CAR NUMBER SEVEN. BY MARY PUTNAM DENNY. "CAR AR NUMBER Seven-shipment of beef-iced for three days," the shipping clerk called out to Edwin Swanson, foreman of the ice gang. “Yah,” Swanson answered in a half faltering tone; "all right." "Sure?" the clerk asked with emphasis as he noticed the falter in the man's voice. "All O. K." the young Swede reasserted in a stronger voice, and walked briskly from the counting room-out to the platform that stretched above the great line of cars. Men were hurrying from the smoking rooms with the barrels of cured hams, others hung the great quarters of beef in the cars, Sumikura the little Jap that presided over the vat of boiling water where the sausages were cooked, ran out with a string of them hanging like pig-tails from his shoulders, to report the marvelous success of a new process for preparing the bologna. Yet Swanson did not notice the hurrying figures; he paced up and down the place for several minutes, trying to convince his own mind that he was sure before he caught the motor for the lodging house out on Q street. He was sure as far as his own hand went, certain that he had given just the right orders to each man, but he was never sure of Jack Holt, the self-appointed leader of the third division of the gang. Jack was a shirk and influenced the men around him to shirk. Swanson was called to the other end of the platform when Jack was icing his department of the car. He swore that he put in just the right amount of ice, but Jack's word meant nothing. At any other time the question would have scarcely disturbed Swanson, for he had had so many rough turns since he landed in America and drifted out to South Omaha and the great packing houses,-since he had begun the struggle from running the trucks across the platform to the position as a foreman, that he would not have noticed another knock, only there was someone else in his reckoning to-night-the thought of a slender, fair-faced Swedish girl, with a crown of yellow hair, coming across the ocean toward him. Edwin Swanson had thought of Thekla as a far-off gleam of light, a vision hidden in the mists that surrounded the homeland, since he had reached America and met with the sudden disillusionment that so often awaits the immigrant. There was no chance of sending for Thekla or of making a home for her as he struggled through the first three years, scarcely earning a lodging and scanty board for himself. Then came the sudden turn, the promotion and possibility of redeeming his promise to the girl. He had scarcely received the first two months' pay when a letter was on its way to Sweden, with the passage money. Now at the thought the face of the man grew dark. If any trouble should come through Jack and the cargo of beef? If when Thekla reached the great Union Station in Omaha, he must meet her empty handed with no food or home to offer? But the hope that had stirred the spirit of the man for the last three months rose above the dark foreboding, and as he looked up beyond the crowded platform, the great squares of buildings with their divisions of work, the glare of the furnaces, stretched the range of hills that bounded the city, with their rugged outlines against the blue of the sky. Thursday morning Swanson was almost knocked off his feet as Henry Morton, the shipping clerk, came waving a telegram: "The whole cargo of Number Seven was spoiled when they opened the car at Philadelphia." Morton paused a moment; the way the Swede took the trouble surprised him. If he had cursed and raved he would not have noticed. But a great silence seemed to settle over the man, He stretched his hand out toward the hills with their thought of freedom and life, but did not speak. Morton was accustomed to managing the men, scoring them for their mistakes or in an off-hand way introducing the new hands to their work, but he could not understand the silence of this man's life. "There's only one way," he finally said, trying to grope toward the man's deep trouble, "You will have to pay for the cargo. It'll take your wages for a long time, perhaps a year, but then you 'd better do it than lose your place. You have probably got a little saved and they will take the rest in payments every month." Swanson did not answer; the darkness and perplexity completely enveloped him. With a muttered sentence in Swede he turned toward Jack Holt, who stood a few feet away enjoying Swanson's discomfiture. Jack knew well enough what the telegram meant; he was mad with jealousy at the Swede because he had outstripped him with his superior push and get-up. Swanson glared at the man for a few moments and then with a wild cry of pent-up madness and despair, he gave him two or three fierce blows. The next Swanson knew he was in the office of G. H. Lewis, the superintendent, waiting for further orders. After a hurried consultation with the shipping clerk, Lewis turned toward the man: "Your assault on Holt seems to have been wholly unprovoked. We feel that for a time at least you are not fit to be placed over other men. So you must take your old place in the gang." Lewis paused a moment as if to allow the man a breath before he finished his sentence: "Oh yes, and that last cargo of beef is spoiled: We can't give you much pay for a few months." "Have n't you anything to say for yourself?" Lewis questioned as the man turned away without speaking. "Nothin'," Swanson murmured-and began another weary tramp up and down the platform as he awaited his next assignment of work. "That man's silence is oppressive," the shipping clerk said to Lewis a week later, "The fellows jeer and laugh at him for his set-back, and call him Old Swede, but he does n't seem to notice. All his rage seemed exhausted in those blows he gave Jack Holt. There's just one settled look of silence, of darkness. There appears to be some trouble in the man's life, greater and above any jeer or cuff the men can give." "Yes," Lewis answered, "His is a strange case. I wish I had more time to study these men. So many types and nationalities. But with all their differences they are real men with their deep troubles and struggles." George Lewis was a big, broadshouldered man, with a square chin and hard lines of decision in his face, worn by long years of contact