CHAPTER 1 Disappointed in life. Mary Alice came home quietly from the party. Most of the doors in the house were closed, because it was cold, and the halls were hard to heat. Mary Alice knew exactly what she should see and hear if she opened that door at her right as she entered the house and went into the sitting-room. There was a soft coal fire in the small, old-fashioned grate under the old, old-fashioned white marble mantel. Dozing, always dozing, on the hearth-rug, at a comfortable distance from the fire, was Herod, the big yellow cat. In the center of the room, under the chandelier, was a table, with a cover of her mother's fancy-working, and a drop-light with a green shade. By the unbecoming light of this, her mother was sewing. What day was this? Tuesday. She was mending stockings. Mary Alice could see it all. She had been seeing it for twenty years, during which nothing, it seemed to her, had changed except herself. After she went in there now, her mother would ask her the same questions she always asked. Did you have a nice time? Who was there? Anybody have on anything new? What refreshments did they serve? Mary Alice was tired of it all, heart-sick with weariness of it, and she stole softly past that closed sitting-room door and up through the chilly halls where she could see her own breath to her room. She did not light the gas, but took off in the dark her good hat, and her best gloves, and her long black cloth coat of an ugly store-bot cut, which was her best and worst. Then in an abandon of grief, which bespoke real desperation in a careful girl like Mary Alice, she threw herself on her bed, without taking off her good dress, and buried her head in a pillow, and hated everything. It is hard to be disappointed in love, but after all, it is a rather splendid misery, in which one may have a sense of kinship with earth's greatest and best, and it has its hopes, its consolations. There is often the hope that this love may return, and though we never admit it, there is always, deep down, the consolation of believing that another and a better may come. To be disappointed in the love of life is not a splendid misery, and Mary Alice was disappointed in her love of life. To be twenty, and not to believe in the fairies of romance. To be twenty, and instead of the rosy dreams you've had, to see life stretching on and on before you, an endless, uninspired humdrum like mothers, darning stockings by the sitting-room fire, that is bitterness indeed. Love isn't anything, while you believe in life. Stiff toil, and scant fair are nothing, while you expect to me at any turn the enchanter with your fortune in his hands. But to be twenty, and not to believe? Mary Alice had never had much, except the wonderful heart of youth, to feed her faith with. She wasn't pretty, and she wasn't clever, and she had no accomplishments. Her people were plain and perpetually pinched in circumstance, and her life, in this small town where she lived, was very narrow. In the afternoons Mary Alice helped her mother with the housework. In the mornings Mary Alice helped her mother with the housework. In the afternoons, after the midday dinner was cleared away, Mary Alice had a good deal of time on her hands. Sometimes she sewed, made new clothes, or remade old ones. Sometimes she read. Once in a while she took some fancy work, and went to see a girlfriend. Or a girlfriend brought some fancy work, and came to see her. Occasionally she and another girl went for a walk. Semi-occasionally there was a church social, or a sewing-circle luncheon, or somebody gave a party. Somebody had given a party to-day, and Mary Alice had gone to it, with high hope of finding it interesting, and had come away from it, with a deep despair of ever finding in life, that which would make the monotony of it worthwhile. Many another girl, feeling as Mary Alice did, would have gone away from home, seeking life in a big city. But Mary Alice, besides having no qualifications for earning her way in a big city, had a most unhappy shyness. She was literally afraid of strangers, and never got very well acquainted, even with persons she had associated with for a long time. At the party to-day it was an afternoon tea. Mary Alice had been more bitterly conscious than ever before of her lack of charms, and the bleak prospect that lack entailed upon her. For the tea was given for a girl who was visiting in town. A girl of a sort Mary Alice had never seen before. She was pretty, that visiting girl, and she was sweet. She had a charm that was irresistible. She seemed to like everybody, and there was no mistake about everybody liking her. Even the town girls liked her, and were not jealous. Even Mary Alice liked her, and was not afraid of her. But there she was, that girl, vital, radiant, an example of what life might be at twenty. And Mary Alice came away hating, as she had never done before, life as it was for her, and as it promised to continue. Presently she withdrew her head from the pillow, and lay looking into the dark, where, as we all know, the things that might be, that should have been, shaped themselves so much more readily than in any light. And lying there, Mary Alice wondered if there were any fairy power on earth that could make of her a being half so sweet as that girl she had seen this afternoon. Then she heard her mother open the sitting-room door and call her. It was time to get their simple supper ready. In a minute she called back, I'm changing my dress. As she jerked at the hooks of her blue taffeta jumper-dress, with uncareful haste, bathed her face in cold water, put on her dark red surge, which had been good last year, and went downstairs to help her mother. She could see it all as she went, all she was to do. There was the thread-bear blanket they used for a silence cloth, and the tablecloth with the red stain by Johnny's place where he had spilled cranberry jelly the night before last, when the cloth was span-clean. There were the places to set, as always, with the same old dishes and the same old knives and forks, and with the mechanical precision born of long practice she would rightly place, without half looking at them, the various napkins each in a slightly different wooden ring. The utmost variety that she could hope for would be hot ginger-bread instead of the last of Sunday's layer-cake, and maybe frizzled beef since they had finished Sunday's roast in a meat pie this noon. I didn't hear you come in, said her mother as Mary Alice opened the sitting-room door, and I was listening for you. I went right upstairs to change my things, said Mary Alice, hoping that would end the matter. That's what I knew you must have done when it got to be six o'clock and I didn't hear you. I could hardly wait for you to come. I've such a surprise for you." Mary Alice could hardly believe her ears. A surprise, she echoed incredulously. Yes, I got a letter this afternoon from your dear godmother. Oh! Mary Alice's tone said plainly, is that all? She had her own opinion of her godmother, whom she had not seen since she was a small child, and it was not an enthusiastic one. Her name, which she hated, was her godmother's name. And aside from that, all she had ever got from her godmother was an occasional letter, and, on Christmas and birthdays, a handkerchief, or turnover-collar, or some such trifle, as could come in an envelope from Europe where her godmother lived. Even in the matter of a godmother, it seemed, it was Mary Alice's luck to have one without any of the fairy powers. For although Mary Alice's mother had dearly loved, in her girlhood, that friend for whom she had called her first baby, she had always to admit, to Mary Alice's eager questioning, that friend was neither beautiful, nor rich, nor gifted. She was a spinster person, and years ago some well-to-do friend had taken her abroad for company. And there she had stayed, while the friend of her girlhood, whose baby was called for her, heard from her but desultorily.  She's in New York, and she wants you to come and see her. For a moment, visions swam before Mary Alice's eyes. Then, how kind of her, she said bitterly, and turned away. Her mother understood. She sent a check. She cried, waving it. After that, until Mary Alice went, it was nothing but talk of clothes and other ways and means. Just what the present circumstances of godmother were, they could not even conjecture, but they were probably not very different than before, or she would have said something about them. And the check she sent covered traveling expenses only. Nor did she write. Never mind about clothes, we will take care of those when she gets here. I haven't the least idea what kind of a time you'll have, Mary Alice's mother said. But you mustn't expect many parties, or much young society. Your godmother has been abroad so long, she can't have many acquaintances in this country now. But you'll see New York, the crowds in the shops, and the great hotels, and the places of historic interest. And even if you don't meet many people, you'll probably have a very interesting time. I don't care about people anyway, returned Mary Alice. Her mother looked distressed. I wouldn't say that if I were you, she advised.  Sights are beguiling, but they are never satisfying. We all have to depend on people for our happiness, for love. Then I'll never be happy, I guess, said Mary Alice. I am afraid sometimes that you've started out not to be, her mother answered gravely. But we'll hope for the best. CHAPTER II Your own is waiting. Mary Alice dreaded to meet her godmother. The excitement of getting away was all very well. But once she was alone in the Pullman, and the friendly faces on the station platform were left behind, she began to think apprehensively of what she was going to. She was sure to feel strange with her godmother, and there was at least a pretty good chance that she might actually dislike her. Also there was every reason to doubt if her godmother would be like Mary Alice. Mary Alice had several times met persons who had been to Europe, and she had never liked them. Their conversation was all about things she did not know, and larded with phrases she could not understand. Those years in Europe made her doubly dread her godmother. But the minute she saw her godmother at the Grand Central Station she liked her, and before they had got home in the Fourth Avenue car she liked her very much. And when she lay dozing off to sleep that first night in New York she was blissfully conscious that she loved her godmother. Godmother lived in an apartment in Gramercy Park. It was an old fashioned apartment occupying one floor of what had once been a handsome dwelling of the tall chimney type common in New York. All around the square were the homes of notable persons and clubs frequented by famous men. Grandmother was to point these out in the morning, but this evening before dinner was served, while she and Mary Alice were standing in the window of her charming drawing-room, she showed which was the players, and indicated the windows of the room where Edwin Booth died. It seemed that she had known Edwin Booth quite well when she was a girl, and had some beautiful stories of his kindness and his shyness to tell. Mary Alice was surprised and delighted, and she looked over at the windows with eager shining eyes. "'He must have been wonderful to know,' she said. "'Do you suppose there are many other great people like that?' "'A good many, I should say,' her godmother replied. And as they sat at dinner, served by godmother's knee, made of all work. It kind of came out, as Mary Alice would have said. How many delightful people godmother had countered among her friends.' "'You've had a beautiful time, all your life, haven't you?' Mary Alice commented admiringly, when they were back in the cozy drawing-room, and godmother was serving coffee from the copper percolator. "'Not all my life, but most of it, yes,' said godmother. "'It took me some time to find the talisman, the charm, the secret, or whatever you want to call it, of having a happy time.' "'But you found it?' Godmother flushed, as if she were a little embarrassed. "'Well,' she said, I found one at last, that worked for me. I wish I could find one,' sighed Mary Alice, wistfully. "'I'm going to try to give you mine,' said godmother, or at least to share it with you. "'And all I ask of you is, that if it works for you, you'll pass it on to someone else.' "'Oh, I will,' cried Mary Alice. "'What is it?' "'Wait a minute. I have to tell you about me first, so you'll understand.' "'Please do,' urged Mary Alice. "'I'd love to hear.' "'Well, you see, when the invitations to my christening were sent out, my folks forgot the fairies, I guess. And as I grew up, I found that I hadn't been gifted with wealth or beauty or talents or charm. "'I know,' Mary Alice broken. Godmother looked surprised. "'I mean, I know how that feels,' Mary Alice explained. "'Then you know I was pretty unhappy, until something happened. "'I met a charming woman once, who was so sweet and sympathetic that my heart just opened to her as flowers to sunshine. And I told her how I felt. "'Well, that was an oversight,' she said. "'But you know what to do about it, don't you?' I said I didn't. "'Why?' she said. "'The fairies had their gifts all ready to bring. "'And when they were not invited to the party, "'what would they naturally do?' "'Gift them to someone else,' I cried. "'I shall never forget how reproachfully she looked at me.  "'Fairies are never guilty of it. "'When they have something for you, "'they keep it for you till you get it.  "'Somewhere in the world, your own is waiting for you.' "'That was a magic thought. "'Somewhere in the world, your own is waiting for you. "'I couldn't get away from it. "'It filled my mind, waking and sleeping. "'And I set out to find if it was true.' "'And was it?' "'Well, it must have been, "'for I found some of my own surely, "'and I believe I shall find more. "'And oh, the joy it is to look and look, "'believing that you will surely find. "'I haven't found wealth, nor beauty, nor accomplishments. "'Perhaps I didn't look in the right places for any of those. "'But I've found something I wouldn't trade for all the others. "'It is all I have to bequeath you, dear. "'But the beautiful part of this bequest is, "'I don't have to die to enrich you with it, "'nor do I have to impoverish myself to give it away. "'I just whisper something in your ear, "'and then you go, and see if it isn't so.' "'Whisper it now, please,' begged Mary Alice, "'going over to her godmother, "'and putting her ear close.' "'Oh, no,' said godmother, kissing Mary Alice's ear, "'this isn't the time at all, "'and it's fatal to tell till the right time comes. "'And no teasing would avail to make her change her mind.' End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 and 4 of Everybody's Lonesome This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Bridget Gage. Everybody's Lonesome by Clara E. Lovelin. Chapter 3 Finding the First Fairy The next few days were spent in sightseeing, and Mary Alice would never have believed there could be anyone so enchanting to see sights with as godmother. They looked in all the wonderful shop windows and chose what they would take from each if a fairy suddenly invited them to take their choice. No fairy did, but they hardly noticed that. Then they'd go and poke in remnant boxes on the ends of counters in the big department stores, and unearthed bits of trimming and of lace with which godmother, who was clever with her needle and full of ideas, showed Mary Alice how to put quite transforming touches on her clothes. They visited art galleries and godmother knew things about the pictures that made them all fascinating. Instead of saying, interesting composition that, or this man was celebrated for his Chiarascuro, godmother was full of human stories of the struggles of the painters and their faithfulness to ideals, and she could stand in front of a canvas by almost any master, and talk to Mary Alice about the painter and the conditions of his life and love and longing when he painted this picture in a way that made Mary Alice feel as if she'd like to shake the people who walked by with only an uninterested glance, as if she'd like to bring them back and prod them into life and cry. Don't you see how can you pass so carelessly what cost so much in toil and tears? Godmother had that kind of a viewpoint about everything it seemed. When they went to the theater, she could tell Mary Alice before the curtain went up and between the acts, such things about the actors and the playwright and the manager, as made the play trebly interesting. On the east side, they visited some of the settlements and prowled, as grandmother loved to call it, around the teeming slums, as godmother loved to call it, around the teeming slums, and godmother knew such touching stories of the old world conditions from which these myriads of foreign folk had escaped and of the pathos of their trust in the new world, as kept Mary Alice's eyes bright and wet almost every minute. One beautiful sunny afternoon, they rode up on top of a Fifth Avenue motor bus to 90th Street, and godmother pointed out the houses of many multi-millionaires. She knew things about many of them, too. Sweet, human, heart-touching things about their disappointments and unsatisfied yearnings, which made one feel rather sorry for them than envious of their splendors. Thus the days passed, and Mary Alice was so happy that, learning from godmother some of her pretty ways, she would go closer to that dear lady every once in a while and say, "'Pinch me, please, and see if I'm awake, if it's really true.'" And godmother always pinched her gravely and appeared to be much relieved when Mary Alice cried, "'Ouch, I am.'" They didn't see anybody, except from a distance, as they said, for fully a week. They were so busy seeing sights and getting acquainted. Every night when godmother came to talk Mary Alice in, they had the dearest talks of all. And every night, Mary Alice begged to be told the secret. But, oh, dear, no, not yet, godmother would always say. One night, however, she said, "'Well, if I'm not forgetting to tell you.'" Mary Alice jumped. That sounded like the secret. But it wasn't, although it was leading up to it. "'Tell me what,' she cried, excitedly. "'Why, today, I saw one of your fairies.'" "'My what?' "'Your fairies that you said were left out of your christening party.'" "'You did? Where?' "'I'll tell you that presently. But it seems, from what this fairy said, that there are a great number of your fairies with gifts for you, all waiting quite impatiently to be found. She says that it is quite ordinary now to send all of the great gift by one fairy. Yes, and not at all safe. For if that one fairy should miss you, and you should not find her, you'd be left terribly unprovided for, you see. So the gift is usually divided into many parts, and a different fairy has each part. Now, the gift of beauty, for instance. She is one of the fairies who has that gift for you." Mary Alice's eyes opened wide. Her belief in this wonderful godmother was such that she was almost prepared to see godmother wave a wand and command her to become beautiful, and then, on looking into a mirror, to find that she was so. What did she say? She managed at last to gasp. She said, "'Has she pretty hair?' And I answered, yes. Then the fairy went on, the one who had that gift must have got to the christening somehow. Maybe the mother wished for her, and that is as good as an invitation." "'She did,' cried Mary Alice. She always said she watched me so anxiously when I was a wee-baby, hoping I'd have pretty hair.' "'Well, that's evidently how that fairy got to you. But it seems there were two. This one I saw today says there are two beauties in most everything, but especially in hair. One is in the thing itself, and the other is knowing what to do with it. It seems she is the what-to-do fairy.' And so she proved to be. For when she came to lunch the next day, she told Mary Alice how she had always been a bit daft about hair. When I played with my dolls, she said, I always cared much more for combing their hair and doing it up with mother's invisible pins than for dressing them. And it used to be the supreme reward for goodness when I could take down my mother's beautiful hair and play with it for half an hour. I'm always wanting to play with lovely hair. And when I saw yours at the theatre the other evening, I couldn't rest until I'd asked your godmother if she thought you'd let me play with it. So after luncheon they went into Mary Alice's room and wouldn't let godmother go with them. Not at all, said the what-to-do fairy. You are the select audience. You go into the drawing room and compose yourself. When we're ready for you, we'll come out.  When permission to peek was given, Mary Alice didn't know herself. There, said the fairy, when the excitement of godmother's delight had subsided, I've always said that the three most important beauty fairies for a girl to find are the how-to-stand fairy, the how-to-dress fairy, and the what-to-do-with-your-hair fairy. Anybody can find them all, and nobody who has found them all needs to feel very bad if she can't find some of the others who have her christening gifts. Mary Alice began looking for the others right away, but even one fairy had transformed her outside from an ordinary-looking girl into a young woman with a look of remarkable distinction. Just as godmother had transformed her within from a girl with a dreary outlook on life to one who found that, the world is so full of a number of things. I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. Is this the secret? She asked godmother that night. Oh, dear, no, laughed godmother, only the first little step towards realizing it. Chapter four, being kind to a tired man. One day when Mary Alice had been in New York nearly two weeks and had found several fairies, godmother was obliged to go out in the afternoon to some sort of a committee meeting, which would have been quite uninteresting to an outsider. But Mary Alice had some sewing to do, something like taking the ugly roughly sleeves of cheap white lace out of her blue taffeta dress and substituting plain dark ones of net dyed to match the silk, and she was glad to stay at home. If an elderly gentleman comes into call on me late in the afternoon, but before I get home, said godmother in departing, ask him in and be nice to him. He's a lonely body and he'll probably be tired. He works very hard. Mary Alice promised and went happily to work on the new sleeves, which were to give her arms and shoulders, something of an exquisite outline in keeping with the fairy way of doing her hair, which godmother had taught her to admire in a beautiful marble in the Metropolitan Museum. About five o'clock when godmother's neat little maid had just lighted the lamps in the pretty drawing room and replenished the open fire, which was one of the great compensations for the many drawbacks of living in an old-fashioned house, the gentleman godmother had expected called. Mary Alice went in to see him and explained who she was. He said he had heard about her and was glad to make her acquaintance. He seemed quite tired and Mary Alice asked him if he had been working hard that day. Yes, he said, very hard. Wouldn't you like a cup of tea, she asked, and he said he would. When the tea came, he seemed to enjoy it so much that Mary Alice really believed he was hungry. Indeed, he admitted that he was. I haven't had any luncheon, he said. Mary Alice's heart was touched. She forgot that the man was strange and remembered only that he was tired and hungry. The little maid brought thin slices of bread and butter with the tea. Mary Alice felt they must seem absurd to a hungry man. I know what's lots nicer with tea, she said. What, he asked, interestingly. Toast and marmalade, she answered, I'm going to get some.  