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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jerry C. Whitaker, Editor-in-Chief, is Vice President of Standards
Development for the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) in
Washington, D.C. He is the author or editor of more than 40 technical books,
including The DTV Handbook, The Standard Handbook of Video and Television
Engineering, The Standard Handbook of Audio and Radio Engineering, and
Communications Receivers. Mr. Whitaker is a Fellow of the Society of
Broadcast Engineers.
The Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) is the only organization devoted
to the advancement of all levels and types of broadcast engineering. With more
than 5100 members and 115 local chapters, the SBE provides a forum for the
exchange of ideas and the sharing of information to help members keep pace
with a rapidly changing industry. The SBE amplifies the voices of broadcast
engineers by validating their skills with professional certification, by offering
educational opportunities to maintain and expand those skills, and by speaking
out on technical regulatory issues that affect how members work.
Copyright © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Except as
permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this
publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or
stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of
the publisher.
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 CONTENTS

SBE Editorial Advisory Board

Authors
Preface

Section 1 Regulatory Issues Ralph Hogan

Chapter 1.1 FCC Licensing and Administrative Basics for the

Technically Minded Ernie Sanchez
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Licensing Basics
1.3 Description of FCC Reference Resources

Chapter 1.2 Chief Operator Requirements Dennis Baldridge

1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Chief Operator Selection
1.3 Duties Required by the Chief Operator
1.4 Summary

Chapter 1.3 The Alternative Broadcast Inspection Program

(ABIP) Larry Wilkins
1.1 Introduction
1.2 About the Program
1.3 Final Comments
Chapter 1.4 Broadcast Accessibility Requirements Mike Starling
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Radio Reading Services for the Print Handicapped
1.3 TV for the Visually Disabled—Video Description
1.4 Broadcast Captioning
1.5 Conclusion

Chapter 1.5 The Emergency Alert System Larry Wilkins

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Emergency Alert System
1.3 For More Information

Section 2 RF Transmission Douglas Garlinger and Gary Sgrignoli

Chapter 2.1 AM and FM Transmitters Scott Marchand and Alex

Morash
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Theory
2.3 Transmitter Overview
2.4 Factors Affecting Performance
2.5 Reducing the Total Cost of Ownership and Extending Transmitter Life
References

Chapter 2.2 Coaxial Transmission Lines Derek Small, Nicholas

Paulin, Philip Young, and Bill Harland
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Transmission Line Types
2.3 Electrical and Operational Parameters
2.4 Power Handling
2.5 Differential Expansion
2.6 Semiflexible Transmission Line Systems
2.7 Rigid Transmission Line
 2.8 Pressurization
2.9 Maintenance and Inspection

Chapter 2.3 FM Channel Combiners Derek J. Small

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Combiner Types
2.3 Frequency Response
2.4 Cross-Coupled Filters
2.5 Delay/Loss Correction
Reference

Chapter 2.4 Transmitting Antennas for FM and TV

Broadcasting Kerry W. Cozad
2.1 Introduction
2.2 General Antenna Characteristics
2.3 Installation
2.4 Maintenance
2.5 Summary
Bibliography

Chapter 2.5 Practical Aspects of Maintaining Medium-Wave

Antenna Systems in AM Transmission Phil Alexander
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Elements of the Antenna System
2.3 Technical Principles
2.4 Troubleshooting a Single Radiator Problem
2.5 Troubleshooting Directional Arrays

Chapter 2.6 International Shortwave Broadcasting Douglas

Garlinger
2.1 Introduction
2.2 FCC Regulation
 2.3 International Shortwave Bands
2.4 Frequency Management
2.5 Frequency Requests
2.6 Shortwave Transmitters
2.7 Antenna Types
2.8 Single Sideband
2.9 DRM® Digital Radio Mondale™
2.10 Ionosphere
2.11 Smoothed Sunspot Number
2.12 Interval Signals
2.13 Reception Reports
2.14 Defining Terms
Bibliography
For Further Information

Chapter 2.7 Evaluation of TV Coverage and Interference Bill

Meintel
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Need for a More Sophisticated Model
2.3 The Longley–Rice Model
2.4 Final Thoughts

Chapter 2.8 DTV RF Considerations Douglas Garlinger

2.1 Introduction
2.2 8-VSB Signal
2.3 FCC Spectral Mask
2.4 8-VSB Transmission Monitoring
2.5 8-VSB Power
2.6 High Power Amplifier Devices
2.7 8-VSB Specialist Certification
2.8 Defining Terms
References

Chapter 2.9 ATSC DTV Transmission System Gary Sgrignoli

 2.1 Introduction
2.2 System Description
2.3 VSB Baseband Description
2.4 VSB Baseband Spectral Description
2.5 VSB RF Spectrum Description
2.6 ATSC DTV Transmission System Parameters

Chapter 2.10 Television Transmitters John Tremblay

2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Amplifier
2.3 Power Supplies
2.4 Control and Metering
2.5 Mask Filters
2.6 Cooling
Reference

Chapter 2.11 DTV Mask Filters Daniel S. Fallon

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Filters and Emission Limits
2.3 Types of Filters
2.4 Thermal Stability
2.5 Installation Considerations
2.6 Maintenance
2.7 Filter Retuning

Chapter 2.12 DTV Television RF Measurements Linley Gumm

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Measurements Using General Purpose Test Equipment
2.3 Determining Signal Quality
2.4 Signal Quality Measurements
Reference

Chapter 2.13 Hybrid Microwave IP and Cellular Data for

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Newsgathering Nuraj Lal Pradhan and John Wood
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Migration from Analog FM Modulation to Digital Modulation
2.3 COFDM Overview
2.4 Cellular News Gathering (CNG)
2.5 Migration from Ku to Ka Band IP Satellite Systems
2.6 Migration to Hybrid Microwave Solutions
2.7 Hybrid Aggregation
2.8 Summary
List of Acronyms
References

Section 3 DTV Transport Dr. Richard Chernock

Chapter 3.1 MPEG-2 Transport John R. Mick Jr

3.1 Introduction
3.2 MPEG-2 Systems Specification Introduction
3.3 The MPEG-2 Transport Stream
3.4 Tables, Sections, and Descriptors
3.5 MPEG-2 Program Specific Information (PSI)
3.6 TS_Program_Map_Section Syntax
3.7 MPEG-2 Packetized Elementary Stream (PES) Packets
3.8 MPEG-2 System Timing
References

Chapter 3.2 Program and System Information Protocol: PSIP

Dr. Richard Chernock
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Virtual Channels
3.3 PSIP Tables
3.4 PSIP Descriptors
3.5 The Big Picture
Chapter 3.3 IP Transport for Mobile DTV Gomer Thomas
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Content Delivery Framework
3.3 Services
3.4 Signaling
3.5 Timing and Buffer Model
3.6 Announcements
3.7 Terms
References

Chapter 3.4 Mobile Emergency Alert System Wayne C. Luplow,

Wayne Bretl, and Jay C. Adrick
3.1 Introduction
3.2 M-EAS as Part of ATSC Mobile DTV
3.3 M-EAS Relationship to National Alerting Infrastructure
3.4 M-EAS Input Sources
3.5 Use Scenario
3.6 M-EAS Advantages
3.7 Implementation
3.8 Emergency Alerting as Part of ATSC 3.0
Bibliography

Chapter 3.5 ATSC Mobile DTV System Jerry C. Whitaker

3.1 Introduction
3.2 ATSC Mobile DTV, A/153
3.3 Supporting Recommended Practice
3.4 Transmission Infrastructure
References

Section 4 Information Technology Systems Wayne M. Pecena

Chapter 4.1 Information Technology and the Broadcast Plant

Wayne M. Pecena
 4.1 Introduction
4.2 The IP Network—A Technology Review
4.3 Networking Standards
4.4 The OSI Model
4.5 Encapsulation and De-Encapsulation
4.6 The Data-Flow Layers
4.7 Conclusion
A4.1 Appendix
Suggested Further Reading

Chapter 4.2 Network Systems Gary Olson

4.1 Introduction
4.2 Network Infrastructure
4.3 Network Topology
4.4 File-Based Workflow Architecture

Chapter 4.3 Time and Frequency Transfer over Ethernet Using

NTP and PTP Nikolaus Kerö
4.1 Introduction
4.2 PTP—Precision Time Protocol
4.3 IEEE 1588—What the Standard Specifies
4.4 SyncE—Synchronous Ethernet: A Solution to All Problems?
4.5 Genlock over IP
4.6 Conclusions
References

Chapter 4.4 Standards for Video Transport over an IP Network

John Mailhot
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Historical View of Television Transport over Carrier Networks
4.3 MPEG-2 Transport Streams over IP Networks
Section 5 Production Systems Andrea Cummis

Chapter 5.1 Production Facility Design Richard G. Cann, Anthony

Hoover, Frederic M. Remley, and Ernst-Joachim Voelker
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Studio Design Considerations
References
Bibliography

Chapter 5.2 Audio System Interconnections Greg Shay and Martin

Sacks
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Audio over IP—A Primer
5.3 What Can You Do with AOIP?
5.4 Network Requirements
5.5 Network Engineering for Audio Engineers
Resources

