 The Cut Glass Bowl by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Bologna Times. The Cut Glass Bowl by F. Scott Fitzgerald. There was a rough stone age and a smooth stone age and a bronze age and many years afterward a cut glass age. In the cut glass age, when young ladies had persuaded young men with long, curly moustaches to marry them, they sat down several months afterward and wrote thank you notes for all sorts of cut glass presents, punch bowls, finger bowls, dinner glasses, wine glasses, ice cream dishes, bon bon dishes, decanters, and vases. For, though cut glass was nothing new in the 90s, it was then especially busy reflecting the dazzling light of fashion from the back bay to the fastnesses of the Middle West. After the wedding, the punch bowls were arranged in the sideboard with the big bowl in the center. The glasses were set up in the china closet. The candlesticks were put at both ends of things and then the struggle for existence began. The stone dish lost its little handle and became a pin tray upstairs. A promenading cat knocked the little bowl off the sideboard and the hired girl shipped the middle sized one with the sugar dish. Then the wine glasses succumbed to leg fractures and even the dinner glasses disappeared one by one like the ten little niggers, the last one ending up and manned as a toothbrush holder among other shabby gentils on the bathroom shelf. But by the time all this had happened, the cut glass age was over anyway. It was well past its first glory on the day the curious Mrs. Roger Fairbold came to see the beautiful Mrs. Harold Piper. My dear, said the curious Mrs. Roger Fairbold, I love your house, I think it's quite artistic. I'm so glad, said the beautiful Mrs. Harold Piper, lights appearing in her young dark eyes, and you must come often. I'm almost always alone in the afternoon. Mrs. Fairbold would have liked to remark that she didn't believe this at all and couldn't see how she'd be expected to. It was all over town that Mr. Freddie Gedney had been dropping in on Mrs. Piper five afternoons a week for the past six months. Mrs. Fairbold was at that ripe age where she distrusted all beautiful women. I love the dining room most, she said, all that marvelous china and that huge cut glass bowl. Mrs. Piper laughed so prettily that Mrs. Fairbold's lingering reservations about the Freddie Gedney story quite vanished. Oh, that big bowl. Mrs. Piper's mouth forming the words was a vivid rose petal. There's a story about that bowl. Oh, you remember young Carlton Canby? Well, he was very attentive at one time and the night I told him I was going to marry Harold seven years ago in 1992. He drew himself way up and said, Evelyn, I'm going to give a present that's as hard as you are and as beautiful and as empty and as easy to see through. He frightened me a little. His eyes were so black. I thought he was going to deed me a haunted house or something that would explode when you opened it. That bowl came and, of course, it's beautiful. Its diameter or circumference or something is two and a half feet or perhaps it's three and a half. Anyway, the sideboard is really too small for it. It sticks way out. My dear wasn't that odd and he left town about then, didn't he? Mrs. Fairbold was scribbling italicized notes on her memory. Hard, beautiful, empty and easy to see through. Yes, he went west or south or somewhere, answered Mrs. Piper, radiating that divine vagueness that helps to live beauty out of time. Mrs. Fairbold drew on her gloves, approving the effect of largeness given by the open sweep from the spacious music room through the library, disclosing a part of the dining room beyond. It was really the nicest smaller house in town and Mrs. Piper had talked of moving to a larger one on Devereux Avenue. Harold Piper must be coining money. As she turned into the sidewalk under the gathering autumn dusk, she assumed that disapproving, faintly unpleasant expression that almost all successful women of 40 wear on the street. If I were Harold Piper, she thought, I'd spend a little less time on business and a little more time at home. Some friend should speak to him. But if Mrs. Fairbold had considered it a successful afternoon, she would have named it a triumph had she waited two minutes longer. For while she was still a black proceeding figure a hundred yards down the street, a very good-looking distraught young man turned up the walk to the Piper house. Mrs. Piper answered the doorbell herself and with a rather dismayed expression led him quickly into the library. I had to see you, he began wildly. Your note played the devil with me. Did Harold frighten you into this? She shook her head. I'm through, Fred, she said slowly, and her lips had never looked to him so much like tearing from a rose. He came home last night, sick with it. Jesse Piper's sense of duty was too much for her so she came down to his office and told him he was hurt and, oh, I can't help seeing it his way, Fred. He says, we've been club gossip all summer and he didn't know it and now he understands snatches of conversation he's caught and veiled hints people have dropped about me. He's mighty angry, Fred, and he loves me and I love him rather. Gedney nodded slowly and half closed his eyes. Yes, he said, yes, my troubles like yours I can see other people's points of view too plainly. His gray eyes met her dark ones, frankly. The blessed thing's over. My God, Evelyn, I've been sitting down at the office all day looking at the outside of your letter and looking at it and looking at it. You've got to go. You've got to go, Fred, she said steadily and the slight emphasis of hurry in her voice was a new thrust for him. I gave him my word of honor. I wouldn't see you. I know just how far I can go with Harold and being here with you this evening is one of the things I can't do. They were still standing and as she spoke she made a little movement toward the door. Gedney looked at her miserably trying here at the end to treasure up the last picture of her and then suddenly both of them were stiffened into marble at the sound of steps on the walk outside. Instantly her arm reached out grasping the lapel of his coat. Half urged, half swung him through the big door into the dark dining room. I'll make him go upstairs. She whispered close to his ear. Don't move till you hear him on the stairs then go out the front way. Then he was alone listening as she greeted her husband in the hall. Harold Piper was 36, nine years older than his wife. He was handsome with marginal notes, these being eyes that were too close together and a certain woodenness when his face was in repose. His attitude toward this Gedney matter was typical of all his attitudes. He had told Evelyn that he considered the subject close and would never reproach her nor allude to it in any form. And he told himself that this was rather a big way of looking at it, that she was not a little impressed. Yet like all men who were preoccupied with their own broadness he was exceptionally narrow. He greeted Evelyn with emphasized corgeality this evening. You'll have to hurry and dress Harold, she said eerily. We're going to the Bronzlitz. He nodded. It doesn't take me long to dress dear and his words trailing off. He walked on into the library. Evelyn's heart clattered loudly. Harold, she began with a little catch in her voice and followed him in. He was lighting his cigarette. You'll have to hurry Harold, she finished, standing in the doorway. Why? he asked a trifle impatiently. You're not dressed yourself yet, Eve. He stretched out in a morris chair and unfolded a newspaper. With a sinking sensation Evelyn saw that this meant at least ten minutes and Getty was standing breathless in the next room. Supposing Harold decided that before he went upstairs he wanted to drink from the decanter on the sideboard, then it occurred to her to forestall this contendency bringing him the decanter and a glass. She dreaded calling his attention to the dining room in any way but she couldn't risk the other chance. But at the same moment Harold rose and throwing his paper down came toward her. Eve, dear, he said, bending and putting his arms about her. I hope you're not thinking about last night. She moved close to him, trembling. I know, he continued, it was just an imprudent friendship on your part. We all make mistakes. Evelyn hardly heard him. She was wondering if by sheer clinging to him she could draw him out and up the stairs. She thought of playing sick asking to be carried up. Unfortunately she knew he would lay her on the couch and bring her whiskey. Suddenly her nervous tension moved up a last impossible notch. She had heard a very faint but quite unmistakable creak from the floor of the dining room. Fred was trying to get out the back way. Then her heart took a flying leap as a hollow ringing note like a gong echoed and re-echoed through the house. Geddy's arm had struck the big cut glass bowl. What's that? cried Harold. Who's there? She clung to him but he broke away and the room seemed to crash about her ears. She heard the pantry door swing open, a scuffle, the rattle of a ten pan and in well despair she rushed into the kitchen and pulled up the gas. Her husband's arm slowly unwound from Geddy's neck and he stood there very still first in amazement then with pain dawning in his face. My golly! he said in bewilderment and then repeated, my golly! He turned as if to jump again at Geddy's stop. His muscles visibly relaxed and he gave a bitter little laugh. You people! You people! Evelyn's arms were around him and her eyes were pleading with him frantically but he pushed her away and sank dazed into a kitchen chair, his face lay porcelain. You've been doing things to me Evelyn why, you little devil, you little devil! She had never felt so sorry for him. She had never loved him so much. It wasn't her fault, said Geddy, rather humbly. I just came. But Piper shook his head and his expression when he stared up was as if some physical accident had charred his mind into temporary inability to function. His eyes, grown suddenly pitiful, struck a deep, unsounded cord in Evelyn and simultaneously a furious anger surged and her. She felt her eyelids burning. She stamped her foot violently. Her hands scurried nervously over the table as if searching for a weapon and then she flunked herself wildly at Geddy. Get out! She screamed, dark eyes blazing, little fists beating helplessly on his outstretched arm. You did this! Get out of here! Get out! Get out! Get out! Part 2 Concerning Mrs. Harold Piper at 35, opinion was divided. Women said she was still handsome. Men said she was pretty no longer. And this was probably because the qualities in her beauty that women had feared and men had followed had vanished. Her eyes were still as large and as dark and as sad, but the mystery had departed. Their sadness was no longer eternal, only human, and she had developed a habit when she was startled or annoyed of twitching her brows together and blinking several times. Her mouth also had lost. The red had receded and the faint down-turning of its corners when she smiled that had added to the sadness of the eyes and been vaguely mocking and beautiful was quite gone. When she smiled now, the corners of her lips turned up. Back in the days when she reveled in her own beauty, Evelyn had enjoyed that smile of hers. She had accentuated it. When she stopped accentuating it, it faded out and the last of her mystery with it. Evelyn had ceased accentuating her smile within a month after the Freddie Getty affair. Externally things had gone and very much as they had before. But in those few minutes during which she had discovered how much she loved her husband, Evelyn had realized how indelibly she had hurt him. For a month she struggled against aching silences, wild reproaches, and accusations. She pleaded with him, made quite pitiful little love to him, and he laughed at her bitterly. And then she, too, slipped gradually into silence and a shadowy, impenetrable barrier dropped between them. The surge of love that had risen in her, she lavished on Donald, her little boy, realizing him almost wonderingly as a part of her life. The next year, a piling up of mutual interests and responsibilities and some stray flicker from the past brought husband and wife together again. But after a rather pathetic flood of passion, Evelyn realized that her great opportunity was gone. There simply wasn't anything left. She might have been youth and love for both, but that time of silence had slowly dried up the springs of affection and her own desire to drink again at them was dead. She began for the first time to seek women friends, to prefer books she had read before to sew a little where she could watch her two children to whom she was devoted. She worried about little things. If she saw crumbs on the dinner table, her mind drifted off the conversation. She was receiving gradually into middle age. Her 35th birthday had been an exceptionally busy one, for they were entertaining on short notice that night. As she stood in her bedroom window in the late afternoon, she discovered that she was quite tired. Ten years before, she would have laying down and slept, but now she had a feeling that things needed washing. Maids were cleaning downstairs. Brick-a-brack was all over the floor and