 Section 15 of The Char-Woman's Daughter by James Stevens, Chapter 30 Mrs. May-Believe was astonished when the policemen knocked at her door. The knock at her door was a rare sound, for many years had gone by since anyone had come to visit her. Of late Mrs. Caffety often came to talk to her, but she never knocked. She usually shouted, can I come in? And then she came in. But this was a ceremonious knock which startled her, and the spectacle of the great man bending through the doorway almost stopped her breath. Mary also was so shocked into terror that she stood still, forgetful of all good manners, and stared at the visitor open-eyed. She knew and did not know what he had come for, but that in some way his appearance related to her she was instantly assured, although she could not even dimly guess at a closer explanation of his visit. His eyes stayed on her for an instant, and then passed to her mother, and following her rather tremulous invitation he came into the room. There was no chair to sit on, so Mrs. May-Believe requested him to sit down on the bed, which he did. She fancied he had come on some errand from Mrs. O'Connor, and was inclined to be angry at a visit which she construed as an intrusion, so when he was seated she waited to hear what he might have to say. Even to her it was evident that the big man was perplexed and abashed, his hat was in his way, and so were his hands, and when he spoke his voice was so husky as to be distressful. On Mary who had withdrawn to the very end of the room this discomfort of speech had a peculiar effect. The unsteady voice touched her breast to a kindred fluttering, and her throat group parched, and so irritated that a violent fit of coughing could not be restrained, and this, with the nervousness and alarm which his appearance had thronged upon her, drove her to a very fever of distress, but she could not take her eyes away from him, and she wondered and was afraid of what he might say. He knew there was a great many things he might discuss, which she would be loath to hear in her mother's presence, and which her mother would not be gratified to hear either. He spoke for a few moments about the weather, and Mrs. Make-Believe harkened to his remarks with a perplexity which she made no effort to conceal. She was quite certain he had not called to speak about the weather, and she was prepared to tell him so if a suitable opportunity should occur. She was also satisfied that he had not come on a formal friendly visit, the memory of her last interview with him forbade such a conjecture. For on that occasion politeness had been deposed from her throne, and ephremony had reigned in her stead. If his aunt had desired him to undertake an embassy to her, he would surely have delivered his message without preamble, and would not have been thrown by so trifling a duty into the state of agitation in which he was. It was obvious, therefore, that he had not come with a message relating to her work. Something of fear touched Mrs. Make-Believe as she looked at him, and her voice had an uneasy note when she requested to know what she could do for him. The policeman suddenly, with the gesture of one throwing away anchors, plunged into the heart of his matter, and as he spoke the look on Mrs. Make-Believe's face changed quickly from bewilderment to curiosity and dulled again to a blank amazement. After the first few sentences she half turned to Mary, but an obscure shame prevented her from searching out her daughter's eyes. It was born quickly and painfully to her that Mary had not treated her fairly. There was a secret here with which a mother ought to have been trusted, and one which she could not believe Mary would have withheld from her. And so, gauging her child's feelings by her own, she steadfastly refused to look at her, lest the shocked surprise in her eyes might lacerate the girl she loved, and who she knew must at the instant be in a sufficient agony. Undoubtedly the man was suggesting that he wanted to marry her daughter, and the unexpectedness of such a proposal left her mentally gaping, but that there must have been some preliminaries of meeting and courtship became obvious to her. Mary also listened to his remarks in a stupor. Was there no possibility at all of getting away from the man? A tenacity such as this seemed to her malignant. She had the feeling of one being pursued by some relentless and unscrupulous hunter. She heard him speaking through a cloud, and the only things really clear to her were the thoughts which she knew her mother must be thinking. She was frightened and ashamed, and the sullenness which is the refuge of most young people descended upon her like a darkness. Her face grew heavy and vacant, and she stared in front of her in the attitude of one who had nothing to do with what was passing. She did not believe altogether that he was in earnest. Her immediate discomfort showed him as one who was merely seeking to get her into trouble with her mother in order to gratify an impotent rage. Twice or three times she flamed