Chapter IV: The Entertaining Group (2)

DEAR MAX--I very willingly gave you information as long as it related only to tickets and sleeve buttons, but I must decline answering the question contained in your last letter. Did you really believe, you old Pedant, that I left your home--which was also mine--because we disagreed in our views of matters and things in general? Then you are mightily mistaken. I left you because I saw more plainly every day that you no longer loved me. Yes, I had become a burden to you--you wanted to get rid of me. If in that dignified parting scene you had said one single tender word to me, I should probably have stayed, but, as usual, you were on your high horse, from which you have now had so lamentable a tumble just because your servants have left you. _I_ too have served you faithfully, though you do not seem to have recognized that fact. _I_ never let the fire go out on your hearth. It was not _my_ fault when it grew cold.

Who knows whether you would have noticed the void left by my going if your fur coat had not also been missing? This gave you an opportunity of opening a correspondence with me, and it seems to be only fitting that it should now close, since you have once more regained possession of your property. I, at least, have nothing more to say.

Good-by forever,
EMMA.

_Prof. Max Wiegand to Dr. Gustav Strauch_

BERLIN, January 8.

DEAR GUSTAV--I have a great piece of news to tell you. My wife returned to me yesterday, and at my earnest solicitation. I thought I could no longer live _with_ her, but I find it equally impossible to live _without_ her. I have just discovered that she too was very unhappy during the time of our separation, but she would never have acknowledged it, for hers is the stronger character of the two. I do not know how to explain the miracle, but we love each other more dearly than ever. We are celebrating a new honeymoon. The great questions of life drove us apart, but is it only the little ones which have reunited us? Would you suppose that one could find a half-desiccated heart in the pocket of an old fur coat? The stately edifice of my worldly knowledge totters on its foundations, dear Gustav. I have a great deal to unlearn.

MAX.
--Ludwig Fulda.

=The Lady in Pink=

If I hadn't had to stop in the middle of my painting and run down to the house to get some more rose-madder I never in the world should have seen her; I had to leave all my things up on the hill with little David, and on the way down to the village I passed the place.

The only thing I remember now is that I was hurrying along by a stone wall which was higher than my head and that above it dark pines clustered in pointed masses against a blue and white sky--it was just the kind of sky Bougereau would have loved, with soft, opaque clouds--when I came past the gate, and one can never go by a gate, you know, and not look in, and it was there that I saw her. She was sitting on a bench built under a tree--the trunk of which did for the perpendicular in the composition and gave such a good contrast in color, too, for she--well, there she was just sitting there with her hands in her lap, her head against the tree and her feet out in front of her, and oh, dreams of loveliness--her dress was pink! Think of that! Rose pink where it touched the grass, lavender pink where it fell in shadows, shell pink where the sun flickered on it--and in her hand she held a kind of golden straw hat, and that was just dripping with roses, and they were the pinkest of all. Oh! it was a picture for the gods. I made quick work of my errand and hastened back to tell David about it.

"Well, I've seen it," I announced breathlessly, coming up the slope.

"Seen what?" asked David, not stopping from his clover chain.

"My masterpiece," I answered, squirting out much more of the rose-madder than I needed--this paltry little sketch I was working on now would have to be finished up and gotten out of the road for real work.

"Where?" asked David, with the laconic briefness of childhood.

"Down inside the big gate--behind the stone wall."

"Oh, that's where the Cory's live--there's a stream there, with pollywogs in it." David's mind was beginning to wander.

"But you never saw such a study in pink in all your life--think of it--pink dress--all different shades of pink--pink roses for the high-note, and then pale pink repeated in the cheeks and then way off in the background there were some pink hollyhocks." "My, oh, my," I added to myself, stubbing gamboge into the canvass to get a sunshiny effect, "My, oh, my--she sat there just like a Grenze--a Gainsborough lady, now, never would have had the courage to have leaned against the tree in that lackadaisical manner; the Lady in Pink--Whistler painted a Lady in White--I shall paint the Lady in Pink! Tomorrow I shall begin, David," I said, "tomorrow I am going down to get my masterpiece."

"Well, but you can't go in the Cory's to get it," said David; "that's private grounds."

Private grounds! The words stunned me. Couldn't an artist usually go any place he liked?

"Private grounds!" I echoed, "oh, yes; why that's so. Why, what on earth will I do?"

"I don't know," said David, with a half-rising inflection showing an abstract sympathy.

"Think of that! And there it all is just waiting to be painted. Why, look here, David, how on earth did you ever get in to know there were pollywogs?"

"Oh," said David, "the folks were away."

"Well, I will wait then till they are all away! But, good heavens, what am I thinking about! The garden isn't what I want--it's the Lady in Pink." I began packing up my paints--there was no use trying to do anything more now.

"Well, at any rate, we will go down tomorrow," said I, wiping some brushes on my handkerchief, "and maybe in the meanwhile we can think up a way to get in."

"Oh, let's go now," suggested David, seeing that things were really moving.

"You mean it?" I asked, rather astonished at his sudden desire for action.

"All right, then! You fold up the camp stool and umbrella and I'll take the box and the pallet along with me."

"Dear me! What on earth now will we ever say when we get there?" I began on the way down the hill.