At home, she said, we often make the toast for supper at the sitting-room fire and it's much nicer than gas-range toast. I know it is, he said, let's do it. So they squatted on the rug in front of the open fire. Both wanted to toast and they took turns. I don't get to do anything like this very often, only when I come here, he said, apologizing for accepting his turn when it came. Don't you live at home, asked Mary Alice. Well, no, he answered. I'd hardly call what I do, living at home. There was something about the way he said it that made Mary Alice feel sorry for him, but she didn't like to ask any more questions. They had a delightful time. Mary Alice had never met a man she enjoyed so much. He liked to play as much as Godmother did and they talked most confidentially about their likes and dislikes, many of which seemed to be mutual. Mary Alice admitted to him how she disliked to meet strangers and he admitted to her that he felt the very same way. Godmother tarried and tarried and at six o'clock the gentleman said he must go. Oh, dear, sighed Mary Alice. I'm sorry, I'm having such a nice time. So am I, he echoed gallantly, but I'm hoping you will ask me again. Indeed I will, she cried, we seem to, to get on together beautifully. We do, he agreed, and if it's a rare experience for you, I don't mind telling you it is for me too. He couldn't have been gone more than 10 minutes when Godmother came in.  I know, said Godmother, I met him downstairs and we've been chatting. He says he doesn't know when he spent a pleasanter hour. Poor man, murmured Mary Alice, he seems to be a lonely body. He is, said Godmother, he likes to come in here once in a while for a cup of tea and an hour's chat and I'm always glad to have him. I should think so, agreed Mary Alice, he ate nearly a whole plate of toast. Godmother laughed so heartily that Mary Alice was a little mystified. She didn't see the joke in being hungry. She didn't even see it when Godmother told her who the man was. Not really, gasped Mary Alice. Godmother nodded. Why he told me himself, Mary Alice began and then stopped to put two and two together. It was all very astounding but there was no reason why what he had told her and what Godmother said might not both be true. If I had known, she said, sinking down, weak in the knees into the nearest chair. That was what gave him his happy hour, said Godmother. You didn't know. It is so hard for him to get away from people who know to find people who are able to forget. That's why he likes to come here. I try to help him forget for an hour once in a while at candlelight in time. I see, murmured Mary Alice. The man was one of those great world powers of finance whose transactions filled columns of the newspapers and were familiar to almost every school child. That night, when Godmother was tucking Mary Alice in, they had a long, long talk about the color of the afternoon and about some other people Godmother knew and about how sad a thing it is to take for granted about any person certain qualities we think must go with his estate. And now, said Godmother, I'm going to tell you the secret. And she did. Then turned out the light, kissed Mary Alice one more time and left her to think about it. End of chapter four. Chapters five and six of Everybody's Lonesome. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Bridget Gage. Everybody's Lonesome by Clara E. Laughlin. Chapter five, Going to the Party. Now, said Godmother, the very next morning, after she had told Mary Alice the secret, to see how it works. This evening I am going to take you to a most delightful place. What kind of a place, Mary Alice begged to know? Already, despite the secret, she was feeling fearful. Godmother squeezed Mary Alice's hand sympathetically, and then, because that was not enough, she dropped a brief kiss on Mary Alice's anxious young forehead. I know how you feel, dear, she whispered. All of us, I guess, have very charms that we're afraid to use. Others have used them, we know, and found them miraculous. But somehow we're afraid. I'm all undecided in my mind, whether to tell you about this place we're going to, or not to tell you about it. I want to do what is easiest for you.  These dear people, who have many friends, are at home on Friday evenings. Sometimes a large number call, sometimes only a few. And in New York, you know, people are not introduced round.  That is, if there are many. We'll go down and call this evening, take our chance of few or many, and try out our secret. And I'll do just as you think you'd like best. I'll tell you about the people we're going to see, and try to guess as well as I can, who else may be there. Or I won't tell you anything at all. Just leave you to remember that folks is folks, and to find out the rest for yourself. You needn't decide now. Take all day to think about it, if you like. Oh dear, cried Mary Ellis. I'm all in a flutter. I don't believe I'll ever be able to decide, but I'll think hard all day. And now tell me what I am to wear. She went to her room, and got her dark blue taffeta, and showed the progress of yesterday, with the new dark net sleeves, to replace the ugly, roughly white lace ones. That's going to be fine, approved, Godmother. Now, this morning, I am going to help you make the new yoke in color. And then, she squinted up her eyes, and began looking, as if she were studying a picture, the way so many picture lovers like to do, through only a narrow slit of vision, which sharpens perspective, and intensifies detail. I think we'll go shopping. Yesterday, when I was hurrying past, and hadn't time to stop for longer than a peek, I saw in a Broadway shop window, some short strings of pink imitation coral, of the most adorable color. For, what do you think, 25 cents a string? I have a picture of you in my mind, with your dark blue dress, and one of those coral strings about your throat. Godmother's picture looked very sweet indeed, when she came out to dinner that evening. It was astonishing how many of her fairies, Mary Alice had found in two short weeks. The lovely lines of her shoulders, which she had never known, were the chief of all the lines of beauty, were no longer disfigured by stiff, outstanding pretels, and ruffled lace sleeves, but revealed in all their delicate charm, by the close fitting plain dark net, and above them rose the head of such unsuspected loveliness of contour, which rats and puffs and pompadour, had once deformed grotesquely, but which the wonderful new hairdressing, accentuated in a transfiguring degree. The poise of Mary Alice's head, the carriage of her shoulders were fine, but she had never known before, that those were big points of beauty.  It was her first party in New York, and she and Godmother had had the most delicious day getting ready for it. Mary Alice couldn't believe that all they did was to fix over her blue jumper dress, and invest 25 cents in pink beads. But it seemed that when you were with a person like Godmother, what you actually did was magnified a thousandfold by the enchanting way you did it. Mary Alice was beginning to see that a fairy wand, which can turn a pumpkin into a goldcoach, is not exceeded in possibilities by a fairy mind, which can turn any ordinary commonplace, matter of fact thing into a delightful experience. But something had happened during the week, which decided what to do about the party. They were walking west in 33rd Street, past the Waldorf, when a lady came out to get into her auto. Godmother greeted her delightedly and introduced Mary Alice. But the lady's name overpowered Mary Alice, and completely tied her tongue during the moment's chat. I used to see her a great deal in Dresden, said Godmother, when they had gone on their way. And she's a deer. We must go and see her, as she asked us to, and have her down to see us. Godmother spoke as if a very celebrated pre-Madonna at the Metropolis Opera were no different from anyone else one might happen to know. Mary Alice couldn't get used to it. I guess I managed better when I don't know so much, she said, smiling rather woefully, and remembering the man of many millions, to whom she had been nice, because she thought he was homeless and hungry. So to the party they went, and never an inkling had Mary Alice, where it was to be, or whether she was to see more captains of finance, or more nightingales of song, or what. Chapter six, The Lion of the Evening. The house they entered was not at all pretentious. It was an old-fashioned house in the older part of New York in which Godmother herself lived, only for herself. But it was a remodeled house. The old high stoop had been taken away, and one entered from the street level, what had once been a basement dining-room, but was now a kind of reception hall. Here they left their wraps in charge of a well-bred maid, whom Godmother called by name and seemed to know. And then they went upstairs. Mary Alice was all panicky inside, but she kept trying to remember the secret. Their hostess was a middle-aged lady, very plain but motherly looking. She wore her hair combed in a way that would have been considered terribly old-fashioned, and Mary Alice's hometown. And she had on several large cameos, very like some Mary Alice's mother had, and scorned to wear. Mary Alice was reasonably sure this lady was not a millionaire-ess, or anything like that. And she didn't think she was another prima donna. The lady's name meant nothing to her. Well, their hostess said, as Godmother greeted her. Now the party can begin. Here's Mary Alice. Two Mary Alice's, she added, as she caught sight of the second one. Who says this isn't going to be a real party? Evidently they liked Godmother in this house, and evidently they were prepared to like Mary Alice. Then before she had time to think any more about it, three or four persons came up to greet Godmother, who didn't try to introduce Mary Alice at all. Just let her tag along without any responsibility. Mary Alice found that she liked to hear these people talk. They had a kind of eagerness about many things that made them all seem to have much more to say than could possibly be said than in there. Mary Alice felt just as she thought the lady must have felt, who after the man standing beside Mary Alice had made one or two remarks, and a brief turn the conversation took towards the children's theater, cried, oh, I want to talk to you about that. And they moved away somewhere and sat down together. Then somehow from that the general talk glanced off onto some actors and actresses, who had come out of the foreign quarter, where the children's theater was, and were astonishing uptown folk with the fire and fervor of their art. Someone who seemed to know a good deal about the speaking voice commented on the curious change of tone, from resonant throat sounds to nasal head sounds, which generally marked the slav's transition from his native tongue to English, and gave several examples in such excellent imitation that everyone was amused, even Mary Alice, who knew nothing about the persons imitated. Then someone who had been recently to California and seen Madame Majuska, and had been privileged to hear some chapters of the memoirs she was writing, told an incident or two from them about the experiences of that great Polish artist in learning English. A man asked this lady if she knew what Majuska was going to do with her memoirs when they were ready for publication, and they too moved away to talk more about that. And so it went. Mary Alice didn't often know what the talk was about, but she was so interested in it that she found herself wishing they would talk more about each