A Man and a Woman

CHAPTER XXVI.

ADVENTURES MANIFOLD.

"I've et hearty," said the woman, saucily, as the breakfast, for which the birds furnished the music, was done. And then he initiated her into the brief art of washing tin things in the gravel at the water's edge. Then he informed her that target practice was about to begin, and brought out four guns from their cases.

Two of the pieces were rifles, and of each kind one was a light and dainty piece. He said they would practice with the rifles; that when she became an expert rifle-shot the rest would all be easy, and then upon the boll of a tree at one side of the opening he pinned a red scrap of paper, and shot at it.

With the report half the scrap was torn away, and then he taught her how to hold the piece and how to aim.

She expressed, at last, a desire to shoot, and he gave her the little rifle loaded. She aimed swiftly and desperately, and pressed the trigger, and the echoes had not died away when she let fall the gun upon the grass.

"I'm hurt," she said.

He sprang to her side, pale-faced, as she raised her hand to her shoulder, but he brightened a moment later. He opened the dress at her neck, and turned it down on one side, and there, on the round, white shoulder, was a slight ruddy bruise. He kissed it, and laughed.

"It'll be all right in no time. Now, do as I tell you."

He put a cartridge in the piece again.

"Try it once more," he said; "aim more deliberately and hold the stock of the gun very tightly against your shoulder as you fire."

"But it will hurt me."

"No, it won't. Do as I tell you."

She would have obeyed him had he told her to leap into the lake, and the lake was deep.

She set her lips firmly, held the gun hard against her shoulder, aimed carefully and fired.

The red spot flew from the gray trunk of the oak. She looked up amazed.

"Why, it didn't hurt me a bit!"

"Of course not. There is a law of impact, and you are learning it. The strongest man in the world could not hurt you pushing you against nothing. He could kill you with a blow. With the first shot your gun gave you a blow. In the second it could only push you. Listen to the wisdom of your consort!"

She made a mouth at him, and he told her she'd had her "baptism of fire," and soon they sallied into the forest, hunting.

She was very pretty and piquant in her kilted dress and shooting jacket and high boots. It was a formidable army of two.

There were myriads of bees in the openings, and the fall flowers were yielding up the honey to be stored, in the hearts of great trees, and at noon-time they sat down in one of the openings for luncheon.

He had shot only a couple of ruffed grouse, for it was a ramble rather than a real hunt, this first mid-wood excursion of the pair, and she had shot at various things, a grouse or two and squirrels, and missed with regularity, and was piqued over it, but he had noted her increasing courage and confidence and resolution with each successive shot, and knew that he had with him, for the future, a "little sportsman," as he called her.

They built a fire, just for the fun of it, and a grouse was plucked and broiled with much ado, and never was greater feast. And, the meal over, he produced a cigar and—which was not really good form for the woods—lay on the grass and smoked it, looking at her and talking nonsense.

She sat upon a log and delighted in the fragrance and the light, and the droning sounds and bird-cries, and the new world of it to her. All at once, her gaze became fixed upon some object a little distance away. She reached out her hand to him appealingly.

"What is that?"

He rose and looked where she pointed.

Years of decay had made of the trunk of a fallen tree but a long ridge of crumbling, brown chips, and, upon this ridge, where the sun streamed down hotly, lay something coiled in a black mass, and there was a flat, hideous head resting upon it all with beady eyes which seemed, to leer.

Harlson looked at it carelessly.

"Big one, isn't it?" he said.

"What is it?" she gasped.

"What is it, you small ignoramus! It's a blacksnake and a monster. It is one of the dreads of the small life of the wood, and it was one of the dreads of my youth, and its days are numbered."

He reached for his gun, then checked himself.

"Shoot it."

She picked up the little rifle and raised it to her shoulder, as calmly as any Leather-Stocking in the land.

The report came like a whip-crack, and up from the dead log leaped a great writhing mass, which coiled and twisted and thrashed about, and finally lay still.

Harlson walked up and examined what he called the "remains." Half the serpent's ugly head had been torn away by the bullet.

"It was a great shot! 'And the woman shall bruise the serpent's head!'" he quoted. "Egad, you've done it with a vengeance, my huntress! And you are a markswoman among many, and thy price is above rubies! Hooray!"

She informed him, with much dignity, that she never missed such monsters as were blacksnakes, and that her undoubted skill with the rifle was due to the quality of the tutor she had owned, and, at the same time, would he mind moving to some other place to finish his cigar, for the sight of the dead monster was not a pleasant thing?

And so was accomplished the woman's first feat with the gun; but on that same day, before they had returned to camp, she had slain, at a fair distance, a grouse which, when flushed, had sailed away with lofty contempt for but a score of yards, and, alighting upon a limb close beside the body of a tree, had stood awaiting, jauntily and ignorantly, his doom.

She was a proud woman when the bird came plunging to the ground, and of that particular fowl he remarked, subsequently, when they were eating it, that its flavor was a little superior to anything in the way of game he had ever tasted, and he was more than half in earnest.

And the nights were poems and the days were full of life, and the brown cheeks of the woman became browner still, and she was referred to more frequently than even in the ante-wedded days as merely of the tribe of Chippewas.

In one respect, too, she excelled in deserving that same title, for your Chippewa, of either sex, takes to the water like a duck, as becomes a tribe of the lake regions. He took her to the lake and taught her not to fear it, and they frolicked in its waves together, and she learned to swim as well as he, and to dive as smoothly as a loon or otter, and was a water nymph such as the creatures of the wood had never seen. He was very vain of her art acquired so swiftly, though in conversation he gave vast credit to her teacher. And in the catching of the black bass there came eventually to the nine-ounce split bamboo in her little hands as many trophies as to his heavier lancewood. One day, after she had become at home in the water, and had better luck than he, and was lofty in her demeanor, he upset the boat in deep water, and her majesty was compelled to swim about it with him and assist at one end while he was at the other, in righting it. So mean of spirit was he.

All other things, though, were but the veriest trifle compared with the adventure which came at last. He had made her wise in woodcraft, and she could tell at the lake's margin or along the creek's bed the tracks of the 'coon, like the prints of a baby's foot, the mink's twin pads, or the sharp imprint of the hoofs of the deer. One day another track was noted near the camp, a track resembling that of a small man, shoeless, and Harlson informed her that a bear had been about.

