 The snow image by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this is a LibriWalks recording, all LibriWalks recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriWalks.org. Recording by Chessie, the snow image by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a childish miracle. One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness after a long storm, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new fall in snow. The elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents and other people who were familiar with her used to call Violet. But her brother was known by the style and title of Peony, on account of the readiness of his broad and round little fists, which made everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers. The father of these two children, a certain Mr. Lindsay, it is important to say, was an excellent but exceedingly matter-effect sort of man, a dealer in hardware and was sturdily accustomed to take what is called the common sense view of all matters that came under his consideration. With a heart about as tender as other peoples, he had a head as hard and impenetrable, and therefore, perhaps, as empty as one of the iron pots which it was a part of his business to sell. The mother's character, on the other hand, had a strain of poetry in it, a trait of unworldly beauty, a delicate and dewy flower, as it were, that had survived out of her imaginative youth, and still kept itself alive amidst the dusty realities of matrimony and motherhood. So, Violet and Peony, as I began with saying, besought their mother to let them run out and play in the new snow. For though it had looked so dreary and dismal, drifting downward out of the grey sky, it had a very cheerful aspect now that the sun was shining on it. The children dwelled in the city and had no wider play place than a little garden before the house, divided by a wide fence from the street and with a pear tree and two or three plum trees overshadowing it, and some rose bushes just in front of the parlor windows. The trees and shrubs, however, were now leafless, and the twigs were enveloped in the light snow, which thus made a kind of wintry foliage with here and there a pendant icicle for the fruit. Yes, Violet, yes, my little Peony, says their kind mother, you may go out and play in the new snow. Accordingly the good lady bundled up her darlings in woolen jackets and wadded sacks, and put comforters round their necks, and a pair of striped gaiters on each little pair of legs, and worsted mittens on their hands, and gave them a kiss apiece by way of a spell to keep away jackfrost. Forth sellied the two children with a hop-skip and chump that carried them at once into the very heart of a huge snowdrift, whence Violet emerged like a snow-bunting, while little Peony floundered out with his round face in full bloom. Then what a merry time had they! To look at them, frolicing in the wintry garden, you would have thought that a dark and pitiless storm had been sent for no other purpose but to provide a new plaything for Violet and Peony, and that they themselves had been created, as the snowbirds were, to take delight only in the tempest and in the white mantle which had spread over the earth. At last, when they had frosted one another all over with handfuls of snow, Violet, the laughing heartily at little Peony's figure, was struck with a new idea. You look exactly like a snow-image, Peony, said she, if your cheeks were not so red. And that puts me in mind. Let us make an image out of snow, an image of a little girl, and it shall be our sister and shall run about and play with us all winter long, won't it be nice? Oh yes, cried Peony, as plainly as he could speak, for he was but a little boy. That will be nice, and Mama shall see it. Yes, answered Violet, Mama shall see the new little girl, but she must not make her come into the warm parlor, for, you know, our little snow-sister will not love the warmth. And thought with the children began this great business of making a snow-image that should run about, while their mother, who was sitting at the window and overheard some of their talk, could not help smiling at the gravity with which they said about it. They really seemed to imagine that there would be no difficulty whatever in creating a life little girl out of the snow. And to say the truth, if miracles are ever to be wrought, it will be by putting our hands to the work in precisely such a simple and undoubting frame of mind, as that in which Violet and Peony now undertook to perform one without so much as knowing that it was a miracle. So thought the mother, and thought likewise that the new snow, just fallen from heaven, would be excellent material to make new beings of, if it were not so very cold. She gazed at the children a moment longer, delighting to watch their little figures. The girl, tall for her age, graceful and agile and so delicately coloured that she looked like a cheerful thought more than a physical reality. While Peony expanded in breath rather than hate, and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs as a substantial as an elephant, though not quite so big. Then the mother resumed her work. What it was I forgot, but she was either trimming a silken bonnet for Violet or darning a pair of stockings for little Peony's short legs. Again however, and again, and yet other agains, she could not help turning her head to the window to see how the children got on with their snow image. Indeed it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, those bright little souls at their task, however it was really wonderful to observe how knowingly and skillfully they managed the matter. Violet assumed the chief direction and told Peony what to do. While with her own delicate fingers she shaped out all the nicer parts of the snow figure. It seemed in fact not so much to be made by the children as to grow up under their hands while they were playing and prattling about it. Their mother was quite surprised at this, and the longer she lurked the more and more surprised she grew. What remarkable children mine are, thought she, smiling with her mother's pride, and smiling at herself too, for being so proud of them. What other children could have made anything so like a little girl's figure out of snow at the first trial? Well, but now I must finish Peony's new frock for his grandfather is coming tomorrow and I want the little fellow to look handsome. So she took up the frock and was soon as busily at work again with her needle as the two children with their snow image. But still, as the needle travelled hither and thither through the seams of the dress, the mother made her toy light and happy by listening to the airy voices of Violet and Peony. They kept talking to one another all the time, their tongues being quite as active as their feet and hands. Except at intervals she could not distinctly hear what was said, but had merely a sweet impression that they were in a most loving mood and were enjoying themselves highly, and that's the business of making the snow image when prosperously on. Now and then, however, when Violet and Peony happened to raise their voices, the words were as audible as if they had been spoken in the very parlour where the mother said, Oh, how delightfully those words echoed in her heart, even though they meant nothing so very wise or wonderful after all. But you must know a mother listens with her heart much more than with her ears. And thus she is often delighted with the thrills of celestial music when other people can hear nothing of the kind. Peony, Peony, cried Violet to her brother who had gone to another part of the garden. Bring me some of that fresh snow, Peony, from the very farthest corner where we have not been trampling. I wanted to shape our little snow sister's bosom with. You know that part must be quite pure just as it came out of the sky. Here it is, Violet, answered Peony in his bluff tone, but a very sweet tone too, as he came floundering through the half-trodden drifts. Here is the snow for her little bosom. Oh, Violet, how beautiful she begins to look. Yes, said Violet thoughtfully and quietly, our snow sister does look very lovely. I did not quite know, Peony, that we could make such a sweet little girl as this. The mother, as she listened, thought how fit and delightful an incident it would be if fairies, or still better, if angel children were to come from paradise and play invisibly with her own darlings, and help them to make their snow image, giving it the features of celestial babyhood. Violet and Peony would not be aware of their immortal playmates. Only they would see that the image grew very beautiful while they worked at it, and would think that they themselves had done it all. My little girl and boy deserved such playmates, if mortal children ever did, said the mother to herself, and then she smiled again at her own motherly pride. Nevertheless, the idea ceased upon her imagination, and, ever and unknown, she took a glimpse out of the window, half dreaming that she might see the golden-haired children of paradise sporting with her own golden-haired Violet and bright-cheeked Peony. Now, for a few moments, there was a busy and earnest but indistinct hum of the two children's voices, as Violet and Peony brought together with one happy consent. Violet still seems to be the guiding spirit, while Peony acted rather as a laborer, and brought her the snow from far and near. And yet the little urchin evidently had a proper understanding of the matter, too. Peony, Peony, cried Violet, for her brother was again at the other side of the garden. Bring me those light reefs of snow that have rested on the lower branches of the pear tree. You can clamber on the snowdrift Peony, and reach them easily. I must have them to make some ringlets for our snow-sisters' head. Here they are, Violet, answered the little boy. Take care you do not break them. Well done! Well done! How pretty! Does she not look sweetly? said Violet, with a very satisfied tone. And now we must have some little shining bits of eyes to make the brightness of her eyes. She's not finished yet. Mama will see how very beautiful she is, but Papa will say, Tash, nonsense, come in out of the coat. Let us call Mama to look out, said Peony, and then he shouted lustily, Mama! Mama! Mama! Look out and see what a nice little girl we are making. The mother put down her work for an instant, and looked out of the window. But it so happened that the sun, for this was one of the shortest days of the whole year, had sunk in so nearly to the edge of the world, that his setting shine came obliquely into the lady's eyes. So she was dazzled, you must understand, and could not very distinctly observe what was in the garden. Still however, through all that bright, blinding dazzle of the sun and the new snow, she beheld a small white figure in the garden that seemed to have a wonderful deal of human likeness about it. And she saw Violet and Peony. Indeed, she looked more at them than at the image. She saw the two children still at work, Peony bringing fresh snow and Violet applying it to the figure as scientifically as a sculpture adds clay to his model. Indistinctly as she discerned the snow child, the mother thought to herself that never before was there a snow figure so cunningly made, nor ever such a dear little girl and boy to make it. They do everything better than other children, said she, very complacently. No wonder they make better snow images. She sat down again to her work, and made as much haste with it as possible, because twilight would soon come and Peony's frock was not yet finished, and grandfather was expected by railroad pretty early in the morning. Faster and faster, therefore, went her flying fingers. The children likewise kept busily at work in the garden and still the mother listened whenever she could catch a word. She was amused to observe how their little imaginations had got mixed up with what they were doing and carried away by it. They seemed positively to think that the snow child would run about and play with them. What a nice playmate she will be for us all winter long, said Violet. I hope Papa will not be afraid of her giving us a cold. Shall you love her dearly, Peony? Oh yes, cried Peony, and I will hug her and she shall sit down close by me and drink