sun shone brightly through the spiky forest of naked and lifeless trees, and one of them, as the golden globe sank lower, pointed upward like a black finger and barred across it. One by one the men, with white, sick faces, had gathered about John Dodd. One sat upon a charred log, with his elbows upon his knees and his face in his hands. He had seen his dead, or what he thought to be his dead; no man knew his own in that awful place. They were all in ragged and tattered clothing, and not one but had many burns. Some of the more serious hurts were bandaged, but the man who sat upon the log wore his injuries like medals, or crosses of the Legion of Honor. He had saved many lives, and had thought he had saved his family, but he alone remained of all who bore his name. He refused scornfully to have his hurts bandaged. «Let 'em alone!» he had said roughly; adding significantly, «I'm not burned. These spots don't hurt!» All stood, or sat, or slouched about John Dodd. Each man had the attitude of one who, face to face with more than human hearts and hands could handle, did not know where to begin or what to do, and so did nothing. They looked dumbly at John Dodd for guidance. «Boys,» said he, «I don't know what to say. I don't know what to tell ye to do. This is the third o' September-Doddville's birthday-er it was to 'a' be'n. It ain't nothin' now. No date, no town, no birthday. There ain't nothin' left to keep. You got your lives left an' that's all. It's all I've got in the world. I don't know why I saved it; I did n't want it. It's no use to me.» His voice broke, but he went on falteringly, and the men looked moodily at him or at the ashen ground. «I thought I saved it for some one that wanted it--but they're gone, an' I'm left. I'm some like poor Mimy Johnson; she's saved her body, but lost her mind an' her man and her babies. They 're gone 'long 'ith my wife an' my boys, an' yourn, an' the little school-ma'am an' Bob White, an' God. only knows who yet. We don't know. My God!» His face contorted, and the corners of his wide mouth drew up in a ghastly grin of anguish; but he went on: "I've learned somethin', though, boys; I know a good many things I did n't know yesterday. I know they 's a heaven; I've be'n in it right here with Miranda, an' Jimmie, an' the little chaps. I know they 's a hell, too; I've be'n in it right here. You an' me is standin' on heaven an' hell right now. An' I know they 's a God, boys.» His voice broke and choked. «Boys, they was somethin' here yesterday to work so much bigger than a man, it must 'a' be'n a God. We could n't stand up ag'n' that power. Why, I left that little ingine, Andrew Cox, a-workin' away fit to bu'st hisself, a-tryin' his level best to save Doddville,. an' this is all he saved-jes this. Nothin' else on top o' the groun'!» He held up the flower, and the tears streamed from his bloodshot eyes. Tears were running down the hard, smoke-begrimed faces before him. «I'm done now. I feel as if yesterday was forever. I 've let go o' life. You 're all younger; maybe you can catch holt o' the handles ag'in, but I can't. I was a young man night afore las'; but I'm stiff in the j'ints now an' weak in the knees. My idees is kind o' stiff, too, 's if I'd be'n sleepin' like that Rip van Winkle feller the little school-ma'am tole the boys about. We got some things to do here-things they can't nobody else but us do. After that I'm done. You'll all catch holt somewheres-it 'll come to you; but John Dodd is done.>> ZÈME often wondered why but none to the St. Annes unless entreatedthere was not a special after St. Anne reproaching him last year with dispensation of provi- being a fainéant for broading at such a season! dence to do away with At Cloutierville, where he would linger as long the necessity for work.-as possible, he meant to turn and retrace his There seemed to him so course, zigzagging back and forth across Cane much created for man's River so as to take in the Duplans, the Velenjoyment in this world, cours, and others that he could not at the and so little time and opportunity to profit by moment recall. A week seemed to Ozème a it. To sit and do nothing but breathe was al- very, very little while in which to crowd so ready a pleasure to Ozème; but to sit in the much pleasure. company of a few choice companions, including a sprinkling of ladies, was even a greater delight; and the joy which a day's hunting or fishing or picnicking afforded him is hardly to be described. Yet he was by no means indolent. He worked faithfully on the plantation the whole year long, in a sort of methodical ⚫ way; but when the time came around for his annual week's holiday, there was no holding him back. It was often