Elizabeth Garver Jordan

“ Unquestioningly we accepted Katrina as a being to be loved, pitied, and spared the ruder shocks of life. Lovingly we sharpened her pencils, cheerfully we covered her books, unenthusiastically but patiently we wrote her compositions; for Katrina's mind worked slowly, and literature was obviously not her forte. In return, Katrina blossomed and existed and shed on us the radiance of a smile which illumined the dim school-room even as her optimistic theories of life leavened our infant pessimism. ”

“ I felt a throb of sympathy for the professor, but he was evidently blissfully ignorant of any reason for such a sentiment.
"The Mutterchen and the babies need the rest," he smiled, complacently. "They must not climb too many stairs—no;" and he led the way back to comfort with unconsciousness of the painful contrast between past and present conditions that made Jessica and me carefully refrain from meeting each other's eyes. The children, when they espied him upon our return, uttered shrieks of joy. The baby sprang to his arms, the little boy swarmed up his leg. ”

“ Together they walked to the nearest corner, and stood awaiting the coming of a trolley-car, the heat of an August sun blazing upon them, the stifling odors of the tenement quarter filling their nostrils. Rude, half-naked little boys jeered at them, and made invidious remarks about Ivan's new clothes; a small girl smiled shyly at him; a wretched yellow dog snapped at his heels. To these varying attentions the child gave the same quietly observant glance, a glance without rancor as without interest. Miss Clarkson experienced a sense of utter helplessness as she watched him. ”

“ Was this, indeed, Katrina—this rosy, robust, glowing, radiant German with shining eyes and with vitality flowing from her like the current of an electric battery? I looked at Jessica's faded complexion, the tired lines in her face, the white threads in her dark hair, and my heart contracted suddenly. I knew how I looked—vastly more tired, more faded than Jessica, for I had started from a point nearer to these undesirable goals. We three were about the same age. There were six months at the most between us. Who would believe it to look at us together? ”

“ Far back in a corner of the garden where she lay, almost hidden by the drooping branches of an old willow, sat her two sisters, Helen Adeline and Grace Margaret, highly superior beings of a stately dignity even beyond their ripe ages of eleven and nine years. They were too old to play with little girls, as they had frequently mentioned to Genevieve Maud, but they were not wholly beyond the power of her spell, and there had been occasions when they had so far forgotten themselves as to descend to her level and enjoy doll tea-parties and similar infantile pleasures. ”

“ Two weeks before the reopening of college, my reformed yellow journalist, who had come West to spend his brief vacation with me, was seated by my side one evening studying the admirable effect of a ring he had just placed on my finger. It is singular how fraught with human interest such moments can be, and Edward and I failed to hear Jessica as she opened the door. She looked over our heads as she spoke to me, Her face was rather red, but her voice and manner expressed a degree of indifference which I am convinced no human being has ever really felt on any subject. ”

“ The next day was very beautiful, and Jessica and I, casting off a haunting suspicion of our individual unimportance which we had not quite succeeded in leaving behind us at college, expanded joyfully, and lent ourselves to the charms of a sunlit world. The Lutheran fount of knowledge was on the edge of the city, and Katrina's home was a short distance beyond it. It was quite a country place, this home, over the big, bare lawn of which an iron dog fiercely mounted guard. ”

“ And he is not to fall any more, anywhere, on anything, you understand," explained the German, clearly. "He has no tasks any more. He is but to be happy, and you should love him and take care of him, because he is so small. That is all."
Ivan exhaled a sigh of deep contentment. Then he looked around him. The great logs on the andirons were blazing merrily. In the hands of Josephine a corn-popper waved above them, the corn inside burning unobserved as she lent her ears to Fraulein's earnest words. Ten apples, suspended on strings, swung from the mantel, spinning slowly as they roasted. ”

“ Disengaging himself with dignity from the clinging embrace of the maiden, the outraged youth rose to his feet.
"Don't you ever do that again, Margaret Hamilton Perry," he said, slowly, and with awful sternness. "Don't you ever. Lily Bell never, never did such a thing!"
She retreated, but unabashed.
"It's 'cause I was so glad," she said, happily. "Real girls always do; they're like that. But I won't any more. You like me best, just the same, don't you?" ”

“ With a restless movement Anne Clarkson leaned toward him. In her abstraction she had shifted her glance from him for a few moments, and he had taken advantage of the interval to survey dispassionately the toes of the new shoes she had given to him. He glanced up now, and met her look with the singular unresponsiveness which seemed his note.
"We're going away, Ivan," she said, speaking with that artificial cheerfulness practised so universally upon the helpless and the young. "Mother has gone, you know, and we can't stay here any more. ”

“ Josephine rose to the occasion.
"Why, why," she began, doubtfully, "I know what it is. You be a sunbeam, you know. I know what a sunbeam is. It's a little piece of the sun. It is long and bright. It comes through the window and falls on the floor. Sometimes it falls on us. Sometimes it falls on flowers."
Offered this choice, Ivan at once expressed his preference.
"I will fall on flowers," he announced, with decision.
The brown eyes of Augustus Adolphus glittered as he suddenly grasped the possibilities of the situation. ”

“ But my heart often longs for my native land, and in one tower of this old castle I have a great room full of souvenirs of home. It is the spot I love best in my new country. Here I read my mail and write my letters and follow American news in the newspapers friends send me. Here, with my boys tumbling over each other before the fireplace, I read of the ascent of San Juan Hill, and of you, my friend, and your splendid courage, and your injury. ”

“ Fraulein von Hoffman placidly counted her stitches, confirming with a sigh her suspicion that in dozing she had dropped three.
"Not always," she murmured, absently. "But no. Only when the sun is shining."
Ivan carried this gleam of comfort with him when he went away, and it is very possible that he longed for a darkened world. But if, indeed, his daily task was difficult, as it frequently proved to be as the days passed, there were compensations—in the school games, in the companionships of his new friends, in the kindness of those around him. Even Augustus Adolphus was good to him at times. ”

“ Late that night, however, she awoke me from my innocent slumbers with a request for knowledge as to the correct spelling of irrevocable and disillusionment. She was at her desk, writing hard, with her brows knit into an elaborate pattern of cross-stitching. I knew the moment I looked upon her set young face that the missive was to Arthur Townsend Jennings, the brother of a classmate, whose letter urging her to "wait five years" for him Jessica had received only that morning. It was quite evident, even to the drowsiest observation, that Jessica was not promising to wait. ”

“ Neither Jessica nor I was actively ill, but Jessica's indifference to food and social intercourse was marked in the extreme. Stretched on her back in the berth opposite my own, she lay day and night with closed eyes and forbidding demeanor, rousing herself only long enough to repel fiercely any suggestion that she take nourishment. Also, she furnished me with one life-long memory. From sheer ennui I ordered and devoured at noon on the third day a large portion of steamed peach dumpling, with hard sauce. ”

“ Drifting down through Ireland we heard another echo of Aunt Nancy. She had ridden on horseback through the Gap of Dunloe, no difficult feat in itself, and one achieved daily during Kallarney's tourist season by old ladies of various countries and creeds. In Aunt Nancy's case, however, it appeared that she had been able to enjoy that variety which is so gratifying a feature of human experience. Notwithstanding the fact that she had never been on the back of a horse in her life, she unerringly selected the freshest and most frolicsome of the Irish ponies as her mount. ”

“ Jessica's language was frequently too strong for elegance, and even at this exciting moment my sense of duty forced me to call the fact to her attention. I moreover, essayed judicious weighing of the situation as the most effective means of cooling her off.
"If the secret of happiness is work, as most authorities agree," I reminded Jessica, "Professor von Heller's wife ought to be the happiest bride in this country."
Jessica turned one disgusted glance upon me, rose with dignity, and moved haughtily down the road to a street-car which was bumping its way toward us on its somewhat uneven track. ”

“ In exactly three weeks Margaret Hamilton Perry was established in the Prescott homestead for a visit of indefinite length, and in precisely three hours after her arrival Margaret Hamilton had annexed the Prescott homestead and its inmates and all the things appertaining thereto and made them her own. She was the most eager and adorable of small, fat girls—alive from the crown of her curly head to the soles of her sensible little spring-heeled shoes. ”

“ It was Katrina's bearing as she stood, thus rudely projected into our lives, endeavoring to recover her equilibrium, and with thirty pairs of eyes fixed unswervingly upon her, that won my heart and Jessica's. Owing to a fervid determination of our teacher to keep us well in view, we sat in the front row, directly facing her. Having, even in our extreme youth, a constitutional distaste to missing anything, we undoubtedly stared at Katrina longer and harder than any of the others. ”

