 The Mansion by Henry Van Dyke. There was an air of calm and reserved opulence about the waitman mansion that spoke not of money squandered, but of wealth prudently applied. Standing on a corner of the avenue no longer fashionable for residence, it looked upon the swelling tide of business with an expression of complacency and half-distain. The house was not beautiful. There was nothing in its straight front of chocolate-colored stone, its heavy cornices, its broad, staring windows of plate-glass, its carved and bronze bedecked mahogany doors at the top of the wide stoop to charm the eye or fascinate the imagination. But it was eminently respectable and in its way imposing. It seemed to say that the glittering shops of the jewelers, the milliners, the confectioners, the florists, the pictured dealers, the furriers, the makers of rare and costly antiquities, retail traders in luxuries of life, were beneath the notice of a house that had its foundations in the high finance, and was built literally and figuratively in the shadow of St. Petronius Church. At the same time there was something self-pleased and congratulatory in the way in which the mansion held its own amid the changing neighborhood. It almost seemed to be lifted up a little among the tall buildings near at hand as if it felt the rising value of the land on which it stood. John Waitman was like the house into which he had built himself thirty years ago, and in which his ideals and ambitions were encrusted. He was a self-made man, but in making himself he had chosen a highly esteemed pattern and worked according to the approved rules. There was nothing irregular, questionable, flamboyant about him. He was solid, correct, and justly successful. His minor tastes, of course, had been carefully kept up to date. At the proper time, pictures of the Barbizon masters, old English plate and portraits, bronzes by Barry and marbles by Rodin, Persian carpets and Chinese porcelains had been introduced to the mansion. It contained a Louis Quinn's reception room, an empire drawing room, a Jacobian dining room, and various apartments dimly reminiscent of the styles of furniture affected by deceased monarchs. But the hallways were too short for the historic perspective did not make much difference. American decorative art is capable de tout, it absorbs all periods. Of each period Mr. Waitman wished to have something of the best. He understood its value, present as a certificate, and prospective as an investment. It was only in the architecture of his townhouse that he remained conservative, immovable, and might almost say early Victorian Christian. His country house at Dolic on the Sound was a palace of the Italian Renaissance. But in town he adhered to an architecture which had moral associations, the nineteenth-century brownstone epoch. It was a symbol of his social position, his religious doctrine, and even, in a way, of his business creed. A man of fixed principles, he would say, should express them in the looks of his house. New York changes its domestic architecture too rapidly. It is like divorce, it is not dignified, I don't like it. Extravagants and fickleness are advertised in most of these new houses. I wish to be known for different qualities. Dignity and prudence are the things that people trust. Everyone knows that I can afford to live in the house that suits me. It is a guarantee to the public, it inspires confidence, it helps my influence. There is a text in the Bible about a house that hath foundations. That is the proper kind of mansion for a solid man. Harold Waitman had often listened to his father discoursing on this fashion of the fundamental principles of life, and always with a divided mind. He admired immensely his father's talents and the single-minded energy with which he improved them. But in the paternal philosophy there was something that disquieted and oppressed the young man, and made him gasp inwardly for fresh air and free action. At times, during his college course and his years at the law school, he had yielded to this impulse and broken away, now toward extravagance and dissipation, and then, when the reaction came, toward a romantic devotion to work among the poor. He had felt his father's disapproval for both of these forms of imprudence, but it was never expressed in a harsh or violent way, always with a certain tolerant patience, such as one might show for the mistakes and vagaries of the very young. John Waitman was not hasty, impulsive, inconsiderate, even toward his own children. With them, as with the rest of the world, he felt that he had a reputation to maintain, a theory to vindicate. He could afford to give them time to see that he was absolutely right. One of his favorite scripture quotations was, Wait on the Lord. He had applied it to real estate and to people with profitable results. But to human persons the sensation of being waited for is not always agreeable. Sometimes, especially with the young, it produces a vague restlessness, a dumb resentment, which is increased by the fact that one can hardly explain or justify it. Of this, John Waitman was not conscious. It lay beyond his horizon. He did not take it into account in the plan of life which he had made for himself and for his family as the sharers and inheritors of his success. Father plays us, said Harold, in a moment of irritation to his mother, like pieces in a game of chess. My dear, said that lady whose faith in her husband was religious, you ought not to speak so impatiently. At least he wins the game. He is one of the most respected men in New York, and he is very generous too. I wish he would be more generous in letting us be ourselves, said the young man. He always has something in view for us, and expects to move us up to it. But isn't it always for our benefit, replied his mother, look what a position we have. No one can say that there is any taint on our money. There are no rumors about your father. He has kept the laws of God and of man. He has never made any mistakes. Harold got up from his chair and poked the fire. Then he came back to the ample, well-gowned, firm-looking lady and sat beside her on the sofa. He took her hand gently and looked at the two rings, a thin band of yellow gold and a small solitaire diamond, which kept their place on her third finger in modest dignity, as if not shamed but rather justified by the splendor of the emerald which glittered beside them. Mother, he said, you have a wonderful hand, and father made no mistake when he won you. But are you sure he has always been so inerent? Harold, she exclaimed a little stiffly, what do you mean? His life is an open book. Oh, he answered, I don't mean anything bad, mother dear. I know the governor's life is an open book, a ledger, if you like, kept in the best bookkeeping hand and always ready for inspection, every page correct and showing a handsome balance. But isn't it a mistake not to allow us to make our own mistakes, to learn for ourselves, to live our own lives? If we be always working for the balance in one thing or another, I want to be myself, to get outside of this everlasting, profitable plan, to let myself go and lose myself for a while at least, to do the things that I want to do, just because I want to do them. My boy, said his mother anxiously, you are not going to do anything wrong or foolish. You know the falsehood of that old proverb about wild oats. He threw back his head and laughed. Yes, mother, he answered, I know it well enough. But in California, you know, the wild oats are one of the most valuable crops. They grow all over the hillsides and keep the cattle and the horses alive. But that wasn't what I meant to sow wild oats. Say to pick wild flowers, if you like, or even to chase wild geese, to do something that seems good to me just for its own sake, not for the sake of wages of one kind or another. I feel like a hired man in the service of this magnificent mansion, say, in training for father's place as major domo. I'd like to get out some way, to feel free, perhaps to do something for others. The young man's voice hesitated a little. Yes, it sounds like can't, I know, but sometimes I feel as if I'd like to do some good in the world, if father only wouldn't insist upon gods putting it into the ledger. His mother moved uneasily, and a slight look of bewilderment came into her face. "'Isn't that almost irreverent?' she asked. "'Surely the righteous must have their reward. And your father is good. See how much he gives to all the established charities, how many things he has founded. He's always thinking of others and planning for them. And surely for us he does everything. How well he has planned this trip to Europe for me and the girls. The court presentation at Berlin, the season on the Riviera, the visits in England with the Plumptons and the Halverstuns. He says Lord Halverstun has the finest old house in Sussex, pure Elizabethan, and all the old customs are kept up, too, family prayers every morning for all the domestics. By the way, you know his son Bertie, I believe.' Harold smiled a little to himself as he answered, "'Yes, I fished at Catalina Island last June with the honourable Ethelbert. He's a rather decent chap, in spite of his ingrowing mind. But you? You are simply magnificent. You are Fowler's masterpiece.' The young man leaned over to kiss her and went up to the riding-club for his afternoon canter in the park. So it came to pass, early in December, that Mrs. Whiteman and her two daughters sailed for Europe on their serious pleasure trip, even as it had been written in the book of Providence, and John Whiteman, who had made the entry, was left to pass the rest of the winter with his son and heir in the brownstone mansion. They were comfortable enough, the machinery of the massive establishment ran as smoothly as a great electric dynamo. They were busy enough, too. John Whiteman's plans and enterprises were complicated, though his principle of action was always simple, to get good value for every expenditure and effort. The banking house of which he was the chief, the brain, the will, the absolutely controlling hand, was so admirably organized that the details of its direction took but little time. But the scores of other interests that radiated from it and were dependent upon it, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that contributed to its solidity and success, the many investments, industrial, political, benevolent, reformatory, ecclesiastical that had made the name of Whiteman well known and potent in city, church, and state, demanded much attention and careful steering, in order that each might produce the desired result. There were board meetings of corporations and hospitals, conferences in Wall Street and at Albany, consultations and committee meetings in the brownstone mansion. For a share in all this business and its adjuncts, John Whiteman had his son in training in one of the famous law firms of the city, for he held that banking itself is a simple affair, the only real difficulties of finance are on its legal side. In time he wished the young man to meet and know the men with whom he would have to deal when he became a partner in the house. So a couple of dinners were given in the mansion during December, after which the father called the son's attention to the fact that over a hundred million dollars had sat around the board. But on Christmas Eve father and son were dining together without guests, and their talk across the broad table, glittering with silver and cut glass, and softly lit by shaded candles, was intimate, though a little slow at times. The elder man was in rather a rare mood, more expansive and confidential than usual, and when the coffee was brought in and they were left alone, he talked more freely of his personal plans and hopes than he had ever done before. I feel very grateful to-night, said he at last. It must be something in the air of Christmas that gives me this feeling of thankfulness for the many divine mercies that have been bestowed upon me. All the principles by which I have tried to guide my life have been justified. I have never made the value of this salted almond by anything that the courts would not uphold, at least in the long run, and yet, or wouldn't it be truer to say, and therefore, my affairs have been wonderfully prospered. There's a great deal in that text honesty is the best, but no, that's not from the Bible after all, is it? Wait a moment. There is something of the kind, I know. May I light a cigar, Father? said Harold, turning away