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March 1, 1854, morning.—It will be a busy day. Tom and the servants and a carpenter or two have already begun to set up the stage and scenery in the north end of the picture gallery*

---

*We call it the picture gallery because it isn't. It is the ball room.

for Bessie's play—first dress rehearsal to-night. There will be two more before the great occasion—Bessie's eighth birthday—the 19th. The scenery and costumes have cost a great sum, and are very beautiful. It will be a fine show to see that company of pretty children clothed in those rich habits. Tom tried to design Bessie's costume himself; dear man, he is daft about the child; about both of them, indeed. He is vain of the play, and says it is wonderful; and it is, perhaps, for a child of eight to have conjured out of her small head. It lacks coherence, of course, and it has some rather startling feats in it, even for magicians and fairies to do; still it is a remarkable little play, all things considered, and is adorably naïve and quaint.

Tom has often promised me to write a little sketch of his life for the children to have when we are gone, but has always put it off and put it off; but as soon as I suggested that he write it in honor of Bessie's birth-day, that was quite another matter and he was full of it at once. I think I ought to be jealous; anything that Bessie wants, Bessie can have, but poor mamma has to put up with a kiss and a postponement. Of course Tom would find some opportunity in the [begin page 34] matter to show Bessie off. He will write the sketch in shorthand tonight, and between this and the birthday Bessie will turn it into long hand, with a little of my help, and then, on the birthnight, after the ball and the play, she—

Mid-afternoon. Dear me, these interruptions! It is a busy day, sure enough. I don't get time to turn around or get a moment's rest, they keep after me so with their How shall we do this? and how shall we do that? and so on. Tom is going to be tired out before night, the way he is working. But he says he won't. And he has devised a surprise of some kind or other for the end of the evening. As soon as the night's rehearsals of the fancy dances and the play are over I am to bring Bessie and Jessie to his study, and then he—

8 p.m. What a darling flock it is! They have all arrived at last, with their troop of mothers. It is going to be a beautiful sight. The gallery never looked so brilliant before, nor so grand and spacious; and it will look finer than ever on the birth-night, with five hundred handsome people in it and all the military and naval uniforms, and the Diplomatic Body in their showy clothes. Washington is a good place for clothes. . . .

I went to the study, and looked in through the glass door. Tom was at his task—since how long, I don't know. He was drowsy, I could see that; I knew he would be tired. But his pen was going. His cigar was lying on the table, and while I looked he fell asleep for a second and his nodding head drooped gradually down till his nose was right over the ascending film of cigar smoke. It woke him with a violent start and a sneeze, and he went straight on with his work again, and I hurried away, amused, to my room, to get a moment's rest before beginning my long task of superintending the costuming of the little people and directing the series of rehearsals. . . . A note—from the White House. The President invites himself for this evening! This is an honor. And it is all for Bessie, none of it for Tom. This it is, to be a Chief Magistrate's small sweetheart. Someday it will make the child proud to be able to say that once a President of the United States broke the laws of etiquette that hedge his station for love of her. If he—“Coming!” I am getting tired of that word.

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Alice (short for Alison) Sedgewick and I (Thomas X.,) were born in the little town of Pawpaw Corners, in the State of Kentucky, I in 1820, she in 1826. When she was five and I eleven, we became engaged. I remember it very well, and so does she. It was the first time we had ever met; for it was only just then that her family had moved into our neighborhood from the other side of the town. We met on the way to school, on a pleasant morning in the early summer time—April, I should say; perhaps toward the end of it. It would be about that time I think, for it was warm enough for even boys connected with “quality” families to begin to hope for leave to go barefoot. The damp was stewing out of the ground, the grass was springing briskly, the wild flowers were thick, and in the woods on Murray Hill early in the mornings there was a musical riot of bird-song in place of the stillness that had reigned there so long. All the common boys had been barefoot for as much as a week already, and were beginning to mock at us for “Miss Nancys,” and make fun of us for being under our mother's thumbs and obliged to be unmanly and take care of our health like girls. I had been begging my mother for leave, but she would not give it. She said we were as good blood as the best in the town—good old Virginian stock, like the Sedgewicks and the Dents—and she would not allow her boy to take second place to any offshoot of theirs. She said that I could come out barefoot when Billy Dent and Jeff Sedgewick did, and not a day before. Billy Dent was the county Judge's son, and Mr. Sedgewick was the principal lawyer and had run for Congress once. Mr. Sedgewick was Alice's father and Jeff's uncle, and had a large farm in the country, and owned more negroes than any other man in the town; and Jeff was a playmate of mine, although I had never seen his cousin until now.

I had my new summer suit on, that morning—yellow nankeens [begin page 36] —and was proud; proud of the clothes, but prouder still because I was barefoot; the first “quality” boy in the town to be “out.” I had been showing off before Jeff and Billy, and making them green with envy: for they had supposed it was by my mother's permission that I was barefoot—supposed it from something I had said, I think. But I knew where my shoes were, and could find them when I wanted to go home.

The schoolhouse stood on a small bare hill, and at that time there was a thicket at the bottom of it, with a clear stream rippling through it; and it was just there that I came upon Alison. She was the dearest and prettiest little thing I had ever seen, and I loved her from that very moment. She had a broad leghorn hat on, with a wide red satin ribbon around it, the long ends dangling down behind; and her little short frock was of thin white summer stuff, and a piece of that same ribbon was tied around her waist for a belt. In one hand she had a Webster spelling-book and first reader, and in the other she had the last winter-apple that was left over.

I wanted to speak to her, but I was all in a quiver and did not know how to begin. She looked timidly up at me out of her brown eyes, then dropped them, and stood there before me silent. I had a marble in my hand—it was a white alley that I had just got in a trade for a China that was so worn that you could hardly see the stripes on it—and my excitement made my hand tremble, and it fell on the ground near by. It was precious property, but I would not take my eyes off that pretty little creature long enough to pick it up; but worked my right foot toward it and closed my toes over it and took it in their grip. That interested her, and broke the ice. She said—

“I didn't know anybody could do that but my cousin Jeff and our Jake. Can you walk with it so? They can.”

“Oh, yes—it's easy; anybody can do it.”

I made a step or two. Then with my foot I threw up the marble and caught it in my hand.

She was bursting with admiration, and tried to clap her hands, but they were too full of things. She cried out—

“Oh, do it again—do it again!”

I said—

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“Shucks, that's nothing—look at this.”

I gripped the marble in the toes of my right foot, balanced myself on my left, swung my right forward once or twice, to get impulse, then violently upward and backward, and sent the marble well up into the air above our heads, then made a spring and caught it as it came down.

She was mine! I saw it in her eyes. Her look was the concentrated look which Europe cast upon Napoleon after Austerlitz. She impulsively reached out the apple to me and said—

“There. You may have it all for your own.”

I said—

“No, not all of it—we'll have it together. First, you'll take a bite, and then I'll take a bite, and then you'll take a bite, and then—”

I held it to her mouth, she took her bite, then I took mine, and munching we sauntered into the thicket, along the worn path, I holding her by her left hand. And by the stream we sat down together, and took bites turn about, and contentedly munched and talked. I told her my name, she told me hers, and the name of her kitten and its mother's, and some of their habits and preferences and qualities, and I told her how to dig fishing-worms, and how to make a pin-hook, and what to do to keep awake in church, and the best way to catch flies; and at last I asked her if she was engaged, and explained it to her; and when she said she was not, I said I was glad, and said I was not; and she said she was glad; and by this time we had munched down to the core, and I said now we could find out if everything was going to come out right and we get married. So then I took out the apple-seeds one by one and laid them in her small palm, and she listened with deep interest and grave earnestness while I delivered the fateful word that belonged with each:

“One I love, two I love, three I love I say;

Four I love with all my heart, and five I cast away;

Six he loves—”

“And do you, Tom?”

“Yes. Are you glad?”

“Yes, Tom. Go on.”

“Seven she loves—do you, Alice?”

“Yes, Tom. Go on.”

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“Eight they both love—and they do, don't we, Alice?”

“Yes, Tom. Keep on.”

“Nine he comes, ten he tarries—”

“What is tarries, Tom?”

“Oh, never mind—t'isn't so, anyway—eleven he courts, and twelve he marries! There, that settles it! It's the very last seed, Alice, dear, and we are going to get married, sure; nothing can ever prevent it.”

“I'm so glad, Tom. Now what do we have to do?”

“Nothing but just kiss. There—another—and one more. Now it's fixed. And it'll stay forever. You'll see, dearie.”