Chapter 5.3 Audio Monitoring Systems Martin Dyster

5.1 Introduction
5.2 Audio Monitoring in Broadcast
5.3 Connectivity—Signal Types
5.4 The Future of Audio Monitoring

Chapter 5.4 Remote Audio Broadcasting Martin Dyster

5.1 Introduction
5.2 News Remote Broadcasting
5.3 The Future of Remote Broadcasting

Chapter 5.5 Master Control and Centralized Facilities John Luff

5.1 Introduction
5.2 The Function of Master Control
 5.3 Centralizing Broadcast Operations

Chapter 5.6 Video Switchers Brian J. Isaacson

5.1 Introduction
5.2 Switcher Features
5.3 The Big Picture

Chapter 5.7 Automation Systems Gary Olson

5.1 Introduction
5.2 But Enough History
5.3 Orchestration—The Next Generation of Automation
5.4 Summary

Chapter 5.8 Media Asset Management Sam Bogoch

5.1 Introduction
5.2 A Brief History of Modern MAM
5.3 Four Ways to Categorize MAM
5.4 XML—A Key Interchange Format
5.5 Workflow Automation and Process Orchestration—A Paradox
5.6 Conclusions

Chapter 5.9 Production Intercom Systems Vinnie Macri

5.1 Introduction
5.2 Analog Party-Line/TW Intercoms, Wired
5.3 Digital Partyline Systems
5.4 Wireless Production Intercoms
5.5 IFB
5.6 Matrix Intercoms
5.7 Virtual Intercoms

Chapter 5.10 Broadcast Studio Lighting Frank Marsico

 5.1 Introduction
5.2 Three Point Lighting
5.3 Light Source Information
5.4 The Lighting System
5.5 Lighting Instruments
5.6 Accessory Hardware
5.7 Summary
Bibliography
References
Resources
5.8 Organizations

Chapter 5.11 Cellular/IP ENG Systems Joseph J. Giardina and

Herbert Squire
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The Cellular Revolution
5.3 The Ideal ENG Device
5.4 IP-Based ENG Systems
5.5 Getting the Story
5.6 Finding a Practical Solution
5.7 No More “Film at Eleven!”

Section 6 Facility Issues Jerry C. Whitaker

Chapter 6.1 Broadcast Facility Design Gene DeSantis

6.1 Introduction
6.2 Construction Considerations
Bibliography

Chapter 6.2 Wire Management Fred Baumgartner

6.1 Introduction
6.2 Labels
6.3 Documentation
 6.4 Physical Layer
6.5 Ringing out the Plant
6.6 Cleaning and Removing
6.7 Bottom Line
6.8 For Further Information

Chapter 6.3 Equipment Rack Enclosures and Devices Jerry C.

Whitaker
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Rack/Equipment Layout
6.3 Industry Standard Equipment Enclosures
6.4 Rack Grounding
6.5 Computer Floors
Reference
Bibliography

Chapter 6.4 Broadcast Systems Cooling and Environmental

Management Fred Baumgartner
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Cooling System Design Considerations
6.3 Transmitters
6.4 Satellite Antennas
6.5 Operating Parameters

Chapter 6.5 Facility Ground System Jerry C. Whitaker

6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Grounding Electrode
6.3 Ground System Options
References
Bibliography

Chapter 6.6 AC Power Systems Jerry C. Whitaker

 6.1 Introduction
6.2 Designing for Fault-Tolerance
6.3 Plant Maintenance
6.4 Standby Power Systems
References
Bibliography

Chapter 6.7 Transmission System Maintenance Steve Fluker

6.1 Introduction
6.2 Transmitter Site Visits
6.3 Transmitters
6.4 Transmission Line
6.5 Generator Maintenance
6.6 Supporting Equipment Inspection
6.7 HVAC and Electrical Systems
6.8 Tower Maintenance

Section 7 Broadcast Management Wayne M. Pecena

Chapter 7.1 Management and Leadership Mike Seaver

7.1 Introduction
7.2 Scope of Management and Leadership
7.3 Summary

Chapter 7.2 Project and Systems Management Jerry C. Whitaker

and Robert Mancini
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Plan for Success
7.3 Elements of Process
7.4 Conclusion
Bibliography
Chapter 7.3 Systems Engineering Gene DeSantis
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Electronic System Design
7.3 Program Management
Bibliography

Chapter 7.4 Disaster Planning and Recovery for Broadcast

Facilities Thomas G. Osenkowsky
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Anticipation
7.3 Preparation
7.4 Assessment
7.5 Who Is in Charge?
7.6 Personnel Matters
7.7 Common Precautions
7.8 Conclusion

Chapter 7.5 Safety Considerations Jerry C. Whitaker

7.1 Introduction
7.2 Electric Shock
7.3 Operating Hazards
7.4 Nonionizing Radiation
References
Bibliography

Chapter 7.6 About the Society of Broadcast Engineers Ralph

Hogan, Wayne M. Pecena, and John L. Poray
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The SBE Certification Program
7.3 SBE Education Programs
7.4 SBE’s History Is People
Chapter 7.7 Looking Toward the Future—ATSC 3.0 Jerry C.
Whitaker and Dr. Richard Chernock
7.1 Introduction
7.2 About the ATSC 3.0 Process
7.3 Moving Forward
References

Annex
Jerry C. Whitaker

Appendix A. Reference Data and Tables Jerry C. Whitaker

A.1 Introduction
Reference

Appendix B. The Electromagnetic Spectrum John Norgard

B.1 Introduction
B.2 Spectral Subregions
B.3 Frequency Assignment and Allocations
Bibliography

Appendix C. Standards Organizations and SI Units Jerry C.

Whitaker and Robert Mancini
C.1 Introduction
C.2 The Standards Development Organization
C.3 Principal Standards Organizations
C.4 Acquiring Reference Documents
C.5 Tabular Data
Reference
Bibliography

Index
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SBE EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Jerry C. Whitaker, CPBE, 8-VSB, Advanced Television Systems Committee,

Washington, DC; Editor-in-Chief Timothy Carrol, Linear Acoustic, Lancaster,
PA
Dr. Richard Chernock, Triveni Digital, Princeton Junction, NJ
Andrea Cummis, CBT, CTO, AC Video Solutions, Roseland, NJ
Douglas Garlinger, CPBE, 8-VSB, CBNT, WISH-TV, Indianapolis, IN
Ralph Hogan, CPBE, CBNE, DRB, KJZZ-FM/KBAQ-FM, Tempe, AZ
John A. Luff, HD Consulting, Pittsburgh, PA
Wayne M. Pecena, CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB, CBNE, Texas A&M University,
College Station, TX
John L. Poray, CAE, Society of Broadcast Engineers, Indianapolis, IN
Gary Sgrignoli, Meintel, Sgrignoli, & Wallace, Mr. Prospect, IL

Special thanks to Chriss Scherer, CPBE, CBNT, of the Society of Broadcast

Engineers, for editorial support.
 AUTHORS

Jay C. Adrick, GatesAir, Mason, OH

Phil Alexander, CSRE, AMD Broadcast Engineering Service and Technology,
Indianapolis, IN
Dennis Baldridge, CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB, CBNT, Consultant, Hillsboro,
WI Fred Baumgartner, CPBE, CBNT, KMGH TV, Scripps, Denver, CO/Nautel
Television Sam Bogoch, Axle Video LLC, Boston, MA
Wayne Bretl, Zenith R&D Labs, Lincolnshire, IL
Richard G. Cann
Dr. Richard Chernock, Triveni Digital, Princeton Junction, NJ
Kerry W. Cozad, Continental Electronics, Dallas, TX
Andrea Cummis, CBT, CTO, AC Video Solutions, Roseland, NJ
Gene DeSantis
Martin Dyster, The Telos Alliance, Lancaster, PA Daniel S. Fallon, Dielectric,
Raymond, ME
Steve Fluker, CBT, WFTV/WRDQ, Cox Media Group, Orlando, FL
Douglas Garlinger, CPBE, 8-VSB, CBNT, WISH-TV, Indianapolis, IN
Joseph J. Giardina, DSI RF Systems, Somerset, NJ
Linley Gumm, Consultant, Beaverton, OR
Bill Harland, Electronic Research, Inc., Chandler, IN
Ralph Hogan, CPBE, DRB, CBNE, KJZZ-FM/KBAQ-FM, Tempe, AZ
Anthony Hoover
Brian J. Isaacson, Communitek Video Systems, New York, NY
Nikolaus Kerö, Oregano Systems, Vienna, Austria John Luff, HD Consulting,
Pittsburgh, PA
Wayne C. Luplow, Zenith R&D Labs, Lincolnshire, IL
Vinnie Macri, Communications Specialist, Millington, NJ
Vinnie Macri, Communications Specialist, Millington, NJ
John Mailhot, Imagine Communications, Frisco, TX
Robert Mancini, Mancini Enterprises, Whittier, CA Scott Marchand, Nautel,
Hackett’s Cove, NS
Frank Marsico, Shadowstone, Inc., Clifton, NJ
Bill Meintel, Meintel, Sgrignoli, & Wallace, Warrenton, VA John R. Mick Jr.,
Mick Ventures, Inc., Denver, CO
Alex Morash, Nautel, Hackett’s Cove, NS
John Norgard
Gary Olson, GHO Group, New York, NY
Thomas G. Osenkowsky, CPBE, Radio Engineering Consultant, Brookfield, CT
Nicholaus Paulin, Electronic Research, Inc., Chandler, IN
Nuraj Lal Pradhan, VISLINK, Inc., North Billerica, MA Wayne M. Pecena,
CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB, CBNE, Texas A&M University—KAMU, College
Station, TX
John L. Poray, CAE, Society of Broadcast Engineers, Indianapolis, IN
Frederic M. Remley
Martin Sacks, The Telos Alliance, Cleveland, OH
Ernie Sanchez, The Sanchez Law Firm P.C., Washington, DC
Mike Seaver, CBT, Seaver Management and Consulting, Quincy, IL
Gary Sgrignoli, Meintel, Sgrignoli, & Wallace, Mt. Prospect, IL
Greg Shay, The Telos Alliance, Cleveland, OH
Derek Small, Dielectric, Raymond, ME
Herbert Squire, CSRE DSI RF Systems, Somerset, NJ
Mike Starling, Cambridge, MD
Gomer Thomas, Gomer Thomas Consulting, LLC, Arlington, WA John
Tremblay, UBS/LARCAN, Toronto, ON
Ernst-Joachim Voelker
Larry Wilkins, CPBE, AMD, CBNT, Alabama Broadcasters Association,
Hoover, AL
Jerry C. Whitaker, CPBE, 8-VSB, ATSC, Washington, DC
John Wood, VISLINK, Inc., North Billerica, MA Philip Young, Electronic
Research, Inc., Chandler, IN
 PREFACE

