A Few Short Sketches | Page 3

scrap of paper to tell the story. His private letters had been burned--their ashes were heaped upon the hearth. There were no written instructions of any kind. There were no mementoes, no keepsakes. Yes, there was a little Bible on the candle-stand at the head of his bed, but it was closed. On the fly-leaf, written in the trembling hand of an old woman, was his name, the word "mother," and the date of a New Year time in old Virginia when he was a boy.
There was money, more than enough to cause quarrel and heart-burnings among a few distant relatives in another State, but there was absolutely no record of why he had with his own hand torn aside the veil which hangs between life and death.
When the others were not there I slipped into his room and reverently unclosed his fingers and read the story written there--written over and above those Russian violets which she had worn--for they were the same. There they remained.
On the lid of his casket we placed a single wreath of Russian violets. But all the strength and all the sweetness came from those dim violets faded, but not dead, shut within the icy cold of his lifeless palm.
* * * * *
Miss Caddington and many of those who had known him went to the New Year reception the next night and chattered and danced and danced and chattered. They spoke lightly of the dead man; how much he was worth; the cut of his dress suit; the quiet simplicity of his funeral; the refusal of one minister to read the office for the dead, and the charity of another--the one who did.
And then--they forgot him.
That New Year's night I sat in my study and thought of the woman who had worn those Russian violets, and asked me if she were right in her ideas about responsibility for human action.
Nowadays I frequently see her--she is always charming; sometimes brilliant. Once I said to her:
"I have an answer for your question about responsibility."
"About responsibility?" she said, inquiringly; then quickly added: "Oh, yes; that nonsense we talked coming home from the Bolton ball. Never mind your answer, I am sure it is a good one, and perhaps clever, but it is hardly worth while going back so far and for so little. Do you think so? Are you going to the Athletic Club german next week? No? I am sorry, for, as you are one of the few men who do not dance, I always miss a chat with you."
Miss Caddington goes everywhere. Her gowns are exquisite and her flowers are always beautiful and rare, because out of season. But neither in season nor out of season does she ever wear a bunch--no matter how small--of those Russian violets.

FIVE RED POPPIES
TO LADY VIOLET AGAIN

II
FIVE RED POPPIES
They hung their heads in a florist's window. The people of the town did not buy them, for they wanted roses--yellow, white or crimson. But I, a lover, passing that way, did covet them for a woman that I knew, and straightway bought them.
As I placed those poppies in a box, on a bed of green moss, I heard them chuckle together, with some surprise and much glee. "What a kind fool he is," said the first poppy, "to buy me, and take me away from those disagreeable roses, and other hateful blossoms in that damp, musty window."
"I heard," said the second poppy, "one sweet lily of the valley whisper to the others of its simple kind that we would die where we were unnoticed, undesired by any one--how little it knew!"
"How cool and green this bed of moss," cried the third poppy; "it is a most excellent place to die upon. I am willing, I am happy."
"Nay," said the fourth poppy, "you may die on her breast if you will. She may take you up and put you into a jar of clear water. She may watch you slowly open your sleepy dark eye. She may lean over you; then let your passionate breath but touch her on the white brow, and she may tenderly thrust you into her whiter bosom, and quickly yield herself, and you, to an all-powerful forgetfulness. She may twine me into her dark hair, and I will calm the throb of her blue-veined temples, and bring upon her a sleep and a forgetting."
The fifth poppy trembled with joyful expectation, but said not a word.
* * * * *
Toward the close of the next day I went to her, the woman that I knew, to whom I had sent the poppies.
I trod the stairway softly, oh, so softly, that led to her door. Shadows from out of the unlighted hall danced about me, and the sounds of music--harp music--pleased me with a strain of remembered chords.
She