Mark Rutherford - "More Pages from a Journal"

Re told by Ellen C. Babbitt - "More Jataka Tales"

Ella Wheeler Wilcox - "The Kingdom of Love and Other Poems"

Rene Bazin - "The Ink Stain, v1"

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: Main Travelled Roads

H >> Hamlin Garland >> Main Travelled Roads




But William did not understand him.

"There! there!" he said soothingly. "I guess you're gettin' tired." He
led Robert back and put him to bed.

"I'd know but we was a little brash about goin' out," William said
to him as Robert lay there smiling up at him.

"Oh, I'm all right now," the sick man said.

"Matie," the alien cried, when William had gone, "we knew our
neighbors now, don't we? We never can hate or ridicule them
again."

"Yes, Robert. They never will be caricatures again-to me."

A"GOOD FELLOW'S" WIFE

I

LIFE in the small towns of the older West moves slowly-almost as
slowly as in the seaport villages or little towns of the East. Towns
like Tyre and Bluff Siding have grown during the last twenty years,
but very slowly, by almost imperceptible degrees. Lying too far
away from the Mississippi to be affected by the lumber interest,
they are merely trading points for the farmers, with no perceivable
germs of boom in their quiet life.

A stranger coming into Belfast, Minnesota, excites much the same
lanquid but persistent inquiry as in Belfast, New Hampshire. Juries
of men, seated on salt barrels and nall kegs, discuss the stranger's
appearance and his probable action, just as in Kittery, Maine, but
with a lazier speech tune and with a shade less of apparent interest.

On such a rainy day as comes in May after the corn is planted-a
cold, wet rainy day-the usual crowd was gathered in Wilson's
grocery store at Bluff Siding, a small town in the "coulee country."
They were farmers, for the most part, retired from active service.
Their coats were of cheap diagonal or cassimere, much faded and
burned by the sun; their hats, flapped about by winds and soaked
with countless rains, were also of the same yellow-brown tints.
One or two wore paper collars on their hickory shirts.

Mcllvaine, farmer and wheat buyer, wore a paper collar and a
butterfly necktie, as befitted a man of his station in life. He was a
short, squarely made Scotchman, with sandy whiskers much
grayed and with a keen, in-tensely blue eye.

"Say," called McPhail, ex-sheriff of the county, in the silence that
followed some remark about the rain, "any o' you fellers had any
talk with this feller Sanford?"

"I hain't," said Vance. "You, Bill?"

"No; but somebody was sayin' he thought o' startin' in trade here."

"Don't Sam know? He generally knows what's goin' on.',

"Knows he registered from Pittsfield, Mass., an' that's all. Say,
that's a mighty smart-lookin' woman o' his."

"Vance always sees how the women look, Where'd you see her?"

"Came in here the other day to look up prices."

"Wha'd she say 'bout settlin'?"

"Hadn't decided yet."

"He's too slick to have much business in him. That waxed
mustache gives 'im away."

The discussion having reached that point where his word would
have most effect, Steve Gilbert said, while opening the hearth to
rap out the ashes of his pipe, "Sam's wife heerd that he was kind o'
thinkin' some of goin' into business here, if things suited 'im
first-rate."

They all knew the old man was aching to tell something, but they
didn't purpose to gratify him by any questions. The rain dripped
from the awning in front and fell upon the roof of the storeroom at
the back with a soft and steady roar.

"Good f'r the corn," MePhail said after a long pause.

"Purty cold, though."

Gilbert was tranquil-he had a shot in reserve. "Sam's wife said his
wife said he was thinkin' some of goin' into a bank here-"

"A bank!"

"What in thunder-"

Vance turned, with a comical look on his long, placid face, one
hand stroking his beard.

"Well, now, gents, I'll tell you what's the matter with this town. It
needs a bank. Yes, sir! I need a bank."

"You?"

"Yes, me. I didn't know just what did ail me, but I do how. It's the
need of a bank that keeps me down."