This is an exciting time for broadcasters and for consumers. Digital radio and
television systems—the products of decades of work by engineers around the
world—are now commonplace. In the studio, the transition from analog to
digital systems continues to accelerate. Numerous other advancements relating
to the capture, processing, storage, transmission, and reception of audio and
video programs are rolling out at a record pace.
Within the last few years, the options available to consumers for audio and
video content have grown exponentially. Dramatic advancements in information
technology (IT) systems, imaging, display, and compression schemes have all
vastly reshaped the technical landscape of radio and television. These changes
give rise to a new handbook focused on practical aspects of radio and television
broadcasting. The SBE Broadcast Engineering Handbook is offered as a hands-
on guide to station design and maintenance. This handbook is the latest in a
series of books offered by the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) that are
focused on broadcast technologies, station operation, and professional
certification.

About the SBE

The SBE is a nonprofit professional organization formed in 1964 to serve the
needs of broadcast engineers and media professionals. From the studio operator
to the maintenance engineer and the chief engineer to the vice president of
engineering, SBE members come from commercial and noncommercial radio
and television stations and cable facilities. A growing segment of members are
engaging the industry on their own as consultants and contractors. Field and
sales engineers, and engineers from recording studios, schools, production
houses, closed-circuit television, corporate audiovisual departments, the military,
government, and other facilities are also members of the SBE.
The SBE is the only organization devoted to the advancement of all levels and
types of broadcast engineering. With more than 5100 members and 115 local
chapters, the SBE provides educational opportunities, certification of experience
chapters, the SBE provides educational opportunities, certification of experience
and knowledge, a forum for the exchange of ideas, and the sharing of
information to help members keep pace with our rapidly changing industry.

About the Handbook

The broadcast industry has embarked on perhaps the most significant transition
of technologies and business models in the history of modern radio and
television. Nowhere is this transition more evident than in the studio, where IT
technologies are becoming the norm. With these and other changes in mind, the
SBE undertook a project to produce a comprehensive handbook with McGraw-
Hill that covers key areas of interest to broadcast engineers. This book is divided
into seven major sections, plus an extensive annex. Each section focuses on a
particular area of expertise:
Section 1: Regulatory Issues
Section 2: RF Systems
Section 3: DTV Transport
Section 4: Information Technology Systems
Section 5: Production Systems
Section 6: Facility Issues
Section 7: Broadcast Management