with men-men of every grade and degree. Yet beneath the brusque manner and voice, there sometimes stole a gentler note, and a twinkle of compassion for some fellow down in the race would shine from the gray eyes. He was a strong man and he required strength from other men. The young Swede's silent endurance of his reverse, and what seemed some greater trouble back of it, moved Lewis more than any word of complaint or entreaty. A few mornings after Swanson stood for an hour in the inner office before the Superintendent's desk. Lewis came in from his hurried examination of all of the work of the great packing-house, and asked, "What's wanted?" "Could I get off, for an hour this afternoon, to meet the four o'clock train ?" Swanson answered. "Who 's coming?" Lewis sharply questioned, but as he looked up the silence in the man's face forbade further interrogation. He picked up a special letter that lay unopened on the desk, and in his absent-minded way studied it for a moment and then said in a tone of assent "I suppose, if it is important." Swanson looked at the unopened letter with the hungry stare of the beggar in the winodw of a shop. Oh, that it might have some message for him! Just as the man turned to leave the office, Lewis tore open the envelope, "Wait!" he thundered, as his eyes swept over the opening lines and Swanson's hand was on the door. The man groped back toward the desk. "This letter," Lewis said, after he had time to comprehend its meaning, "states that the car of beef that we were troubled about, did n't belong to us, but was from Cudahy's house. The whole affair was a bungle and mistake." Lewis watched the light dawn in the man's face as he spoke, "I've worked among men, long enough," he went on, "to understand them a little, and I knew there was some great question which your sudden reverse made it impossible for you to solve. I regret that those fellows' miserable mistake out there in the East, should have caused you these weeks of silent struggle," and Lewis, unable to find further words, reached his hand out toward the man. "Train from the East-hour late,don't you see the bulletin over there?" the station master exclaimed as Swanson touched his arm and eagerly asked the train time. But Swanson did not notice him, there was only the thought of Thekla—of the home and care that once more he felt the power of giving her. He strode through the corridors waiting, waiting. When the great hands of the clock pointed ten-five-one minute to four, he was at the iron gate with the watchman. There was the whistle of the approaching train, the moment of supreme expectancy, the crowd of passengers as they hurried across the tracks, the face of Thekla as she turned with the questioning, bewildered look, the little cry of joy, reaching out her hands with their burdens toward Swanson. The girl knew nothing as she stood on the platform that afternoon, her fair face turned toward Edwin Swanson in simple trust, of the struggle that the man had won, and Swanson forgot all as he drew her away from the crowd towards a sheltered seat in the waiting room. MANY PUTNam Denny. Council Bluffs, Ia. THE EDITOR'S QUIET HOUR. THE POET: HIS MISSION AND MESSAGE. I. THE DAY AND THE NIGHT OF THE POET. IN N PERIODS of spiritual quickening, times when moral idealism dominates the conscience of nation or people, the poet becomes a powerful influence, broadening [Note: "In the Mirror of the Present" Mr. Flower comments on great events—the significant lights and shadows of the present. In "The Editor's Quiet Hour" he will discuss from time to time literary, ethical and philosophical problems that challenge the attention of thoughtful people.] and enriching life and giving upward impulsion to society. But in times when the ideal becomes subordinate to egoistic domination, when the materialism of the market is more potent than the magic of truth, justice and love in the public consciousness, few poets appear and their message for the most part falls on ears deaf to its music. To the man on the street, engrossed in the greed for gold, the poet speaks in an unknown tongue. Moral idealism stirs life in its deepest and divinest centers and awakens all that is best It and most profound in the life of man. quickens the spiritual energies and, as we would naturally expect, calls forth the poet, who is the man of imagination, the revealer, the awakener, the interpreter. Thus, after our own nation was born, after we had nailed the Declaration of Independence to the mast-head of the infant Republic and committed ourselves to great moral principles that are as eternally true as they are vital and uplifting in influence, our country, infant though she was among the nations, became the moral leader in the governments of the world. Then came forth the poets, messengers who kept alive and long furthered the onward impulse of our idealism that was the greatest upward force in the world politics of the age. Then it was that Emerson and Lowell, Whittier and Longfellow, Bryant and Whitman, appeared as great revealers, interpreters and awakeners. They spoke the message of God to man. They directed the eyes of the masses to the marvels, the mystery and the message of nature and to the great throbbing Life that is the soul of nature and of all living things. They became way-showers of life and inspirers of noble thoughts and glorious deeds. England also yielded to the spell of the epoch of liberalism and democracy, coming under the impulsion of moral idealism, which in politics resulted in the overthrow of irresponsible and despotic personal rule and the establishment of representative government in so broad and firm a manner that since the passage of the Reform Bill the face of the mother country has been set toward democracy. This wave of idealism that freed the slaves of Jamaica, that gave England the Reform Bill, and that repealed the odious Corn Laws and established Free Trade, was attended by a splendid band of true poets, bards of nature and human progress. Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley were among these leaders, and they passed the torch to the Brownings and Tennyson. But hand in hand with the moral idealism that lifted aloft the banner of democracy and broadened and ennobled manhood, came marvelous strides in inventive and scientific discovery, which changed the face of the earth and offered the lure of great wealth to daring souls who would throw aside all things save the passion for acquiring gold. Then egoism arose and grappled with the genius of altruism. It was the old struggle, in which reactionary thought, class interests and materialism fought against idealism. The lust for gold was pitted against the ideal of brotherhood. Great fortunes were quickly acquired and the vision of the people was shifted from the splendor that lights the crest of the spiritual Alps to the banqueting halls of material acquisition. Gradually sordid concepts gained sway over moral ideals, and as a result reaction, class interests and corruption crept into government and into business life, while moral lethargy stole over church and school. Naturally enough, such conditions were fatal to genuine poetry. The master note of life did not and could not wake and woo into activity those divine emotions that are the wellsprings of poetry and enduring civilization-the elixir of national life. Scarcely a poet of democracy of the first rank has arisen in America in the past fifty years. Indeed, if we except Edwin Markham, we know of no really great people's poet, no popular singer whose imaginitave power has been of the highest order. And Mr. Markham, the exception, the Shasta or Tacoma among our present-day singers of democracy, was saved to freedom's cause by isolation during the formative period of youth from the dominant influence of our latter-day materialistic life. Democracy is able to glory in his great work because he was early environed by that moral sanity and idealism that call forth the divine impulses in man and favor the development of the poetic gift. When a child, his most sensitive years were passed herding flocks in the valleys of the Sierras, encircled by the austerity and sublimity, the grandeur and the beauty of nature; and his intellectual companions at this time were Homer, Milton, Byron and other great poets whose moral strength or enthusiasm for humanity stirred the profoundest depths of the child. Hence his environment was much the same as that enjoyed by the poets of the earlier day who came into the field of activity at a time of moral enthusiasm, when ethical idealism dominated the public imagination. Mr. Markham is, we believe, the one great poet of democracy of the America of the present day, the greatest poet of freedom and humanity since Whitman left us. England's most critical essayists recently in a personal letter observed, "He is the greatest poet in America, and the greatest poet of democracy in the world." As one of There are two reasons why poets and prophets are wanting in ages when egoism and materialistic commercialism are rife. The spirit of the day does not appeal to the divine side of life or awaken moral enthusiasm. The waves of influence that sweep over the plastic brain are not profound enough to awaken and call to life the greater and more divinely potential elements of being. Then again, the ear of the people is not attuned to catch and be moved by a divine symphony. This is why the essential greatness of Edwin Markham's poetry is only beginning to be recognized by our people. Only since we have begun to awaken from the profound moral inertia of the past quarter of a century has his worth been even partially recognized. America, even in her short history, has witnessed the day and the night of the poet. II. THE TRUE POET AND HIS MISSION. In periods of moral depression there are often many rhymesters and coiners of musical phrases, but they lack the power of the poet. They are imitators. Their work lacks the ring of the true metal. They conform to the laws of versification and are able to make rhymes; but the poet is far more than a versifier or a rhymester. He is endowed with imagination. He possesses genius and, as Schopenhauer well says: "That which distinguishes genius, and should be the standard of judging it, is the height to which it is able to soar when it is in the proper mood and finds a fitting occasion." The true poet possesses in far larger degree than the ordinary individual the seeing eye, the hearing ear, the feeling heart. His true mission is that of revealer, interpreter and awakener. Let us elucidate. Most people go through the world more or less asleep,-dead to the wonder, the beauty and the witchery that environ them. The splendor of the dawn and sunset, the sublimity of the mountain, the mystery and majesty of the sea, the beauty of the wayside flower, the eternal yet ever-shiftng panorama of nature, so rich in food for the normal imagination, are but dimly realized or felt until the poet comes en rapport with nature. He sees and feels the glory and the spell so vividly that he awakens the people to the wonder all about them, that swathes nature in a shining robe of glory. By making the blind thus see he has enriched the lives of millions. He has fed the starving imagina- And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies The selfish and the strong still tyrannize Victor Hugo has graphically described the misery, of ignorance and of injustice, when he function of the poet in the presence of human says: "These burdened ones are silent; they know nothing, they can do nothing, they think nothing: they simply endure. They are hungry and cold. Their indelicate flesh appears through their tatters. Who makes these tatters? The purple. The nakedness of virgins comes from the nudity of odalisques. From the twisted rags of the daughters of the people fall pearls for the Fontanges and the Chateauroux. It is famine that gilds Versailles. The whole of this living and dying shadow moves; these spectral forms are in the pangs of death; the mother's breast is dry, the father has no work, the brain has no light.. "The group of little ones is wan. This whole mass expires and creeps, not having even the power to love; and perhaps unknown to them while they bow and submit, from all that vast unconsciousness in which Right dwells, from the inarticulate murmur of those wretched breaths mingled together proceeds an indescribable, confused voice, a mysterious fog of expression, succeeding, syllable by |