there were sure to be grocery men that had to be talked to, imperatively. And then there was a letter to write Donald, who was fourteen and in his first year away at school. She had nearly decided to lie down, nevertheless, when she heard a sudden, familiar signal from little Julie downstairs, she compressed her lips, her brows twitched together, and she blinked. Julie, she called. Ow! Prolonged Julie, plaintively, then the voice of Hilda, the second maid, floated up the stairs. She caught herself a little misspiper. Evelyn flew to her sewing basket, rummage until she found a torn handkerchief and hurried downstairs. Julie was crying in her arms as she searched for the cut, faint, disparaging evidences of which appeared on Julie's dress. My thumb! explained Julie. Oh, turds! It was the bull here. The he-whop said Hilda apologetically. It was waitin' on the floor while I polished the sideboard and Julie come along and went to foolin' with it. She just scratched herself. Evelyn frowned heavily at Hilda, and, twisting Julie decisively in her lap, began tearing strips of the handkerchief. Now, let's see it, dear. Julie held it up, and Evelyn pounced. There! Julie surveyed her swathed thumb doubtfully. She croaked it. It waggled. A pleased, interested look appeared in her tear-stained face. She sniffled and waggled it again. You precious! cried Evelyn and kissed her, but before she left the room she leveled another frown at Hilda. Careless, servants all that way nowadays, if she could get a good Irish woman, but you couldn't anymore and these Swedes. At five o'clock, Harold arrived and, coming up to her room, threatened in a suspiciously jovial tone to kiss her thirty-five times for her birthday. Evelyn resisted. You've been drinking, she said shortly, and then added qualitatively, a little. You know I loathe the smell of it. Evelyn, he said, after a pause, sitting himself in a chair by the window, I can tell you something now. I guess you've known things haven't been going quite right downtown. She was standing at the window, but at these words she turned and looked at him. How do you mean? You've always said there was room for more than one wholesale hardware house in town. Her voice expressed some alarm. There was, said Harold significantly, but this Clarence Ahern is a smart man. I was surprised when you said he was coming to dinner. Evelyn, he went on, with another slap at his knee. After January 1st the Clarence Ahern Company becomes the Ahern Piper Company, and Piper Brothers as a company ceases to exist. Evelyn was startled. The sound of his name in second place was somehow hostile to her. Still he appeared jubilant. I don't understand, Harold. Well, Evelyn, Ahern has been fooling around with Marx. If those two had combined we'd have been the little fellow struggling along, picking up smaller orders, hanging back on risks. It's a question of capital, Evelyn. And Ahern and Marx would have had the business just like Ahern and Piper is going to know. He paused and coughed, and a little cloud of whiskey floated up to her nostrils. Tell you the truth, Evelyn. I've suspected that Ahern's wife had something to do with it. Ambitious little lady, I'm told. Guess she knew the Marx's couldn't help her much here. Is she common? Ask Evelyn. Never met her, I'm sure. But I don't doubt it. Clarence Ahern's name's been up at the country club five months. No action taken. He waved his hand disparagingly. Ahern and I had lunch together today and just about clenched it, so I thought it'd be nice to have him and his wife up tonight. Just have nine, mostly family. After all, it's a big thing for me and of course we'll have to see something of them, Evelyn. Yes, said Evelyn thoughtfully. I suppose we will. Evelyn was not disturbed over the social end of it. But the idea of Piper Brothers becoming the Ahern Piper Company startled her. It seemed like going down in the world. Half an hour later as she began to dress for dinner she heard his voice from downstairs. Oh, Eve, come down. She went out into the hall and called over the banister. What is it? I want you to help me make some of that punch before dinner. Hurriedly rehooking her dress she descended the stairs and found him grouping the essentials on the dining room table. She went to the sideboard and then lifting one of the bowls carried it over. Oh, no, he protested. Let's use the big one. There will be Ahern and his wife and you and I and Milton. That's five and Tom and Jesse. That's seven and your sister and Joe Ambler. That's nine. You don't know how quick that stuff goes when you make it. We'll use this bowl, she insisted. The story, husband to Jesse, Harold's first cousin, was rather inclined to finish anything in a liquid way that he began. Harold shook his head. Don't be foolish. That one holds only about three quarts and there's nine of us and the servants will want some and it isn't strong punch. It's so much more cheerful to have a lot, Eve. We don't have to drink all of it. I say the small one. He shook his head obstinately. No, be reasonable. I am reasonable, she said shortly. I don't want any drunken men in the house. Who said you did? Then use the small bowl. Now, Eve. He grasped the smaller bowl to lift it back. Instantly her hands were on it, holding it down. There was a momentary struggle and then with a little exasperated grunt on his side, slipped it from her fingers and carried it to the sideboard. She looked at him and tried to make her expression contemptuous but he only laughed. Acknowledging her defeat but disclaiming all future interest in the punch, she left the room. At seven-thirty, her cheeks glowing and her high piled hair gleaming with a suspicion of brilliant team, Evelyn descended the stairs. Mrs. Ehren, a little woman concealing a slight nervousness under red hair and an extreme empire gown, greeted her voluble. Evelyn disliked her on the spot but the husband she rather approved of. He had keen blue eyes and a natural gift of pleasing people that might have made him socially. Had he not so obviously committed the blunder of marrying too early in his career. I am glad to know Piper's wife, he said simply. It looks as though your husband and I will see a lot of each other in the future. She bowed, smiled graciously and turned to greet the others. Milton Piper, Harold's quiet, unassertive younger brother, the two Lowries, Jesse and Tom, Irene, her own unmarried sister and finally Joe Ambler, a confirmed bachelor and Irene's perennial beau. Harold led the way into dinner. We're having a punch evening, really. Evelyn saw that he had already sampled his concoction. So there won't be any cocktails except the punch. It's my wife's greatest achievement, Mrs. Ahern. She'll give you the recipe if you want it. But owing to a slight, he caught his wife's eye in pause to a slight in disposition. I'm responsible for this batch. Here's how. All through dinner there was punch and Evelyn noticing that Ahern and Milton Piper and all the women were shaking their heads negatively at the maid, knew she had been right about the ball. It was still half full. She resolved to caution Harold directly afterward. But when the women left the table, Mrs. Ahern cornered her and she found herself talking cities and dressmakers with a palette show of interest. We moved around a lot, chattered Mrs. Ahern, her red head nodding violently. We'd never stayed so long in a town before, but I do hope we're here for good. I like it here, don't you? Well, you see, I've always lived here so naturally. Oh, that's true, said Mrs. Ahern and laughed. Clarence always used to tell me he had to have a wife he could come home to and say, well, we're going to Chicago tomorrow to live. So pack up. I got so I never expected to live anywhere. She laughed her little laugh again. Evelyn suspected that it was her society laugh. Your husband is a very able man, I imagine. Oh, yes, Mrs. Ahern assured her eagerly. He's brainy, Clarence is. Ideas and enthusiasm, you know. Finds out what he wants and then goes and gets it. Evelyn nodded. She was wondering if the men were still drinking punch back in the dining room. Mrs. Ahern's history kept unfolding jerkily, but Evelyn had ceased to listen. The first odor of masked cigars began to drift in. It wasn't really a large house, she reflected. On an evening like this, the library sometimes grew blue with smoke, and next day one had to leave the windows open for hours to air the heavy staleness out of the curtains. Perhaps this partnership might, as she began to speculate on a new house. Mrs. Ahern's voice drifted in on her. I really would like the recipe if you haven't written down somewhere. Then there was a sound of chairs in the dining room, and the men strolled in. Evelyn saw it once that her worst fears were realized. Harold's face was flushed, and his words ran together at the ends of sentences, while Tom Glowry lurched when he walked and narrowly missed Irene's lap when he tried to sink onto the couch beside her. He sat there blinking day-sently at the company. Evelyn found herself blinking back at him, but she saw no humor in it. Joe Embler was smiling contentedly and purring on his cigar. Only Ahern and Milton Piper seemed unaffected. It's a pretty fine town, Ahern said, said Embler. You'll find that. I found it so, said Ahern pleasantly. You find it more, Ahern said Harold, nodding emphatically, if I have anything to do with it. He soared into a eulogy of the city, and Evelyn wondered uncomfortably if it bored everyone as it bored her. Apparently not. They were all listening attentively. Evelyn broke in at the first gap. Where have you been living, Mr. Ahern? She asked, entrustedly. Then she remembered that Mrs. Ahern had told her, but it didn't matter. Harold mustn't talk so much. He was such an ass when he'd been drinking, but he plopped directly back in. Tell you, Ahern, first you want to get a house up here on the hill. Get stern house or a ridgeway house. I want to have a house so people say, Ahern house. Solid, you know? That's a fact it gives. Evelyn flushed. This didn't sound right at all. Still, Ahern didn't seem to notice anything a mess, only nodded gravely. Have you been looking, but her words trailed off unheard as Harold's boys boomed on. Get house. That's stark. Then he'd get no people. Snubbish town first to wear outsider, but not long after no-yo. People like you, he indicated Ahern and his wife with a sweeping gesture. All right. Couragell has anything. Once get by first bar... bar... bar... Then he swallowed, and then said barrier, repeated it masterfully. Evelyn looked appealingly at her brother-in-law, before he could intercede. A thick mumble had come crowding out of Tom Lowry, hindered by the dead cigar, which he gripped firmly with his teeth. Huma... Huma... What? Demanded Harold earnestly. Resonantly and with difficulty, Tom removed the cigar. That is, he removed part of it, and then blew the remainder up across the room, where it landed liquidly and limply in Mrs. Ahern's lap. Vagaparton, he mumbled, and rose with the vague intention of going after it. Milton's hand on his coat collapsed him in time, and Mrs. Ahern not ungracefully flounced the tobacco from her skirt to the floor, never once looking at it. I was saying, continued Tom Far had it happened, he waved his hand apologetically toward Mrs. Ahern. I was saying, I heard all the truth that country club mattered. Milton leaned and whispered something to him. Allow me alone, he said petulantly. Know what I'm doing. Ask what I came for. Evelyn sat there in a panic trying to make her mouth form words. She saw her sister's sardonic expression and Mrs. Ahern's face turning a vivid red. Ahern was looking down at his watch chain, fingering it. I heard his back keeping it out, and he's not a bit better than you. I could fix the whole damn thing up. What a bore, but I didn't know you. Harold told me you felt bad about the thing. Milton Piper rose suddenly and awkwardly to his feet. In a second everyone was standing tensely and Milton was saying something very hurriedly about having to go early and the Ahern's were listening with eager intentness. Then Mrs. Ahern swallowed and turned with a forced smile toward Jesse. Evelyn saw Tom lurch forward and put his hand on Ahern's shoulder. And suddenly she was listening to a new anxious voice at her elbow and turning her head. Please, Miss Piper, I thank Yulie got her hand poisoned. It's all swell up and her cheeks is hot and she's moaning and groaning. Tully is, Evelyn asked sharply. The parting suddenly receded. She turned quickly, socked with her eyes for Mrs. Ahern, slipped toward her. If you'll excuse me, Mrs. Ahern, she had momentarily forgotten the name, right on. My little girl's been taken sick. I'll be down when I can. She turned and ran quickly up the stairs, retaining a confused picture of rays of cigar smoke and a loud discussion in the center of the room that seemed to be developing into an argument. Switching on the light in the nursery, she found Yulie tossing feverishly and giving out odd little cries. She put her hand against the cheeks they were burning. With an exclamation she followed the arm down under the cover until she found the hand. Hilda was right. The whole thumb was swollen to the wrist and in the center was an little inflamed sore. Blood poisoning. Her