some of my warm milk. Oh no, Peony, answered Violet with grave wisdom. That will not do at all. Warm milk will not be wholesome for our little snow sister. Little snow people like her eat nothing but icicles. No, no, Peony, we must not give her anything warm to drink. There was a minute or two of silence, for Peony, whose short legs were never weary, had gone on a pilgrimage again to the other side of the garden. All of a sudden, Violet cried out, loudly and joyfully, Look here, Peony, come quickly! A light has been shining on her cheek out of that rose-colored cloud, and the color does not go away. Is not that beautiful? Yes, it is beautiful, answered Peony, pronouncing the three syllables with deliberate accuracy. Oh, Violet, only look at her hair. It is all like gold. Oh, certainly, said Violet with tranquility, as if it were very much a matter of course. That color, you know, comes from the golden clouds that we see up there in the sky. She's almost finished now, but her lips must be made very red, redder than her cheeks. Perhaps, Peony, it will make them red if we both kiss them. Accordingly, the mother heard two small little smacks, as if both her children were kissing the snow image on its frozen mouth. But, as this did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet next proposed that the snow child should be invited to kiss Peony's scarlet cheek. Come, little snow sister, kiss me, cried Peony. There, she has kissed you, added Violet, and now her lips are very red, and she blushed a little too. Oh, what a cold kiss, cried Peony. Just then, there came a breeze of the pure west wind, sweeping through the garden and rattling the parlor windows. It sounded so wintry cold that the mother was about to tap on the window pane with her thimbled finger to summon the two children in, when they both cried out to her with one voice. The tone was not a tone of surprise, although they were evidently a good deal excited. It appeared rather as if they were very much rejoiced at some event that had now happened, but which they had been looking for and had reckoned upon all along. Mama, mama, we have finished our little snow sister, and she's running about a garden with us. What imaginative little beings my children are, thought the mother, putting the last few stitches into Peony's frock. And it is strange too that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are. I can hardly help believing now that the snow image has really come to life. Dear mama, cried Violet, pray look out and see what a sweet playmate we have. The mother, being thus untreated, could no longer delay to look forth from the window. The sun was now gone out of the sky, leaving, however, a rich inheritance of its brightness among those purple and golden clouds, which make the sunsets of winter so magnificent. But there was not the slightest gleam or dazzle, either on the window or on the snow, so that the good lady could look all over the garden and see everything and everybody in it. And what do you think she saw there? Violet and Peony, of course, her own two darling children. Ah, but whom or what did she see besides? Why, if you will believe me, there was a small figure of a girl, dressed all in white with rose-tinged cheeks and ringlets of golden hue, playing about the garden with the two children. As strange a though she was, the child seemed to be on as familiar terms with Violet and Peony and stay with her, as if all the three had been playmates during the whole of their little lives. The mother thought to herself that it must certainly be the daughter of one of the neighbors, and that, seeing Violet and Peony in the garden, the child had run across the street to play with them. So this kind lady went to the door, intending to invite the little runaway into her comfortable parlor. For now that the sunshine was withdrawn, the atmosphere, out of doors, was already growing very cold. But after opening the house door, she stood an instant on the threshold, hesitating whether she ought to ask the child to come in, or whether she should even speak to her. Indeed, she almost doubted whether it were a real child after all, or only a light wreath of the new fallen snow, blown hither and thither about the garden by the intensely cold west wind. There was certainly something very singular in the aspect of the little stranger. Among all the children of the neighborhood, the lady could remember no such face, with its pure white and delicate rose color, and the golden ringlets tossing about the forehead and cheeks. And as for her dress, which was entirely of white and fluttering in the breeze, it was such as no reasonable woman would put upon a little girl when sending her out to play in the depth of winter. It made this kind and careful mother shiver only to look at those small feet with nothing in the world on them, except a very thin pair of white slippers. Nevertheless, aerially as she was clad, the child seemed to feel not the slightest inconvenience from the cold, but danced so lightly over the snow that the tips of her toes left hardly a print in its surface. While Violet could but just keep pace with her, and Peony's short legs compelled him to lag behind. Once in the course of their play, the strange child placed herself between Violet and Peony, and taking a hand of each, skipped merrily forward and stay along with her. Almost immediately, however, Peony pulled away his little fist and began to rub it as if the fingers were tingling with cold. While Violet also released herself, though with less abruptness, gravely remarking that it was better not to take hold of hands. The white-robed damsels had not a word, but danced about just as merrily as before. If Violet and Peony did not choose to play with her, she could make just as good a playmate of the brisk and cold west wind, which kept blowing her all about the garden and took such liberties with her that they seemed to have been friends for a long time. All this while, the mother stood on the threshold, wondering how a little girl could look so much like a flying snowdrift, or how a snowdrift could look so very like a little girl. She called Violet and whispered to her, Violet, my darling, what is this child's name? Asked she. Does she live near us? Why, dearest mama, answered Violet, laughing to think that her mother did not comprehend so very plain an affair. This is our little snow sister, whom we have just been making. Yes, dear mama, cried Peony, running to his mother and looking up simply into her face. This is our snow image. Is it not a nice little child? At this instant, a flock of snowbirds came flittering through the air. As was very natural, they avoided Violet and Peony. But, and this looked strange, they flew at once to the white-robed child, fluttered eagerly about her head, alighted on her shoulders, and seemed to claim her as an older quaintance. She, on her part, was evidently as glad to see these little birds, old winter's grandchildren, as they were to see her, and welcomed them by holding out both her hands. Hereupon, they each and all tried to alight on her two palms and ten small fingers and thumbs, crowding one another off with an immense fluttering of their tiny wings. One dear little bird nestled tenderly in her bosom. Another put its bill to her lips. They were as joyous, all the while, and seemed as much in their element as you may have seen them when sporting with a snowstorm. Violet and Peony stood laughing at this pretty sight, for they enjoyed the merry time which their new playmate was having with these small-winged visitants, almost as much as if they themselves took part in it. Violet, said her mother, greatly perplexed, tell me the truth without any jest. Who is this little girl? My darling mama, answered Violet, looking seriously into her mother's face, and apparently surprised that she should need any further explanation. I have told you truly who she is. It is our little snow image which Peony and I have been making. Peony will tell you so as well as I. Yes, mama, a separated Peony with much gravity in his crimson little fist. This is little snow child. Isn't she a nice one? But mama, her hand is oh, so very cold. While mama still hesitated what to think and what to do, the street gate was thrown open and the father of Violet and Peony appeared, wrapped in a pilot cloth sack with a fur cup drawn down over his ears and the thickest of gloves upon his hands. Mr. Lindsay was a middle-aged man with a weary and yet a happy look in his wind-flushed and frost-pinched face as if he had been busy all the day long and was glad to get back to his quiet home. His eyes brightened at the sight of his wife and children. Although he could not help uttering a word or two of surprise at finding the whole family in the open air on so bleak a day and after sunset, too, he soon perceived the little white strangers boating to and fro in the garden like a dancing snow wreath and the flock of snowbirds fluttering about her head. Pray, what little girl may that be? Inquired this very sensible man. Surely her mother must be crazy to let her go out in such bitter weather as it has been today with only dead flimsy white gown and those thin slippers. My dear husband, said his wife, I know no more about the little thing than you do. Some neighbor's child, I suppose. Our Violet and Peony, she added, laughing at herself for repeating so absurd a story, insist that she's nothing but a snow image which they have been busy about in the garden almost all the afternoon. As she said this, the mother glanced her eyes towards the spot where the children's snow image had been made. What was her surprise on perceiving that there was not the slightest trace of so much labor? No image at all. No piled-up heap of snow. Nothing, whatever, saved the prince of little footsteps around the vacant space. This is very strange, said she. What is strange, dear mother, asked Violet. Dear father, do not you see how it is? This is our snow image which Peony and I have made because we wanted another playmate. Did not we, Peony? Yes, Papa, said Crimson Peony. This be our little snow sister. Is she not beautiful? But she gave me such a cold kiss. Nonsense children, cried their good, honest father who, as we have already intimated, had an exceedingly common sensible way of looking at matters. Do not tell me of making life figures out of snow. Come, wife, this little stranger must not stay out in the bleak air a moment longer. We will bring her into the parlour and you shall give her a supper of warm bread and milk and make her as comfortable as you can. Meanwhile, I will inquire among the neighbours or, if necessary, send the city crier about the streets to give notice of a lost child. So saying, this honest and very kind-hearted man was going towards the little white damsel with the best intentions in the world. But Violet and Peony, each seizing their father by the hand, earnestly besought him not to make her come in. Dear father, cried Violet, putting herself before him, it is true what I have been telling you. This is our little snow girl and she cannot live any longer than while she breathes the cold west wind. Do not make her come into the hot room. Yes, father, shouted Peony, stamping his little foot, so mightily was he in earnest. This be nothing but our little snow child. She will not love the hot fire. Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense, cried the father, half waxed, half laughing at what he considered their foolish obstinacy. Run into the house this moment. It is too late to play any longer now. I must take care of this little girl immediately or she will catch her death a cold. Husband, dear husband, said his wife in a low voice, for she had been looking narrowly at the snow child and was more perplexed than ever. There is something very singular in all this. You will think me foolish, but, but may it not be that some invisible angel has been attracted by the simplicity and good faith with which our children said about their undertaking? May he not have spent an hour of his immortality in playing with those dear little souls. And so the result is what we call a miracle. No, no, do not laugh at me. I see what a foolish thought it is. My dear wife, replied to the husband, laughing heartily, you are as much a child as Violet in Peony. And in one sense, so she was. For all through life, she had kept her heart full of childlike simplicity and faith, which was as pure and clear as crystal. And looking at all matters through this transparent medium, she sometimes saw truths so profound that other people laughed at them as nonsense and absurdity. But now kind Mr. Lindsay had entered the garden, breaking away from his two children, who still sent their shrill voices after him, beseeching him to let the snow child stay and enjoy herself in the cold west wind. As he approached, the snowbirds took to flight. The little white damsel also fled backward, shaking her head as if to say, pray do not touch me, and roguishly as it appeared, leading him through the deepest of the snow. Once the good man stumbled and floundered down upon his face, so that, gathering himself up again with the snow sticking to his rough pilot cloth sack, he looked as white and wintry as a snow image of the largest size. Some of the neighbors, meanwhile, seeing him from their windows, wondered what could possess poor Mr. Lindsay to be running about his garden in pursuit of a snowdrift, which the west wind was driving hither and thither. At length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased a little stranger into a corner where she could not possibly escape him. His wife had been looking on, and it's being nearly twilight, was wonderstruck to observe how the snow child gleamed and sparkled, and how she seemed to shed a glow all round about her. And when driven into the corner, she positively glistened like a star. It was a frosty kind of brightness, too, like that of an icicle in the moonlight. The wife thought it strange that good Mr. Lindsay should see nothing remarkable in the snow child's appearance. Come, you odd little thing, cried the honest man, seizing her by the hand. I have caught you at last, and will make you comfortable in spite of yourself. We will put a nice warm pair of worsted stockings on your frozen little feet, and you shall have a good thick shawl to wrap yourself in. Your poor white nose, I'm afraid, is actually frostbitten. But we will make it all right. Come along in. And so, with the most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, or purple as it was with the cold, this very well-meaning gentleman took the snow child by the hand and led her towards the house. She followed him, droopingly and reluctant. For all the glow and sparkle was gone out of her figure, and, whereas just before, she had resembled a bright, frosty, star-gamped evening with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon, she now looked as dull and languid as a thaw. As kind Mr. Lindsay led her up the steps of the door, violet and peony looked into his face, their eyes full of tears, which froze before they could run down their cheeks, and again entreated him not to bring the snow image into the house. Not bring her in, exclaimed the kind-hearted man. Why, you are crazy, my little violet. Quite crazy, my small peony. She's so cold already that her hand has almost frozen mine in spite of my thick gloves. Would you have her freeze to death? His wife, as he came up the steps, had been taking another, long, earnest, almost awe-stricken gaze at the little white stranger. She hardly knew whether it was a dream or not, but she could not help fancying that she saw the delicate print of violet's fingers on the child's neck. It looked just as if, while violet was shaping out the image, she had given it a gentle pat with her hand and had neglected to smooth the impression quite away. After all, husband, said the mother, recurring to her idea that the angels would be as much delighted to play with violet and peony as she herself was. After all, she does look strangely like a snow image. I do believe she's made of snow. A puff of the west wind blew against the snow child and again she sparkled like a star. Snow, repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the reluctant guest over his hospitable threshold. No wonder she looks like snow. She's half frozen, poor little thing, but a good fire will put everything to rights. Without further talk and always with the same best intentions, this highly benevolent and common sensible individual lets the little white damsel drooping, drooping, drooping, more and more out of the frosty air and into his comfortable parlor. A Heidenberg stove filled to the brim with intensely burning antracite was sending a bright gleam through the eyes and glass of its iron door and causing the waste of water on its top to fume and bubble with excitement. A warm, sultry smell was diffused throughout the room. A thermometer on the wall farthest from the stove stood at 80 degrees. The parlor was hung with red curtains and covered with a red carpet and looked just as warm as it felt. The difference betwixt the atmosphere here and the cold, wintry twilight out of doors was like stepping at once from Nova Sembla to the hottest part of India or from the North Pole into an oven. Oh, this was a fine place for the little white stranger. The commonsensible man placed the snow child on the half-rock right in front of the hissing and fuming stove. Now she will be comfortable, cried Mr. Lindsay, rubbing his hands and looking about him with the pleasantest smile you ever saw. Make yourself at home, my child. Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white maiden as she stood on the half-rock with the hot blast of the stove striking through her like a pestilence. Once she threw a glance wistfully towards the windows and caught a glimpse through its red curtains of the snow-covered roofs and the stars glimmering frostily and all the delicious intensity of the cold night. The bleak wind rattled the windowpains as if it were summoning her to come forth, but there stood the snow child drooping before the hot stove. But the commonsensible man saw nothing amiss. Come, wife, said he, let her have a pair of thick stockings and a woolen shawl or blanket directly and tell Dora to give her some warm supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violette and Peony, amuse your little friend. She's out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange place. For my part I will go around among the neighbors and find out where she belongs. The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings. For her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given way, as it always did, to disturb on materialism of her husband. Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children who still kept murmuring that their little snow sister did not love the warmth, good Mr. Lindsay took his departure, shutting the parlor door carefully behind him. Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the house and had barely reached the street gate when he was recalled by the screams of Violette and Peony and the wrapping of a thumbled finger against the parlor window. Husband, husband, cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken face through the window-paints. There is no need of going for the child's parents. We told you so, father, screamed Violette and Peony as he re-entered the parlor. You would bring her in, and now our poor, dear, beautiful little snow sister is thawed. And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears, so that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in this everyday world, felt not a little anxious lest his children might be going to thaw, too. In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an explanation of his wife. She could only reply that, being summoned to the parlor by the cries of Violette and Peony, she found no trace of the little white maiden unless it were the remains of a heap of snow, which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite a way upon the half-rock. And there you see all that is left of it, at the cheek pointing to a pool of water in front of the stove. Yes, father, said Violette, looking reproachfully at him through her tears, there is all that is left of our dear little snow sister. Naughty father, cried Peony, stamping his foot, and, I shudder to say, shaking his little fist at the common sensible man. We told you how it would be. What foe did you bring her in? And the Heidenberg stove, through the eyes and glass of its door, seems to glare at good Mr. Lindsay, like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in the mischief which it had done. This, you will observe, was one of those rare cases, which yet will occasionally happen, where common sense finds itself at fault. The remarkable story of the snow image, though to that sagacious class of people to whom good Mr. Lindsay belongs, it may seem but a childish affair, is nevertheless capable of being moralized in various methods, greatly for their edification. One of its lessons, for instance, might be that it behooves man, and especially men of benevolence, to consider well what they are about, and before acting on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend the nature and all the relations of the business in hand. What has been established as an element of good to one being may prove absolute mischief to another. Even as the warmth of the parlor was proper enough for children of flesh and blood like violet and peony, though by no means very wholesome even for them, but involved nothing short of annihilation to the unfortunate snow image. But after all, there is no teaching anything to wise men of good Mr. Lindsay's stamp. They know everything. Oh, to be sure, everything that has been and everything that is, and everything that, by any future possibility, can be. And, should some phenomenon of nature or providence transcend the system, they will not recognize it even if it come to pass under their very noses. Wife, said Mr. Lindsay after a fit of silence, see what a quantity of snow the children have brought in on their feet. It has made quite a puddle here before the stove. Pray tell Dora to bring some towels and mop it up. End of The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libervox.org. Read by Dora-Leen Kaplan. The month in which my seventeenth birthday arrived, I signed on before the mast on the Sophie Sutherland, a three-top mast schooner bound on a seven-month seal-hunting cruise to the coast of Japan. We sailed from San Francisco, and immediately I found confronting me a problem of no inconsiderable proportions. There were twelve men of us in the Focussel, ten of whom were hardened, tarry-thumbed sailors. Not alone was I a youth in on my first voyage, but I had for shipmates men who had come through the hard school of the merchant service of Europe. As boys, they had to perform their ship's duty, and in addition, by immemorial sea custom, they had to be the slaves of the ordinary and able-bodied seamen. When they became ordinary seamen, they were still the slaves of the able-bodied. Thus, in the Focussel with the watch below, an able seamen lying in his bunk will order an ordinary seamen to fetch him his shoes, or bring him a drink of water. Now the ordinary seamen may be lying in his bunk. He is just as tired as the able seamen, yet he must get out of his bunk and fetch and carry. If he refuses, he will be beaten. If, per chance, he is so strong that he can whip the able seamen, then all the able seamen, or as many as may be necessary, pitch upon the luckless devil and administer the beating. By problem now becomes apparent. These hard-bit Scandinavian sailors had come through a hard school. As boys, they had served their mates, and as able seamen, they looked to be served by other boys. I was a boy with all with a man's body. I had never been to see before. With all, I was a good sailor and knew my business. It was either a case of holding my own with them, or of going under. I had signed on as an equal. And an equal I must remain myself, or else endure seven months of hell at their hands. And it was this very equality they resented. By what right was I an equal? I had not earned that high privilege. I had not endured the miseries they had endured as maltreated boys or bullied ordinaries. Worse than that, I was a land-lubber making his first voyage. And yet, by the injustice of fate on the ship's articles, I was their equal. My method was deliberate and simple and drastic. In the first place, I resolved to do my work no matter how hard or