JANUARY 1899 10 CENTS

DIXIE. A MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

THE DIXIE BALTIMORE PUBLISHING CO.

[1]

DIXIE.

Vol. I. January, 1899. No. 1.

[2]

DAN RICE’S NEW YEAR FROLIC

by M.G. McClelland.

Among the mountain fastnesses the snow lay fifteen inches deep in the open, a thing without precedent in the memory of the oldest hunter in the Humpback region. The cowled peaks uplifted themselves, wanly, and lay against a hard distance in mysterious, alien solitude.

In the midst rose Humpback, his indented crest losing outline for days together by reason of the snow clouds that coifed it. In the hollows, where many of the mountaineers lived, the snow was much deeper, wind-drifted in swaths, fit to bury a man to the middle. Many of the trails were blocked and, when the wind changed and a slight thaw set in, followed by a freeze, the snow packed and crusted, which made travel bad for people who had never even heard of snow-shoes. The wild creatures suffered most, and whole covies of game birds perished in the drifts from cold or starvation. On the other hand, minks, otters, foxes, and nature’s other carnivorous children fattened apace, slipping about the white frozen world, like demons of the inner circle, and feasting upon the bodies of the dead.

As the cold increased, big game was driven from inaccessible haunts and wandered afield in search of food, even venturing, by night, close to the cabins and fodder-stacks of the people. Deer trails grew plentiful, and the big cushioned track of bear could be seen in many of the hollows.

When the cold first swooped upon them, the people curled up like touched caterpillars, and devoted every energy not frost-bitten to keeping themselves warm. Their cabins were built on hygienic principles, and the very earth beneath them was unaccustomed to the rigor[3] of a hard chill. After a week of it, finding themselves still living, the men began to take interest and a hunting epidemic broke out and spread.

Dan Rice, the owner of good hunting dogs, became the most popular man in the neighborhood and had his vanity so tickled that he decided to give a party, just to show the folks what a fellow he was and what a figure he could make when he set his mind to it. He had a big buck swung up by its heels in his smoke-house, and nearly two flour barrels full of small game, besides the intimate friendship of a distiller of “moonshine,” so that he felt himself in a position to invite his friends to make merry with him and “damn the expense.”

“’Twill thaw we-all up, an’ start the sap runnin’,” he explained to his wife. “Thar’s plenty to do with, so you an’ the gals buckle on an’ don’t have no sparin’ an’ pinchin’. This here shindig have got to make a record.”

Word of the extent and elegance of the preparations went around with the invitations, and also that Mrs. Rice and her daughters would appear in new calicos made specially for the occasion. Immediately every female invited felt life unendurable without similar decoration, and domestic atmosphere grew fevered with discussions of patterns and styles.

Tom Westley’s pretty little near-sighted wife secured the sweetest thing in rosebuds on a dark red ground, and stitched away at it energetically. Her baby was nearly three months old now and her interest in the outside world was returning. The grooves of her life were well defined and narrow, so that any extraneous happening became an event charged with unbalancing excitement.

There was to be a big deer hunt with Rice’s hounds, as a preliminary to the ball, and every able-bodied man about the district expected to take part in it. Westley proposed to his wife to go over to the Rice’s early in the day and let him join her there after the hunt, but got flouted. Mrs. Rice would be run off her legs with the preparations, her considerate little neighbor declared, and would be justified in regarding premature arrivals with disgust. She—Susan Westley—was a housekeeper herself and knew about these things. Besides, her own dress was unfinished, and she had a making of soap in the lye which must be attended to. Then it was arranged that Tom should meet her at a specified fence corner, a quarter of a mile from their house, just before, or on the edge of dark. The way to the fence was through a cleared field and perfectly open. She knew it as well as she did her own door yard.

[4]

“Don’t git so fired up huntin’ that you forgit me,” she admonished, as she gave her husband his breakfast on the important morning. “It’s a mile over to Rice’s an’ woods nigh all the way. The moon won’t be up, time I want to start n’other, so I’d be feared. Aim to be at the fence fust, will you?”

“All right,” Tom acquiesced easily. “I’ll be thar sure as shootin’, so thar aint no call to fluster. Don’t keep me waitin’ no longer ’n you can help for it’s tarnation cold loafin’. Wrop the youngster up tight, or he’ll freeze. He ain’t none too fleshy.”

He had the child on his knee and was feeding it with scraps of his own breakfast, calmly confident that as the boy is father to the man that which is good for him at one point of his development must be beneficial all along the line. The baby was chipper and healthy, but exceedingly small, a fact used to shame his parents by the possessors of more stalwart off-spring.

Breakfast despatched, Westley handed the child to his wife, and invested himself with a shaggy overcoat and coon-skin cap, made with ear-tabs and a droll peak in front which stuck out keenly.

“You want to keep out ’n the bushes,” laughed his wife, as she opened the door for him, “or somebody ’ll be shootin’ you for a b’ar. That thar peak an’ your nose, comin’ together, makes a mighty good snout an’ all the balance looks shaggy. Folks can’t hardly tell no dif’ence, fust look.”

Westley tweaked his cap further forward. “Ev’rybody aint short-ranged like you,” he responded. “Thar’s a chance o’ ’em down out’n the mountains folks say but I aint seed none. Wish I could. ’Twould be somethin’ to brag about to kill a bustin’ big b’ar. Far’well, honey, take keer o’ yo’se’f, an’ don’t keep me loafin’ out yonder ’till ’tother fellows git the fust shot off Dan’s vittles.”

Left alone, the little woman worked busily, trying to crowd into the short daylight hours as much as they would hold. Her soap making required more time than she had allowed for so that twilight had deepened to night-fall before she had everything arranged to her mind and herself and the child made ready for the expedition.

The snow clouds had disappeared, leaving a thin, keen atmosphere through which the starlight could penetrate. This, with the snow-shimmer, made a pallid, mysterious lustre, exciting to the imagination, but insufficient for guidance, except in places where the way was open and familiar. The path across the field was a foot under[5] cover, but a big sycamore grew near the trysting place by which it could be identified. The accustomed aspect of the earth had vanished and in its place was illusion and mystery.

Sue Westley hurried forward, hugging the cocoon which contained her baby close to her breast. She crossed the field hap-hazard, straining her near-sighted eyes for a glimpse of the sycamore, which was her objective point. Ice-coated weeds uplifted themselves above the snow crust on every side, and, when her skirts brushed against them, the ice broke and fell off with a faint metallic tinkle. The crunching of the snow under foot made her nervous, giving her the feeling of being followed, and involuntarily she began to work herself into a panic of fear that Tom would not meet her.

Her relief was proportionately great when, nearing the fence, she dimly discerned something tall and bulky leaning against it. She quickened her pace and became explanatory.

“I’m awful sorry I ke’p you waitin’, Tom, but I couldn’t git through no quicker,” she said eagerly. “That thar soap done meaner ’en any truck ever biled. Look, to me, like jedgment day’d git here afore it thimbled. That threw me late milkin’ an’ feedin’, an’ thar was baby to dress an’ me too. You’re nigh frozen I reckon, but we-all can walk rapid the balance o’ the way. Here, take the baby whilst I unhook my dress. It’s caught on a scrop o’ bresh.”

Scarcely noticing, she rested the child on the top-rail, steadying it there with one hand, while she bent down and freed her skirt. The figure beside the fence made no answer, but reached forward and drew the bundle from under her hand.

Sue turned to the next panel, which was unincumbered by brush, and climbed it with the agility of a monkey. Tom had remembered, and been before her at the tryst. A warm glow of satisfaction was generated in her heart and sent her spirits up to mischief heat. She sped forward, with a laugh, and then turned and began jumping backwards, chattering like a black bird. Tom must carry the baby awhile, she declared, her arms were tired, and besides she wanted to frolic. Then she swooped sideways and tried to grab up a handful of snow, but the hard crust defied her. No matter; snow balling Tom might be fun, but there was the danger of hitting the baby. She steadied herself and called out to him to hurry up and join her. She wanted to hear about the hunt.

In the pause in her own volubility, made for reply, she suddenly[6] became conscious of an absolute silence, as of a vast void wherein nothing moved, or breathed, except herself. She shivered, and her spirits began to fall as rapidly as they had risen. Two explanations of this singular silence, both equally obnoxious, swept into her mind. Tom was trying to play a foolish practical joke; or else he had been drinking too much and leaned on the fence drowsing and unable to move.

She started back at a keen run when the sound of a man’s whistle cleft the stillness, arresting her steps and causing her to face about uncertainly. Tom was crunching over the snow towards her, swinging a lighted lantern and trilling like a mocking-bird.

Whatever shame he may have felt for his tardiness was effectually routed by his wife’s wild demand for her child, and the sight of her excitement when he, in his turn, inquired “what in thunder she meant?”

She threw up her hands with a cry that cut through him.

“You were thar!” she wailed. “Thar by the fence, just now, waitin’ for me. I seed you. An’ you took the baby whilst I turned myse’f loose from the bresh. Whar is he? If you’ve hid him in the snow he’ll catch his death. Quit foolin’, Tom, an’ git him for me! I’m skeered all to pieces anyhow, an’ can’t stan’ no such as that. Git him for me!”

