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Robert E. Beasley
Essential ASP.NET Web Forms Development: Full Stack Programming with C#, SQL,
Ajax, and JavaScript
Robert E. Beasley
Franklin, IN, USA
Acknowledgments�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xvii
Preface�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xix
Part I: Overview���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1
Chapter 1: Web Application Development���������������������������������������������������������������� 3
1.1 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 3
1.2 Client-Server Model���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 4
1.3 .NET Framework��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8
1.4 Object-Orientation Concepts��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
1.4.1 Classes and Objects����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 10
1.4.2 Properties��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 12
1.4.3 Methods������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 12
1.4.4 Events��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 13
1.4.5 Encapsulation��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 13
1.4.6 Inheritance������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 14
1.5 ASP.NET and C# Programming���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 21
1.6 Visual Studio������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 22
1.7 Starting a New Project���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 23
1.8 Solution Explorer������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 24
v
Table of Contents
vi
Table of Contents
vii
Table of Contents
viii
Table of Contents
ix
Table of Contents
x
Table of Contents
xii
Table of Contents
Index��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 559
xiii
About the Author
Robert E. Beasley is Professor of Computing at Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana,
USA, where he teaches a variety of software engineering courses. He received both his
BS and MS degrees from Illinois State University and his PhD from the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been developing software since 1981, has been
an active software consultant in both the public and private sectors since 1987, and has
been teaching software engineering since 1995. He has authored three books on software
engineering, contributed chapters to two books, published over 50 articles in refereed
journals and conference proceedings, and delivered numerous speeches and keynote
addresses at international conferences.
xv
Acknowledgments
For any project like this to be successful, input is required from a number of people.
I would like to thank David G. Barnette for providing a significant amount of technical
feedback on the entire book, Elijah M. Beasley for providing a number of suggestions
for improving the flow and continuity of the book, and my other software engineering
students for reporting misspellings, typos, and other defects as they were encountered.
xvii
Preface
Audience
This book was written for anyone interested in learning the ASP.NET Web Forms,
C#.NET, SQL, Ajax, and JavaScript Web application development stack, including
novice software developers, professional software developers, and college or university
students enrolled in a one-semester course or two-semester sequence of courses in Web
application development.
Organization
This book helps you become a pro in one of the most effective and widely used
technology stacks for developing highly interactive, professional-grade, database-driven
Web applications—ASP.NET Web Forms, C#.NET, SQL, Ajax, and JavaScript. It takes
you from beginner to pro in no time. In Part 1, you become familiar with some of the
major concepts, methodologies, and technologies associated with .NET Web application
development. In this part, you learn about the client-server model, the .NET Framework,
the ASP.NET and C# programming languages, and the Visual Studio integrated
development environment. In Part 2, you learn how to develop a single-page .NET
Web application. In this part, you learn how to create a page and add server and data
validation controls to it. The concepts in this part of the book lay the foundation required
for learning the C# programming language in the context of an ASP.NET Web application.
In Part 3, you learn how to program in the C# programming language. In this part, you
learn how to perform assignment operations, conversion operations, control operations,
string operations, arithmetic operations, date and time operations, array operations,
collection operations, and file system operations, as well as create custom C# classes—in
the context of a .NET Web application. In Part 4, you learn how to develop a multiple-
page .NET Web application. In this part, you learn how to maintain state between pages
and create master pages, themes, and navigation controls. In Part 5, you learn how to
connect a .NET Web application to a SQL Server database. In this part, you learn to read
a database schema, program in the SQL programming language, utilize data binding,
xix
Preface
perform single- and multiple-row database table maintenance, and write code behind
database operations. And in Part 6, you learn how to enhance the interactivity of a .NET
Web application. In this part, you learn to generate email messages, make use of basic
Ajax controls and the Ajax Control Toolkit, and program in the JavaScript programming
language.
Features
Class Focus
A class diagram is included for every class discussed in the text. Each class diagram
articulates some of the most important properties, methods, and events of the class. For
those properties, methods, and events that are not included in the class diagram, a link
to the official class reference is provided.
Real-Life Examples
A significant proportion of the examples in the text are drawn from the real-life
experiences of the author’s own software development practice that began in 1987.
Accessible Language
Although the subject matter of this book is highly technical and specialized, trendy and/
or arcane language that is inaccessible to the average learner is either clearly defined or
replaced in favor of clear and generalizable terminology.
xx
PART I
Overview
CHAPTER 1
Web Application
Development
1.1 Introduction
The concept of hypermedia (i.e., the combination of hypertext and media) was first
envisioned in 1945 by American engineer, inventor, and science administrator Vannevar
Bush. However, it wasn’t until much later that the technology required to support such a
concept was mature enough to make hypermedia something most of us take for granted today.
