Life — August 19, 1915 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

(Each story printed under the above heading is a candidate for the $1,000, $500 and short can a short story be and still be a short story ? $250 prises offered by Lire in answer to the question: The stories accepted How will appear regularly under the heading “Lirr’s Short Story Contest” until October and are paid for upon acceptance at the rate of ten cents a word for every word up to 1,500 which the author does not write. carefully the conditions on page 349 of this issue.) LIke Sir Roger's neighbors peer- ing over the hedge, I had daily observed, over my stone wall, a very old gentleman in his shirt sleeves, who pleasantly gave me the role of Spectator. A New-Englander of the elder type, with the heavy bent head of the thinker; but, particularly, with the piercing yet so kindly humorous blue eye that loses none of its color with age, but seems to grow more vivid and vital with the same years that steal from the hair its hue of life and from the walnut cheek its glowing red. Such an eye, to a lawyer like my- self, accustomed to look for a human document in every human face, seemed the very epitome of eighty years: a care-free boyhood. among contempo- raries—in house furnishings, in barn and pigsty, orchard and gardens; a youth that sees already a new generation in most of these companions of his earthly pilgrimage; a middle age, forced out of the romantic sense of companionship on the road, into the persistent and finally triumphant view of using environment for ends of its own; and then old age, free to re- turn and lavish forgotten endearments upon the “old things"—this or the other “ landmarl dear and familiar from life’s beginnings. These periods, all slipping unnoticed into their suc- cessors, yet each possessing a distinct and tangible outline and color, had all had their turn at my neighbor's blue eyes. And the look that comes only at the end, when the life has been prodigal of response and of an un- swerving fidelity in the storing up of values—that_ was the look that I valued as a thing of price. The Old Things By Jessie Anderson Chase It was a day of late summer that Lrought me more directly face to face with its beauty and gravity. The old gentleman appeared, in his shirt sleeves, but with plenty of ceremony in his quiet demeanor, at the door of my little “ portable” law office, at the edge of the orchard. “Tam told, sir,” you are an attorney at law.’ I bowed, and offered him a chair, but he continued standing. “I have come,” he said, “to request your services in drawing up my last will and testament—that is,” he serenely emended, “in case your vacation time is subject to such in- terruption.” While I was formulating my assent he continued: “You have no doubt, since coming into this rather communicative neigh- borhood, been informed that my son owns the homestead.” The kind, keen old eyes took on a look of what George Eliot names “an enormous patience with the way of the world.” “Everything belongs to John and Mary. But there are one or two little old things that they don’t care about. They're up in the lean-to. The old mirror that, as a lad, I used to see my face in over my mother’s shoulder, it's still holding for me the picture of my mother smiling up at ma And the old ladder-back chair that she used to sit in and cuddle me; and switch me, too—and maybe that took the most love of all. That's all, John and Mary don’t want them. They're only old things, like myself. It's natural, perfectly natural. At their age I most probably felt just so. he began, “that Read He paused and looked through the lattice, where the reddened vine-leaves were beginning to fall. “The young leaf-buds pushing off the old leaves. It’s nature.” Before sunset—for the old man was strangely impatient—I had his “ will” signed, witnessed and sealed. The old mirror and chair were to go to a wee, odd little old lady, called in the neigh- borhood “ Miss Tabby” Titcomb be- cause of her forty-odd cats, except for which she lived alone. “Little Ellen,” he called her, as he fondly spoke of their school days to- gether, “Mother would have been well content if we'd hit it off together, Ellen and I. But a boy is as apt as not, when urged one way, to fly off in another; and I was at the skittish age. I've never said this before to any man, but I'd have been a better husband to Ellen, Mary was a faith- ful wife, and better than I deserved. But she was not just aware, like Ellen, of where to bear on hard and where to go a little easy. That's what a man needs in a woman, sir. Ellen always knew just when and where” The next morning, which was Satur- day, I was riding down Bare Hill Road—as it chanced, right past “ Miss Tabby’s "—when my horse shied; and that tiny old lady, with an enormous gray cat beside her, rose up from behind the lilac bushes. Bigger people than “little Ellen” have been fright- ened by Prince's antics, but she quietly put her hand on his restive neck as if he were only a little larger kitten, and then spoke to me in a soft little purr of a voice. “T've heard—and you'll excuse me— that you're a lawyer, Mr. Alden; and comicbooks.com