The Gay Cockade

For permission to reprint some of the stories in this volume, the author is indebted to the courtesy of the editors of Harper's Magazine , Scribner's Magazine , Collier's Magazine , Ladies' Home Journal , Saturday Evening Post , Good Housekeeping , and Harper's Bazar. Contents The Gay Cockade 7 The Hidden Land 33 White Birches 84 The Emperor's Ghost 118 The Red Candle 132 Returned Goods 149 Burned Toast 165 Petronella 187 The Canopy Bed 205 Sandwich Jane 223 Lady Crusoe 272 A Rebellious Grandmother 310 Wait—for Prince Charming 327 Beggars on Horseback 351 THE GAY COCKADE THE GAY COCKADE From the moment that Jimmie Harding came into the office, he created an atmosphere. We were a tired lot. Most of us had been in the government service for years, and had been ground fine in the mills of departmental monotony. But Jimmie was young, and he wore his youth like a gay cockade. He flaunted it in our faces, and because we were so tired of our dull and desiccated selves, we borrowed of him, remorselessly, color and brightness until, gradually, in the light of his reflected glory, we seemed a little younger, a little less tired, a little less petrified. In his gay and gallant youth there was, however, a quality which partook of earlier times. He should, we felt, have worn a feather in his cap—and a cloak instead of his Norfolk coat. He walked with a little swagger, and stood with his hand on his hip, as if his palm pressed the hilt of his sword. If he ever fell in love, we told one another, he would, without a doubt, sing serenades and apostrophize the moon. He did fall in love before he had been with us a year. His love-affair was a romance for the whole office. He came among us every morning glorified; he left us in the afternoon as a knight enters upon a quest. He told us about the girl. We pictured her perfectly before we saw her, as a little thing, with a mop of curled brown hair; an oval face, pearl-tinted; wide, blue eyes. He dwelt on all her small perfections—the brows that swept across her forehead in a thin black line, the transparency of her slender hands, the straight set of her head on her shoulders, the slight halt in her speech like that of an enchanting…