Florence Finch Kelly

“ And so, with thrilling nerves and singing heart, the Cavalier in her breast dominated the Puritan and sent to the four winds warnings of conscience and thought of to-morrow. Forgotten was the safety of the three fugitive slaves, at that moment hiding in her cellar, forgotten the fateful Thing for whose birth in the Virginia mountains she had been waiting, cast away from her mind was all thought of the anti-slavery contest, nor was there room in her heart for zeal in its cause. She was mere woman, loving and beloved, and glorying inwardly in her power over her lover. ”

“ The moon was at its half, and showered down just enough of its silver light to bring out sharply the darkling woods on the hill beyond the little stream and to make his cabin under the trees, off in the opposite direction, take on strange shapes, while it cut out, sharp and distinct against the background of light, the silhouettes of the solemn and unmoving burros, standing in a row behind the fence. Our camp fire blazed and crackled and the crimson and orange flames mounted high in the air and showed our little party, sitting or half lying about it on blankets. ”

“ The moon will swim across the violet skies of night, wax from slender crescent to fair white disk, and wane again. But to you, José Maria Melgares, it will all be as nothing. For you, life is a tale that has been told; there is nothing more for you now, José Maria Melgares, save the moral, and even that is no longer of interest to you. For you have been guilty of a heinous crime, José Maria Melgares; you have taken the life of your fellow-man, and therefore your life is forfeit. It is the sentence of this court, José Maria Melgares, that you be hanged by the neck until dead. ”

“ She bent her thin, humped and crooked body forward with fresh energy and a spark of the spirit she had conquered flashed out again in her dark eyes and tired face.
“My soul has longed so to do something, to be something, to be able to use my abilities and my energies as other people do! I have longed so fiercely to go about and see the beautiful and wonderful things in the world, to achieve something myself and to meet as an equal other people who have done things worth while! If there is hell anywhere it used to be in my heart! ”

“ Could it be, after all, Rhoda began to ask herself, that here was where her highest duty lay? Ought she, at whatever cost to herself, make happy her mother’s last days?
It seemed to Rhoda that everything conspired, throughout the wedding festivities, to bring her and Delavan alone together, although she knew that they were both trying to avoid such meetings. But he forebore to speak of love, and afterward the merry friendliness of these brief occasions, just touched as they were with the fragrance of intimacy, were among her dearest memories. ”

“ For to women admiration is always pleasing, even though they may know it to be insincere. To young women it is a wine that makes them feel themselves rulers of the earth, and to their elders it is a cordial which makes them forget their years.
Marguerite Delarue had had little experience with either love or admiration. Her heart had been virgin ground when her face had first flushed under the look in Emerson Mead’s brown eyes. And the first words of love to fall upon her ears had been the uncertain ones of Wellesly that afternoon. ”

“ The war found the capital of the United States, just as it had been for many years, quiet and leisurely, aloof from business and industry, spacious and restful and lovely. And the war transformed it with lightning speed into a busy hive of war making industry, crammed with people, humming with prodigious labors, striving mightily to achieve what seemed the impossible in a hundred different ways at the same time. ”

“ Curtis took the red bandanna from his neck and tied it over his ears, to keep out the tiny things that crawl o’ nights, and couched himself in his blanket on the gently rising ground with his saddle for a pillow. He lay down with his face to the east, where the dim and mellow sky, flooded with moonlight, seemed to recede far back, to the very limits of space, and leave the huge white globe suspended there in brooding majesty just above the plain. With long legs outstretched and muscles relaxed, he lay as still as if asleep, his eyes on its glowing disk. ”

“ Annister that Felix Brand was having a bad quarter of an hour. But the little physician, sitting upright in his capacious chair, his elbows on its arms and his finger-tips resting against one another, could not find it in his heart to abate in the least the penetrating gaze of his gray eyes or the gentle insistence of his questions. For the longer their talk continued the more he became convinced that the man before him was not speaking the truth and the more he felt it necessary, for his daughter’s sake, to find out what was the truth. ”

“ THE RISE, FALL, AND REDEMPTION OF JOHNSON SIDES
The day was hot, and the wind was high, and the alkali dust from the sagebrush plains sifted into the car, and whitened the stuffy upholstering, and burrowed into the nerves of the passengers. Everybody longed for the coming of night, and the relief of the climb up the cool heights of the Sierras.
I looked out on the sun-flooded platform at Winnemucca and wondered, with a feeling of irritation against all things earthly, what I should do with myself during all the long, hot, and uncomfortable hours that were still to be endured. ”