to hide a smile, while you are remembering the text. Yes, certainly, answered the elder man rather shortly. You know I don't dislike the smell, but it is a wasteful, useless habit, and therefore I have never practiced it. Nothing useless is worthwhile, that's my motto. Nothing that does not bring the reward. Oh, now I recall the text. Verily I say unto you they have their reward. I shall ask Dr. Snodgrass to preach a sermon on that verse some day. Using you as an illustration? Well, not exactly that, but I could give him some good materials from my own experience to prove the truth of scripture. I can honestly say that there is not one of my charities that has not brought me in a good return, either in the increase of influence, the building up of credit, or the association with substantial people. Of course you have to be careful how you give, in order to secure the best results, no indiscriminate giving, no pennies in beggar's hats. It has been one of my principles always to use the same kind of judgment in charities that I use in my other affairs, and they have not disappointed me. Even the check that you put in the plate when you take the offertory up the aisle on Sunday morning? Certainly, though there the influence is less direct, and I must confess that I have my doubts in regard to the collection for foreign missions. That always seems to me romantic and wasteful. You never hear from it in any definite way. They say the missionaries have done a good deal to open the way for trade, perhaps, but they have also gotten us into commercial and political difficulties. Yet I give to them a little. It is a matter of conscience with me to identify myself with all the enterprises of the church. It is the mainstay of social order and a prosperous civilization. But the best forms of benevolence are the well-established organized ones here at home, where people can see them and know what they are doing. You mean the ones that have a local habitation and a name. Yes, they offer by far the safest return, though, of course, there is something gained by contributing to general funds. A public man can't afford to be without public spirit. But on the whole I prefer a building, or an endowment. There is a mutual advantage to a good name and a good institution in their connection in the public mind. It helps them both. Remember that, my boy. Of course, at the beginning you will have to practice it in a small way. Later, you will have larger opportunities. But try to put your gifts where they can be identified and do good all around. You'll see the wisdom of it in the long run. I can see it already, sir, and the way you describe it looks amazingly wise and prudent. In other words, we must cast our bread on the waters in large loaves, carried by sound ships marked with the owner's name, so that the return freight will be sure to come back to us. The father laughed, but his eyes were frowning a little as if he suspected something irreverent under the respectful reply. You put it humorously, but there's sense in what you say. Why not? God rules the sea, but he expects us to follow the laws of navigation and commerce. Why not take good care of your bread, even when you give it away? It's not for me to say why not, and yet I can think of cases. The young man hesitated for a moment. His half-finished cigar had gone out. He rose and tossed it into the fire, in front of which he remained standing, a slender, eager, restless young figure, with a touch of hunger in the fine face, strangely like and unlike the father, at whom he looked with half-wistful curiosity. The fact is, sir, he continued, there is such a case in my mind now, that it is a good deal on my heart, too. So I thought of speaking to you about it tonight. You remember Tom Rollins, the junior who was so good to me when I entered college? The father nodded. He remembered very well indeed the annoying incidents of his son's first escapade, and how Rollins had stood by him and helped to avoid a public disgrace, and how a close friendship had grown between the two boys, so different in their fortunes. Yes, he said, I remember him. He was a promising young man, as he succeeded. Not exactly. That is not yet. His business has been going rather badly. He has a wife and little baby, you know. And now he has broken down something wrong with his lungs. The doctor says his only chance is a year or eighteen months in Colorado. I wish we could help him. How much would it cost? Three or four thousand, perhaps as alone. Does the doctor say he will get well? A fighting chance, the doctor says. The face of the older man changed subtly. Not a line was altered, but it seemed to have a different substance, as if it were carved out of some firm, imperishable stuff. A fighting chance, he said, made due for a speculation, but it is not a good investment. You owe something to young Rollins. Your grateful feeling does you credit, but don't overwork it. Find him three or four hundred, if you like. You'll never hear from it again, except in the letter of thanks. But for heaven's sake, don't be sentimental. Religion is not a matter of sentiment. It's a matter of principle. The face of the younger man changed now. But instead of becoming fixed and graven, it seemed to melt into life by the heat of an inward fire. His nostrils quivered with quick breath. His lips were curled. Principle, he said. You mean principle, and interest too. Well, sir, you know best whether that is religion or not. But if it is, count me out, please. Tom saved me from going to the devil six years ago, and I'll be damned if I don't help him to the best of my ability now. John Waitman looked at his son steadily. Harold, he said at last. You know I dislike violent language, and it never has any influence with me. If I could honestly approve of this proposition of yours, I'd let you have the money. But I can't. It's extravagant and useless. But you have your Christmas check for $1,000 coming to you tomorrow. You can use it as you please. I never interfere with your private affairs. Thank you, said Harold. Thank you very much. But there's another private affair. I want to get away from this life, this town, this house. It stifles me. You refused last summer when I asked you to let me go up to Grinfell's mission on the Labrador. I could go now, at least as far as the Newfoundland station. Have you changed your mind? Not at all. I think it is an exceedingly foolish enterprise. It would interrupt the career that I have marked out for you. Well then, here's a cheaper proposition. Algie van der Hoof wants me to join him on his yacht with, well, with a little party, to cruise in the West Indies. Would you prefer that? Certainly not. The van der Hoof set is wild and godless. I do not wish to see you keeping company with fools who walk in the broad and easy way that leads to perdition. It is rather a hard choice, said the young man, with a short laugh turning toward the door. According to you, there's very little difference, a fool's paradise or a fool's hell. Well, it's one or the other for me and I'll toss up for it tonight. Heads I lose, tails the devil wins. Anyway, I'm sick of this and I'm out of it. Harold, said the older man, and there was a slight tremor in his voice. Don't let us quarrel on Christmas Eve. All I want is to persuade you to think seriously of the duties and responsibilities to which God has called you. Don't speak lightly of heaven and hell. Remember, there is another life." The young man came back and laid his hand upon his father's shoulder. Father, he said, I want to remember it. I tried to believe in it. But somehow or other in this house it all seems unreal to me. No doubt all you say is perfectly right and wise. I don't venture to argue against it, but I can't feel it, that's all. If I'm to have a soul, either to lose or to save, I must really live. Just now neither the present nor the future means anything to me. But surely we won't quarrel. I'm very grateful to you, and we'll part friends. Good night, sir." The father held out his hand in silence. The heavy porterre dropped noiselessly behind the sun, and he went up the wide curving stairway to his own room. Meantime John Waitman sat in his carved chair in the Jacobian dining-room. He felt strangely old and dull. The portraits of beautiful women by Lawrence and Reynolds and Rayburn, which had often seemed like real company to him, looked remote and uninteresting. He fancied something cold and almost unfriendly in their expression, as if they were staring through him or beyond him. They cared nothing for his principles, his hopes, his disappointments, his successes. They belonged to another world in which he had no place. At this he felt a vague resentment, a sense of discomfort that he could not have defined or explained. He was used to being considered, respected, appreciated at his full value in every region, even in that of his own dreams. Presently he rang for the butler, telling him to close the house and not to sit up, and walked with lagging steps into the long library, where the shaded lamps were burning. His eye fell upon the low shelves full of costly books, but he had no desire to open them. Even the carefully chosen pictures that hung above them seemed to have lost their attraction. He paused for a moment before an idol of Corot, a dance of nymphs around some forgotten altar in a vaporous glade, and looked at it curiously. There was something rapturous and serene about the picture, a breath of springtime in the misty trees, a harmony of joy in the dancing figures that wakened in him a feeling of half-pleasure and half-envy. It represented something that he had never known in his calculated orderly life. He was dimly mistrustful of it. It is certainly very beautiful, he thought, but it is distinctly pagan. That altar is built to some heathen god. It does not fit into the scheme of a Christian life. I doubt whether it is consistent with the tone of my house. I will sell it this winter. It will bring three or four times what I paid for it. That was a good purchase, a very good bargain. He dropped into the revolving chair before his big library table. It was covered with pamphlets and reports of the various enterprises in which he was interested. There was a pile of newspaper clippings in which his name was mentioned with praise for his sustaining power as a pillar of finance, for his judicious benevolence, for his support of wise and prudent reform movements, for his discretion in making permanent public gifts. The Waitman Charities, one very complacent editor called them, as if they deserved classification as a distinct species. He turned the papers over listlessly. There was a description and a picture of the Waitman Wing of the Hospital for Cripples, of which he was president, and an article on the new professor in the Waitman Chair of Political Jurisprudence in Jackson University, of which he was a trustee, and an illustrated account of the opening of the Waitman Grammar School at Dolich on the Sound, where he had his legal residence for purposes of taxation. The last was perhaps the most carefully planned of all the Waitman Charities. He desired to win the confidence and support of his rural neighbors. It had pleased him much when the local newspaper had spoken of him as an ideal citizen and the logical candidate for the governorship of the state. But upon the whole it seemed to him wiser to keep out of active politics. It would be easier and better to put Harold into the running, and to have him sent to the legislature from the Dolich District, then to the National House, then to the Senate. Why not? The Waitman interests were large enough to need a direct representative and guardian at Washington. But tonight all these plans came back to him with dust upon them. They were dry and crumbling like forsaken habitations. The son upon whom his complacent ambition had rested had turned his back upon the mansion of his father's hopes. The break might not be final, and in any event there would be much to live for the fortunes of the family would be secure. But the zest of it all would be gone if John Waitman had to give up the assurance of perpetuating his name and his principles in his son. It was a bitter disappointment, and he felt that he had not deserved it. He rose from the chair and paced the room with leaden feet. For the first time in his life his age was visibly upon him. His head was heavy and hot, and the thoughts that rolled in it were confused and depressing. Could it be that he had made a mistake in the