Annex: Appendix A—Reference Data and Tables, Appendix B—The

Electromagnetic Spectrum, Appendix C—Standards Organizations and SI Units
The SBE Editorial Advisory Board, which led this project, has made every
effort to cover the subject of broadcast technology in a comprehensive manner.
References are provided at the end of most chapters to direct readers to sources
of additional information. Over 50 experts contributed their time and knowledge
to this handbook.
Within the limits of a practical page count, there are always more items that
could be examined in greater detail. Excellent books on the subject of broadcast
engineering are available that cover areas that may not be addressed in this
handbook. Indeed, entire books have been written on each of the sections noted
just previously. The goal of this handbook is to provide a concise overview of
technologies, principles, and practices of importance to radio and television
broadcast engineers, and to provide pointers to additional detailed information.
The field of technology encompassed by radio and television engineering is
broad and exciting. It is an area of considerable importance to market segments
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your collar and come along. I’ll treat you to a new experience, and
by the look of you, you need it. So do I—we’ll clear out together.”
“I can’t leave Mrs. Hodder without her supper—and I have a
committee meeting at eight. I’m mighty sorry, Doctor——”
“You needn’t be. I’ll fix the whole thing, and have you back in time
for the bunch. Come—take orders from me, for once.”
Of course Black never had wanted to do anything in his life as he
wanted to accept this extraordinary and most unprecedented
invitation from the red-headed doctor whom he could not yet call his
friend. The high barriers were down between them, there could be
no doubt of that. Red no longer avoided the minister; he came to
church now and then; the two met here and there with entire
friendliness, and had more than once consulted each other on
matters of mutual interest. But Red, except as he had taken Black
into his car when passing him upon the road, had never directly
sought him out on what looked like a basis of real pleasure in his
society. And now, when Red, running upstairs to see Mrs. Hodder,
and coming down to announce that all she wanted for supper was a
little tea and bread and butter, and that it was up to Black to fix up a
tray in a hurry and be ready when he, Red, should get back—in
about fifteen minutes—well, Black was pretty glad to give in, cast his
broom and dust cloth into the kitchen closet, wash his hands, and
put a little water to boil in the bottom of the kettle over a gas flame
turned up so high that it was warranted to have the water bubbling
in a jiffy!
“Now, you just go along with the doctor and rest up,” commanded
Mrs. Hodder, when the tray appeared. “He told me he was going to
take you out to dinner—and I guess you need it—living on canned
stuff, so. He thinks I can get down to-morrow, and I certainly do
hope so. You look about beat out—and no wonder.”
With this cordial send-off Black ran downstairs like a boy let out of
school, his weariness already lessening under the stimulus of the
coming adventure. Tired? Just to amuse himself, late last evening,
he had made a list of the things he had done, the people he had
seen, the letters he had written, the telephone calls he had
answered—and all the rest of it. It had been a formidable list. And
living on tinned beans, and crackers and cheese, had not been——
Oh, well—what did it matter, so he had got his work done, slighted
nothing and nobody—though he could be by no means sure of that!
What minister ever could?
He dressed as Red had ordered—heavy shoes, sweater under his
overcoat, cap instead of hat—he felt indeed like a boy off on a lark,
only that his busy, self-supporting life had not furnished him with
many comparisons in the way of larks. As he ran down the manse
steps he realized that it was a perfect winter night. There had been
little snow of late; the air was dry and not too cold; the stars were
out. And he was going camping in the woods with Red Pepper Burns
—and it was not up to him to do the cooking!
The car slid up to the curb, a big basket in the place where Black
was to put his feet; he had to straddle it. There was not too much
time to spare—only a little over two hours. The car leaped away
down the street, and in no time was off over the macadamized road
on which speed could be made. And then, a mile away from that
road, with rough going for that mile—but who cared?—they came to
a clump of woods lying on a hillside, and the two were out and
scrambling up it in the dark, Red evidently following a trail with
accuracy, for Black found no difficulty in keeping up with him.
Upon the top of the hill was a bare, stony space, sheltered from the
sides but open to the stars. And here, in astonishingly little time,
were made two leaping fires the basis for which had been a small
basket of materials brought in the car, upon which hot foundation
the gathered sticks of the wood had no choice but to burn. Rustling
fuel with energy, Black soon found himself ready to discard his
overcoat, and by the time the thick steak Red was manipulating had
reached its rich perfection, as only that master of camp cookery
could make it, Black was thinking that, big as it was, he could devour
the whole of it himself.
Coffee—what coffee! Had he ever known the taste of it before, Black
wondered, as he sniffed the delicious fragrance? Red had worked so
swiftly—in entire silence—that the hands of Black’s watch pointed to
a bare seven o’clock when he set his teeth into the first hot, juicy
morsel of meat, feeling like a starved hound who has been fed upon
scraps for a month.
“Oh, jolly!” he ejaculated. “I never tasted anything so good in my
life. Or was so warm on a winter night—outdoors!”
“You bet you never tasted anything so good—nor were so warm
outdoors. Why, man, you’ve missed the best fun in life, if this is your
first experience. How does it happen?”
“I’ve never done anything but work, and my work never took me into
the woods, that’s all. I’ve looked at them longingly many a time, but
—there was always something else to do. What a place this is! Of all
places on earth to come to to-night this seems the best. It’s an old
favourite camping spot of yours?”
“One of many. This is nearest—I can run to it when I haven’t time to
get farther. Even so—I don’t manage it very often.”
“I’m sure you don’t!” Black’s eyes, in the firelight, looked across into
Red’s. The moment the cookery was done Red had replenished both
fires, and the two men now sat on two facing logs between them.
“Your time is fuller than that of any man I ever knew,” Black added.
“Lots of busy men in the world.”
“I know. But your hours are fuller than their full hours because of
what you do—your profession.”
“I do only what I have to do. But you—I wonder if you know it, Black
—you’re a spendthrift!”
“What?” The explosive tone spoke amazement.
Red nodded. “I’ve been wanting to tell you for some time. Do you
know you probably weigh about fifteen pounds less than you did
when you came here? Keep that up, and you’ll be down to rock
bottom.”
Black laughed. He held up one arm, the hand clenched. “Do you
remember the challenge I gave you last summer, Doctor, to a
wrestle, any time you might take me up? If we weren’t both stuffed,
just now, I’d have it out with you, here and now.”
“Very likely you could put it all over me—though I’m not so sure of
that.” Red was eyeing his companion with the professional eye still.
“But—go on as you are doing, and a year from now it’ll be different.
You’re wasting nervous energy—and you can’t afford to. It’s as I say
—you’re a spendthrift. What’s the use?”
“I’m a Scotsman—and that’s equivalent to saying I spend only what’s
necessary. It’s a contradiction in terms——”
“It is not—excuse me. I’ve been reading about one of your Scottish
regiments over there—cut to pieces—and they knew they were going
to be when they went into it. Call them thrifty—of their lives?”
“Ah, that’s different. They were glorious. As for that, Doctor—to
right-about-face with my defense—why shouldn’t one be a
spendthrift with his life? You’re one yourself.”
“Not I. I practice my profession, and mine only. You practice—about
four. Last week I caught you playing nurse to a family of small
children while their mother went shopping.” Red held up a silencing
hand at Black’s laughter. “Yes, I know she hadn’t been out for a
month. That same night you made a speech somewhere—and sat up
the rest of the night with Cary Ray—— Oh, yes—I know he’s
improved a lot lately, but he got restless that night and you stuck by.
Next day——”
“Doctor Burns——”
“Wait a minute. Next day you——”
“How do you come to be keeping tab on me?” Black stood up, fire in
his eye. “See here! Last week you did seven operations on patients
who couldn’t afford to pay you a cent—and they weren’t in charity
wards, either. Day before yesterday——”
But he had to stop, having but fairly begun. Red’s expression said he
wouldn’t stand for it. The two regarded each other in the light of the
fires, and both faces were glowing ruddily. They suggested two
antagonists about to spring.
“If I’m a spendthrift, so are you!” Black challenged. “Why shouldn’t
we be, at that? Who gets anything out of life—not to mention giving
anything—who isn’t a spendthrift? ‘He who saveth his life shall lose
it’—and nobody knows that better than you, Doctor Burns!”
“But you waste yours, you know,” said Burns, with emphasis.
“No more than you do.”
“I do it to save life.”
“And what do I do it for?” The question came back like a shot, with
stinging emphasis and challenge.
The two pairs of eyes continued to meet clashingly, and for a minute
neither would give way. Then Red said, with a rather grudging
admission, “I know you think you have to do all these extras, and
you do them with intent and purpose, and willingly, at that. But I
don’t back down on my proposition—that you’re working harder at it
than is necessary. I’ll admit I want you to do what you can for Cary
Ray—for his sister’s sake. But when it comes to the DuBoises, and
the Corrigans, and the Andersons—why should you spend yourself
on them—ungrateful beggars?”
“I can only ask you, Doctor, why you spend yourself on the Wellands
and the Kalanskys, and the Kellys?”
Suddenly Red’s attitude changed, with one of those characteristic
quick shifts which made him such delightful company. He looked at
his watch and sat down on the log again. “Six minutes to stay, and
then back to that blamed committee meeting for yours, and back to
my office for me—I can see ten people sitting there now, in my
mind’s eye. Hang it—why can’t a fellow stay in the open when it’s
there he can be at his best, physically and mentally?”
“It seems to make you a bit pugilistic!”
Red looked up, laughing. “How about you? For a parson it strikes me
you can fight back with both fists.”
“Doctor—let’s have that wrestle now! I’d like it to remember.”
“You would, would you? Hold on—don’t take off your coat. I know
better than to play tricks with my digestion like that, if you don’t.
You’re younger than I—you might get away with it. But—I’ll give you
that tussle some day you’re so anxious for.”
“Meanwhile—I wish you’d give me something else.”
“What’s that?” Red was instantly on his guard—Black could see that
clearly. He had expected it. But it did not deter him from saying the
thing he wanted to say.
“Shake hands with me. Did you know you never have?”
“Never have!”
“Not the way I want you to. I’m asking you now to shake hands with
my profession. I’m tired of having you against it. I ask you to give it
fair play in your mind. You admit that it’s worth while for you to
spend the last drop you have for human life. But it’s wasting good
red blood for a man to spend his for human souls. Do you mean it?
Ah, Doctor Burns, you don’t. Tell me so—the way I want you to.”
The suspicion dropped out of Red’s eyes, but into them came
something else—the showing of a dogged human will. He stood
looking into the fire, his hands in his pockets—where they had been
for some time. He made no motion to withdraw them. Black’s hands
were clasped behind him—he made no motion to extend them. A
long silence succeeded—or long it seemed to Black, at least. Had he
lost his case? He had never thought to state it thus to Red—but
when the moment came it had seemed to him he could do no
otherwise.... His heart beat rather heavily.... How was Red going to
take it?
The red-headed surgeon looked up at last. “Do you mean you want
me to shake hands with your entire profession—all the men in it?”
“Are there no charlatans in medicine? But you—are the real thing. I
wouldn’t deny you a handshake—if you wanted it.”
Slowly Red drew his right hand out of his pocket. “You want this
tribute—to you, as a minister?”
Then Black’s eyes flamed. He took a step backward. “I want no
‘tribute,’ Doctor,—my heaven!—you don’t think that! All I want is—to
know that—as a minister you can shake hands with me and believe—
that I’m as real as I know you to be. If you can’t do that——” he
turned aside. “Oh, never mind! I didn’t mean to try to force it from
you. Let’s be off. It must be high time, and it’s more than high time if
——”
A hand fell on his shoulder and stayed there. Another hand found his
and gripped it tight. “Oh, come along. Bob Black!” said a gruff voice
with yet a ring in it. “You’re the realest chap I know. And I’ve tried
my darned best not to like you—and I can’t get away with it. Now—
are you satisfied?”
 CHAPTER IX
“BURN, FIRE, BURN!”

“S IS, I’ll stump you to go to church with me this morning!”

