february—the coon moon

he was no kin to the man of whittier’s eulogy, though he might well have been; jim bradley was only the conductor on the milk freight that fussed and fumed its way down the valley of the moosatuck every evening, at intervals leaving the single track road of the sky line to rest upon the sidings while a passenger train or the through express took right of way.

to miranda banks, however, bradley seemed a hero as he sprang from the caboose, swinging his lantern, when his train took the switch and halted on the side track below the calf pastures.

to be sure his claim to heroism had, so far, rested upon the fact that both he and his vocation moved. in hattertown very few people or things had moved these ten years past; they had groped as being between daylight and dark. the beginning of this twilight period was when the trade that gave the town both its name and reason for being, owing to change of methods and market, vanished across the low gentian meadows of the moosatuck to install itself anew in bridgeton, fifteen miles away. the empty factory, long and vainly offered for sale, became a storage place for the hay that speculators bought on the field from the somnolent hillside farmers and held for the winter market. at the same time the hay gave the building a good reputation among the travelling brotherhood of the back roads, who work a week and tramp on again (an entirely distinct clan from the hoboes who follow the railroad through villages and alternate thieving with stolen rides upon freight trains), and the factory became a wayfarers’ lodging-house, until gradually the unpainted boards turned black and the building grew hollow-eyed as its window panes were shattered.

when man wholly forsook it, swallows and swifts brought primitive life to it again, the one nesting against its warped rafters, the others lining the chimney, now free from plaster and very hospitable, with their bracketed homes, until their flocks pouring forth from its mouth at dawn and swirling and settling at evening, seemed in the distance a curling column of smoke.

the row of cheap wooden houses where the factory hands had lived, had also mouldered away and joined the general ruin, only a starved grape-vine or rose-bush telling that they had once been homes; until, at the time i first saw the place, the most depressing of all palls seemed over it,—the shadow of a dead industry.

it was an october morning when lavinia cortright and i drove up into the hill country with father, who went to see a woman who had applied for a free bed in the bridgeton hospital, an aunt of miranda banks, she afterward proved to be; and while father went into the little farm-house, that had bright geraniums in the windows and wore more of a general air of thrift than any of those we had passed in the last mile of our uphill ride, lavinia and i sauntered along the road and finally settled ourselves on a tumble-down stone wall in the midst of a wild grape-vine whose fruit was black with sun-ripeness and bore the moist bloom of the first light frost.

as we gazed idly over the fields toward the river, that seemed, as we looked down upon it, to filter through the glowing branches of the swamp maples, washing their colours with it, rather than to flow between banks of earth, we sipped the pure wild grape wine where alone it may be found,—between the skin and pulp of the grape itself, a few drops to each globe,—and fell to moralizing.

“you like to find a reason for everything, barbara,” said lavinia cortright, after a long pause; “can you tell me exactly why the country hereabout seems so desolate and impossible? it has all the colour and atmosphere of the perfect autumn landscape, and yet the idea of living here would be appalling.”

i had been thinking the same thing as lavinia spoke; there was something in the very wind that blew over the ruined factory settlement that was deterrent; funerals might take place there, but how could enough impetus ever exist to cause weddings or christenings?

at this moment the door of a small building, the schoolhouse at the cross-roads immediately below, opened, and a dozen or more children rushed out pell-mell, followed by the slim form of a young woman, evidently the teacher, who closed the door and prepared to take a cross cut through the fields, the worn track leading up to the pasture bars close to where we were sitting. no bell, no whistle, no exodus of labourers from the fields to mark the noon hour, the impulsive rush of childhood breaking bounds was the only clock.

the woman disappeared in a dip of the land, and then presently her head emerged from it and the whole figure appeared again walking between the deep green bayberry bushes that make the dark patches in the waste hillside fields. she walked without either energy or fatigue, looking neither to the right nor left; the freckled face, tending to thinness, interested me from the first glance, for though it wore very little expression, it was in no wise vacant; the chin was firm, and there was a good space between the eyes, which opened wide and had none of the squinting shrewdness i have met with in my wanderings with father among remote rural communities. it was an unawakened face, and as i began to wonder what could ever come to give it the vital touch, she reached the bars and seeing us for the first time, paused, scrutinized us slowly, and then said with a tinge of irritation in the tone:—

“i wish you wouldn’t spoil those grapes, i’m going to spice them on saturday. i should have done it last week, but they are always better for a touch of frost.”

i straightway disentangled myself from the vine with a guilty feeling, and murmured the usual apology of the roadside depredators; that is, when they deign to make excuses, about the grapes being wild and not knowing that they belonged to any one, but my words fell upon deaf ears.

“there were full ten pounds of grapes here this morning, but with what you’ve eaten and more that you’ve shaken off, there isn’t more than six pounds left. how came you up here, anyhow? nobody ever passes this way; even the mail-man turns ’round below at four corners. i’m randy banks.”

this gave me my chance to explain father’s errand. “do you think dr. russell can get aunt lucy in?” she asked, eagerness bringing a pretty colour to her cheeks. “it isn’t the care of her we mind, ma and i,” she added hastily, “but it’s the loneliness for her of days in winter when i’m at school and ma out nursing mebbe; being chair-tied at best, there’s just nothing to break the time, for nothing ever happens.”

