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+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Christmas Story From David Harum,
+              by Edward Noyes Westcott.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Story from David Harum, by 
+Edward Noyes Westcott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Christmas Story from David Harum
+
+Author: Edward Noyes Westcott
+
+Release Date: June 29, 2008 [EBook #25927]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS STORY FROM DAVID HARUM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Bruce Thomas and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i"></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='center'><img src="images/cover.jpg" width="335" height="550" alt="cover" /></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii"></a></span></p>
+<p><a name="Illustration_WM_H_CRANE_as_DAVID_HARUM"
+   id="Illustration_WM_H_CRANE_as_DAVID_HARUM"></a></p>
+<p class='center'><img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="358" height="550" alt="WM. H. CRANE as DAVID HARUM" /><br />
+<span class="smcap">WM. H. CRANE as DAVID HARUM</span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p class='center'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii"></a></span>
+
+<span><i>WM. H. CRANE EDITION</i></span><br /><br />
+
+<span>THE</span><br />
+
+<span>CHRISTMAS STORY FROM</span><br />
+
+<span>DAVID HARUM</span><br />
+
+<span>By</span><br />
+
+<span>Edward Noyes Westcott</span><br /><br />
+
+<span>ILLUSTRATED FROM MR. CHARLES FROHMAN'S</span><br />
+<span>PRODUCTION OF DAVID HARUM.</span><br />
+<span>A COMEDY DRAMATIZED FROM THE NOVEL</span><br /><br /><br />
+
+<span><img src="images/logo.png" width="100" height="118" alt="logo" /></span><br /><br /><br /><br />
+
+<span>NEW YORK</span><br />
+
+<span>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</span><br />
+
+<span>1900</span><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+
+<p class='center'>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv"></a></span>
+
+<span>Copyright, 1898, 1900,</span><br />
+
+<span>By <span class="smcap">D. Appleton and Company.</span>
+  </span><br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v"></a></span><br />
+
+  <span><i>All rights reserved.</i></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+
+<p class='center'><img src="images/v.png" width="550" height="182" alt="header decoration" /></p>
+
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p><img src="images/d.png" class="floatLeft" width="150" height="170" alt="Capital I" /><br />ave done the thing his own
+way," said Aunt Polly to the
+Widow Cullom. "Kind o'
+fetched it round fer a merry Chris'mus,
+didn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>This is the story which is reprinted here
+from Mr. Westcott's famous book. It was
+David Harum's nature to do things in his own
+way, and the quaintness of his methods in
+raising the Widow Cullom from the depths of
+despair to the heights of happiness frame a
+story which is read between laughter and
+tears, and always with a quickening of affection
+for the great-hearted benefactor. David
+Harum's absolute originality, his unexpectedness,
+the dryness of his humor, the shrewdness
+of his insight, and the kindliness and
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi"></a></span>
+
+generosity beneath the surface, have made
+him a permanent figure in literature. Moreover,
+the individual quality of David Harum
+is so distinctively American that he has been
+recognized as the typical American, typical of
+an older generation, perhaps, in mere externals,
+but nevertheless an embodiment of characteristics
+essentially national. While only Mr.
+Westcott's complete book can fully illustrate
+the personality of David Harum, yet it is
+equally true that no other episode in the book
+presents the tenderness and quaintness, and
+the full quality of David Harum's character,
+with the richness and pathos of the story
+which tells how he paid the "int'rist" upon
+the "cap'tal" invested by Billy P. Fortunately
+this story lends itself readily to separate
+publication, and it forms an American
+"Christmas Carol" which stands by itself, an
+American counterpart of the familiar tale of
+Dickens, and imbued with a simplicity,
+humor, and unstudied pathos peculiarly its
+own.</p>
+
+<p>The difference between the written and
+the acted tale is illustrated in the use made
+of the Christmas story in the play. In the
+book David tells John Lenox the story of the
+Widow Cullom and her dealings with 'Zeke
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii"></a></span>
+
+Swinney, and reveals the truth to her in his
+office, and the dinner which follows at his
+house is prolonged by his inimitable tales. In
+the play action takes the place of description.
+In the first act we see 'Zeke Swinney obtaining
+blood-money from the widow, and the
+latter makes the acquaintance of Mary Blake,
+newly entered upon her career of independence
+as Cordelia Prendergast. In the second
+act we see the widow giving the second
+mortgage to David, and thereby strengthening
+Mary Blake's suspicions, and in the third
+act David pictures his dreary youth and Billy
+P.'s act of kindness, and brings the widow to
+her own, the climax coming with the toast
+which opens the dinner and closes the play.
+It was a delicate and difficult task for even so
+distinguished an actor as Mr. Crane to undertake
+a part already hedged about by conflicting
+theories; but his insight and his devotion
+to the character have succeeded in actually
+placing before us the David Harum created by
+Mr. Westcott.</p>
+
+<p>The illustrations of this book, reproduced
+from stage photographs by the courtesy of
+Mr. Charles Frohman, include the best pictures
+of Mr. Crane in character, and also stage
+views of scenes in the second and third acts,
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii"></a></span>
+
+which show the development and culmination
+of the Widow Cullom episode. The Christmas
+Story is now published separately for
+the first time in this volume, which unites a
+permanent literary value with the peculiar
+interest of Mr. Crane's interpretations of the
+famous character.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>After many discouragements, the author of
+David Harum lived long enough to know that
+his book had found appreciation and was to
+be published, but he died before it appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Edward Noyes Westcott, the son of Dr.
+Amos Westcott, a prominent physician of
+Syracuse, and at one time mayor of the city,
+was born September 27, 1846. Nearly all his
+life was passed in his native city of Syracuse.
+His active career began early at a bank clerk's
+desk, and he was afterward teller and cashier,
+then head of the firm of Westcott &amp; Abbott,
+bankers and brokers, and in his later years he
+acted as the registrar and financial expert of
+the Syracuse Water Commission. His artistic
+temperament found expression only in music
+until the last years of his life. He wrote
+articles occasionally upon financial subjects,
+but it was not until the approach of his last
+illness that he began David Harum. No character
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix"></a></span>
+
+in this book is taken directly from life.
+Stories which his father had told and his own
+keen observations and lively imagination furnished
+his material, but neither David Harum
+nor any other character is a copy of any individual.
+No trace of the author's illness
+appears in the book. "I've had the fun of
+writing it, anyway," he wrote shortly before
+his death, "and no one will laugh over David
+more than I have. I never could tell what
+David was going to do next." This was
+the spirit of the brave and gentle author,
+who died March 31, 1898, unconscious of the
+fame which was to follow him.</p>
+
+<p  style="text-align: right; margin-right: 1em;">R. H.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>August, 1900.</i><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p class='center'><img src="images/ix.png" width="200" height="134" alt="decoration" /></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='center'><img src="images/001.png" width="600" height="96" alt="Header" /><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h1>The Christmas Story<br />
+from David Harum<br /><br /><br /></h1>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p><img src="images/cap_i.png" class="floatLeft" width="150" height="170" alt="Capital I" /><br />t was the 23d of December,
+and shortly after the closing
+hour.  Peleg had departed
+and our friend had just locked
+the vault when David came
+into the office and around behind the counter.</p>
+
+<p>"Be you in any hurry?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>John said he was not, whereupon Mr.
+Harum hitched himself up on to a high office
+stool, with his heels on the spindle, and
+leaned sideways upon the desk, while John
+stood facing him with his left arm upon the
+desk.</p>
+
+<p>"John," said David, "do ye know the
+Widdo' Cullom?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said John, "but I know who she
+is&mdash;a tall, thin woman, who walks with a
+slight stoop and limp. I noticed her and
+asked her name because there was something
+about her looks that attracted my attention&mdash;as
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a></span>
+
+though at some time she might have seen
+better days."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the party," said David. "She
+has seen better days, but she's eat an' drunk
+sorro' mostly fer goin' on thirty year, an'
+darned little else a good share o' the time, I
+reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"She has that appearance certainly," said
+John.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said David, "she's had a putty
+tough time, the widdo' has, an' yet," he proceeded
+after a momentary pause, "the' was a
+time when the Culloms was some o' the kingpins
+o' this hull region. They used to own
+quarter o' the county, an' they lived in the
+big house up on the hill where Doc Hays lives
+now. That was considered to be the finest
+place anywheres 'round here in them days.
+I used to think the Capitol to Washington
+must be somethin' like the Cullom house, an'
+that Billy P. (folks used to call him Billy P.
+'cause his father's name was William an' his
+was William Parker), an' that Billy P. 'd jest
+'s like 's not be president. I've changed my
+mind some on the subject of presidents since
+I was a boy."</p>
+
+<p>Here Mr. Harum turned on his stool, put
+his right hand into his sack-coat pocket, extracted
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></span>
+
+therefrom part of a paper of "Maple
+Dew," and replenished his left cheek with an
+ample wad of "fine-cut." John took advantage
+of the break to head off what he had
+reason to fear might turn into a lengthy
+digression from the matter in hand by saying,
+"I beg pardon, but how does it happen that
+Mrs. Cullom is in such circumstances? Has
+the family all died out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said David, "they're most on
+'em dead, all on 'em, in fact, except the widdo's
+son Charley, but as fur's the family's
+concerned, it more 'n <i>died</i> out&mdash;it <i>gin</i> out!
+'D ye ever hear of Jim Wheton's calf? Wa'al,
+Jim brought three or four veals into town one
+spring to sell. Dick Larrabee used to peddle
+meat them days. Dick looked 'em over an'
+says, 'Look here, Jim,' he says, 'I guess you
+got a "deakin" in that lot,' he says. 'I
+dunno what you mean,' says Jim. 'Yes, ye
+do, goll darn ye!' says Dick, 'yes, ye do.
+You didn't never kill that calf, an' you know
+it. That calf died, that's what that calf done.
+Come, now, own up,' he says. 'Wa'al,' says
+Jim, 'I didn't <i>kill</i> it, an' it didn't <i>die</i> nuther&mdash;it
+jes' kind o' <i>gin out</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>John joined in the laugh with which the
+narrator rewarded his own effort, and David
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a></span>
+
+went on: "Yes, sir, they jes' petered out.
+Old Billy, Billy P.'s father, inher'tid all the
+prop'ty&mdash;never done a stroke of work in his
+life. He had a collige education, went to
+Europe, an' all that, an' before he was fifty
+year old he hardly ever come near the old
+place after he was growed up. The land was
+all farmed out on shares, an' his farmers
+mostly bamboozled him the hull time. He
+got consid'able income, of course, but as
+things went along and they found out how
+slack he was they kept bitin' off bigger chunks
+all the time, an' sometimes he didn't git even
+the core. But all the time when he wanted
+money&mdash;an' he wanted it putty often, I tell ye&mdash;the
+easiest way was to stick on a morgige;
+an' after a spell it got so 't he'd have to give
+a morgige to pay the int'rist on the other
+morgiges."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said John, "was there nothing to
+the estate but land?"</p>
+
+<p class='center'><img src="images/005.jpg" width="372" height="550" alt="Sitting in Chair" /></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," said David, "old Billy's father
+left him some consid'able pers'nal, but after
+that was gone he went into the morgige
+bus'nis as I tell ye. He lived mostly up to
+Syrchester and around, an' when he got married
+he bought a place in Syrchester and lived
+there till Billy P. was about twelve or thirteen
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a></span>
+
+year old, an' he was about fifty. By that
+time he'd got 'bout to the end of his rope, an'
+the' wa'n't nothin' for it but to come back
+here to Homeville an' make the most o' what
+the' was left&mdash;an' that's what he done, let
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a></span>
+
+alone that he didn't make the most on't to any
+pertic'ler extent. Mis' Cullom, his wife, wa'n't
+no help to him. She was a city woman an'
+didn't take to the country no way, but when
+she died it broke old Billy up wus 'n ever.
+She peaked an' pined, an' died when Billy P.
+was about fifteen or so. Wa'al, Billy P. an'
+the old man wrastled along somehow, an' the
+boy went to collige fer a year or so. How
+they ever got along 's they did I dunno. The'
+was a story that some far-off relation left old
+Billy some money, an' I guess that an' what
+they got off'm what farms was left carried
+'em along till Billy P. was twenty-five or so,
+an' then he up an' got married. That was the
+crownin' stroke," remarked David. "She
+was one o' the village girls&mdash;respectable folks,
+more 'n ordinary good lookin' an' high steppin',
+an' had had some schoolin'. But the
+old man was prouder 'n a cock-turkey, an'
+thought nobody wa'n't quite good enough fer
+Billy P., an' all along kind o' reckoned that
+he'd marry some money an' git a new start.
+But when he got married&mdash;on the quiet, you
+know, cause he knowed the old man would
+kick&mdash;wa'al, that killed the trick, an' the old
+man into the bargain. It took the gumption
+all out of him, an' he didn't live a year.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a></span>
+
+Wa'al, sir, it was curious, but, 's I was told,
+putty much the hull village sided with the old
+man. The Culloms was kind o' kings in them
+days, an' folks wa'n't so one-man's-good's-anotherish
+as they be now. They thought
+Billy P. done wrong, though they didn't have
+nothin' to say 'gainst the girl neither&mdash;an'
+she's very much respected, Mis' Cullom is, an'
+as fur's I'm concerned, I've alwus guessed she
+kept Billy P. goin' full as long 's any one
+could. But 't wa'n't no use&mdash;that is to say,
+the sure thing come to pass. He had a nom'nal
+title to a good deal o' prop'ty, but the
+equity in most on't if it had ben to be put up
+wa'n't enough to pay fer the papers. You
+see, the' ain't never ben no real cash value in
+farm prop'ty in these parts. The' ain't ben
+hardly a dozen changes in farm titles, 'cept by
+inher'tance or foreclosure, in thirty years. So
+Billy P. didn't make no effort. Int'rist's one
+o' them things that keeps right on nights an'
+Sundays. He jest had the deeds made out
+an' handed 'em over when the time came to
+settle. The' was some village lots though that
+was clear, that fetched him in some money
+from time to time until they was all gone but
+one, an' that's the one Mis' Cullom lives on
+now. It was consid'able more'n a lot&mdash;in fact,
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a></span>
+
+a putty sizable place. She thought the sun
+rose an' set where Billy P. was, but she took
+a crotchit in her head, and wouldn't ever sign
+no papers fer that, an' lucky fer him too.
+The' was a house on to it, an' he had a roof
+over his head anyway when he died six or
+seven years after he married, an' left her with
+a boy to raise. How she got along all them
+years till Charley got big enough to help, I
+swan! I don't know. She took in sewin' an'
+washin', an' went out to cook an' nurse, an'
+all that, but I reckon the' was now an' then
+times when they didn't overload their stomechs
+much, nor have to open the winders to
+cool off. But she held on to that prop'ty of
+her'n like a pup to a root. It was putty
+well out when Billy P. died, but the village
+has growed up to it. The's some good
+lots could be cut out on't, an' it backs up
+to the river where the current's enough to
+make a mighty good power fer a 'lectric light.
+I know some fellers that are talkin' of startin'
+a plant here, an' it ain't out o' sight that
+they'd pay a good price fer the river front, an'
+enough land to build on. Fact on't is, it's got
+to be a putty valu'ble piece o' prop'ty, more 'n
+she cal'lates on, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>Here Mr. Harum paused, pinching his chin
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a></span>
+
+with thumb and index finger, and mumbling
+his tobacco. John, who had listened with
+more attention than interest&mdash;wondering the
+while as to what the narrative was leading up
+to&mdash;thought something might properly be
+expected of him to show that he had followed
+it, and said, "So Mrs. Cullom has kept this
+last piece clear, has she?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said David, bringing down his right
+hand upon the desk with emphasis, "that's
+jes' what she hain't done, an' that's how I
+come to tell ye somethin' of the story, an'
+more on't 'n you've cared about hearin',
+mebbe."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," John protested. "I have
+been very much interested."</p>
+
+<p>"You have, have you?" said Mr. Harum.
+"Wa'al, I got somethin' I want ye to do.
+Day after to-morro' 's Chris'mus, an' I want
+ye to drop Mis' Cullom a line, somethin' like
+this, 'That Mr. Harum told ye to say that
+that morgige he holds, havin' ben past due
+fer some time, an' no int'rist havin' ben paid
+fer, let me see, more'n a year, he wants to
+close the matter up, an' he'll see her Chris'mus
+mornin' at the bank at nine o'clock, he
+havin' more time on that day; but that,
+as fur as he can see, the bus'nis won't take
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a></span>
+
+very long'&mdash;somethin'
+like that,
+you understand?"</p>
+
+<p><img src="images/010.jpg" class="floatLeft" width="400" height="500" alt="" /></p>
+
+<p>"Very
+well, sir,"
+said John,
+hoping that
+his employer
+would
+not see in
+his face the
+disgust and
+repugnance he
+felt as he surmised
+what a scheme was on foot, and recalled
+what he had heard of Harum's hard
+and unscrupulous ways, though he had to
+admit that this, excepting perhaps the episode
+of the counterfeit money, was the first revelation
+to him personally. But this seemed
+very bad indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said David cheerfully, "I s'pose
+it won't take you long to find out what's in
+your stockin', an' if you hain't nothin' else to
+do Chris'mus mornin' I'd like to have you
+open the office an' stay 'round a spell till I
+git through with Mis' Cullom. Mebbe the' 'll
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a></span>
+
+be some papers to fill out or witniss or somethin';
+an' have that skeezicks of a boy make
+up the fires so'st the place'll be warm."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, sir," said John, hoping that
+the interview was at an end.</p>
+
+<p>But the elder man sat for some minutes
+apparently in a brown study, and occasionally
+a smile of sardonic cunning wrinkled his face.
+At last he said: "I've told ye so much that I
+may as well tell ye how I come by that morgidge.
+Twon't take but a minute, an' then
+you can run an' play," he added with a
+chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"I trust I have not betrayed any impatience,"
+said John, and instantly conscious of
+his infelicitous expression, added hastily, "I
+have really been very much interested."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," was the reply, "you hain't
+<i>betrayed</i> none, but I know old fellers like me
+gen'rally tell a thing twice over while they're
+at it. Wa'al," he went on, "it was like this.
+After Charley Cullom got to be some grown
+he helped to keep the pot a-bilin', 'n they
+got on some better. 'Bout seven year ago,
+though, he up an' got married, an' then the
+fat ketched fire. Finally he allowed that if he
+had some money he'd go West 'n take up
+some land, 'n git along like pussly 'n a flower
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a></span>
+
+gard'n. He ambitioned that if his mother 'd
+raise a thousan' dollars on her place he'd be
+sure to take care of the int'rist, an' prob'ly pay
+off the princ'pal in almost no time. Wa'al,
+she done it, an' off he went. She didn't come
+to me fer the money, because&mdash;I dunno&mdash;at
+any rate she didn't, but got it of 'Zeke
+Swinney.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, it turned out jest 's any fool
+might 've predilictid, fer after the first year,
+when I reckon he paid it out of the thousan',
+Charley never paid no int'rist. The second
+year he was jes' gettin' goin', an' the next
+year he lost a hoss jest 's he was cal'latin' to
+pay, an' the next year the grasshoppers smote
+him, 'n so on; an' the outcome was that at
+the end of five years, when the morgige had
+one year to run, Charley'd paid one year, an'
+she'd paid one, an' she stood to owe three
+years' int'rist. How old Swinney come to
+hold off so was that she used to pay the cuss
+ten dollars or so ev'ry six months 'n git no
+credit fer it, an' no receipt an' no witniss, 'n
+he knowed the prop'ty was improving all the
+time. He may have had another reason, but
+at any rate he let her run, an' got the shave
+reg'lar. But at the time I'm tellin' you about
+he'd begun to cut up, an' allowed that if she
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a></span>
+
+didn't settle up the int'rist he'd foreclose, an'
+I got wind on't an' I run across her one day
+an' got to talkin' with her, an' she gin me the
+hull narration. 'How much do you owe the
+old critter?' I says. 'A hunderd an' eighty
+dollars,' she says, 'an' where I'm goin' to git
+it,' she says, 'the Lord only knows.' 'An'
+He won't tell ye, I reckon,' I says. Wa'al,
+of course I'd known that old Swinney had a
+morgidge because it was a matter of record,
+an' I knowed him well enough to give a guess
+what his game was goin' to be, an' more'n
+that I'd had my eye on that piece an' parcel
+an' I figured that he wa'n't any likelier a citizen
+'n I was." ("Yes," said John to himself,
+"where the carcase is the vultures are gathered
+together.")</p>
+
+<p>"'Wa'al,' I says to her, after we'd had a
+little more talk, 's'posen you come 'round to
+my place to-morro' 'bout 'leven o'clock, an'
+mebbe we c'n cipher this thing out. I don't
+say positive that we kin,' I says, 'but mebbe,
+mebbe.' So that afternoon I sent over to the
+county seat an' got a description an' had a
+second morgige drawed up fer two hundred
+dollars, an' Mis' Cullom signed it mighty
+quick. I had the morgige made one day
+after date, 'cause, as I said to her, it was in
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a></span>
+
+the nature of a temp'rary loan, but she was so
+tickled she'd have signed most anythin' at that
+pertic'ler time. 'Now,' I says to her, 'you go
+an' settle with old Step-an'-fetch-it, but don't
+you say a word where you got the money,' I
+says. 'Don't ye let on nothin'&mdash;stretch that
+conscience o' your'n if nes'sary,' I says, 'an'
+be pertic'ler if he asks you if Dave Harum give
+ye the money you jes' say, "No, he didn't."
+That won't be no lie,' I says, 'because I ain't
+<i>givin</i>' it to ye,' I says. Wa'al, she done as I
+told her. Of course Swinney suspicioned fust
+off that I was mixed up in it, but she stood
+him off so fair an' square that he didn't know
+jes' what <i>to</i> think, but his claws was cut fer a
+spell, anyway.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center_pix pix_title"><img src="images/015.jpg" width="600" height="343" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act II</span></p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, things went on fer a while, till I
+made up my mind that I ought to relieve
+Swinney of some of his anxieties about
+worldly bus'nis, an' I dropped in on him one
+mornin' an' passed the time o' day, an' after
+we'd eased up our minds on the subjects of
+each other's health an' such like I says, 'You
+hold a morgige on the Widder Cullom's
+place, don't ye?' Of course he couldn't say
+nothin' but 'yes.' 'Does she keep up the
+int'rist all right?' I says. 'I don't want to be
+pokin' my nose into your bus'nis,' I says,
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a></span>
+
+'an' don't tell me nothin' you don't want to.'
+Wa'al, he knowed Dave Harum was Dave
+Harum, an' that he might 's well speak it out,
+an' he says, 'Wa'al, she didn't pay nothin' fer
+a good while, but last time she forked over
+the hull amount. But I hain't no notion,' he
+says, 'that she'll come to time agin.' 'An'
+s'posin' she don't,' I says, 'you'll take the
+prop'ty, won't ye?' 'Don't see no other
+way,' he says, an' lookin' up quick, 'unless
+you over-bid me,' he says. 'No,' I says, 'I
+ain't buyin' no real estate jes' now, but the
+thing I come in fer,' I says, 'leavin' out the
+pleasure of havin' a talk with you, was to
+say that I'd take that morgige off'm your
+hands.'</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, sir, he, he, he, he! Scat my&mdash;&mdash;!
+At that he looked at me fer a minute with his
+jaw on his neck, an' then he hunched himself,
+'n drawed in his neck like a mud turtle.
+'No,' he says, 'I ain't sufferin' fer the money,
+an' I guess I'll keep the morgige. It's putty
+near due now, but mebbe I'll let it run a spell.
+I guess the secur'ty's good fer it.' 'Yes,' I
+says, 'I reckon you'll let it run long enough
+fer the widder to pay the taxes on't once more
+anyhow; I guess the secur'ty's good enough
+to take that resk; but how 'bout <i>my</i> secur'ty?'
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a></span>
+
+I says. 'What d'you mean?' he says. 'I
+mean,' says I, 'that I've got a second morgige
+on that prop'ty, an' I begin to tremble
+fer my secur'ty. You've jes' told me,' I says,
+'that you're goin' to foreclose an' I cal'late to
+protect myself, an' I <i>don't</i> cal'late,' I says, 'to
+have to go an' bid on that prop'ty, an' put in
+a lot more money to save my investment,
+unless I'm 'bleeged to&mdash;not <i>much!</i> an' you
+can jes' sign that morgige over to me, an' the
+sooner the quicker,' I says."</p>
+
+<p>David brought his hand down on his thigh
+with a vigorous slap, the fellow of the one
+which, John could imagine, had emphasized
+his demand upon Swinney. The story, to
+which he had at first listened with polite
+patience merely, he had found more interesting
+as it went on, and, excusing himself, he
+brought up a stool, and mounting it, said,
+"And what did Swinney say to that?" Mr.
+Harum emitted a gurgling chuckle, yawned
+his quid out of his mouth, tossing it over his
+shoulder in the general direction of the waste
+basket, and bit off the end of a cigar which
+he found by slapping his waistcoat pockets.
+John got down and fetched him a match,
+which he scratched in the vicinity of his hip
+pocket, lighted his cigar (John declining to
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a></span>
+
+join him on some plausible pretext, having
+on a previous occasion accepted one of the
+brand), and after rolling it around with his
+lips and tongue to the effect that the lighted
+end described sundry eccentric curves, located
+it firmly with an upward angle in the left-hand
+corner of his mouth, gave it a couple
+of vigorous puffs, and replied to John's
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, 'Zeke Swinney was a perfesser
+of religion some years ago, an' mebbe he is
+now, but what he said to me on this pertic'ler
+occasion was that he'd see me in hell fust, 'an
+<i>then</i> he wouldn't.</p>
+
+<p>"'Wa'al,' I says, 'mebbe you won't,
+mebbe you will, it's alwus a pleasure to meet
+ye,' I says, 'but in that case this morgige
+bus'nis 'll be a question fer our executors,' I
+says, 'fer <i>you</i> don't never foreclose that morgige,
+an' don't you fergit it,' I says.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, you'd like to git holt o' that
+prop'ty yourself. I see what you're up to,'
+he says.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='center_pix pix_title'><img src="images/019.jpg" width="600" height="306" alt="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act II</span></p>
+
+<p>"'Look a-here, 'Zeke Swinney,' I says,
+'I've got an int'rist in that prop'ty, an' I propose
+to p'tect it. You're goin' to sign that
+morgige over to me, or I'll foreclose an' surrygate
+ye,' I says, 'unless you allow to bid in
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a></span>
+
+the prop'ty, in which case we'll see whose
+weasel-skin's the longest. But I guess it
+won't come to that,' I says. 'You kin take
+your choice,' I says. 'Whether I want to git
+holt o' that prop'ty myself ain't neither here
+nor there. Mebbe I do, an' mebbe I don't,
+but anyways,' I says, '<i>you</i> don't git it, nor
+wouldn't ever, for if I can't make you sign
+over, I'll either do what I said or I'll back the
+widder in a defence fer usury. Put that in
+your pipe an' smoke it,' I says.</p>
+
+<p>"'What do you mean?' he says, gittin'
+half out his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"'I mean this,' I says, 'that the fust six
+months the widder couldn't pay she gin you
+ten dollars to hold off, an' the next time
+she gin you fifteen, an' that you've bled
+her fer shaves to the tune of sixty odd dollars
+in three years, an' then got your int'rist
+in full.'</p>
+
+<p>"That riz him clean out of his chair,"
+said David. "'She can't prove it,' he says,
+shakin' his fist in the air.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><img src="images/021.jpg" width="356" height="550" alt="" /></p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, ho! ho!' I says, tippin' my chair
+back agin the wall. 'If Mis' Cullom was
+to swear how an' where she paid you the
+money, givin' chapter an' verse, and showin'
+her own mem'randums even, an' I was to
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a></span>
+
+swear that when I twitted you with gittin'
+it you didn't deny it, but only said that she
+couldn't <i>prove</i> it, how long do you think it
+'ould take a Freeland County jury to find agin
+ye? I allow, 'Zeke Swinney,' I says, 'that you
+wa'n't born yestid'y, but you ain't so old as
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a></span>
+
+you look, not by a dum sight!' an' then how
+I did laugh!</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said David, as he got down off
+the stool and stretched himself, yawning, "I
+guess I've yarned it enough fer one day.