And it did stay forever. At least it has stayed until this day and date, March 1, 1854; and that is twenty-three years.1

I will skip a good many years, now. They were filled to the brim with the care-free joys of boyhood, and were followed by four happy years of young manhood, spent at the Military Academy of West Point, whence I was graduated in the summer of 1841, aged 21 years. All those years were a part of my life, it is true, yet I do not count them so. By my count they were merely a preparation for my life—which began in 1845 with my marriage. That was my supreme event; that was happiness which made all previous happinesses of little moment; it was so deep and real that it made those others seem shallow and artificial; so gracious and so divine that it exposed them as being earthy and poor and common. We two were one. For all functions but the physical, one heart would have answered for us both. Our days were a dream, we lived in a world of enchantment. We were obscure, we were but indifferently well off, as to money, but if these were lacks we did not know it, at least did not feel it.

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In 1846 our little Bessie was born—the second great event in my life. A month later, my wife's father died; within the week afterward coal was discovered on his land and our poverty—to exaggerate the term a little—disappeared in a night. Presently came the war, and through a film of proud tears my Alison, holding our little Bessie up to look, saw her late unnoted 2d lieutenant, U.S.A., march for Mexico, colonel of a regiment of volunteers. In a little while she began to see his name in the war news, among the crowd of other names; then she saw it gradually and steadily separate itself from the crowd and grow more and more isolated, conspicuous, distinguished; and finally saw it hoisted aloft among the great head-lines, with Scott's and Taylor's for sole company; and in these days it was become as common as theirs upon the world's tongue, and it could be uttered in any assemblage in the land and be depended upon to explode a mine of enthusiasm. She was a proud woman, and glad; and learned to practice deceit, to protect her modesty and save the exultation in her heart from showing in her face—pretending not to hear, when she passed along, and there was a sudden stir upon the pavement, and whispers of, “There—look—the wife of the boy General!” For I was by many years the youngest of that rank in our armies.

And more was to come; the favors of fortune were not exhausted yet. There came a stately addition to that remark—“wife of the boy General—United States Senator—the youngest that was ever elected.” It was true. The brief war over, I learned the news from the papers while I was on my way home.

And Alice was a proud woman again when her late obscure 2d lieutenant entered our village and drove, at the Governor's side, through the massed country multitudes, under triumphal arches, in a rain of rockets, and glare of Greek fire, and storm of cannon-blasts, and crash of bands and huzzahs, to the banquet prepared in his honor; and proud once more when he rose at her side, there, and she saw the house rise at him and fill the air with a snow-tempest of waving napkins and a roar of welcoming voices long continued; and proud yet once more when he made his speech, and carried the house with him, sentence by sentence to the stirring [begin page 40] close, and sat down with a dazzling new reputation made. (Her own dear words, and a pardonable over-statement of the facts.)

Those were memorable days, marvelous days for us. More than ever we seemed to be living in a world of enchantment. It all seemed so strange, indeed so splendidly impossible, that these bounties, usually reserved for age, should be actually ours, and we so young; for she was but 22 and I but 28. Every morning one or the other of us laughed and said, “Another day gone, and it isn't a dream yet!” For we had the same thought, and it was a natural one: that the night might rob us, some time or other, and we should wake bereaved.

We built a costly and beautiful house in Washington, and furnished it luxuriously. Then began a life which was full of charm for both of us. We did not have to labor our way into society with arts and diplomacies, our position was already established and our place ready for us when we came. We did not need to court, we were courted. We entertained freely, and our house was the meeting ground for all who had done anything, for all who were distinguished in letters, the arts, in politics and fashion, and it was almost the common home of Clay, Webster, Benton, Scott, and some of the other men of conspicuous fame. Alison's beauty and youth attracted all comers to her, and her sterling character and fine mind made them her friends.

And she was the gratefulest creature that ever was. Often she would take my face between her hands, and look into my eyes, and say—

“How dear you are! and it is you that have given me all this wonderful life. But for you I should be nothing—nothing at all. I am so proud of you; so proud, and so glad that you are mine, all mine.”

It was her wealth that made this choice life possible; but she always put her hand on my lips when I said that, and would not listen; and said my fame and deeds would have been sufficient.

We are happy, we are satisfied. Fortune has done all for me that was in her power. She would have added the last possible distinction, but was defeated by the Constitution. I should be President and First Citizen of the United States now, if I were of [begin page 41] lawful age. It is not I that say this immodest thing—ask your mother. It seems decreed, past all doubt, that I shall ascend to that high post three years hence, but we will not talk of that now, dear; there is no hurry.

There—my sketch is done, I have made my promise good. There is enough of it for the purpose. For further particulars, Bessie dear, see the four Biographies. Your mamma is going to give them to you on your birthday morning. And let me whisper to you, Craig's is the best, because it flatters me.

Now I will go on and write something for the mamma. That will be easier work than that which I have just finished—so easy that it will write itself if I merely hold the pen and leave it free, for the text is so inspiring—The Children.

Our Jessie was born in the year of the Californian gold-rush, a cunning black-headed mite that weighed just four pounds, and was as welcome as if she had weighed a hundred. She is above five years old, now, a practical, decisive, courageous, adventurous little soldier, charged to the chin with tireless activities, and never still except when asleep. She is the embodied spirit of cheerfulness; everything that happens to her is somehow convertible into entertainment; and that is what results, no matter what the hap is. This has made it difficult to punish her. Even the dark closet was a failure. It missed her, and merely punished her mother, who kept her shut up a quarter of an hour and then could endure the thought of the little prisoner's sufferings no longer, and so went there to give her the boon of the blessed light again; but found her charmed with the novelty of the darkness and the mystery of the place and anxious to stay and experiment further.

She bears pain with a rare fortitude, for a child—or for an adult. Last summer her forefinger got a pinch which burst the fat front of the main joint, but she cried only a moment, then sat in her [begin page 42] mother's lap and uttered no sound while the doctor sewed the ragged edges together—sat, and winced at the proper times, and watched the operation through with a charmed and eager interest, then ran off to her play again, quite ready for any more novelties that might come her way. Tobogganing, last winter in the north, the toboggan ran into a tree, and her ancle was sprained and some of the small bones of her foot broken; but she did not cry—she only whimpered a moment, that was all; and then had as good a time in bed for a week or two as she could have had anywhere.

The other day she was taken to the dentist to have a tooth drawn. Seeing how little she was, the dentist proposed to give her an anaesthetic and make the operation painless, but her mother said it would not be necessary. Alison stepped into the next room, not wishing to see. Presently she heard the dentist say, “There, that one is out, but here is another one that ought to come;” so she stepped in and said, “Here is another handkerchief for you, dear,” but Jessie said, “Never mind, I brought two, mamma, I thought there might be two teeth.” She always had a thoughtful business head from the beginning. And she is an orderly little scrap, too. Her end of the nursery is always ship-shape; but poor Bessie's end of it is an exaggeration of chaos.

For Bessie is a thinker—a poet—a dreamer; a creature made up of intellect, imagination, feeling. She is an exquisite little sensitive plant, shrinking and timorous in the matter of pain, and is full of worshiping admiration of Jessie's adventurous ways and manly audacities. Privately we call Bessie “Poetry,” and Jessie “Romance”—because in the one case the name fits, and in the other it doesn't. The children could not pronounce these large names in the beginning, therefore they shortened them to Potie and Romie, and so they remain.

Bessie is a sort of little woman, now; and being a thinker, she is learning to put a few modifying restraints upon herself here and there in spots—and they were needed. To start with, she was a dear little baby, with a temper made all of alternating bursts of storm and sunshine, without any detectable intervals between these changes of weather. She was a most sudden creature; always brimming with life, always boiling with enthusiasm, always ready [begin page 43] to fly off on the opposite tack without any notice. Her approval was passionate, her disapproval the same, and the delivery of her verdict was prompt in both cases. Her volcano was seldom quiet. When it was, it was only getting ready for an irruption; and no one could tell beforehand whether it was going to illuminate a landscape or bury a city. Fortunately for herself and for us, her exaltations of joy were much more common than her ecstasies of anger. It took both to make her thoroughly interesting; and she was that. And keep us busy; and she did that.