suddenly went tiptoe to run from the room. A flash and she would be gone from the place down the stairs into the streets and away anywhere, and she tingled with the very speed of her vision. But she knew that one word from her mother would halt her like a barrier, and she hated the thought that he should be a witness to her obedience. While he was speaking he did not look at Mary. He told Mrs. Make-Believe that he loved her daughter very much and he begged her permission and favor for his suit. He gave her to understand that he and Mary had many opportunities of becoming acquainted and were at one in this desire for matrimony. To Mrs. Make-Believe's mind there recurred a conversation which she had once held with her daughter when Mary was curious to know if a policeman was a desirable person for a girl to marry. She saw this question now not as being prompted by a laudable and almost scientific curiosity, but as the interested sly speculation of a schemer hideously accomplished in deceit. Mary could see that memory flitting back through her mother's brain and it tormented her. Nor was her mother at ease. There was no chair to sit upon. She had to stand and listen to all this while he spoke, more or less at his ease from the bed. If she also had been sitting down she might have been mistress of her thoughts and able to deal naturally with the situation. But an easy pose is difficult when standing. Her hands would fold in front of her and the schoolgirl attitude annoyed and restrained her. Also the man appeared to be an earnest in what he said. His words at the least and the intention which drove them seemed honorable. She could not give reign to her feelings without lapsing to a barbarity which she might not justify to herself even in anger and might indeed blush to remember. Perhaps his chief disqualification consisted in a relationship to Mrs. O'Connor for which he could not justly be held to blame and for which she sincerely pitted him. But this certainly was a disqualification never to be redeemed. He might leave his work or his religion or his country but he could never quit his aunt because he carried her with him under his skin. He was her with additions and at times Mrs. Makebelieve could see Mrs. O'Connor looking cautiously at her through the police man's eyes. A turn of his forehead and she was there like a thin wraith that vanished and appeared again. The man was spoiled for her. He did not altogether lack sense and the fact that he wished to marry her daughter showed that he was not so utterly beyond the reach of redemption as she had fancied. Meanwhile he had finished his statement and regarded the affection which he bore to her daughter and the suitability of their temperaments and had hurled himself into an explanation of his worldly affairs comprising his salary as a police man, the possibility of promotion and the increased emoluments which would follow it and the certain pension which would sustain his age. There were furthermore his parents from whose decease he would reap certain monetary increments and the deaths of other relatives from which an additional enlargement of his revenues might reasonably be expected. Indeed he had not desired to speak of these matters at all but the stony demeanor of Mrs. Makebelieve and the sullen aloofness of her daughter forced him, however reluctantly, to draw even ignoble weapons from his armory. He had not conceived they would be so obdurate. He had in fact imagined that the elder woman must be flattered by his offer to marry her daughter and when no evidence to support this was forthcoming he was driven to appeal to the cupidity which he believed occupies the heart of every middle-aged, hard-worked woman. But these statements also were received with a dreadful composure. He could have smashed Mrs. Makebelieve where she stood. Now and again his body strained to a wild physical outburst, a passionate red fury that would have terrified these women to their knees while he roared their screams into thin wimpers as a man should. He did not dare to stop speaking and his efforts at an easy, good-humored, half-careless presentation of his case was bitterly painful to him as it was to his auditors. The fact that they were both standing up unnerved him also, the pleasant equality which should have formed the atmosphere of such an interview was destroyed from the first moment and having once sat down he did not like to stand up again. He felt glued to the bed on which he sat and he felt also that if he stood up the tension in the room would so relax that Mrs. Makebelieve would at once break out into speech, sarcastic and final. Or her daughter might scream reproaches and disclaimers of an equal finality. At her he did not dare to look, but the corner of his eye could see her shape stiffened against the fireplace, an attitude so different from the pliable contours to which he was accustomed in her as almost to be repellent. He would have thanked God to find himself outside the room, but how to get out of it he did not know his self-esteem forbade