That is all. Names have perished. Who slept beneath that stone, whether humble or great, we know not. But the three words have outlasted all the centuries with all their catastrophes, typifying the permanence of character against the evanescence of fame. Above all forces, fidelity! Paganism could write no nobler epitaph, and Christianity could hardly choose fitter words to set above its humble portal. Choice there was none, however; the marble splinter lay near, and answered for a lintel all the better when turned upside down. The Midland rustics of the early Christian centuries, to say nothing of their successors of the Middle Ages, could hardly read the archaic Greek of Solon's time, if they could read at all.

On this east side of Koropi all the chapels date far back; on the west, toward Hymettus, is another chain of them, and in these Ross found numerous Christian inscriptions dating from the third to the fifth century, some of which we have recognized to-day at the schoolhouse; and he concludes that this region was one of the earliest seats of Christianity in Attica.

In these rural solitudes behind the mountain walls the followers of the new faith would find security long before it was safe to show their colors openly in the strongholds of the old gods at Athens.

This impression deepens as we look down from the rocky height above Koropi upon the shut-in valleys stretching southward to the sea, and westward to the mountain. There is hardly a sign or sound of living thing; a true Sabbath stillness, broken only by the tinkle of sheepbells, our only neighbor on the rocks the barefooted shepherdess tending her flock. One can almost imagine those early confessors back again, and the ruined shrines reopened. But we know less of the Christian centuries here than of the pagan; and it is much easier to gather up the classical associations of the place.

The first monument to meet our eyes in Koropi was that of a Lamptrian. And

on this rocky perch we must be near the meeting-point of three demes: one of little note, Kikynna; two of great importance, Lamptra and Sphettos. Sphettos has the elder and greater fame, for it was one of the free towns of Attica before Athens had a name, one of the twelve cantons welded by Theseus into the larger Attic commonwealth. But it had to be conquered first, for Pallas did not propose to surrender his fourth of the kingdom "rugged breeder of giants" that

-

it was- to the young man from Trozen without a struggle. So he marched up the Sphettian Way you see winding northward under the mountain, but through the treachery of his Agnousian herald townsman of our Christmas carter — suffered a fatal defeat at Pallene. As a deme Sphettos produced its crop of great names, still to be found sprinkled through the pages of the orators and historians, but only one appeals to us on the spot. That is Chærephon, the familiar of Socrates, and the butt of Aristophanic wit. You know Chærephon,"

says Socrates to his judges. "He was my comrade from youth up, and he was your comrade in democracy, and shared your exile [under the Thirty, two or three years before], and returned with you. And you know what manner of man he was, what an enthusiast in everything he put his hand to. And so once on a time he even ventured to go to Delphi, and asked this question of the oracle, now don't you be making a racket when I say this, gentlemen, — he asked if any one was wiser than I. And so the Pythia said there was no one wiser."

That was the beginning of the wise man's trouble, for it turned him into a universal quiz, and Chærephon of Sphettos was at the bottom of it all. The master loved him, patronizingly; and Plato gives him a good rôle in the Gorgias and Charmides, while in the Halcyon Socrates and he have the talk all to themselves. In the Clouds, he is a sort of usher in his master's thinking-shop: it is he who

has to wrestle with the problem of measuring a flea's leap in terms of the flea's feet, and who in turn propounds the famous dilemma concerning the musical end of the mosquito. Both questions must have been familiar to the Sphettian mind. It is not a little curious that the clown of the Clouds also hails from this vicinage, "Pheidon's son Strepsiades of Kikynna." The old rogue affects ignorance of the names of the excellent merimnophrontistai, but young Pheidip pides knows them well, "the chalk-faced, barefoot vagabonds, with that evil genius Socrates and Chærephon at their head." Strepsiades was doubtless as real a character in all but the name as Chærephon, and they may have been next-door neighbors here in the country, until war drove the one, and philosophy drew the other, into town. If we had the original Clouds, in which Cherephon clearly had a leading rôle, we should no doubt get more light on this local motive.1

Chærephon was a true democrat, and stood with Thrasy bulos against the Thirty. He was an enthusiast in his master's cause, but we miss him in the court and prison. He was already dead, but he had a brother, Chærecrates, present at the trial, and Socrates calls on him to testify to the facts about the Delphi mission. Two other Sphettians appear with Socrates in court, Lysanias and his son Eschines, who, like Xenophon, afterwards wrote down notes of conversations. But it is Cherephon, impulsive, eccentric, devoted to the master, who stands for old Sphettos in our imagination today; and were it not a century too old, one would fain refer to him the legend on the lintel, For thou wast faithful.