Bewildered to the verge of idiocy, Tom protested his innocence. He had not seen the child since he left home that morning, and had no thought of joking. He had only just gotten there. Luck had been good, which made him late. Then he drew from her as connected an account of the occurrence as her excitement would allow, and suggested that, owing to the imperfect light and her own defective vision, she might have mistaken a brush heap against the fence for a man and laid the baby in it. They went back at once, Tom talking volubly to conceal unreasoning anxiety, and Sue frankly terrified and moaning just above her breath.

At the place where Sue had crossed, the snow-crust was shattered in a large circle; they scarcely looked at it, one swing of the lantern, low to the ground, being sufficient to identify the spot. Midway of the adjoining panel the crust was broken also, but less heavily, and Tom went on his knees and examined the marks with the experienced eye of a hunter. There were faint but plainly perceptible scratches on the snow, as though claws had scraped downward as the crust sagged under weight. Tom examined the fence, holding the lantern close and scanning the rails intently. On several he found hairs, caught[7] under splinters, and collected them until he had quite a number between his forefinger and thumb. They were something over an inch long, brown in color, and very fine and glossy—the hairs of an animal. He laid them together in his palm, and held the light so that his wife could see and realize the significance of the discovery. No sound escaped either; they simply stared at each other, the face of the father stiffening like stone, while that of the mother blanched to the pallor of snow with the draining of blood from her heart.

The horrible truth seemed everywhere, in the earth, in the air, and to shout itself through the spaces of the infinite.

Mistaking it for her husband, the woman had unwittingly given her baby to a bear.

The man was the first to recover himself. His hunting experiences had trained him to be prompt in emergency and ready in resource at all times, but now, under this emotional stress, his brain worked with astonishing quickness. Much time had already been wasted, and every second was precious. The bear might still be at hand, in one of the adjacent hollows. His lair was probably up among the heights, but he might stop somewhere. Tom’s mind shied away from thought of that which might cause delay, and harnessed itself to action. He must follow the trail on the instant, going swiftly, with crest lowered and light to the ground. He was unarmed except for a hunting knife in his belt, but, in his then mood would not have hesitated to attack a grizzly with naked hands.

The first step of course was to rid himself of his wife. She stood as one dazed, her eyes fixed upon him, but unseeingly. She seemed to be taking no notice, but he knew well enough that if he should move she would follow him. What he wanted was to prevent her from seeing, unprepared, that which he might find: to get her away to some sheltered place where there were other women. Knowing instinctively the value of domination to one in her condition he laid his hand on her shoulder and ordered her as if she were a child.

“Listen, Sue,” he said peremptorily; “I’ve got to have help, an’ have it damned quick. You must run like a wild turkey over to Rice’s an’ rouse up men an’ dogs an’ start ’em arter me. They kin ketch up my trail from here. I’ve got to shove on at once. It’s the boy’s best chance.”

Hope and life sprang like a flame to Sue’s face. “Air thar any chance?” she demanded.

[8]

“Yes, if you’ll help me,” Tom answered, feeling drearily confident that he was lying, but keeping on all the same. “B’ars have been knowed to play with babies, like cubs, an’ never hurt a ha’r o’ ’em. Now, travel like lightenin’!”

Sue pressed herself close to him and held his lips with a brief kiss. “If the child’s dead ye must kill me,” she muttered, and, before he could answer, fled away from him through the night.

How she got over to Rice’s Sue Westley could never describe. In her mind was a confused jumble of forest and hillside which seemed to cut her off from everywhere, and of a sinuous trail to which she held by instinct, catching her garments on the bushes as she ran, stumbling, falling, cutting her hands and bruising her body against broken ice and unexpected up-juttings of granite. Her sun-bonnet caught on a low-hanging bough and was jerked from her head, but she sped on unheeding; her abundant blond hair shook from its coil and lay along her back like a half-twisted rope. At last she won free of the woods and tumbled, rather than climbed, over the rail fence surrounding Rice’s clearing, and raced in among the revellers with her face white as chalk and her breath coming and going in gasps.

They could make nothing of her story, at first, until Rice, a man gifted with common sense, got her into a chair and made her swallow half a tumbler of hot whiskey toddy. As the liquor got in its work her nerves steadied and she was able to make them understand the situation and the necessity there was for haste. Comment and question circulated like lightning and excitement rose to fever heat. Bears, hunger-driven from the heights, were known to be rambling about, so that the situation held grim possibilities. It seemed probable that this very animal had had the Westley pig-pen for his objective point and that he had just up-reared himself to climb the fence when the woman appeared and thrust her baby under his nose. All thought of jollification vanished like mist and every able-bodied man in the crowd grabbed for his gun and whooped up the hounds.

Tom, meanwhile, followed the dents in the snow-crust, thankful for his own forethought in providing himself with a lantern. The moon would be up after a little, but in the urgent present the necessity for light was overwhelming. The trail led him through a jungly hollow and across a long ridge into another hollow. Here some clearing for firewood had been made and the trees were scattered at long intervals, with stumps and brush heaps between, transformed by a mantling of snow into strange similitudes.

[9]

As he entered the place, Tom was conscious of a soft increase of light and glancing backward beheld a three-quarter moon disengaging herself from the tree-tops. In a few moments she had won clear and was sailing upward into unobstructed space, from whence she cast earthward rays which were refracted from millions of snow crystals.

Tom held to the trail like a blood-hound, but near the centre of the clearing he was brought up all standing by the most singular spectacle his eyes ever beheld. Not fifty yards ahead was the bear, erect upon his hind legs and gyrating slowly in a circle as though keeping time to imaginary music. As Tom looked, the beast bent downward and cautiously executed a somersault, grunting with joy in his own performance. Then he moved backward in a straight line, as though to give himself headway, and suddenly bounced toward the pivotal point of the circle, like a trap-ball, landing close beside a small dark object plainly discernible upon the snow. This he caught in his paws and rolled about softly, playing with it as a cat plays with a kitten.

The wind, so far, had been in Tom’s favor, but, as the animal frolicked, he veered about a bit and caught it full-tainted from the hunter’s direction. He threw up his head uneasily and drew the scent into his nostrils. Tom dashed forward at once, conscious that the smallest delay would enable the bear to grab the baby and make off with it. He whipped out his knife as he leapt and howled like a Comanche, hoping to strike terror to the ursine soul. When he got to close quarters he dealt the beast a crashing blow over the muzzle with his lantern, and, in the momentary advantage so gained, contrived, with a strong shove of his foot to send the baby skating along the snow-crust to a considerable distance.

Then the enraged animal rose on his hind legs and gripped him.

Tom lunged with his knife, but failed to strike a vital part and before he could draw out and strike a second time, the bear had a good body grip and was squeezing. Fortunately for Tom the bear was only medium sized, while he, himself, was a big man and a fine wrestler. The breath was being hugged out of him, but his right arm was free so that he was able to match science against brute strength. Thrusting his forearm under his adversary’s chin nearly to the elbow he made a lever of his own body and forced the head up and backward until, to save his neck from dislocation, the bear was compelled to loosen his grip and threw himself on his back, with Tom uppermost. In the fall,[10] Tom freed his other arm and got hold of the hilt of his knife, which he began to saw about in the wound furiously.

How the battle would have ended, had the combatants been left to themselves, is an open question. It was still undecided when the baying of hounds came over the ridge and Dan Rice’s pack swept into the hollow in full cry and threw themselves, en masse, upon the quarry.

After them came the hunters, traveling impetuously and in bunches. They found Tom sitting on the bear’s carcass, with a small bundle hugged to his breast and all the dogs squatting on their haunches about him in a sympathetic semi-circle.

They bore home the bear and the baby in triumph and Sue Westley had to stand some rough joking anent her mistake, which she minded no more than the whistling of the wind. Why should she? Was not the baby alive and crowing in her arms, and Tom the hero of the hour because of his prowess? The fiddlers tuned up their instruments and the women set about restoring to toothsomeness the belated supper, so that, despite the interruption, the frolic came off hilariously and fulfilled Dan’s ambition by making a record.

Two things alone blunted the edge of Tom’s satisfaction. One was that a small iron ring was discovered in the bear’s muzzle, showing that at one portion of his career it must have been accustomed to human dominance. This probably accounted for its gentleness and antics with the baby, but it also took the bloom off of boasting.

The other trouble was the publicity given the affair by the county newspaper, which published the story in detail. This last, Tom regarded narrow-mindedly, and denounced as an outrage.

“Its dog-goned impidence an’ meddlesomeness,” he fumed. “An’ if ’twarn’t for makin’ bad wuss, by givin’ him another tale to yelp over, I’d b’ar-bait that thar outdacious varmint in his own hollow. What sort o’ trick is it to play on a fellow, to set all the state o’ Virginny grinning like a ’possum at him bekase his own wife didn’t have enough gumption to know him from a b’ar?”

At which protest his neighbors howled with derision and unfeelingly reminded him that when certain adventures of theirs had been made public through the same medium he, Tom, had considered the matter vastly amusing.

[11]

[12]

Drawn by Clinton Peters.

Little Barlow was very poor indeed and, what was much more serious, had stretched his limited credit just as far as it would go. He didn’t like to do this at all, but there was no help for it and it grieved him sorely. Therefore he became daily more despairing and sick at heart as one by one his most promising schemes for money making came to naught and the trades-people presented their bills with a machine-like promptness and inevitability.

