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ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

Rose of Dutcher's Coolly

by

Hamlin Garland

CHICAGO STONE fcf KIMBALL

MDCCCXCV

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY HAMLIN OAKLAND

ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

CHAPTER I

HER CHILDHOOD

Rose was an unaccountable child from the start. She learned to speak early and while she did not use "baby-talk" she had strange words of her own. She called hard money "tow" and a picture "tac," names which had nothing to do with onomatopoeia though it seemed so in some cases. Bread and milk she called "plop."

She began to read of her own accord when four years old, picking out the letters from the advertisements of the newspapers, and running to her mother at the sink or bread-board to learn what each word meant. Her demand for stories grew to be a burden. She was insatiate, nothing but sleep subdued her eager brain.

As she grew older she read and re-read her picture books when alone, but when older peo ple were talking she listened as attentively as if she understood every word. She had the power of amusing herself and visited very little with

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other children. It was deeply moving to see her with her poor playthings out under the pop lar tree, talking to herself, arranging and re arranging her chairs and tables, the sunlight flecking her hair, and the birds singing over head.

She seemed only a larger sort of insect, and her prattle mixed easily with the chirp of crickets and the rustle of leaves.

She was only five years old when her mother suddenly withdrew her hands from pans and kettles, gave up all thought of bread and butter making, and took rest in death. Only a few hours of waiting on her bed near the kitchen fire and Ann Dutcher was through with toil and troubled dreaming, and lay in the dim best- room, taking no account of anything in the light of day.

Rose got up the next morning after her mother's last kiss and went into the room where the body lay. A gnomish little figure the child was, for at that time her head was large and her cropped hair bristled till she seemed a sort of brownie. Also, her lonely child-life had given her quaint, grave ways.

She knew her mother was dead, and that -death was a kind of sleep which lasted longer than common sleep, that was all the difference, •.so she went in and stood by the bed and tried ito see her mother's face. It was early in the

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HER CHILDHOOD

morning and the curtains being drawn it was dark in the room, but Rose had no fear, for mother was there.

She talked softly to herself a little while, then went over to the window and pulled on the string of the curtain till it rolled up. Then she went back and looked at her mother. She grew tired of waiting at last.

"Mamma," she called, "wake up. Can 't you wake up, mamma ? "

She patted the cold, rigid cheeks with her rough brown little palms. Then she blew in the dead face, gravely. Then she thought if she could only open mamma's eyes she 'd be awake. So she took her finger and thumb and tried to lift the lashes, and when she did she was frightened by the look of the set faded gray eyes. Then the terrible vague shadow of the Unknown settled upon her and she cried con vulsively: "Mamma! mamma, I want you!" Thus she met death, early in her life.

After her mother's burial Rose turned to her father more hungrily than before. She rode into the fields with him in the spring, when he went out to sow, sitting on the seeder box with the pockets of her little pink apron filled with wheat, and her sweet, piping little voice calling to the horses or laughing in glee at the swarms of sparrows. When he was plowing corn she rode on the horses, clinging like a blue-jay to

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ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

the rings in the back-pad, her yellow-brown hair blowing.

She talked sagely about the crops and the weather, and asked innumerable questions. Often John could not hear her questions, which were like soft soliloquies, but she babbled on just the same.

"See the little birds, pappa John. They's 'bout a million of 'um, ain't they? They 're glad spring has come, ain't they, pappa? They can understand each other just the same as we can, can 't they, pappa John?"

John Butcher was not a talker, and he seldom answered her unless she turned her eager face to him, and her bird-like voice repeated her ques tion. But it mattered very little to Rose. She had her father's power of self-amusement. In case she got tired of riding about with him she brought her playthings out and established them in a corner of the fence. Her favorite game was playing horses.

Her horses were sticks of the size of canes, and of all sorts and colors. Each one had a name. How she selected them, and why she selected them out of the vast world of sticks, was a mystery to John Dutcher.

The brown stick she called Dan, the fork

handle, Nellie, and the crooked stick with the

big knot was Barney. She had from six to ten

and she never forgot their names. Each had a

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HER CHILDHOOD

string for a bridle and they all were placed in stalls, which she built with infinite labor and cal culation out of twigs. She led each stick by its halter up to the manger (a rail} on which she had placed oats and grass. She talked to them.

"Now, Barney, whoa-whoa there now ! Do n't you kick Kit again — now sir! Kit, you better stand over here by Pete — Barney, you need ex ercise, that's what you need — yessir."

She exercised them by riding them in plung ing circles about the fields, forgetting, with the quick imagination of a child, that she was doing all the hard work of the riding with her own stout, brown legs. It was a pleasure to John to have her there though he said little to her.

Often at night as he saw her lying asleep, her long lashes upon her roughened sun-burned skin, his heart went out to her in a great gush of tenderness. His throat ached and his eyes grew wet as he thought how unresponsive he had been that day. His remorseful memory went back over her eager questions to which he had not replied. Dear, sweet, restless little heart ! And then he vowed never to lose patience with her again. And sometimes standing there beside her bed his arms closed about the little mound under the quilts, and his lips touched the round, sleep-enraptured face. At such times his needy soul went out in a cry to his dead wife for help to care for his child.

ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

He grew afraid of the mystery and danger of coming womanhood. Her needs came to him more powerfully each day.

When she began going to school with the other children the effects of her lonely life and of her companionship with her father set her apart from the boys and girls of her own age and placed her among those several years older, whom she dominated by her gravity and her audacity. She was not mischievous or quarrel some, but she was a fearless investigator. She tested their childish superstitions at once.

When they told her that if she swore at God and shook her fist at the sky she would certainly drop dead, she calmly stepped forward and shook her little fist up at the sun and swore, while the awe-stricken children cowered like a covey of partridges.

"There! you see that^s a lie," she said scorn fully. "God can't kill me — or else he don't care."

She went on exploding these strange super stitious fancies, which are only the survivals in civilized children of savage ancestry. She stood erect in the door of the school-house when she was eight years old, and pointed her hand at the lightning while the teacher sat cowed and weep ing at her desk.

"You said I dassn't," the little elf cried, "But I dass't, and nothing ain't struck me yet.'*

HER CHILDHOOD

Her absolute fearlessness of the things which children shrank from, the dark, and things of the dark, made her a marked figure. The wo men of the Coolly thought it due to the lack of a mother's care. They spoke to the minister about it and urged him to see Butcher and ask him to try and do something for the child's good.

But Butcher simply said, " Oh, do n't bother the child about her soul. She 's all right. I don't bother myself about those things, and what 's the use o' spoilin' the child's fun. If she wants to go to Sunday-school, why all right. She '11 go where she 's interested."

"But, Brother Butcher, the child is doing outrageous things — heathenish, defying her God."

" I do n't s'pose what she does will make any particular difference to God. We understand each other, Rosie and me. Bo n't worry. If she does anything real bad she '11 come an' tell me of it. Chk ! Chk ! G' wan, Barney ! " He cut the matter short by driving away into the field of corn.

He saw rushing upon him the most solemn and severe trials of a parent. Rose was a sturdy girl and promised to develop into a maiden early, and there were a hundred things which ought to be said to her which must be said by some one. He was not philosopher enough to

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know that she held in her expanding brain the germs of self-knowledge.

He had been passing through a running fire of questions from the child for two years, but these questions now took hold of deeper things, and they could no longer be put aside by say ing, " Wait a few years and then I '11 tell you." She would learn them elsewhere, if not from him. He braced himself for the trial, which increased in severity.

The child's horizon was limited, but within its circle her searching eyes let nothing escape. She came to Dutcher with appalling questions.

She not only asked him, " Who made God? " but she wanted to know how she came to be born, and a thousand other questions of the same searching nature. He saw that the day of petty fictions had gone by. The child knew that little lambs, and calves, and kittens did not grow down in the woods. She knew that babies were not brought by the doctor, and that they did not come from heaven.

"Good Lord!" groaned her father one day, after an unusually persistent attack from her, caused by the appearance of a little colt out in the barn, " I wish your mother was here, or some woman. You do make it hard for me, Rosie."

" How do I make it hard for you, pappa? " was her quick new question. " O, Lord, what a 10

HER CHILDHOOD

young un," he said, in deeper despair. " Come, ain't it about time for you to be leggin' it toward school? Give me a rest, Rosie. But I '11 answer all your questions — do n't ask about them things of the children — come right to me always — only don't pile 'em all on me to once."

" All right, pappa, I won't."

"That's a good old soul!" he said, patting her on the back. After she had gone he sat down on the feed-box and wiped his face. " I wonder how women do explain things like that to girls," he thought. " I '11 ask the preacher's wife to explain it — no, I won't. I '11 do it my self, and I '11 get her books to read about it — good books."

It was evidence of the girl's innate strength and purity of soul that the long succession of hired hands had not poisoned her mind. They soon discovered, however, the complete confi dence between the father and child, and knew that their words and actions would be taken straight to John as soon as night came and Rose climbed into his lap. This made them careful before her, and the shame of their words and stories came to the child's ears only in fragments.

Dutcher concluded that he should have a woman in the house, and co sent back to Penn sylvania for his sister, lately widowed. Rose looked forward to seeing her aunt with the wild- ii

ROSE OF DUTCHER'S COOLLY

est delight. She went with her father down the valley to Bluff Siding to meet her. Bluff Siding was the only town the child knew, and it was a wonderful thing to go to town.

As they stood on the platform, waiting, her eyes swept along the great curve of the rails to the east, and suddenly, like a pain in the heart, came her first realization of distance, of the in finity of the world.

" Where does it go to, pappa? "

" O, a long way off. To Madison, Chicago, and Pennsylvany."

" How far is it? Could we go there with old Barney and Nell?"

"O, no. If we drove there it would take us days and days, and the wheat would grow up and get yellow, an' the snow come, almost, be fore we 'd get there."

" O, dear! " she sighed. " I do n't like to have it so big. Do people live all along the whole way?"

" Yes, the whole way, and lots of big cities."

"Big as Madison?" Madison was her un seen measure of greatness.

" O, yes. A hundred times bigger."

She sighed again and looked away to the east with a strange, unchildish, set stare in her eyes. She was trying to realize it.

" It makes me ache, pappa," she sighed, put ting her little brown hand to her throat. 12

HER CHILDHOOD

When the engine came in with its thunder and whizz, she shrank back against the station wall, white and breathless, not so much with fear as with awe. She had never stood so close to this monster before. It attracted all her atten tion so that for the moment she forgot about the coming of her aunt.

When she looked into the large dull face of Mrs. Diehl she was deeply disappointed. She liked her but she not love her!

She had looked forward to her coming almost as if to the return of her mother. She had imagined her looking strange and beautiful be cause she came out of the mystical, far-off land her father often spoke of. Instead of these things Mrs. Diehl was a strong-featured, mild- voiced woman, rather large and ungraceful, who looked upon the motherless child and clicked her tongue — tch!

" You poor chick! "

But the thing which had happened was this : Rose had conceived of distance and great cities.

The next day she said : " Pappa John, I want to go way up on the bluffs. I want to go up to Table Rock where I can see way, way off."

" It 's a long climb up there, Rosie. You '11 get tired."

But Rosie insisted and together they climbed the hill. Up beyond the pasture — beyond the black-berry patch — beyond the clinging birches

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ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

in their white jackets — up where the rocks cropped out of the ground and where curious little wave-worn pebbles lay scattered on the scant grass.

Once a glittering rattle-snake lying in the sun awoke, and slipped under a stone like a stream of golden oil, and the child shrank against her father's thigh in horror.

They climbed slowly up the steep grassy slope and stood at last on the flat rock which topped the bluff. Rose stood there, dizzy, out of breath, with her hair blown across her cheek and looked away, at the curving valley and its river gleam ing here and there through the willows and elders. It was like looking over an unexplored world to the child. Her eyes expanded and her heart filled with the same ache which came into it when she looked down along the curving rail way track. She turned suddenly and fell sobbing against her father.

" Why, Rosie, what 's the matter? Poor little • girl — she 's all tired out, climbin' up here." He sat down and took her on his lap and talked to her of the valley below and where the river went — but she would not look up again.

" I want to go home," she said with hidden face.

On the way down, John rolled a big stone down the hill and as it went bounding, crashing into the forest below, a deer drifted out like a

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HER CHILDHOOD

gray shadow and swept along the hillside and over the ridge.

Rose saw it as if in a dream. She did not laugh nor shout. John was troubled by her si lence and gravity, but laid it to weariness and took her pick-a-back on the last half mile through the brush.

That scene came to her mind again and again in the days which followed, but she did not see it again till the following spring. It appealed to her with less power then. Its beauty over shadowed its oppressive largeness. As she grew older it came to be her favorite playing ground on holidays. She brought down those quaint little bits of limestone and made them her play things in her house, which was next door to her barn — and secondary to her barn.

CHAPTER II

CHILD-LIFE, PAGAN FREE

Rose lived the life of the farm girls in the seven great Middle-West States. In summer she patted away to school, clad only in a gingham dress, white untrimmed cotton pantalets, and a straw hat that was made feminine by a band of gay ribbon. Her body was as untrammeled as a boy's. She went bare-foot and bare-headed at will, and she was part of all the sports.

She helped the boys snare gophers, on the way to school, and played house with the girls on the shady side of the school-house, and once, while the teacher was absent at noon, Rose pro posed that a fire be built to heat the tea for the dolls.

She it was who constructed the stove out of thin bricks, and set a fire going in it in the cor ner of the boy's entry-way, and only the passing of a farmer saved the building from disaster.

She it was who found the ground-bird's nest and proposed to make a house over it, and ended by teaching the bird to walk through a long hall way made of sticks in order to get to its eggs again.

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She despised hats and very seldom wore hers except hanging by the string down her back. Her face was brown and red as leather, and her stout little hands were always covered with warts and good brown earth, which had no terrors for her.

Bugs and beetles did not scare her any more than they did the boys. She watched the beetles bury a dead gopher without the slightest repug nance ; indeed, she turned to, after a long time, to help them, a kindness which they very prob ably resented, to judge from their scrambling.

She always urged the other girls to go down to the creek and see the boys go in swimming, and would have joined the fun had not the boys beaten her back with hands full of mud, while they uttered opprobrious cries. She saw no reason why boys should have all the fun.

When the days were hot they could go down there in the cool, nice creek, strip and have a good time, but girls must primp around and try to keep nice and clean. She looked longingly at the naked little savages running about and splashing in the water. There was something so fine and joyous in it, her childish heart rebelled at sex-distinction as she walked slowly away. She, too, loved the feel of the water and the caress of the wind.

She was a good student and developed early into a wonderful speller and reader. She always

ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

listened to the classes in reading, and long be fore she reached the pieces herself she knew them by heart, and said them to herself in the silence of the lane or the loneliness of the garret. She recited "The Battle of Waterloo" and " Locheil " long before she understood the words. The roll of the verse excited her, and she thrust her nut of a fist into the air like Miriam the Hebrew singer, feeling vaguely the same passion.

She went from Primer to First Reader, then to the Second and Third Readers, without effort. She read easily and dramatically. She caught at the larger meanings, and uttered them in such wise that the older pupils stopped their study to listen.

Scraps and fragments of her reading took curious lodgment in her mind. New concep tions burst into her consciousness with a golden glory upon reading these lines:

" Field of wheat so full and fair, Shining with a sunny air; Lightly swaying either way, Graceful as the breezes sway."

They made her see the beauty of the grain- field as never before. It seemed to be lit by some mysterious light.

" Cleon hath a million acres, Ne'er a one have I,"

seemed to express something immemorial and 18

CHILD-LIFE, PAGAN FREE

grand. She seemed to see hills stretching to vast distances, covered with cattle. " The pied frog's orchestra " came to her with sudden con scious meaning as she sat on the door-step one night eating her bowl of bread and milk, and watching the stars come out. These fragments of literature expressed the poetry of certain things about her, and helped her also to perceive others.

She was a daring swinger, and used to swing furiously out under the maple trees, hoping to some day touch the branches high up there, and, when her companions gathered in little clumps in dismayed consultation, she swung with wild hair floating free, a sort of intoxication of delight in her heart.

Sometimes when alone she slipped off her clothes and ran amid the tall corn-stalks like a wild thing. Her slim little brown body slipped among the leaves like a weasel in the grass. Some secret, strange delight, drawn from ances tral sources, bubbled over from her pounding heart, and she ran and ran until wearied and sore with the rasping corn leaves, then she sadly put on civilized dress once more.

Her feet were brown as toads, but graceful and small, and she washed them (when the dew was heavy enough) by running in the wet grass just before going in to bed, a trick the boys of the neighborhood had taught her. She ran for-

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ward to clean the insteps and backward to clean the heels. If the grass was not wet, she omitted the ceremony. Dust was clean anyhow. Her night-gowns were of most sorry pattern till her aunt came; thereafter they were clean, though it mattered little. They were a nuisance anyway.

She wore a pink sun-bonnet, when she could find one; generally there were two or three hang ing on the fences at remote places. She sat down in the middle of the road, because she had a lizard's liking for the warm soft dust, and she paddled in every pool and plunged her hand into every puddle after frogs and bugs and worms, with the action of a crane.

She ate everything that boys did. That is to say, she ate sheep sorrel, Indian tobacco, roots of ferns, May apples, rose leaves, rose-buds, raw turnips, choke-cherries, wild crab-apples, slippery elm bark, and the green balls on young oak trees, as well as the bitter acorns. These acorns she chewed into pats, and dried in the sun, to eat at other times, like a savage.

She ate pinks and grass blades, and green watermelons, and ground cherries, and black- haws, and dew-berries, and every other conceiv able thing in the woods and fields, not to men tion the score of things which she tried and spit out. She became inured to poison ivy like the boys and walked the forest paths without fear of anything but snakes.

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CHILD-LIFE, PAGAN FREE

Summer was one continuous and busy play- spell for her in those days before her lessons be came a serious thing, for as she sat in school she was experimenting in the same way. She chewed paper into balls and snapped them like the boys. She carried slips of elm bark to chew also, and slate pencils she crunched daily. She gnawed the corners of her slate, tasted her ink and munched the cedar of her pencil.

And through it all she grew tall and straight and brown. She could run like a partridge and fight like a wild-cat, at need. Her brown-black eyes shone in her dark warm skin with an eager light, and her calloused little claws of hands reached and took hold of all realities.

The boys respected her as a girl who wasn't afraid of bugs, and who could run, and throw a ball. Above all she was strong and well.