anything like a retreat without honor. His nervousness did not permit him to move at all. The anger which prickled the surface of his body and mind was held in check only by an instinct of fear as to what he might do if he moved. And so with dreadful jocularity he commenced to speak of himself, his personal character, his sobriety and steadiness, of all those safe negations on which many women place reliance he spoke, and also of certain small vices which he magnified merely for the sake of talking, such as smoking an odd glass of porter and the shilling which now and again he had ventured upon a racehorse. Mary listened to him for a while with angry intentness, the fact that she was the subject of his extraordinary discourse quickened at the first all her apprehensions. Had the matter been less important, she would have been glad to look at herself in this strange position and to save her with as much detachment as was possible the whole spirit of the adventure. But when she heard him as she put it, telling on her, laying bare to her mother all the walks they had taken together, visits to restaurants and rambles through the streets and the parks, what he had said to her on this occasion and on that, and her remarks on such and such a matter, she could not visualize him, save as a malignant and uncultivated person. And when he tacitly suggested that she was as eager for matrimony as he was, and so put upon her the horrible onus of rejecting him before a second person, she closed her mind and her ears against him. She refused to listen, although her perceptions admitted the trend of his speech. His words droned heavily and monotonously to her as through dull banks of fog. She made up her mind that if she were asked any questions by either of them, she would not reply and that she would not look at either of them. And then she thought that she would snap and stamp her feet and say that she hated him, that he had looked down on her because she worked for his aunt, that he had meanly been ashamed of her and cut her because she was poor and that he had been going with another girl all the time. He was going with her and that he only pursued her in order to annoy her, that she didn't love him, that she didn't even like him, that in fact she disliked him heartily. She wished to say all these things in one whirling outcry, but feared that before she had rightly begun, she might become abashed, or worse, might burst into tears and lose all the dignity which she meant to preserve in his presence for the purpose of showing to him in the best life exactly what he was losing. But the big man had come to the end of his speech. He made a few attempts to begin anew on the desirability of such a union for both of them and the happiness it would give him if Mrs. Makebelieve would come to live with them when they were married. He refused to let it appear that there was any doubt as to Mary's attitude in the matter, for up to the moment he came to their door he had not doubted her willingness himself. Her late avoidance of him he had put down to mere feminine tactics which leads on by holding off. The unwilling person he had been assured was himself. He stooped to her and it was only after a severe battle that he had been able to do it. The astonishment and disapproval of his relatives and friends at such a step were very evident to him, for to a man of his position then figure girls were cheap creatures the best of them to be had for the mere asking. Therefore the fact that this girl could be seriously rejecting his offer of marriage came upon him like real astonishment. He had no more to say however and he blundered and fumbled into silence. For a moment or two the little room was so still that the quietness seemed to hum and buzz like an eternity. Then with a sigh Mrs. Makebelieve spoke. I don't know at all said she why you should speak to me about this for neither my daughter nor yourself have ever even hinted to me before that you were courting one another. Why Mary should keep such a secret from her own mother I don't know. Maybe I've been cruel and frightened her although I don't remember doing anything that she could have against me of that sort. Or maybe she didn't think I was wise enough to advise her about a particular thing like her marriage for God knows old women are foolish enough in their notions. Or else they wouldn't be slaving and grinding for the sake of their children the way they do be doing year in and year out every day in the week and every hour of the day. It isn't any wonder at all that a child would be a liar and a sliver and a trampler of the rose with the first man that nods to her when her mother is a foolish person that she can't trust. Of course I wouldn't be looking for a gentleman like yourself to mention the matter to me when I might be scrubbing out your aunt's kitchen or her hall door maybe and you sitting in the parlor with the company. Sure I'm only an old charwoman and what does it matter at all would I be thinking whether I'd be agreeing or not to anything. Don't