decidedly inconvenient for the planter that Ozème usually chose to take his holiday during some very busy season of the year. L He started out one morning in the beginning of October. He had borrowed Mr. Laballière's buckboard and Padue's old gray mare, and a harness from the negro Sévérin. He wore a light-blue suit which had been sent all the way from St. Louis, and which had cost him ten dollars; he had paid almost as much again for his boots; and his hat was a broad-rimmed gray felt which he had no cause to be ashamed of. When Ozème went «broading, he dressed-well, regardless of cost. His eyes were blue and mild; his hair was light, and he wore it rather long; he was clean shaven, and really did not look his thirty-five years. Ozème had laid his plans weeks beforehand. He was going visiting along Cane River, the mere contemplation thrilled him with pleasure. He counted upon reaching Frédeaus'. about noon, and he would stop and dine there. Perhaps they would ask him to stay all night. He really did not hold to staying all night, and was not decided to accept if they did ask him. There were only the two old people, and he rather fancied the notion of pushing on to Beltrans', where he would stay a night, or even two, if urged. He was quite sure there would be something agreeable going on at Beltrans', with all those young peopleperhaps a fish-fry, or possibly a ball! Of course he would have to give a day to Tante Sophie and another to Cousine Victoire; There were steam-gins at work; he could hear them whistling far and near. On both sides of the river the fields were white with cotton, and everybody in the world seemed busy but Ozème. This reflection did not distress or disturb him in the least; he pursued his way at peace with himself and his surroundings. At Lamérie's cross-roads store, where he stopped to buy a cigar, he learned that there was no use heading for Frédeaus', as the two old people had gone to town for a lengthy visit, and the house was locked up. It was at Frédeaus' that Ozème had intended to dine. He sat in the buckboard, given up to a moment or two of reflection. The result was that he turned away from the river, and entered the road that led between two fields back to the woods and into the heart of the country. He had determined upon taking a short cut to the Beltrans' plantation, and on the way he meant to keep an eye open for old Aunt Tildy's cabin, which he knew lay in some remote part of this cut-off. He remembered that Aunt Tildy could cook an excellent meal if she had the material at hand. He would induce her to fry him a chicken, drip a cup of coffee, and turn him out a pone of corn-bread, which he felt would be sumptuous enough fare for the occasion. Aunt Tildy dwelt in the usual log cabin of one room, with its chimney of mud and sticks and its shallow gallery formed by the jutting of the roof. In close proximity to the cabin was a small cotton-field, which from a little distance looked like a field of snow. The cotton was bursting and overflowing foam-like from bolls on the drying stalk. On the lower branches it was hanging ragged and tattered, and much of it had already fallen to the ground. There were a few chinaberry-trees in the yard before the hut, and under one of them an ancient and rusty-looking mule was eating corn from a rude trough. Some com mon little creole chickens were scratching about the mule's feet and snatching at the grains of corn that occasionally fell from the trough. Aunt Tildy was hobbling across the yard when Ozème drew up before the gate. One hand was confined in a sling; in the other she carried a tin pan, which she let fall noisily to the ground when she recognized him. She was broad, black, and misshapen, with her body bent forward almost at an acute angle. She wore a blue cottonade of large plaids, and a bandana awkwardly twisted around her head. «Good land, man! Whar you come from?» was her startled exclamation at beholding him. «F'om home, Aunt Tildy; w'ere else do you expec'?» replied Ozème, dismounting composedly. He had not seen the old woman for several years since she was cooking in town for the family with which he boarded at the time. She had washed and ironed for him, atrociously, it is true, but her intentions were beyond reproach if her washing was not. She had also been clumsily attentive to him during a spell of illness. He had paid her with an occasional bandana, a calico dress, or a checked apron, and they had always considered the account between themselves square, with no sentimental feeling of gratitude remaining on either side. «I like to know,» remarked Ozème, as he took the gray mare from the shafts, and led her up to the trough where the