Louis Tracy - "Number Seventeen"

Cyrus Thomas - "The Problem of Ohio Mounds"

P. G. Wodehouse - "Love Among the Chickens"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1577"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Quill\'s Window

G >> George Barr McCutcheon >> Quill\'s Window




"You seem to have survived the shock remarkably well, Mrs. Strong,"
he said with unmistakable irony.

"How is the scratch on your face?" she asked, ignoring the remark.

"Amounts to nothing," he replied, almost gruffly. "I'll write a
little note to Alix, if you'll be so good as to take it up to her."

"Very well. I'll see that she gets it. Will you write it here?"

"If you don't mind. I'll wait in case she wants to send down an
answer."

"I'll get you some paper and pen and ink," said she.

"Some paper, that's all. I have a fountain pen."

He dashed off a few lines, folded the sheet of note paper and
handed it to Mrs. Strong. He had written nothing he was unwilling
for her to read. In fact, he expected her to read it as soon as
she was safely out of his sight.

"She thinks she may feel up to seeing you tomorrow--or next day,"
reported the housekeeper on her return from Alix's room.

His rankling brain seized upon the words--" tomorrow--next day." He
had used them himself only the night before. "Tomorrow,--or next
day!" He frowned. Hang it all, was she putting him off? He experienced
a slight chill.

"I will run in again in the morning," he said, managing to produce
a sympathetic smile. "And I'll telephone this evening to see how
she is."

All the way down the walk to the gate, he kept repeating the words
"tomorrow,--or next day." In some inexplicable way they had fastened
themselves upon him. At the gate he turned and looked up at Alix's
bedroom windows. The lace curtains hung straight and immovable. It
pleased him to think that she was peering out at him from behind
one of those screens of lace, soft-eyed and longingly. Moved by a
sudden impulse, he waved his hand and smiled.

His guess was right. She WAS looking down through the narrow slit
between the curtains. Her eyes were dark and brooding and slightly
contracted by the perplexity that filled them. She started back in
confusion, her hand going swiftly to her breast. Was it possible
that he could see through the curtains? A warm flush mantled her
face. She felt it steal down over her body. Incontinently she fled
from the window and hopped back into the warm bed she had left on
hearing the front door close.

"How silly!" she cried irritably. She sat bolt upright and looked
at her reflection in the mirror of her dressing-table across the
room. Her night-dress had slipped down from one shapely shoulder;
her dark, glossy hair hung in two long braids down her back; her
warm, red lips were parted in a shy, embarrassed smile.

"I wonder--But of course he couldn't. Unless,--" and here the
smile faded away,--"unless he possesses some strange power to see
through walls and--Sometimes I feel that he has that power. If he
could not see me, why did he wave his hand at me?"

There came a knock at her door. She was seized by a sudden panic.
For a moment she was unable to speak.

"Alix! Are you awake?"

It was Mrs. Strong's voice. A vast wave of relief swept through
her.

"Goodness!" she gasped, and then: "Come in, Aunt Nancy?"

"Courtney Thane has just been here," said the housekeeper as she
approached the bed.

"Has he?" inquired Alix innocently.

"He left a note for you."

"Read it to me," said the girl.

"'Dearest: I am grieved beyond words to hear that you are so awfully
done up. I am not surprised. It was enough to bowl anybody over.
I did not sleep a wink last night, thinking about it. I have
been living in a daze ever since. I cannot begin to tell you how
disappointed I am in not being able to see you this morning. Perhaps
by tonight you will feel like letting me come. Ever yours, Courtney.'"

"Well?" said Mrs. Strong, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

A fine line appeared between Alix's eyes. She was deep in thought.

"Have they caught the man?" she asked, after a moment.

"Not that I know of. What's more, they'll never catch him. Bill
Foss sent word up he was bringing several Italians here to see if
we could identify one of them as the man."

"How can we be expected to identify a man whose face was covered
by a mask?"

"Well, Bill is doing his best," replied Mrs. Strong patiently.
"We've got to say that much for him. Charlie Webster was here early
this morning to say that the police up in town have been notified,
and they're sending a detective out. But he won't be any better
than Bill Foss, so it's a waste of time. What we ought to have is
a Pinkerton man from Chicago."

Despite the calm, deliberate manner in which she spoke, there was
an odd, eager light in Mrs. Strong's eyes.

"I wish you would go down to the warehouse, Aunt Nancy, and ask
Charlie to take the car and go up to the city. Tell him to call
up the Pinkerton offices in Chicago and ask them to send the best
man they have. No one must know about it, however. Impress that
very firmly upon Charlie. Not even the police--or Bill Foss. Have
him arrange to meet the man in town and give him directions and
all the information possible. Please do it at once,--and tell Ed
to have the car ready."

