The Tinder-Box

by Maria Thompson Daviess

  CHAPTER VIII

  AN ATTAINED TO-MORROW

  I've changed my mind about a woman's being like a whirlwind. The womenof now are the attained to-morrow that the world since the beginning hasbeen trying to catch up with. Jane is that, and then the day after, too,and what she has done to Glendale in these two weeks has stunned the oldtown into a trance of delight and amazement. She has recreated us,breathed the breath of modernity into us, and started the machine up thegrade of civilization at a pace that makes me hold my breath for fear ofsomething jolting us.

  She and Aunt Augusta have organized an Equality League, and that wheelcame very near flying loose and being the finish of Uncle Peter.

  He came to see me the morning of the first meeting and, when I saw himcoming up the front walk, I got an astral vision of the chips on hisshoulder enlarged to twice their natural size, and called to Jasper tomix the juleps very long and extra deep. But deep as they were, to thevery top of the longest glasses, he couldn't drown his wrath in his.

  "Women, women," he exploded from over the very mint sprig itself, "allfools, all fools from the beginning of time; made that way onpurpose--on purpose--hey? World needs some sort of creature with nobetter sense than to want to spend their lives fooling with babies andthe bread of life. Human young and religion are the only things in theworld men can't attend to for themselves and that's what they need womenfor. Women with no brains--but all heart--all heart--hey?"

  "Why should just a little brain hurt their heart-action. Uncle Peter?" Iasked mildly. There is nothing in the world that I ever met that I enjoyany more than one of Uncle Peter's rages, and I always try to be meeklyinflammatory.

  "They're never satisfied with using them to run church societies andchildren's internal organs, but they want to use 'em on men andcivilization in general. Where'd you get that Yankee school-marm--hey?Why don't she get a husband and a baby and settle down? Ten babies,twenty babies if necessary--hey?"

  "You are entirely mistaken as to the plans that Jane and Aunt Augustahave for the League they are forming this morning, Uncle Peter." I beganto say with delight as to what was likely to ensue. "If you would onlylisten to Jane while she--"

  "Don't want to hear a word she has to say! All 'as the crackling ofthorns under a pot'--all the talk of fools."

  "But surely you are not afraid to listen to her, Uncle Peter," I daredto say, and then stood away.

  "Afraid, afraid--never was afraid of anybody in my life, Augusta notexcepted!" he exclaimed, as he rose in his wrath. "The men of this townwill show the uprising hussies what we think of 'em, and put 'em back tothe heels of men, where they belong--belong--hey?"

  And before I could remonstrate with him he was marching down the streetlike a whole regiment out on a charge that was to be one ofextermination, or complete surrender.

  The Crag told me that evening that the Mayor's office of Glendale hadreeked of brimstone, for hours, and the next Sunday Aunt Augusta sat intheir pew at church, militantly alone, while he occupied a seat in thefarthest limits of the amen corner, with equal militancy.

  But Uncle Peter's attitude during the time of Jane's campaign forgeneral Equality in Glendale was pathetically like that of an old log,that has been drifting comfortably down the stream of life with the tidethat bore its comrades, and suddenly got its end stuck in the mud sothat it was forced to stem alone the very tide it had been floating on.

  Jane didn't throw any rocks at anybody's opinions or break the windowsof anybody's prejudices. She had the most lovely heart to heart talkswith the women separately, collectively, and in both small and largebunches. I had them in to tea in the combinations that she wanted them,and I must say that she was the loveliest thing with them that could beimagined. She was just her stiff, ugly self, starchily clad in the mostbeautifully tailored white linen, and they all went mad about her. ThePup and the Kit clutched at her skirts until anybody else would havebeen a mass of wrinkles, and the left breast of her linen blouse didalways bear a slight impress of little Ned's head. The congeniality ofJane and that baby was a revelation to me and his colic ceased after thefirst time she kneaded it out of his fat little stomach with her long,slim, powerful hands according to a first-aid method she had learned inher settlement work, with Mamie looking on in fear and adoration. It mayhave been bloodless surgery but I suspect it of being partly hypnotism,because the same sort of surgery was used on the minds of all my womenfriends and with a like result.