We had intended to walk under the mountain to Liopesi, but as we went down into the plain the sound of festal music drew us to the village square. On this

1 On other considerations, Milchhofer maps the two demes side by side, and the deme centres close together. This neighborhood is further suggested in one of Lysias' orations (xvii.), 49 NO. 440.

VOL. LXXIII.

women

carnival Sunday afternoon, it is the old Greek orchestra over again and in full swing. Some five hundred villagers are assembled, and there are nearly a hundred women in the inner dancing-ring, all in a splendor of costume reminding one of Easter at Megara. But the dance is very different, and more classical, not the chain, but the circle, and the largest circle I have seen. Only two European costumes in the ring, — that of the demarch's wife, who of course leads, and that of her gossip, whom we had met with her in the morning; all the rest full Albanian, with breastplates and headdresses of silver coin, dancing in their dowries. The brilliant colors and the bright metal lose nothing in the rays of the sinking sun, and we could watch the scene for hours; but between four and five the bell of the great church adjoining begins to ring, the circle breaks up, and the people flock from one service to the other, just as in the old days, when the orchestra lay before the temple and had an altar for its centre. Only yesterday we had listened to Dr. Dörpfeld at the Dionysiac Theatre in Athens, and here to-day we realize that there is nothing new under this Attic sun. We follow the crowd, and soon the great church is measurably full of worshipers, as absorbed now in their devotions as a moment ago in their dancing. They prostrate themselves, with foreheads touching the cold stone floor, as a priest passes with swinging censer, and other priests intone the litany, while the youngsters clatter up and down the gallery stairs. But day declines, and in a dash of rain we seek the station, stopping on the way to drink our scholarch's health in a drop of resinato, which deserves a better fame than the Sphettian oxos of old enjoyed. The station master lights a fire to warm us, prepares delicious coffee for our com

where the speaker claims a lien on two (apparently) neighboring properties, - -one in Sphettos, the other in Kikynna.

fort, presses flowers upon us at parting, and utterly refuses a "tip" even for his baby boy. All aboard for Athens, and off we go; and at 7.30 we sit down to our regular Sunday evening dîner-con

cert at the Grande Bretagne hotel, in the midst of a brilliant company; reminding one more of Paris than of Koropi, with its orchestra circle, its sky-roofed parterre of rustic Albanian beauties. J. Irving Manatt.

THE giant elm stood in the centre of the squire's fair green meadows, and was known to all the country round about as the "Bean ellum." The other trees had seemingly retired to a respectful distance, as if they were not worthy of closer intimacy; and so it stood alone, king of the meadow, monarch of the village.

It shot from the ground, for a space, straight, strong, and superb, and then burst into nine splendid branches, each a tree in itself, all growing symmetrically from the parent trunk, and casting a grateful shadow under which all the inhabitants of the tiny village might have gathered.

It was not alone its size, its beauty, its symmetry, its density of foliage, that made it the glory of the neighborhood, but the low growth of its branches and the extraordinary breadth of its shade. Passers-by from the adjacent towns were wont to hitch their teams by the wayside, crawl through the stump fence and walk across the fields, for a nearer view of its magnificence. One man, indeed, was known to drive by the tree every day during the summer, and lift his hat to it, respectfully, each time he passed; but he was a poet, and his intellect was not greatly esteemed in the village.