She asked if the black bear of Michigan were dangerous, and he said the black bear of Michigan ate only very bad people, or very small ones.

One afternoon they were some distance from the camp. They had been shooting with fair success, and, returning, had seated themselves in idle mood upon one end of a great fallen trunk, upon which they had just crossed the gully, at the bottom of which a little creek tumbled toward the lake. The gleam of a maple's leaves near by, already turning scarlet, had caught her eye; she had expressed a wish for some of the gaudy beauties, and he had climbed the tree and was plucking the leaves for her, when, suddenly, the woods resounded with the fierce barking of the dog in the direction from which they had just come. He called to her to be ready to shoot, that a deer might have been started, when there was a crashing through the bushes and the quarry burst into sight.

Lumbering into the open, turning only to growl at the dog which was yelping wildly in its rear, but keeping wisely out of its reach, was a black bear. The beast did not see the woman opposite him, but rushed at the log and was half way across it when she screamed. Then it paused. Behind was the dog, before the woman; it advanced slowly, growling.

Harlson, in the tree, saw it all, and, as a fireman drops with a rush down the pole in the engine-house, he came down the maple's boll and bounded toward the log. The bear hesitated.

"Shoot! you little fool, shoot!" shouted the man, as he ran.

Her courage returned in a moment, at least did partial presence of mind. She raised the gun desperately, and the report rang out. The bear clutched wildly at the log, then rolled off, and fell to the rocky bottom, twenty feet below. Harlson seized his own gun and looked down. The beast was motionless, and from a little hole in its head the blood was trickling.

And the woman—well, the woman was sitting on the grass, very pale of face and silent.

The man seized her, and half smothered her with kisses, and shouted aloud to the forest and all its creatures that great was Diana of the Ephesians!

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE HOUSE WONDERFUL.

And the bear's skin was tanned with the glossy black fur still upon it, the head with the white-fanged jaws still attached and made natural with all the skill of an artist in such things, and it lay, a great, soft, black rug, upon a couch in the House Wonderful, or, at least, the house to which Harlson gave that name. It seemed to him the House Wonderful, indeed.

Therein was held all there was in the world for him, and he was satisfied with it all, and content, save that he felt, at seasons, how little man is worthy of the happiness which may come to him sometimes, even in this world. Yet it was not all poetry in the House Wonderful; there were many practical happenings, and many droll ones.

The House Wonderful, it is needless to say, was in the city. The bear-skin was but one of many such soft trophies of the chase which were spread upon the floors or upon soft lounges and divans. Over this particular skin there was much said, at times, when there were guests.

Jean would explain to some curious person, that she herself had shot the original wearer of the skin, and that her husband was up a tree at the time, and there would be odd looks, and he would explain nothing, and then she, woman-like, must needs spoil the mystery by telling all about it, as if any one would not comprehend some jest in the matter! It was a home of rugs and books, and very restful. I liked to go there, where they both spoiled me, and where the softness and the perfume of it all made me useless and dissatisfied after I had come away. There is no reason in the average man. But in the Eden was one great serpent—not a real serpent, but a glittering one, like the toy snakes sold at Christmas time.

There is some weakness in our American training of girls. Visibly and certainly the woman who marries a man engages herself to conduct his household—to relieve him of all troubles there—because he is the bread-winner. But very few girls seem trained with such idea, though all girls look forward to a marriage and such mutually helpful compact between two human beings. It is, of course, the fault of a social growth, the fault of mothers, the fault of many conditions. And Jean did not know how to cook! She was a woman of keen intelligence, of all sweetness and all faithfulness, yet she found herself almost helpless when she became the chatelaine of the castle where Grant was to come to dinner.

It is needless to tell of all that happened. The woman was adroit in the engagement of domestics, and there were dinners certainly, and, possibly, good ones, but the knowingness of it all was wanting. He felt it, and wondered a little, but did not fret. He knew the woman. One evening they were together, after dinner again, just as they had been when he told her he would take her to the woods, and she lay coiled up upon a divan, while he sat beside her. It was their after-dinner way. She spoke up abruptly and very bravely:

"Grant, I'm a humbug."

"Certainly, dear; what of it?"

"I mean—and it's something serious—I really am, you know, and I want to tell you."

"Go ahead, midget."

She did not seem altogether reassured, but plunged in gallantly:

"You thought I would be a good wife to you. You thought I knew everything a woman should know who agreed to live together with the man she loved, and make the most of life. But, Grant, I was and am really a humbug! I don't know how to manage a house; I have to leave it to the servants, and I can see enough, at least, to know that it isn't what it should be. There are a thousand little fancies of yours I don't know how to gratify, and I want to do it so, Grant! What shall I do?"

He responded by saying that he was very fond of his little Dora Copperfield and that he would buy her a poodle dog. He added, though, that she mustn't die—he needed her!

There was a laugh in his eyes, and he was but the tyrant man enjoying the discomfort of the one being to him; but when she curled a little closer and looked up in earnestness, he relented.

"That is nothing, dear," he said, "save that I'm afraid you have a little work ahead. Yes, it is right that you should know what you do not. You must learn. It is nothing for a clever woman, such as the one I have gained. I look to you, love, for the home and all the sweetness of it, and I wouldn't do that if I did not think that in the end there would be all pride and comfort for you. Down East they call this or that woman 'house-proud.' I want you to be 'house-proud.' No wife who is that but is doing very much for all about her, and I won't say any more, except that you must let me help you."

And thenceforth ensued strange things. There were experiments, and there was even a cooking-school episode, Harlson, at this period, professing great weariness, and sometimes, after meals, simulating pains which required much attention, though drugs were vigorously refused. All he wanted was strictly personal care. It is to be feared that he was not honest as to details, though honest as a whole. And he would go marketing with the brown woman, who had become so practical, and they became critical together, and the gourmands, wise old men about town, whom he brought, occasionally, to dine with him, began to wonder how it was that they found such perfection at a private table. And, as for the woman, well, she passed so far beyond her clumsy Mentor that he became but as the babe which doesn't know, and had nothing to say in her august presence. He might talk about a cheese or a wine or some such trifle, but how small a portion of living are cheese and wine!

