Traditional Text - "Pirke Avot"

Arthur M. Winfield - "The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes"

S. O. Susag - "Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag"

Herman Melville - "Moby Dick; or The Whale"

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: The Heart of Rachael

K >> Kathleen Norris >> The Heart of Rachael




"There's worse places than this," Ellie said, watching her small
daughter begin on her waffle. A general nodding of heads in a
contented silence indicated that there was some happiness in the
Breckenridge household even though it was below stairs.

Rachael's sombre revery was presently interrupted by the smooth
crushing of wheels on the pebbled drive and the announcement of
Mrs. Haviland, who followed her name promptly into the breakfast-
room. A fine, large, beautifully gowned woman, with a prayer book
in her white-gloved hand, and a veil holding her close, handsome
spring hat in place, she glanced at the coffee and hot bread with
superiority only possible to a person whose own breakfast is
several hours past.

"Rachael, you lazy woman!" said Florence Haviland lightly,
breathing deep, as a heavy woman in tight corsets must perforce
breathe on a warm spring morning. "Do you realize that it's almost
eleven o'clock?"

"Perfectly!" Mrs. Breckenridge said. "I slept until nine, and felt
quite proud of myself to think that I had got through so much of
the day!"

Mrs. Haviland gave her a sharp look in answer, not quite
disapproving, yet far from pleased.

"I started the girlies off to eight o'clock service," she said
capably. "Fraulien went with them, and that leaves the maids free
to go when they please." This was one of Mrs. Haviland's favorite
illusions. "Gardner begged off this morning, he's been so good
about going lately that I couldn't very well refuse, so I started
early and have just dropped him at the club."

"Was Gardner at the Berry Stokes bachelor dinner on Friday night?"
asked Rachael. Mrs. Haviland was all comprehension at once.

"No, he couldn't. Mr. Payne of the London branch was here you
know, and Gardner's been terribly tied. He left yesterday, thank
goodness. Clarence went of course? Oh, dear, dear, dear!"

The last three words came on a gentle sigh. Clarence's sister
compressed her lips and shook her handsome head.

"Is he very bad?" she asked reluctantly.

"Pretty much as usual," Rachael answered philosophically. "I had
Greg in." And suddenly, unexpectedly, she felt a quick happy
flutter at her heart, and a roseate mist drifted before her eyes.

"It's disgraceful!" Mrs. Haviland said, eying Rachael hopefully
for a wifely denial. As this was not forthcoming, she went on
briskly: "However, my dear, Clarence isn't the only one! They say
Fred Bowditch is actually"--her voice sank to a discreet undertone
as she added the word--"violent; and poor Lucy Pickering needed a
rest cure the moment she got her divorce, she was in such a
nervous state. I'm not defending Clarence--"

"What are you doing, then?" Rachael asked, with her cool smile.

"Well, I--" Mrs. Haviland, who had been drifting comfortably along
on a tide of words, stopped, a little at a loss. "I hope I don't
have to defend your own husband to you, Rachael," she said
reproachfully.

"I'm getting pretty tired of it," said Rachael moodily.

Mrs. Haviland watched the downcast beautiful face opposite her
with a sense of growing alarm.

"My dear," she said impressively, "of course it's hard for you; we
all know that. But just at this time, Rachael, it would be
absolutely FATAL to have any open break with Clarence--"

Rachael flung up her head impatiently, then dropped her face in
her hands.

"I don't want any open break," she muttered.

"You do? Oh, you DON'T?" Mrs. Haviland questioned anxiously. "No,
of course you don't. He's not himself now, for several reasons.
For one--and that's what I specially came to speak to you about--
for one thing, he's terribly worried about Carol. Carol," repeated
Mrs. Haviland significantly, "and Joe Pickering."

Rachael raised sombre eyes, but did not speak.

"Is Carol here?" her aunt asked delicately.

"Dressing," Rachael answered briefly.

"Do you realize," Mrs. Haviland said, "that everyone is beginning
to talk?"

"Perfectly," Rachael admitted. "But what do you expect me to do?"

