swore to a lie, for you swore to me 'at
the colonel sent you down here to go
a-scoutin' amongst the Yankees; you has
stole our honest name, which it is more
than ye can ever make to give to your
wife's baby; you has sneaked out f'om
a fight that we was fightin' to keep what
was ourn, an' to pertect them that has
been kind to us an' them that raised us;
you has deserted f'om your rigiment which
it has fought now gwine on four year an'
fought manful, too, an' never run a inch.
'Gorm Smallin, you has got your name
in the paper 'ith thirty dollars reward over
it, in big letters; big letters, so 'at father's
ole eyes can read it 'ithout callin' sister
Ginny to make it out for him. Thar it
is, for every man, woman, and child in
the whole Confederacy to read it, an' by
this time they has read it, may be, an' 20
every man in the rigiment has cussed you
for a sneak an' a scoundrel, an' wonderin'
whether Cain Smallin will do like his
brother!

'But I cain't shoot ye, hardly. The same uns raised us an' fed us. I can't do it; an' I'm sorry I cain't!

'You air 'most on yer knees, anyhow; 5 git down on 'em all the way. Listen to me. God A'mighty's a-lookin' at you out o' the stars yan, an' He's a-listenin' at you out o' the sand here, an' He won't git tired by mornin' but He'll keep a-listenin' an' 10 a-lookin' at ye to-morrow all day. Now mind ye, I'm gwine to put ye in this boat here, an' you can paddle across to yan side the river, easy. Ef ye 'll keep yer eye on yan bright star that 's jest a-risin' over 15 Bullitt Pint, ye 'll strike t' other shore about the right place. Ef ye paddle out o' the way, the guard on yan gunboat 'll be apt to fire into ye; keep yer eye on the star. Ye'll git to the beach on t'other side, an' lay down under a tree an' sleep til mornin'- ef ye can sleep. In the mornin' ye 'll walk down the road, an' the Yankee pickets 'll see yer gray coat an' take ye to Head-quarters. The officer at Head-quarters 'll examine ye, an' when you tell him you air a deserter he 'll make ye take the oath, an' ef he know'd how many oaths ye 've already broke I think he would 'n' take the trouble! Howsumdever, I'm gwine to do the same foolishness, for it's all I kin do. Now when ye take the oath the officer 'll likely make ye sign yer name to it, or write yer name somewhar. Gorm Smallin, when ye write that name ye shall not write your own name; ye must write some other name. Swar to it, now, while ye air kneelin' buffore God A'mighty! Raise up yer hands, both of 'em; swar to it, that ye'll write some other name in the Yankee deserter-book or I'll shoot ye, thar right down.'

Gorm Smallin, you has brung me to 25 that, that I hain't no sperrit to fight hearty an' cheerful. Ef ye had been killed in a fa'r battle, I mought ha' been able to fight hard enough for both of us, for every time I cried a-thinkin' of you, I'd ha' been 30 twice as strong an' twice as clear-sighted as I was buffore. But - sich things as these the mountaineer wiped off a tear with his coat-sleeve - burns me an' weakens me an' hurts my eyes that bad that I 35 kin scarcely look a man straight forrard in the face. Hit don't make much diff'ence to me now, whether we whips the Yanks or they whips us. What good 'll it do ef we conquer 'em? Everybody 'll be 40 a-shoutin' an' a-hurrahin' an' they'll leave us out o' the frolic, for we is kin to a deserter! An' the women 'll be a-smilin' on them that has lived to git home, one minute, an' the next they'll be a-weepin' 45 for them that's left dead in Virginy an' Pennsylvany an' Tenessy,- but you won't git home, an' you won't be left dead nowher; they cain't neither smile at you nor cry for you; what 'll they do ef anybody 50 speaks yer name? Gorm Smallin, they 'll lift their heads high an' we 'll hang ourn low. They'll scorn ye an' we 'll blush for ye.

Had n't ye better be dead? Had n't I 55 better kill ye right here an' bury ye whar ye cain't do no more harm to the fambly name?

Cain had placed the muzzle of his pistol against his brother's forehead.

The oath was taken.

'Don't git up yet; kneel thar. Hit would n't do to put any other man's name in the deserter-book in place o' yourn, for ye mought be robbin' some other decent fambly of ther good name. Le''s see. We must git some name that nobody ever was named afore. Take a stick thar an' write it in the sand, so you won't forgit it. The fust name don't make no diff'ence. Write Sam'l.'

It was written in great scrawling letters. 'Now write J, an' call out as you write, so you won't forgit it. For I'm gwine to

SARAH ORNE JEWETT (1849-1909)

Sarah Orne Jewett is to be classed with Mrs. Stowe and Rose Terry Cooke as a pioneer in the little group of early depicters of New England life and manners. The country that she added to fiction is situated along the Maine and New Hampshire coast.- decaying little sea ports, hillside farming towns within smell of the ocean, desolate islands off shore. She was born in a decayed old hamlet that had seen better days, South Berwick, Maine. Her father, a graduate of Harvard, was a country doctor with a wide practice and it was from him that she learned the life that later she was to portray with such fullness of knowledge. Often she rode with him on his trips, heard him tell stories of his patients, sat in the kitchen while the doctor was in the sick room, thus learning her art in the most practical of all schools. Her first book was Deephaven, 1877, a series of Cranford-like sketches, realistic, yet touched with a delicious atmosphere of idealization. Old Friends and New, 1879, and Country By-Ways, 1881, followed, groups of short stories of the plain people she knew, minute studies made not, like Harte's theatric tales of California, because she had found picturesque material that made good copy, but because she had loved her native region and its people and would teach the world the nobility and genuine worth of those they might despise as ignorant rustics. Several of her books, like A Country Doctor and The Country of the Pointed Firs, are novels, but even in these she is a short story writer rather than a novelist. The latter book, perhaps her strongest work, is really a series of sketches with only a slight thread of plot. At her best her style is delightfully artless and limpid. There is a serenity about all that she did, a certain patrician quality,' a sunny optimism, that make her little stories, with their homely yet genuine characters, stand out in strong contrast with much of the excited and often vulgar fiction of her period.

A NATIVE OF WINBY 1

5

On the teacher's desk, in the little roadside school-house, there was a bunch of May-flowers, beside a dented and bent brass bell, a small Worcester's Dictionary without any cover, and a worn moroccocovered Bible. These were placed in an orderly row, and behind them was a small wooden box which held some broken 10 pieces of blackboard crayon. The teacher, whom no timid new scholar could look at boldly, wore her accustomed air of authority and importance. She might have been nineteen years old,- not more, 15 -but for the time being she scorned the frivolities of youth.

The hot May sun was shining in at the smoky small-paned windows; sometimes an outside shutter swung to with a creak, 20 and eclipsed the glare. The narrow door stood wide open, to the left as you faced the desk, and an old spotted dog lay asleep on the step, and looked wise and old enough to have gone to school with sev-25

1 Copyright by Houghton Mifflin & Co.

eral generations of children. It was half past three o'clock in the afternoon, and the primer class, settled into the apathy of after-recess fatigue, presented a strag gling front, as they stood listlessly on the floor. As for the big boys and girls, they also were longing to be at liberty, but the pretty teacher, Miss Marilla Hender, seemed quite as energetic as when school was begun in the morning.

The spring breeze blew in at the open door, and even fluttered the primer leaves, but the back of the room felt hot and close, as if it were midsummer. The children in the class read their lessons in those high-keyed, droning voices which older teachers learn to associate with faint powers of perception. Only one or two of them had an awakened human look in their eyes, such as Matthew Arnold delighted himself in finding so often in the school-children of France. Most of these poor little students were as inadequate, at that weary moment, to the pursuit of letters as if they had been woolly spring lambs on a sunny hillside. The teacher corrected and admonished with