  The subject of the rally was a fine one for everybody to get together onfrom the start and, before any of them realized that they were doinganything but plan out the details of a big spread, the like of whichthey had been doing for hospitable generations, for the railroadCommission, they were organized into a flourishing Equality League, withofficers and by-laws and a sinking fund in the treasury.

  "Now, Evelina," said Jane, as she sat on the edge of my bed braiding herheavy, sleek, black braid that is as big as my wrist and that shedeclares is her one beauty, though she ought to know that her straight,strong-figure, ruddy complexion, aroma of strength and keen,near-sighted eyes are--well, if not beauties, something very winning,"we must not allow the men time to get sore over this matter of theLeague. We must make them feel immediately that they are needed andwanted intensely in the movement. They must be asked to take theirplace, shoulder to shoulder, with us in this fight for better conditionsfor the world and mankind in general. True to our theory we must offerthem our comradely affection and openly and honestly express our need ofthem in our lives and in our activities. I was talking to Mrs.Carruthers and Nell and Mrs. Hall and Caroline, as well as your CousinMartha, about it this afternoon and they all agreed with me that the menwould have cause to be aggrieved at us about seeming thus to beorganizing a life for ourselves apart from theirs, with no place in itprovided for them. Mrs. Carruthers said that she had felt that theReverend Mr. Haley had been deeply hurt already at not being masked toopen any of the meetings with prayer, and she volunteered to talk to himand express for herself and us our need of him."

  "That will be easy for Sallie, for she has been expressing need ofpeople in her fife as long as she has been living it," I answered with agood-natured laugh, though I would have liked to have that interviewwith the Dominie myself. He is so enthusiastic that I like to bask inhim once in a while.

  "We must not allow the men to get sore over this matterof the League"]

  "I asked young Mr. Hayes to take me fishing with him to-morrow in orderto have a whole quiet day with him alone so that we could get closely intouch with each other. I have had very little opportunity to talk withhim, but I have felt his sympathy in several interested glances wehave exchanged with each other. I am looking forward to theestablishment of a perfect friendship with him."

  I told myself that I was mistaken in thinking that the expression inJane's eyes was softened to the verge of dreaminess and my inmost soulshouted at the idea of Jane and Polk and their day alone in the woods.

  Since that night that Polk humiliated me as completely as a man canhumiliate a woman, he has looked at me like a whipped child, and Ihaven't looked at him at all I have used Jane as a wide-spread fanbehind which to hide from him. How was I to know what was going on onthe other side of the fan?

  It is a relief to realize that in the world there are at least a fewwomen like Jane that don't have to be protected from Polk and his kind.Jane is one of the hunted that has turned and has come back to meet thepursuer with outstretched and disarming hand. This, I suspect, is to beabout her first real tussle; skoal to the victor!

  "I advised your Aunt Augusta to ask you to talk again to your UnclePeter, and Nell is to seek an interview with Mr. Hardin at her earliestopportunity, though I think the only result will be instruction anduplift for Nell, as a more illumined thing I never had said to me on thesubject of the relation of men and women than the one he uttered to melast night, as he said good-by to me out on the porch in that gloriousmoonlight that seems brighter here in Glendale than I have ever seen itout in the world
anywhere else."

  "What did he say?" I asked perfectly naturally, though a double-bladedpain was twisted around in my solar plexus as the vision of Jane's lastnight interview in the moonlight with the Crag, and Nell'ssoon-to-be-one, hit me broadside at the same time. I haven't had one bymyself with him for a week.

  "Why, of course, women are the breath that men draw into their lungs oflife to supply eternal combustion," was what he said when I asked himpoint-blank what he thought of the League. "Only let us breathe slowlyas we ascend to still greater elevations with their consequent rarefiedair," he added, with the most heavenly thoughtfulness in his fine face."Did it ever occur to you, Evelina, that your Cousin James is really aradiantly beautiful man? How could you be so mistaken, as to both himand his personal appearance, as to apply such a name as Crag to him?"