The first year of wedded life is experimental, though it be with the pair best mated since the world began. There is an unconscious dropping of all surface traits and all disguises, and a showing of heart and brain to the one other. Never lived the woman so self-contained and tactful that, at the end of a year, her husband, if he were a man of ordinary intelligence, did not know her for what she was worth; never the man so thoughtful and discreet that he was not estimated at his value by the one so near him. This I have been told by men and women who should know. I lack the trial which should give wisdom to myself, but I am inclined to accept the dictum of these others. It must be so, from force of circumstances.

It was pleasant to me to watch this man and woman. It seemed to me that the hard lines in Grant Harlson's face became, week by week and month by month, less harshly and clearly defined, while upon the face of his wife grew that new look of a content and ownership which marks the woman who sleeps in some man's arms, the one who owns her—the same look which Grant, with his broader experience and keener insight, used to recognize when he puzzled me so in telling whimsically, in the street cars, who were wedded, without looking at their rings. It may have been a fancy, but it seemed to me the two grew very much to look alike. It was in no feature, in nothing I can describe, but in something beyond words, in a certain way which cannot be defined. It may have been but the unconscious imitation by each of some trick of the other's speech, or manner, but it appeared a deeper thing. I cannot explain it.

They were not much apart, those two. Sometimes Harlson would be called away by some business or political emergency, and then would occur what impressed me as a silly thing, deeply as I cared, for each. He would get railroad tickets for two, and they would go riotously across the country, playing at keeping house in a state-room, and enjoying themselves beyond all reason. I explained often to each of them that it wasn't fair to the other; that he could attend to business better in some distant city without having to report to her at a hotel, and that it would be more comfortable for her in her own fair home; and the two idiots would but laugh at me.

The library was their fad together, for Jean was as much of a bibliomaniac, almost, as was her husband, and I confess I enjoyed myself amid the rich collection, made without precedent or reason, but, somehow, wonderfully attractive. They were whimsical, the pair, with books as with regard to other things, but the few who might invade their library were inclined to linger there. I always found a mingled odor there of cigar-smoke and of some perfume which Jean preferred, and I learned to like the combination. Maybe that was a perverted taste,—cigar-smoke and delicate perfumes are not consorted in the code of odor-lovers,—but, as I say, I learned to like it.

I have but little more to tell of this first wedded year of my dear friends. One incident I may relate. It occurred less than a year from the date of the outing in the woods. There were relations each of the two should meet, and he was very busy with many things, and it was, finally, after much thought, decided that Jean should go her way and he his for two long weeks; so they bade good-by to each other and left the city, in different directions, the same day.

It was just four days later when I got a note asking me to call at the house. It was from Jean, and she was a little shame-faced when she met me. Certain business complications had arisen in Grant's absence to which I might attend, and it was for this that she had summoned me; but she had an explanation to make. She did it, blushing.

"I went to my people, Alf," she said, "but it palled in a couple of days. That is all. I'd rather be here alone, where he has been, and await him here, than be anywhere else. It's foolish, of course, but you, who know us both so well, may possibly understand." And she blushed more than ever.

The next day there stalked into my office a man who asked me to lunch. It was Grant Harlson. There was a quizzical look on his face, and a rather happy one.

"I won't tell you anything, old man," he said. "I was only a few hours behind the girl. That's all. I suppose we might as well keep up the fool record we have begun. It suits me, anyhow."

And a single man, knowing nothing about such things, could give no opinion. I was abusive and sarcastic, but he insisted on buying a great luncheon.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE APE.

Given a man and a woman, married, loving each other, and what a recent clever writer calls "the inevitable consequences" ordinarily come and cause the inevitable anxiety, more, doubtless, to the man than to the woman. There comes a time when she he loves must bear him their first child. In primitive existence this trouble to the man must have been much less, must have been little more than the sympathy of an hour, because, in nature, unaffected, there is seldom much of suffering and almost never death prematurely. But we have changed all this. We have violated gentle Nature's laws in our ways of living, and inasmuch as we have done this, we have lost, to such extent, her soft protecting hand. We breathe too little of the pure air; we are lax in physical effort, and, even though the individual man or woman be wise, he or she must bear the burden of the errors of an ancestry or the evils of the present. So, to the woman gentle-bred there comes a risk in the undergoing of that which she has most hoped for since she loved a man, and since she would be all there is of perfect womanhood. There is peril, and she knows it, but is braver than man at this time. There is peril, and he knows it, and he is helpless and clinging as a child. What can he do? Nothing, save to bring in a hard hour the presence of one who may not bear a portion of the real trial. Yet this is something. It has saved dear women's lives. There is something—we do not quite understand about it yet—which is a band of more than steel between two close together, and which holds back the one sometimes from even the grip of that force seldom denied, which is named Death, the one who fills the graveyards.

And, one evening, there was a man in deep trouble, and in the morning he sat beside a bed in which was his small wife and beside her a tiny red thing, "rather underdone," he said, in the buoyant reaction which came upon him, for that was Harlson's way when he had emerged from trouble; and the small red thing was the son of the two of them. And who can tell what the man said to the woman. There are precious, sacred overflows of love, sweet outbursts of what makes life worth the living, never yet in words for all, never yet written in black upon some white surface. There is a sanctuary.

It was a healthy baby, and the mother was soon herself, and the most foolish of small women over it. I rather liked the young animal myself, for they let me see it when its days were few, and it clutched at my fingers in a way that won me. It was a curious young animal to me. It took to the water wonderfully, and all three of us together sometimes, when I would call, would summon the nurse and see the young villain bathe. This was when he was but a few months old. He was such a royal fellow, so brave and buoyant, that I fell in love with him. How could a lonely man help being foolish?

An odd name had the child. It all came from the hours, when, all danger passed, a proud and happy man sat upon a bedside and looked down into the face of a proud and happy woman, and, at times, studied the quality of the odd mite beside her, half hidden in the waves of pillow and of sheet. He would look at the thing's wonderful hands, and its wonderful pink feet, and have remarks to make. One hour he came in and examined the creature and repeated great words from some authority:

"How many people have ever taken notice of a baby's foot, except to admire its pinkiness and its prettiness?" said he. "And yet, to the anatomist, it is a revelation. Take, for example, the feet of a child of ten months, that has never walked nor stood alone. It has a power of grasping to some extent, and is used instinctively like a hand. The great toe has a certain independent working, like a thumb, and the wrinkles of the sole resemble those of the palm. These markings disappear when the pedal extremity has come to be employed for purposes of support.

