text:
Achilles Goes to Chicago

CHILLES ALEXANDRAKIS was arranging the fruit on his stall in front of his little shop on Clark Street. It was a clear, breezy morning, cool for October, but not cold enough to endanger the fruit that Achilles handled so deftly in his dark, slender fingers. As he built the oranges into their yellow pyramid and grouped about them figs and dates, melons and pears, and grapes and pineapples, a look of content held his face. This was the happiest moment of his day.

Already, half an hour ago, Alcibiades and Yaxis had departed with their push-carts, one to the north and one to the south, calling antiphonally as they went, in clear, high voices that came fainter and fainter to Achilles among his fruit.

They would not return until night, and then they would come with empty carts, and jingling in their pockets coppers and nickels and dimes. The breath of a sigh escaped Achilles's lips as he stood back surveying the stall. Something very like homesickness was in his heart. He had almost fancied for the minute that he was back once more in Athens. He raised his eyes and gave a quick, deep glance up and down the street—soot and dirt and grime, frowning buildings and ugly lines, and overhead a meagre strip of sky. Over Athens the sky hung glorious, a curve of light from side to side. His soul flew wide to meet it. Once more he was swinging along the "Street of the Winds," his face lifted to the Parthenon on its Acropolis, his nostrils breathing the clear air. Chicago had dropped from him like a garment, his soul rose and floated.... Athens everywhere—column and cornice, and long, delicate lines, and color of marble and light. He drew a full, sweet breath.

"How much for them peaches?"

Achilles's eye returned from Athens; it dropped through gray soot. "Five cen's," he said, dreamily.

The young woman's back was turned to him. She was hurrying on.

"You no want them?" said Achilles, gently.

There was no reply. The young woman was gone.

Achilles sighed a little and picked up the basket beside him and entered the little shop. It was darker within, darker than in the street. The light came, almost grudgingly, through the open window and door; and only the glowing yellow disks of oranges and lemons and grapefruit relieved its gloom. Achilles placed the basket carefully on a side shelf and turned once more to the street. A man had paused before the stall, looking down. Achilles hastened to the door, welcome in his dark face.

The man looked up. There was a deep line between his eyes. It focussed the piercing glance. "How much for your melons?"

Achilles moved forward with quick, stately step. He wore a seersucker coat and black cotton trousers, but for the moment he had forgotten that his garments did not float a little as he moved. He ran a hand along the smooth, green, crinkling stripes of the melon. "Thirty-five, these—forty, these ones," he said, courteously.

The man lifted an eye. "Got a paper—for the address? I want them sent."

"I take in my haid," said Achilles, with clear glance.

The man hesitated a second. "All right. Don't forget; 1383 Sheridan Road. Send four. They'll pay when you deliver."

"I send right off," said Achilles, cheerfully. "I pick you nice ones. Good day, sir."

But the man was gone—without response—far down the street, and the crowd was shoving past. The day had begun. In and out of the gloomy shop Achilles moved with quick, gliding step, taking orders, filling bags, making change—always with his dark eyes seeking, a little wistfully, something that did not come to them.... It was all so different—this new world. Achilles had been in Chicago six months now, but he had not yet forgotten a dream that he had dreamed in Athens. Sometimes he dreamed it still, and then he wondered whether this, about him, were not all a dream—this pushing, scrambling, picking, hurrying, choosing crowd, dropping pennies and dimes into his curving palm, swearing softly at slow change, and flying fast from street to street. It was not thus in his dream. He had seen a land of new faces, turned ever to the West, with the light on them. He had known them, in his dream—eager faces, full of question and quick response. His soul had gone out to them and, musing in sunny Athens, he had made ready for them. Each morning when he rose he had lifted his glance to the Parthenon, studying anew the straight lines—that were yet not straight—the mysterious, dismantled beauty, the mighty lift of its presence. When they should question him, in this new land, he must not fail them. They would be hungry for the beauty of the ancient world—they who had no ruins of their own. He knew in his heart how it would be with them—the homesickness for the East—all its wonder and its mystery. Yes, he would carry it to them. He, Achilles Alexandrakis, should not be found wanting. This new world was to give to him money, wealth, better education for his boys, a competent old age. But he, too, had something to give in exchange. He must make himself ready against the great day when he should travel down the long way to the Piræus, for the last time, and set sail for America.

He was in America now. He knew, when he stopped to think, that this was not a dream. He had been here six months, in the little shop on Clark Street, but no one had yet asked him of the Parthenon. Sometimes he thought that they did not know that he was Greek. Perhaps if they knew that he had been in Athens, had lived there all his life from a boy, they would question him. The day that he first thought of this, he had ordered a new sign painted. It bore his name in Greek characters, and it was beautiful in line and color. It caused his stand to become known far and wide as the "Greek Shop," and within a month after it was put up his trade had doubled—but no one had asked about the Parthenon.

He had really ceased to hope for it now. He only dreamed the dream, a little wistfully, as he went in and out, and his thought dwelt always on Athens and her beauty. The images stamped so carefully on his sensitive brain became his most precious treasures. Over and over he dwelt on them. Ever in memory his feet climbed the steps to the Acropolis or walked beneath stately orange-trees, beating a soft rhythm to the sound of flute and viol. For Achilles was by nature one of the lightest-hearted of children. In Athens his laugh had been quick to rise, and fresh as the breath of rustling leaves. It was only here, under the sooty sky of the narrow street, that his face had grown a little sad.

At first the days had been full of hope, and the face of each newcomer had been scanned with eager eyes. The fruit, sold so courteously and freely, was hardly more than an excuse for the opening of swift talk. But the talk had never come. There was the inevitable and never-varying, "How much?" the passing of coin, and hurrying feet. Soon a chill had crept into the heart of Achilles. They did not ask of Athens. They did not know that he was Greek. They did not care that his name was Achilles. They did not see him standing there with waiting eyes. He might have been a banana on its stem, a fig-leaf against the wall, the dirt that gritted beneath their feet, for all that their eyes took note.... Yet they were not cruel or thoughtless. Sometimes there came a belated response—half surprised, but cordial—to his gentle "good day." Sometimes a stranger said, "The day is warm," or, "The breeze from the Lake is cool to-day." Then the eyes of Achilles glowed like soft stars in their places. Surely now they would speak. They would say, "Is it thus in Greece?" But they never spoke. And the days hurried their swift feet through the long, dirty streets.

A tall woman in spectacles was coming toward him, sniffing the air a little as she moved. "Have you got any bananas?"

"Yes. They nice." He led the way into the shop and reached to the swinging bunch. "You like some?" he said, encouragingly.

She sniffed a step nearer. "Too ripe," decisively.

"Yes-s. But here and here—" He twirled the bunch skilfully on its string. "These—not ripe, and these." His sunny smile spread their gracious acceptableness before her.

She wrinkled her forehead at them. "Well—you might as well cut me off six."

"A pleasure, madame." He had seized the heavy knife.

"Give me that one." It was a, large one near the centre; "and this one here —and here."

When the six were selected and cut off they were the cream of the bunch. She eyed them doubtfully, still scowling a little. "Yes. I'll take these."

The Greek bowed gravely over the coin she dropped into his palm. "Thank you, madame."

It was later now, and the crowd moved more slowly, with longer pauses between the buyers.

A boy with a bag of books stopped for an apple. Two children with their nurse halted a moment, looking at the glowing fruit. The eyes of the children were full of light and question. Somewhere in their depths Achilles caught a flitting shadow of the Parthenon. Then the nurse hurried them on, and they, too, were gone.

He turned away with a little sigh, arranging the fruit in his slow, absent way. Something at the side of the stall caught his eye, a little movement along the board, in and out through the color and leaves. He lifted a leaf to see. It was a green and black caterpillar, crawling with stately hunch to the back of the stall. Achilles watched him with gentle eyes. Then he leaned over the stall and reached out a long finger. The caterpillar, poised in midair, remained swaying back and forth above the dark obstruction. Slowly it descended and hunched itself anew along the finger. It travelled up the motionless hand and reached the sleeve. With a smile on his lips Achilles entered the shop. He took down an empty fig-box and transferred the treasure to its depths, dropping in after it one or two leaves and a bit of twig. He fitted the lid to the box, leaving a little air, and taking the pen from his desk, wrote across the side in clear Greek letters "." Then he placed the box on the shelf behind him, where the wet ink of the lettering glistened faintly in the light. It was a bit of the heart of Athens prisoned there; and many times, through the cold and snow and bitter sleet of that winter, Achilles took down the fig-box and peered into its depths at a silky bit of gray cradle swung from the side of the box by its delicate bands.

It happened, on a Wednesday in May, that Madame Lewandowska was ill. So ill that when Betty Harris, with her demure music-roll in her hand, tapped at the door of Madame Lewandowska's studio, she found no one within.

On ordinary days this would not have mattered, for the governess, Miss Stone, would have been with her, and they would have gone shopping or sightseeing until the hour was up and James returned. But to-day Miss Stone, too, was ill, James had departed with the carriage, and Betty Harris found herself standing, music-roll in hand, at the door of Madame Lewandowska's studio—alone in the heart of Chicago for the first time in the twelve years of her life.

It had been a very carefully guarded life, with nurses and servants and instructors. No little princess was ever more sternly and conscientiously reared than little Betty Harris, of Chicago. For her tiny sake herds of cattle were slaughtered every day; and all over the land hoofs and hides and by-products and soap-factories lifted themselves to heaven for Betty Harris. If anything were to happen to her, the business of a dozen States would quiver to the core. She tapped the marble floor softly with her foot and pondered. She might sit here in the hall and wait for James—a whole hour. There was a bench by the wall. She looked at it doubtfully.... It was not seemly that a princess should sit waiting for a servant—not even in marble halls. She glanced about her again. There was probably a telephone somewhere—perhaps on the ground floor. She could telephone home and they would send another carriage. Yes, that would be best. She rang the elevator bell and descended in stately silence. When she stepped out of the great door of the building she saw, straight before her, the sign she sought—"Pay Station."