"We might ask for a glass of milk."

"Oh, no, we can't do that--it isn't in the country."

"Well, I might ask for some hollyhocks."

"Well, I guess not! The hollyhocks can't be picked--they're part of the masterpiece."

"Then you think something yourself," and David lapsed into a discouraged silence.

But I couldn't think of anything save that I must and would have the lady at any cost and though I couldn't see how I was going to get it, I had a very clear picture of myself in the garden, painting away.

"You just wait till we get there," I said to David, as we stumped down the walk together. David was used to my enthusiasms over all sorts of things which he usually only vaguely assented that he could see, and though he never said much when I fell to talking about principles of art, I liked to have him with me always when I worked, because he had such a joyous, fresh little face. I couldn't help but catch the sunshine of it when I did an outdoor sketch; and if I had lived in the days when no picture was complete without a Love in it, David would always have been the one to have posed for me.

Presently we came near the gate and, to speak truly, I was becoming a bit fearful as to just what was going to happen, but David, eager and anticipatory, hopped on ahead of me and peered in.

"Oh!" he called back, "there isn't anything here at all."

"Oh, isn't there?" I said; "you don't mean to say it's gone in."

"If you mean the lady, she isn't here."

And true enough, when I came up there wasn't a soul in sight. How empty the place looked! It was just like a disappointing exhibition--here were all the people come to see the great works, and when the door was reached, there hung a sign which said that the management was sorry, but the best paintings had been delayed on the way, and wouldn't be here till tomorrow at two o'clock! I gazed at my ruined masterpiece--the background was all there, but there was no picture, for what moaning had broad green masses of foliage and shaded distances apart from a contrasting center of interest, of what meaning was there anyhow in a landscape without a human touch?

David pressed his hand on the latch of the gate and it opened for him. I have always liked to think since that he was the one that really opened the way there.

"Let's go in," he said in a half challenging whisper, but with eyes pleading authority from me.

I couldn't resist. "Well, all right--it will be like Corot wandering around in the forest of Fontainbleau--and if anybody comes----" I didn't know what I would do, so I took my pallet in my hand fancying to myself it would do very well for a shield against any contingent. So we slowly walked up the winding path together.

"The pollywogs are over there," said David, pointing a slender finger toward the house.

"You never mind them," I answered, "what we are here for is to get the setting of this picture. My! Almost any view would do--I never saw so many colors in all my life. Look, David, at that bust over there with the gray-green leaves brushing up against the gray stone--oh, there ought to be a peacock under there, to give a strong iridescent blue note--do you suppose there is a peacock around any place?" I said, laying down my pallet and circling my eyes with my hands so as to localize the color masses better.

But David was sorting pebbles on the walk and so I expected no answer from him, but was scarcely prepared for the one I did receive.

"No, there is no peacock here, but--can I do anything for you?"

I swept around and there was that radiant figure in pink, melting into the green behind her, the soft roundness of her figure echoed in the larger circling outlines of the trees, her brown hair the delicate counterpart in color of the ground she stood on, and her eyes, deep ultramarine, the concentrated blue of all the pale sky--what a picture, what a picture! My imagination flew to grasp it, and I forgot everything but that I must have it, swept up clean from the pallet and made living on the canvas.

"Yes," I said, "yes--there is something you can do for me. You can stay right there--or you can go over there and sit down, while I get you," and I dashed back to the gate after my paints.

When I returned she was still standing and the corners of her lips were twitching. They were very red. I began unpacking my tubes and unfolding my easel. "Wouldn't you like to sit on the bench over there? You have no idea how much the tree trunk will help out the composition." And I begged her silently.

But she stood there perfectly still and looked at me with eyes full of question; they had a moving highlight in them, like the sun on a wave--if I could only catch that!

"You want to get me!" she finally stammered.

"Oh, yes!" I said, "don't you see? I was walking by the gate and I saw you, and I want you to pose for me," and then as I saw her hesitate, "oh, surely you don't mind being gotten?" With what a terror the thought filled me--but I had to do it somehow.

"Well--only--but why don't you paint the little boy?"

"Oh, David! Oh, I paint him in everything--he comes in the sunshine and the blowing wind and all the feeling of movement I ever get in a picture--and then if people are happy when they look at the picture, that is because David was with me when I painted it. David is a little Love."

Well, she never said a word, but I think she understood what I meant, because she went over and sat down and called David to her and began talking with him. I am sure I had no idea what she was saying to him, because I set to the work then with all my might. I sketched in the figure, and set up my pallet with plenty of color and then flew to the brushes; it seemed as if I could work with the culminative inspiration of all the painting I had ever done.

While I was blocking in the hat with the roses, she looked up.

"Won't you tell me what it is going to be?" she asked with the air of having thought of the question some time before.

"Well," I replied, knowing I would have to make a step somehow, "Whistler painted a Lady in White, so I thought I would call this the Lady in Pink; and if it comes out and I really get you----"

"If you really get me?"

"Why, yes; if I can just catch you the way I want you; that is one of the troubles of the artist, you know--he never really is sure whether he is going to be able to get what he wants or----"

"Not even when he is so eager about it?"

