Genre Fiction. Page - 189

hould so much like to put Chirp into Dicky's cage."

"I have been thinking of the very same thing," said Charles. "Let us run and ask mamma if we may do it."

Away they ran and asked.

"Why," said their mamma, "it certainly will have rather a strange appearance. The two birds do not seem suitable companions. It is an odd fancy, children; but you may do it if you like."

No sooner said than done. Off ran Fanny and Charles--took the little Foundling out of his old lantern--opened the door of Dicky's cage--and at once put him in, and fastened the door. In a moment, Dicky flew up to his top perch, and stood looking down very earnestly; and the little Foundling, though he could stump about on his lame toes, never moved, but sat looking up at Sir Dicky. The nestling looked like a poor little ragged lame beggar-boy whom a sprightly gentleman in a bright yellow coat had been so compassionate as to take into his house.

[Illustration]

Presently the Foundling went to the seed-box, a

g till our killing time was come? The poor devils of steers have never done anything but ramble off the run now and again, while we -- but it's too late to think of that. It IS hard. There's no saying it isn't; no, nor thinking what a fool, what a blind, stupid, thundering idiot a fellow's been, to laugh at the steady working life that would have helped him up, bit by bit, to a good farm, a good wife, and innocent little kids about him, like that chap, George Storefield, that came to see me last week. He was real rightdown sorry for me, I could tell, though Jim and I used to laugh at him, and call him a regular old crawler of a milker's calf in the old days. The tears came into his eyes reg'lar like a woman as he gave my hand a squeeze and turned his head away. We was little chaps together, you know. A man always feels that, you know. And old George, he'll go back -- a fifty-mile ride, but what's that on a good horse? He'll be late home, but he can cross the rock ford the short way over the creek. I can see h

to do, but it took more guts that he had to jump off a bridge, so he went on the Road instead.

After he got over his shakes--and he sure had 'em bad--he decided that, if he never took another drink, it'd be the best thing for him. So he didn't. He had a kind of dignity, though, and he could really talk, so he and I teamed up during the wheat harvest in South Dakota. We made all the stops and, when we hit the peaches in California we picked up Sacks and Dirty Pete.

Sacks got his monicker because he never wore shoes. He claimed that gunny-sacks, wrapped around his feet and shins, gave as much protection and more freedom, and they were more comfortable, besides costing nix. Since we mostly bought our shoes at the dumps, at four bits a pair, you might say he was stretching a point, but that's one of the laws of the Road. You don't step on the othe

oduction, the multifold--all this was written under that skywhich now swept, deep and blue, flecked here and there with soft andfleecy clouds, over these fruitful acres hewn from the primevalforest.

The forest, the deep, vast forest of oak and ash and gum and ghostlysycamore; the forest, tangled with a thousand binding vines andbriers, wattled and laced with rank blue cane--sure proof of a soilexhaustlessly rich--this ancient forest still stood, mysterious andforbidding, all about the edges of the great plantation. Here andthere a tall white stump, fire-blackened at its foot, stood, even infields long cultivated, showing how laborious and slow had been thewhittling away of this jungle, which even now continually encroachedand claimed its own. The rim of the woods, marked white by thedeadened trees where the axes of the laborers were reclaiming yetother acres as the years rolled by, now showed in the morning sundistinctly, making a frame for the rich and restful picture of theBig House and it

"And I've been wanting to talk to you about this, Ingred. Shall you be very disappointed when I tell you 'No'?"

"Oh, Muvvie!" Ingred's tone was agonized.

"It can't be helped, little woman! It can't indeed! I think you're old enough now to understand if I explain. You know this war has hit a great many people very hard. There has been a sort of general financial see-saw; some have made large fortunes, but others have lost them. We come in the latter list. When your father went out to France, he had to leave his profession to take care of itself, and other architects have stepped in and gained the commissions that used to come to his office. It may take him a long while to pull his connection together again, and the time of waiting will be one of much anxiety for him. Then, most of our investments, which used to pay such good dividends, are worth hardly anything now, and only bring us in a pittance compared with former years. Instead of being rich people, we shall have to be very careful indeed to

or Child. It is to be hoped that some pupil of his maycomplete the task in his sense, if, indeed, he has left it
unfinished.

Ballad: Sir Patrick Spens

(Border Minstrelsy.)

The king sits in Dunfermline town,
Drinking the blude-red wine o:
"O whare will I get a skeely skipper
To sail this new ship of mine o?"

O up and spake an eldern-knight,
Sat at the king's right knee:
"Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That ever saild the sea."

Our king has written a braid letter,
And seald it with his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
Was walking on the strand.

"To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway oer the faem;
The king's daughter of Noroway,
'Tis thou maun bring her hame."

The first word that Sir Patrick read,
Sae loud, loud laughed he;
The neist word that Sir Patrick read,
The tear blinded his ee.

"O wha is this has done this deed,
And tauld the king o me,
To send us out, at this time of the year,

she said, and withdrew her hands from his shoulders. The faces of both were now gazing straight on over the gold-flecked slope before them. "Go on, you are a man. I know you will not turn back from what you undertake. You will not change, you will not turn--because you cannot. You were born to earn and not to own; to find, but not to possess. But as you have lived, so you will die."

"You give me no long shrift, mother?" said the youth, with a twinkle in his eye.

"How can I? I can only tell you what is in the book of life. Do I not know? A mother always loves her son; so it takes all her courage to face what she knows will be his lot. Any mother can read her son's future--if she dares to read it. She knows--she knows!"

There was a long silence; then the widow continued.

"Listen, Merne," she said. "You call me a prophetess of evil. I am not that. Do you think I speak only in despair, my boy? No, there is something larger than mere happiness. Listen, and believe me, for now I could n

I said, "Fine, go ahead. About your resignations--"

Mel said something indistinguishable--I'd caught him on a bite of steak.

Hazel, belligerent, demanded: "Are you asking us to resign?"

Apparently I wasn't. So they stuck, and another crisis was met. Unfortunately, by then, I'd forgotten the shock and warning I got from the cat.

* * * * *

Things moved swiftly, more easily. The GG took over, becoming, in effect, my staff. They'd become more: five different extensions of me, each capable of acting correctly. As a team, they meshed beautifully.

Too beautifully, at one point. Dex and Hazel were seeing eye-to-eye, even in the dark, and I worried about the effect on the others. I might as well have worried about the effect of a light bulb on the sun. They married or some such, refused time off, and the GG functioned, if anything, better. It was almost indecent the way the five got along together.

A new problem arose: temperature. We weren't repr

that behind Mrs. Betty's elegant verbiage there was a tenacity of purpose that would have surprised her best friends.

"I wonder whether Murchison is as privileged as I am?" he said, passing his cup over the red tea cosy.

"I suppose the woman gushes for him, just as I work my wits for you."

"The Amazons of Roxton."

"We live in a civilized age, Parker, but the battle is no less bitter for us. I use my head. Half the words I speak are winged for a final end."

"You are clever enough, Betty," he confessed.

"We both have brains" and she gave an ironical laugh "I shall not be content till the world, our world, fully recognizes that fact. Old Hicks is past his work. Murchison is the only rival you need consider. Therefore, Parker, our battle is with the gentleman of Lombard Street."

"And with the wife?"

"That is my affair."

Such life feuds as are chronicled in the hatred of a Fredegonde for a Brunehaut may be studied in miniature in many a modern setting.