  Glendale is going to Jane's head!

  "Don't you think he looks scraggy in that long-tailed coat, shocks oftaggy hair and a collar big enough to fit Old Harpeth?" I askeddeceitfully.

  Why shouldn't I tell Jane what I really thought of Cousin James anddiscuss him broadly and frankly? I don't know! Lately I don't want tothink about him or have anybody mention him in my presence. I've got aconsciousness of him way off in a corner of me somewhere and I'm justbrooding over it. Everybody in town has been in this house since Janehas been here, all the time, and I haven't seen him alone for ages itseems. Maybe that's why I have had to make a desert island inside myselfto take him to.

  "And I have been thinking since you told me of the situation in which heand Mrs. Carruthers have been placed by this financial catastrophe, howwonderful it will be if love really does come to them, when her grief ishealed by time. He will rear her interesting children into women thatwill be invaluable to the commonwealth," Jane continued as she tied ablue bow on the end of her long black plait.

  "Do you think that there--there are any signs of--of such a thing yet?"I asked with pitiful weakness as I wilted down into my pillow.

  "Just a bit in his manner to her, though I may be influenced in myjudgment by the evident suitability of such a solution of thesituation," she answered as she settled herself back against one of theposts of my high old bed and looked me clean through and through, evenunto the shores of that desert island itself.

  "I hope you have been noting these different emotional situations andreactions among your friends carefully in your record, Evelina," shecontinued in an interested and biological tone of voice and expressionof eye. "In a small community like this it is much easier to get at thereal underlying motive of such things than it is in a more complicatedcivilization. I have seen you transcribing notes into our book. Since Ihave come to Glendale I am more firmly determined than ever that theattitude of emotional equality that we determined upon in the spring isthe true solution of most of the complicated man-and-woman problems. Iam anxious to see it tried out in five other different communities thatwe will select. I would not seem to be indelicate, dear, but I do notsee any signs of your having been especially drawn emotionally towardsany of your friends, though your attitude of sisterly comradeship andfrankness with them is more beautiful than I thought it was possible forsuch a thing to be. You are not being tempted to shirk any of yourduties of womanhood because of your interest in your art, are you? Iwill confess to you that the thing that brought me down upon you wasyour news of this commission for the series of station-gardens. I thinkyou will probably work better after this side of your nature is at rest.Of course, a union with Mr. Hall would be ideal for you. You mustconsider it seriously."

  The "must" in Jane's voice sounded exactly like that "must" looked inRichard's telegram, which has been enforced with others just asemphatic ever since.

  There are some men who are big enough to take a woman with a wound inher heart and heal both it and her by their love. Richard is one of thatkind. What could any woman want more than her work and a man like that?

  After Jane had laid her strong-minded head on the hard pillow, that Ihad had to have concocted out of bats of cotton for her, I laid my faceagainst my own made of the soft breast feathers of a white flock ofhovering hen-mothers and wept on their softness.

  A light was burning down in the lodge at the gate of Widegables. Hehasn't gone back to his room to sleep, even when I have Jane'sstrong-mindedness in the house with me. I remember that I gave my wordof honor to myself that I wouldn't try any of my modern emotionalexperiments on him the first night I slept in this house alone, withonly him over there to keep me from dying with primitive woman fright. Ishall keep my word to myself and propose to Richard if my contract withJane and the Five seems to call for it. In the meantime if I choose tocry myself to sleep it is nobody's business.

  I wonder if a mist rises up to Heaven every night from all thewoman-tears in all the world, and if God sees it, as it clings damparound the hem of His garment, and smiles with such warm understandingthat it vanishes in a soft glow of sleep that He sends down to us!

