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Josh Juneau and Luciano Manelli

Java 17 Recipes
A Problem-Solution Approach
4th ed.
Josh Juneau
Hinckley, IL, USA

Luciano Manelli
TARANTO, Taranto, Italy

ISBN 978-1-4842-7962-5 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-7963-2

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-7963-2

© Josh Juneau, Luciano Manelli 2022

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Apress imprint is published by the registered company APress
Media, LLC part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY
10004, U.S.A.
This book is dedicated to my wife and children.
—Josh Juneau
To my daughter, Sara
To my son, Marco
To my mum, Anna
Everyone must always follow their dreams and fight for them.
—Luciano Manelli
Introduction
This book teaches you many features of the Java programming
language, from those introduced in Java 1.0 to those that made their
way to Java 17. Released in September 2021, the Java Development Kit
(JDK) 17 is a long-term support (LTS) release (i.e., a stable release
supported for several years). Java is backward compatible. Even if a
new Java version is released every six months, you do not need to learn
a specific version. Rather, you need to get a good foundation in all
language features to use them in your applications. Since the last
edition of this book, many enhancements have occurred. This book
includes new recipes covering features from Java 9 to Java 17. The
recipes you implement always use open source tools, such as OpenJDK
and Eclipse.
This book covers the fundamentals of Java development, such as
installing the JDK, writing classes, and running applications. It delves
into essential topics such as the development of object-oriented
constructs, exception handling, unit testing, and localization. This book
can be used as a guide for solving problems that ordinary Java
developers may encounter at some point, as a starting point for anyone
beginning the study of Java for the first time, or for developers who
have used the Java language for some time to refine Java development
skills. It will also be useful to help advanced Java application developers
to learn a thing or two regarding the language's new features and
perhaps even stumble upon some techniques that were not used in the
past. This book discusses a broad range of topics, and the solutions to
the problems covered are concise. Whatever your skill level, this book is
good to have close at hand as a reference for solutions to those
problems that you encounter in your daily programming.
The Java programming language was introduced in 1995 by Sun
Microsystems. Derived from languages such as C and C++, Java was
designed to be more intuitive and easier to use than older languages,
specifically due to its simplistic object model and automated facilities
such as memory management. At the time, Java drew the interest of
developers because of its object-oriented, concurrent architecture,
excellent security and scalability, and applications developed in the Java
language could run on any operating system that contained a JVM. Since
its inception, Java has been described as a language that allows
developers to “write once, run everywhere” as code is compiled into
class files that contain bytecode. The resulting class files can run on any
compliant JVM. This concept made Java an immediate success for
desktop development, which later branched off into different
technological solutions over the years, such as web-based applications.
Today, Java is deployed on a broad range of devices, including mobile
phones, printers, medical devices, and so on.
The Java platform consists of a hierarchy of components, starting
with the JDK, which is composed of the Java Runtime Environment
(JRE), the Java programming language, and platform tools that are
necessary to develop and run Java applications. The JRE contains the
JVM, plus the Java application programming interfaces (APIs) and
libraries that assist in developing Java applications. The JVM is the base
upon which compiled Java class files run and is responsible for
interpreting compiled Java classes and executing the code. Every
operating system capable of running Java code has its own version of
the JVM. To that end, the JRE must be installed on any system running
local Java desktop or stand-alone Java applications. But there is no
problem because JRE implementations are provided for most major
operating systems. Each operating system can have its own flavor of the
JRE. For instance, mobile devices can run a scaled-down version of the
full JRE optimized to run Java Mobile Edition (ME) and Java SE
embedded applications. The Java platform APIs and libraries are a
collection of predefined classes used by all Java applications. Any
application that runs on the JVM makes uses the Java platform APIs and
libraries. This allows applications to use the predefined and loaded
functionality into the JVM and leaves developers with more time to
worry about the details of their specific application. The classes that
comprise the Java platform APIs and libraries allow Java applications to
use one set of classes to communicate with the underlying operating
system. As such, the Java platform takes care of interpreting the set of
instructions provided by a Java application into operating system
commands that are required for the machine on which the application
is being executed. This creates a facade for Java developers to write
code against to develop applications that can be written once and run
on every machine that contains a relevant JVM.
 The JVM and the Java platform APIs and libraries play key roles in
the life cycle of every Java application. Entire books have been written
to explore the platform and JVM. This book focuses on the Java
language, which is used to develop Java applications, although the JVM
and Java platform APIs and libraries are referenced as needed. The Java
language is a robust, secure, and modern object-oriented language that
can develop applications to run on the JVM. The Java programming
language has been refined over several iterations, and it becomes more
powerful, secure, and modern with each new release.
This book’s official reference is OpenJDK, an open source
implementation of Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE). For the
recipes, you use Eclipse, an open source Java integrated development
environment (IDE) for developing software applications with various
plug-ins for C/C++, JavaScript, PHP, HTML5, Python and Java
programming languages.
We hope that you enjoy reading this book.
Who This Book Is For
This book is intended for anyone interested in learning the Java
programming language and/or who already knows the language, but
would like some information regarding Java features even if they have
no experience with algorithms. Those who have not yet programmed in
the Java language can read this book, and will allow them to get up and
running quickly. Intermediate and advanced Java developers looking to
update their arsenal with the latest features that Java makes available
to them can also read the book to update and refresh their skill set.
There is, of course, a myriad of other essential topics that will be useful
to Java developers of any type.
How This Book Is Structured
This book is structured such that it does not have to be read from cover
to cover. It is structured so that developers can choose which topics
they wish to read about and jump right to them. Each recipe contains a
problem to solve, one or more solutions to solve that problem, and an
explanation of how the solution works. The book is designed to allow
developers to quickly get a solution up and running so that they can be
home in time for dinner.

