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Show '"f"' " 1'fTiTSVJ TMiiaV JlrT'f in H 'l n 'iiiiJ.iiii1 and homeless. Among all his fellows Stephen alone began to perceive that to feck comfort for the body in new things left the mind filled with longing for old things left it comfortless and unhoused. So, while outwardly he remained the same, inwardly he was filled with recollections which made him tremble with their power. He greeted his neighbors with a smile which grew each month a little more absent-minded a little more wistful and when be wrote to his son in Chicago, he said : " Our house is about as big as your hat, and it's nice and neat, but we can't have any Christmas Christ-mas this year no place to set a table for more'n six. I'm trying hard to pass the time"; and as he wrote his glasses grew misty with his tears. But one day while he was sitting alone by his window win-dow at sunset, when the blue-jays were in flight and the butternut leaves were falling, Stephen permitted himself him-self a most heroic dream. In imagination he said to a contractor, " 1 want my old house across the hill. I right down nnd give him a little help you bein' an authority au-thority on fireplaces. We all hung our stockings in chimney corners back East, but I'll be dinged if 1 can remember just how you put 'cm in." "It's a funny thing to me," said Hiram. "In the days when we all had fireplaces we were crazy for stoves, and now when -we are all pervided with furnaces some people want fireplaces. You'd think a family that had nigh about froze to death in front of a hole in the wall would tight shy of 'cm thereafter." "But they have their good p'ints," said Stephen, eagerly. eag-erly. " Recollect the mug o cider on the hob, and the chestnuts in the ashes, and the apple parin's and the dances I tell you there's nothm' takes the place of a good old " "Well, you can have hot cider and apple lees without a hole in the wall you can sling a yearling through. What's the matter with a base-burner?" Stephen was stubborn. " Won't do. A base-burner weeks of burning desire and irresolution, he had broken one suspected his connection with the building his plan was too audacious, too far removed from the practical, everyday life of Bluff Siding to be imagined by anyone; and yet he was tormented with dread or the storm of shrill astonishment and protest which would encircle him when bis secret should be disclosed. His hope and comfort lay in the belief that a visit to the new house all complete and ready to move into would subdue and win his wife. Of Canss he had no fear, lie also, covertly, depended upon the sympathy and support of his "Chicago Coy," as he called John; but Albert, who was a hard-working dentist in Tyre, with a large and annually increasing family (and who was casting forward very definitely to his share of the estate; Albert would look with disfavor on the expenditure ex-penditure of so much money in so foolish a fashion. As for rilchcr and old Iliram and the rest of the boys STEPHEN TIIURBER bad no notion of falling in with a great sociologic movement when he decided to sell his farm in Wet Coolly and move into Bluff Siding; he merely yielded to the importunities im-portunities of bis wife and daughter, who looked away to the prim little illae.c down the Valley as a shining land of leisure and of possible social triumph. It :vas a lonelv place for the women that Stephen generously admitted. A long ridge, some five hundred feet high, cut them off from the railway, and all the young people were leaving by twos and threes, as fast as they grew up, and the roads were very bad, and visitors visi-tors few. So at last he sighed and said, "All right, mother, we'll go, but I'll declare I hale to give up the iarm I don't know what in time I'll do with myself." Stephen, now that he was about to lose his treasures, treas-ures, recalled Martha's delight as she watched the workmen work-men set the old oaken slab in its place. He re-lived the party she gave when the first fire was laid, and thrilled to remember how pretty she looked as she touched a the mantel were in place, but Stephen had not yet per-muted per-muted himself the luxury of sitting down before the fire he wanted to wait till the room was furnished and .Marthas rugs in place. He was up early that day in order "to help Amos move in, he explained to his wife. It was a raw day-cloudy with a strong north wind and Winter seemed in the air and when