Various - "Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882"

Thomas Henry Huxley - "This is Essay #1 from Science and Hebrew Tradition"

Thomas de Quincey - "The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2"

Thomas Hill Green - "An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times"

Editorial
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The City of Fire

G >> Grace Livingston Hill >> The City of Fire




Like an uneasy fever in his veins meantime, went and came a vision of
that limp inert figure of the man being carried into the haunted house
as it stood out in the flare of the flash light, one arm hanging
heavily. What did that hand and arm remind him of? Oh--h! The time when
Mark was knocked cold at the Thanksgiving Day Football game last year.
Mark's hand and arm had looked like that--he had held his fingers like
that--when they picked him up. Mark had the base-ball hand! Of course
that rich guy might have been an athlete too, they were sometimes. And
of course Mark was right now at home and in bed, where Billy wished he
was also, but somehow the memory of that still dark "knocked cold"
attitude, and that hanging hand and arm would not leave him. He frowned
in the dark and wished this business was over. Mark was the only living
soul Billy felt he could ever tell about this night's escapade, and he
wasn't sure he could tell him, but he knew if he did that Mark would
understand.

Billy watched anxiously for a streak of light in the East, but none had
come as yet. The moon had left the earth darker than darkness when it
went.

He tried to think what he should do. His bicycle was lying in the
bushes and he ought to get it before daylight. If they went near the
station he would drop off and pick it up. Then he would scuttle through
the woods and get to the Crossroads, and beat it down to the Blue Duck
Tavern. That was the only place open all night where he could
telephone. He didn't like to go to the Blue Duck Tavern on account of
his aunt. She had once made him promise most solemnly, bringing in
something about his dead mother, that he would never go to the Blue
Duck Tavern. But this was a case of necessity, and dead mothers, if
they cared at all, ought to understand. He had a deep underlying faith
in the principle of what a mother--at any rate a dead mother--would be
like. And anyhow, this wasn't the kind of "going" to the Tavern his
aunt had meant. He was keeping the spirit of the promise if not the
letter. In his code the spirit meant much more than the letter--at
least on this occasion. There were often times when he rigidly adhered
to the letter and let the spirit take care of itself, but this was not
one.

But if, on the other hand they did not take Pat all the way back to the
crossing by the station it would be even better for him, for the road
on which they now were passed within a quarter of a mile of the Blue
Duck Tavern, and he could easily beat the car to the state line, by
dropping off and running.

But suddenly and without warning it became apparent that Pat was to be
let out to walk to the station crossing, and Billy had only a second to
decide what to do, while Pat lumbered swearing down from the car. If he
got off now he would have to wait till Pat was far ahead before he
dared go after his wheel, and he would lose so much time there would be
no use in trying to save the car. On the other hand if he stayed on the
car he was liable to be seen by Pat, and perhaps caught. However, this
seemed the only possible way to keep the car from destruction and loss,
so he wriggled himself into his seat more firmly, tucked his legs
painfully up under him, covered his face with his cap, and hid his
hands in his pockets.

"You've plenty of time," raged Pat, "You've only a little five miles
run left. It's a good half hour before light. You're a pair of cowards,
that's whut ye are, and so I'll tell Sam. If I get fired fer not being
there fer the early milk train, there'll be no more fat jobs fer youse.
Now be sure ye do as you're told. Leave the car in the first field
beyond the woods after ye cross the state line, lift yer flash light
and wink three times, count three slow, and wink three times more.
_Then beat it!_ And doncha ferget to go feed that guy! We don't
want he should die on us."

The engine began to mutter. Pat with a farewell string of oaths rolled
off down the road, too sleepy to look behind, and Billy held his breath
and ducked low till the rolling Pat was one with the deep gray of the
morning.

The first streak of light was beginning to show in the East, and the
all-night revellers at the Blue Duck were in the last stages of going
home after a more than usually exciting season, when Billy like the
hardened promise-breaker he felt himself to be, boldly slid in at the
door and disappeared inside the telephone booth behind the last row of
tables in the corner. For leave it to a boy, even though he be not a
frequenter of a place, to know where everything needful is to be found!

