chapter in the new Granger gospel.”

I bowed to the Mayor and turned away but the audience broke into cheers

and Senator Ingalls came over and shook my hand saying he hoped to know

me better and the cheering went on till I had gotten back to my place

and resumed my seat. A few minutes later and I was touched on the back

by Professor Smith. As I turned round he said smiling “you gave me a

good lesson: I’ll never make a public speaker and what I said doubtless

sounded inconsequent and absurd; but if you’d have a talk with me, I

think I could convince you that my theory will hold water.”

“I’ve no doubt you could,” I broke in, heartily ashamed of having made

fun of a man I didn’t know; “I didn’t grasp your meaning but I’d be glad

to have a talk with you.”

“Are you free tonight?” he went on: I nodded: “Then come with me to my

rooms. These ladies live out of town and we’ll put them in their buggy

and then be free. This is Mrs.… he added presenting me to the stouter

lady and this, her sister, Miss Stevens.” I bowed and out we went, I

keeping myself resolutely in the background till the sisters had driven

away: then we set off together to Professor Smith’s rooms, for our talk.

If I could give a complete account of that talk, this poor page would

glow with wonder and admiration all merged in loving reverence. We

talked or rather Smith talked for I soon found he knew infinitely more

than I did, was able indeed to label my creed as that of Mill, “a

bourgeois English economist” he called him with smiling disdain.

Ever memorable to me, sacred indeed, that first talk with the man who

was destined to reshape my life and inspire it with some of his own high

purpose. He introduced me to the communism of Marx and Engels and easily

convinced me that land and its products, coal and oil, should belong to

the whole community which should also manage all industries for the

public benefit.

My breath was taken by his mere statement of the case and I thrilled to

the passion in his voice and manner though even then I wasn’t wholly

convinced. Whatever topic we touched on, he illumined; he knew

everything, it seemed to me, German and French and could talk Latin and

Classic Greek as fluently as English. I had never imagined such

scholarship and when I recited some verses of Swinburne as expressing my

creed he knew them too and his Pantheistic Hymn to Hertha, as well. And

he wore his knowledge lightly as the mere garment of his shining spirit!

And how handsome he was, like a Sun-god! I had never seen anyone who

could at all compare with him.

Day had dawned before we had done talking: then he told me he was the

Professor of Greek in the State University and hoped I would come and

study with him when the schools opened again in October. “To think of

you as a cowboy” he said, “is impossible. Fancy a cowboy knowing books

of Vergil and poems of Swinburne by heart; it’s absurd: you must give

your brains a chance and study.”

“I’ve too little money” I said, beginning to regret my loan to my

brother.

“I told you I am a Socialist,” Smith retorted smiling: “I have three or

four thousand dollars in the Bank, take half of it and come to study”

and his luminous eyes held me: then it was true, after all; my heart

swelled, jubilant, there were noble souls in this world who took little

thought of money and lived for better things than gold.

“I won’t take your money”, I said, with tears burning: “every herring

should hang by its own head in these democratic days; but if you think

enough of me to offer such help, I’ll promise to come though I fear

you’ll be disappointed when you find how little I know; how ignorant I

am. I’ve not been in school since I was fourteen.”

“Come, we’ll soon make up the time lost” he said. “By the bye where are

you staying?” “The Eldridge House,” I replied.

He brought me to the door and we parted; as I turned to go I saw the

tall slight figure and the radiant eyes and I went away into a new world

that was the old, feeling as if I were treading on air.

Once more my eyes had been opened as on Overton Bridge to the beauties

of nature; but now to the splendor of an unique spirit. What luck! I

cried to myself to meet such a man! It really seemed to me as if some

God were following me with divine gifts!

And then the thought came: This man has chosen and called you very much

as Jesus called his disciples:—_Come, and I will make you fishers of

men!_ Already I was dedicate heart and soul to the new Gospel.

But even that meeting with Smith, wherein I reached the topmost height

of golden hours, was set off, so to speak, by another happening of this

wonder-week. At the next table to me in the dining-room I had already

remarked once or twice a little, middle-aged, weary looking man who

often began his breakfast with a glass of boiling water and followed it

up with a baked apple drowned in rich cream. Brains, too, or sweetbreads

he would eat for dinner and rice, not potatoes: when I looked surprise,

he told me he had been up all night and had a weak digestion, Mayhew, he

said, was his name and explained that if I ever wanted a game of faro or

euchre or indeed anything else, he’d oblige me. I smiled; I could ride

and shoot, I replied; but I was no good at cards.