“now that you have the rural free delivery, you get your mail and papers every day without having to go down to the hattertown post-office,” i said, trying to find a cheerful loophole.

“that’s no advantage to us, rather the other way. when town was alive and we drove down to the post-office, even if we had no mail, and we never do except the newspaper, somebody else had and maybe opened it right there and told the news for the sake of talking it over with some one else. then market and store were in the same building and chances were you’d be reminded of something you needed by seeing it, or maybe a bit of fresh meat would look tempting and be sold reasonable, too, if it was near week-end. but to go to that box at cross-roads, though it’s only a step, and find it empty, it’s as lonesome and strange as a draught coming from a shut-up room.”

then as she realized that she was in a way complaining of her lot to a stranger, a thing that the etiquette of the entire hill country quite forbade, she broke off, and turning toward the house, said in a perfectly unembarrassed way: “won’t you come in? mother will have dinner ready. she’d be pleased to see you. i have to hurry back to school to-day, for the committee man is coming to see if the old stove can be mended or if we must have a new one, for it’s never done well since joel fanton put a shotgun cartridge in it last winter.” then we went in, wondering if events would ever so shape themselves that she would become an active factor on a wider path than that between the corner school and the old farm-house.

it was three years before i saw miranda again; meanwhile, a far-away city had thrown a lariat of steel across country, and it had encircled hattertown; a railway that ran down the valley needed a southern outlet. the survey ran by the ruined factory, and rounding nob hill, crossed the river below the banks’ farm, and disappeared on trestles over “calf pastures,” a name given strangely enough to many a bit of waste river meadow, as if calves did not need the best of material to become successful cows.

at the sound of the first locomotive whistle, announcing that the branch road was a thing accomplished and neither a scare nor a phantom boom, the rip van winkles awoke and rubbed their eyes. they had slept a half-famished sleep. rather than push and plan a way to sell their produce, they had ceased producing.

the sky line railroad had come. cruft’s store was rented as a temporary station and the name hattertown appeared in dazzling white letters on the black sign over the door. in one room were scales for weighing freight and a baggage truck, in the other, a ticket booth took the place of the old post-boxes, while on a shelf behind the little window, a telegraph instrument ticked and told the doings of the outer world to the only man in the neighbourhood that could interpret it. time-tables were tacked above the two benches in a corner that made the waiting-room, but the greatest excitement of all was contained in a great poster that was not only stuck in conspicuous places in all the settlements along the line, but put in the mail-boxes as well, announcing that a milk train would be run nightly, sundays included, and urging all farmers, if they had no milk to market, to make immediate arrangements for producing that commodity.

the widow banks had three cows. a dealer in bridgeton had tried to buy them late in the autumn when fodder was at a premium, but she had withstood temptation and taken the risk of wintering them; if she had not, miranda would never have met jim bradley during the negotiations for the transportation to the city of the polished tin can that cost the little teacher many days’ pay, and was regarded by her as a speculation as wild and daring as any gambler staking his all on a throw of dice, nor would this story have found its way into father’s note-book.

jim bradley came of good up-country stock, but the yeast of desire to see the world had led him upon the shining road, freight brakeman first and now conductor. visiting new york every other day, he seemed a travelled man of the world to miranda, whose outside life was bounded by two trips a year to bridgeton and the paragraphs upon racial traits, habits and customs, exports and imports contained in the geography which she had heard droned and mispronounced annually for the five seasons she had taught at the corners.

a year had passed, and now when jim bradley ran his train into the siding at hattertown, he could not have told which light he saw first, the railway signal or the well-trimmed lamp in the widow banks’ kitchen; this light, being always kept bright and clear, was lit at sunset with the regularity of a lighthouse beacon, the reflector improvised from a tin plate being turned so that the welcoming rays met the milk train as it rounded the hills and left solid ground for the trestles between eight and half-past every evening.

as the whistle of the eight-fifteen morning train spelt school to miranda, so the whistle of the milk freight, one long and two short, not only spelled but shouted jim bradley, and as a matter of course, she took her hand lantern if the night was dark, or else trusted to the moon and stars and following the now well-worn path through the corn patch to “calf pastures,” reached the low shed by the water-tank almost at the moment that the engine gave its final puff, and jim bradley swung himself from the caboose and seeing that his rear lights were properly set, promptly forgot his train for an interval ranging from twenty minutes to perhaps half an hour, when traffic on the through express was heavy.

widow banks had long since announced to inquiries both of the really interested and maliciously curious order, that randy and jim bradley were keeping company, though, at the same time, regretting with a sigh that his business didn’t allow of evenings spent in the austere “fore room” where the one visible eye of the departed deacon’s portrait done in air brush crayon, might witness the courting. neither was it possible for randy to exhibit him to the neighbours in a bright and shining buggy with a blue bow tied to the whip, of a sunday afternoon, nor had they the chance for the same reason to judge of his capacity at prayer-meeting.