thing and wouldn't break up and drift off the way they did. They had such a wide, wide world, these people, and they seemed to see everything that went on around them. To feel everything that can go on within. And they made no effort about anything. They talked about the Red Cross campaign against tuberculosis or big game hunting in Africa or the unerring accuracy of steelworkers on the skeletons of skyscrapers, throwing red-hot rivets across yawning spaces and striking the bucket held to receive them every time. And their talk was as simple, as eager, as unaffected as hers had been as she talked with Godmother about her blue silk dress. All those things were a part of their world as the blue dress was a part of hers. She was so interested that she forgot to be afraid. And by and by, when Godmother had drifted off with someone and Mary Alice found herself alone with one man, she was feeling so folksy that she looked up at him and left. Seems as if everyone had found a burning theme, all but us, she said. The young man, he was young and very good looking in an unusual sort of way, flushed. I don't know any of them, he said. I'm a stranger. So am I, said Mary Alice. And I don't know anyone either. But I'd like to know some of these people better, wouldn't you? I don't know, returned the young man. I haven't seen much of people and I don't feel at home with them. Oh, cried Mary Alice, quite excitedly. You need a fairy Godmother to tell you a secret. The young man looked unpleasantly mystified. What secret, he asked. She started to explain. He seemed amused, at first, in a supercilious kind of way. But Mary Alice was so interested in her burning theme that she did not notice how he looked. Gradually, his superciliousness faded. Let us find a place where you can tell me the secret, he said, looking about the drawing-room. Every place seemed taken. There's a settle in the hall, suggested Mary Alice. And they went out and said on that. But I can't tell you the secret, she said. Not yet, anyway. Please, he begged, I may never see you again. She looked distressed. Oh, do you think so, she said. But anyhow, I can't tell you. I can only tell you up to where the secret comes in. And then, if I never see you again, you can think about it. And any time you write to me for the secret, I shall send it to you to help you when you need it most. I need it now, he urged. No, you don't, she answered. I thought I needed it right away. But I wouldn't have understood it, or believed it, if I'd heard it then. And she told him how it was whispered to her after she had been kind to the man of many millions. And does it work, he asked, laughing at her story of the toast and tea. I don't know yet, she admitted. I'm just trying it. That's another reason I can't tell you now. I have to wait until I've tried it thoroughly. You're a nice modest young person from the backwoods, laughed Godmother when they were going home, selecting the largest, livest lion of the evening, and running off with him to the safe shelter of the hall. Lion, said Mary Alice, wonderingly. What lion? The young man you kept so shamelessly to yourself, nearly all evening. I didn't know he was any kind of a lion, apologized Mary Alice, humbly. He just seemed to be, she stopped, and her eyes danced delightedly. I was trying the secret on him, she went on, and I believe it worked. I think it must have, said Godmother, for he came up to me before I left, and exhibited all the signs of a gentleman who wants to be asked to call. So I invited him to come in tomorrow for a cup of tea. Is he, is he coming? asked Mary Alice, and won't you please tell me what kind of a lion he is, and what's his name? He is coming, said Godmother, smiling mischievously, and I don't know whether to tell you his name or not. Maybe he'd rather do that himself. I don't care if he doesn't, he laughed Mary Alice, he's a nice man, and he seemed to be real, and then she stopped again, and looked mysteriously knowing. And Godmother nodded approvingly. I loved the party, murmured Mary Alice happily, as Godmother bent over to give her her last goodnight kiss. I never supposed a party where one didn't know a soul could be so nice. Knowing or not knowing people makes much less difference when you remember the secret. Don't you find it so, said Godmother. And Mary Alice assented. Yes, oh yes, it's a wonderful magic, the dear secret is, she said. End of chapter six. Chapter seven and eight of Everybody's Lonesome. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Bridget Gage. Everybody's Lonesome by Clara E. Laughlin. Chapter seven at candlelight in time. The next morning, Mary Alice wanted to know who everybody was, and Godmother told her. Everyone but the young man lion, as she called him. The home they had been to was that of a celebrated editor and man of letters, who numbered among his friends the most delightful people of many nations. The guests represented a variety of talents. The large, dark, distinctly foreign-looking man was the great baritone of one of the opera houses. The younger man, with the long, dark hair, was a violinist about whom all New York was talking. The gray-haired man with the goatee was an admiral. The gentle-spoken shy man with the silver hair was a famous Indian fighter of the old frontier days. The man who spoke informally of the children's theater was one of the best known of American men of letters. The lady who was anxious to interrogate him about it was one whose fame, as an uplifter of humanity, has traveled round the globe. This one was a painter, and that one a sculptor, and another was a poetic dramatist. My, said Mary Alice, I'm glad you didn't tell me before we went. As nearly as I can remember, I talked to the admiral about the Fifth Avenue shop windows, and to the general about the Jumel mansion, which he said he had never seen, but had always meant to see. And to the painter, what did I talk to the painter about? Oh, my pink beads, he admired the color. Yes, said Godmother, and if you had known who they were, you would probably have tried to talk to the admiral about ships and sea-fights, and to the painter about the Metropolitan Museum, and would have bored them terribly. Most real people, I think, like to be taken for what they are rather than for what they may have done. That is one of the things I learned in my long years in Europe, where I was constantly finding myself in conversation with someone I did not know. We always began on a basis of common humanity, and we soon found our mutual interests and enjoyed talking about them. It taught me a great deal about people and the folly of taking any of them on other people's estimates. But all this was only mildly interesting now, compared with the young man-lion. Of course, they had to tell him, first thing when he came, that Mary Ellis did not know who he was. He looked a little surprised at first, then he seemed to relish the joke hugely. When Godmother added certain explanations, he grew grave again. I like that, he said. I think it's a fine game, and I wish I might play it. I can't most of the time, but I can play it with you, if you'll let me, he went on, turning to Mary Ellis. She nodded ascent. That's splendid, he cried. I haven't played a jolly game like this since I was a boy. Now you're not to think I'm a king in disguise or anything like that. There's really nothing about me that's at all interesting. Only, on account of something that has happened to me, people are talking about me for nine days or so. I'll be going on, in a day or two, and everyone will forget. Now let's play the game. May I make toast? You may, she said. In a little while, someone came to call on Godmother, who took the collar into the library, and the toast-making went on undisturbed. Whoever he was, he seemed to know something about campfires, and squatting on the rug before the glowing grate, toasting bread, reminded him of things he had heard strange mentel, as the intimacy of the night fire in the wilderness brought their stories out. It was fascinating talk, and Mary Ellis listened and thralled. I didn't know I had that much talk in me, he laughed, a little confusedly, as he rose to go. It must be the surroundings that are responsible, and the game. Godmother, whose collar was gone, asked him to stay to dinner. I wish I could, he said wistfully, noting in the distance the cozy dinner table set for two. If you could only know where I must dine instead. You seem to dread it, said Mary Ellis. I do, he answered. She looked at Godmother. I wish we could tell him the secret, she suggested, Shiley. It might help. Godmother looked very thoughtful, as if gravely considering. Not yet, she decided, shaking her head. It's too soon. I think so too, he said. I'm afraid you might lose interest in me after you had told me. I'd rather wait. The next day was Sunday. He had engagements for lunch and dinner, but he asked if he might slip in again for tea. He was leaving town Monday. So they had another beautiful hour, at what Godmother loved to speak of, as candlelight in time. And while Mary Ellis was in the kitchen, cutting bread to toast, Godmother and her guest made notes in tiny notebooks. There, she said, when she had written the Grimersie Park address in his books, anything you send here will always reach her, wherever she is. And any answer she may care to make to me, if you'll address it to me there, handing back her book to her, will always reach me wherever I may be. It is a splendid game, he said when he was going, and I'm glad you let me play. If more people played this game, I'd find the world a lot pleasanter place to live in. When you know the secret, you can show other people how to play, Mary Ellis suggested. That's so, he said. Well, I shan't let you forget you are to tell it to me. CHAPTER VIII. LEARNING TO BE BRAVE AND SWEET Godmother's charming drawing-room seemed intolerably empty when he had gone, and they too stood by the fire and looked into it, trying to see again the jungle scene he had pointed out to them in the bed of coals. But the jungle was gone, the vision had faded with the seer.  Then Godmother laughed. How solemn we are, she said, pretending to think it all very funny. But Mary Ellis couldn't pretend. She set down his tea-cup, which she had just lifted, with gentle reference off the mantle, where he left it, and went closer to Godmother. Her lips were trembling, but she did not have to speak. I know, precious, I know, whispered Godmother. She sat down in a big chair close to the fire, the chair he had just left. And Mary Ellis sat on the hearth rug and nestled her head against Godmother's knees. Neither of them said anything for what seemed a long time. They just looked into the glowing bed of coals and saw different things.  