the night began be-gan to fall and Jane's furniture was sparsely distributed (Jane herself being busy in the kitchen), Stephen lit the hrc on his hearth and sat down before it with a thrill of satisfaction. As he gazed the spell of that which he had wrought fell upon him. The first stanza of his poem was being sung by the roaring flames. On the white walls the golden light was flickering and along the ceiling the shadows of the tall andirons danced grotesquely familiarly, fa-miliarly, as of old. The mantel with its carven figures and its candles and vases seemed unchanged. The song of the elms outside was the same Tears dimmed his eyes a big lump filled his throat For a moment he had the exaltation of the artist He seemed to have triumphed over time's decrees as the poet docs. It appeared that he had actually restored his home, reconstructed the past, so that Martha might at any moment steal into the room, light of step as of old. to sit on the arm of his chair and to ask with that tenderness of sympathy which always melted his heart, "lircd, Stephen?" and Jay her cheek against his shoulder. lie loved Scrilla: he honored and cared for her as the mother of his children; but Martha was the wife of his youth, the Madonna of his dreams. She was associated with the mystery of his life, the dew of his morning. The whole earth was young that marvellous May when they two adventured into this suave and fertile land The perfume of wild honey, the song of larks in flowery meadows lay in her name, and around her fireplace still lingered such heartiness of cheer, such ncighborhncss as the world no longer knew. Oh, those glorious pioneer days! lie sat so long in dreams that the red sky and fire grew gray and the good people in the kitchen became uneasy, and Amos came and brought a lamp, and then with an absent-minded smile the dreamer rose, stiff with the chill of age, and went back to his acknowledged home, to the wife of his present He came again the next day, and the next, and the next, re-perusing with Inarticulate pain and pleasure his story in stone and steel, his epic in pungent pine, basking in tie glow of his fire, forgetting his gray hair and nerveless limbs in the magic of the flame. From these 6ccrct delicious excursions into the past, these , communions com-munions with the dead, he returned to his wife and daughter with reluctance, with a certain guilty fear. Without meaning to be disloyal, he began to find ScrihVs brusque ways intolerable, and had moments when he resolved to keep his secret He shrank from licr sharp voice, her prosaic and harsh comment, lie was like a bridegroom, jealous of the .very name of hi love. Amos had guessed Stephen's proprietorship of the bouse, but being a man of perception, he had cautioned bis wife to yield no hint of their secret knowledge; and Jane was not mcrclv discreet; she was sympathetic She added in injny httlc ways to Stephen's enjoyment of his home. The lire was always blazing on the hearth when he came in, and he was left alone for the most part; only upon invitation did she enter the room to sit with him before his shrine. This understanding was mutual. Stephen knew that they were in possession of his secret but he gave no outward sign ; indeed, he kept up the fiction by greeting them as his hosts, and even went so far as to discuss the coming of "the owner" in the spring. He always expressed ex-pressed gratitude for a chance to sit against the fire. " I don't know what I'll do when you move out," he said once. " Well, I'll have one comfortable winter, anyway," any-way," he ended. Serilla deeply resented his truancy, which she ascribed as-cribed to the influence of Jane Kittredgc, and a barrier of distrust and defense had risen between them. Cariss, involved with the young life of the village, gave very little lit-tle thought to the matter, though she occasionally defended de-fended her father. " If he gels any fun out of Aunt Jane, let him," she rather flippantly remarked ; and the tone of her plea did not incline Stephen to confide in her. John would understand, but be hesitated about writing. "I'll wait till he comes up a-ChrLtraas," he match to the shavings and recited a little verse from " The Hanging of the Crane." She was cheerful and, Stephen believed, happy; but when she went away he began to realize that she had never really taken root in the West, and now that he was growing old, he himself him-self began to dwell more and more in the land of