“ During the next four years Miss Greene was privileged to spend many days in the society of Miss Lily Bell, and the acquaintance between them ripened into a pleasant friendship. To her great satisfaction she found Miss Bell's name one to conjure with in those moments of friction which are unavoidable in the relations of old and young.
"I don't think Lily Bell would like that," she began to say, tentatively, when differences of opinion as to his conduct came up between Raymond and herself. "I think she likes a gentlemanly boy." ”

“ The theories of the community were consistently carried out. In the summer, after their few hours of study, the children were left to themselves. Together they worked out the problems of their little world; together they discussed, often with an uncanny insight, the grown-ups around them. Sometimes the tasks of the others were forgotten; frequently, in the stress of work and play, Augustus Adolphus's wood-box remained unfulfilled; Josephine's flowers were unwatered. But the mission of Ivan as a busy and strenuous sunbeam was regularly and consistently carried out—all the children saw to that. ”

“ Much to his relief, she threw off the dark mood that seemed to threaten her, and at the play she was more human than she had been yet.
"Ah, that first act," she said, as the curtain fell on Peter Pan's flight through the window with the Darling Children—"that delicious first act! Of course Barrie can't keep it up—no one could. But the humor of it and the tenderness and the naivete! Only a grown-up with the heart of a child could really appreciate it." ”

“ Money has some beautiful uses. If you were a poor devil who hadn't a cent in the world and would be dependent on the grudging service of others, I should wish you to accept and bear, perhaps, but I could not urge you to. Now, your life is helpful to others. You can give and aid and bless. You can be a greater hero than the man who went up San Juan Hill, and there are those who will feel it."
"That is, my money is needed, and because I've got it I should drag out years of misery while I spread little financial poultices on other people's ills," returned Hamilton. ”

“ Eltner marvelled darkly over the destruction of her favorite nasturtium-bed. Daily the stifled howls of Augustus Adolphus continued to rend the ambient air when the sunbeam fell on him; but he forbore to complain, suffering heroically this unpleasant feature of the programme, that the rest might not be curtailed. Once, indeed, he had rebelled.
"Why don't you fall on some one else?" ”

“ Seated adoringly by the boy's side, Margaret Hamilton became initiated into the mysteries of bait and fishing, and the lad's respect for his companion increased visibly when he discovered that she could not only bait his hooks for him, but could string the fish, lay the festive board for luncheon, and set it forth. This was a playmate worth while. Raymond Mortimer, long a slave to the exactions of Lily Bell, for whom he had thanklessly fetched and carried, relaxed easily into the comfort of man's more congenial sphere, and permitted himself to be waited on by woman. ”

“ The lawns, sloping down to a close-clipped hedge, were green and velvety. The iron dog was gone. A great hammock swung in the corner of the veranda, and in it tumbled a fat, pink child and a kitten. The fat child proved that all was not a dream. It was Katrina reborn—the Katrina of that first day in school, twenty years and more ago. Rather unsteadily we walked up the gravel path, rather uncertainly we rang the bell. A white-capped maid ushered us in. Yes, Frau von Heller was at home and expecting the ladies. Would the ladies be gracious enough to enter? The ladies would. ”

“ The only other occupants of the car were a messenger-boy, lost to his surroundings in a paper-covered novel, and a commercial traveller whose brow was corrugated by mental strain over a notebook.
"There are some things I would like to do in New York," she confided. "We will do them now—lunch at Delmonico's, go sight-seeing all the afternoon, dine at Sherry's, and go to the theatre this evening. Which is the best play in town?"
"Well—er—that, you know, depends on what you like," hazarded the boy, sagely. "Do you prefer comedy, tragedy, or melodrama?" ”

“ Van Buren rose, moved his chair nearer to Hamilton's, and sat down close to his friend's side. All nervousness had left him. He was again cool, scientific, professional; but with it all there was the deep sympathy and understanding of a friend.
"No, you won't," he said, firmly; "you won't do anything of the kind, and I'll tell you why you won't. Because it isn't in your make-up to play the coward. That's why. You've got to go through with it and take what comes, and do it all like the strong chap you are. If you think there won't be anything left in life, you are mistaken. ”

“ Jessica's pessimism on the subject of matrimony dated from that hour, and grew with each day that followed. Coldly, even as she had turned from the plea of Arthur Townsend Jennings, did she turn from all other suitors. She grew steadily in charm and beauty, and her opportunities to break hearts were, from the susceptible nature of man, of an almost startling frequency. Jessica grasped each one with what seemed even to my loyal eyes diabolical glee. She was an avenging Nemesis, hot on the trail of man. ”