But then something happened to Betty Harris. The spirit of the spring day caught her and lifted her out of herself. Men were hurrying by with light step. Little children laughed as they ran. Betty skipped a few steps and laughed softly with them.... She would walk home. It was not far. She had often walked as far in the country, and she knew the way quite well.... And when she looked up again, she stood in front of the glowing fruit-stall, and Achilles Alexandrakis was regarding her with deep, sad eyes.

Achilles had been dreaming down the street when the little figure came in sight. His heart all day had been full of sadness—for the spring in the air. And all day Athens had haunted his steps—the Athens of dreams. Once when he had retired into the dark, cool shop, he brushed his sleeve across his eyes, and then he had stood looking down in surprise at something that glistened on its worn surface.

Betty Harris looked at him and smiled. She had been so carefully brought up that she had not learned that some people were her inferiors and must not be smiled at. She gave him the straight, sweet smile that those who had cared for her all her life loved so well. Then she gave a little nod. "I'm walking home," she said.

Achilles leaned forward a little, almost holding his breath lest she float from him. It was the very spirit of Athens—democratic, cultured, naïve. He gave her the salute of his country. She smiled again. Then her eye fell on the tray of pomegranates near the edge of the stall—soft and pink. She reached out a hand. "I have never seen these," she said, slowly. "What are they?"

"Pomegranates— Yes— You like some? I give you."

He disappeared into the shop and Betty followed him, looking about with clear, interested eyes. It was like no place she had ever seen—this cool, dark room, with its tiers on tiers of fruit, and the fragrant, spicy smell, and the man with the sad, kind face. Her quick eye paused—arrested by the word printed on a box on the shelf to the right..:. Ah, that was it! She knew now quite well. He was a Greek man. She knew the letters; she had studied Greek for six months; but she did not know this word—"—" She was still spelling it out when Achilles returned with the small box of pomegranates in his hand.

She looked up slowly. "I can't quite make it out," she said.

"That?" Achilles's face was alight. "That is Greek."

She nodded. "I know. I study it; but what is it—the word?"

"The word?—Ah, yes, it is— How you say? You shall see."

He reached out a hand to the box. But the child stopped him. A quick thought had come to her.—"You have been in Athens, haven't you? I want to ask you something, please."

The hand dropped from the box. The man turned about, waiting. If heaven were to open to him now—!

"I've always wanted to see a Greek man," said the child, slowly,—"a real Greek man. I've wanted to ask him something he would know about. Have you ever seen the Parthenon?" She put the question with quaint seriousness.

A light came into the eyes of Achilles Alexandrakis. It flooded the room.

"You ask me—the Parthenon?" he said, solemnly. "You wish me—tell that?" It was wistful—almost a cry of longing.

Betty Harris nodded practically. "I've always wanted to know about it—the Parthenon. They tell you how long it is, and how wide, and what it is made of, and who began it, and who finished it, and who destroyed it, but they never, never"—she raised her small hand impressively—"they never tell you how it looks!"

Achilles brought a chair and placed it near the open door. "Will it—kindly—you sit?" he said, gravely.

She seated herself, folding her hands above the music-roll, and lifting her eyes to the dark face looking down at her. "Thank you."

Achilles leaned back against the counter, thinking a little. He sighed gently. "I tell you many things," he said at last.

"About the Parthenon, please," said Betty Harris.

"You like Athens?" He said it like a child.

"I should like it—if they would tell me real things. I don't seem to make them understand. But when they say how beautiful it is—I feel it here." She laid her small hand to her side.

The smile of Achilles held glory in its depths. "I tell you," he said.

The clear face reflected the smile. A breath of waiting held the lips. "Yes."

Achilles leaned again upon his counter. His face was rapt, and he spread his finger-tips a little as if something within them stirred to be free.

"It stands so high and lifts itself"—Achilles raised his dark hands—"ruined there—so great—and far beneath, the city lies, drawing near and near, and yet it cannot reach.... And all around is light—and light—and light. Here it is a cellar "—his hands closed in with crushing touch—"but there—!" He flung the words from him like a chant of music, and a sky stretched about them from side to side, blue as sapphire and shedding radiant light upon the city in its midst—a city of fluted column and curving cornice and temple and arch and tomb. The words rolled on, fierce and eager. It was a song of triumph, with war and sorrow and mystery running beneath the sound of joy. And the child, listening with grave, clear eyes, smiled a little, holding her breath. "I see it—I see it!" She half whispered the words.

Achilles barely looked at her. "You see—ah, yes—you see. But I—I have not words!" It was almost a cry.... "The air, so clear—like wine—and the pillars straight and high and big—but light—light—reaching...." His soul was among them, soaring high. Then it returned to earth and he remembered the child.

"And there is an olive-tree," he said, kindly, "and a well where Poseidon—"

"I've heard about the well and the olive-tree," said the child; "I don't care so much about them. But all the rest—" She drew a quick breath. "It is very beautiful. I knew it would be. I knew it would be!"

There was silence in the room.

"Thank you for telling me," said Betty Harris. "Now I must go." She slipped from the chair with a little sigh. She stood looking about the dim shop. "Now I must go," she repeated, wistfully. Achilles moved a step toward the shelf. "Yes—but wait—I will show you." He reached up to the box and took it down lightly. "I show you." He was removing the cover.

The child leaned forward with shining eyes.

A smile came into the dark, grave face looking into the box. "Ah, he has blossomed—for you." He held it out to her.

She took it in shy fingers, bending to it. "It is beautiful," she said, softly. "Yes—beautiful!"

The dark wings, with shadings of gold and tender blue, lifted themselves a little, waiting.

The child looked up. "May I touch it?" she asked.

"Yes— But why not?"

The dark head was bent close to hers, watching the wonderful wings.

Slowly Betty Harris put out a finger and stroked the wings.

They fluttered a little—opened wide and rose—in their first flutter of light.

"Oh!" It was a cry of delight from the child.

The great creature had settled on the bunch of bananas and hung swaying. The gold and blue wings opened and closed slowly.

Achilles drew near and put out a finger.

The butterfly was on it.

He held it toward her, smiling gently, and she reached up, her very breath on tiptoe. A little smile curved her lips, quick and wondering, as the transfer was made, thread by thread, till the gorgeous thing rested on her own palm.

She looked up. "What shall I do with it?" It was a shining whisper.

Achilles's eyes sought the door.

They moved toward it slowly, light as breath.

In the open doorway they paused. Above the tall buildings the gray rim of sky lifted itself. The child looked up to it. Her eyes returned to Achilles.

He nodded gravely.

She raised her hand with a little "p-f-f"—it was half a quick laugh and half a sigh.

The wings fluttered free, and rose, and faltered, and rose again—high and higher, between the dark walls—up to the sky, into the gray—and through.

The eyes that had followed it came back to earth. They looked at each other and smiled gravely—two children who had seen a happy thing.

The child stood still with half-lifted hand.... A carriage drove quickly into the street. The little hand was lifted higher. It was a regal gesture—the return of the princess to earth.

James touched his hat—a look of dismay and relief battling in his face as he turned the horses sharply to the right. They paused in front of the stall, their hoofs beating dainty time to the coursing of their blood.

Achilles eyed them lovingly. The spirit of Athens dwelt in their arching necks.

He opened the door for the child with the quiet face and shining eyes. Gravely he salaamed as she entered the carriage.

Through the window she held out a tiny hand. "I hope you will come and see me," she said.

"Yes, I come," said Achilles, simply. "I like to come."

James dropped a waiting eye.

"Home, James."

The horses sprang away. Achilles Alexandrakis, bareheaded in the spring sunshine, watched the carriage till it was out of sight. Then he turned once more to the stall and rearranged the fruit. The swift fingers laughed a little as they worked, and the eyes of Achilles were filled with light.

title: Achilles Goes to Chicago


text:
Achilles Calls on Betty Harris

OTHER-DEAR!" It was the voice of Betty Harris—eager, triumphant, with a little laugh running through it. "Mother-dear!" "Yes—Betty—" The woman seated at the dark mahogany desk looked up, a little line between her eyes. "You have come, child?" It was half a caress. She put out an absent hand, drawing the child toward her while she finished her note.

The child stood by gravely, looking with shining eyes at the face bending above the paper. It was a handsome face with clear, hard lines—the reddish hair brushed up conventionally from the temples, and the skin a little pallid under its careful massage and skilfully touched surface.

To Betty Harris her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world—more beautiful than the marble Venus at the head of the long staircase, or the queenly lady in the next room, forever stepping down from her gilded frame into the midst of tapestry and leather in the library. It may have been that Betty's mother was quite as much a work of art in her way as these other treasures that had come from the Old World. But to Betty Harris, who had slight knowledge of art values, her mother was beautiful, because her eyes had little points of light in them that danced when she laughed, and her lips curved prettily, like a bow, if she smiled.

They curved now as she looked up from her note. "Well, daughter?" She had sealed the note and laid it one side. "Was it a good lesson?" She leaned back in her chair, stroking the child's hand softly, while her eyes travelled over the quaint, dignified little figure. The child was a Velasquez—people had often remarked it, and the mother had taken the note that gave to her clothes the regal air touched with simplicity. "So it was a good lesson, was it?" she repeated, absently, as she stroked the small dark hand—her own figure graciously outlined as she leaned back enjoying the lifted face and straight, clear eyes.

"Mother-dear!" The child's voice vibrated with the intensity behind it. "I have seen a man—a very good man!"

"Yes?" There was a little laugh in the word. She was accustomed to the child's enthusiasms. Yet they were always new to her—even the old ones were. "Who was he, daughter—this very good man?"