"SOMETHING must be done," said the other woman firmly.

"By whom?" Rachael countered lightly.

"Well--by Clarence, I suppose," Mrs. Haviland suggested
discontentedly.

"Clarence!" Rachael's tone was but a scornful breath. Her glance
toward the ceiling evoked more clearly than any words a vision of
Clarence's condition at the moment.

"Well, I suppose he can't do anything just now, anyway," his
sister conceded ruefully. "Can't you--couldn't you talk to her,
Rachael?"

"Talk to her?" Mrs. Breckenridge smiled at some memory. "My dear
Florence, you don't suppose I haven't talked to her!"

"Well, I suppose of course you have," Mrs. Haviland said hastily.
"But my dear, it's dreadful! People are beginning to ask
questions; a reporter--we don't know who he was--telephoned
Gardner. Of course Gardner hung up--"

"I can say no more than I have said," Rachael observed
thoughtfully. "What authority have I? Clarence could influence
her, I think, but she lies simply and flatly to Clarence."

Mrs. Haviland winced at the ugly word.

"Joe drinks," Rachael went on, "but he doesn't drink as much as
her adored Daddy does. Joe is thirty-nine and Billy is seventeen--
well, that's not his fault. Joe is divorced--well, but Carol's
mother is living, and Clarence's second wife isn't exactly
ostracised by society! A clergyman of your own church married
Clarence and me--" The little scornful twist of the beautiful
mouth stung a church woman conscious of personal integrity, and
Mrs. Haviland said:

"A great many of them won't! The church is going to take a stand
in the matter. The bishops are considering a canon. ..."

Mrs. Breckenridge shrugged her shoulders indifferently. Theology
did not interest her.

"And as Billy is too young and too blind to see that Joe isn't a
gentleman," she continued, "or to realize that Lucy got her
divorce against his will, to believe that her money might well
influence a gentleman of Joe's luxurious tastes and dislike for
office work--why, I suppose they will be married!"

"Never!" said Florence Haviland, with some heat, "DON'T!"

"Unless Clarence shoots him," submitted Rachael. A look of intense
anxiety clouded Mrs. Haviland's eyes.

"I believe he would," she said, in a wretched whisper, with a
cautious glance about.

"He might," his wife said seriously. "If ever it comes to that, we
shall simply have to keep them apart. You see Billy--the clever
little devil--"

"Oh, Rachael, DON'T use such words!" said the church woman.
"Father Graves was saying only the other day that one's speech
should be 'yea, yea' and--"

"I daresay!" Mrs. Breckenridge's smile was indulgent. It had been
many years since Florence had succeeded in ruffling her. "Billy,
then," she resumed, "keeps her father happy in the thought that he
is all the world to her, and that her occasional chats with Joe
are of an entirely uplifting and impersonal character."

"Impersonal! Uplifting!" Mrs. Haviland repeated indignantly.
"There wasn't very much uplift about them the other night. Gardner
and I stopped in to see if we couldn't take you to the Hoyts', but
you'd gone. Carol had on that flame-colored dress of hers, her
hair was fluffed all over her ears in that silly way the girls do
now; Joe couldn't take his eyes off her. The only light they had
in the drawing-room was the yellow lamp and the fire; it was the
coziest thing I ever saw!"

"Vivvy Sartoris was here!" Rachael said quickly.

"Don't you believe it, my dear!" Mrs. Haviland returned
triumphantly. "Carol was very demure, 'Tante' this and 'Tante'
that, but I knew right away that something was amiss! 'Oh,' I said
right out flatly, 'are you alone here, Carol?' and she answered
very prettily: 'Vivian was to be here, but she hasn't come yet!'
This was after half-past seven."

"I understood Vivian WAS here," said Rachael, flushing darkly.
"Let me see--the next morning--where was I? Oh, yes, it was your
luncheon, and Billy had gone out for some tennis when I came
downstairs. I supposed of course--but I didn't ask. I DID ask
Helda what time she had let the gentleman out and she said before
eleven--not much after half-past ten, in fact."

