"Kase he had ter do sich a sight er killin'; some on 'em the folks he set most store by. But he cudn't holp it. Kase he'd of ben false ter the fatil vow an' ben a fool traiter. That's what the book said. My, my, my! I wisht I'd of kep' that book. "I had a sorter purplish back an' right big print an-my word, Otter Kaynipple, how ye done bust them pants!" screamed Aunt Betsey as her eye got its first full view of Otto's figure, "its lucky I got a pa'r ready fur ye. You wait!"

She turned her broad back on the boy to reach into the gallery for something, which, presently shaken out, revealed itself as a pair of blue flannel trousers, decked with crimson stream

ers.

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Thar, store pants an' gallowses! Make haste an' putt 'em on!

The boy, red with pleasure, could hardly stammer, "Oh, aint they beautiful! Who gave 'em to me?"

"Waal, he said not to tell."

All the glow faded out of the lad's radiant face. "I know. It was Mr. Dake," he said sullenly. "I'm much obliged to him, but I caynt take 'em."

His voice shook over the last words, while, apparently not daring to trust himself to look on the dazzling temptation, he flung his axe down and fled across the grass.

"A bustin' his pants at ev'ry lick!" was Aunt Betsey's comment, eying the wild little ragged shape; "an' he aint got nare nuther pa'r on earth nur nuthin' ter mend 'em with 'cept pins!"

She shook her head dolefully and carried the rejected gift into the house.

In a large, unplastered room a table was spread before an enormous fireplace, bare and black now, since the Arkansas spring sun is warm.

Marty Ann, Aunt Betsey's daughter, was placing the squirrel stew on the table, and Baby Boo, the one little orphan grandchild of the house, was already in the high chair which Dake the carpenter had made for her, reaching

perilously after the custard pie. Those sturdy little legs and arms of Boo's (or more properly Elizabeth North Carolina's) were only quiet when she was asleep; but no lover of children could see her restless, curly brown head and shining eyes and sweet little round face so dimpled and rosy, without wanting to kiss the pretty lump. Possibly, were the lover a man, he might feel a like inclination concerning her aunt, who also had curly brown hair with red gleams in it, and sparkling dark eyes; and whose thinner, oval face kept a childish and innocent charm in the soft, fine skin, pure coloring, and smooth curves. As her light figure moved about, she showed an artless kind of grace, such as these forest people often have. She wore a fresh white apron over her blue cotton frock, and had a bit of white lace and a knot of blue ribbon at her throat.

"Well, maw, what is it?" said Marty Ann, noticing a slight pucker at the corners of Aunt Betsey's eyelids. "Do you reckon that light bread is a little sad?"

"Law me, naw, Marty Ann, I was jis studyin' 'beout Dake an' that Dutch boy. He p'intedly wunt take them pants."

"Then I'd let him go bare," said Marty Ann carelessly.

"He are 'beout that a'ready," Aunt Betsey chuckled, recalling Otto's figure running. "Waal, I caynt cypher it out, nohow. Thar's Dake doin' oodles er things fur Otter, lettin' him sleep in his room t' the store, an' a sight more, but Otter wunt have no truck with Dake. Wonder w'y!"

"If I was Mr. Dake I'd find out or I'd quit fooling with Otto-one!"

"You mought, Marty Ann; but Dake, he are a patient, long suffrin' critter an' terrible kind tew childern. Look a' how he muches Boo!"

Marty Ann's pretty chin went up in a significant tilt, as she answered, "Other folks much Boo, too. Say, maw, did ye ever hear anything 'bout Mr. Dake's wife and child?

"Nuthin', cept iz how they is dead.” "Well, I heard how he deserted his wife and ayfterwards he tried for to steal the child."

She shook a moralizing and reproving head at her daughter; but, in so doing, she happened to look out of the window, and what she saw made her forget the lecture. Marty Ann, come yere," she exclaimed; "thar's a turrible to-do at the new mill!"

Marty Ann, looking over her shoulder, could see the St. Louis carpenters standing around two horsemen, the owners of the plantation, Mr. Francis and young Caroll. Topping the crowd was Bassett's handsome black head. He gesticulated furiously, and Marty Ann, too far away to distinguish words, could hear the angry rumble of his voice.

A short, slim man looked on, a little apart; and impassively stroked his mustache.

