== -
"Bellefonte, Pa., July 30, 1926.
rr... i, A ————
OLD TIMES, OLD FRIENDS, OLD
LOVE.
There arc no days like good old days—
The days when we were youthful!
When humankind were pure of mind
And speech and deeds were truthful;
Before a love for sordid gold
Became man’s ruling passion,
And before each dame and maid be ame
Slaves to the tyrant fashion!
There are no girls like the good old girls—
Against the world I'd stake ‘em!
As buxom and smart and clean of heart
As the Lord knew how to make ’em!
They were rich in spirit and common sense
And piety all supportin:
They could bake and brew; and had taught
school, too.
An they made the likeliest courtin’!
There are no boys like the good old boys—
When we were boys together!
When the grass was sweet to the brown
bare feet
That dimpled the laughing heather;
When the pewee sung to the summer dawn
Of the bee in the billowy clover,
Or down by the mill the whip-poor-will
Echoed his night song over.
There is no love like the good old love—
The love that mother gave us!
We are old, old men yet we pine again
For that precious grace—God gave us!
So we dream and dream of the good old
times,
And our hearts grow tenderer, fonder,
As those dear old dreams bring soothing
gleams
Of heaven away off yonder.
—By Eugene Yield.
BITTER BREAD.
He could not remember his own
parents nor anything that happened
to him before the time Ethan Baines
took him. His first memory was of
the winter night when Ethan brought
him from Portland tc the farmhouse
in the hills. This was extraordinarily
vivid. He could feel the swaying mo-
tion of the train; see the wavering
yellow light from the oil lamps; smell
the mingled odor of overheated stove,
dusty plush of the seats, and car-
smoke. He could see the small boy
beside the big-framed man, sniffing
furtively and wiping his nose on the
back of a mittened hand. The big-
framed man had a rugged face, lean
nose, and black, twinkling eyes. His
overcoat was of black, curly fur, and
his valise was old and shapeless and
broken at the corners. The boy was
frightened and car-sick, and the man
opened the old valise and found a big,
shiny, red apple which he gave to the
boy. He held it in his hands all the
way, and it made him feel better,
He did not remember anything
afterward until he found himself
standing in the middle of a bare
kitchen.
with cold, china-blue eyes, and he
dropped the red apple and did not
dare pick it up. He could hear her
words and her thin, cackling, ill-na-
bored laugh. “Kind of a rygpt, ain’t
e ? ” -
Kind of a runt! He was a grown
man before he was able to think of
himself as anything but a runt. And
a runt seemed the most hopeless, con- |
terptible thing there was.
He learned to call the big-framed
man “father,” and the woman he call-
ed “Aunt Ide.” He knew, because she
told him so many times, that she
wouldn’t have had a boy like him
around if she could have helped it;
that his own folks were no account
trash, too shiftless to make a living;
that all the work he could do wouldn’t
pay for his board and clothes; that he
bad no claim to food and shelter ex-
cept on charity; and that he was pind-
ling and white-livered and hadn’t the
gumption of a sick cat.
If he had not known his place in
any other way, he would have known
it from the two bread plates at meal
time. There were always two.
was piled with neat slices from a
fresh loaf, and the other had nothing
on it but dry ends and nondescript,
left-over fragments. Father did not
know, but the boy knew from which
plate he must take his bread. The
farmhouse food was meager and ill-
cooked; he had to eat bread in order
to satisfy his hunger, but he never
ate from that pile of odds and ends
without a detestation that turned his
throat bitter. He would seem to be
swallowing ashes; he would eye the
fresh slices, his mouth would water
for them, Sometimes he emptied his
plate in the hope that none would be
left for the next meal and she would
perforce have to feed him fresh, but
dry bread was something she always
seemed to keep on hand. Later he
came to realize that to make him eat
it gave her pleasure; it was one of
her small compensations for putting
up with the boy her brother had taken
in spite of her.
The boy went every Sunday to the
white-spired church in the valley be-
low the farm. Sitting beside “her” in
the wooden pew, he heard the pale
young minister preach of the “blessed
bread of charity.” The boy knew then
that old crusts and dry ends that no
one wanted were “bread of charity,”
and his hatred of the word burned
with tenfold heat.