if either randy or jim had been questioned as to their relations to each other, they would have been speechless upon the subject. neither had given the matter a thought, and therefore neither was worried by the mazes of material analysis.

miranda simply obeyed a call that made the spot where jim bradley was the only possible place for her to be between eight and half past; but when the train left the siding, crossed the bridge over the moosatuck and disappeared, she returned to the house and gave her mind up to the correction of the smeared papers whereon the youth of hattertown were struggling along the arithmetic road, and in striving to prepare for the puzzling questions that the school’s bad boy might spring upon her on the morrow.

jim regarded matters much in the same way, that is, all through that spring, summer, and autumn. when winter set in and the siding grew chilly, the tank shed with its little stove became the only shelter, for, without realizing why, it never occurred to the man that the caboose with its bunk and litter of flags and lanterns was the place for randy.

one night she noticed that jim had a heavy cold, and the next evening she brought with her a basket in which a little pot of hot coffee and a generous wedge of equally fresh-baked mince pie kept each other warm. jim smiled at randy with a glance in which feigned indifference and indulgence struggled, as by way of table-cloth she spread the napkin that covered the basket, on a barrel top and motioned for him to eat, saying as she handed him a paper of sugar, “i didn’t know how you like your coffee sweetened, so i brought some sugar along.”

in some way the steam from that tin kettle as he looked across it, altered the perspective of his existence and changed his terminal; for the first time he wished that hattertown was at one end or the other of the route instead of a brief turnout in the middle.

then as randy under his guidance dropped the lumps of sugar in the pail (cup and saucer lacking), he suddenly formulated for the first time the fact of her refinement and the difference between her and the other women that he met along the route. a sudden vision of a home other than a caboose with meals taken at depot restaurants blazed comet-like across his firmament in a way that startled—no, fairly frightened him. that night the time passed so quickly that they were obliged to hurry up hill at a pace that left miranda flushed and with no breath for speech as she opened the narrow storm door to the back porch and swinging her lantern on a peg, turned to take the basket.

jim bradley looked at the girl, whose cape hung about her neck by a single fastening, its hood that she had pulled up for her head covering, falling back so that the glorious hair that was usually plastered and twisted into the subjection fitting a schoolmarm, was loosed and fell into its natural curves and waves. then he looked out into the dark to where one of his brakemen was waving the “time up” signal lantern furiously. buttoning his short coat with the air of making all snug and fit that a man might have who was about to face some new and dangerous situation, he stepped into the porch so quickly that miranda was caught betwixt him and the inner door at the moment when she had raised her arms to smooth her rumpled hair.

“i want to tell you something right up and out,” he said, also breathing hard from his run up hill. “that pie was the best i ever closed teeth on, better even than ever the old lady made and she took three prizes for mince pie running at the oldfield fair;” then, before miranda’s arms could drop, jim had grasped her in a swift but complete embrace, landing a kiss at random that all the same fell squarely upon her lips, and fled down hill through the night without another word.

when miranda returned to the kitchen this evening, she did not join her mother where she sat sewing by the reading lamp, but dropped on a bench before the open wood stove and began following the pictures the embers painted, with eyes that really took no note of outward happenings.

widow banks glanced at her daughter anxiously, then caught a glimpse of the smile that was hovering about her usually rather set lips, noticed the ruddy mane from which the hairpins rose in various attitudes of resentment, and glancing at the untouched task upon the table, gave a contented sigh and began to knit reminiscences of her own youth into the muffler she was fashioning for a missionary box. to be sure, she had planned a theological career for her only daughter. she was to have married a young theologue who had occupied the pulpit of the pound rock church for a year and then gone to india, where by virtue of her experience as a teacher, miranda was to help him convince the heathen, do credit to her religious training, and become a factor in the world. this plan belonged to seven years before when the girl was twenty, and it had not happened because the stubborn streak inherited from the deacon, stiffened randy’s neck and perverted her judgment to the extent of preferring hattertown to india, and declaring to her suitor and mother in one breath that if she ever felt a hankering for the heathen she could find plenty without leaving home.

when february comes the romance of winter is over in the hill country, and this long short month brings only the reality. it is a betwixt and between month, fully as trying as its opposite, august, that time of general stuffiness, flies, and limp linen.

january had been a month of even snow and good sleighing, but a sleet storm had made the many downhill roads that converged at hattertown well-nigh impassable with glittering ice; while in february, coughing and snuffling, as much a part of the month as st. valentine’s day, sadly interfered with discipline at the crossroads schoolhouse. miranda, under pressure, allowed herself to confess for the first time, that seven years was quite long enough for a woman to sit upon the selfsame wooden chair, or wrestle with the constitutional peculiarities of a sheet-iron stove. this stove, having been second-hand upon its arrival, was now wearing three patches through the ill-fitted rivets of which smoke and gas filtered, obscuring the wall map of north america that was at least three states behind the times.