CHAPTER III

DANGEROUS DAYS

A farmer's daughter is exposed to sights and sounds which the city girl knows nothing of. Mysterious processes of generation and birth go on before the eyes of the farm child, which only come as obscure whisperings to the city child of the same middle condition. And these happen ings have a terrifying power to stir and develop passions prematurely.

Rose heard occasionally obscene words among the hands. She listened unperceived to the vulgar cackling of old women during afternoon calls. Before her eyes from the time of her toddling youth had proceeded the drama of ani mal life. She had seen it all ; courtship, birth, death. Nothing escaped her keen, searching, inquisitive eyes. She asked her father about these dramatic and furious episodes of the barn yard, but he put her off, and she finally ceased to ask about them. She began to perceive they were considered of that obscure and unmention able world of sin, with which men alone had proper right to deal.

When the girls of her age in the grasp of

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DANGEROUS DAYS

some gale of passion, danced about her shouting foul words in the unknowing way children have, she could not take part by word of mouth, though she felt the same savage, frenzied delight in it.

She learned early the hideous signs which pass in the country to describe the unnamable and the covert things of human life. She saw them scrawled on the fences, on school-house doors, and written on the dust of the road. There was no escaping them. The apparently shameful fact of sex faced her everywhere.

And yet through it all she lived a glad, free, wholesome life. Her blood was sweet and clean , and kept off contagion. Her brown skin flushed with its unhindered current. She dipped into this obscure questionable world only moment arily, and came back to her father wholesome and happy, except occasionally when some out rageous gesture or word had stricken her into weeping.

Then her father told her not to mind ; just be good and sweet herself, and it would help the others to be good too. He blundered some times and struggled for words, and talked in grotesque riddles, but she understood his mean ing some way and was comforted.

She did not go to her aunt. She had heard her say coarse words and she did not care to go and tell her of these strange things. Her father

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was her hero and guide. She went to him as naturally as to a mother. It was a great thing for him to achieve, but he did not know it. Ke did not seek it. It was indeed thrust upon him. He would gladly have escaped from it, but Rose refused to listen to anyone else, so the puzzled and disturbed father continued to be her timor ous guide as a matter of need.

He could not understand her quick percep tion — something seemed to rise in the child to help him explain. Germs of latent perception seemed to spring up like a conjuror's magic seed, here a kernel, there a tree. One by one obscure ideas rose from the deep like bubbles, and burst into thought in her conscious self. A hint, organized in her brain long trains of sequential conceptions, which she had inherited with her sex. She did not require teaching on the most fundamental problems of her nature.

Rose began to work early, but her work, like her playing, was not that of other girls. As she never played with dolls, caring more for hobby horses, so she early learned to do work in the barn. From taking care of make-believe stick horses she came easily to take care of real horses.

When a toddling babe she had moved about under the huge plow-horses in their stalls, and put straw about them, and patted their columnar limbs with her little pads of palms, talking to

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them in soft indefinite gurgle of love and com mand.

She knew how much hay and oats they needed, and she learned early to curry them, though they resented her first trials with the comb. She cared less for the cows and pigs, but before she was ten she could milk the "easy" cows. She liked the chickens, and it was part of her daily duty to feed the hens and gather the eggs.

She could use a fork in the barn deftly as a boy by the time she was twelve, and in stacking times she handed bundles across the stack to her father. It was the variety of work, perhaps, which prevented her from acquiring that pathetic and lamentable stoop (or crook) in the shoulders and back which many country girls have in vary ing degree.

All things tended to make her powerful, lithe and erect. The naked facts of nature were hers to command. She touched undisguised and unrefined nature at all points. Her feet met not merely soil, but mud. Her hands smelled of the barn yard as well as of the flowers of the wild places of wood and meadow.

Meanwhile her comradeship was sweet to John Butcher. He hardly knew his loss of a son so com pletely was he companioned by Rose. He had put far away the time when she should wear shoes and long dresses and become a "young lady."

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" Let her be, as long as you can," he said to his sister. "She 's a mighty comfort to me now, and she's happy; don't disturb her; time to wear long dresses and corsets '11 come soon enough without hurryin' things."

CHAPTER IV

AN OPENING CLOVER-BLOOM

There are times in a child's life when it leaps suddenly into larger growth as the imprisoned bud blooms larger than its promise, when the green fist of its straining calyx loosens in the warm glow of a May morning. Knowledge" comes to the child, especially all the subtler knowledge of time, of space, of love, in a vague, indefinite, unconscious way, developing out of the child's organic self precisely as the flower blooms.

This knowledge comes to definite knowledge for an instant only and then returns to the sub conscious, waiting the next day of warm sun, shining water and smell of spring. Each time it stays longer, till at last the child can contem plate its own thought and finally express it These times form our real life epochs.

One day in June, a party of the school children, with flashing tin pails and willow bas kets, went up into the woods after the wild-wood strawberries. It was late June and the straw berries of the meadows and uplands were nearly 27

ROSE OF DUTCHER'S COOLLY

gone. The roads were dusty, the pastures close-clipped.

Merry, bare-footed little creatures! They started forth in the early morning while the dew still flamed on the clover- leaves, and around each corn-hill the ground was still moist. The girls romped and picked wild flowers, the boys threw stones at the chipmunks on the fence, and tossed their tin pails in the air, performing feats of deftness in imitation of the circus-men, whom they had lately seen on the green at Tyre.

They entered the forest and kept on up the wood-road until it seemed as if they were ex plorers. They had the delicious, tremulous feeling of having penetrated into the primeval, where nothing but the birds and animals lived. On past cool deeps of poplar, where the man drake grew, and the sweet fern spread its mag nificent leaves. On until the strawberries ap peared, growing in clumps on long swaying stems, pale scarlet globes of delicious tartness.

They fell to work mostly in pairs. Curly- haired Carl kept with Rose, and his sharp eyes and knowledge of the patch enabled them to fill their pails first; then they went about help ing the others, whose voices babbled on like streams.

Everywhere the pink sun-bonnets and ragged straw hats bobbed up and down. Everywhere 28

AN OPENING CLOVER-BLOOM

fresh voices. The sunlight fell in vivid yellow patches through the cool odorous gloom. Everywhere the faint odor of ferns and man drakes and berries, and the faint rustle of leaves, as if the shadows of the clouds trampled the tree-tops.

There was something sweet and wild and primeval in the scene, and the children were carried out of their usual selves. Rose herself danced and romped, her eyes flashing with delight. Under her direction they all came to gether on a little slope, where the trees were less thick, and near a brook which gurgled through moss-covered stones.

" O, let 's have our picnic here ! "

"All right, let 's ! "

They made short work of the lunch they had. Their buttered biscuits were spread with berries and mixed with water from the brook, which the girls drank like the boys, that is, by lying down on their breasts and drinking as the hunter drinks. Their hunger eased they fell to games. Games centuries old. Games which the Skandinavians played in the edges of their pine forests. Games the English lads and las sies played in the oak-openings of middle-age England.

The little ones were ruled out after awhile and the five or six elder children (the oldest only fourteen), went on with their games, which 29

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told of love. They joined hands and circled about Carl, they sang :

" King William was King James* son, And from the royal race he run, Upon his breast he wore a star, Which points away to a conquest far. Go choose you east, go choose you west, Go choose the one that you love best."

Carl selected Rose, as they all knew he would. They stood together now, holding hands.

" Down on this carpet you must kneel, " (they knelt)

"As sure as the grass grows in the field. Salute your bride with a kiss so sweet,"

(Carl kissed her gravely) " Now you rise upon your feet."

Again they circled, and again a little bride and bridegroom knelt. The fresh young voices rang under the spaces of the trees, silencing the joy of the thrush. The flecking sunlight fell on their towsled hair and their flushed faces. They had forgotten home and kindred, and were liv ing a strange new-old life, old as history, wild and free once more, and in their hearts some thing bloomed like a flower, something sweet shook them all, something unutterable and nameless, something magnificent to attain and sorrowful to lose.

When they tired of "King William," they all

3°

AN OPENING CLOVER-BLOOM

flung themselves down on the grass and grew quiet. Some of the girls made wreaths of flowers strung on grass stems, while the boys studied the insects under the chips and stumps, or came slyly behind the girls and stuck spears of fox-tail down their necks. Some of them rolled down the bank. Carl, when he was tired of this, came and lay down by Rose, and put his head in her lap. Other bridegrooms did the same with their brides. Some of the boys matched violets, by seeing which would hook the other's head off.

Silence fell on them. Some passion thrilled Rose as she looked down into Carl's sunny blue eyes. She brushed his hair as he looked up at the clouds sailing above the trees like wonderful mountains of snow.

She was thirteen years of age, but prophecy of womanhood, of change, of sorrow, was in her voice as she said slowly, a look not childish upon her face :

" I'd like to live here forever, would n't you, Carl?"

"I guess we'd have to build a house," said Carl, the practical one.

She felt a terrible hunger, a desire to take his head in her arms and kiss it. Her muscles ached and quivered with something she could not fathom. As she resisted she grew calm, but mysteriously sad, as if something were passing

ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

from her forever. The leaves whispered a mes sage to her, and the stream repeated an occult note of joy, which was mixed with sorrow.

The struggle of wild fear and bitter-sweet hunger of desire — this vague, mystical percep tion of her sex, did not last, to Rose. It was lost when she came out of the wood into the road on the way homeward. It was a formless impulse and throbbing stir far down below defi nite thought. It was sweet and wild and inno cent as the first coquettish love-note of the thrush, and yet it was the beginning of her love-life. It was the second great epoch of her life.

CHAPTER V

HER FIRST PERIL

She came in contact during her school life with a variety of teachers. Most of the women she did not like, but one sweet and thoughtful girl had her unbounded love and confidence. She was from Madison, that was in itself a great distinction, for the capital of the state had come to mean something great and beautiful and heroic to Rose.

There it was the governor lived. There the soldiers went to enter the army, she remembered hearing the neighbors say, and her father's weekly paper was printed there. It was a great thing to have come from so far away and from Madison, and Rose hung about the door of the school house at the close of the first day, hoping the teacher would permit her to walk home by her side.

The young teacher, worried almost to de spair over the arrangement of her classes, did not rise from her desk until the sun was low, rolling upon the tree-fringed ridge of the west ern bluff.

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ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

She was deeply touched to find this dusky- complexioned, bare-legged girl waiting for her.

"It was very nice of you, Rose," she said, and they walked off together. She talked about the flowers in the grass, and Rose ran to and fro, climbing fences to pick all sorts that she knew. She did not laugh when the teacher told her the botanical names. She wished she could remem ber them.

" When you grow up you can study botany too. But you must run home now, it 's almost dark."

" I ain't afraid of the dark," said Rose stoutly, and she went so far Miss Lavalle was quite alarmed.

" Now you must go."

She kissed the child good-bye, and Rose ran off with her heart big with emotion, like an accepted lover.

It was well Rose turned to her for help, for most of her teachers had not the refinement of Miss Lavalle. They were generally farmers' daughters or girls from neighboring towns, who taught for a little extra money to buy dresses with — worthy girls indeed, but they expressed less of refining thought to the children.

One day this young teacher, with Rose and two or three other little ones, was sitting on a sunny southward sloping swell. Her hands were full of flowers and her great dark eyes were

34

HER FIRST PERIL

opened wide as if to mirror the whole scene, a valley flooded with light and warm with the radiant grass of spring. She was small and dark and dainty, and still carried the emotional char acteristics of her French ancestry. She saw nature definitely, and did not scruple to say so.

" O, it is beautiful ! " she said, as her eyes swept along the high broken line of the Western coule" ridge, down to the vast blue cliff where the river broke its way into the larger valley. " Children, see how beautiful it is ! " The chil dren stared away at it, but Rose looked into the teacher's eager face. Then her flowers dropped to the ground, the sunlight fell upon her with a richer glow, the dandelions shone like stars in a heaven of green, the birds and the wind sang a wild clear song in the doors of her ears, and her heart swelled with unutterable emotion. She was overpowered by the beauty of the world, as she had been by its immensity that day on the hill top with her father.

She saw the purple mists, the smooth, green, warm slopes dotted with dandelions, and the woodlands with their amber, and purple-gray, and gray-green foliage. The big world had grown distinctly beautiful to her. It was as though a gray veil had been withdrawn from the face of created things — but this perception did not last. The veil fell again before her eyes when the presence of the teacher was withdrawn. She felt

35

ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

the beautiful and splendid phases of nature and absorbed and related them to herself, but she did not consciously perceive except at rare moments.

The men, who taught in winter, were blunt and crude, but occasionally one of a high type came. Some young fellows studying law, or taking a course at some school, teaching to keep their place or to go higher. These men studied nights and mornings out of great Latin books which were the wonder of the children. Such teachers appealed to the better class of pupils with great power, but excited rebellion in others.

It seemed a wonderful and important day to Rose, the first time she entered the scarred and greasy room in winter, because it was swarming with big girls and boys. She toolc her seat at one of the little benches on the north side of the room, where all the girls sat. At some far time the girls had been put on that, the coldest side of the house, and they still sat there ; change was impossible.

Rose was a little bit awed by the scene. The big boys never seemed so rough, and the big girls never seemed so tall. They were all talking loudly, hanging about the old square stove which sat in the middle of a puddle of bricks.

She was an unimportant factor in the winter school, however, for the big boys and girls

36

HER FIRST PERIL

ignored the little ones, or ordered them out of their games.

In winter also her physical superiority to the other girls was less apparent, for she wore thick shoes and shapeless dresses and muffled her head and neck like the boys.

She plodded to school along the deep sleigh tracks, facing a bitter wind, with the heart of a man. It made her cry sometimes but there was more of rage than fear in her sobbing. She coughed and wheezed like the rest, but through it all her perfect lungs and sinewy heart carried her triumphantly.

The winter she was fourteen years of age she had for teacher a girl whose beautiful pres ence brought a curse with it. She was small and graceful, with a face full of sudden tears and laughter and dreams of desire. She fascinated the children, and the larger boys woke to a sudden savagery of rivalry over her, which no one understood. The older boys fought over her smiles and low-voiced words of praise.

The girls grew vaguely jealous or were abject slaves to her whims. The school became farcical in session, with ever-increasing play hours and ever-shortening recitations, and yet such was the teacher's power over the students they did not report her. She gathered the larger girls around her as she flirted with the young men, until children like Carl and Rose became a part of it all.

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ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

At night the young men of the neighborhood flocked about her boarding-place, absolutely fighting in her very presence for the promise which she withheld, out of coquettish perversity. She herself became a victim of the storm of passion which swept over the neighborhood. She went out to parties and dances every night and came languidly to school each morning. Most of the men of the district laughed, but the women began to talk excitedly about the stories they heard.

At school the most dangerous practices were winked at. The older boys did not scruple to put their arms about the teacher's waist as they stood by her side. All the reserve and purity which is organic in the intercourse of most country girls and boys seemed lost, and parties and sleigh-rides left remorse and guilt behind. There was something feverish and unwholesome in the air.

The teacher's fame mysteriously extended to Tyre, and when known libertines began to hitch their horses at the fence before her house and to enter into rivalry with the young men of the neighborhood, then the fathers of the coul£ suddenly awoke to their children's danger, and turning the teacher away (tearful and looking harmless as a kitten), they closed and locked the school-house door.

Instantly the young people grew aware of

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HER FIRST PERIL

their out-break of premature passion. Some of them, like Rose, went to their parents and told all they knew about it. John Dutcher re ceived his daughter's answers to his questions with deep sorrow, but he reflected long before he spoke. She was only a child, not yet fifteen; she would outgrow the touch of thoughtless hands.

He sent for Carl, and as they stood before him, with drooping heads, he talked to them in his low, mild voice, which had the power of bringing tears to the sturdy boy's eyes.

" Carl, I thought I could trust you. You 've done wrong — don't you know it? You've made my old heart ache. When you get old and have a little girl you may know how I feel, but you can 't now. I don 't know what I can say to you. I don 't know what I am going to do about it, but I want you to know what you 've done to me — both of you. Look into my face now — you too, Rose — look into your old father's face!"

The scared children looked into his face with its streaming tears, then broke out into sobbing that shook them to their heart's center. They could not bear to see him cry.

" That's what you do to your parents when you do wrong. I have n't felt so bad since your mother died, Rose."

The children sobbed out their contrition and

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ROSE OF DUTCHER'S COOLLY

desire to do better, and John ended it all at last by saying, " Now, Carl, you may go, but I shall keep watch of you and see that you grow up a good, true man. When I see you 're real sorry I '11 let you come to see Rose again."

After Carl went out, Rose pressed into his ready arms. " I did n't mean to be bad, pappa."

" I know you did n't, Rosie, but I want you to know how you can make me suffer by doing wrong — but there, there! don 't cry any more. If you are good and kind and true like your mother was you '11 out-grow this trouble. Now run away and help get supper."

The buoyancy of a healthy child's nature enabled her to throw off the oppression of that dark day, the most terrible day of her life, and she was soon cheerful again, not the child she had been, but still a happy child. After a few weeks John sent for Carl to come over, and they popped corn and played dominos all the even ing, and the innocency of their former childish companionship seemed restored.

40

CHAPTER VI

HER FIRST IDEAL

One June day a man came riding swiftly up the lanes, in a buggy with a gilded box. As he passed the school-house he flung a handful of fluttering yellow and red bills into the air.

"A circus ! a circus ! " was the cry as the boys rushed for the blowing sheets of paper. It was a circus, the annual "monstrous aggregation of Gregorian games and colossal cataracts of gilded chariots," and it was coming to Tyre.

The children read every word of those high sounding posters, standing in knots by the road side. It was the mightiest event of their lives. Most of them had never been to a circus. Many had never been so far as Tyre. Some had, how ever, and they straightway became fountains of wisdom, and declaimed upon the splendors of other aggregations.

Rose looked at the lines of knights and ladies winding down the yellow broad-side of the sheet, and wondered if she would ever see them.

The courier rode on. He flung a handful of the bills over into the corn-field where Carl was

ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

plowing corn with the hired man, and Carl straightway began to plan.

He flung a handful of the alluring yellow leaves into the bed of the wagon which poor old John Rapp was driving, and he sighed and wondered how he would raise the money to take the children down, and also he longed to see it himself. The whole county awoke to the signifi cance of the event and began preparation and plans, though it was nearly three weeks away. An enormous distance it seemed to the boys and girls.

At school and at church it was talked of. The boys selected their girls, and parties of four or six were made up to go to Tyre, ten miles away, in the larger valley below. In some way, without words, Rose agreed to go with Carl. John Nixon and Ella Pierce made up the other couple. They were to go in a "bowery wagon."

