The Thorsdale Telegraphs

I.

WHEN I first arrived at Thorsdale I was nineteen, having just graduated from a Western college, with a magnificent diploma, and, if it had not been for a knowledge of telegraphing and machine sewing, would have been assisting a widowed sister of mine, keeping school, in a town in the western portion of the State. Thorsdale had then rather a typographical than a topographical existence. While Twoboysboro and Smoilersville enjoyed the distinction of capital letters in the railroad guide, Thorsdale had to be satisfied with the smallest type. Thorsdale was simply the intersecting point of two railroads, which formed an X at that point, and for buildings had a dilapidated freight depot, a few straggling houses, and a telegraph station, in which for a certain time I was an employee. Thorsdale office had a great deal to do with railroad business, and although the two roads were at daggers drawn, and were continually quarreling on the subject of time-tables and schedules, messages relating to the safety and business of the trains were always being received at and forwarded from the Thorsdale station.

It was an oppressively sultry August afternoon when I first presented myself at the office, and became acquainted with Mr. Thor, its occupant. Apparently Mr. Thor did not much heed the few words of salutation 1 gave him, though he rose from his work and offered me a dilapidated office stool. Somewhat tired, perhaps rather confused by his manner, which, though not uncourteous, was in the highest degree indifferent and hardly calculated to inspire self-reliance, I sat rather uncomfortably on the high chair for some minutes, wondering whether I would like a position in the Thorsdale office, and coming pretty rapidly to the conclusion that with Mr. Thor as a fellow telegraph clerk I should not relish it. I excused his not talking to me just then because he seemed quite busy with his instrument, studying at the same time a railroad time-table, which was pasted on the wall before him. Suddenly he turned towards me, and said, “ Miss Brown?” “ Yes, sir,” I replied.

“ M. Brown. Is M for Miranda, Mirabel, or Madeline? ”

“ No, sir; my name is Mary. Yours is Mr. Thor, I presume.”

“ Yes, Jahn,” and he spelt it out for me on the machine. “ J-a-h-n — so, and not John. Are you a quick operator ? ” “ Not very, sir; though I have had a fair practical experience.”

“ So! Rather easily flustered ? ” he inquired, moving towards another machine, which commenced working, and over which he was now bending somewhat attentively. “ Did you understand that last message? ”

“ No, sir,” I answered, “I was not listening; I could have understood it had I chosen to.”

“ Then you are not curious? ”

“ Yes, I am,” I responded, by no means relishing his interrogations.

Here there was quite a pause in the conversation, two of the machines going at once, to both of which Mr. Thor paid attention, sending back replies. Presently he said, not at all quickly, — there was even a slight drawl in Ids maimer of speaking, —“ Here, Miss Brown, Miss Mary Brown, be good enough to send this message; I will call it off for you. Ready? ‘ Thor to Smoil. Certain collision on or about ninety-three mile post. Keep the up-train at station, if there is time.’ ”

I had been rather listless so far; in fact, my mind was a thousand miles from where I was seated on the high stool, but now — upsetting the stool with a crash, my hair ribbon getting entangled somehow in one of the machines, which ribbon I tore from my head, my hair tumbling down — I transmitted in an instant the message, a great deal faster, I think, than I ever did anything before in my life.

“ Correct! Miss Brown will do for an emergency. Excuse my forgetfulness in not offering you a glass of water. The day is quite oppressive, and it is likely to storm.” He poured me out a glassful of water. I took it, and looked him in the face. His countenance was imperturbable. Suddenly it flashed across my mind that it was some stupid hoax on his part, and that he was hazing a new-comer in the office. I felt enraged at this method of procedure, and instantly resented it.

“ This is scandalous,” I said, moving from the telegraph table. “I do not wish your glass of water. To have imposed upon me with a message of this kind is singularly out of place. It is some stupid joke. The wires were disconnected, or led to nowhere, or you have told the receiver of the message that it amounted to nothing. I have no respect for ” —

“ Stop, Miss Brown, and watch your instrument. I fooling you? God forbid! Keep silent, and listen.”

He said this very quietly, his face not exhibiting a particle of resentment, or even surprise. There was a lapse of a minute, when off went the machine, and ticked out: “Just in time. Train stopped. Church excursion. Might have been harrowing. All right. Mamma onboard. Somebody intoxicated.”

“ Will you have some water, now ? Thorsdale water is the sweetest, coolest in the world,” he said. I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself, as I turned my head aside, and gulped down the water. I was about thanking him when, seeing my confusion, he offered me his hand, and led me to a little partition on one side of the office. “ Your bower,” he said. I peeped into a kind of closet some six by eight, and ventured in, when he shut the door softly after me. It was the merest bin of a place, roughly put together, though there had been apparently quite a determined effort to make it look comfortable. There was a stone pitcher, a tin basin, a looking-glass, and a pretty bunch of flowers in an ale bottle. On the walls were pasted a variety of pictures, views of scenery in Norway and Sweden, taken from the illustrated papers, and occupying a whole side was a carefully drawn map of a city, with its broad streets and lanes, its public buildings and churches, with parks and fountains and boulevards; and over that again, surmounting it, was a strongly colored wood-cut, evidently taken bodily from a circus-poster, of a nondescript animal, half horse, half fish.

“ You can use the brush and comb with impunity,” said Mr. Thor, from the office; “ they are immaculate, bought for the occasion with the company’s money, and may be found in the inventory under the head of office furniture; likewise the looking-glass. I mention this simply because it will be one of your duties to keep the accounts of the office. As I did n’t know exactly how tall you might be, probably the glass is hung too high or too low. You will arrange everything to suit you. The key to the closet you will find in the soap dish. It is brown soap. Thorsdale, though bountiful in soap, is undiseriminating, saponaceously, I am afraid; and I am even forced to admit that a nailbrush fitted for a lady has been beyond our powers. The key, too, is dreadfully large, though mediæval in style. I purloined lock and key from one of the depot doors, but no amount of filing the wards would get the creak from it. Oh! I must not forget to tell you that you will please give the door a kick when you want to shut it. ”

To relieve my feelings, I used the brush vigorously, arranged my hair, and then looked at the flowers. When I felt that there could be no excuse for my remaining longer immured, I stepped out into the office. Mr. Thor was apparently dozing over his table. His hands supported his head, his flaxen hair streaming down over his shoulders. Even in this position, his tall stature was manifest.

“ So very much obliged to you, Mr. Thor, for all those kind attentions on your part, in my boudoir. They are exceedingly grateful to me; and — and I am quite distressed — very sorry — that at the start I should have made such an absurd dunce of myself, Mr. Jahn Thor; and pray tell me about that train; is it all right, now ? ”

“ Oh! ” he said, rubbing his eyes, as if awaking from a dream. “ It was a woman at the other end of the line, who gushed back. Now to think of a telegraph woman sending the word ' intoxicated ’ when ‘ drunk ’ would have been much better, and six letters shorter; and what does she mean by taking up my time by sending me stuff about a church train, and her blessed ‘mamma,’ just as if Providence was especially careful of church people and fond parents on a railroad? She skips letters when she is the least excited. If a cow is run over, she sends me news about it, in spasms. And now she wants to know who it was sent the reply to her; she recognizes a new hand at the bellows.”