He possessed only one living relative in America, a millionaire uncle—who was addicted to the pernicious habit of endowing memorial hospitals and colleges in total oblivion of his duty towards his only nephew. Little Barlow had timidly approached this uncle for help the year before—when he was suffering almost as badly from a similarly acute period of ill-chance—and had received three hundred dollars by cable in return, but, when the American mail arrived a week afterward, it brought with it such an unnecessarily brutal letter that he heartily regretted that by paying his creditors nearly all the money he had rendered himself powerless to send it flying back across the ocean, accompanied by the very choicest anathemas in his vocabulary.

[16]

The most exasperating feature of the letter was the offensive position his uncle took in regard to his chosen work. He advised him to give it up “as he did not seem to be a great success at it.” Success meaning to him—as it does to so many other business men—solely and uniquely the possession of the special faculty for making money.

“Yet,” said Little Barlow to his patient little wife, “I don’t think I have been a total failure, and won’t admit yet awhile that—even from his point of view—I am not a success.” “No dearest,” she joined in indignantly, “we won’t admit that at all;” and then she added proudly, “we will show him some day that you will be rich as well as famous, and will prove to him that he might have acquired far more lasting honor, at very much less expense, by giving you a few well-paid orders now—and so helping you over some rough places in your career—than he can ever gain with all his vain-glorious memorials put together.”

Little Barlow kissed his thanks on the lips of his loyal little wife and resumed: “I imagine sometimes that the old gentleman means well but doesn’t understand our case. He went into business as a boy, made all his money himself, and considers struggling was good for him and formed his character, so I suppose he honestly thinks that that is the very best training for an artist also. He doesn’t comprehend that we depend for our actual livelihood on the caprice of the public (and are often undeservedly worried thereby) or that we cannot paint directly for money, or that if we do so our work is tolerably certain not to sell. You can add up a column of figures, or measure calico, or weigh out sugar, or sweep a room, or do a lot of other useful things with the idea of remuneration for your pains in view, but you cannot write a great[17] poem, or compose a great piece of music, or paint a great picture—which must be poetic and musical as well—with an eye solely bent on the acquisition of the almighty dollar. I never in all my life painted but one of those horrid affairs that we so suggestively call ‘pot boilers’ and that—heaven help me!—has been knocking around my studio as a lesson ever since. There seems to be something in it that proclaims it a monster to the least intelligent, something mean about it which says money was the sole object of its being born at all.

“On the contrary, if you paint a subject because you find it beautiful, or interesting, or because you love to do it, it is astonishing indeed if you do not find somebody else who would ‘love’ to have it and be glad to pay what he can afford for its possession.”

Little Barlow had followed this theory consistently and had very little left in his studio to sell. He had found that a great many people “loved” his pictures; the only trouble was that the ones who “loved” and wanted them the most had very little to give in exchange for them; and that after the expenses for frames, canvases, paints, rents, taxes, models and commissions had been deducted, there was scarcely anything remaining for the sweet young wife, the two wee children, and little Barlow himself. Still he hoped for better things in the future and worked on, as he had always done, with a great joy in his heart.

Little Barlow had had a hard life of it and had practically “made” himself, but in spite of all the sordid shocks his artistic nature had received in that process it still remained intact and valiant. He had also had his share of successes as well, although they did not exactly come within his uncle’s definition of the word. He had had two drawings and a prize painting hung on the walls of Julian’s, the title of “Premier” in the admission examination at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and an Honorable Mention and a Third Class Medal at the old Salon. When he received his “Mention” he was so proud and confident of his powers that he rashly rushed off and proposed to a charming little girl art-student just as poor and as ingenious as himself.

It was during his honey-moon—when he was blissfully happy—that he produced his medal picture, and then there came a[18] halt in his affairs for lack of money, and the bills and the babies rolled in on him till they had threatened to drown him altogether, and in sheer desperation he composed his little plaint to his uncle which brought him the saving three hundred dollars and, a week later, the awful letter that made him red with shame for months afterward.

In spite of all his resolves and struggles fate had been adverse to him once more. He was in great difficulties, and the necessity of facing an immediate danger was again upon him. It was of course useless and entirely out of the question to write a second letter to the uncle, whom he felt in his anger would willingly see them all slowly die of starvation rather than help them further, provided, of course, they could do so decently and quietly and not make any unpleasant scandal about it.

“I shall not write to him again, whatever happens,” he said, clinching his fists; and then he added, with an altogether ugly look on his usually placid face, “if the worst comes to the worst and we have to shoot ourselves, or otherwise go under, it will make a great deal of unfavorable talk at home and that,” he continued, smiling grimly, “is something he won’t like at all.”

Little Barlow had not been indulging in any such gloomy reflections the month before; on the contrary he had not been so hopeful and light hearted for a long time. He had paid his rent and a big color bill (which threatened to become malignant) with the compensation he had received for a remarkably living portrait of a rich and titled Englishman. “If I receive two more orders of the kind I will be on solid rock,” he triumphantly asserted to his beaming little wife, “and there now seems every prospect that I’ll get them. Lord Richemont was very much pleased with my work—as was his friend Sir Garnet Walton—and they have practically promised me at least one more order apiece. I will probably have to go to London soon to paint Lady Richemont, and who knows what will come out of the connections I may make there.”

[19]

Poor little Barlow’s day dreams were short lived, for toward the end of the following week—when he was just upon the point of starting—he received a letter from his patron telling him that Lady Richemont found his portrait wonderfully good and true and liked it immensely, but that she would be unable to pose for him for some time on account of a serious and sudden illness which had pulled her down in strength and temporarily altered her face. Then the bread bill dropped in, and little Barlow, wearing an exceedingly serious and abstracted air, settled it with the money he had reserved for his ticket to England, and the next day (out of an almost cloudless sky) fell an unkind and unexpected thunderbolt, in the shape of a legal summons from his frame-maker to pay one hundred and forty seven francs still due.

Now this was needlessly cruel on the frame-maker’s part, for little Barlow had ordered from him—or recommended his friends to order—nearly six thousand francs worth of work in the past five years. But the frame-maker suddenly “saw red,” as they say in France, and was in financial troubles in his turn, and decided to fall on poor little Barlow’s back with the entire and somewhat massive machinery of the French law.

“This document,” said little Barlow, gazing with mingled awe and curiosity at the officially stamped paper, “calls for our immediate attention. We are coming dangerously near to the point of being seized and sold out, and, if that were ever to take place, it would mean a complete and definite end to us.” While he was reflecting what it was best for him to do under the circumstances, the postman once again passed by and handed in another letter from London which when he had torn it open and read it, eased his mind mightily. It informed him that if he would accept £20 instead of the catalogue price of £30 for a last year Salon picture—then exposed at the Crystal Palace—he could dispose of it immediately.

[20]

He was so delighted at this unexpected good fortune that he caught his little wife by the waist—although she held a baby in each arm at the time and was in danger of dropping and injuring them seriously—and waltzed her round and round the studio. Then he told her all about the good news, and sat down and wrote a reply agreeing to let his picture go somewhat reluctantly (for the looks of the thing) provided he was paid at once; after which he sallied out and walked way over across town and deposited it himself in the main post office of the rue du Louvre so that there would be a little less chance of its going astray than by simply dropping it in a branch office letter-box in the next street. Then he went home and patiently waited for the response.

A whole week passed and it did not come and he was at length forced by the actual necessities of life to borrow twenty francs from a friend named Bolton. Toward the middle of the second week he got another ten from an acquaintance named Sidney, but still the anxiously looked for communication did not put in its appearance. Matters were assuming a decidedly ominous aspect now—the frame-maker’s suit having been decided against him by default—so he wrote a rather peevish letter to the Secretary of the Exhibition which, after some further delay, elicited a reply. In it he was told that the gentleman who had wanted his picture had gone away for a short cruise on his yacht and had neglected as yet to make known his ultimate intentions in regard to it.

This note rendered little Barlow well-nigh desperate. What was he to do? He remembered a kind friend, a Dr. Galt, who had offered to loan him a little money once before (and whom he knew had a warm heart for all the world), so he went over to his office on the rue St. Honore to ask him if he could help him in his emergency, but Fortune was once again against him and he learned with a sinking heart that[21] the doctor had gone to Edinburg to attend a medical congress then being held there and would not be back for at least two weeks.

Then he returned to his studio, much discouraged and cast down, and told his brave but sad little wife about this last and crowning disappointment.

“It’s no use,” said little Barlow despairingly, “every thing is against us and we are now certain of being sold out. The danger is immediate and our furniture may be seized at any moment. If I had only a little more time I think I should be able to get the money somewhere, but the hundred and forty-seven francs—and the twenty-five extra ones for costs—might just as well be so many thousands, for I’m as powerless to raise them as though they were. All the fellows who are likely to have any money to spare are out of town and I’ve borrowed all I can from Bolton and Sidney.”

His wife knit her brow and reflected a moment; then she said slowly but bravely, “I think I have found a way of paying the bill. It’s an unpleasant way, but it’s the only one of which I know. We have pawned practically all our silver and jewelry but this, and it’s right that it should go now;” saying which, she resolutely drew off her engagement ring—daintily set with small diamonds and pearls—and held it out toward her husband. “I hoped, dear, when you put it on my finger to have always kept it there, but it’s best under the present circumstances that it should leave it.”