He was always trotting by the tall
man’s side. To have him bend and
say, “Tired, sonny ?” or “Want to go
to the house sonny ?” diminished hun.
ger and fatigue and made bearable
even the picking up of rocks from a
stony field.
He helped feed and water the stock,
working with heavy pail and long-
handled fork until his skinny arms
ached. He took his turn with the hoe
in the cornfield; he raked hay and
learned to drive the hay wagon; he
earried salt to the sheep in far pas-
tures; he cut paths through the snow
and lugged water in winter; in apple-
picking time he was in the orchard
trees all day. He went to the little
wooden school-house because father
said it was a good thing to do, but he
made no mates and always hurried
home as fast as possible. He was
“She” was looking him over:
One |
—
the woolly lambs because father was
kind; he never destroyed a bird’s nest
because he had seen father mow
around a bobolink’s brood in the mea-
dow. He learned to love the distant
blue mountains, aud the smell of the
balsam spruce, and the note of the
wood thrush at sunset, because father
loved them; and his idea of utter and
absolute bliss was to go fishing with
a companion whose black eyes, on the
rare days when they two could follow
the brook, twinkled if possible more
than ever.
...The affection between the two was.
a silent one. The boy knew without
being told that the woman must not
know how father loved him nor how
he loved father. He knew, too, that
father was just as afraid as he was
of the woman’s tongue, that his peace-
loving spirit was perpetually harried,
and that he would go to any lengths
to avoid arousing her acid temper.
Over and over in his boyish soul he
resolved to make it up to father and
to get even some day with “her.”
Bedtime was typical of their hid-
den relationship. He would sit wait-
ing on the bed for father to come. The
big-framed man would sidle quietly
through the half-open door, his eyes
sparkling as if a tremendous joke
were on hand. He would sit down be-
side the boy and take off his shoes;
the big, gentle hands would fumble
over buttons and straps and cotton
nightshirt. They didn’t talk much,
they knew it was necessary to keep
very quiet, but a good deal of sup-
pressed chuckling went on, and the
boy might be unexpectedly rolled over
on the bed or tickled in the ribs. The
man always tucked him in very slow-
ly and carefully, smoothed the hair
back from his face, blew out the lamp,
and tiptoed from the room. In a
warm, contented glow the boy would
go to sleep.
Andy was fourteen when all the
warmth and joy in life was taken
from him. Ethan returned from a
business trip to Portland with the ill-
ness which caused his death already
upon him. The weather had alternat-
ed thawing with freezing. In order
to spare his horse, Ethan walked up
the hill through the slush. He enter-
ed the house soaked to the knees, wet
with perspiration, shivering. Drop-
ping his valise, he staggered speech-
lessly to the old rocker by the stove.
Andy rushed to him in a wave of sick-
ening fear. :
“Pa’s got a chill!” he gasped. ,
But the woman paid no heed to
either of them. She was at the valise.
“Awful careless business,” she grum-
bled. “It’ll be a mercy if my bottle
ain’t broke to smithers.”
Trying out a new patent medicine
was the chief alleviation of her exist-
ence.
Andy sought to pull off the water-
logged boots. Ethan groaned.
“Aunt Ide, pa’s sick! Look here at
pa!” he fairly screamed.
But she was unwrapping a clumsy
bundle which held a bottle filled with
sirupy liquid. “ ‘For poor blood and’
cireglation,” she read from the print-
ed labét. “-‘Run-down condition—
sluggish liver—rheumatic symptoms
—three times daily.’ Land! All win-
ter I been feeling real run-down and
sluggish,”
The boy stood with his hand on his
father’s shoulder, watching her. He
felt the long shuddering of the chill
that shook him; his oddly mature
sense told him that his father was a
| dying man. And Ida Baines did not
‘look at him. She walked across the
room to the cupboard, got a teaspoon,
i poured herself a dose, tilted her head
i back and swallowed it, smacking her
| lips and saying “Thar!” with satis-
| faction.
