 A Reward of Merit by Booth Tarkington. Penrod and Sam made a gloomy discovery one morning in mid-October. All the week had seen amiable breezes and fair skies until Saturday, when, about breakfast time, the dome of heaven filled solidly with grey vapor and began to drip. The boy's discovery was that there is no justice about the weather. They sat in the carriage-house of the showfield's empty stable. The doors upon the alley were open, and Sam and Penrod stared torpidly at the thin but implacable drizzle, which was the more irritating because there was barely enough of it to interfere with the number of things they had planned to do. This is nice, Sam said in a tone of plaintive sarcasm. This is a pretty way to do. He was alluding to the personal spitefulness of the elements. I'd like to know what's the sense of it. Old Sam pouring down every day in the week when nobody needs it, then cloud up and rain all Saturday. My father said it's going to be a three-days rain. Well, nobody with any sense cares if it rains Sunday and Monday, said Penrod. I wouldn't care if it rained every Sunday as long as I lived, but I'd just like to know what's the reason it had to go and rain today. Got all the days of the week to choose from and goes and picks on Saturday. That's a fine business. Well, in vacation, Sam began, but at a sound from a source invisible to him he paused. What's that? he said, somewhat startled. It was a curious sound, loud and hollow and inhuman. Yet it seemed to be a cough. Both boys rose, and Penrod asked uneasily, Where'd that noise come from? It's in the alley, said Sam. Perhaps if the day had been bright both of them would have stepped immediately to the alley doors to investigate, but their actual procedure was to move a little distance in the opposite direction. A strange cough sounded again. Say, Penrod Cravered, what is that? Then both boys uttered smothered exclamations and jumped, for the long, gaunt head which appeared in the doorway was entirely unexpected. It was the cavernous and melancholy head of an incredibly thin, old, whitish horse. This had waggled slowly from side to side. The nostrils vibrated, the mouth opened, and the hollow cough sounded again. Recovering themselves, Penrod and Sam underwent the customary human reaction from alarm to indignation. What you want, you old horseshoe, Penrod shouted. Don't you come coughing around me? And Sam, seizing a stick, hurled it at the intruder. Get out of here, he roared. The aged horse nervously withdrew his head, turned tail, and made a rickety flight up the alley, while Sam and Penrod, perfectly obedient to inherited impulse, ran out into the drizzle and uproariously pursued. They were but automatons of instinct, meaning no evil. Certainly they did not know the singular and pathetic history of the old horse who had wandered into the alley and ventured to look through the open door. The horse, about twice the age of either Penrod or Sam, had lived to find himself in a unique position. He was nude, possessing neither harness nor halter. All he had was a name, Whitey, and he would have answered to it by a slight change of expression if anyone had thus properly addressed him. So for Loren was Whitey's case he was actually an independent horse. He had not even an owner. For two days and a half he had been his own master. Previous to that period he had been the property of one Abilene Morris, a person of color who would have explained himself as engaged in the hauling business. On the contrary, the hauling business was an insignificant sideline with Mr. Morris, where he had long ago given himself as utterly as fortunate permitted to that talent which, early in youth, he had recognized as the greatest of all those surging in his bosom. In his waking thoughts and in his dreams in health and in sickness, Abilene Morris was the dashing and emotional practitioner of an art, probably more than Roman in antiquity. Abilene was a crapshooter. The hauling business was a disguise. A concentration of events had brought it about that at one and the same time Abilene, after a dazzling run of dice, found the hauling business an actual danger to the preservation of his liberty. He won $17.60 and within the hour found himself in trouble with an officer of the Humane Society on account of an altercation with Whitey. Abilene had been offered $4 for Whitey some ten days earlier. Wherefore he at once drove to the shop of the junk dealer who had made the offer and announced his acquiescence in the sacrifice. No sir said the junk dealer with emphasis. I already done got me a good mule for my delivery, Haas. That old Whitey Haas ain't with no fold dollar know-how. I as a fool when I talk about throwing money around that away, I know what you up to, Abilene. Man come by here a little bit ago told me all about White man tried to rest you over on the avenue. Yes sir, he say White man going to get you yet and throw you in jail. Count old Whitey. White man trying to find out who you is. He say, never mind. He'll know Whitey again even if he don't know you. He say, he catch you by the horse. So you come around trying to fix me up with Whitey so White man grab me, throw me in that jail. Gone way from here, you Abilene. You can't sell and you can't give Whitey to no colored man in his town. You go and drown that old horse because you certainly gone to jail if you get kitsch driving him. The substance of this advice seemed good to Abilene. Especially as the $17.60 in his pocket lent sweet colors to life out of jail at this time. At dusk he led Whitey to a broad common at the edge of town and spoke to him finally. Go on about your business, said Abilene. You ain't my horse. Don't look round at me because I ain't got no acquaintance with you. I'm a man of money and I've got my own friends. I'm a looking for bigger cities, Hoss. You got your business and I got mine. Mr. Hoss, good night. Whitey found a little frosted grass upon the common and remained there all night. In the morning he sought the shed where Abilene had kept him, but that was across the large and busy town and Whitey was hopelessly lost. He had but one eye, a feeble one, and his legs were not to be depended on. But he managed to cover a great deal of ground to have many painful little adventures and to get monstrously hungry and thirsty before he happened to look in upon Penrod and Sam. When the two boys chased him up the alley they had no intention to cause pain. They had no intention at all. They were no more cruel than Duke, Penrod's little old dog who followed his own instincts and making his appearance hastily through a hole in the back fence joined the pursuit with sound and fury. A boy will nearly always run after anything that is running and his first impulse is to throw a stone at it. This is survival of primeval man who must take every chance to get his dinner. So when Penrod and Sam drove the hapless Whitey up the alley they were really responding to an impulse thousands and thousands of years old. An impulse found that upon the primordial observation that whatever runs is likely to prove edible. Penrod and Sam were not bad. They were never that. They were something which was not their fault. They were historic. At the next corner Whitey turned to the right into the cross street. Thence turning to the right again and still warmly pursued he zigzagged down a main thoroughfare until he reached another cross street which ran alongside the Schofields yard and brought him to the foot of the alley he had left behind in his flight. He entered the alley. There his dim eye fell upon the open door he had previously investigated. No memory of it remained but the place had a look associated in his mind with hay and as Sam and Penrod turned the corner of the alley in panting yet still vociferous pursuit Whitey stumbled up the inclined platform before the open doors staggered thunderously across the carriage house and threw another open door into a stall an apartment vacant since the occupancy of Mr. Schofields last horse now several years deceased. 2. The two boys shrieked with excitement as they beheld the coincidence of the strange return. They burst into the stable making almost as much noise as Duke who had become frantic at the invasion. Sam laid hands upon a rake. You get out of here you old horse he bellowed. I ain't afraid to drive him out. I wait a minute shouted Penrod wait till I Sam was manfully preparing to enter the stall. You hold the doors open he commanded so as they won't blow shut and keep him in here. I'm going to hit him with Qui yet! Penrod shouted grasping the handle of the rake so that Sam could not use it. Wait a minute can't you? He turned with ferocious voice and gestures upon Duke. Duke in spite of his excitement was so impressed that he prostrated himself in silence and then unobtrusively withdrew from the stable. Penrod ran to the alley doors and closed them. My gracious Sam protested. What you going to do? I'm going to keep this horse said Penrod whose face showed the strain of a great idea. What for? For the reward said Penrod simply. Sam sat down in the wheelbarrow and stared at his friend almost with awe. My gracious he said. I never thought of that. How much do you think we'll get Penrod? Sam's thus admitting himself to a full partnership and the enterprise met no objection from Penrod who was absorbed in the contemplation of White. Well, he said judiciously, we might get more and we might get less. Sam rose and joined his friend in the doorway opening upon the two stalls. White had preempted the nearer and was hungrily nuzzling the old frayed hollows on the manger. Maybe a hundred dollars or something, Sam asked in a low voice. Penrod maintained his composure and repeated the newfound expression which had sounded wealthy him a moment before. He recognized it as a symbol of the non-committal attitude that makes people looked up to. Well, he made it slow and frown. We might get more and we might get less. More than a hundred dollars, Sam gasped. Well, said Penrod, we might get more and we might get less. This time, however, he felt the need of adding something. He put a question in an indulgent tone as though he were inquiring, not to add to his own information but to discover the extent of Sam's. How much do you think horses are worth anyway? I don't know, said Sam frankly, and unconsciously he added, they might be more and they might be less. Well, when our old horse died, said Penrod, Papa said he wouldn't take in five hundred dollars for him. That's how much horses are worth. My gracious Sam exclaimed. Then he had a practical afterthought. But maybe he was a better horse than this one. What color was he? He was bay. Looky here, Sam. And now Penrod's manner changed from the superior to the eager. You look what kind of horses they have in a circus and you bet a circus has the best horses, don't it? Well, what kind of horses do they have in a circus? They have some black and white ones. But the best they have are white all over. Wait, what kind of horses this we got here? He's pretty near white right now and I bet if we washed him off and got him fixed up nice, he would be white. Well, a bay horse is worth five hundred dollars because that's what Papa said. And this horse, Sam interrupted rather timidly. He's awfully bony, Penrod. You don't guess that'd make any Penrod laugh contemptuously. Bony, all he needs is a little food and he'll fill right up and look good as ever. You don't know much about horses, Sam. I expect. Why are old horses? Do you expect he's hungry now? Ask Sam, staring at whitey. Let's try him, said Penrod. Horses like hay and oats the best but they'll eat most anything. I guess they will. He's trying to eat that manger up right now and I bet it ain't good for him. Come on, said Penrod, closing the door that gave entrance to the stalls. We got to get this horse some drinking water and some good food. They tried whitey's appetite first with an autumnal branch which they wrenched from a hardy maple in the yard. They had seen horses nibble leaves and they expected whitey to nibble the leaves of this branch, but their ravenous condition did not allow him time for cool discriminations. Sam poked the branch at him from the passageway and whitey after one backward movement of alarm seized it venomously. Here, you stop that, Sam shouted. You stop that, you old horseshoe. What's the matter called, Penrod, from the hydrant where he was filling a bucket? What's he doing now? Doing, he's eating the wood part too. He's chewing up sticks as big as baseball bats. He's crazy. Penrod rushed to see this sight and stood aghast. Take it away from him, Sam. He commanded sharply. Go on, take it away from him yourself, was the prompter toward his comrade. You had no business to give it to him, said Penrod. Anybody with any sense ought to know it and make him sick. What do you want to go and give him that for? Well, you didn't say not to. Well, what if I didn't? I never said I did, did I? Give him that stall and take it away from him. Yes, I will, Sam returned