Maplewood

“ Never yet, on the ball field or elsewhere, have I heard anything from a Fairhaven player that could offend the most sensitive and particular person. I wish to add that, with the single exception of Benton Hammerswell, the original Maplewood Baseball Association regrets exceedingly that you were not all retained in Maplewood to represent this town in the league. You have made a gallant struggle against seemingly overwhelming odds, and should you succeed in winning the pennant for Fairhaven, be sure that many persons in Maplewood will feel intensely satisfied over such a result. ”

“ He knew enough about baseball to understand that fortune had favored Rockford in many instances, and enabled her to retain first place. At one time he had encouraged Seaslope and rejoiced in her victories over Fairhaven and Maplewood, little dreaming the team was likely to become a dangerous antagonist for first position at the end of the season. ”

“ Indeed he had forgotten the very existence of this one un-noteworthy little passenger.
When he was about to leave the post-office in Maplewood that morning, a woman had alighted from a wagon, and coming up to him, inquired whether this were the Riverboro stage, and if he were Mr. Cobb. Being answered in the affirmative, she nodded to a child who was eagerly waiting for the answer, and who ran towards her as if she feared to be a moment too late. The child might have been ten or eleven years old perhaps, but whatever the number of her summers, she had an air of being small for her age. ”

“ A low, snarling laugh caused Hammerswell to start and turn his head. Chester Arlington was there, and he regarded the Maplewood manager with a singular look that caused the man to be seized by a strange feeling of uneasiness and apprehension.
“Don’t think you have this game yet,” said Arlington. “No game is won until it’s ended. The best batters on Merriwell’s team are up now. Look out for a Garrison finish. It takes but one run to tie the score, and two will win the game.” ”

“ Duncan, “it has been my desire to show you in some manner that there are those in Maplewood who sincerely regret what took place here on your first arrival in the town. We wished to show our friendly feeling toward you and your companions of the Fairhaven baseball team. Baseball properly played is a clean, manly, wholesome sport. I am sorry to say that baseball as conducted by one or two teams in this league has been anything but clean, manly, and wholesome. It was my conviction from the first that Fairhaven had a team to be proud of, both as gentlemen and as ball players. ”

“ A hot drive in the afternoon, with a call in Maplewood on our way to Boston, finished up the day begun so cool at Swampscott.
It was too warm to linger in a city, and we turned towards home, making several calls on the way. We did not follow the old turnpike, but digressed; and found a new place for the last night of our journey. We found old friends in the new place, however; one, a prominent preacher, was in a hammock under an apple tree, with a ponderous book—his definition of Nirvana quite likely. ”

“ Alice had the happy faculty of finding out what subjects her guests were most interested in and kept them talking upon them. Blanch gave an interesting description of her life at the Maplewood; who were there, what gowns the ladies wore; the hops, drives, tennis, croquet, and whist games; and when that topic was exhausted Alice turned to Frank and said, "Now tell us about your trip."
"There is not much to tell," he answered in a disappointed tone. "The fact is my yachting-trip was a failure from start to finish. ”

“ Ernescliffe who were hopping over the shingle. Descending, I was swung off the last rock in a huge embrace, and Hector's fiery moustache was scrubbing both my cheeks before my feet touched the ground, and Blanche with both arms round my waist. They were ready to devour us alive in their famine for a Stoneborough face; and as Flora and Mary are keeping home uninhabitable, found themselves obliged to rush away from Maplewood in the middle of their county welcomes for a little snatch of us, and to join us in vituperating the new furniture. ”

“ What that certain subject was Alice did not see fit to ask, but joined with Blanch in a good laugh at Frank's dolorous description of his trip and its Waterloo at the hands of a few girls.
"It seems you can't get along without us much despised creatures," observed Blanch, "and if you had come to Bethlehem in the first place you would have had a good time. There were no end of pretty girls at the Maplewood, and eligible Romeos were scarce as white crows."
"I never said I could get along without girls," replied Frank, a little piqued, "only I wanted girls to go on my yacht, that was all." ”

“ This gave Emma Jane a feeling of such ease that she never recited better; and how generous it was of her to lend the garnet ring to the city girl, fancying truly how it would flash as she furled her parasol and approached the awe-stricken shepherdess! She had thought aunt Miranda might be pleased that the niece invited down from the farm had succeeded so well at school; but no, there was no hope of pleasing her in that or in any other way. She would go to Maplewood on the stage next day with Mr. Cobb and get home somehow from cousin Ann's. On second thoughts her aunts might not allow it. ”

“ At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom—the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. No one having previously heard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led. ”

“ Wood could only reply that he would not sign with Mapleson and Gye.
There was no money made that season at the Royal Italian Opera; whilst Mr. Wood's season at Drury Lane was simply disastrous. The moneyed partner soon proposed to shut up; but Jarrett, to whom Mr. Wood was bound, would not hear of this.
"I have no more money," said Wood.
"But you have a number of pianofortes," replied Jarrett. "You have music shops here and in Scotland whose contents and goodwill can be sold." ”

“ When Mapleson and Abbey were drawing up their forces for the battle royal between the Academy of Music and the Metropolitan Opera House in 1883, one of the New York newspapers reported Mme. Patti as saying: "Colonel Mapleson comes here when he wants me to sing, and he calls me 'My dear child,' and he goes down on both knees and kisses my hands, and he has, you know, quite a supplicating face, and it is not easy to be firm with a man of such suavity of manners." ”

“ Mapleson returned, her face dimpling all over at this suggestion. “If you could have seen him you would never ask such a question. No woman would have dared approach him; no woman would have lived with such a creature, or as he lived. He built himself a small stone house in the woods a few miles from Vue de l’Eau. ”

