Stephen Crane - "The Little Regiment"

Charlotte M. Yonge - "The Prince and the Page"

Frank V. Webster - "The Young Firemen of Lakeville"

Rafael Sabatini - "The Lion's Skin"

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: Martie The Unconquered

K >> Kathleen Norris >> Martie The Unconquered




Half an hour of furious musketry passed: blue dashes lighted the
room with an eerie splendour, thunder clapped and rolled; died away
toward the south as a fresh onslaught poured in from the north.

Martie heeded nothing. Her soul was wrapped in a deep peace, and as
the cooling air swept in, she dropped her tired head against the
chair's cushion, and drifted into a dream of river and orchard, and
of a white house set in green grass.

She knew that John would write her: she held the unopened envelope
in her fingers the next morning, a strange, sweet emotion at her
heart. The beautiful, odd handwriting, the cleanly chosen words,
these made the commonplace little note significant.

"Who's your letter from?" Wallace asked idly. She tossed it to him
unconcernedly: she had told him of John's call. "He must have a case
on you, Mart!" Wallace said indifferently.

"Well, in his curious way, perhaps he has," she answered honestly.

Ten days later she wrote him an answer. She thanked him for the
books, and announced that her daughter Margaret was just a week old,
and sent her love to Uncle John. Adele immediately sent baby roses
and a card to say that she was dying to see the baby, and would come
soon. She never came: but after that John wrote occasionally to
Martie, and she answered his notes. They did not try to meet.




CHAPTER VI


Wallace was playing a few weeks' engagement in the vaudeville houses
of New Jersey and Brooklyn when his second child was born. He had
been at home for a few hours that morning, coming in for clean
linen, a good breakfast, and a talk with his wife. He was getting
fifty dollars a week, as support for a woman star, and was happy and
confident. The hard work--twelve performances a week--left small
time for idling or drinking, and Martie's eager praise added the
last touch to his content.

She was happy, too, as she walked back into the darkened, orderly
house. It was just noon. Isabeau, having finished her work, had
departed with Teddy to see a friend in West One Hundredth Street;
John had sent Martie Maeterlinck's "Life of the Bee," and a fat,
inviting brown book, "All the Days of My Life." She had planned to
go to the hospital next week, Wallace coming home on Sunday to act
as escort, and she determined to keep the larger book for the stupid
days of convalescence.

She stretched herself on the dining-room couch, reached for the
smaller book, and began to read. For a second, a look of surprise
crossed her face, and she paused. Then she found the opening
paragraph, and plunged into the story. But she had not read three
sentences before she stopped again.

Suddenly, in a panic, she was on her feet. Frightened, breathless,
laughing, she went into the kitchen.

"Isabeau out ... Heavenly day! What shall I do!" she whispered. "It
can't be! Fool that I was to let her go ... what SHALL I do!"

Life caught her and shook her like a helpless leaf in a whirlwind.
She went blindly into the bedroom and began feverishly to fling off
her outer garments. Presently she made her way back to the kitchen
again, and put her lips to the janitor's telephone.

Writhing seconds ensued. Finally she heard the shrill answering
whistle.

"Mr. Kelly, is Mrs. Brice at home, do you know? Or Mrs. Napthaly?
This is Mrs. Bannister... I'm ill. Will you get somebody?"

She broke off abruptly; catching the back of a chair. Kelly was a
grandfather ... he would understand. But if somebody didn't come
pretty soon...

It seemed hours; it was only minutes before the blessed sound of
waddling feet came to the bedroom door. Old Grandma Simons, Mrs.
Napthaly's mother, came in. Martie liked and Teddy loved the
shapeless, moustached old woman, who lived out obscure dim days in
the flat below, washing and dressing and feeding little black-eyed
grandchildren. Martie never saw her in anything but a baggy, spotted
black house-dress, but there were great gatherings and feasts
occasionally downstairs, and then presumably the adored old head of
the family was more suitably clad.

"Vell ... vot you try and do?" said Grandma Simons, grasping the
situation at once, and full of sympathy and approval.

"I don't know!" half-laughed, half-gasped Martie from the pillows.
"I'm awfully afraid my baby..." A spasm of pain brought her on one
elbow, to a raised position. "Oh, DON'T DO THAT!" she screamed.

"I do nothing!" said the old woman soothingly. And as Martie sank
back on the pillows, gasping and exhausted, yet with excited relief
brightening her face, Grandma Simons added triumphantly: "Now you
shall rest; you are a goot girl!"

