth full of the hideous words he -used at such times; or, this fear forgotten, her breath would come in -loud pantings at the thought of his hands laid on her from behind. When -she came to her own door there was still no sight of him; she looked -both up and down the road to make sure. She could not see far, for most -of the houses were dark; lights are too expensive for the rent-free -Pastures. Raising the latch, she pushed the door quietly open and -looked into her own home. - -Quarry was at the kitchen table facing her, glaring in Jarlsen’s -serenely blind countenance. Sleep had double-locked the Swede’s seared -vision, and in complete unconsciousness he breathed freely, within a -glance of Quarry’s eyes alive with malice. - -Emma was frightened, so much so that she could not call. It seemed that -Quarry must have something to kill with, in his coarse, cramped hands. -It flashed across her that if she received him roughly he would strike -or stab, and that an appearance of politeness would surely gain her -time. Calmness came to her when she had determined how to act. - -She rattled the latch, her heart jumping so that she felt as if it had -thrown her into the room. Quarry let fall something that gave out the -sound of thin metal as it struck the brick flooring round the stove. -A flight of chills froze her blood, while her cheeks burned with a -steady, excited glow. - -Quarry could not avoid her eyes and she saw that were he to have the -first word he would announce himself at bay and make trouble. She -almost ran to him with her hand stretched out. “Quarry,” said she in a -little voice that she strained to make audible, “Quarry, you’ll have a -bite, won’t you? It’s a cold bite, but a ready one.” - -Emma thought later that it was at the sound of Quarry’s name in her -voice that Jarlsen wakened. He knew at once that Quarry was there, for -a look that had been absent from his face since they moved from By the -Tracks swept its strong patience and sweetness away. He stood on his -feet and reached out for the Englishman. The bandages on his right hand -seemed too tight, and the veins in it bursting. - -“I’m not dead yet!” he said fiercely, “and no thanks to you!” - -Emma could have cried for joy. To her it seemed more than likely that -he saw again; but when she noticed how easily Quarry had eluded his big -rival, the situation was obscured. - -“Did I hurt him?” called Jarlsen eagerly. He had fallen back on his -chair, but was sitting on its edge, his eyes burning, and the blood -reddening the fine skin on his forehead. - -She did not answer, having learned not to waste words on his deafness. -She saw Quarry stoop down and lift up the knife he had let fall. - -Then she spoke, and very gently. “You’d better stay here, Quarry,” she -said; “you’re accustomed to your home here, and there’s most sleep in -an old nest.” - -And he stayed. Emma turned him in with old Butte, and lighted a new -candle, which she left to illumine the rats through the night. Then she -locked Jarlsen’s door on the outside, and tied the key around her neck. -She reflected with pride that her Swede had only been sitting up for -two days, and yet wanted to fight on the evening of the second. In her -joy at his returning strength she lost sight of danger. - - - - -XI. - -THE STRIKE. - - “Having ears to hear, let them hear.” - - -THE sleep of young strength puts a wide distance between yesterday’s -cares and to-day’s. The dawn that awoke Emma was gray, but it did not -suggest the blight of ashes as had last night’s twilight. She was sure -of the return of Jarlsen’s faculties, and she also knew that Quarry -could have made no disturbance through the night. She was inclined to -think that he meant to frighten them, and by daylight his acts seemed -more like very bad manners than like an attempt at murder. - -In the morning, before setting out, she changed the bandage on -Jarlsen’s hand. The wide burns were “guttering,” seaming up in red -lines. She told him this, and though he made no reply she felt sure, -with unshakable, feminine sureness, that he had heard. She led him out -to his hammock and placed him in it. Quarry was haranguing Old Butte, -and the sound of his voice seemed to make the Swede nervous. Emma was -certain that he had heard him. - -She had always liked the Pastures as a place to walk; the air was less -flat than in the town; and it was pleasant to set one’s face against -poverty and one’s feet toward a place where people were rich enough -to pay rent. Bentley’s Place overtopped the city on an artificial and -costly eminence. The little house that was placed like a lodge was the -terminal station of the narrow-gauge railway. She knew herself to be -two miles and three quarters from that, and a mile or more from the -plant. - -Usually she met the day squad coming out from the town, the men -standing in the ore cars, the smoke from their pipes and the straining, -overworked little engine blown behind them toward the town--like a -message sent home, Emma thought. But to-day no cars passed, and she, -being a child of toil, was quick to know that this meant a strike. She -hurried on to her earnings, remembering that when men are out of work -they have all day in which to spend their savings. Women see so little -in strikes but higher wages until some one is dead. - -When she reached the Bridge it was crowded with people. Men who had -not worked at the plant for years were exhorting their fellows not -to submit to tyranny. Many large words were being misused with great -pride by those who never had a chance to talk except when the crowd -was too busy to listen. The women were not very carefully dressed, -having had no time for fastenings or strings. They, together with the -children they brought with them, seemed to regard the occasion as one -of festivity. - -Nothing was denounced very definitely. One stranger was said to be a -reporter, whereupon half a dozen people beset him, anxious to have -their views in the paper. Emma could learn nothing from any of them. -They used Quarry’s and Bowa’s names frequently, so that she forebore -mentioning under whose roof the Englishman had passed the night. - -Her shop was in the fourth house from the Bridge; a steep diagonal path -ran from its back door to the Tracks. The men were swarming to it -before she was quite ready to have them, and many arrived by the rarely -used footway. News came with them, and she found herself believing -first one report and then another. Bowa came to be shaved; she was -surprised at his thinking of a thing so incidental to a holiday toilet -as a shave, but she supposed that he was resolved to die tidy, and said -as much. - -He could not be at the plant, he explained, and felt that he had no -need to be there. His smile was exceedingly subtle, but his hands -worked against his will in an embarrassed fashion. - -The day wore on until about four o’clock. Her business had been -immense, and she had listened to the many accounts and descriptions -of the plant until she felt she knew it perfectly. In the centre was -the powder house, where explosives were kept; on the city flank was the -nutt and bolt factory, and very near, but south of it, the furnace. -It was set on a steep “slide” of rock; its door, through which the -furnace was fed, was on the summit side; and on the base side, lower -on the slide by eight feet or more, was another door through which the -“cinder” flew away at night into the darkness like a burning river. -This door seems complicated on paper, though in fact its construction -is simple. A skewer secures it at its upper edge--a skewer with a large -loop at one end. Into this loop the hook of the fire-tenders’ strange -implement is thrust when the door is to be opened. “The Devil’s Crook” -is what the men have named the long oak stick finished at one end with -an iron hook. It does look like a thing wherewith to herd black sheep. - -Emma was weary of constant exclamation and argument. It was time she -ate; so she closed her door and “boiled her bottle,” allowing the men -who were already in the shop to remain there. She saw Bowa get up -from his chair and leave by the back door, silent and hurried. As was -natural, Emma turned to the window to see what had caught his eye in -the street. - -Young Bentley had driven up in his buggy; his liveried servant sat -beside him, and the horse he drove plunged and shook with nervousness -at being surrounded by a crowd of loud-voiced people. Bentley stood up -in the little buggy, having given the reins to his man. “See here,” he -said, addressing the crowd, “if we have a strike, you’d better remember -that I can stand it, and you can’t. I’ve sent police to the plant to -protect my property, and you had better stand by them; for the plant is -the machine you make your bread with, and it’s the only thing you can -work at. I’ve got lots of irons on the fire. Now some one has trifled -with this road-bed, in the cut here, By the Bridge. I suppose you want -to make me lose my charter. I’m going to examine the damage now, and I -hope you’ll come with me.” - -He jumped to the ground and began to descend the steps leading to the -road-bed in the cut, over which the Bridge is. No one followed him, but -with admirable nerve he neither hesitated nor quickened his pace. - -Emma remembered that Jarlsen had liked him, and that he had called to -ask for him once By the Tracks and twice on the Pastures. No Bentley -had visited the Pastures before, and Emma felt the distinction keenly. -She opened the door and went out, merely observing to the bystanders -that they “hed no spring.” - -Before she got to the stair’s head about six men had followed her, -looking deeply ashamed of each other, but at present firm in their -duty. Emma let them pass her, and slipped into the advancing crowd. - -Bowa and three companions were standing on the tracks by two overturned -ore cars. They seemed more sheepish than defiant, and Emma noticed with -pride how neat Bowa looked as he tried not to flinch under Bentley’s -contemptuous gaze. The rails were torn up for about twenty yards, and -in the silence that preceded Bentley’s first words Emma realized that -this meant prison. - -“Did you do that?” he said at length. Then turning to the men at -his back, he said very pleasantly, “I think we can put this right -with”--his voice grew suddenly louder--“two more to help us.” - -Two Soot City police appeared, and very quietly secured Bowa and his -friends. They were too surprised to make any resistance, and went -silent and sullen at Bentley’s curt bidding. Some one cried, “Shame!” -at the plant owner. Martha Long answered “Nonsense!” very loud. But her -tears fell for Bowa, and she pleaded for him in words. - -“Mr. Bentley,” she said, “he was put up to that. He’s young for the -shadder of a prison to fall on him. He’s as mild as new milk, and he’s -had his taste, and he won’t want no more.” - -“Martha,” Bentley answered, “I think making an example of a workman is -making a martyr of him and an enemy of his labour organization. I don’t -want any strikes, so I’ll probably let him off; but I wouldn’t promise -any one.” - -Martha went away well comforted, and Emma, when the darkness had -fallen, set out for home. She considered the strike was over, and -laughed as she made herself pictures of Quarry’s discomfiture; his -plans would be henceforth unheeded, and, as he had not succeeded, the -men would not fear him, and not fearing meant, under such conditions, -shunning. She had had a diverting day; the silver jingled in her -pocket, and her wish was that Jarlsen might have ears to hear all about -it. - -The cottage was dark, but before she came within a hundred yards of -it, while it yet stood out black and square against the dark east, she -heard Jarlsen calling, “Emma, hurry, girl!--Emma, girl, hurry!” - -She ran to him, stumbling and in dread, and groped in the darkness of -the room with tender hands that feared--she longed to know just what. - -“I’m all right,” he said; “but listen. Speak to me; I can hear. I’ve -heard ever since we moved. I’ve wanted to say so, but I wanted to go on -hearing your father talk to Quarry. I’ve heard it all. I’m done with -secrets; I’m pretty near done with theirs. Speak to me, Emma; I can -prove it.” - -“I’m so bursting-out happy, I can’t talk much,” said she. - -Her speech followed her in his voice. “I’m so bursting-out happy, I -can’t talk much.’ But I can hear! Emma, Quarry and your poppa have been -setting it up since we came here, and I was afraid to say I heard, for -fear two couldn’t keep a secret. Emma, we want the plant’s pension, and -we’re going to get it! - -“You’re going now,” he said, “to run out to the plant--to run your -best; when you get there, go to the furnace. If you keep right on By -the Tracks, nobody’ll mind you. Quarry’s bought the furnace-minders, -and they’re going to leave for the station to report a disturbance in -the factory. The Devil’s Crook is in the little house by the furnace; -it is by the door. You take it as you pass--no one’ll be there--and -when you see a light in the factory you open the centre door and make a -flare, for the police can’t see in the dark. You’ll catch ’em; O Emma, -hurry! I’ve got a good chance to fix Quarry, and he didn’t warn me of -that blast, or I wouldn’t be here now. He put his flag behind his back -when he saw me come, and I walked right on. Hurry, Emma girl! Don’t -burn yourself!” - -Emma could feel that he wanted to go himself. She caught up her shawl. -“Is it the powder house?” she asked. - -“For God’s sake,” he said loudly, “get started! Of course it is!” - -She ran out into the wide darkness. She was racing death, and she knew -it. - - - - -XII. - -THE EYE OF GOD. - - “And the eye of God shall pierce the lengthy darkness.” - - -EMMA’S first thought was of the time that it would take her to get to -the plant. Young Bentley had once run a mile under five minutes, and -his feat had been in the newspapers; but she could not, of course, -count on herself for like speed. She felt that the cinder flare would -light up her life’s crisis. Jarlsen’s excited voice echoed in her mind, -and the thought that Quarry might have saved him with the warning -flag, instead of letting him come unchecked on live powder, urged her -on the faster. She saw that to-day’s attempt at the Tracks was a forced -incident, intended to look like the strike’s crisis. She remembered her -own part in it with laughter. - -She was choked with anxiety. It seemed to her that if the powder house -were fired there would be no food anywhere in Soot City. Who would be -killed and how much would be damaged was an unanswerable question that -weakened her with painful suspense. She barely noticed the hissing -rush of her breath or felt the pain in her side. Her feet grew heavy, -and the noise of their fall on the road-bed sounded to her as if it -was far off in the town. Her neck was craned in the direction of the -plant, and she wanted to throw herself along the earth. When the lights -at the sidings and at the station grew nearer her dimmed eyes could -barely distinguish them. Some warm thing, with a new taste, crept over -her lips. She put up her hand to it, and saw in the light at the first -siding that it was blood. - -Her body rocked with the push of her heart-beats, and “yet,” she -thought, “I may be late.” - -At last she passed the station. Through its blindless windows she could -see Benz, the furnace-tender, talking fast to the police. For a moment -she thought of going in and telling her story, but she feared a loss of -time, and started furiously up the grade to the tool-house. She found -the door standing open and entered boldly, snatching the crook and -striking at a man who raised himself from the floor. He lay down again -at once, saying, “All right, only don’t tell me where you put it.” - -“I’m in time,” she thought. - -There was a little patch of light before the threshold. Looking up, she -saw four policemen crossing by the powder house to the factory. Then -the scheme came entire into her puzzled brain. They were called out on -search and it was their lights in the factory that were to be taken as -the signal for Quarry’s men to fire the mine. The furnace-tenders had -gone as guides, and the unshifted cinder could not expose offenders. - -“He’s a cute viper!” Emma was talking to herself to keep her nerve; she -was spent and breathless. - -The heat by the furnace was terrible; it shone on the iron trough in -an outlined square of yellow, where the light streamed through the -door cracks. She fitted the crook’s hook to the loop of the skewer -and paused, waiting. Her thoughts were busy with the way in which -they might fire the powder stores. Heat and cold hurried through her -alternately; her hands and brow were wet. There were, of course, no -men on duty at the plant save forty of the factory force, Quarry among -them. Emma saw that this was part of the blind. - -The electric lights were out; they had not been turned on since early -the last evening, but presently one shone from the ground floor of the -factory. Emma pulled back her crook exultingly, but the skewer would -not give. She jerked, but it was firm. Gathering her strength, she -braced her feet and threw herself back. She saw a fiery line pass above -her head, and heard the red-hot skewer tinkle against a stone behind -her. She rushed to the front of the furnace to get rid of the heat, and -stood on the crest of the incline. - -As the cinder flew in a glowing mass down the trough to the cinder -hill, she saw the spires at the city and the Bridge. Then she looked -directly before her. - -As the night lifted from the plant yard she saw that some one was -running; the figure took on it the red of the brightening furnace -waste, and the flame of the torch the runner carried grew white in the -rosy glare. The light spread higher, and Emma saw the tops of the elm -trees that grew on the other side of the factory. The cinder rattled in -the trough with a grating loudness. - -“He hes a train of oiled rope laid,” said she. - -The plant-hand was Quarry, and still he ran toward the powder house -in the vivid light. The men, most of them police, were watching him. -He knelt with his light in his hand, and fell forward, the torch under -him. Then Emma heard a pistol shot that sounded like snapping fingers -in the din of the cinder waste. - -Bentley’s voice was hardly heard in the various noise that followed the -shot. “Lock up God’s eye!” he called; “it’s done big work, but don’t -waste fuel.” - -And a woman’s voice, peevish from fatigue, called from the height: “I -can’t--I’m broken, I’m so tired!” - -But Quarry did not stir; his torch was out. And in the house on the -Pastures Jarlsen’s eyes strained themselves to pierce their own -darkness, although the cloudy sky was like a red sea, and the plant -stood out plainly with orange elm trees and bright roofs. - - - - -EPILOGUE. - - -WE were disputing in the train as to whether it was five or six years -since Quarry’s death. I said six, and was told that I was always wrong. -My adversary evidently considered this second-rate rejoinder a retort. -Presently he said, “You may be right, for I think Jarlsen’s boy is -five.” - -Jerry Black met us at the station; he wore a bailiff’s uniform of -corduroy. The Bentleys were very English now, but kinder than ever. We -got into an omnibus, and asked Jerry to come too. He had to be urged, -for he is still modest. - -“How are the Stonepastures?” said I, anxious to start the conversation. - -“Lean livin’ yet,” he answered, sighing; “but we’ve got a home for the -aged indigent, and a hospital.” - -He began to talk in earnest, and, among other things, told us that -Emma paid the doctor the week after Quarry died. He said she felt as -if she had killed Quarry, but that her marriage had put it out of her -head. “The Jarlsens are getting on fine,” he remarked confidentially, -“more than happy in their fortunes. August has sold his idea for -freight couplers to the plant, and he’s living in the back of the new -schoolhouse, and he goes away singing and gets paid for it. He bought a -piano with his savings.” - -“Emma’s too fine to shave me, I suppose,” said I. - -“Don’t name it to her, please,” implored Jerry. - -We arrived at the church--it was Bentley’s wedding we were -attending--and on either side of the walk through the yard the men and -women of the plant waited for the bride. There was not a foot of space -left in the church. Bowa stood next me, and with him was Martha Long. -“It’s a pleasanter time than the last,” she said as I greeted her. -We had been staying at the plant in the strike when Quarry had gone -under, and I was pleased that she remembered it. Black was everywhere. -At last he pushed us all back to clear the path for the bride. Bentley -was in the church at the chancel. - -Then there broke on our eager ears the finest tenor I had ever heard. -They say he sang a Swedish wedding song. I don’t care what it was--I -almost cried when he stopped. His voice rose high and strong, and -seemed to spread like perfume; he sang gladly. - -“Who is that?” I asked. - -Every one within hearing answered proudly, “Jarlsen.” - - -THE END. - - - - -D. APPLETON & CO.’S PUBLICATIONS. - - - _AN IMAGINATIVE MAN._ By ROBERT S. HICHENS, author of “The Green - Carnation.” 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. - -“One of the brightest books of the year.”--_Boston Budget._ - -“Altogether delightful, fascinating, unusual.”--_Cleveland Amusement -Gazette._ - -“A study in character.... Just as entertaining as though it were the -conventional story of love and marriage. The clever hand of the author -of ‘The Green Carnation’ is easily detected in the caustic wit and -pointed epigram.”--_Jeannette L. 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Cloth, $1.00. - -“Contains some superb specimens of original thought.”--_New York World._ - -“The style is direct and incisive, and holds the unflagging attention -of the reader.”--_Boston Journal._ - -“A powerful story, very simple, very direct.”--_Chicago Evening Post._ - - - - -S. R. CROCKETT’S LATEST BOOKS. - -UNIFORM EDITION. EACH, 12MO. CLOTH, $1.50. - - - _BOG-MYRTLE AND PEAT._ - -“Here are idyls, epics, dramas of human life, written in words that -thrill and burn.... Each is a poem that has an immortal flavor. They -are fragments of the author’s early dreams, too bright, too gorgeous, -too full of the blood of rubies and the life of diamonds to be caught -and held palpitating in expression’s grasp.”--_Boston Courier._ - -“Contains some of the most dramatic pieces Mr. Crockett has yet -written, and in these picturesque sketches he is altogether -delightful.... The volume is well worth reading--all of -it.”--_Philadelphia Press._ - -“Hardly a sketch among them all that will not afford pleasure to the -reader for its genial humor, artistic local coloring, and admirable -portrayal of character.”--_Boston Home Journal._ - -“One dips into the book anywhere and reads on and on, fascinated by the -writer’s charm of manner.”