+Don't fergit to send Mis' Cullom that notice,
+an' make it up an' up. I'm goin' to git the
+thing off my mind this trip."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir," said John, "but let me
+ask, did Swinney assign the mortgage without
+any trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"O Lord! yes," was the reply. "The'
+wa'n't nothin' else fer him to do. I had
+another twist on him that I hain't mentioned.
+But he put up a great show of doin' it to
+obleege me. Wa'al, I thanked him an' so on,
+an' when we'd got through I ast him if he
+wouldn't step over to the 'Eagil' an' take
+somethin', an' he looked kind o' shocked an'
+said he never drinked nothin'. It was 'gin
+his princ'ples, he said. Ho, ho, ho, ho! Scat
+my&mdash;&mdash;! Princ'ples!" and John heard him
+chuckling to himself all the way out of the
+office.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p>Considering John's relations with David
+Harum, it was natural that he should wish to
+think as well of him as possible, and he had
+not (or thought he had not) allowed his mind
+to be influenced by the disparaging remarks
+and insinuations which had been made to
+him, or in his presence, concerning his employer.
+He had made up his mind to form
+his opinion upon his own experience with the
+man, and so far it had not only been pleasant
+but favorable, and far from justifying the half-jeering,
+half-malicious talk that had come
+to his ears. It had been made manifest to
+him, it was true, that David was capable of a
+sharp bargain in certain lines, but it seemed
+to him that it was more for the pleasure of
+matching his wits against another's than for
+any gain involved. Mr. Harum was an
+experienced and expert horseman, who delighted
+above all things in dealing in and trading
+horses, and John soon discovered that, in
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a></span>
+
+that community at least, to get the best of a
+"hoss-trade" by almost any means was considered
+a venial sin, if a sin at all, and the
+standards of ordinary business probity were
+not expected to govern those transactions.</p>
+
+<p>David had said to him once when he suspected
+that John's ideas might have sustained
+something of a shock, "A hoss-trade ain't like
+anythin' else. A feller may be straighter 'n a
+string in ev'rythin' else, an' never tell the
+truth&mdash;that is, the hull truth&mdash;about a hoss.
+I trade hosses with hoss-traders. They all
+think they know as much as I do, an' I dunno
+but what they do. They hain't learnt no
+diff'rent anyway, an' they've had chances
+enough. If a feller come to me that didn't
+think he knowed anythin' about a hoss, an'
+wanted to buy on the square, he'd git, fur's I
+knew, square treatment. At any rate I'd tell
+him all 't I knew. But when one o' them
+smart Alecks comes along an' cal'lates to do
+up old Dave, why he's got to take his
+chances, that's all. An' mind ye," asserted
+David, shaking his forefinger impressively, "it
+ain't only them fellers. I've ben wuss stuck
+two three time by church members in good
+standin' than anybody I ever dealed with.
+Take old Deakin Perkins. He's a terrible
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a></span>
+
+feller fer church bus'nes; c'n pray an' psalm-sing
+to beat the Jews, an' in spiritual matters
+c'n read his title clear the hull time, but when
+it comes to hoss-tradin' you got to git up very
+early in the mornin' or he'll skin the eye-teeth
+out of ye. Yes, sir! Scat my&mdash;&mdash;! I believe
+the old critter <i>makes</i> hosses! But the deakin,"
+added David, "he, he, he, he! the
+deakin hain't hardly spoke to me fer some
+consid'able time, the deakin hain't. He,
+he, he!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='center_pix' style="width: 600px"><img src="images/025.jpg" width="600" height="308" alt="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act III</span></p>
+
+<p>"Another thing," he went on, "the' ain't
+no gamble like a hoss. You may think you
+know him through an' through, an' fust thing
+you know he'll be cuttin' up a lot o' didos
+right out o' nothin'. It stands to reason that
+sometimes you let a hoss go all on the square&mdash;as
+you know him&mdash;an' the feller that gits
+him don't know how to hitch him or treat
+him, an' he acts like a diff'rent hoss, an' the
+feller allows you swindled him. You see,
+hosses gits used to places an' ways to a certain
+extent, an' when they're changed, why
+they're apt to act diff'rent. Hosses don't
+know but dreadful little, really. Talk about
+hoss sense&mdash;wa'al, the' ain't no such thing."</p>
+
+<p>Thus spoke David on the subject of his
+favorite pursuit and pastime, and John thought
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a></span>
+
+then that he could understand and condone
+some things he had seen and heard, at which
+at first he was inclined to look askance. But
+this matter of the Widow Cullom's was a
+different thing, and as he realized that he was
+expected to play a part, though a small one,
+in it, his heart sank within him that he had so
+far cast his fortunes upon the good will of a
+man who could plan and carry out so heartless
+and cruel an undertaking as that which had
+been revealed to him that afternoon. He spent
+the evening in his room trying to read, but the
+widow's affairs persistently thrust themselves
+upon his thoughts. All the unpleasant stories
+he had heard of David came to his mind, and
+he remembered with misgiving some things
+which at the time had seemed regular and
+right enough, but which took on a different
+color in the light in which he found himself
+recalling them. He debated with himself
+whether he should not decline to send Mrs.
+Cullom the notice as he had been instructed,
+and left it an open question when he went to
+bed.</p>
+
+<p>He wakened somewhat earlier than usual
+to find that the thermometer had gone up,
+and the barometer down. The air was full of
+a steady downpour, half snow, half rain,
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a></span>
+
+about the most disheartening combination
+which the worst climate in the world&mdash;that
+of central New York&mdash;can furnish. He passed
+rather a busy day in the office in an atmosphere
+redolent of the unsavory odors raised
+by the proximity of wet boots and garments
+to the big cylinder stove outside the counter,
+a compound of stale smells from kitchen and
+stable.</p>
+
+<p>After the bank closed he dispatched Peleg
+Hopkins, the office boy, with the note for
+Mrs. Cullom. He had abandoned his half-formed
+intention to revolt, but had made the
+note not only as little peremptory as was compatible
+with a clear intimation of its purport
+as he understood it, but had yielded to a
+natural impulse in beginning it with an expression
+of personal regret&mdash;a blunder which
+cost him no little chagrin in the outcome.</p>
+
+<p>Peleg Hopkins grumbled audibly when he
+was requested to build the fires on Christmas
+day, and expressed his opinion that "if there
+warn't Bible agin workin' on Chris'mus, the'
+'d ort ter be"; but when John opened the
+door of the bank that morning he found the
+temperature in comfortable contrast to the
+outside air. The weather had changed again,
+and a blinding snowstorm, accompanied by a
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a></span>
+
+buffeting gale from the northwest, made it
+almost impossible to see a path and to keep
+it. In the central part of the town some tentative
+efforts had been made to open walks,
+but these were apparent only as slight and
+tortuous depressions in the depths of snow.
+In the outskirts the unfortunate pedestrian had
+to wade to the knees.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='center_pix' style="width: 320px"><img src="images/029.jpg" width="320" height="550" alt="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act III</span></p>
+
+<p>As John went behind the counter his eye
+was at once caught by a small parcel lying on
+his desk, of white note paper, tied with a cotton
+string, which he found to be addressed,
+"Mr. John Lenox, Esq., Present," and as he
+took it up it seemed heavy for its size.</p>
+
+<p>Opening it, he found a tiny stocking, knit
+of white wool, to which was pinned a piece
+of paper with the legend, "A Merry Christmas
+from Aunt Polly." Out of the stocking fell a
+packet fastened with a rubber strap. Inside
+were five ten-dollar gold pieces and a slip
+of paper on which was written, "A Merry
+Christmas from Your Friend David Harum."
+For a moment John's face burned, and there
+was a curious smarting of the eyelids as he
+held the little stocking and its contents in
+his hand. Surely the hand that had written
+"Your Friend" on that scrap of paper could
+not be the hand of an oppressor of widows
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a></span>
+
+and orphans. "This," said John to himself,
+"is what he meant when he 'supposed it
+wouldn't take me long to find out what was
+in my stocking.'"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The door opened and a blast and whirl of
+wind and snow rushed in, ushering the tall,
+bent form of the Widow Cullom. The drive
+of the wind was so strong that John vaulted
+over the low cash counter to push the door
+shut again. The poor woman was white
+with snow from the front of her old worsted
+hood to the bottom of her ragged skirt.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Mrs. Cullom?" said John.
+"Wait a moment till I brush off the snow,
+and then come to the fire in the back room.
+Mr. Harum will be in directly, I expect."</p>
+
+<p>"Be I much late?" she asked. "I made 's
+much haste 's I could. It don't appear to me
+'s if I ever see a blusteriner day, 'n I ain't as
+strong as I used to be. Seemed as if I never
+would git here."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," said John, as he established
+her before the glowing grate of the Franklin
+stove in the back parlor, "not at all. Mr.
+Harum has not come in himself yet. Shall
+you mind if I excuse myself a moment while
+you make yourself as comfortable as possible?" She
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a></span>
+
+did not apparently hear him. She
+was trembling from head to foot with cold
+and fatigue and nervous excitement. Her
+dress was soaked to the knees, and as she sat
+down and put up her feet to the fire John
+saw a bit of a thin cotton stocking and her
+deplorable shoes, almost in a state of pulp.
+A snow-obliterated path led from the back
+door of the office to David's house, and John
+snatched his hat and started for it on a run.
+As he stamped off some of the snow on the
+veranda the door was opened for him by
+Mrs. Bixbee. "Lord sakes!" she exclaimed.
+"What on earth be you cavortin' 'round for
+such a mornin' 's this without no overcoat,
+an' on a dead run? What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing serious," he answered, "but
+I'm in a great hurry. Old Mrs. Cullom has
+walked up from her house to the office, and
+she is wet through and almost perished. I
+thought you'd send her some dry shoes and
+stockings, and an old shawl or blanket to
+keep her wet skirt off her knees, and a drop
+of whisky or something. She's all of a
+tremble, and I'm afraid she will have a chill."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='center_pix' style="width: 350px"><img src="images/033.jpg" width="350" height="550" alt="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act III</span></p>
+
+<p>"Certain! certain!" said the kind creature,
+and she bustled out of the room, returning in
+a minute or two with an armful of comforts.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a></span>
+
+"There's a pair of bedroom slips lined with
+lamb's wool, an' a pair of woolen stockin's,
+an' a blanket shawl. This here petticut, 't
+ain't what ye'd call bran' new, but it's warm
+and comf'table, an' I don't believe she's got
+much of anythin' on 'ceptin' her dress, an' I'll
+git ye the whisky, but"&mdash;here she looked
+deprecatingly at John&mdash;"it ain't gen'ally
+known 't we keep the stuff in the house. I
+don't know as it's right, but though David
+don't hardly ever touch it he will have it in
+the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said John, laughing, "you may
+trust my discretion, and we'll swear Mrs.
+Cullom to secrecy."</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, all right," said Mrs. Bixbee, joining
+in the laugh as she brought the bottle;
+"jest a minute till I make a passel of the
+things to keep the snow out. There, now, I
+guess you're fixed, an' you kin hurry back
+'fore she ketches a chill."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks very much," said John as he
+started away. "I have something to say to
+you besides 'Merry Christmas,' but I must
+wait till another time."</p>
+
+<p>When John got back to the office David
+had just preceded him.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, wa'al," he was saying, "but you
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a></span>
+
+be in a putty consid'able state. Hullo, John!
+what you got there? Wa'al, you air the
+stuff! Slips, blanket-shawl, petticut, stockin's&mdash;wa'al,
+you an' Polly ben puttin' your
+heads together, I guess. What's that?
+Whisky! Wa'al, scat my&mdash;&mdash;! I didn't
+s'pose wild hosses would have drawed it out
+o' Polly to let on the' was any in the house,
+much less to fetch it out. Jes' the thing! Oh,
+yes ye are, Mis' Cullom&mdash;jest a mouthful with
+water," taking the glass from John, "jest a
+spoonful to git your blood a-goin', an' then
+Mr. Lenox an' me 'll go into the front room
+while you make yourself comf'table."</p>
+
+<p>"Consarn it all!" exclaimed Mr. Harum as
+they stood leaning against the teller's counter,
+facing the street, "I didn't cal'late to have Mis'
+Cullom hoof it up here the way she done.
+When I see what kind of a day it was I went
+out to the barn to have the cutter hitched an'
+send for her, an' I found ev'rythin' topsy-turvy.
+That dum'd uneasy sorril colt had got
+cast in the stall, an' I ben fussin' with him
+ever since. I clean forgot all 'bout Mis' Cullom
+till jes' now."</p>
+
+<p>"Is the colt much injured?" John asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, he won't trot a twenty gait in
+some time, I reckon," replied David. "He's
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a></span>
+
+wrenched his shoulder some, an' mebbe
+strained his inside. Don't seem to take no
+int'rist in his feed, an' that's a bad sign. Consarn
+a hoss, anyhow! If they're wuth anythin'
+they're more bother 'n a teethin' baby.
+Alwus some dum thing ailin' 'em, an' I took
+consid'able stock in that colt too," he added
+regretfully, "an' I could 'a' got putty near
+what I was askin' fer him last week, an' putty
+near what he was wuth, an' I've noticed that
+most gen'ally alwus when I let a good offer
+go like that, some cussed thing happens to
+the hoss. It ain't a bad idee, in the hoss bus'nis
+anyway, to be willin' to let the other
+feller make a dollar once 'n a while."</p>
+
+<p>After that aphorism they waited in silence
+for a few minutes, and then David called out
+over his shoulder, "How be you gettin'
+along, Mis' Cullom?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='center_pix pix_title'><img src="images/037.jpg" width="600" height="304" alt="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act III</span></p>
+
+<p>"I guess I'm fixed," she answered, and
+David walked slowly back into the parlor,
+leaving John in the front office. He was
+annoyed to realize that in the bustle over Mrs.
+Cullom and what followed, he had forgotten
+to acknowledge the Christmas gift; but, hoping
+that Mr. Harum had been equally oblivious,
+promised himself to repair the omission
+later on. He would have preferred to go out
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a></span>
+
+and leave the two to settle their affair without
+witness or hearer, but his employer, who, as
+he had found, usually had a reason for his
+actions, had explicitly requested him to
+remain, and he had no choice. He perched
+himself upon one of the office stools and composed
+himself to await the conclusion of the
+affair.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mrs. Cullom was sitting at one corner of
+the fire, and David drew a chair opposite to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Feelin' all right now? whisky hain't
+made ye liable to no disorderly conduct, has
+it?" he asked with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thank you," was the reply, "the
+warm things are real comfortin', 'n' I guess I
+hain't had licker enough to make me want to
+throw things. You got a kind streak in ye,
+Dave Harum, if you did send me this here
+note&mdash;but I s'pose ye know your own bus'nis,"
+she added with a sigh of resignation.
+"I ben fearin' fer a good while 't I couldn't
+hold on t' that prop'ty, an' I don't know but
+what you might's well git it as 'Zeke Swinney,
+though I ben hopin' 'gainst hope that
+Charley 'd be able to do morn 'n he has."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see the note," said David curtly.
+"H'm, humph, 'regret to say that I have
+been instructed by Mr. Harum'&mdash;wa'al,
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a></span>
+
+h'm'm, cal'lated to clear his own skirts anyway&mdash;h'm'm&mdash;'must
+be closed up without
+further delay' (John's eye caught the little
+white stocking which still lay on his desk)&mdash;'wa'al,
+yes, that's about what I told Mr.
+Lenox to say fur's the bus'nis part's concerned&mdash;I
+might 'a' done my own regrettin' if I'd
+wrote the note myself." (John said something
+to himself.) "'T ain't the pleasantest
+thing in the world fer ye, I allow, but then
+you see, bus'nis is bus'nis."</p>
+
+<p>John heard David clear his throat, and there
+was a hiss in the open fire. Mrs. Cullom was
+silent, and David resumed:</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Mis' Cullom, it's like this. I
+ben thinkin' of this matter fer a good while.
+That place ain't ben no real good to ye sence
+the first year you signed that morgidge. You
+hain't scurcely more'n made ends meet, let
+alone the int'rist, an' it's ben simply a question
+o' time, an' who'd git the prop'ty in the long
+run fer some years. I reckoned, same as you
+did, that Charley 'd mebbe come to the front&mdash;but
+he hain't done it, an' 't ain't likely he
+ever will. Charley's a likely 'nough boy some
+ways, but he hain't got much 'git there' in his
+make-up, not more'n enough fer one anyhow,
+I reckon. That's about the size on't, ain't it?"
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Cullom murmured a feeble admission
+that she was "'fraid it was."</p>
+
+<p class='center'><img src="images/041.jpg" width="372" height="550" alt="" /></p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," resumed Mr. Harum, "I see how
+things was goin', an' I see that unless I played
+euchre, 'Zeke Swinney 'd git that prop'ty, an'
+whether I wanted it myself or not, I didn't
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a></span>
+
+cal'late he sh'd git it anyway. He put a spoke
+in my wheel once, an' I hain't forgot it. But
+that hain't neither here nor there. Wa'al,"
+after a short pause, "you know I helped ye
+pull the thing along on the chance, as ye may
+say, that you an' your son 'd somehow make
+a go on't."</p>
+
+<p>"You ben very kind, so fur," said the
+widow faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ye say that, don't ye say that,"
+protested David. "'T wa'n't no kindness.
+It was jes' bus'nis. I wa'n't takin' no chances,
+an' I s'pose I might let the thing run a spell
+longer if I c'd see any use in't. But the' ain't,
+an' so I ast ye to come up this mornin' so 't
+we c'd settle the thing up without no fuss,
+nor trouble, nor lawyer's fees, nor nothin'.
+I've got the papers all drawed, an' John&mdash;Mr.
+Lenox&mdash;here to take the acknowlidgments.
+You hain't no objection to windin' the thing
+up this mornin', have ye?"</p>
+
+<p>"I s'pose I'll have to do whatever you
+say," replied the poor woman in a tone of
+hopeless discouragement, "an' I might as
+well be killed to once, as to die by inch
+pieces."</p>
+
+<p>"All right then," said David cheerfully,
+ignoring her lethal suggestion, "but before
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a></span>
+
+we git down to bus'nis an' signin' papers, an'
+in order to set myself in as fair a light 's I can
+in the matter, I want to tell ye a little story."</p>
+
+<p>"I hain't no objection 's I know of," acquiesced
+the widow graciously.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said David, "I won't preach
+more 'n about up to the sixthly&mdash;How'd you
+feel if I was to light up a cigar? I hain't much
+of a hand at a yarn, an' if I git stuck, I c'n
+puff a spell. Thank ye. Wa'al, Mis' Cullom,
+you used to know somethin' about my folks.
+I was raised on Buxton Hill. The' was nine
+on us, an' I was the youngest o' the lot. My
+father farmed a piece of about forty to fifty
+acres, an' had a small shop where he done odd
+times small jobs of tinkerin' fer the neighbors
+when the' was anythin' to do. My mother
+was his second, an' I was the only child of
+that marriage. He married agin when I was
+about two year old, an' how I ever got raised
+'s more 'n I c'n tell ye. My sister Polly was
+'sponsible more 'n any one, I guess, an' the
+only one o' the whole lot that ever gin me a
+decent word. Small farmin' ain't cal'lated to
+fetch out the best traits of human nature&mdash;an'
+keep 'em out&mdash;an' it seems to me sometimes
+that when the old man wa'n't cuffin' my ears
+he was lickin' me with a rawhide or a strap. Fur 's
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a></span>
+
+that was concerned, all his boys used
+to ketch it putty reg'lar till they got too big.
+One on 'em up an' licked him one night, an'
+lit out next day. I s'pose the old man's disposition
+was sp'iled by what some feller said
+farmin' was, 'workin' all day, an' doin' chores
+all night,' an' larrupin' me an' all the rest on
+us was about all the enjoyment he got. My
+brothers an' sisters&mdash;'ceptin' of Polly&mdash;was
+putty nigh as bad in respect of cuffs an' such
+like; an' my stepmarm was, on the hull, the
+wust of all. She hadn't no childern o' her
+own, an' it appeared 's if I was jes' pizen to
+her. 'T wa'n't so much slappin' an' cuffin'
+with her as 't was tongue. She c'd say things
+that 'd jes' raise a blister like pizen ivy. I
+s'pose I <i>was</i> about as ord'nary, no-account-lookin',
+red-headed, freckled little cuss as you
+ever see, an' slinkin' in my manners. The air
+of our home circle wa'n't cal'lated to raise
+heroes in.</p>
+
+<p>"I got three four years' schoolin', an' made
+out to read an' write an' cipher up to long
+division 'fore I got through, but after I got to
+be six years old, school or no school, I had to
+work reg'lar at anything I had strength fer,
+an' more too. Chores before school an' after
+school, an' a two-mile walk to git there. As
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a></span>
+
+fur 's clo'es was concerned, any old thing that
+'d hang together was good enough fer me;
+but by the time the older boys had outgrowed
+their duds, an' they was passed on to me, the'
+wa'n't much left on 'em. A pair of old cowhide
+boots that leaked in more snow an' water
+'n they kept out, an' a couple pairs of woolen
+socks that was putty much all darns, was expected
+to see me through the winter, an' I
+went barefoot f'm the time the snow was off
+the ground till it flew agin in the fall. The'
+wa'n't but two seasons o' the year with me&mdash;them
+of chilblains an' stun-bruises."</p>
+
+<p>The speaker paused and stared for a moment
+into the comfortable glow of the fire,
+and then discovering to his apparent surprise
+that his cigar had gone out, lighted it from a
+coal picked out with the tongs.</p>
+
+<p>"Farmin' 's a hard life," remarked Mrs.
+Cullom with an air of being expected to make
+some contribution to the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"An' yit, as it seems to me as I look back
+on't," David resumed pensively, "the wust
+on't was that nobody ever gin me a kind word,
+'cept Polly. I s'pose I got kind o' used to
+bein' cold an' tired; dressin' in a snowdrift
+where it blowed into the attic, an' goin' out to
+fodder cattle 'fore sun-up; pickin' up stun in
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a></span>
+
+the blazin' sun, an' doin' all the odd jobs my
+father set me to, an' the older ones shirked
+onto me. That was the reg'lar order o'
+things; but I remember I never <i>did</i> git used to
+never pleasin' nobody. Course I didn't expect
+nothin' f'm my step-marm, an' the only
+way I ever knowed I'd done my stent fur 's
+father was concerned, was that he didn't say
+nothin'. But sometimes the older one's 'd git
+settin' 'round, talkin' an' laughin', havin' pop
+corn an' apples, an' that, an' I'd kind o' sidle
+up, wantin' to join 'em, an' some on 'em 'd
+say, 'What <i>you</i> doin' here? time you was in
+bed,' an' give me a shove or a cuff. Yes,
+ma'am," looking up at Mrs. Cullom, "the
+wust on't was that I was kind o' scairt the
+hull time. Once in a while Polly 'd give me
+a mossel o' comfort, but Polly wa'n't but little
+older 'n me, an' bein' the youngest girl, was
+chored most to death herself."</p>
+
+<p>It had stopped snowing, and though the
+wind still came in gusty blasts, whirling the
+drift against the windows, a wintry gleam of
+sunshine came in and touched the widow's
+wrinkled face.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='center_pix pix_title'><img src="images/047.jpg" width="600" height="306" alt="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act III</span></p>
+
+<p>"It's amazin' how much trouble an' sorrer
+the' is in the world, an' how soon it begins,"
+she remarked, moving a little to avoid the sunlight.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a></span>
+
+"I hain't never ben able to reconcile
+how many good things the' be, an' how little
+most on us gits o' them. I hain't ben to
+meetin' fer a long spell 'cause I hain't had no
+fit clo'es, but I remember most of the preachin'
+I've set under either dwelt on the wrath to
+come, or else on the Lord's doin' all things
+well, an' providin'. I hope I ain't no wickeder
+'n than the gen'ral run, but it's putty hard
+to hev faith in the Lord's providin' when you
+hain't got nothin' in the house but corn meal,
+an' none too much o' that."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so, Mis' Cullom, that's so," affirmed
+David. "I don't blame ye a mite.
+'Doubts assail, an' oft prevail,' as the hymnbook
+says, an' I reckon it's a sight easier to
+have faith on meat an' potatoes 'n it is on corn
+meal mush. Wa'al, as I was sayin'&mdash;I hope
+I ain't tirin' ye with my goin's on?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Mrs. Cullom, "I'm engaged to
+hear ye, but nobody 'd suppose to see ye now
+that ye was such a f'lorn little critter as you
+make out."</p>
+
+<p>"It's jest as I'm tellin' ye, an' more also,
+as the Bible says," returned David, and then,
+rather more impressively, as if he were leading
+up to his conclusion, "it come along to a
+time when I was 'twixt thirteen an' fourteen.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a></span>
+
+The' was a cirkis billed to show down here in
+Homeville, an' ev'ry barn an' shed fer miles
+around had pictures stuck on to 'em of el'phants,
+an' rhinoceroses, an' ev'ry animul that
+went into the ark; an' girls ridin' bareback an'
+jumpin' through hoops, an' fellers ridin' bareback
+an' turnin' summersets, an' doin' turnovers
+on swings; an' clowns gettin' hoss-whipped,
+an' ev'ry kind of a thing that could
+be pictered out; an' how the' was to be a
+grand percession at ten o'clock, 'ith golden
+chariots, an' scripteral allegories, an' the hull
+bus'nis; an' the gran' performance at two
+o'clock; admission twenty-five cents, children
+under twelve, at cetery, an' so forth. Wa'al,
+I hadn't no more idee o' goin' to that cirkis 'n
+I had o' flyin' to the moon, but the night
+before the show somethin' waked me 'bout
+twelve o'clock. I don't know how 't was.
+I'd ben helpin' mend fence all day, an' gen'ally
+I never knowed nothin' after my head
+struck the bed till mornin'. But that night,
+anyhow, somethin' waked me, an' I went an'
+looked out the windo', an' there was the hull
+thing goin' by the house. The' was more or
+less moon, an' I see the el'phant, an' the big
+wagins&mdash;the drivers kind o' noddin' over the
+dashboards&mdash;an' the chariots with canvas covers&mdash;I
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a></span>
+
+don't know how many of 'em&mdash;an' the
+cages of the tigers an' lions, an' all. Wa'al,
+I got up the next mornin' at sun-up an' done
+my chores; an' after breakfust I set off fer the
+ten-acre lot where I was mendin' fence. The
+ten-acre was the farthest off of any, Homeville
+way, an' I had my dinner in a tin pail so't
+I needn't lose no time goin' home at noon,
+an', as luck would have it, the' wa'n't nobody
+with me that mornin'. Wa'al, I got down
+to the lot an' set to work; but somehow I
+couldn't git that show out o' my head nohow.
