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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http: //books .google .com/I A Case of Sardines ' A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Poole (. It-aves "Human lifr is t-.ickocJ here, ru.^i^crt as t»'. ^;i-;t and ihrobl'inv like thf -^oj Aud '/.hii do «^"c c- Only a ccst- ol .sardlno ! ' ' BOSTf:)N Xlbc IMlgrim press NEW YORK CHICAGO Copyright, 1904 BY CHARLES POOLE CLEAVES PS3S0S To JAMES CHURCH GANNETT, M. D., JVho by his rare ministrations in the days when we heard his voice and saw his form wrought out in our remembrance a threefold biography : PHTSICIAN: CHRISTIAN: FRIEND. ** Thy presence sweet Still through long years of vigil I may share ; For if from that enchanted spirit-land Some vision of thine after-thought may shine, • ••••• To cheer my life and make it more like thine. Then though thy place on earth a void must be. Beloved friend, thou art not dead to me.^^ Preface When I proposed that the romance of Mar- shall Dee be told and the scenes of the sardine industry unveiled in the story of Echo Bluffs, one asked : — " Do you think it will mean as much to you when those who do n't understand, or appreciate, or need it, say what they please about it ? " To which there could be but one answer ; and if it finds and fulfils its place and purpose it may mean more. Repeated in memory and conversations its im- pressions have deepened in the mind of the writer for whom the scenes have an abiding charm, and who holds in genial thought and warm regard the people of "Down East." Gratitude also insists that the influence of these scenes and lives be sent out into the world. Let the uneven line between fact and fiction lie undiscovered. Not even the writer can trace its dim path. What matter whether human ex- periences and the facts and conditions of life be reproduced in history, in philosophy, or in fiction, so life meets life and the impulse to a better life be given ? 5 6 Preface It may find those who need a mission to set them right with humanity and with God. It may find lives enmeshed in the commonplace snarls of working and living, in the rattle and jar of grim machinery, and set them to weaving the threads of life into a pattern that will please themselves and God. It may find hungry, dissatisfied lives and turn them to solving the mysteries of friendship and love more bravely, unselfishly, successfully. It may lighten and brighten with the humor and music of labor. It may enter the homes and hearts of those who are a part of its pages and tell them that the lights and shadows of their lives are watched by those who understand and sympathize ; that the garments of labor are robes of nobility if they clothe a clean body and a clean heart ; and that life is worth living if the soul lives well. Charles Poole Cleaves. Contents I. A Tide at a Turn . . . . II II. A Moonlight Drama . . . . 19 III. Guy Wilson — Nan Rhodes . 36 IV. A Down-East Fourth . . . . 46 V. At Break o' Day . . . , 59 VI. Sardines and Souls • . . . 72 VII. Comparative Philosophy 84 VIII. " A Boy's Will is the Wind's Will " . 99 IX. Light from *• Heaven " . . . no X. Cross-Lights of Earth . 128 XI. Scenes at the ** Salt-Box " . . 144 XII. A Few of the Many . . . . 151 XIII. On the Cliff Walk . 168 XIV. The Philosopher at Home . • 179 XV. The Grist of the Gin- Mill • 193 XVI. A Seaside Talk .... . 201 XVII. Into and Out of the Dark . 213 XVIII. The Scrimmage End of Tranquil Alley . 221 XIX. • An Outward-Swinging Door . 236 XX. Lessons for the Living . 242 XXI. A Wreck and a Rescue 7 . 250 4 8 Contents XXII. How THE LiFE-LlNE WAS CaUGHT . 259 XXIII. Tom Horton's Discovery . . 266 XXIV. Stephen Somes . . . • < • 275 XXV. "Nan" 282 XXVI. Over the Sea ' . . 290 XXVII. The Spoken and the Unspoken . . 298 XXVIII. Sunset . 308 XXIX. The Afterglow • 31S A CASE OF SARDINES '< // is true that Icve cannot be forced ^ that it cannot be made to order^ that we cannot love because we ought or even because we want. But we can bring ourselves into the presence of the lovable. We can enter into Friendship through the door of DiscipUship, We can learn Lave through Service,** Hugh Black. CHAPTER I A TIDE AT A TURN " There is a tide in the afiEairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea we are now afloat.'' — 8hak€8peare, "We sat in the consulting-room of the hospital annex. The mid-June air, growing sultry, fore- told the summer. My city-pent associates uttered notes of envy when, in a mood below the level of my not infrequent doldrums, I detailed my plans ; and Emerson, the voluble member of the con- sulting staff, offered in hyperpathetic tones to share the pain and the penalty with me. But I, wedded to the routine of my life and inflated with the rapid success of early medical practice, had found neither pleasure nor humor in my colleague's imperative advice. Maine may serve the millionaire, and lovers of pleasure may seek summers of idleness, but a young man's heedless ambition asks no better grant than a long lever II t 12 A Case of Sardines and time to toil. However, Dr. Stahl knew best, and I myself had blenched when he told me, on the previous week, the prospective con- sequences of a further neglect of nature's alarum. He had closed his generous and solicitous urging with a cool, decisive snap : — " Take your choice. Dee. If you do n't care to go to Maine this summer, make your last will and testament at leisure. Difficult business," he muttered, eying me reflectively, "to find a new partner in the midst of next winter's epidemics." I packed up with a heavy heart, and was in sheer desperation when we swung oiBf into East Kiver; but two lines of coast travel stirred new thoughts and new appetites, — stomachic and mental. While we marched on the sea, through meteors of spray, I found myself picturing a new life, — the old passing into oblivion. The pulse- beat of the steamer's heart spurred on the life- blood in mine. "With an unexpected laugh I turned from my berth on Wednesday morning, and, out on deck, watched the red light of dawn breaking on the coast as the lighthouses fell asleep. The stalwart headlands, the rugged cliffs, the church spire, the A Tide at a Turn 13 town, and the sea-stained wharves of Echo Bluflfs, nested against the mountains, came into view. With a sense of the luxury of a child lying in maternal arms at its natural feast I lay along the quarter-seat drawing in the briny odor that swept with the light wind from the wharves and the red rocks and beaches. "We swung to the dock. The long line of sardine factories crowned the spider-limbed wharves, their cutting-sheds open to view. The fish-boats had come in early, and their shining, slimy cargoes of young herring were fast losing their heads under the long knives of boys and girls, bare-armed, barefooted, and more or less bare-limbed — brown as the shore that stretched eastward; some in their common garb, rolled and abbreviated, some with aprons of oilcloth or sacking ; some draped in grain-sacks inverted, with arms and head thrust through slits in the bottom. I admire the picturesqueness of our street gamin, and of the East Side maiden Hebrew, where charity has not touched them. Here was the same graphic touch of nature's art, but with the bloom of summer and the robustness of open air and sea. Two young cutters, Syrian girls, I judged, who 14 A Case of Sardines had seen not more than seven years upon this planet, had slipped out from their work to eye the steamer and passengers and climb the hawser posts. Their machetes, nearly as long as their bare forearms, gleamed and dangled. Their faces glowed with the careless, unconscious joy of childhood ; their wrists were stained with the blood of decapitated herring ; their eyes were as innocent as the light of the stars that look down on the sufferings and sins of humanity, and know nothing about them. I turned to study the crowd at the landing. Something familiar in a square shoulder called me to a more precise inspection of a face, that finally turned toward the steamer, glanced at me, and lighted with a flash of surprise. « Hello ! " " Hello ! " I replied. But it took a spasm of our minds to dislodge each other's names, and then I hastened down the gangplank to pass an eager hand to Paul Shepard, whom I remembered as an under- graduate, and of whom I had heard nothing since I left him in college. " Well, Paul Shepard ! " " MarshaU Dee ! " A Tide at a Turn 15 "What in curiosity's name are you doing down here ? " I asked. " Answer the same for my benefit 1 " he laughed. " Are you to stay ? " I affirmed. " Have you quarters ? " " Yes/' I replied ; " engaged — ^at the Huflf House. Where is it ? " " Inquire, please," he replied. " Can't you ask also for my house, and call to-night ? I have an evening at home, but not a minute now." I nodded, and he wrung my hand and was off. Inquiring my way to the Huff House I fell to cogitating as to what Shepard's business might be. I culled old memories for any premises, but was baffled. "Very well," said I, "he knows the world — and people. I can tell by his grip. He must be a drummer on a furlough or a parson in his pound." So I gave up the guess with a chuckle at my own wit to soothe my failure. But that evening, as we sat on his scythe- clipped lawn, where I found him, Mrs. Shepard and the little flock, I turned the full blaze of my curiosity upon him. " Well, Paul — a drummer, eh ? Tou look it but you live too far East, and " 1 6 A Case of Sardines He laughed. " I travel," he said. "I thought so," I replied complacently. "What goods?" His eyes twinkled. "The factory's just in- side," he answered. The full truth of the matter dawned upon me when he led the way to a room where the backs of books, the contents of a few frames on the walls, a table of periodicals, and the general at- mosphere revealed a clergyman's study. I stared at him until he laughed. " You, Paul, a preacher ! " I exclaimed. " Tou have my hearty sympathy ! " He frowned, — then startled his books with a laugh that might have come direct from a college room with all the vigor of ten years before. " Marshall," said he, " do you remember Eve's sandwiches?" Eve, respectfully so called, was the matron of our boarding-club at college. I remembered her — and the sandwiches. "Tou know her original scheme. If the bread was stale or heavy, good meat made a sandwich. If the meat was poor, good bread made a sandwich. That 's the ministry I And you know we all liked Eve's sandwiches ! " " Not I ! " I protested. A "Tide at a Turn 17 "Well, Marshall, — or doctor! I know your story. You 've started to save the race and con- vert the rest of the medical profession to your own persuasion. But what is that item that told me Monday of this down-east trip ? Tough luck in your sandwich, I judge." "Paul," said I, "I'm discouraged, — or was until this morning, and may be again to-morrow. You do n't care for particulars ? No. I 'm out of the city for three months this year, and if Doctor Stahl, my colleague, is right, for two months each year of my natural life. It takes a United States constitution backed up by a Mon- roe doctrine to hold ground, physically, in the city in summer — at such work as mine. I 'm all right except for family inheritance. As for that, I've no doubt Doctor Stahl is right. 'Leave your work and the city two months of every year,' he said, ' and you '11 be a Methuselah.' " Shepard fastened his kindly gray eyes upon me in serious scrutiny, and then, with rare tact, called my attention to the peculiar glory of the Echo Bluffs sunset. In the west the great Artist had made his bold, broad sweeps of color, and the rich glow above brought a sense of in- effable beauty. The reflected brightness was 1 8 A Case of Sardines thrown across the sky and beyond the harbor, dividing island from island and tree from tree. The broad windows of the St. James on the island beyond had become a sea of glass and fire, and the loneliest fish-house on the shore was sur- mounted with a halo. Over all the east and north and south were wrought shifting scenes that stirred one's memories and impulses like rapid, passionate music. Then, as we turned again to the western win- dow, we saw between scattered trees, in the pass- ing brightness, a quiet green sky, as calm as a quiet green sea, — a rare, pale, delicate green, that brought a sense of infinite peace. " Marshall," said Shepard, " come down to the old factory just above Salter's Beach to-morrow, — inquire for the * Gospel Harbor ' if you like, — about half-past nine. Tou 're not in New York now. This is another world. If you live in it a summer you 'U be a different creature. Besides, you may learn Pshaw ! you 're here for a good time. You '11 find it I Come out now and hear my wife's music, and then I agree an early night will do you good." CHAPTER II A MOONLIGHT DRAMA " A millioD sermons would not reaoh the people who have been influenced by * The Lost Chord ' or ^ The Better Land.' '' ''Only by rex>eatedl7 awakening the appropriate emotions oan character be formed.'' — Herbert Spencer, I WOULD scarcely have classed Shepard among the clergy as I found him in the old factory next morning, with his shirt-sleeves rolled, his bare, boyish hair tumbled, and a tenpin ball poised above his shoulder. A swing and a spin, and as the ball leaped away he turned and extended his hand. " We built it ourselves," he replied to my query about the bowling-alley. "Some of the boys found the nickel-in-the-slot didn't pay dividends. The corporation offered us the use of this old factory for anything that would benefit the sardiners. The boys chipped in to buy this outfit, and we ran this partition and built the alley. It 's a trifle winding, because a high tide started a corner post of the building ; but it serves well enough. The boys play free, the men pay, and the proceeds above repairs go «9 20 A Case of Sardines into literature and games, which we keep dis- tributed in the homes and camps. Of course the money return is not large. We don't care to take much. It's a soul-saving scheme. The sardiners call this the * Gospel Harbor.' " " Minister," — a slim figure at the door with a huge, gleaming knife in her tiny hand startled me, — " the cutters want to know if there 's going to be a meeting to-night." " Tell them yes, — and they 're all to come." The apparition vanished. "Come in to-night, Marshall," he continued. " Look ! " He flung open a door into the main apartment where the rude benches straggled grotesquely across the floor. " Our church is too far up town, and — thanks to the corporation which furnishes the building and the consent of the church which lets me do as I like — the gospel goes where it finds a mission." At ten o'clock it was a hot forenoon, — ex- ceptionally hot for the down-east shore, — and I was down on the beach near by, curled under the grateful shade of a boulder, trying to maintain a drowsy interest in Stahl's recent " Future of Therapeutics." I breathed the cool odor of the sea, which often floats ashore in days of severe A Moonlight Drama 21 heat, so far at least as the banks above the beaches. I nodded, fatigued with reaction of change and idleness. "Make it three, Tuffy ! " a voice yelled not ten yards away. I leaped with the shock of disturbed bliss and caught a glimpse of a lank figure turning and climbing the bank. A boat was disappearing under the stern of a schooner offshore, and a faint " Three, sir," floated back. Trifling mysteries often awake curiosity, and I amused my dozing hour by fanciful and un- satisfactory explanations. At noon I aroused and tramped back to the hotel. At two o'clock Shepard appeared and begged me (I was glad) to visit one of the shops. The afternoon was hot, even on Water Street. A faint breath from the sea climbed the wharves, borrowing their odor. You never saw sardines canned ? Nor I before, — often since. A town school turned loose in a cutting-shed was decapitating the last of fifty hogsheads of young herring, and these, tanked and washed, were disappearing in baskets by rope and hook through a hole in the next fioor to the room above. Up-stairs, " flaked " and " dried," immersed in boiling oil and " fried," then 22 A Case of Sardines drained^ the " carriers " hurried them to the rows of tables where groups of " packers " tucked them into their tin cradles with nimble fingers. The packers were a motley group. There were brown-tressed Evangelines, New England Pris- cillasy gay Delilahs, pale, gaunt mothers with tired faces, younger women with jaunty and resolute air. Bright beauty, flabby stolidity, wholesome character and shabby tinsel, — all were there. An occasional ripple of song light- ened the smoky and oil-laden atmosphere, but the monotonous call of the packers, — " Fish, George," " Fish, Ben," — had the dry sound of a hot day. Out in the sealing-room the gas-stoves fumed, the coppers hissed, and the "sealers'" heads bobbed about in torrid zones and volcanic odors. The minister had been chatting with a weary- eyed woman whose face, I had noticed, bright- ened on his approach. He came out where I stood by the sealers, made some explanations and introduced some of the men, showed me the bath- room processes, and when we had seen it all and I had a dawning sense of the variety of life and industry we passed out. " Human souls there, Dee," said he, " all sorts and conditions. I like to work among them." A Moonlight Drama 23 We walked to the opposite side of the wharf, where the cases of sardiaes were stacked in wait- ing for the steamers. " This is the outcome of it all," said Shepard reflectively. " It 's a product of something more than mechanical processes, too. Like all results of labor, it's a product of processes of human life. Literature dignifies the plough, the anvil and the loom. The sweat-shop gets a bit of honor, born of pity and pathos, and the man with a hoe is made famous by the painter and the man with a pen. I tell you," he burst forth, laying his hand on one of the boxes with impul- sive affection, " there 's not a product of human industry but speaks of hearts as well as of fingers ! Do you remember what the Scotch fish- wife said to her customer ? * It 's not fish you 're buying, mon, but men's lives.' Human life is packed here, rugged as the coast and throbbing like the sea. And what do we call it ? Only a case of sardines ! " " Shepard," said I, with sudden recollection of my disturbed morning nap, " what might * Make it three, TuflFy,' mean ? " He caught my shoulder and turned upon me with a pair of blazing eyes and a hot face. I 24 ^ C^^^ of Sardines stared dumbly. Fully a minute later his face was cooling, but his tongue spoke hotly. "Where did you hear that? *What does it mean ? ' It 's the curse of this town. It means • more grief for Ben Perley's wife. It means an- other slide for George Salter; one less chance to save Joe Henley's soul, and Guy "Wilson trapped again. It is lost hope to Egerton's girl, — dollars spent and boys tempted, and the begin- ning of shame to girls. Oh, you do n't under- stand all this t It means hell breaks out in the * Acre ' again I " " What has happened ? " I asked him. " I do n't know, I do n't know." His face was wrought with a great grief. A boy with a bicycle appeared, to my annoy- ance. "Hampton wants to see you, Mr. Shep- ard. Take my wheel." With a hasty explanation Paul was oflF and the boy disappeared into the factory. I sought the shade of the shore again with another mystery coddled in my brain. I suppose the travel and the new experiences of the week, with relaxation from all sense of duty's demands, flung a mantle of drowsiness about me. And there was a balm in the soft. A Moonlight Drama 25 dainty breeze stealing from the south that was mesmeric. When I awoke it was night. The round moon was rising over a distant island point far across the bay, and the bulwark of land and black masses of spruce and fir stood in shaggy contrast to the smooth, quiet sky and lighted sea. A lone lobster-buoy flashed in the wake of the moon. The lights of the town behind me rose in ter- races where street by street they mounted the hill. Not far away I heard the " wump, wump," of oars in thole-pins, and saw a yawl-boat steal out from the shadow of a cove close by and head towards the lone schooner. Stupefied by long sleep, I tried to guess my whither and where. To add to the bewilder- ment a song that seemed a part of the moonlight, it was so strong and beautiful, came drifting down from the shore above. ** I love to teU the story, More wonderfnl it seems, Than aU the golden fancies Of all onr golden dreams. I love to tell the story, It did so mnch for me, And that is jnst the reason I tell it now to thee.'' 26 A Case of Sardines Ten minutes later with cleared senses I had picked my way over the stones on the beach, climbed the bank by the wharf, and was stand- ing at the ragged edge of the crowd at the entrance of the " Gospel Harbor." It was a full house. Evidently the meeting was at the center of its time and at the height of interest. There were the shining faces of those who laid bare their own experiences — the absorbed interest of the many who drank in the words and breathed the atmosphere. Shepard stood on a platform at the front, and by word or look linked testimonies together, a continuous chain. At intervals the singer lifted the listeners farther and farther from straggling thoughts of the day's toil and the quest for sensuous pleasure toward the high plane where life becomes a marching-ground and a battle-field. ^^Stand np, stand np for Jesus, Ye soldiers of the cross, Lift high his royal banner, It must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory His army shall he lead, Till every foe is vanquished And Christ is Lord indeed.'' " Who sings ? " I asked, at my elbow. " Nan Rhodes." A Moonlight Drama 27 '^ stand np, stand np for Jesus, The trumpet call obey; Forth to the mighty oonfliot In this, his glorious day. Ye that are men now serve him Against unnumbered foes; Your courage rise with danger, And strength to strength oppose." Edging by my side I saw the disturber of my morning nap. He ran a restless eye over the audience, I thought at the time — oddly enough — ^like a quack seeking gullible patients. In the midst of the song he slipped out of the door. There was a hush in the audience. Shepard was praying. It was a prayer that moved me as I was not accustomed to be moved. There was a touch of the grief that was flung into his voice in the afternoon's outcry, with an appeal that took fast hold on something that sent new throbs of life into his soul, and changed his tone into one of triumphant expectation. Yet, as I have racked my thought, but one expression has come back to me, — ^and that was fixed by the spell of the moonlight that fell about the doorway and mocked the straggling lamps within, and the at- mosphere, still vibrant with the music, — " O God, help the power of song to-night 1 " The singer stepped forward again : 28 A Case of Sardines ** Sowing the seed by the daylight fair, Sowing the seed by the noonday glare, Sowing the seed by the fading light, Sowing the seed in the solemn night. Oh, what shall the harvest be ? Ob, what shall the harvest be ? Sown in the darkness or sown in the light. Sown in onr weakness or sown in onr might, Gathered in time or eternity, Sure, ah sure, will the harvest be! " I remembered the opposite entrance and the door through the partition that shut oflf the bowling-alley. "I'll get in at the front," I thought, with an irresistible desire to see the scene face to face. Out of the crowd and away from the door I hurried around by the wharf. The door was locked — I might have known it would be. With a sudden pang and a thought of the night's dew I remembered, as I faced the shore, my book, left at the scene of my afternoon's nap. With all my interest in the events at the old factory I slipped hastily over the bank close by the Cove. Two figures stood on the beach, the moonlight full upon them, so wrapped in their conversation that they paid no attention to the rustle of bushes as I sprawled almost before their sight. One, I knew by the form, was the author of that A Moonlight Drama 29 mystery that had broken my forenoon's dozing, and turned Shepard's face white with rage and grief; the other was a more slender, boyish figure. I 'm not an eavesdropper, but the threat- ening gesture of the man led me to sink into the shadow and listen. " Guy, what 's the use of being a fool ? We 've as much right to make money as anybody, and somebody's going in to make money on the Fourth. I '11 have my share, and I '11 give some- body else a chance. If you don't want it, so much the worse for you." " So much the better, I say 1 '* "Well, I can't see how. You know it 's likely to be a short season after this run o' fish is over. What '11 you do then ? Your mother 's sick, you say. You can't feed the family. If I had young brothers to put through school, as you claim, I 'd be smart enough to make money any way I could. I know how it '11 come out. You '11 let your mother die, and you'll let your brothers shift for themselves, all on account of your pesky notion that you 're too good to sell drinks. Why did n't you stay in Camden instead of sneaking over here ? We do n't need your kind ! " There was a slight quiver of the younger 30 A Case of Sardines figure, and I saw his fists clench. He turned and walked to the water's edge. In the silence the clear music of the singer's voice floated down from the scene above : '* Sowing the seed of a lingering pain, Sowing the seed of a maddened brain, Sowing the seed of a tarnished name. Sowing the seed of eternal shame. Oh, what shaU the harvest be ? Oh, what shaU the harvest be ? " The young man strode back and spoke up with resolute calmness. " Jerry, there 's no use in getting mad. If I was as good as I ought to be, I would n't be here to-night. I '11 talk no more about it. If I need money, so does the crowd. Every mother's son of them, and every man with a family, knows as much as I know what it is to want money. I 'd be a devil if I helped clean 'em out." " Clean 'em out ! Who asked you to clean 'em out ? They 'U clean themselves out. They can't keep money. There ain't one of 'em but what aches to spend it before he earns it. Some- body '11 have it. Three-year-old boy with a cent, stick of candy ; six-year-old boy with a nickel, a soft beer ; young fellow with a girl, a ride on the A Moonlight Drama 31 merry-go-round and a drink on the sly ; man with a family, — well, he can't keep money 'cause he never learned how. You and I know howl When they scatter money we 'd better have our hats out. They clean themselves out, I say. We do n't do it. We catch the scatterings ! " He laughed in coarse triumph. The young man retorted : " That ain't altogether true, Jerry Phail. It ain't true the boys can't keep money. Of course they '11 spend some of it for fun. Any boy '11 burn powder on the Fourth. That 's none of our business. But they could keep money enough if there wa' n't so many schemes to snatch it away. But suppose they can't keep money ; wh}'^ do n't you take it all ? I do n't want it." "I can't, man, I can't," Phail whispered hoarsely ; " there 's too many eyes on me. I 'm not afraid of the law. There ain't a man in town dares complain, except the minister, — and he can't prove anything. But do you think I 'm a fool ? You 're a stranger in town, mostly, and it don't matter if you're caught. Nobody '11 harm ye. You 've no business to lose. There 's seventy-five cents profit on every quart of this stuff, the way we sell it. You can have 32 A Case of Sardines fifty. That's eighteen dollars for your day's work 1 " " And sell my soul and forty others for eight- een dollars ! " " Your soul ? How long since you had a soul ? Last summer you hooted around here with the rest of the crowd, and was as drunk as the devil when you struck town this spring ! " The young man's head fell and his shoulders drooped. They stood in silence, and in the mo- ment's quiet the voice of some one loud in prayer could be heard from the windows of the old fac- tory, and after a lull the voice of the preacher. Then both turned and listened, checked by some- thing magical in the song that swept down from the ragged building, — from the lips of the singer, unconscious of the mission of her song. "Where is my wandering boy to-night. The boy of my tenderest care, The boy that was once my joy and light, The child of my love and care ? Oh, where is my boy to-night ? Oh, where ia my boy to-night ? ■ My heart o'erflows, for I love him, he knows. Oh, where is my boy to-night? " Guy straightened his head suddenly. In the moonlight he seemed to loom above the other. A Moonlight Drama 33 " Jerry Phail, if you 're bound to do it we '11 talk it out. You know all that's bad in me. That's easy. You know who is to blame for some of it, too. But there are some things you do n't know. I stayed in Camden all winter, at home, and for the sake of my mother's pride I kept sober. She never saw me drunk. I can say that. When I found there was something left in me I made up my mind to be a man. I thought I was all right. Then I started for here in May, and the first man I met on the boat was in the same rotten business you want me to take,— only his was more decent stuflf ! Of course I got drunk ! Do you think I 'm made of steel wire ? The man do n't live who loves whiskey better than I do. What can a man do Avhen he wants it and everybody wants him to have it ? " Phail drew a bottle from his pocket. He un- corked it and held it out, temptingly. " Do you see that ? " The young man shuddered. I saw his face knotting, his hands clenching and unclenching. The music was still falling about us. "Oh, oould I see you now, my boy, As fair as in olden time, When prattle and smile made home a joy, And life was a merry chime ! 34 ^ ^^^^ 9f Sardines Oh, where is my boy to-night? Oh, where is my boy to-night ? My heart overflows, for I love him, he knows. Oh, where is my boy to-night? " "Yes, I see it. What's worse — O God! — ^I smell it. But I tell you, Jerry, I 'm out o' your reach to-night. Come an inch nearer and I'll make you sorry. You may stand and hold that bottle all night if you like ; I do n't care. I was the devil's own fool last summer, and this spring, too, I found. I do n't wonder you asked how long I 've had a soul. I found it out two weeks ago, if you want to know. I 'm God's man now, Jerry Phail, I 'm God's " — ^his voice choked. " If I can't do it for my mother and my brothers, I guess for God's sake I can forget I love whis- key, — I hate it so. I can count here as well as you. You can make fools of the boys if you like till you lose the job. There 's good stuflf in 'em, and maybe somebody else will help make it into men." He turned and walked away so quickly that the pebbles grated harshly under his tread. Jerry Phail shook his fist at the retreating figure and turned up the Cove. I dropped back from my elbow, wet with the perspiration of excite- HE HELD OUT THE BOTTLE, TEMPTINGLY. A Moonlight Drama 35 ment and interest. The words rang in my ears : — "For God's sake /can forget I love whiskey — I hate it sol" CHAPTEE III GUY WILSON — NAN RHODES — "Men at her side Grew nobler, girls purer.*' — Elizabeth Barrett Brovming. I SAID nothing to Shepard about the scene on the beach. It was not in my nature to exert myself to listen to tales of woe. Besides, I had a desire to see what might unfold without inter- ference. In the moral warfare I was long accus- tomed to sitting an idle spectator. But one morning of the following week, as I was book- browsing in his study, Shepard suddenly pushed aside his work, dropped his pen, and turning his chair toward me began to talk. He was graphic in description and recital. " About that young man whom we saw sealing at the * Resurrection,' by the first table. I saw you studying him the day we were there. He came from Camden last summer. There was pretty good material in him, as you probably think. How much he drank before he came here I do n't know. He probably took his start 36 Guy Wilson — Nan Rhodes ^7 some time ago, but he had n't been here long be- fore he was going down hill so fast I could see him slide. Then he would halt, and turn, and try to climb the hill. His boarding-mistress took interest in him. She talked to him like a mother. It annoyed him at first. She told me about it in this way i—r a i a jjj^pg Cook," he said to me, " I do n't want to be lectured, — ^you 'd better let me alone." Then he began to take it kindly, and when he 'd come home from work he 'd dance up to the sink and say, " I 'm all right to-night, Mrs. Cook." And it prided him that I'd taken a notion to him. Then he would have days when he would look so black that I dare n't say a word. I knew the trouble and I'd say to the carpenter, "O Mr. Todd, look out for Guy to-day ! " " * One night when we had finished supper he jumped up so quick that we all guessed what had come over him. We looked at each other. Then one of the girls spoke up and said, "Go down to the post-office with us, Guy," " Can't to-night, girls, — can't wait." But they snatched his hat and got him laughing, and slipped on their jackets and hurried oflf together. And the girls brought him back, too, and kept him at his 38 A Case of Sardines guitar all the evening. They told me next day that when they passed some of the boys going to the wharf Guy spoke up suddenly and said, " There, girls, see what you 've saved me from." ' " That was Mrs. Cook's story. " Then sometimes when snares were thick, or nights when the boats came over the bay with liquor from Highton, Guy would slip, and slip to the bottom. But one thing seemed to count with him ; or, rather— one young woman. That was Nan Ehodes." He leaned back with a painfully absent air. " Nan Ehodes ? " " Yes," still absently. "Well, where are you, man?" I said impa- tiently. "Come back and tell me who Nan Ehodes is." " That 's the trouble. I can't. When I think about it I always collapse into a state of fancy- ing. Oh, of course, I can tell you this: she's Anna Ehodes, a gray-eyed 'blue-nose' from Nova Scotia, who packs fish in the 'Eesurrec- tion.' But that 's all I know of her biography — I think no one here knows much more. Evi- dently she has lived in the States ; she brought her church letter from St. Botolph's. But she Guy Wilson — Nan Rhodes 39 came here from some little town up in Annapolis Valley, in Nova Scotia, and took a tenement for hoosekeeping in a small cottage near the ^ Acre.' It belongs to the corporation that owns most of the factories. What she is passes my under- standing — ^and stirs my inquisitiveness." "Well, what has she to do with Guy Wilson?" "Perhaps not much personally — perhaps a great deal. I do n't know. Once last year Guy nearly walked into a trap, eyes wide open. Some imps were lying in wait for him one Sun- day night to tell him that Bob Derrah, who is night-watch at the 'Scrimmage,' was sick and no one but Guy could take his place. You can guess what kind of a scheme they may have laid to trap the poor fellow. Nan Rhodes heard a whisper of it. Before he reached the church door, coming out from the meeting, she stepped up to him — he came the week before, and she had never spoken to him previously, I suppose — and said : — " * Guy, I 've broken a guitar-string. Can't you let me have one ? Can I get it to-night ? ' " ' Why, yes, — certainly,' he stammered. " ' Come on, girls, let 's hurry.' And she swept him off with a half-dozen girls, and it was not 40 A Case of Sardines till a week later that some one told him a part of the story, and he guessed the rest. "After that he noticed that she watched him. The fact is she watches everybody, but not ob- trusively. We know it, that 's all. But, as Nat Murray says, she never takes down the bars. Guy carried fish that summer. When he had the blues she threw one of her irresistible jokes at him as he dumped fish on her table. When he was drinking, if he had sense enough to work, he could see that she pretended at first not to see him ; if he kept at it she would look at him some day with a mute ' Where 's your manhood ? ' air that would almost sober him. So it went, off and on, through the fall. You may think there was little influence in that — not enough to count ; but — I watched. I thought it did. "I made the best acquaintance with him I could. It's hard for a pastor to get full con- fidence. I bade him good-bye at the wharf when he went away, and wrote him in the winter when I heard his older brother, the mainstay of the family, had died. But he came back drunk this spring. I was disappointed — thoroughly vexed. " Matters went on much as before, till one day, when the factories had been running day and Guy Wilson — Nan Rhodes 41 night for a fortnight, and all hands were out of sorts, and it was hot and the fish kept coming ; then the ' Eesurrection ' caught fire in the seal- ing room and that stopped work for a week of repairs. The women, mostly, had work at home ; but the men had nothing to do, and were tired enough not to care to do anything worth while. Some took the chance for a rest, some for a spree. "One day three of the young men, Guy among them, went over to Highton in a small cat-boat. A man who goes fishing with the devil does n't confess what he is fishing for till he gets his hook in the fish. Of course they found what they did n't go after ! "Coming back they bore straight for the wharf, lee bow on, with a beam wind and close hauled. I was down there. " ' Luflf ! why do n't you luff ? ' I shouted. " George Salter stood with his arm around the mast. ' Been a luffln' her all day, cap'n,' and he laughed so at his own drunken wit that he nearly fell overboard. My hair was rising and I felt like a frost. They struck the corner of the wharf. George Salter pitched headlong into a scow loaded with coal. Henley jumped over- 42 A Case of Sardines board and floundered ashore. But Guy had the tiller and his feet were snarled in the sheet. He went down with the boat. " I whipped down to the beach and pushed oflf in a punt ; but Eob Arthur was ahead of me in a dory, with a boat-hook, and in a very few minutes Guy was stretched on the beach. Then the reaction came ; every one lost his wits. As much as I 've lived by the water I am ashamed to say I never learned to revive the drowned. Who do you think did it ? Nan Rhodes. She stamped her foot at the gaping crowd, pushed them back, tore off her apron-string and tied his tongue, squeezed the water out of him, pushed a block of wood under his shoulders, and was pumping breath into him in about the time I take to tell it." " That saved him, evidently." "It saved his life, doctor," Shepard replied, slowly. " Whether it saved him or not I do n't know. I'd feel more certain if he crossed the line." " To the Provinces ? " I asked. He leaned upon his hand, gazed at me thought- fully, and said quietly: "'Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature : old things Guy Wilson — Nan Rhodes 43 are passed away ; behold, all things are become new.' ^^ I thought of the scene on the beach on the memorable night of Guy's battle with temptation, and his ringing words. "Why don't you talk religion to him?" I asked as dryly as I could. "Perhaps it's a favorable time." "That's a hard question. Young men fight shy of it. They do n't like to acknowledge that they need it. They do n't want to be religious till they can't help it. You know Beecher once said that so long as all goes smoothly men imagine themselves equal to driving their own team, but when affairs begin to run away with them they cry out, * Where's God? Where's God ? ' Now the only time when men feel the need of God's help in temptation is apt to be when it is too late ; God can't help a man much when the bottle is half-way to his mouth." " Perhaps this young man is not of that kind," I said, feeling the matter ought to be helped on, but loth to disclose an interest. "I hope not. Still, — ^he keeps in his shell. Young men do n't realize the need of better com- panions, and it 's hard for us to say we can help 44 ^ C^^^ ^f Sardines them. I stood by the revolving dryer in the * Butternut ' one day and watched a flaker stand upon it, inside, and try to swing it. Nat Mur- ray came along. ' What are you trying to do ? ' he drawled, — ' lift yourself by your boots ? ' Morally, men try to do the same." " Who 's Nat Murray ? " I queried. Shepard brightened, and laughed merrily. " Oh, he 's Nat Murray, — a part of your new, unexplored country. Discover him yourself. You '11 find him by the fryer in the ' Butternut ' — if he hasn't changed his post — with Yankee features, wit and philosophy traced on every line, pondering something deeper than the pan of boiling oil where he watches the fish. Or if he sits and waits for fish you '11 find him reading." For the present I had heard enough of moral philosophy, though graphically illustrated. I changed the subject. " How do you celebrate the Fourth ? " "Next week, eh?" Shepard smiled and his eyes looked afar, reminiscently. " Oh, in the usual down-east way: calithumpians, boat, bi- cycle, sack and potato races, with perhaps a greased pig or pole. Of course there are some unique features. The factories will furnish their Guy Wilson — Nan Rhodes 45 specialties, I '11 warrant." The far-away look became anxious and perplexed. " There may be a sort of celebration you will hardly care to hear about to-day." He turned again to his desk. I crossed to the window, and watched the sea, meditatively. Unshared, each of us held a vague prophecy of the Fourth. CHAPTER IV A DOWN-EAST FOURTH " It is a royal thing to be ill spoken of for good deeds." — Marcu8 AiMrelius, ** I am not of that feather to shake oft my friend when he most needs me." — Shakespeare, **Miisio is the universal language of the world." — Longf el- low. I DOZED through the clamor of factory bells, whistles and fish-horns in the early hours of the Fourth. But the irresistible brilliancy of the morning sky at my east window passed the swinging gates of my drowsy eyes and set me watching the magic changes of the cloud scenery. It was a rare morning, with a cool northwest wind that dispelled any fears of afternoon show- ers. The lawn was wet and sparkling with heavy dew as, after breakfast, I tiptoed across it and sat on one of the rustic seats to watch the initiatory scenes of Independence Day. Activity was stirring in the air. There were sudden bursts of cannon-crackers, snaps and pops and roars and toots, between quiet intervals 46 A Down-East Fourth 47 when the robin's whistle sounded as placid as on other mornings. The accelerated gait was no- ticeable. Men and boys were hurrying to the old wharf at the farthest end of the town where the procession of " calithumpians " or "horri- bles " was forming. I could see the long, swinging line as they passed through the ' Acre,' visible down and be- yond the vacant lots. The crowd soon hid them from view, then all were lost to sight as they turned and wound their way through the town, street by street, up the hill, and burst upon us with full din. A cavalry of Indians — ^genuine specimens of the down-east tribes from the reser- vation, arrayed in a combination of war-paint and feathers — and maskers in striped trousers and coats in all picturesque conceptions of Uncle Sam, led the procession. I am scarcely so quick of vision or so expert and sound in memory as to note or recall all the grotesque scenes of that pantomime. But some of it returns to vary or decorate the character of this tale. There were the children of the schools in bright costume, drawn in gaily decorated