"That's the way I like to hear you talk," cried Mrs. Strong.

Half an hour later, Charlie Webster was on his way to the city. He
had an additional commission to perform. Mrs. Strong was sending
a telegram to her son David.

II

The next day a well-dressed, breezy-looking young man walked into
Charlie's office and exclaimed:

"Hello, Uncle Charlie!"

"Good Lord!" gasped Charlie Webster. "It can't be--why, by gosh, if
it ain't Harry! Holy smoke!" He jumped up and grasped the stranger's
hand. Pumping it vigorously, he cried: "I'd know that Conkling nose
if I saw it in Ethiopia. God bless my soul, you're--you're a MAN!
It beats all how you kids grow up. How's your mother? And what in
thunder are you doing here?"

"I guess I've changed a lot, Uncle Charlie," said the young man,
"but you ain't? You look just the same as you did fifteen years
ago."

"How old are you? My gosh, I can't believe my eyes."

"I was twenty-four last birthday. You--"

"If ever a feller grew up to look like his father, you have, Harry.
You're the living image of George Conkling,--and you don't look
any more like your mother than you look like me."

"Well, you and Mother look a lot alike, Uncle Charlie. She's thinner
than you are but--"

"Well, I should hope so," exploded Charlie. "Take a chair, Harry,--and
tell us all about yourself. Wait a minute. Sam, shake hands with
my nephew, Harry Conkling,--Mr. Slutterback, Mr. Conkling. Harry
lives up in Laporte. His mother--"

"Guess again, Uncle Charlie. No more Laporte for me. I've been
living in Chicago ever since I got married. Working for--"

"Married? You married? A kid like you? Well, I'll--be--darned!"

"Sure. And I'm not Harry, Uncle Charlie. I'm Wilbur. Harry's two
years older than I am. He's married and got a kid three years old.
Lives in Gary."

"You don't mean to say you're little Wilbur? Little freckle-faced
Wilbur with the pipe-stem legs?"

Mr. Webster's nephew took a chair near the stove, unbuttoned his
overcoat, and held his hands to the fire. He was a tall, rather
awkward young man, with large ears, a turned-up nose and a prominent
"Adam's Apple."

"I'm working for one of the biggest oil companies in the world.
We've got six hundred thousand acres of the finest oil-producing
territory in the United States, and we control most of the big
concessions in Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and--thirty million
dollar concern, that's all it is. Oh, you needn't look worried.
I'm not going to try to sell you any stock, Uncle Charlie. That
is, not unless you've got fifty thousand to invest. I'll tell you
what I'm here for. My company wants to interest Miss Crown in--"

"Hold on a minute, Wilbur," interrupted Charlie firmly. "You might
just as well hop on a train and go back to Chicago. If you're
expecting me to help you unload a lot of bum oil stock on Miss
Alix Crown you're barking up the wrong tree,--I don't give a cuss
if you are my own sister's son. Miss Crown is my--"

The young man held up his hand, and favoured his uncle with a
tolerant smile.

"I'm not asking your help, old chap. I've got a letter to her from
Mr. Addison Blythe, one of our biggest stockholders. All I'm asking
you to do is to put me up at your house for a day or two while I
lay the whole matter before Miss Crown."

"I haven't got any house," said Charlie, rather helplessly. "Wait
a second! Let me think. How long do you expect to be here, Wilbur?"

"I wouldn't be here more than half an hour if I could get Miss
Crown to say she'd take--"

"Well, she's sick and can't see anybody for a couple of
days,--'specially book agents or oil promoters. I was just thinking
I might fix something up for you over at the Tavern where I'm
staying. It won't cost you a cent, my boy. I'd be a darned cheap
sort of an uncle if I couldn't entertain my nephew when he comes to
our town,--out of a clear sky, you might say. I'll be mighty glad
to have you, Wilbur, but you've got to understand I won't have Miss
Crown bothered while she's sick."

"Permit me to remind you, Uncle Charlie, that I am a gentleman.
I don't go butting in where I'm not wanted. My instructions from
the General Manager are very explicit. I am to see Miss Crown when
convenient, and give her all the dope on our gigantic enterprise,--that's
all."

"By the way,--er,--is that your automobile out there?"

"It's one I hired in the city."

