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"THE LAW FROM ALABAMA”
By Odessa Strickland Payne and Lamar Strickland Payne, Authors of "Psyche”, "Limit of the Line”, 'Mission Girl , Pte.
HE SPRINGTIME full of warmth
and gladness was already abroad over
the earth; and that mysterious, indefina
ble appeal, which comes with the season,
to human hearts, pulsed, in the silver
'greyness of the sunlit air, ar.d breathed
in the perfume of the hyacinths, roses
and carnations, daring to blossom forth,
in riotous color, even in the limited
T
spaces allowed the flower-children of the Magna Ma
ter, in the great city.
Schiller felt the appeal, as she tripped from the
Settlement Home to the office, across the mill yards.
Her nature was unworldly, and, in spite of, or per
haps because of the intellectual and spiritual force
of her personality, she believed in the Romance of
the Impossible. In some of her moods, her whole na
ture flamed with the glory of her dreams, and she
walked the earth, visibly transfigured, because of
the visions accorded to her, on the mountain-tops.
After the first few weeks, Schiller had found her
work, in the office at the cotton mills, comparatively
easy; at least, she had conquered the most exasperat
ing details of it, and had not allowed it to victimize
her. The business of the mills was so extensive, that
a staff of bookkeepers were required to keep the rec
ord of the income and disbursements of the company.
But, Mr. Moran, either from deference to the Asso
ciate Editor of The Southland, or out of consid
eration of Schiller’s youth, had placed her, in the
main office at the cotton mills, as assistant to the
head bookkeeper.
He was a big man, of the blonde type, whose im
pressive personality was tempered by a genial smile.
He understood his work, in all of its ramifications,
thoroughly; but as he had heard Schiller’s story,
from the manager, perhaps, he was apparently will
ing to give her a fair and impartial trial. Charles
Mason had grown daughters of his own, and almost,
unconsciously, to himself, his conversation would
take on a fatherly tone, at times, which made Schiller
realize that he was far from being altogether a busi
ness machine.
But the main office, in the second story of one of
the great red buildings, which comprised the Mill
Compound, was, undeniably, grim in its appoint
ments; and it had a severe atmosphere, in conse
quence, which gave Schiller every morning, more or
less of a mental chill. For, like all girls who have
been delicately reared, she was extremely sensitive
to her environment. She knew, however, "that in or
der to cultivate hardihood of spirit, she would have
to endure many things of a disagreeable nature, and
so she tried, heroically, to make the best of her
surroundings.
Two big desks, one of the high stiff variety, and
the other of the usual type of a roller-top, made up
about all of the furnishings, except a huge iron safe,
and a couple of straight-backed chairs.
Schiller found some degree of comfort, in the fact
that the walls of the office had been tinted, at some
remote epoch, a light green, and that the large, un
curtained windows admitted the morning sunshine.
One afternoon, when Mr. Mason had been giving
Schiller some instructions in connection with their
work, he seemed suddenly struck, with the pallor ap
parent in the high-bred face of his young assistant;
and, while his large hand beat a soft tatoo on the top
of her desk, he observed, kindly:
“You should be careful, Miss Wilkins, to spend as
much of your leisure, as possible, out-of-doors. There
is nothing like fresh air and sunshine, to counteract
the deadliness of what we call, in business parlance
—the daily grind.”
“Thank you,” Schiller replied, as she rested one
elbow, on the open volume of the big, red-lined ledg
er, and lifted her clear gray eyes to his. “But I have
no reason to be at all anxious about my health. I
confess, however, that I am alarmed about something,
which seems of far more vital significance to me, just
at present.”
“And what is that, if I may be permitted to ask?”
CHAPTER XI.
he inquired, in a kindly voice, but with a slightly
amused expression.
He evidently thought that she was exercised over
her financial perspective, the personal equation in
volved in living upon such a small salary. It gave
him a sense of moral fatigue, whenever he thought
about it.
“Why, I suppose,” she answered, “it is the univer
sal problem of the working girl, who dares to use her
brains, and think out things for herself. How shall
I keep from becoming just a part, and nothing more,
of this great big business machine, with which I am
identified? How can I maintain and keep my individ
ually, on the small margins of leisure allotted me
here?”
“Enjoy your work,” he replied, after a moment,
with his eyes narrowed, reflectively, “while you are
doing it. But, after you leave the office, forget it —
absolutely.”
“Thank you, for both suggestions,” Schiller replied,
with a grateful glance, for she felt that he was giv
ing her Mint from the Mill of Experience. “But I
think that it would be less difficult, Mr. Mason, to
achieve the perfect attitude of the working girl, if
this office was changed a trifle —don’t you? If, for
instance, it were metamorphosed into something
like the average office downtown.”
“Undoubtedly. My wife avers that it gives her
the horrors,” he said, with a broad smile, “every
time she invades it.”
“It has never troubled me, particularly,” he added,
as he turned away toward his own desk, “but I’ll
interview Moran, sometime, about it, Miss Wilkins,
if you desire it.”
“You have heard, I suppose,” he continued, in the
pleased tone of the raconteur, from the far corner
of the big room, “of the doll which a kind-hearted
Missionary gave to a child, who belonged to a pov
erty-stricken family, who lived in squalor and dirt.
The doll, to the Missionary’s surprise, proved to be
both an inspiration and object lesson, and everything
on the place had to be cleaned and scoured up, as a
result, in order to harmonize with the gift.”
Schiller’s eyes scintillated over the obvious point
of the story, which the head bookkeeper permitted
her to discover herself, while he went on, methodi
cally, with his work.
