Classic Audiobook Collection - The Will and the Way Stories by Jessie Benton Fremont ~ Full Audiobook [self help]

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

The Will and the Way Stories by Jessie Benton Fremont audiobook. Genre: self help In The Will and the Way Stories, 19th-century American writer Jessie Benton Fremont gathers nine brief, essay-like tales that turn a familiar proverb into lived experience: where there's a will, there's a way. Moving from small-town classrooms and snowy evening walks to seafaring labor and far-flung travel, each vignette introduces ordinary people - and a few larger-than-life figures - facing a practical problem, a moral test, or a moment of fear that demands grit, ingenuity, and steady purpose. The collection ranges widely in setting and tone, from the working-life realism of 'The Deck Hand' to the frontier-flavored portrait of 'Kit Carson,' and from the playful contrasts of 'Play and Work' to the more sobering shadows of 'A Long Horror.' Other pieces follow miscommunications and chance encounters ('The Hat of the Postmaster'), the clash between stubbornness and true resolve ('The Two Wills'), and a quietly urgent call to compassion ('The Good Samaritan'). Written with warmth, humor, and an eye for character, these compact stories invite listeners to consider how determination, conscience, and everyday choices shape the roads we manage to take - and the ones we fail to see until we try. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:17:33) Chapter 2 (00:53:42) Chapter 3 (01:21:11) Chapter 4 (01:39:36) Chapter 5 (01:52:08) Chapter 6 (02:14:46) Chapter 7 (02:44:33) Chapter 8 (03:08:50) Chapter 9 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the will and the way stories by jesse benton fremont chapter one the deck hand the boys of mr fountain's school were delighted when he told them he should take them that evening to a lecture in the town not that they cared a fig for the lecture but it was a chance to get out and in place of the quiet study-room there would be the jolly walk by moonlight down the frozen hillside with slides and snowballing instead of books then the bright lecture-room gay with all the young people of the town smiling and nodding to them in the telegraph signal way young people knew long before real telegraphs were invented the lecture itself might have been on astronomy or prehistoric man and it would have been exactly as welcomed by them they had no idea of using their ears only their eyes but they were surprised into deep interest a wiry but strong man about fifty years of age began at once to tell them he was glad to meet so many young people and as they had marched in their uniformed corps their bright healthy looks and elastic trained steps made him see the good preparation they were having for a disciplined and useful future that he felt it his opportunity to give them in their young and impressionable phase the warning that experience had qualified him to give and the example of perseverance and will required to regain an upright life which his experience also qualified him to prove was possible possible with a steadfast will and god's help and he told them his story the story of a pleasant new england home where he too had been a happy schoolboy rejoicing in winter slayings and skatings and the cheery home life around the big fire

the happy summers of farm work and study of his parents love and pride in him i was a quick and bright boy and they thought i would come to a high name for i loved to study as well as to play and so his young life went on steadily upwards through the home school then until he was nearly through college he had grown away from the simpler and loving home influences and had been made to think many things only manly and like a good fellow which in the home he had been taught were wrong but with the wish to be a good fellow and the unwillingness to lose popularity by refusing to drink he made the break that let in ruin friendly drinks were the beginning of the end he told of his broken career the dismissal from college the distress of his home his debts his father's sorrow and anger his father's death his own remorse and flight from home as far as he could get to the south and there of his quick falling lower and lower from his brief efforts to his own remorse and flight from home as far as he could get to the south and there of his quick falling lower from his brief efforts to reform into longer periods of drinking until he found himself so degraded by it that he was finally forced by hunger to take the lowest employment a white man could then have this was a good many years before our late war the place of deckhand on a mississippi steamboat by this he was put entirely among a low and dangerous class of negro slaves men whose violent natures or whose passion for drink made them unsafe for usual plantation work criminal and dangerous negroes were not put in jail then they would have been a loss to the master of the profits of their labor

so he became one in a gang of the worst characters and what was then held as worse yet worked with black men under the rough and even cruel control that could be enforced on board the boat these men were kept in check to break out at times fiercely among themselves or on getting ashore i do not know how they manage now but in the old day fuel for steam was supplied at frequent landings where long lines of cordwood were kept ready for the boats the steamer was run alongside the bank and the crew rushed to wood up. Often there was a question of speed, a race, in fact, between boats bound for the same port, and no time must be lost. So, what with the spirit of rivalry, the cursing, the cracking raw hides of the gangmasters, the eagerness of the men themselves to run off the boat and have a change from their

hut work there of keeping up the furnace, and always the vague white. hope of running away, fixed in their minds, the scene was wild. Especially after nightfall, when the furnaces were opened and the glare turned on the bank, and many pine torches lit up the scene of rushing, hurrying, stalwart black figures, naked to the waist and glistening wet with heat. Always the gangs of Negroes sang, quick wild songs to which they kept time, as they swarmed up the bank and ran back with their strong arms filled with the long heavy wood often when the boat was off again and darkness closed all in and the strong sound of the engines and rush of the mighty river made the accompaniment they sang in another way a wailing chant sad beyond the power of written music to tell in its suggestive intonations one subdued melodious

melodious voice sang the recitative broken into by an irregular chorus harmonized though so wildly irregular voices rising wavering in prolonged lament calls of rage of despair sinking again to the controlling but subdued solo of the leader the improvisator who would touch some other chord of feeling that again roused this storm of emotion in a chorus form i was thirteen when i heard for the last time these true folk-songs of a suppressed race when i saw dorae's illustrations of the lost souls and torment this singing came back to me as their fit expression to the ear young as i was then it made me shudder and get closer to my father his favorite place was the extreme bow-end of the saloon deck where he could get the cool rush of the river air as the boat pressed swiftly on below on the projecting boiler deck were always moving silent figures deck hands tending furnace and making every chance to get forward into the unheeded air at the bow fantastic figures scarcely clothed gleaming with wet from their hut work their big powerful bodies and naked limbs taking every tone of bronze in the furnace lights, then vanishing mysteriously as they passed into shadow. From out this plutonian dark would rise the wailing chant, and farther voices took up the lament which passed from entreaty to fury, then submission, then the low, dull recitative continued alone.

Talking was not permitted. It might not have been nice for the passengers to overhear. but singing was allowed and this was the level to which this educated new england young man had fallen through drink it made him ashamed and angry and he kept intoxicated to forget on the passage up from new orleans he had noticed day after day a passenger always in the same place and always in the white linen clothing common to the hot season looking all the more freshly cool from his fair skin and tawny hair and blue eyes eyes that were often lifted from the little book he carried and seemed to take in the river its fertile banks and the young man fancied at times rested on himself this further angered him he had already realized his degraded position and this contrast made it seem more terrible and hopeless it helped move him to furious passion in his resentment of some indignity put upon him by the gang-master and there followed a fierce but wordy seen for being white he could not be silenced as the blacks were by the stinging cowhide sleeping off the drunken state that followed he woke near midnight he was on the bare deck at the bow and the moon lit up a white figure standing by him

It was the person whose presence had so roused old feelings and made him realize his miserable downfall. He sprang up with an oath and was hurrying off when the other held out a detaining hand. "'My friend,' he said. Oh, how long since anyone had said my friend to him. "'My friend, you have evidently had a classical education. While you were angry this evening, I heard you using expressions that showed you had careful and high training. This is not a fit place for you. With your education, your youth and health, you can renew your former life.

You must leave this boat tonight when we stop at Cairo and drop all these associations forever. I am not a rich man, but I can help you to a start on the upward road. and he took from his waistcoat pocket fifty dollars in gold and put it into my begrimed hand said the lecturer he said he had spoken to the captain and arranged it all you will transfer to the louisville steamer we meet at cairo take a cabin's passage begin with self-respect begin this night a new life go to your father and mother and ask their help to keep you in the the right way. I told him I had helped end my father's life and had been afraid to learn of home. Find your mother and atone to her. A mother will forgive you and love you. And when I wanted to get his name, that I might someday return him the money, he only said, never mind that, but when you have freed yourself, give it to someone needing it as you were. Use it to you. To be it. You're

to help another. I felt I could. I would stop drinking. I did. I left the shameful life behind me when I took the other boat. As the day dawned, I turned my face east, and made my way to the old home, where I found my mother. And I did atone to her all I could,

and her last days were in peace and happiness. As soon as I could, I made my education help me to stand firm and lead others from going down as I had done. It was slow and hard work for a long time to work against myself, but I persevered, and I have now secured usefulness and success as a lecturer on temperance. For a long time I had not to spare money for travel, and when I had it was too late. for me to go and see and thank the man who had come to me in the darkest hour like a vision of light i had found who he was and written to him when i felt myself re-established and told him i had passed on his blessed fifty dollars to do for another and the good it had brought me but i grieve that i never saw him again you all know his name for he was one of our great senators and his long life was for his long life was full of usefulness to his country. He was Senator Benton of Missouri. I charge you, as he charged

me, to value education, to profit by every chance for study and reading. Use all your will to live up to the best, to overcome idleness, for it brings temptation and evil, and love and honor your parents, above all, the mother. I always feel, he ended, when I tell of this part of my life, that I repay some of the debt I owe to that man of high character, and pray that it may carry with it some of the influence of his strong will. When the lecturer ended, Mr. Fountain rose and asked to say a few words. He was a man greatly respected, and his long estuary.

school had made him so trusted and recognized as a good man and good head of a school for boys that the sons of former scholars were sent to him from all parts of the country he thanked the lecturer for the interesting talk and felt it would remain impressed on the minds of his pupils especially the ones who had been listening to a noble action of his grandfather and he called out one of his young people who came forward blushing but proud and the lecturer with real feeling took the hand of the grandson of his friend and said to him and to all young men present some brief heartfelt words of warning against temptation and encouragement to hold out the helping hand and believe in the power of good to triumph over evil with the aid of a steadfast will and god's help was not this a precious and delightful fact of family history to come upon it had been unknown to me perhaps to all except the unhappy young man and my father himself for my father was strong and helping because it was his nature to be so and could not turn away from need in any form his own love of study and reading would have quickened his sympathy for a white man working among negro criminals who yet resented an indignity and used a classic phrase his own practice and teaching were all on the side of temperance and that in a part of our country where public feelings sneered at temperance and where it was held as want of hospitality not to press upon everyone young and old wines and strong waters from early morn to night something my father saw while he was a very young man a painful occurrence in a private house so filled his mind with hatred of this mistaken idea of the beautiful grace of hospitality that i have heard him tell how sorrowfully riding homewards and thinking of the scene of shame this had caused he resolved for his part to drink nothing

he has told us how he stopped his horse and bared his head and there alone among the trees made a vow to himself not to touch any wine or drink of any kind for five years and he kept his vow to the cooler natures of to-day this might seem fantastic but people were younger of heart in that time and not ashamed of fine impulses and with my father this good warm nature never tamed down into calculation where he found the dragon of evil to slay end of chapter one recording by roger maline chapter two of the will and the way stories this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by roger maline the will and the way stories by jesse benton fremont chapter two kit carson a brave sight was her majesty's ship collingwood eighty guns flag-ship of the english squadron in the pacific admiral sir george seymour commanding as she came to before the small mexican town of monterey on the california coast she came to raise the english flag in protectorate over this distant mexican territory and hold it safe from american aggression during our war with mexico when the british lion protects such stray lambs of territory it is apt to keep them safe but as the great ship drew near the coast they're shown out against its dark line of pine forest a patch of color small but of great meaning our flag our banner on the outer wall of a nation that now held the country from sea to sea

from the Atlantic to the Pacific upon a breadth equal to the length of the Mississippi and embracing the whole temperate zone the disappointment and check to Admiral Seymour was immense but he was too late by nine days if i had not found your flag up i would have raised mine here he said to our fleet commander and so loath was he to accept it as a defeat and final that he left official orders to all british consuls on the coasts to treat it only as a temporary occupation not to be decided until after peace had returned but the stars and stripes had been raised never to come down by americans inland on the fifth of july eighteen forty six following this two days later on the seventh at the coast town of monterey by the commander of our squadron in the pacific and when on the sixteenth admiral seymour arrived he was too late it had been a close race for an empire and we won a strange feeling the english admiral must have had on realizing what to him would seem such inadequate force to have defeated great england by sea only four not imposing ships overland this wildest wild party of backwoodsmen with only one of one of one of one of one of one of officer of the army as their commander, narrow risks where a single life held all the purpose and responsibility of the command, but made up of men of rare individual force of character, and each had so supported their captain and one another that they won through to success.

It brings to mind the story of that English officer so often wounded, so shot to pieces in the Peninsula campaign, that finding himself hopelessly disabled and mutilated, he wrote to the dear woman who was to be his wife, releasing her, for there is nothing left of me. If you have only body enough left to hold your soul, I will marry you, was the answer. The small party with its one officer proved to be body enough to carry forward and plan. the flag, the symbol and soul of our national life. These tried and proved men were too many, and of too real merit to be told of this scant way,

but of one, Carson, I can tell you an outline. An officer of the Collingwood published his travels. Four years in the Pacific on her majesty's ship Collingwood by Lieutenant Honorable Fred Walpole, r n and being a wall-pole of that family of statesmen and men of letters he not only wrote of what he saw but felt its bearing that these backwoodsmen represented the advance guard of american progress during our stay in monterey captain fremont and his party arrived they naturally excited curiosity here were true trappers the class that prenton the heroes of Phenimore Cooper's best works. These men had passed years in the wilds,

living upon their own resources. They were a curious set. A vast cloud of dust appeared first, and thence, in long file, emerged this wildest wild party. Fremont wrote ahead, a spare, active-looking man. He was dressed in a blouse and leggings

and wore a felt hat. after him came five delaware indians who have been with him through all his wanderings they had charge of two baggage horses the rest many of them blacker than the indians rode two and two the rifle held by one hand across the pommel of the saddle his original men are principally backwoodsmen from the western states and the upper banks of the missouri he has one or two with him who enjoy a high reputation on the prairies kit carson is as well known there as the duke is in europe they are allowed no liquor tea and coffee only this no doubt has much to do with their good conduct and the discipline too is very strict they were marched up to an open space on the hills near the town under some long firs and veers and the discipline too is very strict they were marched up to an open space on the hills near the town under some long firs and there took up their quarters in messes of six or seven in the open air the indians lay beside their leader in justice to the americans i must say they seem to treat the natives well and their authority extended every protection to them how carson had already made for himself wherever he was known a name which lieutenant walpole compares to that of the duke of wellington the good gray head that all men knew is too long to cramp into this way of writing but he did make himself known and loved and trusted and also feared by bad whites as well as the regular enemy the indian