Andrew saw her with cruel charity
i-as he had never seen her before; the
| thin, tight mouth, the heartless, china-
! blue eyes, the prim waves of light
i hair, the blotch of pink on each cheek-
'bone. He had heard her called a
pretty woman, but at that moment
prettiness in a woman seemed the
{ugliest thing on earth, because it
' could cover so shriveled and selfish a
: soul.
Something besides the tears in his
| eyes burned; hate burned. He had felt
{it from the first night she looked at
{ him, but until now he had not known
that it was hate.
So Ethan passed: a man with a
i heart big like his frame, and patient
as his own work-horses or as the si-
!lent hills; a man fun-loving, gentle,
| generous, whose life had been thwart-
| ed and disappointed, but never embit-
‘tered. He left to the boy the memory
| of him, a love of the things he had
i loved—and the burden he had borne.
“Stay by the farm, son,” Ethan had
said with one of his last painful
| breaths, “and—her. You're all she’s
' got.”
| Outwardly there were few changes
{in the life on the farm. Two instead
of three sat at the kitchen table and
ate meals that were only a little
scanter, a little poorer in quality, than
before; deeper silence on the boy's
part, more querulous and unhappy
on the woman’s. The few comforts
they had known in Ethan’s time grad-
ually disappeared; life was whittled
down to the bare bone of necessity.
The woman counted every penny,
spent only when necessary, and then
with bitter lamenting.
Andy worked like a machine, with-
out joy and without hope; a sober boy
always, now he never smiled and rare-
ly spoke. He came to have the rep-
utation of reliability but surliness of
disposition.
When he met the girl he married,
he was within a few weeks of twenty-
one and hadn’t been a day away from
the farm. And Jessie—what can de-
scribe Jessie? The gayest, gallant-
est little bark that ever rode a wave
with flag flying! A solt bit of girl
creature, who scattered kindnessess
and laughter like tossing flowers-—
all fun and bravery and song and de-
light! So quick and small and smil-
ing—she was April—she was violets
—she was youth!
How tell her effect on Andy Baines
—the boy who had eaten bitter bread,
ho knew 2% ig vio was
com one y poverty, acrimony,
overwork; who ‘carried hate in bisf
heart and for dreams fashioned ugly
ways of retaliation.
; 1
kind to the hard-working horses and
They met by the roadside: the tired
litle stenographer from the city, driv-
ing an old white horse in a buggy,
and the rough farmer boy with the
sullen face, mending the stone wall.
A Dbobolink’s song and the smell of
wild roses drifted from the meadow,
and the dappling sunshine turned the
girl’s hair into gold. June magic was
in the air—magic of the earth—magic
of the spring. And into Andy’s need
ran Jessie's tenderness as dew is suck-
ed into parched ground.
Within two weeks, unknown to Ida
Baines, they were married at the par-
sonage in the village. - And then, hand
in hand, they walked up the hill in the
dusk.
“Dear old - Sobersides!”
whispered. “There was never any one
like you! I don’t know why I love
you, Andy, but—I do!”
“I know why I love you!” His
voice shook. “And God knows—I do
—I do !”
‘When they entered the yard, the
lamplight was streaming from the
windows.
“It looks so home-like,” Jessie said
softly. “I’ve always wanted to live
in a house with green blinds, Andy.”
He groaned and put his arms
around her hungrily. “One kiss, Jess
—for luck!—before we go in!”
‘‘One ?’’ She laughed her gay
laugh. “One apiece! And one for
poor Aunt Ide. She’s old, Andy—and
she hasn’t anybody!”
The woman stood by the stove, stir-
ring a kettle of chicken mash. The
angular arm stopped as they came in;
she slowly turned her lean, sallow,
sour countenance and looked at them.
Andrew pressed Jessie closer. His
voice was hoarse.
“This is my wife, Aunt Ide. We
were married down to the minister’s
this afternoon. I want you should
make her welcome.”
The woman’s cold eyes moved over
the girl; her pinched mouth grew
cruel. The minutes lengthened.