hay- racks, their cheery piping of patriotic songs rising amid the accompanying racket. There were base- 48 A Case of Sardines ball clubs from the " Salt-box " and the " Butter- nut " in their field uniforms, ready for the after- noon's battle. There was mimicry of all local industries; the clothier's " Never-Shrink Trous- ers" advertised by a pant-clad mule, the flat, stale joke of the milkman's " Best Cow " by a pump in a milk-cart, drizzling a stream of water from tub to can. There was the "Echo Bluffs Medical Pbbfession: — Eyes amputated, ten cents. Black eyes whitewashed, four cents. Legs sawed off, one dollar and a half. Proprietors of Dow*8 Eye Opener. Cores all weak spines, acid sores, and heart disease. Two for a quarter. '^ In the long, low cart that contained the pro- fessional body, the mock processes of surgery and compounding were conducted. The nature of "Dow's Eye Opener," was easily guessed. But I turned to my landlord who sat near me and asked, — " What 's an acid sore ? " He chuckled. " The soldering acid poisons their hands in the shops, sir. They say the only thing that will cure it is something that will cure anything else." A Down-East Fourth 49 There was the local Civic League's contribu- tion : — " Sheriff Smiles on the War Path." An empty calf-pen drawn on wheels by mules was driven by a boy in the mask of an ass. Around it walked " Thieves," " Sneaks," " Pocket- peddlers," " Scudgel- venders," and " Owls," bear- ing their conspicuous signs, and men built out into forms of bottles and jugs. The "sheriff" lay on his back on the calf-pen, blazing with his long rifle at the sky. The last scene of the many was genuinely artistic — in the sense that there is real art in what is true to life or nature. A large rectangu- lar box was drawn on a huge, low truck-body, its two sides open to public view — built on the rela- tive proportions of a sardine case. Within was a representation of the sardine industry. There were youngsters slashing fish -heads, and a red- socked, overshoed, oil-aproned overseer with a Scotch cap, handling his dipping-net over the tank. A shrewd, merry, twinkling face stood over a fryer, girls' fingers were flying over the tin cans, and even the charcoal stoves and hot coppers were hissing in a comer where the sealers were bent 50 A Case of Sardines over their work. Hang from the upper side of the huge box was the sign, — "A Case of Sardines." An hour later we strolled leisurely to the ball- field. The horribles had disbanded and the sports had begun. It was a jolly, sober, good- natured crowd. Eemembering the moonlight drama on the beach I looked for some evidence of Jerry Phail's scheme. There was none. We watched the sack race, the potato race, the tug of war with its hoarse, shouting, tugging, panting opponents and the ultimate victory of the "Scrimmage" over the " Eesurrection." Last of all Bob Derrah won the cheese from the top of the greased pole by virtue of boot-heels and ' teeth. With a roar of delight the crowd broke loose in hurrahs and yells, and turned more ravenously to the lunch-stand which had been patronized in a desultory fashion through- out the forenoon. Accustomed in professional life to irregularity of diet I followed the fashion of the crowd and remained through the noon hour. Some strayed off to the ball-ground to watch the game, but the larger stream of humanity flowed A Down-East Fourth 51 toward the full tide at the wharf, and the water sports began. While the racing yachts were bending the farthest goal I discovered Shepard, merged in the crowd, standing absorbed and absent-minded. I studied his face, curious to discover if, like my- self, he had some inclination to moods. He turned as if conscious of a spectator and met my gaze. " Ho, Marshall ! " he called, with his usual ease, as he came toward me, "are you one of the boys ? " " Yes ; and as full of questions as a boy," I re- plied, and produced them, as they had been heaping in my mind through the day ; for the novel scenes and incidents and characters of that eastern clime grew more distinctly original with each day's observation. We paced about on open ground and chatted and watched the home- bound yachts and the shifting, noisy, waiting crowd. A few faces were flushed, and some tongues were set free with the looseness of liquored brains. Shepard cast frequent glances anxiously here and there, and his replies to my queries grew more abstracted. He burst out finally,— 52 A Case of Sardines " Have you seen Guy Wilson ? " " Certainly," I replied. " If that is what has bothered you the past half-hour, look for your- self." I swept my hand towards an opposite wharf, where Guy sat in its cool shade, half hidden by a young woman who stood before him. Shepard watched them silently. I saw an expression of relief creeping over his face. " Are you satisfied ? " I asked. " Yes," he said simply, " it 's Nan Ehodes." " Oh ! " It was my turn to show quickened interest. " It 's all right, Marshall," he said with a cheer- ful smile. " I 'm anxious to know how Guy behaves on these occasions. Come over and see them." We crossed the sands and I met the young man, thinking, meanwhile, as I recalled that moonlight drama, that I knew him far more fully than he supposed. The young woman's clear gray eyes, as she gave me a cordial hand grasp, met mine with a frankness that suddenly deepened into reserve as she read my thoughtless curiosity. She turned to her pastor inquiringly. " I hope you 'U be hard and fast acquaintances," Shepard said with a reassuring smile. A Down-East Fourth 53 We fell into an easy talk of the day and its occurrences until Nan Rhodes' reserve vanished and she chatted freely. Guy Wilson listened, taciturn,* as preoccupied as Shepard had been. I beset myself to thaw his ice, and while busy with this arduous task I heard Kan asking Shep- ard in a low tone, — " Where 's Jenny Kent ? " " Oflf with her own associates," replied Shepard, uneasily. " You know them. Are you sure you have the right idea of her. Nan ? " " Certainly," she said with quiet dignity. " If the girls follow her it 's for good company's sake. She goes with them because they like her. It flatters her. But it would be better for some one else to flatter her in a better way. She never saw bad company before she came here ; if some- thing is n't done soon she '11 see very little more good company, — that 's certain ! I '11 find her," she said energetically, and departed in haste. Guy murmured an indistinct apology and fol- lowed. A calm on the water had left the yachts drift- ing slowly, sometimes quickened by a light puff. The crowd, satiated with sport and impatient at the delay of the lagging yachts, was surging 54 ^ Case of Sardines restlessly. There was a sense of expectancy, sidewise glances, a searching or waiting. The atmosphere grew tense. A hoarse voice broke out, — " Gawd only knows how dry — I — ^am ! " Shepard shrugged his shoulders. " Coming at last," he muttered. " It was all right so long as they were having a good time." We caught a glimpse of Nan Rhodes among a medley of girls, some with loud gayety of dress and manner, some plain and coarse in type and garb. One of them, a ringleader apparently, not so flashily overdressed as were some, carried a jaunty independence — a swagger, if it is to be well named, and its application to a girl allowed. Nan, too, had dropped her natural grace and dig- nity for careless abandon. " Come on, Jennie," she was saying ; " take the girls and come over to the ledge. Let 's have a sing." Shepard started as if stung. A sneer fell from a woman watching the scene from a carriage close by. Nan drew the girls after her to a de- serted spot not far away where a ledge cropped from the rising ground above the shore. She seated herself on the rock, and the girls gathered A Down-East Fourth 55 about her, — ^some with timid interest, some staring with open-mouthed, vulgar curiosity. A peculiar thrill ran through me and a sense of the incongruousness of the scene struck me when I heard the first rich notes of her song. " There 's the bra-a-s-s ba-a-nd," drawled a sporty fellow, to his tittering companion. I caught comments that threw me into a heat of vexation. Shepard shook his head as I turned an inquiring glance toward him. " That 's a slip of good sense," he said, sorrow- fully. " She never did such a thing before. It's a case of casting pearls before swine, I'm afraid." " The swine are there, sure-enough," I replied with contempt. But the crowd was turning toward the singer approvingly. She sat there, apparently uncon- scious of them, looking at the little knot of girls, singing as if for herself and them alone, heedless of gathering numbers and interest. " Nan 's all right," a hearty boatman said, turning and nodding to the men behind him. Then the first stanza of " My country, 't is of thee" roused the latent spirit of patriotism. Voices joined, and when the second was reached 56 A Case of Sardines the crowd caught it up and swayed with the vi- brations of the song as it rang out over the sea. Still Nan paid no heed to her surroundings. She sang on, to the last verse, when the music rose from fewer voices, for lack of familiarity. Then she looked out across the waters before her, and the emotion that was beating in her heart rose to her eyes and quivered in her voice. "Jesns, Lover of my soul! Let me to thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roU While the tempest stiU is high; Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, Tin the storm of life is past; Safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last ! " The crowd was pressing nearer ; all pretense of reserve or lack of interest had vanished. Nan hesitated, as if the presence of the audience would force itself upon her. A bloated, tattered sot who had been hanging upon the edge of the crowd and making it veritably ragged, pushed into the little space that surrounded her and said, — " Sing it again. Nan." She sang the hymn to the close. Yes, and three times more, at his monotonous, maudlin re- A Down-East Fourth 57 quest. Then he turned and straightened with a tragic dignity, and addressed the motley gather- ing. "That's my mother's bes' song. You know me. I 'm Hugh An'erson, minister's son, — devil of a minister's son, I be! What would my mother say now ? She 'd say I 'm a devil, I guess. I d'n'o. Always called me bes' boy. Sing it again, won't ye, Nan, dear ? " But Guy Wilson's voice was ringing through the company, strong and hearty. For the mo- ment, with its commonplace, wholesome sound, I seemed to be in the wholesome and hearty at- mosphere of manhood and sound life, — as indeed, in a sense, I was, for it was there. "All hands wanted at Mrs. Cook's for fish chow-ow-ow-der ! Fish chow-ow-ow-der ! Ten cents for all you can eat I " " Hooray ! " " We 're it ! " " Bring it on ! " " Set 'em up again ! " They turned and surged across lots to the rear of Mrs. Cook's house, disappearing around the corner. I saw Guy following with the bevy of girls, waved on by Nan's urging hand. Then she 58 A Case of Sardines came languidly and alone, and smiled as she paused where I was standing. " They care more for chowder than for song, don't they?" she queried. "Do you like to see men eat ? " I stared. My thoughts rushed to my lips. "I 've more concern for you than for fish chow- der, or for any man's appetite," I said bluntly. She read my thoughts. Her smile died. "There might be worse appetites, mightn't there ? " she asked coolly. "What of it? You've advertised yourself as roundly as the chowder. People " Her face stiffened; her sensitive lips quivered. She stamped her foot, as her cold eyes flashed fire. " The people ! If they 've any fish of their own to pack, let them pack them I " CHAPTER V AT BREAK O' DAY ''I see not but that my way . . . lieth through this very valley." — John Bunyan, A LOVE of medical science, inherited from my father, had been the absorbing passion of my life. The charm of philosophy and literature that became diversions in student life might be credited to the artistic tastes of my mother. But the thoughts and schemes and passions tran- scribed by literary lights were to me objects for dissection or diagnosis. Emotion and I were not friends. I probed the wounds of the poet, felt the pulse of the philosopher, and analyzed the secretions and excretions of the novelist, credit- ing myself with a fine distinction between the normal and the abnormal. Dante Alighieri might have had no charm for me had he not been so fine an ancient specimen of morbid anatomy. As for the passions and acts of living men, they were scarcely subject to analysis. More of law 59 6o A Case of Sardines seemed to underlie the phenomena of the most variable disease. The religion which was sup- posed to be the solvent of human problems and to combine with all elements of humanity seemed to work with uncertain chemistry. With a phy- sician's repugnance to self-examination I cher- ished my mother's faith in a God, but cared neither for experiment nor dissection in things so subtle. It was easier to assent or dissent to the formulas of the Church and the diagnosis or pre- scription of the clergy, — and far less painful. From the by-lanes of the large village where my father practised I carried some memories of nature. The purposes of education brought us to the city. My practice began among that numer- ous class who in the struggle for gain, wil- fully or unwittingly force physical powers or barter them for pleasure, and look to the me- chanics of the physician with easy faith in his power — caring only to be alleviated or stimu- lated, in order to plunge into the whirl again. My natural cynicism antidoted any philan- thropic symptoms. With all my enthusiasm for my science and its success, my sympathies died in contact with increasing knowledge of the wil- ful and obtuse abuse of the body. Sometimes At Break o Day 6i when an occasional consultation called me down town to the pathetic wretchedness of the poor, I had a desire to perform some surgical operation on society as a heroic remedy of conditions. But the fact always came back to me that I had neither sufficient patience nor wit to interfere with the existing order. Then I, too, began to snap the threads of vitality in the dry atmosphere of unceasing work and study, and the personal ambitions that made self-forgetfulness and recreation impossi- ble. The down-east trip was the only promising remedy. "The sooner away and back the bet- ter," thought I. And when the first days at Echo Bluffs had flung the same variableness and imperfection of human life before me, instead of yielding to the harmonious quiet of a coast town sleeping on the breast of the sea I felt a fierce resentment that I had met Paul Shepard and that his problems had been forced upon me. But it was an irresistible atmosphere. The fine air that followed a short period of unusual heat sent a new thrill through the body. A keen sense of the beautiful, hitherto latent, be- came active. The charm, the strangeness, the uniqueness, the pathos and the humor, of the 62 A Case of Sardines new world brought a reincarnation. The scien- tific mind seemed a part of the far-oflf city life and work. The artistic and romantic nature was awaking. When the sea air strode into my room on the morning after the Fourth, such a living thing that it seemed almost to speak, I lay in my bed, admit- ting new thoughts to my mind. Outside, the odd music of the cow-bells tummed and dummed and tanged, and seemed a part of a new har- mony. To make myself a part of this new world — why not? To feel its pulse, to study its phases, — a new interest and love, a selfish one to be sure, was throbbing. Here was imperfect humanity in a perfect atmosphere. Here was poverty in a wealth of scenery and air. Here were vice and the test of a far-famed prohibitory law, repugnant to the liberty and licenscrloving cosmopolitan. Here were homes and home life with all opportunity of open acquaintance; a society without social restrictions, for a common labor and manner of life bred frankness and freedom ; and among older residents of another class here was the quiet culture of New Eng- land's isolated towns. I forgot the cause of my coming. I forgot the At Break o Day 63 nervous dread of contact with actual conditions and real passions, and that I wanted freedom from social contact and human disorders. I flung on my clothing with a boy's enthusiastic delight in a new, fresh day, forgetful of self. I ate my breakfast regardless of my old languor, and strode down town with the uplifting wings of the morning and a keen sense of expectancy. "Good-morning, sor. Oh, beggin' yer par-r- don I Oi thought it war-r-r th' minister. Good clo'es don't walk down here so often on other men's legs. Well, well, the oil an' th' grase an' th' smell an' th' Lorrd knows what keeps 'em away, an' not to blame ayther. Oi see now. It's you was on th' dock yistherday whin th' Silas was loadin', an' they said you was a doc- torr. Yis, yis. Well, might I ask, are ye here to visit patients or to visit yer f rinds ? " He straightened his stooped back where he leaned over his scythe. In the little patch close by the " Shamrock's " labeling-shed the sparkling swaths of dewy grass lay back from the fence. This Irish version of Father Time fairly scintil- lated with good fellowship. The twinkles of his clear, audacious eyes radiated into crow's feet and disappeared in the white whiskers that straggled 64 ^ Case of Sardines down his face and wreathed his throat. His voice was as leisurely as his manner. He gulped another strawberry and smacked his lips. I caught his mood. "I'm visiting the coun- try," I replied. "Ah-h! Yis, yis. I s'pose so. Well! well! I was minded be me own quistion of a doctorr that lived here odd years ago. He was a gude man, well enough, but he kept a-crookin' his elbow. An' one day Sandy Watson said to him, said he, one night whin he saw him drivin' out like all-possessed, said he, * Where be ye goin' to-night, doctorr? Who's sick?' Th' doctorr whoaed his horse a bit and laughed. 'Nobuddy,' said he ; * I 'm goin' out to see me f rinds,' said he. Sandy looked solemn — he could look solemn as a praste, Sandy could. 'Well, doctorr,' said he, *take care o' yoursilf whin ye visit yer f rinds. If ye don't, ye won't have any patients. An' thin,' says he, ' whin ye do n't have any patients, hoo long do ye think ye '11 have any frinds ? ' " I reached through the fence and picked a bunch of the mown grass and pressed it, dewy and fragrant as the morning, to my face. "A fine little field you have here, Mr. — ah ? " "Ryan is me name, sor. Yis, yis. It's th' At Break o' Day 65 A'mighty's design that his cratures should all go to grass, like cattle. It don't grow by th' strates of th' city. Ah-h me, what a pity! Now I like nothin' so well" — his merry eyes twinkled — "as to git out in th' grass with me scythe, after th' Fourrth, an' whack away, an' see it pile up, an' smell it, an' — ^ah-h me ! " I caught a glimpse of a little yellow head bob- bing among the daisies on a far-away hillside. " The children fancy it too," I commented. " Oh, th' tor-r-mented, plaguey children I They git down on their knees in th' grass, an' spread their skirts out in it, an' flatten it down like a hen on her nest. It 's wonderful," he continued, with a grasp at another strawberry, " how th' A'mighty provides for his cratures. Fust strawberries, thin blueberries, thin raspberries, thin cranberries. Ah-h me I Do ye know, thim sneakin' idjiots from th' factory was up in th' grocer's straw- berry garrden yistherday, an' he an' all th' men on his new barm shooed at 'em, an' thin they had to go an' drive 'em oflf. Did ye ever see th' loike of it ? Well ! well ! it takes all sorrts of people to make th' worrld, they say." The partiality of the Almighty's provision touched my humor. 