MEMOIRS OF A MILLIONAIRE


                                   BY

                            LUCIA TRUE AMES

             AUTHOR OF “GREAT THOUGHTS FOR LITTLE THINKERS”

[Illustration]

                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                     HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
                    =The Riverside Press, Cambridge=
                                  1889




                            Copyright, 1889,
                          BY LUCIA TRUE AMES.

                         _All rights reserved._


           _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
            Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.




                               Dedicated

                                   TO

                   MY ONLY BROTHER, CHARLES H. AMES.

Written for all men and women to whom the privilege of American
citizenship has been vouchsafed, and to whom the stewardship of wealth
has been entrusted.

[Illustration]




                           EDITOR’S PREFACE.


Since the recent death of the noble woman whose name has become a
household word all over our land, and whose memoirs form the subject of
this volume, I have been repeatedly importuned to give to the public
some account of her remarkable life.

It is too soon yet to present an adequate biography, and for such a task
I should consider myself entirely unfitted. I have, however, endeavored,
though somewhat hastily, to put together such material, chiefly
selections from newspaper reports, letters, and diaries, as shall throw
light upon the numerous projects that were the outcome of her thought
and generosity, and which in certain ways are unparalleled in the annals
of those whose wealth has been devoted to the cause of humanity.

Cut off in the full ripeness of early womanhood, her work was
nevertheless accomplished, and millions shall in the ages to come reap
perennial harvests from the seed which in one short year her wisdom and
foresight sowed far and wide.

The world at large will know somewhat of her work; but only to those who
knew her best, to whom she revealed the warmth and intensity of her
strong nature, can the full beauty of her life be known.

The constant, subtle charm of her manner, now gracious and dignified,
now unconsciously naive and simple, only a master could portray. I must
content myself, therefore, with giving, in simplest words, but a few of
the many reminiscences that memory brings back of those moments which
may serve to make clear the thoughts and purposes that were the
mainspring of all her action, and which made her what she was, the
noblest woman I have ever known.

I have hesitated about using the word “Memoirs” in the title of this
volume. That word has a somewhat doleful and funereal sound, suggestive
of anything but the bright, vigorous life of her who was so intensely
warm and alive. But perhaps there is no other word that so well
expresses what I have here put together, and so I leave it as I wrote it
first, “Memoirs of a Millionaire.”

 BOSTON, _June 7, 189–_.




                       MEMOIRS OF A MILLIONAIRE.




                               CHAPTER I.

  The class of which I speak make themselves merry without duties. They
  sit in decorated club-houses in the cities, and burn tobacco and play
  whist; in the country they sit idle in stores and bar-rooms, and burn
  tobacco, and gossip and sleep. They complain of the flatness of
  American life; America has no illusions, no romance. They have no
  perception of its destiny. They are not Americans.—EMERSON, _The
  Fortune of the Republic_.


It was on the evening of election day that I first saw her. I had come
up from Salem to Boston, to spend the night and hear Booth and Barrett
the next day, and I had gone to dine at aunt Madison’s on Louisburg
Square.

The lamps had not been lighted, and we were all sitting cosily around
the open grate after dinner, talking over the _matinée_, and jesting
with two or three of Will’s college friends who were there for the
evening, when the portière was noiselessly drawn aside, and Mildred
Brewster came in with a cheery good evening.

I can recall now just how she looked, as, after the introductions were
over, she stood leaning on the back of aunt Madison’s chair, with the
ruddy glow of the firelight on her face, and her lithe figure dimly
outlined against the shadowy background.

I did not notice her much at first, for, after her blithe greeting, on
seeing strangers she had drawn back into the shadow and sat so quietly
that I, carrying on a gay banter with the young men, had almost
forgotten her.

I do not remember what was said at first. It did not make much
impression on me at the time, until, after a while, the talk grew a
little more serious, and the young men began to speak of their plans for
the future. They were all seniors, and each of them, except Will, had
plenty of money in his own right, with apparently nothing in life more
burdensome to do than to draw checks and order dinners at Young’s.

They were a handsome trio, broad-chested, keen-eyed, clad in the
daintiest of linen from Noyes Brothers,—“the jolliest swells in the
class,” Will called them.

Aunt Madison asked them, apropos of the election, how they had voted,
for they were all residents of Boston and had passed their majority.
They were evidently rather amused at the query, but each and all
politely replied that they hadn’t much enthusiasm about voting, and it
having been a rainy day, they had not taken the trouble to go to the
polls.

“You see, the fact is,” said the young man with the blonde mustache whom
Will called Ned Conro, “voting is a confounded bore, any way.”

“But of course you have an interest in national politics, if not in
municipal affairs?” said aunt Madison, inquiringly, as she looked up
from her knitting and beamed benevolently at the young man through her
gold-bowed spectacles. “I suppose you young men at Harvard, with all
your study of history and political economy, are wide awake about all
these things.”

“Oh, we talk free trade and protection more or less, that is, the
fellows did who took that course of study last year. I don’t go in for
that sort of thing myself very much; my money isn’t in manufactures, and
I don’t care a continental about the tariff one way or the other. And as
for politics,—of course we all go in for the hurrah and fun in a
presidential campaign, but I don’t look forward to doing anything
further in that line after I graduate. It is all well enough for any one
who has a fancy for it and who wants to run for office, and that sort of
thing. But there can’t be more than two senators and one governor in a
state at a time, and anything less than that isn’t worth the trouble.

“I’ve mighty little respect for any man who condescends to be a ward
politician. Boston is an Irish city, after all, though last year some of
the better class got their blood up and had a clearing out; but the game
isn’t worth the candle, and I, for one, am willing to let the Irish go
the whole figure if they wish to do it. We can’t get rid of them, and it
doesn’t pay to mix up with them. I don’t propose to vote to have my
father, or any other gentleman of good old New England stock, sit beside
some liquor-seller or grocer as common councilman or alderman.”

“Neither do I,” ejaculated my _vis-à-vis_, whom Will had introduced as
Mr. Mather; “a fellow who begins to bother his head about all these
little twopenny municipal affairs only soils his hands for his pains,
and doesn’t improve matters one atom. It’s well enough to vote if one
wants to, but what does a single vote amount to? It counts no more when
cast by a Harvard professor than by some South Cove ‘Mick.’ Suppose Mr.
Smith and Mr. Brown are up for school committee; you don’t know a thing
about either of them, except that they are nominated by a set of rummies
and demagogues, or else by a lot of women or pious temperance cranks.
You are a professional man and your time is worth ten dollars an
hour,—you don’t care a fig about the whole school committee business
anyway; it’s the women’s affair—they can vote on that. Let them turn out
and manage it as they did last year, if they want to; but you can’t
expect a man to look after these matters, and be elbowed and hooted down
at the caucuses, if he has the tastes of a gentleman and all the
responsibilities of a profession or a large business on his shoulders.”

“The fact is that in municipal matters the ballot ought to be put on a
property basis, and until that is done, I shall bother myself precious
little about it,” remarked the third young gentleman, twirling his seal
and addressing his three feminine listeners.

I wondered why Mildred’s cheeks had grown so rosy and why her dark eyes
had such a gleam in them as she laid down the bit of embroidery on which
her fingers had been busy, and turned toward the speaker. “What a
profile!” I thought; “almost pure Greek, only the chin is a little too
square.”

“The truth is,” the young man continued, “we have no great men now and
no great issues, unless you call all this frenzy about the school
question a great issue. We’ve got to come to see that the government has
no right to tax its citizens to teach history, anyway. It’s an
imposition to tax a man to send some one else’s child to a high school.
Let the state give a child the three R’s, and then if he wants to learn
about Tetzel or Luther, let his father pay to have him taught in his own
way. Politics is no profession for a young man. There’s no great amount
of money in it, unless you’re mighty shrewd, and tricky, too; and as for
fame, the man must be pretty thick-skinned who can stand the pelting
which every reputation gets nowadays, and not wince under it. For my
part, I think democracy is a good deal played out. It was all right so
long as men _were_ equal; but we’re getting about as stratified a
society now as there is anywhere in the Old World; and there’s no use in
the sentimental every-man-a-brother kind of talk. I don’t propose to
shake the greasy hand of any of these beastly foreigners that are coming
here and crowding us to the wall. I don’t grudge them the rights of
American citizenship; they may have it and welcome, if they want it; but
where they step in I step out. In fact, I think I shall settle down in
Paris or Florence for a while. There’s lots more fun for a fellow over
there.”

There was more of this sort of talk. I watched Mildred’s face, and
noticed that her lips were twitching and her fingers playing nervously
with the fringe of a scarlet silk shawl which she wore. Evidently she
was under some stress of strong emotion, though for what reason I but
vaguely guessed. She had come out of the shadow, and stood tall and
stately, with her arm resting on the mantel and her eyes fixed on the
speakers with such a look as I had never before seen on any countenance.
There was anger and pity and contempt, strangely mingled, on her mobile
features. She had forgotten herself, and I think they were fairly
startled at the look they read in her tell-tale face.

Will made an attempt to change the subject, but Mr. Mather broke in:
“You look as though you did not agree with us, Miss Brewster. Come, we
have monopolized the conversation so far, now tell us what _you_ think.”

She did not speak at first, and there was an awkward silence for a
minute. When it was broken, her voice sounded so painfully hard and calm
in its effort not to tremble that I scarcely recognized it.

“Within two weeks,” she said, speaking slowly, “I have sat for five
hours face to face with the leading anarchists of New England. I have
questioned them, and they have told me frankly of their doctrines, which
you already know, and which, I scarcely need to say, I heartily detest.
But I have not heard, either from the lips of these misguided men or
from any one for many months, anything which has so shocked and
surprised me as what I have just listened to here.”

I felt that she was trembling as she spoke, but her voice was low and
quiet.

She continued: “When one is filled with indignation and grief it is
difficult to speak justly and wisely, and therefore, if you will excuse
me, I think that I will not trust myself to say anything further.”

“Good heavens!” cried Mr. Mather, staring at her in undisguised
amazement, while his companions glanced slyly at each other with faint
smiles and an evident endeavor to make the best of an embarrassing
situation.

“I think, dear, you had better tell them what you are thinking of, lest
they misunderstand you; of course you don’t mean that they are worse
than anarchists,” said aunt Madison, gently.

“No, not worse, but more to blame,” replied Miss Brewster, with
extraordinary candor, and then recollecting herself, a crimson tide
suddenly mantled her neck and cheek and brow, and she drew back again
into the shadow.

“I beg your pardon,” she stammered; and then with a little forced laugh
she added, “you see, you oughtn’t to have tempted me to speak. I was
sure to give offense if I spoke my thoughts.”

“Ah, but we can’t excuse you unless you go on,” said Ned Conro,
persuasively. “As for me, you have whetted my curiosity so that I shan’t
sleep a wink to-night,” he went on, with a twinkle in his eye, “unless I
know why my father’s son and heir, who has hitherto supposed himself to
be always on the side of law and order, is more to blame than these
foreign wretches who have come over here with the notion in their addled
heads that they are going to upset this nineteenth-century civilization
with a few ounces of dynamite.”

Mr. Gordon echoed Mr. Conro’s request, while a quizzical smile played
around his lips, and I knew as well as if he had told me, that he was
saying to himself, “Gad, she’s a specimen! One of these cranky
women’s-righters, no doubt. How they do like to hold forth! These girls
always spoil a fellow’s fun with their high and mighty theories and
ideas.” And this son of a quadruple millionaire thrust his hands deep
into the pockets of his English trousers and stretched himself
comfortably to listen, with all the complacent condescension of a man to
whom twenty-two years of experience and masculine wisdom gave a
consciousness of virtuous superiority.

The flush had faded from Mildred’s cheek, but I fancied from the look in
her eyes that she was in no mood to be trifled with; this was no mere
passing gust of passion. She had received a wound which had cut her to
the quick; for, as I afterwards learned to know, hers was one of those
rare natures, rare in men, rarer still in women, which scarcely feels a
personal slight, but to which a grand, absorbing idea is more real and
vital than all else, and which counts treason to this the unpardonable
sin.

“If I speak, I must speak plainly,” said Mildred. “I have neither time
nor wit to clothe my thoughts in ambiguous, inoffensive words. Like
plain, blunt Antony, I can only ‘speak right on’ and say ‘what in my
heart doth beat and burn.’”

“Good, I like that,” said Mr. Mather gravely, and there was an instant’s
silence, broken only by the chime of the cathedral clock as it struck
the hour.

“I have been thinking,” said Mildred quietly, “of those words in that
record of the young Hebrew, who, it is said, sold his birthright for a
mess of pottage. I have been thinking also of those words of our own
Emerson: ‘We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another name
for Opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of
Providence in behalf of the human race.’ Perhaps you do not see the
connection between these two thoughts, but to me it seems very close. To
have for one’s inheritance the birthright of American citizenship seems
to me something so rich and precious that to despise it and ignobly sell
it,—not like Esau for the mess of pottage which could relieve his
hunger,—but to sell it to the stranger for the sake of gaining immunity
from responsibility, yes, more than that, throwing it away out of sheer
contempt for it and ingratitude for what it has done for one, this seems
to me the acme of cowardice and selfishness.”

I noticed that Mr. Mather knit his brows at this, and I thought I
detected a slight flush in his cheeks, but perhaps it was only the
firelight. Mildred did not look up or hesitate, but went steadily on.

             “We sit here in the Promised Land
             That flows with Freedom’s honey and milk;
             But ’twas they won it, sword in hand,
             Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk.”

“Yes, they won it, not we; and we, the heirs of all the ages, for whom
the whole creation has groaned and travailed until now, we, the favored
children of the best age, the best land which history has known, we idly
fold our hands and let the wealth of all the past, which others have
toiled for and shed bloody sweat to gain, fall into our laps as a matter
of course, as if it were but the just due of such lordly creatures as
we.

“Of what value, pray, is all our study of history if we have so little
realizing sense of its meaning, if we have no imagination to fill out
with quivering, throbbing life this record of the past, which shows what
mankind has been, and what, thank God, we have escaped?

“Of what value are the sacrifices of those who at bitter cost bought us
our freedom and privilege, if we are so lost to all sense of honor as to
tacitly say, ‘everything has been done for us, to be sure, but we can’t
be expected to go out of our way to see that it is passed along to those
who are less favored’?”

Mr. Mather made a gesture of dissent and looked up as if to speak; but
Mildred did not notice him. She was gazing with fixed eyes into the
shadows, and seemed to have forgotten her little audience and to be
addressing herself to an unnumbered throng of unseen listeners. Her
bosom heaved and her breath came and went quickly as she went on with
her relentless sarcasm.

“Yes, our business as immortal sons of God is first of all to look out
for our precious selves. Let us all see to it that no annoying social or
economic questions shall disturb our minds. Let us not be distracted
from our culture and amusements by being forced to waste time in
settling the prosaic bread and butter problems of the ‘lower classes.’
Let us wash our hands of all responsibility. Why should we hold
ourselves debtors either to the Greeks or to the barbarians?

“Oh, we are not hard-hearted. We would live and let live. But we can
count it no part of our business to soil our fingers by lending a hand
to the poor wretch whose blind guide has led him into the miry ditch.

“Let him who ‘despises his birthright’ just think for an instant what
citizenship on the continent of Europe means. You talk about finding
‘more fun’ in Paris and Vienna than here, yes, to be sure; for there you
have nothing to do but to skim the cream of everything and dream away
your youth surrounded by all that the thought of the ages and modern
science can devise to stimulate your already fastidious palate. But
suppose you were a _citizen_ of Germany or Austria or Russia, and must
spend from three to six of the best years of your life in active service
in the army; suppose you were taxed to the extent of over thirty per
cent. of your earnings like the people of Italy; suppose you knew that
your country was growing poorer and taxation was on the frightful
increase as is the case in continental countries; suppose you were taxed
to support a church in which you did not believe, and a government which
granted you no representation; suppose privilege and prejudice hung like
a millstone round every effort for your social advancement!

“Why,” continued Mildred after a moment’s pause, “just imagine for an
instant all that is involved in the difference in comfort and mode of
life from the simple statement that during the ten years from 1870 to
1880, when the United States decreased its aggregate taxation nine per
cent., Germany increased hers over fifty per cent. Imagine, if you can,
what it means to the lives of millions of human beings when I say that
during a period when the wealth of Europe decreased per caput three per
cent. that of our country increased nearly forty per cent.

“It is one thing, I have found, to travel in Europe untaxed, unmolested,
and unaffected by that gloomy war cloud which continually hovers over
every nation; where, even in times of peace, one man out of twenty-two
is withdrawn from productive industries to train himself to destroy his
fellow-beings. It is quite another thing to be an irresponsible
traveler, free to come and go and say what he pleases.

“Let those who count their American citizenship of such slight worth
think what a delightful existence theirs would be if they were so
favored as to be one of the subjects of the Russian Tsar! Think of the
bliss of living in a land where one is never disturbed by the
encroachments of foreigners, or expected to attend caucuses and polls;
where, in fact, the less he knows about the government the better for
him and his! Fancy the pleasure in reading newspapers where the news of
the day is under such careful surveillance, through the kindness of the
censorship, that one is never disturbed by troublesome political
matters, and has always the calm consciousness that everything is going
well, although ninety per cent. of the hundred millions over whom the
Russian flag waves cannot write their names; where a man may not go from
one town to another without a passport; where for joining a club that
advocates a constitutional monarchy, as here you might join a club that
advocates Nationalism, you may be subject without a moment’s warning to
arrest and solitary confinement for a year or two without a trial! You
have read Kennan and Stepniak. You know these are hard facts.

“So when I see men who have been ground between the millstones of caste,
priestcraft, and governmental oppression come here and turn against all
government, I have less contempt and more patience for them than for the
young men of our land, who owe almost every blessing that they enjoy to
this government, and who from mere indolence and apathy choose to allow
the demagogue and ignorant alien to shape its destiny.

“You complain that we have a ‘stratified society.’ Are you not doing
your best to make it a stratified society and create a caste system when
you advocate a property qualification for the ballot, and would deny all
but the barest rudiments of education to the poor boy? One would think
that you had been brought up in a monarchy and did not realize that from
the people we must choose our legislators as well as our voters, and
that a system which can be tolerated in a country where rulers are
hereditary is most perilous for a government that is of ‘the people, by
the people, and for the people.’

“You say ‘there are no great men now,’ ‘no great issues.’ True, the war
is over, and Grant and Lincoln are dead, but

               ‘Life may be given in many ways,
               And loyalty to truth be sealed
               As bravely in the closet as in the field,
               So bountiful is fate.’

“I do not doubt if our flag were openly dishonored you, too, would
spring to arms and give your life-blood as heroically as those who fell
at Manassas or in the Wilderness.

“But how many young men have that kind of heroism that impels them to
devote their culture and ability to unostentatious, unceasing service to
the state, though it bring no glory or reward in fame or office? No, the
cowards are not so often to be found on the battlefield as at the
committee meeting and the caucus.

“True, there seems to be nothing sublime in being a faithful health
commissioner, an Anthony Comstock, a General Armstrong, or a Felix
Adler; nothing glorious in busying one’s self with such prosy things as
labor statistics and tenement houses, with prison reform and sewage and
primary schools and ward politics. ’Tis a thankless task, and the large
per cent. of our Boston legal voters who did not vote yesterday
doubtless think, if they think at all, that even the casting of a ballot
once or twice a year is too great a sacrifice of their valuable time,
and more than ought to be expected of men whose private and social
interests are of far more importance than the welfare of the body
politic.

“And as for caucuses, how preposterous to expect a man who has such
important matters as Art Club receptions, Psychical Research meetings,
and Longwood toboggan parties to attend, to spend one or two evenings a
year in the company of grocers and saloon-keepers, all for the sake of
defeating some lamplighter or pawnbroker who wants a nomination for the
city council! What difference does it make who is on the council,
provided taxes are not raised?

“Yes,” continued Mildred, and a shade of melancholy replaced the quiet
scorn in her tone, “the last thing that you or they ever dream of is
that you have a debt to pay and are basely repudiating it.”

The voice, whose tremor at last betrayed the intensity of the feeling
that had hitherto been carefully guarded, ceased, and suddenly starting
with a self-conscious look, and coloring deeply, Mildred glided softly
from the room. Aunt Madison followed her.

The fire had burned low and the light was dim. The young men had
forgotten me in the sofa corner.

There was not a word said for a minute or two as they sat looking into
the bed of coals and listening to the wind shuddering through the bare
branches of the elms outside. Mr. Mather sat leaning forward with his
elbows on his knees and his head on his hands; I could not see his face.
Presently he looked up and made a motion as if to speak, but apparently
he changed his mind, for he said nothing. At last Mr. Gordon’s voice
broke the silence.

“I say, Madison,” he asked, with a studiously polite manner, “who is
this charming Miss Brewster who has favored us with the benefit of her
views?”

“She is a sort of second cousin of my mother,” Will replied. “She has
just returned from abroad, and I haven’t seen much of her yet.”

“Well,” rejoined the other, “with your permission, I will venture to say
that with all due respect to your mother’s second or third cousin, I
would as lief hear it thunder as to hear her talk. Why can’t a pretty
woman let well enough alone and not go into hysterics over what she
doesn’t know anything about? You would think, to hear her go on, that
the country was going to the devil, and that we were the cause of it.”

“I wonder if all those facts about Russia and the thirty per cent.
taxation in Italy are really true,” interposed Mr. Conro, meditatively.
“She reeled off all those statistics like a schoolma’am saying dates.”

“They are true if she says so, you can bet your life on that,” answered
Will, thoroughly nettled. “Being out at Cambridge most of the time, I
haven’t seen much of her, and I never heard her say so much on any
subject before to-night. I was about as much surprised as you were at
her coming out in that way; but if you and Gordon think she is the kind
of girl to go into hysterics over nothing, you are mightily mistaken.
Most people talk for the sake of talking, but I’ve seen enough of her to
know that when she says a thing it stands for something. What you said
hurt her in a way a fellow like you can’t understand. You’ve no interest
in a girl who has any notions beyond flattering you into thinking you
are the most stunning fellow going.”

“Beg pardon,” drawled Gordon, “but”—

“Hold on there,” interposed Mr. Mather, grimly; “you’ve said enough.
What she said was solid gospel, and you know it as well as I do.”




                              CHAPTER II.

  The books of Scripture only suffer from being subjected to
  requirements which we have ceased to apply to the books of common
  literature.—DEAN STANLEY, _History of the Jewish Church_.

  The Protestant Reformation shows how men tried to lodge infallibility
  in the Bible.... The great point of our present belief is that there
  is no such infallible record anywhere in church or council or
  book.—PHILLIPS BROOKS, _Harvard Divinity Address, 1884_.


                                  BOSTON, _Jan. 6._ 25 Louisburg Square.

JESSIE DEAR,—I have been sitting for the last half hour in the broad,
cushioned window-seat of my cosy attic room, looking far out over the
mass of chimney-tops to the towers and spires beyond the hill and the
Public Garden.

I love to sit here quietly on Sunday afternoons, and when the sunset
comes I throw aside my books and watch the shifting, brilliant colors
turning the blue Charles into a sheet of glimmering gold and dyeing with
rosy hues the snowy slopes of Corey Hill beyond.

Have you been away so long as to have forgotten these dear old sights?
And do you recall that on this western slope of Beacon Hill from which I
write to you lived the hermit Blackstone of Shawmut, before Winthrop or
any Puritan had thought of settling Boston town?

I like old places. I like to be on the oldest spot in this old, historic
town, as you may easily imagine, remembering all my antiquarian
enthusiasm when we were at school. Well, I have not outgrown it in the
least, in spite of all my modern radicalism about many things.

I wonder, dear, what all these ten years have brought to you. I have
been sitting and thinking, as the sunset glow has faded in the western
sky, all its glory turning so soon to dull, cold gray, how in these few
minutes the past years seem typified. What glorious visions, what
radiant achievements illumined the heavens when we looked at them with
the eyes of eighteen! What would we not, what could we not, dream of
doing then? I remember how you vowed that I was a genius, and were sure
that ten years would not pass before I should win renown. And now,
to-night, on my twenty-eighth birthday, I sit here as dull and prosy and
commonplace a spinster as one can well find in this city of spinsters.

After one is twenty-five and the birthdays begin to be a little
unwelcome, I suppose one is apt to be made a little morbid by them,
though I solace myself by thinking that since college girls in these
days rarely finish their studies before twenty-two, twenty-eight does
not seem so ancient as it was once thought to be.

How strange that we should have known so little of each other, we who
vowed that “ocean-sundered continents” should never make our girlhood’s
love less warm! But after your change of name and transfer to the China
Mission, while I was at Smith College, I lost sight of you, and, missing
your letters, knew not where to write. So you will understand my long
silence and know that the Mildred of ten years ago is the same Mildred
to-day, only no longer a girl, but a woman.

A woman, with many ambitions unsatisfied, with many heroes dethroned,
but with the same loves and hopes and fears, and with the same ideals,
although their attainment seems farther off with the growing years.

I have slowly come to recognize and be reconciled to my mediocrity; to
know that I have not had a thought but has been common to humanity; that
I am no whit wiser or better than all my fellows; and that what you in
girlish enthusiasm flattered me into believing was creative power was
simply a capacity to appreciate and be moved by what was great.

I have longed for power, but, believe me, not for name or fame. Simply
to have had the consciousness in myself that the world was better and
wiser for my having lived would have made all drudgery and toil a joy
and privilege. But the blessedness of giving and doing in a large
measure has not been granted to me. Not that I blame fate or
circumstance or environment. I have had health and freedom and friends;
no hindrances and no great sorrows since mother left me alone five years
ago.

The failure lies with myself alone. Sometimes there has been an
unutterable loneliness and a longing for something, I know not what; but
I suppose it must be for the love which has not yet come to me, and
which now may never come.

But I do not let that burden me overmuch. I have my daily task. I love
my work; and here, among my books, I thankfully count myself rich indeed
in the society of all the great and wise and good of whose treasures I
am the happy heir. I have traveled, too, and seen the Old World cities
and the castles, palaces, and ruins of which we used to dream. It was
not exactly the blissful experience I had fancied, for I was doomed to
be the companion of a stupid old dowager whose money bought my time and
service, and to whom I was useful as an interpreter of the arts and
languages with which she was unfamiliar.

I saw a great deal and learned some things. It helped me a little
towards reaching that goal of culture at which I aim, whence I can truly
say that “I count nothing human foreign to me.” It helped to free me
somewhat from the narrowness of my age and environment. I have become a
little more of a Greek, a little less of a rugged Goth. Not that mere
travel did this; if my eyes had not begun to be opened before, I should
have seen nothing. I have verified nothing more thoroughly than
Emerson’s saying, “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful
we must carry it with us or we find it not.”

I miss the picturesqueness and the charm of the Old World life. I am
surprised to find how shocked and annoyed I am at the crudities and
Philistinism of which I was once oblivious. But, after all, I am glad to
be back; glad to be in the current of real life again, and to take my
share in it. It is worth something to live in a land where one does not
have to despise the men or pity the women; where a man is not ashamed to
be seen carrying his own baby; where a girl can walk the streets alone
and unmolested, and where a lady can earn her daily bread and be thought
a lady still.

I have a quiet home with my mother’s cousin—“auntie,” I call her; and I
have settled down to steady work with a concert or play or toboggan
party to give it a little zest now and then. My classes take me to
Dorchester and Cambridge and Longwood. Once a week I meet a score or so
of our Boston society women in a Commonwealth Avenue drawing-room, who
manage, among their thousand and one lectures, lessons, and engagements
of every sort, to squeeze in an hour to hear me discourse on the topics
of the day, when I try to teach them about some phases of our nineteenth
century life of which they, like most women, know but little. As these
ladies include all shades of religious and political belief and
non-belief, I have to choose my words, as you may imagine.

I write a little occasionally for the “Transcript” or “Woman’s Journal,”
or some other equally inoffensive and unremunerative sheet. I visit my
North Enders, and think I am doing God more service in trying to keep
some of my small Hibernians from being sent to the Reform School than I
ever used to accomplish in teaching Jewish history at the Mission.

I have given up Sunday-school work. Not that I disbelieve in it, but I
find myself less and less able to adapt myself to the requirements of
superintendents and “lesson helps,” and my conscience now forbids me to
teach what I could once repeat so glibly and confidently.

Yes, let me say it frankly,—though I fear it will greatly shock you, you
dear, pious soul,—I have gone over to the “New Theology,” and I have
gone so far and so irrevocably that but few of those churches where my
childhood’s faith is still believed dare open their doors to me.

I wonder if you can conceive how painful it has been to me to find the
friends for whom I care most condemning as irreligious every thoughtful
man or woman who ventures to treat the Hebrew scriptures in a reasonable
way.

My last Sunday-school class was in the home school, where I had bright
girls of sixteen. I did my best to make the Bible a living book to them,
to make them study the history of the Jews in the same natural and
enthusiastic way that they studied their Greek history at school, but I
soon found that they considered this sacrilegious. They looked at me
with cold, critical glances when I tried to spiritualize their “Gates
Ajar” idea of heaven. I found that they had gone home and told their
mothers that I did not believe in God or heaven or hell, and, to my
bitter mortification and dismay, they left me one by one until I was
alone.

Doubtless I had little wisdom. I was trying to teach them in a few
months what it had taken me years of growth to reach. In trying to
disabuse them of their anthropomorphic notions of God, I had succeeded
in making Him only a nonentity to them. In taking away a literal Garden
of Eden and the serpent, and substituting a theory of evolution, I had,
in their imaginations, abolished all inspiration and moral
responsibility. Not that they were girls who troubled themselves very
much about such things; they could dance and flirt as well as the best;
but as for really daring to face the evidence on such matters, that was
wicked and dangerous, in their opinion.

Nor was this all. One good old clergyman, to whose church I brought a
letter of recommendation, and who after my candid talk felt obliged to
deny me a welcome, said, with tears in his eyes, that he hoped my
mother’s prayers would save me.

It made me feel forlorn and homesick for a while. I like the strength,
sincerity, and earnestness which the old faith gave, and I cannot
lightly break away from it. I hate the lukewarmness and apathy of many
of the more radical faith, and I cannot make up my mind to cast my lot
with them. Besides, I have a half fear that, after all, they have not
begun, even intellectually, to probe to the bottom these great historic
beliefs on which the church has stood for ages. I fear that they treat
them too cavalierly, too superficially. I find about as much intolerance
among the so-called liberals as among the conservatives.

To me sin is not an ailment to be cured with sugared plums. The
Puritanism in me rebels at the weakness and flabbiness of many who have
left the old faith for a broader one. However much my mind is forced to
accept their doctrine, my sympathies abide with the men of moral
earnestness who still think it their business to be “saving souls.”

To me the doctrine of the Trinity is something more than a mathematical
absurdity, as the men of one party say; and, on the other hand,
something more than an inscrutable mystery to be accepted without deep
philosophic study, as the men of the other party hold.

I pity and long to help the poor souls groping for some solution of the
religious problems peculiar to our day. There are thousands of them—more
than any one knows—inside the fold of the church itself, fed, but not
nourished, and famishing for the kind of food which their good pastors
know not how to give.

How many times I have gone to church bewildered, utterly wretched, my
soul crying out for the living God, and listened to a cheap, well-meant
discourse against “Ingersoll, Emerson, and all other unbelievers in the
inspired Word of God,” with an earnest exhortation to refrain at our
peril from “searching into what are the hidden mysteries.”

I understood the preacher’s standpoint, poor soul! I respected him and
his effort, but oh, how helpless he was to do anything for me who could
detect the sophistry and lack of discrimination in all this talk!

Oh, if I could help those who have been driven to question the whole of
truth, when they thus find out a part of it to have been crude or false!
And I pity almost as much the many timid ones who, like myself, are
longing to stay in the mother church, to that end being sorely tempted
to quibble with creeds, but who find no place either in or out of the
church which would exactly express their true religious attitude.

How strange all this must seem to you, who used to feel that heaven and
earth might fall, but that I should never give up my faith.

No, please God, I shall never give up faith, nor hold less faithfully to
the eternal verities which alone make life worth living. Never have I
felt more deeply than to-day the truth of the old words of the
catechism, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
But I do not hold that keeping the faith is an adherence to any creed or
an absolute acceptance of any book, even if it be the Book of books.

I have come to feel that the teaching of my childhood which made
historic facts, or what were assumed to be historic facts, of equal
importance with the eternal and immutable laws of moral and spiritual
growth,—I have come, I say, to feel that his was false. Ah me, the pity
of it!

I write you all this because I want you to know the strongest reason
that has prevented me from following in your footsteps and, as I once
dreamed of doing, giving myself up either at home or abroad to the grand
missionary work which still seems to me the most satisfying kind of work
in the world. No, I cannot be a missionary; I think I shall never dare
to teach any one; I don’t know how; but, thank God, I have come to see a
little more clearly some truths to which I think it is possible for the
human mind to attain. The vision thus gained, though still at times a
fleeting one, has, I firmly believe, placed me forever beyond the reach
of the nightmare of doubts and mortal terrors which first assailed me
after I dared trust myself to think and question.

No one, not bred in a New England home with all the Puritan traditions
imbibed with every breath, can realize the fever and despair that I have
felt more than once after I dared to think and face the result of my
thought. But that torture can never come again. Not that I have relapsed
into indifference or have heeded the pleadings of my devout friends to
“only believe,” that so I might dread my doubts as impious and accept
without question the creed of my fathers. No! Kant, Hegel, and Fichte,
Carlyle and Emerson, Robertson, Stanley, Phillips Brooks, and, more than
all, the unprejudiced study of the Bible itself, have kept me from that.

I no longer tremble at the question whether the record of the miracles
be fact or no; it touches not my spiritual life. The baby born next door
yesterday is a greater miracle to me than Lazarus raised from the dead;
the morning’s breakfast turned into vital force that guides this hand as
marvelous as water changed to wine. Whether the resurrection of Jesus be
literal fact or not, it in no wise affects my immortality. My faith
rests on something surer than the accuracy of any historic fact.

Are you shocked? Yes, doubtless, for so should I have been once. I do
not expect you to understand me yet, unless you too have been climbing
up to the light by the same path in which I have been led. You will
think that I have been venturing on dangerous ground, but I could not
write to you without granting your request to tell you how it was with
me in my inmost self.

You ask whether I am married or am going to be. The first question I
have answered; as to the second, the most that I can say is that when a
woman has lived a dozen years beyond sweet sixteen and has never been
very deeply in love, it argues either that she has lived like a nun, or
something rather uncomplimentary to her heart, and that there is
precious little prospect of her ever finding the right one after that.

They say no woman ever fails of some time having at least one suitor.
Well, I have had my one. A burly, broad-chested business man he was,
with very decided ideas about protection and mining stock, with a good
deal of amused wonder at my independence of thought and action, and a
chivalrous old-fashioned pity for gentlewomen who had to earn their
living. He felt pretty desperately when I said “no,” and I had to say it
three or four times before he could believe it, for he had been so sure
that a poor young creature like me must long for his strong arm and good
bank account to shield her from the “world’s cold blasts.” I did like
him, I confess, but not enough; not as I must love the one to whom I
would gladly, heartily, pledge my whole self for life.

So, one bright spring day he sailed away for South America and never
returned. He married a Spanish wife, I hear, who will inherit his
millions, for he made shrewd investments and became enormously wealthy.
The “Herald” had a dispatch yesterday morning announcing his death from
sunstroke. It gave me a shock. Yes, he was a good man, and I did like
him; but I am glad I am not his widow in spite of his millions.

We were talking at lunch to-day about wealth, and when I answered the
question “How much money would you wish for if you could have your
wish?” by saying “Twenty-five millions,” every one looked aghast.

“What, _you_, Mildred, of all persons! Why, you never cared for diamonds
or horses or yachts or anything grand,” exclaimed one.

“What in the world would you do with it?” asked another. “You couldn’t
spend half a million with your modest tastes, and the rest would be
simply a dead weight. You would be bored to death with lawyers and
beggars, and have brain fever in six weeks.”

“Oh no,” interposed a third; “she would buy shoes for all the barefoot
children, and build colleges from Alaska to Key West.”

“If you were like most people you would find it the hardest thing in the
world to spend your money wisely,” said auntie, sagely.

So I kept my counsel and said nothing. I can’t help wishing, though, to
know what will become of these millions which I might have had by saying
that one little word five years ago. It seems to me I should not be
utterly at a loss to find some wise uses for them, and it would not be
by building colleges which are not needed, or by encouraging
pauperism....




                              CHAPTER III.

                  (Extract from the “Boston Herald.”)

  MILDRED’S MILLIONS.—BOSTON’S BEAUTIFUL BELLE FALLS HEIRESS TO A
    FORTUNE ESTIMATED AT THIRTY MILLIONS! MISS MILDRED BREWSTER THE SOLE
    HEIRESS.


When the rumor in yesterday’s South American despatches hinted that the
colossal fortune amassed by the late Mr. William Dunreath was, according
to his will, to be transferred _in toto_ to a Boston lady, when
moreover, on investigation, the name of the aforesaid lady was disclosed
by her lawyer, an enterprising representative of the “Herald” was not
long in finding his way to the residence of this favored daughter of
fortune.

Two other journalists, with pencil and pad in readiness, arrived almost
simultaneously and were shown into the reception room.

Miss Brewster was out.

Would her ladyship soon return?

That was doubtful.

A skillful use of some of Uncle Sam’s coin, however, secured an “aside”
in the library with the sable domestic whose acquaintance with desirable
facts proved a godsend.

“Was Miss Brewster young?”

Certainly. She had just celebrated her twenty-fourth birthday, or, to
quote our informant more literally, “Yes, sah, she is done gone
twenty-fo’ shuah, fo’ I made her buffday cake.”

“Was Miss Brewster handsome?”

In response to this momentous question this jewel of a Chloe produced
from a corner of the library a photograph album containing two cabinet
photographs, taken in Boston and Paris respectively, and representing
one of the most attractive types of petite female beauty. One picture
was taken in a jaunty riding habit, displaying to good advantage a
slender, trim figure, with a graceful poise to a very pretty head, and a
pair of fascinating dark eyes looking frankly at you from under the
hat-brim. The other was in a white evening dress modestly covering the
sloping shoulders, the hair worn Pompadour, and no ornaments save
flowers. There was a delicacy and refinement indicated in the small ear
and sensitive mouth, which betokened generations of the best blood and
culture. It was gratifying to perceive that the enviable possessor of
one of the largest private fortunes in New England was evidently richly
endowed by nature with every charm which could lend grace to the
brilliant position in society that she without doubt is destined to
fill.

The “Herald” representative inquired further as to the past history of
Miss Brewster, and learned that she was the only child of a physician,
was born in Cambridge, has spent some years in foreign travel and study
under the chaperonage of a distinguished leader of society, was
presented at the Court of St. James, and received marked attention from
some of the scions of the oldest and noblest houses of England.

She is supposed to have had a small independent fortune of her own, but
having literary and philanthropic tastes, has quietly devoted herself to
study and works of charity, thus depriving society of one peculiarly
fitted to be one of its brightest ornaments.

The connection between the defunct millionaire and the charming girl
upon whom he has lavished all his wealth seems hard to prove. From all
that could be learned, however, it seems conclusive that an engagement
existed between them, and that the death of Mr. Dunreath was a great
shock to the fortunate lady of his choice. In the absence of any family
or near relatives, Mr. D. being an only son and a bachelor, she will
find no one to dispute the will. This latter point was confirmed by her
lawyer, Mr. Kilrain, of No. 55 Pemberton Square, who, however, remained
very provokingly non-committal on all other points of interest,
intimating that he was thus obeying the instructions of his fair client,
who modestly wishes to avoid the sudden notoriety which her fortune will
necessarily bring upon her.

A call on some of her co-workers in the Associated Charities revealed
the fact that Miss Brewster is ardently absorbed in her work, and has
been peculiarly successful in winning the hearts of the street _gamins_
in her district. She is interested in various charities, and it is
anticipated that her increased wealth will not lessen the time nor the
interest which she has devoted to her various benefactions.

It was intimated from one source that Miss Brewster holds very
pronounced views upon women’s rights, and will probably use a great part
of her wealth in advancing the cause of female suffrage, but this we are
loth to believe.

(Extract from the “Boston Globe.”)

... After waiting an hour and calling at three different times, the
representative of the “Globe” was finally so fortunate as to encounter
the fair lady in whom the public is now feeling so warm an interest. She
had just returned home, and was standing in the hall with her little
toque of wine-colored velvet still crowning her chestnut tresses, and
her tall, stately figure draped from head to foot in a fur-trimmed cloak
of the same shade.

She received the “Globe” representative most courteously, ushering him
into a cosy little reception room, and meanwhile drawing off the _gants
de suede_ which encased her shapely hands. She seemed nervous and tired,
but had a brilliant color which deepened perceptibly when requested to
grant an interview. The involuntary look of surprise and _hauteur_ which
accompanied this only enhanced her beauty, but quickly recovering
herself she replied without embarrassment that there was nothing
whatever that she wished to state to the public. She had not been
apprised of the nature of the will until within three days. Since then
she had been overwhelmed with business arrangements, and was very tired
and wished to see only her intimate friends.

One question, however, she so far forgot herself as to answer, namely,
as to whether she should change her residence. She replied that she
purposed soon to leave town for an indefinite period. A further question
designed to draw out some information regarding her acquaintance with
Mr. Dunreath, whom it is certain she has for a long time corresponded
with, met with no reply beyond “I will bid you good evening.”

Miss Brewster is certainly a very prepossessing lady. In addition to her
beauty her voice is particularly well modulated and pleasing. She is
decidedly above the medium height, and has a queenly air combined with a
brisk, business-like manner, which gives evidence that she is at once a
lady and a shrewd woman of the world,—an indication of anything but the
helpless state into which most inexperienced women would have been
thrown at so sudden and astounding a change of fortune.

In the gaslight and with such a color Miss Brewster had the appearance
of being not over twenty-three; we learn, however, on unquestioned
authority from a former schoolmate of hers, that she is just twenty-six,
having had a birthday last week.

Miss Brewster is said to be a very devout church-woman of the
ritualistic type, and usually attends the Church of the Advent.

The Hub is certainly to be commiserated at the prospect of so soon
losing a lady who would otherwise become one of its most admired belles
as well as a leader of its most cultured society, and we trust that her
stay though indefinite may not be prolonged.


Three of the one hundred and twenty-seven letters received by Miss
Brewster during the first week after the above newspaper extracts
appeared will serve as types of the whole.

LETTER NO. I.

                                            JONESPORT, PA., _Jan. — 18—_

 DEREST MISS BREWSTER HONORED MISS

God has been verry bountiful too you truly and no doubt your kind heart
is greatful for all his Mercies and anxshus to do your part in relieving
the wos of humanity. Henceforth your couch is down and your pathway
strude with roses. You have more money than you know what too do with
and will take it kindly for me suggest a most useful and feesable way to
do the greatest good to the greatest number which is the Christian’s
vitle breath. My dorter Rose Ethel Bangs is just turned sixtine and is
as smart and handsum a girl as ever trod shu lether. She is awful
musicle and is just dying to get a chance to go to the Boston
Conservatory, she plays the banjo best of anybody in the county and has
given solo peices at some of the best concerts she plays the melodeon at
meeting and the best critics say her voice is amazing a professor from
Philadelfy said he had heard a great many voices but he never heard a
voice that was as strong as her voice. A yere’s residens in Boston would
complete her education she has a young gentleman second cousin who is
anxshus to show her about to see the sites and 300 dollers with what her
pa can raise would just about do the bizness now dear miss when you have
it in your pour to bestough such a blessing how can you refrane. We
shall bless you and my dorter will be a credit to you and a jewel in the
crown which our Heavenly father will bestough on all who remember the
proverb it is more blessed to give than to receive.

                                   Yours with love and regards
                                                   MRS. MATTIE T. BANGS.

P. S. I send Bose Ethel’s tintype took when she was fourtine she wears
her hair up now.

LETTER NO. II.

                                             NEW YORK, N. Y., —— Street.

 DEAR MISS BREWSTER:

Permit me at this moment of your joy and unprecedented good fortune to
present to you my most heartfelt congratulations.

Perhaps you may not recollect my humble self, as you always impressed me
with such a sense of awe and dignity that I dared not venture to
disclose to you the _profound_ admiration which I have always felt for
your _exalted_ character.

Rarely have I known such a nature as yours. One so endowed with all the
charms and graces of a _goddess_ and a _saint_ it has never been my
fortune to meet. Do not think I am flattering you, _mon ange_; but ever
since the first moment when my eyes fell on your face suffused with dewy
tears, as you bade good-by to your native land, you have been the ideal
of my fondest dreams.

I sailed with you on the steamer, like you bound for those shores of
mystery and delight which from childhood’s hour had haunted my
imagination, now _hélas!_ never to be revisited, for I—how can I say
it?—have been doomed by fate to lose _all_ that is most dear to me.

I had kept my diamond earrings until the last, but yesterday even those,
my last precious treasures, had to be sacrificed. How can I relate to
you the story of our disgrace!

A year ago papa failed, and we were obliged to leave our palatial home
on Fifth Avenue and betake ourselves to a small hotel on W. Ninth
Street. I nearly cried my eyes out. I spent days and nights in weeping
over our sad fortunes, and as one by one I was obliged to surrender the
darling treasures of happier days I felt that if this were to go on I
should either become a _hopeless wreck_ with shattered nerves and end my
days in a lunatic asylum, or else that rather than suffer the mental
torture which I had endured I should with my own hand take the life
which was a _curse_ to me.