In 1969, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) became the
first computer network to implement packet switching using the Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite—the protocol suite that forms the technical
foundation of the Internet today. Packet switching is a method of data transmission
that requires three basic steps to get data (e.g., remote computer screens, files, email
messages, Web pages) from one computer on a network to another. First, at its origin, the
data to be transmitted is separated into a sequenced set of relatively small parts called
packets. Second, the packets are transmitted independently from their origin to their
final destination over routes that have been determined to be optimal for each packet.
And third, after all the packets have made their way to their final destination, the data is
reassembled from its packets. Early TCP/IP Application Layer protocols included Telnet
for logging in to remote computers, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) for transmitting files
from one computer to another, and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) for sending
email messages. These protocols are still in heavy use today.
Although the Internet was alive, well, and growing from the late 1960s through the late
1980s, there was no World Wide Web (a.k.a., Web). However, this was about to change.
In 1989, development of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) was initiated by English
scientist Tim Berners-Lee at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (a.k.a., CERN)
in Meyrin, Switzerland—a suburb of Geneva. This protocol was to become the standard for
3
© Robert E. Beasley 2020
R. E. Beasley, Essential ASP.NET Web Forms Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5784-5_1
Chapter 1 Web Application Development
governing the communication between distributed hypermedia systems. With the definition
of the first official version of HTTP in 1991, the Web, the hypermedia part of the Internet, was
born, and HTTP became another TCP/IP Application Layer protocol like its predecessors
Telnet, FTP, and SMTP. Shortly thereafter, Berners-Lee created the very first Web browser.
This browser became available to other researchers in January 1991 and was released to the
public in August 1991.
Early on, the Web was simply a large collection of static Web pages. These pages
did little more than display formatted text and visual media (i.e., images, graphics,
animations, videos) and permit us to download files and play audio recordings. Today,
however, the Web is a massive collection of both static and dynamic Web pages. And
thanks to programming languages like ASP.NET, dynamic Web pages can do much more
than static Web pages can. In addition to the things static Web pages allow us to do,
dynamic Web pages allow us to interact with the items displayed on a Web page. They
also permit us to do things like edit the data on a page, check the data for errors, and save
the data to a database.
In this chapter, we will begin by looking at the client-server model, which is a
computing approach that distributes processing between servers and clients. Next, we
will introduce the .NET Framework. The .NET Framework is Microsoft’s Windows-based
software development and execution framework. Then, we will discuss ASP.NET and
C# programming. ASP.NET is a software development framework that includes all of
the classes necessary for building modern, sophisticated Web applications, and C# is
a general-purpose programming language for building a variety of application types,
including Web applications and Windows applications. After that, we will look at Visual
Studio, which is Microsoft’s flagship integrated development environment (IDE). This
development environment permits us to code and test in several different programming
languages via a consistent user interface. And finally, we will learn how to start a new
ASP.NET Web Application project.
4
Chapter 1 Web Application Development
5
Chapter 1 Web Application Development
Recall that Web pages are either static or dynamic. The content and appearance of
a static Web page doesn’t change each time it is requested. Instead, it always looks the
same no matter how many times it is requested or who requests it. It is easy to tell if a
Web page is static because it has a file extension of .htm or .html. As we will see in the
next figure, this type of Web page only requires the attention of a Web server.
Figure 1-2 shows the processing cycle of a static Web page. As can be seen, a Web
client (e.g., a laptop computer running Internet Explorer) requests a Web page from a
Web server (e.g., a tower computer running IIS) via an HTTP request. One important
part of this request is the name of the requested Web page (e.g., Display_Products.html).
Two other important parts of the request are the IP addresses (i.e., the unique Internet
addresses) of the server and client. These are necessary so that the HTTP request can
make its way to the Web server and so that the requested Web page can make its way
back to the requesting Web client. When the Web server receives the HTTP request, it
locates the desired Web page file on its hard drive, attaches the file’s Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML) code to an HTTP response, and then sends the response to the
requesting Web client. When the Web client receives the HTTP response, it uses the
attached HTML code to format and display the requested Web page for the end user. If
the requested Web page does not exist on the server, the infamous 404 (i.e., Page Not
Found) error is passed back to the Web client where it is displayed for the end user.
Unlike the content and appearance of a static Web page, a dynamic Web page can
(and usually does) change each time it is requested. In fact, depending on when it is
requested and by whom, it usually contains different information (e.g., different customer
information) and can look completely different (e.g., different fields, different images). It is
easy to tell if a Web page is dynamic because it has a file extension that is associated with
dynamic Web pages. Examples of such file extensions are .aspx (active server page), .php
(hypertext preprocessor), and .jsp (java server page). As we will see in the next figure, this
type of Web page is processed by both a Web server and an application server. When a Web
application requires database functionality, a database server is required as well.