Andy’s eyes burned in his white
face. He took a step forward. “I
want you should make her welcome!”
he repeated menacingly. “Aunt Ide!”
“I ain’t deef,” she snapped; raked
the girl once more with a sneering
survey; turned to her kettle, began
stirring.. “You kin take out your
trash, Andy.”
The quick color flooded Jessie’s
face. “Andy, let’s go!”
. “No!” violently. “No!” Striding
forward, he seized the woman’s arm.
“What d’you mean, Aunt Ide? Ain’t
this my home? Where sh’d I bring
my wife but here? Aint I earned
something better'n this? Ain't I
worked for you—give you my wages
—run the farm’s good as a man could!
Ain’t you meant to do right by me?
I ask you—Aunt Ide! Here I come
'n’ bring you my wife—you ain’t nev-
er seen anybody so sweet as Jessie—
anl ycu—you—" His mouth worked
uncontrollably.
She glared at him; the color on her
cheeks was blotched and ugly. “Shut
your mouth, Andy Baines! I got jest
one word to say, and you young fools
kin stand there and hear it!
“You come into my brother's’ care
Andrew Baines, a pauper young-one,
clothes to yore back.no more. And
so you leave. See them overalls?”
A lean finger pointed to a corner.
*Them's your'n. Take: ’em and git
out!
Her eyes fixed him with an implac- |
able glint.
Andrew threw up his arms; his
face was livid, his voice convulsed.
In that room a dark pit became un-
covered; the air seemed full of hor- |
rible shapes, of beating wings. Be-
fore the torrent of words that poured
forth Jessie shrank back appalled.
The festered bitterness of years had
rein. Every wrong of his childhood
he flung at her; every injustice, every
heartless thing that was done to him.
Epithet after epithet he hurled. He
cursed her and vowed to curse her un-
til she died.
“You ain’t fit to live!” he screeched.
“Your soul ain’t so big as a hazelnut!
May you suffer like the damned be-
fore you die! I could see you hung
and laugh!”
“Andy—Andy!” Jessie wailed, but
the woman was speechless; her face
went gray, her eyes were glassy.
When Jessie pulled him backward
with her whole weight toward the
door, Ida Baines was there before her.
She flung it wide.
“Git that crazy man outer here!”
For a moment Jessie’s eyes clung
to hers; then, dragging Andy after
her, she stumbled over the doorstone,
and the door slammed behind them.
The shades were drawn with a rapid
hand, and the darkness of the yard
was made complete.
Jessie clung hard to Andy’s arm,
but they were half-way down the hill
before she spoke.
“Andy, I love you—I love you dear-
ly! Tl stick by you—Ill go any-
where—do anything—be your faith-
ful wife—only, Andy, only—” her
shaking voice broke into sobs—“you
must never look—you must never talk
like that again—never, never! Or
you will break my heart!”
He made no answer; his feet drag-
ged like a drunken man’s. Present-
ly he sank to the roadside, violently
ill. For a long time he lay with his
head in Jessie’s lap, while she press-
ed his cold forehead with tender
hands.
“I—am—so0 tired,” he murmured
feebly. “What ails me, Jess?”
Out of wells of infinite wisdom
Jessie answered him. “You got too
angry, Andy. You must never get so
angry again.”
A kind neighbor in the village gave
them refuge for the night. When
Andy awoke in the morning, he seem-
ed to be himeslf, but he was in truth
not the same man, That hideous de-
bauch of anger left irreparable traces.
Some heretofore healthy fiber seemed
disintegrated; a dulling hand passed
over energies natively alert and
strong. The poison in his veins rob-
bed even his love of its sweetness.
He nursed the memory of the wrong
done him; he did not allow himself to
forget. With the world before him,
with health and youth and a staunch
companion, Andrew. Baines was yet a
gloomy man. He made a faithful
husband, who would have worked his
fingers raw for wife and babies; he
was bred in the bone; he was consci-
entious and devoted, surrounding Jes-
sie with tender worship. He could
a light heart and unclouded brow.
enough together for railroad fare, An-
drew took Jessie to a manufacturing
city where they spent ten monotonous
years. He advanced to a foreman’s
position in a shoe factory and there
stuck. A man out of his element goes
so far and no farther. With the re-
turn of every spring there was a sick
yearning in Andy’s eyes.
