Redding

“ The Fifth Avenue house was not dismantled, for it was the plan then to use Stormfield only as a summer place. The servants, however, with one exception, had been transferred to Redding, and Mark Twain and I remained alone, though not lonely, in the city house; playing billiards most of the time, and being as hilarious as we pleased, for there was nobody to disturb. ”

“ Redding stood on the corner where they had left him, and the smile died out of his face. Within a block was a jolly crowd and a hearty welcome; across the street was the big apartment house where his dark and cheerless window promised him nothing. For a moment he stood irresolute. "There is certainly nobody to care where I go," he thought gloomily; then suddenly the smile came back. "But if I'm to be Billy Wiggs's model, I guess I'd better go to bed." ”

“ The traveller with the cart was a reddleman—a person whose vocation it was to supply farmers with redding for their sheep. He was one of a class rapidly becoming extinct in Wessex, filling at present in the rural world the place which, during the last century, the dodo occupied in the world of animals. He is a curious, interesting, and nearly perished link between obsolete forms of life and those which generally prevail.
The decayed officer, by degrees, came up alongside his fellow-wayfarer, and wished him good evening. The reddleman turned his head, and replied in sad and occupied tones. ”

“ There were guests that first evening—a small home dinner-party—and a little later at the foot of the garden some fireworks were set off by neighbors inspired by Dan Beard, who had recently located in Redding. Mark Twain, watching the rockets that announced his arrival, said, gently:
"I wonder why they go to so much trouble for me. I never go to any trouble for anybody." ”

“ Mrs. Clapp waved her handkerchief, then put it to her eyes. Mary took a long look at the pretty garden just budding with spring, and burst into tears. Mr. Forcythe chirruped to the horse; they were off,—and that was their good-by to Valley Hill.
Redding was certainly very different. It was an old-fashioned town with narrow streets, which smelt of fish. Most of the people were sailors, or had something to do with ships. There were several nice churches, and outside the town a few handsome houses, but there were a great many poor people in the place and not many rich ones. ”

“ She looked up through her tears. "I 'll try to forgive you," she said, tremulously; "but you must promise to give up your friendship for Dick Harris."
Redding frowned and bit his lip. "That's not fair!" he said. "You know Dick's my chum; that he has n't the least influence over me; that I am about the only one to stand by him."
"I am not afraid of his influence, but I don't want people to see you together; it makes them say things."
"But, Lucy, you would n't have me go back on him? Dick has a big heart; he's trying to brace up—"
"Oh, nonsense!" cried Lucy, impatiently. ”

“ Behind it the logs had of course piled up in a jam, which, sinking rapidly to the bed of the channel, had dammed back the water.
“Where in hell did that drop from?” cried Orde.
“Come down on top the jam,” explained a riverman. “Must have come way from Redding. We just couldn't SCARE her out of here.”
Orde, suddenly fallen into a cold rage, stared at the obstruction, both fists clenched at his side.
“Too bad, boy,” said Welton at his elbow. “But don't take it too hard. You've done more than any of the rest of us could. And we're all losers together.” ”

“ We'll manage to be happy somehow. Redding isn't half so disagreeable as you think."
"Yes, it is. Tilly said so. I was going to have radishes and a rose-bush," replied Mary tearfully. "There's a robin just building in the elm-tree now. There won't be any trees in Redding; only horrid hard cobble-stones."
"We must hope for the best," said Mrs. [109] Forcythe, who did not enjoy the idea of the cobble-stones any more than Mary did.
"Only ten days more at Valley Hill," was the first thought that came into Mary's mind the next morning. She went downstairs cross and out of spirits. ”

“ It was arranged that Green should be thrashed—the amount of thrashing left an open question, to be decided, unhappily, when the blood was up and the cinder of rage blown into a flame. Hickie's spirit was found not to be a mounting one, and it was arranged that the active partners in the game should be Doolan and Redding. Doolan, as the aggrieved party, was to strike the first blow, and Redding, as the aggrieved party's particular friend, asked and obtained permission to strike the second. ”