dangerous it might be, so well that no man would be called upon to do it for me. Further, I put ginger in my muscles. I never malingered when pulling on a rope, for I knew the eagle eyes of my focusel mates were squinting for just such evidences of my inferiority. I made it a point to be among the first of the watch going on deck, among the last going below, never leaving a sheet or tackle for someone else to coil over. A pin. I was always eager for the run-aloft for the shifting of top-sale sheets and tacks or for the setting or taking in of top-sales. And in these matters, I did more than my share. Furthermore, I was on a hair-trigger of resentment myself. I knew better than any to accept any abuse or the slightest patronizing. At the first hint of such, I went off. I exploded. I might be beaten in the subsequent fight, but I left the impression that I was a wildcat and that I would just as willingly fight again. My intention was to demonstrate that I would tolerate no imposition. I proved that the man who imposed on me must have a fight on his hands, and doing my work well, the innate justice of the men, assisted by their wholesome dislike for a clawing and rending wildcat ruction, soon led them to give over their hectoring. After a bit of strife, my attitude was accepted, and it was my pride that I was taken in as an equal in spirit, as well as in fact. From then on, everything was beautiful and the voyage promised to be a happy one, but there was one other man in the focusel. Counting the Scandinavians as ten and myself as the eleventh, this man was the twelfth and last. We never knew his name, contenting ourselves with calling him the bricklayer. He was from Missouri, at least he so informed us in the one meager confidence he was guilty of in the early days of the voyage. Also, at that time, we learned several other things. He was a bricklayer by trade. He had never even seen saltwater until the week before he joined us, at which time he had arrived in San Francisco and looked upon San Francisco Bay. Why he, of all men, at forty years of age should have felt the pride to go to sea was beyond all of us. For it was our unanimous conviction that no man less fitted for the sea had ever embarked on it. But to see he had come. After a week's stay in a sailor's boarding-house he had been shoved aboard of us as an able seaman. All hands had to do his work for him. Not only did he know nothing, but he proved himself unable to learn anything. Try as they would they could never teach him to steer. To him the compass must have been a profound and awful whirl-a-gig. He never mastered its cardinal points much less the checking and steadying of the ship on her course. He never did come to know whether ropes should be coiled from left to right or from right to left. It was mentally impossible for him to learn the easy muscular trick of throwing his weight on a rope in pulling and hauling. The simplest knots and turns were beyond his comprehension while he was mortally afraid of going aloft. Bullied by captain and mate he was one day forced aloft. He managed to get underneath the cross-trees and there he froze to the rat-lines. Two sailors had to go after him to help him down, all of which was bad enough had there been no worse, but he was vicious, malignant, dirty, and without common decency. He was a tall, powerful man and he fought with everybody and there was no fairness in his fighting. His first fight on board the first day out was with me when he desiring to cut a plug of chewing tobacco and plucked my personal table knife for the purpose and were upon eye on a hair-trug or promptly exploded. After that he fought with nearly every member of the crew. When his clothing became too filthy to be bearable by the rest of us we put it to soak and stood over him while he washed it. In short, the bricklayer was one of those horrible and monstrous things that one must see in order to be convinced that they exist. And that he was a beast and that we treated him like a beast. It is only by looking back through the years that I realize how heartless we were to him. He was without sin. He could not by the very nature of things had been anything else than he was. He had not made himself and for his making he was not responsible and we treated him as a free agent and held him personally responsible for all that he was and that he should not have been. As a result, our treatment of him was as terrible as he was himself terrible. Finally we gave him the silent treatment and for weeks before he died we neither spoke to him nor did he speak to us. And for weeks he moved among us or lay in his bunk in our crowded house grinning at us his hatred and malignancy. He was a dying man and he knew it and we knew it and furthermore he knew that we wanted him to die. He numbered our life with his presence and ours was a rough life that made rough men of us. And so he died in a small space crowded by twelve men and as much alone as if he had died on some desolate mountain peak. No kindly word. The last word was passed between. He died as he had lived a beast and he died hating us and hated by us. And now I come to the most startling moment of my life. No sooner was he dead than he was flung overboard. He died in a night of wind drawing his last breath as the men tumbled into their oil skins to the cry of all hands. And he was flung overboard several hours later on a day of wind. Not even a canvas wrapping graced his mortal remains nor was he deemed worthy of bars of iron at his feet. We sewed him up in the blankets in which he died and laid him on a hatch cover forward of the main hatch on the port side. A gunny sack half full of galley coal was fastened to his feet. It was bitter cold. The weather side of every rope spar and stay was coated with ice while all the rigging was a harp singing and shouting under the fierce hand of the wind. The schooner Hove too lurched and floundered through the sea rolling her scuppers under and perpetually flooding the deck with icy salt water. We of the Focussel stood in sea boots and oil skins. Our hands were mittened but our heads were bared in the presence of the death we did not respect. Our ears stung and numbed and whitened and we yearned for the body to be gone but the interminable reading of the burial service went on. The captain had mistaken his place and while he read on without purpose we froze our ears and resented this final hardship thrust upon us by the helpless cadaver. As from the beginning so to the end everything had gone wrong with the bricklayer. Finally the captain's son irritated beyond measure jerked the book from the pulsed fingers of the old man and found the place again the quavering voice of the captain arose then came the cue and the body shall be cast into the sea. We elevated one end of the hatch cover and the bricklayer plunged and was gone. Back into the focussel we cleaned house washing out the dead man's bunk and removing every vestige of him. By sea law and sea custom we should have gathered his effects together and turned them over to the captain who later would have held an auction in which we should have bid for the various articles but no man wanted them. So we tossed them up on deck and overboard in the wake the last ill treatment we could devise to wreak upon the one we had hated so. Oh it was raw, believe me but the life we lived was raw and we were as raw as the life. The bricklayer's bunk was better than mine lest the water leak down through the deck into it and the light was better for lying in bed and reading. Partly for this reason I proceeded to move into his bunk. My other reason was pride. I saw the sailors were superstitious and by this act I determined to show that I was braver than they. I would cap my proved equality by a deed that would compel the recognition of my superiority. Oh the arrogance of youth but let that pass. The sailors were appalled by my intention. One and all they warned me that in the history of the sea no man had taken a dead man's bunk and lived to the end of the voyage. They instanced case after case in their personal experience. I was obdurate. Then they begged and pleaded with me and my pride was tickled in that they showed they really liked me and were concerned about me. This but served to confirm me in my madness. I moved in and lying in the dead man's bunk all afternoon and evening listened to dire prophecies also were told stories of awful deaths and gruesome ghosts that secretly shivered the hearts of all of us saturated with this yet scoffing at it I rolled over at the end of the second dog watch and went to sleep. At ten minutes to twelve I was called and at twelve I was dressed and on deck relieving the man who had called me. On the ceiling grounds when Hove too a watch of only single man is kept through the night each man holding the deck for an hour. It was a dark night though not a black one. The Gale was breaking up and the clouds were thinning. There should have been a moon and though invisible in some way a dim, suffused radiance came from it. I paced back and forth across the deck amid ships. My mind was filled with the event of the day and with the horrible tales my shipmates had told and yet I dare to say here and now that I was not afraid. I was a healthy animal and furthermore intellectually I agreed with Swinburne that dead men rise up never. The bricklayer was dead and that was the end of it. He would rise up never at least never on the deck of the Sophie Sutherland even then he was in the ocean depth smiles to winward of our leeward drift was that he was already portioned out in the moths of many sharks. Still my mind pondered on the tales of the ghosts of dead men I had heard and I speculated on the spirit world. My conclusion was that if the spirits of the dead still roam the world they carry the goodness or the malignancy of the earth life with them. Therefore granting the hypothesis which I didn't grant at all the bricklayer was bound to be as hateful and malignant as he in life had been but there wasn't any bricklayer's ghost that I insisted upon. A few minutes thinking thus I paced up and down then glancing casually forward along the port side I leaped like a startled deer and in a blind madness of terror rushed aft along the poop heading for the cabin. As all my arrogance of youth and my intellectual calm I had seen a ghost there in the dim light where we had flung the dead man overboard I had seen a faint and wavering form six feet in length it was slender and a substance so attenuated that I had distinctly seen through at the tracery of the fore-rigging. As for me I was as panic-stricken as a horse I, as I had ceased to exist through me were vibrating the fiber instincts of ten thousand generations of superstitious forebears who had been afraid of the dark and the things of the dark I was not I was in truth those ten thousand forebears I was the race the whole human race in its superstitious infancy and companion way did my identity return to me I checked my flight and clung to the steep ladder suffocating trembling and dizzy never before nor since have I had such a shock I clung to the ladder and considered I could not doubt my senses that I had seen something there was no discussion but what was it a joke there could be nothing else if a ghost the question was would it appear again if it did not and I aroused the ship's officers I would make myself the laughing stock of all on board and by the same token if it were a joke my position would be still more ridiculous if I were to retain my hard one place of equality it would never do to arouse anyone I was the leader of the thing I'm a brave man I dare to say so for in fear and trembling I crept up the commanding way and went back to the spot from which I had first seen the thing it had vanished my bravery was qualified however though I could see nothing I was afraid to go forward to the spot where I had seen the thing I resumed my pacing up and down an anxious glance toward the dread spot nothing manifested itself as my equanimity returned to me I concluded that the whole affair had been a trick of the imagination and that I had got what I deserved for allowing my mind to dwell on such matters once more my glances forward were casual and not anxious and then suddenly I was a man-man rushing wildly aft I had seen the thing again