The day after my talk with Smith, Mayhew and I were both late for

supper: I sat long over a good meal and as he rose, he asked me if I

would come across the street and see his “lay-out!” I went willingly

enough, having nothing to do. The gambling saloon was on the first floor

of a building nearly opposite the Eldridge House: the place was

well-kept and neat, thanks to a colored bar-tender and colored waiter

and a nigger of all work. The long room too was comfortably furnished

and very brightly lit—altogether an attractive place.

As luck would have it, while he was showing me round, a lady came in;

Mayhew after a word or two introduced me to her as his wife: Mrs. Mayhew

was then a woman of perhaps twenty-eight or thirty, with tall, lissom

slight figure and interesting rather than pretty face: her features were

all good, her eyes even were large and blue-gray: she would have been

lovely if her coloring had been more pronounced: give her golden hair or

red or black and she would have been a beauty: she was always tastefully

dressed and had appealing, ingratiating manners. I soon found that she

loved books and reading and as Mayhew said he was going to be busy, I

asked if I might see her home. She consented smiling and away we went.

She lived in a pretty frame house standing alone in a street that ran

parallel to Massachusetts Street, nearly opposite to a large and ugly

church.

As she went up the steps to the door, I noticed that she had fine, neat

ankles and I divined shapely limbs. While she was taking off her light

cloak and hat, the lifting of her arms stretched her bodice and showed

small round breasts: already my blood was lava and my mouth parched with

desire.

“You look at me strangely!” she said swinging round from the long mirror

with a challenge on her parted lips. I made some inane remark: I

couldn’t trust myself to speak frankly; but natural sympathy drew us

together. I told her I was going to be a student and she wanted to know

whether I could dance: I told her I could not, and she promised to teach

me: “Lily Robins, a neighbor’s girl, will play for us any afternoon. Do

you know the steps?” she went on and when I said “No”: she got up from

the sofa, held up her dress and showed me the three polka steps which

she said were the waltz steps too, only taken on a glide. “What pretty

ankles! you have”, I ventured; but she appeared not to hear me. We sat

on and on and I learned that she was very lonely: Mr. Mayhew away every

night and nearly all day and nothing to do in that little dead-and-alive

place. “Will you let me come in for a talk sometimes?” I asked:

“Whenever you wish”, was her answer. As I rose to go and we were

standing opposite to each other by the door, I said: “You know, Mrs.

Mayhew, in Europe when a man brings a pretty woman home, she rewards him

with a kiss—”

“Really?” she scoffed, smiling, “That’s not a custom here.”

“Are you less generous than they are?” I asked and the next moment I had

taken her face in my hands and kissed her on the lips. She put her hands

on my shoulders and left her eyes on mine: “We’re going to be friends”,

she said, “I felt it when I saw you: don’t stay away too long!”

“Will you see me tomorrow afternoon?” I asked: “I want that dance

lesson!” “Surely” she replied, “I’ll tell Lily in the morning.” And once

more our hands met: I tried to draw her to me for another kiss; but she

held back with a smiling—“tomorrow afternoon!” “Tell me your name”, I

begged, “so that I may think of it.” “Lorna” she replied, “you funny

boy!” and I went my way with pulses hammering, blood aflame and hope in

my heart.

Next morning I called again upon Smith; but the pretty servant, “Rose”,

she said her name was, told me that he was nearly always out at Judge

Stevens’ “five or six miles out,” she thought it was; “they always come

for him in a buggy”, she added. So I said I’d write and make an

appointment and I did write and asked him to let me see him next

morning.

That same morning Willie recommended to me a pension kept by a Mrs.

Gregory, an Englishwoman, the wife of an old Baptist clergyman, who

would take good care of me for four dollars a week. Immediately I went

with him to see her and was delighted to find that she lived only about

a hundred yards from Mrs. Mayhew on the opposite side of the street.