"He is a Greek, mother—with a long, beautiful name—I don't think I can tell it to you. But he is most wonderful—!" The child spread her hands and drew a deep breath.

"More wonderful than father?" It was an idle, laughing question—while she studied the lifted-up face.

"More wonderful than father—yes—" The child nodded gravely. "I can't quite tell you, mother-dear, how it feels—" She laid a tiny hand on her chest. Her eyes were full of thought. "He speaks like music, and he loves things—oh, very much!"

"I see— And did Madame Lewandowska introduce you to him?"

"Oh, it was not there." The child's face cleared with a swift thought. "I didn't tell you—madame was ill—"

The reclining figure straightened a little in its place, but the face was still smiling. "So you and Miss Stone—"

"But Miss Stone is ill, mother-dear. Did you forget her toothache?" The tone was politely reproachful.

The woman was very erect now—her small eyes, grown wide, gazing at the child, devouring her. "Betty! "Where have you been?" It was more a cry than a question—a cry of dismay, running swiftly toward terror.... It was the haunting fear of her life that Betty would some day be kidnapped, as the child next door had been.... The fingers resting' on the arm of the chair were held tense.

"I don't think I did wrong, mother." The child was looking- at her very straight, as if answering a challenge. "You see, I walked home—"

"Where was James?" The woman's tone was sharp, and her hand reached toward the bell; but the child's hand moved softly toward it.

"I'd like to tell you about it myself, please, mother. James never waits for the lessons. I don't think he was to blame."

The woman's eyes were veiled with sudden mist. She drew the child close. "Tell mother about it." Betty Harris looked down, stroking her mother's sleeve. A little smile of memory held her lips. "He was a beautiful man!" she said.

The mother waited, breathless.

"I was walking home, and I came to his shop—"

"To his shop!"

She nodded reassuringly. "His fruit-shop—and—oh, I forgot—" She reached into the little bag at her side, tugging at something. "He gave me these." She produced the round box and took off the lid, looking into it with pleased eyes. "Aren't they beautiful?"

The mother bent blindly to it. "Pomegranates," she said. Her lips were still a little white, but they smiled bravely with the child's pleasure.

"Pomegranates," said Betty, nodding. "That is what he called them. I should like to taste one—" She was looking at them a little wistfully.

"We will have them for luncheon," said the mother. She had touched the bell with quick decision.

"Marie"—she held out the box—"tell Nesmer to serve these with luncheon."

"Am I to have luncheon with you, mother-dear?" The child's eyes were on her mother's face.

"With me—yes." The reply was prompt—if a little tremulous.

The child sighed happily. "It is being a marvellous day," she said, quaintly.

The mother smiled. "Come and get ready for luncheon, and then you shall tell me about the wonderful man."

So it came about that Betty Harris, seated across the dark, shining table, told her mother, Mrs. Philip Harris, a happy adventure wherein she, Betty Harris, who had never before set foot unattended in the streets of Chicago, had wandered for an hour and more in careless freedom, and straying at last into the shop of a marvellous Greek—one Achilles Alexandrakis by name—had heard strange tales of Greece and Athens and the Parthenon—tales at the very mention of which her eyes danced and her voice rippled.

And her mother, listening across the table, trembled at the dangers the child touched upon and flitted past. It had been part of the careful rearing of Betty Harris that she should not guess that the constant attendance upon her was a bodyguard—such as might wait upon a princess. It had never occurred to Betty Harris that other little girls were not guarded from the moment they rose in the morning till they went to bed at night, and that even at night Miss Stone slept within sound of her breath. She had grown up happy and care-free, with no suspicion of the danger that threatened the child of a marked millionaire. She did not even know that her father was a very rich man—so protected had she been. She was only a little more simple than most children of twelve. And she met the world with straight, shining looks, speaking to rich and poor with a kind of open simplicity that won the heart.

Her mother, watching the clear eyes, had a sudden pang of what the morning might have been—the disillusionment and terror of this unprotected hour—that had been made instead a memory of delight—thanks to an unknown Greek named Achilles Alexandrakis, who had told her of the beauties of Greece and the Parthenon, and had given her fresh pomegranates to carry home in a round box. The mother's thoughts rested on the man with a quick sense of gratitude. He should be paid a thousand times over for his care of Betty Harris—and for pomegranates.

"They are like the Parthenon," said the child, holding one in her hand and turning it daintily to catch the light on its soft, pink surface. "They grew in Athens." She set her little teeth firmly in its round side.

Achilles, in his little shop, went in and out with the thought of the child in his heart. His thin fingers flitted lightly among the fruit. The sadness in his face had given way to a kind of waking joy and thoughtfulness. As he made change and did up bags and parcels of fruit, his thoughts kept hovering about her, and his lips moved in a soft smile, half-muttering again the words he had spoken to her—praises of Athens, city of light, sky of brightness, smiles, and running talk.... It was all with him, and his heart was free.... How the child's eyes had followed the words full of trust! He should see her again—and again.... Outside a halo rested on the smoky air... a little child, out of the rattle and din, had spoken to him. As he looked up, the big, sooty city became softly the presence of the child.... The sound of pennies clinking in hurried palms was no longer harsh upon his ears; they tinkled softly—little tunes that ran. Truly it had been a wonderful day for Achilles Alexandrakis.

He paused in his work and looked about the little shop. The same dull-shining rows of fruit, the same spicy smell and the glowing disks of yellow light. He drew a deep, full breath. It was all the same, but the world was changed. His heart that had ached so long with its pent-up message of Greece—the glory of her days, the beauty of temples and statues and tombs—was freed by the tale of his lips. The world was new-born for him. He lifted the empty fig-box, from which the child had set free the butterfly that had hung imprisoned in its gray cocoon through the long winter, and placed it carefully on the shelf. The lettering traced along its side—""—was faded and dim; but he saw again the child's eyes lifted to it—the lips half-parted, the eager question and swift demand—that he should tell her of Athens and the Parthenon—and the same love and the wonder that dwelt in his own heart for the city of his birth. It was a strange coincidence that the child should have come to him. Perhaps she was the one soul in the great hurrying city who could care. They did not understand—these hurrying, breathless men and women—how a heart could ache for something left behind across the seas, a city of quiet, the breath of the Past—sorrow and joy and sweet life.... No, they could not understand! But the child— He caught his breath a little.... Where was she—in the hurry and rush? He had not thought to ask.... And she was gone! Only for a moment the dark face clouded. Then the smile flooded again. He should find her.... It might be hard—but he would search.... Had he not come down the long way of the Piræus to the sea—blue in the sun. Across the great waters by ship and the long miles by train. He should find her.... They would talk again. He laughed quietly in the dusky shop.

Then his eye fell upon it—the music-roll that had slipped quietly to the floor when her eager hand had lifted itself to touch the butterfly, opening and closing his great wings in the fig-box. He crossed to it and lifted it almost reverently, brushing a breath of dust from its leather sides.... He bent closer to it, staring at a little silver plate that swung from the strap. He carried it to the window, rubbing it on the worn black sleeve, and bending closer, studying the deep-cut letters. Then he lifted his head. A quick sigh floated from him.... Miss Elizabeth Harris, 108 Lake Shore Drive. ... He knew the place quite well—facing the lake, where the water boomed against the great breakwater.... He would take it to her—to-morrow—the next day—next week, perhaps.... He wrapped it carefully away and laid it in a drawer to wait. She had asked him to come.

To Mrs. Philip Harris, in the big house looking out across the lake, the passing days brought grateful reassurance.... Betty was safe—Miss Stone was well again—and the man had not come.... She breathed more freely as she thought of it. The child had told her that she had asked him. But she had forgotten to give him her address; and it would not do to be mixed up with a person like that—free to come and go as he liked. He was no doubt a worthy man. But Betty was only a child, and too easily enamoured of people she liked. It was strange how deep an impression the man's words had made on her. Athens and Greece filled her waking moments. Statues and temples—photographs and books of travel loaded the school-room shelves. The house reeked with Greek learning. Poor Miss Stone found herself drifting into archæology; and an exhaustive study of Greek literature, Greek 'life, Greek art filled her days. The theory of Betty Harris's education had been elaborately worked out by specialists from earliest babyhood. Certain studies, rigidly prescribed, were to be followed whether she liked them or not—but outside these lines subjects were to be taken up when she showed an interest in them. There could be no question that the time for the study of Greek history and Greek civilization had come. Miss Stone labored early and late. Instruction from the university down the lake was pressed into service.... But out of it all the child seemed, by some kind of precious alchemy, to extract only the best, the vital heart of it.

The instructor in Greek marvelled a little. "She is only a child," he reported to the head of the department, "and the family are American of the newest type—you know, the Philip Harrises?"

The professor nodded. "I know—hide and hoof a generation back."

The instructor assented. "But the child is uncanny. She knows more about Greek than—"

"Than I do, I suppose." The professor smiled indulgently. "She wouldn't have to know much for that."

"It isn't so much what she knows. She has a kind of feeling for things. I took up a lot of those photographs to-day—some of the later period mixed in—and she picked them out as if she had been brought up in Athens."

The professor looked interested. "Modern educational methods?"

"As much as you like," said the instructor. "But it is something more. When I am with the child I am in Athens itself. Chicago makes me blink when I come out."

The professor laughed. The next day he made an appointment to go himself to see the child. He was a famous and an authority in his subject. He had spent years in Greece—with his nose, for the most part, held close to bits of parchment and stone.

When he came away, he was laughing softly. "I am going over for a year," he said, when he met the instructor that afternoon in the corridor.

"Did you see the little Harris girl?" asked the instructor.

The professor paused. "Yes, I saw her."

"How did she strike you?"