he became of large service to his country in two wars rising by force of will and personal qualities to the height of his ambition which was to wear his country's uniform as an officer and serve that country in time of danger this was a great rise from his obscure unfriended beginning as a boy on the missouri frontier where indians were many and schools few the prairies with their mountains beyond crowded with tempting game yet full of forbidding savages enticed the imagination of frontier lads as the sea and its chances tempt the sea-coast boys yearly there left st louis which was the port for such inland ventures great caravans merchants and fur traders with long wagon trains of merchandise banded for mutual protection against the Indians, bound for Santa Fe in Mexico, and on further still, even to the Sea of Cortez, as the Gulf of California was then called. This rich trade by way of the Spanish Trail, now the Boston-Santa Fe and Pacific Railroad, sent a returning stream of pearls and gold from the Gulf, and Sonoras gold and silver,

and much coined money from the Mexican states, back to St. Louis. big gold d'abloons and ounces the heavy silver dollar and the little piccyllion picayune were the common currency there even in my early day inevitably lads ran away to join these caravans and some came back but after a long time on fine horses with splendid silver-mounted saddles and heavy jingling silver spurs and gold embroidered velvet spanish riding suits and a fine smattering of mexican spanish or they had accumulated stores of rich furs by trapping beaver and selling them to the fur company while their money lasted they made a great sensation and sowed harvests of longing and desafed among youngsters in quiet farming life on such a venture started kit carson while he was yet very young with only fancies no knowledge beyond the tales of returning trappers and traders that there were far more blanks than prizes did not discourage him the knowledge of many solitary trappers cruelly trappers cruelly tortured and killed by indians and long after traced by bits of moulds gouldering garments and bones pulled about by the wolves never dimmed his fixed aim to be a great hunter and trapper and to this he held fast through early bad luck enough to wear out a less positive will and a less sunshiny nature for carson had the merry heart that shakespeare knew goes all the day he had that most lovable combination of a happy and reasoning patience under trial

with quick resource and a courage equal to all proof. His reputation was already made in prairie land and its headquarters, St. Louis, when after one of his rare visits there, he first met on a steamboat ascending the Missouri River, the one who was to give the largest and highest development to his special gifts and acquirements, and for many years his life and Mr. Fremonts ran together. These two and a Frenchman of St. Louis, Alexis Gaudi, became, each in their way,

necessary parts one of the other, and, like the three guardsmen of Dumas' story, felt nothing impossible which they could undertake together. Under Napoleon, they might have become marshals, chosen as he chose men. Carson prompt self-sacrificing of great courage, quick and complete. perception taking in at a glance the advantage as well as the chances for defeat goady insensible to danger of perfect coolness and stubborn resolution with french elan and their gaiety of courage like the guardsmen in the romance these dropped everything else to renew adventures and dangers at the call of their old leader more than once each had saved the others lives and together they had punished the indians for the killing of their comrades and in one stirring fray where treachery as well as killing had to receive its lesson of punishment even the captain's horse took such intelligent part in his rider's feeling that carson's life was actually saved by the horse a california horse of fine breed and high training who obeyed the lightest impulse from the rider

his name was given him because he swam the wide deep sacramento river after a day's travel of eighty miles the captain and sacramento the two saved my life that time said carson it was in the tlamath and modoc indian country near the oregon boundary an unknown land then but its indian suspiciously alert and intelligence in later years these became known as both treacherous and warlike their killing of the good general canby while in council will be remembered some tlamaths had followed the exploring party saying they were starving and begging food The captain had a horse unpacked, and shared with them, though we had little enough for ourselves, tells Carson. At dead of night, these same Indians, with their warriors for whom they had acted as spies, attacked the camp. It was the second time only in all their years of travel that they failed to set the guard, and the man sleeping next Carson was killed first. It was the licks of the axes that split Basil's head that woke me, said Carson,

and as they jumped, rifle and hand, to the crowding-in Indians, he found himself side by side with his friend and captain, and they together ended that Indian's life. He proved to be the very one for whom they had unpacked the horse in the morning. Two of our best men were killed, and more wounded by the shark. sharp arrowheads almost as hard as diamond of vitrified lava several tlamaths were killed and many wounded though as indians always carried off their dead and wounded it could not be known how many but at once our party turned back to give them a lesson it was a country of large lakes and these tribes gathered in fishing villages with huts of willow and rushes fishing nets drying scaffolds and canoes there followed a continued fight of some days covering all the ground they had travelled

they gave to the indians the prussian war tactics of le line responsible where the whole neighborhood has to bear the responsibility of individual acts they burned their villages their nets and scaffolds for drying fish and their boats and keffolds for drying fish and their boats and keiths and keats and keats and keats killed twenty-one of the indians we gave them something to remember said carson the women and children we did not interfere with interfere had a narrower meaning to carson than to us one indian in his ignorance of firearms thought he had escaped in a boat but the rifle ball sent after him surprised him as he was shouting and gesticulating and he remained in that attitude of defiant upright but dead in the stern of his canoe the current drove this against the bank and they saw his hand still grasping the paddle and on his feet the shoes worn by basel when he was killed by this time the indians were gathering in great force though the rifles were too much for them in open ground an indian will not fight at a disadvantage and he hates to be killed but late for him in the rifles were too much for them in open ground an indian will not fight at a disadvantage and he hates to be killed but late later they were reported advancing through the timber taking with me carson and some of the delawares i rode out to see what they were intending sacramento knew how to jump and liked it going through the wood at a hand-gallop we came upon an oak tree which had been blown down its summit covered quite a space and being crowded by the others i was brought squarely in front of it i let sacramento go and he cleared the whole green mass in a beautiful leap looking back carson called out captain that horse will break your neck some day but it never happened to sacramento to hurt his rider

in the heart of the wood we came suddenly upon an indian scout he was drawing his arrow to the head as we came upon him i fired and in my heart of the wood we came suddenly upon him i fired and in my haste to save carson failed to kill the indian but sacramento was not afraid of anything so i jumped him directly upon the indian and threw him to the ground his arrow went wild sagunda was right behind me and as i passed over the indian my delaware threw himself from his horse and killed him with a blow from his war club all was the work of a moment but it was a narrow chance for carson i wish there was space to tell you fully of the generous and most daring effort made by carson and goady to rescue two mexican women who had been carried off captive by the apache after these savages had cut to pieces the men of their party one man and a boy only were saved by being off and on horseback guarding their band of horses They fled, and in about sixty miles came upon our party. Carson and Gaudy, familiar with such atrocities, knew the horrible fate to which these unhappy women were doomed

and volunteered to rescue them. Well-mounted, they and Fuentes, the husband of one of the women, started on this forlorn hope. The Mexican, already exhausted, gave out and reached. turned by nightfall, but Carson and Gaudy kept on. They followed the Indian Trail all day, and as long as the moon lasted. It had led into a narrow mountain defile, where they had to wait from morning light. Holding to their horses Raitas, they slept a little until day dawn again, let them follow the trail, and soon after sunrise, they came on a large camp. Hiding their horses,

and keeping themselves well hid, they crept up close to this robber's nest and looked down on them in their fancied security. There were lodges around the good spring and baskets of moccasins and every look of a large and secure robber rendezvous. Horses had been skinned and cut up and were boiling in large earth and pots over big fires. It was to be a big feast, and there was a big feast, and there was a greek. gay time already. They saw the two captive women when the Mexican horses gave the alarm, and instantly the whole camp made off, leaving everything, horses and all, except the two poor women. As these had been in a small party in advance of the great caravan, doubtless the Apaches thought the force of the caravan had pursued them. Carson and Goody killed two and hoped more

shots told on others but seeing the women were lost they hurried off the band of horses and returned after their hundred-mile ride of two days with eighteen horses and to goady's gun were hanging two indian scalps as vouchers carson's gentler nature was soon to enter into higher and more congenial pursuits after our flag had been planted on that furthest shore and mexico and her next friend england discomfited it was needed to inform the government at washington and arrange for the changed conditions the continent lay between los angeles and the capital today this would be done in five days of railway ride in luxury of comfort or by some telegrams taking only hours instead of days then it had to be an overland ride running the guise of dangerous indians from california to the missouri frontier panama was the nearest crossing by sea for mexico was enemy's ground and we had only sailing vessels in old days the bearer of dispatches had a most honorable but perilous duty to ride run and deliver with all haste involved the courage the endurance the fidelity of highest romance carson was the one man all thought of for this ride cross-country his captain hesitated over risking this valued friend but carson said let me go i will do it not i can but i will and he did meeting my father in st louis he was by him sent to us at our washington home and there commenced the personal knowledge continued at intervals which he was by him sent to us at our washington home and there commenced the personal knowledge continued at intervals which

made me know the high and fine nature of carson and added me to the number of his fast friends he was with us at that time some weeks long and most unnecessary delays at the state department followed his wonderful ride and wasted its value he was sorely tired for his native good sense made him feel this delay involved a hidden and wrong meaning as it proved it is is not fair to the captain he would say he trusted me to come back as quick as i had come on now he is looking out for me and they won't give me the answer to carry back we had all become attached to him and tried our best to lighten the delay and that sense of slyly frustrated purpose so much harder to bear than open opposition after each fruitless visit to the department where his anxious sincerity was met by polite insincerity and a renewed tomorrow he would come back to us all troubled by the new ideas conflicting with his old reverence for the rulers of the country he is such a fair-looking gentleman who would think he is not to be trusted carson's vocabulary was not large so he could not shade his meeting with their big houses and easy living they think they are princes, but on the plains we are the princes. They could not live there without us. How he did appreciate Burns's verse, The king may make a better knight, a duke and earl and all that,

but an honest man's above his might, for a that and a that. One of these troubled days he brought up to the library and illustrated Byron, which had attracted him among the books in the parlor below the picture of mazeppa bound to the horse the frightened horse running madly over a solitary plain with only the stars for light fascinated him it made him too full of excitement to read it patiently read it out to me you will read it quicker than i can it looks like indian work there are devils enough for just such work as that and then and often again i read it to him there in my father's large library among his fathers and his own serious collections i rendered byron with all the dramatic effect i could manage carson kindled to fury over the wild horse episode his excitement culminated where mazeppa says there never yet was human power that could evade if unforgiven the patient hate and vigil long of him who treasures up a wrong that's so that's so he knows how a man feels that's the way i felt until i paid them back after After the blackfeet destroyed my caches and carried off all my furs and skins,

but I came back, I thanked them for their conduct. I had to wait, I had to wait for the right men to help punish the thieves. Then my time came, and we left mourning in their tribe. Carson had now an interval of peace and home life, with his brother-in-law maxwell original owner of the famous maxwell grant near taos new mexico he lived on a great domain where he herded his sheep and cattle and only hunted for pleasure the two families lived in patriarchal largeness of ease and hospitality with their families growing up about them but there came a time when the life of the nation depended on men who could be trusted then carson's hour came and his dearest wish was fulfilled he wore the uniform of his country and did her good service in her time of utmost danger his name gathered not only the loyal men of new mexico men he knew could be trusted but kept in check all attempts to enlist its indians against us as had been done all along the border

colonel carson was the same kit carson they had learned to fear of old only now more formidable because he was backed by government authority and resources and after good services when peace was restored he was made superintendent of his neighboring indians to maintain peace and order on some duty connected with this he had come to washington bringing with him several chiefs of different tribes this was in the summer of sixty seven vintan apret mr fremont wrote me from washington that carson was there on indian business but looking so ill and suffering he had made him promise to see some good physician in new york and that he had tried to make him promise also to go to me and let me take care of him at our country home on the hudson carson traced his illness to an accident where a refractory young mule had contrived to so wind his lariat about himself and carson too that as the mule fell over a steep hillside Carson was dragged over, the rope tightening about his body, and the left side getting badly hurt and jammed among rocks. I think Carson is very ill. If you can, persuade him to stay, and I will come back immediately. He is greatly altered by suffering. I went at once to town,

sending my youngest boy to the Metropolitan Hotel, where Carson was to go, to let him know, I would be there to see him immediately. Meantime, I waited at the house of a friend on Madison Square. The family were out of town, but I was always at home in that house, and now waited in the cool library looking on the square. A room full of pictures, bronzes, books in low cases, around the walls. Every device of luxurious easy chair and reading lamp, all beautiful but of to-day with nothing of the delightful old-world growth the still and scholarly seclusion the atmosphere of peace and retreat from the world that gave such charm to my father's library

the library where carson in his young days had kindled responsive to the tale of cruelty endured remembered and revenged i was thinking how strange it was that my first and this the last meeting with this unlettered but true knight and gentleman should be framed in by libraries when the door opened and my poor carson came in holding the hand of my boy and resting on his sturdy young shoulder he ought not to have come out but it would not have been carson had he let me go to him no you couldn't do that i'm alive yet but he was exhausted and had to rest before he could talk sitting between the wife and the child of his old friend holding a hand of each his looks and faint smile of content showed he felt glad to be with us and was like that night of king arthur's time revolving many memories in his mind but he knew it was the last greeting it had greatly pleased him to find the father's face repeated in the son the youngster had gone up himself to carson's room to find him the children of this gentleman are wise enough to do that for themselves what they want well done and in answer to his knock and the come in he entered to several indians and found carson lying down before he could speak carson exclaimed my boy i know you you are a fremont and so introduced him to the chiefs these chiefs wished to visit new york and boston

bringing his indians through on the night train he had gone at once to dr sayer telling him how he had been hurt and that he felt the heart was injured but that he wanted to get home to taos in new mexico return his indians to their people and die among his own people if dr sayer could help him do this he expected no more for he felt he was near death dr sayer had to tell him he was right that he might die at any moment the mountain fall and the dragging of the frightened mule had caused a fatal injury to his heart nothing could now be done to prevent sudden death it might be delayed by extreme care in avoiding fatigue excitement any hurried or disturbed action of the heart with a gentle smile of amusement carson added and the doctor said i must not do any drinking you see the eastern idea of reckless drinking hurrah boys was even this great physician's idea of the western frontiersman i must take the chiefs to see boston they depend on me i told them i would then we go home straight my wife must see me if i was to write about this or died out here it would kill her i must get home and i think i can do it his will was concentrated on the orders to avoid excitement he told me all this simply checking the signs of distress i could not entirely keep back with a kindly now don't you must help me to get home but even his magnificent courage must have bent to the death sentence

for he told me that after seeing dr seir and returning to the hotel he felt tired and lay down on the bed suddenly the bed seemed to rise with me i felt my head swell and my breath leaving me then i woke up at the window it was open and my face and head all wet i was on the floor and the chief was holding my head on his arm and putting water on me he was crying he said i thought you were dead you called your lord jesus then you shut your eyes and couldn't speak i did not know that i spoke said our dear carson i do not know that i called on the lord jesus but i might it's only him that can help me where i stand now and so he went on his way and i saw him no more carson did reach his home his wife being of the very simple affectionate spanish nature did feel his condition as he feared she died leaving a very young baby then carson's friends at the fort near by claimed him and there under the best surgical skill and with manly sympathy and tenderness from men who had personally learned what the life of the plains and the mountains meant and what high qualities it could develop and what a mighty chief among the best was carson his last hour came reviving from one of the closing attacks of suffocation his unfailing thought for others showed itself gentlemen he gasped i'm sorry i'm giving you trouble longer than i expected his name is part of the geography and of the military record of his country

carson's peak looms up snow-capped beyond the yosemite and the busy railroad town of carson city marks one of the old striving and struggling camps in the sierras and a central g a r post the kit carson post at the national capital bears the name of the frontier lad who made his way onward and always upward into the affection as well as the esteem of all who knew him him and whose name shall be writ in story for many a long year to come among the bits of poetical expression his mind fastened to in that dear remembered library in the far back time when we were all young together and felt our lives strong and compelling was this which so well fit to himself fleet foot in the forest sage head in the cumber red hands in the foray how sound is thy slumber end of chapter two recording by roger maline chapter three of the will and the way stories this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by roger maline the will and the way stories by jesse benton fremont Chapter 3 A Picnic Near the Equator Panama in 1849 was for the time overrun by Americans.