"You see, we mustn't go on suppositions and halftruths any more,"
said Mrs. Haviland in delicate reproach. "When we have that
wonderful and delicate thing, a girl's soul, to deal with, we must
be SURE."

"I suppose I'd better tell Clarence that--about Wednesday night,"
Rachael said, downing with some effort an impulse to ask Florence
not to be so smug.

"Well, I think you had," the other agreed, with visible relief.

"As for me," Mrs. Breckenridge said, nettled by her sister-in-
law's attitude, and mischievously interested in the effect of her
thunderbolt, "I'm just desperately tired of it. I can't see that
I'm doing Clarence, or Billy, or myself, any good! I'd like to
resign, and let somebody else try for a while!"

Steel leaped into Mrs. Haviland's light-blue eyes. She felt the
shock in every fibre of body and soul, but she flung herself
gallantly into the charge. Her large form straightened, her
expression achieved a certain remoteness.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked sharply.

"The usual thing, I suppose," Rachael answered indifferently.

The older woman, watching her closely, essayed a brief, dry laugh.

"Don't talk absurdities," she said boldly. But Rachael saw the
uneasiness under the assured manner, and smiled to herself.

"It's not absurd at all," she protested, still with her smiling,
half-negligent air; "I've put it off years longer than most women
would; now I'm getting rather tired."

"It's a great mistake to talk that way, whether you mean it or
not," Mrs. Haviland said, after an uncomfortable moment, during
which her face flushed, and her breath began to come rather fast.
"But you're joking, of course; you're too sensible to take any
step that would only plunge you into fresh difficulties. Clarence
is very trying, I know--we all know that--but let's try to face
the situation sensibly, and not fly off the handle like this! Why,
Rachael dear, I can hardly believe it's your cool-headed,
reasonable self talking," she went on more quietly. "Don't--don't
even think about it! In the first place, you couldn't get it!"

"Oh, yes, I could. Clarence wouldn't contest it," Rachael said.
"He'd agree to anything to be rid of me. If not--if he wouldn't
agree to my filing suit under the New York law, I could establish
my residence in California or Nevada, and bring suit there. ..."

Mrs. Haviland gasped.

"Give up your home and your car and your maids for some small
hotel?" she questioned, with her favorite air of neatly placing
her fingertip upon the weak spot in her opponent's armor. "No
clubs, no dinners, none of your old friends--have you thought of
that?"

"You may imagine that I've thought of it from a good many angles,
Florence," Rachael said coldly, finding that what had been a mere
drifting idea was beginning to take rather definite form in her
mind. It was delightful to see the usually complacent and
domineering Florence so agitated and at a loss.

"I never dreamed--" Mrs. Haviland mused dazedly. "How long, in
Heaven's name, have you been thinking about it?"

"Oh, quite some time," said Rachael.

"Well, it's awful!" the other woman said. "It'll make the most
awful--and as if poor Clarence hadn't been all through it all
once! I declare it makes me sick! But I can't believe you're
serious. Rachael, think--think what it means!"

"It's a very serious thing," the other assented placidly. "But
Clarence has no one but himself to blame."

"Only Clarence won't BE blamed, my dear; men never are!" Mrs.
Haviland suggested unkindly. Rachael reddened.

"_I_ don't care what they say or whom they blame!" she answered
proudly.

"Ah, well, my dear, we aren't any of us really indifferent to
criticism," the older woman said, watching closely the effect of
her words. "People are censorious--it's too bad, it's a pity--but
there you are. 'There must have been something we didn't
understand,' they say, 'there must be another man!'"

Rachael raised her head a little, and managed a smile.