I think I wish we hadn't played any game. I think I wish I hadn't seen him at all. Lovey dear. Yes, I do, wept Mary Ellis, refusing to be comforted. Everything was beautiful before he came, and now he's gone, and I'm so lonesome. Godmother was silent for a moment. There's the secret, she suggested at last. It was when I felt, just as you do now, that I began to learn the secret. Mary Ellis made no reply. There seemed to be nothing that she could say. But after they had sat silent for a long while, she got up and kissed her Godmother with a new passion, which had a net tenderness, as well as adoration. I don't believe I can be so brave and lovely about it, as you must have been to make people love you so. But I'm going to try, she said. The success with which Mary Ellis's trying met was really beautiful to see. At first, it was pretty hard for her to care much about the secret or about people. Every assemblage just seemed to her an empty crowd where he was not. But when she began to wonder to how many of those self-same people, the others seemed the same as to her. She was interested once more. The secret began to work. It worked so well, in fact, that Mary Ellis came to be quite famous in a small way. People and Godmothers distinguished and delightful set, talked enthusiastically of Mary Ellis's quiet charm, and she was asked here and asked there, and had quite a wonderful time. Her poor friend came in, whenever he could, for tea and toast, and sometimes he made what he called a miserable return for this hospitality, by asking Godmother and Mary Ellis to dine with him at his palace on Upper Fifth Avenue, and afterwards to sit in his box at the opera. He was a widower, and his two sons were married and lived in palaces of their own. His only daughter was abroad, finishing her education, and his great lonely house was to serve a brief purpose for her when she came out, and until she married. Then he thought he would either give it up or turn it over to her. Certainly he would not keep it for himself. At first Mary Ellis found it hard to remember the secret with so many footmen around, but by and by she got used to them, and other things being equal, could have nearly as good a time in a palace as in a flat. For this she had a wonderful example in Godmother, of whom someone had once said, admiringly, that she was never mean to anybody just because he's rich. It was true. Godmother was just as nice to the rich as to the poor, to the cowering celebrity, as she was wont to say, as to the most important nobody. It was the secret that helped her to do it. It was the secret that helped Mary Ellis. And so the winter went flying by. Twice letters came from him, and Mary Ellis answered them, giving the answers to Godmother to send. Once he wrote from London, and once from somewhere on the Bosphorus. They were lonesome letters, both, but he didn't ask for the secret, though he mentioned it each time. End of chapter eight. Chapters nine and 10 of Everybody's Lonesome. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Bridget Gage. Everybody's Lonesome, by Clara E. Loughlin. Chapter nine. Telling the secret to mother. In March, Godmother said, I am going abroad for the summer, dear, and I've just had a conference with my man of affairs. He reports some unexpectedly good dividends from my small handful of stock in a company that is enjoying a boom. And so, if we're careful, you and I, there will be enough so I can take you with me. Mary Alice was too surprised, too happy to speak. Now you'll want to go home, of course, Godmother went on. And so we'll agree on a selling date. And then you may fly back to mother as soon as you wish and stay till it's time to go abroad. They decided to sail the first of May. So Mary Alice went home almost immediately. And on an evening late in March, got off the train onto that familiar platform when she had so fearfully set forth only four short months ago. Father was at the station to meet her.  Mary Alice was thinking, as she and father neared the house, of that miserable evening in the fall when she had stolen past her mother and gone up to her room and wept passionately in the dark because life had no enchantment for her. There would be no stealing past, dear mother, now. For the secret was for mother too. Yes, very much indeed for mother. As Mary Alice and Godmother had agreed in their wonderful tucking and talk, the night before Mary Alice came away. All the way home, on the train, she had hardly been able to wait till she got to mother with this beautiful new thing in her heart. Perhaps mother had dreaded her girl's homecoming in a way, almost as much as she yearned for it. But if she had, Mary Alice never knew it. And if she had, mother herself soon forgot it.  Hour after hour they worked about the house or sat before that great fire in the unchanged sitting room and talked and talked and talked. Mary Alice told every little detail of those four months until her mother lived them over with her and the light and life of them animated her as they had animated Mary Alice. Little by little in that month, Mary Alice came at least to the beginning of a wonderful new understanding, came to see how parents and Godparents cease to have any particular future of their own and live in the futures of the young things they love. Mary Alice's bleak years had been bitter for her mother too, perhaps bitterer than for her. And her new enchantment with life was like new blood in her mother's veins. Mother cried when Mary Alice told her the secret. Oh, it's true, it's true, she said. If only everybody could know it, what a different world this would be. And as for the other, when Mary Alice told her mother about him and what his coming into her life and his going out of it had meant, mother just held her girl close and could not speak. The precious month flew by on wings as of the wind. Mary Alice was the town wonder, as her brother Johnny said. And she enjoyed that as only a girl who has been the town wallflower can. But after all, everything was as nothing compared with mother and the exultation that had so evidently come into her life because out of her love and pain and sacrifice, a soul had come into the world to draw so richly from the treasures of other hearts and to give so richly back again. There is no triumph like it, as Mary Alice would perhaps know someday. A mother's purest happiness is very like God's own. But at last the selling date was close at hand. Mary Alice's heart was heavy and glad together.  Mother shook her head.  I like it better that way. And so once more Mary Alice smiled through tear-filled eyes at the deer faces on the station platform, and was gone again into the big world beyond her home. But this time what a different girl it was who went. Chapter 10 The Old World and the King They had an unusually delightful voyage. The weather was perfection and their fellow voyagers included many persons interesting to talk with and many others interesting to observe and speculate about. One particularly charming experience came to Mary Alice through the captain's appreciation of her eagerness. Godmother had taught her to love the stars, as well as they could in New York, where to most people, only scraps of sky are visible at a time. They had been want to watch with keen interest for the nightly appearance of stars they could see from their windows or from the streets as they went to and fro.  This led the captain to tell Mary Alice something of the stars as the sailor's friends. And she had one of the most memorable evenings of her life when he explained to her something of the science of navigation and made her see how their great-great hound of the ocean, just like the first frail barks of the Tyrians, picked its way across trackless wastes of sea by the infallible guidance of the friendly stars. All this particularly interested Mary Alice because of someone who lived much in the open and spent many and many a night on the broad deserts looking up at the stars. They landed at Naples and lingered a fortnight in that lovely vicinity. Then up to Rome, to Florence and Venice, to Milan and the Italian lakes, through Switzerland into France, and so to Paris. Godmother had once spent a winter at Capri. She had spent several winters in Florence. She knew Venice well. She had hosts of dear familiar things to show Mary Alice in each place. At last they came to Paris. Godmother lamented that it was in July they came. But Mary Alice, who had no recollections of Paris in April and May, found nothing to lament. They stayed more than a month and made a number of the enchanting little journeys which can be made out of Paris for ever and ever without repeating, it seems. Then, with a trunk in which were two really truly Paris stresses, very, very modest ones to be sure, but unmistakably touched with Parisian chick and a mind in which were hundreds of wonderful Paris memories, Mary Alice crossed to England. They went at once to London, where it seemed to Mary Alice, she must stay forever to be satisfied. Godmother had hosts of charming friends in London, even beyond what she had in Italy and France. But for the first fortnight she gave up her time and hurriedly to Mary Alice's sightseeing. By and by her friends began to find out she was there and to clamor insistently for her. And as the exodus from town was as complete as ever gets, most of the invitations were from the country. So that Mary Alice began to see something of the English country house life she had read so much about and to meet personages whose names filled her with awe until she remembered the secret. And thus she came to the great event of her life. Godmother had what Mary Alice called a duchess friend of whom she was very, very fond. The duchess was a woman about Godmother's age and quite as lovely to look at as a duchess should be. She was a mistress of many and vast estates and wore, on occasions, a cornet of diamonds and strings of pearls worth a king's ransom just like a duchess in a story. But she seemed to Mary Alice to have hardly in the mildest interest in the jewels she wore and the palaces she lived in. Mary Alice found it hard to bear in mind that to the duchess these were just as matter of fact as usual, as unvariable, as the home sitting room and the good hat had once been to Mary Alice. And like Mary Alice, the duchess found her happiness in reaching out for something new and different. The duchess liked the world that Godmother lived in the world of Godmother's lovely mind and she loved Godmother's companionship. That was how it came about that Mary Alice found herself very often in exalted society. The exalted personages did not notice her much, but every once in a while, by remembering the secret, she got unhappy terms with some of them. And at last a very unusual thing happened. The king was coming to honor the duke and duchess with a visit, coming to see one of those ancient and glorious estates, the like of which no king owns and which are the pride of all the kingdom. Many sovereigns had stated this splendid old place on England's south coast, a place as famous for its beauty as for its 600 years of history. So it was no unusual thing for it to house a king. The unusual part of it all was Mary Alice being there. By the king's permission, a wonderful house party was asked to meet him. Godmother couldn't be asked. She had never been presented and the king was unaware of her existence. The duchess would not have dared to present Godmother's name on the list submitted to the king. Much less therefore would she have dared to present Mary Alice's. But, said the duchess, and went on to unfold a plan. If Mary Alice would not mind staying on with the duchess while Godmother paid another visit and if she would not mind having a room somewhere in a remote wing and would not mind not being asked to mingle with the party in any way, she might see something of such sights as perhaps she would never be able to see otherwise. Mary Alice was delighted, partly because she wanted to see the sights and partly because the thought of going away from this wonderful place made her heart ache. So she was moved out of the fine guest suite she and Godmother had been lodged in and over to a room in a far wing of the vast house. From this wing one could look down onto the terraces for which the love and genius of none other than quaint John Evelyn, greatest of England's garden philosophers, were responsible. To these terraces the guests would certainly come and to the world famous rose garden into which Mary Alice could look from her window in the far wing. But even if she were to see no royalty she was grateful for the privilege of staying on a few days longer in this paradise by the sea. And not the least delight of her new quarters was that they were high enough up so that from them she could overlook the sheltering islets trees which made these marvelous gardens possible so close to the shore and see the channel ships