They came in great crowds from the Atlantic side, while there was no transportation to carry them away from this ancient Spanish city on the Pacific. The first steamer to San Francisco could not return because crew, firemen, engineers, and all deserted her. and who could expect men to reship and take common wages for hard work when gold was to be had just for the picking up so there the incoming americans continued to bank up for many months until some order of travel was gained the crowd suffered from every discomfort many were ill and many died from the climate and the unwholesomeness living and the depressing feeling that they were like shipwrecked people who watched in vain for a sail the few who were better prepared for the delay contrived to lighten the heavy time among these was our government commission for running the boundary line between mexico and california Delays seemed natural in government work. I knew most of these. The commissioner himself, who had married a near relative of mine,

thought I should have change of ideas from the long waiting to get to California, where I was to meet Mr. Fremont, and he knew what a hard trial this first separation from home was to me. To please him in this kindly meant effort, I consented to go on a picnic he had planned, though it did not smile on me to face an outing in such dazing light and heat. We were to make a very early start and sail across the bay to the island of Toboga, twelve miles from the city of Panama, have our late breakfast on the beach, visit a pleasant American family of his friends,

who had taken refuge there from the overcrowded town, then return in the cooler hour about sunset. And as there was a full moon, it would be all right, right, even if we were a little late. This was a fine plan, only it omitted two facts of nature which govern water parties, wind and tide. The gentlemen were inland western men, and I was in my first knowledge of the sea. The submissive-looking polite natives who manned the boat did not enlighten the Americans who thought they had only to order and get what they ordered. The Indians knew their own interests too well to enlighten the foreigners.

Dickens tells of his hurrying to a station and calling to the slow cabman to drive faster. Drive for your life! When Cabby answered, he was driving for his life, any way for my living, and if I go faster, you can cut off my time. The patron made sure of his party, and as the wind was fair, we had a delightful quick sale in the early morning

freshness, and we're at our picnic place within two hours. Toboga rises like a high green pyramid from the blue sea, a small conical island, feathery with coconut trees and tall palms near the water, then comes the pineapple growth, and everywhere interspersed are the lovely feather-like yellow bloom of the mimosa and other flowering trees of violet, pink, and yellow blooms. on a little smooth and hard beach surrounded by tall pink-blossomed oleanders. The palms and coconuts threw some shade on the pale sands, and here rugs were spread, and the baskets unpacked,

and we breakfasted by the rippling water's edge. In the beauty and freshness of the place, we all found it had been an excellent idea to come. After a little we walked the short distance, through the Indian village, with its small church, bright from the mother of pearl shells and crusted over its outer walls and roof, to where we met the really nice family we were to visit, in an ugly but clean new frame house, as yet free from big spiders and the many insects of the tropics. Travelers like ourselves, they were very glad to see white people

and talk of the possible chances of getting away, with men well-informed as to all possibilities. On any regulated travel we could not count. Everything was upheaved and thrown into chaos by this craze of gold. There were some children as well as several ladies in that family, and to them we sent over the abundant remains of our feast. There had been an absurdly large supply of fresh and tinned things and wines. They had been living on scant and unpalpetable rations, for the Americans had descended like a plague of locusts and cleaned off all Panama supplies. Our tins of biscuit and cake and sweetmeats were as welcomed as the meats. We were glad to please them, and we were to be back in town in easy time for dinner.

Then, with many kind goodbyes, we went back to make our start. The men were lying about quietly smoking and no sign of readiness. not one of the men of our party knew spanish the patron spoke his native dialect spanish which is so mixed with indian and so confusing from their never pronouncing the ls or s's that it is hardly comprehensible even to one knowing spanish and his small stock of english was accented in a most bewildering way some instinct had made me not tell that i knew spanish and for this i was glad enough afterwards i did not like the manner of these men the head man or any there had been a complete and sudden dropping of the grave ceremonious politeness and deference of the starting changing to a rather noisy chatter and to a general air of chuckling amusement which they knew perfectly well was not suitable when with employers and superiors a manner they would not have ventured on with panama gentlemen now the patron told the commissioner in answer to his surprised questioning it was no use to go back until after the moon rose then the wind would rise and the tide would help the boat in or seeing this was very unwelcome there would be a right wind early in the morning at sunrise remember that so near the equator there is no interval it is day or it is night no twilight or it is night no twilight or it is night no twilight or it

at all the gentleman felt something wrong in the man's manner and at once decided that there must be no night excursion that i must stay with the ladies we had just left and they would return and camp on the beach which they did angry enough at not having been warned of the hours of wind and tide but quite helpless there was no other possible way to get back it was obligatory to make the best of a bad city and equally necessary not to betray to the patron their want of confidence in him they were not used to managing boats but they were used to managing men the pleasant women were both glad and sorry to have me back but the glad predominated and they were very hospitable and walked back with me before sunrise to the boat which this time was ready a long shallow non-descript combination of canoe and european boat with its captain the patron and crew six in all myself and my little girl with the four gentlemen making the boat full we started with a good light wind the sunrise ripple and dancing glitter were on the waves it was as cool as it can be at only eight degrees from the equator and though we were rather hungry yet we were so pleased to be skimming along homeward that the annoyances of the past day dropped away after a little while however one of the gentlemen asked the patron why he did not bear down toward panama we were running north of it supplemented by gestures he made himself understood the crew understood also and it was not good to see the almost insolent look of amusement on their faces

they were masters of the situation and had their plan evidently the patron was civil enough and made a plausible answer which could not be contradicted though it was not believed something about the currents and tacking but all the same the fair wind was being wasted and the good breeze which should have taken us back as we came in about two hours began to drop then failed us completely it was clear now they intended to keep us out as long as possible probably to get pay for two days in place of one in wrong doing and crime it is remarkable how often the first motive is so small and foolishly short-sighted and how surely unforeseen events get away with the original plan and lead to worse than was intended once you begin to disorder the straight lines of right there is no seeing where the tangle may end we all comprehended that the men intended something wrong to let them know we saw through them would be to put ourselves in a humiliating position we must appear to hold our position of a thing authority. We could not confer on this, but had to act on instinct, for the patron knew enough English to follow the meaning of our talk. And it was every way best to assume he was telling the truth when he affected regret and talked again of the current setting in shore, and that

he must work down along the shore. He now made a great display of activity, taking down the drooping sails and putting the crew to their long oars they made much racket but not much progress and it was all directed to the shore it did not do for us to be too silent i suggested this in a roundabout way which meant nothing to an ignorant mind saying something about not wearing our hearts upon our sleeves which suggested my proposing we should talk in appropriate quotations the commissioner was a devoted shakespearean and maintained that the bible and shakespeare make a complete library and the surveyor was quick-witted enough for any such game it was surprising how this exercise of memory carried off the heavy time our intent thinking then the sudden dramatic speech with a sudden laughs of applause quite misled the crew seeing us apparently gay and careless they might well think we were without anger or fear but we were awfully anxious and the fierce sun was sharp on our heads when the gentleman made an awning over me of one of the sails the men began by looking angry then demanded it should be taken down they said it made it too hard for them to row against when there was no breeze at all a dead calm but it had to come down.

I could only wet our handkerchiefs over the side and put them under our straw hats, where they dried so quickly as to keep me repeating this often. And now we were both thirsty and hungry, with absolutely nothing to eat or drink. The crew had their rice and bananas, but they did not offer even a banana to the child, though we had given them a feast to the day before.

the little creature would not let us ask anything for her i can go to sleep she would answer i will not touch their things but the little face grew pitifully strained and flushed a favorite quotation with the commissioner always had been the thrice as he armed that hath his quarrel just he now repeated it with the melancholy shake of the head and i'd give my king him not for a horse but for a colt which roused a laugh and an echo from the others oh for our colts for there was not a pistol among them it was fortunate there could be no such display of resentment the patient cunning of these people was best met in their own way they rode very fitfully and in a slack noisy way never really getting down to their work i could make out that they were expecting to be bribed into activity, and they calculated, on a rising scale, what they should ask. They counted on the heat, on our hunger and thirst, to get it more and more of that stream of coin the Americans were pouring among them. They commented on the fine gold watches my helpless countrymen consulted so often,

and they made sure the signora would soon be very ill. Mui and Ferma. They made long rests from rowing, when like the ancient mariner we were idle as a painted boat upon a painted ocean. So idle that the big-pouched, foolish-looking pelican quietly rocked on the glassy water alongside and filled its ungainly pouch with little fish, then down would swoop the man of warhawk, poised overhead,

and carry off the fish as the pelican was gone. gulping it into its market-bag of a pouch the child was greatly interested by this though filled with pity for the little fishes torn between the birds and many porpoises rolled close to us attracted by the boat we had between drifting and rowing neared a flat sandy shore with trees beyond the crew intended we should land so we preferred to land exaggerating the relief in It was to stretch ourselves after long hours of sitting cramped on the narrow seats. The men made a little fire, cooked their rice, and were comfortable. Insects in millions drove us back from the trees to the glaring bare sands, but we had our umbrellas and wet handkerchiefs, and here we could speak freely. We talked of the situation.

The breeze would only rise again with the moon. That was fixed. what was also fixed as fate was the rise of the tide which would turn soon after the moon rise and there lay a terrible danger which we all clearly knew panama bay has a long series of cruel reefs extending out for three miles nothing anchors within that three mile limit for the tide rises twenty-six feet the tremendous ramparts built by the early spaniards to resist this mighty tide, are forty feet from base to top, where a smooth wide terrace crowns the ramparts as they follow the indentations of the shore. It is built in the old Spanish way of defensive works, strongly buttressed, and with frequent large embrasures in the immensely thick wall, where long old guns were still to be seen. Some, dropped from their decayed mounting,

made seats for those watching from this terrace the great sight of us Americans of such a tide. This esplanade surrounds the town on its water face, and as one promenade and breathing spot in the old, closely built and tropically unclean town of Panama, where the chain gang and vulture crows were the only sanitary agents, just before sunset one met there all the better sort of residents and foreigners, and there crowded the Americans, who always hoped to see the ship that would take them off. It had an endless fascination for me, who had never before seen a walled town, or lived by the sea, to go back there and look far down and out on the bare, jagged,

far-stretching reefs, or see the sea come swelling in high and dashing foam, rising so fast and high over the long reef and mounting up the side of the lofty lookout a majestic and awful sight that never lost its impress of man's helplessness before nature's might now i was to see this from below from those dangerous reefs from a frail native boat manned by not too friendly native indians and in the night-time when moonlight makes such misleading appearances when we were back in the boat fairly committed to this ordeal shakespeare was no longer a help and pastime we were honestly quiet and serious even the crew now rode well, in silence, with steady long strokes that tolled, and when the wind rose, they were quick and silent in shifting sail to catch every favoring turn. Their lives too were at stake. They knew the water gate, the one breach in the huge wall, was always closed at the rising of the tide, to a certain height. After that any unlucky late boat was dashed against the solid wall.

the commissioner had had a quiet talk with the patron and told him if he got us in early he would take him up to the hotel and give him a good reward for himself and a gratification for his men now all was done that man could do to better the case but it was a long row and only a languid wind came up with the moon and we had still the whole reef between us and the town long after the time calculated upon the crew were doing their best threading skilfully the little channels forming already between beds of rock feeling their way in step by step to the best point for a final push to the water gate when the tide should have lifted us high enough to clear the rocks if you know sea life you can imagine the certain risks of all this working along this way we neared a ledge higher and rougher than those behind us the lines of water were growing fuller and broader but this broken ledge still rose jagged and bare then the surveyor mr gray said he was going to get off there and make his way by aid of that higher ledge to the end of the long wharf about a mile it was impossible for a boat to follow that shorter way but by jumping and wading perhaps even at some places swimming he thought he could get into the town more quickly than we could and have the water gate kept open for us have lights put there to guide us and on the rampart above the gate also during the long detention in panama he had studied the formation of this bay and knew it fairly well by charts and by sight and felt sure he could work his way to the wharf which was built out in this higher ledge anyway he would try it was a race with the tide which might have already filled some of the deeper chasms but he must try

he would not sit helpless and let us drift with the tide which was frothing high behind us sending us forward with sudden swells this then pulling us back to be shot forward again. The patron, familiar with these reefs, cried out against his going, It could not be done. He would be cut off by deep water in channels. There was no swimming against the wash of the tide. He would have falls, and anyway his feet would soon be too cut for him to walk. But he would go. The crew held the boat alongside a rock he could step upon,

and we were born away from him as he stood a moment waving his hand to us a brave young figure on its pedestal of rock surrounded by seething waters the indians crying out live am your ear he goes to die but we called god keep you then settled down to our fate as i am living you know we did get in safely there were horrified sickening moments when we were urged forward by the tide rush and the indians put out all their skill to prevent the boat from upsetting but soon the waters were so high they were able to row to more advantage it was a long time then came the sudden flare of the light low down on the towering wall that told the gate was lighted and quickly more lights leaped up above our heart swelled with joy that mr gray was safe and thanks for our own safety as we shot through the slimy tunnel of the water gate its doors were clang to and we were again on firm ground and in the midst of friendly helping people it was quite midnight the night of good friday and the streets were filled with people the upper classes as well as the indians carrying lighted candles and making cries of distress. It was their realistic way of interpreting the disappearance from the tomb. Their custom was to make search in this way, and until morning the lamentation