I felt somewhat hurt at his having taken no notice of my apology, but I meekly replied, “I trust you will excuse my rather hasty expression.”

“Miss Brown, I have no doubt that we shall get on quite pleasantly together. You know that I am master here by seniority. To-morrow is Wednesday, and mostly a quiet day; some three trains are off. You will want some rest. Probably your household arrangements are not yet completed.”

“ Indeed they are, sir. I have secured quite a good boarding-house, and a trunk to unpack is not much.”

“ I shall have no use for you to-morrow, though you had better come at sundown. On Thursday you will commence work in earnest. We might as well understand one another at once, Miss Brown. The office will expect your whole time and attention; and holidays will be few and far between. Thorsdale may have its faults, but there are no barbecues, nor picnics, nor bands of hope, nor Sisters of Washington, nor woman’s rights, nor fete days, nor festivals here. Thorsdale has no time for pleasure, but works on silently, unceasingly, toward its great destiny. After a while, I do not gainsay it, may come Thorsdale’s period of relaxation, but not until the arms of Thorsdale, the seahorse, red on a white field, shall be emblazoned on the flag of this good State, and men shall give to the Thors that proud position they once assumed, a thousand years ago, in the country of the vikings. I have placed their blazon on the walls of your closet! ”

I was somewhat startled at this unlooked-for vehemence on his part, and could by no means exactly understand what he meant. “ Do you allude to that picture — half horse, half fish — which is tacked over some map or other, in my closet? ” I asked, considerably astonished.

“ Yes; I cut it out myself from a circus-poster that decorated one whole side of the depot. Of course, such an animal does not exist ” —

“ I should suppose not,” I interrupted, unable to suppress a smile.

“ Though it was once carved in wood,” he went on, “ and was one of the ornaments of the triumphal car in which a very bad circus band made its entry into Twoboysboro. They did not honor Thorsdale. I have an antique seal left me by my father, precisely like it. My father was only a blacksmith, but he treasured that old seal. He told me it was centuries old, and had come down to him from his grandfather. The seahorse is, then, our crest; I tattooed it on my arm when I was a boy. I can show you a rock, overlooking the lake, where I chiseled this same device deep into the stone. There it was that my poor old father used to spend sometimes whole days, waiting for me to come home, for I was absent from him many a year. He used to tell me that our lake was like his native fiord, where he was born, and where my poor mother came from. That rock is my landmark, and it is where my wharf must start from, some of these days. Thorsdale! Thorsdale!” Just here he seemed quite to ignore my presence, and was apparently talking to himself. “Dale! dale!” he continued; “ that final syllable has a diminutive sound, and is impossible when connected with the idea of anything like a city. Busy men, inclined to clip their words, would never say Thors - dale. I must drop the ‘dale’and call it simply Thor.” Then, turning to me, he said, “ You would have no objection, Miss Brown, to calling this place Thor? The necessary abbreviation used in telegraphing has already inaugurated its use. It is always signaled Thor, and the new railroad-guide publisher has printed it so.”

“ Evidently,” I said to myself, “Mr. Thor has some decidedly original ideas in regard to Thorsdale.” So I replied to him not mockingly, but rather carelessly, “ I had no idea you were lord of the manor. I shall be pleased to be the humblest of your vassals, and prithee call it Thor; ” and I made a reverence.

He scanned me curiously for a moment, half smiled, and then, looking serious again, said, “ I trust Miss Brown is not laughing at me? A very narrow manor is it. The office we are now in is on my ground. The depot lot I gave to the railroad company, thinking that it might be the future nucleus of some cluster of buildings. It takes so little to start a city — a mere whim, the simplest chance. Caprice can do it, a spring of running water, a clay-pit where bricks can be made; why, a child born has done this wonder. Even a fallen tree across a prairie road, blocking up the path, has induced men to loiter there, to build a shelter of boughs against a passing storm, and lo! a city has sprung up from it. Here, here,” and he stamped his foot,

“ we have everything, all ready at hand, to make a city: a noble lake, a navigable river, fine soil, building material; and yet Thor is nothing, and I am the lord of the manor! ” Here I winced a little. “If it was not for this position of telegraph clerk, I should starve, for I have no brains for true work! ”

I was a good deal startled at his vehemence. Possibly, if there had been a third person present, I might have tittered or giggled in a suppressed way. I only said, rather at random, “ Why not sell out one part of the property, in order to improve the other? ”

He turned on me instantly, as if I had struck him. “ What! Barter off the few acres left, the place where the old Thor forge stood? where my father is buried? Never! We once owned all the land from the lake to here. My father had an emigration scheme, —a noble one, and sold most of the land, for a mere song, to speculators years ago. The money he received he gave to a friend, who was to have gone to Norway, to our own village on the fiord; he was to have induced the good peasant folk to take ship, and to settle here. That agent cheated him. It killed my old father. His was a grand, big heart, and it was broken. He left me a sacred inheritance, that of following out his wishes. Well,” he added with a sigh, “ by this time, Miss Brown, I trust you have been made quite at home with all the mysteries of Thor. I talk this same thing to anybody who will listen to me.

I dare say I am a very annoying person, and have bored yon sadly.”

“ On the contrary,” I replied, “you have interested me. There would be something noble in the idea of a man as young as you are founding a city. That map so neatly drawn in my closet is, I suppose, the plan of Thor? ”

“ You have noticed it? I have made ten of them, each one more elaborate than the last. It is a great enterprise, an absorbing one, requiring an immense range of thought, to plan out anything which has a bearing on the life, health, and happiness of thousands of human beings yet unborn.” Here Mr. Thor again paced up and down the office, as if carried away by the thought. It was then that I saw Mr. Thor at his best. The head was large and massive, the brow broad and lofty, and the eyes flashed as if fired by some internal inspiration. “It is shadowy, vague as yet,” he continued,

“ and rests, this plan of mine, on a very frail foundation —a poor telegraph station and a tumble-down depot. Young, you say I am ? Why, I am almost thirty, and am nothing, like Thor: my forefathers at my age went forth and founded cities !”

“ Excuse me, Mr. Thor,” I said, perhaps unfortunately, with that tendency a young woman has, fresh from her books, to air her slender stock of knowledge, “ it strikes me, those old vikings were rather prone to ” —

“ I understand you,” he interrupted,

“ they tore down rather than built up. Nations, races, have their rhythmic periods. If they sacked, ravaged, and burned down in the Old World, they are reconstructing here. But here I am driveling out an existence over this miserable machine, tapping it as would a young miss her piano keys, when heavier, more sturdy toil should be mine. Curse all such feeble work! Sometimes,” and here he gave his instrument a contemptuous fillip with his finger which threatened to smash the ebony buttons, “ sometimes 1 wish this right hand of mine might shrivel. What it wants is a sledge to wield, some mighty work to do, something to carve and whack, something that would make thews and muscles stand out in tension, till they snapped.” Just here I stood aghast at his excited manner. The man was in an agony, and the expression of his face was terrible. The calm, quiet repose about him had all gone. It was not a fume or a fret, but as if some pent-up geyser of energy had suddenly burst forth ; he seemed so shaken to his very heart. As I was wondering what would be the next phase of his temper, I was rather pleased that the machine before him commenced working. He seemed to be paying decided attention to the communication. Suddenly, with an explosion, he cried out, “ That confounded woman at the other end of the line! She says sometimes she cannot make out my messages, and that in case anything should turn up of importance, I had better repeat it. I know her ways; anything disagreeable about these murdering railroads she always announces in this way. She wants to spare my feelings before breaking the news to me.”

“ It is not surprising, Mr. Thor,” I ventured to remark, “ that there should be some difficulty in deciphering your messages, at least in certain of your moods, when you take a delicate telegraphic instrument and convert it into an anvil, using your finger as if it was Thor’s mallet.”

He smiled at this, and replied, “ The old blood. You know the old stories, then? ”

Now his machine worked off a long message. It was an important one, evidently, as when he had written it down I heard him signal to repeat it.

“ Please listen, Miss Brown. The woman at the other end is nervous and hysterical, as usual. You might as well at once be let into the secrets of these two railroads, both of which are shamefully mismanaged. Sometimes, if it were not for promptness and decision on the part of the telegraph people, passengers would be murdered in the most wholesale way, every day in the week. Be good enough to put down in pencil what comes. I will call it out for you: Smoil to Thor. Down train fifteen — no, eighteen — minutes ahead of time. Kettridge, the engineer, said to be intoxicated or insane. Retain him if possible — if — but — however ” — Here something like an oath escaped Mr. Thor’s lips. “ Excuse me,” he cried,

“ but the woman is so provoking.”Just then the machine began again, and he continued, “ Thank goodness, some one has pushed her aside, and has her instrument now, and here comes the message, straight. Write it down in ink now, Miss Brown; there will be no corrections to make.” And he called out to me rapidly as follows: —

“ Kettridge crazy drunk; is armed and desperate. There will be a smash. Have telegraphed all along the line to people at stations to jump the train and choke the villain. If he reaches Thor, he may stop. If so, take him yourself. O’Bryne, his fireman, just in with ankle sprained; Kettridge heaved him off the tender. Conductor new hand, and a skunk. Watch out. Get depot hands to help you. Shoot him on sight if necessary. If he gets by Thor, he will smash into the up express, which, though instructed to back, is too far this way to be saved on a single track.

“WATKINS.”

As I read it over, my heart was in my mouth. Mr. Thor whistled a moment, then came to me, and read the message which I had transcribed on an office blank.

“ Good hand, quite legible. S-h-o-o-t him ” (he spelled it out) “ not quite as plain as the rest; fault of the pen, doubtless; ” then he carefully blotted the paper, and put it in a drawer. Now he went slowly to a closet, and opened it. I shuddered, as I thought he might have some weapon there. He did take something carefully from a shelf; it was in a case. It was almost sunset then, and the room was getting a trifle dark. There was a slight snap, and I started to my feet, thinking it was a percussion cap. Mr. Thor was lighting a match, which flickered for a moment, and presently he applied it to a pipe.

“ Please now take the instrument, and do not be too quick, or in the least bit flustered; Thor must not lose its reputation. Just say,” and here he blew a steady cloud of smoke,— “ You do not mind my smoke? — just say,” —

“ This is tantalizing, Mr. Thor,” I cried, now quite beside myself. “ What — what shall I say? ”

“ Thor to Smoil. We will do our best. THOR.”

“We — we!” I exclaimed; “what can I do ? ”

“ Why, shut yourself up in your closet, if you want to, and criticise my map there. You shake your head ? I wish you would. By studying out the localities you might devise for me a place for a grand female university, or a pantheon.”

“ This is trifling, sir,” I said, as I jumped up and walked the office in an agony of suspense. There was a large clock hung up on the wall, which now suddenly acquired the power of ticking, and its beats resounded through the room.

“ Agitated you are, and a trifle nervous, Miss Brown,” he said, in a rather bantering tone; then seeming to be aware of my condition he remarked, “I am a brute; I know it, but cannot help it.”Here he opened his closet, and made a running inventory of its contents. “ A violin, sixteen volumes of agricultural reports, a demijohn of acid solution for batteries, and a bottle of patent medicine. Wish I could pour it down Kettridge’s throat ; it might do his business for him. Suppose we reason this out a little. Providing he is running under a full head of steam, it will take fully fifteen minutes for him to get here. That clock is right to a half minute or so. If I had now only the absolute time of that train! We must find that out some way, — when it started on this race. Ah! here comes something from Twoboys.”

With a palpitating heart I read off, “ Kettridge’s train just passed, tearing through; valves all open. Watch out for him. Only had time to move construction-train on siding. Have started engine after him. Look sharp. Time, six forty-five. MANDLT.”

“ Good! ” cried Mr. Thor, “ there are some data to go on. Then he may be here three minutes sooner than we expected.” I looked at the clock, which now indicated some five minutes before seven.

“ The intensity of sound, — as you may have been taught, Miss Brown, for I suppose your scientific acquirements are on a par with your historical information, — the intensity of sound is at times very much increased, and at other times Sensibly diminished, by sudden atmospheric changes, and it looks as if we were going to have a thunder-storm. These storms mostly come from the lake shore; the lake lies this way,” and he pointed to a window away from the railroad. “Now you had better go home as fast as you can — and take my umbrella— before the ram comes.”

By this time I had been wound up to such a pitch of nervous excitement that I was quivering all over. Yet the idea of leaving the oflice was furthest from my thoughts. I do not think I could have gone to my boarding-house, had I tried to. I felt like locking myself up in my closet, and cowering there, but then, I knew that would be a dastardly act.

“It is rough for you, Miss Brown,” said Mr. Thor, looking at the clock.

“ Though apparently careless about this ugly business, I am not assuming a character foreign to my nature.”

I scarcely listened to what he said. The clock-face had a fearful fascination for me. I only shuddered at his indifferent talk. Just then I heard — I am certain it was before he heard it — the indistinct, far-off rumble of some train, and I shrieked out, “ What in God’s name are you going to do? ”

“It is the train, sure enough. Track makes a loop near the lake shore, and the sound comes uninterruptedly over the water. He is a good way off yet. Now, Miss Brown, if after a while he whistles, he will stop. Crazy though he may be with rum, habit may to a certain extent control his madness. If he does whistle, then signal down brakes; there will be no trouble about it.”

“ But the depot hands, who might help you, where are they, sir? ”

“ They have gone home just an hour and five minutes ago.”

“ But,” I asked in a whisper, “ if he does not whistle, does not stop, what then? ”

“Well, I suppose I shall have to climb into the water-tank, hang on the spout, — a ludicrous position, no doubt, — and drop into the tender or the train as it passes underneath me; that is, if he is going too fast for me to jump on.”

“ But it will kill you— must kill you. It is madness; it will be the sacrifice of another life,” and I caught him by the sleeve; “ you would not have one chance in a thousand. You might just as well lie across the track, hoping to stop the train. You must inevitably be crushed to atoms.” Just then a plaintive screech was heard through the storm of wind which now was blowing. “ He has whistled! Thank God for that!” I said, with an intense feeling of relief.

“ That is three miles off, and he must now slacken his pace, whether he will or not, from the fact of there being just there a bad bit of track and an up grade. But, Miss Brown, I knew all this, and that there was likely not to be much danger about it. Kettridge, I think, will stop in — say, five minutes. It is wonderful how fast the time goes! ”

“No, no!” I exclaimed; “there has been to me a whole existence in these last fifteen minutes! ”

“You don’t say so! Would Miss Brown be kind enough to hold my pipe? ” and saying this he placed the pipe in my hand. I gazed at him as if in a dream, when he continued, “It’s quite a good bit of meerschaum. I cut the sea - horse on it. Please do not break it. I shall want a good smoke when I comeback.” Then I felt the tremulous motion an approaching train imparts to the ground, next I heard the rapid snorts of the exhaust steam, and then the whistle screamed, and it seemed to me that the train would whiz directly through the office the next moment.

“ Just a third of a mile off; now he slows, and the train hands must have some idea of their danger, and may uncouple, or put down brakes, and so prevent his budging. So good-by, Miss Brown.” And with this he leisurely walked out of the office. Now I strained my ears to their utmost, but did not dare to look out of the window. That the train had slowed somewhat, close to the office, was certain, for a volume of sulphurous gas, beaten in by the storm, drove through the windows. Still the train did not halt, but was moving on rapidly. Presently I heard something like the cry of a wild beast. Then there was a struggle on the platform. The noise approached nearer and nearer. The very office now was shaken, and the door bent inward on its catch and hinges. I sprang to the door, and with all my strength pulled at it. It opened inward. Just then a pistol was fired, and I got out of the way barely in time to escape from a man falling on me; for like a stone thrown from a sling, there lay on the floor, a pistol smoking in his hand, the body of a man all begrimed with oil and coal, while over him stood Mr. Thor, one knee on his adversary’s breast, and both his hands tight, gripped around the prostrate man’s throat.

“ Why did you not go into your closet? And I dare say you have smashed my pipe. Keep quiet, you poor drunken fool, or must I choke the life out of you?” That was all I heard. Then the room was crowded with people, and next I fainted, for the first time in my life, and, as far as I can remember, in quite a resigned and satisfactory way.

II.

It was Thursday, and rather late, before I made my appearance at the office. Mr. Thor was seated at his desk, quite busily engaged, working at something. As I entered he rose quickly, bowed to me, then offered his hand, which I took and gave a hearty shake. He glanced at the clock. “ I know, Mr. Thor,” I said apologetically, “ I am an hour and more late.”

“ Miss Brown’s indisposition is a sufficient excuse. You are in good time. We are rather — ahem! —used to fainting; the Smoiler young person you know faints twice a week at stated intervals; on her mother’s wash days, I believe. The Smoiler young lady will open her batteries presently. Take charge of the machines; I can dictate replies. I have quite a job here;” and he removed, bit by bit, something from a newspaper which he had spread on the desk, to a table in the corner of the room, and began working with the pieces.

“Well,” I said to myself, smoothing out the crumpled newspaper he had left, “ I don't exactly like this sort of reception. It is a kind of affectation of indifference on his part, which is a sham.

I don’t care. He is a brave man, and as cool a one as I ever read of; and I want to tell him so. I cannot intimate to him, however, that Mary Brown is going to bo wretchedly uncomfortable here, with her heart in her mouth all the time, and that a position as a permanent telegraph operator at Thorsdale would be just the death of her. It may be a sinecure, but a few more incidents of the character of the evening before last, notwithstanding the thirty-eight dollars a month she receives, might very much weaken her mental and physical condition and — I wish I had never put my foot into the Thorsdale office.” Then I thought my bin wanted looking after, and I went there, and in the glass found my face was all crimson. I noticed, I must confess with some pleasure, that there was a fresh bunch of flowers in the Bass’s ale bottle. I took a brilliant crimson poppy, placed it in my hair, and then put it back again.

“ You have broken my pipe,” said Mr. Thor, from the office. “ Smashed sea-horse all to bits; cherry stem likewise splintered.”

“ I am so sorry, so very sorry,” I said, almost nervous enough to cry. “ I had no idea I had it at all.”

“ If a young lady expects to lie down on a pipe which she has been merely requested to hold, and thinks that meerschaum will stand such a strain, all I have to say is that her acquaintance with the physical condition of such substances is of the most meagre and superficial character. There, I give it up.” Here I saw him gather up the pieces of the pipe and put them back in his drawer. “ I am going out, Miss Brown,” he continued; “ some business at the depot. If I am wanted, or anything important turns up, ring this bell, — the wires run across to the depot, — and I will come.” He looked at me now, as I left my little room, with a kindly smile on his face, and in a moment was out of the office.

“ Broke his pipe? I wish I could mend it. I wonder if he wants a tobacco-pouch. I might make him one, with his old sea-horse on it. I wonder if there is such a thing as embroidering silk to be found in Thorsdale. By the way, I must ask permission to be absent a half-hour some time to-day, so that I may thank the grocer’s wife, who laid me out so nicely in the bottom of her husband’s wagon, and carried me home. That accounts for the molasses on my skirts. I wonder if Mr. Thor called to see me yesterday.” Then I tried to drive Mr. Thor entirely out of my mind, but though I succeeded in this, the tobacco-pouch would come back. I kept on racking my brain, until I got headachy, when I turned over the newspaper and read the title, The Smoilersville Sentinel. I waded through the outside sheets, which were filled with grandiloquent advertisements, but noticed that embroidering silks were unheralded. Then I looked inside, and this was what I saw, in the most blustering type: —

HEROIC CONDUCT!

A NOBLE WOMAN AND A BRAVE MAN;

FEARFUL ACCIDENT FRUSTRATED;

MANIAC IN CHARGE OF A TRAIN.

Full Particulars ! Pass round their Names!

Excitement in Smoilersville !

Meeting of Citizens!

I then read a wonderfully inflated account of the occurrence of Tuesday, and was horrified at seeing my name, MaryBrown, scattered about in the most lavish way, from the beginning to the end of three whole columns, — how I had clutched the drunken man’s pistol, who was described as “ the maniac engineer and Herculean ruffian;” how I had wrestled with him; how my “beautiful hair had streamed down my back, disheveled in the mortal strife ; ” and how I was now at the point of death from the wounds I had received when “ battling with the Herculean engineer and maniac ruffian.” I tried to see what amount of truth there was in it. If any reliance could be placed on the account, Mr. Thor had been just in time; for although the engineer had slacked the speed of the train somewhat, he was in the act of letting on a full head of steam again when Mr. Thor had grappled with him, and had mastered him. I felt immensely provoked at the very false notoriety I had acquired, especially when at the conclusion I read that the Smoilersville people had determined that “ a substantial token of their esteem and regard should be presented to Miss Brown and Mr. Thor,” and that subscriptions were invited, which might be left at the office of The Smoilersville Sentinel. I became so wretchedly uncomfortable over it all, that it was a relief when the instrument commenced working. It said, —

“ Smoil to Thor. Heroic preserver of hundreds of lives! How can I appreciate the noble work done! Mother hopes you will join the church after this, for you are destined to a noble future, some great end and ame. Hearing of your narrer escape has put me all in a shudder. EUSEBIA.”

I could not say the message was exactly an important one, and Mr. Thor was so uncertain in temper that he might scold me if I rang the bell for him. While I was hesitating, the machine started. It said, —

“ Was last message received? Please do, do, do reply. E.” Then there was a pause and it resumed: “ Pray do not he haash [harsh ?] with me. Let me, as a poor, confiding woman, twine a crown of laurel to place at your feet. Do not stamp on it. ” Here there was an hiatus, and it went on: “ Watkins just in; will use the wires; need not reply now. E.” Then came a rattling message: “Is Thor at station?” My answer was, “No. Brown.” Now came galloping over the wires, “ O. K. Glad to make Miss Brown’s acquaintance. Miss Brown is a trump. Jackson Watkins takes off his hat to her. Howdy, Miss Brown. Tell Thor, mixed deputation from directors of both roads coming to Thor to-day, to wait on him; likewise our long-winded mayor. Champagne, cigars, chickens, sardines, and general spread, with niggers and ice-cream, on the twelve forty train. Tell Thor to write a speech. Miss Brown must do it, too. Big thing. Miss Brown may countou Watkins until something freezes over, say crack of doom, for short. She is pluck, and so is Thor. Whole office, down to messenger-boy and pole-raiser, send compliments, as does J. WATKINS.”

I could stand it no longer, so I rang the bell loudly, more vigorously than I should, for in a moment came Mr. Thor.

“ Well, what is the matter, Miss Brown? ” he asked.

“ Two or three messages which I have copied,” and I handed him the lady’s message.

He scowled fearfully. “ If I am to be rung up for trash of this kind, I shall never have time to attend to my work at the depot,” he said, rather snappishly. “Is that all? ”

“ No, sir. Mr. Watkins sends a message; here it is.”

He read it, and commenced stamping up and down the office like an infuriated mastodon. “ The idiots, the dunces, the asses! That confounded Smoilersville Sentinel! Did you read the stuff? ”

“ I did.”

“ Pack of lies.”

“ No, not all of them. What they said about me was fearfully false.”

“ I beg your pardon.”

“ Pardon me, sir, but it was.”

“ You are the heroine of a dime novel. You shall receive the deputation.”

Now was my chance, and I determined to make the most of it. “Mr. Thor,” I said, very demurely, “ I wanted to say to you, this morning, how well you behaved on Tuesday, and how much I respect an action ” —

“ Was that what you rung the bell for?” He looked at me crossly, but there was so much earnestness about my manner that he now took on an aggrieved mien, and said, “ Miss Brown,

I should hardly have thought it, from the limited acquaintance I have had with you, that you would have joined with Smoilersville in doing what, you certainly must be aware, can be nothing else than an annoyance to me.”

“I will never mention the circumstance again; drop it entirely out of my mind, if you desire it,” I said. “ At least, I will try to,” was my mental reservation.

“ But, Miss Brown, though you are perhaps unaware of it, if you had not opened the door precisely when you did, he might have shot me. I saw he had an ugly knife, but I had no idea he had a revolver until I heard the explosion.

I did not notice how you managed, but it seems to me you must have knocked the pistol out of his hand, or turned his arm. Of course he was no match for me; this I knew all the time. His drunkenness gave me every possible advantage. So you see, Miss Brown, nolens volens, you are a heroine. Here is where the ball went through the ceiling. With all these proofs of prowess, Miss Brown must certainly receive the deputation in my stead.”

“ Mr. Thor,” I said, getting incensed now in my turn, as he seemed to be quite in earnest, “ if you mix up my name in any way whatsoever with this disgusting business, or put me in a position of false notoriety, which I should despise, I will quit Thorsdale instantly.”

“ And pray where will you go to? ” he asked, quite demurely.

“ That is none of your business,” I answered, tartly.

The conversation was becoming acrimonious, so I went in high dudgeon to my little room. There I pulled a rose from the bunch of flowers, and put it in my bosom. I would keep that, at least.

“ Miss Mary Brown,” said Mr. Thor, in a rather sing-song voice, after a pause of at least ten minutes, “ I covenant and agree to do, at least for the present, that is, for the next twenty-four hours, exactly as it shall suit your august and somewhat exacting pleasure. Being justice of the peace of Thorsdale, likewise notary public and constable, I will, if you please, write it all down officially, and swear to it and sign it in my triple function.” I did not answer.

“ You cannot leave, you see,” he continued, “ without great detriment to the State; you will be wanted to give your testimony in this business.”

“ Is Kettridge dead ? ” I gasped out.

“ Not quite. Of course there will have to be an official examination and consequent whitewashing, and as executive officer of Thorsdale I am quite capable of issuing a warrant for your arrest. There, what do you say to that? Look up at the left-hand corner of the map, and tell me what you read there, under the plan of a building like a gridiron.”

“ A prison,” I said, reading it off.

“ That is where you will have to languish.”

“ A prison! ” I exclaimed, as I examined the map. “ How queer! for next to it is a public garden and park.

What a strange fancy, to put a prison there.”

“Not at all. The locality for that prison it took me a long time to decide upon. Alas that there should be squalor and misery in every town! ”

“ I accept the agreement,” I said, as I came out from the closet; “ you are to do my bidding; that is understood. Then, firstly, you must reply to Mr. Watkins and inform him that you will be prepared to meet the deputation.”

“ The humiliation of being put in an omnibus, with a band of music on top!" Here he groaned aloud, and seemed inclined to be contumacious. I felt that I must get his mind away from the subject of the deputation, if but for a moment.

“ What has become of Kettridge ? I am so thankful you did not have to hurt him.”

“ Kettridge? He is at the depot, as quiet as a lamb now. Poor devil, I must have choked him very hard; he was so nearly dead that they were afraid to move him.”

“ Have you been nursing him? ” “Pretty rough nursing, if you call holding him down by main force, off and on for the last twenty-four hours, nursing! The doctor came here this morning from Smoilersville, and chloral and morphine have at last quieted him. How to manage the sale of alcoholic stimulants in Thor, I must confess, has at times caused me sleepless nights.”

“ Attention, now, if you please, Mr. Thor. You will allow me to telegraph to Mr. Watkins that you will receive the deputation, and you will let me ask him to send some one to take my place here for to-day. The lady at Smoilersville would, I have no doubt, do the work willingly.”

“ She shall do no such thing,” he cried now, rising in a towering rage. “ If you really are in earnest, I can get some one from a station below to take your place. Are you not well?” he

inquired.

“ Rather an inclination to a headache; I am not used to having them. They took the best care of me, however, at my house.”

“ If you had remained quietly at home yesterday afternoon, and not gone strolling over the country, and scaling Thor’s Rock, and getting yourself chilled in the evening air, you would have been quite well to-day.”

“ Does the authority of the office, Mr. Thor, extend so far as to place limits on what amount of recreation I may choose to indulge in?” I said, quite angrily.

He opened his eyes very wide, but said nothing, and went to an instrument and commenced working it. “ It is done,” he said, “ and here comes a reply, which informs us that your substitute for to-morrow will be here. In fact, Miss Brown, I could get all the young men on the line to work for you, without salary.”

“ Pray, Mr. Thor, do not irritate me.

I will now send your message to Mr. Watkins.”

“ Do what you please; for I perceive I am in despotic hands.”

“ Will this do? ' Will be pleased to receive the deputation;’ there, that is all.”

“Pleased! No, I am not pleased. But who is going to write my speech for me? The long-winded mayor is sure to get off some interminable twaddle. I solemnly declare that had I foreseen what an egregious ass I shall now be forced to make of myself, I would have let the train go to perdition. ”

“ Mr. Thor,” I replied, “ all positions in life have their responsibilities.”

“ Oh! it is all very well for you to say so,” answered Mr. Thor, maliciously.

I was determined not to be annoyed at whatever he said, now, so I thought I would take another tack. “ What is Thorsdale, or Thor?” I asked. “A mean, poor, wretched place, as far as man’s hands have wrought it. There is an unpainted depot, and a ramshackle telegraph station, both of them pictures of decay and neglect. What might Thor be, situated as it is on the border of a glorious lake, in the midst of rich pastures, with a grand river flowing through it? Thor might be a centre of trade and commerce, a second Asgard. ” Mr. Thor, who had heretofore been rather an uninterested audience, at the mention of my mythical capital suddenly clapped his hands, and was now all eyes and ears. “ Chance,” I continued, “may have something to do with the founding of a city. Some men may wait for a storm to fell the trees which may block the way of the passing emigrant train, but in other cases only time and tide and opportunity and perseverance all together may effect this noble end. Can you see nothing in the occurrence of the other day? ” Up to this point I had hardly believed very much in what I said, and found myself inclined to listen to the echo of my own words; but when I looked at Mr. Thor, who seemed to hang on every word I uttered with breathless anxiety, I must confess I felt an unknown pleasure in seeing that I had produced some effect, and I became suddenly elated with my power, and warmed up to my subject. Now I was in dead earnest, and believed in what I said. “ Mr. Thor,” I continued, “you did a brave action, and such action must always bring its own reward ” —

“Bad champagne, a yellow omnibus with six spavined horses, a brass band, and a subscription to be received at the office of the Sentinel,” said Mr. Thor, rudely interrupting.

I felt like leaving off right there, but I would not give in. “I will suffer no such irrelevant remarks. Perhaps a hundred people owe their lives to you. Talk to the directors; show them the advantages of Thorsdale; they are bound to listen to you, and may favor your views. You have an idea — a most ambitious one, it is true—of making Thorsdale, if not a city, at least a town. You have brooded over it so long that by a not unnatural process of the mind your ideas of how to give life to Thorsdale have partaken too much of the character of a dream. Think of Thor as possible, not with triumphal arches, art galleries, or theatres, but simply as Thor with a single street, even if it be a straggling one at that. Make but a commencement, and the future of Thor may be only a question of time.”

“ By heavens, Miss Brown,” cried Mr. Tlior, coming towards me with both his hands outstretched, “you have struck the chord. A single idea, far too big for me, has lodged in this poor brain of mine until it has crowded out all the lesser methods for accomplishing it. I thank you for what you have said, from the very bottom of my heart, and I swear to you I will act on it. I will not detain you any longer; I must make the best, excuses I can for your absence, though I should feel much less awkward could you stay with me. I am selfish enough to have forgotten, however, your headache. I suppose I have, as usual, been very coarse and inconsiderate, in regard to the shock you may have received on Tuesday. Men rarely appreciate those more delicate vibrations which sometimes shatter the weaker vases.”

“ II ne faut pas brutaliser la machine,”

I said, to myself rather than to him.

“ Oliver Wendell Holmes never made an apter quotation, nor one which is as little respected,” replied Mr. Tlior, musingly. I blushed crimson, I suppose, as I had not imagined he would understand me.

“Just one thing more, Mr. Tlior.” Here I hesitated and felt afraid I was going too far, but added, “ I am about taking a liberty with you. I would most respectfully suggest that, when you talk to these railroad magnates, you drop all allusions to berserkers and vikings and jarls, battle-shields and sea-horses. ” He seemed to wince when I said this, but I continued remorselessly, “ What do these men know or care about Eddas, or Gyda, or Snorro? Talk cattle, grain, lumber, and coal to them. No one knows better than you do what are the capabilities of Thorsdale, geographically and commercially considered. Speak to them about dollars and cents, and not myths and fables. To come down to the essential, if they only establish a grain depot here, that would be something.”

Mr. Thor looked at me wistfully, and seemed a trifle shocked, but I had reason to suppose that my words had made some impression on him.

“ So be it, in God’s name,” he replied in a subdued way. “It is almost time for the train now. You have not taken my hand yet, to show you have forgiven mv abruptness. The fact is, Miss Brown, when the general superintendent informed me that he had sent a young lady here, I was terribly opposed to it. All female telegraph operators embodied in my mind the peculiarities of the Smoilersville young lady.”

“What fault can you find with her?

If I am to stay here, I should want one of my sex to prattle with. A crochet pattern sent over the wires would be charming. But here comes a message precisely from the lady in question;” and I read off for him as follows: “ Glorious deeds should be welcomed not only with the laurel crown but with outbursts of song. I he Smoilersville German Silver Orpheons have offered their services, and will join the deputation. E.”

“ I knew it,” cried Mr. Thor; “ this is the last straw which breaks the camel’s back. If Thor ever is built, any member of an amateur band given to abusing wind - instruments shall be driven from the place with stripes.”

“Good-by, Mr. Thor,” I said, and shaking hands with him I left the office.

How much of a headache I had on that important day which was fraught with hopes for Thorsdale I cannot exactly determine. I could not stay at home, but took a scramble along the rocky shores of the lake. From time to time I heard the booming of a big drum and the blare of trumpets, which,

I suppose, came from the German Silver Orpheons, and not unpleasantly did it sound in the distance. That all this hubbub was in Mr. Thor’s honor I felt somehow proud, and had they fired off a salvo of cannon, I should have enjoyed it. Towards evening I found my - self on Thor’s Rock. Just as the sun was setting, I heard a loud steam whistle, then three lusty cheers, and a most vigorous pounding of the drum, which told me of the departure of the train of festival-makers. I confess I felt sorry that it was over. Then I watched the setting sun, amid the crimson clouds, until a purple city stood out in the sky, floating in a sea of gold. As it faded out I thought of Thor the city somewhat, and of Thor the telegraph clerk more; and next I had the good, hearty cry which had been threatening to come on for the last two days. Then naturally commenced a process of self-laceration. There was no use in denying it, I cared a good deal more for Jahn Thor than I did for his impossible town. 1 was too sure of that, and what was more degrading, I could not help it. I felt that I had no business to remain in Thor, and that I had the best of excuses for leaving the place. A position in the office would be fraught with anxieties, and in a moment of carelessness I might be the cause of sending a whole train of cars to destruction. It was the place for a man and not for a woman. I Thorsdale would have to get along without me. And Mr. Thor? Well, in time,—time does so much, — I said, I would forget all about them both. Go away I must, and the sooner the better. So ended my courtmartial, and taking a last look at the lake, with a very proud and stiff gait, holding my head very high though it was splitting with a genuine headache, homeward I marched.

“ Thor was here an hour ago, Miss Mary,” said my hostess, “and seemed kinder disap’inted like, to find ye eout. He’s brought a killin' lovely cake, with a sugar steam-engin’ atop of it, trimmed with flowers. The children has been hiving areound it like flies; likewise a bottle of wine. I do so hope you 'r’ a temp’rance girl. Sakes! what a lot of men as has never draw’d a sober breath since they left Smoilersville, all a-hollering themselves red in the face. Them kind of cakes, they say, is good to keep, and this un might do for your weddin’. Cl’ar out there, you children, and let Miss Brown have some showing at her cake. It’s mighty hard to keep children’s fingers from picking at the frosting.”

“ Please divide the cake among your little ones,” I said. “ I am not feeling very well. Would you oblige me very much by not letting any one disturb me? I want rest and quiet.”

“ Souls alive! and are you as bad as that? Kettridge must have hurt you wusser than you will allow.” I felt really too wretched to make a reply, and, mounting to my room, went to bed. I went to sleep, feeling dreadfully broken down, and dreamed that I wandered all night through gloomy thickets, picking flowers out of Bass’s ale bottles, which all turned to thorns, and pricked my fingers.

III.

Next morning, I took a roundabout way to the office. There were two doors to the station, one of them close to my closet. I looked in and saw Mr. Thor, with his head supported on his hands and his tawny hair streaming down. I coughed purposely, but there was no answer. I passed in and opened the door of my little room, and uttered a cry of surprise at its altered appearance. It was decorated from top to bottom with garlands of flowers. To suspend the festoons of leaves, nails had been driven into the walls, and so smothered were the engravings with greenery that they were completely hidden. Sea-horse, however, being partly on the ceiling, still held his own. My ale bottle was gone, and was replaced by a pretty little jardiniere filled with ferns and creepers. The map of Thor, where was it? I searched for it in vain. At last I found it, torn and crumpled and thrust ignominiously into a corner. I quickly had the map in my hand, and smoothed it out, and, in order to replace it, mounted on a cracker-box, which did duty in my boudoir as an ottoman. My lugging about this piece of furniture, I suppose, awakened Mr. Thor from his reverie.

“I’m so glad you have come, Miss Brown.” I heard him rise. “ I wanted to have some person to condole with, after yesterday’s asinine proceedings.

I hope you are well again. That accursed band, how it must have disturbed you. I had almost a fight with Watkins; he wanted to have the whole concern stationed under your window.

' See the conquering hero [or heroine] comes,’played on a big drum and ophicleide, would have given you a brain fever. I never was so irritated in my life. I tried my best to keep them out of your room in the office, here, but could not. I suppose they have decorated it. The young man who took your place yesterday, and the Smoilersville lady undertook the business. I have not looked at it.”

“ Pray look in, Mr. Thor,” I said, half-amused at his solemn and abashed mien. “It is indeed a perfect bower, now. How I have merited all this kind attention, I cannot divine.” He stood at the door a moment, and glanced around.

“ That map is strangely out of place,” be said, after a pause. “ Away with such nonsense! I am well over it all, now; ” and here he made a step towards coming in.

“ Please do not. Please, Mr. Thor. Some one threw the plan into the corner; has torn it, I am afraid. I took the trouble to hang it up again.”

He stopped just then, as with outstretched arms, both of my hands holding fast to the sides of the door, I barred the entrance.

“ If it stays there,” he said bitterly, “ it must be a constant reminder of as stupid a folly as a sane man could have been guilty of. Why keep it? Thor, with its paper streets, its mock avenues, its sham distances ! ”

“ Pray cease, Mr. Thor. Is not this room mine, at least for the present?” Here I locked the door. “ What did the railroad people determine about the place? Did they promise anything? ”

“Yes,” be replied, gloomily, “they have decided on a cattle-shed.”

“ A eattle-slied! ” I exclaimed, concealing with difficulty my own chagrin and disappointment. I recovered myself quickly, however, and added, “ A cattleshed? That is something, much better than nothing. Some — some of the greatest cities of antiquity, you may remember, owed their foundation to a cattle-mart.”

“ Allow me to correct your history, for once. Rome’s great forum, when Rome became nothing, was degraded to a cowpen. ”

“It is worse than folly to draw any parallel between Rome and Thorsdale. A cattle-shed! Why, that is just what was wanted! ” Following the lead of my sanguine temperament, I went on tumultuously: “ Wise, practical railroad men! A cattle-shed means drovers and butchers, men from Maine to Texas, with fat, greasy wallets. It means a hotel, a bank, a market, an exchange, a printing-office, a newspaper, a church, a Sunday-school. It means paved streets and sidewalks. It suggests a mayor, aldermen, lawyers, doctors, speculators, politicians. It means a wharf and steamboats, and timber rafts, and a light-house perched on Thor’s Rock, shining of nights across the lake. It means that at last the nucleus is found, providing you only believe it as I do.”

Mr. Thor seemed to stagger for a moment under my load of words, and then said, “ Miss Brown, you look honest. It would be the most cruel thing in the world, if you gave utterance to anything you did not implicitly believe.”

“ Mr. Thor,” I replied, with conviction, “ though women at my age are prone to romancing, I give you my honor that I have pictured nothing which I do not believe may be accomplished, providing you will work manfully towards the end in view. Please reach me down the map,” I added, unlocking the door.

“ What for? ”

“ To locate the cattle-shed.”

He quickly carried the map to his working - table, his eyes beaming with pleasure.

“ Here,” he said, after some pondering over it, “ is an unoccupied place. We cannot decide on these things hastily. Now a cattle-shed must be on the outskirts, near an abattoir. Think of mad steers straying round and goring all the children in a populous city.”

“ How far is this unoccupied place from here? ” and I put my huger about where the telegraph station stood.

“ At least a mile and a half,” he replied. “ Consult the scale.”

“ It is impossible,” I remarked in the most decided way. “ The town must creep before it can jump. It ought to be right here, close to the depot.”

“ Out of the question. My real depot, not the one opposite here, is fully three quarters of a mile lower down the road. Just where you want the cattle-shed to be is the site of my opera-house, in the Quartier St. Germain of Thor.”

“ You are impracticable. Cattle arrive by rail, tired, thirsty, and jaded, and you want to drive them almost a day’s journey farther on. The map of Thor must be remodeled. Who constructs the plan of a battle before the action is fought? ”

He gave way slowly, though with good grace, and it ended by my taking a pencil and marking a place for the cattleshed.

“ There, that will do,” he said. “ It is only on paper after all, and I am sick of paper towns. ” And with this he pitched the map into a corner. “ But tell me about yourself. Are you quite well, now? ”

“ Quite well, and so much obliged to you for sending the cake and wine. Has the Smoilersville paper come by the early train ? ”

“ Yes— it — has.”

“ Pray give it me. I want to see myself, for once, dead and buried with all the honors.”

“I tore the paper into bits, in a rage. They made me a Cicero as to eloquence; they put into my mouth a pack of stuff I never was guilty of; they — they ” —

“What! anything else? ” I inquired.

“ Yes; a lot of absurdities, in the worst possible taste, about you.”

“ About me? Since you have told me thus far, you must tell me all.”

“ You insist, then? ” he asked, very gravely.

“I certainly do. Whatever the stupid paper may have published, I am quite indifferent about.”

“ But I am not,” he quickly added. Just then a train came in, followed by more trains; and conductors, engineers, expressmen, and brakemen came into the office. I had to be formally introduced to all of them, and as they all shook hands with me, and did it vigorously, by the time they were through my arm felt as if it had been dislocated. At last we were quiet, and then my resolve came uppermost in my mind, and I vowed that when the clock struck eleven I would speak my mind.