He had to wait several minutes to get the Chief of Police in Economy,
and while he waited two gaunt habitues of the Tavern slid into seats at
the table to the left of the booth, ordered drinks and began to discuss
something in a low tone. Billy paid no heed till he happened to hear
his friend's name:

"Yep, I seen Mark come in with Cherry early in the evening. He set
right over there and gotter some drink. The girl was mad because he
wouldn't get her what she wanted to drink. I happened to be settin'
direckly in front and I heard her gassin' about it. She tossed her head
and made her eyes look little and ugly like a pig, and once she got up
to go, and he grabbed her hands and made her set down; and just set
there fer sometime alookin' at her hard an' holdin' her han's and
chewin' the rag at her. I don't know what all they was sayin,' fer he
talked mighty low, an' Ike called me to take a hand in the game over
tother side the room, so I didn't know no more till I see him an'
Cherry beatin' it out the side door, an' Dolphin standin' over acrost
by the desk lampin' 'em with his ugly look, an' pretty quick, Dolph he
slid out the other door an' was gone quite some time. When he come back
Cherry was with him, laughin' and makin' eyes, and vampin' away like
she always does, an' him an' her danced a lot after that--"

A voice on the end of the wire broke in upon this amazing conversation,
and Billy with difficulty adjusted his jaded mind, to the matter in
hand:

"'Z'is the Chief? Say, Chief, a coupla guys stole a machine--
Holes-Mowbrays--license number 6362656-W--Got that? New York tag.
They're on their way over to the State Line beyond the Cross Roads.
They're gonta run her in the field just beyond the woods, you know.
They're gonta give a flash light signal to their pal, three winks, count
three slow, and three winks more, and then beat it. Then some guy is
gonta wreck the machine. It's up to you and your men to hold the
machine till I get the owner there. He don't know it's pinched yet,
but I know where to find him, an' he'll have the license and can
identify it. Where'll I find you? Station House? 'Conomy? Sure! I'll
be there soon's I get'im. What's that? I? Oh, I'm just a kid that
happened to get wise. My name? Oh rats! That don't cut any ice now!
You get on yer job! They must be almost there by now. I gotta beat
it! Gub-bye!"

Billy was all there even if he had been up all night. He hung up with a
click, for he was anxious to hear what the men were saying. They had
finished their glasses and were preparing to leave. The old one was
gabbling on in a querrilous gossipy tone:

"Well, it'll go hard with Mark Carter if the man dies. Everybody knows
he was here, and unless he can prove an alibi--!"

They were crawling reluctantly out of their haunts now, and Billy could
catch but one more sentence:

"Well, I'm sorry fer his ma. I used to go to school with Mrs. Carter
when we were kids."

They were gone out and the room suddenly showed empty. The waiter was
fastening the shutters. In a moment more he would be locked in. Billy
made a silent dash among the tables and slid out the door while the
waiter's back was turned. The two men were ambling slowly down the road
toward Economy. Billy started on a dead run. His rubber soled shoes
made no echo and he was too light on his feet to make a thud. He
disappeared into the grayness like a spirit. He had more cause than
ever now for hurry. Mark! Mark! His beloved Mark Carter! What must he
do about it? Must he tell Mark? Or did Mark perhaps know? What had
happened anyway? There had evidently been a shooting. That Cherry
Fenner was mixed up in it. Billy knew her only by sight. She always
grinned at him and said: "Hello, Billee!" in her pretty dimpled way. He
didn't care for her himself. He had accepted her as a part of life, a
necessary evil. She wore her hair queer, and had very short tight
skirts, and high heels. She painted her face and vamped, but that was
her affair. He had heretofore tolerated her because she seemed in some
way to be under Mark Carter's recent protection. Therefore he had
growled "Ello!" grimly whenever she accosted him and let it go at that.
If it had come to a show down he would have stood up for her because he
knew that Mark would, that was all. Mark knew his own business. Far be
it from Billy to criticize his hero's reasons. Perhaps it was one of
Mark's weaknesses. It was up to him. That was the code of a "white man"
as Billy had learned it from "the fellas."

But this was a different matter. This involved Mark's honor. It was up
to him to find Mark!

Billy did not take the High road down from his detour. He cut across
below the Crossroads, over rough ground, among the underbrush, and
parting the low growing trees was lost in the gloom of the woods. But
he knew every inch of ground within twenty miles around, and darkness
did not take away his sense of direction. He crashed along among the
branches, making steady headway toward the spot where he had left his
bicycle, puffing and panting, his face streaked with dirt, his eyes
bleared and haggard, his whole lithe young body straining forward and
fighting against the dire weariness that was upon him, for it was not
often that he stayed up all night. Aunt Saxon saw to that much at
least.

