Mary Rex was more particularly my nurse, for my sister Ellen, a thoughtful, dependable child of eight, was her own mistress in most matters.

This was in the days when we got our servants from neighborhood families; before the Swedish and Irish invasion had made servants of us in turn. Mary was the youngest of an ancestored county family. Her great-grandfather had fought in the Revolution, as you might know by the great flint-lock musket over the Rexes' fireplace. A brother of his had formed part of a British square at Waterloo; and if Mary's own father had not lost his right hand at Gettysburg he would never have let his children go out to service. Poor soul, he bore the whole of his afflictions, those to his body and those to his pride, with a dignity not often seen in these degenerate days. He was by trade a blacksmith, and it was for that reason, I suppose, that Providence, who loves a little joke, elected for amputation his right hand rather than one or both of his feet. Since, even in these degenerate days, many a footless blacksmith makes an honest living.

Mary was a smart, comely, upstanding young woman. Even my father, a dismal sceptic anent human frailty, said that he would freely trust her around the farthest corner in Christendom. And I gathered from the talk of my elders and betters that Mary was very pretty. People said it was a real joy to see a creature so young, so smiling, so pink and white, so graciously happy—in those degenerate days. I myself can see now that she must have been very pretty indeed. Her eyes, for instance, so blue in the blue, so white in the white, can't have changed at all—unless, perhaps, the shadows deep within the blue are deeper than they were when she was a girl. But even to-day you would have to travel far to see another middle-aged woman so smooth of forehead, so cleanly-cut of feature, so generally comely.

But if there was one thing in the world that I had formed no conclusions upon at the age of six it was female loveliness. To cuddle against a gentle mother when bogies were about had nothing whatsoever to do with that gentle mother's personal appearance. To strike valiantly at Mary's face when the hot water and the scrubbing-brush were going had nothing to do with the prettiness thereof. Nor did I consider my sister the less presentable by a black eye given and taken in the game of Little John and Robin Hood upon a log in the Baychester woods. And indeed I have been told, and believe it to be a fact, that the beauty before whom swelled my very earliest tides of affection was a pug-nosed, snaggle-toothed, freckled-faced tomboy, who if she had been but a jot uglier might have been exhibited to advantage in a dime museum. Peace, old agitations, peace!

Everybody knew the Rexes, as in any part of the world, for many years stable, everybody knows everybody else. In Westchester, before great strips of woodland and water became Pelham Bay Park, before the Swedes came, and the Irish, and the Italians, and the Germans—in other words, before land boomed—there had always been an amiable and uninjunctionable stability. Families had lived, for well or ill, in the same houses for years and years. So long had the portraits hung in the rich men's houses that if you moved them it was to disclose a brightly-fresh rectangle upon the wall behind. The box in the poor man's yard had been tended by the poor man's great-grand female relatives. Ours was a vicinage of memory and proper pride. We would no more have thought of inquiring into the morals of this public house or that than of expunging the sun from the heavens. They had always been there.

There was a man who left his wife and little children to fight against King George. He could think of but one thing to protect them against vagrant soldiers of either side, and that was to carve upon certain boards (which he nailed to the trees here and there along the boundaries of his farm):

BEWARR OF THE BOOLE DOGGES

When I was a child one of these signs still remained—at the left, just beyond Pelham Bridge. And people used to laugh and point at the great trees and say that because of the sign the British had never dared to trespass and cut down the timber. Now the man had never owned a Boole Dogge, nor had any of his descendants. I doubt if there was ever one on the premises, unless latterly, perhaps, there has been a French bulldog or so let out of a passing automobile to enjoy a few moments of unconventional liberty. But the bluff had always held good. As my mother used to say: "I know—but then there may be a bulldog now." And that farm was always out of bounds. I relate this for two reasons—to show how stable and conservative a neighborhood was ours, and because on that very farm, and chosen for the very reason which I have related, stood the hollow oak which is to play its majestic part in this modest narrative.

The apple orchards of the Boole Dogge Farm ran southerly to a hickory wood, the hickory wood to an oak wood, the oak wood to thick scrub of all sorts, the scrub to the sedge, and the sedge to the salt mud at low tide, and at high to the bassy waters themselves of inmost Pelham Bay. On the right was the long, black trestle of the Harlem River Branch Railroad, on the left the long-curved ironwork of Pelham Bridge. And the farm, promontoried with its woods and thick cover between these boundaries and more woods to the north, was an overgrown, run-down, desolate, lonely, deserted old place. Had it not been for the old sign that said "Bewarr," it must have been a great playground for children—for their picnics, and their hide-and-seeks, and their games at Indians. But the ferocious animals imagined by the old Revolutionary were as efficacious against trespassers as a cordon of police. And I remember to this day, I can feel still, the very-thrill of that wild surmise with which I followed Mary and my sister over the stone wall and into those forbidden and forbidding acres for the first time. But that comes later.

It was my sister who told me that Mary was engaged to be married. But I had noticed for some days how the neighbors went out of their way to accost her upon our walks; to banter her kindly, to shake hands with her, to wag their heads and look chin-chucks even if they gave none. Her face wore a beautiful mantling red for hours at a time. And instead of being made more sedate by her responsible and settling prospects she shed the half of her years, which were not many, and became the most delightful romp, a furious runner of races, swiftest of pursuers at tag, most subtle and sudden of hiders and poppers out, and full to the arch, scarlet brim of loud, clear laughter.

