"'Why, I've come to see you, grandfather,' I answered quiveringly.
"'Well, dam yer, take er look an' go home!' he roared.
"'I will!' I shouted indignantly, and more deeply hurt than ever before or since, I turned and ran from him.
"Then almost before I knew it he had me in his great, strong arms, his tears and kisses beating softly down like raindrops on my face, while he mumbled through his sobs:
"'Why, my boy, don't you know your old grandfather's ways? Eliza's son! First-born of my first-born, you are more welcome than sunshine after a storm. Never mind what grandfather says, little man; just always remember he loves you like a son.'
"He had by that time carried me back to his door; there all at once his whole manner changed, and putting me on my feet, he cried: 'Thar, yer damned lazy little rascal, yer expec' me ter carry yer eround like er nigger? Use yer own legs and find yer grandmother.'
"But he could not frighten me then nor ever any more; I had seen his heart, and it was the heart of a poet, a lover, a gentleman, do what he might to hide it."
The doctor had allowed me to have my head, and talk in my rambling, reminiscent fashion, and agreed in my estimate of my grandsire.
"Yessir, just like him for the world!" he cried.
"I was at his house one day when the ugliest man in Warren County came out; he did not wait to greet him, but shouted, 'My God, man, don't you wish ugliness was above par? You'd be er Croesus.'"
FOOTNOTE:
[32] Copyright, 1901, by Thomas Y. Crowell and Company.
MARY F. LEONARD
Miss Mary Finley Leonard, maker of many tales for girls, was born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1862, but she was brought to Louisville, Kentucky, when but a few months old. Louisville has been her home ever since. Miss Leonard was educated in private schools, and at once entered upon her literary labors. She has published ten books for girls from fourteen to sixteen years of age, but several of them may be read by "grown-ups." The style of all of them is delightfully simple and direct. _The Story of the Big Front Door_ (New York, 1898), was her first story, and this was followed by _Half a Dozen Thinking Caps_ (New York, 1900); _The Candle and the Cat_ (New York, 1901); _The Spectacle Man_ (Boston, 1901); _Mr. Pat's Little Girl_ (Boston, 1902); _How the Two Ends Met_ (New York, 1903); _The Pleasant Street Partnership_ (Boston, 1903); _It All Came True_ (New York, 1904); _On Hyacinth Hill_ (Boston, 1904); and her most recent book, _Everyday Susan_ (New York, 1912). These books have brought joy and good cheer to girls in many lands, and they have been read by many mothers and fathers with pleasure and profit. Miss Leonard has made for herself a secure place in the literature of Kentucky, a place that is peculiarly her own. She has a novel of mature life in manuscript, which is said to be the finest thing she has done so far, and which will be published in 1913.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Munsey's Magazine_ (March, 1900); _Who's Who in America_ (1912-1913).
GOODBY[33]
[From _The Candle and the Cat_ (New York, 1901)]
Trolley sat on the gate-post. If possible he was handsomer than ever, for the frosty weather had made his coat thick and fluffy, besides this he wore his new collar. His eyes were wide open to-day, and he looked out on the world with a solemn questioning gaze.
He had been decidedly upset in his mind that morning at finding an open trunk in Caro's room, and clothes scattered about on chairs and on the bed. Of course he did not know what this meant, but to the cat mind anything unusual is objectionable, and it made him unhappy.
Finally he stretched himself in the tray, where Caro found him.
"You darling pussie!" she cried, "Mamma do look at him. I believe he wants to go home with us. I wish we could take him."
But Mrs Holland said one little girl was all the traveling companion she cared for. "It wouldn't do dear, he would be unhappy on the train," she added.
"I don't know what I should have done without him. He and my candle were my greatest comforts--except grandpa," and Caro put her cheek down on Trolley's soft fur.
"What am I to do without my little candle?" her grandfather asked.
"Why, you can have the cat," Caro answered merrily.
No wonder Trolley's mind was disturbed that morning with such a coming and going as went on,--people running in to say goodby, and Aunt Charlotte thinking every few minutes of something new for the traveler's lunch, tickling his nose with tantalizing odors of tongue and chicken.
It was over at last, trunks and bags were sent off, Aunt Charlotte was hugged and kissed and then Trolley had his turn, and the procession moved, headed by the president.
"Goodby Trolley; don't forget me!" Caro called, walking backwards and waving her handkerchief.
When they were out of sight Trolley went and sat on the gate-post and thought about it. After a while he jumped down and trotted across the campus with a businesslike air as if he had come to an important decision. He took his way through the Barrows orchard to the Grayson garden where there was now a well-trodden path through the snow.
Miss Grayson and her brother were sitting in the library. They had been talking about Caro when Walter glancing toward the window saw a pair of golden eyes peering in at him. "There is Trolley," he said, and called Thompson to let him in.
Trolley entered as if he was sure of a welcome, and walking straight to Miss Elizabeth, sprang into her lap; and from this on he became a frequent visitor at the Graysons' dividing his time in fact about evenly between his two homes.
And thus an unfortunate quarrel which had disturbed the peaceful atmosphere of Charmington and separated old friends, was forgotten, and as the president often remarked, it was all owing to the candle and the cat.