"Well, you fellers can talk an' laugh, but I tell yeb they's a boom
goin' to strike this town. It's got to come.. W'y, just look at
Lumberville!"

"Their boom is our bust," was McPhail's comment.

"I don't think so," said Sanford, who had entered in time to hear
these last two speeches. They all looked at him with deep interest.
He was a smallish man. He wore a derby hat and a neat suit. "I've
looked things over pretty close-a man don't like to invest his
capital" (here the rest looked at one another) "till he does; and I
believe there's an opening for a bank."

As he dwelt upon the scheme from day to day, the citizens,
warmed to him, and he became "Jim" Sanford. He hired a little
cottage and went to housekeeping at once; but the entire summer
went by before he made his decision to settle. In fact, it was in the
last week of August that the little paper announced it in the usual
style:

Mr. James G. Sanford, popularly known as "Jim," has decided to
open an' exchange bank for the convenienee of our citizens, who
have hitherto been forced to transact business in Lumberville. The
thanks of the town are due Mr. Sanford, who comes well
recommended from Massachusetts and from Milwaukee, and,
better still, with a bag of ducats. Mr. S. will be well patronized.
Success, Jim!

The bank was open by the time the corn crop and the hogs were
being marketed, and money was received on deposit while the
carpenters were still at work on the building. Everybody knew now
that he was as solid as oak.

He had taken into the bank, as bookkeeper, Lincoln Bingham, one
of McPhail's multitudinous nephews; and this was a capital move.
Everybody knew Link, and knew he was a McPhail, which meant
that he "could be tied to in all kinds o' weather." Of course the
McPhails, McIlvaines, and the rest of the Scotch contingency
"banked on Link." As old Andrew McPhail put it:

"Link's there, an' he knows the bank an' books, an' just how things
stand"; and so when he sold his hogs he put the whole sum-over-
fifteen hundred dollars-into the bank. The McIlvaines and the
Binghams did the same, and the bank was at once firmly
established among the farmers.

Only two people held out against Sanford, old Freeme Cole and
Mrs. Bingham, Lincoln's mother; but they didn't count, for Freeme
hadn't a cent, and Mrs. Bingham was too unreasoning in her
opposition. She could only say:

"I don't like him, that's all. I knowed a man back in New York that
curled his mustaches just that way, an' he wa'n't no earthiy good."

It might have been said by a cynic that Banker Sanford had all the
virtues of a defaulting bank cashier. He had no bad habits beyond
smoking. He was genial, companionable, and especially ready to
help when sickness came. When old Freeme Cole got down with
delirium tremens that winter, Sanford was one of the most heroic
of nurses, and the service was so clearly disinterested and
maguanimous that everyone spoke of it.

His wife and he were included in every dance or picnic; for Mrs.
Sanford was as great a favorite as the banker himself, she was so
sincere, and her gray eyes were so charmingly frank, and then she
said "such funny things."

"I wish I had something to do besides housework. It's a kind of a
putterin' job, best ye can do," she'd say merrily, just to see the
others stare. "There's too much moppin' an' dustin'. Seems 's if a
woman used up half her life on things that don't amount to
anything, don't it?"

"I tell yeh that feller's a scallywag. I know it buh the way 'e walks
'long the sidewalk," Mrs. Bingham insisted to her son, who wished
her to put her savings into the bank.

The youngest of a large family, Link had been accustomed all his
life to Mrs. Biugham's many whimsicalities.

"I s'pose you can smell he's a thief, just as you can tell when it's
goin' to rain, or the butter's comin', by the smell."

"Well, you needn't laugh, Lincoln. I can," maintained the old lady
stoutly. "An' I ain't goin' to put a red cent o my money mto his
pocket-f'r there's where it 'ud go to."

She yielded at last, and received a little bankbook in return for her
money. "Jest about all I'll ever get," she said privately; and
thereafter out of her' brass-bowed spectacles with an eagle's gaze
she watched the banker go by. But the banker, seeing the dear old
soul at the window looking out at him, always smiled and bowed,
unaware of her suspicion.