bitterly. Then, as Whitey had dragged the remains of the branch from the manger to the floor of the stall, Sam scrambled to the top of the manger and looked over. There ain't much left to take away. He swallowed it all except some splinters. Better give him the water to try and wash it down with. And as Penrod complied, my gracious, look at that horse drink. They gave Whitey four buckets of water and then debated the question of nourishment. Obviously, this horse could not be trusted with branches and, after getting their knees black and their backs sodden, they gave up trying to pull enough grass to sustain him. Then Penrod remembered that horses liked apples, both cooking apples and eating apples. And Sam mentioned the fact that every autumn his father received a barrel of cooking apples from a cousin who owned a farm. Then the Williams cellar now, and the cellar was providentially supplied with outside doors so that it could be visited without going through the house. Sam and Penrod set forth for the cellar. They returned to the stable bulging and, after a discussion of Whitey's digestion, Sam claiming that eating the core and seeds as Whitey did would grow trees in his inside, they went back to the cellar for supplies again and again. These trips, carrying each time a capacity cargo of apples and still Whitey ate in a famished manner, they were afraid to take more apples from the barrel, which began to show conspicuously the result of their raids. Wherefore, Penrod made an un-austentatious visit to the cellar of his own house. From the inside he opened a window and passed vegetables out to Sam, who placed them in a bucket and carried them hurriedly to the stable while Penrod returned in a casual manner to the house of his sang-fois under a great deal of strain. It is sufficient to relate that in the kitchen he said suddenly to Della the cook, Oh, look behind you! By the time Della discovered that there was nothing unusual behind her, Penrod was gone and a loaf of bread from the kitchen table was gone with him. Whitey now ate nine turnips, two heads of lettuce, one cabbage, eleven raw potatoes and the loaf of bread. He ate the loaf of bread last and he was a long time about it so the boys came to a not unreasonable conclusion. Well, sir, I guess we got him filled up at last, said Penrod. I bet he wouldn't eat a saucer of ice-cream now if we gave it to him. He looks better to me, said Sam, staring critically at Whitey. I think he's kind of begun to fill out some. I expect he must like us, Penrod. We've been doing a good deal for this horse. Well, we got to keep it up, Penrod insisted rather pompously. Long as I got charged with this horse, he's going to get good treatment. What we better do now, Penrod? Penrod took on the outward signs of deep thought. Well, there's plenty to do, all right. I got to think. Sam made several suggestions which Penrod maintaining his error of preoccupation dismissed with mere gestures. Oh, I know, Sam cried finally. We ought to wash him so as he'll look wider in what he does now. We can turn the hose on him across the manger. No, not yet, said Penrod. It's too soon after his meal. You ought to know that yourself. What we got to do is make up a bed for him if he wants to lay down or anything. Make up a what for him? Sam echoed, dumbfounded. What you talking about? How can— Sada, said Penrod. That's the way the horse we used to have used to have it. We'll make this horse's bed and the other stall, and then he can go in there and lay down whenever he wants to. How we going to do it? Look, Sam. There's the hole in the sawdust box. All you got to do is walk in there with the shovel, stick the shovel in the hole until it gets full of sawdust, and then sprinkle it around on the empty stall. All I got to do, Sam cried, what are you going to do? I'm going to be right here, Penrod answered reassuringly. He won't kick or anything, and it isn't going to take you half a second to slip around behind him to the other stall. What makes you think he won't kick? Well, I know he won't, and besides, you could hit him with the shovel if he tried. Anyhow, I'll be right here, won't I? I don't care where you are, Sam said earnestly. What difference would that make if he— Why, you were going right in the stalls, Penrod reminded him. When he first came in, you were going to take the rake, and I don't care if I was, Sam declared. I was excited then. Well, you can get excited now, can't you? His friend urged. You can just as easy get— he was interrupted by a shot from Sam who was keeping his eye upon Whitey through the discussion. Looky, looky there! And undoubtedly renewing his excitement, Sam pointed that the long gone head beyond the manger. Sam shouted, He's laying down! Well then, said Penrod, I guess he's going to take a nap. If he wants to lay down without waiting for us to get the sawdust fixed for him, that's his look out, not ours. On the contrary, Sam perceived a favorable opportunity for action. I'd just as soon go and make his bed while he's laying down, he volunteered. You climb up on the manger and watch him, Penrod, and I'll sneak in the other stall and fix it all up nice for him, and he wakes up and lay down again, or anything, and if he starts to get up you holler, and I'll jump out over the other manger. Accordingly, Penrod established himself in a position to observe the recumbent figure. Whitey's breathing was rather labored, but regular, and as Sam remarked, he looked better, even in his slumber. It was not to be doubted that although Whitey was suffering from a light attack of colic, his feelings were in the main part. After trouble, he was solaced. After exposure, he was sheltered. After hunger and thirst, he was fed and watered. He slept. The noon whistles blew before Sam's task was finished, but by the time he departed for lunch there was made a bed of such quality that Whitey must needs have been born fault finder if he complained of it. The friends parted, each urging the other to be prompt in returning, as soon as he entered the house. 3. Penrod said his mother, what did you do with that loaf of bread Della says you took from the table? Ma'am, what loaf of bread? I believe I can't let you go outdoors this afternoon, Mrs. Schofield said severely. If you were hungry, you knew perfectly well all you had to do was to. But I wasn't hungry. You can explain later, said Mrs. Schofield. You'll have all afternoon. Penrod's heart grew cold. I can't stay in, he protested. I've asked Sam Williams to come over. I'll telephone Mrs. Williams. Mama, Penrod's voice became agonized. I had to give that bread to a poor old man. He was starving and so were his children and his wife. They were all just starving and they couldn't wait while I took time to come home. Mama, I got to go outdoors this afternoon. I got to. Sam's she relented. In the carriage house, half an hour later, Penrod gave an account of the episode. Where'd we been? I'd just like to know, he concluded, if I hadn't got out here this afternoon. Well, I guess I could manage to him all right, said Sam. I was in the passageway a minute ago taking a look at him. He's standing up again. Well, we got to fix about that, said Penrod. But what I mean, if I'd had to stay in the house, where would we have been about the most important thing in the whole business? What you talking about? Well, why can't you wait until I tell you Penrod's tone had become peevish? For that matter, so had Sam's. They were developing one of the little differences or quarrels that composed the very texture of their friendship. Well, why don't you tell me then? Well, how can I, Penrod demanded, you keep talking every minute. I'm not talking now, am I? Sam protested. You can tell me now, can't you? I'm not talking. You are too, shouted Penrod. You talk all the time. He was interrupted by Whitey's peculiar cough. Both boys jumped and forgot their argument. He means he wants some more to eat, I bet, said Sam. Well, if he does, he's got to wait, for the most important thing of all fixed up first. What's that, Penrod? The reward, said Penrod mildly. That's what I was trying to tell you about, Sam, if you'd ever give me half a chance. Well, I did give you a chance. I kept telling you to tell me, but you never, you kept saying they renewed this discussion, protracting it indefinitely. But as each persisted in clinging to his own interpretation of the facts, the question still remains unsettled. It was abandoned, or rather, it merged into another during the later stages of debate. This other being concerned with which of the debaters had the least sense. Each made the plain statement that if he were more deficient than his opponent in that regard, self-destruction would be his only refuge. Each declared that he would rather die than be talked to death, and then, as the two approached a point bluntly recriminative, Whitey coughed again, whereupon they were miraculously silent and went into the passageway in a perfectly amiable manner. I got to have a look at him, for once, said Penrod, as he stared frowningly at Whitey. We got to fix up about that reward. I want to take a good old look at him myself, said Sam. After supplying Whitey with another bucket of water, they returned to the carriage-house and seated themselves thoughtfully. Seeing a shade more than thoughtful, the adventure to which they had committed themselves was beginning to be a little overpowering. If Whitey had been a dog, a goat, a fowl, or even a stray calf, they would have felt equal to him. But now that the earlier glow of their wild daring had disappeared, vague apprehensions stirred. Their good look at Whitey had not reassured them. He seemed large, gothic, and unusual. Things within them began to urge that for boys to undertake an enterprise connected with so huge an animal as an actual horse was perilous. Beneath the surface of their musings dim but ominous prophecies moved. Both boys began to have the feeling that, somehow, this affair was going to get beyond them, and that they would be in heavy trouble before it was over. They knew not why. They knew why no more than they knew why they felt it imperative to keep the fact of Whitey's presence in the stable a secret from their respective families. But they did begin to realize that keeping a secret of that size was going to be attended with some difficulty. In brief their sensations were becoming comparable to those of the man who stole a house. Nevertheless, after a short period given to unspoken misgivings they returned to the subject of the reward. The money value of bay horses as compared to Whitey was again and each announced his certainty that nothing less than a good old hundred dollars would be offered for the return of Whitey. But immediately after speaking they fell into another silence due to sinking feelings. They had spoken loudly and confidently and yet they knew somehow that such things were not to be. According to their knowledge it was perfectly reasonable to suppose that they would receive this fortune but they frightened themselves and knew that they could not have a hundred dollars for their own. An oppression as from something awful and criminal descended upon them at intervals. Presently, however, they were warmed to a little cheerfulness again by Penrod's suggestion that they should put a notice in the paper. Neither of them had the slightest idea how to get it there. But such details as that were beyond their horizon. They occupied themselves with the paper say. Finding that they differed irreconcilably Penrod went to a cache of his in the sawdust box and brought two pencils in a supply of paper. He gave one of the pencils and several sheets to Sam. Then both boys bent themselves in silence through the labor of practical composition. Penrod produced the briefer paragraph. Sam's was more ample. Neither Sam nor Penrod showed any interest in what the both felt something praiseworthy had been accomplished. Penrod exhaled a sigh of relief and in a manner he had observed his father use sometimes, he said. Thank goodness, that's off my mind anyway. What were we going to do next, Penrod? Sam said deferentially, the borrowed manner having some effect upon him. I don't know what you're going to do, Penrod returned picking up the old cigar box which had contained the paper and pencils. I'm going to put mine in here so it'll come in handy when I have to get at it. Well, I guess I'll keep mine there too, said Sam. Thereupon he deposited his scribbled slip beside Penrod's in the cigar box and the box was solemnly returned to the secret place once it had been taken. There, that's tended to, said Sam, and unconsciously imitating his friend's imitation he gave forth audibly a breath of satisfaction and relief. Both boys felt that the financial side of their great affair had been conscientiously looked to that the question of the reward was settled and that everything was proceeding in a business-like manner. Therefore, they were able to turn their attention to another matter. That was the question of Whitey's next