mind cried in terror. The bandage had come off the cut and she'd gotten something in it. She'd cut it at three o'clock. It was now nearly eleven. Eight hours. Blood poisoning couldn't possibly develop so soon. She rushed to the phone. Dr. Martin, across the street, was out. Dr. Folk, their family physician, didn't answer. She wracked her brains and in desperation called her throat specialist and bit her furiously while he looked up the numbers of two physicians. During that interminable moment she thought she heard loud voices downstairs, but she seemed to be in another world now. After fifteen minutes she located a physician who sounded angry and sulky at being called out of bed. She ran back to the nursery and, looking at the hand, found it was somewhat more swollen. Oh God! she cried and nearly beside the bed began smoothing back Julie's hair over and over. With a vague idea of getting some hot water she rose and stared toward the door, but the lace of her dress caught in the bed rail and she fell forward on her hands and knees. She grew up and jerked frantically at the lace. The bed moved and Julie groaned. Then, more quietly, but with suddenly fumbling fingers she found the pleat in front, tore the whole pannier completely off and rushed from the room. Out in the hall she heard a single loud insistent voice, but as she reached the head of the stairs it ceased and an outer door banged. The music room seemed to view. Only Harold and Milton were there, the former leaning against a chair, his face very pale, his collar open, and his mouth moving loosely. What's the matter? Milton looked at her anxiously. There was a little trouble. Then Harold saw her and, straightening up with an effort, began to speak. Saw my own cousin, my own house, Goddamn common Novo reach. Saw my own cousin. Tom had trouble with Ahern and Harold interfered, said Milton. My lord, Milton, cried Evelyn, couldn't you have done something? I tried. I... Julie's sick, she interrupted. She's poisoned herself. Get him to bed if you can. Harold looked up. Julie, sick, paying no attention. Evelyn brushed by through the dining room, catching sight, with a burst of horror, of a big punch bowl still on the table, the liquid from melted ice in its bottom. She heard steps on the front stairs. It was Milton helping Harold up, and then a mumble. Why, Julie's all right. Don't let him go into the nursery, she shouted. The hours blurred into a nightmare. The doctor arrived just before midnight, and within half hour had lanced the wound. He left at two after giving her the addresses of two nurses to call up, and promising to return at half past six. It was blood poisoning. After four, leaving Hilda by the bedside, she went to her room, and slipping with a shutter out of her evening dress, kicked it into a corner. She put on a house dress and returned to the nursery, while Hilda went to make coffee. Not until noon could she bring herself to look into Harold's room, but when she did it was to find him awake and staring very miserably at the ceiling. He turned bloodshot, hollow eyes upon her. For a minute, she hated him. Couldn't speak. A husky voice came from the bed. What time is it? No. I'm in a damn fool. It doesn't matter, she said sharply. Julie's got blood poisoning. They may she choked over the words. They think she'll have to lose her hand. What? She cut herself on that, that bowl last night. Oh, what does it matter? She cried. She's got blood poisoning. Can't you hear? He looked at her, bewildered, sat half way up in bed. I'll get dressed, he said. Her anger subsided and a great way of wearing us and pity for him rolled over her. After all it was his trouble too. Yes, she answered listlessly. I suppose you better. Part 4 If Evelyn's beauty had hesitated at her early 30s it came to an abrupt decision just afterward and completely left her. A tentative outlay of wrinkles on her face suddenly deepened and flesh collected rapidly on her legs and hips and arms. Her mannerism of drawing her brows together had become an expression. It was habitual when she was reading or speaking and even while she slept. She was 46. As in most families whose fortunes have gone down rather than up, she and Harold had drifted into a colorless antagonism. In repose they looked at each other with the toleration they might have felt for broken old chairs. Evelyn worried a little when he was sick and did her best to be careful under the wearing depression of living with a disappointed man. Family Bridge was over for the evening and she sighed with relief. She had made more mistakes than usual this evening and she didn't care. Irene shouldn't have made that remark about the infantry particularly dangerous. There had been no letter for three weeks now and while this was nothing out of the ordinary it never fell to make her nervous. Naturally she hadn't known how many clubs were out. Harold had gone upstairs so she stepped out on the porch for a breath of fresh air. There was a bright glamour of moonlight diffusing on the sidewalks and lawns and with a little half yawn, half laugh, she remembered one moonlight affair of her youth. It was astonishing to think that life had once been the sum of her current love affairs. It was now the sum of her current problems. There was the problem of Julie. Julie was thirteen and lately she was growing more and more sensitive about her deformity and preferred to stand always in her room reading. A few years before she had been frightened at the idea of going to school Evelyn could not bring herself to send her so she grew up in her mother's shadow a pitiful little figure with the artificial hand that she made no attempt to use but kept forlornly in her pocket. Lately she had been taking lessons in using it because Evelyn had feared she would cease to lift the arm altogether but after the lessons unless she made a move with it in listless obedience to her mother the little hand would creep back to the pocket of her dress. For a while her dresses were made without pockets but Julie had moped around the house so miserably at a loss all one month that Evelyn weakened and never tried the experiment again. The problem of Donald had been different from the start. She had attempted vainly to keep him near her as she had tried to teach Julie to lean less on her. Lately the problem of Donald had been in her hands. His division had been abroad for three months. She yawned again. Life was a thing for youth. What a happy youth she must have had. She remembered her pony, Bijou, and the trip to Europe with her mother when she was 18. Very, very complicated she said aloud and severely to the moon and stepping inside was about to close the door when she heard a noise in the library and started. Martha, the middle-aged servant, they kept only one now. Why, Martha, she said in a surprise. Martha turned quickly. Oh, I thought she was upstairs. I was just is anything the matter? Martha hesitated. No, I, she stood there fidgeting. It was a letter Mrs. Piper that I put somewhere a letter. Your own letter? Ask Evelyn. No, it was to you. It was this afternoon, Mrs. Piper, in the last mail. The postman gave it to me and then the back door bell rang. I had it in my hand so I must have stuck it somewhere. I thought I'd just slip in now and find it. What sort of a letter from Mr. Donald? No, it was an advertisement maybe or a business letter. It was a long narrow one, I remember. They began a search through the music room, looking on trays and metal pieces and then through the library, failing on the tops of rows of books. Martha paused and despair. I can't think where. I went straight to the kitchen. The dining room maybe. She started hopefully for the dining room but turned suddenly at the sound of a gasp behind her. Evelyn had sat down heavily in a Morris chair. Her brows ran very close together, eyes blinking furiously. Are you sick? For a minute, there was no answer. Evelyn sat there very still and Martha could see the very quick rise and fall of her bosom. Are you sick? She repeated. No, said Evelyn slowly. But I know what the letter is. Go away, Martha. I know. Wonderingly, Martha withdrew and still Evelyn sat there. Only the muscles around her eyes moving, contracting and relaxing and contracting again. She knew now where the letter was. She knew as well as if she had put it there herself. And she felt instinctively and unquestionably what the letter was. It was long and narrow like an advertisement. But up in the corner in large letters it said War Department. And in large letters below, Official Business. She knew it lay there in the big bowl with her name and ink on the outside and her soul's death within. Rising uncertainly she walked toward the dining-room failing her way along the bookcases and through the doorway. After a moment she found the light and switched it on. There was the book reflecting the electric light in crimson squares and yellow squares edged with blue, ponderous and glittering, grotesquely and triumphantly ominous. She took a step forward and paused again. Another step and she would see over the top and into the inside. Another step and she would see an edge of white. Another step. Her hands fell on the rough, cold surface. In a moment she was tearing it open, fumbling with an obstinate fold, holding it before her while the type-written page glared out and struck at her. Then it flooded like a bird to the floor. The house that had seemed whirring, buzzing a moment since was suddenly very quiet. A breath of air crept in through the open front door carrying the noise of a passing motor. She heard faint sounds from upstairs and then a grinding racket in the pipe behind the bookcases, her husband taking off a water-tap. And in that instant it was as if this were not after all, Donald's hour except insofar as he was a marker in the insidious contest that had gone on in sudden surges and long listless interludes between Evelyn and this cold malignant thing of beauty. A gift of enmity from a man whose face she had long since forgotten. Her passive brooding passivity yet lay there in the center of her house as it had lain for years throwing out the ice-like beams of a thousand eyes, perverse glitterings, merging each into each, never aging, never changing. Evelyn sat down on the edge of the table and stared at it fascinated. It seemed to be smile now, a very cruel smile as if to say, this time I didn't have to hurt you directly. I didn't bother. You know it was I who took your son away. You know how cold I am and how hard and how beautiful because once you were just as cold and hard and beautiful. The bowl seemed suddenly to turn itself over and then to distend and swell until it became a great canopy that glittered and trembled over the room, over the house the walls melted slowly into mist Evelyn saw that it was still moving out, out and farther away from her, shutting off far horizons and suns and moons and stars except as inky blots seemed faintly through it and under it walked all the people and the light that came through to them was refracted and twisted until shadow seemed light and light seemed shadow until the whole panoply of the world became changed and distorted under the twinkling heaven of the ball then there came a far away booming voice like a low clear bell it came from the center of the ball and down the great sides to the ground and then bounced toward her eagerly You see I am fate it shouted and stronger than your puny plans and I am how things turn out and I am different from your little dreams and I am the flight of time and the end of beauty and unfilled desire all the accidents and imperceptions and the little minutes that shape the crucial hours are mine I am the exception that proves no rules the limits of your control the condiment in the dish of life the booming sounds stopped the echoes rolled away over the wide land to the edge and up the great sides and back to the center where they hum for a moment and died then the great walls began slowly to bear down upon her growing smaller and smaller coming closer and closer as if to crush her and as she clenched her hands and waited for the swift bruise of the cold glass the ball gave a sudden wrench and turned over and later on the sideboard shining and inscrutable reflecting in a hundred prisms, myriad many-colored glints and gleams and crossings and interlaces of light the cold wind blew in again through to front door and with a desperate frantic energy Evelyn stretched both her arms around the bowl she must be quick she must be strong she tightened her arms until they ate tauted the thin strips of muscle and her soft flesh and with a mighty effort she stretched it and held it she felt the wind blow cold on her back where her dress had come apart from the strain of her effort and as she felt it she turned toward it and staggered under the great weight out through the library and on toward the front door she must be quick she must be strong the blood in her arms throbbed dully and her knees kept giving way under her but the feel of the cool glass was good out the front door she tauted over to the stone steps and there summoning every fiber of her soul and body for a last effort swung herself half around for a second as she tried to lose her hold her numb fingers clung to the rough surface and in that second she slipped and losing balance toppled forward with a despairing cry her arms still around the bowl down over the way lights went on far down the block the crash was heard and pedestrians rushed up wanderingly upstairs a tired man awoke from the edge of sleep and a little girl whimpered in a haunted doze and all over the moonlit sidewalk around the still black form hundreds of prisms and cubes and splinters of glass reflected the light in little gleams of blue and black edged with yellow and yellow and crimson edged with black end of the cut glass bowl by F. Scott Fitzgerald the blood seedling by John Hay this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the blood seedling by John Hay in a bitter green pasture that rose gradually narrowing to the table and ended in prairie and widened out descending to the wet and willowy sands in the great river a broad-shouldered young man was planting an apple tree when sunny spring morning when Tyler was president the little valley was shut in on the south and east by rocky hills past with the immortal green of cedars and gay with clambering columbines in front was the Mississippi reposing from its plunge over the rapids and idling down among the golden sandbars in the low moist islands which were looking their loveliest in the new spring dresses of delicate green and faded into the black crumbling loom with a movement full of vigor and malice his straight black brows were knitted till they formed one dark line over his deep set eyes his beard was not yet old enough to hide the massive outline of his firm square jaw in the set teeth in the clouded face in the half articulate exclamations that shot from time to time in the compressed lips it was easy to see that the thoughts of the young horticulturist were far from his work a right young girl came down the path through the hazel thicket that skirted the hillside a lumped brown hand on the topmost rail of the fence bolted lightly over and lit on the soft springy turf with a thud that announced a wholesome and liberal architecture it is usually expected of poets and lovers that they shall describe the ladies of their love as so airy and delicate and structured that the flowers they tread on are greatly improved in health and spirits by the visitation but not being a poet or in love we must admit that there was no resurrection for the lockspurs and pansies upon which the little boots of Miss Susie Barringer landed yet she was not the coarse peasant type though her cheeks were so rosy as to cause her great heaviness of heart on Sunday mornings and her blue lawn dress was as full as it could afford from shoulders to waist she was a neat, hearty and very pretty country girl with a slightly freckled face and rippled brown hair in astonished blue eyes but perfectly self possessed and graceful as a young quail a young man's ears are quick to catch the rustling of a woman's dress the flight of this plump bird and its fluttering blue plumage over the rail fence caused our young man to look up from his spading the scowl was rooted from his brow with a sudden incursion of flushes and his mouth was attacked by an awkward smile the young lady nodded and was hurrying past the scowl came back in force and the smile was repulsed from the bearded mouth with great loss Miss Toody, are you in a hurry? the lady thus addressed turned and said in a voice that was half part and half coaxing no particular hurry Al, I've told you a dozen times not to call me that ridiculous name Miss Toody, I ain't never called you nothing else since you was a little one so high your name when you was a yearling have some ever, if you don't like it now since you've been to Jacksonville I reckon I can call you Miss Susie when I don't just remember the franker men seem to satisfy Miss Susie for she at once interrupted in the kindest manner never mind Al Coyle, you can call me what you are a mind to then as if conscious of the feminine inconsistency she changed the subject by asking what are you going to do with that great hole big enough to bury a fellow I'm going to plant this here seedling I was eating an apple and throw the core down like I'm going to plant a little orchard here next spring but the kernel in me, we reckon this one would be too old by that time for moving so I thought I'd stick it in now and see where it'd come out in it it's a powerful, thrifty chunk of a sapling yes, I speak for the first pack of apples off in it don't forget, good morning hold on a minute Miss Susan to where I get my coat, I'll walk down a piece with you I've got something to say to you Miss Susie turned a little red and a little pale these occasions were not entirely unknown when young men in the country in that primitive period had something to say it was something very serious and earnest Alangoya was a good looking stalwart young farmer well to do, honest, able to provide for a family there was nothing presumptuous in his aspiring to the hand of the prettiest girl on Cheney Creek in childhood he had trod her to Bambury Cross and back a hundred times beguiling the tedium of the journey with kisses and the music of bells when the little girl was old enough to go to school the big boy carried her books he fought all her battles and wrote all her compositions which latter by the way never gained her any great credit when she was fifteen and he twenty he had his great reward in taking her twice a week during one happy winter to sing in school this was the bloom of life nothing before I have to compare with it the blacking of shoes and brushing of stiff electric bristling hair all in end with frost and hope struggling into the plate armor of his starch shirt the tying of his pretentious and uncontrollable cravat for the glass which was hopelessly dimmed every moment by his eager breath these trivial and vulgar details were made beautiful and unreal by the magic of youth and love then came the walk through the crisp dry snow to the widow barringers the sheepish talk with the old lady while Susie got on her things and the long enchanting tramp to the district schoolhouse there's not a country bread man or woman now living but will tell you that life can offer nothing comparable with the innocent zest of that old style of courting that was done at singing school in the starlight and candlelight of the first half of the century there are few hearts so withered and old but they beat quicker sometimes when they hear in old fashioned churches the wailing sobbing or exulting strains of Bradstreet or China or Coronation and the mind floats down on the current of these old melodies to that fresh young day of hopes and illusions of voices that were sweet no matter how false they sang of nights that were rosy with dreams no matter what Fahrenheit said girls that blushed without cause and of lovers who talked for hours about everything but love I know I shall excite the scorn of all the ingenuous youth of my time when I say that there was nothing that a superior civilization would call lovemaking in those long walks through the winter nights the heart of Alan Gallier swelled under his satin waistcoat with love and joy and devotion as he walked over the crunching roads with this pretty unslaver but he talked of apples and pigs and the heathen and the teacher's wig and sometimes ventured an allusion to the other people's flirtations in a jacuzzi in a distant way but as to the state of his own heart his lips were sealed it would move a blasé smile on the downy lips of juvenile love laces who count their conquests by their coutillions and think nothing of making a declaration in an avant-deu to be told of young people spending several evenings of each week and the year together and speaking no word of love until they were ready to name their wedding day yet such was the sober habit of the place and time so there was no troth plighted between Alan and Susie though the youth loved the maiden with all the energy of his fresh unused nature and she knew it very well he never dreamed of marrying any other woman than Susie Barringer and she sometimes tried a new pen by writing and carefully erasing the initials SMG which as she was christened Susan Minerva may be taken as showing the direction of her thoughts if Alan Gaulier had been less bashful or more enterprising this history would never have been written for Susie would probably have said yes for one of anything better to say and when she went to visit her aunt Abigail in Jacksonville she would have gone engaged with finger bound with gold and her maiden meditations fettered by promises but she went as it was fancy free and there is no tender so inflammable as the imagination of a pretty country girl of 16 one day she went out with her easy going aunt Abigail to buy ribbons Janie Creek invoices not supplying the requirements of Jacksonville society as they traversed the courthouse square on their way to deacon Pettibone's place Miss Susan's vagrant glances rested on an iris of ribbon displayed in an opposition window let's go in here she said with the impetuous decision of her age and sex we will go where you like dear said easy going on Abigail it makes no difference on Abigail was wrong it made the greatest difference to several persons whether Susie Barringer bought her ribbons at Simmons or Pettibone's that day if she had but known but all unconscious of the fate that beckon divisibly on the threshold Miss Susie tripped into Simmons Emporium and asked for ribbons two young men stood at the long counter one was Mr. Simmons proprietor of the Emporium who advanced with his most conscientious smile ribbons ma'am yes ribbons ma'am also it's ma'am cherry ma'am certainly ma'am just got a splendid lot from st. Louis the smoner ma'am the ladies were soon lost in the delight of the eyes the voice of Mr. Simmons accompanied the feast of color insinuating but unheeded the other young man approached here's what you won't miss rich and elegant just suits your style sits off your hair and eyes beautiful the ladies looked up a more decided to voice the Mr. Simmons wider hands the Mr. Simmons handle the silk and bands bolder eyes than the weak pink bordered orbs of Mr. Simmons looked unabashed admiration into the pretty face of Susie Barringer look here Simmons old boy introduce a fellow Mr. Simmons meekly obeyed Mrs. Barringer let me introduce you to Mr. Leon of st. Louis of the house to Drava and Mercer Birdie Leon at your service said the brisk young fellow seizing Miss Susie's hand with energy his hand was so much softer and whiter than hers that she felt quite hot and angry about it when they had made their purchases Mr. Leon insisted on walking home with them and was very witty and agreeable all the way he had all the wit of the newspapers of the concert rooms of the steamboat bars at his finger's ends in his wandering life he had met all kinds of people he had sold thousands through a dozen states he had never had a moment's doubt of himself he never hesitated to allow himself any indulgence which would not interfere with business he had one ambition in life to marry Miss Mercer and get a share in the house Miss Mercer was as ugly as a millionaire's tombstone Mr. Birdie Leon who when his mustache was not dyed nor his hair greased was really quite a handsome fellow considered that the sacrifice he proposed to make in the interest of trade must be made good to him in some way so by way of getting even he made violent the pretty eyes he met in his commercial travels he had something to think about after he should have found favor on the strabmystic optics of Miss Mercer he observed disrespectfully simple Susie who had seen nothing of young men besides the awkward and blushing clot offers of Cheney Creek was somewhat dazzled by the free and easy speech in manner of the hard cheeked bag man yet there was something in his airy talk and point blank compliments that aroused a faint feeling of resentment which he could scarcely account for Arne Abigail was delighted with him in his most recent planters house style she cordially invited him to call to drop in any time he must be lonesome so far from home he said he couldn't neglect such a chance with another planters house bow what a nice young man said Arne Abigail awfully conceited and not overly polite said Susie as she took off her bonnet and went into a revel of bows and trimmings the oftener Albert Leon came to Miss Farringer's Bowery Cottage the more the old lady was pleased with him and the more the young one criticized him until it was plain to see that Arne Abigail and Susan dangerously interested but just at this point his inexorable carpet bag dragged him off to a neighboring town and Susie soon afterward went back to Cheney Creek her Jacksonville hat and ribbons made her what her pretty eyes never could have done the belle of the neighborhood non-coovish contingent Adire Wu-tetium but to a village where no one has been at Paris the county town is a shrine of fashion Alan Gallier felt a vague sense of distrust chilling his heart as he saw Mr. Simmons ribbons decking the pretty head in the village choir the Sunday after her return spurred on by a nascent jealousy of the unknown resolved to learn his fate without loss of time but the little lady received him with such cool and unconcerned friendliness to talk so much and so fast about her visit that the honest fellow was quite bewildered and had to go home to think the matter over and cudgel his dull wits to divine whether she was pleasanter than ever or had drifted all together out of his reach Alan Gallier was after all a man of nerve and decision he wasted only a day or two in doubts and fears and one Sunday afternoon with a beating but resolute heart he left his Sunday school class to walk down to Crystal Glen and solve his questions and learn his doom when he came inside of the window's modest house he saw a buggy hitched by the gate Dow page is just not sore by Jing what is Dow after out here? it is natural if not logical that young men should regard the visits of all other persons of their age and sex in certain quarters as a serious impropriety but it was not his friend and crony Dow page delivery man who came out of the widow's door leading by the hand of blushing and bridling Susie it was a startling apparition of the southwestern dandy of the period light hair drenched with bears oil blue eyes and jet black moustache an enormous paced brooch in his bosom a waistcoat and trousers that shrieked in discordant tones and very small and elegant varnished boots the gambler's bag man of the Mississippi river are the best shod men in the world Gallier's heart sank with him as his plentid being shone upon him but with his rustic directness he walked to meet the laughing couple at the gate and said, Tudy I come to see you shall I go in and talk to your mother till you come back no that won't pay promptly replied the brisk stranger we'll be gone the after the afternoon I reckon this house is awful slow he added with a wink of preternatural mystery to Miss Susie Mr. Gallier, said the young lady let me introduce you to my friend Mr. Leon Gallier put out his hand mechanically after the cordial fashion of the west but Leon nodded and said I hope to see you again he lifted Miss Susie into the buggy he sprang lightly in and went off with laughter in the cracking of his whip after Dow page it's chestnut sorrel the young farmer walked home desolate comparing in his simple mind his own plain exterior with his rival's gorgeous toilette his awkward address with the other's easy audacity till his heart was full to the brim with that infernal compound of love and hate which is called jealousy from which pray heaven to guide you it was the next morning that Susie vaulted over the fence where Alice Gallier was digging the hole for Colonel Blood's apple tree something middle in particular continued Gallier resolutely there's no use leaving your work said Miss Barringer pluckily I will stay and listen poor Alan began as badly as possible who was that fella with you yesterday thank you Miss Gallier my friends ain't fellas what's that to you who he was Susie Barringer we have been keeping company now a matter of a year I have loved you well and true I would give my life to save you and a little care or trouble I have never dreamed to know what about you not that I was half good enough for you but because I didn't know any better man around here if it ain't too late Susie I asked you to be my wife I would love you and care for you good and true before the Psalms little speech was finished Susie was crying and biting her bonnet strings in a most undignified manner hush our Gallier she burst out you mustn't talk so you are too good for me I am kind of promised to that fellow I most wished I had never seen him Alan sprang to her and took her in his strong arms she struggled free from him in a moment the vibration which his passionate speech had produced in her past away she dried her eyes and said firmly enough it's no use Al we wouldn't be happy together goodbye I should wonder if I went away from Cheney Creek before long she walked rapidly down the river road Alan stood fixed and motionless gazing into light graceful form until the blue dress vanished behind the hill and leaned long in his spade unconscious at the lapse of time when Susie reached her home she found Leon at the gate I'm a little rosebud I came near missing you I'm going to Kea Cuck this morning to be gone a few days I stopped here a minute to give you something to keep for me till I come back what is it he took her chubby cheeks paint tween his hands and laid on her chair ripe lips that keep sake which he never reclaimed she stood watching him from the gate until as a clump of willows snatched him from her she thought he would go right by that work it would be just like him to jump over the fence and have a talk with him I'd like to hear it and an hour or so later as she sat and soared in the airy little entry a shadow fell upon her work and as she looked up her startling eyes met the piercing glance of her discarded lover a momentary ripple of remorse passed over her cheerful heart she saw Alan's pale and agitated face he was paler than she had ever seen him with that ghastly pallor of weather-beaten faces his black hair wet with perspiration clunked clamily to his temples he looked beat and discouraged utterly fatigued with the conflict of motion but one who closely looked in his eyes would have seen a curious, stealthy, half-shaded light in them as of one who the working against hope was still not without resolute will Dame Barringer who had seen him coming up the walk bustled in come on Alan how beat out you do look now I'm like a steady young man but don't you think you've run this thing of working into the ground well maybe so to gall you with a weary smile at least ways I've been of running this space into the ground all morning you won't bought a milk that's your idea ain't it now well Mrs. Barringer my palence the good woman trotted off to the dairy and Susie sewed demurely waiting with some trepidation for what was to come next Susie Barringer said a low husky voice which she could scarcely recognize as gallious I come back to ask pardon not for nothing I've done but I never did never could do you wrong but for what I thought for a while after you left me this morning it's all over now but I tell you the bad man had his claws into my heart for a spell now it's all over and I wish you well I wish your husband well if ever you get into it's my right it's the last favor I ask of you susceptible Susie cried a little again Alan watched her with his ambushed eyes said don't take it to heart toody perhaps there's better days in store for me yet this did not appear to comfort Miss Barringer in the least she was greatly grieved when she thought she had broken a young man's heart she was still more dismal at the slightest intimation that she had not if any explanation of this paradox is required I would observe quoting a phrase much in vogue among the witty writers of the present age that Miss Susie married a woman so pretty Susan's rising sob sided into a coquettish pout by the time her mother came in with a foaming picture of sub-assiduous nectar implied young golly with brimming beakers of it with all the beneficent delight of the lady bountiful they are Mrs. Barringer that's about as much as I can tote temperance in all things very well then you work less and play more we never get a sight of you lately come in neighborly and play checkers with toody it was the darling wish of mother Barringer's heart to see her daughter and the folks before her she had observed with great disquietude the brilliant avatar Mr. Birdie Leon and the evident pride of her daughter and the bright plumaged captive she had brought to Cheney Creek the spoiler for maiden snare I don't mourn half like that little feller it is a western habit to call a well-dressed man a little feller the epithet would light on Hercules Farnese if he could go to Illinois dressed as a cacodes no one as folks wears be it unto their upper lips and the gorgeous delight in Susie's dismay Mr. Leon had not come Alan Gullier apparently unconscious in his fatigue of the cap which Dame Barringer was vicariously setting for him walked away with a spade on his shoulder and the good woman went systematically to work in making Susie miserable by sharp little country criticisms of her heart's idle day after day wore on into Dame Barringer's delight and Susie's dismay Mr. Leon did not come he is such a businessman thought Susie trusting he can't get away from Kia Cook but he'll be shoulder-right Susie put on her sun-bonnet and hurried up to the post office any letters from me Mr. Whaler the artful and indefinite plural was not disguised enough from Miss Susie so she added I was expecting a letter from my aunt no letters here from your aunt no your uncle no none of the tribe said old Whaler who had gone over with Tyler to keep his place and so had no further use for good manners I think old Tommy Whaler is an impudent old wretch said Susie that evening and I won't go near his old post office again but Susie forgot her threat of vengeance the next day and she went again with family affection to inquire for that letter which Aunt Abby must have written the third time she went Rummy Old Whaler roared very improperly bother your aunt you get a bow some ways that's what's the matter poor Susan was so dazzled by this flash of clairvoyance that she hurried from that dreadful post office scarcely hearing the terrible words that the old gin pig hurled after her he's forgot you that's what's the matter Susie Baringer walked home along the river road revolving many things in her mind she went to her room and locked her door by sticking a pen knife over the latch and sat down to have a good cry her faculty is being thus cleared for action she thought seriously for an hour if you can remember when you were a school girl you know a great deal of solid thinking can be done in an hour but we can tell you in a moment what it put it up you can walk through the loo in a minute but you can't see it in a week Susan Baringer saw the luck with her three weeks yesterday yes I suppose it so what a little fool I was he goes everywhere says the same things to everybody like he was selling ribbons mean little scamp he didn't tell her nothing about it fie Susie your principle is worse than your grammar he'll marry some rich girl I don't envy her but I hate her and I'm as good as she is maybe he will come back no and I hope he won't and I wish I was dead hawk at handkerchief yet in the midst of her grief there was one comforting thought nobody knew of it she had no confidant she had not even opened her heart to her mother these western maidens have a fine gift of reticence a few of her countryside friends and rivals had seen with envy and admiration the pretty couple but all their poisonous little compliments and questions had never elicited from the prudent Susie more than the safe statement that the handsome stranger was a friend of Abby's whom she had met at Jacksonville they could not laugh at her they could not sneer at gay deceivers and love Lorne Damsels when she went to the sewing circle the bitterness of her tears were greatly sweetened by the consideration that in any case no one could pity her she took consolation from this thought that she faced your mother unflinchingly at tea and baffled the maternal inquest of her redness of eyes beautiful and ever ready headache it was positively not until a week later when she met Alan Gullier at choir meeting that she remembered that this man knew the secret of her baffled hopes she blushed scarlet as he approached her had you got company home Miss Susie yes that is Sally withers and me came together and no that's hardly phoetic Tom Fleming three ain't the pleasantest company I will go home with you Susie took the strong arm that was held out to her and leaned upon it with a mingled feeling of confidence and dread as they walked home in the early spring the air was full of the quickening breath of May Susie Barringer waited in vain for some signal of battle from Alan Gullier he talked more than usual but in a grave quiet protecting style very different from his former manner of worshiping bashfulness his tone had in it an air of fatherly caressing which was inexpressibly soothing to his pretty companion tired and lonely with her silent struggle at the past month when they came to her gate and he said good night she held his hand a moment with a tremulous grasp and spoke compulsively Alan's told you something I never told anybody else I'll tell you something else now because I believe I can trust you be sure of that Susie Barringer well Alan my engagement is broken off I am sorry for you Susie if you set much store by him Miss Susie answered great unnecessary impetuosity I don't care and I'm glad of it and then ran into the house into bed her cheeks all aflame at the thoughts of her indiscretion and yet with a certain comfort and having a situation which Susan Barringer blurted out to her old lover under the sympathetic starlight of the May heaven but Alan Gallier would have been a dull boy not to have taken heart and hope from it he became as of old a frequent and welcome visitor at Crystal Glen before long the game of checkers with Susie became so enthralling a passion that it was only adjourned from one evening to another Alan's white shirts grew fringy at the edges with fatigue duty and his large hands were furry at the fingers with much soap the reaction of Bertie Leon's diamond breastpin and city swagger swung back to its ancient course under the mild