the season and bad weather of course had some effect upon her point of view, for given june, open doors and windows, and a glimpse of the moosatuck to draw the eye from the faded map, the most pressing of grievances would have vanished.

somehow miranda had never realized until now what an exasperating month february was; formerly she had used the evenings for her spring sewing and was really glad of the forced cessation of the small events that made hattertown’s social life, but now the ice crust upon the hill slope above calf pastures made walking impossible between the house and the station siding, so that two or three and in one week five evenings went by and only the greeting of lantern signals passed between jim bradley and miranda.

the next afternoon on her return from school, miranda found a letter in the box, directed in a round, bold, and unfamiliar hand; moreover, it was for her. therefore, as it was a man’s writing it must be from jim. instead of opening it as she walked along, half a dozen children struggling on before or at her side, she dropped it in her pocket and then smiled to find, a few minutes later, when she reached her gate and needed a hand to open it with (the other carrying books) that it had remained inside the pocket caressing the square of paper.

widow banks was then “accommodating” at the house of the new ticket agent and telegraph operator, who had pneumonia, as his wife was obliged to fill his place. the banks’ house was empty save for the cat who purred before the stove, there was no necessity for seeking privacy; yet miranda went through the kitchen and shut herself into the little storm porch before she opened the envelope, and held the sheet close to the single diamond pane in the outer door that she might read.

“respected friend—” the words ran, “this has been the deuce of a month with ice and tie-ups. i need to see you special to-morrow night. if the run is close so i can’t get up, i’ll fix to have sweezy’s boy go fetch you to the depot with a team, so come down sure.

“yours with compliments,

“jim bradley.”

what did the special mean? was her hero going to leave the milk freight for a better job? that meant a passenger or possibly a through train, and neither of these would pause on the side track at hattertown. or—well, there was no use in guessing; “to-morrow night” was exactly twenty-eight hours away and that was all there was to it. so randy put wood on the fire, skimmed a saucer of cream which she gave to the cat as if in some way propitiating a powerful domestic idol, lit the lamp, though it was broad daylight, and began the preparation of curling the feathers in her best hat by holding them in the steam of the tea-kettle, and then realized that as the morrow was saturday, she would have plenty of time for both housework and preparation.

the last saturday morning of february did not really dawn, for the discouraged light merely struggled with a snowstorm so dense that the rays only penetrated by refraction. a little before noon the fall ceased, but the sky would not relax, and scowled dark and sullen as if with the pain of its recent effort, the snow lay heavy on hill and lowland, covering land and water alike; and, lodging on the ice, completely obliterated the boundary of the usually assertive moosatuck.

a few crows, cawing dismally, straggled toward what had been down stream from their cedar roosts, but all other sounds were muffled. it was almost noon before the village, headed by the first selectman with two yokes of oxen and as many ploughs, dug itself out; and a great snow-plough bound north cleared the rails for the morning mail train, now hours late. meanwhile mr. sweezy, the host of the “depot hotel,” the wit of the reconstructed hattertown, did a thriving trade with many usually abstemious citizens exhausted by the wielding of snow shovels, in beverages that did not bear the label “soft drinks,” and the ticket agent’s wife in the little booth struggled with and made more incoherent the reports that came over the snow-laden wires.

in spite of the storm and the desirability of daylight, there were four souls under the magnetic influence, as it were, of those bands of steel rails, that wished it were night. two that they might meet once more, and two in order that a distance might reach between them that it seemed likely would end in a more complete separation.

neither couple had ever seen or heard of the other, and yet the strands were fast weaving to draw them together and make it impossible to blot either from the other’s memory.

the first couple were man and maid, the second, man and wife.

jim bradley,—working his way slowly on the morning trip from new york in dire apprehension that the return trip would be hopelessly delayed as far as the interval at hattertown within visiting hours was concerned,—and miranda banks, who looked from her watch-tower of the kitchen window over the snow waves that had enveloped all below, through which the various hay-ricks and chimney stacks emerged and seemed to drift like bits of wreckage in an arctic sea. as she gazed she brought new england thrift to bear, and decided that hat and feathers would be an unseemly head covering on such a night, even if the meeting should be possible, and straightway put it by and began the freshening of an old hood with scraps of ribbon.

the second couple, john hasleton and helen, his wife, stood looking at each other across a table in the richly furnished library of one of the best modern houses of the city that was the sky line railroad’s eastern terminal.

everything about the room indicated a soothing combination of good taste augmented by money; the soft but not too profuse draperies and rugs, black oak shelves holding books of enticing title and suitably clothed, unique specimens of bronze and porcelain on table and shelf, prints upon the walls that through skill of dry point and gravers’ tools reflected the faces of the past,—poet, king, warrior, gallant, and court beauty, all given an added touch of reality and animation by the glowing colours the hearth fire flashed upon them. but on the two faces that gazed across the table lay an expression of animal hatred,—no, not animal, for that is direct and primitive, while human hatred is so compounded that one unimportant ingredient is often the yeast that ferments the whole inert bulk.

the man was openly furious, both in speech and mien; the woman held herself verbally within that purely technical and outward quality of self-control that is so exasperating to the opposite side, who feels that something is at stake besides success or defeat in argument.

this couple, of the relative ages of twenty-seven and thirty odd, had been married five years, spent largely in travel and social pleasures, satisfying their various tastes by acquisitions, and passing brief winters in the city house given by an indulgent father to his only daughter on her marriage.

until this time, no great responsibility had fallen on either to say you must or must not do this or that. but now circumstances called the husband to give his time to various interests in new york, necessitating a permanent removal.

