Various - Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools

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Now you are ready. You loosen your cravat, hang your coat to some rustic
peg in the creviced bark of the tree behind you, seize a bit of charcoal
from your bag, sweep your eye around, and dash in a few guiding
strokes. Above is a turquoise sky filled with soft white clouds; behind
you the great trunks of the many-branched willows; and away off, under
the hot sun, the yellow-green of the wasted pasture, dotted with patches
of rock and weeds, and hemmed in by the low hills that slope to the
curving stream.

It is high noon. There is a stillness in the air that impresses you,
broken only by the low murmur of the brook behind and the ceaseless song
of the grasshopper among the weeds in front. A tired bumblebee hums
past, rolls lazily over a clover blossom at your feet, and has his
midday luncheon. Under the maples near the river's bend stands a group
of horses, their heads touching. In the brook below are the patient
cattle, with patches of sunlight gilding and bronzing their backs and
sides. Every now and then a breath of cool air starts out from some
shaded retreat, plays around your forehead, and passes on. All nature
rests. It is her noontime.

But you work on: an enthusiasm has taken possession of you; the paints
mix too slowly; you use your thumb, smearing and blending with a bit of
rag--anything for the effect. One moment you are glued to your seat,
your eye riveted on your canvas, the next, you are up and backing away,
taking it in as a whole, then pouncing down upon it quickly, belaboring
it with your brush. Soon the trees take shape; the sky forms become
definite; the meadow lies flat and loses itself in the fringe of
willows.

When all of this begins to grow upon your once blank canvas, and some
lucky pat matches the exact tone of blue-gray haze or shimmer of leaf,
or some accidental blending of color delights you with its truth, a
tingling goes down your backbone, and a rush surges through your veins
that stirs you as nothing else in your whole life will ever do. The
reaction comes the next day when, in the cold light of your studio, you
see how far short you have come and how crude and false is your best
touch compared with the glory of the landscape in your mind and heart.
But the thrill that it gave you will linger forever.

But I hear a voice behind me calling out:--

"Monsieur, mamma says that dinner will be ready in half an hour. Please
do not be late."

It is Lucette. She and Francois have come down in the other boat--the
one with the little seat. They have moved so noiselessly that I have not
even heard them. The sketch is nearly finished; and so, remembering the
good madame, and the Roquefort, and the olives, and the many times I
have kept her waiting, I wash my brushes at once, throw my traps into
the boat, and pull back through the winding turn, Francois taking the
mill-race, and in the swiftest part springing to the bank and towing
Lucette, who sits in the stern, her white skirts tucked around her
dainty feet.

"_Sacre!_ He is here. _C'est merveilleux!_ Why did you come?"

"Because you sent for me, madame, and I am hungry."

"_Mon Dieu!_ He is hungry, and no chicken!"

It is true. The chicken was served that morning to another tramp for
breakfast, and madame had forgotten all about it, and had ransacked the
settlement for its mate. She was too honest a cook to chase another into
the frying-pan.

But there was a _filet_ with mushrooms, and a most surprising salad of
chicory fresh from the garden, and the pease were certain, and the
Roquefort and the olives beyond question. All this she tells me as I
walk past the table covered with a snow-white cloth and spread under the
grape-vines overlooking the stream, with the trees standing against the
sky, their long shadows wrinkling down into the water.

I enter the summer kitchen built out into the garden, which also covers
the old well, let down the bucket, and then, taking the clean crash
towel from its hook, place the basin on the bench in the sunlight, and
plunge my head into the cool water. Madame regards me curiously, her
arms akimbo, re-hangs the towel, and asks:--

"Well, what about the wine? The same?"

"Yes; but I will get it myself."

The cellar is underneath the larger house. Outside is an old-fashioned,
sloping double door. These doors are always open, and a cool smell of
damp straw flavored with vinegar greets you from a leaky keg as you
descend into its recesses. On the hard earthen floor rest eight or ten
great casks. The walls are lined with bottles large and small, loaded on
shelves to which little white cards are tacked giving the vintage and
brand. In one corner, under the small window, you will find dozens of
boxes of French delicacies--truffles, pease, mushrooms, pate de foie
gras, mustard, and the like, and behind them rows of olive oil and
olives. I carefully draw out a bottle from the row on the last shelf
nearest the corner, mount the steps, and place it on the table. Madame
examines the cork, and puts down the bottle, remarking sententiously:--

"Chateau Lamonte, '62! Monsieur has told you."

