A Few Short Sketches | Page 3

the last of the old year, dead. He
was lying on the bed, dressed and at full length. His right hand
clenched a pistol with one empty barrel; gently closed in his left hand
they found a little bunch of faded violets--that was all.
Not a line, not a 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