The whole population awoke to pathetic, ab sorbing interest in the quality of the posters and the probable truth of the fore-word. The circus was the mightiest contrast to their slow and lonely lives that could be imagined. It came in trailing clouds of glorified dust and grouped it self under vast tents whose lift and fall had more majesty than summer clouds, and its streamers had more significance than the light ning.

It brought the throb of drum and scream of 42

HER FIRST IDEAL

fife, and roar of wild beast. For one day each humdrum town was filled with romance like the Arabian Nights ; with helmeted horsemen, glit tering war maidens on weirdly spotted horses ; elephants with howdahs and head-plates of armor, with lions dreadful, sorrowful, sedate and savage ; with tigers and hyenas in unmanageable ferocity pacing up and down their gilded dens while their impassive keepers dressed in red, sat in awful silence amidst them.

There was something remote and splendid in the ladies who rode haughtily through the streets on prancing horses, covered with red and gold trappings. There was something heroic, some thing of splendid art in the pose of the athletes in the ring.

From the dust and drudgery of their farms the farm boys dreamed and dreamed of the power and splendor of the pageantry. They talked it each Sunday night as they sat up with their sweethearts. The girls planned their dresses and hats, and the lunch they were to take. Everything was arranged weeks ahead. Carl was to furnish one team, John the other; Ella was to bring cake and jelly and biscuit ; Rose to take a chicken and a short-cake.

They were to start early and drive a certain route and arrive at the ground at a certain hour to see the parade. After the parade they were to take dinner at the hotel, and then the circus! No

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court ball ever thrilled a young girl's heart like this event.

It was trebly important to Rose. It was her first really long dress. It was her first going out into the world with an escort, and it was her first circus. She trembled with excitement whenever she thought of it, and sometimes burst into tears at the uncertainty of it. It might 'rain, she might be sick, or something might happen !

She worked away with feverish haste, trim ming her hat and helping on her dress, which was to be white, trimmed with real lace from the store. Some dim perception of what it all meant to his girl, penetrated John Butcher's head, and he gave Rose a dollar to buy some extra ribbon with, and told Mrs. Diehl to give the child a good outfit.

On the night before the circus Carl could not work in the corn. He drove furiously about the neighborhood on inconsequential errands. He called twice on Rose, and they looked into each other's face with transports of fear and joy.

"O, if it should rain!"

" It won't. I just know it 's going to be fine. Don't you worry. I am the son of a prophet. I know it can't rain."

There was no real sleep for Rose that night. Twice she woke from an uneasy doze, thinking she heard the patter of rain, but listening close

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HER FIRST IDEAL

she knew it was only the rustle of the cotton- wood trees about the house.

Her room was a little rough-plastered garret room, with an eastern window, and at last she saw the yellow light inter-filtrate the dark-blue of the eastern sky, and she rose and pattered about in her bare feet, while she put up her hair like a woman and slipped on her underskirt, stiff with starch, and then her dress, with its open-work sleeves and ruche of lace, threaded with blue ribbon. She moved about on her bare feet, rejoicing in the crisp rustle of her new clothing, and put on her wide hat with its hectic rose-buds and pans-green thick leaves. Her un- distorted feet were the most beautiful of all, but she did not know that.

She sat on the bed completely dressed, but hardly daring to move for fear of waking her aunt. She watched the yellow glow deepen to a saffron dome of ever-spreading light. She knew the weather signs herself, and she was sure the day was to be hot but clear. She did not fear the heat.

As she sat so, a feeling of joy, of realization of the abounding goodness and sweetness of liv ing, made her want to thank something — to give praise. She moved her lips in a little prayer of thanks to the sun, as his first glittering rim of light came above the low hills.

" Rosie !" called Mrs. Diehl.

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ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

" I 'm up," she replied, and hastily drew on her shoes and stockings. She took her hat in her hands and went down the stairs and through the little sitting room out to the doorstep. She heard someone whistling. Then a shout of laughter — they were coming !

She had packed her basket the night before, and she stood ready at the gate when Carl and his companions drove up. They had four horses hitched to a large wagon, which was set about with branches of oak and willow. Carl was driving and Rose mounted to the front seat with him. He cracked his whip and they whirled away, leaving the old folks calling warnings after them.

The sun was just rising, the dew was still globed on the wild roses. The wagon rumbled, the bower over their heads shook with the jar of the wheels. The horses were fresh and strong and the day was before them. Rose felt some thing vague and sweet, something that laved the whole world like sunlight. She was too happy to sing. She only sat and dreamed. She felt her clothes, but she was no longer acutely con scious of them.

Carl was moved too, but his emotion vented itself in shouts and cheery calls to the horses, and to the pistol-like cracking of his whip.

He looked at her with clear-eyed admiration. She abashed him a little by her silence. She 46

HER FIRST IDEAL

seemed so strangely womanly in that pose, and the glow of her firm arms through her sleeve was alien, somehow.

The road led around hill sides, under young oak trees, across dappled sands, and over little streams where the horses stopped to drink. It was like some world-old idyl, this ride in a heavy rumbling wagon ; it led to glory and light, this road among the hills.

Rounding a long low line of bluffs they caught the flutter of flags in Tyre, and saw the valley spotted with other teams, crawling like beetles down the sandy river roads. The whole land seemed to be moving in gala dress toward Tyre. Everywhere appeared the same expectancy, the same exultation between lovers.

Carl pulled up with a flourish at the wooden porch of the Farmers' Hotel, and the girls alighted and went into the parlor, while the boys took the horses into a back alley and gave them their oats and hay in the end of the box.

As Rose walked into the parlor, filled with other girls and young men, the proud conscious ness of her clothes came back to her, and she carried herself with a lift of the head, which made her dark gipsy-like face look haughty as a young queen's. She knew her dress was as good as any other there, and she had no need to be ashamed, and besides it was her first long dress, and she wore low shoes.

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The boys came bustling back and hurried the girls out on the sidewalk. " They 're com ing ! " they cried breathlessly, as a far-off burst of music came in on a warm puff of wind.

On they came, a band leading the way. Just behind, with glitter of lance and shine of helmet, came a dozen knights and fair ladies riding spirited chargers. They all looked strange and haughty and sneeringly indifferent to the cheers of the people. The women seemed small and firm and scornful, and the men rode with lances uplifted looking down at the crowd with a haughty droop in their eyelids.

Rose shuddered with a new emotion as they swept past. She had never looked into eyes like those. They had wearied of all splendor and triumph, those eyes. They cared nothing for flaunt of flag or blast of bugle. They rode straight out of the wonder and mystery of the morning to her. They came from the unknown spaces of song and story beyond the hills.

The chariots rumbled by almost unheeded by Rose. She did not laugh at the clown jig gling by in a pony-cart for there was a face be tween her and all that followed. The face of a bare-armed knight, with brown hair and a curl ing mustache, whose proud neck had a curve in it as he bent his head to speak to his rearing horse. He turned his face toward where Rose

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HER FIRST IDEAL

stood, and her soul fluttered, and her flesh shrank as if from fire, but he rode on. His face was fine, like pictures she had seen. It was a pleasant face, too proud, but not coarse and stern like the others.

The calliope, (a musical monster, hideous as the hippopotamus) and the dens of beasts went past without arousing her interest; then the open •cage of lions rolled by with a trainer carelessly seated on a camp stool amid his dun-colored monsters. His gaudy red-and-gold continental coat and his impassive face made a deep im pression on her. At last the procession passed, carrying with it swarms of detached boys and girls, whose parents fearfully called after them and unavailingly plead with them to come back as they broke away.

"O, I wish it would all come by again!" sighed Ella.

" So do I," said Carl.

Rose remained silent. Somehow those knights and ladies dwarfed all else. She did not look forward to eating a hotel dinner with the same pleasure now, but was eager to get to the tent, whose pennants streamed above the roofs of the houses.

The hotel swarmed with farmer folks, whose loud voices uttered shouts of satisfaction over the promise of the parade. It was the best ever seen in the town.

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" Right this way, ladies and gentlemen," said the landlord, as he ushered Carl's party down to a table at the end of the dining-room.

Rose felt a thrill of delight; she was a grown up person at last. This landlord recognized her assumption and it made the dinner almost en joyable. She saw no one better dressed than herself, and she had a feeling that she was good to look at. She was really more beautiful than she knew. A city drummer sitting at another table eyed her all through the meal with breath less admiration. Her health and color, and the firm lines of her nose and chin were especially attractive.

They all ate with unusual formality, using their forks instead of knives for their pie, and otherwise trying to seem citified. Ella laughed at the antics John cut up over his fork, and the sly digs that he gave Carl, who chased the crust of his pie around his plate with a fork and at last gave it up and seized it with his fingers.

No one noticed these pranks, because every one else was carrying on in much the same way. At length they rose and returned to the parlor, where they sat about on the cheap red plush chairs and waited for i o'clock.

"Well, it's about time to go," said Carl, on one of his re-entries from the street. " Gee- Whittaker! but it's hot out there!"

"It'll be cool under the tent."

HER FIRST IDEAL

"Well, come on."

Out on the street they joined the stream of lovers like themselves, moving hand in hand down the walk, assaulted by cries of lemonade, candy and fruit hucksters.

The sun beat upon their heads ; a dust arose from the feet of the passing teams and settled upon the white dresses of the girls, and sank through the meshes of their sleeves and gathered in the moist folds of their ruches. They moved on rapidly toward the clanging band, the flutter of the pennants and the brazen outcries of the ticket-takers.

On to the square before the tents, thronged with innumerable people, an avenue of side shows faced them like a gauntlet to be run. Before each flapping sign of fat woman, or snake charmer, stood a man who cried in strange, clanging, monotonous and rhythmical voice :

"You still have a half an hour, ladies and gentlemen, before the great show opens. Come in and see the wonders of the world."

Before the ticket wagon a straggling, excited crowd wrestled, suspicious, determined, hurried. Leaving their girls in the more open space, the boys drew deep breaths of resolution and plunged into the press with set, determined faces.

They returned soon, hot, disarranged but tri umphant. "Come on, girls."

They moved upon the main entrance, where

ROSE OF DUTCHER'S COOLLY

a man stood snatching at the tickets which were handed to him. He was humorous, and talked as he pushed the people in.

" Hurry up, old man ; trot close after your mother. Have your tickets ready, everybody. Yes, right this way, uncle. Bless your dear little face — right ahead. H'y'ere, bub, this ticket's no good! — Oh, so it is, I didn't see the right side — get on quick."

As Rose passed him he said, " You go in free, my dear," and resumed his bawling cry, " Have your tickets ready."

Under the tent ! Rose looked up at the lift ing, tremulous, translucent canvas with such awe as the traveler feels in St. Peter's dome. Her feet stumbled on, while she clung to Carl's hand without knowing it. O, the enormous crowds of people, the glitter and change of it all!

They followed in the stream which flowed around the circle of animal dens, and Rose silently looked at all she saw. The others laughed and exclaimed, but she did not. Everything seemed inexplicable and mysterious, and roused confusing trains of thought.

She saw the great tigers, and caught the yel low-green sheen of their eyes. She saw the lions rise like clouds of dust in their corners, silent as mist and terrible as lightning. She looked at the elephant and wondered how he could live and be so like the toy elephants she had at

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HER FIRST IDEAL

home. On past shrieking tropical birds and grunting, wallowing beasts, and chattering crowds of people she moved, without a word, till they came around to the circus entrance, and then she lifted her eyes again around the great amphitheater.

" Peanuts, peanuts here, five a bag! " " Here's your lemonade, cool and fresh." On all sides brazen-voiced young men were selling, at appalling prices, sticks of candy, glasses of lemonade, palm-leaf fans and popcorn balls. There was something about them that frightened her, and she walked a little closer to Carl.

They heard familiar voices call and saw some young people from their coule", and so clambered up where they sat. The boards were narrow and the seats low, but nobody minded that, for that was part of the circus.

They were settled at last and ready to enjoy all that came. Two or three volunteered to say: "This is great! the best place to see 'em come in." Then they passed the peanut bag in reck less liberality.

Rose sat in a dream of delight as the band began to play. It was an ambitious band and played operatic selections with modulations, and it seemed to Rose to be the most splendid music in the world. All other bands she had heard played right along tum-tummy tum-tummy

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tummy, tummy-tum. This band sang and talked and whispered and dreamed. It shook her like a stallion's neigh, and soothed her like the coo of a dove on the barn roof.

She heard nothing, that was said about her, and she did not know she sat squeezing Carl's arm.

People streamed by in enormous crowds. Ladies in elegant dresses, and hats such as she had never seen before. Handsome young men went by, and yet she gave them no second look. They were like figures in a dream.

At last the band blared an announcing note, and the uniformed attendants filed into the ring and took positions at set points like sentries. Then the music struck into a splendid galop, and out from the curtained mysteries beyond, the knights and ladies darted, two and two, in glory of crimson and gold, and green and silver. At their head rode the man with the brown mustache.

They came around into position, and then be gan a series of bewildering changes, directed by her knight, whose shout dominated the noise of the horses and the blare of the band, with hollow wild sound.

They vanished as they came, and then came the clowns, and tricks and feats of strength. The iron-jawed woman lifted incredible weights ; the Japanese jugglers tossed cannon-balls, knives and feathers; the baby elephant stood on his

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HER FIRST IDEAL

head — and then suddenly six men dressed in tights of blue and white and orange ran into the ring, and her hero led them.

He wore blue and silver, and on his breast was a rosette. He looked a god to her. His naked limbs, his proud neck, the lofty carriage of his head, made her shiver with emotion. They all came to her lit by the white radiance; they were not naked, they were beautiful, but he was something more.

She had seen naked boys, and her own com panions occasionally showed themselves naked and cowering before her, but these men stood there proud and splendid. They invested their nakedness with something which exalted them. They became objects of luminous beauty to her, though she knew nothing of art.

As she grew clearer- eyed, she saw that one was a little too short, another too lean, but he of the rosette was perfect. The others leaped, with him, doing the same feats, but as distances were increased, and the number of camels and horses grew, the others stood by to see him make his renowned double somersault over a herd of ani mals. When the applause broke out she joined it, while her temples throbbed with emotion. To see him bow and kiss his fingers to the audi ence was a revelation of manly grace and cour tesy. He moved under the curtain, bowing still to the cheering crowd.

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Once more he came back later on, leading a woman by the hand. She too was in tights throughout, and like him she walked with a calm and powerful movement, but she seemed petty beside him.

Something new seized upon Rose's heart, a cold contraction that she had never felt, and her teeth pressed together. She wondered if the woman were his wife.

The woman seized a rope with her right arm and was drawn to the tent roof. He took a strap in his mouth and was drawn to his trapeze also. There, in mid-air, they performed their dangerous evolutions. It was all marvelous and incredible to the country girl.

She heard him clap his hands, then his glorious voice rang above the music, and the lithe figure of his companion launched itself through the air, was caught by the shoulders in his great hands, thence with a twist he tossed her, and hooked her by the hands.

Each time, the blood surged into Rose's throat as if to suffocate her. A horrible fear that was a pleasure, some way, rose and fell in her. She could not turn away her head. She must look.

She was a powerful girl, and the idea of fainting had never come to her, but when at the conclusion, he dropped in a revolving ball into the net far beneath, she turned sick and her eyes

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HER FIRST IDEAL

seemed to whirl in their sockets. Then as he leaped to the ground, bowing and smiling, the blood rushed back to her face, and the perspira tion stood like rain on her face.

Thereafter riders came, and the clowns capered, and the ring-master cracked his whip and she enjoyed it, but it was an after-climax. She saw it, but saw it dimly. Nothing but the lions and their trainers aroused her to applause. Her brain was full. It was a feast of glories and her very hunger made her lay hold upon the first that came, to the neglect of what came after.

At last the brazen, resounding voice of the ring-master announced the last of the show, and the audience arose and moved out in a curious sort of a hush, as if in sorrow to think it was all over, and the humdrum world was

.

rushing back upon them.

Rose moved along in perfect silence, clinging to Carl's hand. Around her was the buzz of low speech, the wailing of tired and hungry babies and the clamor of attendants selling tickets for the minstrel show to follow.

Suddenly she perceived that her dress was wet with perspiration and grimy with dust. She saw all about her women with flushed faces and grimy hands, their hats awry and their brows wrinkled with trouble over fretful children. The men walked along with their coats over

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their arms, and their hats pushed back. The dust arose under their feet with a strange smell. Out in the animal tent the odor was stifling and Rose hurried Carl out into the open air.

Somehow it seemed strange to see the same "blue sky arching the earth; things seemed ex actly the same and yet Rose had grown older. She had developed immeasurably in those few hours. It took her some time to fully recover the use of her feet, and it took longer to get back a full realization of where she was.

The grass, crushed and trampled and littered with paper, and orange peel, gave out a fresh farm-like odor, that helped her to recover her self. She would not talk, she could not talk yet. She only urged them to go home. She wanted to get home to think.

As they climbed the slope on the other side of the river, they looked back at the tents with their wilted streamers, at the swarming bug-like teams and the ant-like human beings, and it seemed to Rose as if she should weep, so poig nant was her sense of personal loss.

She knew something sweet and splendid and jmystical was passing out of her life after a few hours' stay there. Her feeling of loss was none :the less real because it was indefinable to her.

The others chattered about each part of the •.show, and shouted admiration about this and

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HER FIRST IDEAL

that feat, but Rose was silent. When they stopped at sunset beside a spring to eat their lunch she merely said :

" I do n't feel hungry."

The others fell silent after a time, and they rode dreamily forward, with the roll of wheels making them sleepy and the trample of the horses' feet telling them how rapidly they were leaving their great day's pleasure behind them.

When Rose huddled into her little attic bed, her eyes were wide open, and her brain active as at noonday. There was no sleep for her then. Lying there in the darkness she lived it all over again ; the flutter of flags, the wild voices, the blare of music, the chariots, the wild beasts, the knights and ladies, the surging crowds; but the crowning glory, the pictures which lingered longest in her mind were the splendid and beau tiful men, whose naked majesty appealed to her pure wholesome awakening womanhood, with the power of beauty and strength combined, with sex and art both included.

These glorious, glittering graceful beings with their marvelous strength and bravery filled her with a deep sad hunger, which she could not understand. They came out of the unknown, led by her chosen one, like knights in Ivanhoe.

She fell asleep thinking of the one in blue and silver, and in her sleep she grew braver and went closer to him, and he turned and spoke to

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her, and his voice was like waters running, and his eyes shone some way into her eyes like a light.