“ Nevertheless, the Reddings took it amiss, and would have a mote with us Goldings to talk of booting. By ill-luck we yea-said that for the saving of the city’s peace. But what betid? We met in our Gild-hall, and there befell the talk between us; and in that talk certain words could not be hidden, though they were none too seemly nor too meek. And the said words once spoken drew forth the whetted steel; and there then was the hewing and thrusting! Two of ours were slain outright on the floor, and four of theirs, and many were hurt on either side. ”

“ Why don' you set heah by de fiah an' bleach yer han's fer de party to-might?"
"Bother the old party!" said Lucy, impatiently. She had begun disobeying Aunt Chloe when she was a very little girl.
Fifteen minutes later she was tramping through the snow, her cheeks glowing and her spirits rising. The Wiggses, while always interesting, had of late acquired a new significance. Since seeing them in the theater lobby with Robert Redding she had found it necessary to make several visits to the Cabbage Patch, and the chief topic of conversation had been Mr. Bob: how he had taken them to the show ”

“ As the two dripping men approached the camp, she looked up to see a reconciliation. Presently Goodine emerged from a little knot of his companions, approached Reddin, and held out his hand.
"I ask yer pardon," said he. "You're a man, an' no mistake. It is my life I owe to you; an' I'm proud to owe it to sech as you!"
But Reddin took no notice of the outstretched hand. The direct and primitive movements of the backwoodsman's mind may seem to the sophisticated intelligence peculiar; but they are easy to comprehend. ”

“ Flashing across our retrospective mind-screens, as at times we dreamily delve into the past, beloved faces come and go. Forever in the memory of the writer, as his ideal conception of healthy, virile splendid Youth personified, will stand the bronzed, debonair, clean-shaven young face of George Redmond—or "Reddy," as he was more familiarly dubbed by his comrades of L. Division. ”

“ Smoothly and instantaneously as a shadow Reddin eluded the attack. And now his face lost its set look of injury and assumed a smile of cheerful interest. Bill Goodine, in spite of his huge bulk, had the elasticity and dash of a panther; but his quickness was nothing to that of Reddin. Once or twice the latter parried, with seeming ease, his most destructive lunges, but more often he contented himself with moving aside like a flash of light. Presently Goodine cried out,—
"Why don't yer fight, like a man, stidder skippin' out o' the road like a flea?" ”

“ Reddie pulled, and tugged, and propped his feet against the side of the cave, and the table and benches, and got out of breath, and was panting and hot and his sore places hurt him awful, and he thought he'd have to give it up, but at last the end of the bear-ladder caught on the side of the cave where the jug was, and stayed there, and Cousin Redfield could let go of the rope, and get behind the ladder and push, and then, pretty soon, it was up straight, and he could get the molasses-jug as easy as anything. ”

“ Reddie had to chance everything, and yet throw away no shadow of a chance. He opened the throttle wide, felt the machine gather speed, bumping and jolting horribly over the rough field, tried to peer down at the ground to see how fast they moved, could see nothing, utterly black nothing, almost panicked for one heart-stilling instant as he looked ahead again and thought he saw the blacker shadow of something solid in front of him, clenched his teeth and held straight on until he felt by the rush of wind on his face he had way enough, and pulled the joy-stick in to him. ”

“ They are always well dressed, if they can afford it. The gold ornaments worn by the women or the men are of the finest kind of gold. Their houses are always neat and well built, and the Reddis give the idea of good substantial ryots. They live chiefly on rāgi (grain: Eleusine Coracana) , and are a fine, powerful race.” Of proverbs relating to the hereditary occupation of the Reddis, the following may be quoted. “Only a Reddi can cultivate the land, even though he has to drink for every clod turned over.” “Those are Reddis who get their living by cultivating the earth.” ”

“ To Reddin in his deep shadow every action was clear, for they stood in the sunlight. He ground the sorrel into the earth. After a time Martha rang the dinner-bell, not because she could not both see and hear her master, but because it was the usual thing. To Reddin the bell's rather cracked note was sardonic, for it was summoning another man to eat and drink with Hazel. ”