"She struck me dumb," said the professor. "I listened for the best part of an hour while she expounded things to me—asked me questions I couldn't answer, mostly." He chuckled a little. "I felt like a fool," he added, frankly, "and it felt good."

The instructor smiled. "I go through it twice a week. The trouble seems to be that she's alive, and that she thinks everything Greek is alive, too."

The professor nodded. "It's never occurred to her it's dead and done with these thousand years and more." He gave a little sigh. "Sometimes I've wondered myself whether it is—quite as dead as it looks to you and me," he added. "You know that grain—wheat or something—that Blackman took from the Egyptian mummy he brought over last spring—"

"Yes, he planted it—"

"Exactly. And all summer he was tending a little patch of something green up there in his back yard—as fresh as the eyes of Pharaoh's daughter ever looked on—"

The instructor opened his eyes a little. This was a wild flight for the head epigraphist.

"That's the way she made me feel—that little Harris girl," explained the professor—"as if my mummy might spring up and blossom any day if I didn't look out." The instructor laughed out. "So you're going over with it?"

"A year—two years, maybe," said the professor. "I want to watch it sprout."

In another week Achilles Alexandrakis had made ready to call on Betty Harris. There had been many details to attend to—a careful sponging and pressing of his best suit, the purchase of a new hat, and cuffs and collars of the finest linen—nothing was too good for the little lady who had flitted into the dusky shop and out, leaving behind her the little line of light.

Achilles brushed the new hat softly, turning it on his supple wrist with gentle pride. He took out the music-roll from the drawer and unrolled it, holding it in light fingers. He would carry it back to Betty Harris, and he would stay for a while and talk with her of his beloved Athens. Outside the sun gleamed. The breeze came fresh from the lake. As he made his way up the long drive of the Lake Shore, the water dimpled in the June sun, and little waves lapped the great stones, touching the ear with quiet sound. It was a clear, fresh day, with the hint of coming summer in the air. To the left, stone castles lifted themselves sombrely in the soft day. Grim or flaunting, they faced the lake—castles from Germany, castles from France and castles from Spain. Achilles eyed them with a little smile as his swift, thin feet traversed the long stones. There were turrets and towers and battlements frowning upon the peaceful, workaday lake. Minarets and flowers in stone, and heavy marble blocks that gripped the earth. Suddenly Achilles's foot slackened its swift pace. His eye dropped to the silver tag on the music-roll in his hand, and lifted itself again to a gleaming red-brown house at the left. It rose with a kind of lightness from the earth, standing poised upon the shore of the lake, like some alert, swift creature caught in flight, brought to bay by the rush of waters. Achilles looked at it with gentle eyes, a swift pleasure lighting his glance. It was a beautiful structure. Its red-brown front and pointed, lifting roof had hardly a Greek line or hint; but the spirit that built the Parthenon was in it—facing the rippling lake. He moved softly across the smooth roadway and leaned against the parapet of stone that guarded the water, studying the line and color of the house that faced him.

The man who planned it had loved it, and as it rose there in the light it was perfect in every detail as it had been conceived—with one little exception. On either side the doorway crouched massive gray-pink lions wrought in stone, the heavy outspread paws and firm-set haunches resting at royal ease. In the original plan these lions had not appeared. But in their place had been two steers—wide-flanked and short-horned, with lifted heads and nostrils snuffing free—something crude, brusque, perhaps, but full of power and quick onslaught. The house that rose behind them had been born of the same thought. Its pointed gable and its facades, its lifted front, had the same look of challenge; the light, firm-planted hoofs, the springing head, were all there—in the soft, red stone running to brown in the flanks.

The stock-yard owner and his wife had liked the design—with no suspicion of the symbol undergirding it. The man had liked it all—steers and red-brown stone and all—but the wife had objected. She had travelled far, and she had seen, on a certain building in Rome, two lions guarding a ducal entrance....

Now that the house was finished, the architect seldom passed that way. But when he did he swore at the lions, softly, as he whirred by. He had done a mighty thing—conceived in steel and stone a house that fitted the swift life out of which it came, the wind-swept place in which it stood, and all the stirring, troublous times about it. There it rose in its spirit of lightness, head uplifted and nostrils sniffing the breeze—and in front of it squatted two stone lions from the palmy days of Rome. He gritted his teeth, and drove his machine hard when he passed that way.

But to Achilles, standing with bared head, the breeze from the lake touching his forehead, the lions were of no account. He let them go. The spirit of the whole possessed him. It was as if a hand had touched him lightly on the shoulder, in a crowd, staying him. A quick breath escaped his lips as he replaced his hat and crossed to the red-brown steps. He mounted them without a glance at the pink monsters on either hand. A light had come into his face. The child filled it.

The stiff butler eyed him severely, and the great door seemed ready to close of itself. Only something in the poise of Achilles's head, a look in his eyes, held the hinge waiting a grudging minute while he spoke.

He lifted his head a little; the look in his eyes deepened. "I am called—Miss Elizabeth Harris—and her mother—to see," he said, simply.

The door paused a little and swung back an inch. He might be a great savant ... some scholar of parts—an artist. They came for the child—to examine her—to play for her—to talk with her.... Then there was the music-roll.... It took the blundering grammar and the music-roll to keep the door open—and then it opened wide and Achilles entered, following the butler's stateliness up the high, dark hall. Rich hangings were about them, and massive pictures, bronzes and statues, and curious carvings. Inside the house the taste of the mistress had prevailed.

At the door of a great, high-ceiled room the butler paused, holding back the soft drapery with austere hand. "What name—for madame?" he said.

The clear eyes of Achilles met his. "My name is Achilles Alexandrakis," he said, quietly.

The eyes of the butler fell. He was struggling with this unexpected morsel in the recesses of his being. Plain Mr. Alexander would have had small effect upon him; but Achilles Alexandrakis—! He mounted the long staircase, holding the syllables in his set teeth.

"Alexandrakis?" His mistress turned a little puzzled frown upon him. "What is he like, Conner?"

The man considered, a safe moment. "He's a furriner," he said, addressing the wall before him with impassive jaw.

A little light crossed her face—not a look of pleasure. "Ask Miss Stone to come to me—at once," she said.

The man bowed himself out and departed on silken foot.

Miss Stone, gentle and fluttering and fine-grained, appeared a moment later in the doorway.

"He has come," said the woman, without looking up.

"He—?" Miss Stone's lifted eyebrows sought to place him—

"The Greek—I told you—"

"Oh—The Greek—!" It was slow and hesitant. It spoke volumes for Miss Stone's state of mind. Hours of Greek history were in it, and long rows of tombs and temples—the Pantheon of gods and goddesses, with a few outlying scores of heroes and understudies. "The—Greek," she repeated, softly.

"The Greek," said the woman, with decision. "He has asked for Betty and for me. I cannot see him, of course."

"You have the club," said Miss Stone, in soft assent.

"I have the club—in ten minutes." Her brow wrinkled. You will kindly see him—"

"And Betty—?" said Miss Stone, waiting.

"The child must see him. Yes, of course. She would be heart-broken— You drive at three," she added, without emphasis.

"We drive at three," repeated Miss Stone.

She moved quietly away, her gray gown a bit of shimmering in the gorgeous rooms. She had been chosen for the very qualities that made her seem so curiously out of place—for her gentleness and unassuming dignity, and a few ancestors. The country had been searched for a lady—so much the lady that she had never given the matter a thought. Miss Stone was the result. If Betty had charm and simplicity and instinctive courtesy toward those whom she met, it was only what she saw every day in the little gray woman who directed her studies, her play, her whole life.

The two were inseparable, light and shadow, morning and night. Betty's mother in the house was the grand lady—beautiful to look upon—the piece of bronze, or picture, that went with the house; but Miss Stone was Betty's own—the little gray voice, a bit of heart-love, and something common and precious.

They came down the long rooms together, the child's hand resting lightly in hers, and her steps dancing a little in happy play. She had not heard the man's name. He was only a wise man whom she was to meet for a few minutes, before she and Miss Stone went for their drive. The day was full of light outside—even in the heavily draped rooms you could feel its presence. She was eager to be off, out in the sun and air of the great sea of freshness, and the light, soft wind on her face.

Then she saw the slim, dark man who had risen to meet her, and a swift light crossed her face.... She was coming down the room now, both hands outstretched, fluttering a little in the quick surprise and joy. Then the hands stayed themselves, and she advanced demurely to meet him; but the hand that lifted itself to his seemed to sing like a child's hand—in spite of the princess.

"I am glad you have come," she said. "This is Miss Stone." She seated herself beside him, her eyes on his face, her little feet crossed at the ankle. "Have you any new fruit to-day?" she asked, politely. He smiled a little, and drew a soft, flat, white bit of tissue from his pocket, undoing it fold on fold—till in the centre lay a gray-green leaf. The child bent above it with pleased glance. Her eyes travelled to his face.

He nodded quietly. "I thought of you. It is the Eastern citron. See—" He lifted the leaf and held it suspended. "It hangs like this—and the fruit is blue—gray-blue like—" His eye travelled about the elaborate room. He shook his head slowly. Then his glance fell on the gray gown of Miss Stone as it fell along the rug at her feet, and he bowed with gracious appeal for permission. "Like the dress of madame," he said—"but warmer, like the sun—and blue."

A low color crept up into the soft line of Miss Stone's cheek and rested there. She had sat watching the two with slightly puzzled eyes. She was a lady—kindly and gracious to the world—but she could not have thought of anything to say to this fruit-peddler who had seemed, for days and weeks, to be tumbling all Greek civilization about her head.... The child was chatting with him as if she had known him always.... They had turned to each other again, and were absorbed in the silken leaf—the man talking in soft, broken words, the child piecing out the half-finished phrase with quick nod and gesture, her little voice running in and out along the words like ripples of light on some dark surface.