"The hands and feet of a human being are strikingly like those of the chimpanzee in conformation, while the gorilla's resemblance to man in these respects is even more remarkable. The higher apes have been classified as 'quadrumana,' or 'four-handed,' because their hind feet are hand-shaped; but this designation is improperly applied, because the ape's posterior extremities are not really hands at all. They merely look like hands at the first glance, whereas, in fact, they are but feet adapted for climbing. The big toes cannot be 'opposed' to other toes, as thumbs are to the fingers, but simply act pincer-wise, for the purpose of grasping. Now, oddly enough, the 'infant's' feet have this same power of grasping, pincer-fashion, and the action is performed in precisely the same way. Advocates of evolutionary theories take this to signify that the human foot was originally utilized for climbing trees also, before the species was so highly developed as it is now. Also, they assert that the fact that the art of walking erect is learned by the child with such difficulty proves that the race has only acquired it recently.

"There, darling," he said, "you see how it is. We have but come into possession of a little ape! What shall we do?"

She was not troubled. In his eyes she saw that which is worth more to the young mother than all else the world can give, but she entered into the spirit of his mood. She replied, gently, that she didn't know what to do, but had he the bad taste to kiss an Ape? And he admitted that he had, and kissed the object gently, as if afraid of breaking it, and kissed the gentle mother a hundred to one.

I liked the Ape—for so they came to allude to that sturdy babe. He may be my heir some day—though he was named, as Jean insisted, for his father—and I had many a frolic with him in his babyhood, when I was allowed to enter the sanctuary of that home. He was a little viking, a little raider, this child, conceived in the forest. There seemed to have come to him the daring and the vigor of outdoor things, and the force of nature. A great man-child was this.

I was not alone in the rejoicing over the infant, though really he was, it seems to me, as dear to me, the isolated man, as to his parents. They rioted in their vast possession, and were very foolish people. But why should I keep repeating that these two were very foolish people together?

They were like other fathers and mothers, in some respects, but one difference I noted. They seemed almost to adore the child, but he was never first with either of them. He but bound the two more closely together, and the looks of the man were sometimes almost worshipful as he looked upon the mother of his child. And she—she understood, and they were glad together. Their kingdom had been but enlarged.

It is not to be supposed that this whimsical couple—for they were really whimsical, these friends of mine, as must have appeared often in my account could rear a child without grotesqueries. The woman, I am afraid, was, before she became a mother, addicted to monkey tricks, even to the extent of bounding leopard-like upon the man from unexpected places, and the Ape was, in his early days, bred in a way barbaric. They had great times with the Ape.

One day Grant Harlson had his business for the day concluded early. He could reach home as a little after five o'clock, where dinner came at six. One of the fiercest of summer rains was falling. He started buoyantly. He wanted his wife and boy.

He reached the house and entered. No wife was there to greet him; no drunken-footed babe, for the Ape had learned to walk now, albeit unsteadily; not even a servant girl to make some explanation. He stalked through the house wonderingly, back to the kitchen, which looked out upon a green back-yard where they had erected a tent, and had there had dinners and inhaled the odor of the grass. He found in the kitchen the two girls, who were all delight, and exhibited but slight awe at his presence. He recognized that all was well, and looked out through the descending sheets of water.

There, beside the quaint tent set upon the green-sward, were two people. One was a graceful woman, one a sturdy, shouting child. Neither was garbed save in the simplest way. She wore a wrap of some sort, a careless thing, the boy a night-gown, and they were moving about in the warm rain and bathing in nature's way, and particularly happy.

The man was righteously indignant at all desertion of him. He shouted manfully, and at last attracted the attention of the pair. He told them to come in to him. As well have talked to the wild winds. He looked from the porch upon the riant, dissipated two, and commanded and cajoled and made tremendous threats, but to no purpose. He reproached his wife with unwifely disobedience, and with the crime of turning her own offspring against his father, and the two but mocked him! Then he disappeared, and appeared five minutes later in a frayed old swimming suit, and there was terror in the camp of the foe! He made a charge through sheets of rain, and a fair woman was, in most unmanly way, laid in a puddle, and her son set aloft in pride upon his prostrate and laughing mother. And high jinks ensued. So did these two conduct themselves!

But an hour later, when guests came to the dinner, the Ape had gone to his nursery without a whimper, and no more grave and courteous man or more stately and gracious dame sat down at table that evening in all the city of a million people.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE FIRST DISTRICT.

The trouble with us in the First Congressional District was that we could not carry the Ninth Ward. But for this weak point we would have felt assured at any time. With the Ninth Ward eliminated we could control the district barely. With the Ninth Ward for us it would be a walk-over. But the ward belonged to Gunderson.

Gunderson employed three thousand men. He was not a party man, but he was a partisan; that is, he would get interested sometimes in a campaign, and when he did, each workman in his big manufactory must vote as indicated or go. And Gunderson did not like Harlson. The ways of the big employer were not what Harlson admired, and he had never tried much to conciliate him. So it came that in more than one legislative and local contest we had lost the Ninth Ward. And now Harlson was a candidate for Congress.

We were puzzled. "I'm afraid Jean will have to lock me out again," laughed Harlson, as we were discussing the problem one night after a committee meeting, and herein he referred to a funny episode, dating back to the time when the Ape was but a yearling. Jean, dignified, chatelaine, sweet wife and fond mother, was as interested in politics as in anything else that commanded her husband's attention at any time, and had learned from our conversations all about the Ninth Ward. We were confident one spring, and as Grant left home on the morning of election day he was informed that unless he came as a victor he must not expect admission to the home containing his wife and baby boy. He said he would return in triumph or upon his shield, but he did neither. At five o'clock in the afternoon we knew that we were whipped, whipped beautifully and thoroughly, and all because of that same black demon of a Ninth Ward, and the fact was so apparent that we became suddenly philosophical, and Grant turned to me and said:

"Come to dinner with me, Alf, and let's go now. What's the use of staying to the funeral? We'll eat a good dinner and smoke, and good digestion will wait on appetite, and we'll plan and say we'll do better next time."

So we left the hurly-burly and took the train, and were at Harlson's home a little before the dinner hour. Grant tried his latch-key, but it would not serve. He rang the bell, but there came no answer. Then there came a tapping and clatter from inside a window, and both of us left the porch to get down upon the sward and visit the window and investigate.