the long wavering attenuated substance through which could be seen the fore-rigging this time I reached only the break of the poop when I checked myself again I reasoned over the situation and it was pride that council strongest I could not afford to make myself a laughing stock this thing whatever it was I must face alone I must work it out myself I looked back to the spot where we had tilted the brick layer it was vacant nothing moved and for a third time I resumed my amidships pacing in the absence of the thing my fear died away and my intellectual poise returned of course it was not a ghost dead men did not rise up it was a joke a cool joke under the focusle by some unknown means were frightening me twice already they must have seen me run aft my cheeks burned with shame in fancy I could hear the smothered chuckling and laughter even then going on in the focusle I began to grow angry jokes were all very well but this was carrying the thing too far I was the youngest on board only a youth and they had no right to play tricks on me I well knew in the past and made raving maniacs of men and women I grew angrier and angrier and resolved to show them that I was made of sterner stuff and at the same time to wreak my resentment upon them if the thing appeared again I made my mind up that I would go up to it furthermore that I would go up to it knife in hand when within striking distance I would strike the man he would get the knife thrust he deserved if a ghost well it wouldn't hurt the ghost any well I would have learned that dead men did rise up now I was very angry and I was quite sure the thing was a trick but when the thing appeared a third time in the same spot long attenuated and wavering fears surged up in me and drove most of my anger away but I did not run nor did I take my eyes from the thing both times before it had vanished while I was running away so I had not seen the manner of its going I drew my sheath knife from my belt and began my advance step by step nearer and nearer the effort to control myself grew more severe the struggle was between my will my identity the very self on the one hand and on the other the ten thousand ancestors who were twisted into the fibers of me and whose ghostly voices were whispering of the dark and the fear of the dark that had been theirs in the time when the world was dark and full of terror I advanced more slowly and still the thing wavered and flittered with strange eerie lurches and then right before my eyes it vanished I saw it vanished neither to the right nor left did it go nor backward right there while I gazed upon it it faded away ceased to be I didn't die but I swear from what I experienced in those few succeeding moments I know full well that men can die a fright I stood there knife at hand automatically to the role of the ship paralyzed with fear had the bricklayer suddenly seized my throat with corporeal fingers and proceeded to throttle me it would have been no more than I expected dead men did rise up and that would be the most likely thing the malignant bricklayer could do but he didn't seize my throat nothing happened and since nature abhors the status I could not remain there in the one place forever paralyzed I turned and started aft I did not run what was the use what chance had I against the malivalent world of ghosts flight with me was the swiftness of my legs the pursuit with a ghost was the swiftness of thought and there were ghosts I had seen one and so stumbling slowly aft I discovered the explanation of the seeming I saw the mizzen top mass lurching across a faint radiance of cloud behind which was the moon the idea leaped in my brain I extended the line between the cloudy radiance and the mizzen top mass and found that it must strike somewhere near the fore rigging on the port side even as I did this the radiance vanished the driving clouds of the breaking gale were alternately thickening and thinning before the face of the moon but never exposing the face of the moon and when the clouds were at their thinnest it was a very dim radiance that the moon was able to make I watched and waited the next time the clouds thinned I looked forward and there was the shadow of the top massed long and attenuated wavering and lurching on the deck and against the rigging this was my first ghost once again have I seen a ghost it proved to be a Newfoundland dog and I don't know which of us was the more frightened for I hit that Newfoundland a full right on swing to the jaw regarding the bricklayers ghosts I will say that I never mentioned it to a soul on board also I will say that in all my life I have gone through more torment and mental suffering than on that lonely night watch on the Sophie Sutherland that dead men rise up never by Jack London winter dreams this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are on the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this reading by Allison Bland newtapes.net winter dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald part one some of the catties are poor as sin and lived in one room houses with a nurse then a cow in the front yard but Dexter Green's father owned the second best grocery store in Black Bear the best one was The Hub patronized by wealthy people from Sherry Island and Dexter cattied only for pocket money in the fall when the days became gray and the long Minnesota winter shut down like the white lid of a box Dexter's skis moved over the snow that hid the fairways of the golf course at these times the country gave him a feeling of profound melancholy it offended him that the lynx should lie and enforce fallowness haunted by ragged sparrows for the long season it was jury too that on the tease were the gay colors fluttered in the summer there were now only the desolate sandboxes and crusted ice when he crossed the hills the wind blew cold as misery and if the sun was out he tramped with his eyes squinted up against the hard dimensionless glare in April the winter ceased abruptly the snow ran down into Black Bear Lake scarcely tearing for the early golfers to brave the season with red and black balls without elation without an interval of moist glory the cold was gone Dexter knew there was something dismal about this northern spring just as he knew there was something gorgeous about the fall fall made him clench his hands in a tremble and repeat idiotic sentences to himself and make brisk, abrupt gestures of command to imaginary audiences and armies October filled him with hope which November raised to a sort of aesthetic triumph and in this mood the fleeting, brilliant impressions of the summer at Sherry Island he became a golf champion and defeated Mr. T. A. Hedrick in a marvelous match played a hundred times over the fairways of his imagination a match each detail of which he changed about untiringly sometimes he won with almost laughable ease sometimes he came up magnificently from behind again stepping from a Pierce Arrow automobile like Mr. Mortimer Jones he strolled frigidly into the lounge of the Sherry Island Golf Club or perhaps surrounded by an admiring crowd he gave an exhibition of fancy diving from the springboard of the club raft among those who watched him in open mouth wonder was Mr. Mortimer Jones and one day it came to pass that Mr. Jones himself and not his ghost came up to Dexter with tears in his eyes and said that Dexter was the best caddy in the club and wouldn't he decide not to quit if Mr. Jones made it worth his while because every other caddy in the club lost one ball a hole for him regularly no serve said Dexter decisively I don't want to caddy anymore then after a pause I'm too old you're not more than 14 why the devil did you decide just this morning that you wanted to quit you promise that next week you go over to the state tournament with me I decided I was too old Dexter handed in his A-class badge collected what money was due him from the caddy master and walked home to Black Bear Village the best caddy I ever saw shouted Mr. Mortimer Jones over a drink that afternoon never lost a ball willing, intelligent, quiet honest, grateful the little girl who had done this was 11 beautifully ugly as little girls are apt to be who are destined after a few years to be inexpressibly lovely and bring no end of misery to a great number of men the spark however was perceptible there was a general ungodliness in the way her lips twisted down at the corners when she smiled and in the heaven help us in the almost passionate quality of her eyes vitality is born early in such women it was utterly in evidence now shining through her thin frame in a sort of glow she had come out eagerly out onto the course at nine o'clock with a white linen nurse and five small new golf clubs in a white canvas bag which the nurse was carrying when Dexter first saw her she was standing by the caddy house rather ill at ease and trying to conceal that fact by engaging her nurse in an obviously unnatural conversation graced by startling and irrelevant grimaces from herself well it's certainly a nice day Hilda Dexter heard her say she drew down the corners of her mouth smiled and glanced furtively around her eyes in transit falling for an instant on Dexter then to the nurse well I guess there aren't very many people out here this morning are there the smile again radiant, blatantly artificial convincing I don't know what we're supposed to do now said the nurse looking nowhere in particular well that's alright I'll fix it up Dexter stood perfectly still his mouth slightly ajar he knew that if he moved forward a step his stare would be in her line of vision if he moved backward he would lose his full view of her face for a moment he had not realized how young she was now he remembered having seen her several times the year before in her bloomers suddenly involuntarily he laughed a short abrupt laugh then startled by himself he turned and began to walk quickly away boy Dexter stopped boy beyond question he was addressed not only that but he was treated to that absurd smile that preposterous smile the memory of which at least a dozen men were to carry into middle age boy do you know where the golf teacher is he's giving a lesson well do you know where the caddy master is do you know where the caddy master is he isn't here yet this morning oh for a moment this baffled her she stood alternately on her right and left foot we'd like to get a caddy said the nurse Mrs. Mortimer Jones sent us out to play golf and we don't know how without we get a caddy here she was stopped by an ominous glance from Miss Jones followed immediately by the smile there aren't any caddies here except me so Dexter to the nurse and I got to stay here and charge until the caddy master gets here oh Miss Jones and her retinue now withdrew and at a proper distance from Dexter became involved in a heated conversation which was concluded by Miss Jones taking one of the clubs and hitting it on the ground with violence for further emphasis she raised it again and was about to bring it down smartly upon the nurse's bosom when the nurse seized the club and twisted it from her hands you damn little mean old thing cried Miss Jones wildly another argument ensued realizing that the elements of the comedy were implied in the scene Dexter several times began to laugh but each time restrained the laugh before it reached out ability he could not resist the monstrous conviction that the little girl was justified in beating the nurse the situation was resolved by the fortuitous appearance of the caddy master who was appealed to immediately by the nurse Miss Jones is to have a little caddy and this one says he can't go Mr. McKenna said I was to wait here till you came to Dexter quickly well he's here now Miss Jones smiled cheerfully at the caddy master then she dropped her bag and set off at a haughty mince towards the first tee well the caddy master turned to Dexter which he's standing there like a dummy for go pick up the young ladies clubs I don't think I'll go out today said Dexter you don't I think I'll quit the enormity of his decision frightened him he was a favorite caddy and the thirty dollars he made a month he earned through the summer were not to be made elsewhere around the lake but he had received a strong emotional shock and his perturbation required a silent and immediate outlet it is not so simple as that