mule was «I like to know w'at you mean by makin' a crop like that an' then lettin' it go to was'e? Who you reckon 's goin' to pick that cotton? You think maybe the angels goin' to come down an' pick it fo' you, an' gin it an' press it, an' then give you ten cents a poun' fo' it, hein?» «Ef de Lord don' pick it, I don' know who gwine pick it, Mista Ozème. I tell you, me an' Sandy we wuk dat crap day in an' day out; it 's him done de mos' of it.» «Sandy? That little->> «He ain' dat li'le Sandy no mo' w'at you ric'lec's; he 'mos' a man, an' he wuk like a man too. He wuk mo' 'an fittin' fo' his strenk, an' now he layin' in dah sick-God A'mighty knows how sick. An' me wid a risin' twell I 'bleeged to walk de flo' o' nights, an' don' know ef I ain' gwine to lose de han' atter all.» «W'y, in the name o' conscience, you don' hire somebody to pick?» "Whar I got money to hire? An' you knows well as me ev'y chick an' chile is pickin' roun' on de plantations an' gittin' good pay.» . The whole outlook appeared to Ozème very depressing, and even menacing, to his personal comfort and peace of mind. He foresaw no' prospect of dinner unless he should cook it himself. And there was that Sandy-he remembered well the little scamp of eight, always at his grandmother's heels when she was cooking or washing. Of course he would have to go in and look at the boy, and no doubt dive into his traveling-bag for quinine, without which he never traveled. Sandy was indeed very ill, consumed with fever. He lay on a cot covered up with a faded patchwork quilt. His eyes were half closed, and he was muttering and rambling on about hoeing and bedding and cleaning and thinning out the cotton; he was hauling it to the gin, wrangling about weight and bagging and ties and the price offered per pound. That bale or two of cotton had not only sent Sandy to bed, but had pursued him there, holding him. through his fevered dreams, and threatening to end him. Ozème would never have known. the black boy, he was so tall, so thin, and seemingly so wasted, lying there in bed. «See yere, Aunt Tildy,» said Ozème, after he had, as was usual with him when in doubt, abandoned himself to a little reflection; «between us-you an' me- we got to manage to kill an' cook one o' those chickens I see scratchin' out yonda, fo' I 'm jus' about starved. I reckon you ain't got any quinine in the house? No; I did n' suppose an instant you had. Well, I'm goin' to give Sandy a good dose o' quinine to-night, an' I'm goin' stay an' see how that 'll work on 'im. But sun-up, min' you, I mus' get out o' yere.» Ozème had spent more comfortable nights than the one passed in Aunt Tildy's bed, which she considerately abandoned to him. In the morning Sandy's fever was somewhat abated, but had not taken a decided enough turn to justify Ozème in quitting him before noon, unless he was willing to feel like a dog,» as he told himself. He appeared before Aunt Tildy stripped to the undershirt, and wearing his second-best pair of trousers. <<That's a nice pickle o' fish you got me in, ol' woman. I guarantee, nex' time I go abroad, 't ain't me that 'll take any cut-off. W'ere's that cotton-basket an' cotton-sack o' yo's?» «I knowed it!» chanted Aunt Tildy-I knowed de Lord war gwine sen' somebody to holp me out. He war n' gwine let de crap was'e atter he give Sandy an' me de strenk to make hit. De Lord gwine shove you 'long de row, Mista Ozème. De Lord gwine give you plenty mo' fingers an' han's to pick dat cotton nimble an' clean.»> ་ «Neva you min' w'at the Lord 's goin' to do; go get me that cotton-sack. An' you put that poultice like I tol' you on yo' han', an' set down there an' watch Sandy. It looks like you are 'bout as helpless as a' ol' cow tangled up in a potato-vine.»> Ozème had not picked cotton for many years, and he took to it a little awkwardly at first; but by the time he had reached the end of the first row the old dexterity of youth had come back to his hands, which flew rapidly back and forth with the motion of a weaver's shuttle; and his ten fingers became really nimble in clutching the cotton from its dry shell. By noon he had gathered about fifty pounds. Sandy was not then quite so well as he had promised to be, and Ozème concluded to stay that day and one more night. If the boy were no better in the morning, he would go off in search of a doctor for him, and he himself would continue on down to Tante Sophie's; the Beltrans' was out of the question now. Sandy hardly needed a doctor in the morning. Ozème's doctoring was beginning to tell favorably; but he would have considered it criminal indifference and negligence to go away and leave the boy to Aunt Tildy's awkward ministrations just at the