Little Barlow refused to take it, with tears in his eyes at the sacrilege, but she smiled at him cheerily and continued gently. “It is off now and the damage is done, so don’t be gloomy, sweetheart, but take it like a good boy. We won’t have to leave it at the Mont de Piete permanently, for you are sure of getting some more money one of these days, and then we can redeem it, and I will have another association with it and will value it all the more on that account.”

So little Barlow was at length prevailed upon to go with it to the Succursale of the rue de Rennes, and borrowed the utmost which that establishment would lend on it, which was only sixty francs.

“This partially solves the difficulty,” he said gloomily, on his return, “but if we cannot raise a hundred and twelve francs more for the rest of the bill and costs, we might just as well have nothing at all, for the real good it will do us.”

“There is that Mrs. Harvey at the Hotel Continental,” suggested his wife furtively; “she wrote to you last spring and asked you the[22] price of the little Salon picture which you had already sold. You called on her at the time and she seemed affable and well-meaning, so why don’t you try her now?”

“I don’t know that she’s in town, even,” little Barlow replied, “but if she is, I’ve nothing left to sell her, and I don’t know how to beg. If it were for anyone else, say Bolton or Sidney for instance, I might try to do it, but for myself, or you, or the little ones—who after all are part of me—I really couldn’t. I’m afraid I’ve too much pride left even yet!”

“Well,” said his wife, “if that is the only objection, I can suggest an ingenious course of action for you. An idea, which is nothing short of brilliant, has just occurred to me. Why don’t you ask her for the money as though it were for some one else? You can give her that impression easily without telling an untruth. You can say that you know a man—which you do, don’t you, you big goose?”—she rattled on, laughing heartily—“that you know a man who is in great trouble—which is again true, isn’t it? You can expatiate on the sad particulars of his case just as much as ever you please, in fact the more you do so the better. If this will save your pride and enable you to ask her for the money, I don’t think, all things considered, the deceit is an unpardonable one. We were given our wits by a kind Providence, and there’s no law that I know of—either in Heaven or Earth—against our using them on desperate occasions like this.”

Little Barlow, in spite of his sorry plight, joined his wife in a burst of laughter on the conclusion of her monologue and rolled over and over on the sofa in convulsions of irrepressible merriment.

“Yes,” continued his wife, laughing so that she could hardly speak, “let’s save our pride and try to get out of our difficulty at the same time. Mrs. Harvey thinks we are fairly well off, as we dress well, have rather a swell looking studio and apartment, and appear tolerably prosperous to the outside world, so she will never suspect she is assisting you, whom, I am sure, however, she would much rather help than a perfect stranger. However, to be doubly secure, we will start a subscription book for the unhappy mortal, whose name you must not disclose out of consideration for his sensitiveness, and I will put my name down at the very top of the list for sixty francs. You must also make Bolton and Sidney each write down their names and the amounts they have loaned you as if they were contributions.”

[23]

“You’re a genius,” said little Barlow admiringly, giving vent to a fresh burst of laughter, “and I’ll take your advice. It’s too bad we’re obliged to impose on the old lady’s credulity, but it won’t hurt her seriously, and it will save us all from certain ruin; besides, we can pay her back later when something lucky turns up.”

Accordingly, the next evening, little Barlow decked himself out very carefully in his best suit, pinned a gardenia in the lapel of his coat, and, looking exceedingly prosperous and handsome, called on Mrs. Harvey at the hotel Continental. He was fortunate enough to find her at home, and alone. He chatted with her pleasantly on all sorts of subjects, and finally leading the conversation ’round with considerable tact to the heart breaking case of THE MAN HE KNEW, surprised himself at the success of his hypocrisy.

He told the old lady the most navrante details of his situation, and so worked on her sympathies with the probabilities of the wife and babies becoming homeless, that she positively shed tears, and felt in her pocket for her purse; and when—judging the moment to be opportune—he showed her the subscription book, she tremulously wrote her name down for one hundred francs and paid him the money then and there.

He felt rather mean and uncomfortable in taking it, but it meant life and hope to him again, so he thanked her fervently for the MAN HE KNEW and, promising to give her news of him in the near future, somewhat abruptly took his departure.

His little wife was overjoyed at the success of her scheme; but they still lacked twelve francs. This sum they finally raised by pawning a silver belt-buckle, two broken scarf pins, and their four remaining coffee spoons, and little Barlow was able to pay the horrid frame-maker in full and tell him what he thought of him in perfect safety.

A fortnight later he received a check for £20 from the gentleman who had been off on the boating expedition, and about the same time he got word from Sir Garnet Walton that he could paint his portrait whenever he chose. So he returned Mrs. Harvey’s contribution, with the heartfelt gratitude of the MAN HE KNEW, and crossed the channel to a period of great triumph and prosperity. He not only painted the portrait of Sir Garnet Walton, but that of his mother, and his wife, and his little daughter, and several of his friends.

He is out of the gloomy woods of poverty at last, and his feet are firmly planted on the high road which leads to fame and fortune.[24] Furthermore he has learned to smile at his past misery and even to forgive his short-sighted but benevolently inclined uncle for not alleviating it.

“I suppose, considering the trying situation, it was not inexcusably wicked to impose, as I did, on old Mrs. Harvey’s kindness,” he remarked one day to his wife; “but all the same it was steering rather too close to a confidence game to suit my conscience altogether. I didn’t like the business at all, but there are unfortunately many things in life which border on untruthfulness of action but which one is compelled to do nevertheless. This happened to be one of them.”

—John P. Rogers.

[25]

A QUESTION.

BY DANSKE DANDRIDGE.

[26]

LOVE IS BLIND

“Who knocks at the portal—so late?” whispered the little Greek maid.

“That may depend,” replied a clear voice outside, “some say I am a friend, some a foe.”

The heart of the little Greek maid beat fast in her bosom. For three nights she had heard this voice and for three nights a beautiful youth, with silvery wings and his face concealed by a silver gauze, had appeared to her in a dream.

“No, no, I have been forbidden to open the portal,” said the little Greek maid.

“It is very cold and dark out here,” sighed the voice wistfully, “open the portal but half way.”

“Only half way,” she replied, curiosity impelling her.

In this manner the beautiful youth, with silvery wings and his face concealed by a silver gauze, affected an entrance.

“Oh, take the silver gauze from off thy face!” prayed the little Greek maid.

“On a single condition,” answered the youth, “and that is, that I may cover thy face with it. In love, one, or the other, must always wear a silver veil across the eyes.”

So she suffered him to bind the fillet about her forehead, but still she could not see him.

“Oh, take the silver gauze from off my face!” prayed the little Greek maid.

“In that case, I will be compelled to leave thee and never come again,” he answered sadly.

But still she plead with him, whereupon he removed the silver gauze from off her eyes and for the space of a second she gazed upon his countenance, which shone resplendent, like the sun in his strength.

And she fell at his feet as one dead.

But when again she ventured to raise her face, he was gone!

—William Theodore Peters.

[28]

A glimpse of Mount Vernon Place, including the Washington Monument and the Methodist Church. This site was covered by a dense forest at the time the erection of the Monument was begun, in 1815.

[29]

Jones’ Falls, named in honor of one David Jones, who is said to have been the first actual settler on the tract of land on which Baltimore is built.

He lived in 1661 on Front Street, at that time known as Jones’ Street.

[30]

Looking from under a Bridge at the Mouth of the Falls.

[31]

In Tyson Alley.

[32]

A Bit of the Falls near Monument Street.

[33]

A mile farther down the stream, showing the Front Street Theatre, which was built in 1838, and formerly known as the “New Theatre and Circus.”

The Booths, Charlotte Cushman, Jenny Lind, and many other celebrities, appeared in this famous old play-house. At the present time its walls are in a state of decay, and it is no longer used.

[34]

Marsh or Centre Market, and the rear of the Maryland Institute.

[35]

At Locust Point, below Federal Hill.

[36]

In Little Pleasant Street, near Charles Street.

[37]

In a Shadowy Side Street.

[38]

In the vicinity of Richmond Market and Grundy Row.

[39]

The Old Edward Patterson House on Winchester Street.

[40]

In a Ship-Yard at Locust Point.

[41]

The Ship-Yard’s Ancient Boiler Shop.

[43]

THE FOUR FEARS OF OUR GENERAL

Souvenirs of Childhood

The following conversation took place one evening upon one of those points of Algeria where we Frenchmen have had to fight so desperately and so often. We had encamped, or rather we had bivouacked, in a charming little valley at the foot of a mountain, which, picturesque as it was, suggested only evil things.