When she rose the next day she was changed. She moved about the house dull and languid. Never before had she failed to sleep when her head touched the pillow. She managed to be alone most of the time, and at last her mind cleared. She began to live for him, her ideal. She set him on high as a being to be worshiped, as a man fit to be her judge.

In the days and weeks which followed she asked herself, "Would he like me to do this?" or she thought, " I must not do that. What would he think of me if he saw me now?" And every night when she went to sleep it was with the radiant figure in blue and silver before her eyes.

When the sunset was very beautiful, she thought of him. When the stars seemed larger in the blue sky, she could see the star upon his grand breast. She knew his name ; she had the bill in her little box of trinkets, and she could take it out and read, "William De Lisle, the world-famous leader in ground and lofty tum bling, in his stupendous leap over two elephants, six camels and two horses."

In all the talk of the circus which followed among her companions, she took no part be- 60

HER FIRST IDEAL

cause she feared she might be obliged to men tion his name. When others spoke his name she could feel a hot flush surge up all over her body and she trembled for fear some one might discover her adoration of him.

She went about with Carl and Rob as before, only she no longer longed for them ; they seemed good, familiar comrades, but nothing more. To them she seemed stranger every day. Her eyes had lost their clear, brave look ; they were dreamy black, and her lids drooped.

Vast ambitions began in her. She de termined to be a great scholar. She would be something great for his sake. She could not de termine what, but she, too, would be great. At first she thought of being a circus woman, and then she determined that was impossible.

She dreamed often of being his companion and coming on hand in hand with him, bowing to the multitude, but when she was drawn to the tent-roof, she awoke in a cold sweat of fear, and so she determined to be a writer. She would write books like Ivanhoe. Those were great days ! Her mind expanded like the wings of a young eagle. She read everything ; the Ledger, the Weekly, and all the dog-eared novels of im passioned and unreal type in the neighborhood.

In short, she consecrated herself to him as to a king, and seized upon every chance to edu cate herself to be worthy of him. Every effort 61

ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

was deeply pathetic, no matter how absurd to others. She took no counsel, allowed no confi dants. She lived alone among her play-mates.

This ideal came in her romantic and perfer- vid period, and it did her immeasurable good. It lifted her and developed her. It enabled her to escape the clutch of mere brute passion which seizes so many boys and girls at that age, and leads to destructive early marriages. It kept her out of reach of the young men of the neigh borhood.

She did not refuse the pleasures of the autumn and the winter, only she did not seem so hearty in her enjoyment of the rides and parties. She rode with the young fellows on moon-lit nights, lying side by side with them on the straw-filled bottom of the sleigh, and her heart leaped with the songs they sang, but it all went out towards her ideal; he filled the circle of her mind. The thought of him made the night magical with meaning. As she danced with Carl it was her hero's arm she felt. At night, when Carl left her on the door-step, she looked up at the stars and the sinking moon, and lifted her face in a wild vow, inarticulate — " I will be worthy of him! "That was the passionate resolu tion, but it did not reach to the definiteness of words.

As she worked about the house she took graceful attitudes, and wished he might see her; 62

HER FIRST IDEAL

he would be pleased with her. The grace and power of her arm acquired new meaning to her. Her body, she recognized, had something the same statuesque pose of his. In the secrecy of her room she walked up and down, feeling the splendid action of her nude limbs muscled almost like his. And all this was fine and pure physical joy. Her idea remained indefinite, wordless.

These were days of formless imaginings and ambitions. "I will do! 1 will do!" was her ceaseless cry to herself, but what could she do? What should she do?

She could be wise; that she would be. So she read. She got little out of her reading that she could make a showing of, but still it developed her. It made her dream great things, impossi ble things, but she had moments when she tried to live these things.

Meanwhile her manners changed. She be came absent-minded, and seemed sullen and haughty to her companions at times. She never giggled like the rest of the girls. She had fine teeth, and yet her smile was infrequent. She laughed when occasion demanded, and laughed heartily, but she was not easily stirred to laughter.

Just in proportion as she ignored the young beaux, so they thronged about her. One or two of them eyed her with a look which made her angry. She took refuge in Carl's company, and

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so escaped much persecution, for Carl was grow ing to be a powerful young man, with fists like mauls, and was respected among the athletes of the neighborhood.

She did not realize that she would need at some time to settle with Carl. She accepted his company as a matter of course. He filled social requirements for the time being.

Her teacher that winter was a plaintive sort of a little middle-aged man, a man of consider able refinement, but with little force. Rose liked him, but did not respect him as she had two or three of the men who had filled the teacher's chair. She could not go to him for advice.

As the winter wore on the figure of "William De Lisle" grew dimmer, but not less beautiful. Her love for him lost its under-current of inarticu late expectancy; it was raised into a sentiment so ethereal it would seem a breath of present pas sion would scatter it like vapor, and yet it was immovable as granite. Time alone could change it. He still dominated her thought at quiet times, at dark when the stars began to shine, but in the daytime he was faint as a figure in a dream.

64

CHAPTER VII

ROSE MEETS DR. THATCHER

The school-house in Butcher's coule", like most country school-houses, was a squalid little den. It was as gray as a rock and as devoid of beauty as a dry goods box. It sat in the midst of the valley and had no trees, to speak of, about it, and in winter it was almost as snow-swept as the school-houses of the prairie.

Its gray clap-boarding was hacked and scarred with knife and stone, and covered with mud and foul marks. A visitor who had turned in from the sun-smit winter road paused before knock ing and looked at the walls and the door with a feeling of mirth and sadness. Was there no place to escape the obscene outcome of sexual passion ?

Dr. Thatcher had been a pupil here in this same school-house more than twenty years before, and the droning, shuffling sound within had a marvelous reawakening power. He was a physician in Madison now, and was in the coule* on a visit.

His knock on the door brought a timid-look ing man to the door.

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ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

" I 'd like to come in awhile," said the Doctor.

"Certainly, certainly," replied the teacher, much embarrassed by the honor.

He brought him the chair he had been sitting on, and helped his visitor remove his coat and hat.

" Now don't mind me, I want to see every thing go on just as if I were not here."

"Very well, that's the way we do," the teacher replied, and returned to his desk and attempted, at least, to carry out his visitor's request.

A feeling of sadness, mingled with something wordlessly vast, came over the Doctor as he sat looking about the familiar things of the room.

He was in another world, an old, familiar world. His eyes wandered lovingly from point to point of the room, filled with whispering lips and shuffling feet and shock-heads of hair, under which shone bright eyes, animal-like in their shifty stare. The curtains, of a characterless shade, the battered maps, the scarred and scratched blackboards, the patched, precarious plastering, the worn floor on which the nails and knots stood like miniature mountains, the lop-sided seats, the master's hacked, unpainted pine desk, dark with dirt and polished with dirty hands, all seemed as familiar as his own face.

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ROSE MEETS DR. THATCHER

He sat there listening to the recitations in a dreamy impassivity. He was deep in the past, thinking of the days when to pass from his seat to the other side of the room was an event; when a visitor was a calamity — for the teacher ; when the master was a tyrant and his school-room a ceaselessly rebellious kingdom.

As his eyes fell at last more closely upon the scholars; he caught the eyes of a young girl looking curiously at him, and so deep was he in the past, his heart gave a sudden move ment, just as it used to leap when in those far- off days Stella Baird looked at him. He smiled at himself for it. It was really ludicrous; he thought, "I '11 tell my wife of it."

The girl looked away slowly and without embarrassment. She was thinking deeply, look ing out of the window. His first thought was, " She has beautiful eyes." Then he noticed that she wore her hair neatly arranged, and that her dress, though plain, looked tasteful and womanly about the neck. The line of her head was magnificent. Her color was rich and dark ; her mouth looked sad for one so young. Her face had the effect of being veiled by some warm, dusky color.

Was she young? Sometimes as he studied

her she seemed a woman, especially as she

looked away out of the window, and the profile

line of her face could be seen. But she looked

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ROSE OF DUTCHER'S COOLLY

younger when she bent her head upon her books, and her long eye-lashes fell upon her cheek.

His persistent study brought a vivid flush into her face, but she did not nudge her com panion and whisper as another would have done.

"That is no common girl," the Doctor con cluded.

He sat there while the classes were called up one after the other. He heard again these in flections, tones, perpetuated for centuries in the school-room, "The-cat-saw-a-rat."

Again the curfew failed to ring, in the same hard, monotonous, rapid, breathless sing-song, every other line with a falling inflection. The same failure to make the proper pause caused it to appear that "Bessie saw him on her brow."

Again the heavy boy read the story of the ants, and the teacher asked insinuatingly sweet questions.

"What did they do?"

"Made a tunnel."

"Yes ! Now what is a tunnel?"

"A hole that runs under-ground."

"Very good! It says that the ant is a Voracious creature. What does that mean?"

"Dunno."

"You do n't know what a voracious creature js?"

"No, sir."

And then came the writing exercise, when 68

ROSE MEETS DR. THATCHER

each grimy fist gripped a pen, and each red tongue rolled around a mouth in the vain effort to guide the pen. Cramp, cramp ; scratch, scratch ; sputter! What a task it was !

The December afternoon sun struck in at the windows, and fell across the heads of the busy scholars, and as he looked, Dr. Thatcher was a boy again, and Rose and her companions were the "big girls" of the school. He was looking at Stella, the prettiest girl in the district, the sun-light on her hair, a dream of nameless pas sion in her eyes.

The little room grew wide as romance, and across the aisle seemed over vast spaces. Girlish eyes met his like torches in the night. The dusty air, the shuffle of feet, the murmuring of lips only added to the mysterious power of the scene.

There they sat, these girls, just as in the far- off days, trying to study, and succeeding in dreaming of love songs, and vague, sweet em braces on moonlight nights, beneath limitless star-shot skies, with sound of bells in their ears, and the unspeakable glory of youth and pure passion in their souls.

The Doctor sighed. He was hardly forty yet, but he was old in the history of disillusion and in contempt of human nature. His deep-set eyes glowed with an inward fire of remem brance.

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ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

"O pathetic little band of men and women," thought he, " my heart thrills and aches for you."

He was brought back to the present with a start by the voice of the teacher.

" Rose, you may recite now."

The girl he had been admiring came for ward. As she did so he perceived her to be not more than sixteen, but she still had in her eyes the look of a dreaming woman.

" Rose Butcher is our best scholar," smiled the teacher proudly as Rose took her seat. She looked away out of the window abstractedly as the teacher opened the huge geography and passed it to the Doctor.

" Ask her anything you like from the first fifty-six pages." The Doctor smiled and shook his head.

" Bound the Sea of Okhotsk," commanded the teacher.

Thatcher leaned forward eagerly — her voice would tell the story!

Without looking around, with her hands in her lap, an absent look in her eyes, the girl began in a husky contralto voice : " Bounded on the north — " and went through the whole rigmarole in the same way, careless, but certain.

" What rivers would you cross in going from Moscow to Paris ? "

Again the voice began and flowed on in the 70

ROSE MEETS DR. THATCHER

same measured indifferent way till the end was reached.

" Good heavens !" thought the Doctor, " they still teach that useless stuff. But how well she does it!"

After some words of praise, which the girl hardly seemed to listen to, she took her seat again.

Rose, on her part, saw another man of grace and power. She saw every detail of his dress. His dark, sensitive face, and splendid slope of his shoulders, the exquisite neatness and grace of his collar and tie and coat. But in his eyes was something that moved her, drew her. She felt something subtile there, refinement and sorrow, and emotions she could only dimly feel.

She could not keep hei eyes from studying his face. She compared him with " William De Lisle," not deliberately, always unconsciously. He had nothing of the bold beauty of her ideal. This man was a scholar, and he was come out of the world beyond the Big Ridge, and besides, there was mystery and allurement in his face.

The teacher called as if commanding a regi ment of cavalry. "Books. Ready!" There was a riotous clatter, which ended as quickly as it begun.

Kling ! They all rose. Kling / and the boy? moved out with clumping of heavy boots and burst into the open air with wild whoopings.

ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

The girls gathered into little knots and talked, glancing furtively at the stranger. Some of them wondered if he were the County Superin tendent of Schools.

Rose sat in her seat, with her chin on her clasped hands. It was a sign of her complex organization, that the effect of a new experience was rooted deep, and changes took place noise lessly, far below the surface.

"Rose, come here a moment," called the teacher, " bring your history."

" Don't keep her from her playmates," Thatcher remonstrated.

" O she 'd rather recite any time than play with the others."

Rose stood near, a lovely figure of wistful hesitation. She had been curiously unembar rassed before, now she feared to do that which was so easy and so proper. At last she saw her opportunity as the teacher turned away to ring the bell.

She touched Thatcher on the arm. "Do you live in Madison, sir? "

"Yes. I am a doctor there."

She looked embarrassed now and twisted her fingers.

" Is it so very hard to get into the univer sity? "

" No. It is very easy — it would be for you," he said with a touch of unconscious gallantry 72

ROSE MEETS DR. THATCHER

of which he was ashamed the next moment, for the girl was looking away again. " Do you want to go to the university? "

" Yes, sir, I do."

"Why?"

" O, because — I want to know all I can."

"Why? What do you want to do? "

"You won't tell on me, will you?" She blushed red as a carnation now. Strange mix ture of child and woman, thought Thatcher.

" Why, certainly not."

They stood over by the black-board ; the other girls were pointing and snickering, but she did not mind them.

"I guess I won't tell," she stammered; " you 'd laugh at me like everybody else — I know you would."

He caught her arm and turned her face toward his; her eyes were full of tears.

"Tell me. I '11 help you."

His eyes glowed with a kindly smile, and she warmed under it.

" I want to write — stories — and books," she half whispered guiltily. The secret was out and she wanted to run away. The Doctor's crucial time had come. If he laughed! — but he did not laugh. He looked thoughtful, almost sad.

" You are starting on a long, long road, Rose," he said at last. " Where it will lead to I

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ROSE OF DUTCHER'S COOLLY

cannot tell — nobody can. What put that into your head?"

Rose handed him a newspaper clipping con taining a brief account of " how a Wisconsin poetess achieved fame and fortune."

" Why, my dear girl," he began, " don 't you know that out of ten thousand — " He stopped. She was looking up at him in expectation, her great luminous grey-brown eyes burning with an inward hungry fire which thrilled him.

" She may be the one in ten thousand, and I '11 help her," he said to himself.

The bell ringing brought the boys clattering back into their seats, puffing, gasping, as if at last extremity. For a couple of minutes noth ing could be done, so great was the noise. While they were getting settled he said to her: " If you want to go to the university you will have to go to a preparatory school. Here is my card — write to me when you get done here, and I '11 see what can be done."

Rose went back to her seat, her eyes filled with a burning light, her hands strained together. This great man from Madison had believed in her. O, if he would only come home and see her father!

She painfully penciled a note and handed it to him as she came past to the blackboard. He was putting on his coat to go, but he looked

74

ROSE MEETS DR. THATCHER

down at the crumpled note, with its Spencerian handwriting.

"Please, sir, won't you come down and see pappa and ask him if I can 't go to Madison?"

He looked at the girl, whose eyes, big and sombre and full of wistful timidity, were fixed upon him. Obeying a sudden impulse, he stepped to her side and said: "Yes, I'll help you ; do n't be troubled."

He stayed until school was out and the winter sun was setting behind the hills. Rose sat and looked at him with more than admiration. She trusted him. He had said he would help her, and his position was one of power in her fancy, and something in his face and dress impressed her more deeply than any man she had ever seen save "William De Lisle," her dim and shadowy yet kingly figure.

On his part he was surprised at himself. He was waiting a final hour in this school-room out of interest and curiosity in a country school girl. His was a childless marriage, and this girl stirred the parental in him. He wished he had such a child to educate, to develop.

The school was out at last, and, as she put on her things and came timidly towards him, he turned from the teacher.

"So you are John Butcher's daughter? I knew your father when I was a lad here. I am

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ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

stopping at the Wallace farm, but I'll come over a little later and see your father."

Rose rushed away homeward, full of deep excitement. She burst into the barn where John was rubbing the wet fetlocks of the horses he had been driving. Her eyes were shining and her cheeks were a beautiful pink.

" O, pappa, he said I ought to go to Madison to school. He said he 'd help me go."

John looked up in astonishment at her excite ment.

"Who said so?"

"Dr. Thatcher, the man who visited our school to-day. He said I'd ought to go, and he said he 'd help me."

Her exultation passed suddenly. Somehow there was not so much to tell as she had fancied, and she suddenly found herself unable to explain the basis of her enthusiasm. The perceived, but untranslatable expression of the Doctor's eyes and voice was the real foundation of her hope, and that she had not definitely and conscious ly noted — to explain it was impossible. If her father could only have seen him !

"I guess you 'd better wait awhile," her father said, with a smile, which Rose resented.

"He's coming to-night."

"Who 'she?"

" Dr. Thatcher. He used to live here. He knows you."

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ROSE MEETS DR. THATCHER

John grew a little more intent on her news.

" Does ! I wonder if he is old Stuart Thatcher's son? He had a boy who went east to school somewheres."

Rose went into the house and set to work with the graceful celerity which Mrs. Diehl called " knack."

" Rose, you can turn off work when you really want to, to beat anything I ever see."

Rose smiled and hummed a tune. Mrs. Diehl was made curious.

" You 're wonderful good-natured, it seems to me. What's the reason, already?"

" We 're going to have company."

"Who, for Peter's sake?"

"Dr. Thatcher."

"What's he come here for?"

"To see pappa," said Rose, as she rushed upstairs into her attic-room. It was cold up there, warmed only by the stove-pipe from the sitting-room, but she sat down and fell into a dream in which she recalled every look and word he had given her.

She came suddenly to herself, and began putting on her red dress, which was her com pany dress. When she came downstairs in her creaking new shoes Mrs. Diehl was properly indignant.

"Well! I declare. Could n't you get along in your calico?"

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ROSE OF BUTCHER'S COOLLY

"No, I could n't!" Rose replied, with easy sharpness, which showed the frequent passages at arms between them.

When Thatcher came in with the teacher he was quite startled by the change in her. She looked taller and older and more intricate some way.

She took his hat and coat and made him at home in much better form than he had reason to think she knew. She on her part watched him closely. His manner at the table was a source of enlightenment to her. She felt him to be a strong man, therefore his delicacy and considera tion meant much to her. It suggested related things dimly. It made her appreciate vaguely the charm of the world from whence he came.

Dr. Thatcher was not young, and his experi ence as a physician had added to his natural insight. He studied Rose keenly while he talked with John concerning the changes in the neigh borhood.