principles of his existence? There was no argument in what Harold had said. It was almost childish, and yet it had shaken the elder man more deeply than he cared to show. It held a silent attack which touched him more than open criticism. Suppose the end of his life were nearer than he thought. The end must come some time. What if it were now? Had he not founded his house upon a rock? Had he not kept the commandments? Was he not touching the law blameless? And beyond this, even if there were some faults in his character, and all men are sinners, yet he surely believed in the saving doctrines of religion, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, the life everlasting. Yes, that was the true source of comfort after all. He would read a bit in the Bible, as he did every night, and go to bed and to sleep. He went back to his chair at the library table. A strange weight of weariness rested upon him, but he opened the book out a familiar place, and his eyes fell upon the verse at the bottom of the page, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth. That had been the text of the sermon a few weeks before. Ripley, heavily, he tried to fix his mind upon it and recall it. What was it that Dr. Snodgrass had said? Ah, yes, that it was a mistake to pause here in reading the verse. We must read on without a pause. Lay not up treasures upon earth where moth and rust do corrupt and where thieves break through and steal. That was the true doctrine. We may have treasures upon earth, but they must not be put into unsafe places, but into safe places. A most comforting doctrine, he had always followed it. Moths and rust and thieves had done no harm to his investments. John Waitman's drooping eyes turned to the next verse at the top of the second column, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Now, what had the doctor said about that? How was it to be understood in what sense, treasures, in heaven? The book seemed to float away from him, the light vanished. He wondered dimly if this could be death coming so suddenly, so quietly, so irresistibly. He struggled for a moment to hold himself up and then sank slowly forward upon the table. His head rested upon his folded hands. He slipped into the unknown. How long afterward conscious life returned to him he did not know. The blank might have been an hour or a century. He knew only that something had happened in the interval. What it was he could not tell. He found great difficulty in catching the thread of his identity again. He felt that he was himself, but the trouble was to make his connections, to verify and place himself, to know who and where he was. At last it grew clear John Waitman was sitting on a stone not far from a road in a strange land. The road was not a formal highway, fenced and graded. It was more like a great travel-trace, worn by thousands of feet passing across the open country in the same direction. Down in the valley, into which he could look, the road seemed to form itself gradually out of many minor paths, little footways coming across the meadows, winding tracks following along beside the streams, faintly marked trails emerging from the woodlands. But on the hillside the threads were more firmly woven into one clear band of travel, though there were still a few dim paths joining it here and there, as if persons had been climbing up the hill by other ways and had turned at last to seek the road. From the edge of the hill where John Waitman sat, he could see the travelers, in little groups or larger companies, gathering from time to time by the different paths and making the ascent. They were all clothed in white, and the form of their garments was strange to him. It was like some old picture. They passed him, group after group, talking quietly together or singing, not moving in haste but with a certain air of eagerness and joy as if they were glad to be on their way to an appointed place. They did not stay to speak to him, but they looked at him often and spoke to one another as they looked, and now and then one of them would smile and beckon him a friendly greeting, so that he felt they would like him to be with them. There was quite an interval between the groups, and he followed each of them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the long ribbon of the road for a little transient space, rising and receding across the wide, billowy upland, among the rounded hillocks of aerial green and gold and lilac, until it came to the high horizon, and stood outlined for a moment a tiny cloud of whiteness against the tender blue before it vanished over the hill. For a long time he sat there watching and wondering. It was a very different world from that in which his mansion on the avenue was built, and it looked strange to him, but most real, as real as anything he had ever seen. Presently he felt a strong desire to know what country it was and where the people were going. He had a faint premonition of what it must be, but he wished to be sure. So he rose from the stone where he was sitting, and came down through the short grass and the lavender flowers, toward a passing group of people, one of them turned to meet him and held out his hand. It was an old man, under whose white beard and brows John Waitman thought he saw a suggestion of the face of the village doctor who had cared for him years ago, when he was a boy in the country. Welcome, said the old man, will you come with us? Where are you going? To the heavenly city to see our mansions there. And who are these with you? Strangers to me until a little while ago. I know them better now, but you I have known for a long time, John Waitman. Don't you remember your old doctor? Yes, he cried, yes. Your voice has not changed at all. I'm glad indeed to see you, Dr. McLean, especially now. All this seems very strange to me, almost oppressive. I wonder if, but may I go with you, do you suppose? Surely, answered the doctor, with his familiar smile, it will do you good, and you also must have a mansion in the city waiting for you, a fine one too. Are you not looking forward to it? Yes, replied the other, hesitating a moment, yes, I believe it must be so, although I had not expected to see it so soon. I will go with you, and we can talk, by the way. The two men quickly caught up with the other people, and all went forward together along the road. The doctor had little to tell of his experience, for it had been a plain hard life, uneventfully spent for others, and the story of the village was very simple. John Waitman's adventures and triumphs would have made a far richer, more imposing history, full of contacts with the great events and personages of the time. But somehow or other he did not care to speak much about it, walking on that wide, heavenly moorland, under that tranquil, sunless arch of blue, in that free air of perfect peace where the light was diffused without a shadow, as if the spirit of life in all things were luminous. There was only one person besides the doctor in that little company whom John Waitman had known before, an old bookkeeper who had spent his life over a desk, carefully keeping accounts, a rusty, dull little man, patient and narrow, whose wife had been in the insane asylum for twenty years, and whose only child was a crippled daughter, for whose comfort and happiness he had toiled and sacrificed himself without stent. It was a surprise to find him here, as carefree and joyful as the rest. The lives of others in the company were revealed in brief glimpses as they talked together. A mother, early widowed, who had kept her little flock of children together and labored through hard and heavy years to bring them up in purity and knowledge. A sister of charity who had devoted herself to the nursing of poor folk who were being eaten to death by cancer. A schoolmaster whose heart and life had been poured into his quiet work of training boys for a clean and thoughtful manhood. A medical missionary who had given up a brilliant career in science to take the charge of a hospital in darkest Africa. A beautiful woman with silver hair who had resigned her dreams of love and marriage to care for an invalid father, and after his death had made her life a long, steady search for ways of doing kindnesses to others. A poet who had walked among the crowded tenements of the great city, bringing cheer and comfort not only by his songs, but by his wise and patient works of practical aid. A paralyzed woman who had lain for thirty years upon her bed, helpless but not hopeless, succeeding by a miracle of courage in her single aim never to complain but always to impart a bit of joy and peace to everyone who came near her. All these, and other persons like them, people of little consideration in the world, but now seemingly all full of great contentment and an inward gladness that made their steps light, were in the company that passed along the road, talking together of things past and things to come, and singing now and then with clear voices from which the veil of age and sorrow was lifted. John Waitman joined in some of the songs, which were familiar to him from their use in the church, at first with a touch of hesitation, and then more confidently, for as they went on his sense of strangeness and fear at his new experience diminished, and his thoughts began to take on their habitual assurance and complacency. Were not these people going to the celestial city, and was not he in his right place among them? He had always looked forward to this journey. If they were sure each one of finding a mansion there, could not he be far more sure? His life had been more fruitful than theirs. He had been a leader, a founder of new enterprises, a pillar of church and state, a prince of the house of Israel. Ten talents had been given him, and he had made them twenty. His reward would be proportionate. He was glad that his companions were going to find fit dwellings prepared for them, but he thought also with a certain pleasure of the surprise that some of them would feel when they saw his appointed mansion. So they came to the summit of the Moorland and looked over into the world beyond. It was a vast green plain, softly rounded like a shallow vase, and circled with hills of amethyst. A broad shining river flowed through it, and many silver threads of water were woven across the green, and there were borders of tall trees on the banks of the river, and orchards full of roses a bloom along the little streams, and in the midst of all stood the city, white and wonderful and radiant. When the travellers saw it they were filled with awe and joy. They passed over the little streams and among the orchards quickly and silently, as if they feared to speak lest the city should vanish. The wall of the city was very low, a child could see over it, for it was made only of precious stones, which are never large. The gate of the city was not like a gate at all, for it was not barred with iron or wood, but only a single pearl, softly gleaming, about the place where the wall ended and the entrance lay open. A person stood there whose face was bright and grave, and whose robe was like the flower of the lily, not a woven fabric, but a living texture. Come in, he said to the company of travellers, you are at your journey's end, and your mansions are ready for you. John Waitman hesitated, for he was troubled by a doubt. Suppose that he was not really, like his companions, at his journey's end, but only transported for a little while out of the regular course of his life into this mysterious experience. Suppose that, after all, he had not really passed through the door of death, like these others, but only through the door of dreams, and was walking in a vision, a living man among the blessed dead, would it be right for him to go with them into the heavenly city? Would it not be a deception, a desecration, a deep and unforgivable offence? The strange, confusing question had no reason in it, as he very well knew, for if he was dreaming, then it was all a dream, but if his companions were real, then he also was with them in reality, and if they had died then he must have died too. Yet he could not rid his mind of the sense that there was a difference between them and him, and it made him afraid to go on. But as he paused and turned, the keeper of the gate looked straight and deep into his eyes and beckoned to him. Then he knew that it was not only right but necessary that he should enter. They passed from street to street among fair and spacious dwellings, set in Amorantin gardens, and