assailing, three masted schooners laden with wood, fishing smacks, London barges with their picturesque red sails bellying in the wind and an occasional ocean liner trailing its black smoke across the horizon. What would the sea and the gardens and the rich history of the place? Mary Alice felt that she could never tire of it even if she did not see the king. But it would be delightful to see him too. Someday the history of this splendid old place would include this royal visit and Mary Alice who had read of other such occasions and wished she might have been a mouse in a corner to witness them as for instance when Queen Elizabeth was here now felt the thrill of having that wish come true in a way and so far from feeling set aside or slighted liked her window in the wing and her participation in the party above any other she might have had. Mary Alice dined the first night of the house party with the Duchess's older children and then went back to her room to sit at the window and look down on the terraces where after a while some of the men guests came to smoke. It was late but the twilight still lingered. Mary Alice could not tell who many of the men were but she could see the king and she watched him interestingly as he paced up and down. She had been told how no one must speak to a king until the king has first spoken to him. And she felt that at best it must be a dreary business being a king. Presently though in the thickening shadows she saw a form that made her heart stand still. Could it be? She was probably mistaken, madly mistaken but something in the way a man down there carried himself made her think of Godmother's little drawing-room in far off New York and a man who was playing the game. But the king was talking to this man, talking most interestingly it seemed. She must be mistaken. Nevertheless when the men had all gone in she put on a white shawl and slipped down onto the terrace. She felt as if she must know and of course she couldn't ask for she did not know his name. The terraces were deserted and she paced up and down undisturbed trying to assure herself that Godmother would probably have known if he were in England. His last letter had been from the Far East and especially if he were coming here. There were times as she reminded herself when she was continually seeing him out of every crowd suddenly his tall form would seem to emerge in the loneliness of quiet places. As by miracle he would seem to be where a moment ago she knew there was no one. Then a sense of separation would intervene and for days she would be given over to the belief that she was never to see him again. Tonight was doubtless just one of the times when for no reason that she could understand he seemed physically near to her. She was standing very still in the shadow of an ivy-grown pillar looking up at the pole star and wondering if he and his wanderings might not be looking at it too. When a man's voice close beside her made her jump it was an unfamiliar voice. Star-gazing, it said pleasantly she turned and recognized the king. Yes, your majesty, she answered. At first she thought she was going to be frightened then she remembered the secret and before she knew it she was deep in conversation with the king. As she talked a puzzled expression she could not see came into the king's face. He had a wonderful memory for names, a memory which seldom failed him but he couldn't place this girl and it was dark too so he couldn't see her but he liked to hear her talk. She had that rare thing in his experience a fresh sweet viewpoint. The bloom of enchantment was still on life for her and as he drew her out he found that she was refreshing him as nothing had done for a weary while. Then kingly obligation called him indoors to join the throng whose everlasting sameness paled on him almost unendurably. Something he said made Mary Alice feel this made her see as in a flash a girl who had gone home once from a party and wept because life was so dull. She was sorry for the king. I seldom forget a name, he said, but I, before we go in, won't you please remind me of yours? Mary Alice laughed. Your Majesty has never heard my name, she said, and I can't go in. I'm not of the party, and she explained. I see, he said, I shall have to thank the Duchess. I have had a most refreshing quarter of an hour. I'm glad, said Mary Alice simply. I felt afraid at first, as nearly everybody does, I suppose. And then I thought how dreadful that must be to have everyone afraid of you, when you're really a very nice, gentle person.  And then I remembered my secret. Secret? And so, of course, she had to tell. It was rather a long story, hurry as she would, because the king interrupted with so many questions. But she wouldn't tell what the secret was until the very last thing. Um, said the king, when she had finally divulged it. That was all he said, but the way he said it made Mary Alice know that the secret was right. End of chapter 10. Chapters 11 and 12 of Everybody's Lonesome. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Bridget Gage. Everybody's Lonesome by Clara E. Laughlin. Chapter 11. A meeting and a parting. The next day was full of activities which kept the house guests far afield. But Mary Alice had an exciting day at home, for the king had spoken to the duchess about her, and asked to have her presented to him that evening. The Duke and duchess had spent a fortune on the entertainment of their king, had provided for his beguiling every costly diversion that could be thought of. But they had not been able to give him anything new, and they felt that he was enduring the visit amiably rather than actually enjoying it. It remained, apparently, for the girl from nowhere to give him real pleasure. So the duchess, secretly sympathetic, left orders with her French maid that Mary Alice was to be made ready to see the king. Mary Alice chose the simplest thing that rigorous French maid would allow, and kept as close as possible to her own individual and unpretending style. But even then she was a pretty resplendent young person as she still timidly down to find the duchess and be presented to the king. The guests were assembled in the great drawing room and Mary Alice was frightened almost to death when she saw the splendor of the scene and realized what part she had to play in it. Then in a daze she was swept forward and presented and found herself looking into eyes that smiled as with an old friendliness. So she smiled back again and soon forgot the onlookers, answering his majesty's kindly questions. He turned from her presently to speak to someone else and Mary Alice caught sight then of a face she knew. For an instant she stood staring. For an instant he stood staring back as unbelieving as she. Then, you seemed to be on friendly terms with his majesty, he said.  No, Mary Alice answered. But I've told him the secret. As soon as they could, they escaped, those two. Out onto the terrace, where the stars were shining thickly overhead. On one of those, those times in New York when we talked together, he said, you told me that when something very marvelous had happened to you and you couldn't believe you were awake, that it was really true. You asked your godmother to pinch you. It, er, wouldn't be at all proper for me to ask you to please pinch me. But if you know any perfectly proper equivalent, I wish you to do it. I've pinched myself, she returned, and it seems I am awake, so I judge you must be too. Then how, please? And she told him. And you don't know yet who I am? No. So he told her. I warned you it was nothing interesting, he said. It is just my work that people are interested in. I don't belong in there, indicating the Great House, any more than you do. They like me for a novelty, because I've dared and suffered. And because, as things turned out, I was in a position to do what they are pleased to call a great service to the Empire. I wish I liked them better. They want to be very kind to me, and I was born of them, so they like me the better for that. But I've been in the wilderness too much. I can't get used to these strange folk at home. I used to think I couldn't get used to strange folk, Mary Ellis murmured, but I seem to have got unfairly well for a girl from nowhere. Was it the secret? She nodded. When may I know? I, I can't tell. You told the King. He seemed to need it so. Don't I need it? I, I can't tell. He seemed discouraged, and as if he did not know what next to say. They strolled in silence over to where she had been standing the night before when the King spoke to her. From within the great house came the entrancingly sweet song of a world-famous soprano engaged to pour her liquid notes before the King. Mary Ellis stood very still, drinking it in. When it ceased, she stole a look up at the bronzed face beside her. The light from a window in her far wing of the house fell full on that rugged face, and it looked very stern, but also very sad. Mary Ellis's heart, which had been exultant only a short while ago, began suddenly in one of those strange revolutions which all hearts know, to ache indefinably. This hour would probably be like those other brief hours in which she had shared her life. Tomorrow or the next day he would be gone, and forever and forever the memory of these moments on the terrace with the stars overhead and the exquisite song in their ears would be coming back to taunt her unbearably. She made up her mind that before he went out of her life again she would tell him the secret. So that at least wherever he went, however far from him the rest of her way through life might be, they would always have that thought in common, and whenever it came to help him, as it must, he would think of her. Timidly she laid a hand upon his arm. He had been far away, following the trail of long, long thoughts, and her touch recalled him sharply. What is it? he asked. I want to tell you the secret. I don't think I want to know, he answered, rather shortly. Why, why Mary Alice faltered.  I must go in, she said. He put out a hand to detain her, but either she did not see it in the dark or else she eluded it. For in a moment she was gone, across the terrace, toward the lighted French windows of the rooms of state. How she managed to get through those next few minutes until she could find the Duchess and ask to be excused, Mary Alice never knew. All of her that was capable of feeling or caring about anything, seemed to have left this part of her that wore the Duchess's lovely white gown and scarf of silver tissue, and to be out on the dark terrace under the pale star beams with a tall young man who spoke bitterly. This girl in the sheen of white and silver to whom the king was speaking kindly was someone unreal and ghostly who acted like a real live girl, but was not. As she hurried along the great corridors towards her rum in the far wing, Mary Alice felt that she could hardly wait to get off these trappings of state, to get back to her old simple self again and bury her head in her pillow and cry and cry. She wished with all her heart for Godmother, but most of all she was sick for home, for mother and the unchanging sitting-room. He had seemed disappointed to find her here, and she, well, she was sorry she had seen him. In New York, where she had not even known his name, he had seemed to belong to her in a way by right of their common sympathy and understanding. Here among all these people who were his people who delighted to honor him, he seemed to completely lost to her. After a weary while, Mary Alice got up and sat by the window, looking across to the main part of the great house and wondering which of the darkened windows was his, and if he had dismissed her easily from his mind and gone comfortably to sleep. The early dawn breeze was blowing from the sea when she dozed into a brief, dream-troubled sleep. Chapter 12 at Ocean's Edge Only the gardeners and a few of the house servants were about when she went downstairs, through the still house and out onto the terraces, towards the sea. She had hung the white and silver finery carefully away, glad to feel so far divorced from it, and all that represented, as she did in her gown, of unbleached linen crash, which she and Godmother had made. I'm like Cinderella, she reminded herself, as she buttoned the crash gown. Godmother and all.  