“Mr. Thor,” I said, as the clock ceased sounding the hour, “ believe me, it is with some regret that I am forced to resign my position here. As incidents like those of the other night might repeat themselves, it must be apparent to you that it is a man who is wanted here, and not a woman. In fact, you intimated as much to me, and you were perfectly correct.” I felt that I was doing what was right. I awaited his reply. Very quickly he said, —

“ I have expected this, Miss Brown. Although the chances of a repetition of the accidents of Tuesday are very slight, there are other reasons which might make your stay here exceedingly distasteful to a young lady of your worth and character.”

It was my turn, now, to open my eyes in astonishment. “ Other reasons? I do not understand you.”

“ Yes,” he replied, “other reasons. Jahn Thor has no right to have your name coupled with his.”

“How? What do you mean?” I gasped.

“ Simply this, and let me assure you how much I regret it. The foolish paper stated that I was your accepted suitor, that we were to be married ” —

I would hear no more. Snatching up my hat, I burst out of the office, went home, and immured myself in my room, more wretched than I had ever been before in my life, but resolved that I would leave Thorsdale that evening. It was five o’clock when my landlady knocked at my door, handing me a telegram. One of Mr. Thor’s depot hands had brought it. I tore it open. It was a message from my sister, with the address of a neighboring town on the line of our road, advising me that by seven o’clock she would be with me. I felt that it was almost providential.

“Miss Brown,” said the man from the depot, “ Mr. Thor says, as soon as the lady comes I am to bring her to you.”

“Is there a train that leaves about nine o’clock? ” I inquired.

“ Yes, miss; only one, the express up train at nine forty-five.”

“ You will thank Mr. Thor for his politeness.”

“ That’s all? ”

“ Yes,” I replied.

I now made up my mind that it should be by the nine forty-five train that I must go. I knew I could prevail on my sister to retrace her steps with me.

The good sister came on time, and I rushed down the stairs to meet her. “ You see, Mary,” she said, “ it was our vacation. Now, I had no liking to your becoming famous all alone by yourself. It is such an exceedingly trying position, especially for a child like you, to be famous, you know, and so here I am. You arc quite nervous and trembling, my little woman. What has gone amiss with you? ” Thereupon, without exactly going into details, I told her something of my three days’ experiences in Thorsdale. With her keen insight into my character, she understood me at once.

“Well,” she said, “we had better go away at once. I am not a bit tired; are you ready for a start? ”

“ Yes, quite ready.”

“ You will go home with me. When winter fairly sets in, provided you won’t help me in teaching, you might make another start. There is a night train back, I suppose? ”

“ Yes, the nine forty-five.”

“ Then it is all settled. Thorsdale! what a name for a place! It does not sound Christian-like. It is a heathen name, is it not, Mary ? I must rub up my mythology.”

At just half past nine, we were at the station. “I must bid him good-by,”

I said to myself; “ I cannot leave without doing it. I might never forgive myself if I did.” Taking my sister’s arm, I knocked at the door of the telegraph station. It looked dull and cheerless within. A single lamp was feebly burning in the room. Mr. Thor was there, with his head buried in bis hands. The door was open. My sister, peering into the darkness, and ignorant of the locality, did not seem to like venturing in, and she loosed my hand. I felt that I must go alone, and bid Jahn Thor good-by. “Mr. Thor,” I said, almost inaudibly, — yet I felt sure he heard me, — “I have come to bid you goodby, and to say God help you;” and I stretched out my ungloved hand towards him. Perhaps it was so obscure that he did not see me, as I stood in the shadow. He did, though, turn towards me suddenly. His eyes seemed to devour me, then he put his fingers to his lips, and, pointing to the telegraph instrument before him, slowly, softly, almost noiselessly, commenced working it. Did I listen ? I hung on each feeble sound as if my life depended on it, and this is what it said: “Mary, do not leave me without knowing that I love you dearly.” Then it ceased. Next, both my hands were clasped tight in his strong hands, and he kissed me, and then the express train thundered in.

“ You seem terribly agitated, child,” said my darling sister, as we left Thorsdale; “ and where did you get that shocking ale bottle from, with the flowers in it? ”

Jahn Thor — my Jahn Thor — had given me the flowers. I had begged them of him. He had kept the train back for fully five minutes, in order that he might find the old flowers and the ale bottle in the saw-dust hill where Miss Eusebia had undoubtedly thrown them. Then I told my sister all about it, from beginning to end, and she said, kissing me, that I was “ a silly child.” But she cried, and we both cried, and after a while we went to sleep in each other’s arms, and, though the Thorsdale road was a terribly rough one, then, I slept much more sweetly than I had done for the last two nights.

Of course I married Mr. Thor, six months afterwards.

And what about Thorsdale? Thorsdale has a cattle-shed. New York and Chicago quote our market. We have now rows of houses, some of them with stone fronts. We have five churches and a synagogue, six clergymen and a rabbi, ten lawyers, eleven doctors, and seventeen dentists. We have three hotels, and—to think of it! — suburban cottages. We have had a horse-race, a robbery, a divorce, a terrible fire, and municipal peculation. Are not these the attributes of a thriving town ? We have a daily paper, The Thorsdale Tripod. Mr. Thor says the name is a good one, as it supports the editor (the former reporter of The Smoilersville Sentinel) by means of its brass, brains, and blarney. That editor’s principal business is, of course, to scatter cinders on the devoted heads of the Smoilersvillians. His last leading article was entitled “ Delenda est Smoilersville.”

I wish I was quite certain that I did not feel, myself, that spirit of rivalry which is, I am afraid, inherent. I am, however, asserting only what any one may see in the last census, which is that Thorsdale had then exactly fiftynine souls more than Smoilersville; as to Twoboysboro, we distanced her more than three years ago. Mr. Thor, the Honorable Mr. Thor, has just returned from the Centennial Exhibition, where he acted as one of the judges. He was in Norway last year, and we expect every day our second body of honest, sturdy Scandinavian folk; the advance corps came to Thorsdale more than two years ago. We both of us cried like babies when we saw the steamboat filled with our Norwegian people come sailing from out the shadow of the lake, up to Thor’s Light. I did so wish, then, that my children’s grandfather had been alive.

Mr. Thor still makes carefully executed plans of Thorsdale, and I help him. It was but yesterday, when looking at the old map which once decorated my closet at the telegraph station, that I said to my husband, “ Do you not think that some of those new extensions of streets might be assimilated to the original plans? I wish you would study it up; you entirely neglect the dear old map.”

“ Nonsense, Mary,” was the reply. " Let us he practical. I notice with some regret that Thorsdale is assuming a certain floridity of style which is ridiculously out of place. The architect who has made the plans of the Thor House estimates that monograms, a T and an H interlaced, over every window, with seahorses rampant, will increase the cost of the front decoration some thirty-five hundred dollars. Now, though such ornaments might make people remember us, it would be the landlord of the hotel, or the guests, who eventually would have to pay for them.”

“ But did you not promise me a fountain, after my own designs, to be put up in Thor Place this year? ” I asked.

“ Before we get to fountains, we must look the fire-plug question squarely in the face. The poetical Camelot had no city gas-bills to worry over, and what did King Arthur care for paving or grading ? ”

“ And Asgard? ”

“Dear old woman, just seventeen years ago a cattle-shed knocked Asgard on the head. You made the cattleshed possible, Mary, and I thank God for it.”