I get my wages for my work and what more does anybody want in the world. As for me going to live with you when you are married it was kind of you to ask me that but it's not the sort of thing I'm likely to do for if I didn't care for you as a stranger I'm not going to like you any better as my daughter's husband. You'll excuse me saying one thing sir but while we are talking we may as well be talking out and it's this that I never did like you and I never will like you and I'd sooner see my daughter married to anyone at all than do yourself. But sure I needn't be talking about it isn't it Mary's business altogether and she'll be settling it with you nicely I don't doubt. She's a practiced hand now at arranging things like you are yourself and it will do me good to be learning something from her. Mrs. Makebelieve took a cloth in her hand and walked over to the fireplace which she commenced to polish. The big man looked at Mary it was incumbent upon him to say something. Twice he attempted to speak at each time on finding himself about to say something regarding the weather he stopped. Mary did not look at him. Her eyes were fixed stubbornly on a part of the wall well away from his neighborhood and it seemed to him that she had made a vow to herself never to look at him again. But the utter silence of the room was unbearable. He knew that he ought to get up and go out but he could not bring himself to do so. His self-love, his very physical strength, rebelled against so tame a surrender. One thought he gathered in from swaying vacuity that the timid little creature whom he had patronized would not find the harsh courage to refuse him point blank if he charged her straightly with the question and so he again assayed speech. Your mother is angry with us Mary said he and I suppose she has good right to be angry. But the reason I did not speak to her before as I admit I should have if I'd done the right thing was that I had very few chances of meeting her and never did meet her without some other person being there at the same time. I suppose the reason you did not say anything was that you wanted to be quite sure of yourself and of me too before you mentioned it. We have both done the wrong thing in not being open but maybe your mother will forgive us when she knows we had no intention of hurting her or of doing anything behind her back. Your mother seems to hate me I don't know why because she hardly knows me at all and I've never done her any harm or said a word against her. Perhaps when she knows me as well as you do she'll change her mind but you know I love you better than anyone else and that I do anything I could to please you and be a good husband to you. What I want to ask you before your mother is will you marry me? Mary made no reply. She did not look or give the slightest sign that she had heard but now it was that she did not dare to look at him. The spectacle of this big man badgered by her and by her mother pleading to her and pleading as he and she well knew hopelessly would have broken her heart if she looked at him. She had to admire the good masculine fight he made of it even his tricks of word and tactic which she instantly divine moved her almost to tears. But she feared terribly that if she met his gaze she might not be able to resist his huge helplessness and that she might be compelled to do whatever he begged of her even in despite of her own wishes. The interval which followed his question weighed heavily upon them all. It was only broken by Mrs. Makebelieve who began to hum a song as she polished the fire rate. She meant to show her careless detachment from the whole matter but in the face of Mary's silence she could not keep it up. After a few moments she moved around and said, Why don't you answer the gentleman Mary? Mary turned and looked at her and the tears which she had resisted so long swim in her eyes although she could keep her features composed she had no further command over her tears. I'll answer whatever you ask me mother she whispered. Then tell the gentleman whether you will marry him or not. I don't want to marry anyone at all said Mary. You were not asked to marry anyone darling said Mrs. Makebelieve but someone this gentleman here whose name I don't happen to know. Do you know his name? No said Mary. My name began the policeman. It doesn't matter sir said Mrs. Makebelieve. Do you want to marry this gentleman Mary? No whispered Mary. Are you in love with him Mary turned completely away from him. No she whispered again. Do you think you ever will be in love with him? She felt as a rat might when hunted into a corner but the end must be very near this could not last forever because nothing can. Her lips were parched her eyes were burning she wanted to lie down and go asleep and waken again laughing to say it was a dream. Her reply was almost inaudible. No she said. You are quite sure it is always better to be quite sure. She did not answer anymore but the faint group of her head gave the reply her mother needed. You see sir said Mrs. Makebelieve