The Midlander

THAT green bronze swan of the fountain in the broad yard next door to the Oliphants’ should have been given a new interpretation this season; the open beak, forever addressing i...

NOT long ago there was found everywhere in the Midland country a kind of wood then most characteristic of it but now almost disappeared, a vanishment not inexpressive of nature’...

SHE nodded to where before them a long wooden picket fence outlined the street boundary of Mrs. Savage’s lawn. Here was an older quarter than that upper reach of National Avenue...

PEOPLE used to say of the two Oliphant brothers that Harlan Oliphant looked as if he lived in the Oliphants’ house, but Dan didn’t. This was a poor sort of information to any on...

THE day after her funeral Mr. Oliphant brought home a copy of her will and read it to his wife and their sons and daughter-in-law in the library. He read slowly, while his four...

HIS humour was misplaced, and both of them would have been nothing less than dismayed could they have foreseen in what manner he was destined to misplace it again, and to what d...

DAN walked home from his grandmother’s with the wind blowing a fine snow against his chest, within which something seemed to be displaced and painful. Higher up, under the cold...

HARLAN laughed ruefully and told her that time, tide, and travel failed to alter her. “You don’t change as much as—as much as”—he looked about him for a comparison, and found on...

NO FIGURE was more familiar to the downtown streets of those days than that of the young promoter of Ornaby Addition. Always in a hurry and usually with eyes fixed on what appea...

IT WAS not altogether without difficulty that the older of the brothers graduated. Harlan obtained a diploma inscribed with a special bit of classic praise, for he was an “Honou...

DAN did not go next day to bid the returned neighbour welcome home—he thought it better to postpone the call of greeting he should have made at once. He knew he should have made...

IN THE minds of Mrs. Savage’s neighbours across the street and of the habitual passers-by, that broad plate-glass window where it was her custom to sit for the last hour of ever...

HIS attitude had not changed, fifteen minutes later, when there came a light tapping upon that mishandled door of his; and at the sound he rose quickly, said, “Yes, mother,” and...

THE doleful bride remained in bed all the next day, prostrate under the continuing heat;—in fact, it was not until a week had passed that she felt herself able to make the excur...

HE MADE this promise with an angrily confident determination to fulfil it, but the next few days were to teach him that he had not yet learned all there was to know about his si...

SHE was right; the growth was now visibly upon the pleasant and substantial town, where all had once appeared to be so settled and so finished; for, just as with some of man’s d...

“Here you are, dearie,” he said gayly. “Jellied chicken, cold as ice, and iced tea and ice-cold salad. Not a thing hot except some nice crisp toast. You’ll feel like running a f...

SHE was mistaken about Martha, who never had the definite hope Lena’s imagination attributed to her. Martha was steadfast because she could not help it, having been born with th...

THE next day, at lunch, she asked her father what it meant, though she did not mention Dan; and she brought out a crackling chuckle from that old bit of hickory, now brittle and...

THEY thought of many ways to get him to do it, but none of such ingenuity as to inspire them with confidence. Mrs. Oliphant made more suggestions than her husband did, and she p...

THE Oliphants’ high white iron fence was a hundred and fifty feet long on National Avenue, a proud frontage, but the next yard to the north had one even prouder: it was of a hun...

ADMITTED by a coloured housemaid who drowsily said, “Yes’m, she still up,” in response to his inquiry, Harlan had only to step into the Shelbys’ marble-floored “front hall” to d...

HARLAN was astonished, but he took his little defeat well; and Martha in turn encountered a surprise, for he showed a discomfited kind of pleasure. “So Ornaby Addition’s going t...

BUT Lena did not respond right away. Instead, she allowed a fortnight to elapse, during which her state of mind was one of indecision and her continuous emotion a sharp irritati...

HE HAD no wish to supplant his brother in Mrs. Savage’s will or in anything;—last of all did he wish to supplant him in the heart of Martha Shelby. Mrs. Savage had been far from...

NEITHER Mr. Oliphant’s daughter-in-law nor his grandson was at home at the time of his death. Lena had gone abroad again, for a “three-months’ furlough,” as she called it; and a...

DAN reassured his mother as well as he could. “Only a fit of nerves;—too much music, I guess,” he said; and, returning to his son’s door, found it locked and Henry as unresponsi...

‟HOW in the world did that cunning little wife of his ever fall in love with him?” Frederic’s companion inquired, watching the emerging procession of the dining party. “He alway...

MARTHA had said that Dan’s remaining away “didn’t hurt—not exactly”; and by this she meant to give Harlan the impression that she was less than hurt; but such a denial, thus qua...

THE war halted the wrecking of National Avenue, but not for long. Until the soldiers came home and the country could begin to get back into its great stride again, groups of the...

HE FOUND Henry, but the search took two hours, and his clothes were sodden with the rain that drenched them as he got in and out of his car to make inquiries, or to investigate...