66 A Case of Sardines " Have ye inthristed yersilf in our indoos- thries, doctorr? I see ye about th' factories sometimes with th' minister. Well, well, he's inthristed in th' spiritooal welfare of th* people, I suppose, but he 's shtruck a hard case whin he thries th' sardiners. Why, I've heard Father Maloney say in th' four years he 's been comin' over, 'They's not one of 'em comes to con- fession,' says he. Dearie me ! he 's done all he can, th' praste has. But what can ye do whin a man won't confess his sins, no more nor if he hadn't any? Well! well! It's a thrivin' in- doosthry for th' town, no doubt, an' some owners gits rich, an' some fails, an' some gits burnt out whin fish is scarce, an' it helps trade, an' I sup- pose poor folks mus' git a livin' somehow. Well ! well ! here 's Jake Rook af ther me oars ag'in, I s'pose." A heavy figure with a round, merry face, a fisherman's beard, and a jaunty slouched hat, swung up to the fence. " Hey, Father Eyan ! I want your oars ! George Keesar ! mine hain't come back. I s'pose that pound 's loppin' full, an' the tide sarves in an hour and a half." " Yis, yis ! Well, well ! I s'pose so« Misther At Break d Day 67 Book, I '11 inthrodooce Dr. Dee, an' mebbe he'll help ye pull yer pound if ye ask him." " Hi 1 Well, lemme git them oars, by Keesar ! Tell him about it, Eyan, an' if he wants to go, send him on." He scurried over the bank to the boathouse. "There's a chance fer ye, doctorr, if ye like amoosement. Jake's good company, an' he always has boys with him. Go see him fish his weir, if ye loike." " Where ? " " Well, ye see th' island, beyant ? " " Yes. How far is it ? " " Well ! well ! that depinds on which ind uv th' glass ye hold to yer eye. If ye hold th' big ind it makes a proper distance. It's three mile. Now go 'long if ye want to ketch him on th' shore, an' good luck ! " We were soon pushing from the shore, Jake Kook, myself, and the boys, — John Hunt, Joe Arthur and Tom Horton. Tom pulled out past the wharves where the morning breeze swept across the water, and with sail set we leaped across the ripples. A herring weir is as difficult to describe to the uninitiated as the rationale of homeopathy to the 68 A Case of Sardines old school. However, if you will represent to your eye a fence of saplings and brush running direct from shore a hundred feet into the water and meeting a narrow opening in a circular fence of the same material a hundred feet in diameter, more or less, and which, therefore, extends that distance farther into the sea, you will have an idea of a herring weir. It has the surface form of a tennis racket with openings near the handle, arranged so that the fish enter but will not return. Herring, whether the tide be ebbing or flowing, are inclined to follow a shore. The long fence or " leader " turns their course and they sweep into the narrow opening of the circle or weir. Once inside they swim the circle re- gardless of the narrow entrance. The weirs are usually seined on the low water slack. The tide then, for a time, is motionless. Usually two or more men own a weir, though some weirs are the property of factories. The instrument used for seining a weir is a seine ; a huge hammock-shaped net between one hundred and one hundred and fifty feet long, ten to eighteen feet wide at the ends, and fifteen to thirty at the middle. A pursing line passes through iron rings along one side (the bottom At Break o' Day 69 edge) of the net. This seine is usually kept wound over a huge reel on a floating raft. At low tide, whatever time of day or night, the seine is transferred to a weir boat, which enters the weir. One end of the seine is made fast to the weir, then, unreeling it, the boatmen draw it around the inside of the weir until the ends meet. The circle is narrowed according to the size of the body of fish, and the pursing line finally drawn, which closes the bottom of the seine ; then the top is drawn together. There is a haul of fish, whether great or small, that would make the eyes of an Adirondack trout fisherman, who by chance had never seen a seine, glisten with delight. " There, boys, we 're here. By mighty 1 Ain't so many as I thought the 'd be. Howsomever, we '11 take what the' is. Here, Joe, you unreel that seine. Look lively now 1 There, John, drive your stake. Say Mr, — a — a— doctor, — you jest git on th' raft naow, please, an' you '11 save yer clo'es, an' won't be in th' way, nuther, an' we '11 show yer some fun, by Keesar 1 Tom, pass up th' boat-hooks. Now, all ready ? Say when yer mad. Steady now. Don't get ex- cited." *J0 A Case of Sardines One end of the seine was fast. They thrust their boat-hooks into the side of the weir and drew the boat around the circle. Jake drew steadily and silently ; the boys, — boy -fashion. "Why don't yer pull?" " Pull yerself ! I 'm puUin'." " Now, boys," said Jake, " steady there. Give me room fer my feet." " John do n't pull a pound," cried Tom, slack- ing. John chuckled and slacked his pole in- stantly. The boat jumped backward with the weight of the seine. Jake nearly fell over the prow. " Mighty ! Boys, what ye doin' ? Steady now ! " Joe Arthur pulled quietly and steadily, laugh- ing at Tom's excited efforts. Tom thrust his pole forward and caught it with a vigorous jerk on a weak stake in the weir. Instantly with the snap of the stake he fell backward into the bilge and fish slime in the bottom of the weir-boat, and scrambled up again, gasping, the slime roll- ing down between overalls and trousers, his hair shining with fish-scales. Jake roared. " Haw ! haw 1 haw ! There 1 What 'd I tell ye? Hey, doctor, we've got a new species o' At Break d Day 71 fish here. Look at him. What d 'ye think he '11 weigh ? You boys have hard work to set your- selves tew work, let alone each other. You '11 do better now. Here we are. Now, Joe, gimme an end an' we '11 purse 'em up." Then the fun began. The herring stampeded. Pollock drove them about in the narrowing circle. Sculpin drove them up from below, squid seized them at the surface. Water writhed and flew. " Cracky, boys 1 " cried Tom. " Look at that toad sculpin ! Hi, John, poke him, go for him ! Here, that big pu'ssy one — ^gimme the oar." He snatched it, and with sure aim drove its blade against an enormous sculpin. The sculpin spat out his mouthful of herring and darted through the school of fish. Joe grabbed another oar, — punching Tom's waist, — and plunged the oar into the churning, spluttering mass. Here and there a conger-eel wriggled about, like an inspecting imp. Jake plied his dip-net with a good-natured grin, glancing at me occasionally as I stood on the raft and shook with merriment. " Ef a feller hain't been a boy f er a good while, doctor, it 's worth while to have a few 'round ye to see how they act I " CHAPTER VI SARDINES AND SOULS " Friendships begin with liking or gratitude — roots that can be pnlled up." — Emerson, How mental vigor holds the key to a true esti- mate of life ! The flagged mind, drained of its force by each day's demands, has no vision be- yond its irksome duties. Give it rest and food, and let it store reserve force ; then it swings every worry to its pigeonhole, grapples every problem with a relish of vigorous exercise, looks out on a glorious world, and feasts eagerly on splendid anticipations and realizations. Before a month at Echo Bluffs was past I began to believe this to be true. There was a bright Monday morning when we had just returned from a delightful spin out on a country road, and were entering the parsonage gate. A hoarse shout sounded up the hill. We turned and saw a panting man, his hand waving frantically. We leaped on our bicycles again and turned down the street. 72 Sardines and Souls 73 "Dennis Greer's child's dying. His wife wants him baptized," gasped the man. Shepard spurred on without a word. I fol- lowed. He turned at Water Street and a half- mile further slackened at an abandoned store- house, which stood among a variety of buildings, tipped his wheel against a tree, and rushed in. I followed, up a creaking, shaky stair to a loft where rough boards divided the floor into apart- ments. A young mother on her knees by a neat, simple cot that seemed out of place in such sur- roundings wrung her hands and flung back her loose hair in spasmodic gestures over the quiver- ing, panting form of a little child. A man stood in a corner near by with haggard, hopeless face and drooped shoulders, uttering at times such harsh, helpless cries, half sob, half groan, as men utter sometimes when they stand face to face with an unseen force which seems ruthlessly to rob them, and they realize the vanity of their own power. A girl sat on a rude home-made couch, smitten with silent grief. The woman evidently recognized me. I saw in an instant that the end was near, and slipped m3^ fingers over the hurrying pulse of the writhing child. 74 ^ C'^/J^ of Sardines " Oh, doctor ! Oh, how he suflfers ! " "No, no," I said, my sympathies stirring; " this is not suffering. He is past that." Shepard reached into a tiny closet for a bowl, and filling it with water stepped to the child's side. The mother hastily drew a white coverlet over the quivering form and smoothed the hair with a dainty touch. The room was suddenly quiet. Only the child's harsh breathing was heard. " Joseph, I baptize thee into the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Eeceive into thy hands, O our Father, this child, free from the sins of earth, in the name of thy Son, our Master, who said, ' Suflfer the little chil- dren to come unto me, and forbid them not : for of such is the kingdom of God.' Draw nearer to thyself this father and mother, and comfort the sorrowing heart of this little girl. May they never forget that the child is with thee, nor cease to seek thy kingdom in purity and faith. Amen." The child had grown quiet. The mother's eyes had not left his face. As his breath sank into a long, deep sigh the room grew intensely still. The man groaned again. The mother bowed her head and clutched my arm. Sardines and Souls 75 " He 's gone, doctor ! " I hesitated. " Not yet," I said, with my finger covering the faint, rapid pulse; "he is passing quietly. This is nature's way of showing us that death is easy." Shepard laid his hand on her shoulder. " Yes," he said, " it is God's way of showing that while it sometimes hurts to live it does not hurt to die." When all was over, and we breathed again in the clear, glad, careless sunshine, I turned to Shepard. "Extreme unction, Paul?" I asked with surprise. " Do you baptize at death ? " " It was for their sakes, Marshall," he replied. "It was their request. It will comfort the mother. It will touch the father. God may make use of a form to open a door for the Spirit. It was no time to teach them the real meaning of baptism. There was but one thing to do, — and I did it." We were passing the head of the wharves where the factories began. "Let's turn about in the * Eesurrection,' Mar-, shall." We passed among the can-makers and went up-stairs to the sealing-room. Ordinarily visitors 76 A Case of Sardines are not allowed about the factories. Shepard had permanent permission to visit, and seemed to use the privilege wisely, seldom delaying work or spending time for more than a cordial greeting. While he paused among the sealers I strayed on, and turned the corner to the flaking-room and frying-pans. I recognized Nat Murray at once. Perched by the fryer with a tattered RarrCs Horn in his oily hands, waiting for fish from the dryer, a glint of humorous light pierced through his rough beard from hidden smiles, and stole like a sunrise into the clouds of his hair. He glanced up and hailed me. "Say, come here I Doctors and ministers do n't wait for in- troductions, I s'pose," he added as I stepped cautiously around an oily tier of frying-baskets. " Well, I 'm both. I cure fish and b'long to the order of fryers." "Nat Murray, is it?" I asked. "I thought you were in the ' Butternut.' " "No sir-eel I've shifted my berth. You know a man with a family must have an element of shrewdness. I came where the grass is longer." " Where 's your predecessor ? Out of a job ? " " What ? T' other feller ? Out in the cuttin'- Sardines and Souls 77 shed, thinkin' it over. He spoilt too many fish in the pan. He cooked 'em to death, an' that breaks 'em up. You see it do n't take long for a man to spoil the profit on a case of sardines. I had two helpers in the dry-house last year. Named 'em for John Bunyan's men, one Fool and one Want-wit. You remember they were the fellers that tried to wash the Ethiopian white, don't ye? The more they washed him the blacker he got, — p'r'aps somebody 'd tried to whitewash him once. Wal, to git back to the story, onf o' these dry-house hands worked days, t'other nights. What one didn't spoil in the day t' other 'd spoil in the night. " I s'pose you '11 think — Take care, there ! Look out fer grease," he said, as he swung a full basket from the fryer to the drain — "p'r'aps you '11 think I 'm hard on 'em. Wal, how 'd we know we had any faults if others did n't say so ? Eeminds me of how old Elder Jackson ketched a feller who talked about his neighbor. The elder stood it long 's he could ; then he squelched him. * Well,' said he, — ^the elder, I.mean,— ' if the other man's as bad as you say he is you'd better straighten out or you '11 both find yourselves in the same place.' " 78 A Case of Sardines I turned down the long row of tables where the bare arms of women and girls danced above the oily fish. It was a striking illustration of individuality and homogeneity. Outwardly they were a " class." In reality the variety of faces was an evidence of diversity of nature. Tongues flashed words back and forth, but the hum of the air-blast in the sealing-room adjoining, and the clatter of cans obscured the sound. Tired women stood and toiled, wearily silent, and here and there a thoughtful girl bent over her work ob- livious to all conversation. In the labeling-room it was quieter, and a dozen tongues rattled mer- rily. They paid little attention to me. " Say, Bet, got yer third case done ? " " Yes." " You do n't mean it ! " "Yes, I have!" "Delll" « Well,— what ? " " Did you go to church yesterday ? " " Yes, and I '11 never go again." « Why not ? " " 'Cause I won't. I hain't lived here all my days, I tell ye. I 've heard some of the talentest preachers there is. What 's the use to go here ? " Sardines and Souls 79 "Oh, say, did you know Minister Stokes in Highton ? How 'd you like him ? " « Oh, he 's all right 1 " " Godfrey 1 You liked him ? " "Say, girls, I think McLellan's the best preacher ever lived." "Pshaw! That Advent preacher that came 'round last summer 's the best man. 'Minds me of Dick Currier." " Dick Currier 's out of a job last I heard." " I heard Dick Currier preachin' at the poor- house once." "Preachin' at the poorhouse? Godfrey 1 I I do n't wonder he do n't have any luck." " Say, where 's the boss ? " " Down cellar." " Say, he 's milkin' the cow." " Well, I 've got to have some more labels. Pass me vours." "Help yourself. I've got to get onto my job." " Did you know Joe Cressey 's lost his job ? " " Well, I 'm goin' to leave, then." " You '11 have to if you do n't do better." "I'd do more if my heart didn't trouble me so." 8o A Case of Sardines " Sorry f er yer. I told John not to hug any- body else, but he would do it." Then, in an undertone of compassion, " Say, that 's bad. Bet- ter git some of Dell's heart trouble medicine." " I 'd rather have a cooky." I passed on in season to catch a peculiar ex- pression on Shepard's countenance as he stood at the opposite end of the apartment, talking with a serious-faced English woman. " I would like for them to go to your Sunday- school if they can, sir. I would n't send them till I could see your superintendent or you. In Highton we go to the English church, sir, but there 's none here, and the children do n't know what to do Sundays. I 'm afraid, sir, they '11 get bad company." " My dear friend," he exclaimed with a gesture of sorrow, " do n't wait another week." "Oh, what notions people get about our church work ! " he cried, when we walked alone across the wharf. That evening we finished a round of calls by a visit at an old factory used as a summer tenement. It was pitch dark in the apartment beneath, used sometimes as a stable. Behind Shepard's Sardines and Souls 8 1 lead I stumbled up the stairs with my eye on a lighted crack at the top. He rapped, and a quiet voice replied, — " Johnny, open the door. It 's the minister's knock." "Good-evening, Mrs. Walker. This is my friend. Doctor Dee, of old acquaintance. We weren't exactly boys together but attended the same college. He 's good company, you '11 find, and enjoys knowing my friends." His frank speech opened the way to acquaint- ance. Besides, my old professional air which, (with a distaste for wide and deep acquaintance), I had long worn as an armor was dropping apart at the joints in this salt atmosphere. I shook hands, and obeying Shepard's gesture slipped into one of the two chairs, while he dropped quickly upon a sardine case, and the woman, with some hesitation, returned to the broken rocker. " La, Mr. Shepard, it does me good to see you make yourself at home. He comes in any time I 'm here," she said, addressing me. " He knows what we are, and he 's always welcome. We 're poor sardiners. My husband's dead, and the little gals must go to school in winter, so we 82 A Case of Sardines make all we can till December. Last year we made a hundred dollars right here. Oh, no, we do n't belong here in town. We come from Still- brook. Mr. Hamilton gives us the rent of this room." The " room " was the end of the upper story of the factory, made by a short partition con- taining the door through which we entered, and a tier of sardine boxes completing the division. Behind the stove a rough boarding shut oflf, partly, a corner used as a bedchamber. Else- where in the building I heard rough laughter and the sound of young men's voices — evidently be- longing to other tenants. The evening breeze sauntered in through broken panes, and rattled the wrapping-paper curtain. A formidable array of cutters' knives was stuck in the wall above the box which served as washstand. But a neat cloth on an old table, a clean chimney on a bat- tered tin lamp, a half-dozen children's faces oddly and quietly attractive in comparison with their clothing and surroundings, and the beaming, sat- isfied face of the mother, — I thought of what Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, that God must have loved the common people best since he made more of them. Sardines and Souls 83 While we sat and chatted of the day*s work and of other folk, and supplied each other's minds out of our widely different realms of thought and life, the youngest boy drew bash- fully behind his mother's chair and kissed her. " Good-night, Johnny. Say yer prayer." CHAPTER VII COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY " Commoner natures Pay yon with what they do; nobler with what they are." — Schiller, We were talking of factory life in the gloam- ing of the next evening, in the parsonage sitting- room. A chilly fog had blown in from the sea. Mrs. Shepard had a cheery, crackling fire on the hearth, and by chance Nat Murray and Nan Rhodes were there. The lamps were unlighted. I sat in the side-shadows and watched the play of light over the young woman's face, as the flashes, like an artist's pencil, touched feature after feature, each touch hinting a deeper feature of the soul. There were the freshness of girl- hood and the resolution of womanhood. The cheery flash of a light heart sometimes changed into a tone that strengthened my belief that a wider experience and culture lay behind the veil of her factory life. I rehearsed the talk I had heard at the packing- tables. " Is that a fair sample ? " I asked. 84 Comparative Philosophy 85 " Yes," she said with a gesture of repugnance, " it is. Those who do n't talk in that way talk very little." "I wonder if their thoughts are not better than their language," said Mrs. Shepard. " That is true of most of us." " It is true of some of the girls. Some of them seem to have no thoughts. But if a person does n't know how to say a thing it may never be said. Sometimes there 's no one to listen to what one might say. And after the girls do this light thinking and talking they can do no better. They want to think of something better, perhaps, and can't. And the best girls, and those who can think, — well, their table-mates don't help the matter." " How is that ? " asked Mrs. Shepard. "When Katharine Holmes joined the church the girls teased her. *How good the factory girls are getting to be!' What chance has Jennie Kent ? You know her history, perhaps. Of course she is sensitive. She keeps up her light talk to cover her wounds. But she said to me, one day, * Folks would be surprised if they could see what 's inside of us girls who talk so.' " "I find," Nat interrupted, "that while you 86 A Case of Sardines may think with the wise you must converse with the vulgar. Ef a man comes to your back door with a swill-pail you expect to fill it up with swill, do n't ye ? Natchelly. He ain't askin' f er bread. I ketched Sam Tophet talkin' one day about what he'd do ef he was rich. Says I, ' I 'm as happy with a scrap o' poetry as you 'd be with all you want. Ez fur as happiness is consamed,' says I, * you might ez well be happy in a hut ez in a house. Happiness do n't come from tackin' on the gildin'. No sir-ee! you do n't ketch that dame that way. She 's just ez likely to come in where there 's bark on the roof and moss in the chinks.' But my figures all fell, — on him. He could n't understand 'em because he wa' n't read up, you see. Might ez well read a Greek grammar to my cow." "If the boys and girls were brought up to think it worth while to learn," said Nan, "it would make a great difference in factory life. The people come from small towns where the schools are n't what they ought to be. I know very little about the schools here ; but the chil- dren are n't taught to care for the schools. Older folks say to them, * What 's the use of going to school ? You 'U forget it all.' " Comparative Philosophy 87 ^^Conversation takes a religious bent at the shops, I notice," said I. " Very often. They suppose what they think is right. If they do n't understand they guess. If they talk about the Bible, and can't agree, they say, *If it had been intended for us to know we 'd have known it ; we ought not to be poking into it.' Oh, dear ! " She tossed her head and laughed in merry despair. "I would like to know what are the girls' thoughts of heaven," mused Mrs. Shepard. " Oh, they do n't have many ! They just live now ! " " Ef they could only grab up a few good ideas —out of the ditch — anywhere," argued Nat, " an' have good sense enough to put 'em together, they might strike a spark an' make a fire. But the minister 's the only one that makes a business of f urnishin' upper stories, an' his price is too low." Shepard's frown was visible in the firelight. "Take care, Nat!" said he. "Don't forget that you and I never agree when you disparage the community. There are people here who care more for the sardine workers than the workers are willing to believe." " Mr. Shepard," said Nat with a solemn shake. 