I suppose he thought I was a silly little climber trying to get out of the chimney corner where I belong, but I think he owed it to me to let me explain. There was a cove on the shore, whose shelter she particularly loved, and she was going thither now, as these bitter reflections filled her mind. The tide was ebbing, but the thin, slowly widening line of beach was wet, and she had to pick her way carefully. She was so mindful of her steps, and under all her mindfulness, so conscious of the ache in her heart, that she was not noticing much else than the way to pick her steps. And she had rounded the rocky corner of the cove, and was far into her favored little nook, when she saw that it was occupied. A man sat back in its deepest shelter, looking out to sea. He started when he saw her, and she looked back as if calculating a flight. Please don't go, he begged, rising to greet her. I was unpardonably rude to you last night, and it has made me very wretched. You have no right to pardon me, but I hope you won't go away without letting me tell you how sorry I am. I—it was nothing. I pardon you? I think I understand, said Mary Alice, weakly. He shook his head. How could you, who are so gentle, understand? Mary Alice looked about to protest, but he silenced her with a commanding gesture. I've been so much with savages, that I've grown savage in my own ways, it seems. But it was like this. You taught me a game once. It was a charming game, and I was glad to learn. But we could play it only twice, and then I had to go away. And after I went, I—I was always missing the game, always wanting to play again. At what you call candlelight in time, wherever I was, in strange drawing-rooms, on rushing express trains, on ships plowing the seas, sitting about campfires in the wilderness, I'd always seem to see that little dim-lit room in your New York, and you kneeling beside me on the hearth rug, with a fire-light on your face and hair. I've always been a lonely chap, but after that I was lonelier than ever. I used to think I couldn't bear it. Then last night, how shall I tell you how I felt? I've comforted myself before with the dream that some day I might get back to New York, to that little room at candlelight in time, and find you again, and forget everything in all the world, but that you were there, and I was with you, kneeling on the hearth rug, and making toast for tea. And when I saw you, all white and silver glitter, talking to the king, the dream was gone. There wasn't any girl on the hearth rug in New York. There was only another girl of the kind that always makes me feel so strange, so ill at ease. It was only night before last that I learned I am to go away again directly, to the Far East, for the government. I was so happy, for I thought I'd go the westward way, and see you again in New York. Then suddenly I realized that you were gone, not merely from New York, but from the dream. And I was surprised into rudeness. That's all, but please forgive me. I told you I understood, said Mary Alice, and in a way I did. Not that the dream, as you call it, meant so much to you, but that you were disappointed to find Cinderella come out of her chimney corner and talking to the king. I know that when we have a person definitely placed in our minds, we don't like to have him bob up suddenly, and quite another quarter, and in what seems, like quite another character. Not if that person has been a kind of load star to you, and you have been steering your course by her, he said. Mary Alice flushed. Now I think you ought to let me tell, she began, with downcast eyes. And so she told, how she had come there, and how she had stayed, like the little mouse under the queen's chair, and how glad she was to have seen from a distance a little of this splendor and great society, and how glad her still to hang her borrowed white and silver away, and be done with it, and all it stood for, and go back to her gown of crash and her chimney corner place in life. Which I can now see, she added, is the place for dreams and sweet companionship. And when I get back, will you be there? He cried, eagerly. When you get back, I will be there, she promised. After that they sat, and talked for long and long, while the blue sea sparkled in the summer morning sun. When at length they rose to go, there was a light that never shone on land or sea, in his face and in hers. There had been no further promises, only that one, when you get back, I will be there. But each heart understood the other, and she rejoiced to wait for their declaration of his love, until he could, according to his tender fancy, make it to her, as in his dream come true. On the beach, as they strolled back, it was her eyes, shining with a soft new radiance, that first caught sight of something, her fancy that first grasped its significance. Look, she cried, in a bowl-like hollow of a big brown rock, the receding tide had left a little pool of seawater. It's left behind, this bit of the infinite unresting sea, she said. Who knows what far, far shores it's come from? And now here it is, and the great mother seas gone off and left it. He smiled tenderly at her sweet whimsy. The great mother sea will come back for it at sundown, he reminded her. Yes, yes, perhaps it was the coming separation between the two that made her voice quaver so sympathetically. The infinite always comes back for us, but we don't always remember that it will. This is such a little bit of the great sea, maybe it never was left alone before. Maybe it doesn't know how surely the waters that left it behind will come back for it this evening. Maybe it's, it's lonesome. I think I know how it feels. And I, he said, next time you feel that way, will you remember this brown rock and the tide that is so surely coming back tonight? She asked. Indeed I will, he told her. And so will I, she went on, and I'll try to remember too that perhaps it was put here for us to see and think of when we need encouragement. Just as I daresay we are left behind sometimes so that other lonely folk may see us and be reminded that she stopped. That what, he asked? Why, she cried, it's the secret. The more you live, the more everything helps you to believe the secret and to feel the brotherhood it brings. He looked guilty. I don't deserve to know the secret, he said, after last night, but, but I am going to tell you, she declared, so when you're far away from what you love most or when you're with people you think are different from you and do not understand, you can remember. Yes, eagerly. Just remember, and you have no idea how it helps until you've tried, that everybody's lonesome, that's the secret. End of Chapter 12. End of Everybody's Lonesome by Clara E. Laughlin.


The rhythmic tapping of the keyboard was all that could be heard within Michael O'Connor's study. He'd spent the last month suffering from the worst case of writer's block and had finally decided on a story idea. The words flowed freely from him just like it had for so many years before his most recent drought. He was afraid to stop, knowing at any moment the torrent of ideas could cease. He powered through the night, cranking out chapters and downing cups of coffee to keep himself awake. By dawn, he had completed a rough draft of what he would hope to be his next novel and placed it carefully within the manila folder he would use to ship it to his publisher. A week later, while having his morning coffee, Michael's cell phone rang. The caller ID indicated it was his publisher.  He sat listening to a review of what their focus group had come up with, none of which seemed enthusiastic. His upturned cheeks slowly drooped as he realized that none of them truly liked his idea. When the call had almost come to a finish, he assured them that he would address the issues that they had brought to his attention and have a revised addition to them within two weeks. This was his entire career, though, creating monsters and frights. He was sure he could do it. The next few nights were spent scanning his document. The focus group did not like the intimidating dog-like creature who chased its victims through the woods. They said it seemed too much like a werewolf story and they'd simply not seen any success with those lately. It had to be different, but still be his work, not just some fallacy to appease the masses. His mind searched for something terrifying that he'd not already used in a story, something completely original. His web browser opened to a search engine and began researching folktales and fables. He even perused old children's stories in an attempt to warp a beloved story into something dark and sinister. All seemed too bland for the type of work he was used to producing. By midnight, he'd come up with no good ideas and decided rest would probably bring something better in the morning. He had almost made his way to his bed. When something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, Michael's head turned quickly. His eyes shot open wide as he leapt back from what appeared to be a figure standing beside his closet. His hand instinctively landed on the light switch flicking it on. The light had chased away the shadow cast by the suit that hung from the back of his closet door. He sighed and felt silly at the thought, a chuckle erupted from his tired face. His body was almost nestled comfortably under the covers. When the idea struck him, shadows. Michael was out of his bed and at his desk within seconds, the keys being pounded like a hammer. And from the darkness, a being filtered into view long and lanky with thousands of eyes peering from it. The body was as black as pitch and no light could escape it. It drew in all around as it slowly moved forward toward the bed. The needle-thin appendages stretched to unnatural lengths, grasping to the edges of the comforter and pulling itself toward Ashley. The young girl let out a blood-curdling scream that was soon squelched as the darkness enveloped her. That's it.  