burly of life, in a rambling, half-decaying, wholly delightful retreat beside a little cañon on the slope of Redwood Peak. He taught school in Oakland, and loved his work; but though possessed of a spirit to be moved with compassion for the hardships of his fellow-men, Mr. Markham is but imperfectly fond of living among men. His is pre-eminently the soul of the recluse, the dreamer. He loves to sit apart and concern himself with philosophies rather than with life, and so every night, when his work at school was done, he journeyed back to his hillside, Saturday or Sunday mornings, with his nose in a book, two or three well-loved volumes tucked under each arm, and still others peeping from his pockets. He had a way of reading aloud as he strolled alone, and sometimes gesticulated, as he read, until all his tucked-away books dropped to the ground; but he never forgot to pick them up and remove carefully all traces of contact with mother earth. In his hillside eyrie he wrote nearly all the verse contained in his recently published volume. Here he worked through the years, polishing and repolishing the The Eyrie in the Hills Where Edwin Markham Lived and Worked Alone for Five Years climbing the trail afoot, through cold or heat, rain or sunshine, to regain his solitude and his books. Unlike Joaquin Miller, who takes pride in the fact that he owns no books, Mr. Markham is distinctly a book-lover, and within the walls of his retreat he gathered about him one of the largest private libraries in the state. Starved of books in his boyhood, (he was nearly sixteen years old before the first one, other than an old arithmetic and a tattered grammar, fell into his hands,) he has made up for that period of dearth by a bookish plentitude, in his manhood. We would see him mousing about the hills on exquisitely refined fancies, too beautiful, too really of the poetic essence to attract much attention until "The Man with a Hoe" dug a way for it. Here, too, used to come, though the world knew it not, nearly all the lame ducks of literature in California. They brought their limping lines, their maimed and halt stanzas, and their blind sonnets, and read them to him; and out of a patience that seemed tireless he would listen and encourage and suggest until the bardlings would go away feeling that they had conferred, rather than received favors. The eyrie in the hills has been put in repair since the poet left it. The vines that once climbed over the windows and let in a green and leafy light upon his well-beloved books have been torn away. The house blazons in new paint and fresh shingles, and the shrubbery about it has all been trimmed. Flocks of senseless hens now wander under the oaks where of yore used to assemble of a Sunday afternoon a group of friends whom the long climb could not frighten. The little stream that once ran past the door has been piped de corously to the barn-yard, and the great willows and water-weeds that kept their greenery along its banks look sere and feeble. There is a cow-pen where a tangle of scrub-oak once grew, and a vegetablegarden flourishes where the poet used to love to watch the blooming of the first wild poppies of springtime. In a word, the place in under cultivation. Some one is making two blades of grass grow where before was only one; the man with a hoe has been there. W A HAWAIIAN EXPEDIENT BY JESSIE KAUFMAN HAT Negano want, Tulu?” asked Mrs. Sterling, lazily turning in her hammock, as she heard her maid's soft footfall in the lanai. "Negano want one cup milk; he go make cake." "You give him?" 66 Yes; he take now." Mrs. Sterling's eyes followed Negano as he sauntered past her lanai and across the vacant lot to the next house, with the borrowed cup of milk. "Please give me that blue book on table, Tulu,-all same this, only more big. You see? Yes, that 's right," she said settling herself more comfortably and opening her book. "And Tulu, please burn some mosquito-powder in my room. Mosquito come inside my net; plenty bite last night." "All light," replied Tulu, as she noiselessly moved about with her duster. But Mrs. Sterling's mind was not quite at ease. There was a new man-of-war in port. Some of the officers were sure to call, and she could not see them in her holoku. That was the worst about new men; they had to be initiated before they could forget the Mother Hubbard and remember that the holoku held a distinction, if not a difference. Well, she could not help it; she was not going to dress for all the officers in the navy. 1 Finished, ended. two-two-four hear me. Tell her four eggs, three cups of flour, and one cup of sugar, please." There was a pause. "Have you got it all right now, Kukulani?... What are you going to fill your cake with? . . . Chocolate, O how good! . Yes, I think we have some chocolate. Wait a moment. Yes, Kukulani; we have some. Send Negano up for it. What! Tom Ward and May Peters engaged! Well, I am surprised! . O no! I promise I won't breathe