It may have been rather a peculiar form of invitation to attend
upon the service of the sanctuary, but that was not the reason for
the startled expression on Jane Ray’s face. She simply couldn’t
believe that it was her brother Cary who was making the proposal.
Church!—when had Cary ever gone to any church whatever?—unless
it might have been for the purpose of gathering material for some
brilliant, ironic article with which to do his share in that old fight of
the world against the forms of religion. As for herself—it had long
been her custom to employ her Sunday mornings in making up her
business accounts for the week.
Her reply was a parry. “What church would you suggest going to?”
Cary’s glance at her was both sharp and whimsical. “Is there more
than one? According to what I hear, the ‘Stone Church,’ as they call
it, is the one where the town is flocking to hear our friend, the
fighting parson, say things that stop the breath. I understand his
trustees are mostly pacifists. It must grind ’em like fun to hear their
Scotsman firing his machine-gun, regardless. I admit I want to be in
on it. I think this country’s going to get into it before long, and when
it does I expect to see Robert Black off like a shot for some place
where pacifists are unpopular.”
“He has never asked us to come to his church,” Jane temporized.
“No. That’s why I want to go. I’ve been waiting all this while to have
him ask me, so I could turn him down. But he never has, so, being
quite human, I’m piqued into going on my own motion. Come along,
Sis. I’ll guarantee if an old sinner like me can stand the gaff, a young
saint like you will be in her element.”
Jane gave him a sparkling smile. “Very well, Cary Ray. It will be your
fault if we feel like fish very much out of water and don’t know how
to act. I haven’t been in a church in at least three years.”
“The more shame to you. Most of them are mighty comfortable
places in which to sit and pursue your own train of thought, and on
that ground alone you should be a constant attendant. Though I
doubt very much if we are able to pursue any train of thought,
within hearing of R. Black, except the one he chooses to put up to
us. The more I’ve seen of him the more I’ve discovered of his little
tendency to keep one occupied with him exclusively. Well, if you’ll go
I’ll have a clean shave and look up my best gloves. We’ll give him a
bit of a surprise. To tell the truth, I’m beginning to think we owe it to
him.”
There could be small doubt of this. In the three months which had
intervened between Cary Ray’s arrival—for all hope there seemed of
him, both physically and morally down and out—Robert Black had
stood steadily by him. His comradeship had been a direct challenge
to Cary’s better self, and all that was good in the young man—and
there was undoubtedly very much—had rallied to meet the sturdy
beckoning of this new friend. At an early date the two had
discovered that, different as they were in character, they had one
thing mightily in common—the delights and tortures of the creative
brain. Jane had called Cary a genius, and so he was—perhaps in the
lesser and more commonly used meaning of the too much used
word. His articles on any theme were always welcomed in certain of
the best newspaper and magazine offices, and only his lack of
dependability and his erratic ways of working had kept him from
rapid advancement in his world.
Black, discovering almost at once that he had to deal with a brain
which, if it could be freed from the handicap of dissipation, would be
capable of production worth any effort to salvage from the
threatened wreck, had thrown himself, heart and soul, into winning
Cary’s friendship on the ground of their common interest and
understanding. To do this he had used every particle of skill he
possessed, and his reward had been the knowledge of the steadily
lengthening periods of Cary’s reasonableness and his response to
the stimulus which will always be greater than almost any other—the
demand of a friend who cares that we live up to his belief in us. Cary
had come to think of Robert Black as the best friend he had in the
world, after his sister, and to look forward to the hours the two spent
together as the brightest spots in a life which had become dimmed
at an age when it should have known its fullest zest.
Thus it came about that Robert Black, entering his pulpit that
Sunday morning, and presently taking estimate of his congregation,
as a preacher must do if he is to know how to aim accurately and
fire straight, caught sight of two people whose presence before him
gave him a distinct shock of surprise. He had been sure he would
some time get that shock, but it had been long delayed, and he had
rather doggedly persisted in withholding the direct invitation,
reasoning with himself that he would rather have Jane and Cary
come for any other reason than the paying of the debt he knew they
must feel they owed him.
And now they were there before him—rather near him, too. Young
Perkins, one of the ushers for the middle aisle, had pounced on
them as a pair who would do credit to his natural desire to have all
the best dressed and most distinguished looking strangers placed
where they would do the most good to the personnel of the
congregation. He knew Jane for what he called “a stunner,” thereby
paying youthful tribute to her looks and quiet perfection of dress. As
for Cary, one glance of appraisal had placed him, for Perkins, in the
class of the “classy,” than which there is no greater compliment in
the vocabulary of the Perkinses. Therefore it was that Perkins,
leading Jane and Cary down the middle aisle, had complacently
slipped them into the pew of one of the leading members—to-day
out of town, as he knew—and thus had left them within exceedingly
close range of whatever gunfire might be at the command of the
pulpit. Perkins, having hurriedly scanned the headlines of the
morning papers, had a hunch that it was going to be one of those
mornings when the congregation would be likely to leave the church
with its hair a trifle rampant on its brow from excited thrustings—or
with its hats a little askew from agitated noddings or shakings. He
had come to look forward to such Sundays with increasing zest.
There was something else to stake quarters on with the other
ushers, these days, than on how late Doctor Burns was going to be
at church, or how short a time he would be permitted to remain
there. Perkins was beginning to wonder how he had ever endured
the dull times of Black’s immediate predecessor; certainly he was
rejoicing that they were over.
Frances Fitch, in the Lockhart pew, just across the aisle and two
rows behind Jane and Cary, found the pair a particularly interesting
study. Through Tom she had heard much of Cary; she had caught
only unsatisfying glimpses before. As he sat at the end of the pew
nearest the aisle she had a full view of that profile which had first
assured Black that Cary was indeed Jane’s brother, and it now struck
Miss Fitch as one of the most attractive masculine outlines she had
ever seen. Cary was still distinctly pale, but his pallor was becoming
more healthy with each succeeding day of Jane’s skillful feeding, and
his manner had lost its excessive nervousness. To the eye, by now,
he merely looked the interesting convalescent from a possibly severe
illness, with every probability of a complete return to full fitness of
body. As to his mind—one glance at him could hardly help
suggesting to the intelligent observer that here was a young man
who possessed brains trained to the point of acuteness and
efficiency in whatever lines they might be employed.
To look at either Cary or Jane, moreover, one would hardly have said
that church was to them so unaccustomed a place. Jane, sitting or
rising with the rest, sharing hymn-book or printed leaf of the
responsive service with her brother, appeared the most decorous of
regular communicants. For herself, however, she was experiencing
many curious reactions, the most distinct of which, throughout the
preliminary service, was caused by the sight of Robert McPherson
Black, in his gown, and with the high gravity upon him which she
had never before seen in precisely its present quality. Could this be
the spirited young man who came so often to spend an hour with
Cary, his face and manner full of a winning gayety or of an equally
winning vigour of speech and action? This was another being indeed
who confronted her, a being removed from her as by a great gulf
fixed, his fine eyes by no chance meeting hers, his voice by no
means addressed to her, but to the remotest person in his audience,
far back under the gallery. For the first time Jane Ray was realizing
that well as it had seemed to her that she had come to know the
man Black, she actually knew him hardly at all, for here, in this place
to her so unfamiliar, was his real home!
And then, very soon came an equally strong reaction from this first
impression of remoteness. For, the moment the anthems and the
responses and the rest of the preliminary service was over, and Black
had been for three minutes upon his feet in his office of preacher,
the whole situation was reversed. No longer did he seem to be
sending that trained and reverent voice of his to every quarter of the
large, hushed audience room; but in a new and arresting way he
was addressing Jane Ray very directly, he was speaking straight to
her, and she had quite forgotten that there was any one else there
to hear. If this impression of hers was precisely like that which
reached each person within sound of his voice who possessed the
intelligence to listen, that was nothing to her—nor to them. The
simple fact was that when Robert Black spoke to an audience as
from his very first word he was speaking now, that audience had no
choice but to listen, and it listened as individuals, with each of whom
he was intimately concerned.
As for Cary Ray—perhaps there was nobody in that whole audience
so well qualified to measure the speaker’s ability and power as he.
He had spent no small portion of his early after-college days in
reporting for a great city daily, and his assignment very often had
been the following up of one noted speaker after another. He had
listened to eloquence of all sorts, spurious and real; had come to be
a judge of quality in human speech in all its ramifications; was by
now himself a literary critic of no inferior sort. His mind, at its best—
and it was not far short of its best on this Sunday morning—was
keen and clear. As he gave himself up to Black as one gives himself
up to a friend who is setting before him a matter of import, he was a
hearer of the sort whom speakers would go far to find.
Did Black know this? Unquestionably he did. He knew also that Red
was in his audience this morning, and Jane Ray, and Nan Lockhart,
and Fanny Fitch, and many another, and that every last one of them
was listening as almost never before. How could they help but hear,
when he was saying to them that which challenged their attention as
he was challenging it now?
This was in February, nineteen seventeen. Diplomatic relations with
Germany had been severed; America was on the brink of war. One
tremendous question was engaging the whole country: was it
America’s duty to go into war? Was it her necessity? Was it—and
here a few voices were rising loud and clear—was it not only her
necessity and her duty—was it her privilege?
No doubt where Robert Black stood. It was America’s privilege, the
acceptance of which had been already too long postponed. In no
uncertain terms he made his conviction clear. The blood baptism
which was purifying the souls of other countries must be ours as
well, or never again could we be clean. To save our souls—to save
our souls—that was his plea!
“Oh, I wish,” he cried out suddenly toward the end, “I wish I had the
dramatic power to set the thing before you so that you might see it
as you see a convincing play upon a stage. Never a human drama
like this one—and we—are sitting in the boxes! Bathed and clean
clothed and gloved—gloved—we are sitting in the boxes and looking
on—and applauding now and then—as loudly as we may, wearing
gloves! And over there—their hands are torn and bleeding with
wounds—while we delay—and delay—and delay!”
Down in the pew before him Cary Ray suddenly clenched his fists.
His arms had been folded—his hands were gloved. Gloved hands
could clench then! Into his brain—now afire with Black’s own fire, as
it had been more than once before now as the two talked war
together—but never as now—never as now—there sprang an idea,
glowing with life. His writer’s instinct leaped at it, turned it inside out
and back again, saw it through to its ultimate effort—and never once
lost track of Black’s closing words, or missed a phrase of the brief
prayer that followed, a prayer that seemed to rise visibly from the
altar, so burning were the words of it. Cary rose from his seat, a man
illumined with a purpose.
Up the aisle he felt Red’s hand upon his arm. Those orders to the
usher not to call the red-headed doctor out for anything but an
emergency had been regularly in force of late. Astonishingly often
was the once absentee now able to make connections with his pew,
at least in time for the sermon. To his friend Macauley, who now and
then let loose jeering comments upon the subject of his change of
ways, he was frank to admit that it did make a difference in the
drawing power of the church whether the man in the pulpit could
aim only soft and futile blows, or whether he could hit straight and
fast and hard. “And whether,” Red added once, bluntly, “you happen
to know that he practises precisely what he preaches.”
In Cary’s ear Red now said incisively: “What are you betting that
sermon will cost him half his congregation?”
Cary turned, his dark eyes afire. “If it does, we’ll fill it up with
vagrants like me. My lord, that was hot stuff! And this is the first
time I’ve heard him—more fool I. Why didn’t you let a fellow know?”
Red laughed rather ruefully. “Cary,” he said, “it’s astonishing how we
do go on entertaining angels unawares. But when we get one with a
flaming sword, like this one, we’re just as liable to cut and run as to
stay by and get our own hands on a hilt somewhere.”
“I’ve got mine on one, I promise you,” murmured Cary. His one idea
now was to reach home and lay his hand upon it. If, to him, his
fountain pen was the trustiest sword in his arsenal, let none
disparage that mighty weapon. In his hands, if those hands
remained steady, it might in time do some slashing through
obstacles.