that you were mistaken in your opinion. My daughter is not old enough yet to be thinking of marriage and such like children do be thoughtless. I am sorry for all the trouble she has given you and a sudden compunction stirred her for the man was standing up now. When there was no trace of Mrs. O'Connor visible in him his face was as massive and harsh as a piece of wall. Don't you be thinking too badly of us now said Mrs. Makebelieve with some agitation. The child is too young altogether to be asking her to marry. Maybe in a year or two. I said things I know but I was vexed and the big man nodded his head and marched out. Mary ran to her mother moaning like a sick person but Mrs. Makebelieve did not look at her. She laid down on the bed and turned her face to the wall and she did not speak to Mary for a long time. CHAPTER 31 When the young man who lodged with Mrs. Cafferty came in on the following day he presented a deplorable appearance. His clothes were torn and his face had several large strips of sticking plaster on it but he seemed to be in a mood of extraordinary happiness notwithstanding and proclaimed that he had participated in the one really great fight of his lifetime that he wasn't injured at all and that he wouldn't have missed it for a pension. Mrs. Cafferty was wild with indignation and marched him into Mrs. Makebelieve's room where he had again to tell his story and have his injuries inspected and commiserated. Even Mr. Cafferty came into the room on this occasion. He was a large, slow man dressed very comfortably in a red beard. His beard was so red and so persistent that it quite overshadowed the rest of his wrappings and did indeed seem to clothe him. As he stood the six children walked in and out of his legs and stood on his feet in their proper turns without causing him any apparent discomfort. During the young man's recital Mr. Cafferty every now and then solemnly and powerfully smote his left hand with his right fist and requested that the aggressor should be produced to him. The young man said that as he was coming home the biggest man in the world walked up to him. He had never set eyes on the man before in his life and thought at first he wanted to borrow a match or ask the way to somewhere or something like that and accordingly he halted but the big man gripped him by the shoulder and said you damned young welp. And then he laughed and hit him a tremendous blow with his other hand. He twisted himself free of that and said what's that for? And then the big man made another desperate clout at him. A fellow wasn't going to stand that kind of thing so he let out at him with his left and then jumped in with two short arm jabs that must have tickled the chap. That fellow didn't have it all his own way anyhow. The young man exhibited his knuckles which were skinned and bleeding as evidence of some exchange. But, he averred, you might as well be punching a sack of coal as that man's face. In another minute they both slipped and rolled over and over in the road hitting and kicking as they sprawled. Then a crowd of people ran forward and pulled them asunder. When they were separated he saw the big man lift his fist and the person who was holding him ducked suddenly and ran for his life. The other folk got out of the way too and the big man walked over to where he stood and stared into his face. His jar was stuck out like the seat of a chair and his moustache was like a bristle of barbed wire. The young man said to him, What the hell's wrong with you to go bashing a man for nothing at all? And all of a sudden the big fellow turned and walked away. It was a grand fight all together, said the youth, but the other man was a mile and a half too big for him. As this story proceeded Mrs. Make-believe looked once or twice at her daughter. Mary's face had gone very pale and she nodded back a confirmation of her mother's conjecture but it did not seem necessary or wise to either of them that they should explain their thoughts. The young man did not require either condolences or revenge. He was well pleased that an opportunity to measure his hardy hood against a worthy opponent. He had found that his courage exceeded his strength, as it always should, for how could we face the gods and demons of existence if our puny arms were not backed up by our invincible eyes? And he displayed his contentment at the issue as one does a banner emblazoned with merits. Mrs. Make-believe understood also that the big man's action was merely his energetic surrender as of one who instead of tendering his sword courteously to the victor hurls at him with a malediction and that in assaulting their friend he was bidding them farewell as heartily and impressively as he was able. So they fed the young man and extolled him, applauding to the shrill winding of his trumpet until he glowed again in the full satisfaction of heroism. He and Mary did not discontinue their evening walks. Of this Mrs. Make-believe was fully cognizant and although she did not remark on the fact she had been observing the growth of