+As I said, I hadn't no more notion of goin' to
+that cirkis 'n I had of kingdom come. I'd
+never had two shillin' of my own in my hull
+life. But the more I thought on't the uneasier
+I got. Somethin' seemed pullin' an' haulin' at
+me, an' fin'ly I gin in. I allowed I'd see that
+percession anyway if it took a leg, an' mebbe
+I c'd git back 'ithout nobody missin' me. 'T
+any rate, I'd take the chances of a lickin' jest
+once&mdash;fer that's what it meant&mdash;an' I up an'
+put fer the village lickity-cut. I done them
+four mile lively, I c'n tell ye, an' the stun-bruises
+never hurt me once.</p>
+
+<p>"When I got down to the village it
+seemed to me as if the hull population of Freeland
+County was there. I'd never seen so
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a></span>
+
+many folks together in my life, an' fer a spell
+it seemed to me as if ev'rybody was a-lookin'
+at me an' sayin', 'That's old Harum's boy
+Dave, playin' hookey,' an' I sneaked 'round
+dreadin' somebody 'd give me away; but I
+fin'ly found that nobody wa'n't payin' any
+attention to me&mdash;they was there to see the
+show, an' one red-headed boy more or less
+wa'n't no pertic'ler account. Wa'al, putty
+soon the percession hove in sight, an' the' was
+a reg'lar stampede among the boys, an' when
+it got by, I run an' ketched up with it agin,
+an' walked alongside the el'phant, tin pail an'
+all, till they fetched up inside the tent. Then
+I went off to one side&mdash;it must 'a' ben about
+'leven or half-past, an' eat my dinner&mdash;I had a
+devourin' appetite&mdash;an' thought I'd jes' walk
+round a spell, an' then light out fer home.
+But the' was so many things to see an' hear&mdash;all
+the side-show pictures of Fat Women, an'
+Livin' Skelitons; an' Wild Women of Madygasker,
+an' Wild Men of Borneo; an' snakes
+windin' round women's necks; hand-orgins;
+fellers that played the 'cordion, an' mouth-pipes,
+an' drum an' cymbals all to once, an'
+such like&mdash;that I fergot all about the time an'
+the ten-acre lot, an' the stun fence, an' fust I
+knowed the folks was makin' fer the ticket
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a></span>
+
+wagin, an' the band begun to play inside the
+tent. Be I taxin' your patience over the
+limit?" said David, breaking off in his story
+and addressing Mrs. Cullom more directly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I guess not," she replied; "I was
+jes' thinkin' of a circus I went to once," she
+added with an audible sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said David, taking a last farewell
+of the end of his cigar, which he threw into
+the grate, "mebbe what's comin' 'ill int'rist
+ye more 'n the rest on't has. I was standin'
+gawpin' 'round, list'nin' to the band an'
+watchin' the folks git their tickets, when all of
+a suddin I felt a twitch at my hair&mdash;it had a
+way of workin' out of the holes in my old
+chip straw hat&mdash;an' somebody says to me,
+'Wa'al, sonny, what you thinkin' of?' he
+says. I looked up, an' who do you s'pose it
+was? It was Billy P. Cullom! I knowed
+who he was, fer I'd seen him before, but of
+course he didn't know me. Yes, ma'am, it
+was Billy P., an' wa'n't he rigged out to
+kill!"</p>
+
+<p>The speaker paused and looked into the
+fire, smiling. The woman started forward
+facing him, and clasping her hands, cried,
+"My husband! What'd he have on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said David slowly and reminiscently,
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a></span>
+
+"near 's I c'n remember, he had on a
+blue broadcloth claw-hammer coat with flat
+gilt buttons, an' a double-breasted plaid velvet
+vest, an' pearl-gray pants, strapped down over
+his boots, which was of shiny leather, an' a
+high pointed collar an' blue stock with a pin in
+it (I remember wonderin' if it c'd be real gold),
+an' a yeller-white plug beaver hat."</p>
+
+<p>At the description of each article of attire
+Mrs. Cullom nodded her head, with her eyes
+fixed on David's face, and as he concluded she
+broke out breathlessly, "Oh, yes! Oh, yes!
+David, he wore them very same clo'es, an' he
+took me to that very same show that very
+same night!" There was in her face a look
+almost of awe, as if a sight of her long-buried
+past youth had been shown to her from a
+coffin.</p>
+
+<p>Neither spoke for a moment or two, and it
+was the widow who broke the silence. As
+David had conjectured, she was interested at
+last, and sat leaning forward with her hands
+clasped in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she exclaimed, "ain't ye goin'
+on? What did he say to ye?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cert'nly, cert'nly," responded David.
+"I'll tell ye near 's I c'n remember, an' I c'n
+remember putty near. As I told ye. I felt a
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a></span>
+
+twitch at my hair, an' he said, 'What be you
+thinkin' about, sonny?' I looked up at him,
+an' looked away quick. 'I dunno,' I says,
+diggin' my big toe into the dust; an' then, I
+dunno how I got the spunk to, for I was shyer
+'n a rat, 'Guess I was thinkin' 'bout mendin'
+that fence up in the ten-acre lot 's much 's
+anythin',' I says.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ain't you goin' to the cirkis?' he says.</p>
+
+<p>"'I hain't got no money to go to cirkises,'
+I says, rubbin' the dusty toes o' one foot over
+t' other, 'nor nothin' else,' I says.</p>
+
+<p>"'Wa'al,' he says, 'why don't you crawl
+under the canvas?'</p>
+
+<p>"That kind o' riled me, shy 's I was. 'I
+don't crawl under no canvases,' I says. 'If I
+can't go in same 's other folks, I'll stay out,' I
+says, lookin' square at him fer the fust time.
+He wa'n't exac'ly smilin', but the' was a look
+in his eyes that was the next thing to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Lordy me!" sighed Mrs. Cullom, as if to
+herself. "How well I can remember that
+look; jest as if he was laughin' at ye, an'
+wa'n't laughin' at ye, an' his arm around your
+neck!"</p>
+
+<p>David nodded in reminiscent sympathy,
+and rubbed his bald poll with the back of his
+hand.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," interjected the widow.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said David, resuming, "he says
+to me, 'Would you like to go to the cirkis?'
+an' with that it occurred to me that I did want
+to go to that cirkis more'n anythin' I ever
+wanted to before&mdash;nor since, it seems to me.
+But I tell ye the truth, I was so far f'm expectin'
+to go 't I really hadn't knowed I wanted
+to. I looked at him, an' then down agin, an'
+began tenderin' up a stun-bruise on one heel
+agin the other instep, an' all I says was, bein'
+so dum'd shy, 'I dunno,' I says. But I guess
+he seen in my face what my feelin's was, fer
+he kind o' laughed an' pulled out half-a-dollar
+an' says: 'D' you think you could git a couple
+o' tickits in that crowd? If you kin, I
+think I'll go myself, but I don't want to git
+my boots all dust,' he says. I allowed I c'd
+try; an' I guess them bare feet o' mine tore up
+the dust some gettin' over to the wagin.
+Wa'al, I had another scare gettin' the tickits,
+fer fear some one that knowed me 'd see me
+with a half-a-dollar, an' think I must 'a' stole the
+money. But I got 'em an' carried 'em back to
+him, an' he took 'em an' put 'em in his vest
+pocket, an' handed me a ten-cent piece, an'
+says, 'Mebbe you'll want somethin' in the
+way of refreshments fer yourself an' mebbe
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a></span>
+
+the el'phant,' he says, an' walked off toward
+the tent; an' I stood stun still, lookin' after
+him. He got off about a rod or so an'
+stopped an' looked back. 'Ain't you comin'?'
+he says.</p>
+
+<p>"'Be I goin' with <i>you</i>?' I says.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why not?' he says, ''nless you'd ruther
+go alone,' an' he put his finger an' thumb
+into his vest pocket. Wa'al, ma'am, I looked
+at him a minute, with his shiny hat an' boots,
+an' fine clo'es, an' gold pin, an' thought of my
+ragged ole shirt, an' cotton pants, an' ole chip
+hat with the brim most gone, an' my tin pail
+an' all. 'I ain't fit to,' I says, ready to cry&mdash;an'&mdash;wa'al,
+he jes' laughed, an' says, 'Nonsense,'
+he says, 'come along. A man needn't
+be ashamed of his workin' clo'es,' he says, an'
+I'm dum'd if he didn't take holt of my hand,
+an' in we went that way together."</p>
+
+<p>"How like him that was!" said the widow
+softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am, I reckon it
+was," said David, nodding.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," he went on after a little pause,
+"I was ready to sink into the ground with
+shyniss at fust, but that wore off some after a
+little, an' we two seen the hull show, I <i>tell</i> ye.
+We walked 'round the cages, an' we fed the
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a></span>
+
+el'phant&mdash;that is, he bought the stuff an' I
+fed him. I 'member&mdash;he, he, he!&mdash;'t he says,
+'mind you git the right end,' he says, an'
+then we got a couple o' seats, an' the doin's
+begun."
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p>The widow was looking at David with
+shining eyes and devouring his words. All
+the years of trouble and sorrow and privation
+were wiped out, and she was back in the days
+of her girlhood. Ah, yes! how well she remembered
+him as he looked that very day&mdash;so
+handsome, so splendidly dressed, so debonair;
+and how proud she had been to sit by his side
+that night, observed and envied of all the village
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't goin' to go over the hull show,"
+proceeded David, "well 's I remember it.
+The' didn't nothin' git away from me that
+afternoon, an' once I come near to stickin' a
+piece o' gingerbread into my ear 'stid o' my
+mouth. I had my ten-cent piece that Billy P.
+give me, but he wouldn't let me buy nothin';
+an' when the gingerbread man come along he
+says, 'Air ye hungry, Dave? (I'd told him my
+name), air ye hungry?' Wa'al, I was a growin'
+boy, an' I was hungry putty much all the
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a></span>
+
+time. He bought two big squares an' gin me
+one, an' when I'd swallered it, he says, 'Guess
+you better tackle this one too,' he says, 'I've
+dined.' I didn't exac'ly know what 'dined'
+meant, but&mdash;he, he, he, he!&mdash;I tackled it,"
+and David smacked his lips in memory.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," he went on, "we done the hull
+programmy&mdash;gingerbread, lemonade&mdash;<i>pink</i>
+lemonade, an' he took some o' that&mdash;pop corn,
+peanuts, pep'mint candy, cin'mun candy&mdash;scat
+my&mdash;&mdash;! an' he payin' fer ev'rythin'&mdash;I
+thought he was jes' made o' money! An' I
+remember how we talked about all the doin's;
+the ridin', an' jumpin', an' summersettin', an'
+all&mdash;fer he'd got all the shyniss out of me for
+the time&mdash;an' once I looked up at him, an' he
+looked down at me with that curious look in
+his eyes an' put his hand on my shoulder.
+Wa'al, now, I tell ye, I had a queer, crinkly
+feelin' go up an' down my back, an' I like to
+up an' cried."</p>
+
+<p>"Dave," said the widow, "I kin see you
+two as if you was settin' there front of me.
+He was alwus like that. Oh, my! Oh, my!
+David," she added solemnly, while two tears
+rolled slowly down her wrinkled face, "we
+lived together, husban' an' wife, fer seven
+year, an' he never give me a cross word."
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it a mossel," said David
+simply, leaning over and poking the fire,
+which operation kept his face out of her sight
+and was prolonged rather unduly. Finally he
+straightened up and, blowing his nose as it
+were a trumpet, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, the cirkis fin'ly come to an end,
+an' the crowd hustled to git out 's if they was
+afraid the tent 'd come down on 'em. I got
+kind o' mixed up in 'em, an' somebody tried
+to git my tin pail, or I thought he did, an' the
+upshot was that I lost sight o' Billy P., an'
+couldn't make out to ketch a glimpse of him
+nowhere. An' <i>then</i> I kind o' come down to
+earth, kerchug! It was five o'clock, an' I had
+better 'n four mile to walk&mdash;mostly up hill&mdash;an'
+if I knowed anything 'bout the old man,
+an' I thought I <i>did</i>, I had the all-firedist lickin'
+ahead of me 't I'd ever got, an' that was sayin'
+a good deal. But, boy 's I was, I had grit
+enough to allow 't was wuth it, an' off I
+put."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he lick ye much?" inquired Mrs.
+Cullom anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," replied David, "he done his
+best. He was layin' fer me when I struck the
+front gate&mdash;I knowed it wa'n't no use to try
+the back door, an' he took me by the ear&mdash;most
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a></span>
+
+pulled it off&mdash;an' marched me off to the
+barn shed without a word. I never see him
+so mad. Seemed like he couldn't speak fer a
+while, but fin'ly he says, 'Where you ben all
+day?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Down t' the village,' I says.</p>
+
+<p>"'What you ben up to down there?' he
+says.</p>
+
+<p>"'Went to the cirkis,' I says, thinkin' I
+might 's well make a clean breast on't.</p>
+
+<p>"'Where 'd you git the money?' he
+says.</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. Cullom took me,' I says.</p>
+
+<p>"'You lie,' he says. 'You stole the money
+somewheres, an' I'll trounce it out of ye, if I
+kill ye,' he says.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said David, twisting his shoulders
+in recollection, "I won't harrer up your
+feelin's. 'S I told you, he done his best. I
+was willin' to quit long 'fore he was. Fact
+was, he overdone it a little, an' he had to
+throw water in my face 'fore he got through;
+an' he done that as thorough as the other
+thing. I was somethin' like a chickin jest out
+o' the cistern. I crawled off to bed the best I
+could, but I didn't lay on my back fer a good
+spell, I c'n tell ye."</p>
+
+<p>"You poor little critter," exclaimed Mrs.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a></span>
+
+Cullom sympathetically. "You poor little
+critter!"</p>
+
+<p>"'T was more'n wuth it, Mis' Cullom,"
+said David emphatically. "I'd had the most
+enjoy'ble day, I might say the only enjoy'ble
+day, 't I'd ever had in my hull life, an' I hain't
+never fergot it. I got over the lickin' in
+course of time, but I've ben enjoyin' that cirkis
+fer forty year. The' wa'n't but one thing
+to hender, an' that's this, that I hain't never
+ben able to remember&mdash;an' to this day I lay
+awake nights tryin' to&mdash;that I said 'Thank
+ye' to Billy P., an' I never seen him after that
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"How's that?" asked Mrs. Cullom.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," was the reply, "that day was
+the turnin' point with me. The next night I
+lit out with what duds I c'd git together, an'
+as much grub 's I could pack in that tin pail;
+an' the next time I see the old house on Buxton
+Hill the' hadn't ben no Harums in it fer
+years."</p>
+
+<p>Here David rose from his chair, yawned
+and stretched himself, and stood with his back
+to the fire. The widow looked up anxiously
+into his face. "Is that all?" she asked after
+a while.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, it is an' it ain't. I've got through
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a></span>
+
+yarnin' about Dave Harum at any rate, an'
+mebbe we'd better have a little confab on your
+matters, seem' 't I've got you 'way up here
+such a mornin' 's this. I gen'ally do bus'nis
+fust an' talkin' afterward," he added, "but I
+kind o' got to goin' an' kept on this time."</p>
+
+<p>He put his hand into the breast pocket of
+his coat and took out three papers, which he
+shuffled in review as if to verify their identity,
+and then held them in one hand, tapping them
+softly upon the palm of the other, as if at a
+loss how to begin. The widow sat with her
+eyes fastened upon the papers, trembling with
+nervous apprehension. Presently he broke the
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"About this here morgige o' your'n," he
+said. "I sent ye word that I wanted to close
+the matter up, an' seem' 't you're here an'
+come fer that purpose, I guess we'd better
+make a job on't. The' ain't no time like the
+present, as the sayin' is."</p>
+
+<p>"I s'pose it'll hev to be as you say," said
+the widow in a shaking voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Mis' Cullom," said David solemnly, "<i>you</i>
+know, an' I know, that I've got the repitation
+of bein' a hard, graspin', schemin' man.
+Mebbe I be. Mebbe I've ben hard done by all
+my hull life, an' have had to be; an' mebbe,
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a></span>
+
+now 't I've got ahead some, it's got to be second
+nature, an' I can't seem to help it. 'Bus'nis
+is bus'nis' ain't part of the golden rule, I
+allow, but the way it gen'ally runs, fur 's I've
+found out, is, 'Do unto the other feller the
+way he'd like to do unto you, an' do it fust.'
+But, if you want to keep this thing a-runnin'
+as it's goin' on now fer a spell longer, say one
+year, or two, or even three, you may, only I've
+got somethin' to say to ye 'fore ye elect."</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said the poor woman, "I expect
+it 'd only be pilin' up wrath agin the day o'
+wrath. I can't pay the int'rist now without
+starvin', an' I hain't got no one to bid in the
+prop'ty fer me if it was to be sold."</p>
+
+<p>"Mis' Cullom," said David, "I said I'd
+got somethin' more to tell ye, an' if, when I
+git through, you don't think I've treated you
+right, includin' this mornin's confab, I hope
+you'll fergive me. It's this, an' I'm the only
+person livin' that 's knowin' to it, an' in fact I
+may say that I'm the only person that ever
+was really knowin' to it. It was before you
+was married, an' I'm sure he never told ye,
+fer I don't doubt he fergot all about it, but
+your husband, Billy P. Cullom, that was, made
+a small investment once on a time, yes, ma'am,
+he did, an' in his kind of careless way it jes'
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a></span>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a></span>
+
+slipped his mind. The amount of cap'tal he
+put in wa'n't large, but the rate of int'rist was
+uncommon high. Now, he never drawed no
+dividends on't, an' they've ben 'cumulatin'
+fer forty year, more or less, at compound
+int'rist."</p>
+
+<p class='center_pix pix_title'><img src="images/065.jpg" width="600" height="306" alt="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act III</span></p>
+
+<p>The widow started forward, as if to rise
+from her seat. David put his hand out gently
+and said, "Jest a minute, Mis' Cullom, jest a
+minute, till I git through. Part o' that cap'tal,"
+he resumed, "consistin' of a quarter an'
+some odd cents, was invested in the cirkis
+bus'nis, an' the rest on't&mdash;the cap'tal, an' all
+the cash cap'tal that I started in bus'nis with&mdash;was
+the ten cents your husband give me
+that day, an' here," said David, striking the
+papers in his left hand with the back of his
+right, "<i>here</i> is the <i>dividends</i>! This here second
+morgige, not bein' on record, may jest
+as well go onto the fire&mdash;it's gettin' low&mdash;an'
+here's a satisfaction piece which I'm goin' to
+execute now, that'll clear the thousan' dollar
+one. Come in here, John," he called out.</p>
+
+<p>The widow stared at David for a moment
+speechless, but as the significance of his words
+dawned upon her, the blood flushed darkly in
+her face. She sprang to her feet and, throwing
+up her arms, cried out: "My Lord! My
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a></span>
+
+Lord! Dave! Dave Harum! Is it true?&mdash;tell
+me it's true! You ain't foolin' me, air ye,
+Dave? You wouldn't fool a poor old woman
+that never done ye no harm, nor said a mean
+word agin ye, would ye? Is it true? an' is
+my place clear? an' I don't owe nobody anythin'&mdash;I
+mean, no money? Tell it agin. Oh,
+tell it agin! Oh, Dave! it's too good to be
+true! Oh! Oh! Oh, <i>my</i>! an' here I be cryin'
+like a great baby, an', an'"&mdash;fumbling in
+her pocket&mdash;"I do believe I hain't got no
+hank'chif.&mdash;Oh, thank ye," to John; "I'll do it
+up an' send it back to-morrer.&mdash;Oh, what
+made ye do it, Dave?"</p>
+
+<p>"Set right down an' take it easy, Mis'
+Cullom," said David soothingly, putting his
+hands on her shoulders and gently pushing
+her back into her chair. "Set right down an'
+take it easy.&mdash;Yes," to John, "I acknowledge
+that I signed that."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to the widow, who sat wiping
+her eyes with John's handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am," he said, "it's as true as
+anythin' kin be. I wouldn't no more fool ye,
+ye know I wouldn't, don't ye? than I'd&mdash;jerk
+a hoss," he asseverated. "Your place is clear
+now, an' by this time to-morro' the' won't
+be the scratch of a pen agin it. I'll send the
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a></span>
+
+satisfaction over fer record fust thing in the
+mornin'."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Dave," protested the widow, "I
+s'pose ye know what you're doin'&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he interposed, "I cal'late I do,
+putty near. You ast me why I done it, an' I'll
+tell ye if ye want to know. I'm payin' off an
+old score, an' gettin' off cheap, too. That's
+what I'm doin'! I thought I'd hinted up to it
+putty plain, seem' 't I've talked till my jaws
+ache; but I'll sum it up to ye if ye like."</p>
+
+<p>He stood with his feet aggressively wide
+apart, one hand in his trousers pocket, and
+holding in the other the "morgige," which
+he waved from time to time in emphasis.</p>
+
+<p class='center_pix pix_title'><img src="images/069.jpg" width="600" height="304" alt="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act III</span></p>
+
+<p>"You c'n estimate, I reckon," he began,
+"what kind of a bringin'-up I had, an' what
+a poor, mis'able, God-fersaken, scairt-to-death
+little forlorn critter I was; put upon, an'
+snubbed, an' jawed at till I'd come to believe
+myself&mdash;what was rubbed into me the hull
+time&mdash;that I was the most all-'round no-account
+animul that was ever made out o'
+dust, an' wa'n't ever likely to be no diff'rent.
+Lookin' back, it seems to me that&mdash;exceptin'
+of Polly&mdash;I never had a kind word said to me,
+nor a day's fun. Your husband, Billy P. Cullom,
+was the fust man that ever treated me
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a></span>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a></span>
+
+human up to that time. He give me the only
+enjoy'ble time 't I'd ever had, an' I don't know
+'t anythin' 's ever equaled it since. He spent
+money on me, an' he give me money to spend&mdash;that
+had never had a cent to call my own&mdash;<i>an'</i>,
+Mis' Cullom, he took me by the hand, an'
+he talked to me, an' he gin me the fust notion
+'t I'd ever had that mebbe I wa'n't only the
+scum o' the earth, as I'd ben teached to believe.
+I told ye that that day was the turnin'
+point of my life. Wa'al, it wa'n't the lickin' I
+got, though that had somethin' to do with it,
+but I'd never have had the spunk to run away
+'s I did if it hadn't ben for the heartenin' Billy
+P. gin me, an' never knowed it, an' never
+knowed it," he repeated mournfully. "I
+alwus allowed to pay some o' that debt back
+to him, but seein' 's I can't do that, Mis' Cullom,
+I'm glad an' thankful to pay it to his
+widdo'."</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe he knows, Dave," said Mrs. Cullom
+softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe he does," assented David in a low
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>Neither spoke for a time, and then the
+widow said: "David, I can't thank ye 's I
+ought ter&mdash;I don't know how&mdash;but I'll pray
+fer ye night an' mornin' 's long 's I got breath.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a></span>
+
+An', Dave," she added humbly, "I want to
+take back what I said about the Lord's providin'."</p>
+
+<p>She sat a moment, lost in her thoughts,
+and then exclaimed, "Oh, it don't seem 's if I
+c'd wait to write to Charley!"</p>
+
+<p>"I've wrote to Charley," said David, "an'
+told him to sell out there an' come home, an'
+to draw on me fer any balance he needed to
+move him. I've got somethin' in my eye
+that'll be easier an' better payin' than fightin'
+grasshoppers an' drought in Kansas."</p>
+
+<p>"Dave Harum!" cried the widow, rising
+to her feet, "you ought to 'a' ben a king!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said David with a grin, "I don't
+know much about the kingin' bus'nis, but I
+guess a cloth cap 'n' a hoss whip 's more 'n
+my line than a crown an' scepter. An' now,"
+he added, "'s we've got through 'th our bus'nis,
+s'pose you step over to the house an'
+see Polly. She's expectin' ye to dinner. Oh,
+yes," replying to the look of deprecation in
+her face as she viewed her shabby frock, "you
+an' Polly c'n prink up some if you want to,
+but we can't take 'No' fer an answer Chris'must
+day, clo'es or no clo'es."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd really like ter," said Mrs. Cullom.</p>
+
+<p>"All right then," said David cheerfully.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a></span>
+
+"The path is swep' by this time, I guess, an'
+I'll see ye later. Oh, by the way," he exclaimed,
+"the's somethin' I fergot. I want
+to make you a proposition, ruther an onusual
+one, but seem' ev'rythin' is as 't is, perhaps
+you'll consider it."</p>
+
+<p>"Dave," declared the widow, "if I could,
+an' you ast for it, I'd give ye anythin' on the
+face o' this mortal globe!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said David, nodding and smiling,
+"I thought that mebbe, long 's you got
+the int'rist of that investment we ben talkin'
+about, you'd let me keep what's left of the
+princ'pal. Would ye like to see it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Cullom looked at him with a puzzled
+expression without replying.</p>
+
+<p>David took from his pocket a large wallet,
+secured by a strap, and, opening it, extracted
+something enveloped in a much faded brown
+paper. Unfolding this, he displayed upon his
+broad fat palm an old silver dime black with
+age.</p>
+
+<p>"There's the cap'tal," he said.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='center'><img src="images/073.jpg" width="354" height="550" alt="" />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p>"Why, Mis' Cullom, I'm real glad to see
+ye. Come right in," said Mrs. Bixbee as
+she drew the widow into the "wing settin'
+room," and proceeded to relieve her of her
+wraps and her bundle. "Set right here
+by the fire while I take these things of
+your'n into the kitchen to dry 'em out. I'll
+be right back"; and she bustled out of the
+room. When she came back Mrs. Cullom
+was sitting with her hands in her lap, and
+there was in her eyes an expression of smiling
+peace that was good to see.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bixbee drew up a chair, and seating
+herself, said: "Wa'al, I don't know when
+I've seen ye to git a chance to speak to ye, an'
+I was real pleased when David said you was
+goin' to be here to dinner. An' my! how
+well you're lookin'&mdash;more like Cynthy Sweetland
+than I've seen ye fer I don't know when;
+an' yet," she added, looking curiously at her
+guest, "you 'pear somehow as if you'd ben
+cryin'."
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You're real kind, I'm sure," responded
+Mrs. Cullom, replying to the other's welcome
+and remarks <i>seriatim</i>; "I guess, though,
+I don't look much like Cynthy Sweetland, if
+I do feel twenty years younger 'n I did a while
+ago; an' I have ben cryin', I allow, but not fer
+sorro', Polly Harum," she exclaimed, giving
+the other her maiden name. "Your brother
+Dave comes putty nigh to bein' an angel!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," replied Mrs. Bixbee with a
+twinkle, "I reckon Dave might hev to be
+fixed up some afore he come out in that pertic'ler
+shape, but," she added impressively,
+"es fur as bein' a <i>man</i> goes, he's 'bout 's
+good 's they make 'em. I know folks thinks
+he's a hard bargainer, an' close-fisted, an'
+some on 'em that ain't fit to lick up his tracks
+says more'n that. He's got his own ways,
+I'll allow, but down at bottom, an' all through,
+I know the' ain't no better man livin'. No,
+ma'am, the' ain't, an' what he's ben to me,
+Cynthy Cullom, nobody knows but me&mdash;an'&mdash;an'&mdash;mebbe
+the Lord&mdash;though I hev seen
+the time," she said tentatively, "when it
+seemed to me 't I knowed more about my
+affairs 'n He did," and she looked doubtfully
+at her companion, who had been following
+her with affirmative and sympathetic nods,
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a></span>
+
+and now drew her chair a little closer, and
+said softly: "Yes, yes, I know. I ben putty
+doubtful an' rebellious myself a good many
+times, but seems now as if He had had me in
+His mercy all the time." Here Aunt Polly's
+sense of humor asserted itself. "What's Dave
+ben up to now?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>And then the widow told her story, with
+tears and smiles, and the keen enjoyment
+which we all have in talking about ourselves
+to a sympathetic listener like Aunt Polly,
+whose interjections pointed and illuminated
+the narrative. When it was finished she
+leaned forward and kissed Mrs. Cullom on the
+cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell ye how glad I be for ye," she
+said; "but if I'd known that David held that
+morgige, I could hev told ye ye needn't hev
+worried yourself a mite. He wouldn't never
+have taken your prop'ty, more'n he'd rob a
+hen-roost. But he done the thing his own
+way&mdash;kind o' fetched it round fer a Merry
+Chris'mus, didn't he?"