meal. After their exploits of the mourning and the consequent imperilment of Penrod, they decided that nothing more was to be done in apples, vegetables, or bread. It was evident that Whitey must be fed from the bosom of nature. We couldn't pull enough of that frost-bit old grass in the yard to feed him, Penrod, said gloomily. We could work a week and not get enough to make him swallow more than about twice. All we got this morning, he blew most of it away. He tried to scoop it in toward his teeth with his lip and then he half kind of blow out of his breath and after that all the grass that had been left was just some wet pieces sticking to the outsides of his face. Well, and you know how he acted about that maple branch. We can't trust him with branches." Sam jumped up. I know, he cried. There's lots of leaves left on the branches. We can give them to him. I just said, I don't mean the branches, Sam exclaimed. We'll leave the branches on the trees but just pull the leaves off the branches and put them in the bucket and feed them to him out of the bucket. Penrod thought this plan worth trying and for three quarters of an hour the two boys left the lower branches of various trees in the yard. Thus they managed to supply whitey with a fair quantity of wet leaves which he ate in a perfunctory way displaying little of his earlier enthusiasm. And the work of his purveyors might have been more tedious if it had been less damp or a boy has seldom bored by anything that involves his staying out in the rain without protection. The drizzle had ticked. The leaves were heavy with water and at every jerk the branches sent fat drops over the trees. They attained a noteworthy state of soggyness. Finally they were brought to the attention of the authorities and doors and Della appeared upon the back porch. Musta, Penrod, she called. Your mama says you'll come in the house this minute and change your shoes and stockings and everything else you got on. Do you hear me? Penrod, taken by surprise and unpleasantly alarmed, darted away from the tree he was depleting and ran for the stable. Time dry as toast he shouted over his shoulder. Della withdrew wearing the air of a person gratuitously insulted and a moment later she issued from the kitchen carrying an umbrella. She opened it and walked resolutely to the stable. She says I'm to bring you in the house says Della and I'm going to bring you. Sam had joined Penrod in the carriage house and with the beginnings of an unnamed terror the two beheld this grim advance but they did not stay for its culmination. Without a word to each other they hurriedly tiptoed up the stairs to the gloomy loft and there they paused listening. They heard Della's steps upon the carriage house floor. Ah, there's plenty places to hide in they heard her say, but I'll show you. She told me to bring you and I'm she was interrupted by a peculiar sound, loud chilling dismal and unmistakably not of human origin. The boys knew it for whitey's cough and Della had not their experience. A smothered shriek reached their ears. There was a scurrying noise and then with horror they heard Della's footsteps in the passageway that ran by a whitey's manger. Immediately there came a louder shriek and even in the anguish of knowing their secret discovered they were shocked to hear distinctly the words, oh lord in heaven and a well known voice of Della. She shrieked again and they heard the rush of her footfalls across the carriage house door. Child words came from the outer air and the kitchen door slammed violently. It was all over. She had gone to tell. Penrod and Sam plunged down the stairs and out of the stable. They climbed the back fence and fled up the alley. They turned into Sam's yard and without consultation headed for the cellar doors and are paused until they found themselves in the farthest, darkest and gloomiest recess of the cellar. There, perspiring, stricken with fear they sank down upon the earthen floor with their moist backs against the stone wall. Thus with boys, the vague apprehensions that had been creeping upon Penrod and Sam all afternoon had become monstrous. The unknown was before them. How great their crime would turn out to be now that it was in the hands of grown people they did not know, but since it concerned a horse it would undoubtedly be considered of terrible dimensions. Their plans for a reward and all the things that had seemed both innocent and practical in the morning now staggered their minds as manifestations of criminal folly. A new and terrible light seemed to play upon the day's exploits. They had chased a horse belonging to strangers and it would be said that they deliberately drove him into the stable and there concealed him. They had in truth virtually stolen him and they had stolen food for him. The waning light through the small window above them warned Penrod that his inroads of vegetables in his own cellar must soon be discovered. Della, that nemesis would seek them in order to prepare them for dinner and she would find them not, but she would recall his excursion to the cellar for she had seen him when he came up and also the truth would be known concerning the loaf of bread. Altogether Penrod felt that his case was worse than Sam's until Sam offered a suggestion which roused such horrible possibilities concerning the principal item of their innocence that all thought of the smaller indictments disappeared. Listen, Penrod, Sam quavered, what, what if that that old horse maybe belonged to a policeman? Sam's imagination was not of the comforting kind. What'd they do to us, Penrod, if it turned out it was some policeman's horse? Penrod was able only to shake his head. He did not reply in words, but both boys then forth considered it almost inevitable that whitey had belonged to a policeman. And in their sense of so ultimate a disaster, they ceased for a time to brood upon what their parents would probably do to them. The penalty for stealing a policeman's horse would be only a step short of capital they were sure. They would not be hanged, but vague, looming sketches of something called the penitentiary began to flicker before them. It grew darker in the cellar so that finally they could not see each other. I guess they're hunting for us by now, Sam said huskily. I don't, I don't like it much down here, Penrod. Penrod's horse whisper came from the profound gloom. Well, whoever said you did. Well, Sam paused. Then he said plainly, I wish we'd never seen that darn old horse. It was every bit his fault, said Penrod. We didn't do anything. If he hadn't come sticking his old head on the table, it had never happened at all. Old fool. He rose. I'm going to get out of here. I guess I've stood about enough for one day. Where are you going, Penrod? You aren't going home, are you? No, I'm not. What do you take me for? You think I'm crazy? Well, where can you go? How far Penrod's desperation actually would have led him as doubtful, but he made this statement. I don't know where you're going, but I'm going to walk straight out in the country until I come to a farmhouse and say my name is George and live there. I'll do it too, Sam whispered eagerly. I'll say my name's Henry. Well, we better get started, said the executive Penrod. We got to get away from here anyway. But when they came to ascend the steps leading to the outside doors, they found that those doors had been closed and locked for the night. It's no use, Sam lamented. I can't bust them because I tried to once before. Fanny always locks him about five o'clock. I forgot. We got to go up the stairway and try to sneak out through the house. They tiptoed back and up the inner stairs. They paused at the top then breathlessly stepped out into a hall which was entirely dark. Sam touched Penrod's sleeve in warning and bent to listen at a door. Immediately that door opened revealing the bright library where sat Penrod's mother and Sam's father. It was Sam's mother who had opened the door. Come into the library boys, she said. Mrs. Schofield is just telling us about it. And as the two comrades moved dumbly into the lighted room, Penrod's mother rose and taking him by the shoulder urged him close to the fire. You stand there and try to dry off a little while I finish telling Mr. and Mrs. Williams about you and Sam, she said. You'd better make Sam keep near the fire too, because they both got ringing wet. Think of their running off just when most people would have wanted to stay. Well, I'll go on with the story then. Della told me all about it and what the cook next door said she'd seen. How they'd been trying to pull grass and leaves for the poor old thing all day and about all the apples they carried from your cellar and getting wet and working in the rain as hard as they could and they'd given him a loaf of bread. Shame on you Penrod. She paused to laugh, but there was a little moisture around her eyes even before she left and they'd fed him on potatoes and lettuce and cabbage and turnips out of our cellar. And I wish you'd see the sawdust bed they made for him. Well, when I telephoned and the Humane Society man got there he said it was the most touching thing he ever knew. It seems he knew this horse and had been looking for him. He said 99 boys out of 100 would have chased the poor old thing away and he was going to see to it that this case didn't go unnoticed because the local branch of the society gives little silver medals for special acts like this. And the last thing he said before he let the poor old horse away was that he was sure Penrod and Sam each would be awarded one at the meeting of the society next Thursday night. On the following Saturday morning a yodel sounded from the sunny sidewalk in front of the Schofields house and Penrod issuing forth the familiar figure of Samuel Williams in waiting. Upon Sam's breast they're glittered a round bit of silver suspended by a white ribbon from a bar of the same metal. Upon the breast of Penrod was a decoration precisely similar. Lo, Penrod, said Sam, what are you going to do? Nothing. I got mine on, said Sam. I have too, said Penrod. I wouldn't take $100 for mine. Each glance pleasantly at the other's medal. They faced each other without shame. Neither had the slightest sense of hypocrisy either in himself or in his comrade. On the contrary, Penrod's eyes went from Sam's medal back to his own. Dense they wandered with perhaps a little disappointment to the lifeless street and to the empty yards and the spectator-less windows of the neighborhood. Then he looked southward toward the busy heart of the town where multitudes were. Let's go down and see what time it was, by the courthouse clock, said Penrod. End of A Reward of Merit by Booth Tarkington. Read by Don Jenkins. just now, is the man who raves about getting the people on the land, and Button holds you in the street with a little scheme of his own. He generally does not know what he is talking about. There is in Sydney a man named Tom Hopkins, who settled on the land once, and sometimes you can get him to talk about it. He did very well at his trade in the city years ago, until he began to think he could do better up-country. Then he arranged with his sweetheart to be true to him, and wait whilst he went west and made a home. She drops out of the story at this point. He selected on a run at Dry Hole Creek, and for months awaited the arrival of the government surveyors to fix his boundaries, but they didn't come, and as he had no reason to believe they would turn up within the next ten years, he grubbed and fenced at a venture, and started farming operations. Does the reader know what grubbing means? Tom does. He found the biggest, ugliest, and most useless trees on his particular piece of ground, also the greatest number of adamantine stumps. He started without experience, or with very little, but with plenty of advice from men who knew less about farming than he did. He found a soft place between two roots on one side of the first tree, made a narrow, irregular hole, and burrowed down till he reached a level where the taproot was somewhat less than four feet in diameter, and not quite as hard as flint. Then he found that he hadn't roomed to swing the ax, so he heaved out another ton or two of earth, and rested. Next day he sank a shaft on the other side of the gum, and after tea over a pipe it struck him that it would be a good idea to burn the tree out, and so used up the logs and lighter rubbish lying around. So he widened the excavation, rolled in some logs, and set fire to them, with no better result than to scorch the roots. Tom persevered. He put the trace harness on his horse, drew in all the logs within half a mile, and piled them on the windward side of that gum, and during the night the fire found a soft place, and the tree burned off about six feet above the surface, falling on a squatter's boundary fence and leaving the ugliest kind of stump to occupy the selector's attention, which it did for a week. He waited till the hole cooled, and then he went to work with pick, shovel, and ax, and even