  Jane has arisen early several mornings and spent an hour beforebreakfast composing a masterly and Machiavellian letter of invitationfrom the Equality League to the inhabitants of Glendale and thesurrounding countryside to and beyond Bolivar to attend the rally givenby them in honor of the C. & G. Railroad Commission on Tuesday next. Itis to come out to-day in the weekly papers of Glendale, Bolivar,Hillsboro, and Providence, and I hope there will not be so many cases ofheart-failure from rage that the gloom of many funerals will put out thelight of the rally. I hope no man will beat any woman in the HarpethValley for it, and if he does, I hope he will do it so neither Jane norI will hear of it.

  It was Aunt Augusta who thought up the insulting and incendiary plan ofhaving the rally as an offering of hospitality from the League, and Ihope if Uncle Peter is going to die over it he will not have the finalexplosion in my presence.

  Privately I spent a dollar and a half sending a night-letter to Richardall about it and asking him if the Commissioners would be willing tostand for this feminist plank in the barbecue deal. He had sent me thenicest letter of acceptance from the Board when I had written theinvitation to them through him, as coming from the perfectly ladylikefeminine population of Glendale, and I didn't like to get them into awoman-whirlwind without their own consent. I paid the boy at thetelegraph office five dollars not to talk about the matter to a humansoul, and threatened to have him dismissed if he did, so the bomb-shellwas kept in until this afternoon.

  Richard replied to the telegram with characteristic directness:

  Delighted to be in at the fight. Seven of us rabid suffragists, two on the fence, and a half roast pig will convert the other. Found no answer to my question in letter of last Tuesday. Must!

  RICHARD.

  It was nice of Jane to write out and get ready her bomb-shell and thengo off with Polk, so as not to see it explode. But I'm glad she did.However, I did advise her to take a copy of it along with the reels andthe lunch-basket to read to him, as a starter of their day to bedevoted to the establishment of a perfect friendship between them.

  Polk didn't look at me even once as I helped pack them and their trapsinto his Hupp, but Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like Polk inhis white flannels, and he and Jane made a picture of perfectly blendedtailored smartness as they got ready for the break-away.

  There are some men that acquire feminine obligations as rough cheviotdoes lint and Henrietta is one of Polk's when it comes to the fishingdays. He takes her so often that she thinks she owns him and all thetrout in Little Harpeth, and she landed in the midst of the picnic withher fighting clothes on.

  "Where are you and her going at,--fishing?" she asked in a calmlycontrolled voice that both of them had heard before, and which made usquail in our boots and metaphorically duck our heads.

  "Yes, we--er thought we would," he answered with an uncertainty ofvoice and manner that bespoke abject fear.

  "I'll be d---- if you shall," came the explosion, hot and loud. "I wantto go fishing with you, Polk, my own self, and she ain't no g
ood fornothing any way. You can't take her!"

  "Henrietta!" I both beseeched and commanded in one breath.

  "No, she ain't no good at all," was reiterated in the stormy young voiceas Henrietta caught hold of the nose of the panting Hupp and stooddirectly in the path of destruction, if Polk had turned the drivingwheel a hair's breadth. "Uncle Peter says that she is er going to turnthe devil loose in Glendale, so they won't be no more whisky and no morebabies borned and men will get they noses rubbed in their plates, ifthey don't eat the awful truck she is er going to teach the women tocook for their husbands. An' the men won't marry no more then at all,and I'll have to be a old maid like her."

  Now, why did I write weeks ago that I would like to witness an encounterbetween Jane and Henrietta! I didn't mean it, but I got it!

  Without ruffling a hair or changing color Jane stepped out of the Huppand faced the foe. Henrietta is a tiny scrap of a woman, intense in awild, beautiful, almost hunted kind of way, and she is so thin that itmakes my heart ache. She is being fairly crushed with the beautifuldepending weight of her mother and the responsibility of the twins, andsomehow she is most pathetic. I made a motion to step between her andJane, but one look in Jane's face stopped me.

  "Dear," she said, in her rich, throaty, strong voice as she lookedpleadingly at the militant midget facing her. Suddenly I was thatlonesome, homesick freshman by the waters of Lake Waban, with Jane'sawkward young arm around me, and I stood aside to let Henrietta comeinto her heritage of Jane. "Don't you want to come with us?" was thesoft question that followed the commanding word of endearment.

