SUNDOWN LANE
[From The Louisville Times]
Joseph Seaman Cotter, Kentucky's only negro writer of real creative ability, was born near Bardstown, Kentucky, February 2, 1861. From his hard day-labor, he went to night school in Louisville, and he has educated himself so successfully that he is at the present time principal of the Tenth Ward colored school, Louisville. Cotter has published three volumes of verse, the first of which was Links of Friendship (Louisville, 1898), a book of short lyrics. This was followed by a four-act verse drama, entitled Caleb, the Degenerate (Louisville, 1903). His latest book of verse is A White Song and a Black One (Louisville, 1909). Cotter's response to Paul Lawrence Dunbar's After a Visit to Kentucky, was exceedingly well done, but his Negro Love Song is the cleverest thing he has written hitherto. His work has been praised by Alfred Austin, Israel Zangwill, Madison Cawein, Charles J. O'Malley, and other excellent judges of poetry. Cotter is a great credit to his race, and he has won, by his quiet, unassuming life and literary labors, the respect of many of Louisville's most prominent citizens. One of his admirers has ranked his work above Dunbar's, but this rating is much too high for any thing he has done so far. In the last year or two he has turned his attention to the short-story, and his first collection of them has just appeared, entitled Negro Tales (New York, 1912).
Bibliography. Lexington Leader (November 14, 1909); Lore of the Meadowland, by J. W. Townsend (Lexington, Kentucky, 1911).
NEGRO LOVE SONG[26]
[From A White Song and a Black One (Louisville, Kentucky, 1909)]
Ethelbert Dudley Warfield, historical writer, was born at Lexington, Kentucky, March 16, 1861, the brother of Dr. Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, the distinguished professor in Princeton Theological Seminary. President Warfield was graduated from Princeton, continued his studies at the University of Oxford, and was graduated in law from Columbia University, in 1885. He practiced law at Lexington, Kentucky, for two years, when he abandoned the profession for the presidency of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. In 1891 he left Miami for the presidency of LaFayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, where he has remained ever since. In 1899 Dr. Warfield was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry. He teaches history at LaFayette. Besides several interesting pamphlets upon historical subjects, Dr. Warfield has published three books, the first of which was The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798: an Historical Study (New York, 1887), his most important work so far. At the Evening Hour (Philadelphia, 1898), is a little book of talks upon religious subjects; and his most recent volume, Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, Junior (New York, 1898), is the pathetic tale of the years of an early hero of the Spanish-American war, graphically related.
Bibliography. Munsey's Magazine (August, 1901); The Independent (December 25, 1902); The Independent (July 13, 1905).
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
[From The Presbyterian and Reformed Review (April, 1892)]
Columbus is one of the few men who have profoundly changed the course of history. He occupies a unique and commanding position, seeming to stand out of contemporary history, and to be a force separate and apart. He is the gateway to the New World. His career made a new civilization possible. His achievement conditions the expansion and development of human liberty. His position is simple but certain. His figure is as constant and as inexorable as the ice floes which girdle and guard the pole are to us, or as the sea of darkness which he spanned was to his predecessors. He inserted a known quantity into the hitherto unsolvable problem of geography, and not only rendered it solvable, but afforded a key to a vast number of problems dependent upon it, problems not merely geographical, but economical, sociological and governmental as well.
Yet in all this there mingles an element of error. Great events do not come unanticipated and unheralded.
sang Luther, knowing well that God hath foreordained from the foundation of the world whatsoever cometh to pass. "In the fullness of time" God does all things in His benign philosophy. In the fullness of time man was set in the midst of his creation; in the fullness of time Christ came; in the fullness of time God opened the portals of the west.
If the Welsh were driven on our shores under Madoc, if the Norsemen came and sought to found here "Vinland, the good," they did not light upon the fullness of time. God had no splendid purpose for the Welsh; the Northland force was needed to make bold the hearts of England, France, and Italy, to unify the world with fellow-service in the Orient, to break the bonds of feudalism, and to wing the sandals of liberty. As Isaac Newton sat watching the apple fall in his garden, he was but resting from the labor of gathering into his mind the labors of men who had in this or that anticipated his discovery of the law of gravitation. In all scientific advance many gather facts. One comes at length and in a far-reaching synthesis arranges the facts of many predecessors around some central truth and rises to some great principle. So generalizations follow generalizations, and the field of truth expands in ever-widening circles from the central fact of God's establishment. Columbus is not like Melchisedec. He had antecedents—antecedents many and obvious. The highest tribute we can pay him is to say that he fixed upon one of the world's great problems, studied it in all its relations, embraced clear and definite views upon it, and staked his all upon the issue; and that not in a spirit of mere adventure, but of dedication to a noble purpose. He gave to a speculative question reality, and thereby gave a hemisphere to Christendom.