The face of Achilles had grown strangely radiant. Miss Stone, as she looked at it again, was almost startled at the change. The sombre look had vanished. Quick lights ran in it, and little thoughts that met the child's and laughed. "They are two children together," thought Miss Stone, as she watched them. "I have never seen the child so happy. She must see him again."... She sat with her hands folded in her gray lap, a little apart, watching the pretty scene and happy in it, but outside it all, untouched and gray and still.

Outside the door the horses pranced, champing a little at the bit, and turning their shining, arching necks in the sun. Other carriages drove up and drove away. Rich toilets alighted and mounted the red-brown steps—hats that rose, tier on tier, riotous parterres of flowers and feathers and fruit, close little bonnets that proclaimed their elegance by velvet knot or subtle curve of brim and crown. Colors flashed, ribbon-ends fluttered, delicately shod feet scorned the pavement. It was the Halcyon Club of the North Side, assembling to listen to Professor Addison Trent, the great epigraphist, who was to discourse to them on the inscriptions of Cnossus, the buried town of Crete. The feathers and flowers and boas were only surface deep. Beneath them beat an intense desire to know about epigraphy—all about it. The laughing faces and daintily shod feet were set firmly in the way of culture. They swept through the wide doors, up the long, carved staircase—from the Caracci Palace in Florence—into the wide library, with its arched ceiling and high-shelved books and glimpses of busts and pedestals. They fluttered in soft gloom, and sank into rows of adjustable chairs and faced sternly a little platform at the end of the room. The air of culture descended gratefully about them; they buzzed a little in its dim warmth and settled back to await the arrival of the great epigraphist.

The great epigraphist was, at this moment, three hundred and sixty-three and one-half miles—to be precise—out from New York. He was sitting in a steamer-chair, his feet stretched comfortably before him, a steamer-rug wrapped about his ample form, a gray cap pulled over his eyes—dozing in the sun. Suddenly he sat erect. The rug fell from his person, the visor shot up from his eyes. He turned them blankly toward the shoreless West. This was the moment at which he had instructed his subconscious self to remind him of an engagement to lecture on Cretan inscriptions at the home of Mrs. Philip Harris on the Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois. He looked again at the shoreless West and tried to grasp it. It may have been his subconscious self that reminded him—it may have been the telepathic waves that travelled toward him out of the half-gloom of the library. They were fifty strong, and they travelled with great intensity—"Had any one seen him—?" "Where was he?" "What was wrong?" "Late!" "Very late!" "Such a punctual man!" The waves fluttered and spread and grew. The president of the club looked at the hostess. The hostess looked at the president. They consulted and drew apart. The president rose to speak, clearing her throat for a pained look. Then she waited.... The hostess was approaching again, a fine resolution in her face. They conferred, looking doubtfully at the door. The president nodded courageously and seated herself again on the platform, while Mrs. Philip Harris passed slowly from the room, the eyes of the assembled company following her with a little look of curiosity and dawning hope.

In the doorway below she paused a moment, a little startled at the scene. The bowed heads, the bit of folded tissue, the laughing, eager tones, the look in Miss Stone's face held her.... She swept aside the drapery and entered—the stately lady of the house.

The bowed heads were lifted. The child sprang to her feet. "Mother-dear! It is my friend! He has come!" The words sang.

Mrs. Philip Harris held out a gracious hand. She had not intended to offer her hand. She had intended to be distant and kind. But when the man looked up she somehow forgot. She held out the hand with a quick smile.

The Greek was on his feet, bending above it. "It is an honor, madame—that you come."

"I have come to ask a favor," she replied, slowly, her eyes travelling over the well-brushed clothes, the clean linen, the slender feet of the man.... Favor was not what she had meant to say—privilege was nearer it.... But there was something about him.... Her voice grew suave to match the words.

"My daughter has told me of you—" Her hand rested lightly on the child's curls—a safe, unrumpled touch. "Her visit to you has enchanted her. She speaks of it every day, of the Parthenon and what you told her."

The eyes of the man and the child met gravely.

"I wondered whether you would be willing to tell some friends of mine—here—now—"

He had turned to her—a swift look.

She replied with a smile. "Nothing formal—just simple things, such as you told the child. We should be very grateful to you," she added, as if she were a little surprised at herself.

He looked at her with clear eyes. "I speak—yes—I like always—to speak of my country. I thank you."

The child, standing by with eager feet, moved lightly. Her hands danced in softest pats. "You will tell them about it—just as you told me—and they will love it!"

"I tell them—yes."

"Come, Miss Stone." The child held out her hand with a little gesture of pride and loving. "We must go now. Good-by, Mr. Achilles. You will come again, please."

"I come," said Achilles, simply. He watched the quaint figure pass down the long rooms beside the shimmering gray dress, through an arched doorway at the end, and out of sight. Then he turned to his hostess with the quick smile of his race. "She is beautiful, madame," he said, slowly. "She is a child!"

The mother assented, absently. She was not thinking of the child, but of the fifty members of the Halcyon Club in the library. "Will you come?" she said. "My friends are waiting."

He spread his hands in quick assent. "I come—as you like. I give pleasure—to come."

She smiled a little. "Yes, you give pleasure." She was somehow at ease about the man. He was poor—illiterate, perhaps, but not uncouth. She glanced at him with a little look of approval as they went up the staircase. It came to her suddenly that he harmonized with it, and with all the beautiful things about them. The figure of Professor Trent flashed upon her—short and fat and puffing, and yearning toward the top of the stair. But this man. There was the grand air about him—and yet so simple....

It was almost with a sense of eclat that she ushered him into the library. The air stirred subtly, with a little hush. The president was on her feet, introducing Mr. Achilles Alexandrakis, who, in the unavoidable absence of Professor Trent, had kindly consented to speak to them on the traditions and customs of modern Greek life.

Achilles's eyes fell gently on the lifted faces. "I like to tell you about my home," he said, simply. "I tell you all I can."

The look of strain in the faces relaxed. It was going to be an easy lecture—one that you could know something about. They settled to soft attention and approval.

Achilles waited a minute—looking at them with deep eyes. And suddenly they saw that the eyes were not looking at them, but at something far away—something beautiful and loved.

It is safe to say that the members of the Halcyon Club had never listened to anything quite like the account that Achilles Alexandrakis gave them that day, in the gloomy room of the red-fronted house overlooking the lake, of the land of his birth. They scarcely listened to the actual words at first, but they listened to him all lighted up from far away. There was something about him as he spoke—a sweeping rhythm that flew as a bird, reaching over great spaces, and a simple joy that lilted a little and sang.

He drew for them the Parthenon—the glory of Athens—in column and statue and mighty temple and crumbling tomb.... A sense of beauty and wonder and still, clear light passed before them.

Then he paused... his voice laughed a little, and he spoke of his people.... Nobody could have quite told what he said to them about his people. But flutes sang.... The sound of feet was on the grass—touching it in tune—swift-flitting feet that paused and held a rhythmic measure while it swung. Quick-beating feet across the green. Shadowy forms. The sway of gowns, light-falling, and the call of voices low and sweet.... Greek youth and maid in swiftest play. They flung the branches wide and trembled in the voiceless light that played upon the grass. The foot of Achilles half-beat the time.... The tones filled themselves and lifted, slowly, surely. The voice quickened—it ran with faster notes, as one who tells some eager tale.... Then it swung in cradling-song the twilight of Athens—and the little birds sang low, twittering underneath the leaves—in softest garb—at last—rose leaves falling—the dusky bats around her roof-tops, and the high-soaring sky that arches all—mysterious and deep.... Then the voice sank low, and rang and held the note—stern, splendid—Athens of might.... City of power! Glory, in clanging word, and in the lift of eye.... Athens on her hills, like great Jove enthroned—the shout, the triumph, the clash of steel, and the feet of Alaric in the streets.... The voice of the Greek grew hoarse now, tiny cords swelled on his forehead.... Athens, city of war.... Desolation, fire, and trampling—! His eye was drawn in light.... Vandal hand and iron foot!...

Who shall say how much of it he told—how much of it he spoke, and how much was only hinted or called up—in his voice and his gesture and his eye.... They had not known that Athens was like this! They spoke in lowered voices, moving apart a little, and making place for the silver trays that began to pass among them. They glanced now and then at the dark man nibbling his biscuit absently and looking with unfathomable eyes into a teacup.

A large woman approached him, her ample bust covered with little beads that rose and fell and twinkled as she talked. "I liked your talk, Mr. Alexis, and I am going over just as soon as my husband can get away from his business." She looked at him with approval, waiting for his.

He bowed with deep, grave gesture. "My country is honored, madame."

Other listeners were crowding upon them now, commending the fire-tipped words, felicitating the man with pretty gesture and soft speech, patronizing him for the Parthenon and his country and her art.... The mistress of the house, moving in and out among them, watched the play with a little look of annoyance.... He would be spoiled—a man of that class.... She glanced down at the slip of paper in her hand.... It bore the name, "Achilles Alexandrakis," and below it a generous sum to his order. She made her way toward him, and waited while he disengaged himself from the little throng about him and came to her, a look of pleasure and service in his face.

"You speak to me, madame?"

"I wanted to give you this." She slipped the check into the thin fingers. "You can look at it later—"

But already the fingers had raised it with a little look of pleased surprise.... Then the face darkened, and he laid the paper on the polished table between them. There was a quick movement of the slim fingers that pushed it toward her.

"I cannot take it, madame—to speak of my country.... I speak for the child—and for you." He bowed low. "I give pleasure to do it."

The next moment he had saluted her with gentle grace and was gone from the room—from the house—between the stone lions and down the Lake Shore Drive, his free legs swinging in long strides, his head held high to the wind on the opal lake.

