George Van Schaick

“ Even before I had finished putting on my oilskins the water was dashing over us, and old Sammy, at the tiller, was jockeying his boat with an intense preoccupation that could not be interfered with.
The smack was of a couple of tons' burden, undecked, with big fish-boxes built astern and amidships. She carried two slender masts with no bowsprit to speak of, having no headsails, and her two tanned wings bellied out while the whole of her fabric pitched and rolled over the white crested waves. The fog was growing denser around us, as if we had been journeying through a swift-moving cloud. ”

“ For this tremendous excursion I was clad in a gorgeous dressing-gown Frieda had bought for me, and my cheeks were shaven clean and, somehow, I felt young again, as if the dear hand in mine had brushed away a score of years.
So I went with her, leaning upon her. She opened the door and led me in. Frieda was there, and Gordon and Sophia. Near the window there was an easel, and upon it I saw Gordon's masterpiece, which they had sent with their love. And the painted "Mother and Child" was mine, as the living ones also were. ”

“ Madge had looked at her because the garb of brightly-edged blanketing, the fur cap and mitts, the heavy long moccasins, all made a picture that was unfamiliar. There was perhaps some envy in the look, or at least the desire that she also might be as well fended against the bitter cold. She had the miserable feeling that comes over both man and woman when feeling that one’s garments are out of place and ill-suited to the occasion. Once Madge had seen a moving-picture representing some lurid drama of the North, and some of the women in it had worn that sort of clothing. ”

“ Your poor dear sister, Jennie, died young, and I believe that her life with me was a happy one as long as she was spared. After a little while Helen began to fill some of the emptiness she had left, but now there come again to me memories of a sweet face, uplifted lovingly to my own, and I am overcome with a sense of loss indescribable. And yet this is mingled with some pride. My daughter is no doll-like creature, no romantic, unpractical fool destined to be nothing but a clog to the man who may join his life to hers. ”

“ A few minutes later I reached the house, which, like the Milliken woman, has seen better days. The frittering brownstone and discolored brick suit me as naturally as a hole in the sand befits a prairie dog. I let myself in, softly, with due regard to the slumbers of people compelled by the tragedy of life to go to bed at the behest of a clock, and trod the creaking stairs in utter darkness, guided by a friendly but shaky balustrade. Then I reached my landing, opened my door, turned on the light, put on my slippers and fired my coat on the bed. ”

“ We cannot find employment for the weak, the lazy, or the shiftless. The first of these are to be pitied, of course, but we cannot help them. To the red-blooded and the clean of heart it offers all that sturdy manhood and womanhood can desire. Surely you can see how wide our horizons are, how full of promise is this new world that stretches out its welcoming arms to you! ”

“ Yes, it is the same dear old David—you haven't changed a bit. And yet, Dave, you are a great big man. I never knew how big, until I read this volume. I have been at it ever since you left!"
"My dear child, it is all fiction and, I am afraid, not very good. Jamieson doesn't think very much of it."
"It makes no difference what he thinks. I know that I haven't been able to keep my eyes away from it since Frieda brought it in. Oh! David, where did you ever find such things to say; how did you ever discover and reveal such depths of feeling, such wonderful truth in the beats of struggling hearts. ”

“ Grant for looking after me so nicely, but why should he deserve such a lot of credit for it? Don't all the nice young men like to look after girls? They enjoy it ever so much. But somehow this Dr. Grant enjoys it without undue enthusiasm. I am really ever so glad that he never looks, as so many of the others do, as if he were pining for the moment when he can lay his heart and fishy fees, which he never gets, at my feet. He is just a splendid fellow, Aunt Jennie, who looks as strong and honest as the day is long. ”

“ I say that more than for any other purposes, we wanted women, good women, to come and become the mothers of the strong, fine breed that can alone master our wilderness. Hugo is one of those fellows of brawn and brain who are working towards the common happiness in establishing his own. He needs a helper he can love and trust and cherish, one who will in herself be the biggest reward he can ever gain, and make him feel that the bigger part of the purpose of his life has been secured with your promise to marry him. ”

“ Is Frances destined to become a great singer again? Will her life, after a time, be led away from humbler surroundings, from her modest friends, and is her personality to become in my memory but one of those dear and charming recollections every man stores away in his heart, as some hide away faded flowers, a scented note, or perchance the glove that has touched a beloved hand? ”

“ It was at this moment, Jennie, that the suspicion entered my soul, that I had been wrong in letting her enjoy so much of the society of this young man, who is certainly a fine, attractive fellow when in his right mind. Isn't it wonderful how young people become attracted by one another, and their heads and hearts get filled while we old people can only worry, for whether they choose well or ill it always ends in our being left alone.
I noticed that Frenchy and Sammy were not among the people who crowded about us to say good-by. ”

“ It was a tremendously big, strong and inexorable world, in which was being fought the unending and apparently unjust battle of the mighty against the weak, of the wolves and lynxes against the deer and hares, of a myriad furred and sharp-fanged things against the feebler and defenseless things of the forest. But also it was a world capable of bringing forth majestic things; able and willing to reward toil; in which, despite all of nature’s unceasing cruelty, there could reign happiness and the accomplishment of a heart’s desire. ”

“ My old piano was there, upon which she played softly and sang exercises that were perfectly beautiful, and songs beyond compare. The very atmosphere of her was still in the place and things of hers were yet on the dressing table, including the button hook, which I pocketed. They made me think of saintly relics to be worshipped. Baby Paul's crib appealed to me. She had so often bent over it, wistfully, as I watched her, admiring the wondrous curve of her neck, the sunlit glory of her hair. ”

“ I looked around and saw the few clothes hanging from pegs, the rusty cracked stove, the table made of rough boards, the bunk filled with dry moss and seaweed, and then my eye caught one flaring note of color. It was a gaudily hued print representing a woman holding aloft a tricolor flag, and labelled La République Française! And the poor cheap picture was all of the inheritance of this man, marooned and outlawed for the sake of a woman and her dying kiss, which had been the only reward of all his devotion. ”

“ Hugo was sleeping quietly now and the girl’s hand upon his pulse detected a feeble and swift flowing of the blood-current which, in spite of its weakness, was an improvement. But the great thing was that another day had come and he was still living, and his breathing came quietly. If––if she had loved the man, she never would have been able to go through all this without a breaking down of her little strength. As Stefan had said, and as Mrs. Papineau had also intimated, it was fortunate for her that she did not love him. ”

“ Frieda beamed all over and gorged herself on mussels à la marinière. She had just finished a portrait that pleased her greatly, and was about to take up a nymph and faun she had long projected.
"I don't suppose I would do for the nymph?" asked Frances.
"You a nymph! I want some slender wisp of a child just changing into womanhood, my dear. You are the completed article, the flower opened to its full beauty. If I ever paint you, it will have to be as some goddess that has descended to the earth to mother a child of man." ”

“ The front door was widely opened on this pleasant day, and, as I was finishing the dressing, Miss Jelliffe was dreamily looking out over the cove and following the circling gulls. I think that, like myself, she wondered at the simplicity of it all. A woman loved a man and clung to him, and from that moment their personalities merged, and their thoughts were shared, and a rough, rock-bound, fog-enwrapped land became, for all its hardships, a place where a man could do great work while the woman developed to the utmost her glorious faculties of helpfulness and tender unselfishness. ”

“ If any one, a month before, had placed before her the prospect of honest toil among friendly faces, of usefulness that would benefit her while gaining gratitude from others, she would have deemed herself the happiest woman in the world. Yes, the world should have been a very beautiful and kindly place, now that hunger and pain were eliminated, now that the coming of spring would cause sap to surge up the trees so that the branches would soon clothe themselves in the tender glory of new leafage. ”

“ In Gordon's studio a slight breeze had blown in and mingled with the scent of the flowers with which his table was adorned, and the behavior of my collar had been of the best. The ladies, secure in the absence of starched things such as we men throttle ourselves with, had been pictures of comfortable coolness. But in the street I plunged in an atmosphere of sodden heat and refused to obey the instinct that usually leads me to walk whenever I am not pressed for time. This happens often, for the productive hours of a writer are few, leaving many to be employed in alleged thoughts. ”

“ Of course it was all very desolate; a vast swamp dominated by sterile ridges of boulder-strewn hills; an immense land of peat-bogs and mosses, grey and green and purplish, upon which only the caribou and the birds appeared able to live. Yet it was no longer a place where the fury of the elements was ever ready to unchain itself against poor people clinging to their bare rocks. The breath of one's nostrils went ever so deep in one's lungs, and one's muscles seemed to gather energy and respond ever so much more efficiently than they ever did in big towns. ”

“ There came upon Madge a dreadful feeling of helplessness. The man looked terribly ill; she felt that he was probably going to die. This great wilderness suddenly grew as wicked in her eyes as that of the city. Nay, it was even worse. She remembered how ill she had become and how she had struggled to fight off the sickness, in a little lone room of a top floor. But as soon as people had come she had been bundled away to the hospital. A wagon had come, with a doctor in a white coat, and they had clattered off. ”

“ The eyes bent upon the slumbering child, I felt, might at any moment be lifted to her friend Dave, the scribbler, who, for the first time in his life, was beginning to learn that a woman's loveliness may be beyond the power of a poet's imagining or even the wondrous gift of a painter. The scales had indeed fallen from my eyes! At first I had thought that Gordon had idealized her, mingling his fancy with the truth and succeeding in gilding the lily. ”

“ Now and then the land abeam would give forth response to the booming of our whistle. The old man Sammy had taken the wheel and his grim face was frozen into an expression of desperate energy, as his keen little grey eyes peered through the murk. By this time there was a heavy roll and our tall spars were slashing at the mist as if seeking to cut down an unseen enemy. Every man on board was under a nervous tension, conscious that a big thing was being done. ”

