The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 19, 1902, Page 1

Yu the banner nomber in The (Sanday Call's mew Iiterary policy, which is to publish the very best and most popular $1 50 movels of the day for 10 cents, or at the most, 15 cents. In this series there have already been published such splendid books as “Nome but the Brave” and “Lu- sarre,” both stirring and historic- mlly correct romantic stories of the Revelutionary period, “The Mystery Rox,” the great detective story from one of the hest writers of this aiftfi- cult order of fiction, and “The Auto- crats,” from the pen of Charles K. Lush, one of the strongest political and wocinal studies of the day— which has just been completed im twe editions of The Sunday Call Magasin , And now yom will get Maurice Thompson’s latest and best book complete im three editions for 18 cents. That is something truly ex- traordinary, even in Western jonr- mnalism, which leads the world im novelty and IenIl.. interest. And you ething more than “Alice of Old Vil..lll "’ as Maurice Thompson wWro it 'OI set Vir- winia Harned’s great play as well, magnificently shows in a series of photographic - masterpieces made especially to illustrate this story for The .Sumday Call by Byrom, the famous New York theatrical pho- tographer, during the big run of the play. in the Hastern metropolis. The pictures show Virginia Harned as Aljce Roussillom snd Henry Miller's popular leading man as Licutenant Beverly, y There you Rhave it tn & nutshell the book, will follow om October nnd November R, respectively. Put this s not all. There is.much Flower,” etc., etc., for instance. And sreatest surprise of all, “The Gospel of Judas Iseariot,” which is bound to create as bix & sensation here it has done in the East’'‘and & Europe. v (Copyright, 1900, by The Bowen-Merrill Co.) CHAPTER L UNDER THE CHERRY TREN. P to the days of Indiana’s early statehood, probably as late as 1825, there stood, in what is now - the beautiful little city of Vincennes on the Wabash, tha decaying remnant of an old and, eurfously gnarled cherry tree, knowsi as the Roussillon tree, le gerisier de Monsieur Roussillon, as the French 'inhabitants called it, which as long as it lived bore fruit remarkable for richness of flavor and peculiar dark ruby deptk of color. The exact spot where this noble old seed-/ ling from la belle France flourished, de- clined and died cannot be certainly poin ed out; for in the rapid and happy growtl of Vincennes many idmarks once no- table. among them le. cerisier de Monslsur Roussillon, have been destroyed and 8pots where they stood, once tamma.r to every eye in old Vincennes, are now lost In the Dleasant confusion of the new The security of certain land titles may have largely depegded upon th dlnp- pearance of old, fixed objects én there. Early records were laodely kepc. indeed, scarcely kept at all; many were destroyed by designin {hlln those most eare: falled to gi’ land lly lators, held shereby; so house or tree not (nlrequm important question of propert: { hh lon open hy a rflmmu dod. Al events, the lon cherry lon; uo, nobedy living known how, and with it also vanished, riously, all 1 Rous: d name even can be church or county The old, twhu:.r’ gum-embosased cherry feature of what was bn the most turesque and romantio place in Just north of it stood, in the more jo follow) As “The Leopard’s Ppots,” ¢The Gentloman From In- Mise," “Whep KRighthood Was in- COJ’}Q?]GTI B THE BOWEI —Nflffi[fl‘ cO- with him to the wilderness a bundle books and a taste for reading. From faded letters and dimly remem- bered talk of those who once clung fond- ly to the legends and -traditions of old rawn that the -Rous- stoed not very far away site of the tholic church, on ‘a slight swell of ground over- ldoking a wide marshy flat and the silver current of ‘the Wabash. If the tree grew there, then there, too, stood the Rous- sillon house with its cozy log rooms, its <clay-daubed chimpeys and its grapevine- mantled verandas, while some distance away and nearer the river the rude fort ‘with its huddled officers’ quarters seemed to fling out over the wild landscape, through-its squinting and lopsided port- holes, a gaze of stubborn defiance. Not far off was the little log church, where one- good Father Beret, or as named by the Indians, who all loved him, Father Blackrobe, pertormed the services of his sacred calling: and scat- tered all around were the cabins of trad- ers, soldlers and woodsmen forming a queer little town, the like of which can- Dot now be seen anywhere on the earth. It is not known just when Vincennes was first founded: but most historians make the probable date very early in the eighteenth century, somewhere between 1710 and 17%0. In 1816 the Roussillon eherry tree was thought by a distinguished bo- tanical letter writer to be at least fifty years old, which would make the date of its planting about 1760. Certainly shown by the time-stained family records upon which this story of otrs sed, it was a flourluhlng and wide topped tres in early summer of 1778, f{ts branches lolded droéving with luscious fruit. ““M clu::rl- bas at a young girl ounfl y reached the bes: made her vnrph with thelr juice while ate That was long has come to lll on’ the rich country rom which logkl the Wabas] ntle lvdl o cennes over- The new town nmn- ERLi TR e e onable es of equipages. ony phaeton, make the }aunl n&d bugklklg trousers seem 3 " st S, W, peet, trd & hun and twenty years to ses Allfl -Roussillon standing under the cherry tree ..nd homlng high a témpt- “Jump, Jean; jump high!