Earl Derr Biggers

“ Why not come home for a visit, Dan? Nothing would delight me more. We'd tear down this town as it is to-day and build it up as it used to be. I'd take you over our golf course. It's a mighty sporty little eighteen-hole affair of more than six thousand yards. People tell us there's nothing in Chicago can beat it. I go round in just under a hundred—not bad for an old fellow, eh, Dan? Dan, I'd love to see you. Jenny would have liked it, too, but she's no longer here. She thought a lot of you, old man. She was always after me to answer that letter you wrote congratulating us on our engagement. ”

“ Your letter with the news of your engagement to Jenny Fairbanks came in on the last boat, and I hasten to send my sincere congratulations. I always thought Jenny the prettiest cleverest girl in Maysboro, and you're mighty lucky to get her. As for you—well, I guess she knows what I think of you. May you have the long happy life together I'm wishing for you to-day. You asked for news of me. I'm still plodding along. Australia isn't so bad, even if we are a long ways from anything. ”

“ The last notes of the song died away through the silent house, and reaching out Tom Meade patted Jenny's hand where it lay on the arm of her chair.
“Don't be silly, Tom,” she said, and they laughed softly together.
“What next?” demanded Clara, turning the pages of the ancient songbook before her. “You choose, father. This is your party, you know.”
He moved his head in time to catch a look he was not intended to see, a questioning look from Jean to David which said more plainly than words, “Can't we break away now? Haven't we been here long enough?” ”

“ The automobile began to move. Tom Meade, standing bareheaded in the shelter of the porte-cochère, heard “fine day” flung over Jean's shoulder. He watched them creep down the long drive, gaining speed as they went, then swing out through the great gate into Center Avenue. Bill Love's hack was not abroad on Center Avenue to-night, nor any other hack. At intervals a motor horn sounded shrilly through the storm and the lights of a passing car flashed momentarily over the snow.
“Come in, Father, you'll catch your death,” Jenny said from the door. ”

“ Why, only the other day I thought of writing him—that is, it was about two years ago, when we were on our way home from David's wedding. 'That letter from Dan Nelson congratulating us on our engagement,' I said to myself. 'I'll answer it when our first grandchild arrives.' It struck me that would be amusing.”
“Father, Jean doesn't want any children,” said Jenny softly. “I've known it for some time.”
“I suspected it. Jenny, what's come over this new generation? I tell you, the world will go on the rocks.” ”

“ Tom Meade was appalled. He had been barely aware such a person existed; yet here he was, entering his life, wrecking one of his fondest dreams. Though the hour was late, he went to the studio of Clara's teacher, asked the advice of that wise old Frenchman.
“No use to force her,” the teacher said. “I have noticed. The heart is gone from her singing. We cannot shape the lives of our children, wise though we may be. Let her follow her heart, which is no longer in the music.”
So Clara followed her heart back to Maysboro, and they went with her. ”

“ Tom Meade stood up.
“Guess we'd better let these children off, mother,” he said. “It'll be a hard drive back to Indianapolis through the snow. I think it was mighty good of them to come up here and spend Thanksgiving with us old folks.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Jenny quickly. “You know, David, ever since he passed fifty your father's perfectly absurd. You'd think he was a hundred. For my part, I'm never going to grow old. ”

“ He permitted her to restore him to the chair.
“Jenny, I'm a proud man,” he told her. “I won't try to conceal it. The crowning honor of my life. The thing every lawyer secretly longs for, and just when I thought I was about finished. But I'm not. I tell you, my dear, I've got years of usefulness ahead of me.”
“Of course you have, father,” Jenny answered. “Would you like another glass of milk?”
Before she sent him off to bed she allowed him a moment at his desk. In the top drawer he found a sealed envelope with the name Daniel Nelson, Esq., written on it. ”

“ Tom Meade restored the ball to its place.
“No, I guess not, Phil,” he smiled. “I'm doing pretty well as it is. Went round in ninety-nine this morning. Not so bad for a man my age, eh?”
“Not bad at all,” answered Phil, his enthusiasm tempered by his failure to make a sale.
The front door slammed. Tom Meade saw Charley Nelson coming toward him. A thin wraith of a man, Charley; transparent, almost, a man who seemed not at all well.
How many years had it been, Meade wondered, since Jenny told him how worried Mary was about her husband. Long, long ago. ”

“ It was seeing your Cousin Charley at the opera house to-night that got me started on this. I had a little talk with him, and he told me how well you're doing. I want to assure you right here, Dan, before I go any further, that your kind wishes on our engagement were deeply appreciated at the time. Jenny and I have now been married eleven years, and all the happiness you bespoke for us has so far been ours. Jenny is still the prettiest girl in town—and the cleverest. What's more, she's not a day older than when you saw her last. Our daughter Clara is nine and David is six. ”

“ He was shivering when he rose from his desk and went upstairs. Jenny was sleeping soundly. He was careful not to wake her. He crept into bed, chilled through. In the morning he was too ill to rise. His old friend, Doctor Clark, came in and looked him over.
“How's your general health, Tom?” he asked. “You don't look well. I'm going to get you out on the golf course next spring.”
“Nonsense!” snorted Tom Meade. “Chase a little white ball all over creation? No, sir; not me!” ”

“ He had done well, he knew it; with persuasive eloquence he had pleaded for the reëlection of Mr. Harrison. Not an easy task, either, for there was little in the personality of the President to inspire an orator. However, the crowd had been with him, they had welcomed his sallies against Mr. Cleveland with loud approval.
Behind him, on the new brick pavement of the avenue, rang the rhythmic beat of a horse's hoofs. Turning, he saw old Bill Love's hack outlined in the moonlight. ”

“ Thirty years together, Jenny and I—two children—life mighty kind. That's about all there is to tell. Well, Dan, excuse the delay, and write me all about yourself. Do you play golf? Got a course in Melbourne, I suppose. What do you make it in? Don't forget to tell me. Are you under a hundred too? Don't wait as long as I did. And, if you can possibly arrange it, come home, Dan, come on home. You've been wandering long enough.
Your old pal, Tom Meade.
He was smiling softly to himself as he put the letter into an envelope and wrote Dan's name on the outside. ”

“ And if there was one with graying hair amid the group you were fairly sure to hear a complaint about the restless hurry of the new generation, a longing sigh for the amiable '80's, the gracious '70's. ”

“ Yes, he spoke as if he might end his days right here in Maysboro.”
“Where he belongs,” answered Tom Meade. He sat staring dubiously at the letter in his hand. “Well, Charley, I guess I haven't any use for this, after all. Forty-one years to get it finished, and now——”
He opened the door of the fat old stove. Live coals glowed within. Slowly he tore the letter across and laid the pieces on the fire. He closed the door.
“Judge,” Charley was saying, “you'll be glad to know that Dan has done real well out there. I guess he's worth a million or more. ”

“ I was down to Indianapolis to-day and had a chat with the governor. I've got news for you.”
“Yes?” Tom Meade questioned.
“You know, of course, that there's a vacancy on the supreme-court bench in this state. Has been ever since Marvin died. Well, the governor was telling me he's thinking of appointing you. He wanted me to sound you out.”
“Appoint me? The supreme court?” Tom Meade's voice was trembling.
“Yes. You could serve Marvin's unexpired term and then run for it. You'd be elected. You're the best lawyer in the state and everybody knows it. I expect to see the governor again in a few days. ”

“ In the ten years during which he had been devoted to golf he had never gone round the course in less than a hundred strokes. But this morning, counting his drive in the final hole, his score was a beautiful ninety-six. If he made the cup in three his record would be smashed. He said a golfer's prayer as he went toward his drive.
The prayer was answered—his ball lay a good two feet from the brook. Pointing out to his caddie the error of going through this world a pessimist, he took his mashie and accomplished a magnificent shot to the green. His heart sang ”

“ And there was Jim Wakefield, all excited over his invention. I'd just drawn up the papers of incorporation for his factory, and I was hoping for a hundred dollars—fifty anyway. We needed money so badly. And then he told me he couldn't pay me—gave me those five hundred shares of stock instead. Jenny, I was pretty bitter when he left, though I didn't let him see. I'd have sold those shares for twenty-five dollars then—spot cash.”
“Yes, and I'd have let you.”
“Yet to-night David's riding back to Indianapolis in a Wakefield car, and those shares are worth more money than you and I can ever spend. ”

“ I do hope they get back to Indianapolis safe and sound.” She went over to the bay window and stood staring out. “It's dangerous driving in a storm like this. I wish I'd told David to call up when they get there.”
Her husband came over and put his arm about her shoulders.
“Now, mother, none of your worrying.” He stood staring out across his lawn. It was a broad lawn, three hundred feet or more to the old Jackson Perkins place on the south, five hundred feet to the river in the rear. On it lay the Thanksgiving snow. “It's beautiful, isn't it, mother?” Tom Meade said. ”