  "No!" was the short, but slightly mollified answer as Henrietta dug hertoes into the dust and began to look fascinated.

  "I'm glad you don't want to come, because I've got some very importantbusiness to ask you to attend to for me," answered Jane, in the brisktone of voice she uses in doing business with women, and which intereststhem intensely by its very novelty and flatters them by seeming to endowthem with a kind of brain they didn't know they possessed. "I want youto go upstairs and get my pocketbook. Be careful, for there is over ahundred dollars in the roll of bills--Evelina will give you the key tothe desk--and go down to the drug store where they keep nice littleclocks and buy me the best one they have. Then please you wind it upyourself and watch it all day to see if it keeps time with the clock inyour hall, and if it varies more than one minute, take it back and getanother. While you are in the drug store, if you have time, won't youplease select me a new tooth-brush and some nice kind of paste that youthink is good? Make them show you all they have. Pay for it out of oneof the bills."

  "Want any good, smelly soap?" I came out of my trance of absoluteadmiration to hear Henrietta ask in the capable voice of a secretary toa millionaire. Her thin little face was flushed with excitement andimportance, and she edged two feet nearer the charmer.

  "It would be a good thing to get about a half dozen cakes, wouldn't it?"answered Jane, with slight uncertainty in her voice as if leaving thedecision of the matter partly to Henrietta.

  "Yes, I believe I would," Henrietta decided judicially. "The 'New MownHay' is what Jasper got for Petunia because he hit her too hard lastweek and swelled her eye. They is a perfumery that goes with it at onequarter a bottle. That makes it all cheaper."

  "Exactly the thing, and we mustn't spend money unnecessarily," Janeagreed. "But I don't want to trespass on your time, Henrietta, dear,"she added with the deference she would have used in speaking to thePresident of the Nation League or the founder of Hull House.

  "No, ma'am, I'm glad to do it, and I'll go quick 'fore it gets any laterin the day for me to watch the clock," answered Henrietta in statelytones that were very like Jane's and which I had never heard her employbefore.

  And before any of the three of us got our breath her bare little feetwere flashing up my front walk.

  "Help!" exclaimed Polk as he leaned back from his wheel and fannedhimself with his hat. "Do you use the same methods with grown beaststhat you do with cubs?" he added weakly.

  "It's the same she has always used on me, only this is more dramatic.Beware!" I said with a laugh as I insisted on just one squeeze of Jane'swhite linen arm as she was climbing back into the car.

  "That's a remarkably fine child and she should have good, dependable,business-like habits put in the place of faulty and useless ones. Herprofanity will make no difference for the present and can be easilycorrected. Don't interfere with her attending to my commissions,Evelina. Let's start, Mr. Hayes." And Jane settled herself calmly forthe spin out Providence Road.

  "All the hundred dollars all by herself, Jane?" I called after them.

  "Yes," floated back positively in the wake of the Hupp.

  For several hours I attended to the business of my life in a haze ofmeditation. If Henrietta ticks off the same number of minutes on thewoman-clock from Jane's standpoint, that Jane has marked off from herown mother's, high noon is going to strike before we are ready for it.

  But it was only an hour or two of high-minded communing with the futurethat I got the time for, before I was involved in the whirl of dust thatswirled around the storm center, to darken and throw a shadow overGlendale about the time of the publication of the Glendale News, whichoccurs every Thursday near the hour of noon, so that all the subscriberscan take that enterprising sheet home to consume while waiting fordinner, and can leave it for the women of their families to enjoy in theafternoon.

  I suspect that the digestion of Jane's Equality rally invitationinterfered with the digestion of much fried chicken, corn, and sweetpotatoes, under the roof-trees of the town and I spent the afternoon inhearing results and keeping up the spirits of the insurgents.