Mrs. Gregory was a large, motherly woman evidently a lady, who had

founded this boardinghouse to provide for a rather feckless husband and

two children, a big pretty girl, Kate and a lad, a couple of years

younger. Mrs. Gregory was delighted with my English accent, I believe,

and showed me special favor at once by giving me a large outside room

with its own entrance and steps into the garden.

In an hour I had paid my bill at the Eldridge House and had moved in: I

showed a shred of prudence by making Willie promise Mrs. Gregory that he

would turn up each Saturday with the five dollars for my board; the

dollar extra was for the big room.

In due course I shall tell how he kept his promise and discharged his

debt to me. For the moment everything was easily, happily settled. I

went out and ordered a decent suit of ordinary tweeds and dressed myself

up in my best blue suit to call upon Mrs. Mayhew after lunch. The clock

crawled but on the stroke of three, I was at her door: a colored maid

admitted me.

“Mrs. Mayhew”, she said in her pretty singing voice, “will be down right

soon: I’ll go call Miss Lily.”

In five minutes Miss Lily appeared, a dark slip of a girl with shining

black hair, wide laughing mouth, temperamental thick red lips and grey

eyes fringed with black lashes: she had hardly time to speak to me when

Mrs. Mayhew came in: “I hope you two’ll be great friends”, she said

prettily; “you’re both about the same age” she added.

In a few minutes Miss Lily was playing a waltz on the Steinway and with

my arm round the slight, flexible waist of my inamorata I was trying to

waltz. But alas! after a turn or two I became giddy and in spite of all

my resolution had to admit that I should never be able to dance.

“You have got very pale”, Mrs. Mayhew said, “you must sit down on the

sofa a little while.” Slowly the giddiness left me: before I had

entirely recovered Miss Lily with kindly words of sympathy had gone home

and Mrs. Mayhew brought me in a cup of excellent coffee: I drank it down

and was well at once.

“You should go in and lie down”, said Mrs. Mayhew still full of pity,

“see” and she opened a door, “there’s the guest bedroom all ready.” I

saw my chance and went over to her: “if you’d come too”, I whispered and

then, “the coffee has made me quite well: won’t you, Lorna, give me a

kiss? You don’t know how often I said your name last night, you dear!”

and in a moment I had again taken her face and put my lips on hers. She

gave me her lips this time and my kiss became a caress; but in a little

while she drew away and said, “let’s sit and talk, I want to know all

you are doing.” So I seated myself beside her on the sofa and told her

all my news. She thought I would be comfortable with the Gregorys. “Mrs.

Gregory is a good woman”, she added, “and I hear the girl’s engaged to a

cousin: do you think her pretty?”

“I think no one pretty but you, Lorna”, I said and I pressed her head

down on the arm of the sofa and kissed her. Her lips grew hot: I was

certain. At once I put my hand down on her sex; she struggled a little

at first, which I took care should bring our bodies closer and when she

ceased struggling I put my hands up her dress and began caressing her

sex: it was hot and wet, as I knew it would be, and opened readily.

But in another moment she took the lead: “Some one might find us here,”

she whispered, “I’ve let the maid go: come up to my bedroom” and she

took me upstairs. I begged her to undress: I wanted to see her figure;

but she only said, “I have no corsets on, I don’t often wear them in the

house. Are you sure you love me, dear?” “You know I do!” was my answer.

The next moment I lifted her on to the bed, drew up her clothes, opened

her legs and was in her. There was no difficulty and in a moment or two

I came; but went right on poking passionately; in a few minutes her

breath went and came quickly and her eyes fluttered and she met my

thrusts with sighs and nippings of her sex. My second orgasm took some

time and all the while Lorna became more and more responsive, till

suddenly she put her hands on my bottom and drew me to her forcibly

while she moved her sex up and down awkwardly to meet my thrusts with a

passion I had hardly imagined. Again and again I came and the longer the

play lasted, the wilder was her excitement and delight. She kissed me

hotly foraging and thrusting her tongue into my mouth. Finally she

pulled up her chemise to get me further into her and at length with

little sobs she suddenly got hysterical and panting wildly, burst into a

storm of tears.

