He went out with slow step and bent head, followed by Mrs. Cullom trying vainly to find an idea on the subject suggested, which she was quite positive she had somewhere about her. What Israel may have thought of the thing that had whispered within his doors in an unknown tongue, and had taken away what was his without receipt or equivalent exchange, it were hard to say; equally hard even to say what he had thought of Marian these twenty years. If her cloistral devotions and visionary moods had seemed to him, in uninverted terms, folly, he had never said so. Certainly he had liked her quiet, ladylike ways, and possibly respected a difference of temperament inwardly as well as outwardly. At any rate, tolerance was a consistent Sanderson policy and philosophy of life.
There was a slight movement in the chamber, after the silence which followed the departing footsteps of Israel and Mrs. Cullom. A small person in pinafores crept stealthily from under the bed and peered over the edge. It was a hard climb but he persisted, and at last seated himself on it panting, with his elbows on his knees, gravely considering. A few hours since, the silent lips had whispered, among many things that came back to his memory in after years like a distant chime of bells, only this that seemed of any immediate importance: “I shall be far away to-night, Joe, but when you say your prayers I shall hear.” The problem that puckered the small brow was whether prayers out of regular hours were real prayers. Joe decided to risk it and, getting on his knees, said over all the prayers he knew. Then he leaned over and patted the thin, cold cheek (Joe and his mother always tacitly understood each other), slid off the bed with a satisfied air, and solemnly trotted out of the room.
Mrs. Cullom Sanderson was a widow; “Which,” Israel remarked, “is a pity. Cullom would have taken comfort in outliving you, Ellen.”
“Well,” remonstrated Mrs. Cullom, “I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Israel. I've always respected his memory.”
Israel, gravely regarding her, observed, “You'd better not try to train Joe,” and departed, leaving her to struggle with the idea that between Joe and Cullom's comfort Israel was getting very disconnected. Disconnection of remark did not imply any changeableness in Israel's temperament. He observed a silent sequence of character, and possibly a sequence of thought of which he did not care to give evidence, on matters which he found no profit in discussing. Twelve years later the mystery again whispered within his doors, and he rose and followed it in his usual deliberate and taciturn way, without disclosing any opinion on the question of the inversion of terms. The story of each generation is put away when its time comes with a more or less irrelevant epitaph, whether or not its threads be gathered into a satisfactory finale. The Spirit-of-things-moving-on is singularly indifferent to such matters. Its only literary principle seems to be, to move on. The new Sanderson of Back Meadows grew up a slight, thin-faced young fellow. The Sanderson men were always slight of build, saving a certain breadth of shoulders. A drooping mustache in course of time hid the only un-Sanderson feature, a sensitive mouth. The cool gray eyes, slightly drawling speech, and deliberate manner were all Sanderson, indicating “a chip of the old block,” as Mr. Durfey remarked to the old Scotchman who kept the drag store in Hagar. If the latter had doubts, he kept them to himself.
The Sanderson stud sprang from a certain red mare, Martha, belonging to Blake Sanderson of Revolutionary times. They were a thin-necked, generally bad-tempered breed, with red veins across the eyes, of high repute among “horsey” men. Blake Sanderson was said to have ridden the red mare from Boston in some astonishingly quick time on some mysterious errand connected with the evacuation of New York, whereby her descendants were at one time known as the Courier breed; but as no one seemed to know what the errand was, it was possibly not a patriotic one. Three of these red, thinnecked mares and a stallion were on exhibition at the Hamilton County Fair of '76. Notable men of the county were there, mingled with turfmen of all shades of notoriety; several immaculately groomed gentlemen, tall-hatted, long-coated, and saying little, but pointed out with provincial awe as coming from New York and worth watching; a few lean Kentuckians, the redness of whose noses was in direct ratio with their knowledge of the business, and whose artistic profanity had a mercantile value in expressing contempt for Yankee horse-flesh. There was the Honorable Gerald and the some-say Dishonorable Morgan Map, originally natives of Hagar, with young Jacob Lorn between them undergoing astute initiation into the ways of the world and its manner of furnishing amusement to young men of wealth; both conversing affably with Gypsy John of not even doubtful reputation, at present booming Canadian stock in favor of certain animals that may or may not have seen Canada. Thither came the manager of the opera troupe resident in Hamilton during the Fair, and the Diva, popularly known as Mignon, a brown-haired woman with a quick Gallic smile and a voice, “By gad, sir, that she can soak every note of it in tears, the little scamp,” quoth Cassidy, observing from a distance. Cassidy was a large fleshy man with a nickel shield under his coat.
“A face to launch a thousand ships,
And burn the topless towers of Ilium''
misquoted a tall, thin personage with an elongated face and sepulchral voice. “The gods made you poetical, Mr. Cassidy. Do you find your gift of sentiment of use on the force?”
“Yes, sir,” shouted Cassidy, inadvertently touched on one of innumerable hobbies and beginning to pound one hand excitedly with the fist of the other. “In fine cases, sir, the ordinary detective slips up on just that point. Now let me tell you, Mr. Mavering—”