  Caroline came in with her head so high that she had difficulty in seeingover her very slender and aristocratic nose, with a note from LeeGreenfield which had just come to her, asking her to go with him in hiscar over to Hillsboro to spend the day with Tom Pollard's wife, a visithe knows she has been dying to make for two months, for she was one ofPet's bridesmaids. He made casual and dastardly mention that there wouldbe a moon to come home by, but ignored completely the fact that Tuesdaywas the day on which he had been invited by the League, of which he knewshe was a member, to meet and rally around the C. & G. Commission.

  I helped her compose the answer, and I must say we hit Lee only in highspots. I could see she was scared to death, and so was I, but her danderwas up, and I backed mine up along side it for the purpose of support.Besides I feel in my heart that that note will dynamite the rocky oldsituation between them into something more easily handled.

  She had just gone to dispatch the missive by their negro gardener whenMamie and Sallie came clucking in. Mamie's face was pink andhigh-spirited, but Sallie was in one complete slump of mind and body.

  "Mr. Haley has just stopped by to say that he thinks no price is toogreat to pay for peace, and fellowship, and good-will in a community,"she said, as she dropped into a rocker and looked pensively after theretreating figure of the handsome young Dominie, who had accompaniedthem to the gate but wisely no farther. He didn't know that Jane hadgone with Polk.

  "And women to pay the price," answered Mamie, spiritedly. "I have justtold Ned that as yet I do not know enough to argue the question ofwoman's wrongs with him, but I have learned a few of her rights. One of_mine_ is to have him accept any invitation I am responsible for havingmy friends offer him, and to accompany me to the entertainment if Idesire to go. I reminded him that I had not troubled him often as anescort since my marriage. He was so scared that he almost let little Neddrop out of his arms, and he got in an awful hurry to go to town, but heasked me to have his gray flannels pressed before Tuesday and to buy hima blue tie to go with a new shirt he has. I never like to spank Ned orthe children, but I must say it does clear the atmosphere."

  "You don't think we could put it off or--or--" Sallie faltered.

  "No!" answered Mamie and I together, and as I spoke I called Jasper toset out more rockers and have Petunia get the tea-tray
ready, for I sawAunt Augusta go across the road to collect Cousin Martha and Mrs.Hargrove and the rest, while Nell whirled by in her rakish little car onher way to the Square and called that she would be back.

  When Nell used a thousand dollars of her own money, left her by hergrandmother, to buy that little Buick, Glendale promptly had a spell ofepilepsy that lasted for days. The whole town still dodges and swearswhen it sees her coming, for she drives with a combination of femininerecklessness and masculine speed that is to say the least alarming. Tosee Aunt Augusta out for a spin with her is a delicious sight.

  And it was most interesting to listen to a minute description of thecomposite fit thrown by the male population of Glendale, at their rallyinvitation, but as time was limited I finally coaxed the conversationaround to the subject of the viands to be offered the lordly creaturesin the way of propitiation for the insult that we were forcing them toswallow by taking matters in our own hands, and then we had a reallyglorious time.

  I am glad I have had a year or more in Paris, months in Italy, weeks inBerlin, and a sojourn in England, just so that I can be sure myself andassure the others with authority that there are no such cooks in all theworld as the women in the Harpeth Valley of Tennessee, United States ofAmerica.

  The afternoon wore away on the wings of magic, and the long, purpleshadows were falling across the street, a rustle of cool night wind wasstirring the tree-tops and the first star was coming timidly out intothe gloaming, before they all realized that it was time to hurry andscurry under roof-trees.

  Lee Greenfield was waiting at the gate for Caroline.

  Just as Henrietta had taken a last peep at the clock on the hall tableand gone to answer Sallie's call to come and help Aunt Dilsie in thebedding of the Kitten and the Pup, Polk's Hupp stopped at the gate, andhe and Jane came up the front walk in the twilight together.

  She had on his flannel coat over her linen one and his expression wasone of glorified and translucent daze. I didn't look at her--I felt asif I couldn't. I was scared! For a second she held me in her arms andkissed me, _really_--the first time she had ever done it in all mylife--and then went on upstairs with a nice, cool good-night and "thankyou" to Polk.