But like the girl who admitted the Gauls to the Capitol at Rome in return for "what they wore on their left arms," Columbus was overwhelmed by the reward which he demanded for his services. Without natural ability to command, and without experience, he demanded and obtained a fatal authority.
Mrs. Evelyn Snead Barnett, a novelist of strength and promise, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, June 9, 1861, the daughter of Charles Scott Snead. On June 8, 1886, Miss Snead became the wife of Mr. Ira Sayre Barnett, a Louisville business man. Mrs. Barnett was literary editor of The Courier-Journal for seven years, and her Saturday page upon "Books and Their Writers" was carefully edited. She did a real service for Kentucky letters in that she never omitted comment and criticism upon the latest books of our authors, with an occasional word upon the writers of the long ago. She was succeeded by the present editor, Miss Anna Blanche Magill. Mrs. Barnett's first story, entitled Mrs. Delire's Euchre Party and Other Tales (Franklin, Ohio, 1895), the "other tales" being three in number, was followed by Jerry's Reward (Boston, 1902). These novelettes made clear the path for the author's big novel, The Dragnet (New York, 1909), now in its second edition. This is a great mystery story, one reviewer ranking it with the best detective tales of the present-day school. The American trusts and the hearts of women furnish the setting for The Dragnet, which is bigger in promise than in achievement, and which bespeaks even greater merit for Mrs. Barnett's new novel, now in preparation.
Bibliography. Kentuckians in History and Literature, by J. W. Townsend (New York, 1907); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).
THE WILL[27]
[From The Dragnet (New York, 1909)]
Soon after their return, the Alexanders were forced to move to town. Charles needed the time he had to spend on the road going to and fro, and he was unwilling to put unnecessary hours of work on Trezevant, who not only bore his share during the day, but was sleeping with one eye open in a dingy corner of the shops. As the Dinsmore was expensive, they rented a modern flat, with tiny rooms, but plenty of sunlight. Constance knew they could save here, especially as Diana still wished to make her home with them.
Finally, the last day at Hillside came.
Charles drove Diana and Lawson to town, to get things ready there, leaving Constance to see the last load off, and to make sure that everything was in good shape for the Clarks, who intended to take possession in the spring. Constance went into every room, list in hand, checking the things the new owners had purchased. Then she tried the window bolts, and snapped the key in the lock of the front door. She blew the horn for the brougham. The coachman came up. In a business-like, everyday manner, she ordered him to drive to town, and, getting in, without one look from the window, she left Hillside.
When she arrived at the new home, she was pleased to find that Diana and Lawson had arranged the furniture in the small rooms, and had a dainty little luncheon awaiting. As she was sitting down to enjoy it, her first visitor rang the bell—Aunt Sarah, just returned from the East and the latest fashions, looking younger than ever, and with a torrent of society gossip that was almost Sanscrit to Constance, occupied so long with the realities.
"What was your idea, Constance, in coming to this tiny place?" she asked, when she had given a full account of the delights of her summer.
Constance hesitated, but only for a moment. "Economy," she said, boldly.
Aunt Sarah looked anxious. "My dear child, has your husband been preaching? Don't let him fool you; they all try it. It's a trick. Every now and then they think it their duty to cry hard times, when it is no such thing. You go to scrimping and saving, like an obedient wife, and the first thing you know he buys an automobile or a yacht, or wants you to give a ball."
Constance smiled. "But this is real, Aunt Sarah. You know we are fighting a big trust, and while, eventually, we expect to win, we have to be content with little or no profits for a few years."
"Trusts! Profits! What difference do they make as long as you have a steady income of your own?"
Constance was debating with herself whether she ought to speak plainly and have it out with the Parker pride then and there, or wait until she were not quite so tired and unstrung, when she was happily spared a decision by her aunt's switching off to another track.
