Contents
| I | HOW IT ALL BEGAN | [1] |
| II | AT THE COURT OF A SOVEREIGN | [17] |
| III | SAYLER "DRAWS THE LINE" | [33] |
| IV | THE SCHOOL OF LIFE-AS-IT-IS | [44] |
| V | A GOOD MAN AND HIS WOES | [68] |
| VI | MISS RAMSAY REVOLTS | [78] |
| VII | BYGONES | [96] |
| VIII | A CALL FROM "THE PARTY" | [107] |
| IX | TO THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY | [123] |
| X | THE FACE IN THE CROWD | [136] |
| XI | BURBANK | [144] |
| XII | BURBANK FIRES THE POPULAR HEART | [163] |
| XIII | ROEBUCK & CO. PASS UNDER THE YOKE | [168] |
| XIV | A "BOOM-FACTORY" | [177] |
| XV | MUTINY | [193] |
| XVI | A VICTORY FOR THE PEOPLE | [199] |
| XVII | SCARBOROUGH | [209] |
| XVIII | A DANGEROUS PAUSE | [221] |
| XIX | DAVID SENT OUT AGAINST GOLIATH | [224] |
| XX | PILGRIMS AND PATRIOTS | [234] |
| XXI | AN INTERLUDE | [249] |
| XXII | MOSTLY ABOUT MONEY | [261] |
| XXIII | IN WHICH A MOUSE HELPS A LION | [271] |
| XXIV | GRANBY INTRUDES AGAIN | [282] |
| XXV | AN HOUR OF EMOTION | [292] |
| XXVI | "ONLY AN OLD JOKE" | [296] |
| XXVII | A DOMESTIC DISCORD | [306] |
| XXVIII | UNDER A CRAYON PORTRAIT | [314] |
| XXIX | A LETTER FROM THE DEAD | [327] |
| XXX | A PHILOSOPHER RUDELY INTERRUPTED | [333] |
| XXXI | HARVEY SAYLER, SWINEHERD | [345] |
| XXXII | A GLANCE BEHIND THE MASK OF GRANDEUR | [365] |
| XXXIII | A "SPASM OF VIRTUE" | [380] |
| XXXIV | "LET US HELP EACH OTHER" | [387] |
THE PLUM TREE
I
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
"We can hold out six months longer,—at least six months." My mother's tone made the six months stretch encouragingly into six long years.
I see her now, vividly as if it were only yesterday. We were at our scant breakfast, I as blue as was ever even twenty-five, she brave and confident. And hers was no mere pretense to reassure me, no cheerless optimism of ignorance, but the through-and-through courage and strength of those who flinch for no bogey that life or death can conjure. Her tone lifted me; I glanced at her, and what shone from her eyes set me on my feet, face to the foe. The table-cloth was darned in many places, but so skilfully that you could have looked closely without detecting it. Not a lump of sugar, not a slice of bread, went to waste in that house; yet even I had to think twice to realize that we were poor, desperately poor. She did not hide our poverty; she beautified it, she dignified it into Spartan simplicity. I know it is not the glamour over the past that makes me believe there are no women now like those of the race to which she belonged. The world, to-day, yields comfort too easily to the capable; hardship is the only mould for such character, and in those days, in this middle-western country, even the capable were not strangers to hardship.