their intimacy with a care which was one part approval and one part pain, for it was very evident to her that her daughter was no longer a child to be controlled and directed by authority. Her little girl was a big girl. She had grown up and was eager to undertake the business of life on her own behalf. But the period of Mrs. Make-believe's motherhood had drawn to a close and her arms were empty. She was too used now to being a mother to relinquish easily the prerogatives of that status and her discontent had this justification and assistance that it could be put into definite words, fronted, and approved or rejected as reason urged. By knowledge and thought we will look through a stone wall if we look long enough, for we see less through eyes than through time. Time is the clarifying perspective whereby myopia of any kind is adjusted and a thought emerges in its field as visibly as a tree does in nature's. Mrs. Make-believe saw a seventeen years apprenticeship to maternity cancelled automatically without an explanation or a courtesy and for a little time her world was in ruins. The ashes of existence powdered her hair and her forehead. Then she discovered that the debris was valuable in known currency. The dust was golden. Her love remained to her undisturbed and unlikely to be disturbed by whatever event. And she discovered further that parentage is neither a game nor a privilege but a duty. It is astoundingly thought the care of the young until the young can take care of itself. It was for this freedom only that her elaborate care had been necessary. Her bud had blossomed and she could add no more to its bloom or fragrance. Nothing had happened that was not natural and who so opposes his brow against that imperious urgency is thereby renouncing his kind and claiming a kinship with the wild boar and the goat which they too may repudiate with leaden foreheads. There remained also the common human equality not alone of blood but of sex also which might be fostered and grow to an intimacy more dear and enduring more lovely and loving than the necessarily one-sided devotions of parentage. Her duties in that relationship having been performed it was her daughter's turn to take up hers and prove her rearing by repaying to her mother the conscious love which intelligence and a good heart dictates. This given Mrs. Maybelieve could smile happily again for her arms would be empty only for a little time. The continuity of nature does not fail saving for extraordinary instances. She sees to it that a breast and an arm shall not very long be unoccupied and consequently as Mrs. Maybelieve set contemplating that futurity which is nothing more than a prolongation of experience she could smile contentedly for all was very well. Chapter 32 The Final Chapter If the unexpected did not often happen life would be a logical scientific progression which might become dispirited and repudiated school for very boredom but nature has cunningly diversified the methods whereby she coaxes us to prosecute not our own but her own adventure. Beyond every corner there may be a tavern or a church wherein both the saint and the sinner may be entrapped and remolded. Beyond the skyline you may find a dynamite cartridge, a drunken tinker, a mad dog, or a shilling which some person has dropped and any one of these unexpectednesses may be potent to urge the traveler down a side street and put a crook in the straight line which has been his life and to which he had become miserably reconciled. The element of surprise being accordingly one of the commonest things in the world we ought not to be hypercritical in our review of singularities or say these things do not happen because it is indisputable that they do happen. That combination which comprises a dark night, a highway man armed and hatted to the teeth and myself may be a purely fortuitous one but will such criticism bring any comfort to the highway man and the concourse of three benevolent millionaires with the person to whom poverty can do no more is so pleasant and possible that I marvel it does not occur more frequently. I am prepared to believe that on the very lightest assurance that these things do happen but are hushed up for reasons which would be cogent enough if they were available. Mrs. Maple Leaf opened the letter which the evening's post had brought her. She had pondered well before opening it and had discussed with her daughter all the possible people who could have written it. The envelope was long and narrow, it was addressed in a swift emphatic hand, the tale of the letter M enjoying a career distinguished beyond any of its fellows by length and beauty. The envelope moreover was sealed by a brilliant red lion with jagged whiskers and a simper who threatened the person daring to open a missive not addressed to him with the vengeance of a battle axe which was balanced slightly but truculently on his right claw. This envelope contains several documents purporting to be copies of extraordinary originals and amongst them a letter which was read by Mrs. Maple