He saw in the girl great energy and resolu tion, and a mental organization not simple. She had reason and reserve force not apprehended by her father. The problem was, should he continue to encourage her. Education of a girl like that might be glorious — or tragic! After supper John Dutcher took him into the corner, and, while Rose helped clear away the dishes, the two men talked. 78

ROSE MEETS DR. THATCHER

" You see," John explained, " she's been tallcin' about going on studyin' for the last six months. I do n't know what's got into the girl, but she wants to go to Madison. I suppose her learnin' of that Bluff-Sidin' girl goin' has kind o' spurred her on. I want her to go to the high school at the Sidin', but she wants to go away " — he choked a little on that phrase — "but if you an' teacher here think the girl 'd' ought to go, why, I '11 send her."

The younger man looked grave — very grave. He foresaw lonely hours for John Butcher.

"Well — the girl interests me very much, Mr. Butcher. It's a strong point in her favor that she wants to go. Most girls of her age have little ambition beyond candy and new dresses. I guess it 's your duty to send her. What she wants is the larger life that will come to her in Madison. The preparatory work can be done here at the Siding. I believe it is one of the accredited schools. Of course she will come home often, and when she comes to Madi son, I will see that she has a home until she gets ' wunted,' as you farmers say."

The teacher came in at this point full of wild praise of Rose's ability. " She's great on history and geography. She knows about every city and river and mountain on the maps."

" She's always been great for geography," confirmed John. " Used to sit and follow out

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lines on the maps when she wasn 't knee-high to a 'tater." A tender tone came into his voice, .almost as if he were speaking of a dead child. He too had a quick imagination, and he felt al ready the loss of his girl, his daily companion.

The matter was decided there. " You send her to me, when she gets ready, and I '11 have Mrs. Thatcher look after her for a week or so, .till we find her a place to stay."

Rose was in a fever of excitement. She saw the men talking there, and caught disconnected words as she came and went about the table. At last she saw Dr. Thatcher rise to go. She approached him timorously.

"Well, Rose, when you come to Madison you must come to our house. Mrs. Thatcher will be glad to see you." She could not utter a word .in thanks. After he had gone Rose turned to •her father with a swift appeal.

" Oh, pappa, am I going ?"

He smiled a little. "We'll see when the time comes, Rosie."

She knew what that meant and she leaped with a joy swift as flame. John sat silently look ing at the wall, his arm flung over the back of his chair. Hs wondered why she should feel so happy at the thought of leaving home, when to Tiim it was as bitter as death to think of losing 'her for a single day out of his life.

Thenceforward the world began to open to 80

ROSE MEETS DR. THATCHER

Rose. Every sign of spring was doubly signifi cant; the warm sun, the passing of wild-fowl, the first robin, the green grass, the fall of the frost, all appealed to her with a power which transcended words. All she did was only prep aration for her great career beyond the Ridge.

She pictured the world outside in colors of such splendor that the romance of her story- papers seemed weak and pale.

Out there in the world was William De Lisle. Out there were ladies with white faces and heavy- lidded, haughty eyes, in carriages and in ball rooms. Out there was battle for her, and from her quiet coule" battle seemed somehow alluring.

81

CHAPTER VIII

LEAVING HOME

As the time for leaving came on Rose had hours of depression, wherein she wondered if it were worth while. Sometimes it began when she noticed a fugitive look of sorrow on her father's face, and sometimes it was at parting with some of her girl friends, and sometimes it was at thought of Carl. She had spent a year in the Siding in preparation for the work in Madi son, and the time of her adventure with the world was near.

Carl came to be a disturbing force during those last few weeks. He had been a factor in all of the days of her life. Almost without thought on her part she had relied upon him. She had run to him for any sort of material help, precisely as to a brother, and now he was a man and would not be easily set aside.

He generally drove her to meeting on Sun day, and they loitered on the shady stretches of the coul£ roads. He generally put his arm around her, and she permitted it because it was the way all the young fellows did, but she really 82

LEAVING HOME

never considered him in the light of a possible husband.

Most of the girls were precocious in the direc tion of marriage, and brought all their little allurements to bear with the same object in view • which directs the coquetry of a city belle. At sixteen they had beaux, at seventeen many of them actually married and at eighteen they might often be seen riding to town with their husbands, covered with dust, clasping wailing babes in their arms ; at twenty they were often thin and bent in the shoulders, and flat and stiff in the hips, sallow and querulous wives of slovenly, careless husbands.

Rose did not hold that Carl had any claim upon her. The incidents of two years before were lived down, both by herself and Carl, for as manhood and womanhood came to them they put away all that which they had done in the thoughtlessness of childhood. To Rose it was an unpleasant memory, because associated with her father's grief. She supposed Carl to feel in the same way about it, and so no allusion to it was ever made by any one.

But Carl was grown to be a great stalwart young fellow, with the blood and sinew of a man, and the passions of a man were developing in his rather thick head. The arm which he laid along the buggy seat was less passive and respectful of late. It clutched in upon her at

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times; though she shook herself angrily each time, he merely laughed.

So matters stood when she told him she was going away to school in Madison.

"That so?" he said, and not much else till the next Sunday. With all the week to think • about it in, he began to ask himself in current slang, "Where do I come in ?"

So the next time they drove together he tried again to tighten his arm about her while he said:

" I '11 miss you, Rosie."

"So '11 pap," she said.

There was a long pause, then he said : "What's the use o' going away anyhow? I thought you an' me was goin' to be married when we grew up."

She shook herself free. " We ain't grown up yet."

"I guess we won't never get our growth, then," he said with a chuckle; "you don't need that extra schoolin' any more 'n I do."

They rode in silence down the beautiful val ley, with the charm of early autumn lying over it.

" You must n't go and forget me off there in Madison," he said, giving her a squeeze.

"Carl, you stop that! You must n't do that! I '11 jump out o* the buggy if you do that again! "

There was genuine anger in her voice.

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"Why, it's all right, Rosie; ain't we en gaged?"

" No, we 're not, and we never will be, either."

There was a note in her voice that struck through even Carl's thick thought. He did not reply, but continued to dwell upon that reply until its entire meaning came to him. Then his face became pitiful to see. It was usually round and red, but now it looked long and heavy and bitter. He was so infertile of phrases he could only say:

"Then we might as well drive right back home."

"Well, you made me say it," she went on in a softer tone, being much moved by the change in his face. "I like you, Carl, but I'm not a-goin' to promise anything. I '11 see when I come back, after I graduate."

They drove on. She was not much more of a talker than he, and so they rode in silence that was sullen on Carl's part. At the gate she re lented a little. "Won't you come in, Carl?"

"No, I guess not," he said shortly, and drove off.

After she went in the house she felt more and more the injustice of her anger. "If he had n't pinched me like that," she said to herself.

She went to work at her packing again, put ting in things she would not possibly have any

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use for. As she worked the ache and weariness at her heart increased, and when they called her to supper the tears were falling again like a shower. It was a silent and miserable meal, though the doors and windows were open and the pleasant sounds of the farm-yard came in, and the red light of the setting sun shone in magically warm and mellow.

John ate slowly, his eyes fixed on his plate. Rose ate not at all and looked out of the win dow, with big tears rolling childishly down her cheeks. She did n't want to go at all now. Her home seemed all at once so comfortable and happy and safe!

John looked up and saw her tears, and imme diately he was choked and could not eat.

"There, there! Rosie, don't cry. We'll be all right, and you '11 be back almost 'fore you know it. June comes early in the summer, you know." They were both so childlike they did not consider it possible to come home before the year was up. She came around and knelt down by his side and buried her face on his knees.

"I wish I hadn't promised to go," she wailed; "I do n't want to go one bit. I want to stay with you."

He understood her feeling and soothed her and diverted her, though tears would have been a relief to him.

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cried over the bossies and the horses, and said good-by to them under her breath, so that her father might not hear.

When she went to bed she lay down discon solate and miserable. O it was so hard to go, and it was hard not to go. Life was not so simple as it had seemed before. Why did this great fear rise up in her heart? Why should she have this terrible revulsion at the last moment? So she thought and thought. Her only stay in the midst of chaos was Dr. Thatcher. William De Lisle was very far away, like a cold white star.

Just as she made up her mind that she could not sleep, she heard her father call her.

" Rose, time to get up ! "

Her heart contracted with a sharp spasm that almost made her scream. The time had come for action — momentous, irrevocable ac tion, like Napoleon's embarking from Elba for France.

It was very chill and dark. She rose and groped about for a light. Her teeth chattered with cold and it seemed to her she was going to be sick. She dressed hurriedly and went down.

John and her aunt were seated at breakfast. She slipped into her seat, white and silent. It was still dark and the lighted lamps made it seem like a midnight meal.

John was strenuously cheerful. "We have to

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get up early if we get that seven o'clock train," he said.

"Better take some coffee anyhow," urged Mrs. Diehl.

" O, I can 't eat a thing," Rose insisted.

" Do n't worry her, sis," interposed John. " She '11 feel like it later."

While John went to get the team Rose got on her things and walked about, uttering a little moaning sound, like a babe in delirium. It was terrible to hear her and Mrs. Diehl lost patience at last.

" Stop that fuss ! Good land ! anybody 'd think you was goin' to die dead as a hammer, the way you take on, and after all the time we 've had gettin' you ready. I declare to goodness I never see such a young 'un in all my born days. I will be glad to get rid of you 1 "

This was good strong medicine to Rose, and she uttered no more of her grief. She punished her aunt by refusing to say good-bye at the door, which grieved John very much.

"You folks had a tiff this morning a 'ready ?"

It was cold and damp. The wind pushed against their faces like the touch of wet palms. The horses splashed along in pools of water, and out of the dim light the hills rose against the sky full of soft sprawling rain-clouds.

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the splendid visions of the world. It was all dark and rainy ahead. Home, and peace, and comfort were all behind her. She was so mis erable it seemed as if she must cry out, but her aunt's contemptuous words helped her to silence.

John talked a little about the trains on the road, and the weather, but talk was an effort to him also. As he rode he thought of it all again. He felt as if he were losing his heart, but he did not waver.

He helped her on the cars and then stooped and hugged her hard without kissing her, and so stumbled out again, while she sat white and rigid, breathing hard.

The sun came out after a little, and covered the earth with a glory that found its way into the girl's heart. She ceased to sob, and the ache passed out of her throat, although the shadow still hung in her eyes.

The car interested her. It seemed a palace and of enormous size. She figured out the number of people it would hold, and wondered how the seats which were turned the other way came to be so. The car was mainly occupied by men in careless clothing. Everybody seemed sleepy and unkempt. She wondered where they all came from, and so speculating, she lost something of her poignant sorrow.

Then came one moment of quiet elation. She was going out into the world ! the enormous,

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the incredible had happened ! She was going to Madison, the state capital. The speed of the train, which seemed to her very great, aided her to realize how swiftly she was getting into the world. The fields and farms whirled by in dizzying fashion, and the whistle of the engine was like the furious, defiant neigh of a rushing horse. It was all on a scale more splendid than her dreams.

In the midst of her exultant moment the brakeman came through and eyed her with the glare of a sex-maniac. She felt as if a hot iron had touched her flesh, and she shrank back into herself, like a scared mollusk. The man passed on, but her exultation was gone.

She noticed that the hills grew lower as they sped southward, and queer rocks rose squarely out of the flat lands, which were covered with wild swamps of small trees, out of which long skeletons of dead pines lifted with a desolate effect.

There were several tunnels, and every time they went through one Rose clung to the seat in terror. Some young men in the rear of the car smacked their lips to represent kisses, and laughed boisterously afterward, as if that were a very good joke indeed.

The conductor, when he came through the :next time, eyed her closely and smiled broadly. ;She did not understand why he should smile at 90

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her. After he had been through the car several times he came and sat down by her.

"Nice day, ain't it ? Live in Madison?"

"No, sir," she replied, looking away. She did not want to say more, but some power made her add, "I am going to school there."

He seemed pleased.

"Ah, hah ! Going to the university ?"

"Yes, sir."

"O, I see." He put his knee against the back of the seat in front of her and took an easy position.

"It 's a nice town. Wish I could stop off and help you find a boarding-place."

The brakeman, coming through, winked at the conductor as if to say : " I like your ' mash,' " and the terror and shame of her position flashed over Rose, flushing her from head to foot. Her eyes filled with angry tears, and she looked out of the window, not knowing what to do. She was so helpless here, for she was out in the world alone.

The conductor went on serenely, knowing well how scared and angry she was.

"Yes, sir; it's a fine little town. Great place for boating, summer or winter. You '11 see a hundred ice-boats out on Monona there all at once. I 've got a cousin there who has a boat. He 'd be glad to take you out if I 'd tell him about you."

ROSE OF DUTCHER'S COOLLY

" I do n't want to know him," she said, in what she intended to be a fierce tone, but which was a pitifully scared tone.

The conductor saw the brakeman looking at him and in order to convey the impression that he was getting on nicely he bent forward and looked around into her face.

" O, you 'd like him first rate."

Rose would have screamed, or burst out into some wild action had not the engine whistled. This gave the conductor an excuse to give the talk up for the moment.

" She 's a daisy and as green as grass," he said to the brakeman. Her innocence seemed to place her in his hand.

For the next hour they persecuted the girl with their low presences. First one and then the other came along the aisle and sat down be side her. And when she put her valise there, blocking the seat, the brakeman sat on the arm rest and tormented her with questions to which she gave no answer.

Just after Pine City she heard a cool, firm woman's voice ask : " May I sit with you? "

She looked up and made room for a hand some, middle-aged woman, in a neat traveling dress.

" It 's a shame! " she said. " I 've just got in, but I saw at once how those men were torturing

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you. Strange no one in the car could see it and take your part."

Rose turned to her gratefully, and laid her head on the lady's stalwart shoulder.

" There, there, no harm done ! You must learn to expect such things from some men. It would be libelous on the brutes to call them beasts." She said a great many things which Rose hardly understood, but her presence was strong and helpful. Rose liked her very much.

" How far are you going ? "

Rose told her in a few words.

"Ah, are you? You could not have made a better choice. Who sends you there — pardon me?"

"Dr. Thatcher."

" Dr. Thatcher ! Well, well, how things come about. I know the Doctor very well."

"Do you? I'm going to live there for a while."

Rose was smiling now.

" Well, you couldn 't be more fortunate. You '11 get into the most progressive home in the city."

From this on they had a royal good time. Rose grew happier than she had been for weeks. There was something strangely masterful about this woman in spite of her sweet smile and soft gray eyes.

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When the conductor came down the aisle again she met his eye with a keen, stern glance.

"Young man, I shall have you discharged from this road."

The astonished cur took her card, and when he read the name of a famous woman lawyer of Milwaukee his face fell.

" I did n't mean any harm."

" I know better. I shall see Mr. Millet, and see that he makes an example of you."

Rose was awed by her calm and commanding voice.

"It has been our boast that our girls could travel from east to west in our broad land, and tie safe from insult, and I 'm not going to let such a thing pass."

She returned to her grave sweet mood pres ently, and began to talk of other things.

As they neared the town where they were to part company, the elder woman said:

" Now, my dear, I am to get off here. I may never see you again, but I think I shall. You interest me very much. I am likely to be in Madison during the year, and if I do I will see you. I am getting old though, and things of this life are uncertain to us with gray hair. I like that forehead on you, it tells me you are not to be a victim to the first man who lays his hand on you. Let me give one last word of advice. Do n't marry till you are thirty. Choose a pro-

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fession and work for it. Marry only when you want to be a mother."

She rose. " You do n't understand what I mean now, but keep my words in your mind. Some day you will comprehend all I mean — good-bye." Rose was tearful as Mrs. Spencer kissed her and moved away.

Rose saw her on the steps and waved her hand back at her as the train drew away. Her presence had been oppressive in spite of her kindness, and her last words filled the girl's mind with vague doubts of life and of men. Everything seemed forcing her thoughts of mar riage to definiteness. Her sex was so empha sized, so insisted upon by this first day's experi ence in the world, that she leaned her head against the window and cried out: " O, I wish I was dead."

But the train shot round the low green hills fringed with the glorious foliage of the maples, the lake sparkled in the afternoon's sun, the dome of the capitol building loomed against the sky, and the romance and terror of her entry into the world came back to her, driving out her more morbid emotions. She became again the healthy country girl to whom Madison was a center of art and society and literature.

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CHAPTER IX

ROSE ENTERS MADISON

The train drew up to a long platform swarm ing with people, moving anxiously about with valises in hand, broad-hatted and kindly ; many of them were like the people of the coule*. But the young hackmen terrified her with their hard, bold eyes and cruel, tobacco-stained mouths.

She alighted from the car, white and tremu lous with fear, and her eyes moved about anx iously. When they fell upon Thatcher the blood gushed up over her face, and her eyes filled with tears of relief.

"Ah, here you are! " he said with a smile, as he shook her hand and took her valise. " I be gan to fear you 'd been delayed."

She followed him to the carriage with down cast eyes. Her regard for him would not per mit her to say a word, even when they were seated together in the carriage and driving up the street. Her breath came so quick and strange the Doctor noticed it.

" A little bit excited about it, aren't you?" 96

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he smilingly said. " I remember how I felt when I went to Chicago the first time. I sup pose this seems like Chicago to you. How did you leave the people in the coule", all well?"

" Yes, sir," she replied without looking up.

"Well, now you are about to begin work. I 've got everything all arranged. You are to stay with us for the present at least. My niece is with us and you will get along famously I know. How do you like my horse? " he asked, in his effort to get her to speak.

She studied the horse critically.

" First rate ! " she said at last.

He laughed. " Well, I am glad you like him, for I know you are a judge. He is a pretty good stepper, too, though he has n't quite enough fling in his knees, you notice. I '11 let you drive him some time."

He drew up before a pretty cottage, set in the midst of a neat lawn. It was discourag- ingly fine and handsome to the girl. She was afraid it was too good for her to enter.

A very blonde young girl came dancing out to the block.

" O Uncle Joe, did Rose — " Rose suddenly appeared.

" This is Rose. Rose, this is our little chat ter-box."

"Now, Uncle Joe! Come right in, Rose. I 'in going to call you Rose, mayn't I ?"

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Mrs. Thatcher, a tall thin woman, welcomed Rose in sober fashion, and led the way into the little parlor, which seemed incredibly elegant to the shy girl.