“ He answered to that name of Hugo Ennis and had admitted that this was Roaring River, as Stefan had also told her. Moreover, the big Swede knew perfectly well that she was coming and expected. In word, in action, in every move of his, this man was lying, stupidly, coarsely, with features indifferent or pretending concern. It was unbearable.
She turned and looked at him again, swiftly but haggardly. She would never have conceived the possibility of a man dissembling so, in letters first and lying again in every move and every tone of his voice. ”

“ As the trolley and ferryboat brought me home, I had the feeling that the night was far advanced and that I had been on a long journey which rendered the prospect of bed and slumber a highly desirable one. But once in the embrace of the big city, I realized that it was but the shank of the evening and that the hurried life of the town, maker of successes and destroyer of many hopes, was throbbing fast. My watch showed but ten o'clock when I reached my caravanserai, but I climbed up the last steps, carefully, anxious to avoid making any disturbance that might awaken Frances and her little one. ”

“ So Stefan caught up with his dogs again and stepped on the toboggan, without stopping them, and the great trunks of forest giants seemed to slip by him swiftly, while here and there, by dint of some formation of hillside or gorge, his ears grew conscious of the far-away roar of the great falls. From a little summit he saw the cloud of rising vapor, all of a mile away. At every turn he peered ahead, keenly disappointed on each occasion, for the party was not in sight. So he urged the dogs faster. The big sleigh must surely be just ahead, beyond the next turn. ”

“ I don't know that I have ever realized before what a huge thing love and affection mean in the lives of some people, how they can cast a glamour over sordid surroundings and reward one for all the hardships.
"I am glad that you are happy," I told him. "I think that you have become very fond of the place and of these people."
"I shall miss them if ever I am called away," he acknowledged, looking at the poor, unpainted houses and the rickety flakes.
Dear Auntie Jennie, it looks to me as if these were people to be envied. ”

“ Good-by, Dave, old boy, give my kindest regards to—to Frieda."
I was glad when I reached the sidewalk again. I am no cynical detractor of the advantages of wealth, breeding, education and all the things that go towards refining away some of the dross which clings to the original man. Were it not for the hope of lucre, how many would be the works of art, how great would be the achievements of the world! Still, I felt that a man can have a little too much of the scent of roses, a surfeit of gilded lilies and gems in profusion. ”

“ At times the rain stops, and the great black clouds race desperately across the sky while the world outside our little cove is a raging mass of spume that becomes wind-torn and flies like huge snow flakes high up in the air. ”

“ She shook her head, as if in despair at my pessimism.
"Don't be foolish, Dave. You have done a fine piece of work. Oh! You can smile, if you want to. I know I am nothing but a girl—I mean a woman—but since early girlhood I have lived in an atmosphere of art, which is nothing but truth expressed in all its beauty. I think I have always understood the big things in painting and in music, instinctively, and in this book I find a melody that uplifts me, a riot of splendid color which appeals to me, because it is all true."
"Gracious! My dear Frances!" ”

“ There were happy women in the world, glorying in maternity, watching eagerly for the home-coming of their mates, blessed with the love of a good man and happy to return it in full measure. It seemed too good to be true. She stared with moistened eyes. If this was really so the man had doubtless already received answers and chosen. There must be so many others looking like herself for a haven of safety, for deliverance from lives that were unendurable. ”

“ When a man is sixty, and begins to think he owns his fair share of the earth, or even a bit more, I daresay that it does him good to be humbled a little, but it's a hard thing to become used to. Hitherto when Helen wanted anything I always let her have it, for on the whole she has always been sensible in her desires and requests, or maybe I have been an old fool. Didn't some Frenchman say once that an old man is a fellow who thinks himself wise because he's been a fool longer than other people? ”

“ Nearly all men all over the world were fools, Gordon asserted. Coyotes and foxes had an instinctive dread of traps, but men walked into them so innocently that merely to behold them was enough to drive a man to drink.
After all, I don't care what O'Flaherty and such cattle think! As long as I can save Frances, or any other good woman, from shedding one more tear than has been ordained for her, I shall do so. I refuse to be envious of the intelligence of foxes and coyotes, and I will always resent uncouthness and mean thoughts. ”

“ A boy just told me they had to carry him from his boat, when he returned this morning."
"I'll go with you now to Frenchy's," said Helen.
"Are you not afraid?" asked the little parson.
"Are you?" she asked, just a little rudely, I fear.
"With me it is a matter of duty and love, you know," he replied.
"With me also," she said, with head bent down. Then she looked up again.
"I don't think you have any better right to expose yourself than I," she said, with spirit. "You have children of your own, and a wife to think of. Your life is a full one, rounded out and devoted to a work that is very great. ”

“ I can't for an instant reconcile myself to such an idea, for I hardly think that Miss Van Rossum is the sort of young woman who would inspire Gordon with a consuming love. Come to think of it, I have never known him to be in love with any one, so how can I know the kind of fair charmer that will produce in him what the French call the lightning stroke? And then, Willoughby Jones is known as an inveterate and notorious gossip. The whole matter, if not an utter invention, is simply based on Gordon's policy to cultivate the people who can afford to pay five thousand for a full-length portrait. ”