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"THE LATH FROM ALABAMA”
Sy Odessa Strickland Payne and Lamar Strickland Payne, Authors of "Psyche”, "Limit of the Line”, "Mission Girl”, Etc.
CHAPTER XXIII.
HE June sunset held the green hills
around “Solitude” in a warm embrace
of gold, while the purple bodied pig
eons circled slowly about the Wind
Temple, with the light flashing from the
outstretched irridescence of their wings.
Down on the lawn, beyond a color group
of hydrangeas and geraniums, growing
in brass bound tubs, a peacock stalked
T
majestically, with its gorgeous tail spread out; now
and then uttering a shill cry as if in protest against
the somnolent peace of the scene.
On the porch a number -of young people were
standing, who were as picturesque, in their way,
as the old time red-brick house and its surroundings.
But it was evidently the breaking up of the
house party.
Foi’ soon Carroll Hall was going down the steps
with his panama hat in hand and June Churchill,
in a blue linen dress, tripped after him, a few
minutes later, to the waiting red motor car.
Miss Churchill had received a telephone in regard
to one of the philanthropic enterprises, with wfliich
she was identified, which necessitated her return to
the city. But Schiller Wilkins, at the earnest
solicitation of Rose, had consented to remain in
the country, until the week’s end.
June Churchill’s friendship with Carrol all dated
back to the sunny years of girlhood, so that she did
not hesitate to go back with him to the city in the
Coeur de Leon. Though since the accident, which
had been of such costly significance to Schiller,
she was not sorry, perhaps, to find an experienced
chauffeur at the wheel of the machine, when Von
Bulow placed her on the back seat.
Carrol Hall was grave and gay by turns, on the
road home, with now r and then a tinge of bitterness
in his conversation, which June failed to understand.
She had one slight clue to his complex mood, and
only one. She had noticed, in the general gay
leave-taking, on the front porch of “Solitude” that
he had failed to shake hands with the young assist
ant bookkeeper. She knew, of course, that the
omission might have been accidental, but he had
.parted so cordially with his host and hostess,
that she did not believe it. Besides, he had been
so pronounced in his attentions to Schiller, that
Rose and her brother had both commented about it in
a humorous way.
“What is your definition of manhood, Miss Church
ill?” Carrol Hall queried, as the red car climbed with
slow rhythm a high hill crest, bathed in the sunset
colors. “The real tning, you know, devoid of any
imitative stuff.”
“Well, of course,” June replied, with a glance of in
terest at the handsome young man by her side, “it
is first a capacity for doing right, and that gener
ally means a capacity for hard work. A man has
not only to hope all things, but to learn how as
well to endure all things. Hardihood of spirit does
not come naturally, to any of us, but if we will face
the music of every day events, with courage, and
handle txiem to the best of our ability, after awhile,
we will come into the possession of those subliminal
traits of character, which will give us victory, not
only over outward circumstances, but supreme mas
tery over ourselves; which is, after all, the only
victory that counts in the long run.”
“Thank you,” Carrol returned, very gravely.
“You know my friends are under the impression
that I neither feel nor realize, in any adequate way,
my responsibility as a citizen and a man of wealth.
And their hypothesis about my mental attitude has
been, I acknowledge, more or less true, in the past.
But since I figured so prominently in the tragedy of
the recent auto accident, I have been forced to do
some thinking, on my own part. I have begun to
feel that a man is obliged to have some sort of
responsibility, whether he likes it or not. And, if
Fate is going to force me, to put on half the yoke,
without my intentional volition, why, I’ll be a man
and put on the whole yoke, and conquer the
tion to suit my own personal desires and plans.
The Golden Age for June 23, 1910.
“Now, listen!” he continued with marked empha
sis, “I need the advice of a friend, in my own class,
one accustomed to handling money in a large way,
but not in the selfish manner in which it has pleased
me hitherto, to throw it away. In other words, Miss
Churchill, since you are a practical young woman,
and your life is very much worth while, I would be
glad for you to tell me, what you think I ought to
do, to vindicate myself as a man and a citizen?”
June Churchill turned, and looked at the Mill
Prince, in breathless amazement. The red motor
car threw on its wind whistle, and glided smoothly
into a long, bright boulevard that led to Hayden
Park.
She was accustomed to hearing Carrol Hall make
himself decidedly interesting, in the social spheres,
and in a very different way. She knew the bright
surface side of him perfectly, but this was a new
revelation of the Mill Prince, evidently some force
had stirred the depths of his nature profoundly.
And then it struck her oddly that he had added a
new humility to his list of personal graces, and
to her surprise, instead of detracting from the
strength and charm of him, he was really enhanced
by it, a thousand fold.
Miss Churchill drew her motor veil lower, then
pulled her grey suede gloves thoughtfully through
the fingers of her left hand, while the blue eyes,
beneath her white-chip hat, darkened with feeling.
She bowed smiling to a young woman speeding past,
in the depths of a black motor car. Then took up
again her thread of broken thought. She under
stood perfectly that it was a strong man’s appeal
for help. That the petition was veiled in good,
choice English did not alter the deeper fact, to be
read, intuitively, between the lines. Her friend was
facing the sort of crisis the hour of intensest ex
perience, when, by a decision a soul must either go
up, or go down.