critical moment when there was a turn for the better; so he stayed that day out, and picked his hundred and fifty pounds. On the third day it looked like rain, and a heavy rain just then would mean a heavy loss for Aunt Tildy and Sandy, and Ozème again took to the field, this time urging Aunt Tildy before him to do what she might with her one sound hand. "Aunt Tildy,» called out Ozème to the bent old woman moving ahead of him between the white rows of cotton, «if the Lord gets me safe out o' this ditch, 't ain't to-morrow I'll fall in anotha with my eyes open, I bet you.» "Keep along, Mista Ozème; don' grumble, don' stumble; de Lord's a-watchin' you. Look at yo' Aunt Tildy; she doin' mo' wid her one han' 'an you doin' wid yo' two, man. Keep right along, honey. Watch dat cotton how it fallin' in yo' Aunt Tildy's bag.» << I am watchin' you, ol' woman; you don' fool me. You got to work that han' o' yo's spryer than you doin', or I'll take the rawhide. You done fo'got w'at the rawhide tas'e like, I reckon» - a reminder which amused Aunt Tildy so powerfully that her big negro laugh resounded over the whole cotton-patch, and even caused Sandy, who heard it, to turn in his bed. The weather was still threatening on the succeeding day, and a sort of dogged determination or characteristic desire to see his undertakings carried to a satisfactory completion urged Ozème to continue his efforts to drag Aunt Tildy out of the mire into which circumstances seemed to have thrust her. One night the rain did come, and began to beat softly on the roof of the old cabin. Sandy opened his eyes, which were no longer brilliant with the fever flame. «Granny,» he whispered, «de rain! Des listen, granny; de rain a-comin', an' I ain' pick dat cotton yit. W'at time it is? Gi' me my pants-I got to go-» You lay whar you is, chile alive. Dat cotton put aside clean and dry. Me an' de Lord an' Mista Ozème done pick dat cotton.»> Ozème drove away in the morning looking quite as spick and span as the day he left home in his blue suit and his light felt drawn a little over his eyes. «You want to take care o' that boy,» he instructed Aunt Tildy at parting, «an' get 'im on his feet. An', let me tell you, the nex' time I start out to broad, if you see me passin' in this yere cut-off, put on yo' specs an' look at me good, because it won't be me; it'll be my ghos', ol' woman.»> Indeed, Ozème, for some reason or other, felt quite shamefaced as he drove back to the plantation. When he emerged from the lane which he had entered the week before, and turned into the river road, Lamérie, standing in the store door, shouted out: « Hé, Ozème! you had good times yonda? I bet you danced holes in the sole of them newboots.>> «Don't talk, Lamérie,» was Ozème's rather ambiguous reply, as he flourished the remainder of a whip over the old gray mare's sway-back, urging her to a gentle trot. When he reached home, Bodé, one of Padue's boys, who was assisting him to unhitch, remarked: «How come you did n' go yonda down the coas' like you said, Mista Özème? Nobody did n' see you in Cloutierville, an' Mailitte say you neva cross' de twenty-fo'-mile ferry, an' nobody did n' see you no place.» Ozème returned, after his customary moment of reflection: «You see, it's 'mos' always the same thing on Cane Riva, my boy; a man gets tired o' that à la fin. This time I went back in the woods, 'way yonda in the Frédeau cut-off; kin' o' campin' an' roughin' like, you might say. I tell you, it was sport, Bodé.» Kate Chopin. TOPICS OF THE TIME The Portrait of a Public Enemy. POPULAR government has no more deadly foe to-day than the party boss. He is, in fact, the destroyer of popular government, for he subverts it, and concentrates all its powers in himself. He controls all primaries and nominating conventions, either by the power of his machine, or by dishonest methods known as «packing » or << stuffing the voting lists. All the candidates that go before the people for election are his men. He gets control of them by pledging them to his personal service before nomination, and by paying the expenses of their election, on condition that they shall do his bidding on taking office. He gets the money for these election expenses by striking » or «assessing » corporations, which are at the mercy of State legislatures, promising in return to sell them only the kind of legislation that they desire. The people are cheated in both instances in the nominations and elections, and in the legislation. The first beneficiary of this form of government is the boss, who takes possession of the governmental machinery and runs it as his private establishment. Let us suppose for a moment that a boss should go before the