"You--er--didn't happen to bring your wife with you, did you?
Because it would be darned awkward if you did. She'd have to sleep
with Angie Miller or Flora--"

"She's not with me, Uncle Charlie,--so don't worry. Of course,
if it isn't convenient for you to have me for a day or two, I can
motor in and out from the city. Money's no object, you know. I've
got a roll of expense money here that would choke a hippopotamus."

"Come on over to the Tavern, Wilbur. We'll see Miss Molly Dowd and
fix things up. Sam, if anybody asks for me, just say I'll be back
in fifteen minutes."

And that is how "Mortie" Gilfillan, one of the ablest operatives
in the Pinkerton service, made his entry into the village of
Windomville. Inasmuch as he comes to act in a strictly confidential
capacity, we will leave him to his own devices, content with the
simple statement that he remained two full days at Dowd's Tavern
as the guest of his "Uncle Charlie"; that he succeeded in obtaining
an interview with the rich Miss Crown, that he "talked" oil to
everybody with whom he came in contact, including Courtney Thane;
that he declined to consider the appeals of at least a score of
citizens to be "let in on the ground floor" owing to the company's
irrevocable decision to sell only in blocks of ten thousand shares
at five dollars per share; that he said good-bye to Mr. Webster at
the end of his second day and departed--not for Chicago but, very
cleverly disguised, to accept a job as an ordinary labourer with
Jim Bagley, manager of the Crown farms.





CHAPTER XVIII

MR. GILFILLAN IS PUZZLED




Three days passed. The village had recovered from its excitement.
The Weekly Sun appeared with a long and harrowing account of
the "vile attempt to rifle the home of our esteemed and patriotic
citizeness," and sang the praises of Courtney Thane, whose
"well-known valour, acquired by heroic services during the Great
War," prevented what might have been "a most lamentable tragedy."

Those three days were singularly unprofitable to the "hero." He
was unable to see Alix crown. He made daily visits to her home but
always with the same result. Miss Crown was in no condition to see
any one.

"But she saw this fellow Conkling," he expostulated on the third
day. "He sold her a lot of phony oil stock. If she could see him,
I--"

"He came all the way from Chicago to see her,--with a letter from
Mr. Blythe," explained Mrs. Strong. "She had to see him. I guess
you can wait, can't you, Mr. Thane?"

"Certainly. That isn't the point. If I had seen her in time I should
have warned her against buying that stock. She's been let in for
a whale of a loss, that's all I can say,--and it's too late to do
anything about it. Good Lord, if ever a woman needed a man around
the house, she does. She--"

"I will tell her what you say," said Mrs. Strong calmly.

"Don't you do anything of the kind," he exclaimed hastily. "I was
speaking to you as a friend, Mrs. Strong. She means a great deal
to both of us. You understand how it stands with Alix and me, don't
you? I--I would cheerfully lay down my life for her. More than
that, I cannot say or do."

"She will be up by tomorrow," said Mrs. Strong, impressed in spite
of herself by this simple, direct appeal. (All that day she caught
herself wondering if he had cast his spell over her!)

"Please give her my love,--and say that I am thinking about her
every second of the day," said he gravely, and went away.

Alix had received another letter from Addison Blythe. Enclosed with
it was a communication from an official formerly connected with
the American Ambulance. It was brief and to the point:

Courtney Thane volunteered for service in the American Ambulance
in Paris in November, 1915. He was accepted and ordered to appear
at the hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine for instructions. His conduct
was such that he was dismissed from the service before the expiration
of a week, his uniform taken away from him, and a request made to
the French Military authorities to see that he was ordered to leave
the country at once. Our records show that he left hurriedly for
Spain. He was a bad influence to our boys in Paris, and there was
but one course left open to us. We have no account of his subsequent
movements. With his dismissal from the service, he ceased to be an
object of concern to us.

Alix did not destroy this letter. She locked it away in a drawer
of her desk. She had made up her mind to confront Thane with this
official communication. It was an ordeal she dreaded. Her true
reason for refusing to see him was clear to her if to no one else:
she hated the thought of hurting him! Moreover, she was strangely
oppressed by the fear that she would falter at the crucial moment
and that her half-guarded defences would go down before the assault.
She knew his strength far better than she knew his weakness. She
had had an illuminating example of his power. Was she any stronger
now than on that never-to-be-forgotten night?...She put off the
evil hour.

And on the same third day of renunciation, she had a letter from
David Strong. She wept a little over it, and driven finally by a
restlessness such as she had never known before, feverishly dressed
herself, and set forth late in the afternoon for a long walk in
the open air. She took to the leaf-strewn woodland roads, and there
was a definite goal in mind.

