Bronson

“ The line where land and water met was already in darkness, and long shadows were creeping up the hills toward Mount Tamalpais, which was sharply silhouetted against the western sky.
Oh, if he, Joe Bronson, were only on that fishing-boat and sailing in with a deep-sea catch! Or if he were on that schooner, heading out into the sunset, into the world! That was life, that was living, doing something and being something in the world. And, instead, here he was, pent up in a close room, racking his brains about people dead and gone thousands of years before he was born. ”

“ Gun-fire on the upper ships suddenly ceased, and the Argyll's captain and aids came out of their refuge to see these two, with a furious turmoil of water at their stems, backing and turning in their lengths. The wig-wag had told the news.
“There it is again!” shouted Bronson, excitedly. “It's up for a peep around. Now it's under again.”
Professional excitement and enthusiasm is excusable, even when aroused over the performances of an enemy. Bronson, who had gone aloft to die, had a new interest in life. ”

“ In order the better to accomplish this object, the boy turned off Main Street.
"That was a wise move," complimented Mr. Bronson. "I want you to drive me to Mr. James Newcomb's. Your father told me he lived out of the village."
"About a mile," replied Fred.
"What sort of a man is he?"
"Hard as nails."
"H'm. Is he fond of money?"
"Yes."
"Good." And, as he noticed the look of entreaty in the boy's eyes, Mr. Bronson continued: "A very good friend of your father's has almost secured control of the stock of Montgomery's bank. I have the power to vote this stock. ”

“ Bronson, the Mrs. Arthur Bronson to whom the poet dedicated his last book of verses, and whom he thanked in his preface for "yet another experience of the gracious hospitality bestowed on me for so many years." In the afternoon they would all take long drives together.
It was on one of these occasions that Browning hit upon the title he would give his volume of poems. His son suggesting that it should in some way be connected with the name of Asolo, he bethought himself of the verb asolare. "Have you a good dictionary?" he asked his hostess. ”

“ When Bronson opened his door to the thin sunlight and the crisp chill of the morning, he chuckled. He had made too many camps in the outlands to be surprised by an unexpected gift of game out of season. ”

“ She knew that Bronson was quite capable of isolating both of them after collecting the only mass of space-resonant elements on Earth One. He would do that as a last resort to save the rest of his world, regardless of whether he received any acclaim or not. And death would be his reward. For once Earth One was safe, Two and Three would perish and both of them with it. ”

“ In an amazingly short space of time Holmes reappeared with a newspaper a week old, and laid it on Mr. Steele’s desk, and Bronson brought in an array of figures.
“Here we are!” cried Steele, jerking open the crackling sheet. “‘Wonderful harvests ahead! Tremendous wheat crops!’ Of course, it must be remembered that prophesying prosperity is always popular, and newspapers like that sort of news. Now, I shall select twenty-five places named in this paper. The useful Bronson will find out for me a reliable man in each place, and I will telegraph him. ”

“ And had not Newton become a better boy—a wonderfully better boy? Mrs. Bronson’s heart was filled with resentment that she also could not be enrolled among Jim Irwin’s supporters. And when Mrs. Bonner sneered at the buttonholes and cookies, Mrs. Bronson, knowing how the little fingers had puzzled themselves over the one, and young faces had become floury and red over the other, flared up a little.
“And I don’t see,” said she, “anything to laugh at when the young girls do the best they can to make themselves capable housekeepers. I’d like to help them.” ”

“ Bronson challengingly. 195
“I thought,” said Newton, “that I’d get a lot of raisin bait ready for the pocket-gophers in the lower meadow. They’ll be throwing up their mounds by the first of April.”
“Not them,” said Mr. Bronson, somewhat mollified, “not before May. Where’d you get the raisin idee?”
“We learned it in school,” answered Newton. “Jim had me study a bulletin on the control and eradication of pocket-gophers. You use raisins with strychnine in ’em—and it tells how.”
“Some fool notion, I s’pose,” said Mr. Bronson, rising. “But go ahead if you’re careful about handlin’ the strychnine.” ”