The sky was growing rosy now, and he could hear the rumbling of the
milk train. It was late. Pat would not lose his job this time, for he
must have had plenty of time to get back to the station. Billy wormed
himself under cover as the train approached, and bided his time.
Cautiously, peering from behind the huckleberry growth, he watched Pat
slamming the milk cans around. He could see his bicycle lying like a
dark skeleton of a thing against the gravel bank. It was lucky he got
there before day, for Pat would have been sure to see it, and it might
have given him an idea that Billy had gone with the automobile.

The milk train came suddenly in sight through the tunnel, like a
lighted thread going through a needle. It rumbled up to the station.
There was a rattling of milk cans, empty ones being put on, full cans
being put off, grumbling of Pat at the train hands, loud retorts of the
train hands, the engine puffed and wheezed like a fat old lady going
upstairs and stopping on every landing to rest. Then slamming of car
doors, a whistle, the snort of the engine as it took up its way again
out toward the rosy sky, its headlight weird like a sick candle against
the dawn, its tail light winking with a leer and mocking at the
mountains as it clattered away like a row of gray ducks lifting webbed
feet and flinging back space to the station.

Pat rolled the loaded truck to the other platform ready for the Lake
train at seven, and went in to a much needed rest. He slammed the door
with a finality that gave Billy relief. The boy waited a moment more in
the gathering dawn, and then made a dash for the open, salvaging his
bicycle, and diving back into the undergrowth.

For a quarter of a mile he and the wheel like two comrades raced under
branches, and threaded their way between trees. Then he came out into
the Highroad and mounting his wheel rode into the world just as the sun
shot up and touched the day with wonder.

He rode into the silent sleeping village of Sabbath Valley just as the
bells from the church chimed out gently, as bells should do on a
Sabbath morning when people are at rest, "One! Two! Three! Four! Five!"

Sabbath Valley looked great as he pedalled silently down the street.
Even the old squeak of the back wheel seemed to be holding its breath
for the occasion.

He coasted past the church and down the gentle incline in front of the
parsonage and Joneses, and the Littles and Browns and Gibsons. Like a
shadow of the night passing he slid past the Fowlers and Tiptons and
Duncannons, and fastened his eyes on the little white fence with the
white pillared gate where Mrs. Carter lived. Was that a light in the
kitchen window? And the barn that Mark used for his garage when he was
at home, was the door open? He couldn't quite see for the cyringa bush
hid it from the road. With a furtive glance up and down the street he
wheeled in at the driveway, and rode up under the shadow of the green
shuttered white house.

He dismounted silently, stealthily, rested his wheel against the trunk
of a cherry tree, and with keen eyes for every window, glanced up to
the open one above which he knew belonged to Mark's room. Strong grimy
fingers went to his lips and a low cautious whistle, more like a bird
call issued forth, musical as any wild note.

The white muslin curtains wavered back and forth in the summer breeze,
and for a moment he thought a head was about to appear for a soft
stirring noise had seemed to move within the house somewhere, but the
curtains swayed on and no Mark appeared. Then he suddenly was aware of
a white face confronting him at the downstairs window directly opposite
to him, white and scared and--was it accusing? And suddenly he began to
tremble. Not all the events of the night had made him tremble, but now
he trembled, it was Mark's mother, and she had pink rims to her eyes,
and little damp crimples around her mouth and eyes for all the world
like Aunt Saxon's. She looked--she looked exactly as though she had not
slept all night. Her nose was thin and red, and her eyes had that awful
blue that eyes get that have been much washed with tears. The soft
waves of her hair drooped thinly, and the coil behind showed more
threads of silver than of brown in the morning sun that shot through
the branches of the cherry tree. She had a frightened look, as if Billy
had brought some awful news, or as if it was his fault, he could not
tell which, and he began to feel that choking sensation and that
goneness in the pit of his stomach that Aunt Saxon always gave him when
she looked frightened at something he had done or was going to do.
Added to this was that sudden premonition, and a memory of that
drooping still figure in the dark up on the mountain.

Mrs. Carter sat down the candle on a shelf and raised the window:

"Is that you Billy?" she asked, and there were tears in her voice.

Billy had a brief appalling revelation of Mothers the world over. Did
all Mothers--women--act like that when they were _fools_? Fools is
what he called them in his mind. Yet in spite of himself and his rage
and trembling he felt a sudden tenderness for this crumply, tired,
ghastly little pink rimmed mother, apprehensive of the worst as was
plain to see. Billy recalled like a flash the old man at the Blue Duck
saying, "I'm sorry for his ma. I used to go to school with her." He
looked at the faded face with the pink rims and trembling lips and had
a vision of a brown haired little girl at a desk, and old Si Appleby a
teasing boy in the desk opposite. It came over him that some day he
would be an old man somewhere telling how he went to school--! And then
he asked:

"Where's Mark? Up yet?"