influence of time and the weather and opportunity so that Dame Barringer was not in the least surprised on entering her little parallel one soft afternoon in the very May she see the two young people economically occupying one chair and Susie shouting the useless appeal mother make him behave I never interfere in young folks matters especially when they're going all right I am almost ashamed to say how soon they were married so soon that when Miss Susie went with her mother to Kea Cook to buy a wedding garment she half expected to find in every shop she entered the elegant figure of Mr Leon leaning over the counter the dress was bought and made and worn at wedding and in fair and in around a family visits among the Barringer and Gullier kin and carefully laid away in lavender when the pair came back from their modest holiday and settled down to her real life on Alan's in her calm and busy life the very name faded from her tranquil mind these wholesome country hearts do not bleed long in that wide away country eyes are too useful to be wasting and weeping my dear LaFario urban us these peaches are very sound and delicious but they will not keep forever if you do not secure them today they will go to someone else and in no case as the autocrat hath said with authority can you stand them in their full exercise in the care of his spreading fields and growing orchards the Warsaw merchants bought for his wheat and his apples were known in St. Louis Mrs. Gullier with that spice of romance which is hidden away in every wound's heart had taken a special fancy to the seedling apple tree at whose planting she had so intimately assisted Alan shared in this as in all her whims intended to nurse it like a child and Dimey gave up the care of his orchard to other hands but he reserved the seedling for his own special codling in the winter from rodent rabbits and in summer from terrible grubs it was not ungrateful it grew a noble tree producing a rich and mushy fruit with a deep skylet satin coat and a flesh tinged as delicately as a pink seashell the first peck of apples was given to Susie with great ceremony and the next year the first bushel was carried to Colonel Blood the congressman he was loud in his admiration as the autumn elections were coming on Great Scott Gullier I'd rather give you got your wish then Colonel said Gullier me and my wife have called that tree to Blood Seedling since the day it was transplanted from your pasture it was the pride and envy of the neighborhood several neighbors asked for sions and grafts but could do nothing with them Fact is said old Silas Withers those folks that expect to raise good fruit by begging grafts and then laying to bed and reading newspapers will have a good time waiting elbow greases the secret I don't believe in them know how a square browed resolute silent middle-aged man who loved his home better than any amusement regular at church at the polls something richer every Christmas than he had been on New Year's Proceedin a man whom everybody liked and few loved much such was Alan Gallier grown to be if I have lingered too long over this colorless and commonplace picture of rural western life it is because I have felt an instinctive reluctance to recount the story I must tell will be flatly denied and easily refuted it is absurd and fantastic but unless human evidence is to go for nothing when it testifies of things unusual story is true at the head of the Rocky Hollow through which Cheney Creek ran to the river lived the family who gave the brook its name they were among the early pioneers of the country and the squad of Yellow Stone House the present Cheney occupied his grandfather had set a siege from the Blackhawk all one summer night with many other the pioneers they had shown no talent keeping a breath of civilization whose guides and skirmishers they had been in the progress of a half century they had sold bit by bit their section of land which kept intact would have proved a fortune they lived very quietly working enough to secure their own pork and harmony and regarding with a sort of impatience scorn every scheme of public sea beguiled by dreams of a perfect theocracy and who on arriving at the city of Latter-day Saints had died brokenhearted from his lost illusions the only dowry that Sarah Feed and Nielsen brought her husband besides their delicate beauty and her wide blue eyes was a full set of Swedenborg's later writings in English these became the daily food of the solitary household Sol Cheney would read the exalted rhapsodies of the northern seer for hours together with the role of their poetical development that irresistibly impressed and attracted him little Gershom his only child sitting at his feet would listen in childish wonder to the strange things his silent morose and gloomy father found in the well-worn volumes until his tired eyelids would fall at last over his pale bulging eyes as he grew up his eyes bulged more and more his head seemed too large for his rickety body he poured over the marvelous volumes until he knew long passages by heart and understood that she and her youth had something of a faint and flickering beauty of the boreal lights poor Gershom never could have suggested anything more heavenly than a foggy moonlight when he was fifteen he went to the neighboring town of Warsaw to school he had rather heavy weather among the well-naked grubby knuckled urchins of the town and would have been thoroughly disheartened but for one happy chance at the house where he bored an amusement called the Spirits Rapids was much in vogue a group of young folks surcharged with all sorts of animal magnetism with some capacity of light pintable every evening and put it through a complicated course of mystical gymnastics it was a very good temperate table it would dance hop or slam at the word of command or if the exercises took a more intellectual turn it would answer any question addressed to it in a manner not much below the average capacity of its tormentors Gershom Cheney took all this in solemn earnest he was from the first moment deeply impressed he lay awake whole nights with his eyes fast closed in the wildest dreams of his population he cared no more for punishment than the fakir for his self inflicted tortures he longed for the coming of the day when he could commune in solitude with the unflashed and immortal this was the full flowering of those seeds of fantasy that had fallen into his infant mind as he lay baking his brains by the wildfire and the old stone house while his father seemed to taste the raptures which his soul loved his simple trusting faith made him inevitably the bot of the mischievous circle they were not slow in discovering his extreme sensibility to the external influences one muscular black-haired heavy-browed youth took a special delight in practicing upon him the table under Gershom's tremulous hands would skip like a lamb at the indifference success they suddenly approached the table scribbled a phrase folded it and tossed it doubled up before Gershom then leaned over the table staring at his pale unwholesome face with all the might of his black eyes Shen he seized the pencil convulsively and wrote BALAM they burst into a loud laugh and said read the question it was who rode on your grandfather's back this is a specimen of the cheap wit and harmless malice by which poor Gershom was teased at the apparent treachery of his unseen counselors he was dismissed at last from the academy for utter and incorrigible indolence he accepted his disgrace as a crown of martyrdom and went proudly home to his sympathizing parents he had less criticism and more perfect faith he renewed the exercise of what he considered his mysterious powers his fastings and vigils and one of bodily movement and fresh air had so injured his health as to make him tenfold more nervous and sensitive than ever he had the sense of his lofty mission his father and mother regarded him as an oracle for the simple reason that he always answered just as they expected a curious or superstitious neighbor was added from time to time to the circle in their reports heightened the half uncanny interest which the cheney household was regarded it was on a moist and steamy evening of spring that gall your smile there's a prosperous man always does when his poor neighbors abuse him for his luck and rejoin I ain't so fortunate as you're thankful Sol Cheney I lost a box of pig yesterday I reckon I must come up and ask Gershom what's come of it coming along if you like it's been a long while since you crossed my seal but I'm getting to be quite the style young lawyer Marshall is coming up this evening to see the usual attention among western farmer people her face still rosy and comely was flushed and smiling Al do you know what day of the year it is now 19th of April yes and 20 years ago today you planted a blood seedling and I give you the mitten she turned and went into the house a briefless young barrister from Warsaw with a tawny friend who spoke like a Spaniard take seats friends and form a circle of hominy said Sol Cheney the medium is in fine condition he had two fits as hour to noon Gershom looked shockingly ill and weak he reclined in a great hickory arm chair with his eyes half open his lips moving noiselessly all the time he began to writhe and mutter he sang visions said Sol yes too many of them said Gershom a boy and a boat a man on a shelf a man with a spade all at once too many get me a pencil one at a time I'll tell you one at a time the circle broke up and a table was brought with writing materials which were read with difficulty a boy and a boat over he goes and burst out in a pittiest wail oh my poor little airframe I always noted silence woman said the relentless medium Mr. Marshall said Sol would you like a test no thank you said the young gentleman I brought my friend Mr. Balladossano who as a traveler is interested in these things will you take the medium's hand Mr. what's your name the young foreigner took the lean and feverish hand to Gershom as the latter looked at what was written that the Tony cheek grew deadly pale Dios mio he exclaimed Marshall this was written in Castilian the two young men retired to the other end of the room and read by the tallow candle the note scrawled on the paper Balladossano translated a man on a shelf table covered with bottles beside him man's face yellow as gold bottles tumble over without being touched a nonsense as that said Marshall my brother died of yellow fever at sea last year both the young man became suddenly very thoughtful and observed the results of Gallier's test he sat by Gershom holding his hand tightly but gazing absolutely into the dying blaze of the wide chimney he seemed to have forgotten where he was a train of serious thought appeared to hold him completely under its control his brows were knit with an expression of severe almost fierce determination at one moment his breathing was hard and thick a moment after hurried and broken all this while the fingers of Gershom were flying rapidly over the paper independently of his eyes which were sometimes closed and sometimes rolling as if in trouble rattling the window blinds and twisting into dull complaint the bowels of the leafless trees its voice came chill and cheerless into the dusky room when the fire was now glimmering near its death and the only sounds were those of Gershom's rushing pencil the whispering of Marshall and his friend and Old Mother Scritcher feebly whimpering in her kona the scene was sinister suddenly a rushing gust blew the door wide open Gallier started to his feet trembling in every limb and looking furtively over his shoulder out into the night quickly recovering himself he tried to resume his place but the moment Gershom's hand the medium had dropped his pencil and had sunk back in his chair in a deep and death-like slumber Gallier seized the sheet of paper and with the first line that he read a strange and horrible transformation was wrought in the man his eyes protruded his teeth chattered he passed his hand over his head mechanically and his hair stood up like the bristles on the back of a swine in rage his face was blotched white and purple he looked piteously about him for a moment then crumpling the paper in his hand cried out in a horse choking voice yes it's a fact I've done it everybody knows it Gershom spooking about to tattle about it what's the use of lying I've done it he paused as if struck by a sudden recollection then burst into tears and shook like a tree in a high wind in a moment he dropped on his knees and in that posture crawled over to Marshall here Mr. Marshall here's the whole story for God to say spare my wife and children all you can fixed my property all right for him and God bless you for it even while he was speaking with a certain revulsion of feeling he rose to his feet with a certain return of his natural dignity and said too much sand to my gizzard to be took that way goodbye friends all he walked deliberately out into the wild windy night Marshall glanced hardly at the fatal paper in his hand it was full of the capricious detail with which in reverie we'll review the scenes that are past but a line here and there clearly enough told the story how he went out to plant the apple tree how Susie came by and rejected him how he passed into