his youth, his thoughts returned often to his rocky New Hampshire intervale. Yes, it was hardest of all to loose the tendrils of lis heart from the hearth, for though Serilla had re-irranged re-irranged and redecorated after her own heart, Martha's fireplace remained unchanged. "I'll let you have your way in most things, Serilly, but I want this room to look as it does now, just as she left it" As the time for the migration drew near, Stephen stole away from the disordered kitchen to muse sadly before the fire. He had consented to a "vandue." and was willing Scrilla should sell all the furniture they had, except a few pieces that had been Martha's, and gs there was no demand for the irons and brasses around the fireplace, he expected to box them up as keepsakes. The cottage in town seemed to prow smaller after Ihey moved into it; but Scrilla and Cariss were delighted de-lighted with its snugness, and went about extolling its "advantages " with fluent tongues. "It's small, of course; but what do we want with a big house? It's just that much less work to take care of. Besides, here we have a pump right in the kitchen, and a furnace, and a bathroom, and everything is as neat as a pin no cracks or dark corners." By June he was settled into a certain daily groove. "You want to just lay back and rest," said Hiram Fox, another veteran of the plow; "that's what all the rest of us are doin,' and we're doin' it conscientiously. The town is full of 'tired farmers' like us." Sometimes at night, when his wife thought him dozing, doz-ing, he was really back in the old Coolly house watching watch-ing the blazing logs, his mind filled with a delicious sadness, sad-ness, his eyes wet with tears. What was it that had gone out of his life? Here he sat in a perfectly comfortable com-fortable room, possessing a horse and a carriage, with an abundance to eat and no cares and yet the past, with all his toil, so called to him that his throat ached at the thought of it Oh, if he could only re-livc it all 1 In those dear days the wind was fierce, the woods of Winter desolate; but Martha's face shone like a star, and the old heart rendered each night w ith his children a poem. Work was bard in those days; but rest was sweet Hunger was keen; but eating brought no illness ill-ness in its train. He was loyal to Scrilla, the mother of his children; but Martha was the wife of his youth, the one chosen wholly of his heart and her fireplace came to typify all that was .sweetest and most poetic in his life and in the lives of his children. It was nn altar. Around it they had gathered when the corn was cribbed and the cattle housed for the night In its light they had danced when the threshing was over and at Thanksgiving Thanksgiv-ing time. He awoke with a start. ' "What will we do on Thanksgiving Day and at Christmas?" he asked, one night "We cant all get into this little box of a place. There ain't a room in the house we can all sit down in, and if we rould, we'd have nothing but a hole in the floor to look at. I declare de-clare it clean disheartens me." v-V. . y K' :'s:- .v:-'M-"'Vv! : Ty.VS-' y Vf (;' v-v. ' ' ' ' ': i . ' . , Y -Y.Y y--- . . " v- ; :v Y-?:'Y. Vv , ' ;''- v-Y YY..i;-.V..r ;uv:-iY .:.. ;?!' :-- '' .;?.-. r. OjV'-:- v : . 'n - ifU' ;;v.v,;; Vl kVt ..v-a -v : y. .;:v; xyv 1 ME WINTERS OK THAT FAR TIM K WEP.E MADE S CHFUR Y AS SVMMEBS BY THE CI.AZE OF THE JIEARTH. is such a sullen sort o' thing. No. sir. You've got to have the flames a-leapm' and a-crackin'. I'll admit you need other heat," he added, "when the weather's too cold; but I just believe we'd all be healthier if we went back to the drafty old fireplaces. It did keep the room ventilated the bad air was all swept up the chimney." "Yes, 'long with the cat and the almanac and the weekly newspaper," remarked Hiram "My stars! but ihc- draft in our old chimney would draw nroU out of oak plrnl.. We had to pt:t a rttm on the Bible." ' But we didn't have consumption in those days " "We bad sou'ctiihr worse," piped filchcr. " Wh.it's that;" "Chilblains, by cracky!'' And then they all cackled together, and the Committee Com-mittee brnke up. "What's this I hear?" inquired Scrilla, sharply, a few days later. "Has the owner of the Merrill place asked Jane Ki'.trcdjic to go into that house?" " I guess that's riht, mother." Serilla snorted, " Well, that's a fool thing to do how come it? Did you advise it?" "Well, no Mr. Hill was sort ' inquiring 'round for someone, and