88 A Case of Sardines "you ought to know. You go to ^Heaven' more 'n I do, and see the angels. But ef that Greek feller, Dodgenes, that walked 'round the streets lookin' fer an honest man, had struck the Bluflfs any time since the sardine pack commenced he 'd 'a' blowed out his lantern and gone home." We laughed, except Shepard, who frowned more deeply. " Perhaps Miss Ehodes has an opinion ? " I in- terrogated, with burning curiosity. "People aren't all alike. There are people who want to do good but don't know how. There are people who want to do good, but do n't want to get their hands dirty. There is a kind of people who would pass down old clothes with a pole. It all comes to this — there are n't many whom the sardiners can call really good friends." "^Really good friends!'" I retorted hastily. " Who finds them anywhere ? " She looked up in surprise. "Don't you?" she asked. " Perhaps you do n't need them. Peo- ple who need them ought to have them, even if they don't deserve them. Some deserve more than they get. I can't forget how Guy Wilson looked when he said, ^ It 's mighty lonely here. It 's hard enough to have the world down on you Comparative Philosophy 89 without having to knock your way into the church. It would n't be half so bad if there was some one to stand by and say, " You 've done well. Stick to it." ' Guy is n't one of the sulky kind. Those words meant something." " Whose fault is it ? " asked Shepard sadly. " O Mr. Shepard, you know I love the church. It 's not all their fault. Guy can't realize how lit- tle they know him or can know him. The trouble is right here : folks who are not Christians think Christians do not care, and that when they say they do it is all put on. Of course that is n't right. But how is it that some who do care make them know it ? There is n't one of them but knows you care ; and your caring will leave its mark." " Now you 're getting at something practical," I cried. "Shepard's bowling-alley and sardine songsters are doing more good than his church ! " This statement I knew by his frown hurt him. " What shall we do next ? " That " we " came spontaneously, and surprised me. " Fer one thing," said Nat, " the men that sell rum ought to be horsewhipped in the street. They do n't care about payin' a fine ; they make that up before night." 90 A Case of Sardines " How would the old duckingHstool do ? " asked Mrs. Shepard. " That would n't do any good ; they 'd dry off too quick. But it would take a long time to dry oflf the smart." "Why not settle this matter locally?" I asked. "Why not have a citizens' caucus, and nominate officers independently of parties — men who would enforce the law ? The parties have town caucuses in the spring, do they not? " " Caucus ! " chuckled Nat. " Not much ! We know better now. We go all over town and ask, as the disciples did, ^ What shall we receive there- for?' Who'd you think you'd git together? This town 's like a field o' pertaters ; the best of it's under ground. You know Hiram Brown? Well, he's a man who's pretty well filed. P'r'aps I should say he 's a man that 's posted and well informed. An agent arrived one day and asked him where the best citizens resided. Hi did n't take him up to ^ Heaven ' ; he led him across lots to the cemetery." " Where 's ' Heaven ' ? " I asked. " Just above * Purgatory,' " he replied, with a tantalizing twinkle. " * Purgatory ' is the boarding-house district," Comparative Philosophy 91 said Shepard hastily. " It 's a fancy here, you know, to give names to shops and places. ^ Heaven ' is colloquial for * up town.' " "Well," said I, "I've met excellent people there. Have they never tried to better affairs ? " " Yes ; they met in Head's Hall one night last spring, jest before the rummiest 'lection we ever had, and drawed resolutions an' made speeches, an' prayed. But they could n't find men enough to make out the ticket. There was jest enough of 'em to do the prayin'. Ones they wanted wouldn't sarve. Ones that would sarve they didn't want. Ef they'd gone out some night when the wind was blowin' from the north and had bio wed against it they 'd have done as much ; ef they 'd gone home from business at six o'clock and gone to bed they 'd have done more." I looked at Shepard inquiringly. His head dropped on his breast in gloomy concession. Nan Rhodes arose. " May I see the children before I go, Mrs. Shepard," she asked wistfully. "Why, certainly," said Mrs. Shepard, rising with a smile of pleasure. "Margaret has just put Carl and Alice to bed. We will go to- gether." They passed out, and Shepard, Kat and I sat in 92 A Case of Sardines silence. "We heard the merry greetings of the chil- dren as their visitor entered, and the chatter of happy tongues. Then a voice of subdued song stole from the chamber. It was a German lullaby. I had heard it frequently in professional visits at the Kinder Anstalt in my city practice ; but how came this girl in possession of German song and a Ger- man accent which she had never revealed before ? /e) Andante. "Wanndie Kin-der schlaf-en ein, Wachen auf die 8 t -J±=3t - ^^ Ster - ne, und es stei - gen En - ge - lein fe i $ 4 nie - der aus der Fer - ne, hal - ten wohl die ^ K _ fa -^^ fv — ^-^ ^S ^==-^^ gan - ze Nacht bei den from-menKindem Wacht Wann die ^=rT^=^ 8 ^7\ ^=^ 4 ^^ if ^ Kin-der schlafen ein wach-en auf die Ster- ne- lein.'' Comparative Philosophy 93 The song ceased, and a moment later a dark figure slipped through the hall, flinging back a cheery response to the children's " Good-night." But as she passed I heard distinctly the master- ing of a sigh. The outer door opened and closed. The fire flickered with the draught. " She 's rare," commented Nat. " Why, Marshall," exclaimed Shepard, " you 're a living stethoscope ! She opened her heart to- night." " I only asked a question, and listened," I re- plied, gruflBy. Nat's eyes had a sober twinkle. "There's some people," he said, staring thoughtfully at the fire, " that takes ye all over the house ez if they had rooms to let. There 's some that takes their guests into a receivin' room an' treats 'em po- litely; and when they find somebody they can trust they take 'em right in where they live." Shepard roused from the silent mood that had possessed him during the evening. " I see where you stand, Marshall. You've lived in the throng. All of your associations, even in your professional work, have been with little contact with the moral and spiritual redemption of men. Now you are getting interested; and when a 94 -^ Case of Sardines man's first interest comes he expects to make easy work of it, no matter how impossible he had previously supposed the task to be. I 've felt the same enthusiasm." "But you've lost none of it, Paul. What more do you need but a little help and encour- agement and, — funds, maybe ? Our city churches thrive on institutional work. Of course I do n't know much about it, — only they boom and bloom." "Yes; I know their methods and points of success. I ' thought I 'd found a fine chance here to imitate them. As you say, I 've not lost my enthusiasm. Give me more funds and a few helpers, and I can do more to offset the devil's attractions than people here are willing to be- lieve. But I 've tried this work long enough to get some wisdom. Bowling-alley, sardine-shop meetings, good literature, — thank God for the machinery ! Yet I am brought face to face with the fact that there is a limit to its power. It dawns upon me more and more that Kan i& right." "Eight? How?" He hesitated, reflecting. "There are some things that are spoiled by definition. There's Comparative Philosophy 95 Nan, in the factories, and I suppose we might say she 's right in being Nan Ehodes. Of course that does n't cover the ground, and we do n't be- long in her place, so far as daily work is con- cerned. But if we were Nan " " Well, we 're not," I replied. " Do your own part. Open doors of opportunity. Touch the reason and common sense. Make a sound life attractive. Is n't that right ? " " Certainly." " If they won't stand on their feet what's the use to carry them ? Point out the way. Stamp your foot, and say, * Start ! ' " "Well, Marshall, I've asked the same ques- tions. There are a dozen arguments for the yea or the nay. There's only one real answer, and you may find it out of a summer's acquaintance. Nan evidently knows already more than I know, and does what I cannot. I sometimes think she loves more and they know it." " Pshaw ! " I exclaimed angrily ; " what has love to do with hoodlums ? They 'd drown in a sea of it, asking for something to drink! It isn't safe to make indiscriminate associations." Shepard smiled. " You still argue for machine- made men, Marshall. Never mind, we can only 96 A Case of Sardines say we are dealing with human nature, not with metal and wood. We are both in the dusk. I wish I could stand for a day where Nan stands, and know these lives as she knows them. I might have more of the love that passes knowl- edge." He sprang to his feet with an expressive ges- ture. "Do you see that dictionary? There's English, in all its purity, in stately alphabetical arrangement. Out of it one man may make ob- scene language or vile literature, another a song, another a sympathetic talk or a prayer ; one man may make a plea for his country's good, and a poet can fashion a dozen of its words into a thought that will touch a million lives. What do ten letters spell ? F-r-i-e-n-d-s-h-i-p ! What does it mean? I tell you" — he smote his fist against his open palm and strode across the room, a picture of a man spurred by inward long- ings, — " it makes a vast difference who spells it. When Nan Khodes does it — no matter whether by talk or song or rolling up another girl's sleeve, or by a look, or just by living ! — it means more than you or I can make it mean. Preacher though I am, and a lover of men and no idler in their service, I'd give half my life to make Comparative Philosophy 97 those letters express in the rest what she makes me feel they ought. Oh, it's such a simple lifel But it's a mystery. Not all the words of the English tongue could express it. You can only know her, and see, and guess the rest ; and some day you may wish that you were she." For a moment I did. Then the old tide of resentment flowed back, and I could see only the loss of time and labor and sentiment expended on the unthankful ; and I felt a stirring vexation at the rising and falling emotions of the evening. " Fact is," said Nat, wagging his head thought- fully, " if there 's anything in another girl worth loving. Nan can't help loving her. 'Minds me of a story. Some years ago, when I was a boy, when old Parson Harriman was here he had a young minister study in' with him. Parson Har- riman was a-learnin' him bow to preach. The young man was a pretty stiddy feller, but he went with one of the girls too much to suit. A good girl she was, but she did n't b'long to the upper crust. So when the neighbors thought the tide was gettin' a leetle too high they took their tongues and went to the parsonage. They asked the young man what he meant by such actions: They labored with him pretty strong, an' tried to 98 A Case of Sardines convince bim be 'd lose bis influence an' mebbe ruin the cburcb if be married ber. He listened till tbey got tbrougb. * Well,' said be, * tbe trutb is, I love tbe little sinner.' " We laugbed beartily. Sbepard's old brigbt- ness returned. "Love is tbe fulfilling of tbe law," be said. " Well, Marshall, get acquainted ! You 've no in- fluence or social standing to lose, and if you do n't gain any you won't care. We want your belp in our sociological machinery, and you may have plans worth using. Perhaps you '11 fall in love with the people. They won't hurt you; you won't hurt them." " I suppose a man may drift into surroundings where be can't resist temptation," I remarked with a tragicomic air. " Ez fur ez my observation goes," flashed Nat, "the population here ain't tryin' to resist tempta- tion. Tbe majority of 'em 's 'round bunting it up!" CHAPTER VIII "A boy's will is the wind's will" " The men who are not satisfied, — They are the ones who lead; They force humanity ahead By strident word and deed; They bring ns out by bygone ways, They guide us through the dark To where some man, unsatisfied, Has set a shining mark/' ^W. D. NeOnt. Nat had departed. Shepard and I still sat on opposite sides of the firelight's glow, smiling at his nonsense. " Well, Paul," I continued, " you have a good grip on the boys in the cutting-shed, I notice. Sturdy little fellows, too." His eyes shone. " The cutters begin life young. You 've watched them ? Of course. I saw you standing by the tables, watching Moody Haw- kin's boy slice his finger. The fathers or mothers bring them in before the lisp is out of their tongues. They tie an oilcloth around them or put on the sack, stand them on a box, barefooted 99 lOO A Case of Sardines and bareheaded^ as you see them, and there 's a picture of Young America, eastern type. Per- haps they can make five cents in an afternoon — the infants, I mean, — if their fingers are n't gashed. In a little time it makes them as inde- pendent as your newsboys. " But as to manliness, — well, it 's young man- hood, sure enough, of its own type. Some are as honest as government gold. Some are so blissfully unconscious of any distinction between right and wrong it is hard to say a fault is a fault. "I watched Grub Todd's tactics yesterday. He cuts behind the table in a corner of the ^Klondyke.' He stood in a tub of * scoots' ankle deep, slashing like a veteran, the heads running down his trousers and bare limbs. His box was behind the tub. When Madsen passed the pay-checks he thumped on his box and called, * Check ! ' whether it was full or not ; and Madsen passed the check. When the whistle blew at noon Ted Smith called from the opposite row : — " ^ How many cut. Grub ? ' " ^ Got twenty-three checks,' Grub answered. " ' Nit ! I only cut fifteen. That 's more 'n you can cut/ "THE CUTTERS BEGIN LIFE YOUNG. "^ Boy's Will is the Wind's Wiir loi "'Well, it don't matter whether I cut 'em, I got 'em, that 's the point, — see ? ' " Ted crawled under the table and came up by his side. ' How 'd ye do it ? ' he asked. " Grub's pride was too much for his secretive- ness. ' Well, I bet my big-tipped knife I could do old Madsen outen nine boxes this morning,' he said. " That was what Ted wanted. ' If you do n't divvy I '11 blow on ye,' he threatened. " They squabbled and the fish flew. Some of the checks went down in the ' scoots.' Finally they compromised on gambling the stolen checks in ' the owl ' — the slot-machine, you know — and went off happy. If they gambled all their checks they only followed a common custom. If they beat the machine they probably varied the program by investing in candy and soda or ginger ale." "That's a delicious mixture of vice and vir- tue," I observed : " enterprise and self-help com- bined with roguery ; profit-sharing secured by force and arbitration, and human happiness pro- moted by questionable means ; all with an ap- pearance of innocence that would rival a Croker. The moral question is lost in the mud." I02 A Case of Sardines "Not a bit!" said Shepard emphatically. "One end of it rests fairly on men who know better than the boys and do worse. That in- cludes the men with the slot-machines, any manufacturer who will can a decaying fish, and any merchant who is willing to profit by selling the boys small drinks and cigarettes, — or any life that prefers the go-easy plan to a fight for char- acter and fine influence, and so sets a bad ex- ample ! " He tapped the hearth with his foot in emphasis. " The boys have my sympathy," I said ; " but what can you do without a change of surround- ings ? " He shook his head dubiously. " That 's the question. We must ask a more practical one : What will the boys do with themselves with things just as they are ? They are not all alike. Some are bred in influences that make them mor- ally weak ; some know no better ; some delight in deviltry. There are some who come out of good homes and run with the wind." He leaned over his chair rail, and his eyes glowed. "Every boy likes to do what a man does. If some one tells him he can't, he wants to do it all the more. A boy thinks if he can "^ Boy's Will is the Wind's WilV 103 have a man's privileges then he's a man. To smoke and drink are common privileges of men whom my best boys know — to say nothing of foul language and worse things yet. " Well, I go down street some day ; I find a boy jingling pennies in his little trousers. ^ I got ten cents to-day selling bottles, Mr. Shepard.' ^ Is that so, George ? Keep it and when you get enough help your mother buy your clothes.' (It 's of no use to tell them not to gather the bottles.) ^ Yes, sir.' ^ But look out you never buy what goes into the bottles.' * No, sir.' "But the boy wants candy, naturally, and there 's no one to teach him self-denial or to en- force it. Next comes the *soft drink' stage. Harmless drinks, they are called. They are as harmless as a camp-fire in a dry summer I First, they teach the boy to spend money for what he does n't need and can't afford. Next, he likes to drink out of a bottle, as men do. Lastly, he would like to drink what the men drink, and men drink rum. So we hear of another boy drunk. "I found four little chits behind the church one day, Marshall, and watched them through a crack in the horse-shed. They sat in a row, three of them whittling out wooden knives and I04 A Case of Sardines pistols, and listening to a cheap novel the other was reading. I cut across the ' Acre ' one night, for a lamp in the ' Peacock's ' office made me sus- pect mischief, and I * peeked.' What do you think I saw ? Four boys around the office table, and the ringleader was the owner's own son, — fifteen years old. Cards were on the table and a bottle of beer, or ale, — I suppose. The game was going on. ^ Pass the bottle.' ' High game, Jim.' * Deal 'em out again.' * Pass the bottle ; my whistle's dry.' They seemed to roll the words like sweets in the mouth. And the only one among them who did n't swear and did n't have a cigarette is a boy who, I know, prays every night at home. Do you think he knew what he was about ? Not a bit. ' A good time to-night, while I 'm a boy. This won't hurt me, — I'm all right.' That's what he thinks, — and thinks as little about it as he can. But how long before some one will pick him up drunk and carry him home to a mother who has no idea of what is going on, and would n't believe it if I told her ? And he began it as innocently as my baby, whom I buried, spilt laudanum in the sugar and ate it because it was sweet." His voice shook, but he pressed on. " A craze "^ Boy's mil is the Wind's Wiir 105 to be a man, an. itch to do things on the sly, an admiration of smart sin, a bad book, and an older bad boy : these are the beginning of half the misery and two-thirds of the crime. Listen ! " He drew a letter from his pocket, stirred the fire, and bent over it. "*Mr. Shepard, I would give the best day's wages I ever got to see you. You thought I had better tell you more about it, and I guess I will. You will never know how much good it has done me to tell what I have. You know I told you what a liking I had for novels. I used to laugh when some folks looked awful scared when I told what I read. I thought it wouldn't hurt me because I knew I could n't do anything like what I read. But I found one story somebody wrote about a boy down South that run off with a yacht and caught a lot of fish and brought the yacht back in the night and sold the fish for a pile of money. It seemed so real that I remembered it and told it to the boys one night when we rowed out to the Yio^n^ and climbed aboard, and went down in the cabin to see how it would seem to own a yacht. And then we planned it all out, but we did n't plan it right, somehow, and I 'm in this awful scrape. Io6 A Case of Sardines " * O Mr. Shepard, you do n't know when you start out with a lot of boys, you don't know where you are going to stop 1 It seems as if one dared the other, and each one tries to act as if he did n't care, and to be a little smarter than the rest. We do n't any of us like to be stumped. And before we get through showing off we've done something we knew better and did n't think we ever would do.' " " It sounds quite pitiful," I observed. " Yes, doctor. But we can patch up this mat- ter. It 's not half so pitiful as the cases of boys who never get into a scrape to teach them a good lesson at the right time. Most of them go on to the end ; novels, cards, sly smoking, nights out- of-doors, till the devil's grip freezes on them. It isn't because they want to do wrong; it's be- cause they want to do what they think men do, and to do as they please on the sly. * There is a way which seemeth right,' — actually, it seems all right! — 'but the end thereof are the ways of death.' " " Look here, Shepard," I broke out, " you '11 be spoiling my opinion of this old town if you turn out skeletons in shrouds of gloom, in this man- ner. Is n't there anything rosy about it ? Play ''A Boy's Will is the Wind's Wiir 107 the Emerson a little while and give Carlyle a rest. You forget that I 'm down here for mid- summer nights' dreams, and mermaids' songs, and a life without fashion or physic." " I beg your pardon, Marshall. I forgot your harassed nerves. It harasses mine, sometimes. You know it is a pastor's business to be conscious of evil, even if it is good in the making." He sighed ; then his face brightened. *' Oh, yes, there 's another aspect. We have boys — and boys! That's a peculiarity here, you know. There are as many grades of humanity, mentally and morally, as in your city. Our bowling-alley and games count to satisfy some of the boys with a clean, healthy, good time. Lunt, the teacher in the district that includes the ' Acre ' interested the schoolboys in a lyceum. If you could have heard some of the debates you'd have thought the country's salvation was just at hand. If you want to see how quickly a boy can get at the gist of a matter, put him on a de- bate. They can find the moral side of a ques- tion, too, whether they indicate it by character or not. When I'm blue it's a tonic to me to hear them. " I keep a little reading-room here for young lo8 A Case of Sardines men. They come in — seldom. We need one down town ; but there is no one to run it yet. Monday nights some boys come to visit me, as you know, and we read, or talk, or play. But they are few — precious few ! Nothing will reach all. "If they would use their opportunities, we might raise Abraham Lincolns. But, of course, they do n't realize the need of every good influ- ence, even if they dislike that which leaves a bad taste. Did you see where the corn in my garden is a foot higher than the rest? There is the richer soil. A boy can't go to church with- out being better than he otherwise would be ; he can't stay away without losing more or less that will not be made up when he is a man. Our preaching is n't what it ought to be, God knows — and sometimes we know it. But we trv to preach a clean, pure, unselfish life, to be found as the disciples found it — by following Christ." He thrust his hands through his hair, in per- plexity. " Making manhood out of boyhood is a serious thing. I can't lead many of them by reason. When you know life in the sardine in- dustry, as elsewhere, perhaps, you '11 say it is a state of nature. Vice is not always viciousness ; « A Boy's Will is the Wind's Will'' 109 it is unreasonableness. 