the power of the devil for the time how Bertie Leon came by and spoke to him and patted him how they came to words and blows and he struck him with a spade and he fell into the trench and he buried them there at the roots of the tree Marshall following his first impulse thrust the paper into the dull red coals and fled for an instant and flew with a sound like a sob of the chimney they hunted Fagallia all night but in the morning found him lying as if asleep with a piece of expiation on his pale face his pruner knife in his heart and the red current of his life tinging the turf with crimson around the roots A New England None by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org It was late in the afternoon and the light was waning There was a difference in the look of the tree shadows out in the yard Somewhere in the distance cows were lowing and a little bell was tinkling Now and then a farm wagon tilted by and the dust flew Some blue-shirted labourers with shovels over their shoulders plodded past Little swarms of flies were dancing up and down before the people's faces in the soft air There seemed to be a gentle stir arising over everything for the mere sake of subsidence a very premonition of rest and hush and night This soft diurnal commotion was over Luisa Ellis also She had been peacefully sowing at her sitting-room window all the afternoon Now she quilted her needle carefully into her work which she folded precisely and laid in a basket with her thimble and thread and scissors Luisa Ellis could not remember that ever in her life she had mislaid one of these little feminine appurtenences which had become from long use and constant association a very part of her personality Luisa tied a green apron round her waist and got out a flat straw hat with a green ribbon Then she went into the garden with a little blue crockery bowl to pick some currents for her tea After the currents were picked she sat on the back doorstep and stemmed them collecting the stems carefully in her apron and afterwards throwing them into the hen coop She looked sharply at the grass beside the step to see if any had fallen there Luisa was slow and still in her movements It took her a long time to prepare her tea but when ready it was set forth with as much grace as if she had been a veritable guest to her own self The little square table stood exactly in the centre of the kitchen and was covered with a starched linen cloth whose border pattern of flowers glistened Luisa had a damask napkin on her tea tray where were arranged a cut glass tumbler full of teaspoons a silver cream pitcher a china sugar bowl and one pink china cup and saucer Luisa used china every day something which none of her neighbours did They whispered about it among themselves Their daily tables were laid with common crockery Their sets of best china stayed in the parlour closet and Luisa Ellis was no richer nor better bread than they Still, she would use the china She had for her supper a glass dish full of sugared currants a plate of little cakes and one of light white biscuits also a leaf or two of lettuce which she cut up daintily Luisa was very fond of lettuce which she raised perfection in her little garden She ate quite heartily though in a delicate pecking way it seemed almost surprising that any considerable bulk of the food should vanish After tea, she filled a plate with nicely baked thin corn cakes and carried them out into the back yard Caesar, she called Caesar, Caesar There was a little rush and the clank of a chain and a large yellow and white dog appeared at the door of his tiny hut which was half hidden among the tall grasses and flowers Luisa patted him and gave him the corn cakes Then she returned to the house and washed the tea things polishing the china carefully The twilight had deepened The chorus of the frogs floated in at the open window wonderfully loud and shrill and once in a while a long, sharp drone from a tree toad pierced it Luisa took off her green gingham apron disclosing a shorter one of pink and white print She lighted her lamp and sat down again with her sewing In about half an hour Joe Daggett came She heard his heavy step on the walk and rose and took off her pink and white apron Under that was still another white linen with a little cambrick edging on the bottom That was Luisa's company apron She never wore it without her calico sewing apron over it unless she had a guest She had barely folded the pink and white one with methodical haste and laid it in a table drawer when the door opened and Joe Daggett entered He seemed to fill up the whole room A little yellow canary that had been asleep in his green cage at the south window woke up and fluttered wildly beating his little yellow wings against the wires He always did so when Joe Daggett came into the room Good evening said Luisa She extended her hand with a kind of solemn cordiality Good evening Luisa returned the man in a loud voice She placed a chair for him and they sat facing each other with the table between them She sat bolt upright towing out his heavy feet squirrelly glancing with a good-humoured uneasiness around the room She sat gently erect folding her slender hands in her white linen lap Been a pleasant day remarked Daggett Real pleasant Luisa assented softly Have you been haying? She asked after a little while Yes, I've been haying all day down in the ten acre lot Yes, it's pretty hot work in the sun Is your mother well today? Yes, mother's pretty well I suppose Lily dies with her now? Daggett coloured Yes, she's with her He answered slowly He was not very young but there was a boyish look about his large face Luisa was not quite as old as he Her face was fairer and smoother but she gave people the impression of being older I suppose she's a good deal of help to your mother, she said, further I guess she is I don't know how mother would get along without her, said Daggett with a sort of embarrassed warmth She looks like a real capable girl She's pretty looking too remarked Luisa Yes, she is pretty fair looking Presently Daggett began fingering the books on the table There was a square red autograph album and a young lady's gift book which had belonged to Luisa's mother He took them up one after the other and opened them then laid them down again the album on the gift book Luisa kept eyeing them with mild uneasiness Finally she rose and changed the position of the books putting the album underneath That was the way they had been arranged in the first place Daggett gave an awkward little laugh Now what difference did it make Luisa looked at him with a deprecating smile I always keep them that way, murmured she You do beat everything said Daggett, trying to laugh again His large face was flushed He remained about an hour longer then rose to take leave Going out he stumbled over a rug and trying to recover himself hits Luisa's work basket on the table and knocked it on the floor He looked at Luisa, then at the rolling spools He ducked himself awkwardly toward them but she stopped him Never mind, said she I'll pick them up after you're gone She spoke with a mild stiffness Either she was a little disturbed or his nervousness affected her and made her seem constrained in her effort to reassure him When Jo Daggett was outside he drew in the sweet evening air with a sigh and felt much as an innocent and perfectly well intentioned bear might his exit from a china shop Luisa, on her part felt much as the kind hearted long suffering owner of the china shop might have done after the exit of the bear She tied on the pink then the green apron picked up all the scattered treasures and replaced them in her work basket and straightened the rug Then she set the lamp on the floor and began sharply examining the carpet She even rubbed her fingers over it He's tracked in a good deal of dust, she murmured I thought he must have Luisa got a dustpan and brush and swept Jo Daggett's track carefully If he could have known it, it would have increased his perplexity and uneasiness although it would not have disturbed his loyalty in the least He came twice a week to see Luisa Ellis and every time sitting there in her delicately sweet room he felt as if surrounded by a hedge of lace He was afraid to stir lest he should put a clumsy foot or hand through the fairy web and he had always the consciousness that Luisa was watching fearfully lest he should Still the lace and Luisa commanded perforce his perfect respect and patience and loyalty They were to be married in a month after a singular courtship which had lasted a matter of 15 years For 14 out of the 15 years the two had not once seen each other and they had seldom exchanged letters Jo had been all those years in Australia where he had gone to make his fortune and where he had stayed until he made it He would have stayed 50 years if it had taken so long and come home feeble and tottering or never come home at all to marry Luisa But the fortune had been made and he had come home now to marry the woman who had been patiently and unquestioningly waiting for him or that time Shortly after they were engaged he had announced to Luisa his determination to strike out into new fields and secure a competency before they should be married She had listened and assented with the sweet serenity which never failed her not even when her lover set forth on that long and uncertain journey Jo, buoyed up as he was by his sturdy determination broke down a little at the last but Luisa kissed him with a mild blush and said goodbye It won't be for long poor Jo had said huskily but it was for 14 years In that length of time much had happened Luisa's mother and brother had died and she was all alone in the world But greatest happening of all a subtle happening which both were too simple to understand Luisa's feet had turned into a path smooth maybe under a calm serene sky but so straight and unswerving that it could only meet a check at her grave and so narrow that there was no room for anyone at her side Luisa's first emotion when Jo Daggett came home he had not apprised her of his coming was consternation although she would not admit it to herself and he never dreamed of it 15 years ago she had been in love with him at least she considered herself to be just at that time gently acquiescing with and falling into the natural drift of girlhood she had seen marriage ahead as a reasonable feature and a probable desirability of life she had listened with calm docility to her mother's views upon the subject her mother was remarkable for her cool sense and sweet even temperament she talked wisely to her daughter when Jo Daggett presented himself and Luisa accepted him with no hesitation he was the first lover she had ever had she had been faithful to him all these years she had never dreamed of the possibility of marrying anyone else her life especially for the last 7 years had been full of a pleasant peace she had never felt discontented nor impatient over her lover's absence still she had always looked forward to his return and their marriage as the inevitable conclusion of things however she had fallen into a way of placing it so far in the future that it was almost equal to placing it over the boundaries of another life when Jo came she had been expecting him and expecting to be married for 14 years but she was much surprised and taken aback as if she had never thought of it Jo's consternation came later he eyed Luisa with an instant confirmation of his old admiration she had changed but little she still kept her pretty manner and soft grace and was he considered every wit as attractive as ever as for himself his stent was done he had turned his face away from fortune seeking and the old winds of romance whistled as loud and sweet as ever through his ears all the song which he had been want to hear in them was Luisa he had for a long time a loyal belief that he heard it still but finally it seemed to him that although the wind sang always that one song it had another name but for Luisa the wind had never more than murmured now it had gone down and everything was still but for a little while with half wistful attention then she turned quietly away and went to work on her wedding clothes Jo had made some extensive and quite magnificent alterations in his house it was the old homestead the newly married couple would live there for Jo could not desert his mother who refused to leave her old home so Luisa must leave hers every morning rising and going about among her neat maidenly possessions she felt as one looking her last upon the faces of dear friends it was true that in a measure she could take them with her but robbed of their old environments they would appear in such new guises that they would almost cease to be themselves then there were some peculiar features of her happy solitary life which she would probably be obliged to relinquish altogether sterner tasks than these graceful but half needless ones would probably devolve upon her there would be a large house to care for there would be company to entertain there would be Jo's rigorous and feeble old mother to wait upon and it would be contrary to all thrifty village traditions for her to keep more than one servant Luisa had a little still and she used to occupy herself pleasantly in summer weather with distilling the sweet and aromatic essences from