“ They picked their way carefully up the canyon, watching the gorge that lengthened beyond them and the walls that towered above their heads, listening constantly for the faintest sounds of human voice or foot, speaking rarely and always in a whisper. The floor of the canyon was strewn with boulders large and small, and its sides rose above them in rugged, barren, precipitous cliffs. Nowhere did they see the slightest sign of vegetation to relieve the wilderness of sand and rock and barren walls. Not even a single grass blade thrust a brave green head between forbidding stones. ”

“ Underneath the apparent peace in which the Ohio river town of Hillside basked in the sweet May sunshine of that day when Rhoda and her father drove up the hill on their return from Cincinnati, feeling on the slavery question ran deep and bitter. And the events which had happened since that day had intensified the heat and the bitterness until, just as all over the country, men felt that they were dwelling over a volcano which might break out at any moment, none could tell with what violence and destruction. ”

“ Felix Brand’s brown eyes were fixed in a speculative stare upon the mass of roses that glowed at the center of the table. Miss Marne, glancing at him, knew that, whether or not he was thinking of them, he was conscious of their beauty in every fibre of his being. “I wonder,” he said slowly, and she saw Mildred Annister’s gaze turn quickly upon him as the girl bent forward with parted lips. “I wonder very, very much,” he repeated, “just how much one could do toward making one’s dream-people come alive. ”

“ The cool, soft breath of evening filled the air, the alfalfa field glowed its most vivid emerald in the yellow rays of the setting sun, and in the same rich light the gray, barren hillside beyond shone like beaten gold. And Texas Bill, just in from a week's trip on the range, soothed and inspired by the civilizing influences of the ranch-house, a shave, clean clothes, and his supper, unbent from his usual bashful dignity and talked. ”

“ Day after day the American troops moved slowly forward, over rugged, difficult ground, broken by ravines and steep hills, through dense underbrush, in the face of deadly fire from artillery and nests of machine guns hidden in every vantage point, through incessant rain and mud and fog and penetrating cold, pushing the enemy steadily back, until they reached Sedan, cut the German Army’s most important line of communication, and so brought the end of the war in sight. ”

“ Lucy was looking up at him with the keenest interest in her face. The southwestern sun had kissed her skin into rich browns and reds, and she carried gracefully her slender girlish figure. Her head, with its covering of short brown curls, always held alertly, gave to her aspect a savor of piquant charm. Curtis looked down into her upturned face and eager eyes with admiration in his own. Under her absorption in the subject of their talk she felt herself thrill with sweet, vague happiness. ”

“ Talk to her about it, Jeff, and make her see plainly how we of the South feel about it. You know how necessary slave labor is to the South, and all that side of it. She has heard only the things the abolitionists say, here in the North, and she’s all taken up with that. But you can give her the other side, as a southern man with one of the best and kindest of hearts, who has studied the question thoroughly. If you can only convince her that slavery is right, dear boy, or even best for the niggers, as we know it is, you’ll win the day—and make me almost as happy as you will Rhoda, or yourself! ”

“ They chanced to head toward Mead, and he, idling along with one leg over his saddle horn, with a quick jab of the spur sent his pony in a long, quick leap to one side, barely in time to escape their maddened rush. A second’s delay and he and his horse would have been thrown down by the sheer overpowering mass of the frenzied creatures and trampled under their hoofs, for the horn of a plunging steer tore the leg of his overalls as the mad animals passed. Away went the herd, silent, through the dense blackness of the night, running at the top of their speed. ”

“ For it is very certain that Posey never gave thought, in all his life, to the question of human equality. He simply has an unconscious feeling about it which he has breathed into his being from the mountain air around him and absorbed from the earth which has been his bed for many and many a night. It is there, just as the dirt on his neck is there, and Posey is equally unconscious of them both. ”

“ Behind them Manhattan reared its mighty, tawny-yellow walls and towers through the golden haze—Mammon rising from the waves, with feet lapped in the rose-gold waters and front ablaze with the diamond dazzle of a thousand sunset-lighted windows.
It was the month of May, nature’s month of marvels, when with her magic wand she strikes upon earth, and tree, and plant, and human heart, and the indwelling, everlasting life and youth gush forth in countless streams of leaf and bloom and song and leaping spirit. ”

“ He would force it from Gonzalez, and then—Delafield! The thought fired his heart once more and his eyes blazed with the old indignation as his mind went back to the grief and loss of his early years, to that lonely night of hate and anger when his deadly purpose was born. He touched Brown Betty with his spur, quickening her pace to a smart gallop as he searched the road and plain with ardent eyes. His heart was bounding forward with anticipation, the savor of longed-for vengeance once more strong in his throat. ”

