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H. L. Mencken - "In Defense of Women"

James Fenimore Cooper - "The Lake Gun"

Jack London - "The Son of the Wolf"

L. Frank Baum - "A Kidnapped Santa Claus"

A Face Illumined

E >> E. P. Roe >> A Face Illumined




"Poor child," said Miss Burton; "this rain is as bad for you as
the deluge to Noah's dove, it has left you no refuge for the sole
of your foot. Will you come with me? No one has said you must
not hear a jolly story."

"You won't tell me about any good little boys who died when they
were as big as I am?"

"I'll keep my word--it shall be a jolly story."

"May we hear it too?" asked the other children.

"Yes, all of you."

"Where shall we go?"

"We won't disturb any one in the far corner of the parlor by the
piano. If you know of any other little people, you can bring them
there, too," and they each darted off in search of especial cronies.

"May we not hear the story also?" asked Stanton.

"No, indeed, I may be able to interest children, but not philosophers."

"Then we will go and meditate," said Van Berg.

"Yes," she added, "and in accordance with a New York custom of great
antiquity, made familiar to you, no doubt, by that grave historian
Diedrich Knickerbocker, who gives several graphic accounts of such
cloudy ruminations on the part of your city's great-grandfathers."

"I fear you think that the worshipful Peter Stuyvensant's counsellors
indulged in more tobacco than thought, and that the majority of
them had as few ideas as one of Mr. Burleigh's chimneys," said Van
Berg. "And you regard us as the direct descendants of these men,
whose lives were crowned with smoke-wreaths only."

"Now, Mr. Van Berg, you prove yourself to be a philosopher of a
modern school, you draw your inductions so far and wide from your
diminutive premise."

"Well, Miss Burton, you stand in very favorable contrast with us
poor mortals. We are going out to add to the clouds that lower
over the world, while you are trying to banish them."

"And if, after helping the children towards the close of this
dismal day, your heart should relent towards us," added Stanton,
"you will find two worthy objects of your charity."

"Oh what a falling off is here!" she exclaimed, following the
impatient children. "Knights at first, then philosophers, and now
objects of charity."

Miss Burton evidently kept her word, and told a "jolly story," for
the friends saw through the parlor windows that the circle around
her grew larger and more hilarious continually. Then would follow
moments of rapt and eager attention, showing that the tale gained
in excitement and interest what it lost in humor. Young people,
who did not like to be classed with children, one by one yielded
to the temptation. There was life and enjoyment in that corner
and dulness elsewhere, and nothing is so attractive in the world
as genuine and joyous life.

Even elderly ladies looked wistfully up at the occasional bursts
of contagious merriment, and then sighed that they had lost the
power of laughing so easily.

At last the marvelous legend came to an end amid a round of prolonged
applause.

"Another, another!" was the general outcry.

But Miss Burton had observed that the ladies and gentlemen present
seemed inclined to be friendly towards the young people's fun, and
therefore she broached another scheme of pleasure that would vary
the entertainment.

"Perhaps," she said, "your papas and mammas and the other good
people will not object to an old-fashioned Virginia reel."

A shout of welcome greeted this proposition.

Miss Burton raised her finger so impressively that there was an
instant hush. Indeed she seemed to have gained entire control of
the large and miscellaneous group which surrounded her.

"We will draw up a petition," she said; "for we best enjoy our own
rights and pleasures when respecting those of others. This little
boy and girl shall take the petition around to all the ladies and
gentlemen in the room, and this shall be the petition:

"'Dear lady and kind sir: Please don't object to our dancing a
Virginia reel in the parlor.'"

"All who wish to dance can sign it. Now we will go to the office
and draw up the petition." And away they all started, the younger
children, wild with glee, capering in advance.

Stanton threw away his cigar and met her at the office register.

"Gentle shepherdess," he asked, "whither are you leading your
flock?"

"How behind the age you are!" she replied. "Can you not see that
the flock is leading me?"

"If I were a wolf I would not trouble the flock but would carry
off the shepherdess--to a game of billiards."

"What, then, would become of the flock?"

"that's a question that never troubles a wolf."