Leaf more than ten thousand times or ever she went to bed that night. It related that more than two years previously one Patrick Joseph Brady had departed this life and that his will dated from a multitudinous address in New York devised and bequeathed to his dearly beloved sister Mary Eileen make believe otherwise Brady. The following shares and securities for shares to it and the there and after mentioned houses and miss wedges, lands, tenements, hereditiments and premises that was to say and all household furniture, books, pictures, prints, plate, linen, glass and objects of their two carriages, wines, liquors and all consumable stores and effects whatsoever then in the house so and so and all money then in the bank and thereafter to accrue due upon the there and before mentioned stocks, funds, shares and securities. Mrs. Maple Leaf wept and was sought to God not to make a fool of a woman who was not only poor but old. The letter requested her to call on the following day or at her earliest convenience to the above address and desired that she should bring with her such letters and other documents as would establish her relationship to the deceased and assist in extracting the necessary grant of probate to the said will and it was subscribed by Mr. Plattitude and Glomb solicitors commissioners for oaths and protectors of the poor. To the chambers of these gentlemen Mrs. Make-Believe and Mary repaired on the following day and having produced the letters and other documents for inspection the philanthropist, Plattitude and Glomb professed themselves to be entirely satisfied as to their bona fides and exhibited an eagerness to be of immediate service to the ladies in whatever capacity might be conceived. Mrs. Make-Believe instantly invoked the pragmatic sanction she put the entire matter to the touchstone of solute verity by demanding in advance of fifty pounds. Her mind reeled as she said the astounding amount but her voice did not. A check was signed and the clerk dispatched who returned with eight five-pound notes and ten sovereigns of massy gold. Mrs. Make-Believe secreted these and went home marveling to find that she was yet alive. No trams ran over her. The motorcars pursued her and were evaded. She put her hope in God and explained so breathlessly to the furious street. One cyclist who took corners on trust she cursed by the ineffable name but instantly withdrew the malediction for luck and addressed his dwindling back with an eye of misery and a voice of benediction. For a little time neither she nor her daughter spoke of the change in their fortunes saving in terms of illusion. They feared that notwithstanding their trust God might hear and shatter them with his rolling laughter. They went out again that day furtively and feverishly and bought. But on the following morning Mrs. Make-Believe returned again to her labor. She intended finishing her week's work with Mrs. O'Connor. It might not last for a week. She wished to observe that lady with the exact particularity, the singleness of eye, the true candid critical scrutiny which had hitherto been impossible to her. It was, she said to Mary, just possible that Mrs. O'Connor might make some remark about soap. It was possible that the lady might advance theories as to how this or that particular kind of labor ought to be conducted. Mrs. Make-Believe's black eyes shown upon her child with a calm peace of benevolent happiness rare indeed to human regard. In the evening of that day Mary and the young man who lodged with their neighbor went out for the walk which had become customary with them. The young man had been fed with an amplitude which he had never known before so that not even the remotest slim thread, shred, hint, echo or memory of hunger remained with him. He tried but could not make a dent in himself anywhere and consequently he was as sad as only a well-fed person can be. Now that his hunger was gone he deemed that all else was gone also. His hunger, his sweetheart, his hopes, his good looks for his injuries had matured to the ripe purple of the perfect bruise all were gone, gone, gone. He told it to Mary but she did not listen to him. To the rolling sky he announced it and it paid no heed. He walked beside Mary at last in silence listening to her plans and caprices the things she would do and buy the people to whom gifts should be made and the species of gift uniquely suitable to this person and to that person the people to whom money might be given and the amounts and the methods whereby such largesques could be distributed. Hats were mentioned and dresses and the new house somewhere a space embracing somewhere beyond geography. They walked onwards for a long time so long that at last a familiar feeling stole upon the youth. The word food seemed suddenly a topic worthy of the most spirited conversation. His spirits arose. He was no longer solid. Space belonged to him also and it was in him and of him and so there was a song in his heart. He was hungry and the friend of man again. Now everything was possible the girl