There may be ways of dining more delicious than out in the open air
under the vines in the cool of the afternoon, with Lucette, in her
whitest of aprons, flitting about, and madame garnishing the dishes each
in turn, and there may be better bottles of honest red wine to be found
up and down this world of care than "Chateau Lamonte, '62," but I have
not yet discovered them.

Lucette serves the coffee in a little cup, and leaves the Roquefort and
the cigarettes on the table just as the sun is sinking behind the hill
skirting the railroad. While I am blowing rings through the grape leaves
over my head a quick noise is heard across the stream. Lucette runs past
me through the garden, picking up her oars as she goes.

"_Oui, mon pere._ I am coming."

It is monsieur from his day's work in the city.

"Who is here?" I hear him say as he mounts the terrace steps. "Oh, the
painter--good!"

"Ah, _mon ami_. So you must see the willows once more. Have you not
tired of them yet?" Then, seating himself, "I hope madame has taken good
care of you. What, the '62? Ah, I remember I told you."

When it is quite dark he joins me under the leaves, bringing a second
bottle a little better corked he thinks, and the talk drifts into his
early life.

"What year was that, monsieur?" I asked.

"In 1849. I was a young fellow just grown. I had learned my trade in
Rheims, and I had come down to Paris to make my bread. Two years later
came the little affair of December 2. That 'nobody,' Louis, had
dissolved the National Assembly and the Council of State, and had issued
his address to the army. Paris was in a ferment. By the help of his
soldiers and police he had silenced every voice in Paris except his own.
He had suppressed all the journals, and locked up everybody who had
opposed him. Victor Hugo was in exile, Louis Blanc in London,
Changarnier and Cavaignac in prison. At the moment I was working in a
little shop near the Porte St. Martin decorating lacquerwork. We workmen
all belonged to a secret society which met nightly in a back room over a
wine-shop near the Rue Royale. We had but one thought--how to upset the
little devil at the Elysee. Among my comrades was a big fellow from my
own city, one Cambier. He was the leader. On the ground floor of the
shop was built a huge oven where the lacquer was baked. At night this
was made hot with charcoal and allowed to cool off in the morning ready
for the finished work of the previous day. It was Cambier's duty to
attend to this oven.

"One night just after all but he and two others had left the shop a
strange man was discovered in a closet where the men kept their working
clothes. He was seized, brought to the light, and instantly recognized
as a member of the secret police.

"At daylight the next morning I was aroused from my bed, and, looking
up, saw Chapot, an inspector of police, standing over me. He had known
me from a boy, and was a friend of my father's.

"'Francois, there is trouble at the shop. A police agent has been
murdered. His body was found in the oven. Cambier is under arrest. I
know what you have been doing, but I also know that in this you have had
no hand. Here are one hundred francs. Leave Paris in an hour.'

"I put the money in my pocket, tied my clothes in a bundle, and that
night was on my way to Havre, and the next week set sail for here."

"And what became of Cambier?" I asked.

"I have never heard from that day to this, so I think they must have
snuffed him out."

Then he drifted into his early life here--the weary tramping of the
streets day after day, the half-starving result, the language and people
unknown. Suddenly, somewhere in the lower part of the city, he espied a
card tacked outside of a window bearing this inscription, "Decorator
wanted." A man inside was painting one of the old-fashioned iron
tea-trays common in those days. Monsieur took off his hat, pointed to
the card, then to himself, seized the brush, and before the man could
protest had covered the bottom with morning-glories so pink and fresh
that his troubles ended on the spot. The first week he earned six
dollars; but then this was to be paid at the end of it. For these six
days he subsisted on one meal a day. This he ate at a restaurant where
at night he washed dishes and blacked the head waiter's boots. When
Saturday came, and the money was counted out in his hand, he thrust it
into his pocket, left the shop, and sat down on a doorstep outside to
think.

"And, _mon ami_, what did I do first?"

"Got something to eat?"

"Never. I paid for a bath, had my hair cut and my face shaved, bought a
shirt and collar, and then went back to the restaurant where I had
washed dishes the night before, and the head waiter _served me_. After
that it was easy; the next week it was ten dollars; then in a few years
I had a place of my own; then came madame and Lucette--and here we are."

The twilight had faded into a velvet blue, sprinkled with stars. The
lantern which madame had hung against the arbor shed a yellow light,
throwing into clear relief the sharply cut features of monsieur. Up and
down the silent stream drifted here and there a phantom boat, the gleam
of its light following like a firefly. From some came no sound but the
muffled plash of the oars. From others floated stray bits of song and
laughter. Far up the stream I heard the distant whistle of the down
train.