II

Courtney remembered Rosabel Vick.

"I guess I'd better call her up," he said to himself. "I ought
to have done it several days ago. Beastly rotten of me to have
neglected it. She's probably been sitting over there waiting ever
since--Gad, she may; have some good news. Maybe she is mistaken."

He went over to the telephone exchange and called up the Vick house.
Rosabel answered.

"That you, Rosie?...Well, I couldn't. I've been laid up, completely
out of commission ever since I saw you....What?...I--I didn't
get that, Rosie. Speak louder,--closer to the telephone."

Very distinctly now came the words, almost in a wail:

"Oh, Courtney, why--why do you lie to me?"

"Lie to you? My dear girl, do you know what you are--"

A low moan, and a harsh, choking sob smote his ear, and then the
click of the receiver on the hook.

"Well, I'll be hanged!" he muttered angrily. "That's the last time
I'll call you up, take it from me."

And it was the last time he ever called her up.

Then he, too, ravaged by uneasy thoughts, struck off into the
country lanes, the better to commune with himself. In due course,
he came to the gate leading up to the top of Quill's Window. Here
he lagged. His gaze went across the strip of pasture-land to the
deserted house above the main-travelled road. He started. His gaze
grew more intense. A lone figure traversed the highway. It turned
in at the gate, and, as he watched, strode swiftly up the path to
the front door....He saw her bend over, evidently to insert a
key in the lock. Then the door opened and closed behind her.

III

Every word of David's letter was impressed on Alix's brain. Over and
over again she repeated to herself certain passages as she strode
rapidly through the winding lanes. She spoke them tenderly,
wonderingly, and her eyes were shining.

DEAREST ALIX:

I have always loved you. I want you to know it. There has never been
an hour in all these years that I have not thought of you, that your
dear face has not been before me. In France, here, everywhere,--always
I am looking into your eyes, always I am hearing your voice, always
I am feeling the gentle touch of your hand. Now you know. I could
not have told you before. I am the blacksmith's son. God knows I
am not ashamed of that. But I cannot forget, nor can you, that a
blacksmith's son lies buried at the top of that grim old hill, and
that he was not good enough for the daughter of a Windom. I hear
that you have given your heart to some one else. You will marry
him. But to the end of your days,--and I hope they may be many,--I
want you to know that there is one man who will love you with all
his heart and all his soul to the end of HIS days. I hope you will
be happy. It is my greatest, my only wish. Once upon a time, we
stole away, you and I, to write romances of love and adventure. Even
then, you were my heroine. I was putting you into my poor story,
but you were putting your dreams into yours, and I was not your
dream hero. Then we would read to each, other what we had written.
Do you remember how guardedly we read and how stealthy we were so
as not to arouse suspicion or attract attention to our lair? I
shall never forget those happy hours. Every line I wrote and read
to you, Alix dear, was of you and FOR you. You were my heroine.
My hero, feeble creature, told you how much I loved you, and you
never suspected.

I am telling you all this now, when my hope is dead, so that you
may know that my love for you began when you were little more than a
baby, and has endured to this day and will endure forever. I pray
God you may always be happy. And now, in closing, I can only add
the trite sentence,--which I recall reading in more than one novel
and which I was imitative enough to put into my own unfinished
masterpiece: If ever you are in trouble and despair and need me, I
will come to you from the ends of the earth. I mean it, Alix. With
all the best wishes in the world, I am and will remain

Yours devotedly,

DAVID.

P.S.--I have just looked up from this letter to catch sight of
myself in a mirror across the office. I have to smile. That beastly
but honourable glass reveals the true secret of my failure to
captivate you. How could any self-respecting heroine fall in love
with a chap with a nose like mine, and a mouth that was intended
for old Goliath himself, and cheek bones that were handed down
by Tecumseh, and eyes that squint a little--but I daresay that's
because they are somewhat blurred at this particular instant. I am
reminded of the "Yank" who had his nose shot off at Chateau Thierry.
He said that now that the Germans didn't have anything visible to
train their artillery on, the war would soon be over. He had lost
his nose but not his sense of the ridiculous. I have managed to
retain both.

Up in that bare, dust-laden room, with the two candles burning
at her elbows, sat Alix. There were tears in her eyes, a wistful
little smile on her lips. She was reading again the clumsy lines
David had written in those long-ago days of adolescence. Now they
meant something to her. They were stilted, commonplace expressions;
she would have laughed at them had they been written by any one else,
and she still would have been vastly amused, even now, were it not
for the revelations contained in his letter. And the postscript,--how
like him to have added that whimsical twist! He wanted her to smile,
even though his heart was hurt.