Everything has gone from bad to worse, though I have fought against fate
with all the passion of _desperation_. Our friends have deserted us;
that is, all the young society which I care about and really need to
keep up my spirits and make me cheerful. I can find no congenial society
in the class with whom I am doomed to associate, and so I keep my room,
and solace my sad hours with works of fiction, which for the time being
take me out of myself, and with fancy work, which is the one little link
that connects me with my happy past.

But now a crisis has come in papa’s affairs. He is offered a position in
Jersey City, and compels us to go with him to this _odious_ place, to
live in a second or third rate boarding-house, away from everything that
makes life endurable.

I _cannot_ do it. I should simply be burying myself alive. To one of my
sensitive temperament the shock would be too great, and I know that I
should become but a wreck of my former self.

I have racked my brains and tossed on my sleepless pillow many a night,
endeavoring to solve the problem that is before me.

This morning a ray of light dawned upon the gloom which has enshrouded
me. I picked up the morning paper and read the delightful announcement
of the good fortune which has come to you. My heart throbbed with
sympathetic joy, _mon amie_, to think that in this desolate world at
least one whom I loved was _completely_ happy.

The report says that you are soon to go abroad. Like an inspiration the
thought came to me, “Oh, if only I could go with her as a _companion_!”
The thought fairly suffocated me. Once the idea of attempting to go as a
paid companion, of accepting money for services rendered, no matter how
valuable they might be, would have brought the blush to my cheek. But my
pride has been humbled, and though even now I could not do it for every
one, for _you_ whom I _adore_ it would seem no sacrifice but a
privilege.

I could be of invaluable service to you in shopping and in visiting
galleries. I speak French perfectly, and could play whist or sing to you
when you are tired. I know how to arrange flowers, to design toilettes,
to order dinners, and can read aloud without fatigue. I could relieve
you of all care, and this you will certainly require, as so many new
cares have devolved upon you, and you must be distracted with all the
new things you have to order and to attend to.

What steamer shall you take? I like the North German Lloyd best,—don’t
you?

I can be ready at a moment’s notice. I await your answer in an _agony_
of suspense.

                                          Yours devotedly,
                                                      M. JEANETTE MASON.

LETTER NO. III.

                                                    E. GAINSBOROUGH, VT.

 MISS BREWSTER:

DEAR MISS,—No doubt you will be very much surprised to get a letter from
me for you don’t know me at all and I don’t know you at all and I
persume you are not used to getting letters from strangers. But you are
a rich kind lady and as a last resorse I turn to you for my heart is
bleeding and my friends can’t do no more for me. I am an inventor as you
will be surprised to learn. Ever since I was able to hold a jack knife
and whittle I have been whittling out things and making inventions. Some
folks say I am a genius and if I had my rights I should be rolling in
welth and be able to keep a horse and carriage.

My inventions have been about all sorts of things. I almost got a patent
for a clothes-wringer but a mean sneak of a fellow stole it from me
taking the bread from my children’s mouths. My wife took in sewing and
washing and the children milked the cow and kept the garden running and
sometimes I got odd jobs. But a month ago Susie and Jimmie took sick
with scarlet fever and wife she was up with them night and day and she
took sick too and first Jimmie died and then Susie, and mother the next
day.

I did the best I could and the neighbors was kind and came in spite of
its being so catching.

But now there all gone and nobody but the baby and me is left. He had it
light and wan’t down but a day or two. I feel most crazy when I think of
it all and wonder what I’m going to do. The neighbors cooked up some
vittles for a few days but there poor too and I can’t count on them for
doing much.

I’ve got to do something right off and I an’t a cent of money more than
enough to pay the postage of this letter.

Last night when Mis deacon Allen went by with the newspaper she had got
to the P. O. she stopped and read me all about your getting rich so
sudden and she said to me brother Silas if I was you I’d just write to
that Miss Brewster and if she’s a woman with a heart in her she’ll feel
for that poor motherless little feller there a toddlin about, and you
with your hands tied sos you cant leave him a minute. I’d take him
myself said she if my hands wasnt tied too. Which is true enough for
shes five of her own and one adopted.

Now Miss Brewster if you could take my baby for a while, his name is
Orlando and he is 18 months old and help me make a man of him and get on
my feet a little and carry out a scheme I’ve got for an improved churn
I’d thank you to my dying day. I aint a great hand at farm work for I
cut my foot in a mowing machine and have been lame ever since and my
hearing is bad. So you see there aint much I can do except invent and
sometimes if it want for the inventing I think Id rather die. But I do
feel sure sometime if I can only get a chance I can invent something
that will sell and then I can repay you.

If you send for Orlie to go to Boston I must stay there too. I couldn’t
bear to be so far away from him. I should die of lonesomeness. Couldn’t
you get me a chance there? I am forty-six years old and a professor.[1]

                                        Yr. ob’t servant,
                                                        SILAS KITTREDGE.

Footnote 1:

  Of religion.—ED.




                              CHAPTER IV.

  Notwithstanding all that England has done for the good of India, the
  missionaries have done more than all other agencies combined.—LORD
  LAWRENCE, in 1871.

  ... all this is very surprising when it is considered that five years
  ago nothing but the fern flourished here; native workmanship taught by
  the missionaries has effected this change; the lesson of the
  missionaries is the enchanter’s wand.... I look back to but one bright
  spot in New Zealand, and that is Waimate with its Christian
  inhabitants.—CHARLES DARWIN, _Journal of Researches in Natural History
  and Geology_.


                  EXTRACT FROM MISS BREWSTER’S DIARY.

For the first time since the lawyer’s call a week ago I sit down to
collect my wits after this whirl of excitement, and, like the old woman
in the nursery rhyme, ask myself if it can be that I am really I.

I am frightfully tired, and it may be childish to write this all out for
no one’s eye but my own. I cannot sleep, however, and I feel as if it
would be a relief and might cool the fever in my veins to calmly make a
record of some of the momentous events of these last few days. So many
things are crowding upon me that I fear my mind will be a chaos if I do
not attempt something like this to help me to quiet and arrange my
thoughts.

When Mr. Kilrain came with the cablegram and letters, I neither laughed
nor cried nor fainted. I was perfectly calm. I did not realize it in the
least, just as a girl never realizes what it all means when she kneels
before the altar as a bride, or when she stands beside the dead white
face that she has loved.

After the real meaning of the thing dawned upon me and I began to
comprehend that I, whose golden dreams had been quietly put aside
forever, was now actually to realize those dreams, to exchange prose for
poetry, and insignificance and uselessness for tremendous power such as
I had always longed for,—when the possibilities of it all came over me
and I saw that I could now actually build all my air castles on this
earth, besides doing many other things of which I have dreamed,—it gave
me at first a thorough ague fit, followed by a burning fever which
nothing could allay until I had seen my will written, signed, and
witnessed.

Every one thought it such an odd thing for me to think of at first.
Auntie said, “Wait and take time to think it over, dear. You are
laboring under a nervous strain now; wait and rest and enjoy yourself a
little while. Go to Hollander’s and order a fine outfit. I will help you
find a French maid, for you will need one, of course; then travel after
that, if you like. Take time to make up your mind. It isn’t possible for
you to know how to spend such an enormous sum wisely without great
thought.”

I could find no rest, however, until I had put beyond a peradventure the
danger of my dying and leaving nothing done towards carrying out all the
projects which have been so dear to me.

My will is made, and though I may change it next week,—doubtless I shall
change it more than once as I get more wisdom,—I know that it is in the
main as I shall let it stand.

Mr. Kilrain’s partner and uncle Madison start at once for South America
to look after my interests, and transfer my stocks and landed property
as soon as possible into our government and railroad bonds. I cannot
bear to feel that I am employing hundreds of people whom I do not know,
and who may suffer from the extortion of villainous agents and overseers
whom I cannot control. If I could go to South America myself, and if I
understood enough of business to administer my affairs personally, I
might, perhaps, do as much good by giving employment to great numbers of
people there, and treating them in a helpful Christian fashion, as by
anything that I can do at home.

But it would take me ten years at least to learn the language and know
the people and the business merely in its outlines. My lawyers say it
would require half a dozen of the shrewdest men simply to make
investments and oversee the overseers, and I can foresee that a woman
dependent on lawyers and agents is in no wise to be envied. So I am
determined to free myself from these worries as to the details of making
money, and devote my whole energies to making this fortune, which has so
strangely fallen to me, tell for good in the future of our country.

I am sure that nowhere else in Christendom can money be made to produce
such far-reaching results. Last night I lay awake for hours, planning
this work. My mind is made up. For the next few years I shall travel and
study, first, the resources and necessities of our own country, and
after that the social and economic questions in the Old World. Meanwhile
I shall begin to carry out some of my schemes at once, and not wait for
lawyers and trustees to squabble over my money after my death.

As I am planning to leave Boston soon, I determined to meet some of the
people whom I have chosen as trustees of certain funds. Accordingly I
invited five people of different religious faiths, the broadest-minded
and most public-spirited persons known to me,—Revs. P—— B——, A—— McK——,
E. E. H——, P—— M——, and Mrs. A—— F—— P——. Not one of them had an inkling
as to what it was all about, or knew who were invited beside himself.
Mr. Kilrain was there in obedience to my request. I wished him to see
that everything was done legally, and, besides, to draw up all the
necessary papers.

I fairly shivered with delight and excitement as they came in one by one
and I introduced myself to them, feeling very much like a young queen
who has just ascended a throne and summons her generals and wise
counselors to plan a campaign.

I had a dainty lunch served in a cosy little parlor, and as soon as the
servants were gone I began, rather tremulously, it must be confessed, to
make my little speech. They all knew, of course, that they were invited
to give me counsel on some philanthropic matter, but further than that
they were in the dark. As nearly as I can remember this is what I said:—

“You are all aware that I have asked the favor of your company to-day in
order to discuss a serious matter involving the expenditure of a large
sum of money. I wish to avail myself of the united wisdom of those
present to enable me to use for good and not for evil the enormous
wealth which has so suddenly dropped from the skies, as it were, into my
hands.

“I count myself as simply a steward, and know well that before my own
conscience, if before no other tribunal, I shall be called to account
for my stewardship.

“It is stated that one of the seven greatest sources of pauperism in
London is foolish almsgiving. I am perfectly aware that I may ‘give all
my goods to feed the poor,’ and do more harm by it than if I threw my
offerings into the Charles River.

“I am convinced that if I would help any man I must do it by giving him
the means to help himself, and thus to retain or gain his self-respect.

“My thoughts and affections go out most strongly to our own country, and
therefore most of my money is to be spent in it. I feel that by helping
to outline the new paths which multitudes are to follow here, I shall
best help the progress of humanity everywhere. But I am not so
narrowminded as to think it right to wait until we get all the
industrial schools and kindergartens that we need here, before we teach
the first elements of decency to our brothers and sisters in Africa and
every other stronghold of heathenism and savagery. My childhood was
spent with earnest people who were interested in the missionary work. As
a child, I read the ‘Missionary Herald,’ and gave my mite towards
building the Morning Star.

“But of late years I have lived in a society whose sentiment has been
more than half contemptuous of foreign missions. ‘Let us civilize the
heathen at home,’ they say; ‘let us do the duty that lies nearest, and
not meddle with what is none of our business.’

“I am tired of this prating and ignorant talk by would-be cultured
people who know nothing of the real results of missionary work. They
find no fault with actresses or sea-captains or Bohemians who choose
exile for gain or pleasure, but they are always ready to cry out against
the folly of one who goes to teach men the alphabet, and tell women that
they are something more than beasts of burden or mere child-bearing
animals.

“I am constantly meeting people who talk as if Buddhism contained all
that is of value in Christianity, and who actually scoff at any attempt
to disturb what they call the picturesque, simple faith of their carvers
of ivory bric-à-brac.

“I revere Buddha. I do not ignore the fact that in all ages God has not
left himself without a witness, and that many seers and prophets have
led the nations toward the light. But I prefer the sunlight to the
twilight, and what vision of truth has come to me I would pass along to
others. Especially do I long to help the women. Sometimes their
degradation and helplessness appeals so powerfully to my imagination
that I feel that I must give my money and my time without stint, until
selfish, indifferent Christendom is forced to remember what is the true
condition of two thirds of the world.”

I was trembling all over with nervous excitement, and, as usual, was so
absorbed in what I was saying as to quite forget to wonder what these
five people, so much older and wiser and more experienced than I, must
think of my sitting there and talking to them in this fashion. I am
dreadfully afraid it must have seemed conceited or audacious or
something of the sort. However, they knew nothing about me or my ideas,
and as it was quite necessary that they should understand my position
before they could give me any counsel, I proceeded to make it known.

“I am not content,” I said, “with most methods that have been used.
Sectarianism, bigotry, and ignorance have often perverted the best
results. The good souls who fear to send a preacher, no matter how
devoted, unless he preach exactly their ‘ism,’ seem to me to be
retarding by many years the consummation so devoutly to be wished. The
most Christlike men whom I know could not be sent out as missionaries by
the American Board. I believe there are hundreds of ardent young souls
who would be led to offer themselves for work in foreign lands if the
restrictions of creed did not stand in the way.

“Do not misunderstand me. I do not condemn creeds. Doubtless every one
who thinks must have some kind of a creed, however short it be. But in
the making of bequests, in endowments which are to help affect the
thought of future generations, it seems to me difficult to avoid
ultimate lawsuits, temptation to mental dishonesty, and infinite harm,
unless the founder works on the broadest principles and sees the work
begun in his lifetime.

“I have written my will this week and have devoted a very large sum of
money for the establishment of a fund, the amount of which I shall not
at present name, to be used as follows:—

“For the management and expenditure of this fund I have chosen five
trustees. These shall fill vacancies in their number as they occur from
death, resignation, incapacity, or whatever cause. One member, at least,
shall always be a woman, and as many as three Christian denominations
shall always be represented among the five trustees.

“The fund shall be called the ‘Christian Missionary Fund,’ and the work
shall be, so far as the trustees are concerned, entirely unsectarian,
though always distinctly Christian and Protestant.

“The fund shall be devoted to the following purposes:

“First, for promoting the spiritual and mental, and thus indirectly the
material, welfare of the most helpless and degraded people on the globe.

“Second, for promoting Christianity and education in lands like Japan,
where there is already an awakened aspiration for better things, and
hence the most immediate results may be anticipated.

“Third, for promoting such measures as shall diminish the slave-trade
wherever it exists, and for preventing the liquor traffic between
civilized and barbarous nations, for instance, such as is now disgracing
and desolating the Congo State.

“Any man or woman who applies to be sent out as preacher, teacher, or
agent, for promoting any of these ends, shall be accepted if he or she
give satisfactory evidence to the committee of being fitted to do
sufficiently helpful work in the positions to which they are assigned.
No acceptation of any creed shall be required of any applicant. After
being enrolled for the work, however, all shall be required to leave
detailed written statements of their religious beliefs. These are to be
kept on file for statistical purposes, together with the records of the
subsequent work of the candidates, their methods of labor, and the
results accomplished.

“Every woman employed by the trustees shall receive the same salary as a
man would receive for doing the same work. In sending out preachers and
pastors no distinction shall be made in regard to sex. All women
desiring to preach and to administer the sacraments shall be authorized
to do so if possessed of proper qualifications.”

In regard to that latter clause I had had considerable discussion with
auntie previous to convening the trustees.

“Isn’t that a little odd?” she asked. “I am afraid some clergymen would
be shocked at that.”

“Aunt Madison,” I said, “if it is desirable to have the sacraments of
communion or baptism celebrated at all, I can see no reason why they
cannot be done by a woman’s hand as well as by that of a man? If the
hand that made the bread does not desecrate it, why may not that same
hand break and pass it, provided it be done in a proper spirit? Is a
man’s hand any more sacred than a woman’s?”

“Oh, it isn’t that,” said auntie, fidgeting a little; “but it is the
words and the service which go with it, of course.”

“Certainly,” said I,—rather bluntly, too, I am afraid,—“and those words
consist of quotations from the words of Christ and Paul, and a prayer. I
see no reason why quotations and prayer uttered by a female voice may
not be just as acceptable to the Almighty as if spoken by a male voice.
(I hate those words ‘male’ and ‘female,’ but I thought it would help her
to see the absurdity of our conventional notions about such things.)”

“Well, dear, perhaps so, if you look at it that way,” she said; “but
what do you think the apostles would have thought of such a thing?”

“As a matter-of-fact,” said I, “the members of the early church, who ate
at one table, and had all things in common, and celebrated their Lord’s
death at the close of their meal in the simplest way in the world,
probably passed the cup from one to the other informally, and women as
well as men took part in what little service there was. It seems to me
in this age of common sense on other subjects it is time we had a little
more of it in religion.”

How saucy that appears as I write it. I wonder if I am getting
dictatorial.

I told the trustees, that, although their work as trustees was to be
entirely undenominational, and that they were to discourage any
sectarian work in whatever schools and churches might be established,
this was not to be interpreted to mean a refusal to send good men and
women, even if they held narrow sectarian views. I hold myself too
liberal to refuse to send any one who can do any good, even though he
hold mediæval views on eschatology. If a man can persuade a savage to
wash his face and stop beating his wife, I am willing to allow him his
cassock and crucifix and all the joys of a celibate High Churchism, so
long, at least, as he holds himself responsible to no other body than
the committee of my choosing. I have observed that a fair amount of
civilization, intelligence, and real Christianity can co-exist with a
very crude theology. So any good man who cares enough about helping his
fellow-men to work hard on a moderate salary, as an exile in a heathen
land, shall not be hindered from going until enough better men offer
themselves to take his place.

I told my guests that I wished to begin the work at once. Without
stating whether or not they were the trustees referred to in my will, I
asked them to assume for the next three years the responsibility of
disbursing two hundred thousand dollars annually in the way I had
specified. I shall keep the money in my own hands so that they need not
be troubled about investments, and shall pay the amount in installments,
as they call for it.

I requested them to do exactly as they thought best, without any more
reference to me than if I were dead, except when they came to any
misunderstanding in regard to the interpretation of my wishes as
expressed above.

I shall have accurate reports of their proceedings, and thus be able to
rectify any point that is left obscure, or that is capable of abuse.

I requested that my name should not be made known in connection with all
this.

When I had finished there was a pause; then Dr. H—— in his genial way
began—But I can write no more to-night.

(Extract from an editorial in the “Church Inquisitor.”)

It is with feelings of mingled interest and alarm that we report as the
most notable of recent events in the religious world the announcement of
an enormous bequest for foreign missionary work.

“Why alarm?” may be asked. But a careful reading of the provisions of
the bequest which we publish in another column will assure the reader
that the conditions under which it is given are unprecedented and allow
possibilities so dangerous as to create great anxiety in the minds of
those who are well grounded in the faith and zealous for the maintenance
of pure doctrine. As it is needless to say that in matters of such
moment we hold that the most stringent regulations and careful scrutiny
should be exercised, it is evident that the utter abolishing of all
tests, allowing the teaching of the most dangerous heresies by
Unitarians, Universalists, Spiritualists, Christian Scientists and what
not,—and this to be done in the name of Christian Missions,—is
startling, to say the least.

It will be readily seen that to the mind of the untutored savage unable
to distinguish genuine Christianity from that which is spurious, and as
likely to accept the one as the other, the danger of confounding the two
to the discredit of all true piety will be great, if the restrictions
laid down in the bequest are to be binding.

To be sure, the men and women sent out by this fund must be presumed to
possess a fair amount of intellect and moral character, though how their
spiritual condition is to be ascertained before hearing a statement of
their creed we fail to see. Doubtless something may be done in the way
of building up schools and supplementing the work of those whom our
Board sends to preach the gospel. For this we rejoice and give thanks.
Knowing the genuine Christian character of some members of the
committee, we are led to hope that they will deem no one fit to send out
as a proclaimer of the doctrines of Christianity who holds the evidently
loose views of the framer of this singular bequest. As only one of the
trustees is a Unitarian, and as Unitarians are proverbially indifferent
to foreign missions, it seems to leave considerable ground for the hope
that none of that sect will apply, or, if applying, will be sent.

The donor’s name is withheld, but it is shrewdly surmised to be the late
Mr. Albert Danforth of Springfield, formerly a noted Free-thinker, but
who is said to have had a deathbed repentance and to have attempted to
appease his conscience by bestowing his vast wealth in the manner
described. In this case why his name should be withheld remains a
mystery.

It will be noticed that another peculiar feature of the bequest is that
one trustee at least shall always be a woman. In the course of time
there is nothing to prevent all of them being women, as four of the five
appointed are known to be in favor of female suffrage. As the late Mr.
Danforth, among his other radical notions, held the same unscriptural
view of woman’s functions, the promotion of “women’s rights” views by
the endowment in question is to be feared.

It is, perhaps, well enough to pay women in the mission field the same
sum as that given to men for the same work, though this possibly would
be too attractive an allurement for some unworthy persons who might
assume the sacred duties in question for the sake of the loaves and
fishes. But what seems especially unwise as well as wholly unscriptural,
and of which we feel compelled to assert our disapproval, is the
provision that women shall be permitted to administer the holy
sacraments. See Corinthians i. 14, 34, and xi. 3, 7.

There seems to be no serious objection to women preaching to assemblies
of their own sex where male missionaries cannot be admitted; but that
such an extreme step should be taken as to desecrate and turn into a
farce the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper by allowing them
to be administered by a woman, is something that we must deplore.

Were it not that most of the trustees appointed represent the new school
of thought, which seems to rely more on reason than on the Written Word,
we should wonder at their being able to satisfy their consciences if
they accept responsibilities encumbered by such restrictions.




                               CHAPTER V.

                     LETTER TO AN INTIMATE FRIEND.


                        FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL, NEW YORK, _February —, 18—._

MY DEAR ALICE,—I ran away from Boston without saying good-by to you. Dr.
Wesselhoeft predicted all sorts of horrors—hysterics, St. Vitus’s dance,
nervous prostration, and I don’t know what else, if I did not at once
get away from the hosts of people who drove me distracted with an
incessant ringing of the door-bell from breakfast until bedtime. I was
not aware that I had so many friends before. Every pupil I have ever
had, every passing acquaintance even, has felt it to be his or her
privilege and duty to call and congratulate me and bore me to death with
their ecstasies and flatteries.

I rather liked it at first, I must confess. It was all so novel to me,
and it showed some of my acquaintances in an entirely new light, which,
I found, gave me an admirable opportunity for a study of character on
its drollest side. Whenever I entered the reception room and found it
lined with callers waiting all on tiptoe for my appearance, I really
felt like a president beset by office-seekers during his first month at
the White House.

But a few days of all this rather nauseated me, and I thanked my fortune
that it had not come at my birth, but had allowed me to make many true
and tried friends before bestowing on me what I fear will now always
make me suspicious of a lack of disinterestedness in every new-comer.

However, in leaving Boston and coming to New York I fancy that I have
only jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, for letters pursue me
everywhere. I devote every forenoon to reading them and dictating
replies to my amanuensis. Many of them are applications for money or
help of some sort, some of them outrageous, and some very pitiful
indeed. I had one some days ago from a poor fellow in Vermont, who
fancied himself an inventor. He had just lost his wife and two children,
and implored me to “help him make a man” of the only little one left to
him. His letter sounded so forlorn that it went to my heart, so I sent
telegrams of inquiry about him to the postmaster and the minister in his
native town. They answered my questions satisfactorily, and I sent at
once for the man to come.

Such a dazed, bewildered-looking creature as he was, to be sure, when he
stepped out of the carriage, which I had sent for him, and stumbled
clumsily up the steps with his baby, tied up in an old red shawl, in his
arms!

He told me the simple story of his life, its little ambitions and narrow
outlook; of his conversion and his courtship, and of the horrors of
disease and death and poverty, to which his pinched face and trembling
hands bore witness. The boy was a pathetic little morsel of humanity,
and his sad little mouth won my heart. I have taken charge of the child,
and, please God, I will “make a man of him.” The father is quite unfit
for hard work, and what to do with him I did not know, when suddenly I
bethought myself of a magazine article which you loaned me some time
ago, apropos of “A Universal Tinker.” The man is clever with tools, I
hear, and just the one to do odd bits of mending and attending to the
thousand and one things which are always getting out of order about a
house. So I sent him with a letter to all my Back Bay friends, and eight
of them have offered to pay him five dollars a month each, on condition
that he keep everything in their establishments in repair. I have given
him a chest of tools, and have found a good home for him. A widow in
straitened circumstances, whom also I wish to help, but who will not
accept charity, is glad to receive him and his child into her family.
Really, the man seems already like another creature. He has taken on a
new look of self-respect and courage that makes his commonplace,
weather-beaten face fairly radiant.

This whole experience has given me intense satisfaction. I had almost
made up my mind to pay no heed to these calls, which demand so much of
my time and prove, at least half of them, to come from frauds and
impostors. In fact, it was merely as an experiment, and chiefly to
indulge my curiosity, that I heeded this case. I am now determined to
have every appeal for help that seems at all deserving thoroughly
investigated, and I foresee that I shall be obliged to have more than
one agent to attend to it all.

I had an extraordinary experience last night, of which I must tell you,
though my ears tingle yet at the thought of it. I wonder if this is a
foretaste of the penalties which I am doomed to pay for the sin of being
a great heiress. I had always wondered how rich women could endure to
make such a display of diamonds at parties and balls as to necessitate
their being dogged by private detectives everywhere. I always maintained
that a woman was an idiot who would thus let herself become such a slave
to her wealth. I was sure that any one who lived simply, and did not
care for show, could go alone where she pleased, and have no fears; but
my theories are getting sadly shaken. However, I am digressing. Now
about this affair last night.

I received a beautifully written note the other day, delicately
perfumed, and bearing a seal stamped with a coat of arms, and signed
Manuel Altiova. The writer intimated that he had been a friend of Mr.
Dunreath, and had matters of importance to tell me. He begged the favor
of an interview. I surmised that he was a scamp, but, on the other hand,
thought it possible that he might be some titled wealthy Spaniard who
had met Mr. Dunreath in South America, and who could give me some
information about the locality of my possessions. So I had my amanuensis
send him a formal note in reply asking him to call on me last evening.

I told my maid Hélène to remain in the next room with the door ajar, and
when his card was sent up, followed almost immediately by himself, I
arose to receive him with some curiosity.

Tableau. Enter, with many bows, a tall, black-eyed man of perhaps
thirty-five, clad in faultless dress; in short, to all outward
appearance, an elegant Adonis.

I let him tell his story, and said nothing for awhile. He professed to
have been most intimately acquainted with Mr. Dunreath, and produced a
photograph of him. Subsequently, he showed me some letters in Mr.
Dunreath’s handwriting referring to some dishonorable business
transactions by which Mr. D. had greatly augmented his fortunes, and for
which he would have suffered the full penalty of the law except for the
timely and most self-sacrificing intervention of his “noble and devoted
friend,” Manuel Altiova.

I was thunderstruck. The hot blood mounted to my temples, and for a
moment everything seemed to reel before me. Was all my happiness a
dream? Was I then enjoying the ill-gotten gains of a swindler? I looked
at the letters. There could be no mistake about the handwriting. That
very forenoon, with my lawyer, I had been carefully examining a dozen
documents in that same queer crabbed hand, which I had known so well in
the days when I was a girl and had a lover.

Five years ago it was, but it seemed fifty, as I sat there staring
dizzily at those letters and trying to realize that this man whom I had
loved almost enough to marry, this man whom I would have sworn was honor
itself, was false, basely false. Oh, it seemed a thing incredible; yet,
as I thought of how in these last few years for month after month
society has been shocked by the fall of those who have stood most high
in our esteem, yet who have been tempted to sell their souls for gold, I
believed it all.

I remember thinking vaguely of how I must try to find out the men whom
Mr. Dunreath had defrauded, and return to them this money, which was
theirs, not mine. Then I roused myself and questioned him, trying to
appear as indifferent and non-committal as possible, though I could feel
my temples throbbing, and I knew my cheeks were hot. He answered my
questions without the slightest hesitation, giving names, dates, and
localities with startling readiness and apparent sincerity. He mentioned
various little peculiarities of Mr. Dunreath’s,—his never eating butter,
his being left-handed, and so on.

At last I could ask no more. I felt as though I should suffocate. The
man went on talking, however, telling his own family history. His father
was a learned professor, his mother a lady of noble birth. He was born
at Barcelona, had been destined from childhood to take orders in the
Romish Church, and was finally disinherited by his stern father for his
avowed Protestant and Republican doctrines, to say nothing of his
refusal to wed the woman of his father’s choice when all hope of his
entering the church had been abandoned. With his own little private
fortune of twenty thousand dollars he had sailed for Brazil, and had
entered the service of Mr. Dunreath. Soon he became the devoted friend
of that gentleman, was intrusted with his confidence, and became
cognizant of all his affairs. Mr. Dunreath had fully expected to return
to him the thousands which he had so generously made over to the
officials in the nick of time, thus preventing the pursuit which would
have ended in his arrest and conviction, with the subsequent surrender
to the state of many of his millions.

Mr. Altiova, or rather Señor as he called himself, presently let me
understand the chief purpose of his visit. As you will readily guess, he
desired me to pay him the sum which he had spent, namely, twenty
thousand dollars, all his little fortune. In another letter which he
produced, Mr. Dunreath had promised to return this sum doubled, and this
promise was in the act of fulfillment on the very day of the fatal
sunstroke.

Señor Altiova modestly disclaimed any desire that this generous offer
should be fulfilled by Mr. Dunreath’s heirs, and declared that he would
be quite content to receive only the sum which he had spent. He paused
for my reply. Meanwhile I had been gradually collecting my wits, and was
able to control my voice enough to say that I must first consult with my
lawyer.

“But, Miss Brewster,” he urged, “that, you see, is impossible. Will you
disclose Mr. Dunreath’s felony? Will you create a needless scandal and
lose your fortune? No; if you will but settle this little business with
me (the sum, of course, is but a mere bagatelle to a rich lady like
you), the secret will remain forever buried in my bosom, and no mortal
shall know what has passed between us. The moment you hand me your check
for twenty thousand dollars, payable to the bearer, that moment you
shall with your own hand burn these incriminating letters.”

I reiterated that in spite of the danger of bringing ignominy upon the
name of my old friend, I should consult my lawyer before taking any
steps in the matter.

“But I can’t wait,” he retorted almost fiercely, and there was a look in
his eyes which made me start. My heart rose. Could it be that those
terrible letters were only clever forgeries? He instantly recollected
himself, however, and his tone assumed a touch of pathos.

“Miss Brewster,” he said, and there was a tremor in his voice as he
looked at me beseechingly; “my mother, whom I have not seen for years,
is dying. The physician gives her at most only a month to live. Unknown
to my father she has cabled me to return instantly. Ah, my sweet
mother,” he murmured, as if speaking to himself, while his eyes were wet
with unshed tears, “the moments are years until I see her. Oh, if I
should be too late! And then—who knows? perhaps,—yes,—perhaps, if I may
stand beside my mother’s deathbed, my stern old father may be reconciled
to me—may bid me stay, and I may have the unspeakable comfort of
sustaining his declining years.”

I watched him keenly. If this were acting, it had been very good acting
until now. But these last few words had a false ring in them, which even
my unpracticed ear detected. With a mournful sigh he showed me two
miniatures painted on ivory, one the face of a handsome, dark-eyed
woman, the other that of a scholarly-looking man of middle age. These,
he said, were the portraits of his father and mother, and as he returned
the latter to its velvet case he pressed it tenderly to his lips.

It was very touching, and I was half convinced, especially when my eye
fell again on that curious handwriting whose peculiarities I knew so
well. The man evidently saw that I was agitated and afraid that his
story might, after all, be true. He continued:—

“But, Miss Brewster, I have no money. I arrived here last week from Rio
Janeiro. My father has disinherited me, as I have told you. My little
private fortune, my mother’s gift, which I could have doubled in a
year’s time by my investments, was all given to save my friend. Madame!”
he cried, “where is your sense of justice—simple justice—if you refuse
me the paltry sum which saved the reputation and wealth of the man whose
heiress you now are? You have his own confession here before you, signed
with his name. The evidence is unimpeachable. If I bring it into court,
it may cost you half your millions. Madame, the Urania sails to-morrow,
I must go. I must have money, the money you owe me. If you refuse”—

I rose to bring this extraordinary interview to an immediate close. I
was shaking from head to foot and thankful beyond measure that Hélène,
who had doubtless heard the whole conversation, understood too little
English to realize its import. I was convinced that I had to deal with a
very shrewd, clever villain, who had worked up his facts most adroitly,
and was trying a desperate confidence game. But he was not to be gotten
rid of so easily. Suddenly falling upon one knee, he grasped my hand as
I stood before him and poured out a torrent of words, of which I
remember nothing, for I was too indignant and astounded even to think of
calling upon Hélène. We must have looked for all the world like the
tragic pictures in the “Police Gazette,” which my naughty youngsters
used to display behind my back at the Mission School.

Suddenly I came to my senses. I don’t suppose the whole scene lasted
half a minute at most. Tearing my hand away, I was rushing for
Hélène,—who, as I learned afterward, was sound asleep, with the door
blown to,—when, as a last bit of desperation, what did this man do, but
snatch a dainty little pistol from his hip pocket, and before I could
scream or even gasp an articulate word he aimed it at his temples and
seemed about to fire. I can hardly tell what I did then. I believe I
screamed, and I must have rushed upon the madman, for the next instant I
found myself with the pistol in my hand trying to fire it up the
chimney, while the Señor lay prostrate apparently in a swoon. But the
pistol would not fire; evidently it was not loaded. I dropped it into
the smouldering ashes, and staggered into the next room, where my stupid
maid lay soundly sleeping on the sofa. Faint and trembling I dropped
into the nearest chair. I could not have walked six inches further, and
was too weak to attempt to arouse Hélène. On the whole, I was glad not
to do so, for she would have been too frightened to be of the least use.
Moreover, she would have raised the neighborhood with her shrieks, while
I should have been ready to die with mortification and disgust.

In imagination I saw the lurid head lines of the next day’s columns of
society gossip and scandal. “Dunreath’s Defalcation!” “How it Horrifies
His Heiress!!” I saw myself posing as the heroine of a sixth-rate dime
novel; on whose pages alone, as I had always supposed, such experiences
as this ever took place. It did not take three seconds for all this to
flash through my brain and make the cold sweat stand out in drops upon
my forehead.

Just then I heard a faint click, and summoning courage to look into the
drawing-room, what was my unutterable relief to find the room empty. The
wretch had vanished. To tell the truth, at that juncture I came about as
near verifying the doctor’s prediction in regard to hysterics as I ever
did in my life.

Now for the sequel. This afternoon I received the following note, which
I inclose for your benefit.

  MISS BREWSTER.

  MADAM,—John I. Carrigain, alias Court Peperino, alias Dr. Kametski,
  alias Manuel Altiova, aged thirty-four years and seven months, was
  born in Manchester, England, of an English father and Portuguese
  mother, received a good education, was arrested for forgery at the age
  of nineteen, served out a sentence of five years, and on release was
  sent to New York by a charitable agency. He was suspected of being
  accessory to one of the largest swindling operations ever undertaken
  in New York city, but as nothing could be proved, he was released from
  custody and began operations in Chicago, obtaining money under various
  false pretences. At first he met with great success, but was finally
  convicted and sentenced to six years in the state prison. He was
  released from Joliet six months ago, but, until your communication
  last night, had not been known to be in New York. A person answering
  his description was seen to take the northern express last evening
  with a ticket for some point in Canada. The man is a clever forger,
  and it would require an expert to detect his work. It has been
  ascertained that Carrigain was assistant clerk for Mr. Dunreath for a
  few months seven years ago, which accounts for some of his information
  regarding the habits of that gentleman; and as for the handwriting and
  the South American details, he is quite clever enough to have worked
  those carefully up in the last few weeks.

  It is needless to say that his career will henceforth be closely
  watched.

                                      Yours respectfully,
                                                      J. ALLISON,
                                                  _Pinkerton Detective_.

By the way, Alice, I am having my portrait painted, full-length, in a
blue velvet tea gown. I give a sitting every other afternoon, and on
alternate days visit tenement houses, industrial schools, and Castle
Garden. I saw two thousand filthy Italians of the lowest kind land
yesterday.

I have just come home from a tour through the Mulberry Bend where these
creatures herd together. I felt as if I were in Naples again. I thought
some parts of Boston were bad enough, but I never saw anything on this
side of the water equal to the horrible squalor and loathsomeness of
these places.

I mean to take all your good advice about being calm, and trying not to
feel that it devolves upon me to settle all our social problems this
month. I know even better than you the complexity of the difficulties in
our congested city life. I have little hope of doing much for this
generation of pauperism and vice, but I am determined to do whatever my
money and good will can do for laying the foundation of better things in
the generation to come.

I am going to begin with tenement houses, for there, I believe, lies the
root of half of the trouble. I suppose my friends will think that I am
getting to be a dreadful doctrinaire. Well, it can’t be helped. I was
predestined for that, I believe. My consolation is that you at least
will not be bored by all my plans and theories, and will warn me if I
get too rabid....




                              CHAPTER VI.


The night after I had first seen Mildred Brewster at aunt Madison’s I
lay awake for hours, feverishly tossing upon my pillow, and revolving
many thoughts. I then made one resolve. I would try to win the
friendship of this woman who had touched me, who had moved me in a way
that no one had ever done before.

It was not so much by what she had said, for I had heard the same or
kindred thoughts expressed by other lips; but I had never before met a
woman so strong, well poised and thoughtful, a woman who united girlish
grace and charm with all the persistent ardor of one who, I was sure,
could not only die for an idea, but, what is far rarer, live for it day
by day and year by year, although forced to meet indifference and
coldness or the quiet contempt which cuts to the quick in every
sensitive nature.

As I had sat by the firelight that night, watching the color come and go
in her face,—that changeful, eager face,—for the first time in a dreary
twelve-month I had felt my heart leap up with warmth and sympathy. From
a thoughtless, happy girlhood, from the life of a gay, pleasure-loving
young lady, I had been rudely summoned to face some of the bitterest
realities of life. No matter what they were. I am not writing about
myself. But though my life was still rich and full of opportunities, if
I had but known it, yet in my blindness and selfishness it had seemed
utterly wrecked to me. I had sunk into a dull, prosaic routine, and
under a proud mask of gay indifference was trying to hide a heart dead
to hope, ambition, and love. Yet, no! not dead to love, though I had
thought it so; but in the heart-hunger which was not satisfied, I was
fast becoming self-centred, cold, and cynical.

Like a dreary desert the long years which must be lived stretched
desolately before me, and my only aim was to fill the minutes of each
day so full as to leave me no leisure for memory or thought.

As I closed my eyes to sleep that night my last thought was, “Yes, I
_will_ know her. I _must_ know her. Oh, if I could only be like her, a
creature of thought and purpose, absorbed in some idea, caring for
something beside my wretched, silly self! Perhaps she can help me. I
will ask her. I can trust _her_.”

I had been deceived in others; I had given my utmost trust to those who
had proved utterly unworthy, and in bitterness of spirit I had resolved
never to trust again, never to leave the gateway to my heart unguarded;
but now, before I knew it, the locks had yielded, and I stood with
lonely, outstretched arms, begging for love to enter in. After all, I
was still young, and very, very human.

And love came. It came before my fallen pride had found words to ask for
it. I had something to live for now. _I had found a friend._ What
romance has ever been written that tells of woman’s love for woman? And
yet the world is full of it, despite the skeptics, and the Davids and
Jonathans find their counterparts in thousands of the unwritten lives of
women. Yes, I had found not a new acquaintance, but a warm heart-friend.
Thank God that she knew it and I knew it before the wealth which came so
fast upon the beginning of our friendship could create a gulf between
us, which, once established, my pride would never have allowed me to
cross. Mildred knew, she always knew, that I had loved her first, and
wanted her for herself alone.

I knew, when the wealth came, that it would not make her any the less my
friend, but I was only one among her many friends. I knew that our paths
would be different now, and though she would always think kindly of me,
I could not expect to see and know her as I had fondly dreamed in the
first days of our friendship.

“No, I can never return to her what she can give, what she has already
given to me; my little life can play but a small part in the large life
that has come to her,” I said drearily, as I turned back, after the
first shock of surprise, to readjust myself to the old routine of
thought and feeling, which, I had dared to hope, had been put behind me
forever.

“Ah, well, I have made believe be happy before, I can do so again,” I
said to myself, grimly.

But one day—how well I remember it—as I passed down Chestnut Street in
Salem noting the brilliant winter sunlight shining down from the
cloudless blue through the black lace work of branches high arching
overhead, and casting fantastic shadows on the brick walls of the
stately old mansions on either side, some one handed me a letter. This
is what it said:—

... “You asked me to be your friend, you said I could help you, and now
I ask you to be my friend, to come here to this great city where I must
be for a time and help me. I felt brave and strong at first, I was not
afraid to be rich, but I begin to tremble now, to feel strangely weak
and girlish and unprotected; to feel, in short, that I need a friend,
that I need what I think you can be to me. After aunt Madison had been
with me only a few days she was obliged to return to Boston, leaving me
quite alone. Of course Madam Grundy says that I must have a chaperon,
but I do not want a chaperon, and I should be wretched with a
‘companion,’ perfunctorily trying to entertain me, learning all my plans
and secrets, and hypocritically assenting to everything I do and say.
No; I want an honest friend, one who knows the world as you do, who will
honestly speak her mind, who will take an interest in all my schemes,
and help to keep me from making blunders.

“I believe I could talk more freely, think more clearly, and do better
work if you were beside me, your honest eyes looking into mine. For, let
me tell you the secret, dear, of what first drew me to you. You are most
strangely like the sister whom I lost years ago, and whose
companionship, if she had lived, would have made life so rich for me. I
feel myself so alone; never before have I had so keen a sense of
loneliness as now, here, in this modern Babylon, with my old life and
work abandoned, and the new perplexing life which my wealth has brought
me just begun. Like me, you are alone in the world, singularly alone; so
come and be to me what my little Ruby would have been. When you speak I
could almost believe that I hear her voice; when you look at me I see
her eyes again. Your face haunts me. Come to me and I shall feel that my
Ruby is with me again.”

Standing in the sunshine beneath the old elms I read these loving words.
When I lifted my eyes again, the beautiful quaint old street was
suddenly transfigured. For months it had been to me but a bare
prison-house; now the sunshine was real sunshine, the sky was no longer
leaden, the world was, after all, a beautiful world, and I was glad to
live.

So bidding farewell to quiet Chestnut Street and the staid, historic old
city, I went to the “modern Babylon” to meet Mildred, and the new life
began. As the days went on I perceived that she seemed to have a
feverish dread that she should die with her work undone. My constant
anxiety was that she would succumb to the fearful nervous strain which
her sudden accession to wealth and responsibility had brought upon her.
But nothing seemed to rest her or relieve her mind except the
accomplishment of some of the ends she had in view, and as every new
project was consummated, she showed a relief and delight that to the
average society woman would have appeared inexplicable and at the same
time amusing.

“It seems to me,” said Mildred one day as we were strolling through the
park, after a morning on Cherry Street; “it seems to me that most people
have no imagination. It cannot be that all the pleasant, cultured people
whom one meets are so shamefully heartless and indifferent. They simply
have not the smallest realization of what is going on in this great
city, or any thought of their personal, individual responsibility about
it. They hear it all as a tale that is told. They have always heard it.
They are used to hearing it. From constant hearing it has become as
meaningless to them as the Lord’s Prayer has to most people. How many
who dare to say ‘Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven,’ ever
actually mean a word that they say, or lift a finger to bring it about?”

We walked on in silence. Presently Mildred burst out again:

“We are so apt to think that because we eat our three meals a day, and
can buy our opera tickets when we feel like it, that all the world is
doing well, and that if people are miserable it must somehow be their
own fault.

“I am convinced that if any people ever needed missionary work, it is
the society belles and the well-bred, cultured men of the clubs, who
know so little and care still less for this vast multitude of the
ignorant and suffering and fallen here at their very doors, and who look
with calm indifference on these hideous sores upon our modern life.

“I promise you, Ruby, after I get some of my irons out of the fire, I
mean to devote myself to a crusade to rescue what George Eliot calls the
‘perishing upper classes.’

“But ah,” she sighed, “it needs genius for that, and I have only money.
Oh, I would give half my millions if I had the scathing pen of a
Carlyle, or the power to plead for humanity like Mrs. Stowe or Walter
Besant or Dickens; if I could stir the hearts of the people with flaming
words that should help to sweep away the sloth, indifference, and
contemptible arrogance that makes one tenth of us forget that the other
nine tenths are our brothers and sisters!”

“If every one were as self-sacrificing as you, Mildred”—I began; but she
interrupted me almost sternly.

“Hush! never say that to me. What have I ever sacrificed? Nothing,
absolutely nothing. I have always had comforts; now I have everything
that heart can wish. In giving to others I deny myself nothing. Never
dare to let me for a moment imagine that I am doing anything more than
the simplest, most obvious duty. I must not cheat my conscience. I
should be the veriest hypocrite if I allowed myself to think that I am
generous. Is there anything generous in paying one’s debts, particularly
when one has not had to earn the money with which to pay them?

“I have always observed,” she continued, “that a little decency in a
millionaire goes a long way. I am not above temptation, and I have
already discovered that I am in danger of coming to believe that my
simple good will, common sense, and capacity for sympathy are something
rare and remarkable.

“Every one thinks to please me by telling me so. Do not let me deceive
myself. I have a clear vision now; help me to keep it and to be
faithful.”

