o which many of my critics have fallen.Whenever my view strikes them as being at all outside the rangeof, say, an ordinary suburban churchwarden, they conclude that Iam echoing Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Strindberg, Tolstoy,or some other heresiarch in northern or eastern Europe.
I confess there is something flattering in this simple faith inmy accomplishment as a linguist and my erudition as aphilosopher. But I cannot tolerate the assumption that life andliterature is so poor in these islands that we must go abroad forall dramatic material that is not common and all ideas that arenot superficial. I therefore venture to put my critics inpossession of certain facts concerning my contact with modernideas.
About half a century ago, an Irish novelist, Charles Lever, wrotea story entitled A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. It was publishedby Charles Dickens in Household Words, and proved so strange tothe public taste that Dickens pressed Lever to make short work ofit. I read scraps of this novel when I was a child; and it madean enduring impression on me. The hero was a very romantic hero,trying to live bravely, chivalrously, and powerfully by dintof mere romance-fed imagination, without courage, without means,without knowledge, without skill, without anything real excepthis bodily appetites. Even in my childhood I found in this poordevil's unsuccessful encounters with the facts of life, apoignant quality that romantic fiction lacked. The book, in spiteof its first failure, is not dead: I saw its title the other dayin the catalogue of Tauchnitz.
Now why is it that when I also deal in the tragi-comic irony ofthe conflict between real life and the romantic imagination, nocritic ever affiliates me to my countryman and immediateforerunner, Charles Lever, whilst they confidently derive me froma Norwegian author of whose language I do not know three words,and of whom I knew nothing until years after the ShavianAnschauung was already unequivocally declared in books full ofwhat came, t
s, so like herown. And very lovingly Mrs. Fayre returned the gaze, for she adoredher little daughter and was actuated only by the best motives inmaking her decisions.
"And, here's another thing," said Dolly, "Dot won't go, if I don't. Itseems too bad to spoil HER fun."
"Oh, yes, she will," said Mrs. Fayre, smiling. "She would be foolishto give up her pleasure just because you can't share it."
"Foolish or not, she won't go," repeated Dolly. "I know my Dot, andwhen she says she won't do a thing, she just simply doesn't do it!"
"I'd be sorry to be the means of keeping Dotty at home," and Mrs.Fayre sighed deeply.
CHAPTER II
A FAVOURABLE DECISION
All through dinner time, Mrs. Fayre was somewhat silent, her eyesresting on Dolly with a wistful, uncertain expression. She wanted togive the child the pleasure she craved, but she had hard work to bringherself to the point of overcoming her own objections.
At last, however, when the meal was nearly
d bolder Europeans; and they moved westward, norcould have helped that had they tried. They lived largely andblithely, and died handsomely, those old Elizabethan adventurers,and they lie today in thousands of unrecorded graves upon twocontinents, each having found out that any place is good enoughfor a man to die upon, provided that he be a man.
The American frontier was Elizabethan in its quality--childlike,simple, and savage. It has not entirely passed; for bothElizabethan folk and Elizabethan customs are yet to be found inthe United States. While the half-savage civilization of thefarther West was roaring on its way across the continent--whilethe day of the keelboatman and the plainsman, of theIndian-fighter and the miner, even the day of the cowboy, wasdawning and setting--there still was a frontier left far behindin the East, near the top of the mountain range which made thefirst great barrier across our pathway to the West. Thatfrontier, the frontier of Boone and Kenton, of Robertson a
nts; they were trusted to hired attendants; they were allowed a deal of air and exercise, were kept on plain food, forced to give way to the comfort of others, accustomed to be overlooked, slightly regarded, considered of trifling importance. No well-stocked libraries of varied lore to cheat them into learning awaited them; no scientific toys, no philosophie amusements enlarged their minds and wearied their attention." One wonders what would have been the verdict of this writer of fifty years ago on education in 1905. She goes on to tell us of the particular system pursued with the boys in order to harden them for their future work in life. It was not considered either necessary or agreeable for a woman to be very strong. "Little Francis was at the age of ten months removed from the parsonage to a cottage in the village, and placed under the care of a worthy couple, whose simple style of living, homely dwelling, and out-of-door habits (for in the country the poor seldom close the door by day, except in bad we
rubbed a short, thick, stumpy beard, that bore ageneral resemblance to a badly-worn blacking-brush, with the palmof his hand, and went on, "You had a good time, Jinny?"
"Yes, father."
"They was all there?"
"Yes, Rance and York and Ryder and Jack."
"And Jack!" Mr. McClosky endeavored to throw an expression of archinquiry into his small, tremulous eyes; but meeting the unabashed,widely-opened lid of his daughter, he winked rapidly, and blushedto the roots of his hair.
