The Silent Readers Part 23

"Three weeks we westward bore, And when the storm was o'er, Cloud-like we saw the sh.o.r.e Stretching to leeward; There for my lady's bower Built I the lofty tower, Which, to this very hour, Stands looking seaward.

"There lived we many years; Time dried the maiden's tears; She had forgot her fears, She was a mother; Death closed her mild blue eyes, Under that tower she lies; Ne'er shall the sun arise On such another!

"Still grew my bosom then, Still as a stagnant fen!

Hateful to me were men, The sunlight hateful!

In the vast forest here, Clad in my warlike gear, Fell I upon my spear, O, death was grateful!

"Thus, seamed with many scars, Bursting these prison bars, Up to its native stars My soul ascended!

There from the flowing bowl Deep drinks the warrior's soul, Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!"

Thus the tale ended.

--_Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin Company._

ACTING FOR THE MOVIES

Here is another set of "movie" scenes. If you forget how we played the first set, look on page 38 and see just what to do.

1. The blind man came slowly down the road, tapping restlessly with his stick to guide him, and stopping every now and again to listen for some fellow traveler who might lead him to the town beyond the hill.

2. When they reached the open country, Aladdin had to gather sticks and to build a great fire for the magician, his uncle.

3. Aladdin's uncle stirred the fire until it blazed brightly. Then he threw in some magical powder and as a thick cloud of smoke arose, he made mystical signs over the fire, and muttered some strange words that Aladdin could not understand.

4. The Indian squatted down with legs crossed under him and waited for the morning sun to enable him to take up the trail again. Whenever the fire died away, he arose silently and replenished the fuel, but except for these breaks, one might have thought him a beautifully carved image.

5. None of the villagers knew Rip when he came back. He was old and stiff and bent with age. He carried on his shoulder his cherished musket, now useless and covered with rust. As the people crowded round him he scanned each face in turn, hoping to recognize some former familiar acquaintance.

6. Sir Roger drew his sword, and taking advantage of a corner in the garden wall, which might make a cowardly attack in the rear impossible, he waited for the band to approach. He knew that he was caught like a fox in this narrow garden, and he looked eagerly to count how many were against him.

7. Hardly had the Sheriff ridden off with his men, before Robin Hood came down the road, still dressed in the long gown that old Mother Hobbes had given him, and walking with the help of a cane, like an old woman, bent with years.

8. The savage raised his spear, and was about to cast it, but some slight sound caused him to hesitate an instant with the long shaft balancing lightly in his grasp.

9. An aged palmer came down the road. He was evidently returning from a long pilgrimage, for his cloak was old and tattered, his shoes were dusty and patched, and every few steps he stopped to rest on his long staff.

10. The tinker, very tired from his run, sat down on a large stone by the roadside. After looking cautiously about, he took the king's letter from his pocket and read it. Then folding it carefully again, and returning it to his pocket, he rose and started down the road singing cheerily.

11. He had tramped for three hours and had not discovered a single familiar sign. There was no sign in the cloudy sky to serve him as finger post. He climbed a tall tree that seemed to promise a view of the surrounding landscape, but everything was strange. He had read somewhere that the trees are mossy and green on the north side, but when he looked, even the trees seemed to be as uncertain as he. In despair he sat down on a fallen log and waited.

12. White Eagle looked far out over the plain. Beyond the now dry river basin and the green strip of brush and scrubby trees that bordered it, he could trace the slow, crawling wagon-train trailing out and winding like a lazy serpent through the dust. When he had counted for a second time to be sure, he drew back from the edge of the bluff, built two tiny fires, and watched the thin columns of smoke as they curled straight up in the air.

THE SAFEST PLACE

Here is a story of real human interest. We are all foreigners here in America except the American Indians. The ancestors of some of us came before those of others; and it is the duty of those of us whose ancestors have been here the longest to help the strange-looking, strange-speaking people who come to us from Europe to feel at home in our country.

The government has tried hard to protect the immigrants from dishonest people who have tried to cheat them out of their earnings.