It was just three days later that Jane Ray, coming in from the shop,
saw Cary sling that pen—hurriedly capped for the purpose—clear
across the table, at which for those three days he had been writing
almost steadily. He threw up his arms in a gesture of mingled fatigue
and triumph.
“Janey,” he said, “I want you to send for Robert Black, and Doctor
and Mrs. Burns, and your friend Miss Lockhart—you told me she
wrote plays at college, didn’t you?—and her friend, Miss Fitch, the
raving beauty who acts—probably acts all the time, but none the
worse for that, for my purpose. Also, Tommy Lockhart. I want ’em
all, and I want ’em quick. I can’t sleep till I’ve had ’em here to listen
to what I’ve done. And now—if I weren’t under your roof, and if I
didn’t care such a blamed lot about not letting Black down—I’d go
out and take a drink. Oh, don’t worry—I won’t—not just yet,
anyhow. I’ll go out and take a walk instead. My head’s on fire and
my feet are two chunks from the North Pole.”
Happier than she had been for a long time, her hopes for her
brother rising higher than they had yet dared to rise, in spite of all
the encouragement his improvement had given her, Jane made
haste to summon these people whose presence he had demanded.
They came on short notice; even Red, who said at first that he
couldn’t make it by any possible chance, electrified them all and
made Cary’s pale cheek glow with satisfaction when at the last
minute he appeared.
“Confound you, who are you to interfere with my schedule?” Red
growled, as he shook hands. “I was due at a Medical Society
Meeting, where I was booked as leader of a discussion. They’ll
discuss the thing to tatters without me, while I could have rounded
’em up and driven ’em into the corral with one big discovery that
they’re not onto yet.”
“Mighty sorry, Doctor. But, you see, I had to have you.” Cary grinned
at him impudently. “I’ve been raving crazy for three days and nights,
and if I can’t call in medical aid on the strength of that—— Oh, I
know I’m mighty presumptuous, but—well—listen, and I’ll try to
justify myself.”
They listened for an hour. They could hardly help it. As a down-and-
outer Cary Ray had been an object of solicitude and sympathy; as a
clever, forceful, intensely yet restrainedly dramatic playwright, he
was a person to astonish and take his new acquaintances off their
feet. Stirred as he had been, gripped by the big idea Black had
unknowingly put into his head, he had gone at this task as he had
time and again gone at a difficult piece of newspaper work. With
every faculty alert, every sense of the dramatic possibilities of the
conception stringing him to a tension, his thoughts thronging, his
language fluid, his whole being had been sharpened into an
instrument which his brain, the master, might command to powerful
purpose. Thus had he written the one-act war play which was to fire
the imagination, enlist the sympathies, capture the hearts of
thousands of those who later saw it put upon the vaudeville circuit,
where its influence, cumulative as the fame of it spread and the
press comments grew in wonder and praise, was accountable for
many a patriotic word and act which otherwise never had been born.
But now—he was reading it for the first time to this little audience of
chosen people, “trying it out on them,” as the phrase ran in his own
mind. He had no possible doubt of its reception. His own judgment,
trained to pass upon his own performance with as critical a sureness
as upon that of any other man, told him that he had done a
remarkable piece of work. To him it was ancient history that when
he could write as he had written now, with neither let nor hindrance
to the full use of his powers, it followed as the night the day that his
editors would put down the sheets with that grim smile with which
they were wont to accept the best a man could do, nod at him,
possibly say: “Great stuff, Ray,”—and brag about it afterward where
he could not hear.
To-night, when he laid down the last sheet and got up to stroll over
to a shadowy corner and get rid of his own overwrought emotion as
best he might, he understood that the silence which succeeded the
reading was his listeners’ first and deepest tribute to his art. His
climax had been tremendous, led up to by every least word and
indicated action that had gone before, the finished product of a
nearly perfect craftsmanship. Small wonder that for a long minute
nobody found voice to express the moved and shaken condition in
which each found himself.
But when it did come, there was nothing wanting. If they were glad
beyond measure, these people, that they could honestly approve the
work of this brother of Jane’s, this was but a small part of the feeling
which now had its strong hold upon them. Wonder, delight,
eagerness to see the little drama glow like a jewel upon the stage—
these were what brought words to the tongue at length. And then—
plans!
“We can’t get it on too quick,” was Red’s instant decision. “It must
be done here first, and then turned loose on the circuit. We can
handle it. Nan Lockhart can help you get it up, Cary—and take the
part of the Englishwoman, too. Of course Miss Fitch must do the
French actress—she’s cut out for that. I’m inclined to think my wife
would make the best Belgian mother. Tom can be the wounded
young poilu, and you, Ray—will be the French officer to the life. As
for the rest—we have plenty of decidedly clever young actors who
will be equal to the minor parts.”
There was a general laugh. “I seem to see the footlights turned on
already,” Cary declared. “But that’s not a bad assignment. Would you
—” he turned to Black—“I wonder if you would take the part of the
American surgeon.”
Now this was a great part, if a small one as to actual lines. Every eye
turned to the minister. Fit the part—with that fine, candid face, those
intent eyes? No doubt that he did. But he shook his head with
decision.
“I’d do much for you, Ray,” he said, “but not that. It’s not possible
for me to take a part. I’ve a real reason,” as Cary’s lips opened, “so
don’t try to persuade me. But I’ll help in every way I can. And as for
the surgeon—why not take the one at hand?” And he indicated
Burns himself.
“I’ll do it!” announced Red, most unexpectedly.
They spent a fascinated hour discussing the characters and who
could do them full justice. There was nobody to see, but if there had
been a disinterested onlooker, he might have said to himself that
here was a group of people who of themselves were playing out a
little drama of their own, each quite unconsciously taking a
significant part. There was R. P. Burns, M.D.—his red head and
vigorous personality more or less dominating the scene. There was
Ellen Burns, his wife—dark-eyed, serene, highly intelligent in the
occasional suggestions she made, but mostly allowing others to talk
while she listened with that effect of deep interest which made her
so charming to everyone. There was Nan Lockhart, quick of wit and
eager to bring all her past training to bear on the situation, her
bright smile or her quizzical frown registering approval or criticism.
There was Fanny Fitch, radiant with delight in the prospects opening
before her, her eyes starry, her face repeating the rose-leaf hues of
the scarf she wore within her sumptuous dark cape of fur—somehow
Miss Fitch’s skillful dressing always gave a point of light and colour
for the eye to rest gratifiedly upon. Then there was Robert Black,
rather quiet to-night, but none the less a person to be decidedly
taken into account, as was quite unconsciously proved by the eyes
which turned his way whenever he broke his silence with question or
suggestion. There was Tom Lockhart, somehow reminding one of a
well-trained puppy endeavouring to maintain his dignity while
bursting to make mischief; his impish glance resting on one face
after another, his gay young speech occasionally causing everybody’s
gravity to break down—as when he solemnly declared that unless he
himself were allowed to play some austerely exalted part yet to be
written into the play he would go home and never come back. There
was Jane Ray, who sat next Tom, and who somehow looked to-night
as young as he—younger, even, than Miss Fitch, whose elegance of
attire contrasted curiously with Jane’s plain little dark-blue frock.
Jane’s brunette beauty was deeply enhanced to-night by her warm
colour and her brilliant smile; her sparkling eyes as she watched her
brother gave everybody the impression that she was gloriously
happy—as indeed she was. For was not Cary——
Cary himself was probably the figure in the room which, if this little