A carriage passed him, and he looked up. Two figures, erect in the sun, the breath of a child's smile, a bit of shimmer and gray, the flash and beat of quick hoofs—and they were gone. But the heart of Achilles sang in his breast, and the day about him was full of light.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Achilles Calls on Betty Harris


text: Talk:Achilles Calls on Betty Harris

title: Talk:Achilles Calls on Betty Harris


text:
The Day the Clock Was Set Ahead

RS. CYRUS TRUEFOOT sat by the window shelling peas. She was a tall, fair woman with faded blue eyes and a little droop to the corners of her mouth that made her face, as it bent above the peas in her lap, seem meek and subdued. But when the eyes raised themselves swiftly to the clock it was evident that the face was critical as well as meek. A faint anxious line came between her eyes as she looked at the clock and her fingers hurried.

The clock pointed to twenty minutes to eleven.

A step sounded on the stone door-step outside. She started. A soft dull color came flooding into her sagging face. Her eyes, fixed on the peas, did not look up. Her fingers moved with steady swiftness, flashing at the peas and back.

Cyrus Truefoot, in the doorway, did not glance at her. He crossed to a desk on the other side of the room and sat down, reaching for a pen. For a few minutes there was only the sound of his heavy-moving pen and the soft rustle of pea-pods. Then he folded the letter and stamped it.

“Where is Asa?” he asked over his shoulder.

She gave a little jump that became a half startled, placating smile as she looked up.

“Why, I don't know—just where he is,” she said. It seemed to her that the clock was ticking very loud.

“I want he should drive over to the station and meet Ellen when she comes,” said the man. He got up, taking the letter from the desk.

His wife's eyes followed him across the room. He was tall and strongly built and he carried himself with an air of authority.

“Aren't you going to use the horses for the oats?” she asked.

“No.” His hand, on the catch of the screen-door, paused. “You tell Asa—”

He lifted his eyes to the clock and stopped—his hand dropped from the door.

“Who—!” He pulled his watch from its fob pocket and looked at it sharply, and again at the clock.

“Who's been meddling with that clock!” he said. She glanced at it meekly—as if she saw the clock for the first time. She hesitated a minute.

GUESS maybe Asa turned it ahead.” She gathered up the pea-pods in her apron as if for flight. But a figure moving across the open window beside her caught her eye and she sank back in her chair, glancing almost breathless, it seemed, at the screen-door.

The face outside looking in and smiling was a little blur of haze to her. Something clouded her gaze.

The boy flung open the door and came in. He looked quickly at his father.

“Say, Father—!” He stopped.

The man, with the open-faced watch in his hand, motioned to the clock.

It pointed to five minutes to eleven.

“Did you—?” He moved the watch sternly. The hand holding it trembled a little.

The boy's glance flashed to the clock and then to his father's set face. But it did not lose its smiling, unflinching confidence.

“I turned it ahead—yes, sir—standard time. I thought maybe you'd forgotten.” He spoke easily, almost defiantly. But the brightness in his face flushed clearly. He did not look at his mother.

Her fingers were fussing at the empty pods, picking them up and crushing the juicy shells with tense grip. Her eyes were looking down. The man glanced at her sharply. He looked back to the boy. There was something almost contemptuous in his gaze.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to touch things that don't belong to you!” He spoke as if to a child. But the eyes that flashed back a look of watchfulness were on a level with his own.

“I didn't suppose you wanted to be an hour behind everyone else,” said the boy. “I thought you'd just—forgot.” But he faltered a little at the last word. His father's authoritative eye was on him, and a year in college had not made him forget that his father's word was law.

The woman by the window stirred slightly.

“I don't think he meant any harm, Cyrus—” He silenced her with a gesture. His glance was on the boy.

“If I choose to keep the right time, that's my affair. Do you understand!” The boy bit his lip. Then the habit of years asserted itself.

“Yes, Father.”

The man nodded. “Just because a few folks are so lazy that before they can get out of bed they have to fool themselves with the clock—that's no reason why I should be always chopping and changing, is it!” Something in the boy's quiet gaze seemed to nettle him—something almost like a smile that lurked in it as if his father seemed to him a little absurd. The man's face flushed dully. He glanced at the clock—almost with a look of veneration it seemed.

“That clock was running before you or me, or anybody that's living now, was born!” he said solemnly. “And years before that.... It is a tradition in our family that it shall never be allowed to run down.” The boy stirred, as if something restive awoke in him.

“Your great grandfather, Asa Truefoot, the one you are named after, bought it and wound it up and set it going for the first time. And it has never stopped since!” The old man stood gazing at the brass face.

The boy's look stole to the clock almost sullenly. Something of the veneration in his father's face seemed to pass to his—but not quite. He straightened himself.

“You can turn it back any time you want to,” he said.

“You can not turn back a clock like that!” replied his father.

The woman gathered up her apron of pea-pods and stole from the room. As if with her going the two faced each other a little more firmly.

“It's right with the rest of the world anyway,” muttered the boy.

“Don't answer back!” said his father sharply. “When you are older you will have more sense!”

The boy shrugged his shoulders—almost imperceptibly. He did not mean to shrug them. He did not want to irritate his father. Especially this morning he wanted not to irritate him. He had come in, glowing with dreams, to ask something of him. And now the world seemed tumbling and everything he wanted in it was tumbling about his ears.

His father glanced at the clock. “I want you to drive over to the twelve o'clock train to meet your sister when she comes.” He spoke quietly as if nothing untoward had passed between them. But his face was white, and it looked a little tired the boy thought as he glanced at it quickly. Perhaps after all he might speak now—and have it over with....

“I wanted to ask you something, Father—?”

“Well?” A certain benignity returned to the tone.

“I know you don't want me to enlist,” he hurried on.

“Not unless you are drafted,” corrected his father.

“And they won't draft me till I'm eighteen—so of course that doesn't mean anything!” He spoke a little impatiently as if the subterfuge irritated him. Then his voice became conciliating again.

“But I want to do something else—I'd like to leave college if you don't mind, sir, and begin my life work now.” He spoke with a kind of wistful firmness. But he stopped, taking breath. His father's face smiled a little coldly.

“What do you propose to do?” he asked.

The boy's glance sought the window. Great clouds were sailing by outside in the June sky. The dazzling light seemed to touch his spirit. He drew himself up.

“I want to learn to fly,” he said simply.

His father was silent. The clock ticked very loud.

“I don't mean just for the war,” went on the youth eagerly. He hurried a little. “I mean—forever! After the war is over. There will be flying things to do—all over the world. I want to be an airman, Father!” His voice rose with a lilt. He seemed to be rapt in a vision....

The clock ticked another round,

Then his father's voice broke it.

“You'd better hurry or you'll be late for the train,” he said casually.

The boy sailed slowly down from the clouds—and blinked.

“May I, sir?”

“Go to the train? Yes!” The man laughed grimly.

“May I learn to fly?” The boy's hands were clenched at

is sides,

OU certainly may not!” said his father. He paused a moment as if wrestling with something. “When your sister left home I kept still and let her go and said nothing—”

“She was twenty-one!” broke in the boy.

“Your mother has missed her terrible,” said his father rebukingly.

“Mother's a strong, hearty woman!”

“She's strong maybe. I didn't say she'd give out, did I? But she misses Ellen sorely. I don't know where you both got such notions! Not from me, I hope! I want you to understand once for all—You will stay in college until you graduate—if you are not drafted. Then I expect you to come back here and run the farm as I have done. There's more than one way to serve your country. You'll help the country to eat.... Everyone of us Truefoots has left the farm a little better than he found it. I shall leave you a better farm than my father left me.” He said it with proud consciousness of merit.

“Grandfather was something besides a farmer,” muttered the boy.

“He was Judge of the Superior Court, yes. But he did not leave the farm.”

“And his father was Governor,” persisted Asa.

HE man's face flushed as if the boy were covertly accusing him of failure. “They took what came to them,” he said sternly. “The honor sought them out. They didn't go highfalutin' around, flying off to the ends ef the earth.”

A little gleam came to the boy's face and he laughed out suddenly.

“I'll bet you if great-grandfather Truefoot was alive to-day he'd be flying over the house this minute!” He said triumphantly. He laughed again.

“Be quiet!” said his father sternly. “Don't you know better than to speak like that of—of—of the dead!” he finished lamely. He was annoyed that he could not find a better word to end with. He walked with slow dignity to the clock and opened the long narrow door where the pendulum swung. It was as if he opened a shrine. As he opened it the clock began to strike. He reached out a hand to the pendulum and touched it reverently. It quivered through its slender length and remained motionless. The striking ceased. He closed the door and faced his son, who was watching with curious, fascinated gaze.

“In an hour I shall start it again and set it right,” he said. “Now hurry or you'll be late for the train!”

Cyrus Truefoot passed through the kitchen. He still held the letter in his hand. “You tell Asa I want he should mail that when he goes by the office.” He laid it on the table.

“Don't you need the horses for the oats?” she asked timidly. “Ellen can come in the stage all right.”

“She's not going to come in the stage!” retorted 'the man. “I'm not going to have her traveling up here in all that dust! We've always met our folks at the depot. I reckon we can yet for awhile. Where are my gloves?”

He stepped to the door. Baxter, the hired-man was crossing the yard.

“You catch the steers and yoke 'em up,” called out Cyrus,

Through the window Susan watched them drive away slowly. Cyrus had taken the whip and walked beside the steers. Baxter, riding on the end of the hay-rick, was swinging his feet as the cart bounced and jolted along.

Susan Truefoot sighed a little, watching the tall determined figure and the slow-moving team. She wished Cyrus would get an extra pair of horses or a tractor-machine. No one else in Camden County used oxen now.

The little line between her eyes deepened as she brought out the molding-board.... Cyrus was a kind man if you did what he wanted. Only it was hard sometimes to make the children understand that Cyrus was always right.