roses and peppermint and spearmint by and by her still must be laid away her store of essences was already considerable and there would be no time for her to distill for the mere pleasure of it then Jo's mother would think it foolishness she had already hinted her opinion in the matter Luisa dearly loved to sew a linen seam not always for use but for the simple mild pleasure she took in it she would have been loath to confess how more than once she had ripped a seam for the mere delight of sewing it together again sitting at her window during long sweet afternoons drawing her needle gently through the dainty fabric she was peace itself but there was a small chance of such foolish comfort in the future Jo's mother domineering shrewd old matron that she was even in her old age very likely even Jo himself with his honest masculine rudeness would laugh and frown down all these pretty but senseless old maiden ways Luisa had almost the enthusiasm of an artist over the mere order and cleanliness of her solitary home she had throbs of genuine triumph at the sight of the window panes which she had polished until they shone like jewels she gloated gently over her orderly with their exquisitely folded contents redolent with lavender and sweet clover and very purity could she be sure of the endurance of even this she had visions so startling that she half repudiated them as indelicate of coarse masculine belongings strewn about in endless litter of dust and disorder arising from a coarse masculine presence in the midst of all this delicate harmony among her forebodings of disturbance not the least was with regard to Caesar Caesar was a veritable hermit of a dog for the greater part of his life he had dwelt in his secluded hut shut out from the society of his kind and all innocent canine joys never had Caesar since his early youth watched at a woodchuck's hole never had he known the delights of a stray bone at a neighbour's kitchen door and it was all on account of a sin when hardly out of his puppyhood no one knew the possible depth of remorse of which this mild visaged altogether innocent looking old dog might be capable but whether or not he had encountered remorse he had encountered a full measure of righteous retribution old Caesar seldom lifted up his voice in a growl or a bark he was fat and sleepy there were yellow rings which looked like spectacles around his dim old eyes but there was a neighbour who bore on his hand the imprint of several of Caesar's sharp white youthful teeth and for that he had lived at the end of a chain all alone in a little hut for 14 years the neighbour who was choleric and smarting with the pain of his wound had demanded either Caesar's death or complete ostracism so Louisa's brother to whom the dog had belonged had built him his little kennel and tied him up it was now 14 years since in a flood of youthful spirit he had inflicted that memorable bite and with the exception of short excursions always at the end of the chain under the strict guardianship of his master or Louisa the old dog had remained a close prisoner it is doubtful if with his limited ambition he took much pride in the fact but it was certain that he was possessed of considerable cheap fame he was regarded by all the children in the village and by many adults as a very monster of ferocity Saint George's dragon could hardly have surpassed in evil repute Louisa Ellis' old yellow dog mothers charged their children with solemn emphasis not to go too near him and the children listened and believed greedily with a fascinated appetite for terror and ran by Louisa's house stealthily with many side-long and backward glances at the terrible dog if perchance he sounded a horse bark there was a panic wayfarers chanting into Louisa's yard eyed him with respect and inquired if the chain were stout Caesar at large might have seemed a very ordinary dog and excited no comment whatever chained his reputation over shadowed him so that he lost his own proper outlines looked darkly vague and enormous Joe Daggett however with his good human sense and shrewdness saw him as he was he strode valiantly up to him and patted him on the head in spite of Louisa's soft clamour of warning and even attempted to set him loose Louisa grew so alarmed that he desisted but kept announcing his opinion in the matter quite forcibly at intervals there ain't a better nature dog in town he would say and it's downright cruel to keep him tied up there someday I'm going to take him out Louisa had very little hope he would not one of these days when their interests and possessions should be more completely fused in one she pictured to herself Caesar on the rampage through the quiet and unguarded village she saw innocent children bleeding in his path she was herself very fond of the old dog because he had belonged to her dead brother and he was always very gentle with her still she had great faith in his ferocity she always warned people not to go too near him she fed him on ascetic fair of cornmosh and cakes and never fired his dangerous temper with heating and sanguinary diet of flesh and bones Louisa looked at the old dog munching his simple fair and thought of her approaching marriage and trembled still no anticipation of disorder and confusion in lieu of sweet peace and harmony no foreboding of Caesar on the rampage no wild fluttering of her little yellow canary were sufficient to turn her a hare's breath Joe Daggett had been fond of her and working for her all these years it was not for her whatever came to pass to prove untrue and break his heart she put the exquisite little stitches into her wedding garments and the time went on until it was only a week before her wedding day it was a Tuesday evening and the wedding was to be a week from Wednesday there was a full moon that night about nine o'clock Louisa strolled down the road a little way there were harvest fields on either hand bordered by low stone walls luxuriant clumps of bushes grew beside the wall and trees wild cherry and old apple trees at intervals presently Louisa sat down on the wall and looked about her with mildly sorrowful reflectiveness tall shrubs of blueberry and meadow-sweet all woven together and tangled with blackberry vines and horse briars shut her in on either side she had a little clear space between them opposite her on the other side of the road was a spreading tree the moon shone between its bowels and the leaves twinkled like silver the road was bespread with a beautiful shifting dapple of silver and shadow the air was full of a mysterious sweetness I wonder if it's wild grapes, murmured Louisa she sat there some time she was just thinking of rising when she heard footsteps and low voices and remained quiet it was a lonely place and a little timid she thought she would keep still in the shadow and let the persons whoever they might be pass her but just before they reached her the voices ceased and the footsteps she understood that their owners had also found seats upon the stone wall she was wondering if she could not steal away unobserved when the voice broke the stillness it was Joe Daggetts she sat still and listened the voice was announced by a loud sigh which was familiar as itself well, said Daggett you've made up your mind then I suppose yes, returned another voice I'm going day after tomorrow that's Lily Dyer thought Louisa to herself the voice embodied itself in her mind she saw a girl tall and full-figured with a firm, fair face looking fairer and firmer in the moonlight her strong yellow hair braided in a close knot a girl full of calm rustic strength and bloom with a masterful way which might have besiemed a princess Lily Dyer was a favourite with the village folk she had just the qualities to arouse the admiration she was good and handsome and smart Louisa had often heard her praises sounded well, said Joe Daggett I ain't got a word to say I don't know what you could say returned Lily Dyer not a word to say, repeated Joe drawing out the words heavily then, there was silence I ain't sorry he began at last that that happened yesterday that we kind of let on how we felt to each other I guess it's just as well we knew of course, I can't do anything different I'm going right on and getting married next week I ain't going back on a woman that's waited me 14 years and break her heart if you should jilt her tomorrow I wouldn't have you spoke up the girl with sudden vehemence well, I ain't going to give you the chance said he, but I don't believe you would either you'd see I wouldn't honour's honour and right's right and I'd never think anything of any man that went against him for me or any other girl you'd find that out Joe Daggett well, you'll find out fast enough that I ain't going against him for you or any other girl returned he their voices sounded almost as if they were angry with each other Louisa was listening eagerly I'm sorry you feel as if you must go away said Joe, but I don't know but it's best of course it's best I hope you and I have got common sense well, I suppose you're right suddenly Joe's voice got an undertone of tenderness say Lily, he said he I'll get along well enough myself, but I can't bear to think you don't suppose you're going to fret much over it I guess you'll find out I shan't fret much over a married man well, I hope you won't I hope you weren't Lily, God knows I do and I hope one of these days you'll come across somebody else I don't see any reason why I shouldn't suddenly her tone changed she spoke in a sweet, clear voice so loud that she could have been heard across the street no Joe Daggett said she I'll never marry another man as long as I live I've got good sense and I ain't going to break my heart nor make a fool of myself but I'm never going to be married you can be sure of that I ain't that sort of a girl to feel this way twice Louisa heard an exclamation and a soft commotion behind the bushes then Lily spoke again the voice sounded as if she had risen this must be put a stop to said she enough, I'm going home Louisa sat there in a daze listening to their retreating steps after a while she got up and slunk softly home herself the next day she did her housework methodically, that was as much a matter of course as breathing but she did not so on her wedding clothes she sat at her window and meditated in the evening Joe came Louisa Ellis had never known that she had any diplomacy in her but when she came to look for it that night she found it although meek of its kind among her little feminine weapons even now she could hardly believe that she had heard her right and that she would not do Joe a terrible injury should she break her trough plight she wanted to sound him without betraying too soon her own inclinations in the matter she did it successfully and they finally came to an understanding but it was a difficult thing for he was as afraid of betraying himself as she she never mentioned Lily Dyer she simply said that while she had no cause of complaint against him she had lived so long in one way that she shrank from making a change well I never shrank Louisa said Daggett I'm going to be honest enough to say that I think maybe it's better this way but if you'd wanted to keep on I'd have stuck to you till my dying day I hope you know that yes I do said she that night she and Joe parted more tenderly than they had done for a long time standing in the door holding each other's hands a last great wave of regretful memory swept over them well this ain't the way we've thought it was all going to end is it Louisa said Joe she shook her head on her pallid face you let me know if there's ever anything I can do for you said he I ain't ever going to forget you Louisa then he kissed her and went down the path Louisa all alone by herself that night wept a little she hardly knew why but the next morning on waking she felt like a queen who after fearing lest her domain be rested away from her sees it firmly ensured in her possession now the tall weeds and grasses might cluster around Caesar's little hermit hut the snow might fall on its roof year in and year out but he never would go on a rampage through the unguarded village now the little canary might turn itself into a peaceful yellow ball night after night and have no need to wake and flutter with wild terror against its bars Louisa could sew linen seams and distill roses and then push and fold away in lavender as long as she listed that afternoon she sat with her needlework at the window and felt fairly steeped in peace lily dire, tall and erect and blooming went past but she felt no qualm if Louisa Ellis had sold her birthright she did not know it the taste of the potage was so delicious and had been her soul satisfaction for so long serenity and placid narrowness had become to her as the birthright itself she gazed ahead through a long reach of future days strung together like pearls in a rosary everyone like the others and all smooth and flawless and innocent and her heart went up in thankfulness outside was the fervid summer afternoon the air was filled with the sounds of the busy harvest of men and birds and bees the lows, metallic clatterings sweet coals and long hummings Louisa sat prayerfully numbering her days like an uncoisted nun end of a New England nun by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman read by Nick Strodwick