The elm was almost as beautiful in one season as in another. In the spring it rose from moist fields and mellow ploughed ground, its tiny brown leaf buds bursting with pride at the thought of the loveliness coiled up inside. In

summer it stood in the midst of a waying garden of buttercups and whiteweed, a towering mass of verdant leafage, a shelter from the sun and a refuge from the storm; a cool, splendid, hospitable dome, under which the weary farmer might fling himself, and gaze upward as into the heights and depths of an emerald heaven. As for the birds, they made it a fashionable summer resort, the most commodious and attractive in the whole country; with no limit to the accommodations for those of a gregarious turn of mind, liking the advantages of select society combined with country air. In the autumn it held its own; for when the other elms changed their green to duller tints, the nooning tree put on a gown of yellow, and stood out against the far background of sombre pine woods a brilliant mass of gold and brown. In winter, when there was no longer dun of upturned sod, nor waving daisy gardens, nor ruddy autumn grasses, it rose above the dazzling snow crust, lifting its bare, shapely branches in sober elegance and dignity, and seeming to say, "Do not pity me; I have been, and, please God, I shall be!"

Whenever the weather was sufficiently mild, it was used as a nooning tree by all the men at work in the surrounding fields; but it was in haying time that it became the favorite lunching and "bangeing" place for Squire Bean's hands and those of Miss Vilda Cummins, who owned the adjoining farm. The men congregated under the spreading

branches at twelve o' the clock, and spent the noon hour there, eating and "swapping" stories, as they were doing to-day.

Each had a tin pail, and each consumed a quantity of "flour food" that kept the housewives busy at the cookstove from morning till night. A glance at Pitt Packard's luncheon, for instance, might suffice as an illustration, for, as Jabe Slocum said, "Pitt took after both his parents: one et a good deal, 'n' the other a good while." His pail contained four doughnuts, a quarter section of pie, six buttermilk biscuits, six ginger cookies, a baked cup custard, and a quart of cold coffee. This quantity was a trifle unusual, but every man in the group was lined throughout with pie, cemented with buttermilk bread and riveted with dough

nuts.

Jabe Slocum and Brad Gibson lay extended slouchingly, their cowhide boots turned up to the sky; Dave Milliken, Steve Webster, and the others leaned back against the tree-trunk, smoking clay pipes, or hugging their knees and chewing blades of grass reflectively.

One man sat apart from the rest, gloomily puffing rings of smoke into the air. After a while he lay down in the grass, with his head buried in his hat, sleeping to all appearances, while the others talked and laughed; for he had no stories, though he put in an absent-minded word or two when he was directly addressed. This was the man from Tennessee, Matt Henderson, dubbed "Dixie " for short. He was a giant fellow, a "great gorming cutter," Samantha Ann Milliken called him; but if he had held up his head and straightened his broad shoulders, he would have been thought a man of splendid presence.

He seemed a being from another sphere instead of from another section of the country. It was not alone the olive tint of the skin, the mass of wavy dark hair tossed back from a high forehead, the sombre eyes, and the sad mouth,

a

mouth that had never grown into laughing curves through telling Yankee jokes,

it was not these that gave him what the boys called a "downcasted look." The man from Tennessee had something more than a melancholy temperament; he had, or physiognomy was a lie, a sorrow tugging at his heart.

"I'm goin' to doze a spell," drawled Jabe Slocum, pulling his straw hat over his eyes. "I've got to renew my strength like the eagle's, 'f I'm goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon. Wake me up, boys, when you think I'd ought to sling that scythe some more, for if I hev it on my mind I can't git a wink o' sleep."

This was apparently a witticism; at any rate, it elicited roars of laughter.

"It's one o' Jabe's useless days; he takes 'em from his great-aunt Lyddy," said David Milliken.

"You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me so long to git to workin' as it did you to git a wife, I bate this hay would n't git mowed down till crack o' doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree! I tell you, the sun 'n' the airth, the dew 'n' the showers, 'n' the Lord God o' creation jest took holt 'n' worked together on this tree, 'n' no mistake!"