scene had been actually part of a drama, would have become the
focus of the audience’s absorption. Interesting as they were, the
other actors only contributed to his success—he was the centre of
the stage. Dark, lithe, his excitement showing only in his flashing
eyes, his manner cool, controlled—he was the picture of an actor
himself. He was keenly aware that the tables had suddenly been
turned, and that from being a mysterious sort of invalid, Jane’s
ne’er-do-well brother, he had emerged in an hour. He had gathered a
wreath of laurels and set it upon his own brow, and was now
challenging them all to say if he had not a place in the world after
all, could not claim it by right of his amazing ability, could not ask to
be forgiven all his sins in view of his dazzling exhibition of an art
nobody had realized he possessed. Undeniably this was Cary’s hour,
and Jane, being only human, and loving him very much, was daring
to believe once again that her brother was redeemed to her. It may
not be wondered at that now and again her eyes rested gratefully
upon the two men who had done this thing for Cary—and for her.
She knew that they must be rejoicing, too.
It was, therefore, something of a shock to her when from Robert
Black, before they left, she had a low-toned warning. “Miss Ray—”
Black had chosen his opportunity carefully; for the moment the two
were well apart from the rest—“I don’t dare not tell you to look out
for him to-night. After we are gone, and he is alone, there will come
an hour of—well—he will be more vulnerable than he has been for a
month. Don’t let him slip away—see him safely relaxed and asleep.”
Jane’s expression was incredulous. “Oh, not to-night, when he is so
proud and happy—so glad to have you all his friends, and to show
you at last that he is your equal in—so many ways.”
He nodded gravely: “Believe me, I know what I’m saying. It’s a bit of
an intoxication in itself, this reaction from his long languor of mind.
He’s done a magnificent thing, and he’s now in very great danger.
Don’t allow yourself to minimize it.”
“Oh, you’re very good!” Jane’s tone was a little impatient, in spite of
herself. “But you do misjudge him—to-night. Why, he’s just his old
self—as you’ve never known him. Of course, I’ll stay by him—and I
understand. But—his temptation has always been when he was blue
and unhappy, not when he was on the top wave of joy, as he is to-
night—as he deserves to be——” Her voice broke a little, she turned
away. She herself was keyed higher than she knew; she simply
couldn’t bear to have Robert Black, or anybody else, distrust Cary to-
night—dear, wonderful Cary, with his shining eyes and his adorable
smile, her beloved brother and his genius both restored to her.
Black’s low voice came after her: “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to hurt
your happiness to-night, of all nights. I only—want you to take care
of him as——”
But she was off, back to her guests, cutting him short, with only a
nod and half smile back at him, which showed him that she thought
him wrong—and a little cruel, too.
She was surer than ever that he had been mistaken when they were
all gone, their congratulations on Cary’s work still ringing in her ears.
He threw himself upon the couch with a long laughing breath and a
prolonged stretch of the arms. “Smoke and ashes, but I’m tired!” he
declared. “I’ll stop and chin with you about ten minutes, and then
it’s me for bed.”
He seemed hardly to listen while she told him how she felt about his
work and the evening, how she knew they all felt. She could see
that he was all at once very sleepy and exhausted, and when, before
the ten minutes were barely up, he rose and stumbled across the
room, declaring that he couldn’t hold out another second, she smiled
to herself as she put her arm on his shoulder and insisted on his
good-night kiss. He had to cut a yawn in two to give it to her. This
tired boy in any danger? Hardly! If he had still been excited and
overstrung she might have had fears for him, but now—why, he
would be asleep before he could get his clothes off—that was what
was most likely to happen, after these three days and nights of
consuming labour. She would look in, by and by, and make sure that,
as in his boyish days, he had not thrown himself across the bed
without undressing at all, and gone off into a deep slumber from
which her sisterly ministrations would not wake him.
She never knew what actually happened that night. She was a long
time herself in making ready for bed, and so busy were her thoughts
that for an hour she quite forgot her resolve to make sure of Cary’s
safety. Then, just to prove that Black was unreasonable in his fears,
she went to Cary’s door, opened it very gently, and saw in the bed
his motionless figure, evidently in as deep a sleep as any one could
wish. She went back to her own room with a curious sense of injury
upon her. Why had the minister tried to alarm her when there was
so little need? Hadn’t she had anxious hours enough?
Within a quarter of an hour the door of the shop very softly opened,
and Cary Ray let himself out into the silent little street. His coat-
collar was up, his hat pulled over his eyes; he stole away on
noiseless feet. If Jane could have seen then the eyes beneath that
sheltering hat-brim she would have understood. Sleep? They had
never been farther from it, so glitteringly sleepless were they.
But Robert Black saw those eyes—and he had already understood.
As Cary slipped round the corner he ran straight into a tall figure
coming his way. With a low exclamation of dismay he would have
rushed by and away, but Black wheeled and was at his side, walking
with him.
“Out for a walk, Ray?” said the low, friendly voice he had come to
know so well. “I know how that is—I’ve often done it myself.
Nothing like the crisp night air for taking that boiling blood out of a
fellow’s brain and sending it over his body, where it belongs. May I
walk with you? I’m still abnormally keyed-up myself over that play of
yours. No wonder you can’t settle to sleep.”
Well, Cary couldn’t get away, and he knew he couldn’t. As well try to
escape an officer’s handcuff if he had been caught stealing as that
kind, inexorable offer of comradeship through his temptation. He
knew Black well enough by now to know that his standing by meant
that he simply wouldn’t let Cary’s temptation have a chance—it
might as well slink away and leave him, for it couldn’t get to him
past Robert Black’s defense.
Quite possibly neither of these two ever could have told how many
miles they walked that icy winter’s night, but walk they did till every
drop of Cary’s hot blood was rushing healthily through his weary
body, and the fires in his brain had died the death they must
inevitably die under such treatment. They walked in silence for the
most part. Cary wasn’t angry, even at the first—he was ashamed,
disappointed—but not angry. How could he be really angry with a
man who loved him enough for this? And, deep down in his heart,
presently he was glad—glad to be saved from himself. Was it for the
man who had written that splendid play to take it out in the old
degradation; was it for him who had made Truth shine in an
embodiment of loveliness to drag its creator in the mire on this same
night that his friends had looked upon his work and declared that it
was good? When at last he stumbled wearily along the little street
again, with a stumbling that was no feigning this time but the
genuine sign of a fatigue so overpowering that sleep was almost on
its heels, he was thankful to this strange and comprehending friend
as he had never been thankful to him before.
“Good-night, Ray,” said Robert Black, at the shop door, and under
the street-light Cary saw the smile that had come to mean more to
him to-night than it ever had before—and it had meant much
already.
“Do you trust me now?” Cary met the dark eyes straightforwardly at
last.
“Absolutely. I trusted you before. It was the over-strained nerves
and brain I was anxious for, because I’ve had them many a time
myself. They’re hard to manage. Taking them to walk is just good
medicine, that’s all. You’ll sleep like a top, now.”
“And you’re sure I won’t slide out, when you’re gone?”
Black’s hand gripped Cary’s. “I’d stake my life on it.”
Cary choked a little as he returned the grip. “You don’t need to. I’d
prefer to stake mine.” Then he bolted, and the shop door closed
behind him.
Black looked up at the wide-open window over the shop he knew
was Jane’s. “Sleep well, my friend,” he was thinking. “I told you I’d
stand by you—to the limit.”
 CHAPTER X
A SHIFTING OF HONOURS