"Yes, Jack was there," said Jenny, without change of color, or theleast self-consciousness in her great gray eyes; "and he came homewith me." She paused a moment, locking her two hands under herhead, and assuming a more comfortable position on the pillow. "Heasked me that same question again, father, and I said, 'Yes.' It'sto be--soon. We're going to live at Four Forks, in his own house;and next winter we're going to Sacramento. I suppose it's allright, father, eh?" She emphasized the question with a slight kick
a man came cautiously out of the ravine, or rather out of its mouth. He was tall, slender, yet seemed to possess the bone and muscle of a giant. His eyes were jet black, fierce and flashing, and his face had a stern, almost classic beauty of feature, which would have made him a model in the ancient age of sculpture. He carried a repeating rifle, two revolvers, and a knife in his belt. His dress was buckskin, from head to foot.
"You are Persimmon Bill?" said Jack, in a tone of inquiry. "Yes. Who are you, and how came you by the signal that called me out?"
"A woman in town gave it to me, knowing she could trust me."
"Was her first name Addie?"
"Her last name was Neidic."
"All right. I see she has trusted you. What do you want?"
"Help in a matter of revenge."
"Good! You can have it. How much help is wanted?"
"I want one man taken from a party, alive, when he gets beyond civilized help, so that I can see him tortured. I want him to die by inches."
"Ho
g,oilcloth covered table. The food, wholesome, plain and abundant, wasalready served.
Silently each heaped his plate with the viands before him while SingPete circled the table pouring coffee into the white porcelain cups. TheQuarter Circle KT was famous for the excellence of its grub and theChink was an expert cook.
"Lordy, oh, lordy," Old Heck groaned, "it don't seem possible them womenare coming!"
"Maybe they won't," Parker sympathized. "When they get that telegramthey ought to turn around and go back--"
"Chuck's coming!" Bert Lilly exclaimed at that moment and the sound of ahorse stopping suddenly at the front of the house reached the ears ofthe group at the table.
"Go ask him if he got an answer, somebody, quick!" Old Heck cried.
As Charley Saunders sprang to his feet Chuck yelled, "They got it andsent an answer! I got one--" and rushed excitedly through the house andinto the kitchen waving an envelope, twin to the one Skinny had broughtearlier in the day. "They're on Train
e's a foot high, with white stuff a inch high all over. She'ssoft around the aidge some, for I stuck my finger intoe it just alittle. We just got it recent and we're night-herdin' it where it'scool. Cost a even ten dollars. The old lady said she'd make the priceall right, but Mac and me, we sort of sized up things and allowed we'ddrop about a ten in their recep_ti_cle when we come to pay for thatcake. This family, you see, moved intoe the cabin Hank Fogarty and JimBond left when they went away,--it's right acrost the 'royo from DanAnderson's office, where we're goin' to eat to-morrer.
"Now, how that woman could make a cake like this here in one of themnarrer, upside-down Mexican ovens--no stove at all--no nothing--say,that's some like adoptin' yourself to circumstances, ain't it? Why,man, I'd marry intoe that fam'ly if I didn't do nothing else long as Ilived. They ain't no Mexican money wrong side of the river. Nocounterfeit there regardin' a happy home--cuttin' out the bass voiceand
Her name is Kate, and she has big, blue eyes. You can not see her eyes, for they are shut.
Kate is a good baby; but she will cry if she is hurt, or if she is not well.
Bess likes to sit near the baby, and to rock her in the crib.
LESSON XL.--REVIEW.
Henry Black and Ned Bell live near our house. They go to school, and I see them go by each day with their books and slates.
Miss May tells the girls and boys that they should be at the schoolhouse when the bell rings. So Henry walks fast, and is first at school. He is a good boy, and wants to keep the rule of the school.
Ned is not a good boy. I do not think he likes to go to school or to church.
I saw him try to kill a quail with a stone. The quail is too quick a bird for that, and Ned did not hurt it; but I know that a good child would not try to kill a bird.
[Illustration: Script Exercise: There is a baby at Ned's house. Her name is Kate. Ned is not a good boy, but he loves Kate, and I do not thi
tha fidelity and care which proved he felt his own existence identified withthat of a man who claimed so close a right in his person; and just as theclock struck ten, he and the negro last mentioned mounted the sluggish andover-fattened horses, and galloped, as hard as foot could be laid to theearth, several miles deeper into the island, to attend a frolic at one ofthe usual haunts of the people of their color and condition.
Had Alderman Myndert Van Beverout suspected the calamity which was so soonto succeed his absence, it is probable that his mien would have been lesscomposed, as he pursued his way from his own door, on the occasion named.That he had confidence in the virtue of his menaces, however, may beinferred from the tranquillity which immediately took possession offeatures that were never disturbed, without wearing an appearance ofunnatural effort. The substantial burgher was a little turned of fifty:and an English wag, who had imported from the mother country a love forthe humor of
o which many of my critics have fallen.Whenever my view strikes them as being at all outside the rangeof, say, an ordinary suburban churchwarden, they conclude that Iam echoing Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Strindberg, Tolstoy,or some other heresiarch in northern or eastern Europe.