6
Chapter 1 Web Application Development
Figure 1-3 shows the processing cycle of a dynamic Web page. As before, a Web client
requests a Web page from a Web server via an HTTP request. In this case, however, the
request contains the name of a dynamic Web page (e.g., Display_Products.aspx) and the
state of any Web page controls (e.g., a name entered into a text box, a check mark placed
into a checkbox, a date selected from a calendar). When the Web server receives the
HTTP request and sees that the Web page has a file extension of .aspx, it passes processing
control to the application server where the business logic (e.g., ASP.NET and C# code)
of the Web page is executed. If the business logic of the Web page requires the services
of a database server (i.e., reading, inserting, updating, or deleting data), the application
server passes processing control to the database server (along with any pertinent input
parameters) where the database call (usually a Structured Query Language [SQL] call)
of the Web page is executed. Once the database call is executed, the response from the
database server (e.g., the retrieved data and/or the status of the call) is passed back to the
application server where it is processed (e.g., the retrieved data is formatted and/or the
status of the call is handled). After this, the application server passes its work back to the
Web server, where it locates the desired Web page file on its hard drive, formats the Web
page’s HTML based on the results of the application server’s work, attaches the resulting
HTML code to an HTTP response, and then sends the response to the requesting Web
client. When the Web client receives the HTTP response, it uses the attached HTML code
to format and display the requested Web page for the end user. Again, if the requested Web
page does not exist on the server, the infamous 404 (i.e., Page Not Found) error is passed
back to the Web client where it is displayed for the end user.
Keep in mind that although servers and clients usually run on separate computing
devices, they can run on the same device. As an example of the latter, we often use a Web
server (e.g., IIS Express), an application server (e.g., .NET Framework), a database server
(e.g., SQL Server), and a Web client (e.g., Internet Explorer) all installed on the same
machine when developing ASP.NET Web applications.
7
Chapter 1 Web Application Development
8
Chapter 1 Web Application Development
9
Chapter 1 Web Application Development
1
A non-static class can also contain static properties, static methods, and static events that we can
utilize immediately, without having to instantiate an object from the class.
10
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only partially appeased and they kept close to Wa-be-no-je until the
following evening. He knew that unless he could find some means of
shaking them off he would never see Taheta or his people again. He
decided to attempt to pick his way through the end of a wide marsh,
believing that his pursuers would not follow him into the water. If he
could get safely across, he would be able to elude them.
The swamp was full of quaking bogs, and near the middle the water
was quite deep. His progress was impeded by the soft mud and
decayed vegetation on the bottom, and the further he went the
chances became more desperate. One foot sank suddenly in the soft
ooze and then the other. He could neither retreat nor go ahead. He
had reached a mass of quicksand, and with every attempt to
extricate himself he sank a little lower. He clutched the ends of a few
sodden grasses and held them for some time, but the stagnant
murky waters slowly closed over him and he was gone.
The baffled wolves howled along the margins of the marsh for a
while but soon disappeared, like all enemies whose quarry has met
finality. The little fire on the horizon flared up brightly, as though
fresh sticks had been piled upon it, and gleamed through the
darkness brighter than ever before. It faded away in the gray of the
morning and its watcher followed the steep trail down the side of
Wud-ju-na-gow to rest.
Today the Fireweed, that ever haunts the burnt places, lifts its
slender stalk above the spot, and it may be that the soul of faithful
Taheta lurks among the tender pink blossoms—a halo that may be
seen from the dark waters of the distant marsh.
III
THE HERON’S POOL
T HE pool was far back from the big marshes through which the
lazy current of the river wound. It was in one of those secluded
nooks that the seeping water finds for itself when it would hide in
secret retreats and form a little world of its own. It was bordered by
slushy grasses and small willows; its waters spread silently among
the bulrushes, lily pads and thick brush tangles. A few ghostly
sycamores and poplars protruded above the undergrowth, and the
intricate network of wild grape-vines concealed broken stumps that
were mantled with moss. The placid pool was seldom ruffled, for the
dense vegetation protected it from the winds. Wandering clouds
were mirrored in its limpid depths. Water-snakes made silvery trails
across it. Sinister shadows of hawks’ wings sometimes swept by, and
often the splash of a frog sent little rings out over the surface.
Opalescent dragon-flies hovered among the weeds and small turtles
basked in the sun-light along the margins.
One spring a gray old heron winged his way slowly over the pool,
and, after a few uncertain turns over the trees, wearily settled
among the rushes. After stalking about in the labyrinth of weeds
along the shallow edges for some time, he took his station on a
dead branch that protruded from the water near the shore, and
solemnly contemplated his surroundings.