Source Code
You can access the source code for this book at
github.com/apress/java17-recipes.
Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the
author in this book is available to readers on GitHub
(https://github.com/Apress). For more detailed information, please
visit http://www.apress.com/source-code.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​Getting Started with Java 17
1-1.​Installing Java
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-2.​Configuring the PATH
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-3.​Testing Java
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-4.​Installing Eclipse
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-5.​Getting to “Hello, World”
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-6.​Configuring the CLASSPATH
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-7.​Organizing Code with Packages
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-8.​Declaring Variables and Access Modifiers
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-9.​Converting to and from a String
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-10.​Passing Arguments via Command-Line Execution
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-11.​Accepting Input from the Keyboard
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-12.​Documenting Your Code
Problem
Solution
How It Works
1-13.​Reading Environment Variables
Problem
 Solution
How It Works
1-14.​Summary
Chapter 2:​Enhancements from Java 9 Through Java 17
2-1.​Introduction to the var Keyword
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-2.​Reading the Contents of Files
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-3.​Writing a Text Block
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-4.​The Enhancement of NullPointerExcep​tion
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-5.​Pattern Matching for instanceof
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-6.​Using Record
Problem
 Solution
How It Works
2-7.​Restore Always-Strict Floating-Point Semantics
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-8.​Pseudorandom Number Generators
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-9.​Sealed Classes
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-10.​The Vector API
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-11.​Avoiding Redundancy in Interface Code
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-12.​Easily Retrieving Information on OS Processes
Problem
Solution
How It Works
 2-13.​Handling try-with-resources Construct
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-14.​Filtering Data Before and After a Condition with Streams
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-15.​Utilizing Factory Methods to Create Immutable
Collections
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-16.​Pattern Matching for switch (Preview)
Problem
Solution
How It Works
2-17.​Summary
Chapter 3:​Strings
3-1.​Compact Strings
3-2.​Obtaining a Subsection of a String
Problem
Solution
How It Works
3-3.​Comparing Strings
Problem
 Solution
How It Works
3-4.​Trimming Whitespace
Problem
Solution
How It Works
3-5.​Discovering Blank Strings
Problem
Solution
How It Works
3-6.​Stripping Whitespace
Problem
Solution
How It Works
3-7.​Breaking String Lines
Problem
Solution
How It Works
3-8.​Repeating Strings
Problem
Solution
How It Works
3-9.​Changing the Case of a String
Problem
Solution
How It Works
3-10.​Concatenating Strings
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
Solution 3
How It Works
3-11.​Converting Strings to Numeric Values
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
3-12.​Iterating Over the Characters of a String
Problem
Solution
How It Works
3-13.​Finding Text Matches
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
3-14.​Replacing All Text Matches
Problem
Solution
How It Works
3-15.​Determining Whether a File Suffix Matches a Given String
Problem
 Solution
How It Works
3-16.​Making a String That Can Contain Dynamic Information
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
3-17.​Summary
Chapter 4:​Numbers and Dates
4-1.​Rounding Float and Double Values to Integers
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-2.​Formatting Double and Long Decimal Values
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-3.​Formatting Compact Number
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-4.​Comparing int Values
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
4-5.​Comparing Floating-Point Numbers
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
4-6.​Randomly Generating Values
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
4-7.​Obtaining the Current Date Without Time
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-8.​Obtaining a Date Object Given Date Criteria
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-9.​Obtaining a Year-Month-Day Date Combination
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
4-10.​Obtaining and Calculating Times Based on the Current
Time
Problem
 Solution
How It Works
4-11.​Obtaining and Using the Date and Time Together
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
Solution 3
How It Works
4-12.​Obtaining a Machine Timestamp
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-13.​Converting Dates and Times Based on he Time Zone
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-14.​Comparing Two Dates
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-15.​Finding the Interval Between Dates and Times
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
4-16.​Obtaining Date-Time from a Specified String
 Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-17.​Formatting Dates for Display
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
4-18.​Writing Readable Numeric Literals
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-19.​Declaring Binary Literals
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-20.​Period of Day
Problem
Solution
How It Works
4-21.​Summary
Chapter 5:​Object-Oriented Java
5-1.​Controlling Access to Members of a Class
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-2.​Making Private Fields Accessible to Other Classes
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-3.​Creating a Class with a Single Instance
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
5-4.​Generating Instances of a Class
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-5.​Creating Reusable Objects
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-6.​Defining an Interface for a Class
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-7.​Modifying Interfaces Without Breaking Existing Code
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-8.​Constructing Instances of the Same Class with Different
Values
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-9.​Interacting with a Class via Interfaces
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-10.​Making a Class Cloneable
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-11.​Comparing Objects
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
5-12.​Extending the Functionality of a Class
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-13.​Defining a Template for Classes to Extend
Problem
Solution
How It Works
 5-14.​Increasing Class Encapsulation
Problem
Solution
How It Works
5-15.​Summary
Chapter 6:​Lambda Expressions
6-1.​Writing a Simple Lambda Expression
Problem
Solution
How It Works
6-2.​Enabling the Use of Lambda Expressions
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
6-3.​Invoking Existing Methods by Name
Problem
Solution
How It Works
6-4.​Sorting with Fewer Lines of Code
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
6-5.​Filtering a Collection of Data
Problem
 Solution
How It Works
6-6.​Implementing Runnable
Problem
Solution
How It Works
6-7.​Accessing Class Variables from a Lambda Expression
Problem
Solution
How It Works
6-8.​Passing Lambda Expressions to Methods
Problem
Solution
How It Works
6-9.​Local Variable
Problem
Solution
How It Works
6-10.​Switch Expressions
Problem
Solution
How It Works
6-11.​Summary
Chapter 7:​Data Sources and Collections
7-1.​Defining a Fixed Set of Related Constants
Problem
 Solution
How It Works
7-2.​Designing Intelligent Constants
Problem
Solution
How It Works
7-3.​Executing Code Based on a Specified Value
Problem
Solution
How It Works
7-4.​Working with Fix-Sized Arrays
Problem
Solution
How It Works
7-5.​Safely Enabling Types or Methods to Operate on Objects of
Various Types
Problem
Solution
How It Works
7-6.​Working with Dynamic Arrays
Problem
Solution
How It Works
7-7.​Making Your Objects Iterable
Problem
Solution
 How It Works
7-8.​Iterating Collections
Problem
Solution
How It Works
7-9.​Iterating Over a Map
Problem
Solution
How It Works
7-10.​Executing Streams in Parallel
Problem
Solution
How It Works
7-11.​Summary
Chapter 8:​Input and Output
8-1.​Serializing Java Objects
Problem
Solution
How It Works
8-2.​Serializing Java Objects More Efficiently
Problem
Solution
How It Works
8-3.​Serializing Java Objects as XML
Problem
Solution
 How It Works
8-4.​Creating a Socket Connection and Sending Serializable
Objects Across the Wire
Problem
Solution
How It Works
8-5.​Obtaining the Java Execution Path
Problem
Solution
How It Works
8-6.​Copying a File
Problem
Solution
How It Works
8-7.​Moving a File
Problem
Solution
How It Works
8-8.​Iterating Over Files in a Directory
Problem
Solution
How It Works
8-9.​Querying (and Setting) File Metadata
Problem
Solution
How It Works
 8-10.​Monitoring a Directory for Content Changes
Problem
Solution
How It Works
8-11.​Reading Property Files
Problem
Solution
How It Works
8-12.​Uncompressing Files
Problem
Solution
How It Works
8-13.​Summary
Chapter 9:​Exceptions and Logging
9-1.​Catching Exceptions
Problem
Solution
How It Works
9-2.​Guaranteeing a Block of Code Is Executed
Problem
Solution
How It Works
9-3.​Throwing Exceptions
Problem
Solution
How It Works
9-4.​Catching Multiple Exceptions
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
9-5.​Catching the Uncaught Exceptions
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
9-6.​Managing Resources with try/​catch Blocks
Problem
Solution
How It Works
9-7.​Creating an Exception Class
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
9-8.​Logging Events Within Your Application
Problem
Solution
How It Works
9-9.​Rotating and Purging Logs
Problem
Solution
 How It Works
9-10.​Logging Exceptions
Problem
Solution
How It Works
9-11.​Summary
Chapter 10:​Concurrency
10-1.​Starting a Background Task
Problem
Solution
How It Works
10-2.​Updating (and Iterating) a Map
Problem
Solution
How It Works
10-3.​Inserting a Key into a Map Only If the Key Is Not Already
Present
Problem
Solution
How It Works
10-4.​Iterating Through a Changing Collection
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
10-5.​Coordinating Different Collections
 Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
10-6.​Splitting Work into Separate Threads
Problem
Solution
How It Works
10-7.​Coordinating Threads
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
Solution 3
How It Works
10-8.​Creating Thread-Safe Objects
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
10-9.​Implementing Thread-Safe Counters
Problem
Solution
How It Works
10-10.​Updating a Common Value Across Multiple Threads
Problem
Solution
 How It Works
10-11.​Executing Multiple Tasks Asynchronously
Problem
Solution
How It Works
10-12.​Summary
Chapter 11:​Unicode, Internationaliza​tion, and Currency Codes
11-1.​Converting Unicode Characters to Digits
Problem
Solution
How It Works
11-2.​Creating and Working with Locales
Problem
Solution
How It Works
11-3.​Matching and Filtering Locales
Problem
Solution
How It Works
11-4.​Searching Unicode with Regular Expressions
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
11-5.​Overriding the Default Currency
Problem
 Solution
How It Works
11-6.​Converting Byte Arrays to and from Strings
Problem
Solution
How It Works
11-7.​Converting Character Streams and Buffers
Problem
Solution 1
Solution 2
How It Works
11-8.​Summary
Chapter 12:​Working with Databases
12-1.​Installing MySQL
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-2.​Connecting to a Database
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-3.​Handling Connection and SQL Exceptions
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-4.​Querying a Database and Retrieving Results
 Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-5.​Performing CRUD Operations
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-6.​Simplifying Connection Management
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-7.​Guarding Against SQL Injection
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-8.​Performing Transactions
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-9.​Creating a Scrollable ResultSet
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-10.​Creating an Updatable ResultSet
Problem
Solution
 How It Works
12-11.​Caching Data for Use When Disconnected
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-12.​Obtaining Dates for Database Use
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-13.​Closing Resources Automatically
Problem
Solution
How It Works
12-14.​Summary
Chapter 13:​Java Web Applications
13-1.​Installing Tomcat
Problem
Solution
How It Works
13-2.​Creating an HTML Page
Problem
Solution
How It Works
13-3.​Creating a JSP Page
Problem
Solution
 How It Works
13-4.​Listing the HTML-Request Parameters
Problem
Solution
How It Works
13-5.​Creating and Configuring a Web Project
Problem
Solution
How It Works
13-6.​Creating a Servlet
Problem
Solution
How It Works
13-7.​Using a Servlet for Representing Values
Problem
Solution
How It Works
13-8.​Summary
Chapter 14:​Email
14-1.​Installing JavaMail
Problem
Solution
How It Works
14-2.​Sending an Email
Problem
Solution
 How It Works
14-3.​Attaching Files to an Email Message
Problem
Solution
How It Works
14-4.​Sending an HTML Email
Problem
Solution
How It Works
14-5.​Sending Email to a Group of Recipients
Problem
Solution
How It Works
14-6.​Checking Email
Problem
Solution
How It Works
14-7.​Summary
Chapter 15:​JSON and XML Processing
15-1.​Writing an XML File
Problem
Solution
How It Works
15-2.​Reading an XML File
Problem
Solution 1
 Solution 2
How It Works
15-3.​Transforming XML
Problem
Solution
How It Works
15-4.​Validating XML
Problem
Solution
How It Works
15-5.​Working with JSON
Problem
Solution
How It Works
15-6.​Building a JSON Object
Problem
Solution
How It Works
15-7.​Writing a JSON Object to File
Problem
Solution
How It Works
15-8.​Parsing a JSON Object
Problem
Solution
How It Works
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
children, and, on his widow's death, the property went to his much
younger brother Charles, who, from having been as a stripling on
some forgotten Governor's staff, bore through life the title of Colonel
in the local speech.
This Colonel Parmalee had a certain distinction, too, though not
of a martial character. His home was in New York, and for many
years Octavius never laid eyes on him. He was understood to occupy
a respected place among American men of letters, though exactly
what he wrote did not come to our knowledge. It was said that he
had been at Brook Farm. I have not been able to find any one who
remembers him there, but the report is of use as showing the
impression of superior intellectual force which he created, even by
hearsay, in his native village. When he finally came back to us, to
play his part as the head of the Parmalee house, we saw at intervals,
when the sun was warm and the sidewalks were dry, the lean and
bent figure of an old man, with a very yellow face and a sharp-
edged brown wig, moving feebly about with a thick gray shawl over
his shoulders. His housekeeper was an elderly maiden cousin, who
seemed never to come out at all, whether the sun was shining or
not.
There were three or four of the Colonel's daughters—all tall,
well-made girls, with strikingly dark skins, and what we took to be
gypsyish faces. Their appearance certainly bore out the rumor that
their mother had been an opera-singer—some said an Italian, others
a lady of Louisiana Creole extraction. No information, except that
she was dead, ever came to hand about this person. Her daughters,
however, were very much in evidence. They seemed always to wear
white dresses, and they were always to be seen somewhere, either
on their lawn playing croquet, or in the streets, or at the windows of
their house. The consciousness of their existence pervaded the
whole village from morning till night. To watch their goings and
comings, and to speculate upon the identity and business of the
friends from strange parts who were continually arriving to visit
them, grew to be quite the standing occupation of the idler portion
of the community.
 Before such of our young people as naturally took the lead in
these matters had had time to decide how best to utilize for the
general good this influx of beauty, wealth, and ancestral dignity, the
village was startled by an unlooked-for occurrence. A red carpet was
spread one forenoon from the curb to the doorway of the Episcopal
Church: the old-fashioned Parmalee carriage turned out, with its
driver clasping white reins in white cotton gloves; we had a confused
glimpse of the dark Parmalee girls with bouquets in their hands, and
dressed rather more in white than usual: and then astonished
Octavius learned that two of them had been married, right there
under its very eyes, and had departed with their husbands. It gave
an angry twist to the discovery to find that the bridegrooms were
both strangers, presumably from New York.
This episode had the figurative effect of doubling or trebling the
height of that stone wall which stood between the Parmalee place
and the public. Such budding hopes and projects of intimacy as our
villagers may have entertained toward these polished new-comers
fell nipped and lifeless on the stroke. Shortly afterward—that is to
say, in the autumn of 1860—the family went away, and the big
house was shut up. News came in time that the Colonel was dead:
something was said about another daughter's marriage; then the
war broke out, and gave us other things to think of. We forgot all
about the Parmalees.
It must have been in the last weeks of 1861 that our vagrant
attention was recalled to the subject by the appearance in the village
of an elderly married couple of servants, who took up their quarters
in the long empty mansion, and began fitting it once more for
habitation. They set all the chimneys smoking, shovelled the garden
paths clear of snow, laid in huge supplies of firewood, vegetables,
and the like, and turned the whole place inside out in a vigorous
convulsion of housecleaning. Their preparations were on such a
bold, large scale that we assumed the property must have passed to
some voluminous collateral branch of the family, hitherto unknown
to us. It came indeed to be stated among us, with an air of certainty,
that a remote relation named Amos or Erasmus Parmalee, with eight
or more children and a numerous adult household, was coming to
live there. The legend of this wholly mythical personage had nearly a
fortnight's vogue, and reached a point of distinctness where we
clearly understood that the coming stranger was a violent
secessionist. This seemed to open up a troubled and sinister
prospect before loyal Octavius, and there was a good deal of plain
talk in the barroom of the Excelsior Hotel as to how this impending
crisis should be met.
It was just after New Year's that our suspense was ended. The
new Parmalees came, and Octavius noted with a sort of
disappointed surprise that they turned out to be merely a shorn and
trivial remnant of the old Parmalees. They were in fact only a couple
of women—the elderly maiden cousin who had presided before over
the Colonel's household, and the youngest of his daughters, by
name Miss Julia. What was more, word was now passed round upon
authority that these were the sole remaining members of the family
—that there never had been any Amos or Erasmus Parmalee at all.
The discovery cast the more heroic of our village home-guards
into a temporary depression. It could hardly have been otherwise,
for here were all their fine and strong resolves, their publicly
registered vows about scowling at the odious Southern sympathizer
in the street, about a "horning" party outside his house at night,
about, perhaps, actually riding him on a rail—all brought to nothing.
A less earnest body of men might have suspected in the situation
some elements of the ridiculous. They let themselves down gently,
however, and with a certain dignified sense of consolation that they
had, at all events, shown unmistakably how they would have dealt
with Amos or Erasmus Parmalee if there had been such a man, and
he had moved to Octavius and had ventured to flaunt his rebel
sentiments in their outraged faces.
The village, as a whole, consoled itself on more tangible
grounds. It has been stated that Miss Julia Parmalee arrived at the
family homestead in early January. Before April had brought the
buds and birds, this young woman had become President of the St.
Mark's Episcopal Ladies' Aid Society; had organized a local branch of
the Sanitary Commission, and assumed active control of all its
executive and clerical functions; had committed the principal people
of the community to holding a grand festival and fair in May for the
Field Hospital and nurse fund; had exhibited in the chief store
window on Main Street a crayon portrait of her late father, and four
water-color drawings of European scenery, all her own handiwork;
had published over her signature, in the Thessaly Banner of Liberty,
an original and spirited poem on "Pale Columbia, Shriek to Arms!"
which no one could read without patriotic thrills; and had been
reported, on more or less warrant of appearances, to be engaged to
four different young men of the place. Truly a remarkable young
woman!
We were only able in a dim kind of way to identify her with one
of the group of girls in white dresses whom the village had stared at
and studied from a distance two years before. There was no mystery
about it, however: she was the youngest of them. They had all
looked so much alike, with their precocious growth, their olive skins
and foreign features, that we were quite surprised to find now that
this one, regarded by herself, must be a great deal younger than the
others. Perhaps it was only our rustic shyness which had imputed to
the sisterhood, in that earlier experience, the hauteur and icy
reserve of the rich and exclusive. We recognized now that if the
others were at all like Julia, we had made an absurd mistake. It was
impossible that anyone could be freer from arrogance or pretence
than Octavius found her to be. There were some, indeed, who
deemed her emancipation almost too complete.
Some there were, too, who denied that she was beautiful, or
even very good-looking. There is an old daguerreotype of her as she
was in those days—or rather as she seemed to be to the unskilled
sunbeams of the sixties—which gives these censorious people the lie
direct. It is true that her hair is confined in a net at the sides and
drawn stiffly across her temples from the parting. The full throat
rises sheer from a flat horizon of striped dress goods, and is offered
no relief whatever by the wide falling-away collar of coarse lace. And
oh! the strangeness of that frock! The shoulder seams are to be
looked for half-way down the upper arm, the sleeves swell
themselves out into shapeless bags, the waist front might be the
cover of a chair, of a guitar, of the documents in a corporation suit—
of anything under the sun rather than the form of a charming girl.
Yet, when you look at this thin old picture, all the same, you feel
that you understand how it was that Julia Parmalee took the shine
out of all the other girls in Octavius.
This is the likeness of her which always seemed to me the best,
but Marsena Pulford made a great many others as well. When you
reflect, indeed, that his output of portraits of Julia Parmalee was
limited in time to the two months of April and May, their number
suggests that he could hardly have done anything else the while.
The first of this large series of pictures was the one which
Marsena liked least. It is true that Julia looked well in it, standing
erect, with a proud, fine backward tilt to her dark face and a
delicately formed white hand resting gracefully on the back of a
chair. But it happened that in that chair was seated Lieut. Dwight
Ransom, all spick and span in his new uniform, with his big gauntlets
and sword hilt brought prominently forward, and with a kind of
fatuous smile on his ruddy face, as if he felt the presence of those
fair fingers on the chair-back, so teasingly close to his shoulder-
strap.
Marsena, in truth, had a strong impulse to run a destroying
thumbnail over the seated figure on this plate, when the action of
the developer began to reveal its outlines under the faint yellow light
in the dark-room. Of all the myriad pictures he had washed and
drained and nursed in their wet growth over this tank, no other had
ever stirred up in his breast such a swift and sharp hostility. He
lavished the deadly cyanide upon that portion of the plate, too, with
grim unction, and noted the results with a scornful curl on his lip.
Like his partner downstairs, he was wondering what on earth
possessed Miss Parmalee to take up with a Dwight Ransom. The
frown was still on his brow when he opened the dark-room door.
Then he started back, flushed red, and labored at an embarrassed
smile. Miss Parmalee had left her place, and stood right in front of
him, so near that he almost ran against her. She beamed confidently
and reassuringly upon him.
"Oh, I want to come in and see you do all that," she exclaimed,
with vivacity. "It didn't occur to me till after you'd shut the door, or
I'd have asked to come in with you. I have the greatest curiosity
about all these matters. Oh, it is all done? That's too bad! But you
can make another one—and that I can see from the beginning. You
know, I'm something of an artist myself; I've taken lessons for years
—and this all interests me so much! No, Lieutenant!"—she called out
from where she was standing just inside the open door, at sound of
her companion's rising—"you stay where you are! There's going to
be another, and it's such trouble to get you posed properly. Try and
keep exactly as you were!"
Thus it happened that she stood very close to Marsena, as he
took out another plate, flooded it with the sweet-smelling, pungent
collodion, and, with furtive precautions against the light, lowered it
down into the silver bath. Then he had to shut the door, and she
was still there just beside him. He heard himself pretending to
explain the processes of the films to her, but his mind was
concentrated instead upon a suggestion of perfume which she had
brought into the reeking little cupboard of a room, and which
mingled languorously with the scents of ether and creosote in the
air. He had known her by sight for but a couple of months; he had
been introduced to her only a week or so ago, and that in the most
casual way; yet, strange enough, he could feel his hand trembling as
it perfunctorily moved the plate dipper up and down in the bath.
A gentle voice fell upon the darkness. "Do you know, Mr.
Pulford," it murmured, "I felt sure that you were an artist, the very
first time I saw you."
Marsena heaved a long sigh—a sigh with a tremulous catch in it,
as where sorrow and sweet solace should meet. "I did start out to
be one," he answered, "but I—I never amounted to anything at it. I
tried for years, but I wasn't any good. I had to give it up—at last—
and take to this instead."
He lifted the plate with caution, bent to look obliquely across its
surface, and lowered it again. Then all at once he turned abruptly
and faced her. They were so close to each other that even in the
obscure gloom she caught the sudden flash of resolution in his eyes.
"I'll tell you what I never told any other living soul," he said,
beginning with husky eagerness, but lapsing now into grave
deliberation of emphasis: "I hate—this—like pizen!"
In the silence which followed, Marsena mechanically took the
plate from the bath, fastened it in the holder, and stepped to the
door. Then he halted, to prolong for one little instant this tender
spell of magic which had stolen over him. Here, in the close
darkness beside him, was a sorceress, a siren, who had at a glance
read his sore heart's deepest secret—at a word drawn the confession
of his maimed and embittered pride. It was like being shut up with
an angel, who was also a beautiful woman. Oh, the wonder of it!
Broad sunlit landscapes with Italian skies seemed to be forming
themselves before his mind's eye; his soul sang songs within him.
He very nearly dropped the plate-holder.
The soft, hovering, half touch of a hand upon his arm, the cool,
restful tones of the voice in the darkness, came to complete the
witchery.
"I know," she said, "I can sympathize with you. I also had my
dreams, my aspirations. But you are wrong to think that you have
failed. Why, this beautiful work of yours, it all is Art—pure Art. No
person who really knows could look at it and not see that. No, Mr.
Pulford, you do yourself an injustice; believe me, you do. Why, you
couldn't help being an artist if you tried; it's born in you. It shows in
everything you do. I saw it from the very first."
The unmistakable sound of Dwight Ransom's large artillery boots
moving on the floor outside intervened here, and Marsena hurriedly
opened the door. The Lieutenant glanced with good-natured raillery
at the couple who stood revealed, blinking in the sharp light.
"One of my legs got asleep," he remarked, by way of
explanation, "so I had to get up and stamp around. I began to
think," he added, "that you folks were going to set up housekeeping
in there, and not come out any more at all."
"Don't be vulgar, if you please," said Julia Parmalee, with a dash
of asperity in what purported to be a bantering tone. "We were
talking of matters quite beyond you—of Art, if you desire to know.
Mr. Pulford and I discover that we have a great many opinions and
sentiments about Art in common. It is a feeling that no one can
understand unless they have it."
"It's the same with getting one's leg asleep," said Dwight, "quite
the same, I assure you;" and then came the laughter which Newton
Shull heard downstairs.

III.

A DAY or two later Battery G left Octavius for the seat of war.
It was not nearly so imposing an event as a good many
others which had stirred the community during the previous twelve
months. There were already two regiments in the field recruited
from our end of Dearborn County, and in these at least six or seven
companies were made up wholly of Octavius men. There had been
big crowds, with speeches and music by the band, to see them off at
the old depot.
When they returned, their short term of service having expired,
there were still more fervent demonstrations, to which zest was
added by the knowledge that they were all to enlist again, and then
we shortly celebrated their second departure. Some there were who
returned in mute and cold finality—term of enlistment and life alike
cut short—and these were borne through our streets with sombre
martial pageantry, the long wail of the funeral march reaching out to
include the whole valley side in its note of lamentation. Besides all
this, hardly a week passed that those of us who hung about the
station could not see a train full of troops on their way to or from the
South. A year of these experiences had left us seasoned veterans in
sightseeing, by no means to be fluttered by trifles.
As a matter of fact, the village did not take Battery G very
seriously. To begin with, it mustered only some dozen men, at least
so far as our local contribution went, and there was a feeling that we
couldn't be expected to go much out of our way for such a paltry
number. Then, again, an artillery force was somehow out of joint
with our notion of what Octavius should do to help suppress the
Rebellion. Infantrymen with muskets we could all understand—could
all be, if necessary. Many of the farmer boys round about, too, made
good cavalrymen, because they knew both how to ride and how to
groom a horse. But in the name of all that was mysterious, why
artillerymen? There had never been a cannon within fifty miles of
Octavius; that is, since the Revolution. Certainly none of our citizens
had the least idea how to fire one off. These enlisted men of Battery
G were no better posted than the rest; it would take them a three
days' journey to reach the point where for the first time they were to
see their strange weapon of warfare. This seemed to us rather
foolish.
Moreover, there was a government proclamation just out, it was
said, discontinuing further enlistments and disbanding the recruiting
offices scattered over the North. This appeared to imply that the war
was about over, or at least that they had more soldiers already than
they knew what to do with. There were some who questioned
whether, under these circumstances, it was worth while for Battery G
to go at all.
But go it did, and at the last moment quite a throng of people
found themselves gathered at the station to say good-by. A good
many of these were the relations and friends of the dozen ordinary
recruits, who would not even get their uniforms and swords till they
reached Tecumseh. But the larger portion, I should think, had come
on account of Lieutenant Ransom.
Dwight was hail-fellow-well-met with more people within a
radius of twenty miles or so, probably, than any other man in the
district. He was a good-looking young man, rather stocky in build
and deeply sunburned. Through the decent months of the year he
was always out of doors, either tramping over the country with a
level over his shoulder, or improving the days with a shotgun or fish
pole. At these seasons he was generally to be found of an evening at
the barber's shop, where he told more new stories than any one
else. When winter came his chief work was in his office, drawing
maps and plans. He let his beard grow then, and spent his leisure
for the most part playing checkers at the Excelsior Hotel.
His habitual free-and-easy dress and amiable laxity of manners
tended to obscure in the village mind the facts that he came from
one of the best families of the section, that he had been through
college, and that he had some means of his own. His mother and
sisters were very respectable people indeed, and had one of the
most expensive pews in the Episcopal Church. It was not observed,
however, that Dwight ever accompanied them thither or that he
devoted much of his time to their society at home. It began to be
remarked, here and there, that it was getting to be about time for
Dwight Ransom to steady down, if he was ever going to. Although
everybody liked him and was glad to see him about, an impression
was gradually shaping itself that he never would amount to much.
All at once Dwight staggered the public consciousness by putting
on his best clothes one Sunday and going with his folks to church.
Those who saw him on the way there could not make it out at all,
except on the hypothesis that there had been a death in the family.
Those who encountered him upon his return from the sacred edifice,
however, found a clue to the mystery ready made. He was walking
home with Julia Parmalee.
There were others whose passionate desire it was to walk home
with Julia. They had been enlivening Octavius with public displays of
their rivalry for something like two months when Dwight appeared
on the scene as a competitor. Easy-going as he was in ordinary
matters, he revealed himself now to be a hustler in the courts of
love. It took him but a single day to drive the teller of the bank from
the field. The Principal of the Seminary, a rising young lawyer, and
the head bookkeeper at the freight-house, severally went by the
board within a fortnight.
There remained old Dr. Conger's son Emory, who was of a
tougher fibre and gave Dwight several added weeks of combat. He
enjoyed the advantage of having nothing whatever to do. He
possessed, moreover, a remarkably varied wardrobe and white
hands, and loomed unique among the males of our town in his
ability to play on the piano. With such aids a young man may go far
in a quiet neighborhood, and for a time Emory Conger certainly
seemed to be holding his own, if not more. His discomfiture, when it
came, was dramatic in its swift completeness. One forenoon we saw
Dwight on the street in a new and resplendent officer's uniform, and
learned that he had been commissioned to raise a battery. That very
evening the doctor's son left town, and the news went round that
Lieutenant Ransom was engaged to Miss Parmalee.
An impression prevailed that Dwight would not have objected to
let the matter rest there. He had gained his point, and might well
regard the battery and the War itself as things which had served
their purpose and could now be dispensed with. No one would have
blamed him much for feeling that way about it.
But this was not Julia's view. She adopted the battery for her
own while it was still little more than a name, and swept it forward
with such a swirling rush of enthusiasm that the men were all
enlisted, the organization settled, and the date of departure for the
front sternly fastened, before anybody could lay a hand to the
brakes. Her St. Mark's Ladies' Aid Society presented Dwight with a
sword. Her branch of the Sanitary Commission voted to entertain the
battery with a hot meal in the depot yard before it took the train. We
have seen how she went and had herself photographed standing
proudly behind the belted and martial Dwight. After these things it
was impossible for Battery G to back out.
The artillerymen had a bright blue sky and a warm sunlit
noontide for their departure. Even the most cynical of those who had
come to see them off yielded toward the end to the genial influence
of the weather and the impulse of good-fellowship, and joined in the
handshaking at the car windows, and in the volley of cheers which
were raised as the train drew slowly out of the yard.
At this moment the ladies of the Sanitary Commission had to
bestir themselves to save the remnant of oranges and sandwiches
on their tables from the swooping raid of the youth of Octavius, and,
what with administering cuffs and shakings, and keeping their
garments out of the way of coffee-cups overturned in the scramble,
had no time to watch Julia Parmalee.
The men gathered in the yard kept her steadily in view, however,
as she stood prominently in front of the throng, on the top of a
baggage truck, and waved her handkerchief until the train had
dwindled into nothingness down the valley. These observers had an
eye also on three young men who had got as near this truck as
possible. Interest in Dwight and his battery was already giving place
to curiosity as to which of these three—the bank-teller, the freight-
house clerk, or the rising young lawyer—would win the chance of
helping Julia down off her perch.
No one was prepared for what really happened. Miss Parmalee
turned and looked thoughtfully, one might say abstractedly, about
her. Somehow she seemed not to see any of the hands which were
eagerly uplifted toward her. Instead, her musing gaze roved lightly
over the predatory scuffle among the tables, over the ancient depot
building, over the assembled throng of citizens in the background,
then wandered nearer, with the pretty inconsequence of a butterfly's
flight. Of course it was the farewell to Dwight which had left that
soft, rosy flush in her dark, round cheeks. The glance that she was
sending idly fluttering here and there did not seem so obviously
connected with the Lieutenant. Of a sudden it halted and went into a
smile.
"Oh, Mr. Pulford! May I trouble you?" she said in very distinct
tones, bending forward over the edge of the truck, and holding forth
two white and most shapely hands.
Marsena was standing fully six feet away. Like the others, he had
been looking at Miss Parmalee, but with no hint of expectation in his
eyes. This abrupt summons seemed to surprise him even more than
it did the crowd. He started, changed color, fixed a wistful, almost
pleading stare upon the sunlit vacancy just above the head of the
enchantress, and confusedly fumbled with his glove tips, as if to
make bare his hands for this great function. Then, straightening
himself, he slowly moved toward her like one in a trance.
The rivals edged out of Marsena's way in dumfounded silence, as
if he had been walking in his sleep, and waking were dangerous. He
came up, made a formal bow, and lifted his gloved hands in
chivalrous pretence of guiding the graceful little jump which brought
Miss Parmalee to the ground—all with a pale, motionless face upon
which shone a solemn ecstasy.
It was Marsena's habit, when out of doors, to carry his right
hand in the breast of his frock-coat. As he made an angle of his
elbow now, from sheer force of custom, Julia promptly took the
movement as a proffer of physical support, and availed herself of it.
Marsena felt himself thrilling from top to toe at the touch of her
hand upon his sleeve. If there rose in his mind an awkward
consciousness that this sort of thing was unusual in Octavius by
daylight, the embarrassment was only momentary. He held himself
proudly erect, and marched out of the depot yard with Miss
Parmalee on his arm.
As Homer Sage remarked that evening on the stoop of the
Excelsior Hotel, this event made the departure of Battery G seem by
comparison very small potatoes indeed.
 It was impossible for the twain not to realize that everybody was
looking at them, as they made their way up the shady side of the
main street. But there is another language of the hands than that
taught in deaf-mute schools, and Julia's hand seemed to tell
Marsena's arm distinctly that she didn't care a bit. As for him, after
that first nervous minute or two, the experience was all joy—joy so
profound and overwhelming that he could only ponder it in dazzled
silence. It is true that Julia was talking—rattling on with sprightly
volubility about all sorts of things—but to Marsena her remarks no
more invited answers than does so much enthralling music. When
she stopped for a breath he did not remember what she had been
saying. He only knew how he felt.
"I wish you'd come straight to the gallery with me," he said; "I'd
like first-rate to make a real picture of you—by yourself."

"Well, I swow!" remarked Mr. Newton Shull, along in the later

afternoon; "I didn't expect we'd make our salt to-day, with Marsena
away pretty near the whole forenoon, and all the folks down to the
depot, and here it turns out way the best day we've had yet.
Actually had to send people away!"
"Guess that didn't worry him much," commented the boy, from
where he sat on the work-bench swinging his legs in idleness.
Mr. Shull nodded his head suggestively. "No, I dare say not," he
said. "I kind o' begrudge not bein' an operator myself, when such
setters as that come in. She must have been up there, a full two
hours—them two all by themselves—and the countrymen loafin'
around out in the reception-room there, stompin' their feet and
grindin' their teeth, jest tired to death o' waitin'. It went agin my
grain to tell them last two lots they'd have to come some other day;
but—I dunno—perhaps it's jest as well. They'll go and tell it around
that we've got more'n we can do—and that's good for business. But,
all the same, it seemed to me as if he took considerable more time
than was really needful. He can turn out four farmers in fifteen
minutes, if he puts on a spurt; and here he was a full two hours, and
only five pictures of her to show for it."
"Six," said the boy.
"Yes, so it was—countin' the one with her hair let down," Mr.
Shull admitted. "I dunno whether that one oughtn't to be a little
extry. I thought o' tellin' her that it would be, on account of so much
hair consumin' more chemicals; but—I dunno'—somehow—she sort
o' looked as if she knew better. Did you ever notice them eyes o'
hern, how they look as if they could see straight through you, and
out on the other side?"
The boy shook his head. "I don't bother my head about women,"
he said. "Got somethin' better to do."
"Guess that's a pretty good plan too," mused Mr. Shull.
"Somehow you can't seem to make 'em out at all. Now, I've been
around a good deal, and yet somehow I don't feel as if I knew much
about women. I'm bound to say, though," he added upon reflection,
"they know considerable about me."
"I suppose the first thing we know now," remarked the boy,
impatiently changing the subject, "McClellan'll be in Richmond. They
say it's liable to happen now any day."
Newton Shull was but a lukewarm patriot. "They needn't hurry
on my account," he said. "It would be kind o' mean to have the
whole thing fizzle out now, jest when the picture business has begun
to amount to something. Why, we must have took in up'ards of $11
to-day—frames and all—and two years ago we'd a' been lucky to get
in $3. Let's see: there's two fifties and five thirty-five's, that's $2.75,
and the Dutch boy with the drum, that's $3.40, counting the mat,
and then there's Miss Parmalee—four daguerreotypes, and two
negatives, and small frames for each, and two large frames for
crayons she's going to do herself, and cord and nails—I suppose
she'll think them ought to be thrown in——"
"What! didn't you make her pay in advance?" asked the boy. "I
thought everybody had to."
 "You got to humor some folks," explained Mr. Shull, with a note
of regret in his voice. "These big bugs with plenty o' money always
have to be waited on. It ain't right, but it has to be. Besides, you can
always slide on an extra quarter or so when you send in the bill.
That sort o' evens the thing up. Now, in her case, for instance,
where we'd charge ordinary folks a dollar for two daguerreotypes,
we can send her in a bill for——"
Neither Mr. Shull nor the boy had heard Marsena's descending
steps on the staircase, yet at this moment he entered the little work-
room and walked across it to the bay window, where the printing
was done. There was an unusual degree of abstraction in his face
and mien—unusual even for him—and he drummed absent-mindedly
on the panes as he stood looking out at the street or the sky, or
whatever it was his listless gaze beheld.
"How much do you think it 'ud be safe to stick Miss Parmalee
apiece for them daguerreotypes?" asked Newton Shull of his partner.
Marsena turned and stared for a moment as if he doubted
having heard aright. Then he made curt answer: "She is not to be
charged anything at all. They were made for her as presents."
It was the other partner's turn to stare.
"Well, of course—if you say it's all right," he managed to get out,
"but I suppose on the frames we can——"
"The frames are presents, too," said Marsena, with decision.

IV.

D URING the fortnight or three weeks following the departure of

Battery G it became clear to everyone that the War was as
good as over. It had lasted already a whole year, but now the end
was obviously at hand. The Union Army had the Rebels cooped up in
Yorktown—the identical place where the British had been compelled
to surrender at the close of the Revolution—and it was impossible
that they should get away. The very coincidence of locality was
enough in itself to convince the most skeptical.
We read that Fitz John Porter had a balloon fastened by a rope,
in which he daily went up and took a look through his field-glasses
at the Rebels, all miserably huddled together in their trap, awaiting
their doom. Our soldiers wrote home now that final victory could
only be a matter of a few weeks, or months at the most. Some of
them said they would surely be home by haying time. Their letters
no longer dwelt upon battles, or the prospect of battles, but
gossiped about the jealousies and quarrels among our generals, who
seemed to dislike one another much more than they did the
common enemy, and told us long and quite incredible tales about
the mud in Virginia. No soldier's letter that spring was complete
without a chapter on the mud. There were stories about mules and
their contraband drivers being bodily sunk out of sight in these
weltering seas of mire, and of new boots being made for the officers
to come up to their armpits, which we hardly knew whether to
believe or not. But about the fact that peace was practically within
view there could be no doubt.
Under the influence of this mood, Miss Parmalee's ambitious
project for a grand fair and festival in aid of the Field Hospital and
Nurse Fund naturally languished. If the War was coming to a close
so soon, there could be no use in going to so much worry and
trouble, to say nothing of the expense.
Miss Julia seemed to take this view of it herself. She ceased
active preparations for the fair, and printed in the Thessaly Banner of
Liberty a beautiful poem over her own name entitled "The Dove-like
Dawn of White-winged Peace." She also got herself some new and
summery dresses, of gay tints and very fashionable form, and went
to be photographed in each. Her almost daily presence at the gallery
came, indeed, to be a leading topic of conversation in Octavius.
Some said that she was taking lessons of Marsena—learning to make
photographs—but others put a different construction on the matter
and winked as they did so.
As for Marsena, he moved about the streets these days with his
head among the stars, in a state of rapt and reverent exaltation. He
had never been what might be called a talker, but now it was as
much as the best of us could do to get any kind of word from him.
He did not seem to talk to Julia any more than to the general public,
but just luxuriated with a dumb solemnity of joy in her company,
sitting sometimes for hours beside her on the piazza of the Parmalee
house, or focusing her pretty image with silent delight on the ground
glass of his best camera day after day, or walking with her, arm in
arm, to the Episcopal church on Sundays. He had always been a
Presbyterian before, but now he bore himself in the prominent
Parmalee pew at St. Mark's with stately correctness, rising, kneeling,
seating himself, just as the others did, and helping Miss Julia hold
her Prayer Book with an air of having known the ritual from
childhood.
No doubt a good many people felt that all this was rough on the
absent Dwight Ransom, and probably some of them talked openly
about it; but interest in this aspect of the case was swallowed up in
the larger attention now given to Marsena Pulford himself. It began
to be reported that he really came of an extraordinarily good family
in New England, and that an uncle of his had been in Congress. The
legend that he had means of his own did not take much root, but it
was admitted that he must now be simply coining money. Some
went so far as to estimate his annual profits as high as $1,500,
which sounded to the average Octavian like a dream. It was
commonly understood that he had abandoned an earlier intention to
buy a house and lot of his own, and this clearly seemed to show that
he counted upon going presently to live in the Parmalee mansion.
People speculated with idle curiosity as to the likelihood of this
coming to pass before the War ended and Battery G returned home.
Suddenly great and stirring news fell upon the startled North and
set Octavius thrilling with excitement, along with every other
community far and near. It was in the first week or so of May that
the surprise came; the Rebels, whom we had supposed to be
securely locked up in Yorktown, with no alternative save starvation
or surrender, decided not to remain there any longer, and
accordingly marched comfortably off in the direction of Richmond!
Quick upon the heels of this came tidings that the Union Army
was in pursuit, and that there had been savage fighting with the
Confederate rear-guard at Williamsburg. The papers said that the
War, so far from ending, must now be fought all over again. The
marvellous story of the Monitor and Merrimac sent our men folks
into a frenzy of patriotic fervor. Our women learned with sinking
hearts that the new Corps which included our Dearborn County
regiments was to bear the brunt of the conflict in this changed order
of things. We were all off again in a hysterical whirl of emotions—
now pride, now horror, now bitter wrath on top.
In the middle of all this the famous Field Hospital and Nurse
Fund Fair was held. The project had slumbered the while people
thought peace so near. It sprang up with renewed and vigorous life
the moment the echo of those guns at Williamsburg reached our
ears. And of course at its head was Julia Parmalee.
It would take a long time and a powerful ransacking of memory
to catalogue the remarkable things which this active young woman
did toward making that fair the success it undoubtedly was. Even
more notable were the things which she coaxed, argued, or shamed
other folks into doing for it. Years afterward there were old people
who would tell you that Octavius had never been quite the same
place since.
For one thing, instead of the Fireman's Hall, with its dingy aspect
and somewhat rowdyish associations, the fair was held in the Court
House, and we all understood that Miss Julia had been able to
secure this favor on account of her late uncle, the Judge, when
anyone else would have been refused. It was under her tireless and
ubiquitous supervision that this solemn old interior now took on a
gay and festal face. Under the inspiration of her glance the members
of the Fire Company and the Alert Baseball Club vied with each other
in borrowing flags and hanging them from the most inaccessible and
adventurous points. The rivalry between the local Freemasons and
Odd Fellows was utilized to build temporary booths at the sides and
down the centre—on a floor laid over the benches by the Carpenters'
Benevolent Association. The ladies' organizations of the various
churches, out of devotion to the Union and jealousy of one another,
did all the rest.
At the sides were the stalls for the sale of useful household
articles, and sedate and elderly matrons found themselves now
dragged from the mild obscurity of homes where they did their own
work, and thrust forward to preside over the sales in these booths,
while thrifty, not to say penurious, merchants came and stood
around and regarded with amazement the merchandise which they
had been wheedled into contributing gratis out of their own stores.
The suggestion that they should now buy it back again paralyzed
their faculties, and imparted a distinct restraint to the festivities at
the sides of the big court-room.
In the centre was a double row of booths for the sale of articles
not so strictly useful, and here the young people congregated. All
the girls of Octavius seemed to have been gathered here—the pretty
ones and the plain ones, the saucy ones and the shy, the maidens
who were "getting along" and the damsels not yet out of their teens.
Stiff, spreading crinolines brushed juvenile pantalettes, and the dark
head of long, shaving-like ringlets contrasted itself with the bold
waterfall of blonde hair. These girls did not know one another very
well, save by little groups formed around the nucleus of a church
association, and very few of them knew Miss Parmalee at all, except,
of course, by sight. But now, astonishing to relate, she recognized
them by name as old friends, shook hands warmly right and left, and
blithely set them all to work and at their ease. The idea of selling
things to young men abashed them by its weird and unmaidenly
novelty. She showed them how it should be done—bringing forward
for the purpose a sheepishly obstinate drug-store clerk, and publicly
dragooning him into paying eighty cents for a leather dog-collar,
despite his protests that he had no dog and hated the whole canine
species, and could get such a strap as that anywhere for fifteen
cents—all amid the greatest merriment. Her influence was so
pervasive, indeed, that even the nicest girls soon got into a state of
giggling familiarity with comparative strangers, which gave their
elders concern, and which in some cases it took many months to
straighten out again. But for the time all was sparkling gaiety. On the
second and final evening, after the oyster supper, the Philharmonics
played and a choir of girls sang patriotic songs. Then the gas was
turned down and the stereopticon show began.
As the last concerted achievement of the firm of Pulford & Shull,
this magic-lantern performance is still remembered. The idea of it, of
course, was Julia's. She suggested it to Marsena, and he gladly
volunteered to make any number of positive plates from appropriate
pictures and portraits for the purpose. Then she pressed Newton
Shull into the service to get a stereopticon on hire, to rig up the
platform and canvas for it, and finally to consent to quit his post
among the Philharmonics when the music ceased, and to go off up
into the gallery to work the slides. He also, during Marsena's
absence one day, made a slide on his own account.
Mr. Shull had not taken very kindly to the idea when Miss Julia
first broached it to him.
"No, I don't know as I ever worked a stereopticon," he said,
striving to look with cold placidity into the winsome and beaming
smile with which she confronted him one day out in the reception-
room. She had never smiled at him before or pretended even to
know his name. "I guess you'd better hire a man up from Tecumseh
to bring the machine and run it himself."
"But you can do it so much better, my dear Mr. Shull!" she urged.
"You do everything so much better! Mr. Pulford often says that he
never knew such a handy man in all his life. It seems that there is
literally nothing that you can't do—except—perhaps—refuse a lady a
great personal favor."
 Miss Julia put this last so delicately, and with such a pretty little
arch nod of the head and turn of the eyes, that Newton Shull
surrendered at discretion. He promised everything on the spot, and
he kept his word. In fact, he more than kept it.
The great evening came, as I have said, and when the lights
were turned down to extinction's verge those who were nearest the
front could distinguish the vacant chair which Mr. Shull had been
occupying, with his bass viol leaning against it. They whispered from
one to another that he had gone up in the gallery to work this new-
fangled contrivance. Then came a flashing broad disk of light on the
screen above the judges' bench, a spreading sibilant murmur of
interest, and the show began.
It was an oddly limited collection of pictures—mainly thin and
feeble copies of newspaper engravings, photographic portraits, and
ideal heads from the magazines. Winfield Scott followed in the wake
of Kossuth, and Garibaldi led the way for John C. Frémont and Lola
Montez. There was applause for the long, homely, familiar face of
Lincoln, and a derisive snicker for the likeness of Jeff Davis turned
upside down. Then came local heroes from the district round about
—Gen. Boyce, Col. McIntyre, and young Adjt. Heron, who had died
so bravely at Ball's Bluff—mixed with some landscapes and statuary,
and a comic caricature or two. The rapt assemblage murmured its
recognitions, sighed its deeper emotions, chuckled over the funny
plates—deeming it all a most delightful entertainment. From time to
time there were long hitches, marked by a curious spluttering noise
above, and the abortive flashes of meaningless light on the screen,
and the explanation was passed about in undertones that Mr. Shull
was having difficulties with the machine.
It was after the longest of these delays that, all at once, an
extremely vivid picture was jerked suddenly upon the canvas, and,
after a few preliminary twitches, settled in place to stare us out of
countenance. There was no room for mistake. It was the portrait of
Miss Julia Parmalee standing proudly erect in statuesque posture,
with one hand resting on the back of a chair, and seated in this chair
was Lieut. Dwight Ransom, smiling amiably.
There was a moment's deadly hush, while we gazed at this
unlooked-for apparition. It seemed, upon examination, as if there
was a certain irony in the Lieutenant's grin. Someone in the
darkness emitted an abrupt snort of amusement, and a general titter
arose, hung in the air for an awkward instant, and then was
drowned by a generous burst of applause. While the people were
still clapping their hands the picture was withdrawn from the screen,
and we heard Newton Shull call down from his perch in the gallery:
"You kin turn up the lights now. They ain't no more to this."
In another minute we were sitting once again in the broad glare
of the gaslight, blinking confusedly at one another, and with a dazed
consciousness that something rather embarrassing had happened.
The boldest of us began to steal glances across to where Miss
Parmalee and Marsena sat, just in front of the steps to the bench.
What Miss Julia felt was beyond guessing, but there she was, at
any rate, bending over and talking vivaciously, all smiles and
collected nerves, to a lady two seats removed. But Marsena
displayed no such presence of mind. He sat bolt upright, with an
extraordinarily white face and a drooping jaw, staring fixedly at the
empty canvas on the wall before him. Such absolute astonishment
was never depicted on human visage before.
Perhaps from native inability to mind his own business, perhaps
with a kindly view of saving an anxious situation, the Baptist minister
rose now to his feet, coughed loudly to secure attention, and began
some florid remarks about the success of the fair, the especial
beauty of the lantern exhibition they had just witnessed, and the
felicitous way in which it had terminated with a portrait of the
beautiful and distinguished young lady to whose genius and
unwearying efforts they were all so deeply indebted. In these times
of national travail and distress, he said, there was a peculiar
satisfaction in seeing her portrait accompanied by that of one of the
courageous and noble young men who had sprung to the defence of
their country. The poet had averred, he continued, that none but the
brave deserved the fair, and so on, and so on.
Miss Julia listened to it all with her head on one side and a
modestly deprecatory half-smile on her face. At its finish she rose,
turned to face everybody, made a pert, laughing little bow, and sat
down again, apparently all happiness. But it was noted that Marsena
did not take his pained and fascinated gaze from that mocking white
screen on the wall straight in front.

They walked in silence that evening to almost the gate of the

Parmalee mansion. Julia had taken his arm, as usual; but Marsena
could not but feel that the touch was different. It was in the nature
of a relief to him that for once she did not talk. His heart was too
sore, his brain too bewildered, for the task of even a one-sided
conversation, such as theirs was wont to be. Then all at once the
silence grew terrible to him—a weight to be lifted at all hazards on
the instant.
"Shull must have made that last slide himself," he blurted out. "I
never dreamt of its being made."
"I thought it came out very well indeed," remarked Miss
Parmalee, "especially his uniform. You could quite see the eagles on
the buttons. You must thank Mr. Shull for me."
"I'll speak to him in the morning about it," said Marsena, with
gloomy emphasis. He sighed, bit his lip, fixed an intent gaze upon
the big dark bulk of the Parmalee house looming before them, and
spoke again. "There's something that I want to say to you, though,
that won't keep till morning."
A tiny movement of the hand on his arm was the only response.
"I see now," Marsena went on, "that I ain't been making any real
headway with you at all. I thought—well—I don't know as I know
just what I did think—but I guess now that it was a mistake."
 Yes—there was a distinct flutter of the little gloved hand. It put a
wild thought into Marsena's head.
"Would you," he began boldly—"I never spoke of it before—but
would you—that is, if I was to enlist and go to the War—would that
make any difference?—you know what I mean."
She looked up at him with magnetic sweetness in her dusky,
shadowed glance. "How can any able-bodied young patriot hesitate
at such a time as this?" she made answer, and pressed his arm.

V.

I T was in this same May, not more than a week after the
momentous episode of the Field Hospital and Nurse Fund Fair,
that Marsena Pulford went off to the War.
There was no ostentation about his departure. He had indeed
been gone for a day or two before it became known in Octavius that
his absence from town meant that he had enlisted down at
Tecumseh. We learned that he had started as a common private, but
everybody made sure that a man of his distinguished appearance
and deportment would speedily get a commission. Everybody, too,
had a theory of some sort as to the motives for this sudden and
strange behavior of his. These theories agreed in linking Miss
Parmalee with the affair, but there were hopeless divergencies as to
the exact part she played in it. One party held that Marsena had
been driven to seek death on the tented field by despair at having
been given the "mitten." Others insisted that he had not been given
the "mitten" at all, but had gone because her well-known martial
ardor made the sacrifice of her betrothed necessary to her peace of
mind. A minority took the view which Homer Sage promulgated from
his tilted-back chair on the stoop of the Excelsior Hotel.
"They ain't nothin' settled betwixt 'em," this student of human
nature declared. "She jest dared him to go, and he went. And if you
only give her time, she'll have the whole male unmarried population
of Octavius, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, down there
wallerin' around in the Virginny swamps, feedin' the muskeeters and
makin' a bid for glory."
But in a few days there came the terribly exciting news of Seven
Pines and Fair Oaks—that first great combat of the revived war in
the East—and we ceased to bother our heads about the
photographer and his love. The enlisting fever sprang up again, and
our young men began to make their way by dozens and scores to
the recruiting office at Tecumseh. There were more farewells, more
tears and prayers, not to mention several funerals of soldiers killed
at Hanover Court House, where that Fifth Corps, which contained
most of our volunteers, had its first spring smell of blood. And soon
thereafter burst upon us the awful sustained carnage of the Seven
Days' fighting, which drove out of our minds even the recollection
that Miss Julia Parmalee herself had volunteered for active service in
the Sanitary Commission, and gone South to take up her work.
And so July 3d came, bringing with it the bare tidings of that
closing desperate battle of the week at Malvern Hill, and the
movement of what was left of the Army of the Potomac to a safe
resting place on the James River. We were beginning to get the
details of local interest by the slow single wire from Thessaly, and
sickening enough they were. The village streets were filled with
silent, horror-stricken crowds. The whole community seemed to have
but a single face, repeated upon the mental vision at every step—a
terrible face with distended, empty eyes, riven brows, and an open
drawn mouth like the old Greek mask of tragedy.
"I swan! I don't know whether to keep open to-morrow or not,"
said Mr. Newton Shull, for perhaps the twentieth time, as he
wandered once again from the reception-room into the little
workshop behind. "In some ways it's kind of agin my principles to
work on Independence Day—but, then again, if I thought there was
likely to be a good many farmers comin' into town——"
 "They'll be plenty of 'em coming in," said the boy, over his
shoulder, "but they'll steer clear of here."
"I'm 'fraid so," sighed Mr. Shull. He advanced a listless step or
two and gazed with dejected apathy at the newspaper map tacked
to the wall, on which the boy was making red and blue crosses with
a colored pencil. "I don't see much good o' that," he said. "Still, of
course, if it eases your mind any——"
"That's where the fightin' finished," observed the boy, pointing to
a big mark on the map. "That's Malvern Hill there, and here—down
where the river takes the big bend—that's Harrison's Landing, where
the army's movin' to. See them seven rings? Them are the battles,
one each day, as our men forced their way down through the
Chickahominy swamps, beginnin' up in the corner with Beaver Dam
Creek. If the map was a little higher it 'ud show the Pamunkey,
where they started from. My uncle says that the whole mistake was
in ever abandoning the Pamunkey."
"Pa-monkey or Ma-monkey," said Newton Shull, gloomily, "it
wouldn't be no comfort to me to see it, even on a map. It's jest
taken and busted me and my business here clean as a whistle. We
ain't paid expenses two days in a week sence Marseny went. Here
I've got now so't I kin take a plain, everyday sort o' picture jest
about as well as he did—a little streakid sometimes, perhaps, and
more or less pinholes—but still pretty middlin' fair on an average,
and then, darn my buttons if they don't all stop comin'. It positively
don't seem to me as if there was a single human bein' in Dearborn
County that 'ud have his picture took as a gift. All they want now is
to have enlargements thrown up from little likenesses of their men
folks that have been killed, and them I don't know how to do no
more'n a babe unborn."
"You knew well enough how to make that stereopticon slide,"
remarked the boy with severity.
"Yes," mused Mr. Shull, "that darned thing—that made a peck o'
trouble, didn't it? I dunno what on earth possessed me; I kind o'
seemed to git the notion of doin' it into my head all to once't, and
somehow I never dreamt of its rilin' Marseny so; you couldn't tell
that a man 'ud be so blamed touchy as all that, could you?—and I
dunno, like as not he'd a' enlisted any how. But I do wish he'd
showed me how to make them pesky enlargements afore he went. If
I'd only seen him do one, even once, I could a' picked the thing up,
but I never did. It's just my luck!"
"Say," said the boy, looking up with a sudden thought, "do you
know what my mother heard yesterday? It's all over the place that
before Marseny left he went to Squire Schermerhorn's and made his
will, and left everything he's got to the Parmalee girl, in case he gits
killed. So, if anything happens she'd be your partner, wouldn't she?"
Newton Shull stared with surprise. "Well, now, that beats
creation," he said, after a little. "Somehow you know that never
occurred to me, and yet, of course, that 'ud be jest his style."
"Yes, sir," repeated the other, "they say he's left her every
identical thing."
"It's allus that way in this world," reflected Mr. Shull, sadly.
"Them that don't need it one solitary atom, they're eternally gettin'
every mortal thing left to 'em. Why, that girl's so rich already she
don't know what to do with her money. If I was her, I bet a cooky I
wouldn't go pikin' off to the battle-field, doin' nursin' and tyin' on
bandages, and fannin' men while they were gittin' their legs cut off.
No, sirree; I'd let the Sanitary Commission scuffle along without me,
I can tell you! A hoss and buggy and a fust-class two-dollar-a-day
hotel, and goin' to the theatre jest when I took the notion—that'd be
good enough for me."
"I suppose the sign then 'ud be 'Shull & Parmalee,' wouldn't it?"
queried the boy.
"Well, now, I ain't so sure about that," said Mr. Shull,
thoughtfully. "It might be that, bein' a woman, her name 'ud come
first, out o' politeness. But then, of course, most prob'ly she'd want
to sell out instid, and then I'd make the valuation, and she could
give me time. Or she might want to stay in, only on the quiet, you
know—what they call a silent partner."
"Nobody 'd ever call her a silent partner," observed the boy. "She
couldn't keep still if she tried."
"I wouldn't care how much she talked," said Mr. Shull, "if she
only put enough more money into the business. I didn't take much
to her, somehow, along at fust, but the more I've seen of her the
more I like the cut of her jib. She's got 'go' in her, that gal has; she
jest figures out what she wants, and then she sails in and gits it. It
don't matter who the man is, she jest takes and winds him round
her little finger. Why, Marseny, here, he wasn't no more than so
much putty in her hands. I lost all patience with him. You wouldn't
catch me being run by a woman that way."
"So far's I could see," suggested the other, "she seemed to git
pretty much all she wanted out of you, too. You were dancin' round,
helpin' her at the fair there, like a hen on a hot griddle."
"It was all on his account," put in the partner, with emphasis.
"Jest to please him; he seemed so much sot on her bein' humored in
everything. I did feel kind o' foolish about it at the time—I never
somehow believed much in doin' work for nothin'—but maybe it was
all for the best. If what they say about his makin' a will is true, why
it won't do me no harm to be on good terms with her—in case—in
case——"
Mr. Shull was standing at the window, and his idle gaze had
been vaguely taking in the general prospect of the street below the
while he spoke. At this moment he discovered that some one on the
opposite sidewalk was making vehement gestures to attract his
attention. He lifted the sash and put his head out to listen, but the
message came across loud enough for even the boy inside to hear.
"You'd better hurry round to the telegraph office!" this hoarse,
anonymous voice cried. "Malvern Hill list is a-comin' in—and they say
your pardner's been shot—shot bad, too!"
 Newton Shull drew in his head and stood for some moments
staring blankly at the map on the wall. "Well, I swan!" he began,
with confused hesitation, "I dunno—it seems to me—well, yes, I
guess prob'ly the best thing'll be for her to put more money into the
business—yes, that's the plan—and we kin hire an operator up from
Tecumseh."
But there was no one to pass an opinion on his project. The boy
had snatched his hat, and could be heard even now dashing his way
furiously down the outer stairs.