--_Minneapolis Tribune._ - -“These stories are lively and vigorous, and have many touches of human -nature in them--such touches as we are used to from having read ‘The -Stickit Minister’ and ‘The Lilac Sunbonnet.’”--_New Haven Register._ - -“‘Bog-Myrtle and Peat’ contains stories which could only have been -written by a man of genius.”--_London Chronicle._ - - - _THE LILAC SUNBONNET. A Love Story._ - -“A love story pure and simple, one of the old-fashioned, wholesome, -sunshiny kind, with a pure-minded, sound-hearted hero, and a heroine -who is merely a good and beautiful woman; and if any other love -story half so sweet has been written this year, it has escaped our -notice.”--_New York Times._ - -“A solid novel with an old-time flavor, as refreshing when compared to -the average modern story as is a whiff of air from the hills to one -just come from a hothouse.”--_Boston Beacon._ - -“The general conception of the story, the motive of which is the growth -of love between the young chief and heroine, is delineated with a -sweetness and a freshness, a naturalness and a certainty, which places -‘The Lilac Sunbonnet’ among the best stories of the time.”--_New York -Mail and Express._ - -“In its own line this little love story can hardly be excelled. It -is a pastoral, an idyl--the story of love and courtship and marriage -of a fine young man and a lovely girl--no more. But it is told in so -thoroughly delightful a manner, with such playful humor, such delicate -fancy, such true and sympathetic feeling, that nothing more could be -desired.”--_Boston Traveller._ - - - - -NOVELS BY HALL CAINE. - - - _THE MANXMAN._ 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. - -“A story of marvelous dramatic intensity, and in its ethical meaning -has a force comparable only to Hawthorne’s ‘Scarlet Letter.’”--_Boston -Beacon._ - -“A work of power which is another stone added to the foundation of -enduring fame to which Mr. Caine is yearly adding.”--_Public Opinion._ - -“A wonderfully strong study of character; a powerful analysis of those -elements which go to make up the strength and weakness of a man, which -are at fierce warfare within the same breast; contending against each -other, as it were, the one to raise him to fame and power, the other -to drag him down to degradation and shame. Never in the whole range of -literature have we seen the struggle between these forces for supremacy -over the man more powerfully, more realistically delineated than Mr. -Caine pictures it.”--_Boston Home Journal._ - - - _THE DEEMSTER. A Romance of the Isle of Man._ 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. - -“Hall Caine has already given us some very strong and fine work, and -‘The Deemster’ is a story of unusual power.... Certain passages and -chapters have an intensely dramatic grasp, and hold the fascinated -reader with a force rarely excited nowadays in literature.”--_The -Critic._ - -“One of the strongest novels which has appeared in many a day.”--_San -Francisco Chronicle._ - - - _THE BONDMAN._ New edition. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. - -“The welcome given to this story has cheered and touched me, but I am -conscious that, to win a reception so warm, such a book must have had -readers who brought to it as much as they took away.... I have called -my story a saga, merely because it follows the epic method, and I must -not claim for it at any point the weighty responsibility of history, or -serious obligations to the world of fact. But it matters not to me what -Icelanders may call ‘The Bondman,’ if they will honor me by reading it -in the open-hearted spirit and with the free mind with which they are -content to read of Grettir and of his fights with the Troll.”--_From -the Author’s Preface._ - - - _CAPT’N DAVY’S HONEYMOON. A Manx Yarn._ 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, - $1.00. - -“A new departure by this author. Unlike his previous works, this little -tale is almost wholly humorous, with, however, a current of pathos -underneath. It is not always that an author can succeed equally well in -tragedy and in comedy, but it looks as though Mr. Hall Caine would be -one of the exceptions.”--_London Literary World._ - -“It is pleasant to meet the author of ‘The Deemster’ in a brightly -humorous little story like this.... It shows the same observation of -Manx character, and much of the same artistic skill.”--_Philadelphia -Times._ - - - - -BY A. CONAN DOYLE. - - - _THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS._ Being a Series of Twelve Letters written - by J. STARK MUNRO, M. B., to his friend and former fellow-student, - Herbert Swanborough, of Lowell, Massachusetts, during the years - 1881-1884. Illustrated. 12mo. Buckram, $1.50. - -This original and dramatic story presents fresh types, extraordinary -situations, and novel suggestions with a freshness and vigor which show -that the romancer’s heart was in his work. How far certain incidents of -the story are based upon personal experiences it is impossible to say, -but the unflagging interest and unexpected phases of the romance are no -less in evidence than the close personal relations established between -author and reader. In the “Stark Munro Letters” the author has achieved -another success which will add to the number of his American friends -and readers. - - “Any one who has read any of the fascinating stories in which the - shrewd detective, Sherlock Holmes, figures as the very personification - of detective logic applied to the detection of crime, knows that Conan - Doyle is a story-teller of the very first order of merit. Like his own - character, Sherlock Holmes, he possesses the power of getting out of - everything all there is in it.”--_Philadelphia Item._ - - “Dr. Doyle’s stories are so well known for their strong dramatic - style, for the elegance of expression, that anything new from his - pen is sure to be warmly welcomed. His readers are sure of getting - a literary treat from anything he writes. He is broad-minded and - liberal, and the man who could write two such books as ‘The White - Company’ and ‘The Refugees’ has a future which the shades of Scott and - Dickens might envy.”--_Albany Times-Union._ - - - _ROUND THE RED LAMP._ 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. _Seventh edition._ - -The “Red Lamp,” the trade-mark, as it were, of the English country -practitioner’s office, is the central point of these dramatic stories -of professional life. There are no secrets for the surgeon, and, a -surgeon himself as well as a novelist, the author has made a most -artistic use of the motives and springs of action revealed to him in a -field of which he is the master. - - “Too much can not be said in praise of these strong productions, that, - to read, keep one’s heart leaping to the throat and the mind in a - tumult of anticipation to the end.... No series of short stories in - modern literature can approach them.”--_Hartford Times._ - - “The reading of these choice stories will prove an exciting pleasure - to all who may linger on the pages that present them.”--_Boston - Courier._ - - “A strikingly realistic and decidedly original contribution to modern - literature.”--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ - - - _PAUL AND VIRGINIA._ By BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE. With a Biographical - Sketch, and numerous Illustrations by Maurice Leloir. 8vo. Cloth, gilt - top, uniform with “Picciola,” “The Story of Colette,” and “An Attic - Philosopher in Paris.” $1.50. - -It is believed that this standard edition of “Paul and Virginia” with -Leloir’s charming illustrations will prove a most acceptable addition -to the series of illustrated foreign classics in which D. Appleton & -Co. have published “The Story of Colette,” “An Attic Philosopher in -Paris,” and “Picciola.” No more sympathetic illustrator than Leloir -could be found, and his treatment of this masterpiece of French -literature invests it with a peculiar value. - - - _PICCIOLA._ By X. B. SAINTINE. With 130 Illustrations by J. F. - GUELDRY. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50. - -“Saintine’s ‘Picciola,’ the pathetic tale of the prisoner who raised a -flower between the cracks of the flagging of his dungeon, has passed -definitely into the list of classic books.... It has never been more -beautifully housed than in this edition, with its fine typography, -binding, and sympathetic illustrations.”--_Philadelphia Telegraph._ - - - _AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS; or, A Peep at the World from a - Garret._ Being the Journal of a Happy Man. By ÉMILE SOUVESTRE. With - numerous Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50. - -“A suitable holiday gift for a friend who appreciates refined -literature.”--_Boston Times._ - -“The influence of the book is wholly good. The volume is a particularly -handsome one.”--_Philadelphia Telegraph._ - -“It is a classic. It has found an appropriate reliquary. Faithfully -translated, charmingly illustrated by Jean Claude with full-page -pictures, vignettes in the text, and head and tail pieces, printed -in graceful type on handsome paper, and bound with an art worthy of -Matthews, in half-cloth, ornamented on the cover, it is an exemplary -book, fit to be ‘a treasure for aye.’”--_New York Times._ - - - _THE STORY OF COLETTE._ A new large-paper edition. With 36 - Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50. - -“One of the handsomest of the books of fiction for the holiday -season.”--_Philadelphia Bulletin._ - -“One of the gems of the season.... It is the story of the life of young -womanhood in France, dramatically told, with the light and shade and -coloring of the genuine artist, and is utterly free from that which -mars too many French novels. In its literary finish it is well nigh -perfect, indicating the hand of the master.”--_Boston Traveller._ - - - _A FRIEND OF THE QUEEN._ (Marie Antoinette--Count de Fersen.) By PAUL - GAULOT. With Two Portraits, 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. - -“M. Gaulot deserves thanks for presenting the personal history of Count -Fersen in a manner so evidently candid and unbiased.”--_Philadelphia -Bulletin._ - -“There are some characters in history of whom we never seem to grow -tired. Of no one is this so much the case as of the beautiful Marie -Antoinette, and of that life which is at once so eventful and so -tragic.... In this work we have much that up to the present time has -been only vaguely known.”--_Philadelphia Press._ - -“A historical volume that will be eagerly read.”--_New York Observer._ - -“One of those captivating recitals of the romance of truth which are -the gilding of the pill of history.”--_London Daily News._ - -“It tells with new and authentic details the romantic story of Count -Fersen’s (the Friend of the Queen) devotion to Marie Antoinette, of -his share in the celebrated flight to Varennes, and in many other well -known episodes of the unhappy Queen’s life.”--_London Times._ - -“If the book had no more recommendation than the mere fact that Marie -Antoinette and Count Fersen are rescued at last from the voluminous -and contradictory representations with which the literature of that -period abounds, it would be enough compensation to any reader to become -acquainted with the true delineations of two of the most romantically -tragic personalities.--”_Boston Globe._ - - - _THE ROMANCE OF AN EMPRESS. Catharine II of Russia._ By K. - WALISZEWSKI. With Portrait. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. - -“Of Catharine’s marvelous career we have in this volume a sympathetic, -learned, and picturesque narrative. No royal career, not even of some -of the Roman or papal ones, has better shown us how truth can be -stranger than fiction.”--_New York Times._ - -“A striking and able work, deserving of the highest -praise.”--_Philadelphia Ledger._ - -“The book is well called a romance, for although no legends are -admitted in it, and the author has been at pains to present nothing but -verified facts, the actual career of the subject was so abnormal and -sensational as to seem to belong to fiction.”--_New York Sun._ - -“A dignified, handsome, indeed superb volume, and well worth careful -reading.”--_Chicago Herald._ - -“It is a most wonderful story, charmingly told, with new material to -sustain it, and a breadth and temperance and consideration that go far -to soften one’s estimate of one of the most extraordinary women of -history.”--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ - -“The perusal of such a book can not fail to add to that breadth -of view which is so essential to the student of universal -history.”--_Philadelphia Bulletin._ - - - _MANY INVENTIONS._ By RUDYARD KIPLING. Containing fourteen stories, - several of which are now published for the first time, and two poems, - 12mo. 427 pages. Cloth, $1.50. - -“The reader turns from its pages with the conviction that the author -has no superior to-day in animated narrative and virility of style. He -remains master of a power in which none of his contemporaries approach -him--the ability to select out of countless details the few vital ones -which create the finished picture. He knows how, with a phrase or a -word, to make you see his characters as he sees them, to make you feel -the full meaning of a dramatic situation.”--_New York Tribune._ - -“‘Many Inventions’ will confirm Mr. Kipling’s reputation.... We would -cite with pleasure sentences from almost every page, and extract -incidents from almost every story. But to what end? Here is the -completest book that Mr. Kipling has yet given us in workmanship, the -weightiest and most humane in breadth of view.”--_Pall Mall Gazette._ - -“Mr. Kipling’s powers as a story-teller are evidently not diminishing. -We advise everybody to buy ‘Many Inventions,’ and to profit by some of -the best entertainment that modern fiction has to offer.”--_New York -Sun._ - -“‘Many Inventions’ will be welcomed wherever the English language is -spoken.... Every one of the stories bears the imprint of a master -who conjures up incident as if by magic, and who portrays character, -scenery, and feeling with an ease which is only exceeded by the -boldness of force.”--_Boston Globe._ - -“The book will get and hold the closest attention of the -reader.”--_American Bookseller._ - -“Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s place in the world of letters is unique. He sits -quite aloof and alone, the incomparable and inimitable master of the -exquisitely fine art of short-story writing. Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson -has perhaps written several tales which match the run of Mr. Kipling’s -work, but the best of Mr. Kipling’s tales are matchless, and his latest -collection, ‘Many Inventions,’ contains several such.”--_Philadelphia -Press._ - -“Of late essays in fiction the work of Kipling can be compared to only -three--Blackmore’s ‘Lorna Doone,’ Stevenson’s marvelous sketch of -Villon in the ‘New Arabian Nights,’ and Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the -D’Urbervilles.’... It is probably owing to this extreme care that ‘Many -Inventions’ is undoubtedly Mr. Kipling’s best book.”--_Chicago Post._ - -“Mr. Kipling’s style is too well known to American readers to require -introduction, but it can scarcely be amiss to say there is not a story -in this collection that does not more than repay a perusal of them -all.”--_Baltimore American._ - -“As a writer of short stories Rudyard Kipling is a genius. He has had -imitators, but they have not been successful in dimming the luster of -his achievements by contrast.... ‘Many Inventions’ is the title. And -they are inventions--entirely original in incident, ingenious in plot, -and startling by their boldness and force.”--_Rochester Herald._ - - -New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes: - -On page 8, cinder-flare has been changed to cinder flare. - -On page 23, may-be has been changed to maybe. - -On page 73, door-sill has been changed to doorsill. - -On page 157, road bed has been changed to road-bed. - -Variant and archaic spellings and dialect have been retained as typeset. - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STONEPASTURES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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- text-align: center; - page-break-inside: avoid; - max-width: 100%;} - -/* Poetry */ -.poetry-container {text-align: center;} -.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} -/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry in browsers */ -.poetry {display: inline-block;} -.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} -.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} -/* large inline blocks don't split well on paged devices */ -@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } -.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block;} - -/* Transcriber's notes */ -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - padding:0.5em; - margin-bottom:5em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; - margin-left: 20%; - margin-right: 20%; - page-break-before: always;} - -.x-ebookmaker-drop .hide {display: none; visibility: hidden;} - -.x-ebookmaker .hide {display: none; visibility: hidden;} - -.x-ebookmaker .figcenter {width:100%} - -.x-ebookmaker .transnote {margin-left: 2%; margin-right: 2%;} - -.x-ebookmaker .adblock {margin-left: 2%; margin-right: 2%;} - -.x-ebookmaker .pagenum {display: none; visibility: hidden;} - -/* Poetry indents */ -.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} -.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2em;} - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Stonepastures, by Eleanor Stuart Childs</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: Stonepastures</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Eleanor Stuart Childs</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 26, 2022 [eBook #69427]</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: D A Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by University of California libraries)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STONEPASTURES ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter hide" style="width: 30%"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph1">Stonepastures</p></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h1>Stonepastures</h1></div> - -<p class="center no-indent p6b"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br /> -ELEANOR STUART</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 70px;"> -<img src="images/i_title.jpg" width="70" alt="Publishers Logo" /></div> - -<p class="center no-indent p6">NEW YORK<br /> -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> -1895</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center no-indent"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1895,</span><br /> -By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p class="ph2 nobreak">CONTENTS.</p> -<div class="chapter"> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" summary="CONTENTS"> - -<tr><td class="tdc"><small>CHAPTER</small></td> -<td class="tdl"> </td> -<td class="tdc"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">I.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">A city without a street</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">II.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">Wedding gloom</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">III.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">The blast rite</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">IV.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">Quarry the schemer</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">V.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">Hope ahead</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">VI.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">A bad bargain</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">VII.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">Trouble accumulates</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">VIII.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">Quarry’s attempt at explanation</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">IX.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">Breaking up a home</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">X.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">Quarry reckons without his<br /> -hostess</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">XI.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">The strike</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr">XII.—</td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">The eye of God</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdtr"> </td> -<td class="tdtl"><span class="smcap">Epilogue</span></td> -<td class="tdbr"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr> -</table></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> -<p class="ph1 nobreak" id="STONEPASTURES">STONEPASTURES.</p></div> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="I">I.<br /> -<span class="smaller">A CITY WITHOUT A STREET.</span></h2> - -<p class="center no-indent">“To know a man well you must learn his city.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">There</span> are three districts in Soot -City: By the Bridge, By the -Tracks, and the Stonepastures.</p> - -<p>Simeon Quarry—who lived with -the Buttes By the Tracks, and who -knew more of this story than I do—always -began the tale of his town -with this phrase, “As way back as -‘30”; for that was the year when -the big birds sitting on the big -boulders first watched the strangers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span> -with the strings and water levels, -and heard the strangers’ words.</p> - -<p>There abode in the wilderness -of those days—for everything was -Stonepastures then—a Methodist -preacher with a taste for the scripturally -obscure. His circuit included -the site of Soot City, to -which place he gave the name of -Padan-Aram, which endures as the -county name until to-day.</p> - -<p>Among the strange words the -birds heard were “ile,” “iron,” and -“smelt-oven.” These sounds were -each an “open sesame” to hordes -of foreign workers, with a proportion -of native Americans generalled -by Jo Bentley—grandfather of the -Bentley whose plant is still the first -in Soot City.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p> - -<p>In a single lustre there sprang -from the arid strip of country confined -with treeless hills—“Baldhead -Rangers” and “Cleanshorns”—rows -on rows of mean houses, containing -men and women every year lessening -their acquaintance with the -world without. Soot City was their -cradle, the arena of their endeavour, -their deathbed, and their sepulchre.