Erma

“ Saving yer soul from perdition, is yer daddy's duty, my child."
"Saving my soul?" screams Erma. "Saving my soul?—by making me one of your horrible sect that degrades both women and men also by its bestial creed!" And indignation makes her beauty greater than it was before—so great that fanatic Lot's eyes grow as bright as hers, though with a different gleam.
But her father stops more, by saying hastily: "Kruger, go up to Salt Lake. Tell them I'll pay my tithing in the Central stock at their figure. Tell them I'll vote the balance as they please, and my daughter shall take her endowments!" ”

“ But Erma has her already in her arms, giving the little one a kiss, and playing with her and doing some small things to make her happy.
And doing small things for the baby does great things for herself, though she does not know it, for it gains the engineer's heart.
The man wipes a grimy eye with a more grimy sleeve, and mutters, "I was afraid my little one would get sick from starving, and she's all that's left me of her mother, who's buried in Green River—God bless your kind heart and beautiful face, miss!" and so going away, spreads the news of the beautiful girl's bounty through the train. ”

“ Lawson wishes you to play some for us, Erma.'
"Erma looked at me, and I nodded slowly, as I did not care for her to lift those tender brown eyes away from me too soon. Seeing that it was my wish, Erma went at once to the piano. Erma did not play. No! such music as she gave was not playing. She just dropped bits of her heart and soul on that keyboard, and the keys cried out in sympathetic tones, and we sat and listened in awe. Since that time I have wondered why people can say play music. Music is too serious a matter to be called play. ”

“ Kruger," answers Erma.
Then she ejaculates: "Do it quick! I don't like to look at it!" For the Mormon bishop seems to be awkward over his work, perchance because Miss Travenion, in her agitated pose, displays an ankle that might daze any lover of the beautiful.
A moment after, he has flung the reptile away, and Erma descends, a little nervous yet, as she falters: "Are there many of them about?" and manifests a disposition to run down the hill. ”

“ Together we sneaked down through Mormondom to Ogden, where your papa concealed himself on a Central Pacific train, and is now in California, I imagine, unless the snow-drifts on the C. P. are as bad as on this!"
Relieved from anxiety about her father, Erma begins to pick up spirits again, for this young lady, in her life that has been so easy up to this time, has not been accustomed to seeing men die for her, and has not recovered from the death of the boy at the Piedmont switch. ”

“ Then he tells her quite shortly that her father has so many big enterprises beyond the Rockies that he is an "uncommon busy man."
As he does so, Erma is gazing at him and thinking what an extraordinary individual her father has found for a partner, beyond the Rocky Mountains; for Lot Kruger, as he stands before her, would be a striking figure, even in Western America, which produces curious types and more curious individuals. ”

“ This condition of things, as might reasonably be expected, generates a great deal of immorality. While there are service girls of sterling worth, a bad odor attaches to the calling. If Erma goes into service in such fashion, the very atmosphere will breed insults for her. White youths will feel that she has no further claims to respectability, and will proceed to deal with her accordingly. So much for the catastrophe. The puzzling thing to me is as to why Erma should contemplate such a course." These remarks were delivered by Noral with unwonted energy. ”

“ Noting this, the Westerner leaves the car and commences to walk about the platform, chewing nervously the end of a cigar he has forgotten to light. Then, curiously enough, the girl peeps after him, and stands aghast, for there is indignation in his look as he strides about, his athletic figure well displayed by a loose shooting coat, and he tosses his brown locks back from his forehead, as if he were facing an enemy, and his dark eyes are gleaming so potently that Erma gasps, "Why, he looks like a Vigilante now!" ”

“ So bold that, being borne away to another dance by Ferdie, Erma looks at her card and suddenly whispers, "Why, he has taken up all my crosses," but though implored by a number of gentlemen who come up afterwards to erase some one of the many H. L.'s marked upon her programme, she shakes her head resolutely and says, "No, I stick to my written contracts," much to the disgust of Ellison of the Thirteenth Infantry, and Lamar, the dashing lieutenant, and Jackson of the Bully Boy. ”

