City and town life -- Fiction; Short stories, American
"Well," she added, "they's somethin' else. It's somethin' almost like
what you've got--you two--an' like what Delia an' Abel have got. Lately,
I don't _need_ to hear the Bell any more. I know 'bout it without. It's
almost like I _am_ the Bell. Don't you see, it's come to be my power,
just like love will be your power, if you rilly understand. An'
here--here I know how. I've grown to Friendship, an' here I know what's
what. An' if I went away now, where things is gentle an' like in books,
I wouldn't know how to be any rill use. I can _be_ the Bell here--here I
can have my power. In town I expect I couldn't be anything but just cake
again--bakin' myself rill good, or even gettin' frosted; but mebbe not
helpin'. An' I couldn't risk that--I couldn't risk it. It looks to me
like helpin' is what I'm for."
I think, as she said, Calliope was become the Bell; and at that moment
she rang to us the call of sovereign clearness. This was the life that
she and Abel followed, and followed before all else, and there lay the
hiding of their power. "Just like love will be your power," she had
said.
When she had gone before us into the house--that was to have been her
house--we two stood looking along the sunny Plank Road toward Daphne
Street. And in the light lifting of the bonfire smoke it seemed to me
that there moved a spirit--not Daphne, but another; one who walks less
in beauty than in service; not our lady of the laurels, but our lady of
the thorns.
GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
DRAMATIZED NOVELS
A Few that are Making Theatrical History
MARY JANE'S PA. By Norman Way. Illustrated with scenes from the play.
Delightful, irresponsible "Mary Jane's Pa" awakes one morning to find
himself famous, and, genius being ill adapted to domestic joys, he
wanders from home to work out his own unique destiny. One of the most
humorous bits of recent fiction.
CHERUB DEVINE. By Sewell Ford.
"Cherub," a good hearted but not over refined young man is brought in
touch with the aristocracy. Of sprightly wit, he is sometimes a
merciless analyst, but he proves in the end that manhood counts for more
than ancient lineage by winning the love of the fairest girl in the
flock.
A WOMAN'S WAY. By Charles Somerville. Illustrated with scenes from the
play.
A story in which a woman's wit and self-sacrificing love save her
husband from the toils of an adventuress, and change an apparently
tragic situation into one of delicious comedy.
THE CLIMAX. By George C. Jenks.
With ambition luring her on, a young choir soprano leaves the little
village where she was born and the limited audience of St. Judo's to
train for the opera in New York. She leaves love behind her and meets
love more ardent but not more sincere in her new environment. How she
works, how she studies, how she suffers, are vividly portrayed.
A FOOL THERE WAS. By Porter Emerson Browne. Illustrated by Edmund
Magrath and W. W. Fawcett.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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