Inside the window, and smiling, was a small, brown woman, holding in her arms a crowing youngster, who was making a great ado and reaching out his hands toward his father. She raised the window just a little, and put a question, gravely:

"What is it that you wish, gentlemen?"

Grant intimated, humbly, that we wanted to get in and be given some dinner.

"Are you the gentlemen who were going to carry the Ninth Ward?"

"Yes."

"Did you carry it?"

"No."

The laughing face fell a little, but the stately air was recovered in a moment. "Well," she said, with dignity, "I'm very sorry. We do not wish to seem inhospitable, neither the baby nor I, but really we do not feel justified in harboring people incapable of carrying the Ninth Ward."

We explained and pleaded and apologized and promised, but for a long time to no avail. At last, after the dinner-bell had sounded, and after we had pledged ourselves to carry that ward yet or perish, we were admitted, only then, though, as was explained, for the child's sake. He was accustomed to climb upon his father after dinner.

So carrying the Ninth Ward became a synonym for any difficult feat with us, and if Grant accomplished this or that, or I made a good turn, or Jean gave her cook or dressmaker an inspiration, the Ninth Ward was referred to as having been carried. And here was that ward before us again in a greater emergency, and in its own proper person.

Gunderson had a wife. He would have owned two wives had the one in his possession been surveyed and subdivided properly, for she was big enough, abundantly, for two. She was the best illustration I ever saw of what difficulties burden the ignorant rich who have social ambitions. She was good-hearted, coarse, shy and hopeful. A woman may be coarse and yet timid, as I have noted many a time, and Mrs. Gunderson was of this type. She hungered for social status, but knew not how to attain it. To her burly husband's credit, he wished, above all things, to gratify his wife's ambition, but he was as ignorant as she regarding ways and means. He had learned that there was a limit even to the power of money.

Jean had met Mrs. Gunderson in a social way, but of course there could be no affinity between the two, and the heavy-weight matron, anxious for recognition, had hardly attracted a second thought from the small aristocrat. I do not know, by the way, that I have told of the social status of these friends of mine. I don't think either Grant or Jean ever gave the matter much attention. Grant was democratic in every principle, and yet, unknowingly, it seems to me, exclusive arbitrarily. He had those about him whom he liked, and they were necessarily somewhat of his kind. And Jean was, a little more thoughtfully, perhaps, of the same sort. Unconsciously they were the center of a set for admission to which rich men would have given money. But, as I said, this key is one of the few things money cannot buy.

The political fight was on, and fierce. We did good work in that campaign. The struggle was so keen, the supervision of everything so searching, that daring fraud became a thing impossible. It was simply a test of persuasion, of popularity and of relative skill in those devices which are but the moves upon the chessboard in a game where chances are nearly even. We were but moderately hopeful. Harlson was immeasurably the better candidate. He was, at least, earnest and honest, and would represent the district well. I asked once why he wanted to go to Congress.

"I'll have to think," he said, "to answer you in full. Firstly, I believe I want to go because I have some fool ideas about certain legislation which I think I can accomplish. I believe they'll like me better in this district, and, perhaps, in a broader way, after I have been there. Then I want Jean to enjoy with me all the mummery and absurdity of the most mixed social conditions on the face of the civilized globe, and, besides that, I've been invited to take black bass with her out of a certain stream in the Shenandoah Valley, and to kill a deer or two, with headquarters at an old house up in West Virginia."

He said this lightly, yet I knew it was not far from the full truth. He had ideas of changes and reforms, and was prepared to fight for them. As for Jean and the fishing and the shooting, that was a matter of course. He must get out to nature, and he must have her with him certainly. As for me, personally—well, we had fought the world together for many a year, and I never knew him to fail me, and I could not very well fail him. I worried about this battle, though we had gained steadily. There was an element in the district, led by shrewd politicians, of the graduated saloon-keeper type, which did not lack large numbers. Outside one ward, though we had practically beaten them, Grant had invoked everything. He had stood up squarely on every platform, and as well in every drinking-shop and den, and almost bagnio, and explained to whom he found the nature of the contest, and told them what he wanted to do, and what all the hearings were, and told them then to conduct themselves as they pleased—he had but put his case as it was.

And there are men among the thugs, and humanity is not altogether bad, even in the slums, and help had come to us from unexpected places. More than one man, brutal-looking, but with lines in his countenance showing that he had once been something better, came around and worked well, and all to his future advantage, for Harlson's memory of such things was as the memory of that cardinal—what was his name?—who never forgot a face or incident or figure. We were what the politicians call "on top," a week before election, save in that same Ninth Ward. I had seen old Gunderson myself. He was not what we call affable. I had to wander through many offices, and finally to send in my card. I found this burly man in his private room, looking over papers on his desk. He did not look up as I came in. I took a seat, unasked, and waited. It was five minutes before he turned his head. Then he muttered a "good-morning," for we had met before.

I tried to be companionable and easy. I returned his salutation, somewhat too effusively, it may be, and asked him about his business, and then wanted to know, in a general way, how be stood on the Congressional issue. He hardened in a moment.

"I don't know why I should support Harlson," he said.

"Isn't he honest?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so," he grunted; "but he's not my kind."

"Is the other man?" I asked.

Even the burly animal before me flushed. The other man was but a tricky politician of the creeping sort, a caterer to all prejudices, and a flatterer and favorer. This everybody knew. But he had become a part of the machine, was shrewd, and, with the machine behind him, was a power.

"I've nothing to say about that; but Harlson's not my kind. He's like one of those stag-hounds. He has nothing to do with the other dogs."

"He's fought some of the other dogs," I suggested.

The man grunted, again: "He's not my kind." And I left the place. I had little hope of the Ninth Ward.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE NINTH WARD.

Unaccustomed to story-telling, it is possible that I have neglected chronology in this account. I referred just now to the time we couldn't get into Harlson's house because we hadn't carried the Ninth Ward and to the Ape crowing at the window in his mother's arms. Time passed after that, and, we all grew older, though, somehow, Jean did not seem to change, nor, for that matter, did Grant, though he was years her elder. But the Ape changed amazingly. He grew into a stalwart youth of fourteen, and became, about that time, addicted to a bad habit for which I reproved him in vain. He had discovered that he could pick up his little mother and carry her about in his arms, and he did so frequently. And his two younger brothers looked on enviously, and his pretty sister, the youngest of the group, with gravest apprehension. But Jean seemed rather to like it, though it was most undignified, and Grant, though he ruled his children well, seemed rather to approve of their treatment of her majesty. They were a happy lot together. The Ape was a good deal interested in the election, but was not allowed to talk outside the house. And Jean wore a serious look. She lived for one man.