The foundation of her nature is intensity. This characteristic is prominently present in her affections. From her babyhood she has made an idol of her mother. She and her mother are sweethearts, lovers, intimate comrades and confidants, and prodigal of endearments and caresses for each other. Nobody but the mother can govern her. She does it by love, by inalterable firmness, by perfect fairness, by perfect justice. While she was still in the cradle Bessie learned that her mother's word could always be depended upon; and that whatever promise her mother made her—whether of punishment, or a holiday, or a gratification, or a benevolence—would be kept, to the letter. She also learned that she must always obey her mother's commands; and not reluctantly and half-heartedly, but promptly, and without complaint. She knew the formula, “Do this, Bessie; do that, Bessie;” but she never had experience of the addition, “If you will, I will give you something nice.” She was never hired to obey, in any instance. She early learned that her mother's commands would always be delivered gently and respectfully, never rudely or with show of temper, and that they must be obeyed straightway, and willingly. The child soon learned that her mother was not a tyrant, but her thoughtful and considerate friend—her loving friend, her best friend, her always courteous friend, who had no disposition in her heart or tongue to wound her childish self-respect. And so, this little whirlwind was brought under government; brought under obedience; thorough obedience, instant obedience, willing obedience. Did that save the child something? I think so. If a child—or a soldier—learns to obey promptly and willingly, there is no sting in it, no hardship, no unhappiness. The mother who coaxes or hires her child to obey, is [begin page 44] providing unhappiness for it; and for herself as well. And particularly because the mother who coaxes and hires does not always coax and hire, but is in all cases a weak creature, an ill-balanced creature, who now and then delivers herself up to autocratic exhibitions of authority, wherein she uses compulsion—usually in a hot and insulting temper—and so the child never knows just how to take her.

It is a shameful thing to insult a little child. It has its feelings, it has its small dignity; and since it cannot defend them, it is surely an ignoble act to injure them. Bessie was accustomed to polite treatment from her mother; but once when she was still a very little creature she suffered a discourtesy at her hands. Alison and Senator Walker's wife were talking earnestly in the library; and Bessie, who was playing about the floor, interrupted them several times; finally Alice said pretty sharply, “Bessie, if you interrupt again, I will send you at once to the nursery.” Five minutes later, Alice saw Mrs. W. to the door. On her way back through the main hall she saw Bessie on the stairs—halfway up, pawing her course laboriously, a step at a time. Alice said—

“Where are you going, Potie?”

“To the nursery, mamma.”

“What are you going up there for, dear—don't you want to stay with me in the library?”

Bessie was tempted—but only for a moment. Then she said, with a gentle dignity which carried its own reproach—

“You didn't speak to me right, mamma.”

She had been humiliated in the presence of an outsider. Alice felt condemned. She carried Bessie to the library and took her on her lap and argued the matter with her. Bessie hadn't a fault to find with the justice of the rebuke, but she held out steadily against the manner of it, saying gently, once or twice, “but you didn't speak to me right, mamma.” She won her cause. Her mother had to confess that she hadn't spoken to her “right.”

We require courteous speech from the children at all times and in all circumstances; we owe them the same courtesy in return; and when we fail of it we deserve correction.

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These are lovely days that we are living in this pleasant home of ours in Washington, with these busy little tykes for comrades. I have my share of the fun with them. We are great hunters, we. The library is our jungle, and there we hunt the tiger and the lion. I am the elephant, and go on all fours, and the children ride on my back, astride. We hunt Jake. Jake is the colored butler. He belonged to Alison's estate, and is the same Jake whom she mentioned in our engagement-conversation when she was five years old. We brought him and his sister Maria from Kentucky when we first came to Washington. Both are free, by grace of Alice. Jake is thirty-two years old, now; a fine, large, nobly-proportioned man, very black, and as handsome as any man in the city, white or black, I think, and fully twice as good as he is handsome, notwithstanding he is a bigoted Methodist, a deacon in his church, and an incurable gambler on horse-races and prize fights. He is our prey, and we hunt him all over the library and the drawing rooms. He is lion; also tiger; preferably tiger, because as lion his roaring is too competent for Bessie's nerves. Bessie has a passion for hunting the tiger, but as soon as he gives notice that he is going to turn himself into a lion she climbs down and gets behind a chair and Jessie hunts him to his lair alone.

Bessie's mind is my pride, and I am building high hopes upon it. I have said that she is a thinker, and she is; and deep and capable. She has the penetrating mind, the analytical mind—and with it, naturally, precision of speech, intuitive aptitude in seizing upon the right word. Even when she was littler than she is now she often surprised me by the happy ingenuity she showed in choosing the word which would make her meaning clear. For instance. All of us who have labored at a foreign language by book, know how hard it is to get rid of the disposition to separate the words and deliver them with over-exactness of enunciation, instead of running them together and making them flow liquidly along, as a person does who has acquired the language by ear in strenuous fun and frolic and quarrel—in the nursery, for example. One day a couple of years ago I was playing with the children, and Bessie glibly—and as I thought, loosely—fluttered off a little German stanza about the [begin page 46] “Vöglein.” Then I read it from the book, with care and emphasis, to correct her pronunciation, whereupon Jessie corrected me. I said I had read it correctly, and asked Bessie if I hadn't. She said—

“Yes, papa, you did—but you read it so 'stinctly that it 'fused Romie.”

It would be difficult to better that, for precision in the choice of the right word for the occasion. At five Bessie was busy enlarging her vocabulary. Some pretty large words got into it, and once she adopted one which presently met with an accident. She told a visitor she was never at church but once—“the time Romie was crucified.” Meaning christened.

Bessie has always been dropping her plummet into the deeps of thought, always trying to reason out the problems of life, always searching for light. One day Alison said to her, “There, there, child, you must not cry for little things.” A couple of days later Bessie came up out of a deep reverie with the formidable question—

“Mamma, what is little things?”

No one can answer that, for nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size. Alice was not able to furnish a sufficient answer. But Bessie did not give the matter up. She worked at the problem several days. Then, when Alice was about to drive down town—one of her errands being the purchase of a promised toy watch for Bessie—the child said, “If you should forget the watch, mamma, would that be a little thing?”

Yet she was not concerned about the watch, for she knew it would not be forgotten; what the struggling mind was after was the getting a satisfactory grip upon that elusive and indefinite question.

Like most people, Bessie is pestered with recurrent dreams. Her stock dream is that she is being eaten up by bears. It is the main horror of her life. Last night she had that dream again. This morning, after telling it, she stood apart some time looking vacantly at the floor, absorbed in meditation. At last she looked up, and with the pathos of one who feels that he has not been dealt by with even-handed fairness, said—

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“But mamma, the trouble is, that I am never the bear but always the person eaten.”

It would not occur to everybody that there might be an advantage in being the eater, now and then, seeing that it was nothing but a dream, after all, but there is an advantage, for while you are in a dream it isn't a dream—it is reality, and the bear-bite hurts; hurts in a perfectly real way. In the surprise which I am providing for the children to-night, Bessie will see that her persecuting dream can be turned into something quite romantically and picturesquely delightful when a person of her papa's high capacities in the way of invention puts his mind to work upon it.

Bessie has the gift of concentration. This makes her a good listener, a good audience, for she keeps close track of what is said. And remembers the details, too,—which sometimes makes trouble for me; for I forget my details, and then am brought to book. Every evening I have to tell the children a story after they are in their cribs and their prayers accomplished—and the story has to be invented on the spot; neither of them will put up with any secondhand contributions. Now in all these inventions of mine, from away back, I have had one serious difficulty to contend with, owing to Alison's influence—nobody in my tale must lie, not even the villain of the piece. This hampers me a good deal. The blacker and bloodier I paint the villain the more the children delight in him, until he makes the mistake of telling a lie—then down he goes, in their estimation. Nothing can resurrect him again; he has to pack up and go; his character is damaged beyond help, they won't have him around any longer.

Sometimes I try to cover up, or slide over, or explain away, one of these lies which I have blundered into, but it is lost time. One evening during one of our European vacations I was in the middle of the fifth night of a continued story which I intended should last a year and make things easy for my invention-mill; and was gliding along like this—

“But the moment the giant invited him, the grasshopper whispered in Johnny's ear that the food was poisoned; so, Johnny said very politely, ‘I am very much obliged to you indeed, sir, but I am not hungry, and—’ ”

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“Why, papa! he told a lie!”

(I said to myself, I have made a blunder; Johnny is compromised; I must try to get him out of this scrape.) “Well, you see, Bessie, I reckon he didn't think what he was saying, and—”

“But papa, it couldn't be; because he had just said, that very minute, that he was so hungry.”