"Dear, dear, dear!" ejaculated Aunt Betsey, "aint that Bassett a r'arin' an' chargin'! An' look a' Dake, cam's a stone statchuary-my Lord!"

The old woman leaned out of the open window in her eagerness, when she saw Bassett fling the crowd to either side and aim a swinging blow at Dake. Dake dodged. Simultaneously, a thin line of light flashed in his hand. "He's drored 'is gun on him!" cried tenderhearted Aunt Betsey. "My Lord, I hope they wunt fight. Dodge ahind the winder with the baby, Marty Ann! I are so int'rested, someways I don't guess I'll git hit. Naw, ye needn't, Mist' Caroll's putt 'is hoss atween 'em. Good for you, boy! Now, they all goin' 'way. Do look a' that Otter tryin' ter take big steps like the men! Waal, fightin' or no fightin', they'll want t' eat; so less fotch in the coffee."

The four St. Louis men trooped noisily into the house, omitting their customary toilet at the pump. But Dake took his towel down from the nail and went out, there.

"Reckon I better git out the bill," answered Aunt Betsey dryly. "Say, whut you all ben doin'?"

"We've given the old man the grand bounce," Bassett said, taking his place at the table; "we're not going to be bossed any longer by a d- scab. If Francis wants us back he'll have to bounce Dake, that's all."

'What did Dake do tew ye?"

A quiet-looking man explained, “He aint done nothing to us, ma'am; but sold out a strike once, and he was a Knight of Labor and spoiled a boycott." "Well, all I say is, just give me another chance at the d- traitor," said Bassett. "Bet ye he dassent show his ugly mug 'round here."

The unexpected answer to this was Dake's entrance.

The head carpenter's mild blue eyes and thin brown face bore no marks of agitation. He sat down calmly, in his seat next to Boo, and began to cut up the child's food.

Bassett glowered at him across the table. To be defied by a man of such puny sinews was a blister on the giant's vanity. "I despise a scab, don't you, boys," said he, loudly.

But here Aunt Betsey lifted a fine round voice-"You hush, Mist' Bassett! I aint goin' have no sich fool talk afore Marty Ann an' the baby. Nur I won't have no men persons hollerin' an' fightin' in my heouse like a passle er wild heogs. Ef I hear ary nuther ill word, Marty Ann an me'll git up an' light out an' we'll cyar' the vituals with us!"

"Give us a rest, Jim," said one of the men, "I want to eat my supper." And another added in a surly tone, "Don't you know there is a heap of fellows with guns and knives in this cussed swamp? You'll be having them all down on us!”

"Who's afraid?" sneered Bassett ; but he said no more and the meal went on in a sulky truce. When the men rose he lingered in the gallery to settle the bill. Dake followed the St. Louis men out on the porch. He held Boo in his arms.

Dake made no reply; he stood on the porch holding Boo in his arms. The murmur of voices from the gallery reached him, soft bursts of laughter shaded by deeper tones.

Dake held Boo's small palm close to his cheek; now and then he would take it away to kiss it.

Suddenly, he put the baby down and strode into the gallery, where Bassett was holding Marty Ann while he kissed her hair in default of her face, which had dodged under the shelter of her shoulder.

"I won't! I won't!" shrieked Marty Ann, laughing and crying at once; "you're real mean! I told you I hadn't -made up my mind. Lemme go!"

'Let her go," said Dake. "You dassent hit me," said Bassett, tightening his clasp.

The two men glared at each other for the briefest instant, a space of time to be contained within the flash of an eye or the click of the pistol trigger just behind Bassett's ear, before Dake's tone of concentrated fury seemed a part of that fine cold rim pressing on Bassett's brain :

"I don't mean to hit you. Let her go, you brute, or I'll kill you!"

Then Bassett did loosen his hold enough for Marty Ann to wriggle herself free, crying: "Oh, please don't hurt him, he was only fooling!"

"Get along, now," said Dake.

The carpenters, outside, ignorant of their comrade's plight, were bawling for him to hurry.

Bassett flung his clenched fist sidewise, as he ran.

"I aint through with you yet, Bill

Dake," he shouted. "I'll git you where I want you, some day, and your dpopgun won't help you, then!"

"Great Scott, Jim," yelled a voice, "the boat's whistling! Say, write your girl the rest."

Dake, who had advanced again to the porch, was in time to hear Bassett cry, "I will!" and to see him clear the steps with a jump which had nearly landed him on the grass head foremost, for he tumbled over Otto Knipple. Under the lad's arm was a bundle done up in a newspaper, too small to cover the contents.