"You're right, Jabe." (This from Steve Webster, who was absently cutting a D in the bark. He was always cutting D's these days.) "This ellum can't be beat in the State o' Maine, nor no other State. My brother that lives in California says that the big redwoods, big as they air, don't throw no sech shade, nor ain't so han'some, 'specially in the fall o' the year, as our State o' Maine trees; 'assiduous trees,' he called 'em."

"Assidyus trees? Why don't you talk United States while you're about it, 'n' not fire yer long-range words round here? Assidyus! What does it mean, anyhow?"

"Can't prove it by me. That's what he called 'em, 'n' I never forgot it." "Assidyus assidyus it don't sound as if it meant nothin', to me."

"'Assiduous' means 'busy,'" said the man from Tennessee, who had suddenly waked from a brown study, and dropped off into another as soon as he had given the definition.

"Busy, does it? Wall, I guess we ain't no better off now 'n we ever was. One tree 's 'bout 's busy as another, as fur 's I can see."

"Wall, there is a kind of a meanin' in it to me, but it's turrible far fetched," remarked Jabez Slocum, rather sleepily. "You see, our ellums and maples 'n' all them trees spends part o' the year in buddin' 'n' gittin' out their leaves 'n' hangin' 'em all over the branches; 'n' then, no sooner air they full grown than they hev to begin colorin' of 'em red or yeller or brown, 'n' then shakin' of 'em off; 'n' this is all extry, you might say, to their every-day chores o' growin' 'n' cirkerlatin' sap, 'n' spreadin' 'n' thickenin' 'n' shovin' out limbs, 'n' one thing 'n' 'nother; 'n' it stan's to reason that the firs 'n' hemlocks 'n' them California redwoods, that keeps their clo'es on right through the year, can't be so busy as them that keeps a-dressin' 'n' ondressin' all the time."

"I guess you 're 'bout right," allowed Steve," but I should n't never 'a' thought of it in the world. What yer takin' out o' that bottle, Jabe? I thought you was a temperance man."

"I guess he 's like the feller over to Shadagee schoolhouse, that said he was in favor o' the law, but agin its enforcement!" laughed Pitt Packard.

"I ain't breakin' no law; this is yarb bitters," Jabe answered, with a pull at the bottle.

"It's to cirkerlate his blood," said Ob Tarbox; "he's too dog-goned lazy to cirkerlate it himself."

"I'm takin' it fer what ails me," said Jabe oracularly; "the heart knoweth its own bitterness, 'n' it's a wise child that knows its own complaints 'thout goin' to a doctor."

"Ain't yer scared fer fear it'll start

yer growth, Laigs?" asked little Brad Gibson, looking at Jabe's tremendous length of limb and foot. "Say, how do yer git them feet o' yourn uphill? Do yer start one ahead, 'n' side-track the other?"

The tree rang with the laughter evoked by this sally, but the man from Tennessee never smiled.

Jabe Slocum's imperturbable good humor was not shaken in the very least by these personal remarks. "If I thought 't was a good growin' medicine, I'd recommend it to your folks, Brad," he replied cheerfully. "Your mother says you boys air all so short that when you're diggin' potatoes, yer can't see her shake the dinner rag 'thout gittin' up 'n' standin' on the potato hills! If I was a sinikitin feller like you. I would n't hector folks that had made out to grow some."

Speakin' o' growin'," said Steve Webster, "who do you guess I seen in Boston, when I was workin' there? That tall Swatkins girl from the Duck Pond, the one that married Dan Robinson. It was one Sunday, in the Catholic meetin'house. I'd allers wanted to go to a Catholic meetin', an' I declare it's about the solemnest one there is. I mistrusted I was goin' to everlastin❜ly giggle, but I tell yer I was the awedest cutter yer ever see. But anyway, the Swatkins girl -or Mis' Robinson was there as large as life in the next pew to me, jabberin' Latin, pawin' beads, gittin' up 'n' kneelin' down, 'n' crossin' herself north, south, east, 'n' west, with the best of 'em. Poor Dan! 'Grinnin' Dan,' we used to call him. Well, he don't grin

nowadays. He never was good for much, but he's hed more 'n his comeuppance!"

"Why, what's the matter with him? Can't he git work in Boston?"