‘go to the country and Jessie would
have her white farmhouse with green
Plinds, and Jessie would listen brave-
ye.
They grew very close, sharing hard-
ships, sharing joys, but Jessie knew
there were times when she was far
from him. She would wistfully study
him, her very fingers longing to get
at the lines in his face: to erace the
unhappy ones, mold the sullen mouth,
bring light into the brooding eyes.
They could do so much, those active,
clever fingers of hers—shape a bit of
wire and straw into a hat, set cun-
ning patches on garments, whisk light
crust over the filling of a pie, drive
skilful, loving things; but Andy’s face
they had no power to change.
was an enemy in the dark.
by the hard early struggle, revived
And Andy must be made to smile with
her; must tell her that his heart sang,
too.
you!” she would cry. “Andy, why do
you glad, too?”
She stung him, finally.
“Glad! Glad! It makes me sick!
got one, I shan’t pretend. Pretty
father I am!
hate me, Jess.
—" he gave his words full weight—
“it’s not a boy.”
ed, looked at him curiously.
ed equably.
little pests.”
He smiled, his rare, slow smile that
came for Jessie only. “That’s not
worrying me. The more I got to do,
the better.
you, Jess! Anyway Dorry’s safe—a
girl ’ull take after her ma.”
“Old silly!”
the Midget arrived, most adorable of
small ones, rather in a hurry as she
moned in Laste but reaching Jessie's
side only in time for announcement of
first word, “Boy!” she lied in fun to
him, and was pierced to the heart by
the leaping misery in his eyes.
“Forgive me, dear!
‘have it’s a girl.
me, Andy, that you don’t.”
“I'm sorry, Jess. Don’t make me
i talk about it. It’s better not. You
won’t understand—you can’t. 1 was
i 2 boy—I know what misery can make
‘of one. There’s—there’s been—mur-
der in me, Jess! To know I'd brought
a boy into the world—to be like me,
| maybe—to know the risk—I couldn’t
bear it, Jess—it ud drive me mad—"
| His stammered, broken sentences.
his eyes fixed hopelessly on hers in
_ appeal he knew not how to voice, gave
‘her a glimpse into that black room
{ wherein he dwelt alone. A door seem-
‘ed opened to a rush of unwholesome
air; she saw horrid things she wanted
, to believe were dead. In her weak-
ness she could not face it; she could
only turn away.
trying to smile. “Won’t you look at
She’s a darling tiny thing!
ever see such hair?”
again.
The letter came at the end of a
hard winter, when the little girls had
been sick, there had been a cut in An-
ing her third child. Jessie drooped
with the children in their dark rooms,
and Andrew carried an aching, dis-
couraged heart. It was from the
president of the town bank where Ida
Baines deposited her savings, a hard
in the church. If stated briefly that
Ida Baines had been “ill unto death,”
but was now thought to be recover-
ing, and that the writer wished to see
Andrew on an urgent matter of busi-
ness concerning her property.
“You'll go, of course,” said Jessie
softly. “What can it mean, Andy?”
“It don’t matter,” he answered curt-
ly. “I shan’t go—not a step.”
And from that determination it did
Jo seem possible that she could move
im,
“She wants something out of me—
d’you think I'll give it?” he asked
morosely. “Likely the farm’s been
running down, and she’s losing money.
That ud hurt her worse’n time. Meb-
be she’s heard how we ain’t rolling in
riches, and she thinks she can get me
back—to work like a dog to put mon-
ey in her pocket like I did before. Or
mebbe”--he laughed sourly—*she
thinks she’s found out where I cheat-
ed her sometimes out of a nickel!”
“But Andy,” Jessie spoke slowly as
if feeling her way, “if it was that she
wanted you back—to run the farm—
and she would treat you fair—
wouldn’t you go?”
If he could have shown anger to
Jess he would have shown it then.