One of the good things that came out of the World's War was a knowledge on the part of almost all of our people of the safe investments that the government offers in bonds and thrift stamps.

"At last the way is clear!"

Stefan spoke with much emotion as he counted the roll of notes, clean and soiled, that lay before him on the table in his little room in the over-crowded boarding house.

As he fingered the bills, he saw before him each detail of the past two years--New York harbor with Liberty flinging up her welcome torch; the thrill of arrival in the city of his dreams; the days that followed, days of discouragement, home-sickness, and poverty, among strangers speaking strange tongues, with a medley of unfamiliar manners and customs. He saw with vivid clearness the first dollar he had earned, and he forgot the slow, painful processes of saving--the self-denial and the sacrifice--in the picture of what those sacrifices were to bring.

"She will come," he murmured. "On the same boat perhaps. When she gets the ticket, she will leave that war-threatened land and she will come to me." He smiled. Then as his face suddenly clouded he started forward on the rickety chair with a violence that threatened its frailness. "If anything should happen! If I should lose the money!"

Greatly disturbed he gathered up the precious bills as though to s.h.i.+eld them from possible loss. He rose to place them in the old hiding place in his trunk, but that no longer satisfied him. He wavered, then said:

"No, that won't do. I must see Ian about this. He knows. He is wise. I will see Ian this very minute."

Wrapping the money in a piece of old newspaper and carefully placing it in an inner pocket, he set out. He went straight to the dingy office in a side alley of the foreign section of the town, where through the dusty window could be seen the grizzled head of Ian Skeemersky, the real estate agent and private banker, whose sign, written by his own hand, hung over the entrance.

After greetings had been exchanged, he anxiously put the case before his shrewd friend, whose eyes sparkled with eagerness as he replied smoothly.

"Nothing so easy and so safe in the world, my dear fellow. Put your money in my bank. You will get good interest and can withdraw it whenever you want it."

Stefan hesitated for a second. So much was at stake! His slow mind must have time to weigh the proposal. As he noted the earnestness and a.s.surance of Skeemersky's face, belief in this shrewd friend decided.

He drew out the pack and laid it on the desk before Skeemersky, whose long fingers closed over it at once.

"You have done well, Stefan Broda, your money is as safe with me as if it was in Mt. Vavel," he declared.

Stefan felt that he had done well. The phrase "as safe as Mt. Vavel"

lingered in his mind. It helped him be patient in the long weeks in the factory where he worked during the winter; it consoled him during the dull days while he waited for the open springtime when he planned to send for Agatha. When he heard of others losing their small savings in various ways he congratulated himself on the security of his own, "as safe as Vavel," he would repeat.

One sunny morning in March, just as he decided to stop on his way from work to withdraw the three hundred dollars for Agatha's expenses, there came to him a neighbor, in great excitement. Peter's face was red, his eyes startling and his voice hoa.r.s.e.

"That--that robber, that scoundrel!" he stuttered. "That Skeemersky.

He has gone, gone, do you hear? He has taken it all, all the money in his cursed bank."

Stefan could not believe his ears. Skeemersky gone, and the money, too! "As safe as Vavel!" he had said. He stared for a moment and then broke out, weeping for the first time since his mother's death, cursing the smooth trickster with hearty Polish curses.

"May the thunder-bolt strike him!" he cried. "I will lay hands on him.

I will choke that money out of his black soul. Come, we will go!"

They rushed out, boiling with rage, only to find a crowd of other dupes before the shabby little office in the side-alley. The tightly closed door and the blank windows told the story more clearly than any words. Skeemersky had gone--the bank was no more!

Despair took strong hold of Stefan. For two days he roamed the streets, not eating nor drinking, sleepless. He saw no further, no hope--all was blackness and desolation. When he came back to the boarding house on the third day he found a letter from Agatha. He read it with tears and intolerable anguish and he pa.s.sionately kissed the final sentence: "Every bit of me is yours and I shall never change."

This tender faith was balm to his anguish.

He put the letter in a pocket nearest his heart, while a new look came to his tired face. Almost unconsciously he began to build a new future on the ruins of the old.