I attended a party soon after my visit to Gunderson, and a very pretty affair it was. A very pretty incident I saw there, too.

What I saw was the advent of a big, blowsy woman, who was blazing with diamonds, whose face was good-natured, but who seemed ill at ease. She was like a Muscovy duck among game fowl. She was well received by the mass and overlooked by the few, and, being a woman, though of no acute comprehension, she understood vaguely her condition. She was unhappy, and there was a flush, upon her face.

I saw a small woman, neat in a gown of the Directory, it seemed to me, though of course not so pronounced, brought by apparent accident in contact with the big, blazing creature. The smaller woman was self-contained and of the blue-blooded in look and unconsciousness from head to heel. The two engaged in conversation, the one affable and interested, the other flushed and happy.

I do not know that I ever enjoyed a party more, yet I did nothing on that occasion, save to watch at a distance the two people I have mentioned. They drifted along together, and there was soon a group about them. Was not Mrs. Grant Harlson a social power, and was not a friend of hers fit friend and confidant for any one? I do not understand the ways of women. I do not comprehend their manner of doing things, but I know a thing when it is done. And when that party ended I knew that fat Mrs. Gunderson had risen to a higher plane than she had dared to covet for the time, and that she knew who had accomplished it. Grant was not present at the party, and of the incident I told him nothing then. I wanted him to note its possible sequence first.

The day of election came, and a great day it was. Outside the Ninth Ward we had passed beyond our hopes. That ward, though,—at least from the first reports, and we paid slight attention to the later ones,—remained, through Gunderson, sullen, incomprehensible, uncommitted. And at night, the voting over, newspapers began to show the bulletins as the ballots were counted and the returns came in. We were at campaign headquarters and got the figures early.

The scattering returns were satisfactory. Through most of the district they showed a gain for us over past encounters. The drift was all our way, but it was not big enough to offset all contingencies. There was nothing from the Ninth Ward yet. The counting was slow there.

It was eleven o'clock before the vote of any precinct from the Ninth
Ward came in. It stood as follows:

Harlson, 71.

Sharkey, 53.

Harlson picked up the filled-out blank, glanced at it, and threw it down again.

"It's some mistake," he said; "that precinct is one of the stiffest the other way. Wait until we get more of them."

We waited, but not for long. The returns came fluttering in like pigeons now. The second read:

Harlson, 33.

Sharkey, 30.

There dawned a light upon me; but I said no word. I was interested in watching Harlson's face. He was a trifle pale, despite his usual self-control, and was noting the figures carefully. Added precincts repeated the same story. Harlson would take up a return, glance at it, compare it with another, and then examine a dozen of them together, for once in his life he was taken unawares, and was at sea. He left the table at length, lit a cigar, and came over to where I stood, leaning against the wall.

"What does it mean, Alf? If those figures don't lie, the Ninth Ward has swung as vigorously for us as it ever did against us. With an even vote in the ward the chances were about even. Now, unless I'm dreaming, we own the district."

"We do."

"But how is it? What does it all mean?"

"I suppose it means that Gunderson is with you."

"But how can that be?"

"Were you at Mrs. Gorson's party?"

"No."

"Jean was there, though."

"Yes."

"So was Mrs. Gunderson."

The man's face was a study worth the scrutiny. For a moment or two he uttered no word. The whole measurement of it was dawning on him. "The little rhinoceros-bird!" he said, softly.

The room was thronged, and there was a roar of cheers. The issue was decided beyond all question. The newspaper offices were flashing out the fact from illuminated windows. There were shouting crowds upon the streets. Hosts of people were grasping Harlson's hand. He had little to say save to thank them in a perfunctory manner. He was in a hurry to get home.

When I dined with Harlson the next day I hoped to learn some details, but I was disappointed. Jean was herself a trifle radiant, perhaps, for she remarked to me, apropos of nothing, and in the most casual way, that men were dull, and Harlson had little to say. Judging from his general demeanor, though, and the expression on his face, I would have given something to know what he said to his wife when he reached home the night before. Something no bachelor, I imagine, could comprehend.

And before the year ended Harlson had the Ninth Ward so that it couldn't bolt him under any ordinary circumstances.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THEIR FOOLISH WAYS.

It is, as I have said so often, but the simple story of two friends of mine I am trying to tell, but I wish I had more gift in that direction. I wish I could paint, just as an artist with brush and colors reproduces something, the home life in the house where much of my time was spent. I can but give a mechanical idea of what it was, but to me it was very pleasant.

A very shrewd politician Jean became, after the famous contest in which the Ninth Ward aided us to victory, and we were accustomed to consult her on the social bearings of many a struggle. In case she became too arbitrary on any occasion Grant had fallen into the way of calling the Ape, and asking him to remove her, whereupon the youth would carry off his small mother in his arms and insist that, as he put it, from a childhood expression, with a long "a," she "'have herself." There was ever this quality of the whimsical about life in this home. And I am inclined to believe that the world is better for such a flavor.

The children, were well grown now, the family was rounded out, and Grant's mustache, gray when he was forty, was now grayer still, though Jean's brown hair showed yet no glint of silver. I asked one day after dinner, when we two were idling and smoking in the library, and Jean was hovering about, if she hadn't a gray hair yet, and Grant said no, without hesitation, though the lady herself seemed less assured. Then happened a curious thing, at least to me. I asked Grant how he knew so well, if even his wife, who, being a woman and fair to look upon, would be naturally apprehensive of any change in aspect, could not tell if a gray hair had come, and he but laughed at me. "Come here, Jean," he said.

She came and stood, beside him, close to me.

"Alf," said he, "I have a vast opinion of you, but there are some things I imagine you do not comprehend. You should have blended your life with that of some such creature as this, and you would have developed a new faculty. Now I close my eyes. Ask me anything about her—I don't mean about her dress, but about her head or hands, all you can see of the real woman."