"Hullo!" said Bassett, "you aint going?"

"Aint I?" cried the boy eagerly; "aint I going to strike?" Bassett muttered something too low for Dake's ears. Then, "Yes, I'm coming, d- you!" he shouted, and ran after the others.

Dake watched him, sombrely, until a sniff and a gurgle diverted his gaze to Otto, who was wiping his eyes with the knuckles of his forefingers and choking with sobs.

"Poor little fellow!" said Dake.

He walked towards the shabby little figure; but after looking at it intently he seemed to change his mind, and going back whispered a sentence in Boo's ears instead. Boo danced gayly off to the boy. And he, kissing her and drying his wet cheeks on her soft hair, felt a vague comfort which, perhaps, Dake missed as he walked down into the brake, alone.

After a while he sat down on a log, and in spite of his heavy heart, the beauty of the scene won his eye. In the later spring a cypress brake is a sumptuous revel of color. The fernlike cypress foliage and the short limbs above the high trunk make the tree seem more like a gigantic plant than a tree. The water in the brake is a mass of lily pads, and spattered with yellow cow lilies. The cypress roots beautiful with moss. Even the hideous "knees" which spike the ground are transformed; painted by this magical brush of Spring a dull pink, with the texture and gloss of satin, they show like fairy tents among the lilies. Crimson blooms on the maple boughs, rich

are

tones of red on post-oak leaves, brilliant green leaves on the huge gum trees, a scarlet gleam from the "buckeye" flowers, a flush of pink on a "red bud" tree, terraces of white dogwood blossoms against gray-green bark-the eye is lured by them through all the gamut of color; whether they dapple the clumps of cypress greenery or hatch the pale joints of the "elbow brush" or fleck the forest shadow with brightness. Where Dake sat the brake climbed up into the higher ground, ceasing thereby to be the brake. The river makes a blunt and wide incision, variously named "The bay" and "The big bayou;" and the unwooded bank on the swamp side forms a kind of rude levee, which the ancient tradition of the bottom avers existed before the Spaniards or the French. Doubtless it is a relic of that mysterious, prehistoric race whose mounds are scattered through the Black River Valley.

The levee was green, the short-lived Arkansas grass covering it with velvet; only, it was not altogether green because the Spring had bespattered it with blue and yellow-white from violets, cinquefoil, and oxalis. The water of the bay glittered softly like an opal; for the sun was setting, and shifting hues, red and purple and gold, were burning in the river as in the sky.

Dake, who had learned to love this landscape, turned from it with a kind of groan. "Lord, I hate things to be so pretty when I'm so miserable," said he to himself. "I was a fool to dream she'd get to liking me. Soon's the mill's done I'll get out. I'll go "-he tried to laugh-"I'll go and get drunk!"

A sound which was not the echo of his laughter-though that was harsh enough -made him start. "Pshaw, it's nothing but a hog," he said aloud.

Naw, 'taint a hoeg," answered a voice out of the brake, between grunts of exhaustion, "hit's me!"

With a mighty push Aunt Betsey rent a tangle of muscadine vine in twain and emerged, puffing and dishevelled but smiling, and bearing aloft a plate of custard pie. 'Waal, suttinly this yere slash is pesky bad walkin'!" she panted. 'I seen ye lightin' out an' ye hadn't teched you pie, so I jes gethered a

piece an' run ayfter ye. Thar," said the kind creature, who perhaps had noticed more than Dake's lack of appetite, “rest you plate on the log an' eat. T' night them St. Louis men et like their stummicks was a cotton baskit, faster ye throw hit in, the better. Bless the Lord fur victuals, I says, an' don' gredge the time t' eat em!"

She watched Dake eat, talking on cheerfully, yet with a wistful gleam in her eye. "I kin tell ye, I are plum glad ter get shet er they all, 'specially that Bassett. He war too biggetty; stepped 's high's a blin' hoss. An' how he wud lie! Lie iz easy iz ye kin bat you eye. What do ye reckon he tole 'beout you? I says ter Marty Ann I aimed tew tell ye, kase ye'd orter knaw."

Dake put his plate on the ground; luckily he had finished the pie, since he had no appetite for more now.

"I most wish I had shot him," he muttered.