</p> - -<p>By the Bridge dwelt foreman, -bookkeepers, furnace masters, together -with the Bentleys’ outdoor -servants—for they had a great place -now. The son had rowed in the -Cambridge boat, the daughters had -become Episcopalians and gave -great house parties, and the people -By the Bridge who knew them best -were the lawyer, the doctor, the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>baker, and the undertaker, who -conspired against the rest of humanity -as occasion permitted.</p> - -<p>Soot City has no street. Instead, -it has narrow-gauge tracks, -along which the workmen go forth -to and return from labour in the -empty ore cars. The houses By -the Tracks are ranged on either -side of them, and are inhabited by -mechanics, iron workers, truckmen, -freight handlers, and preachers of -minor denominations.</p> - -<p>Beyond the bridge are the Stonepastures, -and beyond these the ore -bed, the smelting place, and the -nutt and bolt factory. The bridge -straddles the tracks so that the -highroad may traverse the town, -and the narrow gauge runs from -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>the gate of Bentley’s Place to the -ore bed under the bridge and over -the Stonepastures. The tracks are -only four miles long, joining the -main line at the furnaces.</p> - -<p>No townsman ever looked at the -sunset, because it went down on the -Stonepastures. Every one’s sunset -was “over there”; and in the -mean hovels that stood out sharply -to the town gaze in an evening’s -afterglow dwelt men who had the -white-lead poison in their hands, or -who had been scorched in a blast, -or who, trying to preserve themselves -in alcohol, had failed.</p> - -<p>The men were hungry and -chafed, wrenching themselves from -sleep of a morning to a dull day, -three parts thirst to one of hunger. -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>The children went to school and -learned to know their parents’ -mistakes, bringing home bitterness -instead of bread. The mothers -washed rags in rusty water, prayed -and played with the children, or -picked up scrap-iron for the men -to sell.</p> - -<p>Accident and sudden death were -about as frequent as night and -day. A squeeze between two ore -cars, or a tendency to slumber -on the tracks after a “cosey of arrack” -at Grigg’s drinkshop, meant -black on some one’s door-handle. -But the “blast” was the horror -that made the women kiss their -men with the fervour of the -last parting when they went off to -work at the ore bed. The blast -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>was not famous for respect of -persons. It rarely killed, but its -victims were rarely cured. There -was a rocky stretch by the ore bed -which young Bentley was having -blown out for the town reservoir, -and the new iron vein backed -against it. Scarcely a blast had -been managed without some one -being thrown to the earth, mangled -with jagged stones—“the throw” -the men called them. It might be -that some one would fall with the -shock and find himself thereafter -deaf to everything but the “dumb -roaring,” and such a one would die -of what the unlettered Methodist -preacher said was “eternal injuries.” -The very children feared the blast.</p> - -<p>There were, however, three things -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>that Soot City loved: Pay-day, Jarlsen, -and the cinder flare. At night -they would pause in their homeward -way from drinkshop or chapel or -Jarlsen’s neat sitting room, and look -toward the smelting furnace. And -as the blaze jumped into the yawning -sky they would bless its fierceness, -and look at the houses and -tracks standing out clearly, saying -along with their good-nights and -good-byes, “God’s lookin’ at cher, -Bill!”</p> - -<p>For they named the light from -the dumped cinder “The eye of -God.”</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II.<br /> -<span class="smaller">WEDDING GLOOM.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“Death doesn’t wait for a man to have his -laugh out.”—<i>Salt-miners saying.</i></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is hard for people who have -never seen places like Soot City -to believe in natures like Emma -Butte’s and August Jarlsen’s. In -river cities the labouring population -may be augmented daily with -a load of tramps and paupers who -can travel on the river about as -cheaply as their own feet can take -them. No travel is as cheap as -river boating. River fares cost -much less than shoes, and no -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>other cities have the shifting masses -that the river cities get.</p> - -<p>This is not the nature of an inland -town whose mine or iron -vein is booming. No one leaves -it. What is usual with one man -may become the common talk of -his district, if he be an influence in -it. The vice of a member of the -town corporation is the sorrow of -the county. The men have gained -their livelihood at the hands of the -town; they nurse their birthplace -when its resource is threatened; -they work for it. Even as they -live by it they die for it.</p> - -<p>In feeling Jarlsen was an American; -his ideals were American. -He went to church soberly, had a -bust of Lincoln on his mantel, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>eschewed labour unions, and gave -away a third of the not too princely -stipend awarded him by the Bentleys -for his position of payman.</p> - -<p>For all that, when the native -Swedes got very drunk of an -evening and, congregating By the -Bridge, swore in their high, unearthly -voices, he would be much -ashamed and wish and even urge -them farther. For he too was born -in Sweden, and said “y” for “j” -even yet, if the men hurried him.</p> - -<p>His room was By the Bridge. -His wont was to ask the better set, -the more American labourers, to his -room of an evening. He then, like -King David, charmed them with a -harp. He would sit in front of the -stove on a packing-box covered -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>with pinkish jute, and there play -and sing strange, sweet songs about -birds and lonely mountains, and -kings’ daughters and sad forests, -and immortality; for these are of -the kinds of songs that come from -the North.</p> - -<p>Jarlsen’s generosity was remarkable; -for his countrymen are -money-getters beyond any non-Semitic -people. The knowledge -of the value of money is born in -them. There is a saying at the -ore beds that testifies to this: “A -Swede will go farther for a dollar -than an Irishman will for a drink.”</p> - -<p>But when Jarlsen took Emma -Butte, in the face of the whole -town, the men of his acquaintance -marvelled greatly. If he were the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>man whom Soot City loved, Emma -was the woman who ruled it. She -“had not the class” that her lover -had.</p> - -<p>Coming into the city as a child, -she had learned the less rough -speech of the town labour and -taken on herself the somewhat -milder manners of the people she -now saw. But she had never tried -to make a place among them; she -lived with her father, plying her odd -trade—she was a barber—and making -her oddest pennies in another -way, as shall be presently set forth.</p> - -<p>In the lighter social semblance -of their town the Bentleys were -paramount. Their doings came to -the town ear somehow, and the -people followed their lead, if it -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>were a possible thing for them. -For example, one of the clerical -workers By the Bridge had invented -an intrenching tool, a spade, -which had been adopted by the -army. As a consequence, he was -invited to eat at the Bentleys’ -Place. On his return from the -feast he reported to his eager circle -that not only had the ground-floor -rooms been filled with people, -but that Miss Bentley’s bedroom -looked like an intelligence office, -so full was it of the maids of the -ladies below.</p> - -<p>This detail of magnificence so -possessed the minds of the female -portion of the inventor’s acquaintance -that By the Tracks was drawn -on for Abigails. Male escort was -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>frowned down completely. One -might return from a Soot City revel -with a man, but to go with one—if -he were not “steady company”—was -proof positive that there -was no quarter-dollar wherewith to -hire attendance. Emma was often -retained as lady-in-waiting, and -through this curiously pretentious -institution met and obtained Jarlsen, -as well as her fees.</p> - -<p>Quarry boarded in the Butte -household. No one knew why. -He imposed on them always, and -made them uncomfortable with his -odd ways and bad tongue. His -board was paid intermittently and -with recurrent ill will. He was always -a stranger and equally an inmate. -He had a fashion of rapping -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>at Emma’s window (her room was -on the ground floor) and complaining -to her of slights imposed on him -by members of her acquaintance.</p> - -<p>She felt him to be the only man -life had shown her whose faults were -not condoned by a liking for herself.</p> - -<p>Every Sunday found her in a -leather apron giving Quarry his -Sunday morning’s dram of sweetened -rum in his tea, to keep him -quiet through shaving hours. He -came from Ryde, Isle of Wight, -and drank tea to the memory of his -old home, which had long since forgotten -him.</p> - -<p>Then Emma would get to work. -Her apron was of red leather -hemmed up with brass-topped -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>nails. It had a pocket lined with -tin, where her lather brush was put -when she took the razor from under -the straps on her left sleeve to -stroke a labourer’s jowl. Her lips -would be pressed together tightly -then, her curling hair caught back -with a round comb, like a child’s. -When she lathered she talked and -laughed, but when she shaved she -was silent.</p> - -<p>Jarlsen shaved himself latterly, -and no one understood it but -Emma. All the men thought she -“had a fluke and struck ile, when -she was just digging for potatoes.” -That she, in the exercise of her odd -function, should have secured Jarlsen -seemed to them a wonderful -thing. But it was not.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> - -<p>Emma was a very good woman, -and that is just the same as a lady -to men of Jarlsen’s make.</p> - -<p>He had begun to shave himself -the day he felt he loved his barber. -The town discovered his feelings -the very day he did, and promptly -prophesied trouble. “Jest es soon -es he felt like marryin’ her he -should hev broke her into shavin’ -weekdays, an’ kep’ a clean chin on -him all the time,” was what every -one said.</p> - -<p>Of course, in the eyes of her -townspeople Emma put on airs -also, for she took to going to -church. She never went so far as -to stand during the singing, for that -would have cost her all her trade. -No one stands up in the extremely -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>unorthodox Methodist chapel Soot -City operatives affect, except those -who are converted or those desiring -the prayers of converts.</p> - -<p>Now, Jarlsen stood always and -was never criticised. His friends -said he could sing better if he -stood. No one ever asked him if -this were true, because they were -sure he would say it was not. Thus -it may appear that Soot City was -not religious, except at blast rites -and funerals.</p> - -<p>Emma’s heart grew mellow with -his singing as she sat beside him. -She loved him dearly, as young -women do love the men who enrich -their lives; there was a large -element of gratitude in what she -felt. She never talked as the others -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>talked about their men, for, as was -said, she was a very good woman. -And so she got the name of being -a lady. The others hated her, -and most of the men asked her -advice and acted on it.</p> - -<p>On the eve of her wedding she -sat in her white pique wedding -dress, listening to the snarl of the -country fiddles as they were played -for the dancers. They snarled for -two reasons: they were not good -fiddles and they were not well -played.</p> - -<p>The bride-elect was not to go into -the dancing room—erst kitchen and -tonsorial arena—until Jarlsen came -and led her thither. He was a little -behind his time, she thought, but -her serenity remained complete. -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>There had been yet no clamour -of voices and no clatter of feet, -going the faster because so near -the last dance. She could hear -her name and Jarlsen’s. One man -told how he had gone to pay off -the extra men who were to be discharged -after the blast by the new -vein.</p> - -<p>She remembered that Quarry was -on that detail as machinist. That -made her think it must have been -a long job, for Quarry’s voice carried -wonderfully, and she did not -distinguish it among the others in -the kitchen. Her mind wandered -to the consideration of the capabilities -of her shaving apron as a -cover for the packing-box her lover -sat on when he played. That suggested<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> -to her the probability she -should never shave again, and that -no woman would dare after her -marriage to stand in her doorway -and say in venomous admiration, -“How elegant you shave!” They -had done it often heretofore, God -knew.</p> - -<p>Her window was raised slightly, -and some one tapped on the jamb. -She turned her head at this usual -intrusion. “Come off, Quarry!” -she said hotly.</p> - -<p>He came in through the window -and stood by the door. “It’s a real -pity Jarlsen’s late,” he answered. -His voice was hard and nasal, the -most effective voice for taunts.</p> - -<p>“Is he late?” she asked more -crossly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> - -<p>Quarry laughed. “I guess,” he -said, “you knew he was late before -it would have been quite time for -him to come. You know the listening -heart worries terrible they -say, and you ain’t got no call to be -so high with me. You can hear -them girls in the kitchen laughin’ -at you, same’s I do. I guess Jarlsen’s -getting tired, maybe. He’s -kinder in demand, seein’ he’s the -only fellow that’s kep’ his complexion -in the whole plant.”</p> - -<p>Emma grew rather white. “Stop -your nasty tongue!” she cried imperatively. -“You’re always lying! -Your face is lying and your eyes -can’t see straight. You let what -people do to me alone, or you’ll -have business of your own to settle. -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>If I was a man, and couldn’t get a -respectable girl to marry me because -I was a liar and she hated -me, I’d let her alone for shame’s -sake, when she took up with a man -who can tell the truth.”</p> - -<p>Her voice sounded very loud in -her ears as she stopped; for the -two fiddles were still, and there was -no talking among the dancers.</p> - -<p>Quarry opened the door as if -some one had knocked, and looked -out. His features acquired a sudden -prominence as the colour flew -from his face. Fear crept into Emma’s -eyes while she looked at him, -shaking with his shadow on the -half-open door.</p> - -<p>She forgot him in the great cry -that burst from the other room. It -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>was a horrified, helpless cry, that -gave place to a shocked silence.</p> - -<p>She wrenched the door back and -stood on the threshold in her white, -scant gown of mechanic’s bride’s -finery. Her attitude showed faintness, -and her head hung down for -lack of courage.</p> - -<p>The two fiddlers were kneeling, -with their tears streaming like rain; -they were Polacks, and knelt in -gratitude for any excitement. The -other men were hushed and stern.</p> - -<p>On the big table where the arrack -punch had been in company -with the less heady beer there was -a long, writhing hummock, covered -with burlap.</p> - -<p>No form was discernible, but -Emma knew at the first strong -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>heart-beat that it was Jarlsen, -singed and crippled with a careless -blast, as many another had -been.</p> - -<p>The women wailed at her, and -the men tried to stay her with -their rusty hands. Yet she went -forward, pity for him drawing her, -and did not pause until she looked -him in the face.</p> - -<p>It was black. The hair was gone; -his teeth were fixed in the cracked -lower lip, and the eyes, once so -wide and bold, were pinkish seams -beneath the puffed-out temples.</p> - -<p>The women had crowded to her -back. Their breathing was heavy -and in unison.</p> - -<p>Emma leaned over him and said -softly, in a mother’s voice, “Do you -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>hear me speak?” She raised his -head on her arm, but it settled back -on the table with a sharp crack. He -had not heard.</p> - -<p>She scanned him closely. She -had not yet the full sense of this -man covered with burlap and disabled; -she only knew that it was -not death. But now her lower lip -jerked down at the corners, though -her eyes were dry. The Polack -fiddlers drew each a long breath; -they saw the crisis of the scene -approaching, and were preparing to -bellow loudly.</p> - -<p>Emma raised her head. “God’s -name,” she said, “he’s blasted!”</p> - -<p>The women’s faces were curious, -inquisitive; and Quarry stood at her -side sobbing like a Polack.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></p> - -<p>The men who had lifted the -Swede in after the blast raised him -again, and laid him on the bed in -Emma’s room.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III.<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE BLAST RITE.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“Sometimes if you make ready for bad luck -it doesn’t come.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">No</span> one in Soot City was surprised -at a funeral for a man yet in -the flesh. Such rites were a custom -in the terrible, black little town, -where the birds flew low for the -damp of steam and the prevalence -of soot in the air, and where any -fine man who took life eagerly in -the morning might be blasted at -the noontide snack.</p> - -<p>The Scandinavian labourers gave -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>a tone to all the customs of the -town, as the Polacks gave an intensity -to all its dissipations. The -drink of expatriated Poland is -crude alcohol and water, and their -drunkenness is a restless insanity -that would be murderous in a less -childish people. One idea that is -directly referable to the Swede -minds is that which gave rise to -the blast rites. Their feeling had -become general that a man might -“get beyond the blast”—that is, get -over its scorch and shock—if only -his friends could be brought to behave -as if he were really dead.</p> - -<p>Emma was more than Norse in -her superstitious observances. She -would put a handful of soil from -her bit of garden into her wedding -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>shoes, just like any tow-headed bride -in the Swede quarter. This was -called “getting the favour of home.” -It was very solemn, and often followed -by hysterics.</p> - -<p>But the circumstances of Jarlsen’s -mishap favoured the idea of -complete death. He had left a paper -with his landlord, “Wavering -Jim,” providing for Emma in case -of “death, accident, or blast.” It -wasn’t a legalized proceeding, but -the ignorance of Soot City respected -writing beyond most -things, and no one would dispute -a paper with names signed to it. -The three hundred dollars coming -thus yearly to Emma would mean -a great deal of comfort to her.</p> - -<p>The blast rite was to be at Emma’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> -house, as Jarlsen’s body was as -much an essential to it as if there -could have been a sequent interment. -The men came in and out -a good deal and whispered as to -how to tell Emma of her legacy, -for every one felt it would be unbecoming -to force the news on her. -The way in which they broke it to -her would have been tactful even -for gentlemen.</p> - -<p>Wavering Jim came down the -tracks in an ore car that sided by -the Buttes’s gate every night. He -didn’t get out of it, but waved his -hand to her. Emma guessed that -he wanted to say something in private, -and went to the gate to hear -it. “Well,” he said, “the weather -ain’t stopped bein’ fine, cert’in’y.” -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>Emma knew it must be something -very important to call for a -preamble as ornate as this remark -about the weather.</p> - -<p>Jim paused and looked about -him. “Quarry ain’t in,” said Emma -instinctively. “Emma,” he said, -“I’m stone sure you’re frettin’ -yourself into a terrible chafe ’bout -gettin’ Mr. Jarlsen proper accommodations, -regardin’ soup, soft -victual, and invalid’s board generally.”</p> - -<p>The girl’s eyes bulged with apprehension. -“We don’t want no subscription -papers for us, and if Miss -Bentley sends her soup here I’ll -water the flowers with it. We ain’t -no Stonepasture poverty yet, to -drink the dishwater outer By the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>Bridge kitchen. He can’t eat -nothing but what I get and -cook.”</p> - -<p>“Now jest dry up, Emma Butte,” -said Jim very gently; “old sheep -Bentley with her soup and her -weepin’ ain’t goin’ to come soothin’ -and scratchin’ ’round this yard. Jarlsen -left a little paper with me that -fixes that. All that you’ve got to -do is to practise your signature on -his papers in the presence of a few -old friends. He grabbed considerable -’fore he was taken,” said Jim -sympathetically. Leaving the car, -he walked nimbly down tracks. No -one understands the Godsend news -is, in a labouring community. Jim -felt elated that he had lodged a man -who had money to look after. This -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>vicarious business transaction was -the biggest in his life.</p> - -<p>Then the undertaker called that -evening. He made the same announcement. -Small and sympathetic, -he threw a cheerfulness into -all his sombre doings. He was a -rarely lovely man, and had as little -jealousy as a sleeping child. He -attended blast rites where he never -made a penny, as faithfully as he did -funerals whereby he supported himself -and his friends.</p> - -<p>His family were four striped cats.</p> - -<p>He was extremely fond of -prayers and hymns, and, consequently, -women. The men never -guessed it of him. They knew -that he would lend money, but -had not yet discovered that, had -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>they been able to repeat a sacred -stanza, they need not have repaid -him.</p> - -<p>Emma’s heart beat fast with gratitude -when Jeremy Black kissed -her. She felt all along that one -of the women might have done -so, and it added to her uneasiness -about Quarry’s visiting, for he would -look at her and smile, and then wag -his shaggy head, as he had always -done when he had been about the -Tracks telling lies.</p> - -<p>She held little, black-coated Jerry -very close to her, as disappointed -children hug the family cat or dog. -The day before she had gone in to -kiss Jarlsen, but his poor face was -sore with scorch and his side was -bruised from where the blast threw -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>him. So she had spread her longing -hands over him in realization -that the women wouldn’t love the -barber and that her man couldn’t -see her sorrow.</p> - -<p>Jeremy was immensely pleased -with her. He came soon to the -subject of the blast rite, and arranged -it in his deprecating way, -holding his barber’s brown hand -against his side and calling her -Jarlsen’s love names, but in a safe, -motherly voice that made Emma -sure she need not fear the women -even if they saw her with him. -“Now, Emma, you can’t get a regular -preacher to pray over anything -but a sure and cold corpse, so we’ll -get Quarry to say the sermon, alludin’ -to past virtues and the future<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> -crown. It’ll make things right -with Quarry, who ain’t the Tracks’ -darling just exactly, and I’ll take -the prayers myself. Then the Polacks -will fiddle and I’ll sing ‘The -land beyond the sky’ and ‘Peace -comes after pain’—that’s a nice -song, perfectly novel, with three -acts and a chorus. I won’t let on -it has a chorus, for them Polacks is -so insaturated with alcohol they -might get things noisy.”</p> - -<p>“But do speak good and loud,” -said Emma, “for August might -hear something to please him.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right,” said Jerry, “don’t -you lose your grit. You kin never -tell how far a man will get beyond -the blast with good nursing.”</p> - -<p>Every one knew that Jarlsen was -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>stone-deaf since the blast, and Emma -spoke of his hearing the—in -one sense—post-mortem eulogies -from a desire to combat the idea. -Perhaps Jeremy feared she might -appeal to him for encouragement -on this point, for he hurried on to -the next.</p> - -<p>“Since the beloved lips is silent, -I expect I’m the first singer in the -city. He had a way of doing gargles -on the upper notes that would -beat a seraph singing. But I’m -goin’ to organize as notional a rite -as I can, bringing forty years of experience, -man and boy, to bear on -this one sad occasion. It’ll be the -blasted best blast rite ever you saw. -It’s queer they can’t cover them -blasts or get the men off in time, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>or so’s they won’t touch the torch -to it before the word’s given! I’ve -had some corpses in two years -from blasts, and all jest es ragged -and singed es could be, let alone -the blasts that’s lying deaf and -blind round the city yet!”</p> - -<p>The day of the mock-death service -dawned clear and bright, which -was held to be bad by the weather-weird-wise, -as the Scotch among -them said. Quarry had rum in his -tea as early as 6 <span class="allsmcap">A. M.</span> He was -always up early on rum days, but -he beat his own precedent this -morning.</p> - -<p>He insisted upon setting the -house in readiness. He had formed -a habit of talking to himself since -he had grown fearful of committing -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>himself with talking to the other -men, for Quarry had many things -to hide, and knew his limitations -as regarded discretion. His main -thought was that he would rather -spend money on what was only an -approach to Jarlsen’s corpse than -hoard it. Besides that, he had the -cosy consciousness that it had -looked friendly when he and Emma -had issued together from her -room on the night when Jarlsen -came singed to his wedding dance.</p> - -<p>“The greatest thing happened me -since my first drink,” he kept saying -like a refrain, as he cut long festoons -of coloured paper to hang about the -mantel and the thinly gilt picture -frames. He went By the Bridge -to Jarlsen’s old room, which was -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>still in some confusion, with his -working clothes tossed aside by -Wavering Jim. Jarlsen had folded -them neatly when he had donned his -wedding suit to go pay off the men. -It was Jarlsen’s portrait in crayon -that Quarry had come for. He tied -it up with a lank bow-knot of cheap -<i>crêpe</i>, and laughed in real mirth.</p> - -<p>“Now, Jarlsen,” he said in banter, -“I do seem to see myself somehow -in the glass over your portrait. -Funny, ain’t it?”</p> - -<p>By the Bridge he purchased five -sticks of pretzels, for in Soot City -long sticks are run by venders -through these open-work wares.</p> - -<p>When all was ready at the -Buttes’s, he helped lift the big -Swede from Emma’s cot to the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>kitchen table. He was dressed, of -course, in what was to have been -his wedding suit, and the odd -lengths of hair that were left him -were brushed out on either side -of his head to make a good show. -His beard had not grown on one -cheek, and Quarry surveyed him -with great satisfaction. “Seems -they’ve kind o’ singed them right-hand -glands where the hair starts -out,” he said. “It’s real hard to -keep your complexion right here.”</p> - -<p>Emma had been sleeping on a -couple of ironing boards laid on -the hard clay of the lean-to where -the pans and scant house-tackle -were kept. The thought of hardship -had not occurred to her. She -had saved her heartbroken minutes -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>for the sordid privacy of the chill -lean-to. The place had for her the -charm of liberty, which, we are told, -is the charm of paradise itself.</p> - -<p>Her behaviour was not very agonized. -She crouched on the blanketed -boards and courted the slow -tears that crept from her eyes and -were healing to her hurt. They -alone relieved her; and sometimes, -when they would not come, she -would grip the scant old skirt that -covered her and pray in a loud -whisper, with the vital faith of the -poor.</p> - -<p>When she woke on the morning -of the blast rite they had already -moved Jarlsen. He lay on the -table, roused, but baffled by the -strange dimness in him. No voices -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>and no light could come into his -world except through memory; he -was heir to a limitless pain in the -sense of tyrannic suppression that -possessed him.</p> - -<p>Etiquette assigned Emma the -place by the stove. She took it at -once as the mourners were gathering -rapidly. The company at the -wedding dance was indistinguishable -in the crowd of to-day.</p> - -<p>There were many operatives and -all the foremen—of the new vein, -the nutt, and bolt factory, etc. -These last had their clerks in -attendance. Miss Bentley came -among the first arrivals, bringing -Emma sweet crackers and a hymn-book.</p> - -<p>And Emma cursed her—a great, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>ignorant, insolent, heartfelt curse—because -she thought these things -could console her; things the -Misses Bentley would never offer -each other if their men had the -blast. But Miss Bentley was one -more of those devout women, not -a few, who, because of a congenital -shyness, can not do a kindness -kindly. Emma would have given -thanks for the same things given -another way.</p> - -<p>The foremen also brought their -wives, worthy women with sleek -children, who consumed many pretzels -with a brisk crunching that annoyed -Emma greatly. She wanted -people to be sad and unable to -eat; to be upset with the trouble -that had faded out her future -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>with one too vivid moment of -pain.</p> - -<p>Quarry sat at a table that was -covered with a white cloth. Upon -this lay a Bible and a bound time-table. -The fitness of this was in -the binding, which was ecclesiastically -purple.</p> - -<p>The table was flanked by the Polacks, -looking wretched, as if they -had wept all night and grieved -since morning on empty stomachs. -They tuned their fiddles with writhing -faces, and played the “Land o’ -the Leal,” as the remaining space in -Emma’s kitchen was being filled -with the less shy among the labourers. -The others stood at the -open windows where the sunlight -should have been.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p> - -<p>Jeremy Black offered prayer, shyly -enough, for the Methodist minister -was attending as a layman. He -prayed for this and that, rather inconsequently, -and with a red face; -but Emma liked it better than anything -else in the service. It was -like her own prayer of last night: -“O Lord, thou knowest what I -want and what I don’t want. Please -don’t send me what I don’t want. -Good-night.” Even to God Emma -could not name Jarlsen’s death.</p> - -<p>Her father came in at the climax -of Jerry’s petition. He shook his -head at Jarlsen’s big, quiet shape -on the table, and announced in a -voice that shook with emotion that -“young men would be young men.” -No one but Emma was galled with -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>this needlessly irrelevant statement. -In the less book-learned phases of -life many people use expressions -just because they admire them, not -because they express their feeling, -their fancy, or a fact. It is no more -to be wondered at than the prayers -they make, which would read like -telegraphic messages in a High -Church congregation.</p> - -<p>After his prayer Jerry sang. It -is confessed that he sang less for -art than for audience. He loved -to sing. His voice was thin and -rather sweet; his intonation very -sure and happy. He contrived to -infuse a wistfulness into the most -martial or condemnatory ballads, -types of song he particularly affected.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span></p> - -<p>There is always a good deal of -preface to singing like his, and he -was not above throat-clearing and -loud swallowing. The verse he -sang had been used at blast rites -since the Swedes came first to Soot -City. Its refrain was sung softly by -every one to an accompaniment of -rocking bodies:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“Don’t fret, old wife, nor cry,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For God won’t pass you by;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He may come late, but if you wait,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You’ll get behind the sky.”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Then Quarry rose with some -pomp and spoke thus: “Ladies -and friends: Some lives is all chair-cars -and champagne; some lives -is neither. I’m not saying what -they are, for this is no time to start -more tears. Some feels the whip, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>some wears the willow, some gets -their own way. These last says the -skimpiest ‘Glory be to God!’</p> - -<p>“This house is a house of mourning. -The one ewe lamb went to the -pasture, and come home bit by the -wolf! Here to-day, there to-morrow! -Our God is a very fearful -thing!”</p> - -<p>Quarry was considered an orator -in Soot City. He always spoke at -social functions and stirred his audiences.</p> - -<p>“This man”—here the blackest -Polack snorted like the report of -firearms, and every one at the -sound burst into weeping—“this -man,” screamed Quarry, strengthening -his effect, “was a good man! -He knew ten at night as well as -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>the town clock. He was a Christian -gentleman, and done as well -by his friends as he did by the -chapel, and what more can a man -do? In passing out, those that -knowed him good, or any of the -men that were pretty common -with him, can put their hands on -his hand, as some has the feelin’ -it’s best.”</p> - -<p>Thereupon Quarry made way for -himself to the kitchen table, and -stood striving against a triumph so -strong that it seemed a physical sensation. -And Jarlsen lay scorched, -inert, and blasted.</p> - -<p>To any one knowing the old -Saxon custom of touching a corpse -as a means of finding its unconfessed -murderer the scene would -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>have been more intense from the -moment that the first hand—a -woman’s—was laid on the least -sore member of Jarlsen’s wrecked -body.</p> - -<p>None but Miss Bentley knew -that the custom was a primitive -habit of the race. She alone had -a vision of spurting blood as the -guilty hand touched its victim. -That vision was usual to her at -the blast rites, and she felt a -strange thrill of uncertainty when -she put her own innocent, helping -hand on a blasted labourer.</p> - -<p>The greater part of the crowd -strolled off, subdued, into the bright -morning. The rest lingered to lay -hands on an old friend.</p> - -<p>Jarlsen, the man who had given -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>his ear to their sorrows and lent his -high, searching voice to all their -social joys, was virtually dead to -them; and it was in tense silence -that the heavy-footed workmen approached -the table. Then there -would be a sobbing sigh, and some -one would pass out at the door. -Few people can touch the dead -without tears, and as Jerry Black -said, “The blasts is dead men with -live tongues.”</p> - -<p>They had all gone; the room -grew light as the crowd moved from -the windows. Sunlight bathed the -floor at Emma’s feet, and Black -stood beside her, knowing she -feared to be without him when -Jarlsen was deaf to her and Quarry -spoke his kind of love to her, and -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>her father was only a peevish old -child. Quarry laid a nervous hand -on Jarlsen, who had been roused -more than once through his tactile -sense as some old friend’s hand had -lain for a moment on his.</p> - -<p>When Quarry’s touch fell on him, -he cried out, “O Emma, Emma! -am I dead, that I can not hear you? -Is your voice gone behind the sky, -that you hold your mouth yet? Is -your hand cut off you? Don’t -marry Quarry till I am home -again! Emma, tell me where you -are. It is all black inside me!”</p> - -<p>Emma leaped to him. She was -“swift as a wicked cat,” Quarry -told her later on when he cursed -her.</p> - -<p>She hurt him cruelly, but Jarlsen -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>smiled, and his blackened face grew -brighter. “I shall not marry until -Heaven—” she vowed, but he could -not hear. The pain of her embrace -was fearful, but she clung fast, and -called out in her big voice the loyalty -he longed for and that he felt -in the suffering her strong arms -caused him, even though he could -not hear.</p> - -<p>And then Jerry touched her. -“I’m afraid he’s fainted,” he said, -as though he apologized.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV.<br /> -<span class="smaller">QUARRY THE SCHEMER.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“The winged word of spite outstrips a kindness.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emma</span> was too tired to feel her -unhappiness, and too relieved, now -that everything was over, to feel -her loneliness very much. The -blast rite had somehow robbed her -of her hope of Jarlsen’s recovery, -and established the idea of his -death in her mind. Jeremy Black -nursed him at first, after her outburst. -In the neighbours’ phrase, -he “turned and fed the poor blast.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p> - -<p>Emma’s crude nature found a -pleasure—never before known to -her—in food, and in lying on the -lean-to floor and thanking God -that her barber days were over. -Her voice was harsh and loud; she -had always hidden it from Jarlsen. -To-day she sang and was not -ashamed.</p> - -<p>Then Black went mysteriously to -the city. This might mean New -York, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, or -some nearer, smaller town than -either of these. He left at the beginning -of the drought, and Emma, -with the rest of his townspeople, -envied him sorely. Her resumed -service to Jarlsen was automatic. -He spoke, but she did not listen; -she was afraid of being hurt if she -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>heard his words. The drought -made her double work, for her patient -drank a great deal of water, -and refused it with a wearied patience -if it were not cold. She -often went at noon to the Bridge -well, her tin dipper growing burning -hot beneath a sun that made -the mica specks shine in the roadside -dust. She lagged heavily down -the hill, the people greeting her and -she answering without knowledge -of what they said. She had learned -that forgetfulness is the better part -of wisdom.</p> - -<p>She could not ignore Quarry; -he was merciless. On Sunday she -went at six for Jarlsen’s drink -from the well. She had a handful -of oatmeal to put in it; and, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>as she leaned over and caught the -dripping bucket, she heard Quarry’s -voice in the alder thicket that smelt -sweet with the heavy dew on it.</p> - -<p>“She’s a real good girl, and I -can’t help but feel, ef she could -let me at her wedding dance, set -alone with her waitin’ till Jarlsen -come, that I owe it to her to marry -her, and I think when she’s worn -out her mourning thet she’d be -agreeable. He was a queer fellow; -hed them fancy virtues thet prevents -a man from making a good -husband jest as sure as his havin’ -the vices would. He give his -money to lame-legged and blind-eyed, -and thet’s keepin’ it from -wifie jest es much es if he give -it up for drink.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span></p> - -<p>A woman’s voice answered him -in full assent: “You’ll not be the -only one to marry her, though; -she’s got money now, and a rare -head for livin’ straight.”</p> - -<p>Emma had not seen the woman, -but guessed it must be one of those -who “wrought” in the offices of the -plant, writing, or sorting the mass of -mail. Excepting herself Quarry -rarely spoke to any one of less class -among the women.</p> - -<p>She was very angry, and could see -how Quarry had used it all in his -talk; all the circumstances of her -courtship he could twist into evidence -that she had loved nothing -of Jarlsen but what he had left her. -She could hear the woman’s opinion -that her conduct was not quite right, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>uttered in the dry tone she used -when speaking of her straight life.</p> - -<p>She said to herself just as fiercely -as ever that Quarry was a liar, but -she felt that happiness had given -her the power to fight him, and -now her happiness was gone. She -remembered with a dim horror -that Quarry had resumed a practice, -since Jarlsen’s mishap, that she -hoped her engagement had ended. -Up to the day that they had spoken -of their marriage publicly, Quarry -would take things into his hands -that Emma had lately touched and -fondle them. He had done so -again the day of the blast rite, she -remembered.</p> - -<p>She had intended to revel in her -grief at chapel that morning, and -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>Quarry had divined her intention. -She meant to stand in the singing, -as Jarlsen had stood, and sob when -the preacher shivered and scowled -and beat the reading-desk with his -fists. She would not go now. She -felt that no one would believe that -she mourned for him if Quarry had -been talking about her very much -in the way she had heard. She -burned to speak with him of the -traitor’s part he had played.</p> - -<p>It was as usual in Soot City as -in other places for folks to bethink -themselves of the church when -trouble thwarts them; and so every -one went to church expecting Emma. -And Quarry’s tongue was not -quite long enough to have reached -the general ear in so short a time.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p> - -<p>The congregation was very large, -and the flattered minister observed -Emma’s absence with satisfaction. -He never thought that his hearers -could have been ignorant of her -intention to stay at home, and -supposed that in the sudden calamity -come upon the town they had -found a warning anent churchless -ways. He announced an extra -service at three in the afternoon, -and the only person who answered -it was Jeremy Black’s foreman, who -came to protest.</p> - -<p>After service Quarry went straight -to Emma’s room. He could not account -for her absence; he had intended -to sit with her in the front -pew while she stood in the singing. -He expected to colour his stories -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>with her behaviour and satisfy every -one that she had loved the money -Jarlsen left her the best of all his -attentions.</p> - -<p>She was sitting with her charge, -who lay with his face turned away -from the sun—blind, maimed, deaf—yet -as conscious of Quarry’s presence -as when last week he had -turned to him with lazy scorn and -a short word.</p> - -<p>“Emma,” said Quarry.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, after a pause. -She had been wondering if he -could have been telling about the -money everywhere and “setting the -men on her.”</p> - -<p>Quarry looked at her and at Jarlsen -with a twist in his mouth that -he thought of as “his smile.” He -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>realized that he could insult Emma -thoroughly in the presence of a Soot -citizen who could not stir to protect -her.</p> - -<p>“The women think you might as -well marry,” he said. “You’ve got -the fixin’s, and if you take me -you’ve got the husband. The -whole place expects a wedding -off you. You’ve got the extra -money to care for your friend -here.”</p> - -<p>“I’d rather give up the money -than take you; besides,” she said -spitefully, “there’s better men nor -you in the town that knows I have -money for my man. You ain’t no -kind to love me after what I’ve had, -and I don’t want you should make -my love for this one shabby, talkin’ -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>it over all the time. You can get -out,” she said very quietly.</p> - -<p>Quarry went; and, as he said -himself, his heart was sour.</p> - -<p>Then Emma stayed at Jarlsen’s -side and prayed in the hot afternoon -silence, and wondered why -God didn’t do something worth -while—that is how she thought it. -But she never doubted Him nor the -fate that He ordained, but rocked -in her only rocking-chair and kissed -her helpless lover boldly, longing -for a woman’s touch as a sick child -longs for its mother.</p> - -<p>When Jarlsen spoke her name -she trembled with love of him; she -was awake now and filled with pity. -She did not answer, but, like a child, -prayed God to tell Jarlsen she heard -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>him call, and then slept till the coolness -of dusk awoke her. Jarlsen -slept a little while too, and told her -he had talked with her in dreams.