From the Bottom Up Part 17

"Her father is dead," he said. "I am her uncle."

Then he told me of the career of the city girl I had met on the farm and whom I had watched entering the church on Sundays.

"About the time you missed her at church," he said, "she was married to a rich young man. He spent his fortune in liquor and finally ended his life. She began to drink, after his death, but was persuaded to leave the country. She went to America. We haven't heard from her for a long time."

The following Sunday I told my father we were going to church.

"Not me!" he said.

"Oh, yes," I coaxed; "just this once with me."

"What th' divil's the use whin I haave a praycher t' m'silf."

"I am to be the preacher at the church."

"Och, but that's a horse ov another colour, bedad. Shure thin I'll go."

When my father saw me in a Geneva gown, his eyes were filled with tears.

The old white-haired lady who found the place in the book for him was the young lady's mother. Her uncle had ushered him into her pew, but they had never met each other nor did the old lady know until after church that he was my father.

He never heard a word of the sermon, but as we emerged from the church into the street he put his arms around my neck and kissing me said, "Och, boy, if G.o.d wud only take me now I'd be happy!"

He had been listening with his eyes and what he saw so filled him with joy that he was more willing to leave life than to have the emotion leave him.

Though he was very feeble, I took him to Scotland with me to visit my brothers and sisters; and there I left him. As the hour of farewell drew near he wanted to have me alone--all to himself.

"Ye couldn't stay at home awhile? Shure I'll be goin' in a month or two."

"Ah, that's impossible, father." He hung his head.

"D'ye believe I'll know her whin I go? G.o.d wudn't shut me out from her for th' things I've done--"

"Of course he won't."

"He wudn't be so d----d n.i.g.g.ardly, wud He?"

"Never!"

He fondled my hands as if I were a child. The hour drew nigher. He had so many questions to ask, but the inevitableness of the situation struck him dumb. We were on the platform; the train was about to move out. I made a motion; he gripped me tightly, whispering in my ear:

"Ask G.o.d onct in a while to let me be with yer mother--will ye, boy?"

I kissed him farewell and saw him no more.

I went on to France.

My objective point in France was the study of Millet and his work. I wanted to interpret him to working people in New Haven.

So to Greville on La Hague I went with a camera.

Greville consists of a church and a dozen houses. Gruchy is half a mile beyond, on the edge of the sea.

In Gruchy Millet was born; in Greville he first came into contact with incentive--I photographed both places and spent a night and a day with M. Polidor, the old inn-keeper who was the painter's friend.

Surely, never was so large a statue erected in so small a village. The peasant artist sits there on a bank of mosses, looking over at the old church that squats on the hillside. In Cherbourg I found more traces of his art and some stories of his life there that would be out of place here.

I found four portraits painted while he was paying court to his first wife. I found them in a little shoe shop in a by-street, in possession of a distant relative of his first wife.

From Cherbourg I went to Barbizon, where Millet spent the latter part of his life. I was very graciously received and entertained by his son Francois and his American wife.

To browse among the master's relics, to handle the old books of his small library, to hold, as one would a babe of tender years, his palette, were small things, judged by the values of the average life: to me it was one of the most inspiring hours of my career.

Paris was to me an art centre--little more. I followed the footsteps of Millet from one place to another. I sat before his paintings in the Louvre--I met some of his old friends and gathered material for a lecture on his work.

From Paris I went to London. The British capital was more than an art centre to me. It was a centre, literary, sociological and religious. I was the guest of Sir George Williams one afternoon at one of his parties and met Lord Radstock whom I had heard preach on a street corner in Whitechapel twenty years before.

Besides visiting and photographing the literary haunts of the great masters, I made the acquaintance of the leaders of the Socialist movement. I went to St. Albans to attend the first convention of the Ruskin societies. The convention was composed of men who in literature and life were translating into terms of life and labour the teachings of John Ruskin.

From London I went to Oxford and spent a few weeks browsing around the most fascinating city in the world, to me. My visit was in antic.i.p.ation of the British convention of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation to which I was a fraternal delegate from the Young Men's a.s.sociation of Yale University.

I was invited to a garden party at Blenheim Palace while at Oxford. I arrived early and presented my card. Without waiting I went into the grounds and proceeded to enjoy the beautiful walks. Before I had gone far, I met a young man who seemed familiar with the place. I told him that I had once taken the d.u.c.h.ess through part of the slum region of New York, and expressed a hope that she was at home.

"No," he said, "she is conducting a fair in London for soldiers'

wives." My next remark was in the realm of ethics. I had heard that the father of the present Duke was a good deal of a rake and asked the young man whether that was true or not. He said he thought it was like the obituary notice of Mark Twain--very much exaggerated.

"I have been a flunky to some of these high fliers," I said, "and I know how hard it is to get at the facts and also how easy it is to form a mistaken judgment."

"Yes," he said, "that's true, but men of that type, while they are often worse than they are painted are more often much better than the best the public think of them! I am the successor of the late Duke, and speak with authority on at least one case."

He took me through the palace, not only the parts usually open to the public but the private apartments also, and later in the afternoon he took me over some of the property at Woodstock, stopping for a few minutes at the house of Geoffrey Chaucer.

The Rector of Exeter College had invited a group of the leaders of the convention to a luncheon in Exeter and, because I was the only American, I was asked to be present and deliver a short address.

The grounds of Exeter show the good results of the four or five hundred years' care bestowed upon them. In my brief sojourn in Oxford as a student I had been chased out of the grounds of Exeter by the caretaker, under the suspicion that I was a burglar, taking the measure of the walks, windows, doors, etc.

I told this story to a man with whom I later exchanged cards; he was an old man and his card, read "W. Creese, Y.M.C.A. secretary, June 6, 1844."

"You were in early, brother," I said. "Yes," he said modestly, "I was in _first_." He helped George Williams to organize the first branch of the Y.M.C.A. My story went the rounds of those invited to luncheon and prepared the way for the address I delivered.

The first thing I did on my return from Europe was to visit the last known address of the girl friend of my youth. It was in a Negro quarter of the city.

"Does Mrs. G---- live here?" I asked the coloured woman who opened the door.

"She did, mistah--but she done gone left, dis mawnin'."

"Do you know where she has gone?"