“You oughter know better than to
ask that, Jess! Not in a thousand
years—not in ten thousand! There
ain’t a stone on the old place but’s
dear to me, but there ain’t money
enough in the world to hire me—with
her there.” Why'd you want to stir
this up? Curse that letter!”
The black look she dreaded was on
his face, but something in Jessie's
heart beat stronger than her fear of
Andy’s demons.
“But—for the children! Wouldn't
As soon as he could scrape dollars |
you look so sober, dear? Why aren't |
She could not believe him to be in!
was always after, and Andrew, sum- |
drew’s wages, and Jessie was expect-
headed, laconic, upright man, deacon |
|
nails, unholster chairs, do a thousand
Here |
Her buoyancy, somewhat crushed :
when her first little girl was born.
was courageous in adapting himself you go back—if you had the chance—
to a town life, he whose love of earth for the children, Andy?”
He sprang up with a violent move-
ment. She kept her eyes on her work;
she didn’t want to see his look; it was
give her all this, but not the gift of bad enough to hear his breathing,
hear his voice. :
“Have it then—have it! For Midge
and Dorry I'd go into Hell! But that
would be worse than Hell. You can
ask most anything of me, Jess—I
know what I'm owing you— but you
can’t ask that. You aint got the
right—God Almighty aint got the
right!”
He flung out of. the room. Jessie
He would put her hands to her face, weeping
| talk then of the day when they might softly.
Jessie
But that did not end the matter as
she thought. In the night following,
as they lay side by side, each know-
ing that the other did not sleep, An-
drew spoke out suddenly.
“I'll go, Jess. I'll see what ’tis old
Silas wants.”
“Oh, Andy, Andy!”
hands on his breast.
full”?
He did not move under her touch.
“You mneedn’t be,” he said grimly.
“It’s not the way you think. It come
over me just now, I might be missing
Jessie put her
“I'm so thank-
my chance. “Don’t know why I didn’t
see it right off; you sorter got me
mixed up, Jess.”
He made as if to turn over. Jessie
held him; fear gripped her heart.
“What do you mean by your
chance 7”
“Chance to do her a bad turn—what
I've prayed for since I was a kid— .
She |
serve her like she served me.
might want to beg something of me—
‘chance to laugh in her face! ‘Urgent!’
“Dorry will be such a comxXort to |
i
Nothing could be urgenter than that!”
He chuckled. The sound was ter-
rible to Jessie.
“Andy, you don’t mean it that way
‘—say you don’t mean it!”
i
i
i
It’s only—oh, I can’t tell
earnest; but when, two years. after, then Jess.”
the event, knelt to get from her the,
f
t
!
i
I shouldn’t |
But don’t you really ,—don’t Midge and Dorry know!
want a son? Other men do. It hurts; would hurt you too much to be mean.
“I mean it all right, all right. But
we won’t talk about it if you’d rather
I never wanted one; and now we've not. Go to sleep, Jess.”
“No, I won’t go to sleep. And you
I should think you’d won’t either—mnot till you put that
The only comfort is wicked thought out of your heart.”
“It’s been there too long—say, I'd
be lonesome without it! Why, Jess,
Jessie, more puzzled than offend- | when things are bad, seems like all I
“What got to hope for is that! Seems like,
difference can that make?” she ask- sometimes, I live just for that—just
“You'll have to do more for the time when I can make her
for a girl, Andy. Girls are greedy pay. I've waited a long time; I got
a hunch now I got to the end of wait-
ing—it’s better’n money in the bank.”
Again the gleeful chuckle that had
no glee in it, but now Jessie was able
to speak calmly.
“You wouldn’t hurt any human be-
ing in the world, Andy dear.”
“One human being I would.”
“No, not one. You couldn’t Andy.”
“Couldn’t? You don’t know me
“Yes, Andy, I do know you—know
you better than you know yourself.”
He was silent. She gathered up her
strength; she gathered what long en-
durance had given her.