“Ye-s, I believe that is true. Yes, that is true. Well, I think perhaps he was heedless, and just came out with the first thing that happened in his mind, and—”

“Oh, no, papa, he wasn't ever a heedless boy; it wasn't like him to be heedless; you know how wise and thoughtful he always was. Why, night before last, when all those fairies and enchanted creatures tried their very best, a whole day, to catch him in some little carelessness so they could get power over him, they never could. No, papa, all through this story, there never was such a wise boy—he couldn't be heedless, papa.”

“Well, Potie, I reckon he was so weary, so kind of tired out—”

“Why, papa, he rode all the way, on the eagle, and he had been sound asleep all the whole day in the gold-and-ivory bed, with his two lions watching him and taking care of him—why how could he be tired, papa, and he so strong? You know the other night when his whale took him to Africa he went ashore and walked all day and all night and wasn't a bit tired; and you know that other time when—”

“Yes, yes, you are right, Bessie, and I was wrong; he couldn't have been tired—but he never intended any wrong; I'm sure he didn't mean what he said; for—”

“Then it was a lie, papa, if he didn't mean what he said.”

Johnny's days of usefulness were over. He was hard aground, and I had to leave him there. He was a most unprincipled and bloody rascal, and if he could have avoided his one vice he might still be with us, nights, to this day, and as limitlessly happy as we are, ourselves. Romie once said this handsome thing about him—however, I will put that in further along, when I sketch out Romie's little history. I have a little more to say about her sister, yet.

Of instances of Bessie's delicate intuitions there are many in my [begin page 49] mind. Here is one which is pleasant to me, and its original sweetness is in no way impaired by my often thinking of it. Last Christmas Eve Alice brought home a variety of presents, and allowed Bessie to see those which were to be sent to the coachman's family. Among these was an unusually handsome and valuable sled for Jimmy. On it a stag was painted, and also the sled's name in showy gilt capitals, “DEER.” Bessie was joyously enthusiastic over everything until she came to this sled; then she became sober and silent. Yet this sled was the very thing she was expected to be most eloquent over, for it was the jewel of the lot. Alice was surprised; also disappointed; and said—

“Why Potie, doesn't it please you? Isn't it fine?”

Bessie hesitated; plainly she did not like to have to say the thing that was in her mind; but being pressed, she got it out—haltingly:

“Well, mamma, it is fine, and of course it did cost a good deal—but—why should that be mentioned?”

Seeing she was not understood, she pointed to that word “deer!” Poor chap, her heart was in the right place, but her orthography wasn't. There is not a coarse fibre in Bessie; she is as fine as gossamer.

From her earliest babyhood her religious training has gone on steadily at her mother's knee, and she has been a willing and interested pupil. But not a slavish one. She has always been searching on her own account, always thinking. There have been abundant evidences of that. I will set down one instance.

For some months, now, the governess has been instructing her about the American Indians. One day, a few weeks ago, Alice, with a smitten conscience, said—

“Potie, I have been so busy that I haven't been in at night, lately, to hear you say your prayers. Maybe I can come in tonight. Shall I?”

Bessie hesitated, waited for her thought to formulate itself, then brought it out—

“Mamma, I don't pray as much as I used to—and I don't pray in the same way. Maybe you would not be pleased with the way I pray now.”

[begin page 50]

“Tell me about it, Potie.”

“Well, mamma, I don't know that I can make you understand. But you know, the Indians thought they knew—and they had a great many gods. We know, now, that they were wrong. By and by maybe it will be found out that we are wrong, too. So now I only pray that there may be a God—and a heaven—or something better.”

It is the garnered doubt—and hope—of all the centuries, compacted into a sentence. And by a child.

She is a great treasure to us. Indeed we couldn't do without Bessie. Life would be flat, without her stimulating presence. She is not clay. She is a spirit. Generally in motion, seldom still—a sort of glimpse of frolicking sea-waves flashing in the sun; seldom a cloud-shadow drifting over them in these later times. She is all life, and soap-bubbles, and rainbows, and fireworks—and anything else that has spring and sparkle and energy and intensity for its make-up. She never talks much. I mean, in her sleep.

Now for Jessie—now for the busy brunette. The first day that ever Jessie—

I did not get a chance to finish the sentence. A shriek rang through the house, followed by a confusion of excited cries, and I ran to see what the matter was. The house was on fire. All the upper part of it was burning briskly before the calamity was discovered, for everybody was below, absorbed in the rehearsals.

For a moment the crowd of fifty children and thirty mothers had been in great danger—not from the fire, but from the perils inseparable from panic. There would have been manglings and crushings, if no man had been present. But fortunately, and by a mere chance, there was a man there; and by a still happier chance he was a soldier; a soldier of the best sort, the sort that is coolest in circumstances which make other people lose their heads. This was [begin page 51] a young man named Grant, who was a third class man at West Point when I was a first. He had come to see me about something, and entered the ball room only a moment before the alarm was given. He was by the door, and took his place in front of it at once. The mob of women and children were paralyzed with fright for a moment; the next moment they would have made their fatal rush; but Grant did not wait for that. He spoke up in the calm and confident voice which stills troubled human waters by some subtle magic not explicable by the hearer but which compels his obedience, and said—

“Stand as you are! Do not move till I speak. There is no hurry, and there is no danger. Now then, you, madam, take two children by the hands, and move forward; you next, madam—do the same. Next—next—next.”

And so on. In orderly procession the column fell in and filed out like a battalion leaving the field on dress parade.

But for West Point's presence there, I should be setting down a pathetic tragedy now. Lieutenant Grant had served under me for a while in the beginning of the Mexican war, and lately he had come to Washington on a business visit from his home in the West, and we had renewed our acquaintanceship. I think he had in him the stuff for a General, or certainly a Colonel; I do not know why he achieved no distinction in the war—but then, such things go a good deal by luck and opportunity. From what he had been telling me about his later fortunes, I judged that he was not born to luck. He remarked upon his Mexican nickname, “Useless,” and said the old saying was true, in his case, that fun-nicknames are unwitting disguises of grave fact; for that if ever there was a useless man in the world, and one for whom there was plainly no place and no necessity, he was the one. Before the month was out I had sorrowful occasion to recal this talk of ours. With the Mexican war, his only chance for success in this world passed away; he recognized that, and I recognized it also, and was sorry for him. He was a good fellow, a sterling fellow, and should not have been wasted at West Point in the acquiring of a useless trade. But unfortunately none of us can see far ahead; prophecy is not for us. Hence the paucity of suicides.

[begin page 52]

We were overwhelmed with kindnesses by our friends; shelter in their houses was freely offered, but it seemed best, on the whole, to take quarters in the hotel, and this we did. The firemen saved the main part of the contents of the ground floor of our house, but nothing from the upper floors—the floors where we had lived, and where every detail was a treasure and precious, because hallowed by association with our intimate and private home life. This was a bitter hardship for us. A battered toy from the nursery would have been worth more to us than all the costly rubbish that was saved from the drawing rooms. Those dumb artificialities could be replaced, but not the historic toys.

The last of our hospitable friends left us at about two in the morning, and then we went to bed, tired out with the labors of the day and the excitements of the night. Alice said—

“I suppose you will rebuild the house just as it was before, Tom?”

“Yes. Jeff can begin tomorrow.” That name reminded me of something, and I said, “Why, Alice, I did not see Jeff at the fire—did you?”

“No. And he has not been here in the hotel since we arrived, so far as I know.”

“That is very strange. When did you see him last?”

“He left the house about five minutes before the fire alarm, and said he should be back within a quarter of an hour. He must have come back, of course; still, I did not see him.”

“Alice! Could he have gone up to his room to save valuables, and got cut off and burned up?”

“He had no valuables in his room.”

“No, not of his own, I know, but ours.”

“Give yourself no trouble. Jeff Sedgewick has not risked his skin to save valuables of ours. He is not that sort of a man.”

“Alice, you do not like your cousin.”

“Tom, I have never accused myself of it.”

Then we went to sleep. In the morning, still no Jeff Sedgewick. The forenoon wore away, and still he did not come. Everything was at a standstill. There was nobody to make contracts for the rebuilding of the house. Jeff was my business man and confidential [begin page 53] secretary. He had begun as my secretary merely, when we first came east; but I knew nothing of business and had an aversion for it, and so, all my matters of that sort gradually drifted into his hands; for he was fond of business, and seemed made for it. In the beginning I franked my public documents myself—a wearisome job; one night I left half the documents unfranked; in the morning they lay in a confused pile, all franked. Jeff said—

“I finished the franking myself. Examine the pile, and see if you can tell the genuine signature from the imitation.”