“ Moray was complete. He leaped to his feet and clipped Bronson viciously with the side of his hand. Bronson dropped, stunned, dazed, but not unconscious. Deftly, Moray found a roll of tape, bound Bronson's ankles and wrists, slapped a bit of tape across his mouth.
"Aid?" sneered Moray. "Promise us aid, all right. Fifty years will pass while the idea is being thrashed out in Congress or in whatever international organization there is here. Behave, Bronson, and you'll live. Help us—understand? If you don't it's—" Moray drew a forefinger across his throat. ”

“ If it is clear, even temporarily, we can go in and steal the phosphor."
"Better," grinned Bronson. "We can conceal it in a steel safe. I have a hunch they can't get through it then."
"I wouldn't know," said Virginia. She did know, however, that Peter Moray would not be in evidence since she was bringing Bronson back with her. "But you have a good idea. It'll do them a lot of good to try coming through if they end up in a steel box.
"Besides," she said thoughtfully, "it is better to try. I'd hate to think of them coming through unguarded. We owe it to the earth to try and stop them." ”

“ Marie-Aimée put out her hands, to stop her, her kindness at that moment hurt so much. But Mrs. Bronson went on eagerly. "You are not made right for this low world. Your very virtues have the effect of faults, and bring calamity upon you. There you are, one piece of honesty, lovingness, unselfishness; and the consequence,—you have no chance among us who are nothing of the sort. Being as you are would be all right in a world peopled with angels, but here——!" ”

“ That might be well enough for boys who were inclined to study, but it was manifest that he was not so inclined. There were more careers in life than that of the schools. Men had gone down to the sea in the lowest capacity, and risen in greatness, and owned great fleets, and done great deeds, and left their names on the pages of time. And why not he, Joe Bronson?
He closed his eyes and felt immensely sorry for himself; and when he opened his eyes again he found that he had been asleep, and that the sun was sinking fast. ”

“ I'm sick for a pipe;' and I will not write any more about it; and if I do, I will do it here in the office, and that is all there is to it."
"Oh yes, I think you will," said the city editor, easily.
"Let some one else do it," Bronson pleaded—"some one who hasn't done the thing to death, who will get a new point of view—" Conway, who had stopped writing, and had been grinning at Bronson over the city editor's back, grew suddenly grave and absorbed, and began to write again with feverish industry. "Conway, now, he's great at that sort of thing. ”

“ We have the power and the science and the will and the ability to effect those necessary factors that will cause Earth Three alone to survive."
Bronson was forced to admit that Kingston was quite correct. Though he said nothing nor gave any sign that he agreed, Bronson was forced to agree that Earth Three was deep in its plans while Earth One lay complacently in ignorance of its danger. The only man who had any inkling of their danger was himself—and he had tried to warn them only to be greeted as a lunatic. ”

“ So, the first thing was to protect herself, to isolate herself on Earth One and to seal up forever the passageway. All Virginia had to do was to break up Ed Bronson's mass into subcritical sizes—and then to keep all other discrete bits of the space-resonant elements from being collected for a period that surpassed the possible time required for the final death of the ill-fated temporal division—the end of Earth Two. ”

“ And then he began growing. His heart was weak. He got pneumonia. The doctor said he would never be well unless he was taken out of school again and let "run wild." The year Bronson came to his Aunt Emily, Mrs. Benton spent part of the winter in New Mexico and moved from there because she couldn't endure the sight of her son playing ball with lazy Mexicans whom he had inspired to the game. She went to a vineyard in California, and there she had to see him rally enough young Japs for his nine. She left him that summer on a ranch in Arizona, safe from a baseball atmosphere, she supposed. ”

“ Murray had heard of Miss Bronson some years before. She had suddenly given up society to become a trained nurse, and there had been vague rumors of an unhappy love affair. Later, her father’s death had left her dependent upon her own resources, and society had commented on what a fortunate thing it was that she had already chosen an occupation and fitted herself for it. ”