His plumage was tattered, and he bore the record of the years he
had spent on the marshy wastes along the river. His eye had lost its
lustre, and the delicate blue that had adorned the wings of his youth
had faded to a pale ashen gray. The tired pinions were slightly
frayed—the wings hung rather loosely in repose, and the lanky legs
carried scars and crusty gray scales that told of vicissitudes in the
battle for existence. He looked long and curiously at a round white
object on the bottom near his low perch. The round object had a
history, but its story did not come within the sphere of the heron’s
interests, and he returned to his meditations on the gnarled limb. He
may have dreamed of far-off shores and happy homes in distant
tree-tops. A memory of a mate that flew devotedly by his side, but
could not go all the way, may have abided with him. The peace of
windless waters brooded in this quiet haven. It was a refuge from
the storms and antagonisms of the outer world, its store of food was
abundant, and in it he was content to pass his remaining days.
When night came his still figure melted into the darkness. A fallen
luna moth, whose wet wings might faintly reflect the starlight, would
sometimes tempt him, and he would listen languidly to the lonely
cries of an owl that lived in one of the sycamores. The periodic visits
of coons and foxes, that prowled stealthily in the deep shadows, and
craftily searched the wet grasses for small prey, did not disturb him.
They well knew the power of the gray old warrior’s cruel bill. All his
dangerous enemies were far away. The will-o’-the-wisps that
spookily and fitfully hovered along the tops of the rushes, and the
erratic flights of the fire-flies, did not mar his serenity. He was
spending his old age in comfort and repose.
When the heron came to the pool the Genius of the Place was old
Topago, a chief of the Pottawattomies. A great many years ago he
lived in a little hut, rudely built of logs and elm bark, on an open
space a few hundred feet from the pool. The fortunes of his tribe
had steadily declined, and their sun was setting. After the coming of
the white man, war and sickness had decimated his people. The wild
game began to disappear and hunger stalked among the little
villages. The old chief brooded constantly over the sorrows of his
race. As the years rolled on his melancholy deepened. He sought
isolation in the deep woods and built his lonely dwelling near the
pool to pass his last years in solitude. His was the anguish of heart
that comes when hope has fled. Occasionally one of the few faithful
followers who were left would come to the little cabin and leave
supplies of corn and dried meat, but beyond this he had no visitors.
His contact with his tribe had ceased.
One stormy night, when the north wind howled around the frail
abode, and the spirits of the cold were sighing in the trunks of the
big trees, the aged Indian sat over his small fire and held his
medicine bag in his shrivelled hands. Its potent charm had carried
him safely through many perils, and he now asked of it the
redemption of his people. That night the wind ceased and he felt the
presence of his good manitous in the darkness. They told him that
the magic of his medicine was still strong. If he would watch the
reflections in the pool, there would sometime appear among them
the form of a crescent moon that would foretell a great change in
the fortunes of his race, but he must see the reflection with his own
eyes.
In the spring, as soon as the ice had melted, he began his nightly
vigils at the foot of an ancient pine that overhung the water.
Through weary years he gazed with dimmed eyes upon the infinite
and inscrutable lights that gleamed and trembled in the pool. Many
times he saw the new moon shine in the twilights of the west, and
saw the old crescent near the horizon before the dawn, but no
crescent was ever reflected from the zenith into the still depths
below. Only the larger moons rode into the night skies above him.
His aching heart fought with despair and distrust of his tribal gods.
The wrinkles deepened on his wan face. The cold nights of spring
and fall bent the decrepit figure and whitened the withered locks.
Time dealt harshly with the faithful watcher, nobly guarding his
sacred trust.
During a March gale the ancient pine tottered and fell across the
open water. In the grim procession of the years it became sodden
and gradually settled into the oozy bottom. Only the gnarled and
decayed branch—the perch of the old heron—remained above the
surface.
One night in early fall, when there was a tinge of frost in the air, and
the messages of the dying year were fluttering down to the water
from the overhanging trees, the full moon shone resplendent directly
above the pool. The old heron turned his tapering head up toward it
for a moment, plumed his straggling feathers for a while,
nonchalantly gazed at the white skull that caught the moon’s light
below the water near his perch, and relapsed into immobility. A rim
of darkness crept over the edge of the moon, and the earth’s
shadow began to steal slowly across the silver disk. The soft beams
that glowed on the trees and grasses became dimmed and they
retreated into the shadows. The darkened orb was almost eclipsed.
Only a portion of it was left, but far down in the chill mystery of the
depths of the pool, among countless stars, was reflected a crescent
moon.
The magic of Topago’s medicine was still potent. The hour for the
redemption of the red man had come, but he was no more. The
mantle of the Genius of the Place had fallen upon the old heron. He
was the keeper of the secret of his pool.