</p> - -<p>She got the supper, talking -within herself. “I can feel things -mend,” she said. “Every one will -come out right, and my big man -will live again and lick that terrible -scant Christian, Quarry!”</p> - -<p>She ate her supper opposite her -silent old father. It was quite late; -they had candles and a lamp, which -was only an extravagance for courting-time -in the sordid social usage -of Soot City.</p> - -<p>Emma had not thought of this -till Ben Bowa, the youngest foreman, -stood in the narrow doorway.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know to come in till I -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>saw lights making the shine,” he -explained in Swedes’ English. And -then many more came in, and the -kitchen was full. Jarlsen cried for -water from the next room, and before -Emma could get to her feet -Quarry had gone to him.</p> - -<p>“How can I show them I don’t -want one of them?” she thought. -There was no word of Jarlsen, and -everything went on as it had when -the one or two men courted her before -Jarlsen took her.</p> - -<p>Bowa cut profiles out of paper -and asked whose they were, and the -other men performed their trifling -social accomplishments. They were -endeavouring to “raise a laugh”; -none came.</p> - -<p>Late at night a wakeful neighbour<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> -heard Emma’s door close, and -later God heard her sobbing. “That -Quarry’s done me!” was what she -said.</p> - -<p>And through the night her eyes -burned, and she felt that the darkness -fell like a weight on them. -She longed even for Miss Bentley -or the Polack girls’ overdressed -Madonnas.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V.<br /> -<span class="smaller">HOPE AHEAD.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“Only the saints and the feeble-minded suffer -gladly.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emma</span> tossed restlessly that night. -Once the cinder flare leaped upon -her walls, staining them with a flickering -orange glow. This incident -emphasized to her mind the horrid -blackness that had lately fastened -on their household.</p> - -<p>She awoke very early next morning -in the final, nervous way that -worried people dread, and sat huddled -on the floor of the lean-to in -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>the still, sunless cold. Jarlsen’s loud -talk echoed in the empty kitchen, -but she knew she could not wake -him with her voice. The thought -recurred to her with all the force of -discovery that, waking or sleeping, -the voices of this world were dead -to him.</p> - -<p>Black would return to-day. It -was odd to call this hour to-day. -The noontide that would bring -Black again to Soot City seemed -very different from any dim time of -loud agonies like that which makes -the dawns of the sore-hearted.</p> - -<p>To-day she would also be paid -the “blast money,” part accident insurance -and part Jarlsen’s savings. -The anticipation of this pleased her -until she moved into disordered -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>kitchen and saw the chairs as Bowa -and the others had left them, and -smelt the lamp that was a survival -of the courting days she had prized. -Then she groaned.</p> - -<p>For a moment the idea of bringing -out the leather barber’s apron -and the keen razors, as a tacit contradiction -to any report of her -wealth, seemed a clear inspiration. -But with Quarry and Wavering -Jim to talk, she knew all delicate -denial to be useless.</p> - -<p>She opened the house and sat -along the narrow doorsill, her back -to one jamb, her knees drawn up -and fixed against the other. As -the sun came up, the cinder flare -crept in a stealthy flush along -the earth and lost its power in -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>the heavens as the day grew -bright.</p> - -<p>At last the cold stung her hands, -and the sun chased the shivers -down her back, so that she went -again into the house, forgetting -that an hour since she had loathed -it. Quarry was with Jarlsen, who -clamoured on, asking questions -whose answers he could not hear.</p> - -<p>He was learning his deafness by -degrees, for his fits of silence were -longer, but with Quarry he talked -always. Quarry’s touch was abominable -to the Swede, and his presence -pricked to the quick a soul -whose every other approach was -blockaded.</p> - -<p>Emma, in pity, took up the jug -of sweet oil to bathe the burns. -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>Her hand was light from shaving, -and it had learned a wonderful caution -from the teachings of pain. -She could mitigate its brown -strength with a suddenness like -the swift softnesses of Jarlsen’s old-time -singing, and he would smile at -her as she used to smile at his own -skilled tunefulness. She almost -stroked the scorches with her wise, -soothing hands.</p> - -<p>She had meant to spend the -morning on the doorsill, in the -hope that a passing woman might -be kind and glance her way. She -longed so for a woman’s friendship! -She was sure that half the sting of -her sorrow would vanish with recital.</p> - -<p>At the last accident, when they -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>brought home Jerry Black’s half-sister’s -husband from a squeeze between -the ore cars; as soon as every -one had made quite sure he was -dead, Martha Long—herself a personage -even in the presence of a -newly made widow—caught Jerry’s -sister in her arms and rocked to -and fro with her standing, until -both women fell on the plush sofa.</p> - -<p>Such scenes dignify sorrow in -one type of the common mind.</p> - -<p>Emma knew that Quarry had -lied about her, and through the -day she wondered what the lie -might have been. The absence of -feminine condolers worried her, and -added to her dread of the time -when the hands of the clock -should reach half past one. That -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>was the hour of Jarlsen’s leave-taking -on the day before that set -for their wedding. As the time -approached the ticking of the clock -seemed louder, and she went into -the lean-to to escape from it. She -lay there, covered over and quiet as -though night had come.</p> - -<p>The latch rattled, and Martha -Long, with her thin face and burning -eyes, stood in the lean-to doorway -with her baby’s half-knit hood -in her fingers. She cast a glance of -piercing inquiry at Emma, and her -emphasis was not conciliatory.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she said, “God has -strange ways with the righteous. -You’ve had your troubles, poor -girl!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see there’s need for that -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>kind o’ talk,” said Emma vaguely; -“them as gives it ain’t had overmuch, -I guess!”</p> - -<p>“Well, no offence,” said Martha, -overbearingly; “how is he?”</p> - -<p>“Making out—no more. He -ain’t got a piece of skin on him -that don’t appear to be fried, and -he talks till your heart splits in -your body.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a good sign if he’s rebellious. -My brother was fearful meek. -He could hear a little, and the -whole town had hopes, when one -morning he turned his head in to -the wall, and he says to poor Jarlsen, -who was tending him, ‘You -give that oatmeal and water where -it’s wanted,’ he says; ‘you can -give me a pleasure drink for the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>last I get.’ He didn’t drink much -ever, and Jarlsen give him a drop -of something, and then he lay still -and was dumb dead before your -poor feller could rinch the glass. -So it goes!” Martha ended dismally.</p> - -<p>Emma did not find this quite -satisfactory, so she said nothing.</p> - -<p>“And there is something you -have to be thankful for,” said -Martha further, forgetting that -nothing causes man to hate his -lot like telling him to be thankful -for it; “you’ve got a good man to -fall back on. That Quarry’s more -to you in most ways nor your born -mother would be. Yesterday he -was saying as how risky it was to -marry where the language was different.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> -Two tongues like that in -a house means secrets.”</p> - -<p>Emma had started up. “That -Quarry says more than his prayers,” -she cried out fiercely; “I knew he’d -been lyin’ ’round about me. I don’t -hold by his ways; and I’m goin’ to -stick by that husk of a husband in -there, ef he don’t get better till the -day I die. He ain’t talked kind -about me, and worse talk is due, I -know, but I’ll bide my rights, and -have ’em.”</p> - -<p>Martha felt admiration. Emma -was not as Quarry had reported -her. She recited a few more “incidents,” -and strolled, without leave-making -and still knitting, toward -the door. “Come in some night -when you’re lonesome,” was all she -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>had left in her heart of the invitation -she had meant to give the girl -in Bowa’s interest. It was plain to -her woman’s eye that Emma loved -Jarlsen maimed better than a town -full of men of sound members.</p> - -<p>She wondered, however, why the -girl hadn’t the sense to take Quarry, -who was getting in with the factory -hands like water through a -leak.</p> - -<p>Black came in a moment after -Martha’s departure. He had a -wallet in his hand, and his face -was clothed in a bright kindliness -that turned Emma’s heart toward -him.</p> - -<p>“I’m glad you’ve had lady’s company,” -he said.</p> - -<p>“You’re looking daft, dear,” Emma<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> -answered, when she had studied -him.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the little fellow spread -his hands. “Last night,” he said, -“I went to heaven cheap—fifty -cents entrance fee. I heard a man -play on a fiddle; well, if the -sweetest voice in heaven sang its -best it couldn’t learn that feller -much. I sat there and just pined -away to hear the back door shut, -or some other shabby kind of -sound, just to show it was really I -situated in the concert hall. But -that’s not this,” he concluded, putting -his hand on the wallet; “here’s -your due.”</p> - -<p>Jerry held it out to her. His -face was red, and he made visible -efforts to control its expression, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>which changed from conscious diplomacy -to kindly eagerness.</p> - -<p>“I seen a doctor in the town, a -professor of blasts, kind of. He -knows the ins and outs and conbinizations -of paralysis pretty pat, -and I told him I had a good -friend laid up in a blast, and he -said he’d charge maybe a hundred -or maybe fifty dollars to come -up on purpose to see him. So -that’s your best way of layin’ out -his money, Emma.”</p> - -<p>“I was thinkin’ that would be -good myself,” Emma answered with -a quiver of gratitude on her lips.</p> - -<p>“And I’m obliged to say that -you could offer a little to Quarry, -just to keep his tongue sweet. -He’s got a fearful gainin’ way with -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>his mouth, and them nutt and bolt -hands will pick up and listen to all -he has to say. They’ve been in -schools, and are crazy for talkin’ -and politics. The kind of foolishness -men gets from schools is the -worst kind.”</p> - -<p>Jerry was angry.</p> - -<p>“Ain’t he been talkin’ on me, -maybe?” Emma asked.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps so, perhaps no. He’s -so mean you could buy him for a -small price. He ain’t much of a -luxury.”</p> - -<p>As they talked they heard the -dinner pails clanking as some of -the men came down the homeward -hill. Then an oar car sided -under the window close by the -house. In it were the workmen -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>of the nutt and bolt factory—Quarry -in their midst, his face ardently -conceited and his gestures -highly alcoholic.</p> - -<p>Emma scanned him with a fierce -contempt. “He wouldn’t be like -that if he could stir around,” she -exclaimed, pointing toward her own -room door.</p> - -<p>Then she stood by Jarlsen’s bed -to avoid Quarry, and as she looked -at him he laughed; it was his old, -mirthful, kindly laughter. It seemed -to the girl, who cherished him, that -he had brought pain to their house, -and had also been spared its consequences. -She suffered—he slept.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI.<br /> -<span class="smaller">A BAD BARGAIN.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“It is well to pay your debts, on the chance -you’ll lose your money.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> four days’ time Black received -a letter from the paralysis specialist -that delighted him. It consisted -solely of questions regarding trains -and Soot City conveyances and the -distance from the station to the patient’s -abiding place. To the genial -undertaker intercourse with a man -too busy to con a time-table was -social promotion.</p> - -<p>He went at once to Emma, and -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>in a mixed state of reverence and -elation read her the physician’s curt -note, with his own copious comment.</p> - -<p>“Sounds ’cute, don’t he?” said -Black. “He knows I understand -him. It must be a kind of comfort -to him comin’ to a strange -place to find a man of his own -stamp who feels just his way about -the game o’ life.”</p> - -<p>Putting his tongue in his cheek, -he was soon lost in wonder to find -himself, after long years of comparative -obscurity, so very like this -shining light of medical science.</p> - -<p>Emma almost said her thought -aloud; it was well she did not, for -she was saying inwardly, “You can -always tell when Jerry Black’s been -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>to the city, he has such an extra -green look.”</p> - -<p>With Martha Long for aid, she -prepared for the doctor joyfully. -They washed everything just for -the love of the unaccustomed, -that seizes women under suspense. -Everything had been washed for -the wedding, and was still much -cleaner than its ordinary state. -There was one day when the -house-cleaning was finished and the -doctor not yet come; so Martha -undertook a little rudimentary -cooking, and Emma raked up the -little space of yard and dug out -the weeds from the beds of cinder-spotted -marigolds.</p> - -<p>She tended Jarlsen more and -more, and the friendliness Martha -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>showed toward her pleased her -mightily. She would take her to -the Swede’s bed and show her how -his looks were coming back, and -then, forgetful of her presence, -would stand in silent wonder at -the expression of wisdom fast becoming -habitual to him.</p> - -<p>He seemed to know more of -what was, and is, and is to be, than -any of the people she had seen, and -he had not seemed so wise when he -had lips wherewith to speak wisely. -For a half hour and more she would -sometimes watch him, unconscious -of time, and at last a fit of longing, -like a mother’s, would bend her to -him. Anxious for his thoughts, she -would put her hand on his temple -as if feeling for them. He would -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>smile and say “Emma”; then her -blushes would come as they had -when he was a bright mystery to -her, because she dared not raise her -eyes to his face; and she took the -utterance of her name as an answer -to her craving.</p> - -<p>Quarry and her father had become -cares she could not shoulder; -she simply could not think of them. -Quarry never returned from work -without company, and he and his -friends would sit in the yard on -Emma’s chairs, which they carried -from the kitchen without her permission. -In a man she liked, this -proceeding might have been annoying; -but from Quarry it was a -liberty that was enraging.</p> - -<p>One day Emma heard him stirring<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> -up strife with his tongue; he -was a fascinating speaker, even -when—as the Swedes said—he -“talked beside his mouth,” which -is their idiom for conversational -embellishment.</p> - -<p>She called him to her. “Send -them away,” she said shortly.</p> - -<p>Without a word of dissent he -made them move, and Mr. Butte -shambled out to bring in the -chairs.</p> - -<p>“Take them in yourself,” she -called wickedly. “You was strong -enough to get them out there.”</p> - -<p>With a more sullen compliance -he put them just within the narrow -doorsill.</p> - -<p>Still she eyed him with her -mouth stretched into something -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>like a smile. “Put ’em in their -places,” she said.</p> - -<p>Again Quarry obeyed her.</p> - -<p>Then her contemptuous smile became -laughter. “You wouldn’t hev -done thet ef you hedn’t got wind -of what I’m goin’ to even to you. -See here—you talk too much. -Would you talk less if you had -more money? I guess maybe. -Here’s what you said at Martha -Long’s party. You showed how -it was a good thing August Jarlsen -got the blast, because I kind o’ -leaned toward you latterly. And -as for you, you says you’d always -leaned toward me, and it was better -to have August Jarlsen saved -learnin’ it.” The girl covered him -with her tragic eyes, and expressed -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>her own strong instinct in a gesture -she had learned from the Polacks—she -crossed herself with a -rapid hand. She had never before -felt Quarry to be so evil. “Now,” -she said, “fifty dollars if you’ll stop -that!”</p> - -<p>For a moment delight leaped from -his eyes. He threw out his hand; -then he looked at her darkly, his -expression altered to one of fear -and misgiving.</p> - -<p>“All right,” he said finally.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ll pay you later,” said -Emma, and every word she spoke -cut like a whip, her voice was so -shrill with contemptuous anger.</p> - -<p>She was a young girl, and had -hoped he would not take the -money; partly because she didn’t -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>wish to believe that he could be -mean enough to take it from her, -when he knew that he was the last -person the Swede would give it to, -had he any longer the power to -give.</p> - -<p>Her lips shrank away from her -teeth in contemptuous, writhing -smiles when she thought of it.</p> - -<p>She scarcely knew how to array -herself for the doctor’s visit. She -wanted to impress him with a sense -of her fitness to nurse the patient. -She had had visions of Jarlsen’s departure -in an ambulance for some -city hospital, where a uniformed -woman would hear his groans and -heed them for hire only.</p> - -<p>Quarry knew nothing of the -doctor’s advent. Emma understood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> -that he would talk about it, -and that her enemies would say she -must be sure of Jarlsen’s death -when she dared let loose a first-class -pill-man on him.</p> - -<p>Then, besides, the Englishman -was unreasonable and iterative, like -many Englishmen; and she knew -how he would search his mind for -ways to tell her that Jarlsen was as -good as dead already. “I ought -to pay him right away, or he’ll -do a little of his fancy talkin’, -maybe.”</p> - -<p>Black went to the station in a -funeral carriage, which was the more -imposing as there were but four in -Soot City. (Casually—he paid toll -on the turnpike for the eight horses -that drew these vehicles, and they -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span>were always taxed as “pleasure -teams.” Again casually—he saw no -joke in this, even when the mourners -received legacies.) He wore a -red tie with his black, professionally -sombre clothes, and this he did as -he would not imply Jarlsen’s death -to the doctor, in case the physician -should be standing on the platform -and should see him before he could -get speech of him. Black employed -his imagination in this sort of futile -arrangement of improbable circumstance.</p> - -<p>On the doctor’s arrival they -drove directly to the Buttes. They -alighted at the Bridge and saw -thence to Emma’s doorway, where -Quarry was standing. He looked -as though he had had rum in his -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span>tea, and as if even that had not -reconciled him to existence.</p> - -<p>“Where’s Emma?” he asked of -Black.</p> - -<p>“She’s in with August. Dr. -Brent, this gentleman lives here; -he’s an old friend of Mr. Butte’s, -and Mr. Jarlsen’s too, I may say.”</p> - -<p>Quarry, returned in the noon recess -to find a perfect stranger about -to invade the house; did not understand -the situation, as was very -evident. He grinned absently, and -went toward Jarlsen’s room door.</p> - -<p>“Emma, come out here.” His tone -was wheedling, and his fingers were -tapping nervously on the wall. She -came out to him quickly; her eyes -were bright and her face was full of -a vigorous hope.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span></p> - -<p>“Hurry up!” she said; “I want -to bring the doctor in.”</p> - -<p>“Could you oblige me with the -trifle you named Thursday? I want -to blow it right in this noon.”</p> - -<p>Emma thought it wise to pay -him at once, although her heart -was beating in her ears—she -longed so for the doctor’s opinion -on Jarlsen. She hesitated, and then -said: “It is in the wallet between -the shake-downs in the lean-to -chamber. Put it back where you -found it.”</p> - -<p>She forgot him as she greeted -the doctor; her whole mind was -full of the Swede.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII.<br /> -<span class="smaller">TROUBLE ACCUMULATES.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“If you’re feeding a mean dog, be sure he’ll -bite you when he’s had enough.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> doctor let Emma tell him -her own complete narrative of Jarlsen’s -mishap; nor did he interrupt -once, save with questions that served -as a spur to her flagging memory. -Her mode of recital was detailed -and feminine, obnoxious to science. -She told, incidentally (but at great -length) how Jarlsen had always -treated her; and quoted his sayings, -which were, in her retrospective<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> -judgment, prophetic. The doctor’s -manner was so courteous that -a more experienced girl than -Emma could not have inferred that -Jarlsen’s relations with her before -the accident would not strike his -physician as indicative of his condition -after it.</p> - -<p>Dr. Brent had a sober, inscrutable -smile; he gave the observer an -impression of seeing with great difficulty, -although he wore no glasses. -His manner was at times indifferent, -yet he inspired confidence. As -Jerry had said, “He don’t have to -hustle to cure you, like these farmin’ -pill-men we hev to Soot City.”</p> - -<p>Emma was so rapt in the first -uninterrupted recital of her troubles -that she did not observe Quarry as -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>he crossed the kitchen to the house -door. He had the wallet in his -hand, which shook; his face twitched -and was chalk white.