T OM LOCKHART emerged from the stage dressing-room in the

uniform of a French soldier, his face made up with paint and
powder and crayon to indicate that he was in the final stages of
suffering from gunshot wounds. His head was bandaged, his clothes
were torn, but he gave the lie to these signs of disaster by dashing
up the stairs and into the wings of the stage with the lusty action of
perfect health and a great zest for his part.
Behind the big curtain he found all the actors in Cary’s play
assembled—except one. The star—everybody had taken to calling
Fanny Fitch the star throughout the rehearsals—was still missing,
quite after the manner of stars. It was yet early, and the audience in
front was but half assembled, but Cary had laid great stress upon
everybody’s being ready and in the wings before the curtain should
rise. He had small faith in amateur call boys and prompters, and the
action of the play was to take place so rapidly that nobody could be
permitted to linger in a dressing-room once the piece was on.
Cary greeted Tom as a laggard. Cary himself was a French officer—
and looked the part to the life; but he was also a stage manager of
martinet qualities.
“About time, you boy! Where’s Miss Fitch? Go back and get her.
Hustle!” The whisper hissed above the tuning of the orchestra.
Tom sped back downstairs. Red Pepper Burns, in the dress of an
operating surgeon soiled and gory, his face made up to show lines of
fatigue, commented in Nan Lockhart’s ear: “Trust Fanny to play the
part off stage as well as on. Presume she’s reckoning on holding
everything up till she gets here?”
Nan frowned. “You never do her justice, Doctor Burns. Fanny’s a
born actress, why shouldn’t she have the little sins of one? But she’s
going to surprise you to-night. She really can act, you know. She’s
been only walking through rehearsals.”
“All right—but she’ll have to get a lot more punch into her work than
I can believe her capable of. Speaking of punch—I haven’t much left
myself to-night,” growled Red. The fatigue suggested by the lines
upon his face had been easy to lay on, by the make-up man
downstairs, who had had only to intensify those already there. As
might easily have been prophesied by those who knew his life
intimately, Red had just had a week of infernally hard work in the
operating room, and was much fitter for a good night’s sleep than
for playing the part of a first line surgeon on the French front.
Robert Black, in the wings, was keeping in order a little group of
children who were representing Belgian orphans—protégés of an
Englishwoman who had come to France to help look after the
refugees. Nan Lockhart had this part; it fitted her beautifully. Jane
Ray was the Red Cross nurse in charge at the clearing station; her
white uniform and glowing red veil brought out her dusky beauty of
colouring strikingly. Three young American ambulance drivers—of
whom Harry Perkins, the young usher at the Stone Church, was one
—stood together in the wings, commenting favourably upon Miss
Ray. Altogether, no body was really doing anything but waiting when
Tom Lockhart, grinning joyously through his queerly contrasting
pallid make-up, at last followed Fanny Fitch upon the stage.
She had refused to dress for the dress rehearsal of the preceding
evening, explaining that her costume was as yet in the making. She
had, quite as Nan had said, “walked through” her part and rather
languidly, at that, in the street attire in which she had come to the
little theatre which was the suburban town’s pride. So now, quite
suddenly and startlingly, appeared to the view of her fellow actors
the French actress of music-hall fame whom Fanny was to represent
in the part which Cary, the moment he had set eyes upon her—and,
he might have added, found her eyes upon him—had declared would
fit her like a glove. As Red and Ellen and Cary Ray and Robert Black
now beheld the dazzling figure before them, there could be no
question in their minds that if Miss Fitch could act the part as she
now looked it, there would be nothing left to be desired. As for
young Tommy Lockhart, he was clearly quite out of his head with a
crazy admiration which he did not even attempt to disguise. What
was the use? And must not all men be one with him in adoring this
radiant creature?
Fanny was a vision—there’s no use denying it. All that fairness of
feature and provocation of eye enhanced by the cleverest art of the
make-up box, and set off by daring line and colour of gown, could
do to make her wondrous to look upon, had been achieved. All that
a deep excitement, a complete confidence in what her mirror had
told her, a surety of at least a measure of real histrionic power, could
give in aid of the finished effect, was there. But as she came very
quietly upon the stage there was nothing at all in her bearing to
indicate that she thought herself a form of delight, rather did she
suggest that she was dreading her difficult rôle, and not at all
confident that she could hope even to please the eye. Tom, indeed,
could have sworn that this was so. Had he not held a brief but
satisfying dialogue with her on the way upstairs?
“Oh, Tom!” she had called, “is it really time to go on? I’m so
frightened! Do you suppose I can ever do it as Mr. Ray wants it
done?”
Tom, gazing his eyes out at her lovely shoulders, as she preceded
him along the narrow corridor to the stairs, keeping her scarlet
silken skirts well away from the walls—he helped her solicitously in
that—answered in eager assurance: “Why, of course you can! And—
my word!—looking at you would be enough, if you couldn’t act at all.
My word! I never saw you——”
“Oh, but Tom, looking a part is nothing—and I’m not even sure I can
do that. But acting it! That’s another story. And you’re so wonderful
in yours——”
“Me? Why, I just have to die! That’s easy!”
“But you do it so realistically—you’re absolutely true to life. When I
bend over you—yes, I do feel that you’re actually my brother, and
my heart—— Well, if that can help, you do help me. And I’ll do my
best. But—I’m simply scared to pieces. Feel my hand, it’s freezing!”
She stretched back one bare arm, and Tom willingly caught her hand
in his. His own was so cold it is doubtful if he could have detected
chill in hers, but he held it fast, chafing it in both his own, and
murmuring tenderly: “You’ll be all right, I know you will. Why, you’ll
have the audience from the minute you go on—they can’t get away
from you—any more than I can!” The last was a whisper.
Fanny turned. They were at the top of the stairway now, with the
wings close at hand. “Tom, tell me! Do you really think I can do it?
Will you just keep thinking about me every minute while you’re lying
there?” She pressed one hand over her heart with a little gesture of
fear which simply finished Tom. “Oh, if it would stop beating so fast
——”
Tom slipped his arm about her shoulders. “Don’t be afraid, dear,”
was what he began to say. But she was away from him in an instant,
and he could only recall with tingling pulses that instant’s touch in
which at least two of his fingers had come into fleeting contact with
the satiny bare arm. The next minute he had rallied and rushed after
her upon the stage, to watch with a jealous pleasure the looks which
fell upon her from all sides.
At sight of the “star” Cary Ray came forward. All he said was, “I’m
mighty glad you’re here, Miss Fitch. Real actresses never can be
depended upon, you know—and you certainly look temperamental
enough to give your stage manager some trouble!” But his eyes and
his smile said that he was well satisfied with her as a member of his
caste, and that as a girl of his acquaintance he was immensely glad
he knew her. There was promise in Cary’s look as well. All Fanny had
to do now was to play that part as she knew she could play it, and
Cary Ray would fall before her. Going out to take a drink, after the
play should be over—the thing he would naturally want most to do—
would pale into insignificance before the stimulus she could offer
him, if she but let him take her home and come in for an hour’s talk
and coffee by the fire.
But Tom Lockhart and Cary Ray were not the stakes for which Fanny
Fitch meant to play that night. There was a tall figure in the wings of
which she was well aware, and though she did not look toward it she
was very sure that Robert Black was watching her. How, indeed,
could he do anything else? Belgian orphans, ambulance drivers,
French officers, Englishwomen, Red Cross nurses—how could they
all be anything but a background for the lovely “star?” Does not the
eye watch the point of high light in any scene?
And then they were all in their places. Cary rushed about giving last
warnings, the orchestra music dropped to a low murmur of mystery,
and the curtain rose. Black, with a last word to the waiting children,
slipped out of the wings, down the stairs, up through the orchestra
door, and into a seat held for him by a group of young men who
were now his special friends. It was Cary’s expressed wish that he
should see the play from the front, and then come back, with the
falling of the curtain, to tell the amateur actor-manager how it had
gone.
No need to relate the whole story of the play. It is not with the stage
performance that we are most concerned, but with that other play,
quite out of sight of the audience in the little theatre that night,
which is to us more interesting than the scenes they acted behind
the footlights. The stage play dealt with one of those thrilling
situations with which we have all since then, through printed page
and photograph and drama, become familiar. We know now how
those who went across to help, months—a year—two years—before
America came into the war, felt about us who lagged behind. The
young American ambulance drivers who left their colleges and
rushed over because they couldn’t stand it that we weren’t
remembering our debt to France, and who threw themselves and all
they had to give into the breach, angry and proud and absolutely
forgetful of self, just to do their little part—these had Cary pictured
in his play, chafing with impatience because they couldn’t make all
America understand and care. The American girl whose schooldays
had been spent in Paris, who had many friends there, and who
wanted to put aside everything promised her at home and go back
to the country she had learned to love, to nurse the Frenchmen who
since the war began had taught her what true gallantry might be—
Cary had sketched her in his rarest colours, a thing of beauty and of
love, her heart as tender as her spirit was dauntless.
There was the American surgeon, come over at first because he
wanted to study the methods of the French and English surgeons,
but staying out of sheer pity, and grimly working now to the last
limit of his endurance, unwilling to desert while the need was so
great, calling with every eloquent word he could find time to write
back to his brothers in the profession to come and help him stay the
flood of suffering. Drivers and nurses and doctors—these were the
characters whom Cary had chosen with which to make his appeal to
the laggard nation of us at home.
The Englishwoman, the Belgian mother with her little starving
children, the French officer, the dying French poilu—these were the
foils for the actress, torn from her stage by a message brought by
one of the American ambulance men to the hospital that her brother
was passing. It was her part to create the scene with which to stir
the blood, hers to cry to the French officer: “Why are the Americans
not here to prevent his dying? Did not our Lafayette and his men go
to them at their call? Does America owe us nothing, then? See, he is
only a boy—too young to die! Could they not have made it
impossible?”
Well, Fanny did it gloriously. All that had gone before led up to her
entrance, her gorgeous fur-lined cloak slipping from her shoulders,
her eyes imploring surgeon and nurses to say that the boy was not
yet gone. When she fell upon her knees beside the cot where lay the
limp figure of the brother she was a figure to draw every eye and
thought. All the colour, all the light of the scene seemed to centre in
her, the bare hospital ward and the people in it turning instantly to a
dull background for her extravagant beauty, her enchanting outlines,
her anguish of spirit, her heroic effort—after that one accusing cry—
at composure. It was impossible not to say that here was amateur
acting of a remarkable and compelling sort. If the pounding
heartbeats of the supposedly dying soldier under his torn uniform
might have been taken as an index of the pulses of the audience,
the general average must have been that of high acceleration under
the spell of Cary’s art and Fanny’s cleverness.
Could it be called more than cleverness? Robert Black was
wondering, as he watched her from down in front. Of course he
watched her, he would have been hardly human if he had not, or if
he had not also come, for the moment, at least, under her spell.
Cleverness or real dramatic power—it was difficult to judge, as it is
always difficult when the eyes are irresistibly attracted by fascination
of face and form. In her dress Fanny had copied to the life the
extravagantly revealing outlines of a certain daring and popular
vaudeville actress. When Nan Lockhart had suggested that for the
conservative American suburb a trifle less frank a showing might be
better taste Fanny had laughed and shrugged her shoulders, and
said she didn’t intend to spoil the part by prudery. She vowed that
Cary Ray was the sort who would be furious with her if she came to
his stage looking like a modest maiden on her day of graduation
from school! “He’s no infant prodigy,” she had added, “he’s a full-
grown man-genius, and I’m going to play up to him. Just watch me
get away with it!”
She was getting away with it. Even Nan—who had wanted to shake
her from the moment of her first entrance with that effect of being
shyly reluctant to appear at all—had to admit that Fanny had the
audience in the hollow of her pretty hand, not to mention the male
portion of her fellow actors, and, yes, even herself, as well. It was
impossible for Nan not to be fond of Fanny, and to forgive her many
of her sins, because of her personal charm and her originality of
speech and action. Whatever else she was, no doubt but Fanny was
always interesting. Generous Nan was more than glad to have her