"A wolfish answer truly. I think, however, you have reversed the
parable, and are but a well-meaning sheep that has donned a wolf's
skin, and so we will put you to the test. We young people will
give you a chance to draw up our petition, which, if you would
save your character, you must do at once with sheep-like docility,
asking no questions and causing no delay. There, that will answer;
very sheepishly done, but no sheep's eyes, if you please," she
added, as Stanton pretended to look up to her for inspiration,
while writing. "Now, all sign. I think I can trust you, sir, on
the outskirts of the flock. Here, my little man and woman, go to
each of the ladies and gentlemen, make a bow and a courtesy, and
present the petition."

"May I not gambol with the shepherdess in the coming pastoral?"
asked Stanton.

"No, indeed! You are much too old; besides, I am going to play.
You may look gravely on."

Every one in the parlor smiling assented to the odd little couple
that bobbed up and down before them, and moved out of the way for
the dancers. The petitioners therefore soon returned and were
welcomed with applause.

"Now go to the inner office and present the petition to Mr. Burleigh,"
said Miss Burton.

"Hollo!" cried that gentleman, looking around with a great show
of savagery, as the little girl pulled the skirt of his coat to
attract his attention; "where's King Herod?"

"We wish to try another method with the children," answered Miss
Burton. "Will it please you therefore graciously to read the
petition. All in the parlor have assented."

"My goodness gracious---"

"No swearing, sir, if you please."

"Woman has been too many for man ever since she got him into trouble
by eating green apples," ejaculated Mr. Burleigh with a despairing
gesture. "Why do you mock me with petitions? THERE is the power
behind the throne," pointing to Miss Burton.

"Take your places, small ladies and gentlemen," she cried. "That's
Mr. Burleigh's way of saying yes. While you are forming, I'll play
a few bars to give you the time."

Did she bewitch the piano that it responded so wonderfully to
her touch? Where had she found such quaint, dainty music, simple
as the old-fashioned dance itself, so that the little ones could
keep time to it, and yet pleasing Van Berg's fastidious ear with
its unhackneyed and refined melody. But the marked and marvellous
feature in her playing was an airy rolicksomeness that was as
irresistible as a panic. Old ladies' heads began to bob over their
fancy work most absurdly. Two quartets of elderly gentlemen at
whist were evidently beginning to play badly, their feet meantime
tapping the floor in a most unwonted manner.

"Were I as dead as Julius Caesar I could not resist that quickstep,"
cried Stanton; and he rushed over to his aunt, Mrs. Mayhew, and
dragged her into line.

"What in the name of all the witches of Salem has got into that
piano!" cried Mr. Burleigh, bursting into the parlor from the
office, with his pen stuck behind his ear, and his hair brushed
up perpendicularly. "There's sorcery in the air. I'm practised
upon--Keep still? No, not if I was nailed up in one of the
soldier's 'wooden overcoats.' The world is transformed, transfigured,
transmogrified, and 'things are not what they seem!' Here's
a blooming girl who'll dance with me," and he seized the hand of
a white-haired old lady who yielded to the contagion so far as to
take a place in the line beside her granddaughter.

Indeed, in a few moments, all who had been familiar with the pastime
in their youth, caught the joyous infection, and lengthened out
the lines, each new accession being greeted with shouts and laughter.

The scene approached in character that described by Hawthorne
as occurring in the grounds of the Villa Borghese when Donatello,
with a simple "tambourine," produced music of such "indescribably
potency" that sallow, haggard, half-starved peasants, French soldiers,
scarlet-costumed contadinas, Swiss guards, German artists, English
lords, and herdsmen from the Campagna, all "joined hands in the
dance" which the musician himself led with the frisky, frolicsome
step of the mythical faun.

In the latter instance it was a contagious, mad excitement easily
possible among hot-blooded people and wandering pleasure-seekers,
the primal laws of whose being are impulse and passion. That the
joyous exhilaration which filled Mr. Burleigh's parlor was akin
to the wild, half pagan frenzy that the great master of fiction
imagined as seizing upon the loiterers near the Villa Borghese cannot
be denied. Both phases of excitement would spring naturally from
the universal craving for pleasurable life and activity. The
one, however, was a rank growth from a rank soil--the passionate
ebullition of passion-swayed natures; the other was inspired by
the magnetic spirit of a New England maiden, who, by some law of
her nature or consecration of her life, devoted every power of her
being to the vivifying of others, and the frolic she had instigated
was as free from the grosser elements as the tossing wild flowers
of her native hills. With the exception perhaps of Van Berg, she
had impressed every one as possessing a peculiarly sunny temperament.
Be this as it may, it certainly appeared true that she found her
happiness in enlivening others; and it is difficult even to imagine
how much a gifted mind can accomplish in this respect when every
faculty is devoted to the ministry of kindness.