Our young General had gathered us together near his tent. He had been giving us, with his habitual clearness, instructions for the battle which was soon to begin, and which might require the greatest effort both on the part of our men and of ourselves. It was planned that we should start out quietly before daylight, noiselessly scale the mountain, and force the enemy, at the point of the bayonet if possible, with powder and shot if necessary, to cede to us the annoying position which they occupied. Everything being arranged, and no one having a desire to sleep, we naturally began to chat. The conversation turned to reminiscences; not to recent memories, but recollections of childhood. This will not astonish those who know what passes in the head of a soldier on the eve of a battle. The words duty, conscience, fear and courage were frequently uttered. Stories and anecdotes had been told illustrating the varied and often contradictory ideas which these words evoked, and we had begun to talk about our personal experiences. The General, who had listened until then, contenting himself by letting drop an occasional opportune word, being urged to tell us something in his turn, began as follows:

“It is not enough, at the critical hour of one’s existence,” he said, “to be firmly resolved to do one’s entire duty, it is necessary above all to know where and what it is. If it is one of those doubtful cases, embarrassing the intelligence of the full-grown man, how much more difficult must it be for the unformed mind of a child. That which agitates the spirit of a little one, at certain trying moments, is a subject worthy the attention of older people, and it is my opinion that one of the surest means of knowing the man is to study him in the child. The child contains all the essential elements of the man.[44] Though he is bounded by an infantile horizon his soul is none the less a human one. Two things, although of very different nature, and although they date back to the earliest years of my existence, have left me the remembrance of greater perplexities than those which have assailed my spirit at any other epoch of my life. Never has my soldier’s conscience been submitted to more cruel tests than those to which I was twice subjected as a little boy.

“Smoke some of my cigars, make yourselves some grog, and I will tell you one of these episodes of my childhood. After which we must try to get some sleep.”

“I was a very little fellow, only six years old; it was not more than two years since I had begun to wear trousers. My father, who was captain of a ship at that time, being almost always on the sea, I had been brought up by two women, my mother and my aunt—Aunt Marie! I loved them equally. I had, in fact, two mothers. Although they were sensible people, they both spoiled me.”

‘One can only spoil that which is bad,’ said Aunt Marie.

‘And Jacques is good,’ added my mother.

“It appears that at five years of age I was angelic. You see I have changed,” said the general, interrupting his tale an instant, and addressing himself to one of us who had smiled a little. “What do you expect, my dear Robert, life does not leave intact all those whom it touches.”

“Say rather, General,” replied the young officer who had been addressed—a good fellow, although a little audacious at times—“if you have changed, we know well that it is almost always to our advantage.”

The General shook his head and continued: “If I had never left my two mothers, it is very probable that I should have been as gentle as a girl. However this may be, and whether I was good or bad, between these two charming women, I was the happiest little being in creation, and curiously enough, I fully realized my happiness. My aunt, who played more of a part than my mother in this story which I am telling you, was a tall and remarkably beautiful person. My mother alone equalled her in beauty, and that for a very simple reason—they were twins, and resembled one another closely. Happily, their costumes differed completely, and prevented me from making a mistake;[45] my mother belonged to the world, and Aunt Marie did not. Aunt Marie was the Superior of the Sisters of Charity of a large military hospital in the town of —— where I was born. We lived in this town during the long absences of my father. Mamma and her sister, whom I often called “Aunt Sister Marie,” divided between them my entire affection. It was indeed a great joy when my mother took me to see Aunt Marie. Although this pleasure was to be found only between the cold walls of a hospital, it was always greatly desired, and awaited with the very greatest impatience on my part.

“To run in the vast, long court where the convalescents were accustomed to walk, or to sit in the sunshine, to wander around that immense garden, which was my Place du Carrousel and my Champs de Mars, to be caught in passing, to be stopped in my wild flight, either by one of the convalescent soldiers who were amused by my antics, or by one of the sisters of Aunt Marie, or above all by Aunt Marie herself, who, when seeing me too heated, left her room, which served her also as a pharmacy, to come and quiet me and kiss me; to gallop over the sandy grounds of this court, riding horse-back on a cane, or on the crutch of an aged, infirm sister, who usually sat knitting on one of the benches—all this was for me the joy of joys.

“The day of which I speak, a beautiful summer day, I had obtained permission to play in my dear court for a whole hour. My mother had to make a visit in the town, which would have been tiresome for me. She had left me in charge of her sister and Aunt Marie, from her open window, was not to lose sight of me for a moment. The aged Sister Rose was asked to watch me as well, and then I had her crutch, without which she was unable to walk. You see I was well guarded.

“Aunt Marie, having mounted to her private room, saw from her window that a door of the large building at the extremity of the court, a double door, and one which I had always seen shut, was open. She hailed one of the nurses and asked him to shut it; but from his answer she probably judged that it was not possible, for it stayed open, and Aunt Marie having called me to her, said: ‘You see that large open door, at the end of the court, little Jacques?’ ‘Yes, Aunt Marie.’ ‘Very well! It is the door of a large room, very dark and very cold, where even big people are not permitted to enter. It is written over the door that entrance is forbidden to the public! Promise me, dear, not to go there.’

[46]

“I gave the promise with the intention of keeping it, but I had not rendered due count of the fascinations of Sister Rose’s crutch. Having jumped about a great deal, having pranced round and round the timid Sister Rose, having thoughtlessly knocked against, and annoyed in a thousand ways the soldiers who were playing at drogue, (a game which always makes me laugh, as pieces of wood are placed on the noses of the losers.) I was, as you may imagine, very much excited; my horse ended by running away with me, and, instead of stopping on the threshold of the forbidden door, which more than once I had had the imprudence to approach too closely, he carried me irresistibly to the extremity of the dark room, which I ought not to have entered. I was going so rapidly that before I had time to think I arrived with a shock against the wall at the farther end. I knocked myself so severely that I raised a big bump upon my forehead, which brought me effectually to my senses. My steed, Sister Rose’s crutch, fatigued by the violence of our course, fell, out of breath, but not without noise, at my feet. The silence of the room sent back from its four corners the echo of the fall. Startled by this strange sound, I turned around quickly. I was already impressed by the sense of my disobedience. I had done wrong to come there.

“The sudden change from the light to the obscurity which surrounded me, the cold chill of that room, following quickly the warm atmosphere of the court which I had left all in sunshine, added to my uneasiness, and the rest did not reassure me. A lugubrious row of large white beds, all alike, enclosed by curtains of a most severe aspect, which I had not seen in the rapidity of my entrance, occupied the whole length of the room at my left. Not a breath came from behind these curtains; the beds then were empty. I did not like to be alone among these shadows. The blinds being shut, the daylight ended a few steps from the door by which I had come into this redoubtable place, and did not penetrate to my corner. For an instant I dared not stir, and yet I well knew that I must leave this spot, forbidden to grown persons, just as quickly as I could. Intimidated by my surroundings, and above all by the obscurity and the silence, which are not the friends of children, even the sound of my breathing frightened me; I heard, not without fear, the rapid beatings of my heart. Forgetting at once both Sister Rose and my horse, I resolved to reach the door, and I walked instinctively on the tips of my toes so as to make as little disturbance as possible. When I had taken about twenty[47] steps, hesitating from time to time to regain my courage, seeing that after all I approached the light, my presence of mind gradually came back to me and I cast about one of those questioning regards of a child who wishes, while he has the opportunity, to profit by the occasion and explore the region into which he has unwittingly ventured. I found myself particularly attracted toward a large black bench which was placed along the wall to the left of the entrance, and which occupied more space than a bed.

“Why was this bench, larger and a little lower than the benches in the court, two-thirds covered by a white sheet? Was anything hidden under this sheet? It certainly appeared so to me. While asking myself these questions, I had already arrived three-quarters of the way; a little more daylight reached me thereby. Light is a blessing at any age, but for a child it is sometimes a remedy for all ills. Less anxious as to what might happen to me in the room itself, I began to be more uneasy in regard to what would pass when I had left it. What would Aunt Marie think of my disobedience? Truly I was in no great hurry to regain the court, and I said to myself that being there, it would not cost me any more to learn why a white sheet covered that big bench. In a few steps I drew still nearer to it. The top of the bench was uneven. Without doubt something was hidden there; but what? My curiosity carried me on, and without having the least idea of what I was going to discover, with a bold movement I lifted one entire end of the sheet.

“That which there appeared to my astonished eyes I shall never forget. I see it even yet, as I speak to you, as plainly as when I was six years old in the room of the hospital of ——. Yes, I see it and I shall see it all my life.

“I saw death! a dead person! for the first time.

“Since then I have seen many dead people, more than I can count; this one has rested in my memory more clearly than them all.

“That which I had uncovered was the head, white hair, nude shoulders and chest of a man already old, whose immobility and extraordinary pallor seemed inexpressibly terrible to me. I felt that I stood before a great event. Nothing can give an idea of the stupor which enveloped me. A hundred confusing questions surged in my brain. Has a man from his earliest years an intuition as to what will be the end of his life on earth? I firmly believe so. In any case I was not deceived for a single moment by the thought that I beheld a[48] sleeping man. I understood that it was not a simple sleep. One is never so absent, so calm, when one only sleeps. But then what was it that I saw? What was he doing on the bench—that impassible being?

“‘Suppose I should call Aunt Marie?’ I said to myself; ‘Aunt Marie, who knows everything, and can do everything? Suppose, however, (but the simple thought seemed formidable to me) I should touch him first!’ And, in contradiction to the idea which I had that his sleep was not of that kind which could be disturbed. I said to myself again: ‘Perhaps he will get up. Perhaps he does not know that he is there.’

“I dared to place my hand on his shoulder. I drew it away quickly. That sort of cold was frightful.

“A dreadful thought flashed through my brain. The very truth of truths penetrated my inmost being. People must become like this when they are no longer alive. But then—— I had touched a dead man! I had thereby shown a disrespect toward him. I had troubled that which ought never to be troubled!