"That's what they say," Mrs. Haviland went on, mildly triumphant.
"And no matter how brave or how independent a woman is, she
doesn't like THAT." There came to the speaker suddenly, under her
smooth flow of words, a sickening shock of realization: it was of
Rachael and Clarence she was speaking, her nearest relatives; it
was one of the bulwarks of her world that was threatened! Without
her knowledge her tone became less sure and more sincere. "For
God's sake, think what you are doing, dear," she said pleadingly;
"think of Carol and of us all! Don't drag us all through the
papers again! I know what Clarence is, poor wretched boy; he's
always had too much money, he's always had his own way. I know
what you put up with week in and week out--"

Mrs. Haviland's usual attitude of assured superiority never
impressed her sister-in-law. Her pompous magnificence was a source
of unmitigated amusement to Rachael. But now the older woman's
emotion had carried her on to genuine and honest expression in
spite of herself, and listening, Rachael found herself curiously
stirred. She looked down, conscious of a sudden melting in her
heart, a thickening in her throat.

"I've always been so fond of you, Rachael," Florence went on.
"I've always stood your friend--you know that--"

"I know," Rachael said huskily, her lashes dropped.

"Long before I knew how much you would be liked, Rachael, and what
a fuss people were going to make over you, I made you welcome,"
continued Florence simply, with tears in her eyes. "I thanked God
that Clarence had married a good woman, and that Carol would have
a refined and a--I may say a Christian home. Isn't that true?"

"I know," Rachael said again with an effort, as she paused.

"Then think it over," besought the other woman eagerly. "Think
that Carol will marry, and that Clarence--" Her ardent tone
dropped suddenly. There was a moment's pause. Then she added
dryly, "How do, dear?"

"How do, Tante Firenze!" said Carol, who had come abruptly into
the, room. "How are the girls? Say, listen! Is Isabelle going to
the Bowditches'?"

"I don't even know that Charlotte is going," Mrs. Haviland said,
with an auntly smile of baffling sweetness that yet contained a
subtle reproof. "Uncle Gardner and I haven't made up our minds.
Isabelle in any case would only go to look on, so she is not so
much interested, but poor Charlotte is simply on tenterhooks to
know whether it's to be yes or no. Girls' first parties"--her
indulgent smile included Rachael--"dear me, how important they
seem!"

"I should think you'd have to answer Mrs. Bowditch," said Carol in
plain disgust at this maternal vacillation.

"Mrs. Bowditch is fortunately an old enough friend, dear, to waive
the usual formalities," her aunt answered sweetly.

"But, my gracious--Charlotte's two months older than I am, and she
won't know any of the men!" Carol protested.

"Don't speak in that precocious way, Bill," Rachael said sharply.
"You went to your first dances last winter!"

Carol gave her stepmother a look conspicuously devoid of
affection, and turned to adjust her smart little hat with the aid
of a narrow mirror hanging between the glass dining-room doors.

"You couldn't drop me at the club, on your way to church, Tante?"
she presently inquired. And to Rachael she added, with youthful
impatience, "I told Dad where I was going!"

Mrs. Haviland rose somewhat heavily.

"Glad to. Any chance of you coming to lunch, Rachael? What are
your plans?"

"Thank you, no, woman dear! I may go over to Gertrude's for tea."

The little group broke up. Mrs. Haviland and her niece went out to
the waiting motor car purring on the pebbled drive. Rachael idly
watched them out of sight, sighed at the thought of wasting so
beautiful a day indoors, and went slowly upstairs. Her husband,
comfortably propped in pillows, looked better.

"Clarence," said she, depositing several pounds of morning papers
upon the foot of his bed, "who's Billy lunching with at the club?"

Clarence picked up the uppermost paper, fixed his eyes attentively
upon it, and puffed upon his cigarette for reply.

"Do you know?" Rachael asked vigorously.

No answer. Mr. Breckenridge, his eyes still intent upon what he
was reading, held his cigarette at arm's length over the brass
bowl on the table beside the bed, and dislodged a quarter-inch of
ash with his little finger.

Rachael, briskly setting his cluttered table to rights, gave him
an angry glance that, so far as any effect upon him was concerned,
was thrown away.

"Don't be so rude, Clarence," she said, in annoyance. "Billy said
you agreed to her going to the club for golf. Who's she with?"