Mildred’s voice quivered, and she drew my arm in hers while we walked
back to our rooms in silence.

“But the world is growing better, Mildred. Every intelligent person
admits that people are more kind and thoughtful than they used to be. No
one who has read history could deny it,” I resumed, as once more within
doors we sat down before the glowing grate to finish our talk.

“You and I believe it, dear, because we believe in God, and because we
believe that this is God’s world and not the devil’s,” Mildred replied.

“Half the women whom we saw parading their fine toilets this afternoon
believe it too, not because they know enough about history to see in it
the unfolding of the divine idea, but because they like to believe it;
because it makes them very comfortable to believe that by taking money
which some one else has earned and paying an annual fee out of it to
orphan asylums and hospitals, or to any outcome of our modern altruism,
they are thereby relieved from all further responsibility.

“But here is an intelligent man,—an English university man, who has read
history as well as you and I, and he says it is false. This is what he
writes,” said Mildred, taking a thick letter from her writing-desk. She
held it unopened for a moment and continued: “I met him when I was in
England. We had many a talk in our rambles together at Kew and Hampstead
Heath. He is a friend of William Morris and like him a socialist of the
deepest dye. I don’t half accept the accuracy of all his statements, but
he is an honest man and a gentleman. I am glad to know him, for I cannot
afford to be ignorant of such a man’s views on our social problems,
however much I may dissent from them. Now let me read you his letter.

... “You ask me to give you suggestions for the expenditure of your
wealth in benefiting humanity. This I must decline to do, my dear
friend. If I had your wealth I know what _I_ should do, or, at least,
what I ought to do, but _I_ am a socialist, and _you_ are not. I do not
believe in _laissez-faire_ as you do, and as a socialist I should use my
wealth and influence for a reorganization of society, not for a patching
up of what is at bottom false and rotten. Things are getting worse and
worse, and must continue to do so under the present social system. My
hope is that they will get so bad, so unutterably vile, that the people
will be compelled to throw aside their apathy and make a clean sweep. I
take no part in any of the hundred little schemes for ‘improving’ the
present system. I don’t want to improve the present system as you do. I
want to destroy it.

“We improve things that are already fairly good and can be made better,
but we destroy whatever is thoroughly rotten; at least I think all
rational people do so. So far as the present order is at all bearable,
it is due to certain socialist innovations, such as interference with
the capitalist, trade unions, movements like that of the Irish against
the particular class of thieves called landlords, etc.

“The people, the common people, who for centuries have silently suffered
and abjectly kissed the foot that kicked them and trod upon them, the
people, I say, are beginning to wake up. They are beginning to ask
questions, and they are questions which will have to be solved erelong,
even if it take another bloody French revolution to do it. I see no way
in which bloodshed is to be avoided. I look forward confidently to what
will seem to you very like a reign of terror ere this century closes.
Things must grow worse before they can get better. The crisis has not
come, but it is coming. Money has done much, but it cannot do
everything; the press will not always be bribed and muzzled as it is
to-day, nor Levi’s and Mulhall’s and Giffen’s statistics be doctored to
suit the capitalists who pay for them. The time is coming, Miss
Brewster, when the people _will be heard_; and _they will be heeded_,
for their words will be as short and sharp as fire and dynamite can make
them.

“Do not think I am telling you of what I wish to see. I am telling you
of what I know will come.

“The rich are not voluntarily going to heed the bitter cry of the
famishing, except in one way, the only way they have ever known, namely,
almsgiving. They will give alms because it is noble to be a benefactor,
because it appeases their consciences, because it might be made
extremely inconvenient for them if they did not. But they will not give
justice. Justice! they never learned the meaning of the word.

“But some day these landed aristocrats ‘whose thin bloods crawl down
from some robber in a border brawl,’ who have never lifted their finger
to earn a penny in their lives, and who owe all that they have to these
same robber ancestors,—these people, I say, will some day be taught the
meaning of that same word ‘justice’ by some of the forty-five millions
of landless people in our little island. I shall not soon forget how
quickly the subscriptions for the poor went up a year or two ago, after
the riots.

“You have no conception, Miss Brewster, you can have no conception, of
the state of things here at present. Six millions of our people are
living on the brink of pauperism. I tell you, when I sit down to my
omelette and toast in the morning and reflect that there are two hundred
thousand human beings within two miles of me who don’t know where they
are going to get their next meal, when I read of the hundreds of
children who habitually go to school without any breakfast, and who not
unfrequently faint dead away over their books, I tell you it doesn’t
make my own breakfast relish any better.

“One night in the autumn, a year or two ago, I passed through Trafalgar
Square at twelve o’clock, and counted four hundred and eighty-three
homeless people lying out in the chill air upon the bare stones. Not one
of them had fourpence wherewith to pay for a night’s lodging. And this,
remember, was only one spot.

“There were many others where a similar sight might have been seen.

“‘Ah,’ but you say; ‘these are the dissolute and drunken, those who love
to be vagabonds.’

“I assure you that you are much mistaken. I have seen and talked with
thousands of these people, and a large number of them, probably a
fourth, are men from the country who can find no work there, and have
found none here—honest, hard-working British laborers. Two thirds of
these people are not vicious, or drunken, but they are out of work, they
are cold, they are hungry, they are naked, they are outcasts in this
Christian (?) land which has enough for all its children. All they ask
is work, hard work, dirty work, work for twelve hours a day, but that
they cannot get. Why? Because our accursed modern society is irrational,
wasteful, utterly selfish. Plenty of money, plenty of things worth
doing, plenty of men who would thank God if this work could be given
them to do; but what does our mad, maladjusted society say to them?
‘Emigrate! Clear the country! Away with you! We have no use for you.’
Malthus was right, after all, and we must reverse Browning.

                      ‘There’s no God in heaven;
                      All’s wrong with the world.’

“Do you know of the blacksmith women in the ‘black country’? I have
recently been there, giving some addresses. Oh, the hideousness of it
all, with its starving people, its wretched, stunted lives, its ghastly
ugliness, its brutalized men and women! One sees women, who should be at
home nursing their babies, standing on their feet from morning till
night doing the work of men, swinging the hammer amidst grime and soot
and incessant noise. And if one of them drops at her post from sheer
exhaustion, there is a fiendish clanging thing that bangs on the floor
and shakes every bone in the poor wretch’s body.

“Mr. —— took Henry George to see the sight when he was here, and he told
me that George swore until he was black in the face.

“Oh, I know you think I am a hot-head; you will say these are
exceptional cases. You will doubtless try to do what all the good rich
people do (I admit, you see, that there are _some_ good ones); you will
doubtless try to help palliate all these horrors. If you were here you
might build an old men’s home for the poor men to whom society has never
given a chance, who, through no fault of their own, have been forced
from their cradle to live in stifling attics or damp, unwholesome
hovels, breathing poison, working their fingers off to give their hungry
children bread. You might build a comfortable home where these decrepit,
useless old fellows might enjoy the food which you give in charity, wear
your charity uniform, and look forward to filling a pauper’s grave, as
does one in nine of all the people who die in London. Or you might build
a splendid marble palace of a hospital or asylum, and herd together vast
numbers of little boys or fallen women or cripples, and try in some big,
mechanical, institutional way to do with your pound of cure what an
ounce of prevention would have accomplished a thousand times better, if
it could have come in the way of justice, not charity. Charity! how I
loathe the word! It is the iron which sears the conscience of your rich
Christian as does nothing else. He thinks to buy heaven with that word.

“I tell you, Miss Brewster, these people want what you and I want. They
want to preserve their self-respect, to have a chance once a week to
remember that they are human beings and not machines. They want to be
able in this Christian land to earn an honest living, to keep their
daughters from the streets, and to keep soul and body together without
sacrificing all decency and honor.

“How much delicacy and fine moral sentiment, to say nothing of physical
comfort, do you suppose is to be had in the sixty thousand families of
London, each of which lives in one room?

“Do you rich people suppose you are going to help this matter greatly by
leaving money in your wills to build asylums for the moral and physical
wrecks for which our incredible folly and selfish indifference is
responsible?

“Your time will come; sooner or later you will find much the same
condition of things in your own great cities. Do not believe that in
some mysterious way—as your politicians and newspapers are trying to
teach you—you, in America, are different from us.

“We are all in the same boat, because the structure of society is
everywhere the same. Money is literally king and god. It rules us
everywhere, and it is bringing about a state of things with which the
order imposed by a German Kaiser is a mild and beneficent régime.
Indeed, I am not sure but that the greatest social crash will come in
the United States, unless you soon come to recognize that a new order of
things must be brought about. You pride yourselves upon your universal
suffrage, but of what value is a vote to a poor man who must risk his
bread and butter if he dares to vote contrary to his employer’s wishes?
What avails universal suffrage when one third of your legislators can be
bought, and votes go to the highest bidder? No; universal suffrage is
totally inadequate to save us under the existing order of things.

“I am a socialist simply because I am a rational human being, who knows
the facts; because I am—I venture to think—endowed with reason and
imagination.

“I do not imagine, however, that socialism is going to produce any
perfect ideal order. I simply see that the economic order which has
sustained the civilized world for the past two or three hundred years is
now falling in pieces and must be replaced by something; that we are
approaching a period that will spell either socialism or chaos.

“If unhappily chaos should come, it will be due to the opponents of
socialism, which is the only peaceful, rational method of social
organization under the new economic conditions, due to machine industry
and the contraction of the world by means of the great scientific
discoveries of our time.

“If you want to see a fuller statement of my views and the grounds for
them, look at the article on Socialism in the ‘Forum’ last month. But we
socialists spend years in study, and we can’t give the results
adequately in a brief form. Miss Brewster, I feel that you are in
earnest, far more in earnest than most women whom I have met from your
country. I do not wonder that you are perplexed. I would not change
places with you. I would far rather have the sure conviction of the
truth as I see it, and be of little power in advancing the cause I
believe in, than to stand as you do, rich, powerful, overwhelmed with
responsibilities, not knowing how to use your power, and trying in vain
to patch up and prolong the existence of what is destined to be swept
away ere the next generation shall have come and gone.

“Smile at my pessimism if you like; time will verify my words. If ever
you come to see this as I do, perhaps then I may suggest some things for
you to do with your millions.”...

(Miss Brewster’s reply to the foregoing letter.)

... “Your letter has deeply stirred me. Not that anything you say
surprises me, or is new to me; but behind the words, I know, are the
sad, dreadful facts for which they stand; and, being a creature endowed
with some imagination, I can in some measure realize what that simple
statement means, when you say that six millions of your people are on
the brink of pauperism.

“Good God! what endless heartaches, what physical misery, what
degradation of mind and soul is implied in those few words! I am glad
you do not envy me my wealth. I am beginning to think that I am not so
much to be envied as I thought at first I might be. I have been amazed,
in these last few weeks, to learn from numberless sources of the
chagrin, disappointment, and perplexity of many rich men and women who
have thought to benefit the world by the ‘charity’ which you so despise.
They have put up great institutions, only to find that in many cases it
was the least helpful thing that they could do; that a large part of the
money was spent on taxes, insurance, agents, servants, go-betweens;
that, after all, when they had gathered their orphans or cripples or old
women together, they had brought about an utterly cheerless, artificial
state of things, and have proved that for the average human being with
natural human instincts the poorest home is often more preferable than
the most palatial asylum.

“So, set your heart at rest. I am not going to spend my money in that
way. Whatever may be the political and social changes which will take
place in the next twenty years,—and doubtless they will be many and
great,—of one thing I am sure, no new condition of things can be made
permanent or harmonious except by means of two things. The first of
these is moral character. The second is intellectual insight into cause
and effect and relation. In any condition of things we must have
righteousness, and we must have trained minds. You will doubtless agree
with me that selfishness and ignorance are the two monster dragons that
are threatening now, as they always have done, to devour us, only we
should differ as to the way in which they are to be slain. You have a
definite theory as to how this is to be done, which I do not yet
thoroughly understand. I see your goal, but I do not understand how you
propose to reach it without doing away with individuality and crushing
out some of the deepest human instincts. True, many of our instincts are
brutish. There is still the tiger and the ape within us, which, as John
Fiske says, is our inheritance of ‘original sin’ from our brute
ancestors. I agree with you that such instincts must be eliminated, but
how? By dynamite, fear, revolution, legislation?

“You are right: we may make the selfish fear, and that is often a very
salutary thing to do if nothing better can be done. A business man was
telling me only the other day of the different relations between
employers and employees in Fall River and other manufacturing places
since the strikes of the last few years.

“But, after all, though fear and legislation can do something to convert
a brutal man into a decent man for a time, there must needs be something
else,—the gospel of love and humanity, which of his own free will he
must choose to accept and apply understandingly.

“I shall not attempt to palliate any of the existing evils, nor, on the
other hand, shall I attempt to undermine our present social and
political system even if I could. Certainly I shall not try to do this
until I am very certain that I see the right method of substituting
something better in its place.

“By the way, have you read Bellamy’s ‘Looking Backward’? It is very
suggestive, and Nationalization of Industries is getting to be more of a
fad in Boston than Esoteric Buddhism or Christian Science. Bellamy tells
us what we must try to attain; but, alas! he gives little hint of what
must be our first step toward the attainment. This is the problem which
you and I must help our generation to solve.

“Go on with your socialistic schemes. I believe they contain a half
truth; at all events, to talk about them as you do will make people
think, for you speak from the deepest conviction. Out of all this _sturm
und drang_ period must surely come clear insight and right action: at
least I am optimist enough to hope so; and my work shall be to think out
the solution, as far as I may, but at all events to do what in me lies
to set people to thinking; to make life a little sweeter and better; to
infuse into it more hope for a few of my generation, and thus help to
make their children ready for the new order of things if it comes.

“In this great city money flows like water. There are streets where, for
a mile, every house must be the home of a millionaire, for no one else
could afford to live in such a one. Yet, within two miles of these
palaces there is the direst want, the most frightful squalor, and the
problem of New York is fast getting to be like the problem of London.

“Most of our women dabble a little in charity now and then. They get up
charity balls and fairs to satisfy their consciences in that way, and
flatter themselves when they spend their money lavishly in luxuries for
their own pleasure that they are giving employment to the poor and doing
God service. They will sometimes give their money; they will sometimes
give a little time to cut out garments at a sewing circle; but not one
in five hundred will give her personal service even for a half day a
week in coming face to face with those who need the help of her
intelligence and her human sympathy.

“Of this I am convinced: men are never to be uplifted permanently,
except by human sympathy, intelligently directed and expressed, and by
personal contact with those who do not come to them to dole out
‘charity,’ but who come as brothers to lend them a helping hand.

“There are a few who begin the work; there are fewer still who continue
it. The other day a gentleman, who is giving his life to the rescuing of
street children, told me of the faintheartedness of his voluntary
helpers, who come a half dozen Sundays to his mission, but who rarely
come longer when they discover that, to use his own coarse but forcible
words, which you will pardon my quoting verbatim, ‘_they must be willing
to pick lice off those children for Christ’s sake_.’...

“Well, dear friend, we are both working in very different ways. You
would tear down; I would build up, or ‘patch up,’ as you say. Which of
us is the wiser, time will tell; but however differently we may labor,
it is for the same end after all that we are striving,—‘putting society
on a just and rational basis,’ as you would phrase it, or bringing God’s
kingdom upon earth, as the Christ called it,—and so I bid you
God-speed.”...




                              CHAPTER VII.


One morning in April we had risen from a leisurely, late breakfast, a
luxury which, with our press of work, we did not often allow ourselves,
except when, as in this case, we had been up late the previous night.

Hélène brought in the usual bulky bag of mail matter, and we settled
ourselves to our morning’s task, I taking charge of all letters that
were not of a private nature, and consigning to the waste basket
innumerable quires of paper devoted to more or less roundabout appeals
for aid, and lectures and advice _ad libitum_.

Occasionally we stopped to read aloud to each other bits of the letters,
and discuss or laugh over their contents. This morning I remember I was
examining a document in regard to a prison reform society, containing a
request that Mildred would allow her name to be used as vice-president
of it, when an exclamation from her startled me into dropping the letter
and turning round.

“Well, what now?” I asked, in response to the intimation from the
puckered forehead and pursed-up lips that something was the matter.
“Another love-sick poet? or is it a count this time? It must be time for
another suitor; you haven’t had an offer of marriage for at least ten
days, have you?”

“Indeed, Ruby, this is no joke, I assure you,” replied Mildred, gazing
blankly at the letter in her hand. “It is from General Lawrence.”

“What!” I exclaimed; “that distinguished-looking man who has written all
those books upon political economy? He talked with me in such an
entertaining way the other night and told the funniest stories. I was
afraid he would be awfully erudite and dry, but he wasn’t at all.”

“No; he can be very entertaining,” sighed Mildred. “I have met him
several times since we have been in New York. He was a classmate of
papa’s at Yale and a gallant soldier in the war. Judge Matthews said he
thought him one of the clearest and ablest thinkers in the country, and
it seems that years ago he had achieved a European reputation.”

“Yes,” I said, “I have seen his articles in the ‘Fortnightly’ and
‘Edinburgh’ reviews, and he spoke the other night as if he were well
acquainted with Browning and Froude and half of the literary people of
England.”

“His wife wore fine sapphires, and I overheard her say that she was
devoted to German opera,” added Mildred, musingly.

“Well, what of it?” I asked, much mystified at this apparently
irrelevant remark.

“Why, only this,” answered Mildred, dryly; “this entertaining society
man, this famous political economist, writes to me this morning
piteously begging for an immediate loan of ten thousand dollars to keep
the sheriff out of his house.”

“Heavens! Mildred. Why, I supposed he had enough money to live on,” I
cried, aghast. “He lives in one of those pretty two-thousand-a-year
apartments up by the park, does he not? I have heard people say what a
charming little home they had, and everything in such good taste. Pray
how have they managed it?”

“Oh, in the simplest way in the world—on other people’s money,” replied
Mildred, with a shade of scorn in her tone. “The fact is, as all his
friends know, he is as poor as a church-mouse. But he has always been
accustomed to living well, and he has not the faintest idea of household
economy in spite of his fine theories of political economy. He is
generous and warm-hearted, and helped papa with a loan when he was in
college trying to live on three hundred a year, and I cannot forget a
kindness like that. Of course, it would be the easiest thing in the
world for me to give him the ten thousand outright. A loan would be a
gift for that matter, for he could never repay it, as his income is only
three thousand a year, I fancy, and his expenses are at least one or two
thousand more.”

“Of course his wife must be the cause of all this,” I remarked. “Any
woman who will spend borrowed money on sapphires”—

“Oh, they were probably heirlooms; she came of a rich family,”
interrupted Mildred.

“No matter,” I continued; “any woman who will wear sapphires and has the
assurance to go to a dinner party with its attendant expenses of dress,
carriage, et cetera, when she cannot pay her debts and expects at any
minute to be sold out of house and home, is a woman who deserves to have
a pretty sharp lesson taught her, and I hope you will do it. Now, don’t
let those blue eyes of his and that majestic manner overawe you and
cajole you into feeling that you owe him a debt of gratitude to be paid
by getting him out of this emergency; for it will serve only to let him
teach his children that the highroad to comfort and ease is to go on the
principle that the public owes a genius a living.”

“No, I do not mean to do that,” replied Mildred, thoughtfully; “but I
cannot let this disgrace come to them when I can help it as well as not,
and it is a rather awkward thing for me to dictate conditions to a man
who is old enough to be my father, one who has risked his life on many a
battlefield, and is a genius and a famous scholar. I cannot lay the
blame on his wife. She adores him, and he thinks her failures are better
than other people’s successes. The whole family in fact forms the most
genuine mutual admiration society. They seem utterly oblivious of the
fact that in letting their milkman’s bill go unpaid, and in giving their
children money to go riding in the goat carriage in the park, they are
doing anything dishonorable.

“Every one who knows them says they have no more wisdom in bringing up
their children than two babies. They let them eat and drink what they
like, sit up as late as they like, and care more about their speaking
French and German well than about their knowing the multiplication
table, or anything practical.

“If they were not such devout churchpeople, one would not be so amazed
at this extravagance,” ejaculated Mildred warmly, “though perhaps genius
may be pardoned for lacking common sense and common honesty,” she added,
grimly.

Then rising, she continued, as she put on her hat and gloves: “I know
what I shall do. I have a scheme for helping him in a way that will be
something more than merely giving him immediate material aid. I know a
dear old lady who used to be papa’s friend and his, and I will go at
once to see her. She can tell me some facts that I need to know.”

Two hours later, she had but just returned when the General called.

He looked nervous and flushed, and I never saw Mildred seem more
embarrassed. In an adjoining room I awaited with some impatience the
close of the interview.

At last she came into my room, and throwing herself down on the white
bear-skin rug before the grate, she exclaimed, with a little groan,
“There, I’ve done it, though it was the most painful thing I ever did in
my life. I felt that I must seem so mean and arrogant to make myself the
arbiter of the fate of a man like him, and to dictate terms which must
have been horribly humiliating. Think of my setting myself up to
instruct a man who has deserved the honor of the friendship of men like
Mazzini and Von Moltke and Carlyle and Sumner.”

“How did you begin?” I queried, realizing for the first time what a
difficult thing this must have been to a generous-hearted girl like
Mildred.

“Oh,” she said, “I began by reminding him of his kindness to papa, and
assuring him that I was ready and glad to be of assistance to him. He
looked so grateful that I found it almost impossible to screw up my
courage to continue. But, after stammering over it a minute, I put on a
bold front and went on to say that I felt it my duty to make my gift,
for it was to be a gift, not a loan, upon certain stringent conditions
in order that similar circumstances might not occur again. I would state
what they were, and then he might consult with his family and let me
know whether he would accept them or not.

“He replied sadly, ‘I am in your hands, Miss Brewster. There is no
question of my volition in the matter.’

“It almost brought the tears to my eyes, Ruby, for he did look so grand
and noble, and it was so pathetic to think of a man of his powers forced
to humble himself before a girl like me. He said that for years this
shadow of debt had been over him, making life a purgatory for him, which
is true enough. I hear that he has long been borrowing from every one of
his own and his wife’s relatives, and has mortgaged everything they own,
even her jewels. One wonders what he can be made of to have endured such
shame and yet to have counted it less shame than to live in a small,
economical way within his income. But he spoke of his debts with all the
ingenuousness of a child, just as though they were an affliction sent by
Providence, for which he was in no wise responsible, and I really think
that he felt them so.

“‘My first condition,’ I said, ‘is that you shall give me a full and
accurate statement of your financial affairs, including old debts which
are not pressing, insurance, mortgages, and everything of a money
nature.’

“Secondly, I asked that none of his children should receive private
lessons in dancing, French, or anything else, which were not paid for in
full in advance. I could see that this was a very bitter thing for the
General. One of his daughters is a girl of artistic talent, and he has
been giving her expensive lessons in painting, for which, as I knew, he
has never paid.

“I asked General Lawrence pretty pointedly,” continued Mildred, “if, so
long as a fair education could be had in our schools without cost, he
felt justified in taking other people’s money to give his children
accomplishments.”

“And pray what did he say to that?” I inquired.

“Why, nothing,” answered Mildred. “He looked absolutely dazed, as if it
were a totally new idea. In fact, I do not think that it had occurred to
him that children could be brought up respectably without knowing French
and dancing.

“I wanted to tell him,” said Mildred, “that I counted the best part of
my education to be the years that I spent studying geography and
arithmetic with both boys and girls, with white and black, with rich and
poor, with Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, in a public school, where
success was gauged by individual merit alone, and where we little bigots
and partisans learned to be tolerant and respectful toward one another.
One of the most salutary things I ever learned was that the son of a
ragpicker, in my class, was a better mathematician than I, and that a
mulatto girl across the aisle usually outranked me.

“I told General Lawrence it was my firm conviction that his children
would be far more benefited by a few years’ study of ordinary English
branches with ordinary children than by anything else he could do for
them educationally, for I feared that they were growing up to know only
one side of life and only one class of people, and their knowledge and
sympathies would be narrow. He nodded assent, and I went on.

“My third condition was, that he and his wife should sign a paper
promising for the next three years to allow no debts to any one but me,
or some agent authorized by me, to run beyond a month’s time. Any
failure to meet such debts promptly must be immediately reported to me
for settlement, for which I should take a mortgage on his furniture and
personal effects.

“I told him that my intention was not merely to help his immediate and
pressing need, but to entirely free him from debt. Nevertheless, I was
unwilling to undertake this, unless he were ready to rigidly insist upon
living within his income, thus teaching his children some lessons of
self-sacrifice and thrift. I told him plainly that I was sure a little
different management would reduce his doctor’s bills, for I had reason
to think that his children’s constant ailing was due to the foolish way
in which they had been indulged. He looked amazed and annoyed at this,
and begged me to specify.

“I replied, ‘Mrs. Lawrence herself told me of three parties which her
eight-year-old Gladys attended within a single week, and she afterwards
remarked incidentally that the child had a tendency to insomnia and
dyspepsia and was taking medicine all the time. Moreover, your older
daughter privately informed me that she had begun a diet of vinegar and
slate-pencils to reduce her plumpness.

“‘No,’ I said, ‘I shall not presume to dictate to you as to the methods
which you are to pursue with your children. But I have seen them several
times and have an interest in them, and I believe that their character
will receive a permanent injury from the irregular life which they are
living and the false notions they have imbibed in regard to keeping up a
style which they cannot afford. So for their sake, and in addition to
paying all your debts, I am willing to send the oldest to good
boarding-schools where simple diet, regular hours, and systematic work
can help to make of them a stronger man and woman than there is prospect
of their becoming now.’

“I could see that it was terribly galling for him to have me sit there
and arraign him, as it were, for his conduct; but he clenched his teeth,
kept silence, and heard me to the end. Then he cleared his throat, and
after a moment said, hoarsely, without looking up:

“‘Miss Brewster, you are very kind. With your permission I will call on
you to-morrow at eleven.’”

The next morning, a half hour after the time appointed, General Lawrence
and his wife appeared, both looking as if they had passed a restless
night. Mrs. Lawrence, clad in an elegant gown, quite outshone Mildred,
who wore a quiet street costume of gray serge. That costly dress and the
queenly air of its owner nettled me.

“Mildred,” I whispered, as she came back for a pencil, “do think twice
before you squander your thousands on saving those people from the just
penalty of their folly and sin.”

“I am not thinking of them so much as of their children,” said she
gravely; “and it is far more folly than sin. Mrs. Lawrence is a Southern
woman, sweet-tempered and charming, but despising little economies as
petty Yankee meanness, and she will have to submit to receiving
instruction from me on that score, or else I shall let the sheriff
come.”

But Mildred certainly did seem somewhat disconcerted when she learned
that the ten-thousand-dollar loan which had been asked for was less than
half of General Lawrence’s indebtedness. He confessed, she told me
afterward, that his expenses last year were over five thousand dollars,
while his receipts from his literary work, his sole income, were only
twenty-eight hundred. “We were obliged, actually obliged, to go into
society more or less on account of the General’s position,” said his
wife, apologetically. “General Lawrence is continually meeting important
people in the literary and political world, and can’t you see, my dear
Miss Brewster, how essential this is for his writing? And, of course, if
we are always well entertained ourselves, we have to treat people
decently when they come to see us. I have been my own seamstress, and
have economized in every way, but it is absolutely impossible for us to
live on three thousand a year. My husband’s writings would bring us
three times that if he could get what he deserves. But it is always so
with men of genius; their own generation never appreciates them,” she
added bitterly, while her husband fidgeted and took a turn around the
room.

“Well, and what did you say to such rubbish as that?” I inquired of
Mildred.

“I said,” answered she, “that Emerson and many others had found ‘plain
living and high thinking’ quite compatible, and that I thought a
residence in some suburban town would obviate the burdens of society,
and allow them to live within their income. At all events,” I said,
“although I stood ready to offer, as a gift, their entire immunity from
debt, this could not be done except by a strict construction of the
conditions which I had laid down. However, I offered General Lawrence an
opportunity to lay up a little money, telling him that I had various
projects in view, and should need the assistance of the pen of a ready
writer in carrying out many of them. I told him that I would put to his
credit in the bank ten dollars for every newspaper column which he would
write on subjects that I should give him: at the end of three years this
amount should be turned over to him, and meanwhile he must ‘cut his coat
according to his cloth,’ and manage in some way to live strictly within
his income.”

“And what did Madam say to that?” I asked.

“Oh, her pride kept the tears back; they both said nothing and signed
the papers; but I know that she must think me a hateful, close-fisted
Yankee, with no conception of granting a favor graciously and without
cruelly wounding the recipient’s feelings.”

We saw very little of the Lawrences after this. It was understood that
little Gladys’s health required country air, and a cottage out of town
was engaged. The children were not sent to school, but kept up French
and read history and literature at home with their mamma, and although
they would have found it difficult to bound Missouri or do an example in
long division, they could talk glibly of Louis XI. and the Cid.

Whether a beneficial reform was wrought in the domestic economy of the
family, I never knew, and I think Mildred had her doubts, though she was
not called upon to pay any more debts.

We heard incidentally that the General’s cigar bills and physician’s
fees had not decreased, and that his last work on the Philosophy of the
Greek Tragedians had received unqualified praise from Professor Curtius.

This little episode was only one of the many which marked our brief stay
in New York, and gave me an opportunity to study the many-sided
character of my friend. She had some aristocratic acquaintances in the
city who were only too happy to lionize her, and she was soon
overwhelmed with invitations to lunch parties, theatre parties, et
cetera, in which I was also kindly included.

“You must go, dear; I want some one to back me up,” she used to say at
first. “I have courage enough to go into a pulpit and preach a sermon,
or to go down into the slums alone, or to do a thousand things which
would make most girls horrified, but I fairly shake in my shoes when I
have to be the target of the eyes of all these society women and
dollar-hunters. I know they would not care a jot for me were it not for
my money, and I cannot help thinking of it all the time. I feel
suspicious of every one in a way that makes me blush.

“I can’t talk society small talk; I never could. I wonder how people
manage to do it and wax so eloquent over nothing,” she once said. “But I
suppose I must try to learn how,” she added, with a comical wry face.

“Why try to learn, why not act your natural self?” I protested, for I
had quietly observed that Mildred’s simple and unaffected bearing and
transparent sincerity had proved far more attractive in society than the
persiflage and repartee of more brilliant women, though I knew that she
herself felt conscious of shyness and a sense that she was out of her
proper element.

“Why not act my natural self?” repeated Mildred. “Because, my dear, I
like to be liked, and my natural, unconventional self would lead me to
talk of all sorts of things which society would not like. If I talked as
much as I wished to on the subjects that interest me most, I should be
voted a Boston bore, a woman with a mission, with hobbies, with
theories,—altogether a very unlikable person aside from my ducats.”

“Nonsense, Mildred!” I cried. “I have seen a hundred times as much of
society as you have, and I can say that the greatest boon in the way of
novelty would be a little bit of the independence and freshness so
natural to you. You are a woman to whom real things mean something. You
are earnest. You like to talk about earnest things, and why should you
feel obliged to condescend to the level of society small talk and
meaningless compliments?”

“Oh, I don’t propose to be a hypocrite,” said Mildred, with a little
amused laugh, at my unaccustomed vehemence in this line of thought. She
sat for a minute absently picking in pieces the Jacqueminot rose in her
corsage; then she said, “But you know, Ruby, there is such a thing as
being a doctrinaire and a dull dogmatist, and, on the other hand, being
full of tact and sympathy and wit, accomplishing the best results in an
indirect way, when no amount of direct preaching could do it. A woman of
character can make even her small talk a tremendous power if she only
knows how to go to work.

“I want to be a power, I honestly confess that, but I have little
worldly wisdom, and I have much to learn. I have lived in a world of
books and ideas, and now I am thrown into this perplexing, brilliant,
kaleidoscopic world of society, and I feel as unsophisticated as a girl
of sixteen.”

“But there is plenty of homage given you,” I remarked. “You were the
envy of every woman in the room the other night when Lord H—— took you
out to dinner.”

“Homage to _me_? Homage to my money, you ought to say,” replied Mildred,
with a touch of bitterness, as she shook the rose-leaves from her lap
into the waste-basket. “I wore opals and satin, and am, as the papers
say, a ‘great catch;’ but how much attention do you suppose my lord
would have paid me six months ago if he had met me running down Joy
Street with my bag of books, to take a Cambridge car?”

“But plenty of women are admired who are not rich,” I remarked; “it
doesn’t follow”—

“No,” said Mildred, breaking in impetuously; “but women are not admired
for their real worth. It always used to madden me to see how the nice,
sensible girls, who really had original ideas and could say something
worth saying, were always left to be the wall-flowers.

“Nine men out of ten actually like a little, helpless doll of a creature
who can talk by the hour and say nothing; and they don’t care for a
brave, self-helpful girl who has any independence of spirit, and who
does not flatter a man by demanding his attention and referring to his
opinion on every subject which requires more thought than crocheting or
tennis.

“No,” after a moment’s pause. “Men do not find thoughtful women
interesting. I learned that long ago. I went to a mixed high school, and
when we young folks went on picnics or sleigh-rides, it was always the
poorest scholar in the class who had the smallest waist and wore the
most bracelets, a good-natured little society girl, who received the
most attention from the young men. But they were all callow boys, and I
did not think or care much about them. I knew a few men of the finest
sort who showed me what men could be, and I did not think then, what I
am coming to believe now, that many of the real gentlemen who mean to be
chivalrous, and who imagine that they give the highest honor to women,
actually admire the Howells-farce-type of woman above every other,—that
is to say, a pretty, prattling, conscientious, irrational little goose.”

“I don’t know anything about Howells’s women,” said I, rather surprised
at this outburst; “and I didn’t suppose you ever condescended to
anything less than Hawthorne or George Eliot.”

“Oh yes, I always read everything of Howells’s, though I abominate his
women. But he is so inimitably droll and bright, and then the local
Boston flavor of his stories is rather fascinating to a Bostonian, you
know.”

“Very likely he does not admire his women himself; he may simply wish to
show up that type,” I suggested.

“Yes, and a pretty common type I am finding it to be after all, though I
once used to scorn the idea,” said Mildred, despondingly.

Then she added, as she nervously twirled the little silver Maltese
cross, the badge of the King’s Daughters, which she always wore, “I
suppose I have known as little and cared as little about men as any girl
who ever lived. But I have lived too much like a nun,” she sighed; “this
new life of these past few weeks has awakened me; I feel that I have
missed something.

“I wish”—

“Well, dear, what do you wish?” I asked, as she hesitated.

“I wish,” said she decidedly, “that I could meet some thoroughly fine
men with brains and heart who liked me for myself, who liked what was
best in me. I honestly confess it is pleasant to be liked and sought
after, pleasanter than I used to think. I can see now how easy it is to
get one’s head turned.” Then, after a little pause:

“But in society we can never be sure what the attraction is. Everything,
vulgarity, ignorance, immorality,—everything is pardonable with wealth.”

“Hush, dear, you are getting desperate,” I said. “There are, no doubt,
many grades of New York society where all that may be pardoned on the
score of wealth; but you have not seen much of that, so far, and we have
met many really fine, cultivated people who have traveled and studied
and have real character. You spoke enthusiastically of the talk about
Art which you had the other night over in the bay window with Professor
Stuart and that English artist with all the letters after his name.”

“Yes, indeed, they were as entertaining as possible, and gave me ideas I
had never thought of by myself; but then they were graybeards of fifty.
I was thinking of younger men whom one might”—and Mildred hesitated and
looked out of the window, blushing.

“Why don’t you finish it,” I said mischievously; “whom one might marry?”

But Mildred only laughed and said nothing.




                             CHAPTER VIII.


One morning at breakfast, as we were sipping our chocolate, Mildred
cried out, “Oh, Ruby, I forgot to tell you! I am going to have a
symposium here to-night.”

“A symposium!—of whom? and what is it all to be about? Let me hear your
latest scheme,” I queried, laying down my black Hamburgs and looking up
at her. Her face was very bright and animated, and the scheme, whatever
it was, evidently interested her considerably.

Mildred leaned back in her chair and twirled the beautiful ruby ring
which she always wore. This ring had been her sister’s, and was an
heirloom; she rarely wore any other jewels, and when she was preoccupied
she had a habit of turning it round and round on her finger.

“I mean,” said Mildred, “to get together all the wisdom on the tenement
house question that is available in New York and Brooklyn, and see what
the consensus of opinion is; and I am going to have my amanuensis take
notes for future reference. You know I have some coöperative theories of
my own in regard to the matter, and I wish to ascertain what these
practical workers think of them.”

“Whom have you invited?” I inquired, beginning to be interested.

“Oh, Professor Felix Adler, for one. He built those tenements that we
saw the other day down on Cherry Street, you remember, and he is also
very much interested in manual training. Then there is Mr. Pratt, who
founded that great Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, with all kinds of
industrial training and a free library and reading-room. Then—let me
see—I have invited Mr. Barnard of the Five Points House of Industry,
Mrs. Alice Wellington Rollins, who wrote ‘Uncle Tom’s Tenement,’ Mr.
Charles L. Brace of the Children’s Aid Society, most of the agents of
the model tenement houses that I have visited, several of the lady
visitors in the charity organizations, and one or two architects.”

As it proved, however, not all who were invited came, but there were
enough to comfortably fill our pretty parlor. There were Jews and
Gentiles, radicals and high-churchmen, all interested in the same
subject, and many of them meeting each other for the first time.

Mildred had chocolate and cakes and fruit served, and then proceeded to
business in the dignified, quiet way which so well became her.

“I have asked you here this evening,” she said, “that I may get the
benefit of your united wisdom and experience. I seek enlightenment as to
the best way to solve the problem of the housing of the poor in a great
city. I wish to do something to make the conditions of existence a
little more bearable for some of the wretched creatures that I have been
seeing of late in such places as the Mulberry Street Bend, on Hester,
Forsyth, and Cherry streets, and a hundred other places.

“For some years, in connection with the Associated Charity work of
Boston, I have visited poor families in the alleys of North Street, and
have made myself somewhat familiar with the problems that are besetting
us in the herding together of enormous numbers of people under
conditions that, I think I am safe in saying, never before existed. What
little I have seen in other cities is as nothing to what I find here.
And it is here in New York, where I am told you have the most thickly
populated square mile on the globe, and where the dregs from Castle
Garden remain, that I propose to do something.

“As I have been about with your district visitors and have picked my way
among the garbage barrels and swarming mass of humanity in the Jewish
quarter, on their market day, I have wondered how it was possible for
morality to exist in the close personal contact and absolute want of
privacy which this lack of space necessitates. Now, tell me, what is to
be done to relieve this condition of things and permit those little
_gamins_ to grow up decent American citizens? Are things worse or are
they better than they used to be? I hear that a mint of money is spent
in charity, but I hear also that in the past one of the greatest causes
of pauperism has been found to be unwise philanthropy, and the more I
look into the question the more perplexed and uncertain I find myself.

“What does your experience suggest?” asked Mildred, turning with one of
her winning smiles to a cheery-faced lady of perhaps fifty years of age,
who sat at her right.

“That is a pretty hard question to answer,” was the reply. “I’ve been at
work for twenty-five years down on the East side near the river, and I
am free to say that I don’t see much improvement. Of course, things are
better in some ways; there is better sanitary inspection than there used
to be, and need enough there is of it too, with these filthy Italians
and Polish Jews who are pouring in here every week by the thousands. I
must say I haven’t much hope of them.”

“Yes, of course; but haven’t you hope of the children?” inquired
Mildred, eagerly.

“Yes, a little more hope for them, certainly,” responded the lady
somewhat dubiously, with a sigh that contrasted strangely with her
bright, hopeful face; “but I must say frankly, that the more I see of
the poor, the more hopeless I sometimes feel and the less able to make
generalizations and give advice. I used to think it a comparatively
simple thing, requiring merely money and hard work. Ten years ago I
could have given you advice very glibly, but I don’t feel so sure about
anything now; there are so many sides to everything, and so many
exceptions to every rule.

“Of course, good tenement houses are a great thing, provided you can
have a janitor and a housekeeper to keep them in order. But the best
model tenement house in the world would be completely ruined if entirely
given over to the class of tenants I know about. They will just as
likely as not throw their ashes and garbage down the waste-pipes, and
pile all their bedding out on the fire-escapes, blocking them up so as
to make them almost useless in case of a fire. It requires the patience
of Job to deal with such people. They don’t care for your new
improvements, and they don’t propose to be restrained by any regulations
or rules.

“As for the model tenement houses that we have, doubtless they are
excellent. But they don’t as a general thing reach the lowest class of
people, and in any event they are a mere drop in the bucket. There’s
just one consolation about it all, as I say to myself when I go
about,—these people have never been used to anything better, and they
don’t know how miserable they are.”

“That is just what I think is the worst of it,” said Mrs. Rollins, as
the speaker paused. “The fact that they don’t know anything better,
don’t expect anything better, don’t want anything better, is the
frightful thing about it. As to whether things are getting better or not
I can’t say, but I know this, the tenement house has come to stay; it
cannot be eliminated from the modern problem of living. Thousands of our
well-to-do people are living in flats and suites simply to avoid the
burden and expense of having to entertain so much company, and these
buildings, like the Spanish flats or the Dacotah, are really only
another kind of tenement house. As I say, the tenement house has come to
stay. Separate houses for separate families are going to be fewer and
fewer in our large cities, where land is becoming more and more
valuable. The thing that remains for us to do is to build with more
skill and wisdom, so that while the separate house must more and more
give way, the home need not be sacrificed.”

“Miss Brewster,” said a gray-bearded man whose name I did not learn, “as
to the question whether the charities and sanitary improvements of the
city have amounted to anything in the last twenty-five years, it seems
to me it is not well for us to rely wholly on personal impressions.
There are figures at command which can abundantly show that in two
respects at least—the lessening of the rates of mortality and the
reduction of arrests for crime—we have made an immense advance on
twenty-five years ago, in spite of the fact that the population has
nearly doubled. Permit me to state a few facts.”

“Good; this is just what I want,” said Mildred with keen attention.

He continued: “In 1864, when the sanitary examination of the city was
made, some wards were found to be peopled at the rate of 290,000 persons
to the square mile, while in the most densely populated part of London
the number was less than 176,000 to the square mile. To show what
sanitary regulations will do, let me say that the number of deaths in
London previous to a good sanitary government was one in twenty, and in
New York one in thirty-five, while after such regulations the number in
London was reduced to one in forty-five, and in New York to one in
thirty-eight and a half.

“We think our tenement houses now are bad enough, but let me read you a
report of the condition of things in 1866. ‘At this time the cities of
New York and Brooklyn were filled with nuisances, many of them of years’
duration. The streets were uncleaned; manure heaps, containing thousands
of tons, occupied piers and vacant lots; sewers were obstructed; houses
were crowded and badly ventilated and lighted; stables and yards were
filled with stagnant water, and many dark and damp cellars were
inhabited. The streets were obstructed, and the wharves and piers were
filthy and dangerous from dilapidation. Cattle were driven through the
streets at all hours of the day in large numbers. Slaughter houses were
open to the streets, and were offensive from the accumulated offal and
blood, or filled the sewers with decomposing animal matter. Gas
companies, shell-burners, and fat-boilers pursued their occupations
without regard to the public health or comfort, filling the air with
disgusting odors; and roaming swine were the principal scavengers of the
streets and gutters!’

“Moreover,” the gentleman continued, “owing to the general indifference
and ignorance concerning sanitary construction of houses, tenement
houses used often to be found having on one floor ten or twelve interior
rooms, with no means of ventilation or light except through other rooms;
and at night, when these rooms were occupied and the doors closed, one
may imagine the amount of poison which each person was compelled to
breathe. Now, all that has been remedied to a great extent. No such
houses are allowed to be built, and in lodging-houses there is a
wholesome regulation as to the number of cubic feet of air-space allowed
to each individual. Sanitary inspection is conducted by competent
officials at regular intervals. The public conscience has been aroused
in this matter.

“As I look back thirty-five years, I find that among the better class of
people there is far more fastidiousness in regard to all matters of
personal cleanliness than there used to be. There are more bathing
facilities, a greater delicacy in manners at table, a greater tendency
to isolation and privacy in personal matters of the toilet, and so
forth, and therefore among every class of people a better sentiment in
regard to the enforcement of sanitary regulations than there used to be
when I was a boy. But those who are helping these things, although many
absolutely, are relatively pitifully few. Yet no one who knows the
condition of affairs twenty years ago can question that an advance has
been made. We are learning to organize charity better, we are spending
our efforts in more profitable directions, and we are training our
public not to increase pauperism by the old-fashioned, pernicious
methods of indiscriminate giving. In regard to the lessening of juvenile
crime I think Mr. Brace can give the most valuable opinion of any one
present.”

All eyes were turned to Mr. Brace, and there was a hearty hand-clapping
as he prepared to speak.

“Since 1852,” he said, “the society which I represent has been doing its
best to rescue the little wanderers of this city from lives of suffering
and degradation. The value of its work is too well known for me to
enlarge upon it. We are met here this evening to discuss tenement
houses, and I will therefore take the time to make only two or three
statements in reply to Miss Brewster’s inquiry as to whether the morals
of the community have improved, and whether charitable and reformatory
work is of much value. Now, in spite of the fact that the overcrowding
in the poor quarters is greater than ever, that the lowest of the
European population are pouring into our city to an alarming extent,
that our municipal government has often been notoriously corrupt, in
spite of all this, I say, by means of the efforts which have been put
forth, there has been a steady and most satisfactory decrease in crime
during all these years. Allow me to give you a few figures. In 1859
there were more than five thousand five hundred commitments for female
vagrancy, and in 1886, notwithstanding the general increase in
population, there were less than two thousand five hundred commitments
for the same cause. In the eleven years preceding 1886, the decrease in
arrests for drunkenness among males was just about fifty per cent. I
will hand you a table, Miss Brewster, giving you the report of juvenile
crimes since 1875, and also the Police record containing the general
report for the city, the details of which you can read at your leisure.
I will simply say now that the net summing up of these reports shows a
remarkable decrease in crime of all sorts of twelve and a half per cent.
This, I think, will answer your question as to whether, on the whole,
our city is any better.”

“There is another thing to be noticed,” said a little lady over in the
corner. “People of all classes think more of going into the country and
getting fresh air than they used to. Thousands of families who thirty
years ago would not have spent two or three weeks in the year out of the
city now think they must have two months at least. They have come to
consider this a necessity for themselves, and it makes them through
sympathy appreciate a little the needs of the very poor during the
fierce summer heat. The lovely charities of the Flower Mission, Country
Week, and the harbor excursions have grown out of this sympathy for
others.

“I, for one, think that the world is far more kind and sympathetic than
it used to be, in all sorts of little ways, as is shown by the
multiplication of such societies as the ‘King’s Daughters’ and ‘Lend a
Hand’ clubs, by the increased tenderness with children, and prevention
of cruelty to animals. I don’t mean to say that people are much happier,
for they have a higher standard and are less content with objectionable
things than they used to be when I was a child forty years ago. But I
for one do not decry that kind of discontent with existing bad
circumstances. To me it seems to be only the precursor of reform. I do
not believe in encouraging the poor to be content with their lot. I
think, with Mrs. Rollins, that the worst thing possible is this fearful
apathy toward bad surroundings, of which one sees so much among our low
foreigners. The first thing to do in Americanizing them is to make them
discontented with living like the brutes.”

“And what is the first step in that direction?” inquired Mildred,
thoughtfully. “Is it more legislation to regulate and limit this fearful
inflow of more people than we are able to cope with; or is it a large
concerted movement of capitalists to provide better tenements? Or is it
education and Christianization?”

“As I hold, it is each and all of these,” said a blond-haired, keen-eyed
young man in the back part of the room, rising as he spoke and leaning
against the mantel. He spoke in a clear, crisp way which was pleasant to
hear.

“Legislation is needed, after we first enforce the laws which we already
have; but it would hardly be worth while to petition for new ones when
we can make the old but little more than a dead letter. At present no
foreigner can be allowed by law to land who has not money enough to
support himself for a year; and yet how often is this law enforced? No;
as long as the pressure of taxation and the burden of a great standing
army exists in every country in Europe, as long as our unchristian
tariff prevents the natural inflow of foreign products and grinds down
the laborers of the old world, so long shall we be compelled to face
this problem of Americanizing two thirds of the population of our great
cities. We here in New York live in a foreign city. There are less than
fifteen per cent. of us whose parents were born in this country and bred
in its political, religious, and social traditions. One doesn’t realize
this in walking down Broadway or Fifth Avenue; but in some parts of the
city where most people do not often go, one would think himself in
Germany, or Italy, or Poland.

“Now, you ask what is the first step toward Americanizing this foreign
element. _I_ say, education, Christianity, and better living. There
isn’t much use in trying to teach children when their stomachs are
empty; there is not much use in goody-goody Sunday-school talk without
the discipline in cleanliness, order, and industry which the day school
alone can compel; neither is there much use in giving these people
palaces to live in and supplying them with comforts and conveniences,
unless at the same time you bring some moral power to bear upon them,
while also helping them to a pretty good acquaintance with the three
R’s. You see, it works both ways. Clean and wholesome physical
surroundings create an opportunity for mental and spiritual growth, and
without the latter the former would not be appreciated or preserved.”

“I quite agree with the last speaker,” said Professor Adler in his mild,
quiet way, contrasting with the briskness of the blond young man whose
common-sense talk had pleased us. “The supply of pure air, sanitary
regulations, and decent comforts must be the primary object of the
philanthropist who would solve the problem of the housing of the poor;
but it will avail little, unless it is invariably accompanied by
constant supervision, helpfulness, and sympathy. Every tenement house
should have a responsible resident agent,—not a mere perfunctory person
who shall issue orders and collect the rent, but one who in case of
sickness or trouble can give advice and help, and by living constantly
in friendly relations with tenants can initiate reforms in a wise way.
The stubbornness and conservatism of the ignorant in opposing what is
for their real good is one of the most surprising things we have to
contend with. One would think, for instance, that a coöperative grocery
store, situated in a tenement house, and giving good quality at as
reasonable prices as could be obtained elsewhere, would be an inducement
to the average tenant to buy. But so great is the suspicion that we are
trying to take advantage of them in some way, that they will often
prefer to go farther and pay more, simply to assert their independence.”

“Do they take kindly to free kindergartens?” inquired Mildred.

“Yes, when they come to understand them; but the announcement of a
kindergarten, free reading-room, and bath-rooms in connection with a new
tenement house rarely offers much inducement to the average laborer
looking for rooms. But a large room which can be used in the morning for
kindergarten purposes, and at other times for a gathering place for
clubs and singing-classes, is an invaluable thing in every large
tenement house. This gives a foothold for all kinds of work to be
conducted by young gentlemen and ladies who desire to uplift the youth
of these neighborhoods. Gymnastic classes and glee clubs form a sort of
neutral ground where all may meet on a common level, and where the
refinement, intelligence, and good breeding of those who are willing to
give their services once or twice a week will soon make itself felt. It
is not necessary that they should directly teach or preach; but if they
are well-bred, kind-hearted people, they will by their mere tones of
voice and their method of managing things exert a subtle influence which
in tune will give them the power to go further and attempt other things.

“The quickest way to Americanize an ignorant foreigner is to give him
frequent object lessons in the shape of the best type of American
citizen.”

“I think I understand you,” said Mildred, “and it is what I myself
thoroughly believe. The model tenement house question is not merely a
question of brick and stone, ventilation, bath-rooms, and four per
cent.; it is a question largely of providing the best means for
uplifting spiritually, mentally, and physically these swarming masses.
Speaking of four per cent., let me inquire whether tenement houses can
be considered a good money investment. Not that I, personally, am
anxious to make money out of them; but I suppose it goes without saying
that anything like this which does not pay a fair percentage, and is
really a charity, in the end tends to pauperize and is pernicious.”

“Certainly,” replied Professor Adler; “and not only that, but most of
the poor are too proud to accept charity in that form, though,
inconsistently enough, they may be quite ready to accept it in other
ways. But anything which savors of an institution or charity, and that
puts them under obligations, is sure to fail. On the other hand, to hold
out to capitalists the idea that they had better put their money into
tenement houses because it is a good investment is something I do not
like to do. A man who wishes simply to make money would tell me that he
knows far better methods than mine, and would consider my advice an
impertinence. But every man, no matter how much of an egotist he may be,
likes to be thought unselfish, and if I can tell him that here is a
means of doing great good while at the same time he loses no money, then
he may listen to me. Money wisely put into tenements can provide for the
tenant far more advantages than he usually has; it can give light, air,
cleanliness, many conveniences in common with others, and yield to the
landlord four per cent. besides. Some good tenements pay six per cent.,
but this is perhaps at a sacrifice of conveniences to the tenant, or is
due to some special reasons. However, as the security of the investment
is so great, four per cent. may be considered fair interest.”

“Good; now as to the details,” said Mildred in her practical way. “I
want to tell you my scheme, and then let you criticise it to the utmost.
I suppose I was born with a bump for economy; at all events, nothing
tries me more than the excessive waste which I have seen around me all
my life. I don’t mean merely waste of money, but waste of time, waste of
energy and effort in every direction. Of course there is less of the
latter here than in the old world, for here Yankee ingenuity does not
have so hard a fight with prejudice, and every inventor of a
labor-saving machine is crowned with honor. Still, there is a terrible
amount of waste, especially in women’s work. I will not stop to speak of
all phases of it; but as I have observed men and women for years, and
have seen the suffering from needless backaches caused by climbing
stairs and doing housework in an unnecessarily hard way, as I have seen
the complexity and endless details of our modern life crowd out, in the
lives of all but the rich, the leisure which their children should have,
and which they need for their own self-development, I have racked my
brains to see what could be done to simplify the petty details of modern
housekeeping.

“I believe that we are on the verge of a new era in this respect. The
prejudices of centuries must give way to the new requirements of a
civilization which will more and more create an urban population, and
also a higher standard of physical comfort. Now in this, time, strength,
and money must be better conserved, or we shall, as a nation, have
nervous prostration, I fear.

“My only solution for this, or for a part of it at least, seems to me
coöperation, so that all shall get the greatest return for the least
outlay. I don’t mean for a moment that I believe hotel life or
boarding-house life to be the life of the family of the future. Heaven
forbid! That the privacy and seclusion of the individual and family
should be preserved is imperative. The home is the first consideration.
But that one’s food should be cooked, or one’s clothes made or washed,
inside the rooms occupied by the family, seems to me no essential
feature of the home, and I am convinced that where prejudice can be
removed, a great gain would be made by eliminating the first and last,
at least from the home of the city poor.

“In regard to the value of a common laundry with set tubs, I think most
of you have found them successful. I have found only one person-an
attendant in the beautiful Astral flats of Green Point—who told me that
they were considered undesirable, as tending to encourage gossip and
quarreling. Now the dwellings which I mean to build are intended for a
lower class of people than any whom I have hitherto found occupying
model tenement houses. In those on Seventy-second Street, I was told
there were many mechanics earning three to four dollars a day. Such
people are not what I call poor, and I design my houses for people who
earn, at most, only half of that. I want to give them the greatest
possible return for their money, and at the same time make a fair per
cent. on the capital invested. The income thus derived I shall devote to
the erection of more houses.

“I propose to make the buildings fairly fireproof, with iron staircases
and stone-paved halls. The interior walls will be of painted brick. Upon
the top of the house I propose to have a well-fenced, well-paved
playground, believing that the roof space which is so rarely utilized in
our great cities may be made of great service in this way. In most of
the tenement houses I find that the roof is not allowed to be used for
anything but drying clothes, the owners not caring to go to the extra
expense necessary to make it a perfectly safe place for children. But,
if it is all planned in the beginning, the expense will be comparatively
slight, and the open space thus provided will afford better air than any
interior court, and be, both physically and morally, a far safer place
than the street. By a simple arrangement of pulleys the drying clothes
can be elevated between strong, high posts quite above the heads of the
children, so that their play need not be interrupted. A stout wire
netting can be arranged to keep the clothes from blowing away.

“On the upper floor of the house I shall have several store-rooms
adjoining a freight elevator and a kitchen. This will be connected with
every floor of the house by speaking-tubes and dumb-waiters, so that
meals can be cooked here for the whole number of tenants and delivered
hot when ordered. The charge will be simply for the cost of preparing
the food itself and the fuel; and as everything will be bought by the
quantity, the expense for each individual will be moderate. I believe
that thus, with proper arrangements, and suiting the food to the tastes
of the occupants, the whole question of the food supply may be solved,
and three women do the work of a hundred. How does this feature of the
house impress you?”

As Mildred paused, three voices exclaimed in chorus,—

“It would never work in the world!” “Perfectly impracticable!” “They
would not like it at all!”

“Why not?” asked Mildred.

“Well, first of all,” said a man who proved to be an agent in one of the
large model tenement houses, “what would all those women do if you take
away their work from them? They would be idle and shiftless, and just
spend their time in gossiping and quarreling. I know ’em.”

“It seems to me,” said Mildred, rather tartly, “that if the average poor
man’s wife has not enough to do in washing, ironing, scrubbing,
sweeping, making and mending clothes for a household and attending to
her children, we need not feel any necessity laid upon us to fill up any
spare moment she may have for herself by an addition of needless work
for work’s sake. I know poor mothers in Boston who don’t get down so far
as the Common twice a year, who scarcely see a green tree from one
year’s end to another, who never think they can spare a moment’s time to
amuse their children, and who gladly turn the poor little ones into the
street to get them away from the hot cooking-stove which occupies the
best part of the only family living-room. It is to such mothers that I
would give a little freedom, and in time they will find something better
to do than quarreling and gossiping if they live in my tenements.”

“But they will have to pay a little more for their food than if they
cooked it themselves. The wages of the cook must be paid, and even a
little more counts,” remonstrated another skeptic.

“Not at all,” said Mildred, eagerly. “Think of the immense saving in
fuel to begin with. Why, most of these people, as you know well, buy
coal in small quantities, often by the hodful, paying for it at an
enormous rate when reckoned by the ton, to say nothing of the evil of
sending children out along the wharves to pick up dirty barrels and bits
of wood for kindling.”

“But in winter they would need the fire just the same for warmth,” said
some one.

“No; the whole house would have steam heat, thus making a valuable
saving of space as well, by doing away with the stove and place for
fuel. The halls of the model tenements now are heated by steam. I
estimate that the trifle extra which would be added to the price of the
room and the food would be no more than, probably not so much as, what
would be spent for food and fuel in the old way; for the poor that I
have known are the most extravagant people living. They buy a poor
quality of food at high rates, and through bad cooking and irregularity
of living waste and spoil much that they have.

“Besides, I have had another thing in mind,—that is, the mothers who go
out to work by the day and have to let their children come home from
school to pick up any kind of cold dinner that they find, and who, so
far as my experience goes, invariably spend every cent they get upon
candy and innutritious cakes bought at the bakery.”

“This is all a charming theory, Miss Brewster,” said a pale-faced lady
with auburn hair, who had hitherto remained silent; “but I am afraid
that until you have a more enlightened community to deal with it won’t
work. The conservatism, perhaps one might call it the stupidity, of the
lower classes is something we are fighting against all the time. Every
innovation has to be introduced with great caution in order not to
offend them. Strange as it may seem, these people who come from lands
where they have been down-trodden, with no privileges of any sort,
stickle more for their rights and independence, and are far less willing
to yield to restrictions than we. They don’t want to be ‘bossed.’ They
want to do as they please, even if they pay more for it and are not half
so well served. The idea of saving fuel and getting rid of the nuisance
of ash-barrels would not appeal to the low Italians. They cook their
little messes of macaroni over a few sticks, and would not dream of
using the fuel that an Irishman would require.

“Let me tell you about a cheap lunch-room that was started as an
experiment some time ago. We gave good, nutritious food at the lowest
cost price, and what was the result? It remained on our hands, and we
could not sell it, and discovered to our surprise that the people for
whose advantage we had established it learned that if they waited until
the food was cold and ready to spoil they could come to the back door
and ask for it and get it for little or nothing. It would really have
been wiser to throw the food away. Yet the very same people who would do
this showed a decided pride when they suspected any supervision or
interference in their domestic affairs. A coöperative kitchen was
established in one of our tenement houses as an experiment, that is, a
range to be used in common, in order to save the fuel and heat in summer
of a fire in each separate room. But no one liked to use it. Each woman
was afraid of interfering or being interfered with.”

“Naturally enough,” said Mildred; “and anything that should tend to mix
up families, where the yielding of personal preferences and ‘taking
turns’ is involved, would probably fail so long as human nature remains
human nature. I do not propose anything of that sort, you see.”

“I think myself,” said Professor Adler, “that the idea is thoroughly
good, and if cautiously and wisely carried out would be a success. I
should like to see the experiment tried. I have all my life been
preaching coöperation, not only for the poor, but for ourselves as well,
but with small success.”

“The chief objection, I suppose,” said Mildred, “is, that when food is
cooked in large quantities it never tastes so good. In time everything
seems to get a sort of boarding-house flavor, and individual tastes
cannot be consulted as in one’s own home. This may be made an objection
by the rich, but that a fastidiousness about a flavor should prevent
people from trying coöperation, who have all they can do to keep soul
and body together, seems to me more than ridiculous.”

“It is more than ridiculous, and I for one have faith that people can be
taught to see it,” said the blond young man with the clear, crisp
speech. “The people who have lived in the model tenement houses have
already learned to use dumb-waiters, speaking-tubes, set tubs,
ash-shutes, and the like, and have seen the advantages of these modern
conveniences. Now, with patience on our part and a painstaking
explanation of your scheme, I think that they could be led to see the
saving in time, fuel, space, money, and quality of food as well as the
increased variety of food and cleanliness incident to an arrangement
such as you propose, and which I heartily hope you will carry out. The
thing to do, as Octavia Hill in her work in London has wisely taught us,
is to make sure that we put in the right sort of men and women to manage
such a place. As she once said, ‘We have more model tenements than we
know how to take care of. My present work is to train women who will go
down and oversee them.’

“If, beside the man who is employed to attend to the business part of it
and to see that the sanitary condition is good, you will also put in one
or two nice American women who will look after the families in a
friendly way, giving suggestions and advice with tact, and carefully
explaining the advantages of improvements, I will vouch for the success
of the experiment. If some object, there are enough people of common
sense in the city to fill one house at least.”

“It seems to me,” said one speaker, “that we ought to be careful about
talking or even allowing ourselves to think of those whom we call the
‘lower classes’ as being essentially different from ourselves. They are
ignorant, of course, and dreadfully shiftless, some of them, but they
have the same instincts and affections as we, and I for one respect
their individuality and their privacy as I would our own. I shouldn’t
like to ask them to do anything I wouldn’t do myself under similar
circumstances. If _we_ aren’t ready for coöperation, how can we expect
them to be?”

“I ask nothing of any one,” replied Mildred, “which I would not be glad
to do myself under the same conditions, or under better conditions. We
are learning to coöperate in a thousand ways of which our grandfathers
never dreamed. Under the pressure of new duties and interests which our
age has brought with it, we are learning to eliminate useless individual
work where combined work is better. The law of reciprocity is the divine
law. Wasteful individual effort belongs to the age of savagery.
Communism, the mingling of families, and absence of personal privacy can
never I am convinced be tolerated by civilized people; but coöperation
with one’s fellows in harnessing up the forces of nature to subserve our
material interests and leave man more free for the development of his
higher nature, seems to me the only rational thing for rational beings.
Any reluctance to see and accept this seems to me the result of
prejudice.”

“I should put it even a little stronger than that,” said Professor
Adler, gently. “Under every objection which has been presented to me by
the friends with whom I have for years been laboring in this very line
of effort, I have felt that there was not mere prejudice but a real,
unconscious selfishness. All objections like the one you mention are
mere matters of detail which could be properly adjusted, and the freedom
of the wife from all petty details that eat up the greater part of her
life ought to more than compensate for the slight sacrifice of feeling
involved in doing an unaccustomed thing. I believe that we shall
gradually come to it; and meanwhile our boarding-houses and hotels will
shelter larger and larger numbers of women driven from housekeeping by
the weight of domestic cares. They will have lost their home in losing
their cook!”




                              CHAPTER IX.


                                                     FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL.

DEAR ALICE: What an age it seems since I left Boston and exchanged the
peace and quiet of my dear old attic room for all this turmoil and whirl
of excitement! I have done more thinking in the last two months than
ever before in my life, and sometimes I feel as though every idea had
been squeezed out of my brain. If it were not that I insist upon getting
some hours every week for a canter in the park, I fear I should be in a
state of nervous collapse. However, I am beginning to see my way clear,
and hope to get away in a month or so and be off to the West. Then when
I get a conscience tolerably clear I shall run riot like a school-boy
out of school.

Just now I am buried deep in tenement house problems. I have had two or
three conclaves of all the wiseacres I could get together, and I have
been considering their criticisms and suggestions, until now the details
of my scheme are pretty nearly complete, and I sign the papers with my
architect and builder to-night.

You know about the plan for coöperative cooking which I used to
discourse upon to you to your infinite amusement. Well, half of the
people here opposed it at first just as you did. They said, for one
thing, that no one under heaven would be able to provide the kind of
food that would suit all tastes. There would be Jews who would want to
have meat killed after their own fashion; the Italians would want horrid
messes of garlic; the Irish would find fault if they didn’t have the
finest white bread and the strongest of tea, and not a blessed one of
them would eat oatmeal, the coarse cereals, nutritious soups, or any of
the suitable things that they ought to eat.

All of which is more or less true, as I had wit enough to know myself
beforehand; but I don’t mean to let it daunt me. I shall let all my
tenants have an Atkinson kerosene stove in their rooms, if they wish to
pay for it, and on this they can do an endless amount of cooking at a
trifling cost for fuel, and a great saving of space as well as of heat
in summer.

I have engaged one of the graduates of Mrs. Lincoln’s cooking school to
take my first kitchen in charge. Meantime, until the buildings are
ready, I am going to send her to study the system of marketing and
cooking for hotels; also the kinds of food which each nationality likes,
and the methods of its preparation.

The kitchen will be arranged under her special supervision. She will
engage her own assistants and be the responsible head. She will have a
schedule of cooked dishes, with prices of each displayed on a bulletin
in the corridors. Special dishes will be cooked by request, and orders
for food can be sent in the day before. Of course at first there may be
a little waste until she gets familiar with the people and can
anticipate their wants; but she is a smart Yankee girl, and has a
good-natured, merry way with her which I am sure will win recognition. I
have told her to make it her first point to please the people, and when
that is accomplished she can gradually teach them to drink milk instead
of tea, and to eat brown bread instead of soda crackers.

One objection which was brought up was that children would have no
chance to learn cooking, never seeing their mothers cook; but I said,
that not one woman in ten of those I have in mind knows how to cook
either in a cleanly or economical way. They have but little variety in
their cooking, moreover, and I thought the loss of the instruction which
might be imparted would be largely counterbalanced by the knowledge
which would be gained as to what well-cooked food tasted like.

The _modus operandi_ of getting the food will be something like this. At
half-past six, Biddy Flanigan, who has to go out scrubbing at seven
o’clock, will deposit a dime with her teapot and an empty dish in the
dumb-waiter; she will call up through the speaking-tube that she wants
tea, fried potatoes, and three rolls; and in about seventy seconds the
dish full of potatoes done to a turn, and not soaked in fat, and a pot
full of tea will be at her elbow. From these and the nice home-made
rolls, neither burned nor sour nor underdone, she and little Patsy and
Maggie will have a hot breakfast.

Then Maggie will wash the dishes with the hot water running at the sink;
there will have been no ashes to dump, or clinkers to pick out; no fuel
to be brought, or fire made; and Biddy can put on her hood and depart,
knowing that the children will not open all the draughts and waste the
coal, or set themselves on fire, or let the fire go out, and come home
from school to a dinner of cold scraps, with the necessity of building
up the fire again at night. For with a nickel in the dumb-waiter at
noon, and a tin can containing two big bowls full of hot soup, the
children will be well provided for.

I have some little plans for the arrangements of rooms which I hope will
work well. The beds of the tenement houses have always been a great
trouble to me. Of all clumsy and unsanitary arrangements for sleeping
when one is obliged to sleep with four or five others in a small room,
ordinary bedsteads seem to me the worst. Now in order to introduce all
the improvements that I want, I am obliged to economize space. The
people must be crowded together, there is no other way out of that; so,
for the children, I mean to put up single beds, berth-fashion, over each
other. Strong iron sockets fastened to the wall will hold an iron frame
on which a little mattress with bedclothes will be strapped. In the
daytime these will be turned up, one under the other, and hooked against
the wall, out of the way, and a neat little curtain fastened to the
upper one will hang down and conceal both as if they were a set of
hanging shelves. At night the youngster in the upper berth will be
protected from all danger of falling out by two or three leather straps
fastened on to the upper part of the berth and hooked firmly to the
lower edge of the framework. I have thought all the details out one by
one as various objections were made to my scheme.

I think this plan a fine solution for the dirt and vermin question.
Besides, the mattresses, being so small, could be very much more easily
aired and turned than if they were larger. But an agent, to whom I
explained it, protested, saying she wouldn’t encourage such an idea at
all. “People ought to live properly, in regular fashion, and not get
used to putting up with any such makeshifts as that. It wouldn’t be
living naturally.”

“You old bigot!” said I inwardly, “your grandmother, I suppose, would
have protested against sleeping-cars and elevators and dumb-waiters as
being unnatural and artificial!”

I am amazed every day to see how densely stupid some sensible people
are. I know a Frenchwoman who has always slept at home on a bed four
feet high, canopied and enshrouded with curtains. It is half a day’s
work to make it, and she feels out in the cold and all forlorn when put
into one of our little, open, low, brass bedsteads. I suppose she would
think it quite as unhomelike and as demoralizing in its tendency as my
agent thought my berth beds would be.

The other day I explained the idea to a poor woman in a tenement house,
who with the greatest difficulty was trying to sweep under two
good-sized bedsteads in a tiny room. At first she did not seem to
comprehend, but when she did, she smiled and nodded and said, “I like
that, Mees; easy to sweep; children no kick each other all time; my
children sleep four in one bed—too much kick and cry.”

I have thought of another thing, that is, of having low, stationary
settees made in suitable places against the wall, and having the seat a
cover which would turn up on hinges, showing space underneath where
clothes and all sorts of things could be kept out of sight, instead of
being put into trunks or left to lie around in an untidy way. I shall
have no closets, as I find that space can be better saved and
cleanliness more readily enforced by building stationary wardrobes, each
with a drawer underneath and shelves above extending to the ceiling.
Closets, I find, are rarely swept.

On these shelves, which can be protected by a curtain, things not in
frequent use can be laid away, and every inch of space to the ceiling
utilized. I know you will not approve of this. You think closets are a
_sine qua non_; all of which is well enough if you are dealing with
people who are sure to keep them swept clean, and where room is not so
precious. But in this case I am planning to economize space to the
utmost, and at the same time give the number of hooks for hanging
clothes that there is in the ordinary closet.

The rooms are to be only seven feet high, thereby saving much space and
making it possible for me to put on another story to the building.
Without this, by the closest planning, I could not afford all the
conveniences that I want and get my four per cent. interest, which, for
the success of the experiment, I feel bound to make.

Of course these low-studded rooms would give too little air were it not
that I have taken extraordinary pains about the ventilation. I have been
using all my feminine ingenuity to devise all possible means to provide
the greatest amount of comfort and convenience for the smallest possible
amount of money and space. Understand that I am aiming to provide a
decent home for the very poorest, who cannot afford to pay more than
five dollars a month for rent. I mean to give them as much room as they
have now in their dirty, dark alleys and attics, and in addition to
that, warmth, pure air, cleanliness, and the saving of countless steps.

I find my architects strangely unsuggestive about all this; they have
not enough imagination to put themselves in the place of a tired
ignorant woman who has to spend all her life in two rooms with her
husband and four or five untidy, restless children.

Knowing how much afraid of the dark many of my North End people used to
be, and remembering how they used to keep a lamp burning all night in
their sleeping-rooms, where the windows were shut tight, I have planned
to have the upper eight inches of the walls of the room bordering on the
hall, of glass, which can be opened like a transom, to admit air and
much light at night from the lights in the hall, which I shall myself
provide. I mean also to have in every room, fastened against the wall, a
stationary table that can be put up or let down like an ordinary
table-leaf.

I am going to have some experienced woman oversee all these little
details, for I never yet saw a builder who could not learn a great deal
from a practical housekeeper.

In the basement there are to be bath-rooms and a barber’s shop, while in
some part of the building I shall have a large room which can be divided
by sliding-doors. One part shall be a nursery, where mothers who want to
go out can leave their children in good charge for a trifling fee, and
the other half of the room shall be used as a kindergarten.

In the evening these rooms will be occupied by the grown people for club
meetings and a reading-room. When desired, both rooms can be thrown
together for a lecture or entertainment.

I have in mind sewing schools and gymnastic classes and all sorts of
good things, for which this will be the centre.

I am more and more convinced that the quickest way to revolutionize
whatever needs revolutionizing in this world is to get at the hearts and
souls of people. Open a man’s heart, give him an idea, in other words,
convert him, and self-respect, industry, and good manners will soon
appear.

I think I have found just the right man and woman to help me make my
scheme feasible. They are a couple about fifty years old, Pennsylvania
Quakers, whose daughter has just been graduated from Professor Adler’s
kindergarten training school, and who is bubbling over with zeal to
begin her work. All three are to live in the building and give their
whole time to the work that may be needed, each one having his or her
separate department to attend to, and being responsible for everything
in that department. For all this a good salary will be paid to each of
the three.

I have found that my original plan has grown on my hands, and as it is
often easier to do a thing on a large scale than on a small one, I have
decided to put up four large buildings around a hollow square, each one
to contain one hundred sets of tenements of from one to four rooms. Each
house will accommodate perhaps four or five hundred people. Most of the
suites will contain two rooms suitable for a family of four. But I shall
have also many single rooms for bachelors, there being a good demand for
them, I find.

You know my enthusiasm for our Puritan history. Behold my opportunity to
indulge my taste in that direction! I am going to christen these hobbies
of mine, so long a dream, now so soon to be materialized, by bestowing
upon them some good old names that ought never to be forgotten. These
four are to be called the “Pilgrim Homes.” One will be named Scrooby,
another Leyden, one Plymouth, and one the Mayflower. If these prove
successful I shall have four more, named Bradford, Brewster, Carver, and
Winslow. However, I must not romance, for that perhaps will be far in
the future.

You have no idea of the endless details I have had to consider. I have
been over every single model tenement I could find in New York and
Brooklyn, which is not saying much, for there are not many. Now,
although not a stone is yet laid, I feel as if a load had rolled off my
shoulders and the thing were nearly complete.

I shall watch with the greatest anxiety the outcome of this experiment.
If it can be shown, as I think it can, that the lowest poor can be
comfortably housed at the prices which they now pay for their wretched
slums, and if it can be demonstrated, as I think it can, that health and
happiness increase and vice decreases in proportion to the opportunity
which is offered for decent living, then I shall be ready to devote a
goodly number of my millions to what seems to me about the best use that
can be made of them.

As soon as it can be fully proved just what needs to be done, if a state
or city loan can be obtained, I mean to try to persuade some of these
wealthy men and women whom I have been meeting of late to join with me
and engage in the work of tenement house reform on a gigantic scale.
There is no good reason why the crying evils which now exist should be
perpetuated another year. Since planning all this I have been greatly
interested to learn of what Glasgow has recently been doing in this
direction; buying up and destroying a mass of vile old rookeries, and
building sanitary homes for the poor in place of them.

There is money enough, brains enough, and good will enough in this city
to abolish these hideous conditions of life by which thousands of lives
are wrecked every year. I am very doubtful about much state socialism;
but municipal socialism to this extent seems to me the only rational
thing in view of the present evils. A century hence we shall look back
with wonder that our mania for individualism and dread of governmental
interference should have led us to tolerate these things a day. I was
never more convinced of anything than of this, and never more terribly
in earnest about anything in my life. Meanwhile my agents are buying up
and cleansing some of the worst old tenement houses in the city, and I
am searching in every direction for the right person to put in charge of
them. I find that this is the most important feature of it all. There
must be constant, tireless supervision, and I find that it really pays
to give one good tenant his rent free on condition that he keep the
building clean and orderly. He must, of course, be one who has enough
moral power to enforce all necessary rules.

These details must sound very prosaic to you, I fear, in comparison with
all the delightful things which you are studying; but just at present I
am finding the subject of dumb-waiters and ash-shoots quite as
fascinating as I ever used to find Correggios or cryptogamia.

By the way, I am going to see a beautiful private car which is to be
sold. I am thinking of buying it and taking aunt Madison and some
delightful people whom I know on a trip to the Yellowstone Park and
Puget Sound this summer. What do you say to joining us? By the time you
have finished at the Annex you will be ready to drop, and will be quite
unfit to think of getting up your trousseau. Tell that impatient young
professor that he must wait for three months, and give you a chance to
know how sweet it is to get a love-letter when it comes three thousand
miles....

                                FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Apr. 10_.

 To CHAS. W. TURNER, ESQ., Boston, Mass.

_Dear Sir_,—Your letter has come to hand with the inclosed deed for the
eight lots on Huntington Avenue, each twenty-three by one hundred feet.

I will now write you in detail about the buildings which I wish to put
upon those lots. I want you to understand my plans exactly, together
with my reasons for them, as I shall ask you to take the responsibility
of carrying them out.

I want to try an experiment that I have long had in mind. I hope to have
it pay a fair per cent. and at the same time serve as a hint toward the
solution of some of the difficulties in the problems of modern
housekeeping.

For the last twenty years we have been blundering our way toward better
methods of meeting the exigencies of our modern city life, but with
indifferent success.

However, one thing is certain. In our great cities, where land is
growing more and more expensive, and where people are swarming in
constantly increasing numbers, building their houses higher and higher
into the air, something must be done to readjust the methods of living,
if life is to remain anything but drudgery to a large majority of wives
and mothers.

The modern system of “flats” is a step in the right direction, but thus
far it has meant cramped quarters, great expense, and many
disadvantages, and I am convinced that it is a long way from being the
city home of the future.

What I propose is to put up some houses where all the rooms in each
suite of apartments shall be on the same floor, but which shall in no
other particular resemble any “flats” that I have seen.

I have found none where the rooms were spacious and all directly lighted
and ventilated from the outer air, unless they were at a price quite
beyond the income of a man who must live on three thousand dollars’
salary. Even the best I have seen, although they are elegantly frescoed
and finished, are sure to have some small dark rooms, and give much less
good space for living purposes than a house bearing the same rental.

Now I think there is no reason for this,—that is to say, no necessary
reason; nothing more in fact than that the demand for “flats” exceeds
the supply, and landlords make more on an investment in that direction.

The never ceasing trouble with servants, the burden of entertaining
company, the fearful strain of the stairs incident to living in a house
where there are only two good rooms on a floor,—all these and other
things are more and more compelling people of moderate means either to
board or live in a “flat,” where one servant can do the work for which,
in an ordinary house, two would be required.

I think the continual increase of boarding-houses marks a sign of
decadence in American social and home life, and yet I do not blame
delicate women for longing for freedom from the details of work, which
is often done at a great disadvantage, and for immunity from the
back-breaking stairs and other things that are the cause of so much
invalidism.

Seeing these domestic problems and the wear and tear of the nervous
system contingent on the ordinary methods of city housekeeping, I have
determined to try in this experiment to see if for a moderate cost, say
nine or ten hundred dollars rental, it may not be possible to supply a
family with twelve good-sized rooms all on one floor, and with the back
yard of a size which is usual to an ordinary house.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

One great objection to the ordinary flat is the absence of a back yard
where clothes can be dried, and children can play. Families with
children find but little freedom and comfort in the ordinary flat, and I
propose to remedy this in the simplest way in the world,—at least, it
seems perfectly simple and feasible to me. If the architect you engage
makes any objections to the scheme, let me know what they are.

Taking the eight lots which you have purchased, each one hundred feet
deep, let us devote say sixty feet to the back yards. This will admit of
flowerbeds, and a little playground, a very important item with a mother
of young children. These dimensions are the same as those of hundreds of
South End lots and houses.

Then there will be left for the building of the eight homes an area of
eight lots, each forty feet deep and twenty-three feet wide.

According to our ordinary wasteful system in the building of houses
vertically there would be eight sets of stone steps, eight doors and
lobbies, and allowing four stories to each house, there would be four
halls and three staircases, one over the other, in each of the eight
houses. Each hall would involve more or less expense in carpeting, much
time in sweeping and keeping clean; and beside, much physical energy
would be wasted in simply getting from dining-room to parlor and from
parlor to bedroom.

Now it seems to me that instead of building these eight houses side by
side vertically, like so many bricks set up on end, we can do much
better. We can abolish seven of our doorsteps and entrance ways and use
one entrance for all, making it thereby much handsomer, and, if we
choose, seven times more expensive. Then instead of eight times three
flights of stairs we shall have simply three, one over the other, in a
broad central hall which will run from the street to the back yard,
having four tenements on either side of it, one tenement for each story.
The floors separating the tenements will be made as impervious to sound
as the partitions in houses built in the usual vertical fashion. The
central hall can be divided into two parts: a front hall containing a
passenger elevator and a handsome flight of stairs, and a back hall with
another flight of stairs and another elevator, the latter for servants
and freight. With the same amount of money that would have been required
for building and carpeting the extra stairs, these halls and staircases
can be made handsomer and absolutely fireproof. On the top story,
instead of the inconvenient ladder and trap-door leading to the roof,
which is usual in our vertically built tenements, there can be a
comfortable staircase, covered at the point where it reaches the roof
and giving exit through a door upon the roof, which can be thoroughly
guarded by a parapet or iron fence, thus affording a safe playground for
children.

This will cost something, of course, but no more I think than would be
expended in the ordinary, wasteful method of building to which we resort
at present.

Now perhaps you will say that with the exception of the back yards this
is not different from the ordinary apartment hotel; but wait a bit. What
I propose to do is to give to each person a suite of rooms equal in
cubical contents to what he would have had in his vertical four-story
house, and I shall arrange these rooms so that he shall have a frontage
on the street, not of twenty-three feet, but of ninety-two feet minus
ten feet which he will allow for the central hall. As his neighbor
across the hall will have the same frontage and also allow ten feet for
the hall, the latter, you see, will be a spacious apartment twenty feet
in width.

Think of a flat having eighty-two feet of front, and with a set of four
back yards at the rear of each home, which is an area of sixty by
eighty-two feet! To be sure each one cannot use all that area. He will
have only one fourth of it for his special use, but it will be worth
something to have all that space ostensibly his own, and the outlook a
little different from each room.

Of course your first question will be as to how these yards are to be
reached.

My first purpose is to have these eight families who dwell under the
same roof use nothing but their halls and staircases in common. So in
the basement each family shall have a space at the rear of the house,
twenty-three feet in width, each having its own exit into its own yard
from the laundry and store-rooms which will be situated there. In the
front part of the basement, where in the average Boston house the coal
and furnace are usually found, will be the heating appliances for the
whole building, and heat will be provided in the different stories as it
is in the ordinary hotel.

There will be speaking-tubes, of course, connecting each laundry with
its kitchen above, so that the mistress on the fourth floor can
communicate with her Bridget in the laundry, and the only disadvantage
will be that once a week the Bridget living on the top story will have
to descend four flights in the elevator to reach her laundry instead of
running down one flight of stairs, as she would do in the house of the
ordinary type.

Although I prefer to leave the arrangement of rooms in the suites to the
taste of the architect, I will inclose a plan—the simplest possible one
which, so far as I know, will be thoroughly convenient. The only
objection to it that I can discover is, that it is rather stiff and
monotonous; but, as the same thing must be said of our houses as at
present constructed, I do not think this a very formidable objection.
However, I send a second plan, which will show how it is possible to
introduce considerable variety in the arrangement of rooms. In this, as
you see, the parlor is placed at the end of the hall, and is
thirty-eight feet long, being lighted at both ends. If it should be
thought best, half of the suites, _i. e._, the four on one side of the
hall, can be built after this second plan.

The central passage-way running between the rooms in each suite will
receive light through transoms and glass doors, and will be lighter than
the halls in the average city house.

[Illustration]

As the kitchen does not communicate with this central passage-way, the
odors of cooking will not be so likely to permeate the house as they
usually do in the average Boston house with a basement dining-room.

If I have made myself clear, I think you will see that, according to
this extremely simple plan of construction, the chief advantages of the
average flat and the average separate block house may be combined, and
the disadvantages of each nearly eliminated.

The care of the sidewalk, stairs, central hall, and the management of
the heating apparatus, will be in the charge of a janitor, as is
customary in the ordinary apartment hotel, thus almost doing away with
the work of one servant in each family. In addition to the great
advantage of having all the rooms on one floor, these rooms will be
larger and more airy than in the ordinary block house. Then, too, they
will not only be more in number than those in the average flat, but they
will be more than in the vertical house of the same cubical contents.
For the space heretofore devoted to stairs can now be utilized for
living-rooms, and by simply opening the doors and windows a draught of
air can sweep straight through from front to back of the house. There
will be neither dark rooms nor rooms opening into a dismal brick
air-well, as in most of our modern flats, and, consequently, none of
that cramped, confined feeling that one always experiences when going
into their tiny rooms which seem designed for a family of three members
only, and where children have no right to be.

Now I propose to offer this horizontal dwelling, with its eighty-two
feet front, and its yard at the back, with all its economy of space and
expense and physical exertion, for _precisely the same rental_ that the
vertical house with its twenty-three feet of front would cost.

And, as I want permanent tenants, and desire to make them practically
the same offer as a sale of the property would be, you may give, to any
one who desires it, a lease for fifteen or twenty years.

Doubtless before that time has expired we shall come to see that our
methods of living must be modified still more, and separate kitchens and
laundries will be relegated to the country, while some system of
coöperation will come into vogue in our cities. If so, such a house as I
propose to build can be easily modified to suit the new order of things.
The kitchens above could be metamorphosed into bedrooms, and part of the
space in the basement turned into a cooking centre for all the families.

If this experiment should prove a success,—and I can see no reason now
why it should not,—this will be but the beginning of what I intend to do
on a large scale. I think I can do no better service for the hurried,
overworked wives and mothers of our great cities, than to simplify and
lighten the burdens of housekeeping, by adding to their comfort without
adding to their expense.

I want very little frescoing and gilding in these houses, but there must
be fire-escapes at the rear, and every device for convenience that is
available.

In regard to their outward appearance I have but one suggestion to make.
I should like to have the windows very broad and very low. It has always
seemed to me ridiculous to note the pains which is taken to cut a hole
in the wall and then immediately cover up two thirds of it in the most
elaborate manner with lambrequins and two or three sets of curtains, all
of which are never raised above the middle sash except when the servant
washes the glass. If it is desirable to admit a little subdued light
near the top of the room, this might be done by a few panes of stained
or ground glass, which would not be covered by a curtain. On the
exterior the bricks or stone, arranged in the form of an arch over each
window, would add much to the beauty of effect.

If a window were five feet wide by three and a half high, the top being
no more than six and a half feet from the floor, the curtain question
would be somewhat simplified and our rooms made sunnier and more
beautiful. However, I leave this to the architect to decide.

You will, I think, get my idea from the accompanying sketches.

                                           Yours sincerely,
                                                       MILDRED BREWSTER.




                               CHAPTER X.

  In achieving spiritual emancipation the mind must pass from
  prescription to conscious reason, from mere faith to knowledge. There
  must be nothing lost in the transition, only a gain in the form of
  science to what was before held in the form of faith and tradition.
  But this transition is the most painful one in history, although its
  results are the most glorious.—WM. T. HARRIS, LL. D.


One evening Mildred and I had prepared for bed, and in our
dressing-gowns were sitting cosily before our open wood fire, watching
the flames dance and flicker and cast weird shadows on the wall. It had
been a hard day, the morning having been spent in writing and dictation
and in examining a half bushel of mail matter; the afternoon we had
spent in visiting tenement houses and industrial schools in Brooklyn.

After dinner, however, I had beguiled Mildred into a merry hour over
some dashing Schubert duets, for music never failed to rest and soothe
her. Then, turning the lights down and drawing the _tête-à-tête_ before
the red glow of the firelight, we fell to talking, indulging in many
reminiscences of childish pranks and school-girl sentimentality.

I had been bred outside of New England, and our lives had been wholly
unlike. Perhaps it was because we were so very unlike in many things
that we were more and more drawn to each other day by day, finding ever
new delight in exploring each other’s history and thoughts.

I had seen more of the world, in a certain way, than Mildred,—that is,
more of society, in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. The
leisurely, easy-going life of a people to whom New England ideas and
“isms” were unknown had been the limits of my social, and
Presbyterianism and Episcopacy the limits of my spiritual, horizon. I
had scarcely dreamed of the existence of any other way of looking at
life among people in good society.

A brisk canter on my red roan, with a gay company of young people, a
good dinner party, plenty of bouquets and dancing and young men, with
now and then a would-be-serious talk with some of the more
studiously-minded of them apropos of German poetry or Victor Hugo,—this
life I had known all about, and but little of any other.

However, eight months previously, when reverses of fortune had cast my
fate in Salem, Massachusetts, among a family of Unitarians who had been
old-time abolitionists, and were now woman suffragists and zealous
reformers in every direction, my conception of life had enlarged a
little, and I was prepared not to be amazed at this radical, bookish
Boston girl who upset all my previous theories of what a charming woman
should be.

She was charming; no one who had seen her sitting there, in her loose
gown of a delicate rose color, her dark wavy hair falling around her
shoulders as she gazed steadily into the glowing embers, her fine
features outlined by the firelight, but would have thought her so. We
had been laughing heartily over some droll accounts of my first New
England experiences and the horror which I had aroused in some precise
old maids by my frivolity, while I had been equally horrified by their
radical theology. I thought that it was wicked for them to read Renan,
and they thought it sinful for me to wear French corsets and moderately
high heels.

After a time Mildred and I began to talk of love and lovers, as girls
will. I say “girls,” though I was six-and-twenty and she my senior. But
in New England, where late marriages are the rule and not the exception,
the term “girls,” as I have discovered, has an indefinite application.

“Mildred, were you never in love?” I asked.

I shouldn’t have dared quite so much as that, only somehow she had
invited my confidence, and I had told her all about my love affairs. I
couldn’t tell whether she blushed or not, for the firelight glowed on
her face. At first I thought that she was offended, for she waited a
minute before she answered, and we listened to the rain coming in great
gusts against the window pane, and the omnibuses rattling over the paved
street below.

Mildred nestled a little closer to the fire and adjusted her cushions.
Then she said slowly, as she stretched out her slender fingers before
the blaze, “Why, yes, I suppose I really was in love, though I didn’t
know it at the time.”

“Good heavens, Mildred, not with Mr. Dunreath!” I cried; “you told me
you never really cared for him.”

“No, not with Mr. Dunreath,” replied Mildred quickly, and throwing her
head back she clasped her hands over her knee, swaying back and forth in
the firelight. Then she stopped again. I asked no more questions, for
there was a look in her eyes and a droop to the sensitive mouth which
meant I knew not what. Was it possible that this woman, who seemed so
enthusiastically absorbed in her plans and so cheerful and gay, was
really carrying about with her a secret heart-ache? I had watched her
curiously as we had been in society together, and had been amused at her
absolute lack of coquetry and matter-of-fact way of talking with
gentlemen, and, on the other hand, at her semi-consciousness that she
must try not to say too much about her theories and hobbies, and to
“learn to talk small talk,” as she said. I, who had had my fill of small
talk, and whom the late years were beginning to teach some serious
lessons, liked much better her simplicity and unusual earnestness about
things. Her bookishness, too, which at first I had rather dreaded, did
not mean pedantry or dullness. She had read but few books, she told me;
far less than I. She once showed me in her diary her list of books for
the past year. There were only six: Plato’s “Republic,” “Wilhelm
Meister,” Stanley’s “History of the Jews,” Thackeray’s “Newcomes,” Henry
George’s “Progress and Poverty,” and a volume of Fichte.

“I like to be acquainted with the best people,” she once said; “there is
no reason why one should put up with the second-rate ones when one can
have the best.”

“But it is not every one who can get the best society,” said I, not
understanding in the least what she meant.

“Every one who can read can have the best friends of all ages,” she
replied. And they were her friends. But I am digressing.

“I will tell you all about it,” said Mildred, with her eyes still fixed
on the coals. “There is no reason why I should not, though I never told
any one before, and I have hardly acknowledged it to myself. I think I
was in love; yes, I think I really was—in love.

“It happened in this way. I had gone down to the Fitchburg station to
take the early morning train for Concord. By the way, were you ever at
Concord?” she asked abruptly.

“What?” I answered, “Concord, New Hampshire?”

“No, our own Massachusetts Concord; the Concord of Emerson and Hawthorne
and Thoreau and the Alcotts. I had been there but once before, but since
that time it has been a sort of Mecca of mine, and I have made many a
pilgrimage there.

“I was going out to the Concord School of Philosophy, not, however, for
any special reason. I didn’t know and didn’t care to know anything about
philosophy, but I thought it might be fun to see for once the
long-haired men and short-haired women congregate and talk, as the
papers said, about the ‘thisness of the then and the whichness of the
where.’ Besides, I wanted to visit Hawthorne’s grave. I was full of his
romances then.

“At the station I met my bosom-friend Julia Mason. ‘How fortunate!’ she
exclaimed. ‘Here is my cousin, bound for the Summer School, too. You
must philosophize together.’ She introduced us to each other, and then
hastened to take her own train, while the young man and I made our way
together to the express train for Concord.

“He pleased my fancy at once. I was just at the age when a girl always
sees a possible lover in every handsome young man whom she chances to
know. Not that the thought occurred to me then, for he was far from
being the ideal lover whom I had dreamed of marrying. My lover must
combine all the graces of an Alcibiades with the virtues of a Bayard, a
knight _sans peur et sans reproche_, with classic features, curling
locks, and a voice and smile that should melt the very stones.”

“You matter-of-fact old Mildred,” I laughed. “To think of your ever
being so romantic!”

She smiled a little as she unclasped her hands from her knee and leaned
back.

“Yes,” she said, “I had my dreams once.”

Then she continued:

“He was older than I, twenty-five, perhaps; tall, broad-shouldered, a
manly man every inch of him; a little clumsy and awkward at first, and
lacking in all the manifold little attentions which girls like. He did
not offer to carry my bag, I observed, and he entered the car-door
first. He was certainly not in the least like the courteous, gallant
knight of my girlish fancy.

“But presently, as he began to talk in an animated way, his frank blue
eyes lighted up and lent to his by no means classic features a wonderful
charm. We got well acquainted on the short journey. He, it seems, had,
like myself, been at Concord only once before. It was on that raw, cold
day in ’75, when I, a young school-girl, with my mother, and he a
Phillips Academy boy, had, unknown to each other, essayed to board the
train in that same frightfully thronged station, and go to the
Centennial celebration.

“I told him of my droll experience, wedged in between a dozen men and
women in the smoking-car. He, it seems, was not so fortunate as I, for
he took no lunch, and, like thousands of others who could buy nothing
for either love or money, almost starved. I told him about our
experience: how we marched with the women assembled at the town hall,
led by a lady with a little flag, around the road to the tent on Battle
lawn; how there we were nearly annihilated by the throng, and how at
last by some good fortune I was borne up to the platform’s very edge,
and stood there within a few feet of Grant and all his cabinet, and with
Curtis, Emerson, and Lowell all within arm’s reach.

“How my heart beat at the sight of those faces! I have seen many famous
sights since, but nothing that ever stirred my blood like that,” said
Mildred, with glowing eyes. “I was scarcely more than a child, Ruby, but
I stood there for two mortal hours, unable to move forward or backward,
to right or left, quivering from head to foot with enthusiasm and
excitement. That day my American patriotism was born. I had studied a
little text-book at school, and learned names and dates; but not until
under the spell of Curtis’s eloquence, and face to face with the men
whose fathers had shed their blood in the brave fight one hundred years
before, did I begin to realize what it all meant. I remember
particularly a little old man with weather-beaten face, clad in a simple
suit,—his ‘Sunday best,’—who stood beside me listening with eager,
upturned face, his blue eyes filled with unshed tears. I could see his
lips quiver; and once, as if carried away by the fervor of his emotion,
he grasped my arm with his brown, withered hand and whispered huskily,
‘Little girl, when you get as old as I be, you’ll understand what all
this means.’

“Since then,” said Mildred gravely, “the words ‘my country’ have meant
something new to me. A distinctly new idea took hold of me, an idea that
some time I hope to make blossom into deeds.”

I confess I was getting a little impatient for an account of the
love-making, and this did not sound much like it. But after musing a
bit, Mildred continued:

“This little experience which my companion and I had in common made us
quickly acquainted. He frankly told me of his college life and of
himself. He had been studying for the ministry, he said, though whether
he was to be a clergyman or not I inferred was somewhat doubtful.

“We passed Walden Pond, gleaming like silver in the sunshine, and he
talked of Thoreau, whom he seemed to know well, though I had at that
time read nothing of him. Presently we rolled up to the Concord station,
and while a crowd of people alighted and took the ‘barge,’ we went down
one of the long, shady streets, bordered by tall hedges and
close-clipped lawns, with comfortable, roomy mansions set back from the
street; past the little gem of a town library, on its carpet of emerald
green; past the cluster of shops and the cool-plashing fountain, and
down the famous old road which saw the redcoats’ flight, and which Hosea
Biglow, you remember, says he ‘most gin’ally calls “John Bull’s Run.”’

“Such a lovely, quiet old street! Dear, you must see it some day—with
the broad, green meadow lands on one side, and the hill crowned with
trees and vines on the other.

“‘Along this ridge lived Hawthorne’s Septimius Felton,’ said my
companion.

“‘And here,’ said I, as we passed a tiny antique house on the hillside
with curtains drawn, and no path through the grass that surrounded
it,—‘here, I am positive, an old witch with a black cat must have lived
a hundred years ago.’

“We jested and laughed as we went merrily on. We were young and happy
that brilliant summer morning. I remember how every leaf sparkled with
the heavy dewdrops, and the air seemed to fairly intoxicate one like a
draught of wine. I was fairly brimming over with delight.

“We passed the old-fashioned white house with green blinds, peeping out
from behind the pines, which I needed no one to tell me had been the
home of the Concord seer; and a little further on appeared the
brown-gabled house, nestled in a green hollow, and guarded by giant
elms, where the Little Women lived their charming life. Just within
these grounds stood the vine-covered Hillside Chapel, whither our steps
were tending. We had passed little groups on our way, and now and then
we caught a word of what they were saying; ‘first entelechy,’ ‘pure
subjectivity,’ the ‘_ding an sich_,’ and so on, which in my hilarious
mood served as a further theme for jest.

“As we took our seats beneath the bust of Pestalozzi and beside the
comfortable arm-chair always reserved for Mrs. Emerson, I scanned the
audience closely. It was not a stylish one, and I felt a little inclined
to poke fun at some of the antiquated bonnets; but my attention was
attracted by the evident eagerness with which my new friend was studying
the face of the speaker.

“He was a middle-aged man, with close-clipped gray beard and spectacles,
and a face that seemed to be the very personification of thought. The
subject of the lecture was Immortality. I listened, vainly trying to
understand, and feeling as though the essence of a thousand books was
being crowded into that quiet morning’s talk. I had heard that this man
was a German rationalist, and was undermining the foundations of
Christianity; therefore I had prepared myself to see a cynic or a
scoffer. I had thought that I would go, for once, to hear what he had to
say; just to have an idea as to what it was all about. I felt all the
excitement of doing something a little venturesome.

“Dear me,” laughed Mildred; “how droll it all seems now, and what an
ignorant little bigot I must have been!

“I tried to follow the speaker and to get some meaning from those quiet,
clear-cut sentences as they dropped from his lips, and slowly forced
upon my incredulous mind the conviction that here at least was one man
who spoke whereof he knew. I had never done so hard thinking in my life.
He was taking me into a field of thought of which I had never dreamed,
and I was as unable to follow his giant strides as a child to follow the
man in seven-league boots. My temples began to throb; in despair I gave
up the attempt, and fell to watching my companion as with bated breath
he followed the speaker. Only one thing I remember, and that because I
jotted it down on the back of an envelope at the time. He said, ‘The
standpoint of absolute personality is the one to be attained. On this
plane, freedom, immortality, and God are the regulative principles of
science as well as of life; and they are not only matters of faith, but
matters of indubitable scientific certainty.’

“The lecture was nearly two hours long, and there was to be a discussion
following it; but we were both exhausted with the mental strain, and
quietly slipped out into the summer sunshine.

“My companion said nothing. He walked with head erect and long strides,
and I felt considerably piqued to find that he seemed utterly oblivious
of my presence. Presently he turned to me, and in a tone which almost
startled me exclaimed, ‘Thank God for that man! More than any other man
living or dead has he kept me from making utter shipwreck of my faith.’
I was surprised at his earnestness and touched by the simple frankness
with which he had revealed to me, almost an utter stranger, his inmost
thoughts.

“Again he seemed to forget me, and we paced on in silence, past the
fountain, under gigantic elms, past the ‘town toothpick,’ as the
æsthetic scoffers have dubbed the obelisk that commemorates the soldiers
of the war, and turned down the road by Hawthorne’s gray old manse and
through the avenue of pines, to where, stretching across the sluggish
stream, we saw the

                   ... ‘bridge that arched the flood’

where

               ‘Once the embattled farmers stood,
               And fired the shot heard round the world.’

“Here we stopped to rest a while, under the spreading boughs of a
pine-tree, beside the graves of the two British soldiers that fell in
the famous fight. We shared our sandwiches and bananas, and threw crumbs
to the saucy squirrels that darted from limb to limb above our heads;
and then, like two children, we trimmed our hats with daisies and
buttercups from the fields close by. I watched him closely, with the
pleasing consciousness that my pretty dress and new hat were noticed
with evident approval on his part. Evidently he was able to enjoy some
other things as well as philosophy; and when he shook back the thick
blonde hair which rose from his broad forehead in a sort of Rubenstein
mane, and tossed over into the fields a great stone that had fallen from
the wall, I began to query whether a young man with locks and sinews
like a young Norse god might not be a very fascinating type of hero.

“But I was curious to know what he meant by ‘shipwreck of his faith.’ As
we picked up our various belongings (this time I noted that he asked for
my bag) and walked over through the woods to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, I
determined to probe him a little.

“‘Mr. Everett,’ I began, ‘don’t you think, after all, that philosophy is
a rather dangerous thing for one to begin to study?’”

I smiled mischievously as Mildred inadvertently disclosed the name which
hitherto she had adroitly concealed. She flushed a little, as if
annoyed.

“After all,” she said, “you might as well know his name, for he has
gone, heaven knows where, and I shall never see him again.”

A shade of sadness fell upon her face turned toward the firelight, but
she went quietly on:

“He hesitated a moment before he answered, as if mentally to adjust
himself to my plane of ignorance. Then he asked, ‘And why dangerous,
Miss Brewster?’

“‘You know what I mean,’ said I, rather vexed at being obliged to put my
vague thoughts into words. ‘What good can all this theorizing and
speculation do? Don’t you think it would be a great deal better for all
these people here to spend their time in talking about something
practical? My feeling is, that people who begin to think and question
about God and immortality and such things, and aren’t satisfied with the
simple truths of the Bible, get to be skeptics before they know it, and
are ruined for life. My mother’s religion is good enough for me. If I
can live up to that I shall be satisfied, without racking my brains and
reasoning over things that God intended us to take on faith.’

“To tell the truth, this didn’t exactly represent my thought; but I had
often heard it said, and thought it sounded well. Besides, I was curious
to see what he would reply to it.

“‘It would take hours to answer adequately what you have just said, Miss
Brewster,’ replied Mr. Everett; ‘but I will try to say something; for it
is precisely these same questions that I myself have been trying to
answer in the last few years.’

“We were climbing the little hill that like a crescent surrounded the
green hollow, where lie the sleepers in their last sleep. On the summit,
beneath the tall sighing pines, beside Emerson’s grave and within a
stone’s throw of the graves of Hawthorne and Thoreau, we sat down and
looked over the broad valley on the other side with the hills beyond. It
was so quiet, so peaceful, just where a tired soul would love to have
his last resting-place.

“Mr. Everett was silent for a moment, as if to collect his thought;
then, not looking at me, but afar off at the glimpses of blue between
the swaying boughs, he began to speak, while I listened intently, every
word fairly burning itself upon my memory. I did not rest that night
until I had transmitted it all to my diary, to be read and reread over
and over again.

“‘You say that your mother’s religion is good enough for you,’ he began.
‘Well, Miss Brewster, when I think of the love and devotion, of the
tender prayers and wise counsels that guided my boyish waywardness, when
I think of the saintliness and unselfishness of my own sainted mother, I
feel like saying that, too. If I could ever have one half her
spirituality and Christlikeness, I should count my life a grand success.
But I cannot say, and I know that truth and justice cannot compel me to
say, that my mother’s theology would be enough for me, for her life was
not the outcome of much in her theology. Her unquestioning faith in a
literal Adam and Eve had nothing to do with her sweetness and devotion
to duty. Nor was her unwavering belief in the sacredness of everything
in the sixty-six Hebrew and Christian books the cause of her infinite
patience and self-sacrifice. No; I want my mother’s religion, but I
cannot accept all of her theology. I should count it a sin against God
if I were to so stultify my intelligence as to do it.

“‘You say, “Don’t you think all these people here had better be doing
something practical?” What is more practical, I ask you, than for a
human soul, to whom life is something more than meat and drink, to learn
of that which more than all else concerns that soul’s welfare? And what
can more help to this than the study of the wisest thought of all the
ages on just these very problems of life and death, things present and
things to come? As Novalis says, “Philosophy can bake no bread; but she
can procure for us God, Freedom, and Immortality.” I count that the most
practical as well as the most precious help that can be offered to any
questioning human soul who has come to see that man cannot live by bread
alone, and whose sorest need is to know the meaning and the end of this
life of ours.’

“‘But the Bible tells us that,’ I cried impatiently; ‘what more do we
need?’

“‘Perhaps you need nothing more,’ he answered quietly. ‘If so, well and
good. Clear insight is not essential to living a noble life. If you have
really grasped the spiritual meaning of Christianity it matters little
that you should hold it in a more naive and literal way than I am able
to. If in this age you can accept unquestioningly everything that has
been taught you, if you never have a doubt, I would be the last person
to raise one, for I know what mental misery would ensue in one educated
as you have been. But so long as your religious faiths have been
inherited, like your hair and eyes, and you have not examined them so as
to make them your own, pardon my saying that there is small virtue in
your holding them, and so far as your own thought goes you might as well
have been a Papist or a Mohammedan.’

“‘But what is the use of mental misery? Why should I encourage doubts
and unrest? Is it not far better to trust in God and not venture to
question all the strange things that he allows?’

“‘You ask two or three questions at once; let me take them one at a
time. Five years ago I asked just those same questions, and I know how
you feel.’ He spoke tenderly, and his voice comforted me. I was
beginning to get nervous and troubled and felt myself in deep waters.

“‘No great thing is ever born into this world except by suffering. If we
are put here simply for pleasure, for calm content, for peace of mind,
let us banish all questioning and dread it as a precursor of the
nightmare. Yes, if immediate peace of mind is the primary consideration,
let us, like the ostrich, bury our heads in the sand, like the chicken
refuse to pick our way through the shell, and be turned out of our warm
corner into the bare, cold world outside. If peace of mind is our chief
aim, let us stop thinking once for all. It is dangerous. Yes, thinking
is always dangerous; dangerous to one’s love of ease and content with
existing ideas. The little shoot content with its environment in the
dark mould will never reach the sunlight until first it struggles upward
from the conditions that surround it.

“‘Many a time in the last four years I have said to myself, in the night
of horror that swept over me, when I felt as if the foundations beneath
me had broken away, “whether the Bible be true, or life eternal, or God
a father, I do not know; but this one thing I do know: I must be true; I
must be unselfish; I must go on and seek the light;” and, thank God, I
have begun to find it at last.’

“Mr. Everett spoke with a quiet intensity of feeling that awed me.
However, I ventured to ask, rather timidly, ‘But you did find—you do
believe in the Bible now, don’t you?’

“‘That is a question which cannot be rightly answered by a “yes” or
“no,”’ he replied; ‘for neither answer would be true. I was brought up,
as perhaps you were, to look upon all these matters without the
slightest discrimination; to think a disbelief in Jonah’s whale
synonymous with the disbelief in the divine inspiration of any part of
the Bible; to think a disbeliever in the Bible necessarily a disbeliever
in God; and to count a disbeliever in immortality on a par with a
bigamist or a horse-thief.

“‘When I dared trust myself to think and read this book, or rather
collection of books, with a calm, unprejudiced eye, I was amazed to find
how much I had been taught to claim for them which they never claim for
themselves. They became utterly new books to me, as if I had never read
them before; wonderfully rich and helpful and inspiring and full, as I
believe, of the truest religious inspiration, but not always a guide for
me in history and science, and not infallible as to fact.

“‘Who shall find any authority for the doctrine that inspiration ceased
with the last one of those sixty-six books? No, Miss Brewster,’ said Mr.
Everett, looking at me earnestly, his shoulders thrown back, his head
erect, ‘God reveals himself to man to-day just as truly in this new
world as ever he did thousands of years ago to Hebrew seers.

“‘You ask why I should crave any deeper reasons for my belief in God,
free will, and immortality than these writings give. Simply this: I
must. At first I fought against it, fearing it to be a temptation of the
devil. But I came to see that this fear, for me at least, was cowardice
and folly. The command was laid upon my soul to give an adequate reason
for the faith that I held, and I could not be recreant to this call of
conscience. I had been told to believe the Bible because it was God’s
Word, and then, following in a circle, to believe that there was a God
because God’s Word proved it. It did not take me long to see the
childishness of this, and though I put it off again and again, my
conscience would not be stilled until I had systematically set myself to
see whether or not anything could really be known, or whether inference,
conjecture, and hope were all that God had vouchsafed to the creature
made in his image.

“‘I suppose few women ever feel this necessity. I do not say that it is
necessary for you or for any one to probe to the bottom of these things,
if you are content without doing so. I think, however, that it is of the
utmost importance for the thousand bewildered spirits in our day, who
long to know but who cannot themselves study, to come to see that
knowledge on the questions which are most vital to us all is to be had
by every rational being who has time and patience and follows the right
path of inquiry; and that in these matters, if we are willing to pay the
cost of time and labor, we may in truth see and know.

“‘There are few who have the time or taste for any deep philosophic
study. There are fewer still who have any faith in the outcome of such
study, and of these few but a handful who get started on the right road
and persist until they attain results. Moreover, as truly in philosophy
as in religion must one be “born again”; and, unlike religious birth, it
cannot be instantaneous, for it is not a matter of will. It takes years
to bring about this new and deeper insight.

“‘I rarely find a person whom I would advise to study philosophy, for
here, if anywhere, a little learning is a dangerous thing, and one is
maddened by the superficial talk of those who have not learned its
a-b-c, but yet presume to argue as if they had mastered everything from
Aristotle to Schelling. I have come to find that there are very few
people who even dream of what philosophy is. The average man fancies
that speculative philosophy must be simply guess-work or some vague
theorizing, unworthy of a Christian man who has any practical work to do
in this world in the way of earning his living and helping to hasten the
kingdom of God.

“‘But the average Christian is largely materialistic in his thought. His
heaven, his hell, are localities; his God a huge, anthropomorphic being,
and the universe a kind of vast machine, guided by some external Power;
or a sort of precipitate or sediment, as it were, of the eternal
thought.

“‘If this is true of a man who professes and in some measure accepts a
real spiritual faith, how much more true is it of the average worldly
man of common sense! He looks upon the ground he walks on as something
real. It is something that appeals to his senses, and he smiles with
calm contempt if you tell him that an idea is far more real than the
earth beneath his foot; that it is thought, and thought alone, that
sustains this planet; and that all the things that he considers real are
in fact mere passing phenomena, absolutely nothing in themselves, except
as they exist in relation to other things.’

“I looked up somewhat perplexed at this and was about to ask a question,
but Mr. Everett was too preoccupied with his own thought to notice this.
Leaning his head against a gray tree-trunk, he looked with absent eyes
far off at the purple hills. Presently he went on:

“‘Just as the sensualist can never understand the spiritually-minded man
and his infinitely higher capacity for joy, so the man of mere _common_
sense can never understand the man of philosophic insight, the man of
more than common sense, until he has been mentally born again, and has
transcended the materialistic phase of thought in which we all begin to
do our thinking, and which most of us never pass beyond. As said the man
whose dust lies at our feet, “Every man’s words, who speaks from that
life, must sound vain to those who do not dwell in the same thought on
their own part.”’

“‘But is it necessary to go through this tragic experience of which you
have spoken in order to reach right results?’ I asked.

“‘Whether it be tragic or not depends upon the temperament and
traditions of the individual,’ he answered.

“‘To me, brought up to know all that was possible of the loveliness of
Christian character, and taught to attribute it to a theology that was
more or less false, a change of belief was naturally almost as much to
be dreaded as a deterioration in moral character. From the cradle I was
destined for the missionary work; so you see that I had always the fear
of frustrating my parents’ most cherished hopes if I should deviate from
their standard of doctrine. In later years I gladly acquiesced in their
desire to see me in the ministry; it seemed to me, it still seems to me,
the most enviable life in the world.’

“I listened eagerly,” said Mildred, “as Mr. Everett said this. I, too,
had often thought of the missionary work, but I could not leave mother
then.

“‘Well, Miss Brewster,’ Mr. Everett continued; ‘I was blessed or
afflicted, whichever you may please to call it, with a conscience which
would not let me rest content with tacit consent to what I came to see
was hardly more than a half truth, and my inward life since my senior
year at Yale three years ago has been, until recently, one of bitter
conflict. Night after night, after leaving the lecture-room at the
seminary, have I walked my floor until morning, too wretched to pray, my
brain half crazed with the ceaseless turmoil of my thoughts. “I have no
message to give to others,” I said, “for I am sure of nothing; no one is
sure of anything.” Like the sad Hindu king, I asked myself,

            “How knowest thou aught of God,
              Of his favor or his wrath?
            Can the little fish tell what the eagle thinks,
              Or map out the eagle’s path?

            Can the finite the infinite seek?
              Did the blind discover the stars?
            Is the thought that I think a thought,
              Or a throb of the brain in its bars?”

“‘But at last help came, I have told you through whom, and now as I look
back upon it, I thank God for all that bitter experience. I know better
how to understand and sympathize with many a one whom I have found
struggling in the meshes of sophistry; earnest souls, who long for the
truth more than they long for life itself, and finding no one who can do
more for them than to simply say “Repent and believe.”

“‘Not that I have learned much yet. I have only begun to get glimpses of
the truth. I feel sure of far less now than I did five years ago. But I
know this: I do know and see beyond peradventure that it is right to
probe to the uttermost the problems which confront me. I should have
been false to myself, unfaithful to my highest, truest instinct, if I
had listened to the tearful advice of my timid friends and turned my
back and shut my eyes to what God would reveal to me. I did not know
where I should be led; my knees knocked together with fear as I felt my
way through the gloom. But gradually, and chiefly from the writings of
that man whose teachings we heard this morning, have I learned not only
to believe, but to know the truths which he taught us to-day. Some men
call him skeptic, rationalist; at best they say, such talk must be
unpractical. Fools! not to know that to save a soul from hopeless
despair, to give life and health to an immortal spirit, is quite as
practical a thing as to pave streets and cut coats.

“‘I look upon a true philosophy as the most completely useful thing in
the world.’ He stopped, and I looked up bewildered.

“‘Useful?’ I asked.

“‘Certainly; useful. Is not that useful which gives man a clear insight
into what must otherwise be forever obscure? Is it not useful to lift
him out of the domain of prejudice and mere opinion on vital matters,
and give him the key to the universe by making him to know the grounds
of his knowledge, of his being, and of his destiny?’

“‘But do you not believe in relying on faith at all? Do you accept
nothing that you do not understand?’ I asked.

“‘I understand very few things that my reason compels me to accept,’
answered Mr. Everett. ‘I do not understand the chemical change which
transmutes my food into living animal matter, and I do not understand a
million things which I believe. Certainly we must have faith. All
business and all life depends upon faith. But by faith I do not mean the
simple credulity of my childhood in everything that I was taught. By
faith I mean a steadfast reliance on what my reason tells me is true,
even though I have no immediate evidence of it, and imagination and
understanding fail to compass it. When I see the apparently useless
suffering and cruelty which the Supreme Power has permitted, I have
faith in his infinite goodness, not because any man or book has told me
that it is so, but because, thank God, I see that it is so; and it is
philosophic study alone which has made me see this. He who is afraid to
study and question into the nature of the universe “and trust the Rock
of Ages to his chemic test” is the man who has no true faith.’

“‘But after all,’ I said, ‘you must admit that the philosophers are but
little read. It is the practical, common-sense people of the world who
have done the work, and they have got on very well, too, without all
this theorizing.’

“‘There was never a greater mistake in the world,’ replied Mr. Everett
vehemently, too deeply in earnest to remember anything but the point
that he was trying to make. ‘The philosophers certainly have not been
widely read, but that by no means measures their influence. It is they
who have taught the teachers who have taught the masses, and as the
traveler knows perhaps nothing of the inventor of the engine which
carries him safely from one side of the continent to the other, and
makes life larger for him in a hundred ways, so we all, reaping every
day in every one of our human institutions the rich benefits which the
thinkers of the ages have bestowed upon us, say ungratefully that we owe
them nothing. We attribute all our speed to the visible engineer and
conductor who by another man’s genius have brought us to our
destinations.’

“‘Would you advise me to study philosophy?’ I inquired humbly, much
impressed with the point of his reply to what I had flattered myself was
a rather bright remark.

“‘That depends,’ he said, ‘on what and how you study. If you wish to
study simply to be able to say or to feel that you have studied
philosophy, and can quote from this or that man, I advise you not to
study.’

“I must have flushed and looked a little hurt, for he quickly added,
‘Pardon me, Miss Brewster, I think that you are far too much in earnest
for that; but I have seen too many begin to read philosophy as a mere
amusement, a sort of fad, and with no real earnest purpose, learning
just enough to make them conceited or discouraged, and doing no good to
themselves or any one else, and bringing the study of philosophy into
disrepute. To me my philosophy has been a search for God, for truth. I
have studied for my soul’s sorest need, and in all my intellectual life
I have found nothing so satisfying, nothing that gives me such hope and
courage.’

“‘Should you advise me to begin with Herbert Spencer?’ I asked, thinking
that I would come to something definite.

“‘No, as you value your power to grow. You are not ready for him yet. He
would fascinate you, and you could not refute his fallacies; but read
Plato, read Kant, Fichte, Hegel. Don’t begin with them, though. Read
first, perhaps, the “Introduction to Philosophy” by the man whom we
heard this morning. I will give you also an article of his which deals
with Spencer in a way that opened my eyes.

“‘Don’t read much at a time, else it will utterly daunt you. Come back
to it again and again at intervals. You will be astonished to see your
growth. You will be surprised to find how digging at these tough
problems makes such mental muscle as renders other tasks easy.

“‘It will open a new world to you; but you must have infinite patience.
I have made up my mind to that. I shall be more than thankful if in
twenty years I have mastered this book;’ and he drew a volume of Hegel
from his pocket.

“The sun was sinking behind the trees as we rose to go homeward.
Stiffened with sitting so long, I tripped and fell. He sprang and caught
me in his great strong arms for one little moment; then—well—I trembled
a bit with the start it had given me, and finding that my foot had
really been hurt a little, I accepted his help as we descended the slope
and climbed upon the other side to the road again. It seemed very
pleasant to have his strong arm for a support. There had not been a word
of love, but his unaffected, frank talk had touched me as no compliments
or sentiment could ever have done.

“I had thought his voice rather harsh at first when he spoke so
earnestly and vehemently, but it had grown very tender and quiet now,
and as we came back from the woods to civilization again we lapsed into
silence.”

As Mildred ceased, the clock struck midnight. The noise outside had died
away, and the fire had burned low, too low for me to distinguish her
face clearly.

“And was there no love-making at all?” I asked, much disappointed at the
prosaic ending of the little romance that I had been anticipating. A
talk on philosophy in a graveyard was not the kind of love-making that I
knew about, and I wondered if there ever were another girl like Mildred.

“Oh, I didn’t say there was any love-making,” said Mildred rather dryly.
“I simply said that I think I really was in love.”

“And is that all? Did you never see him again?” I persisted.

“Yes, several times afterward,” she answered; “for I went regularly to
the school after that. At first I understood almost nothing, and much of
what he said was Greek to me. I met some delightful people there, but he
helped me more than any one else. He loaned me books, and we had many a
talk.

“I felt that we were becoming fast friends, when suddenly he went West.
I received a note from him some months afterward, telling me that his
parents had died; but there was very little about himself. I heard
afterward that he was engaged; but after Julia died I lost all knowledge
of him. Probably he has forgotten me long ago, but I owe to that talk
the best things that have come to me since I was a woman. Yes, Ruby,
that first April-day and that second day in midsummer in old Concord are
the two red-letter days of my life.”




                              CHAPTER XI.

                 (Extract from the New York “Tribune.”)


    BOOKS FOR THE MILLION! HELP FOR THOSE WHO WILL HELP THEMSELVES.

It has been understood that Miss Mildred Brewster, the Boston heiress
and philanthropist who has recently been making such a sensation in New
York society, was quite inaccessible to reporters. But yesterday a
member of the “Tribune” staff was so fortunate as to gain a gracious
reception, and to learn certain facts which will be of great interest to
the public in general.

Miss Brewster was found in her pretty parlor at the Fifth Avenue Hotel,
dressed to attend a reception, in an exquisite robe of golden-brown
velvet, simply made, and worn with a unique girdle and collar of

                        RARELY BEAUTIFUL CAMEOS.

Miss Brewster said that she was waiting for her carriage, but was not in
haste, and would be pleased to make an authentic statement in regard to
certain facts of which there had been vague rumors in the papers of
late.

She began by saying that she supposed the newspapers would learn it
indirectly sooner or later, and therefore she might as well give the
facts so that they should be stated accurately. What followed will be
given as nearly as possible in Miss Brewster’s own words.

“When I was a child,” she said, “I spent several years in some of the
frontier towns of our Western states, where my father was vainly seeking
for a climate which would prolong his life. I had an opportunity there
to observe many things which I have never forgotten. I understood them
but dimly then, but as I grew to womanhood in my New England home,
surrounded with the privileges and traditions of an older and more
distinctly American civilization, I often contrasted my life with what
it would have been had I grown up among the German farmers, rough
cowboys, greedy land speculators, and half-starved home missionaries,
who formed the chief part of the people whom we met in the little towns
along the railroad on the Western prairies.

“I was too young to appreciate the value of the indomitable energy of
this pioneer work. I saw only the sordid, unpicturesque side of it then.

“I hated the tornadoes and blizzards; I loathed the sloughs and muddy
streams—the everlasting dullness of the prairie and the prosaic struggle
for existence in the little clusters of board shanties or in the
isolated log cabins and dug-outs. I longed for the hills and granite
bowlders, for the great elms and sparkling streams of New England, and
for the refinements and conveniences of my Eastern home.

“How well I recall the tired, overworked women, toiling over their
cooking-stoves, with no household conveniences, milking, churning,
mending, washing, feeding the pigs, selling eggs, and making themselves
prematurely old that their children might have a ‘better chance.’

“I remember, with my insatiable love of reading, how my first glance on
entering a house was in search of book-shelves. Many a time, though in
the house of a man owning hundreds of cattle and a thousand acres of
land, I have found no literature beyond a copy of the Bible but little
used, the State Agricultural or Mining Reports, or a stray copy of
‘Godey’s Lady’s Book.’

“But, as an offset to this prosaic life, I remember also, as I look back
upon it now, the hopefulness and cheerfulness, the ambition and
self-sacrifice, and the sturdy courage and self-reliance which all this
new Western life engendered.

“There was much that was admirable about it all, and that gave promise
of the development of great men and women and a glorious future for that
part of our country. Yet I know that in many instances, except where a
colony of Eastern people had settled and put up their schoolhouse and
church before there was an opportunity to build a gambling den and
saloon, the early influences which shaped the future of the towns were
like the sowing of dragon’s teeth, which have brought forth, as I have
taken pains to learn, most deadly fruit.

“It is more than sixteen years since I have been in the West, and I
intend now to revisit it. Of course I shall see an astonishing change. I
read of opera houses and electric lights in the places that I remember
as mere shabby settlements of a hundred shanties. But the same condition
of things that I knew then is still to be found in a thousand places
further west, or off the line of the main roads, and it will continue
for a half century to come. Hundreds of thousands of ignorant emigrants
are pouring into this land, with throngs of alert young business men
from the East, all making a breakneck race for wealth. They are buying
the

                   LAST REMNANTS OF GOVERNMENT LAND,

and are developing the material resources of the country at an amazing
rate. The shanties will give place to brick blocks, and the sloughs to
paved streets, soon enough. I am not concerned as to that.

“The luxuries of civilization will come as rapidly as one could wish,
but it is the tendency of things in regard to the development of morals
and character that alarms me. When I learn that one third of our school
population in this land of boasted educational privileges is ignorant of
the alphabet, and that in the Rocky Mountain states and territories
there is one saloon for every forty-three voters; when I read how the
peasants of Europe are flocking by the hundred thousand to this fair
Western land, and I see the possibilities of the future for good or
evil, it wakens all my ardor and enthusiasm to be up and doing and
lending a hand to help shape its destiny.

“There are many who, not falling under good influences at once, lapse
into a selfish indifference to everything but their own worldly
advancement if they do not retrograde morally. I do not mean that they
are heartless. They have, of course, the proverbial Western generosity
and frank cordiality, which is one of the finest things in the world and
is very genuine; but it is often coupled with an absolute contempt for
everything beyond that which will advance their purely material
interests. In short, they are ‘Philistines.’

“I have seen many Western men who have made their ‘pile,’ as they say,
who would find it absolutely impossible to believe in any one’s having
such a real, disinterested enthusiasm for art, or science, or literature
as would permit a man like Agassiz to say:

                    ‘I HAVE NO TIME TO MAKE MONEY.’

“Do not misunderstand me. I would throw no slurs on Western men. There
are thousands in New England as all-absorbed in money-getting as they,
only there is this saving difference: Here, these men are, in spite of
themselves, under the influence of traditions and institutions founded
by better men than they; and there, they are the creators of the
traditions and institutions which are to be and which will of a surety
be no better than they choose to make them.

“It is the early settlers that shape the future of the country.
Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina are to-day what their first
settlers made them.

“I believe in the New England principles, and in the men who sought New
England’s shores, not to find gold, to speculate in land, to buy bonanza
farms, but to found a commonwealth such as mankind had never seen, a
commonwealth whose corner-stones should be righteousness and ideas.

“It is these New England principles that I would engraft upon that great
empire of the West, which to-day is so plastic in our hands, whose
future we, to-day, have power to shape, but which to-morrow we shall be
powerless to mould.

“I would teach them that all their limitless material resources cannot
make them the real power in the land that little, sterile Massachusetts,
with her east winds and rocky soils, has been, unless they first plant
the seed that shall bring forth such men of character and thought as New
England has borne.

“Why was it that so many of the men of this century, whom the nation
most delights to honor, Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, Bryant,
Whittier, Holmes, Beecher, Curtis, Garrison, Phillips, Webster, were
sons of this New England soil?

“I know that I am saying nothing new. All this is very trite, as trite
as the Ten Commandments. It has been said a thousand times; yet half our
people do not know it or believe it, and serenely smile at what they
call our ‘Eastern egotism.’ I confess that we have quite too much of
that. I, for one, have almost as hearty a contempt as any of them for
the men who

               ... ‘sit the idle slaves of a legendary virtue
           Carved upon their fathers’ graves.’

“Let no one think that I am boasting of the New England of to-day. I am
simply saying that the principles which have made her a power in this
nation are the principles by which, in East and West, in North and
South, this nation must rise, or without which she must fall. And if the
nation is to be saved,

                                THE WEST

must be saved. No man needs to be told that _there_ is to be the true
seat of empire.

“To me, this present war, waged between the forces of good and evil, for
the conquest of this land, has an all-absorbing interest. Surely, as I
have said, this generation will not pass away before the fate—that is to
say, the influences which are chiefly to control the destinies of
millions yet unborn—of this great nation will be settled.”

As Miss Brewster uttered these words her cheeks glowed, and her whole
frame seemed to quiver with the intensity of her feeling. She rose and
restlessly paced the floor as she continued:

“I have said all this because I want it understood why I intend to
devote a large share of my property to sowing all over the West and
South the seeds of what I count as best, in the form of

             FREE READING-ROOMS AND CIRCULATING LIBRARIES.

“I have been for some time carefully studying into this subject, and I
have learned some facts which are rather startling when one considers
the inference which must be drawn from them.

“Let me give you a few of these facts,” said Miss Brewster, seating
herself at her desk and drawing some papers from a pigeon-hole.

“Taking all the libraries which contain more than one thousand volumes,
and are absolutely free to every one, I find that in Massachusetts there
are two hundred, and in other New England states—and some of the Middle
states as well—a number approximating that. But what do I find in the
West and South? I find that Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas,
Montana, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Washington and Dakota
territories, and New Mexico, have

                     NOT ONE FREE GENERAL LIBRARY.

I find that Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Colorado have
but one each; and that Louisiana and Maryland have none outside of the
one largest city in each.

“Of course what I have said does not imply that there are no libraries
in the states referred to. But it does mean that there are but few, and
that those few are either subscription libraries or else belong to
schools or institutions, and are not open to the general public.

“How is this all to be explained? Is it sufficient to say that the West
is young and that the South is poor and sparsely settled? The West is
young, indeed, but not too young to have magnificent opera houses,
hundreds of millionaires’ palaces, and, in many of the new cities,
richer clothes for every one and more of them than the average New
Englander thinks he can afford.

“The South is poor, very poor, and very sparsely settled compared with
the North. But the fact that in those Southern states which I have
mentioned there is not one free library open to all, such as one may
find in scores of little villages in the North, is not due entirely to
poverty.

“Even New York State, with her superior wealth and population, and with
an aggregate number of all kinds of libraries nearly as great as that of
Massachusetts, has

                          NO MORE THAN THIRTY

which are absolutely free and general as compared with the two hundred
such in Massachusetts. And Pennsylvania, with all her wealth and
numbers, shows no more than ten such libraries.

“The farther one travels from New England, the more surely does one find
public sentiment indifferent to these matters, and whole communities
preferring to tax themselves for the adornment of their cities, rather
than to provide every poor man with books. Books are considered a
luxury, not a necessity; to be indulged in only by those who can afford
to pay for them.

                            LEARNING FOR ALL

was the idea of the men who made the North what it is. Learning for the
few was the idea of the men who made the South what it is. And the men
of this generation are reaping the harvest of the seed which those men
sowed.

“Now I propose, as soon as practicable, to assist in putting into
several thousand little communities in the West and South either a free
reading-room or a free circulating library, or both, thinking that it
will be the best possible use to which money can be put.

“Perhaps it may be wondered at that I do not spend these millions in the
direction of Home Missionary work. I have several reasons for not doing
so, although I am heartily in sympathy with it. Never was there nobler,
more self-denying and more fruitful labor than that of the overworked
men and women in the Home Missionary field. But, in the first place,
there are one hundred needed where one can be found to go. The religious
denomination in which I was reared graduates but about one hundred
students from all its theological seminaries every year, scarcely
enough, one would think, to supply the vacancies in the pulpits of the
East, to say nothing of the West, and I presume the same is nearly true
of other denominations which I should be quite as ready to help as my
own.

“The library can never take the place of the church, but I am convinced
that in many communities the provision of a comfortable, tastefully
furnished room, filled with periodicals, giving to every one access to
the best literary, political, scientific, and religious thought of our
time, will do quite as much for the morals of a town as anything that
could be devised.

“Unlike a church, it will be open every day in the week. It will be a
counter attraction to the street and the saloon, and if there is a
circulating library as well as a reading-room, it will serve to
stimulate and open a larger life to every one who takes a book from it.
The home missionary shall not be lacking, but she shall appear under the
guise of a librarian instead of a preacher.

“In regions where there is a large proportion of foreigners, there shall
be books and periodicals in their native tongues. Few who have not
looked into the matter realize the terrible mental strain to the mind of
the immigrant from the disruption of old associations and the necessity,
in middle life, of adapting himself to utterly new conditions, in a land
where his language is unspoken. Many succumb to this, and the statistics
of the numbers of

                        OUR FOREIGN-BORN INSANE

are startling.

“The same is true of the insanity caused among herders’ and farmers’
wives by their dreary, isolated lives on the treeless plains. We
commonly think of people living close to nature and absorbed in simple
daily tasks as being exceptionally healthy and placid. But a visit to
our hospitals for the insane will tell a different story. The lonely
woman, with no outlook but the prairie’s level floor, to whom a new
book, a new picture, a new idea never comes, is, as statistics show, as
much in danger of losing her mind as the man on Wall Street whose life
is a fever of excitement.

“Now, to these tired, lonely women, to the young girls who as soon as
they are well into their teens begin to think of marrying and abandoning
all study, to the young men so eager to make money that self-culture is
counted an unnecessary luxury, to the boys who spend their evenings
listening to the vulgar talk of the teamsters at the corner grocery, to
the ministers and teachers who find that their scant salaries permit of
none of the new books and papers which are essential to their mental
life,—to all these people I should like to give the blessing of books.

“The offer of a ‘St. Nicholas’ or ‘Youth’s Companion,’ from a pleasant
librarian, will be quite as effectual to keep a boy off the street of an
evening as an invitation from a home missionary to go to a
prayer-meeting. And to the man who may never enter the building, the
sight, as he passes to his work every day, of a beautiful little temple
devoted to the things of thought, will serve all unconsciously to make
life seem a little cleaner and sweeter and more dignified than it would
be without it.

“Now as to the details of this. In the first place, I propose to help
only those who are willing to help themselves. That is my principle of
work in most matters.

“This is not a new scheme of mine. I have thought of it for years, but
it was until recently only a dream of which there was no prospect of
realization. Now, however, I have taken steps, which, whether I live or
die, will scatter all over the states and territories west of the
Mississippi and south of the Ohio little centres of learning, which will
reach far more people, and, I must again repeat, do far more good than
any other way possible.

“I have appointed two gentlemen, and they are to select three other
trustees, two of whom are to be ladies, who will act with them
conjointly in the management of the fund. I shall leave them largely to
choose their own methods of work, but I have made some stipulations in
regard to the disposal of the amount.

“No sum whatever is to be given unconditionally. Except for special
reasons, no amount shall ever be given for the establishment of a
library or reading-room which shall be less than fifty or more than ten
thousand dollars, and the amount given must in every case be

                     DUPLICATED BY THE RECIPIENTS.

“That is to say, if a little rural community of five hundred people out
in Nebraska is able to raise one hundred dollars as a nucleus for a
reading-room, I will give an equal amount. Some room over a store,
perhaps, or in the church vestry, will be rented. It will be fitted up
with chairs, tables, and lamps, which may be contributed by individuals
independently of the fund. Then the remainder may be spent in
periodicals and a few reference books, to be selected by a committee
appointed by the town and by the agent whom I shall employ to look after
all details of the work.

“I have already engaged a dozen persons, New England teachers chiefly,
women whom I know, whose good sense and executive ability are to be
trusted, and I have apportioned out the localities in which they are to
work. The first duty of each one will be to put herself in communication
with the state superintendent of education, and to receive his
indorsement. Then she will make the announcement in all the leading
papers of the state or territory, that she is the trustees’ accredited
representative, and is authorized to make such arrangements as may be
deemed fitting for the establishment of free reading-rooms and libraries
in every township. Getting a list of such towns as have no provision of
this kind for books and reading, she will proceed to communicate, either
by letter or by personal interviews, with the clergymen, mayors, and
leading men of the town, and, where any apathy in the matter exists,
will endeavor to arouse interest and stimulate them to raise a fund.

“Wherever there is an interest and a desire to take immediate advantage
of my proposal by erecting a building, the agent will join with the town
in deciding on the plan of construction, and in the selection of a lot,
insisting always that it shall be ample enough to allow of the addition
of more rooms to the building as the town grows.

“All the details of the arrangements will be submitted to the head
committee in New York, thereby insuring the consideration of many
matters essential to the success of the scheme, which might be
overlooked by the average selectman, more skilled in raising grain and
killing hogs than in the science of library construction.

“Of course all this will require tact as well as business-like habits on
the part of the agent, but I can rely on those I have engaged for these
qualities, and I will risk their success anywhere. I shall urge them to
encourage, wherever they can, the erection of a small hall in connection
with the library building, which may serve for lectures and meetings,
and by pleasant, dignified surroundings give a tone to the character of
the proceedings held in it, which might not be obtained elsewhere.

“I shall insist on making the buildings as fireproof and as beautiful as
the money will allow. I want to make the Library the most attractive
place in town.

“In farming communities, where houses are few and far between, and an
hour an evening at a central reading-room would be an impossibility, I
shall suggest a circulation of periodicals after the fashion of our
Eastern book clubs.

“One great demand which will be made on us, and which we are not yet
ready to supply, is for good librarians. I wish to call the attention of
intelligent young women to this field of work which is about to be
opened to them, provided that they are fitted for it.

“In these new libraries, I propose to provide the librarian at my own
expense for the first two years, thereby insuring the judicious
management and consequent popularity of the scheme.

“A librarian who has the missionary spirit can have, in a small town,
about as christianizing an influence as a home missionary. She will make
the library a pleasant place, where quietness and good manners are the
rule, and every one is made to feel at home; she will offer wise
suggestions as to the selection of books, and give occasional talks on
authors and good literature.

“I mean to send out strong, earnest, college-bred young women, who will
take a missionary view of their work, and make it a means of great good.
I shall pay them well, and, as their terms expire, shall transfer them
from one place to another to do pioneer work, varying their salary
according to the amount of work done.

“My reason for choosing women for the work is, that I think them to be
more faithful and conscientious than men, as a rule, and to have more
tact and knowledge of detail. Besides, there are more capable women than
men who would be benefited by the money and experience.

“I am especially interested in the success of my scheme in the South,
where a circulating library, open to every one without distinction of
race or sex, is an almost if not quite an unheard-of thing.

“The scarcity of reading matter among both colored and white teachers,
to say nothing of other people, is something fairly startling, and my
agents in the Southern states will probably be compelled to adopt
somewhat different measures from those used in the West.

“A circulation of magazines and papers will be necessary in sparsely
settled districts, where people would otherwise have to walk two or
three miles to get any benefit from a reading-room.

“Suppose, for instance, there is a little community of fifty families,
both black and white, whose cabins and clearings are scattered over an
area five miles square. There are hundreds of such places in the South
where the people are completely out of the world, and where not one
adult in five sees a weekly paper regularly or could read it if he saw
it. To these people, up on the mountain sides, in the pine forests or on
the river-bottoms, my

                       BRAVE NEW ENGLAND TEACHER

will go. She will call them together and have a meeting. She will get
them to pledge, say fifty dollars a year, and to this she will add
another fifty. Half of this, perhaps, will go for periodicals, chiefly
illustrated weeklies and magazines, and the remainder will be paid to
some of the more enterprising who can read, and who will agree to hold
neighborhood meetings weekly. The blacks will be with the blacks, and
the whites with the whites, probably, and the reading matter will be
read aloud for the benefit of all.

“Some responsible committee will take charge of the reception,
distribution, and preservation of the papers and magazines, and at the
end of the year they will, perhaps, be sold at auction among the
contributors to the fund.

“If the reading matter were given outright there would be some chance
against the success of the plan. People care little for what costs them
nothing. But having had to sacrifice something to bring it about they
will think it worth something.”

“What would you do, Miss Brewster,” the writer inquired, “in towns where
reading-rooms were open to both whites and negroes? Have you any idea
that the whites would tolerate being brought into contact with blacks on
a par in a public reading-room?”

“Probably not,” replied Miss Brewster; “for racial animosity is still
pretty strong in most sections, I imagine. But the difficulty could be

                            EASILY OBVIATED

by allowing certain days or certain hours for one race and other days or
hours for the other race, so that all could be benefited without setting
prejudices too much at defiance.”

At this juncture, Miss Brewster’s carriage being announced, the
extremely interesting interview was terminated.

                                                         BUGGSVILLE, MO.

  DEAR FRIEND: The trustees told me that they thought you would be glad
  to receive a letter from me, telling you something about my
  experiences in addition to the official report, a copy of which they
  will forward.

  Buggsville, as you already know, is the first town to put up a library
  building with aid from the Western and Southern Library Fund.
  Therefore I naturally feel considerable pride and interest in this,
  the first-fruits of my labors, so far as the erection of a building is
  concerned.

  I will say, by the way, however, that I have been very successful in
  starting reading-rooms in the little villages, sixty-eight little
  towns already having them well equipped and beginning to produce a
  marked result.

  Three months ago we started a reading-room at Onetumka, ten miles from
  here. The people were a rough, ignorant set, for the most part. A good
  many foreigners are there, and a number of land speculators and some
  mill hands, for they have a good water-power, and are already
  beginning to do a little manufacturing.

  It was really one of the most hopeless places I have ever seen. The
  bad element had got the upper hand from the first. There were five
  saloons, and several low dance-halls and pool-rooms. There was no
  resident minister, and they had preaching only once in two weeks by an
  overworked Baptist preacher with much goodwill and little tact in
  managing so difficult a community.

  I always make it a point to get the ministers to help me first of all,
  but here it was useless. So I appealed to the school-teacher, the
  doctor, and the mill-owner. The latter took little interest, although
  I assured him that anything that could entice his workmen from the
  saloon would make them serve him better.

  The little school-mistress talked to her children about it, but with
  no success; the doctor was indifferent, and, as I had a more promising
  field elsewhere, I stayed in the town only a few days.

  But presently the county papers began to be full of the library
  business, and I was asked to speak here and there in the little
  schoolhouses and churches. At first I trembled at facing an audience
  of one or two hundred, but I had not been a schoolma’am for nothing,
  and I soon got over that, at last finding myself no more afraid of
  them than of my fifty boys and girls in the old school-room at home.

  I found that this was the best way to arouse interest. I gave them a
  practical talk, told them about book clubs, Chatauqua circles and
  other things, and suggested ways and means of raising money. Most of
  them live pretty comfortably, but money is scarce, and I find that
  most of the farms are mortgaged. Generally, however, I found some
  degree of enthusiasm, especially among the women, when they learned
  that after the first month it could be so arranged that the magazines
  might be taken from the reading-room and circulated.

  You can’t imagine how many times I have heard some tired farmer’s wife
  say, often with tears in her eyes, “Miss Martyn, this’ll be a godsend
  to me. I never get time to go anywhere, or to sit down and read a
  book; but if I could have that ‘St. Nicholas’ or ‘Wide Awake’ for the
  children, or just sit down once in a while and read an article, or
  simply look at those beautiful pictures in ‘Harper’s’ and ‘The
  Century,’ I feel as though I shouldn’t get so discouraged with the
  work.”

  “Sometimes I feel as if I was forgetting all I ever knew, and the
  children are growing up so rough and don’t know about any other kind
  of life,” they will say, in a troubled way, and I feel sorry enough
  for them. In many cases these women before coming west have had good
  educations, and this monotonous life, in which there is so little
  mental stimulus, is terribly hard for them to bear.

  Well, after a while, Onetumka heard what the other towns near by were
  doing, and one or two of the mill hands wrote me that they had been
  around collecting money and had secured fifty dollars, beside gaining
  the free use of a suitable room. So I went there and succeeded in
  raising the sum to seventy-five dollars, to which I added as much
  more. Then I managed to get the selection of the periodicals myself,
  and excluded the “Police Gazette” and some others that had been asked
  for. As there is a large number of Germans here, I subscribed for
  several German publications; also for a generous list of illustrated
  papers of a harmless sort, knowing that “Puck” and “Life” would be
  better appreciated than the “Fortnightly” or the “Contemporary.” Then
  I saw that a committee was appointed to provide voluntary service in
  looking after the room and circulating the magazines. I arranged that
  the reading-room should be open and some one in attendance on Sunday
  afternoon and evening, as that is the time when the men have a little
  leisure and the saloons do a great business.

  In no place has there been so marked a result as in Onetumka. A record
  is kept of the attendance, and it has averaged seventy-five every day.

  “The reading-room is really a means of grace,” the minister writes. I
  myself am aware of that, and shall not fail to keep them stimulated
  until they have a good library.

  I started a reading-room at Buggsville during my first six weeks in
  the state. Here I found good ground for work. Most of the people were
  ambitious, and some of the young ladies had formed a Chatauqua circle,
  the only one that I have found thus far.

  There were three little feeble churches, Methodist, Presbyterian, and
  Baptist, each having about half a congregation, and each unable by
  itself to support a minister decently. They were willing to make
  sacrifices for the library, however. I suggested that while waiting
  for the new building they should make use of the vestry of the
  Methodist church. This is a large and well-lighted room, and at a
  slight expense for shelves could accommodate as many books as we could
  buy, and also serve excellently for a reading-room. I found, however,
  that this aroused a good deal of sectarian feeling and would not do.
  The Presbyterians and Baptists said that if their children should get
  accustomed to going there during the week they would want to go there
  on Sunday, and their own Sunday-schools would dwindle. In order to
  leave their vestry to be used solely as a reading-room, I suggested
  that the Methodist Sunday-school should meet at the Baptist church,
  holding its session at an hour when the two Sunday-schools should not
  conflict. But this, I discovered, was even worse in the minds of these
  would-be Christians, who were so afraid of each other, and I found
  that I was sowing discord instead of harmony.

  At this juncture, fearing to lose all help from me if they did not
  bestir themselves, one man gave a lot 100 × 200 feet, on condition
  that a building should be put up within a year; another who owned a
  quarry offered stone for the building; the town voted to give one
  thousand dollars, and the young people, thus encouraged, set to work
  earnestly, and by fairs and entertainments added considerably more. I
  cheered them on with the inspiriting assurance that every cent they
  earned meant two for the library. The enthusiasm and good spirit, when
  they got fairly at work, were marvelous, and the people were drawn
  together in a way to make them forget their differences in their zeal
  for the common good.

  I found a good deal of strong opposition to having the building open
  on Sunday. I had asked that the reading-room might be open on Sunday
  afternoons when there was no church service, knowing that this would
  prevent a good deal of lounging on street corners, and, moreover,
  subdue much disorder among a set of restless street youth who are fast
  becoming a terror to the town; but after a great deal of discussion
  and hot blood over the matter, the conservatives won the day.

  Yesterday the building was dedicated, and I was requested to give one
  of the eight addresses on the great occasion. The whole town turned
  out, and it was a gala day. The stores were closed, and after a grand
  procession, led by a German band hired from a neighboring town for the
  celebration, we proceeded to the library, which is really the most
  beautiful building in Buggsville.

  Every one felt a pride and personal interest in it, from the two solid
  men of the town who had given the land and the stone, and were
  consequently the heroes of the day, down to the small boys and girls
  who had all given their coppers. I felt that every one in town was my
  friend, and as I rode in state in the procession in a mud-bespattered
  buggy, the boys cheered, the bells rang, and I think every one felt
  that a new era had begun. The farmers’ boys and their “best girls”
  came in from all the country around, and I can’t describe to you all
  the droll and pathetic sights I saw.

  I gave them a little talk on “Books and how to use them,” as short and
  as sensible as I could make it. At its close a white-haired old man,
  whom I had never seen before, came and took me by the hand, and said
  in a simple, childlike way: “Miss Martyn, I want to ask you to tell
  that rich young lady who has made this thing possible for us here
  to-day that the blessing of an old man rests upon her.

  “I was born down in Maine, and never had much schooling. I came to
  this part of the country fifty-five years ago. My folks were killed by
  the Indians. It was mighty different here fifty-five years ago, I can
  tell you, Miss Martyn; there were Indians all about then, and wolves
  too. We had taken up government land, and after the old folks were
  killed I kept on the place as long as I could stand it, for the
  Indians had by that time been driven off, and there was no more
  danger. It was awful lonesome, though. There wasn’t a soul within
  twelve miles to speak to. Sometimes I thought I should go insane from
  lonesomeness.

  “I had only two books,—my mother’s little Testament, and another book:
  perhaps you’ve heard of it: ’twas ‘Locke on the Human Understanding.’
  Well, I’d always been fond of books. Somehow I never took to farming,
  and sometimes I felt as if I’d give every acre I had for a new book,
  or a newspaper that would tell me what was going on in the world;
  something that would give me new thoughts; I was so tired of thinking
  the old ones over and over.

  “The fellows who were my nearest neighbors weren’t my kind; they
  hadn’t any books, and, if you’ll believe it, I’ve ridden many a time
  fifty miles to get a newspaper a week old.

  “Well, at last I couldn’t stand it any longer. I was ashamed to ask
  any woman to be my wife, and to come out and live in my dreary log
  cabin, even if I’d known any woman to ask, but I didn’t. Unmarried
  women were scarce in those days. At last I sold all the land for a
  song,—I should have been rich now if I’d only kept it,—and I moved a
  little nearer folks.

  “I knew my Bible, and at last, though I hadn’t much education, I began
  to go around preaching. But a home missionary without a salary has not
  much money or time for books; besides, before the railroad, I couldn’t
  get books any way if I’d had money, and sometimes I—perhaps you won’t
  believe it, ma’am, but I’ve actually cried for books, I felt so sort
  of hungry and starved. I was thirty years old before, to my knowledge,
  I ever saw a book of poetry. It was Longfellow’s. Well, ma’am, that
  book—I can’t tell you”—and the old man’s blue eyes filled with tears
  and his voice choked.

  His simple, genuine feeling was so sweet and so unexpected that it
  fairly thrilled me. I think I never realized in my life before what
  mental starvation must be to a sensitive spirit. When I took him by
  the hand and led him around to see all the books nicely covered and
  numbered on the shelves, he could only smile through his tears, and
  touching them almost reverently, say, “Thank the Lord! I never
  expected to live to see so many books. Thank the Lord!”

  I inquired afterwards who he was, but no one knew; they said he was a
  stranger who had come there simply for the day. I am sorry to have
  lost sight of him; he was a rare soul, I am sure.

  I did the best I could with the money that you sent as a special gift
  for the first library. I sent to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and bought
  their large lithographs of the American poets, and had them nicely
  framed in narrow oak frames, and hung around the reading-room, with a
  little biographical sketch pinned up underneath each one. The rest of
  the money I spent for a number of unmounted photographs from Soule’s,
  which I taught the young people here to mount and arrange in home-made
  frames. No doubt, most of them would have been much better pleased
  with some cheap chromos, but I thought of what would please them best
  ten years from now, and planned for that.

  They have already projected, at my suggestion, a course of reading in
  the history of art; and whereas a year ago it would have been
  impossible to get most of the young people to undertake anything
  really serious, they now evidently consider it quite the thing. All
  this greatly encourages me, especially as I see hopeful signs of the
  good fashion spreading.

  This is a long letter, but I know your warm interest in all the
  details of this work, so I make no apology, and congratulate myself
  that you will consider it a signal success to have one building all
  equipped and in running order in eight months from the time when you
  indorsed the scheme.

                                              Ever yours faithfully,
                                                          HANNAH MARTYN.




                              CHAPTER XII.

          “Shall not that Western Goth of whom we spoke,
          So fiercely practical, so keen of eye,
          Find out some day, that nothing pays but God?”
                                          (_Cathedral._) LOWELL.

              (Extract from the “Chicago Inter-Ocean.”)


  GOOD CITIZENSHIP! HOW A BOSTON BEAUTY PROPOSES TO BRING IT ABOUT!
    ANTIDOTE FOR ANARCHISM!

In the arrival in our city last week of the rich Miss Brewster of
Boston, society has naturally felt a warm interest. First, because she
is young and charming; secondly, because she is reputed fabulously
wealthy; and thirdly, because she adds to these attractions a decided
mind of her own, which has fortunately turned itself in the direction of
alleviating some of the woes of human-kind.

But the pertinacious reticence maintained by herself and the ladies and
gentlemen who are her traveling companions, and are understood to be _en
route_ for Alaska, has given our reporter more than one fruitless trip
to the Grand Pacific Hotel. It is currently rumored that more than one

                            EUROPEAN CORONET

has been laid at the feet of the bonny belle from Beacon Hill, but, like
the sensible little Puritan maiden that she is, she prefers to keep the
reins in her own hands a little longer, and her millions will not at
present pass to any of the bloated aristocracy of an effete despotism of
the Old World.

It was ascertained yesterday from the waiters that the great parlors of
the hotel had been engaged by Miss Brewster for a large reception to
some of our most eminent citizens, chiefly in the clerical walks of
life. So a reporter in a ministerial rig presented himself, was
admitted, and taking refuge in a camp-chair at the rear of perhaps two
hundred and fifty ladies and gentlemen, had a fair opportunity to report
proceedings.

He soon discovered that the reception was nothing more than a business
meeting convened for the purpose of listening to some address or
discussion, the guests being seated facing a slightly raised platform.

The assemblage seemed to be chiefly composed of gentlemen, and every
profession and sect was represented by some of its most eminent members.

At precisely eight o’clock Miss Brewster, conducted by Rev. Dr. T——,
entered at a side door. They proceeded to the platform and took seats in
two velvet armchairs which were placed in readiness.

Miss Brewster was simply dressed in white, with a corsage bouquet of
yellow roses and a yellow rose in her dark hair.

As Dr. T—— rose to speak, the chatter ceased, and he said:

  “_Ladies and Gentlemen_:

  “Each one of you present has received a note of invitation requesting
  your presence here this evening for the consideration of a plan which
  shall be of benefit to our city. This plan, as it will be unfolded to
  you

                            BY ITS ORIGINATOR,

  will, I think, command your heartiest sympathy and coöperation. I
  consider it a peculiar privilege to present to you this evening one
  whose noble father was my valued friend, and who in her earliest years
  was well known to me; and now that she returns to what was for a few
  months the home of her childhood, it is with great pleasure that at
  her request I have summoned here to-night so many representatives of
  the thought and the moral force of this great city to listen to what
  she has to propose, and in return to give her the benefit of their
  united wisdom.

  “I have the honor to present to you Miss Mildred Brewster of Boston.”

Every eye was fixed in admiration on the slender, girlish form that had
something queenly in its bearing, and there was a rustle of expectancy
as Dr. T—— ceased and Miss Brewster rose to speak.

There was a slight tremor in her voice as with deepening color and
drooping eyes she uttered her first words.

“Good friends,” she said, “I have asked you here to-night for a specific
purpose.

“In the providence of God there has been placed in my hands within the
last few months the means to do much that for years I have felt ought to
be done, but have been powerless to do. And fearing lest my stewardship
be short, and I be called to give account and return with empty hands
and no fruit garnered, I have dared not delay, no, not for a day, except
to more seriously and wisely prepare for my task.”

Miss Brewster gained courage as she proceeded, and in a clear, unshaken
voice continued:

“In all lands on which the sun ever shone, probably there was never a
time when money wisely expended could set in play so many and such
powerful forces for good as it can do now and here. For here, in this
western land of unlimited possibilities, is the young giant born whose
savage strength may prove our nation’s weakness if we leave his infant
years to the guidance of his own wayward will.

“Here, then, is the sorest present need in our land to-day, for here in
our hands lies the power to mould the influences which shall shape the
destiny of millions yet unborn. One hundred dollars now may prevent the
evil which, a century hence, one hundred thousand dollars could not
undo.

“As I have driven about your magnificent boulevards and marked your
towers and palaces, I have been impressed even more than I expected to
be, and my expectations were great, with your wealth, and its solid,
satisfactory embodiment in enduring architecture and fine parks and
streets. But not only has your material advancement amazed me. I have
been most profoundly impressed with the seriousness of mind and the
depth of patriotic feeling that was shown in your notable celebration of
the centennial of the beginning of our constitutional government.

“Historic old Boston, that of all other cities should have appreciated
the significance of the occasion, gave hardly a thought to the day. New
York gave herself to ostentatious pageantry and a glorification of
Washington alone; but in this new city of the West, unlinked by historic
ties with the past, have I found in press and people a deeper sentiment
and

                       A MORE THOUGHTFUL READING

of the lessons of the century.

“I have been studying this wonderful city of yours that buys more of
Browning’s poems than any other city in the world, and is fast drawing
to itself not only the wealth and fashion of the land, but that culture
of which our older cities have fancied themselves the almost exclusive
possessors.

“I have been looking at your schools, your churches, your
philanthropies, and, above all, at your poor, and that class from which
your

                        ANARCHISTS AND CRIMINALS

are recruited.

“I have found, as I need not say, much to admire and much to deplore.
And it is to consider those tendencies which I deplore that I ask your
attention this evening.

“Of all the dangers that threaten us as a nation, I find but two
unrepresented in this city, namely, Mormonism, and the amalgamation of
the white and other races. But against intemperance, licentiousness,
political corruption, and all the evils incident to a vast foreign
population, this city, with its numbers increasing by gigantic strides,
presents a field for work scarcely exampled on the continent. Not that
Chicago is a sinner above all other cities. In some respects, notably
its comparative freedom from the close crowding in tenement houses which
exists in New York, it is fortunate.

“But, so far as I can learn, not another great city on the continent
contains so large a proportion of people of

                           FOREIGN PARENTAGE.

In driving through your beautiful avenues one can scarcely credit the
statement that only nine per cent. of your people are of strictly native
parentage; but in going through that section on the North side where
your Poles and Bohemians live—in seeing the Irish, Swedes, Germans, and
more recently the Italians, who are flocking to your city, one is made
to realize this in a measure. It is to this point that I chiefly wish to
call your attention.

“This city is growing prodigiously; it is destined to grow. More and
more, as means of communication and transportation are increased, as you
well know, are the people of this age flocking to the cities. One
hundred years ago one in thirty lived in a city; now one in four is the
number which the census gives us. Especially is it true that foreigners
prefer city life. In far greater numbers proportionately to the native
population do they congregate in the centre of wealth, influence, and
political power, and often for the purpose of obtaining that political
power which through the negligence and indifference of our better class
of men is readily yielded to their demands.

“Now that the municipal government in our great cities is largely in the
hands of the foreign-born, for which we have only ourselves to thank, we
are beginning to awaken to the fact, and the indignant cry ‘America for
Americans’ is heard. With this I cannot wholly sympathize. We have
opened our doors to the world, we have invited to our highest municipal
offices whoever could buy them, we have been eager to get rich, we have
had no time or interest in anything beyond satisfying our imperious
appetite for wealth and luxury and social position.

“We have put behind us simplicity and calmness, the plain living and
high thinking which engendered all that we count best in our history,
and now we cry with ever-increasing wail, ‘Let us eat our cake and have
it.’ ‘Let us spend our whole life in selfish indifference to the public
weal; let us turn over our most sacred trusts into the hands of
ignorance and incompetence, and then let us reap what we have not sowed
and garner where we have not planted.’

“No, not America for the Americans, if it be such Americans! Rather let
those who have been willing slaves

                     FEEL THE WHIP AND THE SHACKLES

until they learn that justice and peace and righteousness within our
borders are not to be, except as the fruit of their love, their labor,
and their eternal vigilance. [Applause.]

“No, not America for Americans, but America for American ideas and
institutions! And welcome be he, whether of our own land or any other,
who, seeing what God has destined this fair land to be as leader of the
nations, seeing it as its early Founders saw it, shall give heart and
brain and hand to purifying and redeeming it, lest indeed it be the land
of ‘Broken Promise.’

“I have nothing to say against foreigners as foreigners, but I look into
our criminal reports and find by a careful search that the proportion of
criminals to the foreign population is just about twice that to the
native. I learn that among our foreigners we find about two thirds of
our brewers, distillers, and liquor-sellers, and among these varied
nationalities, who have sustained the breaking up of old ties and
transplanting to utterly new conditions, a far greater tendency to
insanity than among the native stock. I see that the causes which tend
to immigration will in all probability continue, and the influx into our
great cities, especially your own favorably situated one, advance
indefinitely. Therefore, it has seemed to me that of all places in this
land Chicago was the best one in which to begin a concerted action for
the Americanization of its foreigners and for promoting the

                            GOOD CITIZENSHIP

of all its citizens whether native or foreign. It seems to me we must do
this in self-preservation.

“In Boston, as you know, where we have had to learn some sad lessons
from our careless indifference in regard to municipal matters, we have
begun to arouse ourselves and have established a Society for Promoting
Good Citizenship whose object is to further in all thinking people,
mothers, voters, teachers, and students, a higher ideal of citizenship
and an active, unpartisan effort for its realization.

“This work is done in various ways: by free lectures given by prominent
citizens, by suggestions for study in schools and colleges, and by the
encouragement of a deeper interest in the community in the study of
history, civil government, and political economy. The society is yet in
its infancy, and has thus far produced little perceptible effect; but,
in addition to the well-known Old South work in history, it shows a step
in the right direction.

“Long before it was started it had been

                                MY DREAM

to see something of a similar tendency established in every large city
in our land, and it is because I wish to suggest to you certain measures
which have in view the attainment of good citizenship in your midst that
I am here to-night.

“A Chicago gentleman recently said to me, ‘The fact is, we get careless
here. We are so busy about our own private affairs that we let our
voting go by for a year or two, till finally about once in seven years
things get so bad we can’t stand it, and then we all get mad and roll up
our sleeves and go in and have a general clearing out. After that,
things work well for a year or two, and then are as bad as ever.’

“I understand that at present you have a fairly good city government,
that your leading officials for the most part are not corrupt. But even
if this were sure of lasting, of what a thing to boast!

“In the minds of too many I find the idea seems to prevail that so long
as taxation is not raised, and there is a police force competent to
quell turbulent strikers, and no infamous scandal at the City Hall, so
long there is nothing else to be done in the line of good citizenship
than to cast one’s vote, pay one’s taxes, and keep one’s sidewalk clean.

“Now I hold that such a conception of the duties of citizenship is
unworthy a Christian and a patriot, and it is as Christians and patriots
that I am addressing you.

“I am not here to remind you of the unequaled folly and expense of bad
government, and to point out to you the material benefits accruing to a
city where there is a pure and economical city government and an
incorruptible court.

“I am not here to speak to you on the ground of mere utility and
expediency, though with a different audience such arguments might hold
the first place. But I speak to you as scholars, as men and women of
insight who need not to be reminded that the state, as one of the three
great human institutions by which civilized man has differentiated
himself from the savage, has higher functions than those which appeal
most forcibly to the ordinary man and woman of to-day.

“We live in a

                       MATERIALISTIC ATMOSPHERE,

where the things of the senses allure far more than the things of
thought, where a man of ideals is laughed at by the majority as an
unpractical theorist, and shrewdness is esteemed the highest virtue.

“I have been looking over your school reports and have been noting the
disproportionate number of girls who are graduated.

“Your boys and young men are impatient for business. Even those in
well-to-do families leave school very early. I find that _ninety-two per
cent. of your children leave school before they ever study any text-book
of history_, and that seventy-five per cent. leave before they reach the
grade where a little historic information is given through the aid of
biographical sketches and stories.

“Think of it! Seventy-five per cent., the majority of them our future
voters, who have never so much as heard of the Pilgrim Fathers or the
war of the Revolution, and who have far too feeble an educational
equipment to lead to much further study!

“But even of those who have some smattering of history we find thousands
appearing at the polls every year, having heard a little of the cant and
the bluster of partisan politics, and having nothing more to fit them
for their duties as citizens in a land whose national and state and city
governments they have never studied.

“Moreover, they have the wildest notions in regard to those great
questions of labor, wages, and reform which are agitating our country.
Such are the men who hold the ignoble conviction that every man is
selfish at heart, that to the victors belong the spoils, and that desire
for office is inevitably ambition for personal gain.

“You have learned in the past somewhat of the cost to this city and
state of the presence of anarchists within your midst. But what are you
doing to make good citizens of the thousands of men, women, and children
who are said to be enrolled in anarchist Sunday-schools here in this
city?

“What is being done to prevent the children of the mob that tears up
your horse-car tracks when you have a strike from following ten years
hence their fathers’ example?

“But I am not speaking merely of rumsellers or anarchists, or of
ignorant foreigners or men who sell their votes. I am speaking of the
banker’s sons as well as the blacksmith’s.

“There is among many of the hard-headed young business men of our time
whom I have met a

                          TERRIBLE SKEPTICISM.

They are skeptical of humanity, of virtue. There is a belief that every
man has his price, that politics is a machine, to be run for the benefit
of those who have it in charge. There is, even among honorable men, a
tendency to joke at public scandals, to sneer at Sunday-school politics
and womanish ideals.

“Now, to me, this hard and cold skepticism betokens a rottenness and a
corruption in the body politic scarcely less terrible to contemplate
than the open, high-handed peculation which occasionally startles the
community and forms a nine days’ wonder.

“For, as I need not say, a sick man is as sure to die from
blood-poisoning as from an open cancer. The latter may shock us more,
but the former is just as deadly. And the danger to this great city
to-day is not so much from the dynamite of the anarchist as from the
indifference and inactivity of the men and women who have your brains,
your wealth, your culture, and many of them your nominal Christianity.

“Pardon me if I seem to be addressing you, my elders and betters, as if
I were presuming to tell you anything new or anything which you could
not state quite as forcibly as I may do.

“It is not that I have anything new to say that I venture to speak thus,
but that I may clearly state my own position and grounds for action in
the matter which I shall soon present to you.

“You have observed that I have used the more comprehensive term
‘citizen’ instead of ‘voter,’ and it is for this reason that I have used
it. The duties of the citizen apply to every one who is a recipient of
the benefits of the state, and this includes that half of the community
whom their own indifference and the

                       PREJUDICES AND TRADITIONS

of the majority of voters still exclude from their rightful share in
this matter of public housekeeping which we call municipal government.

“It is the duty of the male citizen to vote, and not only to vote, but
to attend the caucuses which alone insure the possibility of having a
worthy candidate. It is also his duty to pay his taxes and keep his
sidewalk clean, but his duty does not end here. It is his imperative
duty as an honorable citizen to see that this subtle poison, which, bred
from germs of selfishness and ignorance, is creeping through the veins
of our people, shall be arrested ere a complete social upheaval teach us
the painful lesson that vigilance alone is the price of liberty.

“It seems to me that the duty of the citizen is coextensive with life
and opportunity. It is not a duty which the man or woman of conscience
can lay aside between election days. The good citizen must be always a
refuter of error, an initiator of reform, in short, a person whose
conscience gives him no rest until what ought to be has been substituted
for what is.

“The good citizen must, above all, have such a lofty conception of the
state and of statesmanship as shall lift it forever above the moral
plane where it has been allowed to rest by the average conscience dulled
to all the finer moral perceptions by the force of custom and
conventionality.

“There are such citizens. I see many of them before me as I speak, but
that there shall be a thousand where there is now but one, am I here
to-night to speak to you.

“And now, after this lengthy prelude, permit me to ask your attention to
the scheme which I suggest for helping to bring about in this city a
higher standard of good citizenship. Pardon a bit of personal
experience.

“Scarcely a day goes by in which I am not importuned by various worthy
beggars to give thousands and even millions to endow this and that
college, hospital, and asylum.

“The last project which was proposed to me was to put a million dollars
into a college to be devoted to fitting poor boys for the ministry free
of expense. And my importunate beggar was greatly offended when I said
that I should consider this one of the best means for promoting
hypocrisy and dependence, and that I thought a few scholarships wisely
distributed in colleges of repute would help the ministry more than a
million dollars expended chiefly on brick and mortar.

“‘But what are you going to do with your money? Don’t you think you
ought to give it to the

                             LORD’S POOR?’

I was asked with that delightful assumption of authority which certain
people who have the assurance of infallibly knowing the mind of the Lord
always adopt.

“‘Certainly,’ I answered; ‘but the Lord has commissioned me to spend
what is intrusted to me where it will effect the best results, and I
prefer to put the next money that I spend into brains rather than into
bricks.’

“Now I propose to devote one hundred and fifty thousand dollars during
the next ten years to stimulating thought in this city in the direction
of Good Citizenship. [Applause.]

“I shall ask a committee of twenty-five ladies and gentlemen, which you
shall choose from the number present, to select for me a man of ripe
experience, of scholarship, and disinterested devotion to the cause of
which I have spoken—a man of good presence and address, who can combine
the functions of business manager and orator, to whom I shall pay five
out of the fifteen thousand dollars which I propose to devote yearly for
the promotion of good citizenship in your city.

“By the advice and consent of this same committee, which shall
constitute itself a board of directors, he shall spend the remaining ten
thousand for the best interests of the work in hand.

“I put no restrictions on this expenditure and lay down no rules of
conduct beyond making the work of the organization absolutely unpartisan
and unsectarian. The superintendent elected by the directors shall be
free to use such methods as shall seem fit to him, being however held
responsible to the directors and removable at their option.

“Although I leave everything to the judgment of the directors, I wish to
make a few suggestions which they are quite free to accept or reject.

“First I suggest that for this work the city be divided into various
districts, and that each church constitute itself a centre for effective
work in some district, so that workers may be somewhat equally
distributed, and no part of the city neglected. These districts need not
be based necessarily upon the numbers of their inhabitants, but upon
their needs.

“I would urge every minister either in or out of the pulpit, as he may
prefer, to make clear to his congregation the purpose of this
organization which is to be formed, and himself lead his people into
hearty coöperation with it.

“I know that there are some well-meaning, religious people who might
object to this, dreading the preaching of politics from the pulpit and
the diversion of the attention of the young from strictly religious
work. They prefer to have everything pertaining to secular education
debarred from the church-building.

“To me such people seem

                           SADLY IRRELIGIOUS.

I wonder that they can read their Bibles and fail to learn from the
examples of the Hebrew prophets what God would have man say concerning
the government and wise ordering of a backsliding people. Those brave
men of old were not afraid of preaching politics; and how can one, the
follower of him who taught us to pray, ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven,’ dare to make this but mere
lip-service? Surely they will be the first to give the influence of
their Christian manhood to bring that kingdom here and now in this city
of Chicago. The clergyman who fails to teach his people that God as
truly leads this nation now as in the days of old is recreant to his
trust, is unworthy of his calling, as it seems to me.

“I would have our church vestries, which are closed and vacant a great
part of the week, thrown open at least one evening in a week for
discussions, lectures, debates, or small classes grouped together for
the study of subjects that will promote good citizenship.

“I suggest that all classes of people, whether church-goers or not, who
are willing to join in this work, be divided into four sections.

“First and largest of all would be the section containing those who know
little of American history, civil government, and political economy.
These would form themselves into bands for studying a well-selected
course of reading, beginning with elementary work, and proceeding from
such books as Mr. Dole’s ‘The Citizen and the Neighbor,’ to profound
works like Mulford’s ‘The Nation,’ or perhaps Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of
History.’

“I see no reason why with a proper system and the natural interest which
I think the subject will awaken there should not eventually result as
widespread and beneficent a work as that which the Chatauqua classes
have done.

“There should be a secretary for each little centre of study to whom
reports of work should be made, and certificates or diplomas should be
bestowed by the directors on those who have successfully passed through
different courses.

“I also suggest public debates and dissertations by members of both
sexes. It is not so difficult a matter as you may think to interest
young people in such work. I know of a teacher in Somerville,
Massachusetts, who for years has been the means of carrying on a
historical club of about seventy-five boys and girls under fifteen years
of age. These children meet regularly, conducting their meetings
themselves according to Cushing’s ‘Manual of Parliamentary Rules,’ and
girls as well as boys take part in a modest, fearless way. They get not
only much historical information on the subjects they discuss, but also
a very valuable discipline which renders them self-possessed in manner,
and discriminating in their thought, and is the best of training for
many duties of good citizenship.

“All these results take time and patience and tact in the planners of
the classes, lest rivalry and jealousy and short-sightedness defeat the
end in view. But when a

                       SCHEME IS ONCE THOUGHT OUT

in its main features it is comparatively easy to follow, especially when
it is as flexible as the one I present to you, and when the leaders are
disinterested men and women.

“The second of the four classes which I have suggested would contain a
much smaller number of persons, and would be those who have the time and
ability to teach. This would bring forth much latent talent for home
missionary work which does not find vent in our mission Sunday-schools.

“The work should be especially prosecuted among the foreign population.

“Let a course of say twenty-five weekly lectures be arranged to be
illustrated by the stereopticon, and treating in a simple way of the
growth of our nation from its beginning until the present time. I would
not have very much attention paid to the campaigns of the wars. It
matters little to the Bohemian who cannot read English or to the
Irishman who cannot write his name whether Braddock or King Philip
fought in the war of 1812 or not.

“But it does matter that he should understand something of the early
life of the colonists, something of the dangers from which they fled,
the causes of the Revolution, the growth of slavery, the meaning of our
republican institutions, our great industrial development, and the
significance of such names as Franklin, Washington, Lincoln, Grant.

“A cornet leading a chorus of school-children, who should sing national
airs, would add zest to such a lecture, the price of which should be
merely nominal. I think you will generally find it better to have a
price.

“In such matters people usually undervalue and are a little suspicious
of what is given them freely. If a ticket costs ten cents, or if it is
given as a reward of merit to the children at school, it will be vastly
more appreciated.

“These lectures would be given in English wherever possible, but in the
foreign districts of the city the same set could be given in
translations, the speaker being an intelligent man of the nationality of
the audience.

“I think you will find it better among foreigners to give these lectures
in a hall rather than in a church, so as not to awaken religious
prejudices. With different speakers the same lectures and pictures can
be used in different parts of the city every evening in the week, thus
having six or seven

                          SIMULTANEOUS COURSES

of the same lectures.

“After the completion of the first course much experience will have been
gained in the details of management, and other courses can be formed
illustrating the material resources, physical geography of our country,
and the biography and literature of our great men.

“With a little music, plenty of pictures, and a speaker with a hearty,
ringing voice, I think there can be no question of winning attention
among these foreigners. After that, classes and clubs for reading and
discussion would easily follow.

“I have spoken of two sections, the students and the teachers; the third
might comprise those who could give neither work nor study, but who
would give money. This money might go to any one of a dozen fields of
work which the organization would help support.

“Each donor could specify the purpose for which he gives his money,
whether it be temperance-reform work, free kindergartens, industrial
schools, payment for detection and prosecution of law-breakers, or
general running expenses. You can readily see that although there may be
much voluntary, unpaid service, there will be great need of more money
than I have promised to contribute.

“The fourth class would be one of the most important, comprising chiefly
the solid business men and practical, public-spirited women, such as I
have found here in your remarkably live Woman’s Club and other
organizations. These men and women would attend to such practical work
as is done by our Law and Order Leagues in the different states,
supplementing the often inefficient police service, and persistently
insisting that the existing laws _shall be enforced_.

“This branch of the work alone would require more than one paid agent.
Another line of work for this fourth class of good citizens would be an
organized and ever-increasing vigilance in regard to the work of the
city’s servants, and the creation of a strong public sentiment which
shall demand a purer, cleaner press and a suppression of the vile
literature which is poisoning the imagination of thousands of our youth.

“This class of workers would be the active agents of all reforms, and
unwavering in their efforts to make the primary meetings places where
the moral force and the intelligence of the city shall be most
powerfully felt.

“Let me illustrate what I mean in speaking of the kinds of work which
this fourth class of workers can do to promote good citizenship. The
successful courses of lectures on history to young people under the
auspices of the

                            COMMERCIAL CLUB

which have been carried on here is just the kind of work which needs to
be done. The prizes for essays on historical subjects offered to the
school-children by the ‘Daily News’ is another good thing. The courses
of lectures by workmen and capitalists under the auspices of the Ethical
Culture Society is just the kind of work which I should like to see
multiplied a hundredfold.

“All existing organizations for promoting the welfare of the community
can unite in this large organization without abandoning their own
methods and field of work.

“Perhaps this scheme as I have outlined it may seem to you somewhat
utopian; but you will remember that what I have said is simply
suggestion. The methods I leave entirely to your own excellent judgment.
But whatever these may be, they will be watched with keen interest by
other cities to whom I shall make the same proposition that I have made
to you, provided that the results of your efforts shall justify my
action in this matter.

“The little plan which I propose is

                          ABSOLUTELY FLEXIBLE.

One person or one circle may work in one way and one in another, each
according to his own tastes and opportunities. While any one of leisure
may belong to all four sections, no one need feel excluded from joining
in the general good work in some way, if he have but a dollar a year to
contribute, or but an hour a week for study or work.

“May I not hope that the life and youth and moral power of Chicago will
join hand in hand in making this vast city great, not only in dimensions
and numbers and wealth, but great in that kind of greatness which alone
shall exalt a nation and give it memory. For

           ‘The envious Powers of ill nor wink nor sleep:—
               Be therefore timely wise,
           Nor laugh when this one steals and that one lies,
           As if your luck could cheat those sleepless spies,
           Till the deaf Fury comes your house to sweep.’”

As Miss Brewster stood a moment with silently bowed head and then sank
into her chair there was a hush. Every one had been thrilled by the
clear, quiet, intense tones of her voice, and there was an instinctive
refrain from applause which marked the deep feeling which her words had
created.

Dr. T—— rose to speak, but at this juncture the writer, whose office had
been discovered, was politely requested by an usher to withdraw. It was
subsequently learned, however, that a committee consisting of seven
ladies and eighteen gentlemen was elected from those present, and they
are to meet next week for selection of a superintendent, and to
establish their organization.




                             CHAPTER XIII.


After leaving Chicago in June, we passed a wonderful fortnight among the
glories of the Yellowstone Park. Here Mildred seemed to throw off all
care, and to breathe freely for the first time in six months.

After leaving the Park, some of our party were called back to the East,
but aunt, cousin Will, and Alice still accompanied us.

On touching the Northern Pacific Railroad again our car was attached to
a train filled for the most part with immigrants.

At the stations where stops were made we always alighted to take a
little exercise in walking up and down the platform, and to chat with
the Indians and half-breeds, who greatly interested Mildred.

I must admit that for my part I found the wrinkled old crones and dirty
braves rather disgusting, though occasionally a few who still retained
their primitive adornments of vermilion paint and eagle’s feathers
furnished a bit of picturesqueness that was interesting.

At one stopping-place, there being no Indians visible, we turned our
attention to the crowd of European peasants who poured out of the
immigrant cars, and strolling about among them we amused ourselves by
studying the stolid, square faces, and giving candy to the sturdy,
little flaxen-haired children who gazed in round-eyed wonder at us.

Presently I saw that Mildred, who had slipped away from me, was holding
a hurried and earnest conversation with a sad-eyed little woman who with
quivering lips was telling the story of how her _Mann_ had died on the
voyage and been buried at sea, and how she was left to make the rest of
the long journey alone with her three helpless little ones.

“It goes to my heart,” said Mildred as we returned to our car, “to think
of that woman and those poor, fatherless little things in this strange
land. Not one of the people with her is her friend and neighbor, and I
don’t know what is to become of her.”

“How perfectly dreadful!” exclaimed Alice calmly as she scanned her
cards.

“Gad, that’s tough!” ejaculated Will, and then we proceeded with our
whist, which had been interrupted by this little episode.

I watched Mildred. I knew that this would not be the end of it with her,
though the others soon forgot about it. She played carelessly and was
beaten. She was thinking not of the game, but of the tired,
broken-hearted wife in the next car who had so courageously said good-by
to the Fatherland a month before with her brave Fritz, and must now end
the long, wearisome journey alone, poor and friendless.

Presently she rose and left the car.

“Let me go with you,” called Will, and followed her, while I lay down on
the sofa for a nap and knew nothing more until an hour later. Then I
waked to find Mildred kneeling by my side and smilingly patting my
cheeks.

“What do you say to having an adventure, Ruby?” she asked. “I have a
capital scheme; just listen to it. Will and I have been to see that poor
little woman, and it is pathetic to see how she clings to us and looks
to us for assistance. She will be utterly helpless when she gets to the
end of her journey. Her passage is prepaid through, but that is all. She
has only three dollars left, and the agent who has all these people in
charge is a hard-faced man who cannot be trusted to concern himself in
the least about her.

“She opened her whole heart to me while Will amused the children, and I
have learned all her simple little story. I hadn’t the heart to leave
her until I had promised to see her through to her journey’s end.”

“But you forget, Mildred,” I cried astonished, and sitting up quickly;
“these people are all going to switch off at the Junction and go
twenty-five miles on another road. The conductor told us so, you know,
and we can’t follow them, for it would make us a day late in reaching
Tacoma, and auntie really must have her ulcerated tooth attended to.”
She had in fact hardly held her head up that day and was suffering
terribly.

“Certainly,” said Mildred; “I have thought of all that, and it is all
arranged. Alice and Will are to go on with her in this car and take the
best of care of her, and if you will join Hélène [the maid] and me, we
will go with the immigrants and see little Frau Kopp well started in the
new home before we leave her. I consider it quite a fortunate
circumstance on the whole. I have wanted an excuse to mingle with the
people more and learn something further of frontier life than can be
seen from the windows of a parlor-car.”

Will remonstrated vigorously, however. “See here, Mildred,” he said
seriously, “it will never do in the world for you to start off this way
at night into an unknown region, and ride in these wretched cars. Very
likely you will have to sleep on a straw bed in some vile little tavern
no one knows where. You can give this woman some money, and”—

“I haven’t time to argue,” interposed Mildred, packing her bag. “I have
made up my mind to go. Don’t think me stubborn, but money can’t do for
that disconsolate, frightened little woman what I can do. She has not a
single friend; her baby is ill; some Yankee sharper would swindle her
out of her money; and, besides, I want to go. I want to know from
experience a little about the life of these people.”

“Then if I can’t dissuade you I must go with you. Mother can”—

“No, she can’t; and I can’t let you leave her, cousin Will,” replied
Mildred with quiet determination. “Nothing can possibly happen to us. We
are in a civilized land, and robbers are not wont to attack an immigrant
train. We shall not be hurt by ‘roughing it’ for twenty-four hours, and
if anything happens to delay us longer we will telegraph you.”

“Let me go _instead_ of you,” insisted Will, still frowning upon the
project; “there is no need of you three interrupting your journey when I
can manage the affair perfectly well.”

“But you don’t speak German and I do,” replied Mildred, decisively.

There was nothing more to be said, and we bade them good-by, with no
misgiving on our part, and stepped into the uncomfortable, stuffy
immigrant cars. Mildred seated herself beside little Frau Kopp and held
in her lap chubby two-year-old Hans, dressed like a little old man in
the clumsy, German peasant fashion. Hélène and I meanwhile took turns in
occupying the only vacant seat in the car. The motley crowd of Swedes,
Norwegians, Danes, Germans, and Bohemians, who for five or six days and
nights had been traveling together in heat and discomfort, sat nodding
sleepily and apparently unexcited at the near approach of their long
journey’s end.

All the afternoon it had looked lowering in the west, and as the dim
kerosene lamps were lighted one by one, we heard the dash of rain upon
the roof of the car, and by the flashes of lightning could discern with
our faces pressed close to the panes that we were just entering upon the
track of a storm. Trees were uprooted and lay in confusion beside the
track. But we could see little, and I gave scarcely a thought to it as I
sat on the hard, uncushioned seat, with my lap full of bags and wraps,
and watched Mildred a few seats in front of me as she talked cheerily to
the tired little children. Our destination was to be the little mining
town of Blivens, and we were to reach it at half-past eight.

On we went whizzing through the darkness, the train rocking from side to
side, and the red-kerchiefed, brown faces of the women lighting up
picturesquely the dark mysterious shadows. We were about to reach our
destination, and I had just risen to rest my stiffened limbs, when
suddenly I was thrown headlong down the aisle, and a hideous grating,
jarring noise drowned every other sound. Then a sense of falling,
rolling, pitching, of absolute darkness, and of frightful pain.

I lay I know not how long. One foot and hand were pinioned under
something hard and immovable, the other foot doubled under me, and my
head twisted awry and also immovable. I was lying between two bodies,
one above and one under me. Something warm was dripping down over my
face, and shrieks and dying groans rent the air.

I was too stunned at first to think what it meant. I was conscious only
of pain, horrible pain, such as I had never dreamed of before. I could
not cry out, I could not move. Oh, would help never come?

What was this horrible thing that had happened? A moment ago—no, was it
not an hour ago?—we were alive and well; and now? Oh, why had God let
this horrible thing happen? And Mildred—where was she? Perhaps she was
dead; and I should be dead too very soon, and nothing would matter much.

I remember thinking then, strangely enough, “I am glad she has made her
will.”

Suddenly a dull glow, a gleam of light, then a hoarse yell of despair
from a score of voices, “Da ist Feuer!” “_The train is on fire!_”

My heart stopped beating. Were the horrors of a holocaust to be added to
this agony?

Oh, the long, fearful minutes! A horrid glare lit up the blackness of
the night, and nearer, nearer crept the crackling flames!

O Christ! will no one come to rescue us, will not the clouds in mercy
pour down their treasures to stop this demon flame!

But no! The rain had ceased, and on, on, steadily on came the frightful
scorching flames.

It was now as light as day. In the red glare I could see black figures
moving swiftly, men running wildly about and desperately pulling and
tearing at the splintered sides of the car.

But oh, how feeble all their efforts! How utterly futile seemed all
human strength to cope with these frightful forces that held us
relentlessly in their grasp!

“Well, it will soon be over, soon be over,” I groaned to myself. “The
torture shall not be long if with my free hand I can get a quicker
death,” I resolved in the desperation of my agony.

It seemed hours to us wretches lying there ’twixt hell and heaven, but I
suppose it was only minutes. Then there was a cracking, a breaking. An
iron crowbar in the hands of a man had broken through the débris and was
lifting the frightful weight from my arm.

I could see his face distinctly, as with the giant strength of a madman,
but with the clear eye of one who was a born general, he marshaled his
panic-stricken followers and bade them aid him.

“Here, Jim,” he shouted hoarsely, his voice rising above the roar of the
flames, “hold on there! Now you and Tom and the rest, _pull!—pull as you
never pulled before_!”

But it was all in vain; as well try to lift a mountain.

“Take this child,” groaned a muffled voice at my side, and as the strong
arms of the stranger lifted little Hans limp and lifeless, and hastily
laid him in the soft dark mud behind him, I saw for the first time
Mildred’s white face beside me.

“There ain’t no use, boss,” cried the men in a frenzy, and stopping to
wring their hands. “We can’t do nothing; _they’ve got to burn alive_!”

“Then for God’s sake give me your pistol or your knife!” I cried
fiercely.

“Yes, Mildred,” I protested, “it’s right, it’s right. If we must die,
let it be quickly, and not by inches.”

But Mildred did not hear. She was looking at the stranger with wild,
staring eyes, and for an instant, as if paralyzed, he gazed at her. Then
a look of such agony as I never saw on a human face convulsed his
features, and he cried, “_Boys, once more! I must save this woman!_” and
while they stood wringing helpless hands, he, with knotted veins and
starting eyes, made one herculean effort, and Mildred was in his arms
and free.

I saw them stagger and fall together, while the bright blood in a
crimson torrent poured from his lips and dyed her white, clinging hands.

Then I knew nothing more. I have a vague recollection of a roar as of
Niagara filling my ears, a sense of being torn limb from limb, a
shuddering thought that this indeed was death and the end had come—and
then blackness.

I knew not how many hours or days had passed. When I opened my eyes I
was lying on a hard straw bed on the floor of an unplastered attic room.
I could see nothing from where I lay but the corner of a window through
whose panes the sun streamed in, scarce hindered by the torn blue paper
curtain. It shone upon the gorgeous patchwork counterpane upon my bed.
It dazzled my eyes, which felt strangely weak.

I tried to move, but could not stir; to speak, but could utter no sound.

Presently, as I lay with closed eyes, I felt that some one had stooped
from behind and looked at me. Then I heard a husky whisper,—

“She’s sleepin’ real nateral, don’t ye worry a mite. _She_’s agoin’ ter
git on, you can jest bet on that.” This was followed by a heavy tread
which jarred my head with every movement like that of a giant trying to
walk on tiptoe. There was a creaking of a door, then a slow, soft thump,
thump, thump down the uncarpeted stairs, and all was still.

I lay quiet, wondering what it all meant. Where was I, and what could be
the matter? My head was confused. Was Mildred—hush, there was a voice
near by talking low; it seemed behind me.

“But it was not so; how could you have thought it so?”

The voice sounded like Mildred’s. It was weak and trembling.

“I went East to find you after it was all over between Agnes and me, but
they said you were engaged, you had gone abroad. I could do nothing. I
came back; I had my work, and I tried to live.”

The other voice I did not know; it was husky and broken.

There was silence again, and I heard a bustling and tramping about
below, and outside the window locusts buzzing shrilly.

Voices again. I could not but hear. It was Mildred’s voice. “But did you
love me then in the beginning?”

There was no answer at first; then it came, a little stronger and
steadier than before. “I should have loved you then if I had dared, but
I was pledged to Agnes; she had promised to be my wife. There came a day
at Concord when I saw my danger. I knew that I must not dare to see you
again. I prayed that I might be kept from being false to the woman whom
I had asked to love me, so I went away and tried to forget. After all, I
had known you for only a few days, and I had known her from childhood.
She was true as steel. She trusted me; and when with her again I was
glad to find at last that life could still be rich and sweet, and I be
spared from baseness.”

“Then why, why”—Mildred began; but she hesitated, and her voice died
away.

“It came about in this way,” said the other voice after a pause. “I had
studied for the ministry, you know. Agnes had rejoiced to think that she
was to share my work. I had decided from the first to give myself to the
home mission work either in the far West or among the colored people at
the South. She was all enthusiasm and zeal. She was a noble woman; but
oh—well, it is a long story, a long story.” Another pause; then, “Do you
know how unjust and bitter a woman can be when she thinks that she alone
is intrusted with the decrees of the Almighty?

“As her lover, I must be frank with her, I must conceal nothing. I told
her all, little by little, of what I had come to believe and see. It
only made her tremble with horror. She saw that I was not ready to
preach the gospel which she believed. She felt that I was going
no-whither. ‘You have denied God’s Word and made your reason your God,’
she said. ‘I can never dare trust my future with you unless you promise
me once and forever to abandon reading these dreadful books which are
leading you farther and farther from the truth.’

“I tried argument, but it was of no avail. ‘I am no logician; I cannot
argue and reason with a college-bred man like you. You could readily
refute my simple talk to your own satisfaction,’ she said; ‘but all the
philosophy in the world cannot change my faith. My husband’s God must be
the one whom I serve.’

“I did not know how I had really loved her until I found I was breaking
her heart. It was pitiful. I tried to show her how I loved the same God
whom she served, but she said, while the tears choked her voice:

“‘No, Ralph, let us not deceive ourselves; we look at the world in a
radically different way. There can be no compromises so long as this
exists.’ So we parted.”

“And then you—you came here?” queried Mildred faintly.

“Yes. My life at first seemed wrecked; but I had my work, and though I
could not ask any Missionary Board to send me out, I determined to come
alone and serve God, if not in the pulpit, then perhaps as well some
other way.

“I came with the first miners. I lived with them and worked for them. I
helped them build their first log huts. I opened the first store here,
but as I sold no liquor it was hard to contend with the other shops
which soon were rivals of mine.

“But I made enough to live on. That was all I cared for. I had come here
to save men, not to save money.

“First I started a reading-room, here in my room. It was open to them
all, and after a while we had an evening class. Then I began a Sunday
school, and they all came at first just to oblige me because I asked
them, but afterwards because they liked it. Then at last I began a
regular Sunday service.

“I love these rough fellows, and they have learned to love me. I do what
I can for them. I would not change my work for the richest parish in the
country. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I am helping to shape
the future of this whole region.

“These men have loved me in a rough, hearty way, and I thank God for it,
for sometimes the loneliness has been terrible.

“Agnes married a missionary and went to India, and after a while I saw
that it was best so, though it was bitter to me at first.

“I felt that you, the only other woman for whom I ever had cared, had
forgotten me. I did not dare to think that you had remembered me, but I
could not rest until I knew. I made the long journey East. I felt that I
could not be denied until I had heard the final word from your lips. I
reached Boston the very day that you sailed from New York; and I heard
that you were to marry a rich man on your return.

“Well, I tried to bear it as best I could. I came back to my work. After
the little glimpse of civilization and comfort that I had had, this
dreary little place seemed drearier still; but I had brought books with
me, and they helped me.

“One day, as I sat here feeling lonely, wretched, forlorn, I picked up
my Thomas à Kempis, and suddenly a light seemed to break in upon me, and
I said, ‘O fool, you with strength and vigor and opportunities, you who
have the inherited wisdom of the world at your command, you the heir of
all the ages, the son of a King!—shall _you_ mourn and complain because
Heaven denies you one boon? When was it ever decreed that you should be
so favored above all other mortals as to be completely happy in this
world of pain? Should the servant be above his Master?’

“So then I tried to learn to be content. I found something better than
happiness,—it has been blessedness.

“I study when I can. But I am studying humanity chiefly. I am learning
how to fill the needs of these brothers of mine. I am trying to show
them that there is something better than the gold which seems to them
the only thing worth working for. Yes, I love my work.”

There was a note of exultation in the voice, weak though it was, which
thrilled me. I think I must have dozed, for the voices again sounded
faint and far away. Presently as I returned to consciousness I heard the
voice saying in little broken gasps of pain, “But oh, Mildred darling,
do you know what this means? Do you know what it means when you promise
to be willing to take me for better or for worse? You love books and
pictures and music and beauty. Can I consent to see you deprived of them
all, to share my lot?

“You do not know me yet. You are grateful to me for saving you; but it
was simple humanity—humanity, nothing more. I was a fool to speak out as
I did just now; it was only my weakness and selfishness. No, I cannot
let you bind yourself yet; wait till you are well, till your friends
come.

“You say they have wealth. What will they think of your giving them all
up to settle in this dismal place and be the wife of a man who has not
five hundred dollars in the world, and can offer you nothing but a life
of toil?

“No, you shall be free. Forget that I dared to speak, that I dared for a
moment to think—What? Why—why, Mildred, you are laughing!”

“Oh,” said Mildred in a different tone, “I—that is, I was only thinking
of _love in a cottage_. I am not afraid of being poor; I can work too.”

“Ah, yes; but being poor in Boston, where you have the largest public
library in the world, and the free Lowell lectures, and a glorious
symphony concert now and then for only fifty cents, is one thing; and to
be poor here, to stand at the washtub, and to scrub and clean and bake
and mend, is quite another. There would be little call here for the work
which you love and can do so well. These rough, hard-working men have
little time or inclination to hear of Goethe or Dante.

“It would be cruel for me to let these soft, white hands grow hard and
rough, to let your life which elsewhere could be so rich run to waste
here.”

“Would it not be far more cruel,” asked Mildred tenderly, “to keep me
from the man I love?”

“Mildred dear, I am awake,” I tried to say, for through my bewildered
brain the meaning of all this had begun to penetrate, and I realized for
the first time that I had been hearing what was too sacred for any other
ears than those of Mildred and her lover, Ralph Everett.

But the words choked in my throat, there was only an inarticulate
murmur, and the voices ceased.




                              CHAPTER XIV.

              “And a voice said in mastery while I strove,
              Guess now who holds thee?—
                    ‘Death,’ I said;
              But there the silver answer rang,
                    ‘Not Death, but Love.’”
                            SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE.


Some time elapsed ere I divined where we were, and then I discovered
that we had been carried to Mr. Everett’s house and were all lying in
the attic over the store. Mildred had been placed on his cot-bed by the
book-shelves, and he lay on a lounge a few feet distant.

After a time my straw bed, which had been borrowed from a neighbor, was
turned about so that I could see them. I was too weak to talk, but I
loved to lie and look at them when the terrible pain gave me a moment’s
respite to think of anything beside my own woes.

The little town was crowded; not a spare room but had been gladly given
up to the sufferers.

Little by little I learned all that had happened. A tree had been
uprooted in the wild storm and had fallen across the track. The engine,
the baggage car, and the first car had been derailed. The loss of life
had not been great. Poor Hélène, the little German woman and her baby
were the only ones who had not been rescued.

But in all the cottages around lay the helpless, wounded people, who had
come so far over land and sea only to meet this terrible fate.

The telegraph lines had been thrown down in the storm, and it was two
days before word could be sent and the débris cleared away so that
trains could come from the west. The little German doctor who had set my
bones while I was unconscious, and had left medicine for us all, did not
appear but once or twice after the first call, for there were a score or
more of poor, maimed creatures, some of them his own countrymen, who
needed him even more sorely than we.

What would have become of us during those three days of partial
unconsciousness and suffering and impatient waiting for our friends if
it had not been for “Jim”!

Jim was a character. Not even the pain could so wholly banish my sense
of humor as to prevent my seeing that.

I could not learn whether there was a woman in town or not, but I
afterwards heard that Jim had let it be understood that he was
commissioned by the “boss” to be his sole attendant, and warn every one
else to keep his distance. Half a dozen times a day the big, freckled,
red-haired fellow creaked up the stairs in his stocking feet, bringing
water and gruel and bouquets of gorgeous nasturtiums and crimson phlox
from his little garden patch across the way. Jim had an eye for the
beautiful, and thought it a pity that we should have nothing better to
look upon than the long rows of sombre books which lined one side of the
walls and formed Mr. Everett’s library.

Accordingly the poor man had stripped his own bachelor premises of all
the precious adornments sent him by his sweetheart for the last three
Christmases. There was a gilded sugar-scoop tied with pink ribbons, and
a remarkable landscape painted on the concave surface of the interior.
There was also a rolling-pin with a covering of French blue plush,
adorned with gilded handles, and bearing on its surface a large
thermometer surmounted by a gilded spread eagle.

These were especially devoted to my benefit, for which I was duly
appreciative. Over Mildred’s bed was hung a “God Bless Our Home,”
wonderfully worked in the national colors; and beside Mr. Everett’s sofa
was placed a gilded milking-stool of convenient height for holding vials
and glasses, the legs artistically interlaced with scarlet ribbons, and
the seat decorated with a painting, whether of Vesuvius in eruption or a
dish of crushed tomatoes, I was never quite sure.

From the low window near which my bed was drawn Jim proudly pointed out
to me his own quarters opposite. The house was an unpainted wooden
structure of one story, and evidently possessed a slanting roof with
gables, though the architect had erected a sham façade which gave the
appearance, when one took a front view, of a house with a flat roof.

Extending across the whole front of the house was a sign of unique
character painted in black on a pink ground, of which I subjoin an exact
copy.

                                 1886.
                                FRANKLIN
                              PHILOSOPHIC
                               HERMITAGE

                  INDEPENDENT SCIENTIFIC REPAIR SHOP.
                  CLOCKS, COOPERING, CHAIN SAWS FILED
                 TIN WARE, POLITICS & THEOLOGY TINKERED
                               HUZZAH FOR
                               THE UNION
                              LABOR PARTY.

“Jim is an odd stick,” Mr. Everett once said with a feeble smile, as the
awkward fellow was heard anathematizing himself as he descended the
stairs after an accidental bang of the door, which made us all wince.

“Jim is odd, but he has mighty good stuff in him. There isn’t anything
that fellow would not do for me, though when I first came here he was
pretty fiery; a regular dynamiter you would have thought. But since I
started the debating club, and got him to reading history a little, he
has calmed down a good deal, and has come to find that hard facts are
worth more than all his former rhetorical pyrotechnics about the
down-trodden workingman.”

At last, with pale and terror-stricken faces, came aunt Madison and Will
and Alice with Dr. Ellsworth from Tacoma. Then ensued a new order of
things. Jim vanished, talking was forbidden, the noise everywhere
disappeared, and the clumsy carts passed silently beneath our window
over a thick bed of straw, while tall screens, improvised from sheets
and clothes-horses, separated us from each other the greater part of the
time. For there was not another room in town to be had, and the little
grocery below had been metamorphosed into sleeping apartments for our
four attendants. They alternately watched and slept.

The new physician threw away the old medicines, substituted new ones,
and looked with grave anxiety on Mildred’s flushed face and bounding
pulse. She had no bones broken and but a slight wound, and had insisted
that my broken bones be set first.

After the first shock, the excitement of meeting Mr. Everett and anxiety
for us all had sustained her, but now she was sinking fast. The delay in
attending to her at the beginning was telling upon her. Whether it was
the July heat, the sight of so many faces, and the necessary disturbance
when so many were forced to be in one room, I do not know, but as the
days went by none of us grew better.

Mildred was too ill to be moved to her car. Mr. Everett, though in a
fair way to recover, was too weak to stir after his terrible hemorrhage
and the strain upon his whole system; while I could not endure to be
touched without extreme pain. So during the July days we lay there
together in the unfinished attic room, watching the doctor come and go,
and tended by loving hands that divided their ministrations and the
delicacies that they brought with the suffering ones who lay not far
distant.

“Do everything for them that I would have had done,” were Mildred’s
words to cousin Will, which he understood as Mr. Everett did not. For no
one was allowed to tell him that this sweet girl lying there, who I
alone knew was his promised wife, was no longer the teacher whom he
thought her.

But the doctor’s face looked graver and graver as the days wore on. He
sat up half the night with us, performing the combined duties of nurse
and physician.

One morning, as he came in looking weary and jaded after but four hours’
rest, he sat down by Mildred’s bed, with a face that in spite of his
habitual professional attempt at gayety could not conceal the gravest
concern.

He felt her pulse and motioned furtively to aunt Madison, who stood with
brimming eyes studying his every motion. Mildred glanced up and read the
meaning of his look. She said nothing for a moment; then with an effort
to keep her voice steady she said, quietly, “Doctor, be honest with me:
shall I live?”

“My dear, I”—and the doctor coughed and turned away his head; “I—we”—he
glanced at Mr. Everett, who with eyes that were blazing like coals in
their sockets had half risen on his elbow and seemed devouring every
word,—“my dear, I hope so.”

“Yes, I understand,” replied Mildred calmly, after a searching look at
the physician’s half-averted face, “I understand, and I am not afraid;
but it is necessary that some things be done, and done quickly.”

She lay a few moments quietly thinking. No one stirred or spoke, and the
silence was broken only by aunt Madison’s half-stifled sobs, as she
turned away to hide her emotion. Presently Mildred looked up.

“Is there a lawyer in the village?” she asked. “I want to change my—that
is, I want to attend to a few little matters of business that must not
be left undone.”

“No,” replied Mr. Everett huskily; “there was one who did a little
business, but he died a month ago.”

Mildred said nothing for a few minutes, then looking up, with a pale
face and lips drawn tense, she said, “Auntie, I must be married to-day.”

We all gave an involuntary cry. Mr. Everett drew his hand over his eyes.
Dr. Ellsworth and aunt Madison exchanged looks of amazement as if to
say, “Is the girl beside herself?” I alone understood what it all meant.

“Yes, auntie,” Mildred continued. “I have not yet told you; I meant to,
by and by. I did not think it was to be here and now; I meant to have it
all so different; but my strength is going, I do not know whether I
shall—I dare not wait.”

She gave a little gasp of pain, and was silent a moment; then she added,
in a voice which I could scarcely hear, “I have told Mr. Everett that I
love him. I have promised to be his wife.”

No one spoke when Mildred had finished, and she lay with closed eyes,
while aunt Madison stood as if struck dumb, gazing incredulously from
one to the other. She had learned that they were old friends, that he
had saved her life; perhaps she had suspected more, but this sudden
announcement paralyzed her for a moment.

Mr. Everett half rose again from his couch and leaned toward Mildred as
if to speak, but the words died on his lips, and he sank back exhausted
and lay motionless.

Aunt Madison softly left the room, but soon returned, and kneeling by
Mildred’s side they whispered together. What was said I never knew, but
I was certain that Mildred’s thought was for Ralph’s inheritance.

An hour later, another physician, who had been telegraphed for the
previous day, arrived. He stepped softly into the room, and for a long
time gazed intently at Mildred as she lay asleep, and then he slipped
out, and I heard faint murmurings of voices in the room below as the two
physicians held a consultation.

“Oh, Mildred, my more than sister,” I inwardly groaned; “must I lie here
helpless and see your precious life going from us? Were you snatched
from the jaws of death but to fall back again a helpless victim? If this
must be, oh that we had died together before rescue came!”

I had given my whole heart to this girl. I had loved her with a love
which made all other friendships of my life seem as nothing. In loving
her I felt that I had first learned what love meant, and my little,
petty life had been made deeper, broader, and full of hitherto
undreamed-of possibilities.

The hours wore away, the hours of Mildred’s wedding-day. “Send Jim for
Mr. Lightfoot,” Mr. Everett had said to Will. “He will know where to
find him. He is the only regular clergyman within fifty miles.”

He had been sent for post-haste, and that evening, just as the sun was
sinking in the west and lighting up in gorgeous splendor the little
attic where we lay, a tall, gray-haired man in a rusty, black
frock-coat, and with prayer-book in hand, climbed softly up the creaking
stairs and paused in the doorway, glancing in a tender, fatherly way at
the two pale faces which looked up to greet his coming.

The windows were opened, and the blue paper curtains had disappeared to
be replaced by white muslin ones. A dozen pitchers were placed around
the room containing the brilliant wild flowers of the neighborhood that
had been sent in by Jim and his friends. A wreath of golden-rod and
purple asters at Jim’s desire was laid upon the white counterpane at
Mildred’s feet. For the news that there was for some strange reason to
be a marriage had spread like wildfire, and many a rough, sunburned man
had tapped softly at the door of the little shop to ask what it meant,
and beg Alice, who stood on guard, to be allowed to come up and stand,
if only in the doorway, and see the “boss” married.

One day, a month later, Alice told me all about it. “You don’t suppose,
Miss, he’s agoin ter die?” asked one of them, as they stood around the
door in a quiet, awe-struck group. “I don’t know what we fellers ’ud
ever do without him,” he added huskily, as he drew the back of his grimy
hand across his eyes.

“I don’t go much on religion,” said another, who sat on the doorstep
leaning his head in his hands; “but I’ll be blamed ef that ere feller,
with all his college larnin’ and soft-spoken ways, a-comin’ out here and
roughin’ it with us, and a-nursin’ and a-teachin’ and a-helpin’ of us
all,—I’ll be blamed if that ain’t the Christianest thing I ever see.”

I did not wonder that these men loved their teacher.

Ralph—I learned to call him that afterwards, so I call him so now, for
it seems more natural—Ralph Everett had a face such as one sees only
once or twice in a lifetime. I did not wonder that Mildred loved it so
that she kept awake to look at it as he slept.

The forehead was broad and low, from which the brown hair rose thick and
abruptly, framing the strong, almost rugged face. The eyes—such eyes!
They were the frankest, truest eyes that ever glorified a human face.
Not even Mildred’s eyes were like those, although hers could sparkle or
command or grow wonderfully soft and tender. The chin and mouth were
hidden in a luxuriant blond beard, in which gleamed now and then a
silver thread. The broad chest, the sunburned face and hands which the
pallor of sickness was fast restoring to their pristine whiteness, all
evinced a strong, active life, strangely contrasting with the pitiful
helplessness which had now prostrated it.

But surely strength and health would soon return; surely love would
triumph; and these two, so strangely reunited in the very jaws of death,
would some day make all previous joys as nothing to that deep, full,
complete satisfaction with which heaven should crown their lives; these
two, who seemed of all the world the ones most worthy of such
blessedness.

I had dreamed it all out. Some beautiful day in the months to come I
should stand as bride’s-maid beside a happy, white-robed bride. There
would be flowers and music and smiles. There would be the strong,
gallant lover, the one man of all the world who was worthy to wed my
precious Mildred. The man whom she would always know had married her for
herself alone, a man whom wealth or happiness could not tempt, who
should nobly help her in the great work that she had set herself to do.

To tell the truth, I had thought also, with almost a pang of jealousy,
what this would mean to me, and what my life would be without her.

I could scarcely realize that now, here, in this brown, unplastered
attic room, in a dreary frontier mining town, with no music but the
chirping of the August crickets in the little field behind us, without
wedding-robe or wedding guests, my Mildred was to become a bride.

They bolstered me up to see it all, as well as could be done with my
splintered leg and arm. I was trembling violently, and the doctor gave
me a sedative powder and sat by me with hand on my pulse. Ralph’s lounge
had been moved beside Mildred’s cot. His face was as deadly pale as her
own.

“Mildred,” he whispered hoarsely,—they had not spoken to each other
since in the morning when she had said she would marry him,—“Mildred,
have you counted the cost? Think, darling, you may get well; do you
realize what you are doing?”

“Yes, far better than you do,” she replied with a faint smile.

The clergyman quietly took his place at the foot of the bed, and as the
solemn words of the Episcopal marriage service broke the silence,
Mildred, who had been lying with closed eyes, started visibly. She had
not before observed that the clergyman had a prayer-book. I could see
that she was greatly agitated, and instantly divined the cause.

She had always declared that she would never under any conditions allow
herself to be married by that service.

I knew her reasons for this and how strongly she felt about it, so I
understood what her consternation must be now. All this flashed through
my brain before the clergyman had read three lines.

Then Mildred gave a little gasp. A crimson flush leaped into her cheeks,
and I knew her mind was made up. Instantly her voice broke in, strangely
clear and strong.

“Please wait, sir,” she said. “I beg your pardon. I did not know this
service was to be used. I cannot be married by it. Can you not
substitute some other?”

Every one but Ralph was thunderstruck; but they were getting inured to
surprises, and no one spoke while the clergyman, for a moment too
shocked to reply, gazed in blank amazement into Mildred’s earnest eyes.

But Ralph understood, and said calmly, “No, dear, he cannot. I should
have thought of this before. I am not willing that you should promise
what this service contains. So, in the presence of God and of these
witnesses, we two alone will bind ourselves lawfully in the marriage
bond.”

Then, holding Mildred’s right hand in his, while the minister stood
wonderingly aside, he said with clear, unshaken voice:

“I take thee, Mildred, to be my lawful, wedded wife, to love and to
serve, to comfort and cherish, to honor and keep, so long as we both
shall live; and thereto, God helping, I plight thee my troth.”

A deathly pallor had crept over Mildred’s face. Just then the last rays
of the setting sun for a moment streamed into the little room,
irradiating its bare walls, and transfiguring with magic light those two
faces on which we were gazing with breathless silence.

Then, after a moment’s pause, Mildred with a great effort leaned an inch
nearer, and gently taking Ralph’s brown hand in both her slender white
ones, said, with blanched lips:

“I take thee, Ralph, to be my lawful, wedded husband, to love and to
serve, to comfort and cherish, to honor and keep, so long as we both
shall live; and thereto, God helping, I plight thee my troth.”

After the last words had died tremblingly away on Mildred’s lips, the
clergyman at a sign from her lifted his voice in prayer, while Alice
kneeled sobbing by the bedside, and over my eyes there came a mist. My
senses reeled, and I remember no more.

Weeks afterward Alice told me that Mr. Lightfoot had gone away with a
fatherly benediction, and a purse the richer by a thousand dollars for
the marriage service which he did not perform.

The days went by, and I knew but little. The tall, white screen shut out
everything from me. I was too weak to ask about Mildred, but I knew that
she had not left us. Surely God had been merciful. She was still to live
and love and bless the world.

At last came a day,—it was the first day of September, I recall,—the
very day when we had planned to reach San Francisco on our return from
the Alaskan trip which we had contemplated; the screen was removed, and
Mildred and Ralph, still pale and wan, but with the glow of returning
health lighting up their happy faces, sat beside me and whispered words
of farewell.

“Oh, Mildred, you did not die, you are alive,” I sobbed weakly, too
happy to keep the tears back.

“Yes, darling,” she said, “for it was love that saved me. I had
something to live for, and I fought hard. Now I am to leave you for a
while. My husband and I” (how proudly she said that), “my husband and I
are going away.”

“Her aunt Madison has kindly offered us her beautiful, private car, and
we are going away for a long rest before we come back to our work,” said
Ralph innocently, and I saw that for some reason Mildred had still kept
him ignorant of the fact that he had married a great heiress instead of
a poor teacher. “This is to be our honey-moon, you know,” he added,
looking at her with the lovelight shining in his eyes. “We are going
quietly. No one but Jim is to know of it, for the doctor says we must
spare ourselves the excitement of the good-byes which would have to be
said if the people knew we were going. The men have been clamoring for a
month to see me, and it has been hard for me to keep quiet and not let
them come.”

“How would you feel,” asked his wife in a careless tone, “if you had
married a rich woman, who would ask you to go away and never come back
to work here again?” and Mildred, who was holding my hand, gave it a
mischievous little squeeze as she looked demurely out of the window and
awaited his reply.

“I don’t know. I am afraid I could not quite forgive her unless she gave
me better work to do elsewhere. I could not be idle, you know, even with
you, darling,” he answered, smiling at the bright face beside him.

“Ah, the world is large; there are many who need us; rich or poor, we
will find our work somewhere,” said Mildred softly, as if to herself.
Then as Jim’s steps were heard at the door she started.

“Come, Ralph, one last look at your books and room, it may be long
before we return. Kiss Ruby, too; you must be her brother now, you
know.”

Two warm kisses were on my cheek, then the door opened and shut, and
they were gone.

Everything had been arranged for my comfort, and a month later, when I
was able to travel in a private car which Mildred had sent us, aunt and
Alice, cousin Will and I, were on the Northern Pacific Road again, bound
eastward. And with us went the motherless little Karl and Annchen to
find a new home and many friends.

One day, as we were speeding along over the Dakota prairies, Alice and I
fell to talking as usual about the summer that was past and its strange,
strange ending. Suddenly Alice exclaimed, “But, Ruby, I never thought to
ask you before; _do_ you understand why Mildred, on her deathbed as we
supposed, should have stopped that minister? I thought I understood most
of her ideas, but _that_ was inexplicable to me.”

“Yes, I understand it, I suppose, for I once had an argument with her
about it,” I replied. “I remember we had been to a stylish wedding at
Trinity. There were ten bridesmaids, and the bride was dressed like a
princess, and I remember how, as we drove away, Mildred exclaimed that
she would rather have been married in a print dress in a log-cabin and
promise what was honorable and true, than to have had the beautiful
display which this bride had, and make such promises as she had done.

“‘It is the most beautiful service in the world,’ I stoutly maintained;
‘pray what can you object to in it?’

“‘In the first place, the giving away of the bride is a humiliating
thing,’ she said: ‘it is a relic of the feudal times, when a woman
actually _was_ given away. It implies dependence; a woman is thus simply
passed along from the guardianship of one man to that of another.’

“This was a novel idea which impressed me at first as being needlessly
crotchety. ‘Then, of course,’ I replied, ‘you object to the promise to
obey.’

“‘Certainly,’ said Mildred. ‘I should not respect myself if I could make
such a promise. Obedience implies authority, and a man and his wife are
equal. They do not stand in the relation of master and servant, employer
and employee, or parent and child.’

“‘Yes; but it doesn’t mean anything,’ I expostulated, ‘it is simply a
form.’

“‘So much the worse,’ was her uncompromising answer. ‘I will have no
idle forms, no humiliating promises which I should not intend to keep.
If I ever find the man whom I can marry, I think I shall love him enough
not to be selfish and willful, and he will love me enough to respect me
as his equal. There can be no question of authority and obedience in the
true marriage.

“‘Then, moreover,’ she said, ‘I object to the man’s making the promise,
“With all my worldly goods I thee endow.” In nine cases out of ten he
does nothing of the sort, and the wife usually asks for every dollar
that she gets!’

“So you perceive that after hearing her say this I was not so much
astounded as the rest of you were,” I concluded.

“Well,” said Alice, drawing a long breath and looking meditatively at
the diamond engagement-ring on her white finger, “I never in my life saw
such an extraordinary girl as Mildred.

“Now, I have vowed that I would never be married but by that beautiful
time-honored service. Dear me! if we all took everything to heart as
literally as she does, what would become of society?”

“It would probably learn to speak truth and not lies,” I answered.




                              CHAPTER XV.


In the next few months I had many letters from Mildred and Ralph,
letters full of the warm interest in life which came with returning
health and were an index of unceasing thought and activity in numberless
directions. Scarcely a state or territory from Utah to Virginia was left
unvisited and unbenefited by their brief stay.

Their course was not merely in the beaten track, a superficial glimpse
of the larger towns and fashionable resorts, but far away from railroads
and civilization. On horseback tours in forest and mountain regions they
passed from cabin to cabin among poor whites and blacks, studying the
people and their possibilities, the country and its resources.

The letters which Mildred sent me during these months would fill half a
volume, but I can find space for only one extract from them.

“Oh, my dear,” she once wrote, “I thought I knew before how much there
was that needed to be done, but I am finding every day, after all, how
little I actually realized the true state of things. It is not so much
the physical discomfort that appeals to my pity, as the apathy, the
ignorance and lack of ambition for anything better; the bitter religious
and political prejudices that still linger, and the spectacle of a
population increasing in numbers and increasing in illiteracy.

“Of course there are thousands of exceptions to all these observations.
I am not pessimistic.

“The South is awaking, is advancing rapidly in many ways, and, as I pass
swiftly from place to place and see new facts and phases of life, I am
constantly forced to reconsider and readjust my previous convictions.
Yet on the whole the main impression which I had in the beginning
survives. Here is a vast territory practically not so well known to us
Northerners as most European countries, and with a people who know us
far less than we know them; and here, as I am sometimes almost compelled
to believe, is the field for all my work and energy.

“If I had twice my wealth, I believe I should spend half of it in the
South. I would engage a few thousand of the best of our ‘surplus’ women
of New England and scatter them through the length and breadth of this
Southern land, and set them at work doing some of the things which so
need to be done.

“As it is, I have picked out certain strategic places where I shall put
a few at work, and for the boy or girl who is willing to study and not
afraid of manual labor, I have made a good education possible.

“That is the most that can be done. Putting the right persons in the
right places is the best that I can do, and then they must do the rest.

“As you know, I have never felt inclined to put my money into building
new institutions, thinking it best to work in other ways, or to help
sustain those institutions already established. But in these last months
my heart has gone out to the thousands of neglected little colored
children of the South who are orphans, and who in many places have not
even a county poorhouse to shelter them.

“I am thinking of establishing an orphanage in every one of the Southern
states similar to the one at Chattanooga which I have recently visited.
I could talk to you for hours about that brave Northern woman, Mrs.
Steele, who has so nobly been giving her life to this work.

“At first persecuted, ostracized, and despised, her building erected at
her own cost burned by incendiaries, she has gone unflinchingly on,
until now she has won the respect and has the aid of the best society in
Chattanooga.

“She has rescued hundreds of poor little orphan waifs from the
chain-gang where they were put for petty offenses, and from the street
where they roamed, with no bed but the sidewalk and gutter. She has
clothed them, fed them, taught them, mothered them, and saved them. In
all the South I can hear of but one other colored orphanage, for I find
that the people for the most part are not yet ready to tax themselves
for the support of ‘little nigger brats.’”

I did not see Mildred until February. She had telegraphed me to meet her
in New York, saying in her message that she and Ralph were about to go
abroad for four years.

By this time I had thrown away my crutch and was myself again, and I
hastened to meet her, as she had appointed, at our old rooms at the
Fifth Avenue Hotel.

She was out when I arrived, and I watched eagerly from the window for
her coming. Presently I saw her,—how vividly I recall the picture,—her
hand on her husband’s arm, tripping along briskly in the winter air, the
roses in her cheeks, her tall, slight figure clad in a trim suit of dark
green, her head surmounted by a soft toque of the same color, trimmed
with rich green holly-leaves and red berries.

How beautiful she was! More beautiful than ever, I thought, as in
glancing up she caught a glimpse of me waiting, breathless, and threw me
a kiss with girlish glee. In a moment we were in each other’s arms.

How tall and stalwart Ralph looked as he seized my hand in his strong
grasp!

I remembered that Mildred had once likened him to a young Norse god, and
I did not wonder. As for Mildred, after the first greetings were over
and we had ensconced ourselves on a _tête-à-tête_ for an evening’s talk,
I soon perceived that a certain indefinable change had come over her. I
could hardly tell what it was at first.

There was a vivacity and charm and sprightliness that I had never seen
before. I had always thought her charming, though perhaps a bit too
reserved and dignified. Some people had thought her cold, but I knew
better. Now all the latent passion and warmth of her nature had been
aroused, and I saw that she had possibilities of which I had not
dreamed.

“What is it, Mildred?” I asked, after Ralph had left us alone. “Somehow
you seem—I scarcely know what to say—you seem so young and happy, as
if”—

Mildred finished, “as if I had been drinking of the elixir of life and
had become a new creature. Yes, dear,” she added, “and so I have. Oh, I
am so happy, so unspeakably happy!”

Then suddenly turning impulsively and throwing her arms around me, her
face shining with a new light, she exclaimed, “How I wish every one else
were as happy too.

“Sometimes it seems as if it were too much, as if in this sorrowful
world I had no right to be so supremely happy. So often in these last
months,” she added musingly, “I have said to myself those lines that
seemed written for me alone:

           “‘The face of all the world is changed, I think,
           Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul, ...
           Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
           Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
           Was caught up into love and taught the whole
           Of life in a new rhythm....’

“Yes,” continued Mildred after a little pause, and her eyes grew soft
and tender, “a year ago I thought that love would never come, and I now
sometimes tremble at the thought of what I came so near missing. I do
not know how, once having learned the blessedness of this love, I could
have courage to live if Ralph were taken and I left. Oh,” she added in a
broken whisper, as for a moment she bowed her head in her hands, “if
when death comes it will only mercifully take us both together.” Ah me!
How little we both dreamed in what way that prayer was to be answered.

Presently she raised her head and continued, while her warm arms were
about me again and my head lay pillowed on her shoulder. “Ralph is so
kind, so good, so tender, so unselfish! Really, at first he seemed
almost sorry when I told him my secret and he learned that he had
married an heiress, as if he had lost the joy of working for me. How he
thanked me for keeping the secret!

“And oh, Ruby, the thought of what he is makes me so ashamed of myself,”
added Mildred humbly. “I have come to see how far beyond anything that I
have done was his noble consecration of all his time and culture and
ability to enrich the lives of those rough frontier men, while I have
done nothing but sit in a velvet chair and sign cheques for money which
I did not earn, and could never spend on myself.”

Then, after a pause: “Well, little sister,” she continued, “you do not
know, and I have no words to tell you, of my happiness. I never dreamed
of what I was losing in all those years before love came. I used to feel
so strong and self-contained and independent, and now, it is strange
enough, but I hardly know whether I have a mind of my own or not. If I
have, I cannot tell what it is until I have asked Ralph;” and she
laughed a happy laugh.

“Oh, Mildred, to think that I should ever live to hear you say that!” I
exclaimed, laughing too. “And do you still want to vote and decline to
obey? Is your haughty spirit quelled, and have”—

“Yes,” said Mildred, ambiguously. “Ralph is even more of a suffragist
than I, and declares that this nation has no right to call itself a
republic so long as one half of the people are disfranchised. And he
says the most splendid thing he ever saw a woman do was my stopping that
clergyman;” and she laughed again a ringing, girlish laugh.

After a while we began to talk about Mildred’s plans for the future.

“I want you to know everything, dear,” she said in her frank, confiding
way. “We are going away for four years, perhaps longer, for I want to
study many things, and I want to see Australia before I return—that is a
country with a future.

“We must go now, though I leave so much which is only begun and to which
I wish to give my constant personal attention. But the mental strain
this year has been great. I could not live through another like it. We
both want to get far away from our responsibilities and possessions for
a while. I want to gain perspective, to have time for quiet thought and
study.

“This was my plan from the first, as you know, and now it is imperative.
It is impossible for Ralph to write his book with the cares and
distractions which we are constantly having.”

“His book?” I asked; “I had not heard of that. Pray what is it about?”

“It is to treat of the colored races in our country. He has been
gathering the material for a long time, and it will be an exhaustive
work,” she answered. Then she added, “I, too, have a little book
planned, but of a very different sort.”

“What! you, Mildred, an authoress!” I cried. “Shall you really write a
book?”

“Oh, that is nothing nowadays, when authors are as plenty as cooks and
the world is flooded with literary rubbish,” answered Mildred rather
disdainfully. “Any scribbler can write a book. It takes neither wit nor
wisdom for that.”

“Of course; but you are not a scribbler, and you won’t write rubbish,” I
retorted: “But tell me, what is it to be about? will it be a story?”

“No,” she answered. “The public does not need any more stories, at least
mediocre ones, and mine could never be anything else. I trust that I
have too much self-respect left to be guilty of inflicting another
purposeless book on the world’s already overstocked supply. Besides, you
know, Howells says all the stories have been told.”

“Then what is it?” I asked. “Is it sermons? or sonnets? or”—

“No,” interposed Mildred; “it is _Suggestions_,—suggestions to the idle
and thoughtless, the rich and the unconsciously selfish. I am confident
that there are some tens of thousands of people in this country who are
tolerably well-meaning, who have a superfluity of leisure and wealth and
strength which they are letting run to waste because no one has
suggested to them what they might do.

“Few people like to take the initiative. They wait for some one to plan
and organize and tell them definitely what to do.

“My first intention is to suggest to them that they are peculiarly
privileged mortals, and that life is worth living only on the condition
that one does something with it. That they are sinners above all other
sinners since civilization began, if they let themselves be ignorant of
what they should know and indifferent to the evil which they should
help; the more their culture and ability the greater their debt.

“I mean to suggest some very practical things which might be done, which
need to be done. There will be suggestions for those who have time and
no money, suggestions for those who have much money and no time,
suggestions for people who think they have neither time nor money, and
suggestions for developing influence and talent where there seems very
little to start with.

“Not that these will all be particularly new or original. That is not
necessary. We heedless mortals need to have a wise thing said many times
and in many ways before it makes much impression.

“I shall not attempt to suggest many new principles of work, but simply
to make many new applications of the old ones.

“Oh, Ruby,” exclaimed Mildred, her mobile features glowing with the
enthusiasm of the thought, “what a metamorphosis of this planet we
little mortals might make if we all did, and did wisely, what it is
quite in our power to do!”

“Such a book is a capital idea,” I exclaimed, much impressed with her
plan, “and it will have double weight because you have already provided
the most effective object lessons as illustrations of what might be
done.”

“That is not exactly what I mean,” replied Mildred, shaking her head.
“No; few persons have it in their power to work in the way that I have
done on a large scale. I am not sure after all that this is what is most
needed.

“Model tenement houses and libraries are not going to save people from
selfishness. There must be the tireless, personal, face-to-face and
hand-to-hand work of men and women who have come to know themselves as
their brothers’ keepers. Institutions and paid agents can never do this
work.”

“But they can help enormously towards it,” I replied.

“Certainly,” said Mildred; “they will organize and start the work; but
then it is all these people for whom I shall write my suggestions who
must do the rest of the work, and they alone can make it effective.

“Now, for instance, here is a plan which Ralph and I have just been
working out. It is to help save the half-grown boys and girls who night
after night find their chief delight in strolling arm in arm through the
streets, with smoking, and vulgar jests and silly laughter.

“You know well enough what the social dangers are to underpaid,
giddy-headed girls shut up all day in shop or factory and longing for
freedom and companionship.

“Night after night have Ralph and I walked up and down watching them,
listening to their silly giggles and cheap talk, noting their tawdry
jewelry and ribbons and frowzy bangs.

“How I pity them! I should so like to make life a little better worth
living for them. Who can blame them for not wanting, after a hard day’s
work, to stay in their crowded, noisy homes or dreary boarding-house
hall-bedrooms?

“Everywhere that we have been we have made it a practice to visit the
dime museums and cheap theatres, and to study the amusements which these
young people crave! Everywhere I find it the same.

“I used to know in a vague way about this night-side of things, but not
until recently have I realized the awful temptations which are besetting
these empty-headed girls who have no resources in themselves.

“Free lectures, or concerts, or libraries have small charm for such as
they. They want to exercise, to flirt, above all to talk and laugh to
their heart’s content.

“The churches do not meet more than one in a hundred of such girls and
not more than one in a thousand of such young men. They have no desire
to spend an evening at a prayer-meeting, they would feel out of place at
a church sociable, and they are too tired and unambitious to care for
any classes or study.

“They want a good time; they want ‘fun,’ and they have no idea that it
can be found among members of their own sex alone. And in this their
instinct is half right.

“These young people ought to exercise and have ‘fun,’ and they ought to
have it together.

“There are various coffee-rooms for temperate men, and various girls’
club-rooms for girls alone, but, so far as I know, scarcely a
respectable place in the whole city where an honest, self-respecting,
poor girl can go and be able to meet honorable young men, under the
protection of those who would see that her natural instincts were
gratified without sacrifice of her womanhood.

“It is just such a place as this that we have decided to establish, a
social club for young men and women, where they may laugh and talk to
their heart’s content and have plenty of innocent fun.”

“And fall in love with each other?” I inquired.

“Certainly,” was the reply. “Why not? Does not all experience show it to
be impossible to purify society by breaking natural instincts or
ignoring them? Oh, my dear,” continued Mildred earnestly, “the pure love
of man and woman should be the most blessed thing in life, and I who
know the joy of this love would gladly keep these brothers and sisters
of mine from letting it be trodden in the mire, or on the other hand
slip forever out of their lives.”

“But how can this be done?” I questioned skeptically. “By simply
substituting for the sidewalk a room in which to giggle and flirt?”

“Listen,” said Mildred. “We shall not begin by building until the
experiment is assured, but we have already hired ten places in different
parts of the city, where, with the help of the ‘King’s Daughters’ and
the young people of the Society for Christian Endeavor, we shall begin
this work.

“The first thing we did was to engage a kind-hearted, middle-aged
married woman to be the responsible head of each social club. She is to
see that pleasant pictures are hung upon the walls, that potted plants
are put into the windows, and everything made homelike and cosy and in
good taste.

“There are to be no printed rules and mottoes hung around the wall, as
if it were an institution and we were trying to do the people good. They
would be suspicious of anything of that sort.”

“How many rooms have you in each place?” I asked.

“Oh, that varies,” answered Mildred. “In most of them there is a small
hall with waxed floor and piano to be used for dancing or singing
classes or debating clubs. There is another room for gymnastics, with
apparatus and a piano, where a competent person will direct, and
gradually insinuate various sensible ideas in regard to high heels,
tightlacing and a bad carriage, and try to make physical culture seem a
desirable thing.

“There will be another room for quiet games like checkers and dominoes,
several bath-rooms, and a parlor where the girls can bring their fancy
work and receive their friends.”

“But, Mildred,” I cried in alarm, “you will get a perfect mob, if you
are not careful. They will bang your piano to pieces, they will have
rude kissing games, the girls will waltz with men whom they never saw
before; and then, if you make rules and don’t let them have their own
way, they won’t come. I know the kind of people whom you want to help,
and they are the most independent creatures living.”

“Ah, but wait a minute,” replied Mildred calmly. “The ‘mob’ are not to
be invited to pour in from the street. Each one must apply for a
membership ticket, give name and address, and wait a few days before it
is granted. There may be, perhaps, a slight nominal fee. They will
appreciate it more to have this little formality about it. Moreover, the
lady who is at the head of the club, and who will be a person of
character and tact, will have authority to exclude any unruly member.
Nothing will be said about rules. They will be received as if they were
of course expected to behave well.

“Five or six of the ‘King’s Daughters’ have agreed to be in attendance
every night, with as many gentlemen who are their escorts. They will
play for dancing and gymnastics whenever it is needed. They will act as
daughters of a host and receive and introduce their guests. They will
join in the singing and the games and the conversation, and, with the
gentlemen whom they bring, will, I think, be far more effectual in
encouraging good manners than any number of rules.

“Now that everything has been planned and the wherewithal provided, I
have had no difficulty in getting some hundreds of agreeable, well-bred
young ladies from the different churches who have each pledged
themselves to bring some gentleman to assist them and to give one
evening a week faithfully to the social club.

“It is distinctly understood that there is to be no authority exercised
by them, no patronizing tolerated, and charity, and that other odious
word philanthropy, not so much as thought of.

“All are to meet on the same footing, simply as young people who are met
to have a good time in an orderly, pleasant way.

“At first there will doubtless be hoidenish manners, a good deal of
simpering and whispering and flat talk, which of course must be ignored.
But by and by the presence of ten refined, Christian young gentlemen and
ladies with tact and quick wit will make itself felt. There will be
charades and word games like twenty questions, and a hundred such merry
ways of passing the time, of which these girls have never dreamed. They
will go home with new ideas about dress and manners and ways of having a
good time. The veriest boor, who may begin by tipping back in his chair
and picking his teeth, will not fail to observe finally that if he
wishes to retain the respect of his ‘best girl’ his manners must conform
a little more to those of that young law student who spent half an hour
the other night showing her how to play parchesi, and then helped her on
with her waterproof, put up her umbrella for her, and bowed her a
pleasant good evening.

“I assure you,” continued Mildred, “I have made the discovery that the
best way to turn a silly little chit into a self-respecting woman is for
a gentleman to treat her as if she were one. And the best way to make a
stupid clown appear at his best is for a young lady of tact to try to
draw him out.

“But this is not all. There are endless things that such a club might
do.

“I hope it will develop all sorts of latent talent and mutual
helpfulness, and lead the way to discussion, comparison, and emulation
in a thousand ways.

“It will give each member an opportunity to make fifty acquaintances
where now he or she has but one,—Protestants and Catholics, Jews and
Gentiles, mechanics, factory operatives, shop-girls, bookkeepers, young
professional men, teachers, millionaires’ daughters, all meeting on the
simple ground of their youth and American citizenship, and giving each
other the pleasure of their company, the benefit of their experience.
And the rich will find that they get even more than they give.”

“But, after all,” I urged, “can you make oil and water mix? Is this a
feasible scheme?”

“That is to say,” answered Mildred, “can people of different social
rank, education, and employments meet socially with mutual profit and
pleasure? That, I am convinced, depends entirely upon the tact and
spirit of genuine friendliness which is exercised by those of the higher
rank.

“Anything that is done perfunctorily is sure to fail, but genuine
interest will create genuine interest. It all depends, you see, upon my
helpers. Without them my money can do nothing. I can only organize; they
must execute. But I am convinced that it is an experiment worth trying.”

“So you are contemplating a social revolution,” said I, as Mildred
paused, her cheeks glowing with the excitement of the thought. “Well,
sister mine, if ever one is brought about, I think it will be by your
way of doing, by trying to put the right people in the right place.
After all, I suppose this one little scheme of yours and Ralph’s, that
may help to start thousands of lives in a different direction, probably
costs no more to permanently endow than what some families would pay for
diamonds and horses and yachts for themselves alone.”


“By the way, Ruby,” asked Mildred the next day, as we sat sipping our
after-dinner coffee, while Ralph had gone out to see some lawyers, “do
you remember the first time I saw you, a little more than a year ago, at
aunt Madison’s?”

“Remember? I wonder if I shall ever forget it, or what you said to those
three rich good-for-nothing”—

“No,” broke in Mildred, “not ‘good-for-nothing,’ though I fear I thought
them so at the time. I fancy I must have spoken pretty savagely, didn’t
I?” Then, without waiting for an answer, she continued: “I felt sure, as
I thought it over afterwards, that they would hate me, that is, if they
took the trouble to think about me at all. But, do you know, I think it
really startled them into asking themselves some pretty plain questions.

“It set them to thinking, and” —she continued with a laugh— “I verily
believe that I was in a measure the humble means of grace which brought
two of them to conviction of sin and led to their conversion.

“Let me read to you part of a letter which cousin Will received and
which he forwarded to me,” said she, drawing an envelope from her
pocket. “It is from Ned Conro, the one with the blond mustache, you
remember.

“He says,—let me see,”—and she glanced down the first page, and, turning
the leaf, read aloud:—

  “I began for the first time to do a little thinking that last six
  months at Cambridge.

  “Somehow that cousin of yours had said something, that night I was at
  your house, which kept running through my head and bothered me every
  now and then. I began to wonder if I weren’t about as useless a lot as
  a fellow with two millions in his own right and a prospective Harvard
  sheepskin ever gets to be.

  “I had shirked all the work that I dared to. I divided my time, as you
  know, pretty evenly between the Boston Theatre and Young’s Hotel. I
  had no incentive to work, and did not propose to follow in your steps
  and study a profession. I planned after I left college to go abroad
  for some years. I had some vague notion of a trip to India and
  tiger-hunting. At all events I meant to have good sport and plenty of
  it too.

  “The last thing I thought of was giving up any fun to stay at home and
  play the home missionary. But every time I had settled the matter
  completely in my own mind, those stinging words of that girl would
  come back and make my ears tingle:—

  “‘Oh, the last thing that you ever dream of is that you have a debt to
  pay and are basely repudiating it.’

  “I had thought that all poppycock when she said it, but when she got
  her money and set to work practicing what she had preached, giving not
  only her money but her whole time with her money, that just stumped
  me.

  “One day I took up a New York paper giving an account of her great
  library scheme. ‘There,’ said I, ‘Miss Brewster has done what no man I
  ever heard of would have thought of doing.’

  “A man, now, would have put up a stunning ten-million-dollar library,
  with his name in gilt letters on the front of it. He would put half of
  the money into the building and half of the remainder into rare books
  which no one would look at once a year. It would be a grand thing, no
  doubt, but how many people would it reach compared with those whom
  Miss Brewster’s little libraries will stimulate and help?

  “Why, a library can change the future of a whole community! I tell
  you, Miss Brewster has found where to sow her seed so that it will
  bring forth a hundredfold.

  “I wondered what _I_ could do. I could throw away my money easily
  enough, endow another chair at Harvard, erect another statue to some
  one, build a hospital; but, after all, what was _I_ to do, provided
  that I did anything?

  “Well, one day—it was Thursday afternoon—Mather said, ‘Conro, let’s go
  into chapel and hear Brooks.’ So we went. I hadn’t been inside the
  place for months. My set, you know, didn’t go in for that sort of
  thing much.

  “Somehow, something Brooks said that afternoon stirred me up all over
  again and set me to thinking. Mather and I didn’t say anything as we
  came out, but I knew he too was thinking.

  “We started off on a walk, and after a while, as we tramped along down
  past old John Harvard’s statue and on past the gymnasium, he threw
  back his head and, clapping me on the shoulder, burst out, ‘I say, old
  fellow, that man is a brick!’

  “We turned down Craigie Street and sauntered on. Presently John Fiske
  turned the corner and nodded in a jolly way over his glasses at us.
  ‘Did you know, Conro,’ asked Mather, after we had passed out of
  hearing, ‘that Fiske could read fifteen languages, and knew no end of
  history and everything else, and had made his mark, before he was as
  old as we are by some years?’

  “I didn’t know it, but I hadn’t time to say so before I looked up and
  saw just in front of us the gray beard and brown eyes of the man whom
  I, for one, think to be the greatest poet America has ever had.

  “I had just got hold of Lowell last winter. Those lines of his which
  Miss Brewster quoted to us had set me to looking him up, and I was
  amazed to see how little I had known of his power.

  “Well, whether it was Miss Brewster, or Phillips Brooks, or these men,
  the two best writers of English on the continent, and the thought of
  what they had made their lives mean in the world of ideas, I don’t
  know, but suddenly it all came over me, the thought of earnest lives
  that stood for something, and my own confounded folly, and I broke out
  for the first time: ‘I say, Mather, if a fellow has been a deuced fool
  for the first twenty-two years of his life, what is he likely to be at
  the end of the next twenty-two?’

  “Mather evidently didn’t think that was a question which required an
  answer, and we tramped along together in silence for a while longer.
  Then he began, ‘Conro, didn’t what Brooks said to-day make you think
  of that night last winter when that black-eyed girl over there at
  Louisburg Square just laid us fellows out?

  “‘Gracious! how she did seem to take it all to heart, as if we had
  committed the unpardonable sin, as Gordon said. Whew!—didn’t it make
  him mad, though?—but—well—somehow I don’t know but she was more than
  half right after all.

  “‘Some things she said have been running through my head lately:
  “Never a time or place where heart and brains and hands could find
  such work to do and reap such far-reaching results.... Everything has
  been done for us, to be sure, but we can’t be expected to go out of
  our way to see that it is passed along.”’

  “Well, Madison, that was the beginning of it all; and then we talked,
  and the long and short of it is, that Mather and I didn’t take long in
  coming to the conclusion that if a fellow ever proposed to make
  anything of himself, twenty-two or three wasn’t any too early to begin
  to think about it. We mulled over it a while, until finally we struck
  on a scheme.

  “Mather’s mother had come from the South, and he had some far-away
  cousins there who had been the hottest kind of rebs. Perhaps that was
  what suggested it to us; but at any rate we are in for it now, and
  have given each other our word of honor to stick to it for three years
  at least, and then—well, we shall see.

  “I had two millions and he eight hundred thousand. I have no family,
  you know, and he has only married brothers and sisters; so we are free
  on that score; and we have decided to put half of our fortunes into
  buying up enough stock in a lot of Southern papers to give us
  practical control of the country papers over a large area down here.”

“He writes from some little town in Alabama,” said Mildred in
parenthesis. Then she continued:

  “We have brought with us five or six bright Harvard boys whom we know,
  and whom we are going to work in as editors of dailies in strategic
  places. Each fellow will also have general supervision of a dozen
  small weekly papers scattered through the states here.

  “These papers form almost the sole outlook upon the world’s affairs
  which the people down here ever get, and, with the exception of the
  locals with which they are padded, are about as useful as Rollins’
  Ancient History.

  “Mather and I are hard at work studying local history and politics and
  prejudices, and are planning some of the tallest kinds of innovations.
  We haven’t shown our hand yet, of course, and it is generally
  understood that we are here to invest in land.

  “Of course we shan’t make a cent out of it all—too many niggers, and
  the whites are frightfully poor—can’t pay for and don’t want anything
  better than they have; but, by Jove, if I don’t succeed in shaking up
  some of these consummate old Bourbons down here by the end of the next
  three years, then my name isn’t Edwin G. Conro!—that’s all. However,
  they aren’t all such a bad lot.”

“Well,” said Mildred, as she skimmed through the last page in silence
and slowly returned the letter to the envelope, “whether these aspiring
youths succeed in bringing the millennium down there by the time they
are twenty-five remains to be seen, but at all events they will learn
some things Harvard College has not yet taught them, and whether they
help those people much or not they have taken the first step to save
themselves.”




                              CHAPTER XVI.


“Mildred Brewster Everett, do you mean to say that you, a woman worth
your tens of millions, are going to come down to living again in a brick
block with little narrow rooms? Are you going to give up the splendid
library, the gallery of rare paintings, the grand music-room, the
conservatories and stables, and all the lovely things that you had
planned?”

Mildred dropped her wax and seal, and turned from her writing-desk with
a gesture of mock despair, as I continued, somewhat vehemently and
without pausing for a reply:—

“Have you forgotten all those magnificent halls, those terra-cottas and
mosaic floors and glorious painted windows? Think of the many times that
we have planned it all out, the baronial fireplaces with the spreading
elk antlers overhead, and the big tiger-skin rugs; and then the cosy,
cushioned window-seats and quaintly carved lattices, the great organ
with golden pipes, and the high, wind-swept turrets with winding stairs!

“Last spring you were planning to bring all this about when the tenement
houses and more necessary things should be under way, and now,” I
continued crossly, “to think of your fancying that you are too poor to
build a beautiful house for yourself, when you have money enough to buy
houses for every one else!”

I think that Mildred had a passion for noble architecture. Her keen eyes
would detect beauties or incongruities where my untrained sight
perceived nothing.

“If a man writes a bad poem, I am not compelled to read it; if he paints
a bad picture, I need not see it more than once,” she was wont to say;
“but if he erects an ugly building in my city he hurts me every time I
walk the street, and I am helpless.”

“When constructive beauty costs no more than this fantastic ugliness,
why must such an absurdity be inflicted upon a long-suffering public?”
she once asked in despair, as we were contemplating an expensive
monument to architectural stupidity. And she never tempered her scorn
when railing at the angular, parti-colored houses, run mad in the
direction of ostentatious eccentricities, which are fast displacing the
simple white dwellings with green blinds that, as she once declared, “at
least have the merit of being modest and wholesome, and do not outrage
all one’s sense of the fitness of things.”

“Wait until I build my house; then you shall see,” she would exclaim,
with a decided little nod which carried the conviction, to one listener
at least, that she would some time show what money and brains combined
could do towards creating an ideal home.

Many an hour, when driving about together, we had amused ourselves, in
the intervals of serious work, in planning the charming mansion which
she would build, and she had entered into it all with great zest.

“My idea of a house,” she had said, “is to have it even more beautiful
without than within, so that every line may be a positive delight to the
many who can never look within its doors. Think what a boon to the
thousands who never step inside a church are those Back Bay towers and
steeples which I used to see from my attic window on the hill.

“A poor man has no money for a concert of good music; he has no time for
a visit to an art museum to see a good picture or statue, or to go to a
library to read a great poem; but in sunlight and in moonlight, seven
days in the week, as he looks from his window or passes to his work, the
beauty wrought in stone is his; it costs him neither time nor money, and
consciously or unconsciously it appeals to him. His life is larger and
richer for it.

“A walk across the Public Garden on a winter afternoon, with that
campanile and the spires near it looming large and dark against the
crimson glow in the west, has made me fresh and strong after many a
tired day,” she used to say.

So it was settled that when the walls of the House Beautiful should be
reared, the first thought should be, not for its inmates, but for the
countless unknown passers-by.

Then the next requirement was that it should have ample room for the
many guests whom its hospitable mistress would always have around her.
There was to be air and sunshine everywhere, and nothing too fine for
constant use.

Unlike most women, Mildred had little fancy for beauty of the fragile
sort. Exquisitely painted sèvres which a careless touch might shiver to
atoms; cobweb lace that had cost the eyesight and health of other women;
tapestry which had swallowed up years of another’s life, only to be
inferior to a painting, and become food for moths,—all this she
obstinately refused to have.

“I want beautiful things about me,” she said; “but beauty that is so
perishable as to be a constant care to the owner, or else to entail an
army of servants, is a luxury which I think no rational being can
afford. I shall have everything rich and strong and yet simple; there
shall be no satin, gilded-legged chairs, no elaborate dust-catching
carvings; no draperies and carpets that cannot bear the sun; but there
shall be noble statues, pictures by great masters, luxurious rugs and
divans, glorious color from jewelled windows and precious, many-hued
marbles. I do not want a palace with dreary suites of high-studded rooms
and frescoed ceilings, and I do not want a house that is nothing but a
crowded museum of bric-à-brac, like so many I see. No; my house shall be
a stately mansion with far-seeing towers and turrets, with cosy,
low-studded rooms and wainscoted walls, with pillared arcades and richly
carved stone balconies. All Spain and Venice and Nuremberg shall be
studied for hints of beauty, and it shall be a home, a perfectly ideal
American home; beautiful without and within; built to stand while
generations come and go, graced by children, pets, and flowers, and the
charming society of noble men and women.”

Where this home was to be built had not yet been decided. Sometimes
Mildred would in imagination place it on some smooth, green slope on the
banks of the Hudson; sometimes among the elms on some hilltop
overlooking the golden dome on Beacon Hill, with a glimpse of blue sea
and white sails on the far horizon beyond.

Of course I was to have the fun of helping to plan about it all, and
Mildred was to bring home hosts of treasures from Europe after her
sojourn abroad. But now, this morning, all this dream of the beauty that
was to be had been ended by what Mildred had been saying.

“I have settled one hundred thousand dollars on Ralph,” she had said,
“for his own personal use. He would not accept any more, and I have
decided to set apart for myself the same sum. The interest on two
hundred thousand dollars ought, I think, to provide all the travel and
luxuries that two reasonable mortals need; and the rest of the money
which I had at first thought of spending on myself we are going to
devote to several things, rather better worth doing than building a
house, which not one in a hundred thousand could afford to maintain
after we have gone.”

“But, Mildred,” I expostulated, “you have always asserted that it was
right to encourage art; that it was folly to refuse to buy a picture or
a jewel just because there were still starving people in existence
somewhere. I have heard you say repeatedly that money thus spent gave
employment to labor, encouraged art, and”—

“Yes,” she interrupted, “that is true in a certain way, no doubt; but
listen: I have been thinking this over a great deal of late. Suppose now
that I spend half a million or so in employing a certain number of
people to make and furnish a magnificent house. Grant that it is a real
work of art, and will be a thing of beauty and a joy forever. My husband
and a score of friends and I enjoy it; the workmen are paid; ‘art is
encouraged.’

“Now suppose again that, instead of erecting an expensively beautiful
house for myself, I employ the same number of people to provide a
beautiful building which shall be for the use, in the course of its
existence, of scores of thousands whose eyes are inured to ugliness and
into whose lives a bit of beauty rarely comes.

“Suppose that the spacious marble staircases, the tiles and wood
carvings and painted windows, are put where they shall awaken the
imagination and delight the soul of tired mothers and little children
who have known nothing beyond their narrow alley and grimy chimney-pots;
of girls who stand all day before a machine, or over a hot stove, and
who spend their money for the bits of tawdry finery which are the
nearest approach to beauty that their means can compass? Which building
would encourage art the most, think you?

“Why, Ruby,” said Mildred, wheeling around from her desk, while I stood
opposing to her ardor a face of grim discontent; “do you fancy that I
could sit in my great, palatial house, remembering the sights that I
have seen this year in the one-roomed sod houses on bleak Western
prairies, in the dingy, cheerless cabins of the colored people at the
South, and in the vile-smelling tenements of this great city, and
satisfy my soul by saying that I gave employment to the men who did this
work for me?

“Could I honestly call myself in any sense a follower of Him who had not
where to lay his head, and know that this wealth of beauty was kept for
me and a dozen or so cultivated people who need it scarcely more than I,
while a thousand beauty-loving natures were starving who might be fed by
my superabundance?”

“Mildred, you are positively morbid,” I exclaimed, thoroughly vexed. “To
be sure, no one has a right to be selfish, to think of himself
first,—but that you have not done. You planned your house in the
beginning for the pleasure of others far more than for yourself. You
meant to make your home a perfect retreat for all the poor artists and
students and broken-down teachers that it could hold, and I say you are
making a great mistake if you think that you are going to serve humanity
better by building a big art museum down at the Mulberry Bend for the
benefit of the ragpickers and stevedores, than by giving the hospitality
of such a home as yours would be to those to whom it would be a rest and
an inspiration.”

Mildred laughed heartily as I paused, and dropping upon the hassock
beside me, she drew me close to her, while I prepared to renew my
expostulations.

“Not so fast, my dear,” she said, forestalling me. “Pray don’t imagine
that I am bereft of my senses, and propose to reform the slums by giving
them free access to a gallery of casts from the antique. It would
require a small army of policemen and scrubbing-women to preserve it in
decent condition, if the rabble were admitted indiscriminately, and I do
not propose to give people that form of beauty which they do not want
and could not possibly appreciate.”

“But you blame all the rich, who, no matter how much they may give away,
still reserve enough to buy steam yachts and build fine houses and
indulge their æsthetic tastes to the extent of one thirtieth of their
fortune,” I said pettishly.

“No,” said Mildred, slowly; “I do not blame them. I am not their judge.
I cannot speak for others: it is right, more than that, it is necessary,
that man should create beauty, for he cannot live by bread alone.

“But I cannot help feeling that the beauty should be for all; should be
where all may see and enjoy it. The old Greeks were right about that,
when the temples, the agora, the gymnasia were consecrated to beauty,
and it was the glory of the rich to minister to the state and not spend
lavish sums in collecting private treasures.

“No, dear. Once I thought to have all that was rich and fine, and that
could delight the eye, around me in my own home. I felt that I had a
right to it, provided that I thought of others first and most. But now I
see things differently. I wonder that I ever could have been so selfish.

“Yes, Ruby,” she added, almost sternly, as she saw my look of protest,
“it was selfishness. I meant, in spite of all my giving, to sacrifice
nothing. But I have been trying these last few months,—yes, since that
time last summer when my power to make life better for others seemed
about to be forever taken from me,—I have been trying, and Ralph has
helped me, oh, so much, to look at all this short life of ours in its
beginning here on this little planet, as I shall look back upon it with
the eyes of eternity, when it has all gone into the irrevocable past.
How will it seem then, little sister, when all our foolish ambitions and
traditions and false social standards have been swept away? Shall I be
glad or sorry then, do you think, to remember that the one talent which
was placed in my hands was used to its utmost, that nothing was withheld
but what was needed to make me the better fitted for my work? Ah, when
my naked soul shall stand before the judgment bar of its own conscience
and the moral law, and hears the sentence, ‘This ought ye to have done,
and not to have left the other undone,’ what shall I plead in excuse?”

Mildred’s voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and her eyes were filled
with unshed tears. We did not speak for a few moments. I felt a lump
rising in my throat and could only choke it down while I stroked the
dear head that lay warm against my arm. My foolish questionings were
stilled. The clear insight of this simple, true-hearted woman had
pierced through and through my flimsy protests, and I sat awed and
abashed. Presently she went on in her natural, common-sense way to
explain more definitely what she meant.

“I mean to make a little more beauty in this world, if I can,” she said,
“and accomplish some more important things as well; but the art of all
arts which I shall try to learn and teach is the one which we Americans
most need to study, the art of simple living.

“I shall have the pictures and the books, the statues and the music that
I love; but what matters it whether they are all in my own home or not,
or whether or not I seek them in galleries open to all alike? Not until
our glaring, stony streets are made less dreary by more trees and
fountains and statues, not until there is a little beauty for every one,
can I claim the moral right to spend a fortune on Meissoniers or ancient
Satsuma, for my own private delight.

“For a long time I have been thinking of what could bring the greatest
stimulus and joy into the lives of the wretched poor in our great city;
the washerwomen and truckmen and foul-mouthed, dirty little street
_gamins_ whose highest bliss is reached with the attainment of a full
stomach and the sight of a street fight or a circus procession. It would
be folly to give them money outright; but here in amusements, just as I
have found it in regard to tenement houses and everything else,
coöperation is the key to success.

“The gift of a Peabody Museum or a Hemenway Gymnasium does not offend
the pride or help to pauperize the Harvard student, nor do the Lowell
lectures make the most cultivated people of Boston count themselves
recipients of charity when they crowd the hall to hear Professor Morse
talk about Japanese pottery, or the Englishman Haweis discourse on
music. Money given like that, in a large way, in the enjoyment of which
all unite, never does the harm that the gift to the individual would
surely do.

“Now, I propose to set up a counter-attraction to the delights of the
saloon and the dance-hall and the street; and I shall put it right where
it is most needed. There shall be one substantial, clean, beautiful
building, a beacon light of beauty and delight in a square mile of
dinginess and discomfort.

“It shall be of brick, and I shall enjoin upon my architect to show what
beautiful lines and arches can be wrought in simple material. In a
street of ugly straight lines and right angles, this shall stand as an
object-lesson in the power of creating perpetual pleasure to the eye by
such simple devices as the substitution of the curve for the straight
line over door and window.

“Then within there shall be a dozen immense rooms connected by
folding-doors, with sand heaps and swings and blocks for the delight of
the gutter child, too old to be in the cradle and too young to be in
school. From morning until night, if he behaves himself, he shall be
sheltered and warm and happy under the charge of some good woman. At
night these rooms shall be filled with older boys and girls learning the
use of tools, sawing, planing, hammering, and finding it better fun to
vent their energies in manufacturing something which they can take home
for their own use than in playing tag around the ash-barrels on the
corner.”

“What, would you have boys and girls together?” I asked.

“Certainly,” said Mildred; “they would be together on the street, and
why not here?”

“But what is the use of a girl learning carpentering?” I asked. “I
should think she might much better learn sewing. Besides, girls can’t do
it, and I don’t believe they would like to, if they could.”

“In regard to that, you don’t know those girls so well as I do. They
will sit by a smoky lamp in a close room and grow round-shouldered and
near-sighted in crocheting edging and working blue cats on cardboard;
but as to plain sewing, they think it a bore. After a day at school or
in the shop they don’t want to sit demurely on a bench and ‘backstitch’
and sew ‘over and over.’ Then, too, a course in carpentry would do more
for them physically than a course at the gymnasium. There is no danger
that city girls will not walk enough at all times; what they lack is
development of arms and chest. Moreover, this is not an experiment. I
once visited a summer class in carpentering for girls at the Tennyson
Street school in Boston, and I can assure you I haven’t forgotten the
neat book-racks and little tables those girls of fourteen were making
for themselves, nor the good time they were having in doing it, either.
Such muscle as they were developing! However, there can be cooking
classes and sewing classes too, if they want them, though my House
Beautiful is not to be primarily a manual training school. The city may
provide that for the child; but I want to do what it cannot do, and that
is to give innocent amusement and a bit of beauty to lives that know
nothing of it.

“So above these rooms is to be a great auditorium arranged like an
amphitheatre, and capable of seating comfortably three thousand people.
There shall be no cushions, and no need of them, for every seat shall be
planned with reference to the human figure, and will require no padding
to insure absolute comfort.

“There shall be a golden-piped organ and ‘storied windows richly dight,’
not casting a ‘dim religious light,’ but shedding warm, rich color upon
the thousand shabby coats and shawls gathered from the alleys and street
corners of a Sunday afternoon. Every night in the week, and all day on
Sunday, this is to be opened free to every man or woman who wants to sit
in a comfortable seat, see interesting pictures, hear sweet music, and
give tired nerves and body a respite from the noise and confusion of the
tenement and street.”

“And what do you propose to give them,—symphony concerts, or Stoddard
lectures?”

“Neither,” answered Mildred calmly, ignoring my attempt at sarcasm,
“though you have touched my idea. I mean to give them something as
nearly like it as possible.

“There shall be simple talks on every conceivable subject that could
interest them which admits of illustration by the stereopticon. By the
aid of great pictures thrown upon the screen they shall travel over land
and sea. Then there shall be story nights, when a clear-voiced student
from the school of oratory will read stories to them. Think what it
would be to these men and women, half of whom cannot read or write, to
whose minds the facts of history and geography have no meaning, whose
knowledge of life is limited to a little village in the Old Country, a
steerage passage, and the crowded slums of New York; think what it would
be to them to step from the cold and dinginess without into a brilliant,
beautiful hall, with warmth and light and comfort insured for one hour
at least out of the twenty-four; and then to sit and listen to the
charming story of Little Lord Fauntleroy, or Robinson Crusoe, or to
thrilling stories of exploration and adventures.

“The story or lecture shall last no more than an hour, as their
attention must be held, so that they will want to come again. Then those
who have heard enough may go, if they wish, and make room for others to
come in to listen to a half-hour concert. There will be no Brahm’s
symphonies, but there will be cornet solos of such classics as the
‘Swanee River,’ and ‘Home! Sweet Home!’ and a select orchestra of half a
dozen pieces will render Strauss waltzes, airs from ‘Pinafore,’ and the
like.

“On Sunday, all day long, there shall be services of song led by the
great organ and a trained chorus. Not oratorio music, though a Handel
Largo or a ‘Lift Thine Eyes’ might sometimes be ventured on; but simple
devout church music, in which all who can may join.

“Of course no preaching would be advisable, else the priests would
rapidly diminish the audience; but all the power of music shall be
brought to bear to uplift and beautify these poor, pinched lives and
bring a glimpse of sweetness and light into the prosaic details of their
daily struggle for existence.

“The Romish church has always been wise enough to see the power of music
in swaying the emotions of the masses. It is time that we learned a
lesson from it.”

“What shall you do with your other rooms on Sunday? Shall you let them
be vacant or permit the carpentering by the boys to go on below, while
their elders are hearing the music in the great hall above?”

“Neither,” answered Mildred. The rooms shall all be open, but not for
work. The tables and tools will have disappeared, and settees will take
their places. In one room will be perhaps a debating club of young men,
discussing the last strike, and finding this a pleasanter place to meet
for that purpose than the street corner or the saloon. In the next room
will be a set of children clustered around a young lady who comes down
from Fifth Avenue and gives her Sunday evenings regularly to telling
stories to them. She is not a creature of my imagination, either, Ruby.
Last week I met her at a friend’s house. She came in flushed and radiant
from an hour’s romp with the children in the nursery. ‘I believe my one
talent must be story-telling,’ she said, as the children appeared on the
scene clamoring after her; and her mother fondly said, ‘Ah, there are no
stories like sister Helen’s, all the children think.’

“‘So,’ I thought, ‘that is just the girl I want. Her talent shall find a
larger field for development; she shall tell stories to forty children
instead of four.’ I told her my plan, and she almost cried with delight.
‘Oh, Mrs. Everett, do you really think that I could do any good in that
way? I never dreamed of it, and I should be so glad. I’ve always felt as
if I wanted to do something, but mamma won’t let me visit in the
Charities. She says I am too young. My eyes won’t admit of my reading to
the blind or sewing for the poor, and I began to think there wasn’t
anything that I could do.’

“I tell you, Ruby, I am finding every day dozens of girls like her, who
are only waiting for some one to say, ‘This is what you can do; here is
your work; here is the place; and here are the ones who need you.’ I am
beginning to learn that the putting of the right person in the right
place is the main thing, after all. The best thing that my money can do
is to make it possible for those who can give, to find those who need
just what they can give.

“I shall find not only one charming story-teller, but a score, who will
meet their circles of little street Arabs week after week and month
after month, and if they are half as pretty and entertaining as the girl
I know, you may rest assured those youngsters will count it a privilege
to come.

“Not every one will be admitted; a clean face and hands and good
behavior will be the prerequisite for retaining the ticket of membership
to all the classes. Then in another room will be a class of young people
listening to an emergency lecture, given by some bright, young medical
student, who will arouse their interest by objective illustrations, such
as the bandaging of sham wounds and the resuscitating of a person
supposed to be drowned.

“In still another room, perhaps, some one will be reading the newspapers
aloud to a score of men who are enjoying their pipes.

“All the rooms will be filled with men, women, and children, from nine
o’clock in the morning until ten at night; one set coming as another
goes; and each having one hour at least, in the day of rest, which shall
open to him a little larger outlook on life, and shall give him
something to look forward to through the six days of drudgery.

“Of course all this will require a system and a plan; but I shall have
as few officials and as few restraints as possible. A neat, white-capped
woman, with her badge of authority, will, I think, be quite as efficient
as a big policeman; for any unseemly behavior will result in the
immediate surrender of the numbered metal check which will serve as a
card of entrance; and when admission is recognized as a privilege it
will be coveted.

“No one will stay away because he is too shabby to come, and no one will
be made to feel that he has no right or share in it all; but every week
twenty-five thousand men, women, and children shall have one or two
hours of peace and happiness offered them, just because,—think of it,
Ruby,—just because I did not build the House Beautiful for myself.”




                             CHAPTER XVII.

          “And whether we shall meet again I know not,
          Therefore our everlasting farewell take.”
                                                JULIUS CÆSAR.


The days sped away all too fast, crowded full of work and talk and
earnest thought. I entered eagerly into all of Mildred’s plans; she
always knew that she could rely on me to do that, in spite of the
protestations and objections with which I generally greeted the first
announcement of each new scheme. I think she rather liked my objecting,
as it gave her so fine an opportunity to state her case clearly and
triumph over all obstacles.

“Do be charitable and indulge my garrulous propensities a little,” she
would laughingly plead. “You may congratulate yourself that I was not
born a man,—such a stump orator as I should have made, with all my
hobbies!”

In spite of her gayety and happiness, however, I could see that the
strain of attending to multitudes of things was beginning to tell, even
on her apparently boundless strength. The day before the last she was
with her lawyers, signing last papers, seeing that nothing was
neglected, no one forgotten. In the evening there was a farewell
reception for hosts of friends, at which all good-byes were said.

“I want no one but you to see me sail, Ruby dear,” she said; and so the
hour of her departure was not announced. They had planned, first of all,
a sailing voyage to the West Indies, and thence they were to go to
Spain.

“I can’t bear Europe just yet,” said Mildred. “I want to put letters,
despatches, and newspapers even, out of reach for a few weeks; to forget
immigrants, cooking schools, tenement houses, libraries, and lawyers,
and all the several problems that have been besetting me these last
bewilderingly busy months.

“I must get time to stop and think. I want to sail idly through purple
tropic seas; to skirt the green shores of volcanic islands; I want to
feel for the time being that I have banished conscience and
responsibility; in fact,” she added, laughing, “I want to become a pagan
for a while, if I can.”

“The most sensible thing that I ever heard you say,” I remarked with
decision. “If there ever was a girl who has earned a vacation, it is
you.”

They were going on the Nanepashemet, manned by Captain Roberts, a
weather-beaten seaman of Marblehead, who twenty years ago had dandled
the little Mildred on his knee. He now counted it the greatest honor of
his life that she had not forgotten him, and that he had been invited to
take this bonny bride on his plain little sailing vessel.

“Why, jest think of it, Miss,” he proudly remarked to me, “she might
jest as easy hev bought one of them crack steam yachts with fancy
fixins, and have gone in reg’lar Vanderbilt style. But it’s jest like
her, jest like her. She wa’n’t never one of the kind to make a splurge.
I knew when she got her money ’twouldn’t turn her head.”

One day Ralph and I had been down to inspect the craft and attend to
certain alterations in the cabin which were to be made for the
accommodation of the two passengers, when the captain grew quite
communicative on his favorite theme.

“I knew that little chick ’ud make something when she wa’n’t no higher
than that,” he remarked, holding his brown, tattooed hand about three
feet above the deck.

“I didn’t cal’late on her turnin’ out so mighty rich, of course,” he
continued, meditatively, leaning against the rail and evidently pleased
to find an appreciative listener, “but I allus knew, by the way the
little thing kep’ askin’ questions about everything under heaven, that
she’d got a headpiece on her that ’ud make things spin one o’ these
days. Full o’ fun, too. She could swim like a duck, and row a boat with
them little pipe-stem arms of hers, and yet—wal—she was sort o’
pious-like too, and allus askin’ me to tell her about my trips to the
East Injies, and whether I see any women a-throwin’ their babies to
crocodiles and a-bowin’ down to idols of wood and stone.

“‘I tell you, Cap’n Roberts,’ that little thing ’ud say, a-settin’ there
in my boat, when her ma let me take her out,—‘I tell you, when I get to
be a grown-up woman I’m goin’ out there and just teach those people
better.’

“‘Did you ever hear about Judson?’ says she. ‘No,’ says I; ‘was he a
sea-cap’n?’

“‘He was a missionary,’ says she, real solemn; ‘a missionary; and that’s
what I’m going to be; and you’ll take me out there in your ship, won’t
you, cap’n?’ says she. ‘And oh, I’m goin’ to take a whole trunk full of
story-books for all those poor little girls that have to get married and
don’t have any.’

“Wal, wal,” he continued, as he filled his pipe, “she begun it young, ’n
I warn’t a mite surprised when I heerd she’d got her money and see what
she was a-beginnin’ to do for those nasty Italians down to the Mulberry
Bend. She never forgits anybody, Millie don’t. Excuse me, I s’pose I
orter say Mis’ Everett now. She’s been a-talkin’ to me about the
sailors; says when we git out to sea she wants a long talk with me about
’em; wants to know what they read, and everything of that sort.”

“And that is the way she proposes to turn pagan,” I soliloquized.

The last day had come, and we were on board the ship. Mildred, in her
long, gray ulster and bright steamer hood, paced the deck arm in arm
with me, taking her last look at the bridge, the towers and spires, the
bronze goddess looming up against the blue, and all the dear, familiar
sights. The sky was cloudless; the soft south-wind gently swelled the
white sails overhead; the sea, the fawning, treacherous sea, shone
brilliantly in the golden sunlight and seemed to murmur caressingly in
our ears, as if to beguile us to forget its cruel power hidden for the
time under this shining mask.

We paced up and down in silence, breaking it now and then by trying to
say the last words, which were so hard to speak. Ralph had kindly gone
below, ostensibly to look after a hamper of fruit. There was a lump in
my throat; I could not speak.

How was it that this woman, whom I had met but little more than a year
ago, had come to be nearer to me than any kith or kin? Life had
broadened, had grown rich, since her life had come into mine. In my
little narrow routine, fashioned according to the demands of society and
its conventionalities, I had never before dreamed of its possibilities.

Mildred tried to talk, but I could not answer. At last, breaking down
completely, I sobbed out, “Oh, Mildred, Mildred, I _cannot_ let you go.
I have no one in the wide world but you. You will never, never come
back.”

I had meant to be brave and not to sadden these last moments by my
selfish grief, but a sudden premonition of evil had taken hold of me. I
was not superstitious, but I felt a convulsive clutch at my heart as I
looked up into her beautiful dark eyes through the mist in my own.

“Don’t be morbid, darling,” said she, trying to speak cheerfully, and
drawing my arm closer in her embrace. But her voice sounded to me
strange and far away.

“There are few women ever blessed with such a sister as you have been to
me,” she said tenderly. “You alone among women have made me feel this
last year that you loved me for myself, and would have loved me just the
same were I the lonely teacher among my books instead of a favored,
flattered, rich woman. Others have given me adulation, you have given me
love. And now, dear, that you may know that I know how real a sister you
have been to me, until we meet again wear this for me.”

I saw the red gleam of the rare jewel in her white hand, as over my
finger, held in her own warm grasp, she slipped the ruby ring, her dead
sister’s ring which I had always seen her wear.

I said no word of thanks. I scarcely realized what she had done. I was
dumb with the misery of those moments—a death’s-knell seemed sounding in
my ears.

We paced on again in silence, letting the precious moments pass.
Presently she said, as if in reply to the wild outburst of emotion which
had passed and left me numb and speechless, “Yes, dear, it may be as you
fear. Whether we meet again, God only knows. But whether it be you or I
that goes first into the great wonderful Beyond, of which we have so
often talked, I think we shall not be sorry, we shall not be afraid.

                      “‘For from the things we see
                      We trust the things to be,
                      That in the paths untrod,
                      And the long days of God,
                      Our feet shall still be led,
                      Our hearts be comforted.’

“But life is sweet, oh, so sweet. I want to live, there is so much to
do,” said Mildred earnestly. Yet in a moment she added, hastily, “But
what folly for me to fancy that _I_ am needed to do the work.

                     “‘Others shall sing the song,
                     Others shall right the wrong,
                     Finish what I begin,
                     And all I fail of, win.’”

We said no more, but still paced the deck together, looking at sea and
shore and sunny sky, finding no words to tell of all that was in our
hearts.

At last the signal was given, and the tug that was to carry me back to
the city steamed alongside. I knew that the moment of parting had come,
and, like an exile summoning all his fortitude to help him take bravely
the last step across the border line which divides him from home and
country, I said, calmly, “Well, dear,—

           “‘If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
           If not, why, then, this parting were well made.’”

I felt her warm, red lips against my cheek. I heard Ralph’s strong “God
bless and keep you, little sister,” and then, almost before I knew it, I
had slipped over the vessel’s side, and they were gone. I saw them wave
a last adieu. I saw, as in a dream, the white-winged ship, bearing its
precious freight, sail out into the dazzling east, over the dimpling
sea, the shimmering, golden sea, the cruel, cruel sea.


There is no more to tell. The world knows the rest. Seven days of calm
weather, and then from the coral reefs of the southern sea to the rocky
headlands of the north, the storm-king raged. Madly the fierce Atlantic
lashed its waves on cliff and beach and sunken ledge, sending dumb
terror to the hearts that had seen their loved ones go down unto the sea
in ships.

Somewhere on that wild waste of waters, whether in the chill, gray dawn
or in midnight blackness, amid the lightning’s flash and thunder’s
peal,—God only knows,—a little ship went down. And when the sharp, swift
summons came, two brave hearts went forth together into the great
Unseen, knowing of a surety that this, thank God, was not the end—only
the end of the beginning.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
      spelling.
 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
 4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.