“My heart ceased to beat.”

“I imagined that I had done something irreparable. I tried to find a name for my action, which I judged abominable. The idea of sacrilege, one of those dreaded words of which a child does not comprehend the meaning, came into my mind, and I said to myself: ‘That is it, I have committed a sacrilege!’

“Terror took possession of me, and in my fright, instead of escaping through the door which was now quite near me, I took refuge, trembling, in the shadowy end of the room which had lately given me so much trouble to leave. Perhaps I hoped to escape more surely in the darkness from that vision, from that unexplained revelation of death which had then for the first time greeted me.

“I stood again with my face pressed against the wall at the end of the room prohibited to all, hardly breathing, without the power to cry, and not daring to turn round. I fell on my knees and, with a flood of tears, I demanded pardon of God for the great sin which I had committed, and prayed Him to show me the means of effacing it. Did God pardon me? I believe that he did, for I arose from my knees having formed a resolution to repair the wrong which I had done.[49] But it must be done immediately, and all alone. I had uncovered the head of a dead man, and my duty was, first of all, to go and ask his pardon, and, secondly, to render him peaceful by recovering him as before.

“Such a resolution—the idea that he has a duty to accomplish—makes a man of even a child, once he has decided to perform it. I gathered together all my courage and started bravely enough. When I arrived a few steps from the bench and saw that terribly calm visage, with those marble lids closed forever, my heart failed me, and, taking flight, I very soon found myself at the end of the room.

“But strength alone, not will, failed me. Three times I returned, without being able to approach him closely—and yet, it was necessary to do so! I invoked the memory of Aunt Marie, of my mother, who would forgive me if I could repair my fault, of my father who was said to be so brave, and I made an effort to start again, repeating to myself when I was about to weaken, that the pardon of others, of myself as well, and above all, that of the dead man whom I had offended, could be obtained only at this price.

“I am astonished even now when I think of the amount of energy, the superhuman efforts to surmount an insurmountable fear, paralyzing him at each step, that was shown by the unhappy little boy that I then was. I have been in many a trying situation in my career as a soldier, but they have all been as nothing when compared to that one, which preceded them by so many years. What was I saying? Feeling myself ready to fail, with a supreme effort, I desperately finished my course. I stood before the dead man and demanded his pardon, with a voice which probably the dead alone could hear, because it resembled a dying breath, and my hand at last succeeded in covering the awful visage with the sheet which I thought necessary to his repose.

“That done, I arrived with a single bound in the middle of the court; but I was at the end of my strength, and giving vent to a sharp cry, I fell, deprived of all feeling, like a mortally wounded bird, at the feet of poor Sister Rose.”

“My fainting fit lasted, they say, about two hours. I recovered consciousness in the arms of Aunt Marie, who had heard my cry of distress. My mother had returned. On her knees before her sister and me, she bathed my forehead and temples and made me inhale[50] something which burnt my nostrils a little but which smelt very good. I burst into tears and my first word, when I was able to speak, was to ask and re-ask pardon; and when I had to stop for want of breath, it was only to cry again, ‘Pardon! Pardon!’ for that which was to me an irredeemable fault.

“‘Pardon for what, my poor child?’ said my mother, when I had completely recovered consciousness. ‘Is it because you went into the big room?’ But Aunt Marie has already forgiven you. Do you not see how she kisses you?’

“The kiss, yes, that was the pardon of Aunt Marie, but it was not only of that which she knew that I needed forgiveness. All was not yet known. I felt that I must make a complete confession, and, in an account, broken by tears and sobs, I told ‘this all’ to Aunt Marie and my mother. I told them all that it had cost me for having lacked proper respect for the dead.

“My confession was not only complete, it was public; the surgeon of the hospital and five or six soldiers were around us.

“‘Ah!’ said one of the latter, addressing the doctor, ‘the child must have seen the old Marshal who was not able to recover from yesterday’s amputation.’

“When I had finished my tale, when by kind words they had established a relative calm in my conscience, when they had told me many times that the dead man could never again be angry, especially as I had asked his pardon, when Aunt Marie had made me understand besides that although one should respect and honor the dead one should not be afraid of them, a young sergeant who was there, and whom I had teased oftener than the others because he most frequently wore the piece of wood on his nose from losing at ‘drogue,’ asked permission of my mother to kiss ‘that little one.’

“When he had availed himself of the permission, which my mother willingly gave him, he said to her, as he placed me on his knee, ‘Madame, when one shows such courage as that at six years of age, there is little danger of his becoming cowardly later on. That mite will some day be a giant.’

“Whether I have become a giant or not,” said the general, relighting his cigar,—“I cannot say, but that which I do know is that in all my military experience I have never striven harder to be brave than I did that day when I was brought face to face with death for the first time.”

[51]

After listening to this story, we all of us realized that courage also consists in overcoming fear.

The general was right. This history of a child was at bottom the history of a man. It interested its hearers, and enabled each one of them to make use of it as a lesson for himself. It was not at all a bad preparation for the work of the following morning, which was likely to demand of each of us a great deal more of perseverance, of resolution and presence of mind, than of brilliancy and dash.

Adapted from the French by Adele Bacon.

(“The Second Fear,” of the “Four Fears of Our General,” will be published in the February issue.)

[52]

BOUQUETS

That we reserve for ourselves the compliment of the first bouquet we trust will not be regarded as an impropriety. The necessity of making a formal bow on entering for the first time the presence of the great Public is well recognized, and in the performance of this duty, which holds for us a rare pleasure, a little well meant selfishness is perhaps pardonable.

Dixie is introduced to your notice as the result of the latest attempt to establish a Southern magazine. Despite the precedents of failure that are ours, we believe success to be possible for such a venture under existing conditions. It is difficult to accept as truth what has been said so often of the Southern people, that they are in general unappreciative of good literature and good art. That we do not concur in the belief the appearance of Dixie is conclusive evidence. We confidently expect the most liberal support from the cultivated class of every state of the South, believing a periodical of this order—a native production having at heart the interests of the Southern people—will meet with an eager and a sincere welcome.

We have thought it best to make a modest beginning rather than to herald our undertaking with a brilliant first number at the cost of strength that might better be reserved for exigencies of the struggle yet to come. We have chosen to build, and would have our success—if success await us—be the result of growth. Having obtained the services of a number of the well known writers and artists of the country, we are in the position to promise a continual improvement both in the contents and the appearance of the magazine.

It was found necessary to make the first number somewhat local in tone, but this is only a passing condition. We have secured for future issues contributions of more general interest.

With this brief introductory note, Dixie is offered to your consideration.

[53]

The greatest praise is due Mr. Philip de Boilleau for his beautiful and distinguished painting entitled “Hydrangias,” which we reproduce on the opposite page. This picture,—an harmonious arrangement in soft grays,—was painted in Milan during the past summer, and has only recently been brought to Baltimore. We consider it one of Mr. Boilleau’s best works, and pin this modest little boutonniere on the lapel of his coat in recognition of his resourceful and extremely personal talent.

[54]

“Hydrangias”

Painted by Philip de Boilleau.

[55]

The presence of the Boston Symphony organization in Baltimore this fall was thoroughly enjoyed, but it would not have been financially possible had not ten of our wealthy and very liberal citizens formed a guarantee fund and contributed enough money to insure the entire success of the venture. We have not yet seen any public commendation of this very public spirited action, and therefore feel that it would not be amiss to assure these gentlemen (whose names are withheld at their own request) that the professional musicians as a class, and the real music-loving Baltimoreans as well, are deeply appreciative and grateful for the signal liberality they have shown and the example they have set for others to follow. Such things should not be taken as a matter of course, or be passed over in complete silence.

Mr. George N. Mackenzie’s suggestion, made public in the Sun of Dec. 13th, of placing tablets on houses that have sheltered famous persons should commend itself to all those interested in historical work or the improvement of the city. Southern towns are particularly rich in this class of historic objects, as the result of a pronounced reverence for old things and a reluctance to tear down and rebuild. However strongly present methods of progress may demand the destruction of these ancient piles, we cannot altogether condemn the unprogressiveness that leaves them standing. They are a means of important instruction to the public; and their presence in a town cannot but add to its attractiveness and prosperity, if attention is properly directed to their existence. It may safely be said that the solidarity of the English nation is in great part maintained by the constant inspiration afforded by the innumerable monuments, of all kinds, that cover English soil. They are material evidence of past greatness. Is there a more powerful agent than precedent? We step from the past to the present, and in proportion to the firmness of the position of the rear foot we advance. Preserve the monuments at any cost! The houses of great men are as sacred as their graves; and it should be a shame to that city that negligently or wilfully suffers them to be destroyed.

[56]

THE BOGIE MAN.

There is a very laudable scheme on foot just now to erect a monument, or statue, to the memory of Maryland’s contingent of Confederate and Federal soldiers who lost their lives on the battle-field of Antietam. The idea of such a memorial does great credit to the magnanimity of the American people, and offers another convincing proof to the world at large that we are again a truly united and broadminded nation. The lofty patriotism that suggests and makes practicable the erection of a monument of this description is beyond all praise and cannot be commended too highly: There is, however,—if a recent experience teaches us anything—an unfortunate element of danger that, no matter what noble-minded motives may have originally inspired this projected tribute to our brave dead, its artistic side may actually leave much to be desired; and that in the next century, when we shall have at length become a truly artistic people, we may turn our heads aside and blush for it, as we do now for the hideous Firemen’s Tablet and the Lord Baltimore of Cathedral street.