'A boy's will is the wind's will.' " " Yes," I replied, " and the thoughts of youth are short, short ! " He laid his hand upon the Bible that lay on the little table by the wall, with a firm touch, as if an emphatic thought was in his mind. " ' Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.' " CHAPTER IX LIGHT FROM " HEAVEN " " Sacrifice is the first element of civilization." — W. D. HoweUa. There was to be a lawn party at Captain Noah Sinnett's residence, situated in that part of the town socially and topographically elevated, and designated as "Heaven" by the factory hands, who felt the gulf lying between in pro- portion to their own proximity to " The Acre," or, in the original and more lengthy term, "The Devil's Acre." How far that gulf was social and how far moral, how far real and how far imagi- nary, depends somewhat upon personal acquaint- ance and the point of view. It is the privilege and function of the pastor in small communities to serve as a social priest and carry his incense to formal and informal affairs. This privilege and function are not limited or de- pendent upon acquaintance, influence, social gifts or caste. Shepard's acquaintance and friendships were necessarily of slow growth from the extent of his parish and the great diversity of his work ; no Light From ^^ Heaven'' iii and the comparatively brief period of his pastor- ate had not given him large acquaintance apart from his church and the factories. The invitations included me among the guests. It was one of those delightfully open-hearted socialities that are impossible in larger social circles. A country where profusion is character- istic of fresh air, scenery, sunshine, fog, salt water, consanguinity, and good red herring, makes a stint of acquaintance impossible in the circles of any class. In fact I saw so many in- formal greetings that I wondered if there were really any lines of social caste between the up- town and the down-town of Echo Bluflfs. When I found myself at liberty after a few delightful chats I cast my eyes among the Jap- anese lanterns that lit the lawn and the rambling piazza, expecting to see some of the forms that had become familiar to me. I caught glimpses of them here and there, and was reassured by recognizing a dozen connected with the sardine industry in oflBce or shop ; a fact which, as my acquaintance was limited, implied that there might be many more. " There 's a * case of sardines ' here, Shepard," I said complacently, as I turned at his side. 112 A Case of Sardines " Yes," he answered somewhat hastily with a frown at my innocent sally, and turned to ex- change greetings with a newcomer approaching with Captain Sinnett. "Now, doctor," said the captain, turning to me — he had a slow, deep, hearty voice, as robust as his physique, — " you 're here to see the people, and the only way to see them by lantern light and moonlight is to talk, you know. But I want you up on the lookout first. Haven't been up there by night, have you ? No ? Well, come up and see the sights." I followed him to an arbor built on a knoll west of the house. Shoreward the grounds were free from trees and shrubbery, and an arc of the horizon swept around the distant sky. The moon was too young to dim the starlight or the numer- ous lights that shone up from the town or on the water. A quarter mile down the shore the " Kesurrection," evidently over-freighted with fish, twinkled its lamps, and a long cloud of black smoke wound from its furnace-stack. Through the town the homes and business blocks were more closely grouped, and the night view added to a sense of compactness. It was the seaward view that swept me with a Light From ^^ Heaven^ ^ 1 13 sense of breadth and beauty. The rugged cliffs mounted upwards on opposing shores toward the sky, and the islands sailed on the smooth tide. The lighthouse opened and closed its great eye with drowsy regularity. Around the Point the lights of an out-bound steamer gave the only sign of life and motion. The scattered lamps of a far distant sailing fleet hung as apparently mo- tionless as the stars above them. So much did the sea seem a part of the sky that my eyes swept upward to the stars. " Ay, I do n't wonder you look up," said the captain, bluffly. " ' When I consider thy heavens the work of thy fingers, what is man?' Eh, doctor ? " " That 's my own question," I answered, after hesitation. " Here we are, two of us, such as we are, thankful for life and such scenes as this. And there 's the factory, down the ' Acre,' with another class of creatures. As to that, what is man, — any one of us ? But " He laughed, shrewdly guessing my thought. "There's a mighty difference, isn't there, doc- tor? Interested in 'em, are vou? You cruise about with the minister, I see. Did n't you see enough mud in the city ? " 114 ^ ^^^^ ^f Sardines " Shepard has the interest," I replied, hastily ; " I 've no fancy for mud here or elsewhere. Or- dinarily I have as little as possible to do with it. But I am idle now, or was until Shepard took possession of me ; and I confess I should like to know more about the sort of life you have here." "Well, sir, come down now, and let somebody else talk. You '11 find talkers enough, and when they get through, if you want any more informa- tion come to me. I '11 talk then till the moon setsl Captain Stevens, Doctor Dee of New York. Tell him about sardines, will ye, while I help the women." " Doctor Dee ? I 'm glad to meet you. Glori- ous view on the hill, is n't it ? Yes, I 'm a sar- dine manufacturer," he said, answering my in- quiry. " What do you want to know ? " "All about it," I replied; and when he had rehearsed the interesting points of the history of the industry, and the statistics of the last year's pack, I opened the chief subject of my interest with the question : " Who are the employees r From what people, I mean, has this industry drawn as it has developed ? " " Oh, more than sixty per cent, of the help em- ployed here now came from out of town, and Light From ^^ Heaven'' 115 more than half of those are from the Provinces. There are some French, some Armenians, as you probably noticed. There are some good families, some riffraff. When cotton mills and shoeshops in the nearer cities close it sends a raft here. Our own people of the farms near by have come to the shops more or less. I 'm sorry. They neglect the land, and the novelty of the life makes it bad for farmers' children. The trouble with the whole business," he exclaimed, " is its effect upon character. We don't make it so. But how can we make it otherwise ? " "Now this is just what I want to learn," I said, with an idea that a definite source of reli- able opinion had been found ; " I want to know what a factory owner thinks. Is it the business or the people that makes possible the 'Devil's Acre,' and a dozen or more of grog-shops, and winter poverty in this glorious country and wholesome climate ? " " Well," — he paused, thoughtfully — "it is both. The work is irregular. The wages are good; not as they were ten years ago, but any family can earn enough in a good season. But it 's the old story of nature from the red squirrel to the Indian, — soon got, soon gone. Why, there 's Sam 1 1 6 A Case of Sardines Tophet," he exclaimed, warming with the sub- ject; "he was a fast sealer. My cashier paid him, several seasons ago, an average of forty dol- lars every Saturday night — more than any one earns now. If he came back by Monday noon it was a sure sign that his money was gone. And when winter came he shipped for sea without a reefer or a sou'wester. "The boys and girls who cut fish — well, they 're children. If their parents did n't spend their money for them of course they would spend it, because they are children. And some are bred in bad company and apt to grow to weeds. "There is not much winter work in this town. Men are out of the habit of winter working. They earn so much in summer that they won't work for low wages in winter. It 's astonishing ! They put up with misery and cold, and whistle in their shanties, and think about the next season when it'll be warm and there'll be plenty of money. The church and the business men helped families one winter who had earned twenty to forty dollars a week the summer be- fore. That was when the business was better than now, too. But it 's of no use. I can't do what I'd like, and some owners don't care. Light From " Heaven *' 117 We run the business; we pay wages. Mind, there are good families, economical souls, saving their wages and doing well. How can we lug the rest ? " " That 's a good point," I said with a sense of satisfaction. "You can't do it all. I notice some of the help here to-night. That shows a friendly feeling." He stared. "Here? To-night?" He laughed, softly. "Those are 'our own folks' as we call them, as good as any in the town, only poor. Yes, they are here. It is n't money that makes a diflference here. It's blood, man, it's blood! These folks are all right." "But how is it," I asked somewhat bluntly, with a strange light breaking upon me, "that they do n't become as bad as any others ? " " Bless you, there 's better stuff in them. Be- sides, they 're not limited to bad company. As long as they behave themselves and do credit to their families they can go with the best. That keeps them in line. If they did n't toe the mark, — well, they might slip out. But " A bevy of laughing girls swept us down to the veranda for the music and charades, and as the gay moments sped by, the sense of freedom and 1 1 8 A Case of Sardines beauty brought by the social mingling in the broad out-of-doors under the great dome of the starlit sky brought an exhilaration that seemed more spiritual than the ordinary intoxication of brain and blood in social gayeties of the city. It was to me, accustomed to systematic functions both in profession and recreation, the opening of a new paradise. When I found myself beside Mrs. Gray, intro- duced by one of the social scene-shifters, and we sat where the factory lights flung their twinkle from below, I recalled my recent and unfinished conversation with Captain Stevens, and revived the topic. Mrs. Gray proved to be one of those guileless souls who, whether from much knowl- edge of humanity or little, seemed to welcome creation into the spacious apartments of her heart. Indeed, she reminded me of a remark of Nat Murray, relating to an aged and well-known deacon of a neighboring town. "The Lord could use him in the church, mebbe, but as fur as town office was concerned, the devil could cheat him and the town too. It never occurred to Deacon Abbott that it was possible fur a man to lie." I sounded her cheery and sympathetic soul, Light From ^^ Heaven'' 119 and she regaled me with delightful stories of children who sometimes thronged at her home from certain families of the factory workers, and pleasant and agreeable accounts of sundry per- sonages of her acquaintance who worked in the odor of oil and fish. But she turned with grief to the lamentable conditions that were as hope- less to her as to me, — with this difference, that she sympathized and I did not, save for an uneasy feeling that there might be a weakness in Cap- tain Stevens' argument that the native race was born of better stuff, and native character was kept pure by contact with good society. A portly son of Echo Bluffs, revisiting after long absence, joined us. " Now see here," said he, puflBng his cigar with easy self-assurance, "I was born here, you know. Maine's a good place to be born in. It 's a good place to get away from, as early as you can, — the sooner the better, and keep away from your hailing port. It was all very well here when I was a boy, when men owned their farms and their vessels. But this sardine busi- ness has killed all my respect for the community. I would n't put my foot in one of those buildings. Why, I should carry the smell to Philadelphia ! I20 A Case of Sardines I only wonder that the inhabitants are n't born with turned-up noses." Whether it was the look of discomfort called to Mrs. Gray's face by the waft of tobacco smoke as he turned away, or the no less despicable odor of gross disloyalty to his native state, I found myself in closer sympathy with her. " For all that," she said with gentle, quiet dig- nity as the heavy form disappeared, " a man is a man, — and a brute is a brute. I've no doubt there are factory girls here too good for him. If we knew them better we might appreciate them more. When I think of Grant Hamilton I ask. Can we expect the boys of the sardine shops to do better than he ? " Do n't you suppose, sir," she said, laying her hand upon my arm, " that there are many girls who came from Christian homes and boys who haven't forgotten their baby prayers? I can't go to the factories. I do n't know what I can do except with my neighbors and their children who come to me. But they tell me things that make me sad. What are we doing ? Are our people really better than they? Where is Grace Sawyer? She came from one of the best of homes. A wife's company is no match for bad Light From ^^ Heaven'' 121 companions if a man keeps among them day and night. She found it was so; and it killed her. Look at Grant Hamilton, I say ! " "Hamilton? Hamilton?" I repeated, with a dim recollection of a name heard about town, and the impression of a face, " who is he?" " Grant Hamilton ? He was one of the best boys in the town. His father was Captain James Hamilton. Grant had a good home, and I used to think his parents governed him just right. They were proud of him when he came back from college, all ready to do business in Echo Bluffs, and we were glad there was one smart boy willing to stay in his own town. Then he found one of the best of wives. Have you seen her ? Look ! " She pointed towards a group of lively talkers surrounding a woman whose fine features and natural dignity lent remarkable grace to a girlish vivacity that possessed her in conversation. Yet in a moment of repose her features wore a ma- turer expression as of experience or sorrow. In the hum of other voices and surrounding laughter the conversation was indistinct. I watched the play of her features. They were easy to read. 122 A Case of Sardines Life and death combine to make many such fea- tures in social life. But her countenance was not a social mask. There was more evidence of no- bility of soul struggling with disaster than of sorrow clinging to gayety. " Ah," said I, " what happened ? " " Drink ! Except his cousin he was our smart- est business man. He was generous, too. When three of the factories burned he might have bought the lots and controlled the business. But he loaned money to the owners and helped them start new factories. He was proud of his family. He would help the poor ; but as for their souls — he laughed when I talked with him about the saloons. 'Ah, Mother Gray,' he said, 'we'll take care of ourselves. We 've enough to do in that.' Now the saloons have him ! " "Oh, I recollect," I said; "he's the man of whom Shepard spoke, who took medical treat- ment last winter for his liquor habit. Takes it for granted he is cured and is doing well, I un- derstand." She sighed. " I hope so ; but I do n't know. He always picked his company. But he picked for gayety and pleasure and business. If he had helped make better men and women, their society Light From ^^ Heaven'^ 1 23 might help him now. Who are his comrades to-night ? Where is he ? His wife does n't know. She hopes he will come home sober as he has for five months. But she may go home and wait for him till morning, as she has done many times in the past. " I knew the druggist, Jerry Phail, in Highton," she continued ; " I begged Grant not to rent his store to him. ' I 'm afraid of him, Mr. Hamilton,' I said; 'he'll be no help to the town.' He laughed ; I remember just what he said : ' Busi- ness is business. Mother Gray.' He wouldn't oppose the saloons; now the saloons have him." There were movements on the veranda and conversation ceased. We heard the sound of the piano where it stood by the open bay- window. A young soprano stood under the lighted awning and brightened a half -hour with popular songs. But I confess to a feeling of disappointment when her voice, which was merry with a touch of brilliancy, attempted some of the classics and presented "The Bridge," with a vivid lightness that made impossible any con- ception of the great power and pathos of the author's words : 124 ^ ^^^^ 9f ^^rdines '^ For my heart was hot and restless And my life was full of care, And the bnrden laid upon me Seemed greater than I could bear. '^ As long as the heart has passions, As long as life has woes." Nevertheless as an addition to my new studies of human nature I sought an introduction to the singer, after the songs. I blazed a path to the subjects of my chief interest until we reached a point where we could leap from music to music lovers, and I had just remarked that there were not many young men in the assembly. " Our best young men migrate," she said with a smile. " Are these girls natives of the town ? " " Nearly all. There are a few from other towns. There is a group of Highton girls. Miss Snell is also from Highton." " Are n't there some of your own class among the incomers ? " I asked. " Down among the sardine workers I notice some who seem very well bred. I've heard some names, — MoUie Brett, Susie Wentworth, Jennie Kent, Ethel Cole, and — Nan Khodes." "Ah, yes. We don't know many of them. Light From ^^ Heaven'^ 125 They have their own associates, I presume. They usually get the kind of boarding-places they are adapted to, and pretty good company if they wish, and they are always welcome at church. We do n't know them well enough to as- sociate much. Of course we 're interested in them." " One of them is a singer — has had some train- ing, I fancy." " Nan Khodes ? Yes, I know. I believe she has quite a vocal reputation among the sardiners, though I haven't heard her. Father was quite interested in her when she came. Anna Khodes is her name. We knew she came from some of the Nova Scotia families, and there was some- thing good about her, you know. But she wouldn't talk of herself or about her family. We understood they were good people, and all that, who were living in Annapolis Valley. But she didn't choose the best com- panions. Of course we did not care enough to write for information. She brought a church letter from somewhere in the States, and joined our church. But she became so free with her factory associates we were a little afraid. I have n't seen her this summer, — unless, perhaps, at church. I believe she is still in town," 126 A Case of Sardines I could only answer as I looked down across the terrace of streets to the * Acre,' with a grow- ing sense of the gulf between: — "Yes, she is here." When the half moon had set and the candles in the Japanese lanterns had burned to the socket and the cheery sounds began to diminish, I said good-night and strolled oflf alone. I turned down the hill and through the ' Acre,' with revolving thoughts — smiling sometimes at the gayety, sometimes burning with interest in the novelty, and sometimes half-disgusted that a down-east town should excite anything deeper than curiosity and amusement in the mind of one accustomed to view a larger variety stage with indiflFerence. The factory lights had dwindled to the watch- man's lantern. Here and there men and women, glad to breathe fresh night air in exchange for the heat and gas of the factories, were stretched on the green roadside, in the thin garb of the day, reck- lessly or thoughtlessly indifferent to chill or dampness. I passed the gap between the * Acre ' and the stores. As the light of Phail's drug store was Light From ^^ Heaven^' 127 blinding my steps in the Hollow, I nearly stumbled against a man clutching the shattered railing by the roadside. I caught a glimpse of him, writhing, just as a groan burst from his lips. He grasped my shoulder. It was Grant Hamilton. " For God's sake, man, help me ! " I realized the scene, readily enough. The scent of liquor was about and broken glass was crackling under my feet. But he had the voice and breath of a man perfectly sober. I took the trembling, perspiring arm and without a word we moved on. Passing Phail's he gripped my arm tightly and turned his head away. We did not talk. Whatever our thoughts, neither had anything to speak. When, at last, we crossed his veranda and heard a step in the hall, he lifted himself erect with a sudden dignity of manhood, withdrew his arm, and grasped my hand warmly. " Thank you, sir. Good-night ! " CHAPTER X CROSS-LIGHTS OF EARTH '* The life of man consists not in seeing visions and dreaming dreams, but in active charity and willing service. ''—Xronp/e/Zotr. " Nothing except a life can really help another life.'' — George Eliot I WAS dozing next morning in a delicious languor, having succeeded, undisturbed by the aflfairs of the previous evening, in getting a fine night's sleep. Past my usual breakfast hour I heard Shepard's quick step and his rousing rat- tat-tat on the door stirred my comatose mind. " Come ! " I caUed. He came with alacrity, and chuckled when he saw me drowsily blinking. " Echo Bluflfs is what you need, doctor," he said, mirthfully; "you'll be drowsier yet by and by. But, I say ! I have a case for you down on the ' Acre.' Just what you ought to have to hold your skill." " What is it ? " I asked as cheerfully as I could with my distaste of anything that savored of old associations and responsibility. " Widow Tuflf and her family have the measles. 