A second later the thin cry with which the newborn catch the first
weary breath of an alien world floated through the room. Protesting,
raw, it fell on Martie's ears like the resolving chord of an
exquisite melody. Still breathless, still panting from strain and
fright, she smiled.

"Ah, the darling! Is he all right?" she whispered.

"You haf a girl!" the old woman interrupted her clucking and
grumbling to say briefly. "Vill you lay still, and let the old
Grandma fix you, or not vill you?" she added sternly. "Grandma who
has het elefen of dem...."

"Don't cry, little Margaret!" Martie murmured, happy under the
kindly adjusting old hands. The old woman stumped about composedly,
opening bureau drawers and scratching matches in the kitchen, before
she would condescend to telephone for the superfluous doctor. She
was pouring a flood of Yiddish endearments and diminutives about the
newcomer, when the surprised practitioner arrived. Mrs. Simons
scouted the idea of a nurse; she would come upstairs, her daughters
would come upstairs--what was it, one baby! Martie was allowed a
cupful of hot milk, and went to sleep with one arm about the flannel
bundle that was Margaret.

Well--she thought, drifting into happy dreams--of course, the
hospital was wonderful: the uniformed nurses, the system, the
sanitation. But this was wonderful, too. So many persons had to be
consulted, had to be involved, in the coming of a hospital baby; so
much time, so many different rooms and hallways.

The clock had not yet struck two; she had given Wallace his
breakfast at eleven, Isabeau would be home at five; Grandma had gone
downstairs to borrow some of the put-away clothes of the last little
Napthaly. Martie had nothing to do but smile and sleep. To-morrow,
perhaps, they would let her go on with "The Life of the Bee."

Peace lapped soul and body. The long-approaching trial was over. In
a few days she would arise, mistress of herself once more, and free
to remake her life.

First, they must move. Even if they could afford to pay six hundred
dollars a year in rent, this flat was neither convenient nor
sanitary for little children. Secondly, Wallace must understand that
while he worked and was sober, his wife would do her share; if he
failed her, she must find some other life. Thirdly, as soon as the
baby's claims made it possible, Martie must find some means of
making money; her own money, independent of what Wallace chose to
give.

She pondered the various possibilities. She could open a boarding-
house; although that meant an outlay for furniture and rent. She
could take a course in library work or stenography; that meant
leaving the children all day.

She began to study advertisements in the newspapers for working
housekeepers, and one day wrote a businesslike application to the
company that controlled a line of fruit steamers between the city
and Panama. Mrs. Napthaly's sister-in-law was stewardess on one of
these, and had good pay. Short stories, film-plays, newspaper work--
other women did these things. But how had they begun?

"Begin at the beginning!" she said cheerfully to herself. The move
was the beginning. Through the cool autumn days she resolutely
hunted for flats. It was a wearisome task, especially when Wallace
accompanied her, for his tastes ran to expensive and vestibuled
apartments and fashionable streets. Martie sternly held to quiet
side streets, cut off from the city by the barriers of elevated
trains and the cheap shopping districts.

When she found what she wanted, she and Wallace had a bitter
struggle. He refused at first to consider four large bare shabby
rooms in a poor street, overlooking a coal-yard, and incidentally,
on the very bank of the East River. What cars went there, he
demanded indignantly; what sort of neighbours would they have? What
would their friends think!

Martie patiently argued her point. The neighbourhood, the east
fifties, if cheap and crowded, was necessarily quiet because the
wide street ended at the river. The rooms were on a first floor, and
so pleasantly accessible for baby and baby-carriage. The coalyard,
if not particularly pleasant, was not unwholesome; there was
sunshine in every room, and finally, the rent was eighteen dollars.
They must entertain their friends elsewhere.

She did not know then that what really won him was her youth and
beauty; the new brilliant colour, the blue, blue eyes, the revived
strength and charm of the whole, lovely woman. She put her arms
about him, and he kissed her and gave her her way.

Happily they went shopping. Martie had gathered some furniture in
her various housekeeping adventures; the rest must be bought. They
prowled through second-hand stores for the big things: beds, tables,
a "chestard" for Wallace. The cottage china, chintzes, net curtains,
and grass rugs were new. Martie conceded a plaster pipe-rack, set
with little Indian faces, to Wallace; her own extravagance was a
meat-chopper. Wallace got a cocktail shaker, and when the first
grocery order went in, gin and vermouth and whisky-were included.
Martie made their first meal a celebration, in the room that was
sitting-and dining-room combined, and tired and happy, they sat long
into the evening over the table, talking of the future.

