Ann Putnam

“ The account of her life makes it apparent that Ann, as a woman, had no affinity with the base and lewd, but, being mediumistic, was caused, either by design or by the out-workings of unconscious natural forces, to disclose the baseness and lewdness of others. ”

“ And Ma promised to leave them low circus people alone for a spell and come back to the White Kittens again. I then announced I was going out and fire Anna. At that a look of terror came over Ma's face, and she restrained me by the sleeve.
"Be careful how you go near that kitchen!" she says warningly.
"For heaven's sakes, Ma!" I says. "What's wronger than usual out there?"
"I dunno, but I think something is!" she says. "I believe it's a bomb!"
"A bomb!" I says. "Whatter you mean?"
"Anna is out to market," says Ma, "and the one with the black beard like poor Kiskoff's brought it. ”

“ For there, peering sweetly down the long vista of the years, was the youth of Mary-Laetitia: an exquisitely beautiful and delicate girl, with thin, chiseled features, a mouth like an opening rosebud, a skin like the windflowers that she still loved, and a pair of half-sad, half-laughing gray eyes under a tangle of red-gold curls. One long, slender hand, on which glowed a great emerald ring, clasped her filmy white garments at her bosom. Newlove heaved a tremendous sigh. ”

“ That's funny!" said Miss Peaches Pegg.
"It sure is!" remarked the chauffeur.
"It's Dick's name, too!" said my hostess. "Make you acquainted—shake hands with Mr. Talbot, Miss Talbot!"
There was nothing to do but acquiesce, for the young chap without the least trace of self-consciousness came forward most politely.
"Pleased to meetcher!" he said. "I wonder are you any relative to my Aunt Lucy? That's my father's sister, but he got killed in a gun fight up to Nome."
"I scarcely think it likely," said I. "Our family is practically extinct."
"Well, never mind the family tree just now!" said Alicia. ”

“ Then Pinto's face broke into a sort of crooked smile and he held out his hands to both of them.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he said. "Think of my Peaches picking out a friend of her father's! Why, Markheim, you must be somewhere near my own age!"
"Why, pa, how rude!" said Alicia. "Aren't you going to kiss me? And you too, Free! Stop standing there like a dummy! People get married all the time—there's nothing unusual about it, you poor nuts! Come on, congratulate us!"
Well, of course, I recovered myself as best I could, and pecked her on the cheek. ”

“ In 1740 he removed to a farm in the present townships of Pomfret and Brooklyn, Connecticut. Here in the winter of 1742–1743 he went down into a wolf den (still shown in Pomfret) and at close quarters killed a huge wolf. Putnam took an active part in the French and Indian War, enlisting as a private in 1755 and rising to the rank of major in March 1758. He was conspicuous for personal courage and for skill in Indian warfare, and was the hero of numerous exploits. ”

“ The Putnams settled early in Salem. John, the first emigrant, came from Buckinghamshire, in 1634, with three sons, Thomas, Nathaniel, and John. Some of the name exercised a fatal influence during the reign of witchcraft. Israel was already an old man when he left his plow in the furrow to gallop to Cambridge, having been born in 1718. At twenty-one he removed to [Pg 218] Pomfret, Connecticut. Putnam was prompt, resolute, and incapable of fear—full of fight, and always ready. Washington, who did not judge badly, thought him the only fit man to make an assault on Boston. ”

“ Putnam is one of the most thorough believers in intellectual liberty in the world. He believes with all his heart, is full of enthusiasm, ready to make any sacrifice, and to endure any hardship. Had he lived a few years ago, he would have been a martyr. He has written some of the most stirring appeals to the Liberals of this country that I have ever read. He believes that Freethought has a future; that the time is coming when the superstitions of the world will either be forgotten, or remembered—some of them with smiles—most of them with tears. ”

“ But the foremost fiends were close upon him. Without stopping, he smote powerfully upon the rock with his tail. The pavement yielded to that titanic blow. A chasm opened and went riving up the valley, piercing through the bulwark hills. Down rushed the waters of the inland sea, churning boulders to dust along the narrow trough.
The main body of the fiends shrunk back terror-stricken; but a battalion of the van sprang across and made one bound toward the heart-sick and fainting Devil. He smote again with his tail, and more strongly. ”