people of the State openly with a proposition to elect him to the position which he holds now without an election. Suppose he were to say frankly: «You, the people, either through indifference or absorption in your private affairs, find the business of running your government a great burden-so great that you have about given up attempting to bear it. I propose that you change the form of it utterly. Make it an absolute monarchy, and vest all its powers in me, with the understanding that I shall run it for my personal advantage and that of my political machine, and that I shall render no accounting to anybody for my actions. I may levy blackmail, sell offices and legislation, and make such laws as please me without paying the slightest attention to the needs or wishes of the people.» How many votes would the boss who should make such a proposition receive at the polls? Would any boss venture to make the experiment? The dullest and most ignorant of them knows too much for that. Why do the people submit quietly when the bosses do without permission what they would never be allowed to do were they to ask for the people's consent? There is no longer any doubt about what they do. It is so notorious that when it is spoken of everybody admits knowledge of it, but few express indignation about it. Occasionally some one confesses that he thinks it is very bad, but he supposes that so long as we have universal suffrage, and such a large ignorant vote, we must have bosses to attend to the business of organizing and directing our political forces; that somebody must do it for us, since we really have not time to do it for ourselves. As Lowell says, «We should not tolerate a packed jury which is to decide on the fate of a single man; yet we are content to leave the life of the nation at the mercy of a packed convention.» That is precisely what we are doing when we turn our government over to the bosses. They are, what Lowell calls them, the « flesh-flies that fatten on the sores of the body politic, and plant there the eggs of their disgustful and infectious progeny. They seek to put the business of government into the hands of the least fit, and to administer it against the interests of the people by making it incompetent, extravagant, and corrupt. Nothing but the written constitutions of our States is able to obstruct their subverting progress. But for such a barrier in New York during the past year, the entire public service of the State would have been looted, in defiance of existing laws, to make additional spoils for a boss. The legislature, owned by him, was willing to override the laws, but it could not override the constitution. Yet the people had adopted that constitution only a few months before by a very large majority, thus expressing directly their wish in the matter. The boss paid not the slightest heed to that wish, but defied it in every way, seeking to break down the constitution, and ordering his legislature not to pass laws designed to carry into effect its provisions. So long as bosses are tolerated there is little use in considering plans for municipal and other kinds of political reform. These are all based upon the assumption that we are living under a system of popular government, which is not the case. We are living under boss government, and the same results would be attained, in many instances, were we to dispense with legislatures and governors and mayors and other officials, and concentrate all the powers of these officials and bodies in the boss. It is really he who exercises them now. The State would save money in salaries by abolishing all other executive and legislative offices, and allowing him to carry on the government directly through his personal edicts. If this were to be done, the evils of the system would be so apparent that the people would make short work of it. They would see that the only pressing reform is the annihilation of the boss, and they would waste no time in talking about other reforms. That is what they must be aroused to do now. Until the boss is overthrown there is little use in trying to improve our forms of government. The best governmental machinery in the world, lodged in his hands, will accomplish little for the people. He it is who has lowered the standard of our legislative bodies, State and National, and made political life so unattractive to men of intelligence and character that few of them care to enter it. We need throughout the country something like an anti-boss league, which shall consolidate all the reform forces of the land against this public enemy. Every moral and educational influence should join in this work. The colleges and schools should instruct their youth |