“ Charlotte has told me of the happiness that came to her and to you during her visit to Fairmount. I am sure you will believe me when I say it is my most earnest wish that that happiness will never be any less than it is now and that it will grow greater during the many long years of wedded life that I hope are before you. In your and her feelings and convictions there is nothing to divide you, nothing to prevent the complete union of hearts and souls which is the only thing that can make marriage worth while. I am sure, since you love her, that you will always be very tender to Charlotte. ”

“ Hugh Gordon straightened up and threw back his head. It seemed to his companion almost as if his body grew suddenly larger in the tensing of his purpose and his will.
“And I must tell you, Dr. Annister,” he exclaimed, his eyes flashing and his face determined, “that I shall succeed in spite of you both. You cannot make a good man out of him; and it is outrageous, it is impossible, that evil should thus triumph over good. I will not be submerged again. I have grown stronger as he has grown weaker and more wicked. He cannot hold out against me any longer. ”

“ The only thing I can say for myself is that I love you—love you so much that I almost forgot myself. I love you more than I had thought it would be possible to love any woman—and back there, in the summer-house, when I went in and saw you sitting there, my love broke from my control and swept over me like a flood, and for a moment I scarcely knew what I did—I forgot myself and the respect which was your due. ”

“ Once Marguerite found the faint track of the shoe when Mead was going away in another direction, and she called him back delightedly. For long distances he would spring rapidly along a trail so faint that it was only by close scrutiny she could see anything, his mind unconsciously marking the distance from one trace to where the next should be, his eye skimming the ground and his quick sight catching the crushed flower stem, the sunken pebble, the broken blade of grass, the tiny depression of heel or toe that marked the way. ”

“ There could not have been a spirit more eager for service, more inspired by patriotic zeal, more willing to do whatever would aid the Government in its prosecution of the war or support the efforts of the fighting forces than was manifest among the great masses of the American people. Whatever they were asked to give to provide the means of war, whether by taxation, by buying of bonds, by outright gift, by sacrifice, by personal effort, they gave with ungrudging heart and overflowing hands. ”

“ Lucy’s voice rose in a gay little song above the piano and fell upon his ears. With a deep, long-drawn breath his thought leaped out and seized upon all that freedom from Curtis Conrad’s pursuit would mean for him. José Gonzalez would sink out of sight, and Liberato Herrara would be back in his own home, unsuspected and silent. Some excitement would follow, search would be made, a body would be found in a mesquite thicket,—and then the interest would die out, and there would be only another grewsome tale of mystery to be added to the hundreds already told through the Southwest. ”

“ Don’t you realize that neither of us can ever be happy until we have joined our lives together? What are the days and the weeks for us now but just a constant yearning for each other’s presence. Look forward, Rhoda, to months and years of that, think of how much more life will mean for us both, if only you will give up and listen to what your heart tells you. ”

“ It was his own death warrant that this masterful force within him was ordering him to write—the death warrant of him, Felix Brand, ardent lover of life and but barely past its beginning, of all of him save only his fair physical envelope, which would still live and be glad, though he had passed into nothingness.
Stronger and stronger, the more he resisted, grew this inner compulsion, until it seemed to have entered into his every nerve and bone and muscle and he feared to remain at his desk lest it force his unwilling hand to write. ”

“ And he will know at once that that is Posey, for no one who has ever heard of him can mistake his identity at even the first glance. Moreover, Sunday is always with him, and Sunday is just as unmistakable as Posey. Sunday is a very small dog, of about the bigness of your two fists, that carries within his small skin enough courage, audacity, and dignity to befit the size of an elephant. He is also known as "Posey's bear dog"—a sobriquet bestowed upon him partly in humor, because of his ridiculously small size, and partly in honor, because of his utter fearlessness. ”

“ If she should die there alone, with no priest to listen to the story of the sins that oppressed her soul, to give her the sacrament and whisper the holy names in her ear—ah, she could not—any suffering could be endured better than so terrible a fate. So she gathered up her strength and strove to force a little more speed into her aching, blistered feet and to endure the pains that gripped and racked her body, hoping only that she might reach the town and find the priest before the end should come. ”

“ Henrietta Marne looked about her as she walked slowly up the street toward her home with a heart more at ease than she had known for many weeks. For she had that day secured a position at a salary equal to that she was receiving from Felix Brand and was to begin work in it as soon as the time should expire for which she had already given him notice.
“Difficulties always disappear as soon as you tackle them in real earnest,” she was saying to herself as she smiled in pleasure of the green world all about her and of the satisfaction that glowed in her own breast. ”