it to a soul. What! the Monowai off a And silence fell upon the lanai silence broken only by the buzzing of some big bumble-bees, and the murmur of the surf, while Mrs. Sterling gently rocked in her hammock, her gaze wandering over the seemingly endless expanse of bright blue and green foaming, sparkling, dancing waves that spread far, far off- as far as the eyes could reach; for her lanai stretched down to the very edge of the sea. All around was a low open railing, and overhead a slanting roof which extended part of the way only, leaving an uncovered portion wide enough to hold a hammock "Some Kanaka boys were surf-riding" Diamond Head! I wonder why Central did n't tell me she was sighted. What time are you going down for the mail?. All right; I'll go with you. Good-by." Mrs. Sterling went back to her hammock. "The Monowai must have made a quick trip," she reflected, as she settled herself once more. "I wonder if anybody I know is on board. Tulu! Ah, there you are! Just ask Central what time and sct my watch. One o'clock? All right. I fall asleep; you wake me up one hour time. By'n'by ship come. I go down town with Mrs. Allen." "All light," replied Tulu. and some light wicker lounging-chairs. On moonlight nights she could recline there and imagine herself on the bosom of the ocean, with the starry sky above, the moon lighting up the splendor of the rolling waves with her soft radiance, the balmy fresh sea air, the light breeze, and the gentle swish of the rippling waters breaking on the beach. But now her hammock was hung well back out of the glare, and about her were easy chairs, and palms, and flowers, and pictures, and wicker sofas laden with cushions; a tea-table and another hammock were near by, and farther on were her dining-table and sideboard and the telephone, and then a doorway with a Japanese portière of bamboo leading to the rest of the house, such as it was; for the lanai was living-room, dining-room, veranda, parlor,-in fact, everything but bedroom and kitchen. She lay there looking with lazy enjoyment at the reflection of the sun on the blue waters that glistened like myriads of diamonds. Some Kanaka boys were surfriding, and she watched the canoes as they were skillfully mounted on the crests of Kukulani's House the biggest waves, which, when they curled and broke, sent the light crafts bounding in with a fascination of speed equal to that of the toboggan-slide. Soon the stately Monowai, with mail and passengers and importations from the Coast, came sailing along, and farther out, near the horizon, were some smaller white-sailed ships. The happy, joyous voices of the surf-riders were wafted to her on the faint winds. At last her book slid to the floor and the attractions of Waikiki, of which perhaps she was not the least, were lost to her. Her dark lashes rested on her softly-flushed cheeks, her pretty chestnut hair, half falling, was carelessly tossed back against the luxurious multitude of neutral-tinted, cool-looking pillows, and her rose-pink holoku, falling in graceful folds over the side of the hammock, added a bright touch of color to the picture. Mrs. Sterling was a widow, and a young one, but nobody knew how young, or, for that matter, how old; for she had been wise in her generation and had not told her age when she had come to Honolulu, some years before, as a bride. But she always prefered to "get around" a difficult subject rather than tell a fib, however white; so when asked the number of her years she would explain that of course she did not mind telling her age now, but she always looked into the future, and she could see that the time might come when she might regret the confidence of her youth. "I think it is terrible, the way every one knows everything about every-body in Honolulu," she would say with a little shudder. "I've been here only a short time, and I know the ages of all the women in the town and the men too, more shame to them! It's an injustice to oneself; really, it is." She had a convincing way. Hearing her talk on the subject, one quite forgot, until afterwards, that it did n't make any difference how old one was, and that "A woman is as old-" and all the rest of the very soothing proverb. Yes, Mrs. Sterling was convincing. Sometimes she even convinced herself. When repeating a conversation she built up, as it were, her replies therein, and she had no idea that in the original talk she had not sparkled to the extent that she did in recalling it. But after all, what was the difference whether it was said first or last? There was no " what might have been " in her vocabulary. With her, sooner or later, what might have been was, and in this she was to be envied. But there was not always necessity for elaboration of her remarks, as she was not lacking in either quickness or daring. An irascible old gentleman had once confided in her his disappointment in his son. He was fond of confidences, for everybody sympathized with him. He was rich, |