“you forget that i have not refused to leave my home and assured social position here, and if i am willing to begin again elsewhere, you have no right to forbid this visit that will not only make everything plain, but amuse me greatly as well.” the words were reasonable, but the voice was hard, and the pointed white fingers, heavy with rings that seemed to touch the table top lightly, but in reality supported the swaying figure, were tense and cold.

“social position be damned! i’ve had enough of it these three years and over, but if not a soul should ever again speak to you in the street, i’ll not have it said that you have spent a single night in tom barney’s house, much less passed two weeks there and been thrown into the arms of the crowd they travel with!”

“don’t be coarse. mr. and mrs. barney’s house,” corrected the woman’s voice; “and when i know that you spent innumerable week-ends before our marriage at one or more of their country places and that he proposed your name for the difficult cosmopolitan club and engineered your election. i wish to make this visit, i have accepted the invitation, and i am going.”

“i repeat, i will not allow my wife to sleep under the barneys’ roof. if, with your sharp insight, you cannot grasp the reason, then you must yield obedience to what i consider seemly.”

“if that is all, the matter is possible of arrangement,” replied the woman’s voice, growing colder than the february sleet outside.

“then you will yield this point?”

“yes, i will yield the point of being your wife,” and the woman, suddenly feeling the need of greater support than the touch of finger tips upon the table gave her, moved slowly toward a deep chair before the fire and dropped from view behind its screening back.

for a full minute the man stood staring at the place where she was not, then turned and crashed from the room, overturning a porcelain jar in his blind haste.

ten minutes later the front door shut.

an hour later, mrs. hasleton’s maid was packing a suit case while her mistress, dressed in a street gown and seated at her desk, wrote half a dozen notes. presently looking up, she said: “elise, you will follow me on tuesday, as i had arranged, with the trunks packed for a two weeks’ visit. i have written the directions for you.” then, glancing through some time-tables, “tell peter to be here at two to drive me to the station.”

“a bad day for travel? not at all; the snow packs in the streets, that in the open country blows off and amounts to nothing.”

why she did it, she could not have told, but mrs. hasleton chose the least direct way of reaching her destination; and, instead of going as usual to the parlour car, entered a day coach, where she sat tapping her foot nervously, waiting for the train to pull out, without so much as lifting her heavy brown veil.

it was in itself a novel sensation, this leaving with no one to say good-by, to go to a city where no one expected her; for she had determined to spend the next two days at a woman’s club to which she belonged, going to the barneys’ on the following tuesday, that being the time of the invitation. she had not yet told her change of destination to elise.

the man strode about the half-cleared streets until he was physically almost exhausted, and then entered his club, where he hid himself in a corner, curling up like a half-sick and surly dog who both craves and resents sympathy. a group of younger men entered, joking each other and harmlessly boisterous. spying hasleton, they proceeded to unearth him from his lair. shouted one, “we have a scheme afoot for sunday, and we want a steady head like yours to come along and collect us and see that we start for home straight on monday morning.”

“grumpy and got a cold? nonsense, you want some lunch.”

the milk freight crawled in on the slippery rails at the hattertown siding only an hour late, which was doing very well, as sleet had followed the snow and everything was a glare of ice. but now the threatening snow clouds had vanished and the stars were piercingly clear.

the sweezy boy had gone up for miranda banks in a sleigh before eight o’clock, and she waited patiently in the little room outside the ticket booth, with only the two benches and the air-tight stove for company. the natives who usually gathered at the station on winter evenings were mostly in bed, tired out by snow shovelling, the few remaining having collected at sweezy’s hotel to listen to his accounts of other february storms he had known.

inside the booth the sick operator’s wife, who was waiting until the freight and express had passed safely through before closing up, alternately dozed and started to listen to the tick-tickety-tick, that sounded to the girl outside as mysterious as the death-watch beetle in a wall.

then the milk train came in. jim bradley crossed the little room and inquired the whereabouts of the through express before he saw miranda.

“i haven’t heard since oldfield,” replied the tired woman, “but i reckon you’re good for an hour’s holdup anyway.”

the milk supply was low that night and quickly loaded, then jim bradley, throwing off his outer coat and pitching his cap at it, wholly relaxed and stretched luxuriously on the bench behind the stove, regardless of chilblains. for a few moments the unusually bad weather of the month, the present storm, and various bits of local news held their attention; then bradley sat up erect, folded his arms, and said: “now for my news. no, i won’t let you guess, for if you hit it, you’d knock half the wind out of the story. i’m promoted,—first of march i’m boss of the through morning local no. 11 and can pick my own crew!”

randy’s heart sank, though she knew that this meant progress. “it’s very nice,” she stammered, looking down; “they must think a lot of you.”