"Talking of money reminds me that I heard a piece of news to-day," she said, lowering her voice in deference to Diana's presence behind thin walls. "I heard that Horace Vendire made a will shortly after his engagement to —— and has left her millions."
"Oh, aunt! I wonder if it is true! How dreadful it would be!"
Aunt Sarah put up her jeweled lorgnette. "Constance Parker, what on earth is the matter with you to-day? You seem to be getting everything distorted, looking at the world upside down. It's that country business—" she continued emphatically; "the very moment you developed a fondness for that sort of life, I knew you were bound to grow careless and indifferent in thoughts, ways, and opinions. People who love the country always seem to think they have to sneer at civilization."
Constance was too tired to argue, and too disturbed over the last piece of gossip to explain; so she said weakly that she supposed she had changed, and let the rest of the visit pass in banalities.
The next day a little lawyer sprang a sensation by notifying those whom it concerned that he held the last Will and Testament of Horace Vendire, duly signed, attested, and sealed in his presence, a month before the disappearance.
Charles came to tell the two women.
"No, no!" cried Diana: "It's a mistake! He did not intend it to stand!"
"You surmise the contents of the will?"
"If it was made only a month before he disappeared. Had he lived, he would have altered it. I begged him to. Must I go to the meeting of the heirs?"
"I think it is best. Cheer up; there are many things worse than money. Constance and I will go with you. Mr. James is back, and has asked us."
So Diana went, and she could not have looked more terrified had she been listening to the last trump, instead of to the smooth voice of a young lawyer reading the bequests of her dead lover.
The will was dated, July 26th, 1900. By it, Horace Vendire's life insurance was left to his brother James, an annuity of five thousand dollars to his mother, and an income of only three thousand a year to his fiancée, Diana Frewe, as long as she remained unmarried. It was evident to Charles that Vendire did not wish to give her enough to help her friends. The residue, and, eventually, the principal, were to be used in building and endowing the Horace Vendire Public Library in the city of New York.
In a codicil, he directed that his stock in the American Blade and Trigger Company should be sold, the directors of that company being given the option of buying it at par before it was offered elsewhere.
Mr. James Vendire was the first to congratulate Diana.
"Oh, don't!" she cried, shrinking from his proffered hand. "I cannot bear it. It is yours; you must take it." She grew almost incoherent.
Constance petted and soothed. "Be still, dear. Remember you are weak and unstrung. We will go home now, and see what can be done later."
John Patterson, "a Greek prophet not without honor in his own American land," was born near Lexington, Kentucky, June 10, 1861. He was graduated from Kentucky State University in 1882; and the following year Harvard granted him the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He took his Master's degree from Kentucky University in 1886. The late Professor John Henry Neville, one of Kentucky's greatest classical scholars, first taught John Patterson Greek; and to his old professor he is indebted for much of his success as a teacher of Greek and a translator and critic of its literature. Professor Patterson's first school after leaving Harvard was a private one for boys near Midway, Kentucky; and he was for several years principal of the high school at Versailles, Kentucky. His first book, Lyric Touches (Cincinnati, 1893), is his only really creative work so far. It contains several fine poems and was widely admired at the time of its appearance. In 1894 Professor Patterson was made instructor of Greek in the Louisville High School, which position he held for seven years. His first published translation was The Medea of Euripides (Louisville, 1894), which he edited with an introduction and notes. This was followed by The Cyclops of Euripides (London, 1900), perhaps his finest work hitherto. In 1901 Kentucky University conferred the honorary degree of Master of Literature upon Professor Patterson; and in the same year he helped to establish the Patterson-Davenport school of Louisville. In 1907 he became professor of Greek in the University of Louisville; and since September, 1908, he has been Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University with full executive powers, practically president. His institution granted him the honorary degree of LL. D. in 1909. Doctor Patterson's latest work is a translation into English of Bion's Lament for Adonis (Louisville, 1909). At the present time he is engaged upon a critical edition of the Greek text of the Lament.
Bibliography. Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909), v. ix; Who's Who in America (1912-1913).
A CLUSTER OF GRAPES[28]
[From. Lyric Touches (Cincinnati, 1893)]
CHORAL ODE (Eripides' Medea, Lines 627-662.)