* Yes, that was very long ago, in the days when women lightly braved what the strongest men would sbrink from now. Alice Roussillon was tall, lithe, strong- 1y knit, with an aimost perfect figure, Judging by what the master sculptors carved for the form of Venus, and her face was comely and winning, If not ab- solutely beautiful; but thé time and the place were vigorously indicated by her dress, which was of coarse stuff and sim- ply designed. Plainly she was a child of the American wilderness, a ua\‘fhler of old Vincennes on the Wabdsh in'the.time that tried men's souls. * “Jump, - Jean!" she < cried, her face laighing with a show of cheek dimples an arching of finely sketched brows ant the twinkling of large blue-gray eyes. “Jump high and get ‘While she waved ber surf-¥rowned hand holding the cherries aloft, blowing fresh from the sou her hair so that some loose s like rimpled flames. The sturdy little hunchback daid leap with surprising activity; but the treach- erous brown hand went her, so high that the combined altitude of his jump and the reach of hig unnaturally leng arms was overcome. Again and again hs rang vainly into the air comically, like long-legged. squat-bodied frog. “And you brag of your agility and strength, Jean,” she laughingly, remark- ed; ut you can’'t take cherrfes when they are offered to you. What a clumsy bungler you are.” “I can climb and’ get some,” he said with a hideously happy grin, and imme- diately embraced the bole of the tres, up which he began scrambling almost as fast as_a squirrel. ‘When he had mounted high enough to be extending & hand for a hold on a crotch, Alice grasped his leg near the foot and pulled him down, despite his joft roots, while a‘ne held his updvo leg al- most vertically erect. It was a show of great strength: but Alice looked quite unconscious of it, hu:hlnl merrily, the dimples despening er plump cheeks, her forearm, now bared to the etbow, gleaming white and shapely whils its muscles rippled om ac- count.of the jerking and kicking of Jean. All the um- she was holding the ch ries high in her other hand, shaking th by the twig to which their attached them, and saying in & sweetly tantalizing to: “What makes you climb downward aft- er cherries, Jean? What a foolish fellow you are, indeed, tryin m? to grabble cher- ries out of the grou: as you do pota- toes! I'm sure I didn’t suppose that you knew so little as that.” Her French was colloquial, but quits good, showing here and there what we often notice in the spesch of thoss who have been educated in isolsted places far from that babel of polite ene: we call the world; something that may be described as a bookish cast appearing oddly in the midst of phrasing distinctly rustic and local—a peculiarity not easy to_transfer from one language to another. Jean the hunchback was a muscular If tle” deformity and a’wonder. of good ma- ture. His head looked ynnatu nestling grotesquely, ‘between the pol of his lifted and distorted shoulders, like a shaggy black animal in fhs fork of a broken tree. He was bellicose in his amiable way and never knew just when to acknowledge defeat. How long he might have kept up the hopeless gle with the girl's invincible grip would be hard to guess. His release was c.nnd by the approach of a third wore the robe of a Cathollc priest ufl the countenance of a man who had lived and suffered a long time without much loss of physical strength and endurance. This was Pere Beret, grizaly, short, compact, his face deeply lined, his mouth decidedly aslant on account of some lost teeth, and his eyes set deep under gray, shaggy brows. Looking at him when his features were in repese a first impression might not have favora- ble; but seeing him lmlle or hearing him speak change sweetness itself and his on_the instant. Something like & per- vading sorrow always seemed to be ¢ behind his eyes and under his speec! yet he was a genial, sometimes almost Jolly, man, very prone to join in the light- er amusements of his people. “Children, children, my children,” he called out as’ he approached slans 1t pathway leading up from the direction of the church, “what are you doing now? Bah there, Alice; will you pull Jean's leg oft 7 At first they d!d not hear they were 80 nearly deafened by thelr own vo- cllé};cordl Cont “Why are you s ng om Bead with your feet so high in alr, .nf added. . “It’s not a polite attitude s th presence of a young lady. Are you a pig, that you poke your nose in the airt?" Xilce now turned her bright head and gave Pere Beret a look of frink wel- come, which. at the same time shot & beam of willful self-assertion. “My daughter, are you trying teo help Jean up the tree feet foremost?™ the priest’ added, standing whers he had hal ed just oytside of the straggling yard fence. He had his hands on his hips and was quietly chuckling at the scene befors him, as one’'who, although old -ym,u thized with the natural and harml sportiveness of young people and mla a3 llef a8 not Joln in t:nuk or ou, ses what I'm Be- d Alice. “I am Drw.flnl L]