“I have always thought, Carrol,” June replied, and
the young man did not miss the vibration of sympathy
in her voice, “that the duty which lies nearest, is a
step in the right direction; and simple as the process
seems, if persevered in courageously, it generally
brings luminious explanation of the balance of the
way. Now, in your case, it seems to me, that you
only need the grace of application, in order to use
wisely the business and fortune 'which were your
heritage, with your father’s name. In the first place,
instead of being the nominal president of the cotton
mills,” she went on gravely, “why don’t you study
how to become the real head of the manifold in
terests involved? For affairs are being managed in
your name, whether you have ever realized or not,
in which the lives and destinies of hundreds of hu
man beings are intimately concerned.”
June paused a moment, and then clasping her
hands quietly across the lap of her blue linen dress,
she continued with a sustained note of courage in
her voice.
“Why not take as your first work after you have
mastered the details of your business as president
of the cotton mills, the amelioration of the condi
tions of your employes l Schiller Wilkins thinks the
houses in the Compound are too close together to
be sanitary. She avers that a mill village ought to
be like any other small, well regulated town, that
there should be space enough allowed for grass
plots and gardens. Indeed! if the corporation is very
wealthy, that a hospital and church should be built,
within the compound, as well as a library and gym
nasium.”
“That would- take thousands of dollars,” Carrol
observed, gravely, staring down at the cuffs which
gleamed below the grey sleeve of his summer coat.
“But, what are we here for, Carrol,” June argued,
with a flush on her cheeks, “except to help one an
other, as we have opportunity? For, believe it or not,
kindness of a practical nature, is the only Immor
tality worth while, which the earth offers to the
heroes of the strife. Look back over your own life,
and you will find that the only people who reign,
in the Palace of Memory, are those who have in
n sense, djed to themsejves, for the sake of others,”
“Thank you,” Carrol said, after a long pause.
“I’ll have an architect out this week to look over
the Compound, and study out the situation. And
then I’ll have a battle royal, with the next meeting
of the mill board. I guess I’ll have to browbeat
a few of them, if I put the scheme into execution; but
since they will see to it, that I spend my money and
not theirs, on the proposed plan, I’ll not worry, in ad
vance.”
June smiled hei’ approval.
“Suppose we shake hands,” she suggested, in a
voice that hinted at unspeakable things, “over the
compact.”
“Oh! how you love,” Carrol returned with a smile,
as he took her hand in a cordial clasp, “the com
mon people!”
“Abraham Lincoln declared,” June said in a sweet
tone, with a little catch in her voice, “that the Lord
loved them also—because He made so many of them,
poor things!”
“I hope He does,” Carrol returned in a whimsical
tone, “but. sometimes, the evidence does not seem,
overwhelming on that line.”
“Hence, the greater need of human interpreters, of
that charity which never fails,” June observed, as
the red motor car swerved into the broad central
avenue of Hayden Park, and the Corinthian columns
of the Churchill residence flashed into view.
On the Chickering grand piano in the front draw
ing room of “Solitude” a bowl of pink roses and
crimson-hued nasturtiums held silent vigil before
the “Pit and The Pendulum.”
The girl, who had created this masterpiece, sat
upon the piano bench, lost in reverie. Beneath her
idle, clasped hands, the ivory keys gleamed full of
hushed melodies.
She watched absently the bowl of roses and nastur
tiums, against the background of the dark blue cur
tain, which hid from view “The Pit and The Pendu
lum.” Beyond glowed rich panel pictures on the
mellowed walls, and, beyond that, triple bay windows
with their long, bright plate glass. Busts of Mozart
and Beethoven stared back at her, as she turned
her face away from the windows. She nodded to
them gravely. Then the irresistible June twilight
drew her glance once more.
Outside, she observed, the night sky was dull and
disappointing. There was neither the purple spurs
of mountains, or green, phosphorescent seas to re
lieve its tableland motonony. Tonight it seemed espe
cially commonplace. In the southwest, where late
the phantom of a comet had burned, a pale, sickly
moon had hung out its silver half-shield, among
drifting white and grey clouds, and a sombre black
pall veiled the residue of the sky. It was not ger
mane to the actual scene before her, that she imagin
ed, that behind those grey cloud curtains, Arcturus,
flamed with verve, a star famed since the day God
spoke to the weary Man of Uz —“Canst thou guide
Arcturus and his sons?”
Only along the northern horizon, where the white
and red oaks shot up in purple domes and black
ened spires, was there anything out of the common
place. In the egg-white mask, if mask it could be
called, left by the long, lingering June twilight, was
a hint of the occult.
Here the psychic might have read signs, and the
mystic glimpsed visions; but, for the ordinary mind
there was only a feeling, that the northern lights
were strange, and the tree domes weird.
Yet, in such a twilight, Hawthorne might have
started “The Scarlet Letter,” or Poe, following the
blind leading of his muse, Melancholy, seen the Pen
dulum swing through the Pit of the Spanish In
quisition.
But Rose felt as spiritless as the sky world. She
had not looked toward the magic north. She had
no greatdesire to play, though the ivy-stained score
of “Schubert’s Serenade” lay temptingly open before
her, and she had, unconsciously, pressed the soft
pedals downward. Instead of playing this sunset
sonata, this symphony to the eternal questions of
Continued on Page 14.)