adorned with an infinitely varied beauty of divine simplicity. The mansions differed in size, in shape, in charm. Each one seemed to have its own personal look of loveliness, yet all were alike in fitness to their place, in harmony with one another, in the addition which each made to the singular and tranquil splendor of the city. As the little company came, one by one, to the mansions which were prepared for them, and their guide beckoned to the happy inhabitant to enter in and take possession, there was a soft murmur of joy, half wonder and half recognition, as if the new and immortal dwelling were crowned with the beauty of surprise, lovelier and nobler than all the dreams of it had been, and yet also as if it were touched with the beauty of the familiar, the remembered, the long loved. One after another the travelers were led to their own mansions, and went in gladly, and from within, through the open doorways came sweet voices of welcome, and low laughter, and song. At last there was no one left with the guide but the two old friends, Dr. McClain and John Waitman. They were standing in front of one of the largest and fairest of the houses, whose garden glowed softly with radiant flowers. The guide laid his hand upon the doctor's shoulder. "'This is for you,' he said, "'Go in. There is no more pain here, no more death nor sorrow nor tears, for your old enemies are all conquered. But all the good that you have done for others, all the help that you have given, all the comfort that you have brought, all the strength and love that you have bestowed upon the suffering are here, for we have built them all into this mansion for you.'" The good man's face was lighted with a still joy. He clasped his old friend's hand closely and whispered, "'How wonderful it is! Go on. You will come to your mansion next. It is not far away, and we shall see each other again soon, very soon.' So he went through the garden and into the music within. The keeper of the gate turned to John Waitman with level, quiet, searching eyes. Then he asked gravely, "'Where do you wish me to lead you now?' "'To see my own mansion,' answered the man, with half-concealed excitement, "'is there not one here for me? You may not let me enter it yet, perhaps, for I must confess to you that I am only, I know,' said the keeper of the gate, "'I know it all. You are John Waitman.' "'Yes,' said the man, more firmly than he had spoken at first, for it gratified him that his name was known. Yes, I am John Waitman, senior warden of St. Patronius Church. I wish very much to see my mansion here, if only for a moment. I believe that you have one for me. Will you take me to it?' The keeper of the gate drew a little book from the breast of his robe and turned over the pages. "'Certainly,' he said, with a curious look at the man, "'your name is here, and you shall see your mansion if you will follow me.' It seemed as if they must have walked miles and miles through the vast city, passing street after street of houses larger and smaller, of gardens richer and poorer, but all full of beauty and delight. They came into a kind of suburb, where there were many small cottages with plots of flowers, very lowly, but bright and fragrant. Finally they reached an open field, bare and lonely looking. There were two or three little bushes in it, without flowers, and the grass was sparse and thin. In the center of the field was a tiny hut, hardly big enough for a shepherd's shelter. It looked as if it had been built of discarded things, scraps and fragments of other buildings, put together with care and pains by someone who had tried to make the most of cast-off material. There was something pitiful and shame-faced about the hut. It shrank and drooped and faded in its bare and field, and seemed to cling only by sufferance to the edge of the splendid city. "'This,' said the keeper of the gate, standing still and speaking with a low, distinct voice, "'this is your mansion, John Waitman.' An almost intolerable shock of grieved wonder and indignation choked the man for a moment so that he could not say a word. Then he turned his face away from the poor little hut and began to remonstrate eagerly with his companion. "'Surely, sir,' he stammered, "'you must be in error about this. There is something wrong. Some other John Waitman, a confusion of names. The book must be mistaken. "'There is no mistake,' said the keeper of the gate very calmly. "'Here is your name, the record of your title and your possessions in this place. "'But how could such a house be prepared for me?' cried the man, with a resentful tremor in his voice, "'For me, after my long and fateful service, is this a suitable mansion for one so well known and devoted? Why is it so pitifully small and mean? Why have you not built it large and fair like the others?' "'That is all the material you sent us.' "'What?' "'We have used all the material that you sent us,' repeated the keeper of the gate. "'Now I know that you are mistaken,' cried the man, with growing earnestness, "'For all my life long I have been doing things that must have supplied you with material. "'Have you not heard that I have built a schoolhouse, the wing of a hospital, two, yes, three small churches, and the greater part of a large one, the spire of Saint Petro?' The keeper of the gate lifted his hand. "'Wait,' he said, "'we know all these things. They were not ill-done. But they were all marked and used as foundation for the name and mansion of John Waitman in the world. Did you not plan them for that?' "'Yes,' answered the man, confused and taken aback. "'I confess that I thought often of them in that way. Perhaps my heart was set upon that too much, but there are other things—my endowment for the college, my steady and liberal contributions to all the established charities, my support of every respectable wait,' said the keeper of the gate again. "'Were not all these carefully recorded on earth where they would add to your credit? They were not foolishly done. Verily, you have had your reward for them. Would you be paid twice?' "'No,' cried the man, with deepening dismay. "'I dare not claim that. I acknowledge that I considered my own interest too much. But surely not altogether. You have said that these things were not foolishly done. They accomplished some good in the world. Does that not count for something?' "'Yes,' answered the keeper of the gate. It counts in the world, where you counted it. But it does not belong to you here. We have saved and used everything that you sent us. This is the mansion prepared for you.' As he spoke, his look grew deeper and more searching, like a flame of fire. John Waitman could not endure it. It seemed to strip him naked and wither him. He sank to the ground under a crushing weight of shame, covering his eyes with his hands and cowering face downward upon the stones. Dimly through the trouble of his mind he felt their hardness and coldness. "'Tell me, then,' he cried, brokenly, "'since my life has been so little worth, how came I here at all?' Through the mercy of the king. The answer was like the soft tolling of a bell. "'And how have I earned it?' he murmured. "'It is never earned, it is only given,' came the clear, low reply. "'But how have I failed so wretchedly?' he asked, in all the purpose of my life. What could I have done better? What is it that counts here?' "'Only that which is truly given,' answered the bell-like voice. Only that good which is done for the love of doing it. Only those plans in which the welfare of others is the master thought. Only those labours in which the sacrifice is greater than the reward. Only those gifts in which the giver forgets himself. The man lay silent. A great weakness, an unspeakable despondency and humiliation were upon him. But the face of the keeper of the gate was infinitely tender as he bent over him. Think again, John Waitman, has there been nothing like that in your life?' "'Nothing,' he sighed. If there ever were such things it must have been long ago. They were all crowded out, I've forgotten them. There was an ineffable smile on the face of the keeper of the gate, and his hand made the sign of the cross over the bowed head as he spoke gently. These are the things that the king never forgets, and because there were a few of them in your life you have a little place here. The sense of coldness and hardness under John Waitman's hands grew sharper and more distinct. The feeling of bodily weariness and lassitude weighed upon him. But there was a calm, almost a lightness in his heart, as he listened to the fading vibrations of the silvery bell-tones. The chimney-clock on the mantel had just ended the last stroke of seven as he lifted his head from the table. Then pale strips of the city morning were falling into the room through the narrow partings of the heavy curtains. What was it that had happened to him? Had he been ill? Had he died and come to life again? Or had he only slept and had his soul gone visiting in dreams? He sat for some time, motionless, not lost, but finding himself in thought. Then he took a narrow book from the table drawer, wrote a check, and tore it out. He went slowly up the stairs, knocked very softly at his son's door, and hearing no answer, entered without noise. Harold was asleep, his bare arm thrown above his head, and his eager face relaxed in peace. His father looked at him a moment with strangely shining eyes, and then tiptoed quietly to the writing desk, found a pencil and a sheet of paper, and wrote rapidly, My dear boy, here is what you asked me for. Do what you like with it, and ask for more if you need it. If you are still thinking of that work with Grenfell, we'll talk it over to-day after church. I want to know your heart better, and if I have made mistakes, a slight noise made him turn his head. Harold was sitting up in bed with wide open eyes. Father, he cried, is that you? Yes, my son, answered John Whiteman, I've come back. I mean, I've come up. No, I mean, come in. Well, here I am, and God give us a good Christmas together. End of The Mansion by Henry Van Dyke. My military campaign by Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Harold Stewart. My military campaign by Mark Twain. You have heard from a great many people who did something in the war. Is it not fair and right that you listen a little moment to one who started out to do something in it, but didn't? Thousands entered the war, got just a taste of it, and then stepped out again permanently. These, by their very numbers, are respectable and are therefore entitled to a sort of voice, not a loud one, but a modest one. Not a boastful one, but an apologetic one. They ought not to be allowed much space among better people, people who did something, I grant that, but they ought at least to be allowed to state why they didn't do anything, and also to explain the process by which they didn't do anything. Surely this kind of light must have a sort of value. Out west there was a good deal of confusion in men's minds during the first months of the Great Trouble, a good deal of unsettledness, of leaning first this way, then that, and then the other way. It was hard for us to get our bearings. I called to mind an instance of this. I was piloting on the Mississippi when the news came that South Carolina had gone out of the Union on December 20th, 1860. My pilot mate was a New Yorker. He was strong for the Union. So was I. But he would not listen to me with any patience. My loyalty was smirched to his eye because my father had owned slaves. I said, in palliation of this dark fact, that I had heard my father say some years before he died that slavery was a great wrong, and that he would free the solitary Negro he then owned, if he could think it right to give away the property of the family when he was so straightened in means. My mate retorted that a mere impulse was nothing. Anybody could pretend to a good impulse, and went on decrying my Unionism and libeling my ancestry. A month later the secession atmosphere had considerably thickened on the lower Mississippi, and I became a rebel. So did he. We were together in New Orleans, January 26th, when Louisiana went out of the Union. He did his full share of the rebel shouting, but was bitterly opposed to letting me do mine. He said that I came of bad stock, of a father who had been willing to set slaves free. In the following summer he was piloting a federal gunboat and shouting for the Union again. And I was in the Confederate Army. I held his note for some borrowed money. He was one of