was she not by his side the regeneration of Ireland and of man that could be done also a little leisure and everything that can be thought can be done even his good looks might be returned to him. He felt the sting and tightness of his bruises and was reassured exultant. He was a man predestined to bruises they would be his meat and drink his happiness his refuge and sanctuary forever. Let us leave him then pacing volubly by the side of Mary and exploring with a delicate finger his half closed eye which until it was closed entirely would always be half closed by the decent buffet of misfortune. His ally was to stay with hunger and there is no better ally for any man that satisfied and the game is up for hunger is life, ambition, goodwill and understanding while fullness is all those negatives which culminate in greediness, stupidity and decay so his bruises troubled him no further than as they affected the eyes of the lady wherein he prayed to be calmly. Bruises unless they are desperate indeed will heal at the last for no other reason than that they must. The inexorable compulsion of all things is toward health or destruction life or death and we hasten our joys or our woes to the logical extreme. It is urgent therefore that we be joyous if we wish to live our heads may be as solid as is possible but our hearts and our heels shall be light or we are ruined. As to the golden mean let us have nothing to do with that thing at all it may only be gilded it is very likely made of tin of a dull color and a lamentable sound unworthy even of being stolen and unless our treasures may be stolen they are of no use to us it is contrary to the laws of life to possess that which other people do not want therefore your beer shall foam your wife shall be pretty and your little truth shall have a plum in it for this is so that your beer can only taste of your company you can only know your wife when someone else does and your little truth shall be savored or perished do you demand a big truth then oh ambitious you must turn aside from all your companions and sit very quietly and if you sit long enough and quiet enough you may come to you but this thing alone of all things you cannot steal nor can it be given to you by the county council it cannot be communicated and yet you may get it it is unspeakable but not unthinkable and it is born as certainly and unaccountably as you were yourself and is of just as little immediate consequence long long ago in the dim beginnings of the world there was a careless and gay young man who said let truth go to hell and it went there it was his misfortune that he had to follow it it is ours that we are his descendants an evil will either kill you or be killed by you and the reflection is comforting the odds are with us in every fight waged against humanity by the dark or elemental beings but humanity is timid and lazy a believer in golden means and sub-diffuges and compromises loath to address itself to any combat until its frontiers are virtually overrun and its cities and granaries and places of refuge are in jeopardy from those gloomy marauders in that wide struggle which we call progress evil is always the aggressor and the vanquished and it is right that this should be so for without its onslaughts and depredations humanity might fall to a fat slumber upon its corn sacks and die snoring or alternatively lacking these valorous alarms and excursions it might become self-satisfied and formula-rized and be crushed to death by the mere dull density of virtue next to good the most valuable factor in life is evil by the interaction of these all things are possible and therefore or for any other reason that pleases you let us wave a friendly hand and in the direction of that bold bad police man whose thoughts were not governed by the book of regulations which is issued to all recruits and who in despite of the fact that he was enrolled among the very legions of order had that chaos in his soul which may give birth to a dancing star as to Mary even ordinary workaday politeness frowns onto abrupt a departure from a lady particularly one whom we have championed thus distantly from the careful simplicity of girlhood equally careless but complex business of adolescence the world is all before her and her chronicler may not be her guide she will have adventures for everybody has she will win through with them for everybody does she may even meet bolder and badder men than the police man shall we then detain her I for one having urgent calls elsewhere will salute her fingers and raise my hat and stand aside and you will do likewise because it is my pleasure that you should she will go forward then and do that which is pleasing to the gods for less than that she cannot do and more is not to be expected of anyone thus far the story of Mary make believe and the end of the Char woman's daughter authored by James Stevens and first published in 1912 this book has been read for you by Michelle Fry Baton Rouge, Louisiana in April 2020 it's a sweet little story and I hope you've enjoyed it