She sat silently while the rest moved about her. There was a certain dignity in this reserve, and both Mrs. Thatcher and Josie were im pressed by it. She was larger and handsomer than either of them and that gave her an ad vantage, though she did not realize that. She was comparing in swift, disparaging fashion her heavy boots with their dainty soft shoes, and wondering what she could do to escape from them.

"Josie, take her right up to her room," said Mrs. Thatcher, " and let her get ready for din ner."

" Yes, come up, you must feel like a good scrub."

Rose flushed again, wondering if her face had grown grimy enough to be noticeable.

The young girl led Rose into a pretty room with light green walls, and lovely curtains at the windows. There were two dainty little beds occupying opposite corners.

" We 're to occupy this room together," said Josie. " This is my dressing case and that 's yours."

Rose saw at once Josie had given her the best one. Josie bustled about helping her lay 98

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off her things, pouring water for her and talk ing on with gleeful flow.

" I 'm awful glad you 've come. I know we '11 be just as thick ! I wish you were in my classes though, but you won't be, so Doctor says. Do n't you think this is a nice room ? "

Rose washed her hands as quickly as possible because they looked so big and dingy beside the supple whiteness of Josephine's. She felt dusty and coarse and hopeless in the midst of this exquisite room, the most beautiful room she had ever seen.

Her eyes moving about fell upon a picture which had the gleam of white limbs in it. Josephine followed her look: "O, that's young Samson choking the lion. I just love that; is n't he lovely ? "

Rose blushed and tried to answer but could not. The beautiful splendid limbs of the young man flamed upon her with marvelous appeal. It was beautiful, and yet her training made her think it somehow not to be talked about.

Josephine led the way downstairs into the little parlor, which was quite as uncomfortably beautiful as the bed-room. The vases and flow ers, and simple pictures, and the piano, all seemed like the furnishings of the homes she had read about in stories.

But dazed as she was she kept her self-corn-

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mand, at least she kept silence and sat in som bre, almost sullen dejection amid it all. Mrs. Thatcher hardly knew what to think of her, but the Doctor comprehended her mood better for he had passed through such experiences himself. He talked to her for a few minutes about her plans, and then they went out to dinner.

Rose entered the dining-room with a great fear in her heart. She longed to run away and hide.

" O I do n't know anything ! " was the bitter cry welling up in her throat again and again, and she nearly cried out upon the impulse.

The Doctor liked to have his dinner at one, and so Rose found two knives, and two forks at her plate, and two spoons also. She had read in stories of banquets, and she saw that this was to be her greatest trial. She sat very stiff and silent as the soup was brought on by the Nor wegian girl.

She took the plate as it was handed her, and handed back the one which was turned down with the napkin on top of it. The Norwegian girl smiled broadly and handed them both back. Then Rose saw her mistake and the hot blood swept over her brown face in a purple wave.

The Doctor and his wife passed it in silence. Josie fortunately was talking to the cat and did not see it.

Rose could hardly touch her soup, which was 100

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delicious ; her whole mind was filled with a de sire to escape as soon as possible.

Which of the knives should she use first, and what was the extra little plate for, were the dis turbing questions. She could use a fork, but she was afraid of betraying herself in the minutiae of the service. As a matter of fact she got along very well, but of that she had no knowl edge.

Some way she lived through the dainty dinner, scarcely tasting anything of it. At the close of it Mrs. Thatcher said :

"Wouldn't you like to lie down for a little while? aren't you tired?" Rose hardly knew what weariness was, but she assented because she wished to be alone.

"I'll call you at three, may I ?" asked Josie, who was wildly in love with Rose already.

"O, isn't she big and splendid, but she's queer," she said when she came down.

" That '11 wear off," said the Doctor. " She feels a little strange now. I know all about it. I went from a farm to the city."

Rose hardly dared lie down on the spotless bed. A latent good taste in her enabled her to see in every detail harmony of effect, and herself as the one discordant note in the house. O, how dirty and rough and awkward she was !

Looking out of the window she saw a couple 101

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of ladies come out of a large house opposite and walk down toward a carriage which waited at the gate. The ladies held their dresses with a dainty action of their gloved hands as they stood for a moment in consultation. (How graceful their hats were !) Then they entered the carriage.

As they gathered their soft dresses about their limbs and stooped to enter the door, the flexile line of waist and hip and thigh came out beauti fully, modestly.

They were a revelation of elegance and grace to the farmer's daughter. Their gaiters were of the same color as their dresses. This was most wonderful of all. Such unity and completeness of attire was unknown to her before. She looked down at her red dress, which Mattie Teel had cut out for her, and she saw it in all its deformity. The sleeves did n't fit like Josie's did. It did n't hang right ; it just wrinkled all around her waist, and hung in bunches, and she knew it. And her hat, made over from her last winter's hat, was awful.

She might just as well die or go back home, and never go out of the coul£ again. She was nothing but a great country gawk, anyway.

In this bitter fashion she raged on, lying face downward on the sofa. She lay there until she heard dancing steps, and Josie called out: "May I come in ?"

" Yes," said Rose coldly.

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" O, you 've been having a good cry, I know ! I just like to go off and have a good cry that way. It makes your eyes red, but you can fix that. Just sit still now and let me see what I can do."

She bustled about and Rose let her bathe her face with cool water and cologne, and fuss about. Her little fingers were like a baby's and she murmured and gurgled in the goodness of her heart like a kitten. Rose actually fell asleep under her touch.

Josie stopped astonished and startled for a moment, and then tip-toed out of the room like a burglar, and told Mrs. Thatcher all about it.

"And O, auntie, she 's very poor, is n't she ? Her clothes "

" Tut," warned Mrs. Thatcher, " you must be careful not to notice that. Edward, is she so very poor ? "

The Doctor, seated at his desk in the little office, looked up a moment.

" No, I do n't think so. It is lack of judgment partially. A little tact and taste will fix her all right. Dutcher is fairly well-to-do, and she is all he has. He wrote me to get her what she needed, but I'll leave that to you girls."

Josie danced with delight. Buying things for yourself was fun, but buying for another was ecstasy !

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wear without alteration, and she is such a splendid creature, too. I can 't conceive how they failed to fit her."

"It seems to me that putting her beside Josie is pretty hard on her. I am afraid you are not conversant with the wardrobe of farmer's girls."

"Well, I did n't suppose — and the other room- is so small."

"O, well, it all depends upon Josie. Josie, come here."

The girl rose up, and he put his arm around her.

" Now, my kitten, you must be very careful not to allude to any little mistakes Rose makes."

" O, Uncle Ed— you know—"

"Yes, I know chatterboxes mean all right, but they forget. Now, Rose is going to be a great scholar and she is going to be a lady, very quick, too; but she is awkward, now, and my little girl must n't make it hard for her."

After Josie went out, Thatcher said :

"I know just how the girl feels. I went through it myself. It 's hard, but it won't hurt her, only do n't try to talk it over with her. If she 's the girl I think she is, she '11 work the whole matter out in a week herself. More than that, let me talk to her myself. If she 's rested, ask her to come down."

Rose came into the Doctor's office in a numb 104

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sort of timidity, for there was a great change in the Doctor. He was hardly the same man who had eaten at their table. She could n't describe it, but there was something in his voice which awed her. He sat now surrounded by his pro fessional books and tools, which gave him dig nity in her eyes.

"Sit down, Rose," he said, "I want to talk with you. I 've had a letter from your father about you and your expenses."

And then, in some way, she never knew exactly how, he talked away her bitterness and gave her hope and comfort. He advised about books, and said : "And you '11 need some little things which Bluff Siding does n't keep. Mrs. Thatcher will drive you up town to-morrow and you can get what you need. Your father has deposited some money here to pay your expenses. I am going over to University Hill to make a call; perhaps you'd like to go."

She assented, and went to get her hat.

It was the largest town she had ever seen, and the capitol was wonderful to her, set in its park, where squirrels ran about on the velvet green of the grass. The building towered up in the sky, just as she had seen it in pictures. Swarms of people came and went along the hard, blue-black paths, and round it the teams moved before the stores of the square. It was all mightily impres sive to her.

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They passed the Public Library, and the Doctor said :

" You '11 make great use of that, I imagine."

She could not make herself believe that. She saw students coming and going on the street, and they all seemed so gay and well dressed.

" All this will trouble you for a little while," the Doctor said. " When I came to the Univer sity the first time I seemed like a cat in a bath tub. I thought everybody was laughing at me, but, as a matter of fact, nobody paid any atten tion to me at all. Then I got mad, and I said, ' Well, I '11 make you pay attention to me before I 'm done.' " The Doctor smiled at her and she had the courage to smile back. It was wonder ful how well he understood her.

He drove her around the Lake drive. It was beautiful, but in her depression the more beautiful anything was the more it depressed her. The Doctor did not demand speech of her, well knowing she did not care to talk.

" I 'mnot mistaken in the girl," he said to his wife when they were alone. " She has immense reserve force — I feel it. Wait until she straight ens up and broadens out a little, you '11 see ! There 's some half-savage power in her, mag netism, impelling quality. I predict a great future for her if — "

" If what ? "

" If she do n't marry. She is passionate, will- 106

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ful as a colt. It seems impossible she has come thus far without entanglement. She 's going to be very handsome when she gets a little more at ease. I thought her a wonderful creature as she sat in that schoolroom, with the yellow sun striking across her head. She appeared to me to have destiny in her favor."

" She 's fine, but I think you 're over-enthu siastic, Edward."

" Wait and see. She is n 't a chatter-box like Josie, that is evident."

" In fact, my dear," he went on to say after a silence, " I should like to adopt her — I mean, of course, take a particular interest in her. She has appealed to me very strongly from the first. You can be a mother to Josie and I '11 be a father to Rose."

There was something sombre under his smil ing utterance of these words. Their eyes did not meet, and there was a silence. At last the Doctor said :

" The girl 's physical perfection is wonderful. Most farmers' girls are round in the shoulders, and flat in the hips, but Rose has grown up like a young colt. Add culture and ease to her and she '11 mow a wide swath, largely without know ing it, for the girl is incapable of vanity."

The wife listened with a brooding face. Rose 's splendid prophecy of maternity op pressed her some way.

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When the girls went up to bed, terror and homesickness and depression all came back upon Rose again. She sat down desolately upon the little cream-and-gold chair and watched Josie as she pattered about taking down her hair and ar ranging it for the night. She could not help seeing the multitude of bottles and little combs and powder puffs and boxes and brushes which Josie gloated over, seeing that Rose was inter ested.

They were presents, she said, and named the givers of each. It was a revelation to Rose of the elegancies of a dainty, finicky girl's toilet. She thought of the ragged wash-brush and wooden- backed hair-brush and horn comb which made up her own toilet set, and grew hot and cold.

Josephine was delighted to have some one sit and stare in that admiring way at her, therefore she displayed all her paces. She brushed her hair out with her ivory-backed brush, and laid out all her beautiful underwear, trimmed with lace and embroidered in silk. She did it with out malice, but Rose thought of her worn cotton things, shapeless and ugly. She never could undress before Josephine in the world!

She delayed and delayed until Josie had cud dled down into her bed with her little pink nose sticking out, and her merry eyes blinking like the gaze of a kitten. Rose waited, hoping those bright eyes would close, but they would not. 108

ROSE ENTERS MADISON

At last a desperate idea came to her. She sprang up and went to the gaslight.

" How do you put this out?" she asked.

Josie gurgled with laughter. " Just turn that thingamabob underneath. Yes, that — turn it quick — that's right. O, ain't it dark! But you ain't undressed yet, and the matches are out in the bathroom."

Rose was more at her ease in the dark.

" Never mind, I can undress in the dark. I' m used to it." She loosened the collar of her dress, slipped off her shoes, and lay down on the bed bitter and rebellious.

When Josie awoke in the morning the coun try girl was awake and fully dressed and reading a book by the window.

The wrinkly red dress could not utterly break up the fine lines of her firm bust and powerful side and thigh, and the admiring little creature hopped out of bed and stole across the room, and threw her arms about Rose.

" How big and beautiful you are! "

These wonderful words ran into the country girl's blood like hot scented wine. To be beautiful made some amends for being coarse and uncultured. As she had never felt abase ment before, so she had never felt the need of being beautiful until now.

She turned a radiant, tearful face to Josie, and seized her hands.

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" I— I like you— O, so much! "

" I knew we 'd be friends," cried the little one dancing about. " And you '11 let me go and help you buy your things, won^'t you? "

" O, I '11 be glad to have you — I 'm such a fool. I don't know anything at all that I ought to know."

" You 're just splendid. I 'm the one who don't know anything."

Then they entered upon a day of shopping. They toiled like ants and buzzed like bees.

Rose came home at night worn out, dis couraged and dumb as an Indian. She had sub mitted to her fate, but she was mentally sore, lame and confused. She no longer cared whether Josie saw her poverty or not, and she went to sleep out of utter fatigue, her eyes wet with tears of homesickness. All she hoped for seemed impossible and of no account, and sleep in her own attic bed appeared to be the sweetest thing in the world.

Her good, vigorous blood built up her cour age during the night, but she was hardly a sweet and lovable companion in the days which fol lowed. She (temporarily) hated Josie and feared Mrs. Thatcher. Thatcher himself, however, was her savior, for she would surely have gone home had it not been for him.

She had a notable set-to with the dressmaker. " I won't come here again," she said, sullenly.

ROSE ENTERS MADISON

" I don't want any dresses, I 'm going home. I 'm tired of being pulled and hauled."

The dressmaker was a brisk little Alsatian, with something of the French adroitness in her manner.

" O, my dear young friend ! If you only knew ! I am in despair ! You have such a beautiful figure. You would give me such pleasure if I might but finish this lovely gown."

Rose looked at her from under a scowling prominent forehead. She had never been called beautiful before, at least not by one who was dis interested or a stranger, and she did not believe the woman.

The dressmaker passed her hands caressingly over the girl's splendid bust and side.

"Ah ! I can make myself famous if I may but fit those lines."

Rose softened and put on the gown once more and silently permitted herself to be turned and turned about like a tin sign, while the little artist (which she was) went about with a mouth full of pins, gurgling, murmuring and patting. This was the worst of the worry, and the end of all the shopping was in sight.

The touch of soft flannels upon her flesh, the flow of ample and graceful gowns helped her at once. Her shoulders lifted and her bust ex panded under properly cut and fitted garments. Quickly, unconsciously she became 'herself again, in

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moving with large, unfettered movements. She dominated her clothing, and yet her clothing helped her. Being fit to be seen, she was not so much troubled by the faces of people who studied her.

It was wonderful to see how she took on (in the first few weeks) the graces and refinements of her new life. She met her schoolmates each day with added ease, and came at last to be a leader among them, just as in the home coule. Her strength and grace and mastery they felt at once.

Her heart beat very hard and fast on the first day as she joined the stream of students moving toward the Central Hall. The maple trees were still in full leaf and blazing color. The sun light was a magical cataract of etherealized gold, and the clouds were too beautiful to look at without a choking in the throat.

As she stepped over the deeply-worn stone sill, she thought of the thousands of other coun try girls whose feet had helped to wear that hollow, and her heart ached with unaccountable emotion.

Above her noisy feet clattered and bounded on the winding stairway, and careless voices re sounded. She climbed in silence. In such wise \ she began to climb the way of knowledge, the way which has no returning foot-steps, and which becomes ever more lonely as the climber rises. 112

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Outwardly her days were uneventful. She came and went quietly, and answered her teachers with certainty and precision. She was not communicative to her companions, and came to know but few of them during the first term. She watched the trees go sere and bare, and cal culated on the progress of the farmwork. She wondered if the men were in the corn yet, or whether it were too cold a morning to plow. She studied the sky to see if there were signs of snow. She could not at once throw off her daily supervision of the weather and of farmwork.

Her father wrote only at long intervals. His chapped and stiffened hands managed the pen stock but painfully. He wrote of the farm affairs, the yield of corn, the weight of the steers or hogs he had sold, and asked her how many turkeys he had best keep over.

Carl wrote once or twice and stopped. He. was a still more reluctant correspondent. Carl meant little to her now. The Doctor's dominion was absolute, and yet there was a subtle change.

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She no longer blushed in his presence, and he seemed older and nearer to her, more like an uncle and adviser. The figure he had been, took its place beside that of William De Lisle. More substantial, but less sweet and mythical.

Her school life was not her entire intellectual life by any means. She had the power of absorb ing and making use of every sight and sound about her. She saw a graceful action at table or in the drawing room, and her mind seized upon it and incorporated it. She did not imitate; she took something from every one, but from no one too much.

Her eyes lost their round nervous stare, but they searched, searched constantly, as was natural for a girl of her years and fine animal nature, but there was brain back of it all. The young men knew nothing of her searching eyes; indeed, they thought her cold, and a little contemptuous of them.

Meanwhile their elegance often alienated them from her. There were many types not far removed from Carl and Henry ; farmer's boys with some touch of refinement and grace, but others had a subtle quality, which told of homes of refinement and luxury.

Two wonderful things had come to her. One

was the knowledge that she was beautiful, which

she came to understand was the burning desire

of all women ; and again that she was master of

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things which had scared her. She could wear lovely dresses unconsciously, and sit at table with ease, and walk before her classmates with out tremor. She felt power in her heart, as well as in her fist.

Her winter was a quiet one. She came and went between her classes and her home at Dr. Thatcher's. She studied in her own room or recited to the Doctor when he was at leisure. He liked to have the girls come into his study when he was not too busy, and there he sat figuring on the probable effect of cocaine or atropine in a certain case, while the girls read or talked.

Those were wonderful hours to the country girl. She was a long way from the little cottage on the old coule" farm at such times. Dr. Thatcher felt the same beauty and power in the droop of the head which had attracted him first in the old school-house, only enriched and in nobler colorings here.

They went sleighing together, with shouting and laughter, as if the Doctor were a girl, too. They went skating, and once in awhile to some entertainment at the church. They were not theatre-going people, and the lectures and socials of the town and college made up their outings. It was the Doctor's merry interest in their do ings which made young men so unnecessary to Rose as well as to Josephine.

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Then came spring again ; the southwest wind awoke, snow began to go, the grass showed here and there, and Rose's thoughts turned back toward the coule". There were days when every drop of her blood called out for the hills and the country roads, the bleat of lambs, the odor of fields, and the hum of bees, but she kept on at work.

Something elemental stirred in her blood as the leaves came out. The young men took on added grace and power in her eyes. When they came before her in their athletic suits, lithe, clean limbed, joyous, then her eyes dreamed and her heart beat till the blood choked her breathing.

