Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1907-04-30
( The Lover and
) the Te||ta|e.
By STEPHEN CRANE.
Author Of THE Red Badge Of Cosr.
} sSe." Etc.

II BY STEPHEN CRANE. ]
| Author Of THE Red BADGE Of Cosr.
10 sSe." Etc. {
= Copyright 1900, BY William Hoire Crane. \
-O-o-O-O-OO-O-O-O-O-O-t
II YHEN the angel child returned
| IA with her parents to New
| wv York, the fond heart Of Jim
| v mie Prescott felt its bruist
greatly. For two days he simply mop
ed, becoming a stranger to oil former
joys. When his old comrades yelled
invitation as they swept of on some
interesting quest, he replied with
mournful gestures Of disillusion.
He thought often Of writing to her
but of course the shame Of 1t made
him pause. Write letter to girl
The mere enormity Of the idea caused
him shudders. Persons Of his quality
never wrote letters to girls. Such was
the occupation Of mollycoddles and
snivelers. He know that IL his &C.
quaintances and friends found In him
evidences Of such weakness and gen
eral milkiness they would fling them.
selves upon him like so many wolves
and bait him beyond the borders of
sanity.
However, one day at school in that
time of the morning session when chill.
dren of his age were allowed fifteen
minutes to play in the school grounds
he did not, as usual, rush forth fero.
ciously to his games. Commonly he
was of the worst hoodlums, preying
upon his weaker brethren with all the
cruel disregard Of grown man. On
this particular morning he stayed In
the schoolroom, and with his tongue
stuck from the corner Of his mouth
and his head twisting in painful
way he wrote to little Cora. pouring
out to her all the poetry Of his hungry
soul as follows: "My dear Cora l love
thee with all my hart oh come bac
again, bac, bac again for / love thee
best Of all oh come bac again When
the spring come again wei fly and
wei fly like a brid."
AS for the last word, he knew under
normal circumstances perfectly well
how to spell bird" but In this case
he had transposed two Of the letters
through excitement, supreme agitation.
Nor had this letter been composed
without fear and furtive glancing.
There was always number Of chill
dren who for the time cared more for
the quiet Of the schoolroOm than for
the tempest Of the playground. and
there was always that dismal company
who were being forcibly deprived Of
their recess, who were being kept in
More than one curious eye was turned
upon the desperate and lawless Jim.
nile TrescOtt suddenly taken to ways
of peace, and as he felt these eyes he
flushed guiltily. with felOnious glances
from side to side.
1t happened that certain vigilant
little girl had seat directly across the
aisle from Jimmie's seat, and she had
remained in the room during the inter
mission because of her interest in some
absurd domestic details concerning her
desk. Parenthetically it might be stat
ed that she was in the habit Of imagin-
ing this desk to be II house. and ut this
time, with an important little frown,
Indicative of u proper matrOn, she was
engaged in dramatizing her ideas OF a
household.
But this small Rose Goldege happen
ed to be Of a family which numbered
few males. 1t was, in fact, one OF
those curious middle class families
that hold much Of their ground, retain
most of their position, after all their
visible means of support have been
dropped in the grave. 1t contained
now only collection Of women who
existed submissively, defiantly, secure
ly, mysteriously, in pretentious and
often exasperating virtue. 1t was Of
ten too triumphantly clear that they
were free of bad habits. However,
bad habits is term here used in a
commoner meaning, because 1t Is Ger
tainly true that the principal and In
deed solitary JOY which entered their
lonely lives was the Joy Of talking
wickedly and busily about their neigh
bors. 1t was all done without dream
of its being Of the vulgarity Of the al
leys. Indeed 1t was simply a consti-
tutional but not incredible chastity and
honesty expressing itself In Its ordi-
nary superior way Of the whirling cir
cles of life, and the vehemence OF the
criticism was not lessened by fur
ther infusion Of an acid Of worldly de-
feat. worldly suffering and worldly
hopelessness.
Out of this family circle had sprung
the typical little girl who discovered
Jimmie Trescott agonizingly writing II
letter to his sweetheart. or course all
the children were the most abandoned
gossips. but she was peculiarly adapt
ed to the purpose Of making Jimmie
miserable over this particular point. IL
was her life to sit Of evenings about
the stove and hearken to her mother
and lot Of spinsters talk OF many
things. During these evenings she
was never licensed to utter an opinion
either one way or the other way. She
was then simply very little girl sit
ting, open eyed. in the gloom and lis
tening to many things which she often
interpreted wrongly. They, on their
part, kept up a kind Of a SNUG faced
pretense Of concealing from her infor-
nation in detail of the widespread
crime, which pretense may have been
more elaborately dangerous than no
pretense at all. Thus all her home
| teaching fitted her to recognize ut
once in Jimmie Trescott's manner that
he was concealing something that
would properly interest the world. She
set up scream: "Oh. oh, oh! Jimmie
Trescott's writing to his girl! oh. OH"
Jimmie cast miserable glance upon
her. a glance In which hatred mingled
with despair. Through the open WIN
dow he could hear the boisterous cries
| Of his friends-his hoodlum friends
who would no more understand the
utter poetry Of his position than they
would understand an ancient tribal
sign language. His face was set In Q
truer expression Of horror than any ol
the romances describe upon the fea
lures of man flung into u moat,
| ,,,, shot In tbo hraast with an arrow