and search would be kept up. The cathedral was on our way to the hotel, and we turned in there to see this strange exhibition. At the entrance was a scenic representation of the tomb, now empty, by life-size-wax figures of the group of sacred history and the guarding angels the the Indians crowded up looked into the empty tomb and broke into cries of distress then scattered candle in hand joining the crowds in the streets at sunrise all this was to change into noisy demonstrations of joy and a life-size wax figure of the Christ restored to life would be displayed at the altar meantime the cries of so many people acting on nerves already strained quite upset our commissioner he was at the end of his patience with indians

looking up the narrow streets of old wooden buildings with their overhanging balconies all dried to tinder by time and sun he growled out they will set the old town on fire and we will only be out of the sea into the fire but nothing happened to break the deep sleep which was the best restorer after such exposure and anxiety nor did any ill-effects follow the patron came with us to the hotel and was made glad by his promised reward also he was reported to the authorities next day and by them promptly put in the dreaded chain gang himself and his crew i was overruled in asking for mercy for they had worked beautifully at the last but it was held that in proper care of other travellers they must have their lesson which they learned less at their ease than when they kept us in the hot sun while they idled and smoked and ate their rice and bananas and made their jokes on our hunger the chain gang gang is a useful institution common to southern places where people who have deserved punishment are locked to a long chain and in this way made to clean the streets or do some public work it carries shame as well as punishment and the patron was in his way a man of importance but he had deliberately put us in great danger from which we might not have come out but for mr gray's risking his life he had the will and he made the way to secure our safety it was a bold and risky adventure he only knew the reefs by charts and as they looked by daylight to follow this ledge by moonlight with a twenty-six foot tide chasing him was what is called foolhardy if one fails but heroic if successful

he had had to weigh chances to get across depressions nearly neck-deep in surging water both hands and feet were badly cut for he had to climb and cling fast to sharp jags of rock and he was all bruised and rolled by heavy washes of the tide but he won through to the panama people he was a wonder they knew what he had risked and we were proud of our young countrymen and deeply grateful for we felt that to him we owed our lives end of chapter three recording by roger maline chapter four of the will and the way stories this librovoc's recording is in the public domain recording by roger maline the will and the way stories by jesse benton fremont chapter four play and work You have never seen Niagara? Really? Neither in summer or winter? You ought to be ashamed to confess it.

But I am not ashamed. I have seen the Yosemite when it was a risky horseback journey to get there. Will not that balance Niagara? But our English visitor with Niagara in her head made so much of seeing it a second time in its winter splendors of snow and ice that we offered to take her there, and 24 hours later we were on our way with our small house party of six.

A few telegrams had settled for permission to take along two delightful young people staying with us for the Christmas week and had asked to stop over a day on our return with a friend I loved, and who lived near one of the largest towns on the railway we were to take. Her answering telegram said, yes indeed bring six or twelve we have room and hearty welcome for you all myself i was not an enthusiast for leaving my own warm country house and going into winter travel and cold empty hotels but we did it and met better luck than could have been counted on the russian grand duke alexis was to visit niagara and the only hotel there which kept open in winter we found in gala dress a committee from New York having brought a staff of cooks and servants, and made all ready for the Duke,

and as we arrived two days before him, we had the good of all this preparation. A luxury of comfort we appreciated after the long day of bitter cold, and tramping from our sleighs to point of view, climbing with the help of stout guides and iron-shod sticks over packs of ice and frozen heaps of earth, niagara was indeed superbly grand and sublime in its solitude and frozen splendor but even the english traveler had enough in one day and felt the proper christmas conditions within doors you americans certainly understand warming your houses nor was the delmonico cook without pleasing influence the next afternoon as we ran into her station my friend mary waved her whip to us from her big-hitted sleigh, and soon we were packed in its furs and gliding along to her country home. An old home that had been for generations in their family, who loved it and lived in it, and had their long friendships with all around them, gentle and simple, there came a cheery,

Good morning, Miss Mary, from everything we met on that sparkling sunlit drive, passing beautiful country places and fine trees sheathed in ice now until turning into a side road we came upon the house gray very long and irregular from capricious additions with many chimneys and every kind of windows from the old-time dormer to the latest added bow windows it was a growth and told of many years of home tastes as it stood among old trees on a lawn sloping to the lake. And so many and large were the outbuildings that it seemed a village to itself. Beautiful friendly dogs ran out to meet the sleigh, and on the sunny door porch waited the gentle, courteous, handsome heads of the house. The English lady was enchanted. Now you show me something I thought as exclusively English as your Niagara is American. She was made welcome with a simplicity of quiet good-breeding, as well as good-will that we know is very American,

but as yet she had not rid herself of preconceived ideas of business rush and want of leisurely life, nor indeed did she realize the preference for it which so many have but cannot indulge. This was a large family, and they had fallen into permanent living in their country home, At first for the children, and as they married or went into active life, the parents remained from choice. And as they were near a great railroad, the young families revisited home easily and often. My Mary did not marry. A long period of ill health from injured lungs made her think she ought not, and the death of a sister from consumption decided her.

She was the home, angel, taking all thought from her delicate mother, and becoming her father's closest friend and companion, not too strong herself, but with a heart and will that lifted from her parents all possible cares. They were happy in only knowing such cares as the happiest life must bring, the sorrows from separations, illnesses, deaths. They were free from any business connection and its anxieties. For living on an inherited estate and with sufficient income, the father's occupations were his family and his estate and his fine library, the mother's good works and loving care for children and grandchildren. It was indeed a sheltered home of peace. Even their last rest was among themselves.

The Godacre of the family was on a hillside facing the sunrise and looking over the lake. There in a grove of pines were those who had gone before, near enough to be constantly visited and flower-tended. It was always home for all. We were there two days, and its gentle influence sank into our busier lives. Mary said it was dull to her at times, but after her many flying visits, to friends, she always came back to it with a profound gratitude for its unbroken calm. Anything else, she said, would not be understood now by my parents. Its serene atmosphere is to their minds what that even climate of Nassau was to my lungs,

and I find that excitement and unexpected things hurt my health, good as it is when I live quietly. She said, I am not to run the race of life, I must be content with a traveler's jog. In summer they saw a great deal of company, but Mary had still to watch her health in winter, and was often in Washington during the harsh months, and I was among the few intimate friends to whom she came at any time in New York also. It was a secluded life, but far from being selfishly so. The fine library set apart many books for lending. The mother's deeply religious feelings added books of her choosing, and friends and neighbors of all degree were invited and made welcome to use them. Pleasant interchange of thought, and for the younger people,

willing explanations and instruction came naturally from this. It was the Chautauqua idea in little. into this smooth life came a rude blast. The railway panic of 1873 was one of those business cyclones which spared no one. Ruin fell far and wide. Mary's people who knew themselves to be outside of business investments found their younger branches hurt and their tenants in town so prostrated that their best sources of income were cut off. it was one of the times of general almost universal loss and confusion in business and we are all so interwoven in modern days that what hurts one hurts many land and even excellent town properties could only be sold at ruinous loss and so many were forced to sell that no one would buy for the first time this family found itself unable to give help to share even the usual luxuries of summer seaside travel and many new books for winter they denied themselves that they might be of use to the young families mary felt she could not let this go on another summer and yet there was no lift in business she did some solid thinking and quickly came to me to consult over a plan she had at heart you see she said i am a really excellent housekeeper

living so out of the way with such a crowd of family and friends coming unexpectedly at all times to us i found i had to know how to do things myself in case servants were sick or cross i found i had to keep ready stores of preserves and jams and jellies and fine pickles we have so much fruit that it was easy to make these ready and i learned the best ways from myard himself i can crystallize fruit and make fine and pretty things in cakes as well as fruits in short it has been both study and practice for me to know how to prepare the luxuries of the table i know that confectioners must make lots of profit so i want to use our wasted quantities of strawberries and currants and cherries our loads and loads of peaches and even apples i can make delightful jellies and marmalades of apple and can make delightful jellies and marmalades of apple and and quince or apple and pear. You know I took lessons in all that sort of thing, and I have some experience. Every year I put up and sent to the girls and to friends gallons and gallons of these things. I like to do it. Our farmer's daughters have many of them been trained by me, and some of them come to me always through the busiest fruit season. Now I could employ them on shares, their

fathers work our farms on shares. They will like earning something in these hard times by their work in such a light and pleasant way. What I have done for pleasure, I want now to do for profit, and I feel sure it will bring some ready money. We have too little of that lately. The drawback is it would make my father ill. He would feel hurt beyond comforting if he found I was working for money. I'm going to talk with Alice also. Alice was a dear woman, beautiful and clever, and with fortune and fashion at her command.

If you two say yes, I will manage to do it so father will not know of it. For myself I would go to work with my kettles in Madison Square, rather than let go an acre of our home. So it was settled. Not only the good Alice, but so. some capable men, old friends, made arrangements for the sales. Let us call them Mrs. Comfort's homemade preserves, said Alice.

I will send you the first crates of self-sealing jars, Molly, for good luck, said one friend. And another family friend, a gray and scarred Confederate officer, said, We have no money, you know, but I put in the first hogshead of sugar. And so, cheered and approved, Mary's idea took shape and was launched, and it brought a success that made her happy. When the next summer's heats came, Mary told her father he must go to the seaside, that they could well afford it, and she gave him the few hundred her venture had brought. He grew white with distress. You have been borrowing money!

No, father, earn you. it this less painful alternative helped to make her story easier to tell but it was a great pain to him mary had for a long time no home strength only her own brave will and clear sense of right from this on though it became a delightful story of success i had been away for two years and coming back found mary so fresh and active so handsome I told her she was going back to her girlhood days. My dear, she said, it is because I am making money. It was just a delight to see her telling of her success. The first year proved she could succeed, and too largely for the resources of even her own large farms,

even of their neighborhood. Then so much fruit was hurt in the transportation that it was decided to move her workshop, as she called it, to near New York, where she had the choice of all the fruit markets there, and experienced assistance in buying it in the best way wholesale. She engaged two sisters, Boston girls of good position and education, as bookkeeper and overseer, and upper-class Swedish girls for the actual work. She herself was the active head.

It was all woman's work, and the whole business was coer. cooperative. Each one working had their pro rata share in the receipts. So all worked heartily, and with the interest people can only feel who work for themselves. Mary's society friends secured her every advantage and gave her good ideas also. They got for her large contracts for yacht clubs and for one ocean steamer line, and the first houses of New York took all she could supply. Everything was so exquisitely dainty and good, and these business houses had a custom that was willing to pay for reliable things. There was character in these preserves, as well as the best fruits and sugar. Of course, with such large work in New York, she could not be so much at home, but a married sister took her place there, and she fitted up a cottage

and put up a large workshop just by the country place of her friend Alice. Every year she was putting by a good sum of money. All expenses and shares paid, she averaged a clear net income for herself that many a professional man would be thankful for, and the business troubles of the country, being over their town properties, were again bringing rents,

and the old home was at peace. her kind father had continued his former tenants in the various warehouses and buildings they were good people he said they will pay when they can and meantime they are faithful in taking care of the property mary's exertions were no longer needed but she had had her lesson in the instability of fortune and chose to keep on with her work but for strong friends in new york it could not have been made so immediately and so largely profitable nor could she alone have placed it on so solid a foundation and she would now do her part to deserve their friendly upholding busy and more affectionately considered than ever by her friends hers was an enlarging and truly happy life this most pleasant life was hers but a few years longer a cold not soon enough taken care of brought on congestion of the lungs and alas of the high-strung active brain from the first of the delirium she knew nothing more and life ended quickly and unconsciously she rests in the god's acre of her home for which she did so much but her work remains as a proof of what a woman's mind and will can do to make a way out of hard business care struck down in full activity unable to speak or think yet her accounts books and affairs were in such complete business shape that they went on always in honorable hands and remain still a profitable business

and this was the thought and the work of a woman still young a favorite in the best society who had been exceptionally sheltered from all but the secure sunny side of life but as we all act in emergencies not so much from the demand of the hour as from our underlying habit of thought and custom so that loving care for home in peaceful days became in dark days imperative duty nerving her for what she quailed before as her father did for her the coming into publicity and careless comment but it was the only way out and she accepted everything to shield the home she fell with her armor on but not until victory was won end of chapter four recording by roger Chapter 5 of The Will and the Way stories This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline. The Will and the Way Stories by Jesse Benton-Fremont.

Chapter 5. A long horror. I hope Madame will be satisfied now, grumbled the concierge to the cook. Her big dog has come back. It bolted past me as I was just looking out to see if the rain was over, and never minded my call, but ran up the grand stairs tracking mud and wet into the carpet. Jean says he just had to let it rush into Madame's boudoir, and there it lies on the white fur before the fire,

and so cross he had to let him alone. Jean tried to take him away to feed him, he looked starved, but the dog showed his teeth. My foie, let him keep his hunger. How many Christians do not get the good food and the baths madame has made us give this great brute? He has not been bathed and fed while he was lost. Eh, but he is thin. He has had his turn of poverty and want.