[From the same]
William Eleazar Barton, novelist and theologian, was born at Sublette, Illinois, June 28, 1861. He reached Kentucky for the first time on Christmas Day of 1880, and matriculated as a student in Berea College, where he spent the remainder of the college year of 1880-1881, and four additional years. During two summers and autumns he taught school in Knox county, Kentucky, then without a railroad, taking long rides to Cumberland Gap, Cumberland Falls and other places which have since appeared in his stories. The two remaining vacations he spent in travel through the mountains, journeying by Ohio river steamer along the northern counties, and by horseback far into the Kentucky hills in various directions. In 1885 Mr. Barton graduated from Berea with the B. S. degree; and three years later the same institution granted him M. S., and, in 1890, A. M. He was ordained to the Congregational ministry at Berea, Kentucky, June 6, 1885, and he preached for two years in southern Kentucky and in the adjacent hills of east Tennessee, living at Robbins, Tennessee. Mr. Barton's first book was a Kentucky mountain sketch, called The Wind-Up of the Big Meetin' on No Bus'ness (1887), now out of print. This was followed by Life in the Hills of Kentucky (1889), depicting actual conditions. He became pastor of a church at Wellington, Ohio, in 1890, and his next two works were church histories. Berea College conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity upon Mr. Barton in 1895; and he has been a trustee of the college for the last several years. He was pastor of a church in Boston for six years, but since 1899, he has been in charge of the First Congregational Church of Oak Park, Illinois. Dr. Barton's other books are: A Hero in Homespun (New York, 1897), a Kentucky story, the first of his books that was widely read and reviewed; Sim Galloway's Daughter-in-Law (Boston, 1897), the Kentucky mountains again, which reappear in The Truth About the Trouble at Roundstone (Boston, 1897); The Story of a Pumpkin Pie (Boston, 1898); The Psalms and Their Story (Boston, 1898); Old Plantation Hymns (1899); When Boston Braved the King (Boston, 1899); The Improvement of Perfection (1900); The Prairie Schooner (Boston, 1900); Pine Knot (New York, 1900), his best known and, perhaps, his finest tale of Kentucky; Lieut. Wm. Barton (1900); What Has Brought Us Out of Egypt (1900); Faith as Related to Health (1901); Consolation (1901); I Go A-Fishing (New York, 1901); The First Church of Oak Park (1901); The Continuous Creation (1902); The Fine Art of Forgetting (1902); An Elementary Catechism (1902); The Old World in the New Century (1902); The Gospel of the Autumn Leaf (1903); Jesus of Nazareth (1904); Four Weeks of Family Worship (1906); The Sweetest Story Ever Told (1907); with Sydney Strong and Theo. G. Soares, His Last Week, His Life, His Friends, His Great Apostle (1906-07); The Week of Our Lord's Passion (1907); The Samaritan Pentateuch (1906); The History and Religion of the Samaritans (1906); The Messianic Hope of the Samaritans (1907); The Life of Joseph E. Roy (1908); Acorns From an Oak Park Pulpit (1910); Pocket Congregational Manual (1910); Rules of Order for Ecclesiastical Assemblies (1910); Bible Classics (1911); and Into All the World (1911). Since 1900 Dr. Barton has been on the editorial staff of The Youth's Companion. The locale of his novels was down on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, amid ignorance and poverty—a background upon which no other writer has painted.
Bibliography. The Nation (August 9, 1900); The Book Buyer (November, 1900); The Independent (July 7, 1910).
A WEARY WINTER[29]
[From The Truth About the Trouble at Roundstone (Boston, 1897)]
The winter came and went, and the breach only widened with the progress of the months. The men dropped all pretense of religious observance. They grew more and more taciturn and sullen in their homes. They cared less and less for the society of their neighbors, and as they grew more miserable they grew more uncompromising. When little Ike was sick and Jane going to the spring just before dinner found a gourd of chicken broth, so fresh and hot that it had evidently been left but a few minutes before, she knew how it had come there, and hastened to the house with it. But Larkin saw the gourd and at a glance understood it, and asked,—
"Whar'd ye git that ar gourd? Whose gourd is that?" and snatching it from her, he took it to the door and flung it with all his might. Little Ike cried, for the odor of the broth had already tempted his fickle appetite, and Larkin bribed him to stop crying with promises of candy and all other injurious sweetmeats known to children of the Holler. But when the illness proved to be a sort of winter cholera terminating in flux, he was glad to maintain official ignorance of a bottle of blackberry cordial which also was left at the spring, and which proved of material benefit in the slow convalescence of Ike.