I couldn't. I was glad to let him do all the franking after that. In the beginning he wrote my letters from dictation, and I signed them. Later he wrote and signed a letter himself, without dictation, and I saw that he had caught my style exactly, and my hand. After that I was glad to let him do all my letters for me—in “autograph,” and out of his own head. Soon he was signing and endorsing checks in “autograph.” By and by all of my business was in his hands, every detail of it, and I was a free man and happy. Then came the full power of attorney, quite naturally, and thenceforth I was saved from even the bother of consulting and confirming.

In the very beginning Alice had begged me not to take Jeff to Washington.

“But Alice, he is an old friend, a schoolmate, he is poor and needs help, we are prosperous, we are fortunate, he is smart and capable, I am not, and I need such a person badly.”

“But Tom, he is bad; bad to the marrow, and will do you an ill turn some day—the worst turn he can invent. He is envious, malicious, deceitful. He envies you your fame and prosperity, and hates you for it, privately. Every kindness you do him, every step you advance him, he will make record of and charge up against you, and when his opportunity comes he will take his revenge.”

I laughed, at the time, at these unreasoning prejudices, and never thought for a moment that a young and inexperienced country girl like Alice could have an opinion that was valuable upon matters like these. I know, now, that her judgment of character was fatally and unfailingly accurate, but I did not find it out as early as I ought to have done.

She did not persecute me with her warnings; it was not her way; [begin page 54] but now and then at intervals she used to drop them when there seemed opportunity to accomplish something by them. Once in the early Washington days Jeff came in arrayed in what he thought was the finest and latest thing in New York fashion. And perhaps it was the finest and latest thing in the Bowery. He was as pleased as a child, with his vulgar outfit. I have never had any tact; and that is why I said—

“I thought the Independent Order of the Fantastics had been disbanded years ago. When are they going to parade?”

He looked ignorantly embarrassed—like one who suspects that an offence has been intended him, but is not certain. He said—

“I believe I don't quite get your meaning.”

“Isn't that a uniform?”

He went out without saying anything, and did not appear any more in those clothes. I spoke to Alice of the incident in the evening. It troubled her, and she said—

“I wish you hadn't done it, Tom. You laugh at it, but it is not matter for laughing. He is a vulgar, vain fool, and you have hurt him in a tender place. He will not forget it, nor forgive it. Do get rid of him, Tom.”

Although Jeff had held the power of attorney for years, Alice never found it out till a month before the fire—for I was too often unfaithful to her in my business affairs. I hid things from her that I was ashamed of. Secrecy is the natural refuge of people who are doubtful about their conduct. She was appalled when I told her the matter of the power of attorney. She said—

“Oh, Tom, what have you done!” and begged me to abrogate it, and said Jeff would make beggars of us.

I was able to triumph, this time, and said—

“On the contrary, dear, he has doubled our fortune. Come, now, you must be just to him at last, and take back some of the hard judgments you have passed upon him in the bygone times.”

She was doubtful still, that was plain; and she asked for particulars. But I said—

“Wait one month, then you will see.”

She sighed and said—

“I will wait, Tom, since you ask it, but even if he should [begin page 55] quadruple the fortune, I should still never be easy until we were rid of him.”

I had no fears. I was preparing a pleasant surprise for Alice, and was sure I could spring it upon her in a few weeks. Jeff had made some brilliant speculations for me, of late years, and my confidence in his wisdom and shrewdness had grown in consequence until now they were boundless. He had sold out Alice's estate and invested her fortune in a Californian gold mine; for many months the mine had been swallowing money wholesale, but recent reports from its chief engineer showed that it was now on the point of paying back the fortune, with a hundred per cent interest. I had never liked the name of it—the “Golden Fleece”—but that was Jeff's taste; he named it.

Next morning we created a parlor and an office by having the beds cleared out of a couple of large chambers, and furniture proper to their new functions put in. In our house, Sedgewick's office had been on the ground floor, consequently all my business books and papers were saved. Alice soon arranged these in our new quarters. It was common for people whose houses had been burned down to send the firemen a donation and a word or two of compliment and gratitude, therefore in deference to this custom Alice asked me to draw a check for her to forward to the fire marshal. It was customary to disproportion the donation to the service rendered; therefore at Alice's request I made the check large. At least I considered it large; it was for $3,000. But then it was to help the company buy a new engine and build a new engine house.

Before Alice could finish writing her note of compliment and gratitude—she did not expect me to do any clerical work that could be shifted to somebody else—company began to pour in again. The stream continued until mid-day; then dinner interrupted it for an hour and a half; then the flow was resumed. About mid-afternoon or a little later Alice stole a moment and wrote the note, and sent it to the marshal by Jake. Still no Jeff appeared. Alice knew I was uneasy, for she knew the signs of all my moods, and with her native generous forbearance she left Jeff unmentioned. She never made a sore place of mine worse by meddling with it at the inopportune [begin page 56] time. This is a beautiful trait; indeed it may be called a noble trait; and we all know it to be a rare one. I was never able to learn it, never able to make it a possession of mine. By taking thought I could practice it, momentarily, at wide intervals, but that was all. It was a part of Alice, and she did not have to think about it; but it refused to become a part of me. I was born small and selfish; Alice and the children were not. In nine cases in ten, when Alice had a sore place, I hastened with an insane eagerness to bruise it, and grieve her heart—and yet I loved her so, and had such a deep reverence for her beautiful character. I hurried to bruise it, knowing, when I did it, that when I saw the wounded look in her eyes I should be blistered with remorse and shame, and would give anything if I had not done it. But I could not help it, for deep down in the very web and woof of my nature I was ignoble and ungenerous.

How little the world knows us; indeed how little any except our nearest friends know us. You who are reading these lines—your world loves you and honors you. But suppose it knew you as you know yourself? Be humbly thankful that it does not.

Supper. Still no Jeff. My uneasiness was steadily growing.

I had not been out, all day. In fact, I had even kept away from the windows, I did not know why. I knew I should see a crowd of waiting strangers from different regions of the Union on the opposite sidewalk. I was used to it, had been used to it ever since I came back from Mexico with my military glories upon me; and had always been pleased with it, happy in it. But the thought of it troubled me, now. I was accustomed to driving or walking, every day, and accustomed to be flocked after and cheered, as I went along, and no more minded it than did the stately General Scott; in fact dearly liked it and enjoyed it, as he did. But to-day, for some reason, I shrank from the thought of it. There was a vague, indefinable, oppressive sense of impending trouble in the air.

After supper came the marine band—a serenade. The idea of it, to take friendly notice of our little mishap. I was in the room which had been set apart as a nursery, and was employed as usual at that hour of the evening—inventing a blood-curdling story for the [begin page 57] children; a child seated on each arm of my chair, their feet in my lap, their elbows on their knees, their chins crutched in their plump hands, their eyes burning duskily through their falling cataracts of yellow hair and black. For ten minutes I had been wandering with these two in a land far from this world; in the golden land of Romance, where all things are beautiful, and existence is a splendid dream, and care cannot come. Then came that bray of the brazen horns, and the vision vanished away; we were prisoners in this dull planet again. I was for ignoring the serenade, and getting back to that shining land with my story, and Jessie was for supporting me in that impropriety; but Bessie had inherited higher instincts than we, and larger principles; and she said—

“No, no, papa, mamma would not approve. You must go, papa.”

“And make a speech? Somehow it seems impossible to-night.”

“Oh, no it isn't, papa. It is nothing. Don't be afraid. Make the same speech you always make. Everybody says it is a good one. Mr. Pierce likes it better every time; he says so his own self.”

Out of the unconscious lips of babes and sucklings are we satirized. I walked slowly away into my banishment, leaving happiness behind me. For I left a dispute behind me; and where no care is, that is joy. I heard Bessie say—

“Papa didn't say that. He couldn't say it, because there's no sense in it. You've got two things mixed up, Romie.”

“I haven't. He did say it. I heard him; I heard the very words. He said it is foolish to kill the goose that lays the golden calf.”

It would have been a joy to me—an old and familiar and beloved joy—to go back and take a solemn hand in the discussion and mix it all up till the puzzled little rascals could make neither head nor tail of it, but this boon was not for me. From outside went up a crashing cheer which lifted my spirits away up into the sunshine, and set my pulses to leaping, and for a moment I was myself again. But for a moment only. Then at the door a bank president touched me on the shoulder and whispered—

“Senator, can I have a word with you presently?”

