The San Francisco call., 1905-01-08


semblance. We walk a street
crowded with thousands Of hu-
man atoms like ourselves, yet
each meaningless, unindividual. The
mass has the consistency of a stream
of water parted by a stone. Sudden
ly one of these atoms acquires form.
color, substance and character; its in
dividuality strikes a chord in the
brain. A thousand disassociate frag-
ments-memory- worn strands Of time
and place-Struggle to coalesce, to re-
weave themselves into a pattern we
once knew. Our thought gives aid.
Recollection puzzles itself, finds itself
impotent, RACES at its own powerless-
ness. At such q moment the mind
recurs again and again with painful
insistence to the problem, and the
chance resemblance, by reason of ag-
gravation. acquires an Importance
wholly disproportionate. The man
who pursues such a will-o thewisp
memory does so protesting in spite of
himself
1t was in some such frame of mind
that Brent Maxwell stood looking out
across the desolate hillside The land
scape still mourned in blackened stone
walls and thinned forests, the devas-
tation of Sherman's march to the sea.
in his soul. He knew the gaunt pow
erty that follows in the wake of war.
He had fought Loyalty for the Union.
And now after fifteen years of recon-
struction he had learned that Appo-
mattoX had dawned only upon the
first chapter of defeat. The fierce
patriotism which had led him, a
youth of enthusiasm and dreams of
the glory of sacrifice, to leave his
n IA yyI,a
the first call sounded and the earnest
ness of intention with which he had
flung himself into the newly breath
ing industrial life of a Southern city
had had time to cool and sober. In
spite of success the very intensity of
the struggle against adverse condi-
tons had bred in him a resentment
against the necessity which made
green field desert, plantation a
waste and a smiling country ceme-
terry of unmarked graves. Something
OF the dogged sadness which hung on
the people among whom he had elect
ed to dwell had entered into him. He
had lived down the hatred and the
sneer. but the process had made him
bitter against the circumstances which
had given this hatred rise.
On this early morning his thoughts.
which had been busy estimating the
possibilities of the farm, whose deeds
he had in his pocket and whose fore
closure had brought him from his own
city, had been suddenly arrested and
turned from their channel A rattling
vehicle had passed him. containing two
figures-a man and woman The
faces of both had interested him. The
Womans was sad and sober-sweet.
surmounted by pearlgray hair. There
was a little color in her cheeks. The
man mad dead white hair and beard.
with face blue-tinged and shifting
eyes of yellow. He wore a heavy but
ternut overcoat and a knitted nubia
of childishly bright colors.
There was something in this last
face that started reverberating echoes
in Maxwell's brain. An intangible
hand was at work tying together loose
ends of recollection. He knew and vet
he did not know. Wherever he looked
as he plodded over the farm land. he
saw this blue face and lodging gaze
1t came before him with an absurd
incongruity and yet with a reiterate
malevolence.
The sun was high as he walked back
toward the village, past the great.
gray-columned house, whose sham
pllng porucoes pointed to past of
wealth and grandeur. AS he neared
the gate a sudden cry made him
quicken his steps. A repeating scream
"a mans, yet wolf-like, rising and
railing with monotonous infections
niled all the hollows with sound, It's
note had quality of the animal that
thickened his blood. It came from the
house. The nearer broke into a run,
burst open the gate and rushed to-
ward the porch.
AS he rounded a clump of evergreens
ne saw strange spectacle. Seated on
the ground was the blue-faced man.
his fingers clutching the stubble. his
lips emitting the beast-like screams
which had brought Maxwell from the
roadway. Bending over him with her
back toward the gate was the lady
OF the sad face and the pearl gray
nalr. She was smoothing the thin
fringe from the sunken temples. bend
Ing now and then to lay her lips ca
ressingly and sobbingly upon his head.
from under her arm the yellow ewes
looked out straight toward Maxwell.
He felt them pass shiftily across his
face with sense of shrinking repul-
sion.. The volume of screams showed
no abatement.
The tones with which the woman
sought to soothe this outburst were ex-
quisitely tender. Poor victor!' she
was saying; poor. poor boy!"
Maxwell had stopped short at the
mad luster of those yellow eyes: the
woman had not heard his approach.
With a strange Tightening of the
throat he shrank behind bush and
Tetreateo to the