It was thought, at first, that Captain Jack Casey would be able to effect a reconciliation between the men. He was respected in the Holler, and was often useful in adjusting differences between neighbors. He was a justice of the peace, for that matter, and had the law behind him. But his military title and his reputation for fair dealing gave him added authority.
He was the friend of both men, and had known them both in the army. He was Eph's brother-in-law, beside, and their wives' friendship, like their own, dated from that prehistoric period, "before the war."
But even Captain Jack failed to move either of the two enraged neighbors.
Brother Manus made several ineffectual attempts at a reconciliation, but at last gave up all hope.
"I'll pray fur 'em," he said, "but I cyant do no more."
Great was his professed faith in prayer; it may be doubted whether this admission did not indicate in his mind a desperate condition of affairs.
But there was one person who could never be brought to recognize the breach between the families. Shoog made her frequent visits back and forth unhindered. To be sure, Ephraim tried to prevent her. He scolded her; he explained to her, and once he even whipped her. But while she seemed to understand the words he spoke, and grieved sorely over her punishments, she could not get through her mind the idea of an estrangement, and at length they gave up trying to have her understand. So, almost daily, when the weather permitted, Shoog crossed the foot log, and wended her way across the bottoms to Uncle Lark's. Larkin at first attempted to ignore her presence, but the attempt failed, and she was soon as much in his arms and heart as she had ever been; and many prayers and good wishes went with her back and forth, as Jane and Martha saw her come and go, and often went a piece with her, though true to their unspoken parole of honor to their husbands, speaking no word to each other.
Benjamin Howard Ridgely, short-story writer, was born at Ridgely, Maryland, July 13, 1861. In early childhood he was brought to Woodford county, Kentucky, where he grew to manhood. He was educated in private schools and at Henry Academy. He studied law but abandoned it for journalism. Ridgely removed to Louisville in 1877 to accept a position on The Daily Commercial, which later became The Herald. He went with The Courier-Journal and in a short time he was made city editor. Ridgely left The Courier-Journal to establish The Sunday Truth, of which he was editor, with his friend, Mr. Young E. Allison, as associate editor. President Cleveland, urged by Col. Henry Watterson and other leading Democrats, appointed Ridgely consul to Geneva, Switzerland, on June 20, 1892, which post he held for eight years. Being able to speak French and Spanish fluently, he was well fitted for the consular service. On May 8, 1900, President McKinley transferred Ridgely to Malaga, Spain, where he remained for two years, when he was again transferred, this time going to Nantes, France, where he also staid for two years. President Roosevelt sent Ridgely to Barcelona, Spain, on November 3, 1904, as consul-general. He resided at that delightful place until March, 1908, when he was made consul-general to Mexico, with his residence at Mexico City. Ridgely died very suddenly at Monterey, Mexico, on October 9, 1908. His body was brought back to Kentucky and interred in Cave Hill cemetery, Louisville; and there he sleeps to-day with no stone to mark the spot. Ridgely's reports to the state department are now recognized as papers of importance, but is upon his short-stories and essays that he is entitled to a place in literature. His stories of consular life, set amid the changing scenes of his diplomatic career, appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine, The Century, McClure's, Scribner's, The Strand, The Pall Mall Magazine, and elsewhere. Writing a miniature autobiography in 1907 he set himself down as the author of a volume of short-stories, which, he said, bore the imprint of The Century Company, New York, were entitled The Comedies of a Consulate, and, strangest thing of all, were published two years prior to the time he was writing, or, in 1905! It is indeed too bad that his alleged publishers fail to remember having issued his book, for one would be worth while. What a castle in Spain for this spinner of consular yarns!
Bibliography. Who's Who in America (1908-1909); The Courier-Journal (Louisville, October 10, 1908).
