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+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
+
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