With old glories on our stories, and our march—tramp! tramp!
Drawn by Oliver Herford
A CLEAN SHAVE
BY GRACE MAC GOWAN COOKE
Author of “Mistress Joy,” “The Machinations of Ocoee Gallantine,” etc., etc.
WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY F. E. SCHOONOVER
THERE was a storm brewing. The sun had gone down in splendor over Big Bald; heat lightnings laced the primrose of its afterglow. Now the air trembled to a presage of thunder; the world panted for its outburst of elemental rage.
The camp-meeting was in a brush arbor; the dry leaves on the boughs with which it was roofed rustled faintly when breathings of the coming tempest whispered across the highlands. The congregation, seated on backless puncheon benches, seemed to crouch beneath the uncertain illumination of a few torches and lanterns. Protracted meetings in the mountains are always held in midsummer, when the crops are laid by, so that perhaps the rising generation comes to associate their souls’ salvation and hot, breathless nights like this. Fleeing from the wrath to come no doubt gets hopelessly mixed in some minds with running for adequate shelter from the sudden passionate thunder-storms of the season.