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_ Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants,
and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West.
It had church accommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is
the way of the Far West and the South, where everybody is religious,
and where each of the Protestant sects is represented and has a plant
of its own. Rank was unknown in Lakeside--unconfessed, anyway;
everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a sociable friendliness
was the prevailing atmosphere.
Saladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and the only
high-salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He was thirty-five
years old, now; he had served that store for fourteen years;
he had begun in his marriage-week at four hundred dollars a year,
and had climbed steadily up, a hundred dollars a year, for four years;
from that time forth his wage had remained eight hundred--a handsome
figure indeed, and everybody conceded that he was worth it.
His wife, Electra, was a capable helpmeet, although--like himself--
a dreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance. The first thing
she did, after her marriage--child as she was, aged only nineteen--
was to buy an acre of ground on the edge of the town, and pay
down the cash for it--twenty-five dollars, all her fortune.
Saladin had less, by fifteen. She instituted a vegetable garden there,
got it farmed on shares by the nearest neighbor, and made it pay
her a hundred per cent. a year. Out of Saladin's first year's wage
she put thirty dollars in the savings-bank, sixty out of his second,
a hundred out of his third, a hundred and fifty out of his fourth.
His wage went to eight hundred a year, then, and meantime two children
had arrived and increased the expenses, but she banked two hundred
a year from the salary, nevertheless, thenceforth. When she had been
married seven years she built and furnished a pretty and comfortable
two-thousand-dollar house in the midst of her garden-acre, paid
half of the money down and moved her family in. Seven years later
she was out of debt and had several hundred dollars out earning
its living.
Earning it by the rise in landed estate; for she had long ago bought
another acre or two and sold the most of it at a profit to pleasant
people who were willing to build, and would be good neighbors and
furnish a general comradeship for herself and her growing family.
She had an independent income from safe investments of about a hundred
dollars a year; her children were growing in years and grace;
and she was a pleased and happy woman. Happy in her husband, happy in
her children, and the husband and the children were happy in her.
It is at this point that this history begins.
The youngest girl, Clytemnestra--called Clytie for short--
was eleven; her sister, Gwendolen--called Gwen for short--
was thirteen; nice girls, and comely. The names betray the latent
romance-tinge in the parental blood, the parents' names indicate
that the tinge was an inheritance. It was an affectionate family,
hence all four of its members had pet names, Saladin's was a curious
and unsexing one--Sally; and so was Electra's--Aleck. All day
long Sally was a good and diligent book-keeper and salesman;
all day long Aleck was a good and faithful mother and housewife,
and thoughtful and calculating business woman; but in the cozy
living-room at night they put the plodding world away, and lived in
another and a fairer, reading romances to each other, dreaming dreams,
comrading with kings and princes and stately lords and ladies in the
flash and stir and splendor of noble palaces and grim and ancient castles. _
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