as Amos was sick and Jane " "I knew it! I knew you bad a hand in that " "Well, why not? Amos is my brother-in-law I've a right to help him and Jane's a good housekeeper; you can't deny thai !" Serilla turned away. She and Jane were a little " aidgev. i-c " toward each other partly because Amoj was Stephen's firt wife's brother and partly because Jane Ixrsrlf was quite as sharp-tongued as any one. Serilla bad grazed her husband's larger secret, but bad not really touched it and be went out to the barn to think the situation over. Serilla was a little dashed, but replied, comfortably, "We'll manage somehow, I guess. Wc can't have but a part of the children at a time, that's all. Wc can bid jour folks for Thanksgiving and my folks for Christmas." Christ-mas." This rankled in Stephen's mind, and thereafter he despised de-spised his toy house. It was a good enough tenement a place to rent for a while, but as a home in which to grow old, it was revolting in spite of its shining paint and spick and span new furniture. In reality it held out no charm, no poetry, no associations; associa-tions; it was as rectangular as a dry-goods box, and as hopelessly prosaic as a "golden oak" wash-stand. A child born in such a house is cheated of its birthright of dim, wide rooms lit up by the dancing firelight ; robbed of the sagas' the great trees chant as they roar outside in the wild wind deprived of all shadow, all suggestion. Something of this flitted through Stephen's . thought, though he could not give it voice, "Mother," he said one day, "I wish we had one room big enough to turn round in, and a rag carpet and some old-fashioned chairs and a fireplace " " There you go again about that fireplace," exclaimed bis wife irritably. " Nobody has fireplaces now, and how are you going to have a big room in this house?" " I'll build one, if you say so." " Nonsense, This house is all right, plenty big enough for us with Cariss likely to go off any minute. And as for Thanksgiving and Christmas, wc can go to the hotel and get dinner, or take 'cm in squads here at home." "That wouldn't do," he protested "It wouldn't do at all. It wouldn't seem natural or right for us to go to a hotel on sudi days. We'd ought 'o have all such meals at home." " Well, you wouldn't build a big house just to use for Thanksgiving, would you?" T " I d' know but I would," lie answered, sturdily. . I d' know but it would be just about as goodj a way to rpeud our money as any other. I'm sick o' this little coop. Let's buy the Merrill place and have room to danre a jig if wc want to." " No, sirrce! You don't ketch me livin on the rdge of town, with no s-idcwalks. 1 want to be right m the centre of things, where wc can have our telephone, 'lectric lights and all." " I could put in the telephone " . "I won't hear of it. Steve. I came away froni the farm to live in town, and I don't want no half-way busi-'cs busi-'cs in mine." . , Stephen surrendered to her will and made no turtlier complaint . , , . Thev took their Thankspiving dinner at the hotel and on the way home Serilla said, "There! I-or once in our lives, Cariss, we don't have to think of llianks-givim; llianks-givim; dinner dishes." . .... "That's risht." answered Cariss. "and yet it docsn t seem a bit like Thanksgiving, does it. pa ?" , Stephen did rot answer, for he was tar away m tin holidays of the past. . It is a tracic thing to grow old in daily 1aW . but it is almost as sad to prow old with nothing to do decided. His old cronies found him distinctly less companionable, companion-able, more remote. A settled sadness, a growing reserve difficult of analysis, had come into his daily greeting. He told fewer stories, he was less often at the grocery store, and bis laugh was seldom heard. All this change they referred to ill-health, and their comment was gentle and commiserating. "Stephen is failin' fast," remarked Filchcr, one day. "The cold weather seems to grip him. It wouldn't surprise me to hear any day that he was taken flat down. I doubt if he stands many more of these winters." Ilirairj looked up with a smile which was at once defiant and wistful. "We're all in the same boat and driftin' the same way," he said; and then they spoke w.ith resolute cheer of the weather and the price of firewood. fire-wood. November passed without any change of plan on Stephen's part, and December was half-way gone before he broke silence. Being moved by a letter from John, he suddenly said one