A KENTUCKY DIPLOMAT[30]
[From The Man the Consul Protected (Century Magazine, January, 1905)]
Colonel Gillespie Witherspoon Warfield of Kentucky was an amiable and kindly man of fifty, with the fluent speech and genial good breeding of a typical Blue-grass gentleman. In appearance and dress he was still an ante-bellum Kentuckian, with a weakness for high-heeled boots, long frock-coats, and immaculate linen. When he said, "Yes, sah," or "No, sah," it was like a breath right off the old plantation. It should be added that he was a bachelor and a Mugwump.
Being a Kentuckian, he was naturally a colonel; though, as a matter of fact, it was due solely to the courtesy of the press and the amiable custom of the proud old commonwealth that he possessed his military title. Nor had the genial colonel been otherwise a brilliant success in life. Indeed, I am pained to recite that he had achieved in his varied professional career only a sort of panorama of failures. He had failed at the bar, failed in journalism, failed as a real-estate broker, and, having finally taken the last step, had failed as a life-insurance agent. In this emergency his relatives and friends hesitated as to whether they should run him for Congress or unload him on the consular service. His younger brother, who was something of a cynic, insisted that Gillespie was fitted by intelligence to be only a family physician; but it was finally decided at a domestic council that he would particularly ornament the consular service. In pursuance of this happy conclusion, an organized onslaught was made upon the White House. The President yielded, and one day the news came that Colonel Gillespie Witherspoon Warfield had been appointed consul of the United States to Esperanza.
It is needless to suggest that Colonel Warfield took himself very seriously in his new official capacity. It had not occurred to him, however, that his consular mission was rather a commercial than a patriotic one: he believed that he was going abroad to see that the flag of his country was treated with respect, and to protect those of his fellow-countrymen who in any emergency might have need of the services of an astute and fearless diplomat. In fact, the feeling that his chief official function was to be that of a sort of diplomatic protecting angel took such possession of him that he assumed a paternal attitude toward the whole country. Thus, bursting with patriotism, he set sail one day from New York for Gibraltar, and was careful during the voyage to let it be understood on shipboard that if anybody needed protection he stood ready to run up the flag and make the eagle scream violently.
Esperanza lies just around the corner from Gibraltar, and nowhere along all the Iberian littoral of the Mediterranean is the sky fairer or the sun more genial. The fertile vega stretches back to the foot-hills of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Across the blue-sea way lies Morocco. It is a picturesque and beautiful spot, and if the consul be a dreamer, he may find golden hours for reverie. But I fear that neither the poetry nor the picturesqueness of the entourage appealed to Consul Warfield as he reached Esperanza that blazing September morning. He was more impressed with the shrill noises of the foul and shabby streets; with the dust that was upon everything, giving even to the palm-trees in the parque a gray and dreary look; with the flies that seemed to be hunting their prey in swarms like miniature vultures; with the uncompromising mosquitos singing shrilly for blood, and the bold, busy fleas that held no portion of his official person sacred.
The colonel was a buoyant man, but his exuberant soul felt a certain sinking that hot morning. It was a busy moment at Esperanza, and not much attention was paid to the new consul at the crowded Fonda Cervantes, whither, after a turbulent effort, he had persuaded his cochero to conduct him. He had been much disappointed that the vice-consul was not on hand to receive him at the railway station. The fact is, the consul had thought rather earnestly of a committee and a brass band at the depot, and the complete lack of anything akin to a reception had been something of a shock to his official and personal vanity. However, he was not easily discouraged, and after having convinced the proprietor of the fonda that he was the new American consul, and therefore entitled to superior consideration, he set out to find the consulate.
He found it in a narrow little street that went twisting back from the quay toward the great dingy cathedral, and certainly it was not what his imagination had fondly pictured it. He had thought of a fine old Moorish-castle sort of house, with a great carved door opening into a spacious patio, splendid with Arabic columns, and in the background a broad marble staircase leading up to the consulate. He had expected to see the flag of his country flying in honor of his arrival, and a uniformed soldier on duty at the entrance, ready to present arms and stand at attention when the new consul appeared.
As a matter of fact, there was a very narrow little door opening into a very narrow little hallway that ran through the center of a very narrow, squalid little house. Over the doorway was perched the consular coat of arms. It was the poorest, dingiest, dustiest little escutcheon that ever bore so pretentious a device.