128 Cross-Lights of Earth 129 All, every one, none excepted, no more to follow. Uriah, Jessie Ann, Levi, Myra Ann, Harriet Ann, 'Bijah Ann, Georgio Ann, and Mother Ann her- self, — worst case of all. The children have not bad cases. 'Bijah and Georgie Ann are in bed with the mother, but the others are out-of-doors and would like to be knocking all about the ^ Acre.' These are the only cases in town. They took the disease before they moved in, presum- ably. There are a hundred families who might be thrown out of work if we have an epidemic on the rampage, with carelessness, sloppy feet, and sweats and chills in the shops and out. Of course they don't think much about it, and they think measles must come sooner or later. But what's the use? I told the boys if they would stay at home and keep the girls there I'd send them a good doctor for their mother. And " "But, look!" I expostulated, "aren't you a freak ! If they have measles it is already scattered about, and what do measles amount to in this season? Let them raise a good crop on the ' Acre.' They '11 be better next winter. Besides, I do n't want to interfere in these affairs. Let the local doctors " 130 A Case of Sardines "Pshaw!" burst Shepard, "the doctors will have scarcely a case of it. Let 's try to finish it where it is, to save all the fuss, loss and sorrow. They may not have given it to any one. They had n't begun work, and there is no one living near. Measles are severe enough among these careless people to get at least a dozen cases of the worst kind if it runs. Come on I " Shepard had the logic, and it seemed rather narrow to refuse. Besides, it promised to be interesting. So after a leisurely breakfast I strolled oflf to the " Acre " and picked my way across the little swamp at the farther corner to the isolated camp of the Tuffs. A familiar voice of song within was varied by a cheery whistle, and I caught the rub-rub of a wash-board accompaniment and the splash of clothes and water. I pushed open the rude door of the shed, entered unceremoniously, and stood face to face with Nan Rhodes as she lifted her- self from the tub and turned toward me. I stared in dumb surprise and curiosity, with so little tact that her face turned scarlet. Then she flung back her falling hair with her driest wrist and broke into merry laughter. " Good-morning ! " she said. Cross-Lights of Earth 131 "Good-morning!" said I. "Where are the patients ? " " Some on the beach, some in the bed," she re- plied, and led the way through the kitchen to the bedroom. The room was darkened, by her hand, I suppose, and an ingenious arrangement of a shawl at an open window supplied some ventila- tion. But the broiling sun fell on the roof. There was no wind. The air within was stifling. The subtle odors of measles, cabbage, onion and smoke blended together in a peculiar scent. " Troublesome eyes, eh ? " I asked. " They 're not bad, sir," replied the mother ; "only the dark's a comfort, and Georgie Ann ain't so fussy. I 'd have let 'Bijah get up, but he keeps her quiet — she 's just a baby." The mother groaned with some effort at sup- pression. " Headache ? " I asked. " Oh, yes 1 " To make a long story short, I thought there was good cause to thank the stars that the mother was in a physician's hands, and Nan and I soon arranged a hay cot for the children, and, with bandages on the eyes of the patients, we cleared and opened the windows and made a 132 A Case of Sardines slight draught of air. Nan returned to the wash in the shed. I sat on the doorstep. "So the others are on the beach, you say. How are they ? " " Oh, light cases, I think. I told them to keep from the water. It seems strange, but all came down within two days. They stopped at a boarding-house in St. John the night after they packed, waiting for the morning steamer. I suppose they took it there." I surveyed the interior of the cottage through the open doorway. It was merely a cabin, built of poles and boards, unshingled and unclap- boarded. The three rooms, shed, kitchen and bedroom, were blank and bare. Overhead a scaffold served as a sleeping-loft for a part of the family. A good table was in the center of the kitchen floor — there is often some one or more articles new and attractive in such homes, show- ing how a desire as much as a necessity had pre- ceded a purchase. But there was only one chair, with a missing arm, and rough plank benches. A cupboard of unplaned boards was built in one corner of the kitchen and beside it stood the staple article of cottage life— the barrel of flour. Cross-Lights of Earth 133 A trunk and a sea-chest stood against the op- posite wall. A line hung above them supported miscellaneous children's garments. A small, warped, cracked stove poked its rusty funnel into the blackened chimney. A miscellany of white crockery lay in a box nailed to the wall between the windows, and a bright sheet of new tin tacked on the end of the box evidently served as a mirror. The shed was furnished with drift- wood from refuse and wreckage gathered on the beach, and adorned by a few kettles, pans, a clam-hoe and basket, the wash-tub and bench, and Nan Khodes. " Enjoying yourself ? " I asked, critically. " Oh, it 's fun I " she laughed. " Do n't you know it seems good when you are well and strong to come in and help some one who is n't sick enough to be in danger, but is miserable and needy ? Then you feel all your own good health and how much you can do, and you want to go right through the work and make the sick folks look pleased and ease their minds. Besides, you can get them something to eat, and sometimes that brings an appetite. Half the trouble with our sick people is that they are not fed as they ought to be in sickness. It 's good to be some 134 ^ ^^^^ 9f ^^f^dines body and to do something worth while." (i?wJ, Tvh^ ruh.) '^ Am I supposed to visit the patients on the beach ? " I inquired. She stepped to the door and called : " U ! Jess! Levi Myl Hatl" Her eyes twinkled as she glanced at me. I laughed, immoderately. " Whose hat ? " "That's Nat Murray's joke," she replied. "They say no one ever saw a joke in those names until the family came here for their first season. Then Nat studied it out one day over the fryer. There 's more of it, as you may see if you '11 consider the rest of the family." There were heads bobbing up over the bank. They were startled at sight of a stranger, and meandered slowly and shyly, the youngest drag- ging in the rear. They were a well assorted lot, ranging in years from fifteen down, apparently, and of all complexions and shades of hair. But the Tuflf resemblance was evident ; none of them bore the features of the woman who lay in the bed, except for the faint eruption of measles that adorned them all. Nan had picked up her basket of clothes and was stringing them upon the line and along the Cross-Lights of Earth 135 grass. Her snatches of whistle and song seemed to reassure the timid youngsters and maidens, who crept up to her, eying me. " Is the tide up, Lev ? " asked Nan. " Yes, sir," the boy replied, staring at me. " Get your fife and make the wind blow, won't you ? " she continued in a matter-of-fact way. The boy's eyes changed, and his heels disappeared past me into the cabin. When he came out 1 adopted Nan's manner of introduction, and as he stepped past me I checked him with : " What 's the fife made of ? " " It 's wooden, sir," he said, and thrust it out toward me. I nodded. " Go on." He perched on a log, facing Nan and the sea, and began a variation of weird noises, from the soughing of the breeze in the pines to the shrill whistle of the southeast wind through the rigging of a vessel. The peculiar note of the draught in the chimney and the crescendo and diminuendo in the trees were strikingly real. Uriah perched on the chopping-block. Nan was seated on the grassy turf, the girls gathered about her. When the extemporizations of music ceased she clapped her hands. 136 A Case of Sardines " Bravo, Lev ! " she cried. " Now let 's sing. What shall we sing, Myra ? " " *Bamy Coon," was the prompt reply. " Good ! " replied Nan with a twinkle. " But we know a better one, don't we? Let's try < God Knows.' ". Little Hattie clapped her hands, and Levi fingered his flute restlessly. Uriah and I per- formed the part of spectators, but the rest united in the song, Levi as chief musician, the children imitating Nan's motions with a skill that would have been of credit to a kindergarten class. Surroundings and conditions considered, the song was like a flower blooming above the city pave- ment, but the children's faces took on a new and finer expression, and I confess there seemed to be a change in the atmosphere. mf Moderato Mr^\ J J i^fg + ^-^ 1. ** Know-est thou how ma- ny star -eyes In the 2. ** Know-est thou how ma- ny in - sects In the 3. " Know-est thou how ma- ny chil-dren Sleep in az - ure heavens glow ? Kuowest thou how ma- ny sun-shine dance all day 7 Knowest thou how ma- ny ti - ny beds at night^With-out care or tho't of Cross-Lights of Earth 137 cloudlets Float a - bove us to and fro? God the fish - es In the spark-ling wa- ter play? God the sor-row,Wakea - gain with morn-ing light? God who f^,i F j' l Jij I Jtd Lord their number knoweth^For each one His care He Lord who dwells in Heaven Name and life to each has has them in His keep-ing Watches o - ver them while ^^ ^ w show - eth, Should they wan - der He will giv - en. Bade them all be glad and sleep - ing, Finds them pre - cious in His ^Vf r / J 1 ^54:^ + Ij know. Should thej wan - der He will know, gay, Bade them all be glad and ntj* sight* Finds them pre -cious in His sight." " Now pick up chips for the dinner fire and talk with the doctor," and Nan returned to her tub and nursing. For amusement's sake I set myself catechizing the group on sundry unimpor- tant themes, the measles very evidently demand- ing no attention in these young patients beyond Nan's care and oversight. The young musician had relapsed into silence, but Uriah was thawing, and his isolation in Shepard's imposed quarantine 138 A Case of Sardines evidently made him lonely. He was literally bursting with information. " Gee, yes, I know lots of 'em," he re- sponded to the query if he knew any of the boys. "This ain't the first time we've lived here. Jim Tucker 'n' me used ter have great times. But Jim ain't here now," he said re- gretfully. "I dunno but they laughed him out." "How?" " Oh, Jim was too smart. He and Grub Todd watered the men at the ' Scrimmage ' last sum- mer. Jim sneaked about ahead of Grub one day and peddled out a lot of ginger-water, and promised the men he 'd bring more if they 'd give him the trade. Byme-by when he had it all, and Grub could n't sell plain water, Jim began to leave out the ginger on washin' days, and tell the men he could n't git it, 'cause his mother was washin'. Gee ! They begun to think she washed pretty often. Byme-by, one day, — ^you know Sam Hall ? They call him ' Football.' He 's a windy feller, an' alius kickin' — works in the ' Butt'nut ' now — little feller with sneaky eyes and a big mouth that hangs loose at one corner where a little ter- backer juice runs out. Wal, Football saw Jim Cross-Lights of Earth 139 comin' in one day an' he sung out : ' Is your marm washin' in ginger- water to-day ? ' Then the other fellers took it up, an' ev'ry time Jim came 'round they said, ' Here 's Jim Tucker ! His marm 's washin' in ginger- water to-day ! ' Then Jim quit an' went over ter the * Resurrection,' but they 'd caught on there. He run away ter sea last fall. I guess he got sick o' hearin' about ginger-water. "There's Eoy Johnson, goin' in swiramin'," he said with a sigh, shading his eyes and staring out to the Point. " I wish I could go. I hain't seen Roy this year ter talk. He 's littler 'n I be, and I dunno 's he can talk plain yet, but we had lots of fun when we cut fish at the * Salt-Box.' Roy got ketched in the shaft one day, an' it snaked the clo'es offen him. It stripped him clean bare, an' dropped him down on the floor, ker-wump! My, wa'n't I scared! But his father was scareder. He was picklin', an' he jest run an' picked Roy up, an' hugged him up to his salty apron. Roy was bare-naked an' pretty well scraped, an' of course the salt an' the huggin' made his skin smart. He yelled like blue mur- der. I guess his father thought he was killed. He laid him down on the sawdust in the labelin'- 140 A Case of Sardines shed ; an' when Roy stopped yellin' an' opened his eyes he grabbed him up again, an' Roy yelled louder 'n ever. His dad run clean over to his house with him, an' him yellin' like the *Butt'nut's' whistle. By the time he got him dropped on the bed 'Patty' Cobb, — you know Oscar Cobb ? He 's jest like a little snail-shell, all smooth an' round an' pretty, with a bald, shiny head, an' brown, shiny eyes, an' little feet, an' good clo'es, an' he likes ter be called Mr. Cobb. But the boys call him * Patty.' He likes ter tell everybody that's sick what's the matter with 'em. He was lookin' at Roy when he lay squealin' on the bed, an' rubbin' off the salt. Byme-by when Roy opened his eyes his father was cryin', an' I s'pose the ole man wanted ter know if Roy had his senses, an' he says, ' Who 's this come ter see yer, Roy ? Can't ye tell?' Roy looked up rather mad an' said, *Him? That's Patty Cobb!' I guess Patty thought he was all right then. Anyway, he did n't stop to see. " Ebbie Scranton an' me use' ter play the Owl tergether," he went on, reminiscently. " Eb was a gen'rous feller. You 've seen his grandmother, I s'pose. Prob'ly she packs fish at the 'Resur- Cross-Lights of Earth 141 rection, now. She 's a big woman, with a voice bigger 'n she is, an' scraggy teeth that look as if they 'd been built ter be outside of her mouth. She use' ter tell fortunes, an' if any of the little fellers was carryin' fish she'd sing out, 'Fish here, fish here ! If y er do n't bring me some fish I '11 throw a cuss on ye ! ' Wal, Eb,— did n't yer never seen Eb? He's a little squizened chap, with teeth stickin' out like a squirrel's. He was hurt once, an' his gran' would n't let him work, but he liked ter squabble. When he got squab- blin' with the boys she'd call out, *Now hold on, Ebby, you know you ain't sound.' *Wal, by Jimp, granny, if you do n't gimme ten cents ter play the Owl I '11 squabble all day.' * Wal, take it, take it ; here, come git it ; you ain't like other boys, you know you ain't.' Then Eb 'ud wink at me an' we 'd go off an' divide an' play the Owl. Say, doctor," he asked anxiously, " is Eb about here yet ? " " I do n't know him," I replied. " Oh, wal, you look an' see, won't yer ? Marm do n't let me play the O^vl, an' I have ter wait till Eb gits some money outen his granny. You look fer a little feller with red hair an' them teeth I told ye about, an' a flat forehead, an' his 142 A Case of Sardines ears bailt out. Eb do n't button his shirt, an' it 's alius flappin'. Mostly he has blue overalls on, an' likely one of 'em 's rolled up to his knee, an' the other one 's ripped, an' flappin' 'cause it won't stay up. He do n't work much, but if he 's been carryin' flakes he'll have black grease smooched under his chin. My, he got twenty- five cents outen his granny one day ! She heard him swearin' an' bought him off. He did n't stay bought. I guess not ! Eb' s queer, he is. Smut White use'ter say he had the blind staggers — use' ter sling salt on him. But once Eb caught Smut comin' up from * down below,' an' jest as he got his head through, Eb tipped up a bag of salt an' yanked it down over Smut's head. Smut tumbled down the ladder into the fish- baskets. Eb looked down after him an' sung out, ' Got the blind staggers. Smutty ? ' " " Smart boy," I commented. "I tell ye the's smart folks in the factories, doctor," said Uriah proudly. "Do you know Foxy Watts ? He 's a little man, with a narrer head an' his eyebrows hooked down, an' slick hair, an' another eyebrow on his upper lip, like merlasses runnin' down. He was boss at the ^Salt-Box' when the 'spection law was passed, Cross-'Lights of Earth 143 an' the 'specters use' ter come 'round ter look at the vinegar an' mustard, an' the fish, an' every- thing else. They use' ter mix the mustard with salt water instid o' vinegar at the * Salt-Box ' — had a pipe run down an' pumped it outen the sea. One day the 'spector hove in sight when there wa'n't a barrel o' vinegar in the shop. Foxy rattled the chain tackle down into the hole an' yelled, 'Send up another barrel o' vinegar 1' Foxy's boy was down there, an' he knew some- thin' was up. So he hooked onto a barrel of acid, what the sealers an' can-makers use, yer know, an' sent it up. But it took Foxy so long ter find his bung-knocker that the 'spector never tasted that vinegar ! An' the packers wa' n't workin' yet that mornin', an' every can was sealed tight, so he could n't tell but what they was usin' vinegar right along. Gee f When I 'm a man ! " Nan was calling emphatically for the stove- wood, and Uriah rose regretfully to assist the younger chip-gatherers. I visited the bed patients again, and after final instructions and assurances departed for a stroll and a reverie. CHAPTER XI SCENES AT THE " SALT-BOX " " Go down to the * Salt-Box ' — take a peek in, And there you '11 see Davieson catting plain tin. His nose is so lo-o-ong, and his eyes are so dim! But still he 's a scooter at cutting plain tin.'' —A BaUad of Echo Bluffs. Of the few or many who may be watching the homespun thread of this tale, there will be a group who may discern nothing but the shadows of life in the industry that transforms infan- tile herring into a case of sardines. It would be unreal and less true to the purpose of its tran- scription if it failed to bring into its atmosphere the brightness and the breeze of life and labor. Consequently, many of the characters to whom you are introduced may not be necessary to the detailed events that formed the singular experi- ence of that summer and gave birth to this story ; but the variety is essential to a clear vision of life in this unique industry on the shores of Maine. Let me illuminate by some diversions of an- 144 Scenes at the ''Salt-Box'' 145 other day, on which I was idling about the factories. "Dumb" Davieson, tin-cutter at the "Salt- Box," tramped the foot-lever of his machine in silent oblivion of all but the fact that he could stamp out five dollars per day. It may be a fondness for cheese — Nat Murray said he had a mouth built for cheese, and it was usually " pooched " with it, — had bred his taciturnity. However, it is the quiet man watching from his eye-corners and keeping thoughts and opinions to himself amid the rattle of tongues, who wins a measure of respect from his vicinity, whether among can-makers, stock-jobbers, or in the med- ical profession. At the " Salt-Box," for lack of other accom- modations, "Lonely" Pike's seaming-table was adjacent to the tin-cutter's, and Pike sat next Davieson's machine. Lonely Pike, — tall, slim, with great hands and feet that protruded from scant clothes (hung, as Captain Sinnett de- clared, "like a shirt on a handspike,") — was fond of the sound of conversation, but lacked conservational powers. A tremulous diffidence obscured him. One thing positive about him, bred by habit, was that he could seam and make 146 A Case of Sardines good money. One thing more — hidden but real — he had a scorn of meanness. Another, also : he liked Dumb Davieson's " opinions." Smut White found it easier to " steal " rims from Lonely's table than to get a supply from the bin across the floor; easier still, since Lonely took it with pathetic silence, apparently without resentment, and replenished his own supply daily, adding a double quantity as Smut's visits became habitual. Dumb Davieson watched the incident from the corner of his eye one day with a contemptuous grunt. Lonely leaned back uneasily. " What 'ud you do about it, Dumby ? " Dumb opened his mouth reluctantly. "It's my opinion I 'd punch him." "I don't know, — I don't want to hurt him," quavered Lonely; but his jaw tight- ened. A half-hour later when Smut edged around the table and reached with a genial smile for his booty, Lonely's long arm and hot copper shot across the pile and Smut, with a howl and a branded forehead, was flung back into the can- bin, and thrashed with cut fingers among the sharp-edged cans. Scenes at the ''Salt-Box'' 147 Dumb Davieson swallowed his cheese. " Well done, Lonely ! " Lonely bent over his work with a grateful smile. Tom Horton saw the thrust. "Just watch, now," he whispered to me with a confidential air. " That 's sure to set off the crowd. Some- thing '11 happen before night." Something frequently happens in a sardine factory. But a contagion possessed the " Salt- Box" that day. A merry imp of humor had evidently designed to brighten the seamy side of labor. It passed to the cutting-shed where Hube Carson was washing out, and Ted Cook, fish-cut- ter, a tiny sprig of ten years, dressed in an inverted sawdust bag with head and arms pro- truding through slits, was ambushed behind a tub of brine and fish, clodding Hube with herring. Hube's leisurely smile was stirring his good-natured face as he stepped backward to- wards the tub. Ted's head appeared above it cautiously. With a flash Hube's long net was swung over the boy, and all that was visible was a pair of upturned, flying feet, beating the air above the pickle-tub, brine and scales and gurry 148 A Case of Sardines flying into the faces of a half-dozen would-be rescuers. "Has he pickled enough, boys?" drawled Hube. With a dexterous thrust of his net he flung him out to the floor, blue-lipped and chok- ing, salt and scales matted in his hair and his sack-cloth drabbled in brine. In the packing-room " Lady Macbeth " worked at the table next an oil-tank. Black-eyed, white- haired, leathery and witch-like, the girls by long habit gave way when she pressed toward the oiler to replenish her supply. One girl resent- fully pushed her aside. Lady's grand-daughter, Jessie Carle, sprang in, her eyes flashing. "Shame on you, pushing my old grand- mother ! " she cried. " Shame on yourself ! " was the retort. " Why do n't you earn enough to keep your old grand- mother at home ? " They scrapped. There was a howl of pleasure from the sealing-room, and the foreman, with a broad smile, disappeared behind the dryer. When hair, disordered and tangled, fell over the combatants' eyes and blinded them in the scrimmage, Jessie seized a ladle of oil and with a quick motion flung it, trickling and cold, down Scenes at the ^^ Salt-Box'' 149 her assailant's back. A shout of delight came from the sealers. The plot of the unseen imp of humor deepened. Fanny Brent, otherwise known as "Mity," for her diminutive stature, had pushed through the knot of girls and climbed to a table beyond the oil-tank, leaning over it for a full view. Mity was enthusiastic. At the denouement she danced with glee, but on the treacherous foothold of the oily table she lost her equi- librium. The dive to the depths of the oil-tank was dramatic. The rescue was comic. Dragged out from the adhesive fluid by an excited sealer and drained, head downward, she ceased to be " Mity." A new name, — " Greaseball," — came with the unique baptism, to be carried, no doubt, to the end of her factory career. But the imp of humor became almost a fiend at the last scene of the afternoon. Tom Horton, intent on watching the rescue of Mity, hung a bucket of mustard on the faucet of another oil- tank. Perley, the foreman, reappeared as the spectators of GreasebalPs baptism were re- turning to their work. He caught sight of the bucket with its heavy weight of mustard hang- ing on the faucet, and came up in haste. 