"It is mine, monsieur. Will you cross with me, and bring back the boat?"

Monsieur unhooked the lantern, and I followed through the garden and
down the terrace steps.

At the water's edge was a bench holding two figures.

Monsieur turned his lantern, and the light fell upon the face of young
Francois.

When the bow grated on the opposite bank I shook his hand, and said, in
parting, pointing to the lovers,--

"The same old story, Monsieur?"

"Yes; and always new. You must come to the church."

NOTES

=Harlem River=:--Note that this river is in New York City, not in France
as one might suppose from the name of the selection.

=Devonshire=:--A very attractive county of southwestern England.

=filet=:--A thick slice of meat or fish.

=charmant=:--The French word for _charming_.

=Roquefort=:--A kind of cheese.

=Sacre! Vous etes le diable=:--Curses! You are the very deuce.

=passe-partouts=:--Engraved ornamental borders for pictures.

=gendarme=:--A policeman of France.

=Napoleon III=:--Emperor of the French, 1852-1870. He was elected
president of the Republic in 1848; he seized full power in 1851; in
1852, he was proclaimed emperor. He was a nephew of the great Napoleon.

=confrere=:--A close associate.

=Garibaldi=:--Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian patriot (1807-1882).

=Chianti=:--A kind of Italian wine.

=Bronx=:--A small river in the northern part of New York City.

=Restaurant Francais=:--French restaurant.

=the painter=:--A rope at the bow of a boat.

=C'est merveilleux=:--It's wonderful.

=Mon Dieu=:--Good heavens!

=pate de fois gras=:--A delicacy made of fat goose livers.

=Chateau Lamonte, '62=:--A kind of wine; the date refers to the year in
which it was bottled.

=Oui, mon pere=:--Yes, father.

=mon ami=:--My friend.

=the little affair of December 2=:--On December 2, 1851, Louis Napoleon
overawed the French legislature and assumed absolute power. Just a year
later he had himself proclaimed Emperor.

=Louis=:--Napoleon III.

=Victor Hugo=:--French poet and novelist (1802-1885).

=Louis Blanc=:--French author and politician (1812-1882).

=Changarnier=:--Pronounced _shan gaer ny[=a]'_; Nicholas Changarnier, a
French general (1793-1877).

=Cavaignac=:--Pronounced _ka vay nyak'_; Louis Eugene Cavaignac, a
French general (1803-1857). He ran for the Presidency against Louis
Napoleon.

=Porte St. Martin=:--The beginning of the Boulevard St. Martin, in
Paris.

=Rue Royale=:--_Rue_ is the French word for _street_.

=Elysee=:--A palace in Paris used as a residence by Napoleon III.

=one hundred francs=:--About twenty dollars.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

What does the title suggest to you? At what point do you change your
idea as to the location of Laguerre's? Do you know of any picturesque
places that are somewhat like the one described here? Could you
describe one of them for the class? Why do people usually not appreciate
the scenery near at hand? What do you think of the plan of "seeing
America first"? What is meant here by "my traps"? Why is it better to
wait for Madame? Why does Madame talk so crossly? What sort of person is
she? See if you can tell accurately, from what follows in later pages,
why Monsieur left Paris so hastily. How does the author give you an idea
of Francois Laguerre's appearance? Why does the author stop to give us
the two paragraphs beginning, "There is a quality," and "Then came a
long interval"? How does he get back to his subject? Why does he not let
Lucette bail the boat? Who does bail it at last? Why? Do you think that
every artist enjoys his work as the writer seems to enjoy his? How does
he make you feel the pleasure of it? Why is there more enjoyment in
eating out of doors than in eating in the house? Why does the author
sprinkle little French phrases through the piece? Is it a good plan to
use foreign phrases in this way? What kind of man is Monsieur Laguerre?
Review his story carefully. Why was the police agent murdered? Who
killed him? Why has Monsieur Laguerre never found out what became of
Cambier?

This selection deals with a number of different subjects: Why does it
not seem "choppy"? How does the author manage to link the different
parts together? How would you describe this piece to some one who had
not read it? Mr. Smith is an artist who paints in water-colors: do you
see how his painting influences his writing?

THEME SUBJECTS

Madame Laguerre
Old-fashioned Garden
The Ferry
Sketching
An Old Pasture
The Stream
Good Places to Sketch
Learning to Paint
An Old Man with a History
An Incident in French History
Getting Dinner under Difficulties
A Scene in the Kitchen
Washing at the Pump
The Flight of the Suspect
Crossing the Ocean
penniless
The Foreigner
Looking for Work
A Dinner out of Doors
The French Family at Home
The Cellar
Some Pictures that I Like
A Restaurant
A Country Inn
What my Foreign Neighbors Eat
Landscapes
The Artist

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

=The Stream=:--Plan a description of some stream that you know well.
Imagine yourself taking a trip up the stream in a boat. Tell something
of the weather and the time of day. Speak briefly of the boat and its
occupants. Describe the first picturesque spot: the trees and flowers;
the buildings, if there are any; the reflections in the water; the
people that you see. Go on from point to point, describing the
particularly interesting places. Do not try to do too much. Vary your
account by telling of the boats you meet. Perhaps there will be some
brief dialogues that you can report, or some little adventures that you
can relate. Close your theme by telling of your arrival at your
destination, or of your turning about to go back down the stream.

=An Old Man with a History=:--Perhaps you can take this from real life;
or perhaps you know some interesting old man whose early adventures you
can imagine. Tell briefly how you happened to know the old man. Describe
him. Speak of his manners, his way of speaking; his character as it
appeared when you knew him. How did you learn his story? Imagine him
relating it. Where was he when he told it? How did he act? Was he
willing to tell the story, or did he have to be persuaded? Tell the
story simply and directly, in his words, breaking it now and then by a
comment or a question from the listener (or listeners). It might be well
to explain occasionally how the old man seemed to feel, what expressions
his face assumed, and what gestures he made. Go on thus to the end of
the story. Is it necessary for you to make any remarks at the last,
after the man has finished?

=A Country Inn=:--See the outline for a similar subject on page 229.

COLLATERAL READINGS

A Day at Laguerre's and Other Days F. Hopkinson Smith
Gondola Days " " "
The Under Dog " " "
Caleb West, Master Diver " " "
Tom Grogan " " "
The Other Fellow " " "
Colonel Carter of Cartersville " " "
Colonel Carter's Christmas " " "
The Fortunes of Oliver Horn " " "
Forty Minutes Late " " "
At Close Range " " "
A White Umbrella in Mexico " " "
A Gentleman Vagabond " " "
(Note especially in this, _Along the Bronx_.)
Fisherman's Luck Henry van Dyke
A Lazy Idle Brook (in _Fisherman's Luck_) " "
Little Rivers " "
The Friendly Road David Grayson
Adventures in Contentment " "

For information concerning Mr. Smith, consult:--

A History of Southern Literature, p. 375., Carl Holliday
American Authors and their Homes, pp. 187-194 F.W. Halsey

Bookman, 17:16 (Portrait); 24:9, September, 1906 (Portrait); 28:9,
September, 1908 (Portrait). Arena, 38:678, December, 1907. Outlook,
93:689, November 27, 1909. Bookbuyer, 25:17-20, August, 1902.

QUITE SO

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

(In _Marjorie Daw, and Other Stories_)

I

Of course that was not his name. Even in the State of Maine, where it is
still a custom to maim a child for life by christening him Arioch or
Shadrach or Ephraim, nobody would dream of calling a boy "Quite So." It
was merely a nickname which we gave him in camp; but it stuck to him
with such bur-like tenacity, and is so inseparable from my memory of
him, that I do not think I could write definitely of John Bladburn if I
were to call him anything but "Quite So."

It was one night shortly after the first battle of Bull Run. The Army of
the Potomac, shattered, stunned, and forlorn, was back in its old
quarters behind the earth-works. The melancholy line of ambulances
bearing our wounded to Washington was not done creeping over Long
Bridge; the blue smocks and the gray still lay in windrows on the field
of Manassas; and the gloom that weighed down our hearts was like the fog
that stretched along the bosom of the Potomac, and infolded the valley
of the Shenandoah. A drizzling rain had set in at twilight, and, growing
bolder with the darkness, was beating a dismal tattoo on the tent,--the
tent of Mess 6, Company A, --th Regiment, N.Y. Volunteers. Our mess,
consisting originally of eight men, was reduced to four. Little Billy,
as one of the boys grimly remarked, had concluded to remain at
Manassas; Corporal Steele we had to leave at Fairfax Court-House, shot
through the hip; Hunter and Suydam we had said good-by to that
afternoon. "Tell Johnny Reb," says Hunter, lifting up the leather
sidepiece of the ambulance, "that I'll be back again as soon as I get a
new leg." But Suydam said nothing; he only unclosed his eyes languidly
and smiled farewell to us.

The four of us who were left alive and unhurt that shameful July day sat
gloomily smoking our brier-wood pipes, thinking our thoughts, and
listening to the rain pattering against the canvas. That, and the
occasional whine of a hungry cur, foraging on the outskirts of the camp
for a stray bone, alone broke the silence, save when a vicious drop of
rain detached itself meditatively from the ridge-pole of the tent, and
fell upon the wick of our tallow candle, making it "cuss," as Ned Strong
described it. The candle was in the midst of one of its most profane
fits when Blakely, knocking the ashes from his pipe and addressing no
one in particular, but giving breath, unconsciously as it were, to the
result of his cogitations, observed that "it was considerable of a
fizzle."

"The 'on to Richmond' business?"

"Yes."

"I wonder what they'll do about it over yonder," said Curtis, pointing
over his right shoulder. By "over yonder" he meant the North in general
and Massachusetts especially. Curtis was a Boston boy, and his sense of
locality was so strong that, during all his wanderings in Virginia, I do
not believe there was a moment, day or night, when he could not have
made a bee-line for Faneuil Hall.

"Do about it?" cried Strong. "They'll make about two hundred thousand
blue flannel trousers and send them along, each pair with a man in
it,--all the short men in the long trousers, and all the tall men in the
short ones," he added, ruefully contemplating his own leg-gear, which
scarcely reached to his ankles.

"That's so," said Blakely. "Just now, when I was tackling the commissary
for an extra candle, I saw a crowd of new fellows drawing blankets."

"I say there, drop that!" cried Strong. "All right, sir, didn't know it
was you," he added hastily, seeing it was Lieutenant Haines who had
thrown back the flap of the tent, and let in a gust of wind and rain
that threatened the most serious bronchial consequences to our
discontented tallow dip.

"You're to bunk in here," said the lieutenant, speaking to some one
outside. The some one stepped in, and Haines vanished in the darkness.

When Strong had succeeded in restoring the candle to consciousness, the
light fell upon a tall, shy-looking man of about thirty-five, with long,
hay-colored beard and mustache, upon which the rain-drops stood in
clusters, like the night-dew on patches of cobweb in a meadow. It was an
honest face, with unworldly sort of blue eyes, that looked out from
under the broad visor of the infantry cap. With a deferential glance
towards us, the new-comer unstrapped his knapsack, spread his blanket
over it, and sat down unobtrusively.

"Rather damp night out," remarked Blakely, whose strong hand was
supposed to be conversation.

"Quite so," replied the stranger, not curtly, but pleasantly, and with
an air as if he had said all there was to be said about it.

"Come from the North recently?" inquired Blakely, after a pause.

"Yes."

"From any place in particular?"

"Maine."

"People considerably stirred up down there?" continued Blakely,
determined not to give up.

"Quite so."

Blakely threw a puzzled look over the tent, and seeing Ned Strong on the
broad grin, frowned severely. Strong instantly assumed an abstracted
air, and began humming softly,

"I wish I was in Dixie."

"The State of Maine," observed Blakely, with a certain defiance of
manner not at all necessary in discussing a geographical question, "is a
pleasant State."

"In summer," suggested the stranger.

"In summer, I mean," returned Blakely with animation, thinking he had
broken the ice. "Cold as blazes in winter, though,--isn't it?"

The new recruit merely nodded.

Blakely eyed the man homicidally for a moment, and then, smiling one of
those smiles of simulated gayety which the novelists inform us are more
tragic than tears, turned upon him with withering irony.

"Trust you left the old folks pretty comfortable?"

"Dead."

"The old folks dead!"

"Quite so."

Blakely made a sudden dive for his blanket, tucked it around him with
painful precision, and was heard no more.

Just then the bugle sounded "lights out,"--bugle answering bugle in
far-off camps. When our not elaborate night-toilets were complete,
Strong threw somebody else's old boot at the candle with infallible aim,
and darkness took possession of the tent. Ned, who lay on my left,
presently reached over to me, and whispered, "I say, our friend 'quite
so' is a garrulous old boy! He'll talk himself to death some of these
odd times, if he isn't careful. How he _did_ run on!"

The next morning, when I opened my eyes, the new member of Mess 6 was
sitting on his knapsack, combing his blond beard with a horn comb. He
nodded pleasantly to me, and to each of the boys as they woke up, one by
one. Blakely did not appear disposed to renew the animated conversation
of the previous night; but while he was gone to make a requisition for
what was in pure sarcasm called coffee, Curtis ventured to ask the man
his name.

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