IV
THE STORY OF THE STREAM
“Omemee”
IV
THE STORY OF THE STREAM
In the daytime occasional gleams of light from the gliding water can
be seen through the small openings in the labyrinths of undergrowth
and between the tall tree trunks that crowd the shadowy defile. At
night there are tremulous reflections of the moon among the thick
foliage. Strange ghostly beams touch the boles of the solemn pines
and sycamores and filter into the sombre recesses.
The dramas of human life leave romance behind them. Its halo
hovers over these darkened woods, for it was here that the beautiful
Indian girl, Omemee, was brought by her dusky Pottawattomie lover,
in the moon of falling leaves, and it was here that the threads of
their fate were woven nearly a hundred years ago.
Red Owl first saw her among the wild blackberry bushes near the
village of her people. She had responded to his entreaties with shy
glances, and after many visits and much negotiation, her father, a
wrinkled old chief, had consented to their union. Omemee’s savage
charms had brought many suitors to her father’s wigwam. Her
graceful willowy figure, long raven hair, musical voice, dark luminous
eyes and gentle ways had made her a favorite of her village. She
was called the dove in the language of her tribe. There was sorrow
when she went away.
Red Owl’s prowess as a hunter, his skill in the rude athletic sports of
the village, displayed on his frequent visits during the wooing, had
won the admiration of the old warrior. Among the many bundles of
valuable pelts that were borne along the Great Sauk Trail to the
traders’ posts, the largest were usually those of Red Owl. The fire-
water of the white man did not lure him to disaster as it did many of
his red brothers. He always transacted his business quickly and
returned from the posts with the ammunition, traps and other
supplies for which he had exchanged his furs.
For many years the young men of the tribe had trapped muskrats,
beaver and mink along the creek and in the swamps beyond its
headwaters. Small furred animals were abundant for many miles
around, and, during the fur season, the trappers were dispersed
over a wide extent of territory.
When “Peg Leg” Carr came into the dune country the only human
trails he found were those of the red men. He came alone and built
a cabin on the creek not far from the Indian Village. Peg Leg may
have still cherished a secret longing for human society which he was
not willing to admit, even to himself. He had abandoned his last
habitat for the ostensible reason that “thar was too many people
’round.” He came from about a hundred miles back on the Sauk Trail.
After a family disagreement he had left his wife and two sons to
their own devices in the wilderness, and was not heard of for nearly
ten years. He suddenly appeared one morning, stumping along the
trail, with his left knee fitted to the top of a hickory support. The
lower part of the leg was gone, and he explained its absence by
declaring that it had been “bit off.” The time-worn pleasantry
seemed to amuse him, and no amount of coaxing would elicit further
details. There was a deep ugly scar in the left side of his neck. His
vocal chords had been injured and he could talk only in hoarse
whispers. He said that his throat had been “gouged out.” Somebody
or something had nearly wrecked Peg Leg physically, but the story,
whatever it was, remained locked in his bosom. He admitted that he
had “been to sea,” but beyond that no facts were obtainable.
After a brief sojourn at his old home he shouldered his pack and
started west. When he arrived at French Creek he spent several days
in looking the country over before deciding on the location of his
cabin. He was a good-natured old fellow and the Indians did not
particularly resent his intrusion, even when he began to set a line of
traps along the creek. The small animals were so numerous that one
trapper more or less made little difference, and he got on very well
with his red neighbors. They rather pitied his infirmities and were
disposed to make allowances. He was over seventy and apparently
harmless.
When the old man had accumulated a small stock of pelts it was his
custom to carry them to a trading post located about forty miles
back on the trail and exchange them for supplies for his simple
housekeeping and other necessities. These trips often consumed ten
days, as his loads were heavy and he was compelled to travel slowly.
On his return, when he came to the rude log bridge over which the
trail crossed the creek in the ravine, he would sometimes wearily lay
his pack down and pound on the timbers with his hickory stump as a
signal to those above. He was unable to reach them with his
impaired voice. Somebody in the wigwams usually heard him and
came down to help the exhausted old trapper carry his burden up
the steep incline. After resting awhile he would trudge on to his
cabin.
A few years after the advent of Peg Leg a troop of soldiers arrived
and built a fort. For strategic reasons the commander of the
government post at Detroit decided to keep a small garrison at the
end of the lake. A spot was cleared on the bluff and two small brass
cannon were mounted in the block-house inside the log stockade.
The tops of the surrounding trees were cut away so that the guns
would command the trail from where it entered the north side of the
ravine to the point at which it disappeared around a low hill south of
the fort.
