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                       THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN

                            BY ELLEN GLASGOW

       AUTHOR OF "THE DELIVERANCE," "THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE," ETC.


New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1909

_All rights reserved_

Copyright, 1909,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1909. Reprinted
May, July, August, September, twice, October, 1909.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




CONTENTS


       I. IN WHICH I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS

      II. THE ENCHANTED GARDEN

     III. A PAIR OF RED SHOES

      IV. IN WHICH I PLAY IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN

       V. IN WHICH I START IN LIFE

      VI. CONCERNING CARROTS

     VII. IN WHICH I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LADDER

    VIII. IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS

      IX. I LEARN A LITTLE LATIN AND A GREAT DEAL OF LIFE

       X. IN WHICH I GROW UP

      XI. IN WHICH I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL

     XII. I WALK INTO THE COUNTRY AND MEET WITH AN ADVENTURE

    XIII. IN WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS

     XIV. IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH

      XV. A MEETING IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN

     XVI. IN WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND

    XVII. IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE

   XVIII. THE PRINCIPLES OF MISS MATOACA

     XIX. SHOWS THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE

      XX. IN WHICH SOCIETY RECEIVES US

     XXI. I AM THE WONDER OF THE HOUR

    XXII. THE MAN AND THE CLASS

   XXIII. IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE

    XXIV. IN WHICH I GO DOWN

     XXV. WE FACE THE FACTS AND EACH OTHER

    XXVI. THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE

   XXVII. WE CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND US

  XXVIII. IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS

    XXIX. IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS

     XXX. IN WHICH SALLY PLANS

    XXXI. THE DEEPEST SHADOW

   XXXII. I COME TO THE SURFACE

  XXXIII. THE GROWING DISTANCE

   XXXIV. THE BLOW THAT CLEARS

    XXXV. THE ULTIMATE CHOICE




THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN




CHAPTER I

IN WHICH I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS


As the storm broke and a shower of hail rattled like a handful of
pebbles against our little window, I choked back a sob and edged my
small green-painted stool a trifle nearer the hearth. On the opposite
side of the wire fender, my father kicked off his wet boots, stretched
his feet, in grey yarn stockings, out on the rag carpet in front of the
fire, and reached for his pipe which he had laid, still smoking, on the
floor under his chair.

"It's as true as the Bible, Benjy," he said, "that on the day you were
born yo' brother President traded off my huntin' breeches for a yaller
pup."

My knuckles went to my eyes, while the smart of my mother's slap faded
from the cheek I had turned to the fire.

"What's become o' th' p-p-up-p?" I demanded, as I stared up at him with
my mouth held half open in readiness to break out again.

"Dead," responded my father solemnly, and I wept aloud.

It was an October evening in my childhood, and so vivid has my later
memory of it become that I can still see the sheets of water that rolled
from the lead pipe on our roof, and can still hear the splash! splash!
with which they fell into the gutter below. For three days the clouds
had hung in a grey curtain over the city, and at dawn a high wind,
blowing up from the river, had driven the dead leaves from the
churchyard like flocks of startled swallows into our little street.
Since morning I had watched them across my mother's "prize" red geranium
upon our window-sill--now whipped into deep swirls and eddies over the
sunken brick pavement, now rising in sighing swarms against the closed
doors of the houses, now soaring aloft until they flew almost as high as
the living swallows in the belfry of old Saint John's. Then as the dusk
fell, and the street lamps glimmered like blurred stars through the
rain, I drew back into our little sitting-room, which glowed bright as
an ember against the fierce weather outside.

Half an hour earlier my father had come up from the marble yard, where
he spent his days cutting lambs and doves and elaborate ivy wreaths in
stone, and the smell from his great rubber coat, which hung drying
before the kitchen stove, floated with the aroma of coffee through the
half-open door. When I closed an eye and peeped through the crack, I
could see my mother's tall shadow, shifting, not flitting, on the
whitewashed wall of the kitchen, as she passed back and forth from the
stove to the wooden cradle in which my little sister Jessy lay asleep,
with the head of her rag doll in her mouth.

Outside the splash! splash! of the rain