“is that all you’ve got to say about it?” and bradley fixed his eyes upon her face so that she could not avoid them.

“i guess so. what do you want me to say?”

“which end of the line you’d rather live at; that’s what’s concerning me now.”

when jim bradley’s arm was free once more, the breathing from the ticket office was audible and regular, and the instrument also seemed asleep for a time and ceased its ticking. in fifteen minutes life plans were on their way to being settled, when in the midst of optimistic happiness arose a ghost called theoretical new england conscience.

ten long, slender fingers were linked between ten short, heavy ones, when a few harmless words severed the conjunction. “tell me, jim, are you methodist or congregational? ma heard up telford way that your uncle on your father’s side was a congregational preacher, and it would seem real suitable, ’cause my father was a deacon.”

jim bradley started as if a broken rail had suddenly confronted his engine on a curve, then he answered quietly: “yes, uncle was. i’m not either, randy, i’m a roman catholic. you see mother was out of irish stock and she kept to her religion, and i, well, i held to it as long as she lived, and after because it held to me. it’s a good religion for us knock-about men,” he added half-appealingly. “it never forgets you and it’s always there.” but miranda sat silent and drooping, white to the lips.

jim bradley looked at her and tried to give her time; he well knew from his early life just what his statement meant to this girl with the rigid ideas of the hill country; but because he understood, he would not say a word to force his creed upon her if she would do the same, and he told her so. still she crouched on the bench and the only words that he could get from her were, “what would they all say?” and “ma would never look at me again,” repeated over and over.

suddenly the instrument began a vigorous ticking. the woman started and, grasping the key, answered the sounds.

“anything for me?” asked bradley, glad to move and break the spell that had fallen over both.

“no—yes—wait a minute,” said the operator, with a puzzled expression on her face, looking at bradley with eyes that seemed only half awake. “you are to go right on to bridgeton and take further orders there.”

putting on coat and hat and turning up the wick of his lantern, jim once more faced randy, who stood with her hands clenched in the fringe of her long cape.

“well, it’s good-night for now,” he said cheerfully; then as her eyes met his he added, “don’t say it’s good-by, girl; for god’s sake, think it over.”

“it’s—it ought—it must be good-by,” she whispered; “but oh, jim, i do care, care so much; if only something stronger than either of us could decide and say it would be right.”

“good-night, randy,” said jim, and the swing of his lantern was answered by the train’s whistle. when it left the siding, randy stood on the edge of the platform watching it go out over the trestles and gain speed on the level bit before the bridge, the red and green signal lights blinking at her like harlequin stars.

sweezy’s boy, who had gone into the hotel for shelter, emerged slowly and then disappeared in the barn to get the horse and sleigh. still randy lingered out on the platform end.

the lights were disappearing around the curve and the village lay as silent and dead as if no railway pierced it, few houses showing any light. suddenly three shrill whistles pierced the air, the signal for down brakes, followed swiftly by a splitting noise, a vibrating crash, and a roar that was muffled almost immediately.

for a brief second miranda waited for another whistle. none came. glancing toward the station she saw a couple of lighted lanterns, one red and one plain, that were partly hidden by a baggage truck. seizing one in either hand, she started down the track, springing lightly between the ice-coated ties. when she reached the beginning of the trestles across the low calf-pastures, she stopped long enough to shake off her heavy cape, that risked her balance, and then flew on.

the bright starlight showed the outline of the bridge ahead, but where was the train with its winking lights? only one dark hump broke the outline of the trestles. on again over the perilous ice-coated footing that a man in daylight would have hesitated to traverse. what was that? a cry? yes, a halloo, repeated as continuously as breath would allow.

as the girl drew near, she saw that the obstacle in front was the freight caboose, lying on its side on the bank at the very beginning of the bridge, and from beside or under it, jim bradley’s voice was calling.

feeling her way more carefully now, she answered, “i’m coming, jim; where are you?” and finding solid earth beneath her feet once more she crept around the end of the car.

an endless minute told it all; something had caused the engine to leave the track when halfway across the bridge, the brakes had not answered, and the six cars had followed their leader into the river, the caboose alone breaking free—wedging and overturning on the bridge. bradley had sprung from the rear steps only to be pinned fast below the knees, body prone on the frozen earth.

“oh, jim! jim! tell me what to do first! how can i get you out before it kills you?” she cried, for though conductor bradley did not groan, in spite of himself his arms would twist in his agony.

“turn the light under here and see what holds me,” he gasped; “there’s an axe in the caboose if it should be anything you could chop.” then as she started for the sidewise door he half raised himself on his elbow to clutch her dress, and then dropped, ear to ground.

“no, don’t mind me; take that red lantern and run back as far as you can go above the depot and signal the express—it’s coming—i can hear the growl of it along the ground!”

