Great Possessions

g subject: It is very hard to * ground and dire

efresh itself. One of the eddies I like best of all is near the corner of Madison Square, where the flood of Twenty-third Street swirls around the bulkhead of the Metropolitan tower to meet the transverse currents of Madison Avenue. Here, of a bright morning when Down-at-Heels is generously warming himself on the park benches, and Old Defeat watches Young Hu

f the warm human tide flowing all about me. I love to lo

by black soil of human heads around him-black, knobby soil that he was seeking, there in the spring sunshine, to plough with strange ideas. He had ruddy cheeks and a tuft of curly hai

of his throat stood out sharply and perspiration gleamed on his bald forehead. As though his life depended

R.G. Ingersoll and Frederic Harrison, with grimy

gift of vigorous statement, and met questioners like an intellectual

his reasoning on many learned authorities, that there was no God. His audience cheer

ough the crowd to deliver the speaker's wares and collect the s

ore," he

asked, "is

as brought up a Presbyteri

r thinks ther

op

oks prove the

ep

nderful that proof of so momentous a co

talk against the roar of the city and keep his restless audience about him; and if he did not believe in God he h

me-mostly keen foreign or half-foreign faces, and young faces, and idle faces, a

ark, and the statue of Roscoe Conkling, turning a nonchalant shoulder toward the heated speaker who said there was no God. How many strange ideas, contradictory arguments, curious logic, have fallen, this last quarter century, upon the stony ears of Roscoe Conkling! Far above me the Metropolitan tower, that wonder work of men, lifted itself gra

other, and at the centre stood a patriarchal man with a white beard, and with him two women. He was leaning against the iron railing of the park, and several of the free-thinker'

any other book in the world. Your friend there can talk until he is hoarse-it

tanding up there to prove, also with logic and authority, that there was a God. He, also, would plough that knobby black soil of human heads with the share of his vehement faith. The two women wer

of it. It was called

at God is really in

aid. "Will y

derful that so great a truth can he establishe

he tract by the side of the pamphlet I had bought

oot a question like a rifle bullet at the heads of his audience, and then stiffen back like a wary boxer, both clenched hands poised in a tremulous gesticulation, and before any one could answer his bullet-like question, he was answering it himsel

t faces all about me. And gradually I grew interested in what the man was saying, and thought of many good answers I could give to his q

ne of you, a slave of

nd after he spoke, and before I k

no, I'

he group around me: whi

hat swarthy young man. He was as full of q

an prove to you that you are

feel like a slave, too! No man is

tage over me of a soap box! Moreover, at that moment, the keen-eyed assist

eling a slave," he remarked, "yo

inker, and the tract of the God-fearing man, and stepped out of that gr

is a curious

ely interested in th

d here," I said, "than ever

men. The army of the world stood still until the rear rank of its women could be brought into line! Morals languished, religion faded, industries were brutalized, home life destroyed! If only women had their rights the world would at once become a beautiful and charming place! Oh, she was a powerful and earnest speaker; she made me desire above everything, at the f

nging heedlessly by. How serious they all were there in their eddies! Is there no God? Will woman suffrage or socialism cure all the evils of this mad world which, ill as it is, we would not be without? Is a belief for forty years in

what I had seen and heard, asking myself, "

a quiet welcome for me, and the trees I know best, and the pleasant fields of corn and tobacco, and the meadows

There he was, stationed high on the load, and John, the Pole, was pitching on. When he saw me he lif

ems to me I was never so

lways say," she

accumulated in the city eddies upon the pile of doc

of an old shirt! Th

ee at the corner of the orchard, a complete suit of black clothes. Near it, with the arms waving gently in the breeze, was a white shirt and a bla

hed to

id, "what do

ay's haying, like raw beef-steaks. He paused on his load, smilin

uneral," he s

ssistant, and is always on

appened

his afternoon, but they took an

came pr

in hayin'. The pump fer

scratchings." I took one side of the load and John, the Pole, the other and we put on great forkfuls from the

s of his eye." John, the Pole, is a big, powerful fellow, and after smoothing down the load with his fork he does not bother to rake up the combings, but gathering a bunch of loose hay with his

drying, as it was not this year, the kicking tedder goes over it, spreading it widely. Then the team and rack on the smooth-cut meadow and Bill on the load, and John and I pitching on; and the talk and badinage that goes on, the excitement over disturbed field mice, the discussion of the best methods of killing woodchucks, tales of marvellous exploits of loaders and stackers, thrilling incidents

er, with legs apart, almost pushing on t

. Ease down now. Hey, there, John, block the wheel-block the w

of cattle from below, the pigeons in the loft whirring startled from their perches. Then the hot, scente

n to blow, sweetly cool after the burning heat of the day. And I felt again that curious deep se