O, the beautiful sky; O, the shine and shade of leaves! O, the splendor of young manhood ! She fought down the dizziness which came to her. She smiled mechanically as they stood before her with frank, clean eyes and laughing lips, and so, slowly, brain reasserted itself over flesh, and she, too, grew frank and gay.

Then came the vacation. The partings, the bitter pain of leaving the young people she had learned to love, and, too, came the thought of home. The dear old coul£ with its peaks and camel humps, and pappa John ! He was waiting to see her there !

So the pain of leaving her mates was mingled with the joy of home-coming. She romped on the grass with the young lambs. She followed 116

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Pappa John about as of old, in the fields, while he wondered and marveled at her. She was so fine and white and lady-like.

She was fain to know all the news of the farm, and the neighborhood. She felt like kissing all the dear old ladies in the coule". O, the old friends were the best after all! You could rest on them. They did n't care how you ate soup. They did n't keep you keyed up to company manners all the time.

She went back to her old dresses and cotton underwear, and went dirty as she liked, and got brown and iron-muscled again.

Carl met her on the road one day and bowed and drove on, with hurried action of the lines. He still bore her rejection of him fresh in mind. It is everlastingly to his credit, let it be said now, that he never made use of his youthful intimacy with her. He was a man, with all the honesty and sincerity and chivalry of a race of gentlemen in his head, slow-witted as he was.

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She came back each September with delight and exultation. It was not so much like going to the world 's end now, and besides, her father seemed resigned to it. Back to the gleam of the lakes, the flaming sunsets, the moon-lit nights filled with twang of guitars and floating harmony of fresh boyish voices, back to her girl- lovers and her books, back to the chalky odor of the recitation room.

It was so sweet to climb the circular stair way again. The booming roar of the feet did not disturb her now. The greetings of the Professors as they passed, made her eyes dim with pleasure. The spirit of the University had established dominion over her.

These were days without care, days of silent pleasant growth. A year of sweet gravity over books and wholesome laughter over games. She studied hard, but it was a quiet pleasure to study, for she had the power of concentration which gives mastery.

She was never behind, never fagged out with 118

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study. She had time for the splendor of nature and for the world of books. She read more and more each year because she felt lacking in literary knowledge. She read the books she ought to know — read them religiously. Occasionally it chanced the books were those she loved to read, but not often. Generally she had to bend to them as if they were lessons.

She read also Scott, Dickens and Thackeray, a volume or two each. Then one day in mid winter it chanced she fell upon " Mosses from an Old Manse," and then all the other books waited. She read it while she walked home from the library. She read it after dinner and put it in her satchel as she went to recite. She finished it and secured the second volume ; then came "Twice Told Tales," then "The Scarlet Letter," and the world of woman 's sin opened to her.

She read that terrible book, rebelling against the dark picture, raging against the insatiable vengeance of the populace who condemned Hester as if she had opened the gates of hell in the path of every daughter of New England.

She could not understand, then nor there after, the ferocity of hate which went out against the poor defenseless woman. What had the woman done? She struggled over the problem. She felt in herself that terrible ceaseless urging. Her thoughts were not clear, they were still only 119

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raised figures in the web of organic thought, but she was accomplishing great conceptions.

She knew it was wrong, but why it was wrong troubled her. The law — yes, but what lay be hind the law ? The Mormon had one law, the Turks another. Why was this English law better than any other? Why were the animals freer than men? Their lives were good and healthy, they lived in the sunshine and were untroubled. Such were a few of the questions she grappled with.

God only knows the temptations which came to her. She had days when all the (so-called) unclean things she had ever seen, all the over heard words of men 's coarse jests, came back like vultures to trouble her. Sometimes when she walked forth of a morning, the sun flamed across the grass with ineffable beauty. The whole earth was radiant ; every sound was a song ; every lithe youth moved like a god before her, and it was then that something deep in her, something drawn from generations of virtuous wives and mothers, saved her from the whirlpool of passion.

At such times she felt dimly the enormous dif ference between her nature and that of Joseph ine. Josephine's passion was that of a child — hers that of an imaginative and complex man.

She was silent after these days of gayety. She was not a chatterer at any time, but after 120

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these moods she was almost sullen once more, and she fell upon her lessons with renewed zeal, as a monk flagellates his rebellious flesh.

After these days of searching eyes she re fused to look at any of her young male friends. She answered them crustily and turned away from them, but this did not serve to cure her nor to keep the young men away.

Always at such times William De Lisle's glorious presence drew near in the dusk, insub stantial and luminous as a cloud, and she set her teeth in fresh resolve to be wise and famous; to be worthy his look and his word of praise.

She had suitors constantly. Her dark haughty face, warm with blood, her erect and powerful figure excited admiration among the young men, and they courted her with the wholesome frankness of clean and vigorous manhood. The free and natural intercourse of the college kept the young people healthy as a home circle.

As the Doctor came to take a different place in her love, Rose became open to the advances of other men. Twice during the winter she felt the power of love touch her. In the first in stance her eyes sought and found among her classmates a young man's physical beauty, and her imagination clothed him with power and mystery, and she looked for him each day, and life was less interesting and purposeful when he was not present.

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She made no open advances, she scarcely needed to, for he also saw, and when he came to her and she flushed and trembled with weakness, it seemed as if her life had at last taken a fixed direction. For a few weeks the man was her ideal. She saw him before her constantly. She knew his smile, the lift of his eyebrows, the shape of his ears, the slope of his shoulders, the sound of his voice. She looked at him stealthily from her book. She contrived to sit where she could watch every motion. She walked down the street with him each day, half numb with her emotion.

But this ecstasy did not last. She felt even tually his shallowness and narrowness. He was vain and ungenerous. He grew sere and bare of grace and charm like the autumn elms, and at last he stood empty and characterless before her, and her eyes looked over and beyond him, into the blue sky again, and throughout it all she kept her place in her classes and no one was aware of her new ideal.

When she turned away from him he did not grow pale and lean. He grew a little vicious .and said : " She is too cold and proud for my taste."

Her next suitor was a worthy young man who was studying law in the town. A fine, clean young fellow, who paid court to her with jnasterly address. He was older than she, and

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was a better scholar and brought to her less of the clotheshorse and more of the man than her freshly outgrown lover. Before spring began he had won great intimacy with her — almost an engagement.

He was adroit. He did not see her too much, and he came always at his best. He appealed to the most imaginative side of her nature. She glorified his calling as well as his person. He was less handsome than his prede cessor, but he brought an ample and flowing phraseology, and a critical knowledge of farm- life as well as of town-life. Once he took her to the court-room to hear him plead.

He took her to the socials, and once to the theater. There was his mistake! The play made a most powerful impression upon her, more powerful than anything since the circus at Tyre.

It raised new and wordless ambitions. For the first time in her life she saw society dress on the stage. The play was one which pretended, at least, to show New York and London life. Therefore men in claw-hammer coats came and went, with strange accents and with cabalistic motions of hats and gloves, and women moved about with mystic swagger.

The heroine glowed like a precious stone in each act, now sapphire, now pearl, now ruby. She spoke in a thick, throaty murmur and her 123

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white shoulders shone like silver, and her wide childish eyes were like wells of light-diffusing liquid.

Rose gazed at her with unwearying eyes. Her bosom rose and fell as if she had been running, and she said in her heart: "/ can do that ! I could stand there and do that ! "

Then the theme of the play filled her with strange new thoughts. These people lived out before her a condition which she had read about but which had never been discussed in her pres ence. A husband discovers his wife to have been a lover and mother in her girlhood, and in a tempest of self-righteous passion flings her to the ground in scorn and horror.

She clings to his feet (in approved stage fashion), pleading for mercy : " I was so young! "

He would not listen. "Go! — or no, stay — I will go. I make the home over to you, but never look upon my face again."

While Rose burned with shame and indigna tion, the outraged woman on the stage grew white and stern.

"Who are you to condemn me so?" she asked in icy calm. " Are you the saint you pro fess to be? Will one offence contain your crime against me? "

"What do you mean?" thundered the man and husband.

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" You know what I mean. In my weakness I was stained, ineffaceably ; I admit it — but you, in your strength, have you not preyed upon weak women? The law allows you to escape disgrace — nature and law force me to suffer with mine."

Rose thought of Carl and his courtship with such a shudder as one feels in remembering a rescue from an abyss. A hundred great confus ing questions floated by in her mind, like clouds in a mist of rain — formless, vast, trailing deeper shadow beneath them. The self-sufficient young lawyer beside her said as the curtain fell:

" There was nothing else for her husband to do but just fire her out."

Rose heard him but did not reply. She felt a sharp revulsion of feeling toward him for his coarse, hard tone. When he laid his hand on her she shook it off, and when he asked a question of her she did not reply. He was annoyed also, and so they waited for the curtain to rise on the final act.

The wife was sick and dying. The dramatist had not the courage to work out his theme. He killed the wife, so that the husband should not appear to condone and take her to wife again. She died while he, magnanimously, forgave her.

As they walked home, with fatuous insistence her lover talked with Rose about the case. He

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took the man's side. He hinted at the reason — presuming upon their intimacy. Men out grow such experiences, he said ; women do not. They are either one thing or the other — either pure as angels or black as devils.

Rose closed her lips tight, and her eyes flamed with indignant protest, but she said nothing in reply. In her heart she knew it was a lie. A woman can set her foot above her dead self as well as a man.

When he tried to kiss her good-bye she pushed him aside and left him without a word. He, too, was a bare and broken ideal. Her heart went back again to William De Lisle, as the young eagle goes back to the sun-warmed cliff to rest and dream, with eyes to the sun.

That night put her girlhood far from her. She grew five years older in the weeks which fol lowed. Her mind took up irresistibly one insoluble problem after another and wrestled with it in silence. Josie's chatter went on around her like the sound of the swallows in the eaves of the old barn at home.

Her mind was like a piece of inconceivably intricate machinery, full of latent and compli cated motion. A word, a touch, and it set to work, and out of its working some fine inner heat and glow changed the whole mental and physical equilibrium of her nature, and she became something else, finer, more mysterious, 126

STUDY OF THE STARS

and more alluring — though this she did not realize.

Thereafter the young man of her acquaint ance did not draw her. Her eyes had been raised to higher altitudes. She fell upon her books with terrible industry, in the hope that they would throw some light on her problems and ambitions.

There was nothing she did not think of dur ing these character-forming days. The beauty and peace of love, the physical joy of it ; the problem of marriage, the terror of birth — all the things girls are supposed not to think of, and which such girls as Rose must irresistibly think of, came to her, tormenting her, shaking her to the inmost center of her nature, and through it all she seemed quite the hearty young school girl she was, for this thought was wholesome and natural, not morbid in any degree.

She was a child in the presence of the Doctor, but a woman with her suitors. The Doctor helped her very much, but in the most trying moments of her life (and no man can realize these moments) some hidden force rose up to dominate the merely animal forces within. Some organic magnificent inheritance of moral purity.

She was saved by forces within, not by laws

without. Opportunities to sin always offer in

every life. Virtue is not negative, it is positive j

it is a decoration won by fighting, resisting.

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This sweet and terrible attraction of men and women towards each other is as natural and as moral as the law of gravity, and as inexorable. Its perversion produces trouble. Love must be good and fine and according to nature, else why did it give such joy and beauty ?

Natural as was this thought, she hid it from her associates. Most women die with it unac knowledged, even to their own spoken thought. She would have been helped by talk with the Doctor, or at least with his wife. But there was a growing barrier between Mrs. Thatcher and her self, and the Doctor did not seem the same good friend. She felt a change coming in the whole household.

When she went home at the close of her sec ond year, she had a feeling that she would never again return to the old sweet companionship with Dr. Thatcher. He was too busy now, ap parently, to give her the time he once seemed so glad to give. He never asked her to ride with him now. She was troubled by it and con cluded they were tired of her, and so she, too,

grew cold and reserved.

*******

The day she left, the Doctor, after he had driven Rose to the train, called his wife into the office.

"Sit down a moment, wife, I want to talk with you." He faced her bravely. " I guess 128

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we'd better arrange for Rose to go to one of the chapter-houses next year. There 's no need to beat around the bush — she takes up too much of my thought, and you know it and I know it."

It drew blood to say that. It took manhood to look his wife in the eyes then, but he did it.

"It isn't her fault, and it isn't yours — it is n't mine, as a matter of justice. Rose is just what she 's always been, a good, sweet girl — I would n't have her see anything but friendly interest in my eyes for half my heart — I'm afraid she will, so — I guess "

He was talking through set teeth. " I wish you'd tell her we can 't offer her a home ; I can't do it."

He rose and went to his wife. "My dear, do n't cry — you 've watched this thing come on in brave silence — not every wife would have kept silence so long. It won't break up our comrade ship, will it, dear? We've jogged along so peacefully these fifteen years — we ought to overlook a little thing like this ! " He smiled a little, then he stooped and put his arm about her.

"Come, give me a kiss, and let's adopt no more handsome girls till I'm sixty-five."

She rose and lifted her sad face to his. " It 's my fault, if I — "

He kissed her and said: "No more of that! You 're my faithful wife. What helps the matter 129

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materially is this — Rose thinks of me as a sober old settler now."

This ended it so far as any outward showing ever defined his feeling, but the presence of the girl never left him. At night, as he sat at his desk at the hour which almost always used to bring Rose down from her room to discuss her lessons with him, he grew sad and lonely. " If I had a child," he said to himself, " I could bear it more easily."

When Rose returned, she went into one of the co-operative boarding-houses, and slowly drifted away from the Doctor and his family. She never quite knew why. It puzzled her for a time, and then she forgot it — in the fashion of youth.

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CHAPTER XII

THE GATES OPEN WIDE

Of what avail the attempt to chronicle those days? They were all happy, and all busy, yet never alike. When the sun shone it was beauti ful, and when the wind roared in the trees and the rain slashed like falling sails, it was equally glorious. On clear, crisp, bright winter days the air grew magical with bells, and the grating snarl of the ice-boat 's rudder was thrilling as a lion 's cry. It was apart from the world of care and politics and revolution.

There was fun, whirlwinds of it, at the chap ter-house when studies were over, and there was fun at the professedly-formal girl-banquets where the chairman arose to say, "Gentlemen, the honor — " and everybody shrieked to see her pull an imaginary chin-whisker. There was more fun on winter nights, when loads of people packed into the bob-tail mule-cars (which tinkled up the snowy street with wonderful persistency), while the passengers trod on each other's toes and chaffed the driver. And the wonderful nights under the stars, walking home with arm

ROSE OF DUTCHER'S COOLLY

fast anchored in a fellow's grip ; or strolls in summer beside the Lake, or dreamy hours float ing at sunset in a boat which lay like a lily 's petal, where skies of orange and purple met water of russet-gold and steely-blue.

And there was the glory of mounting also. One by one the formidable mesas of calcula tions, conjugations, argumentations, fell below her feet, and Rose grew tall in intellectual grace. She had no mental timidities. Truth with her came first, or if not first, certainly she had little superstitious sentiment to stand in the way. She was still the same impatient soul as when she shook her little fist at the Almighty's lightning.

It was this calm, subconscious assumption of truth 's ultimate harmony with nature 's first cause which she delighted in as she entered physics and astronomy. Her enthusiasm for the hopeless study of the stars developed into a passion. They exalted her and saddened her.

She lifted her eyes to them, and the ultimate distances of their orbits swept upon her with overwhelming power.

She felt again the ache in the heart which came to her as a child on the bluff-top, when the world seemed spread out before her. When she -turned her face upward now it was to think of •the awful void spaces there, of the mysteries of •each flaming planet, and of the helplessness and weakness of the strongest man. 132

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For a year she plunged into astronomy. It had the allurement and the sombre aloofness of unrequited love. It harmonized well with her restless, limitless inner desire.

These sudden passions for this or that art were signs of her strength and not her weakness. They sprang out of her swift and ready imagina tion, which enabled her to take on the person ality of the artist, and to feel his joy of power. It was quite normal that she should desire to be successively circus rider, poet and astronomer, and yet, now that her graduation was near, she was as far from a real decision as ever.

" What are you going to do after gradua tion?" Josie said.

Rose grew grave. " I don 't know. Go on studying somewhere."

" I 'm going to have a good time ! "

" You 're always having a good time, you little oriole." Rose had come to patronize Josie in these later days. " I envy you so," she sighed. " The world is so simple for you."

" I do n't understand you when you go on like that — you'll come tomorrow and see my new dress, won't you ?"

Graduation meant for Josephine the chance to wear a fetching gown, and be looked at by an immense crowd — and one extra man. This was supposed to be a secret, but everybody who cared to give it a thought, knew of it and smiled at her

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as they would at a child. Josie could be nothing else but a child.

To most of the students graduation day came rushing with sorrowful speed. It meant passing from sunlit lanes of maple and lilac out into the bleak highways of trade and labor. It meant the beginning of struggle with pitilessness in man and nature. As students they were not in the race for subsistence, but as citizens and pro fessional men they were to be competitors in trades and crafts already overflowing.

Graduation day drew near, and a tremulous ecstasy came into the lives of the outgoing students — a joy made more precious by its cer tainty of passing.

To Rose graduation day came as the sweetest, saddest day of her life. It seemed to close a gate upon something in her history. The smil ing, yet mournful, faces of her friends, the wist ful eyes of the young men who loved her, the rustle of leaves, the gleam of the water, the dapple of light and shade on the campus, the exaltation of the public moment, all these wondrous things rushed upon her like a flood, and overwhelmed her ambitions and desires, powerful as they were.

At last the books were closed and packed away.

The commencement exercises began with the reception in Science Hall. The night fell slowly,

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and the fine new building grew alight story after story, and crowds began to stream in. The students led the way, rakish, full of airs, except when piloting their parents about. The fun had been almost furious all day.

There were many of the relatives of the stu dents present, and often they stood out in sharp contrast with the decorations and with the joy of the young people. Beautiful girls might be seen leading bent and wrinkled fathers and mothers, who had sacrificed all for them. , Rose wished for her father, and passionately desired to do something for him. He had written that he could n't leave the farm, and so she wandered about with others, like herself, free. Every where the young men met her. She never escaped them for a moment, their pursuit was relentless.

The crowd swarmed into each room, where the professors stood beside show-cases, polite and patient, exhibiting machines, specimens, draw ings. At another place sherbet was served to the guests, and music could be heard in the lower halls. Everywhere was the lisp of feet, the ripple of talk.