She lifted the towel from the pan of bread by the stove and touched it lightly with her finger. It gave back a resilient lightness, and she lifted the pan and turned the puffy, yeasty mass onto the molding-board that she had dusted with its light drift of flour. The spreading dough ran quickly to the edge of the flour and she caught it up and kneaded it in with a quick turn of her wrist. Her thoughtful eye followed the yeasty mass, and one hand drifted flour on the board while the other whirled and turned the dough and worked the resisting bubbles to the surface. One large one spread and swelled in a filmy blob. Her fingers pressed it gently. It gave with a little pop and was gone. Susan's fingers molded the place to smoothness.... The children were a little like that, she thought—full of chaos and yeasty bubbling—and Cyrus was hard! She broke the mass apart, pulling it into four shapeless lumps—one a little smaller than the rest, to make into dumplings for the pot-pie. Ellen was fond of her dumplings. And she would be here in time for dinner.... There had been no fuss when Ellen rebelled—the day she was twenty-one. She had only packed her bag and walked quietly down the path to the gate.... She had told Susan that morning while they washed the dishes—

“I am going to be a nurse, Mother. While the war lasts I must be in it. I can not stay here washing dishes—as if men were not dying over there!”... Yes, Susan understood. Her heart had leaped as it followed the girl down the path to the gate. And it beat painfully in little thuds while she watched Cyrus read the note Ellen had left on his desk. For a few minutes he had sat silent, drumming his fingers on the desk and looking out of the window. Then he got up brusquely.

“Dinner ready?” he asked.

That was all the reference Cyrus ever made to his daughter's assertion of her will. And when she came home at Christmas he sent the sleigh to meet her. But Susan knew he had never forgiven Ellen. And she could easily surmise that when his will came to be read there would be no portion in it for Ellen.

She molded the last loaf and placed it in its tin and looked down at the three loaves, each molded to elastic firmness and half-filling the pan. In an hour they would be over the top!

The boy and girl drove slowly behind the colts along the pine-strewn road. She had taken off her hat, and the shadows touched her face lightly. The face was quiet. But the eyes laughed a little, and the mouth and the chin beneath it had a firmly-rounded line. It was Susan's face, but younger and facing toward life—instead of toward Cyrus.

The boy flung his arm affectionately across the back of the seat. “My! But it's good to get you home!” he said.

“What is the matter?” She faced him.

“Oh, nothing.” His foot kicked a little at the whip-socket. “Only I wanted to fly.” She stared,

“Fly—?”

“Airplane!” He lifted a sweeping hand.

Her puzzled look broke. Then she laughed. The little tears gathered in her eyes and gleamed at him in a shining smile.

“Poor Dad!” she said. He nodded glumly.

“He wants me to raise oats. But I'm going to fly some day, you know.”

All about them the pine-trees gave out the fresh, pungent smell of warmth. And somewhere in the green tops a bird sang a little, as if its morning song haunted it. The girl lifted her face to it.

“Oh, it is so good to be here!” she said softly, “away from the bandages and the ether-cones!”

“But you're going back!” said the boy half-enviously.

“Of course! I couldn't keep away—even if I wanted to!”

They faced each other. And their faces in the pine-shadows had the same look—of waiting intentness.... So a strung bow seems to quiver in the archer's hand.

The boy put out a hand, half-groping. It clenched itself.

“I'll have to wait, I suppose. But not a day after I'm twenty-one!”

“Of course not!” They understood each other. Neither of them could yield to Cyrus driving his steers toward the oat-field.

The boy's grip on the reins tightened. The colts broke into a trot and the figure of a young man, walking with long, free stride, came in sight. A shadow crossed the boy's face.

“Danforth!” he exclaimed softly.

“Who is Danforth?” she asked curiously, watching the man approach.

“Aviator at camp. The flying-field is just over there.” He pointed with his whip.

The colts slackened their pace and the man stopped as they came near him. Asa drew rein and bent forward.

“I can't come over this morning! Oh—my sister, Mr. Danforth!” The man lifted his hat with a quiet glance at the girl, He laid a hand on the wheel.

“What's up?” he asked.

“I've got to give up flying!” returned the boy.

“For a year or two,” put in the sister quickly. The man's eyes turned to her.

“Flying is not a thing to put off too long!” he said with a grave half-smile.

“His father doesn't want him to fly. He wants him to raise oats,” said the girl, meeting his gaze.

“Ah!” His eyes seemed to hold hers. The three faces regarded each other, and in each was a vision of Cyrus Truefoot and his oat-field.

The man shrugged his shoulders. “I'm sorry!” he said. “You are a born airman.” He took his hand from the wheel. The girl's eyes regarded him a moment gravely. She turned to the boy with a gesture and reached for the reins.

“Never mind Father this time,” she said peremptorily. “Go!” Something of her father trembled in her voice and gesture. “If you have a chance to learn to fly, take it. You never know when you may need to use it!”

“All right!” He jumped to the ground. “I'll do as much for you some day, Sister!”

“You'll do it for all of us!” She had a quick smile. “An airman doesn't just belong to himself—or his family, does he?”

The man by the wheel regarded her intently.

“I wonder how many women know that!” Her face flushed.

“Everybody does,” she said quietly. “Only we don't like to let you fly too far!” Her eyes seemed to see the vision of the flying squadrons.

She nodded to them half-shyly and gathered the reins again.

“Go and fly!” she said with a quiet laugh. “I'll do my best with Father.”

The boy was looking at the sky. He scanned the billowing clouds to the south. “Thunder-heads!” He looked doubtfully at the colts. The air was full of a kind of tingling force and there was something ominous in the high-marching clouds. He looked again at the colts. The girl shook the reins on their backs with a touch of pride.

“I can manage them,” she said. “It will seem like old times!”

In the oat-field Cyrus Truefoot guided the steers in and out among the stacked bundles of oats. Now and then he swung his long whip over the thin flanks with a leisurely, authoritative “Haw!” and “Gee!”

Cyrus enjoyed saying gee and haw. Something in his blood responded to the easy gait of the slow-moving beasts.

He would have liked Asa's help this morning with the oats, but Ellen must be met. No matter how she had behaved he must not fail in his duty as a father.... aaa A woman can not go far without money. And Cyrus had seen to it that Ellen would not have too much money for her own good if he were to die.

Cyrus had no intention of dying. He was only conscious of a certain grim pleasure in the fact that because of Ellen's spiritual good the Truefoot acres would remain intact when he came to die. But dying was a long way off. He was a strong man still—in the prime of life.

He looked up at the June sky with the great billows of white, and a cloud shadowed his face. There was a strange shape flying between him and the sun. He gazed with hostile look at the thing in the sky. His whip half uplifted itself.

If he had not put his foot down, that strange thing up there might be Asa—flying against the clouds.

He stood in his place staring up at the plane.... It soared like a great bird, and bent its wings and came nearer earth and seemed to hover above his head.

Cyrus snorted a little. He touched the steers with the whip. They plunged forward in surprise. The hired-man jounced and bounded and peered over the edge of the hay-rick at Cyrus' back.

He was striding along, his angry glance on the sky, and the whip in his hand seemed to shake a little. One could fancy Cyrus was shaking it at the clouds. The steers subsided to a sliding trot. The hay-rick jolted and bounced.

Cyrus looked again at the flying portent in the sky. He made up his mind to see his lawyer at once. He would not put it off even for a day. Asa had yielded this time. But suppose he had been older—suppose he had been twenty-one, and wanted to fly!

Asa might be up there above the clouds if he were twenty-one!

He cast another glance at the sky. There were thunder-heads to the south. It looked like rain, and there was a queer, oppressive feeling in the air—as if tingling forces were striving to break through.

He would get in the oats and then he would see Crampton. If the boy was so anxious to get away from the land his fathers had made, let him get away from the land! The old man smiled grimly.... Let him go up and stay up! The Truefoot money could build an orphan asylum!

Cyrus worked more swiftly. He lifted the stacked bundles, one after the other, with long swinging thrusts of the great pitchfork that sent them high on the rick, where Carter stowed away and packed down with heavy-moving foot.

Above, the clouds gathered in billowing masses.

Cyrus cast a swift glance at the shifting clouds. Above them a tiny dot sailed and soared—a dot that might have been Asa! He glared at the sailing dot. What was the matter with the world and with his children?

He asked it angrily. But there was no answer from the clouds—only the queer tingling feeling about him of mighty forces that strove to break through.

Carter, stowing away on the rick, caught the bundles as they swung up to him. And as he trod them down he glanced at the thunder-heads to the south. And from the clouds he glanced to the backs of the steers. The backs were quiet, but the steers stood with noses pressed close together. And when a far-off rumble and flash gleamed at the oat-field they trembled a little and pawed, sniffing the air. Carter's eye from the high rick surveyed them dubiously.

“Think we better risk it?” he called down.

Cyrus threw another bundle to him. He touched the backs with the long lash of the whip.

“Gee!” he said authoritatively.

The steers moved forward slowly and the unwieldy rick lurched behind. Carter peered over uncertainly. He knew Cyrus would not stop till the last bundle was stowed away. He wished he were on the ground and Cyrus on the load. Cyrus lifted another bundle at him and he caught it and threw it behind and trampled it down, one eye on the clouds.... The thunder was coming nearer now. Playful gleams of lightning crossed and recrossed the sky, and the steers lifted nose and snuffed and moved restively.

Cyrus paused, and slapped a sharp hand on the quivering flanks.

“Haw-there! Ged-ap!” he called out.

They moved forward again. Then the heads in the heavy yoke swung around and they wheeled sharply to the right. The rick swayed. Cyrus sprang to their heads, the butt of the whip upraised.