The dingy gilt letters were almost invisible, but the colonel managed to make them out. He could also see that the figure in the center of the shield was intended to represent a proud and haughty eagle-bird in the act of screaming; but the poor old eagle had been so rained upon and so shone upon, and the dust had gathered so heavily upon him, that he looked like a mere low-spirited reminiscence of the famous Haliaëtus leucocephalus which he was originally meant to represent.
Colonel Warfield of Kentucky was not discouraged. Being, as I have said, a buoyant man, he simply remarked to himself: "I'll have that disreputable-looking fowl taken down and painted." Then he walked on into the squalid little consulate.
An old man with shifty little blue eyes; a thin, keen face; long, straggling gray hair; and a long, thin tuft of gray beard, which looked all the more straggling and wretched because of the absence of an accompanying mustache, sat at a table reading a Spanish newspaper. This was Mr. Richard Brown of Maine, "clerk and messenger" to the United States consulate, who drew the allowance of four hundred dollars a year, and was the recognized bulwark of official Americanism at Esperanza. For forty years, during all the vicissitudes of war and politics, Richard Brown had sat at his desk in the shabby little consulate, watching the procession of American consuls come and go, doing nearly all the clerical work of the office himself, and contemplating with cynical delight the tortuous efforts of the various untrained new officers to acquaint themselves with their duties and the language of the post.
In his affiliations he had become entirely Spanish, having acquired a fluent knowledge of the language and a wide acquaintance with the people and their ways. None the less, in his speech and appearance he remained a typical down-east Yankee, and it is said at Esperanza that his one conceit was to look like the popular caricature of Uncle Sam. In this it is not to be denied that he succeeded. The "billy-goat" beard; the lantern-jaw; the thin, long hair; the thin, long arms; and the thin, long legs—these he had as if modeled from the caricature. And the nasal twang and the down-east dialect—alas! it would have filled the average melodramatic English novelist's devoted soul with untold satisfaction and delight to hear Richard Brown say "Wal" and "I gaiss," and otherwise mutilate the English language.
To the Spaniards he was known as Don Ricardo. The small Anglo-American colony at Esperanza referred to him as "old Dick Brown." He was a cynical, crusty, sour old man, who had become a sort of consular heirloom at Esperanza, and without whose knowledge and assistance no new American consul could at the outset have performed the simplest official duty. Knowing this, Richard Brown felt a very well-developed sense of his own importance, and looked upon each of his newly arrived superiors with ill-concealed contempt.
There was also a vice-consul at Esperanza; but as he was a busy merchant, who could find time to sign only such papers as old Brown presented to him in the absence of the consul, he was seen little at the consulate. He generally knew when a new consul was coming along or an old consul going away, but in this instance Brown had failed to advise him either of Major Ransom's departure or of Colonel Warfield's arrival. Thus it happened that only the amiable Mr. Brown was on hand when Colonel Warfield came perspiring upon the scene on the warm morning in September of which we write.
"Come in," he said sharply, as the consul hesitated upon the threshold. "What's your business?"
Colonel Warfield gave Mr. Brown a look that would have completely withered an ordinary person, but which was entirely lost upon the old man in question, and with magnificent dignity handed him the following card:
COLONEL G. WITHERSPOON WARFIELD,
Consul of the United States of America.
ESPERANZA.
Mr. Richard Brown looked the card over carefully.
"Another colonel," he observed grimly. "The last one was a major; the one before him was a capting. Ain't they got nothin' but soldiers to send out here? Who's goin' to run the army? Are you a real colonel or jest a newspaper colonel, or are you a colonel on the governor's staff? There's your office over there on the other side of the hall. Kin you speak Spanish?"