"No, not always then," I laughed, wondering though if she didn't know that inspiration was in truth something more than eagerness.

"Not even--when he is painting in a garden--like this?"

Her eyes were brimming with a half-concealed mirth.

"Oh, this garden is a lovely place," I answered, "but it wouldn't make all the picture--there's got to be some spirit in it beside--a kind of informing mood. Now it is very quiet here and you are posing for me----"

"Oh! so I must be quiet, too?"

"Yes, I suppose so," I answered boldly enough; "only, of course, a different kind of quiet, you know; for if the garden is still, that's because--well, there isn't anybody mowing the grass, or there isn't any wind or--oh, the quietness of a person sitting in a garden is quite a different thing."

She kept looking at me all the time I was saying this, and then replied slowly:

"I see; you don't want me just to sit still."

"Certainly not," I answered. "I want you to be--"

Her eyes suddenly became dreamy, and I felt much more at ease.

"It's like David and the sunshine," she went on.

"Yes, just exactly; you are to be the spirit of the garden, the human symbol of its mood--its real meaning," and happy that she understood the way I felt about David, I fell to laying on the paint in broad, easy strokes, wondering how I could ever imitate the emerald transparency of the trees.

She did not speak again and presently my glance returned to her. She was holding David's cap in her hand and looking out--nowhere, I guess. I stopped my work, stepping back to study it and survey the scene.

"I'm glad you like my garden," she finally said, smiling; and such a smile as she gave me--it was like a stream of golden haze on a white flower, a change very subtle, and yet so striking.

"Your garden is the very best place yet I've found to work in," I said, well pleased. "It is just as fine a place as the Forest of Fontainebleau, and Corot did some great masterpieces there."

"Well, then, this surely ought to be your masterpiece, because, according to your own definition, you have all the conditions just perfect; the garden, and David----"

"Besides you," I interrupted, looking at her through the point of the easel, hoping to see the smile again; but she had suddenly changed her position, quite unconscious that in doing so she had spoiled the composition. But it made no difference, for I already had the posture, and the dress with its lavender and shell-pink lights and all the green behind--it was all there on the canvas, and the echo of it all on my pallet just like the memory of an overture which has played with all the various themes; and as to the rest--ah, she had indeed given me a glimpse of the tender mood and the stilling charm with which I wished to finish the picture. I was quite content.

Presently a tide of yellow evening light flooded into the garden, making the ground luminous and throwing deep shadows everywhere. I laid down my brushes.

"I shall have to stop now," I said, "evening is coming on--I shall have to be going," and I whistled for David.

He came running across the grass, one hand full of hollyhocks. "Oh, my stars, David!" I exclaimed, "what have you been doing?"

"Never mind," said the lady, "you know you have been helping yourself to things, too," and she rose and came over.

"Oh, there I am," she said lightly, looking at what I had done.

"No, indeed," I hastened to assure her, "that isn't you--yet; so far it is a composition in pink and green, but you aren't in it. When I put in the sunlit background, then David comes, you know, and then when I put a gentle repose in every line of the figure, and a dreamy, tender sweetness in the face, then I will be painting the real spirit of the garden--don't you see?"

And then, oh, my heart, she smiled again, but this time such a smile as no man deserves twice--and stooped and kissed David.

"He says he wants to get me for his painting, David. Shall I let him?"

"Why, hasn't he gotten you already?" asked David, tying the hollyhocks with grass.

"Yes, I think he has," she answered slowly. "David, you are a little Love," she added.

"Yes, isn't he, though!" I said.

--Wilma I. Ball.

III. The Humorous Story

The humorous story is but the other side of the society story. It is not a thorough study in realism either, for then it would be sad for a large part--as George Meredith has shown us; but it is rather a course of events more or less skilfully arranged to produce a laugh. There is transposition here, suppression there, exaggeration in many places. The reader joins the author in the conspiracy to concoct fun, and as a result both have a good time. The refinement and taste of these narratives range all the long distance from the vulgar horse-play and impossible dialect of the newspaper "funny page" to the genuine humor of Mrs. Stowe's "Sam Lawson" fireside stories and the quiet pleasantness of Sarah Orne Jewett's character sketches in "The Country of the Pointed Firs." Mark Twain began the foundation of that distinction which he now has as the greatest of modern humorists in his early volume of sketches, entitled "The Celebrated Jumping Frog."

[The fableau]

This type of story probably originated in the medieval French _fableau_,[5] which was a short humorous tale of the people--one recounting some ludicrous situation. It was generally written in octosyllabic couplets, a metrical form which was admirably suited to sharp, spirited narrative by reason of its skip, its carelessness, its sauciness. Boccaccio and his long train of Italian and other followers retold in prose many of these French stories; but it must be admitted that the condensation and the rapidity of the older metrical tales become diffuseness and sometimes tediousness in the prose version. The fableau was sometimes satiric; usually baldly, even coarsely realistic. Its purpose, however, was always to amuse. Chaucer retold five or more fableaux. He is a jolly narrator, and carries one along often in spite of one's prejudice in favor of modesty and decency. He is honest enough, however, to warn the reader of possible unpalatableness and modern enough to attempt to excuse himself on the basis of art.