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<p>David's house stood about a hundred feet
+back from the street, facing the east. The
+main body of the house was of two stories
+(through which ran a deep bay in front), with
+mansard roof. On the south were two stories
+of the "wing," in which were the "settin'
+room," Aunt Polly's room, and, above, David's
+quarters. Ten minutes or so before one
+o'clock John rang the bell at the front door.</p>
+
+<p>"Sairy's busy," said Mrs. Bixbee apologetically
+as she let him in, "an' so I come to
+the door myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very much," said John.
+"Mr. Harum told me to come over a little
+before one, but perhaps I ought to have
+waited a few minutes longer."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's all right," she replied, "for
+mebbe you'd like to wash an' fix up 'fore
+dinner, so I'll jes' show ye where to," and
+she led the way upstairs and into the "front
+parlor bedroom."
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There," she said, "make yourself comf'table,
+an' dinner 'll be ready in about ten
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment John mentally rubbed his
+eyes. Then he turned and caught both of
+Mrs. Bixbee's hands and looked at her,
+speechless. When he found words he said:
+"I don't know what to say, nor how to
+thank you properly. I don't believe you
+know how kind this is."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say nothin' about it," she protested,
+but with a look of great satisfaction.
+"I done it jes' t' relieve my mind, because
+ever sence you fus' come I ben worryin' over
+your bein' at that nasty tavern," and she
+made a motion to go.</p>
+
+<p>"You and your brother," said John earnestly,
+still holding her hands, "have made me
+a gladder and happier man this Christmas day
+than I have been for a very long time."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad on't," she said heartily, "an' I
+hope you'll be comf'table an' contented here.
+I must go now an' help Sairy dish up. Come
+down to the settin' room when you're ready,"
+and she gave his hands a little squeeze.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Po&mdash;&mdash;, I beg pardon, Mrs. Bixbee,"
+said John, moved by a sudden impulse,
+"do you think you could find it in your heart
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a></span>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a></span>
+
+to complete my happiness by giving me a
+kiss? It's Christmas, you know," he added
+smilingly.</p>
+
+<p class='center_pix' style="width: 296px"><img src="images/079.jpg" width="296" height="550" alt="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act III</span></p>
+
+<p>Aunt Polly colored to the roots of her
+hair. "Wa'al," she said, with a little laugh,
+"seein' 't I'm old enough to be your mother,
+I guess 't won't hurt me none," and as she
+went down the stairs she softly rubbed her
+lips with the side of her forefinger.</p>
+
+<p>John understood now why David had
+looked out of the bank window so often that
+morning. All his belongings were in Aunt
+Polly's best bedroom, having been moved
+over from the Eagle while he and David had
+been in the office. A delightful room it was,
+in immeasurable contrast to his squalid surroundings
+at that hostelry. The spacious
+bed, with its snowy counterpane and silk
+patchwork "comf'table" folded on the foot,
+the bright fire in the open stove, the big
+bureau and glass, the soft carpet, the table for
+writing and reading standing in the bay, his
+books on the broad mantel, and his dressing
+things laid out ready to his hand, not to mention
+an ample supply of <i>dry</i> towels on the
+rack.</p>
+
+<p>The poor fellow's life during the weeks
+which he had lived in Homeville had been
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a></span>
+
+utterly in contrast with any previous experience.
+Nevertheless he had tried to make the
+best of it, and to endure the monotony, the
+dullness, the entire lack of companionship and
+entertainment with what philosophy he could
+muster. The hours spent in the office were
+the best part of the day. He could manage to
+find occupation for all of them, though a village
+bank is not usually a scene of active
+bustle. Many of the people who did business
+there diverted him somewhat, and most
+of them seemed never too much in a hurry to
+stand around and talk the sort of thing that
+interested them. After John had got acquainted
+with his duties and the people he
+came in contact with, David gave less personal
+attention to the affairs of the bank; but
+he was in and out frequently during the day,
+and rarely failed to interest his cashier with
+his observations and remarks.</p>
+
+<p>But the long winter evenings had been
+very bad. After supper, a meal which revolted
+every sense, there had been as many
+hours to be got through with as he found
+wakeful, an empty stomach often adding to
+the number of them, and the only resource for
+passing the time had been reading, which had
+often been well-nigh impossible for sheer
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a></span>
+
+physical discomfort. As has been remarked,
+the winter climate of the middle portion of
+New York State is as bad as can be imagined.
+His light was a kerosene lamp of half-candle
+power, and his appliance for warmth consisted
+of a small wood stove, which (as David
+would have expressed it) "took two men an'
+a boy" to keep in action, and was either red
+hot or exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>As from the depths of a spacious lounging
+chair he surveyed his new surroundings, and
+contrasted them with those from which he
+had been rescued out of pure kindness, his
+heart was full, and it can hardly be imputed
+to him as a weakness that for a moment his
+eyes filled with tears of gratitude and happiness&mdash;no
+less.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, there were four happy people at
+David's table that Christmas day. Aunt Polly
+had "smartened up" Mrs. Cullom with collar
+and cuffs, and in various ways which the
+mind of man comprehendeth not in detail; and
+there had been some arranging of her hair as
+well, which altogether had so transformed
+and transfigured her that John thought that he
+should hardly have known her for the forlorn
+creature whom he had encountered in the
+morning. And as he looked at the still fine
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a></span>
+
+eyes, large and brown, and shining for the first
+time in many a year with a soft light of happiness,
+he felt that he could understand how
+it was that Billy P. had married the village
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bixbee was grand in black silk and
+lace collar fastened with a shell-cameo pin not
+quite as large as a saucer, and John caught the
+sparkle of a diamond on her plump left hand&mdash;David's
+Christmas gift&mdash;with regard to
+which she had spoken apologetically to Mrs.
+Cullom:</p>
+
+<p>"I told David that I was ever so much
+obliged to him, but I didn't want a dimun'
+more'n a cat wanted a flag, an' I thought it
+was jes' throwin' away money. But he would
+have it&mdash;said I c'd sell it an' keep out the poor-house
+some day, mebbe."</p>
+
+<p>David had not made much change in his
+usual raiment, but he was shaved to the blood,
+and his round red face shone with soap and
+satisfaction. As he tucked his napkin into his
+shirt collar, Sairy brought in the tureen of
+oyster soup, and he remarked, as he took his
+first spoonful of the stew, that he was "hungry
+'nough t' eat a graven imidge," a condition
+that John was able to sympathize with
+after his two days of fasting on crackers and
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a></span>
+
+such provisions as he could buy at Purse's.
+It was, on the whole, he reflected, the most
+enjoyable dinner that he ever ate. Never was
+such a turkey; and to see it give way under
+David's skillful knife&mdash;wings, drumsticks, second
+joints, side bones, breast&mdash;was an elevating
+and memorable experience. And such
+potatoes, mashed in cream; such boiled onions,
+turnips, Hubbard squash, succotash,
+stewed tomatoes, celery, cranberries, "currant
+jell!" Oh! and to "top off" with, a mince
+pie to die for and a pudding (new to John, but
+just you try it some time) of steamed Indian
+meal and fruit, with a sauce of cream sweetened
+with shaved maple sugar.</p>
+
+<p>"What'll you have?" said David to Mrs.
+Cullom, "dark meat? white meat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anything," she replied meekly, "I'm not
+partic'ler. Most any part of a turkey 'll taste
+good, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said David. "Don't care
+means a little o' both. I alwus know what to
+give Polly&mdash;piece o' the second jint an' the
+last-thing-over-the-fence. Nice 'n rich fer
+scraggly folks," he remarked. "How fer you,
+John?&mdash;little o' both, eh?" and he heaped the
+plate till our friend begged him to keep something
+for himself.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Little too much is jes' right," he asserted.</p>
+
+<p>When David had filled the plates and
+handed them along&mdash;Sairy was for bringing in
+and taking out; they did their own helping to
+vegetables and "passin'"&mdash;he hesitated a moment,
+and then got out of his chair and started
+in the direction of the kitchen door.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Bixbee
+in surprise. "Where you goin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Woodshed!" said David.</p>
+
+<p>"Woodshed!" she exclaimed, making as
+if to rise and follow.</p>
+
+<p>"You set still," said David. "Somethin'
+I fergot."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth?" she exclaimed, with an
+air of annoyance and bewilderment. "What
+do you want in the woodshed? Can't you
+set down an' let Sairy git it fer ye?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he asserted with a grin. "Sairy
+might sqush it. It must be putty meller by
+this time." And out he went.</p>
+
+<p>"Manners!" ejaculated Mrs. Bixbee.
+"You'll think (to John) we're reg'ler heathin'."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess not," said John, smiling and much
+amused.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Sairy appeared with four tumblers
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a></span>
+
+which she distributed, and was followed by
+David bearing a bottle. He seated himself and
+began a struggle to unwire the same with an
+ice-pick. Aunt Polly leaned forward with a
+look of perplexed curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"What you got there?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Vewve Clikot's universal an' suv'rin remedy,"
+said David, reading the label and bringing
+the corners of his eye and mouth almost
+together in a wink to John, "fer toothache,
+earache, burns, scalds, warts, dispepsy, fallin'
+o' the hair, windgall, ringbone, spavin, disapp'inted
+affections, an' pips in hens," and out
+came the cork with a "<i>wop</i>," at which both
+the ladies, even Mrs. Cullom, jumped and cried
+out.</p>
+
+<p>"David Harum," declared his sister with
+conviction, "I believe thet that's a bottle of
+champagne."</p>
+
+<p>"If it ain't," said David, pouring into his
+tumbler, "I ben swindled out o' four shillin',"
+and he passed the bottle to John, who held it
+up inquiringly, looking at Mrs. Bixbee.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank ye," she said with a little toss
+of the head, "I'm a son o' temp'rence. I don't
+believe," she remarked to Mrs. Cullom, "thet
+that bottle ever cost <i>less</i> 'n a dollar." At
+which remarks David apparently "swallered
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a></span>
+
+somethin' the wrong way," and for a moment
+or two was unable to proceed with his dinner.
+Aunt Polly looked at him suspiciously. It was
+her experience that, in her intercourse with
+her brother, he often laughed utterly without
+reason&mdash;so far as she could see.</p>
+
+<p>"I've always heard it was dreadful expensive,"
+remarked Mrs. Cullom.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me give you some," said John,
+reaching toward her with the bottle. Mrs.
+Cullom looked first at Mrs. Bixbee and then
+at David.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she said. "I never tasted
+any."</p>
+
+<p>"Take a little," said David, nodding approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Just a swallow," said the widow, whose
+curiosity had got the better of scruples. She
+took a swallow of the wine.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you like it," asked David.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said as she wiped her eyes,
+into which the gas had driven the tears, "I
+guess I could get along if I couldn't have it
+regular."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't taste good?" suggested David with
+a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she replied, "I never did care any
+great for cider, and this tastes to me about as
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a></span>
+
+if I was drinkin' cider an' snuffin' horseredish
+at one and the same time."</p>
+
+<p>"How's that, John?" said David, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it's an acquired taste," said
+John, returning the laugh and taking a mouthful
+of the wine with infinite relish. "I don't
+think I ever enjoyed a glass of wine so much,
+or," turning to Aunt Polly, "ever enjoyed a
+dinner so much," which statement completely
+mollified her feelings, which had been the least
+bit in the world "set edgeways."</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe your app'tite's got somethin' to
+do with it," said David, shoveling a knife-load
+of good things into his mouth. "Polly, this
+young man's ben livin' on crackers an' salt
+herrin' fer a week."</p>
+
+<p>"My land!" cried Mrs. Bixbee with an
+expression of horror. "Is that reelly so?
+'T ain't now, reelly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite so bad as that," John answered,
+smiling; "but Mrs. Elright has been ill for a
+couple of days and&mdash;well, I have been foraging
+around Purse's store a little."</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, of all the mean shames!" exclaimed
+Aunt Polly indignantly. "David
+Harum, you'd ought to be ridic'lous t' allow
+such a thing."</p>
+
+<p class='center_pix pix_title'><img src="images/089.jpg" width="600" height="304" alt="" /><br />
+<span class="left"><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;David Harum</span>, Act III</span></p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, I never!" said David, holding his
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a></span>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a></span>
+
+knife and fork straight up in either fist as they
+rested on the table, and staring at his sister.
+"I believe if the meetin'-house roof was to
+blow off you'd lay it on to me somehow. I
+hain't ben runnin' the Eagle tavern fer quite a
+consid'able while. You got the wrong pig by
+the ear as usual. Jes' you pitch into him,"
+pointing with his fork to John. "It's his
+funeral, if anybody's."</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said Aunt Polly, addressing John
+in a tone of injury, "I do think you might
+have let somebody know; I think you'd ortter
+'ve known&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mrs. Bixbee," he interrupted, "I
+did know how kind you are and would have
+been, and if matters had gone on so much
+longer I should have appealed to you, I should
+have indeed; but really," he added, smiling
+at her, "a dinner like this is worth fasting a
+week for."</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," she said, mollified again, "you
+won't git no more herrin' 'nless you ask for
+'em."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just what your brother said this
+morning," replied John, looking at David with
+a laugh.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<p>The meal proceeded in silence for a few
+minutes. Mrs. Cullom had said but little, but
+John noticed that her diction was more conventional
+than in her talk with David and
+himself in the morning, and that her manner
+at the table was distinctly refined, although she
+ate with apparent appetite, not to say hunger.
+Presently she said, with an air of making conversation,
+"I suppose you've always lived in
+the city, Mr. Lenox?"</p>
+
+<p>"It has always been my home," he replied,
+"but I have been away a good
+deal."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose folks in the city go to theaters
+a good deal," she remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"They have a great many opportunities,"
+said John, wondering what she was leading
+up to. But he was not to discover, for David
+broke in with a chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask Polly, Mis' Cullom," he said. "She
+c'n tell ye all about the theater, Polly kin."
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a></span>
+
+Mrs. Cullom looked from David to Mrs. Bixbee,
+whose face was suffused.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her," said David, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd shet up," she exclaimed.
+"I sha'n't do nothin' of the sort."</p>
+
+<p>"Ne' mind," said David cheerfully. "<i>I'll</i>
+tell ye, Mis' Cullom."</p>
+
+<p>"Dave Harum!" expostulated Mrs. Bixbee,
+but he proceeded without heed of her
+protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Polly an' I," he said, "went down to
+New York one spring some years ago. Her
+nerves was some wore out 'long of diff'rences
+with Sairy about clearin' up the woodshed,
+an' bread risin's, an' not bein' able to suit herself
+up to Purse's in the qual'ty of silk velvit
+she wanted fer a Sunday-go-to-meetin' gown,
+an' I thought a spell off 'd do her good.
+Wa'al, the day after we got there I says to
+her while we was havin' breakfust&mdash;it was
+picked-up el'phant on toast, near 's I c'n
+remember, wa'n't it, Polly?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's as near the truth as most o' the
+rest on't so fur," said Polly with a sniff.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, I says to her," he proceeded, untouched
+by her scorn, "'How'd you like to
+go t' the theater? You hain't never ben,' I
+says, 'an' now you're down here you may
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a></span>
+
+jes' as well see somethin' while you got a
+chanst,' I says. Up to that <i>time</i>," he remarked,
+as it were in passing, "she'd ben
+somewhat pre<i>juced</i> 'ginst theaters, an'&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," Mrs. Bixbee broke in, "I guess
+what we see that night was cal'lated&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You hold on," he interposed. "I'm
+tellin' this story. You had a chanst to an'
+wouldn't. Anyway," he resumed, "she
+allowed she'd try it once, an' we agreed we'd
+go somewheres that night. But somethin'
+happened to put it out o' my mind, an' I
+didn't think on't agin till I got back to the
+hotel fer supper. So I went to the feller at the
+news-stand an' says, 'Got any show-tickits
+fer to-night?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Theater?' he says.</p>
+
+<p>"'I reckon so,' I says.</p>
+
+<p>"'Wa'al,' he says, 'I hain't got nothin'
+now but two seats fer "Clyanthy."'</p>
+
+<p>"'Is it a good show?' I says&mdash;'moral, an'
+so on? I'm goin' to take my sister, an' she's
+a little pertic'ler about some things,' I says.
+He kind o' grinned, the feller did. 'I've took
+my wife twice, an' she's putty pertic'ler herself,'
+he says, laughin'."</p>
+
+<p>"She must 'a' ben," remarked Mrs. Bixbee
+with a sniff that spoke volumes of her opinion
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a></span>
+
+of "the feller's wife." David emitted a
+chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," he continued, "I took the tickits
+on the feller's recommend, an' the fact of his
+wife's bein' so pertic'ler, an' after supper we
+went. It was a mighty handsome place
+inside, gilded an' carved all over like the outside
+of a cirkis wagin, an' when we went in
+the orchestry was playin' an' the people was
+comin' in, an' after we'd set a few minutes I
+says to Polly, 'What do you think on't?' I
+says.</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't see anythin' very unbecomin' so
+fur, an' the people looks respectable enough,'
+she says.</p>
+
+<p>"'No jail birds in sight fur 's ye c'n see so
+fur, be they?' I says. He, he, he, he!"</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't make me out more of a
+gump 'n I was," protested Mrs. Bixbee.
+"An' you was jest as&mdash;&mdash;" David held up
+his finger at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you sp'ile the story by discountin'
+the sequil. Wa'al, putty soon the band struck
+up some kind of a dancin' tune, an' the curt'in
+went up, an' a girl come prancin' down to
+the footlights an' begun singin' an' dancin',
+an', scat my&mdash;&mdash;! to all human appearances
+you c'd 'a' covered ev'ry dum thing she had
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a></span>
+
+on with a postage stamp." John stole a
+glance at Mrs. Cullom. She was staring at
+the speaker with wide-open eyes of horror
+and amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I wouldn't go very <i>fur</i> into pertic'lers,"
+said Mrs. Bixbee in a warning tone.</p>
+
+<p>David bent his head down over his plate
+and shook from head to foot, and it was
+nearly a minute before he was able to go on.
+"Wa'al," he said, "I heard Polly give a kind
+of a gasp an' a snort, 's if some one 'd throwed
+water 'n her face. But she didn't say nothin',
+an', I swan! I didn't dast to look at her fer a
+spell; an' putty soon in come a hull crowd
+more girls that had left their clo'es in their
+trunks or somewhere, singin', an' dancin', an'
+weavin' 'round on the stage, an' after a few
+minutes I turned an' looked at Polly. He, he,
+he, he!"</p>
+
+<p>"David Harum," cried Mrs. Bixbee, "ef
+you're goin' to discribe any more o' them
+scand'lous goin's on I sh'll take my victuals
+into the kitchen. <i>I</i> didn't see no more of
+'em," she added to Mrs. Cullom and John,
+"after that fust trollop appeared."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe she did," said David, "fer
+when I turned she set there with her eyes
+shut tighter 'n a drum, an' her mouth shut
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a></span>
+
+too so's her nose an' chin most come
+together, an' her face was red enough so 't a
+streak o' red paint 'd 'a' made a white mark
+on it. 'Polly,' I says, 'I'm afraid you ain't
+gettin' the wuth o' your money.'</p>
+
+<p>"'David Harum,' she says, with her
+mouth shut all but a little place in the corner
+toward me, 'if you don't take me out
+o' this place, I'll go without ye,' she says.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't you think you c'd stan' it a little
+longer?' I says. 'Mebbe they've sent home
+fer their clo'es,' I says. He, he, he, he! But
+with that she jes' give a hump to start, an' I
+see she meant bus'nis. When Polly Bixbee,"
+said David impressively, "puts that foot
+o' her'n <i>down</i> somethin's got to sqush, an'
+don't you fergit it." Mrs. Bixbee made
+no acknowledgment of this tribute to
+her strength of character. John looked at
+David.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, with a solemn bend of
+the head, as if in answer to a question, "I
+squshed. I says to her, 'All right. Don't
+make no disturbance more'n you c'n help, an'
+jes' put your hank'chif up to your nose 's if
+you had the nosebleed,' an' we squeezed out
+of the seats, an' sneaked up the aisle, an' by
+the time we got out into the entry I guess my
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a></span>
+
+face was as red as Polly's. It couldn't 'a' ben
+no redder," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"You got a putty fair color as a gen'ral
+thing," remarked Mrs. Bixbee dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am; yes, ma'am, I expect that's
+so," he assented, "but I got an extra coat o'
+tan follerin' you out o' that theater. When
+we got out into the entry one o' them fellers
+that stands 'round steps up to me an' says,
+'Ain't your ma feelin' well?' he says. 'Her
+feelin's has ben a trifle rumpled up,' I says,
+'an' that gen'ally brings on the nosebleed,'
+an' then," said David, looking over Mrs. Bixbee's
+head, "the feller went an' leaned up
+agin the wall."</p>
+
+<p>"David Harum!" exclaimed Mrs. Bixbee,
+"that's a downright <i>lie</i>. You never spoke to
+a soul, an'&mdash;an'&mdash;ev'rybody knows 't I ain't
+more 'n four years older 'n you be."</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, you see, Polly," her brother replied
+in a smooth tone of measureless aggravation,
+"the feller wa'n't acquainted with us,
+an' he only went by appearances."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Polly appealed to John: "Ain't he
+enough to&mdash;to&mdash;I d' know what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't see how you live with
+him," said John, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Cullom's face wore a faint smile, as
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a></span>
+
+if she were conscious that something amusing
+was going on, but was not quite sure what.
+The widow took things seriously for the most
+part, poor soul.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon you haven't followed theater-goin'
+much after that," she said to her
+hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am," Mrs. Bixbee replied with
+emphasis, "you better believe I hain't. I
+hain't never thought of it sence without tinglin'
+all over. I believe," she asserted, "that
+David 'd 'a' stayed the thing out if it hadn't
+ben fer me; but as true 's you live, Cynthy
+Cullom, I was so 'shamed at the little 't I did
+see that when I come to go to bed I took my
+clo'es off in the dark."</p>
+
+<p>David threw back his head and roared
+with laughter. Mrs. Bixbee looked at him
+with unmixed scorn. "If I couldn't help
+makin' a&mdash;&mdash;" she began, "I'd&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lord! Polly," David broke in, "be
+sure 'n wrap up when you go out. If you
+sh'd ketch cold an' your sense o' the ridic'lous
+sh'd strike in you'd be a dead-'n'-goner sure."
+This was treated with the silent contempt
+which it deserved, and David fell upon his
+dinner with the remark that "he guessed
+he'd better make up fer lost time," though as
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a></span>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a></span>
+
+a matter of fact while he had done most of
+the talking he had by no means suspended
+another function of his mouth while so
+engaged.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><img src="images/099.jpg" width="362" height="550" alt="" /></p>
+
+<p>For a time nothing more was said which
+did not relate to the replenishment of plates,
+glasses, and cups. Finally David cleaned up
+his plate with his knife blade and a piece of
+bread, and pushed it away with a sigh of fullness,
+mentally echoed by John.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel 's if a child could play with
+me," he remarked. "What's comin' now,
+Polly?"</p>
+
+<p>"The's a mince pie, an' Injun puddin'
+with maple sugar an' cream, an' ice cream,"
+she replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on us!" he exclaimed. "I guess
+I'll have to go an' jump up an' down on the
+verandy. How do you feel, John? I s'pose
+you got so used to them things at the Eagle 't
+you won't have no stomech fer 'em, eh?
+Wa'al, fetch 'em along. May 's well die fer
+the ole sheep 's the lamb; but, Polly Bixbee,
+if you've got designs on my life, I may 's well
+tell ye right now 't I've left all my prop'ty
+to the Institution fer Disappinted Hoss
+Swappers."</p>
+
+<p>"That's putty near next o' kin, ain't it?"
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a></span>
+
+was the unexpected rejoinder of the injured
+Polly.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, scat my&mdash;&mdash;!" exclaimed David,
+hugely amused, "if Polly Bixbee hain't made
+a joke! You'll git yourself into the almanic,
+Polly, fust thing you know." Sairy brought
+in the pie and then the pudding.</p>
+
+<p>"John," said David, "if you've got a
+pencil an' a piece o' paper handy I'd like to
+have ye take down a few of my last words
+'fore we proceed to the pie an' puddin' bus'nis.
+Any more 'hossredish' in that bottle?"
+holding out his glass. "Hi, hi! that's enough.
+You take the rest on't," which John did,
+nothing loath.</p>
+
+<p>David ate his pie in silence, but before he
+made up his mind to attack the pudding,
+which was his favorite confection, he gave an
+audible chuckle, which elicited Mrs. Bixbee's
+notice.</p>
+
+<p>"What you gigglin' 'bout now?" she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>David laughed. "I was thinkin' of somethin'
+I heard up to Purse's last night," he
+said as he covered his pudding with the thick
+cream sauce. "Amri Shapless has ben gittin'
+married."</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, I declare!" she exclaimed.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a></span>
+
+"That ole shack! Who in creation could
+he git to take him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lize Annis is the lucky woman," replied
+David with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, if that don't beat all!" said Mrs.
+Bixbee, throwing up her hands, and even
+from Mrs. Cullom was drawn a "Well, I
+never!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fact," said David, "they was married
+yestidy forenoon. Squire Parker done the
+job. Dominie White wouldn't have nothin'
+to do with it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Squire Parker 'd ortter be 'shamed of
+himself," said Mrs. Bixbee indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think that trew love had
+ought to be allowed to take its course?"
+asked David with an air of sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>"I think the squire 'd ortter be 'shamed
+of himself," she reiterated. "S'pose them
+two old skinamulinks was to go an' have
+children?"</p>
+
+<p>"Polly, you make me blush," protested
+her brother. "Hain't you got no respect fer
+the holy institution of matrimuny?&mdash;and&mdash;at
+cet'ry?" he added, wiping his whole face
+with his napkin.</p>
+
+<p>"Much as you hev, I reckon," she retorted.