There is no reason but ignorance for the existence of such a state of things. Nothing is easier than to get expert judgment on those architectural and sculptural plans that may be submitted to the committee in charge of the erection of this monument. There is a very common, and most erroneous, idea that trained technical and artistic knowledge is unnecessary in such cases, whereas no task is in reality more difficult. To be able to choose correctly, from the many rough little wax and clay suggestions huddled momentarily together, the project which will produce, when it is thrown up on a large scale and carefully finished, the most beautiful and inspiring work of art, requires an experience that is almost invariably lacking in the persons so thoughtlessly given the power to say which theme is to be adjudged the best.

In the recent case to which we have referred, a committee of laymen apparently judged the sketches submitted to them solely from the point of view of finish,—a most immaterial matter in a sketch, as every artist knows,—and consequently one of our great national heroes, instead of being eternally honored as was intended by many of his admirers, is compelled to rest under a mediocre pile of stone and bronze that, while far from being as good as it ought to be, is just good enough to insure its remaining where it is for many years to come. Is this sort of thing fair to the art-loving people who contribute to the building of our public monuments, or to posterity that must receive and preserve them, or to those heroes themselves in whose memory and to whose glory we would like to erect enduring proofs of our love and admiration?

[57]

The Theatrical Trust has at last met with a well merited rebuke for its peculiar methods of business. The Baltimore News took it in hand the other day and told it some very plain truths. It seems that the local representative of the Trust went to the News office with a proposition to publish a half-page “ad” every Saturday providing a local “ad-writer”, who thinks himself an authority on things theatrical, was allowed to polish up the swell front advance notices. The News not only declined the proposition but exposed the whole affair. The Academy took its “ad” out immediately, and published for a few days, “We do not advertise in the News.” Foolish mistake! What is the use of flinging mud at a man who owns a mud-machine?

We heartily commend the News for the action it has taken in this matter. It is an outrage that a few men should attempt to control this business. They made every effort to close the doors of the very popular Lyceum, and leave Mr. Albaugh to starve if he saw fit, but the energy and perseverance of his son Jack were entirely successful in defeating their purpose, and the good people of Baltimore have fully shown their appreciation of his pluck. Now the Trust is measuring steel with the Fords, but in spite of giving them the worst of it in the way of attractions, the Fords are making more money than the Academy. Ford and Albaugh are the names that represent everything theatrical in Baltimore. Years and years ago these two men had firmly established themselves with Baltimoreans, and it will take more than a theatrical trust to inspire hostility where there has always existed confidence and good-will.

There can be no doubt as to the precarious condition of music in Baltimore at the beginning of the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine; but there is much that can be done to improve its really sad plight. In other words, its state, while deplorable in the extreme, is not altogether hopeless. It is deeply to be regretted that the recent manager of the Peabody Institute, a man of great and acknowledged musical ability, having had the chance to make Baltimore the recognized musical centre of America, should have failed so utterly to add that distinction to the metropolis of the South.

His successor, a young man of education, of refinement, and of apparent ambition, although undoubtedly handicapped by the legacy of sterile contentions and discouragements left him by his predecessor, has still a very brilliant opportunity before him. Will he succeed ultimately where his master has so conspicuously failed? We sincerely hope so, and trust that some few of our misgivings, arising from what we fear is a tendency to cultivate the noisy and pretentious few at the expense of the more modest, but by far the more musical, majority may prove after all to be groundless.

Nothing so forcibly illustrates the inability of even educated persons to distinguish between the good and the bad as the family portrait. How seldom one sees in houses otherwise marked by refinement and good taste this really necessary[58] and, to future generations, valuable object characterized by sufficient artistic merit to insure to it one’s attention for five minutes. And how often it is a mere caricature of the person whose portrayal has been attempted. What man dare call himself educated who has not sufficiently acquainted himself with the elements of drawing and color to know when he, or some member of his family, is being transferred to canvas for no better purpose than to afford amusement for persons of greater knowledge and judgment. It is true all of us cannot spare the time to acquire even the elements of an art education, but then it is equally true that the upper class of Americans is not truly a cultivated class, is not possessed of the culture of the same class in Europe. This is lamentable; but sadder still is the knowledge that the egotism (widely known as the American spirit) of the average man of refinement will preclude for a long time to come a betterment of the situation.

Baltimore, among other cities noted for their educated class, has been, and still is, an easy victim to the artist of the solar-print. Nothing more thoroughly delights the heart of a Baltimorean of average development than to come into possession of one of those family portraits that exhibit all the rotundity of objects turned on a lathe, the burnish (in the high lights) of excessively polished metal-ware, and the finish of a miniature done under the glass of a microscope. In such work the ideal of portrait painting is reached—for the Baltimorean of average development. The revered canvas is given the place of honor in the most prominent room of the house and there left for the adoration of all who enter—no one daring to call down upon his head, for adverse criticism, the pitying scorn of the deluded family. “It is a speaking likeness rendered with unusual technical skill.” One often wishes, as a relief for tortured eyes, that painters could do without technique altogether, and might be allowed to indulge the wildest flights of imagination conceivable in depicting the features of beloved relatives and friends.

But little can be said in defense of the “artist” who produces this class of work. It is the result of either a base commercial spirit or of untalented affrontery that trades on the ignorance of those who should blush for their little knowledge. In many instances these painters have had every opportunity for study at home and abroad, and yet seek to degrade a profession they can in no wise benefit. Have the patrons of these men concluded that honesty has lost its worth, and that a bad painter is more useful that a good photographer? An almost hopeless ignorance of art is, in these cases, the true explanation of why this phase of brush-work has not long since disappeared from among intelligent people. As long as men are found willing to pay for a bad thing the parodists of art will continue to flourish. That it is not the ignorant, or unscrupulous, painter who needs to be educated is easily seen.

Baltimore, with its unusually large number of thinking people, is not altogether hopeless of improvement in its ideas of art. Fortunately there are here a few families that have true judgment in such matters, and whose influence, although at present but little felt, has a tendency to create a future favorable to good work. May that happy epoch not be synchronous with the Millennium.

[59]

BOOK REVIEWS

MR. JAMES TURNS THE SCREW.

Mr. Henry James is perhaps the one anomaly of American art. True, we have Howells at his heels, some people may say at his head, but Howells is by no means an inexplicable product, and he is as far from being like James as James is far from being the counterpart of Turgeneff, the master inspiration of them both. One may not like Mr. James—and there are many who will simply not face his difficulties—but one must concede that he is literature. He is indeed so emphatically literature that he is not always life as well. It is not a little to say of an author on the shady side of his prime that he still reserves for his public the quality of continual surprise. Long ere this, one is minded to assert, judging on general principles, Mr. James must have declared his reach. Such utterances are, however, always contradicted by his latest book. And his latest books, especially in the last few years, have been a succession of surprises—shocks would be a better word, it may be—that uproot presumptions. “What Maizie Knew,” for example, was a glance of Mr. James’ brilliancy from quite a new angle. It was such an extraordinary ray of his art that it has not yet ceased to leave a green spot of bewilderment on the vision of the critic. With the cry caused by “In a Cage” still in the air, comes his very newest volume, “The Two Magics” (New York: The Macmillan Co.,) as unprecedented a composition as any of his repertory. To say that “The Turn of the Screw” dashes one with amazement is not to be in the least hyperbolic. It does amaze—it simply takes one’s breath and keeps it until one has finished the tale. One is amazed at the art, one is amazed at the substance—and one is amazed at Mr. James himself, and that, perhaps, most of all. It is an incredible production for a Bostonian, no matter though he be long acclimated to foreign heaths as in the instances of the author. We know of no other case where Bostonian blood has failed so signally to tell.

One is saved from the supreme shock, however, by one thing—the matter of Maizie. Maizie in “What Maizie knew” was at least an intimation of the terrible facts of Miles and Flora. These angelic visions of eight and ten are a twin-birth of horror before which the hideous perspicacity of Maizie pales to insignificance. They are veritable limbs of Satan not in any human forgivable sense, but astounding monsters of precocious sinfulness that give one a positive chill to consider as within the bounds of possibility. Their portrayal is a slaughter of the innocents equal to that of Herod. One arraigns Mr. James’ inhumanity in thus stooping to cast so cruel a stain on the character of childhood. Maizie was surely enough—much more than enough.

Can the treatment of such abomination be within the pales of art? One is obliged to admit that it can be, because Mr. James has demonstrated it—demonstrated it as we hope it will not be demonstrated often. It has, however, required all the resources[60] of his skill. The marvel is that he never even falters—makes one false stroke with his brush. As it stands, “The Turn of the Screw” is a masterpiece; one fails to see how it could be improved. Its art gives the envelopment to the subject that saves it superbly. It is the kind of envelopment one finds in the portraits of Whistler, for instance, and that is perfect.