“You think you would do a wrong
thing, but a man doesn’t—all of a sud-
den like that. You've been good and
kind all your life, Andy. Don’t I know
: It
Why, you don’t know how, dear—ycu
couldn’t if you tried! Remember,
back on the farm—didn’t. you work for
her? Didn’t you stay by and do all
your father asked you to do? You
could’ve run away when he died, like
you wanted, and ycu didn’t. Why
didn’t you, Andy? Because she need-
ed you, and you wouldn’t leave her
alone! You told me, once when you
were sixteen, how you thought you
couldn’t stand it any longer, and you
planned to run off and enlist maybe;
‘and then she broke her ankle, and
.’stead of running away, what did you
do?”
{
|
i
|
i
Indescribable triumph sang in
Jessie’s voice. “You stayed right at
home, and you tended her, and you
waited on her all summer long, cook-
ing and doing the farm work, too—
“Never mind,” she said, pale lips that’s what you did, Andy Baines!”
“She hadn’t turned you out of the
your new daughter, father Andy? house then, Jessie.”
Did you |
“Why, that wasn’t anything, dear.
She hated to have you marry and not
They did not touch the subject ejyer 1 didn’t care about that!”
ca;
Andrew’s voice was low, but carried
a stern note that told Jessie plainer
than any words that her pleadings
fell on deaf ears.
She said no more for the tears that
choked her but lay awake till dawn,
while Andrew slept. Once in his sleep
she heard again that terrible sound
of mirth, and shuddered.
After closing the deacon’s door be-
hind him, Andrew Baines stood still
outside for a few moments, taking
long, full, quivering breaths like a
man who has come out of deep waters.
It was a clear April night, with a
sharp chill im the air mingled with
the earthy scent of growing things.
A daffodil light lingered in the west-
ern sky over a dark line of spruce
woods.
to swell on the trees, but frogs were
singing in damp hollows.
Andrew turned, passed = rapidly
down the village street under the bare
branches of the elms, and made his
way toward the hill road. As strong
wine is to the drinker, so were the
country air and familiar scene to
Andy Baines. His step grew slower
as he left the clustered houses behind.
Now he paused to look through a
break in the evergreens by the road
to the village lights below; now he
stood in a well-remembered glen
where a cool and aromatic breath
rushed out from the ferny growth
around a hidden spring.
his hat and lifted his face to the sky;
the restraint that had bees holding |
him in a grip of iron was loosed. He
could have leaped and sung. His lips
drew back from his teeth in a strange,
contorted grin.
So! His father had made a will; he
was the legally adopted son of Ethan
Baines. The farm had been left to
him; his the right to say whether the
sister of Ethan should have it for her
home, - What were the words? They
came back to him in the deacon’s
measured tones.
“I give him the house and the land
outright, because I want him to come
after me and raise a family and keep
the old place in the Baines name, I
trust him to do the right thing by my
sister and give her a home and care
The buds had barely begun
He took off |
so long as she lives. He’s a good boy;
he's done his duty by me; he will by
er.
That yellowed document, with the
ruled lines, written in Ethan’s care-
ful, untutored hand, was safe in his
inner pocket. He felt it in his farthest
nerve as if it had been a sentient
throbbing thing. He saw Ida Baines’
fingers on it; he saw her face as it
must have looked as she read it after
her brother’s death. He saw the tight
mouth grow tighter. The pious dea-
con thought that in the end she meant
to do him justice; Andrew knew there
was no justice in her. Not in the hour
when she had believed she was facing
Judgment had his name passed her
lips; she would have gone down to
~death clutching her dirty pennies.
If he had been asked what further
satisfaction life had to offer him,
he would have answered, “Nothing.”
The cup out of which he drank was
full to overflowing. For this night,
he told himself, he would have lived
through ‘more—much more: - deeper
poverty, bitterer injustice, blacker
despair, harsher outrage. He rejoic-
ed in the debt life owed him. With-
out that debt, there were no opportun-
ity to write—Paid in Full,
Penniless? Fleeced by quacks of
her own money as well as what had
rightfully belonged to him? Straight-
er the road to the grim goal of the
poorhouse.
Sick? So much the better. One
feels hardship when one is sick.