Then tapping at his chin, he began to think of a name. It had to be old and strike fear in anyone who heard it. It may even be something legitimate. He began another search over the internet. Michael first searched legends he'd heard of but kept being directed back to shadow people instead and that was not the creature he'd envisioned. When his initial search turned out to be fruitless, he began looking into translations from other languages. He searched words like darkness, demon, and shadows. After a few minutes of sifting through words and phrases that just did not seem to fit, they came to rest on the Gaelic word for shadow. Skull. He attempted to pronounce it himself and something felt right about it. He kept looking through a page full of words in that language. He settled on Skull Sule, a nom, Shadow Eyes Spirit. Skull dressed up his story, added in a few details that included his creation's name. He'd grown so fond of it that he began repeating the name at random moments when he was alone. His voice even whispered it as it was placed neatly into its own packaging for shipping. The words came to him while handing it to the postal carrier, which must have made him look silly to the tiny round man collecting his mail, but Michael didn't have a care in the world. He had written something truly horrifying and he just knew it would be a hit with his publisher. So, that night, he slid between the sheets of his bed, said the words again, drawing them out to get the full pronunciation down. He wanted to make sure he had it right when his publisher asked, Skull Sule, a nom. Skull Sule, a nom. The words coming like a chant between his smiling lips as he reached over for the lamp upon the nightstand. With a click, the light was doused, allowing the night to encroach his tiny, tiny bedroom. Michael squirmed a bit and fluffed his pillow. Once he was comfortable, his eyes drifted shut and prepared to dream of the fame that would accompany his new work of art. His eyes of book signings had already began to dance in his mind before he was truly asleep, his smile growing wider by the second. His thoughts were suddenly disrupted by a very faint, scratching noise. The noise was not loud, but constant, so much so that it became annoying and after five minutes of trying to ignore it, Michael was up. The weary rider made his way through the halls and back down the stairs. He checked the doors and all the windows, but found no trace of the source. The wind had not been blowing and no trees rustled about. When there was no obvious answer, he pulled open his front door and searched the immediate area. He was sure it had to be some kind of dog or cat that was pawing at his house, but he found no trace of one. Michael walked back inside, closed the door and locked it behind him. He immediately noticed how quiet the house now was, not a single sign of the scratching. He simply shrugged and assumed that whatever had caused it was now gone and made his way back to bed.  They were impressed to see a creature unlike anything they'd ever heard of and the idea of having something watching you from every single shadow was horribly fantastic as they put it. They wanted a final product ready for publishing within three months and though this was a tight deadline for Michael, he was happy to have it. He set to work on dressing up the details, making it more theatric and really giving a life to this creature. All the while, he would sit in his chair, typing and calling out to his newest creation, Skull Sule Anum. The scratching grew louder and more frequent. It had become bothersome and kept him up all hours when he finally took a break from his writing to get some sleep. He found himself digging through his trash cans, searching the crawl space beneath his home and even the attic. Michael was positive that some sort of creature was scurrying about somewhere within his walls and making that awful noise, but he could not find evidence. When he had exhausted every idea of where to search, he scribbled a note on a small piece of paper to remind him to call an exterminator the following morning.  The following day, the sound seemed to have stopped, much like it did most days. Michael struggled to down his cup of coffee in hopes it would perk him up. He sat at his desk, preparing to continue his book when the doorbell rang. He grumbled at the thought of being interrupted, but he had forgotten his early morning call to the exterminator. When the door opened, a man carrying a pesticide dispenser stood in awe of Michael's cartoon laden pajamas. The writer simply waved the man inside, told him what he had been experiencing, and closed the door behind what he hoped would be the answer to his prayers. He took back to his desk while the exterminator went to work, searching for the source of the sound. A couple of hours later, in two chapters in, the exterminator returned, he let Michael know that though he saw no actual vermin, there were traces of their droppings. The man had placed traps and poisons in the necessary places and promised that the problem should be solved within a few days. Michael gladly paid the man his fee and returned to the desk. The thought of getting a good night of rest rejuvenated him and he was sure he'd be able to get much more done today. His fingers set to typing and when he was almost ready to strike the enter key to move to the next sentence, he heard it again, slow, deliberate scratching and it was far louder than it had ever been. Michael rushed to finish the chapter he was working on, the sound constantly ringing in his ears. His fingers typed like mad, trying to get this one bit finished, but the noise was just too much. He soon saved his work and rushed upstairs. He quickly tossed on some clothes and made his way outside. The scratching had become unbearable and he needed to just get away from it for a while. He packed up his laptop and drove to the local library. Michael was sure to get some peace and quiet there amongst the stacks, or so he thought. The glow of the screen lit Michael's face between the large walls of books. He'd found a dark secluded corner as to not be disturbed. His fingers began working again coming up with background stories and small intricacies to make this monster real. Michael delighted in the thought of this being an ancient spirit that came for people in the dark, watching over them through each dark shade that had been created by shadow. It would watch and wait, taking care to be silent and still. It would stalk them for days on end, finding tiny ways to make itself known without truly showing itself. It would slowly draw out the fear in each victim until it was done toying with them. Once this appetite had been satiated, it would come to claim the final reward. The final scene of his book detailed a screaming teenage girl being dragged by a figureless form covered in staring eyes down deep into a darkness that no one else could apparently see. Michael hit save, grabbed his laptop and began to make his way down the stacks. The daylight had long since left his tiny town since he'd lost track of time. It was easy for him to get lost in a good story and now the moon was all that passed through the library windows. When he checked his watch, it was minutes until close and was surprised the attendant had not warned him. As he passed into the stairwell, the large bay window behind him allowed the moonlight to cast a glow upon his form. The dark silhouette of his body was painted on the wall before him. He stopped and stared for a moment, waving his hands around and laughing at the thought of shadows truly being evil.  He laughed to himself until the sound of the scratching began. His smile faded quickly as he searched the dim staircase. There was no one else below and he was on the top floor. The scratching grew louder as he stared at the darkness in front of him. What should have been his shadow seemed to move ever so slightly. Michael rubbed at his eyes, surely a trick his mind was playing on him. He'd not had adequate rest and had spent the last few hours in a dark room staring at the bright screen of his laptop. That's when the noise grew loudest and for once Michael realized it wasn't scratching, it was peeling. Almost as if parting through a wall, thin needle-like protrusions jutted from what should have been a mock-up of Michael's body upon the stairwell. They seeped out like worms from dirt and peeled back the facade of the man's dark image. Soon it no longer resembled Michael at all but something he had yet to describe to the world. When he thought his horror had been complete, a wet smacking echoed throughout the space as thousands of eyes opened at once and stared at the quivering rider. Before he could truly comprehend the scene before him, Michael had rushed down the steps and leapt over the banister to keep from drawing any closer to the being. His feet made quick work of the two floors he needed to traverse and he found himself in the parking lot within minutes. He stood amidst the light, staring up at the window of the top floor, his heart pounding in his chest. He knew what he'd seen could not possibly be real, that it must be a stress-induced hallucination. Michael's fingers tightened around his laptop, still shaking at the image that imprinted within his mind. The drive home was haunted by that vision and so was the rest of the night. It took hours for Michael to get to sleep but even his dreams were filled with nightmares of a creature that did not even exist until he began writing about it. He tossed within his sheets all night and the following day he felt no more rested than the days prior, even without the scratching. His day went with little other changes and by lunch he was sure the whole event must have been his overworked imagination. He'd resigned himself to getting back to his book and maybe even using some of his own nightmares as inspiration to spice up certain portions of the following pages. Michael took his place at his desk and began typing. When he'd completed the final chapter, Michael's fingers flipped through the freshly printed pages. He'd always enjoyed the smell of ink and drew in a deep whiff. He can only hope that his final product would be as well received as his rough draft as the pages were slid into another manila folder and addressed to his publisher. He placed it neatly in the tray where he would retrieve it for mailing the following day and made his way upstairs. Again, he snuggled up under his sheet and fluffed his pillow before allowing his head to rest upon it. Michael lay there, the lamp still on thinking about how silly he'd been the previous day. Skalsule Anam. He said with a laugh in his voice before turning out the lamp at his side. Michael was almost asleep when the sound came again and his eyes quickly shot open. The street lamp outside cast an eerie shadow of the tree limbs that hung just outside the window. They seemed to lurch from the ceiling down toward him from the stark white drywall. The wind shifted the branches and they appeared to draw closer, the sound growing louder every moment. The thin strands of dark then distorted and stretched coming closer and closer to the end of the bed. Michael sat up, his body quaking at the sight of the figure across the room that had melded with the shadow of the tree. It stood, like a statue of nothingness, with only the steady peeling noise to show it was most definitely alive. What do you want? Michael said into the night, unable to understand what was truly happening to him. Suddenly, the eyes were upon him again, the figure drawing closer. Every single pupil shifted side to side as if it was watching everything at once. Sick sloshes could be heard from the nothingness as they moved and Michael sat frozen in his own fear. The thing crept closer, the tendrils of shadow warming their way up the bed and across Michael's comforter. The strings of darkness wriggled around him for a moment and Michael could feel a chill seep from the thing into his bed and through his body. There was death within that absence of light and Michael could feel it coming for him. Finish the book. A marriage of hundreds of voices, both male and female erupted from nowhere and yet Michael knew it was from his creation. The idea that this thing had been pushing him to finish his novel was insanity. It had been prodding him from his very first draft to make it alive, to make it real. And it would not leave Michael alone until he had. All of this came as an idea, a quick thought that just appeared within Michael's mind, but he knew the origin. Michael was staring at it. Skull Sule Anam now knew what it meant to exist and it would settle for nothing less. Michael slowly nodded and agreed within the darkness of his room to finish the story if only he could be spared. The entity agreed, the eyes closing and the darkness sinking back to wherever it came to leave only the shadow of the tree behind. Michael did not rest from that night until the publisher had approved the book and the first copy came first class mail. He placed it within the shadow of the tree, pages open as a sort of offering to the creature that had spared his life. Darkness of that nature never visited Michael O'Connor again, but it no longer needed to. It was now alive.