[Picaresque romance]

That the picaresque romances embody such stories as the fableau is perfectly evident. Dissect, for instance, "Lazarillo de Tormes," or better, "Guzman de Alfarache," and you will see that the various adventures of the heroes would make capital _fableaux_ or humorous _contes_. The idea of combining low adventures into a series connected with one hero comes down from the days of Nero, when Petronius Arbiter wrote his "Satyricon." But the term picaresque romance refers to the Spanish popular tales of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the heroes of which are rascals, or picaros. As sharpers, they are the prototypes of our more modern Yankee in fiction who always "does" the other fellow before the other fellow "does" him. Some of them, like the "Yank," are not so much mean as just bold and resourceful when at a disadvantage. They go to court like the Connecticut Yankee and see their betters, whom they criticise most straightforwardly. They are older and naughtier Tom Sawyers and Huckleberry Finns. In short, by their vernacular of the highway and by their impudent deeds they stand in the historical line of types which includes the heroes of the fableau and the heroes of the modern burlesque or comic tale. The difference between humorous and comic and between comic and burlesque is a difference of degree.

Of the direct imitations of these Spanish rogues there is the French Gil Blas; there are the English Roderick Random, Jonathan Wild, and Miss Becky Sharp; there is the Amateur Cracksman; and, come to think about it, there is our own late American _Saturday Evening Post's_ ubiquitous Mr. Farthest North, promoter, success attend him!

To write a humorous story you will need to employ epigram, point, climax, colloquialisms, and perhaps dialect. If you touch dialect, however, take care to know what you are about; for nothing is more repellent to a reader familiar with a particular vernacular than to be confronted with pitiful and incorrect attempts at it. To write negro dialect you should be as well versed as Joel Chandler Harris; to write Irish, as apt as Samuel Lover or W. B. Yeats; to reveal children, as sympathetic as Kate Douglas Wiggin; to give us boy's fun, as charming and wholesome as Thomas Bailey Aldrich; to combine humor and the ingenious tale, you should be as inventive as Frank R. Stockton; and to smile at Americans and their foibles you should be as patriotic and kindly as Charles Battell Loomis.

George Washington Cable, Ian Maclaren, Thomas Nelson Page, J. M. Barrie, and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman have written excellent dialect, but they are not primarily humorists. They use the vernacular of the people as aids to character revelation.

The difference between a humorous story and comic anecdote is the difference of length and veracity. An anecdote purports to be true. A humorous story, only "drawn from life."

=The Expatriation of Jonathan Taintor=

Reprinted by permission from Loomis's "Cheerful Americans."
Copyright, Henry Holt and Company.

While I was in London I met a New York friend who was stopping in that America-in-London, Bloomsbury, and during our conversation he told me that he had for a fellow-boarder no less a person than Jonathan Taintor.

I felt that I ought to know Jonathan Taintor, and I have since found out that most people have heard something concerning him; but although the name had a good old Connecticut sound, I could not fit Mr. Taintor into any nook, so I frankly said to my friend: "Jonathan Taintor lies in the future for me."

"Why, I'll have to introduce you. I believe he's been written up before, but he's such a character that it will do you good to meet him. Can't you come to dinner tonight?"

Now, I had been reckoning on going that evening to the opera at Covent Garden; but characters do not pop around every corner, and, besides, I had not seen my New York friend for a long time, so I accepted his cordial invitation.

That evening at seven I went to the American boarding-house in Bedford Place, just off High Holborn, and was soon sitting at dinner with my friend.

Directly opposite me sat a man who might have left the valley of the Connecticut five minutes before. There are Taintors all about the Haddams that look just like him. He was short, thick-set, with dreamy blue eyes, a ruddy face that betokened a correct life, a curved nose, broad, straight, shaven upper lip, and a straggling silver chin-beard.

There was more or less twang in the tones of every one at the table, but his voice had a special nasal quality that seemed to bespeak a lifetime of bucolic Yankee existence. It was really so pronounced as to sound stagy.

The talk at dinner was desultory, and Mr. Taintor said little. I noticed that he had a dish of corned beef and cabbage, although the pièce de résistance for the rest of us was beef with a Yorkshire pudding. He left the table before coffee was served, but not before my friend had asked him to join us later on the balcony for a smoke and chat.

When we went up we found him already on the balcony, smoking a corn-cob pipe of American manufacture. My friend introduced us, and he shook my hand with one downward jerk. How often have I felt that pressure in the rural districts of Connecticut!

When Mr. Taintor learned that I had been in London only a week and had just come from Middletown, his face lighted up with interest, and he said:

"You have passed my wife in the street. She often comes to town market days."

"Oh, then she's not with you," was my somewhat idiotic reply.

"No, she ain't; an' unless the good Lord heaves enough sand into the Atlantic to make the walkin' good, she won't never be with me."

"You must be anxious to get back? Been over here some weeks?" said I.

"A matter of thirty year," he replied, and sighed prodigiously.

"Why, you must be quite an Englishman by this time."

He looked troubled. "Dew I look English?" said he.

"No, no," I replied, comfortingly; "you might pass for Uncle Sam."

"Well, I hope I'll never pass fer anythin' wuss," said he. "It's jest thirty year in November sence I left America, an' I've be'n in this dreary taown ever sence; but I ain't never read an English noospaper nor ridden in an English omnibus or horse-car or steam-car, neither, an' I try to eat as much as possible what I would ef I was at home with Cynthy. An' I'm a Republican clean through."

"Well, what's keeping you here?" said I.

Mr. Taintor pressed down the tobacco in his pipe to make it burn better, and said: "I can't stan' the trip. Y'see, when we was married we thought we'd cross the ocean on aour weddin'-trip. Father hed lef' me comfor'ble, an' Cynthy hed be'n dead-set on crossin' all through aour courtship. Fact is, her sister Sairy said 'at 'at was all she was marryin' fer; but of course Sairy was a great joker, an' I knowed better. Well, we went daown to Noo York the day before the steamer sailed, an' we put up at a hotel there on Broadway, an' durin' the evenin' some women got talkin' to Cynthy, an' told her haow awful sick she was like to be ef she hedn't never be'n on the ocean before. Well, it frightened her so that she backed plumb aout er the harness--said she guessed we'd better go to Saratogy instead; an' the upshot was we hed aour fust an' last quar'l then. I told her I'd bought the tickets fer Europe an' we'd hev to go, an' she said she would n' expose herself to two or three weeks of sickness under the idee it was a picnic party, an' all I could say to her couldn't shake her. Well, it was bad enough losin' the price of one ticket, but I couldn't lose the price of two, an' so we finally come to an agreement. She was to go up to Saratogy, although the season up ther' was over, an' I was to cross the ocean alone. It was too late to git my money back, an', to tell the truth, I allers did hate to give a plan up, 'thout I hed sufficient reason; so nex' mornin' we went daown to the dock, fer we'd made up, an' she was comin' ter see me off. She took on consid'able, an' I was cut up myse'f, partic'larly when I thought of the ticket thet was bein' thrown away. But she caught a glimpse of the waves behind a ferry-boat, an' she turned white as a sheet an' shook her head; so I kissed her good-by, an' the steamer sailed away with me on it, an' her a-wavin' her arms an' cryin' on the dock."

"Poor fellow!" said I, sympathetically.

"Well, the amount of seasickness she saved herself by stayin' to hum couldn't be reckoned 'thougt I was a scholar, which I ain't. I took to my berth before we was aout of sight of land, an' ef the brimstun of the future is any wuss 'an what I suffered, I don't want to die. But I wished I could die all the way over. I come right here to London, because there was a man I knew comin' here, too, an' I wrote to Cynthy to come right over as soon as she could, an' we'd live aour lives aout here; fer bad as it was here, nothin' on top of creation could temp' me to go back, not even her pretty face."

He stopped a minute and half closed his eyes, and I fancy he was calling her pretty face back through the thirty years.

"Well, well, that was hard lines," said I.

"Yes, but it was wuss when I got her reply. She told me she hed n't hed a happy minute sence I left, although she hed gone up to Saratogy, but the water tasted like something was into it, an' she'd come away after one day, an' was now on the farm at Goodspeed's Landing. An' she said thet ef _I'd_ be'n so sick _she 'd_ proba'ly die, an' she could n't bear to think of bein' heaved into the Atlantic, an' must stop where she was. Ah me! Sence then we 've be'n as lovin' as we could be, writin' reg'lar an' rememberin' each other's birthdays an' aour weddin' anniversaries; but we hain't sot eyes on each other, an' won't until we 're both safe on that other shore they tell us abaout. An' I hope thet trip 'll be a smooth one."

"And what does Mrs. Taintor do all alone?"

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe and put it into his pocket before he replied:

"She runs the old farm as I never could have run it. She's a born farmer, that wife of mine is. She has a hired man to help, but she does a good share of the work herself, an' every year she sen's me half the airnings; an' I live on here, hatin' it all an' hopin' for the time to come when the ocean'll either dry up or freeze over, or that Cynthy will overcome her dislike to the trip. Married life ain't e'zac'ly pleasant so fur apart, but I c'n truthfully say we 've never quar'led sence I come here, an' I ain't seen a woman sence I landed thet could hold a candle to Cynthy. Cynthy is a pretty gal."

Shortly afterward the old man retired to his own room, and then my friend, who had not spoken once since we came out, wickedly hinted that maybe Mr. Taintor only imagined that he loved Cynthia, and that they were happier separated; but I hate to spoil idyls in that way. To me it is very beautiful, the thought of that dear old lady in Connecticut, who runs the farm and writes loving letters to her expatriated spouse and sends him a share of the profits, but who cannot overcome her antipathy to the unstable sea. And when I think of Mr. Taintor as he appeared that evening in Bloomsbury, with his honest Yankee traditions, and his ardent love far his absent wife, I say, "Hurrah for both of them!"

--Charles Battell Loomis.

=Kileto and the Physician=

It was now about a month and a half since Kileto felt something harsh in his throat. He took a mirror and opened his mouth as wide as possible. On looking at the mirror he saw some of his large papillae. He was so greatly frightened to see such "red bodies," as he called them, that he exclaimed, "Ah, dear Life, you are going to depart soon! But, anyhow, I will at once go to the doctors to have these things identified." Without further delay, he went to a doctor, whose name I must not mention, lest he be angry with me for publishing this piece of news.