Theoretically, Wallace agreed with her. If they were to succeed,
there must be hard work, carefully controlled expenditure, and
temperance. They were still young, their children were well, and
life was before them. In a few years Wallace might make a big
success; then they could have a little country home, and belong to a
country club, and really live. Eager tears brimmed Martie's eyes as
she planned and he approved.

Actually, Wallace was not quite so satisfactory. He would be sweet-
tempered and helpful for a few days, but he expected a reward. He
expected his wife's old attitude of utter trust and devotion.
Rewarded by a happy evening when they dined and talked in utter
harmony, he would fail her again. Then came dark days, when Martie's
heart smouldered resentfully hour after busy hour. How could he--how
could he risk his position, waste his money, antagonize his wife,
break all his promises! She could not forgive him this time, she
could not go through the humiliating explanations, apologies,
asseverations, again be reconciled and again deceived!

He knew how to handle her, and she knew he knew. When the day or two
of sickness and headache were over he would shave and dress
carefully and come quietly and penitently back into the life of the
house. Would Ted like to go off with Dad for a walk? Couldn't he go
to market for her? Couldn't he go along and wheel Margaret?

Silently, with compressed lips, Martie might pass and repass him.
But the moment always came when he caught her and locked her in his
arms.

"Martie, dearest! I know how you feel--I won't blame you! I know
what a skunk and a beast I am. What can I do? How can I show you how
sorry I am? Don't--don't feel so badly! Tell me anything--any oath,
any promise, I'll make it! You're just breaking my heart, acting
like this!"

For half an hour, for an hour, her hurt might keep her unresponsive.
In the end, she always kissed him, with wet eyes, and they began
again.

Happy hours followed. Wallace would help her with the baby's bath,
with Teddy's dressing, and the united Bannisters go forth for a
holiday. Martie, her splendid square little son leaning on her
shoulder, the veiled bundle of blankets that was Margaret safely
sleeping in the crib, her handsome husband dressing for "a party,"
felt herself a blessed and happy woman.

Frequently, when he was not playing, they went to matinees,
afterward drifting out into the five o'clock darkness to join the
Broadway current. Here Wallace always met friends: picturesque
looking men, and bright-eyed, hard-faced women. Invariably they went
into some hotel, and sat about a bare table, for drinks. Warmed and
cheered, the question of convivialities arose.

"Lissen; we are all going to Kingwell's for eats," Wallace would
tell his wife.

"But, Wallace, Isabeau is going to have dinner at home!" It was no
use; the bright eye, the thickened lips, the loosened speech evaded
her. He understood her, he had perfect self-control, but she could
influence him no longer. Mutinous, she would go with the chattering
women into the dressing room, where they powdered, rouged lips and
cheeks, and fluffed their hair.

"Lord, he is a scream, that boy!" Mrs. Dolly Fairbanks might remark
appreciatively, offering Martie a mud-coloured powder-pad before
restoring it to the top of her ravelled silk stocking. "I'll bet
he's a scream in his own home!"

Martie could only smile forcedly in response. She was not in
sympathy with her companions. She hated the extravagance, the noise,
and the drinking that were a part of the evening's fun. Wallace's
big, white, ringed hand touched the precious greenbacks so readily;
here! they wanted another round of drinks; what did everybody want?

Wherever they went, the scene was the same: heat, tobacco smoke,
music; men drinking, women drinking, greenbacks changing hands,
waiters pocketing tips. Who liked it? she asked herself bitterly. In
the old days she and Sally had thought it would be fun to be in New
York, to know real actors and actresses, to go about to restaurants
in taxicabs. But what if the money that paid for the taxicabs were
needed for Ted's winter shirts and Margar's new crib? What if the
actors were only rather stupid and excitable, rather selfish and
ignorant men and women, to whom homes and children, gardens and
books were only words?

Presumably the real actors, the real writers and painters led a mad
and merry life somewhere, wore priceless gowns and opened champagne;
but it was not here. These were the imitators, the pretenders, and
the rich idlers who had nothing better to do than believe in the
pretenders.

Still, when Wallace suggested it, Martie found it wise to yield. He
might stumble home beside her at eleven, the worse for the eating
and drinking, but at least he did come home, and she could tell
herself that the men in the car who had smiled at his condition were
only brutes; she would never see them again; what did their opinion
matter! In other ways she yielded to him; peace, peace and affection
at any cost. Yet it cost her dear, for the possibility of another
child's coming was the one thought that frightened and dismayed her.

Strongly contrasted to Wallace's open-handedness when he was with
his friends was the strict economy Martie was obliged to practise in
her housekeeping. She went to market herself, as the spring came on,
heaping her little purchases at Margar's feet in the coach. Teddy
danced and chattered beside her, neighbours stopped to smile at the
baby. At the fruit carts, the meat market, the grocery, Martie
pondered and planned. Oranges had gone up, lamb had gone up--dear,
dear, dear!