night, quite in his old, hearty way. " I tell you what you do, Amos. f You and Jane send out invitations to John and Albert's folks and to all of Scrilla's kin, bidding 'cm all to a Christmas dinner. Say to the bovs that, secin's their mother liain't got room enough, I'm kind o' goin' in with you here, xou can sav I'm helpin out on the turkey and things, and the children's stockin's, and that they can stay here part of 'cm at least We-can all get together here in this big room " A lump came into bis throat and he did not finish. , . Jane and Amos fell in with the suggestion quite as if it were a command, and withdrew to write out the letters let-ters of invitation, leaving Stephen alono in the glow of the fire, for the walk that day had been a stern battle with both wind and snow, and he seemed older and feebler. A couple of hours later, as they went downstairs to lock the doors and put out the lights, Jane said. Look in and see how the fire iu the big room is, while I sec to the furnace. My, hear that wind I" Amos opened the door, but paused on the threshold and -beckoned with a smile. "Come here, Jane, he whispered. " I thought I didn't hear him go out Jane looked over his rhouldcr with a word of Furprise, The fire bad burned low. In a deep bed of ashes a big oaken gnarl still smoldered, sending tip now and again a single leaping jet of flame, and by its fitful light Stephen was intermittently revealed, deep-sunk m liia armchair, his gray head turned laxly aside, bis gaunt hands hanging emptily by his side. "Better wake him," said Jane. "Hell take a chill. He'd better sleep here to-night." Amos went over and touched the sleeper on the shoulder. He did not respond. Amos laid his hand against the grizzled check, and turned with a start toward bis wife, a look of awe on his face a look, a gesture which told his story instantly and with com- P' Stephen was with Martha, and the past and the present were to him as thc-moming and the evening or one &jy. don't care what it costs. I am worth thirty thousand dollars, and it it takes half of it I want my home My women folks will never go back to the Coolly with me. and 1 can't live there alone, so you must bring the old house fireplace and all across the ridge and put it up under the trees somewhere. I want it just as it was can you do this?" In this imagined conversation he W3S able to express himself easily; so he went on to say, "I ain't got but a little while to stay here and I want to spend niy days in peace I want to be comfortable pi my ui'w.J and iny mind ain't easy in this little box; I want a roomy room with shadows in the corners and a lire to witch when I don't want to read or talk I want the old room " , , And when his wife broke in on this magical revcry be looked up with ees so scared and pleading that she wondered and sharply cried out, " What's the matter, Stephen? You look as if you'd seen a r.host." " There, mother there ! mebbe I have,-' he answered, and turned away to hide the quiver of his lips. One day he came in from his usual trip up town visibly excited, and after be had taken off his coat and hung up his hat he U-gan : " Well, somcWIy has bought the Merrill place," Serilla looked up from her sewing. "Who?" "Hiram said be heard that a man from Tyre, a contractor, con-tractor, had bought it and was goins to build on speculation." specu-lation." The Merrill place, as it was called, was the remnant of a fine farm which had once been the pride of old Abncr Merrill. The house, standing anions magnificent elms, commanded ten acres of land all the rest had been sold away by the heirs. The outbuildings were in decay and the yard was littered with rusty machinery, but it was a beautiful site, and Stephen had long admired ad-mired it He never passed it without pluming what he would do if he owned it. Now he said ; "Well, I'm glad somebody is going to improve it, but I wuh you had let me buy it." To this Serilla made no answer. Stephen bad been "kind o dauncy" all through the hot weather, but the work going forward on the Merrill Mer-rill place seemed to interest him. He fell into the habit of walking down there of a morning, and Scrilla was glad of it, though .she took her fliiv at him and his cronio. "It's a wonder. to me that you and Hiram and old man Filchcr d'"-n't get a tent and camp out in the Merrill Mer-rill yard. Seems to me if I was that builder Id order you off the premises." "lie considers our advice valuable, mother. "I'll I.e