the most upright men I ever knew. But he repudiated that note without hesitation, because I was a rebel and the son of a man who had owned slaves. In that summer of 1861 the first wash of the wave of war broke upon the shores of Missouri. Our state was invaded by the Union forces. They took possession of St. Louis, Jefferson Barracks, and some other points. The governor, Caleb Jackson, issued his proclamation calling out 50,000 militia to repel the invader. I was visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been spent. Hannibal, Marion County. Several of us got together in a secret place by night and formed ourselves into a military company. One Tom Lyman, a young fellow of a good deal of spirit but of no military experience, was made captain. I was made second lieutenant. We had no first lieutenant. I do not know why. It was long ago. There were fifteen of us. By the advice of an innocent connected with the organization we called ourselves the Marion Rangers. I do not remember that anyone found fault with the name. I did not. I thought it sounded quite well. The young fellow who proposed this title was perhaps a fair sample of the kind of stuff we were made of. He was young, ignorant, good-natured, well-meaning, trivial, full of romance, and given to reading chivalric novels and singing forlorn love ditties. He had some pathetic little nickel-plated aristocratic instincts and detested his name, which was Dunlap. Detested it, partly because it was nearly as common in that region as Smith, but mainly because it had a plebeian sound to his ear. So he tried to ennoble it by writing it in this way. Dunlap. That contended his eye, but left his ear unsatisfied, for people gave the new name the same old pronunciation, emphasis on the front end of it. He then did the bravest thing that can be imagined, a thing to make one shiver when one remembers how the world is given to resenting shams and affectations. He began to write his name so, Daunlap, and he waited patiently through the long storm of mud that was flung at this work of art, and he had his reward at last, for he lived to see that name accepted, and the emphasis put where he wanted it, by people who had known him all his life, and to whom the tribe of Dunlaps had been as familiar as the rain and the sunshine for forty years. So sure a victory at last is the courage that can wait. He said he had found, by consulting some ancient French chronicles, that the name was rightly and originally written, Daunlap, and said that if it were translated in English it would mean Peterson. Lap, Latin or Greek, he said, for stone or rock, same as the French prière. That is to say, Peter, Da, of or from, Un, A or One, hence Daunlap, of or from a stone or a Peter. That is to say, one who is the son of a stone, the son of a Peter, Peterson. Our militia company were not learned, and the explanation confused them. So they called him Peterson Dunlap. He proved useful to us in his way. He named our camps for us, and he generally struck a name that was no slouch, as the boy said. That is one sample of us. Another was Ed Stevens, son of the town jeweler, trim-built, handsome, graceful, neat as a cat, bright, educated, but given over entirely to fun. There was nothing serious in life to him. As far as he was concerned, this military expedition of ours was simply a holiday. I should say that about half of us looked upon it in the same way. Not consciously perhaps, but unconsciously. We did not think. We were not capable of it, as for myself. I was full of unreasoning joy to be done with turning out of bed at midnight and four in the morning for a while, grateful to have a change, new scenes, new occupations, a new interest. In my thoughts, that was as far as I went. I did not go into the details. As a rule, one doesn't at twenty-five. Another sample was Smith, the blacksmith's apprentice. This vast donkey had some pluck, of a slow and sluggish nature, but a soft heart. At one time he would knock a horse down for some impropriety, and at another he would get homesick and cry. However, he had one ultimate credit to his account, which some of us hadn't. He stuck to the war, and was killed in battle at last. Joe Bowers, another sample, was a huge, good-natured, flax-headed lover, lazy, sentimental, full of harmless brag, a grumbler by nature, an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar. And yet not a successful one, for he had had no intelligent training, but was allowed to come up just any way. This life was serious enough to him, and seldom satisfactory, but he was a good fellow anyway, and the boys all liked him. He was made orderly sergeant, Stevens was made corporal. These samples will answer, and they are quite fair ones. Well, this herd of cattle started for the war. What could you expect of them? They did as well as they knew how. But really, what was justly to be expected of them? Nothing I should say. That is what they did. We waited for a dark night, for caution and secrecy were necessary, then toward midnight we stole in couples and from various directions to the Griffith Place, beyond the town. From that point we set out together on foot. People lies at the extreme southeastern corner of Marion County, on the Mississippi River. Our objective point was the Hamlet of New London, ten miles away, in Rawls County. The first hour was all fun, all idle nonsense and laughter. But that could not be kept up. The steady trudging came to be like work. The play had somehow oozed out of it. The stillness of the woods and the somberness of the night began to throw a depressing influence over the spirits of the boys. And presently the talking died out, and each person shut himself up in his own thoughts. During the last half of the second hour nobody said a word. Now we approached a log farmhouse where, according to report, there was a guard of five Union soldiers. One called a halt, and there in the deep gloom of the overhanging branches he began to whisper a plan of assault upon that house which made the gloom more depressing than it was before. It was a crucial moment. We realized with a cold suddenness that here was no jest. We were standing face to face with actual war. We were equal to the occasion. In our response there was no hesitation, no indecision. We said that if Lyman wanted to meddle with those soldiers he could go ahead and do it. But if he waited for us to follow him he would wait a long time. Lyman urged, pleaded, tried to shame us, but it had no effect. Our course was plain, our minds were made up. We would flank the farmhouse, go out around, and that is what we did. We turned the position. We struck into the woods and entered upon a rough time, stumbling over roots, getting tangled in vines, and torn by briars. At last we reached an open place in a safe region, and sat down, blown and hot. To cool off and nurse our scratches and bruises. Lyman was annoyed, but the rest of us were cheerful. We had flanked the farmhouse. We had made our first military movement, and it was a success. We had nothing to fret about. We were feeling just the other way. Horseplay and laughing began again. The expedition was become a holiday frolic once more. Then we had two more hours of dull trudging and ultimate silence and depression. Then about dawn we straggled into New London, soiled, heel blistered, fagged with our little march, and all of us, except Stevens, in a sour and raspy humor, and privately down on the war. We stacked our shabby old shotguns in Colonel Rawls barn, and then went in a body and breakfasted with that veteran of the Mexican War. Afterwards he took us to a distant meadow, and there, in the shade of a tree, we listened to an old-fashioned speech from him, full of gunpowder and glory, full of that adjective piling, mixed metaphor, and windy declination which was regarded as eloquence in that ancient time in that remote region. And then he swore us on the Bible to be faithful to the State of Missouri and drive all invaders from her soil, no matter whence they might come, and under what flag they might march. This mixed us considerably, and we could not make out just what service we were embarked in. But Colonel Rawls, the practiced politician and phrase juggler, was not similarly in doubt. He knew quite clearly that he had invested us in the cause of the Southern Confederacy. He closed the solemnities by belting around me the sword which his neighbor, Colonel Brown, had won at Buena Vista and Malino del Rey, and he accompanied this act with another impressive blast. Then we formed in line of battle, and marched four miles to a shady and pleasant piece of woods on the border of the far-reached expanses of a flowery prairie. It was an enchanting region for war, our kind of war. We pierced the forest about half a mile and took up a strong position, with some low, rocky and wooded hills behind us, and a pearling, limpid creek in front. Straightway half the command were in swimming, and the other half fishing. The ass with the French name gave this position a romantic title, but it was too long, so the boys shortened it and simplified it to Camp Rawls. We occupied an old maple sugar camp whose half-rotted troughs were still propped against the trees. A long corn crib served for sleeping quarters for the battalion. On our left, half a mile away, was Mason's farm and house, and he was a friend to the cause. Shortly after noon the farmers began to arrive from several directions, with mules and horses for our use, and these they lent us for as long as the war might last, which they judged would be about three months. The animals were of all sizes, all colors, and all breeds. They were mainly young and frisky, and nobody in the command could stay on them long at a time, for we were town boys and ignorant of horsemanship. The creature that fell to my share was a very small mule, and yet so quick and active that it could throw me without difficulty, and it did this whenever I got on it. Then it would bray, stretching its neck out, laying its ears back, and spreading its jaws till you could see down to its works. It was a disagreeable animal in every way. If I took it by the bridle and tried to lead it off the grounds, it would sit down and brace back, and no one could budge it. However, I was not entirely destitute of military resources, and I did presently manage to spoil this game, for I had seen many a steamboat aground in my time, and knew a trick or two which even a grounded mule would be obliged to respect. There was a well by the corn crib, so I substituted thirty fathom of rope for the bridle, and fetched him home with the windlass. I will anticipate here sufficiently to say that we did learn to ride, after some days practice, but never well. We could not learn to like our animals, they were not choice ones, and most of them had annoying peculiarities of one kind or another. Stephen's horse would carry him, when he was not noticing, under the huge exocrances which form on the trunks of oak trees, and wipe him out of the saddle. In this way Stephen's got several bad hurts. Sergeant Bauer's horse was very large and tall, with slim long legs, and looked like a railroad bridge. His size enabled him to reach all about, and as far as he wanted to, with his head, so he was always biting Bauer's legs. On the march, in the sun, Bauer slept a good deal, and as soon as the horse recognized that he was asleep, he would reach around and bite him on the leg. His legs were black and blue with bites. This was the only thing that could ever make him swear, but this always did. Whenever the horse bit him, he always swore, and of course Stephen, who laughed at everything, laughed at this, and would even get into such convulsions over it, as to lose his balance and fall off his horse, and then Bauer's, already irritated by the pain of the horse bite, would resent the laughter with hard language, and there would be a quarrel. So that horse made no end of trouble, and bad blood in the command. However, I will get back to where I was, our first afternoon in the sugar camp. The sugar troughs came very handy as horse troughs, and we had plenty of corn to fill them with. I ordered Sergeant Bauer's to feed my mule, but he said that if I reckoned he went to war to be dry nursed to a mule, it wouldn't take me very long to find out my mistake. I believed that this was insubordination, but I was full of uncertainties about everything military, and so I let the thing pass, and went and ordered Smith, the blacksmith's apprentice, to feed my mule. He merely