“There is the Coeur-de-Leon,” Mr. Mason exclaim
ed, after a long silence, “I know her roar, Miss Wil
kins ; if you have any curiosity about seeing the own
er of the mills, you might gratify it, by a glance out
of the window. Carrol Hall has gotten back, at last,
it seems, from his tour around the world. And I
hope,” he added, impressively, “that he has come
back, with some new ideas in his head, resolved, in
other words, to be a man.”
As Schiller did not have to move, she laid down
her pen, after a moment, and proceeded to obey,
with calm literalness, the bookkeeper’s suggestion.
She . saw a man of athletic build, who wore a grey
spring suit, standing by a big, red motor-car, in the
mill yard. His features were clean-cut, as she could
easily discover, for he had removed his hat, and was
gesticulating, while he talked to the manager, with
his vigorous right hand.
“He is a handsome fellow,” the head bookkeeper
commented, as his glance followed her own, “and
kind too, when you know how to come at him, in
the right way. But he leaves all the care and the re
sponsibility of this big concern to Moran, and he
does not seem to care a brass farthing about it, so
long as the dividends do not drop. But he ought to
do something better with his life, Miss Wilkins,” the
man went on earnestly, “and, I have told him so, in
plain English, to his face, more than once. It does
not require much manhood to grace a club-dinner, or
lead a german, with the belle of the ball; and if Carrol
Hall has ever achieved anything more serious, I have
not heard of it.
“But, Carrol has the grace,” he added, with a change
of tone, —“I must say for him, to take my carpings,
courteously. I love the boy, and it hurts me to see
him throwing away his time, in self-indulgence and
frivolous amusement.”
Schiller had become absorbed, in her work, and had
The Golden Age for March 31,1910.
quite forgotten the spectacular effect of the red-motor
car, in the grimy mill yard below, when a stacatto
knock, on the office door, brought her back to a sud
den consciousness of her surroundings.
In answer to the head bookkeeper’s peremptory,
“Come in,” the door was thrown open, swiftly, and
Carrol Hall appeared on the threshold.
Mr. Mason shook hands with the young man, cor
dially, the affection that he felt for the master of the
mills, was quite apparent in his manner.
“I am glad to see you, Carrol,” he affirmed hearti
ly, “and more thankful, than I can say, to have you
back safe and sound, on your native sod.”
“Thanks. I am delighted to get back, I assure
you,” Carrol Hall answered, in a voice that made you
think of the rich notes of a bass viol. “I never
thought of the mills, old man,” he continued, with a
dazzling smile, “that I didn’t have an accompanying
vision of you, standing at your high desk, in this
grim old office.”
“But I am surprised,” he added, in a lower tone,
with a glance at the back of Schiller’s finely formed
head, “to discover an innovation.”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Mason cautiously, “it became
necessary for me to have an assistant.”
The whistles for noon blew discordantly, just then,
and the young assistant bookkeeper took her sailor
hat, from her desk-top, and turned to leave the room.
“Miss Wilkins,” the head bookkeeper said, with a
retaining gesture, “let me introduce you, to the Pres
ident of the Board of the Cotton Mills’ Directorate,
Mr. Carrol Hall, just from Europe.”
Schiller acknowledged the honor conferred, with
the bow of a well-bred young woman, and then walk
ed tranquilly on, out of the room.
“She is quite the lady,” the young owner of the
mills commented, as the door closed softly, after the
blue-clad figure of the assistant bookkeeper.
“Undeniably!” his old friend returned, “the kind
the Lord used to make, before the war.”
***********
Rose Churchill brightened the Psyche lamp, in the
front drawing room of ‘Solitude’ and watched the
blue, violet light, soften the weird masterpieces,
through which her artistic dreams were embodied.
Like Sir Thomas Lawrence she painted much, yet
she could not lay claim to 900 canvases, and her tal
ent, as a rule, did not run to portraiture.
Much of her work had been given to Von Bulow,
and, she at her best, in psychological subjects, whose
symbolic meanings were immeasurably hard for the
layman to decipher. The paintings adorned the walls
of the double drawing rooms of ‘Solitude’ in heavy
frames of cedar and walnut.
She laid down a leathern copy of Poe’s Tales, with
a helpless sigh, on the black oval marble table, in the
center of the luxurious Turkish rug, which held an
Oriental bronze flower vase, and selecting a pink car
nation, from the generous bouquet before her, she
pressed it firmly between the thin leaves, where the
horrors of ‘The Pit and The Pendulum’ began. It was
no use, she could not feel the sense of ghoulish ghast
liness, the ultimate mood of horror, the spirit flame
from the land of spirits, essential to the scientific re
touching of a study of Psychologic Terror.
Deep in the embrasure of a heavy walnut frame,
over the Chickering grand piano, stood forth a pic
ture, that one may paint, only once or twice, in a
lifetime. But, she could not examine it tonight, or so
she reasoned, and she resolutely drew the thin blue
curtain over its terrible suggestiveness of TORTURE.
By this act, simple enough in itself, she had shut
out the uncanny, as a grave, red and primeval, may
be softened, by the azure flags of spring violets.
She trailed back to the black marble center table,
odorous with the perfume of violets and pink carna
tions, and took up her fancy stitching, as women will,
in odd moments. A gold thimble was fitted deftly
to a pearl and white finger, and a silvery needle be
gun to pierce and loop the white silk thread, back and
forth, through the simple, flower-stamped design of a
spring shirtwaist.
She sewed quietly enough for five minutes.
Then, dropped her work, rose, and went back to
(Continued on Page 14.)
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