FOOTNOTE:
[33] Copyright, 1901, by Thomas Y. Crowell and Company.
JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER
Joseph Alexander Altsheler, the most prolific historical novelist Kentucky has produced, was born at Three Springs, Kentucky, April 29, 1862. He was educated at Liberty College, Glasgow, Kentucky, and at Vanderbilt University. His father's death compelled him to leave Vanderbilt without his degree, and he entered journalism at Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Altsheler was on the Louisville _Evening Post_ for a year, when he went with _The Courier-Journal_, with which paper his remained for seven years. During his years on _The Courier-Journal_ he filled almost every position except editor-in-chief. He later went to New York, and, since 1892, has been editor of the tri-weekly edition of _The World_. Mr. Altsheler was married, in 1888, to Miss Sara Boles of Glasgow, Kentucky, and they have an attractive home in New York. He began his literary career with a pair of "shilling shockers," entitled _The Rainbow of Gold_ (New York, 1895), and _The Hidden Mine_ (New York, 1896), neither of which did more than start him upon his real work. The full list of his tales hitherto is: _The Sun of Saratoga_ (New York, 1897); _A Soldier of Manhattan_ (New York, 1897); _A Herald of the West_ (New York, 1898); _The Last Rebel_ (Philadelphia, 1899); _In Circling Camps_ (New York, 1900), a story of the Civil War and his best work so far; _In Hostile Red_ (New York, 1900), the basis of which was first published in _Lippincott's Magazine_ as "A Knight of Philadelphia;" _The Wilderness Road_ (New York, 1901); _My Captive_ (New York, 1902); _Guthrie of the Times_ (New York, 1904), a Kentucky newspaper story of success, one of Mr. Altsheler's finest tales; _The Candidate_ (New York, 1905), a political romance. The year 1906 witnessed no book from the author's hand, but in the following year he began the publication of a series of books for boys, as well as several other novels. His six stories for young readers are: _The Young Trailers_ (New York, 1907); _The Forest Runners_ (New York, 1908); _The Free Rangers_ (New York, 1909); _The Riflemen of the Ohio_ (New York, 1910); _The Scouts of the Valley_ (New York, 1911); and _The Border Watch_ (New York, 1912). "All the six volumes deal with the fortunes and adventures of two boys, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter, and their friends, Shif'less Sol Hyde, Silent Tom Ross and Long Jim Hart, in the early days of Kentucky." Mr. Altsheler's latest historical novels are: _The Recovery_ (New York, 1908); _The Last of the Chiefs_ (New York, 1909); _The Horsemen of the Plains_ (New York, 1910); and _The Quest of the Four_ (New York, 1911). He is at the present time engaged upon a trilogy dealing with the Texan struggle for independence against Mexico, the first of which has recently appeared, _The Texan Star_ (New York, 1912). This tale, with the other two that are to be issued in 1913, to be entitled, _The Texan Scouts_, and _The Texan Triumph_, are written chiefly for the young. He will also publish in 1913 a story to be called _Apache Gold_. "Joseph A. Altsheler has made a fictional tour of American history," one of his keenest critics has well said; and his work has been linked with James Fenimore Cooper's by no less a judge of literary productions than the late Richard Henry Stoddard.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Independent_ (August 9, 1900); _The Book Buyer_ (September, 1900); _The Bookman_ (February, 1903).
THE CALL OF THE DRUM[34]
[From _In Circling Camps_ (New York, 1900)]
Then I listened to the call of the drum.
Fort Sumter was fired upon, and the first cannon shot there set this war drum to beating in every village; it was never silent; its steady roll day after day was calling men up to the cannon mouth; it was persistent, unsatisfied, always crying for more.
Its beat was heard throughout a vast area, over regions whose people knew of each other as part of the same nation but had never met, calling above this line to the North, calling below it to the South, summoning up the legions for a struggle in which old jealousies and old quarrels, breeding since the birth of the Union, were to be settled.
The drum beat its martial note in the great cities of the Atlantic, calling the men away from the forges and the shops and the wharves--clerks, moulders, longshoremen, the same call for all; it passed on, and its steady beat resounded among the hills and mountains of the North, calling to the long-limbed farmer boys to drop the plough and take up the rifle, sending them on to join the moulders, and clerks, and longshoremen, and putting upon all one stamp, the stamp of the soldier, food for the cannon--and this food supply was to be the largest of its time, though few yet dreamed it.
The roll of the drum went on, through the fields, along the rivers, by the shores of the Great Lakes, out upon the plains, where the American yet fought with the Indian for a foothold, and into the interminable forests whose shades hid the pioneers; over levels and acres and curves of thousands of miles, calling up the deep-chested Western farmers, men of iron muscles and no pleasures, to whom unbroken hardship was the natural course of life, and sending them to join their Eastern brethren at the cannon mouth.
It was an insistent drum, beating through all the day and night, over the mountains, through the sunless woods and on the burnt prairies, never resting, never weary. The opportunity was the greatest of the time, and the drum did not neglect a moment; it was without conscience, and had no use for mercy, calling, always calling.