At the end of the year he bought the lot next to his rented house
and began building one of his own, a modest little affair, shaped
like a pork pie with a cupola, or a Tamo'-Shanter cap-a style of
architecture which became fashionable at once.

He worked heroically to get the location of the plow factory at
Bluff Siding, and all but succeeded; but Tyre, once their ally,
turned against them, and refused to consider the fact of the Siding's
position at the center of the county. However, for some reason or
other, the town woke up to something of a boom during the next
two years. Several large farmers decided to retire and live off the
sweat of some other fellow's brow, and so built some houses of the
pork-pie order and moved into town.

This inflow of moneyed men from the country resulted in the
establishment of a "seminary of learning" on the hillside, where
the Soldiers' Home was to be located. This called in more farmers
from the country, and a new hotel was built, a sash-and-door
factory followed, and Burt McPhail set up a feed mill.

An this improvement unquestionably dated, from the opening of
the bank, and the most unreasonmg partisans of the banker held
him to be the chief cause of the resulting development of the town,
though he himself modestly disclaimed any hand in the affair.

Had Bluff Siding been a city, the highest civic honors would have
been open to Banker Sanford; indeed, his name was repeatedly
mentioned in connection with the county offices.

"No, gentlemen," he explained firmly, but courteously, in Wilson's
store one night; "I'm a banker, not a politician. I can't ride two
horses."

In the second year of the bank's history he went up to the north part
of the state on business, visiting West Superior, Duluth, Ashland,
and other booming towns, and came back full of the wonders of
what he saw.

"There's big money up there, Nell," he said to his wife.

But she had the woman's tendency to hold fast to what she had,
and would not listen to any plans about moving.

"Build up your business here, Jim, and don't worry about what
good chances there are somewhere else."

He said no more about it, but he took great interest in all the news
the "boys" brought back from their annual deer hunts "up North."
They were all enthusiastic over West Superior and Duluth, and
their wonderful development was the never-ending theme of
discussion in Wilson's store.

II

The first two years of the bank's history were solidly successful,
and "Jim" and "Nellie" were the head and front of all good works
and the provoking cause of most of the fun. No one seemed more
carefree.

"We consider ourselves just as young as anybody," Mrs. Sanford
would say, when joked about going out with the young people so
much; but sometirnes at home, after the children were asleep, she
sighed a little.

"Jim, I wish you was in some kind of a business so I could help. I
don't have enough to do. I s'pose I could mop an' dust, an' dust an'
mop; but it seems sinful to Waste time that way. Can't I do
anything, Jim?"

"Why, no. If you 'tend to the children and keep house, that's all
anybody asks of you."

She was silent, but not convinced. She had a desire to do
something outside the walls of her house-a desire transmitted to
her from her father, for a woman inherits these things.

In the spring of the second year a number of the depositors drew
out money to invest in Duluth and Superior lots, and the whole
town was excited over the matter.

The summer passed, Link and Sanford spending their tirne in the
bank-that is, when not out swimming or fishing with the boys. But
July and August were terribly hot and dry, and oats and corn were
only half-crop; and the farmers were grumbling. Some of them
were forced to draw on the bank instead of depositing.

McPhail came in, one day in November, to draw a thousand
dollars to pay for a house and lot he had recently bought.

Sanford was alone. He whistled. "Phew! You're comin' at me hard.
Come in tomorrow. Link's gone down to the city to get some
money."

"All right," said MePhail; "any time."

"Goin' t' snow?"

"Looks like it. I'll haf to load a lot o' ca'tridges ready fr biz."

About an hour later old lady Bingham burst upon the banker, wild
and breathless. "I want my money," she announced.

"Good morning, Mrs. Bingham. Pleasant-"

"I want my money. Where's Lincoln?"

She had read that morning of two bank failure-one in Nova Scotia
and one in Massachusetts-and they seemed providential warnings
to her. Lincoln's absence confirmed them.