“but, jim, it can’t come this half hour yet; it was to pass you at bridgeton.”

“that woman operator’s made a mistake. it’s coming, i tell you, go!”

“i don’t want to leave you, jim, i can’t,” wailed the girl.

“?’tain’t what we want, randy, it’s what’s got to be. go, or if you won’t, don’t come near me, i couldn’t bear you to touch me!” and the man threw one twisting arm across his face, for turn away he could not.

back over trestles and track flew the girl; past the station, from which suddenly awakened men were stumbling up the track calling; past the overtasked wife of the station master, who was wringing her hands, but all seemed unconscious of any danger save the wrecked freight.

then a broad pathway of light streamed down the track, almost blinding randy, who, gaining a firm footing on the side bank and clinging to a telegraph pole, waved the lantern to and fro—to and fro, until a whistle answered the signal and the train came to an abrupt stop, with randy, her red lantern, and the great, panting engine almost side by side.

in an instant the track was swarming with people; the conductor of the express, by chance an operator, went to the telegraph key to summon help of various kinds, the poor woman who had made the error having utterly collapsed. the crew, armed with pails and axes, hurried to the wrecked freight, for now the smell of burning wood came on the air, while the passengers of the express, satisfied that they had nothing further than a night’s discomfort to fear, were scattered about, filling the little waiting room at the station and sweezy’s hotel to overflowing, while looking up the possibilities of food and lodging; fortunately, owing to the storm, the train was but scantily filled.

a woman from one of the day coaches, evidently a lady from quiet mien and tone, dressed in a plain cloth travelling suit, went to the bare and formal hotel parlour, and asked if she could have a room, as she was travelling alone and did not care to pass the night upon the train.

“i’ll fix yer out if possible,” said sweezy, “but you’ll have to wait a bit in here; i’ve got a lot ter tend to first, and most like there’ll have to be some doubling up.” so saying, he threw open the door between the long “parlour” and a little office in an alcove where there was a stove, leaving helen hasleton sitting in the dim light of a single candle, for lamps were at a premium in hattertown just then.

choosing the least uncomfortable of the chairs, the woman threw herself back in it, taking off her veil and hat to ease the strain upon her aching head.

people passed to and fro in groups, occasionally glancing in, but she seemed neither to see nor to hear them. at last a familiar voice speaking her name startled her, and she looked up, facing the door; it said:

“hello, burt, you didn’t tell us your wife was with you,—thought you were off with the boys alone. don’t apologize. everybody gets rattled when they’re held up like this and know that four or five good fellows have come to an end a few feet ahead of them.

“pretty well tired out, aren’t you, helen?” and there came into the room her father’s oldest friend and business associate, holding her husband by the arm, and pushing his wife and daughter before him in his eagerness.

after a few minutes’ aimless prattle the party of three left, having decided to spend the night on the train, the elderly man making jocular remarks about leaving the couple to have a tête-à-tête in peace.

complete silence for a moment, and then, that being the last thing the woman’s nerves could endure, she said: “why did you follow me? what right have you to put me in a position like this after this morning?”

“i did not follow you, for i did not know that you had left boston.”

“then it is as mr. dale hinted, you were going alone with some men without even telling me.”

“after this morning, what right had you to know?” the blow that she had set in motion, but of which she had not before gauged the full power, struck her squarely between the eyes.

“at least we must assume a part, not make ourselves ridiculous and start a scandal here to-night among people that are almost relations, before,—before things are arranged,” she said, on the verge of tears.

“as you please; creating public comment has never been my plan,” he answered, and drawing a chair to the feeble light, he took a copy of a comic paper from his pocket and at least feigned to read, while the woman closed her eyes, and from holding them closed to keep the angry tears back, finally fell into a sleep of exhaustion where she sat.

an hour passed. hasleton went out, but as usual, could gather little absolute knowledge of the wreck. he saw his companions playing poker in the parlour car; they, having heard of his wife’s presence and deeming that she had followed him, winked knowingly, and he, having nothing to explain and much to cover, drifted back to the hotel. seeing that the woman slept, he, in his turn, settled himself as well as might be on the hard sofa, and, cramped and uncomfortable as he was, dozed, being too much bewildered by the condition of things to plan or even think.

twelve o’clock was called slowly and almost spitefully, it seemed, by the clock in sweezy’s bar and lunch room; usually this was the signal for closing, but to-night no excise regulations were enforced. sweezy, having sold all the eatables that could be procured and most of the drinkables, was busying himself disposing of people for the night, as it was not possible to remove the débris and get the track in shape under four or five hours. he had spent a profitable evening and was, consequently, in fine joking humour. peering into the parlour, he saw the sleeping couple, and not remembering that the woman had entered alone and asked for a room, he awakened them, giving the man a cheerful slap on the back to boot. “be you folks married?” and upon hasleton’s giving a sleepy assent, he continued, “all right, then, i kin double you up and that’ll take the last room, and then i’ll make shake-downs in here for half a dozen schoolmarms goin’ to a convention. first to the right at the head of the stairs, sir.” then, setting a spluttering candle on the table at the woman’s elbow, as if he naturally expected her to take the lead, he disappeared.

helen hasleton started to her feet, her face lowering and furious. “you might have prevented this, it’s taking a mean advantage of me,” she fairly hurled the words at him. “you can go upstairs, i shall stay down here with the other women.”

burt rose with difficulty, stiff and aching in every limb, and taking up the candle, said, “very well, it seems rude to leave you here among strangers and without a bed, but under the circumstances, i can only obey your wish.”

