T

HE artist who would attempt to portray that southern Ohio winter sky on the particular day of which I write, would have to mix his strongest solution of Prussian blue, brightened and intensified by the addition of a liberal intermingling of ultramarine. Here and there the blueness was accentuated by a sharply outlined cloud that would have been white, had it not been for its restful contrast with the dazzling world below.

The landscape, when one's eyes had sufficiently accustomed themselves to it to look at all, was one huge, frozen, undulating glitter, relieved and limited only by a fringe of black fences and tree-skeletons here and there, and by the wonderful blue of the sky where the snowy horizon line was weirdly pasted upon it. On eastern hillsides the black fence rails drip-dripped and the black tree trunks were wet with the slow trickle. Twigs were hung with pendants of crystal from yesterday's reluctant halfthaw, and now and then a cold tear dropped from the end of each tiny icicle. Occasionally in the silence a bunch of sedge would rustle and straighten suddenly, and stand triumphantly looking down at the lump of snow that, with the subtle help of the persistent sun, lay vanquished at her feet, where it had fallen with a muffled thud.

At

As Old Man Beeson sat and warmed himself by his stingy fire of hickory limbs, he could look out over a mile or so of valley where the railroad tracks made a blackish streak through the general whiteness. the head of one of the valley's little wooded spurs a squalid house with snow-laden roof nestled and sent up a wreath of palest blue that faded to muddy white when it showed against the vivid intensity of the blue above the sky-line. With his mind's eye he could see just as vividly the smokehouse, the pigsty and the cowshed that lay still farther up the little, pinched ravine, hidden from his physical sight by the dwelling itself. Black upon the hillside behind lay the apple orchard-Old Man Beeson could name for you just how many rambos, Roman beauties, Smith's cider and bellflowers were in that orchard, and how many rows from the north fence you would count to find each. He knew which ones took

the bitter rot last year, and which were almost past bearing.

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And it's mine—all mine!" he gloated involuntarily to himself. "Every twig of it, every root and trunk. Mine, because I've ben keerful an' savin' an' kep' myse'f free frum sof'nin' inflooences. Yep, that's th' sekrit o' my succeedin keepin' free frum sof'nin' inflooences. Up to now I've ownded evry foot o' groun' I cud see frum my winder-yes, an' frum m' back door, except that one leetle forty-acre that belonged t' Dixon afore he died. But he was powerful sick for a turrible spell, an' owin' t' th' sof'nin' inflooences in th' shape o' a woman an' five childern he'd collected around 'im, he was plum broke afore he died. I promust 'im I'd see th' widder out-an' out she goes t' morrer, by gravy, but not th' way Dixon meant. But I done my dooty-done it reg'lar. I let 'er have th' money t' plant 'im, an' took a morgidge t' be paid in six months, on th' hull propty. With 'er two boys ten an' twelve year old she ort t''ave paid it off b' this time, but what's she done? Only paid half o' th' amount, by gravy, an' bizness is bizness. I didn't arn my money easy, an' I cain't let it go fer a song. If I had any sof'nin' inflooences about me I'd probly be leenyent with 'em, but-Landrum!"'

we'll move there, Landrum, ef this ol' nest sh'd prove kind o' monot'nous to us-eh?" Landrum cackled idiotically, with staring eyes and wide-open mouth. No, Landrum was not a "softening influence." Hence the old man's clinging to him.

In a short time the old black mare, her raw bones encased in a muchly-tied harness, her collar showing its straw-thatching, her sides grayish-black where the tugs had rubbed away the long, unkempt hair, was standing in front of the house and the old man was hobbling rapidly out, his

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gathering little cakes of the sun-softened snow as the outfit jostled on. And Landrum (who was not a "softening influence") went back to the kitchen where, with animal greed and cunning, he had hidden the undispatched portion of the old man's precious turnip.

The drive to the village was a short one, but the humped old form was bitterly cold before he reached the general store where he was wont to do his frugal providing for himself and Landrum. Hitching Coaley to the rack before the door he hurried in, tremblingly wiping his nose with the back of his thin red mitten. Once inside he puttered to the stove and sat down over the cuspidor filled with stale sawdust and

hands clad in red yarn mittens, an old, threadbare comforter about his thin neck. His overcoat was of jeans, extensively and clumsily patched, and his trousers resembled a collection of cheap samples of various grades of fabric. His hat was dingy and yellowed with age, and the brim was torn. In ill-keeping was his aspect with the inward exultation he felt as he looked about the view from his door-yard and muttered a miserly "Mine, all mine, by gravy!"