</p> - -<p>“I hope that is not your father,” -said Dr. Brent politely as he would -say: “There is a shower coming; I -hope it may not wet you.”</p> - -<p>Emma looked at him and liked -him, for she saw that he knew at a -glance what Quarry was. And she -had taken lessons in him for a lifetime -and had not learned him yet. -Then the doctor rose and went into -Jarlsen’s room.</p> - -<p>Waiting for the doctor’s opinion -is one of the fearful things that civilization -has imposed on humanity. -It is during such intervals of suspense -that a racked mind learns the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>pattern of the carpet, the similarity -in outline of some familiar pieces of -furniture, and of some impossible -beast or bird sprawling on the wall -papers. Emma discovered stains in -the sheer curtains at the window. -She prayed in a general way, and -feared the moment when the doctor -should appear again.</p> - -<p>For the first time she observed -that quite a crowd surrounded the -house, looking in at the windows. -They wore long faces beneath their -eager eyes, and looked as though -good news would be a (conversational) -calamity. Jerry Black, however, -stood among them with the -perfect aspect of honest sympathy.</p> - -<p>It was to him that Emma beckoned. -He entered the house in response,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> -with an air of great importance. -He had been telling half -the town by twos and threes, and as -a great favour, exactly what he had -said to Dr. Brent. The town listened -in the hope of hearing what -Dr. Brent had said to him.</p> - -<p>Emma motioned him to stand -close to her.</p> - -<p>“When do you pay?” said she.</p> - -<p>“’Most any time,” said Jerry. -“You can pay the first day for a -whole set of visits, or you can pay -when he sends a bill, or ’most anyway.”</p> - -<p>“How can I tell how often he’s -comin’?”</p> - -<p>“He ain’t let pass that he’s comin’ -more than this once, but you’ll -have to go high for this once. -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>Think of the fares here and back; -the car money alone is twenty-five -dollars, and not countin’ chair-cars -or meals.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ll give him a hundred, -and see how he likes that.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” said Jerry; “you -give it to him now. He’d be -more likely to come later, if he -knew we pay before he can put -hat on to go home.”</p> - -<p>She had planned it all; the -money should be put in his hand -just as he was leaving. She -thought of no receipt, just as she -thought of none for the money -she put in the plate on those delightful -courtship Sundays. Indeed, -she felt the transactions to -be similar.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span></p> - -<p>She wanted to show, just as she -had shown then, that though Jarlsen -was her man, he was no pauper. -The bill was to be paid in the sight -of the surrounding multitude at -the windows.</p> - -<p>Presently Dr. Brent came out. -He looked at the faces set in the -window frames, and made no comment. -Emma realized, with hope -full grown to thankfulness, that had -he felt there was nothing encouraging -to say, he would have dispersed -the waiting men and women before -he spoke.</p> - -<p>“Miss Butte,” he said, “I’ve seen -worse than he recover. His sight -is gone, sealed up with scorch; but -he’ll hear again some day. Get him -up as soon as the smart goes.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span></p> - -<p>Some one in the window said, -“He’ll make wages dead easy if he -hears again.”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad,” said Dr. Brent, turning -toward the window. “Encourage -him to work when the smart is -over.”</p> - -<p>He declined Emma’s offered meal, -and prepared for departure, writing -on a bit of paper what he wished to -have done for Jarlsen. When he -rose, hat in hand, Emma spoke to -him. Her voice had a thrill of pride -in it, and her high spirit lent a dignity -to the gaudy finery intended -to decorate her awkward frock.</p> - -<p>“Doctor,” she said, “will you set -a minute?”</p> - -<p>She entered the lean-to, erect and -elastic. Three minutes passed while -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>the crowd asked the doctor questions, -which he answered in words -of such strangeness to their ears -that they enjoyed all the sensations -of those who communicate -with spirits. They laughed at his -least word, and he, perceiving it, -darkened his sayings the further.</p> - -<p>When Emma returned, her face -was set and her cheeks flamed, so -that their heat alone drew the -tears to her eyes. Her hands -shook, and hardly held the bit of -soiled paper and the stumpy pencil -that she carried. “Will you tell me -your name and address?” she asked -of the doctor.</p> - -<p>A sigh broke from her lips that -tried not to be a groan.</p> - -<p>Black looked at her, and the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>colour flew from his face. He -said afterward that his heart beat -so that he thought some one -knocked on the door. He knew -what had happened.</p> - -<p>So did the doctor. “My accounts -are payable in May,” he -said, being kind, and knowing Soot -City to be ignorant.</p> - -<p>Emma smiled again, and, with -the patronizing manner that is the -outcome of complete shyness, said, -“Well, you’re a real good doctor.”</p> - -<p>And so, with a slight constriction -of his kindly heart, he shook -her hand and departed.</p> - -<p>But she caught Black at his -exit. “That Quarry’s stole!” said -she.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span></p> - -<p>Jerry looked sick and old; his -voice sounded bitter. “I ain’t got -a cent just now to spare,” he said. -Then he grew fiercer, and cursed -the Englishman exhaustively and -with the awkwardness of a man -unused to such conversational indulgence.</p> - -<p>The crowd followed as far as the -funeral carriage and stood to watch -it disappear in billows of dust. The -white horses and the black barouche -were alike buff before they were out -of sight of The Tracks.</p> - -<p>And in sullen quiet Emma set -herself to wait for Quarry, not -trusting herself to look at Jarlsen -lest the sight of him should soften -her hate.</p> - -<p>“He took the whole wallet!” -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>she repeated to herself, “and he -was the only man August wouldn’t -give to. He knew it, too, or he’d -hev asked something off him when -first he seen we was settin’ it up -together.”</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">VIII.<br /> -<span class="smaller">QUARRY’S ATTEMPT AT EXPLANATION.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“A man will say more to himself in excuse -than he will to his God or his friend.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emma’s</span> eyes roved from object -to object as though she sought -escape; they always returned to -the door, whence she expected -Quarry. It was a duty, she reasoned, -to turn this man’s stealing -to swift shame. Words flocked to -her tongue that she could not remember -having used before, and -her mind’s eye saw the Englishman -wince under them. A demon -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>of invective filled her brain with -fierce thoughts as she tore the -shake-downs apart in a final hunt -for the wallet. And then a fit of -sobs and shaking beset her as she -waited again in the kitchen for -what she hoped would be in some -sort vengeance.</p> - -<p>She remembered every mean -and, in her characterizing adjective, -every “useless” thing Quarry had -done; how he had lied, and when. -She remembered his drunkenness—that -terrible drunkenness in which -his self-assurance seemed boundless; -the remembered vanity of his face -startled her, and it seemed marvellous -that his faults had not kept -him from their household as they -had kept him from their hearts.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span></p> - -<p>When some person has been the -provoking cause of emotions so -strong that the mind can not shake -off their grasp, it is quick to misconceive -that person. Quarry’s voice -was a shock to Emma when at last -she heard it in the yard, although a -short time ago she had seen and -had speech with him.</p> - -<p>Her heart sank when she found -he was talking with himself and in -a laudatory strain. His effort was -to walk straight, but his accomplishment -was slight. He lurched -to and from either marigold border, -so that the walk seemed serpentine -to Emma’s shocked gaze. “No,” -he said, “the ruins is covered with -ivory; I shall pluck away the vine, -and the presspit is discovered.” He -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>spoke as he walked, doing as much -as possible at each lucid interval -between lapses. “No friend shall -fall away into the presspit, like I -nearly did.”</p> - -<p>His fall was upon nothing more -precipitous than the chair by the -door. Seeing anger on Emma’s -face, he attempted to soothe her -with vague smiles of fearful extent; -they travelled swiftly across -his flushed face and divided it into -north and south intemperate zones.</p> - -<p>“Stop <i>that</i>,” called Emma; “you’ve -done enough!”</p> - -<p>“Not yet!” shouted Quarry, impelled -by an erratic enthusiasm; -“I’ll do more for my Emma. I’ve -laid out the money real well. We’ll -buy the deepo and live in it! It’s -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>the finest house in Soot City, and if -you want Jarlsen too, you can keep -him for hired help. I don’t want -there should be any stinting where -love is king.”</p> - -<p>“Give me my wallet,” said Emma.</p> - -<p>“I have given it where it’ll do the -most good. The town rejoices that -a good deed was done. Mine the -deed though not the money.” He -used this phrase as a sort of chant.</p> - -<p>“Quarry,” said Emma sternly, -“sober up, and think true for a -minute!”</p> - -<p>But he interrupted to say: “Sober -up? Emma, you’re enough to -turn a saint. I am so sober that -the boys laugh at me the way they -done at Jarlsen, and I’ve done the -wonderfullest thing! Money’ll be -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>so loose you can pick it up off anything -in such a little while! I invested -yours in a great concern; -it’s safe. I’m at the head of it!” -He finished, with some tardy regard -for truth, and, waving his arms -comprehensively, lapsed again into -vagueness.</p> - -<p>“Where did you put it?” Emma -uttered her queries with pains, as if -she put them to a foreigner.</p> - -<p>Then came lavish excuse. “I -put it in an investment,” said he. -He was a little sobered now, and -wore a scared look. “Mr. Jarlsen, -’fore he was took with the blast, got -me to promise to invest his money. -He had a pulmonition of the blast, -so he did.”</p> - -<p>Emma looked at him again; her -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>face was white and hopeless, and -its young modelling seemed aged -and heavy.</p> - -<p>“You ain’t gone and sunk that -altogether, Quarry, hev you? If -you hev, there’s only the Stonepastures -left. It’ll be a hard thing to -pass the Bridge once for all and see -your work-fellers comin’ through -on the cars, and you only comin’ es -fur es the Pastures from the factory. -Can’t you think what you done -with it?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve spent it. It’s invested—but -still—it’s spent.”</p> - -<p>She saw that the men would -have to take the matter up for -her. At first anger had nerved -her, but now she felt weakly despairing. -It seemed to her that -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span>there was no use in effort to set -right circumstances so awry, until, -as she said, “things had stopped -happening.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you’re a thief, anyway,” -she said, “and I’d fight you if I -had any pith in me!”</p> - -<p>Quarry raised himself. “That’s -you all over,” he remarked sadly. -“I’ve seen you leap on Jarlsen -quick as a wicked cat; and a lady -as lifts a hand to a half-dead man -is no lady. You have made my -life very profane, Emma. I don’t -find in you the flavour of a godly -woman, Emma Butte,” he added -with a final effort at dignity. -“You’re a—a—mean girl!”</p> - -<p>Emma rose, and, standing, looked -him over thoroughly. No idea of -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>law came to aid her ignorant helplessness. -She understood now the -saying that women were “put -upon.” Some girls would have -cried, but Emma had one sweet -drop in the bitter draught. She -would have to move to the Stonepastures, -but by so doing she could -pay the doctor, even though she -had to shave again.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="IX">IX.<br /> -<span class="smaller">BREAKING UP A HOME.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“It is better to live under God’s sky than under -a roof when there’s no luck there.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">You</span> and I, knowing the use of -pen, ink, and paper, and the efficacy -of latter-day postal systems, must -remember that there are degrees of -education; also, that all the methods -of communication in well organized -communities are as unknown -to the ignorant, Americo-alien -population of such places as -Soot City as is the fate of nations to -the speculative schoolboy. Emma -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>needed Black’s counsel, but she did -not think of the post as a means -of getting a letter to a man in her -own town. She reasoned that post-office -people would slight mail matter -not destined to go by train to -other cities. So her anxious heart -kept her waking to catch the light, -that she might get away in secret -to Black’s house and there put her -case in his ever-open and ever-busy -hands.</p> - -<p>Youthful weariness demands -sleep. Emma was young and -overweary, and, as a consequence, -overslept.</p> - -<p>It was in the fear that calamity -might have stolen another march -on her that she dressed herself. She -had about her a neatness that enraged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span> -the down-at-heel disheartened, -of which there are so many -in labouring communities.</p> - -<p>“The world,” she thought, “has -thumped me till I ain’t got half -the spring I hed to start on; and -that’s the reason I’m goin’ to dress -up. I’ll wear cuffs till I’ve got to -sell ’em, and a collar, ef I do have -to shave for a livin’.”</p> - -<p>But she had not enough pleasure -in living left to heat the coffee that -her father had used at his breakfast; -she was only thankful that he had -gone away for his paper By the -Bridge, and that she might set -about vacating the house, with a -will. She did not think of consulting -him. When a man has consented -all his life to anything and -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>never met any circumstance, crucial -or casual, with aught but irrelevant -comment, he is rarely a factor in -other people’s plans.</p> - -<p>She was glad she had not had to -get breakfast, for she had to tend -Jarlsen. The day was wet, and his -hurts seemed the sorer for the -damp. When she had done all for -him she laid her hand on his, but -the dread of packing her wedding -things was making war on her energies. -She felt she could not rest -till she had packed the white gown -out of sight and mind. Before -now she had held a private service -of tears over her six wedding presents. -Miss Bentley had given her -a jacket edged with good fur, and -her sister had given her some fine -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>stockings; but her lover’s gift -meant more to her than any other -inanimate thing. It certainly meant -more than bread, for she would have -starved before she sold it, and died -in happiness had her eyes but met -it as they closed finally.</p> - -<p>It was a large locket of reddish -gold, embossed in clumsy arabesque; -within were two photographs—of -Jarlsen and of Cheyne -Falls, where they were to have -spent their wedding week. It was -the fashionable tribute from groom -to bride in Jarlsen’s circle of Soot -citizens, and Emma felt that with -this gift he conferred his higher -class on her. It was just what he -would have given the first foreman’s -daughter. She opened the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>locket and looked in. Eve may -have felt like her and Emma -thought of her; it was an angel -with a fiery sword who put them -both out of God’s Eden, she remembered. -But some of Eve’s -memories must have been self-reproachful, -and Emma was spared -that misery. She was also a fine -enough type to appreciate that.</p> - -<p>She was shutting up her little -shrine when Jerry Black found her. -They met with tears that had not -started at their meeting; for Jerry -had wept at having to return in -sorrow to the house where but -yesterday hope had hurried him.</p> - -<p>To begin a new series of troubles -just as he had completed an old one -told on his nerves. He had spent -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>the long night praying for Emma, -his head on his shiny rosewood dining -table.</p> - -<p>He always showed this table with -pride; it was made from the extra -wood he had been commissioned to -buy for the Bentley coffins. He -had made it himself, and time and -again had shown it to Miss Bentley, -in whom he felt a great disappointment, -as she never manifested -any satisfaction at the sight. The -cats leaped upon it nightly, as it -was Jerry’s habitual place of prayer, -and it sometimes seemed to him -that they exchanged glances with -each other in his despite, glances of -criticism at his fervour. He never -drove them away, however.</p> - -<p>“Emma,” he said, his lips trembling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> -and his pale eyes filling fast, -“your trouble’s fearful heavy, but -you won’t give in. I’ve seen to -Quarry, and it jest ain’t no use; you -can’t get anything out of him; he -give it all in to the Workers’ Protective -Circle. He give it in to the -aggression fund. They’re going to -order a strike for the same pay for -winter days nine hours’ work, as -they get for a ten-hours’ summer’s -day. I think that’s it. My work’s -among the peaceful, and sometimes -I thank God I hev it mostly -among dead men, seein’ what the -live ones is like. But, Emma, he’s -give the money in, so’s the strike -fund can grow. He’s a gainin’, -winnin’ kind of speaker, and he’s -give up what he took to their cause, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span>and no one ain’t a-goin’ to touch -him. Now you jest remember that -the night’s blackest just before the -sun comes, and don’t you loose -your grip. When Jarlsen comes -out from the blast you want him to -find you jest es straight and steady -es when he was took—don’t you -now?”</p> - -<p>The tears slipped from Emma’s -eyes at the little man’s tone. Her -face was as tranquil as it was sorrowing, -and, as she answered, there -was no bitterness in her voice and -no fretfulness or rebellion in gesture -or look. She did not feel -bound to exhibit spirit in his presence. -“O Jerry,” she said, “I think -I do. But I can’t stay fit for him -when I live with thieves who rob -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>him. I’m glad he got the blast ef -I have to get low-toned; he’ll be -nearer a mate for me.”</p> - -<p>Jerry stayed on and helped her. -He packed away the white dress; -he was used to handling things that -were sacred to the memory of a -happy past, and began to pull -Emma’s house to pieces as only a -woman could be expected to do. -Martha Long came in; she was -sewing as she walked. She was a -brisk woman, and got through half -her work on the wing.</p> - -<p>“God’s name!” she said to Black, -“what’s come to Emma? She -looks hurt, and white as a death-sheet.”</p> - -<p>Jerry told her what had happened, -and Martha, without a word, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>went over and took both the girl’s -hands in hers and pressed them to -her sides; she never lost hold of -her sewing, and presently set to -work again.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she half screamed in indignation, -“of all the poison toads -and irregular vipers in the world -and out of it, I guess Quarry’s the -lowest down. He’s a dirt-mean -man! I suppose you’ll move out, -and take the yeller house on the -Pastures. There ain’t no one in it -since last May, and it has a porch. -You won’t stay there long,” Martha -said with conviction. “Your kind -don’t keep to no rent-free Stonepastures. -You’ll come back to the -town, and the crowd’ll cheer you—you’ll -see.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span></p> - -<p>“Well,” Emma replied, “I’m going -this afternoon.”</p> - -<p>Accordingly, at five, or a little -later, Jerry brought a funeral carriage -By the Bridge, and old Butte -and Emma and Jerry and Martha -carried Jarlsen on a shake-down -along the Tracks. The sun, as Jerry -observed, was “leanin’ pretty near -the west line,” and the sky was -bright above the Stonepastures. It -had cleared in the early afternoon, -and all the odours, bad and good, -seemed flying about, riding on the -cool breezes that swept over the -Tracks. The high-standing ripe -grasses caught the level shafts of -sun and bowed before the wind, -glorified in the bright light. Jarlsen -questioned them about his removal,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> -but gave no evidence that -he heard their replies except once, -when he said that Emma “sounded” -tired. But his voice died -away in groanings, and he could -not answer their other questions. -Emma felt that he heard her -voice and did not distinguish the -words.</p> - -<p>Jerry felt so too. He reminded -Emma of the blind man in the -Testament. “He seen the men -first as trees,” he said, “even when -he was cured with grace, and not -with herbs and ointment and such; -he didn’t get clear vision right -away.”</p> - -<p>Emma felt happier than she had -thought possible. She ran back -into the yard and slipped off her -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>shoe. “I’ll get the favour of home -for him,” she thought.</p> - -<p>But while the handful of mould -was still in her hand she put her -shoe on again. “I’d liefer shake -off the dust from my feet,” she -said; “this ain’t no home to get -the favour from.”</p> - -<p>Martha Long stood at the gate, -“You’re in a hurry to go,” she remarked.</p> - -<p>“To-morrow begins the new -month’s rent,” said Emma. “I quit -to-day or pay to-morrow. I’m goin’ -where there ain’t no rents to pay. I -can’t afford rents and city doctors -together.”