The Panchronicon.

by Harold Steele Mackaye.

CHAPTER I

THE THEORY OF COPERNICUS DROOP

The two sisters were together in their garden.

Rebecca Wise, turned forty and growing slightly gray at the temples, was moving slowly from one of her precious plants to the next, leaning over each to pinch off a dead leaf or count the buds. It was the historic month of May, 1898, and May is the paradise of flower lovers.

Phoebe was eighteen years younger than her sister, and the beauty of the village. Indeed, many declared their belief that the whole State of New Hampshire did not contain her equal.

She was seated on the steps of the veranda that skirted the little white cottage, and the absent gaze of her frank blue eyes was directed through the gate at the foot of the little path bordered by white rose-bushes.

In her lap was a bundle of papers yellowed by age and an ivory miniature, evidently taken from the carved wooden box at her side.

Presently Rebecca straightened her back with a slight grimace and looked toward her sister, holding her mold-covered hands and fingers spread away from her.

"Well," she inquired, "hev ye found anythin'?"

Phoebe brought her gaze back from infinity and replied:

"No, I ain't. Only that one letter where Isaac Burton writes her that the players have come to town."

"I don't see what good them letters'll do ye in the Shakespeare cla.s.s, then."

Rebecca spoke listlessly--more interested in her garden than in her sister's search.

"I don't know," Phoebe rejoined, dreamily. "It's awful funny--but whenever I take out these old letters there comes over me the feelin'

that I'm 'way off in a strange country--and I feel like somebody else."

Rebecca looked up anxiously from her work.

"Them sort o' philanderin' notions are foolish, Phoebe," she said, and flicked a caterpillar over the fence.

Phoebe gave herself a little shake and began to tie up the papers.

"That's so," she replied. "But they will come when I get these out, an'

I got 'em out thinkin' the' might be somethin' about Shakespeare in 'em for our cla.s.s."

She paused and looked wistfully at the letters again.

"Oh!" she cried, "how I do wonder if he was among those players at the Peac.o.c.k Inn that day! You know 'players' is what they called play-actors in those days, and he was a play-actor, they say."

"Did he live very far back, then?" said Rebecca, wishing to appear interested, but really intent upon a new sprout at the foot of the lilac-bush.

"Yes, three hundred years ago. Three of these letters has a date in 1598 exactly."

There was a long silence, and at length Rebecca looked up from the ground to ascertain its cause. She frowned and drew her aching back stiffly straight again.

"Everlastin'ly lookin' at that pictur'!" she exclaimed. "I declare to goodness, Phoebe Wise, folks'll think you're vain as a pouter pigeon."

Phoebe laughed merrily, tossed the letters into the box and leaped to her feet. The miniature at which she had been gazing was still in her hands.

"Folks'll never see me lookin' at it, Rebecca--only you," she said.

Then with a coaxing tone and looking with appealing archness at her sister, she went on:

"Is it really like me, Rebecca? Honest true?"

The elder woman merely grunted and moved on to the next bed, and Phoebe, with another laugh, ran lightly into the house.

A few moments later she reappeared at the front door with consternation on her face.

"Land o' goodness, Rebecca!" she cried, "do you know what time it is?

Near onto one o'clock, an' I've got to be at the Shakespeare cla.s.s at half past. We'll have to dish up dinner right this minute, and I don't see how I can change my dress after it an' help with the dishes too."

She whisked into the house again, and Rebecca followed her as rapidly as possible.

She was very proud of her baby sister, proud of her having been "clear through high school," and proud of her eminence in the local literary society. There was certainly something inspiring in having a sister who was first corresponding secretary of the Women's Peltonville a.s.sociation for the Study of Shakespearian History and Literature; and it was simply wonderful how much poetry she could repeat from the pages of her favorite author.

Peltonville Center, New Hampshire, was one of those groups of neatly kept houses surrounding a prettily shaded, triangular common which seem to be characteristic of New England. Standing two miles from the nearest railway station, this little settlement possessed its own combined store and post-office, from whose narrow veranda one might watch the rising generation playing Sat.u.r.day base-ball on the gra.s.sy triangle.

The traditional old meeting-house stood on the opposite side of the common, facing the store. The good old days of brimstone theology were past, and the descendants of the G.o.dly Puritans who raised this steeple "in the fear of the Lord," being now deprived of their chief source of fear, found Sunday meetings a bore, and a village pastor an unnecessary luxury.

Indeed, there seemed little need of pastoral admonition in such a town as Peltonville Center. There was a grimly commonplace and universal goodness everywhere, and the village was only saved from unconsciousness of its own perfection by the individual shortcomings of one of its citizens. Fortunately for the general self-complacence, however, the necessary revealing contrast was found in him.

Copernicus Droop was overfond of the bottle, and in spite of the prohibition laws of his State, he proved himself a blessed example and warning by a too frequent and unmistakable intoxication in public. He was gentle and even apologetic in his cups, but he was clearly a "slave of rum" and his mission was therefore fulfilled.

On this first of May, 1898, a number of idle young men sat in a row on the edge of the store veranda. Some were whittling, some making aimless marks in the dust with a stick. All leaned limply forward, with their elbows on their knees.

It was clearly not a Sunday, for the meeting-house was open, and from time to time, one or perhaps two young women together pa.s.sed into the cool and silent room. The loungers at the store let none escape their notice, and the name of each damsel was pa.s.sed down the line in an undertone as its owner entered the church.

A lantern-jawed young farmer at the end of the row slowly brushed the shavings from his clothes and remarked:

"Thet's the secon' meetin' of the Shekspeare cla.s.s this month, ain't it?"

"Yep, an' there'll be two more afore the summer boarders comes up----"

The second speaker would have continued, but he was here interrupted by a third, who whispered loudly:

"Say, fellers, there goes Copernicus."

All eyes were raised and unanimously followed the shabby figure which had just emerged from behind the church and now started into the road leading away from the common toward the north.