Part 3

Ah Sin--smiling, courteous, honest--worked fifteen hours a day, and put his profits in the bank. In time he would go back to China a rich man. Then Moses came.

That Moses should come to Burning Bush was inevitable. Burning Bush had begun to boom. The odour of its prosperity had been wafted afar, and the nostrils of the Israelite knew it.

The new store, lavishly painted in greens and yellows, was the most noticeable thing in town. When Moses had moved in, even the Montezuma hotel seemed to shrink. It had two show windows of pure plate glass--their contents tagged with legends proclaiming cut prices. Across the full width of its imposing false-front elevation there appeared this sign:

STOP! LOOK! LISTEN! THE ORIGINAL MOSES GOLDEN RULE EMPORIUM.

With such simple lures are the simple enticed. Burning Bush stopped, looked--and listened to maneuvering Moses. It is the new thing that catches the eye and fills the ear. Ah Sin had forgotten to beat his gong. Custom fell off, and found its way to the newcomer. In a month or so the Celestial hardly held his own.

Ah Sin, losing trade, was troubled. Meeting the cut in prices did not bring back his customers. With Oriental taste he organized a novel window display--in vain. Something was the matter. But what?

Ah Sin's guileless mind could not grasp it. Thrown on his own mental resources, he grappled as best he could with the problem. The Bible teachers had taught him that the Jews were a race dispersed and paying the penalty of their transgressions. Ah Sin believed this to be literally the truth. Yet he, a Christian, seemed about to be overcome by the competition of an Israelite.

"Velly funny," said Ah Sin to himself. "Heblew make good. Chlistian catchee hell."

He strolled out into the street, his shop being empty for the time, and contemplated long and earnestly the place of his competitor across the way. Something about the sign seemed to puzzle him and to make him think. He shook his head. Then he backed off and looked critically at his own shop, with its modest device: "Ah Sin--General Store." Presently his impassive face lighted up; and that night his sleep was shortened by an hour devoted to a search of the Scriptures. Had not his teachers told him to turn to the Bible in time of doubt and trial? They were not here to counsel him, but he had a clew.

He awoke next morning clothed and girded with strength. And all that day, when business permitted, he laboured on a canvas sign, which he lettered himself, with brush and India ink, smiling contentedly the while.

It was Curly Bob, foreman of the Frying Pan outfit on Sun Creek, who saw it first. Coming into town at a lope, in quest of cut plug, his roving eye was arrested by the new announcement of Ah Sin. By temperament and training Curly was unemotional, but, seeing Ah Sin's handiwork, he pulled so suddenly on his spade bit that the cayuse fell back on its haunches. For there, in the eyelids of the morning, Ah Sin, seeking an everlasting sign, had flung forth a banner that prevailed against the Jew. In black, bold letters a foot high, it beckoned to the trade of Burning Bush:

STOP! LOOK! LISTEN! THE ORIGINAL SIN TEN PER CENT. FORGIVEN FOR CASH

Whereupon Curly Bob, swearing softly in admiration, blew himself to tobacco for the whole outfit.

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BUSINESS AND ETHICS

By Redfield Ingalls

In the dingy office of A. Slivowitz & Co., manufacturers of dyes, things were humming. Every clerk was bent over his desk, hard and cheerfully at work, and there was a general air of bustle and efficiency.

That was because A. Slivowitz stood in the doorway of his private office looking on.

The portly head of the firm watched the scene complacently for a few minutes. Then, catching the eye of his young but efficient private secretary, he beckoned him with an air of mystery to the inner sanctum.

The secretary, who was sharp of eye and alert of manner, rose at once and followed, though it was not the custom of A. Slivowitz to summon him thus. His employer sank ponderously into his swivel chair and motioned to the secretary to shut the door and take a seat. Then for a minute or so he was silent, playing with his massive gold watch chain and studying the young man through puckered lids. But if the secretary was perturbed he did not show it.

"Mr. Sloane," began Slivowitz, at length, in his heavy voice, "you been with the firm now how long--six or five months, ain't it?"

"Nearly six," the dapper young man confirmed briskly.

"You're a smart feller, Mr. Sloane," his employer continued, examining the huge diamond on his left hand. "Already you picked it up a lot about dyeing. A fine dyer you should make. Now, Mr. Sloane, I'm going to fire you."

The secretary's eyebrows went up a trifle, but otherwise he showed no great perturbation. Perhaps a certain elephantine playfulness in the big man's tone reassured him.

"By me business is good," Slivowitz went on, with a fat chuckle. "I'm a business man, Mr. Sloane, first and last, and nobody don't never put nothing over by me."

Knowing something of his employer's business methods, Sloane could have amplified. What he said was: "Thanks to your royal purple, Mr. Slivowitz. You've about cornered the trade."

"They can't none of 'em touch it, that purple; posi-tive-ly," agreed the dyer, with much satisfaction. "But"--and he became confidential--"between me and you strictly, this here now Domestic Dye Works, they got it a mauve what gives me a pain."

He hitched his chair closer and laid a pudgy hand on Sloane's knee. "I'm going to fire you," he repeated, with a wink. "I want you should go by the Domestic Dye Works and get it a job. Find out about the formula for their mauve--you understand me--and come back mit it, and you get back your job and a hundred or seventy-five dollars."

Sloane started. For a moment he stared at his employer, his face going red and pale again; then he rose to his feet.

"Sorry, Mr. Slivowitz, but I can't consider it," he said.

"Oh, come now, Mr. Sloane!" protested the dyer, with a laugh, leaning back in his chair. He produced a thick cigar and bit off the end. "These here scruples does you credit, Mr. Sloane, but business is business; and, take it from me, Mr. Sloane, you can't mix business up mit ethics. Them things is all right, but you gotta skin the other guy before he skins you first, ain't it?"

"That may be----" began the secretary, as he moved toward the door.

"_May_ be? Ain't I just told you it _is_?" Slivowitz paused in the act of striking a match to glare. "You needn't to be scared they'll find it out where you come from and fire you, neither, Mr. Sloane," he added, more quietly and with a cunning expression. "I got brains, I have. A little thing like recommends to a smart man like _me_----" The match broke. He flung it into the cuspidor and selected another.

Sloane paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Mr. Slivowitz----" he began again.

"Of course," continued his employer, "I could make it--well, a hundred fifteen, Mr. Sloane. But, believe me, not a cent more, posi-_tive_-ly."

The secretary shook his head decidedly.

"What?" roared Slivowitz. "Y' mean to tell me y' ain't goin' to do it? _All_ right; you're fired anyhow, you understand me." Then with an evil glitter in his eyes, "And if you don't bring by me that formula, you get fired from the Domestic Dye Works; _and you don't get it no job nowheres else, too_! Now, you take your choice." This time the match lighted successfully.

Sloane smiled. "Quite impossible," he said. "I was going to resign in a day or two, anyway."

"Eh?" exclaimed the head of the firm, his jaw dropping and his florid face paling a little. In the face of a number of possibilities he forgot the match in his fingers.

"Yes. You see--you'll know it sooner or later--the Domestic Dye Works sent me here to learn the formula for your royal purple."

And the door slammed shut behind A. Slivowitz's private secretary.

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NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE

By Mary Woodbury Caswell

The short winter day of Alaska was brightening as Gertrude pushed her chair back from the breakfast table and announced that she proposed to go at once for her constitutional. Her brother placidly assented, but Keith interposed with a worried look.

"Hadn't you better go with her, Bob? I suppose I've grown to be an old granny, but since Jacques told us of that outlaw who threatened to kidnap a white girl for his wife, I don't like to have Gertrude get out of sight."

The girl bent over him caressingly.

"Don't worry, dear," she said. "Jacques had been drinking hard when he told you of this mythical exile. Besides, I am no Helen of Troy to be abducted for my beauty. I'd really much rather have Bob stay with you."

And she kissed him, put on warm wraps, took her snowshoes and started for the daily tramp that had kept her fit ever since she had come up on the last boat, hastily summoned by a cable from Bob when her fiancé had his shoulder crushed, and it would be impossible for the young men to return to the States with their stake. She and Bob had nursed him into convalescence, but it had been a hard winter for him, and she did not wonder that he had developed some nervousness, though she considered his fear for her wholly unnecessary, as, indeed, did Bob.

When she was a half-mile from the cabin and a slight rise of ground hid it from her, she saw a dog team approaching, and smiled, thinking that Keith would surely consider that danger was near. As it met her the driver touched his cap, and she had a swift impression of a very different type than she had recently met, and one that made Jacques's fantastic tale seem less absurd. As she involuntarily glanced back she saw, and now with alarm, that the stranger had turned and was coming toward her. He stopped the dogs close to her and inquired courteously, and with a foreign accent:

"Can you tell me, mademoiselle, how near I am to some residence?"

"Our cabin is over the hill," she replied quietly, though with growing terror, which was justified, as he sprang toward her, swathing her in a blanket, so that she could neither speak nor struggle, and placing her on the sled.

She could not have told whether it was hours or minutes before she was lifted, carried into a cabin, and the blanket unfolded from her, while a savage-looking husky dog growled a greeting. Her captor shook off his heavy outer coat, removed his cap, and with exaggerated deference said:

"Mademoiselle, pray remove your parka and permit that I relieve you of your snowshoes. I do myself the honour, mademoiselle, to offer you marriage."

Resolutely conquering her fear, Gertrude looked steadily at him. The man evidently was, or had been, a gentleman; but what must his life have been to bring him to this! As composedly as she could she answered:

"I must decline your offer. Pray permit me to return home."

"Ah, no, mademoiselle. I fear I cannot allow that. As for marriage--as you please, but in any case you must remain here."

"Not alive," she said.

"Ah, but, mademoiselle, how not?" he asked, in mockery of courtesy more pronounced. "It is not so easy to die"--with a sudden bitter sadness.

"There are many ways," she replied. "Here is one."

And, seizing a dog whip lying near, she struck the husky a sharp blow and, as he furiously leaped to his feet, flung herself upon the floor before him. He fastened his teeth in her arm as his master grasped his throat, and the struggle shook the cabin. At last the man broke the dog's hold and dragged him to the door. Gertrude's heavy clothing had saved her arm from anything but a superficial wound, but as he bound it up she said:

"The dog will not forget, and if he fails me I can find another way."

His face, which had paled, flushed a dark red as he hastily spoke.

"For God's sake do not think--but why should you not? You are free, mademoiselle. Such courage shows me I am not quite the brute I fancied I had become, and also that there is one woman in the world whose 'no' assuredly does not mean 'yes.' I will take you home at once, on the faith of a Marovitch."

She stared at him incredulously and said slowly:

"Is it possible--are you Count Boris Marovitch?"

"Yes"--in deep wonder--"that is my name, but how could you know?"

"This letter should interest you," she said. "It is from Varinka. I was at a convent school in Paris with her." And she watched him excitedly as he read aloud the passage she indicated.

"Do you remember my telling you of my cousin Boris, who was sent to Siberia for killing Prince ---- in a duel? It was supposed that he was shot while trying to escape, but the guard has confessed that he was bribed to assist him, and he may be living. The Czar would gladly pardon him if he would return, his homicidal tendencies being valuable in the present war crisis. And Olga has steadfastly refused to marry any one else, so----"

A sharply drawn breath interrupted the reading, and the letter fell to the floor from his shaking hands as he looked at her, his face white and drawn.

"Mademoiselle, it is too much," he gasped. "Your courage--your generosity--I insult you unforgivably and you give me back honour, love, life--I cannot say----" And he sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

She went over to him and laid her hand gently on his shoulder.

"I am glad you are happy, Count," she said, "and I am sure we shall be very good friends. Please take me home now."

They met Bob halfway, striding along with an anxious face, his rifle over his shoulder. "This is my brother, Mr. Stacey," said Gertrude. "Bob, this is Count Marovitch, of whom Varinka wrote. He starts to-morrow by dog train to the States on his way to Russia."

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THE OLD THINGS

By Jessie Anderson Chase

Like Sir Roger's neighbours peering over the hedge, I had daily observed, over my stone wall, a very old gentleman in his shirt sleeves, who pleasantly gave me the rôle of Spectator. A New-Englander of the elder type, with the heavy bent head of the thinker; but, particularly, with the piercing yet so kindly humorous blue eye that loses none of its colour with age, but seems to grow more vivid and vital with the same years that steal from the hair its hue of life and from the walnut cheek its glowing red.

Such an eye, to a lawyer like myself, accustomed to look for a human document in every human face, seemed the very epitome of eighty years: a carefree boyhood among _contemporaries_--in house furnishings, in barn and pigsty, orchard and gardens; a youth that sees already a new generation in most of these companions of his earthly pilgrimage; a middle age, forced out of the romantic sense of companionship on the road, into the persistent and finally triumphant view of using environment for ends of its own; and then old age, free to return and lavish forgotten endearments upon the "old things!" This or the other "landmark," dear, and familiar from life's beginnings. These periods, all slipping unnoticed into their successors, yet each possessing a distinct and tangible outline and colour, had all had their turn at my neighbour's blue eyes. And the look that comes only at the end, when the life has been prodigal of response and of an unswerving fidelity in the storing up of values--that was the look that I valued as a thing of price.

It was a day of late summer that brought me more directly face to face with its beauty and gravity. The old gentleman appeared, in his shirt sleeves, but with plenty of ceremony in his quiet demeanour, at the door of my little "portable" law office, at the edge of the orchard.

"I am told, sir," he began, "that you are an attorney at law."

I bowed, and offered him a chair but he continued standing.

"I have come," he said, "to request your services in drawing up my last will and testament--that is," he serenely emended, "in case your vacation time is subject to such interruption."

While I was formulating my assent he continued:

"You have no doubt, since coming into this rather communicative neighbourhood, been informed that my son owns the homestead."

The kind, keen old eyes took on a look of what George Eliot names "an enormous patience with the way of the world."

"Everything belongs to John and Mary. But there are one or two little old things that they don't care about. They're up in the lean-to. The old mirror that, as a lad, I used to see my face in over my mother's shoulder, it's still holding for me the picture of my mother smiling up at me. And the old ladder-back chair that she used to sit in and cuddle me; and switch, me, too--and maybe that took the most love of all. That's all. John and Mary don't want them. They're only old things, like myself. It's natural, perfectly natural. At their age I most probably felt just so."

He paused and looked through the lattice, where the reddened vine-leaves were beginning to fall.

"The young leaf-buds pushing off the old leaves. It's nature."

Before sunset--for the old man was strangely impatient--I had his "will" signed, witnessed, and sealed. The old mirror and chair were to go to a wee, odd little old lady, called in the neighbourhood "Miss Tabby" Titcomb because of her forty-odd cats, except for which she lived alone.

"Little Ellen," _he_ called her, as he fondly spoke of their school days together. "Mother would have been well content if we'd hit it off together, Ellen and I. But a boy is as apt as not, when urged one way, to fly off in another; and I was at the skittish age.

"I've never said this before to any man, sir, but I'd have been a better husband to Ellen. Mary was a faithful wife, and better than I deserved. But she was not just aware, like Ellen, of where to bear on hard and where to go a little easy. That's what a man needs in a woman, sir. Ellen always knew just when and where."

The next morning, which was Saturday, I was riding down Bare Hill Road--as it chanced, right past Miss Tabby's--when my horse shied; and that tiny old lady, with an enormous gray cat beside her, rose up from behind the lilac bushes. Bigger people than "little Ellen" have been frightened by Prince's antics, but she quietly put her hand on his restive neck as if he were only a little larger kitten, and then spoke to me in a soft little purr of a voice:

"I've heard--and you'll excuse me--that you're a lawyer, Mr. Alden; and I've a small matter I don't wish to entrust to any one here, being private. It's a letter for Mr. Thomas Sewall, to be delivered upon my demise, which I feel is about to take place." She spoke with a little note of relief, as if from some long strain.

I took the small envelope.

"It's just the cats," she was moved to confide further; "the little ones and the smart ones will all find friends. But the two _old ones_! Mr. Sewall has a notion for the old things. And"--here she hesitated long, while I breathlessly assured her of my best care for the letter--"there's--somewhat in the note _besides_ the cats," she brought out bravely. "You'll make sure it doesn't fall into John and Mary's hands?"

This was Saturday morning. Sunday, as I listened absent-mindedly to the slow toll of the meeting-house bell, my houskeeper remarked, on bringing in my coffee:

"Did you notice, sir? It was eighty-six. There's an old man and an old woman, both just the same age, in the village, died in the night."

The old chair, upon which--when they were young together--the little Tom had been spanked and comforted; and the mirror, still treasuring the picture of the round, saucy phiz over his mother's shoulder, were offered at auction and bid in for a trifle by me. I would have paid gold sovereigns for them, but not into the hands of John and Mary! The cats, likewise, sit by the hearth, on which was burned to ashes the letter "not _entirely_" about their disposal.

And the "Old Things" that cherished these earthly companions? The minister--himself a rare "old thing"--preached a funeral sermon for the two so strangely united by death; and his thin voice, like the tone of an old, cracked violin, still haunts me:

"Their youth is renewed like the eagle's.... And they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."

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THE FORCED MARCH

By Hornell Hart

Intermittently, when the snow ceased falling for a moment, Wojak could see the regiments ahead, black against the white fields, crawling interminably over the hilltop under the dull sky. Wojak was a burly, bearded fellow. These winter days pleased him. He liked the tingle that came with marching in the cold air. He liked the dull, rhythmic "scruff" of the hundreds of feet as the regiment swung along, welded by its months of marching into a living unity.

This was his own country they were marching through. His homestead lay not twenty miles away, near this very road. As he trudged along thoughts of Sophy and little Stephan kept slipping into his mind.

At the crest of the hill the regiment came to a halt. Back from the road, half hidden in trees that were cut sharp and black against the snow and the sky, stood the ruin of a house.

"Just so stands my house," thought Wojak. "Behind, among the trees, should be the pigsty to the left, the stable to the right."

He turned and waded through the newly fallen snow toward the dwelling. Charred beams at one end showed where a fire had been checked by the snowfall. In the yard beneath the fluffy new snow the old layer had evidently been tramped. Behind the house he found the pigsty and the stable.

"But the stable is bigger than mine," he murmured.

He looked in. A pile of hay was in the corner, and on it lay some rags. The stable was so dark that Wojak thought he saw a child lying there. He went over to the corner. On the hay was a yellow head, the round cheeks streaked with tears. The child was sleeping, but its breath came in little sobs. With clumsy gentleness the soldier picked the baby up.

"Stephan had curls like that," he whispered.

As he stepped out into the light the child awoke. A chubby arm slipped about the burly neck, and the blue eyes looked at him with the beginning of a smile. But in a moment the fact that this was not father, but a strange man, came over the baby, and he began to sob, not angrily, but with a worn anguish that gripped Wojak's heart.