All this was a bore to many of the pupils, for there was the peace-pipe ceremonial preparing on the campus, that they really waited for. Mysteriously in the deep dusk a huge heap of combustibles had been piled up on the wet

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grass, and one by one the two classes began to gather. There was a mutter of voices, a com mand, then a red flame flashed out, and with it the college yell soared up from a little bunch of dark forms :

" RAH-RAH-RAH-WISCONSIN!"

The stragglers on the walks turned toward the fire, like insects. They came in crawling dark lines like ants, across the wet grass. They formed a blue-black mass, lighted on one side by the orange light of the bonfire. The stars overhead grew green and dim in the light of the fire, and the encircling trees of the campus came out like silhouettes of purple-green cardboard.

The class rolled out its carpet for the girls and opened its boxes of long clay pipes. It seemed so much more important to Rose now that she stood there in the center as one of the graduating class. There was not much talk. They lined up and sang song after song. Then the boys moved about and showed the girls how to light their pipes.

"You want to suck, not blow, on it!" a voice called out, and everybody laughed dutifully. For a few moments all was laughter. The girls tried to assume the airs of smokers, and puffed their kinnikinnick furiously. Then as they sang they swung their pipes with rakish air, — " There is a Tavern in our Town" and " The Bull-frog in the Pool," and their voices floated out and up

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into the wreathing smoke of the fire, as deli- ciously sweet as though their songs were hymns of praise as they were hymns of youth.

The pipes needed constant relighting. In every silence some girl cried out: "O, my pipe's gone out ! " One cried: " Give me a bite ! " as if the pipe-stem were taffy.

To Rose the whole ceremony was glorious. It carried her out of herself. It gave her a glimpse into the world which men keep to them selves, and, besides, she had written the speech handing the pipe down to the custodian of the succeeding class, a really admirable ceremony.

Here on this spot the red men warred and loved. Here, with the sheen of lakes about, and the wild grass under their feet, it was beautiful and appropriate that they should be remembered by these young western sons and daughters of the white man.

The mock antagonism between seniors and juniors seemed to have great meaning when Tom Harris spoke the lofty phrases she had written for him, standing outlined against the soaring fire like a silhouette of velvet, his voice rolling out with lofty suspensive power.

" Here on the spot where our fathers have dwelt for countless suns and moons we ask for peace. We call upon you to bury the hatchet. Forgive and forget; you who have scars forgive, and you who have wrongs forget. Let all evil

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spirits be exorcised by the pipe. Here we break the arrow. Here we tender the sacred pipe. Brothers — sisters, we have spoken!"

The fire burned low. As they sat in circles on the ground and chanted their songs, the sky grew blacker, the trees melted into the darkness, the last wailing cadence floated into silence, and then subdued, tender, they rose and vanished, in pairs and groups, into the darkness like the songs they sang. The class of 189- had entered upon its long, long trail, some to the plains of failure, some to the mountains of victory.

This quaint and suggestive custom received new strength from the oration which Rose con tributed. All felt its power and beauty. To the girls the whole ceremony was a rare and deli cious piece of audacity. It did them good. It gave them something to look back upon with laughter, into which a sigh and a little catching of the breath might also come.

Something elemental and primitive came to Rose amid all the laughter and song. What was she more than the swart women who had lived here and been wooed of men ? Was there not something magnificent in their frank following of the trail of pure passion ? They loved, and bore children, and ground at the corn mills, and died as the female bison died, and other women came after them to do like unto them, to what end?

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Some such questions, vague, ever shadowy, formless, moved Rose, as she lay down to sleep that night. Outside a mandolin twanged — the boys were serenading her, but she had not the wish to see them. She did not go to the window, as the other girls did, deliciously excited, almost hysteric with the daring of being possibly seen in their nightgowns. She kept sombre silence, stirred by profounder emotions than they were capable of.

She thought of William De Lisle but seldom now. In open daylight she was a little ashamed of her idolatry, but on nights like these, when love songs and moonlight fused together, his figure came before her, not so clear a personality now, but as a type of beauty, as a center of dreams, of something wild and free and splendid — something she was to attain to some good day.

She had no thought of attaining him, but some one like unto him. Some one who was grand as her dream of heroes and loyal as her father.

It was characteristic of her that while the lovers singing without made her companions utter hysterical laughter, she was sad and wished to be alone. Their desires were on the surface, shifting, sparkling, seeking kisses. Hers was dark, and deep down, sombre, savage, prophetic. Love with her was a thing not to be uttered.

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She silenced all jests about it, and all familiarity on the part of her suitors she had put away.

During her first year she had allowed her lover to take her hand, as Carl used to do, because it seemed the usual thing, but after breaking off that entanglement she resolutely set to work to study, and no man had since con sidered himself her lover. To permit a caress now meant all the world to her. It meant change, undoing of plans, throwing away ambi tions. It meant flinging herself to the immemo rial sacrifice men demand of women.

There were times when she felt the impulse to do this. She felt it that night as the clear voices of the serenaders came floating in at her window. What did it matter ? What could she do in the mighty world ? What did the Indian girl, when her lover sang from his canoe among the water lilies in the lake ? Why not go to one of these good, clean young men and be a wife ? What did it matter — her ambition — her hope ? "I will," she said, and a wild rush of blood choked her breathing, "I'll end it all."

But the singing died away, the moonlight vanished out of the room, and the passionate longing and tumult of her blood grew slowly quiet, and she slept.

When the sun rose there was no man in her world who could have won her consent to mar riage. Her ambitions rose like the sun, buoyant 140

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as young eagles, while the singers of the night before were hapless fireflies, tangled in the dewy grass, their love -light dim, their singing lost.

She was not done with this problem, however. She saw in one man's eyes something to be answered. She had her answer ready, though she hoped to escape the ordeal. He hovered close about her all the morning. He came by the chapter-house for her, but she had gone to the chapel.

She felt a little guilty toward him. She had attended concerts with him. She had accepted his company now and again because she liked him and because — well, it was convenient, and by selecting him she escaped the attentions of others. She had seemed to acquiesce in his pro prietorship of her, and yet always when alone she had tried to show him that they could only be friends. This he had persistently misunder stood.

She was almost the tallest of her classmates, she led the march into the chapel for the final ceremonies, a splendid and terrible mo ment, toward which they had looked for weeks, and for which they had elaborately planned dresses and procedure.

It was all so wistfully beautiful. The cool spacious hall filled with hushed people; the 141

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vivid green trees looking in at the windows and the soft air burdened with bee songs and the smell of flowers. The June sunlight dappled the lawn with marvels of shade and shine. The music seemed to wail as they marched, and the rustling stir and murmur of comment helped to unnerve them all even to men.

The speaker looked down upon them with comprehension. He was an eastern man and an old man, also he was a poet. He was just, and he had seen how clean and fine this co-edu cational school was. The day was beautiful to him as to them, and he comprehended their feel ings well. He looked down into their pensive faces, he saw the sorrowful arching of their brows, the sad droop of their lips.

His shaggy head drooped forward as he talked to them, till his kind old face, lined with genial wrinkles, seemed to grow beautiful and tender and maternal. He had reared many children of his own, and he now took the young people into his heart. He told them much of his life and trials — how work was in the world for them ; play, too — but work, hard work, glorious work ! work for humanity as well as for themselves. He conveyed to them something of the spirit of altruism into which the world seemed about to enter on its orbit as it swings through clouds of star-dust.

They cheered him when he ended, and then 143

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the president, in brief words, presented their diplomas. Among them now were bitten lips, and tremulous chins and tearful eyes. The doors had closed behind them and they faced the whole world, it seemed. For years they had studied here, in storm and sun, but now they re membered only the sunlight, all fused and blended into one radiant vista.

As they stood for their final benediction a splendid snowy cloud sailed across the sun, and the room darkened mystically. A shudder of exquisite pleasure and pain thrilled Rose, and a little moan pushed from her throat, but the shadow lifted, the organ sounded out a fine brave strain, and the class of 189- was ended. It was now a group of men and women facing the open road.

With low words of greeting and congratula tion the graduates and their friends lingered about the chapel. Slowly it emptied and the hill grew populous again with groups of leisurely moving figures.

There were scholars showing their parents about the grounds, there were groups of visiting towns-people, and there were the lovers, two and two, loitering, wandering (she in dainty white gown, he in cap and jacket), two-and-two in world-old, sex-old fashion. They lay on the banks and watched the boats on the gleaming lake where other lovers were. They threaded

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the hill-paths where the thrush moved with quick rustle, and the pale wood-flowers peered above the fragrant mosses. They stood on the beach skipping pebbles, he lithe and laughing, she tender, palpitating, wistful and sombre, or fitfully gay. Everywhere laughter had a solemn sweet undertone; "Good-bye!" trembled so close to "I love you!"

Rose saw young Harris approaching, and a faintness took hold upon her limbs. He was at his princeliest estate — never would he be hand somer. His summer suit set close to his agile and sinewy figure. His cap rested lightly on his curly hair. His frank blue eyes were laughing, but his lips were tremulous with feeling.

" Well, Rose, all the girls have deserted me so I 'm glad to find you alone," he said, but she knew he was never deserted. " Let's take a walk. The whole school seems to be divided off into teams. Looks as if the whole crowd would trot in double harness, don't it?"

She did not reply, he hardly expected her to do so.

" Going to the ball with me to-night, are n't you?"

" No, I guess not."

" I was in hopes you 'd change your mind."

" I can't dance those new-fangled figures."

"O, you'd catch on in a jiffy. You should have gone out more."

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They moved down the hill to the beach road, and as they walked Harris talked, talked against time, he would have said. They strolled on past the small boys fishing, past other low-voiced couples, out into comparative solitude where the farms began. She knew what was coming but she could not stop, could not then turn back.

They came at last to a grassy little knoll which looked out upon the lake, and there he laughingly spread out his handkerchief for her.

" Sit here, my liege lady! "

It was red clover, and its powerful fragrance swept upon her with a vision of the hay-field at home.

Harris lay down below her so that he could see her face, and the look in his eyes made her shiver again. Nothing so beautiful and power ful and pagan-free had come to her since that day when she danced with Carl beneath the dap pling leaves, when woman's passion first stirred within her. The sailing clouds, the clicking in sects, the smell of leaves and flowers all strove on the side of the lover. It was immemorial, this scene, this impulse.

" Well, Rose, this is our last day at school, and what I want to know is this, is it the last we shall see of each other?"

She made an effort and answered:

"Why, no, I hope not."

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"You hope not — then there is hope for me? Confound it, Rose, I 'm not going to talk in riddles. You 're the only girl in the world for me." He took her hand. "And I can't live without you. You are going to live with me, are n't you, Rose ?"

She shook her head, but tears dropped upon his hand. He allured her like the sunshine, this lithe young lover.

His keen eyes saw a lack of decision in this head shake. He held her hand and his fingers caressed her wrist. Unconsciously, with pure intent, he used all the wiles of men, which women love, yet dread. His voice grew vibrant, yet remained low, his clear eyes called in subtler speech than his tongue. His wrist touched her knee, his hair moved in the soft wind.

" I can 't bear to go home without you, Rose, darling. Come, tell me, do n't you care for me at all, not the least bit ?"

She tried to draw her hand away, but he held it and continued :

" I 've got everything all planned. I 'm going into law with my father. I 've got plans for a house, and we '11 begin life together today "

His physical charm united itself some way with the smell of clover, the movement of the wind and the warm flood of sunshine. She had never loved him, though she had always liked him, but now something sweet and powerful, something 146

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deep buried, rose in her heart and shortened her breath. Her face burned, her throat was swollen shut, her face was distorted, for one moment she was mastered.

Then the swift revulsion came, and she drew her hand away and sprang up.

"No!" she cried harshly and bitterly, "I can 't do it ; it is impossible. Go away ! "

Then the blood slowly fell away from her neck and face, and her heart ceased to pound, her eyes cleared and she grew gentle again, see ing his pained and frightened face.

"I didn't mean that — I didn't mean to be so rough, Tom, but it 's no use. I do n't want to marry you, nor anybody else. All I want is to be let alone. I 'm going to Chicago. I want to see the world. I can 't be shut up in a little town like Lodi. I want to see people — thou sands of people. I want to see what the world is like. I may go to Europe before I get done with it. I 'm going to study art. I 'm going to be great. I can 't marry any one now."

She poured out her confidences in swift, almost furious protest. She had never confided to him so much before.

His pain was not so overpowering but he found strength to say :

" I thought you were going to be a writer."

She flushed again. " Well, I am. But I 'm going to be a painter, too. I 'm going home,"

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she said abruptly, and in such wise they walked along the returning way.

The glamour was gone from the young man's hair and eyes. She saw him as he was, clean, boyish, shallow. His physical charm was lost, and a sort of disgust of his supple waist and rounded limbs came upon her, and disgust at her self for that one moment of yielding weakness; and also the keen fear of having been unjust, of having given him a claim which she was repudi ating, troubled her.

He made one last attempt.

" Rose, I wish you 'd reconsider. What can you do in the world ?"

" I do n't know. I can be my own master for one thing," she replied. "I can see the world for another thing — and besides, I don't want to marry any one just yet." Her voice was abrupt, merciless, and the young fellow bowed his head to his sentence. She was too mysterious and powerful for him to understand.

"What could I do in Lodi ? Gossip with old women and grow old. I know those towns. I had rather live in the country than in one of those flat little towns."

" But I '11 go to the city with you if you want me to. I can get a place there. I know two men — "

" No, no ! I can 't do it. I want to be free.

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I 've got something to do, and, — I do n't care for you—"

" Well, go to the ball with me to-night, won't you ? " he pleaded.

" Yes, if you never speak about this to me again."

He promised ; of course he promised. Stand ing where he did he would have promised anything.

It was a singular and lovely ball. The people came together simply and quietly, on foot, or on the tinkling mule-car.

There were no ultra-fashionable dresses, and no jewelry. The men came in various cuts of coats, and the girls wore simple white, or blue or mauve dresses, beneath which their lithe un- trammeled waists and firm rounded limbs moved with splendid grace.

It was plain all were not practised dancers. Some of the young men danced with hands waggling at the wrist, and the girls did not know all the changes, but laughter was hearty and without stint.

Around the walls sat or stood the parents of the dancers, dignified business men and their wives, keen-eyed farmers and village merchants and lawyers. There were also the alumni from all over the West, returned to take part in the

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exercises, to catch a glimpse of the dear old campus. It was all a renewal of youth to them. Many came from the prairies. Some came from the bleak mountain towns, and the gleam of the lakes, the smell of grass, the dapple of sunlight on the hillside affected them almost to tears. Now they danced with their wives and were without thought or care of business.

Professors danced with their pupils, husbands with their wives, who had also been pupils here. Lovely, lithe young girls dragged their bearded old fathers out into the middle of the floor, amid much laughter, and the orchestra played "Money-Musk" and "Old Zip Coon" and " The Fireman's Dance " for their benefit.

Then the old fellows warmed up to it, and danced right manfully, so that the young people applauded with swift clapping of their hands. Plump mothers took part in the quaint old fashioned figures, and swung and balanced and " sashayed " in a gale of fun.

It was a beautiful coming together of the University. It represented the unspoiled neigh- borliness and sex camaraderie of the West. Its refinement was not finicky, its dignity was not frigidity, and its fun was frank and hearty. May the inexorable march of wealth and fashion pass by afar off, and leave us some little of these dear old forms of social life.

It had a tender and pensive quality, also. The

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old were re- living the past, as well as the young, and all had an unconscious feeling of the transi- toriness of these tender and careless hours. Smiles flashed forth on the faces of the girls like hidden roses disclosed in deep hedges by a pass ing wind-gust, to disappear again in pensive, thoughtful deeps.

Rose danced with Dr. Thatcher, who took occasion to say :

" Well, Rose, you leave us soon."

"Yes, to-morrow, Doctor."

"What are your plans ?"

"I do n't know; I must go home this summer. I want to go to Chicago next winter."

"Aha, you go from world to world. Rose, you will do whatever you dream of — provided you do n't marry." He said this as lightly as he could, but she knew he meant it.

"There isn't much danger of that," she said, trying to laugh.

"Well, no, perhaps not." They fell into a walk, and moved slowly just outside the throng of dancers.

"Now, mark you, I don't advise you at all. I have realized from the first a fatality in you. No one can advise you. You must test all things for yourself. You are alone ; advice cannot reach you nor influence you except as it appeals to your own reason. To most women marriage is the end of ambition, to you it may be an incen-

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tive. If you are big enough, you will succeed in spite of being wife and mother. I believe in you. Can 't you come and see me to-morrow ? I want to give you letters to some Chicago people."

The company began to disperse, and the sadness impending fell upon them all. One by one good-byes were said, and the dancers one and all slipped silently away into the night.

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CHAPTER XIII

THE WOMAN'S PART

It was all over at last, the good-byes, the tearful embraces, the cheery waving of hands, and Rose was off for home. There were other students on the train, but they were young students whom she did not know. At the moment it seemed as if she were leaving all that was worth while — five years of the most beautiful time of her life lay behind her.

She had gone there a country girl, scared and awkward. She was now a woman (it seemed to her) and the time for action of some sort had come. She did not look to marriage as a safe harbor. Neither had she regarded it as an end of all individual effort, as many of her compan ions unequivocally had done.

After her experiences during those last three days, she felt as if sex were an abomination, and she wished for freedom from love. She had already the premonition that she was of those who seem destined to know much persecution of men.

Her strong, forceful, full-blooded, magnetic

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beauty could not be hidden so deep under sober garments but that the ever-seeking male eye quickly discovered it. As she entered the car she felt its penetrating, remorseless glare, and her face darkened, though she was no longer exposed to the open insults of brakemen and drummers. There was something in the droop of her eyelids and the curve of her mouth which kept all men at a distance, even the most depraved. She was not a victim — a girl to be preyed upon. She was quite evidently a proud, strong woman, to be sued for by all flatteries and attentions.

The train whirled along over the familiar route, and the land was most beautiful. Fresh grass everywhere, seas of green flashing foliage, alternating with smooth slopes of meadow where cattle fed, yet she saw little of it. With sombre eyes turned to the pane she thought and thought.

What was to be done now ? That was the question. For a year she had been secretly writing verse and sending it to the magazines. It had all been returned to her. It made her flush hot to think how they had come back to her with scarcely a word of civility. Evidently she was wrong. She was not intended for a writer after all. She thought of the stage, but .she did not know how to get upon the stage.

The train drew steadily forward, and familiar

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lines of hill-tops aroused her, and as she turned her face toward home, the bent and grizzled figure of her father came to her mind as another determining cause. He demanded something of her now after nearly five year's absence from home, for he had paid