This view of Miss Burton's character would account in part, but not
wholly, for the power she exercised over others. Van Berg thought
he at times detected a suppressed excitement in her manner. A
light sometimes flickered in her deep blue eyes that might have
been caused by a consuming and hidden fire, rather than by genial
and joyous thoughts.

As he watched her now through the parlor window, her eyes were
burning, her face reminded him of a delicate flame, and her whole
being appeared concentrated into the present moment. In its vivid
life it seemed one of the most remarkable faces he ever saw; but
the thought occurred again and again--"If the features of Ida Mayhew
could be lighted up like that I'd give years of my lifetime to be
able to paint the beauty that would result."

Just at this moment he saw that young lady approach the parlor
entrance with an expression of wonder on her face. He immediately
joined her, and she said:

"Mr. Van Berg, what miracle has caused this scene?"

"Come with me and I'll show you," he answered and he led her to
the window opposite to Miss Burton, where she sat at the piano.
"There," he said, "is the miracle,--a gifted, magnetic, unselfish
woman devoting herself wholly to the enjoyment of others. She
has created more sunshine this dismal day than we have had in the
house since I've been here. Is not that face there a revelation?"

"A revelation of what?" she asked with rising color.

"Of the possibilities of the human face to grow in beauty and
power, if kindled by a noble and animating mind. Ye gods!" cried
the artist, expressing the excitement which he felt in common with
others in accordance with the law of his own ruling passion, "but
I would give much to reproduce that face on canvas;" and then
he added with a despairing gesture, "but who can paint flame and
spirit?"

After a moment he exclaimed, with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes:
"It appears to me that if kindled by such a mind as that which is
burning in yonder face, I could attempt anything and accomplish
everything. Limitations melt away before a growing sense of power.
What an inspiration a woman can be to a man, or what a mill-stone
about his neck, according to what she is! Ah!---"

The cause of this exclamation cannot be explained in the brief time
that it occurred. Stanton had happened at that moment to catch a
glimpse of Van Berg and his cousin, and he called quite loudly:

"Harold, bring Miss Mayhew in and join us."

At the same instant Mr. Burleigh's heavy step passing near the piano,
jarred down a picture that was hung insecurely, and it fell with
a crash at Miss Burton's side. Was it the shock of the falling
picture upon unprepared and overstrained nerves, or what was it that
produced the instantaneous change in the joyous-appearing maiden?
Her hands dropped nerveless from the keys. So great was the pallor
that swept over her face that it suggested to he artist the sudden
extinguishment of a lamp. She bowed her head and trembled a moment
and then escaped by a side door.

Van Berg walked hastily to the main entrance, thinking she was
ill, but only saw her vanishing up the stairway with hasty steps.
Many of the dancers, in their kindly solicitude, had tried to intercept
her, but had been too late. It would seem that all ascribed her
indisposition to a nervous shock.

"It is evident," said the lady who had been conversing with her
when she had acted in a like manner on the first day of her arrival,
"that she possesses a highly sensitive organism, which suddenly
gives way when subjected to a strain too severe;" and she remained
Van Berg of her former manifestation of weakness.

He accepted this view as the most natural explanation that could
be given.





Chapter XV. Contrasts.




Genuine and genial were the words of sympathy that were expressed
on every side for the young lady who had been transforming the
dull day into one of exceptional jollity. A deputation of ladies
called upon her, but from within her locked door she confirmed the
impression that it was a nervous shock, and that a few hours of
perfect quiet would restore her.

And it would seem that she was right, for she came down to supper
apparently as genial and smiling as ever. Beyond a slight pallor
and a little fulness about her eyes, Van Berg could detect no trace
of her sudden indisposition.

The remainder of the day was passed more quietly by the guests
of the Lake House, but the force of Miss Burton's example did not
spend itself at once, and on the part of some there was developed
quite a marked disposition to make kindly efforts to promote the
enjoyment of others. The unwonted exhilaration with which she
had inspired her fellow guests was something they could scarcely
account for, and yet the means employed had been so simple and were
so plainly within the reach of all, as to suggest that a genial
manner and an unselfish regard for others were the only conditions
required to enable each one to do something to brighten every cloudy
day.