The French Creek Trail was a branch of the Great Sauk Trail, which
was the main thoroughfare from the Detroit post to the mouth of
Chicago river. It was joined near the headwaters of the St. Joseph
and Kankakee rivers, in what is now northeastern Indiana, by
another trail that followed the north banks of the Kankakee from the
Illinois country. The sinuous routes had been used from time
immemorable. They were the established highways of the red men
and the arteries of their simple commerce. Thousands of moccasined
feet traversed them on peaceful errands, and grim war parties
sometimes moved swiftly along the numberless forest paths that
connected with the main trails. There was a net-work of these all
through the Indian country. Trees twisted and bent in a peculiar way,
which we now often see in the woods, were landmarks left by the
makers of various small trails that were travelled infrequently.
Soon after the fort was built at French Creek, Pierre Chenault came
and established a trading post near the village. He was followed by a
number of settlers who built log houses along the edge of the bluff.
The red man’s fatherland was invaded. The civilization of the white
man—or the lack of it—had come, with its attending evils of strong
waters and organized rapacity. The waves of an alien race, with
strange tongues and new weapons of steel, had broken over him.
His means of subsistence dwindled. His heritage was passing to the
sway of the despoiler.
As the fur grew scarcer Red Owl rather resented the rivalry of the
old man’s interests, and occasionally appropriated an otter or mink,
when he passed Peg Leg’s traps, and had found nothing in his own.
He probably lulled his conscience with the idea that the animals
naturally belonged to the Indians, and that Peg Leg’s privileges were
a form of charity that need not be extended to the point of his own
self-denial.
A couple of hours later Peg Leg hobbled along the white water
course to inspect his traps. He followed Red Owl’s trail and came
upon the still form lying in the blood-stained snow on the ice. He
speculated for some time over the mystery and went to the
settlement to report what he had found.
The broken-hearted Omemee went with those who departed for the
scene of the tragedy. No trail was visible except those of Red Owl
and Peg Leg. The old man’s tracks were easily recognized. His denial
of any guilty knowledge of the killing was met by silence and dark
looks. Circumstantial evidence was against him. The motive was
obvious and the story was on the snow. The partial justice of the
retribution that had mysteriously fallen upon the thief did not lessen
the innocent old trapper’s sorrow and fear, for he knew that justice,
age, or infirmity would be no bar to Indian revenge. He would never
have killed Red Owl for interfering with his traps. A high wind and a
snow storm came up in the afternoon that effectually baffled any
further investigation. The despondent old man kept the seclusion of
his cabin and brooded over his trouble for several weeks.
Red Owl was laid away after the customs of his people. Omemee
departed into the wilderness to mourn for her dead. After many days
she returned with the light in her eyes that gleams from those of the
she-panther when her young have been killed before her—a light
that an enemy sees but once.
In the spring Peg Leg left with his pack of winter pelts. He had once
been cheated by Chenault and preferred to do his trading where he
had gone before the half-breed came. His journey consumed nearly
two weeks. One evening at dusk he laboriously picked his way down
the steep path into the ravine, laid his load of supplies on the rude
bridge, and then signalled for help by pounding the bridge timbers
with his hickory stump. He was worn out and could not carry his
burden up the steep incline alone.
Like a snake from its covert, a beautiful wild thing darted from the
deep shadows of the pines. The moccasined feet made no sound on
the logs. There was a gleam of steel, a lightning-like movement, and
Omemee glided on out of the ravine into the gathering gloom. The
silence was broken by a heavy splash below the side of the bridge,
and when they found poor old Peg Leg the hilt of a knife protruded
from between his shoulders.
Omemee ran with the speed of a deer in the direction of the home
of her childhood. She fled out over the dunes to the shore of the
lake. For miles along the wild wave-washed coast the two dim
figures sped in the darkness. Omemee finally dropped from
exhaustion. The half-breed carried her in his arms to the foot of the
bluff where he built a small fire behind a mass of drift-wood, and sat
beside her until the gray of the morning came over the sand-hills.
They were now about twelve miles from the settlement. They
walked along the beach together for several hours and turned into
the dunes.
After the April rains tender leaves unfolded in the trees around the
bark wigwam where Omemee was born. The old chief had died two
years before, but a faint wreath of smoke ascended softly to the
overhanging branches. Fastened above the door was a grisly and
uncanny thing that moved fitfully to and fro when the winds blew
from the lake. It was the scalp of Pierre Chenault.
Near the roots of a gnarled oak at a bend in the stream Peg Leg’s
dust has mingled with the black loam, where his spirit may be lulled
by the passing waters. When we seem to hear the tapping of the
woodpecker on a hidden hollow tree in the depths of the dark
ravine, it may be the echoes through the mists of the years of the
strokes of the poor old trapper on the timbers of the bridge.
The red man has gone. The currents of human passion that rose and
fell along the banks of the little stream have passed into silence. The
bistre-colored waters still flow out on the wide expanse of sand and
spread their web of romance in the moon-light.
V
THE MOON IN THE MARSH
T HERE is a hazy mist on the horizon where the red rim of the
October sun left the sky-line. The twilight of Indian Summer is
stealing over the marsh. There is a hush of vibrant voices and a
muffled movement of tiny life in the darkened places. Sorrow rests
upon the world, for the time of the requiem of the leaves has come.
The red arrows are abroad; a flush of crimson is creeping through
the forest. An elusive fragrance of fruition is in the air, and a drowsy
languor droops the stems and branches.
Royal robes rustle faintly on the hills and in the shadows of the
woods. From among the living trees a mighty presence has
vanished. A queen who came in green has departed as a nun in
gray, and the color fairies have entered the bereaved realm with
offerings of red and gold.
A vague unrest troubles the trembling aspens and the little sassafras
trees that flock like timid children beyond the sturdy sycamores. The
gnarled oaks mutely await the winds of winter on their castanets of
cold dead leaves—music of our Mother Earth to which we all must
listen until our slumber hour comes.
In the gathering gloom tiny beams creep into the depths of the
water. One by one the starry host begins to twinkle in the inverted
canopy of the heavens. The full-orbed silver moon rides into the sky
through the delicate lacery of the trees with a flood of soft light.
Another disk sinks majestically into the abyss.
The key lies at the bottom of the tarn, and the story is in the marsh.
VI
HOLY ZEKE
“Holy Zeke”
VI
HOLY ZEKE
“And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; I will
recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations
that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the
Lord that smiteth.”—Ezekiel 7:9
He had been a salt water sailor, and, with his shipmate Bill Saunders,
had met with many thrilling adventures. He had finally drifted to the
sand-hills, where he had found a quiet refuge after a stormy life.
Fishing and hunting small game yielded him a scanty but
comparatively happy livelihood. He was a queer, bewhiskered little
man, somewhere in the seventies, with many idiosyncrasies, a fund
of unconscious humor, much profanity, a great deal of homely
philosophy, and with many ideas that were peculiarly his own.
He wore what he called a “hatch” over the place which his right eye
formerly occupied, and explained the absence of the eye by telling
me that it had been blown out in a gale somewhere off the coast of
Japan. He said that “it was glass anyway” and he “never thought
much of it.” Saunders figured more or less in all of his stories of the
sea.
“Now all ye hell-destined sinners that are in this holy edifice, listen
to me! Ye who are steeped in sin shall frizzle in the fires o’
damnation. The seethin’ cauldrons yawn. Ye have deserved the fiery
pit an’ yer already sentenced to it. Hell is gaping fer this whole
outfit. The flames gather an’ flash. The fury o’ the wrath to come is
almost ’ere. Yer souls are damned an’ you may all be in hell ’fore
tomorrer mornin’. The red clouds o’ comin’ vengeance are over yer
miserable heads. You’ll be enveloped in fiery floods fer all eternity—
fer millions of ages will ye sizzle. Ye hang by a slender thread. The
flames may singe it any minute an’ in ye go. Ye have reason to
wonder that yer not already in hell! Yer accursed bodies shall be laid
on live coals, an’ with red-hot pitch-forks shall ye be sorted into
writhin’ piles an’ hurled into bottomless pits of endless torment. I’m
the scourge o’ the Almighty. I’m Ezekiel-seven-nine. This is yer last
chance to quit, an’ you’ve got to git in line, an’ do it quick if ye want
to keep from bein’ soused in torrents o’ burnin’ brimstone, an’ have
melted metal poured into yer blasphemous throats!”
At this point the door partially opened and a furtive figure slipped
out. “Let all them that has hard hearts an’ soft heads git out!” roared
the voice. The figure moved swiftly toward me and I recognized
Sipes.
“Gosh! Is that you? You keep away from that place,” he sputtered,
as he came up.
His “scatter gun” was a sinister weapon. It had once been a smooth-
bore army musket. The barrel had been sawed off to within a foot of
the breach. It was kept loaded with about six ounces of black
powder, and, wadded on top of this, was a handful of pellets which
the old man had made of flour dough, mixed with red pepper, and
hardened in the sun. He claimed that, at three rods, such a charge
would go just under the skin. “It wouldn’t kill nothin’, but it ’ud be
hot stuff.”
I sat on a pile of driftwood for some time and waited for the turmoil
in the shanty to subside. Finally the door opened and four more
figures emerged. I was glad to recognize my old friend “Happy Cal,”
whom I had not seen since his mysterious departure from the sand-
hills several years ago, after his dispute with Sipes over some
tangled set-lines. Evidently the two old derelicts had amicably
adjusted their differences, and Cal had rejoined the widely scattered
colony. Another old acquaintance, “Catfish John,” was also in the
party. After greetings were exchanged, John introduced me to a
short stocky man with gray whiskers.
This I did with pleasure, as Sipes’s yarns of the many exploits of this
supposedly mythical individual invested him with much interest.
“This ’ere’s Ezekiel-seven-nine,” continued John, indicating the
remaining member of the quartette.
“Holy Zeke,” as Sipes had called him, was about six feet two. His
clothes indicated that they had been worn uninterruptedly for a long
time. The mass of bushy red whiskers would have offered a
tempting refuge for wild mice, and from under his shaggy brows the
piercing eyes glowed with fanatic light.
Calvinism had placed its dark and heavy seal upon his soul, and the
image of an angry and pitiless Creator enthralled his mind—a God
who paves infernal regions with tender infants who neglect theology,
who marks the fall of a sparrow, but sends war, pestilence and
famine to annihilate the meek and pure in heart.
If he had been a Mohammedan, his eyes would have had the same
gleam, and he would have called the faithful to prayer from a
minaret with the same fierce fervor as that with which he conjured
up the eternal fires in Sipes’s shanty. Had not Calvinism obsessed
him, his type of mind might have made him a murderous criminal
and outlaw, who, with submarines and poison gas, would deny
mercy to mankind, for there was no quality of mercy in those cruel
orbs. They were the baleful eyes of the jungle, that coldly regard the
chances of the kill. In Holy Zeke’s case the kill was the forcible
snatching of the quarry from hell, not that he desired its salvation,
but was anxious to deprive the devil of it. He had no idea of pointing
a way to righteousness. There was no spiritual interest in the
individual to be rescued. He was the devil’s implacable enemy, and it
was purely a matter of successful attack upon the property of his
foe. Predestination or preordination did not bother him. He made no
distinctions. There was no escape for any human being whose belief
differed from his; even the slightest variation from his infallible creed
meant the bottomless pit.
Zeke soon left our little party and followed a path up into the ravine.
After his departure we built a fire of driftwood, sat around it on the
sand, and discussed the “scourge.”
“I hate to see anythin’ that looks like a fire, after wot we’ve been up
ag’inst tonight,” remarked Cal, as he threw on some more sticks,
“but as ’e ain’t ’ere to chuck us in, I guess we’ll be safe if we don’t
put on too much wood. Where d’ye s’pose ’e gits all that dope? I had
a Bible once’t, but I didn’t see nothin’ like that in it. There was a
place in it where some fellers got throwed in a fiery furnace an’
nothin’ happened to ’em at all, an’ there was another place where it
said that the wicked ’ud have their part in hell fire, but I didn’t read
all o’ the book an’ mebbe there’s a lot o’ hot stuff in it I missed.
W’en did you fust see that ol’ cuss, John?”
Catfish John contemplated the fire for a while, shifted his quid of
“natural leaf,” and relighted his pipe. He always said that he
“couldn’t git no enjoyment out o’ tobacco without usin’ it both ways.”
“He come ’long by my place one day ’bout three years ago,” said the
old man. “It was Sunday an’ ’e stopped an’ read some verses out of
’is Bible while I was workin’ on my boat. He said the Lord rested on
the seventh day, an’ I’d go to hell if I didn’t stop work on the
Sabbath. I told ’im that my boat would go to hell if I didn’t fix it, an’
they wasn’t no other day to do it. Then ’e gave me wot ’e called
‘tracks’ fer me to read an’ went on. The Almighty’s got some funny
fellers workin’ fer ’im. This one’s got hell on the brain an’ ’e ought to
stay out in the lake where it’s cool. Ev’ry little while ’e comes ’round
an’ talks ’bout loaves an’ fishes, an’ sometimes I give ’im a fish, w’en
I have a lot of ’em. He does the loaf part ’imself, fer sometimes ’e
sticks ’round fer an hour or two. Then ’e tells me some more ’bout
hell an’ goes off some’r’s, prob’ly to cook ’is fish.”
“Sipes must ’a’ come back. Let’s go over there,” suggested Saunders,
as he called our attention to the glimmer of a light in the shanty.
After the identity of the party had been established, and the
assurance given that Holy Zeke was not in it, the light reappeared
and we were hospitably received.
“Wot did you fellers do with that hell-fire cuss?” demanded Sipes
when we were all seated in the shanty. “Look wot’s ’ere!” and he
picked up a small, greasy hymn book which the orator had forgotten
in the excitement. Sipes handed me the book. I opened it at random
and read:
“Gimme that!” yelled Sipes, and I heard the little volume strike the
sand somewhere out in the dark near the water. “Wot d’ye s’pose I
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