+"Of all the amazin' things in this
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a></span>
+
+world, the amazinist to me is the kind of
+people that gits married to each other in gen'ral;
+but this here performence beats ev'rything
+holler."</p>
+
+<p>"Amri give a very good reason for't," said
+David with an air of conviction, and then he
+broke into a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Ef you got anythin' to tell, tell it," said
+Mrs. Bixbee impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al," said David, taking the last of
+his pudding into his mouth, "if you insist
+on't, painful as 't is. I heard Dick Larrabee
+tellin' 'bout it. Amri told Dick day before
+yestiday that he was thinkin' of gettin' married,
+an' ast him to go along with him to Parson
+White's an' be a witniss, an' I reckon a
+kind of moral support. When it comes to
+moral supportin'," remarked David in passing,
+"Dick's as good 's a professional, an' he'd go
+an' see his gran'mother hung sooner 'n miss
+anythin', an' never let his cigar go out durin'
+the performence. Dick said he congratilated
+Am on his choice, an' said he reckoned they'd
+be putty ekally yoked together, if nothin' else."</p>
+
+<p>Here David leaned over toward Aunt Polly
+and said, protestingly, "Don't gi' me but jest
+a teasp'nful o' that ice cream. I'm so full now
+'t I can't hardly reach the table." He took a
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a></span>
+
+taste of the cream and resumed: "I can't give
+it jest as Dick did," he went on, "but this is
+about the gist on't. Him, an' Lize, an' Am
+went to Parson White's about half after seven
+o'clock an' was showed into the parler, an' in
+a minute he come in, an' after sayin' 'Good
+evenin'' all 'round, he says, 'Well, what c'n
+I do fer ye?' lookin' at Am an' Lize, an' then
+at Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"'Wa'al,' says Am, 'me an' Mis' Annis
+here has ben thinkin' fer some time as how
+we'd ought to git married.'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Ought</i> to git married?' says Parson
+White, scowlin' fust at one an' then at t'other.</p>
+
+<p>"'Wa'al,' says Am, givin' a kind o' shuffle
+with his feet, 'I didn't mean <i>ortter</i> exac'ly,
+but jest as <i>well</i>&mdash;kinder comp'ny,' he says.
+'We hain't neither on us got nobody, an' we
+thought we might 's well.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What have you got to git married on?'
+says the dominie after a minute. 'Anythin'?'
+he says.</p>
+
+<p>"'Wa'al,' says Am, droppin' his head
+sideways an' borin' into his ear 'ith his middle
+finger, 'I got the promise mebbe of a job
+o' work fer a couple o' days next week.'
+'H'm'm'm,' says the dominie, lookin' at him.
+'Have <i>you</i> got anythin' to git married on?'
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a></span>
+
+the dominie says, turnin' to Lize. 'I've got
+ninety cents comin' to me fer some work I
+done last week,' she says, wiltin' down on to
+the sofy an' beginnin' to snivvle. Dick says
+that at that the dominie turned round an'
+walked to the other end of the room, an'
+he c'd see he was dyin' to laugh, but he come
+back with a straight face.</p>
+
+<p>"'How old air you, Shapless?' he says
+to Am. 'I'll be fifty-eight or mebbe fifty-nine
+come next spring,' says Am.</p>
+
+<p>"'How old air <i>you</i>?' the dominie says,
+turnin' to Lize. She wriggled a minute an'
+says, 'Wa'al, I reckon I'm all o' thirty,' she
+says."</p>
+
+<p>"All o' thirty!" exclaimed Aunt Polly.
+"The woman 's most 's old 's I be."</p>
+
+<p>David laughed and went on with, "Wa'al,
+Dick said at that the dominie give a kind of a
+choke, an' Dick he bust right out, an' Lize
+looked at him as if she c'd eat him. Dick
+said the dominie didn't say anythin' fer a
+minute or two, an' then he says to Am, 'I
+suppose you c'n find somebody that'll marry
+you, but I cert'inly won't, an' what possesses
+you to commit such a piece o' folly,' he says,
+'passes my understandin'. What earthly reason
+have you fer wantin' to marry? On your
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a></span>
+
+own showin',' he says, 'neither one on you 's
+got a cent o' money or any settled way o' gettin'
+any.'</p>
+
+<p class='center'><img src="images/106.jpg" width="365" height="550" alt="" /></p>
+
+<p>"'That's jes' the very reason,' says Am,
+'that's jes' the <i>very reason</i>. I hain't got
+nothin', an' Mis' Annis hain't got nothin', an'
+we figured that we'd jes' better git married an'
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a></span>
+
+settle down, an' make a good home fer us
+both,' an' if that ain't good reasonin'," David
+concluded, "I don't know what is."</p>
+
+<p>"An' be they actially married?" asked
+Mrs. Bixbee, still incredulous of anything so
+preposterous.</p>
+
+<p>"So Dick says," was the reply. "He says
+Am an' Lize come away f'm the dominie's
+putty down in the mouth, but 'fore long Amri
+braced up an' allowed that if he had half a
+dollar he'd try the squire in the mornin', an'
+Dick let him have it. I says to Dick, 'You're
+out fifty cents on that deal,' an' he says, slappin'
+his leg, 'I don't give a dum,' he says; 'I
+wouldn't 'a' missed it fer double the money.'"</p>
+
+<p>Here David folded his napkin and put it in
+the ring, and John finished the cup of clear
+coffee which Aunt Polly, rather under protest,
+had given him. Coffee without cream and
+sugar was incomprehensible to Mrs. Bixbee.<br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p class='center'>THE END</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Transcriber's Note:</p>
+
+<p>Inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation in the original book have been retained.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Story from David Harum, by 
+Edward Noyes Westcott
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,2492 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Story from David Harum, by 
+Edward Noyes Westcott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Christmas Story from David Harum
+
+Author: Edward Noyes Westcott
+
+Release Date: June 29, 2008 [EBook #25927]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS STORY FROM DAVID HARUM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Bruce Thomas and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WM. H. CRANE AS DAVID HARUM]
+
+
+
+
+                          _WM. H. CRANE EDITION_
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE
+
+                           CHRISTMAS STORY FROM
+
+                               DAVID HARUM
+
+                                    By
+
+                          Edward Noyes Westcott
+
+                  ILLUSTRATED FROM MR. CHARLES FROHMAN'S
+                        PRODUCTION OF DAVID HARUM.
+                    A COMEDY DRAMATIZED FROM THE NOVEL
+
+
+                                 NEW YORK
+
+                         D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+
+                                   1900
+
+                          Copyright, 1898, 1900,
+
+                       By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
+
+                         _All rights reserved._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+"Dave done the thing his own way," said Aunt Polly to the Widow Cullom.
+"Kind o' fetched it round fer a merry Chris'mus, didn't he?"
+
+This is the story which is reprinted here from Mr. Westcott's famous
+book. It was David Harum's nature to do things in his own way, and the
+quaintness of his methods in raising the Widow Cullom from the depths of
+despair to the heights of happiness frame a story which is read between
+laughter and tears, and always with a quickening of affection for the
+great-hearted benefactor. David Harum's absolute originality, his
+unexpectedness, the dryness of his humor, the shrewdness of his insight,
+and the kindliness and generosity beneath the surface, have made him a
+permanent figure in literature. Moreover, the individual quality of
+David Harum is so distinctively American that he has been recognized as
+the typical American, typical of an older generation, perhaps, in mere
+externals, but nevertheless an embodiment of characteristics essentially
+national. While only Mr. Westcott's complete book can fully illustrate
+the personality of David Harum, yet it is equally true that no other
+episode in the book presents the tenderness and quaintness, and the full
+quality of David Harum's character, with the richness and pathos of the
+story which tells how he paid the "int'rist" upon the "cap'tal" invested
+by Billy P. Fortunately this story lends itself readily to separate
+publication, and it forms an American "Christmas Carol" which stands by
+itself, an American counterpart of the familiar tale of Dickens, and
+imbued with a simplicity, humor, and unstudied pathos peculiarly its
+own.
+
+The difference between the written and the acted tale is illustrated in
+the use made of the Christmas story in the play. In the book David tells
+John Lenox the story of the Widow Cullom and her dealings with 'Zeke
+Swinney, and reveals the truth to her in his office, and the dinner
+which follows at his house is prolonged by his inimitable tales. In the
+play action takes the place of description. In the first act we see
+'Zeke Swinney obtaining blood-money from the widow, and the latter makes
+the acquaintance of Mary Blake, newly entered upon her career of
+independence as Cordelia Prendergast. In the second act we see the widow
+giving the second mortgage to David, and thereby strengthening Mary
+Blake's suspicions, and in the third act David pictures his dreary youth
+and Billy P.'s act of kindness, and brings the widow to her own, the
+climax coming with the toast which opens the dinner and closes the play.
+It was a delicate and difficult task for even so distinguished an actor
+as Mr. Crane to undertake a part already hedged about by conflicting
+theories; but his insight and his devotion to the character have
+succeeded in actually placing before us the David Harum created by Mr.
+Westcott.
+
+The illustrations of this book, reproduced from stage photographs by
+the courtesy of Mr. Charles Frohman, include the best pictures of Mr.
+Crane in character, and also stage views of scenes in the second and
+third acts, which show the development and culmination of the Widow
+Cullom episode. The Christmas Story is now published separately for the
+first time in this volume, which unites a permanent literary value with
+the peculiar interest of Mr. Crane's interpretations of the famous
+character.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After many discouragements, the author of David Harum lived long enough
+to know that his book had found appreciation and was to be published,
+but he died before it appeared.
+
+Edward Noyes Westcott, the son of Dr. Amos Westcott, a prominent
+physician of Syracuse, and at one time mayor of the city, was born
+September 27, 1846. Nearly all his life was passed in his native city of
+Syracuse. His active career began early at a bank clerk's desk, and he
+was afterward teller and cashier, then head of the firm of Westcott &
+Abbott, bankers and brokers, and in his later years he acted as the
+registrar and financial expert of the Syracuse Water Commission. His
+artistic temperament found expression only in music until the last years
+of his life. He wrote articles occasionally upon financial subjects, but
+it was not until the approach of his last illness that he began David
+Harum. No character in this book is taken directly from life. Stories
+which his father had told and his own keen observations and lively
+imagination furnished his material, but neither David Harum nor any
+other character is a copy of any individual. No trace of the author's
+illness appears in the book. "I've had the fun of writing it, anyway,"
+he wrote shortly before his death, "and no one will laugh over David
+more than I have. I never could tell what David was going to do next."
+This was the spirit of the brave and gentle author, who died March 31,
+1898, unconscious of the fame which was to follow him.
+
+R. H.
+
+NEW YORK, _August, 1900._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Wm. H. CRANE Edition]
+
+
+The Christmas Story from David Harum
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It was the 23d of December, and shortly after the closing hour. Peleg
+had departed and our friend had just locked the vault when David came
+into the office and around behind the counter.
+
+"Be you in any hurry?" he asked.
+
+John said he was not, whereupon Mr. Harum hitched himself up on to a
+high office stool, with his heels on the spindle, and leaned sideways
+upon the desk, while John stood facing him with his left arm upon the
+desk.
+
+"John," said David, "do ye know the Widdo' Cullom?"
+
+"No," said John, "but I know who she is--a tall, thin woman, who walks
+with a slight stoop and limp. I noticed her and asked her name because
+there was something about her looks that attracted my attention--as
+though at some time she might have seen better days."
+
+"That's the party," said David. "She has seen better days, but she's eat
+an' drunk sorro' mostly fer goin' on thirty year, an' darned little else
+a good share o' the time, I reckon."
+
+"She has that appearance certainly," said John.
+
+"Yes, sir," said David, "she's had a putty tough time, the widdo' has,
+an' yet," he proceeded after a momentary pause, "the' was a time when
+the Culloms was some o' the kingpins o' this hull region. They used to
+own quarter o' the county, an' they lived in the big house up on the
+hill where Doc Hays lives now. That was considered to be the finest
+place anywheres 'round here in them days. I used to think the Capitol to
+Washington must be somethin' like the Cullom house, an' that Billy P.
+(folks used to call him Billy P. 'cause his father's name was William
+an' his was William Parker), an' that Billy P. 'd jest 's like 's not be
+president. I've changed my mind some on the subject of presidents since
+I was a boy."
+
+Here Mr. Harum turned on his stool, put his right hand into his
+sack-coat pocket, extracted therefrom part of a paper of "Maple Dew,"
+and replenished his left cheek with an ample wad of "fine-cut." John
+took advantage of the break to head off what he had reason to fear might
+turn into a lengthy digression from the matter in hand by saying, "I beg
+pardon, but how does it happen that Mrs. Cullom is in such
+circumstances? Has the family all died out?"
+
+"Wa'al," said David, "they're most on 'em dead, all on 'em, in fact,
+except the widdo's son Charley, but as fur's the family's concerned, it
+more 'n _died_ out--it _gin_ out! 'D ye ever hear of Jim Wheton's calf?
+Wa'al, Jim brought three or four veals into town one spring to sell.
+Dick Larrabee used to peddle meat them days. Dick looked 'em over an'
+says, 'Look here, Jim,' he says, 'I guess you got a "deakin" in that
+lot,' he says. 'I dunno what you mean,' says Jim. 'Yes, ye do, goll darn
+ye!' says Dick, 'yes, ye do. You didn't never kill that calf, an' you
+know it. That calf died, that's what that calf done. Come, now, own up,'
+he says. 'Wa'al,' says Jim, 'I didn't _kill_ it, an' it didn't _die_
+nuther--it jes' kind o' _gin out_.'"
+
+John joined in the laugh with which the narrator rewarded his own
+effort, and David went on: "Yes, sir, they jes' petered out. Old Billy,
+Billy P.'s father, inher'tid all the prop'ty--never done a stroke of
+work in his life. He had a collige education, went to Europe, an' all
+that, an' before he was fifty year old he hardly ever come near the old
+place after he was growed up. The land was all farmed out on shares, an'
+his farmers mostly bamboozled him the hull time. He got consid'able
+income, of course, but as things went along and they found out how slack
+he was they kept bitin' off bigger chunks all the time, an' sometimes he
+didn't git even the core. But all the time when he wanted money--an' he
+wanted it putty often, I tell ye--the easiest way was to stick on a
+morgige; an' after a spell it got so 't he'd have to give a morgige to
+pay the int'rist on the other morgiges."
+
+"But," said John, "was there nothing to the estate but land?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Oh, yes," said David, "old Billy's father left him some consid'able
+pers'nal, but after that was gone he went into the morgige bus'nis as I
+tell ye. He lived mostly up to Syrchester and around, an' when he got
+married he bought a place in Syrchester and lived there till Billy P.
+was about twelve or thirteen year old, an' he was about fifty. By that
+time he'd got 'bout to the end of his rope, an' the' wa'n't nothin' for
+it but to come back here to Homeville an' make the most o' what the' was
+left--an' that's what he done, let alone that he didn't make the most
+on't to any pertic'ler extent. Mis' Cullom, his wife, wa'n't no help to
+him. She was a city woman an' didn't take to the country no way, but
+when she died it broke old Billy up wus 'n ever. She peaked an' pined,
+an' died when Billy P. was about fifteen or so. Wa'al, Billy P. an' the
+old man wrastled along somehow, an' the boy went to collige fer a year
+or so. How they ever got along 's they did I dunno. The' was a story
+that some far-off relation left old Billy some money, an' I guess that
+an' what they got off'm what farms was left carried 'em along till Billy
+P. was twenty-five or so, an' then he up an' got married. That was the
+crownin' stroke," remarked David. "She was one o' the village
+girls--respectable folks, more 'n ordinary good lookin' an' high
+steppin', an' had had some schoolin'. But the old man was prouder 'n a
+cock-turkey, an' thought nobody wa'n't quite good enough fer Billy P.,
+an' all along kind o' reckoned that he'd marry some money an' git a new
+start. But when he got married--on the quiet, you know, cause he knowed
+the old man would kick--wa'al, that killed the trick, an' the old man
+into the bargain. It took the gumption all out of him, an' he didn't
+live a year. Wa'al, sir, it was curious, but, 's I was told, putty much
+the hull village sided with the old man. The Culloms was kind o' kings
+in them days, an' folks wa'n't so one-man's-good's-anotherish as they be
+now. They thought Billy P. done wrong, though they didn't have nothin'
+to say 'gainst the girl neither--an' she's very much respected, Mis'
+Cullom is, an' as fur's I'm concerned, I've alwus guessed she kept Billy
+P. goin' full as long 's any one could. But 't wa'n't no use--that is to
+say, the sure thing come to pass. He had a nom'nal title to a good deal
+o' prop'ty, but the equity in most on't if it had ben to be put up
+wa'n't enough to pay fer the papers. You see, the' ain't never ben no
+real cash value in farm prop'ty in these parts. The' ain't ben hardly a
+dozen changes in farm titles, 'cept by inher'tance or foreclosure, in
+thirty years. So Billy P. didn't make no effort. Int'rist's one o' them
+things that keeps right on nights an' Sundays. He jest had the deeds
+made out an' handed 'em over when the time came to settle. The' was some
+village lots though that was clear, that fetched him in some money from
+time to time until they was all gone but one, an' that's the one Mis'
+Cullom lives on now. It was consid'able more'n a lot--in fact, a putty
+sizable place. She thought the sun rose an' set where Billy P. was, but
+she took a crotchit in her head, and wouldn't ever sign no papers fer
+that, an' lucky fer him too. The' was a house on to it, an' he had a
+roof over his head anyway when he died six or seven years after he
+married, an' left her with a boy to raise. How she got along all them
+years till Charley got big enough to help, I swan! I don't know. She
+took in sewin' an' washin', an' went out to cook an' nurse, an' all
+that, but I reckon the' was now an' then times when they didn't overload
+their stomechs much, nor have to open the winders to cool off. But she
+held on to that prop'ty of her'n like a pup to a root. It was putty well
+out when Billy P. died, but the village has growed up to it. The's some
+good lots could be cut out on't, an' it backs up to the river where the
+current's enough to make a mighty good power fer a 'lectric light. I
+know some fellers that are talkin' of startin' a plant here, an' it
+ain't out o' sight that they'd pay a good price fer the river front, an'
+enough land to build on. Fact on't is, it's got to be a putty valu'ble
+piece o' prop'ty, more 'n she cal'lates on, I reckon."
+
+Here Mr. Harum paused, pinching his chin with thumb and index finger,
+and mumbling his tobacco. John, who had listened with more attention
+than interest--wondering the while as to what the narrative was leading
+up to--thought something might properly be expected of him to show that
+he had followed it, and said, "So Mrs. Cullom has kept this last piece
+clear, has she?"
+
+"No," said David, bringing down his right hand upon the desk with
+emphasis, "that's jes' what she hain't done, an' that's how I come to
+tell ye somethin' of the story, an' more on't 'n you've cared about
+hearin', mebbe."
+
+"Not at all," John protested. "I have been very much interested."
+
+"You have, have you?" said Mr. Harum. "Wa'al, I got somethin' I want ye
+to do. Day after to-morro' 's Chris'mus, an' I want ye to drop Mis'
+Cullom a line, somethin' like this, 'That Mr. Harum told ye to say that
+that morgige he holds, havin' ben past due fer some time, an' no
+int'rist havin' ben paid fer, let me see, more'n a year, he wants to
+close the matter up, an' he'll see her Chris'mus mornin' at the bank at
+nine o'clock, he havin' more time on that day; but that, as fur as he
+can see, the bus'nis won't take very long'--somethin' like that, you
+understand?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Very well, sir," said John, hoping that his employer would not see in
+his face the disgust and repugnance he felt as he surmised what a scheme
+was on foot, and recalled what he had heard of Harum's hard and
+unscrupulous ways, though he had to admit that this, excepting perhaps
+the episode of the counterfeit money, was the first revelation to him
+personally. But this seemed very bad indeed.
+
+"All right," said David cheerfully, "I s'pose it won't take you long to
+find out what's in your stockin', an' if you hain't nothin' else to do
+Chris'mus mornin' I'd like to have you open the office an' stay 'round a
+spell till I git through with Mis' Cullom. Mebbe the' 'll be some papers
+to fill out or witniss or somethin'; an' have that skeezicks of a boy
+make up the fires so'st the place'll be warm."
+
+"Very good, sir," said John, hoping that the interview was at an end.
+
+But the elder man sat for some minutes apparently in a brown study, and
+occasionally a smile of sardonic cunning wrinkled his face. At last he
+said: "I've told ye so much that I may as well tell ye how I come by
+that morgidge. Twon't take but a minute, an' then you can run an' play,"
+he added with a chuckle.
+
+"I trust I have not betrayed any impatience," said John, and instantly
+conscious of his infelicitous expression, added hastily, "I have really
+been very much interested."
+
+"Oh, no," was the reply, "you hain't _betrayed_ none, but I know old
+fellers like me gen'rally tell a thing twice over while they're at it.
+Wa'al," he went on, "it was like this. After Charley Cullom got to be
+some grown he helped to keep the pot a-bilin', 'n they got on some
+better. 'Bout seven year ago, though, he up an' got married, an' then
+the fat ketched fire. Finally he allowed that if he had some money he'd
+go West 'n take up some land, 'n git along like pussly 'n a flower
+gard'n. He ambitioned that if his mother 'd raise a thousan' dollars on
+her place he'd be sure to take care of the int'rist, an' prob'ly pay off
+the princ'pal in almost no time. Wa'al, she done it, an' off he went.
+She didn't come to me fer the money, because--I dunno--at any rate she
+didn't, but got it of 'Zeke Swinney.
+
+"Wa'al, it turned out jest 's any fool might 've predilictid, fer after
+the first year, when I reckon he paid it out of the thousan', Charley
+never paid no int'rist. The second year he was jes' gettin' goin', an'
+the next year he lost a hoss jest 's he was cal'latin' to pay, an' the
+next year the grasshoppers smote him, 'n so on; an' the outcome was that
+at the end of five years, when the morgige had one year to run,
+Charley'd paid one year, an' she'd paid one, an' she stood to owe three
+years' int'rist. How old Swinney come to hold off so was that she used
+to pay the cuss ten dollars or so ev'ry six months 'n git no credit fer
+it, an' no receipt an' no witniss, 'n he knowed the prop'ty was
+improving all the time. He may have had another reason, but at any rate
+he let her run, an' got the shave reg'lar. But at the time I'm tellin'
+you about he'd begun to cut up, an' allowed that if she didn't settle up
+the int'rist he'd foreclose, an' I got wind on't an' I run across her
+one day an' got to talkin' with her, an' she gin me the hull narration.
+'How much do you owe the old critter?' I says. 'A hunderd an' eighty
+dollars,' she says, 'an' where I'm goin' to git it,' she says, 'the Lord
+only knows.' 'An' He won't tell ye, I reckon,' I says. Wa'al, of course
+I'd known that old Swinney had a morgidge because it was a matter of
+record, an' I knowed him well enough to give a guess what his game was
+goin' to be, an' more'n that I'd had my eye on that piece an' parcel an'
+I figured that he wa'n't any likelier a citizen 'n I was." ("Yes," said
+John to himself, "where the carcase is the vultures are gathered
+together.")
+
+"'Wa'al,' I says to her, after we'd had a little more talk, 's'posen
+you come 'round to my place to-morro' 'bout 'leven o'clock, an' mebbe we
+c'n cipher this thing out. I don't say positive that we kin,' I says,
+'but mebbe, mebbe.' So that afternoon I sent over to the county seat an'
+got a description an' had a second morgige drawed up fer two hundred
+dollars, an' Mis' Cullom signed it mighty quick. I had the morgige made
+one day after date, 'cause, as I said to her, it was in the nature of a
+temp'rary loan, but she was so tickled she'd have signed most anythin'
+at that pertic'ler time. 'Now,' I says to her, 'you go an' settle with
+old Step-an'-fetch-it, but don't you say a word where you got the
+money,' I says. 'Don't ye let on nothin'--stretch that conscience o'
+your'n if nes'sary,' I says, 'an' be pertic'ler if he asks you if Dave
+Harum give ye the money you jes' say, "No, he didn't." That won't be no
+lie,' I says, 'because I ain't _givin_' it to ye,' I says. Wa'al, she
+done as I told her. Of course Swinney suspicioned fust off that I was
+mixed up in it, but she stood him off so fair an' square that he didn't
+know jes' what _to_ think, but his claws was cut fer a spell, anyway.
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act II]
+
+"Wa'al, things went on fer a while, till I made up my mind that I
+ought to relieve Swinney of some of his anxieties about worldly bus'nis,
+an' I dropped in on him one mornin' an' passed the time o' day, an'
+after we'd eased up our minds on the subjects of each other's health an'
+such like I says, 'You hold a morgige on the Widder Cullom's place,
+don't ye?' Of course he couldn't say nothin' but 'yes.' 'Does she keep
+up the int'rist all right?' I says. 'I don't want to be pokin' my nose
+into your bus'nis,' I says, 'an' don't tell me nothin' you don't want
+to.' Wa'al, he knowed Dave Harum was Dave Harum, an' that he might 's
+well speak it out, an' he says, 'Wa'al, she didn't pay nothin' fer a
+good while, but last time she forked over the hull amount. But I hain't
+no notion,' he says, 'that she'll come to time agin.' 'An' s'posin' she
+don't,' I says, 'you'll take the prop'ty, won't ye?' 'Don't see no other
+way,' he says, an' lookin' up quick, 'unless you over-bid me,' he says.
+'No,' I says, 'I ain't buyin' no real estate jes' now, but the thing I
+come in fer,' I says, 'leavin' out the pleasure of havin' a talk with
+you, was to say that I'd take that morgige off'm your hands.'
+
+"Wa'al, sir, he, he, he, he! Scat my----! At that he looked at me fer a
+minute with his jaw on his neck, an' then he hunched himself, 'n drawed
+in his neck like a mud turtle. 'No,' he says, 'I ain't sufferin' fer the
+money, an' I guess I'll keep the morgige. It's putty near due now, but
+mebbe I'll let it run a spell. I guess the secur'ty's good fer it.'
+'Yes,' I says, 'I reckon you'll let it run long enough fer the widder to
+pay the taxes on't once more anyhow; I guess the secur'ty's good enough
+to take that resk; but how 'bout _my_ secur'ty?' I says. 'What d'you
+mean?' he says. 'I mean,' says I, 'that I've got a second morgige on
+that prop'ty, an' I begin to tremble fer my secur'ty. You've jes' told
+me,' I says, 'that you're goin' to foreclose an' I cal'late to protect
+myself, an' I _don't_ cal'late,' I says, 'to have to go an' bid on that
+prop'ty, an' put in a lot more money to save my investment, unless I'm
+'bleeged to--not _much!_ an' you can jes' sign that morgige over to me,
+an' the sooner the quicker,' I says."
+
+David brought his hand down on his thigh with a vigorous slap, the
+fellow of the one which, John could imagine, had emphasized his demand
+upon Swinney. The story, to which he had at first listened with polite
+patience merely, he had found more interesting as it went on, and,
+excusing himself, he brought up a stool, and mounting it, said, "And
+what did Swinney say to that?" Mr. Harum emitted a gurgling chuckle,
+yawned his quid out of his mouth, tossing it over his shoulder in the
+general direction of the waste basket, and bit off the end of a cigar
+which he found by slapping his waistcoat pockets. John got down and
+fetched him a match, which he scratched in the vicinity of his hip
+pocket, lighted his cigar (John declining to join him on some plausible
+pretext, having on a previous occasion accepted one of the brand), and
+after rolling it around with his lips and tongue to the effect that the
+lighted end described sundry eccentric curves, located it firmly with an
+upward angle in the left-hand corner of his mouth, gave it a couple of
+vigorous puffs, and replied to John's question.
+
+"Wa'al, 'Zeke Swinney was a perfesser of religion some years ago, an'
+mebbe he is now, but what he said to me on this pertic'ler occasion was
+that he'd see me in hell fust, 'an _then_ he wouldn't.
+
+"'Wa'al,' I says, 'mebbe you won't, mebbe you will, it's alwus a
+pleasure to meet ye,' I says, 'but in that case this morgige bus'nis 'll
+be a question fer our executors,' I says, 'fer _you_ don't never
+foreclose that morgige, an' don't you fergit it,' I says.
+
+"'Oh, you'd like to git holt o' that prop'ty yourself. I see what you're
+up to,' he says.
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act II]
+
+"'Look a-here, 'Zeke Swinney,' I says, 'I've got an int'rist in that
+prop'ty, an' I propose to p'tect it. You're goin' to sign that morgige
+over to me, or I'll foreclose an' surrygate ye,' I says, 'unless you
+allow to bid in the prop'ty, in which case we'll see whose weasel-skin's
+the longest. But I guess it won't come to that,' I says. 'You kin take
+your choice,' I says. 'Whether I want to git holt o' that prop'ty myself
+ain't neither here nor there. Mebbe I do, an' mebbe I don't, but
+anyways,' I says, '_you_ don't git it, nor wouldn't ever, for if I can't
+make you sign over, I'll either do what I said or I'll back the widder
+in a defence fer usury. Put that in your pipe an' smoke it,' I says.
+
+"'What do you mean?' he says, gittin' half out his chair.
+
+"'I mean this,' I says, 'that the fust six months the widder couldn't
+pay she gin you ten dollars to hold off, an' the next time she gin you
+fifteen, an' that you've bled her fer shaves to the tune of sixty odd
+dollars in three years, an' then got your int'rist in full.'
+
+"That riz him clean out of his chair," said David. "'She can't prove
+it,' he says, shakin' his fist in the air.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"'Oh, ho! ho!' I says, tippin' my chair back agin the wall. 'If Mis'
+Cullom was to swear how an' where she paid you the money, givin' chapter
+an' verse, and showin' her own mem'randums even, an' I was to swear that
+when I twitted you with gittin' it you didn't deny it, but only said
+that she couldn't _prove_ it, how long do you think it 'ould take a
+Freeland County jury to find agin ye? I allow, 'Zeke Swinney,' I says,
+'that you wa'n't born yestid'y, but you ain't so old as you look, not by
+a dum sight!' an' then how I did laugh!
+
+"Wa'al," said David, as he got down off the stool and stretched himself,
+yawning, "I guess I've yarned it enough fer one day. Don't fergit to
+send Mis' Cullom that notice, an' make it up an' up. I'm goin' to git
+the thing off my mind this trip."
+
+"Very well, sir," said John, "but let me ask, did Swinney assign the
+mortgage without any trouble?"
+
+"O Lord! yes," was the reply. "The' wa'n't nothin' else fer him to do.
+I had another twist on him that I hain't mentioned. But he put up a
+great show of doin' it to obleege me. Wa'al, I thanked him an' so on,
+an' when we'd got through I ast him if he wouldn't step over to the
+'Eagil' an' take somethin', an' he looked kind o' shocked an' said he
+never drinked nothin'. It was 'gin his princ'ples, he said. Ho, ho, ho,
+ho! Scat my----! Princ'ples!" and John heard him chuckling to himself
+all the way out of the office.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Considering John's relations with David Harum, it was natural that he
+should wish to think as well of him as possible, and he had not (or
+thought he had not) allowed his mind to be influenced by the disparaging
+remarks and insinuations which had been made to him, or in his presence,
+concerning his employer. He had made up his mind to form his opinion
+upon his own experience with the man, and so far it had not only been
+pleasant but favorable, and far from justifying the half-jeering,
+half-malicious talk that had come to his ears. It had been made manifest
+to him, it was true, that David was capable of a sharp bargain in
+certain lines, but it seemed to him that it was more for the pleasure of
+matching his wits against another's than for any gain involved. Mr.
+Harum was an experienced and expert horseman, who delighted above all
+things in dealing in and trading horses, and John soon discovered that,
+in that community at least, to get the best of a "hoss-trade" by almost
+any means was considered a venial sin, if a sin at all, and the
+standards of ordinary business probity were not expected to govern those
+transactions.
+
+David had said to him once when he suspected that John's ideas might
+have sustained something of a shock, "A hoss-trade ain't like anythin'
+else. A feller may be straighter 'n a string in ev'rythin' else, an'
+never tell the truth--that is, the hull truth--about a hoss. I trade
+hosses with hoss-traders. They all think they know as much as I do, an'
+I dunno but what they do. They hain't learnt no diff'rent anyway, an'
+they've had chances enough. If a feller come to me that didn't think he
+knowed anythin' about a hoss, an' wanted to buy on the square, he'd git,
+fur's I knew, square treatment. At any rate I'd tell him all 't I knew.
+But when one o' them smart Alecks comes along an' cal'lates to do up old
+Dave, why he's got to take his chances, that's all. An' mind ye,"
+asserted David, shaking his forefinger impressively, "it ain't only them
+fellers. I've ben wuss stuck two three time by church members in good
+standin' than anybody I ever dealed with. Take old Deakin Perkins. He's
+a terrible feller fer church bus'nes; c'n pray an' psalm-sing to beat
+the Jews, an' in spiritual matters c'n read his title clear the hull
+time, but when it comes to hoss-tradin' you got to git up very early in
+the mornin' or he'll skin the eye-teeth out of ye. Yes, sir! Scat
+my----! I believe the old critter _makes_ hosses! But the deakin," added
+David, "he, he, he, he! the deakin hain't hardly spoke to me fer some
+consid'able time, the deakin hain't. He, he, he!
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III]
+
+"Another thing," he went on, "the' ain't no gamble like a hoss. You may
+think you know him through an' through, an' fust thing you know he'll be
+cuttin' up a lot o' didos right out o' nothin'. It stands to reason that
+sometimes you let a hoss go all on the square--as you know him--an' the
+feller that gits him don't know how to hitch him or treat him, an' he
+acts like a diff'rent hoss, an' the feller allows you swindled him. You
+see, hosses gits used to places an' ways to a certain extent, an' when
+they're changed, why they're apt to act diff'rent. Hosses don't know but
+dreadful little, really. Talk about hoss sense--wa'al, the' ain't no
+such thing."
+
+Thus spoke David on the subject of his favorite pursuit and pastime,
+and John thought then that he could understand and condone some things
+he had seen and heard, at which at first he was inclined to look
+askance. But this matter of the Widow Cullom's was a different thing,
+and as he realized that he was expected to play a part, though a small
+one, in it, his heart sank within him that he had so far cast his
+fortunes upon the good will of a man who could plan and carry out so
+heartless and cruel an undertaking as that which had been revealed to
+him that afternoon. He spent the evening in his room trying to read, but
+the widow's affairs persistently thrust themselves upon his thoughts.
+All the unpleasant stories he had heard of David came to his mind, and
+he remembered with misgiving some things which at the time had seemed
+regular and right enough, but which took on a different color in the
+light in which he found himself recalling them. He debated with himself
+whether he should not decline to send Mrs. Cullom the notice as he had
+been instructed, and left it an open question when he went to bed.
+
+He wakened somewhat earlier than usual to find that the thermometer had
+gone up, and the barometer down. The air was full of a steady downpour,
+half snow, half rain, about the most disheartening combination which the
+worst climate in the world--that of central New York--can furnish. He
+passed rather a busy day in the office in an atmosphere redolent of the
+unsavory odors raised by the proximity of wet boots and garments to the
+big cylinder stove outside the counter, a compound of stale smells from
+kitchen and stable.
+
+After the bank closed he dispatched Peleg Hopkins, the office boy, with
+the note for Mrs. Cullom. He had abandoned his half-formed intention to
+revolt, but had made the note not only as little peremptory as was
+compatible with a clear intimation of its purport as he understood it,
+but had yielded to a natural impulse in beginning it with an expression
+of personal regret--a blunder which cost him no little chagrin in the
+outcome.
+
+Peleg Hopkins grumbled audibly when he was requested to build the
+fires on Christmas day, and expressed his opinion that "if there warn't
+Bible agin workin' on Chris'mus, the' 'd ort ter be"; but when John
+opened the door of the bank that morning he found the temperature in
+comfortable contrast to the outside air. The weather had changed again,
+and a blinding snowstorm, accompanied by a buffeting gale from the
+northwest, made it almost impossible to see a path and to keep it. In
+the central part of the town some tentative efforts had been made to
+open walks, but these were apparent only as slight and tortuous
+depressions in the depths of snow. In the outskirts the unfortunate
+pedestrian had to wade to the knees.
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III]
+
+As John went behind the counter his eye was at once caught by a small
+parcel lying on his desk, of white note paper, tied with a cotton
+string, which he found to be addressed, "Mr. John Lenox, Esq., Present,"
+and as he took it up it seemed heavy for its size.
+
+Opening it, he found a tiny stocking, knit of white wool, to which was
+pinned a piece of paper with the legend, "A Merry Christmas from Aunt
+Polly." Out of the stocking fell a packet fastened with a rubber strap.
+Inside were five ten-dollar gold pieces and a slip of paper on which was
+written, "A Merry Christmas from Your Friend David Harum." For a moment
+John's face burned, and there was a curious smarting of the eyelids as
+he held the little stocking and its contents in his hand. Surely the
+hand that had written "Your Friend" on that scrap of paper could not be
+the hand of an oppressor of widows and orphans. "This," said John to
+himself, "is what he meant when he 'supposed it wouldn't take me long to
+find out what was in my stocking.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door opened and a blast and whirl of wind and snow rushed in,
+ushering the tall, bent form of the Widow Cullom. The drive of the wind
+was so strong that John vaulted over the low cash counter to push the
+door shut again. The poor woman was white with snow from the front of
+her old worsted hood to the bottom of her ragged skirt.
+
+"You are Mrs. Cullom?" said John. "Wait a moment till I brush off the
+snow, and then come to the fire in the back room. Mr. Harum will be in
+directly, I expect."
+
+"Be I much late?" she asked. "I made 's much haste 's I could. It don't
+appear to me 's if I ever see a blusteriner day, 'n I ain't as strong as
+I used to be. Seemed as if I never would git here."
+
+"Oh, no," said John, as he established her before the glowing grate of
+the Franklin stove in the back parlor, "not at all. Mr. Harum has not
+come in himself yet. Shall you mind if I excuse myself a moment while
+you make yourself as comfortable as possible?" She did not apparently
+hear him. She was trembling from head to foot with cold and fatigue and
+nervous excitement. Her dress was soaked to the knees, and as she sat
+down and put up her feet to the fire John saw a bit of a thin cotton
+stocking and her deplorable shoes, almost in a state of pulp. A
+snow-obliterated path led from the back door of the office to David's
+house, and John snatched his hat and started for it on a run. As he
+stamped off some of the snow on the veranda the door was opened for him
+by Mrs. Bixbee. "Lord sakes!" she exclaimed. "What on earth be you
+cavortin' 'round for such a mornin' 's this without no overcoat, an' on
+a dead run? What's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing serious," he answered, "but I'm in a great hurry. Old Mrs.
+Cullom has walked up from her house to the office, and she is wet
+through and almost perished. I thought you'd send her some dry shoes and
+stockings, and an old shawl or blanket to keep her wet skirt off her
+knees, and a drop of whisky or something. She's all of a tremble, and
+I'm afraid she will have a chill."
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III]
+
+"Certain! certain!" said the kind creature, and she bustled out of the
+room, returning in a minute or two with an armful of comforts. "There's
+a pair of bedroom slips lined with lamb's wool, an' a pair of woolen
+stockin's, an' a blanket shawl. This here petticut, 't ain't what ye'd
+call bran' new, but it's warm and comf'table, an' I don't believe she's
+got much of anythin' on 'ceptin' her dress, an' I'll git ye the whisky,
+but"--here she looked deprecatingly at John--"it ain't gen'ally known 't
+we keep the stuff in the house. I don't know as it's right, but though
+David don't hardly ever touch it he will have it in the house."
+
+"Oh," said John, laughing, "you may trust my discretion, and we'll swear
+Mrs. Cullom to secrecy."
+
+"Wa'al, all right," said Mrs. Bixbee, joining in the laugh as she
+brought the bottle; "jest a minute till I make a passel of the things to
+keep the snow out. There, now, I guess you're fixed, an' you kin hurry
+back 'fore she ketches a chill."
+
+"Thanks very much," said John as he started away. "I have something to
+say to you besides 'Merry Christmas,' but I must wait till another
+time."
+
+When John got back to the office David had just preceded him.
+
+"Wa'al, wa'al," he was saying, "but you be in a putty consid'able
+state. Hullo, John! what you got there? Wa'al, you air the stuff! Slips,
+blanket-shawl, petticut, stockin's--wa'al, you an' Polly ben puttin'
+your heads together, I guess. What's that? Whisky! Wa'al, scat my----! I
+didn't s'pose wild hosses would have drawed it out o' Polly to let on
+the' was any in the house, much less to fetch it out. Jes' the thing!
+Oh, yes ye are, Mis' Cullom--jest a mouthful with water," taking the
+glass from John, "jest a spoonful to git your blood a-goin', an' then
+Mr. Lenox an' me 'll go into the front room while you make yourself
+comf'table."
+
+"Consarn it all!" exclaimed Mr. Harum as they stood leaning against the
+teller's counter, facing the street, "I didn't cal'late to have Mis'
+Cullom hoof it up here the way she done. When I see what kind of a day
+it was I went out to the barn to have the cutter hitched an' send for
+her, an' I found ev'rythin' topsy-turvy. That dum'd uneasy sorril colt
+had got cast in the stall, an' I ben fussin' with him ever since. I
+clean forgot all 'bout Mis' Cullom till jes' now."
+
+"Is the colt much injured?" John asked.
+
+"Wa'al, he won't trot a twenty gait in some time, I reckon," replied
+David. "He's wrenched his shoulder some, an' mebbe strained his inside.
+Don't seem to take no int'rist in his feed, an' that's a bad sign.
+Consarn a hoss, anyhow! If they're wuth anythin' they're more bother 'n
+a teethin' baby. Alwus some dum thing ailin' 'em, an' I took consid'able
+stock in that colt too," he added regretfully, "an' I could 'a' got
+putty near what I was askin' fer him last week, an' putty near what he
+was wuth, an' I've noticed that most gen'ally alwus when I let a good
+offer go like that, some cussed thing happens to the hoss. It ain't a
+bad idee, in the hoss bus'nis anyway, to be willin' to let the other
+feller make a dollar once 'n a while."
+
+After that aphorism they waited in silence for a few minutes, and then
+David called out over his shoulder, "How be you gettin' along, Mis'
+Cullom?"
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III]
+
+"I guess I'm fixed," she answered, and David walked slowly back into
+the parlor, leaving John in the front office. He was annoyed to realize
+that in the bustle over Mrs. Cullom and what followed, he had forgotten
+to acknowledge the Christmas gift; but, hoping that Mr. Harum had been
+equally oblivious, promised himself to repair the omission later on. He
+would have preferred to go out and leave the two to settle their affair
+without witness or hearer, but his employer, who, as he had found,
+usually had a reason for his actions, had explicitly requested him to
+remain, and he had no choice. He perched himself upon one of the office
+stools and composed himself to await the conclusion of the affair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mrs. Cullom was sitting at one corner of the fire, and David drew a
+chair opposite to her.
+
+"Feelin' all right now? whisky hain't made ye liable to no disorderly
+conduct, has it?" he asked with a laugh.
+
+"Yes, thank you," was the reply, "the warm things are real comfortin',
+'n' I guess I hain't had licker enough to make me want to throw things.
+You got a kind streak in ye, Dave Harum, if you did send me this here
+note--but I s'pose ye know your own bus'nis," she added with a sigh of
+resignation. "I ben fearin' fer a good while 't I couldn't hold on t'
+that prop'ty, an' I don't know but what you might's well git it as 'Zeke
+Swinney, though I ben hopin' 'gainst hope that Charley 'd be able to do
+morn 'n he has."
+
+"Let's see the note," said David curtly. "H'm, humph, 'regret to say
+that I have been instructed by Mr. Harum'--wa'al, h'm'm, cal'lated to
+clear his own skirts anyway--h'm'm--'must be closed up without further
+delay' (John's eye caught the little white stocking which still lay on
+his desk)--'wa'al, yes, that's about what I told Mr. Lenox to say fur's
+the bus'nis part's concerned--I might 'a' done my own regrettin' if I'd
+wrote the note myself." (John said something to himself.) "'T ain't the
+pleasantest thing in the world fer ye, I allow, but then you see,
+bus'nis is bus'nis."
+
+John heard David clear his throat, and there was a hiss in the open
+fire. Mrs. Cullom was silent, and David resumed:
+
+"You see, Mis' Cullom, it's like this. I ben thinkin' of this matter
+fer a good while. That place ain't ben no real good to ye sence the
+first year you signed that morgidge. You hain't scurcely more'n made
+ends meet, let alone the int'rist, an' it's ben simply a question o'
+time, an' who'd git the prop'ty in the long run fer some years. I
+reckoned, same as you did, that Charley 'd mebbe come to the front--but
+he hain't done it, an' 't ain't likely he ever will. Charley's a likely
+'nough boy some ways, but he hain't got much 'git there' in his make-up,
+not more'n enough fer one anyhow, I reckon. That's about the size on't,
+ain't it?"
+
+Mrs. Cullom murmured a feeble admission that she was "'fraid it was."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Wa'al," resumed Mr. Harum, "I see how things was goin', an' I see that
+unless I played euchre, 'Zeke Swinney 'd git that prop'ty, an' whether I
+wanted it myself or not, I didn't cal'late he sh'd git it anyway. He put
+a spoke in my wheel once, an' I hain't forgot it. But that hain't
+neither here nor there. Wa'al," after a short pause, "you know I helped
+ye pull the thing along on the chance, as ye may say, that you an' your
+son 'd somehow make a go on't."
+
+"You ben very kind, so fur," said the widow faintly.
+
+"Don't ye say that, don't ye say that," protested David. "'T wa'n't no
+kindness. It was jes' bus'nis. I wa'n't takin' no chances, an' I s'pose
+I might let the thing run a spell longer if I c'd see any use in't. But
+the' ain't, an' so I ast ye to come up this mornin' so 't we c'd settle
+the thing up without no fuss, nor trouble, nor lawyer's fees, nor
+nothin'. I've got the papers all drawed, an' John--Mr. Lenox--here to
+take the acknowlidgments. You hain't no objection to windin' the thing
+up this mornin', have ye?"
+
+"I s'pose I'll have to do whatever you say," replied the poor woman in a
+tone of hopeless discouragement, "an' I might as well be killed to once,
+as to die by inch pieces."
+
+"All right then," said David cheerfully, ignoring her lethal
+suggestion, "but before we git down to bus'nis an' signin' papers, an'
+in order to set myself in as fair a light 's I can in the matter, I want
+to tell ye a little story."
+
+"I hain't no objection 's I know of," acquiesced the widow graciously.
+
+"All right," said David, "I won't preach more 'n about up to the
+sixthly--How'd you feel if I was to light up a cigar? I hain't much of a
+hand at a yarn, an' if I git stuck, I c'n puff a spell. Thank ye. Wa'al,
+Mis' Cullom, you used to know somethin' about my folks. I was raised on
+Buxton Hill. The' was nine on us, an' I was the youngest o' the lot. My
+father farmed a piece of about forty to fifty acres, an' had a small
+shop where he done odd times small jobs of tinkerin' fer the neighbors
+when the' was anythin' to do. My mother was his second, an' I was the
+only child of that marriage. He married agin when I was about two year
+old, an' how I ever got raised 's more 'n I c'n tell ye. My sister Polly
+was 'sponsible more 'n any one, I guess, an' the only one o' the whole
+lot that ever gin me a decent word. Small farmin' ain't cal'lated to
+fetch out the best traits of human nature--an' keep 'em out--an' it
+seems to me sometimes that when the old man wa'n't cuffin' my ears he
+was lickin' me with a rawhide or a strap. Fur 's that was concerned, all
+his boys used to ketch it putty reg'lar till they got too big. One on
+'em up an' licked him one night, an' lit out next day. I s'pose the old
+man's disposition was sp'iled by what some feller said farmin' was,
+'workin' all day, an' doin' chores all night,' an' larrupin' me an' all
+the rest on us was about all the enjoyment he got. My brothers an'
+sisters--'ceptin' of Polly--was putty nigh as bad in respect of cuffs
+an' such like; an' my stepmarm was, on the hull, the wust of all. She
+hadn't no childern o' her own, an' it appeared 's if I was jes' pizen to
+her. 'T wa'n't so much slappin' an' cuffin' with her as 't was tongue.
+She c'd say things that 'd jes' raise a blister like pizen ivy. I s'pose
+I _was_ about as ord'nary, no-account-lookin', red-headed, freckled
+little cuss as you ever see, an' slinkin' in my manners. The air of our
+home circle wa'n't cal'lated to raise heroes in.
+
+"I got three four years' schoolin', an' made out to read an' write an'
+cipher up to long division 'fore I got through, but after I got to be
+six years old, school or no school, I had to work reg'lar at anything I
+had strength fer, an' more too. Chores before school an' after school,
+an' a two-mile walk to git there. As fur 's clo'es was concerned, any
+old thing that 'd hang together was good enough fer me; but by the time
+the older boys had outgrowed their duds, an' they was passed on to me,
+the' wa'n't much left on 'em. A pair of old cowhide boots that leaked in
+more snow an' water 'n they kept out, an' a couple pairs of woolen socks
+that was putty much all darns, was expected to see me through the
+winter, an' I went barefoot f'm the time the snow was off the ground
+till it flew agin in the fall. The' wa'n't but two seasons o' the year
+with me--them of chilblains an' stun-bruises."
+
+The speaker paused and stared for a moment into the comfortable glow of
+the fire, and then discovering to his apparent surprise that his cigar
+had gone out, lighted it from a coal picked out with the tongs.
+
+"Farmin' 's a hard life," remarked Mrs. Cullom with an air of being
+expected to make some contribution to the conversation.
+
+"An' yit, as it seems to me as I look back on't," David resumed
+pensively, "the wust on't was that nobody ever gin me a kind word, 'cept
+Polly. I s'pose I got kind o' used to bein' cold an' tired; dressin' in
+a snowdrift where it blowed into the attic, an' goin' out to fodder
+cattle 'fore sun-up; pickin' up stun in the blazin' sun, an' doin' all
+the odd jobs my father set me to, an' the older ones shirked onto me.
+That was the reg'lar order o' things; but I remember I never _did_ git
+used to never pleasin' nobody. Course I didn't expect nothin' f'm my
+step-marm, an' the only way I ever knowed I'd done my stent fur 's
+father was concerned, was that he didn't say nothin'. But sometimes the
+older one's 'd git settin' 'round, talkin' an' laughin', havin' pop corn
+an' apples, an' that, an' I'd kind o' sidle up, wantin' to join 'em, an'
+some on 'em 'd say, 'What _you_ doin' here? time you was in bed,' an'
+give me a shove or a cuff. Yes, ma'am," looking up at Mrs. Cullom, "the
+wust on't was that I was kind o' scairt the hull time. Once in a while
+Polly 'd give me a mossel o' comfort, but Polly wa'n't but little older
+'n me, an' bein' the youngest girl, was chored most to death herself."
+
+It had stopped snowing, and though the wind still came in gusty blasts,
+whirling the drift against the windows, a wintry gleam of sunshine came
+in and touched the widow's wrinkled face.
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III]
+
+"It's amazin' how much trouble an' sorrer the' is in the world, an'
+how soon it begins," she remarked, moving a little to avoid the
+sunlight. "I hain't never ben able to reconcile how many good things
+the' be, an' how little most on us gits o' them. I hain't ben to meetin'
+fer a long spell 'cause I hain't had no fit clo'es, but I remember most
+of the preachin' I've set under either dwelt on the wrath to come, or
+else on the Lord's doin' all things well, an' providin'. I hope I ain't
+no wickeder 'n than the gen'ral run, but it's putty hard to hev faith in
+the Lord's providin' when you hain't got nothin' in the house but corn
+meal, an' none too much o' that."
+
+"That's so, Mis' Cullom, that's so," affirmed David. "I don't blame ye a
+mite. 'Doubts assail, an' oft prevail,' as the hymnbook says, an' I
+reckon it's a sight easier to have faith on meat an' potatoes 'n it is
+on corn meal mush. Wa'al, as I was sayin'--I hope I ain't tirin' ye with
+my goin's on?"
+
+"No," said Mrs. Cullom, "I'm engaged to hear ye, but nobody 'd suppose to
+see ye now that ye was such a f'lorn little critter as you make out."
+
+"It's jest as I'm tellin' ye, an' more also, as the Bible says,"
+returned David, and then, rather more impressively, as if he were
+leading up to his conclusion, "it come along to a time when I was 'twixt
+thirteen an' fourteen. The' was a cirkis billed to show down here in
+Homeville, an' ev'ry barn an' shed fer miles around had pictures stuck
+on to 'em of el'phants, an' rhinoceroses, an' ev'ry animul that went
+into the ark; an' girls ridin' bareback an' jumpin' through hoops, an'
+fellers ridin' bareback an' turnin' summersets, an' doin' turnovers on
+swings; an' clowns gettin' hoss-whipped, an' ev'ry kind of a thing that
+could be pictered out; an' how the' was to be a grand percession at ten
+o'clock, 'ith golden chariots, an' scripteral allegories, an' the hull
+bus'nis; an' the gran' performance at two o'clock; admission twenty-five
+cents, children under twelve, at cetery, an' so forth. Wa'al, I hadn't
+no more idee o' goin' to that cirkis 'n I had o' flyin' to the moon, but
+the night before the show somethin' waked me 'bout twelve o'clock. I
+don't know how 't was. I'd ben helpin' mend fence all day, an' gen'ally
+I never knowed nothin' after my head struck the bed till mornin'. But
+that night, anyhow, somethin' waked me, an' I went an' looked out the
+windo', an' there was the hull thing goin' by the house. The' was more
+or less moon, an' I see the el'phant, an' the big wagins--the drivers
+kind o' noddin' over the dashboards--an' the chariots with canvas
+covers--I don't know how many of 'em--an' the cages of the tigers an'
+lions, an' all. Wa'al, I got up the next mornin' at sun-up an' done my
+chores; an' after breakfust I set off fer the ten-acre lot where I was
+mendin' fence. The ten-acre was the farthest off of any, Homeville way,
+an' I had my dinner in a tin pail so't I needn't lose no time goin' home
+at noon, an', as luck would have it, the' wa'n't nobody with me that
+mornin'. Wa'al, I got down to the lot an' set to work; but somehow I
+couldn't git that show out o' my head nohow. As I said, I hadn't no more
+notion of goin' to that cirkis 'n I had of kingdom come. I'd never had
+two shillin' of my own in my hull life. But the more I thought on't the
+uneasier I got. Somethin' seemed pullin' an' haulin' at me, an' fin'ly I
+gin in. I allowed I'd see that percession anyway if it took a leg, an'
+mebbe I c'd git back 'ithout nobody missin' me. 'T any rate, I'd take
+the chances of a lickin' jest once--fer that's what it meant--an' I up
+an' put fer the village lickity-cut. I done them four mile lively, I c'n
+tell ye, an' the stun-bruises never hurt me once.
+
+"When I got down to the village it seemed to me as if the hull
+population of Freeland County was there. I'd never seen so many folks
+together in my life, an' fer a spell it seemed to me as if ev'rybody was
+a-lookin' at me an' sayin', 'That's old Harum's boy Dave, playin'
+hookey,' an' I sneaked 'round dreadin' somebody 'd give me away; but I
+fin'ly found that nobody wa'n't payin' any attention to me--they was
+there to see the show, an' one red-headed boy more or less wa'n't no
+pertic'ler account. Wa'al, putty soon the percession hove in sight, an'
+the' was a reg'lar stampede among the boys, an' when it got by, I run
+an' ketched up with it agin, an' walked alongside the el'phant, tin pail
+an' all, till they fetched up inside the tent. Then I went off to one
+side--it must 'a' ben about 'leven or half-past, an' eat my dinner--I
+had a devourin' appetite--an' thought I'd jes' walk round a spell, an'
+then light out fer home. But the' was so many things to see an'
+hear--all the side-show pictures of Fat Women, an' Livin' Skelitons; an'
+Wild Women of Madygasker, an' Wild Men of Borneo; an' snakes windin'
+round women's necks; hand-orgins; fellers that played the 'cordion, an'
+mouth-pipes, an' drum an' cymbals all to once, an' such like--that I
+fergot all about the time an' the ten-acre lot, an' the stun fence, an'
+fust I knowed the folks was makin' fer the ticket wagin, an' the band
+begun to play inside the tent. Be I taxin' your patience over the
+limit?" said David, breaking off in his story and addressing Mrs. Cullom
+more directly.
+
+"No, I guess not," she replied; "I was jes' thinkin' of a circus I went
+to once," she added with an audible sigh.
+
+"Wa'al," said David, taking a last farewell of the end of his cigar,
+which he threw into the grate, "mebbe what's comin' 'ill int'rist ye
+more 'n the rest on't has. I was standin' gawpin' 'round, list'nin' to
+the band an' watchin' the folks git their tickets, when all of a suddin
+I felt a twitch at my hair--it had a way of workin' out of the holes in
+my old chip straw hat--an' somebody says to me, 'Wa'al, sonny, what you
+thinkin' of?' he says. I looked up, an' who do you s'pose it was? It was
+Billy P. Cullom! I knowed who he was, fer I'd seen him before, but of
+course he didn't know me. Yes, ma'am, it was Billy P., an' wa'n't he
+rigged out to kill!"
+
+The speaker paused and looked into the fire, smiling. The woman started
+forward facing him, and clasping her hands, cried, "My husband! What'd
+he have on?"
+
+"Wa'al," said David slowly and reminiscently, "near 's I c'n remember,
+he had on a blue broadcloth claw-hammer coat with flat gilt buttons, an'
+a double-breasted plaid velvet vest, an' pearl-gray pants, strapped down
+over his boots, which was of shiny leather, an' a high pointed collar
+an' blue stock with a pin in it (I remember wonderin' if it c'd be real
+gold), an' a yeller-white plug beaver hat."
+
+At the description of each article of attire Mrs. Cullom nodded her
+head, with her eyes fixed on David's face, and as he concluded she broke
+out breathlessly, "Oh, yes! Oh, yes! David, he wore them very same
+clo'es, an' he took me to that very same show that very same night!"
+There was in her face a look almost of awe, as if a sight of her
+long-buried past youth had been shown to her from a coffin.
+
+Neither spoke for a moment or two, and it was the widow who broke the
+silence. As David had conjectured, she was interested at last, and sat
+leaning forward with her hands clasped in her lap.
+
+"Well," she exclaimed, "ain't ye goin' on? What did he say to ye?"
+
+"Cert'nly, cert'nly," responded David. "I'll tell ye near 's I c'n
+remember, an' I c'n remember putty near. As I told ye. I felt a twitch
+at my hair, an' he said, 'What be you thinkin' about, sonny?' I looked
+up at him, an' looked away quick. 'I dunno,' I says, diggin' my big toe
+into the dust; an' then, I dunno how I got the spunk to, for I was shyer
+'n a rat, 'Guess I was thinkin' 'bout mendin' that fence up in the
+ten-acre lot 's much 's anythin',' I says.
+
+"'Ain't you goin' to the cirkis?' he says.
+
+"'I hain't got no money to go to cirkises,' I says, rubbin' the dusty
+toes o' one foot over t' other, 'nor nothin' else,' I says.
+
+"'Wa'al,' he says, 'why don't you crawl under the canvas?'
+
+"That kind o' riled me, shy 's I was. 'I don't crawl under no canvases,'
+I says. 'If I can't go in same 's other folks, I'll stay out,' I says,
+lookin' square at him fer the fust time. He wa'n't exac'ly smilin', but
+the' was a look in his eyes that was the next thing to it."
+
+"Lordy me!" sighed Mrs. Cullom, as if to herself. "How well I can
+remember that look; jest as if he was laughin' at ye, an' wa'n't
+laughin' at ye, an' his arm around your neck!"
+
+David nodded in reminiscent sympathy, and rubbed his bald poll with the
+back of his hand.
+
+"Wa'al," interjected the widow.
+
+"Wa'al," said David, resuming, "he says to me, 'Would you like to go to
+the cirkis?' an' with that it occurred to me that I did want to go to
+that cirkis more'n anythin' I ever wanted to before--nor since, it seems
+to me. But I tell ye the truth, I was so far f'm expectin' to go 't I
+really hadn't knowed I wanted to. I looked at him, an' then down agin,
+an' began tenderin' up a stun-bruise on one heel agin the other instep,
+an' all I says was, bein' so dum'd shy, 'I dunno,' I says. But I guess
+he seen in my face what my feelin's was, fer he kind o' laughed an'
+pulled out half-a-dollar an' says: 'D' you think you could git a couple
+o' tickits in that crowd? If you kin, I think I'll go myself, but I
+don't want to git my boots all dust,' he says. I allowed I c'd try; an'
+I guess them bare feet o' mine tore up the dust some gettin' over to the
+wagin. Wa'al, I had another scare gettin' the tickits, fer fear some one
+that knowed me 'd see me with a half-a-dollar, an' think I must 'a'
+stole the money. But I got 'em an' carried 'em back to him, an' he took
+'em an' put 'em in his vest pocket, an' handed me a ten-cent piece, an'
+says, 'Mebbe you'll want somethin' in the way of refreshments fer
+yourself an' mebbe the el'phant,' he says, an' walked off toward the
+tent; an' I stood stun still, lookin' after him. He got off about a rod
+or so an' stopped an' looked back. 'Ain't you comin'?' he says.
+
+"'Be I goin' with _you_?' I says.
+
+"'Why not?' he says, ''nless you'd ruther go alone,' an' he put his
+finger an' thumb into his vest pocket. Wa'al, ma'am, I looked at him a
+minute, with his shiny hat an' boots, an' fine clo'es, an' gold pin, an'
+thought of my ragged ole shirt, an' cotton pants, an' ole chip hat with
+the brim most gone, an' my tin pail an' all. 'I ain't fit to,' I says,
+ready to cry--an'--wa'al, he jes' laughed, an' says, 'Nonsense,' he
+says, 'come along. A man needn't be ashamed of his workin' clo'es,' he
+says, an' I'm dum'd if he didn't take holt of my hand, an' in we went
+that way together."
+
+"How like him that was!" said the widow softly.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am, I reckon it was," said David, nodding.
+
+"Wa'al," he went on after a little pause, "I was ready to sink into
+the ground with shyniss at fust, but that wore off some after a little,
+an' we two seen the hull show, I _tell_ ye. We walked 'round the cages,
+an' we fed the el'phant--that is, he bought the stuff an' I fed him. I
+'member--he, he, he!--'t he says, 'mind you git the right end,' he says,
+an' then we got a couple o' seats, an' the doin's begun."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The widow was looking at David with shining eyes and devouring his
+words. All the years of trouble and sorrow and privation were wiped out,
+and she was back in the days of her girlhood. Ah, yes! how well she
+remembered him as he looked that very day--so handsome, so splendidly
+dressed, so debonair; and how proud she had been to sit by his side that
+night, observed and envied of all the village girls.
+
+"I ain't goin' to go over the hull show," proceeded David, "well 's I
+remember it. The' didn't nothin' git away from me that afternoon, an'
+once I come near to stickin' a piece o' gingerbread into my ear 'stid o'
+my mouth. I had my ten-cent piece that Billy P. give me, but he wouldn't
+let me buy nothin'; an' when the gingerbread man come along he says,
+'Air ye hungry, Dave? (I'd told him my name), air ye hungry?' Wa'al, I
+was a growin' boy, an' I was hungry putty much all the time. He bought
+two big squares an' gin me one, an' when I'd swallered it, he says,
+'Guess you better tackle this one too,' he says, 'I've dined.' I didn't
+exac'ly know what 'dined' meant, but--he, he, he, he!--I tackled it,"
+and David smacked his lips in memory.
+
+"Wa'al," he went on, "we done the hull programmy--gingerbread,
+lemonade--_pink_ lemonade, an' he took some o' that--pop corn, peanuts,
+pep'mint candy, cin'mun candy--scat my----! an' he payin' fer
+ev'rythin'--I thought he was jes' made o' money! An' I remember how we
+talked about all the doin's; the ridin', an' jumpin', an' summersettin',
+an' all--fer he'd got all the shyniss out of me for the time--an' once I
+looked up at him, an' he looked down at me with that curious look in his
+eyes an' put his hand on my shoulder. Wa'al, now, I tell ye, I had a
+queer, crinkly feelin' go up an' down my back, an' I like to up an'
+cried."
+
+"Dave," said the widow, "I kin see you two as if you was settin' there
+front of me. He was alwus like that. Oh, my! Oh, my! David," she added
+solemnly, while two tears rolled slowly down her wrinkled face, "we
+lived together, husban' an' wife, fer seven year, an' he never give me a
+cross word."
+
+"I don't doubt it a mossel," said David simply, leaning over and poking
+the fire, which operation kept his face out of her sight and was
+prolonged rather unduly. Finally he straightened up and, blowing his
+nose as it were a trumpet, said:
+
+"Wa'al, the cirkis fin'ly come to an end, an' the crowd hustled to git
+out 's if they was afraid the tent 'd come down on 'em. I got kind o'
+mixed up in 'em, an' somebody tried to git my tin pail, or I thought he
+did, an' the upshot was that I lost sight o' Billy P., an' couldn't make
+out to ketch a glimpse of him nowhere. An' _then_ I kind o' come down to
+earth, kerchug! It was five o'clock, an' I had better 'n four mile to
+walk--mostly up hill--an' if I knowed anything 'bout the old man, an' I
+thought I _did_, I had the all-firedist lickin' ahead of me 't I'd ever
+got, an' that was sayin' a good deal. But, boy 's I was, I had grit
+enough to allow 't was wuth it, an' off I put."
+
+"Did he lick ye much?" inquired Mrs. Cullom anxiously.
+
+"Wa'al," replied David, "he done his best. He was layin' fer me when I
+struck the front gate--I knowed it wa'n't no use to try the back door,
+an' he took me by the ear--most pulled it off--an' marched me off to the
+barn shed without a word. I never see him so mad. Seemed like he
+couldn't speak fer a while, but fin'ly he says, 'Where you ben all day?'
+
+"'Down t' the village,' I says.
+
+"'What you ben up to down there?' he says.
+
+"'Went to the cirkis,' I says, thinkin' I might 's well make a clean
+breast on't.
+
+"'Where 'd you git the money?' he says.
+
+"'Mr. Cullom took me,' I says.
+
+"'You lie,' he says. 'You stole the money somewheres, an' I'll trounce
+it out of ye, if I kill ye,' he says.
+
+"Wa'al," said David, twisting his shoulders in recollection, "I won't
+harrer up your feelin's. 'S I told you, he done his best. I was willin'
+to quit long 'fore he was. Fact was, he overdone it a little, an' he had
+to throw water in my face 'fore he got through; an' he done that as
+thorough as the other thing. I was somethin' like a chickin jest out o'
+the cistern. I crawled off to bed the best I could, but I didn't lay on
+my back fer a good spell, I c'n tell ye."
+
+"You poor little critter," exclaimed Mrs. Cullom sympathetically. "You
+poor little critter!"
+
+"'T was more'n wuth it, Mis' Cullom," said David emphatically. "I'd had
+the most enjoy'ble day, I might say the only enjoy'ble day, 't I'd ever
+had in my hull life, an' I hain't never fergot it. I got over the
+lickin' in course of time, but I've ben enjoyin' that cirkis fer forty
+year. The' wa'n't but one thing to hender, an' that's this, that I
+hain't never ben able to remember--an' to this day I lay awake nights
+tryin' to--that I said 'Thank ye' to Billy P., an' I never seen him
+after that day."
+
+"How's that?" asked Mrs. Cullom.
+
+"Wa'al," was the reply, "that day was the turnin' point with me. The
+next night I lit out with what duds I c'd git together, an' as much grub
+'s I could pack in that tin pail; an' the next time I see the old house
+on Buxton Hill the' hadn't ben no Harums in it fer years."
+
+Here David rose from his chair, yawned and stretched himself, and stood
+with his back to the fire. The widow looked up anxiously into his face.
+"Is that all?" she asked after a while.
+
+"Wa'al, it is an' it ain't. I've got through yarnin' about Dave Harum
+at any rate, an' mebbe we'd better have a little confab on your matters,
+seem' 't I've got you 'way up here such a mornin' 's this. I gen'ally do
+bus'nis fust an' talkin' afterward," he added, "but I kind o' got to
+goin' an' kept on this time."
+
+He put his hand into the breast pocket of his coat and took out three
+papers, which he shuffled in review as if to verify their identity, and
+then held them in one hand, tapping them softly upon the palm of the
+other, as if at a loss how to begin. The widow sat with her eyes
+fastened upon the papers, trembling with nervous apprehension. Presently
+he broke the silence.
+
+"About this here morgige o' your'n," he said. "I sent ye word that I
+wanted to close the matter up, an' seem' 't you're here an' come fer
+that purpose, I guess we'd better make a job on't. The' ain't no time
+like the present, as the sayin' is."
+
+"I s'pose it'll hev to be as you say," said the widow in a shaking
+voice.
+
+"Mis' Cullom," said David solemnly, "_you_ know, an' I know, that I've
+got the repitation of bein' a hard, graspin', schemin' man. Mebbe I be.
+Mebbe I've ben hard done by all my hull life, an' have had to be; an'
+mebbe, now 't I've got ahead some, it's got to be second nature, an' I
+can't seem to help it. 'Bus'nis is bus'nis' ain't part of the golden
+rule, I allow, but the way it gen'ally runs, fur 's I've found out, is,
+'Do unto the other feller the way he'd like to do unto you, an' do it
+fust.' But, if you want to keep this thing a-runnin' as it's goin' on
+now fer a spell longer, say one year, or two, or even three, you may,
+only I've got somethin' to say to ye 'fore ye elect."
+
+"Wa'al," said the poor woman, "I expect it 'd only be pilin' up wrath
+agin the day o' wrath. I can't pay the int'rist now without starvin',
+an' I hain't got no one to bid in the prop'ty fer me if it was to be
+sold."
+
+"Mis' Cullom," said David, "I said I'd got somethin' more to tell ye,
+an' if, when I git through, you don't think I've treated you right,
+includin' this mornin's confab, I hope you'll fergive me. It's this, an'
+I'm the only person livin' that 's knowin' to it, an' in fact I may say
+that I'm the only person that ever was really knowin' to it. It was
+before you was married, an' I'm sure he never told ye, fer I don't doubt
+he fergot all about it, but your husband, Billy P. Cullom, that was,
+made a small investment once on a time, yes, ma'am, he did, an' in his
+kind of careless way it jes' slipped his mind. The amount of cap'tal he
+put in wa'n't large, but the rate of int'rist was uncommon high. Now, he
+never drawed no dividends on't, an' they've ben 'cumulatin' fer forty
+year, more or less, at compound int'rist."
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III]
+
+The widow started forward, as if to rise from her seat. David put his
+hand out gently and said, "Jest a minute, Mis' Cullom, jest a minute,
+till I git through. Part o' that cap'tal," he resumed, "consistin' of a
+quarter an' some odd cents, was invested in the cirkis bus'nis, an' the
+rest on't--the cap'tal, an' all the cash cap'tal that I started in
+bus'nis with--was the ten cents your husband give me that day, an'
+here," said David, striking the papers in his left hand with the back of
+his right, "_here_ is the _dividends_! This here second morgige, not
+bein' on record, may jest as well go onto the fire--it's gettin'
+low--an' here's a satisfaction piece which I'm goin' to execute now,
+that'll clear the thousan' dollar one. Come in here, John," he called
+out.
+
+The widow stared at David for a moment speechless, but as the
+significance of his words dawned upon her, the blood flushed darkly in
+her face. She sprang to her feet and, throwing up her arms, cried out:
+"My Lord! My Lord! Dave! Dave Harum! Is it true?--tell me it's true! You
+ain't foolin' me, air ye, Dave? You wouldn't fool a poor old woman that
+never done ye no harm, nor said a mean word agin ye, would ye? Is it
+true? an' is my place clear? an' I don't owe nobody anythin'--I mean, no
+money? Tell it agin. Oh, tell it agin! Oh, Dave! it's too good to be
+true! Oh! Oh! Oh, _my_! an' here I be cryin' like a great baby, an',
+an'"--fumbling in her pocket--"I do believe I hain't got no
+hank'chif.--Oh, thank ye," to John; "I'll do it up an' send it back
+to-morrer.--Oh, what made ye do it, Dave?"
+
+"Set right down an' take it easy, Mis' Cullom," said David soothingly,
+putting his hands on her shoulders and gently pushing her back into her
+chair. "Set right down an' take it easy.--Yes," to John, "I acknowledge
+that I signed that."
+
+He turned to the widow, who sat wiping her eyes with John's
+handkerchief.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," he said, "it's as true as anythin' kin be. I wouldn't no
+more fool ye, ye know I wouldn't, don't ye? than I'd--jerk a hoss," he
+asseverated. "Your place is clear now, an' by this time to-morro' the'
+won't be the scratch of a pen agin it. I'll send the satisfaction over
+fer record fust thing in the mornin'."
+
+"But, Dave," protested the widow, "I s'pose ye know what you're
+doin'----?"
+
+"Yes," he interposed, "I cal'late I do, putty near. You ast me why I
+done it, an' I'll tell ye if ye want to know. I'm payin' off an old
+score, an' gettin' off cheap, too. That's what I'm doin'! I thought I'd
+hinted up to it putty plain, seem' 't I've talked till my jaws ache; but
+I'll sum it up to ye if ye like."
+
+He stood with his feet aggressively wide apart, one hand in his trousers
+pocket, and holding in the other the "morgige," which he waved from time
+to time in emphasis.
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III]
+
+"You c'n estimate, I reckon," he began, "what kind of a bringin'-up I
+had, an' what a poor, mis'able, God-fersaken, scairt-to-death little
+forlorn critter I was; put upon, an' snubbed, an' jawed at till I'd come
+to believe myself--what was rubbed into me the hull time--that I was the
+most all-'round no-account animul that was ever made out o' dust, an'
+wa'n't ever likely to be no diff'rent. Lookin' back, it seems to me
+that--exceptin' of Polly--I never had a kind word said to me, nor a
+day's fun. Your husband, Billy P. Cullom, was the fust man that ever
+treated me human up to that time. He give me the only enjoy'ble time 't
+I'd ever had, an' I don't know 't anythin' 's ever equaled it since. He
+spent money on me, an' he give me money to spend--that had never had a
+cent to call my own--_an'_, Mis' Cullom, he took me by the hand, an' he
+talked to me, an' he gin me the fust notion 't I'd ever had that mebbe I
+wa'n't only the scum o' the earth, as I'd ben teached to believe. I told
+ye that that day was the turnin' point of my life. Wa'al, it wa'n't the
+lickin' I got, though that had somethin' to do with it, but I'd never
+have had the spunk to run away 's I did if it hadn't ben for the
+heartenin' Billy P. gin me, an' never knowed it, an' never knowed it,"
+he repeated mournfully. "I alwus allowed to pay some o' that debt back
+to him, but seein' 's I can't do that, Mis' Cullom, I'm glad an'
+thankful to pay it to his widdo'."
+
+"Mebbe he knows, Dave," said Mrs. Cullom softly.
+
+"Mebbe he does," assented David in a low voice.
+
+Neither spoke for a time, and then the widow said: "David, I can't
+thank ye 's I ought ter--I don't know how--but I'll pray fer ye night
+an' mornin' 's long 's I got breath. An', Dave," she added humbly, "I
+want to take back what I said about the Lord's providin'."
+
+She sat a moment, lost in her thoughts, and then exclaimed, "Oh, it
+don't seem 's if I c'd wait to write to Charley!"
+
+"I've wrote to Charley," said David, "an' told him to sell out there an'
+come home, an' to draw on me fer any balance he needed to move him. I've
+got somethin' in my eye that'll be easier an' better payin' than
+fightin' grasshoppers an' drought in Kansas."
+
+"Dave Harum!" cried the widow, rising to her feet, "you ought to 'a' ben
+a king!"
+
+"Wa'al," said David with a grin, "I don't know much about the kingin'
+bus'nis, but I guess a cloth cap 'n' a hoss whip 's more 'n my line than
+a crown an' scepter. An' now," he added, "'s we've got through 'th our
+bus'nis, s'pose you step over to the house an' see Polly. She's
+expectin' ye to dinner. Oh, yes," replying to the look of deprecation in
+her face as she viewed her shabby frock, "you an' Polly c'n prink up
+some if you want to, but we can't take 'No' fer an answer Chris'must
+day, clo'es or no clo'es."
+
+"I'd really like ter," said Mrs. Cullom.
+
+"All right then," said David cheerfully. "The path is swep' by this
+time, I guess, an' I'll see ye later. Oh, by the way," he exclaimed,
+"the's somethin' I fergot. I want to make you a proposition, ruther an
+onusual one, but seem' ev'rythin' is as 't is, perhaps you'll consider
+it."
+
+"Dave," declared the widow, "if I could, an' you ast for it, I'd give ye
+anythin' on the face o' this mortal globe!"
+
+"Wa'al," said David, nodding and smiling, "I thought that mebbe, long 's
+you got the int'rist of that investment we ben talkin' about, you'd let
+me keep what's left of the princ'pal. Would ye like to see it?"
+
+Mrs. Cullom looked at him with a puzzled expression without replying.
+
+David took from his pocket a large wallet, secured by a strap, and,
+opening it, extracted something enveloped in a much faded brown paper.
+Unfolding this, he displayed upon his broad fat palm an old silver dime
+black with age.
+
+"There's the cap'tal," he said.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+"Why, Mis' Cullom, I'm real glad to see ye. Come right in," said Mrs.
+Bixbee as she drew the widow into the "wing settin' room," and proceeded
+to relieve her of her wraps and her bundle. "Set right here by the fire
+while I take these things of your'n into the kitchen to dry 'em out.
+I'll be right back"; and she bustled out of the room. When she came back
+Mrs. Cullom was sitting with her hands in her lap, and there was in her
+eyes an expression of smiling peace that was good to see.
+
+Mrs. Bixbee drew up a chair, and seating herself, said: "Wa'al, I don't
+know when I've seen ye to git a chance to speak to ye, an' I was real
+pleased when David said you was goin' to be here to dinner. An' my! how
+well you're lookin'--more like Cynthy Sweetland than I've seen ye fer I
+don't know when; an' yet," she added, looking curiously at her guest,
+"you 'pear somehow as if you'd ben cryin'."
+
+"You're real kind, I'm sure," responded Mrs. Cullom, replying to the
+other's welcome and remarks _seriatim_; "I guess, though, I don't look
+much like Cynthy Sweetland, if I do feel twenty years younger 'n I did a
+while ago; an' I have ben cryin', I allow, but not fer sorro', Polly
+Harum," she exclaimed, giving the other her maiden name. "Your brother
+Dave comes putty nigh to bein' an angel!"
+
+"Wa'al," replied Mrs. Bixbee with a twinkle, "I reckon Dave might hev
+to be fixed up some afore he come out in that pertic'ler shape, but,"
+she added impressively, "es fur as bein' a _man_ goes, he's 'bout 's
+good 's they make 'em. I know folks thinks he's a hard bargainer, an'
+close-fisted, an' some on 'em that ain't fit to lick up his tracks says
+more'n that. He's got his own ways, I'll allow, but down at bottom, an'
+all through, I know the' ain't no better man livin'. No, ma'am, the'
+ain't, an' what he's ben to me, Cynthy Cullom, nobody knows but
+me--an'--an'--mebbe the Lord--though I hev seen the time," she said
+tentatively, "when it seemed to me 't I knowed more about my affairs 'n
+He did," and she looked doubtfully at her companion, who had been
+following her with affirmative and sympathetic nods, and now drew her
+chair a little closer, and said softly: "Yes, yes, I know. I ben putty
+doubtful an' rebellious myself a good many times, but seems now as if He
+had had me in His mercy all the time." Here Aunt Polly's sense of humor
+asserted itself. "What's Dave ben up to now?" she asked.
+
+And then the widow told her story, with tears and smiles, and the keen
+enjoyment which we all have in talking about ourselves to a sympathetic
+listener like Aunt Polly, whose interjections pointed and illuminated
+the narrative. When it was finished she leaned forward and kissed Mrs.
+Cullom on the cheek.
+
+"I can't tell ye how glad I be for ye," she said; "but if I'd known
+that David held that morgige, I could hev told ye ye needn't hev worried
+yourself a mite. He wouldn't never have taken your prop'ty, more'n he'd
+rob a hen-roost. But he done the thing his own way--kind o' fetched it
+round fer a Merry Chris'mus, didn't he?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+David's house stood about a hundred feet back from the street, facing
+the east. The main body of the house was of two stories (through which
+ran a deep bay in front), with mansard roof. On the south were two
+stories of the "wing," in which were the "settin' room," Aunt Polly's
+room, and, above, David's quarters. Ten minutes or so before one o'clock
+John rang the bell at the front door.
+
+"Sairy's busy," said Mrs. Bixbee apologetically as she let him in, "an'
+so I come to the door myself."
+
+"Thank you very much," said John. "Mr. Harum told me to come over a
+little before one, but perhaps I ought to have waited a few minutes
+longer."
+
+"No, it's all right," she replied, "for mebbe you'd like to wash an'
+fix up 'fore dinner, so I'll jes' show ye where to," and she led the way
+upstairs and into the "front parlor bedroom."
+
+"There," she said, "make yourself comf'table, an' dinner 'll be ready in
+about ten minutes."
+
+For a moment John mentally rubbed his eyes. Then he turned and caught
+both of Mrs. Bixbee's hands and looked at her, speechless. When he found
+words he said: "I don't know what to say, nor how to thank you properly.
+I don't believe you know how kind this is."
+
+"Don't say nothin' about it," she protested, but with a look of great
+satisfaction. "I done it jes' t' relieve my mind, because ever sence you
+fus' come I ben worryin' over your bein' at that nasty tavern," and she
+made a motion to go.
+
+"You and your brother," said John earnestly, still holding her hands,
+"have made me a gladder and happier man this Christmas day than I have
+been for a very long time."
+
+"I'm glad on't," she said heartily, "an' I hope you'll be comf'table an'
+contented here. I must go now an' help Sairy dish up. Come down to the
+settin' room when you're ready," and she gave his hands a little
+squeeze.
+
+"Aunt Po----, I beg pardon, Mrs. Bixbee," said John, moved by a sudden
+impulse, "do you think you could find it in your heart to complete my
+happiness by giving me a kiss? It's Christmas, you know," he added
+smilingly.
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III]
+
+Aunt Polly colored to the roots of her hair. "Wa'al," she said, with a
+little laugh, "seein' 't I'm old enough to be your mother, I guess 't
+won't hurt me none," and as she went down the stairs she softly rubbed
+her lips with the side of her forefinger.