[begin page 58]

“Yes,” and I passed on. But there was something in his manner which blotted out my sunshine and made my heart cold. I stepped out on the balcony, and gazed out, dazed and hardly conscious, over the wide sea of flaring torches and uplifted faces; and the explosions of welcome which went up sounded muffled and far away in my dulled ears. I made my speech—no, it made itself, automatically; and it was as if it was some one else talking, and I scarce noting what was said. Then the cheers burst out again, as in a dream, and I—as in a dream—bowed, and went my way.

I took the bank president into my office, closed the door, and said—

“What is it?”

He answered, apologetically—

“I am sorry to disturb you with such a matter, Senator, but the fire marshal handed in a check just as we were closing the bank, and—and—”

“Very well. Go on.”

“And—and—well, the fact is, Senator, your account is overdrawn.”

What a load it lifted off my breast. And what a relief it was, to hear myself laugh once more; it had seemed to me that I had forgotten how.

“Oh, dear me,” I said, “is that all? What of it? It isn't uncommon.”

But he did not laugh. He remained ominously grave. He was silent a moment, gathering courage for a disagreeable duty, then he spoke out and named the amount of the overdraft.

I staggered as I have seen a soldier do when hit in the breast with a spent ball. After a little I rallied, and said, “I am amazed. I never could have imagined this. I don't know what Sedgewick can have been thinking of. Let us square up at once; and pray don't ever let this happen again—by his authority or any one else's.” I sat down at the desk and said, “I will give you a check on Riggs's.”

Nothing but a deadly silence followed this remark. I turned in my chair. My guest said, reluctantly—

“I am sorry, but it would do no good.”

“Oh, what do you mean?”

[begin page 59]

“We bankers have been together this evening to look over the situation, and unfortunately we find—we find—”

“Well, well, you find—what do you find?”

“That you are heavily overdrawn all around.”

He told me the several amounts. It made my head swim, for a moment. Then I pulled myself together, and said—

“After all, Simmons, it is merely embarrassing, not serious; and in no sense alarming. By good luck our house has burned down; the insurance-money will far more than pay you gentlemen, and henceforth I shall keep clear of this kind of thing. Even if I owed a million or two I should still be solvent, by grace of my Californian mining venture.”

The banker asked me if I would mind telling him, in confidence, something about the Golden Fleece. I said I should be very glad to tell him all about it; that there was no occasion for concealment. So I got out the mining manager's long series of carefully detailed reports, and we examined them patiently from the first one to the last. Mr. Simmons was very much pleased, indeed. He said the reports were remarkably clear, orderly and candid, and that I was fortunate in having a manager who was courageous enough to put in the bad news as well as the good. He conceded that I was demonstrably worth above a million and a half, and prospectively worth indefinitely more. Then he confessed that when Sedgewick began to overdraw rather heavily, sometime back, and had spoken mysteriously of the wonders of the Golden Fleece, he had felt a little uneasy and had written his brother, a banker in Grass Valley for particulars concerning the mine. He had had no answer as yet, but he could forsee, now, that it would be a satisfactory one when it came.

Then a letter was brought up which completed my comfort. It was from the lost Sedgewick. I read it aloud. It said—

“No doubt you have wondered what was become of me. When I returned and found that the house was doomed, I hurried to the station and caught the midnight train for New York; for there was an informality in one of the insurance policies which—however I will explain how it happened when I get back. As to $102,000 of the insurance, there will be no trouble. I think there will be none [begin page 60] about the rest—$38,000—but I shall stay here two or three days and see. Meantime, through the luck of coming here just at this time I am likely to bring back, from another source, $80,000 which I had long ago given up as an irremediable loss. Indeed it is not merely likely, I feel that I may regard it as sure.”

Mr. Simmons and I parted on very pleasant terms, and I went to bed a serene and contented man.

Next day I presided, for half an hour, at a session of the Committee on Military Affairs, then went back to Willard's, and Alice and I excused ourselves to callers and spent the whole happy day planning little improvements in the proposed new house, the architect helping and suggesting. Alice, who was conservative, wanted the cost kept within the former house's figure, but I said we could afford a more expensive one; and I talked her out of her reluctances and gained my point. She had been used to money all her life, therefore the possession of it did not turn her head or incline her to vain shows and display; but I was a kind of beggar on horseback, and had no sense of financial proportion, no just notion of values, and—but you know the kind of man I was. We did not get through until midnight; then the architect went away with a house in his pocket which charmed him and me, and made Alice shudder.

Two or three more days went pleasantly by, then came Mr. Simmons, Mr. Riggs, and Mr. Fulton, bankers, and with them a Mr. Collins from New York. Their manner was a warning; it spread a frost over the summer that was teeming in my heart, and the chill of it invaded my spirits. Trouble was coming; I felt it. They wished to see me in my private office. Arrived there, they sat down, and there was a moment or two of silence; then one said to another, with solemnity—

[begin page 61]

“Will you begin?”

“No, you, if you prefer.”

“Perhaps it will be best that Mr. Simmons open the matter.”

It was so agreed. Every face there was hard and set, every eye frankly unfriendly. Mr. Simmons cleared his throat and said—

“General X., you will pardon me if I ask you one or two blunt questions.”

“Go on, sir.”

“What property do you own, aside from the Golden Fleece?”

“None.”

The men glanced at each other; Riggs and Fulton twisted nervously in their chairs.

“Has your wife any property other than the Golden Fleece?”

“None.”

The color left the faces of Riggs and Fulton at that, then came back in a purple flush, and Fulton put up his hand and loosened his collar.

“One more question, Senator X.” This in a slightly rising voice. “When you showed me the reports of your mining manager, was it your purpose to deceive me?”

I flushed, but said, with as much calmness as I could command—

“Mr. Simmons, have a care. I must remind you that you are going too far.”

“I am, am I?” said he, excitedly. “My brother's letter has arrived from Grass Valley. Read it!”

I read it. Read it again; and still again, not able to believe my eyes. There was one italicized line in it which seemed written in fire, it glared so, and burnt me so: “There is no such mine as the Golden Fleece.” The life was all gone out of me, and I said—

“I am a ruined man, gentlemen. I realize it—absolutely ruined. But my destruction does not injure you. The insurance-money will more than pay everything I owe.”

“That is your whole resource, then?”

“Yes.”

“Are you certain that your house was insured?”

[begin page 62]

“Certain of it? Of course. It has always been insured, from the first; and in the same companies. Here is the record. The last entry, as you see, is of date a year ago, and insures the house for three years.”

“Mr. Collins is the agent through whom your policies were always taken out. Mr. Collins, will you speak?”

Collins addressed himself to me, and said—

“You may remember, sir, that something more than a year ago, I wrote you two personal letters. In the first one I reminded you; in the second I urged you, to renew your insurance, for that I was not able to get Mr. Sedgewick's attention. My letters were confidential, as I did not wish to get your representative's ill will. You remember my letters?”

“Quite well. In the case of the first one I asked Sedgewick to answer you and re-insure; in the second I gave him a peremptory order to do it.”

“Have you your policies there?”

“Yes.”

“Last year's, too?”

“I suppose so. I will see. N-no. Not last year's.”

“It is because that last-year entry is fraudulent. Your house was not insured. The loss is total.”

My God, the words went through me like a bullet. If they were true, they meant that I was not merely and only a pauper, but a hundred times worse than that—in debt. For a time, no one spoke. The stillness was oppressive, smothering. All were waiting for me; but I was dumb, I could not find my voice. When it came back to me at last, I said—

“I am to blame. I am to blame, I confess it freely. I trusted Sedgewick as no human being ought to be trusted, and I have my reward. He has destroyed me.”

There was no word of response. I was ashamed. I had expected at least a recognition of my remark, the mere courtesy of a comment of some kind or other; I was used to this much deference—and entitled to it. My dignity was wounded. I glanced up at the faces about me, and was cut to the heart; for if I could read what was written there, it was contempt! It seemed unbelievable, it had been [begin page 63] so many years since any face had delivered me a message like that. I gathered my pride together, and said—

“Do not mistranslate me, gentlemen; I was not begging for sympathy.”

Simmons made a gesture of impatience, and said—

“This is not a time for womanish sentimentalities, General X., with these strange facts—shall I say, these suspicious facts?—before us. You must see it yourself.”

“What do you mean, sir?” I said with some little heat—I could not keep it all down. “Please explain yourself.”

He amended his manner, then, leaving nothing of discourtesy in it or in his tones. But his words were knives.

“I ought not to forget, and I do not, that of the three or four men of towering eminence in the Union, you are one; that your great services deserve the country's gratitude and have it; and that until now your public and private conduct has been above the reach of suspicion; but—but—” He stopped for a moment, troubled as to how to go on; then added reluctantly, and with the manner of one who is saying a thing which he does not want to say, but which he does not know how to get around, “but these insurance-entries, which are—I hate to use the word—fraudulent—why did you make them?”

“I make them! I didn't make them.”

The kindness faded out of the banker's face, and stupefaction took its place—stupefaction, mixed with surprise and unbelief; and he said with offended severity—

“I beg your pardon. I know your hand well.”

For the first time, I saw my whole peril. The earth seemed to be opening under me, and said in a voice which made my words sound like a lie even to me, so sapped of force were they by my despairing conviction that I was not going to be believed—

“I give you my word of honor—oh, more, I give you my oath—that I never wrote—”

“Don't! Stop where you are, for God's sake!”

“I implore you to believe me! Gentlemen, I call God to wit—”

“Stop where you are! Do not make it worse than it already is. Remember what you are. Go on, and say what you can in palliation [begin page 64] of this unfortunate act—even in plausible explanation of it, if such a thing may be possible—but for your own pride's sake leave out denials backed by oaths.”

I went back to the beginning of my connection with Sedgewick, and told the tale all down to date; told them the simple truth, the plain, straightforward, humiliating facts—burning up with self-contempt while I did it, and watching those marveling and incredulous faces for any relenting sign, as wistfully as ever a prisoner on trial for his life watched the faces of the jury.

The sign never came. When I finished, the group looked at each other and said, plainly, though without words, “It is pitiable to see an illustrious man degrade himself to the manufacture of such trash as this.” I read the words in their faces, and knew that my good name was gone, now, as well as my bread. After a considerable silence, Mr. Fulton said, with chill deliberation—

“As I understand it, sir, you ask credit for these several most extraordinary asseverations, to-wit, that you, an educated man, a man of the world, a general of the army, a statesman, a grown person, put yourself, body and soul, together with your wife's whole property and your own, unreservedly into the hands of a man—any man—empowering him to originate and write letters for you in your own handwriting, sign and endorse your name upon checks, notes, contracts, in your own hand, and speculate in anything he pleased, with the family's money—and all without even your casual supervision of what he was doing, or inquiry into it? Am I right?”

Detailed, item by item, in that cold direct fashion, it seemed incredible, impossible, even to me. And yet it was true, every shameful detail of it; and I said so. Mr. Fuller spoke out with what sounded like an almost generous enthusiasm—

“For the honor I bear your great name I will do you the reverence to believe not one damned word of it!”

I fought, and fought long, and the best I could, to save some shred of that name, but it was a lost battle. These men could not believe me. To them, it was impossible that a full grown man could be the fool I had professed myself to be. Their minds were soon made up that Sedgewick and I were partnership swindlers—pals. [begin page 65] They almost used that word; I was sure of it. From that conviction no arguments of mine were able to move them. They summed our affairs concisely up in this way: we had speculated in New York stocks and lost money and been obliged to sell Alice's estate; we had speculated further, and gotten deeper in; we had invented the Golden Fleece to postpone the crash and gain time to recoup; we continued to go from bad to worse; when the house burned, I had seen that the game was up, and had hurried Sedgewick off to scrape up what money he might for our joint benefit before the exposure should fall, and take it to some far country, leaving me to put all the irregularities upon him—he not minding that, since it could not hurt his pocket.

I said that my own statement of my conduct—if true—proved me a fool; but that this new solution of it—if true—proved me insane. I urged that a General of the Army, Senator, and prospective President of the United States could not by any possibility commit the crimes imputed to me unless he were insane, and that the gentlemen here present must know this themselves. I felt a hopeful glow at the heart for a moment, for I said to myself, that is an argument which will spike their guns; it is unanswerable.

But how little I knew the religion of commerce and its god. The argument fell flat; more—it was received with disdain—disdain of the sort evoked when a person intrudes a triviality into a serious discussion. Mr. Simmons brushed it aside as indifferently as if he were squelching the ignorant prattle of a schoolboy—

“Men will do anything for money.”

From the moment that those men arrived at the conviction that I was a swindler and Sedgewick my tool and partner, my reasonings went for nothing. It untangled every tangle, it laid bare the core of every mystery, it explained and accounted for every move in the odious game that had been played.

If I said that I couldn't know that the mining reports exhibited to me as coming from Grass Valley were manufactured in Washington,—why, true,—yes, quite so—etc., etc.; which being translated, meant that my word, as to that, was not valuable, in the circumstances.

[begin page 66]

If I referred to Sedgewick's letter from New York (about the insurance) as having been received by me in perfect and unsuspecting good faith, the comment I got was merely noddings of the head which meant “Oh, certainly, certainly, quite so—pray do not think we doubt it.”

I started, once, to inquire how I was to be benefited by making false entries in my insurance-list, and—

But they interrupted me impatiently, with a “There, it isn't worth while to go into that again,” meaning, “Oh, it is quite simple—part of the game, dear sir, part of the game—any one can understand it.”

I had tried all things, said all things, that might help me; there was nothing more that I could do, nothing more that I could say. I was lost. There was no help for me. The consciousness of this settled down upon me and wrapped me as in a darkness. There was a long silence. Then I broke it.

“Gentlemen, I comprehend that I am a ruined man—bankrupt in purse, and, in your belief, in character also. It may be that I shall never be able to retrieve myself financially, though I shall try my best while I live to do that and clear away the debts put upon me by a trusted subordinate; but I am not a dishonest man, whatever you may think, and I will bring that man before the courts and fasten all these swindles upon him, where they belong.”

“When?” asked Mr. Collins.

“When? Why, at once.”

“He sailed for the other side of the world the day he wrote you the letter; a friend of mine saw him go.” Then he could not deny himself the pleasure of adding—as if to himself, and not intended for me to hear, “But it may be that this is not news.”

Anybody could insult me now, with impunity—even that poor thing. Being pleased with himself for his boldness in kicking the dead lion, and detecting condescending approval in the faces of the bankers, he thought he saw his opportunity to ingratiate himself further with these high deities of his heaven; so he jauntily covered himself. But Mr. Riggs said, angrily—

“Uncover! Have you no shame? Respect what he was.”

What he was! It lit up my whole vast ruin, from horizon to [begin page 67] horizon; it compacted my colossal disaster into a single phrase. I knew that those words were burnt in; that no lapse of time, no mental decay, would ever rid my memory of them.

But why were these men still waiting? Was there more? More! The idea was almost able to make me smile. More? Was not Pelion piled upon my Ossa? More, indeed! The possibilities had been exhausted. I stirred in my chair, to indicate that I was ready for the interview to terminate if they were. Nobody moved. Then I said—

“I suppose we have finished, gentlemen.” Still, nobody moved. The situation was embarrassing; and so, with a groping idea of relieving it, I added in a wan and sickly attempt at playfulness, “I seem to have committed about all the crimes there are; still, if by chance one has been overlooked, let us complete the tale. Pray bring it out.”

Mr. Riggs began to wash his hands nervously; Simmons glanced at me, and dropped his eyes; Fulton, without passion or even emphasis, spat out the word—

“Forgery!”

I sprang at him—and remembered no more.

When i came to myself I had the feeling of one who has slept heavily, is lazily comfortable, but not greatly refreshed, and is still drowsy. My mind was empty of thought, and indifferent. My eyelids began to droop slumbrously, and I was drifting pleasantly toward unconsciousness, when I heard Jake's voice cry out—apparently in the next room—

“No indeed it ain't, honey—it's a jay-bird. Wait till I come. Don't make a noise; you'll scare him.”

My eyes came open, and then there was a surprise. I was stretched upon a bed, in a log cabin. The sharp March weather was gone, summer was in the air. The floor was of earth, packed hard and clean swept; at one end was a vast fire-place, built of undressed [begin page 68] stones; in it a couple of great smouldering logs six or seven feet long; swinging above them, from an iron chimney-hook, a large iron pot; on rude unpainted shelves, on one side, some old but brightly polished tin pans, plates, pint cups, candle-sticks and a coffee pot, some bone-handled knives and forks, some tin cans, some wooden and pasteboard boxes such as candles and groceries come in, and some brown paper parcels; against the logs on that side, under a small square window, a coverless deal table that had paper and pens on it and half a dozen old books; for sole ornament, a crippled tumbler containing a bouquet of fresh wild flowers; against the logs, beside the window, was fastened a diamond-shaped piece of looking-glass, and under it was a shelf with cheap combs and brushes on it. On the other side of the fireplace, by the door, was a small wooden bench, with a piece of bar soap on it in a common white saucer, a tin wash-basin inverted, and a wooden pail of water with a tin dipper in it; under the ceiling, above the bench, hung half of a side of bacon; on the floor on that side was an open sack of flour, and another of navy beans. Nailed to the wall opposite the bed was a deep long stretch of curtain calico which bulged, and I knew by that sign that it was the wardrobe. Along the wall, above the bed, four cheap lithographs were tacked to the logs—the Battle of Buena Vista, the storming of San Juan d'Ulloa, (I took part in both), and portraits of Scott and Taylor in uniform. Overhead was a ceiling made of flour-sacks sewed together; it was a frescoed ceiling, so to speak, for the sacks bore the names and addresses of the mills, loudly stenciled in blue capitals. Across the room, past the head of the bed, ran a flour-sack partition, also frescoed. It was the picture gallery; against it was pinned a number of steel engravings from Godey's Lady's Book.

Everything about the place was beautifully neat and clean and trim—and unimaginably inexpensive. I examined the bedstead. It was made of small poles—only tolerably straight, and the bark still on—laid close together along a frame supported by posts—the bark still on—driven into the ground. There was but one mattrass; it was filled with straw; there were pillows, filled with something or other; their cases and the sheets were of coarse white cotton; a cheap white blanket completed the bed.

[begin page 69]

I had on an old pair of blue jeans breeches and a private soldier's blue army shirt.

Where was I? I had no idea.

A glory of sunny hair appeared in the open door, now, and with it a bright young face—Bessie's.

“Come here, dear,” I said, “and read me this riddle.”

“Why, papa!”

She came cautiously in, and slowly approached, her eyes big with glad wonder—and doubt. She hesitated, then stopped, in the middle of the little room, four feet from me, and said wistfully—

“Papa—do you know me?”

“Do I know you? Why, Bessie, what—”

With a spring she was in my arms and covering my face with frantic kisses. Presently she had flashed away again, with the suddenness of a ray of light, and I heard her calling—outside—excitedly:

“Run here—run—run!”

Then she came flying back and stood, expectant, in the middle of the room, her eyes and cheeks glowing; and in a moment or two more Jessie was at her side, a speaking picture of childish interest and curiosity. Bessie put her mouth close to Jessie's ear, whispered a word, then stepped back to observe the effect. Jessie looked startled, but said promptly—

“I don't believe it.”

The effect seemed to be all that could have been desired, for Bessie clapped her hands like a gratified showman and said—

“I knew you wouldn't. Now you'll see. Papa, who is this?”

“Come, what kind of game are you little rascals playing? Do you suppose I don't know Romie?”

And now they were both in my arms, and for some reason or other seemed to be mad with delight. Presently I said—

“It's a charming piece, and I am playing my part of it as well as I can, but I am in the dark, you know. Why am I in jeans and army shirt? And why are you two in these little linsey-woolsey frocks, and why are you barefooted? And why are we in this log cabin? Is it all in the piece? And how much do we get for it? But first of all, where are we?”

[begin page 70]

The children looked troubled and disappointed, and a little apprehensive, and Bessie said—

“But papa, I thought you would know everything, now. Don't you?”

“Dear me, no, apparently I don't. I am reveling in mysteries. Really, I don't seem to know much of anything.”

Jessie said, as one who is trying to offer encouragement—

“Oh, no, papa, you mustn't say that. You know us—you know you do.”

“Oh indeed, yes, if that is large learning, I am not at the foot of the class yet. I can say my lesson. You are Bessie and Jessie, and I am Thomas X.”

Their soft hands covered my mouth at once, and they said in a frightened way—

“ 'sh! papa! You mustn't say that!”

“Mustn't say it? Why?”

“Because it isn't your name. You've got another name, now. Don't you know your other name?”

“Oh, you mean my stage name. No, I don't know what it is. What is it?”

“Jacobs—Edward Jacobs; and you mustn't forget it, papa; you mustn't ever forget it. Promise.”

“All right, I promise. Jacob Edwards—it's a very pretty name, too.”

“No, no—Edward Jacobs. Say it again, papa; and keep saying it till you learn it good.”

“All right, I'll begin now. Are you ready?”

“Yes, papa—and do be careful; and don't hurry.”

And they fixed their grave eyes upon me; eyes charged with hope, hope just touched with a pathetic shade of doubt. I couldn't help toying with it.

“Yes, I will be very careful, because always it is best to get a thing right in the first place, then after that it comes easier. And in the case of a difficult name like Jacob Edwards—”

“Oh, papa!”—this with a sort of anguish; and the tears sprang into their eyes.

I gathered the abused pair to my breast and cried out—

[begin page 71]

“Bless your hearts I was only fooling. I didn't know it was any matter to you. I won't do it any more. I wasn't in earnest, upon my word I wasn't. I can say it without any trouble; listen: Edward Jacobs, Edward Jacobs, Edward Jacobs—”

The sunshine was come again, and I thought I would not play any more treacheries like that for the present. I said—

“But come. You know you haven't told me where we are.”

“Why, we are in a town, papa.”

“No we are not, Potie, we are only in the edge of it.”

“Well, in the edge of it, then—it's all the same. And its name—don't you know its name, papa?”

“I think I can tell better when I hear it. What is it, Bessie?”

She hesitated, and said—

“Mamma only just calls it the town; and so that is what we call it, too; but the people—they—well, the people call it—”

“Hell's Delight,” said Jessie, gravely.

It nearly startled me out of my army shirt, for it suggested some tremendous possibilities. My breath came short and quick, now, and in insufficient quantity for a person who was full of questions and in a hurry to ask them; but I got them out, and as fast as I could:

“Are we in California?”

“Yes, papa.”

“What time of the year is it?”

“The middle of August.”

“How old are you, Bessie?”

“Nearly nine and a half, papa.”

“This is amazing. I have been asleep eighteen months! Amazing—incredible—impossible. And how you children have grown—I was supposing it was your mean disguises that were deceiving my eyes. What—”

“Mamma's come, mamma's come! Oh, mamma, he's in his right mind!”

We two had been separated just an hour—by the clock—but in the true sense a whole year and a half. What the meeting was like, there is no art to tell. The ignorant cannot imagine it, but only such as have lived it.

[begin page 72]

When a person has been absent from the planet a year and a half, there is much news to hear when he gets back. It took Alison many hours to tell me her story. She had had a hard life of it, and heavy work and sharp privations, and this had aged her body a little, but not her spirit. Her spirit was as it had always been; its courage, its hopefulness, its generosities, its magnanimities had suffered no impairment, her troubles had not soured its native sweetness nor embittered its judgments of men and the world. She had no complaints to make about her poverty; and as for upbraiding me for causing it, she never thought of such a thing. It shamed me to see this, knowing how quick I should be to upbraid her if our places had been changed, and how meanly prone to keep her reminded of it—and sincerely repent, in sackcloth and ashes for it—and then do it again the next day, and the next, and the next, and all the days.

She told me her tale. When she found that we were ruined and in debt she left the hotel at once and got three cheap rooms and a kitchen on the fourth floor of a tenement house, and discharged Jake and Maria. They declined the discharge. Maria remained and did the housework, and Jake went out to service and made her take and use almost all the money he earned. It helped to save us alive, in those first days before Alice had found work for herself. She presently got copying to do; and so great was the sympathy which her calamities excited that she was soon overrun with this kind of work, and was able to employ several assistants. All our friends stood by her, none of them discarded her; new ones came; and new and old together would have helped her out of their pockets if she would have consented. She said it was worth while to know poverty, because it so enlarged and ennobled one's estimates of the world in general as well as of one's friends. Almost every paper in the land used me generously. There was but one man who was [begin page 73] bitter against me; even the injured bankers made no trouble, and ceased from saying harsh things about me. The officers of the army believed my story, and believed it entirely. They said that a man trained at West Point might be a fool in business matters, but never a rascal and never a liar; that he was a gentleman, and would remain one. General Scott said I was a good soldier, none better; and that even the best soldier could botch a trade which he was not fitted for.