The City and the World

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The City and the World

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Title: The City and the World and Other Stories
Author: Francis Clement Kelley
Release Date: March 23, 2005 [EBook #15444]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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The City and the World and Other Stories
BY
FRANCIS CLEMENT KELLEY
Author of
"The Last Battle of the Gods," "Letters to Jack." "The Book of Red and
Yellow." Etc., Etc.
SECOND EDITION
EXTENSION PRESS 223 W. Jackson Boulevard CHICAGO
1913

PREFACE
These stories were not written at one time, nor were they intended for
publication in book form. For the most part they were contributions to
Extension Magazine, of which the author is Editor, and which is, above
all, a missionary publication. Most of them, therefore, were intended
primarily to be appeals, as well as stories. In fact, there was not even a
remote idea in the author's mind when he wrote them that some day
they might be introduced to other readers than those reached by the
magazine itself. In fact, he might almost say that the real object of most
of the stories was to present a Catholic missionary appeal in a new way.
Apparently the stories succeeded in doing that, and a few of them were
made up separately in booklets and used for the propaganda work of
The Catholic Church Extension Society. Then came a demand for the
collection, so the writer consented to allow the stories to appear in book
form; hoping that, thus gathered together, his little appeals for what he
considers the greatest cause in the world may win a few new friends to
the ideas which gave them life and name.
FRANCIS CLEMENT KELLEY.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, July 30, 1913.

[Illustration: "Father Ramoni suddenly felt his joy congealing into a
cold fear."]

CONTENTS
TITLES Page
The City and the World 1 The Flaming Cross 20 The Vicar-General 44
The Resurrection of Alta 53 The Man with a Dead Soul 67 The
Autobiography of a Dollar 74 Le Braillard de la Magdeleine 82 The
Legend of Deschamps 84 The Thousand Dollar Note 89 The Occasion
109 The Yankee Tramp 119 How Father Tom Connolly Began to Be a
Saint 127 The Unbroken Seal 136 Mac of the Island 144

THE CITY AND THE WORLD
Father Denfili, old and blind, telling his beads in the corner of the
cloister garden, sighed. Father Tomasso, who had brought him from his
confessional in the great church to the bench where day after day he
kept his sightless vigil over the pond of the goldfish, turned back at the
sound, then, seeing the peace of Father Denfili's face, thought he must
have fancied the sigh. For sadness came alien to the little garden of the
Community of San Ambrogio on Via Paoli, a lustrous gem of a little
garden under its square of Roman sky. The dripping of the tiny
fountain, tinkling like a bit of familiar music, and the swelling tones of
the organ, drifting over the flowers that clustered beneath the statue of
Our Lady of Lourdes, so merged their murmurings into the
peacefulness of San Ambrogio, that Father Tomasso, just from the
novitiate, felt intensely that he knew he must have dreamed Father
Denfili's sigh. For what could trouble the old man here in San
Ambrogio on this, the greatest day of the Community?

For to-day Father Ramoni had returned to Rome. Even as Father
Tomasso passed the fountain a group of Fathers and novices were
gathering around one of the younger priests, who still wore his fereoula
and wide-brimmed hat, just as he had entered from Via Paoli. The
newcomer's eyes traveled joyously over his breathless audience, calling
Father Tomasso to join in hearing his news.
"Yes, it is true," he was saying. "I have just come from the audience.
Father General and Father Ramoni stopped to call at the Secretariate of
State, but I came straight home to tell you. His Holiness was most kind,
and Father Ramoni was not a mite abashed, even in the presence of the
Pope. When he knelt down the Holy Father raised him up and gave him
a seat. 'Tell me all about your wonderful people and your wonderful
work,' he