</p> - -<p>Martha’s face darkened. “I’m -layin’ for him right here,” she called -as the funeral carriage moved away. -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>She was surprised at Emma’s good-bye -mood; it was so resolute and -cheerful. “He’s a pretty low reptile,” -was the last thing she called -to Emma as the conveyance grew -smaller on the distant road.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="X">X.<br /> -<span class="smaller">QUARRY RECKONS WITHOUT HIS<br /> -HOSTESS.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“Strife’s a poor thing to come home to.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> two days’ time Emma was -“settled in.” Hers was an odd -house for the Stonepastures. She -paid no rent for it, but there were -curtains at the windows and a shoe-scraper -and a mat at the door. She -had not been up an hour on her first -morning before the grass around the -house was cut down with a borrowed -sickle. The objectless, listless -denizens of the district watched her -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>with some pleasure. They had no -individual life, merely existing as a -class and watching the individuality -of others take shape in thrift and -then in prosperity with a dull envy. -One man said she “hed a peck of -ambition” in a tone that meant on -the Pastures, in “Calamity Row,” -that any endeavour to better one’s -self comes to confusion.</p> - -<p>At first the big boulders depressed -her somewhat, but Jerry -told her she could “garden on them” -in the summer time; and, indeed, -flowers could grow from the thin -soil that edged them. For two -weeks and more she lived, quietly -amazed to find herself so happy. -From day to day she watched the -Swede’s improvement. As the pain -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span>left him he took to singing, but his -voice was not so accurate as in the -old days when he heard clearly. -Many of the songs she had heard -from him in courting time, and she -was infinitely happy to know that -he remembered them as well as she -did. He would tell the meaning of -each verse after he had sung it, as -she cooked or sewed after shaving -all day.</p> - -<p>For she shaved again. It seemed -very odd and yet very natural to -her. She had a good deal of business -to arrange before “resuming -trade.” Her subscriptions to the -Philadelphia Ledger and the Work-fellows’ -Union had run out; in fact, -her wedding day had been dependent -on their expiration. Emma -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span>had a great idea of doing things the -right way, and news has been the -tradition of barber-shops since men’s -vanity first devised a shorn chin.</p> - -<p>Emma was gratified to find her -standing unimpaired by her sojourn -with the paupers. Socially she -seemed secure. The women were -prone to be officiously sympathetic, -and were also inclined to disbelieve -the tale of Quarry’s misdeed. -“There’s faults on both sides, maybe,” -and “Who can see the whole -show through a slit in the tent?” -were felt to be convenient phrases -and used largely as such. The -phrase “rent-free” found its way -from the neighbours’ lips to Emma’s -ears rather oftener than she -cared for; it spurred her on to -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>grudge herself food and deny herself -the midday beer it had been -her wont to consume. She worked -from eight in the morning to six at -night, with nothing but bread and -soup at her slack time in the early -afternoon.</p> - -<p>The soup was much like Quarry’s -stories—made up out of almost -nothing. She carried it to work in -a bottle with a screwed-on tin top; -this she put into the little boiler -that the shaving water was heated -in, “and so,” she would say, to -amuse a new customer, “thet’s all -the cooking I hev to do; I boil -my bottle, and there I am!”</p> - -<p>She had rented a room By the -Bridge from Miss Bentley, who was -much surprised when Emma paid -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span>the rent; and through her new and -improved business situation in the -town she was able to command a -“high-class custom.”</p> - -<p>Since the evening that Quarry -had suggested the depot as a place -of residence Emma had been free of -his presence. She had heard of him -from the men, however, and knew -that he was speaking to them from -the Bridge every evening. Revolt -was in the air of Soot City; there -were meetings, quite covertly, conducted -by socialistic workmen in -the cause of workfellows’ profits. -Monopoly and co-operative profit -were talked of constantly, and -Grigg sold many drinks. It is a -pity that the workingmen who invent -Utopias should attempt to -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>sanctify them with an alcoholic immersion. -It antagonizes even the -fair-minded. The preachers took to -finding comparisons, more or less -apposite, between Dives and Lazarus, -pronouncing the socialism of -him who has not, grabbing from -him who has, to be merely a modern -variation of a scriptural scheme -of all things in common. As some -men go to church to find biblical -sanction for their shortcomings; -the ringleaders of what was fast becoming -an agitation, took to the -sanctuaries, whither the rest of the -town felt it safe to follow them.</p> - -<p>Emma regarded Quarry’s effrontery -as monumental, but she never -conceived a possibility of his coming -to her new house in the Stonepastures.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span> -She felt that, as she had -gone down in the world, he thought -he had risen, and that the Stonepastures -were very far away from -him now. Her eyes would scan the -road, in her swift evening walks -searching for his slightly crooked -form. The thought of him distressed -her, as horror comes upon a -child in the dark, and after nightfall -she remembered him as such a -power for evil. Returning from the -town she always wore for warmth -her leathern apron with a shawl, -her jacket was too good to be -worn out in the dark. This scruple -was pure conscience, for she no -longer had Jarlsen’s eye for which -to save her dresses.</p> - -<p>He could tell the difference in -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span>footfalls now, and distinguish voices. -Emma longed for the moment when -he should be able to hear her speak -his name. This hoped-for moment -occupied many of her hours, and -she thought of it on the still, cold -night when she saw Quarry walking -toward the Pastures about ten -yards ahead of her. She slackened -her pace instantly, and he was soon -lost in the starless dark.</p> - -<p>She dreaded him. As she walked -she feared she might stumble on -him lying drunk in her path, with -his mouth full of the hideous words -he used at such times; or, this fear -forgotten, her breath would come -in loud pantings at the thought of -his hands laid on her from behind. -When she came to her own door -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>there was still no sight of him; she -looked both up and down the road -to make sure. She could not see -far, for most of the houses were -dark; lights are too expensive for -the rent-free Pastures. Raising the -latch, she pushed the door quietly -open and looked into her own -home.</p> - -<p>Quarry was at the kitchen table -facing her, glaring in Jarlsen’s serenely -blind countenance. Sleep -had double-locked the Swede’s -seared vision, and in complete unconsciousness -he breathed freely, -within a glance of Quarry’s eyes -alive with malice.</p> - -<p>Emma was frightened, so much -so that she could not call. It -seemed that Quarry must have -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>something to kill with, in his -coarse, cramped hands. It flashed -across her that if she received him -roughly he would strike or stab, -and that an appearance of politeness -would surely gain her time. -Calmness came to her when she -had determined how to act.</p> - -<p>She rattled the latch, her heart -jumping so that she felt as if it had -thrown her into the room. Quarry -let fall something that gave out the -sound of thin metal as it struck the -brick flooring round the stove. A -flight of chills froze her blood, while -her cheeks burned with a steady, -excited glow.</p> - -<p>Quarry could not avoid her eyes -and she saw that were he to have -the first word he would announce -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>himself at bay and make trouble. -She almost ran to him with her -hand stretched out. “Quarry,” said -she in a little voice that she strained -to make audible, “Quarry, you’ll -have a bite, won’t you? It’s a cold -bite, but a ready one.”</p> - -<p>Emma thought later that it was -at the sound of Quarry’s name in -her voice that Jarlsen wakened. -He knew at once that Quarry was -there, for a look that had been absent -from his face since they moved -from By the Tracks swept its strong -patience and sweetness away. He -stood on his feet and reached out -for the Englishman. The bandages -on his right hand seemed too tight, -and the veins in it bursting.</p> - -<p>“I’m not dead yet!” he said -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>fiercely, “and no thanks to -you!”</p> - -<p>Emma could have cried for joy. -To her it seemed more than likely -that he saw again; but when she -noticed how easily Quarry had -eluded his big rival, the situation -was obscured.</p> - -<p>“Did I hurt him?” called Jarlsen -eagerly. He had fallen back on his -chair, but was sitting on its edge, -his eyes burning, and the blood reddening -the fine skin on his forehead.</p> - -<p>She did not answer, having -learned not to waste words on his -deafness. She saw Quarry stoop -down and lift up the knife he had -let fall.</p> - -<p>Then she spoke, and very gently. -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>“You’d better stay here, Quarry,” -she said; “you’re accustomed to -your home here, and there’s most -sleep in an old nest.”</p> - -<p>And he stayed. Emma turned -him in with old Butte, and lighted -a new candle, which she left to -illumine the rats through the night. -Then she locked Jarlsen’s door on -the outside, and tied the key around -her neck. She reflected with pride -that her Swede had only been sitting -up for two days, and yet wanted -to fight on the evening of the second. -In her joy at his returning -strength she lost sight of danger.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="XI">XI.<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE STRIKE.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“Having ears to hear, let them hear.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> sleep of young strength puts -a wide distance between yesterday’s -cares and to-day’s. The dawn that -awoke Emma was gray, but it did -not suggest the blight of ashes as -had last night’s twilight. She was -sure of the return of Jarlsen’s faculties, -and she also knew that Quarry -could have made no disturbance -through the night. She was inclined -to think that he meant to -frighten them, and by daylight his -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>acts seemed more like very bad -manners than like an attempt at -murder.</p> - -<p>In the morning, before setting -out, she changed the bandage on -Jarlsen’s hand. The wide burns -were “guttering,” seaming up in -red lines. She told him this, and -though he made no reply she felt -sure, with unshakable, feminine -sureness, that he had heard. She -led him out to his hammock and -placed him in it. Quarry was haranguing -Old Butte, and the sound -of his voice seemed to make the -Swede nervous. Emma was certain -that he had heard him.</p> - -<p>She had always liked the Pastures -as a place to walk; the air was less -flat than in the town; and it was -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>pleasant to set one’s face against -poverty and one’s feet toward a -place where people were rich -enough to pay rent. Bentley’s -Place overtopped the city on an -artificial and costly eminence. The -little house that was placed like a -lodge was the terminal station of -the narrow-gauge railway. She -knew herself to be two miles and -three quarters from that, and a mile -or more from the plant.</p> - -<p>Usually she met the day squad -coming out from the town, the -men standing in the ore cars, the -smoke from their pipes and the -straining, overworked little engine -blown behind them toward the -town—like a message sent home, -Emma thought. But to-day no -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span>cars passed, and she, being a child -of toil, was quick to know that this -meant a strike. She hurried on -to her earnings, remembering that -when men are out of work they -have all day in which to spend -their savings. Women see so little -in strikes but higher wages until -some one is dead.</p> - -<p>When she reached the Bridge it -was crowded with people. Men -who had not worked at the plant -for years were exhorting their fellows -not to submit to tyranny. -Many large words were being misused -with great pride by those who -never had a chance to talk except -when the crowd was too busy to -listen. The women were not very -carefully dressed, having had no -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>time for fastenings or strings. -They, together with the children -they brought with them, seemed to -regard the occasion as one of festivity.</p> - -<p>Nothing was denounced very -definitely. One stranger was said -to be a reporter, whereupon half a -dozen people beset him, anxious -to have their views in the paper. -Emma could learn nothing from -any of them. They used Quarry’s -and Bowa’s names frequently, so -that she forebore mentioning under -whose roof the Englishman had -passed the night.</p> - -<p>Her shop was in the fourth -house from the Bridge; a steep -diagonal path ran from its back -door to the Tracks. The men were -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span>swarming to it before she was quite -ready to have them, and many arrived -by the rarely used footway. -News came with them, and she -found herself believing first one report -and then another. Bowa came -to be shaved; she was surprised at -his thinking of a thing so incidental -to a holiday toilet as a shave, but -she supposed that he was resolved -to die tidy, and said as much.</p> - -<p>He could not be at the plant, he -explained, and felt that he had no -need to be there. His smile was -exceedingly subtle, but his hands -worked against his will in an embarrassed -fashion.</p> - -<p>The day wore on until about four -o’clock. Her business had been immense, -and she had listened to the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span>many accounts and descriptions of -the plant until she felt she knew it -perfectly. In the centre was the -powder house, where explosives -were kept; on the city flank was -the nutt and bolt factory, and very -near, but south of it, the furnace. -It was set on a steep “slide” of -rock; its door, through which the -furnace was fed, was on the summit -side; and on the base side, lower -on the slide by eight feet or more, -was another door through which -the “cinder” flew away at night into -the darkness like a burning river. -This door seems complicated on -paper, though in fact its construction -is simple. A skewer secures -it at its upper edge—a skewer with -a large loop at one end. Into this -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span>loop the hook of the fire-tenders’ -strange implement is thrust when -the door is to be opened. “The -Devil’s Crook” is what the men -have named the long oak stick -finished at one end with an iron -hook. It does look like a thing -wherewith to herd black sheep.</p> - -<p>Emma was weary of constant exclamation -and argument. It was -time she ate; so she closed her -door and “boiled her bottle,” allowing -the men who were already in -the shop to remain there. She saw -Bowa get up from his chair and -leave by the back door, silent and -hurried. As was natural, Emma -turned to the window to see what -had caught his eye in the street.</p> - -<p>Young Bentley had driven up in -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span>his buggy; his liveried servant sat -beside him, and the horse he drove -plunged and shook with nervousness -at being surrounded by a -crowd of loud-voiced people. Bentley -stood up in the little buggy, -having given the reins to his man. -“See here,” he said, addressing the -crowd, “if we have a strike, you’d -better remember that I can stand -it, and you can’t. I’ve sent police -to the plant to protect my property, -and you had better stand by -them; for the plant is the machine -you make your bread with, and it’s -the only thing you can work at. -I’ve got lots of irons on the fire. -Now some one has trifled with -this road-bed, in the cut here, By -the Bridge. I suppose you want -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>to make me lose my charter. I’m -going to examine the damage now, -and I hope you’ll come with me.”</p> - -<p>He jumped to the ground and -began to descend the steps leading -to the road-bed in the cut, over -which the Bridge is. No one followed -him, but with admirable -nerve he neither hesitated nor -quickened his pace.</p> - -<p>Emma remembered that Jarlsen -had liked him, and that he had -called to ask for him once By the -Tracks and twice on the Pastures. -No Bentley had visited the Pastures -before, and Emma felt the -distinction keenly. She opened the -door and went out, merely observing -to the bystanders that they -“hed no spring.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span></p> - -<p>Before she got to the stair’s head -about six men had followed her, -looking deeply ashamed of each -other, but at present firm in their -duty. Emma let them pass her, -and slipped into the advancing -crowd.</p> - -<p>Bowa and three companions were -standing on the tracks by two overturned -ore cars. They seemed more -sheepish than defiant, and Emma -noticed with pride how neat Bowa -looked as he tried not to flinch -under Bentley’s contemptuous gaze. -The rails were torn up for about -twenty yards, and in the silence -that preceded Bentley’s first words -Emma realized that this meant -prison.</p> - -<p>“Did you do that?” he said at -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span>length. Then turning to the men -at his back, he said very pleasantly, -“I think we can put this right -with”—his voice grew suddenly -louder—“two more to help us.”</p> - -<p>Two Soot City police appeared, -and very quietly secured Bowa and -his friends. They were too surprised -to make any resistance, and -went silent and sullen at Bentley’s -curt bidding. Some one cried, -“Shame!” at the plant owner. -Martha Long answered “Nonsense!” -very loud. But her tears -fell for Bowa, and she pleaded for -him in words.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Bentley,” she said, “he was -put up to that. He’s young for the -shadder of a prison to fall on him. -He’s as mild as new milk, and he’s -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>had his taste, and he won’t want no -more.”</p> - -<p>“Martha,” Bentley answered, “I -think making an example of a -workman is making a martyr of -him and an enemy of his labour -organization. I don’t want any -strikes, so I’ll probably let him off; -but I wouldn’t promise any one.”</p> - -<p>Martha went away well comforted, -and Emma, when the darkness -had fallen, set out for home. -She considered the strike was over, -and laughed as she made herself -pictures of Quarry’s discomfiture; -his plans would be henceforth unheeded, -and, as he had not succeeded, -the men would not fear -him, and not fearing meant, under -such conditions, shunning. She -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span>had had a diverting day; the silver -jingled in her pocket, and her wish -was that Jarlsen might have ears -to hear all about it.</p> - -<p>The cottage was dark, but before -she came within a hundred yards of -it, while it yet stood out black and -square against the dark east, she -heard Jarlsen calling, “Emma, hurry, -girl!—Emma, girl, hurry!”</p> - -<p>She ran to him, stumbling and -in dread, and groped in the darkness -of the room with tender hands -that feared—she longed to know -just what.</p> - -<p>“I’m all right,” he said; “but -listen. Speak to me; I can hear. -I’ve heard ever since we moved. -I’ve wanted to say so, but I wanted -to go on hearing your father talk -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span>to Quarry. I’ve heard it all. I’m -done with secrets; I’m pretty near -done with theirs. Speak to me, -Emma; I can prove it.”</p> - -<p>“I’m so bursting-out happy, I -can’t talk much,” said she.</p> - -<p>Her speech followed her in his -voice. “I’m so bursting-out happy, -I can’t talk much.’ But I can hear! -Emma, Quarry and your poppa -have been setting it up since we -came here, and I was afraid to say -I heard, for fear two couldn’t keep -a secret. Emma, we want the -plant’s pension, and we’re going to -get it!</p> - -<p>“You’re going now,” he said, “to -run out to the plant—to run your -best; when you get there, go to the -furnace. If you keep right on By -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>the Tracks, nobody’ll mind you. -Quarry’s bought the furnace-minders, -and they’re going to leave for -the station to report a disturbance -in the factory. The Devil’s Crook -is in the little house by the furnace; -it is by the door. You take -it as you pass—no one’ll be there—and -when you see a light in the -factory you open the centre door -and make a flare, for the police -can’t see in the dark. You’ll catch -’em; O Emma, hurry! I’ve got a -good chance to fix Quarry, and he -didn’t warn me of that blast, or I -wouldn’t be here now. He put his -flag behind his back when he saw -me come, and I walked right on. -Hurry, Emma girl! Don’t burn -yourself!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span></p> - -<p>Emma could feel that he wanted -to go himself. She caught up her -shawl. “Is it the powder house?” -she asked.</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake,” he said loudly, -“get started! Of course it is!”</p> - -<p>She ran out into the wide darkness. -She was racing death, and -she knew it.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="XII">XII.<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE EYE OF GOD.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="center no-indent">“And the eye of God shall pierce the -lengthy darkness.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emma’s</span> first thought was of the -time that it would take her to get -to the plant. Young Bentley had -once run a mile under five minutes, -and his feat had been in the -newspapers; but she could not, of -course, count on herself for like -speed. She felt that the cinder -flare would light up her life’s crisis. -Jarlsen’s excited voice echoed in -her mind, and the thought that -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>Quarry might have saved him with -the warning flag, instead of letting -him come unchecked on live powder, -urged her on the faster. She -saw that to-day’s attempt at the -Tracks was a forced incident, intended -to look like the strike’s -crisis. She remembered her own -part in it with laughter.