That stopped me: I withdrew my sex and took her in my arms and kissed

her; at first she clung to me with choking sighs and streaming eyes, but

as soon as she had won a little control, I went to the toilette and

brought her a sponge of cold water and bathed her face and gave her some

water to drink—that quieted her. But she would not let me leave her even

to arrange my clothes.

“Oh, you great, strong dear,” she cried, with her arms clasping me, “oh,

who would have believed such intense pleasure possible: I never felt

anything like it before: how could you keep on so long! Oh, how I love

you, you wonder and delight!

“I am all yours,” she added gravely, “you shall do what you like with

me: I am your mistress, your slave, your plaything and you are my God

and my love! Oh, Darling! oh!”

There was a pause while I smiled at her extravagant praise, then

suddenly she sat up and got out of bed: “You wanted to see my figure”,

she exclaimed, “here it is, I can deny you nothing; I only hope it may

please you” and in a moment or two she showed herself nude from head to

stocking.

As I had guessed, her figure was slight and lissom, with narrow hips but

she had a great bush of hair on her Mount of Venus and her breasts were

not so round and firm as Jessie’s: still she was very pretty and

well-formed with the _fines attaches_ (slender wrists and ankles) which

the French are so apt to over-estimate. They think that small bones

indicate a small sex; but I have found that the exceptions are very

numerous, even if there is any such rule.

After I had kissed her breasts and navel, and praised her figure, she

disappeared in the bathroom but was soon with me again on the sofa which

we had left an hour or so before.

“Do you know” she began, “my husband assured me that only the strongest

young man could go twice with a woman in one day? I believed him; aren’t

we women fools? You must have come a dozen times?”

“Not half that number”, I replied smiling.

“Aren’t you tired?” was her next question, “even I have a little

headache” she added: “I never was so wrought up: at the end it was too

intense: but you must be tired out.” “No,” I replied, “I feel no

fatigue, indeed I feel the better for our joy ride!”

“But surely you’re an exception?” she went on; “most men have finished

in one short spasm and leave the woman utterly unsatisfied, just excited

and no more.”

“Youth”, I said, “that, I believe, makes the chief difference.”

“Is there any danger of a child?” she went on, “I ought to say ‘hope’,”

she added bitterly, “for I’d love to have a child, your child” and she

kissed me.

“When were you ill last?” I asked.

“About a fortnight ago”, she replied, “I often thought that had

something to do with it.”

“Why?” I asked: “tell truth!” I warned her and she began: “I’ll tell you

anything; I thought the time had something to do with it for soon after

I am well each month my ‘pussy’ that’s what we call it, often burns and

itches intolerably; but after a week or so I’m not bothered any more

till next time. Why is that?” she added.

“Two things I ought to explain to you” I said, “your seed is brought

down into your womb by the menstrual blood: it lives there a week or ten

days and then dies and with its death your desires decrease and the

chance of impregnation. But near the next monthly period, say within

three days, there is a double danger again; for the excitement may bring

your seed down before the usual time and in any case, my seed will live

in your womb about three days, so if you wish to avoid pregnancy, wait

for ten days after your monthly flow is finished and stop say four days

before you expect it again, then the danger of getting a child is very

slight.”

“Oh, you wise boy!” she laughed, “don’t you see you are skipping the

time I most desire you, and that’s not kind to either of us; is it?”

“There’s still another way of evasion”, I said, “get me to withdraw

before I come the first time, or get up immediately and syringe yourself

with water thoroughly: water kills my seed as soon as it touches it—”

“But how will that help if you go on half a dozen times more?” she

asked.

“Doctors say,” I replied, “that what comes from me afterwards is not

virile enough to impregnate a woman: I’ll explain the process to you if

you like; but you can take it, the fact is as I state it.”

“When did you learn all this?” she asked.

“It has been my most engrossing study,” I laughed, “and by far the most

pleasureful!”

“You dear, dear,” she cried, “I must kiss you for that.”

“Do you know you kiss wonderfully?” she went on reflectingly, “with a

lingering touch of the inside of the lips and then the thrust of the

tongue: that’s what excited me so the first time” and she sighed as if

delighted with the memory.

“You didn’t seem excited,” I said half reproachfully, “for when I wanted

another kiss, you drew away and said ‘tomorrow’! Why are women so

coquettish, so perverse?” I added, remembering Lucille and Jessie.