The doctor, after examining Kileto's throat, opened his book of medicine and searched in it for half an hour. Then after he was tired of not finding the right place to read, he said to Kileto, "Such sickness as you have is rarely found in other men. Your disease is called 'Sampaga' in our dialect. However, I will give you a prescription." "Doctor," said Kileto, "do you think I shall ever be cured of my sickness?" "Why, yes," answered the doctor; "only it will take several months before your disease can be cured. Perhaps, with the help of God and me, you will recover sooner. I want to ask you several questions. Will you answer me patiently?"

"Yes," answered Kileto.

"Well, do you smoke cigarettes?"

"Yes, sir; three packages a day would not be sufficient."

"Well, this is the first habit you must abstain from. Do you chew betel-nut?"

"Yes, sir."

"That is the second habit you must abstain from. Do you often go to church?"

"Yes, sir; once in a year, if my wife happens to remind me of it."

"You!--a Catholic!--or a pagan?"

"I am both Catholic and pagan."

"Well, well, if ever you expect to recover, these three things you must do--you must abstain from smoking, chewing betel-nut, and you must go to church every Sunday, for the purification of your soul."

Kileto went home, somewhat relieved. He told his wife what the doctor bade him do. He did all that the doctor had ordered. He went to the church every day--morning and afternoon--praying the whole "rosario." Moreover, he confessed his sins to the priest. He abstained from smoking and from chewing betel-nut.

Every day, after he had gone to church, he went to consult the doctor, who always gave him medicine. Almost all sorts of poisons to kill bacteria were prescribed. One day the doctor said to Kileto, "Do not come here for several days. I am going to study about your sickness. I will tell you the truth--you will die when your sampaga bursts." This statement of the doctor made Kileto very sad.

After a week, Kileto consulted the doctor again. "I think," said the doctor, "I had better burn your 'sampaga.' What do you say?"

"Well, you may do whatever you think best."

"But no," rejoined the doctor; "I'd better inject medicine into your body."

"All right, sir. I told you that you may do whatever you think best." Then the doctor injected medicine into Kileto's body. Kileto, because of the results of this injection, was displeased with the doctor, for he could hardly walk home.

One day as Kileto's wife was looking in a mirror, she found the image of her large papillae, which were like her husband's. Of course, she was very much frightened, lest she also had "Sampaga." She took her small boy of ten years to the window and looking at his tongue, found out that he also had papillae. "These sampagas," she said, "must be common." So she examined the tongues of everybody who came near her. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "these things must be natural. Oh, God, you save my husband! But I will fool my husband. I will tell him I have the same disease that he has."

When her husband came, she immediately led him to the window and showed her papillae. "You see," she said, "I have the same disease as you have. How now? Then we shall die together." To frighten her husband more, she said, "Open your mouth, and let me see how your 'sampagas' are getting along." Then Kileto opened his mouth. His wife examined then, and said to him, "Your sampagas are increasing." At this statement Kileto jumped with great horror, and said, "Oh, yes, my end is coming." "Now I see," replied the wife, "how like a small boy you are. I have been told by a student that with these 'red bodies' we taste our food. So you need not be afraid. Just look at the tongues of everybody, and you will see that they have the 'papillae,' as the student calls them."

Kileto was convinced, and regretted the great error he had committed. He had spent on medicine all his and his wife's earnings for two years.

One day Kileto, when left alone in the house, said to himself, "I know now the reason why the doctor said that I would die when my 'sampagas' burst. Of course, these are not 'sampagas'; and how could they burst? These things grow with the man. I am uncertain, however, whether the doctor had a private purpose in not telling me at once that the things I have on my tongue are 'papillae,' or whether he had not acquired enough knowledge in his medical studies to be able to distinguish the papillae from the disease called 'sampaga.'

"But in spite of all the trouble he gave me--injecting medicine into my limbs, which made me lame for three days, wringing, as it were, all my money from my hands--I am grateful to him. Why? Because I was made religious, going to church once every two days. I abstained from chewing betel-nut, and smoking cigarettes, and now I care no more for them."

Whenever the members of the family are in good humor, they talk of this story and laugh until they are out of breath.

--Lorenzo Licup.

_A FILIPINO FABLEAU_[6]

=The Lame Man and the Deaf Family=

One cloudy afternoon while I was wandering along the road between Paco and Pandacan, I met a lame man limping down the way. The man seemed very tired, and he was carrying on his head a pot which I thought contained water. The fellow was a mestizo and was dressed in a white suit. Seeing me, he said, "Will you please show me a house where I can ask for a drink of water?" I could not answer him at once, because I nearly laughed in his face when I saw it was only his long _bigote_ that made his split upper-lip unnoticed at a distance. Wishing to have some fun out of him I showed him the house that stood in an orchard on one side of the road.

The house that I pointed out belonged to a family all the members of which were deaf; namely, the father, the mother, and a daughter. Because of a kind of sickness that occurred in the family some years before, they had lost their sense of hearing. People had nicknamed them the "Deaf Family."

