Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 159, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1915 — The SCARLET PLAGUE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The SCARLET PLAGUE

by JACK LONDON

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SYNOPSIS. Tn a California valley an old man. one of the sow survivors of a World-Wide that has destroyed civilisation. teO* the story of the Scarlet Pla<ue to Ma grandsons. CHAPTER I—Continued. The boys were overwhelmed with delight at sight of the tears of senile disappointment that dribbled down the old man’s cheeks. Then, unnoticed, Hoo-Hoo replaced the empty shell with a fresh cooked crab. Already dismembered from the cracked legs the white meat sent forth a small cloud of savory steam. This attracted the old man's nostrils, and he looked down in amazement. The change -f his mood to one of joy was immediate. He snuffled and muttered and mumbled, wklnr almost *. croon of delight, as ho began to eat. Of this the boys took little notice, for it was an accustomed spectacle. Nor did they notice bis occasional exclamations and utterances of phrases which meant nothing to them, as, for instance, when he smacked his lips and champed his gums while muttering: "Mayonnaise! Just think —mayonnaise! And it's sixty years since the last was ever made! Two generations and never a smell of ft! Why, tn those days it was served tn every restaurant with crab.” When he could eat no more, the old man sighed, wiped his hands on his naked legs, a-d gazed out over the sea. With the content of a full stomach, he waxed reminiscent. "To think of it! Fve seen this beach alive with men, women and children on a pleasant Sunday. And there weren't any bears to eat them up. either. And right up there on the cliff was a big restaurant where you could get anything you wanted to eat Four million people lived in San Francisco then. And now, in the whole city and county there aren’t forty all told. And out there on the sea were ships and ships always to be seen, going in for the Golden Gate or coming out. And airships in the air—dirigibles and flying machines. They could travel two hundred miles an hour. Mail contracts with the New York and San Francisco Limited demanded that for the minimum. There was a chap, a Frenchman, I forget his name, who succeeded in making three hundred; but the thing was too risky for conservative persofis. But be was on the right clue, and he would have managed it if it hadn't been for the great plague. When I was a boy there were men who remembered the coming of the first aeroplanes, and now I have lived to see the last of them, and that sixty years ago.” "But there weren’t many crabs in those days,” the old man wandered on. "They were fished out, and they were great delicacies. The open season was only a month long, too. And now crabs are accessible the whole year around. Thirk of it—■catching all the crabs you want, any time you want, in the surf of th 3 Cliff house beach!" A sudden commotion among the goats brought the boys to their feet The dogs about the fire rusheu to join their snarling fellow who guarded the goats, while the goats themselves stampeded in the direction of their human protectors. A half dozen forms, lean and gray, glided about on the sand hillocks or faced the bristling dogs. Edwin arched an arrow that fell short But Hare-Lip, with a sling, such as David carried into battle against Goliath. hurled a stone through the air that whistled from the speed of, its flight It fell squarely among the wolves and caused them to slink away toward the dark depths of the eucalyptus forest The boys laughed and lay down tgain in the sand, while Granser sighed ponderously. He had eaten too much, and with hands clasped on his paunch, the fingers interlaced, he resumed his maunderings. ""The fleeting systems lapse like foam,’” he mumbled what was evidently a quotation. “That’s It —foam, and fleeting. All man’s toll upon the planet was just so much foam. He domesticated the serviceable animals, destroyed the hostile ones, and cleared the land of its wild vegetation. And then he passed, the flood of primordial life rolled back again, sweeping his handiwork away—the weeds and the forest inundated his fields, tne beasts of prey swept over his flocks, and now there are wolves on the Cliff house hesch” He was appalled by the thought. “Where four million people disported themselves, the wild wolves roam today, and the savage progeny of our loins, with prehistoric weapons, defend themselves against tne fanged despoilers. Think of it! And all because of the Scarlet Death—f The adjective had caught Hare-Lip’s ear. "He’s always saying that,” he said to Edwin -What is scarlet?” "The scarlet of the maples can shake me like the cry of bugles going Vy/” the old man quoted. -It's red.” Edwin answered the question. "And you

none of them. Scarlet is red —I know that" "Red is red, ain’t it?” Hare-Lip grumbled. "Then what’s the good of gettln* cocky and calling it scarlet?” "Red is not the right word," was the reply. ’The plague was scarlet The whole face und body turned scarlet in an hour’s time. Don’t I know? Didn’t I see enough of it? And I cm telling you it was scarlet because —well, because It was scarlet There is no other word for it" "Red is good enough for me,” HareLip muttered obstinately. “My dad calls red re’, and he ought to know. He says everybody died of the Red Death." “Your dad is a common fellow, descended from a common fellow,” Granser retorted heatedly. “Don’t I know the beginnings of the Chauffeurs? Your grandsire was a chauffeur, a servant and without education. He worked for other persons. But your grandmother was of good stock, only the children did not take after her. Don’t I remember when I first met them, catching fish at Lake T emescal F’ "What is education?" Edwin asked. "Calling red scarlet” Hare-Lip sneered, then returned to the attack on Granser. "My dad told me, an’ he got it from his dad afore he croaked, that your wife was a Santa Rosan, an* that she was sure no account He said she was a hash-sling-er before the Red Death, though I don’t know what a hash-slinger is. You can tell me, Edwin.” But Edwin shook his head in token of ignorance. "It is true, she was a waitress,” Granser acknowledged. "But she was a good woman, and your mother was her daughter. Women were very scarce in the days after the Plague. She was the only wife I could find, even if she was a hash-slinger, as your father calls it But it is not nice to talk about our progenitors that way.” “Dad says that the wife of the first chauffeur was a lady—” “What’s a lady?” Hoo-Hoo demanded. "A lady’s a chauffeur squaw,” was the quick reply of Hare-Lip. “The first chauffeur was Bill, a common fellow, as I said before," the old man expounded; “but his wife was a lady, a great lady. Before the

Scarlet Death she was the wife of Van, Warden. He was president of the board of Industrial magnates, and was one of the dozen men who ruled America. He was worth one billion, eight hundred millions -of dollars — coins like you have there in your pouch, Edwin. And then came the Scarlet Death, and his wife became the wife of Bill, the first chauffeur. He used to beat her, too. I have seen it myself.” Hoo-Hoo, lying on his stomach and idly digging his toes in the sand, cried out and investigated, first, his toenail, and, next, the small hole he had dug. The other two boys joined him, excavating the sand rapidly with their hands till there lay three skeletons exposed. Two were adults, the third being that of a part-grown child. The old man nudged along on the ground and peered at the find. “Plague victims,” he announced. “That’s the, way they died everywhere in the last days. This must have been a family, running away from -the contagion and perishing here on the Cliff bouse beach. They —what are yon doing, Edwin?"

This question was asked in sudden dismay, as Edwin, using the back of his bunting knife, began to knock out the teeth from the jaws of .ne of the skulls. "Going to string 'em," was the response. The three boys were not hard at it; and quite a knocking and hammering arose, in which Granser babbled on unnoticed. "You are true savages. Already has begun the custom of wearing human teeth. In another ger eration you will be perforating your noses and ears and wearing ornaments of bone and shell. I know. The human race is doomed to sink back —farther and farther into the primitive night ere again it begins its bloody climb upward to civilization. When we increase and feel the lack of room, we shall proceed to kill one another. And then I suppose, you will wear human scalp locks at your waist, as well —as you, Edwin, who are the gentlest of my grandsons, have already begun with that vile pigtail. Throw it away, Edwin, boy; throw it away." “What a gabble the old geezer makes," Hare-Lip remarked, when, the teeth all extracted, they began an attempt at equal division. They were very quick and abrupt in their actions, and their speech, in moments of hot discussion over the allotment of the choicer teeth, was truly a gabble. They spoke in monosyllables and short, jerky sentences thft were more a gibberish than a language. And yet, through it ran hints of grammatical construction, and appeared vestiges of the conjugation of some superior culture. Even the speech of Granser was so corrupt that were it put down literally it would be almost so much nonsense to the reader. This, however, was when he talked with the boys. When he got into the full swing of babbling to himself, it slowly purged Itself Into pure English. The sentenc'i grew longer and were enunciated with a rhythm and ease that were reminiscent of the lecture platform. "Tell us about the Red Death, Granser,” Hare-Lip demanded, when the teeth affair had been satisfactorily concluded.

“The Scarlet Death,” Edwin corrected. “An’ don’t work all that funny lingo on us," Hare-Lip went on. “Talk sensible, Granser, like a Santa Rosan ought to talk. Other Santa Rosans don’t talk like you.” The old man showed pleasure in being thus called upon. He cleared his throat and began: "Twenty or thirty years ago my story was in great demand. But in these days nobody seems interested—” "There you go!” Hare-Lip cried hotly. “Cut out the funny stuff and talk sensible. What’s interested? You talk like a baby that don’t know how.” “Let him alone,” Edwin urged, "or he’ll get mad and won’t talk at all. Skip the funny places. We’ll catch on to some of what he tells us.” “Let her go, Granser,” Hoo-Hoo encouraged; for the old man was already maundering about the disrespect for elders and the reversion to cruelty of all humans that fell from high culture to primitive conditions.

CHAPTER 11. The Beginning of the End. The tale began. "There were very many people in the world in those days. San Francisco alone held four millions—” “What is millions?” Edwin interrupted. Granser looked at him kindly. “I know you cannot count beyond ten, so I will tell you. Hold up your two hands. On both of them you have altogether ten fingers and thumbs. Very well. I now take this grain of sand —you hold it, Hoo-Hoo." He dropped the grain of sand into the lad’s palm and went on: “Now that grain of sand stands for the ten fingers of Edwin. I add another grain. That’s ten more fingers. And I add another, another, and another, until I have added as many grains as Edwin has fingers and thumbs. That makes what I call one hundred. Remember that word —one hundred. Now I put this pebble in Hare-Lip’s hand. It stands for ten grains of sand, of ten tens of fingers, or one hundred fingers. I put this pebble in Hare-Lip’s hand. It stands for ten grains. Take a mussel shell, and it stands for ten pebbles, or one hundred grains of sand, or one thousand fingers. ...” And so on, laboriously, and with much reiteration, he strove to build up in their minds a crude conception of numbers. As the quantities increased, he had the boys holding different magnitudes in each of their hands. For still higher sums, he laid the symbols on the log of driftwood; and for symbols he was hard put, being compelled to use the teeth from the skull for millions, and the crab shells for billions. It was here that he stopped, for the boys were showing signs of becoming tired. “There were four million people in San Francisco —four teeth." The boys’ eyes ranged along from the teeth and from hand to hand, down through the pebbles and sand grains to Edwin’s fingers. And back again they ranged along the ascending series in the effort to grasp such inconceivable numbers. That was a lot of folks, Granser,” Edwin at last hazarded. “ (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Hare-Lip With a Sling Hurled a Stone Through the Air That Whistled From the Speed of Its Flight.