I accepted the challenge, and there was great sport, and a little-great result. I made the inquest a most searching and minute affair. I asked him to tell me if there were any mark upon the neck, near one ear, and he described the precise locality and outline of a tiny brown fleck, no larger than a pin's head. He told of any little dimple, of any sweep of the downward growth of the brown hair, of any trifling scar from childhood. And of her chin and neck he told the very markings, in a way that was something wonderful. His eyes were closed, and his face was turned away from us, but this made no difference. He described to me even the character of the wonderful network in the palms of her little hands. Then he opened his eyes and turned to me, chaffingly:

"You see how ignorant is a man of your sort. Having no world worth speaking of, he knows nothing of geography."

I do not believe that even Jean herself knew, before, of how even the physical being of her had been impressed upon the heart and brain of this man. She listened curiously and wonderingly when, he was talking with his eyes closed, and when he opened them and began his nonsense with me she stood looking at him silently, then suddenly left the room. It was a way of Jean's to flee to her own room for a little season when something touched her, and I imagine this was one of the occasions. She had known for long years how two souls could become knitted and interwoven into one, but I do not believe that before this incident she had ever comprehended how her physical self, as well, had become an ever present picture upon the mind's retina of her lover and her husband.

I am worried, and bothered. I am a man past middle age. I shall never marry now, and shall but drift into a time of doing some little, I hope, toward making things easier for some other men and some women, and then—into a crematory. I have a fancy that my body, this machine of flesh and muscle in which I live, should not be boxed and buried in seeping earth to become a foul thing. That was an idea I learned from this firm friend of mine. I want it burned, and all of it, save the little urn full of white ashes which some one may care for, to go out and mingle with the pure air, and there to be one of earth's good things, and to be breathed in again and make part of the life of the maple leaf, or the young girl going to school in the morning, or the old-fashioned pinks in the front yard of the old-fashioned people, or the red roses in the florist's hot-houses. I have that fancy.

I am worried because I, clumsy, dull-thinking man, cannot tell what I wish to tell of a life I saw. I am worried because I cannot make others understand it as it was. It seems to me it would do some good in the world. It seems to me that many a man and woman, if they could know about Grant and Jean, who really lived,—for this is but a tale of fact,—would be now more loving and better men and women because of it. But I do not know how to tell of what I saw and what I knew.

Grant was over sixty years old at this time of which I write, and I am coming very near the end, and Jean was past forty, and the two were not much different from what they were when I first saw them together. I suppose it was partly because I had been with them so much that I did not note the changes nature wrought in this pair of her children, but certainly they were far younger than their years. They had found together the only fountain of eternal youth which exists or ever will exist upon this planet which threw off a barren moon and bred monsters and, later, mastodons and apes, and finally made a specialty of men and women. They laughed at time, and hoped for a future of souls after this trial. I saw it with my eyes, I heard it with my ears, when they spoke together. They were blended, and it made life worth the living. What I learned conveyed to me new things. It taught me that all there is in novels is not romance nor untrue. It taught me that a male and female of this species of ours may meet, and from the two may come an entity which is something very near divine. Why is it, I wonder, that the right man and the right woman out of the hundreds of millions meet so seldom at the fitting time, and that life is either so barren or so jagged and hurtful because of the non-meeting of those who should be mated? What a world this might be! Of course, though, there is some higher thought, and it is all right in some way.

They were what you would call religious, Grant and Jean. They liked the same church—it doesn't matter which it was—and attended regularly, and worshiped without much regard for its more narrow legends. They did not trouble themselves with the idea of the everlasting punishment of babes, nor the fate of the untutored heathen. They had, somehow, a simple idea that the human being who tried to do right according to his or her views was all right as to the future. They were not much in sympathy with what is called heretic-hunting. They had each read the story of the gentle Nazarene, and had failed to learn that there was more than one church—a church without either spectacular effects or creed bickerings. A church of the group who, at one time, clung to Him and His teachings, and so had shaped their course. To them a narrow, grim old Presbyterian—were he but honest and earnest according to his inherited brain and intelligence—might, some time, a year or ten million years from now, be walking arm and arm along the sidewalks of some glorious street of some New Jerusalem with the Jesuit of to-day, honest and earnest according to his brain and his intelligence. This is not reasoning. Was it a bad creed?

They were not afraid of old age as it came nearer, hour by hour and day by day, these friends of mine. They had pondered of it much, of course, for they were thoughtful people, and they had talked of it doubtless many times, for there was little of which they thought that the two did not reveal to each other in plain words; but they were not troubled over the outlook. They seemed to realize that the flower is no greater than what follows, that fruit is the sequel of all fragrance, and that to those who reason rightly there is no difference in the income of what is good in all the seasons of human being. I remember well an incident of one evening.

We had been playing billiards, Grant and I. He had a table in his house and had taught Jean how to play until she had become a terror, though the Ape had nearly caught up with her in skill, and there was, at this time, a great pretended struggle between them, and we had come up into the library after a hard after-dinner game. Jean came in, and we talked of various things, and looked at some old books, and, somehow—I forget the connection—began talking of old age. It was in the midst of our debate that Grant, after his insane way, suddenly leaped up and, standing beside me as I sat, proceeded to make me an oration. He talked of the friction of things and of the future of this soul or mind of ours, concerning the luck of which we know so little. And, while I may or may not have agreed with his general theories, I did not disagree with the one that the autumn is as much a part of what there is as is the spring, and that all trends toward a common end, which must be for the best in some way we do not comprehend, because we see, at least, enough to know that nature, wiser than we, makes no mistakes. "The fruitage 'goes'!" Grant exclaimed larkingly, and then, forgetting me for the moment, he caught up Jean, and, carrying her gravely about, repeated to her these lines:

  "Grow old, along with me;
  The best is yet to be,
  The last of life, for which the first was made!"

And they were at least exponents of the belief they had, and it was to me an education and a comfort. I learned, what I could not profit by, that a man and woman together are more than twice one man or twice one woman, when the man and woman are the right two. It was like an astronomer studying the sun. And what warmth and light there was to look upon!

I have tried in these rambling words to tell how these two people faced the autumn and found it spring, since they were still together. I wonder why I made the attempt? It is but a simple relation of certain things which happened, yet I do not, somehow, get the pulse of it. It must be because I have known the people all too well. My heart is so much in what I try to say that I am not clear.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE LAW OF NATURE.

