Vampire Books Online / A Dream by Eva Horton - Herald and tribune

I dreamed a mighty giant, whom the people loved, lay sick. And men gathered about him in groups as he reclined and listened to his pulse-beats and watched his breathing. Yet no two groups seemed agreed as to his malady nor as to the treatment he required.

As I looked more closely I saw with horror a huge vampire nestling to him, constantly drawing his heart's blood. Yet, strange to say, but few of the multitude seemed to recognize in this creature the cause of his malady. Some few, indeed, made occasional efforts to draw it away, and one small group seemed intent upon killing it; but all their efforts were ineffectual, because one of the two larger groups seemed to regard the vampire as something to be protected instead of killed. The other large group seemed either utterly careless of or oblivious to the creature.

"Why don't you kill the vampire?" I shouted to both these great parties of men.

"Vampire!" returned the one, laughing. "Vampire! That's no vampire — that's the goose that lays the golden egg." And he pointed to what I had not noticed before, a great glowing heap of golden eggs on the other side of the giant.

"Vampire!" said the other great party. "Vampire! Sh — sh — sh! Do you see yonder thicket close by? A tiger's there which will spring if we touch the creature. It were better a vampire that kills him than a tiger."

Just then I noticed that from multitudes of homes women were watching the scene with evident agitation, some opening their windows and calling to the men to kill the vampire. They seemed so eager and so earnest that I wondered why they did not go near enough to make the men hear, for little heed seemed paid to them.

I asked them why they did not go out and help, and they pointed to their casements. Then I saw that they were prisoners in their homes, for across each casement were the hard iron bars of law and the strong silken bars of custom.

Yet, though these women were prisoners, they watched the scene with unabated interest; and when the two great parties of men flourished their clubs to keep the tariff and silver bugaboos (which were flying like mosquitoes about the head of the giant) away, these women called to them to join forces and kill the vampire.

From these barred casements went petition after petition, trying to turn the attention of the men to the blood-drinking beast in the beloved giant's bosom. In them they set pennants of white, inscribed, "For God and Home and Native Land," to which they ever and anon pointed with earnest gaze.

"Ah," thought I, in my dream, "were these women free they would strike straight at the vampire."

And I cried to the men again, "Why don't you unbar the casements and let your women help?"

"No, no, no," came a chorus in reply. "What would become of the home? Who'd rock the cradle? They would grow so masculine. They would want all the offices. The bad women would come too. They would grow so independent they wouldn't marry."

The vampire itself lifted its ugly head and shot its red tongue out spitefully; and in the babel of voices I awoke.