Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1907 — THE CONQUEST of CANAAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE CONQUEST of CANAAN

By BOOTH TARKINGTON,

Author of “Cherry.” "Monileur Beaucaire,” Etc. COPYRIGHT, 1005, BY HARPER C** BROTHERS

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Chapter l—Eugene Bantrv. a Canaan (Ind.,) young man, who has been eaat to college, returns home and astounds the natives by the gorgeousness of his raiment His stepbrother. Joe Loudin, is characterized by the aged male gossips who daily assemble at the National House for argument as the good for nothing associate of doubtful characters. 11— Eugene's appearance has a pronounced effect upon Mamie Pike, whose father. Judge v Pike, Is the wealthiest and most prominent citizen of Canaan. Joe worships Mamie from ■far. Eugene interferes in a snow tight between Joe and his holdenish and very poor girl friend, Ariel Taber, who i« worsted. Ariel hotly resents the interference and slaps Eugene, who sends her home. 11l —Ariel, unbecomingly attired, attends Mamie Pikes ball. IV—Joe, concealed behind some plants on the Pike veranda, watches hungrily for a glimpse of Minnie. Ariel is ignored by most of the guests. Ariel discovers Joe, nut shortly afterward, learning that her uncle, Jonas Tabor. has died suddenly, leaves. The Daily Tocsin ol the next day tells of Joe's discovery on the Pike veranda and of his pursuit and escape therefrom. It also refers to wounds in the hea l of himself and of Norbert Flltcroft, who detected him. Joe retires to the “Heach.” a low resort kept by his friend, Mike Sheehan, who dresses his wound. VI Joe leaves Mike's place. He visits Ariel Tabor, who, by the death of her Uncle Jonas, has become rich. She wishes Joe to accompany her and her grandfather to Paris. Joe refuses and leaves Canaan to avoid arrest for the trouble at Judge Pike's. Vll—Joe is heard from two years later as a ticket seller for a side show. Eugene Hantry also meets him seven years later in a low resort in New York, but wisely refrains from advertising it. VIII Joe returns to Canaan a full-fledged lawyer. Even his father ignores kim. and he is refused accommodations at the National bouse. IX—Joe is welcomed at the “Beach,” and "Happy Fear," one of Joe's admirers, aeriously assualtn Nashville Cory, a detractor. At the end of Happy's term in prison he visits Joe, who now has a law office on the square, with a living room adjoining. Joe has a large practice, principally among the lower classes, and is frequently attacked by the Tocsin. Joe begins, in his lonliness, to yield to the seductions of the bottle. Bantry’s engagment to Mamie Pike is announced. Bantry is now associate editor of the Tocsin, owned by Judge Pike X—Joe awakens after a “bad night” with the words, "Remember, across the Main street bridge at noon,’’ ringing In his ears. He gnesthere and is presently joined by the moßt beautifully dressed girl he has ever seen.

CHAPTER XI. THERE was a silence, for If the dazzled young man could have spoken at all he could have found nothing to say; and, perhaps, the lady would not trust her own voice just then. His eyes had fallen again. lie was too dazed and, in truth, too panic stricken now to look at her, though if he had been quite sure that she was part of a wonderful dream he might have dared. She was seated beside him, and had handed him her parasol in a little way which seemed to Imply that of course he had reached for it, so that It was to he seen how used she was to have all tiny things done for her, though this was not then of his tremulous observing. He did perceive, however, that he was to furl the dainty thing. He pressed the catch and let down the top timidly, ns if fearing to break or tear it, and as it closed, held near his fuce, he caught a very faint, •weet, spicy emanation from it like (Wild roses and cinnamon. He did not know her, hut his timidity and a strange little choke in ids throat, the sudden fright which had seized him, were not caused by embarrassment. lie had no thought that she was one he had known, but could not for the moment recall. There was nothing of the awkwardness of that. No; he was overpowered by the miracle of this meeting. And yet, white with marveling, he felt it to he so much more touchingly a greater happiness than hi; had ever known that at first it was inexpressibly sail. At last be heard her voice again, shaking a little, as she said: “I am glad you remembered.” “Remembered what?" he faltered. “Then you don’t?” she cried. "And yet you came.” "Came here, do you mean?” “Yes—now, at noon.” “Ah!" he half whispered, unable to epcak aloud. “Was it you who wild—-who said: ‘Remember! Across—across’ “‘Across Main street bridge at noon!’" she finished for him gently. “Yes.” He took a deep breath in the wonder ©f It. “Where was it you said that?” he asked slowly. “Was it last night?”, “Don’t you even know that you came to meet me?” “I—came to—to meet—you!” She gave a little pitying cry, very near a sob, seeing his utter bewilderment. “It was like the strangest dream in the world,” she said. “You were at the station when I came last night. You don’t remember at all?” His eyes downcast, his face burning hotly, he could only shake his head. “Yes,” she continued. “I thought no one would he there, for I had not written to say what train I should take, but when I stepped down from the platform you were standing there, though you didn’t see me at llrst—not until I lmd called your name and ran to you. You said, ‘l’ve come to meet you,’ but you said It queerly, I thought. And then you culled a carriage for me. But you seemed so strange. You couldn’t tell how you knew that I was coming, and—and then I—l understood you weren’t yourself. You were very quiet, but I knew—l knew! So I made you get Into the Carriage—and—and”— She faltered to a stop, and with thnt chatne Itself brought him courage. He turned and faced her. She had lifted her handkerchief to her eyes, but at his movement she dropped It, and it was not so much the delicate loveliness of her face that he saw then as the tears upon her cheeks. “Ah, poor boy!” she cried. “I knew! I knew!"

“Voti—you took me home?” “You told me where you lived,” she answered. “Yes, I took you home.” “I dou't understand.” he stammered huskily. “I don’t understand.” She leaned toward him slightly, looking at him with great intentness. “You didn’t know me last night,” she said. “Do you know me now?” For answer lie Could only stare at her, dumfounded. He lifted an unsteady hand toward her appealingly, but the manner of the lady as she saw the truth underwent an April change.

She drew back lightly. He was favored with the most delicious low laugh he had ever heard, and by some magic whisk which she accomplished there was no sign of tears about her. “Ah, I’m glad you’re the same, Joe!" she said. "You never would or could pretend very well. I’m glad you’re the same, and I’m glad I’ve changed, though that isn’t why you have forgotten me. Y'ou’ve forgotten me because you never thought of me. Perhaps I should not have known you If you had changed a great deal, as I have.” He started, leaning back from her. “Ah,” she laughed, “that's it! That funny little twist of the head you always had, like a—like a—well, you know I must have told you a thousand times that it was like a nice friendly puppy. So why shouldn't I say so now? And your eyebrows! When you look like that nobody could ever forget you, Joe.” lie rose from the log. and the mongrel leaped upon him uproariously, thinking they were to go homo, belike to food.

The lady laughed again. “Don’t let him spoil my parasol. And I must warn you now: Never, never tread on my skirt! I’m very Irritable about such tiling!" He had taken three or four uncertain backward steps from her. She sat before him, radiant with laughter, the loveliest creature he had ever seen, hut between him and this charming vision there swept, through the warm, scented June air, a veil of snow like a driven fog, and half obscured in the heart of it a young girl stood knee deep in a drift plied against an old picket gate, her black waterproof and shabby skirt Happing in the blizzard like torn sails, one of her hands outstretched toward him, her startled eyes flxed on his. “And, oli, how like you,” said the lady; “how like you and nobody else In the world, Joe, to have a yellow dog!” “Ariel Tabor!” Ills lips formed the words without sound. “Isn’t it about time?” she said. “Are strange ladies In the habit df descending from trains to take you home?" Once, upon a white morning long ago, the sensational progress of a certain youth up Main street had stirred Canaan. But that day was as nothing to this. Mr. Bantry had left temporary paralysis in his wake, but in the case of the two young people who pussed slowly along the street today it was petrifaction, which seemingly threatened in several instances (most notably that of Mr. Arp) to become permanent. The lower portion of the street, lined with three and four story buildings of brick and stone, rather grim and hot facades under the midday sun, nfforded little shade to the church comers, who were working homeward in processional little groups and clumps, none walking fast, though none with the appearance of great leisure, since neither rate of progress would have been esteemed befitting the day. The growth of Canaan, steady, though never startling, had left almost all of the churches downtown, and Main street the principal avenue of communication between them and the “residence section." So today the intermittent procession stretched along the new cement sidewalks from a little below the square to ypper Main street, where

Maples lined The thoroughfare and the mansions of the affluent stood among pleasant lawns and shrubberies. It was late, for this had been a communion Sunday, and those far in advance, who had already reached the pretty and shady part of the street, were members of the churches where services had been shortest, though few in the long parade looked as if they had been attending anything very short, and many heads of families were crisp In their replies to the theological inquiries of their offspring. The men imparted largely n gloom to the Itinerant concourse, most of them wearing hot, long black coats and having wilted their collars, the ladies relieving this gloom somewhat by the lighter tints of their garments, the spick and span little girls relieving it greatly by their white dresses and their faces, the latter bright with the hope of Sunday Ice cream, while the boys, experiencing some solace in that they were finally out where a person could at least scratch himself if he had to, yet oppressed by the decorous necessities of the day, marched along, furtively planning behind Imperturbably secretive countenances various means for the later dispersal of an odious monotony. Usually the conversation of this long string of the homeward bound was not too frivolous or worldly. Nay; It properly inclined to discussion of the sermon. It was a serious and seemly Sunday parade, the propriety of whose behavior was today almost disintegrated when the lady of the bridge walked up the street In the shadow of a lacy lavender parasol carried by Joseph Louden. The congregation of the church across the square—that to which Joe’s stepauut had been late—was just debouching, almost in mass, upon Main street when these two went by. It Is not quite the truth to say that all except the children came to a dead halt, but It is not very far from it. The air was thick with subdued exclamations and whisperings. Here is no mystery. Joe was probably the only person of respectable derivation in Canaan who had not known for weeks that Ariel Tabor was on her way home. And the news that she had arrived the night before had been widely disseminated on the way to church, eutering church, in church (even so!) and coining out of church. An account of her house in the Avenue Henri Martin and of her portrait In the Salon—a mysterious business to many and not lacking in grandeur for that—had occupied two columns in the Tocsin on a day some months before when Joe had found himself iniinically headlined on the tirst -Tage and had dropped the paper without reading further. Ariel’s name had been in the mouth of Canaan for a long time—unfortunately for Joe, however, not in the mouth of that Canaan which held converse with him. Joe had not known her. The women recognized her infallibly at first glance, even those who had quite forgotten her. And the women told their men; hence the un-Sunday-like demeanor of the procession, for few towns hold it more unseemly to stand and stare at passersby, especially on the Sabbath. Hut Ariel Tabor returned—and walking with—with Joe Louden!

Ariel flushed a little when she perceived tlie extent of their conspicuousness, but it was not ttie blush that Joe remembered had reddened the tanned skin of old, for her brownness had gone long ago, though it had not left her merely pink and white. This was a delicate rosiness rising from her cheeks to her temples, as the earliest dawn rises. If there had been many words left in Joe he would have called It a divine blush. It fascinated him, and If anything could have deepened the glamour about her it would have been tills blush, lie did not understand it, but when'he saw it he stumbled. Those who gaped and stared were for him only blurs in the background. Truly, he saw “men as trees walking," and when it became necessary to step out to the curb in passing some clump of people it wns to him ns if Ariel and be, enchautedly alone, were working their way through underbrush lu the woods. He kept trying to realize that this lady of wonder was Ariel Tatior, hut he could not. He could nqt connect the shabby Ariel, whom he had treated as one boy treats another, with this young woman of the world. He had always been embarrassed himself and ashumed of her when anything she did made him remember that, after all, she was n girl, ns on the day he ran away when she kissed a lock of his hair escaping from the bauduge. With that recollection even his ears grew red. It did not seem probable that it would ever happen again. The next Instant he heard himself calling her “Miss Tabor.” At this she seemed amused. “You ought to have called mo that years ago,” she said, “for ail you knew me.” “I did know her—you, I mean,” he answered. “I used to know nearly every tiling you were going to say before you said It. It seems strange now”— “Yes,” she Interrupted, “It does seem strange now.” “Somehow,” he wont on, “I doubt If now I’d know.” “Somehow,” she echoed, with fine gravity, “I doubt It too.” Although he had so dim a perception of the staring and whispering which greeted and followed them, Ariel, of course, was thoroughly aware of It, though the only sign she gave was the slight blush, which very soon disappeared. That people turned to look at her may have been not altogether a novelty. A girl who had learned to appear unconscious of the continental ■tare, the following gaze of the boulevards, the frank glasses of the coetan-

zu in Rome, was not 111 equipped to face Main street, Canaan, even as It was today. Under the sycamores before they started they had not talked a great deal. There had been long silences, almost all her questions concerning the period of his runaway absence. She appeared to know and to understand everything which had happened since his return to the town. He had not, In his turn, reached the point where he would begin to question her. He was too breathless in hlB consciousness of the marvelous present hour. She had told him of the death of Roger Tabor, the year before. “Poor man!” she said gently. “He lived to see ‘bow the other fellows did it’ at last, and everybody liked him. lie was very happy over there.” After a little while she had said that it was growing close upon lunch time; slie must be going back. Then—then—good by,” he replied ruefully. f "Why'/” “I’m afraid you don’t understand. It wouldn't do for you to be seen with me. Perhaps, though, you do understand. Wasn’t that why you asked me to meet you out here beyond the bridge?” In answer she looked at him full and straight for three seconds, then threw back her head and closed her eyes tight with laughter. Without a word she took the parasol from him, opened it herself, placed the smooth white coral handle of it in his hand and lightly took his arm. There was no further demur on the part of the young man. He did not know where she was going. He did not ask. Once Ariel smiled politely, not at Mr. Louden, and inclined her head twice, with the result thyrt the latter, after thinking for a time of how gracefully she did it and how pretty the top of her liat was, became gradually conscious of a meaning in her action—that she had bowed to some one across the street. He lifted his hat, about four minutes late, and discovered Mamie Pike and Eugene upon the opposite pavement walking home from church together. Joe changed color. The sound of Ariel's voice brought him to himself. “She is lovelier than ever, isn’t she?” “Yes, indeed,” he answered blankly. “Would you still risk”— she began, smiling, but, apparently thinking better of it, changed her question: “What is the name of your dog, Mr. Louden? You haven't told me.”

“Oli, he’s just a yellow dog.” he evaded unskillfully. "Young man!” she said sharply. “Well,” he admitted reluctantly, “1 call him Speck for short.” “And what for loag? I want to know his real name.” “It’s mighty Inappropriate, because we’re fond of each other,” said Joe, “but when I picked him up he was so yellow and so tliiu and so creeping and so scared that I christened him ‘Respectability.’ ” They were now opposite the Tike mansion, and, to his surprise, she turned, Indicating the way by a touch upon his sleeve, and crossed the street toward the gate, which Mamie and Eugene had entered. Mamie, after exchanging a word with Eugene upon the steps, was already hurrying into the house. Ariel paused at the gate as If waiting for Joe to open it. “Don’t you know?” she cried. “I’m staying here. Judge Pike has charge of all my property. He was the administrator or something.” Then, seeing him chopfallen and aghast, she went on: “Of course you don't know. You don’t know anything about me. Y’ou haven’t even asked.” “You’re going to live here?” he gasped. “Will you come to see me?” she laughed. “Will you come this afternoon?” He grew white. “You know I can’t," he said. “You came here once. Y’ou risked a good deal then just to see Mamie dance by a window. Don’t you dare a little for an old friend?” “All right,” he gulped. “I’ll try.” Mr. Bantry had come down to the gate and was holding it open, his eyes flxed upon Ariel, within them a rising glow. An Impression came to Joe afterward that his stepbrother had looked very handsome. “Possibly you remember me. Miss Tabor?" said Eugene in a deep and impressive voice, lifting his hat. “We were neighbors, I believe, in the old days.” She gave him her hand in a fashion somewhat mannerly, favoring him with a bright, negligent smile. “Oh, quite,” she answered, turning again to Joe as she entered the gate. “Then I shall expect you?” “I’ll try,” said Joe. “I’ll try.” lie stumbled away. Respectability and he together Interfering alarmingly with the comfort of Mr. Flltcroft, who had stopped In the middle of the pavement to stare glassily at Ariel. Eugene accompanied tiie latter into the house, and Joe, looking back, understood. Mamie had sent his stepbrother to bring Ariel In—and to keep him from following. “This afternoon!” The thought took away his breath, and he became paler. fxo lIS CONTINUED 1

“You told me where you lived,” she answered.