I confess there is something flattering in this simple faith inmy accomplishment as a linguist and my erudition as aphilosopher. But I cannot tolerate the assumption that life andliterature is so poor in these islands that we must go abroad forall dramatic material that is not common and all ideas that arenot superficial. I therefore venture to put my critics inpossession of certain facts concerning my contact with modernideas.
About half a century ago, an Irish novelist, Charles Lever, wrotea story entitled A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. It was publishedby Charles Dickens in Household Words, and proved so strange tothe public taste that Dickens pressed Lever to make short work ofit. I read scraps of this novel when I was a child; and it madean enduring impression on me. The hero was a very romantic hero,trying to live bravely, chivalrously, and powerfully by dintof mere romance-fed imagination, without courage, without means,without knowledge, without skill, without anything real excepthis bodily appetites. Even in my childhood I found in this poordevil's unsuccessful encounters with the facts of life, apoignant quality that romantic fiction lacked. The book, in spiteof its first failure, is not dead: I saw its title the other dayin the catalogue of Tauchnitz.
Now why is it that when I also deal in the tragi-comic irony ofthe conflict between real life and the romantic imagination, nocritic ever affiliates me to my countryman and immediateforerunner, Charles Lever, whilst they confidently derive me froma Norwegian author of whose language I do not know three words,and of whom I knew nothing until years after the ShavianAnschauung was already unequivocally declared in books full ofwhat came, t
s, so like herown. And very lovingly Mrs. Fayre returned the gaze, for she adoredher little daughter and was actuated only by the best motives inmaking her decisions.
"And, here's another thing," said Dolly, "Dot won't go, if I don't. Itseems too bad to spoil HER fun."
"Oh, yes, she will," said Mrs. Fayre, smiling. "She would be foolishto give up her pleasure just because you can't share it."
"Foolish or not, she won't go," repeated Dolly. "I know my Dot, andwhen she says she won't do a thing, she just simply doesn't do it!"
"I'd be sorry to be the means of keeping Dotty at home," and Mrs.Fayre sighed deeply.
CHAPTER II
A FAVOURABLE DECISION
All through dinner time, Mrs. Fayre was somewhat silent, her eyesresting on Dolly with a wistful, uncertain expression. She wanted togive the child the pleasure she craved, but she had hard work to bringherself to the point of overcoming her own objections.
At last, however, when the meal was nearly
d bolder Europeans; and they moved westward, norcould have helped that had they tried. They lived largely andblithely, and died handsomely, those old Elizabethan adventurers,and they lie today in thousands of unrecorded graves upon twocontinents, each having found out that any place is good enoughfor a man to die upon, provided that he be a man.
The American frontier was Elizabethan in its quality--childlike,simple, and savage. It has not entirely passed; for bothElizabethan folk and Elizabethan customs are yet to be found inthe United States. While the half-savage civilization of thefarther West was roaring on its way across the continent--whilethe day of the keelboatman and the plainsman, of theIndian-fighter and the miner, even the day of the cowboy, wasdawning and setting--there still was a frontier left far behindin the East, near the top of the mountain range which made thefirst great barrier across our pathway to the West. Thatfrontier, the frontier of Boone and Kenton, of Robertson a
nts; they were trusted to hired attendants; they were allowed a deal of air and exercise, were kept on plain food, forced to give way to the comfort of others, accustomed to be overlooked, slightly regarded, considered of trifling importance. No well-stocked libraries of varied lore to cheat them into learning awaited them; no scientific toys, no philosophie amusements enlarged their minds and wearied their attention." One wonders what would have been the verdict of this writer of fifty years ago on education in 1905. She goes on to tell us of the particular system pursued with the boys in order to harden them for their future work in life. It was not considered either necessary or agreeable for a woman to be very strong. "Little Francis was at the age of ten months removed from the parsonage to a cottage in the village, and placed under the care of a worthy couple, whose simple style of living, homely dwelling, and out-of-door habits (for in the country the poor seldom close the door by day, except in bad we
rubbed a short, thick, stumpy beard, that bore ageneral resemblance to a badly-worn blacking-brush, with the palmof his hand, and went on, "You had a good time, Jinny?"
"Yes, father."
"They was all there?"
"Yes, Rance and York and Ryder and Jack."
"And Jack!" Mr. McClosky endeavored to throw an expression of archinquiry into his small, tremulous eyes; but meeting the unabashed,widely-opened lid of his daughter, he winked rapidly, and blushedto the roots of his hair.