It was late spring now, lilacs in all the dooryards, all the houses being cleaned inside out, and they were to be married in the fall. They had picked the little house on the outskirts of Skinnertown not far from the Tory oak, in which they were to live. And often we made it the end of an excursion, and played at games devised by Mary to improve the appearance of the little yard. We gathered up in emulation old, broken china and bottles, and made them into a heap at the back; we cleared the yard of brush and dead wood, and pulled up weeds by the hundred-weight, and set out a wild rose or two and more valuable, if less lovely, plants that people gave Mary out of real gardens.

Will Braddish, a painter by trade, met us one day with brushes and a great bucket of white paint, and, while he and Mary sat upon the doorstep talking in low tones or directing in high, Ellen and I made shift to paint the little picket-fence until it was white as new snow. At odd times Braddish himself painted the little house (it was all of old-fashioned, long shingles) inside and out, and a friend of his got up on the roof with mortar and a trowel, and pointed-up the brick chimney; and my father and Mr. Sturtevant contributed a load of beautiful, sleek, rich pasture sod and the labor to lay it; so that by midsummer the little domain was the spickest, spannest little dream of a home in the whole county. The young couple bought furniture, and received gifts of furniture, prints, an A1 range, a tiny, shiny, desirable thing; and the whole world and all things in it smiled them in the face. Braddish, as you will have guessed, was a prosperous young man. He was popular, too, and of good habits. People said only against him that he was impulsive and had sudden fits of the devil's own temper, but that he recovered from these in a twinkling and before anything came of them. And even the merest child could see that he thought the world of Mary. I have seen him show her little attentions such as my sister retailed me of personages in fairy stories and chivalric histories. Once when there was a puddle to cross he made a causeway of his coat, like another Raleigh, and Mary crossed upon it, like one in a trance of tender happiness, oblivious of the fact that she might easily have gone around and saved the coat. His skin and his eyes were almost as clear as Mary's own, and he had a bold, dashing, independent way with him.

But it wasn't often that Braddish could get free of his manifold occupations: his painting contracts and his political engagements. He was by way of growing very influential in local politics, and people predicted an unstintedly successful life for him. He was considered unusually clever and able. His manners were superior to his station, and he had done a deal of heterogeneous reading. But, of course, whenever it was possible he was with Mary and helped her out with looking after Ellen and me. My mother, who was very timid about tramps, looked upon these occasions as in the nature of real blessings. There was nowhere in the countryside that we children might not safely venture with Will Braddish strolling behind. He loved children—he really did, a rare, rare thing—and he was big, and courageous, and strong, and quick. He was very tactful, too, on these excursions and talked a good part of the time for the three of us, instead of for Mary alone. Nice, honest talk it was, too, with just enough robbers, and highwaymen, and lions, and Indians to give it spice. But all the adventures through which he passed us were open and honest. How the noble heroes did get on in life, and how the wicked villains did catch it!

I remember once we were returning home past the Boole Dogge Farm, and Braddish, wiping his brow, for it was cruelly hot, seated himself as bold as could be on the boundary wall. The conversation had been upon robbers, and how they always, always got caught.

"It doesn't matter," Braddish said, "where they hide. Take this old farm. It's the best hiding-place in this end of the county—woods, and marshes, and old wells, and bushes, and hollows—"

We asked him in much awe if he had ever actually set foot on the place.

"Yes, indeed," he said; "when I was a boy I knew every inch of it; I was always hunting and trapping, and looking for arrowheads. And that was the best country. Once I spent a night in the woods yonder. The bridge was open to let a tugboat through and got stuck so they couldn't shut it, and there was no way back to Westchester except over the railroad trestle, and my father had said that I could go anywhere I pleased except on that trestle. And so here I was caught, and it came on to blither and blow, and I found an oak tree, all hollow like a little house, and I crept in and fell asleep and never woke till daylight. My father said next time I could come home by the trestle, or he'd know the reason why."

"But," said I, "weren't you afraid the bulldogs would get you?"

"Now, if they'd said bull-terriers," he said, "I might have had my doubts, but a bulldog's no more dangerous than a toadfish. He's like my old grandma. What teeth he has don't meet. And besides," he said, "there weren't any bulldogs on that farm. And I don't believe there ever were. Now, I'm not sure, sonny," he said, "but you climb up here—"

I climbed upon the wall, and he held me so that I should not fall.

"Do you see," said he, "way down yonder over the tops of the trees a dead limb sticking up?"

I saw it finally.

"Well," he said, "I'd stake something that that's a part of the old hollow oak. Shall we go and see?"

But Mary told him that the farm was out of bounds. And he thought a moment, and then swung his legs over the wall.

"I won't be two minutes," he said. "I'd like to see if I'm right—it's fifteen years ago—" And he strode off across the forbidden farm to the woods. When he came back he said that he had been right, and that nothing had changed much. He tossed me a flint arrowhead that he had picked up—he was always finding things, and we went on again.

When we got to the middle of Pelham Bridge we all stopped and leaned against the railing and looked down into the swift, swirling current. Braddish tore an old envelop into little pieces and dropped them overboard by pairs, so that we might see which would beat the other to a certain point.

But the shadows began to grow long now and presently Braddish had to leave us to attend a meeting in Westchester, and I remember how he turned and waved, just before the Boulevard dips to the causeway, and how Mary recollected something that she had meant to say and ran after him a little way calling, and he did not hear. And she came back laughing, and red in the face, and breathing quick.

Two days later my father, who had started for the early train, came driving back to the house as if he had missed it. But he said, no, and his face was very grave—he had heard a piece of news that greatly concerned Mary, and he had come back to tell her. He went into the study with my mother, and presently they sent for Mary and she went in to them.

A few minutes later, through the closed door, Ellen and I heard a sudden, wailing cry.

Poor Braddish, it seems, in one of his ungovernable tempers had shot a man to death, and fled away no one knew whither.