Sitting at the grocery counter, she would rearrange her menus.

"Butter fifty--my, that is high! Hasn't the new butter come in? I
had better have half a pound, I think. And the beans, and the
onions, yes. Let me see--how do you sell the canned asparagus--
that's too much. Send me those things, Mr. O'Brien, and I'll see
what I can get in the market."

All about her, in the heart-warming spring sunshine, other women
were mildly lamenting, mildly bartering. Martie's brain was still
busily milling, as she wheeled the coach back through the checkered
sun and shade of the elevated train. She would bump the coach down
into the area, carefully loading her arms with small packages,
catching Margar to her shoulder.

Panting, the perspiration breaking out on her forehead, she would
enter the dining room.

"Take her, Isabeau! My arms are breaking! Whew!--it is HOT! Not now,
Teddy, you can't have anything until lunch time. Amuse her a minute,
Isabeau, I can't take her until--I get--my breath! I had to change
dinner; he had no liver. I got veal for veal loaf; Mr. Bannister
likes that; and stuffed onions, and the pie, and baked potatoes.
Make tea. Put that down, Teddy, you can't have that. Now, my
blessedest girl, come to your mother! She's half asleep now; I'll
change her and put her out for her nap!"

The baby fed and asleep, Ted out again, Martie would serve Wallace's
breakfast herself rather than interrupt the steady thumping of irons
in the kitchen. She tried to be patient with his long delays.

"How's the head?" she would ask, sitting opposite him with little
socks to match, or boxed strawberries to stem.

"Oh, rotten! I woke up when the baby did."

"But, Wallie--that was seven o'clock! You've been asleep since."

"Just dozing. I heard you come in!"

"Well, I think I'll move her clothes out of that room. Aren't your
eggs good?"

"Nope. They taste like storage. I should think we could get good
eggs now!"

"They OUGHT to be good!"

"You ought to get a telephone in here," he might return sourly.
"Then you could deal with some decent place! I hate the way women
pinch and squeeze to save five cents; there's nothing in it!"

Silence. Martie's face flushed, her fingers flew.

"What are you doing to-day?" she might ask, after a while.

"Oh, I'll go down town, I guess. Never can tell when something'll
break. Bates told me that Foster was anxious to see me. He says
they're having a deuce of a time getting people for their plays.
Bates says to stick 'em for a couple of hundred a week."

Martie placed small hope in such a hint, but she was glad he could.
When he had sauntered away, she would go on patiently, mixing the
baby's bottles, picking toys from the floor, tying and re-tying
Ted's shoe-laces. This was a woman's life. Martha Bannister was not
a martyr; nobody in the city could stop to help or pity her.

The hot summer shut down upon them, and the baby drooped, even
though Martie was careful to wheel her out into the shade by the
river every day. She herself drooped, staring at life helplessly,
hopelessly. In March there would be a third child.

After a restless night, the sun woke her, morning after morning,
glaring into her room at six. Wearily, languidly, she dressed the
twisting and leaping Teddy, fastened little Margar, with her string
of spools and her shabby double-gown, in the high-chair. The kitchen
smelled of coffee, of grease; the whole neighbourhood smelled in the
merciless heat of the summer day. Had that meat spoiled; was the
cream just a little turned?

Ted, always absorbed in wheels, pulleys, and nails, would be in an
interrogative mood.

"Mother, could a giant step across the East River?"

"What was it, dear?--the water was running; Mother didn't hear you."

"Could a giant step across a river?"

"Why, I suppose he could. Don't touch that, Ted."

"Could he step across the whole WORLD?"

"I don't know. Here's your porridge, dear. Listen---"

For Wallace was shouting. Martie would go to the bedroom door, to
interrogate the tousle-headed, heaving form under the bedclothes.

"Say, Martie, isn't there an awful lot of noise out there?"

Martie would stand silent for a moment.

"You can't blame the children for chattering, Wallace."

"Well, you tell Ted he'll catch it, if I hear any more of it!"

She would go lifelessly back to the kitchen, to sip a cup of
scalding black coffee. Margar went into her basket for her
breakfast, banging the empty bottle rapturously against the wicker
sides as a finale.