</p> - -<p>She was choked with anxiety. -It seemed to her that if the powder -house were fired there would -be no food anywhere in Soot City. -Who would be killed and how -much would be damaged was an -unanswerable question that weakened -her with painful suspense. -She barely noticed the hissing rush -of her breath or felt the pain in her -side. Her feet grew heavy, and the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>noise of their fall on the road-bed -sounded to her as if it was far off -in the town. Her neck was craned -in the direction of the plant, and -she wanted to throw herself along -the earth. When the lights at the -sidings and at the station grew -nearer her dimmed eyes could barely -distinguish them. Some warm -thing, with a new taste, crept over -her lips. She put up her hand to -it, and saw in the light at the first -siding that it was blood.</p> - -<p>Her body rocked with the push -of her heart-beats, and “yet,” she -thought, “I may be late.”</p> - -<p>At last she passed the station. -Through its blindless windows she -could see Benz, the furnace-tender, -talking fast to the police. For a -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span>moment she thought of going in -and telling her story, but she feared -a loss of time, and started furiously -up the grade to the tool-house. She -found the door standing open and -entered boldly, snatching the crook -and striking at a man who raised -himself from the floor. He lay -down again at once, saying, “All -right, only don’t tell me where you -put it.”</p> - -<p>“I’m in time,” she thought.</p> - -<p>There was a little patch of light -before the threshold. Looking up, -she saw four policemen crossing by -the powder house to the factory. -Then the scheme came entire into -her puzzled brain. They were -called out on search and it was -their lights in the factory that were -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span>to be taken as the signal for Quarry’s -men to fire the mine. The -furnace-tenders had gone as guides, -and the unshifted cinder could not -expose offenders.</p> - -<p>“He’s a cute viper!” Emma was -talking to herself to keep her nerve; -she was spent and breathless.</p> - -<p>The heat by the furnace was terrible; -it shone on the iron trough -in an outlined square of yellow, -where the light streamed through -the door cracks. She fitted the -crook’s hook to the loop of the -skewer and paused, waiting. Her -thoughts were busy with the way -in which they might fire the powder -stores. Heat and cold hurried -through her alternately; her hands -and brow were wet. There were, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>of course, no men on duty at the -plant save forty of the factory force, -Quarry among them. Emma saw -that this was part of the blind.</p> - -<p>The electric lights were out; -they had not been turned on since -early the last evening, but presently -one shone from the ground floor of -the factory. Emma pulled back her -crook exultingly, but the skewer -would not give. She jerked, but it -was firm. Gathering her strength, -she braced her feet and threw herself -back. She saw a fiery line pass -above her head, and heard the red-hot -skewer tinkle against a stone -behind her. She rushed to the front -of the furnace to get rid of the heat, -and stood on the crest of the incline.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span></p> - -<p>As the cinder flew in a glowing -mass down the trough to the cinder -hill, she saw the spires at the city -and the Bridge. Then she looked -directly before her.</p> - -<p>As the night lifted from the -plant yard she saw that some one -was running; the figure took on it -the red of the brightening furnace -waste, and the flame of the torch -the runner carried grew white in -the rosy glare. The light spread -higher, and Emma saw the tops of -the elm trees that grew on the -other side of the factory. The cinder -rattled in the trough with a -grating loudness.</p> - -<p>“He hes a train of oiled rope -laid,” said she.</p> - -<p>The plant-hand was Quarry, and -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span>still he ran toward the powder -house in the vivid light. The men, -most of them police, were watching -him. He knelt with his light in -his hand, and fell forward, the torch -under him. Then Emma heard a -pistol shot that sounded like snapping -fingers in the din of the cinder -waste.</p> - -<p>Bentley’s voice was hardly heard -in the various noise that followed -the shot. “Lock up God’s eye!” -he called; “it’s done big work, but -don’t waste fuel.”</p> - -<p>And a woman’s voice, peevish -from fatigue, called from the height: -“I can’t—I’m broken, I’m so tired!”</p> - -<p>But Quarry did not stir; his -torch was out. And in the house -on the Pastures Jarlsen’s eyes -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span>strained themselves to pierce their -own darkness, although the cloudy -sky was like a red sea, and the plant -stood out plainly with orange elm -trees and bright roofs.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="EPILOGUE">EPILOGUE.</h2></div> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> were disputing in the train -as to whether it was five or six -years since Quarry’s death. I said -six, and was told that I was always -wrong. My adversary evidently -considered this second-rate rejoinder -a retort. Presently he said, -“You may be right, for I think -Jarlsen’s boy is five.”</p> - -<p>Jerry Black met us at the station; -he wore a bailiff’s uniform -of corduroy. The Bentleys were -very English now, but kinder than -ever. We got into an omnibus, -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span>and asked Jerry to come too. He -had to be urged, for he is still -modest.</p> - -<p>“How are the Stonepastures?” -said I, anxious to start the conversation.</p> - -<p>“Lean livin’ yet,” he answered, -sighing; “but we’ve got a home for -the aged indigent, and a hospital.”</p> - -<p>He began to talk in earnest, and, -among other things, told us that -Emma paid the doctor the week -after Quarry died. He said she -felt as if she had killed Quarry, but -that her marriage had put it out -of her head. “The Jarlsens are -getting on fine,” he remarked confidentially, -“more than happy in -their fortunes. August has sold -his idea for freight couplers to the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span>plant, and he’s living in the back -of the new schoolhouse, and he -goes away singing and gets paid -for it. He bought a piano with -his savings.”</p> - -<p>“Emma’s too fine to shave me, -I suppose,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Don’t name it to her, please,” -implored Jerry.</p> - -<p>We arrived at the church—it was -Bentley’s wedding we were attending—and -on either side of the walk -through the yard the men and -women of the plant waited for the -bride. There was not a foot of -space left in the church. Bowa -stood next me, and with him was -Martha Long. “It’s a pleasanter -time than the last,” she said as I -greeted her. We had been staying -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>at the plant in the strike when -Quarry had gone under, and I was -pleased that she remembered it. -Black was everywhere. At last he -pushed us all back to clear the path -for the bride. Bentley was in the -church at the chancel.</p> - -<p>Then there broke on our eager -ears the finest tenor I had ever -heard. They say he sang a Swedish -wedding song. I don’t care -what it was—I almost cried when -he stopped. His voice rose high -and strong, and seemed to spread -like perfume; he sang gladly.</p> - -<p>“Who is that?” I asked.</p> - -<p>Every one within hearing answered -proudly, “Jarlsen.”</p> - -<p class="center no-indent">THE END.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"><div class="adblock"> -<p class="ph2 nobreak">D. APPLETON & CO.’S PUBLICATIONS.</p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">A</span>N IMAGINATIVE MAN.</i> By <span class="smcap">Robert S. Hichens</span>, -author of “The Green Carnation.” 12mo. Cloth, -$1.25.</p> - -<p>“One of the brightest books of the year.”—<i>Boston Budget.</i></p> - -<p>“Altogether delightful, fascinating, unusual.”—<i>Cleveland Amusement -Gazette.</i></p> - -<p>“A study in character.... Just as entertaining as though it were the -conventional story of love and marriage. The clever hand of the author -of ‘The Green Carnation’ is easily detected in the caustic wit and pointed -epigram.”—<i>Jeannette L. 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But it matters not to me what -Icelanders may call ‘The Bondman,’ if they will honor me by reading it in -the open-hearted spirit and with the free mind with which they are content -to read of Grettir and of his fights with the Troll.”—<i>From the Author’s -Preface.</i></p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">C</span>APT’N DAVY’S HONEYMOON. A Manx Yarn.</i> -12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.</p> - -<p>“A new departure by this author. Unlike his previous works, this little -tale is almost wholly humorous, with, however, a current of pathos underneath. -It is not always that an author can succeed equally well in tragedy -and in comedy, but it looks as though Mr. Hall Caine would be one of the -exceptions.”—<i>London Literary World.</i></p> - -<p>“It is pleasant to meet the author of ‘The Deemster’ in a brightly humorous -little story like this.... It shows the same observation of Manx -character, and much of the same artistic skill.”—<i>Philadelphia Times.</i></p> - -<p class="center no-indent p2"><span class="smcap">By A. CONAN DOYLE.</span></p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE STARK MUNRO LETTERS.</i> Being a Series -of Twelve Letters written by <span class="smcap">J. Stark Munro</span>, M. B., -to his friend and former fellow-student, Herbert Swanborough, -of Lowell, Massachusetts, during the years 1881-1884. -Illustrated. 12mo. Buckram, $1.50.</p> - -<p>This original and dramatic story presents fresh types, extraordinary -situations, and novel suggestions with a freshness and -vigor which show that the romancer’s heart was in his work. How -far certain incidents of the story are based upon personal experiences -it is impossible to say, but the unflagging interest and unexpected -phases of the romance are no less in evidence than the -close personal relations established between author and reader. -In the “Stark Munro Letters” the author has achieved another -success which will add to the number of his American friends and -readers.</p> - -<p>“Any one who has read any of the fascinating stories in which the -shrewd detective, Sherlock Holmes, figures as the very personification of -detective logic applied to the detection of crime, knows that Conan Doyle -is a story-teller of the very first order of merit. Like his own character, -Sherlock Holmes, he possesses the power of getting out of everything all -there is in it.”—<i>Philadelphia Item.</i></p> - -<p>“Dr. Doyle’s stories are so well known for their strong dramatic style, -for the elegance of expression, that anything new from his pen is sure to be -warmly welcomed. His readers are sure of getting a literary treat from -anything he writes. He is broad-minded and liberal, and the man who -could write two such books as ‘The White Company’ and ‘The Refugees’ -has a future which the shades of Scott and Dickens might envy.”—<i>Albany -Times-Union.</i></p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">R</span>OUND THE RED LAMP.</i> 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. -<i>Seventh edition.</i></p> - -<p>The “Red Lamp,” the trade-mark, as it were, of the English -country practitioner’s office, is the central point of these dramatic -stories of professional life. There are no secrets for the surgeon, -and, a surgeon himself as well as a novelist, the author has made -a most artistic use of the motives and springs of action revealed -to him in a field of which he is the master.</p> - -<p>“Too much can not be said in praise of these strong productions, that, -to read, keep one’s heart leaping to the throat and the mind in a tumult of -anticipation to the end.... No series of short stories in modern literature -can approach them.”—<i>Hartford Times.</i></p> - -<p>“The reading of these choice stories will prove an exciting pleasure to -all who may linger on the pages that present them.”—<i>Boston Courier.</i></p> - -<p>“A strikingly realistic and decidedly original contribution to modern -literature.”—<i>Boston Saturday Evening Gazette.</i></p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">P</span>AUL AND VIRGINIA.</i> By <span class="smcap">Bernardin de Saint-Pierre</span>. -With a Biographical Sketch, and numerous -Illustrations by Maurice Leloir. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, uniform -with “Picciola,” “The Story of Colette,” and “An -Attic Philosopher in Paris.” $1.50.</p> - -<p>It is believed that this standard edition of “Paul and Virginia” with -Leloir’s charming illustrations will prove a most acceptable addition to the -series of illustrated foreign classics in which D. Appleton & Co. have published -“The Story of Colette,” “An Attic Philosopher in Paris,” and -“Picciola.” No more sympathetic illustrator than Leloir could be found, -and his treatment of this masterpiece of French literature invests it with a -peculiar value.</p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">P</span>ICCIOLA.</i> By <span class="smcap">X. B. Saintine</span>. With 130 Illustrations -by <span class="smcap">J. F. Gueldry</span>. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50.</p> - -<p>“Saintine’s ‘Picciola,’ the pathetic tale of the prisoner who raised a -flower between the cracks of the flagging of his dungeon, has passed definitely -into the list of classic books.... It has never been more beautifully -housed than in this edition, with its fine typography, binding, and sympathetic -illustrations.”—<i>Philadelphia Telegraph.</i></p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">A</span>N ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS; or, A -Peep at the World from a Garret.</i> Being the Journal -of a Happy Man. By <span class="smcap">Émile Souvestre</span>. With numerous -Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50.</p> - -<p>“A suitable holiday gift for a friend who appreciates refined literature.”—<i>Boston -Times.</i></p> - -<p>“The influence of the book is wholly good. The volume is a particularly -handsome one.”—<i>Philadelphia Telegraph.</i></p> - -<p>“It is a classic. It has found an appropriate reliquary. Faithfully -translated, charmingly illustrated by Jean Claude with full-page pictures, -vignettes in the text, and head and tail pieces, printed in graceful type on -handsome paper, and bound with an art worthy of Matthews, in half-cloth, -ornamented on the cover, it is an exemplary book, fit to be ‘a treasure for -aye.’”—<i>New York Times.</i></p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE STORY OF COLETTE.</i> A new large-paper -edition. With 36 Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50.</p> - -<p>“One of the handsomest of the books of fiction for the holiday season.”—<i>Philadelphia -Bulletin.</i></p> - -<p>“One of the gems of the season.... It is the story of the life of young -womanhood in France, dramatically told, with the light and shade and -coloring of the genuine artist, and is utterly free from that which mars too -many French novels. In its literary finish it is well nigh perfect, indicating -the hand of the master.”—<i>Boston Traveller.</i></p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">A</span> FRIEND OF THE QUEEN.</i> (Marie Antoinette—Count -de Fersen.) By <span class="smcap">Paul Gaulot</span>. With Two Portraits, -12mo. Cloth, $2.00.</p> - -<p>“M. Gaulot deserves thanks for presenting the personal history of -Count Fersen in a manner so evidently candid and unbiased.”—<i>Philadelphia -Bulletin.</i></p> - -<p>“There are some characters in history of whom we never seem to grow -tired. Of no one is this so much the case as of the beautiful Marie Antoinette, -and of that life which is at once so eventful and so tragic.... In -this work we have much that up to the present time has been only vaguely -known.”—<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p> - -<p>“A historical volume that will be eagerly read.”—<i>New York Observer.</i></p> - -<p>“One of those captivating recitals of the romance of truth which are -the gilding of the pill of history.”—<i>London Daily News.</i></p> - -<p>“It tells with new and authentic details the romantic story of Count -Fersen’s (the Friend of the Queen) devotion to Marie Antoinette, of his -share in the celebrated flight to Varennes, and in many other well known -episodes of the unhappy Queen’s life.”—<i>London Times.</i></p> - -<p>“If the book had no more recommendation than the mere fact that -Marie Antoinette and Count Fersen are rescued at last from the voluminous -and contradictory representations with which the literature of that period -abounds, it would be enough compensation to any reader to become acquainted -with the true delineations of two of the most romantically tragic -personalities.—”<i>Boston Globe.</i></p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE ROMANCE OF AN EMPRESS. Catharine II -of Russia.</i> By <span class="smcap">K. Waliszewski</span>. With Portrait. 12mo. -Cloth, $2.00.</p> - -<p>“Of Catharine’s marvelous career we have in this volume a sympathetic, -learned, and picturesque narrative. No royal career, not even of -some of the Roman or papal ones, has better shown us how truth can be -stranger than fiction.”—<i>New York Times.</i></p> - -<p>“A striking and able work, deserving of the highest praise.”—<i>Philadelphia -Ledger.</i></p> - -<p>“The book is well called a romance, for although no legends are admitted -in it, and the author has been at pains to present nothing but verified -facts, the actual career of the subject was so abnormal and sensational as to -seem to belong to fiction.”—<i>New York Sun.</i></p> - -<p>“A dignified, handsome, indeed superb volume, and well worth careful -reading.”—<i>Chicago Herald.</i></p> - -<p>“It is a most wonderful story, charmingly told, with new material to -sustain it, and a breadth and temperance and consideration that go far to -soften one’s estimate of one of the most extraordinary women of history.”—<i>New -York Commercial Advertiser.</i></p> - -<p>“The perusal of such a book can not fail to add to that breadth of view -which is so essential to the student of universal history.”—<i>Philadelphia -Bulletin.</i></p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i><span class="dropcap">M</span>ANY INVENTIONS.</i> By <span class="smcap">Rudyard Kipling</span>. -Containing fourteen stories, several of which are now -published for the first time, and two poems, 12mo. -427 pages. Cloth, $1.50.</p> - -<p>“The reader turns from its pages with the conviction that the author -has no superior to-day in animated narrative and virility of style. He remains -master of a power in which none of his contemporaries approach him—the -ability to select out of countless details the few vital ones which create -the finished picture. He knows how, with a phrase or a word, to make -you see his characters as he sees them, to make you feel the full meaning -of a dramatic situation.”—<i>New York Tribune.</i></p> - -<p>“‘Many Inventions’ will confirm Mr. Kipling’s reputation.... We -would cite with pleasure sentences from almost every page, and extract -incidents from almost every story. But to what end? Here is the completest -book that Mr. Kipling has yet given us in workmanship, the -weightiest and most humane in breadth of view.”—<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p> - -<p>“Mr. Kipling’s powers as a story-teller are evidently not diminishing. -We advise everybody to buy ‘Many Inventions,’ and to profit by some of -the best entertainment that modern fiction has to offer.”—<i>New York Sun.</i></p> - -<p>“‘Many Inventions’ will be welcomed wherever the English language -is spoken.... Every one of the stories bears the imprint of a master who -conjures up incident as if by magic, and who portrays character, scenery, -and feeling with an ease which is only exceeded by the boldness of force.”—<i>Boston -Globe.</i></p> - -<p>“The book will get and hold the closest attention of the reader.”—<i>American -Bookseller.</i></p> - -<p>“Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s place in the world of letters is unique. He -sits quite aloof and alone, the incomparable and inimitable master of the -exquisitely fine art of short-story writing. Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson has -perhaps written several tales which match the run of Mr. Kipling’s work, -but the best of Mr. Kipling’s tales are matchless, and his latest collection, -‘Many Inventions,’ contains several such.”—<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p> - -<p>“Of late essays in fiction the work of Kipling can be compared to -only three—Blackmore’s ‘Lorna Doone,’ Stevenson’s marvelous sketch -of Villon in the ‘New Arabian Nights,’ and Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the -D’Urbervilles.’... It is probably owing to this extreme care that ‘Many -Inventions’ is undoubtedly Mr. Kipling’s best book.”—<i>Chicago Post.</i></p> - -<p>“Mr. Kipling’s style is too well known to American readers to require -introduction, but it can scarcely be amiss to say there is not a story in this -collection that does not more than repay a perusal of them all.”—<i>Baltimore -American.</i></p> - -<p>“As a writer of short stories Rudyard Kipling is a genius. He has had -imitators, but they have not been successful in dimming the luster of his -achievements by contrast.... ‘Many Inventions’ is the title. And they -are inventions—entirely original in incident, ingenious in plot, and startling -by their boldness and force.”—<i>Rochester Herald.</i></p> - -<p class="center no-indent">New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.</p></div></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="transnote"><div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph2 nobreak">Transcriber’s Notes:</p> -</div> - -<p>On page 8, cinder-flare has been changed to cinder flare.</p> - -<p>On page 23, may-be has been changed to maybe.</p> - -<p>On page 73, door-sill has been changed to doorsill.</p> - -<p>On page 157, road bed has been changed to road-bed.</p> - -<p>Variant and archaic spellings and dialect have been retained as typeset.</p></div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STONEPASTURES ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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