either and so frequently would be the case in the future Dexter was unconsciously dictated to by his winter dreams part two now of course the quality and seasonability of these winter dreams varied but the stuff of them remained they persuaded Dexter several years later to pass the business course at the state university and the prospering now would have paid his way for the precarious advantage of attending an older and more famous university in the east where he was bothered by his scanty funds but do not get the impression because his winter dreams happened to be concerned at first with the musings on the rich that there was anything merely snobbish in the boy he wanted not association with glittery things and glittering people he wanted the glittering things themselves often he reached out for the best without knowing why he wanted it and sometimes he ran up against the mysterious denials and prohibitions in which life indulges it is with one of those denials and not with his career as a whole that the story deals he made money it was rather amazing after college he went to the city from which Black Bear Lake drew its wealthy patrons when he was only 23 and had been there not quite two years there were already people who liked to say now there is a boy all about him Richmond's sons repelling bonds precariously are investing patrimonies precariously are plotting through the two dozen volumes of the George Washington commercial course but Dexter borrowed a thousand dollars on his college degree and his confident mouth and bought a partnership in a laundry it was a small laundry when he went into it but Dexter made a specialty of learning how the English washed golf stockings without shrinking them and within a year he was catering to the trade that wore Knickerbockers men were insisting that their Shetland hoes and sweaters go to his laundry just as they had insisted on a caddy who could find golf balls a little later he was doing their wives lingerie as well and running five branches in different parts of the city before he was 27 he owned the largest string of laundries in his section of the country it was then that he sold out and went to New York but the part of his story that concerns us goes back to the days when he was making his first big success when he was 23 Mr. Hart one of the gray haired men who like to say now there is a boy gave him a guest card to the Sherry Island golf club for a weekend so he signed his name one day on the register and that afternoon played golf in a foursome with Mr. Hart and Mr. Sandwood and Mr. T. A. Hedrick did not consider it necessary to remark that he had once carried Mr. Hart's bags over the same lengths that he knew every trap and gully with his eyes shut but he found himself glancing at the four caddies who trailed them trying to catch a gleam or jester that would remind him of himself that would lessen the gap which lay between his present and his past it was a curious day slashed abruptly with fleeting familiar impressions one moment he had the sense of being a trespasser and the next he was impressed by the tremendous superiority he felt towards Mr. T. A. Hedrick who was a bore and not even a good golfer anymore then because of the ball Mr. Hart lost near the 15th green an enormous thing happened while they were searching the stiff grasses of the rough there was a clear curl of four from behind a hill in the rear as they all turned abruptly from their search a bright new ball sliced abruptly over the hill and caught Mr. T. A. Hedrick in the abdomen by God cried Mr. T. A. Hedrick they ought to put some of these crazy women off the course it's getting to be outrageous a head and a voice came up over the hill do you mind if we go through you hit me in the stomach declared Mr. T. A. Hedrick wildly did I? the girl approached a group of men sorry I yelled four her glance filled casually on each of the men then scanned the fairway for her ball did I bounce into the roof it was impossible to determine whether this question was ingenious or malicious in a moment however she left no doubt for as her partner came up over the hill she called cheerfully here I am I'd have gone on the green except that I hit something a short mashy shot Dexter looked at her closely she wore a blue gingham dress rimmed at throat and shoulders with a white edging that accentuated her tan the quality of exaggeration of thinness which made her passionate eyes and down turning mouth absurd at 11 was gone now she was restingly beautiful the color in her cheeks was centered like the color in a picture it was not a high color but a fluctuating and feverish warmth associated that it seemed at any moment it would recede and disappear this color and mobility of her mouth gave a continual impression of flux, of intense life of passionate vitality balanced only partially by the sad luxury of her eyes she swung her mashy impatiently and without interest pitching the ball into a sand pit on the other side of the green with a quick insincere and careless thank you, she went on after it that Judy Jones remarked Mr. Hedrick on the next tea as they waited some moments for her to play on ahead all she needs is to be turned up and spanked for six months and then to be married off to an old fashioned calvary captain my god she's good looking said Mr. Sandwood who was just over 30 good looking cried Mr. Hedrick contemptuously she always looks as if she wants to be kissed turning those big cow eyes in every calf in town it was doubtful if Mr. Hedrick intended a reference to the maternal instinct she played pretty good golf if she tried said Mr. Sandwood she has no form said Mr. Hedrick solemnly but she has a nice figure said Mr. Sandwood better thank the lord she doesn't drive a swifter ball said Mr. Hart what are you looking at Dexter? later in the afternoon the sun went down with a riotous swirl of gold and varying blues and scarlets and left the dry wrestling night of western summer Dexter watched from the veranda of the golf club watched the even overlap of the waters and the little wind silver molasses under the harvest moon then the moon held a finger to her lips and the lake began a clear pool Dexter put on his bathing suit and swam out to the farthest raft where he stretched dripping on the wet canvas of the springboard there was a fish jumping and a star shining and the lights around the lake were gleaming over on a dark peninsula a piano was playing the songs of last summer and the summers before that songs from Chin Chin and the Count of Luxembourg and the chocolate soldier and because the sound of a piano over a stretch of water had always seemed beautiful to Dexter he lay perfectly quiet and listened the tune the piano was playing at that moment had been gay and knew five years before when Dexter was a sophomore at college they played it at a prom once when he could not afford the luxury of proms and he had stood outside the gymnasium and listened the sound of the tune precipitated in him a sort of ecstasy he viewed what happened to him now it was a mood of intense appreciation in the sense that for once he was magnificently attuned to life and that everything about him was radiating a brightness and a glamour he might never know again a low pale oblong that attached itself from the darkness of the island spitting forth the reverberate sound of a racing motorboat two white streamers of cleft water rolled themselves out behind it and almost immediately the boat was beside him drowning out the hot tinkle of the piano and the drone of its spray Dexter raising himself on his arms was aware of a figure standing at the wheel of two dark eyes regarding him over the lengthening space of water then the boat had gone by and was sweeping in an immense and purposeless spray of water round and round in the middle of the lake with equal eccentricity one of the circles flattened out and headed back toward the raft who's that? she called shutting off her motor she was so near now that Dexter could see her bathing suit which consisted apparently of pink rompers the nose of the boat bumped the raft and as the latter tilted rackishly he was precipitated towards her with different degrees of interest they recognized each other aren't you one of those men we played through this afternoon? she demanded he was well do you know how to drive a motorboat? because if you do I wish you'd drive this one so I can ride on the surfboard behind my name is Judy Jones she favored him with an absurd smirk rather what tried to be a smirk for twist her mouth as she might it was not grotesque it was merely beautiful and I live in a house over there on the island and in that house there was a man waiting for me I drove up at the door I drove out of the dock because he says I'm his ideal there was a fish jumping and a star shining and the lights around the lake were gleaming Dexter sat beside Judy Jones and she explained how her boat was driven then she was in the water swimming to the floating surfboard with a sinuous crawl watching her was without effort to the eye watching a branch waving or a seagull flying and her arms burned to butternut moved sinuously among the dull platinum ripples elbow appearing first casting the forearm back with a cadence of falling water then reaching out and down stabbing a path ahead they moved out into the lake turning Dexter saw that she was kneeling on the low rear of the now up tilted surfboard go faster she called fast as it'll go obediently he jammed and the white spray mounted at the bow when he looked around again the girl was standing up on the rushing board her arms spread wide her eyes lifted towards the moon it's awful cold she shouted what's your name he told her well why don't you come to dinner tomorrow night his heart turned over like the flywheel of the boat and for the second time her casual whim gave a new direction to his life part 3 next evening while he waited for her to come downstairs Dexter peopled the soft deep summer room in the sun porch that opened from it with the men who had already loved Judy Jones he knew the sort of men they were the men who, when he first went to college had entered from the great prep schools with graceful clothes and a deep tan of healthy summers he had seen that in one sense he was better than these men he was newer and stronger yet in acknowledging to himself that he wished his children to be like them he was admitting that he was but the rough, strong stuff from which they eternally sprained when the time had come for him to wear good clothes he had known who were the best tailors in America and the best tailors in America had made him the suit he wore this evening he had acquired that particular reserve peculiar to his university that set it off from other universities he recognized the value to him of such a mannerism and he had adopted it he knew that to be careless and dressed in manner required more confidence than to be careful but carelessness was for his children his mother's name had been Krimslitsch she was a bohemian of the peasant class and she had talked broken English to the end of her days her son was kept to the set patterns at a little after seven Judy Jones came downstairs she wore a blue silk afternoon dress and he was disappointed at first that she had not put on something more elaborate this feeling was accentuated when after a brief greeting she went to the door of a butler's pantry and pushing it open called you can serve dinner Martha he had rather expected that a butler would announce dinner and that there would be a cocktail then he put these thoughts behind him as they sat down side by side in the lounge and looked at each other father and mother won't be here she said thoughtfully he remembered the last time he had seen her father and he was glad the parents were not to be here tonight they might wonder who he was he had been born in Keeble a Minnesota village 50 miles further north and he always gave Keeble as his home instead of Black Bear Village country towns were well enough to come from as they weren't inconveniently in sight and used as footstools by fashionable lakes they talked of his university which he had visited frequently during the past two years and of the nearby city was supplied Sherry Island with his patrons and whether Dexter would return next day to his prospering laundry during dinner