gave me a large, cold, sarcastic grin, such as an ostensibly seven-year-old horse gives you when you lift his lip and find he is fourteen, and turned his back on me. I then went to the captain, and asked if it was not right and proper and military for me to have an orderly. He said it was, but as there was only one orderly in the corps, it was but right that he himself should have Bauer's on his staff. Bauer said he wouldn't serve on anybody's staff, and if anybody thought he could make him, let him try it. So of course the thing had to be dropped. There was no other way. Next nobody would cook. It was considered a degradation, so we had no dinner. We lazied the rest of the pleasant afternoon away, some dozing under the trees, some smoking cobpipes and talking sweethearts in war, some playing games. By late supper time all hands were famished, and meet the difficulty all hands turned to on an equal footing and gathered wood, built fires, and cooked the meal. Afterward everything was smooth for a while. Then trouble broke out between the corporal and the sergeant, each claiming to rank the other. Nobody knew which was the higher office, so Lyman had to settle the matter by making the rank of both officers equal. The commander of an ignorant crew like that has many troubles and vexations, which probably do not occur in the regular army at all. However, with the song singing and yarn spinning around the campfire, everything presently became serene again, and by and by we raked the corn down level in one end of the crib, and all went to bed on it, tying a horse to the door, so that he would neigh if anyone tried to get in. Note, it was always my impression that that was what the horse was there for, and I know that it was also the impression of at least one other of the command, for we talked about it at the time, and admired the military ingenuity of the device. But when I was out west three years ago, I was told by Mr. A. G. Figua, a member of our company, that the horse was his, that the leaving him tied at the door was a matter of mere forgetfulness, and that to attribute it to intelligent invention was to give him quite too much credit. In support of his position, he called my attention to the suggestive fact that the artifice was not employed again. I had not thought of that before. End note. We had some horsemanship drill every four noon. Then, afternoons, we rode off here and there in squads a few miles, and visited the farmer's girls, and had a youthful good time, and got an honest good dinner or supper, and then home again to camp, happy and content. For a time, life was idly delicious. It was perfect. There was nothing to mar it. Then came some farmers with an alarm one day. They said it was rumored that the enemy were advancing in our direction from over Hyde's prairie. The result was a sharp stir among us and general consternation. It was a rude awakening from our pleasant trance. The rumor was but a rumor, nothing definite about it. So in the confusion, we did not know which way to retreat. Lyman was for not retreating at all in these uncertain circumstances, but he found that if he tried to maintain that attitude, he would fare badly, for the command were in no humor to put up with insubordination. So he yielded the point and called a council of war to consist of himself and the three other officers that the privates made such a fuss about being left out that we had to allow them to remain. But they were already present in doing most of the talking to. The question was which way to retreat. But all was so flurried that nobody seemed to have even a guess to offer, except Lyman. He explained in a few calm words that in as much as the enemy were approaching from over Hyde's prairie, our course was simple. All we had to do was not retreat toward him. Any other direction would answer our needs perfectly. Everybody saw in a moment how true this was and how wise. So Lyman got a great many compliments. It was now decided that we should fall back upon Mason's farm. It was after dark by this time, and as we could not know how soon the enemy might arrive, it did not seem best to try to take the horses and things with us. So we only took the guns and ammunition and started at once. The route was very rough and hilly and rocky, and presently the night grew very black and rain began to fall. So we had a troublesome time of it, struggling and stumbling along in the dark. And soon some person slipped and fell, and then the next person behind stumbled over him and fell. And so did the rest, one after the other. And then Bowers came with a keg of powder in his arms, whilst the command were all mixed together, arms and legs on the muddy slope. And so he fell, of course, with the keg. And this started the whole detachment down the hill in a body, and they landed in the brook at the bottom in a pile. And each that was undermost, pulling the hair and scratching and biting those that were on top of him, and those that were being scratched and bitten, scratching and biting the rest in their turn. And all saying they would die before they would ever go to war again if they ever got out of this brook this time. And the invader might rot for all they cared, and the country along with them, and all such talk as that, which was dismal to hear and take part in, in such smothered, low voices, and such a grisly dark place, and so wet, and the enemy may be coming at any moment. The keg of powder was lost, and the guns, too, so the growling and complaining continued straight along whilst the brigade pawled around the pasty hillside, and slopped around in the brook hunting for these things. Consequently we lost considerable time at this, and then we heard a sound, and held our breath, and listened. And it seemed to be the enemy coming, though it could have been a cow, for it had a cough like a cow. But we did not wait, but left a couple of guns behind, and struck out for masons again, as briskly as we could scramble along in the dark, but we got lost presently among the rugged little ravines, and wasted a deal of time finding the way again. So it was after nine when we reached Mason's style at last, and then, before we could open our mouths to give the counter-sign, several dogs came bounding over the fence, with great riot and noise, and each of them took a soldier by the slack of his trousers, and began to back away with him. We could not shoot the dogs without endangering the persons they were attached to, so we had to look on, helpless, at what was perhaps the most mortifying spectacle of the Civil War. There was light enough, and despair, for the masons had now run out on the porch with candles in their hands. The old man and his son came and undid the dogs without difficulty. All but Bowers's, but they could not undo his dog. They did not know his combination. He was of the bull kind, and seemed to be set with a yell timelock, but they got him loose at last with some scalding water, of which Bowers got his share and returned thanks. Peterson Dunlap afterwards made up a fine name for this engagement, and also for the night march which preceded it. But both have long ago faded out of my memory. We now went into the house, and they began to ask us a world of questions, whereby it presently came out that we did not know anything concerning who or what we were running from. So the old gentleman made himself very frank, and said, We were a curious breed of soldiers, and guessed we could be depended on to end up the war in time, because no government could stand the expense of the shoe-letter we should cost it trying to follow us around. Marion Rangers, good name, but gosh, said he, and wanted to know why we hadn't a picket-guard at the place where the road entered the prairie, and why we hadn't sent out a scouting party to spy out the enemy and bring us an account of his strength, and so on, before jumping up and stampeding out of a strong position upon a mere vague rumor, and so on and so forth, till he made us all feel shabbier than the dogs had done, and not half so enthusiastically welcome. So we went to bed shamed and low-spirited, except Stevens. Soon Stevens began to devise a garment for bowers which could be made to automatically display his battle-scars to the grateful, or conceal them from the envious, according to his occasions. But bowers was in no humor for this, so there was a fight, and when it was over, Stevens had some battle-scars of his own to think about. Then we got a little sleep, but after all we had gone through, our activities were not over for the night. For about two o'clock in the morning we heard a shout of warning from down the lane, accompanied by a chorus from all the dogs, and in a moment everybody was up and flying around to find out what the alarm was about. The alarmist was a horseman who gave notice that a detachment of Union soldiers was on its way from Hannibal with orders to capture and hang any bands like ours which it could find, and said we had no time to lose. Farmer Mason was in a flurry this time himself. He hurried us out of the house with all haste, and sent one of his negroes with us to show us where to hide ourselves, and our tell-tale guns among the ravines, half a mile away. It was raining heavily. We struck down the lane, then across some rocky pasture-land which offered good advantages for stumbling. Consequently we were down in the mud most of the time, and every time a man went down he black-guarded the war, and the people who started it and everybody connected with it, and gave himself the master-dose of all for being so foolish as to go into it. At last we reached the wooded mouth of a ravine, and there we huddled ourselves under the streaming trees, and sent the negro back home. It was a dismal and heartbreaking time. We were like to be drowned with the rain, deafened with the howling wind and the booming thunder, and blinded by the lightning. It was indeed a wild night. The drenching we were getting was misery enough, but a deeper misery still was the reflection that the halter might end us before we were a day older. A death of this shameful sort had not occurred to us as being among the possibilities of war. It took the romance all out of the campaign and turned our dreams of glory into a repulsive nightmare, as for doubting that so barbarous an order had been given, not one of us did that. The long night wore itself out at last, and then the negro came to us with the news that the alarm had manifestly been a false one, and that breakfast would soon be ready. Straightway we were lighthearted again, and the world was bright, and life as full of hope and promise as ever. For we were young then. How long ago that was? 24 years. The mongrel child of philology named the night's refuse Camp Devastation, and no soul objected. The masons gave us a Missouri country breakfast in Missouri in abundance, and we needed it. Hot biscuits, hot wheat bread, prettily crisscrossed in a lattice pattern on top, hot cornpone, fried chicken, bacon, coffee, eggs, milk, butter milk, etc. And the world may be confidently challenged to furnish the equal to such a breakfast as it is cooked in the South. We stayed several days at masons, and after all these years the memory of the dullness, the stillness, and lifelessness of that slumberous farmhouse still oppresses my spirit, as with a sense of the presence of death and mourning. There was nothing to do, nothing to think about. There was no interest in life. The male part of the household were away in the fields all day long. The women were busy and out of our sight. There was no sound, but the plaintive whaling was spinning wheel, forever moaning out from some distant room. The most lonesome sound in nature, a sound steeped and sodden with homesickness and the emptiness of life. The family went to bed about dark every night, and as we were not invited to intrude any new customs, we naturally followed theirs. Those nights were a hundred years long to youths accustomed to being up till twelve. We lay awake and miserable to that hour every time, and grew old and decrepit, waiting through the still eternities for the clock strikes. This was no place for town boys. So at last it was with something very like joy that we received news that the enemy were on our track again. With the new birth of the old warrior spirit, we sprang to our places in line of battle. And fell back on camp-rawls. Captain Lyman had taken a hint from Mason's talk, and he now gave orders that our camp should be guarded against surprise by the posting