“ Mapleson walked there with her every morning. At night, too, it was Mr. Mapleson who always heard her lessons. "Spell cat," Mr. Mapleson would say; and when Bab, after deep thought, announced that c-a-t spelled cat, Mr. Mapleson would exclaim: "Very good! Very good!" and, laying down the spelling book, would pick up the reader. "Read, please," he would direct; and the little girl, bending earnestly over her book, would display to the man's breathless interest that wonderful evidence of the Creation, the marvel of a child's growing mind. "Oh, see the ox! Is the ox kind? Yes, the ox is kind." ”

“ This circumstance did not lessen Sir Keith Macleod's trepidation; for there is no denying the fact that the young man would rather have faced an angry bull on a Highland road than this party of people in the hushed and semi-darkened and flower-scented room. It seemed to him that his appearance was the signal for a confusion that was equivalent to an earthquake. Two or three servants—all more solemn than any clergyman—began to make new arrangements; a tall lady, benign of aspect, rose and most graciously received him; a tall gentleman, with a gray mustache, shook hands with him ”

“ I dare say they like London life well enough, for they can show off their shoulders and their diamonds."
"Ogilvie," Macleod said, with a sudden earnestness, "I am fretting my heart out here—that is the fact. If it were not for the poor old mother—and Janet—but I will tell you another time."
He got up on his feet, and took his gun from Sandy. His companion—wondering not a little, but saying nothing—did likewise. Was this the man who had always seemed rather proud of his hard life on the hills? Who had regarded the idleness and effeminacy of town life with something of an unexpressed scorn? ”

“ Macleod was at this moment down in the saloon, seated at the table, with a letter enclosed and addressed lying before him. But surely this was not the same man who had been in these still waters of the Thames in the by-gone days—with gay companions around him, and the band playing "A Highland Lad my Love was born," and a beautiful-eyed girl, whom he called Rose-leaf, talking to him in the quiet of the summer noon. This man had a look in his eyes like that of an animal that has been hunted to death, and is fain to lie down and give itself up to its pursuers in the despair of utter fatigue. ”

“ One summer day in the closing year of last century, General Macleod, chief of the clan, visited the manse of Fiunary, and took away with him to Dunvegan his young namesake, the minister’s eldest son, Norman the Second. Nothing could have been more delightful to the boy, who cared little for study, preferring any day the seas and the hills, and was already at sixteen a Highland patriot, with his head full of the legends of that old castle in the shadow of which his ancestors were born. ”

“ A young man is apt to let his life at forty shift for itself.
"You seem very anxious to see Miss White again," said Mr. Ogilvie, with a slight smile.
"I wish to make all the friends I can while I am in London," said Macleod. "What shall I do in this howling wilderness when you go back to Aldershot?"
"I don't think Miss Gertrude White will be of much use to you. Colonel Ross may be. Or Lord Beauregard. But you cannot expect young ladies to take you about." ”

“ If it is a crime to possess a too great susceptibility to the ever-deepening charm of woods and waters then Edward Macleod was the chief of sinners. In his father he had a secret sympathizer, for the old gentleman himself was not without strong leanings toward a free and careless, if not semi-savage, life. But no hint of this escaped him in the presence of the younger children, whose air of severe morality, born of renewed attacks and final triumph over the difficulties of the Sunday School lesson, he considered it unwise to disturb. ”

“ The minister with his scorn of the feelings and [97] worship of church principles; his sister, who is like himself, only adding malice; the hypocritical elder who confesses, ‘There’s nane perfect, nane—the fac’ is, I’m no’ perfect masel’’; above all, the ne’er-do-weel, Jock Hall,—are depicted to the life.
That Macleod’s fiction has particular merits none will deny, though the critic, making the most of the defects, might say that his stories fail as wholes. His best achievement is perhaps The Reminiscences of a Highland Parish. ”

“ Mapy," he knew, meant Mr. Mapleson. He knew, too, like the other boarders, Bab's interest in the quaint, gray-faced little man, his next-door neighbor upstairs. True, Bab often laughed blithely at Mr. Mapleson, teasing him endlessly for his idiosyncrasies; but otherwise, as also Varick knew, her heart held for the queer, curious little man a deep well of tenderness, of love and gentle understanding. However, that was not the point. What had Mapleson to do with David Lloyd? ”

“ At last she said,
"Where are the skins, Gerty?"
"Near Castle Dare," answered Miss White, turning to get something else for her neck; "there is a steep hill, and the road comes over it. When you climb to the top of the hill and sit down, the fairies will carry you right to the bottom if you are in a proper frame of mind. But they won't appear at all unless you are at peace with all men. I will show you the skins when you are in a proper frame of mind, Carry."
"Who told you that story?" she asked quickly.
"Sir Keith Macleod," the elder sister said, without thinking. ”

“ The campestris, or Common Maple, which is a native of Britain, grows in thickets and hedges, and flowers in the month of June.—The wood of this species is much used by turners, being far superior to that of the beech. When it abounds with knots, it is greatly esteemed by joiners, for the purpose of inlaying. On account of its lightness, maple-wood is also frequently employed for musical instruments: being remarkably white, it was formerly converted into tables, and other articles of domestic furniture, particularly cups; which last may be turned so thin, as to transmit light. ”

“ One red rose only."
"Macleod," said Major Stuart to him, "did you come to London to write love-letters?"
"Love-letters!" he said, angrily; but then he laughed. "And what did you come to London for?"
"On a highly philanthropic errand," said the other, gravely, "which I hope to see fulfilled to-morrow. And if we have a day or two to spare, that is well enough, for one cannot be always at work; but I did not expect to take a holiday in the company of a man who spends three-fourths of the day at a writing-desk."
"Nonsense!" said Macleod, though there was some telltale color in his face. ”