These rich, they care for nothing but their pleasures. Their dogs are more to them than the poor, snarled on the, the woman, a genuine Parisian of the discontented class, with communist poison in her heart, while her soft flattering ways gained her much money from those same riches. And the comfortable servants agreed, the rich have no heart, a favorite saying among that set of Paris people, and that there ought to be no rich class, that all should be equal. meantime they sat idle in the warmth and well-fed condition they owed to these heartless people above in a charming room all pale silk and sweet with flowers in his familiar place on the white fur rug before the fire lay the tawny mastiff a big panther-like creature now haggard from hunger and defaced with stains of mud for he had been lost for a week greatly to his mastic

mistress's sorrow. Outside, the winter rain beat on the windows, but the air within was soft as summer, yet the dog shivered again and again. The servant, looking in to keep up the fire for the return of the young people who were dining out, retreated from the angry growl of the great creature who was usually so gentle. They must have beaten him, thought prudent Jean, as well as starved him. i must let sleeping dogs lie presently came the roll of the carriage through the portcocere and then the rustle of silk and light footsteps were heard as the young countess ran up eager to see her dog again and calling his name as she ran in she was surprised to see him retreat to the furthest corner of the room and as she impetuously fell on her knees by him and caressed the big head he jerked back. Then with a rough, shrieking cry, sprang at her,

and fastened his cruel long teeth in the happy young face. Instantly her husband attacked the dog, pulling it off and turning its fury on himself. Though an athlete, and splendid in strength and skill, the count could barely succeed in the effort he made to beat and drive and compel the dog to the door of an adjoining room, fortunately the door opened inward through this with a mighty effort he hurled the frantic animal and got the door closed before it was again on its feet his right hand and arm were torn and mangled and his heart sick and faint at the sight of his wife's agonized eyes and bleeding face but quicker than it can be told he acted to save her was the first thought

on the table were candles and by them her work-box he took out the steel puncher which she used in her embroidery and held it in the flame of a candle until it was red-hot speaking meanwhile to her rapidly i shall have to hurt you so horribly he said i must do it to save you you must let me cauterize the bites instantly and she poor soul lay down on a sofa while he lifted the upper lip which had been bitten through in two places where the dog's long teeth had met as it snapped at her mouth he drew rapidly the hot steel point along the under side to stop the spread of the poison she fainted this made it less hard for him to go on again heating the puncher the two wounds were quickly caught her then he thrust the poker into the glowing coals and while it was heating threw open the window and called loudly oh secure to the answering passer-by he told there was a mad dog shut up now in one of his rooms that two persons had been bitten by it that he wanted physicians instantly and the police to remove the dog and gave his name an address the servants had fled at the first alarm and they were quite alone the dog howling the wind and rain coming in at the window wide open as french windows are down to the floor but so prompt and well organized is the police of paris that in a very few minutes all was done as he had asked meantime he had seared his own arm up and down with the hot poker burning deep into the worst bites

the poor girl still lying in a dead faint the police came in on this strange scene the room was wrecked by the struggles of the dog and the wind from the open window added to the disorder and the countess in a bloody evening dress lay seemingly dead the physicians took instant charge of the two wounded while strong quiet men rolled forward a large iron cage they placed it at the door of the room where the dog was heard tearing around in mad fury the iron door of the cage was drawn upward and in this way the whole aperture was covered when the door of the room should be opened this was done with a jerk and the crazed animal bounded forward toward the lighted room and people to find himself in a trap which was instantly secured by the drop of the iron door and in this way quickly and safely the dog was carried off to be kept under careful medical inspection to determine the nature of its frenzy this was before pasteur but french science is always alert and acute of the days of horrible fear and anxiety that followed it is enough to tell that within the week the mastiff died of unmistakable rabies after careful watching the best authorities agreed on this then a great dread fell on the young people only time could decide their fate the parents of both hastened to them the young count was russian and his wife american the telegraph had summoned these for who could say how soon their doom would overtake the two unfortunate young people

words cannot express the concentrated grief hope and terror in this family group the physicians gathered hope from the promptness with which the count had cauterized the wounds and as day followed day and weeks added themselves to more weeks without any symptoms of danger they insisted the young people should accept their theory of hope and apply themselves with all their will to not thinking about possible hydrophicester phobia. They insisted on this saving power of the will which could only come from themselves. Then began, for this young couple, a strange life. Each tried to outdo the other in effort for forgetfulness, while each trembled for the other. They led a life of incessant physical activity, and seeking after any occupation of mind which might efface that night of horror. The Countess was not allowed to look in a glass. Careful hands wound a thick veil about the lower part of her face,

and she drove her spirited horses until she tired them and herself. The two refused to be separated, and, the Count's arm in a sling, they were seen incessantly. A pathetic pair who called out everyone's sympathy, as they bravely tried to wear themselves into fatigue enough to quiet nerves. Friends talked cheerfully to them and tried to aid them in the necessary turning away the mind from what was a dread possibility, but there could be no definite limit for this ordeal of waiting.

They traveled to America with her people, when the physicians permitted the journey and hope had begun to replace fear. It was a long siege of willpower against ugly fact and torturing chance. That was twelve years ago. Both are living, and no illness came to either. To the Count's quick action and firm will,

which overmastered the weakness of tenderness, but enabled him to inflict still more pain on his young wife, the physicians thought she owed her safety. There was no time lost in treating his own arm, and he did it with heroic thoroughness. It may have been the cauterizing, it may have been the unknown forces of nature, but both were saved. Hydrophobia does not necessarily follow, even from bad mangling from a dog. This many of us know for ourselves.

This dog, stolen and doubtless thrown with many dogs out of condition, was carefully watched by men of science and found to be genuinely mad. an instinct of affection for its mistress made him retreat from her i have seen the same thing and warn her off this was warning enough to one knowing the wonderful instinct of a fine dog but as she and her thoughtless insistence took the big head in a kind caress then the madness broke out it is good to know that not only was life saved but no real disfigurement followed for the big head in a kind caress then the madness broke out it is good to know that not only was life saved but no real disfigurement followed for the the countess. One bite through her lip healed fully, leaving only a faint scar. The other, more on the cheek than the lip, remained a small open hole over which she wears a little patch of quart plaster, like the beauty patch of old days. And the Count's brave right arm is true and strong as ever. But the Countess has never regained her brilliant color, perfectly pale, and with her large dark eyes keeping still an intense look of almost fear, she is more

interesting than in her gay, untroubled youth. End of Chapter 5. Recording by Roger Maline Chapter 6 of The Will and the Way Stories This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline The Will and the Way Stories by Jesse Benton-Fremont

Chapter 6 Miss Millie This little lady had a whole name but as her grandmother was also Mildred and in the southern way was always called by the old servants Miss Mildred so she was there Miss Millie

and as little children often do taking the whole sound for one word she called herself Miss Millie and long after she was past childish days that remained her pet name. For this was a pet child, a happy child, quite the most happy and petted of little ones. She was an only child, an only grandchild, healthy but so small and dainty, and so resembling a little one, now only a memory of her grandparents, that no sounds but of tenderness ever met her ears, and her lovely blue eyes saw only

loving faces, from that of her dusky mammy up to her splendid grandfather, the judge. The outside circle of relations and friends said, That child will be ruined. She never has any discipline. She does her own way, and everyone agrees with her. She is let to do just as she pleases. Of course she does, the judge would answer with politely restrained impatience, and she shall go on pleasing herself she has no need of training the child's instincts are all right and she needs only good examples it is we who must train ourselves to be fit for so much trust and such clear instinct of right i will not have that child wounded by common rules and she is not strong she must grow up in the sunshine of love and never think it can fail her

no one shall spoil the perfect trust she has in the love that surrounds her she will know the difference when she is older time enough then we cannot follow the child through life but while she is just ours she shall feel that she can do no wrong she was the most reasonable of children because always she was gently and affectionately told why certain things must not be and that was enough as a small instance she was very fond of roasting ears the green corn which is so liked in the south one of the disciplining relations was greatly struck with miss milly's self-denial at her house i should not have let corn come to table she said but i forgot milly ought not to eat it now she will want it no said miss milly i must not want it i must not want it it makes grandma sorry to see me sick then turning to the smoking platter oh temptation corn how good you smell but my stomach machine can't grind you in summer they lived on the old country place which was but a half a day's drive from washington where the judge had to be in winter the whole family kept together winter and summer they had a fine roomy townhouse with large grounds and old trees and here were the same old family servants and their children trained to the house and the ways of our family no strangers were ever around milly even her papa was not a stranger to the family for the judge had been his guardian and knew his father and his grandfather before him before settling down to attend for himself to his estate her papa who was an officer

in the Navy was much away. His people, the judge too, had made the grand tour to see the world before becoming country gentlemen and taking care of politics, and now young Phil was making his grand tour as a naval officer. For this, and because her mother was so very young, they were not to have a separate house until Phil should resign. So Millie was seven years old before they had a house of their own. That left her mama for just another pet child for the judge, and she and the young aunts and Miss Millie were all a happy young lot together. So the child had the loveliest time all the year round.

While she was very little, her grandfather would take her before him on his horse, but when she was six he gave her a small gentle mare, Maddie, for her very own. and they had good rides together followed by the favorite dogs she carried the basket with the ball of twine when her grandmother tied up the flowers and brought it in full of roses she followed grandmama to the dairy and the great barnyard and threw corn to the chickens and turkeys and spent her days in clear air and sunshine and grew stronger all the time they would not let her learn to read she thought too much anyhow and it was not good for her to get at books too young but she had learned many things for she was always answered intelligently and patiently and she knew she only needed to ask and someone would tell all about it the most delightful time except the horseback rides came after she was made all fresh and ready for the night and over her her white gown was put her long pink flannel gown with lace frills and pink ribbons.

My grown-up rapper! Then Mammy carried her down to nestle into grandfather's arms for a good night story. This was a happy time for the judge, too. His strong, kind arm held her curly head so she could watch his face as she lay, warm and rested, listening, questioning, arguing, he arguing seriously with her, considering nothing a trifle that pleased or molded the young mind, until the eyelids began to droop. Then his firm voice would grow more low, more lingering, until the blue eyes were fast for the night. Then the judge himself carried her up to her little bed, to begin again the next evening where they had left off. Of story,

of horses and dogs she never wearied she knew all about her grandfather's favorite horses and hunting dogs from these they roamed afield to storied animals he told her of the famous wooden horse and the burning of troy of the faithful dog of ulysses and its master's long sea travel like papa of phaeton's bad driving and diana's hounds diana's hounds diana became first favorite the rides by running brooks through old woods made real to her the hunting scenes pictured by her grandfather and she had a true love for nature a large collection of fine engravings from the museum of the louvre gave form to many of these stories which she liked fortunately to have repeated again and again here too her relations thought it wrong for her head to be filled with pay and lore, but these two just went on in their own way, enjoying the good-night talks. She knew her Bible stories also, but Diana held her own for a long time. About the only trouble that came to this happy little maiden was when she saw her mother quiet and sad. Her father was ill from fever, far, far away. There were no ocean cables then, and the suspense of

long waiting for letters was very hard when at last papa came home so pale and thin he made them all glad by resigning from the navy to live at home on his own large property a house was bought close to her grandfather's town house and a gate put between the grounds so they could come and go by their own path under the catalpa trees now milly had everybody she loved but that fever had hurt her father and left him in constant pain and he was told to travel to some german springs and get all the aches and pains out of him so instead of going to the country home for the summer she went with her mother and father across the ocean first to london where it was so damp they hurried over to paris where it was not all they wanted in climate but it was lovely to wait there until the baths were open for the season at gastin and there milly who could not write much dictated many letters home through her papa and mamma telling the dear grandparent's of the new health coming back to her father, of her mother's laughing and having her pretty pink cheeks again, and that they all went together nearly every day to see the picture she used to hear the stories of at home, that she had seen all her good-night people, Diana

especially, many diana's in pictures and in marble, and that over the great gate of the louvre, Louis XIV, was driving the chariot of the sun, just like Phoebe. and that papa said she was a funny baby to know about them all but she liked them because they were home people now everywhere there are people who think they know better than you do what is best for you to do they do not hesitate to break up your plans and set you to carrying out their ideas the wife of the american minister looked upon milly's mother as a mere child because she had been a friend of milly's grandmother when they were both young girls in Virginia. So she was very positive it was wrong to have little Millie just enjoying herself in this easy, idle way,

and said she ought to be working away at French lessons. The child is nearly ten. She ought to be in a school. She ought not to lose this opportunity to get the correct accent. She is picking up a very common accent from her nurse and ought to be put among refined French girls and teachers for a few months until the correct accent is formed.

All of which persisted in, bothered Millie's mother very much, for she had never been to a school herself and had no idea how to live separated from her one little child. And yet, what if she were selfish and not just to Millie? And she was very young and trained to habits of respect for her elders. So it was settled that. as there were to be some months at the different baths and cures, Millie should for that time stay at a very distinguished school in Paris, where every extra of attention and comfort was provided for her.

To get used to the separation, Millie was to begin at once, while her mother could go to see her every day and have her at home for Saturdays and Sundays. It was against her feelings, but Millie's mother had a general idea that if you gave up what you wanted most, you did right. That was not her nature, but it is very much our American training. Some way doing right did not make either mother or child contented,

or, used to the separation, not one bit. One day the principal came into the parlor in place of Millie and asked the mother to please not to come daily, to come only once in the week for the child watched the clock and grew feverish towards three it is not good for either of you said madame pardon me but neither of you is showing the self-control which is so necessary and which i am sure you feel your daughter must acquire and all the mother could get was permission to see milly that time and tell her herself why she could not see her every day it is not for long darling we will get that horrid accent some easier way soon for i can't stand it and you shall not everything is arranged now for our going but soon papa will be entirely well and then we will go back home well it was but a few days after this that while the girls were playing prisoner's bass in the beautiful large grounds of this school one of the elder girls fell against milly as they raced and the shock threw her forward against a tree in such a way that a projecting twig gave her a hurt to one eye that made her cry out then fall down almost fainting

for this was a sensitive nature body and mind in an instant the teachers who were always watching in french schools then madame herself were with her greatly alarmed thought that the teachers who were always watching in french schools then madame herself were with her greatly alarmed thought the hurt was directly to the eye. Some blood ran, and a little jagged torn place showed on the eyelid. But the child could not open her eye, and the pain seemed intolerable, though she was controlling herself wonderfully. Their physician was sent for, and also a distinguished oculist. Madame was not only really grieved, but she could not bear to have a child under her care made blind or disfigured. It was a distressing interval while they waited the physicians. What did our Millie do? That tenderly petted child who had no discipline, who pined because she could not see her mother every day? She was the most quiet, the most thoughtful of the whole.