"Wash both their faces, Isabeau," Martie would murmur, flinging back
her head with a long, weary sigh. "There are no buttons on this
suit; I'll have to go back into Mr. Bannister's room--too bad, for
he's asleep again! Yes, dear, you may go to market and push the
carriage--DON'T ask Mother that again, Ted! I always let you go, and
you ALWAYS push Sister." Her voice would sink to a whisper, and her
face fall into her hands. "Oh, Isabeau, I do feel so wretched.
Sometimes it seems as if---However!" and with a sudden desperate
courage, Martie would rally herself. "However, it's all in the day's
work! Run down to the sidewalk, Ted, and Mother'll be right down
with the baby!"

Coming in an hour later perhaps, Wallace, better-natured now, would
call her again.

"Come in, Mart! Hell-oo! Is that somebody that loves her Daddy?"

"She's just going to have her bottle, Wallie" Martie would fret.

"Well, here! Let me give it to her." Sitting up in bed, his
nightgown falling open at the throat, Margar's father would hold out
big arms for the child.

"No, you can't. She'll never go to sleep at that rate; and if she
misses her nap, that upsets her whole day!"

"Lord, but you are in a grouch, Mart. For Heaven's sake, cheer up!"
Wallace, rumpling and kissing his daughter, would give her a
reproachful look.

Martie's face always darkened resentfully at such a speech.
Sometimes she did not answer.

"Perhaps if YOU couldn't sleep," she might say in a low, shaken
tone, "and you felt as miserable as I do, you might not be so
cheerful!"

"Oh, well, I know! But you know it's nothing serious, and it won't
last. Forget it! After all, your mother had four children, and mine
had seven, and they didn't make such a fuss!"

He did not mean to be unkind, she would remind herself. And what he
said was true, after all. There was nothing more to say.

"Wallie, have you any money for the laundry?"

"Oh, Lord! How much is it?"

"Two dollars and thirteen cents; four weeks now."

"Well, when does he come?"

"To-day."

"Well, you tell him that I'll step in to-morrow and pay the whole
thing. I'm going to see Richards to-day; I won't be home to dinner."

"But I thought you were going to see that man in the Bronx, about
the moving picture job to-morrow?"

"Yes, I am. What about it?"

"Nothing. Only, Wallie, if you have dinner with Mr. Richards and all
those men, you know--you know you may not feel like--like getting up
early to-morrow!" Martie, hesitating in the doorway with the baby,
wavered between tact and truth.

"Why don't you say I'll be drunk, while you're about it?"

The ugly tone would rouse everything that was ugly in response.

"Very well, I WILL say that, if you insist!" The slamming door ended
the conversation; Martie trembled as she put the child to bed.
Presently Isabeau would come to her to say noncommittally, but with
watchful, white-rimmed eyes, that Mist' Bans'ter he didn' want no
breakfuss, he jus' take hisse'f off. For the rest of the day, Martie
carried a heart of lead.

Mentally, morally, physically, the little family steadily descended.
With Martie too ill to do more than drag herself through the autumn
days, Wallace idle and ugly, Isabeau overworked and discontented,
and bills accumulating on every side, there was no saving element
left. Desperately the wife and mother plodded on; the children must
have milk and bread, the rent-collector must be pacified if not
satisfied. Everything else was unimportant. Her own appearance
mattered nothing, the appearance of the house mattered nothing. She
pinned the children's clothing when their buttons disappeared; she
slipped a coat wearily over her house-dress, and went to the
delicatessen store five minutes before dinner-time. She was thin
enough now,--Martie, who had always longed to be thin. Sometimes,
sitting on the side of an unmade bed, with a worn little shirt of
Ted's held languidly in her hands, she would call the maid.

"Isabeau! Hasn't Teddy a clean shirt?"

"No, MA'AM! You put two them shirts in yo' basket 'n' says how you's
going to fix 'em!"

"I must get at those shirts," Martie would muse helplessly. "Come,
Ted, look what you're doing! Pay attention, dear!"

"Man come with yo meat bill, Mis' Ban'ster," Isabeau might add,
lingering in the doorway. "Ah says you's OUT."

"Thank you, Isabeau." Perhaps Martie would laugh forlornly. "Never
mind--things must change! We can't go on THIS way!"

Suddenly, she was ill. Without warning, without the slip or stumble
or running upstairs that she was quite instinctively avoiding, the
accident befell. Martie, sobered, took to her bed, and sent Isabeau
flying for Dr. Converse, the old physician whose pleasant wife had
often spoken to Teddy in the market. Strange--strange, that she who
so loved children should be reduced now to mere thankfulness that
the little life was not to be, mere gratitude for an opportunity to
lie quiet in bed!

"For I suppose I should stay in bed for a few days?" Martie asked
the doctor. Until she was told she might get up. Very well, but he
must remember that she had a husband and two children to care for,
and make that soon.