“ It was very comforting, and I sat down on a log in the edge of a little opening, all pink and fragrant with wild roses, to enjoy the sensuous delight of it all and so take revenge upon the great stone Preachers waiting for me outside the thicket.
Presently there came from beyond the glade a soft, crooning noise, which in an instant more became that sweetest of sounds, the voice of a happy child alone with nature. ”

“ CHAPTER XVII SENTENCE OF DEATH As the Spring days passed, in unbroken procession of rosy dawns, cloudless and glowing noons, and gorgeous sunsets, Louise Dent’s resentment against Curtis Conrad grew keen and bitter. She saw the lines of worry appearing in Bancroft’s face, and surprised now and then in his eyes an anxious abstraction; and in her heart she stormed against the man she supposed to be the sole cause of it all. Dreading his next visit lest she might betray her feeling, she longed to drive him from the house, when he should come, with burning, shaming words. ”

“ In the back of the room, throughout the trial, sat Jefferson Delavan. He was always in his place in the same seat, when she entered, and their eyes would meet once and a faint smile play [323] around her lips for an instant. Then she would not look again in his direction, but her face kept always its glow of inward happiness.
Horace Hardaker sat with his gaze moodily fixed upon Delavan’s dark head. Jeff’s eyes were upon Rhoda’s face and Hardaker felt resentfully that within their depths must lie some hint of the lover’s yearning. ”

“ Between Mildred Annister and Henrietta there existed a friendship which made up in outward warmth what it lacked in depth. For Mildred, with her woman’s heart but lately awakened and filled to the brim with absorbed and adoring first love, could not help some secret resentment that any other woman should be anything to her beloved or give him any service. ”

“ Have you thought of that, dear Jeff?”
He smiled at her with loving confidence. “I’ve thought that all out, dear heart. For weeks I’ve been thinking of it, and threshing it all out in my mind, until I feel quite sure of myself. I do love my dear Southland and as you know so well my ambition has always been to spend my life in her service. But there are plenty of other men who can do her work as well as I can, and not at the cost of their heart’s love and life’s happiness. I am willing to let them do it while I take my love and my happiness. ”

“ Bancroft and Miss Dent were alike convinced that his pursuer would be ruthless in the fulfilment of revenge. Arguing from their knowledge of men, their experience of the world, and their observation of his character, each had come to the fixed conclusion that no softening of heart or staying of hand could be expected from him when he knew the truth. Lucy, having neither knowledge of men nor experience of the world to guide her, had not reasoned about the matter at all. She had jumped at once to her conclusion, as soon as she knew her father’s identity, that he had nothing to fear from Curtis. ”

“ Ware from the veranda steps, “will you come here, please?”
Rhoda was standing between the rows of lilac that hedged the walk to the front gate, inspecting the swelling buds and saying to herself with pleasure that they looked as if they would bloom early that year. The lilac was her best-loved flower and these two lines of bushes had been planted because of her pleading, ten years before. Every season she watched anxiously for the buds to show sign of returning life, and Charlotte declared that after they began to swell she measured them with a tape line every day to mark their growth. ”

“ Annister, you can’t do it! Oil and water will no more mix than my characteristics and his can be made to mingle in a smooth blend again. My purpose in life is to add to the well-being of the world. I want to lessen its poverty and its degradation and help to reform the soul-poisoning conditions under which so many thousands live. I have planned my life and my head is full of schemes for the betterment of the world. I find it easy to make money. I shall be rich soon. My chief interest and pleasure will be in using my money to work out those plans. ”

“ You saw the obstacles that lie between us more clearly than I did—or, perhaps, you had more information than I of the treacherous lengths to which the North would dare to go in the desire to overthrow the ordinary rights of a state and to undermine the power of the government under which both sections have solemnly sworn to live. This attempt to incite the slaves to insurrection and the butchery of their masters proves to all of us that neither property nor life is safe in the South. At any moment another plot may break forth, no man can tell where, and be more successful than this one was. ”

“ The doctor’s chin rested upon his locked fingers and his eyes were fastened upon the other’s face. Brand did not know how much of his soul that searching gaze was gradually forcing him to reveal.
“I have always thought,” he went on, as if moved by an impulse of self-defense, the half-leering, half-sneering smile still on his face, “that a man has the right to sample all the pleasures that come within his reach. It’s the only way by which he can come into full knowledge of himself, and so reach his highest development. And that, I take it, is one of the things a man lives for. ”