she slipped into a moody depression which gave Dexter a feeling of uneasiness whatever petulant she uttered in her throaty voice worried him whatever she smiled at at him at a chicken liver at nothing it disturbed him that her smile could have no root in mirth or even in amusement when the scarlet corners of her lips curved down it was less a smile than an invitation to a kiss then after dinner she led him out onto the dark sun porch and deliberately changed the atmosphere do you mind if I weep a little she asked I'm afraid I'm boring you he responded quickly you're not I like you but I've just had a terrible afternoon there was a man I cared about and this afternoon he told me out of a clear sky that he was poor as a church mouse he never even hinted at it before does this sound horribly mundane perhaps he was afraid to tell you suppose he was she answered he didn't start right you see if I thought of him as poor well I've been mad about loads of poor men and fully intended to marry them all but in this case I hadn't thought of him that way and my interest in him wasn't strong enough to survive the shock as if a girl calmly informed her fiance that she was a widow he might not object to widows but let's start right she interrupted herself suddenly who are you anyhow for a moment Dexter hesitated then I'm nobody he announced largely a matter of futures are you poor no he said frankly I'm probably making more money than any man my age in the northwest I know that's an obnoxious remark but you advised me to start right there was a pause then she smiled in the corners of her mouth trooped and then almost imperceptible slave brought her closer to him looking up into his eyes a lump rose in Dexter's throat and he waited breathless for the experiment facing the unpredictable compound that would form mysteriously from the elements of their lips then he saw she communicated her excitement to him lavishly deeply with kisses that were not a promise but a fulfillment kisses that were like charity creating want by holding back nothing at all it did not take him many hours to decide that he had wanted Judy Jones ever since he was a proud desirous little boy part four it began like that and continued with varying shades of intensity on such a note right up to the denouncement Dexter surrendered a part of himself to the most direct and unprincipled personality which he had ever come in contact whatever Judy wanted she went after with the full pressure of her charm there was no divergence of method no jockeying for position or pre-mediation of effects there was very little mental side to any of her affairs she simply made men conscious to the highest degree of her physical loveliness Dexter had no desire to change her her deficiencies were knit up with the passionate energy that transcended and justified them when as Judy's head lay against his shoulder that first night she whispered I don't know what's the matter with me last night I thought I was in love with a man and tonight I think I'm in love with you it seemed to him a beautiful and romantic thing to say it was the exquisite excitability that for the moment he controlled and owned but a week later he was compelled to view the same quality in a different light she took him and her roadster to a picnic supper and after supper she disappeared likewise in her roadster with another man Dexter became enormously upset was scarcely able to be decently civil to the other people present when she assured him she had not kissed the other man he knew she was lying yet he was glad that she had taken the trouble to lie to him he was as he found before the summer ended one of a varying dozen who circulated about her each of them had at one time been favored above all others about half of them still passed in the solids of occasional sentimental revivals when everyone showed signs of dropping out through long neglect she granted him a brief honeyed hour which encouraged him to tag along for a year so longer Judy made these forays upon the helpless and defeated without malice indeed half unconscious that there was anything mischievous in what she did when a new man came to town everyone dropped out dates were automatically cancelled the helpless part of trying to do anything about it was she did it all herself she was not a girl who could be one in the kinetic sense she was proof against cleverness she was proof against charm if any of these assailed her too strongly she would immediately resolve the affair to a physical basis and under the magic of her physical splendor the strong as well as the brilliant played her game and not their own she was entertained only by the gratification of her desires and by the direct exercise of her own charm perhaps from so much youthful love so many youthful lovers she had come in self defense to nourish herself wholly from within succeeding Dexter's first exhilaration came restlessness and dissatisfaction the helpless ecstasy of losing himself in her was opiate rather than tonic it was fortunate for his work during the winter that these moments of ecstasy came in frequently earlier in their acquaintance it had seemed for a while that there was a deep and spontaneous mutual attraction that first August for example three long days of long evenings on her dusky veranda strange wand kisses through the late afternoon and shadowy allcoves behind the protecting trellises of the garden arbors of mornings when she was fresh as a dream and almost shy at meeting him and the clarity of the rising day there was all the ecstasy own of engagement about sharpened by his realization that there was no engagement it was during those three days that for the first time he had asked her to marry him she said maybe someday she said kiss me she said i'd like to marry you she said i love you she said nothing the three days were interrupted by the arrival of a new york man who visited her house for half september to dexter's agony rumor engaged them the man was the son of the president of a great trust company but at the end of a month it was reported that judy was yawning at a dance one night she sat all evening in a motorboat with a local boat while the new yorkers searched the club for her frantically she told the local boat that she was bored with her visitor and two days later he left she was seen with him at the station and it was reported that he looked very mournful indeed on this note the summer ended dexter was 24 and he found himself increasingly in a position to do as he wished he joined two clubs in the city and lived at one of them though he was by no means an integral part of the stag lines at these clubs but he had no hand at dances where judy jones was likely to appear he could have gone out socially as much as he liked he was an eligible young man now and popular with downtown fathers his confessed devotion to judy jones had rather solidified his position but he had no social aspirations and rather despised the dancing men who were always on tap for the thursday or saturday parties and who filled in at dinners with the younger married set already he was playing with the idea of going east to new york he wanted to take judy jones with him no dissolution as to the world in which she had grown up could cure his illusion as to her desirability remember that for only in the light of it can what he did for her be understood 18 months after he first met judy jones he became engaged to another girl her name was iran's here and her father was one of the men who always believed in dexter iran was light haired and sweet and honorable and a little stout and she had two suitors whom she pleasantly relinquished when dexter formally asked her to marry him summer fall winter spring another summer another fall somewhat she had given of his active life to the incorrigible lips of judy jones she had treated him with interest with encouragement with malice with indifference with contempt the innumerable little slights and indignities possible in such a case as if in revenge for having ever cared for him at all she had beckoned him and yoned at him and beckoned him again and he had responded often with bitterness and narrowed eyes she had brought him aesthetic happiness and intolerable agony of spirit she had caused him untold inconvenience and not a little trouble she had insulted him and she had ridden over him and she had played his interest in her against his interest in his work for fun she had done everything to him except to criticize him this she had not done it seemed to him only because it might have sullied the utter indifference she manifested and sincerely felt to horde him when autumn had come and gone again it occurred to him that he could not have judy jones he had to beat this into his mind but he had convinced himself at last he lay awake at night for a while and argued it over he told himself the trouble and the pain she had caused him he enumerated her glaring deficiency as a wife then he said to himself that he loved her and after a while he fell asleep for a week lest he imagine her husky voice over the telephone or her eyes opposite him at lunch he worked hard and late and at night he went to his office and plotted out his years for a week he went to a dance and cut in on her once for almost the first time since they had met he did not ask her to sit out with him or tell her that she was lovely it hurt him that she did not miss these things that was all he was not jealous when he saw there was a new man tonight he had been heartened against jealousy long before he stayed late at the dance he sat for an hour with ironing chair and talked about books and about music he knew very little about either but he was beginning to be master of his own time now he had a rather priggish notion that he the young and already fabulously successful Dexter Green should know more about such things that was in October when he was 25 in January Dexter and Irene became engaged it was to be announced in June and they were to be married 3 months later the Minnesota winter prolonged itself interminably and it was almost May when the winds came soft and the snow ran down into Black Bear Lake at last for the first time in over a year Dexter was enjoying a certain tranquility of spirit Judy Jones had been in Florida and afterwards in hot springs and somewhere she had been engaged and somewhere she had broken it off at first when Dexter had definitely given up on her it had made him sad that people still linked them together and asked for news of her but when he began to be placed at dinner next to Irene's chair people didn't ask him about her anymore they told him about her he ceased to be an authority on her May at last Dexter walked the streets at night when the darkness was damp as rain wondering that so soon with so little done so much ecstasy had gone from him May one year back had been marked by Judy's poignant unforgivable yet forgiven turbulence one of those rare times when he fancied she had grown to care for him that old penny's worth of happiness he had spent for this bushel of content he knew that Irene would be no more than a curtain spread behind him a hand moving among gleaming teacups of voice calling to children fire and loveliness were gone the magic of nights and the wonder of the varying hours and seasons slender lips down turning dropping to his lips bearing him up into a heaven of eyes that thing was deep in him he was too strong and alive for it to die lightly in the middle of May when the weather balanced for a few days on the thin breeze that led to deep summer he turned in one night at Irene's house their engagement was to be announced in a week now no one would be surprised at it and tonight they would sit together on the lounge at the university club and look on for an hour at the dancers he gave him a sense of solidarity to go with her she was so sturdily popular so intensely great he mounted the steps of the brownstone house and stepped inside Irene he called and sure came out of the living room to meet him Dexter she said Irene's gone upstairs with a splitting headache she wanted to go with you but I made her go to bed nothing serious I oh no she's gonna play golf with you in the morning so you can spare her for just one night can't you Dexter her smile was kind she and Dexter liked each other in the living room he talked for a