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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AND A WOMAN ***

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