"He's gone to St. Paul-won't be back till the five-o'clock train. Do
you need some money this morning? How much?"

"All of it, sir. Every cent."

Sanford saw something was out of gear. He tried to explain. "I've
sent your son to St. Paul after some money-"

"Where's my money? What have you done with that?" In her
excitement she thought of her money just as she hand handed it
in-silver and little rolls and wads of bills.

"If you'll let me explain-"

"I don't want you to explain nawthin'. Jest hand me out my
money."

Two or three loafers, seeing her gesticulate, stopped on the walk
outside and looked in at the door. Sanford was annoyed, but he
remained calm and persuasive. He saw that something had caused
a panic in the good, simple old woman. He wished for Lincoln as
one wishes for a policeman sometimes.

"Now, Mrs. Bingham, if you'll only wait till Lincoln-"

"I don't want 'o wait. I want my money, right now."

"Will fifty dollars do?"

"No, sir; I want it all-every cent of it-jest as it was."

"But I can't do that. Your money is gone-"

"Gone? Where is it gone? What have you done with it? You thief-"

"'Sh!" He tried to quiet her. "I mean I can't give you your money-"

"Why can't you?" she stormed, trotting nervously on her feet as she
stood there.

"Because-if you'd let me explain-we don't keep the money just as it
comes to us. We pay it out and take in other-"

Mrs. Bingham was getting more and more bewildered. She now
had only one clear idea-she couldn't get her money. Her voice grew
tearful like an angry child's.

"I want my money-I knew you'd steal it-that I worked for. Give me
my money."

Sanford hastily handed her some money. "Here's fifty dollars. You
can have the rest when-"

The old lady clutched the money, and literally ran out of the door,
and went off up the sidewalk, talking incoherently. To everyone
she met she told her story; but the men smiled and passed on. They
had heard her predictions of calamity before.

But Mrs. Mcllvaine was made a triffe uneasy by it "He wouldn't
give you y'r money? Or did he say he couldn't?" she inquired in her
moderate way.

"He couldn't, an' he wouldn't!" she said. "If you've got any money
there, you'd better get it out quick. It ain't safe a minute. When
Lincoln comes home I'm goin' to see if I can't-"

"Well, I was calc'latin' to go to Lumberville this week, anyway, to
buy a carpet and a chamber set. I guess I might 's well get the
money today."

When she came in and demanded the money, Sanford was scared.
Were these two old women the beginning of the deluge? Would
McPhail insist on being paid also? There was just one hundred
dollars left in the bank, together with a little silver. With rare
strategy he smiled.

"Certainly, Mrs. McIlvaine. How much will you need?" She had
intended to demand the whole of her deposit-one hundred and
seventeen dollars-but his readiness mollified her a little. "I did 'low
I'd take the hull, but I guess seventy-five dollars 'll do."

He paid the money briskly out over the little glass shelf. "How is
your children, Mrs. McIlvaine?"

"Purty well, thanky," replied Mrs. Mcllvaine, laboriously counting
the bills.

"Is it all right?"

"I guess so," she replied dubiously. "I'll count it after I get home."

She went up the street with the feeling that the bank was all right,
and she stepped in and told Mrs. Bingham that she had no trouble
in getting her money.

Alter she had gone Sanford sat down and wrote a telegram which
he sent to St. Paul. This telegram, according to the duplicate at the
station, read in this puzzling way:

E. O., Exchange Block, No.96. All out of paper. Send five hundred
noteheads and envelopes to match. Business brisk. Press of
correspondence just now. Get them out quick. Wire.

SANFORD

Two or three others came in after a little money, but he put them
off easily. "Just been cashing some paper, and took all the ready
cash I can spare. Can't you wait till tomorrow? Link's gone down to
St. Paul to collect on some paper. Be back on the five o'clock.
Nine o'clock, sure."

An old Norwegian woman came in to deposit ten dollars, and he
counted it in briskly, and put the amount down on her little book
for her. Barney Mace came in to deposit a hundred dollars, the
proceeds of a horse sale, and this helped him through the day.
Those who wanted small sums he paid.