moment before he said good night returning to the university club where he had rooms he stood in the doorway for a moment and watched the dancers he leaned against the doorpost nodded at a man or two yawned hello darling he said his elbow startled him Judy Jones had left a man and crossed the room to him Judy Jones a slender enameled doll and cloth of gold gold in a band at her head golden two slipper points at her dressed as him the fragile glow of her face seemed to blossom as she smiled at him a breeze of warmth and light blew through the room his hands in the pockets of his dinner jacket excitement when did you get back? he asked casually come here and I'll tell you about it she turned and he followed her she had been away he could have wept at the wonder of her return she passed through enchanted streets doing things that were like provocative music all mysterious happenings all fresh and quickening hopes had gone away with her come back with her now she turned in the doorway have you a car here? if you haven't, I have I have a coupe in then, with a rustle of golden cloth he slammed the door into so many cars she had stepped like this, like that her back against the leather her elbow resting on the door waiting she could have been soiled long since had there been anything to soil her except herself but this was her own self outpouring with an effort he forced himself to start the car and back into the street this was nothing he must remember she had done this before and he had put her behind him as he would have crossed the bad account from his books he drove slowly downtown and, affecting abstraction traversed the deserted streets of the business section peopled here and there where a movie was giving out its crowd or where a consumptive or pugilistic youth lounge in front of pool halls the clink of glasses a couple of hands on the bars issued from saloons cloisters of glazed glass and dirty yellow light she was watching him closely and the silence was embarrassing yet in this crisis he could find no casual word with which to profane the hour at a convenient turning he began to zigzag back towards the university club have you missed me? she asked suddenly everybody missed you with iron cheer she had been back only a day her absence had been almost contemporaneous with his engagement what a remark Judy laughed sadly without sadness she looked at him searchingly he became absorbed in the dashboard you're handsomer than you used to be she said thoughtfully text her you had the most rememberable eyes he could have laughed at this but he did not laugh it was the sort of thing that was said to sophomores yet it stabbed him I'm awfully tired of everything darling she called everyone darling endowing the endearment with careless individual camaraderie I wish you'd marry me the directness of this confused him he should have told her now he was going to marry another girl but he could not tell her he could as easily have sworn that he had never loved her I think we get along and we continue on the same note unless probably you've forgotten me and fallen in love with another girl her confidence was obviously enormous she had said in effect that she found such a thing impossible to believe that if it were true he had merely committed a childish indiscretion and probably to show off she would forgive him because it was not a matter of any moment but rather something to be brushed aside lightly I wish you could never love anybody but me she continued I like the way you love me oh Dexter have you forgotten last year no I haven't forgotten neither have I was she sincerely moved or was she carried along by the wave of her own acting I wish we could be like that again she said and he forced himself to answer I don't think we can I suppose not I mean sheer or violent rush there was not the faintest emphasis on the name yet Dexter was suddenly ashamed oh take me home pride Judy suddenly I don't want to go back to that idiotic dance with those children then as he turned up the street that led to the residence district Judy began to cry quietly to herself he had never seen her cry before the dark street lightened the dwellings of the rich loomed up around them he stopped his coop in front of the great white bulk of the Mortimer Jones's house somnolent gorgeous drenched with the splendor of the damp moonlight its solidity startled him the strong walls the steel of the girders the breath and beam and pomp of it were only to bring out the contrast with the young beauty beside him it was sturdy to accentuate her slightness as if to show what a breeze could be generated by a butterfly's wing he sat perfectly quiet his nerves and wild clamor afraid that if he moved he would find her irresistibly in his arms two tears had rolled down her wet face and trembled on her upper lip I'm more beautiful than anybody else you said brokenly why can't I be happy her moist eyes tore at his stability her mouth turned slowly downward with an exquisite sadness I'd like to marry you if you'll have me Dexter I suppose you think I'm not worth having but I'll be so beautiful for you Dexter A million phrases of anger, pride, passion hatred, tenderness fought on his lips then a perfect wave of emotion waved over him carrying off with it a sediment of wisdom of convention, of doubt, of honor this was his girl who was speaking his own, his beautiful his pride won't you come in he heard her draw in her breath sharply waiting alright, his voice is trembling I'll come in part five it was strange that neither when it was over nor a long time afterward did he regret that night looking at it from the perspective of ten years the fact that Judy's flair for him endured just one month seemed of little importance nor did it matter that by yielding he subjected himself to a deeper agony in the end a serious hurt to Irene's share and to Irene's parents who had befriended him there was nothing sufficiently pictorial about Irene's grief to stamp itself on his mind Dexter was at bottom hard minded the attitude of the city on his action was of no importance to him not because he was going to leave the city but because any outside attitude on the situation seemed superficial he was completely indifferent to popular opinion nor when he had seen it was no use that he did not possess in himself the power to move fundamentally or to hold Judy Jones did he bear any malice toward her he loved her and he would love her until the day he was too old for loving but he could not have her so he tasted the deep pain that had reserved only for the strong just as he had tasted for a little while the deep happiness even the ultimate falsity on the grounds upon which Judy terminated the engagement that she did not want to take him away from Irene and nothing else did not revolt him he was beyond any revulsion or any amusement he went east in February with the intention of selling out his laundries and settling in New York but the war came to America in March and changed his plans he returned to the west handed over the management of the business to his partner and went into the first officers training camp in late April he was one of those young thousands who greeted the war with a certain amount of relief welcoming the liberation from webs of tangled emotion this story is not his biography remember although things creep into it which have nothing to do with those dreams he had when he was young we were almost done with him and with him now there is only one more incident to be related here and it happened 7 years farther on it took place in New York where he had done well so well that there were no barriers too high for him he was 32 years old and except for one flying trip immediately after the war he had not been west in 7 years a man named Devlin from Detroit came into his office to see him in a business way and then in there this incident occurred and closed out, so to speak this particular side of his life so your friend the middle west said the man Devlin with careless curiosity that's funny I thought men like you were probably born and raised on wall street you know wife of one of my best friends in Detroit came from your city I was an usher at the wedding Dexter waited with no apprehension of what was coming Judy Sims said Devlin with no particular interest Judy Jones she was once yes I knew her a dull and patient spread over him he had heard of course that she was married perhaps deliberately he had heard no more awfully nice girl rooted Devlin meaninglessly I'm sort of sorry for her why something in Dexter was alert receptive at once oh lead Sims has gone to pieces in a way I don't mean he ill uses her but he drinks and runs around doesn't she run around no stays at home with her kids oh she's a little too old she's a little too old for him said Devlin too old cried Dexter why man she's only 27 he was possessed with a wild notion of rushing out into the streets and taking a train to Detroit he rose to his feet spasmodically I guess you're busy Devlin apologize quickly I didn't realize no I'm not busy said Dexter steadying his voice I'm not busy at all did you say she was 27 no I said she was 27 yes you did agree Devlin dryly go on then go on what do you mean about Judy Jones Devlin looked at him helplessly well that's I told you there is to it he treats her like the devil oh they're not going to get divorced or anything when he's particularly outrageous she forgives them in fact I'm inclined to think she loves them she was a pretty girl when she first came to Detroit a pretty girl the phrase struck Dexter as ludicrous isn't she a pretty girl anymore oh she's alright look here said Dexter sitting down suddenly I don't understand you say she was a pretty girl and now you say she's alright I don't understand what you mean Judy Jones wasn't a pretty girl at all she was a great beauty well I knew her I knew her she was a Devlin laugh pleasantly I'm not trying to start a row he said I think Judy's a nice girl and I like her I can't understand how a man like Lud Sims could fall madly in love with her but he did then he added most of the women like her Dexter looked closely at Devlin thinking wildly that there must be a reason for this some insensitivity and the man or some private malice lots of women fade just like that Devlin snapped his fingers you must have seen it happen perhaps I've forgotten how pretty she was at her wedding I've seen her so much since then you see she has nice eyes a sort of dullness settled upon Dexter for the first time in his life he felt like getting very drunk he knew he was laughing loudly at something Devlin had said but he did not know what it was or why it was funny when in a few minutes Devlin went he lay down on his lounge and looked out at the window at the New York skyline into which the sun was sinking in dull lovely shades of pink and gold he had thought that having nothing else to lose he was invulnerable at last but he knew he had just lost something more as surely if he had married Judy Jones and seen her fade away before his eyes the dream was gone something had been taken from him in sort of a panic he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and tried to bring up a picture of the waters lapping on Sherry Island and the moonlit veranda and the gingham on the golf links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck soft down and her mouth damp to his kisses and her eyes plentative with melancholy and her freshness like new fine linen in the morning while these things were no longer in the world they had existed and they existed no longer for the first time in years the tears were streaming down his face but they were for himself now he did not care about mouth and eyes and moving hands he wanted to care and he could not care for he had gone away and he could never go back anymore the gates were closed and the sun was down and there was no beauty but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time even the grief he could have born was left behind in the country of illusion of youth, of the richness of life where his winter dreams had flourished long ago he said long ago there was something in me but now that thing is gone now that thing is gone, that thing is gone I cannot cry, I cannot care that thing will come back no more this was winter dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald