"'Incidentally, it will help me to reduce,' she added.

"'An' it promises to reduce Bill,' I said. 'It will kill Bill, I fear, but it will pay. You might change your plan a little--Just a little--an' save poor Bill. Think of eating biscuit an' flapjacks from the hand of a social leader! Between the millstones of duty and indigestion he will be sadly ground, but with the axe he may, if he will, defend his const.i.tution.'

"'Well, what's a const.i.tution between husband and wife?' she asked.

"'Nothin'.' I says. 'Bear in mind I wouldn't discourage you. With the aid of the axe his ancestors were able to withstand the a.s.saults of pork an' beans an' pie. If he uses it freely, he is safe.'

"'You see, I shall have him in a position where he must work or die,' said Mrs. Bill.

"'He'll die,' said a guest.

"'I call it a worthy enterprise whatever the expense,' I said. 'It will set a fashion here an' a very good one. In this community there are so many dear ladies who are prisoners of gravitation.

They rely almost exclusively on hired hands an' feet, an' are losin' the use o' their own. What confusion will spread among them when they learn that Mrs. William Henry Warburton, the richest woman in Fairfield County, and the daughter of a bishop, has been doin' her own work! What consternation! What dismay! What female profanity! What a revision of habits an' resolutions! Why, there's been nothin' like it since the descent of Lizzie.'

"'I think it's terrible,' said a fat lady from Louisville, distinguished for her appet.i.te, an' often surrept.i.tiously referred to as 'The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.' 'The idea of trying to make it fashionable to endure drudgery! I think we women have all we can do now.'

"'To be respectable,' said Mrs. Bill; 'but let's try to do something else.'

"'Why don't you form a Ladies' Protective Union,' Bill suggested, 'an' choose the tiara for a symbol, an' strike for no hours a day an' all your husbands can earn?'

"'And the employment of skilled idlers only,' Mrs. Bill put in.

'They must all know how to do nothing in the modern way--by discussing the rights of women and the novel of l.u.s.t, and the divorces past and prospective, by playing at bridge and benevolence. How absurd it all is! I'm not going to be an overgrown child any longer.'

"I saw that Mrs. Bill was makin' progress, an' with her a.s.sistance I began to hope for better things in that neighborhood.

"You've got to reach the women somehow, you see, before you can improve the social conditions of a community. I love them, but many are overgrown children, as Mrs. Bill had put it, an' doin'

nothing with singular skill an' determination an' often with appalling energy.

"Our pretty hostess had been helping a butler, as this talk went on, an' presently one of the other ladies joined her, an' never was any company so picturesquely an' amusingly served.

"'I've quite fallen in love with that three-year-old boy,' said Mrs. Bill, as we rose from the table. 'I had a good romp with him to-day.'

"'I wish you'd go over to the old farm-house with me; I want to show you something,' I said.

"In a moment we were in wraps an' making our way across the lawn.

"'I was glad to get a rap at that Mrs. Barrow,' she whispered, as we walked along. 'She's just got back her jewels that were stolen, and has begun to go out again. She's the vainest, proudest fool of a woman, and her husband is always borrowing money. Did you know it?'

"'Some--that is, fairly well,' I said, with bitterness.

"'So does Bill, and she goes about with the airs of a grand lady and the silliest notions. Really, it was for her benefit that I helped the butler.'

"'If it weren't for Bill I'd call you an angel,' I said. 'You have it in your power to redeem the skilled idlers of this community.'

"We reached the little house so unlike the big, baronial thing we had left. It was a home. Mrs. Hammond sat by the reading-lamp in its cozy sitting-room before an open fire. She led us into the bedroom with the lamp in her hand. There lay the boy as I had left him, still smiling with a lovelier, softer red in his cheeks than that of roses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She led us into the bedroom.]

"'See the color and the dimples,' I said.

"She looked from one to another, an' suddenly the strong appeal of their faces fell upon her. She raised the boy from his bed, an' he put his arms around her neck an' began to talk in a tender baby treble.

"Did you ever hear the voice of a child just out of dreamland, when it expresses, not complaint, but love an' contentment? Well, sir, it is the sweetest, the most compelling note in all nature, I believe. It is like a muted violin--voice of G.o.d or voice of man--which is it? I dare not say, but I do know that the song of the hermit-thrush is but sounding bra.s.s compared with that.

"I felt its power, an' I said to myself: 'I will waste my life no longer. I will marry.'

"She, too, had felt it. The little captain had almost overcome her. She laid him down, an' we turned away.

"We walked through the garden paths, an' neither spoke, but in the stillness I could hear trumpets of victory. We entered the great hall an' sat with the others by its fireside, but took little part in the talk. When I made my adieus she shook my hand warmly and said I was very good to them.

"Save for its good example, the log-cabin experiment was not a success. They slept with all the doors and windows open, an' one night a skunk came in an' got under the bed. Mrs. Bill discovered that they had company, an' Bill got up an' lit the lantern, an'

followed the clew to its source. He threatened an' argued an'

appealed to the skunk's better nature with a doughnut, but the little beast sat unmoved in his corner. The place seemed to suit him.

"Bill got mad an' flung the axe at him. It was a fatal move--fatal to the skunk an' the cabin an' the experiment, an' a blow to the sweetness an' sociological condition of Connecticut.

"They returned to the big house, an' by-an'-by told me of their adventure.

"'Don't be discouraged,' I said. 'You will find skunks in every walk of life, but when you do, always throw down your cards an'

quit the game. They can deal from the bottom of the pack. You haven't a ghost of a show with 'em.'

"Being driven out of the cabin, Mrs. Bill gave most of her leisure to the farm-house, where I had spent an hour or more every day.

"Suddenly I saw that a wonderful thing had happened to me. I was in love with those kids, an' they with me. The whole enterprise had been a bluff conceived in the interest of the Warburtons. I hadn't really intended to build a house, but suddenly I got busy with all the mechanics I could hire in Pointview, and the house began to grow like a mushroom.

"Another wonderful thing happened. Mrs. Warburton fell in love with the kids, and they with her. She romped with them on the lawn; she took them out to ride every day; she put them to bed every night; she insisted upon buying their clothes; she bought them a pony an' a little omnibus; she built them a playhouse for their comfort. The whole villa began to revolve around the children. They called her mama an' they called me papa, a sufficiently singular situation.

VI

IN WHICH THE PURSUIT OF LIZZIE BECOMES HIGHLY SERIOUS

Dan had been out of town, an' immediately on his return he came to my office.

"'How's business?' I asked.

"'Well, the ham war was a little hard on us, but we're picking up,'

says he. 'They're still selling hams way below a decent price over at Henshaw's. I don't see how they can do it.'

"'I do,' I says.

"'Please explain," says Dan.

"'Don't you know that Lizzie was buyin' most o' those hams that you sold way below the wholesale price, an' that she's now makin' a good profit on 'em?' I says.

"'Great Scott!' Dan exclaimed, as he sank in a chair.