+
+John understood now why David had looked out of the bank window so often
+that morning. All his belongings were in Aunt Polly's best bedroom,
+having been moved over from the Eagle while he and David had been in the
+office. A delightful room it was, in immeasurable contrast to his
+squalid surroundings at that hostelry. The spacious bed, with its snowy
+counterpane and silk patchwork "comf'table" folded on the foot, the
+bright fire in the open stove, the big bureau and glass, the soft
+carpet, the table for writing and reading standing in the bay, his books
+on the broad mantel, and his dressing things laid out ready to his hand,
+not to mention an ample supply of _dry_ towels on the rack.
+
+The poor fellow's life during the weeks which he had lived in Homeville
+had been utterly in contrast with any previous experience. Nevertheless
+he had tried to make the best of it, and to endure the monotony, the
+dullness, the entire lack of companionship and entertainment with what
+philosophy he could muster. The hours spent in the office were the best
+part of the day. He could manage to find occupation for all of them,
+though a village bank is not usually a scene of active bustle. Many of
+the people who did business there diverted him somewhat, and most of
+them seemed never too much in a hurry to stand around and talk the sort
+of thing that interested them. After John had got acquainted with his
+duties and the people he came in contact with, David gave less personal
+attention to the affairs of the bank; but he was in and out frequently
+during the day, and rarely failed to interest his cashier with his
+observations and remarks.
+
+But the long winter evenings had been very bad. After supper, a meal
+which revolted every sense, there had been as many hours to be got
+through with as he found wakeful, an empty stomach often adding to the
+number of them, and the only resource for passing the time had been
+reading, which had often been well-nigh impossible for sheer physical
+discomfort. As has been remarked, the winter climate of the middle
+portion of New York State is as bad as can be imagined. His light was a
+kerosene lamp of half-candle power, and his appliance for warmth
+consisted of a small wood stove, which (as David would have expressed
+it) "took two men an' a boy" to keep in action, and was either red hot
+or exhausted.
+
+As from the depths of a spacious lounging chair he surveyed his new
+surroundings, and contrasted them with those from which he had been
+rescued out of pure kindness, his heart was full, and it can hardly be
+imputed to him as a weakness that for a moment his eyes filled with
+tears of gratitude and happiness--no less.
+
+Indeed, there were four happy people at David's table that Christmas
+day. Aunt Polly had "smartened up" Mrs. Cullom with collar and cuffs,
+and in various ways which the mind of man comprehendeth not in detail;
+and there had been some arranging of her hair as well, which altogether
+had so transformed and transfigured her that John thought that he should
+hardly have known her for the forlorn creature whom he had encountered
+in the morning. And as he looked at the still fine eyes, large and
+brown, and shining for the first time in many a year with a soft light
+of happiness, he felt that he could understand how it was that Billy P.
+had married the village girl.
+
+Mrs. Bixbee was grand in black silk and lace collar fastened with a
+shell-cameo pin not quite as large as a saucer, and John caught the
+sparkle of a diamond on her plump left hand--David's Christmas
+gift--with regard to which she had spoken apologetically to Mrs. Cullom:
+
+"I told David that I was ever so much obliged to him, but I didn't want
+a dimun' more'n a cat wanted a flag, an' I thought it was jes' throwin'
+away money. But he would have it--said I c'd sell it an' keep out the
+poor-house some day, mebbe."
+
+David had not made much change in his usual raiment, but he was shaved
+to the blood, and his round red face shone with soap and satisfaction.
+As he tucked his napkin into his shirt collar, Sairy brought in the
+tureen of oyster soup, and he remarked, as he took his first spoonful of
+the stew, that he was "hungry 'nough t' eat a graven imidge," a
+condition that John was able to sympathize with after his two days of
+fasting on crackers and such provisions as he could buy at Purse's. It
+was, on the whole, he reflected, the most enjoyable dinner that he ever
+ate. Never was such a turkey; and to see it give way under David's
+skillful knife--wings, drumsticks, second joints, side bones,
+breast--was an elevating and memorable experience. And such potatoes,
+mashed in cream; such boiled onions, turnips, Hubbard squash, succotash,
+stewed tomatoes, celery, cranberries, "currant jell!" Oh! and to "top
+off" with, a mince pie to die for and a pudding (new to John, but just
+you try it some time) of steamed Indian meal and fruit, with a sauce of
+cream sweetened with shaved maple sugar.
+
+"What'll you have?" said David to Mrs. Cullom, "dark meat? white meat?"
+
+"Anything," she replied meekly, "I'm not partic'ler. Most any part of a
+turkey 'll taste good, I guess."
+
+"All right," said David. "Don't care means a little o' both. I alwus
+know what to give Polly--piece o' the second jint an' the
+last-thing-over-the-fence. Nice 'n rich fer scraggly folks," he
+remarked. "How fer you, John?--little o' both, eh?" and he heaped the
+plate till our friend begged him to keep something for himself.
+
+"Little too much is jes' right," he asserted.
+
+When David had filled the plates and handed them along--Sairy was for
+bringing in and taking out; they did their own helping to vegetables and
+"passin'"--he hesitated a moment, and then got out of his chair and
+started in the direction of the kitchen door.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Bixbee in surprise. "Where you goin'?"
+
+"Woodshed!" said David.
+
+"Woodshed!" she exclaimed, making as if to rise and follow.
+
+"You set still," said David. "Somethin' I fergot."
+
+"What on earth?" she exclaimed, with an air of annoyance and
+bewilderment. "What do you want in the woodshed? Can't you set down an'
+let Sairy git it fer ye?"
+
+"No," he asserted with a grin. "Sairy might sqush it. It must be putty
+meller by this time." And out he went.
+
+"Manners!" ejaculated Mrs. Bixbee. "You'll think (to John) we're reg'ler
+heathin'."
+
+"I guess not," said John, smiling and much amused.
+
+Presently Sairy appeared with four tumblers which she distributed, and
+was followed by David bearing a bottle. He seated himself and began a
+struggle to unwire the same with an ice-pick. Aunt Polly leaned forward
+with a look of perplexed curiosity.
+
+"What you got there?" she asked.
+
+"Vewve Clikot's universal an' suv'rin remedy," said David, reading the
+label and bringing the corners of his eye and mouth almost together in a
+wink to John, "fer toothache, earache, burns, scalds, warts, dispepsy,
+fallin' o' the hair, windgall, ringbone, spavin, disapp'inted
+affections, an' pips in hens," and out came the cork with a "_wop_," at
+which both the ladies, even Mrs. Cullom, jumped and cried out.
+
+"David Harum," declared his sister with conviction, "I believe thet
+that's a bottle of champagne."
+
+"If it ain't," said David, pouring into his tumbler, "I ben swindled out
+o' four shillin'," and he passed the bottle to John, who held it up
+inquiringly, looking at Mrs. Bixbee.
+
+"No, thank ye," she said with a little toss of the head, "I'm a son o'
+temp'rence. I don't believe," she remarked to Mrs. Cullom, "thet that
+bottle ever cost _less_ 'n a dollar." At which remarks David apparently
+"swallered somethin' the wrong way," and for a moment or two was unable
+to proceed with his dinner. Aunt Polly looked at him suspiciously. It
+was her experience that, in her intercourse with her brother, he often
+laughed utterly without reason--so far as she could see.
+
+"I've always heard it was dreadful expensive," remarked Mrs. Cullom.
+
+"Let me give you some," said John, reaching toward her with the bottle.
+Mrs. Cullom looked first at Mrs. Bixbee and then at David.
+
+"I don't know," she said. "I never tasted any."
+
+"Take a little," said David, nodding approvingly.
+
+"Just a swallow," said the widow, whose curiosity had got the better of
+scruples. She took a swallow of the wine.
+
+"How do you like it," asked David.
+
+"Well," she said as she wiped her eyes, into which the gas had driven
+the tears, "I guess I could get along if I couldn't have it regular."
+
+"Don't taste good?" suggested David with a grin.
+
+"Well," she replied, "I never did care any great for cider, and this
+tastes to me about as if I was drinkin' cider an' snuffin' horseredish
+at one and the same time."
+
+"How's that, John?" said David, laughing.
+
+"I suppose it's an acquired taste," said John, returning the laugh and
+taking a mouthful of the wine with infinite relish. "I don't think I
+ever enjoyed a glass of wine so much, or," turning to Aunt Polly, "ever
+enjoyed a dinner so much," which statement completely mollified her
+feelings, which had been the least bit in the world "set edgeways."
+
+"Mebbe your app'tite's got somethin' to do with it," said David,
+shoveling a knife-load of good things into his mouth. "Polly, this young
+man's ben livin' on crackers an' salt herrin' fer a week."
+
+"My land!" cried Mrs. Bixbee with an expression of horror. "Is that
+reelly so? 'T ain't now, reelly?"
+
+"Not quite so bad as that," John answered, smiling; "but Mrs. Elright
+has been ill for a couple of days and--well, I have been foraging around
+Purse's store a little."
+
+"Wa'al, of all the mean shames!" exclaimed Aunt Polly indignantly.
+"David Harum, you'd ought to be ridic'lous t' allow such a thing."
+
+[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III]
+
+"Wa'al, I never!" said David, holding his knife and fork straight up
+in either fist as they rested on the table, and staring at his sister.
+"I believe if the meetin'-house roof was to blow off you'd lay it on to
+me somehow. I hain't ben runnin' the Eagle tavern fer quite a
+consid'able while. You got the wrong pig by the ear as usual. Jes' you
+pitch into him," pointing with his fork to John. "It's his funeral, if
+anybody's."
+
+"Wa'al," said Aunt Polly, addressing John in a tone of injury, "I do
+think you might have let somebody know; I think you'd ortter 've
+known----"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Bixbee," he interrupted, "I did know how kind you are and
+would have been, and if matters had gone on so much longer I should have
+appealed to you, I should have indeed; but really," he added, smiling at
+her, "a dinner like this is worth fasting a week for."
+
+"Wa'al," she said, mollified again, "you won't git no more herrin'
+'nless you ask for 'em."
+
+"That is just what your brother said this morning," replied John,
+looking at David with a laugh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The meal proceeded in silence for a few minutes. Mrs. Cullom had said
+but little, but John noticed that her diction was more conventional than
+in her talk with David and himself in the morning, and that her manner
+at the table was distinctly refined, although she ate with apparent
+appetite, not to say hunger. Presently she said, with an air of making
+conversation, "I suppose you've always lived in the city, Mr. Lenox?"
+
+"It has always been my home," he replied, "but I have been away a good
+deal."
+
+"I suppose folks in the city go to theaters a good deal," she remarked.
+
+"They have a great many opportunities," said John, wondering what she
+was leading up to. But he was not to discover, for David broke in with a
+chuckle.
+
+"Ask Polly, Mis' Cullom," he said. "She c'n tell ye all about the
+theater, Polly kin." Mrs. Cullom looked from David to Mrs. Bixbee, whose
+face was suffused.
+
+"Tell her," said David, with a grin.
+
+"I wish you'd shet up," she exclaimed. "I sha'n't do nothin' of the
+sort."
+
+"Ne' mind," said David cheerfully. "_I'll_ tell ye, Mis' Cullom."
+
+"Dave Harum!" expostulated Mrs. Bixbee, but he proceeded without heed of
+her protest.
+
+"Polly an' I," he said, "went down to New York one spring some years
+ago. Her nerves was some wore out 'long of diff'rences with Sairy about
+clearin' up the woodshed, an' bread risin's, an' not bein' able to suit
+herself up to Purse's in the qual'ty of silk velvit she wanted fer a
+Sunday-go-to-meetin' gown, an' I thought a spell off 'd do her good.
+Wa'al, the day after we got there I says to her while we was havin'
+breakfust--it was picked-up el'phant on toast, near 's I c'n remember,
+wa'n't it, Polly?"
+
+"That's as near the truth as most o' the rest on't so fur," said Polly
+with a sniff.
+
+"Wa'al, I says to her," he proceeded, untouched by her scorn, "'How'd
+you like to go t' the theater? You hain't never ben,' I says, 'an' now
+you're down here you may jes' as well see somethin' while you got a
+chanst,' I says. Up to that _time_," he remarked, as it were in passing,
+"she'd ben somewhat pre_juced_ 'ginst theaters, an'----"
+
+"Wa'al," Mrs. Bixbee broke in, "I guess what we see that night was
+cal'lated----"
+
+"You hold on," he interposed. "I'm tellin' this story. You had a chanst
+to an' wouldn't. Anyway," he resumed, "she allowed she'd try it once,
+an' we agreed we'd go somewheres that night. But somethin' happened to
+put it out o' my mind, an' I didn't think on't agin till I got back to
+the hotel fer supper. So I went to the feller at the news-stand an'
+says, 'Got any show-tickits fer to-night?'
+
+"'Theater?' he says.
+
+"'I reckon so,' I says.
+
+"'Wa'al,' he says, 'I hain't got nothin' now but two seats fer
+"Clyanthy."'
+
+"'Is it a good show?' I says--'moral, an' so on? I'm goin' to take my
+sister, an' she's a little pertic'ler about some things,' I says. He
+kind o' grinned, the feller did. 'I've took my wife twice, an' she's
+putty pertic'ler herself,' he says, laughin'."
+
+"She must 'a' ben," remarked Mrs. Bixbee with a sniff that spoke
+volumes of her opinion of "the feller's wife." David emitted a chuckle.
+
+"Wa'al," he continued, "I took the tickits on the feller's recommend,
+an' the fact of his wife's bein' so pertic'ler, an' after supper we
+went. It was a mighty handsome place inside, gilded an' carved all over
+like the outside of a cirkis wagin, an' when we went in the orchestry
+was playin' an' the people was comin' in, an' after we'd set a few
+minutes I says to Polly, 'What do you think on't?' I says.
+
+"'I don't see anythin' very unbecomin' so fur, an' the people looks
+respectable enough,' she says.
+
+"'No jail birds in sight fur 's ye c'n see so fur, be they?' I says. He,
+he, he, he!"
+
+"You needn't make me out more of a gump 'n I was," protested Mrs.
+Bixbee. "An' you was jest as----" David held up his finger at her.
+
+"Don't you sp'ile the story by discountin' the sequil. Wa'al, putty
+soon the band struck up some kind of a dancin' tune, an' the curt'in
+went up, an' a girl come prancin' down to the footlights an' begun
+singin' an' dancin', an', scat my----! to all human appearances you c'd
+'a' covered ev'ry dum thing she had on with a postage stamp." John stole
+a glance at Mrs. Cullom. She was staring at the speaker with wide-open
+eyes of horror and amazement.
+
+"I guess I wouldn't go very _fur_ into pertic'lers," said Mrs. Bixbee in
+a warning tone.
+
+David bent his head down over his plate and shook from head to foot, and
+it was nearly a minute before he was able to go on. "Wa'al," he said, "I
+heard Polly give a kind of a gasp an' a snort, 's if some one 'd throwed
+water 'n her face. But she didn't say nothin', an', I swan! I didn't
+dast to look at her fer a spell; an' putty soon in come a hull crowd
+more girls that had left their clo'es in their trunks or somewhere,
+singin', an' dancin', an' weavin' 'round on the stage, an' after a few
+minutes I turned an' looked at Polly. He, he, he, he!"
+
+"David Harum," cried Mrs. Bixbee, "ef you're goin' to discribe any more
+o' them scand'lous goin's on I sh'll take my victuals into the kitchen.
+_I_ didn't see no more of 'em," she added to Mrs. Cullom and John,
+"after that fust trollop appeared."
+
+"I don't believe she did," said David, "fer when I turned she set there
+with her eyes shut tighter 'n a drum, an' her mouth shut too so's her
+nose an' chin most come together, an' her face was red enough so 't a
+streak o' red paint 'd 'a' made a white mark on it. 'Polly,' I says,
+'I'm afraid you ain't gettin' the wuth o' your money.'
+
+"'David Harum,' she says, with her mouth shut all but a little place in
+the corner toward me, 'if you don't take me out o' this place, I'll go
+without ye,' she says.
+
+"'Don't you think you c'd stan' it a little longer?' I says. 'Mebbe
+they've sent home fer their clo'es,' I says. He, he, he, he! But with
+that she jes' give a hump to start, an' I see she meant bus'nis. When
+Polly Bixbee," said David impressively, "puts that foot o' her'n _down_
+somethin's got to sqush, an' don't you fergit it." Mrs. Bixbee made no
+acknowledgment of this tribute to her strength of character. John looked
+at David.
+
+"Yes," he said, with a solemn bend of the head, as if in answer to a
+question, "I squshed. I says to her, 'All right. Don't make no
+disturbance more'n you c'n help, an' jes' put your hank'chif up to your
+nose 's if you had the nosebleed,' an' we squeezed out of the seats, an'
+sneaked up the aisle, an' by the time we got out into the entry I guess
+my face was as red as Polly's. It couldn't 'a' ben no redder," he added.
+
+"You got a putty fair color as a gen'ral thing," remarked Mrs. Bixbee
+dryly.
+
+"Yes, ma'am; yes, ma'am, I expect that's so," he assented, "but I got an
+extra coat o' tan follerin' you out o' that theater. When we got out
+into the entry one o' them fellers that stands 'round steps up to me an'
+says, 'Ain't your ma feelin' well?' he says. 'Her feelin's has ben a
+trifle rumpled up,' I says, 'an' that gen'ally brings on the nosebleed,'
+an' then," said David, looking over Mrs. Bixbee's head, "the feller went
+an' leaned up agin the wall."
+
+"David Harum!" exclaimed Mrs. Bixbee, "that's a downright _lie_. You
+never spoke to a soul, an'--an'--ev'rybody knows 't I ain't more 'n four
+years older 'n you be."
+
+"Wa'al, you see, Polly," her brother replied in a smooth tone of
+measureless aggravation, "the feller wa'n't acquainted with us, an' he
+only went by appearances."
+
+Aunt Polly appealed to John: "Ain't he enough to--to--I d' know what?"
+
+"I really don't see how you live with him," said John, laughing.
+
+Mrs. Cullom's face wore a faint smile, as if she were conscious that
+something amusing was going on, but was not quite sure what. The widow
+took things seriously for the most part, poor soul.
+
+"I reckon you haven't followed theater-goin' much after that," she said
+to her hostess.
+
+"No, ma'am," Mrs. Bixbee replied with emphasis, "you better believe I
+hain't. I hain't never thought of it sence without tinglin' all over. I
+believe," she asserted, "that David 'd 'a' stayed the thing out if it
+hadn't ben fer me; but as true 's you live, Cynthy Cullom, I was so
+'shamed at the little 't I did see that when I come to go to bed I took
+my clo'es off in the dark."
+
+David threw back his head and roared with laughter. Mrs. Bixbee looked
+at him with unmixed scorn. "If I couldn't help makin' a----" she began,
+"I'd----"
+
+"Oh, Lord! Polly," David broke in, "be sure 'n wrap up when you go
+out. If you sh'd ketch cold an' your sense o' the ridic'lous sh'd strike
+in you'd be a dead-'n'-goner sure." This was treated with the silent
+contempt which it deserved, and David fell upon his dinner with the
+remark that "he guessed he'd better make up fer lost time," though as a
+matter of fact while he had done most of the talking he had by no means
+suspended another function of his mouth while so engaged.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+For a time nothing more was said which did not relate to the
+replenishment of plates, glasses, and cups. Finally David cleaned up his
+plate with his knife blade and a piece of bread, and pushed it away with
+a sigh of fullness, mentally echoed by John.
+
+"I feel 's if a child could play with me," he remarked. "What's comin'
+now, Polly?"
+
+"The's a mince pie, an' Injun puddin' with maple sugar an' cream, an'
+ice cream," she replied.
+
+"Mercy on us!" he exclaimed. "I guess I'll have to go an' jump up an'
+down on the verandy. How do you feel, John? I s'pose you got so used to
+them things at the Eagle 't you won't have no stomech fer 'em, eh?
+Wa'al, fetch 'em along. May 's well die fer the ole sheep 's the lamb;
+but, Polly Bixbee, if you've got designs on my life, I may 's well tell
+ye right now 't I've left all my prop'ty to the Institution fer
+Disappinted Hoss Swappers."
+
+"That's putty near next o' kin, ain't it?" was the unexpected rejoinder
+of the injured Polly.
+
+"Wa'al, scat my----!" exclaimed David, hugely amused, "if Polly Bixbee
+hain't made a joke! You'll git yourself into the almanic, Polly, fust
+thing you know." Sairy brought in the pie and then the pudding.
+
+"John," said David, "if you've got a pencil an' a piece o' paper handy
+I'd like to have ye take down a few of my last words 'fore we proceed to
+the pie an' puddin' bus'nis. Any more 'hossredish' in that bottle?"
+holding out his glass. "Hi, hi! that's enough. You take the rest on't,"
+which John did, nothing loath.
+
+David ate his pie in silence, but before he made up his mind to attack
+the pudding, which was his favorite confection, he gave an audible
+chuckle, which elicited Mrs. Bixbee's notice.
+
+"What you gigglin' 'bout now?" she asked.
+
+David laughed. "I was thinkin' of somethin' I heard up to Purse's last
+night," he said as he covered his pudding with the thick cream sauce.
+"Amri Shapless has ben gittin' married."
+
+"Wa'al, I declare!" she exclaimed. "That ole shack! Who in creation
+could he git to take him?"
+
+"Lize Annis is the lucky woman," replied David with a grin.
+
+"Wa'al, if that don't beat all!" said Mrs. Bixbee, throwing up her
+hands, and even from Mrs. Cullom was drawn a "Well, I never!"
+
+"Fact," said David, "they was married yestidy forenoon. Squire Parker
+done the job. Dominie White wouldn't have nothin' to do with it!"
+
+"Squire Parker 'd ortter be 'shamed of himself," said Mrs. Bixbee
+indignantly.
+
+"Don't you think that trew love had ought to be allowed to take its
+course?" asked David with an air of sentiment.
+
+"I think the squire 'd ortter be 'shamed of himself," she reiterated.
+"S'pose them two old skinamulinks was to go an' have children?"
+
+"Polly, you make me blush," protested her brother. "Hain't you got no
+respect fer the holy institution of matrimuny?--and--at cet'ry?" he
+added, wiping his whole face with his napkin.
+
+"Much as you hev, I reckon," she retorted. "Of all the amazin' things
+in this world, the amazinist to me is the kind of people that gits
+married to each other in gen'ral; but this here performence beats
+ev'rything holler."
+
+"Amri give a very good reason for't," said David with an air of
+conviction, and then he broke into a laugh.
+
+"Ef you got anythin' to tell, tell it," said Mrs. Bixbee impatiently.
+
+"Wa'al," said David, taking the last of his pudding into his mouth, "if
+you insist on't, painful as 't is. I heard Dick Larrabee tellin' 'bout
+it. Amri told Dick day before yestiday that he was thinkin' of gettin'
+married, an' ast him to go along with him to Parson White's an' be a
+witniss, an' I reckon a kind of moral support. When it comes to moral
+supportin'," remarked David in passing, "Dick's as good 's a
+professional, an' he'd go an' see his gran'mother hung sooner 'n miss
+anythin', an' never let his cigar go out durin' the performence. Dick
+said he congratilated Am on his choice, an' said he reckoned they'd be
+putty ekally yoked together, if nothin' else."
+
+Here David leaned over toward Aunt Polly and said, protestingly, "Don't
+gi' me but jest a teasp'nful o' that ice cream. I'm so full now 't I
+can't hardly reach the table." He took a taste of the cream and resumed:
+"I can't give it jest as Dick did," he went on, "but this is about the
+gist on't. Him, an' Lize, an' Am went to Parson White's about half after
+seven o'clock an' was showed into the parler, an' in a minute he come
+in, an' after sayin' 'Good evenin'' all 'round, he says, 'Well, what c'n
+I do fer ye?' lookin' at Am an' Lize, an' then at Dick.
+
+"'Wa'al,' says Am, 'me an' Mis' Annis here has ben thinkin' fer some
+time as how we'd ought to git married.'
+
+"'_Ought_ to git married?' says Parson White, scowlin' fust at one an'
+then at t'other.
+
+"'Wa'al,' says Am, givin' a kind o' shuffle with his feet, 'I didn't
+mean _ortter_ exac'ly, but jest as _well_--kinder comp'ny,' he says. 'We
+hain't neither on us got nobody, an' we thought we might 's well.'
+
+"'What have you got to git married on?' says the dominie after a minute.
+'Anythin'?' he says.
+
+"'Wa'al,' says Am, droppin' his head sideways an' borin' into his ear
+'ith his middle finger, 'I got the promise mebbe of a job o' work fer a
+couple o' days next week.' 'H'm'm'm,' says the dominie, lookin' at him.
+'Have _you_ got anythin' to git married on?' the dominie says, turnin'
+to Lize. 'I've got ninety cents comin' to me fer some work I done last
+week,' she says, wiltin' down on to the sofy an' beginnin' to snivvle.
+Dick says that at that the dominie turned round an' walked to the other
+end of the room, an' he c'd see he was dyin' to laugh, but he come back
+with a straight face.
+
+"'How old air you, Shapless?' he says to Am. 'I'll be fifty-eight or
+mebbe fifty-nine come next spring,' says Am.
+
+"'How old air _you_?' the dominie says, turnin' to Lize. She wriggled a
+minute an' says, 'Wa'al, I reckon I'm all o' thirty,' she says."
+
+"All o' thirty!" exclaimed Aunt Polly. "The woman 's most 's old 's I
+be."
+
+David laughed and went on with, "Wa'al, Dick said at that the dominie
+give a kind of a choke, an' Dick he bust right out, an' Lize looked at
+him as if she c'd eat him. Dick said the dominie didn't say anythin' fer
+a minute or two, an' then he says to Am, 'I suppose you c'n find
+somebody that'll marry you, but I cert'inly won't, an' what possesses
+you to commit such a piece o' folly,' he says, 'passes my understandin'.
+What earthly reason have you fer wantin' to marry? On your own showin','
+he says, 'neither one on you 's got a cent o' money or any settled way
+o' gettin' any.'
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"'That's jes' the very reason,' says Am, 'that's jes' the _very
+reason_. I hain't got nothin', an' Mis' Annis hain't got nothin', an' we
+figured that we'd jes' better git married an' settle down, an' make a
+good home fer us both,' an' if that ain't good reasonin'," David
+concluded, "I don't know what is."
+
+"An' be they actially married?" asked Mrs. Bixbee, still incredulous of
+anything so preposterous.
+
+"So Dick says," was the reply. "He says Am an' Lize come away f'm the
+dominie's putty down in the mouth, but 'fore long Amri braced up an'
+allowed that if he had half a dollar he'd try the squire in the mornin',
+an' Dick let him have it. I says to Dick, 'You're out fifty cents on
+that deal,' an' he says, slappin' his leg, 'I don't give a dum,' he
+says; 'I wouldn't 'a' missed it fer double the money.'"
+
+Here David folded his napkin and put it in the ring, and John finished
+the cup of clear coffee which Aunt Polly, rather under protest, had
+given him. Coffee without cream and sugar was incomprehensible to Mrs.
+Bixbee.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation in the original
+book have been retained.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Story from David Harum, by 
+Edward Noyes Westcott
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS STORY FROM DAVID HARUM ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #25927 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25927)
author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 02:19:28 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 02:19:28 -0700
commit	e54872faef80f598ef541fded82721a353bf5026 (patch)
tree	e9f2296508968fe8722555083467d226371d20aa