There was a rending crash and flash from the sky—and hoofs plunging in wild terror. The whip descended—once—twice—and disappeared beneath the hoofs. The unwieldy rick swayed on. It moved across the sky like some great ship that founders riding high before it goes down. Carter's face, a round disk of terror, peered over the edge of the rick and glared backward at a silent form that lay stretched on the ground behind. The face was upturned to the sky.

The storm broke and drenched the face.

Along the road a light carriage rolled swiftly. With the reins well in hand, the girl sat forward, watching the riotous sky. Her face glowed as the rain drenched upon it. She spoke soothingly to the colts, guiding them with sure hand.

She was at home in the storm, Generations of Truefoots glowed in her veins and refreshed themselves in the fluid, electric force that played and flashed in the air. She was a creature of the elements without care and without fear, racing through the storm.

The oat-field sped by and she gave a half-glance toward it as she guided the colts. Almost home now!

Then against the sky the great lurching hay-rick loomed up and plunged on, swinging behind maddened steers.

The girl gave a swift glance and a pull on the reins that brought the colts upstanding. She leaped to the ground, tying the colts to the fence, quieting them with soothing words while her hands drew a quick knot and tested it.... Then she was flying across the stubbly field to the form on the ground.

High above her, hovered a dot that swung and turned in hesitating circles and came nearer the ground. She did not turn or look up to the great bird coming nearer with each sweep of wide, outstanding wings. Her eyes were fixed on the ground ahead where the silent figure lay with its face to the sky.

She bent above him and scanned the face, and her hands loosened the wet clothing—stripping and tearing it away, down to a jagged wound below the hip where the blood spurted—bright red. She looked up with quick, desperate glance.

Across the field Asa was racing toward her, and the great bird was rising slowly, skimming from the ground.

She bent again to the figure.

“Take off your shirt!” she said, “as he came up, and while she showed him hurriedly how to lift the leg and hold it in place, her fingers tore at the shirt, stripping and knotting it with swift skill. The rain drenched them. It washed the silent, upturned face that her glance sought again and again as she knotted the strips and drew them tight and bound the leg.... A Her hand reached out to the whip clenched in the tense fingers and loosened it. A great shudder ran through Cyrus as the whip loosened in his grasp. Her face, watching him, lighted swiftly. She inserted the handle in the bandage and twisted it slowly. The blood ceased to flow.

She looked up and drew a long breath.

“You must take the colts and go for Dr. Bell!” she said quickly. “Don't spare them!” The boy's face lighted to her through the rain.

“Danforth's gone!” he shouted. A crash bore down upon them, and lighted up the oat-field with blinding glare. Over by the fence the steers were huddled together and a little distance away the overturned rick tilted at the sky.

She moved toward it swiftly.

From beneath the bundles a round face emerged in wonder.

“By gum! I'm all right!” said Carter. He got to his feet and shook his legs doubtfully. “I'm all right!” he announced solemnly.

“Knock off two of those boards while I get the carriage robe!” called the girl. And she was gone across the field.

Susan Truefoot, lifting the lid from the kettle to look at the dumplings, gave a glance at the storm outside. The lid dropped from her hand.

Through the bars to the oat-field came the strange procession, their heads bent to the rain. And in the improvised stretcher something sagged heavily that sent a grim chill running through her. But the next instant she had thrown open the door to the best bedroom, drawn back the coverlet and stripped down the upper sheet.

She stood in the door as they came up, her eyes questioning the. girl's face.

“It's Father,” said the girl quietly. “Yes. The steers ran with him. But he is alive!”

As they laid him on the best bed Susan, looking down at the heavy, inert figure, had a swift sense that it was impious to lay hand on him and place him where they would—without a gesture or sharp command from the grim silent lips.

“It's ten miles to Dr. Bell's!” she said half audibly. She was gazing, awed, at the strange tourniquet and the handle of the whip that protruded half across the bed.

Asa glanced hastily through the door at the clock in the adjoining room.

It pointed to eleven o'clock.

With a shock he remembered. His last act had been to oppose his will to the silent figure on the bed. His hand trembled as he bent over his father and drew the watch from his pocket—a quarter to twelve! He glanced at his sister.

“He ought to be here now if he's had good luck.”

“The doctor may refuse to come with him,” she said. There was a little catch in her voice. “He's not young, you know. He may be afraid to fly!”

“He's been up—a dozen times!” said the boy with swift pride. “He's the squadron doctor. You can't scare him!”

Susan looked at them, uncomprehending. They talked of strange things, and she was dazed. She looked vaguely at the door. Dr. Bell stood in it regarding her with grave eyes.

He came forward with a quiet glance at the bed.

“Bad business!” he said. His eye touched the outstanding whip and tight-drawn bandage with approving glance and rested on the strange, unseeing look on the upturned face.

“I'll have the room clear for awhile!” he said brusquely. “You stay, Ellen. And send in Danforth. I may need someone with a steady hand to help.”

So Cyrus Truefoot lay between life and death, and an airplane ran errands for him.

He lay on his back, unable to speak or move, but the earth ran as smoothly as if Cyrus' guiding hand were not removed from affairs.

And Susan and Asa and Ellen, passing in and out of the room night and day, with no fear of his imperious will, attending to the slightest want of the strong, helpless man, grew to cherish him with a kind of fierce, devoted tenderness. They would not let him slip back into blankness.

The eyes opened, seeking.... Ellen was standing by the bed.

She turned away, the tears on her face, and hurried from the room. Her mother looked up.

“He is conscious!” said Ellen.

“And—himself?” asked the mother.

“I don't know!” said the girl. A sob broke from her.

Her mother went swiftly toward the other room.

“Cyrus—?” She bent to him.

The eyes turned slowly and with difficulty toward her and regarded her a long minute. Cyrus came traveling back from vast spaces where his soul had been.

“Tuck in the clothes at the foot, can't you!” he said half-testily. “It seems strange nobody knows how to make a bed—the way Mother used to!”

The words trailed away in feeble speech and Susan obeyed with meekness. Her hands trembled. But there was a light in her face as she bent over his bed and drew in the clothes and tucked them firmly in place.

She glanced again at the motionless head on the pillow. He seemed asleep. She slipped from the room.

Ellen looked up with swift inquiry. Her mother nodded.

“Yes, he's come to,” she said. “And he's himself.” She sat down weeping softly.

But if Cyrus was himself it seemed to be a different self from the one that drove the steers to the oat-field.

It was as if some dim-gone Truefoot had taken possession and determined thought and speech. Sometimes Cyrus' face held a look half-awed, half-ashamed, as if he did or spoke something against his will.

The airplane came less often now. Asa had learned to fly. But when John Danforth came to the farm, Susan sat with Cyrus while Ellen and the airman walked in the summer twilight. And Susan, sitting with Cyrus, remembered her own twilights and the soft sounds and scents of the dusk.

If Cyrus knew he gave no sign.

“I didn't save your life,” the doctor said when Cyrus tried awkwardly to thank him. “Any doctor could have done what I did. It was Danforth got me here in time, and your' family that nursed you back to life. But you owe it to Ellen that there was anything left to nurse.”

Cyrus blinked a little.

That afternoon he sent for the lawyer.

The next day he was moved out into the sitting-room. He cast a swift look about him as they wheeled him through the door—at all his dear, familiar possessions—at the desk with his armchair and the old clock on the wall—

His glance halted.

The hands pointed blankly to eleven.

He looked up sharply to Asa who was wheeling his chair.

“Has the clock stopped?”

The boy's lip quivered.

“Yes, sir.”

Cyrus' hand tugged at his watch and drew it out. It had been wound every night since he was ill and it was a good time-keeper. It pointed to eleven o'clock.

“You better start the clock and set it going,” he said casually as he replaced the watch. “It's just twelve—by the right time.”

The boy walked over and opened the case and turned the hands slowly. His hand reached through the long, slender door and touched the pendulum and set it swinging slowly and gently back and forth—ticking as it had ticked for generations of Truefoots before him.

title: The Day the Clock Was Set Ahead


text: Talk:The Day the Clock Was Set Ahead

title: Talk:The Day the Clock Was Set Ahead


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Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/67

62 {| style="width:100%; padding:0" At the Salt River settlement a Mexican under the influence of whisky killed a Pima, but the Indians "were good enough not to want to kill" the murderer. Gila Crossing (a), Salt River, Blackwater (b). In the spring of 1891 occurred the last and most disastrous of the Gila floods. The Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad bridge was swept away and the channels of both the Gila and Salt rivers were changed in many places. The destruction of cultivated lands led to the change of the Salt River Pimas from the low bottoms to the mesas.
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title: Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/67


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Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb01gaskrich).pdf/226

 and the necessity of their giving way to him in some things, is too often exaggerated into their giving way to him in all, and thus rendering him utterly selfish. In the family about whom I am writing, while the rest were almost ascetic in their habits, Branwell was allowed to grow up self-indulgent; but, in early youth, his power of attracting and attaching people was so great, that few came in contact with him who were not so much dazzled by him as to be desirous of gratifying whatever wishes he expressed. Of course, he was careful enough not to reveal anything before his father and sisters of the pleasures he indulged in; but his tone of thought and conversation became gradually coarser, and, for a time, his sisters tried to persuade themselves that such coarseness was a part of manliness, and to blind themselves by love to the fact that Branwell was worse than other young men. At present, though he had, they were aware, fallen into some errors, the exact nature of which they avoided knowing, still he was their hope and their darling; their pride, who should some time bring great glory to the name of Brontë.

He and his sister Charlotte were both slight and small of stature, while the other two were of taller and larger make. I have seen Branwell's profile; it is what would be generally esteemed very handsome; the forehead is massive, the eye well set, and the expression of it fine and intellectual; the nose too is good; but there are coarse lines about the mouth, and the lips, though of handsome shape, are loose and thick,


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title: Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/68