Of what was the result of finally owning the Ninth Ward and the district I have only to say that it, of course, added to the reputation of one man—and of one woman as well, it may be added, for Jean in her necessary social functions grew in her way with Grant; but otherwise it made little difference. There was the family hegira to the capital, and much enjoyment of the limited attractions of the semi-Ethiopian and shabby but semi-magnificent city in a miasmatic valley, and it was, no doubt, some education for the children. To Grant it was a fray, of course, and to Jean it was enjoyment of his successes, and probably more sorrow than he felt at his failures. The successes were the more numerous. Jean herself never failed. She was an envied woman in the social world. She was a strong man's wife, and possessed of all tact and gentle wisdom in aiding him, but she was not a rival of the mere self-advertisers among the queens of a shifting society. She could not afford it, even had her inclination bent that way. She had absorbing riches. They were a man and her children.

When I brightened up, because my friends were coming back to me, was the great season of the year to me, as to them. When the family returned from the capital and reoccupied the home there was rejoicing. And what rioters we were! But once more, each time, it was said by Grant, and by me as well, the battle must be fought, and so came re-elections and the flittings. And, after all, it was good. It was not the rusting in the sheath.

And it came that there was another gallant fight on. The city Congressional district is not like the country one, where a man once firmly in the saddle may stay there for a quarter of a century. The city constituencies have the fault in make-up that their Congressmen are not selected as those who will do best for the districts, but because they have hands on the lever of some machine. Of course, there are always exceptions, as in Grant's case, but the rule prevails. And now there had been flung down the gauntlet of a clever adversary, and the battle was a warm one.

We both enjoyed this contest, for, though the struggle was likely to be sharp, we knew the issue was ours, from the beginning, and the whole thing, as Grant said, was like a hunting trip. But how it ended!

He had been out much at night, for it was a large district and there were many meetings, and had been as tireless as was usual with him. His thought was never given much to the care of himself, and in this campaign he appeared more than ordinarily reckless. Jean, watchful ever, reproached him and made him change his ways a little. Perhaps it was not all his fault that one day he felt ill. It was on the eve of the election.

We carried the day as we had hoped, and easily, and there was a demand for Harlson that night which could not be refused with grace. He was compelled to speak, and in the open air of a chill November evening. He told me he felt ill. When, late at night, we reached his home and he found Jean awaiting him, he turned to me and said:

"It's all right, Alf. I'll be myself again by morning. I'm where all that is good for me is, and should be well in no time. She will but pass her hands above my head, and—there you are!"

And we parted, as carelessly as usual, and as I went home I was speculating on what the revised returns would show the majority to be, not as to the outcome of Grant Harlson's indisposition.

Jean sent for me the next morning. I found a look upon her face which troubled me.

"Grant is not well," she said. "He came home late and spoke of an odd feeling. We cared for him, but this morning he was listless and did not want to dress and come to breakfast. He is in bed still. Please go up and see him, and then come down to the library and tell me what you think the matter is."

I went upstairs and found Grant lying in his bed and breathing heavily.
I shook him by the shoulder.

"What's the matter, old man?"

He turned over with an effort, though laughing. "I don't know," he answered. "I only know I haven't been well since last night, and that there is a queer feeling about my throat and chest. I ought to be up, of course, but I'm listless and careless, somehow. By the way, what were the totals?"

I gave him the figures, and he smiled, and then with an "Excuse me, old man," turned his face to the wall. A moment later, as I sat watching him, alarmed, he roused himself and turned toward me again. "Won't you send Jean to me?" he asked.

I saw Jean, and she went upstairs, and when she came down her face was white. The Ape, rugged young man as he was, had tears in his eyes, and his brothers and sisters were crying quietly. I left the house, and an hour later a physician, one of the most famous on the continent, was by Grant Harlson's bedside. He was a personal friend of both of us. When he came down his face was grave.

"What is it, Doctor?"

"It's pneumonia, and a bad case."

"What can we do?"

"Nothing, but to care for him and aid him with all hopefulness and strength. He has vitality beyond one man in a thousand. He may throw off all the incubus of it. But it has come suddenly and is growing." Then he got mad in all his friendship, and blurted out: "Why didn't the great blundering brute send for me when first he felt something he couldn't meet nor understand?" And there were almost tears in his eyes.

The doctors have much to say about pneumonia. Doubtless they know of what they talk, but pneumonia comes nevertheless, and defeats the strong man and the doctors. The strong man it strangles. The doctors it laughs at.

All that medical science could command was brought to the bedside of Grant Harlson. The doctor, his friend, called in the wisest of associates in consultation, and as for care—there was Jean! He was cared for as the angels might care for a wandering soul. But the big man in the bed tossed and muttered, and looked at Jean appealingly, and grew worse. The strength seemed going from him at last—from him, the bulwark of us all.

All that science could do was done. All that care could do was done, but our giant weakened. The doctors talk of the croupous form of pneumonia, and of some other form—I do not know the difference—but I do know that this man had a great pain in his chest, and that his head ached, and that he had alternate arctic chills and flames of fever. His pulse was rapid, and he gasped as he breathed. Sometimes he would become delirious, then weaker in the sane intervals. He would send us from the room then, and call for Jean alone, and, when she emerged—well—God help me!—I never want to see that awful look of suspense and agony upon a human face again. It will stay with me until I follow the roadway leading to my friends.

The doctor gave the sick man opiates or stimulants, as the case might at any moment seem to need, and they had some slight effect; but there came a shallower breathing, and the quilts tossed under the heaving of the broad chest, fitfully. It reminded me in some strange way of the imitation sea scenes at the theater, where a great cloth of some sort is rocked and lifted to represent the waves. Only one lung was congested in the beginning, but, later, the thing extended to each, and the air-cells began filling, and the man suffered more and more. He fought against it fiercely.

"Grant," said the doctor, after the administration of some strong stimulant, "help us all you can. Cough! Force the air through those huge lungs of yours, and see if you can't tear away that tissue which is forming to throttle you!"

And Grant would summon all his strength, by no means yet exhausted, and exert his will, and cough, despite the fearful pain of it; but the human form held not the machinery to dislodge that growing web which was filling the lung-chambers and cutting off, hour by hour, the oxygen which makes pure blood and makes the being.

And the man who laughed at things grew weaker and weaker, and, though he laughed still and was his old self and made us happy for a brief interval, when he had not the fever and was clear-headed, and said that it was nothing and that he would throw it off, we knew that there was deadly peril. And one evening, when Grant was again delirious, the doctor came to me and said there was very little hope.