“ Portrait of Robert Browning, by his Son.
Painted in 1882, and presented to Oxford University by the artist.
One of the most beautiful of the friendships of the last decade of the poet’s life was that with Mrs. Arthur Bronson, a very cultivated and charming American woman who for more than twenty years made her home in Venice. Casa Alvisi, on the Grand Canal, opposite Santa Maria della Salute, came to be such a delightful center of social life for the choice circle that Mrs. Bronson gathered around her, that its records fairly enter into the modern history of Venice. ”

“ A Bronson Alcott, who is a great man if he cannot write well, has come to Concord with his wife and three children and taken a cottage and an acre of ground to get his living by the help of God and his own spade. ”

“ I picked up a book on etiquette in a shop the other day, and it said you must."
Every one laughed, and no one noticed but Cynthia that Neal's face darkened when he heard Bronson's name and saw him for the first time. Of course, she knew at once who he was.
"There ought to be a grand change of partners," continued the lively Gertrude, "but it's too much trouble. However, Tom, you had better get out and take one of the Oakleigh canoes, and an Oakleigh girl and Jack can get in here—unless Mr. Bronson would rather be the one to change." ”

“ They have to have help outside their home if they are ever going to be like other folks.”
“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Bonner, “and a lot more help than a farm-hand can give ’em in school. Pretty poor trash, they, and I shouldn’t wonder if there was a lot we don’t know about why they come north.”
“As for that,” replied Mrs. Bronson, “I don’t know as it’s any of my business so long as they behave themselves.”
Again Mrs. Bonner felt the situation getting 178 out of hand, and again she returned to the task of keeping Mrs. Bronson in alignment with the forces of accepted Woodruff District conditions. ”

“ Her thoughts were flying even faster than her fingers. Now that she had leisure to think and to plan she was settling many things, and one of them was that first and foremost came the necessity of at once returning to Mr. Bronson, or Brunsen, the case containing the thirty dollars and the portrait of the sweet-faced elderly lady, which she had found under the settle at the Lone House when she cleared up after the departure of the stranger. ”

“ Matters would have gone badly with them if they had not at this moment met Jack and Kitty Morgan in the Franklins' canoe.
"What's the row?" called Jack.
"Nothing much," said Bronson. "We've sprung a little leak, that's all."
"A little leak! I should think so. My eye! Why, man, you must have a regular hole for the water to come in like that. Where have you been, anyhow? You had better put in here at this little beach and step over into my boat."
"What's the matter with stepping over right where we are? No need of going to shore." ”

“ Bronson said gaily.
“There is no lack of food, certainly; only I fear that to you our mode of life will seem rather rough. But if Miss Hamblyn is back soon, it won’t be so bad, as she will attend to the customers, and I can look after the children. Shall I show you your room? it is quite ready,” Gertrude said rather anxiously, for Mrs. Peters and the babies had disappeared, and there were a number of things requiring her attention.
“No, Flossie will do that, and then if she has any duties, I will help her to do them, or if it is play, I can help at that too.” ”

“ However, give him a chance and he will demonstrate the space resonator. If he should pick up an Earth Two broadcast or even a molecular pattern it will lend weight to his tale. On the other hand, Bronson will be given credit—sane or otherwise—for the invention of a new level of communication.
"When it becomes known that gross matter can be shipped across space with the same scientific concept people will rush madly to develop and build delivery sets." ”

“ All his life Browning was an early riser. In Asolo, as elsewhere, he began his day with a cold bath at seven, and at eight he and his sister sat down to their simple breakfast, their hostess keeping no such heroic hours. Mrs. Bronson had adopted the foreign fashion of having her light breakfast served in her room, and her mornings were given to her wide correspondence and her own reading and study. She was a most accomplished and scholarly woman, whose goodness of heart and charm of manner were paralleled by her range of intellectual interests and her grasp of affairs. ”