“ Noral, Erma simply needs money, I presume, to supply her natural wants and satisfy reasonable and legitimate desire. Such stations as her talents peculiarly fit her for are denied to her because she is a Negro girl. There is no honorable course open to her save the one that she has pursued. ”

“ The girls need fear no one is not serious in his attentions. Every man goes!"
"Stop making such jokes," cries Erma, sternly. Then she continues, "It's time to go home. Good-night, Captain Lawrence," and going into the dressing-room, she gazes meditatively at the two Mormon ladies, wondering what such a life as theirs can be.
The dark one—the American—she notes is a woman of more decided character than the Swedish Christine, though neither seems to be over-well educated or intelligent. Then she thinks, "What a wretch that Tranyon must be! He is robbing Harry to put gewgaws upon these women!" ”

“ And she gasps: "You are not deceiving me—my father is not dead?"
"He's as safe as you are!"
"Thank God!"
"Perhaps safer!" Then he tells her of the revelation Buck Powers has made him this night.
"Ah!" Erma cries; "Kruger is coming to force me to give up that Utah Central stock."
"For more!"
"What more?"
"To force you to be his seventh wife."
But she says very quietly: "There is no fear of that. I can always die at the last."
"I know you can die; but for my sake you must live!" cries Lawrence. Then he says grimly: "If there's any dying to-night, Kruger does it!" ”

“ You are married to him, ain't you, Missus?"
"No," replies Erma, growing very red. "I am married to no man," and striding away from the girl joins Ollie, though she catches a prophetic, "Wa-al, perhaps some day you will be. I seed him look at you once or twice, and you'll be mighty lucky if you catch him."
The subject of this colloquy is standing on the platform smoking his cigar; he sees Miss Travenion pass him upon the arm of Mr. Oliver Livingston, and wonders why the girl blushes so deeply, though she gives him a pleasant nod. ”

“ Then, perceiving that Erma is hesitating and looking towards the car from which Ferdie and Louise are just appearing, and which still conceals Mrs. Livingston and her son, he says hurriedly: "Quick; I'll reserve a table for your party and get them a first chance at the meal. Come at once if you want your supper!"
"Of course I want my supper," cries Miss Travenion with a laugh; for the brisk Nebraska air, which is quite often cool toward evening, in October, has stimulated the young lady's appetite, which, like that of most healthy girls of her age, is generally a good one. ”

“ But she has forgotten to act now, and scorn is in her eye, hatred in her voice, and loathing in her shudder. She says hoarsely: "Back! don't dare to sully me by the touch of your finger! I loathe you as I do your iniquitous church!"
"Ye blasphemer!" he cries. "This is the second time. I'll be hard on ye now, an' bring ye down from yer high horse. Where's that stock of the Utah Central?"
"Find it!" jeers Erma.
"I will!" he answers, "and then I'll make ye sorry ye turned yer nose up at Lot Kruger!" ”

“ Self-interest and hatred are two powerful forces when operating in the bosom of a woman rankling with disappointment. Ellen determined upon Erma's murder. When Ellen was a very young child, her parents had as a neighbor a widow whose name was Corella Ross, the mother of seven children, the oldest of whom was called Sam. ”

“ Eormon, in the Anglian of Beowulf, means universal; eormoncyn, the whole of mankind; in old Norse, jormün is the world, and Jormungandr is another name of the Midgard snake which encircles the world. Most likely, the Irmansul thus signified the universal column, the pillar adored by all men; just as the Anglo-Saxons called the great Roman road Eormenstreot, or Ermingstreet, the public road. Er, then, would be the divinity, man the human word, and Erman would thus express something revered by all; and thence, the name of the tribes of the Hermiones and Hermunduri, both meaning all the people. ”