Far from blurting out the business he may have in hand, Mr. James can scarcely be said, at least in these latter days of his art, to tell it at all. Most readers of “What Maizie Knew” must have been struck in the perusal with the fact that never once did the story for all its plotless volume state in cold type what the child really did know. And yet that Maizie knew what she shouldn’t have known was as obvious as though she had drawn naughty pictures on her slate. The reader knew what Maizie knew by a more subtle means of intelligence—by a kind of telepathic communication. The book was a supreme piece of insinuation. Perfectly proper, indeed, as far as the print was concerned, but what scandal between the lines! One finds oneself subject to this same sort of telepathic play in “The Turn of the Screw.” It is all secretive enough—superficially. The nightmare of children’s little obsessed souls is not dragged into the light of day, but the horror is there, nevertheless, patent to the eye and palpable to the touch. Mr. James turns the screw, indeed! To set down the details of the story would be to mar its subtle relation of style and substance. It is for the reader to take or to leave, as he finds it in Mr. James’ volume.

“Covering End,” the other tale, included under the title of “The Two Magics,” is quite in Mr. James’ usual manner. The “magic” of this charming comedy is a very white magic, being no more than the brisk spell exerted by the heroine—a Daisy Miller of later growth—upon the hero, the owner of an old English “show” country house. “It was magnificent and shabby, and the eyes of the dozen dark old portraits seemed, in their eternal attention, to count the cracks in the pavement, the rents in the seats of the chairs and the missing tones in the Flemish tapestry.” We have again all the sentiment of “old things” as found in “The Spoils of Poynton.” The story is the kind of comedy that would “scream” in the hands of ordinary art. Mr. James’ material is, however, never so ill-bred. Mrs. Gracedew, widow, “from Missouri Top,” bursts upon all this faded splendor and question of mortgages with a perfect whirl of Americanism. Her conversation is a kind of metal skirt-dancing—a perpetual flash of pink fleshings. She is everywhere in the house at the same time—“an apparition, a presence requiring announcement and explanation,” indeed. She covets the house, she covets “the good and faithful servant”—poor Chivers, whom she calls “Rembrant van Rhyn, with three stars”; she covets the mortgaged owner, Clement Yule. They are all “types.” Even Cora Prodmore is a type—“the ‘awfully nice girl’ of all the English novels, the ‘simple maiden in her flower’ of—who is it?—your great poet.” It is Daisy Miller with additional assurance of widowhood. She “grabs” the whole situation with all the prompt enterprise of Missouri Top. “I’m here,” she announces to “the lawful heir,” “for an act of salvation—I’m here to avert a sacrifice!” That she will avert it the reader never questions. It is all delightfully spirited and worthy of Mr. James. It is quite as much a masterpiece of subtlety and finished style as “The Turn of the Screw,” if not so new a note in conception. After the horror of this latter tale it is more than a matter of refreshment—it has the virtue of salvation.

[61]

A GERMAN MASTERPIECE.

The interest of the Anglo-Saxon public in German fiction has always been languid compared with the avidity with which it devours the works, good, bad and indifferent, of French authors. Mrs. Wister, Clara Bell, and a few other translators, suffice to supply the English-speaking market with all it demands in literature from the land of Goethe and Schiller, while, on the other hand, hundreds can scarcely fill the publishers’ orders for translations from the French. It may be that German novels are too limited in their appeal—too intrinsically German and hearth-centered—too largely lacking in that modern “finish” for which English authors so frantically strive and French authors so frequently attain; too deficient in what we are pleased to regard as the saving sense of “smartness.” German novels as a rule have more soul than smartness, and that is almost unforgivable in an age when genius like the reformed pirate is expected to do fancy work.

It is perhaps because of this characteristic “high seriousness,” to use a favorite phrase of Matthew Arnold’s, of Hermann Sudermann’s pen that he has remained so little known to us in spite of his rare force. He belongs to the brainy band of modern novelists which can almost be told off on the fingers; of which in England Geo. Meredith is the lone Pompey’s Pillar; Balzac, in France, the pyramid; and in Russia Turgeneff, the sardonic sphinx. Sudermannn first reached our transatlantic consciousness through the success of Duse’s portrayal of Magda in “Home”, a tragedy full of fierce psychic value and human pathos.

In “Regina or The Sins of Fathers,” translated by Beatrice Marshall (London and New York, John Lane) Sudermann has given us in the heroine a character of such stuff as Magdas are made of—a Magda in the raw, a Magda unintellectualized. The story treats of man’s honor and truth to himself as in “Home” the author treats of woman’s. The main difference is that in “Regina,” Boleslav’s self-trust comes too late for happiness. It is only as the story closes he echoes Arnold’s

in a burst of passionate insight; but the chance had passed, Regina’s lifeless, blood-smeared body lay under the Cats’ Bridge, where her imbecile father had hurled it. Her fate is not unlike Ophelia’s. She is piteously involved in the misfortunes of a hero burdened with a performance as harsh as it was akin to that of Hamlet’s. The novel is a virile work, deep-voiced, full of dramatic color and agitating some vital moral questions. Acrid to the taste it is in many respects, but absorbing throughout in its appeal.

Boleslav is pursued by the curse of his father’s treason with a good deal of that grimness with which a hero of the Greek tragedies is harrowed by the Eumenides. One lash of the furies’ whip provokes another until life seems a madness scarcely to be borne. His friends and sweetheart forsake him; the false name under which he enters the German Array fails to protect him from the ignominy of the paternal crime; he is ostracised by the whole world. We find him as the story opens returning to the ruined home of his ancestors, where lies the dead body of his traitor sire, denied the last offices of the church. It is there he meets Regina, the mistress of the deceased, a wild and beautiful peasant girl, to the portraiture of whom the story owes its chief interest. Regina is a magnificent, unforgettable creature—one of[62] those rich chords that nature but rarely strikes upon the harp of being; she reverberates through one’s senses with a rough sweetness that represents a real experience. Her mould is Homeric; she is a creation of primal days and primal passions. To blame her is to quarrel with nature itself. Regina becomes the refuge of the stricken man whose noble motive of life is to redeem his father’s name from shame, to rebuild the homestead of his race, to face unmerited dishonor with manly dignity.

His heart still harbors the image of his early love, and for long he cannot overcome the repugnance he feels for the sturdy pariah who with pathetic self-denial and endurance becomes his slave in the maintenance of the dreary rat’s hole in the ruined castle where the two live. His ideal of womanhood is the simpering Helene who obeys her papa. It takes him a long time to realize that dangerous maxim of Nietzche’s: “Passions become evil when they are held to be evil.” And Regina’s passions are as clear-eyed as were the children of Eden before they picked the apple of Original Sin. As he realizes the fact, the girl’s character gradually usurps his soul. A powerful scene is where they struggle together—the master and the slave—for domination; the man’s strength against the peasant’s Boadicean sinew. It is like the contest of sex in the African jungle. There is no sense of masculine meanness in the contest. One recognizes some deep inner justification in it: that this fierce strife is the materialization of what is really heart warfare. It is a spiritual imbroglio. In the midst of the contest, as they pant together defiantly, Boleslav suddenly kisses the girl on the mouth; and a moment after he is fleeing from himself into the snowy night. The scene is infinitely human. In it Sudermann bares the strange mystery of the human heart as only genius can.

In spite of this flash of soul-knowledge of Boleslav’s, the pair do not become lovers. The man’s self-restraint still worships at Helene’s shrine. He finds that altar clay at last. In the agony of disillusion he lets his soul fly toward its true magnet, but the fortunes of the two have reached a tragic pass. It is Regina’s dead lips that fate now alone offers Boleslav. Under the charred rafters of his ancestral home that the peasants had burned in their patriotic fury, clasping the girl’s cold body, his mind shivers amidst the phantasmagoria of human existence. The world’s conventions seem to shrivel like a consuming scroll. Nothing remains but ashes and the conviction that Regina was “one of those perfect, developed individuals such as nature created before a herding social system, with its paralyzing ordinances, bungled her handiwork, when every youthful creature was allowed to bloom, unhindered, into the fullness of its power, and to remain, in good and in evil, part and parcel of the natural life.”

Sudermann does not set his seal to the sophistries that Boleslav’s despair formulates in these gloomy moments as he scoops out the frozen ground nearby the pedestal of a broken statue of Diana, as a resting place for his drowned Ophelia,—buried “with pagan rites.” His point of view is that of the philosophic spectator of the world’s strifes and follies, who sees in bold-browed convention its justifications, but also its flaws, its misreadings of nature, its littleness, its lack of large mercifulness. Over Regina, as over Margaret, the voice of higher reason pronounces the verdict of exoneration, Boleslav in his struggles with fell destiny offers a strengthening exemplar of manliness. He is portrayed by the author with a discriminating realism that couples weakness with might in a human way which wins for the hero our sympathy, as the character of Regina compels our admiration.

—Edward A. Uffington Valentine.

[63]

EXCHANGES

THE LE-O-PARD.

TURNING A NEW LEAF.

[64]

THE WINKTUM FAMILY
AND THEIR FRIENDS.

[The Winktum Family and Their Friends are introduced to our little readers as persons who are likely to prove unusually interesting. We shall try to give each month some new idea of their manners and customs.]

“The Club”

S. W. CORNER CHARLES AND
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C. Bennett, Proprietor.

Mr. Bennett presents his compliments to the Baltimore public, and begs to announce that he has recently added a Rathskeller to his establishment, and has now every facility for serving his patrons with the best that may be had in the way of meat and drink.

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