After Miss Burton's departure, the young people had the dance
to themselves, their elders resuming the avocations and soberer
pleasures from which they had been swept by an impulse evoked from
their half-forgotten youth.

When Van Berg joined Miss Mayhew again, he found her mother and
Stanton trying to explain how it all came about.

"There is no use of multiplying words," concluded Stanton; "Miss
Burton is gifted with a mind, and she uses it for the benefit of
others instead of tasking it solely on her own account, which is
the general rule."

At this moment a letter was handed to Mrs. Mayhew, which she read
with a slight frown and passed to her daughter. It was from Mr.
Mayhew, and contained but a brief sentence to the effect that his
absence would probably be a relief, and therefore he would not
spend the coming Sabbath with them.

Ida did not show the superficial vexation that her mother manifested,
and which was more assumed than real. Her cheek paled a little,
and she instinctively glanced at Van Berg as if her sudden sense
of guilt were apparent to his keen eyes. He was looking at he
searchingly, and she turned away with a quick flush, nor did she give
him a chance to speak with her again that day; but his words--"what
a millstone about a man's neck a woman can be!"--haunted her
continually. Still oftener rose before her Miss Burton's flushed
and kindled face, and the artist's emphatic assertion of the power
of mind and character to add to native beauty. Had she not been a
millstone about her father's neck? Was there not a fatal flaw in
the beauty of which she was so proud, that spoiled it for eyes that
were critical and unblinded?

Oppressed by these thoughts and being in no mood for her cousin's
banter, or the artist's society which always seemed to render her
more uncomfortable, she was glad to escape to the solitude of her
own room.

Another "revelation" was slowly dawning upon her mind, namely--just
what she, Ida Mayhew, was. A woman is an "inspiration" or a
"millstone according to what she is," this stranger, this disturber
of her peace, from whom it seemed she could not escape, had not only
asserted but proved by showing her a lady she would have passed as
plain and insignificant, but who nevertheless possessed some sweet
potency that won and cheered all hearts, and who, she was compelled
to admit, was positively beautiful as she sat at the piano, radiant
with her purpose to cause gladness in others. Miss Burton had
created sunshine enough to enliven the dismal day, and had quickened a
hundred pulses with pleasure. She had been a burden even to herself.

Everything, from the artist's first disturbing frown to the present
hour, had been preparing the way for the sharp and painful contrast
that circumstances had forced upon her attention to-day.

But the thought that troubled her most, was that he saw this contrast
more plainly than it was possible for her to see it.

Vaguely, and yet with some approach to the truth, her intuition
began to reveal to her the attitude of his mind towards her. She
believed that he was attracted, but also saw that he was not blinded
by her beauty. She was already beginning to revise her first impression
that he was shutting his eyes to every other consideration, as she
had seen so many do in their brief infatuation. His manner was not
that of one who is taking counsel of passion only. Those ominous
words--"according to what she is"--indicated that he was looking
into her mind, her character. With a sense of dismay, she was
awakening to a knowledge of the dwarfed ugliness her beauty but
partially concealed, and she felt that he, from the first, had been
discovering those defects of which she had been scarcely conscious
herself. She began to fear that her cousin's words would prove true,
and that he would not fall helplessly in love with her. Therefore
the opportunity to retaliate and to punish him for all the
mortifications that he had occasioned her, would never come. On
the contrary, he might inflict upon her, any day, the crowning
humiliation of declaring, be indifference of manner, that he had
found her out so thoroughly, as to entertain for her only feelings
of disgust and repugnance.

"Well," she concluded, recklessly, "why should I care what
he thinks? I have lived thus far without his good opinion, and I
can live a little longer, I imagine. I have had a good time for
eighteen years after my own fashion, and I will just ignore him
and have a good time still. Indeed I'll shock him to-night and
to-morrow so thoroughly, that he won't come near me again; for
I'm sick of his superior airs. I'm sick of his learned talk about
books, pictures, and politics, as if a young society girl were
expected to know about these things; and as for his small talk, it
reminded me of an elephant trying to dance a jig;" and she sprang
up with a snatch of song from the "opera bouffe," and began her
toilet for dinner.