The man, or Mr. Bigote as I shall call him in honor of his long mustache, went limping directly to the house; and, without letting Mr. Bigote notice me, I followed him and hid behind the tall grasses that grew near the orchard. From my place I had a good view of the orchard and could hear the conversation between Mr. Bigote and the members of the family.

The orchard was a trapezium in shape. Except the front, which was separated by a wire fence from the road, all sides of it were surrounded by tall grasses. On each vertex of the trapezium stood an ilang-ilang tree. At the center stood a small nipa house facing the road. Around the house were several banana trees and camote plants. The house was old, and yet its stairs were made of stone. Under the bamboo floor of the building I could see a large blind dog. Near the foot of the stairs the daughter of the Deaf Family was sitting on a stone, giving food to her hog. It was a very fat hog, but neither ear nor tail could be seen attached to its great body.

The dialogue was begun by Mr. Bigote. "Good morning, madam," he said politely.

"We do not want to sell our hog, sir," answered the girl.

"I do not mean to buy your hog, but I only ask for a drink of water, for I am very thirsty," said the lame man quietly.

"Sir, it is very fat, because I always feed it well. You will not see its ears and tail because that bad dog ate them when their owner was yet small," answered the girl, pointing to the blind dog that was barking at Mr. Bigote.

Noticing that she did not hear him very well, Mr. Bigote shouted, "Let me have a drink of water!"

"Mother, here is a man who wants to buy our hog," shouted the young person to her mother, who was then, I supposed, cooking their lunch.

The mother peeped through the window and when she saw Mr. Bigote exclaimed angrily, "What! Are you going to marry that _Bangus_? I will wake your father. Tambucio, here is your daughter. She wants to marry a _bangus_."

"I am only asking for a drink of water, madam," said Mr. Bigote.

But when the father saw his wife very angry at the man who was standing near their stairs, he asked Mr. Bigote angrily, "Why did you hurt my dog?"

"Do not be angry, sir. I come to ask for a drink of water and not to harm your dog," answered Mr. Bigote.

Thinking that the man had said something bad to him, the father took a piece of wood and went down stairs. Seeing the danger, Mr. Bigote ran limping to the road, but the father followed him and struck the pot he was carrying on his head. The pot, which I had thought contained water, was broken, and I was very much surprised to see Mr. Bigote covered with molasses.

--Santiago Y. Rotea.

IV. The Occasional Story

[The spirit of the occasional story]

A story for a special occasion may be of any narrative type the author chooses: it may be a legend, a tale of mere wonder, a humorous story, a study in realism, a weird tale, or a ghost story (if one should select All Saints' Eve). Anything the author feels inclined to write will fall within the class provided it have about it the general atmosphere of a particular celebration. If that be the Fourth of July, the reader expects patriotism or its popular substitute, firecrackers; if Thanksgiving, gladness and generosity; if Christmas, reverence and good-will, and for the Northern people some pagan jollity in addition, for it is well recognized that we Anglo-Saxons have incorporated into the Christian festival our Druidical Yule-tide; if New Year's, then forgiveness and well-wishing to all and a sense of everybody's putting his best foot foremost; if Easter, hope and the joy of spring-time.

[Its masters]

It might be well to think and read a little about Easter if you want to write a special story. Not much has been done with that season, though it is full of possibilities. It, too, is a combination of old and new ideals. We have many beautiful Christmas legends and tales, even by the great authors--Dickens, Thackeray and many of the French and Spanish short-story tellers; and by our later writers, as well. Professor Van Dyke, Professor Mabie, Kate Douglas Wiggin, William Canton, Bret Harte, almost everyone who has written, in fact,--but Easter stories are harder to find.

[Suggestions]

The English-speaking peoples have not so many special days as have the Latin. The adherents of the Catholic church have all the Saints' days to celebrate. These yield many pretty fancies. Keats has made famous St. Agnes' Eve. The other religions, too, are worth thinking about. The Mohammedans and the Buddhists are devotees, and have interesting customs. Besides the religious memorials there are the nations' hero days. And then, too, the special anniversaries of societies and associations. One's own school commencement, the best event of one's favorite college--there are surely many inspirations for occasional stories.

=The Lost Child=

Translated by J. Matthewman. Copyright, 1894, by The Current
Literature Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission.

On that morning, which was the morning before Christmas, two important events happened simultaneously--the sun rose, and so did M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy.

Unquestionably the sun, illuminating suddenly the whole of Paris with its morning rays, is an old friend, regarded with affection by everybody. It is particularly welcome after a fortnight of misty atmosphere and gray skies, when the wind has cleared the air and allowed the sun's rays to reach the earth again. Besides all of which the sun is a person of importance. Formerly, he was regarded as a god, and was called Osiris, Apollyon, and I don't know what else. But do not imagine that because the sun is so important he is of greater influence than M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy, millionaire banker, director of the _Comptoir Général de Crédit_, administrator of several big companies, deputy and member of the General Counsel of the Eure, officer of the Legion of Honor, etc., etc. And whatever opinion the sun may have about himself, he certainly has not a higher opinion than M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy has of _himself_. So we are authorized to state, and we consider ourselves justified in stating, that on the morning in question, at about a quarter to eight, the sun and M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy rose.

Certainly the manner of rising of these two great powers mentioned was not the same. The good old sun began by doing a great many pretty actions. As the sleet had, during the night, covered the bare branches of the trees in the boulevard Malesherbes, where the _hôtel_ Godefroy is situated, with a powdered coating, the great magician sun amused himself by transforming the branches into great bouquets of red coral. At the same time he scattered his rays impartially on those poor passers-by whom necessity sent out, so early in the morning, to gain their daily bread. He even had a smile for the poor clerk, who, in a thin overcoat, was hurrying to his office, as well as for the _grisette_, shivering under her thin, insufficient clothing; for the workman carrying half a loaf under his arm, for the car-conductor as he punched the tickets, and for the dealer in roast chestnuts, who was roasting his first panful. In short, the sun gave pleasure to everybody in the world. M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy, on the contrary, rose in quite a different frame of mind. On the previous evening he had dined with the Minister for Agriculture. The dinner, from the removal of the _potage_ to the salad, bristled with truffles, and the banker's stomach, aged forty-seven years, experienced the burning and biting of pyrosis. So the manner in which M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy rang for his valet-de-chambre was so expressive that, as he got some warm water for his master's shaving, Charles said to the kitchen-maid:

"There he goes! The monkey is barbarously ill-tempered again this morning. My poor Gertrude, we're going to have a miserable day."

Whereupon, walking on tiptoe, with eyes modestly cast down, he entered the chamber of his master, opened the curtains, lit the fire, and made all the necessary preparations for the toilet with the discreet demeanor and respectful gestures of a sacristan placing the sacred vessels on the altar for the priest.

"What sort of weather this morning?" demanded M. Godefroy curtly, as he buttoned his undervest of gray swansdown upon a stomach that was already a little too prominent.

"Very cold, sir," replied Charles meekly. "At six o'clock the thermometer marked seven degrees above zero. But, as you will see, sir, the sky is quite clear, and I think we are going to have a fine morning."

In stropping his razor, M. Godefroy approached the window, drew aside one of the hangings, looked on the boulevard, which was bathed in brightness, and made a slight grimace which bore some resemblance to a smile.

It is all very well to be perfectly stiff and correct, and to know that it is bad taste to show feeling of any kind in the presence of domestics, but the appearance of the roguish sun in the middle of December sends such a glow of warmth to the heart that it is impossible to disguise the fact. So M. Godefroy deigned, as before observed, to smile. If some one had whispered to the opulent banker that his smile had anything in common with that of the printer's boy, who was enjoying himself by making a slide on the pavement, M. Godefroy would have been highly incensed. But it really was so all the same; and during the space of one minute this man, who was so occupied by business matters, this leading light in the financial and political worlds, indulged in the childish pastime of watching the passers-by, and following with his eyes the files of conveyances as they gaily rolled in the sunshine.

But pray do not be alarmed. Such a weakness could not last long. People of no account, and those who have nothing to do, may be able to let their time slip by in doing nothing. It is very well for women, children, poets, and riffraff. M. Godefroy had other fish to fry; and the work of the day which was commencing promised to be exceptionally heavy. From half-past eight to ten o'clock he had a meeting at his office with a certain number of gentlemen, all of whom bore a striking resemblance to M. Godefroy. Like him, they were very nervous; they had risen with the sun, they were all _blasés_, and they all had the same object in view--to gain money. After breakfast (which he took after the meeting), M. Godefroy had to leap into his carriage and rush to the Bourse, to exchange a few words with other gentlemen who had also risen at dawn, but who had not the least spark of imagination among them. (The conversations were always on the same subject--money.) From there, without losing an instant, M. Godefroy went to preside over another meeting of acquaintances entirely void of compassion and tenderness. The meeting was held round a baize-covered table, which was strewn with heaps of papers and well provided with ink-wells. The conversation again turned on money, and various methods of gaining it.

After the aforesaid meeting he, in his capacity of deputy, had to appear before several commissions (always held in rooms where there were baize-covered tables and ink-wells and heaps of papers). There he found men as devoid of sentiment as he was, all utterly incapable of neglecting any occasion of gaining money, but who, nevertheless, had the extreme goodness to sacrifice several hours of the afternoon to the glory of France.

After having quickly shaved he donned a morning suit, the elegant cut and finish of which showed that the old beau of nearly fifty had not ceased trying to please. When he shaved he spared the narrow strip of pepper-and-salt beard round his chin, as it gave him the air of a trustworthy family man in the eyes of the Arrogants and of fools in general. Then he descended to his cabinet, where he received the file of men who were entirely occupied by one thought--that of augmenting their capital. These gentlemen discussed several projected enterprises, all of them of considerable importance, notably that of a new railroad to be laid across a wild desert. Another scheme was for the founding of monster works in the environs of Paris, another of a mine to be worked in one of the South American republics. It goes without saying that no one asked if the railway would have passengers or goods to carry, or if the proposed works should manufacture cotton nightcaps or distil whisky; whether the mine was to be of virgin gold or of second-rate copper: certainly not. The conversation of M. Godefroy's morning callers turned exclusively upon the profits which it would be possible to realize during the week which should follow the issue of the shares. They discussed particularly the values of the shares, which they knew would be destined before long to be worth less than the paper on which they were printed in fine style.