Clung to the old home, had she?
The more to suffer when she left it!
. Dependent on his charity, the char-
ity of Andy Baines! So he had been
told that night. He thanked the dea-
con for giving him that word. How
it could be made to stink! He who
had swallowed its bitter meaning
would now ram it down her throat.
How long a time should “he give
her? What things allow her to take ?
He reminded himself of how sbe nad
pointed to his overalls the night she
turned him and Jessie out of the
house. Ah, he was glad she had turn-
ed them out—glad she had pointed to
his overalls! He would make her re-
member that at that moment the will
which gave him everything was hid-
den in her old desk and would still be
hidden had the deacon not found it in
her sickness and need.
. He revolved in his mind the ways
in which he should best tell her; roll-
ed under his tongue the sneering
phrase, the biting word. They tasted
sweet; they made the road short.
| Before he was aware, he reached
the rise in the road which marked a
boundary of the Baines property. He
neared the house; through the light
border of trees along the wall he could
see a lamp shining. He had only to
pass through the gate—follow the
path— step over the doorstone (his
doorstone now)-——knock at the door
(his door)—enter—
He must know exactly what he in-
tended to do; he must have everything
well thought out before he knocked
and entered. He decided to wait, to
walk around a bit and think.
There was no moon; only in the
open spaces came a silvery gleam
from the stars. It mattered little to
Andy; even in this soft darkness he
knew his way as he knew the bed-
room at home. He circled the house
and barn and struck through the or-
chard, marking with satisfaction how
the ycung trees he and Ethan had set
were grown and the clear spaces un-
der them. There had been no neglect.
He did not linger long even here
where plans for the future mingled
with thoughts of the past, but with
eager stride followed the slope of the
old pasture toward the black mass of
woods on the farther side. His tense
ears caught the sound of the brook in
the dark. It had been a winter with
much snow—the pools would be deep
and icy cold.
Leaping the wall at the foot of the
pasture he found himself among the
thick growth of the evergreens. The
loved balsam fragrance greeted him
as he brushed past, and the babble of
the water grew louder, the music he
had pined to hear. This—this was
welcome home.
The fallen log where he used to
cross with Ethan was close at hand.
Andrew stretched himself out, face
down, and drank from the clear, cool
shallows. No sweeter water in the
world. For an instant he had an odd
fancy that by this act of drinking a
fever long burning in his veins was
cooled. He lay still for more mo-
ments than he knew, and the gentle
voice of the brook, the scent from the
rich woods earth, and the bending
bough above had their way with him.
He rose at last and returned to thg
pasture slowly. And as his feet trod
the familiar way, he went uncompan-
ioned no longer. There was another
, with him, a tall, lean man whose eyes
were very kind; nay, a third, a sober
little boy who trotted at his heels.
Here was where they used to dig
for bait; here they had mended a
length of fence. Andy had smashed
his thumb that day, and father had
given him a nickel. Here was the big
rock, looming palely in the dark,
where Ethan had leaned one sunny
Sunday afternoon and expounded to
enthralled young ears his own quaint
notions on the matter of Creation.
The granite of the rock seemed to
hold the warmth of sunlit hours; in its
shelter the very wind was stilled. An-
drew sat down with his back agaist
it and gave himself to revery. Nav-
er since he died had Ethan’s image
been so clear, the warmth of his gen-
ial presence so intimate and real. An-
‘drew could fairly see the black eyes
twinkle and feel the pressure of that
rough but tender hand. Did his spirit
linger near, called back by love of the
old scenes? There was nothing dis-
quieting in the thought; it brought
' peace to Andrew, where there had
been no peace, and the old, comforted
‘glow in which a little boy was used
to go to sleep. So would that big and
kindly heart have comforted any liv-
ing lonely thing. Thus Andrew’s
thoughts went on.
Just when it came to Andy that the
act he contemplated was a wild and
feverish dream, utterly divorced from
| reality, he could not have told. A vi-
"sion opened of himself that filled him
with horror. It showed him alienat-
(Continued on page 7, Col. 1.)