She shook her head apprehensively, withholdingly.

Billy had a thought that perhaps some one had beat him to it with news
from the Blue Duck, but he put it from him. There were tears in her
eyes and one was straggling down between the crimples of her cheeks
where it looked as if she had lain on the folds of her handkerchief all
night. There came a new tenderness in his voice. This was _Mark's_
mother, and this was the way she felt. Well, of course it was silly,
but she was Mark's _mother_.

"Man up the mountain had n'accident. I thought Mark ud he'p. He always
does," explained Billy awkwardly with a feeling that he ought to
account for his early visit.

"Yes, of course, Mark would like to help!" purred his mother comforted
at the very thought of every day life and Mark going about as usual,
"But--" and the apprehension flew into her eyes again, "He isn't home.
Billy, he hasn't come home at all last night! I'm frightened to death!
I've sat up all night! I can't think what's happened--! There's so many
hold-ups and Mark will carry his money loose in his trousers pocket--!"

Billy blanched but lied beautifully up to the occasion even as he would
have liked to have somebody lie for him to Aunt Saxon:

"Aw! That's nothing! Doncha worry. He tol' me he might have t'stay down
t'Unity all night. There's a fella down there that likes him a lot, an'
they had somekinduva blowout in their church last night. He mightuv had
ta take some girl home out of town ya know, and stayed over with the
fella."

Mrs. Carter's face relaxed a shade:

"Yes, I've tried to think that--!"

"Well, doncha worry, Mizz Carter, I'll lookim up fer ya, I know 'bout
where he might be."

"Oh, thank you Billy," her face wreathed in wavering smiles brought
another thought of school days and life and how queer it was that grown
folks had been children sometime and children had to be grown folks.

"Billy, Mark likes you very much. I'm sure he won't mind your knowing
that I'm worried, but you know how boys don't like to have their
mothers worry, so you needn't say anything to Mark that I said I was
worried, need you? You understand Billy. I'm not _really_ worried
you know. Mark was always a good boy."

"Aw sure!" said Billy with a knowing wink. "He's a prince! You leave it
t'me, Mizz Carter!"

"Thank you, Billy. I'll do something for you sometime. But how's it
come you're up so early? You haven't had your breakfast yet have you?"

She eyed his weary young face with a motherly anxiety:

"Naw, I didn't have no time to stop fer breakfast," Billy spoke
importantly, "Got this call about the sick guy and had to beat it. Say,
you don't happen to know Mark's license number do you? It might help a
lot, savin' time 'f'I could tell his car at sight. Save stoppin' to
ast."

"Well, now, I don't really--" said the woman ruminatively, "let me see.
There was six and six, there were a lot of sixes if I remember--"

"Oh, well, it don't matter--" Billy grasped his wheel and prepared to
leave.

"Wait, Billy, you must have something to eat--"

"Aw, naw, I can't wait! Gotta beat it! Might miss 'im!"

"Well, just a bite. Here, I'll get you some cookies!"

She vanished, and he realized for the first time that he was hungry.
Cookies sounded good.

She returned with a brimming glass of milk and a plate of cookies. She
stuffed the cookies in his pockets, while he drank the milk.

"Say,--" said he after a long sweet draught of the foaming milk, "Ya,
aint got enny more you cud spare fer that sick guy, have ya? Wait, I'll
save this. Got a bottle?"

"Indeed you won't, Billy Gaston. You just drink that every drop. I'll
get you another bottle to take with you. I got extra last night 'count
of Mark being home, and then he didn't drink it. He always likes a
drink of milk last thing before he goes to bed."

She vanished and returned with a quart of milk cold off the ice. She
wrapped it well with newspapers, and Billy packed it safely into the
little basket on his wheel. Then he bethought him of another need.

"Say, m'y I go inta the g'rage an' get a screw driver? Screw loose on
m'wheel."

She nodded and he vanished into the open barn door. Well he knew where
Mark kept his tools. He picked out a small pointed saw, a neat little
auger and a file and stowed them hurriedly under the milk bottle. Thus
reinforced without and within, he mounted his faithful steed and sped
away to the hills.