“ A cold wind made a sound in the pine-tops like the beating of surf on a distant shore. A flock of little winter birds flew suddenly up from the ground into one of the trees, like a flight of gray leaves whirled up by a gust. As Putnam turned to look at them he saw, against the strip of sunset along the horizon, the slim figure of a girl walking rapidly toward the opposite side of the common. His heart gave a great leap, and he started after her on a run. At a corner of the open ground the figure vanished, nor could Putnam decide into which of two or three small streets she had turned. ”

“ Putnam saw his tall form in the crowd buffeted a path to his side, his eyes demanding the report.
“I've found it,” Willis quietly informed Putnam.
As the two passed beyond the jabbering crowd the ranger continued:
“A man is dying there. Jan Lidindick. Jan the Rogue, the Dutch call him.”
“Trader and smuggler. Sorry he's dying. We planned to hang him. Who's with him?”
“His daughter Elizabeth. She came here from New York.”
“The girl Elizabeth!” exclaimed Captain Putnam. “Why, the wench dressed as a man and visited tap-rooms and tea-houses in New York. ”

“ Putnam's companion paused with an expression of pity before one of these uncouth sepulchres, a little heap of turf which covered the body of a "span-long babe."
"Now, isn't that echt Deutsch?" began Putnam, whom the gods had made mad. "Is that glass affair let into the tombstone a looking-glass or a portrait of the deceased—like that 'statoot of a deceased infant' that Holmes tells about? Even our ancestral cherub and willow tree are better than that, or even the inevitable sick lamb and broken lily."
"The people are poor," she murmured.
"They do the same sort of thing when they're rich. ”

“ I says, "maybe you're right; and I do get seasick awful quick. But—oh, Ma! I got to enlist some place. Can't you see the way I feel?"
Ma could.
"I know!" she says, very sympathetic. "I was the same when your pa missed both the third trapeze and the life net. I would of enlisted when he died if there had been a war. And, of course, you feel like Jim was dead. How about the Red Cross?"
"Won't do for me," I says, prompt. "I don't see myself sitting around in no shop, with a dust cloth tied over my head, selling tickets. I got to do something active or I'll go bugs!" ”

“ Putnam lingered after she was gone. He found his way to his old bench under the cedars and sat there for a while. He had not occupied this seat since his first meeting with Miss Pinckney in the summer-house, and the initials which he had whittled on its edge impressed him as belonging to some bygone stage of his history. This was the first time that she had questioned him about himself. His sympathy had won her confidence, but she had treated him hitherto in an impersonal way, as something tributary to her brother's memory, like the tombstone or the flowers on his grave. ”

“ Aghast I turned to Peaches, who continued to stare.
"What has happened to it?" I asked in an awed tone. "Has it been stolen?"
"You bet your life it has!" she replied, recovering herself. "People don't lock oil paintings up for the night with the silver spoons, you know. Gosh! What a shame! Such a pretty picture, too, and worth a young fortune. Won't Mark be wild though! Do you suppose it was gone when we came through in the dark?"
"Dear me, how should I know?" ”

“ It's the only thing to do.”
The comandante was whispering to Naomi.
“I go, most beautiful, but will return,” said he, with a languishing glance from his beady eyes. “Send these cackling geese away, and let me find the patio dark. I will return in an hour!”
“My cherub, may the saints protect you!” said Naomi; but under her breath she sped him with other guardianship.
“That overfed general is coming back here, Heaven knows how soon,” Haskell managed to whisper to Ripley. “Look here, old man, you'll have to cut him out and get the girl to help us; otherwise we are done for. ”

“ And in addition to that Mike, the smart and brave young cop, was disappointed something terrible.
"Who is this Anna?" I asked him soon's I got my breath.
"Oh, a Swede girl—I know her a long time," he says foolishly. "Used to entertain me in the basement when I was on the regular force. She's some cook! You're lucky to have her."
And just then this ex-pro-German Bolshevist cook we was so lucky to have starts to yell again!
"Frits! Oy! Frits!" she says. "He bane gone! Make un yoump back!" ”

