News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1902-10-08
MANY MEN of
MANY MINDS
By EDITH WYATT
Copyright, 1901, by S. S.
Mcclure COmpdny
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silent streets and empty lots, stand
several large frame houses, with pick
ct fences, built before the fire. Tall
poplar and cottonwood trees hang
clouds of pale, glimmering foliage over
the wooden sidewalks. An occasional
electric car with one or two passen-
gers shrills past under the rustling
shade, and cows are sometimes pas
tured on the frequent brown lots.
In one of the houses of this place
there lived two American gentlemen,
different as the poles, Judge Amos
Parker and Mr.. Paul Haviland. Judge
Parker, the house owner, an old set
tier, was a plain man, the father of
large family.
His wife had died when the children
were little. His sons were gone into
business in distant towns, and his
daughters, combining piety and dirta-
ton in a neighboring church, had
sported actively through their respec-
tive courtships till they were all mar
ried and gone, and their father was
left alone with Edna, the servant girl,
and Nick, her brother, who lad ac-
companied the family when they
moved from Indiana forty years ago
Judge Parker was ponderous, easy
going man, Of tremendous legal infor-
nation, with long, white face and
almost no nerves. He scarcely per
ceived the loneliness of his remote
house, and he did not miss his family
too sensitively, as when they were
with him he had been only very slight
ly acquainted with them.
His taste was not fer men as individ-
uals, but in bulk. He loved the public
and public life, and he would have pre-
ferred almost any discomfort out of
doors CT in a hall to sitting in a parlor
through an evening.
The judge could not for an instant
bear exclusive society. Indeed, the
only moment when he experienced I'M
easiness was when he was forced into
the presence of a group of people Sc
lected by q delicate social tact instead
VI ny lllt utAC llGllNI VI SllChNG vi DOllI
ical organization. If he had no lecture,
no Republican rally or G. A. r. meet.
ing to attend, he would go out and sit
on the fence of his grass plot to smoke
and to talk to Nick or to any casual
loafer
Paul Haviland, on the other hand,
enjoyed almost no society but that of
his betrothed Margaret Alden. and
literary friend. Richard Elliott.
He read law in the law office of
Judge Parker's former law firm for
three winters 1t was during this time
that he lived with the judge, to get far
away, he said, from the CRIME and sor-
didness of the city, and in the even,
ings, while the judge was off with the
public in the CRIME and sordidness, he
sat in the old Parker house and wrote
long interpretive letters to Margaret
Alden and composed verses called
Retrospect" circumstance" or "If,"
which gave it's name to his volume Of
collected verse.
If l had known-bah-therei it is!
What does it matter now?
Yet this pressed spray of clematis
Again reminds me how
But, never mind-it's gone and past.
What does it matter now?
Had you but spoken or I not stayed
There on the lawn with her
This clematis had been, I wis.,
A different messenger.
Perhaps-heigh no! The play is done
And you in Peshawur.
If they had told me what was true
Or l had eyes to see,
Earnest been gone or it been you
There on the lawn with me
Bah! What's the odds? Or rose or rue
What is the odds to me?
Richard Elliott wrote a preface al
most entirely of margins for the book,
commenting favorably on the re-
straiut suggestiyeness and perfect
good breeding Of Mr.. Haviland's lines,
and Paul had great fun in his own
way in writing them in the evenings
while the judge had great fun in his
own way in seconding motions and in
Producing politicians in long, heavy
addresses at political clubs
1t was q curious circumstance of
raul ART ludI, WIllc lC ulLIpGll w az
of a very sensitive and impressible
nature, the attitude he chose to assume
in his verse, one described by Richard
Elliott in a magazine article on HAY
iland and Indilferentism," was exactly
Judge Parker's attitude, and that gen
tleman might have asked with faI
more sincerity:
Bah! What's the odds? Or rose or rue
What is the odds to me?
In the spring of Paul Havilands
stay at the old Parker house Margaret
Alden came to visit Chicago, and at
the time Of her visit she and her lover
passed through a long period Of mental
suffering.
Their trouble arose on the day of
heavy spring rain. They were to have
met in the Art institute, and Pau
Haviland, supposing that Margaret
Alden would not keep her tryst in the
worst storm Of the year, had not kept
his.
He was overwhelmed with contritior
at his mistake when he visited her in
the evening.
But when he said, at never occurred
to me that you would be there" ano
she replied, "Where there is a question
always do the more strenuous thing,
he was wounded. He disliked being
1DCe CD, 4. I1