The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1895-06-06

- The girls name was Vance
Barry Vance, of the Vances
who lived on Stockton Street, when Stockton
Street was the place to live, and even after
ward, when it was not. In this story she
shall be little more than name. After all,
a name (using the word largely and a face
are about all men ask of a girl to-day. They
| are not so very far wrong. The best char
acterized girl is the girl with the least char
acteri that is-don't Observation-Disclosures
ed character. just as the best-tempered girl
is the one with the least temper. So in this
story Barry Vance shall be simply Barry
Vance to the end, which it was when she
married one of the men and changed her
name to his
Both the men were of temperaments suffi-
GENTLY marked, and were rs widely different
as one could well imagine. They were eX-
tremes, and, rs it were Barry was the mean
between them.
In the first place, Jack Brunt was tower
Of leathery muscle and hard, tough sinew
and fiber, and used to crack walnuts in the
hollow of his arm. He was handsome, too,
with fine, high coloring, brown eyes and
dropping brown mustache He was q self
made man, a true son of the people, a man
whom other men, children and some women
liked, although his manners were rather
coarse. He had made his money by hard
work, and when business men spoke of him
they said he was "a good, earnest fellow,
with no nonsense about him" He was in
land and real estate, and seemed to be forever
talking about "fifty-vara lots on OFarrell
Street" He spoke unreservedly about his
humble origin, because it made people estab-
lish comparisons between it and himself and
himself to d position so far above that he had
been destined to by fate, and his father old
Buck !" Brunt, who had the country store
and fifth interest in little stone quarry in
Inyo way. The grandfather had been n
stone cutter from 'Colusa
Perhaps it made no difference between the
two men that Wesley Shotover's ancestors
were framing laws, commanding privateers
and making history generally, in the days of
the Constitution and Bon HOmme Richard,
when the Brunts were being leased ont to
labor contractors to grub and grapple under
the whip with the reluctant colonial soil;
they were both Americans and American
born, and q certain document that a Shotover
had helped to draw up told them both that
all men were created free and equal.
Whatever Brunt was you saw at once upon
the surface, but ShOtoyer's colOrless face was
an impassioned mask. 1t was almost the face
of girl, smooth, guiltless of beard, and in
variably calm. ltwas Just saved from effemi-
macy by certain masculine dents about the
nostrils and between the check bone and the
angle Of the Jaw There was cat-lille dain-
tincos about his dress and manner, and ne had
a very happy faculty of saying and doing pre-
ciseIy the right thing at precisely the right
time. Women were very fond OF him, but
the men were not. They said he never would
amount to much, which in America is the
very worst thing one man can say OF another.
And Shot0yer never would amount TO much
in the present: as n matter of fact, he
amounted TO about million and a half in
six per cents. by his own right. Because he
chose to enjoy what he had rather than TO get
more, he did absolutely nothing at all.
Old Vance was something distrustful of
Shotover, and rs o possible sOn-in-law vastly
preferred ,Brunt. Brunt seemed to him to be
Of the stuff good husbands are made Of
Vance used to say that Brunt was like cube
of harsh angles and sharp lines, to be sure,
but solid upon his base, steady and not to be
easily moved You could put your hand
upon him and feel him firm. ShotOver was
a sphere, graceful and pleasant to the eye,
and made up Of soft curves and harmonious
surfaces, DuO ulLotdbici oilpptfy, anu cluolNc
to the touch. As to Barry, she preserved the
balance of power between the two men so
well that it would have been hard to say
which of them she liked best
You can still see the remnants of the old
Vance place on Stockton Street, near the cor
ner of Sacramento about opposite the
Chinese Consulate, but the lawn which made
MP the corner is now taken up by q hOyel
with a Bonanza cigar sign upon it. The
place is practically surrounded by Chinatown
now. and the Vanccs have moved out into the
western addition The homestead is cut up
and riddled, and hOneycomed to lodge some
hundred Cinnamon, and the old wine cellars
are made into nest of opium dens. Below
these the ground is tunneled and chambered
into accommodations for domino gambling
and tan games Even ut the time when this
story was actually working itself out, the
indications of Chinatown's near approach
that is, Chinese shops, and boot stores without
the signs in English-were only across the
street. while all Honkong reeked and weltered
within two or three stOnethrows of Barry's
tennis courts.
One day during the San Francisco Indian
Summer, which is the short period coming in
between the end of the winds and the begin
ming of the rains, Sh0tOyer drove down to
the Vances in his trap to play tennis with
m a