of pickets. I was ordered to place a picket at the Forks of the Road in Hyde's prairie. Night shut down black and threatening. I told Sergeant Bowers to go out to that place and stay till midnight, and, just as I was expecting, he said he wouldn't do it. I tried to get others to go, but all refused. Some excused themselves on account of the weather. But the rest were frank enough to say they wouldn't go out in any kind of weather. This kind of thing sounds odd now, and impossible, but it seemed a perfectly natural thing to do. There were scores of little camps scattered over Missouri where the same thing was happening. These camps were composed of young men who had been born and reared to a sturdy independence, and who did not know what it meant to be ordered around by Tom, Dick, and Harry, whom they had known familiarly all their lives, in the village or on the farm. It is quite within the probabilities that this same thing was happening all over the South. James Redpath recognized the justice of this assumption and furnished the following instance in support of it. During a short stay in East Tennessee, he was in a citizen colonel's tent one day, talking, when a big private appeared at the door, and without salute or other circumlocution, said to the colonel, Say, Jim, I'm going home for a few days. What for? Well, I ain't been there for a right smart while, and I'd like to see how things is coming on. How long are you going to be gone? About two weeks. Well, don't be going longer than that, and get back sooner if you can. That was all, and the citizen officer resumed his conversation where the private had broken it off. This was in the first months of the war, of course. The camps in our part of Missouri were under Brigadier General Thomas H. Harris. He was a townsman of ours, a first-rate fellow, and well liked, but we had all familiarly known him as the sole and moderate salaried operator in our telegraph office, where he had to send about one dispatch a week in ordinary times, and two when there was a rush of business. Consequently, when he appeared in our midst one day, on the wing, and delivered a military command of some sort, in a large military fashion, nobody was surprised at the response which he got from the assembled soldiery. Oh, now, well, you take to don't, Tom Harris. It was quite the natural thing. One might justly imagine that we were hopeless material for war. And so we seemed in our ignorant state. But there were those among us who afterward learned the grim trade, learned to obey like machines, became valuable soldiers, fought all through the war, and came out at the end with excellent records. One of the very boys who refused to go out on picket duty that night, and called me an ass for thinking he would expose himself to danger in such a foolhardy way, had become distinguished for intrepidity before he was a year older. I did secure my picket that night, not by authority, but by diplomacy. I got bowers to go, by agreeing to exchange ranks with him for the time being, and go along and stand the watch with him as his subordinate. We stayed out there a couple of dreary hours in the pitchy darkness and the rain, with nothing to modify the dreariness but bowers monotonous growlings of the war and weather. Then we began to nod, and presently found it next to impossible to stay in the saddle. So we gave up the tedious job and went back to the camp without waiting for the relief guard. We rode into camp without interruption or objection from anybody, and the enemy could have done the same. For there were no sentries. Everybody was asleep, and at midnight there was nobody to send out another picket, so none was sent. We never tried to establish a watch at night again, as far as I remember, but we generally kept a picket out in the daytime. In that camp the whole command slept on the corn in the big corn crib, and there was usually a general row before morning, for the place was full of rats, and they would scramble over the boys' bodies and faces, annoying and irritating everybody, and now and then they would bite someone's toe, and the person who owned the toe would start up and magnify his English and begin to throw corn in the dark. The ears were half as heavy as bricks, and when they struck they hurt. The person struck would respond, and inside of five minutes every man would be locked in a death grip with his neighbor. There was a grievous deal of blood shed in the corn crib, but this was all that was spilt while I was in the war. No, that is not quite true, but for one circumstance it would have been all. I will come to that now. Our scares were frequent. Every few days rumors would come that the enemy was approaching. In these cases we always fell back on some other camp of ours. We never stayed where we were, but the rumors always turned out to be false, so at last even we began to grow indifferent to them. One night a negro was sent to our corn crib with the same old warning. The enemy was hovering in our neighborhood. We all said, let them hover. We resolved to stay still and be comfortable. It was a fine war-like resolution, and no doubt we all felt the stir of it in our veins. For a moment we had been having a very jolly time that was full of horse-play and schoolboy hilarity, but that cooled down now, and presently the fast winning fire of forced jokes and forced laughs died out altogether, and the company became silent, silent and nervous, and soon uneasy, worried, apprehensive. We had said we would stay, and we were committed. We could have been persuaded to go, but there was nobody brave enough to suggest it. An almost noiseless movement presently began in the dark by a general and unvoiced impulse. When the movement was completed each man knew that he was not the only person who had crept to the front wall, and had his eye at a crack between the logs. No, we were all there. All there were the hearts in our throats, and staring out through the sugar troughs where the forest footpath came through. It was late, and there was a deep woodsy stillness everywhere. There was a veiled moonlight, which was only just strong enough to enable us to mark the general shape of objects. Presently a muffled sound caught our ears, and we recognized it as the hoofbeats of a horse, or horses, and right away a figure appeared in the forest path. It could have been made of smoke. Its mass had so little sharpness of outline. It was a man on horseback, and it seemed to me that there were others behind him. I got hold of a gun in the dark, and pushed it through a crack between the logs, hardly knowing what I was doing. I was so dazed with fright. Somebody said, Fire! I pulled the trigger. I seemed to see a hundred flashes, and hear a hundred reports. Then I saw the man fall down out of the saddle. My first feeling was a surprise gratification. My first impulse was an apprentice sportsman's impulse to run and pick up his game. Somebody said, hardly audibly, Good! We've got him! Wait for the rest! But the rest did not come. There was not a sound, not the whisper of a leaf, just perfect stillness, an uncanny kind of stillness, which was all the more uncanny on account of the damp, earthy, late night smells now rising and pervading it. Then, wondering, we crept stealthily out and approached the man. When we got to him, the moon revealed him distinctly. He was lying on his back, with his arms abroad. His mouth was open, and his chest heaving with long gasps. And his white shirt front was all splashed with blood. The thought shot through me that I was a murderer, that I had killed a man, a man who had never done me any harm. That was the coldest sensation that ever went through my marrow. I was down by him in a moment, helplessly stroking his forehead. And I would have given anything then, my own life freely, to make him again what he had been five minutes before. And all the boys seemed to be feeling in the same way. They hung over him, full of pitying interest, and tried all they could to help him, and said all sorts of regretful things. They had forgotten all about the enemy. They thought only of this one forlorn unit of the foe. Once my imagination persuaded me that the dying man gave me a reproachful look out of his shadowy eyes. And it seemed to me that I would rather he had stabbed me than done that. He muttered and mumbled like a dreamer in his sleep, about his wife and child. And I thought with a new despair, this thing that I have done does not end with him. It falls upon them, too. And they never did me any harm, any more than he. In a little while the man was dead. He was killed in war. Killed in fair and legitimate war. Killed in battle, as you might say. And yet he was a sincerely mourned by the opposing force, as if he had been their brother. The boy stood there a half hour, sorrowing over him, and recalling the details of the tragedy, and wondering who he might be. And if he were a spy, and saying that if it were to do over again they would not hurt him unless he attacked them first. It soon came out that mine was not the only shot fired. There were five others. A division of the guilt, which was a grateful relief to me. Since it, in some degree, lightened and diminished the burden I was carrying. There were six shots fired at once. But I was not in my right mind at the time. And my heated imagination had magnified my one shot into a volley. The man was not in uniform, and was not armed. He was a stranger in the country. That was all we ever found out about him. The thought of him got to praying upon me every night. I could not get rid of it. I could not drive it away. The taking of that unoffending life seemed such a wanton thing. And it seemed an epitome of war. That all war must be just that. The killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity. Strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble. And who would help you if you needed it? My campaign was spoiled. It seemed to me that I was not rightly equipped for this awful business. That war was intended for man, and I for a child's nurse. I resolved to retire from this avocation of sham soldiership, while I could save some remnant of my self-respect. These morbid thoughts clung to me against reason. For at bottom, I did not believe I had touched that man. The law of probabilities decreed me guiltless of his blood. For in all my small experience with guns, I had never hit anything I had tried to hit. And I knew I had done my best to hit him. Yet there was no solace in the thought. Against a diseased imagination, demonstration goes for nothing. The rest of my war experience was of a peace with what I have already told of it. We kept monotonously falling back upon one camper another and eating up the country. I marvel now at the patience of the farmers and their families. They ought to have shot us. On the contrary, they were as hospitably kind and courteous to us as if we had deserved it. In one of these camps we found Ab Grimes, an upper Mississippi pilot, who afterwards became famous as a daredevil rebel spy, whose career bristled with desperate adventures. The look and style of his comrades suggested that they had not come into the war to play, and their deeds made good the conjecture later. They were fine horsemen and good revolver shots, but their favorite arm was the lasso. Each had one at his pommel and could snatch a man out of the saddle with it every time, on a full gallop, at any reasonable distance. In another camp the chief was a fierce and profane old blacksmith of sixty, and he had furnished his twenty recruits with gigantic homemade buoy knives to be swung with the two hands, like the machetes of the Isthmus. It was a grizzly spectacle to see that earnest band practicing their murderous cuts and slashes under the eye of that remorseless old fanatic. The last camp which we fell back upon was in a hollow near the village of Florida, where I was born, in Monroe County. Here we were warned, one day, that a Union colonel was sweeping down on us with a whole regiment at his heels. This looked decidedly serious. Our boys went apart and consulted. Then we went back and told the other companies present that the war was a disappointment to us and we were going to disband. They were getting ready, themselves, to fall back on some place or other, and were only waiting for General Tom Harris, who was expected to arrive at any moment, so they tried to persuade us to wait a little while. But the majority of us said, no, we were accustomed to falling back and didn't need any of Tom