“ Neither of them dreamed—no one dreamed—that the pompous, haughty Prince Grandison of a Judge Lawless could have fallen in love at all, much less with the little, obscure cottage-girl, Erminie Germaine—tainted, as she was, by that great [Pg 274] est of all crimes, poverty. Obscure, I said; let me retract that word. Erminie Germaine—beautiful Erminie—was known and celebrated far beyond Old Barrens Cottage for her beauty, and goodness, and gentleness, and all the other qualities that make some women a little lower than the angels. ”

“ How among the more advanced peoples of these regions there persists the idea that the idol of the god, developed, as we have seen, from the effigy of the dead man, is the residence of a conscious being, is implied by the following statement of Erman respecting the Russians of Irkutsk:
"Whatever familiarities may be permitted between the sexes, the only scruple by which the young women are infallibly controlled is a superstitious dread of being alone with their lovers in the presence of the holy images. ”

“ Kruger," and Erma holds out a soft patrician hand, that is greedily seized in strong fingers made hard and red by exposure and toil.
Retreating from the grip, however, this New York young lady says earnestly, "Thank you once more, and au revoir until to-morrow."
"Oh, thank me all you want, Sissy; gratitude becomes young maidens," mutters Lot, trying to get the beautiful white fingers once more in his.
"Indeed I am grateful," cries the girl, and giving him a look that makes his eyes grow misty and watery, Miss Travenion closes the door of her stateroom, and goes to bed thinking no more of Mr. ”

“ But the calmness with which Arima had endured his final defeat aroused admiration. After all, the Japanese had merely acted under orders. And now Orme’s first thought was to get help for him.
He came to the lights he had seen. They shone through the windows of a small farmhouse a few rods back from the road. A short avenue of poplars led to the door.
In response to Orme’s knock, the man of the house appeared—a German with sleepy eyes and tousled yellow hair.
“There is an injured man down the road a way,” said Orme. “Motor-car smash.” ”

“ Finally, if I went to hear Berma in a new piece, it would not be easy for me to judge of her art, of her diction, since I should not be able to differentiate between a text which was not already familiar and what she added to it by her intonations and gestures, an addition which would seem to me to be embodied in the play itself; whereas the old plays, the classics which I knew by heart, presented themselves to me as vast and empty walls, reserved and made ready for my inspection, on which I should be able to appreciate without restriction the devices by which Berma would cover them, as with frescoes, with the perpetually fresh treasures of her inspiration. ”

“ When the sisters rose, arm-in-arm, through the water in this way, their youngest sister would stand quite alone, looking after them, ready to cry, only that the mermaids have no tears, and therefore they suffer more. ”

“ Franz and Emil are jolly little lads, quite after my own heart, for the mixture of German and American spirit in them produces a constant state of effervescence. ”

“ Elmira helped in that. There is always a relief to the soul in bringing it into intimate association with the uniformity of nature. Elmira, bending over the bed of herbs, with the sweet breath of them in her nostrils, gained a certain quiet in her unrest of youth and passion. It was as if she kept step with a mightier movement which tended towards eternity. She had persisted, in spite of Lawrence's entreaties, in her determination that he should cease all attention to her. ”

“ Erme was alive. Lady Lucy was hanging over him in a sort of agony of ecstasy, and yet of grief; but still she looked up, and put her little white hand into the collier’s big black one, and said, “Thank you,” and then he fairly burst out crying, and so his wife led him away. I saw Lord St. Erme for one moment, and never was anything more death-like, such ghastly white, except where grimed with coal-dust. They are in his room now, trying to restore animation. ”

“ It was years before she sacrificed the curling moustache to a clean-shaven duke, and shuddered at the suggestion of oil in his hair.
The despair of her life stood in the corner of the white and gold drawing-room. It was an enormous Alexander harmonium. Once, in an easy moment, on conversing affably with her duke in a whisper, she had suggested to him that Miss Grace might let her play on this instrument. Miss Grace, coming in then, was in time to see her lips moving, and considered that the sweet child worked at her lessons. Elma was too sincere to deceive her. ”