"Glad this ain't a big demand. Rather close on cash today," he said,
smiling, as Lincoln's wife's sister came in.

She laughed, "I guess it won't bust yeh. If I thought it would, I'd
leave it in."

"Busted!" he said, when Vance wanted him to cash a draft. "Can't
do it. Sorry, Van. Do it in the morning all right. Can you wait?"

"Oh, I guess so. Haf to, won't I?"

"Curious," said Sanford, in a confidential way. "I don't know that I
ever saw things get in just such shape. Paper enough-but exchange,
ye know, and readjustment of accounts."

"I don't know much about banking, myself," said Vance, good
naturedly; "but I s'pose it's a good 'eal same as with a man. Git
short o' cash, first they know -ain't got a cent to spare."

"That's the idea exactly. Credit all right, plenty o' property, but-"
and he smiled and went at his books. The smile died out of his
eyes as Vance went out, and he pulled a little morocco book from
his pocket and began studying the beautiful columns of figures
with which it seemed to be filled. Those he compared with the
books with great care, thrusting the book out of sight when anyone
entered.

He closed the bank as usual at five. Lincoln had not come couldn't
come now till the nine-o'clock accommodation. For an hour after
the shades were drawn he sat there in the semidarkness, silently
pondering on his situation. This attitude and deep quiet were
unusual to him. He heard the feet of friends and neighbors passing
the door as he sat there by the smoldering coal fire, in the growing
darkness. There was something impressive in his attitude.

He started up at last and tried to see what the hour was by turning
the face of his watch to the dull glow from the cannon stoye's open
door.

"Suppertime," he said and threw the whole matter off, as if he had
decided it or had put off the decision till another time.

As he went by the post office Vance said to Mcllvaine in a smiling
way, as if it were a good joke on Sanford:

"Little short o' cash down at the bank."

"He's a good fellow," Mcllvaine said.

"So's his wife," added Vance with a chuckle.

III

That night, after supper, Sanford sat in his snug little skting room
with a baby on each knee, looking as cheerful and happy as any
man in the village. The children crowed and shouted as he "trotted
them to Boston," or rode them on the toe of his boot. They made a
noisy, merry group.

Mrs. Sanford "did her own work," and her swift feet could be
heard moving to and fro out in the kitchen. It was pleasant there;
the woodwork, the furniture, the stove, the curtains-all had that
look of newness just growing into coziness. The coal stove was
lighted and the curtains were drawn.

After the work in the kitchen was done, Mrs. Sanford came in and
sat awhile by the fire with the children, looking very wifely in her
dark dress and white apron, her round, smiling face glowing with
love and pride-the gloating look of a mother seeing her children in
the arms of her husband.

"How is Mrs. Peterson's baby, Jim?" she said suddenly, her face
sobering.

"Pretty bad, I guess. La, la, la-deedle-dee! The doctor seemed to
think it was a tight squeak if it lived. Guess it's done for-oop 'e
goes!"

She made a little leap at the youngest child and clasped it
convulsively to her bosom. Her swift maternal imagination had
made another's loss very near and terrible.

"Oh, say, Nell," he broke out, on seeing her sober, "I had the
confoundedest time today with old lady Bingham-"

"'Sh! Baby's gone to sleep."

After the children had been put to bed in the little alcove off the
sitting room, Mrs. Sanford came back, to find Jim absorbed over a
little book of accounts.

"What are you studying, Jim?"

Someone knocked on the door before he had time to reply.

"Come in!" he said.

'Sh! Don't yell so," his wife whispered.

"Telegram, Jim," said a voice in the obscurity.

"Oh! That you, Sam? Come in.

Sam, a lathy fellow with a quid in his cheek, stepped in. "How d' 'e
do, Mis' Sanford?"

"Set down-se' down."

"Can't stop; 'most train time."