“ No names: above all, not your uncle's,” said the big man warningly.
“By Jove, but that witch of a woman dances well! She's enough to drive a man mad. Aren't you sorry you can't speak Spanish, Ripley? She's makin' a dead set for you.”
The memory of a trim, quiet girl who had bidden him a dignified, properly controlled farewell in a Boston drawing-room came to the other, and he answered sharply.
“No.”
“If that wonderful creature would only stop her performance, we could get away,” said Haskell softly. “I'd like to get out of this with a whole skin, if possible, myself. ”

“ Perhaps no incident in Putnam's career is so often quoted as his share in the wolf-hunt, ending in his descending into the dark, narrow cave, shooting his enemy at short range, and dragging her forth in triumph. It was the one picturesque event in his life previous to 1755, when Connecticut was called upon for 1,000 men to defend the northern approaches to New York against the anticipated French invasion. ”

“ He was stationed the following winter at Danbury, when the famous descent of the precipice at Horse Neck occurred, one of the latest marvels of Putnam's anecdotical career. While he was on a visit to one of his outposts at Horse Neck, Governor Tryon of New York, advanced upon the place with a considerable body of troops. Putnam planted his small force on the hill, but was speedily compelled to provide for the safety of his men by a retreat, and for his own, by plunging down a formidable rocky steep by the roadside. ”

“ So you must promise what I have asked, Abby, and keep the promise faithfully."
"All right, old dear!" she answered, her self-possession rapidly returning. "And it won't be hard, for I know an awfully decent set, really. I'll have you all out to dine this very week. I'm at San Remo, you know. Just a short motor drive from here; a duck of a house opposite the old German Emperor's place. How about Saturday? That ought to give me time to collect the proper people."
"That will be lovely, Abby!" said I. "Mr. Pegg will be delighted, I am sure." ”

“ He had seen her twice in Albany. Her conduct was most questionable.
His New England Puritanism had been weakened none by his experience as an Indian-fighter. Putnam had spoken to his common sense in saying she was not the kind of a girl for him to marry. She was his antithesis. He had been brought up to believe that harmony could never be built up out of contradictions. ”

“ With a guilty start I turned about, and there, of all [Pg 245] people on earth, was Richard, the chauffeur, big nose and all, smiling at me in his familiar, friendly manner.
"Richard!" I cried warmly. "What brought you here?"
"I—say, Aunt Mary, I had to come, that was all," he said with troubled eyes. "It's Peaches. You know how I feel about her—how I have felt all along. I had to see her. It was as if she needed me. Just a fool hunch. But I came. ”

“ Putnam said good-naturedly, "of course I haven't any objections to make. Seems to me that's a matter to be settled between you and Lucy."
Jimmy smiled confidentially.
"I suppose you're right, Mr. Putnam. But, you see, I've never had the nerve to say anything about it to her."
"Tut, tut. Nothing to be scared of. Nothing at all. What's the matter with you, young man? In my day, if a fellow wanted to marry a girl he wouldn't go and tell her father. He'd marry her first and then ask the old man where they should live." ”

“ A telegram come from the coast saying "Great Sunday story bring Rosco contract follows," but what did I care for that stuff without Jim? Ma was very silent all this time, and kept in her room a lot, with the door shut. And then late Monday afternoon the door-bell rung, and my heart leaped to my feet like it had done at every tinkle for 48 hours, and I went myself, but it was only Ruby Roselle and Mr. Mulvaney of the Welcome [Pg 294] Home Committee with her! The men that girl knows! Well, she sees them in another light than I and it's a good thing all tastes don't run the same. ”

“ In fact, I was sort of dizzy with what was happening, and my head didn't quiet down any when, after dinner that night, I heard deep voices out in back.
"Anna has company!" says Ma in explanation. "Two of them, and I think they are talking Russian. At any rate one has a beard almost as handsome as Mr. Kiskoff's."
This got my angora, and while no lady would ever spy on her cook, this was surely a exception and so I took a quiet peek in through the pantry slide and there was Anna and two big [Pg 225] he-men all talking at once. ”