does!" she cornfnllv replied. A few d-ivs later old Hiram reported to ' the Committee Com-mittee on the Universe," that Mr. Hill tbebuildcr. was putting in a big chimney and fireplace. "He says all the city people have 'cm these days." "Well, now, Steve," said filchcr, "you better go he was prepared to weather their laughter, for it would be good-natured nnd. besides, the joke would be partly on them, for could be not say, "I fooled ye, thourh. every mm jack of ye!" But the strain of his duplicity wore upon him, and Scrilla grew so concerned about his silence, his abstraction, abstrac-tion, that she wrote to John to come up and see what was t!:c matter with his father. John came, and in answer to bis questions, Stephen said : " There's liothin' the matter with me, my son. only I ain't got nothin' to do. I miss the old place." "Well, von ere in snug quarters." John admitted, as be l-'oked' about the little house "It's all very nice, mother, but it isn't a bit like home." , Scrilla was defiant. "Did you s'posc I was goin to end iny days in Wet Coolly, twelve miles from the rai'road? I was just as sorry to leave the old house as he was. But, my stars! I "couldn't stand the strain. It's all right for you to talk; you can come and go, but 1 had to stay there Winter and Summer " John was generous enough to acknowledge that it was a lonesome place for a woman in Winter. "Lonesome I Yon might as well be buried." " I s'posc- you're right, mother. It's all a part of a sorrowful exodus"; and leaving a prescription for bis father he went bark to the city, quite unmstructcd in Hie real cause of his father's loss of health. ' The point toward which Stephen was definitely working was a grand house-warming on New Year's Day; and he wished to surprise John especially, for he would certainly understand. It was a time of anxiety, but it was a time of great joy. F.ach day as the hou.-c took shape he rode by or sat in the yard to feast upon it. From the porch in front to the little garden fence on its roof it was exactly like the old house the windows were the same, the chimney chim-ney rose through the shingles at the same point. Sometimes Some-times he went inside, but the litter there troubled him, and. besides, be wanted to wait until all was completed, com-pleted, in order that the impression might come to him in fulness of power. 11 is notion in getting Jane and her husband in was A first due to his desire to have some one to put the place to rights pending his confession to Serilla a confession con-fession which became each day more difficult for as the days slipped by and the bouse neared completion he became absorbed in the idea of restoring the furnishing fur-nishing of the house as it was when Martha was alive, an idea which came to him as he sat with Amos and bis wife amon their furniture. 1 was surprised to find a number of pieces of Martha's furniture which lie bad gi.n them after her death, and he asked Jane to ee if she could find the armchair he bad let her sister have. As the dav for w arming the hearth drew near Stephen Lirlv trembled with joyous excitement. The builder was paid up and gone; the yard was "slick as a whistle," and the big new house stood cold and white and grand under the bare branches of the elms. The andirons and The trvth was that all this buying, planning and building were stanzas in a poem of Stephen Thurbcrs imagining. He was the "owner," Mr. Hill was merely bis confederate, his blind. To the sympathetic young fellow he h::d gone (while on a visit ( i Tyre) and to him had explained hi-, need-. "Now, I can't move the old house ewer from the Coolly, that's out of the question, but I want jou to go and lo.k it over and build rne another exactly like it- Make it jtM as it was when I went into it for the first time, so that wh-n I sit down by the fire I can jest imagine I'm home again." He paused there, for bis voice failed bun. Tim was bis secret p-'iin a sense of homelcssness. All the subtle charm of his life, all the poetry of the pat, was associated with the home beyond the ridjio, and the sense of loss grew in power of appeal day by day as bis palms softened with idleness and his cheeks l'"'t their coat of tan. He was bitterly unhappy in his present, and in consequence his faro turned more and more fully toward the loveb't days of hi.- youth. The thought of growing old on a fifty-foot lot in a cramped, hir;h-colorcd little house appalled him; and so, after c:f:r.!';xr.,-j |