At last Mr. Breckenridge raised sodden and redshot eyes to his
wife's face, moistening his dark and swollen lips carefully with
his tongue before he spoke. He was a fat-faced man, who, despite
evidences of dissipation, did not look his more than forty years.
There was no gray in his thin, silky hair, and there still
lingered an air of youth and innocence in his round face. This
morning he was in a bad temper because his whole body was still
upset from the Friday night dinner and drinking party, and in his
soul he knew that he had cut rather a poor figure before Billy,
and that the little minx had taken instant advantage of the
situation.

"I just want to say this, Rachael," Clarence said, with an icy
dignity only slightly impaired by the lingering influences of
drink. "I'm Billy's father, and I understand her, and she
understands me. That's all that's necessary; do you get me?" He
put his cigarette holder back in his mouth, gripped it firmly
between his teeth, and turned again to his paper. "If some of you
damned jealous women who are always running around trying to make
trouble would let her ALONE" he went on sulkily, "I'd be obliged
to you--that's all!"

Rachael settled her ruffles in a big wing-chair with the innocent
expression of a casual caller. She took a book from the reading
table, and fluttered a few pages indifferently.

"Listen, Clancy," said she placatingly. "Florence was just here,
and she says--and I agree--that there is no question that Joe
Pickering is devoted to Bill. Now, I don't say that Billy is
equally devoted--"

"Ha! Better not!" said Clarence at white heat, one eye watchful
over the top of the paper.

"But I DO say," pursued Rachael steadily, "that she is with him a
good deal more than she will admit. Yesterday, for instance, when
she was playing tennis with the Parmalees and the Pinckard boy,
Kent came up to the house to get some ginger ale. I happened to be
dummy, and I went out on the terrace. Joe's horse was down near
the courts, and Joe and Billy were sitting there on one of the
benches--where the others were I don't know. When Kent went down
with the ginger ale, Joe got on his horse and went off. Of course
it was only for a few minutes, but Billy didn't say anything about
it--"

Her voice, with a tentative question in it, rested in air.
Clarence turned a page with some rustling of paper.

"Then Florence says," Rachael went on after a moment, "that when
she and Gardner stopped here Wednesday night Joe was here, and
Vivvie Sartoris wasn't here. Now, of course, I don't KNOW, for I
didn't ask Alfred---"

"There you go," said the sick man witheringly. "That's right--ask
the maids, and get all the servants talking; all come down on the
heels of a poor little girl like a pack of yapping wolves! I
suppose if she was plain and unattractive--I should think you'd be
ashamed," he went on, changing his high and querulous key to one
of almost priestly authority and reproof, "Upon my word, it's
beneath your dignity. My little girl comes to me, and she explains
the whole matter. Pickering admires her--she can't help that--and
she has an influence over him. She tells me he hasn't touched a
thing but beer for six weeks, just because she asked him to give
up heavy drinking. He told her the other day that if he had met
her a few years ago, Lucy never would have left him. She's wakened
the boy up, he's a different fellow--"

"All that may be true," Rachael said quickly, the color that his
preposterous rebuke had summoned to her cheeks still flushing
them, "still, you don't want Billy to marry Joe Pickering! You
know that sort of pity, and that business of reforming a man--"
She paused, but Clarence did not speak. "Not that Billy herself
realizes it, I daresay," Rachael added presently, watching the
reader's absorbed face for an answering look.

Silence.

"Clarence!" she began imperatively.

Clarence withdrew his attention from the paper with an obvious
effort, and spoke in a laboriously polite tone.

"I don't care to discuss it, Rachael."