* * * * *
The summer dusk had begun to gather before Octavius heard all
that was to be learned of the frightful calamity which had befallen its
absent sons. The local roll of death and disaster from Gaines's Mill
earlier in the week had seemed incredibly awful. This new budget of
horrors from Malvern was far worse.
"Wa'n't the rest of the North doin' anything at all?" a wild-eyed,
disheveled old farmer cried out in a shaking, half-frenzied shriek
from the press of the crowd round the telegraph office. "Do they
think Dearborn County's got to suppress this whole damned rebellion
single-handed?"
It seemed to the dazed and horrified throng as if some such idea
must be in the minds of the rest of the Union. Surely no other little
community—or big community, either—could have had such a
hideous blow dealt to it as this under which Octavius reeled. The list
of the week for the county, including Gaines's Mill, showed one
hundred and eight men dead outright, and very nearly five hundred
more wounded in battle. It was too shocking for comprehension.
As evening drew on, men gathered the nerve to say to one
another that there was something very glorious in the way the two
regiments had been thrust into the front, and had shown themselves
heroically fit for that grim honor. They tried, too, to extract solace
from the news that the regiments in question had been mentioned
by name in the general despatches as having distinguished
themselves and their county above all the rest—but it was an empty
and heart-sickened pretense at best, and when, about dark, the
women folks, who had waited in vain for them to come home to
supper, began to appear on the skirts of the crowd, it was given up
altogether. In after years Octavius got so that it could cheer those
sinister names of Gaines's Mill and Malvern Hill, and swell with pride
at the memories they evoked. But that evening no one cheered. It
was too terrible.
There was, indeed, a single partial exception to this rule. The
regular service of news had ceased—in those days, before the
duplex invention, the single wire had most melancholy limitations—
but the throng still lingered; and when, in the failing light, the
postmaster was seen to step up again on the chair by the door with
a bit of paper in his hand, a solemn hush ran over the assemblage.
"It is a private telegram sent to me personally," he explained, in
the loud, clear tones of one who had earned his office by years of
stump speaking; "but it is intended for you all, I should presume."
The silent crowd pushed nearer, and listened with strained
attention as this despatch was read:

Headquarters Sanitary Commission,

Harrison's Landing, Va., Wednesday Morning.
To Postmaster Octavius, N. Y.:
No words can describe magnificent record soldiers of
Dearborn County, especially Starbuck, made past week. I
bless fate which identified my poor services with such superb
heroism. After second sleepless night, Col. Starbuck now
reposing peacefully; doctor says crisis past; he surely recover,
though process be slow. You will learn with pride he been
brevetted Brigadier, fact which it was my privilege to
announce to him last evening. He feebly thanked me,
murmuring, "Tell them at home."
 "Julia Parmalee."

In the silence which ensued the postmaster held the paper up

and scanned it narrowly by the waning light. "There is something
else," he said—"Oh, yes, I see; 'Franked despatch Sanitary
Commission.' That's all."
Another figure was seen suddenly clambering upon the chair,
with an arm around the postmaster for support. It was the teller of
the bank. He waved his free arm excitedly, as he faced the crowd,
and cried:
"Our women are as brave as our men! Three cheers for Miss
Julia Parmalee! Hip-hip!"
The loyal teller's first "Hurrah!" fell upon the air quite by itself.
Perhaps a dozen voices helped him half-heartedly with the second.
The third died off again miserably, and he stepped down off the
chair amid a general consciousness of failure.
"Who the hell is Starbuck?" was to be heard in whispered
interrogatory passed along through the throng. Hardly anybody
could answer. Boyce we knew, and McIntyre, and many others, but
Starbuck was a mystery. Then it was explained that it must be the
son of old Alanson Starbuck, of Juno Mills, who had gone away to
Philadelphia seven or eight years before. He had not enlisted with
any Dearborn County regiment, but held a staff appointment of
some kind, presumably in a Pennsylvania command. We were quite
unable to work up any emotion over him.
In fact, the more we thought it over, the more we were disposed
to resent this planting of Starbuck upon us, in the very van of
Dearborn County's heroes. His father was a rich old curmudgeon,
whom no one liked. The son was nothing to us whatever.
As at last, in the deepening twilight, the people reluctantly
began moving toward home, such conversation as they had the
heart for seemed to be exclusively centred upon Miss Parmalee, and
this queer despatch of hers. Slow-paced, strolling groups wended
their way along the main street, and then up this side thoroughfare
and that, passing in every block some dark and close-shuttered
house of mourning, and instinctively sinking still lower their muffled
tones as they passed, and carrying in their breasts, heaven only
knows what torturing loads of anguish and stricken despair—but
finding a certain relief in dwelling, instead, upon this lighter topic.
One of these groups—an elderly lady in black attire and two
younger women of sober mien—walked apart from the others and
exchanged no words at all until, turning a corner, their way led them
past the Parmalee house. The looming bulk of the old mansion and
the fragrant spaciousness of the garden about it seemed to attract
the attention of Mrs. Ransom and her daughters. They halted as by
a common impulse, and fastened a hostile gaze upon the shadowy
outlines of the house and its surrounding foliage.
"If Dwight dies of his wound," the mother said, in a voice all
chilled to calmness, "his murderess will live in there."
"I always hated her!" said one of the daughters, with a shudder.
"But he isn't going to die, mamma," put in the other. "You
mustn't think of such a thing! You know how healthy he always has
been, and this is only his shoulder. For my part, we may think
ourselves very fortunate. Remember how many have been killed or
mortally wounded. It seems as if half the people we know are in
mourning. We get off very lightly with Dwight only wounded. Did
you happen to hear the details about Mr. Pulford?—you know, the
photographer—someone was saying that he was mortally wounded."
"She sent him to his death, then, too," said the elder Miss
Ransom, raising her clenched hand against the black shadow of the
house.
"I don't care about that man," broke in the mother, icily.
"Nobody knows anything of him, or where he came from. People ran
after him because he was good-looking, but he never seemed to me