Ten years! Ten years ago they had sat opposite each other at this
dusty table, their heads bent to the task, their brows furrowed,
their hands reaching out to the same bottle of ink, their souls
athrill with romance. And she was writing of a handsome, incredibly
valiant hero, whilst he--he was writing of her! Time and again his
hand, in seeking the ink, had touched the hand of his heroine,--she
remembered once jabbing her pen into his less nimble finger as she
went impatiently to the fount of romance, and he had exclaimed with
a grimace: "Gee, you must have struck a snag, Alix!" She recalled
the words as of yesterday, almost as of this very moment, and her
arrogant rejoinder, "Well, why can't you keep your hand out of the
way?"

She was always hurting him, and he was always patient. She was
always sorry, and he was always forgiving. She was superior in her
weakness, he was gentle in his strength.

And his heroine? She read through the mist that filled her eyes
and saw herself. The lofty heroine wooed by the poor and humble
musician who crept up from unutterable depths to worship unseen
at her feet! "The Phantom Singer!" The lover she could not see
because her starry eyes were fixed upon the peak! And yet he stood
beneath her casement window and sang her to sleep, lulled her into
sweet dreams,--and went his lonely way in the chill of the morning
hours, only to return again at nightfall.

She looked up from the sheet she held. She stared, not into space,
but at the face of David Strong, sitting opposite,--the phantom
singer. It was as plain to her as if he were actually there. She
looked into his deep grey eyes, honest and true and smiling.

What was it he said in his letter? About his nose and mouth and
eyes? They were before her now. That keen, boyish face with its
coat of tan,--its broad, whimsical mouth and the white, even teeth
that once on a dare had cracked a walnut for her; its rugged jaw
and the long, straight nose; its wide forehead and the straight
eyebrows; and the thick hair as black as the raven's wing, rumpled
by fingers that strove desperately to encourage a recalcitrant
brain; and those big, bony hands, so large that her little brown
paws were lost in them; and the broad shoulders hunched over the
table, supported by widespread elbows that encroached upon her
allotted space so often that she had to remind him: "I do wish you'd
watch what you're doing," and he would get up and meekly recover
the scattered sheets of paper from the floor. Ugly? David ugly?
Why, he was BEAUTIFUL!

Suddenly her head dropped upon her arms, now resting on David's
manuscript; she sobbed.

"Oh, Davy,--Davy, I wish you were here! I wish you were here now!"

The creaking of the stairs startled her. She half arose and stared
at the open door, expecting to see--the ghost! Goose-flesh crept
out all over her. The ghost that people said came to--

The very corporeal presence of Courtney Thane appeared in the
doorway.

For many seconds she was stupefied. She could see his lips moving,
she knew he was speaking, she could see his smile as he approached,
and yet only an unintelligible mumble came to her ears.

"--and so I cut across the field and ventured in where angels do
not fear to tread," were the first words that possessed any degree
of coherency for her.

She hastily thrust the precious manuscript into the drawer. He
stopped several feet away and looked about the room curiously, his
gaze coming back to her after a moment. The light of the candles
was full on her face.

"Well, of all the queer places," he said. "What in the world brings
you here? I thought no one ever entered this house, Alix."

"I have not been inside this house in ten years," she said, struggling
for control of herself. "I came today to--to look for some papers
that were left here. I was on the point of leaving when you came
up." She picked up her gloves from the table.

"It's cold here. Do you think it was wise for you to sit here in
this chilly--Gad, it's like an ice-house or a tomb. Better let me
give you my coat." He started to remove his overcoat. There was an
anxious, solicitous expression in his eyes.

"No,--no, thank you. I am quite warm,--and I shall be as warm
as toast after I've walked a little way. I must be going now, Mr.
Thane." She took a few steps toward the door.

"Are you going away without blowing the candles out?" he inquired.

She halted. She felt herself trapped. She did not want to be alone
in the dark with him.

"If you will go ahead while there is light, I will follow--" The
solution came suddenly. "How stupid! There is nothing to prevent
us carrying the candles downstairs with us, is there? Will you take
one, please?"

She returned to the table and took up one of the candlesticks.

"I've been terribly worried about you, Alix," he said, without
moving. "How wonderful it is to see you again,--to see what is
really you and not the girl I've seen in dreams for the past few
endless nights. You in the flesh, you with your beautiful eyes, you
whose lips--oh, God, I--I have been nearly mad, Alix. A thousand
times I have felt you in my arms,--you've never been out of them
in my thoughts. I--"