In a few moments, however, she dropped her hairbrush absently, and
forgot to look at her fair face in the mirror.

"I wonder," she mused, "if he and Miss Burton ever met before they
came here? It has been a strange coincidence that she should have
felt such a sudden indisposition in each instance at the same moment
that his name was casually mentioned. True, on both occasions,
events occurred that might account for the sudden giving way of her
nerves, but I cannot help thinking that she has some association
with him that the rest of us know nothing about. She certainly
seems more interested in him than in any one else in the house, for
I have several times noticed peculiar and furtive glances towards
him; besides, they are evidently growing to be very good friends. As
for Ik, he seems quite inclined to enter upon a serious flirtation
with her. But what do I care for either of them! Mr. Sibley
will be here to-night, and I'll enable this artist to bring his
investigations to a close at once. I am what I am, and that's the
end of it, and I won't mope and have a stupid time for anybody, and
certainly not for him. Let him marry the school-ma'am. She can
talk books, art, and all the 'isms' going, to his heart's content.
I, as well as Miss Burton, have my opinion of flirting, and know
from some little experience that it is jolly good fun.


"He can go his way, I'll go mine;
E'en though he frowns, the sun will shine."


And with a careless gesture she affected to dismiss him from her
thoughts.

To judge from her manner that evening and the following day,
one might suppose that she succeeded very fully. Sibley, with an
unwonted venturesomeness, did risk his one immaculate possession,
his clothes, and came from the city through the storm. Ida and
himself, between them, brought about the nearest approach to a
"ball" possible in the circumstances.

The dancing, under their auspices, differed from that of the morning,
not merely in name and form, but in its subtle character. In the
one instance it had been an innocent pastime, occasioned by childlike
and joyous impulses. The people's manner might have reminded one
of a bit of darkened landscape that had been rapidly filled with
light, and almost ecstatic life by the advent of a May morning.

In the evening, however, everything was artificial and in keeping
with the gaslight. The ladies were conscious of their toilets,
conscious of themselves, looking for admiration rather than hearty
enjoyment. Even the older boys and girls, who had been joyous
children in the morning, were now small parodies of fashionable men
and women! A band of hired performers twanged out the hackneyed
dancing music then in vogue, going over their small "repertoire"
with wearisome repetition. People danced at first because it was
the thing to do, and not from any inspiration from the melody. As
the evening wore on, Sibley, who had been drinking quite freely,
tried to introduce, as far as possible, the excitement of a revel,
calling chiefly for swift waltzes and gallops through which he and
Ida whirled in a way that made people's heads dizzy.

Miss Burton, after going through a quadrille with Stanton early
in the evening, had declined to dance any more. She did not feel
very well, she explained to Van Berg as he sought her for the
next form; but he imagined that she early foresaw that Sibley and
others, and among them even Stanton, were inclined to give the
evening a character that was not to her taste.

As Ida had made herself somewhat prominent in inaugurating the
"ball," as Sibley took pains to term it on all occasions, Van Berg,
as a part of his tactics to win the beauty's good-will, tried at
first to make the affair successful. He danced with others, and
twice sought her hand; but in each case she rather indifferently
told him that she was engaged. He would not have sought her as a
partner after his first rebuff had he not imagined, from occasional
and furtive glances, that she was not as indifferent as she seemed.

Early in the evening it occurred to him that her slightly reckless
manner was assumed, but he saw that she was abandoning herself to
the growing excitement of the dance, as Sibley, her most frequent
partner, and others, were to the stronger excitement of liquor.
Observant mothers called away their daughters. Ladies, in whom the
instincts of true refined womanhood were in the ascendancy, looked
significantly at each other, and declined further invitations.

Van Berg had also withdrawn, but with his disposition to watch
manifestations of character in general, and of one present in
particular, he still stood at a parlor window looking on. The band
had just struck up a livelier waltz than usual, and Ida and Sibley
were whirling through the wide apartment as if treading on air;
but when, a few moments later, they circled near where he stood,
he saw upon the young man's face an expression of earthiness and
grossness that was anything but ethereal. Indeed so unmistakably
wanton was the look which Sibley bent upon his companion, whose
heaving bosom he clasped against his won, that the artist frowned
darkly at him, and felt his hand tingling to strike the fellow a
blow.

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