Harris's help. We could get along perfectly well without him and save time too. So about half of our fifteen, including myself, mounted and left on the instant. The others yielded to persuasion and stayed. Stayed through the war. An hour later we met General Harris on the road with two or three people in his company. His staff, probably, but we could not tell. None of them was in uniform. Uniforms had not come into vogue among us yet. Harris ordered us back, but we told him that there was a Union Colonel coming with a whole regiment in his wake and it looked as if there was going to be a disturbance. So we had concluded to go home. He raged a little, but it was of no use. Our minds were made up. We had done our share, had killed one man, exterminated one army, such as it was, let him go and kill the rest, and that would end the war. I did not see that brisk young general again till last year. Then he was wearing white hair and whiskers. In time I came to know that Union Colonel who's coming frightened me out of the war and crippled the southern cause to that extent. General Grant, I came within a few hours of seeing him when he was as unknown as I was myself. At a time when anybody could have said, Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, I do not remember hearing the name before. It seems difficult to realize that there was once a time when such a remark could be rationally made. But there was, and I was within a few miles of the place and the occasion too, though proceeding in the other direction. The thoughtful will not throw this war paper of mine lightly aside as being valueless. It has this value. It is a not unfair picture of what went on in many and many a militia camp in the first months of the rebellion, when the green recruits were without discipline, without the steady and heartening influence or trained leaders, when all their circumstances were new and strange, and charged with exaggerated terrors, and before the invaluable experience of actual collision in the field had turned them from rabbits into soldiers. If this side of the picture of that early day has not before been put into history, then history has been to that degree incomplete, for it had and has its rightful place there. There was more bull run material scattered throughout the early camps of this country than exhibit itself at bull run, and yet it learned its trade presently, and helped to fight the great battles later. I could have become a soldier myself if I had waited. I had got part of it learned. I knew more about retreating than the man that invented retreating. End of My Military Campaign by Mark Twain. Read for LibriVox.org by Harold Stewart. A mysterious visit by Mark Twain. 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 Greg Marguerite. A mysterious visit by Mark Twain. The first notice that was taken of me when I settled down recently was by a gentleman who said he was an assessor and connected with the U.S. Internal Revenue Department. I said I had never heard of his branch of business before, but I was very glad to see him all the same. Would he sit down? He sat down. I did not know anything particular to say, and yet I felt that people who have arrived at the dignity of keeping house must be conversational, must be easy and sociable and company. So in default of anything else to say, I asked him if he was opening his shop in our neighborhood. He said he was. I did not wish to appear ignorant, but I had hoped he would mention what he had for sale. I ventured to ask him, how was trade? And he said, so so. I then said we would drop in, and if we liked his house as well as any other, we would give him our custom. He said he thought we would like his establishment well enough to confine ourselves to it. Said he never saw anybody who would go off and hunt up another man in his line after trading with him once. That sounded pretty complacent, but barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough. I do not know how it came about exactly, but gradually we appeared to melt down and run together, conversationally speaking. And then everything went along as comfortably as clockwork. We talked and talked and talked, at least I did, and we laughed and laughed and laughed, at least he did. But all the time I had my presence of mind about me. I had my native shrewdness turned on full head, as the engineers say. I was determined to find out all about his business in spite of his obscure answers, and I was determined I would have it out of him without his suspecting what I was at. I meant to trap him with a deep, deep ruse. I would tell him all about my own business, and he would naturally so warm to me during this seductive burst of confidence that he would forget himself and tell me about his affairs before he suspected what I was about. I thought to myself, my son, you little know what an old fox you are dealing with. I said, now you would never guess what I made lecturing this winter and last spring. No, don't believe I could to save me. Let me see, let me see, about two thousand dollars maybe, but no, no sir, I know you couldn't have made that much. Say, seventeen hundred maybe. Ha, ha, I knew you couldn't. My lecturing receipts for last spring and winter were fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. What do you think of that? Why, it's amazing. Perfectly amazing. I will make a note of it. And you say even this wasn't all? All. Why, bless you. There was my income from the daily war whoop for four months about, about, well, what should you say to about eight thousand dollars for instance? Say, why, I should say I should like to see myself rolling in just such another ocean of affluence, eight thousand. I'll make a note of it. Why, man, and on top of all this am I to understand that you still had more income? Ha, ha, ha, why, you're only in the suburbs of it so to speak. There's my book, The Innocence Abroad, priced three fifty to five dollars according to the binding. Listen to me, look me in the eye. During the last four months and a half saying nothing of sales before that, but just simply during the four months and a half, we've sold ninety-five thousand copies of that book. Ninety-five thousand, think of it, average four dollars a copy, say it's nearly four hundred thousand dollars, my son, I get half. The Suffering Moses. I'll set that down. Fourteen, seven, fifty, eight, two hundred total, say, well, upon my word, the grand total is about two hundred and thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars. Is that possible? Possible. If there's any mistake, it's the other way. Two hundred and fourteen thousand cash is my income for this year if I know how to cipher. Then the gentleman got up to go. It came over me most uncomfortably that maybe I had made my revelations for nothing, besides being flattered into stretching them considerably by the stranger's astonished exclamations. But, no, at the last moment the gentleman handed me a large envelope and said it contained his advertisement, and that I would find out all about his business in it, and that he would be happy to have my custom, would be, in fact, proud to have the custom of a man of such prodigious income, and that he used to think there were several wealthy men in the city, but when they came to trade with him, he discovered that they barely had enough to live on, and that, in truth, it had been such a weary, weary age since he had seen a rich man face to face and talk to him and touched him with his hands that he could hardly refrain from embracing me. In fact, would esteem it in great favor if I would let him embrace me. This so pleased me that I did not try to resist, but allowed this simple hearted stranger to throw his arms about me and weep a few tranquilizing tears down the back of my neck. Then he went his way. As soon as he was gone I opened his advertisement. I studied it attentively for four minutes. I then called upon the cook and said, hold me while I faint. Let Marie turn the griddle cakes. By and by, when I came to, I sent down to the rum mill on the corner and hired an artist by the week to sit up nights and curse that stranger and give me a lift occasionally in the daytime when I came to a hard place. What a miscreant he was. His advertisement was nothing in the world but a wicked tax return, a string of impertinent questions about my private affairs, occupying the best part of four fool's cap pages of fine print questions. I may remark, gotten up with such marvelous ingenuity that the oldest man in the world couldn't understand what the most of them were driving at. Questions, too, that were calculated to make a man report about four times his actual income to keep from swearing to a falsehood. I looked for a loophole, but there did not appear to be any. Inquiry number one covered my cases generously and as amply as an umbrella could cover an anthill. What were your profits during the past year from any trade, business, or vocation wherever carried on? And that inquiry was backed up by thirteen others of an equally searching nature, the most modest of which required information as to whether I had committed any burglary or highway robbery or by any arson or other secret source of emolument had acquired property which was not enumerated in my statement of income as set opposite to inquiry number one. It was plain that the stranger had enabled me to make a goose of myself. It was very, very plain. And so I went out and hired another artist. By working on my vanity the stranger had seduced me into declaring an income of two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. By law one thousand dollars of this was exempt from income tax. The only relief I could see and it was only a drop in the ocean. At the legal five percent I must pay the government the sum of ten thousand six hundred and fifty dollars income tax. I may remark in this place that I did not do it. I am acquainted with a very opulent man whose house is a palace, whose table is regal, whose outlays are enormous, yet a man who has no income as I have often noticed by the revenue returns. And to him I went for advice in my distress. He took my dreadful exhibition of receipts, he put on his glasses, he took his pen, and presto. I was a pauper. It was the neatest thing that ever was. He did it simply by deftly manipulating the bill of deductions. He set down my state, national, and municipal taxes at so much, my losses by shipwreck, fire, etc., at so much, my losses on sales of real estate, on livestock sold, on payments for rent of homestead, on repairs, improvements interest, on previously taxed salary as an officer of the United States Army, Navy, revenue service, and other things. He got astonishing deductions out of each and every one of these matters, each and every one of them. And when he was done he handed me the paper, and I saw at a glance that during the year my income in the way of profits had been one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars and forty cents. Now, said he, the thousand dollars is exempt by law. What you want to do is go and swear this document in and pay tax on the two hundred and fifty dollars. While he was making this speech his little boy willy lifted a two-dollar greenback out of his vest pocket and vanished with it. And I would wager anything that if my stranger were to call on that little boy to-morrow he would make a false return of his income. Do you, said I, do you always work up the deductions after this fashion in your own case, sir? Well, I should say so. If it weren't for those eleven saving clauses under the head of deductions I should be beggared every year to support this hateful and wicked, this extortionate and tyrannical government. This gentleman stands a way up among the very best of the solid men of the city. The men of moral weight, of commercial integrity, of unimpeachable social spotlessness. And so I bowed to his example. I went down to the revenue office and under the accusing eyes of my old visitor I stood up and swore to lie after lie, fraud after fraud, villainy after villainy, till my soul was coated inches and inches thick with perjury and my self-respect gone forever and ever. But what of it? It is nothing more than thousands of the richest and proudest and most respected, honored and courted men in America do every year, and so I don't care. I am not ashamed. I shall simply for the present talk little and eschew fire-proof gloves lest I fall into certain dreadful habits irrevocably. End of A Mysterious Visit by Mark Twain