The morning sun had shot up several degrees during his delay, and
Sabbath Valley lay like a thing new born in its glory. On the belfry a
purple dove sat glistening, green and gold ripples on her neck, turning
her head proudly from side to side as Billy rode by, and when he topped
the first hill across the valley the bells rang out six sweet strokes
as if to remind him that Sunday School was not far off and he must
hurry back. But Billy was trying to think how he should get into that
locked house, and wondering whether the kidnappers would have returned
to feed their captive yet. He realized that he must be wary, although
his instinct told him that they would wait for dark, besides, he had
hopes that they might have been "pinched."

Nevertheless he approached the old house cautiously, skirting the
mountain to avoid Pleasant Valley, and walking a mile or two through
thick undergrowth, sometimes with difficulty propelling the faithful
machine.

Arrived in sight he studied the surroundings carefully, harbored his
wheel where it would not be discovered and was yet easily available,
and after reconnoitering stole out of covert.

The house stood gaunt and grim against the smiling morning. Its
shuttered windows giving an expression of blindness or the repellant
mask of death. A dead house, that was what it was. Its doors and
windows closed on the tragedy that had been enacted within its massive
stone walls. It seemed more like a fortress than a house where warm
human faces had once looked forth, and where laughter and pleasant
words had once sounded out. To pass it had always stirred a sense of
mystery and weirdness. To approach it thus with the intention of
entering to find that still limp figure of a man gave a most
overpowering sense of awe. Billy looked up with wide eyes, the deep
shadows under them standing out in the clear light of the morning and
giving him a strangely old aspect as if he had jumped over at least ten
years during the night. Warily he circled the house, keeping close to
the shrubbery at first and listening as a squirrel might have done,
then gradually drawing nearer. He noticed that the down stairs shutters
were solid iron with a little half moon peep hole at the top. Those
upstairs were solid below and fitted with slats above, but the slats
were closed of all the front windows, and all but two of the back ones,
which were turned upward so that one could not see the glass. The
doors, both back and front, were locked, and unshakable, of solid oak
and very thick. A Yale lock with a new look gave all entrance at the
front an impossible look. The back door was equally impregnable unless
he set to work with his auger and saw and took out a heavy oak panel.

He got down to the ground and began to examine the cellar windows. They
seemed to be fitted with iron bars set into the solid masonry. He went
all around the house and found each one unshakable, until he reached
the last at the back. There he found a bit of stone cracked and
loosened and it gave him an idea. He set to work with his few tools,
and finally succeeded in loosening one rusted bar. He was much hindered
in his work by the necessity of keeping a constant watch out, and by
his attempts to be quiet. There was no telling when Link and Shorty
might come to feed their captive and he must not be discovered.

It was slow work picking away at the stone, filing away at the rusty
iron, but the bars were so close together that three must be removed
before he could hope to crawl through, and even then he might be able
to get no further than the cellar. The guy that fixed this house up for
a prison knew what he was about.

Faintly across the mountains came the echo of bells, or were they in
the boy's own soul? He worked away in the hot sun, the perspiration
rolling down his weary dirty face, and sometimes his soul fainted
within him. Bells, and the sweet quiet church with the pleasant daily
faces about and the hum of Sunday School beginning! How far away that
all seemed to him now as he filed and picked, and sweated, and kept up
a strange something in his soul half yearning, half fierce dread, that
might have been like praying only the burden of its yearning seemed to
be expressed in but a single word, "Mark! Mark!"

At last the third bar came loose and with a great sigh that was almost
like a sob, the boy tore it out, and cleared the way. Then carefully
gathering his effects, tools, milk bottle and cap together, he let them
down into the dungeon-like blackness of the cellar, and crept in after
them, taking the precaution to set up in place the iron bars once more
and leave no trace of his entrance.

Pausing cautiously to listen he ventured to strike a match, mentally
belaboring himself at the wasteful way in which he had always used his
flash light which was now so much needed and out of commission. The
cellar was large, running under the whole house, with heavy rafters and
looming coal pits. A scurrying rat started a few lumps of coal in the
slide, and a cobwebby rope hung ominously from one cross beam, giving
him a passing shudder. It seemed as if the spirit of the past had
arisen to challenge his entrance thus. He took a few steps forward
toward a dim staircase he sighted at the farther end, and then a sudden
noise sent his heart beating fast. He extinguished the match and stood
in the darkness listening with straining ears. That was surely a step
he heard on the floor above!

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.