"Aw naw, ye don't," said Aunt Betsey soothingly. "I ben 'lowin fur a right smart I'd jes' ax ye pintblank 'beout you wife and chile. Then I cud talk up to Marty Ann, ye understand."

Dake sometimes addressed Aunt Betsey as mother, in his English fashion. "I'd be glad to, mother," said he. The story that he told his sympathizing listener was not uncommon: a young English artisan coming to America to "better himself," and there marrying a pretty, ambitious, vulgar American, who has brought sufficient tawdry education from her high school to despise her plain husband but is quite helpless to understand his moral aspirations. Dake had never complained of her during their discordant married life; he said nothing now of her fretfulness, her hysterical impatience with poverty and perpetual nagging him for not earning more money. He showed Aunt Betsey the picture of their little one, a boy. "Elsie was a good mother," said he. After he had carefully replaced the photograph he went on: "Well, mother, we'd been married five years, and if married life wasn't jest all I'd looked for'ard to, still we got on with the rest, and I daresay as much my fault as hers, if not; and we both thought the world of the boy. Then, this is 'ow the trouble

"Sekrit soci'ty?" said Aunt Betsey, sternly, lifting up a fat forefinger in the manner of an exclamation point.

"Why, certainly, they all are. Well, I have a good friend, Bob Tomlin by name. Nobody was more interested in trades unions than we were, nor gave more money. That was one thing fretted poor Elsie. But we got disgruntled, after a while. A lot of hot-headed blowhards got the upper hand and sent us on fool strikes till we were mad. It's kinder hard on a good workman who can always command good wages to stay idle a third of his time 'cause a few hotheads are dissatisfied. By and by come the big strike over the boss taking on some non-union men. Bob and I did our best to prevent that strike; but when 'twas no use we went out peaceful. Tomlin had a lot of sickness in his family and his savings run low, so he went to the secretary for help. What do ye suppose they told him? Why, jest that he'd a cabinet organ and a Brussels carpet and the help must go to them as needed it. But,' says Bob, Cowles gits 'elp reg'lar!' You must know, mother, that this Cowles was a drunken rip and keen for the strike. Well, they said, Cowles needed it, he'd nothing laid by. At that, Bob, who's a bit 'asty though the best 'earted feller, he loses his temper and cussed 'em. 'And I'm to mortgage my house to pay for Hal Cowles' strikes am I?' says he. 'I'm d- if I do!' says he. And he went back to work that very day, but before the week was out they fetched him 'ome on a shutter.

"I knowed hit," cried Aunt Betsey, "'twar the sekrit soci'ty. War he cut ony whar with dadgers an' sich?"

the same way. The old men come back, beaten or not. And the bosses, after swearing by all that's holy to keep on the non-union men that have come in and helped them through, they begin to quietly weed the scabs out and get their old men back. You see, usually, the good workmen belong to the union and they won't work with the scabs, and the bosses find it cheapest to give in, on the sly like. And the unions promise big, and so the poor devil of a scab goes by the board. That's the way they treated me. I went to two or three cities, but I couldn't get work, having no union ticket; but I got a good job out in the country and went home for my wife to take her out. We'd been having words, she wanting me to make it up with the union; but still I didn't suspect nothing. Mother, she was gone. Her folks (her father and brothers) were union men, and they persuaded her to leave me. She went off and she got a bill of divorce-for desertion and nonsupport, though I'd sent her threefourths of my money. And, next thing I knew, she was married to a walking delegate, a fellow that gets a big salary for bossing rows."

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Waal, the triflin', deceitful critter!" said Aunt Betsey.

"I expect Bassett told ye I stole my child. I tried to; but there was a hue and cry and they got him 'way from me. One policeman whacked me over the head and my poor boy cried. I never saw him again, mother. They kept so close I couldn't find them. But every Christmas and birthday I'd send a present for the lad, what I thought he'd like, to his grandfather, and I asked him very civilly if he'd only tell me if the boy was well. But I never got a word till he sent me a marked paper. My boy's death was in it."

"Oh ye pore, pore boy!" said the old woman, whose six tall sons were in their graves; "an' the only chile ye got."

Dake nodded, shivering a little. "Yes, ma'am, that's so. I guess I'd 'ave gone to the bad then but for Tomlin and his wife. I'd lost everything, and it's awful, mother, the loneliness when a man's own mates turn on him. I confess I took to the devil's comforter, drink. But they got me out of it, God bless

VOL. IV.-17