“I think it is that we wish to be sure of being desired,” she replied,

“and a little too that we want to prolong the joy of it, the delight of

being wanted, really wanted! It is so easy for us to give and so

exquisite to feel a man’s desire pursuing us! Ah how rare it is”, she

sighed passionately, “and how quickly lost! You’ll soon tire of your

mistress”, she added, “now that I am all yours and thrill only for you”

and she took my head in her hands and kissed me passionately,

regretfully.

“You kiss better than I do, Lorna! Where did you acquire the art,

Madame?” I asked, “I fear that you have been a naughty, naughty girl!”

“If you only knew the truth,” she exclaimed, “if you only knew how girls

long for a lover and burn and itch in vain and wonder why men are so

stupid and cold and dull as not to see our desire.

“Don’t we try all sorts of tricks? Aren’t we haughty and withdrawn at

one moment and affectionate, tender, loving at another? Don’t we conceal

the hook with every sort of bait only to watch the fish sniff at it and

turn away. Ah, if you knew—I feel a traitor to my sex even in telling

you—if you guessed how we angle for you and how clever we are, how full

of wiles! There’s an expression I once heard my husband use which

describes us women exactly or nine out of ten of us. I wanted to know

how he kept the office warm all night: he said, we damp down the

furnaces and explained the process: that’s it, I cried to myself, I’m a

damped-down furnace: that’s surely why I keep hot so long! Did you

imagine”, she asked, turning her flower-face all pale with passion half

aside, “that I took off my hat that first day before the glass and

turned slowly round with it held above my head, by chance? You dear

innocent! I knew the movement would show my breasts and slim hips and

did it deliberately hoping it would excite you and how I thrilled when I

saw it did.

“Why did I show you the bed in that room?” she added, “and leave the

door ajar when I came back here to the sofa, but to tempt you and how

heart-glad I was to feel your desire in your kiss. I was giving myself

before you pushed my head back on the sofa-arm and disarranged all my

hair!” she added pouting and patting it with her hands to make sure it

was in order.

[Illustration]

“You were astonishingly masterful and quick,” she went on: “how did you

know that I wished you to touch me then! Most men would have gone on

kissing and fooling, afraid to act decisively. You must have had a lot

of experience? You naughty lad!”

“Shall I tell you the truth!” I said, “I will, just to encourage you to

be frank with me. You are the first woman I have ever spent my seed in

or had properly—”

“Call it improperly, for God’s sake,” she cried laughing aloud with joy,

“you darling virgin, you! Oh! how I wish I was sixteen again and you

were my first lover. You would have made me believe in God. Yet you are

my first lover”, she added quickly, “I have only learned the delight and

ecstasy of love in your arms—”

Our love-talk lasted for hours till suddenly I guessed it was late and

looked at my watch; it was nearly seven-thirty: I was late for supper

which started at half-past six!

“I must go,” I exclaimed, “or I’ll get nothing to eat.”

“I could give you supper,” she added, “my lips too, that long for you

and—and—but you know” she added regretfully, “he might come in and I

want to know you better first before seeing you together: a young God

and a man!—and the man in God’s likeness, yet so poor an imitation!”

“Don’t, don’t,” I said, “you’ll make life harder for yourself—”

“Harder” she repeated with a sniff of contempt, “Kiss me, my love and go

if you must. Shall I see you tomorrow? There!” she cried as with a

curse, “I’ve given myself away: I can’t help it, oh how I want you

always: how I shall long for you and count the dull dreary hours! Go, go

or I’ll never let you”—and she kissed and clung to me to the door.

“Sweet—tomorrow”, I said and tore off.

Of course it is manifest that my liaison with Mrs. Mayhew had little or

nothing to do with love. It was demoniac youthful sex-urge in me and

much the same hunger in her and as soon as the desire was satisfied my

judgment of her was as impartial, cool as if she had always been

indifferent to me. But with her I think there was a certain attachment

and considerable tenderness. In intimate relations between the sexes it

is rare indeed that the man gives as much to love as the woman.

[Illustration:

_Professor Byron. C. Smith: 1872._

]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE.