A Man and a Woman

Man and a Woman, A

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Title: A Man and a Woman
Author: Stanley Waterloo
Release Date: June 28, 2005 [EBook #16143]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Produced by Al Haines

A MAN AND A WOMAN
By STANLEY WATERLOO

[A NEW EDITION]

Published by
Way & Williams
Chicago

MDCCCXCVII

Copyright, 1892, by Stanley Waterloo
All rights reserved

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I PROLOGUE II CLOSE TO NATURE III BOY, BIRD, AND SNAKE IV GROWING UP WITH THE COUNTRY V GRIM-VISAGED WAR VI THE SPEARING OF ALFRED VII HOW FICTION MADE FACT VIII NEW FORCES AT WORK IX MRS. POTIPHAR X THE BUILDING OF THE FENCE XI SETTLING WITH WOODELL XII INCLINATION AGAINST CONSCIENCE XIII FAREWELL TO THE FENCE XIV A RUGGED LOST SHEEP XV A STRANGE WORLD XVI THE REALLY UGLY DUCKLING XVII "EH, BUT SHE'S WINSOME" XVIII THE WOMAN XIX PURGATORY XX TWO FOOLS XXI "MY LITTLE RHINOCEROS-BIRD" XXII TWO FOOLS STILL XXIII JUST A PANG XXIV "AS TO THOSE OTHERS" XXV NATURE AGAIN XXVI ADVENTURES MANIFOLD XXVII THE HOUSE WONDERFUL XXVIII THE APE XXIX THE FIRST DISTRICT XXX THE NINTH WARD XXXI THEIR FOOLISH WAYS XXXII THE LAW OF NATURE XXXIII WHITEST ASHES

A MAN AND A WOMAN.

CHAPTER I.
PROLOGUE.
But for a recent occurrence I should certainly not be telling the story of a friend, or, rather, I should say, of two friends of mine. What that occurrence was I will not here indicate--it is unnecessary; but it has not been without its effect upon my life and plans. If it be asked by those who may read these pages under what circumstances it became possible for me to acquire such familiarity with certain scenes and incidents in the lives of one man and one woman,--scenes and incidents which, from their very nature, were such that no third person could figure in them,--I have only to explain that Grant Harlson and I were friends from boyhood, practically from babyhood, and that never, during all our lives together, did a change occur in our relationship. He has told me many things of a nature imparted by one man to another very rarely, and only when each of the two feels that they are very close together in that which sometimes makes two men as one. He was proud and glad when he told me these things--they were but episodes, and often trivial ones--and I was interested deeply. They added the details of a history much of which I knew and part of which I had guessed at.
He was not quite the ordinary man, this Grant Harlson, close friend of mine. He had an individuality, and his name is familiar to many people in the world. He has been looked upon by the tactful as but one of a type in a new nationality--a type with traits not yet clearly defined, a type not large, nor yet, thank God, uncommon--one of the best of the type; to me, the best. A close friend perhaps is blind. No; he is not that: he but sees so clearly that the world, with poorer view, may not always agree with him.
I hardly know how to describe this same Grant Harlson. At this stage of my story it is scarcely requisite that I should, but the account is loose and vagrant and with no chronology. Physically, he was more than most men, six feet in height, deep of chest, broad-shouldered, strong-legged and strong-featured, and ever in good health, so far as all goes, save the temporary tax on recklessness nature so often levies, and the other irregular tax she levies by some swoop of the bacilli of which the doctors talk so much and know so little. I mean only that he might catch a fever with a chill addition if he lay carelessly in some miasmatic swamp on some hunting expedition, or that, in time of cholera, he might have, like other men, to struggle with the enemy. But he tossed off most things lightly, and had that vitality which is of heredity, not built up with a single generation, though sometimes lost in one. Forest and farm-bred, college-bred, city-fostered and broadened and hardened. A man of the world, with experiences, and in his quality, no doubt, the logical, inevitable result of such experiences--one with a conscience flexile and seeking, but hard as rock when once satisfied. One who never, intentionally, injured a human being, save for equity's sake. One who, of course, wandered in looking for what was, to him, the right, but who, having once