“obey!” snapped the woman; “there is no such word, or if there is, i do not understand its meaning. this morning i was to obey you. to-night you offer at once to make a spectacle of me and obey me. rubbish! go back to the car with your friends and say there was no room for you here.”

something moved in the alcove, a long shadow fell upon the floor, followed by the presence of a tall, clean-shaven man in the garments of a priest, who stood for a moment looking from one to the other.

“there is a word obey, and it will always have a meaning until the world falls apart. the question is, whom shall we obey and what,” said a deep but quiet voice in the perfect accents of well-born speech. “if one woman had not obeyed to-night, you two perhaps, as well as all on board the train, would have been lying crushed or burned in the river-bed beyond, dead, distorted, horrible! jim bradley, the conductor, pinned in the wreck, was found by the woman he was to marry, frantic of course to rescue him. he told her to leave him, to go back and save this train, and she obeyed. they have carried him to her home and the surgeons are at work; the end i do not know. i have left them but now, and with them the two rites of the church that best could help, belonging to the two ends of life, marriage that gives her the right to care for him, and to him the last sacrament.

“and yet you stand there, man and woman, and bicker and create falsity from empty words, forgetting that nothing can transpose right and wrong. shame on you both!”

for several moments no one moved; then hasleton replaced the candle on the table, as he saw the outlines of the man’s face, young in spite of gauntness and close-cropped gray hair, and in his astonishment almost whispered, “john anthony!”

“father john,” corrected the voice calmly, but in a tone that forbade further questioning, though recognition gleamed in his own eyes; for john anthony had been a college mate of hasleton’s, who, though always serious, had, ten years before, suddenly, and to the world in general unaccountably, given up the brilliant promise of public life for the priesthood. two men alone knew that the first motive for his course lay in that it was the only immovable barrier he could place between his nature and temptation,—the mad infatuation of a beautiful married woman, whose husband was his friend.

as all this flashed through hasleton’s brain, he lowered his gaze and stood with bowed head. a few more seconds passed. the woman’s clenched hands relaxed, and raising her eyes, she met those of father john that had never moved from her face, and in their depth her woman’s instinct saw both comprehension and the scars of conquered temptation. then she took the candlestick from the table and crossing the room slowly, went up the narrow, uncarpeted stairs, step by step.

as hasleton raised his eyes again to father john’s face, their hands met in a tense clasp that told its tale to each. no words were spoken, and hasleton, in turn, went up the creaking stairs.

five years passed, and hattertown looked much the same as of old. the factory ruins were now but a heap of wood dust where vagrant hens scratched for slugs. the milk freight still ran on the siding every evening, but jim bradley was not the conductor, neither did miranda banks teach the school at the corners.

in one of the offices of an important station of the sky line railroad works a short, thick-set man, to whom many others defer as their manager; his face is strong and cheerful, but after noting his chin lines, very few bigger men would try to browbeat him in spite of the fact that he moves with a crutch, one leg being shortened almost to the thigh.

the working day ends, and going downstairs, the man sees a horse and low buggy driven by a trim woman with glorious ruddy-gold hair turn toward the platform. she, smiling a welcome, moves the tiny girl beside her to make place; and the horse, taking his own head, trots to a quiet by-way apart from the main road that leads past stately country places.

“where is jimmy this afternoon? i hope he hasn’t been cutting up, randy,” said the father, questioningly.

“oh, no, but we’ve company at home that i left him to entertain. guess who?”

“your mother?”

“no, father john, and only think of it, he’s going to stay two days before he goes up to the hasletons’ for his usual august visit. on hearing of it, mrs. hasleton brought me some flowers and fruit this afternoon, and when she had seen the house, asked me if i would let her john and little helen come to me of mornings this winter and learn to read and spell with jimmy. she said that she knew i had taught school in the old-fashioned way, and that she preferred it to kindergarten methods for the boy. think of my being able to teach the hasletons’ children anything. isn’t it splendid, jim? how pleased ma will be.”

“i don’t know about that,” said jim bradley, closing one hand over those that held the reins, “but i know something, or rather somebody, else that is splendid, even if she couldn’t just at first make up her mind which end of the line she’d live at.”

miranda bradley, not one whit abashed, laughed softly. “it wasn’t really a matter for me to decide which end, was it, jim, since hasleton manor station happens to be almost in the middle?”

thus it came about that neither the remote hamlet of hattertown nor a bleak february day was without influence on vital things.