“ Captain Redwood was a man of too much intelligence, and too well-informed, to have belief in this fabulous tale of the olden time. Still he knew there was enough truth in it to account for all that had occurred—for the vertigo and vomiting, the horrible nausea and utter prostration of strength that had come upon them unconsciously. They had made their camp under one of these baneful trees—the true upas (antiaris toxicaria) ; they had kindled a fire beneath it, building it close to the trunk—in fact, against it; the smoke had ascended among its leaves ”

“ Redmond, as young in character as in years, felt the attraction of a nature generous and sweet, and yielded to it as involuntarily as an unsupported vine yields to the wind that blows it to the strong arms of a tree, still unconscious that a warmer sentiment than gratitude made his companionship the sunshine of her life. ”

“ You kids can make it pretty hot in a house if you choose.”
“Oh, we’re all backing up Tempest,” said I, “especially now he’s got his colours.”
“All serene,” said the captain; “he’ll pull through well, then.”
I stayed till it was time for Redwood to go over to the school for a committee of the Sports Club. I did not leave Number 3 without a standing invitation to come in whenever I liked, or without painful apologies for the contumacy of Mamie.
Redwood and I had just reached the bridge when some one confronted us whom I recognised at once as Mr Jarman.
“Ah, Redwood, you’ve a meeting on. ”

“ It was Reddin, come forth from his dark house, as his foraging ancestors had done, to take his will of the weaponless and ride down the will of others. He did not confess even to himself why he had come. His thoughts on sex were so prurient that, in common with many people, he considered any frankness about it most indecent. Sex was to him a thing that made the ears red. It is hard for them that have breeding-stables to enter the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ Augustine, down by the sea, and so, poor little Reddie, I love you ever and ever so much, but I’ve been thinking and thinking how dreadful it would be for me to be shut up as you are, and taken away where I never could see my papa, or mamma, or Johnnie any more. Maybe, though, you haven’t a papa, or mamma, or Johnnie. I guess birds never 163have such things, like us girls, but you may have had some little birds in some nest somewhere, and maybe you can find your way home to that nest, and so, you precious old Reddie, I am going to make you a present of your freedom. ”

“ Redwood walked back with us, and from certain fragments of conversation which fell on my ears I was able to gather something of the result of the conference.
“If it were only yourself, you know,” said Redwood, “I’d say stick out.”
“But,” said Tempest, “he knows I’m not sorry, even if I say so.”
“It’s a choice between humble pie and Low Heath losing you,” said the captain.
“Not much loss.”
“That’s all you know. There’s not a fellow we could spare less.”
They walked on in silence; then Redwood said,—
“England ought to see that Jarman rots everything the way he goes on. ”

“ Now calls his whilom colleagues "Tiger-Braves."
Well, his own coat bears strange new Party blots,
He is a leopard who has "changed his spots."
Delightful Programme.—We see that Mr. Charles Reddie advertises a morning concert for June 11 at Prince's Hall. The audience will be there, and he will be always "Reddie, aye Reddie." Exhausted after playing, he will re-appear and be Reddie-vivus; and, in fact, there is a perfect store of puns on his name which must have frequently occurred to himself as a Reddie-witted person. ”

“ But, my dear reader, a muff like Riddell was the captain of a school; and what’s more he didn’t give it up even after the day’s adventures just described.
Riddell was not perfect. I know it is an unheard-of thing for a good boy in a story-book not to be perfect, and that is one reason which convinces me this story of mine must be an impossible one. Riddell was not perfect. He had a fault. Can you believe it—he had many faults? He even had a besetting sin, and that besetting sin was pride. Not the sort of pride that makes you consider yourself better than your neighbours. ”

“ On Reddin's head, a moment ago so smooth, on his face, a moment ago so bland, rained the blows of Hazel's hard little fists. Her blows were by no means so negligible as most women's, for her hands were muscular and strong from digging and climbing, and in her heart was the root of pity which nerves the most trembling hands to do mighty deeds. ”