  "Evelina," he said, as he handed me the empty lunch-basket and also theempty fish-bucket, the first he had ever in his life brought in fromLittle Harpeth, "I was right about that Hallelujah chorus being the truedefinition of the real woman--only they are more so. I have seen alight, and you pointed the way. Will you forgive me for being what Iwas--and trust me--with--with--good-night!" He was gone!

  Jane's kiss had been one of revelation--to me!

  For a long time I sat out there in the cool, hazy, windy autumntwilight breeze, that was heavy with the scent of luscious wild grapesand tasseled corn, fanning the flame of loneliness in me until Icouldn't have stood it any longer if a tall gray figure of relief hadnot come up the street and called me down to my front gate.

  "Hail the instigator of a bloodless revolution," laughed the Crag as Istopped myself with difficulty on the opposite side of the gate fromhim. "The city fathers will have to capitulate, and now for the reign ofthe mothers!"

  "And the same old route to subjection chosen, through their stomachs totheir civic hearts," I answered impudently.

  Overlooking my pertness he went on:

  "Mayor Shelby was at home with Mrs. Augusta for two hours after dinnerand, as I came by the post-office, I heard him telling Polk inremarkably chastened, if not entirely chaste language, that it was'better to let the women have their kick-up on a feeding propositionthan on something worse,' as he classically put it."

  "I know it is a great victory," I answered weakly, "but I'm too tired toglory in it. I wish I was Sallie's Puppy being trotted across AuntDilsie's knee, or Kit, getting a rocking in Cousin Martha's arms."

  "Would any other arms do for the rocking?" came in a queer, audaciousvoice, with a note in it that stilled something in me and made all theworld seem to be holding its breath.

  "I'm tired of revoluting and it's--it's tenderness I want," I falteredin a voice that hardly seemed strong enough to get so far up out of myheart as to reach the ears of the Crag as he bent his head down closeover mine. He had come on my side of the gate at the first weak littlecry I had let myself make a minute or two before.

  "Is this right?" he asked]

  "Is this right?" he asked, as he gently took me in his arms, hollowedhis shoulder for a place for my head, and leaning against the oldgate he began to swing me gently to and fro, his cheek against my hairand humming Aunt Dilsie's

  "Swing low sweet chariot, fer to carry me home."

  It was.

  I know now what I want and I am going to have it. I'll fight the wholeworld with naked hands for him. And I'm also going to find some way toget him with all his absurd niceties of honor intact, just because thatwill make him happier.

  I'll begin at the beginning and some way unclasp those gourdy tendrilsthat Sallie has been strangling him with. I will bunch all the rest ofhis feminine collection and take them on my own hands. I'm going to makea Governor out of him, and then a United States Senator and finally aSupreme Judge. Help! Think of the old Mossback being a progressive, butthat's my party and Jane's.

  I know he is going to hate terribly to have me ask him to marry me, andI hate to hurt him so, but it is my duty to get Jane's fifty thousanddollars so the Five may be as happy as I am to-night; only there aren'tfive other Crags. I know it will be a life-long mortification to him tohave me do it, but he lost his chance to-night grand-mothering me. Still,I did turn my lips away. I was not quite ready then--I am now.

  If he wants to go on wearing clothes like that I'm going to let him,even on the Senate floor, but I can't ever stand for Cousin Jasmine tocut his hair any more. I want to do it myself, and I'm going to tell herso, and why. She and I have cried over that miniature of the lost youngConfederate cousin of hers and she'll understand me.

  But as I think it over--it always is best to be kind, and I believe I'lllet him get through this rally--it's just four days--free and happy man.

  I don't know whether to go in and wake up Jane or not. I would like togo to sleep with that kiss revelation between us, but maybe it is myduty to the Five to extract some data from her while it is fresh, on thefoam. I am afraid it is going to go hard with her, but somehow I have anewborn faith in Polk that makes me feel that he will make it as easy ashe can for her.

  Isn't it a glorious thing to realize that neither she nor I will have tosit and be tortured by waiting to see what those men are going to do?