"Yes, Jack was there," said Jenny, without change of color, or theleast self-consciousness in her great gray eyes; "and he came homewith me." She paused a moment, locking her two hands under herhead, and assuming a more comfortable position on the pillow. "Heasked me that same question again, father, and I said, 'Yes.' It'sto be--soon. We're going to live at Four Forks, in his own house;and next winter we're going to Sacramento. I suppose it's allright, father, eh?" She emphasized the question with a slight kick
a man came cautiously out of the ravine, or rather out of its mouth. He was tall, slender, yet seemed to possess the bone and muscle of a giant. His eyes were jet black, fierce and flashing, and his face had a stern, almost classic beauty of feature, which would have made him a model in the ancient age of sculpture. He carried a repeating rifle, two revolvers, and a knife in his belt. His dress was buckskin, from head to foot.
"You are Persimmon Bill?" said Jack, in a tone of inquiry. "Yes. Who are you, and how came you by the signal that called me out?"
"A woman in town gave it to me, knowing she could trust me."
"Was her first name Addie?"
"Her last name was Neidic."
"All right. I see she has trusted you. What do you want?"
"Help in a matter of revenge."
"Good! You can have it. How much help is wanted?"
"I want one man taken from a party, alive, when he gets beyond civilized help, so that I can see him tortured. I want him to die by inches."
"Ho
g,oilcloth covered table. The food, wholesome, plain and abundant, wasalready served.
Silently each heaped his plate with the viands before him while SingPete circled the table pouring coffee into the white porcelain cups. TheQuarter Circle KT was famous for the excellence of its grub and theChink was an expert cook.
"Lordy, oh, lordy," Old Heck groaned, "it don't seem possible them womenare coming!"
"Maybe they won't," Parker sympathized. "When they get that telegramthey ought to turn around and go back--"
"Chuck's coming!" Bert Lilly exclaimed at that moment and the sound of ahorse stopping suddenly at the front of the house reached the ears ofthe group at the table.
"Go ask him if he got an answer, somebody, quick!" Old Heck cried.
As Charley Saunders sprang to his feet Chuck yelled, "They got it andsent an answer! I got one--" and rushed excitedly through the house andinto the kitchen waving an envelope, twin to the one Skinny had broughtearlier in the day. "They're on Train
e's a foot high, with white stuff a inch high all over. She'ssoft around the aidge some, for I stuck my finger intoe it just alittle. We just got it recent and we're night-herdin' it where it'scool. Cost a even ten dollars. The old lady said she'd make the priceall right, but Mac and me, we sort of sized up things and allowed we'ddrop about a ten in their recep_ti_cle when we come to pay for thatcake. This family, you see, moved intoe the cabin Hank Fogarty and JimBond left when they went away,--it's right acrost the 'royo from DanAnderson's office, where we're goin' to eat to-morrer.
"Now, how that woman could make a cake like this here in one of themnarrer, upside-down Mexican ovens--no stove at all--no nothing--say,that's some like adoptin' yourself to circumstances, ain't it? Why,man, I'd marry intoe that fam'ly if I didn't do nothing else long as Ilived. They ain't no Mexican money wrong side of the river. Nocounterfeit there regardin' a happy home--cuttin' out the bass voiceand
Her name is Kate, and she has big, blue eyes. You can not see her eyes, for they are shut.
Kate is a good baby; but she will cry if she is hurt, or if she is not well.
Bess likes to sit near the baby, and to rock her in the crib.
LESSON XL.--REVIEW.
Henry Black and Ned Bell live near our house. They go to school, and I see them go by each day with their books and slates.
Miss May tells the girls and boys that they should be at the schoolhouse when the bell rings. So Henry walks fast, and is first at school. He is a good boy, and wants to keep the rule of the school.
Ned is not a good boy. I do not think he likes to go to school or to church.
I saw him try to kill a quail with a stone. The quail is too quick a bird for that, and Ned did not hurt it; but I know that a good child would not try to kill a bird.
[Illustration: Script Exercise: There is a baby at Ned's house. Her name is Kate. Ned is not a good boy, but he loves Kate, and I do not thi
tha fidelity and care which proved he felt his own existence identified withthat of a man who claimed so close a right in his person; and just as theclock struck ten, he and the negro last mentioned mounted the sluggish andover-fattened horses, and galloped, as hard as foot could be laid to theearth, several miles deeper into the island, to attend a frolic at one ofthe usual haunts of the people of their color and condition.
Had Alderman Myndert Van Beverout suspected the calamity which was so soonto succeed his absence, it is probable that his mien would have been lesscomposed, as he pursued his way from his own door, on the occasion named.That he had confidence in the virtue of his menaces, however, may beinferred from the tranquillity which immediately took possession offeatures that were never disturbed, without wearing an appearance ofunnatural effort. The substantial burgher was a little turned of fifty:and an English wag, who had imported from the mother country a love forthe humor of