Lucy must not cry so. She is not to blame. She stumbled and fell on me. She couldn't help it. then in her broken french she tried to comfort the sobbing lucy your mother shall come to you at once said madame no cried milly she must not be frightened wait until the doctor says if i am to be blind and she would not rest until madame promised she would not send she would wait to hear what the doctor said the two physicians were quickly with her it was already nightfall they said they could not decide how deep the injury was to the eye it was so swollen already and so sensitive the best they could do was to keep up soothing applications for some hours reduce the swelling then examine the child was perfectly reasonable and trying to be quiet but was trembling in a nervous chill poor baby said the great oculist povra to share bebe send for her mother to calm her no no no begged milly wait oh somebody that speaks good french tell him how it will frighten my mother you cannot know until morning whether i will be blind or not wait i can wait i will mind all you tell me by myself if i am to lose my eye mother will be sorry for me all her life let her be happy this one night longer there were no dry eyes around that little sufferer tenderly the oculus explained to her that her head must be as little moved as possible

whatever tear or strain had come would be made worse if she cried or if she tossed her head in pain she would have to be careful for herself for no one nothing could help her so much as her own will that the wet bandage must be kept fresh all night and if she did not cry and could keep very still i can i will answered the soft little voice well then ma petite if you can really be so brave i think by morning i can do my part and we will believe until we have to give up that the eye will be saved i think it will and if it is you will have done the largest part then came the soothing drink and the arrangements for the night the young physician his assistant was to remain all night and overlooked a school nurse who was to sit by her and keep up the wet applications but mademoiselle jean must sleep all to-morrow if she stays up all night she said to madame who granted everything and then quiet fell on the room with its shaded light and wood fire for the child was chilled by pain and nervous shock madame as well as the young physician came softly in at times sometimes milly was dozing holding on to jean's hand sometimes her soft voice was prattling away in her mixed french and english though jean spoke fairly good english and they heard her laughing a feverish nervous little laugh as she told jean how she told jean how she spoke fairly good english and they heard her laughing a feverish nervous little laugh as she told jean how how pleased she was to find the pictures of the real live Diana,

and she talked of her baby days, when she always went to sleep in her grandfather's arms while he told her beautiful stories. It feels like I was a sleepy baby again, Mademoiselle Jean. I like to feel your hand holding me. Could you tell me a story of when you were little? It would be so nice. And Jean told her a story which was more unreal.

to her luxurious life, encompassed by love and care, than any fable she had ever heard. Gently and quietly told, of always work, the work of her parents, then sickness and their death, and her own work from girlhood on for herself. No home but what she earned by her work. But now she had a good home, and Madame was very kind, and would always keep her, for, with pride, I am a trained and good nurse, and there are always sick people, and I speak and can read English, which is very useful. In that night of threatened blindness, the little one's eyes were open to the vast world of the poor and lowly. The seed fell on good ground. With early morning came the great doctor. The assistant held her head, and the examination showed a torn up.

upper eyelid, a slight tear on the under-eye-lid also, into the cheek. But the dear lovely eye was only bruised, nothing deeper. There was thankfulness in every heart. Now I want to see my mother, if I may. We will do better, said this good doctor. I will take you to her myself, and make her sure you will be free from pain soon, and that there will be no disfigurement. And so, warmly wrapped and in good Jeanne's arms,

they drove through the silent early morning streets to her own house where the doctor, warning the servants to make no sound, himself carried her up to her mama, who was just dressed, and never dreaming her darling was so near. Your little daughter is more brave than your wife, the doctor said to her father.

The poor young mother, the poor young mother. mother was in an agony of grief and self-reproach that her child had been in danger and suffering and she not with her on her knees with her arms around the precious little one she turned to them no i am not brave i have been a coward to give up and let her go from me never never shall i give her up again how could i be so cruel to her and they were not separated after that there was never any school but governess and teachers and home the french accent came all right and much more important things also the most important of all the loving faith and mutual support of family life was kept wonderfully unbroken by these two as long as i knew them some inevitable separations came but they ended them as quickly as possible i know that the war and many sorrows made troubled times for them houses and lands and comforts were lost but they always had each other End of Chapter 6. Recording by Roger Maline.

Chapter 7 of The Will and the Way stories. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline. The Will and the Way stories by Jesse Benton-Fremont. Chapter 7. The Two Wills Our steamer was rolling and tossing in the Gulf Stream and a rainstorm added its storm.

damp misery. The healthy passengers even were tied down by continued rough weather since leaving New York, but we had a number of invalids on board for Nassau, to whom it was much more than temporary discomfort. They took it each in their nature, some with sweet resignation, and some were so irritated as almost to make one forget their sad need forbearance. The driest place was a little glassed-in cabin on deck. It was an old and small steamer, making a last passenger trip before going off on freight work only. Its wretched deck leaked into the main cabin, so this little cuddy above was full always, the sick on the sofas, and we well people, as we could seat ourselves more or less well, chiefly less well. One passenger, we called him the giant because he was six-foot-three,

and wore the peaked hood of his long freeze ulster drawn over his cap and seemed quite seven feet high deliberately sat upon the floor which brought his head to a level with ours he was one of our near friends in new york a manly sunny nature and a great resource to us though he was to go on to havana on his regular winter sugar business there was not room enough on little nassaw for so much size and vitality this special rainy miserable day the captain decided to practice the crew at fire drill first telling the ladies and invalids that it would be only a drill and no need for alarm there was one lad of about sixteen who had distinguished himself by always lying full length on the longest sofa to the exclusion of two real invalids gentle ladylike women a mother and daughter who looked both ill and in grief the giant had threatened to lift the younger to his feet but he too seemed an invalid though he was really so rude and sulky you could not decide if it was only sea-sickness or some more lasting form of illness his meals were brought up to him and he was exacting and capricious to a degree but his obsequious english attendant gave in eurya like to every whim the captain had told this englishman to warn the lad of the drill but as the boy was sleeping and active nausea overtook his attendant it chanced the warning did not get to him he was wildly alarmed at the rush of sailors hurrying by with gleaming axes the hoarse orders called out the calls of every kind for many took it in earnest it was a din and alarm upsetting to even healthy nerves

though he was quickly told by us that it was only a practice fire drill yet he turned angrily on us ladies this is an outrage my life is valuable i must not be excited as though we were responsible the captain was really troubled that this had occurred for as he told us the boy was right his life was valuable in the meaning of property to his family the giant gathered the story and told it to us when nassau was the rendezvous for blockade runners during our war great chances for quick money-making opened up to the islanders and they had some years of extravagant prosperity one shrewd old native merchant made a big war fortune and when peace put an end to further gains of importance he would not return to the once keen delight in wrecks but gathered his riches and betook himself to london as the only place now suitable for him once there he found uncomfortable differences between himself and those he met and being a man of good hard sense realized his money could not cover the lack of other advantages he had an old quarrel with his only child but now he adopted her son as his heir driving as usual a hard bargain the boy must live with him in london and be entirely his he would educate him suitably for his fortune but he must drop all connection with his family and they must look for no part in the fortune on their side also were conditions made they would not give up the boy until he was legally adopted as the heir to be suitably provided for from the start and to inherit at the death of the grandfather

if he should die before the grandfather the old man was then free to make other disposal of his money but not while the boy lived this being all made safe the child for he was but fourteen then was sent to england where naturally after a while his health began to give out anything more sweet more even and softly warm than the climate of nassau from october to may cannot well be while English damp must be felt to be realized. My seal-skin jacket feels no warmer than one of linen. I have heard a healthy American girl say in November there. And a young stomach, accustomed to the light food and much fruit of Nassau, was not fitted for the change to a solid diet of meat and ale. Altogether England was too much for the boy,

and now he had to be sent back for a while. to his native air to gain strength enough to return and be fitted out for that exacting fortune. On the Atlantic crossing he took cold, and his English attendant, a sort of nurse and tutor combined, for he was not to lose time, was very nervous lest he should be blamed. The boy was really suffering, but also wonderfully selfish and full of his own importance, while dimly he began to feel he might be in danger. The captain, knowing Nassau well, and knowing the consequences attached to the boy's life,

wished to deliver him in good order to his parents who were watching for his arrival, anxious and not pleased with him for breaking down. It was really a bad box for the poor fellow. He was made to feel on all sides that he was not wanted for himself, but for the money, depends. on his life really though it was hard to keep our compassion free from annoyance from his most disagreeable ways and we were not sorry to lose sight of him on arriving

and yet we are all so curiously drawn into an invisible network of circumstances that this boy was the active cause of distressing the lives of two persons he never saw or knew of who did not know each other and with both of whose distresses those strangers to me, I, too, became closely interwoven. It is not a long passage, four days, take one from the cold and snow of New York, past stormy hatteras, and across the rough waters of the Gulf Stream, into the serene, comforting mildness and warm sunshine of the little island, an island lying like a wail's back out of water, with no soil, no water, no chance for malaria. just a hump of dry coral rock with lovely blue sea in sight on three sides from the hotel which is on top of the wales head the english government built this fine spacious hotel as a health resort for american invalids it is also their own health station for their army and navy in the west indies you feel the solid english government all about you there its good influence pervades all things as you

surely as does the climate. Like the island, this hotel is dry and free from damp, because it too is of coral rock. This cuts into blocks as easily as chalk, but hardens in the air and makes a most healthy house. Around the hotel, which is built like a ship with rounded stern, are, on each story, wide galleries where the sun, the soft trade winds, and even temperature bring healing to tired throats and torn lungs. NASA is a mere dot, a pinhead spot on the map, but for some years it was of the utmost value and necessity during the war, and these wide galleries of the hotel on the hill, intended for invalids,

were then continually crowded with eager men on the lookout for coming blockade runners. And when these were chased by our vessel, the excitement grew tremendous as first won then the other ship seemed gaining not until the protecting marine league limit was reached could the race be decided then yells and english cheers and cries of excited joy from the blacks rent the air for the safety of the blockade runner meant money to them all and far more than money to the southerners them was the bountiful days mistis the dusky head chambermaid lamented to me them was the days when gentlemen threw their money around our consul had less pleasing things to tell of those bountiful days now the hotel was not crowded and extreme quiet reigned invalid stretched on steamer chairs low kind voices reading aloud to them the stifled coughs though languid movements of those walking on the galleries this had replaced the full life of men roused to highest tension by war and gain i hold nassau in grateful memory as the bridge that carried us safe over a yawning gulf of anxiety but i would never again take an invalid where illness and not health made the mental atmosphere where there is no getting away from the sight and sound of illness it is hard to be it is hard to be able to the sight and sound of illness it is hard to

not to become nervous or morbid. There seemed enough of this at the hotel, but even here we did not escape our grumpy young fellow-traveller. He was with his own family, of course, but he represented the great days when fortune smiled on Nassau, and Nassau honored him as its own special invalid, and he was so widely discussed that he became a topic of morbid interest to our traveler invalids. There was no cable and only one mail in three weeks. Fancy our intense interest when the signal flag ran up at Fort Fincastle to report the mail steamer cited. Sail vessels came in between times, but our only news was condensed into this once-in-three-weeks mail. Inevitably, local interests grew to unnatural proportions. The

passion for betting is perhaps even stronger with the english than with americans and bets on the coming news were the favorite form of betting in this lone and sea-girt solitude young anthony had become a fixed betting subject he and his grandfather had the interest of a race for the betters in fact of the community in general if young anthony lived to inherit his delicate health would keep him in nassau therefore his money would remain and be spent there and if he should die soon after inheriting he would most probably bequeath to his father and mother and they would keep the money in the island but if the elder anthony outlived the boy the money was lost to nassau the grandfather had announced this there were old scores to pay and this was his retaliation he too had long suffered from the transplanting to the cold damp climate and was seriously ill when the boy sailed but then again young anthony had failed rapidly during the long sea voyage bets were many and for nassau heavy as to what news the steamer should bring a ghastly kind of amusement but so it was nassau against london the first steamer told the grandfather was much weaker while the boy was decidedly revived then began a race for life and the friends of young anthony like mr dombey's sister who urged upon the dying fanny to make an effort urged the poor boy to make his effort. One sent her carriage daily, another sent delicate food,

and honeymoon house was taken for him, and in spite of his protests, he was carried there. This was a villa by the sea, never used except for wedding tours. There was nowhere to travel to unless you took to the water, and this pretty place, a little out of town, had been given up by its owner to bridal couples, and so got its name. At honeymoon house, the second steamer found the boy less strong, and the grandfather, better. Betts began to vary, and London was ahead of Nassau. Also, the boy, surrelly and contrary by nature, and capricious now from disease, began to rebel against making that effort they required of him. He was reported to have been. He was reported to a said, if they didn't let him alone, he would die to spite them. That the money was no good to him

anyway. He knew he could not live long anyway, and all they wanted him to live for was that they might get it for themselves, that they had given him away for that money, and now he was dying because they had sent him into the English climate. When we were told of this bitter feeling of the poor lad, it made us very sorry for him. There was so much truth. in it. He showed his grandfather's shrewd insight in going to the hard facts that underlade his illness, but it was too sorrowful that he should have lost faith in the love of his parents. We had to keep very early hours. It was the wise rule for the benefit of the invalids. But from seven to nine in the evenings, the drawing-room gathered many pleasant people from the outside also.

The billiard room was a large detached building in the grounds of the hotel, and on its verandas and under the huge silk cotton tree which shaded it, met citizens and travelers and the officers of the garrison and the naval officers from ships and port. The billiard room was in fact the club, the exchange for news, the one animated place in the placid, stagnant island. from among these we had our regular contingent of visitors we had found the hotel so seriously invalid that after one evening in the great blank drawing-room a spirit of change and reform seized us nothing is more discouraging than bare white walls and lamps with staring cold white shades one feels thrown back by the blank and lack of cheerful color

we got the aid and consent of the housekeeper who brought out some colored table covers with which we covered the large round table and some smaller ones we bought at the confectioners sheets of red and pink and white and yellow tissue paper and made of them finely pleaded lampshades which changed to warmth the tone of the walls and concentrated bright light on the tables the piano was brought out from the wall and its long harsh outline softened by a great scotch plaid of scarlet and brown while the solid comfortable ugly haircloth furniture no longer knew itself from the bright turkish towels draped on backs and cushions altogether it became a cheery bright room flowers and work-baskets portfolios of sketches writing-pads magazines all manner of domestic small objects gave personal effects while the delighted invalids caught on and it made an object in their empty days to find some fresh idea to add to our club-room lovely flowers were gathered and the musical resources were called out and combined we found we had two pianists of real merit and a remarkable banjuist while except santly i have never heard such an english tenor as the middle-aged english officer who came gladly to have his accompanies played and to practice also there was an artist of merit who showed us at night the sketches in oil he made by day it was a refreshing pleasant time from seven to nine then quiet for the invalids we really were as great a success as an opera troop with the advantages of visits and talking added the nicest people came to visit us then

among our most constant and most agreeable of visitors was the chief surgeon of the post a man who had won high distinction and promotion by his valuable report on yellow fever in the west indies and his noble connoisse and his noble connoisse during an unusually pestilential season of this fever when after all their troops had been sent elsewhere he had asked permission to remain and give his aid to the natives which he had done thoroughly remaining until the pestilence was over though such was its violence that the very monkeys fell from the trees in marked conditions of the fever this surgeon felt a great pity for young anthony and gave him all the sympathy and courage he could infuse into him the evening we heard of the boy's revolt against any more trying there came up a most interesting talk on the influence of will against disease and from this officer's large experience he gave us many evidences where he had seen it really stay its progress even avert death it was an evening of talk that both instructed and elevated one of the remembered steps in lifting one upwards to the invisible plane of the soul above the hampering fetters of our visible life and gave courage by showing how much lay within the power of one's own will i noticed one young and most interesting invalid from boston listening with fascinated attention we had become quite friendly already and i was not surprised when she came to me early the next morning for a good talk i want you to stand by me and something i am going to do you will understand my aunt will not

when i saw you brushing away the mildew from our lives here i felt the stir of life in my veins again you have made this sad place less sad and last night i realized that that exhausted as I am, I can yet help myself by concentrating all my will. I want to live. I ought to, until my birthday. It is only six weeks away. But if Will can do it, I will live till then. This case of young Anthony is so much my own. I too must reach to making my will, and I must go off to save myself. I cannot bear hearing about him. it is already more than i can do to keep from thinking of my own need to live beyond a fixed date and it makes me wild to know of this boy struggling up then falling back if he dies before his grandfather i will feel it is my fate to die before i can make my will i will go to havana to get rid of hearing of him for i must i will live past my twenty-fifth birthday let me tell you and with the poor thin, clammy hands held fast in mine, sure of tender sympathy,

she told me her story. Her grandfather had large estates in land and forest. He had only two children, her mother being one. When she was very young, both her mother and father died, and she was brought up sternly, without cruelty, but utterly without love or indulgence, by her uncle, who had been left by his will complete manager of all the grandfather's property until she should reach twenty-five if she died under twenty-five his undivided authority was to continue for a fixed number of years longer even if she had married and had children she could not alter this condition or dispose of her property by will until she reached that twenty-fifth birthday she had married

she had two little children and she could not bear to leave them subject to her hard cold narrow uncle but wanted their father and his mother a long-hearted sweet womanly woman to bring them up with all the advantages her wealth ought to give they will not be strong she said my mother and my father both died from consumption and see me they must have a good climate there is plenty of money the estates have been well managed but my uncle would never increase my allowance it is his interest i should die under twenty-five and so leave everything in his hands years ago i begged to go to italy to save my life she was a pupil of hunts and painted with power and freedom but he laughed at me and said my own imprudence not the boston climate was to blame that i was safe as where the family could look after me. Now, hopelessly broken down, she had been brought by two of her husband's family, an aunt and her husband,

away from the northern winter. They were kind, but had no comprehension of her nervous, over-sensitive nature, now become morbid from mental, as well as physical pain. They honestly mean well when they insist on regular hours that I shall drive, or lie down at fixed hours, and eat regularly of nourishing food when I loathe it.

How can I be regular and keep a routine when I am flying to pieces? cried the poor thing. I am nearly wild from all the restraints I put upon myself already. I push down thoughts and memories. But baby voices call me, and all the time I see that date of my birthday like the writing on the wall. It is my doom. I brought my painting traps with me, the weaving cocoa palms against the tropic sky and ocean fascinated me. I felt the smell of the paint hurts me. And when the physician said so, I gave up my painting, too, packed the box and screwed down its lid. Good-bye to that, too. I keep only one joy. I write in a journal book.

for my little ones. I tell them why I left home and love and came to the South to save my life long enough to be of use to them, to secure them large income and the indulgences of feeling and tastes I was denied. They shall be more free and happy than their mother was allowed to be, and all through the book I put in little pictures, the palms by the sea, the patient black mothers carrying great loads of sugar cane on their heads, with their naked little children trotting by them. They must know me, though I will never know them, except as fair little babies, I was warned not to kiss, because my breath might carry disease. Then I came away. I will do them no ill, but I must live to do them good. Now comes this young Anthony to trouble and

discourage me. I told my aunt why I must go by the next steamer to Havana. She, but more her husband, treats that as a feverish fancy, and tries to soothe me as one might a child scared by a dream. But I know I could not stand his dying. When the men laugh about the Nassau against London bets, I could scream and call out, bet on me. and that boy is giving way he has not motive enough to resist he cares only for himself could i endure this loneliness this horrid separation if it were for my good only but i must live on for six weeks more for the children my will is all ready for me to sign the day i am twenty-five i keep it close by me after that i can die in peace then i may go to my dear home and die among my own people not in a hotel go from nassau they did by the next steamer the uncle was hard to overcome but it would have been cruel to force her to remain with that fear on her and fortunately both the boy and his grandfather were living neck and neck said the betters when they got off for her sake this was a real comfort to us

the excitement of carrying her point against resistance had so exhausted her that she was carried on board on a litter our consul a most kind and considerate gentleman had arranged all things for them with the steamer and remained with them the short time before it put to sea again as did their physician for life seemed leaving her because the consul was not in his office these few hours there came to pass the second evil influence from young anthony of which i spoke but that is for another story the end of this one is that before the boston lady had been gone a week young anthony's case took a bad downward turn either he had not much power to resist disease or he had not the will the nerve to do so but anyway he died within that week then local interest fastened on the possibilities of the grandfather having died before him but no he outlived the grandson and made good his threat nassau lost the fortune from havana then florida we had good news of the reviving effects of good scenes and thoughts on the boston lady and from a loving friend who joined her in florida i learned of the birthday reached the will signed and the great peace that came to the invalid then for with the hard fight won all resistance fell from her she was taken home and had her yearning wish gratified among her own people for whom she had secured a happier life than was given her the end came End of Chapter 7.

Recording by Roger Maline. Chapter 8 of The Will and the Way stories. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline. The Will and the Way Stories by Jesse Benton-Fremont. Chapter 8. The Hat of the Postmaster. This is not an Allendorf sentence or a joke, but a real and very serious trouble that came from an accidental shot into the hat of a Nassau postmaster,

who was also Her Majesty's postmaster. When you have said Her Majesty in Nassau, the thing becomes too serious for common explaining. Only the Majesty of the Law could suitably meet the offense to this, very far off and very insignificant, representative of royalty. The good queen herself would be amused by it, but to an American, it is something incredible until seen, this prostration of mind before the idea of royalty. The postmaster of this small town on a pinhead island,

thousands of miles from England, felt himself aggrieved beyond personal explanations, because, while taking his customary walk before dinner, a pistol ball went through his high hat, that it was manifestly an accident did not appease him he was walking along the road which bordered the long frontage of the harbor where vessels lay discharging cargo their decks on a level with the white coral rock road on one side of the sea on the other the low coral rock houses just here stores and storehouses and on an open space a great lot of railway iron which had arrived after the end of the water-the-work houses just here stores and storehouses and on an open space a great lot of railway iron which had arrived after the end of the war, and was now only a huge pile of warped and rusted iron. As the postmaster passed this place, he felt his hat struck from the land side,

and taking it off saw a bullet had torn through it. As he was rather deaf, he had heard nothing. However, he saw a colored man just behind him, running swiftly up the cross street into the town. And on the deck of the schooner, alongside the road, stood a white man pistol in hand of course the sound of the shot brought out everyone within hearing and the man in the schooner its first name told them he had found a man in his cabin below taking down his sunday hat the man a young mulatto ran so quickly he could not catch him as he made off with the hat but he recognized the same young man who had been prowling about and annoyed him all day not stuck him all day not stuck to see what else was gone, and only meaning to scare the thief, he had fired, not after him as he ran up the cross street, but into the pile of old iron.

The ball had rebounded, struck the side of the nearest house, and thence hit the hat of the postmaster. This was so reasonable, and proved itself so clearly, that it ought to have been enough. The offense of firing within town limits should have been met by a fine only, and the provocation considered and allowed for. Because it was well known, as the mate said, that these wharf thieves made work troublesome for vessels, and that if they ran off with any plunder, no one had seen them. So he fired to show he would be police for himself. The law allowed fine or imprisonment for this offense. had the consul been on shore it would have ended in a fine but he was on the steamer seeing to his dying boston lady steamers could not come in close and it was a work of time to get out to them

so in the few hours he was away the mate was carried before a justice the postmaster turning literally a deaf ear to reason and stopping at his accusation of a ball fired through his hat as witnessed the torn hat and there was a crowd of colored people insisting against the enormity of a white man shooting at a poor-colored boy who was just looking about on the schooner it would not have gone so hard against the mate but for the bad conduct of his captain who had been absent in the town and who at once made sail and deserted his mate thus depriving him of his witnesses this unusual bad conduct came as most crimes come from drink the mate was a man of middle age a thoroughly reliable seamen used to sailing his own smaller vessel to the west indies the captain was a very young man brother-in-law to the owner of this fine schooner the owner felt his vessel safe in charge of mr h whom he persuaded to take the place of first mate and also asked him to keep watch over the young captain to whom was given this chance to reform and do better as a favor to his wife's family. The young captain had resented Mr. H's authority on board, and at once, on reaching Nassau, came ashore and began to drink.

When he was called into court, he saw his opportunity to get rid of a troublesome guardian. He said his making sail immediately was to prevent the cargo being spoiled by long detention. Anyway, he sailed that evening and left Mr. H without witnesses or friendly support. When the consul returned, he was informed of all this, but Mr. H was already in prison and the schooner gone. Our consul was an American and a gentleman, not only very intelligent and unusually kind-hearted, but he was thoroughly patriotic. Long residence in Nassau made him know its beginning. peculiarities of prejudice and local feeling. He knew this case had been rushed through, and advantage taken of his brief absence to gratify the underlying anger of the majority of the

island people against our flag, the flag that to them meant the stopping of the prosperous times of the war and the blockade running. Logically, they should have felt warmly towards that flag, for Nassau had eleven colored to each white inhabitants. but it was self-interest not the interest of their race which influenced them also the race-feeling made them pleased to punish a white man for shooting at one of their color though they knew it was only intended to frighten the man and they knew he was a bad character who was often in the chain gang for theft and for drinking our consul was sorely troubled he had immediately made his protest had declared to the authorities that the mate should not be put in the chain gang in the morning, but should have a jury trial, had written to the prisoner to that effect, and sent him a good dinner and provided that all his meals should come to him from the outside, and that every prison

hardship and indignity should be kept off until he could see the proper persons and secure legal efforts for his liberty. Early the next morning he went to the prison and saw Mr. H. we sat at the consul's table and this became our case nationally and personally on the good report the consul made after seeing mr h he was from maine one of the best examples of the fine sea-going men of that coast he was a mason in good standing and he had volunteered and served in our navy during the whole of the war that was enough for me the consul found opposing him exactly the prejudices and obstacles he had foreseen the sailing away of the schooner was also a hard fact against the prisoner except as he explained it to the consul when our government was framed it was morbid against authority and dreaded giving power into any hands we were a far-off and scantily peopled country isolated by distance and with the idea of the idea of of self-dependence governing us nationally. Steam ended that by bringing us in close contact with other lands

and crowding us with foreign peoples. And now that we are interwoven with the world's commerce, we have changed but little in the original narrow and bitterly prejudiced ways of handling our outlying interests. They are inadequate and stingy in our foreign relations. Our consuls generally are consistent. considered unimportant and are often foreigners who do not understand us nationally and when they do they have none of that solid support england gives her representatives all manner of extra expenses for shipwrecked or as now imprisoned sailors fall on the consul's own pocket he may be repaid by the state department that depends on a set of officials whose pride is in small accounts not just account

if his account does not pass this tribunal he may appeal to congress and he may grow gray waiting for its attention if he has political influence he may be repaid on demand it is all shamefully uncertain and unfair and throws decisions like this case i tell of directly on the good feeling the sense of national honor and the willingness to part indefinitely with his own money of the council. Ours rose to what ought to be the national level. He secured the good food and room and freedom from small indignities which made the prisoners lot less hard, but, notwithstanding, the hard fact remained that a fine, upright, temperate man,

a first-class seaman, and one who had done good service during our war, rising to the rank of Ensign in our navy, was in prison waiting, trial on an inadequate charge, and there was only the accident of personal feeling to prevent his being in the chain gang with every low criminal. Gentlemen from the hotel went to the consul to see Mr. H. He was fully assured of the indignant sympathy of his countrymen and countrywomen, too. It was thought wisest not to increase and harden the opposition by a display of indignation,

or ladies would have taken him in person in his prison, the books, the newspapers, the magazines, and the fresh flowers and fruits with which they kept him supplied. It would be six weeks before his trial could come off. The season was ending, and the hotel about to close. Then only the consul would remain to represent his American friends. These had secured for him the best lawyer of Nassau, for public feeling, even among upper-class officials, was in favor of making an example of Mr. H. At a farewell dinner from the bishop, we met the chief people of the town, and though I tried to avoid this topic of discord,

it was brought forward by the chief justice himself, who rather sneeringly called Mr. H. my prisoner. At first I treated it laughingly. any seriousness would have been too ill-bred at a dinner party so i accepted my prisoner and said yes i was deeply interested to have him acquitted for it was above personal consideration it was national the reputation of our national marksmanship was to be tried that if h had fired to hit the man running away he deserved the extremist sentence for not shooting him we could not have any sympathy for such a poor marksman that an american who had served during all of our war who was healthy and temperate and was using an american revolver should miss his mark was a national reproach and his fate be on his own head so we were bound to prove mr h did not fire at the man but quite away from him to give him and others a good scare that all the evidence showed that while the man was running away due east the shot had struck a house north-east from the schooner and that we americans were too conceited over our national reputation as good shots as to admit such a wide stray as that from a mark i was jesting and laughing but inwardly very angry feeling this barrier of local ill-will threatening justice

our charming hostess let me make a diagram with forks and spoons for streets and wharf and crusts of bread for the schooner and pile of iron and house struck by the ball even the sarcastic chief justice could not but give in to the convincing diagram it proved there was no intention to hit the man only to give notice and but for the ball rebounding glancing upward and thence striking the postmaster's hat there would have been no fuss about it for the young man feared the chain gang again and his anxiety was to get off undetected then the chief justice rather lost his temper and said some disagreeable things in a polite way to be sure which i was to get off undetected then the chief justice rather lost his temper and said some disagreeable things in a polite way to be sure which i was not take up but in my mind i determined if it was to be nassau feeling against american feeling american feeling should win the governor and his wife had been altogether charming to us every day the scarlet and white uniformed orderly from government house brought fruit or flowers or books with often a note to say they would call for me to join their afternoon drive or to take tea or for a sale and we had become friendly and intimate after this dinner party i went to the governor and told him i feared prejudice would tell heavily against mr h that i had refrained from going to visit him in prison because the consul thought it best to make no display of taking sides but as i was leaving on monday i wished to see him and cheer him and to be able to speak for him direct to any new york friends who might be useful unless it seemed this would injure the prisoner's cause i wanted the necessary permit from the governor he thought as i did that it was right for me to see the prisoner and as for its being any injury to him i will see about that

sunday he thought the best time as there would then be no prisoners around we arranged that i should take a good-bye sunday afternoon tea with lady h on sunday and finally to-and-and-and-one t and finally my special permit ready. After tea, the governor took me, not to my carriage, which he had sent away, but to his own open carriage, and the scarlet uniformed orderly mounted the box by the coachman. As we drove through the streets to the prison, everyone we met stopped, turned to face the governor, and lifted the hat if a man, or bent the head if a woman. This salute to the representative of the queen came easily and willingly and seemed to me a graceful tribute to her as a woman and sovereign. All was silent around the high prison walls. The sentry saluted,

and the great gates swung open into an empty enclosure. The director of the prison was waiting, head-beared, and bowing, and we were shown into the long, cool entrance hall of the prison and thence into the private room of the director. After a few polite words on the cool freshness of the building, the governor asked Mr. Crawford to have the American prisoner brought into his room to see me. By the rules I should have gone to the prisoner's cell. While Mr. Crawford himself went to see to this, the governor said to me, in a low voice, I have a privilege I value and have pleasure in using when needed.