Mrs. Zoe Anderson Norris, novelist and editor, was born at Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in 1861, the daughter of Rev. Henry T. Anderson, who held pastorates in many Kentucky towns. She was graduated from Daughters, now Beaumont, College, when she was seventeen years of age, or in 1878; and two days later she married Spencer W. Norris, of Harrodsburg, and removed to Wichita, Kansas, to live. Years afterwards Mrs. Norris divorced her husband and went to New York to make a name for herself in literature. She began with a Western story, Georgiana's Mother, which appeared in George W. Cable's magazine, The Symposium. Some time thereafter Mrs. Norris went to England—"like an idiot," as she now puts it. In London she "got swamped among the million thieving magazines, threw up the whole job," and traveled for two years on the Continent, writing for American periodicals. When she returned to New York she again wrote for McClure's, Cosmopolitan, The Smart Set, Everybody's, and several other magazines. Mrs. Norris's first novel, The Quest of Polly Locke (New York, 1902) was a story of the poor of Italy. It was followed by her best known novel, The Color of His Soul (New York, 1903), set against a background of New York's Bohemia, and suppressed two weeks after its publication because of the earnest objections of a young Socialist, who had permitted the author to make a type of him, and, when the story was selling, became dissatisfied because he was not sharing in the profits. The publishers feared a libel suit, and withdrew the little novel. Their action scared other publishers, and she could not find any one to print her writings. A short time later Mrs. Norris narrowly escaped dying as a charity patient in a New York hospital. When she did recover she worked for two years on The Sun, The Post, The Press, and several other newspapers in Manhattan. Twelve Kentucky Colonel Stories (New York, 1905), which were originally printed in The Sun, "describing scenes and incidents in a Kentucky Colonel's life in the Southland," were told Mrs. Norris by Phil B. Thompson, sometime Congressman from Kentucky. The stories have enjoyed a wide sale; and she is planning to issue another set of them shortly. Being badly treated by a well-known magazine, she became so infuriated that she decided to establish—at the suggestion of Marion Mills Miller—a magazine of her own. Thus The East Side, a little thing not so large—speaking of its physical size—as Elbert Hubbard's The Philistine, was born. That was early in 1909; and it has been issued every other month since. Mrs. Norris is nothing if not original; her opinions may not matter much, but they are hers. The four bound volumes of The East Side lie before me now, and they are almost bursting with love, sympathy, and understanding for the poor of New York. She has been and is everything from printer's "devil" to editor-in-chief, but she has made a success of the work. Her one eternal theme is the poor, in whom she has been interested all her life. For the last seven years she has lived among them; and among them she hopes to spend the remainder of her days. Her one best friend has been William Oberhardt, the artist, who has illustrated The East Side from its inception until the present time. To celebrate the little periodical's first anniversary, Mrs. Norris founded—at the suggestion of Will J. Lampton—The Ragged Edge Klub, which is composed of her friends and subscribers, and which gave her an opportunity to meet all of her "distinguished life preservers" in person. The Klub's dinners delight the diners—and the newspapers! Mrs. Norris's latest novel, The Way of the Wind (New York, 1911), is a story of the sufferings of the Kansas pioneers, and is generally regarded as her finest work. So long as Zoe's Magazine—which is the sub-title of The East Side—continues to come from the press, the pushcart people, the rag pickers, the turkish towel men, the kindling-wood women, the homeless of New York's great East Side will have a voice in the world worth having.
Bibliography. Everybody's Magazine (September, 1909); Cosmopolitan Magazine (January, 1910).
THE CABARET SINGER[31]
[From The East Side (September, 1912)]
For a few moments the orchestra, with dulcet wail of cello and violin, held the attention of those at the tables, then the Cabaret singer stepped out upon the soft, red carpet.
Against the mirrored wall at a small table set a young chap with his wife. The eyes of his wife followed his quick, admiring glances at the singer.
She began to sing "Daddy," sweeping the crowd with her long, soft glance, selecting her victim for the chorus.
She advanced toward the couple. She stood by the husband, pressed her rosy, perfumed cheek upon his hair, and began to sing.
The young wife flushed crimson as she watched her husband in this delicate embrace, the crowd applauded; and the Cabaret singer, leaving him, went from one to the other of the men, some bald, some young, singing the chorus of "Daddy."
The young wife sighed as the flashing eyes of her husband followed the singer.
"Shall we go home?" she asked presently.
"Not yet!" he implored.
"I wish I could go home," she repeated, by and by. "My baby is crying for me. I know he is. I wish I could go home."
The song finished, the singer ran into the dressing room and threw herself into the arms of the old negress half asleep there. She began to cry softly.
The negress patted her white shoulder.
"What's de mattah, honey," she purred.
"I want to go home," the singer sobbed. "I am sick of that song. I am sick of these men. My baby is crying for me. I know he is. I want to go home!"
IN A MOMENT OF WEARINESS
[From the same]