150 A Case of Sardines "Hey, look outl" he cried. "Take it oflfl You '11 break that faucet ! " His heavy tread shook the floor as he sprang towards the tank. Tom stared with feigned ob- tuseness. The mustard bucket jarred and fell. It struck the floor at Perley's feet. The con- tents, like a volcano's burst, flew upward and the spicy deluge was flung into his eyes. He leaped backward with smarting pain and fell upon the packing-table. Spluttering and spewing he staggered to his feet, clawing mustard from his eyes and spitting it from his lips. A vigorous rub of the sleeve only wormed it deeper into the sensitive skin. " Water ! " he roared. Tom caught up a fire- pail and flung its contents over him. Gasping and groaning with the sting of the mustard and the discomfort of the sudden drenching he dropped to the floor. Smothering my smiles under a sympathetic countenance, I called for warm water to be brought from the fire-room, and proceeded to play the good physician for his relief. CHAPTER XII A FEW OF THE MANY " Life is to be fortified by many friendships." — Sidney 8mUh, *' Grod has not given ns vast wisdom to solve all the problems or imfaillng wisdom to direct all the wanderings of onr brothers' lives. But he has given to every one of ns the power to be spiritual, and by onr spirituality to lift and enlarge and en- lighten the lives we touch." — PhilHp$ Brooks. I SHALL linger now to talk not simply of human life bat of human nature and human beings. It may be a long chapter, tedious to you, perhaps,^K)f the sort I did not like before those days at Echo Bluffs. Study it well. Dream over it, if you like. Of the many we have met and shall meet, those that pass before us in this chapter are the chief characters of this Eastern miracle-play, and you may wish to bear that in mind. Whatever lines of caste, necessary or unneces- sary, might be drawn by some in life on the sardine coast, there was still a freedom of ac- quaintance similar to the ready speech and easy manners of the West. It reached its cleverest «5' 152 A Case of Sardines abandon among the factories. Cottonseed oil may serve as a lubricant of human nature; or as one touch of nature makes the whole world kin, so a grease-spot makes all the factory a family. Taking this by itself, apart from all ills that might follow indiscriminate associations, I found it cheery. Never a hail-fellow-well-met, I found the atmosphere relaxing. It was life in a state of nature in this sense, that every life seemed following its natural bent. The result was a marvelous diversity. There is no typical sardine worker. They are as varied as all the sizes of herring that might be packed as sardines. These diverse streams of human life flow and intermingle in a common tide. Some never lose their identity. Some speed with the current, some surge against it; the majority drift, or whirl in the pool. You might watch them as I have watched the eddy oflf Scraggy Point on a hazy summer afternoon, and they might seem, like the eddy, a careless, endless, meaningless fantasy of nature; or, like a kaleidoscope, a constant shifting of the same several colors. It is fortu- nate, perhaps (there is so much we cannot remedy), that we are not conscious of all evil. A Few of the Many 153 But so much of it is evidently a part of the process of nature that it is sometimes too easy to be indifferent. In the midst of the half-gay unconcern of life it requires the index finger of a deeper acquaintance to note that some go down, in want, or failure, or evil. As acquaintance quickened and deepened, the drama of real life at Echo Bluffs spread out its more vivid scenes and I caught the drift of the play. I watched Grant Hamilton's gait with a sense of satisfaction as I saw its growing spright- liness and steadiness. His recent medical cure was his reliance, but, knowing its limitations and remembering the vivid experience of my return from Captain Sinnett's evening party, I depended more on the trace of a once fine manhood that was more and more discernible in him. A wife's power may not amount to much in such cases, but Mrs. Hamilton had at least been able to take care of the hulk and keep it from utter wreckage ; and now she threw all her energy into making the home bright and cheery. There was some- thing majestic in the poise with which she bore those days of uncertainty and hope. In the ac- quaintance that grew between us, in which I shared the sacred secrets of her sorrows, there 154 ^ ^^^^ ^f Sardines came a reverence for that womanhood whose finest name is devotion. " He '11 win, won't he ? " I asked Shepard one day. He shook his head sadly. " No, not without God's help," was his blunt reply. I remember I laughed somewhat scornfully. "He needs a new atmosphere," Shepard ex- plained. " Away from old acquaintance and the stench of temptation he might fight it out. But he can't stay on his new level here unless he meets God and holds to him with a fast grip, and breathes a new air." It was a difficult situation. The utter disre- gard of the liquor law amazed me, though I had lived in an atmosphere of lawlessness and legal- ized corruption. Schemes and snares for trap- ping the unwary, pitfalls for the boys, and traps for the half -reformed were spread everywhere. Jerry Phail's audacity and utter callousness ap- palled me. I wondered whether he drove his liquor trade in careless thoughtlessness or was a fiend in the garb of good-humor. " Oh, he 's a good fellow, Jerry is. 'Minds me of a certain Bible character," said Nat Murray, one day. " Fact," he continued calmly A Few of the Many 155 in response to my look of disgast. '^ All he needs is horns and a tail I " We did not see much of Guy Wilson. What prevented me from rehearsing to Shepard that night scene on the beach I do not know, unless it was my natural distaste for conversation that touched subjects of a religious nature, and a re- luctance to confessing an interest in humanity ; although I appreciated Wilson's manly resist- ance to PhaiPs temptation. Guy drove his work energetically and resolutely at the sealing-table, and as resolutely walked to his lodgings at night or when the pack of the day was sealed. Once, while on a sunrise stroll, I saw him rowing on the bay, apparently taking leisurely enjoyment. There was some significance in his attendance at church, where he was easily discovered in the back corner group. One thing more I noted in factory observation, and with less pleasure. Guy watched Nan Khodes. His eyes wandered frequently through the door of the sealing-room down the line of packers' tables and sought her. I had not seen them to- gether since the Fourth, in spite of the common acquaintance of sexes among the factories. Once, when she passed him on the way to her table and 156 A Case of Sardines he looked up wistfully, I saw her throw a swift answering smile. He bent over his work with redoubled energy. George Salter was a standing problem. I usually turn from such characters with disgust. Any will power that seemed possibly to exist was flung to the wind, with all evidence of interest in manhood or decency. Yet there was something impossible to describe that spoke of a motherhood that had stamped itself upon him, either pre- natally or before the rubbish of passing years could mar its tracings in his voice and manner. When he drank he drank as one who neither felt temptation nor resisted it. When he kept sober it was evidently the result of the unconcealed aflfection of Margaret Dixon, who was as much better than he as salt than sand, but with no more of resolution or will power. You know there are girls of a certain type and temperament who are like the wax in my artist friend's studio, which, for a model, he moulds to- day into a face that almost breathes with soul-life, and to-morrow with an easy touch reshapes into restless or reckless features, and again, on an- other day fashions into a heroic or matronly face. Such are the girls who respond to whatever * CUY BENT OVER HIS WORK WITH REDOUBLED ENERGY. A Few of the Many 157 influence may be nearest or strongest, and are shaped again into an opposite form by the next finger that touches them. Moulded and re- moulded in the pliable days of girlhood and youth, it remains to be seen whether the last influence shall leave them a misshapen and earth- soiled waxen mass, or whether some friendship shall fashion them into nobility and transmit to them the power of permanency. There are others, apparently of the same irresolute and mo- bile type, but who have within themselves a double nature that may yield idly or resist pow- erfully. Of the first named class was Margaret Dixon ; of the latter, Jennie Kent. John Hunt, widely distinct from any of these, born as lowly as Abraham Lincoln, and with neither influences nor circumstances to serve as pole-star or guide, had a manly self -consciousness that seemed to be groping for something better than surrounding conditions or associations. He was a boy hard to approach ; so self-reliant, appar- ently, that he did not command sympathy nor manifest a need of friendship. Such boys often lose the help needed, I presume. But while any influences that might be ordained for the improve- ment of George Salter seemed to me certain of 158 A Case of Sardines failure, and the f ature of Margaret Dixon and Jennie Kent so uncertain, I thought of John Hunt with an instinctive idea that the right forces would ultimately combine to aid him. I can only explain that feeling as the natural instinct of a mind imbued with the sentiment, " Where there 's a will there 's a way," — and whatever that way might be or however it might open, I felt that John Hunt would find it. Three other boys, just turning to manhood, were fast linking me to themselves by a chain of comradeship. A tie seemed also to bind them together — utterly dissimilar natures, too. Tom Horton was a bright, talkative, ambitious, uneasy fellow, with a disposition as restless as his ragged red hair. He was favored with the sort of home and parents that are the one thing to prevent such a boy from self-destruction where tempta- tions abound. It was not long since he had left school. In fact, he seemed to hover between an ambition to climb skyward and a disposition to scour the plain. Stephen Somes' home was what his mother made it — he bore the stamp of good parentage. His eye was clear, quiet and self- possessed, and his high forehead and neat, curl- ing black hair lent an air of intellectual vigor and A Few of the Many 1 59 moral self-control. Oddly enough these were the traits he apparently lacked. There were indica- tions that weeds of indolence were springing up over his birthright. Youngest of the three, Joe Arthur sprang from a home where misfortune had followed misfortune, and hopeless shiftlessness had succeeded vigor and energy — so the story was told ; and the boy's apparent lack of energy and ambition indicated the early blight that had fallen upon his parents' lives. Yet, with the strange perversity with which Nature molds her characters — something for which we should be grateful, I suppose — there was a moral honesty and squareness about him. If he had no ideal ambitions he certainly had no taint of evil. I would have expected some outbreak of deviltry from Tom Horton's ingenuity sooner than from Joe Arthur's breeding. These boys lived in the precious hours of youth, as dissimilar by nature as boys are made, but each apparently bound to be what the strong pressure of the community's influences might make him. To me it seemed a kind of fate, fas- cinating to watch, dreadful if one is nervously sympathetic, as I was not. My lack of occupa- tion and doubtless the compulsion of Shepard's l6o A Case of Sardines inflaence increased at least my dissatisfaction with the local fates, and created the same desire to al- ter conditions that had sometimes rushed over me in contact with city corruptions. But I could see for the boys only such hope as lay in a gospel of common sense and something to do better than useless or vicious pleasure. Shepard agreed, of course ; I sometimes wondered if in truth he did not take more pride in his bowling-alley and fac- tory service and circulated literature than in his regular church routine. But he stuck fast to this: " Marshall, here is what it amounts to : No boy or man knows or cares enough to make himself what he ought to be. Self-interest cheats itself. Neither will he do it for others. Men do n't re- form because their wives love them, and boys don't often make fine men because the world needs them. When a thing is well done it is done for God's sake and by his influence and help. I could back it by Scripture if you did n't dread it." This had always seemed a dim truth, not mani- fested largely in the lives of my acquaintance, who were, according to my careless observation, good or bad conformably to the fiat of twin devils. A Few of the Many i6i or angels, whatever the case, of hereditj'^ and environment. But when I saw the religion of manly devotion to God and God's purposes in- stilled into some lives by Shepard's clear, straight- forward teaching I acknowledged the results. We made a fine pair of evangelists, indeed, though in a vastly different way. I lavished a little cash for the extension of games and literature, amused open-eyed youngsters at his house by talks of travel and moralizing on subjects of health ; and he found no difficulty in getting me to visit with him. No doubt as the minister's friend I slipped in- formally into this social life of labor, though I could hardly be certain of that as a cause. How- ever, it accounted for my early and increasing acquaintance with Nan Rhodes. Her frankness of speech and manner showed the easy intimacy of factory life and acquaintance, but revealed behind it a dignity and self-respecting woman- hood that commanded reverence or respect. She was "Nan" to every factory acquaintance — to Shepard and many others, too. But it was a title used with as much respect as the more conven- tional manner of my address. I reveled in our growing intimacy. It was 1 62 A Case of Sardines unique and a trifle amusing at first that a sar- dine-packer should yield an acquaintance so gen- uinely pleasing to finer feeling and tastes and thoughts. But it became like a broadening path- way through rustic scenes, which, rustic though they were, showed evidence of that fine art which is concealed because it is the true cultiva- tion of nature. We all share the disappointments and loneli- ness of social life. Have you ever realized, — it came to me in those days, looking backward upon my previous life, — that social life and ac- quaintance are vexatious and unsatisfying ac- cording to the nature of the acquaintance ; and that it is not solitude that we really need when we turn in disgust from the emptiness or caprice of society, but a deeper knowledge of a few lives? Acquaintance, intimacy, — does it often become companionship? What is companion- ship? It was diflScult at first to conceal my own feeling of superiority, and my cynical notions of life were easily aroused. Her positive manner annoyed me, perhaps because mine was no less positive. But her influence on her associates compelled my respect. It was manifestly su- A Few of the Many 163 perior to mine on lives of my previous acquaint- ance. When I marked her peculiar influence and compared the apt use of her life and gifts with my own record I began to question also, What is superiority ? I saw her moving among the sick with a touch that carried a healing cheer, with not a trace of gloom about her. It seemed a natural instinct of the children to slip their hands into hers. It was easy to note the importance of her life to her associates. Yet she moved among them, and to and from her work, with a quiet unconsciousness that seemed to keep her from publicity. It may be an odd description, but it was like the pres- ence of an invisible being whose influence is felt but whose presence is unnoticed. So she lived, in the isolation of the life of the "sar- diners." The discordant notes of my own irri- table nature found little response from her. Nevertheless before I realized it I was drawing from her in my better moments a sympathy and a music. As our acquaintance deepened and I be- came familiar with her own needs, I found when I struck the chord of sympathy — not calling for sympathy but yielding it — I could play upon her heartstrings as she played upon mine. Yet in 164 A Case of Sardines the most serious realm of her nature there was scarcely a note of sorrow. It was as hard for her to be unhappy as for me to be glad. There was a mystery about the girl. I became convinced that she had brought from earlier life more of culture and training than was commonly supposed. Her simplicity and directness of speech, her tastes, her personality, might be not simply a fine birthright but the fruit of a culture that had learned to adapt itself to surroundings and associates. A reserve always banished the topics that might lead to the subject of her early life or her family. Once, however, I heard her say when she bade Mrs. Shepard " Good-night," after we had spent a delightful evening at the parsonage with music and good cheer : — " It 's pleasant to come here. It seems like old times at home." I am too fastidious to have more than a pass- ing interest in an untrained, promising voice. There are multitudes of such. Whatever nature had done in the creation of Nan Rhodes' voice, art had fashioned it with no unskilled hand or pass- ing touch. By what course of history had this girl, sometime, somewhere, been skilfully trained for public song? What teacher or friend had A Few of the Many 165 left on her the evidence of his or her ability? What fortune or misfortune had dropped her into the whirlpool of life in a sardine-packing town? Her voice could hardly be reduced to descrip- tion. When it rollicked and caroled a gloomy thought was impossible. When it did its noblest work in religious song something that seemed to come from the singer's own nature argued away the very possibility of misfortune or sadness. One could only think of all the gladness that really is and all that may be. The odd thing about it was that she who came in contact with sorrow, and might have known an abundance of trial, had a voice that knew no sorrow. It was a voice of depth and power of soul. Yet it was not a voice that sympathized with one's sorrow, however much she might sympathize; it made one forget sorrow, as though it were not worth while. Was it because hers was one of those rare natures which gain the blessing of trial but never treasure the memory of grief or nurse the sorrow ? If she sang a stately anthem there was a tone that made one lighter-hearted. When, at the funeral of Dennis Greer's child, she sang a 1 66 A Case of Sardines somber hymn chosen by the mother, she uncon- sciously lifted the hymn above its own gloom, and breathed into it the music of hope and cheer, — as if she were chanting into it the refrain : —