I can set aside the finding of a court and grant a pardon. I will do this in case your fears prove well-founded. I hope for justice, however, and my coming here with you is sufficient expression of my view of the prisoner's case. But in case the suit goes against him, I wish you now to repeat to Mr. H. what I have said. and to tell him that i will set him free that will give him courage for all he is yet to meet neither of us had yet seen mr h he came in now walking beside mr crawford pale from confinement but with a clear-eyed look of quiet pride and self-respect that propitiated the governor at once

he said you will want to talk freely with mrs fremont it is against rules for a prisoner to be alone with a visitor but i will walk with mr crawford up and down in front of the door while you give your messages for home so i had my free talk with my prisoner and lost no time in giving him the governor's delightful message also i had brought to keep him company in his prison a photograph of a handsome happy lad in his ensign's uniform i have worn that uniform said the prisoner with tears forcing themselves to his well-controlled new england blue eyes i served nearly the whole four years and earned that uniform step by step and now take heart i said it is not for long now and you are sure of freedom then you will bring me back this comrade he gave me the names of some good friends shipping merchants of new york and specially begged i would write to his wife she may think i'm disgraced because i am in prison but you can make her see it is not the same as being in prison at home our time was up it was with a lighter heart mr h said good-bye and returned to be locked into his room for now a certainty of freedom was with him and from its frame of violet velvet and silver looked out the bright young face of that naval dress he had earned by service to his country he no longer could feel alone or discouraged the governor made his cordial good-bye and we returned to polite but wondering looks and many comments were made to me but not even to our kind consul could i tell the governor's comforting assurance

we sailed the next day and for three weeks there could be no news from nassau then it was brought by mr h himself a happy man he had seen and recognized in the hudson river depot the original of the photograph he was bringing back to me and it introduced him and that young webfoot brought him out to our country house what a good report he had to make the trial had ended so clearly in his favor that the verdict of not guilty was cheered and cheered again and he was carried from the court-room on the shoulders of the crowd i never felt so foolish in my life he said they had been ready to mob at first during the interval he was in prison the pilferer had added more offences for which he was now working under the hot summer sun in the dreaded chain gang to the hue and cry that he tried to kill a man because he was colored h had made the practical denial of refusing a white jury when it was offered him he said he would as soon trust respectable colored men so it was made a mixed jury the postmaster had become ashamed of himself and withdrew his charge when he reached new york the front street shipping merchants took up his case and he was offered the case and he was offered the case command of more than one fine sailing vessel. The young captain who deserted him had made a bad muddle of the business, and the owners now wanted Mr. H to command her. But they had turned

the cold shoulder to him when in trouble, and he rightly would have no more to do with them. Some front street shipping houses sent me a letter I valued very much of thanks for my interest in a sailor needing help, and saying if more ladies traveling abroad took the same pride in the flag, our mercantile marine would feel more encouraged. Altogether, this story of a syndicate of will ends properly. The bad man was punished and the good man rewarded. He even found waiting him the right kind of letter from his wife, and i had the satisfaction i often felt in finding that if you only go about it in earnest you can stir up more than enough good to counteract the bad we went down together the next morning at the end of the long platform of the forty-second street depot is a great box with a sign upon it mr h saw the passengers dropping into this box their morning paper or novel or madame

and stop to read the notice for the hospitals and prisons I told him of the flower and fruit missions also there's something I can do for them he said I have been sick and in prison and visited by kindness I know how it is I will speak to my friends in the fruit trade and see that the hospitals and prisons get their share of fruit there's lots of it won't keep and they can never put it to better use and there is more good yet the governor and his sweet wife made us a visit on their way home to england he told us he had opened with our state department favorable negotiations for some form of marine court which would protect sailors in the bahamas from such bad chances as my prisoner had had to encounter also the consul's outlays were repaid by government but he had warm and strong friends at court where justice like kissing goes by favor end of chapter eight recording by roger maline chapter nine of the will and the way stories this libervox recording is in the public domain recording by roger maline the will in the way stories by jesse benton fremont chapter nine the good samaritan the good samaritan still lives everywhere there are men to whom the call of the helpless is more imperative than the call of self such a man was hurrying to his train intent on a business appointment when his attention was caught by the look of distress and the strange manner of another passenger in the street car a fine-looking man still young

well-dressed, and evidently trying hard for self-control. As they neared the station and others were making ready to get out, a gesture of despair came from this young man as he tried, in vain, to rise. The rest hurried past, but the Good Samaritan could not desert him. Can I help you? he asked. But in the struggle to answer, in the confused stammer, he saw the young man was dangerously ill. the good samaritan had a head as clear and true as his good heart i think the two go together quickly he asked what is your name where do you live

will willem then the poor faltering tongue could articulate no more who do you know here i will take you there some stammering sounds led the quick mind to a well-known name then faintness came on The insensible man was put into a carriage and driven back into the city to a great business house, where at first no one recognized him. The water applied to head and breast to revive him had disordered hair and dress, and the face was painfully distorted. Then one brother exclaimed, Can this be Will S? He was with us all the morning, perfectly well.

We have known him always. he said his name was will but could get no farther and he could only give the first half of your name these brothers were quakers and again this helpless sufferer had fallen among good men their own physician confirmed the fear that it was a stroke of paralysis they knew that the patient was a man of upright habits of unusual energy in business and that he had the great inheritance of good health and good character, for their house had had regular business dealings with his grandfather and his father, as well as with himself. So they knew this paralysis could not be due to any wrongdoing of poor Will S. himself. They had him carried to their own townhouse and cared for as one of themselves. It was the hot summertime and the family at the seaside, but as his illness forbid any moving for many weeks, they telegraphed Will's family to come to him and stay.

With true Quaker thoroughness, all keys of linen closet, storerooms, and homeplaces were sent to them with a sweet letter of sympathy and welcome by the absent lady of the house, and the shocked wife and brother came into a welcoming home, where every friendly care was already to save this life, if possible. Stop here to think of the difference, made by one man's goodness. He could well have gone forward to his business appointment,

first saying a word to the policeman always on duty, and so turned over to public care the sick man. In time, an ambulance would have taken the sick man to a hospital, where he would have had excellent care. But before that time, the tongue would have been completely paralyzed. And there would have been no clue to Mr. S's identity. family also were in the country for the summer, and being alone no one knew he was going for the morning to the neighboring city. He had chanced to dress that day in a new suit of thin clothes and left at home all usual papers, pocketbook, etc. A watch, purse, and pocket-handkerchief were all they found on his person. But for the goodness of the other traveler, Mr. S. would

have had the fate of unknown persons. who go out in customary careless confidence from a home and are never heard of again or if traced will be found to have been put away among the unknown dead do as you would be done by is a law to some natures and this good samaritan could not turn from the helpless he made for mr s the difference between being an unknown patient in a hospital of a strange city perhaps dying there and the kind home provoked provided by friends where he had all the skill of first-class physicians and nurses as well as the loving care of his own family who remained with him many weeks until it was judged safe to remove him to his own home but time only confirmed the earlier opinion of physicians overwork want of sleep of exercise of change of ideas too great absorption in his business brought on the evil some derangement of the system which declared itself suddenly in paralysis they said he might regain comfortable health as he had been a sound man of good habits but that the mind the brain was hurt beyond recovery they gave no hope of much change even after the lapse of a year it was a pitiful sight to see this strong man not yet forty patiently rubbing his numbed right hand with the left and trying with feeble sounds to pronounce simple words the courage of affection supported his family in cheerful efforts to aid him to guess at his meaning during the long interval when he was unaware he was using the same few words for all meanings

vain efforts to read the newspaper made him demand a spelling-book a b c he repeated again and again the letters yes begin some one guessed he meant he must begin all over again at the beginning and asked him if that were so yes yes yes pretty soon here he ran a finger along the lines of print turned a page and seemed deep in reading then looked up smiling the grown people were too sorry for him to carry this out well at first but a young niece said tenderly that will be fun uncle will i am going to be school mistress and you must mind me and day after day the lovely blue eyes often shining through tears were fixed on his training him to shape the rigid mouth to articulate and soon the form and sound of the letters were mastered and easy reading began and it was found that ideas were being connected the household was in tears of joy the day a small thing proved this possible mary mary called one of the ladies and as the maid did not appear there was another call and a wondering where she had gone gone school said will with a smile got lamb once familiar sounds dragged with them associations from out that darkened mind Here was connection and application of ideas and memory.

One of the sweetest pictures of babyhood is the dear little sleepy halting of the baby over its evening prayer. Helped on by a gentle, loving voice, it remembers a word or two and nods off into silence, with down to sleep as its summary of the whole. It was pathetic to see this process bringing out words, thoughts, memories from the patient invalienable. but it was a beautiful use of the healthy young mind to bring to its own level the tired-out mind. New courage came to all, and the reading lessons were made a game in which all took part, carefully not to overtax the new strength. Cheered and encouraged forward in this way, Mr. S, with intervals of languor and low spirits,

made progress in curious bursts of advance. his physician was glad and surprised but not sanguine though he knew nature had forces beyond man's best efforts to me long known and now more with them than ever he was as off guard as with the family he would drag himself forward to meet me his newspaper held between the stiffened arm and his breast while with a finger following the line he would read a bit slow low low reading like a timid child followed by a burst of triumph yes sir everyone was sir pretty soon pretty soon can speak it was years before he got so far as easily connected ideas and fairly descriptive speech the most singular side ideas gestures pointing to words in print all methods he had resorted to to make clear his meaning and his family always quick-witted became acrobats in mind guessing marvellously into his meanings his last conscious effort had been to give his name he could only get so far as one syllable will and that word was now the governing power in regaining himself science had said his case was hopeless beyond a fixed limit that beyond that beyond that lay connected thought and speech but he had reached the limit and was determined to go beyond and in this renewed life will was governing he had succeeded in mastering simple reading and gradually the mind re-open to familiar subjects

the morning paper was his delight and his comments became more and more clear showing connected thought and memory his former knowledge of men returned and in his own brief peculiar way he spoke of them of one a candidate for an office of trust he said no no bad man then taking some small silver from his pocket he laid it on the table rose said good-bye and walked out to return and with strange mimicry of the other man look hastily round the room then hurry to the table and gather up the money then reappear as himself and go with quiet certainty for the money he had left. It was gone. A moment of surprise, then shaking his fist toward the door, he made clear his whole thought and was triumphant when all cried out, as in guessing charades, he's a man not to be trusted? Yes, yes, bad man. By patient, unyielding will, he had learned to write his name, then fashion other strokes, and again gift he had never had began to develop. In this piteous return to childhood, there had been provided

for him pencils of colored wax and outlined drawings for him to color. He had never had any knowledge of drawing, but had a passion for flowers and for cultivating them. Now, color and flowers attracted him. A new interest came into his life when, after weary repetitions of awkward strokes, he could at last shape and color simple flowers. The right hand remained dead, but the left was growing into a skill the right never had. This flower painting made motive for his walks to florists. He had been shy of attracting notice to his paralyzed dragging walk, but in this new joy he would forget himself now and the shops where the christmas and easter cards blossomed out in the windows came to know well and receive kindly the pale brave face of the man so evidently deprived of all enjoyment of life he would buy a card of snowdrops or violets go on to the florists and show it and so by the flower itself and coming home with his treasure be happy and be happy and

painting it. The sharp irritability of his disease was in him, and his people suffered no end of anxiety when he insisted on going out alone. But he was more thoughtful than they had imagined, and people are good in the main. He would often be kindly helped over crossings, for the family at first watched him unseen. The French government aiding scientific inquiry into electricity, gave to mr charcot the patients of the biescetre and salpateriere for experiments in aid of nervous disorders at these places the insane the degraded drinking class especially the women of that kind in paris are confined the gentle mode of treatment as well as the subtle power of electricity was working miracles among these poor unhappy creatures our own physicians went over to paris and had a long time of study and practice with dr charcot bringing back the first of the new electric machines and fully impressed with the tried and also the untried powers of this new application of electricity except among the advanced few however it was not more kindly received than was inoculation in lady mary's day and so much is always to be left to the patient

you cannot be cured of anything in spite of yourself it takes too for that more than for almost anything even a perfect climate cannot cure consumptive girls who take off flannels and dance in ball-dress late into the night Only the discipline and restraints of a prison enabled Dr. Charko's treatment to be faithfully carried out. The case of Mr. S seemed to me a fair one to be benefited by this new treatment, and he would faithfully aid the physician. All that good sense and good firm will could do would be brought to bear in aid to science. He had then been paralyzed 14 years,

and time was sadly again. against him for the muscles had shrunk and hardened and become almost entirely useless in the right side the leg in walking had that curved outward swing as it was dragged forward resting on the tip of the foot the heel could not reach to the ground well this brave man perfectly understood he was taking the risks of an experiment physician and patient felt their way together to fresh efforts daily great drops of moisture forced their way through the skin from head to foot as the electric current was powered over mr s or sharp shoots from it were fired into centers of long disused muscles but he was never the first to say hold enough to be brief in six weeks the muscles were relaxed so that the heel came down level with the front of the foot and the relaxed leg was no longer flung out in walking he could now walk no worse than a man with a very tight boot the right arm remained dead but the tongue was relaxed and the desire of his heart was gained for once more he could speak not as well as ever but enough no more need of pantomime and elaborate roundabout reaching for meaning his whole health was better was really calm and good and the mind calmed with the feeling that he no longer attracted attention he walked more and without fatigue the summers in the country were a new delight

for botany had become a resource first for the anatomy of his flowers then ferret's beautiful belongings and the practical man reasserted himself from small efforts he has risen to large and beautiful work as a painter of flowers so true to nature so delicately beautiful that they are eagerly bought and it is hard for people to believe these free natural flowers are done with the left hand with the left hand of a man for years a helpless paralytic to whom drawing was an unknown art until in the silence of his benumbed life came the increasing intention to again become a living man to be something to do some sort of work to be once more of use in some way. In his former life when he managed great works and governed many men and made his many, many thousands in money, he was like the most of our businessmen, too intent, too hurried, and too weary to have any real rest. Now, careful of health and happy in his beautiful work, he is always at peace, and more proud of the money from the sale of his flower pictures than he ever was of the large gains from his great business, for he knows what his physician told him is true.

Your own will has done more for you than even electricity. End of Chapter 9. End of The Will and the Way stories by Jesse Benton-Fremont.