Sanford tore the envelope open, read the telegram rapidly, the
smile fading out of his face. He read it again, word for word, then
sat looking at it.

"Any answer?" asked Sam.

"All right. Good night."

"Good night."

After the door slammed, Sanford took the sheet from the envelope
and reread it. At length he dropped into his chair. "That settles it,"
he said aloud.

"Settles what? What's the news?" His wife came up and looked
over his shoulder.

"Settles I've got to go on that nine-thirty train."

"Be back on the morning train?"

"Yes; I guess so-I mean, of course-I'll have to be-to open the bank."

Mrs. Sanford looked at him for a few seconds in silence. There
was something in his look, and especially in his tone, that troubled
her.

"What do you mean? Jim, you don't intend to come back!" She
took his arm. "What's the matter? Now tell me! What are you
going away for?"

He knew he could not deceive his wife's ears and eyes just then, so
he remained silent. "We've got to leave, Nell," he admitted at last.

"Why? What for?"

"Because I'm busted-broke-gone up the spout-and all the rest!" he
said desperately, with an attempt at fun. "Mrs. Bingham and Mrs.
McIlvaine have busted me-dead."

"Why-why-what has become of the money-all the money the
people have put in there?"

"Gone up with the rest."

"What 've you done with it? I don't-"

"Well, I've invested it-and lost it."

"James Gordon Sanford!" she exclaimed, trying to realize it. "Was
that right? Ain't that a case of-of-"

"Shouldn't wonder. A case of embezzlement such as you read of in
the newspapers." His tone was easy, but he avoided the look in his
wife's beautiful gray eyes.

"But it's-stealing-ain't it?" She stared at him, bewildered by his
reckless lightness of mood.- "It is now, because I've lost. If I'd'a
won it, it 'ud 'a' been financial shrewdness!"

She asked her next question after a pause, in a low voice, and
through teeth almost set. "Did you go into this bank to-steal this
money? Tell me that!"

"No; I didn't, Nell. I ain't quite up to that."

His answer softened her a little, and she sat looking at him steadlly
as he went on. The tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks. Her
hands were clenched.

"The fact is, the idea came into my head last fall when I went up to
Superior. My partner wanted me to go in with him on some land,
and I did. We speculated on the growth of the town toward the
south. We made a strike; then he wanted me to go in on a copper
mine. Of course I expected-"

As he went on with the usual excuses her mind made all the
allowances possible for him. He had always been boyish,
impulsive, and lacking in judgment and strength of character. She
was humiliated and frightened, but she loved and sympathized
with him.

Her silence alarmed him, and he made excuses for himself. He was
speculating for her sake more than for his own, and so on.

"Cho-coo!" whistled the far-off train through the still air.

He sprang up and reached for his coat.

She seized his arm again. "Where are you going?" she sternly
asked.

"To take that train."

'When are you coming back?"

"I don't know." But his tone said, "Never."

She felt it. Her face grew bitter. "Going to leave me and-the
babies?"

"I'll send for you soon. Come, goodbye!" He tried to put his arm
about her. She stepped back.

"Jim, if you leave me tonight" ("Choo-choo!" whistled the engine)
"you leave me forever." There was a terrible resolution in her tone.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I'm going to stay here. If you go-I'll never be your
wife-again-never!" She glanced at the sleeping children, and her
chin trembled.

"I can't face those fellows-they'll kill me," he said in a sullen tone.

"No, they won't. They'll respect you, if you stay and tell 'em
exactly how-it-all-is. You've disgraced me and my children, that's
what you've done! If you don't stay-"

The clear jangle of the engine bell sounded through the night as
with the whiz of escaping steam and scrape and jar of gripping
brakes and howl of wheels the train came to a stop at the station.
Sanford dropped his coat and sat down again.
+
"I'll have to stay now." His tone was dry and lifeless. It had a
reproach in it that cut the wife deep-deep as the fountain of tears;
and she went across the room and knelt at the bedside, burying her
face in the clothes on the feet of her children, and sobbed silently.