"But--" Rachael stopped short on the word. Silence reigned in the
big, bright room except for the occasional rustle of Clarence's
newspaper. His wife sat idle, her eyes roving indifferently from
the gayly papered walls to the gayly flowered hangings, the great
bowl of daffodils on the bookcase, the portrait of Carol that,
youthful and self-conscious, looked down from the mantel. On the
desk a later photograph of Carol, in a silver frame, was duly
flanked by one of Rachael, the girl in the gown she had worn for
her first big dance, the woman looking out from under the narrow
brim of a snug winter hat, great furs framing her beautiful face,
and her slender figure wrapped in furs. Here also was a picture of
Florence Haviland, her handsome face self-satisfied, her trio of
homely, distinguished-looking girls about her, and a small picture
of Gardner, and two of Clarence's dead mother: one, as they all
remembered her, a prim-looking woman with gray hair and
magnificent lace on her unfashionable gown, the other, taken
thirty years before, showing her as cheerful and youthful, a
cascade of ringlets falling over her shoulder, the arm that
coquettishly supported her head resting upon an upholstered
pedestal, a voluminous striped silk gown sweeping away from her in
rich folds. There was even a picture of Clarence and Florence when
they were respectively eight and twelve, Clarence in a buttoned
serge kilt and plaid stockings, his fat, gentle little face framed
in damp careful curls, Florence also with plaid stockings and a
scalloped frock. Clarence sat in a swing; Florence, just behind
him, leaned on an open gate, her legs crossed carelessly as she
rested on her elbows. And there was a picture of their father, a
simple-faced man in an ample beard, taken at that period when
photographs were highly glazed, and raised in bas relief. Least
conspicuous of all was a snapshot framed in a circle of battered
blue-enamel daisies, the picture of a baby girl laughing against a
background of dandelions and meadow grass. And Rachael knew that
this was Clarence's greatest treasure, that it went wherever he
went, and that it was worn shabby and tarnished from his hands and
his lips.

Sometimes she looked at it and wondered. What a bright-faced, gay
little thing Billy had been! Who had set her down in that field,
and quieted the rioting eyes and curls and dimples, and anchored
the restless little feet, while Baby watched Dad and the black box
with the birdie in it? Paula? Once, idly interested in those old
days before she had known him, she had asked about the picture.
But Clarence, glad to talk of it, had not mentioned his wife.

"It was before my father died; we were up in the old Maine place,"
he had said. "Gosh, Bill was cute that day! We went on a drive--no
motor cars then--and took our lunch, and after lunch the kid comes
and settles herself in my arms--for a nap, if you please! 'Say,
look-a-here,' I said, 'what do you think I am--a Pullman?' I
wanted a smoke, by George! She wasn't two, you know. Her fat
little legs were bare, we'd put her into socks, and her face was
flushed, and she just looked up at me through her hair and said,
'Hing!' Well, it was good-bye smoke for me! I sang all right, and
she cuddled down as pleased as a kitten, and off she went!"

To-day Rachael's eyes wandered from the picture to Clarence's
face. She tried to study it dispassionately, but, still shaken by
their recent conversation, and sitting there, as she knew she was
sitting there, merely to prove that it had had no effect upon her,
she felt this to be a little difficult.

What sort of a little boy had he been? A fat little boy, of
course. She disliked fat little boys. A spoiled little boy, never
crossed in any way. His mother made him go to Sunday-school, and
dancing school, and to Miss Nesmith's private academy, where he
was coaxed and praised and indulged even more than at home. And
old Fanny, who was still with Florence, superintended his baths
and took care of his clothes, and ran her finger over the bristles
of his toothbrush every morning, to see if he had told her the
truth. He rarely did; they used to laugh about those old
deceptions. Clarence used to laugh as violently as the old woman
when she accused him of occasional kicking and biting.

Other boys came in to play with him. Was it because of his magic
lantern and his velocipede, his unending supply of cream puffs and
licorice sticks, or because they liked him? Rachael knew only a
detail here and there: that he had danced a fancy dance with Anna
Vanderwall when he was a fat sixteen, at a Kermess, and that he
had given a stag dinner to twenty youths of his own age a few days
before he went off to college, and that they had drunk a hundred
and fifty dollars' worth of champagne. She knew that his allowance
at college was three hundred dollars a month, and that he never
stayed within it, and it was old Fanny's boast that every stitch
the boy ever wore from the day he was born came from London or
Paris. His underwear was as dainty as a bride's; he had his first
dress suit at fifteen; at college he had his suite of three big
rooms furnished like showrooms, his monogrammed cigarettes, his
boat, and his horse.