Soon the wheels of the vehicle were creaking down the snowy lane, the tires

The old man's mouth closed with a snap, and the proprietor turned and looked up the street. As he did so, an exclamation

burst from his lips:

"Lordy!"

The exclamation was followed by his quickly opening the door and rushing out into the cold, coatless and hatless.

The old man remained where he was. He knew there was some excitement outside, and he had found, early in his mystery-veiled life, that excitements were softening influences. He would sit tight and see nothing,

But it was not so to be. In a moment the proprietor returned, with a face somewhat white, and leading a weeping baby by the hand.

"Hyer, Uncle Billy! This is the Widder Dixon's youngest, an' her ma's hurt. That Bill hoss o' theirn took one of 'is tantrums out in front o' th' postoffice, an' throwed 'er. Some serious hurt, I reckon. You take keer o' th' kid while I go fer th' doctor."

And without waiting for consent or refusal, the proprietor hurried away, leaving the round-eyed and wailing youngster clinging to a revolving stool and staring at the worsefrightened old man by the stove. The revolving stool attracted the child's attention, aroused her curiosity and stopped her crying, all at the same instant.

And Old Man Beeson? Horrors! His eyes protruded from his head; he vaguely cursed the proprietor, muttering inanely that he "al'ays knowed that feller would do 'im harm, becase he called 'm uncle, an' that was a sof'nin' inflooence." And here he had left him, face to face with the softeningest influence in all the world-an eighteenmonths-old baby! How the old man now remembered that baby, and how he remembered how hard he had worked, and how successfully, to get that little round face out of his mind's eye before he had decided to send Landrum over with the bill. And now his good work was all undone, and the softening influence was here, to get in its direful work.

The queer twitchings of the old man's face, the agitated rising-up and sitting-down as his feelings manipulated his stiff old limbs at their whim- -all these and a hundred other things that only the round, indiscriminating eyes of babyhood comprehend at a glance, amused the baby immensely. As she watched him she gave the revolving stool a coquettish whirl and giggled at him. Talk of softening influences! A baby's

laugh! What chance was left a man who had endeavored always to steer clear of all such weakness?

Always? Was this old miser's fear of softening influences based purely on theory? Was he seeing the Widow Dixon's youngest, or the wraith of a tow-headed, stickyfingered thing that had pulled his nose, squeezed his neck and patted his back a hundred ages ago-before the stone age of his heart's existence had begun? Wasn't there another and a bigger softening influence somewhere about, encouraging the tiny one?

Suddenly the baby before him took three tottering steps from the revolving stool. The old man saw only a red and gray blur instead of the clumsy red-plaid home-made flannel dress and the shabby gray coat that had been a city cousin's castaway. Then he knew that- horror of horrors! The softening influence had got in its dreadful work. He was crying!

Then, out of the scarlet and gray blur arose one little arm, pointing to the jar of striped sticks on the shelf.

"Tanny!" imperatively ordered a voice that sounded far, far away-hundreds of years away, from the very heart of the time before the stone age. With no more power of resistance than a reed in a tornado, Old Man Beeson climbed with his hobnailed boots, the revolving stool assisting him, to the counter, whence he could reach the jar. Thence he extracted not one but a dozen sticks of the gayest kind, and handed them to the figure before him that was still blurred.

Just then the proprietor came back, laughing in a relieved tone, and saying: "Not much hurt after-what!"

But Uncle Billy, shaking his head like a man demented, his self-respect utterly gone, vulgarly stooped and disgracefully kissed that baby's candy-smeared face. Then he handed the proprietor a quarter and fled from the place, lashing poor old Coaley into a lumbering and goose-like trot toward home.

When Landrum came out to take charge of the horse, he looked curiously at his master. Still more curiously did he look when the old man said in a strangely altered voice:

"Landrum, I hain't no urrand fer ye over t' th' Widder Dixon's."

And that night when the sleepless old man, lying in his bed of straw, heard the snow-muffled notes of a Christmas bell, he turned over on his face and cried harder than ever.