now he gets interested in drawings of machinery, such as are published in the Agricultural Weekly's, forgetting out stumps without graft. He thought he would be able to get some posts and rails out of that tree, but found reason to think that a cast iron column would split sooner and straighter. He traced some of the surface roots to the other side of the selection, and broke most of his trace chains trying to get them out by horsepower, for they had other roots going down from underneath. He cleared a patch in the course of time, and for several seasons he broke more plowshares than he could pay for. Meanwhile the squatter was not idle. Tom's tent was robbed several times, and his hut burnt down twice. Then he was charged with killing some sheep and a steer on the run, and converting them to his own use, but got off mainly because there was a difference of opinion between the squatter and the other local JP concerning politics and religion. Tom plowed and sewed wheat, but nothing came up to speak of. The ground was too poor, so he carted stable manure six miles from the nearest town, manured the land, sewed another crop, and prayed for rain. It came. He'd raised a flood which washed the crop clean off the selection, together with several acres of manure and a considerable portion of the original surface soil, and the water brought down enough sand to make a beach, and spread it over the field to a depth of six inches. The flood also took half a mile of fencing from along the creek bank, and landed it in a bend three miles down on a dummy selection where it was confiscated. Tom didn't give up. He was energetic. He cleared another piece of ground on the siding, and sewed more wheat. It had the rust in it, or the smut, and averaged three shillings per bushel. Then he sewed lucerne and oats, and bought a few cows. He had an idea of starting a dairy. First the cow's eyes got bad, and he sought the advice of a German cocky, and acted upon it. He blew powdered alum through paper tubes into the bad eyes, and got some of it snorted and butted back into his own. He cured the cow's eyes, and got the sandy blight in his own, and for a week or so he couldn't tell one end of the cow from the other, but sat in a dark corner of the hut and groaned, and soaked his glued eyelashes in warm water. Germany stuck to him and nursed him, and saw him through. Then the milkers got bad udders, and Tom took his life in his hands whenever he milked them. He got them all right presently, and butter fell to four pence a pound. He and the aforesaid cocky made arrangements to send their butter to a better market, and then the cows contracted a disease which was known in those parts as Plurupermonir, but generally referred to as the Plurur. Again Tom sought advice, acting upon which he slit the cows ears, cut their tails half off to bleed them, and poured pints of painkiller into them through their nostrils, but they wouldn't make an effort, except perhaps to rise and poke the selector when he tried to tempt their appetites with slices of immature pumpkin. They died peacefully and persistently, until all were gone save a certain dangerous, barren, slabs-sided loony bovine with white eyes and much agility in jumping fences, who was known locally as Queen Elizabeth. Tom shot Queen Elizabeth and turned his attention to agriculture again. Then his plough horses took bad with something the tuton called durstrangles. He submitted them to a course of treatment in accordance with Jacob's advice, and they died. Even then Tom didn't give in. There was grit in that man. He borrowed a broken-down dray horse in return for its keep, coupled it with his own old riding hack, and started to finish plowing. The team wasn't a success. Whenever the draft horse's knees gave way and he stumbled forward, he jerked the lighter horse back into the plough, and something would break. Then Tom would blaspheme till he was refreshed, mend up things with wire and bits of clothesline, fill his pockets with stones to throw at the team, and start again. Finally he hired a dummy's child to drive the horses. The Brett did his best as he tugged at the head of the team, prodded it behind, heaved rocks at it, cut a sapling, got up his enthusiasm, and wildly whacked the light horse whenever the other showed signs of moving. But he never succeeded in starting both horses at one and the same time. Moreover, the youth was cheeky and the selector's temper had been soured. He cursed the boy along with the horses, the plough, the selection, the squatter, and Australia. Yes, he cursed Australia. The boy cursed back, was chastised, and immediately went home and brought his father. Then the dummy's dog tackled the selector's dog and this precipitated things. The dummy would have gone under had his wife not arrived on the scene with the eldest son and the rest of the family. They all fell foul of Tom. The woman was the worst. The selector's dog chaud the other and came to his master's rescue just in time, where Tom Hopkins would never have lived to become the inmate of a lunatic asylum. Next year there happened to be good grass on Tom's selection and nowhere else, and he thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a few poor sheep and fatten them up for market. Sheep were selling for about seven and six pence a dozen at that time. Tom got a hundred or two, but the squatter had a man stationed at one side of the selection, with dogs to set on the sheep directly they put their nose through the fence. Tom's was not a sheep pence. The dogs chased the sheep across the selection and into the run again on the other side, where another man waited ready to pound them. Tom's dog did his best, but he fell sick while trawling up the fourth capitalistic canine, and subsequently died. The dummies had robbed that cur with poison before starting it across. That was the only way they could get at Tom's dog. Tom thought the two might play at the game, and he tried, but his nephew, who happened to be up from the city on a visit, was arrested at the instigation of the squatter for alleged sheep-stealing, and sentenced to two years hard, during which time the selector himself got six months for assaulting the squatter with intent to do him grievous bodily harm, which indeed he more than attempted, if a broken nose, a fractured jaw, and the loss of most of the squatter's teeth amounted to anything. The squatter by this time had made peace with the other local justice, and had become his father-in-law. When Tom came out there was little left for him to live for, but he took a job of fencing, got a few pounds together, and prepared to settle on the land some more. He got a missus and a few cows during the next year. The missus robbed him and ran away with the dummy, and the cows died in the drought, or were impounded by the squatter while on their way to water. Then Tom rented an orchard up the creek, and a hail storm destroyed all the fruit. Germany happened to be represented at the time, Jacob having sought shelter at Tom's, but on his way home from town. Tom stood leaning against the doorpost with the hail beating on him through it all. His eyes were very bright and very dry, and every breath was a choking sob. Jacob let him stand there, and sat inside with a dreamy expression on his hard face, thinking of childhood and fatherland, perhaps. When it was over he led Tom to a stool, and said, You wait there, Tom. I must go home for some dings. You sit there and wait twenty minutes. Then he got on his horse and rode off muttering to himself. Dot man must cry, dot man must cry. He was back inside of twenty minutes with a bottle of wine and a cornet under his overcoat. He poured the wine into two pint-pots, made Tom drink, drank himself, and then took his cornet, stood up at the door, and played a German march into the rain after the retreating storm. The hail had passed over his vineyard, and he was a ruined man too. Tom did cry and was all right. He was a bit disheartened, but he did another job of fencing, and was just beginning to think about putting in a few vines and fruit trees when the government surveyors, whom he'd forgotten all about, had a resurrection and came and surveyed and found that the real selection was located amongst some barren ridges across the creek. Tom reckoned it was lucky he didn't plant the orchard, and he set about shifting his home and fences to the new site. But the squatter interfered at this point, entered into possession of the farm and all on it, and took action against the selector for trespass, laying the damages at twenty-five hundred pounds. Tom was admitted to the Lunatic Asylum at Parramatta next year, and the squatter was sent there the following summer, having been ruined by the drought, the rabbits, the banks, and a woolring. The two became very friendly and had many a sociable argument about the feasibility, or otherwise, of blowing open the floodgates of heaven in a dry season with dynamite. Tom was discharged a few years since. He knocks about certain suburbs a good deal. He is seen in daylight seldom, and at night mostly in connection with the drey and the lantern. He says his one great regret is that he wasn't found to be of unsound mind before he went up country. End of Settling on the Land by Henry Lawson, read by Jesse Noar. That Spot by Jack London. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. I don't think much of Stephen McKay anymore, though I used to swear by him. I know that in those days I loved him more than my own brother. If ever I meet Stephen McKay again, I shall not be responsible for my actions. It passes beyond me that a man with whom I shared food and blanket, and with whom I mushed over the Chilku Trail, should turn out the way he did. I always sized Steve up as a square man, a kindly comrade, without any iota of anything vindictive or malicious in his nature. I shall never trust my judgment in men again. Why? I nursed that man through typhoid fever. We starved together on the head waters of the steward, and he saved my life on the little salmon. And now, after the years we were together, all I can say of Stephen McKay is that he is the meanest man I ever knew. We started for the Klondike in the full rush of 1897, and we started too late to get over Chilku Pass before the freeze up. We packed our outfit on our backs partway over, when the snow began to fly, and then we had to buy dogs in order to sled it the rest of the way. That was how we came to get that spot. Dogs were high, and we paid one hundred and ten dollars for him. He looked worth it. I say looked, because he was one of the finest appearing dogs I ever saw. He weighed sixty pounds, and he had all the lines of a good sled animal. We never could make out his breed. He wasn't husky, nor malamute, nor Hudson Bay. He looked like all of them, and he didn't look like any of them. And, on top of it all, he had some of the white man stalking him. Four on one side, in the thick of the mixed yellow-brown red and dirty white that was his prevailing colour. There was a spot of coal-black as big as a water-bucket. That was why we called him Spot. He was a good-looking alright. When he was in condition, his muscles stood out in bunches all over him, and he was the strongest-looking brood I ever saw in Alaska, also the most intelligent-looking. To run your eyes over him, you'd think he could outpour three dogs of his own weight. Maybe he could. But I never saw it. His intelligence didn't run that way. He could steal and forage to perfection. He had an instinct that was positively gruesome for divining when work was to be done, and for making this sneak accordingly. And for getting lost and not staying lost, he was nothing that short of inspired. But when it came to work, the way that intelligence dribbled out of him and left him a mere clot of wobbling stupid jelly would make your heart bleed. There are times when I think it wasn't stupidity. Maybe, like some men I know, he was too wise to work. I shouldn't wonder if he put it all over us with that intelligence of his. Maybe he figured it all out and decided that a licking now and again and no work was a whole lot better than work all the time and no licking. He was intelligent enough for such a computation. I tell you, I've sat and looked into that dog's eyes till the shivers ran up and down my spine and the marrow crawled like yeast, what of the intelligence I saw shining out. I can't express myself about that intelligence. It is beyond mere words. I saw it. That's all. At times it was like gazing into a human soul to look into his eyes, and what I saw there frightened me and started all sorts of ideas in my own mind of reincarnation and all the rest. I tell you, I sensed something big in that brood's eyes. There was a message there, but I wasn't big enough myself to catch it. Whatever it was, I know I'm making a fool of myself. Whatever it was, it baffled me. I can't give an inkling of what I saw in that brood's eyes. It wasn't light. It wasn't colour. It was something that moved away back when the eyes themselves weren't moving. And I guess I didn't see it move either. I only sensed that it moved. It was an expression. That's what it was. And I got an impression of it. No, it was different from a mere expression. It was more than that. I don't know what it was, but it gave me a feeling of kinship just the same. Oh, no, not sentimental kinship. It was rather a kinship of equality. Those eyes never pleaded like a deer's eyes. They challenged. No, it wasn't defiance. It was just a calm assumption of equality. And I don't think it was deliberate. My belief is that it was unconscious on his part. It was there because it was there and it couldn't help shining out. No, I don't mean shine. It didn't shine. It moved. I know I'm talking rot. If you'd looked into that animal's eyes the way I have, you'd understand Steve was affected the same way I was. Why? I tried to kill that spot once. He was no good for anything. And I fell down on it. I led him out into the brush and he came along slow and unwilling. He knew what was going on. I stopped in a lightly place, put my foot on the rope and pulled my big cunts. And that dog sat down and looked at me. I tell you, he didn't plead. He just looked. And I saw all kinds of incomprehensible things moving. Yes, moving in those eyes of his. I didn't really see them move. I thought I saw them. For, as I said before, I guess I only sensed them. And I want to tell you right now that it got beyond me. It was like killing a man, a conscious, brave man who looked calmly into your gun as much as to say who's afraid? Then, too, the message seemed so near that instead of pulling the trigger quick, I stopped to see if I could catch the message. There it was, right before me, glimmering all around in those eyes of his. And then it was too late. I got scared. I was trembling all over and my stomach generated a nervous palpitation that made me seasick. I just sat down and looked at that dog. And he looked at me till I thought I was going crazy. Do you want to know what I did? I threw down the gun and ran back to camp with the fear of God in my heart. Steve laughed at me. But I noticed that Steve led Spot into the woods a week later for the same purpose and that Steve came back alone. And a little later, Spot drifted back too. At any rate, Spot wouldn't work. We paid $110 for him from the bottom of our sack and he wouldn't work. He wouldn't even tie him the traces. Steve spoke to him the first time he put him in harness and he sort of shivered that was all. Not an ounce on the traces. He just stood still and wobbled like so much jelly. Steve touched him with the whip. He helped, but not an ounce. Steve touched him again a bit harder and he howled the regular long wolf howl. Then Steve got mad and gave him half a dozen and I came on the run from the tent. I told Steve he was brutal with the animal and we had some words the first we'd ever had. He threw the whip down in the snow and walked away mad. I picked it up and went to it. That Spot trembled and wobbled and cowered before ever I swung the lash and with the first bite of it he howled like a lost soul. Next, he lay down in the snow. I started the rest of the dogs and they dragged him along while I threw the whip into him. He rolled over on his back and bumped along. His forelegs waving in the air himself howling as though he was going through a sausage machine. Steve came back and laughed at me and I apologised for what I'd said. There was no getting any work out of that Spot and to make up for it he was the biggest pig glutton of a dog I ever saw. On top of that he was the cleverest thief. There was no circumventing him. Many a breakfast we went without our bacon because Spot had been there first and it was because of him that we nearly starved to death of the steward. He figured out the way to break into our meat-cash and what he didn't eat the rest of the team did. But he was impartial. He stole from everybody. He was a restless dog or was very busy snooping around or going somewhere and there was never a camp within five miles that he didn't raid. The worst of it was that they always came back on us to pay his board bill which was just being the law of the land. But it was mighty hard on us especially that first winter on the Chilcoute when we were busted paying for whole hams and sides of bacon that we never ate. He could fight too that Spot. He could do everything but work. He never pulled a pound but he was the boss of the whole team. The way he made those dogs stand around was an education. He bullied them and there was always one or more of them fleshmarked with his fanness. But he was more than a bully. He wasn't afraid of anything that walked on four legs and I've seen in March single-handed into a strange team without any provocation whatever and put the kibosh on the whole outfit. Did I say he could eat? I caught him eating the whip once that straight. He started in at the lash and when I caught him he was down to the handle and still going. But he was a good looker. At the end of the first week he sold him for seventy-five dollars to the mounted police. They had experienced dog drivers and we knew that by the time he'd covered the six hundred miles to Dawson he'd be a good sled dog. I say we knew for we were just getting acquainted with that spot. A little later we were not brash enough to know anything where he was concerned. A week later we woke up in the morning to the dangedest dogfight we'd ever heard. It was that spot come back and knocking the team into shape. We ate a pretty depressing breakfast I can tell you but cheered up two hours afterward when we sold him to an official courier bound into Dawson with government dispatches. That spot was only three days in coming back and as usual celebrated his arrival with a rough house. We spent the winter and spring after our own outfit was across the pass fighting other people's outfits and we made a fat steak. Also, we made money at a spot. If we sold him once we sold him twenty times. He always came back and no one asked for their money. We didn't want the money. We'd have paid handsomely for anyone to take him off our hands for keeps. We had to get rid of him and we couldn't give him away for that would have been suspicious. But he was such a fine looker that we never had any difficulty in selling him. Unbroke, we'd say and they pay any old price for him. We sold him as low as twenty five dollars and once we got a hundred and fifty for him. That particular party returned him in person refused to take his money back and the way he abused us was something awful. He said it was cheap at the price to tell us what he thought of us and we felt he was so justified that we never talked back. But to this day I've never quite regained all the old self-respect that was mine before that man talked to me. When the ice cleared out of the lakes and river we put our outfit in a lake Bennett boat and started for Dawson. We had a good team of dogs and of course we piled them on top of the outfit. That spot was along. There was no losing him and a dozen times the first day he knocked one or another of the dogs overboard in the course of fighting with them. It was close quarters and he didn't like being crowded. What that dog needs is space. Steve said the second day let's maroon him. We did. Running the boat in a caribou crossing for him to jump ashore. Two of the other dogs, good dogs, followed him and we lost two whole days trying to find them. We never saw those two dogs again. But the quietness and relief we enjoyed made us decide, like the man who refused his 150, that it was cheap at the price. For the first time in months Steve and I laughed and whistled and sang. We were as happy as clams. The dark days were over. The nightmare had been lifted. That spot was gone. Three weeks later, one morning, Steve and I were standing on the riverbank at Dawson. A small boat was just arriving from Lake Bennett. I saw Steve give a start and heard him say something that was not nice and that was not under his breath. Then I looked and there, in the bow of the boat with ears pricked up, sat spot. Steve and I sneaked immediately, like beaten cures, like howards, like absconders from justice. It was this last that the lieutenant of police thought when he saw us sneaking. He surmised that there were law officers in the boat who were after us. He didn't wait to find out, but kept us in sight and in the M&M Saloon got us in a corner. We had a merry time explaining, for we refused to go back to the boat and meet spot and finally he held us under guard of another policeman or he went to the boat. After we got clear of him, we started for the cabin and when we arrived, there was that spot, sitting on the stoop waiting for us. Now, how did he know we lived there? There were 40,000 people in Dawson that summer and how did he serve our cabin out of all the cabins? How did he know we were in Dawson anyway? I leave it to you. But don't forget what I have said about his intelligence and that immortal something I have seen glimmering in his eyes. There was no getting rid of him anymore. There were too many people in Dawson who had brought him up on Chilkoot and the story got around. Half a dozen times, we put him on board steamboats going down the Yukon, but he merely went ashore at the first landing and trotted back up the bank. We couldn't sell him. We couldn't kill him. Both Steve and I had tried and nobody else was able to kill him. He bore a charmed life. I've seen him go down in a dogfight on the main street with 50 dogs on top of him and when they were separated, he'd appear on all his four legs unharmed while two of the dogs that had been on top of him would be lying dead. I saw him steal a chunk of moose meat from Major Dinwitty's cash so heavy that he could just keep one jump ahead of Mrs. Dinwitty's squaw cook who was after him with an axe. As he went up the hill after the squaw gave up, Major Dinwitty himself came out and pumped his Winchester into the landscape. He emptied his magazine twice and never touched that spot. Then a policeman came along and arrested him for discharging firearms inside the city limits. Major Dinwitty paid his fine and Steve and I paid him for the moose meat at the rate of a dollar a pound, bones and all. That was what he paid for it. Meat was high that year. I'm only telling what I saw with my own eyes and now I'll tell you something also. I saw that spot full went through a waterhole. The ice was three and a half feet thick and the current sucked him under like a straw. 300 yards below was the big waterhole used by the hospital. Spot, crawled out of the hospital waterhole, licked off the water, bit out the ice that had formed between his toes, trotted up the bank and whipped a big newfound land belonging to the Gold Commissioner. In the fall of 1898, Steve and I polled up the Yukon on the last water bound for Stewart River. We took the dogs along, all except Spot. We figured we'd been feeding him long enough. He'd cost us more time and trouble and money and grub than we'd got by selling him on the Chilkoot, especially grub. So Steve and I tied him down in the cabin and pulled our fright. We camped that night at the mouth of Injun River and Steve and I were pretty facetious over having shaken him. Steve was a funny cuss and I was just sitting up in the blankets and laughing when a tornado hit camp. The way that spot walked into those dogs and gave them what for was hair-raising. Now, how did he get loose? It's up to you. I haven't any theory. And how did he get across the Klondike River? That's another lacer. And anyway, how did he know we'd gone up the Yukon? You see, we went by water and he couldn't smell our tracks. Steve and I began to get superstitious about that dog. He got on our nerves too and between you and me, we were just a mite afraid of him. The freeze-up came on when we were at the mouth of Henson Creek and we traded him off for two sacks of flour to an outfit that was bound up White River after copper. Now that whole outfit was lost. Never traced nor hide nor hair of men, dogs or sleds or anything was ever found. They dropped clean at a sight. It became one of the mysteries of the country. Steve and I plugged away up the steward and six weeks afterward, that spot crawled into camp. He was a perambulating skeleton and could just drag along. But he got there. What I want to know is, who told him we were up the steward? He could have gone a thousand other places. How did he know? You tell me and I'll tell you. No losing him. At the Mayo, he started a row with an Indian dog. The buck who owned the dog took a swing-ed spot with an axe, missed him and killed his own dog. Talk about magic and turning bullets aside. I, for one, consider it a blame-side harder to turn an axe aside with a big buck at the other end of it. And I saw him do it with my own eyes. That buck didn't want to kill his own dog. You've got to show me. I told you about spot breaking into our meat-cash. It was nearly the death of us. There wasn't any more meat to be killed, and meat was all we had to live on. The moose had gone back several hundred miles and the Indians with them. There we were. Spring was on and we had to wait for the river to break. We got pretty thin before we decided to eat the dogs and we decided to eat spot first. Do you know what that dog did? He sneaked. Now, how did he know our minds were made up to eat him? We sat up nights, laying for him. But he never came back, and we ate the other dogs. We ate the whole team. And now for the sequel. You know what it is when a big river breaks up and a few billion tons of ice go out, jamming and milling and grinding. Just in the thick of it, when the stewart went out, rumbling and roaring, we sighted spot out in the middle. He'd got caught as he was trying to cross up above somewhere. Steve and I yelled and shouted and ran up and down the bank, tossing our hats in the air. Sometimes we'd stop and hug each other. We were that boisterous, for we saw spots finish. He didn't have a chance in a million. He didn't have any chance at all. After the ice run, we got into a canoe and head all down to the Yukon, and down the Yukon to Dawson, stopping to feed up for a week at the cabins at the mouth of Henson Creek. And as we came in to the bank at Dawson, there sat that spot, waiting for us. His ears pricked up, his tail wacking, his mouth smiling, extending a hearty welcome to us. Now, how did he get out of that ice? How did he know we were coming to Dawson to the very hour and minute to be out there on the bank waiting for us? The more I think of that spot, the more I am convinced that there are things in this world that go beyond science. On no scientific grounds can that spot be explained. It's psychic phenomena, or mysticism, or something of that sort, I guess, with a lot of theosophy thrown in. The Klondike is a good country. I might have been there yet and become a millionaire if it hadn't been for spot. He got on my nerves. I stood him for two years altogether, and then I guess my stamina broke. It was the summer of 1899 when I pulled out. I didn't say anything to Steve. I just sneaked. But I fixed it up all right. I wrote Steve a note and enclosed a package of rough-on rats, telling him what to do with it. I was worn down to skin and bone by that spot, and I was that nervous that I'd jump and look around when there wasn't anybody within hailing distance. But it was astonishing the way I recuperated when I got quit of him. I got back 20 pounds before I arrived in San Francisco, and by the time I'd crossed the ferry to Oakland, I was my own self again, so that even my wife looked in vain for any change in me. Steve wrote to me once, and his letters seemed irritated. He took it kinda hard because I'd left him with spot. Also, he said he'd used the rough-on rats, per directions, and that there was nothing doing. A year went by. I was back in the office and prospering in all ways, even getting a bit fat. And then Steve arrived. He didn't look me up. I read his name in the steamer list and wondered why. But I didn't wander long. I got up one morning and found that spot chained to the gate post and holding up the milkman. Steve went north to Seattle, I learned, that very morning. I didn't put on any more weight. My wife made me buy him a collar and tag, and within an hour he showed his gratitude by killing her pet Persian cat. There is no getting rid of that spot. He will be with me until I die, for he'll never die. My appetite is not so good since he arrived. My wife says I am looking peaked. Last night, that spot got into Mr. Harvey's henhouse. Harvey's my next door neighbor and killed 19 of his fancy bread chickens. I shall have to pay for them. My neighbors on the other side quarreled with my wife and then moved out. Spot was the cause of it. And that is why I am disappointed in Stephen McKay. I had no idea he was so mean a man. The end of that spot by Jack London. Read by Adam Wybray. There was in Florence a lady by Jeanette Lee. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Bologna Times. There was in Florence a lady by Jeanette Lee. Part one. The soft wind of an Italian spring stirred among the leaves outside. The windows of the studio left open to the morning air were carefully shaded. The scent of mulberry blossoms drifted in. The chair on the model stand, adjusted to catch the light, was screened from the glare, and the light falling on the rich drapery flung across its back, brought out a dull carmine in the slender bell-shaped flowers nearby and dark gleams of old oak in the carved chair. The chair was empty, but the two men in the studio were facing it as if a presence were still there. The painter, sketching idly on the edge of his drawing board, leaned back to survey the child's head that developed under his pencil. She will not come this morning, then, he asked almost indifferently. The older man shook his head. She said not, she may change her mind. The painter glanced up quickly. He could see nothing in the face of the other, and he devoted himself anew to the child's head. It does not matter. He said, I can work on the background if I feel like working at all, he added, after a moment's pause. The older man stared moodily at the floor. He flicked a pair of long writing gloves lightly through his fingers. He glanced toward the easel standing in front of the painter, a little to the left. It is barbarous that you have had to waste so much time. He broke out, how long is it? Two, no three years, less Christmas time, since you began, and there it stands. The figure on the easel, erect, tranquil, in the old chair, seemed to have shrug its shapely shoulders in defense of the unfinished face. He looked at it severely. The severity changed to something else. And it is so perfect, damnably perfect, he said irritably. The artist raised his eyebrows, the least trifle, a movement so slight might have indicated scrutiny of his own work. You are off for the day? He asked, glancing at the writing whip and hat on a table by the door. Yes, I shall run up, perhaps, as far as Pistoia, going to see the new altarpiece. He took up the hat and whip. He waited, fingering them indecisively. She seems to be more fickle than ever this last month or two. I see that she is restless. The painter spoke in a low tone, half hesitating. I have wondered whether, I had hoped that the Bambino, he touched the figure lightly with his foot, might not be needed. The other started, he stirred at him a full minute. His eyes fell. No, no such luck, he said brusquely. It is only Caprice. The draperies near him parted. A boyish figure appeared in the opening. Castino wishes me to say that the musicians wait, said the youth. The painter rose and came toward him. A smile of pleasure on his face. Tell them that there will be no sitting today, Salai. He said, laying his hand, half in greeting, half in caress, on the youth's shoulder. Yes, senor, Salai saluted and withdrew. The painter turned again to the older man. It was a happy thought of your zano, the music. She delights in it. I almost caught one day last week while they were playing that curve above the lips. They stood for a moment in silence looking toward the portrait. The memory of a haunting smile seemed to flicker across the shaded light. Well, I am off. The man held out his hand. The artist hesitated a second. Then he raised his hand in his supple fingers and placed it to his lips. A safe journey to you, senor, he said, in playful formality. And a safe return to find our Lady Lisa in better temper, laughed the other. The laugh passed behind the draperies. The artist remained standing, his eyes resting absently on the rich colors of the Venetian tapestry through which his friend had disappeared. His face was clouded with thought. He had the look of a man absorbed in a problem who had come upon an unexpected complication. When the chessboard is a Florentine palace and the pieces are 15th century human beings, such complications are likely to occur. The Lady Lisa had more than once given evidence that she was not carved of wood or ivory, but for three years the situation had remained the same. The husband, unobservant, the lady, capricious and willful. She had shown the artist more kindness than he cared to recall. That was months ago. Of late he had found scant favor in her sight. It was better so. He crossed to the easel and stood looking down at it. The quiet figure on the canvas sent back a thrill of pride and dissatisfaction. He gazed at it betterly, three years, but an eternal woman. Someday he should catch the secret of her smile and fix it there. The world would not forget her or him. He should not go down to posterity as the builder of a canal. The great picture at the Dominicans already showed signs of fading. The equestrian statue of the Duke was crumpling in its clay. No one to pay for the casting, but this picture. For months, with its rippling light of undersea, its soft, dreamy background, and in the foreground the mysterious figure all was finished, but the child upon her arm and the smile of light in her eyes. The lady had flouted the idea. It was a fancy of her husband's to paint her as Madonna. She had refused to touch the bambino, sometimes petulently, sometimes in silent scorn. The tiny figure lay always on the studio floor, dusty and disarranged. The artist picked it up. It was an absurd little wooden face in the lace cap. He straightened the velvet mantle and smoothed the crumpled dress. He stepped to the model stand and placed the tiny figure in the draped chair. It rested stiffly against the arm. A light laugh caused him to turn his head. He was kneeling in front of the bambino. "'I see that you have supplied my place, Sir Painter,' said a mocking voice. He turned quickly and faced the little doorway. She stood there, smiling, scornful, her hands full of some delicate flimsy stuff, a gold thimble cap on her finger. "'It would not make a bad picture,' she said tranquilly. You and the bambino.' His face lighted up. "'You have come!' He hastened toward her with outstretched hand. With a pretty gesture of the fragile sewing she ignored the hand. "'Yes, I dared not trust you. You might paint in the bambino face, instead of mine, by mistake.' She approached the chair and seated herself carelessly. The bambino slipped meekly through the arm to the floor. "'Zano told me,' he began. "'Yes, I know. He was very tiresome. I thought he would never go. I really feared that we might quarrel. It is too warm.' She glanced about, the shaded room. "'You manage it well,' she said approvingly. "'It is by far the coolest place in the palace.' "'You will be going to the mountain soon.' He saw that she was talking lightly to cover herself, and fell in with her mood. He watched her as he arranged the easel and prepared his collards. Once he stopped and sketched rapidly for a minute on the small drawing-board, she looked inquiry. "'Only an eyebrow,' he explained. She smiled serenely. "'You should make a collection of those eyebrows. They must mount into the hundreds by this time. You could label them characters of the Lady Lisa.' The souls of Lady Lisa. The lady turned her head aside. "'Your distinctions are too subtle,' she said. Her eye fell on the bambino, resting disgracefully on its wooden head. "'Poor little figurine,' she murmured, reaching a slender hand to draw it up. She straightened the tumbled finery absently. It slipped to her lap and laid there. Her hands were idle, her eyes looking far into space. The painter worked rapidly. She stirred lightly. "'Sit still,' he said, almost harshly. She gave a quick, startled look. She glanced at the rigid little figure. She raised it for a minute. Her face grew inscrutable. Would she laugh or cry?' He worked with hasty, snatched glances. Such a moment would not come again. A fitting crash startled him from the canvas. He looked up. The bambino lay in a pathetic heap on the floor, scattered with fragments of a rare Venetian glass. She sat erect and imperious, looking with scorn at the wreck. Two great tears welled. They overflowed. The floods pressed behind them. She dropped her face in her hands. Before he could reach her, she had darted from the chair. The mask of scorn was gone. She fled from him, from herself, blindly, stopping only when the wall of the studio intervened. She stood with her face buried in the drapery, her shoulders wrenched with sobs. He approached her. He waited. The bambino lay with its wooden face staring at the ceiling. It was a crisis for them all. The next move would determine everything. He must not risk too much again. The picture, art, hung on her sobs. Lover, artist. He paused a second too long. She turned toward him slowly, serenely. The glance fell across him, level and tranquil. The traces of ignored tears lay in smiling drops on her face. The softened scorn played across it. Shall we finish the sitting? She asked, in a conventional voice. He took up his brush, uncertainly. She seated herself, gathering up the scattered work. For a few moments she sewed rapidly. Then the soft fabric fell to her lap. She sat looking before her, unconscious, except that her glance seemed to rest now and then on the fallen figure in its fragments of glass. For two hours he worked feverishly, painting with swiftest skill and power. At times he caught his breath at the revelation in the face. He was too alert to be human. The artist forgot the woman. Faithfully, line by line, he laid bare her heart. She sat unmoved. When at last, from sheer weariness, the brush dropped from his hand. She stepped from the model-stand and stood at his side. She looked at the canvas attentively. The inscrutable look of the painted face seemed but a faint reflex of the living one. You have succeeded well, she said at last. We will omit the bambino. She moved slowly, graciously toward the door, gathering the fragile sewing as she went. He started toward her, suddenly conscious of her power, a man again. A parting of the draperies arrested them. It was Saleh, his face agitated, looking from the lady to the painter in articulate. The seneur, he gasped, his horse they bring him, dead. She stirred slightly where she stood, her eyelids fell. Go, Saleh, await your master's commands in the hall below. She turned to the painter, as the draperies closed. I trust that you will make all use of our service, seneur Leonardo. In removing from the palace, the apartments will, I fear, be needed for relatives. They will come to honour the dead. He stood for a moment, stupefied, aghast at her control of practical, feminine detail, then moved toward her. Lisa. She motioned toward the easel. Payment for the picture will be sent you soon. The picture goes with me. It is not finished. It is well, she bowed mockingly. The little door swung noiselessly behind her. He was left alone with a portrait. It was looking sideways, at the fallen bambino, amid the shattered fragments on the floor. Part 2 It was the French Monarch. He fluttered restlessly about the studio, urbane enthusiastic. He paused to finger some ingenious toy, to praise some drawing or bit of sunlit colour that caught his fancy. The painter, smiling at the frank enthusiasm, followed leisurely from room to room. The wandering Milanese villa was a treasure-house. Bits of marble and clay, curious mechanical contrivances, winged creatures, bats and creeping things mingled with the canvases. Colour and line ran riot on the walls. A few finished pieces had been placed on easel's inconvenient light. For the royal inspection. Each of these, in turn, the volatile monarch had exalted. He had declared that everything in the villa, including the gifted owner, must return with him to France. That is a place for men like you, he exclaimed, standing before a small, exquisitely finished Madonna. What do these Milanese know of art, or the Florentines, for that matter? Your last supper. I saw it last week. It is a blur. What that these St. Louis might have taken it bodily, stone by stone, to our France. As he longed to do, you will see the mere copy has more honour with us than the original here. Come with us, he added persuasively, laying his hand on the painter's shabby sleeve. The painter looked down from his height on the royal suitor. You do me too much honour, Sire. I am an old man. You are Leonardo da Vinci," said the other, stoutly. The painter of these pictures. I shall carry them all away, and you will have to follow. Laughed the monarch. I will not leave one. He rummaged gaily in the unfinished debris, bringing out, with each turn, some new theme of delight. The painter stood by, waiting, alert, a trifle uneasy, it might seem. And now, Sire, shall we see the view from the little western turret? One moment. Ah! What have we here? He turned the canvas to the light. The figure, against the quaint landscape, looked out with level, smiling glance. He fell upon his knees before it. Ah! Marvelous! Marvelous! He was armored in naive delight. He remained long before it, absorbed, forgetful. At last he rose. He lifted the picture, and placed it on an easel. Is she yet alive? He demanded, turning to the painter. She lives in Florence, Sire. And her name? Signore Lisa della Giaconda. Her husband? It matters not. Dead these ten years. And children? A boy, born shortly after the husband's death, he added, after a slight pause, shall we proceed to the turret? The light changes fast at sunset. Presently, presently, the portrait must be mine. The original, we shall see, we shall see. Nay, your Majesty, the portrait is unfinished. Unfinished? He stared at anew. Possible. It is perfect. There was to be a child. Ah! The monarch gazed at it intently for many minutes. The portrait returned the royal look in kind. He broke into a light laugh. Ah! You did well to omit the child, he said. Come, we will see the famous sunset now. He turned to the regal figure on the easel. Adieu, Mona Lisa. I come for you again. He kissed his fingers with airy grace. He fluttered out. The mocking, sidelong glance followed him. Part 3 The western sun filled the room. On a couch drawn near the low French window lay the painter. His eyes looked across the valley to a long line of poplars, silver in the wind. Like a strange processional, up the hill they held him. They came from Lombardi. In the brazer, across the room, burned a flickering fire. Even on the warmest days he shivered for sunnier skies. Above the fire hung a picture, a woman seated in a rock-bound circle, looking tranquilly out upon the world of life. The painter touched a silver bell that stood on a table at hand. A figure entered, it crossed to the window. The face was turned in shadow. It waited. As a good physician gone, Francesco asked the painter. Francesco bowed. There was silence in the room except for the fire. What does he say of us today? The youth brushed his hand across his eyes impatiently. He always croaks. He is never hopeful. He approached the couch and knelt by it, his face in the shadows still. The painter laid tranquil, watching the poplars. I grieve, and exile has not so many joys that he need fear to lose them, Francesco. The younger man made no reply. He was adjusting the pillows. He slipped a fresh one beneath the long white hair. The locks strayed in a dull, silvery glimmer over it. Ah! that is good! Mermint the old man. Your hand is like a woman's. I have not known many women, he said, after a pause. But I have not been lonely. Friends are faithful. He pressed the youth's warm hand. His majesty? The voice ended with a question. No, master, but there is yet time. He often comes at sunset. See how bright it grows? The painter turned his head. He looked long. Tell us what the wise physician said, Francesco. Will it be soon? Nay, master. I know not. He said, if you have any wishes. Ah! Yes. He lay musing. His eyes looking across the room. There will be few bequest. My pictures, they are mine no longer. Should a painter barter the sons and daughters of his soul? Gold cannot buy. They are mine. Four thousand shining gold pieces, Frances, put into my hand. He took away the lisa. He would not be refused. But I followed. I could not live without her. When a man is old, Francesco, his hand trembles. He must see something he has done, something perfect. He lay looking long at the portrait. And yet it is not finished. There was to be the child. He smiled dreamily, poor Bambino. His eyes rested again on the portrait. He smiled back upon it. Yes, you will live, he said softly. Frances will have you. You scorned him, but he was generous. He gave you back to me. You will be his, his and his children's. I have no child. At least, ah well, Frances will have you. Lata and Pomona will pass. The Dominican picture, all but gone. The hand of time has rested on my work. Crumbling, fading, nothing finished. I planned so much. Life runs, Francesco, while one sits and thinks. Nothing finished. My manuscripts, do with them what you will. I could not even write, like other men, this poor left hand. He lifted the filmy lace ruffle falling across his hand. He smiled ironically at the costly folds as they fluttered from his fingers. A man is poor, who has few wants. Then I have not been poor, but there is nothing left. It will be an empty name. Silence fell between them. There is in Florence a lady. You must seek for her, Francesco. She is rich and beautiful. She did me once a kindness. I should like her this ring. He slipped it from his finger. A heavy stone, deep green, with translucent lights. It was my father's crust. He gave it to my mother, not his wife, a woman, faithful. She put it on my finger when she died, a peasant woman. Tell the lady when you give it to her. She has a son. Tell her the voice fell hushed. The young man waited with bowed head. He looked up. He started quickly and leaned his ear to listen. Then he folded the hands across the quiet breast. He passed swiftly from the silent chamber down to the courtyard out on the king's highway, mounted and fleet. The French king was riding merrily. He co-rolled a gay chanson. His retinue followed at a distance. Francesco Meltzy saluted and drew rain. He spoke a word in the monarch's ear. The two men stood with uncovered heads. They looked toward the western windows. The gay cavalcade, halted in the glow of light. A hush fell on their chatter. The windows flamed in the crimson flood, within the room above the gleaming coals, a woman of eternal youth looked down with tranquil gaze upon an old man's face. End of There Was in Florence a Lady by Jeanette Lee Tom's Money by Harriet Prescott Spofford Mrs. Lotton had found what she had been looking for all her life. The man under her bed. Every night of her nearly thirty years of existence this pretty little person had stooped on her knees before saying her prayers, and had investigated the space beneath her bed. A light brass affair hung with a chint's valence. Had then peered beneath the dark recess of the dressing-case, and having looked in the deep drawer of the bureau and into the closet, she fastened her door and felt as secure as a snail in a shell. As she never in this particular business seemed to have any confidence in Mr. Lotton, in spite of the fact that she admired him and adored him, neither his presence nor his absence ever made any variation in the performance. She had gone through the motions, however, for so long a time that they had come to be in a manner perfunctory, and the start she received this night of which I speak made her prayers quite impossible. What was she to do? She, a coward, par eminence, known to be the most timorous of the whole family. Her tremors, at all sorts of imagined dangers affording laughter to the flock of sisters and brothers. Should she stay on her knees after having seen that dark shape as if going on with her prayers while revolving some plan of procedure? That was out of the question. Scream? She couldn't have screamed to save her life. Run? Would no more have set one foot above the other than if her body had melted from the waist down? She was deadly faint and cold and shaking, and all in a second, in the fraction of a second, before she had risen from her stooping posture. Oh, why wasn't it Virginia instead? Virginia had always had such heroic plans of making the man come out of his hiding place at the point of her pistol, and Virginia could cock a pistol and wasn't covered with cold shivers at the sight of one, as she was. If it had only been Francie whose shrill voice could have been heard over the side of the earth, or Juliet whose long legs would have left burglar and house, too, in the background between the opening and slamming of a door. Either of them was so much more fit than she, the chicken-hearted one of the family, to cope with this creature. And they were all gone to the wedding with Fred, and would not be home until tomorrow, and Tom had just returned from town and handed her his roll of bills and told her to take care of it, till he came back from galloping down to the works with jewels. And she had tucked it into her belt, and had asked him a little quakingly, What if any of the men of the deadline that they had heard of, or a red dan, or an Apache came along? And he had laughed and said she had better ask them in and reproach them for making such strangers of themselves as not to have called in the two years she had been in this part of the country. And she had the two maids with her, and he should be back directly. And she had looked out after him a moment over the wide prairie to the hills, all bathed in moonlight, and felt as if she were a spirit alone in a dead world. And here she was now, the two maids away in the little wing, locked out by the main house, alone with a burglar, and not another being nearer than the works, a half-mile off. How did this man know that she was without any help here? How did he know that Tom was coming back with the money to pay the men that night? How did he happen to be aware that Tom's money was all in the house? Evidently he was one of the men. No one else could have known anything about it. If that money was taken, nobody would believe the story. Tom would be cashiered. He could never live through the disgrace. He would die of a broken heart, and she of another. They had come out to this remote and lonesome country to build up a home and a fortune, and so many people would be stricken with them. What a mischance for her to be left with the whole thing in her hands, her little, weak, trembling hands. Tom's honor, his good name, and his success, their fortune, the welfare of the whole family, the livelihood of all the men, the safety of the enterprise. What made Tom risk things so? How could he put her in such jeopardy? To be sure he thought the dogs would be safeguard enough, but they had gone scouring after him. And if they hadn't, how could dogs help her with a man under the bed? It was worse than any loss of money to have such a wretch as this so near one, so shudderingly so awfully near, to be so close as this to the bottomless pit itself. What was she to do? Escape? Passability did not cross her mind. Not once did she think of letting Tom's money go. All but annihilated by terror in the heartbeat, she herself was the last thing she thought of. Light and electricity are swift, but thought is swifter. As I said, this was all in the fraction of a second. Then Mrs. Lawton was on her feet again, and before a pendulum could have more than swung backward, the man must know she saw him. She took the light, brass, bedstead, and sent it rolling away from her with all her might, and main, leaving the creature uncovered. He lay easily on one side, a stout little club like a policeman's billy in his hand, some weapons gleaming in his belt, putting up the other hand to grasp the bedstead as it rolled away. "'You look pretty, don't you?' said she. Perhaps this was as much of a shock to the man as his appearance had been to her. He was not acquainted with the saying that it is only the unexpected that happens. "'Get up!' said she. "'I'll be a man, if I was a man. Get up! I'm not going to hurt you!' If the intruder had any sense of humor, this might have touched it. The idea of this little fairy queen of a woman, almost small enough to have stepped out of a rain-lily, hurting him. But it was so different from what she had been awaiting that it startled him. And then, perhaps he had some of the superstition that usually haunts the evil and ignorant, and felt that such small women were uncanny. He was on his feet now, towering over her. "'Now,' he said gruffly, "'I don't suppose you're going to hurt me. And I'm not going to hurt you, if you hand over the money.' "'What money?' opening her eyes with a wide sort of astonishment. "'Come, none of your lip. I want that money.' "'Why, I haven't any money. Oh, yes, I have, to be sure. But—' "'I thought you'd remember it,' said the man with a grin. "'But I want it,' she exclaimed. "'I want it, too,' said he. "'Oh, it wouldn't do you any good,' she reasoned. "'Fifteen dollars, and it's all the money I've got in the world.' "'I don't want no fifteen dollars,' said the man. "'And I don't want none of your chinning. I want the money your husband's going to pay off with.' "'Oh, Tom's money!' "'Ain't quite a tone of relief. "'Oh, I haven't anything to do with Tom's money. If you can get any money out of Tom, it's more than I can do. And I wouldn't advise you to try either, for he always carries a pistol in the same pocket with it, and he's covered all over with knives and derringers and bulldogs so that sometimes I don't like to go near him until he's unloaded. "'You have to in this country of desperadoes, you see?' "'Yes, I see, you little hence-parer,' his eyes coming back to her from a survey of the room, that you've got Tom's money in the house somewhere and would like to throw me off the scent. "'If I had,' she said, "'you'd only get it across my dead body. Hadn't you better look for it and have me tell you when you're hot and when you're cold?' "'Come,' he said again, "'I've had enough of your slack.' "'You're not very polite,' she said, with something like a pout.' "'Paple on my line aren't,' he answered grimly. "'I want that money, and I want it now. I have no time to lose. I'd rather come by it peaceable,' he growled. "'What if?' "'Well, if you can take it, of course, you're the stronger, but I told you before it's all I have, and I've very particular use for it. You just sit down,' she cried, indicating a chair, with the error of having really been alone so long in these desolate regions as to be glad of having someone to talk to and throwing herself into the big one opposite, because in truth she could not stand up another moment. And perhaps feeling as if a wren were expostulating with him without robbing her, her nest, the man dropped the angry arm with which he had threatened her and leaned over the back of the chair. "'There it is,' she said, right under your hand all the time. You won't have to rip up the mattress for it or rummage the clothes pressed or hunt through the broken crockery on the top shelves of the kitchen cupboard,' she ran on as if she were delighted to hear the sound of her own voice and couldn't talk fast enough. "'I always leave my purse on the dressing-case, though Thomas told me time and time again it wasn't safe, but out here—' "'Stop,' thundered the man. "'If you know enough to stop, stop, or I'll cut your cursed tongue out and make you stop, and then I suppose you'd growl. That's not what I want, though I'll take it. I've told you time and again that I want the paymaster's money. That isn't right under my hand, and where is it? I'll put daylight through that little false heart of yours if you don't give it to me without five more words. "'And I've told you just as often that I've nothing to do with the paymaster's money, and I wish you would put daylight anywhere, for then my husband would come home and make an end of you.' And with the great limpid tears overflowing her blue eyes, Rose Lawton knew that the face she turned up at him was enough to melt the sternest heart going. "'You know, ma'am, to tell me,' said he, evidently wavering and possibly inclined to doubt if, after all, she were not telling the truth, as no man in his senses would leave such a sum of money in the keeping of such a simpleton. "'I don't mean to tell you anything,' she cried. "'You won't believe a word I say, and I never had anyone doubt my word before. I hate to have you take that fifteen dollars, though. You never would in the world if you knew how much self-denial it stands for. Every time I think I would like an ice cream out in this wilderness, where you might as well ask for an iceberg, I've made Tom give me the price of one. You wouldn't find anything but ribbons there, and when I've felt as if I should go wild and could have a box of Heiler's Candy, I've made Tom give me the price of that. There's only powder and tweezers and frizzes in those boxes, as he went over the top of the dressing case, still keeping a look out on her. And when we were all out of lager and all pollinaris, Tom couldn't. That's my laces, and I wish you wouldn't to finger them. I don't believe your hands are clean. When Tom couldn't get anything to drink, I made him put the price of a drink, and lots of ten-cent pieces came that way. And—but I don't imagine you care to hear about all that. What makes you look at me so? For the man had left his search again, and his glance was piercing here through and through. Oh, your eyes are like augers, turning to live coals, she cried. Is that the way you look at your wife? Do you look at your children the same way? That lay won't work, said he with another grin. I ain't got no feelings to work on. I ain't got no wife or kids. I'm sure that's fortunate, said Mrs. Lutton. A family wouldn't have any piece of their lives with you following such a dangerous business, and they couldn't see much of you either. I must say, I think you'd be a great deal happier if you reformed. I mean, well, if you left this business and took up a quarter section and had a wife and, look here, cried the man as patience gone, are you a fool, or are you bluffing me? I have a mind to knock your head in, he cried, and hunt the house over for myself. I would, if there was time. You wouldn't find anything if you did, she returned, leaning back in the chair. I've looked off and enough when I thought Tom had some money. I never found any. What are you going to do now, with a cry of alarm at his movement? I'm going to tie you hand and foot first. Oh, I wouldn't. I'd rather you wouldn't, really. I promise you, I won't leave this chair. I don't mean you shall. Oh, how can you treat me so, she exclaimed, lifting up her streaming face. You don't look like a person to treat a woman so. I don't like to be tied. It makes me feel so helpless. What kind of dumb fool be you, anyway? said the man, stopping a moment to stare at her. And he made a step then toward the high chest of drawers, half bureau, half writing desk, for a ball of tape he saw lying there. Oh, she cried, remembering the tire, baby. Don't, don't go there. For mercy's sake, don't go there. Raising her voice till it was like the wind in the chimney. Oh, please don't go there. At which is a feeling morally, or rather immorally, sure that what he had come for was in that spot. He seized the handles of the drawer and down fell the lid upon his head with a whack that jammed his head over his eyes and blinded him with pain and fury for an instant. And in that instant she had whipped the roll of money from her belt and dropped it underneath her chair. I knew it, she cried. I knew it would. It always does. I told you not to go. You shut your mouth quick, roared the man with a splutter of ults between each word. That's right, she said, leaning over the arm of the chair, her face like a pitying saint's. Don't mind me. I always tell Tom to swear when he jams his thumb. I know how it is myself when I'm driving a nail. It's a great relief. I'd put some cold water on your head, but I promised you I wouldn't stir out of the chair. The man went and sat down in the chair on whose back he had been leaning. I swear, I don't know what to make of you, said he, rubbing his head roofily. You can make friends with me, said she. That's what you can do. I'm sure I've shown you that I'm friendly enough. I never believe any harm of anyone till I see it myself. I don't blame you for wanting the money. I'm always in want of money. I've told you you might take mine, though I don't want you to. But I shouldn't give you Tom's money, even if I knew where it was. Tom would kill me if I did, and I might as well be killed by you as by Tom, and better. You can make friends with me and be some protection to me till my husband comes. I'm expecting him in jewels every moment." The man started to his feet. You say that, he cried, holding his revolver under her nose. Look right into that gun. We'll have no more fooling. It'll be your last look if you don't tell me where that money is before I count three. She put out her hand and calmly moved it aside. I've looked into those things ever since I've lived on the prairie, said she, and I dare say it won't go off. Mine won't. Besides, I know very well you wouldn't shoot a woman, and you can't make bricks without straw, and then I've told you I don't know anything about that money. You are a game one, said he. No, I'm not, she replied. I'm the most tremendous coward. I've come out here in this wild country to live, and I'm alone a great deal, and quake at every sound, and every creek of a timber, every rustle of the grass, and you wouldn't know anything about what it is to have your heart stand still with horror of a wild beast or a wild Indian or a deserter, a deserting soldier. There's a great Apache down there now stretched out on his blanket on the floor before the fire in the kitchen. And I came up here as quick as I could to lock the door behind us and sit up till Tom came home. And I declare I never was so thankful in all my life as I was just now to see a white face when I looked at you. Well, I'll be Apache, cried the visitor. See here, little one, you've saved your husband's money for him. You're a double handful of pluck. I haven't any idea, but you know where it's hid. But I've got to be making tracks. If it wasn't for waking that Apache, I'd leave Red Dan's handwriting on the wall. And almost while he was speaking had swung himself out of the window to the roof of the porch and had dropped to the ground and made off. Mrs. Lawton waited till she thought he must be out of hearing, leaning out as if she were gazing at the moon. Then she softly shut and fastened the sash and crept with shaking limbs to the door and unlocked it, and fell in a dead faint across the threshold. And there, when he returned some three-quarters of an hour later, Tom found her. Oh, Tom, she sobbed when she became conscious that she was lying in his arms, his heart beating like a trip hammer, his voice hoarse with fright as he implored her to open her eyes. Is there an Apache in the kitchen? End of Tom's Money by Harriet Prescott Spofford. Read by Don Jenkins.