Windy McPherson's Son

ndays he sat in chairs before country hotels and walked in the streets of strange towns, or, getting back to the city at the week end, went through the downtown streets and among the crowds

e and listen to the eloquence poured out on the night air. Telfer had not got the chance to stand with a crowd about him at the railroad station and make a parting speech to Sam, and in secret he resented the loss of that opportunity. After turning the matter over in his mind and thinking of many fine flourishes and ringing periods to give colour to the speech he had been compelled to send the gift by mail. And Sam, while t

rs, once spoke to Freedom Smith of the change that had come over young McPherson. Freedom sat in the wide old phaeton in

ropping a foot of the mare and coming to lean upon the front w

om his pocket and light

hour in the store and then goes away, and doesn't come back

oard into the dust of the road. A dog idling in the s

ht," he exploded. "He skins me out of my eyeteeth every time he comes t

inctively he looked upon business as a great game in which many men sat, and in which the capable, quiet ones waited patiently until a certain moment and then pounced upon what they would possess. With the quickness and accuracy of a beast at the kill they pounced and Sam felt that he had that stroke, and

, singer, prize fighter. It was the hand of Whistler, Balzac, Agassiz, and Terry McGovern. The sense of it had been in him when as a boy he watched the totals grow in the yellow bankbook, and now and then he recognised it in Telfe

had not only a hunger for achievement but also a knowledge of where to look for it. At times he had stirring dreams of vast work to be done by his hand that made

time, to spend summer vacations in the Iowa village. To these people he carried letters handed him during the month after his mother's death, and letters regarding him had come to them from

ng sister, a mild-looking woman of thirty, would ask of Sam at the dinner table, breaking in on a conve

long had Jake been the final authority in the house on affairs touching Caxton that he looked upon Sam as an intruder. "John told m

icago's vast west side, it still turned with hungry heart toward the place of corn and

n carpet slippers, or sitting in his room practising on a violin. On Saturday evening, the habits formed in his Caxton days being strong in him, he came home with his pay in his pocket, settled with the two sisters for the week's living, sat down to dinner neatly shaved and combed, and then disappeared upon the troubled waters of the town. Late on Sunday evening he re-appeared, with empty pockets, unst

th a remarkably sweet speaking voice. Then there was a medical student in the front room, Sam in an alcove off the hall, a grey-haired woman st

faith healer and took what they called "Health Suggestion" treatments. Twice each week the faith healer came to the house, laid his hands upon their backs and took their money. The treatment afforded Jake a never-ending source of amusement and in the evening he went thro

the products of the town, did not allow to shrink in the re-telling. The housekeeping sister, a kindly woman, became fond of Sam, and in his absence would boast of him to chance callers or to the boarders gathered in the living room

walk in the streets, or, taking two girl friends of Frank's, who were also students at the

ening in the late fall, the dry brown leaves rustling under their feet and the sun going down in red splendour before their eyes, he took her hand and walked in s

he thought, to his own growing interest in money making and to the fact that there was in h

will not talk to me of her work as sometimes she talks to you. I want her to talk. There is something about her that I do not understand and that I want to und

acquaintance rapidly grew into friendship. The clever, witty Prince made a kind of hero of Sam, admiring his reserve and good sense and boasting of him far and wide through the town. With Prince, Sam occasionally went on mild carouses, and, once, in the midst of thousands of people sitting about tables and drinking beer at the Coliseum on Wabash Avenue,

umstances, or the temperament of his companions, had made or marred the joviality of the evening. On his nights alone, he put his hands into his pockets and walked for endless miles through the lighted streets, getting in a dim way a realisation of the hugeness of life. All of the faces going past him, the women in their furs, the young men with cigars in their mouths going to the theatres, the bald old men with watery eyes, the boys with bundles of newspapers under their arms, and the slim prostitutes l

of water moving swiftly and silently broke with a roar against wooden piles, backed by hills of stone and earth, and the spray from the broken waves fell upon Sam's face and on winter nights froze on his c

r hats pulled down over their eyes. They looked at the faces of the women pressed against the little squares of glass and then, turning, suddenly, sprang in at the doors of the houses as if pursued. Among the walkers on the sidewalk were old men, men in shabby coats whose feet scuffled as they hurried along, and young boys with the pink of virtue in their cheeks. In the air was lust, heavy and hideous. It got into Sam's brain and he stood hesitating and uncertain, startled, nerveless, afraid. He remembered a story he had once heard from John Telfer, a story of the d

force of sex. He wondered how the force would be broken in his own case, against what breakwater it would spend itself. At midnight, he went home across the city and crept into his alcove in the Pergrin house, puzzled and for the time utterly tired. In his bed

sque, so Pan-like, so full of youth, that for days after it happened he thought of it with delight, and walked i

ned all men who put liquor into their mouths, got drunk, and for eighteen hours went

Monroe Street. Prince, his watch lying before him on the table and the thin stem of a wine g

never on time in his life. To keep an appointment promptly would take something

led face, a huge nose, and a pair of eyeglasses that hooked over his ears. Sam had seen him in a Michigan Avenue club w

eal in Kansas oil stock and the little one is Morris, wh

d publicity man in America," he declared. "He isn't a four-flusher, as I am, and does not make as much money, but he can take another man's idea

an lau

ted page Tom has turned out, is one of his own. He will howl like a beast at paying Tom's bill, and then the next time he will try to do the job himself and make

to the office of the International Biscuit Turning Machine Company," he explained to Prince. "I can't stop at all. I have here the lay

and their stock," he commanded; "they will always have common stock to sell. It is inexhaustible.

nd soft like that of a woman. "I am worked to death," he complained; "I

ting. "A man has told me of the place twenty times," he declared; "I am sure I could find it on a railroad folder. I ha

ndkerchief. "I don't understand your being in such society," he announced; "you have the solid, substantial look of a bucket-shop man. Prince here will

rsiflage," he began and then turning to Sam, "Th

ing with wavering steps. In the street Prince took the portfolio out of the little man's hand. "Let your mother carry it, Tom

seized him. On a corner Morris stopped, took the handkerchief from his pocket and again wiped his glasses. "I want to be sure that I see clearly," he said; "it seems to me that in the bottom o

ght of it upon the grass, holding the hands of Prince and the little man with the wrinkled face. Solemnly he stood upon a stump at the edge of a wheatfield and recited Poe's "Helen," taking on the voice, the gestures and even th

on the seat of his wagon caught their attention. With the skill of an Indian boy the diminutive Morris sprang upon the wagon and thrust a ten dollar bill i

ragging reluctant rustics to the bar and commanding them to keep on drinking the beer that Sam drew until the last of the ten dollars given to the man of the wagon should have gone into her cash drawer. Also, he thought that Jack Prince had put a chair upon the

of grain sacks in a shed and that Morris came to them weeping because

elf with the two others walking again upon

of the wild night. The pasteboard portfolio containing the circular for the Biscuit Machine Company w

you a child we have adopted h